Live reporting on the coronavirus in the US continues on Saturday’s blog:
Summary
- The decision to shelve detailed guidance on reopening communities came from the highest levels of the White House, according to emailed obtained by the AP. The White House said that the CDC’s head had not approved the guidelines, but documents suggested that he had okayed them.
- Donald Trump said the coronavirus would go away without a vaccine, but offered no evidence to back the claim. Meanwhile, the US recovery lags way behind Europe, even as states reopen.
- Some California businesses on today began opening their doors for business – at least partially. The state also became the first in the country to commit to sending mail-in ballots to every voter in November.
- Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary Katie Miller tested positive for coronavirus. Miller is married to Donald Trump’s senior White House adviser on immigration, Stephen Miller, all of which led to concerns that everyone in the west wing has been exposed.
- A federal watchdog said that ousted government scientist Rick Bright may have suffered retaliation and should be reinstated during an investigation into his whistleblower complaint, according to Bright’s lawyers. Bright was reassigned after raising concerns that the Trump administration was hyping hydroxyquinoline despite a lack of research that it was effective in treating Covid-19.
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New York governor Andrew Cuomo said the state is “finally ahead of the virus” as the death toll and hospitalizations continue to come down in what became the world coronavirus hotspot. He warned the rest of the US that their numbers are still going up, and not to be hasty to reopen society and business.
The Department of Homeland Security has come out strongly against internet voting in new draft guidelines, breaking with its longstanding reluctance to formally weigh in on the controversial issue, even after the 2016 Russian election hacking efforts.
Kim Zetter reports for The Guardian:
The move comes as a number of states push to expand the use of ballots cast online.
The eight-page document, obtained by the Guardian, pulls no punches in calling the casting of ballots over the internet a “high-risk” endeavor that would allow attackers to alter votes and results “at scale” and compromise the integrity of elections. The guidelines advise states to avoid it altogether or restrict it to voters who have no other means of casting a ballot.
The document primarily addresses a type of internet voting called electronic ballot delivery and return – where digital absentee ballots counties send to voters overseas via email or a web portal are completed and returned via email attachment, fax or direct upload – but it essentially applies to all forms of internet voting. No states currently offer full-on internet voting, but numerous states allow military and civilian voters abroad to receive and return ballots electronically, and some of these voters use an internet-based system that allows them to mark their ballot online before printing it out and mailing it back or returning it via email or fax.
Controversial trials in which volunteers are intentionally infected with Covid-19 could accelerate vaccine development, according to the World Health Organization, which has released new guidance on how the approach could be ethically justified despite the potential dangers for participants.
So-called challenge trials are a mainstream approach in vaccine development and have been used in malaria, typhoid and flu, but there are treatments available for these diseases if a volunteer becomes severely ill. For Covid-19, a safe dose of the virus has not been established and there are no failsafe treatments if things go wrong.
Scientists, however, increasingly agree that such trials should be considered, and the WHO is the latest body to indicate conditional support for the idea.
“There’s this emerging consensus among everyone who has thought about this seriously,” said Prof Nir Eyal, the director of Rutgers University’s Center for Population-Level Bioethics in the US.
The prospect of infecting healthy individuals with a potentially deadly pathogen may sound counterintuitive, but according to Eyal the risk of death from Covid-19 for someone in their 20s is around one in 3,000 – similar to the risk for live kidney donation. In this case, the potential benefits would extend not to a single individual, but to thousands or millions who could be protected by a vaccine.
Some California businesses on Friday began opening their doors for business – at least partially.
As states and counties across the nation contend with pressure to lift the stay-at-home measures that have destroyed local economies, California is taking an especially cautious approach, walking a fine line between political and economic pressure to reopen and the public health imperative to stop the spread of disease.
Public health experts told the Guardian that while no US state was equipped with enough coronavirus testing and surveillance to feel fully confident reopening, California’s slow, piecemeal recovery plan – though far from perfect – seemed like the least risky option.
Although the White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said guidance on reopening had not been approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Robert Redfield, the new emails obtained by the AP found that Redfield did clear the guidance.
More from the AP:
On April 24, Redfield again emailed the guidance documents to Birx and Grogan, according to a copy viewed by The AP. Redfield asked Birx and Grogan for their review so that the CDC could post the guidance publicly. Attached to Redfield’s email were the guidance documents and the corresponding decision trees including one for meat packing plants.
“We plan to post these to CDC’s website once approved. Peace, God bless r3,” the director wrote. (Redfield’s initials are R.R.R.)
Redfield’s comments contradict the White House assertion Thursday that it had not yet approved the guidelines because the CDC’s own leadership had not yet given them the green light.
Updated
Report: Decision to shelve reopening guidance came from highest levels of White House
The decision to shelve a document created by the nation’s top disease investigators with detailed advice to local authorities for reopening communities came from the highest levels of the White House, the AP reports.
From the AP:
A trove of emails show the nation’s top public health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spending weeks working on guidance to help the country deal with a public health emergency, only to see their work quashed by political appointees with little explanation.
This new CDC guidance, a mix of advice already released along with newer information, had been approved and promoted by the highest levels of its leadership, including [Robert] Redfield. Despite this, the administration shelved it on April 30.
According to the documents, CDC continued inquiring for days about the guidance that officials had hoped to post by Friday, May 1, the day Trump had targeted for reopening some businesses, according to a source who was granted anonymity because they were not permitted to speak to the press.
Updated
Fact check: Voter fraud
Trump himself voted absentee in 2018.
Experts say that voter fraud is incredibly rare. In North Carolina, an election was overturned in 2018 after a Republican political operative was alleged to have directed workers to collect and mail in other people’s absentee ballots during the 2018 Republican congressional primary and during the 2016 general election.
But states can avoid that sort of fraud by implementing ballot tracking, providing prepaid postage and setting ballot boxes and drop-off sites. Five states already conduct their elections entirely by mail, and have found ways to ensure the integrity of ballots.
There is no evidence of widespread voting fraud. The Brennan Center for Justice found in 2017 that the risk of voting fraud is 0.00004% to 0.0009%. Moreover, Trump’s own voting integrity commission found no evidence to support claims of widespread fraud found.
Trump’s campaign director Tim Murtaugh told CNN that California’s plan to mail every voter a ballot is a “tactic by Gov. Newsom to undermine election security, falsely implying, as the president has often done, that mail-in-voting begets fraud.
Trump Campaign Comms Director Tim Murtaugh tells me Newsom's EO "is a thinly-veiled political tactic by Gov. Newsom to undermine election security," and while "Everyone is concerned about the safety of voters... jeopardizing election security is the wrong way to go about it." https://t.co/wwhv92sZVh pic.twitter.com/zQq4UZqHUs
— DJ Judd (@DJJudd) May 8, 2020
Revealed: major anti-lockdown group's links to America's far right
Jason Wilson and Robert Evans report:
Leaked audio recordings and online materials obtained by the Guardian reveal that one of the most prominent anti-lockdown protest groups, American Revolution 2.0 (AR2), has received extensive assistance from well-established far-right actors, some with extremist connections.
AR2 presents itself as a grassroots network, but the recordings and other materials reveal its allies include a well-connected Tea Party co-founder and a family of serial online activists who have rolled out dozens of “reopen” websites and Facebook groups.
Its website was built and is hosted by a web designer long active in far-right circles online, and who runs a bespoke social media network for the militia movement. One of that website’s previous users bombed a mosque, and another user, now memorialized on the site, was recently shot dead by police in Maryland during a firearms raid.
Josh Ellis is the leader of AR2, which has driven anti-lockdown protests across the country, and presented itself as a spontaneous uprising. In videos posted to YouTube, the AR2 website, and across anti-lockdown Facebook groups, Ellis has presented the movement as inclusive and bipartisan, and himself as a conservative everyman.
House Judiciary Committee Democrats call for investigation of Barr
The House Judiciary Committee Democrats have called on the Justice department’s inspector general to investigate Bill Barr after the DOJ dropped its prosecution of Michael Flynn.
“By itself, the decision to dismiss charges against Mr. Flynn would smack of corruption and unacceptable political influence in an ongoing criminal matter: President Trump tweeted in defense of his former advisor, and one week later Mr. Flynn is poised to walk free,” the Judiciary Democrats wrote in a letter to the DOJ inspector general. “But this is hardly the first time that Attorney General Barr has appeared to reach into an ongoing criminal case to do the President’s political bidding,” they write.
That the DOJ also sought a shorter sentence for Roger Stone in February was another example of Barr doing Trump’s “political bidding,” the Democrats said.
Despite signals that the entire West Wing could have have been exposed to the coronavirus, after Mike Pence’s press secretary Katie Miller tested positive for Covid-19, White House officials are inconsistent in their approach to wearing masks and maintaining a physical distance.
As an event with World War II veterans to mark the 75th anniversary of the Allied victory in Europe, defense secretary Mark Esper gathered with several men all over 95, took photos with them, and handed them coins from his pocket. Esper was not wearing a mask, nor were the veterans.
Esper tested negative on Monday, a Pentagon spokesman told the Washington Post.
The White House described the veterans as “choosing nation over self” by showing up to the event, according to the AP.
“Of course, we presented to them the risk we are facing,” said Timothy Davis, director of the Greatest Generations Foundation, which helps veterans return to the countries where they fought. “They said, ‘It doesn’t matter, Tim,’” Davis, who helped organize the event, told the AP.
Hi, there. I’m Maanvi Singh, blogging from the West Coast.
After Mike Pence’s press secretary tested positive for Covid-19, the White House offered tests to members of the press corps.
WH offered #COVIDー19 tests to members of WH press corps today after @VP Chief Spox tested positive along w/Navy valet who serves @POTUS signaling widespread exposure in West Wing. Reporters lined up outside press office to get tests this afternoon. If positive, you get a call. pic.twitter.com/4qeoiEMOvr
— Paula Reid (@PaulaReidCBS) May 8, 2020
Today so far
Hello again US live blog readers, apologies for entirely forgetting the mid-day summary. It’s been another action packed day in US politics and coronavirus news and there is more to come.
Handing over now to my west coast colleague Maanvi Singh in San Francisco. She’ll be with you for the next few hours, so thanks for reading and do stay tuned.
So far today:
- Donald Trump says the coronavirus may go away without a vaccine, but offers no evidence to back this up.
- Ousted government scientist Rick Bright may have suffered retaliation and should be reinstated during an investigation into his whistleblower complaint, his lawyers reported that they had been informed by a federal watchdog. Bright was out after raising concerns that the Trump administration wanted to “flood” coronavirus hotspots like New York and New Jersey with a malaria drug that Donald Trump was pushing despite scant scientific evidence it helped.
- Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary Katie Miller has the coronavirus, it was revealed earlier today. Miller is married to Donald Trump’s senior White House adviser on immigration, Stephen Miller, all of which led to comments that everyone in the west wing has been exposed.
- New York governor Andrew Cuomo said the state is “finally ahead of the virus” as the death toll and hospitalizations continue to come down in what became the world coronavirus hotspot. He warned the rest of the US that their numbers are still going up, and not to be hasty to reopen society and business.
- Donald Trump said during an interview this morning that he likes to learn from disgraced president Richard Nixon. You’ve got to read it to believe it.
Updated
California today became the first state in the country to authorize sending every registered voter a mail-in ballot in the upcoming elections, my Guardian colleague Vivian Ho writes.
Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, signed an executive order a little earlier that he hopes will give voters a choice and make sure they “don’t feel like they have to go into a concentrated, dense environment where they feel like their health is at risk” amid the coronavirus pandemic.
“There’s no safer, physically distancing way to exercise your right to vote than from the safety and convenience of your own home,” said California secretary of state Alex Padilla. Voters will still have the option to vote in person, he said.
The executive order came as Newsom modified the statewide stay-at-home order, ushering California into the next phase of coronavirus response.
Certain non-essential retailers around the state can now offer curbside pickup, meaning roughly 70% of the state’s economy can now reopen with modifications.
No more financial rescue legislation in May for coronavirus - Kudlow
The White House has halted talks with Congress over any further coronavirus stimulus package for the crippled US economy - as it waits for more information about how US state re-openings affect the economy, White House top economic adviser Larry Kudlow told reporters this afternoon.
White House Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow speaks to news reporters following a television interview outside of the West Wing at the White House earlier today. Photograph: Tom Brenner/Reuters
The Republican-controlled Senate and Democratic party-dominated House of Representatives have already passed four major bills to address the novel coronavirus outbreak, including three aimed at stabilizing the economy as most Americans have sheltered in place and unemployment has soared.
Democrats, who control the House, are pushing for a vote as soon as next week on another massive coronavirus relief bill that would include more money for state and local governments, coronavirus testing and the US Postal Service, Reuters writes.
They also have been arguing with Republicans over oversight of the trillions of dollars being disbursed by the federal government in response to the crisis, with Republicans charging that Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi created a subcommittee on the crisis in order to attack Donald Trump as he runs for re-election in November.
The panel made its first official action today, sending letters demanding that large, public corporations immediately return taxpayer funds received under the bailout bills, which were intended for small businesses.
Kudlow, the director of the National Economic Council, told reporters that formal talks with Congress have paused for May.
“Well we just had another big infusion,” Kudlow said with regard to why there was a pause in talks.
In a separate interview on Bloomberg Television, he said the Trump administration was making contingency plans for a second wave of potential cases of Covid-19, including later shutdowns.
Public health officials have cautioned against a fast and widespread restart to economic activity, saying it could lead to a second surge in infections.
Updated
Stocks rise on hopes that awful jobs report marks the bottom
That’s quite a headline from The Associated Press. Both dire and, perhaps, overly optimistic from the markets.
Wall Street rallied again on Friday after a terrible, unprecedented report on the US jobs market wasn’t quite as horrific as economists had forecast, The AP writes.
The S&P 500 climbed 1.4% in afternoon trading after the government said employers cut a record-busting 20.5 million jobs last month.
While the number is a nightmare, it was slightly below the 21 million that economists told markets to brace for. More importantly, investors are betting they won’t see another report that bad again because the number of workers filing for unemployment benefits has been slowly declining the last five weeks.
Stocks around the world were already heading higher before the US jobs report came out, in part on hopes that US and China won’t restart their trade war.
After the release of the report, stocks climbed even more. In another sign of receding pessimism, Treasury yields tentatively rose.
“In some aspects, investors are starting to look at it as the worst is behind us,” said. Charlie Ripley, senior investment strategist for Allianz Investment Management.
It’s not clear whether or when Mike Pence’s press secretary Katie Miller would have chosen to reveal her own diagnosis for coronavirus if it hadn’t all happened so publicly this morning.
The first indications came when the Vice President’s flight to Iowa was held up for at least an hour, and some individuals disembarked from Air Force Two, who had apparently been in contact with Miller.
Then the president, as it were, let the Kate out of the bag:
And once again, Kellyanne Conway’s husband is not impressed by his wife’s boss.
He really has to be one of the dumbest people alive. https://t.co/FwyXxuP5qC
— George Conway, Noble Committee Chair (@gtconway3d) May 8, 2020
Updated
Trump says coronavirus will go away without vaccine - but shows no evidence
The US president said a little earlier at his event with Republican lawmakers in Washington that coronavirus “will go away without a vaccine”.
He didn’t offer any evidence for what he was talking about. He noted that there may be “some flare ups” in the fall, or “next year”.
“[Viruses] die too, like everything else,” he said.
Updated
Mike Pence’s press secretary Katie Miller has reportedly confirmed to the media that she tested positive for coronavirus this morning.
There is growing consternation about to what extent people working in the White House, from the president on down, have been exposed to Covid-19 while not practicing social distancing, wearing face masks, using gloves, frequent hand cleansing, etc.
VP Pence's press secretary Katie Miller confirms to @NBCNews that she has tested positive to COVID-19. She says she's asymptomatic. Miller's husband is Stephen Miller, a top aide to President Trump.
— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) May 8, 2020
Earlier, WH press sec Kayleigh McEnany had pointed to new steps taken to further protect top officials, noting the White House is now conducting contact tracing and putting in place all guidelines recommended for essential workers, Reuters writes.
“We’ve taken every single precaution to protect the president,” McEnany insisted to reporters at a White House news briefing. She also pointed to regular cleanings and adherence to distancing guidelines of six feet between individuals that are not always followed at crowded White House events.
“We’ve done every single thing that Dr. (Deborah) Birx and Dr. (Anthony) Fauci have asked us to do,” she added, referring to highly respected physicians on the White House coronavirus task force.
This morning Trump was asked in a Fox News interview whether those who serve him food would now cover their faces. “They’ve already started,” he said
Coronavirus whistleblower case may be retaliation - federal watchdog
A federal investigative office has found “reasonable grounds to believe” that the Trump administration was retaliating against a whistle-blower, Rick Bright, when he was ousted from a government research agency combating the coronavirus.
The New York Times reports that the agency further said, according to Bright’s lawyers, that Bright
Should be reinstated for 45 days while it investigates.
Sheryl Gay Stolberg reports that the lawyers, Debra S. Katz and Lisa J. Banks, said in a statement that they were notified late Thursday afternoon that the Office of Special Counsel, which protects whistle-blowers, had “made a threshold determination” that the Department of Health and Human Services “violated the Whistleblower Protection Act by removing Dr. Bright from his position because he made protected disclosures in the best interest of the American public.”
The finding comes just days after the lawyers filed a whistle-blower complaint saying that Dr. Bright’s removal last month as head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority was intended as payback. They said Dr. Bright, who was reassigned to a narrower job at the National Institutes for Health, had tried to expose “cronyism” and corruption at the Department of Health and Human Services while pressing for a more robust virus response and opposing the stockpiling of anti-malaria drugs championed by President Trump.
However, the Times further notes that the recommendation is not binding. A year ago, the same office said counsel to the president Kellyanne Conway should be fired for repeatedly violating legal prohibitions on using her position for political purposes. The president ignored the recommendation.
Donald Trump was asked at his meeting with Republican lawmakers earlier who on Mike Pence’s staff had tested positive for coronavirus.
He said: “She is a wonderful young woman, Katie, she tested very good for a long period of time and then all of sudden she tested positive. She has not come into contact with me, she spent some time with the Vice President. It’s, I believe, the press person, so she tested positive out of the blue.”
Pence's press secretary has coronavirus
The staffer at the White House who tested positive for coronavirus this morning is Katie Miller, Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary, Donald Trump just confirmed.
Katie Miller (nee Waldman) is married to the top adviser to the president, Stephen Miller.
The White House strongly defended its efforts earlier to protect Trump and Pence from catching coronavirus.
BREAKING: President Trump just said "Katie" is VP staffer who tested positive. Katie Miller is VP spox & wife of WH adviser Stephen Miller. Entire West Wing has now been directly or indirectly exposed to COVID-19.
— Paula Reid (@PaulaReidCBS) May 8, 2020
Updated
Trump increases estimated Covid-19 toll
Donald Trump is at an event with Republican lawmakers in Washington, after a morning that included a visit to the WWII memorial and a press briefing by WH press sec Kayleigh McEnany.
The US death toll from coronavirus just passed 76,000 and the president has reportedly floated that he now expects it to reach 95,000 or above.
JUST NOW: Trump gives a new death toll estimate: "We may be talking about 95,000 people ultimately, we may be talking about something more than that."
— Josh Lederman (@JoshNBCNews) May 8, 2020
Updated
Trump “Death Clock” goes live
The Trump Death Clock, the real-time tracker that seeks to put a figure on the number of Americans who have died needlessly during the pandemic as a result of White House inaction, has just gone live in New York’s Times Square.
A digital billboard has beamed up on 43rd Street and Broadway in Manhattan that broadcasts in large red numerals the daily estimated count of unnecessary deaths caused by Trump’s delay in issuing lockdown guidelines in March. Today’s tally: 44,809.
The billboard is a physical version of a website, TrumpDeathClock.com, that was started earlier this week and that the Guardian was first to disclose.
It is the brainchild of award-winning film-maker Eugene Jarecki and modeled on the National Debt Clock that also has a presence near Times Square. Jarecki told the Guardian he wanted to hold Trump accountable for “reckless leadership” by giving a real-time estimation of the number of Americans who have lost their lives through federal government incompetence.
He bases the figure, which will update daily on the billboard, on 60% of the total real-time tally of deaths from Covid-19 in America. That proportion was first posited as a rough calculation of unnecessary deaths by epdemiologists.
Trump has so far kept his silence about the death clock. If he finds out about the new billboard he is unlikely to be pleased, however – it is a mere 13 blocks away from his home in Trump Tower.
Oklahoma Republicans are still making it harder to vote during the Covid-19 pandemic
Days after the Oklahoma supreme court said voters do not have to get their mail-in ballot notarized during the Covid-19 pandemic, state Republicans quickly approved a law imposing new obstacles if someone wants to vote by mail, the Guardian’s Sam Levine reports.
The new measure still requires someone to get their ballot notarized, but says if the governor declares a state of emergency due to Covid-19 within 45 days of an election, a voter can provide a copy of their state ID.
Republicans, who control both chambers of the state legislature, passed the bill, saying it was necessary to prevent voter fraud, which is extremely rare.
Governor Kevin Stitt, a Republican, signed it into law Thursday evening.
The move immediately drew criticism at a time when states are scrambling to make it easier to vote by mail since there is risk in contracting Covid-19 if one voters in person at the polls.
Oklahoma’s next elections are on June 30. “This legislative attack is based on bogus claims of voter fraud, but it is abundantly clear that the real motivation is to make it harder for Oklahomans to exercise their power at the ballot box,” Ryan Kiesel, the executive director of the ACLU said in a statement.
Oklahoma is among nearly a dozen states that require a notary, witness or identification with an absentee ballot.
Those requirements could provide an extremely high barrier to Americans seeking to vote, since it will likely be difficult to track down a notary as businesses remain shut down.
Many voters may also lack a printer or copier to make a copy of their ID. Civil rights groups are suing Alabama, which requires either a notary, two witnesses and a copy of a voter ID with an absentee ballot, saying voters shouldn’t have to meet those requirements amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
in Oklahoma in the 2016 election. Photograph: J Pat Carter/EPA
On the news that a staffer to Vice President Mike Pence tested positive for coronavirus this morning, a small but rather scary update, courtesy of CNN’s Kaitlan Collins:
Per reporters traveling with Vice President Pence, the staffer with coronavirus wasn't on the trip today. Six who were deplaned to be tested. This staffer who is now positive tested negative yesterday. They tested positive this morning. No symptoms.
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) May 8, 2020
Not Donna Reed...
Turns out that last question called to White House press sec Kayleigh McEnany as she was leaving was, of course, from CBS’s Paula Reid.
“Justice matters.” Today @PressSec spent nearly half of 20 min briefing reading prepared remarks on Mike Flynn. As she abruptly left I asked why Flynn is top of mind on a day when @potus & @VP have both just been directly exposed to #Covid_19 & US reached historic unemployment. pic.twitter.com/esjbG14Ouw
— Paula Reid (@PaulaReidCBS) May 8, 2020
Paula’s Twitter handle is currently “Not Donna Reed. Lawyer and CBS White House Correspondent”
The Hill explains, via its recent report:
CBS White House correspondent Paula Reid [has] embraced a dig from President Trump that she is not like iconic actress Donna Reed, who often portrayed a ‘50s housewife in film and television, with Reid responding: “Fact Check: True.”
The response from Reid, who has clashed with the president on several occasions during White House coronavirus task force briefings, came after Trump singled her out, along with CBS colleague Weijia Jiang, for their “attitude” during questioning. Trump contrasted the two to Donna Reed, who captured four Emmy nominations as housewife Donna Stone on “The Donna Reed Show” that ran on ABC from 1958-1966. The late actress also played Mary Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life” in 1946.
Pence and coronavirus - update
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany just finished the briefing for the press and has exited the room. As she was walking out, a reporter could be heard calling out her question, which was not answered.
“Why did you spent the first half of the briefing talking about Michael Flynn when both the president and the vice president have been exposed to coronavirus?” the unseen journalist asked.
Good question. A few moments before, McEnany did say, upon being asked about the news that a staffer to Vice President Mike Pence earlier today tested positive for Covid-19, a day after Trump’s personal valet tested similarly, that “the White House is continuing to operate safely.”
McEnany said: “We have put in place the guidelines that our experts have recommended for this building,” before then saying about the guidelines “we are now putting in place here in the White House”, so it’s a little confusing. Anyway, Potus and Veep have stepped up from being tested weekly for Covid to now being tested daily.
The pool report from the briefing adds: Pool spotted all 14 seated reporters wearing masks as the press secretary spoke. All photographers were wearing masks.
The White House stenographer was wearing a mask, but the press secretary and three press aides who joined her in the room were not.
Updated
White House press briefing
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has just began her presser in the briefing room.
She begins by marking the 75th anniversary of the Second World War’s Victory in Europe day.
Then, despite the US coronavirus death toll approaching now 76,000 souls, she immediately launches into the Michael Flynn case.
McEnany begins: “The FBI exists to investigate crimes but in the case of Michael Flynn it seems they might have existed to manufacture one.”
She then details what she describes as a “partisan pursuit” of Flynn by the intelligence community, asking did FBI investigators came to confront him in early 2017 “with the intent to get him to lie”?
She welcomed the Department of Justice move yesterday to drop the case against Flynn, who admitted lying to the FBI over conversations he had with the Russian ambassador about the possible easing of sanctions that the Obama administration announced to punish Moscow for interfering in the 2016 US presidential election.
Donald Trump has also talked about the fact that Flynn lied to the FBI, which is illegal. Flynn was awaiting sentencing.
“It’s good to see that justice finally prevailed,” she said about yesterday’s announcement. There is no word yet whether the judge in the case will try to block the DoJ move.
Meanwhile, it’s creepy hearing reporter after reporter in the press briefing room congratulating McEnany on her appointment as press sec last month, before asking their chosen question.
Updated
Cuomo: 'We are finally ahead of the virus'
New York governor Andrew Cuomo is giving his daily coronavirus briefing.
He said 216 people in New York state died of Covid-19 yesterday, down from 231 on Wednesday. The number was close to 800 a day at the height of the outbreak in New York in mid-to-late April. Most cases are in New York City, though Cuomo has mentioned a cluster around some agricultural businesses upstate.
So deaths and hospitalizations continue to decline in New York, where stay-at-home restrictions continue until May 15, when a review is expected.
“We are finally ahead of this virus, for the first time, we have showed we can control the beast,” Cuomo said moments ago... “We have the beast on the run. We have not killed the beast but we are ahead of it.”
But he warned, again, that if you take New York out of the picture, the numbers of infections and deaths in the rest of the US is still going up.
Around 44 states are going to continue or begin some sort of reopening of societal movement and business this weekend. Cuomo warned: “If we reopen irresponsibly we will see the infection rate go up.”
Hospitalizations for new cases in New York right now are still disproportionately and dramatically affecting Hispanic and African American people.
“We will address this immediately,” Cuomo said, even though economic and health care inequities have been entrenched amid minority ethnic and low-income populations for decades, which make people more susceptible to infection and death from coronavirus.
Updated
Pence staffer tests positive for coronavirus
Just before Air Force Two was to be wheels up to Iowa one of Vice President Mike Pence’s aides tested positive for coronavirus. Several staffers were forced to exit the plane, which is taking Pence, a Trump Cabinet member, and two GOP Senators to the Hawkeye State, Raw Story reports.
The positive test comes just two days after Donald Trump’s personal valet tested positive for the virus that causes Covid-19. Another Pence staffer tested positive back in late March.
A member of VP Pence's staff has tested positive for COVID-19, per an administration official. The staffer is not with Pence on Air Force 2, which is en route to Iowa right now.
— Peter Alexander (@PeterAlexander) May 8, 2020
(h/t @HansNichols)
Donald and Melania Trump are at the World War II memorial in Washington, DC, right now. It’s a chilly and windy day. There are current military personnel and WW2 vets well up in their nineties at the solemn event, with everyone standing well apart.
The event marks the 75th anniversary of Victory in Europe day.
Update on New York governor Andrew Cuomo. He normally gives his daily press briefing on the latest news about the coronavirus outbreak as it affects the world hotspot, New York City, and the rest of the state, at 11.30am ET, but today it’s scheduled for 12pm.
At 11.30, Donald Trump is due at the WW2 memorial in Washington to mark Victory in Europe day, the 75th anniversary of the German surrender there.
There will be a live stream available of the governor’s briefing via Cuomo’s office:
I will be giving my daily #Coronavirus briefing and making an announcement at 12:00PM ET. Watch here:https://t.co/Fq5qEEPt23
— Andrew Cuomo (@NYGovCuomo) May 8, 2020
Another positive test for Covid among people working close to Potus and Veep - report
NEWS: Pence flight to Iowa delayed an hour after a staffer tested positive for coronavirus, I’m told. Some aides disembarked AF2. Wheels up now for Iowa.
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) May 8, 2020
Updated
The man and masks
Donald Trump has said certain White House staff members have started wearing face masks, one day after the White House said his personal valet had tested positive for coronavirus.
Trump, asked whether those who serve him food would now cover their faces, told Fox News in an interview that such White House staff had made that change, Reuters reports.
“They’ve already started,” he said.
The White House on Thursday said Trump and Vice President Mike Pence tested negative for the virus and were feeling well after the staffer - a US military service member who works at the White House as a valet - came down with the virus. It also said the two leaders would now be tested daily, versus weekly.
It was reported that Trump was “lava level” angry about the valet situation.
“After learning one of his valets was infected, Trump became ‘lava level mad’ at his staff and said he doesn’t feel they are doing all they can to protect him from the virus.”https://t.co/76S5voSDho
— Jennifer Taub (@jentaub) May 7, 2020
Trump has said he would not wear a mask and has not publicly worn a mask to any of his events so far amid the Covid-19 pandemic, but told reporters this week that he tried some on behind the scenes during his visit to a Honeywell face mask factory in Arizona.
Both Trump and Pence have drawn fire for not donning face masks, with critics arguing they are setting a bad example for Americans.
Pence did not wear a mask while visiting coronavirus patients during a recent visit to Minnesota’s famed Mayo Clinic, noting that he was tested frequently for the disease. But he later said he should have worn one, saying it carries a symbolic weight as well.
Trump is scheduled to attend a public event at the World War Two memorial in Washington any moment now, before meeting with Republican members of Congress at the White House, according to the White House.
Trump said he has not yet been tested for antibodies to the novel coronavirus but probably would be soon. Such a test could confirm previous exposure to the virus.
AG Bill Barr says history written by winners
Attorney general Bill Barr is comfortable with the Department of Justice move yesterday to drop the criminal case against former, short-lived Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn.
Flynn had pleaded guilty to the FBI (which Donald Trump has previously acknowledged) about conversations he had in 2016 with the Russian ambassador about sanctions and was awaiting sentencing.
Last night Barr did an interview on CBS in which he said history is written by winners.
REPORTER: How will history look back on your decision to drop charges against Flynn?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 7, 2020
BILL BARR: “Well, history is written by the winners. So it largely depends on who’s writing the history.” pic.twitter.com/GVr2bIaavc
As the Guardian wrote at the time of Flynn’s resignation after less than a month as Trump’s national security adviser, it had been revealed that his conversations with Russian ambassador Sergei Kisilyak after Trump won the 2016 election concerned sanctions the Obama administration was about to impose on Moscow for interference in the presidential elections.
Intelligence officials claimed that Flynn had given the impression the sanctions might be lifted once the Trump administration came to office on 20 January. He then lied to the FBI and vice president Mike Pence about the nature of his conversations.
Reminder of the Flynn timeline:
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Trump’s mention of tapes in his extraordinary references, in a live phone call into Fox News, to how he learned from Richard Nixon is interesting, to say the least.
“When I fired Comey, you know what hit the fan,” Trump on Fox News. "I study history," including on Nixon.
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) May 8, 2020
"Of course, there was one difference. ... #1 he may have been guilty. And #2 he had tapes all over the place. I wasn’t guilty. I did nothing wrong. And there were no tapes.” https://t.co/xJIkEuPY7O
He added that he wished there were tapes. Trump pretended there were tapes of the conversation he had with then-FBI director James Comey, after which Comey said Trump had asked for his loyalty and pressed him to drop the investigation into Michael Flynn, which was part of the nascent Trump-Russia investigation.
As colleagues of mine wrote at the time, May 2017:
Trump tweeted: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”
The tweet, which if taken at face value would suggest Trump has been secretly taping White House meetings, came after the New York Times reported that he demanded “loyalty” from Comey in a private dinner held shortly after Trump took office.
At the White House press briefing [a few days after Comey had been fired that week], press secretary Sean Spicer repeatedly refused to deny that Trump was taping visitors to the White House.
Comey, who was overseeing an investigation into alleged links between Trump aides and Russia during the 2016 election, was fired on Tuesday in a surprise announcement.
The White House initially claimed Comey was fired by recommendation of deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, who was dissatisfied with Comey’s handling of the Clinton email scandal. But Trump later said it was entirely his decision and said “this Russia thing” factored into it.....
...The mention of tapes will only fuel further comparisons to Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal. Nixon infamously taped meetings in the Oval Office and recordings of those meetings led to his resignation from office.
Here’s transcript of Trump’s full comments about Richard Nixon during his call in to Fox News this morning.
Here's the transcript of Trump's comments this morning about what he learned from Richard Nixon. (Of course, Trump did fire a bunch of people.) pic.twitter.com/Ltl8WKvTPe
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) May 8, 2020
How Trump talks about Americans lost to coronavirus
The number of Americans who are infected with coronavirus, confirmed cases, has crossed the 1.25 million mark and the death toll is approaching 76,000 today. There was a protest outside the White House from nurses, who have lost more than 80 of their fellows to coronavirus. More than 100 bus and subway train riders have died of the disease in New York.
On Fox this morning, the president chooses to talk about it this way, after spending several minutes talking about the need for an economic comeback and what an “incredible” job the administration has done. He mentioned that the US coronavirus dead would fill “two Yankee stadiums”, adding “it’s been grim.”
Note for global readers: Yankee Stadium is the baseball stadium of the New York Yankees baseball team, it’s in the Bronx borough of New York City and its capacity is 54, 251.
Trump likes to learn from Richard Nixon
Amid the marathon ramble that was the president’s phone call into Fox News this morning, he brought up former president Richard Nixon.
Trump had praised attorney general Bill Barr for the DoJ’s move to drop the case against Michael Flynn and the wider DoJ project to go back and investigate the Trump-Russia investigators, calling Barr “a man of unbelievable credibility and courage.”
Asked if Barr had been his first AG, not Jeff Sessions, would there have even been “a Mueller investigation and the Russia hoax”, Trump said: “NO!” and said Sessions was a disaster (for recusing himself from the nascent investigation into alleged collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election, then being on the sidelines as Trump fired FBI director James Comey and Sessions’s deputy Rod Rosenstein brought in special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate the whole shebang). Trump later fired Sessions.
The president then pivoted to: “I learned a lot from Richard Nixon, don’t fire people. I study history, and the firing of everybody, I should’ve in one way but I’m glad I didn’t because look at the way it worked out, they’re all a bunch of crooks, and they got caught.
“But I learned a lot by watching Richard Nixon. Of course there was one difference, one big difference, number one, he may have been guilty, and number two, he had tapes all over the place. I wasn’t guilty, I did nothing wrong and there were no tapes.”
Trump does like firing people, though.
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Trump says dire jobs numbers predictable
Donald Trump was on the phone with Fox News when the April jobs numbers were released this morning.
As the news alerts pumped out, the hosts of the morning show Fox & Friends asked the president for his reaction to the unemployment rate in the US leaping from 4.4% at the end of March to 14.7% by the end of April. Read our full report on this here.
“It’s fully expected. There is no surprise. Even the Democrats are not blaming me for that,” he said.
He predicted that the third quarter will be one of transition, the fourth quarter will see recovery and “next year will be the best we’ve ever had, if someone doesn’t come in and triple taxes, like Sleepy Joe [his presumptive 2020 election Democratic opponent Joe Biden], he doesn’t know what he’s doing,” he said.
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Donald Trump has called into the Fox & Friends morning show on Fox News to give his reaction to the Flynn decision. The show is famously sympathetic to the president and his administration.
At the start of the call, the president was asked whether he believed the decision was proof that the Trump-Russia investigation was a “hoax”
“Well, absolutely,” Trump replied.
The former US special counsel Robert Mueller has previously demolished Trump’s claims about his investigation into the Trump campaign and Russia – insisting the results did not exonerate Trump.
The president wrapped the prosecution of Michael Flynn into his condemnation of the whole investigation, blaming “dirty cops and politicians”.
The public has yet to hear from the federal judge in the Flynn case and what he, Emmet Sullivan in Washington, DC, will do next. Legal experts predict he could counter-move to block, hold up and/or investigate the DoJ move.
The president had been speaking to Fox & Friends for 21 minutes about Flynn before he was asked about the country’s coronavirus crisis, which has killed more than 75,000 people in the US so far.
Trump led with: “Our country is going back to work, we are opening up. It’s a much smarter enemy [the virus] than the enemy we just talked about [a slew of Democrats, the Trump-Russia investigators and Trump’s first attorney general Jeff Sessions], much smarter, those folks, they are not in the same league [clarifying: Trump’s opponents/insufficiently loyal Republicans are not in the same league as the coronavirus].
“We are doing really, really well.” He talks about ramped up production of ventilators and testing. “It’s been incredible.” He talks about the virus originating in China and infecting people in 184 countries. “Most people didn’t even know there are that many countries,” the president said.
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Trump says justice department decision to drop Flynn case was 'a BIG day for Justice'
Good morning, live blog readers.
Donald Trump has already been tweeting, celebrating the justice department’s move to drop the criminal case against the president’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn – a stunning reversal for one of the signature cases brought by special counsel Robert Mueller.
“Yesterday was a BIG day for Justice in the USA,” Trump tweeted. “Congratulations to General Flynn, and many others. I do believe there is MUCH more to come! Dirty Cops and Crooked Politicians do not go well together!”
The move abandons a prosecution that had become a rallying cry for Trump and his supporters in attacking the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation, and came even though prosecutors for the past three years have maintained that Flynn lied to the FBI in a January 2017 interview about his conversations with the Russian ambassador.
Flynn himself admitted as much, pleading guilty before asking to withdraw the plea, and became a key cooperator for Mueller.
The chairman of the House judiciary committee, Jerry Nadler, a New York Democrat, said the decision was “outrageous” and said he intended to call the attorney general, Bill Barr, to testify about it.
Read more here:
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