The President did something similar earlier in the day, when he highlighted a tweet by Chuck Woolery, the ex-host of dating show "Love Connection" who warned "everyone is lying" about the seriousness of the current crisis, just to "keep the "economy from coming back, which is about the election."
It's not at all clear that most Americans stuck in an endless national nightmare are most concerned about an election -- especially one that's faded into the background and is still more than three months away. Parents want to know if their kids can begin learning again. The unemployed want their jobs back. The country wants its pre-virus life back.
Trump's obsession with his own political prospects has been the driving force of his administration and is a recurrent theme. His domestic agenda is almost solely designed to reward his most loyal and radical voters and his foreign policy is geared to creating splashy photo ops with the President in the starring role.
It's an Achilles' heel that led him to the ignominy of becoming only the third President to be impeached, for abusing his power by trying to coerce a foreign nation -- Ukraine -- into interfering in the 2020 to damage his opponent.
But now it's possible that as he trails Biden in pre-election polls, the President's impatience to get the economy roaring again may turn into a fatal political flaw. And it's got the potential to doom his dreams of a second term since it made the situation much worse.
The reopening of schools is crucial to the return of the economy and to the impression that America has bounced back to normal life that Trump is trying to reshape into an election message of a "transition to greatness." Until kids are in school full-time, many parents with child care issues cannot return to work, depriving America's economic engine of its full capacity.
But characteristically, Trump is ignoring complicated questions -- such as how to ensure that a mass return to school doesn't supercharge the pandemic -- as he considers what's best for himself.
Asked on Monday what he thought about New York and Los Angeles delaying the start of a new school year and the death of an Arizona teacher who died from Covid-19 after teaching at summer school, Trump replied: "Yeah. Schools should be opened. Schools should be opened. ... You're losing a lot of lives by keeping things closed."
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