;)
The Commentariat -- March 30, 2020
Afternoon Update:
From the New York Times live updates: "Mr. Trump said Monday that he and his advisers expected the number of people who test positive to peak around Easter, though he cited no data to back up his claim. 'Thats' going to be the highest point, we think, and then it's going to start coming down from there,' Mr. Trump said during an interview on Fox & Friends. 'That will be a day of celebration, and we just want to do it right so we picked the end of April.'" ~~~
~~~ Rebecca Shabad of NBC News: "... Donald Trump said Monday that he wouldn't mind running against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo for president, adding that he thought Cuomo would make a better candidate than former Vice President Joe Biden.... 'I think probably Andrew would be better,' Trump continued. 'I'm telling you right now, you know, I want somebody [for] this country that's gonna do a great job, and I hope I'm going to win.'" ~~~
~~~ Morgan Chalfant of the Hill: "President Trump on Monday lashed out at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for criticizing his response to the coronavirus pandemic.... 'It's a sad thing,' Trump said during a call-in interview on 'Fox & Friends' Monday morning after he was asked to respond to Pelosi's criticism a day prior. 'She's a sick puppy in my opinion. She's got a lot of problems.' Pelosi on Sunday accused Trump of downplaying the public health crisis in a way that cost American lives, saying that 'his denial at the beginning was deadly' on CNN...."
Nick Visser of the Huffington Post: "Former Vice President Joe Biden castigated ... Donald Trump for questioning how many protective masks hospitals were using amid the spread of COVID-19, calling such statements 'among the most reckless and ignorant' he had made during the ongoing pandemic."
Dan Diamond of Politico: "The Food and Drug Administration on Sunday issued an emergency use authorization for hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine, decades-old malaria drugs championed by ... Donald Trump for coronavirus treatment despite scant evidence. The agency allowed for the drugs to be 'donated to the Strategic National Stockpile to be distributed and prescribed by doctors to hospitalized teen and adult patients with COVID-19, as appropriate, when a clinical trial is not available or feasible,' HHS said in a statement, announcing that Sandoz donated 30 million doses of hydroxychloroquine to the stockpile and Bayer donated 1 million doses of chloroquine." Mrs. McC: Take 'em now; we'll test 'em later. Good luck!
Rachel Roubein of Politico: "The Trump administration has approved the first system for sterilizing specialized face masks worn by front-line health workers battling the coronavirus, potentially easing the severe shortage of the protective gear. The FDA also reversed course on a daily cap for the decontamination system, less than 24 hours after Ohio's Republican governor criticized the FDA on Sunday morning for the limit. As of Sunday night, the agency will let the machines be deployed to sites around the country and there won't be a limit on the number of masks they're allowed to clean each day."
Mrs. McCrabbie: So yesterday, I was wondering why the NRA thought gunsellers provided "essential" services, and I joked that maybe NRA members figured they should go out & shoot the neighbors if they suspected the neighbors might be coronavirus carriers. Well, not so funny. "A Maine man... ~~~
~~~ Alaa Elassar of CNN: "A Maine man said armed neighbors descended on his home and chopped down a tree to block his road and prevent him from leaving because they believed he may have coronavirus.... Officers learned that some residents believed the [man's] roommates needed to be quarantined. None of the roommate who were from New Jersey and were renting a home in Vinalhaven while working a construction job since September, showed symptoms consistent with Covid-19, deputies said. The residents had been on the island for nearly a month before the incident took place."
Marianna Sotomayor of NBC News: "Former Vice President Joe Biden took his virtual presidential campaign to the next level Monday when he launched a podcast as the coronavirus forces him to get creative in reaching voters otherwise distracted by a global pandemic. The podcast 'Here's the Deal' is intended to provide listeners 'a voice of clarity during uncertain times' by delving into pressing subjects affecting Americans' day-to-day lives in conversations between Biden and 'national top experts,' according to a description of the podcast shown to NBC News." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: If anyone knows how to access a podcast without having to join something or sign up for some Apple or Microsoft app, let me know, and I'll share it.
~~~~~~~~~~
The New York Times' coronavirus updates for Monday are here. the Washington Post's live updates for Monday are here.
From the WashPo: An outbreak of the novel coronavirus in rural Washington state has been traced to a choir group's weekly rehearsal, the Los Angeles Times reported. On March 10, 60 members of the Skagit Valley Chorale attended practice. Since then, two have died, three have been hospitalized, and 45 have either tested positive or shown symptoms of covid-19, the paper reported. The outbreak was notable given that the singers, wary of the virus's growing death toll in Seattle, were careful to use hand sanitizer, avoid physical contact and keep a distance from one another. None appeared to be ill at the time. County health officials have concluded the virus must have been transmitted through the air by singers who were asymptomatic, the Times reported. If so, it would bolster the findings of researchers who say the virus can be transmitted through microscopic aerosols, in addition to the much larger respiratory droplets that are emitted when someone coughs or sneezes.
The New York Times' coronavirus updates for Sunday are here. (Also linked yesterday.) "President Trump said Sunday that the federal government's guidelines for social distancing would last until April 30, backing down from his previous comments that he hoped the country could go back to work by Easter.... Earlier in the day, a commercial aircraft carrying gloves, masks, gowns and other medical supplies from Shanghai touched down at Kennedy International Airport in New York, the first in a series of roughly 20 flights that White House officials say will funnel much-needed goods to the United States by early April.... The flights are the product of a public-private partnership -- led by Jared Kushner..., in which the administration is looking to health care distributors like McKesson Corporation, Cardinal, Owens & Minor, Medline, and Henry Schein.... Mr. Trump on Sunday appeared to suggest that New York hospitals are doing something improper with their surgical masks, saying that he does not believe they really need the amount of equipment they have said would be necessary.... Asked to elaborate on his allegation, he said, 'I think people should check that because there's something going on.... I don't think it's hoarding. I think it's maybe worse than hoarding.'" ~~~
~~~ Jonathan Chait: "... Trump's insinuation that theft is to blame for hospital mask shortages during this pandemic, at a time when hundreds of hospitals across the country -- and countries across the world -- are all begging for more masks, is insane.... But Trump has also consistently foisted blame for his administration's failure onto others. Appearing on Sean Hannity's show last Thursday night, Trump denied that hospitals actually needed all the ventilators they say they need.... The fairly simple dynamic that a global pandemic creates a massively elevated demand for equipment necessary for its treatment -- which is no more complex than how Halloween creates a demand for pumpkins in late October -- appears to be incomprehensible to Trump. Of course, he is also motivated to deny the crisis. Trump has claimed the need for ventilators was completely unpredictable..., that the shortage of masks is Obama's fault, and governors 'should try getting [them] yourselves.' His attempts to shirk blame for the catastrophe are growing increasingly pathological." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: To be fair, it is not inconceivable that Donnie, the young entrepreneur, was out on the streets of Queens in July, trying to sell aluminum Christmas trees. Luckily, Fred bailed him out. ~~~
~~~ Michael Shear writes the New York Times' full story on Trump's Sunday briefing. ~~~
~~~ Mrs. Bea McCrabbie: This New York Times page (I think) provides a guide to the paper's free coronavirus coverage. The page also allows you to sign up for a daily e-mail which has a guide to the free coverage. ~~~
~~~ Washington Post live updates for Sunday are here. "Asked Sunday whether his previous statement about Easter was a mistake, Trump responded, 'No. It was just an aspiration.'"
And so, if we could hold that [number of American deaths] down, as we're saying, to 100,000 -- it's a horrible number, maybe even less, but to 100,000, so we have between 100 [thousand] and 200,000 -- we altogether have done a very good job. -- Donald Trump, at a press briefing Sunday ~~~
~~~ Zeke Miller & Jill Colvin of the AP: "Trump, who has largely avoided talk of potential death and infection rates, cited projection models that said potentially 2.2 million people or more could have died had the country not put social distancing measures in place. And he said the country would be doing well if it 'can hold' the number of deaths 'down to 100,000.' 'It's a horrible number,' Trump said, but added: 'We all together have done a very good job.'... The U.S. had more than 139,000 COVID-19 cases reported by Sunday evening, with more than 2,400 deaths. During the course of the Rose Garden briefing, reported deaths grew by several dozen and the number of cases by several thousand.... Brought forward by Trump at the outdoor briefing, [Dr. Anthony] Fauci said his projection of a potential 100,000 to 200,000 deaths is 'entirely conceivable' if not enough is done to mitigate the crisis. He said that helped shape the extension of the guidelines, 'a wise and prudent decision.'... Fauci's prediction would take the death toll well past that of the average seasonal flu. Trump repeatedly cited the flu's comparatively much higher cost in lives in playing down the severity of this pandemic." ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Whether it was Fauci and/or others or the teevee, somebody or something finally got through to the Useless Idiot. At his press conference today, he said, "I've been watching that for the last week on television. Body bags all over, in hallways. I've been watching them bring in trailer trucks -- freezer trucks, they're freezer trucks, because they can't handle the bodies, there are so many of them. This is essentially in my community, in Queens, Queens, New York. I've seen things that I've never seen before." ~~~
~~~ Philip Rucker of the Washington Post thinks it's the bodybags, a friend of Trump's who is in a coma, and maybe the 2-million figure: "The prospect of 2 million deaths seemed to stick with Trump because he repeated the statistic 16 times at Sunday's news conference."
~~~ Daniel Dale & Tara Subramaniam of CNN: "... Donald Trump has made numerous false and misleading statements at the near-daily White House coronavirus briefings. Here is a fact check of his Sunday briefing in the Rose Garden[.]... Trump falsely denied that he claimed governors from certain states are asking for equipment they don't need.... Yamiche Alcindor asked the President whether he felt his comments and belief 'that some of the equipment that governors are requesting they don't actually need' would have an impact on the federal distribution of ventilators and other medical resources. As Alcindor attempted to finish her question, the President interjected, 'I didn't say that.'... He did say that.... On March 26 during a Fox News interview with Sean Hannity, Trump said, "a lot of equipment's being asked for that I don't think they'll need" specifically in reference to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo..." There's more, of course. ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Worth noting: during the same presser in which he claimed he never said states were asking for equipment they don't need, Trump claimed that New York hospitals were "doing something ... worse than hoarding" PPE.
Our Nero. As the president fiddles, people are dying. -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi, on CNN Sunday morning ~~~
~~~ Rebecca Klar of the Hill: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Sunday President Trump's delay and denial in responding to the coronavirus pandemic has had 'deadly' consequences for Americans. 'His denial at the beginning was deadly, his delaying of getting equipment ... to where it is needed is deadly, and now the best thing would be to do is to prevent more loss of life, rather than open things up so that because we just don't know,' Pelosi said on CNN's 'State of the Union.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Kamram Rahman of Politico: "Joe Biden urged ... Donald Trump on Sunday to 'stop thinking out loud and start thinking deeply' about his administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic. 'Look, the coronavirus is not the president fault, but the slow response, the failure to get going right away, the inability to do the things that needed to be done quickly -- they are things that can't continue,' the former vice president and Democratic presidential candidate said on NBC's 'Meet the Press.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Alan Smith of NBC News: "Dr. Anthony Fauci said Sunday that he anticipates the coronavirus could kill between 100,000 and 200,000 Americans while infecting 'millions.' Speaking with CNN's 'State of the Union,' the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said however he does not want to be 'held' to that prediction because the COVID-19 outbreak is 'such a moving target.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Kamran Rahman of Politico: "The White House Coronavirus Task Force unanimously shunned ... Donald Trump's suggestion of a quarantine in the New York City area, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Sunday. The president 'did very seriously consider' the idea of locking down the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, Mnuchin said on 'Fox News Sunday.' But Trump was dissuaded after a meeting with the task force led by Vice President Mike Pence." Mrs. McC: Say what? Are these guys initiating a united front against Trump's bluster? It's not like pence & Mnuchin to stand up to Trump, especially publicly -- and on Fox "News"! (See related WashPo item on pence linked yesterday. Politico story also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. Steve Holland of Reuters: "Trump, who initially dismissed the pandemic as 'under control,' is having to adjust his messaging to fit grim times, and some of his allies are pushing him to show more heart.... Two sources familiar with the internal dynamics of the White House said advisers twice intervened during the last week to nudge Trump to drop the strident language that is a hallmark of his presidency and instead seek to unite Americans.... After his outburst [in which he slammed NBC News reporter Peter Alexander for asking him what he had to say to fearful Americans], advisers urged Trump to 'tell people something real, something emotional, something heartfelt,' one source said. The next day, the president tried a softer tone. 'This is a time of shared national sacrifice, but it's also a time to treasure our loved ones,' he said. In the second case, Trump dropped - at least for now - his description of the disease as 'the Chinese virus' at the urging of aides.... In response, Trump sought to tamp down anti-Asian sentiment among some Americans, saying in a post on Twitter that 'it is very important that we totally protect our Asian American community.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: Surely both "concessions" were scripted by others. Sorry, Donnie, you're incapable of faking empathy. Andrew Cuomo, who is a lot tougher than you are, is able to show empathy that brings tears to the eyes of TV viewers -- because he means it. Narcissism just doesn't cut it here.
Jonathan Chait: "Trump happens to be enjoying his highest approval ratings at the moment. It is possible he will somehow maintain, or even enhance, his current standing. But his handling of the coronavirus -- even from the narrow perspective of politics, which is how Trump himself views it -- is doing almost everything to ensure that his bump is short-lived, and will eventually be followed by a long, steep decline. Trump's recent polling bump is real. The important context, though, is that every leader is getting approval bumps, and almost all of them are getting much bigger ones than Trump.... Rallying around a leader in the initial stages of a crisis is a well-known public-opinion phenomenon.... He said on camera, 'I don't take responsibility at all,' a line that will appear in almost every Democratic ad, because it violates Americans' most fundamental requirements of their leaders.... If he winds up winning reelection, it will be in spite of everything he has done so far." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Jonathan Swan & Joann Muller of Axios: "A plane from Shanghai arrived at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York Sunday morning carrying an extraordinary load: 12 million gloves, 130,000 N95 masks, 1.7 million surgical masks, 50,000 gowns, 130,000 hand sanitizer units, and 36,000 thermometers.... The flight is the start of what might end up being the largest government-led airlift of emergency medical supplies into the United States. That's according to Rear Adm. John Polowczyk, who runs the coronavirus supply chain task force at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). He spoke to Axios on Saturday night. The airlift is the most dramatic part of the Trump administration's frantic attempts to catch up with a nationwide medical equipment crisis. Polowczyk told Axios that he's already booked 22 similar flights over the next two weeks. Starting with this weekend's airlift, he said, 'We have essentially a flight a day, mostly from Asia' to expedite the transport of medical equipment that distributors already plan to sell into the U.S. This weekend's first load of medical supplies will go into the New York tri-state area, Polowczyk said, and subsequent flights will distribute supplies to other parts of the country." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: If Trump had done this six weeks ago, he would have won re-election. Instead, he's our Nero.
Juan Cole: "Trump has spent three and a half years dumping on immigrants to the United States, imagining them as rapists, gang members, and welfare moochers.... Trump's own complete uselessness has been revealed, as he frittered away January, February and early March being a coronavirus denialist.... He is worse than useless. Now that the problem has hit, guess what?... Nearly nearly one third of American physicians are foreign-born. And about a quarter of nursing aides are first-generation immigrants. They are on the ramparts, our first line of defense, risking their lives every day during the pandemic." --s
Neal Boudette & Andrew Jacobs of the New York Times on the G.M.-Ventec partnership to build ventilators. "When Mr. Trump lashed out at G.M. on Friday, executives at both companies were stunned.... 'What we've accomplished in five days is incredible,' Larryson Foltran, who works in a technology support group at G.M., wrote on Facebook, noting he had been working 14 to 18 hours a day. He said that the president's posts had bothered him 'on a deeper level.'" Thanks to unwashed for the link. Mrs. McC: Obviously Foltran has been too busy designing stuff to read anything about Trump's SOP. Trump's standard mode is tantrum, and the people who bear the brunt are those Trump considers underlings, which now includes everyone in the world.
Just a Timeline Reminder. Mike Pompeo Press Statement (Feb. 7): "This week the State Department has facilitated the transportation of nearly 17.8 tons of donated medical supplies to the Chinese people, including masks, gowns, gauze, respirators, and other vital materials.... Today, the United States government is announcing it is prepared to spend up to $100 million in existing funds to assist China and other impacted countries, both directly and through multilateral organizations, to contain and combat the novel coronavirus." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: This would have been a really good thing -- had we had or were developing adequate supplies in the U.S. But, as Sen. Chris Murphy [D-Conn.] tweeted on Feb. 5, two days before Mike's announcement, "Just left the Administration briefing on Coronavirus. Bottom line: they aren't taking this seriously enough. Notably, no request for ANY emergency funding, which is a big mistake. Local health systems need supplies, training, screening staff etc. And they need it now." (Story linked yesterday.) ~~~
~~~ Update. As Dean Obeidallah points out in a CNN opinion piece, on the same day (Feb. 7) Pompeo was boasting about the donation to China, "the World Health Organization sounded alarm bells about 'the limited stock of PPE,' noting demand was 100 times higher than normal for this equipment.... How could Trump allow tons of vital medical equipment Americans [needed] to be transported to another country in February if, as he has claimed since January, he fully understood the risk the United States was facing from the virus. As a reminder, the first known case of coronavirus case on US soil was confirmed ... on January 21...."
Somebody Tell Trump. Christopher Ingraham of the Washington Post: "A new working paper from Michael Greenstone and Vishan Nigam of the University of Chicago's Becker Friedman Institute for Economics underscores that [saving lives & saving the economy] are complementary. A regimen of moderate social distancing, like what many areas of the country are doing now, has the potential to save well over a million lives. And those saved lives are worth $8 trillion to the U.S. economy. The paper takes as its starting point a coronavirus forecast published by Neil Ferguson and others at London's Imperial College Covid-19 Response Team. The analysis concluded that, left unchecked, the virus would kill 2.2 million people in the United States. It also found that moderate social distancing measures -- including a seven-day isolation for anyone showing symptoms, a 14-day voluntary quarantine for their household, and significantly reduced social contact for those 70 and older -- would halve the overall mortality to 1.1 million people. Greenstone and Nigam extended their calculations to put a dollar value on all those saved lives."
Isaac Chotiner of the New Yorker interviews NYU Law professor Richard Epstein who wrote an article for the Hoover Institution arguing that "public officials have gone overboard" in their attempts to curb the spread of the coronavirus. Epstein is not an epidemiologist, but he thinks he knows more than they do about contagious, deadly viruses. From his original published prediction that 500 Americans would die (it was a typo; that was supposed to be 5,000!) to the schoolyard fight he picks with Chotiner, the interview would be sort of funny if not for the fact that some White House aides were relying on it to set U.S. policy. (New Yorker stories are subscriber-firewalled, & they have a limit of something like four/month. Opening them in a private window no longer works as a go-around.)
Julia Horowitz of CNN: "Faced with an unprecedented crisis, economists and investors are racing to understand the depth of the coronavirus recession and its aftershocks. The problem is, the datasets they'd typically rely on are practically useless. Take the monthly US jobs report, which is due out for March this Friday.... [I]t's usually a must-read. But because the survey was conducted in the second week of March, before many of the shutdowns aimed at controlling the spread of the novel coronavirus came into effect, it's already outdated.... The upcoming read of US GDP that covers January through March will be similarly unhelpful.... Even the weekly readout of Americans who filed for their first week of unemployment benefits has limited utility.... [T]he number is so outside normal bounds that it's almost impossible to put into context[.]" --s
Billy Bambrough of Forbes: "The U.S. dollar has taken a beating ... dropping almost 4% against a basket of currencies this week -- its biggest weekly loss since the height of the global financial crisis over 10 years ago.... On top the of the massive economic aid package, the Fed has been working hard to prop up plunging markets -- with mixed results despite its shock-and-awe firepower. Potential risks of the combined cross-party rescue bill and Fed's biggest-ever bazooka include out-of-control inflation, the dollar's displacement as the world's funding currency, and the complete destabilization of the U.S. financial system.... [A]ll told the extraordinary measures are expected to grow the Fed's balance sheet by $4.5 trillion this year. Throughout and in the aftermath of the global financial crisis the Fed grew its balance sheet by a paltry $3.7 trillion." [Firewalled] --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Mitch Albom of the Detroit Free Press: "First of all, she has a name. Gretchen Whitmer. She is not 'the woman' or 'all she does is sit there' or 'you know who I'm talking about' -- all phrases ... Donald Trump has used besides saying the actual name of the person Michigan voters elected to govern us.... Show some respect.... And stop complaining about her 'complaining.' Gretchen Whitmer hasn't done anything that every Michigander doesn't want her to do -- ask the federal government for masks, ventilators, test kits and other aid to fight the COVID-19 virus that is infecting and killing us. She's not speaking for herself. She's speaking for the people." Read on. The number of disrespectful, untrue criticisms Trump has made of Whitmer is appalling.
A Good Sign. Mike Baker of the New York Times: "The Seattle area, home of the first known coronavirus case in the United States and the place where the virus claimed 37 of its first 50 victims, is now seeing evidence that strict containment strategies, imposed in the earliest days of the outbreak, are beginning to pay off -- at least for now. Deaths are not rising as fast as they are in other states. Dramatic declines in street traffic show that people are staying home. Hospitals have so far not been overwhelmed. And preliminary statistical models provided to public officials in Washington State suggest that the spread of the virus has slowed in the Seattle area in recent days. While each infected person was spreading the virus to an average of 2.7 other people earlier in March, that number appears to have dropped, with one projection suggesting that it was now down to 1.4."
David Shortell, et al. of CNN: "The Justice Department has started to probe a series of stock transactions made by lawmakers ahead of the sharp market downturn stemming from the spread of coronavirus, according to two people familiar with the matter. The inquiry, which is still in its early stages and being done in coordination with the Securities and Exchange Commission, has so far included outreach from the FBI to at least one lawmaker, Sen. Richard Burr, seeking information about the trades, according to one of the sources." --s ~~~
~~~ Mrs. McCrabbie: I'll be gobsmacked if Bill Barr's DOJ raises a finger against a Republican member of Congress.
From the Washington Post live updates Sunday: "Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) warned Sunday that his state's health system is at risk of being overwhelmed with patients in a matter of days. By April 4 or 5, he said on ABC News's 'This Week,' New Orleans will be at capacity on ventilators. Next, he warned, area hospitals will be out of beds. 'We remain on a trajectory, really, to overwhelm our capacity to deliver health care,' he said. Edwards said the state has ordered 12,000 ventilators from both the national stockpile and private options but has received only 192. He warned that state officials might have to toughen enforcement....
"The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is helping New York City in the battle against the novel coronavirus by offering 50 beds to non-veteran patients who do not have covid-19, the agency announced Sunday. The 35 acute-care and 15 intensive-care-unit beds are the result of New York state's request for help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which then asked VA for assistance, according to an agency statement....
"... workers spent the weekend constructing an emergency field hospital in [New York City's] Central Park. On Sunday, volunteers and officials from Samaritan's Purse, a Christian organization that provides medical aid around the globe, continued work on setting up a 68-bed facility in the park's East Meadow, across the street from Mount Sinai Hospital. The facility will hold eight intensive care units with ventilators and will be staffed by about three to four doctors and several more nurse practitioners, according to Ken Isaacs, the organization's vice president of programs and government relations. When the outbreak overwhelmed Italy, Samaritan's Purse set up a temporary hospital in Cremona, a small town east of Milan. It is the first time the organization has run simultaneous emergency units in such large, developed countries...."
Andrew Tobias of the Cleveland Plain Dealer: Ohio "Gov. Mike DeWine [R] on Sunday sharply criticized the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for approving only limited use of a new mask-cleaning technology developed by an Ohio research firm, saying the decision would harm the nation's fight to protect front-line medical workers and first responders against the coronavirus.... DeWine issued a scathing statement on Sunday morning, calling the decision 'nothing short of reckless.'... DeWine’s uncharacteristic rebuke of the federal COVID-19 response spurred a quick response, prompting ... Donald Trump and U.S. Food and Drug Commissioner Stephen Hahn to call him directly within hours, according to DeWine.... Later Sunday morning, DeWine tweeted that he had spoken with Trump about the issue. Trump said he will 'do everything he can to get this approved today,' DeWine said on Twitter." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Falwell Brings Back Students -- AND Covid-19. Elizabeth Williamson of the New York Times: Jerry Falwell, Jr. "reopened the [Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va.,] last week, igniting a firestorm. As of Friday, Dr. [Thomas] Eppes, [head of the university's health services,] said, nearly a dozen Liberty students were sick with symptoms that suggest Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. Three were referred to local hospital centers for testing. Another eight were told to self-isolate.... Of the 1,900 students who initially returned last week to campus, Mr. Falwell said more than 800 had left. But he said he had 'no idea' how many students had returned to off-campus housing.... For critical weeks in January and February, the nation's far right dismissed the seriousness of the pandemic. Mr. Falwell derided it as an 'overreaction' driven by liberal desires to damage Mr. Trump. Though the current crisis would appear epidemiological in nature, Dr. Eppes said he saw it as a reflection of 'the political divide.'" (Also linked yesterday afternoon.) Politico's story is here.
Marc Caputo of Politico: "Joe Biden has had limited success with his live-from-Wilmington coronavirus briefings. His longtime adviser, Ron Klain, is a different story. The nation's former Ebola czar recently cut a video for the Biden campaign making an animated case against Donald Trump's handling of the contagion -- a white board presentation that racked up 4.4 million views on Twitter alone. Now, the president's reelection campaign is drawing a bead on Klain. Over the past week, the president's allies have trained its fire on him, seeking to undermine his credibility and use Klain's high-profile role as the face of Biden's coronavirus response to bolster their own arguments about Biden's own competence.... While a new poll shows a majority approves of Trump's coronavirus response, it also reveals that Americans, by a 20-point margin, believe he initially reacted too slowly to the crisis -- a central component of Klain's public critique." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
Annals of Drunk "Journalism." Thom Geier of the Wrap: "Jeanine Pirro's Fox News show got a late start on Saturday night due to 'technical difficulties' -- but when the former New York state judge did appear nearly 15 minutes into her show, her usually perfectly coifed hair appeared disheveled and she seemed to many viewers to be tipsy in her verbal delivery. 'We apologize for the technical difficulties,' Pirro said when she finally appeared about a quarter into the one-hour broadcast after anchor Jackie Ibanez covered for her initial absence. Pirro's speaking was notably loose throughout the broadcast -- which a network spokesperson attributed to the lack of a teleprompter in the host's first broadcast from home." Mrs. McC: The story includes clips. I can't stand to watch Pirro sober, so I skipped clips of the drunk tank show. And, yeah, lack of a teleprompter is a common reason people slur their words. (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
** Cedric Cromwell of the Mashpee Wamponoag Tribe: "At 4:00 pm [Friday] -- on the very day that the United States has reached a record 100,000 confirmed cases of the coronavirus and our Tribe is desperately struggling with responding to this devastating pandemic -- the Bureau of Indian Affairs informed me that the Secretary of the Interior has ordered that our reservation be disestablished and that our land be taken out of trust. Not since the termination era of the mid-twentieth century has a Secretary taken action to disestablish a reservation." --s (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
They don't look like Indians to me. -- Donald Trump in Congressional testimony, 1993, in a hearing on Native American casinos ~~~
Mary Papenfuss of the Huffington Post: "The U.S. Interior Department is rescinding the reservation status of a Native American tribe whose plan to build a casino on its Massachusetts land was attacked by President Donald Trump last year.... Tribal members are believed to be descendants of the first Native Americans to encounter the Pilgrims nearly four centuries ago. They call themselves the 'People of the First Light.'... The tribe's proposed casino would have been competition for two casinos in Rhode Island owned by Twin River Worldwide Holdings, whose president, George Papanier, was once a finance executive at the Trump Plaza casino hotel in Atlantic City, The Washington Post reported. Matt Schlapp, chairman of the Conservative Political Action Committee, is a lobbyist for Twin River casinos.... His wife, Mercedes Schlapp, is the White House strategic communications director." --s
Martyn McLaughlin of The Scotsman: "The Rockshiel Trust, listed by Steve Mnuchin, the US Treasury secretary, among his global portfolio of property holdings, has applied to build a cluster of luxury townhouses and apartments in a conservation area of Edinburgh. Since the revised plans were lodged in January, the proposed development has attracted 41 public comments to date. Every single one has registered an objection.... Mnuchin's disclosures include several other properties in Edinburgh worth up to £8m. However the US Treasury said he has no financial interest in the trust, and its inclusion in his OGE filings is because of his wife, Louise Lonton, the Scots actress." (Also linked yesterday afternoon.)
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