Summary
- Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert, told senators that the US is “going in the wrong direction” in its handling of the coronavirus pandemic. He warned that the death toll “is going to be very disturbing” unless officials intervene, and urged Americans to wear masks and practice social distancing in public spaces.
- The US has bought up virtually all the stocks of remdesivir, one of two drugs that appear to work against Covid-19, for the next three months leaving almost none rest of the world. The Trump administration has bought more than 500,000 doses – all of what the drug’s producer Gilead will make in July and 90% of what it expects to produce in August and September.
- Speaking in Delaware, Joe Biden said the pandemic is unlikely to have subsided by January 2021, and if he’s elected. “On the day I’m sworn in, I’ll get right to work implementing all aspects of the response that remain undone,” he said.
- Former combat pilot Amy McGrath has won the Democratic primary race in Kentucky to face off against Senate majority leader and pro-Trumpian Mitch McConnell. McGrath faced a tough challenge from progressive Charles Booker.
- Democratic leaders said they want a full congressional briefing on alleged Russian bounties on the heads of US troops in Afghanistan. The House’s No. 2 Democrat, Steny Hoyer, said he believes that Russia “remains involved in a negative way in Afghanistan”.
Updated
What to watch: Today's primaries
Colorado, Utah and Oklahoma are having primaries today.
Here’s what we’re watching:
In Colorado, former governor and 2020 presidential candidate John Hickenlooper is facing off against former state House speaker Andrew Romanoff for a chance to take on Republican senator Corey Gardner. Gardner, Colorado’s first-term Republican senator, is a vulnerable incumbent in a state that’s trending toward blue.
In Utah, the Republican primary for governor has former governor Jon Huntsman in a close race against Lt. governor Spencer Cox for the Republican (bear with me - that’s a lot of governors to keep track of, I know). Huntsman has been attacked by Cox for leaving his previous post as Utah’s governor to serve as ambassador to China during the Obama administration (he later served as an ambassador to Russia during the Trump administration).
In Oklahoma, voters will decide State Question 802, a ballot measure that would expand Medicaid for an estimated 200,000 eligible Oklahomans. Nine Republicans are also vying for the chance to face off against Democratic representative Kendra Horn. Horn flipped her Oaklahoma City-based district in 2016, and Republicans see a chance to take it back in November.
Bernie Sanders wants lawmakers to cut the US military budget by 10%. In an opinion piece published in the Guardian, he writes:
At this unprecedented moment in American history – a terrible pandemic, an economic meltdown, people marching across the country to end systemic racism and police brutality, growing income and wealth inequality and an unstable president in the White House – now is the time to bring people together to fundamentally alter our national priorities and rethink the very structure of American society.
In that regard, I have been disturbed that for too long, Democrats and Republicans have joined together in passing outrageously high military budgets while ignoring the needs of the poorest people in our society. If we are serious about altering our national priorities, then there is no better place to begin with than taking a hard look at the bloated $740bn military budget that is coming up for a vote in the Senate this week.
Incredibly, after adjusting for inflation, we are now spending more on the military than we did during the height of the Cold War or during the wars in Vietnam and Korea.
This extraordinary level of military spending comes at a time when the Department of Defense is the only agency of our federal government that has not been able to pass an independent audit, when defense contractors are making enormous profits while paying their CEOs exorbitant compensation packages, and when the so-called “War on Terror” will end up costing us some $6tn.
Donors contributed nearly $480,000 to cover the vice-president's legal expenses
According to Mike Pence’s financial disclosure report, donors contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to cover legal expenses from special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 elections.
Donors including the Indiana Pacers owner Herbert Simon and California developers Michael Hayde and Laura Khouri contributed nearly $480,000, the AP reports, to a trust fund that James Atterholt, Pence’s former chief of staff during his tenure as Indiana governor, started to cover the vice-president’s legal bills.
The annual report states that the money was used to cover a bill from McGuireWoods LLP, which represented Pence in the Mueller probe. Atterholt terminated the trust on 12 August 2019. Many government officials have turned to legal defense funds over the years to finance their legal representation.
The report states that every contributor had to certify that they are US citizens, the money came from personal funds and that Pence did not solicit the contribution, among other requirements. The report was filed with the US Office of Government Ethics.
Updated
The 75-year-old Buffalo protester who seriously injured after being pushed to the ground by two police officers has been released from the hospital nearly four weeks after being admitted.
Martin Gugino will be recovering at an undisclosed location to protect his privacy, according to his attorney Kelly Zarcone. “Martin wants to thank the entire hospital staff for their exceptional dedication and professionalism,” Zarcone said. “He received truly outstanding care and for that, he is grateful.”
Gugino was one of many protesters across the US beaten, tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed and arrested amid nationwide demonstrations against police brutality.
Updated
Mississippi's governor signs historic bill to retire flag with confederate emblem
With a signature, the Republican Governor Tate Reeves retired the state’s 126-year-old flag, immediately removing its official status.
“This is not a political moment to me but a solemn occasion to lead our Mississippi family to come together, to be reconciled, and to move on,” Reeves said in a statement. “We are a resilient people defined by our hospitality. We are a people of great faith. Now, more than ever, we must lean on that faith, put our divisions behind us, and unite for a greater good.”
A coalition of legislators passed a bill to change the flag, which features the Confederate battle emblem – a red field topped by a blue X with 13 white stars. White supremacist lawmakers put the emblem on the Mississippi flag in 1894. Critics have asked for it to be changed for decades, arguing that the hateful symbol has no place on the flag of a state where 38% of the population is Black.
Senator Wicker oversaw the removal of the Mississippi state flag from the Capitol subway moments ago. It was replaced by a flag with the state seal on it. pic.twitter.com/PDksJOP7lE
— Haley Talbot (@haleytalbotnbc) June 30, 2020
A commission will now design a new flag, which voters will be asked to approve in the 3 November election.
Updated
Today so far
- Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert, told senators that the US is “going in the wrong direction” in its handling of the coronavirus pandemic. He warned that the death toll “is going to be very disturbing” unless officials intervene, and urged Americans to wear masks and practice social distancing in public spaces.
- The US has bought up virtually all the stocks of remdesivir, one of two drugs that appear to work against Covid-19, for the next three months leaving almost none rest of the world. The Trump administration has bought more than 500,000 doses — all of what the drug’s producer Gilead will make in July and 90% of what it expects to produce in August and September.
- Speaking in Delaware, Joe Biden said the pandemic is unlikely to have subsided by January 2021, and if he’s elected. “On the day I’m sworn in, I’ll get right to work implementing all aspects of the response that remain undone,” he said.
- Former combat pilot Amy McGrath has won the Democratic primary race in Kentucky to face off against Senate majority leader and pro-Trumpian Mitch McConnell. McGrath faced a tough challenge from progressive Charles Booker.
- Democratic leaders said they want a full congressional briefing on alleged Russian bounties on the heads of US troops in Afghanistan. The House’s No. 2 Democrat, Steny Hoyer, said he believes that Russia “remains involved in a negative way in Afghanistan”,
Updated
Bail for former officer who fatally shot Rayshard Brooks set at $500,000
Bail for the former Atlanta police officer who fatally shot Rayshard Brooks has been st at $500,ooo, by a Fulton County superior court judge. Garrett Rolf, who was fired from the police department after shooting and killing Brooks on 12 June, will be required to turn in his passport, wear an ankle monitor, observe a curfew and refrain from contacting any current Atlanta police officers, members of Brooks’ family or any witnesses.
Prosecutors said that Rolfe would try to skip out on future court proceedings, but the judge, Jane Barwick, ruled that “ he does have sufficient ties to the community and he is not a flight risk.”
Rolfe faces a possible life sentence or the death penalty if he is convicted. He faces felony murder and 10 other charges for killing 27-year-old Brooks.
Hi there, it’s Maanvi Singh, blogging from the West Coast.
South Dakota governer Kristi Noem has said the state won’t be enforcing social distancing at the Mouth Rushmore independence day celebration, even as coronavirus cases climb across the country. The event with Donald Trump, which will take place on 3rd July, could draw around 7,500 participants, according to the website detailing logistics.
Free face masks will be available for those who “choose to wear one”, Noem, a Republican said in an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham. “We won’t be social distancing, we’re asking them to come, be ready to celebrate the freedoms and the liberties we have in this country.”
Noem said she’s asked residents to focus on “personal responsibility.” “We told those folks that have concerns that they stay can home,” she said.
Updated
Oklahoma governor Kevin Stitt has added his voice to a chorus of elected Republicans now calling on people to wear masks in public.
❗️❗️Stitt for the first time is asking Oklahoman's to wear a mask when in an area where you can't social distance. He says wearing a mask significantly lowers the transmission rate of #COVID19.
— Erika Stanish (@Erika_Stanish) June 30, 2020
Top congressional Republicans on the mask wagon include Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, and senior Republican senators such as Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. A Fox News host and a growing list of Republican governors are all spreading the word about masks.
So are senior Republican statesmen such as former vice president Dick Cheney. So is CDC director Robert Redfield, who pleaded with young Americans to wear masks at a hearing today.
There remains one prominent voice missing from the chorus, and it’s not vice president Mike Pence, who finally at a Sunday appearance in Dallas called on the public to wear masks.
Updated
California recorded more than 8,000 coronavirus infections on Monday, smashing the state’s daily record for the third time in eight days. Yesterday saw the state record more than 6,000 cases attributed to the virus.
And California is bracing for more bad news. Across the Golden State, cases have steadily risen alongside admissions to hospitals and ICUs.
But the trends are applying uneven pressure to the state’s regions. As of Saturday in Southern California’s Riverside County, 99% of ICU beds were in use, leaving just 5 available for new admissions.
Imperial County, which borders Mexico, has in recent weeks sent 500 patients to neighboring regions because hospital capacity had been maxed, California governor Gavin Newsom said Monday.
the most stunning takeaway from LA's recent press briefings: officials estimated last week that 1 in 400 people in LA County were infectious with covid and not isolated. this week, that estimate has increased to 1 in 140 people. next week, it could be 1 in 70
— Soumya (@skarlamangla) June 30, 2020
In hard-hit Los Angeles County, new cases topped 3,000 on Monday alone and raised fear that infections could spike further in the week ahead. LA Health officials say the surge is likely the result of businesses and restaurants not following guidelines, even weeks after reopening, and Californians letting down their guard.
The metrics have 19 counties, home to 72% of the state’s population on a “watch list”, monitored closely by public health experts. Four additional counties are expected to join the list by day’s end, said Newsom, fueling concern that family gatherings over Independence Day weekend could send cases upward.
It’s been enough for Newsom to encourage certain counties to “toggle back” reopening plans and consider issuing new stay-at-home orders — and he indicated he’s willing to use a heavier hand to make sure the measures are enforced.
“If you’re not going to stay home, if you’re not going to wear masks in public, we have to enforce”, he said, adding that additional details can be expected later in the week.
While data on Monday can be inflated from reporting delays over the weekend, writes Mercury News, Monday’s 8,000 new cases is 25% higher than any previous Monday.
Updated
Challenged on whether Trump even reads his intelligence briefings (every indication being that he does not), McEnany unravels this whopper:
This president is the most informed person on Planet Earth in terms of the threats that we face.”
Asked why the president does not recommend wearing a face mask, McEnany says Trump is tested for Covid frequently and he believes mask-wearing is an individual choice.
McEnany is asked whether Trump will act against Russia if the intelligence is corroborated.
“The president has always taken tough, unadulterated action against Russia,” McEnany says.
FILE - In this June 28, 2019, file photo, President Donald Trump, right, meets with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan. Photograph: Susan Walsh/AP
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany is holding a press briefing. She begins with an attack on intelligence leaks. Prompted no doubt by the Times scoop this afternoon that intelligence agents watched Russian agents move money to the Taliban. The information appears to have been leaked to rebut White House disinformation –including McEnany’s – casting doubt about the integrity of the intelligence.
“This is a piece of intelligence information that has no consensus, has not been verified,” McEnany says.
New York state has expanded the list of states travelers from which are subject to a mandatory 14-day quarantine upon arrival in the Empire State, governor Andrew Cuomo announced.
The newly added states are California, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada and Tennessee, the New York Times reports.
Already on the list were Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas and Utah.
A new set of polling data from Pew Research has this doozy: The share of Republicans who say they’re satisfied with the direction of the country has dropped below 50%... to 19%:
Until today, GOP satisfaction with how things are going in the US had been above 50% for nearly all of Trump’s presidency.
— Michael Del Moro (@MikeDelMoro) June 30, 2020
It is now 19%. https://t.co/S5NKy7iUv2 pic.twitter.com/iqQjHFRaa2
In the same poll, a 56-42 majority said Trump has a responsibility to release his tax returns, with 20% of Republicans saying so. A 55-25 majority said Trump had changed the tone of political debate in the country for the worse and nearly six in ten disapprove of Trump’s job performance as president.
Trump was narrowly seen, by a 51-48 margin, as more likely to make good decisions about the economy than Joe Biden. Pew adds:
Anger and fear are widespread. Majorities of Democrats and Republicans say they feel both sentiments when thinking about the country, though these feelings are more prevalent among Democrats. And just 17% of Americans – including 25% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and 10% of Democrats and Democratic leaners – say they feel proud when thinking about the state of the country.
However, nearly half of adults (46%) say they feel hopeful about the state of the country, although a 53% majority says they are not hopeful.
US buys up world stock of key Covid-19 drug
The US has bought up virtually all the stocks for the next three months of one of the two drugs proven to work against Covid-19, leaving none for the UK, Europe or most of the rest of the world.
Experts and access to medicines campaigners are alarmed both by the US unilateral action on remdesivir and the wider implications, for instance in the event of a vaccine becoming available. The Trump administration has already shown it is prepared to outbid and outmanoeuvre all other countries to secure the medical supplies it needs for the US.
“They’ve got access to most of the drug supply [of remdesivir] so there’s nothing for Europe,” said Dr Andrew Hill, senior visiting research fellow at Liverpool University.
Remdesivir, the first drug approved by licensing authorities in the US to treat Covid-19, is made by Gilead. It has been shown to help people recover faster from the disease. The first 140,000 doses, supplied to drug trials around the world, have been used up. The Trump administration has now bought more than 500,000 doses, which is all of Gilead’s production for July and 90% of August and September.
“President Trump has struck an amazing deal to ensure Americans have access to the first authorised therapeutic for Covid-19,” said the US health and human services secretary Alex Azar. “To the extent possible, we want to ensure that any American patient who needs remdesivir can get it. The Trump administration is doing everything in our power to learn more about life-saving therapeutics for Covid-19 and secure access to these options for the American people.”
Read the full story:
US intelligence picked up transfers of large sums from Russian military intelligence to Taliban-linked bank accounts, the New York Times reports, shoring up its reporting on a suspected Russian bounty offer in 2019 for attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Donald Trump has cast doubt on whether such a Russian program existed, and the White House has said US intelligence was inconclusive.
Since the Times published its first story in the series on Friday, Trump has made shifting defenses, each of which has been collapsed by additional reporting.
First Trump claimed he was never briefed about the Russian bounty program. Then he said intelligence advisors told him that assessments about the program weren’t “credible”, and the press secretary said that internal debate about the intelligence assessment had kept it from reaching the president.
Since then various outlets have reported that the assessment had in fact appeared in the president’s daily intelligence briefing, that the national security council convened an interagency meeting about responses to the Russian threat – indicating it was taken seriously – and now we learn there’s a money trail.
When it briefed Republicans yesterday about intelligence on the bounty program, the White House neglected to mention the money trail, the Times reports. Read further by clicking through below.
This is yet another example of the Trump administration lies about classified information causing additional leaks. https://t.co/iwilLb19eL
— Susan Hennessey (@Susan_Hennessey) June 30, 2020
Updated
One more last question for Biden. It’s a follow-up about his hazy distinction between removing statues of the founders versus Confederate leaders.
Asked whether it’s OK for the statues to be torn down by protesters, Biden says, “I think it’s better if they’re taken down like they took the Confederate flag off the Mississippi flag.
“But I can understand the anger and anguish people feel.”
Then he’s asked whether he’d commit to three debates against Trump. He will.
Then he’s asked whether, as a 77-year-old, he’s been tested for cognitive decline. He says he’s tested every day and he’s eager to put his cognitive capabilities up against the cognitive capabilities of the man he’s running against.
That’s a wrap.
Biden accuses Trump of race-baiting
Last question for Biden: how do you get Americans on the same page on wearing masks and coronavirus response?
“Lower the rhetoric of division,” Biden says. Then he pivots to hit Trump for having tweeted out footage on Sunday of a supporter shouting “white power! White power!”
Biden:
“Instead of for example when the golf cart goes by yelling ‘white supremacy,’ and the president tweets it out, don’t do thing like that.”
Biden says “the sort of race-baiting the president has engaged in” has gotten “a free pass” but it’s harmful.
Then Biden says that for Trump, everything is always about Trump.
“It’s not about I. It’s about us,” Biden said. “And I think changing the tone of the administration across the board, allowing the scientists to speak... and when a mistake is made saying ‘I made a mistake, I was wrong’... The words of a president matter, no matter who the president is.”
Biden says he will make a running mate announcement in early August.
Biden on VP timing says "early August," several weeks before the convention
— Katie Glueck (@katieglueck) June 30, 2020
Biden says that Putin would not be able to act with impunity in central and eastern Europe if he Biden is president.
“He knows we’ll have more blunt conversations” if Biden is elected, Biden says of Putin.
Biden is asked whether he’ll release a list of names of potential Supreme Court nominees. Biden says he hesitates to follow Trump on anything “because he does it all wrong.” But he says they’re at work on a list of qualified African American women.
As for his veep pick, Biden says he’s got a list of women of color and is working on deep background checks. But he’s been vowed to select a woman, not necessarily a woman of color, as a running mate.
Biden is asked about Confederate monuments. He gives a somewhat garbled answer saying he thinks the government should protect statues of Christopher Columbus, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, but that statues of Confederate leaders and generals “belong in a museum.” He seeks to draw a distinction between former slaveholders and colonists, and the Confederacy.
Biden is asked whether he has been tested for Covid-19. He hasn’t. He knocks on wood – the lectern.
Biden, on huge polling lead: 'I don't want to jinx myself'
Biden says he misses the campaign trail and meeting voters. “I have been surprised, the irony is we’ve probably reached more people directly, one-on-one,” via television, Biden says. He says 200m people have watched his dispatches from home in Delware. “But I’d much rather be doing it in person.”
Asked about his double-digit lead in national polling averages and in many swing state polls, Biden replies, “I don’t want to jinx myself... it’s much too early to make any judgment.”
Biden accuses Trump of 'dereliction of duty' on Russian bounty issue
Biden is asked about his having accused Trump of “betrayal” in his handling of an intelligence assessment that Russia had offered bounty payments for attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan.
Biden says the story is changing but Trump should have paid attention to the matter and gotten to the bottom of any contradictions in intelligence. Biden says Trump should have convened the joint chiefs of staff to make a response plan.
“He should at a minimum have picked up the phone and said, ‘Vladimir old buddy... if any of this is true, then you’ve got a big problem. A big problem’.”
Biden accuses Trump of a “dereliction of duty.” Then he talks about his late son Beau who had deployed in the army in Iraq. “What are those parents thinking about there?” Biden says. “It’s an absolute dereliction of duty if any of this is even remotely true.”
If the reports are true, the public should conclude that Trump isn’t fit to be president, Biden said.
Biden says he will deploy Covid-19 response plan 'on Day One'
Biden says “I’m almost certain it won’t be over” in January 2021, and if he’s elected, “On the day I’m sworn in, I’ll get right to work implementing all aspects of the response that remain undone.
“My response will begin well before I take the oath of office. We’ll start as soon as the election is decided,” he says. He says he’ll reach out to Dr Anthony Fauci and make sure scientists can speak freely. He says his work will begin “on Day One” – and beforehand.
Everyone needs to wear a mask in public, period. Wear a mask. It’s not just about you... it’s about keeping other people safe... It may be inconvenient, it may be uncomfortable, but it’s the right thing to do as an American.
– Joe Biden
The Biden campaign has circulated excerpts from the speech he’s making now in Delaware.
Biden is expected to take questions after his address. Here are the excerpts in full:
Today, I am releasing a plan with the steps Donald Trump should undertake immediately.
It builds on the roadmap I released back in March that would have saved lives if it had been adopted. It is a plan to save lives in the months ahead.
Once again — I encourage him to adopt this plan in its entirety. This is too important for politics.
***
It’s not about you, Mr. President — it’s about the health and well-being of the American public.
The American people didn’t make enormous sacrifices over the past four months so you could waste your time with late night rantings and tweets.
They didn’t make these sacrifices so you could ignore the science and turn responsible steps like wearing a mask into a political statement.
And they certainly didn’t do it so you could wash your hands and walk away.
Maybe there are times this nation needs a cheerleader. Now isn’t one of them. We need a president.
Biden demands transparency from White House on race for vaccine
Joe Biden is delivering remarks in Delaware on safely reopening the economy amid the pandemic.
He has just recommended a “laser focus on treatments and vaccines” and says “the administration hasn’t been transparent” about how they will manufacture and distribute enough vaccine doses.
“They may be doing it, but we have no transparency,” Biden says. “The White House should support weekly on this process.”
Kentucky primary called for Amy McGrath
Former combat pilot Amy McGrath has won her primary race in Kentucky to represent the Democratic Party in November in the Senate race against majority leader and pro-Trumpian powerhouse Republican incumbent Mitch McConnell, according to The Associated Press, which called the race just now.
A few months ago this would not have been a surprise result, as McGrath has emerged as a strong and popular candidate, fiercely supported by the party establishment and having raised a bajillion dollars.
But a late, progressive challenger, Charles Booker, ran her right to the rails, especially in recent weeks as she faltered in public discussions of the Black Lives Matter movement and the waves of protest that followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Booker emerged from Louisville, fighting for justice and for police reform and an end to systemic racism and police brutality, particularly with regard to the shooting death of Louisville’s Breonna Taylor in March after what appeared to be a botched police raid on her apartment, where the 26-year-old EMT, a frontline worker during the coronavirus pandemic, was asleep.
AP calls it. Amy McGrath wins KY Sen primary to face Mitch McConnell, surviving an unexpected and substantial surge from Charles Booker in the closing weeks of the race
— James Arkin (@JamesArkin) June 30, 2020
Updated
Fauci warns against "jumping over" health guidelines
The US set a new high last week for the number of new coronavirus cases confirmed in one day, following the statistics issued regularly by Johns Hopkins University, when it rose to 40,000 compared with the high of 36,400 in a day, reported on April 24 during the first peak of infections.
Fauci last testified in the Senate on May 12. Since then, and especially in June, business have started opening up in quite a rush, seemingly sidestepping recommendations issued by the federal government about not relaxing restrictions on businesses and social movements until criteria had been met such as a two-week reduction in new infections, much higher rates of testing and the guarantee of sufficient hospital capacity and supplies if things got worse.
“If you look at what is going on, you see the film clips,” Fauci said, of images on TV of crowded beaches, people rushing back to bars, few wearing masks in states where huge infection surges are not being seen, especially Florida, Texas, Arizona and California, but other states in the Deep South and places like North Carolina.
People “congregating without masks” he said.
He warned states that if they continued “jumping over the guidelines we have carefully put out, you are going to be in trouble.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren said: “If we don’t get our act together, more and more communities are going to see these dangerous surges” in cases.
She mentioned to Fauci that in March he had estimated that between 100,000 and 200,000 people in America will die from coronavirus and there would be millions of cases.
The figures currently stand in the US at 2.68 million confirmed cases and 126,000 deaths (worldwide it’s 10.4 million cases and 509,000 deaths so far). New cases are rising in 36 states, rates are steady in 12 states and declining in only two states.
“How many Covid-19 deaths and infections should America expect before this is all over?” Warren asked Fauci.
He demurred on the death toll, but said: “It’s going to be very disturbing”, adding on the number of cases that he “would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if we do not turn this around.”
That is, obviously, a staggering projection, at 2.5 times the current record high of daily new cases.
“So I’m very concerned...it could get really bad,” Fauci said.
Two’s company, this is a crowd.
More to read:
Updated
Infectious diseases expert and White House coronavirus task force member Anthony Fauci just gave a stark warning to the public in the middle of his testimony to the US Senate just now.
“I’m very concerned about what is going on right now,” he said, referring to a dangerous surge in new coronavirus cases in the US, particularly in the south and west.
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren said that when Fauci had last testified before this Senate health committee, seven weeks ago, he had said that “at the time the US did not by any means have total control over this outbreak” of coronavirus.
At the time, May 12, she was referring to the national picture, as the state currently of most acute concern, Florida, Texas, Arizona and California, were still under effective lockdown.
As they have reopened in recent weeks without, as Fauci pointed out, adhering to federal health guidelines, new cases have surged there and in some other states to the point where last week there was a record one day high of 40,000 new Covid-19 cases diagnosed.
That beat the April peak, when New York was the hotspot, of the high somewhere north of 36,000 new cases in a day.
Warren continued about the May 12 session: “But you also said we were going in the right direction.”
Fauci responded that the current figures “speak for themselves”.
“I’m very concerned. We are going in the wrong direction, if you look at the figures for new cases. We need to do something about this and we need to do it quick. We are not in total control right now,” he said.
Fauci: 'We are going in the wrong direction ... it could get really bad'
America’s leading public health expert Anthony Fauci has confirmed what the record figures are telling us – the US is sliding backwards on its handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
“We are going in the wrong direction,” Fauci just told the Senate.
Last week the US saw a new daily record of 40,000 new coronavirus cases in one day.
Fauci just said, in testimony before committee, that he fears that the rate will rise dramatically.
“I would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around.”
Fauci added about death and infection rates going forward: It’s going to be very disturbing … it could get really bad.”
Updated
A leading Republican senator says Donald Trump should start wearing a mask at least some of the time because politics is getting in the way of protecting the American people from Covid-19.
“The stakes are too high for the political debate about pro-Trump, anti-Trump masks to continue,” says Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee that’s currently holding a hearing with top public health expert Anthony Fauci and CDC director Bob Redfield as witnesses.
Alexander had to self-quarantine after he was exposed to a staff member who tested positive. But the senator says he was told by the Senate physician that he was protected, never developing the disease, because the staffer was wearing a mask.
“This small, life-saving practice has become part of the political debate,” Alexander lamented, “that says, if you are for Trump you don’t wear a mask and if you are against Trump you do.”
He continued: “That’s why I’ve suggested that the president occasionally wear a mask, even though in most cases it’s not necessary for him to do so.” (Trump gets a coronavirus test at least once a day.)
“The president has plenty of admirers, they would follow his lead, it would help in this political debate, the stakes are too high for this to continue,” he said.
“It’s also a pretty good way to make a statement,” he added, then going on to mention styles of masks, himself favoring a plaid one, he said, though the graver message about leading by example in order to help prevent transmission came through loud and clear.
Sen. Lamar Alexander calls on Pres. Trump to "occasionally wear a mask...The president has plenty of admirers. They would follow his lead. It would help end this political debate." https://t.co/P2hctgbbJp pic.twitter.com/ISyq9dmlP2
— ABC News (@ABC) June 30, 2020
Meanwhile, even “Fox and Friends” co-host Steve Doocy is now begging Trump to wear a mask, telling it would set a good example to others. The president has refused to wear a mask out in public.
Doocy said MAGA should now stand for Masks Are Great Again.
Fox Host Urges Trump To Wear A Mask: ‘MAGA Should Now Stand For Masks Are Great Again’ https://t.co/fHspjBQg6f pic.twitter.com/jIZ3qAc7Lb
— Talking Points Memo (@TPM) June 30, 2020
Here’s more from my colleague Lauren Aratani:
Updated
Fauci: 'We need to do whatever we can to get our children back to school'
When you’ve been the US’s top expert on infectious diseases since 1984 and been at the forefront of assessing public health blights from HIV to Ebola, swine flu, bird flu, and more, and now Covid-19, Fauci 79, is not easily rattled.
So when Senator Rand Paul, the first member of that chamber to test positive for coronavirus earlier this year, raises his voice, shakes his curls and waves his arms around and says: “We should not assume that a group of experts knows what’s best for everyone”, Fauci just smiles.
Paul said that Fauci is always very busy being negative. “Every day we hear from you what we cannot do,” Paul said... “you cannot do this, you cannot do that, you need to not be so presumptive that you know everything.”
This brings to mind Fauci’s do’s. Do wear a mask, do keep six feet from others in public, etc, etc, as he tries to save lives and get the government to take seriously the fact that coronavirus is out of control in the US.
But Fauci instead pulled out a positive for Paul, after the Senator pointed out that child-to-child transmission of Covid is less common that most community spread.
“If you were listening [to opening testimony] and I’m sure you were,” Fauci said, Paul would know that “I feel very strongly that we need do everything we can to get the children back to school.”
There is hot debate about where, whether or how children can go back to school after the summer break.
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Hillary Clinton, Barbra Streisand, coronavirus
Nuff said.
I would have read my damn briefs, Barbra, that's for sure. https://t.co/YSZS0Lvqo9
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 30, 2020
Fauci 'hopeful' of doses of safe coronavirus vaccine by early 2021
America’s top US infectious disease expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, is addressing a top Senate committee in a hearing this morning. We’re live streaming it, above, but will bring you highlights here on a very lively news day.
Fauci has been director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984 and is the leading authority in the US on this topic.
As July begins, there are several coronavirus vaccine trials moving to a more advanced stage of clinical trials. There are many efforts to produce a vaccine for the virus going on around the world.
But the US is a leading medical and scientific force in this battle. Fauci just said that he is “aspirationally hopeful” and “cautiously optimistic” about progress towards a vaccine.
“There is no guarantee that we will have a safe and effective vaccine,” he reminded the public in his testimony to the Senate health committee.
“But we are cautiously optimstic that we will at least know the efficacy by early winter or the first part of next year, and hopefully [will have] doses available by the beginning of next year,” he said.
Fauci also told the committee (and one is tempted to make this all capitals, just like a presidential tweet, but we’ll settle for bold): “I think masks are extremely important. We keep hammering that home.”
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Leading Democrats demand action over Russia US military bounty scandal
House No. 2 Democrat, Steny Hoyer, said after a White House closed-door briefing earlier today that Democrats want a full congressional briefing on alleged Russian bounties on the heads of US troops serving in Afghanistan.
Hoyer said he believes that Russia “remains involved in a negative way in Afghanistan”. He called for a direct briefing from US intelligence officials, not just White House aides and said he had heard nothing that indicated the media accounts of the scandal were built around a hoax.
House intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff (who led the Trump impeachment hearings in the House) has demanded that the US now weigh new sanctions on Russia to deter its “malign” actions.
Schiff said Trump should not be courting Russian President Vladimir Putin by inviting him to a Group of Seven (G7) summit of leading industrial nations - but rather should impose costs on Moscow.
“The president of the United States should not be inviting Russia into the G7 or G8. We should be considering what sanctions are appropriate to further deter Russia’s malign activities,” he told reporters after the White House briefing.
Meanwhile, in London, Britain’s defence secretary said he was aware of intelligence relating to reports that Russia paid the Taliban to kill US troops but declined to comment further.
Asked about the reports in the New York Times, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said: “On the issue of the reports which I think were in the New York Times, all I can say is: I’m aware of the intelligence.”
“But I can’t comment on intelligence matters other than to say we take lots of measures to defend and make sure our soldiers ... are kept safe when deployed,” Wallace told a parliamentary committee.
He said he would not comment on whether the intelligence was true or not but that “we just take steps”.
“It is absolutely true that countries like Russia have taken lots of malign activity against us,” Wallace said.
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Donald Trump must have at least been aware of the allegation that Russia paid bounties to Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan to kill US-led coalition troops, a senior Democratic lawmaker said this morning after a White House briefing.
“Based on what we heard today, it was information that a) the president should have known about and b) based on what we were told today, he did - it seems to me like he did know about it,” said Representative Adam Smith, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Reuters reports.
Trump said on Sunday he was never briefed about any Russian bounties and Trump administration officials have said there was no consensus on the underlying intelligence among US agencies, something Smith said they underscored to Democratic lawmakers at the closed-door White House briefing.
National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien earlier today issued a statement insisting Trump had not been briefed on the intelligence.
One of the Scotus rulings today further challenges the separation between church and state in the United States.
The US supreme court narrowed the separation of church and state in a major ruling today by endorsing Montana tax credits that helped pay for students to attend religious schools, Reuters reports.
It’s a decision paving the way for more public funding of faith-based institutions.
The court’s nine justices, in a 5-4 decision, backed a Montana program that gave tax incentives for people to donate to a scholarship fund that provided money to Christian schools for student tuition expenses.
The justices sided with three mothers of Christian school students who appealed after Montana’s top court invalidated the tax credit for violating the state constitution’s ban on public aid to churches and religious entities.
BREAKING: #SCOTUS sides with families challenging a MT law that banned the use of scholarship $ at religious schools. Scholarships funded by donations that were eligible for tax credit. Chief Justice Roberts writes 5-4 opinion with conservative bloc.
— Shannon Bream (@ShannonBream) June 30, 2020
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Supreme court rules on two relatively obscure cases
There won’t be a decision today on three eagerly-awaited cases involving Trump’s taxes, religious exemption for employers not wanting to cover employees’ birth control c
osts as part of their health insurance, and the constitutionality of partisan gerrymandering in a case aimed at stemming abuse by political insiders in charge of redrawing state legislative maps.
Instead, the court issued two rulings. One involved the travel reservation company Booking.com, a unit of Booking Holdings Inc. It deserves to be able to trademark its name, the supreme court decided, in a ruling issued moments ago, Reuters reports. The outcome overrules a federal agency that found it the .com name too generic to merit protection.
The court decided 8-1 that the US Patent and Trademark Office was incorrect when it denied the company’s application to trademark the name Booking.com, with the justices finding it distinctive enough that the agency should have approved it.
US law allows trademark registrations only on terms that are “descriptive,” or able to distinguish a particular product or service from others on the market. “Generic” words that refer to an entire category of goods or services, like “car” or “computer,” cannot be protected under the law because that would give an unfair competitive advantage to the trademark holder.
Booking.com, based in Amsterdam, began using its name globally in 2006, and filed US trademark applications in 2011 and 2012.
The ruling may guide how some other companies, such as Salesforce.com Inc and Home Depot Inc, protect their brands from potential copycats.
In the other decision issued today, the court ruled for parents in the state of Montana seeking tax-credit-funded scholarships for religious schools. Some more details on that shortly.
Leading Democrats unhappy with White House briefing on Russia US military bounty scandal
Here’s House intelligence committee chairmen Adam Schiff:
SCHIFF: "I find it inexplicable in light of these public allegations that POTUS hasn't come before the country & assured people that he'll get to the bottom of whether Russians are putting bounties on the heads of troops, & he'll do everything in his power to protect US troops." pic.twitter.com/r8nsDtEpri
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 30, 2020
My colleague Tom McCarthy reports that Donald Trump was given a written briefing months ago about intelligence suggesting Russia offered bounties for attacks on US forces in Afghanistan, multiple US media have reported on Monday night. The president said on Sunday he was not told of the allegations because the information was not “credible”.
The New York Times quoted two sources as saying details were included in a daily intelligence briefing the president received in late February. CNN said an official with direct knowledge told them it was included in the briefing – a written document – briefing “sometime in the spring”.
Senior White House officials were aware as far back as early 2019 and the intelligence assessment was included in at least one of the president’s written daily briefings, the Associated Press reported, according to multiple officials.
The House’s No. 2 Democrat, Steny Hoyer, also not impressed:
Hoyer says he told Meadows he would have preferred to have gotten the briefing from IC folks, rather than White House officials.
— Katie Bo Williams (@KatieBoWill) June 30, 2020
European Union bars travelers from US citing coronavirus concerns
Most travelers from the United States will be barred from entering the European Union after it reopens its borders tomorrow, because the coronavirus is still far too prevalent in the US, European officials announced Tuesday, NBC reports.
The EU’s 27 members have been drawing up a list of countries whose virus levels are deemed low enough to allow people from those places to travel into the bloc, which has been mostly sealed off since March.
That list of safe countries was officially unveiled by European officials on Tuesday. The US — which has the most coronavirus cases and deaths in the world — was not on it.
The 15 countries that did make the list are: Algeria, Australia, Canada, Georgia, Japan, Montenegro, Morocco, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand, Tunisia and Uruguay.
China will also be included on the list if it allows entry to E.U. travelers in return.
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Hospitals under strain in latest wave of coronavirus infections
“The human factor that we love so much about our jobs has nearly gone.” That’s what Dr. Jennifer O’Hea, an intensive care unit doctor overseeing 100 patients at the Banner University Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona, told ABC News.
Arizona is one of the southern states seeing a record surge in coronavirus infections, after a rapid reopening for businesses despite a lack of cure, proven drug treatments or vaccinations against Covid-19. It quickly backtracked on its reopening last night.
O’Hea said the situation at her hospital “exploded” towards the end of May and, ABC reported, has now snowballed into a dire situation.
“Never, never, ever have I seen this many patients in our ICU,” O’Hea, who has worked at the hospital for 22 years, said. “We were using ICUs that we’ve never used before. Rooms that were vacant we’re now using as ICUs.”
Sitting in New York, where the virus peaked in April, New Yorkers have been watching and fearing this would happen in other states, dreading the tsunami of severely ill patients coming to overwhelm health care workers, as they did in the city when up to 1,000 people were dying ever day at the apex.
“Time to wake up, America,” New York governor Andrew Cuomo said yesterday.
Dr. Marjorie Bessel, the chief clinical officer for the Banner Health System, told ABC News she has “been concerned for weeks.”
“We’re not New York at this time. What we’re concerned is we don’t want to become New York,” Bessel said. “The curves suggest we could be headed there.”
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This is Joanna Walters in New York taking over from my colleague Martin Belam in London on what is unfolding as a busy morning in US political news on many fronts.
Soon the group of Democratic members of Congress will emerge to let us know what the White House had to say earlier this morning about the Russian US military bounty scandal.
The Democrats are being briefed a day after their Republican colleagues (using the word colleagues may be an exercise in hope over recent experience but, nevertheless, we persist with optimism for bipartisan efforts).
Two things are happening at 10am ET: the US supreme court will announce its latest decision or decisions - you never know exactly what you’re going to get until the rulings start spilling into the public domain. We’re waiting for a decision concerning Donald Trump’s tax returns, among others.
Also at 10am, the top federal public health experts are testifying to the Senate health committee. That’s infectious diseases specialist Anthony Fauci, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Robert Redfield, assistant health secretary Brett Giroir and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner Stephen Hahn. They recently testified to a House committee, where Redfield said Covid-19 has brought the nation “to its knees”.
The president appears to have been ignoring his own experts’ warnings that coronavirus is nowhere near under control in the US and currently running wild in new hotspots across the south and west. If Trump could think of them as the four horsemen of the apocalypse he might be rightly scared into paying attention and following their recommendations on testing, tracing, mask-wearing, social distancing, caution on reopening, etc.
We’re hoping for a result to day in last week’s Kentucky Democratic primary, where it’s on a knife edge between moderate Amy McGrath and progressive Charles Booker - but hard to know as we wait for the mail-in ballots to be counted.
One of the results of the Black Lives Matter push for change that has swept across the US in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by police has been a reappraisal of national monuments and racist symbolism in the country.
Alexandra Villarreal has been looking at this movement, and talking to historians about the history and meaning of these symbols.
A different logic has been used to justify the Confederate shrines that commemorate men who committed treason in an effort to uphold slavery. Defenders, including Donald Trump, decry “the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart”. But the monuments they are trying to protect aren’t usually civil war artifacts; they were instead erected decades after the conflict ended, as “a reminder for Black and brown people to remember their place”, said Alvita Akiboh, an assistant professor of history at the University of Michigan.
From money to street names to the man who penned the national anthem, Villarreal examines how tributes to a checkered past exist all over the US, even as Confederate statues are removed and brands reconsider the racial stereotypes on their packaging.
Read it here: ‘The worshipping of whiteness’: why racist symbols persist in America
We also have another piece today looking at one specific monument. Atlanta urban designer and author Ryan Gravel and historian Scott Morris have a proposal for Stone Mountain’s 150ft Confederate carving.
The sculpture is an irreparable scar on an ancient mountain with a long history of habitation and use by indigenous people. More blatantly offensive, however, is the sculpture’s undeniable reverence for hate and violence and the honor it bestows on the generals, who, by definition, were American traitors.
They suggest, rather than actively destroy it, which would violate State law, it should no longer be tended, allowing nature to reclaim the space and the carving to fade from view.
Politico have a useful wrap here about the eight Democratic party representatives who are to be briefed this morning over the ‘Russian bounty’ controversy.
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer will lead the group that includes Adam Schiff and Eliot Engel.
Virginia’s Abigail Spanberger will also be there - she tweeted out earlier something that has irked the party over the process - that Republicans were briefed separately earlier.
Our national security should never be a partisan issue. Every Member of Congress should have access to this information, not just Members of the President’s party. We all have neighbors on the front lines, and we all know families who are concerned about their loved ones.
— Rep. Abigail Spanberger (@RepSpanberger) June 30, 2020
Read it here: Politico - House Dems headed to White House for briefing on Russian bounties
Carol E. Lee and Kristen Welker for NBC have a piece up this morning looking at the scramble at the White House to get Donald Trump to take down a tweet that appeared to feature a supporter shouting “White power”
In their piece they claim that two White House officials told them:
The video remained on the president’s Twitter page for more than three hours because White House officials couldn’t reach him to ask him to delete it. The president was at his golf club in Virginia and had put his phone down.
Read it here: NBC - Trump’s ‘white power’ retweet set off ‘five-alarm fire’ in White House
Google removes misleading voter registration ads
Reuters are reporting that Google has said it has removed ads for companies that charge people large fees to register to vote or harvest their data, which appeared when users searched for voter information.
A Google spokeswoman told Reuters that the company’s misrepresentation policy barred such ads, which were found by the nonprofit watchdog Tech Transparency Project (TTP) when searching for terms such as “register to vote,” “vote by mail,” and “where is my polling place.”
A TTP report that nearly a third of the more than 600 ads generated by its Google searches took users to sites that try to charge large fees for voter registration services, extract personal data for marketing purposes, install deceptive browser extensions, or serve other misleading ads.
The report said: “Some people may find it difficult to distinguish Google ads from other kinds of content because as of January, search ads on Google feature the same type face and colour scheme as organic search results.”
A Google spokeswoman said the company did not yet know how the ads had got through its approval process, which uses a combination of automated and manual review.
“We have strict policies in place to protect users from false information about voting procedures, and when we find ads that violate our policies and present harm to users, we remove them and block advertisers from running similar ads in the future,” the spokeswoman said.
The move comes with social media and internet companies under increasing pressure to act over misleading and hateful content in the run-up to the November election.
Yesterday Reddit and Twitch became the latest social media companies to ban or suspend pro-Donald Trump accounts over hate speech.
Facebook, meanwhile, is coming under commercial pressure as big brands withdraw advertising money over the issue of hate speech on the platform.
Virginia lawmaker describes US inaction over 'Russian bounty' intel as 'shameful'
Virginia Rep. Abigail Spanberger is one of eight Democrats due to be briefed on the ‘Russian bounty’ controversy by the administration today. She’s has been on television this morning describing the episode as “Shameful”.
I am beyond words at times over this. The role of the commander-in-chief, of our entire intelligence community, is to keep our nation, our service members, our infrastructure, our people, our citizens safe. I represent hundreds of thousands of Virginians, and I represent service members. I represent people whose family members are deployed, and the idea that they now have the added worry, not just that their family members are in a war zone, but that they’re in the war zone with a bounty on their head, and we’re not doing anything about it. It’s just shameful.
Of whether she believed Donald Trump had personally been briefed, she said:
The fact that he didn’t take the time to read the document is not an excuse. What comes next? That’s my question, what comes next? He maybe didn’t know it, he maybe didn’t read the brief, but now he knows it. Now everyone knows it. What are we going to do about it?
You can watch the full clip here:
“[Trump] maybe didn’t know it. He maybe didn’t read the brief, but now he knows it. Now everyone knows it. What are we going to do about it?” @RepSpanberger says about the intelligence that Russia attempted to pay the Taliban to kill US soldiers.https://t.co/ZhkcQ4AfAb pic.twitter.com/HfyFb2Kagp
— New Day (@NewDay) June 30, 2020
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Jacob Knutson writes for Axios this morning about the sheer volume of anti-transgender legislation currently being proposed across the US. Human Rights Campaign state legislative director Cathryn Oakley has identified 66 anti-transgender bills that have been introduced in state legislatures so far in the legislative session — the most filed in one year.
14 state legislatures are considering bills that would limit transgender students’ participation in athletics. While most legislation is currently stalled due to the coronavirus pandemic, these bills are still likely to be picked up or re-proposed at a later date.
Read it here: Axios - 14 states would limit the participation of transgender students in athletics
Sanders proposes 10% military budget cut to fund coronavirus response
Washington is going to be busy today talking about the Trump administrations pandemic response. Coronavirus task force member Dr. Anthony Fauci, CDC Director Robert Redfield and other top health officials will testify before a Senate Committee later today on the latest efforts to contain the pandemic. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell will testify before the House financial services committee about their respective agency’s response.
Bernie Sanders has written for us this morning to put his proposal down on the table for re-establishing the US economy after the impact of Covid-19 - a 10% cut to the US military budget.
As Sanders puts it: “Incredibly, after adjusting for inflation, we are now spending more on the military than we did during the height of the Cold War or during the wars in Vietnam and Korea.”
He is proposing to cut funding by 10%. He quotes Republican President Dwight D Eisenhower, who said in 1953:
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.
You can read the Sanders proposal in full here: A 10% cut to the US military budget would help support struggling Americans
Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy was on the All In with Chris Hayes show last night talking about the ‘Russian bounty’ controversy. He raised what he saw as a key issue, which is that regardless of whether Donald Trump was personally briefed or not - National Security Advisor O’Brien insists that he was not - the administration as a whole still appears to have done nothing about the allegations.
We didn’t even ask them to stop, and that does beg the question, what on earth could Russia to do us that this administration would actually take seriously?
We sent the exact opposite signal. We could have tried a number of different means to affect their decision-making in Afghanistan, and save the lives of brave young American soldiers. But instead we invited them back into the G7, we engaged with them on multiple occasions without even mentioning the fact that we apparently knew they were putting bounties on these American soldiers. And so we effectively green-lit their assassination campaign against American soldiers which is, of course, in many ways, worse than doing absolutely nothing at all about it.
You can watch the full clip here: Sen. Murphy - What on earth could Russia do to us that Trump would take seriously?
Also talking to the media last night on the topic was Felicia Arculeo, whose son Robert Hendriks was killed in an attack in Afghanistan on 8 April, 2019 that has, according to reports, been linked by intelligence agencies to the Russian bounty offer.
She told CNBC that she had not been contacted by the administration or the military, but instead “just happened to randomly see” the reports about her son’s death becoming embroiled in the row. “I got pretty upset” she said.
Arculeo suggested that the claims should be fully investigated, saying “the parties who are responsible should be held accountable, if that’s even possible.”
“At the end of the day, my son is still gone. He’s still not coming home.”
Aurora police investigating officers over 'inappropriate photos' at Elijah McClain memorial
Overnight another development emerged with the Elijah McClain case. McClain, 23, was killed in Aurora, Colorado, in August last year, after being put in a chokehold by police and injected with ketamine by paramedics. At the weekend police used pepper spray to disperse a largely peaceful event featured violin-playing in honour of McClain.
Denver investigative reporter Brian Maass broke the news that three officers in the Aurora police department were under investigation for taking inappropriate photos at a memorial for McClain.
#Breaking: multiple sources say 3 @AuroraPD officers under investigation for taking inappropriate photos at a memorial for #ElijahMclain. Aurora PD tells @cbsdenver "An IA is in progress regarding photographs that were taken at that location". Statement coming soon from APD Chief
— Brian Maass (@Briancbs4) June 30, 2020
The department’s interim police chief, Vanessa Wilson, then released the following statement:
Thursday afternoon, I was apprised of allegations reported to Internal Affairs by an Aurora Police Officer alleging multiple Aurora Police officers were depicted in photographs near the site where Elijah McClain died. All involved officers were immediately placed on administrative leave with pay in non-enforcement capacities.
I immediately ordered Internal Affairs to make this investigation their top priority. This accelerated investigation was completed this evening.
This investigation will be publicly released in its entirety promptly upon its conclusion. This will include reports, photographic evidence obtained, officer’s names, and my final determination which can rise to the level of termination.
Miranda Bryant has been looking at the tributes to McClain for us, and speaking to friends and colleagues who described him as changing their lives on a daily basis. One of his colleagues said:
He just wanted to be better every day. And when he wasn’t down playing guitar or violin for the baby kittens, he was running, exercising outside … He was always fully booked and it was a massage that you couldn’t get again. Just his energy and his spirit, it just put you in a better mood. He truly was just a healer.
Read the full tributes here: ‘He was inspired by everything’: friends and family pay tribute to Elijah McClain
National Security Advisor O’Brien insists Trump was not briefed
National Security Advisor Robert C. O’Brien has issued a statement over the ‘Russian bounty’ controversy, insisting Donald Trump had not been briefed on the intelligence. He says:
Over the past several days, the New York Times and other news outlets have reported on allegations regarding our troops in Afghanistan. While we do not normally discuss such matters, we constantly evaluate intelligence reports and brief the President as necessary. Because the allegations in recent press articles have not been verified or substantiated by the Intelligence Community, President Trump had not been briefed on the items. Nevertheless, the Administration, including the National Security Council staff, have been preparing should the situation warrant action.
O’Brien’s statement then goes on to warn officials over the leaking of information to the media, and to re-state his belief in Donald Trump’s commitment to security.
To those government officials who betray the trust of the people of the United States by leaking classified information, your actions endanger our national security. No matter the motivation, there is never a justification for such conduct.
Let me be clear that there is nothing more important to President Trump than America’s security and the safety of our men and women in uniform. He has demonstrated this commitment time and again.
Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of NAACP has written for us this morning, arguing that the George Floyd uprising has brought hope, but that campaigners must now turn protest into policy. It is a passionate rallying cry - but one that also cautions that there is much that needs to be done:
Since Floyd’s murder, police have killed Black and brown men in Georgia and California. Around the country, six Black people have been found hanging from trees, supposed suicides that chillingly resemble lynchings and have sparked demands for investigation. As of now, no charges have been filed against the Louisville police officers who broke into Breonna Taylor’s home last March (using a no-knock warrant that has since been banned) and shot her dead as she slept.
The changes triggered by the protests are crucial, but more is needed to uproot the racism so thoroughly embedded in our nation’s social, economic, and political systems. Public policies of the past helped create our current practices of exclusion and disinvestment. For instance, today’s residential segregation is the direct result of 20th century mortgage lending policies and restrictive housing covenants that limited where Black people could live. Time has not much altered these discriminatory patterns; only policy change can do so. Now is our chance to escalate the energy of the moment and move from protest to power to policy change. We have done it before.
Read it in full here: Derrick Johnson - The George Floyd uprising has brought us hope. Now we must turn protest to policy
David Ignatius at the Washington Post is one of several op-ed columnists to tackle this story, in an overnight piece asking “Were Trump’s aides too afraid to tell him about the Russian bounties?”. He writes:
A basic truth about Russian President Vladimir Putin, which President Trump evidently doesn’t understand: Putin is in the payback business. He believes the United States destroyed his former country, the Soviet Union. He likes the United States to feel pain, in Afghanistan and everywhere else.
Trump has his own, much rosier take on Putin. And I can’t help wondering whether that explains why, assuming his account is true, the American president was never briefed about intelligence reports early this year that Russia was offering bounties to Taliban fighters to kill U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan.
In the piece, he examines how Russian policy shifted in the last couple of years from allowing the US to operate freely in Afghanistan, to seemingly helping the Taliban. And Ignatius finishes with a damning indictment of the president.
Trump is an obstacle to good policy. Either people don’t tell him the truth, or he doesn’t want to hear it. Whichever way, he’s defaulting on his most basic responsibility as commander in chief.
Read it here: Washington Post - Were Trump’s aides too afraid to tell him about the Russian bounties?
Tom McCarthy was reporting for us in New York in the early hours about the new claims surrounding the mystery of whether Donald Trump was briefed about Russia offering bounties for attacks on US troops in Afghanistan.
He explains how multiple US media outlets have claimed that Donald Trump was given a written briefing months ago about the intelligence.
The New York Times quoted two sources as saying details were included in a daily intelligence briefing the president received in late February. CNN said an official with direct knowledge told them it was included in the briefing – a written document – briefing “sometime in the spring”.
Senior White House officials were aware as far back as early 2019 and the intelligence assessment was included in at least one of the president’s written daily briefings, the Associated Press reported, according to multiple officials.
There has predictably been strong reaction on social media to the reports from US officials and politicians. It is believed that Trump prefers oral briefings several times a week rather than to read the daily written document prepared for US presidents.
You can read Tom’s full report here: ‘Russian bounties’ intelligence was in Trump written daily briefing – reports
Good morning and welcome to our live US politics coverage for Tuesday. Here are some of the key points from yesterday and overnight, and what we are expecting today
The president’s diary is empty today save for his intelligence briefing at 3:30pm this afternoon. Donald Trump maintains he didn’t get briefed earlier in the year on the Russian bounty issue - reports say otherwise
Late last night the White House put out a statement praising the Supreme Court for rejecting the appeals of four death row inmates whose executions have been scheduled for the coming weeks. These would be the first federal death penalties carried out since 2003. The Supreme Court also upheld abortion rights in Louisiana yesterday.
The number of people currently in hospital infected by coronavirus is reported to be rising fast in Arizona, California, Georgia, Nevada, Montana, South Carolina and Texas. Arizona is ditching plans to re-open the economy.
Jerome Powell, chair of the Federal Reserve, is expected to speak to Congress today about the painful road to economic recovery after the impact of Covid-19.
I’ll be running this live blog for the next couple of hours - you can get in touch with me by emailing martin.belam@theguardian.com
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