Summary
From me and Tom McCarthy:
- Donald Trump repeated false claims about the mortality rate and mail-in voting at a news conference. He also expressed confidence that the explosions in Lebanon were an attack - though no public information has yet confirmed that is the case.
- Mississippi’s Republican governor Tate Reeves announced a statewide mask mandates after previously resisting doing so. He also announced that upper-level classes would be delayed in counties with the most cases.
- Trump signed the Great American Outdoors Act, major conservation legislation. The law permanently funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund and addresses a nearly $12bn maintenance backlog in national parks and other public lands. He managed to pronounce sequoia, but struggled with Yosemite.
- After Trump’s disastrous handling of the coronavirus figures in last night’s Axios TV interview, Joe Biden attacked the US president over his handling of the coronavirus crisis. Trump called into a a much more friendly interview with Lou Dobbs of Fox Business on Tuesday afternoon.
- In new polling, almost half of Americans (46%) report knowing someone who has tested positive for the coronavirus. Only 29% of Americans have a “fair amount” or a “great deal” of trust in the federal government looking out for the best interests of them and their families – that’s a new low.
- Kim Gardner, St. Louis’, Missouri’s first Black circuit attorney, is facing a primary challenge today from Mary Pat Carl. Gardner recently drew criticism from Donald Trump for filing charges against a couple who waved their guns at Black Lives Matter protesters marching near their home.
From Guardian staff and agencies:
At least four people were killed as Tropical Storm Isaias spawned tornadoes and dumped rain Tuesday along the US east coast after making landfall as a hurricane in North Carolina, where it caused floods and fires that displaced dozens of people.
Two people died when Isaias spun off a tornado that struck a North Carolina mobile home park. Authorities said two others were killed by falling trees toppled by the storm in Maryland and New York City.
More than 15 hours after coming ashore, Isaias still had sustained top winds of 65mph. Mid-Tuesday afternoon, the storm’s center was about 65 miles west of New York City, where winds forced the Staten Island ferry and outdoor subway lines to shut down.
Forecasters said it would continue to inflict damage while moving into New England by late Tuesday.
New York City mayor Bill de Blasio issued a tornado watch through 4pm after the hurricane center reported numerous storms throughout the mid-Atlantic region, and by 1pm strong winds and rain were lashing New York.
Social media images showed tornadoes in Cape May, Marmora and Long Beach Island along New Jersey’s southern shore, as well as tornado damage in Dover, Delaware.
A tropical storm warning remained in effect from North Carolina to Maine.
My colleague Abené Clayton reports:
The Covid-19 death toll at California’s San Quentin state prison hit 22 on Tuesday, in the deadliest of several outbreaks that have hit prisons across the state.
Prison officials announced the most recent death on Tuesday morning. Authorities did not make public the name of the victim but said the prisoner died at a hospital. Over the weekend, authorities had announced the 20th and 21st deaths. The first announcement was of the death of Orlando Romero, the ninth person on San Quentin’s death row to die of Covid complications. The identity of the other victim – whose death was announced the same day – has not been released.
San Quentin – California’s oldest prison and home to the only death row for men – has experienced the largest outbreak of coronavirus among prisoners in the state, with 168 positive cases as of Tuesday morning. At the outbreak’s peak, the prison had 1,636 infections, more than a third of the institution’s population. The outbreak has prompted demands for California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, to grant mass releases in order to stop the virus from spreading further.
On 10 July officials announced new initiatives that will lead to the expedited release of 8,000 people from Californian prisons by the end of August.
Donald Trump ended the news conference by continuing his misinformation campaign against mail-in voting.
He implied that voter fraud was to blame for delays in ascertaining New York primary results. “I think they have to do that election over,” Trump said. The absentee ballot count has indeed been a challenge in New York, but there’s no evidence that fraud was at play. A New York Times piece on the delays, which Trump appeared to reference, explains: “The primary reason for the delays is the sheer number of absentee ballots: In New York City, 403,203 ballots were mailed for the June primary; as a comparison, just 76,258 absentee and military ballots were counted in New York City in the 2008 general election when Barack Obama was elected president.”
The president, however, defended the mail-in voting system in Florida, where he has voted absentee. “Florida has done a great job, and we have confidence that if you mail in your ballots in Florida, they’re going to matter,” Trump said, emphasizing that the state is led by a Republican governor.
He had exempted Florida from his overall campaign against mail-in voting earlier today, in a tweet.
Updated
Trump was pressed once again on his false claims about the coronavirus mortality rate. Per the Johns Hopkins coronavirus tracker, the US has the fourth-highest mortality rate of the twenty countries most affected by Covid-19. But the president baselessly insisted that the US was “at the bottom” of lists ranking mortality,
Later he said if we took New York and New Jersey out of the calculations, the US mortality rate would be “among the lowest”. I haven’t done the calculations to figure out those numbers, but the assertion that discounting some deaths in America would lower the national death toll is – odd.
Updated
Donald Trump said he is confident that the explosions in Lebanon were an attack. “It would seem like it, based on the explosion,” the president said, noting that some generals he spoke with “seem to feel” it was an attack.
Here’s what my Guardian colleagues Martin Chulov in Beirut and Michael Safi in Amman have reported so far:
Hours after the explosion, which took place at 6.05pm (16.05 BST), the cause remained unclear. Israel denied responsibility and said it had offered humanitarian and medical aid.
Initial reports suggested that a fireworks warehouse was involved. The Lebanese security chief, Abbas Ibrahim, later blamed combustible chemicals stored in a warehouse. The interior minister, Mohammed Fahmi, said ammonium nitrate had been among the materials stored and called for an investigation into how it ignited.
Fact check: Coronavirus deaths
Trump: “The recent rise in cases has not been accompanied by a significant increase in deaths.”
Fact: The daily deaths have been increasing, per the Covid Tracking Project.
Even with the uncertainty of testing in Florida and elsewhere, cases nationwide have trended down for the past week. Deaths, however, continue to climb towards a 7-day average of 1,100. pic.twitter.com/90hCt2XfJn
— The COVID Tracking Project (@COVID19Tracking) August 4, 2020
Updated
Donald Trump has begun his news conference.
He addressed Lebanon: “America’s deepest sympathies to the people of Lebanon, where reports indicate that many, many people were killed,” he said. “It looks like a terrible - attack.”
So far, no evidence has been released to the public to indicate that the explosions in Beirut were an attack. The country’s interior minister said ammonium nitrate likely caused at least one explosion.
Follow the Guardian’s live coverage:
Updated
Mississippi governor announces statewide mask mandate
Tate Reeves, the Republican governor of Mississippi, said he is issuing an order mandating masks in public. He also delayed the start of the school year for upper grades in some counties and signaled that he will sign an order requiring that all adults and students wear masks in school, as the number of coronavirus cases mounts in the state.
Reeves had been reluctant to take such measures in the past. Previously, he set a mask order in some countries but resisted a statewide rule.
More than 1 in 5 coronavirus tests in the are coming back positive, and more than 62,000 Covid-19 cases have been recorded so far.
The Chicago Sky basketball team are wearing “Vote Warnock” t-shirts - in support of Raphael Warnock, the Atlanta Reverand running against Republican senator Kelly Loeffler.
Loffler is a co-owner of the Atlanta Dream, which will play against Chicago Sky this week. She recently told ESPN that she believes the WNBA’s public support for the Black Lives Matter movement would drive fans away and wrote a letter to the women’s basketball league’s commissioner objecting to its support for the movement against police brutality.
Don't boo...VOTE 🗳
— Chicago Sky (@chicagosky) August 4, 2020
Register to vote at https://t.co/zXnPqmFZQ7 #Vote2020 pic.twitter.com/4yMmEqgXMS
“I think we all agree the life of every African American is important. There’s no room for racism in this country, and we have to root it out where it exists. But there’s a political organization called Black Lives Matter that I think is very important to make the distinction between their aim and where we are as a country at this moment,” Loeffler said.
“The Black Lives Matter political organization advocates things like defunding and abolishing the police, abolishing our military, emptying our prisons, destroying the nuclear family. It promotes violence and antisemitism. To me, this is not what our league stands for.”
WNBA players have denounced her sentiment and asked the league to remove Loeffler as co-owner of the Dream.
Hi there, it’s Maanvi Singh, blogging from the west coast.
We’re expecting Donald Trump to hold a news conference at 5:30. He’s prepping for the main event with a call-in to Fox Business’ Lou Dobbs.
“We would’ve lost millions had I just let it ride,” Trump told Dobbs, addressing the coronavirus crisis. The president’s interview with ally Dobbs comes after a much more contentious and widely discussed interview with Axios’ Jonathan Swan.
Updated
The husband of the Los Angeles district attorney has been charged with multiple firearm assaults after he pointed a gun at Black Lives Matter activists and said, “I will shoot you.”
David Lacey, whose wife Jackie Lacey is the elected prosecutor currently running for re-election, is facing three misdemeanor charges for pointing his firearm at three organizers who were protesting outside their house on 2 March, the day before the primary election. The charges come from the state attorney general’s office.
The incident was captured on video and showed David Lacey opening his door and threatening the demonstrators, saying, “Get off of my porch. I will shoot you … I don’t care who you are … We’re calling the police right now.” He appeared to have his finger on the trigger.
Close to the door was Melina Abdullah, a Black Lives Matter Los Angeles leader, who said on the video: “He pulled a gun and pointed it at my chest.”
Abdullah, who has been protesting against Jackie Lacey for years over her refusal to prosecute officers who kill civilians, told the Guardian on Tuesday that she was surprised to learn of the charges from the media, and said she had not had any contact with the attorney general or the district attorney.
Donald Trump refused to praise the late John Lewis, the Georgia congressman and original Freedom Rider, during his latest one-on-one interview, and also questioned the value of the pivotal Civil Rights Act of the 1960s, which Lewis fought and almost died for.
When asked how history would remember the civil rights leader, the president replied, “I don’t know. I really don’t know” and brought the point back around to himself.
“I never met John Lewis, I don’t believe,” Trump said.
In the interview, released late on Monday, with the Axios reporter Jonathan Swan, Trump instead centered his view of the late congressman on their lack of a personal relationship, noting Lewis “chose not to come to [his] inauguration”.
“He didn’t come to my State of the Union speeches, and that’s OK,” he said. “That’s his right. He should’ve come. I think he made a big mistake.”
The interview was conducted as the Georgia congressman lay in state in the Capitol rotunda. Trump did not pay his respects while Lewis’s casket was in Washington, nor attend Lewis’s funeral in Atlanta last week, at which Barack Obama delivered a soaring eulogy that was personally poignant but also a barnstorming political attack on the Trump administration’s efforts at voter and protest suppression.
Read further:
Veep, the hit politics satire series starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, found seven seasons of success on HBO.
Louis-Dreyfus does not like the new HBO material:
God, I wish this was just a dumb show like ours. https://t.co/n3edLDiqiq
— Julia Louis-Dreyfus (@OfficialJLD) August 4, 2020
Updated
Joe Biden’s election campaign on Tuesday unveiled a plan to address the economic inequalities facing Latinos in America amid financial turmoil caused by the coronavirus pandemic, which has disproportionately harmed communities of color.
The plan was introduced a day after the anniversary of the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, that took the lives of 23 people and where the shooter is accused in federal court of deliberately targeting Hispanics.
It comes as Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee to face Donald Trump in November, attempts to build a bridge to Latino voters, who are poised to make up the largest share of non-white voters in the country this election.
Senior campaign officials announced plans and commitments focused on investing in the economic mobility of Latinos, starting with education and healthcare, as well as a commitment to support the building of a Smithsonian Latino museum on the National Mall in Washington DC.
Biden had previously promised to introduce a sweeping immigration plan on his first day in office, including protecting recipients of the Daca program, affording protections and rights to qualifying, young, undocumented immigrants, known as Dreamers– and also undoing the Trump administration’s hardline international asylum policies.
“The policies of [the Trump] administration amount to an onslaught of violence and fear against the community. That ends when Joe Biden is president,” a senior campaign official said on a call with reporters on Tuesday morning.
Read further:
Neil Young is suing Donald Trump’s campaign for alleged illegal usage of his music at a rally.
The musician claims that Rockin’ in the Free World and Devil’s Sidewalk were played at the president’s recent rally in Tulsa without a license. Both songs have also been used before by the campaign.
“This complaint is not intended to disrespect the rights and opinions of American citizens, who are free to support the candidate of their choosing,” reads the copyright infringement complaint filed in New York federal court. “However, Plaintiff in good conscience cannot allow his music to be used as a ‘theme song’ for a divisive, un-American campaign of ignorance and hate.”
Young posted details of the lawsuit on his official site which details the singer “continuously and publicly” objecting to his music being used by Trump going back to 2015. “The Campaign has willfully ignored Plaintiff’s telling it not to play the songs and willfully proceeded to play the songs despite a lack of license,” it reads.
Young’s lawyers are asking for statutory damages in the maximum amount allowed for copyright infringement.
Last month, Young published a blogpost criticising the president for using his music and for his recent actions. “Imagine what it feels like to hear Rockin’ in the Free World after this president speaks, like it is his theme song,” he wrote. ‘I did not write it for that.”
Readers, there has been an appalling explosion in Beirut, Lebanon.
The Guardian is following this event closely and if you would like up-to-the-minute developments, we have a separate live blog on the site.
You can follow it here.
Updated
Afternoon summary
It’s been a lively morning in US political news, with more to come, so stay tuned.
Here’s where we are so far today:
- Donald Trump signed the Great American Outdoors Act, major conservation legislation that permanently funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund and addresses a nearly $12bn maintenance backlog in national parks and other public lands. He managed to pronounce sequoia, but struggled with Yosemite.
- After Trump’s disastrous handling of the coronavirus figures in last night’s Axios TV interview, Joe Biden has this morning directly attacked the US president over the deaths of Americans from Covid-19, telling him to “step up and do your job”.
- In new polling, almost half of Americans (46%) report knowing someone who has tested positive for the coronavirus. Only 29% of Americans have a “fair amount” or a “great deal” of trust in the federal government looking out for the best interests of them and their families – that’s a new low.
- Kim Gardner, St. Louis’, Missouri’s first Black circuit attorney, is facing a primary challenge today from Mary Pat Carl. Gardner recently drew criticism from Donald Trump for filing charges against a couple who waved their guns at Black Lives Matter protesters marching near their home.
Updated
Lunch
As postscript to that last bit about mail-in voting, here’s Guardian US voting rights reporter Sam Levine on the difference between “absentee” voting and “mail-in” voting, a semantic distinction Trump and others for whom voter suppression is a political strategy insist on (spoiler alert: they are the same thing, although the use of the terms has evolved over time in various places):
A good explainer from @NCSLorg on why "absentee" and "mail-in voting" are used interchangeably. In a few states, all registered voters are automatically mailed a ballot, a system commonly referred to as "all-mail voting," or "universal mail-in voting" https://t.co/183aUoIWjF pic.twitter.com/EtzZhsEZVq
— Sam Levine (@srl) August 4, 2020
McEnany has been asked a couple times about a new Donald Trump tweet™, in which the president reverses himself on the dangers of mail-in voting, at least in Florida, where Trump seems to have realized he needs people who usually vote by mail to keep doing that if he is to win the state.
Attacking vote-by-mail: could it backfire for the president?
Don’t worry, Trump now says, mail-in is OK, in Florida at least, which as everyone knows has one of the country’s most airtight elections systems:
Whether you call it Vote by Mail or Absentee Voting, in Florida the election system is Safe and Secure, Tried and True. Florida’s Voting system has been cleaned up (we defeated Democrats attempts at change), so in Florida I encourage all to request a Ballot & Vote by Mail! #MAGA
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 4, 2020
Compare that with Trump’s constant attacks on mail-in voting over the last months, like this one:
With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2020
Republicans in FL reading Trump's tweet after he's spent months trying to discredit mail-in voting pic.twitter.com/VNUE9GTKns
— Will Steakin (@wsteaks) August 4, 2020
McEnany is asked about Trump’s claim in the Axios/HBO interview that he is doing all he can to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
“We are hard at work each and every day to defeat the invisible enemy,” she says. “...This president’s hard at work and he’ll continue to work hard.”
She says the US “leads the world in testing” and has a low fatality rate with respect to cases. Those of course are the same distortions and irrelevancies Trump trotted out in the interview.
McEnany says Trump will hold “a Covid briefing” at 530pm.
McEnany wades in a bit on the coronavirus relief bill.
.@PressSec just said Democrats have no plan, then noted that their $3 trillion plan has gone up to a $3.4 trillion plan.
— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) August 4, 2020
She’s asked what Trump could do unilaterally to provide relief if Congress does not act.
“I won’t get ahead of the president,” McEnany says. She says the Republicans keep making offers for a relief package but the Democrats won’t budge.
Sounds like there is some daylight there between the Republican and Democratic visions for the next coronavirus relief package.
McEnany is asked about the terrible explosions in the Beirut, Lebanon, port hours ago.
“Rest assured that we’re taking a very good look at that,” she says.
We’re listening to the White House briefing.
“The president is not considering a national lockdown,” press secretary Kayleigh McEnany says, in response to a question about potential future coronavirus mitigation measures. “What he is encouraging is mitigation efforts.”
That’s not true; Trump is urging schools across the country to open, attacking his own health advisers for describing the scope of the pandemic and attacking local leaders for urging caution.
That White House briefing: still expected to start soon. Here’s a video feed:
One of New York City’s top health officials resigned over New York mayor Bill de Blasio’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
Per the New York Times, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, the city health commissioner, stepped down over her deep disappointment of de Blasio’s handling of the outbreak. Here’s the Times:
New York City’s health commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, resigned on Tuesday in protest over her “deep disappointment” with Mayor Bill de Blasio’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak and subsequent efforts to keep it in check.
Her departure came after escalating tensions between City Hall and top Health Department officials, which began at the start of the city’s outbreak in March, burst into public view.
“I leave my post today with deep disappointment that during the most critical public health crisis in our lifetime, that the Health Department’s incomparable disease control expertise was not used to the degree it could have been,” she said in her resignation email sent to Mr. de Blasio, a copy of which was shared with The New York Times.
“Our experts are world renowned for their epidemiology, surveillance and response work. The city would be well served by having them at the strategic center of the response not in the background.”
And according to the Wall Street Journal, Dave Chokshi will succeed Barbot:
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement Tuesday that Dave A. Chokshi would succeed Dr. Barbot as commissioner. Dr. Chokshi is a primary-care physician at Bellevue Hospital, part of Health + Hospitals, the city’s public hospital system. He previously served in senior leadership roles at Health + Hospitals.
“Dr. Chokshi has spent his career fighting for those too often left behind,” Mr. de Blasio said. “Never has that been more true than during the Covid-19 pandemic, where he has helped lead our city’s public health system under unprecedented challenges.”
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was scheduled to appear at the podium in the White House briefing room at noon for a press briefing but as of 12:24 ET she had not come out yet.
The briefing is still expected to start soon.
Trump signs conservation bill into law
Donald Trump has signed the Great American Outdoors Act, major conservation legislation that permanently funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund and addresses a nearly $12bn maintenance backlog in national parks and other public lands.
It’s a rare Trump administration move that has won the support of conservationists from the Sierra Club to big outdoor industry players including Patagonia and The North Face.
“Passage of the Great American Outdoors Act will move us one step closer to fulfilling the LWCF’s promise and secure the future of our parks and public lands for the next generation,” the Sierra Club said in a statement earlier this summer.
Independent senator Angus King has called the law “an incredible gift for future Americans” and Republicans across the board are a-cheer.
Ivanka Trump calls for celebration. “Thank you Mr President,” she tells her father. “This is an extraordinary piece of legislation that will be a great legacy for this administration...” Then she says Theodore Roosevelt would be proud.
.@IvankaTrump praises the Great American Outdoors Act: "This is a day for great celebration." pic.twitter.com/2BmeHmkDWN
— The Hill (@thehill) August 4, 2020
Trump might have bought some forgiveness here for his inability to pronounce Yosemite:
Video of the Yosemite mispronunciation pic.twitter.com/96OG66PqRK
— Anthony Adragna (@AnthonyAdragna) August 4, 2020
Doubtless this stick will see a lot of mileage
@LamarAlexander gives @realDonaldTrump "a mountain man walking stick” after he signs Great American Outdoors act pic.twitter.com/wg9htiXeGO
— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) August 4, 2020
The nation’s 44th president turns 59 years old today.
Happy birthday to my favorite guy. Here's to all the good days, blue skies, and new adventures to come. 😘 pic.twitter.com/mxrnNSvJBn
— Michelle Obama (@MichelleObama) August 4, 2020
Negotiations on Capitol Hill over a new coronavirus relief package are continuing this morning, and by “continuing” we mean “displaying no discernible motion in any direction”.
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has just taken the floor to blast the House Democratic leadership, which has passed a relief bill that does not pass muster with the Republican-controlled Senate or the White House.
One
sticky
sticking point: medical marijuana provisions.
McConnell this morning continuing to rail against House-passed covid bill, including cannabis provisions Pelosi defended as therapeutic.
— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) August 4, 2020
"You can't make this up. I hope she shared her breakthrough with Dr. Fauci."
But the most significant points of disagreement between Republicans and Democrats on what should be in the next coronavirus relief package don’t involve marijuana. The two sides disagree on how much padding weekly unemployment checks should receive; how large block payments to state and local governments should be; and what schools should get.
Politico’s Heather Caygle broke down House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s summary of the situation to her caucus:
More Pelosi:
— Heather Caygle (@heatherscope) August 3, 2020
-Unemployment benefits: "'They're still at $200 -- we said $600 and that's the way it is"
-Postal Service: “Back and forth” to have clarity as to what constraints they put on the post office
“We’re meeting with the Postmaster General to get answers as well.”
The senate is supposed to leave for August recess at the end of the week, creating some time pressure. The extra $600 per week that unemployment claimants had been receiving expired at the end of last month, making the situation extra-urgent. Democrats appear to be playing hardball, sensing that their demands for the bill are popular and betting that any blame for the gridlock will fall on Republicans and Donald Trump.
Might Republican senator Lindsey Graham, one of Donald Trump’s most passionate allies in Congress, be in trouble in his reelection fight against Democrat Jaime Harrison?
A Morning Consult poll out today has Graham just one point ahead of the Democrat in a state Trump won by 14 points in 2016:
Graham trails Trump among likely Republican voters in South Carolina by 11 points, 81% to 92%.
— Morning Consult (@MorningConsult) August 4, 2020
By comparison, Harrison has support from 90% of the state's likely Democratic voters, roughly matching Biden’s 94%. #SCsenhttps://t.co/Nbbr9eQqFY pic.twitter.com/KHDuRBL4Xh
Graham, who would be entering his fourth term as senator, has appeared to be in political trouble at home before – usually due to some supposed primary threat from the right – only to end up sailing to victory.
And the fact that so many Trump voters in the poll have yet to back Graham suggests that the incumbent has room for growth, by winning those voters over. Harrison meanwhile has convinced most all of the Democrats and now must pull off the difficult task of making inroads with Trump voters as a Democrat.
But he’s nevertheless pleased at the news:
I can't believe the news that Marie just surprised me and my boys with...
— Jaime Harrison (@harrisonjaime) August 4, 2020
🚨🚨 NEW POLLING HAS US *ONE* POINT BEHIND @LindseyGrahamSC 🚨🚨
No one gave us a shot. Yet, here we are, giving a 25 year incumbent the fight of his political life.
Three months to go. Let's do this. pic.twitter.com/5POL8CQ14w
“It didn’t have to be this way,” the Democratic National Committee says of Trump’s trainwreck Axios/ HBO interview. Here’s the full DNC statement:
Trump’s disastrous interview would be laughable if the stakes weren’t so high. More than 155,000 Americans have died, over 4.7 million have been infected, and we are in the sharpest economic downturn on record, and Trump says ‘it is what it is.’
But it didn’t have to be this way. While Trump continues to downplay the crisis, ignore the experts, and incoherently ramble through misinformation, coronavirus cases are skyrocketing and the economy is spiraling because of his failed response.”
Activists are calling on the pharmaceutical firm Gilead Sciences to study a drug for the treatment of Covid-19 that showed promise in curing cats of a coronavirus, our colleague Jessica Glenza writes:
The drug, called GS-441524, is chemically related to remdesivir, an antiviral also made by Gilead, and one of the only treatments to successfully shorten the duration of Covid-19 recovery.
GS-441524 has also attracted attention for its promise to treat another potential coronavirus – feline infectious peritonitis, or FIP. The drug has become an unapproved black market treatment for the disease, once universally thought to be fatal to cats.
In a letter sent to the heads of four government agencies currently developing treatments and vaccines for Covid-19, the left-leaning Public Citizen group called on Gilead to work collaboratively to begin development of the drug.
The group also accused Gilead of choosing to develop remdesivir, which is much further along in the clinical trial process than GS-441524, because it would remain under patent longer and therefore produce more profit.
“It is sadly predictable that Big Pharma responds to a global pandemic by trying to bring to market only those drugs that maximize its profits,” said Dr Michael Abrams, a researcher with Public Citizen’s health research group and lead author of the letter.
Read the full piece here.
Updated
Susan Rice, another potential VP pick for Joe Biden, has been making her pitch for the role on the TV this morning with an appearance on the CBS This Morning show. She cites her long experience, saying:
I would bring almost 20 years of deep experience at the most senior ranks of the executive branch, getting things done for the American people, wrestling with crises and dealing with the solutions we need. My background is National Security Advisor, and many other roles that I’ve held. And I think that’s very important, given the nature of the crises a new administration would face, from the pandemic, to economic recession, to our global leadership, which is suffering enormously.
She also praised the others running for role, describing them as “an extraordinary group of women”. You can watch the clip here:
"I think what I would bring is almost 20 years of deep experience at the senior most ranks of the executive branch. Getting things done for the American people. Wrestling with crises & dealing with the solutions we need." — @AmbassadorRice on why she should be @JoeBiden's VP pick pic.twitter.com/0DB3DL2ads
— CBS This Morning (@CBSThisMorning) August 4, 2020
Eric Trump can always be trusted to come up with a unique angle on any bad publicity surrounding his dad. His take this morning after that Donald Trump Axios interview? To attack Joe Biden for not doing interviews.
On Monday alone, @realDonaldTrump answered 17 questions from reporters. Joe Biden answered NO questions yesterday and has not answered a single question since July 28.
— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) August 4, 2020
When will Joe stop dodging serious interviews & tough questions? The entire country sees through this sham...
One of the things that continues to emerge about the coronavirus crisis is that it is having disproportionate effects both health-wise and economically on different sectors of the community.
My colleague Amanda Holpuch in New York has been looking into the phenomenon of the ‘shecession’ as the Covid-19 economic crisis hits women harder.
In the Great Recession, men lost twice as many jobs as women. But from February to May, 11.5 million women lost their jobs compared with 9 million men because of business closures intended to stop the spread of Covid-19. By the end of April, women’s job losses had erased a decade of employment gains.
The staggering figures have underlined the changing nature of the workforce and brought into focus the overlooked issues attached to that shift. Women, especially women of color, are more vulnerable to sudden losses of income because of the gender pay gap and are more dependent on childcare and school to be able to work.
Read it here: The ‘shecession’: why economic crisis is affecting women more than men
Updated
I’m trying not to take this one personally, but the Associated Press are reporting that a new study conducted by Knight Foundation and Gallup has shown that the distrust many Americans feel toward the news media is getting worse.
David Bauder, their media writer, states that the survey found that nearly half of all Americans describe the news media as “very biased”.
“That’s a bad thing for democracy,” said John Sands, director of learning and impact at the Knight Foundation. “Our concern is that when half of Americans have some sort of doubt about the veracity of the news they consume, it’s going to be impossible for our democracy to function.”
The study, which was conducted before the coronavirus lockdown and nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd, interviewed over 20,000 Americans.
It found that 71% of Republicans have a “very” or “somewhat” unfavorable opinion of the news media, while 22% of Democrats feel the same way. The divide has been noted before, but the figures suggest it is deepening.
“We’re starting to see more retrenchment among those who have already expressed deep concerns,” he said. “Moving the dial on these attitudes becomes more and more difficult for media organizations.”
Eight in 10 Americans are calling for more diversity in the news – although not everyone is calling for the same thing. Democrats and Black people are more likely to be referring to racial and ethnic diversity; while Republicans and white people tend to prioritize diversity in political views.
Knight and Gallup said that overall 41% of Americans have a great deal of confidence in the ability of the media to report the news fairly, down from 55% in a similar survey in 1999.
One last thing – which is very bad news for my clumsy live-blogging typing fingers – those surveyed also didn’t believe much in honest mistakes. When there were inaccuracies in articles, 54% of Americans said they believed reporters misrepresented facts, while 28% said reporters were making things up in their entirety.
The New York Times this morning has a profile piece on California congresswoman Karen Bass, one of the women touted as Joe Biden’s potential vice president pick.
In many ways, Bass could help Biden against president Trump. She would make history as the first Black woman to become a major party’s candidate for vice president. She talks more about conciliation than confrontation and does not have as many detractors as some of her rivals, including Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris.
Ms. Bass’s advocacy of liberal positions on criminal justice, poverty, housing, foster care and welfare could provide a Biden-Bass ticket a lift with progressive and younger voters. She would arguably be the most liberal politician chosen for vice president since Jimmy Carter tapped Walter Mondale as his running mate in 1976.
But her record of espousing progressive causes, lack of experience as a national campaigner and still largely unexplored record in public life also offer targets for Trump.
The piece, by Adam Nagourney and Jennifer Medina, also highlights though that she has adopted at times very different policy positions from Biden, and is an extreme contrast in ambition. As they put it: “At every step in her political career, Bass had to be coaxed to run for a higher office. Biden has been running for president for nearly half a century.”
Read it here: New York Times – From outsider to insider: Karen Bass’s unexpected journey to power
Aurora’s police chief issued an apology last night and launched an internal investigation after video of an incident in which children were handcuffed went viral on social media.
According to local reports in Colorado, officers identified a vehicle that matched the license plate number and description they were given as a possible stolen vehicle.
After they stopped the car, the adult driver and her younger passengers were ordered out of the vehicle and onto the ground. The video clip shows four children between the ages of six and 17 face down on the floor. Two of them, aged 12 and 17, were handcuffed.
Brittney Gilliam, the driver, later told the press “That’s police brutality. There’s no excuse why you didn’t handle it a different type of way. … You could have even told them, ‘Step off to the side let me ask your mom or your auntie a few questions so we can get this cleared up.’”
The incident, which took place on Sunday, has been viewed over a million times on social media, and adds to pressure on the Aurora police force that have been criticised for their involvement in the death of Elijah McClain. An officer from the force was later fired for mocking his death with a re-enactment photo.
An statement from the force said “The Aurora Police Department understands that this is concerning and traumatic for those involved and we again offer our apologies.”
“It’s like they don’t care,” Gilliam’s 14-year-old niece Teriana Thomas told a local news channel. “Who am I going to call when my life is in danger?”
Biden tells Trump "step up and do your job" over coronavirus
After Trump’s disastrous handling of the coronavirus figures in last night’s Axios TV interview, Joe Biden has this morning directly attacked the US president over the deaths of Americans from Covid-19, telling him to “step up and do your job”
On July 1st, Donald Trump predicted the coronavirus was going to "just disappear."
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 4, 2020
He was wrong — and more than 25,000 Americans died due to the virus last month.
Mr. President, step up and do your job before even more American families feel the pain of losing a loved one.
Biden reminds the president that he previously predicted that the coronavirus would “just disappear”.
There’s a whole slew of primaries on today – which as you can imagine would probably be drawing a lot more attention if the battle for the Democratic presidential nomination was still in play.
Nevertheless there are a few interesting battles in Arizona, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington state. Politico have a useful scene-setter for the day, and they major on the battle for the Republican nomination in Kansas, and the broader implications it may have for the composition of the Senate come November.
Republican voters will decide between hard-line conservative Kris Kobach and Rep. Roger Marshall as their nominee for an open Senate seat. Democrats haven’t won a Senate race in Kansas in nearly a century. But both parties think Kobach as the nominee would put the race squarely on the map, stretching Republican resources thinner as they’re already spending to protect a half-dozen vulnerable incumbents.
One veteran Republican strategist told NPR that “If [Kobach] wins the primary, that’s probably curtains for the majority”. Some Democratic party supporters are so excited at the prospect of facing Kobach and flipping the seat that they spent $5 million dollars of ad money bashing Marshall.
Read it here: Politico – Kansas set to decide Kobach’s fate — and possibly the Senate’s
Poll: Confidence in federal government Covid-19 response reaches new low
The weekly Axios-Ipsos coronavirus poll is out this morning. Key figures include:
- Almost half of Americans (46%) report knowing someone who has tested positive for the coronavirus
- Only 29% of Americans have a “fair amount” or a “great deal” of trust in the federal government looking out for the best interests of them and their families – that’s a new low in the poll that has been running every week since early March
- 67% of Americans report wearing a mask outside at all times. Notably the number of Republican supporters doing so (46%) is ticking up
There’s an interesting election snippet in there too - 52% of Americans see voting in person in November’s election as a risky activity for catching the coronavirus, however this very much splits along party lines. Only 29% of Republicans see it as risky, while 64% of Democratic party supporters do.
That certainly suggests that on the day of the election, initial in-person tallies may strongly favour the Republican slate, with mail-in ballots then eroding those numbers as they are counted. With that in mind, you can see why the president has been keen to plant the idea with his supporters that mail-in votes are fraudulent.
Read it here: Ipsos – Social distancing diminishes as Americans increasingly rely on masks
Kim Gardner, St. Louis’ first Black circuit attorney, facing primary challenge today
St. Louis’ top prosecutor is facing a primary challenge today from Mary Pat Carl. Kim Gardner, who is the city’s first Black circuit attorney, has recently drawn criticism from the president for filing charges against a couple who went viral on social media for displaying guns at Black Lives Matter protesters who were marching near their home. Mary Pat Carl, who is white, once served as the city’s lead homicide prosecutor.
The Associated Press reports that the winner will be heavily favoured in November’s race where they will face the lone Republican running, Daniel Zdrodowski. St. Louis is overwhelmingly Democratic.
Gardner, 44, defeated Carl and two other candidates in the 2016 primary election. She has shaken up the city’s criminal justice establishment, initiating reforms that have included using diversion programmes instead of incarceration, halting prosecution of low-level marijuana crimes and reducing the number of people incarcerated.
“We have to look at how we address justice and fairness for all, and I believe that’s what we’ve been doing,” Gardner said in an interview.
Her decision last month to file felony unlawful use of a weapon charges against Mark and Patricia McCloskey drew strong rebuttals from Trump and other leading Republicans, but she argued that the display of a semi-automatic rifle and semi-automatic handgun during an otherwise peaceful protest risked bloodshed. The McCloskeys claim they felt threatened. The case is still pending. Gov. Mike Parson has already said he’ll most likely pardon the couple if they’re convicted.
Gardner has long contended she’s the victim of race-based attacks. In January, she filed a federal lawsuit accusing the city government, along with the biggest police union and others of a coordinated and racist conspiracy aimed at forcing her out of office. The lawsuit also accused “entrenched interests” of intentionally impeding her efforts to change racist practices.
Gardern’s opponent Carl is among the critics who have accused her of wasting time and money on the high-profile cases rather than doing more to put violent criminals behind bars. The city has one of the nation’s highest murder rates.
Carl served 14 years in the circuit attorney’s office. She has pledged to send a prosecutor to the scene of every homicide, both to show support for the victim and to encourage witnesses to cooperate.
“If people don’t feel safe in their homes, if children can’t play in their yard, nothing else matters,” Carl said. “We have to stop the violence.”
Good morning. Everyone is still rather consumed with reaction to that Donald Trump interview on HBO last night, where he produced charts and graphs to assert that the US was doing well on coronavirus, to the general bafflement of interviewer Jonathan Swan. The US accounts for more than a quarter of all global confirmed cases.
Trump also again wished Ghislaine Maxwell well, floated conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein’s death, confirmed he’s never spoken to Vladimir Putin about the “Russian bounty” intelligence scandal, falsely described mail-in voting as a new phenomenon, and complained that Rep. John Lewis never attended his inauguration.
It’s a lot to take in. Welcome to our live coverage of US politics, the coronavirus crisis and the Black Lives Matter movement for today - here’s a little of where we are and what we can look forward to:
- The US recorded 47,832 new coronavirus cases yesterday - that’s the third day in a row that the number has dropped. There were at least 602 new Covid-19 deaths recorded nationwide. However, while the national numbers are down, cases appear to be surging in some midwest states.
- Negotiations over the next round of coronavirus relief funding remain at an impasse. Negotiations will resume in Washington today
- The nation saw protests over the reopening of schools, with coffins being carried through the streets of New York
- The New York prosecutor trying to access Donald Trump’s tax returns told a judge he was justified in demanding them, citing public reports of “extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization”
- Hurricane Isaias has been downgraded to a tropical storm after reaching North Carolina
- China has hit out at what it says is a US ‘smash and grab’ as the dispute over TikTok deepens
- The president has a couple of things in his diary today - he has lunch with Mike Pompeo, and before that he is signing the Great American Outdoors Act. Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany will be giving a briefing at noon
I’m Martin Belam in London, I’ll be here for a couple of hours, and you can reach me at martin.belam@theguardian.com
