Mr President, this is how you rise to the occasion during coronavirus. Take my advice or lose the people who liked you all along

Let's talk about how George W Bush handled criticism over his handling of 9/11

Engaging in warfare with the likes of Nancy Pelosi should not be a priority right now (EPA)

The United States is in the midst of a crisis that already looks grim and will get worse before it gets better. An economic crisis stemmed from a health crisis in a matter of weeks, and the nation is looking for real leadership.

It is President Trump's moment, and he can either choose to lead — thus rising above petty politics — or he can maintain the status quo and lose any claim he has for deserving a second term.

People are rightfully scared. According to the most recent numbers from a dashboard created at Johns Hopkins University, over 245,000 people have confirmed cases of Covid-19, and over 6,000 have died. The global epicenter right now is New York City. However, since the United States does not have an aggressive testing procedure in place, it's challenging to know the exact number of people who have the virus right now, never mind how many might develop it in the future.

The latest jobs report portends an upcoming economic calamity. The unemployment rate increased to 4.4 per cent, and the economy lost over 700,000 jobs. Next month's numbers will be far worse, considering we know over 10 million people filed unemployment claims in March.

People have long wondered when Trump might face a crisis and how he'd react. Well, that time has arrived. It's easy to get into 20/20 hindsight and criticize the president's initial reaction. As I wrote previously, he did seem to realize — if a little later than others — how serious a problem it is and began to show that to the public. But it is about to get to a whole new level.

The next few weeks will be all about Donald J Trump. This is not about Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. The president's supporters applaud his mocking of his political opponents as "fighting back" and have a misguided notion it projects leadership when all it does is give off an air of pettiness. That doesn't excuse Pelosi or Schumer for trying to score partisan political points themselves. The time has arrived, however, for Trump to rise above all that.

George W Bush faced withering criticism in the immediate hours following the 9/11 attacks in 2001. Did Bush write embarrassing letters to Democrat leaders as Trump did, complaining about the criticism? Did he do press briefings where he yelped at reporters for doing their job (no matter how unfairly one thinks they did)? No. He went about doing his job and projecting leadership while ignoring the criticism.

So what can our current president do?

First, stop trying to engage in historical revisionism. Let talking heads and pundits bloviate about Trump "admitting" he didn't act quickly enough in the early stages of the crisis. The guy who just lost his job and can't pay his mortgage doesn't care about that. But what the president should do is stop trying to pretend what happened didn't happen. Say to critics, "I'm not concerned about that at this time. What I want to do is make sure we get control of this so the people losing their jobs can get back to work as quickly as possible."

Second, Trump must ignore partisan politics. Go out there and say, "If Speaker Pelosi and Chuck Schumer want to score political points, they can go ahead. In the meantime, I am ready to get to work to solve this crisis and get the country moving again." The country will require more legislation to get things going once the threat subsides, and the president should be working with his legislative team to coordinate with Congressional leaders about what must happen next.

Third, Trump must refrain from getting into absurd spats with members of the White House press corps. It is fair to say that many of them poke and prod at him to get the kind of reaction that will generate headlines about his response. The problem is, he keeps falling for it. At a certain point, Trump has to say, "I'm moving on now," and call on someone else. Keeping a cool head costs nothing, especially during a crisis.

What's astounding is all of these suggestions are low-hanging fruit. Trump managed to operate with a different set of rules for the first three years of his presidency. A roaring economy and a partisan impeachment gave him wiggle-room to act as he did.

It's a different time now. Trump must choose to rise to the occasion. If not, even those who are indifferent to his presidency or conditionally support it will find he's not fit for the role of commander-in-chief.

Jay Caruso is managing editor of the Washington Examiner magazine