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Law360 (April 13, 2020, 10:40 PM EDT) -- President Donald Trump late Monday claimed absolute power to override state stay-at-home orders and allow a widespread resumption of economic activity that has largely been mothballed amid the coronavirus crisis. Here are three key developments to know.
Trump Asserts Unquestionable Authority
Over the years, Trump has occasionally been likened to an aspiring authoritarian after sharply criticizing federal judges and speaking admirably of foreign dictators. On Monday, he made an aggressive assertion of executive power at the White House's nightly coronavirus briefing.
"I'm going to put it very simply: The president of the United States has the authority to do what the president has the authority to do, which is very powerful. The president of the United States calls the shots," Trump said. "The authority of the president of the United States, having to do with the subject we're talking about, is total."
The president was talking about whether he could force states to let businesses reopen and workers return to offices despite opposition from governors. He was specifically responding to news on Monday that two groups of governors in adjoining states on the West and East coasts would work cooperatively to get their economies running again — perhaps more slowly than Trump would prefer.
Asked whether any governors agreed with his view of presidential power, Trump replied, "I haven't asked anybody. You know why? Because I don't have to."
"With that being said, we're going to work with the states," the president added at one point, echoing comments earlier Monday on Twitter, where he wrote that he would consult governors but ultimately make the final call on when to "open up the states."
Trump previously set an Easter target for resuming commercial activity but backed down and now has his eyes on May 1, although he declined Monday to commit to that date.
The coronavirus pandemic has inflicted a grievous blow on the U.S. economy, and Trump has warned repeatedly that a deep recession could inflict even more deaths than COVID-19. Most leaders agree that restarting the economy is urgent; the tricky part is how soon restrictions can be safely lifted and whether to resume business-as-usual operations more quickly in states that haven't suffered as much.
Vice President Mike Pence, who heads the White House's coronavirus task force, said at Monday's briefing that he supports Trump's view, which some observers in Congress and academia said Monday raised constitutional concerns about trampling states' rights.
"Make no mistake about it: In the long history of this country, the authority of the president of the United States during national emergencies is unquestionably plenary," Pence said.
One group of governors who are banding together to manage their own states' reopenings includes the leaders of California, Oregon and Washington. The other includes the chief executives of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
President Lashes Media Amid Rising Scrutiny
Trump made waves Sunday when he retweeted a Republican congressional candidate's post that used the hashtag #FireFauci — a reference to Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a leader of the White House's coronavirus response.
President Donald Trump walks from the podium as a White House-produced video plays during a Monday briefing about the coronavirus in White House press briefing room. (AP)
The president kicked off Monday's briefing by inviting Fauci to address reporters. Fauci quickly sought to clarify that he was not assigning blame and that Trump had promptly accepted social distancing recommendations when they were first given to him in March.
"The first and only time that I went in and said we should do mitigation strongly, the response was, 'Yes, we'll do it,'" Fauci said Monday.
Trump then launched an extraordinary defense of his actions on COVID-19, even ordering the lights dimmed so he could play a video compilation of images and news clips aimed at portraying himself as a strong leader who saw the dangers of coronavirus before most people.
"THE MEDIA MINIMIZED THE RISK FROM THE START," one video still said in all-caps.
"WHILE PRESIDENT TRUMP TOOK DECISIVE ACTION," another declared.
The president appeared to be responding primarily to a New York Times article over the weekend that said he failed to heed repeated warnings from administration officials dating at least to mid-January.
Trump has noted that on Jan. 31 he announced restrictions on travel from China, which some critics say did little more than buy time that he failed to use.
The video segment that Trump played on Monday included a timeline of his actions on the pandemic. But it notably didn't describe any moves during the period between Feb. 6 and March 2, during which the virus was likely spreading across America, and the president was repeatedly reassuring the country that the threat wasn't serious.
"The coronavirus is very much under control in the USA," Trump tweeted on Feb. 24.
"You have 15 [infected] people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero," the president said on Feb. 26.
New York Governor Hopes 'Worst Is Over'
By late Monday, the number of confirmed coronavirus infections in the U.S. was approaching 600,000 and deaths were nearing 24,000, according to Johns Hopkins University. New York led all states with roughly 200,000 cases, followed by New Jersey with 65,000, Massachusetts with 27,000, Michigan with 26,000 and Pennsylvania with 24,000, according to researchers at the COVID Tracking Project.
The Empire State on Monday hit a dark milestone when COVID-19 deaths officially eclipsed the 10,000 mark. But there was potentially a glimmer of hope, as Gov. Andrew Cuomo reported Monday that 671 fatalities occurred the previous day, down from several consecutive days when almost 800 people in New York succumbed to the severe respiratory disease caused by the virus.
At a Monday briefing, Cuomo expressed hope that the state has passed its coronavirus peak and is now on a slow descent toward some semblance of normalcy.
"We can control the spread. Feel good about that," the governor said. "The worst is over."
--Editing by Adam LoBelia.
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