Summary
We’ll be shutting down today’s blog shortly. Here’s a glance at the day’s top news items:
- Robert Mueller breaks his silence and condemns Trump for commuting Roger Stone’s sentence. The former special counsel made a rare move on Saturday to publicly defend his two-year investigation into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election.
- Nancy Pelosi calls Stone commutation ‘a threat to national security’. The house speaker said Democrats will take legislative action in the wake of Donald Trump’s decision to commute the jail sentence of his former campaign adviser.
- Officials warn of health risks as heatwave may break records in the south of US. More than 20 locations across the US were expected to either break or tie previous high temperature records on Sunday as the south of the country bakes in a heatwave.
- Florida reports 15,000 new coronavirus cases, a record single-day total in the US. Florida broke the national record Sunday for the largest single-day increase in positive coronavirus cases in any state since the beginning of the pandemic, adding more than 15,000 cases as its daily average death toll continued to also rise.
- Texas hospitalizations reach record high for 14th day in a row. The state health department reported coronavirus infections in Texas rose by 8,196 to 258,658 in total on Sunday amid calls by top officials in Houston for America’s fourth largest city to lock back down.
- Poll finds Trump losing ground in battleground states. A CBS News poll has found Trump has lost ground to Joe Biden in battleground states that have become Covid-19 hotspots. Biden, the presumptive Democrat nominee for president, has a six-point lead in Florida, is tied in Arizona and trails by one point in Texas. Trump won all three states in the 2016 election.
- Eleven people injured after explosion on ship at US naval base. Eleven people suffered minor injuries on Sunday after an explosion and fire on board a ship at a naval base in San Diego, military officials said.
- LeBron James will not wear social justice message on jersey for NBA restart. The LA Lakers superstar says his thoughts on social justice can’t be contained on the back of a basketball jersey and won’t wear one of the NBA-approved social justice messages on the back of his jersey when the league resumes competition later this month in the Orlando bubble.
The AP reports that 11 people suffered minor injuries on Sunday after an explosion and fire on board a ship at a naval base in San Diego.
The blaze was reported shortly before 9am on USS Bonhomme Richard said Krishna Jackson, the base’s public information officer. Eleven people were treated for “non-life threatening injuries,” Jackson said.
The cause of the fire is under investigation. Jackson did not say where on the 840ft vessel the explosion and fire occurred.
San Diego is the Bonhomme Richard’s home port and it was undergoing routine maintenance at the time of the fire. The flames sent up a huge plume of dark smoke visible around San Diego.
Updated
Texas hospitalizations reach record high for 14th day in a row
Top officials in Houston are calling for America’s fourth largest city to lock back down as area hospitals strain to accommodate the rapid influx of patients.
Coronavirus infections in Texas rose by 8,196 to 258,658 in total on Sunday, the state health department said.
The US state recorded a further 80 deaths from Covid-19, bringing the overall death toll in Texas to 3,192.
Current hospitalizations in Texas rose by 327 to a new high of 10,410, a record high for the 14th day in a row.
Houston mayor Sylvester Turner and Harris County judge Lina Hidalgo said this weekend that a stay-at-home order is needed for to cope with the surge of Covid-19 cases.
“We have to acknowledge the fact that we opened too quickly, too soon,” Turner said on Saturday. “We have to acknowledge the fact that the numbers are continuing to rise. We have to recognize the fact that not everybody is going to put on this mask. Let’s just be real, even with the requirement. Knowing all of that and knowing what works, you’ve got to recalibrate.”
Hidalgo echoed those sentiments on Sunday, saying: “Not only do we need a stay home order now, but we need to stick with it this time until the hospitalization curve comes down, not just flattens. Many communities that persevered in that way are reopening for the long haul. Let’s learn from that & not make the same mistake twice.”
Not only do we need a stay home order now, but we need to stick with it this time until the hospitalization curve comes down, not just flattens. Many communities that persevered in that way are reopening for the long haul. Let’s learn from that & not make the same mistake twice. https://t.co/Y5SITeamFP
— Lina Hidalgo (@LinaHidalgoTX) July 12, 2020
The true number of cases is likely far higher because many people have not been tested, and studies suggest people can be infected and not feel sick.
Texas governor Greg Abbott, who has the final say over a lockdown but has resisted the measure so far, announced on Sunday that the US Department for Health and Human Services had extended federal support for community-based testing sites in Dallas and Houston until the end of the month.
Updated
NBC News has followed up on swirling reports that Donald Trump’s administration is working to “discredit” and “marginalize” Dr Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert, amid his dire assessment of the nation’s coronavirus response.
A White House official told NBC News that “several White House officials are concerned about the number of times Dr. Fauci has been wrong on things.” The official provided NBC News with a lengthy list of past comments by Fauci earlier in the pandemic, including Fauci saying in January that coronavirus was “not a major threat” and “not driven by asymptomatic carriers” and Fauci’s comment in March that “people should not be walking around with masks.”
Many of the past statements the White House is criticizing Fauci for are ones that were based on the best available data at the time and were widely echoed by Trump, other members of the task force and senior White House officials. As Surgeon General Jerome Adams told CBS News on Sunday, “When you learn more, you change those recommendations. Our recommendations have changed.”
The attacks on Fauci come as coronavirus surges nationwide, which Trump has repeatedly downplayed as a result of increased testing rather than increased infections. Florida on Sunday reported over 15,000 new cases, the most any state has reported in a single day since the pandemic began. The U.S. on Friday also surpassed 70,000 new coronavirus cases nationwide for the first time ever.
The list circulated by the White House bears striking resemblance to the opposition research that political candidates often circulate to the media about their opponents.
The White House on Sunday declined to provide further comment about Fauci. White House spokesman Kayleigh McEnany on Thursday declined to say whether Trump still has confidence in Fauci. Fauci did not immediately return a request for comment on Sunday.
Admiral Brett P Giroir, a member of the White House coronavirus taskforce, addressed the reports by CNN and the Washington Post that Fauci has been benched on NBC’s Meet the Press earlier Sunday.
“There is complete, open, honest discussion within the task force ... Believe me, if there’s a public health opinion that needs to be said, that needs to be it,” Giroir said. “And I respect Dr Fauci a lot, but Dr Fauci is not 100% right and he also doesn’t necessarily, he admits that, have the whole national interest in mind. He looks at it from a very narrow public health point of view.
“But let me just say, there is absolutely open discourse. I feel absolutely free saying anything to the vice president within those rooms. ... It’s got to be science driving the policy. And that’s the way it is.”
Maryland’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, said the GOP needs to be a “bigger tent party” after Donald Trump leaves office.
Hogan, who last year flirted with a primary challenge to Trump in 2020, speaking in early voting states and seemingly seeking to bait the notoriously volatile president, told NBC’s Meet the Press that he doesn’t “know what the future holds in November”.
“I’m a lifelong Republican who has not been afraid to stand up and disagree with the president on any number of issues,” Hogan said. “I don’t know what the future holds in November, but I know that the Republican party is going to be looking at what happens after President Trump and whether that’s in four months or four years. And I think they’re going to be looking to, ‘How do we go about becoming a bigger tent party?’
“You know in Maryland – I’m in the bluest state in America and just was reelected overwhelmingly in 2018 by reaching out, by trying to find that middle ground where people can stand together and by avoiding divisive rhetoric and winning suburban women, winning over Democrats and Independents and winning with minority votes. And I think that’s something the Republican party’s going to have to look to. We’re going to have to find a way to appeal to more people and have a bigger tent.”
Hogan, a second-term governor who serves as the chairman of the National Governors Association, did not rule out voting for Democratic candidate Joe Biden in November’s general election. In 2016, Hogan wrote in the name of his father, a former Republican congressman from Maryland.
“It’s a difficult choice,” he said. “I think most people would like to see something different, and maybe we’ll figure that out in 2024.”
The 64-year-old also turned a leery eye to Trump’s decision to commute the prison sentence of his longtime friend and notorious Republican fixer Roger Stone.
“There’s no question that’s the appearance (of a double standard) and it’s a problem,” he said. “And look, Roger Stone is convicted of seven felonies. Look, the president does have the right by law to take the action he took. That doesn’t mean he should have. And we’ve got a guy whose convicted of seven felonies, a couple months before an election, for the president to take this action, it’s certainly going to hurt politically.”
A staff member involved in the preparation of the first executions of US federal prisoners in 17 years has tested positive for coronavirus, the Bureau of Prisons said on Sunday.
In a court filing, the bureau said the employee based at the Justice Department’s execution chamber in Terre Haute, Indiana, attended a meeting with outside law enforcement in preparation for the scheduled executions and another meeting on how to handle any demonstrators.
He did not come into contact with members of the execution protocol team, the bureau said.
The news comes two days after a US federal judge blocked the first execution, due to be carried out on Monday, after some of the victims’ relatives sued, saying they feared that attending could expose them to Covid-19, the respiratory disease caused by the virus.
Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson ordered the Justice Department to delay the execution of Daniel Lewis Lee until it could show it was upholding the right of victims’ relatives to attend without risking their health.
The Justice Department said it would appeal, Reuters reports.
Another prisons employee had previously tested positive for the virus, and has since recovered.
Lee’s scheduled death by lethal injection is one of four executions that had been scheduled for July and August. All four men had been convicted of killing children.
Wesley Purkey’s execution was scheduled for Wednesday, but a federal appeals court issued a temporary stay this month and it was not clear whether it would proceed.
Dustin Honken’s is set for Friday.
Three weeks after TikTok users were credited with spoiling Donald Trump’s comeback rally in Oklahoma through a coordinated effort that helped to leave hundreds of seats empty in a 19,000-capacity venue, it appears the Zoomers are back in the fray.
Thousands of users have flooded Apple’s App Store over the past few days to slam Trump’s official campaign app with negative feedback. As of Sunday afternoon, the vast majority of the nearly 260,000 reviews for the Official Trump 2020 App included the lowest possible rating.
TikTok is at it again. They had people go give trump’s app a 1 star rating and look how many people participated 😂 pic.twitter.com/oueC4RqMSC
— Hunter (@ihunbun) July 12, 2020
The scheme appears to stem from this week’s news that Trump’s administration is considering a ban of the popular video-sharing app over security concerns. US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said on Monday those who download TikTok are handing over “private information in the hands of the Chinese Communist Party”.
“For Gen Z and millennials, TikTok is our clubhouse, and Trump threatened it,” Yori Blacc, a 19-year-old from California, told Time magazine. “If you’re going to mess with us, we will mess with you.”
omg guys.. it would be so bad if we got the app store to delete trumps app definitely do NOT leave a one star review that would be so bad could u imagine pic.twitter.com/kHcidOR1H8
— 𝙜𝙞𝙖⁷ (@FL0WERH0YA) July 9, 2020
Trump himself confirmed the possible ban on Tuesday when asked about Pompeo’s comments in an interview with Gray Television’s Greta Van Susteren.
“It’s a big business,” Trump said. “Look, what happened with China with this virus, what they’ve done to this country and to the entire world is disgraceful.”
TikTok is owned by Chinese tech company ByteDance, headquartered in Beijing.
Updated
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported 3,236,130 cases of coronavirus on Sunday, an increase of 62,918 from its previous count, and said that the number of deaths had risen by 906 to 134,572.
The CDC reported its tally as of 4pm ET on 11 July versus its previous report a day earlier.
More than 20 locations across the US were expected to either break or tie previous high temperature records on Sunday as the south of the country bakes in a heatwave.
The National Weather Service had numerous excessive heat warnings in place across a 2,000-mile swath stretching from southern California through to Mobile Bay in Alabama. Potentially record-breaking temperatures are expected in California, Arizona, New Mexico and west Texas.
Many of the impacted areas are also experiencing issues with surging coronavirus and some experts and officials are anxious heat could increase infections if people shelter indoors, or in areas with less ventilation.
Lara Pagano, a meteorologist at the Weather Prediction Center, said there are 23 locations that they expect there to be “records tied or broken today”. The heatwave, which started on Saturday, is expected to peak in most places today but go on in Texas until Tuesday.
Hot temperatures are forecast in many areas for the next several days, so be sure to practice #HeatSafety. If you are working outside, remember to take frequent breaks & stay hydrated! Also, never leave children & pets in parked vehicles.
— National Weather Service (@NWS) July 12, 2020
Here's are today's forecast highs. pic.twitter.com/JJKJbTUZna
In Phoenix, Arizona records are predicted to reach 116 F (46.6C) – which would break the previous record of 115 F (46.1C) set in 2009. In California, Palm Springs is expected to reach 119F (48.3C), nearing a record set in 1985 of 120F (48.8C).
In Texas, temperatures are expected to exceed 100F (37.7C) in San Antonio and Dallas.
Updated
Donald Trump’s presidential motorcade departed Trump National Golf Club at 2.22pm, passing by an anti-Trump protest that swelled from a handful to around two dozen, according to a White House pool report.
Across the street, a handful of Trump supporters with ‘TRUMP 2020’ signs waved at passing cars but mainly sat in the shade.
As with Saturday’s demonstrations outside the Virginia club, a young man in a brown Jeep flying large US and ‘TRUMP 2020’ flags drove back and forth at least a dozen times, slowing down each time he passed the anti-Trump group.
The pool reporter notes Trump has now spent 259 days on a golf course that he owns in his 1,270 days in office.
Coronavirus cases in US state of Arizona rose by 2,537 to 122,467 in total on Sunday, marking the first increase below 3,000 new cases in over a week.
Covid-19 hospitalizations in Arizona have fallen to 3,432 as of Saturday, down from Friday’s record high of 3,485, according to the state health department.
But 89% of adult intensive care unit (ICU) beds are still in use in the state as of Saturday, unchanged from the previous day.
Governor Doug Ducey urged citizens on Twitter to keep respecting social distancing rules.
“Wear a mask. Stay physically distant. And remember you are safer at home,” he wrote.
We mentioned House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s withering assessment of Donald Trump’s decision to commute the prison sentence of his former campaign adviser Roger Stone. Here are expanded quotes from her appearance on CNN’s State of the Union:
“[The commutation] is staggering corruption. But I think it’s important for people to also know that it’s a threat to our natural security,” she said. “The whole impeachment process was about our national security. Why we are at the Supreme Court on these cases was to find out about the Russian connection. And we will continue to pursue that. This case was about the Russian connection.
“So ... we will have legislation that says a president cannot commute or pardon or offer clemency to anybody who commits a crime, is convicted of a crime that affects the president’s behavior and his culpability.
“But again, people should know, this isn’t just about lying to Congress ... It’s about our national security.”
Former FDA commissioner Dr Scott Gottlieb has appeared on CBS’s Face the Nation. Last week he predicted, correctly, that Covid-19 cases in the US would soon approach 60,000 a day. Host Margaret Brennan asks him how he thinks the outbreak will progress in the coming weeks.
“New York really followed the pattern of Italy, where it was a sharp up, a huge epidemic, but it came down rapidly. I think in the south you’re likely to see an extended plateau,” he said. “We really don’t have a national approach here. What we have is state approaches that are creating regional effects. And so those regional effects are different. And the New York experience mirrored Italy. I think the southern experience is more likely to mirror Brazil, where you’re likely to see more of an extended plateau once we reach that apex. And you could reach the apex in the next two or three weeks.”
He also said there needs to be caution about the fact that most infections appear to be among younger people.
“Iran had a major epidemic. It came way down. They had a second peak,” he said. “It was mostly in younger people. They said, don’t worry, it’s younger people so we’re not going to see the same level of deaths. But eventually the infection seeped into an older population. That’s what’s happening now. You’re starting to see more outbreaks in nursing homes. So tragically, we’re going to see deaths start to rise. And that’s why I said in two to three weeks until you see deaths get back above a thousand [a day]”.
Carlos Gimenez, the Republican mayor of Miami-Dade county, appeared on CNN’s State of the Union earlier today. Cases of Covid-19 are surging across Florida, and the mayor was asked whether Miami hospitals are close to reaching capacity.
“It won’t be long,” he said. “Look, we have reached capacity in some, but we also have reserve space. ... It’s our ICU capacity that’s causing us concern ... We definitely had a sharp increase in the number of people going to the hospital, the number of people that are in ICU, and the number of people on our ventilators ... We still have capacity, but it does cause me a lot of concern.”
Fate has been unkind to the United States. The nation is grappling simultaneously with a pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than 130,000; the most severe economic downturn since the Great Depression; and mind-numbing police brutality, which has generated the largest outpouring of grief and anger against systemic racism in memory.
Perhaps America’s greatest misfortune is that these crises have emerged at a time when its leadership is too incompetent to respond to them, if not maliciously dedicated to worsening them.
Donald Trump has not only refused to contain Covid-19 but is actively pushing Americans into harm’s way, demanding the nation “reopen” while cases and deaths continue to rise. Meanwhile, he’s siphoning federal money intended to dampen the economic crisis into the pockets of his cronies and family. And he is deliberately stoking racial tensions to energize his “base” for the upcoming election.
As if this weren’t enough, Trump continues to attack the rule of law, on which a democracy depends in order to deal with these and all other challenges.
You can read the full article below:
Graham grants Dems' request to call Mueller to judiciary committee
Senator Lindsey Graham, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, tweeted on Sunday that he would now grant Democrat requests to call ex-special counsel Robert Mueller to give evidence before the committee in light of his op-ed for the Washington Post this weekend.
Graham, a Trump ally, was among the Republicans who had backed Trump’s move to commute the sentence of Roger Stone, saying he was convicted of a “nonviolent, first-time offense” and the president was “justified”.
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have previously requested Mr. Mueller appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify about his investigation.
— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) July 12, 2020
That request will be granted.
Graham is leading an investigation by Republicans on the judiciary committee into the origins of Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election and links to the Trump campaign, and alleged misconduct by US intelligence officials.
Democrats say the investigation is a move to appease President Trump ahead of November’s election. Republicans on the committee want to subpoena Obama era intelligence officials, while Democrats are pushing for subpoenas for people close to Trump.
On Sunday, Graham tweeted: “Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee have previously requested Mr Mueller appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to testify about his investigation. That request will be granted.
“Apparently Mr Mueller is willing - and also capable - of defending the Mueller investigation through an oped in the Washington Post.”
In an appearance on Fox News, Donald Trump Jr says his father’s poor polling numbers are due to – you guessed it – the media.
“When you have the media onslaught, where media has just totally abdicated their position to objectively look at both sides, they’re not looking into any of Biden’s past, they’re not looking into any of his history, they’re not looking into his family’s graft,” he said. They’re not looking into how insanely soft he’s been on China.”
Lloyd Green has written a review of Mary Trump’s book on the inner workings of the president’s family:
Mary Trump’s tell-all will not make her uncle’s re-election bid any easier. The president’s late-night walk of shame is already a classic campaign moment. His niece’s allegation that he paid someone else to take his college entrance exams resonates as true, because of his reported disdain for reading and capacity to inadvertently invent new words like “swiffian”.
Adding insult to injury, Maryanne Trump Barry, Trump’s sister, appears to be the key source for this smorgasbord of dysfunction. She is a retired federal judge who left the bench with an ethics cloud over her head. Fittingly, as Mary Trump lacerates multiple sets of vital organs, her pen a stiletto, she thanks her aunt “for all of the enlightening information”.
It is score-settling time, Trump-style. Go big or go home. Few are spared.
Too Much and Never Enough doubles as mesmerizing beach reading and a memorable opposition research dump, in time for the party conventions. Think John Bolton-quality revelations, but about Trump’s family. It is the book Michael Wolff, the author of Fire and Fury, likely wishes he had written but isn’t kin so he couldn’t. It is salacious, venomous and well-sourced.
Sadly, it is also a book born of tragedy and pain. The author’s father, Fred Trump Jr, died in his early 40s. He drank hard, was jettisoned by his father and siblings, and treated as a cautionary tale. Mary Trump is angry, not self-pitying. Although she casts her book as a warning to the American public, it is 200-plus pages of revenge served with the benefit of time and distance. Yet the narrative remains compelling.
Fred Jr found joy in flying and serving his country. He was a member of the national guard and a TWA pilot. In most homes, that would be deemed an achievement. But the Trumps were not most folks. Fred Sr saw his oldest son as weak. His brother Donald humiliated him, his mother Mary stood by and watched. As for Fred Jr’s military service, Trump père found little value there. As for Donald, “bone spurs” were his path to avoid Vietnam.
When Fred Jr was dying, in 1981, the future president thought it an opportune time to go to the movies. Past became prelude. When Roy Cohn, Trump’s friend and consigliere, was dying of Aids a decade later, Trump walked away again. A stunned Cohn reportedly remarked: “Donald pisses ice water.”
You can read the full story below:
Larry Hogan says Stone commutation is 'a problem'
Maryland’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, has called Donald Trump’s decision to commute Roger Stone’s jail sentence “a problem” during an appearance on NBC’s Meet The Press. Hogan, it should be noted, is not exactly close to the president.
Hogan was asked by host Chuck Todd if Trump’s decision makes it look like “if you’re close to the president you get a break, if you’re not, you go to jail.”
Hogan replies: “Well, there’s no question that’s the appearance and it’s a problem. And look, Roger Stone has, is convicted of seven felonies. Look, the president does have the right by law to take the action he took. That doesn’t mean he should have. And we’ve got a guy whose convicted of seven felonies, a couple months before an election, for the president to take this action, it’s certainly gonna hurt politically.
My colleague Miranda Bryant has news of the debate over whether to reopen schools in the US.
US education secretary Betsy DeVos today said all schools should reopen this autumn, despite coronavirus, claiming there is no evidence to suggest it would put children in danger.
Speaking on CNN’s State of the Union this morning, she said while there will be some exceptions, which should be dealt with case-by-case, “the rule should be that kids go back to school this fall.”
Asked if she could assure parents and students that they could do so safely, she said: “We know that children get the virus at a far lower rate than any other part of the population and again there is nothing in the data that would suggest that kids being back in school is dangerous to them. And in fact it’s more a matter of their health and wellbeing that they be back in school.”
She added: “In other countries, in Europe and elsewhere in the world where students have gone back to school and done so very successfully – that should be the goal.”
She said it is up to schools to decide how to reopen safely, adding there is “no one uniform approach that we can take or should take nationwide”
But, she added: “I am urging all schools to open and to be providing their students a full-time education.”
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has issued guidelines – which Donald Trump has said he disagrees with – for school reopening, including spacing desks six feet apart, children wearing face masks, the installation of sneeze guards and the closure of communal areas such as dining rooms.
DeVos refused to say whether schools should follow the guidelines, instead saying they are “flexible” and should be “applied as appropriate for the situation”.
If there is an area with high levels of the virus she said remote learning might be needed, but that it must be “full time – no matter how that looks.”
Asked what a schools should do if there is an outbreak, she said that as a “non-medical expert” she could not say, but that “every school” should have plans to continue earning at a distance.
While she said she “feels” for teachers who have underlying conditions or are particularly vulnerable to Covid-19, she claimed there are “ways for those teachers to be able to continue to do what they do.”
DeVos and the president recently threatened to cut funding to schools that don’t reopen physically in full.
But today she claimed there is “no desire to take money away.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi immediately condemned DeVos’s claims that schools are safe as “appalling” and a “malfeasance and dereliction of duty.”
The Democrat told CNN: “The president and his administration are messing with the health of our children. We all want our children to go back to school. Teachers do, parents do and children do. But they must go back safely.”
Maryland’s Republican governor, Larry Hogan, is on NBC’s Meet The Press and is asked whether Donald Trump’s leadership has been lacking during the Covid-19 crisis. He appears to suggest it has.
“There’s no question that things could have been done better from the beginning of this crisis, and look, but there – right now, it doesn’t do any good,” he says. “We’ve got to deal with the situation at hand, and we’ve all got to do the best job we can because this thing is out of control, it’s by no means behind us and we’re all in it together and we’ve got to work together at the federal, state and local level.”
Although he stops short of criticizing Trump directly, Hogan doesn’t exactly back the president when he is asked why Europe (or, at least, most of it) has done a better job of containing Covid-19.
“I think [the White House’s coronavirus task force] made some progress in a number of areas with respect to now getting PPE out to some of the states and working together with us,” Hogan says. “But there’s no question that mistakes were made, that we, we should have had a national testing strategy. That we should have been on top of this. that we should have had a much more clear national strategy and been communicating much earlier on in the process.”
The grim news from Florida continues: The state reported 15,000 new cases on Sunday. That breaks not only the record for a state in the US in a single day but is also more new cases than any European country has reported in a single day during the pandemic. Only the US, Brazil and India have reported more new cases in a day than Florida did on Sunday.
Hospitals are under strain in Florida as the virus surges, and the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has refused to introduce a statewide mandate requiring people to wear masks in public. He has also pushed for schools to reopen.
The Republican National Convention, where Donald Trump will be confirmed as the party’s candidate for president, is due to take place in Jacksonville, Florida, in late August. Whether Trump gets to speak in front of the big, partisan crowds he thrives off is open to debate.
Updated
The row over Goya Foods is spreading to some unlikely places. Last week, Goya Foods CEO Bob Unanue heaped praised on Donald Trump, saying: “We’re all truly blessed at the same time to have a leader like President Trump, who is a builder”.
There was backlash due to the fact that the head of an organization that describes itself as the largest Hispanic-owned food company in America praised a president who has introduced policies that have hurt Latinx people.
Hashtags such as #BoycottGoya and #Goyaway appeared on social media. However, UFC fighter Jorge Masvidal, who was raised in Miami by parents from Cuba and Peru, hit back on Saturday.
“Actions of @GoyaFoods speak louder than the #woke mob. My people don’t get influenced by those that don’t know. They’ve been helping our people when we needed it most,” he wrote on Twitter.
Masvidal fought for the UFC welterweight title this weekend but lost to Nigeria’s Kamaru Usman.
Poll finds Trump losing ground in battleground states
A CBS News poll has found Donald Trump has lost ground to Joe Biden in battleground states that have become Covid-19 hotspots. Biden, the presumptive Democrat nominee for president, has a six-point lead in Florida, is tied in Arizona and trails by one point in Texas. Trump won all three states in the 2016 election.
Most people polled in the three states said efforts to contain the virus in their states are going badly. The poll found that the more people are concerned about Covid-19, the more likely they are to vote for Biden. Most voters in all three states believed their state reopened too soon. Among those who do, they believe it was partly due to pressure from Trump’s administration.
However, the poll also found Trump still has enthusiastic backing from his core voters. Despite the president’s baseless claims postal voting is open to fraud, most of those polled in Arizona, Texas and Florida said they would like mail-in voting to be made easier.
Admiral Brett P Giroir, a member of the White House coronavirus taskforce, has appeared on NBC’s Meet The Press to talk about the surge in Covid-19 cases across the US.
He is asked about reports by CNN and the Washington Post that Dr Anthony Fauci has been sidelined by the coronavirus taskforce.
“There is complete, open, honest discussion within the task force ... Believe me, if there’s a public health opinion that needs to be said, that needs to be it,” says Giroir. “And I respect Dr Fauci a lot, but Dr Fauci is not 100% right and he also doesn’t necessarily, he admits that, have the whole national interest in mind. He looks at it from a very narrow public health point of view.
“But let me just say, there is absolutely open discourse. I feel absolutely free saying anything to the vice president within those rooms. ... It’s got to be science driving the policy. And that’s the way it is.”
Donald Trump wore a mask for the first time in public on Saturday, but had not done so up until then during the pandemic. Giroir is asked if wearing a mask is important.
“I think the public health people have been very, very clear that mask-wearing is essential,” he says. “It’s very important that we can really decrease the transmission. You may not protect yourself, but you really protect everyone else. And the Surgeon General says it very well. ‘Covid stops with me.’ If you want it to stop with you, wear a mask.”
Trump defends his golfing as Covid-19 cases surge
Donald Trump has already been busy on Twitter this morning:
As US coronavirus cases and deaths continue to soar, Donald Trump started the day by defending his golfing record.
Following his latest golf course visit to Trump National Golf Club in northern Virginia yesterday – reportedly his 275th as president – he tweeted this morning that he plays “VERY fast” and gets a lot of work done while playing.
He also claimed that his predecessor Barack Obama played “more and much longer” than he does – despite recent counts finding that Trump has played considerably more often.
Comparing himself to business figures and politicians who “work out endlessly…but nobody complains”, he said golf is his “exercise”.
The president wrote: “Actually, I play VERY fast, get a lot of work done on the golf course, and also get a ‘tiny’ bit of exercise. Not bad!”
His golf trip came after his planned rally in New Hampshire – due to take place in Portsmouth last night – was cancelled due to bad weather. However, the weather was reportedly “warm and sunny”.
No, Radical Left anarchists, agitators, looters or protesters will not be knocking down or harming the Washington Monument, the Lincoln or Jefferson Memorials, or just about any other Federal Monumrnt or Statue. If they even try, an automatic 10 years in prison. Sorry!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 12, 2020
Also this morning, Trump tweeted a renewed threat of 10-year prison sentences to people who damage or tear down monuments or statues and boasted that his administration has built “240 miles of new Border Wall” and have “some of the best Border Numbers ever.”
Late last night Trump hit out at Republican senators Mitt Romney and Pat Toomey – branding them “RINOS” (“Republican in name only”) - after they criticised his decision to commute Roger Stone’s prison sentence.
Updated
US sports are beginning to resume, but not without a few problems along the way. Major League Soccer is hosting a month-long tournament in Florida, a hotspot for Covid-19 at the moment. The tournament is taking place at Disney World, where the NBA expects to resume its season at the end of the month.
On Sunday, a match between DC United and Toronto FC was postponed after one player rested positive for Covid-19. Two teams, FC Dallas and Nashville, have already withdrawn after positive tests.
“The results of yesterday’s tests for DC United and Toronto FC produced an initial unconfirmed positive Covid-19 case for one player and an inconclusive test for another player. Because of the arrival time of the clubs in Orlando, the league’s protocol called for retesting both teams this morning and to await the results of those tests prior to playing the match,” the league said in a statement.
Major League baseball is due to restart on 23 July, while the NFL is scheduled to start at the beginning of September.
Pelosi calls Stone commutation 'a threat to national security'
House speaker Nancy Pelosi says Democrats will take legislative action in the wake of Donald Trump’s decision to commute the jail sentence of his former campaign adviser, Roger Stone.
Speaker Pelosi on CNN said House Democrats are going to pursue legislation to restrict the president's clemency powers when it comes to cases related to the president's conduct.
— Robert Costa (@costareports) July 12, 2020
“It’s a threat to our national security," she said of the Stone commutation.
Calling Trump’s decision “a threat to our national security,” Pelosi told CNN on Sunday that House Democrats aim to restrict the president’s powers of clemency.
Mitt Romney and Robert Mueller are among the many figures to have voiced concern over Trump’s commutation of the sentence.
Mueller: 'Stone remains a convicted felon, and rightly so'
The former special counsel Robert Mueller made a rare move on Saturday to publicly defend his two-year investigation into allegations of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia in the 2016 election – and to castigate Donald Trump’s decision to commute Roger Stone’s prison sentence.
Mueller wrote an opinion article for the Washington Post [paywall] published under the headline “Roger Stone remains a convicted felon, and rightly so”.
“The work of the special counsel’s office – its report, indictments, guilty pleas and convictions – should speak for itself,” he wrote.
“But I feel compelled to respond both to broad claims that our investigation was illegitimate and our motives were improper, and to specific claims that Roger Stone was a victim of our office ...
“Stone was prosecuted and convicted because he committed federal crimes. He remains a convicted felon, and rightly so.”
Trump commuted the sentence of Stone on Friday night, sparking outrage from Democrats and some senior Republicans.
Read the full story below:
Updated
Good morning. There are plenty of news lines around today as reaction continues after Donald Trump’s decision to commute the prison sentence of his former campaign adviser, Roger Stone. The president himself was seen on Saturday wearing a mask in public for the first time during the pandemic.
That decision came as records are set for coronavirus cases across the US, particularly in the south and southwest of the country.
