President Trump said Monday he plans to re-start his daily televised coronavirus briefings, likely beginning Tuesday (July 21) and at around 5 p.m.
Related: Trump Tops COVID-19 Briefing Appearances
The briefings ended about six weeks ago, but the President said Monday that he was going to start bringing in the heads of drug companies to talk about their progress on vaccines and therapeutics and was asked by a reporter whether that signaled a return of the daily briefings. He was talking about phase four in the reopening of the country.
The coronavirus briefings, which often went beyond COVID-19 to other issues, and included the President's attacks on the press in attendance, were viewed by some critics as a COVID-19 alternative to Trump rallies and the President Monday certainly emphasized the exposure the briefings got on TV.
"We had very successful briefings," he said. "I was doing them, and we had a lot of people watching -- record numbers watching. In the history of cable television -- television, there’s never been anything like it."
The President cited spikes in cases as one reason why he needed to get back in front of the cameras to talk about the progress in treatment and prevention.
"We’ve have had this big flare-up in Florida, Texas, a couple of other places. And so I think what we’re going to do is I'll get involved and we’ll start doing briefings, whether it’s this afternoon (July 20) or tomorrow -- probably tomorrow -- and I’ll do briefings," he said.
"I’ll do it at 5 o’clock, like we were doing. We had a good slot. And a lot of people were watching, and that’s a good thing.... I’ll be discussing the -- as I call it, the China virus, the China plague. I’ll be discussing it, and I’ll also be discussing perhaps some other things."
He did not say what those other things might be.
