You’ve likely seen reports of new flare-ups or surges or outbreaks of COVID around the world in countries that appeared to have been ‘doing well’ – Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, et al. These are real outbreaks and the countries are, unsurprisingly, reacting swiftly to stamp them out. But how these stories are received in the United States painfully illustrates our collective inability to grasp the sheer magnitude of our failure with COVID.
Let me give you one example.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said Tuesday that the most recent coronavirus relief package put forward by Senate Republicans on Monday reinforced “corporate benefits” — including those that could benefit President Donald Trump’s hotel business.
Schumer told CBS’ Anthony Mason in an interview Tuesday that the bill was “stingy” in that it provided “no money for food stamps but a deduction for a three martini lunch for a big businessman.”
Schumer also slammed the proposal as “woefully inadequate” in meeting needs to help schools reopen, and criticized cuts to the enhanced unemployment benefits.
While many of the GOP’s efforts to skimp on benefits to unemployed workers were anticipated far before the proposal was unveiled, Schumer expressed his surprise Monday at finding a provision for a new D.C. FBI headquarters buried in the GOP proposal.
In calling for a new facility in downtown Washington, D.C., the White House is pushing to sidestep a plan to construct the FBI headquarters in the suburbs that was proposed before Trump took office, The Washington Post reported.
Last Thursday, a reporter asked Trump during a press briefing whether a report from The Post that a line item for a new FBI building was one of the things holding up the bill.
The President responded to the question by insisting that a new building was needed, adding that he wants the FBI to remain where it is, saying that despite the consideration of other locations “the site they have now is better.” The President described a brand new building with a running track on the roof “because FBI people like to work out a lot,” all along maintaining that “there’s nothing better” than where the facility is currently located.
Schumer, together with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), said on Monday that the request for $1.75 billion to rebuilt the FBI headquarters was a self-serving maneuver on the part of Trump.
The FBI headquarters, which currently sits on Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown Washington, is just a stone’s throw away from Trump’s hotel. Schumer and Pelosi have echoed the concerns of those who say that the White House’s insistence on plan to keep it there is a move that puts money in Trump’s pockets, since any consideration of its relocation would leave open a prime piece of real estate that could be occupied by a new hotel — creating competition to the nearby Trump International Hotel.
Schumer hammered down on that point Tuesday, condemning the move to CBS by saying the budget for the FBI building was really about ensuring that “no new competing hotel can come in.”
In 2018, the Wall Street Journal uncovered documents in the controversy that even demonstrated that the White House “was aware” that building a new facility on the same plot “would cost more than a competing proposal to relocate to the suburbs.”
Some Senate Republicans have also suggested that earmarking money for a new FBI building is a distraction from actual pandemic relief.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who had already taken some heat for the delayed relief bill, told reporters during a press conference Monday that he was not aware the money for the FBI headquarters was included.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), a staunch ally of the President’s, even said Tuesday he would support removing the provision, adding that didn’t know why it was in the package in the first place. “That makes no sense to me,” Graham said.
We’re already seeing several themes emerging from the House Judiciary Committee’s hearing with Attorney General Bill Barr that began this morning.
PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The mayors of Portland, Oregon, and five other major U.S. cities appealed Monday to Congress to make it illegal for the federal government to deploy militarized agents to cities that don’t want their presence.
“This administration’s egregious use of federal force on cities over the objections of local authorities should never happen,” the mayors of Portland; Seattle; Chicago; Kansas City; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Washington wrote to leaders of the U.S. House and Senate.
Video from early Tuesday showed law enforcement officers in Portland filling a street with tear gas to disperse protesters and several loud booms were heard.
Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler and City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty late Monday called for a meeting with Acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf to discuss a cease-fire and removal of heightened federal forces from Portland.
Earlier Monday, a U.S. official said militarized officers will stay in Portland until attacks on the federal courthouse cease — and that more officers may soon head to the city.
“It is not a solution to tell federal officers to leave when there continues to be attacks on federal property and personnel,” U.S. Attorney Billy Williams said. ”We are not leaving the building unprotected to be destroyed by people intent on doing so.”
Local and state officials said the federal officers are unwelcome.
The city has had nightly protests for two months since the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May. President Donald Trump said he sent the federal agents to Portland to halt the unrest, but state and local officials said they are making the situation worse.
Trump’s deployment of the federal officers over the July 4 weekend stoked the Black Lives Matter movement. The number of nightly protesters had dwindled to perhaps less than 100 right before the deployment but has now has swelled to the thousands.
In protests and violence that happened Sunday night into early Monday morning, the federal agents repeatedly fired tear gas, flash bangs and pepper balls at protesters outside the federal courthouse in downtown Portland. Some protesters had climbed over the fence surrounding the courthouse, while others shot fireworks, banged on the fence and projected lights on the building.
Trump said on Twitter that federal properties in Portland “wouldn’t last a day” without the presence of the federal agents.
Most people participating in the daily demonstrations have been peaceful. But some attempt to pelt officers with objects and repeatedly try to tear down fencing around the courthouse.
Williams, whose office is inside the courthouse, called on peaceful protesters, community and business leaders and people of faith to prevent violence while they are there and to leave the downtown area before violence starts. He said federal agents have made 83 arrests.
Demonstrations in support of racial justice and police reform in other cities around the U.S. were also marred by violence over the weekend. Protesters set fire to an Oakland, California, courthouse; vehicles were set ablaze in Richmond, Virginia; an armed protester was shot and killed in Austin, Texas; and two people were shot and wounded in Aurora, Colorado, after a car drove through a protest.
The U.S. Marshals Service has lined up about 100 people they could send to hotspots, either to strengthen forces or relieve officers who have been working for weeks, agency spokesperson Drew Wade said.
Kris Cline, principal deputy director of Federal Protective Service, said an incident commander in Portland and teams from the Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice discuss what force is needed every night.
Cline declined to discuss the number of officers currently present or if more would be arriving.
Some protesters have accused Wheeler, Portland’s mayor, of hypocrisy for speaking out against the federal presence because Portland police under his watch have used tear gas and other riot-control weapons on protesters, including peaceful ones.
Cline said Portland police should take over the job of dispersing protesters from the courthouse area from the federal officers.
“If the Portland Police Bureau were able to do what they typically do, they would be able to clear this out for this disturbance and we would leave our officers inside the building and not be visible,” Cline said.
He said relations between the federal officers, some of whom live in Portland, and city police were good.
Portland police responded Sunday evening to a shooting at a park close to the site of the protests. Two people were detained and later released, police said. The person who was shot went to the hospital in a private vehicle and was treated for a non-life-threatening wound.
Also late Sunday, police said someone pointed out a bag in the same park, where officers found loaded rifle magazines and Molotov cocktails. The shooting was not related to the items, police said.
___
Associated Press writer Mike Balsamo contributed to this report from Washington. Selsky reported from Salem, Oregon.
President Donald Trump on Monday night said he doesn’t think there’s any more he could have done to improve his performance since he took office more than three years ago.
“I’m not sure I could have done any more,” Trump told WRAL, a local news station in North Carolina — the state where he is expected to accept the Republican bid for a second term in August. The President has said he will formally confirm those details by early next week.
“We’ve done more than I think any administration has done,” Trump told the NBC-affiliated station when asked to reflect on his term as President, adding that “nobody even challenges that.”
But the President has been widely criticized by Democrats and Republicans alike for his mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic, which has quickly spun out of control in the United States. More than 4.2 million cases have been reported across the country and the virus has killed more than 146,000 people nationwide according to the CDC. On Friday, White House coronavirus task force coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx compared the dire situation in California, Florida and Texas to “three New Yorks,” as the virus spread like wildfire in those states. The President on Monday countered those statements, claiming that the situation in those hotspots is beginning to improve and they’re doing “very well.”
Without commenting directly about any kind of federal response to the crisis — Trump had suspended even his own daily briefings until recently — the President touted a decision he made months ago to ban travel from China to the United States. That ban he said is among his biggest achievements amid the pandemic — that apparently no other decision since has been able to outshine.
The President has meanwhile renewed praise for an unproven claim that an anti-malaria drug can be used to effectively treat COVID-19, even though the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci and others have warned of the danger of encouraging its use as treatment.
The President lamented that “things were really starting to come together” before what he called “the plague from China” made landfall in the United States, but argued that since that time “we shut it down” — even as cases continue to climb and the President’s team of experts warn that thousands more people will die if adequate action to curb the virus is not established quickly.
“We’re going to have a tremendous next year,” Trump said, adding that this year, “we’re going to have a great third quarter.”
But new data from the Census Bureau last week showed that the number of employed people fell by more than 4 million last week — marking the fourth consecutive week of decline.
Twitter has slapped temporary restrictions on Donald Trump Jr., the son of President Donald Trump, for posting a video published by far-right media outlet Breitbart News that peddled false information about COVID-19.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, who played a key role in the Russia investigation but whose pejorative text messages about Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign made him a target of the president’s wrath, is releasing a book on his concerns the president could be compromised.
“Compromised: Counterintelligence and the Threat of Donald J. Trump” is due out Sept. 8, publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books & Media said in a statement to The Associated Press.
Continue reading “Peter Strzok Publishing Book Titled ‘Compromised’ About Trump, Russia”
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis.
At the very end of the Supreme Court’s 2019-2020 term, the Justices finally decided cases on who could get access to President Donald Trump’s personal financial records. At issue in these cases were whether a prosecutor in New York and congressional committees could get their hands on Trump’s taxes and other financial information from his banks and accountants. An unnoticed winner in these cases was Summer Zervos, a woman who has been suing the President civilly for the past four years.
Continue reading “The Unlikely Winner In The SCOTUS Trump Tax Cases: Summer Zervos”
Attorney General Bill Barr will tangle with House Democrats on Tuesday, in his first appearance before the House Judiciary Committee in nearly a year and a half.
The topic of the hearing is broad: general oversight of the Justice Department. The hearing is expected to cover multiple subject areas and several DOJ-related controversies of the last few months: from Barr’s handling of the prosecutions of President Trump’s allies, to his botched firing of the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, to the Department’s involvement in crackdowns on peaceful protestors across the country.
Barr’s opening remarks took a combative tone, setting the stage for what could be a confrontational hearing. Follow along below.
The nation’s top infectious diseases expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci on Tuesday said that he doesn’t have much to say for President Donald Trump’s habit of tweeting nonsense about the coronavirus and undermining his expertise.
“I don’t tweet. I don’t even read them so I don’t really want to go there,” Fauci told Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos on Tuesday. “I just will continue to do my job no matter what comes out because I think it’s very important.”
The comments come as President Trump has returned to pushing unproven claims about an anti-malaria drug as an effective treatment to COVID-19 — a move that challenges the credibility of the nation’s leading infectious disease expert. On Monday, he retweeted a post that suggested Fauci had “misled the American public” about the legitimacy of the drug as treatment.
“We’re in the middle of a crisis with regard to an epidemic, a pandemic, this is what I do, this is what I’ve been trained for my entire professional life, and I’ll continue to do it,” Fauci said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci to @GStephanopoulos: “I don't tweet. I don't even read them so I don't really want to go there. I just will continue to do my job no matter what comes out because I think it's very important.” https://t.co/JgCvhTifYS pic.twitter.com/BJGIqwSjuT
— Good Morning America (@GMA) July 28, 2020
Late Monday, the President also retweeted a post that falsely claimed that there was a cure for the coronavirus.
“Covid has cure. America wake up,” the tweet read — it has since been deleted by Twitter.
Monday’s tweet as well as Trump’s recent renewed praise of hydroxychloroquine, follows a remark made by the President on Friday that he “often” regrets what he posts to Twitter, when Bartstool Sports executive David Portnoy asked if he ever lamented his tweets.
Although President Trump and Dr. Fauci maintain in public that they have a “very good” relationship, White House staff have smeared the infectious diseases expert in recent weeks, even sending out a memo earlier this month in which they purported to list off Fauci’s failures in handling the coronavirus pandemic.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro earlier this month also attacked Fauci in an op-ed that was published by USA Today. The White House addressed the op-ed by saying that Navarro had acted without authorization.
