'It takes me three or four days to work on a fireside chat -- and I have to run the country, too.'
How Trump’s attempts to win the daily news cycle feed a chaotic coronavirus response
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-daily-reality-show-coronavirus-response/2020/04/04/97932e34-75c5-11ea-87da-77a8136c1a6d_story.html
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President Trump awoke determined to own the day. He called into his favorite morning show, “Fox & Friends,” at 8 a.m. sharp to banter and boast in an interview that had the feel of a campaign rally.
He pooh-poohed the high approval ratings of New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D); smeared House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) as “a sick puppy”; griped about Germany for taking advantage of the NATO alliance; and ranted about his policies with Russia.
At day’s end, when Trump strode into the White House press briefing room to deliver a coronavirus update, he turned over the presidential lectern to an array of business executives, who alternately praised him and pitched their products.
The potpourri quality of Trump’s message to a nation in crisis that day was a stark contrast to Franklin D. Roosevelt, who as president during the Great Depression and World War II offered his reassurances with fireside chats broadcast nationally — and he limited them to have maximum impact.
“He only delivered these fireside chats every couple of months, when there was an essential moment for the president to speak,” said historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, who has written biographies of Roosevelt and other presidents. “Someone said to him, ‘Why don’t you go on the radio every night? Your speeches are so effective.’ He said, ‘If my speeches become routine they will lose their effectiveness.’ And he said, ‘It takes me three or four days to work on a fireside chat — and I have to run the country, too.’ ”
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