National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci looks down as U.S. President Donald Trump speaks about administration efforts to develop a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, U.S., May 15, 2020. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque     TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
Covid-19 tension building between Trump and Fauci
02:37 - Source: CNN
CNN  — 

Around the time the President fell ill with Covid-19, his friends called in to try and buck him up – and offer some friendly nudging.

Maybe he could use this moment as an opportunity for a reset, one gently suggested, according to a source familiar with the conversations. Go out there and talk about what you’ve learned about coronavirus, how you understand the pain and anguish the disease causes.

It would be a good way to move the polls in your favor, to convince a skeptical public you can lead the United States away from the virus, right? A rare moment of opportunity for a president who, by most measures, appears to be failing in his reelection bid.

Well, that moment has passed.

From the time President Donald Trump stood on the South Portico on his triumphant return to the White House and ripped off his mask – like an annoying sticky band aid – to the Monday campaign call in which he dubbed Dr. Anthony Fauci a “disaster” and his scientific advisers “idiots,” the moment has well passed. Many times.

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Instead, Trump is all in – but not on public health advice, not on trying to reduce the Covid-19 spikes around the country and not on science. What’s he’s all in on is this: grievance, blame shifting and name calling.

In other words, the same old, same old. Resets are foreign to Donald Trump.

“It’s not as if he’s had the experience of doing anything but doubling or tripling down,” says Michael D’Antonio, a Trump biographer. “He thinks that correction is the death penalty for himself. Once you admit you were wrong about something, you no longer know more about everything than everybody.”

It is, he reminds, the way he behaved even during his bankruptcies – “He only cared about maintaining the image of success.”

Consider this story. During the middle of an intense session with his bankers in 1990 – where his debt holders were hammering out a five-year plan to repay his personal debts – Trump stopped the proceedings and asked an aide to bring in a box of books.

“I would like to thank all the banks here for your help,” he said, according to Alan Pomerantz, an attorney who represented the interests of 72 banks. Trump then proceeds to sign the books for the bankers. The book: The Art of the Deal. Which, as Pomerantz put it, “is about how fabulous he is.”

So even the bankers – who were taking over his properties – were treated to free signed books about Trump’s business acumen. Go figure.

And why would the voters be any different? More than 200,000 dead in a pandemic he did not get under control. A tanking economy. Racial unrest. But he’s still the best there ever was, he tells us.

And should Trump lose, not to worry. It’s not his fault. The election is “rigged,” he’s still great. The image will remain intact – at least in his own mind.

The presidency would inevitably become one more marketing tool in which the story according to Donald Trump will still be all about his distorted view of himself as the big, strong leader. No matter how small the voters think he has become.