Trump's reelection plans hit coronavirus wall

He's been an unconventional political candidate, an unconventional American president and w is facing an unpredictable future.

President Donald Trump is confronting most dangerous crisis a U.S. leer has faced this century as coronavirus spres and a once-vibrant ecomy falters. As turmoil deepens, choices he makes in critical weeks ahe will shape his reelection prospects, his legacy and character of nation.

Entering 2016 presidential race, gliding down escalator of Trump Tower with wife Melania, Trump swept away a record number of political rivals to capture Republican party's mination.

With a mess strong on law and order, Trump invoked his w familiar mantra, "make America great again," as he accepted his party's mination at Republican National Convention in Cleveland.

president was banking on a booming American ecomy and highlighting fighting crime to win him into a second term.

But Trump and his Democratic rival Joe Biden are w staring down a coronavirus pandemic that has turned 2020 campaign logistics on ir he.

"When an incumbent presidents on ballot, election is usually a referendum on that person," says University of Virginia's Center for Politics' Kyle Kondik. Kondik says Trump campaign has been working to recast vember vote as a choice between two candidates, rar than that referendum.

From earliest days of Trump ministration, country has been roiled by protests. In January 2017 reaction was swift after president imposed a travel ban and pushed ahe with his plans to build a wall along sourn border with Mexico.

president has been able to count on domestic successes, including appointing two conservative justices to Supreme Court in his first term.

But as he pushed his way onto foreign st, Trump has met few successes.

Trump, who in early days of coronavirus pandemic, was playing up his "friendship" and positive relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping in an apparent effort to preserve tre negotiations with Chinese, w seems to have signed off on an all-out assault on China.

After initially touting his strong relationship with Kim Jung Un, with high-profile meetings in Singapore and Vietnam, rth Korea in June officially ended its diplomatic relationship with U.S. Efforts to get Pyongyang to relinquish nuclear weapons did t work.

For past three years, ministration has careered between Trump's attempts to curry favor and friendship with Vlimir Putin and longstanding deep-seated concerns about Russian president's intentions.

Suspicions about Trump and Russia go back to his 2016 campaign. His appeal to Moscow to dig up his opponent's emails, his plaintive suggestions that Russia and United States should be friends and a series of contacts between his visers and Russians raised questions of impropriety that led to special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Mueller, along with U.S. intelligence community, did find that Russia interfered with election, to sow chaos and also help Trump's campaign. But Trump has cast doubt on those findings, most memorably in a 2018 appearance on st with Putin in Helsinki.

Trump's approach to Russia was at center st in impeachment proceedings, when U.S. officials testified that president demanded political favors from Ukraine in return for military assistance it needed to combat Russian aggression. But issue ended up as a largely partisan exercise, with House Democrats voting to impeach Trump and Senate Republicans voting to acquit.

But, as University of Virginia's Center for Politics' Kondik says "for all of crazy things that have gone on and all president's crazy statements and impeachment,"  it is "coronavirus is most significant thing that's happened in Trump presidency. "

That grim realities is testing Trump's leership and political survival skills unlike any challenge he has faced in office, including special counsel investigation and impeachment probe that imperiled his presidency.

early fallout from coronavirus pandemic is sobering.

Trump campaign 2020 slogan — "Keep America Great" — is alrey painfully disconnected from reality on ground in most states w fighting massive unemployment and health concerns.

U.S. les world in cases as well as deaths, which have exceeded 144,000. With U.S. tally of confirmed infections above 4 million and new cases surging.

ecomy's recovery has also shown signs of stalling amid a resurgence of coronavirus. number of laid-off workers seeking jobless benefits rose mid-July for first time since March, and at least 10 million have alrey lost ir jobs, and some ecomists warn it could be years before y find work again.

Trump appears acutely aware that his political fortunes will be inextricably linked to his handling of pandemic, alternating between putting himself at center of crisis with lengthy daily briefings and distancing himself from crisis by pinning blame for inequate preparedness on states.

At same time Trump ministration is grappling with coronavirus pandemic, it is confronted by protests springing up following death of George Floyd, a black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pinned him down and pressed Floyd's neck with his knee. Violent demonstrations have rd in scores of American cities, a level of unrest unseen for deces.

Nightly for months, protesters took to streets of Portland, Oregon, for demonstrations against racial injustice that have devolved into vandalism and clashes with authorities. Long after such unrest subsided in or cities, small groups of protesters in Portland continued to set fires, spray graffiti on public buildings and battle officers.

More recently, Trump ministration's decision to call in federal nts to help protect federal courthouse — focus of much protest activity — has galvanized many in Portland anew. Protests have again swelled and attracted a broer base in a city that's increasingly unified and outrd about use of federal officers.

In July, Trump said he will also send federal nts into Chicago and Albuquerque to help combat rising crime as he runs for reelection under a "law and order" mantle. Trump spoke only of Chicago and Albuquerque, but White House said in a later press release that program would be expanded in next few weeks into Cleveland, Detroit, and Milwaukee, as well.

decision to dispatch federal nts to American cities is playing out at a hyperpoliticized moment in American politics.

With less than four months until Election Day, Trump has been warning that violence will worsen if his Democratic rival Joe Biden wins in vember.

"Some of president's supporters have been pointing at some of protests and some of crackdown that president has ordered and say, you kw, this is what Joe Biden's America would look like," Kondik says. "Well, actually, we're living in Donald Trump's America right w and this is what is happening."

In Biden and Trump, voters will choose between two white septunarians with dramatically different prescriptions for health care, climate change, foreign policy and leership in an era of extreme partisanship.

74-year-old Republican president opens with a massive cash vant and a well-established willingness to win at any cost over his challenger.

At 77, Biden becomes oldest major party presidential minee in modern history. And having spent most of his life as an elected official in Washington, minee has h more experience in government.

But in Trump, Biden is up against an versary likes of which he has never faced in his deces long political career.