On virus testing, Trump may have finally learned his lesson

[Bloomberg]( Follow Us //link.mail.bloombergbusiness.com/click/20155788.16227/aHR0cHM6Ly90d2l0dGVyLmNvbS9ib3Bpbmlvbg/57d8157f3f92a424d68d6450B592c74f6 [Get the newsletter](hash=b9b2681361bede0e1069ca238efb1ec2) Get Jonathan Bernstein’s newsletter every morning in your inbox. [Click here to subscribe](hash=b9b2681361bede0e1069ca238efb1ec2). In most respects, Monday’s coronavirus task force briefing was virtually identical to what we’ve been seeing for weeks now. It did, however, provide something rare for this presidency. Here’s the story. For quite some time, President Donald Trump has maintained that his administration was rolling out a sufficient number of test kits, despite widespread criticism to the contrary and warnings about the need for massively increased screening once the economy begins to reopen. Did his bravado have behind-the-scenes consequences? It’s hard to say, but generally presidents who say publicly that everything is going swimmingly find it difficult to simultaneously push for improvements within the executive branch. Moreover, Trump’s apparent stubbornness on this subject may well have been more than just a show. We do know that the administration has generally opposed a push from House Democrats to spend more on testing. Some pundits have even [speculated]( that Trump was actively opposing a significant ramp-up in order to keep the “numbers” low. In any event, it’s clear that virus screening got off to an extremely slow start and then, after an increase in March, [stalled out in mid-April](. All of that started to change last week. Daily testing numbers began to increase again, and Vice President Mike Pence promised a further boost soon, a message totally out of sync with Trump’s insistence that levels were already more than sufficient. Monday’s briefing was even clearer: While Trump didn’t actually retreat from his claims, much of the session was devoted to Pence and various businesspeople talking about recent gains in screening and plans for a dramatic further increase. The lesson here? No one in the White House press corps or (as far as I could tell) anywhere else seemed to care that Trump’s old claims had become [inoperative](. Trump demonstrated that the way for a president to move on from a ridiculous assertion is to just move on from it. No one really cares about whether the president is being consistent. They care if his current claims are accurate and if the underlying substance is positive. If Trump failed to push hard on testing until recently just to keep his previous statements plausible, he was making a serious mistake; to the extent he’s now adjusting the statements and paying more attention to getting the substance right, he’s doing a better job. Now, with Trump, you never know. He may shuffle out on Tuesday and against insist that there’s plenty of testing, ignoring the show that went on around him on Monday. If so, he’ll be making it harder to achieve what’s needed to actually control the virus and get the economy moving. But perhaps, on this one, he’s finally learned his lesson. 1. Sarah Binder at the Monkey Cage on [Congress during the pandemic](. 2. Dan Drezner on the “[toddler-in-chief](.” 3. Geoffrey Skelley on the still-early polling on [Trump against former Vice President Joe Biden](. I agree that we’re now close enough to the election that those polls aren’t totally meaningless — but I’m not convinced that they add much value when there’s an incumbent president on the ballot and we can look at his approval rating. 4. Robert McCartney on the [danger of letting state and local governments go broke](. 5. Jonathan Chait on the [division of labor in the White House](. 6. My Bloomberg Opinion colleague Timothy L. O'Brien on [Trump and the postal service](. 7. And Caroline Bechtel on [military humor](. Get Early Returns every morning in your inbox. [Click here to subscribe](hash=b9b2681361bede0e1069ca238efb1ec2). Also subscribe to [Bloomberg All Access]( and get much, much more. You’ll receive our unmatched global news coverage and two in-depth daily newsletters, the Bloomberg Open and the Bloomberg Close.  Before it’s here, it’s on the Bloomberg Terminal. Find out more about how the Terminal delivers information and analysis that financial professionals can’t find anywhere else. [Learn more](.  You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg's Early Returns newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( | [Bloomberg.com]( | [Contact Us]( Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington, New York, NY, 10022