WASHINGTON — President Trump was set to fly to Norfolk, Va., on Saturday to see off the Comfort, a naval hospital ship, as it deployed to New York where it will help a state struggling to handle an influx of coronavirus patients by adding 1,000 hospital beds to a system in short supply.
The 200-mile trip will be Mr. Trump’s first time leaving the White House in nine days, and his decision to turn the moment into a high-profile photo opportunity raised questions about safety and his use of government resources at a time when the administration’s own federal guidelines advise against most travel and gatherings of more than 10 people.
“We don’t need Donald Trump in Virginia doing a photo op,” Terry McAuliffe, the former Democratic governor of Virginia, said in an interview. “We need respirators and we need masks, like every other state in the country. He ought to be staying in Washington, in his job. It’s a total waste of time.” Mr. McAuliffe said that a presidential visit to a naval base meant that officials who needed to be addressing a public health crisis had to instead “spend their time doing a Trump re-election photo op. He ought to stop the politicking and lead the nation.”
On Friday, Mr. Trump defended his decision to see off the ship as an important show of support. “I have spirit for the country,” the president said at a news conference. “I’m not going to be jumping around in a huddle.”
“It’s like a tiny trip,” he continued. “I think it’s a good thing when I go over there and I say thank you. We’ll be careful.”
The trip was proposed, an official said, partly because the naval station is self-contained and will not require Mr. Trump to be in public areas, like a commercial airport. Vice President Mike Pence had previously visited the base when the Comfort was in port. Amid the pandemic, the ship’s departure for New York was internally seen at the White House as a reassuring moment for the president to highlight with a personal appearance.
Mr. Trump has been grounded at the White House since March 19, when he visited the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s headquarters. His typical weekend round of golf has been curtailed since the outbreak of the virus in the United States, as have all of his scheduled weekend trips to his private Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla. He has grown increasingly restless confined to the White House complex, where he has watched the economic gains that were intended to serve as the heart of his re-election campaign evaporate.
Mr. Trump made it clear this week that the visit to the ship could draw publicity. “I’ll kiss it goodbye,” he said. “I suspect the media will be following.”
The 894-foot ship, which is expected to arrive on Monday in New York Harbor, was in port in Norfolk undergoing repairs when the Pentagon offered it to help in the response to the pandemic. The ship is expected to take on patients in New York with other illnesses to let hospitals focus on the large number of coronavirus cases, the Navy said.
Mr. Trump announced this week that the ship would arrive in New York weeks earlier than originally expected.
The Comfort is no stranger to New York. The ship was dispatched to Manhattan after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It also served off the coast of Kuwait during Operation Desert Storm and was on hand for aid in 1994 during the rescue of Cuban and Haitian migrants. More recently, the ship was deployed to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017.