To the extent that he discusses the deaths caused by the virus, he generally does so in clinical and at times even self-congratulatory terms. “Our death totals, our numbers per million people, are really very, very strong,” he told reporters on Thursday. “We are very proud of the job we have done.”

Only after he was asked about former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s calling on him to lower the flag at the White House to honor the dead did Mr. Trump say he would consider the idea. “I don’t think anybody could feel any worse than I do about all of the death and destruction that’s so needless. Nobody,” he said. “But I also have to make sure that we handle the situation well.”

Judd Deere, a White House spokesman, said the president preferred to emphasize the positive. “Despite Democrats and the media’s coordinated attempts to criticize this president for providing hope and optimism throughout this pandemic, President Trump has delivered a message of comfort, unity and strength while taking bold actions,” he said.

Mr. Trump’s reticence to talk about the human toll of the pandemic conflicts with his occasional willingness to describe the personal impact of America’s wars, visiting Dover Air Force Base to greet the bodies of slain troops and telling audiences later about “crying mothers and wives.”

In those cases, however, the tragedy fuels his policy positions, bolstering his case to pull American forces out of the Middle East. In this case, focusing on grief from the coronavirus could be politically damaging if the public blames him for playing down the threat of a deadly virus that he had boasted was “something we have tremendous control of” and would “miraculously” disappear on its own.

Instead, he would prefer to talk about China’s mishandling of the original outbreak or how the economy will, he hopes, roar back once stay-at-home orders are lifted. On Thursday, the day after the death toll hit 60,000 in the United States, he spent much of the day railing against prosecutors and defending his first national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, whom he himself fired for lying about contacts with Russia.