Jonathan Bernstein: “Trump’s net approval is -8.1 (that is, 43.2 approval minus 51.3 disapproval). The three recent presidents who were easily re-elected had solid positive net approval at this point: Richard Nixon at +17.7, Bill Clinton at +16.1 and Ronald Reagan at +15.3. The two most recent presidents both won somewhat narrowly; at this point, Barack Obama was at +1.7 and George W. Bush at -0.3. And then there were the two most recent losers. George H.W. Bush had fallen from a then-record approval down to -6.8. Jimmy Carter was only at -2.7, but that was probably just a quirk of the data, since he had recently been at -10 and would soon sink even further underwater.”

“Both Carter and the first Bush dipped lower by Election Day; the three easy winners all improved further. That suggests there’s still time for Trump to either rise to a level where he could win re-election — or to plunge low enough for former Vice President Joe Biden to win something around 400 electoral votes.”

“The truth is that if voters react to the current recession the way they typically do in an election year, Trump will lose, and lose badly.”

Daily Beast: “Here’s a shock—President Trump, who has repeatedly boasted about how great he was at baseball in high school and how he could totally have gone pro if he’d wanted to, actually pretty much sucked at it.”

Jay Rosen: “The plan is to have no plan, to let daily deaths between one and three thousand become a normal thing, and then to create massive confusion about who is responsible— by telling the governors they’re in charge without doing what only the federal government can do, by fighting with the press when it shows up to be briefed, by fixing blame for the virus on China or some other foreign element, and by ‘flooding the zone with shit,’ Steve Bannon’s phrase for overwhelming the system with disinformation, distraction, and denial, which boosts what economists call ‘search costs’ for reliable intelligence.”

“Stated another way, the plan is to default on public problem solving, and then prevent the public from understanding the consequences of that default. To succeed this will require one of the biggest propaganda and freedom of information fights in U.S. history, the execution of which will, I think, consume the president’s re-election campaign.”

“So much has already been made public that the standard script for a White House cover up (worse than the crime…) won’t apply. Instead, everything will ride on the manufacture of confusion. The press won’t be able to ‘expose’ the plot because it will all happen in stark daylight. The facts will be known, and simultaneously they will be inconceivable.”

President Trump did not wear a face mask at a Honeywell facility he toured in Arizona even though CNN reports a sign in the facility says “face mask required in this area.”

The AP has a photo of the sign at the entrance to the factory floor.

President Trump told the New York Post that Washington, DC, won’t ever be a state because Republicans aren’t “stupid” enough to add guaranteed Democratic seats in Congress.

Said Trump: “DC will never be a state. You mean District of Columbia, a state? Why? So we can have two more Democratic — Democrat senators and five more congressmen? No thank you. That’ll never happen.”

“Trump administration officials are telling members and staff of the coronavirus task force that the White House plans to wind down the operation in coming weeks despite growing evidence that the crisis is raging on,” the New York Times reports.

“It is not clear whether any other group might replace the task force. But its gradual demise, which officials said might never be formally announced, would only intensify the questions about whether the administration is adequately organized to address the complex, life-and-death decisions related to the virus and giving adequate voice to scientists and public health experts in making policy.”

CNN confirms the task force “will be phased down around Memorial Day.”

A new Monmouth poll finds President Trump’s job rating has ticked down again to 43% to 51% amid a sense he changes what he says about the coronavirus from day to day.

In fact, many Americans characterize some of the president’s treatment and prevention advice as harmful. When asked about the advice Trump has given about how to prevent and treat the coronavirus, 42% say it has been harmful, 33% say it has been helpful, and 23% say it is not particularly harmful or helpful.

Said pollster Patrick Murray: “The month to month shifts are well within the poll’s margin of error, but the overall trendline suggests that the public is growing less satisfied with Trump’s response to the pandemic.”

President Trump told the New York Post that “everybody” enjoyed his White House coronavirus briefings — including himself — and vowed they will be back, just not daily.

Said Trump: “We set every record with those press conferences. Six million people all the time. You know we had tremendous numbers, literally, it was in Bret Baier’s slot, and we did like 30 in a row.”

He added: “I heard, is this true? It was the highest rated hour in cable television history. That’s what I heard. I don’t know if that’s true.”

New York Times: “While Mr. Trump and many other presidents have hosted inauguration concerts and gatherings on the memorial’s steps, any event meant to draw an audience inside the interior near Daniel Chester French’s sculpture of a seated Lincoln is prohibited. The area above the top of the steps, where the columns begin, constitutes a boundary protected by federal law.”

“So on Sunday, when the president sat down with two Fox News anchors at Lincoln’s marbled feet during a coronavirus-focused virtual ‘town hall,’ it was because a directive issued by David Bernhardt, the secretary of the interior, had allowed them to do so.”

CNN: “The two men spend more time together now than at any point in their tenures, advisers said. As the outbreak wears on, Trump has grown to better understand Pence’s usefulness in ways some aides said he questioned before the crisis.”

“At some points in his presidency, Trump occasionally wondered aloud why he needed a vice president at all… Now, the President has taken to praising Pence’s efforts — even if he often seems to make them more difficult.”

Don Lemon addressed President Trump directly on CNN:

“What is it about President Obama that really gets under your skin? Is it because he’s smarter than you? Better educated? Made it on his own—didn’t need Daddy’s help? Wife is more accomplished? Better looking? I don’t know, what is it, what is it about him? That he’s a black man that’s accomplished being president? That he punked you on the whole birth certificate thing? What is it about him? Just wondering.”

As the death toll from coronavirus nears 70,000 in the United States, President Trump gave himself high marks this morning in dealing with the crisis:

“Getting great reviews, finally, for how well we are handling the pandemic, especially our strong production of desperately needed ventilators, the building of field hospitals & beds, and soon, the great things we are doing on testing. People are really working well together!”