Tony's Diary Package — page 95

-369,000/11,000 At the Press Briefing today, I took the opportunity to say that the Govs of NE and Iowa are doing an excellent job ad are functionally doing exactly what those states that have stay-at-home orders are doing. Trump dud his usual rambling stream of consciousness show at the briefing. Intense publicity about me continues with stories of granmothers who have crushes on men. Petitions to vote me "Sexiest Man Alive". Major stories about my basketball career at Regis. Janet Tobias pushing to get footage and access to TF workings with me. I am very reluctant since the optics are bad. My main goal is to stop this outbreak, not to participate in a documentary. She can do her thing as long as it is not intrusive to our work. I am concerned that we really do not have a clerar plan to "open up" the country at end of April. No one is really in charge or even knows what they are doing. This is not my area and so I can only provide 40,000 foot perspective, which is not good. PRESS: Appeared at the White House Press Briefing. April 7, 2020 - Global - 1,200,000/68000; USA - 369,000/11,000 Press still hot and heavy about me. Multiple stories per day directly or indirectly involving me. The debate about the use of HC still dominating the discussion. Big article in the Washington Post about the long relationship between Deb Birx and me. Big challenge today is to firm up a plan on how to approach to re-opening of the country. I am concerned that there really is no plan and no one is really in charge. Off-hand mention of "another task force". Jared is getting involved with us. Deb supposedly leading it. Deb unhappy with Brett Giroir and bad-mouthing him a bit as he goes his way continually reporting about how many "tests" are out there. I do not have a good felling about this. However, the meeting that we had in the Roosevelt Room tonight made me feel better. The entire team gathered after the Press conference for 2 hours starting at 7:30 PM. Paul Mango provided a framework for "re-opening" delineating all the things that need to be in place. Again, much depends on the easy availability of testing. Present were: Joe Grogan, Kellyanne Comway, Jared Kushner, Bob Redfield, Steve Hahn, Seema Verma, Deb Birx, Brian Harrison.