DECRYPTION
"It will, unfortunately, get worse before it gets better. I don't like to say it but it is." These alarmist remarks on the coronavirus epidemic were made by ... Donald Trump, Tuesday evening. After months of denying the scale of the epidemic in the United States - the most bereaved country in the world with 141,800 dead, and where deaths have started to rise again - the American president suddenly changed his tone, two days after appearing in public for the first time wearing a mask. A turnaround to be linked to the electoral context very unfavorable to the Head of State, candidate for his re-election, according to the specialist of the United States Jean-Eric Branaa.
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"He's anti-Trump" compared to the past six months
Tuesday evening, "we discovered a Donald Trump as we would have liked to see him for a very long time, who uses his time to convey a public health message, who respects the word of medical experts, who praises workers health services that save lives, that avoids attacks against Democrats and urges Americans to wear masks and stay away from crowded places .... ", lists the expert at the microphone of Europe 1 .
"It is the anti-Trump compared to what we have had for six months. We find the one we had seen very briefly, which explained that America was going to live through very difficult times. It had lasted two weeks before he leaves for the countryside and completely forgets this message to take the opposite view and affirm that the pandemic did not exist ", decrypts Jean-Eric Branaa.
"Its most loyal troops are in dire need"
This "denial" was "unbearable" even among the ranks of supporters of the US president, who will face Democrat Joe Biden in the fall, according to the specialist. Opinion polls showed "they were going to leave him" for his rival, which certainly explains this turning point today ".
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Concretely, "the worst is happening in the south of the United States, in states which are held by Republicans (California, Florida and Texas, forced to impose new restrictions, editor's note ), while precisely the strategy of Donald Trump was to explain that it was democratic mismanagement that caused this pandemic to spread in the United States ", according to Jean-Eric Branaa. "Today, we are no longer there. Its most loyal troops, who repeated these absurd messages, are very poor."
A poll very largely favorable to Joe Biden
But doesn't this change of tone come too late? Jean-Eric Branaa quotes a poll published four days ago, carried out by ABC and the Washington Post , which "shows a 15 point gap between Joe Biden and Donald Trump". "Exactly the same poll, four years ago, gave three points between Trump and Clinton. We were within the margin of error, it was a virtual equality", he underlines. A difference of 15 points, on the contrary, seems "prohibitive" in the eyes of the expert. "There has never been in the history of the United States a comeback with such a gap 100 days before the election. (...) There is total panic on board."