Trump, still out of sight, focuses on his own future as pandemic worsens

WASHINGTON — More than a week after his stinging electoral defeat, President Donald Trump spent another day secluded in the White House on Thursday feverishly tweeting, watching television and telephoning allies — focused more on his own future than governing the nation as it struggles with a worsening pandemic.

Eager to exact retribution on those in government and media he deemed insufficiently loyal, and determined to maintain his grip on the Republican Party as he considers running again in four years, Trump tweeted more than 40 times — but not once about the more than 144,000 new U.S. coronavirus cases, a grim daily record.

From the pandemic's onset in February, Trump has sought to manage the contagion as a political problem that threatened his reelection bid, not as a mass casualty health crisis that already has taken the lives