Live reporting on the coronavirus in the US continues on Monday’s blog:
Summary
Here’s a look at today’s major news items ...
- White House blocks Fauci testimony as Trump welcomes Senate return. The administration said it would be ‘counterproductive’ for senior member of the taskforce to discuss response in House hearing.
- Protests sweep California as governor promises changes to lockdown. Gavin Newsom said state would announce changes in coming days, but that move was motivated by data, not political resistance.
- Tara Reade says she didn’t explicitly accuse Biden of assault in report. The former Senate staffer who alleges Joe Biden sexually assaulted her 27 years ago has said she filed a limited report with a congressional personnel office that did not explicitly accuse him of sexual assault or harassment.
- New York mother dies after raising alarm on hospital neglect. Amber Rose Isaac died less than four days after tweeting that she should write an exposé on ‘dealing with incompetent doctors’.
Updated
Donald Trump has appeared to confirm that Kim Jong Un is “alive and well” after weeks of speculation over the North Korean leader’s health.
“I, for one, am glad to see he is back, and well!” Trump wrote, quote-tweeting North Korean state media photos of Kim attending a ribbon cutting ceremony at the Sunchon Phosphatic Fertilizer Factory.
I, for one, am glad to see he is back, and well! https://t.co/mIWVeRMnOJ
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2020
The photos appear to document Kim’s first public appearance in more than three weeks.
Presumptive Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has reiterated his denial of Tara Reade’s allegations in an interview with MSNBC’s Al Sharpton that was recorded on Friday night but aired this afternoon.
“It’s not true,” Biden said. “I’m saying unequivocally, it never happened, period. Believing a woman means taking her claim seriously when she steps forward and then vetting it, looking into it. That’s true in this case as well. Women have a right to be heard and the press should rigorously investigate the claims like these and I’d always uphold those principles. But in the end, in every case, the truth is what matters. And in this case, the truth is these claims are false.”
Joe Biden reiterates his denial of Tara Reade’s allegations in an interview with MSNBC’s Al Sharpton that was recorded on Friday night but aired today. pic.twitter.com/AQ3F6LfL3d
— Bryan Armen Graham (@BryanAGraham) May 2, 2020
Biden went on to field a number of topics in the wide-ranging interview, including a harsh criticism of the armed protesters in Michigan who gathered inside the state capitol in protest of Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer’s shutdown orders.
“They’re armed and I’m told one or two of them had Nazi flags or Confederate flags – I don’t know which it was, I can’t swear to that, I didn’t see it,” Biden said. “Such an attempt to intimidate is just beyond the pale and the president should be speaking out and say it’s totally inappropriate to … intimidate a governor who is doing one heck of a job. She’s listening to the scientists, she’s listening to the docs, she’s listening to the experts and that’s her judgment and it should be sustained and not have a bunch of people coming in, in numbers, with loaded weapons sitting in the hallways of the legislative body.”
A man in Florida has been arrested after he was discovered quarantining on a shuttered Disney World island, telling authorities it felt like a “tropical paradise.”
Richard McGuire, 42, was found by Orange County sheriff’s deputies Disney’s Discovery Island on Thursday, telling authorities that he began camping on the island earlier in the week.
“Richard stated that he had made entry to the island to go camping on Monday or Tuesday and had planned on staying on the island for approximately one week,” the police report said.
McGuire claimed that he didn’t know the island, once the site of a zoological park before it was closed to the public in 1999, was restricted despite the closed gates and multiple “no trespassing” signs in the vicinity. “Richard stated that he was unaware of that and that it looked like a tropical paradise,” the report stated.
Orange County Marine deputies on Bay Lake said they used a public address system to tell McGuire he was not allowed to be on the property after his presence was discovered, but the Alabama native claimed he didn’t hear them because he was asleep in a building.
McGuire was arrested on a trespassing charge, banned from all Disney properties and taken to jail without incident.
Disney World has been shut down since March due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Updated
Tara Reade, the former Senate staffer who alleges Joe Biden sexually assaulted her 27 years ago, has disputed today’s Associated Press story in which she was quoted as saying her original report against the Democrats’ presumptive presidential candidate did not accuse him of assault.
“This is false,” she said on Twitter, referencing the AP story pushing several hours earlier.
This is false. https://t.co/w4yXGI1DQm
— taratweets ( Alexandra Tara Reade) (@ReadeAlexandra) May 2, 2020
Reade had spoken with the wire service after it had discovered transcripts and notes from interviews with the former Biden staffer last year in which she said she “chickened out” after going to the Senate personnel office.
“I remember talking about him wanting me to serve drinks because he liked my legs and thought I was pretty and it made me uncomfortable,” Reade said. “I know that I was too scared to write about the sexual assault.”
Reade did not specify which elements of the AP story were incorrect beyond her three-word tweet, though she did follow up shortly after with another brief statement.
“No survivor be fearful to come forward,” she tweeted. “And I did file a complaint.”
As Florida’s leaders move to reopen beaches, restaurants and retail stores as part of the governor Ron DeSantis’s phase one, the state’s department of health confirmed 735 new cases of Covid-19 on Saturday morning, bringing the overall total of confirmed cases to more than 35,000. The Miami Herald reports:
Saturday’s daily total of 35,463 brings the number of newly confirmed cases back under 1,000, which had been a weeklong trend until Friday’s report topped out at 1,038.
There were also 50 new deaths announced, bringing the statewide death toll to 1,364 — a bump of four more than the health department had reported on Friday morning. Of those latest deaths, 18 were in South Florida.
Nine more people died in Miami-Dade, bringing the county’s death toll to 367, the highest in the state. Five more people died in Broward, raising the county’s death toll to 204. Palm Beach County reported four new deaths, bringing the county’s count to 195. Monroe had held steady at three deaths in the Florida Keys.
The number of deaths being reported by the state Department of Health may be incomplete. The list of coronavirus deaths being compiled by Florida’s medical examiners has shown the death count was up to 10 percent higher than what the Florida Department of Health has released.
In addition to the 18 new deaths in South Florida’s tri-county area, the other 32 people who tested positive and died from Covid-19 were in Charlotte, Clay, Escambia, Flagler, Manatee, Nassau, Orange, Pinellas, St. Lucie, Suwannee and Volusia counties.
Of the statewide total of Covid-19 confirmed cases, 34,555 are Florida residents — a rise of 726 since Friday — and 908 are non-residents who were diagnosed or isolated in the state. That’s nine more non-residents in the count since Friday.
The question of when to reopen schools has been widely discussed over the last few weeks. The closing of schools has not only disrupted education but has also added strain on parents who must look after children who would usually be in a classroom. While fatality rates from Covid-19 are significantly lower among children than adults, Austin Beutner, the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, told CNN on Saturday that it is not just students who would be taken into consideration.
“One school with 500 individuals [is] connected to a quarter million people,” Beutner told CNN. “We don’t want the quarter million people bringing the virus into the school and the school to spread and be a petri dish to share with the rest of the community.”
California’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has discussed reopening the state’s schools in July or August. But Beutner said such a move would be complicated. “It’s not just as simple as spreading the desks apart,” he said.
There has been beautiful spring weather across much of the east coast today and the US Navy Blue Angels and US Air Force Thunderbirds completed a flypast over several cities - including Atlanta, Baltimore and Washington DC – in tribute to healthcare workers during the Covid-19 pandemic. Drivers stopped on a freeway in Atlanta to observe the flypast but there were concerns that crowds, already boosted by the good weather, could help the spread of Covid-19. In DC, people flocked to the National Mall to watch the planes overhead.
Not a lot of social distancing happening on the National Mall right now ahead of the Blue Angels flyover.
— Justin McCarthy🌹🌅 (@jaymac1893) May 2, 2020
Not sure this is exactly the best way to honor COVID workers but... pic.twitter.com/tanVB5c82d
Tara Read says original complaint did not accuse Biden of assault
The former Senate staffer who claims Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993 says the original complaint against the Democrats’ presumptive presidential candidate did not accuse him of assault.
“I remember talking about him wanting me to serve drinks because he liked my legs and thought I was pretty and it made me uncomfortable,” Reade told the Associated Press. “I know that I was too scared to write about the sexual assault.”
She added: “The main word I use – and I know I didn’t use sexual harassment– I used ‘uncomfortable.’ And I remember ‘retaliation.’”
The distinction is important because if the original report resurfaces it will not reflect her current allegation, that the former US vice-president sexually assaulted her.
Reade says that in 1993 Biden pushed her against a wall and assaulted her, penetrating her with his fingers. Three people close to Reade have said she mentioned the incident to them in the past. Last year, Reade and seven other women publicly accused Biden of gestures that made them uncomfortable. Reade did not then mention the alleged assault.
On Friday, in a Medium post, Biden said the claims “aren’t true. This never happened.” He also spoke to MSNBC, and appealed to the National Archives to find the complaint Reade mentioned. The Archives said it wouldn’t have the report, which it said would rest with the Senate.
The Trump campaign accused Democrats of a “double standard”, comparing their defence of Biden with their approach to a sexual assault claim against Trump supreme court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in late 2018.
Trump has faced multiple claims of sexual misconduct and assault. At a White House briefing on Friday, new press secretary Kayleigh McEnany sought to portray the claims, which the president denies, as old news.
Updated
Joe Biden has waded into the dispute between the US women’s national soccer team and the US Soccer federation.
On Friday, US district judge R Gary Klausne threw out the players’ unequal pay claim against US soccer’s governing body.
To @USWNT: don’t give up this fight. This is not over yet.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 2, 2020
To @USSoccer: equal pay, now. Or else when I'm president, you can go elsewhere for World Cup funding. https://t.co/XK6t9oM94k
“Don’t give up this fight,” Biden wrote on Twitter on Saturday. “This is not over yet.” The presumptive Democratic candidate for president then turned his attention to US Soccer. “To @USSoccer: equal pay, now,” he wrote. “Or else when I’m president, you can go elsewhere for World Cup funding.”
In March 2019, 28 members of the USWNT filed a lawsuit in California seeking equal pay and treatment, in addition to damages of $66m including back pay. The group, which included some of the best players in the world such as Megan Rapinoe, Alex Morgan and Carli Lloyd, also sought compensation for any player who has appeared for the US since February 2015.
“We are shocked and disappointed with today’s decision, but we will not give up our hard work for equal pay,” Molly Levinson, spokeswoman for the women’s players, said on Friday after the decision. “We are confident in our case and steadfast in our commitment to ensuring that girls and women who play this sport will not be valued as lesser just because of their gender.”
Klausne said the USWNT players had rejected a chance to be paid under the same terms as their male counterparts. “The history of negotiations between the parties demonstrates that the WNT rejected an offer to be paid under the same pay-to-play structure as the MNT, and the WNT was willing to forgo higher bonuses for benefits, such as greater base compensation and the guarantee of a higher number of contracted players,” Klausner wrote.
The judge did, however, allow allegations that the USWNT were subject to discriminatory working conditions, and those claims will now go to trial in federal court next month. Klausner left intact allegations the USWNT players received inferior travel, accommodation and medical treatment compared to the men.
The US won the Women’s World Cup last summer, retaining the title they captured in 2015. The US men’s team, who have supported the USWNT lawsuit, failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup.
CNN has revealed that Michael Caputo, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services and a staunch ally of Donald Trump sent multiple sexist and derogatory tweets over the last few years. He has since deleted them.
Caputo, who worked on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and is now central to the government’s messaging on Covid-19, called multiple women “dogface” and told another one to “go f**k yourself”. He called Alexandra Chalupa, a Democratic consultant, a “crone” and a “nutty hag”.
Caputo responded to CNN’s investigation by telling the broadcaster: “I stopped caring about what handwringing, virtue signaling leftists think of me after their 59th death threat against my family. Have fun with this while I’m fighting a deadly pandemic 24/7.”
Thank you Michael. You also! https://t.co/VFi6Nhj3zG
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2020
Trump did not address the CNN story directly but did respond to a tweet from Caputo on Friday calling the president “a fearless man”. Trump wrote on Saturday: “Thank you Michael. You also!”
A Fox News reporter, John Roberts, has tweeted that a senior intelligence source tells him Covid-19 was created in a Wuhan lab.
A Senior Intelligence Source tells me there is agreement among most of the 17 Intelligence agencies that COVID-19 originated in the Wuhan lab. The source stressed that the release is believed to be a MISTAKE, and was not intentional.
— John Roberts (@johnrobertsFox) May 2, 2020
The tweet lends support to a theory long put forth by Donald Trump, although the US president has repeatedly declined to provide details to back up his assertion.
In a follow-up tweet, Roberts said: “Sources say not all 17 intelligence agencies agree that the lab was the source of the virus because there is not yet a definitive “smoking gun”. But confidence is high among 70-75% of the agencies.”
On Thursday, a rare on-the-record statement from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence stated no such assessment has been made and continues to “rigorously examine” whether the outbreak “began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan”.
The organization that runs the Auschwitz memorial has condemned the appearance at an anti-lockdown rally in Chicago’s Loop district of a picket sign bearing a Nazi slogan displayed above the entrance of the concentration camp.
A demonstrator attending the rally, where hundreds of people protested against the state’s lockdown and social distancing measures, was photographed carrying a sign bearing the words “Arbeit macht frei, JB”.
The German phrase translates as “work sets you free”, with JB referring to the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, who is of Jewish descent.
At the ‘Re-open Illinois’ rally, these two signs were seen.
— Sana Saeed (@SanaSaeed) May 2, 2020
Pritzker,
Who is being called Hitler with a swastika next to his name, is Jewish.
‘Arbeit Macht Frei’ translates to ‘work sets you free’ - it’s literally from the ithe Auschwitz concentration camp.
This is just.... pic.twitter.com/K4FhmwYla2
The font of both instances of the letter “B” on the picket sign bore a striking resemblance to the shape of the letter “B” on the sign above the gates of Auschwitz, the largest of the German Nazi concentration camps and extermination centers, where more than 1.1 million men, women and children were murdered.
The official Auschwitz memorial Twitter account condemned the gesture, writing: “‘Arbeit macht frei’ was a false, cynical illusion the SS gave to prisoners of Auschwitz. Those words became one of the icons of human hatred. It’s painful to see this symbol instrumentalised and used again to spread hate. It’s a symptom of moral and intellectual degeneration.”
The New York Police Department has dispatched 1,000 officers this weekend to enforce social distancing amid warmer weather. The Associated Press reports:
Officers set out on foot, bicycles and cars to break up crowds and remind those enjoying the weather of public health restrictions requiring they keep 6 feet away from others.
“I believe with the warm weather people will come outside,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Saturday. “You can’t stay indoors all the time. People will come outside and that’s great, go for a walk. But respect the social distancing and wear a mask.”
The New York City Police Department has made 60 arrests and issued 343 summonses related to social distancing since March 16.
Police Commissioner Dermot Shea issued a stern warning after a series of clashes this week between police officers and members of Orthodox Jewish communities over social distancing.
“We will not tolerate it,” Shea said after community members flooded the streets for funeral processions. “You are putting my cops’ lives at risk and it’s unacceptable.”
Enforcement has its limitations when it comes to social distancing, police concede, leaving it up to New Yorkers to play by the rules to help keep infections on the downturn.
“You’ve got to get voluntary compliance,” Benjamin Tucker, NYPD’s first deputy commissioner,” said last month.
Most people are heeding officers’ warnings to keep their distance in parks and around essential businesses like grocery stores, Shea said.
But a stark example of non-compliance came Thursday when officers interrupted a crowded funeral procession in Brooklyn’s Borough Park neighborhood. Video posted to social media showed officers in protective masks chasing a minivan and shouting at dozens of people marching behind the van to get out of the street and onto the sidewalk.
New York governor Andrew Cuomo said there are about 900 new infections per day in the state’s hospitals. “That is unacceptable,” he said at a press conference this morning.
Cuomo also released the results of antibody testing of 15,000 New Yorkers which showed a disproportionate number of people testing positive in New York City borough, the Bronx.
The Bronx is the city’s poorest borough. Despite the multitudes of unknowns about Covid-19 infections, the findings further demonstrate the disproportionate impact the outbreak is having on low-income people and people of color.
NYC overall: 19.9% positive for antibodies.
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) May 2, 2020
Bronx: 27.6%
Brooklyn: 19.2%
Manhattan: 17.3%
Queens: 18.4%
Staten Island: 19.2%
(Results are weighted.)
Cuomo said health officials are still trying to figure out how and why that is happening. The aim is to identify where new cases are coming from so the state has asked hospitals to figure out where people with new cases work, how they are traveling around and what communities they are in.
“Transit workers have been very much at the frontline,” Cuomo said. He noted the high infection rate among transit workers and said the state would direct more resources and testing to transit bodies.
The state announced this week that New York City’s 24-hour subway system would take the unprecedented step of closing from 1am to 5am for deep cleaning. Cuomo said at some point in the next few days, officials would launch a website to help people who usually take the train at those times to find alternatives, such as the bus.
In California, officials said 32 people were arrested Friday during a volatile protest at the state capitol, in which hundreds of demonstrators protested against the state’s stay-at-home order.
Most of the people arrested were cited and released, the Sacramento Bee reported.
The Sacramento protesters did not have a permit to hold a rally on the Capitol grounds and were told multiple times to disperse as the crowd grew to at least 500 people, a California Highway Patrol (CHP) spokesman said in a statement late on Friday.
“The majority of the demonstrators were not wearing face masks or physically distancing and at one point a group of them locked hands,” the CHP said in a press release.
Officers warned the protesters multiple times that they would be arrested if they did not leave, and that “their demonstration posed a health hazard,” the CHP said in a statement. “No use of force was used on the demonstrators,” and the majority of people arrested “offered no physical resistance,” CHP said.
In Huntington Beach, where nearly 3,000 people protested along the beach, there were “no arrests or citations,” the local police chief told The O.C. Register.
Vermont senator Bernie Sanders and Washington representative Pramila Jayapal said the Covid-19 outbreak is further exposing the flaws in the US health insurance system and called for radical change in an opinion piece for the Guardian.
The US spends more than twice the average of other major countries on healthcare, but its ties to employment mean people avoid going to the doctor because of the cost and declare bankruptcy because of the bills, they wrote.
Price-gouging and profiteering has affected everything from hand sanitizer to respirator prices which, in some cases, have more than quintupled – virtually overnight. Cities, states and hospitals continue to fight over scarce gloves, gowns, masks and ventilators. Four out of five frontline nurses don’t have enough protective equipment. In the richest country in the history of the world, nurses caring for coronavirus patients have resorted to wearing trash bags as makeshift protective gear. That is an international embarrassment.
The current crisis has also exposed, to a horrific degree, how the massive level of income and wealth inequality in America magnifies healthcare inequities, and financially ravages our most vulnerable people. Rural hospitals and community health clinics, which often treat the poor, are on the verge of going bankrupt and shutting down. Major outbreaks are attacking our Black, Hispanic, Native American and undocumented communities, as well as the incarcerated and the homeless.
Late Friday, the White House moved to replace a Health department official who warned of supply shortages and testing delays at hospitals, according to the New York Times.
Donald Trump criticized the official, Christi Grimm, at a press briefing three weeks ago in response to a government report she authored which warned of critical shortages of supplies. Inspector generals perform an oversight role in federal departments, working as internal watchdogs to investigate and report on issues within.
In response to Grimm’s findings, which included warnings about a lack of protective gear for hospital workers and hospitals’ issues in obtaining test kits, Trump said the report was “wrong” on April 6.
“Did I hear the word ‘inspector general’? Really? It’s wrong. And they’ll talk to you about it. It’s wrong,” Trump said. “Where did he come from, the inspector general? What’s his name? No, what’s his name? What’s his name?”
Trump also attacked Grimm on Twitter, highlighting her work in the Obama administration though she also served under George W Bush and Bill Clinton.
The White House announced Friday night that it had nominated a new inspector general for the department who would replace Grimm. She would be the fourth government watchdog to be pushed out of their role by the Trump administration in recent weeks.
Trump hails Senate return
Donald Trump disputed warnings from the US Capitol physician and said it is safe for the Senate to return to the Washington DC building next week in a tweet which, as usual, needs a bit of explanation.
There is tremendous CoronaVirus testing capacity in Washington for the Senators returning to Capital Hill on Monday. Likewise the House, which should return but isn’t because of Crazy Nancy P. The 5 minute Abbott Test will be used. Please inform Dr. Brian P. Monahan. @MarkMeadows
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2020
- “There is tremendous CoronaVirus testing capacity in Washington for the Senators returning to Capital Hill on Monday.” The New York Times reported yesterday that the office for the doctor for Congress, Brian Monahan, told Republicans they will not be able to screen all 100 Senators on Monday.
- “Likewise the House, which should return but isn’t because of Crazy Nancy P.” House speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, said House members should not return to the US Capitol next week in response to guidance from Dr Monahan. Nearly 200 Congress members are more vulnerable to serious complications from a Covid-19 infection because they are 65 and older. It is unknown how many are also at-risk because of underlying conditions or who live with people who are at greater risk if they contract the illness.
- “The 5 minute Abbott Test will be used.” The New York Times also reported that Trump and other members of the White House have access to a rapid-testing kit developed by Abbott Laboratories which provides results in five-minutes. Monahan’s office said the testing kits they have access to don’t provide results for two days.
- “Please inform Dr. Brian P. Monahan.” This suggests Trump has access to different information than the US Capitol physician. It also suggests that Trump can only contact Dr Monahan through social media, though that seems highly unlikely.
- “@MarkMeadows” Meadows is the White House chief of staff. I guess Trump wants him to see this Tweet.
Notably omitted from the post is Mitch McConnell, the senator majority leader who is requiring senators, staff and US Capitol employees to return to the building on Monday despite the attending Dr Monhan’s recommendations. McConnell’s desire to return to the Capitol is in part because of his focus on pushing conservative judicial nominees through the Republican-majority Senate. “My motto for the rest of the year is leave no vacancy behind,” he said in late March.
Updated
White House says Fauci testimony to Congress would be 'counterproductive'
The White House said it would be “counterproductive” for Dr Anthony Fauci to testify before Congress next week and is blocking him from speaking about the government’s response to the pandemic ina House committee hearing.
Fauci, who has worked at the National Institute of Health since 1968, has been a source of measured, expert analysis on the Covid-19 outbreak in press briefings and interviews. This has put him at odds with the president, who has downplayed the pandemic and disputed facts about the crisis.
Fauci and Trump’s disparate responses have left many concerned the president would silence Fauci, or push him out of the response team entirely. In April, Trump retweeted a post calling for Fauci to be fired but has denied that he was considering firing him.
“While the Trump Administration continues its whole-of-government response to COVID-19, including safely opening up America again and expediting vaccine development, it is counterproductive to have the very individuals involved in those efforts appearing at congressional hearings,” said White House spokesman Judd Deere. “We are committed to working with Congress to offer testimony at the appropriate time.”
An unnamed senior administration official told the Washington Post that this was “not muzzling” because because Fauci is expected at a Senate hearing about testing the following week.
At the House committee hearing next week, speakers instead will include the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Thomas Frieden and possibly others.
Updated
There’s no other way to put this: Alex Jones is thinking about eating his neighbours.
In a bizarre video, the InfoWars host, conspiracy theorist and supporter and interviewer of Donald Trump told followers the coronavirus pandemic and resultant lockdown has him planning for societal breakdown, which in his case will involve killing his neighbours in order to feed his children.
I won’t quote him or link to the video, which of course can be easily found, but in the words of the Huffington Post, “Although Jones’ admission could make neighborhood watch meetings awkward, he said he plans on gobbling ‘globalists’ who imposed the lockdowns first.”
It is what it is and of course it duly went viral. It’s worth noting, in the meanwhile, that Jones said his infamous comments about the Sandy Hook school shooting – he said it was a hoax, parents of murdered first-graders sued – were caused by “psychosis”.
Here’s Jason Wilson of this parish, an expert on the murky circles in which Jones swims, with more on the American far (out) right in the time of coronavirus:
The Associated Press has more from Michigan, a hard-hit state (42,000 cases and nearly 4,000 deaths according to Johns Hopkins) which has also been hit hard by protests against Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer, demanding she end her stay-at home order.
On Thursday, some protesters at the statehouse in Lansing were armed with “long guns”, frightening lawmakers. On Friday, Donald Trump said the protesters were “good people” with whom the governor should “make a deal”. The president has targeted Whitmer with criticism before, in part because she is thought to be on Joe Biden’s short list for a running mate in November’s presidential election.
Here’s the AP:
Governor Gretchen Whitmer said on Friday Michigan’s stay-at-home order remains in effect through 15 May despite Republicans’ refusal to extend her underlying coronavirus emergency declaration, as she amended it to allow construction, real estate and more outdoor work to resume in person next week.
The Democratic governor, who may be sued by the GOP-led Legislature, addressed reporters the same day President Donald Trump tweeted she should “make a deal” with conservatives who protested her restrictions at the Capitol a day earlier. She denounced the protest as “disturbing,” noting there were swastikas, Confederate flags, nooses and some people with assault weapons who “do not represent who we are as Michiganders”.
“We’re not in a political crisis where we should just negotiate and find some common ground here. We’re in a public health crisis,” Whitmer said. “We’re in the midst of a global pandemic that has already killed almost 4,000 people in our state.”
Whitmer said she will continue listening to epidemiologists, public health experts and business leaders, “not to pollsters and not to people with political agendas.”
… Whitmer last week let some businesses like plant nurseries and bike repair shops reopen, as well as stores selling nonessential supplies for curbside pickup or delivery.
On Friday, she allowed work that is traditionally and primarily done outdoors – forestry workers, power equipment technicians, parking enforcers – to resume next Thursday. Construction workers, real estate agents, appraisers, brokers, inspectors and surveyors also will be able to work in person. So will manufacturing workers who make items like partitions, cubicles and furniture that will help businesses modify their workplaces amid the pandemic.
…Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey, a Republican who had encouraged people to protest, said many did so safely and responsibly. But he said several others are a “bunch of jackasses” who used intimidation and threats.
“I condemn their behavior and denounce their tactics,” he said. “Their actions hurt their cause and steal from the rights of others by creating an environment where responsible citizens do not feel safe enough to express themselves.”
There is currently no White House briefing – presidential, coronavirus task force or straight press – on the schedule for today. That of course can change. In the meantime, here’s what Washington bureau chief David Smith made of Kayleigh McEnany’s debut behind the podium (or lectern, Twitter pedants) in the James S Brady Press Briefing Room on Friday:
Associated Press reporter Jill Colvin had a question: “Will you pledge to never lie to us from that podium?”
Without missing a beat, McEnany replied: “I will never lie to you. You have my word on that.”
Expect to hear replays of that line before this presidency is done. Even on what proved an assured debut, McEnany skated close to peddling dodgy information about Trump’s responses to the coronavirus pandemic (“This president has always sided on the side of data”) and to allegations of sexual misconduct (“He has always told the truth”).
But the good news for the White House is that McEnany, 32, benefits by comparison with the desperately low standards of both her boss and her predecessors.
David also noted that McEnany “echoed Trump’s accusation that the World Health Organization ‘praised China’s leadership on the 22nd and 23rd’ of January, without mentioning that on 22 January Trump tweeted ‘Terrific working with President Xi’ and on 24 January wrote: ‘China has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well.’”
The whole piece, from Sean Spicer and Kellyanne Conway’s “alternative facts” to the elusive Stephanie Grisham and beyond, is here:
Good morning…
…and welcome to another day of coverage of the coronavirus outbreak in the US, and of course the politics around it. First the figures, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland:
- US cases: 1,103,615
- US deaths: 65,063
- New York cases: 308,314
- New York deaths: 24,039
New York is the hottest hot spot for Covid-19 – other states are badly and in some cases increasingly affected, despite gathering attempts to re-open shuttered economies. There have been protests demanding faster re-opening, some protesters have been armed, and the president has expressed his support.
We’ve plenty of Guardian reporting to get you going today: on the nursing home in New York (not too far from where I am, as it happens, at the top of Manhattan) where nearly 100 people have died; from California, where Governor Gavin Newsom is moving towards reopening; and from southern bureau chief Oliver Laughland in New Orleans, with Amanda Holpuch in New York, on how meat plant workers have been treated on the front line of US food supply. In short, not well:
In Washington on Friday, Donald Trump did not hold a briefing but his new press secretary – his fourth – did.
Judged by the standards of her predecessors – by Washington bureau chief David Smith, who was there for Sean Spicer, Sarah Sanders and Stephanie Grisham, although the last named didn’t actually hold any briefings – Kayleigh McEnany made an assured debut. She may, however, come to regret her promise from the podium (or lectern) not ever to lie. Not least because as she attacked China and the World Health Organization, defended Michael Flynn and dismissed questions about allegations of sexual misconduct against Trump, she flirted, as British hacks of a certain vintage might put it, with being a tad economical with the actualité.
Here’s our world affairs editor, Julian Borger, with a fact check on the WHO side of it:
In her maiden White House press conference, @PressSec maintained Trump admin criticism of WHO, but in so doing gave a misleading and in some cases false, account of WHO's record.
— Julian Borger (@julianborger) May 1, 2020
Here's a fact check thread on that: 1/11
More to come, obviously.
