Trump got pushback from some allies for continuing to tweet accusations that Joe Scarborough killed an aide in the 90s.
Pressure was put on Twitter to delete the tweets, which they declined to do.
The widow sent a letter to Twitter’s CEO asking him to take down the tweet: “I’m asking you to intervene in this instance because the president of the United States has taken something that does not belong to him — the memory of my dead wife — and perverted it for perceived political gain.” They declined to do so.They declined. However, they did start fact checking Trump’s tweets.
Trump responded with an Executive Order limiting liability protections for social media companies.
George Floyd was killed by strangulation by police on Monday, Memorial Day, setting off protests that spread across the country throughout the week.
Twitter blocked a Trump tweet for violating its rules.
Here is the tweet: ….These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!
Here is a gut-check by a New York Times critic on the fake censorship Trump has been complaining about from Twitter, and the actual censorship of a black CNN reporter who was arrested on camera by police in Minneapolis.
In Russia News
Friday night a record of Flynn’s 2016 calls with Kislyak were leaked.
Washington Post reports on the State Department IG firing: “I have learned that there may be another reason for Mr. Linick’s firing,” Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a statement sent to me. “His office was investigating — at my request — Trump’s phony declaration of an emergency so he could send weapons to Saudi Arabia.”
This is connected to this story by the New York Times which came out over the weekend about the Saudi arms deals.
The IG had also “begun an inquiry into Mr. Pompeo’s possible misuse of a political appointee to perform personal tasks for him and his wife, according to Democratic aides. That included walking the dog, picking up dry-cleaning and making restaurant reservations, one said — an echo of the whistle-blower complaint from last year.”
Here is a line from a New York Times piece on intelligence briefings for Trump: Mr. Trump rarely absorbs information that he disagrees with or that runs counter to his worldview, the officials said. Briefing him has been so great a challenge compared with his predecessors that the intelligence agencies have hired outside consultants to study how better to present information to him.
The Trump Administration withdrew from a key arms control accord.
More family separation of immigrants are happening. Here is more from a New York Times report.
Trump Pivot 3: Trump and Task Force first admits over 100,000 may die. “It’s absolutely critical for the American people to follow the guidelines for the next 30 days. It’s a matter of life and death.”; a lot fo talk about urgent need for testing, including Trump downplaying need in the states, and reporting on why testing was delayed due to FDA/CDC mistakes; Trump reversal of call for Easter opening; Navy captain fired for Covid-19 help request; CDC says Americans should wear face masks; Highest daily death count yet; jobless claims at 16 million, rising to 26 million; Round of major papers writing about poor Trump response in early days of the pandemic; daily press briefings continue, making Republicans nervous about Trump’s performance; Trump Pivot 4: blame shifting and push to re-open the country by May 1; failed business group task force; small business loan ran out of money; small lock down protests are first held; Trump road-testing an anti-lockdown message; Senate renews money for small business loan; some states are easing lockdowns; House passed new stimulus; Trump’s daily press briefings continue, and on 4/23 he says UV light or disinfectants might be used to kill the virus internally; talk of ending the press briefings over the weekend.
This dip–relatively low compared to the other 19 dips–is the result of two factors happening simultaneously: 1) the swift deflation of the temporary approval spike to 45.8% that corresponded with the onset of the crisis; 2) a negative news cycle going into the second month of national lockdowns where there was a lot of discussion of early missteps that got us to this point. When Trump was at his high point mentioned above there were only 1,246 dead, but by the end of this dip there were 48,816 dead.
This dip brings him closer to his homeostasis point fo 42-43%, where he has been for much of the second half of his term. The dip stalled out at around 43% for the next 4 weeks. At which point events in May and June brought on the 21st approval dip…
Below is a monthly update, marking key metrics and commentary in from mid-April to mid-May, the second month since lockdowns began.
Polling Round Up
A majority of 53% is still somewhat-to-very worried of contracting the virus, compared to 47% who are less worried. This is a worry decrease of 4 point from a month ago when it was 57%.
The country is split 50/50 on worried versus not worried about financial hardship. This is a 2% increase worry rating from last month, when 48% were worried about financial hardship.
Still, slightly more people are worried about getting sick than losing their livelihood.
The partisan split:
Generally, Democrats’ opinions reflect the general populace in seeing the sickness and finances as equal threats. While Republicans see the financial threat as more serious by nine point margin. This is a change from polling a month earlier when Democrats viewed the virus as more of a threat than the economy, and Republican’s viewed the threat equally.
By a ratio of two to one, those surveyed by Monmouth University in a poll released in the first week of May were more concerned about lifting restrictions too quickly rather than too slowly. And 56 percent said the more important factor should be making sure as few people get sick as possible, while 33 percent said it was more important to prevent the economy from sinking into a profound downturn.
The vast majority of laid-off or furloughed workers — 77 percent — expect to be rehired by their previous employer once the stay-at-home orders in their area are lifted, according to a nationwide Washington Post-Ipsos poll.
WaPo-Ipsos Poll: A 74 percent majority of Americans overall say the United States should keep trying to slow the spread of the coronavirus even if it means keeping many businesses closed, while 25 percent say the country should open up businesses and get the economy going again, even if the result would be more infections. Yet there is a significant partisan divide on this question. More than 9 in 10 (92 percent) Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say they favor closures to deal with the virus, while Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are split almost evenly, with 49 percent saying closures should be the top priority and 50 percent saying businesses should be opened up again.
A majority of Americans (61%) say the federal government is mostly (40%) or entirely (21%) responsible in making sure there are enough COVID-19 tests available to the public. About four-in-ten (37%) say this responsibility at least mostly falls on the state government.
In the fivethirthyeight aggregate of polls:
Americans Worried Concerned about infection declines 5.6 points to 68%
Americans Concerned about economy stayed the same at 86%
Disapproval of Trump’s response climbed above a majority this month for the first time: 52%. The approve-disapprove spread expanded from 1 point to 9 points more disapprove.
Scope of the Challenge& Government Response
Here are expert predictions about how long it will take to produce a vaccine.
On a federal effort, the calls continue for more action: “We need a national commitment to get this [contact tracing and testing] done in order to defeat the virus,” said Michael Leavitt, a former Republican governor of Utah and health secretary in the George W. Bush administration.
In some cases the FDA is making it harder to do contact tracing and testing, by ordering a pause on a promising Seattle program: The program involved sending home test kits to both healthy and sick people in the hope of conducting the kind of widespread monitoring that could help communities safely reopen from lockdowns. Researchers and public health authorities already had tested thousands of samples, finding dozens of previously undetected cases. “Please discontinue patient testing and return of diagnostic results to patients until proper authorization is obtained,” the F.D.A. wrote in a memo. By the end of February, those researchers ended up doing some testing anyway, discovered the first case of community transmission in the region and provided key evidence that the virus had most likely been circulating for weeks…. The issue in the Seattle case appears to be that the test results are being used not only by researchers for surveillance of the virus in the community but that the results are also being returned to patients to inform them. A Harvard Global Health Institute report last week estimated that the United States needed to be conducting at least 900,000 tests daily, but tracking reports indicate the country is doing about one-third that amount.
The White House raised numerous objections to the CDC report on how to reopen sectors of society. A brief history of the CDC recommendations. First from the Washington Post: “April 16, when Trump and Birx released their guidelines for a slow and staggered return to normal in places with minimal cases of the coronavirus, many of the details fine-tuned by the CDC were stripped out. The CDC circulated a 17-page document with strong recommendations, but many in the White House resisted, particularly when it came to restricting parishioners from singing in choirs or sharing hymnals and offering plates, and suggesting that restaurants use digital menus and avoid salad bars. The document has not been made public and is still in the editing process.” That was Saturday. By Thursday, it was reported that the CDC report would not be released at all due to White House objections.”
The White House shelved the CDC plan for reopening safely: “White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said Friday that the documents had not been approved by CDC Director Robert Redfield. The new emails, however, show that Redfield cleared the guidance.”
Fauci testified before the Senate on May 12: What I’ve expressed then and again is my concern that if some areas, cities, states or what have you jump over those various checkpoints and prematurely open up without having the capability of being able to respond effectively and efficiently — my concern is that we will start to see little spikes that might turn into outbreaks.”
According to David Grahm, in mid May: Yet the Trump administration still has no plan for dealing with the global pandemic or its fallout. The president has cast doubt on the need for a vaccine or expanded testing. He has no evident plan for contact tracing. He has no treatment ideas beyond the drug remdesivir, since Trump’s marketing campaign for hydroxychloroquine ended in disaster. And, facing the worst economy since the Great Depression, the White House has no plan for that, either, beyond a quixotic hope that consumer demand will snap back as soon as businesses reopen.
Political Weirding
The New York Times editorial pages two leading progressive columnists, both equating the current crisis to the Great Depression with the potential for 21st Century labor’s New Deal.
Goldberg: “We are going to be faced with a national rebuilding project at a scale that has never existed in our lifetimes,” said Yang. The biggest battle in politics now is over who will control that project, and whom it will prioritize.
Bouie: It’s true these actions have been limited in scope and scale. But if they continue, and if they increase, they may come to represent the first stirrings of something much larger. The consequential strike wave of 1934 — which paved the way for the National Labor Relations Act and created new political space for serious government action on behalf of labor — was presaged by a year of unrest in workplaces across the country, from factories and farms to newspaper offices and Hollywood sets.
J.V. Last compares the impact of COVID-19 with Vietnam: But the most striking similarity is the presence of other large-scale societal changes that threaten to interact with the pandemic…. These trends move only somewhat independently of one another. In the months ahead, COVID-19 is going to shape and be shaped by all of them in some ways that can be foreseen. But mostly in ways that cannot…. three months into the COVID-19 crisis, most Americans have yet to internalize the magnitude of the change that could come from it.
In Edsell’s early May round ups, he quotes political scientist Eric Kaufman: “My view is that Covid-19 weakens national populism because it reduces cultural threat. a) cuts immigration, b) cuts globalization, c) raises the profile of health care and the economy, two material issues, and reduces the profile of culture war issues which drive right populism, d) compels faith in experts, making it riskier to entrust “burn it all down” populists with power and e) focuses on the (relatively diverse and foreign-born) health care workers as heroes.”
There was also more discussion this month of COVID-19 and racism.
Bouie on COVID-19 protests and race: The vast majority of these protesters — like the vast majority of those who want to prematurely reopen the economy — are white. This is in stark contrast to the victims of Covid-19 (who are disproportionately black and brown), as well as those who have lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic (who are also disproportionately black and brown), as well as those who have been or will be forced to work — or work more — as a result of reopening (the service workers and laborers who are again disproportionately black and brown). More than just burdensome, the restrictions become an intolerable violation of the social contract as these Americans understand it. They run against the meaning of their racial identity, of the freedom and autonomy it is supposed to signify. And they resolve the violation by asserting the other aspect of white freedom, the right of control.
Sewer on the same topic: Over the weeks that followed the declaration of an emergency, the pandemic worsened and the death toll mounted. Yet by mid-April, conservative broadcasters were decrying the restrictions, small bands of armed protesters were descending on state capitols, and the president was pressing to lift the constraints. In the interim, data about the demographics of COVID-19 victims began to trickle out. On April 7, major outlets began reporting that preliminary data showed that black and Latino Americans were being disproportionately felled by the coronavirus.
This is a very old and recognizable story—political and financial elites displaying a callous disregard for the workers of any race who make their lives of comfort possible. But in America, where labor and race are so often intertwined, the racial contract has enabled the wealthy to dismiss workers as both undeserving and expendable. White Americans are also suffering, but the perception that the coronavirus is largely a black and brown problem licenses elites to dismiss its impact. In America, the racial contract has shaped the terms of class war for centuries; the COVID contract shapes it here.
Finally, on Saturday night May 16 Obama delivered a brief national high school commencement address in which he gave his take on the current situation:
“All of which means that you’re going to have to grow up faster than some generations. This pandemic has shaken up the status quo and laid bare a lot of our country’s deep-seated problems — from massive economic inequality to ongoing racial disparities to a lack of basic health care for people who need it. It’s woken a lot of young people up to the fact that the old ways of doing things just don’t work; that it doesn’t matter how much money you make if everyone around you is hungry and sick; and that our society and our democracy only work when we think not just about ourselves, but about each other.”
It’s also pulled the curtain back on another hard truth, something that we all have to eventually accept once our childhood comes to an end. All those adults that you used to think were in charge and knew what they were doing? Turns out that they don’t have all the answers. A lot of them aren’t even asking the right questions. So, if the world’s going to get better, it going to be up to you.
…do what you think is right. Doing what feels good, what’s convenient, what’s easy — that’s how little kids think. Unfortunately, a lot of so-called grown-ups, including some with fancy titles and important jobs, still think that way — which is why things are so screwed up.
Questions Going Forward
When will the need for massive federal intervention in the crisis become apparent to most Americans, if at all?
Polling on this quoted above indicates the public believes in this need.
When will economic fears overcome fears of the virus? Will fears of the virus–and thus support for the lockdowns–fade?
Fear is moving away from the virus and toward economy, though majorities still fear the virus.
Will the anti-lockdown protests grow to Tea Party size and cultural status?
Protests seemed to have fizzled, though nearly all governors regardless of political persuasion are moving slowly toward reopening. No Tea Party moment yet.
A mini outbreak of Coronavirus is happening in the Trump Administration.
By Monday everyone in the White House (except for Trump and Pence) were required to wear a mask when not at their desk. Trump also gave a press conference saying that “America leads the world in testing” and “we have met the moment and we have prevailed,” and “if somebody wants to be tested right now, they’ll be able to be tested.” The New York Times pints out: Though the United States has ramped up testing from 150,000 tests per day from a month ago to 300,000 per day recently, the current rate still remains far behind the five million daily target he himself set last month.
Two of the federal government’s top health officials painted a grim picture of the months ahead on Tuesday, warning a Senate committee that the coronavirus pandemic was far from contained… Dr. Fauci’s remarks, along with those of Dr. Redfield, contradicted Mr. Trump’s growing insistence that the nation has put the coronavirus behind it.
Meanwhile, “Over Mother’s Day and then through Monday—and who knows, perhaps continuing today—Trump has fired off hundreds of rounds of weapons-grade lunacy on Twitter.” Including something called “Obamagate.”
According to Tim Miller in The Bulwark: Trump’s allies in the conservative media and the Justice Department are taking #Obamagate very seriously. This conspiracy theory is informing our foreign policy, millions in tax dollars are being spent in an effort that is going “full throttle” to prove that it is correct, and countless Americans are being fed a faux history involving a crime that supposedly “makes Watergate look small time.”
Senator Burr stepped down from the Senate Intelligence Committee as news broke this week that the FBI issued a warrant for his cell phone and other records over his stock trading scheme.
On Saturday there was a 2020 Graduation ceremony broadcast on all the networks. Obama gave the closing remarks.
Trump fired the State Department Inspector General on Friday night.
In Russia News
More Flynn drama this week. The FBI investigator whose notes the DOJ used to say the Flynn interview was improper did an interview with DOJ about the matter that was not shared with the Judge: That interpretation was wrong, Mr. Priestap told the prosecutors reviewing the case. He said that F.B.I. officials were trying to do the right thing in questioning Mr. Flynn and that he knew of no effort to set him up. Media reports about his notes misconstrued them, he said, according to the people familiar with the investigation.
The judge in the Flynn Case, Emmet Sullivan, appointed a former judge to asses whether Flynn lied and committed perjury: He is essentially bringing in an outsider to represent the point of view of the original prosecutors in the case, who believed Mr. Flynn had committed a crime before Mr. Barr intervened and essentially replaced them with a prosecutor willing to say he had not.
The Washington Post reports about an internal White House projection that said the virus toll would become less sever: “For Trump — whose decision-making has been guided largely by his reelection prospects — the analysis, coupled with Hassett’s grim predictions of economic calamity, provided justification to pivot to where he preferred to be: cheering an economic revival rather than managing a catastrophic health crisis.”
Also from the Washington Post story: The task force members with medical degrees — Birx, Fauci and Hahn, as well as CDC Director Robert Redfield, Surgeon General Jerome M. Adams and Brett Giroir, who leads the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps — splintered off in mid- to late-March and began meeting on their own almost daily, three senior administration officials said. Some in the “doctors group” were distressed by what one official dubbed the “voodoo” discussed within the broader task force.
This anecdote on the difficulty states are having getting test materials is telling: In Maryland, Gov. Larry Hogan (R) quietly entered into negotiations with South Korea, with the help of his wife, Yumi, a Korean American. Exasperated with the lack of tests in his state, Hogan spent about 22 days arranging to procure 500,000 tests, negotiating with eight different Maryland agencies, the Korean embassy and officials at the State Department. Once the FDA and U.S. Customs and Border Protection signed off on the deal, a Korean Air jet touched down at Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport on April 18 to deliver the supplies. Hogan said he was worried federal officials would try to commandeer the tests, so he had Maryland Army National Guard members and Maryland State Police officers escort and protect the cargo.
Trump continued to talk about reopening this week: “But we have to get our country open again. People want to go back, and you’re going to have a problem if you don’t do it.” And this New York Times analysis: “For a president who had staked his legacy on an economic record that was shredded by the crisis, moving on may seem like the best way to salvage his chances for re-election this fall.”
Two White House aids tested positive by Friday, a military valet to Trump and Pence’s press secretary: White House officials initially asked reporters not to identify Ms. Miller as the aide who tested positive, but Mr. Trump blew the secret when he identified her publicly during his meeting with the congressional Republicans as “Katie” and “the press person” for Mr. Pence.
The White House shelved the CDC plan for reopening safely.
In Russia News
Barr’s DOJ dropped charges against Flynn on Thursday: The decision for the government to throw out a case after a defendant had already pleaded guilty was also highly unusual. Former prosecutors struggled to point to any precedent and portrayed the Justice Department’s justification as dubious. Here is what they said: “The government is not persuaded that the Jan. 24, 2017, interview was conducted with a legitimate investigative basis and therefore does not believe Mr. Flynn’s statements were material even if untrue.”In a possible sign of disagreement, Brandon L. Van Grack, the Justice Department lawyer who led the prosecution of Mr. Flynn, abruptly withdrew from the case on Thursday.
Also this: No career prosecutors signed the motion. Mr. Shea is a former close aide to Mr. Barr. In January, Mr. Barr installed him as the top prosecutor in the district that encompasses the nation’s capital after maneuvering out the Senate-confirmed former top prosecutor in that office, Jessie K. Liu.
Ignatius: There was always a deeper problem, one that still isn’t resolved. Why was the Trump administration so eager to blunt the punishment Obama gave to Russia for what we now know was gross interference in our presidential election? In his Dec. 29 expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats, Obama was trying to impose costs on an adversary. The evidence shows that Flynn wanted to reassure this same adversary and to avoid confrontation.
Frum on the stakes of Flynn’s lie to the FBI: And so Congress and the public remain unaware of what exactly was said to dissuade the Russians from retaliating in December 2016, and what—if anything—the Russians asked for in return. Congress and the public remain ignorant about whether Flynn acted on his own or was directed by President-elect Trump. Congress and the public remain uncertain whether Pence had himself been deceived when he delivered a false reassurance on CBS in January 2017—or whether he was part of the deceit…. Flynn’s release by Barr only strengthens the suspicion that back in December 2016, Flynn acted with Trump’s approval. Flynn’s release by Barr only strengthens the suspicion that Flynn and Kislyak were furthering a corrupt arrangement between Trump and Putin. Flynn’s release by Barr only strengthens the suspicion that the corrupt arrangement continues to this day.
Here is Lawfare’s take: The government’s 20-page brief is not an honest document—perhaps the reason that it is signed only by Timothy Shea, the interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia—and not a single one of the career prosecutors who worked on the case. That may also be the reason why Brandon Van Grack, the prosecutor who has worked the case from the beginning, moved to withdraw from the case entirely just hours before the Justice Department filed its motion.
Personal Log: Our three year old wore her mask for the first time (on a visit to the park) and she allowed me to wear mine without being scared. Earlier in the week she told me to put my mask in the car as we got out to walk, and we were the only ones unmasked on the trail around the reservoir. An elderly woman we met on the path gave us a wide berth and said I have an obligation to protect the community. She understood when I said my daughter was afraid of them. Mother’s Day was Sunday, while we had dinner with family, I saw one family in the neighborhood holding a visit between their front steps and the sidewalk.
The White House announced on Monday that the nation would conduct 8 million tests by the end of May but that the Federal government would still only act in a supporting role.
That adds up to 2% of each state’s population per month, which experts say is not enough testing. Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Health Committee, said on Monday that Mr. Trump’s plan was meaningless: “This document does nothing new and will accomplish nothing new,” Ms. Murray said in a statement. “It doesn’t set specific, numeric goals, offer a time frame, identify ways to fix our broken supply chain, or offer any details whatsoever on expanding lab capacity or activating needed manufacturing capacity. Perhaps most pathetically, it attempts to shirk obvious federal responsibilities by assigning them solely to states instead.”
On Tuesday Trump signed an executive order invoking the Defense Production Act to provide federal support of the meat production plants.
This week the death toll passed 56,000: The coronavirus has killed more Americans in 12 weeks than the Vietnam war killed in 19 years.
Personal Log: The state opened up the parks and golf courses on Friday. Masks and social distancing are required.
Here is Haberman’s report on Trump’s recent support for lockdown protests: “he is road-testing a new turn on a familiar theme — veering into messages aimed at appealing to Americans whose lives have been disrupted by the stay-at-home orders… two other people close to the president, who asked for anonymity in order to speak candidly, said they thought the protests could be politically helpful to Mr. Trump, while acknowledging there might be public health risks.”
Frum puts it more starkly: “What if reopening leads to a surge in deaths that cannot be politically contained? In that case, Trump reverts to his Plan B: a culture war against Democratic governors and blue states.”
Here is a good piece on the Washington lobbying groups who are behind the protests, mainly old Tea Party groups Freedom Works and Tea Party Patriots.
This week the Governor of Georgia, taking cues from Trump, said he was re-opening his state, discussed with with Trump on the phone Tuesday night, and then Wednesday Trump said at a press briefing that he disagreed with the decision. The article is also a good list of states that are relaxing their lockdowns by the end of the month: Alabama, Tennessee, Texas, South Carolina, Florida, and Colorado.
The Senate passed a $484 billion deal Tuesday to replenish a small-business loan program that’s been overrun by demand and to devote more money to hospitals and coronavirus testing.
The House passed a new stimulus bill Thursday. Democrats got much of what they wanted: the small-business “got $320 billion in new funds, including $60 billion secured by Democrats to be funneled through smaller community lenders to reach businesses that can struggle to get loans from big banks. Also included were $60 billion to replenish exhausted Small Business Administration disaster relief accounts, $75 billion for hospitals and $25 billion for Covid-19 testing, plus a mandate that the Trump administration establish a strategy to help states vastly step up the deployment of tests throughout the country — a move Republicans had opposed.”
As an indication for how the daily press briefings are going, on Thursday Trump said this: So supposing we hit the body with tremendous whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light. And I think you said that hasn’t been checked but you’re going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you’re going to test that too. Sounds interesting. And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that, so, that, you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me, so we’ll see. But the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute, that’s pretty powerful.
This New York Times piece checks in on how Trump is dealing with his own lock down: -“President Trump arrives in the Oval Office these days as late as noon, when he is usually in a sour mood after his morning marathon of television.” -“the president’s primary focus, advisers said, is assessing how his performance on the virus is measured in the news media, and the extent to which history will blame him.” -“The daily White House coronavirus task force briefing is the one portion of the day that Mr. Trump looks forward to, although even Republicans say that the two hours of political attacks, grievances and falsehoods by the president are hurting him politically. Mr. Trump will hear none of it. Aides say he views them as prime-time shows that are the best substitute for the rallies he can no longer attend but craves.” -“Mr. Trump rarely attends the task force meetings that precede the briefings, and he typically does not prepare before he steps in front of the cameras. He is often seeing the final version of the day’s main talking points that aides have prepared for him for the first time although aides said he makes tweaks with a Sharpie just before he reads them live. “
This from the New York Times on Trump’s election prospects: President Trump’s erratic handling of the coronavirus outbreak, the worsening economy and a cascade of ominous public and private polling have Republicans increasingly nervous that they are at risk of losing the presidency and the Senate if Mr. Trump does not put the nation on a radically improved course.
According to reporting by the New York Times: In recent weeks, the president’s family business has inquired about changing its lease payments, according to people familiar with the matter, which the federal government has reported amount to nearly $268,000 per month. … The younger Mr. Trump said the company was asking the G.S.A. for any relief that it might be granting other federal tenants.
Another 4.4 million people filed for unemployment, bringing the total to 26 million.
Personal Log: Relatives in New Jersey with prior health conditions got a note from their doctor to be tested; they went to a drive through testing cite, were initially told they could not be tested without a doctor’s note and an appointment, but after stating their conditions, were allowed to be tested: the nasal swab through the window. They received their negative results via phone call the next day.
—
Trump Approval Rating: 43.4%
US COVID-19 Cases/Deaths with % increase: 865,585 (30.8%) / 48,816 (47.7%)
This unprecedented world-historical event has the potential to lead to significant changes in our society and politics. By mid-April 2020, as we closed out a month of lockdowns with the anticipation of another month or more of the same, the dim shadows of those changes began to take shape. This post will be the first in an ongoing series of monthly checkins, where I try to meet three objectives:
Stamp the current mood and moment based on polling and a round up of what is driving the news; this can be used to track continuity or change on a monthly basis.
Try to name the changes that appear to be occurring, or the changes that others (journalists, writers, pundits) suggest are likely to occur
Pose questions to be revisited each month; this will help establish prior assumptions and give some rigor to the analysis of the changes
Polling Round Up
Pew and Gallop did some much cited polls in mid-April showing strong majorities support the lockdowns:
Gallop Poll: 66% of respondents said they were concerned the lockdowns would be ended too quickly. as do 51% of Republican aligned voters, with 81% for Democrat aligned voters. This shows broad support for the lockdowns, since most Americans do not want them to go away. The question is how quickly this will shift as we enter the second month of national lockdowns. By itself the 30% partisan gap will be an interesting indicator of views of the lockdowns based on whether that gap closes, and which side moves toward the other: Democrats becoming more skeptical of the lockdowns or Republicans less skeptical; it’s possible Republicans will grow more skeptical, thus widening the gap.
Pew Poll: More Americans are worried about contracting COVID-19 than not worried by 14 points. Whether this split shrinks, widens, or remains the same will be an indicator of fear of the virus, and this support for efforts to fight it. The split for worry over financial effects is only 3 points (with a majority of 51% not worried and 48% are worried). How much this split increases and in what direction will be a good indicator of how the economy is affecting people.
As a baseline, according to fivethirtyeight’s polling aggregate, Americans concern over infection increased from 41% in mid-February to 74% in mid-April. Concern over the economy rose from 55% to 87% over the same period.
The country is evenly split on Trump’s response: 48.7% Disapprove vs. 47.6% Approve.
Scope of the Challenge
If the virus simply goes away, or the problems it poses to society become less sever, then the changes I hope to track and document here will not occur, or they will be less consequential. However, if the medical, economic and political crises intensify, so will the changes to society. Right now in mid-April 2020 experts think the the crisis will intensify.
This New York Times piece, based on interviews with 20 medical experts, does a good job illustrating just how hard it will be to get back to normal. Here are a few key details:
Reopening requires declining cases for 14 days, the tracing of 90 percent of contacts, an end to health care worker infections, recuperation places for mild cases and many other hard-to-reach goals.
Most American vaccine plants produce only about 5 million to 10 million doses a year… But if a vaccine is invented, the United States could need 300 million doses — or 600 million if two shots are required. And just as many syringes.
On testing: About 20 percent of those tested so far were positive for the virus, a rate that the researchers say is too high…. The researchers said that expanded testing could reduce the rate to 10 percent, which is the maximum rate recommended by the World Health Organization. In Germany, that number is 7 percent, and in South Korea, it is closer to 3 percent.
CDC Director Redfield is also saying that next winter we could be is worse shape because a resurgence of COVID-19 will correspond with regular flu season: As stay-at-home orders are lifted, officials need to stress the continued importance of social distancing, he said. They also need to massively scale up their ability to identify the infected through testing and find everyone they interact with through contact tracing. Doing so prevents new cases from becoming larger outbreaks.
Political Weirding
Politics is currently in flux in long term and short term ways. The long term flux has to do with the expansion of government to correct inequities laid bare by this crisis.
Dan Balz wrote in long form on this topic: “For the first time, many Americans are looking to government for their very economic survival. In time, that could make them look at government differently. … “I think it could be paradigm shifting,” said Janet L. Yellen, the former Federal Reserve chair, arguing that this crisis could generate greater public support for more spending on health care and safety net programs, which she favors. The coming battle over the size and scope of government has not been fully joined, and its shape remains uncertain. The first engagement will come during this fall’s presidential election.”
Jamelle Bouie is more to the point in this piece: “Should the health and economic crisis extend through the year, there’s a strong chance that Americans will move even further down that road, as businesses shutter, unemployment continues to mount and the federal government is the only entity that can keep the entire economy afloat. But this logic — that ordinary people need security in the face of social and economic volatility — is as true in normal times as it is under crisis. If something like a social democratic state is feasible under these conditions, then it is absolutely possible when growth is high and unemployment is low…. voters might begin to see this essential truth.”
The short term flux is how Trump and his allies will manage this crisis to keep from being tossed out of office this November.
As Jeremy Menchick says in this tweet thread: “Continued protests will distract the electorate. If the election is a fight between Trump vs Governors who refuse to open their economies, Trump doesn’t have to defend his record on COVID-19. He’s an advocate for liberty! [and} will help Trump rebuild his coalition of 2016.”
David Frum puts it more starkly: “What if reopening leads to a surge in deaths that cannot be politically contained? In that case, Trump reverts to his Plan B: a culture war against Democratic governors and blue states.” Or by blaming the Chinese, which GOP operatives are already trying to push, with some resistance from Trump and others in the Administration.
Questions Going Forward
When will the need for massive federal intervention in the crisis become apparent to most Americans, if at all? (Some Senate Republicans are already calling for more of a federal role in testing than the Trump administration has agreed to)
When will economic fears overcome fears of the virus? Will fears of the virus–and thus support for the lockdowns–fade?
Will the anti-lockdown protests grow to Tea Party size and cultural status? (It is pretty clear the astroturf protests are being funded and organized by a narrow set of Trump-aligned interest groups)
The criticisms of Trump’s early response continued this week… Here is Bill Kristol: February was the lost month to deal with the virus. April, we hope, will be the virus’s cruelest month. But February was the incubation period, the period of presidential misinformation and maladministration that made the disaster of March and April—and everything after—possible.
Throughout most of his press briefings this week Trump has raved against the narrative that he botched the early period of fighting the virus, of which trying to shift blame to the WHO is a part. On Tuesday, the president tried to shift the blame elsewhere, ordering his administration to halt funding for the World Health Organization and claiming the organization made a series of devastating mistakes
Trump announced the US was stopping funds for the WHO: “It is not yet clear how the United States will cut off money to the main international organization focused on fighting the pandemic, or whether Trump is setting conditions for a resumption of U.S. payments.”
The GOP establishment is looking to channel voter anger away from itself onto China, except Trump and some in the White House are balancing that strategy against wanting to continue to court China for favorable trade deals: From the Republican lawmakers blanketing Fox News to new ads from President Trump’s super PAC to the biting criticism on Donald Trump Jr.’s Twitter feed, the G.O.P. is attempting to divert attention from the administration’s heavily criticized response to the coronavirus by pinning the blame on China…. Republicans increasingly believe that elevating China as an archenemy culpable for the spread of the virus, and harnessing America’s growing animosity toward Beijing, may be the best way to salvage a difficult election.
At Wednesday’s press conference Trump announced a group of business leaders he said he had enlisted to help him reopen the economy: Advisers said the effort was aimed at building national momentum to reopen much of the country’s economy by next month…. But across the business world, there was private unhappiness with how the White House handled the announcement of the advisory council… Many of the chief executives urged the White House to focus more on mass testing… Some of the groups involved in the calls were notified in advance of Trump’s announcement, while others heard their names for the first time during the Rose Garden event.
Here is the New York Times take: Some business leaders had no idea they were included until they heard that their names had been read in the Rose Garden on Tuesday night by President Trump. Some of those who had agreed to help said they received little information on what, exactly, they were signing up for. And others who were willing to connect with the White House could not participate in hastily organized conference calls on Wednesday because of scheduling conflicts and technical difficulties.
According to this news report: most of the country is not conducting nearly enough testing to track the path and penetration of the coronavirus in a way that would allow Americans to safely return to work.
The small business loan program ran out of money this week, and it has been beset with problems since it launched: “Banks participating in the loan program were given wide discretion over who to lend to, and many chose only to lend to businesses they had existing relationships with. That left many small business owners — including those in minority and underserved communities — unable to borrow because they didn’t have prior ties to a lender or didn’t have a strong enough relationship with their existing lender.”
Here is a good summary of how the courts intervened in the Wisconsin election last Tuesday, and how despite the voting challenges of long socially distancing lines and closed polling places and uncounted absentee ballots, the liberal state supreme court justice was victorious. There is also evidence of an uptick on COVID-19 cases resulting from the election day.
There were small rallies in a few states against the lockdown orders, organized by conservative groups protesting Democratic governors and a few Republicans ones, or government or libertarian groups.
In tweets and statements at his Friday press conference, Trump encouraged the protests: His stark departure from the more bipartisan tone of his announcement on Thursday night suggested Mr. Trump was ceding any semblance of national leadership on the pandemic, and choosing instead to divide the country by playing to his political base.
On Thursday the White House released its plan to re-open the country. It is a measured approach that sets some general guidance on criteria before proceeding with a phased re-opening. However: he plan endorses testing, isolation and contact tracing — but does not specify how these measures will be paid for, or how long it will take to put them in place. On Friday, [April 17] none of that stopped the president from contradicting his own message by sending out tweets encouraging protesters in Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia to fight their states’ shutdowns.
According to New York Times interviews with 20 experts: “The scenario that Mr. Trump has been unrolling at his daily press briefings — that the lockdowns will end soon, that a protective pill is almost at hand, that football stadiums and restaurants will soon be full — is a fantasy, most experts said.”
The CDC and FDA admitted on Saturday that lab contamination led to the faulty early tests for COVID-19.
Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus, is arguably the leading cause of death in the United States right now. The virus has killed more than 1,800 Americans almost every day since April 7, and the official toll may be an undercount.
Jobless claims continued to increase this week: In the last four weeks, the number of unemployment claims has reached 22 million — roughly the net number of jobs created in a nine-and-a-half-year stretch that began after the last recession and ended with the pandemic’s arrival.
Personal Log: Wearing masks became normalized this week. In the weeks before, you could go to the grocery store or Home Depot and see enough people not wearing masks that you felt a bit self conscious wearing one. No longer. Some places have signs requiring masks. The stores have someone counting customers in the door, and lines form as they limit the number who come in until others leave; we all try to stand six feet apart.
