GOP operatives seek to get 'extremely pro-Trump' doctors on TV to push immediate economic reopening

Republican operatives and Trump campaign advisers held an hourlong conference call May 11, and one of the things they discussed was recruiting "extremely pro-Trump" doctors to go on television and lend medical credence to a conservative campaign to reopen state and local economies immediately, The Associated Press reports. AP was given a leaked recording of the call, organized by CNP Action, an affiliate of the GOP-aligned Council for National Policy and part of the Save Our Country Coalition, a group of conservative organizations that formed in late April to thwart stay-at-home orders implemented to slow the spread of COVID-19.

One of the call's participants, GOP activist Nancy Schulze, offered: "There is a coalition of doctors who are extremely pro-Trump that have been preparing and coming together for the war ahead in the campaign on health care. ... And we have doctors that are … in the trenches, that are saying 'It's time to reopen.'" Trump campaign senior adviser Mercedes Schlapp, a former Trump White House communications aide, jumped in: "Those are the types of guys that we should want to get out on TV and radio to help push out the message." Schulze replied that the doctors have "already been vetted. But they need to be put on the screens."

Schlapp's husband, American Conservative Union chairman Matt Schalpp, also endorsed Schulze's proposal on the call that, explaining that Trump is "going to get tagged by the fake news media as being irresponsible and not listening to doctors," so "we have to gird his loins with a lot of other people."

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Economic recovery is seen as crucial to "Trump’s re-election hopes and has become a growing focus of the White House coronavirus task force led by Vice President Mike Pence," AP reports. All 50 states have started lifting COVID-19 mitigation restrictions, but usually gradually, and the Centers for Disease Control has still reported a corresponding increase in infections and deaths. Matt Schlapp told AP Monday that "most people are not in mortal danger with corona" so "we can safely open up the economy."