Kellyanne Conway: Trump should hold virus briefings again to boost his bad polls

Support for Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus is at its lowest level ever, with just 38.1% of Americans supporting his response, according to FiveThirtyEight’s polling average.

And White House counselor Kellyanne Conway thinks the solution to raising those numbers is having Trump resume his daily coronavirus task force briefings.

“The president’s numbers were much higher when he was out there briefing everybody on a day-by-day basis about the coronavirus, just giving people the information,” Conway said Friday morning on Fox News.

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump held daily news conferences — many of them long and combative — about the administration’s response to the virus.

By early April, Republicans were pleading with Trump to stop the briefings, feeling they were hurting Trump’s standing and saying that Trump should’ve just let the experts talk.

Trump initially resisted. But roughly a month later, he stepped back from the briefing room podium, after he was widely mocked and condemned for openly musing about injecting disinfectant as a possible coronavirus treatment.

Some polls suggest that Trump resuming those briefings would be unlikely to help his standing.

A new Washington Post/ABC News poll released Friday morning found 64% of Americans do not “trust what Trump says about the coronavirus pandemic.” That poll found Trump’s approval on the coronavirus at just 38%, the lowest number the survey has found since it began polling on the topic in March.

Ultimately, Americans are scared about the virus, as cases continue to set daily records and spiral out of control in large swaths of the country.

The Washington Post/ABC News poll found 66% of Americans are worried about themselves or someone they know contracting the virus.

Thursday marked yet another grim record-setting day, with 75,671 new cases of the virus and another 949 deaths, according to New York Times data.

Hospitals in Florida, which is experiencing the worst outbreak in the United States, are starting to run out of intensive care beds for the sickest coronavirus patients. And the five largest hospitals in Mississippi — which is also seeing a spike in coronavirus cases — have also reported running out of ICU beds.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.