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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Maanvi Singh in Oakland, and Joan E Greve in Washington and Martin Pengelly in New York

President calls negative hydroxychloroquine study 'a Trump enemy statement' – as it happened

Live reporting on the coronavirus in the US continues on Wednesday’s blog:

Updated

Summary

  • Donald Trump signed an executive order encouraging agencies to rollback regulations. “Agencies must continue to remove barriers to the greatest engine of economic prosperity the world has ever known: the innovation, initiative, and drive of the American people,” the order states.
  • The Senate confirmed a Trump appointee to the Federal Elections Committee, giving the agency the four votes needed to regulate federal election campaign finance laws. Trey Trainor, the conservative Texas lawyer who as confirmed to the seat has pushed for less regulation of money in politics.
  • Member states backed the WHO after another attack from Trump, calling for a global show of support. A resolution that backed the WHO’s leadership and said there would be an investigation into the global response to the pandemic, but did not endorse a major overhaul, as Trump requested.
  • The president criticized a negative hydroxychloroquine study as a “Trump enemy statement”. A preliminary study of coronavirus patients at US veterans health administration medical centers found that showed those treated with the anti-malaria drug, which Trump has repeatedly promoted, had a higher risk of death.
  • The US vice-president, Mike Pence, said he is not taking hydroxychloroquine. Pence’s admission came one day after Trump told reporters he has been taking the drug in recent days, despite the Food and Drug Administration’s guidance that it should only be used in hospital settings.
  • Trump lashed out against Nancy Pelosi after the House speaker described the president as “morbidly obese”. Pelosi said she did not think Trump should be taking hydroxychloroquine, particularly considering his age and weight. “Pelosi is a sick woman,” Trump said in response. “She’s got a lot of problems, a lot of mental problems.”
  • The treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, and the Fed chairman, Jerome Powell, virtually testified before the Senate banking committee. Mnuchin warned that an extended shutdown could potentially cause “permanent damage” to the US economy, while Powell suggested Congress may need to approve additional relief funding.
  • New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo, issued some thinly veiled criticism of Trump. “You’re not going to tweet your way through this,” Cuomo said during his daily briefing.

Updated

Member states back WHO after renewed Donald Trump attack

Patrick Wintour and Julian Borger report:

Member states have backed a resolution strongly supportive of the World Health Organization, after Donald Trump issued a fresh broadside against the UN body, giving it 30 days to make unspecified reforms or lose out on US funding.

A resolution that backed the WHO’s leadership and said there needed to be an investigation into the global response to the coronavirus pandemic won endorsement at the WHO’s annual ministerial meeting on Tuesday.

The US president launched his attack late on Monday, sending a lengthy letter outlining America’s belief that the WHO had not been sufficiently independent of China, and had been too willing to accept its explanations for the origins of the coronavirus outbreak.

As the pandemic worsens in the US, and other countries begin a tentative recovery, Trump has sought to blame China and the WHO. The letter accused the WHO of making repeated mistakes, meaning thousands of lives had been lost, and America’s interests not served.

“If the WHO does not commit to major substantive improvements within the next 30 days, I will make my temporary freeze of United States funding to the WHO permanent and reconsider our membership,” Trump told its chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

His attack was timed to coincide with the start of the two-day World Health Assembly, which on Tuesday finally backed a draft resolution that supported a WHO-established independent and impartial inquiry into the WHO’s conduct over the coronavirus.

The resolution, supported by China’s president, Xi Jinping, on Monday and largely drafted by the European Union, stops short of the kind of international inquiry focused on China’s conduct that was first canvassed by Australia and the US. The Chinese foreign ministry claimed the resolution was completely different from the politically motivated inquiry sought by Australia.

Senate confirms Trump appointee to FEC

The Senate has confirmed Trey Trainor, a conservative Texas attorney, to the Federal Elections Committee.

Trainor, an election law attorney, has pushed for less regulation of money in politics. He advised the Republican National Committee and Donald Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election.

The confirmation ends longest period in the agency’s history without a quorum. The committee will now have the four votes needed to regulate federal campaign finance laws.

Updated

Who is Sean Conley, the doctor gave Donald Trump hydoxychloroquine?

Conley is US navy veteran and is qualified in osteopathic medicine.

Conley, who is from Pennsylvania, graduated from the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine in 2006 and went on to undertake a medical residency at a navy base in Virginia. He was then deployed to Afghanistan, where he acted as head of a trauma unit at a Nato base.

The medical unit at the White House is typically staffed by doctors drawn from the US military and Conley found himself in line to become the president’s own physician after the departure of Ronny Jackson, who had previously raised eyebrows by praising Trump’s “good genes” and for saying that if the president had had “a healthier diet over the last 20 years, he might live to be 200 years old”.

Jackson had also sparked a short-lived “girther” conspiracy movement after reporting Trump’s weight as 239lb, just 1lb below a threshold that would class the president as obese. Trump sleeps just four or five hours a night, doesn’t exercise outside rounds of golf and is fond of McDonald’s but is fit enough for a second term, Jackson reported in 2018.

Listen: The Guardian’s Julia Carrie Wong explains that before reaching Trump, the hype around hydroxychloroquine, which is also used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and lupus, had moved from small clinical studies through to influencers in Silicon Valley and then on to prime time shows on Fox News.

But rather than being 100% effective as has been claimed, there are serious doubts about the drug’s safety when taken to treat coronavirus.

On Monday, thousands of visitors from across the country descended on Yellowstone national park, which opened for the first time since its closure in March due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Sam Gilbert reports for the Guardian:

“We have been cooped up for weeks,” Jacob Willis told the Guardian near a crowd of onlookers at the Old Faithful Geyser. “When the parks opened, we jumped at the opportunity to travel,” said Willis, who had arrived from Florida.

Yellowstone, America’s oldest national park, and the nearby Grand Teton national park are the most recent to have partially reopened with the support of the Trump administration.

“I hope everybody is listening,” Donald Trump announced earlier in May. “The parks are opening, and rapidly, actually.”

While many have celebrated the reopening of the revered landscapes, others have raised health concerns about large, possibly maskless, groups of out-of-state visitors arriving and potentially skirting social distancing guidelines.

Updated

Republicans are recruiting doctors to promote Trump’s plan to reopen the economy quickly, the AP reports:

Republican political operatives are recruiting “pro-Trump” doctors to go on television to prescribe reviving the U.S. economy as quickly as possible, without waiting to meet safety benchmarks proposed by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to slow the spread of the new coronavirus.

The plan was discussed in a May 11 conference call with a senior staffer for the Trump reelection campaign organized by CNP Action, an affiliate of the GOP-aligned Council for National Policy. A leaked recording of the hour-long call was provided to The Associated Press by the Center for Media and Democracy, a progressive watchdog group.CNP Action is part of the Save Our Country Coalition, an alliance of conservative think tanks and political committees formed in late April to end state lockdowns implemented in response to the pandemic. Other members of the coalition include the FreedomWorks Foundation, the American Legislative Exchange Council and Tea Party Patriots.

Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign communications director, confirmed to AP that an effort to recruit doctors to publicly support the president is underway, but declined to say when the initiative would be rolled out.

“Anybody who joins one of our coalitions is vetted,” Murtaugh said Monday. “And so quite obviously, all of our coalitions espouse policies and say things that are, of course, exactly simpatico with what the president believes. ... The president has been outspoken about the fact that he wants to get the country back open as soon as possible.”

Updated

Environmental groups are none too pleased.

“Trump’s latest order makes about as much sense as drinking bleach,” said Brett Hartl, the government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “He’s using the pandemic to slash life-saving protections for our air, water, and wildlife when these safeguards have never been more important. It’s astounding that Trump is so out of touch with the majority of people who understand that there can’t be economic recovery on a dying planet.”

Updated

Trump signs executive order to hasten rollback of regulations

Trump has signed an executive order encouraging agencies to cut regulations in the name of economic recovery.

“Agencies must continue to remove barriers to the greatest engine of economic prosperity the world has ever known: the innovation, initiative, and drive of the American people,” the order states.

Updated

A new study suggests a connection between crowded polling places and the spread of Covid-19 in Wisconsin during the state’s 7 April election.

The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:

The study finds a “statistically and economically significant association between in-person voting and the spread of Covid-19 two to three weeks after the election”. By studying state election and Covid-19 data, researchers concluded that consolidating polling places and decreasing the number of absentee ballots led to an increase in positive Covid-19 tests weeks after the election.

The research by economists at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, University of Wisconsin-Madison and Ball State University was published as a working paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research. “Our results indicate that Wisconsin counties with higher levels of in-person voting per polling location led to increases in the weekly positive rate of Covid-19 tests,” they wrote.

Furthermore, counties with higher absentee voting participation had lower rates of detecting Covid-19 two to three weeks after the election. “State and local officials scrambled in the weeks ahead of the election to prepare amid the Covid-19 pandemic. In Milwaukee, election officials were forced to close 175 of 180 polling places, but other places, such as the city of Madison, were able to keep 66 of 99 polling places open.

State health officials said that 52 people who tested positive for Covid-19 participated in in-person voting, but have cautioned they don’t know if people contracted the virus at the polls.

Updated

Here’s some more on that VA study that the president has described as “a Trump enemy statement”:

The study by VA and academic researchers reviewed the cases of 368 male patients treated at government hospitals – 97 treated with hydroxychloroquine, 113 with hydroxychloroquine, and the antibiotic azithromycin, and 158 without any hydroxychloroquine.

The study found that those who were treated with the antimalarial drug had a higher risk of death. But the research comes with several big caveats.

Most significantly, the study is retrospective. Rather than randomly assigning some patients to be treated with hydroxychloroquine and others without, researchers looked back on how patients who had and had not taken the drug fared. It’s unclear why doctors gave some patients the drug and not others, and it’s possible that physicians treated the most severe cases with hydroxychloroquine, which could at least partly explain why those patients fared worse.

The research was published as a pre-print – it has not yet gone through a rigorous process of peer review.

But there is absolutely no evidence that the researchers behind the study were biased, against the administration or against the use of the drug.

Updated

In response to growing criticism, the VA said last week that while it wouldn’t halt the use of hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 treatment, it would offer the unproven drug to fewer patients.

In documents obtained by the Associated Press, the VA said it never “encouraged or discouraged” its government hospitals to use hydroxychloroquine. But publicly, the VA secretary, Robert Wilkie, has touted the drug and claimed without evidence that it has been shown to benefit younger veterans.

Still, it acknowledged that Wilkie had wrongly asserted publicly without evidence that the drug had been shown to benefit younger veterans. The VA, the nation’s largest hospital system, also agreed more study was needed on the drug and suggested its use was now limited to extenuating circumstances, such as last-ditch efforts to save a coronavirus patient’s life.

Updated

Hi there, it’s Maanvi Singh, blogging from the west coast.

The former veterans affairs secretary, who said he was forced out of the Trump administration, has weighed in on Trump bashing the VA study that found patients who took hydroxychloroquine didn’t benefit.

David Shulkin, a physician and former hospital executive who served as undersecretary of veterans affairs in the Obama administration, initially helped Trump pass an expansion of the GI Bill for post-9/11 veterans and a law that streamlined the appeals process for veterans seeking disability benefits. But he left the administration amid disagreements between him and more conservative administration officials and after the release inspector general’s report that held Shulkin responsible for “serious derelictions” during an overseas trip .

Updated

Donald Trump has reignited a controversy over the antimalarial drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine after telling reporters he was taking the latter to protect himself against coronavirus. What do we know about these drugs?

What is hydroxychloroquine?

Hydroxychloroquine, which Trump says he has been taking for about two weeks, was developed as an antimalarial but it is also used to treat conditions like lupus, an anti-immune disease, and arthritis, where it can help combat inflammation. It has been licensed for use in the US since the mid 1950s and is listed by the World Health Organization as an “essential” medicine.

What’s the state of the current evidence?

In May, the British Medical Journal reported on a randomised (although still problematic) clinical trial in China that found little evidence hydroxychloroquine worked, with serious adverse events noted in two patients.

A second study reported in the BMJ last week on a French trial also concluded that hydroxychloroquine does not significantly reduce admission to intensive care or improve survival rates in patients hospitalised with pneumonia owing to Covid-19. Overall, 89% of those who received hydroxychloroquine survived after 21 days, compared with 91% in the control group.

The US Food and Drug Administration in a safety alert issued on 24 April warned that it had received reports that hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine could have serious side-effects and that the drugs should be taken only under the close supervision of a doctor in a hospital setting or a clinical trial.

What are the risks in taking hydroxychloroquine?

There are a number of side-effects. The most serious is that it can interfere with the rhythm of the heart. Other side-effects include headache, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, stomach pain, skin rash or itching or hair loss. Research published by the Mayo Clinic has suggested that “off-label” repurposing of drugs such as hydroxychloroquine could lead to “drug-induced sudden cardiac death”.

Although Trump’s official physician has said he was in “very good health” at his last official checkup, the president is 73 and his recorded weight would put him in a BMI category of “clinically obese”.

Updated

Today so far

That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • The president criticized a negative hydroxychloroquine study as a “Trump enemy statement.” A study of hundreds of coronavirus patients at US veterans health administration medical centers showed those treated with the anti-malaria drug, which Trump has repeatedly promoted, were no less likely to need a ventilator and actually saw a higher death rate.
  • Vice President Mike Pence said he is not taking hydroxychloroquine. Pence’s admission came one day after Trump told reporters he has been taking the drug in recent days, despite the Food and Drug Administration’s guidance that it should only be used in hospital settings.
  • Trump lashed out against Nancy Pelosi after the House speaker described the president as “morbidly obese.” Pelosi said she did not think Trump should be taking hydroxychloroquine, particularly considering his age and weight. “Pelosi is a sick woman,” Trump said in response. “She’s got a lot of problems, a lot of mental problems.”
  • Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and Fed chairman Jerome Powell virtually testified before the Senate banking committee. Mnuchin warned that an extended shutdown could potentially cause “permanent damage” to the US economy, while Powell suggested Congress may need to approve additional relief funding.
  • New York governor Andrew Cuomo issued some thinly veiled criticism of Trump. “You’re not going to tweet your way through this,” Cuomo said during his daily briefing.

Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

None of Trump’s cabinet members would say if they are also taking hydroxychloroquine to help prevent coronavirus.

“Many of them would take it if they thought it was necessary,” the president told reporters during a cabinet meeting at the White House.

Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged earlier today that he is not taking the anti-malaria drug, but he said he “wouldn’t hesitate” to use it if his doctor recommended it.

Once again, there is scant evidence that hydroxychloroqine is an effective coronavirus treatment, and the FDA has said it should only be used in hospital settings due to potential complications, including heart problems.

Trump falsely claims hydroxychloroquine 'doesn't harm you'

Trump doubled down on his criticism of a hydroxychloroquine study, which showed coronavirus patients who were treated with the anti-malaria drug saw a significantly higher death rate.

According to the results of a study of hundreds of patients at US veterans health administration medical centers, 97 patients who took hydroxychloroquine had a 27.8% death rate, while the 158 patients who did not take the drug had an 11.4% death rate.

“That was a false study done, where they gave it very sick people. Extremely sick people. People that were ready to die,” Trump said. “It was given by obviously not friends of the administration.”

Trump went on to falsely claim that evidence suggests hydroxychloroquine does not have negative side effects. “What has been determined is it doesn’t harm you,” Trump said.

In reality, the Food and Drug Administration has said hydroxychloroquine should only be used as a coronavirus treatment in hopsital settings, due to “reports of serious heart rhythm problems” in virus patients who had received the drug.

When a reporter mentioned the FDA guidance, Trump said, “That’s not what I was told.”

Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin showed off the debit cards the Trump administration is producing to distribute coronavirus relief funds.

During a cabinet meeting at the White House, Mnuchin said the debit cards would help the federal government get money to Americans “even quicker in a very safe way.”

Mnuchin presented Trump with a debit card with his name on it, jokingly adding, “Now there’s no money for you on it. This is a blank debit card.”

The president admired the card and then asked, “Do I sign the letter again?” That comment appeared to be a reference to the gushing letter Trump sent to accompany the direct cash payments from the stimulus package, which sparked accusations that the president was politicizing financial relief.

Mnuchin replied to Trump’s question, “The next time we send money, you’ll get to send another letter.”

Senate minority leader takes issue with inaction on coronavirus crisis, rails as president challenges “Trump enemy statement” on hydroxychloroquine.

The frustration vibrates off the screen. Here’s New York Democrat and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer railing at Trump goings on on Capitol Hill this afternoon.

Trump wants to talk about hydroxychloroquine and how a recent, large study that showed dubious benefits and plenty of dangers in relation to Covid-19 patients and anyone taking it as a prophylactic must be down to bias against him. Schumer wants to talk about something else.

This study:

Updated

Trump plans more regulatory cuts

Donald Trump announced moments ago that he will sign an executive order directing federal agencies to eliminate “unnecessary regulations that impede economic recovery.”

He said at a Cabinet meeting, Reuters reports: “I’m directing agencies to review the hundreds of regulations we’ve already suspended in response to the virus and make these suspensions permanent where possible.”

Trump also tweeted this. Hand-shaking, back-slapping, not a mask in sight.

This as Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, said any action on a new coronavirus-response bill could be “weeks away”.

Updated

Republican senators said Trump talked about his polling numbers and upcoming nominations during the Senate lunch today.

Senator John Cornyn said the president was “actually pretty proud” of his numbers, even though recent polls show Trump trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

Asked if the president is frustrated he can’t hold rallies right now because of coronavirus restrictions, Cornyn said, “Of course he is.” Chuckling, Cornyn added, “That’s why he comes over here and talks to us.”

The vice president’s office distributed his full answer about not taking hydroxychloroquine, even though the president has apparently been using the drug in recent days.

“I would never begrudge any American taking the advice of their physician,” Mike Pence told Fox News in an interview at NASA’s Washington headquarters.

“Hydroxychloroquine is a drug that’s been around for more than 40 years for treatment of malaria. But, early in this process, the FDA approved what’s called off-label use where physicians could prescribe hydroxychloroquine in terms they deemed appropriate.

“So my physician has not recommended that, but I wouldn’t hesitate to take the counsel of my doctor. Any American should do likewise.”

But the FDA has warned against the use of hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus treatment outside of hospital settings, warning there have been “reports of serious heart rhythm problems” in coronavirus patients treated with the drug.

Trump: Negative hydroxychloroquine study was 'a Trump enemy statement'

Pressed on his admission that he has been using hydroxychloroquine, the president claimed a study indicating the anti-malaria drug was not an effective coronavirus treatment was a “Trump enemy statement.”

“If you look at the one survey, the only bad survey, they were giving it to people that were in very bad shape,” Trump said. “They were very old. Almost dead. It was a Trump enemy statement.”

The president appears to be referring to a study of hundreds of patients at US veterans health administration medical centers. In reality, that study showed patients treated with hydroxychloroquine were no less likely to need a ventilator and saw a higher death rate.

According to the study’s results, 97 patients who took hydroxychloroquine had a 27.8% death rate, while the 158 patients who did not take the drug had an 11.4% death rate.

It should also be noted that the president’s claim of the patients being “almost dead” would align with the Food and Drug Administration’s guidance that hydroxychloroquine should not be used outside a hospital setting.

The president’s odd statement that the medical study was a “Trump enemy statement” comes as many of his critics warn he is politicizing science in the middle of a pandemic.

Just minutes after saying he would not respond to Nancy Pelosi calling him “morbidly obsese,” Trump unexpectedly unleashed an attack against the House speaker.

“Pelosi is a sick woman,” Trump said while answering a reporter’s question about his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn. “She’s got a lot of problems, a lot of mental problems.”

The president quickly wrapped up his Q&A with reporters on Capitol Hill without providing much insight about what was discussed during the Senate Republican lunch he attended.

When Republican senator Bill Cassidy was asked about the lunch, he told an MSNBC reporter, “The president was ... the president.”

Trump dismissed a critical comment from House speaker Nancy Pelosi about the president’s use of hydroxychloroquine.

Speaking to reporters on Capitol Hill after the Senate Republican lunch, Trump said of Pelosi, “I don’t respond to her. I think she’s a waste of time.”

Pelosi was asked yesterday about Trump using the anti-malaria drug, which he has touted as a potential coronavirus treatment despite little evidence to support that claim.

“He’s our president, and I would rather he not be taking something that has not been approved by the scientists, especially in his age group and his, shall we say, weight group ... morbidly obese, they say,” she said.

Today so far

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • Vice President Mike Pence said he is not taking hydroxychloroquine. The admission came one day after Trump said he has been taking hydroxychloroquine, even though there is scant evidence that the anti-malaria drug can effectively treat coronavirus.
  • Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and Fed chairman Jerome Powell virtually testified before the Senate banking committee. Mnuchin warned that an extended shutdown could cause “permanent damage” to the economy, while Powell indicated Congress should consider approving additional relief funds.
  • New York governor Andrew Cuomo issued some thinly veiled criticism of Trump. “You’re not going to tweet your way through this,” Cuomo said of the government’s response to the crisis.

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Cuomo: ‘You’re not going to tweet your way through this’

The Guardian’s Kenya Evelyn recaps New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s daily coronavirus briefing:

Cuomo appeared to take a swipe at Donald Trump, who faces mounting criticism for his response to the pandemic.

“You’re not going to tweet your way through this,” the Democratic governor said. “You have to be competent.”

Cuomo insisted government is more important now than it’s ever been in his lifetime. With 105 deaths confirmed Tuesday, New York state has now reach nearly 23,000 reported deaths from the virus.

Still, the state’s Capital Region, which includes Albany in the East, will begin the first phase of its reopening on Wednesday. The area joins the state’s Western region, including Buffalo, which began reopening earlier this week.

But when asked about any state cooperation with the federal government, Cuomo mostly reiterated the limits of a state government that “does not do borders and customs,” continuing his argument that the lack of an earlier European travel ban fueled the virus’ spread.

But Cuomo did urge the US Senate to act on a bill passed by the House of Representatives that would include relief funding for state and local governments. He also contended any coronavirus vaccine must be distributed to everyone once it is developed.

“It can’t be a situation where only the rich and only the privileged get the vaccine because only one company gets the rights and they can’t produce for everyone,” he said.

On the multi-system inflammatory syndrome in children, the governor confirmed New York now has seen 137 cases of the illness that is linked to coronavirus. Cuomo said he expects things to get much worse before getting better.

He then erroneously charged that New York was the first to raise a flag on the illness. Countries in Europe, including the UK and Italy, have recently released studies warning of the outbreak among children.

New York state will also start a 2-week pilot program to allow hospitals to admit visitors wearing personal protective equipment, the governor confirmed. The new measures are a relief for patients, many of whom have been gone without seeing family for weeks at a time.

Cuomo also announced the state will allow Memorial Day ceremonies with 10 people or less to honor or mourn fallen military personnel.

Trump was seen arriving on Capitol Hill for the Senate Republican lunch not wearing a mask, even though most lawmakers have been covering their faces in recent days.

The president has been generally resistant to wearing a mask, even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended face coverings to limit the spread of coronavirus.

Trump is scheduled to tour a Ford Motors plant in Michigan tomorrow, and the company has said it will require him to wear a mask for the visit.

Trump has arrived on Capitol Hill, where the president will participate in the Senate Republican policy lunch.

Deputy press secretary Judd Deere said in a statement, “President Trump will attend the Senate GOP Policy Lunch in the Hart Office Building to thank senators for their work during this unprecedented crisis, discuss the progress safely opening up America again, and explore the path to economic prosperity for all Americans.”

Vice President Mike Pence was on Capitol Hill earlier today to meet with Republican congressional leaders to discuss the next coronavirus relief package, but House minority leader Kevin McCarthy left the meeting saying, “I don’t see the need right now.”

According to the Fox News reporter who interviewed the vice president, Mike Pence said he was not taking hydroxychloroquine because his doctor had not recommended it.

But Pence added that he “wouldn’t hesitate” to use hydroxychloroquine, even though there has been little evidence that the anti-malaria drug is an effective treatment against coronavirus.

In a memo last night, Trump’s physician, Dr Sean Conley, said of the president’s use of the drug, “After numerous discussions he and I had regarding the evidence for and against the use of hydroxychloroquine, we concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks.”

Pence says he is not taking hydroxychloroquine

Vice President Mike Pence said that he is not taking hydroxychloroquine during a Fox News interview at the NASA headquarters in Washington.

The vice president had dodged questions earlier in the day about whether he, like Trump, was using the anti-malaria drug, which the president has touted as a potential coronavirus treatment.

But again, the evidence for hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness is very scant, and the Food and Drug Administration has said it should not be used to treat coronavirus outside a hospital setting.

Global carbon dioxide emissions dropped 17% last month, according to a new study, as lockdowns imposed due to the coronavirus pandemic shuttered businesses and severely limited travel around the world.

Fiona Harvey reports:

Daily emissions of the greenhouse gas plunged 17% by early April compared with 2019 levels, according to the first definitive study of global carbon output this year.

The findings show the world has experienced the sharpest drop in carbon output since records began, with large sections of the global economy brought to a near standstill. When the lockdown was at its most stringent, in some countries emissions fell by just over a quarter (26%) on average. In the UK, the decline was about 31%, while in Australia emissions fell 28.3% for a period during April.

But even though environmental advocates have been pushing to reduce emissions for years, experts said the drop was unlikely to last long after the coronavirus crisis concludes.

Carbon emissions similarly decreased by 1.5% for a year during the financial crisis, but emissions then shot back up as if the drop had never occurred.

Trump said his team was “going after Virginia” during a speech at the White House, which was ostensibly focused on providing financial relief to farmers and ranchers.

“We’re going after Virginia, with your crazy governor, we’re going after Virginia,” Trump told the farmers who were present for his remarks.

The president then made a reference to gun rights, saying, “They want to take your Second Amendment away. You’ll have nobody guarding your potatoes.”

Trump attracted scrutiny last month when he tweeted about Virginia’s stay-at-home order, saying, “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!” Trump sent similar tweets about Michigan and Minnesota, both of which also have Democratic governors.

The president’s critics accused him of inciting violence against the Democratic leaders, considering some of the participants of anti-shutdown protests have been seen carrying firearms as they demonstrate.

Fed chair Jerome Powell has indicated he still supports Congress approving additional coronavirus relief funds, although his testimony before the Senate banking committee has been a bit more vague than some of his other recent comments.

The central bank chairman told members of the committee, “This is the biggest shock we’ve seen in living memory. The question that looms in the air is is it enough.”

Powell also said, “My concern has been the risk and possibility of longer-run damage to the economy. ... If we find ourselves in that place, we may have to do more.”

The chairman was a bit more explicit on the subject of more relief funding last week, when he said, “Additional fiscal support could be costly, but worth it if it helps avoid long-term damage and leaves us with a stronger recovery.”

Republican congressional leadership does not appear to have changed their position on the next coronavirus relief bill, after a meeting this morning with the vice president and the treasury secretary.

“I don’t see the need right now,” House minority leader Kevin McCarthy said of another relief package.

House Democrats passed their version of the relief bill last week, but Trump has declared that legislation to be “dead on arrival,” and Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has indicated he will slow-walk the next package.

The closure at the US-Canadian border has been extended for another 30 days, Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau confirmed this morning.

The announcement means that America’s northern border will be closed to non-essential travel until at least June 21.

Trump administration officials have indicated they would move to extend the closure at the US-Mexican border as well.

Michigan govenor Gretchen Whitmer said she has had an “opening conversation” with Joe Biden’s team about potentially joining the Democratic ticket as his running mate.

“I’ve had a conversation with some folks,” Whitmer told the “Today” show this morning. “It was just an opening conversation, and it’s not something that I would call a professional formalized vetting.”

But Whitmer emphasized she was currently focused on her state’s response to coronavirus. Nearly 5,000 people have already died of the virus in Michigan.

“I am making a little bit of time to stay connected to the campaign, but the most important thing that I have to do right now is be the governor of my home state,” Whitmer said. “That’s all that matters to me in this moment.”

Whitmer has been included on virtually every news outlet’s list of Biden’s potential running mates, and the governor appeared on the presumptive nominee’s podcast last month.

Mnuchin and Powell testify on Capitol Hill

Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin and Fed chairman Jerome Powell are currently virtually testifying before the Senate banking committee about the economic provisions of the coronavirus relief packages.

Senator Sherrod Brown, the top Democrat on the committee, pressed Mnuchin about the risks facing essential workers as the president pushes to reopen the economy.

Mnuchin initially began his comments by thanking essential workers, but Brown replied that thanks were not sufficient to address the risks those Americans are taking on.

“How many workers should give their lives to increase the GDP or the Dow Jones by 1,000 points?” Brown asked Mnuchin.

The treasury secretary replied, “No workers should give their lives to do that, Mr Senator, and I think your characterization is unfair.”

The Senate intelligence committee has voted along party lines to approve the nomination of congressman John Ratcliffe as the next director of national intelligence, according to reports.

As a reminder, Ratcliffe was previously considered for the DNI job last year, but he withdrew from consideration amid concerns about his qualifciations and potential partisan approach to the intelligence role.

But Ratcliffe now seems likely to receive approval from Senate Republicans, who expressed some skepticism about his potential nomination last year.

The president’s appointment of US Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell as the acting director of national intelligence may have eased Ratcliffe’s confirmation, considering Grenell also has few intelligence qualifications and is a staunch Trump ally.

Trump is reportedly expected to attend the Senate Republican lunch this afternoon, which did not appear on his initial public schedule for the day.

Vice President Mike Pence was on Capitol Hill this morning meeting with Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, House minority leader Kevin McCarthy and treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin about the next coronavirus relief package.

Leaving the meeting to virtually testify before the Senate banking committee, Mnuchin said he and Pence received “a good update” and found the meeting “very helpful.”

Dr Deborah Birx ignored a question about whether she had concerns regarding Trump’s apparent use of hydroxychloroquine.

A reporter greeted Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, as she arrived at the White House this morning.

When the reporter asked Birx about Trump’s disclosure yesterday, Birx said, “Isn’t it great that it’s not going to rain for the next three days?” Okay then.

Again, the Food and Drug Administration has warned against the use of hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus treatment outside of a hospital setting.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany confirmed this morning that Trump is taking hydroxychloroquine, even though the effectiveness of the anti-malaria drug as a potential coronavirus treatment is very unclear.

McEnany was pressed on why the president’s physician was so vague in his memo about the president’s disclosure.

In the memo, Dr Sean Conley said, “After numerous discussions he and I had regarding the evidence for and against the use of hydroxychloroquine, we concluded the potential benefit from treatment outweighed the relative risks.”

McEnany claimed the memo was not meant to confirm the president is using the drug and was instead intended to show Conley “agreed with the analysis that the benefit outwighed the risk.”

This is Joan Greve, taking over for Martin Pengelly.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is meeting with Vice President Mike Pence, treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy this morning, according to reporters on Capitol Hill.

The four Republican leaders are expected to talk about the next coronavirus relief package, which is currently stalled after House Democrats passed their version of the bill last week.

Trump has declared the House bill “dead on arrival,” and McConnell has seemed comfortable with slow-walking the next relief package.

But with more than 36 million Americans having filed claims for unemployment benefits in the past eight weeks, McConnell (and Trump) may be feeling pressure to act sooner rather than later.

Department of Unusual But Telling Reports: NBC News says the traditional portrait unveiling ceremony, in which presidents welcome their predecessor back to the White House for the unveiling of a painting, ain’t happening this year, in short, as presidential historian Michael Beschloss told NBC, because:

You’ve got a president who’s talking about putting the previous one in legal jeopardy, to put it nicely. We have not seen a situation like that in history. It takes antipathy of a new president for a predecessor to a new level.

How Trump feels about Obama and how Obama feels about Trump is pretty much known. Neither is keen, to put it lightly, and Trump is currently trying to gin up a scandal, “Obamagate”, which he says is the worst in US political history, although he doesn’t seem sure quite why.

According to NBC, in 2012 Obama told George W Bush: “We may have our differences politically, but the presidency transcends those differences.” Not at the moment, it doesn’t.

Here’s David Smith on how Trump sees Obama:

On Michael Flynn and 'Obamagate'…

Fifteen Republican state attorneys general have filed a legal brief telling a federal judge they support the Trump administration’s attempt to drop the case against the former national security adviser.

Michael Flynn.
Michael Flynn. Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

According to CNN, which said it had obtained a copy of the legal brief, “the Republican attorneys general wrote they believed that Judge Emmet Sullivan’s questioning of the justice department was the court ‘inserting itself’ into ‘prosecutorial discretion’ and politics.

“They urged Sullivan to dismiss the case, ending Flynn’s legal jeopardy. They also asked him to dismiss Flynn’s charge ‘without irrelevant or personal comment’.”

Flynn, a retired general, was fired by Trump for lying to the vice-president about conversations with the Russian ambassador. He pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI.

Obama administration requests to “unmask” him, as an American speaking to surveilled foreign nationals during the investigation of Russian election interference, a routine intelligence practice, are at the heart of Donald Trump’s attempts to create a scandal, so-called “Obamagate”, to ensnare his predecessor and his challenger at the polls this year, former vice-president Joe Biden.

Judge Sullivan has put a hold on attorney general William Barr’s attempt to drop the case against Flynn, and appointed a retired judge, John Gleeson, to argue against the motion to dismiss.

The 15 Republican attorneys general are from the following states: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.

In an open letter last week, almost 2,000 former justice department figures condemned the move to drop the case against Flynn.

“Governments that use the enormous power of law enforcement to punish their enemies and reward their allies are not constitutional republics,” they said. “They are autocracies.”

Barr has his own views on that. On Monday, while Senate judiciary chair Lindsey Graham said he wanted to subpoena records from senior Obama administration figures, the attorney general said he expected no criminal investigations would be opened into Barack Obama or Biden.

But Barr also claimed he would never use the “criminal justice system for partisan political ends”. Which as I noted earlier, is the kind of thing which causes comment when you have a record like Barr’s.

In Congress, the Senate banking, housing and urban affairs committee will today hear from treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin and Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell, about federal stimulus efforts for the cratering US economy.

Short version: Powell wants more spending, Mnuchin doesn’t, and neither do Republicans who control the Senate. The House passed a $3tn bill on Friday but Speaker Nancy Pelosi knows it isn’t going anywhere.

The hearing’s at 10am – Mnuchin, with Vice-President Mike Pence, will also meet Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy on Capitol Hill.

Donald Trump, meanwhile, doesn’t have a briefing on his schedule today. But he will deliver “remarks on supporting our Nation’s Farmers, Ranchers, and Food Supply Chain” at 11am and hold a cabinet meeting at 3pm. Precedent suggests that will give the president ample time to comment to the press should he so desire.

Fox News, Trump and hydroxychloroquine – it's complicated

Fox News hosts reacted in differing ways to Trump’s declaration that he is taking hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, to guard against the coronavirus despite the FDA saying that is a bad idea.

Fox News, you’ll remember, enthusiastically joined the president in touting the drug in the early stages of the pandemic, until trial results came back and did not provide the results for which its proponents had been hoping. Safe to say, Trump’s Monday bombshell set off a few explosions.

Anchor Neil Cavuto got out of the gate with a horrified reaction: “This is stunning … A number of studies, those certainly vulnerable in the population have one thing to lose, their lives.”

“I only make this not to make a political point here,” Cavuto added, “but a life-and-death point. Be very, very careful.”

A medical expert was present to say Cavuto’s assessment was correct and the Fox News website published a cautionary story about the drug.

But, unsurprisingly, the opinion hosts who take over in the evenings – Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity – didn’t agree.

Nor did the president, who, entirely presidentially, retweeted a Twitter user whose biography says his “opinions are mine and my stash of lesbian porn proves I’m not homophobic” and who called Cavuto “an asshole”.

The president also opined: “Fox News is no longer the same. We miss the great Roger Ailes. You have more anti-Trump people, by far, than ever before. Looking for a new outlet!”

That would be the Roger Ailes who was Fox News chairman and CEO but was credibly accused of sexual harassment by a number of women, resigned in disgrace and died in 2017.

To House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who told CNN of Trump’s claim to be taking hydroxychloroquine…

“I would rather he not be taking something that has not been approved by the scientists, especially in his age group, and in his, shall we say, weight group: ‘Morbidly obese,’ they say”.

Is the president obese, morbidly or otherwise? Not to President Taft Is Stuck In The Bath levels, obviously (key fact, key fact fans: I’m sort of related to Taft by marriage – sort of). But according to his 2019 physical, he is.

This was how Politico put it last year, after the president’s last full examination: “President Donald Trump gained 4lbs over the last year, according to a new assessment from his doctor, a weight increase that makes him technically obese. But Trump’s doctor, Sean Conley, nonetheless determined that the president ‘remains in very good health overall’ in a memorandum released by the White House.”

According to that assessment, Trump, 73, is 6ft 3in and 243lbs, which is technically obese and sometimes referred to as morbidly obese. Which doesn’t make me, 42, at 6ft 4in and… more than that… feel particularly pleased with myself.

About Dr Conley: he released a memo yesterday about Trump’s claim to be taking a drug which the FDA says you shouldn’t take as a guard against the coronavirus:

Compare that missive and a White House spokeswoman’s confirmation that Trump is taking the drug to what various prominent doctors were telling the US public last night:

“There is no evidence that hydroxychloroquine is effective for the treatment or the prevention of Covid-19. The results to date are not promising.” – Dr Patrice Harris, president of the American Medical Association

People should not infer from Trump’s example “that it’s an approved approach or proven,” because it’s not – Dr David Aronoff, infectious diseases chief at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville

Good morning…

…and welcome to another day of coverage of the coronavirus outbreak in the US and the politics around it, the day after Donald Trump claimed to be taking hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug which the FDA warns should not be taken as a response to the coronavirus threat … as a response to the coronavirus threat, then threatened to withdraw the US from the World Health Organization.

Trump tweeted a letter to the WHO late on Monday night, saying it had 30 days to make “substantive” changes or his funding freeze would become permanent and he would “reconsider our membership”. Early on Tuesday, a WHO spokeswoman had no immediate comment, Reuters said. The Trump administration says the WHO is too close to China, which it blames for the pandemic, and has also started a fight at the world body over the status of Taiwan.

Yes, all that happened. And as it did, according to figures from Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, the number of positive cases of Covid-19 in the US passed 1.5m and the number of deaths passed 90,000.

As Tom McCarthy reported, hydroxychloroquine “is not approved as a treatment for Covid-19 and Trump has not been diagnosed with the disease, to public knowledge.

Trump’s claim to be taking the drug was made as he attacked an administration whistleblower who went before Congress last week and described internal pressure to endorse the drug as an effective coronavirus treatment.

The whistleblower, Rick Bright, was the former director of a federal agency in charge of vaccines.

…Previously, Trump had endorsed the injection of disinfectants or light into the body to fight coronavirus – recommendations that were followed by a spike in calls to poison control centers.

…Trump touted hydroxychloroquine as a potential coronavirus treatment in March, a claim that was amplified for weeks on Fox News. But alarming reports in April about the health risks tied to the drug silenced that talk until the Bright episode.

Where does one go from there? To widespread shocked reaction, for one thing, and to our explainer of what you need to know about the drug for another, and to Fox News hosts, if not all of them, heralding the president’s supposed actions, for one more.

In his testimony before Congress, by the by, Bright warned of “the darkest winter in modern history” lying ahead if the US economy is reopened too soon, testing is not available as widely as possible and of course a vaccine is swiftly found. The virus, he and other public health experts fear, may come back.

But Trump, who dropped his hydroxychloroquine bombshell around a teleconference with governors attempting to manage the pandemic, presses on with his determined attempt to “REOPEN OUR COUNTRY” and thereby “TRANSITION TO GREATNESS”.

All this and more to come of course, including developments in Trump’s other current project, the “Obamagate” pseudoscandal which some cynical souls suggest might just be an attempt to distract from the administration’s handling of the pandemic and the cratering economy.

On Monday night, Senate judiciary chair Lindsey Graham said he wanted to subpoena papers from key Obama administration figures: Clapper, Comey, Brennan and so forth.

Earlier, attorney general William Barr said no criminal investigations would be opened into Barack Obama or Joe Biden’s actions in office towards Michael Flynn, the Trump aide who ended up pleading guilty to lying to the FBI before Barr decided to try to drop the case against him and Trump came up with its “scandal” over routine intelligence practices.

Barr also said he wouldn’t use the “criminal justice system for partisan political ends”. Which is, well, the kind of thing which causes comment when you have a record like William Barr’s.

Oh, and there’s a real scandal brewing at the Department of State, where Trump fired the official watchdog, who was investigating secretary of state Mike Pompeo, who Trump then seemed to throw somewhere near, if not yet right under, the bus.

More to come.

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