Donny's rate plumits
As "President" Donald Trump’s approval ratings continue to plummet, largely due to his failed response to COVID-19, White House officials are reportedly now banking on America just getting used to the waves of deaths caused by pandemic still ravaging the nation.

The White House hopes Americans will “grow numb to the escalating death toll” ahead of the looming November elections, according to an alarming report by the Washington Post.

A senior official told the Post that the administration expects Americans will “live with the virus being a threat,” and an ex-official said the White House believes if it stops highlighting the virus, “the base will move on and the public will learn to accept 50,000 to 100,000 new cases a day.”

NBC News put out a similar report late last week detailing the White House’s new strategy of desensitizing the nation to the casualties of the pandemic.

The bone-chilling revelations further expose President Donald Trump’s political motivations for repeatedly minimizing COVID-19 by not only falsely claiming that the virus is “going away” but also that 99 percent of the cases are “totally harmless.”

Additionally, Trump has refused to wear a mask in public, and his campaign has not required supporters to wear masks at his recent rallies. On Monday, the Trump campaign said it “strongly encouraged” rally attendees to wear facial coverings at an upcoming event.

Multiple states are seeing record-breaking numbers of COVID-19 cases lately, while the nation as a whole continually surpasses its seven-day average caseloads in the wake of several governors opting to lift stay-at-home restrictions even though the virus has yet to be contained. Now, some of those state leaders are reversing course.

More than 15 states, including Arizona and Florida, are now halting or reversing rules allowing the businesses to reopen in response to the case surge.

There are now nearly 3 million COVID-19 cases and more than 130,000 deaths in the U.S., per John Hopkin University’s tracker.

Vice President Mike Pence, who leads the White House’s coronavirus task force, has held only one press briefing with the team over the past two months. He is scheduled to privately meet with the task force in the White House Situation Room on Monday afternoon, according to his official schedule.

Cristina Cabrera is a newswriter at TPM based in New York. She previously worked for Vocativ, USA Today and NY1 News.