President Donald Trump is visiting a Honeywell facility on Tuesday in Phoenix that is making respirator masks to help manage the coronavirus pandemic. Check back throughout the day for updates on the president's activities.
3:11 p.m. Air Force One departs
Air Force One was wheels-up at 3:11 p.m. as President Donald Trump left Phoenix.
3 p.m.: Trump heads back to the airport
President Donald Trump and his motorcade left the Honeywell facility that is making respirator masks and headed back to the adjacent Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
His imminent departure for Washington wraps up a speedy visit intended to boost public confidence that masks and other necessities are making their way to where they are needed.
In the process, Trump met with tribal officials and his administration began releasing billions in congressionally approved emergency aid for tribes across the country, including the Navajo Nation, which has been especially hard hit.
Before he left, Trump chatted with Honeywell employees.
The Honeywell visit was an official presidential event, but it featured music blaring at the facility that are part of the Trump campaign’s regular playlist.
Songs included "House of the Rising Sun" by the Animals and "You Can't Always Get What You Want" by the Rolling Stones.
2:30 p.m.: Trump recalls his 2015 Arizona campaign start
Before he strolled through the Honeywell facility to examine its mask-making efforts, President Donald Trump mused for a moment about his 2016 presidential campaign, which showed some of its promise during an early stop in Arizona in 2015.
“Today is a very interesting day because it’s my first day out,” Trump said as he wrapped a discussion with tribal officials at the Honeywell facility.
“Doug (Ducey) reminded me of something. I didn’t do it for that reason, but you said this is the first place you stopped when you ran, when I ran for something that turned out to be a very successful run. And we had tremendous crowds out at the Convention Center in Phoenix. It was pretty incredible. I didn’t do it for that reason interestingly, but here we are.”
It was another reminder of Trump's particularly close ties to Arizona.
Afterward, Trump walked through the facility — wearing safety goggles, but no mask — looking over the production of N95 respirator masks.
2 p.m.: Trump touts his record for Native Americans
President Donald Trump met with several tribal officials at the Honeywell facility and proclaimed his administration had done more for Native Americans than any other.
"We're improving the lives of Native American families and tribes more than any administration has ever done by far," Trump said.
He also signed a proclamation designating Tuesday as Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives Awareness Day.
That builds on a 2019 initiative called Operation Lady Justice. That’s an interagency task force charged with developing an aggressive, governmentwide strategy to address the crisis of missing and murdered women and girls in American Indian and Alaska Native communities.
Trump also discussed his continuing efforts at building a border wall, noting there are 172 miles of new barriers in Arizona alone.
12:30 p.m.: A casual Trump steps out, heads to Honeywell
President Donald Trump stepped off Air Force One not wearing a mask and gave a casual greeting to Gov. Doug Ducey, who was waiting for him on the tarmac, also without a mask.
This is Trump’s first trip out of the Washington area since late March due to the coronavirus pandemic, other than a recent weekend visit to Camp David. His last visit to Arizona was Feb. 19 for a rally in Phoenix where he touted a strong national economy.
The president’s motorcade quickly dashed off to the Honeywell International manufacturing facility near the airport, which has shifted gears from making aircraft engines to producing N95 respirator masks for health care and emergency workers.
Ceremonial music played on the speakers and red, white and blue banners were inside the Honeywell facility at the start of the president’s visit.
Administration officials said prior to the trip that anyone who might come into contact with the president would be tested before his visit.
All local media were temperature-checked before they could proceed through security onto the tarmac.
— Alison Steinbach
12:20 p.m.: Supporters gather outside Honeywell, taunt media
Outside the Honeywell facility, a smattering of people showed up, mostly to show support for the president’s efforts in the pandemic.
Rebekah Stansbury works at a nearby business and took a break to see the Trump bus, which arrived just before 10 a.m.
She also hoped to see the presidential motorcade, calling it a “unique” thing to see.
Like most others who gathered on Tuesday morning in anticipation of the president’s visit, Stansbury praised the president’s response to the pandemic.
“I think everything he’s done has been the appropriate action for the situation at hand,” she said.
Robert Atanasio, who wore a “Lock Trump Up” shirt and face mask, did not agree.
He was the only person outside of the Honeywell facility who opposed the president and at times throughout the morning debated with supporters of the president.
Atanasio told The Arizona Republic he does not believe the president responded quickly enough to the coronavirus.
He set up a lawn chair along Washington Street, saying that he intended on remaining there until, ideally, the presidential motorcade passed by.
“I’m going to hold up both my hands with my middle finger raised at this jerk,” he said.
Jake Angeli, 32, sported horns and body paint while banging a drum and yelling in support of the president and Q, presumably a reference to the controversial far-right group QAnon.
Angeli regularly shows up at Trump events in an attempt to counteract what he views as unnecessary criticism of the president.
“A lot of the people in the media that level a lot of scrutiny at Donald Trump level a lot of accusations at Donald Trump could not handle even a percentage of the amount of scrutiny and the amount of allegations that are being leveled at him,” he said. “I think it’s important that the president of the United States knows that his people support him.”
He said he wants the president to see “there’s good, patriotic Americans” that support and thank him for his response to the pandemic, particularly applauding the president’s move to close the country’s borders.
Angeli also applauded the president’s regular news briefings, saying they’ve helped to reassure Americans who are worried “a little more than they should be.”
Angeli criticized the “lamestream” media, saying that that it has created a “lot of hysteria, a lot of fear in people’s hearts that was completely unnecessary.”
Buffalo Rick Galeener, a member of Riders USA, arrived on Tuesday morning to keep an eye on the Trump bus and prevent any vandalism from protesters.
That didn’t materialize on Tuesday, but Galeener said he was still glad for the opportunity to support the president during his visit to Arizona.
He applauded the president’s decision-making, saying that the president has “problems” with advisers who are using scientific models, which he believes are unreliable.
Though Galeener said he was grateful for the work being done by Honeywell during the crisis, he said he wasn’t surprised.
“They’re Americans who are doing the jobs they want to do,” he said. “If you give Americans a job to do, they will do it.”
He believes the president’s visit on Tuesday will send a powerful message to leaders across the country.
“Pay attention to your citizens,” he said. "This country is of the people, by the people and for the people and unfortunately politicians think they control us. They’ve forgotten that they work for us. They’re gonna learn a serious lesson in November."
— BrieAnna J. Frank and Jamie Landers
12:04 p.m.: Air Force One touches down in Phoenix
Air Force One has landed at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.
President Donald Trump is expected to make his way from the airport to a nearby Honeywell facility shortly.
He has three Republican members of Arizona’s Capitol Hill delegation with him, Sen. Martha McSally and Reps. Paul Gosar and Debbie Lesko. Republican Reps. Andy Biggs and David Schweikert are expected to join him for the tour.
Gov. Doug Ducey is expected to greet him on the tarmac.
11:45 a.m.: Democrats ratchet up complaints with Trump, coronavirus
About an hour before the president was scheduled to arrive, the Arizona Democratic Party held a phone call with members of the press to highlight what the Republicans’ record on trying to repeal and roll back the Affordable Care Act.
Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., a vocal critic of the president, said Trump’s trip to the state would only serve as a reminder that he “ignored warnings for months,” overlooked science and data and downplayed the severity of the coming pandemic to the detriment of Americans.
Gallego asserted that Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, was opening sooner than the federal gating guidelines of two weeks of steady decline in new cases.
On Tuesday, Arizona cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, exceeded 9,300, with 395 known deaths. The number of new deaths reported Tuesday by state health officials was 33, representing the largest single-day increase in COVID-19 deaths since the beginning of the pandemic.
“We have not hit that,” Gallego told reporters. “Clearly Doug Ducey, Martha McSally, are here to appease the president and I think it’s not a coincidence that Gov. Ducey announced these openings … the day before the president arrived.”
Democrats also sought to highlight efforts by Republicans to overturn Democratic President Barack Obama’s signature health care policy, the Affordable Care Act. They repeatedly invoked Sen. Martha McSally’s votes to repeal the law during her time in the House. McSally, who is joining the president during today’s events, is up for election in 2020 and has been under fire by Democrats for years over her health care record.
For her part, McSally is up with a new ad showcasing her efforts on health care. In the ad, her former staffer describes McSally as a champion for protecting those with pre-existing medical conditions.
— Yvonne Wingett Sanchez
10 a.m.: McSally, Gosar and Lesko ride Air Force One to Phoenix
Three Republican members of Arizona’s congressional Capitol Hill delegation will be hopping off Air Force One when it arrives in Phoenix on Tuesday.
One of them is Sen. Martha McSally, who, like President Donald Trump, faces an uphill battle at the moment with Arizona voters in November.
Rep. Debbie Lesko, who was part of Trump’s media blitz team during his impeachment trial, figures to have an easier time in her conservative-leaning district.
Rep. Paul Gosar is among Trump’s most loyal and outspoken supporters in the House. He could breeze to a sixth term in Arizona’s most-Republican district.
All three posed for a picture before leaving on Washington to accompany Trump on his tour of the Honeywell mask-making facility.
Arizona’s two other House Republicans, Andy Biggs and David Schweikert, also will meet up with the president for the Honeywell visit.
9:15 a.m.: Ahead of Trump's arrival, a smattering of supporters at Honeywell
Protests and boisterous supporters usually accompany presidential visits, but this is no usual stopover.
A gathering of President Donald Trump's supporters showed up about 9:15 a.m. Their arrival broke the otherwise quiet scene outside the Honeywell facility that President Donald Trump is scheduled to tour on Tuesday.
One protester, a masked man, showed up wearing a shirt saying, "Lock Trump up."
It's unclear how much demonstrating for a presidential visit will happen while Arizona remains largely in quarantine due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The country's usual partisan fault lines are becoming clearer as Democrats and Republicans quarrel over next steps for financial aid and other Americans debate how and when to fully restart the national economy.
— BrieAnna J. Frank
9 a.m.: Trump releases tribal money after court loss
President Donald Trump is on his way to Arizona and, as it turns out, so is the first installment of financial aid to Native Americans, who sued the Trump administration to block it from giving away money intended for them.
The Treasury Department announced Tuesday that it is releasing $4.8 billion of aid to tribes, some of which includes the Navajo tribe, whose reservation is among the hardest-hit in the country by the coronavirus.
To begin with, the government will distribute 60 percent of the $8 billion authorized by Congress to tribes based on population data used in the distribution of the Indian Housing Block Grant.
Tribes had sued the administration over its plans to include Alaska Native Corporations among those to receive the emergency aid passed by Congress to help deal with the pandemic. ANCs are for-profit companies, and, because of the way the federal government indicated it would distribute the funds, could have collected about half the money available to help tribal governments.
A federal judge in Washington temporarily blocked that from happening last week, ruling that Congress intended for the tribal governments to receive the money.
Trump is scheduled to hold a roundtable about supporting Native Americans as part of his tour of the Honeywell mask-making operation that is the centerpiece of his whirlwind trip to Arizona.
Native American issues have been a sore point for Democrats in Arizona’s House delegation.
“The president held this up, probably so he could have this photo op,” said Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., who chairs the House subcommittee on indigenous peoples.
“It is a moral failing that the President will visit Arizona during a time he has ignored the urgent pleas from Navajo leadership,” said Rep. Greg Stanton, D-Ariz., in a statement Monday. “This Administration’s slow and inadequate response has dire consequences for tribal members—it is quite literally a matter of life and death.”
Rep. Tom O’Halleran, D-Ariz., has a list of things needed for tribes, ranging from hospital equipment to sanitation and water treatment.
6 a.m.: Trump's visit to Phoenix will be 2nd in 11 weeks
President Donald Trump heads back to Phoenix on Tuesday, but his previous visit 11 weeks ago seems like it was from another era.
Air Force One is scheduled to land at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport Tuesday morning so Trump can visit a nearby Honeywell facility that has shifted from manufacturing aircraft propulsion engines to making N95 respirator masks amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Trump arrives as he is trying to emphasize the reopening of the national economy and to suggest the growing availability of the tools needed to make that happen. Sen. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., and Republican Reps. Paul Gosar and Debbie Lesko, are planning to travel to Arizona with the president on Air Force One.
Gov. Doug Ducey, who has resisted fully opening Arizona’s economy until May 15, is expected to greet the president on the tarmac.
Trump’s brief visit is his first away from the East Coast since the coronavirus lockdown went into effect.
In February, Trump packed Phoenix's Veterans Memorial Coliseum with a campaign event in which he touted the economy and reveled in his party-line impeachment trial acquittal in the Senate just weeks earlier.
This time, Trump is seen as trailing former Vice President Joe Biden, his 2020 Democratic rival, in part because of his erratic handling of the health crisis.
His campaign is now casting Trump as the businessman perfectly suited to restore the economy to its previous record-breaking status.
A week after some states reopened broad swaths of business, often to disappointing consumer response, Trump is now trying to assure the public that the nation is ready for its new normal.
Honeywell’s mask-making operation is intended to help spread the message that more resources are on the way.