Summary
- Trump has reportedly suggested the US coronavirus death count is an exaggeration, even though experts have said the official tally is likely an undercount, considering some people died of the virus without being tested. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany denied the report at her briefing moments ago.
- McEnany defended Trump’s decision to block Dr Anthony Fauci from testifying before the House. The press secretary described the request from the Democratic-controlled House as a “publicity stunt,” even though Fauci will testify before the Senate next week.
- Trump said the White House coronavirus task force would “continue on indefinitely,” a reversal from his comments yesterday suggesting the group’s work would be winding down. The president said today he “had no idea how popular the task force is.”
- Trump vetoed a bipartisan resolution limiting his ability to take military action against Iran without congressional approval. “This was a very insulting resolution, introduced by Democrats as part of a strategy to win an election on November 3 by dividing the Republican Party,” the president said. It’s unlikely that either legislative branch will have the two-thirds majority to override Trump’s veto.
- Nancy Pelosi criticized Trump for pushing to reopen the country, as health experts warn relaxing social distancing restrictions too soon could cause a surge in coronavirus cases. “Death is not an economic motivator, stimulus, so why are we going down that path?” Pelosi said.
- The Supreme Court declined to block Pennsylvania’s shutdown order. The justices, echoing an earlier decision from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, affirmed Democratic governor Tom Wolf’s right to shut down most non-essential businesses to limit the spread of the virus.
- Trump said Dr Rick Bright is a “disgruntled guy.” Bright has said he was removed from his role overseeing the development of a coronavirus vaccine after he refused to promote hydroxychloroquine as a potential coronavirus treatment.
A migrant detained at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in California has died from Covid-19, according to the ACLU.
“This is a terrible tragedy, and it was entirely predictable and preventable. For months, public health experts and corrections officials have warned that detention centers would be Petri dishes for the spread of Covid-19 — and a death trap for thousands of people in civil detention,” said Andrea Flores, the ACLU deputy director of immigration policy. “Unless ICE acts quickly to release far more people from detention, they will keep getting sick and many more will die,” she added.
Updated
Joe Biden just singled out and praised Amy Klobuchar during a virtual campaign event. Klobuchar is leading “efforts in the United States Senate to provide for the money and the means by which we can have early voting,” Biden said, complementing the Minnesota senator for her work on the issue.
Klobuchar looks like a top candidate for Biden’s running mate pick. Here’s an overview of who else could be under consideration:
Updated
Global updates
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WHO warns of more lockdowns if transition not managed carefully. The director general of the World Health Organization warns of the risks of returning to lockdown if countries emerging from pandemic restrictions do not manage transitions “extremely carefully and in a phased approach”. preparedness.
- Germany eases restrictions but retains ‘emergency brake’. The country’s top football league, the Bundesliga, is set to resume this month – one of various restrictions to be lifted as Germans are once again allowed to meet a limited number of friends and family and some shops are allowed to reopen.
- UK could start easing virus lockdown next week. The British government will set out details of its plan to ease lockdown on Sunday, the prime minister, Boris Johnson, says, adding his hope that some measures could come into force the following day. Speaking in parliament for the first time since being hospitalised with Covid-19, Johnson says “every death is a tragedy”, calling the statistics “appalling”.
- Spain extends state of emergency after bitter political dispute. Pred Sanchez’s Socialist-led coalition government secured an extension until 24 May. Congress’s approval for the latest extension of the crisis powers comes after days of bitter rowing and frantic negotiations.
- Diplomatic split widens amid virus origin row and China shrugs off US claims and calls for focus on beating pandemic. China will not invite international experts in to investigate the source of Covid-19 while the pandemic is still raging, its UN ambassador says. China’s foreign ministry says the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, is wrong to claim he has evidence suggesting the virus originated in a Chinese lab. The US-China relationship is one of disappointment and frustration, the White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has said, highlighting the deepening rift between Washington and Beijing.
- Sweden nears 3,000 deaths. “We are starting to near 3,000 deceased, a horrifyingly large number,” Sweden’s state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, says. The country’s public health agency reports that a total of 23,918 cases have been confirmed and 2,941 deaths recorded; an increase of 87 deaths from the day before. Rather than enforcing a lockdown, Sweden has allowed many businesses to remain open, while asking citizens to keep their distance.
- Iran warns of ‘rising trend’ as virus cases top 100,000. Iran records 1,680 new infections, the highest daily figure since 11 April, taking its overall caseload beyond the 100,000 mark. The country’s apparent success in controlling the epidemic has gone into reverse, with a sharp rise in the number of new daily infections over the past four days.
- ‘More than 90,000 health workers infected worldwide’. At least 90,000 healthcare workers globally are believed to have been infected, the International Council of Nurses (ICN) says, noting that the the true figure could be as much as twice that. It says more than 260 nurses have died amid reports of continuing shortages of protective equipment, as it urges authorities to keep more accurate records.
Follow the Guardian’s global liveblog for more updates:
A crowd-sourced tracking tool launched on Wednesday will allow Amazon workers to report and monitor the growing number of coronavirus cases in their facilities, as the company refuses to publicly release comprehensive figures.
United for Respect, a worker advocacy group, has released the new system, which will rely on reports from employees to keep a more accurate count of how many workers have been diagnosed with Covid-19.
The tool comes as Amazon confirmed the death of a worker in one of its New York warehouses from coronavirus this week and employees demand paid sick leave and protest lack of protection. The company still refuses to share publicly – or with its employees – the total number of sick workers at each facility.
Workers say Amazon sends them an alert when someone in their workplace is diagnosed with coronavirus, but does not include the total numbers.
Not knowing the scale of the pandemic has contributed to growing anxiety in the workplace where employees have become frontline workers, said Courtenay Brown, an Amazon warehouse worker in New Jersey and member of United for Respect said.
Senator Richard Burr’s brother-in-law, a Trump appointee, dumped tens of thousands of dollars worth of shares right before the stock market fell due to the coronavirus crisis, per a ProPublica investigation.
Gerald Fauth, an appointee on the National Mediation Board, sold between $97,000 and $280,000 worth of shares. Burr, a Republican senator of North Carolina, was found to have sold off between $628,000 and $1.72m of his holdings on 13 Feb. As chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the health committee Burr may have had access to classified information about public health threats.
Donald Trump has all but abandoned a public health strategy of societal restrictions to tackle the coronavirus pandemic and opted instead to push for a restart of the US economy. Experts have warned that the move is premature and risks handing a “death sentence” to many Americans.
The US president has praised governors of states that have started to loosen restrictions on social distancing and business activity, even though he has admitted that people will suffer as a result. “Will some people be affected badly? Yes,” Trump said on Tuesday. “But we have to get our country open, and we have to get it open soon.”
Public health experts have pointed out that Covid-19 infections and deaths are mounting dangerously in much of the US.
New York has drawn attention as a global hotspot for the virus but has now flattened its rate of infections whereas large parts of the country are still to reach their own peak. When New York is discounted, the US is still on an upward trajectory of new infections.
In response to Donald Trump’s veto of a joint resolution aimed at limiting the president’s authority to go to war with Iran, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, the author of the bill, went on Twitter to contrast what the president has said about great nations not fighting “endless wars” with his veto of legislation intended “to help avoid unnecessary war in the Middle East”.
Trump last year: “Great nations do not fight endless wars.”
— Tim Kaine (@timkaine) May 6, 2020
Trump today: Vetoed bipartisan legislation to help avoid unnecessary war in the Middle East.
I urge my colleagues to join me in voting to override his veto—Congress must vote before sending our troops into harm’s way.
Kaine urged Congress to override the veto, but it is highly unlikely that a two-thirds majority would oppose the president.
The resolution, passed on 11 March, was passed after the January US drone strike that killed Iranian general Qassem Suleimani, and a reprisal Iranian missile strike against a base in Iraq which left more than 100 US soldiers with traumatic brain injury.
It invokes the War Powers Resolution of 1973 to demand that the president seek authorization from Congress before further hostilities.
In vetoing the resolution, Trump said he had authority to carry out the attack on Suleimani by the 2002 Authorization of the Use of Military Force against Iraq passed by Congress in the run-up to the Iraq invasion.
Trump’s critics in congress say there is nothing in that authorization to give Trump the right to carry out attacks on Iran.
The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, initially claimed that Suleimani posed an “imminent threat” to four US embassies in the region, but the administration quietly dropped that argument in a formal justification of the attack to Congress in February. The White House said killing the general was justified as a response to earlier attacks and as a deterrent against future aggression.
Updated
Donald Trump has vetoed a congressional war powers resolution
The bipartisan resolution would rein in his ability to take direct military action against Iran without congressional authorization.
“This was a very insulting resolution, introduced by Democrats as part of a strategy to win an election on November 3 by dividing the Republican Party. The few Republicans who voted for it played right into their hands,” the president said.
It’s unlikely that either legislative branch will have the two-thirds majority to override Trump’s veto.
Updated
Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, has defended Donald Trump’s description of US citizens as “warriors” of the coronavirus pandemic.
When the president used the term on Tuesday, MSNBC host Chris Hayes objected: “I personally don’t think of the folks in say nursing homes as warriors that need to be sacrificed. But what the president seems to be saying is, you’re on your own, thoughts and prayers. Sorry if you were one of those people badly affected. Think of yourself as a soldier dying for the cause.”
At her second White House briefing on Wednesday, McEnany denied that Trump was asking Americans to put themselves in harm’s way. “Not in the slightest,” she said. “It’s actually the opposite. The president’s been clear that, at this moment, we’re at a wartime moment where we’re fighting the invisible enemy and by that I mean Covid-19.
“On the contrary, the notion that the American people are warriors, they’re warriors because they’ve stayed home, they’re warriors because they’ve social distanced, they’re warriors because this mitigation effort is something that could only be done by the American people coming together and making really hard sacrifices.”
This got the US to the point of having one of the lowest mortality rates in the world and of reopening its economy, McEnany added. But public health experts have warned that easing the lockdown restrictions too soon could result in a sharp increase in infections and deaths.
She also defended the White House’s decision to block infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci from testifying at a House of Representatives committee, accusing Democrats of failing to act in good faith. “We don’t have time in the middle of a pandemic for publicity stunts,” she said.
The press secretary described America’s relationship with China as “one of disappointment and frustration”, accusing Beijing not sharing the genetic sequence of the virus when it could and refusing access to US investigators, putting American lives at risk.
Asked to name world leaders who have praised Trump’s response to the pandemic, McEnany reeled off a list of state governors instead.
From my vantage point in the briefing room, it struck me as another assured but truth-bending performance from the new press secretary, avoiding controversies that risk stealing the limelight from her boss.
Donald Trump’s push to paint the southern border wall black is projected to add at least $500m in costs, according to contracting estimates obtained by the Washington Post.
Trump has long advocated for coat the steel bars of the border wall black, despite military commanders and border officials’ warnings that the design change would cost too much both in the short and long term due to maintainence costs.
The Post reports:
During a border wall meeting at the White House last month amid the coronavirus pandemic, the president told senior adviser Jared Kushner and aides to move forward with the paint job and to seek out cost estimates, according to four administration officials with knowledge of the meeting,” the Post reports.
“POTUS has changed his mind and now wants the fence painted. We are modifying contracts to add,” said one official involved in the construction effort who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of being fired.
Trump, during that meeting, directed aides to seek input from North Dakota-based Fisher Sand and Gravel, a company the president favors. Fisher has a $400 million contract to build a section of new barrier in Arizona, an award that is under review by the Department of Defense inspector general.
The Post obtained a copy of painting estimates that federal contracting officials produced, and it shows costs ranging from $500 million for two coats of acrylic paint to more than $3 billion for a premium “powder coating” on the structure’s 30-foot steel bollards, the high end of the options the officials have identified.
A U.S. Border Patrol agent sits near the Calexico Port of Entry, where the section of the border fence that is painted black is to the right and the unpainted border fence is to the left. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)
The White House has not yet chosen a grade of paint, but Trump has insisted for years that the barrier should be black to discourage climbers. He has favored a shade known as “flat black” or “matte black” because of its heat-absorbent properties.
Hi, there — it’s Maanvi Singh, blogging from the West Coast.
Even as Donald Trump pivots to a focus on reopening the economy, state governors are the ones who hold much of the power to do so. A new Quinnipiac poll in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut found that voters are on board with a slow, cautious approach.
- New York’s Andrew Cuomo had a 72 - 24 percent job approval rating, and an 81 - 17 percent approval rating for his handling of the coronavirus crisis.
- New Jersey’s Phil Murphy had a 68 - 23 percent job approval rating, and a 78 - 18 percent approval rating for his handling of the crisis.
- Connecticut’s Ned Lamont had a 65 - 26 percent job approval rating, and a 78 - 17 percent approval rating for his handling of the crisis.
In each state, Trump’s approval rating lagged at about 36% overall and for his crisis response. The majority of those polled in all three states said it would be safe to lift the stay-at-home orders and reopen businesses in the next few months or even later, rather than immediately.
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:
- Trump has reportedly suggested the US coronavirus death count is an exaggeration, even though experts have said the official tally is likely an undercount, considering some people died of the virus without being tested. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany denied the report at her briefing moments ago.
- McEnany defended Trump’s decision to block Dr Anthony Fauci from testifying before the House. The press secretary described the request from the Democratic-controlled House as a “publicity stunt,” even though Fauci will testify before the Senate next week.
- Trump said the White House coronavirus task force would “continue on indefinitely,” a reversal from his comments yesterday suggesting the group’s work would be winding down. The president said today he “had no idea how popular the task force is.”
- Nancy Pelosi criticized Trump for pushing to reopen the country, as health experts warn relaxing social distancing restrictions too soon could cause a surge in coronavirus cases. “Death is not an economic motivator, stimulus, so why are we going down that path?” Pelosi said.
- The Supreme Court declined to block Pennsylvania’s shutdown order. The justices, echoing an earlier decision from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, affirmed Democratic governor Tom Wolf’s right to shut down most non-essential businesses to limit the spread of the virus.
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Trump said Dr Rick Bright is a “disgruntled guy.” Bright has said he was removed from his role overseeing the development of a coronavirus vaccine after he refused to promote hydroxychloroquine as a potential coronavirus treatment.
Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
McEnany defends decision to block Fauci from testifying before House
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has defended Donald Trump’s decision to block Dr Anthony Fauci from testifying before the Democrat-led House. The president said he made the move to prevent officials taking questions from “a bunch of Trump haters.”
In the briefing McEnany accused the House of attempting to orchestrate a “publicity stunt” and said Fauci would instead testify before “the Republican-controlled Senate” where he will also “indeed be asked questions by Democrats.”
Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key member of the government’s coronavirus task force. He is expected to testify on 12 May.
McEnany on blocking Fauci from testifying to House: "We don't have time in the middle of a pandemic for publicity stunts."
— David Smith (@SmithInAmerica) May 6, 2020
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was asked about her comment from February that, “We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here. And isn’t it refreshing when contrasting it with the awful presidency of President Obama?”
Asked whether she would like to retract that comment in light of the current pandemic, McEnany tried to turn it back around on the press, citing some headlines from news outlets that she said downplayed the pandemic.
After rattling off a list of headlines, McEnany left the briefing room without taking any more questions.
Responding to a question from the Guardian’s David Smith, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany denied that the president believes the coronavirus death toll has been exaggerated.
Axios reported earlier today that Trump and some of his advisers have suggested the official tally is an overcount, despite the fact that experts have said there have likely been even more coronavirus deaths because some victims were not tested before dying.
McEnany holds White House briefing
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany is holding a briefing, her second formal briefing since taking on the role.
Taking questions from reporters, the press secretary said the White House coronavirus task force was “here to stay,” but she dodged questions about which official first suggested winding down the group’s work.
McEnany also argued that the country needed to be “strategic with our testing,” specifically saying testing should be expanded in vulnerable communities like nursing homes and meat-packing plants.
But she added, “The notion that everybody needs to be tested is simply nonsensical.” Public health experts have said testing needs to be dramatically ramped up to safely reopen the country.
Updated
Trump says ousted vaccine expert is 'disgruntled guy'
Trump said Dr Rick Bright, the vaccine expert who has said he was demoted for refusing to promote hydroxychloroquine as a potential coronavirus treatment, is a “disgruntled guy.”
“I never met him, I know nothing about him, but he’s a disgruntled guy,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office. “And I don’t think disgruntled people should be working for a certain administration.”
Bright filed a whistleblower complaint with the office of special counsel yesterday after he was removed from his post as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.
Bright claimed he was ousted from his role helping to oversee the development of a coronavirus vaccine because he expressed doubts about the hydroxychloroquine.
He said he was moved to a smaller role after he “made clear that BARDA would only invest the billions of dollars allocated by Congress to address the COVID-19 pandemic in safe and scientifically vetted solutions and it would not succumb to the pressure of politics or cronyism.”
The Guardian’s Mario Koran reports on the latest from California:
The news is out: California governor Gavin Newsom has not gotten a haircut since he issued his statewide stay-at-home order in March.
His daughter offered to cut it with a pair of craft scissors, Newsom said at his noon press conference, but so far he’s satisfied enough with his grow-out.
“I think it’s pretty obvious to you that I haven’t had a haircut - I’m embarrassed to be having this conversation publicly,” said the governor.
Hair stylists and barbers are among the many Californians out of work as businesses adhere to the statewide order. Some retail businesses will be allowed to start curbside pickup services on Friday.
Newsom says economic recovery 'will take longer than most people think'
The Guardian’s Mario Koran reports on the latest from California:
California governor Gavin Newsom said the state and national economy are on the brink of “Depression-era” numbers that America will have to overcome on its long march toward recovery. How long it will take to rebound, nobody knows, Newsom said at his daily briefing.
“It will take longer than most people think,” Newsom said. “It’s Depression-era numbers. These numbers are jaw-dropping, and it’s alarming. I hope people are preparing themselves for the effort we all need to undertake to get back on our feet.”
Since March, a record 4.2 million Californians have applied for unemployment insurance. And many out-of-work employees are not yet fully reflected in state and national unemployment rates. As the economic impacts trickle down, local governments will face tough budget decisions.
California has already distributed $10.6 billion in aide to workers — $2 billion just since Sunday, Newsom said.
But some relief could be around the corner. Expected Thursday are clearer guidelines on which businesses will be allowed to open — and how they’re expected to operate — as the state enters phase 2 of its plan to reopen. The next phase will see florists, book stores, retailers reopen for curbside pick up. Reopening will be guided by data, Newsom said, and health and safety guidelines will continue to be a priority.
Meantime, Newsom reported 95 Californians died in the past 24 hours — numbers that have ticked up, even while hospitalizations and ICU admissions have improved modestly.
“I have all the confidence in the world we’ll recover and be a stronger, smarter society and a more resilient state. But it will take a while. The next few years, we’ll have to work through these challenges. But we have our work cut out for us,” Newsom said.
Supreme Court declines to block Pennsylvania shutdown order
The Supreme Court has decided not to block Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf’s shutdown order after a group of businesses and a Republican state legislative candidate filed a lawsuit against the order.
FYI: both the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and the Supreme Court of the United States have now upheld the constitutionality of @GovernorTomWolf ‘s emergency orders. pic.twitter.com/yeqmED5y2p
— Rep. Mike Zabel (@RepZabel) May 6, 2020
The plaintiffs argued Wolf’s order, which shut down most non-essential businesses to limit the spread of coronavirus, was causing “unprecedented damage to the economy.”
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court previously rejected their request to block the order, and the US Supreme Court has now affirmed that decision. There were no noted dissents in the decision.
Trump said Dr Deborah Birx and Dr Anthony Fauci would remain on the coronavirus task force in their current roles, while addressing reporters during an Oval Office meeting with the Iowa governor.
.@realDonaldTrump says Dr Fauci and Dr Birx will remain on the coronavirus task force in their current roles. pic.twitter.com/Zn6sIGOyhW
— Jeff Mason (@jeffmason1) May 6, 2020
The president said this morning that the task force would continue its work “indefinitely,” after the vice president confirmed yesterday the White House was looking to wind down the group’s work in the coming weeks.
But Trump also said the task force would “add or subtract people” as necessary, which raised some concerns about whether health experts would be pushed off the team.
Trump has reportedly questioned the accuracy of the coronavirus death toll, but health experts on the White House task force have already said such theories are baseless.
Last month, Dr Deborah Birx and Dr Anthony Fauci were asked about Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s suggestion that pneumonia deaths were being miscounted as coronavirus deaths. Other Fox commentators suggested some coronavirus patients had actually died of their preexisting conditions.
“Those individuals will have an underlying condition, but that underlying condition did not cause their acute death when it’s related to a covid infection,” Birx said in response to a question about the baseless claims. “In fact, it’s the opposite.”
Fauci dismissed such claims as “conspiracy theories.” “You will always have conspiracy theories when you have a very challenging public health crisis. They are nothing but distractions,” Fauci said. “Let somebody write a book about it later on. But not now.”
Trump contradicts nurse who says PPE access has been 'sporadic'
Trump pushed back against a nurse who said access to personal protective equipment had been “sporadic” during the coronavirus crisis.
Trump rebukes a nurse who says "PPE has been sporadic, but it's been manageable."
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 6, 2020
"Sporadic for you, but not sporadic for a lot of other people," Trump replies. "That was fine, but I have heard we have a tremendous supply to almost all places." pic.twitter.com/zOf2rWxvHx
Several nurses gathered in the Oval Office this afternoon to witness Trump signing a declaration in honor of National Nurses Day.
During the event, Sophia Thomas, president of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, “PPE has been sporadic, but it’s been manageable and we do what we have to do. We are nurses and we adapt.”
The president responded to Thomas’ uplifting message by saying, “Sporadic for you, but not sporadic for a lot of other people.”
It’s worth noting a report emerged today that administration officials privately raised concerns about ongoing shortages of masks, gowns and other medical gear, even as Trump pivots to focus on reopening the economy.
Congresswoman slams killing of jogger
Massachusetts freshman member of the House, Ayanna Pressley, has tweeted a strong message of outrage against the killing of a jogger in Georgia by shots fired when he ran past a truck occupied by two men.
A prosecutor in Georgia said he would ask a grand jury to decide if charges should be filed against a white former law enforcement officer and his son over the fatal shooting of an unarmed young black man as he ran through a small town.
The shooting of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery outside Brunswick, Georgia, in February was captured on videotape and posted on social media on Tuesday, stirring outrage over the reluctance of prosecutors to file charges against Gregory McMichael and his son, Travis.
This is what Pressley had to say a little earlier.
I've struggled for words to describe the pain my husband & I feel reading about the lynching of #AhmaudArbery
— Ayanna Pressley (@AyannaPressley) May 6, 2020
Black while walking. Black while eating. Black while jogging.
Every time we have to have this conversation with Cora I'm outraged.
We need justice for his family now.
This piece went live just earlier, from the Guardian:
Updated
Trump said the country may need to accept the reality of additional coronavirus deaths in order to start reopening the country, echoing comments the president made yesterday.
JOHN ROBERTS: Will the nation just have to accept the idea that by reopening there will be more death?
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 6, 2020
TRUMP: "We have to be warriors. We can't keep our country closed down for years ... hopefully that won't be the case, John, but it could very well be the case." pic.twitter.com/GgJRW3FX9b
“We have to be warriors,” Trump told Fox News’ John Roberts when asked if Americans should expect additional deaths as the country looks to reopen. “We can’t keep our country closed down for years.”
The president added, “Hopefully that won’t be the case ... but it could very well be the case.”
Trump similarly said yesterday while visiting a mask production facility in Arizona, “Will some people be affected? Yes. Will some people be affected badly? Yes. But we have to get our country open and we have to get it open soon.”
Updated
Trump has questioned accuracy of death toll - report
Trump and some of his advisers have reportedly suggested the country’s coronavirus death toll, which surpassed 70,000 yesterday, may be an exaggeration.
Axios reports:
A senior administration official said he expects the president to begin publicly questioning the death toll as it closes in on his predictions for the final death count and damages him politically. ...
The official said Trump has vented that the numbers seem inflated and has brought up New York’s addition of more than 3,000 unconfirmed but suspected COVID-19 cases to its death toll.
Some members of the president’s team believe the government has created a distorting financial incentive for hospitals to identify coronavirus cases, the official also said.
At the risk of stating the obvious, there is no evidence that the death toll is an exaggeration. Experts have suggested the death toll actually represents an undercount because states have largely not counted those individuals who are suspected to have died of coronavirus but were never tested.
Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that he did not think it was sustainable to ask Americans to continue staying home to limit the spread of coronavirus.
“I don’t think people will stand for it,” Trump said. “The country won’t stand for it. It’s not sustainable.”
The president later said he would like schools to reopen “wherever possible,” but he acknowledged older teachers would likely not be able teach for a while.
I asked @realDonaldTrump why he didn’t wear a mask at the Honeywell plant yesterday. He said he had worn one. I said we did not see him wearing one. He said he wore one backstage and the Honeywell chief said it was not necessary to wear in the plant. pic.twitter.com/4KYvq3J6yE
— Jeff Mason (@jeffmason1) May 6, 2020
Asked why he did not wear a mask yesterday while visiting a mask production facility in Arizona, Trump said, “I had a mask on for a period of time.” The president claimed he wore the mask while away from reporters and only for a brief period of time.
Trump also said his administration would continue with legal efforts to invalidate Obamacare, despite concerns that the pending case could further destabilize the healthcare system amid a global pandemic.
Trump: 'I had no idea how popular the task force is'
Trump said that the White House coronavirus task force would be adding two or three members by next week, after the president announced the group would continue working “indefinitely.”
The president told reporters in the Oval Office, where he signed a proclamation recognizing National Nurses Day, that the task force would wind down at some point in the future.
Asked why he reversed himself from yesterday, when he signaled the task force would move into a different phase, Trump said, “I thought we could wind it down sooner. But I had no idea how popular the task force is until actually yesterday when I started talking about winding down ... It is appreciated by the public.”
Republican senator Lindsey Graham signaled he could support additional funding for state and local governments in the next coronavirus relief bill.
“No doubt states have been hit pretty hard,” Graham, a close ally of the president’s, said at the Capitol. “If it were set up the right way, I think it makes sense.”
Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has expressed skepticism about allocating more funding to states, and Trump said in a tweet yesterday, “Well run States should not be bailing out poorly run States, using CoronaVirus as the excuse!”
But other Republican lawmakers have said they are open to giving states more government. Senator Mitt Romney was seen at the Capitol yesterday carrying a poster reading, “Blue states aren’t the only ones getting screwed.”
Today so far
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Trump said the White House coronavirus task force would “continue on indefinitely.” The president’s announcement came one day after the vice president confirmed the White House was looking to wind down the task force in the coming weeks.
- House speaker Nancy Pelosi criticized Trump for pushing to reopen the US economy, as public health experts warn it could lead to a surge in new coronavirus cases. “Death is not an economic motivator, stimulus, so why are we going down that path?” Pelosi said.
- New York leaders are warning against other states reopening too quickly. New York governor Andrew Cuomo and New York mayor Bill de Blasio both noted that the rest of the country is still seeing a steady rise in the number of coronavirus cases, even as New York and its neighbors are on the descent of their curve of infections.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Democratic speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested the House would not need to subpoena Dr Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, to have him testify before the chamber.
“I would hope that Dr Fauci would say things in public that we wouldn’t need him to be subpoenaed,” Pelosi told MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell.
Pelosi’s comments come one day after Trump confirmed Fauci would testify before the Republican-controlled Senate, but not the House, next week. The president claimed it would be unproductive for Fauci to testify in the House because it is full of “Trump haters.”
Trump went on to accuse Democrats of wanting the government’s response to coronavirus to fail, citing no evidence for the alarming claim.
Pelosi said Trump’s comments were “so beneath the dignity of the office that he holds” and “so distant from the seriousness he should bring to a matter of life and death of so many people in our country.”
Pelosi to Trump: 'Death is not an economic motivator'
Speaker Nancy Pelosi harshly criticized Trump in an MSNBC interview as the president seeks to pivot to focusing on reopening the US economy.
The Democratic speaker warned that Trump was jeopardizing Amercans’ health and that his strategy would do nothing to ease the country’s economic distress.
“Death is not an economic motivator, stimulus, so why are we going down that path?” Pelosi told MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell.
The speaker emphasized that Trump should follow the scientific guidance of experts to determine when the country should start reopening, rather than “cheering people on, going with guns and swastikas to the Michigan legislature and saying these are really good people.”
The cutting remark was clearly a reference to Trump expressing support for anti-shutdown protesters who swarmed the Michigan capitol last week, some of them carrying assault rifles as they entered the statehouse.
New York leaders warn rest of US against rushing to reopen
New York leaders are warning that while the state and city are past the initial peak in the coronavirus outbreak, the number of new cases in the rest of the US is still rising.
New York City mayor Bill de Blasio warned that other states may be moving too quickly to open up businesses and loosen restrictions on gatherings.
“This desire to restart and open up without necessarily referencing the actual facts of what’s going on is dangerous,” de Blasio said on CNN this morning.
At his daily briefing, state governor Andrew Cuomo said that while the number of new cases, hospitalizations and the death toll in New York were coming down, the rate of decline is “painfully slow”.
And he said: “We have turned the corner, but then you take New York out of the national numbers and the numbers for the rest of the nation are going up.”
Cuomo added, during the question and answer session with the media: “You have states opening up where the numbers are still on the incline, I think that’s a mistake.”
Some U.S. cities show signs of progress against the virus, but a view of the country as a whole shows an unrelenting crush of death and infection https://t.co/R1PnGt4Yii pic.twitter.com/8dLDmLjnUv
— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 5, 2020
New York is still recording 600 new coronavirus cases a day. That’s down from around 1,000 a day during the peak in April and the state recorded 230 Covid-19 deaths on Monday, far lower than the peak of 799 a day on April 8.
Cuomo said he had hoped the rates of cases and deaths would have been coming down faster but the number of deaths is “stubborn and most distressing”.
The bulk of new cases are still in New York City, largely among the over-50s and disproportionately affecting African-Americans.
But he added that most of the new cases were being discovered among those who have been staying at home, largely retired or unemployed.
“So it comes down to personal behavior. What are you doing to protect yourself?” he said, noting that schools, most businesses and cultural sites are shut.
Meanwhile De Blasio said earlier that New Yorkers have succeeded in lowering virus infection rates by largely following social distancing orders and by covering their faces in public.
“My message to the rest of the country is learn from how much effort, how much discipline it took to finally bring these numbers down and follow the same path until you’re sure that it’s being beaten back or else if this thing boomerangs you’re putting off any kind of restart or recovery a hell of a lot longer,” he said.
As of today, there are 1.2 million confirmed coronavirus cases in the US and there have been 71,000 deaths.
Updated
In some non-coronavirus news: the education department has finalized rules on campus sexual assault allegations that bolster the rights of the accused.
The AP reports:
The change announced by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos reshapes the way the nation’s schools respond to complaints of sexual misconduct. It is meant to replace policies from the Obama administration that DeVos previously revoked, saying they pressured schools to deny the rights of accused students.
‘Today we release a final rule that recognizes we can continue to combat sexual misconduct without abandoning our core values of fairness, presumption of innocence and due process,’ she said. ‘This empowers survivors with more tools than ever before.’
Democrats and education groups had asked DeVos to delay any changes until after the coronavirus pandemic, saying colleges don’t have time to implement new federal rules while they respond to the crisis.
Victims rights advocates have already vowed to challenge the new rules in court, ensuring a lengthy legal battle over DeVos’ proposed rules.
“Betsy DeVos and the Trump administration are dead set on making schools more dangerous for everyone — even during a global pandemic,” Fatima Goss Graves, the president of the National Women’s Law Center, told the New York Times.
“And if this rule goes into effect, survivors will be denied their civil rights and will get the message loud and clear that there is no point in reporting assault.”
Pompeo: No 'certainty' but 'significant evidence' virus came from Wuhan lab
Secretary of state Mike Pompeo was pressed today on his claim on Sunday that there was “enormous evidence” that the Sars-CoV-2 virus originated in a Wuhan laboratory, a claim that was in conflict with statements from Anthony Fauci, the top US scientific voice on the outbreak, and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Mark Milley.
The secretary of state got a little testy telling a BBC reporter who had raised the inconsistencies. “Your efforts to try and find, to spend your whole life trying to drive a little wedge between senior American officials, it’s just false,” Pompeo said.
There is no "certainty" but "significant evidence" coronavirus originated in Wuhan lab, Sec of State Pompeo says. "We're all trying to get to clarity" https://t.co/RrINqZ3Htw pic.twitter.com/yjlOrw5V7e
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 6, 2020
He argued that everyone was singing from the same songsheet. ”Every one of those statements is entirely consistent,” he said. “We’re all trying to figure out the right answer. We’re all trying to get to clarity. There are different levels of certainty assessed at different places. That’s highly appropriate. People stare at datasets and come to different levels of confidence.”
Finally, after more questioning, he repeated his assertion that there was strong evidence of a lab accident, but not before becoming irritable again. He said: “I’m not sure what it is about the grammar that you can’t get. We don’t have certainty. There is significant evidence that this came from the laboratory. Those statements can both be true.”
For context, General Milley has said the evidence of the origins are inconclusive, but the “weight of evidence seems to indicate natural” evolution.
Dr Fauci said: “Everything about the stepwise evolution over time strongly indicates that it evolved in nature and then jumped species.”
The House could reconvene “as early as next week,” Democratic majority leader Steny Hoyer said on a conference call with reporters.
Hoyer said the House’s schedule largely depended upon the timing of the next coronavirus relief bill, although Democrats and Republicans remain staunchly divided on the specifics of that package.
Hoyer previously said the House would return this week, but he reversed that decision after a consultation with the attending physician of the Capitol, even though the Senate moved forward with its return this week.
As House leaders discuss potential remote options for voting, some Republican members are resisting those proposals while simultaneously insisting the chamber must return to session.
“Physical presence is essential to effective, accountable and transparent legislating,” Republican congressman Jim Jordan wrote in a New York Post op-ed published yesterday.
Giving a press conference at the state department this morning, Mike Pompeo was asked about the bizarre events in Venezuela over the weekend when opposition activists and two US army veterans staged an abortive raid, supposedly aimed at somehow toppling and even capturing President Nicolas Maduro and other top officials.
Sec of State Pompeo says the U.S. will use "every tool" to free Americans held in Venezuela https://t.co/RjkldZ31mi pic.twitter.com/jok20WY2zS
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 6, 2020
Pompeo said: “There was no US government direct involvement in this operation. If we had been involved it would have gone differently.”
Unsurprisingly, the word “direct” is getting a lot of attention from Venezuela watchers on Twitter. The secretary of state added: “As for who bankrolled it, we’re not prepared to share any more information about what we know took place. We’ll unpack that at the appropriate time. We’ll share that information when it makes good sense.”
Asked what was being done to get the two Americans in Venezuelan custody back, Pompeo said: “We’re going to work on this. ... We will start the process of trying to figure a way - if in fact these are Americans that are there - and that we can figure out a path forward. We want to get every American back. If the Maduro regime decides to hold them, we will use every tool that we have available to try and get them back. It’s our responsibility to do so.”
Despite the president’s assurances to the contrary, administration officials still have concerns about potential shortages of medical equipment, as the number of the country’s coronavirus cases continues to steadily rise.
Politico reports:
[On May 1, Trump’s] own health and emergency management officials were privately warning that states were still experiencing shortages of masks, gowns and other medical gear, according to a recording of an interagency meeting between FEMA and HHS officials across the country, conducted by conference call, which was obtained by POLITICO.
Trump’s federal ‘Stay at Home’ guidelines had quietly expired the night before, leaving states to manage the pandemic as they saw fit. The officials also expressed concern that governors moving to reopen their economies while cases were still prevalent threatened to plunge the nation into a new and potentially deadlier chapter of the outbreak.
‘The numbers of deaths definitely will be high,’ Daniel Jernigan, director of the Center for Disease Control’s influenza division, said at the start of a May 1 conference call. Jernigan did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
Minutes later, another official underscored the risk facing the U.S.: If all the states moved to lift their social distancing restrictions, hospitals nationwide could see a surge of new coronavirus cases, creating the potential for severe ventilator shortages within weeks.
‘If, at the end of stay-at-home orders, you were to lift everything and go back to normal business, and not have any community mitigation, you would expect to see in the second week in May we begin to increase again in ventilator uses,’ the official said. ‘Which means cases increase, and by early June, we surpass the number of ventilators we currently have.’
Trump and his allies have taken to bragging about the country’s increased production of ventilators since the start of the crisis, even as many states’ focus has shifted to expanding testing capacity.
But the report of the call is a reminder that the country still risks a shortage of ventilators if social distancing restrictions are relaxed too quickly and the country sees a subsequent surge in new infections.
Americans are nearly evenly divided over whether they believe the sexual assault allegation against Joe Biden, even as he widens his lead over Donald Trump amid criticism of the president’s handling of the coronavirus.
According to a new survey by Monmouth University, 37% say the allegation is probably true, 32% say it is probably not true, and 31% have no opinion. The poll, which was taken after Biden emphatically denied the allegation in an interview on MSNBC, found that an overwhelming majority – 86% – of Americans had heard about the allegation brought by Tara Reade, who has accused him of sexually assaulting her when she worked as an aide in his Senate office in the early 1990s.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, opinion on the validity of the claim breaks sharply along partisan lines. Half of Republicans say the allegation is probably true while just 17% say it is likely not true, the poll found. Meanwhile, 55% of Democrats say the claim against their party’s presumptive nominee is probably not true compared with 20% who say it probably is true.
Among independents voters, 43% say they feel the allegation is true, compared with 22% who say it’s not and 35% who have no opinion either way.
Men were slightly more likely than women to believe the allegation against Biden, 39% compared with 35%.
“We don’t know what impact this allegation will have in the long run. For some voters who believe the charge, it is still not enough to override their desire to oust Trump,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute. “The outlook is murkier for those who don’t have an opinion on it.”
The same poll found that those who don’t believe the allegation overwhelmingly support Biden. But among voters who believe it is true, 59% support Trump while 32% still support Biden. And among voters who have no opinion on the allegation’s validity, 45% support Trump and 43% support Biden.
Monmouth didn’t conduct a national polling asking voters whether they believed the allegation against Judge Brett Kavanaugh. But an NPR poll taken after Christine Blasey Ford and Kavanugh testified found that 45% believed Ford was telling the truth compared to 33% who believed Kavanaugh.
This comes as a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released on Tuesday found that more than a third of voters believe Democrats should replace Biden as their nominee over the recent claims from the former Senate aide that date back to the early 1990s.
Yet despite a spate of coverage over the allegation, Biden has grown his lead over Trump in recent months.
According to the survey, Biden leads Trump 50% to 41% among registered voters, with 3% saying they would cast a ballot for the independent candidate and 5% are undecided. In April, Biden led Trump 48% to 44% which was similar to the spread in March, which showed Biden ahead by 48% to 45%.
US companies lost more than 20 million jobs in April, according to the latest numbers from the ADP Research Institute.
April’s job losses are the worst in the history of the ADP report, which has compiled information on the country’s private payrolls since 2002.
The data only reflects job losses reported through the 12th of the month, so it does not capture all of the economic damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic in the past month.
The report precedes the release of Friday’s jobs report, which is expected to show the unemployment rate climbing to 16%, up from 4.4% in the March report.
More than 30 million Americans have filed for unemployment benefits in the past six weeks, and a third of Americans say their households have seen a job loss or wage decrease since the crisis started.
Secretary of state Mike Pompeo reportedly plans to travel to Israel next week, marking the cabinet member’s first international trip since coronavirus was declared a pandemic.
Axios reports:
Pompeo is expected to arrive next Tuesday and return to Washington the next day, Israeli officials tell me.
The trip would come days before Israel’s new government is slated to be sworn in, and Pompeo is expected to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, his rival-turned-coalition-partner.
It’s unclear why Pompeo is planning to travel in person, or how the visit could be impacted by Israel’s social distancing restrictions and emergency regulations which demand that any person arriving from abroad enter 2 weeks of confinement.
Speaking moments ago at a press conference, Pompeo declined to confirm the Israel trip but said an announcement would be made soon.
If Pompeo does make the trip, he will almost certainly face questions about the safety and necessity of international travel at this point in time.
Congress continues to adjust to the realities of social distancing, with lawmakers wearing masks and gloves and trying to maintain physical distance from colleagues.
A photo from a House subcommittee hearing on the coronavirus response today showed desks spread several feet apart in order to limit the potential spread of the virus.
Attending the first socially-distant House subcommittee hearing today, on pandemic response. Lots of space between seats. Everybody in masks, but members are taking them off to speak. pic.twitter.com/GnKchM0bep
— Garrett Haake (@GarrettHaake) May 6, 2020
The Senate has already returned to session, and the full House is expected to return next week. Signs have been placed around the Capitol reminding those present to observe social distancing guidelines.
The White House’s discussions about winding down the coronavirus task force are a reflection of how Trump is trying to shift the focus to reopening the US economy, even as the country’s coronavirus death toll continues to climb.
Hours after the US death toll surpassed 70,000 yesterday, the president said of the country reopening, “Will some people be affected? Yes. Will some people be affected badly? Yes. But we have to get our country open, and we have to get it open soon.”
The comments raised concerns that Trump was expressing a willingness to sacrifice Americans’ health for the sake of the economy. The president’s announcement this morning that the White House coronavirus task force will continue indefinitely is almost certainly a reaction to those concerns.
Dr Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, initially denied reports that the White House was looking to wind down its coronavirus task force.
“That’s not true,” Fauci initially said yesterday. “I’ve been in every task force meeting, and that’s not what they are doing.”
When the vice president confirmed the news shortly afterwards, it seemed Fauci (and potentially other public health experts on the task force) had been left out of the loop on the conversations.
Trump is now saying the task force will “continue on indefinitely,” but the president noted the group “may add or subtract people ... to it, as appropriate,” raising questions about whether Fauci’s role with the group will change.
Fauci, who serves as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has become a household name since the coronavirus crisis started, and polls show a large majority of Americans trust Fauci as a source of information on the pandemic, while the president has received low ratings on that front.
The New York Times was the first to report yesterday that the White House was looking to wind down its task force in the coming weeks, sparking concerns that the Trump administration was trying to sideline public health experts as the president shifts his focus to reopening the economy.
Vice President Mike Pence quickly confirmed the report, telling reporters yesterday, “I think we’re having conversations about that and about what the proper time is for the task force to complete its work and for the ongoing efforts to take place on an agency-by-agency level.
Pence said the administration was looking at Memorial Day or early June as a potential “window” to start winding down the group. “And we’ve already begun to talk about a transition plan with FEMA,” the vice president added.
When asked about Pence’s comments, Trump said, “I think we’re looking at phase two and we’re looking at other phases ... the task force has done a phenomenal job.” This morning’s tweet thread from the president indicates the task force’s work will continue, although its members and focus may change.
Trump: White House coronavirus task force to 'continue on indefinitely'
This is Joan Greve, taking over for Joanna Walters.
Trump has just announced over Twitter that the White House coronavirus task force will “continue on indefinitely,” despite the vice president’s comments yesterday that it would start to wind down in the coming weeks.
In a tweet thread this morning, the president said the task force had done a “fantastic job” addressing the coronavirus crisis.
“Because of this success, the Task Force will continue on indefinitely with its focus on SAFETY & OPENING UP OUR COUNTRY AGAIN,” Trump wrote.
“We may add or subtract people ... to it, as appropriate. The Task Force will also be very focused on Vaccines & Therapeutics.”
Good morning, US live blog readers, Donald Trump is back at the White House after his trip to Arizona yesterday and there’s another very full day ahead in US politics and the coronavirus outbreak in the US.
Here’s what we know so far:
- There is widespread public outrage and dismay at the news that the Trump administration plans to wind down its coronavirus taskforce. We’ll bring you further details. Twitter is alight.
- This as a well-sourced new map from the news site Axios shows new cases of coronavirus are rising steeply in Minnesota, Nebraska and Puerto Rico and also increasing in many other states across the midwest and southwest. Numbers are stable in some and decreasing in just a handful of states.
- New White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany will hold her second official briefing at the WH at 4pm ET today. The Guardian will attend.
- The US supreme court continues hearing oral arguments remotely, by telephone, today in the case of the Trump administration’s efforts to undermine attempt the so-called contraceptive mandate, the element of “Obamacare” legislation on health care that requires employer-covered health insurance to include birth control. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will participate, despite being in hospital for treatment of an infection resulting from a gallstone.
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