Trump Attacks Democrats Hours After Calling for Bipartisanship

WASHINGTON — On Wednesday night, President Trump implored the nation’s political leadership to “stop the partisanship” and come together to confront the coronavirus pandemic. On Thursday morning, he woke up and immediately issued partisan attacks on Democratic congressional leaders.

Mr. Trump’s call for a suspension of partisanship lasted just nine hours, at least some of which he was presumably asleep. While some of Mr. Trump’s allies and advisers have urged him to stop fighting and assert more national leadership, the president made clear that it does not suit him.

The first of the president’s partisan jabs came before dawn on Thursday morning and had nothing to do with the coronavirus or anything that had happened in the last few days. Instead, he reached back to revive a controversy from a week ago when Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, harshly assailed two conservative Supreme Court justices over abortion rights.

Mr. Trump retweeted a March 4 message from Jonathan Turley, a law professor who opposed impeachment, condemning Mr. Schumer: “Schumer’s threat to the Court that ‘you will pay the price’ is a direct attack on the integrity of our courts. I criticized Trump for his reckless comments about the courts. Where is the chorus of condemnation of Schumer? Schumer sounded more like a stalker than a statesman.”

At 6:15 a.m., Mr. Trump went after Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, complaining about her resistance to his proposal to cut payroll taxes to juice the economy as it reels from fears of the coronavirus. Lawmakers on both sides have given the idea a cool reception.

“Nancy Pelosi all of a sudden doesn’t like the payroll tax cut, but when Obama proposed it she thought it was a brilliant thing that all of the working families would benefit from because if you get a paycheck, you’re going to take home more money,” he wrote on Twitter, attributing the words to Brian Kilmeade, one of the hosts of “Fox & Friends.”

In his prime-time address to the nation from the Oval Office on Wednesday night, Mr. Trump sounded a different note. “We are all in this together,” he said at the time. “We must put politics aside, stop the partisanship, and unify together as one nation and one family.”

Mr. Trump has spent much of the past couple weeks fighting a partisan battle over his handling of the coronavirus. Democrats have sharply criticized him for making false or misleading statements about the outbreak, not taking it seriously enough, failing to act sooner and undercutting the government’s global health apparatus.

After Wednesday night’s speech, the Department of Homeland Security and White House were forced to clarify two important points: A ban on travelers from Europe would not apply to American citizens or legal permanent residents and it would not impact goods exported to the United States.

Rather than rise above it or reach out to Democrats to provide a unified front, he has aggressively accused them of “politicizing the coronavirus” and “trying to gain political favor by saying a lot of untruths.” At a raucous campaign rally, he called the Democratic criticism “their new hoax,” and was later forced to clarify that he meant only the criticism and was not calling the virus itself a hoax.

When he announced earlier this week that he would meet with congressional leaders to discuss an economic response to the effects of the virus, he meant only Republican leaders. Just last weekend, as the virus spread, the president announced he would skip the annual bipartisan St. Patrick’s Day lunch on Capitol Hill because of his disdain for Ms. Pelosi.

The crossfire indicated how raw the feelings still are following the impeachment battle that ended just last month. Ms. Pelosi lead the House drive to impeach Mr. Trump for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and Mr. Schumer was among the most vocal advocates of removing him from office in a Senate trial that nonetheless ended in a near party-line acquittal.

The coronavirus outbreak, designated a pandemic on Wednesday by the World Health Organization, has not overcome the sour relations between the president and the Democratic opposition. In his address, Mr. Trump announced new travel restrictions on visitors from continental Europe and aid to workers and small businesses affected by the virus while pressing Congress to approve the payroll tax cut he advocated.

Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Schumer released a joint statement after the speech calling on Republicans to support a bill that included free coronavirus testing, paid emergency leave for workers, a boost in unemployment insurance and other measures.

“We have a public health crisis in this country,” they said, “and the best way to help keep the American people safe and ensure their economic security is for the president to focus on fighting the spread of the coronavirus itself. Alarmingly, the president did not say how the administration will address the lack of coronavirus testing kits throughout the United States.”



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