WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump’s “beautiful” idea to reopen the U.S. economy by Easter Sunday and pack church pews that day was dreamed up during a conference call among business leaders desperate to get the country back up and running.
But his target date for easing coronavirus restrictions is another outstretched hand to a group he has long courted: evangelical Christians.
Cooped up at the White House and watching the stock market tumble, Trump had already been eager to ease federal guidelines aimed at halting the spread of a virus that had infected more than 55,000 Americans when about a dozen business leaders convened a conference call on Sunday.
“There was a concern – not unanimity, but consensus – that you had to have a reopening of the economy at some point soon,” said Stephen Moore, a conservative economist and informal Trump adviser. On the call, Moore said, he argued in favor of setting a specific date as a goal by which point the economy could gradually begin to be reopened.
“One of the things we were saying was that this would instill some confidence in people, that there would be some kind of light at the end of the tunnel,” he said.