NBC News White House correspondent Peter Alexander said on Sunday’s “Meet the Press” that President Donald Trump was “the leader of the resistance against his own policies” by encouraging protests against state stay-at-home orders when the federal government has laid out strict reopening guidelines.
Host Chuck Todd asked, “Peter, the way this response has worked in the past is that they dig their heels in, they’re not going to do something, not going to do something, and literally they’ll do a 180. What’s the likelihood they do a 180 and say you’re right, we should take over testing?”
Alexander said, “I think you saw them try to detail what they view as the national testing strategy in your conversation with the vice president, but I’m struck by the continued mixed messaging by this administration here. Consider the president with the liberate tweets about Minnesota, Michigan, and Virginia, all three states with Democratic governors, all thee states are battlegrounds. In effect, here you have the president as the leader of the resistance against his own policies. Right?”
He continued, “The bottom line is, back and forth, once again on this issue. One day, he claimed total authority. The next day, he’s blaming the governors. They put out the guidelines, the day after that, he says, hey, we need to remove the guidelines in effect in those places.”
He added, “Consider his past mixed messages on issues like the masks when the CDC put out its guidelines and moments later, the president said, I don’t really plan to wear it, and back and forth on the DPA as well. This is an unprecedented moment.”
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