The backdrop of the 2020 presidential election has changed dramatically amid the coronavirus pandemic, but conservative policy analyst Steve Moore says President Donald Trump needs to double down on the economic policies of his first term to win over the electorate.
"Trump is going to have to be able to make two cases," Moore told Cheddar. "Number one, that he was the president who won the war against the virus, and God willing that will happen, and second of all, that he has a plan to put in place the very policies that he put in place in 2017 that worked."
But that doesn't mean it's going to be easy for Trump. A poor economy has historically been bad news for incumbents. Look no further than single-term presidents George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter.
"It's a brand new ball game when it comes to the presidential election. It looked like a month ago that Trump was going to win a landslide election. Now it's going to be a dog fight right to the end," he said.
For Moore, who founded the Committee to Unleash Prosperity that advocates against government spending and regulation, the fiscal and monetary stimulus are secondary to reopening up the economy as soon as possible.
He points to the steady drip of positive news coming out of states that have started to flatten the curve of infections, even as deaths rise. "This is an indication that we are getting much closer to the date at which we can reopen the economy. This is the most critical thing. It doesn't matter how many trillions of dollars of liquidity the Fed puts into the market. It doesn't matter how many trillions of dollars of spending Congress does. Those are of secondary importance to getting Americans up and working."
Moore proposed a rolling restart to the economy, in which areas less hard-hit by the virus open their businesses on a limited basis.
"We have to have testing. We have to have the best medical know-how in place," he said.
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