How to Watch, Live Stream Trump's First Coronavirus Task Force Briefing in Nearly 3 Months
President Donald Trump is holding his first coronavirus task force briefing in nearly three months as coronavirus cases surge across the nation.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany confirmed the president will resume holding briefings at the White House, with the first one scheduled for Tuesday at 5 p.m. EDT.
You can stream it live on the White House's YouTube page.
Trump told reporters on Monday that the White House's daily coronavirus briefings during the early stages of the pandemic were "very successful."
"I was doing them and we had a lot of people watching, record numbers watching in the history of cable television...there's never been anything like it," he said.
"We'll start them again and I think it's a great way to get information out to the public as to where we are with the vaccines, with the therapeutics, and generally speaking, where we are," Trump added.
The U.S. has seen a sharp spike in COVID-19 cases since the beginning of June—a number that has continued to climb in states like Florida, California and Texas.
On Monday, July 20, the country reported 69,201 new confirmed cases, bringing the total count to 3,761,362, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Trump said that while "we have had this big flare-up in Florida, Texas, a couple of other places," the rest of the country "is doing well."
The decision to bring back the White House's daily updates on the spread of the virus comes as an increasing number of polls show the American public's disapproval of the Trump administration's response to the global health crisis, with the majority trusting the nation's health experts over the president.
Members of the White House's Coronavirus Task Force like Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the CDC, have faced backlash from the White House for continuing to speak publicly about the coronavirus in the U.S. and encouraging Americans to wear a mask to curb the outbreak.
Fauci told the Financial Times earlier this month that he had not briefed the president on the pandemic for two months.
The near-daily briefings have stopped for nearly three months as Trump pushed to reopen the economy and suggested injections of disinfectants as a cure for the virus.
Last week, senior Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway called on the president to resume the briefings. "His approval rating on the pandemic was higher when he was at the podium," Conway said on Friday.
"I'll be discussing the, as I call it, the China virus, the China plague. I'll be discussing it and I'll also be discussing perhaps some other things," Trump said Monday.
The president has repeatedly defended his use of the term "the China virus," despite criticism the term is racist and perpetuates bigotry against Asian-Americans.
Trump also withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization amidst his administration's response to the global health crisis and has continued to downplay the severity of the pandemic.
The president has recently begun encouraging the wearing of masks, following the move of several prominent Republicans, after refusing to wear one in public. He wore a mask for the first time publicly earlier this month when he visited soldiers at the Walter Reed Hospital.
Trump was not present at the White House coronavirus task force's first public briefing back from its two-month hiatus on June 26.
