The briefings could in effect serve as a substitute for the campaign rallies that Mr. Trump tried to restart. His first attempt fizzled when he filled only a third of an arena in Tulsa, Okla., and his second — set for Portsmouth, N.H. — was scrubbed amid concerns that it too would not draw many people, although the campaign cited the weather as the proximate reason for canceling. That one was never rescheduled, even though the campaign said it would be, nor have any other rallies been announced.
Mr. Trump’s aides have grown increasingly uncertain about how to communicate his message on the spread of the virus against the reality of a president who has shown almost no ability to stay focused during the course of scheduled events. For weeks, some Trump advisers have said the White House needs to do more to brief the public on the rise in hospitalizations and deaths.
But the idea of resuming the briefings became another dispute in the eternal turf wars within the Trump team. Two of his closest advisers, Jared Kushner and Hope Hicks, had been fine with the administration conducting virus briefings so long as they were not at the White House complex where Mr. Trump might want to join them. Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, has preferred not drawing attention to the virus at all.
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