As Trump resumes travel, staff takes risks to prepare trip
WASHINGTON (AP) — 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. Trump overlooked a March 28 trip to Norfolk, Virginia, to see a Navy hospital ship off to New York and a weekend stay at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland.
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...
