Monday evening Trump left the hospital and returned to the White House. He staged dramatic video where he ripped his mask off when he stood on the portico.
This by Tim Miller for The Bulwark sums up the moment: That heave gave him the stamina to move into a dramatic extended salute lasting 23 interminable seconds. He salutes with D-list caudillo energy, channeling an aging Pinochet or Trujillo in their last gasps of power. Throughout the salute he holds an aggressive glare. Then he steps back and looks deep into the distance. Fully embracing his posture as the leader of a death cult, Trump turns and enters the White House. Without a mask.
The New York Times webpage on Tuesday night shows why there is simply too much news to be covered here. Future historians reading this blog will need to do some digging in the actual newspapers and official records for this week.
Suffice to say, 14 people now have COVID in Trump’s orbit: The disarray was at the same time spreading across Washington. Almost the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff, including its chairman, Gen. Mark A. Milley, went into quarantine on Tuesday after coming in contact with Adm. Charles W. Ray, the vice commandant of the Coast Guard, who tested positive for the coronavirus. Late in the day, the stock market took a dive when Mr. Trump abruptly called off talks for a congressional coronavirus relief bill after the Fed chair, Jerome H. Powell, said such a stimulus was badly needed.
Election 2020
President Trump berated his own cabinet officers on Thursday for not prosecuting or implicating his political enemies, lashing out even as he announced that he hoped to return to the campaign trail on Saturday just nine days after he tested positive for the coronavirus.
Barr and Pompeo are using their offices to support Trump’s reelection. Pompeo promised this week to release Clinton state department emails: “We’ve got the emails,” Mr. Pompeo said. “We’re getting them out. We’re going to get all this information out so the American people can see it.”
He made no effort to suggest that releasing them was unconnected to the political campaign. “We’re doing it as fast as we can,” he added. “I certainly think there’ll be more to see before the election.”
Polls show Biden’s lead increasing, including in the sun belt states: f Mr. Biden wins by simply flipping back the Democratic-leaning Great Lakes states, Mr. Trump and his allies can pin the blame on the virus. But if Mr. Trump loses across the South and West, it would force a much deeper introspection on the right about Trump and Trumpism — and their electoral future in the fastest-growing and most diverse part of the country.
The Trump campaign is also pushing hardball tactics: The campaign is trying to shape the voting process in many ways. Following the president’s lead, it has undertaken a legal and rhetorical assault on mail-in balloting, claiming with no evidence that it is rife with fraud. It is also pushing the boundaries of traditional poll monitoring in ways that many Democrats believe amount to voter intimidation. And it has put legal pressure on states to aggressively purge their voter rolls. …campaign officials have said they will put 50,000 poll watchers and electoral observers on the ground, including at least 1,600 in Philadelphia alone.
Claire Malone of 530 explains how the 36 point partisan divide in American politics make the reality bubbles of post-election inevitable: During the first debate, the president waffled on whether he would concede defeat, falling back on his go-to line about the fraudulent — and unfounded — dangers of mail voting. If he actually does this post-Election Day, media organizations will be forced to grapple with reporting on the news of the day — the president’s words — and battling misinformation and mistrust. It’s more than the press had to contend with in 2000, and it’s an unwinnable scenario. But it’s the reality of our 36-point world.
Another New York Times tax expose was released Friday night: the president’s long-hidden tax records, obtained by The New York Times, also reveal this: how he engineered a sudden financial windfall — more than $21 million in what experts describe as highly unusual one-off payments from the Las Vegas hotel he owns with his friend the casino mogul Phil Ruffin…. Unless the payments were for actual business expenses, he said, claiming a tax deduction for them would be illegal. If they were not legitimate and were also used to fund Mr. Trump’s presidential run, they could be considered illegal campaign contributions.
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Trump’s Job Approval: 43.3%
COVID-19 Cases/Deaths: 7,641,502 / 213,037