Today's Politico Playbook Audio Briefing is presented by Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.

Good Friday morning. I'm Jake Sherman and welcome to your political playbook audio briefing.

And I'm Anna Palmer. Of all the questions tumbling through the minds of President Donald Trump's political allies eight months before election day, none is more urgent than this. How can the 45th president

stop this bleeding? Trump and his White House are facing a crisis of confidence over their handling

of the coronavirus without an obvious way to arrest the slide. Case in point. Although scant

new information was released Thursday financial markets nosedived uncontrollably

what's a commander-in-chief to do there is precedent in times of crisis presidents tend to use

the machinery of the federal government to calm nerves barak obama sent 3,000 people to west

Africa during the Ebola scare he visited the CDC headquarters in Atlanta.

Yet Trump seems to delight in throwing sand in the same machinery. He stands by his decision

to slash money for infectious disease research. Instead of seating the spotlight to experts,

he has taken it upon himself to talk about the virus outbreak and cast doubt about the conventional

wisdom that there will be an outbreak of some magnitude of the United States. He contradicted members of his infectious disease team. On Thursday, he met with a pair of actors

who were starring in a play about a pair of FBI agents the president does not like.

Congress has a role here and will certainly share in part of the blame should the virus spread.

Yet Trump's selection of Vice President Mike Pence as the overseer of the

government effort has been met with head slaps among Democrats. Trump's allies, both on Capitol Hill and

in the administration, are looking for ways to pull the emergency break to aid the president. One such

ally suggested the government send test kits like instant pregnancy exams to Americans' houses.

This would help with detection, this person said.

When asked if this was feasible, the ally said they had no idea.

Of course, there are differences between a coronavirus and Ebola.

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