As Donald Trump resumes travel, staff takes risks to prepare trip

For much of the last two months, President Donald Trump has rarely left the grounds of the White House as he’s dealt with the fallout of the coronavirus pandemic and sought to minimize his own exposure to the disease.

But that changes Tuesday when Trump is scheduled to travel to Arizona to visit a Honeywell facility that makes N95 masks in what the president suggests will mark the return to more regular travel.

The trip also means a small army of advisers, logistical experts and security staff a coterie of hundreds that includes personnel from the White House, Defense Department, Secret Service and more will resume regularly hitting the road again and taking a measure of risk to assist Trump.

Besides Tuesday’s trip to Honeywell, Trump says he will travel soon to Ohio, to New York in June for the U.S. Military Academy graduation and to South Dakota in July for a holiday fireworks display at Mount Rushmore. Trump says he’s also eager to get back on the campaign trail, though he acknowledged during a Fox News forum Sunday that he might not be able to hold his signature big-stadium rallies until the final months before the Nov. 3 election.

“I’ve been at the White House now for many months, and I’d like to get out, as much as I love this. Most beautiful house in the world,” Trump said in announcing his travel plans.

At a moment when public health officials have asked Americans to postpone nonessential travel to help stem the coronavirus, Trump is looking to rev the engines of Air Force One as he tries to prod a shell-shocked American electorate reeling from the death and economic destruction wrought by the virus to edge back to normal life.

But White House officials are also taking precautions to try to prevent Trump and Vice President Mike Pence from exposure to the virus. Honeywell workers who meet Trump on Tuesday just like anyone else who comes in close proximity to the president and vice president will be first required to take a rapid point-of-care test to determine if they’re carrying the virus.

“When preparing for and carrying out any travel, the White House’s operational teams work together to ensure plans to incorporate current CDC guidelines and best practices for limiting COVID-19 exposure are followed to the greatest extent possible,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said.

But Matt Bennett, who served as Vice President Al Gore’s trip director, said he worries that Trump is putting his staff, military personnel and local and state officials at unnecessary risk.

“I think there is a value of seeing our leaders out in the country and escaping the White House,” stated Bennett, executive vice president at the centre-left think tank Third Way. “But it has to be balanced against the cost. The cost here could be the health and safety of a lot of people.”

James McCann, a Purdue University political scientist who has studied presidential travel, said that Trump early in his term travelled significantly less frequently on official presidential business compared to his four predecessors. But now that a big campaign rally is not possible, Trump is searching for a way to assert himself.

“Trump is craving to get into campaign mode,” McCann said.

Marc Short, Pence’s chief of staff, said reporters the vice president, who last week travelled to Indiana and Minnesota, has been debriefing the White House Military Office after each trip to discuss planning and protocols.

Typically, White House advance staff fly commercial airlines when travelling to scout a location before a presidential or vice-presidential visit. But Short said staffers are now taking military aircraft. Ahead of Pence’s trip to an Indiana plant where ventilators are being manufactured, advance staffers were not allowed to leave the military base where Air Force Two landed, Short said.

The Secret Service, which is tasked with protecting the president and his family, wouldn’t get into the details of how it’s altering operations but said it’s following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance.

According to Justine Whelan, a spokeswoman for the agency, “Since the beginning of this pandemic, the Secret Service has been working with all of our public safety partners and the White House Medical Unit to ensure the safety and security of both our protected persons and our employees.”