Trump changes mind, cancels weekend golf trip to New Jersey club after massive spike in coronavirus cases
President Donald Trump reportedly canceled his planned visit to his New Jersey club for a golf weekend as coronavirus cases across the United States spiked, resulting in several states walking back their reopening process to curb the spread. The White House, on Friday, June 26, announced that the president would not go to his Trump National Golf Club Bedminster. No reason for the cancelation was provided. However, deputy press secretary Judd Deere said that the cancelation had nothing to do with a mandatory 14-day quarantine in New Jersey for those coming from Covid-19 hot spots.
The White House, earlier this week, had stated that President Trump will not abide by New Jersey's new coronavirus precautionary order and will not change his plan to travel to the state over the weekend because he is "not a civilian." The White House statement comes shortly after New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy issued a new order requiring visitors from states with a high number of coronavirus cases to quarantine for 14 days. "The president of the United States is not a civilian," Deere had told reporters.
Trump's cancelation came as infections across the country rose by at least 39,818 on Thursday, June 25, making it the worst day ever since the infections started spreading in the US. The president, over the past few weeks, has been focused on his economic message amid a time when Capitol Hill Republican lawmakers have urged him to turn his attention to the coronavirus crisis. Recent public polls have suggested that the president has received low ratings on his handling of the pandemic.
The Republican, over the past few days, has seemingly ignored the peaking coronavirus infection rate in the country and instead recently stated on Twitter that "our Economy is roaring back and will NOT be shut down" and that any remaining "embers" of the coronavirus cases would be "put out, as necessary." Trump, while speaking to Sean Hannity on June 25, defended his response to the epidemic, claiming that his border wall with Mexico is working to curb the further spread of Covid-19.
"The Democrats want to open borders, even if you just look at the virus that we’re talking about, look at San Diego where we built that wall — it would be infecting lives like nobody’s ever seen before," he said. The president had also stated that the US has one of the best coronavirus mortality rates in the world despite the nation having the highest death toll. "So we have more cases, because we do the greatest testing. If we didn't do testing, we'd have no cases. Other countries they don't test millions," Trump added. "If we didn't do tests, we'd look great. But, it's the right thing to do."
The latest reports state that at least eight people, who worked for Trump's rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, last weekend, tested positive for coronavirus and two of them are Secret Service agents. The president has also consistently refused to wear a mask amid the pandemic, saying he would not give the press the "pleasure of seeing" him in one. Trump recently, on June 18, had reiterated his disapproval of face masks, suggesting that the masks could actually spread the disease rather than preventing it. "They put their finger on the mask, and they take them off, and then they start touching their eyes and touching their nose and their mouth. And then they don't know how they caught it?" Trump told The Wall Street Journal.