Рябков: сигналы США о возобновлении диалога по СНВ не дают оснований для оптимизма
Замглавы МИД РФ Сергей Рябков заявил, что по итогам российско-американских контактов в последние недели «сложилось понимание» о необходимости возобновления диалога о стратегической стабильности. При этом дипломат отметил, что поступающие из Вашингтона сигналы «не внушают оптимизма». США ранее назвали ключевым условием продления Договора о стратегических наступательных вооружениях (СНВ) привлечение к нему Китая.
По словам господина Рябкова, точных сроков для возобновления консультаций РФ и США пока нет. «Сигналы, в том числе публичные, поступающие из Вашингтона, оснований для особого оптимизма не дают. К сожалению, коллеги в Вашингтоне продолжают выставлять определенные условия для продолжения продуктивного диалога и в целом подают дело так, будто бы работа в области контроля над вооружениями нужнее России, чем США»,— сказал он «Интерфаксу».
Замминистра отметил, что российская сторона «к договоренностям открыта», если США «готовы договариваться». Как уточнил Сергей Рябков, все решения и договоренности могут быть «только обоюдовыгодными, сбалансированными», а также основанными на взаимном уважении и «отказе от попыток в одностороннем порядке навязывать кому-то свои предпочтения или собственную повестку дня».
Договор о СНВ истекает в феврале 2021 года, он может быть продлен еще на пять лет. Россия выступает однозначно за его продление, США конкретного ответа не дали. Китай неоднократно заявлял, что поскольку его ядерные арсеналы несравнимы с мощью США и России, никаких обязательств он на себя брать не хочет.
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4341308МИД: Россию тревожат планы США об освоении космических ресурсов
Москву тревожат планы США по освоению космических ресурсов «коалицией заинтересованных», куда не включена Россия, сообщил замглавы МИД Сергей Рябков. По его мнению, американцы продолжают ту же линию, которую «проводят на Земле».
«Идея администрации о том, чтобы в излюбленном в последние годы США формате "коалиции заинтересованных" заняться освоением космических ресурсов, и к тому же добавить к этому подходу элемент определенной напряженности или как минимум неясности подхода к связанным с этим аспектам безопасности, нас тревожит… Как на Земле, так и в космосе принцип (у США.— “Ъ”) один — кто не с нами, тот против нас. А дальше — решайте как хотите»,— сказал господин Рябков «Интерфаксу».
Замглавы российского МИДа призвал к выработке коллективных договоренностей. Москва признает, что сфера освоения космических ресурсов — это вопрос «до конца не отрегулированный». «Но вывод, который мы делаем из этого, в значительной мере отличается от односторонних приемов, которые стали визитной карточкой американской политики. Наш вывод — надо садиться и договариваться»,— сказал господин Рябков.
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4341423США оставили в силе пошлины на кремний из России
Комиссия по международной торговле США не стала отменять антидемпинговые пошлины на поставку металлического кремния из России. Их ввели в 2003 году и пересматривают каждые пять лет.
«Комиссия... пришла к выводу, что отмена существующих антидемпинговых пошлин на импорт металлического кремния из России, по всей вероятности, приведет к продолжению и повторным случаям нанесения материального ущерба в обозримом будущем»,— говорится в сообщении комиссии.
Антидемпинговые пошлины были введены США в марте 2003 года. Тогда власти пришли к выводу, что Россия продает кремний по ценам «ниже справедливой рыночной стоимости».
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4341150Flynn dismissal a surprise? AG Barr in sync with Trump
Trump says he didn’t know the Justice Department was planning to drop its case against his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn.
But it didn't really matter.
The extraordinary action underscored the extent to which Trump and Attorney General William Barr have been in sync in their views on the federal Trump-Russia investigation — with or without communicating about it. Barr himself has openly challenged the decisions of predecessors and his own prosecutors. He's launched internal probes to investigate the investigators.
Trump is emphatically welcoming the Flynn action. He has relentlessly railed against the special counsel's inquiry into his 2016 campaign's contacts with Russia — which the Flynn case grew out of — and was eager for news in his favor to shift voters' focus away from his administration's handling of the coronavirus pandemic that has crippled the U.S. economy.
Beyond that, the decision to dismiss the Flynn case had the effect not only of undoing a key prosecution from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Trump's winning campaign, but also of sparing the president from having to make a politically charged pardon decision in the current election year.
The sudden action on Flynn has produced familiar divisions in public opinion. Trump allies cheered the results, while Democrats and some current and former Justice Department officials expressed dismay.
“Bill Barr is a man of unbelievable credibility and courage," Trump said during a Friday telephone interview on “Fox & Friends” where he devoted substantial time to the news. “And he’s going to go down in the history books.”
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed about going down in history but for a different reason. She said, “Attorney General Barr’s politicization of justice knows no bounds."
Trump suggested Friday that more surprises could be afoot, saying “a lot of things are going to be told over the next couple of weeks.” He said the “jury’s still out with regard” to FBI Director Chris Wray.
If Trump was upset for political reasons about the case of Flynn, the Justice Department says Barr was troubled by legal issues. Those include what he believes were irregularities in the FBI’s 2017 interview of Flynn, who pleaded guilty to lying to agents about his conversations with the Russian ambassador.
The department points out the dismissal recommendation was made not by Barr but by Jeff Jensen, the U.S. attorney in St. Louis whom Barr appointed to review the handling of the case. Once the recommendation was made, senior leadership felt “duty-bound” to move to dismiss it. Jensen's review continues.
However, the dismissal was just the most recent example of Barr challenging conclusions from the Russia investigations in ways that have stirred criticism. Mueller privately criticized him last year for not adequately capturing the severity of the special counsel's findings in the Trump-Russia investigation in Barr's four-page letter summarizing the probe’s conclusions. Barr has said he doesn’t believe there was sufficient evidence for the FBI to open a full investigation, and that the FBI launched “an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions.”
In February, he overruled prosecutors in the case of Trump ally Roger Stone, on grounds that they had recommended excessive prison time. He appointed one U.S. attorney to examine the origins of the Russia investigation — now a criminal investigation — and another to look into the Flynn case specifically.
The entire Stone trial team quit the case, and in a likely sign of dissent Thursday, Flynn prosecutor and Mueller team member Brandon Van Grack withdrew shortly before the filing was submitted.
The Flynn outcome was startling in multiple ways, not least because the Justice Department rarely undertakes internal reviews of its own prosecutions — let alone cases in which a defendant has pleaded guilty.
The Jan. 24, 2017, interview of Flynn came at a pivotal juncture, as the FBI scrambled to untangle potential ties between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin. Agents knew from a transcript of Flynn’s call with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak that Flynn had discussed U.S. sanctions with Kislyak, but were distressed that White House officials were publicly insisting otherwise and scheduled an interview with him.
“The idea that it wasn’t appropriate to go do some interview of Flynn, and that the basis of the investigation was somehow untoward, is obviously remarkable and unbelievable at the same time,” said former Justice Department prosecutor Ryan Fayhee.
Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, would later be ousted from the White House, with officials saying he lied to them.
But the Justice Department now says there was no basis to question Flynn, especially since agents were prepared to close their investigation into him weeks earlier after finding nothing to suggest he had committed a crime.
The department also suggests the FBI erred by not advising Flynn that it was a crime to lie, even though the agency said less than two years ago it wasn't required.
Some current and former officials say there are less extreme remedies for issues like the ones the department identified. The department, for instance, could have supported Flynn’s bid to withdraw his guilty plea.
But a senior Justice Department official said the department believes concerns about the FBI’s conduct — one of the agents who interviewed Flynn was later fired for derogatory text messages about Trump during the investigation — would have made it difficult to win at trial had a judge agreed to withdraw the plea. That official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke only on condition of anonymity.
One Justice Department prosecutor not involved in the case expressed bewilderment about the decision, especially since it involved walking away from a guilty plea and conviction.
The prosecutor, who also spoke only on condition of anonymity, said the persistent attacks on the FBI have given defense lawyers ammunition to attack federal investigators as corrupt, and have exposed political divisions inside Justice Department offices that are meant to be apolitical.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/AP- ... 254335.phpObama knew details of wiretapped Flynn phone calls, surprising top DOJ official in meeting with Biden, declassified docs show
Obama was aware of the details of then-incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn's intercepted December 2016 phone calls with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, apparently surprising then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, according to documents released Thursday as exhibits to the government's motion to dismiss the Flynn case.
Obama's unexpectedly intimate knowledge of the details of Flynn's calls, which the FBI acknowledged at the time were not criminal or even improper, raised eyebrows because of his own history with Flynn -- and because top FBI officials secretly discussed whether their goal was to "get [Flynn] fired" when they interviewed him in the White House on January 24, 2017.
Obama personally had warned the Trump administration against hiring Flynn, and made clear he was "not a fan," according to multiple officials. Obama had fired Flynn as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014; Obama cited insubordination, while Flynn asserted he was pushed out for his aggressive stance on combating lslamic extremism.On January 5, 2017, Yates attended an Oval Office meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey, then-Vice President Joe Biden, then-CIA Director John Brennan, and then-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, according to the newly declassified documents, including an FD-302 FBI witness report. They were discussing Russian election interference, along with national security adviser Susan Rice and other members of the national security council.
After the briefing, Obama asked Yates and Comey to "stay behind," and said he had "learned of the information about Flynn" and his conversation with Russia's ambassador about sanctions. Obama "specified that he did not want any additional information on the matter, but was seeking information on whether the White House should be treating Flynn any differently, given the information."
A previous memo from Rice stated that Biden also stayed behind after the main briefing had ended
At that point, the documents showed, "Yates had no idea what the president was talking about, but figured it out based on the conversation. Yates recalled Comey mentioning the Logan Act, but can't recall if he specified there was an 'investigation.' Comey did not talk about prosecution in the meeting."
The exhibit continues: "It was not clear to Yates from where the President first received the information. Yates did not recall Comey's response to the President's question about how to treat Flynn. She was so surprised by the information she was hearing that she was having a hard time processing it and listening to the conversation at the same time."
Yates, who was fired by the Trump administration after taking the extraordinary step of refusing to defend its travel ban executive order in court, would later say that she was concerned Flynn would be vulnerable to blackmail because of his interactions with Russia.
The Logan Act, an obscure statute, has never been used successfully in a criminal prosecution; enacted in 1799 in an era before telephones, it was intended to prevent individuals from falsely claiming to represent the United States government abroad. In its motion to dismiss Flynn's case on Thursday, the DOJ noted that the law was an unserious dead letter.
Also released as an exhibit Thursday was a head-turning two-page document outlining why the FBI opened its counterintelligence probe into Flynn in August 2016. The FBI offered only three reasons: that Flynn was "cited as an adviser to the Trump team on foreign policy issues February 2016; he has ties to various state-affiliated entities of the Russian Federation, as reported by open-source information; and he traveled to Russia in December 2015, as reported by open-source information."
The "state-affiliated entities" line was an apparent reference to Flynn's paid appearance at a Moscow gala for Russian state TV network RT in 2015. Flynn also reportedly received thousands more in expenses covered by the network and in speech fees from other Russian firms, including some payments that he initially didn't disclose on ethics forms. The payments raised eyebrows on Capitol Hill, although Republicans pointed out that many other prominent officials, including Bill Clinton, have traveled to Russia for highly paid speaking engagements.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/obama- ... -docs-showReport: Obama says in private call that 'rule of law is at risk' in Michael Flynn case
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6155414676001/Sen. Graham pushes for hearing to get 'political accountability' for Russia investigation
Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Sen. Lindsey Graham tells 'Justice' that he wants to hear from Michael Flynn, the Department of Justice, Sally Yates, James Clapper and Rep. Adam Schiff.
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6155546977001/Trump says ‘jury’s still out’ on FBI boss Wray – despite Barr defense
In a Fox News interview Friday, President Trump was noncommittal on whether FBI Director Christopher Wray would remain in the job following the Justice Department’s decision to drop its case against Michael Flynn.
“Let’s see what happens with him,” the president told “Fox & Friends,” adding that “the jury’s still out” on Wray’s future in the bureau.
Trump said he would leave the decision up to Attorney General William Barr, head of the Justice Department, which oversees the FBI.
“You know, I told Bill Barr, you handle it,” the president said. “I would be absolutely entitled in theory, as the chief law enforcement officer, in theory. But I said, ‘You know what, I want Bill Barr to handle it,” adding that the attorney general “has done an unbelievable job.”
One day earlier, Barr appeared to defend Wray during an interview with CBS News, although he claimed that both he and Wray needed to “step up” following the Flynn case.
“You know, he's been a great partner to me in our effort to restore the American people's confidence in both the Department of Justice and the FBI,” Barr said Thursday, according to the Washington Examiner. “And we work very well together. And I think both of us know that we have to step up. That it's very important to restore the American people's confidence.”
In the same interview, Barr said he still had confidence in Wray’s ability to do the job.
“Well, you know, Chris Wray has always supported and been very helpful in various investigations we've been running,” Barr told CBS. “But, you know, there are a lot of cases in the Department of Justice, and I don't consider it the director's responsibility to make sure that all the documents are produced in each case. So I don't — I wouldn't say that this has affected my confidence in Director Wray.”
Also defending Wray on Friday was Brian O'Hare, president of the FBI Agents Association.
The director “continues to lead through unprecedented challenges with a steady hand,” O’Hare told The Washington Post, credting Wray with making “the changes needed to ensure that the FBI is best positioned to deal with threats to the American people.”
On Thursday, Barr’s Justice Department moved to drop its case against Flynn, the former U.S. national security adviser who had pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI. The decision followed the release of documents that called into question the handling of the Flynn case by FBI personnel.
On the same day, the FBI’s top prosecutor in the case, Brandon Van Grack, abruptly withdrew, without explanation.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump- ... rr-defenseShields and Brooks on DOJ’s Flynn reversal
Mark Shields:
Judy, Jeff Sessions was essentially fired as attorney general for not being Donald Trump's in-house lawyer. Donald Trump said he always wanted Roy Cohn to be the attorney general or his lawyer.
And Bill Barr is living up to that job description. It's hard to believe that Bill Barr, having been attorney general once before, would want this as his epitaph, that he was Donald Trump's Roy Cohn, but that's all you can conclude.
This is a man, General Flynn, who twice admitted and pleaded guilty, spoke to the judge and to the court, apologizing for lying investigators, promising, the grace of God, to make things right.
And here we are. He's walking free. And the villain in the piece is American law enforcement. I mean, that — that's the berated and condemned institution. There was no water-boarding. There was no third degree that I know of that has been alleged in that confession coming forward, but that's the impression that is left.
David Brooks:
Yes, there are a couple things true here.
The first is that Flynn confessed, so he pleaded guilty, so I take him at his word that he lied.
The second thing is that the Justice Department has become a hyperpartisan institution, and we can't have faith in its judgments.
The third thing, though, is that the FBI might have screwed up here. The journalist Eli Lake of Bloomberg, who is a good journalist, has been making this argument for several months now.
And the documents that have come out seem to clear with Lake's longtime argument, which was that the original investigation into Flynn by the FBI did not reveal anything, and they kept the investigation open. They at least considered the possibility they were keeping the investigation open not to convict him of something, but to induce him to lie.
And so I don't know how to balance these two facts. I don't, myself, have the expertise to say whether the FBI really screwed up the investigation, whether they were really trying to hound him out of the job, but it's at least a possibility.
And it's — the problem — the core problem is here we don't have a set of authorities who we could completely trust on this. And, frankly, I have been trying to find news organizations who really give an expert opinion on the FBI's behavior. And I have — I have had trouble getting to the bottom of that, just as a journalistic outsider.
Judy Woodruff:
Mark, what about you? What do you make of these accusations from the FBI, these disclosures about what the agents were talking about before they went to interview Mike Flynn, Michael Flynn?
Mark Shields:
Yes.
No, I think, Judy, what we have, there is no question about it, is that this occurred — Michael Flynn's statement calling and speaking with Ambassador Kislyak of the Russians, the day that 35 Russians, spies were banished from the United States by the Obama administration.
And the assurance was, don't you — don't act, don't overreact, we will get back to you, and this will be OK.
And that's the story. And it's pretty damn clear that it was a condoning of Russian intervention in the 2016 election. It's a green light to Russian further intervention and subversion of the 2020 election.
And I — when the president of the United States calls the FBI scum, and — the one charge I think that stands is the investigation of Carter Page, which was inappropriate, was wrong.
But I just — I don't think — I don't think this is right or healthy or in any way helpful to this country. And I think the president stands responsible.
Judy Woodruff:
And at the same time, David, you do have Democrats — and you both have referred to this — saying, the Justice Department has just become way too politicized, in a way that's unacceptable for the country.
David Brooks:
Well, this is the story of May and April and March of 2020, the need for institutional structures in our government that we can trust and rely upon.
And, in some cases, that's just a weak response on testing and other things. But, in this case, it's a — it's the longtime erosion of authority of the Justice Department. The Justice Department has always been teetering on the brink, going back to maybe even Robert Kennedy.
But, in this administration, it's over the brink. And so, even in a case where I — I can't believe I'm defending Michael Flynn, but saying to Kislyak, we're going to — don't be — don't be alarmed, this will be OK, that seems to be representing Trump's clear policies, which is sympathetic to Russia.
So, to me, it's not necessarily convicting. But I have no authority as a citizen to go to think, OK, these guys are on the level, because the Justice Department under President Trump doesn't seem to be on the level.
Mark Shields:
On the Justice Department, I think that, certainly, under Ed Meese and a couple of other Republican attorneys general, there were open questions.
I think we, for the most part, have been served with attorneys general who have operated independently and honorably and legally. And I certainly would include Robert Kennedy in that group.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/shiel ... c-responseTop House Republican issues 'call to arms' about Dems trying to 'steal' Calif. election; Trump joins effort
EXCLUSIVE: The leader of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) sent a memo to all House Republicans Saturday with an "urgent call to arms" that Democrats are trying to "steal" Tuesday's special election for California's 25th Congressional District Seat, Fox News has learned.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/top-ho ... tion-trumpМаск сообщил о планах перенести штаб-квартиру Tesla из Калифорнии
Tesla немедленно перенесет свою штаб-квартиру и будущие программы в Техас и Неваду, сообщил ее глава Илон Маск. Сейчас главный офис компании располагается в Калифорнии.
«Если мы вообще сохраним производственную деятельность во Фримонте, то это будет зависеть от того, как будут относиться к Tesla в будущем»,— написал господин Маск в Twitter. Tesla — последний автопроизводитель, оставшийся в Калифорнии, заявил он.Ранее Tesla не разрешили возобновить работу фабрики во Фримонте. Компания планировала открыть ее в пятницу, сообщает TechCrunch.
Ранее Илон Маск заявил, что продаст почти все свои вещи. «Я продаю почти все свое имущество. У меня не будет дома»,— написал он в Twitter.
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/4341375Projections show California coronavirus cases and deaths rising more than expected
LOS ANGELES — California is one of a handful of states where coronavirus cases and deaths are going up more than researchers expected, according to the latest projections in a widely relied-upon model of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Christopher Murray, director of the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, said Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the institute’s latest projections suggested the nationwide fatality count would reach 137,000 by Aug. 4. It stands now at nearly 80,000.
The picture is mixed in some of the country’s most populous states, he said.
...
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Pro ... 260269.phpCases flare up around the U.S. and abroad as social distancing rules relax
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Cas ... 259378.phpDoctors keep discovering new ways coronavirus attacks body
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Doc ... 260162.phpВ Нью-Йорке от коронавируса начали умирать дети
В США выявлено 73 случая воспалительного синдрома у детей. Власти связывают это с COVID-19
В США в штате Нью-Йорк выявлено 73 случая воспалительного синдрома у детей, развитие которого врачи связывают с коронавирусом. Об этом пишет РИА «Новости» со ссылкой на данные губернатора штата Эндрю Куомо.
Не так давно власти штата начали выявлять у детей синдром системного воспалительного ответа, который может быть связан с заражением коронавирусом, у многих из них положительные анализы на антитела.
Куомо подчеркнул, что коронавирус был выявлен у десятков детей, 73 из которых тяжело переносят заболевание.
«Есть 73 случая, которые сейчас департамент здравоохранения изучает. Но болезнь забрала жизни трех молодых ньюйоркцев», — сказал Куомо.
Губернатор подчеркнул, что у нескольких школьников в возрасте 6-11 лет проявились осложнения, схожие с болезнью Кавасаки и инфекционно-токсическим шоком, однако не было проблем с дыханием.
https://www.rosbalt.ru/world/2020/05/09/1842566.html Администрация Трампа в первые дни пандемии отказалась от предложения техасской компании, которая предложила производить 1.7 млн масок N-95 в неделю.
22 января, на следующий день после обнаружения первого случая ковида-19 в США, владелец Prestige Ameritech Майкл Боуэн написал топ-чиновникам Минздрава США, сообщив, что у его компании есть четыре свободные линии для производства масок N-95 в объеме почти 8 млн штук в месяц. К тому моменту в его компанию уже начали стекаться заказы из-за пределов Техаса, включая Гонконг.
Боуэну ответили, что интереса в этом у Администрации Трампа в данный момент нет.
Боуэн продолжал настаивать, подчеркивая, что в заказах от правительства он не нуждается, потому что он и так завален заказами — частными. «Мы последняя крупная американская компания по производству масок. Мой телефон разрывается. Так что мне не «нужны» госзаказы. Но я даю вам знать, что мы готовы зарезервировать наши мощности для нужд страны, если ситуация станет критической. Я прежде всего патриот и только потом бизнесмен».
Чиновники Трампа от предложения отказались.
Что было потом с катастрофической нехваткой масок в американских больницах, мы все знаем.
https://echo.msk.ru/blog/karina_orlova/2640091-echo/Obama says coronavirus response has been a ‘chaotic disaster,' blames ‘selfish’ mindset
Former President Barack Obama on Friday said that the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has been an “absolute chaotic disaster” and blamed it on a “selfish” and “tribal” mindset that has become operationalized in government.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/obama- ... c-disasterObama lashes out at Trump in call with supporters
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Barack Obama harshly criticized President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic as an “absolute chaotic disaster” during a conversation with ex-members of his administration, according to a recording obtained by Yahoo News.
Obama also reacted to the Justice Department dropping its criminal case against Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, saying he worried that the “basic understanding of rule of law is at risk.”
Obama’s comments came during a Friday call with 3,000 members of the Obama Alumni Association, people who served in his administration. Obama urged his supporters to back his former vice president, Joe Biden, who is trying to unseat Trump in the Nov. 3 election.
“What we’re fighting against is these long-term trends in which being selfish, being tribal, being divided, and seeing others as an enemy — that has become a stronger impulse in American life. And by the way, we’re seeing that internationally as well. It’s part of the reason why the response to this global crisis has been so anemic and spotty,” Obama said, according to Yahoo News.
“It would have been bad even with the best of governments. It has been an absolute chaotic disaster when that mindset — of ‘what’s in it for me’ and ‘to heck with everybody else’ — when that mindset is operationalized in our government," he said.
Trump has consistently defended and boasted of his response to the virus, saying that travel restrictions from China and Europe as well as social distancing guidelines have prevented far greater damage. “I think we saved millions of lives,” he said earlier this week.
Trump has criticized the Obama administration in relation to his own administration’s response to the outbreak. Yet Trump’s contention that his administration inherited “a broken system and a broken test” from Obama’s is false; the novel coronavirus did not exist until late last year. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention struggled to develop its own test in January and then discovered problems in its kits in February.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany did not mention Obama directly in her response to his remarks.
“President Trump’s coronavirus response has been unprecedented and saved American lives," she said. “While Democrats were pursuing a sham witch hunt against President Trump, President Trump was shutting down travel from China."
She added: “While Democrats encouraged mass gatherings, President Trump was deploying PPE, ventilators, and testing across the country."
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Oba ... 259218.phpJudy Woodruff:
David, I want to turn both of you to the president and the pandemic.
I mean, it's clear, in the last few days, he's talked repeatedly about we need to change the focus more to the economy, worry more about getting people back to work. He said today — when he was asked about — he said: "Will some people be affected badly? Yes. But we have to get our country open, and we have to get it open soon."
Is he making the right call here?
David Brooks:
I don't think so. I mean, there's a clear trade-off between our safety and our economy.
And if we were winning, then I think his rhetoric would be justified. But we are not winning. If you look at the death rates, we're pretty much around 2,000 a day. It's been month after month after — or at least week after week after week of this. The curve is flat, but it's not going down. The death rate is hellacious.
The people who model these things are raising their estimates of how many people are going to die. So, we're just not winning. And, someday, we will get to the point where opening up seems to me a smart strategy. But I personally don't see the evidence of that, looking at the data. And neither do people who know a lot more about this than me, the health experts.
And so Trump seems to be wildly premature in doing this. And, frankly, the American people seem to me a little premature. Over the last week, even as the health data continues to be terrible, people are loosening. The travel is up. Gathering this up.
And so I think, just as fellow citizens, we have got to try to hang in there a little longer, until we can get some sense of a better sense of control, some sense of a downward slope, which we just do not see right now.
Especially when you take out the New York data, the rest of the country, you see an upward slope.
Judy Woodruff:
And — but, Mark, the president just seems determined to let these states do what they want, as we — now more than 30 states are loosening — are opening up at different — a different pace.
But he does seem determined to let this run its course, to let them do what they think is right.
Mark Shields:
Yes.
And all responsibility is with the governors for opening it up. And if anything, then there's a second bout, then the president can distance himself from it politically.
I don't think there is any question, Judy, that, given the numbers today, the reported unemployment, which, if anything, were probably lower, the percentage, than really are at risk and are suffering as a result of this tragedy, that the economy, which was the issue on which Donald Trump was going to run for reelection, is his hope for — only hope for reelection, which, quite frankly, seems a lot — his prospects for seem a lot less bright than they did just two months ago.
And I think that he is really almost determined to will the economy to be recovering heading into the campaign and the election of the fall. I don't think there is any question about it. And he's trying to have it both ways, that the governors are the ones making the decision.
And I think that's the political reality. I think it's that simple and that straightforward.
...
Judy Woodruff:
Just quickly to both of you on this question of White House interference, you have the scientist at the Health — the Department of Health and Human Services saying he was removed because he wanted to work on vaccines earlier this year.
And now — just tonight, we just are reading an AP report on White House efforts to bury CDC recommendations on opening up.
Just quickly, Mark, and then you, David, is this something American should worry about?
Mark Shields:
Sure they — we should, Judy.
I mean, it begin with the colonel — we — first, we saw it with Colonel Vindman. We have seen it time and again, that — Ambassador Sondland. Anybody who faced their responsibility, answered truthfully, and testified openly, retribution.
I mean, we saw it with Michael Atkinson, the inspector general at the intelligence, I mean, all of whom got the gate when they didn't do what the president wanted.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/shiel ... c-responseAP FACT CHECK: Trump is not credible on virus death tolls
— Truth can be a casualty when President Donald Trump talks about deaths from the coronavirus in the United States.
He’s claimed that the United States is on par with Germany in keeping down COVID-19 deaths, which is not the case in mortality reports. He’s brushed off projections that deaths in his country will double from earlier forecasts, misrepresenting how the numbers were calculated.
These distortions emerged over the past week alongside his relentless bragging about the U.S. testing system, which failed in the crucial early weeks and remains globally subpar. Pushing to get the country back to normal, Trump also suggested that children are safe from the coronavirus. ignoring the several thousand kids known to have been sickened by it, some gravely.
A look at his remarks and how they compare with the facts:
DEATH COUNTS
TRUMP on pandemic deaths: “Now, Germany — we’re very close to Germany. We have a very good relationship with Germany. Germany has done very good. They have a very low mortality rate like we do. We have a low mortality rate also.” — remarks Thursday in meeting with Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas.
THE FACTS: The U.S. is not in Germany’s league in this regard.
The U.S. is experiencing far more reported COVID-19 deaths as a proportion of its population than is Germany. The U.S. has reported COVID-19 deaths at a rate of 234 per 1 million people. For Germany, that rate is 90 deaths per million. The U.S. surpasses many other countries in reported deaths per million, too, and it leads the world in deaths from the virus overall.
Because countries track COVID-19 deaths somewhat differently, exact conclusions can’t be reached when comparing nations.
The mortality rate is a different measure from deaths per million. It refers to what percentage of people who get the disease die from it.
The answer is as yet unknown, and there are several reasons for that.
First, the count changes every day as new infections and deaths are recorded. More important, every country is testing differently. Knowing the real denominator, the true number of people who become infected, is key to determining what portion of them die.
Some countries, the U.S. among them, have had trouble making enough tests available. A test shortage means the sickest get tested first. Even with a good supply of tests, someone who’s otherwise healthy and has mild symptoms may not be tested and thus go uncounted.
TRUMP: “And, frankly, if you took New York out of the equation, we would really have a low mortality rate.” — remarks with Abbott.
THE FACTS: New York, being part of the U.S., cannot be subtracted from it to make the numbers look better.
It’s true that New York has experienced far more COVID-19 deaths than has any other state.
___
TRUMP, asked about a White House-endorsed model now showing 134,000 deaths from the coronavirus by August, doubling its previous prediction: “Those projections are with no mitigation. We are doing mitigation.” — remarks to reporters Tuesday.
THE FACTS: That’s incorrect. The projections by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation do take into account social distancing and other mitigation, which have begun to be loosened in several states at Trump’s urging.
The institute, based at the University of Washington, said its revised estimates released Monday reflect the recent reopening of many states and relaxing of social distancing restrictions. Its initial estimates assumed longer stay at home orders lasting through May.
“The revised projections reflect rising mobility in most U.S. states as well as the easing of social distancing measures expected in 31 states by May 11, indicating that growing contacts among people will promote transmission of the coronavirus,” the institute said.
“Our model now assumes that mandates that are currently still in place and have not been scheduled to be relaxed will stay in place through at least August 4,” it added on its website. Officials on the White House coronavirus task force have praised the institute’s work and cited its research in their briefings.
___
TESTING
TRUMP: “In any event, we have great testing capacity, and have performed 6.5 million tests, which is more than every country in the world, combined!” — tweet Monday.
THE FACTS: This was not remotely true when he said it and it’s no closer to the truth now.
The U.S. has tested far fewer people than all other countries combined. It also lags dozens of countries in testing its population proportionally.
Together, just three countries — Russia, Germany and Italy — had reported more tests than the U.S. when Trump tweeted.
That remains the case. As of late Friday, the U.S. had reported conducting more than 8.3 million tests since the pandemic began. That compared with more than 18.7 million tests by the other countries in the top 10 of the testing count.
The U.S. was followed by Russia, Germany, Italy, Spain, Britain, India, France, Turkey and United Arab Emirates.
Children visit with each other as a nurse practitioner takes a sample to be tested for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) at the CHA Somerville Hospital in Somerville, Massachusetts, U.S., April 21, 2020. Brian Snyder/Reuters
CHILDREN & COVID-19
TRUMP: “With young children and children, we’d like to see the schools open early next season and on time. It’s incredible how the — it’s very unique how the children aren’t affected, but people that have problems and older people are — can be very badly hurt, injured, or die from this problem.” — remarks with Native leaders Tuesday in Phoenix, Arizona.
TRUMP: “You see how well children seem to do. It’s incredible. We realize how strong children are, right?” — remarks with nurses Wednesday.
TRUMP: “It affects older people. It infects — if you have any problem — heart, diabetes, even a little weak heart, a little diabetes, a little — this thing is vicious, and it can take you out, and it can take you out very strongly. But children do very well.” — remarks May 3 on Fox News.
THE FACTS: His suggestion that children are in the clear is false. To say they “do very well” with the disease is more accurate, based on what is known so far. His implication that the risk is limited to the old and sick is incorrect.
It’s true kids get sick less often than do adults and tend to be less ill when they do get sick. But his statements overlook severe COVID-19 illnesses and at least several deaths of children in the U.S. And they gloss over the fact that kids can spread disease without showing symptoms themselves.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied the pandemic’s effect on different ages in the U.S. early on and reviewed preliminary research in China, where the coronavirus started. It said social distancing is important for children, too, for their own safety and that of others.
“Whereas most COVID-19 cases in children are not severe, serious COVID-19 illness resulting in hospitalization still occurs in this age group,” the CDC study says.
At the beginning of April, the CDC analyzed nearly 150,000 laboratory-confirmed U.S. COVID-19 cases and found nearly 2,600 children with the disease. Since then the number of confirmed cases overall in the U.S. has rocketed, making the April findings very preliminary.
The pediatric cases that were found at the time, though relatively few, spanned all ages of childhood. The median age of children sick with COVID-19 was 11. More than 5%, perhaps as many as 20%, required hospitalization.
People 18 to 64 were by far the largest age group sickened by the virus — 76% of the confirmed cases studied by the CDC. COVID-19 was not and is not limited to the oldest people, even if they are the most vulnerable age group.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/ap- ... eath-tollsКоронавирус исчезнет и без вакцины, - Трамп
Коронавирус, вызывающий COVID-19, рано или поздно исчезнет, причем даже в том случае, если не удастся создать вакцину от него.
Об этом заявил в пятницу президент США Дональд Трамп
"Он исчезнет, даже если вакцины не будет", - сказал он журналистам в Белом доме.
Трамп полагает, что "может произойти новая вспышка осенью или в следующем году, однако мы будем готовы погасить ее".
Он также заверил, что у многих компаний очень успешно идет работа над созданием вакцины. Вместе с тем, он напомнил, что существуют и заболевания, против которых вакцину создать не удалось.
https://censor.net.ua/news/3194473/koro ... siny_trampPublic health expert pushes back against Trump's coronavirus optimism: 'This virus isn’t going to go away'
President Trump predicted Friday that the coronavirus pandemic will disappear without the use of a vaccine, but Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Disease Security says otherwise.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/public ... to-go-awayСМИ узнали о страхах Трампа в связи с коронавирусом
Президент США Дональд Трамп переживает, что возможная вспышка коронавируса осенью может помешать его переизбранию, пишет газета Washington Post со ссылкой на советников американского лидера.
По их словам, Трамп сейчас «хмурый и потрясенный» своей снижающейся популярностью.
«В личных беседах он пытался понять, как его судьба резко изменилась: от веры в то, что он на пути к переизбранию, до осознания, что он проигрывает вероятному кандидату от демократов, бывшему вице-президенту Джо Байдену практически во всех опросах, включая внутренние опросы его штаба», — пишет газета со ссылкой на советников президента США.
Как сообщается, Трамп хочет возобновить митинги своих сторонников в рамках предвыборной кампании уже в июне, и его команда начала обсуждать возможность их организации.
https://www.rosbalt.ru/world/2020/05/10/1842623.htmlTrump Loses His Mother’s Day Mind Topping 100 Twitter Shares So Far
Trump's tweet binge included a subtle: "HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!” message, blasting former president Obama and at least 100 more
In a crazed Sunday morning burst, President Donald Trump took to his favorite social media platform and rage shared 52 tweets and retweets by 8:20 a.m. Eastern Time, passing 100 by 4:00 p.m.
Trump did not forget the holiday and calmly tweeted “HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!” to all the moms in the Twittersphere at 8:10 a.m. But according to CNN’s Manu Raju, 10 minutes later the president had zoomed past 50 shares.
Raju posted some screencaps of Trump’s frantic tweets along with the count:
“Trump has retweeted, quote-tweeted and tweeted himself 52 messages in around an hour’s time this Mother’s Day morning. A sampling:”
...
Raju passed the mind-numbing task of keeping numerical track of the tweeter-in-chief’s conveyor belt-like tweet binge to Vox’s Aaron Rupar, who tweeted that Trump had surpassed 100 “tweets or retweets” just prior to 4:00 p.m. Eastern time.
“Trump is now up to 103 tweets or retweets today, including numerous retweets of QAnon accounts and at least one of a Twitter egg,” Rupar wrote.
According to the Guardian, some of the president tweets included former President Barack Obama. Trump is pushing a nonsensical conspiracy theory that involves Obama, Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation and the president’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn. After a Friday report where Obama could be heard in a leaked private call bashing Trump’s mismanagement of the coronavirus crisis, calling it “an absolute chaotic disaster,” it was all too predictable that Trump would go after the former president.
Trump’s 3:11 p.m. tweet that read, “OBAMAGATE!” kicked off a still trending hashtag. And in DC, the hashtag #TrumpsJealousOfObama also started trending.
With the U.S. coronavirus death toll topping 80,000 on Sunday, we can be comforted knowing that Trump is hard at work looking for answers to the pandemic. Rest well America, and HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/p ... es-997123/Republicans grow nervous about losing the Senate amid worries over Trump's handling of the pandemic
- Republicans are increasingly nervous they could lose control of the Senate this fall as a potent combination of a cratering economy, President Donald Trump's controversial handling of the pandemic and rising enthusiasm among Democratic voters dims their electoral prospects.
In recent weeks, GOP senators have been forced into a difficult political dance as polling shifts in favor of Democrats: Tout their own response to the coronavirus outbreak without overtly distancing themselves from a president whose management of the crisis is under intense scrutiny but who still holds significant sway with Republican voters.
"It is a bleak picture right now all across the map, to be honest with you," said one Republican strategist closely involved in Senate races who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss concerns within the party. "This whole conversation is a referendum on Trump, and that is a bad place for Republicans to be. But it's also not a forever place."
Republicans have privately become alarmed at the situation in key races where they are counting on GOP incumbents such as Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Thom Tillis of North Carolina to hold the line.
Multiple strategists said they believe GOP candidates will recover once the nation - and the presidential campaign - returns to a more normal footing, casting the November elections as a contest between Trump and presumed Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Democratic Senate candidates in the most closely watched races also could be benefiting from a lack of scrutiny and negative ads with the nation's attention consumed by the pandemic.
But a return to normalcy ahead of the elections is far from a given as the death toll continues to rise and economic data paints a grim picture, meaning the president's handling of the pandemic could be the determining factor not only for his reelection but for Republicans' ability to hold onto the Senate. In short, as goes Trump, so likely goes the Senate majority.
The emerging consensus of several Republican strategists is that GOP incumbents should be able to hang on in states Trump won in 2016 if the president can hang onto those states himself. That list includes North Carolina, Arizona and Iowa, which Democrats are heavily targeting this cycle.
The flip side for Republicans is that states Trump lost in 2016 - such as Colorado and Maine - could be out of reach. Many GOP strategists have already written off Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., barring a major shift, and some have doubts that Collins will be able to continue her trend of faring far better in elections than Republican presidential candidates she has shared the ballot with.
Republicans currently hold a 53-to-47 seat advantage in the Senate.
"The political environment is not as favorable as it was a few months ago," said another Republican, one of a half dozen officials working on Senate races who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly assess the party's outlook.
Of the 35 Senate seats up for grabs this fall, Republicans are defending 23 of them. Strategists from both parties said the key battles for Republicans remain races in North Carolina, Arizona, Colorado, Maine and, to a lesser extent, Iowa. Republicans are banking on picking up at least one seat now held by a Democrat - Alabama, where Sen. Doug Jones won a special election in 2017 against a Republican challenger accused of sexual misconduct in the 1970s - but acknowledge they are playing defense in the vast majority of the marquee races.
Potentially competitive races looming in the second tier of Senate campaigns - where Republicans are also on the defensive - could pose an even bigger problem for the GOP if the party is forced to spread resources throughout the country in a difficult political environment.
Both Senate seats are on the ballot in Georgia, a state whose changing demographics are trending in favor of Democrats. In Kansas, Republicans fear that flawed GOP candidate Kris Kobach could again emerge victorious from a primary but lose a statewide race, as he did in the 2018 race for governor.
And Senate Democrats' ability to get popular Montana Gov. Steve Bullock to run against Republican Sen. Steve Daines revived a once-dead race into a closely-watched contest, particularly as Bullock benefits from the wave of political goodwill voters have afforded to state executives during the pandemic.
"It's a good time to be a governor," said Sen. Todd Youn, R-Ind., who heads Senate Republican's campaign committee, though he vowed Daines would win in November.
A third GOP strategist acknowledged that Colorado, Arizona, Maine and North Carolina had become "incredibly competitive" but said there was little sense yet that Democrats would be able to seriously compete in the next tranche of states that Trump won handily in 2016.
Still, Democrats have benefited from two key developments, said Jessica Taylor, Senate editor for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report: The emergence of Biden, not Bernie Sanders, as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee and emerging evidence that the public does not believe Trump is managing the pandemic effectively.
"We see this as at least a 50-50 chance for the majority to flip," Taylor said.
The first quarter of 2020 was also a boon in fundraising for Democrats, with 10 challengers outraising GOP opponents in seats currently held by Republicans: Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, North Carolina and South Carolina. The only closely watched race where the Republican incumbent raised more cash than the Democrat was Sen. Joni Ernst in Iowa.
Republicans warned there are clear obstacles - none moreso than strong Democratic fundraising, and the fear that small-dollar Democratic donors will be more resilient in the economic downturn than high-dollar GOP donors.
Democrats also plan to attack GOP senators for their opposition to the increasingly popular Affordable Care Act, with 2020 marking the first Senate elections where Democrats can target a large swath of Republicans for votes early in the Trump presidency to repeal the health law.
"Democrats have expanded the Senate map and put Mitch McConnell's majority at risk with impressive challengers, record-breaking grass roots fundraising, and a focus on the issues that matter most to voters like defending coverage protections for pre-existing conditions," said Stewart Boss, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.
Republican senators are trying to assert the powers of incumbency - contending they are doing their jobs effectively for constituents during the pandemic - as they run public-service-announcement style campaigns.
During private calls with donors, through news coverage and in ads, Senate Republicans are touting the $2 trillion economic rescue package, known as the Cares Act, passed by Congress. It includes a popular small business lending program that has become a centerpiece of Republican efforts to show how they have responded to the virus outbreak and its devastating impact on the economy.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who is up for re-election in November, last week launched a statewide ad campaign that featured constituents who benefited from the Cares Act. One Nation, an affiliated nonprofit linked to the main super PAC dedicated to electing Republicans to the Senate, also ran ads last week showcasing Collins' efforts to secure personal protective equipment for her state. Gardner, who leads a Senate panel overseeing east Asia policy, highlighted that he secured 100,000 masks for Colorado from Taiwan.
"I think the one issue in this campaign - this particular election - is going to be how did we respond to this crisis? I think all other considerations are going to be secondary," said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who twice ran the Senate GOP's campaign arm and is on the ballot this fall. "If you're an incumbent, you can demonstrate how you would react to the crisis by actually doing it."
Non-officeholders in campaigns this year - including Biden - have struggled to break through the pandemic-saturated news cycle.
Yet GOP officials acknowledge it's difficult - if not nearly impossible - for senators to separate themselves from the president, noting the damage done to Republicans Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Joseph Heck of Nevada when they tried to distance themselves from an embattled Trump during the 2016 campaign.
"It's not always ideal for him to be like, lavishing praise on you," said a fourth Republican strategist familiar with Senate races. "So it's a really tough dynamic."
In private, senior GOP officials have also expressed concern that senators weren't getting credit for the popular federal aid that has been doled out nationwide during the pandemic, as voters have tended to direct praise instead to their own governors.
National Republican Senatorial Committee executive director Kevin McLaughlin stressed to donors on a recent conference call that GOP senators had to "subtly and respectfully" remind voters of the Senate's accomplishments.
"About 90 percent of Americans have favorable view toward the Cares Act, and each of our senators played an important role in getting that passed," Young said.
He added: "Then you consider the number of individuals our senators have been able to connect with virtually over this time, at a time when they most want to hear from and or see their United States senator, you know, this could be quite beneficial toward our incumbents."
Already national Republicans have mapped out a strategy to redirect anger about the coronavirus crisis away from the Trump administration and toward the communist regime in China.
In a private, 57-page strategy memo distributed to candidates by the NRSC and leaked last month, a Washington-area Republican strategist advised GOP candidates to avoid defending the president and instead pivot to attacking China for the coronavirus.
The NRSC said the memo was simply part of a routine distribution of material to candidates. But GOP strategists said efforts to target China will continue throughout the campaign.
"I would expect Republican candidates to forcefully define China's role in causing the chaos here that we now have in the United States and also highlight how some Democrats have a little too cozy relationship with China and seem reluctant to criticize the communist government for how they allowed this problem to fester," said a GOP official familiar with party strategy.
But Republicans also believe the sinking economy - which on Friday reported a 14.7 percent jobless rate for April - will help determine the fate of incumbent GOP senators come November. Several Senate Republicans have already stressed the need to carefully reopen businesses and other economic activity - warning of the long-term impact to the country if the lockdown continues indefinitely.
"Everyone's fortunes are tied to the economy," said a particularly pessimistic Republican official. "It's going to be a tsunami."
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Rep ... 259793.phpMnuchin remains confident in bounce-back later this year, but unemployment will 'get worse' before it happens
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/mnuchi ... it-happensKudlow says it will 'take a while' for state reopenings to have impact on floundering economy
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow admitted on Sunday that it will be sometime before the financial situation in the United States get better after taking a major blow amid the coronavirus pandemic.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kudlow ... ng-economyUnemployment rate could surpass 20%, and job market could worsen, White House advisers say
WASHINGTON - Two of President Donald Trump's top economic advisers projected Sunday that unemployment will climb as the coronavirus pandemic continues its sweep across the United States, with one official predicting that the unemployment rate will jump to 20% by next month.
The statements from White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin came three days after the Labor Department reported its highest unemployment figures since the Great Depression, and as the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus surpassed 79,000.
They also came as a Senate panel announced that four administration officials who had been set to testify in person on the pandemic this week will instead do so via videoconference because of their proximity to two White House staff members who recently tested positive. One of those staffers is an aide to Vice President Mike Pence, but a spokesman said Sunday that Pence plans to be at the White House on Monday.
At a time when governors are grappling with how and when to safely reopen their states, the comments by Hassett and Mnuchin underscore that the country is far from snapping back to normal and that further economic pain is probably still to come.
In an interview on CBS's "Face the Nation," Hassett said the unemployment rate probably will rise to "north of 20%" in the next month, up from 14.7% reported Thursday.
"To get unemployment rates like the ones that we're about to see . . . which I think will climb up towards 20% by next month, you have to really go back to the Great Depression to see that," Hassett told host Margaret Brennan.
He added that "nobody knows" when those who have lost their jobs will be able to go back to work, clarifying a statement he made upon the release of Friday's jobs report that "almost everybody" who has accounted for the recent rise in unemployment "said they expect to go back to work in six months."
Hassett's acknowledgment of the country's dire economic straits was echoed by Mnuchin, who said on "Fox News Sunday" that he expects the second quarter of this year to be worse than the first.
"The reported numbers are probably going to get worse before they get better," Mnuchin told host Chris Wallace, later adding: "I think you're going to have a very, very bad second quarter."
When asked by Wallace whether the country's unemployment number was "close to 25% at this point, which is Great Depression neighborhood," Mnuchin said, "Chris, we could be."
According to report released Friday, the U.S. economy shed 20.5 million jobs in April, wiping out a decade of employment gains in a single month as businesses across the country shut down or curtaile operations in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
The job market's historic plunge was far deeper than what the nation experienced during the 2008 financial crisis. No industry has been spared, even white-collar jobs in government and business services thought to be relatively safe.
Still, Mnuchin on Sunday expressed confidence in the fundamentals of the economy. He argued that the job market should begin to right itself by September as he echoed Trump's calls for a phased reopening of the economy. This economic crisis "is no fault of American business, it is no fault of American workers, it is the fault of a virus," Mnuchin said.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Une ... 260386.phpTrump advisers cite need to stop 'permanent' economic toll
Some of President Donald Trump’s top economic advisers emphasized on Sunday the importance of states getting more businesses and offices open even as the pandemic makes its way to the White House complex, forcing three members of the administration’s coronavirus task force into self-quarantine.
The president and governors who will decide when to reopen their states are facing competing pressures. More economic activity and travel will likely lead to more people contracting COVID-19. But tight restrictions on which businesses can operate are causing millions of people to join the ranks of the unemployed. Decisions about how fast to reopen come with a general election less than six months away, and Trump and other incumbents facing the prospects of seeking another term in the midst of a public health and economic crisis.
“If we do this carefully, working with the governors, I don’t think there’s a considerable risk,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on “Fox News Sunday.” “Matter of fact, I think there’s a considerable risk of not reopening. You’re talking about what would be permanent economic damage to the American public.”
Another 3.2 million U.S. workers applied for jobless benefits last week, bringing the total over the last seven weeks to 33.5 million as states restrict activities to slow the spread of the virus. Mnuchin said the jobless numbers “are probably going to get worse before they get better,” but he expected the economic numbers to improve in the second half of 2020 and that next year would be a “great year.”
Gov. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, announced this past week that his state’s bars and restaurants can fully reopen in two weeks, on May 21, with outside dining allowed a few days earlier. Barbershops, hair salons, nail salons and day spas will also reopen this coming Friday.
He said he wished the number of coronavirus cases were going down, but the state needs to come back “very carefully.”
“We’ve got to try to do two things at once and it’s, you know, no one is underestimating how difficult this is, but it’s something that we have to do,” DeWine said on Fox.
The White House dispatched several of its top economic advisers to hit the Sunday talk shows. The appearances came on the heels of three key advisers, including Dr. Anthony Fauci, taking new precautionary steps after coming into contact with someone who had tested positive for COVID-19.
Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and has become nationally known for his simple and direct explanations to the public about the coronavirus and COVID-19, the disease it causes. Also quarantining are Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Stephen Hahn.
Fauci’s institute said that he has tested negative for COVID-19 and will continue to be tested regularly. It added that he is considered at “relatively low risk” based on the degree of his exposure, and that he would be “taking appropriate precautions” to mitigate the risk to personal contacts while still carrying out his duties. While he will stay at home and telework, Fauci will go to the White House if called and take every precaution, the institute said.
Redfield will be “teleworking for the next two weeks” after it was determined he had a “low-risk exposure” to a person at the White House, the CDC said in a statement Saturday evening. The statement said he felt fine and has no symptoms.
Just a few hours earlier, the Food and Drug Administration confirmed that Hahn had come in contact with someone who tested positive and was in self-quarantine for the next two weeks. He also tested negative for the virus.
All three were scheduled to testify before a Senate panel during a Tuesday hearing focused on how to safely return people to work and school. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the panel's Republican chairman, announced Sunday that Fauci will be joining all of the administration's witnesses in testifying by videoconference “in an abundance of caution for our witnesses, senators, and the staff."
Statements from the agencies the officials oversee took care not to identify the person they had contact with earlier last week. Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary, Katie Miller, tested positive for the coronavirus on Friday, making her the second person who works at the White House complex known to test positive for the virus in the past week. White House officials had confirmed Thursday that a member of the military serving as one of Trump’s valets had tested positive for COVID-19 a day earlier.
White House adviser Kevin Hassett noted that the vice president's press secretary tested negative one day and positive the next. He appeared on CBS's “Face the Nation."
“And so this is a very, very scary virus. You know, that people are going to go back to work and they’re gonna be worried about things," Hassett said. “And it’s going to take awhile for things to get back to normal, absolutely."
At the same time, he said some $9 trillion has been injected into the economy through actions taken by Congress, the White House and the Federal Reserve.
“I think that right now we have bought some time with all the money that we’ve thrown at the economy and we’ve been using the time to do things like develop treatments, improve our treatments, learn more about social distancing and so on," Hassett said.
https://www.sfgate.com/business/article ... 260027.phpAs deaths mount, Trump tries to convince Americans it's safe to inch back to normal
In a week when the novel coronavirus ravaged new communities across the country and the number of dead soared past 78,000, President Donald Trump and his advisers shifted from hour-by-hour crisis management to what they characterize as a long-term strategy aimed at reviving the decimated economy and preparing for additional outbreaks this fall.
But in doing so, the administration is effectively bowing to - and asking Americans to accept - a devastating proposition: that a steady, daily accumulation of lonely deaths is the grim cost of reopening the nation.
Inside the West Wing, some officials talk about the federal government's mitigation mission as largely accomplished because they believe the nation's hospitals are now equipped to meet anticipated demand - even as health officials warn the number of coronavirus cases could increase considerably in May and June as more states and localities loosen restrictions, and some mitigation efforts are still recommended as states begin to reopen.
The administration is struggling to expand the scale of testing to what experts say is necessary to reopen businesses safely, and officials have not announced any national plan for contact tracing. Trump and some of his advisers are prioritizing the psychology of the pandemic as much as, if not more than, plans to combat the virus, some aides and outside advisers said - striving to instill confidence that people can comfortably return to daily life despite the rising death toll.
On Friday, as the unemployment rate reached a historically high 14.7 percent, Trump urged Americans to think of this period as a "transition to greatness," adding during a meeting with Republican members of Congress: "We're going to do something very fast, and we're going to have a phenomenal year next year." The president predicted the virus eventually would disappear even without a vaccine - a prediction at odds with his own science officials.
A White House spokesman defended the status of testing by pointing to comments in mid-April by two of the medical professionals on the task force, Anthony Fauci and Adm. Brett Giroir, saying there have been enough tests to safely reopen the country.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany also backed the administration's response, saying, "President Trump is committed to a data-driven approach to safely reopening the country. His steadfast leadership has saved American lives, and the American people recognize his leadership."
Some of Trump's advisers described the president as glum and shellshocked by his declining popularity. In private conversations, he has struggled to process how his fortunes suddenly changed from believing he was on a glide path to reelection to realizing that he is losing to the likely Democratic nominee, former vice president Joe Biden, in virtually every poll, including his own campaign's internal surveys, advisers said. He also has been fretting about the possibility that a bad outbreak of the virus this fall could damage his standing in the November election, said the advisers, who along with other aides and allies requested anonymity to discuss internal deliberations.
The president is also eager to resume political travel in June, including holding his signature rallies by the end of the summer in areas where there are few cases, advisers said. Trump's political team has begun discussions about organizing a high-dollar, in-person fundraiser next month, as well as preliminary planning about staging rallies and what sort of screenings might be necessary, according to Republican National Committee officials and outsider advisers. One option being considered is holding rallies outdoors, rather than in enclosed arenas, a senior administration official said.
Officials also are forging ahead with the Republican National Convention planned for late August in Charlotte, North Carolina, albeit a potentially scaled-back version.
But Trump's outward projections of assurance and hope masked the more sober acknowledgments of some outside advisers and experts who worry the number of deaths will either stabilize around 2,000 per day or continue to climb over the next month.
"The question is, will people become anesthetized to it? Are they willing to accept that?" said one adviser to the White House coronavirus task force who, like many others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters or offer candid assessments.
Stephen Moore, a conservative economist who has been informally advising Trump and his team, said making people comfortable returning to work and resuming normal activities will take a long time.
"I'm the biggest advocate for getting the economy up and running there is, but I have two relatives who think I'm crazy, and they're not going out of their house no matter what," Moore said. "Just because the president and governors open up a state doesn't mean that commerce is going to instantly resume. It's not."
Inside the administration last week, there were roiling disputes over the data used by the government to track the virus as well as over possible therapeutics. The debates underscored the administration's chronic challenges in managing the crisis, even as Trump pushes to reopen the economy.
During a task force meeting Wednesday, a heated discussion broke out between Deborah Birx, the physician who oversees the administration's coronavirus response, and Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Birx and others were frustrated with the CDC's antiquated system for tracking virus data, which they worried was inflating some statistics - such as mortality rate and case count - by as much as 25 percent, according to four people present for the discussion or later briefed on it. Two senior administration officials said the discussion was not heated.
"There is nothing from the CDC that I can trust," Birx said, according to two of the people.
The flare-up came two days after it was reported that an internal government model, based on data from the CDC and other agencies, projected the daily death count would rise to 3,000 by June 1.
Redfield defended his agency, but there was general agreement that the CDC is in need of a digital upgrade.
Birx said in a statement: "Mortality is slowly declining each day. To keep with this trend, it is essential that seniors and those with comorbidities shelter in place and that we continue to protect vulnerable communities."
That assertion is contrary to Johns Hopkins data, which shows U.S. daily deaths hovering close to 2,000 most days for several weeks now, and climbing higher some days last week. Many experts also believe coronavirus deaths are actually being undercounted, with mortality data showing that U.S. deaths soared in the early weeks of pandemic, far beyond the number attributed to covid-19.
During the same meeting, the group also found itself in a robust debate over remdesivir, an experimental drug some administration officials are optimistic could help treat patients with covid-19. Robert Kadlec, assistant health secretary for preparedness and response, said the government had shipped remdesivir to seven states - an announcement that surprised Birx and others, who felt it was premature because they had not yet determined which states needed the drug most.
"Why would you do that?" Birx asked, referring to the supply of the drug donated by its manufacturer, Gilead Sciences, according to someone with direct knowledge of the meeting.
The next day, Vice President Mike Pence, who oversees the administration's coronavirus task force, grew frustrated when he asked for an update on distributing the drug and no one - including Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar - was able to provide one, saying discussions were still ongoing. On Saturday, HHS announced that another allocation of the drug would be sent to six states.
The task force's new strategy came amid broader internal debate about the future of the Pence-led group. On Tuesday, the New York Times first reported that the administration was talking about dismantling the task force, which Pence confirmed to reporters shortly thereafter. The next morning, however, Trump announced on Twitter that the group would "continue on indefinitely with its focus on SAFETY & OPENING UP OUR COUNTRY AGAIN."
Administration officials stressed that the public may have an outsized impression of the task force. Its purpose was largely to provide a centralized forum for analyzing virus data and crafting response plans, through daily Situation Room meetings, as well as to share information with the public through daily White House press briefings, while much of the government's substantive work took place at various agencies. The goal behind disbanding the task force, officials argued, was simply to center all coronavirus efforts in the agencies where they could be handled more efficiently.
Whereas initially the task force found itself scrambling to deploy a whack-a-mole management effort, dealing with regular crises as they emerged - from coronavirus-infected cruise ships to the urgent need for ventilators - the administration now intends to shift its focus to what is says is more strategic longer-term planning.
"I think we're in a really good position now to be able to look around the corner and set ourselves up for the fall," said Katie Miller, Pence's press secretary.
However, White House officials declined to provide any specifics as to what the long-term strategy is, what the different plans will look like, and who is leading the various efforts.
The task force had already begun to curtail briefings, following a disastrous performance last month when Trump suggested the idea of injecting disinfectants, such as bleach, to treat the virus.
Although Trump and his aides have boasted that the number of Americans tested continues to rise - the total was 8.4 million as of Saturday - allies and other public health experts bemoan the slow pace. They argue that the country could have tested far more people and initiated a contact tracing plan had the president and his team focused more strategically on that in recent weeks.
"It's incredibly sad and it shouldn't be the case," a former senior administration official said. "We should have testing and contact tracing and we don't. That's a concern." The official added, "You can't have just whatever the shiny ball is today. You have to be able to do more than one thing at a time and deal with more than one crisis point at a time."
More than anything, three advisers said, Trump is focused on how to turn the economy around and reopen the country, seeing a nascent recovery as key to getting reelected and his handling of the economy as one of his only strengths in the polls over Joe Biden.
"Given that we're going to be at 15 or 20 percent unemployment, it is the direction of the economy, rather than the raw numbers of the economy, that I think voters will judge him on," said Neil Newhouse, a prominent GOP pollster.
The president and senior White House advisers have begun holding meetings on a range of topics other than the coronavirus, such as a session Friday on the thrift savings plan in the Oval Office and a Monday session on health care.
Trump son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, who has been running his own coronavirus effort, has begun interviewing candidates for a new position focused on finding vaccines and therapeutics, but some administration officials say it is another instance of Kushner stepping into territory he knows little about.
On Thursday afternoon, Trump huddled in the Oval Office with a mix of campaign aides and White House officials. No one wore masks, though campaign manager Brad Parscale did tweet a photo of himself in the West Wing sporting sunglasses and a white mask with red "Trump Pence 2020" lettering. Parscale brought five prototype campaign masks to show the president and is planning to send out 50,000 to supporters across the country.
As the president was updated on the Republican convention, various lawsuits the Republican Party and Trump campaign have launched against states over voting rules, and political ads attacking Biden over China, he appeared to be in a good mood, said three people familiar with the meeting.
But reality kept intruding. The same day, news broke that one of Trump's personal valets, a Navy chief petty officer, had tested positive for coronavirus. And on Friday, Trump himself revealed the name of another White House staffer who had just tested positive for the virus: Miller, the vice president's press secretary.
During McEnany's press briefing Friday, Associated Press reporter Zeke Miller asked about the coronavirus cases that had infiltrated the White House, which for weeks has implemented temperature checks and virus testing for those close to the president.
"Why should the average American, whose workplace doesn't have access to these rapid tests, feel comfortable going to work if the White House isn't even safe?" Miller asked.
"As America reopens safely, the White House is continuing to operate safely," McEnany said.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/As- ... 259267.phpAP Exclusive: Docs show top WH officials buried CDC report
The decision to shelve detailed advice from the nation’s top disease control experts for reopening communities during the coronavirus pandemic came from the highest levels of the White House, according to internal government emails obtained by The Associated Press.
The files also show that after the AP reported Thursday that the guidance document had been buried, the Trump administration ordered key parts of it to be fast-tracked for approval.
The trove of emails show the nation's top public health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spending weeks working on guidance to help the country deal with a public health emergency, only to see their work quashed by political appointees with little explanation.
The document, titled “Guidance for Implementing the Opening Up America Again Framework,” was researched and written to help faith leaders, business owners, educators and state and local officials as they begin to reopen. It included detailed “decision trees,” or flow charts aimed at helping local leaders navigate the difficult decision of whether to reopen or remain closed.
White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said Friday that the documents had not been approved by CDC Director Robert Redfield. The new emails, however, show that Redfield cleared the guidance.
This new CDC guidance — a mix of advice already released along with newer information — had been approved and promoted by the highest levels of its leadership, including Redfield. Despite this, the administration shelved it on April 30.
As early as April 10, Redfield, who is also a member of the White House coronavirus task force, shared via email the guidance and decision trees with President Donald Trump's inner circle, including his son-in-law Jared Kushner, top adviser Kellyanne Conway and Joseph Grogan, assistant to the president for domestic policy. Also included were Dr. Deborah Birx, Dr. Anthony Fauci and other task force members.
Three days later, CDC’s upper management sent the more than 60-page report with attached flow charts to the White House Office of Management and Budget, a step usually taken only when agencies are seeking final White House approval for documents they have already cleared.
The 17-page version later released by the AP and other news outlets was only part of the actual document submitted by the CDC, and targeted specific facilities like bars and restaurants. The AP obtained a copy Friday of the full document. That version is a more universal series of phased guidelines, “Steps for All Americans in Every Community,” geared to advise communities as a whole on testing, contact tracing and other fundamental infection control measures.
Redfield weighed in publicly for the first time Saturday, issuing a statement that apparently contradicts his internal emails, and supports the White House assertion that he had not formally approved the guidance.
He said in the statement that the CDC guidance was in draft form and had not been vetted fully. “This is an iterative effort to ensure effective, clear guidance is presented to the American people. I had not seen a version of the guidance incorporating interagency and task force input and therefore was not yet comfortable releasing a final work product.”
But on April 24, Redfield again emailed the guidance documents to Birx and Grogan, according to a copy viewed by The AP. Redfield asked Birx and Grogan for their review so that the CDC could post the guidance publicly. Attached to Redfield’s email were the guidance documents and the corresponding decision trees — including one for meat packing plants.
“We plan to post these to CDC’s website once approved. Peace, God bless r3,” the director wrote. (Redfield's initials are R.R.R.)
Redfield’s emails contradict the White House assertion Thursday that it had not yet approved the guidelines because the CDC’s own leadership had not yet given them the green light.
Two days after his email to Birx and Grogan, on April 26, the CDC still had not received any word from the administration, according to the internal communications. Robert McGowan, the CDC chief of staff who was shepherding the guidance through the OMB, sent an email seeking an update. “We need them as soon as possible so that we can get them posted,” he wrote to Nancy Beck, an OMB staffer.
Beck said she was awaiting review by the White House Principals Committee, a group of top White House officials. “They need to be approved before they can move forward. WH principals are in touch with the task force so the task force should be aware of the status,” Beck wrote to McGowan.
The next day, April 27, Satya Thallam of the OMB sent the CDC a similar response: “The re-opening guidance and decision tree documents went to a West Wing principals committee on Sunday. We have not received word on specific timing for their considerations.
“However, I am passing along their message: they have given strict and explicit direction that these documents are not yet cleared and cannot go out as of right now — this includes related press statements or other communications that may preview content or timing of guidances.”
According to the documents, CDC continued inquiring for days about the guidance that officials had hoped to post by Friday, May 1, the day Trump had targeted for reopening some businesses, according to a source who was granted anonymity because they were not permitted to speak to the press.
On April 30 the CDC’s documents were killed for good.
The agency had not heard any specific critiques from either the White House Principals Committee or the coronavirus task force in days, so officials asked for an update.
“The guidance should be more cross-cutting and say when they should reopen and how to keep people safe. Fundamentally, the Task Force cleared this for further development, but not for release,” wrote Quinn Hirsch, a staffer in the White House's office of regulatory affairs OIRA), in an email to the CDC’s parent agency, the Department of Health and Human Services.
CDC staff working on the guidance decided to try again.
The administration had already released its Opening Up America Again Plan, and the clock was ticking. Staff at CDC thought if they could get their reopening advice out there, it would help communities do so with detailed expert help.
But hours later on April 30, CDC’s Chief of Staff McGowan told CDC staff that neither the guidance documents nor the decision trees “would ever see the light of day,” according to three officials who declined to be named because they were not authorized to speak to reporters.
The next day, May 1, the emails showed, a staffer at CDC was told “we would not even be allowed to post the decision trees. We had the team (exhausted as they are) stand down.”
The CDC’s guidance was shelved. Until May 7.
That morning The Associated Press reported that the Trump administration had buried the guidance, even as many states had started allowing businesses to reopen.
After the story ran, the White House called the CDC and ordered them to refile all of the decision trees, except one that targeted churches. An email obtained by the AP confirmed the agency resent the documents late Thursday, hours after news broke.
“Attached per the request from earlier today are the decision trees previously submitted to both OIRA and the WH Task Force, minus the communities of faith tree,” read the email. “Please let us know if/when/how we are able to proceed from here.”
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/AP- ... 257892.phpDr. Fauci plans to attend Senate hearing Tuesday amid 'modified' coronavirus quarantine
Dr. Anthony Fauci will testify at the Senate Health Committee Tuesday, Fox News has learned, while two other White House coronavirus task force members will attend the hearing via video conference after placing themselves in quarantine.
Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), will continue to go to the White House for relevant meetings and will likely wear a mask, as he is entering a "modified" quarantine after having "limited" exposure to the virus at the White House, Fox News is told.
After the meetings, Fauci will return to his office at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and work mostly by himself when few others are present, Fox News learned.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/anthon ... te-hearingTop Trump donor named postmaster general as President steps up attacks on USPS
White House Correspondent and Associate Editor for Politico Anita Kumar weighs in on ‘America’s News HQ.’
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6155632335001/Semiconductor companies consider new plants in the U.S.
NEW YORK (AP) — Intel and a Taiwanese company are talking to the Trump administration about building new semiconductor plants in the United States amid concern about relying on suppliers in Asia for chips used in a wide variety of electronics.
A spokesman for Intel, the biggest American chip maker, said Sunday that the company is in discussions with the Defense Department about improving domestic technology sources. Spokesman William Moss said Santa Clara, California-based Intel is well-positioned to work with the government “to operate a U.S.-owned commercial foundry.”
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. is open to building a plant outside of Taiwan and has talked with the Commerce Department, a spokeswoman said.
...
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Int ... 260327.phpВ Германии усомнились, что коронавирус «зародился» в китайской лаборатории
Версия об искусственном происхождении коронавируса в китайской лаборатории в Ухане не имеет никаких доказательств, передает NYT.
Об этом заявила Федеральная разведывательная служба Германии, не получив ответа на свой запрос от членов разведальянса «Пять глаз».
В отчете главе Минобороны ФРГ Аннегрет Крамп-Карренбауэр отмечается, что доказательств не предоставили даже США.
По мнению разведки, США, обвиняя Китая, пытались отвлечь внимание общественности от «собственных неудач» президента Дональда Трампа.
https://www.rosbalt.ru/world/2020/05/09/1842557.htmlКитай опроверг 24 «мифа» о своей причастности к эпидемии коронавируса
Министерство иностранных дел Китая выпустило статью с опровержением заявлений властей США о причастности китайской стороны к распространению коронавируса нового типа.
В документе на сайте ведомства МИД опровергает 24 «мифа» о своей причастности к ситуации, в числе которых заявления о создании вируса в лаборатории города Ухань и обвинения в замалчивании информации о вирусе.
Ранее США неоднократно обвиняли Китай в распространении коронавируса нового типа и в сокрытии сведений о пандемии.
https://www.rosbalt.ru/world/2020/05/10/1842629.html
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
