Trump breaks his silence: Three things to watch as president gives Covid vaccine update

Donald Trump, ever eager to reverse a media narrative he finds makes him look bad, will give the country an update on coronavirus vaccine development during a twilight Rose Garden speech.

The president is due to break his relative and uncharacteristic silence since it started to become clear last Wednesday that former Vice President Joe Biden, as was declared on Saturday, was on track to defeat him.

The typically talkative Mr Trump has been anything but chatty since.

He has not taken questions from reporters since last Thursday (6 November), two days after Election Day. That evening, he used a White House briefing to make baseless charges that Democrats were trying to steal the race from him in key swing states, and previewed an ongoing legal challenges in several battlegrounds.

Like everyday since that briefing, the president’s Friday public schedule featured no public events. (The lone exception was a Wednesday trek to nearby Arlington National Cemetery for a Veterans’ Day ceremony.)

White House aides have pushed back against reports, citing sources close to Mr Trump and inside the West Wing, that he is doing little work related to the presidency. Instead, those reports say Mr Trump is watching television around the clock and managing his so-far unsuccessful legal challenges, many of which have been dismissed by federal judges.

“Any suggestion that the president has given up on governing is false. Just as he promised, President Trump is fighting hard for a free and fair election while at the same time carrying out all of his duties to put America first,” White House spokesman Judd Deere said Friday, using Mr Trump’s political and governing philosophy for effect.

“He’s also working to advance meaningful economic stimulus, engaging members of Congress on a government funding proposal, and ensuring state and local governments have what they need to respond to the ongoing pandemic,” Mr Deere added.

Another White House official sent The Independent a list of things the president has done this week under his official duties. It includes signing several orders and proclamations. When a reporter noted it does not take much time to sign documents, the official opted against providing more information about Mr Trump’s activities.

As he returns to the public stage on Friday afternoon, here are three things to watch:

Ask Trump anything?

The president-elect has called Mr Trump’s refusal to acknowledge the election’s apparent outcome “embarrassing.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, long a thorn in the president’s side, has twice this week slammed congressional Republicans for mostly standing by his side during the legal challenges. She dubbed their insistence on backing his play a “charade.”

The president, should he take questions after he updates the country on vaccine work after his team updated him around noon, would likely be asked about those and other election-related matters. That includes whether he has any plans to concede, or under what circumstances he might consider doing so.

The talker in chief has gone silent. Will Friday afternoon’s event be anything more than an opportunity for him to appear presidential as Mr Biden meets with advisers at his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware?

Exhibits A-Z?

The president recently tweeted, echoing his post-election legal team and political surrogates, that they soon will release reams of evidence to show widespread voter fraud.

Federal and independent election experts have said they have been unable to unearth any proof of his claims that enough ballots were filled out fraudulently or somehow tampered with that would cause federal judges to declare them void, flipping enough states in his favor to hand him a second term.

“All of the recent Biden claimed States will be legally challenged by us for Voter Fraud and State Election Fraud. Plenty of proof,” he tweeted on 5 Noevmber.

This White House and campaign organisation do stagecraft as well or better than anything. They have stacked federal regulations he nixed and other things beside his stages before. Seems a nice, cool but not breezy, in Washington to display that “proof” near the presidential lectern.

Trump’s tells

It’s reportedly sour, angry and even a bit embarrassed.

The president reportedly had sulked around the executive mansion in the waning days of the election expressing disbelief that he might lose to “this f***in’ guy,’ meaning Mr Biden – a man he dubbed “Sleepy Joe” based on an assessment the former VP has lost a step menatlly and lacked the kind of pizazz that fired up his own rally crowds.

In some of the darkest days of the coronavirus pandemic’s first spike, Mr Trump sauntered slowly into the White House briefing room with his shoulders slumped forward and a stoic look and verbal cadence from behind large bags under each eye.

When he grows frustrated with Cabinet members or invited industry officials or reporters’ questions in the Cabinet Room, he often sits with his arms folded across his chest. It’s a tell of frustration. It also can signal he is stretching the truth – or telling falsehoods.

Confident Trump will stride with a power not associated with most men his age, making eye contact and winking at reporters from networks and publications he calls “fake news” before calling on them for verbal jousting.

Defeated Trump will, well, mail it in. This version of the 45th president also walks with slumped shoulders, adjusts his overcoat frequently, avoids reporters’ collective gaze, and mostly keeps his own eyes locked on the words in his TelePrompter before hurrying away, ignoring tens of shouted questions.