David Graham: “The longer Trump stays out of view, the less anyone will take Pence’s word for it. The president has made himself such a steady presence in American lives, tweeting through every controversy, at all hours, and never missing a chance to weigh in—that the roughly 14 hours of silence (as of this writing) feels monumental. (When Trump went 46 hours without a tweet in June 2017, it made headlines; his posting frequency has actually increased since them.). Given public worries about COVID-19, and given the president’s poor record for honesty, especially about his health, the public will rightly have more questions the longer it takes for him to reemerge. A tweet will no longer be enough, since it’s already known that aides including Dan Scavino sometimes tweet from the president’s account.”
“Former Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney acknowledged as much during a Fox appearance Friday morning, saying, ‘I’m not too concerned about the health, I’m just concerned about the perception… I think it’s important … that the president be visible, however, that he be on the phone, that he be on television, that he gets out on the Truman balcony, if he can.’ Can he?”