“The effects of COVID-19 on the United States labor market and on the health of American communities is a matter of ongoing national concern,” Trump’s Thursday proclamation read. “The current number of new daily cases worldwide reported by the World Health Organization, for example, is higher than the comparable number present during June, and while therapeutics and vaccines are recently available for an increasing number of Americans, their effect on the labor market and community health has not yet been fully realized.”
Citing the pandemic’s continued impact on the job market as the reason for the restrictions contradicts the President’s campaign trail refrain that the US was “rounding the turn” of the pandemic and his continued rhetoric that the US has done a great job handling the coronavirus — even as the country continues to set new daily records for deaths and hospitalizations.
The proclamation’s message about the economy is also contradictory for the President. In a video posted to his Twitter account earlier Thursday, in which the President touted the growth of the US economy, he bragged about the unemployment rate and said the number is “heading a lot lower” than the current 6.7%.