President Donald Trump has always been "his own communications director," but the time has come for him to scale back his participation in daily coronavirus briefings, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Monday.
"I think an hour and a half or two hours of anybody every day is not going to be great for their political standing, no matter who they are and what they do," Christie told ABC News' "Good Morning America."
Instead, Christie said Trump should appear at some of the briefings "off the top" and take a question or two, before leaving the rest "to the vice president and the people who are the relevant experts that day."
Americans, he added, are shut in and "don't need to see the same person every day for two hours. So, I think the president could scale that back, still be a presence, communicating important things, but not having to be on for an hour-and-a-half to two hours."
The daily briefings have been under fire for some time, including last week, when Trump first raised the possibility of using disinfectant internally to fight coronavirus, and then Friday said he had posed the question "sarcastically" to reporters rather than medical personnel at the briefing.
No coronavirus press briefings were held over the weekend. White House press secretary McEnany on Monday first said the coronavirus task force would resume briefings later this week, but later in the day announced Trump will discuss coronavirus testing and "other announcements about safely opening up America again" at a news conference at 5 p.m. ET. The news conference was announced after the regular coronavirus task force briefing was canceled for the third day in a row.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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