During an appearance on MSNBC’s AM Joy on Saturday, former Republican Rep. David Jolly argued that Bob Woodward’s recent revelations about Donald Trump’s coronavirus response might prevent him from winning in November, Raw Story reported.
“He may not win this election because of this and people say ‘no, you’re crazy. We always see Donald Trump rebound from that,’” he said.
“That’s true but I’m putting my assessment in the context of being seven weeks out from an election where you have an incumbent desperately in need of momentum. He is trailing.”
Jolly noted that the last two weeks had put Trump on defense of his purported mishandling of the pandemic and alleged disparaging comments about fallen U.S. soldiers. According to the former lawmaker, the U.S. leader has to appeal to 35 percent of the country. But Jolly said that in the current political landscape, 5 percent of these voters are being pushed toward Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
“So now 5 percent of the country that is maybe possibly persuaded, they’re being persuaded towards Joe Biden right now. So this environment, Donald Trump will desperately try to change but it may be too late — he may be losing this election in real-time right now.”
One of the most damning revelations from Woodward’s interviews, which are covered in his forthcoming book, Rage , is that Trump knew the deadly nature of COVID-19 compared to the flu back in February. Despite this knowledge, the president continued to downplay the severity of the virus, an approach he has defended as necessary to avoid creating a massive panic.
In the wake of Woodward’s revelations, a recent Yahoo News /YouGov poll showed that Biden took a four-point jump in his lead against Trump and put him at 49 percent support among registered voters. Conversely, Trump has the support of 39 percent.
Interestingly, almost a quarter of Americans surveyed said that the Trump’s private acknowledgment of the coronavirus’ danger had changed their opinion of the president’s response to the disease. In addition, the 15 percent of individuals who backed Trump in 2016 said that the news shifted their opinion on his handling of the crisis.
The same poll found that the story about Trump’s alleged comments about the American military had a similar effect on public opinion. Notably, 50 percent of respondents said his opponent had more respect for American soldiers, compared to just 39 percent for the president. Voters also said the former vice president would be better at leading the military than the incumbent by the same margin.