APRIL 13 AND 14, 2020
PROGRESSIVE
OPINION AND NEWS
COVID-19 NEWS
GOVERNORS ARE
FORMING ALLIANCES ON BOTH COASTS TO WORK TOGETHER ON THE PANDEMIC AND ITS’
EFFECTS. THAT SOUNDS EMINENTLY INTELLIGENT AND PRODUCTIVE TO ME, BUT TRUMP
CALLS IT “MUTINY.” I CALL IT DEMOCRACY, AND SO APPARENTLY DO THE GOVERNORS.
GOVERNOR CUOMO SAID: “WE DON’T HAVE A KING; WE HAVE A PRESIDENT,” AND WARNED OF
A CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS LIKE WE HAVEN’T HAD IN DECADES IF THE FEDERAL
GOVERNMENT TRIES TO FORCE STATES TO OPEN UP SOONER THAN THEY DEEM SAFE.
Coronavirus Live
Updates: Governors Push Back at Trump Over Authority to Reopen
Governors on
the East and West Coasts formed alliances to coordinate future action,
prompting President Trump to compare the move to a “mutiny.” The I.M.F.
issued a stark warning about economic fallout.
Updated April
14, 2020, 1:23 p.m. ET
RIGHT NOW
-- Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said that 778 more people had died in
the state, a number that was “basically flat at a devastating level.” The
total number of deaths in the state is 10,834.
Video 1:21 Min. -- ‘That Is Not an Accurate
Statement’: Cuomo Pushes Back Against Trump
VIDEO
CAPTION -- Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York cautioned against easing protective
measures too quickly and challenged President Trump’s claim that the
decision to reopen states for business was his alone. CreditCredit...Gabby
Jones for The New York Times
Here’s
what you need to know:
*Governors
push back on Trump’s claim that he “calls the shots.”
*The
I.M.F. predicts the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
*The
one-day virus death toll in New York State rose again after two days of deaths
falling.
*U.S.
officials and executives wrestle with issues over buying medical equipment or
taking donations from China.
*An
appeals court allows medication abortions in Texas again — for now.
*Obama
endorses Biden for president as Democrats turn to unifying the party.
*Jailed
youths are seeking to be released as the virus spreads.
*Sign up
to receive an email alert when we update our live coronavirus coverage.
PHOTOGRAPH
-- A pedestrian walks passed closed businesses in The Bronx on Tuesday. Credit...Desiree
Rios for The New York Times
Governors push back on Trump’s claim that he “calls the shots.”
Governors
responded scornfully Tuesday to President Trump’s insistence — widely
challenged by legal scholars — that he has the authority to direct the
reopening of the American economy by himself.
“We don’t
have a king; we have a president,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said
Tuesday on NBC’s “Today.” In a separate
appearance on MSNBC, he warned that if Mr. Trump tried to force an economic
reopening on the states, it could lead to “a constitutional crisis like you
haven’t seen in decades, where states tell the federal government, ‘We’re not
going to follow your order.’”
One of Mr.
Cuomo’s partners in the coordinated effort to reopen the Northeast, Gov. Ned
Lamont, Democrat of Connecticut, told CNN that “verbal hand grenades” from Mr.
Trump should not “distract from a lot of other good work that’s going on.”
And Gov.
Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican who is the chairman of the National
Governors Association, pushed back after Mr. Trump opined on Twitter that the
decision to reopen states rested with him, and not with governors.
“It’s not
my understanding of the Constitution,” Mr. Hogan said in an interview Monday on
CNN, taking pains to praise the cooperation of the federal government while
making it clear that he believes the ultimate authority will lie with the
states and their governors.
“Governors
made decisions to take various actions in their states, based on what they
thought was right for their state, based on the facts on the ground, talking
with doctors and scientists,” Mr. Hogan said in the interview. “And I think
individual governors who made those decisions will have the ultimate decision
about what to do with their states.”
The
governors have been reacting to Mr. Trump’s signals in recent days — which
culminated in an extraordinary briefing at the White House on Monday evening —
that he alone had the ultimate power to make the decision of when to ease
the stay-at-home orders and other restrictions that governors across the
country enacted to slow the spread of the virus. In the White House briefing
Mr. Trump claimed that “numerous provisions” in the Constitution, which he
did not name, gave him the authority to override the states if they wanted to
remain closed. Legal experts say presidents have no such power.“The
president of the United States calls the shots,” Mr. Trump said. “They can’t
do anything without the approval of the president of the United States.”
His
position — a reversal of his earlier arguments that states were largely in
charge of fighting the pandemic — raised profound constitutional questions
about presidential power and set him once again on a potential collision course
with the states.
And after
groups of governors on the East and West Coasts announced Monday that they
planned to work together in regional groups to decided when and how to reopen
business, Mr. Trump compared them in a Twitter post to mutineers who took
over a ship from a captain they believed was abusing his crew.
Although
Mr. Cuomo excoriated Mr. Trump in interview after interview on Tuesday, he
adopted a more conciliatory tone by late morning, when he held a news
conference in Albany.
“I am not
going to fight with him,” Mr. Cuomo said of the president, adding that,
“This is no time for any division between the federal government and the state
government.” He allowed, though, that he believed Mr. Trump was “clearly
spoiling for a fight on this issue.”
Beyond
Democratic governors and legal scholars, some of Mr. Trump’s Republican
allies have also questioned the president’s sweeping claim of executive
power. Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and a daughter of
former Vice President Dick Cheney, posted the text of the Tenth Amendment on
Twitter.
Liz Cheney
✔
@Liz_Cheney
The
federal government does not have absolute power.
“The
powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or
to the people.” United States Constitution, Amendment X
37.4K
7:42 PM -
Apr 13, 2020
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RELATED
ARTICLE -- “TOTAL” AUTHORITY Read the full analysis of Mr. Trump’s broad
assertion of presidential power.
THE UNITARY
EXECUTIVE THEORY AS ESPOUSED BY GEORGE W BUSH (SEE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_executive_theory) IS BEING PUSHED DAY BY DAY BY DONALD
TRUMP TO ITS LIMITS, IF THERE ARE ANY. IT APPEARS TO ME THAT OUR DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY
IS CRUMBLING AND HAS BEEN FOR DECADES. DONALD TRUMP AND HIS BEHAVIOR ARE A
RESULT AND NOT THE ORIGIN. THE ORIGIN IS PUBLIC PASSIVITY, OFTEN BECAUSE THEY
DON’T FEEL EMPOWERED ENOUGH TO PUT UP A REAL STRUGGLE. THAT NEEDS TO CHANGE.
SEE THE REPORTS BELOW ON A SERIES OF PROGRESSIVE YOUNGER VOTER GROUPS ON THE
SUBJECT.
FACT CHECK
Trump Falsely
Claims ‘Ultimate Authority’ to Override States’ Virus Measures
Constitutional
experts, government agencies and Republican governors all say otherwise.
PHOTOGRAPH --
Linda Qiu
By Linda Qiu
April 14, 2020,
Updated 8:24 a.m. ET
President
Trump, in a combative news conference on Monday, falsely and repeatedly
asserted that he had the unilateral power to compel states to lift stay-at-home
orders and businesses to open. Here’s a fact check of that and other claims.
WHAT WAS
SAID
Reporter:
“There’s a debate over what authority you have to order the country reopened.
What authority do you have on this one?”
Mr. Trump:
“Well, I have the ultimate authority.”
False. He
does not have the authority to override stay-at-home or shelter-in-place orders
from governors, or “total” authority in general.
“I don’t
know of anything that would allow him to do this,” said Chris Edelson, a
professor of government at American University. “We live in a constitutional
system with checks and balances. Nobody has total authority.”
“The
President has no formal legal authority to categorically override local or
state shelter-in-place orders or to reopen schools and small businesses,”
Stephen I. Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, said
on Twitter. “No statute delegates to him such power; no constitutional
provision invests him with such authority.”
At his
news briefing, Mr. Trump repeated his position a number of times.
“The president
of the United States calls the shots,” he said.
“They can’t do anything without the approval of
the president of the United States.”
Asked what
provisions of the Constitution gave him such authority over the states, he
replied, “Numerous provisions,” without naming any. “When somebody’s the
president of the United States, the authority is total.”
Latest
Updates: Coronavirus Outbreak in the U.S.
Governors
push back on Trump’s claim that he “calls the shots.”
The I.M.F.
predicts the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
The
one-day virus death toll in New York State rose again after two days of deaths
falling.
See more
updates
Updated 1m
ago
More live
coverage: Global Markets New York
Even the
emergency powers granted to the federal government come with limits and “none
of these authorities says the president can do anything that he wants,” said Elizabeth Goitein, who directs the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty & National
Security Program.
“The
framers of the Constitution did not come up with a system” without limits on
executive power, she added. “They were kind of trying to do the opposite of
that.”
While the
federal government has authority over
interstate and foreign quarantine measures, states have the primary authority
to impose and enforce quarantine and isolation measures within their own
borders, as part of the police powers conferred to states by the 10th Amendment
of the Constitution, according to the Congressional Research Service and the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The
Federal Emergency Management Agency, in batting down untrue rumors on its
website, noted that “states and cities are responsible for announcing curfews,
shelters in place, or other restrictions and safety measures.” Mr. Trump’s
claims were also contradicted by Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland and Gov. Chris
Sununu of New Hampshire, both Republicans, who said on Monday that the decision
to lift measures was up to the states.
“Just last
week, we were asking: Why no national lockdown? The answer is that state
governors are responsible for the health of their populations, as Trump himself
has said,” said Polly J. Price, a professor of global health and law at Emory
University. “Is Trump’s next step to nationalize the manicure industry? Because
unless he is going to nationalize specific businesses, like wartime industry,
this is a state matter.”
Even in a
hypothetical scenario, Mr. Trump
would be limited in how he can act. Congress could conceivably pass a law on
interstate commerce that would effectively compel states to rescind their
stay-at-home orders, but the president could not unilaterally act to do so.
Similarly, while it’s possible that classified draft documents or the Justice
Department’s Office of Legal Counsel have argued for an expansion of executive
power including authority to override governors, such powers have yet to be
invoked and could still be challenged in court.
Though Mr.
Trump said he could provide “a legal brief” on “numerous provisions” in the
Constitution that outline his authority to override governors, the White House
did not respond when asked for the brief or other evidence of the president’s
claims.
WHAT WAS
SAID
“Nobody is
asking for ventilators.”
False. Several
governors continued to speak about existing
or impending shortages of ventilators and other supplies.
“Everybody
still has tremendous needs on personal protective equipment and ventilators and
all of these things that you keep hearing about. Everybody’s fighting to find
these things all over the — all over the nation and all over the world,” Mr.
Hogan said on ABC's “This Week” on Sunday.
“The White
House, over the past number of weeks, has delivered a series of tranches of
ventilators and other personal protective equipment. But we continue to be shy
on all — all fronts,” Gov. Phil Murphy of New Jersey said that same day on CBS.
WHAT WAS
SAID
“When on
January 31, I instituted the ban, Joe Biden went crazy. He said you don’t need
the ban … He called me xenophobic. He called me a racist, because he has since
apologized and he said I did the right thing.”
This is
exaggerated. Mr. Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has generally
criticized Mr. Trump for “xenophobia” and “fear-mongering” in his response to
the coronavirus. But The Times
was unable to find an instance of him using those words
to describe the restrictions Mr. Trump imposed on travel from China in January.
Mr. Trump later used the phrase “Chinese virus” in describing the outbreak.
In April,
the Biden campaign said that Mr. Biden supported the restrictions, as they had
the backing of scientists and public health officials. There is no public
record of an apology to Mr. Trump.
WHAT WAS
SAID
“The United
States has conducted three million tests for the virus, three million, the most
of any nation.”
This is
misleading. Mr. Trump’s figures were in
line with estimates from the COVID Tracking Project, which reported about 2.9
million tests, or about 883 tests per 100,000 people, as of Monday night. That
is the most in the world in raw numbers, but the United States still lags
behind other countries in testing per capita. In comparison, South Korea has
conducted 958 tests per 100,000 and Italy more than 1,700 tests per 100,000.
The
president noted this distinction moments later when he touted New York’s
testing figures in per capita terms.
Curious
about the accuracy of a claim? Email factcheck@nytimes.com.
*The
President and the Coronavirus Crisis
*Trump’s
combative defense of his response.
*Trump
Leaps to Call Shots on Reopening Nation, Setting Up Standoff With Governors April
13, 2020
*Trump Turns
Daily Coronavirus Briefing Into a Defense of His Record April 13, 2020
*Coronavirus
Live Updates: Governors Push Back at Trump Over Authority to Reopen April 14,
2020
Linda Qiu
is a fact-check reporter, based in Washington. She came to The Times in 2017
from the fact-checking service PolitiFact. @ylindaqiu
FACT CHECK
Trump’s
Baseless Claim That a Recession Would Be Deadlier Than the Coronavirus
The opposite is
more likely to be true, according to research and experts.
By Linda Qiu
March 26, 2020
PHOTOGRAPH
-- President Trump during a coronavirus briefing at the White House on
Wednesday. Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times
President
Trump, in saying that he wanted to reopen
the economy by Easter, has argued that an economic downturn would be more
deadly than the coronavirus.
WHAT WAS
SAID
“You have
suicides over things like this when you have terrible economies. You have
death. Probably — and I mean definitely — would be in far greater numbers than
the numbers that we’re talking about with regard to the virus.”
— at a
news conference on Monday
“You’re
going to lose more people by putting a country into a massive recession or
depression.”
— during a
virtual town hall on Fox News on Tuesday
This lacks
evidence. Though the question of the
overall impact of recessions on mortality remains unsettled, experts disputed
Mr. Trump’s claim that an economic downturn would be more deadly than a
pandemic. (The White House did not respond when asked for the source of the
president’s
“All these
effects of economic expansions or recessions on mortality that can be seen,
e.g., during the Great Depression or the Great Recession, are tiny if compared
with the mortality effects of a pandemic,” said Dr. José A. Tapia, a professor
of public health and economics at Drexel University who has written several
studies on the topic.
Latest
Updates: Coronavirus Outbreak in the U.S.
A rift
between the White House and states threatens a cohesive response.
The I.M.F.
predicts the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
As a
recession looms, Democrats call for tougher financial regulation.
See more
updates
Updated
12m ago
More live
coverage: Global Markets New York
It is
difficult to disaggregate the impact of an economic downturn on health and
mortality from other factors. Those who become unemployed do tend to have
higher levels of depression and bad health. But for the general population,
studies have found that death rates from other causes — cardiovascular disease,
respiratory diseases, and traffic and industrial injuries — were either
unchanged or actually decreased.
For example, a
2012 study found that suicides did
increase during the Depression of the 1930s, but the death rate for car
accidents decreased and no significant effects were observed for 30 other
causes of death in the United States. A 2009 study found that mortality
actually decreased across almost all ages during the Depression. Researchers
last year also found that mortality rates overall declined from 2005 to 2010, a
period that covered the deep recession that ran from late 2007 through
mid-2009.
In
comparison, projections from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
estimated that deaths from the coronavirus in the United States could range
from 200,000 to 1.7 million.
Mr. Trump
is right to be concerned about the trend of increased suicides during
recessions, said Aaron Reeves, a professor and sociologist at Oxford University
and the lead author of a 2012 study that estimated an excess of 4,750 suicides
in the United States after 2007, coinciding with the recession. But in a
scenario in which workplaces and businesses reopen and social distancing is
more limited but people continue to wash their hands, Mr. Reeves said, “my
sense is that this virus would almost certainly kill more people under those
conditions than suicides would.”
Moreover, it is
not inevitable that a recession would lead
to excess suicides. In countries and American states with adequate social
programs in place, the impact of economic downturns can be reduced.
“There are
some choices that governments have about how you potentially offset the
consequences of recessions that may come,” Mr. Reeves said, pointing to the $2
trillion economic package passed by the Senate. “Trump could put in place more
to protect those people if he’s worried about suicides.”
Experts
also warned that the argument about whether to stave off a recession or contain
the coronavirus was a somewhat false choice. If efforts to mitigate the
coronavirus abate and cases and deaths spiral out of control, the economy would
also be affected by self-imposed lockdowns.
The mental
health effects of high levels of unemployment during a recession, too, would
have its parallels if the United States suffered colossal loss of lives. That
would bring about “communal bereavement,” where there is widespread distress
and feelings of loss even among those who do not know the deceased, and its
associated health risks, said Ralph Catalano, a professor of public health at
the University of California at Berkeley.
“I’d
rather contain the epidemic first and then take my chances with the recession,”
Mr. Catalano said. “Humans control recessions; mindless nature controls
epidemics. It’s just bad medicine to mix epidemiology and economics right now.”
Curious
about the accuracy of a claim? Email factcheck@nytimes.com.
Linda Qiu
is a fact-check reporter, based in Washington. She came to The Times in 2017
from the fact-checking service PolitiFact. @ylindaqiu
Updated April
13, 2020, 6:34 p.m. ET 2 minutes ago
Coronavirus
Live Updates: Governors Weigh Reopening Plans; Trump Lashes Out Over
Criticism
Governors on
both coasts and economic policymakers around the world are starting to debate
how and when to reopen. Dr. Anthony Fauci clarifies remarks on mitigation
strategy. The Census Bureau will request a four-month delay.
PHOTOGRAPH
-- President Trump presented a campaign-style video during a coronavirus news
briefing on Monday. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
RIGHT NOW
-- President Trump got defensive over his administration’s coronavirus response
in his daily briefing, playing a campaign-style video and criticizing the news
media.
Here’s
what you need to know:
*The
Census Bureau will seek a four-month delay.
*Governors
on both coasts form regional groups to consider when and how to reopen.
*Business
leaders and the C.D.C. warn the economy will recover slowly, even as pressure
grows to reopen it.
*A major
meat plant is closing indefinitely, and a chief executive warns about supply
chain.
*A
stalemate in Congress over interim emergency aid seems likely to continue.
Fauci
seeks to clarify his remarks about Trump’s response as
the White House says the president does not intend to fire him.
*Facing
testing backlogs, sick patients wait all night in their cars at drive-through
sites. Then they wait more.
The Census
Bureau will seek a four-month delay.
Conceding
that its effort to count the nation’s population has been hamstrung by the
pandemic, the Census Bureau said Monday that it would ask Congress for a
four-month delay in delivering the population data used to reapportion the
House of Representatives and political districts across the country.
In a news
release, the bureau said the new deadline would mean that state legislatures
would get final figures for drawing new district maps as late as July 31, 2021.
Delivery of that data normally begins in February.
The bureau
also said it would extend the deadline for collecting census data, now Aug. 15,
to Oct. 31, and would begin reopening its
field offices — which have been shuttered since mid-March — sometime after June
1.
Democrats
who oversee census operations on the House Oversight and Reform Committee
reacted cautiously to the news, which they said was relayed early Monday to a
handful of members of Congress in a telephone call with officials from the
White House and the Commerce Department. The director of the census, Steven
Dillingham, apparently did not participate in the call.
“The
Oversight Committee will carefully examine the
administration’s request, but we need more information than the
administration has been willing to provide,” the committee’s chairwoman,
Representative Carolyn B. Maloney of New York, said in a statement. “If the
administration is trying to avoid the perception of politicizing the census,
preventing the census director from briefing the Committee and then excluding
him from a call organized by the White House are not encouraging moves.”
The 2020
head count has been mired in controversy for more than two years, since the
administration tried to amend the census questionnaire to add a citizenship
query, which was widely seen as an effort to depress participation by immigrant
communities in order to give Republicans a political edge in next year’s
redistricting.
TO TRACK THE
DAILY PROGRESS OF THE INFECTIONS, SEE THIS SITE:
NYT CORONA UPDATES
CONTINUE
Governors on
both coasts form regional groups to consider when and how to reopen.
VIDEO -- Gov.
Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said that some East Coast states would form a
working group to develop a plan for reopening the region.CreditCredit...Peter
Foley/EPA, via Shutterstock
Two groups
of governors, one on the East Coast and one on the West Coast, announced Monday
that they were forming regional working groups to help plan when it would be
safe to begin to ease coronavirus-related restrictions to reopen their
economies.
Their
announcements came hours after President Trump, who has expressed impatience to
reopen the economy, wrote on Twitter that such a decision lies with the president,
not the states.
“Well,
seeing as we had the responsibility for closing the state down,” Gov. Tom Wolf
of Pennsylvania said, “I think we probably have the primary responsibility for
opening it up.”
He joined the
governors of Connecticut, Delaware,
New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island on a conference call, where they agreed
to create a committee of public health officials, economic development
officials and their chiefs of staff to work together as they decide when to
ease the restrictions they have put in place to slow the spread of the virus.
They said they did not necessarily expect to act together or to create a
one-size-fits-all solution, but they stressed the need for regional
cooperation.
On the
West Coast, the governors of California, Oregon and Washington also announced
Monday what they called a Western States Pact to work together on a joint
approach to reopening economies. They said that while each state would have its
own specific plan, the states would build out a West Coast strategy that would
include how to control the virus in the future. “Our states will only be
effective by working together,” they said in a joint statement.
Gov. Gavin
Newsom of California said on Monday that he had been in discussions with the
other governors to coordinate efforts on the West Coast. He said that on
Tuesday he would outline the “California-based thinking” on reopening and
promised it would be guided by “facts,” “evidence” and “science.”
The
stay-at-home orders that
have kept a vast majority of Americans indoors
were issued state by state, by their governors. The president did issue
nonbinding guidelines urging a pause in daily life through the end of the
month; in some states that had resisted such measures, including Florida, his
input helped spur governors to act. If the federal government were to issue new
guidance saying it was safe to relax those measures or outlining a path toward
reopening, many states would most likely follow or feel tremendous pressure
from their businesses and constituents to relax restrictions.
But Mr.
Trump, who said Friday that the decision of when to reopen the country would be
the biggest he would ever make, said Monday on Twitter that it was up to the
president, not the governors, to decide when to reopen the states.
“A
decision by me, in conjunction with the Governors and input from others, will
be made shortly!” he wrote.
Still,
several of the governors who spoke Monday made it clear that they did not
intend to let businesses in their states reopen until experts and data
suggested it would be safe to do so. They noted that their fates were bound by
geography. “The reality is
this virus doesn’t care about state borders, and
our response shouldn’t either,” Gov. Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island said.
“We can
put together a system that allows our people to get back to work,” Gov. Ned
Lamont of Connecticut said. But he warned against reopening too soon and
risking a second wave of infections.
In Texas,
Gov. Greg Abbott said Monday that he was working closely with the White House
on his plan to reopen the state’s businesses. He called for a staggered
approach in which businesses that have a minimal impact on the spread of the
virus would open up first.
“This is
not going to be a rush-the-gates” situation, said Mr. Abbott, who has been
criticized for making Texas one of the last states to issue a statewide
stay-at-home order.
Earlier on
Monday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said New York’s known death toll had exceeded
10,000, with 671 people dying on Sunday. Nearly 2,000 more people were
hospitalized on Sunday — a vast number, though lower than previous tallies —
and there were fewer intubations. But even as he hinted that he believed that
“the worst is over,” he warned the situation would worsen if New Yorkers behaved
recklessly.
“Not as
bad as it has been in the past, but basically flat, and basically flat at a
horrific level of pain and grief and sorrow,” Mr. Cuomo said.
There are
more than 500,000 confirmed cases in the United States and more than 23,000
people dead, according to a New York Times database. In one case, a sailor
assigned to the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt died of complications
stemming from the virus, according to Navy officials. It was the first death
for the ship’s crew, which numbers more than 4,800.
Deaths in
New York City Are More Than Double the Usual Total
Deaths from all
causes have surged, undermining arguments that coronavirus numbers have been
overblown.
April 10, 2020
PANDEMIC
POLITICS Read the full story on how New York’s top political leaders can’t seem
to make peace. And check out our live coverage on New York.
Business
leaders and the C.D.C. warn the economy will recover slowly, even as pressure
grows to reopen it.
Image -- Empty
streets during what would be morning rush hour on Monday in the East Village
neighborhood of Manhattan.Credit...Brittainy Newman/The New York Times
Mr. Trump
is in a rush to lift restrictions, convinced that the move will rocket the
economy out of a deep recession.
Companies
say otherwise. So does a wide variety of economic and survey data, which
suggests the economy will recover slowly even after the government begins to
ease limits on public gatherings and allow certain restaurants and other closed
shops to reopen.
U.S. stocks slipped on Monday, a retreat that followed one of Wall Street’s best weeks in decades, as
investors weighed the implications of a deal to cut oil production and awaited
the release of quarterly earnings reports from corporate America. The S&P
500 fell about 1 percent.
TORNADOES
Tornadoes
that have killed at least 29 people add to the woes of the South as it grapples
with the virus.
Tornadoes
and severe thunderstorms killed at least
29 people in the South after raking across
Mississippi and its neighbors on Sunday night, dealing the region another blow
as virus infections mount.
Gov. Tate
Reeves of Mississippi declared a state of emergency, and parts of Georgia, Tennessee and
Arkansas were also hit by tornadoes and severe thunderstorms on Monday, the
National Weather Service said.
“This is
not how anyone wants to celebrate Easter Sunday,” Mr. Reeves said in a
statement. “As we reflect on the death and resurrection on this Easter Sunday,
we have faith that we will all rise together.”
The storms
struck as the virus ravaged pockets across the South, where public health
officials fear potentially devastating effects because of a mix of bad health,
poverty and flimsy insurance options for the working poor.
A study
involving chloroquine is stopped over concerns of fatal heart complications.
A small study
of chloroquine, which is closely related
to the hydroxychloroquine drug that Mr. Trump has promoted, was halted in
Brazil after virus patients taking a higher dose developed irregular heart
rates that increased their risk of a potentially fatal arrhythmia.
The study,
which involved 81 hospitalized patients in the city of Manaus, was sponsored
by the Brazilian state of Amazonas. Roughly half the participants were
prescribed 450 milligrams of chloroquine twice daily for five days, while
the rest were prescribed 600 milligrams for 10 days.
Within
three days, researchers started noticing heart arrhythmias in patients taking
the higher dose. By the sixth day of treatment,
11 patients had died, leading to an immediate end to the high-dose segment of
the trial.
The researchers
said the study did not have enough
patients in the lower-dose trial to conclude whether chloroquine was
effective in patients with severe cases of Covid-19, the disease caused by the
virus.
Patients
in the trial were also given the antibiotic azithromycin, which carries the same
heart risk. Hospitals in the United States are using azithromycin to treat
virus patients, often in combination with hydroxychloroquine.
Mr. Trump
has promoted them as a potential treatment for the
virus despite little evidence that they work, and despite concerns from health
officials. Companies that manufacture both drugs are ramping up production.
Asked Monday
whether the World Health Organization
would recommend using either chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine to treat virus
patients, Dr. Michael Ryan, the executive director of the organization’s
health emergencies program, said: “There is no empirical evidence from
randomized controlled trials that they have worked, and clinicians have
also been cautioned to look out for side effects of the drugs to ensure that
first we do no harm. We eagerly await the outcome of clinical trials that are
underway.”
Russia has
spread disinformation about health for more than a decade.
The
pandemic has been accompanied by a dangerous surge of false information — an
“infodemic,” according to the World Health Organization. President Vladimir V.
Putin of Russia has played a principal role in the spread of false information
as part of his wider effort to discredit the West, analysts say.
An
investigation by The New York Times — involving
scores of interviews as well as a review of scholarly papers, news reports and
Russian documents, tweets and TV shows — found that Mr. Putin has spread
misinformation on health issues for more than a decade.
His agents
have repeatedly planted and spread the idea that viral epidemics — including
flu outbreaks, Ebola and now the coronavirus — were sown by American scientists. The disinformers have also sought to undermine faith in the
safety of vaccines, a triumph of public health that Mr. Putin himself promotes
at home.
Moscow’s aim,
experts say, is to portray American
officials as playing down the health alarms and thus posing serious threats to
public safety.
“It’s all
about seeding lack of trust in government institutions,” Peter Pomerantsev,
the author of “Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible,” a 2014 book on
Kremlin disinformation, said in an interview.
The State Department recently accused Russia of using thousands of social media accounts to spread coronavirus
misinformation, including a conspiracy theory
that the United States engineered the pandemic.
The
Supreme Court will hear arguments in May by phone.
The
Supreme Court on Monday outlined its plan for
meeting during the pandemic, announcing that it would hear arguments by telephone
over six days in May, including cases on subpoenas from prosecutors and
Congress seeking the president’s financial records.
“In
keeping with public health guidance in response to Covid-19,” a news release
from the court said, “the justices and counsel will all participate
remotely. The court anticipates providing a live audio feed of these arguments
to news media. Details will be shared as they become available.”
The court
said arguments would be heard on May 4, 5, 6, 11, 12 and 13, and it listed the
10 sets of arguments it would hear. But it did not say which cases would be
heard when. That would depend, the court said, on “the availability of
counsel.”
The court
said it would also hear arguments over whether members of the Electoral College
must cast their votes as they had pledged to do.
The virus
contingency plans came as the court was asked to reconsider a decision in light
of the pandemic. Three states asked the court to revisit a January ruling that
allowed the Trump administration to move forward with plans to deny green cards
to immigrants who make even occasional and minor use of public benefits like
Medicaid.
New York,
Connecticut and Vermont, along with New York City, asked the justices to temporarily suspend the new program in light of
the coronavirus pandemic.
“Every
person who doesn’t get the health coverage they need today risks infecting
another person with the coronavirus tomorrow,” said Letitia James, New York’s
attorney general. “Immigrants provide us with health care, care for our
elderly, prepare and deliver our food, clean our hospitals and public spaces,
and take on so many other essential roles in our society, which is why we
should all be working to make testing and health coverage available to every
single person in this country, regardless of immigration status.”
The
pandemic, the motion said, had changed the legal calculus and justified
loosening the administration’s new requirements for the so-called public charge rule.
‘The
player-coaches for the real world.’
As Americans
hunker down during the pandemic, free fitness workouts, many of them
delightfully low-tech, have multiplied on social media platforms.
Here’s
what else is happening in the world.
Reporting
was contributed by Tim Arango, Mike Baker, Peter Baker, Alan Blinder, Jonah
Engel Bromwich, Emily Cochrane, Michael Cooper, Jason DeParle, Sandra E.
Garcia, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Christine Hauser, Jack Healy, John Ismay, Clifford
Krauss, Adam Liptak, Jeffery C. Mays, Jesse McKinley, Aimee Ortiz, Alan
Rappeport, Dagny Salas, Marc Santora, Karen Schwartz, Eliza Shapiro, Knvul
Sheikh, Eileen Sullivan, Vanessa Swales, Jim Tankersley, Katie Thomas and
Michael Wines.
The Coronavirus
Outbreak
Frequently
Asked Questions and Advice
Updated April
11, 2020
When will
this end?
This is a
difficult question, because a lot depends on how well the virus is contained. A
better question might be: “How will we know when to reopen the country?” In
an American Enterprise Institute report, Scott Gottlieb, Caitlin Rivers, Mark
B. McClellan, Lauren Silvis and Crystal Watson staked out four goal posts for
recovery: Hospitals in the state must be able to safely treat all patients
requiring hospitalization, without resorting to crisis standards of care; the
state needs to be able to at least test everyone who has symptoms; the state is
able to conduct monitoring of confirmed cases and contacts; and there must be a
sustained reduction in cases for at least 14 days.
How can I
help?
Charity
Navigator, which evaluates charities using a numbers-based system, has a
running list of nonprofits working in communities affected by the outbreak. You
can give blood through the American Red Cross, and World Central Kitchen has
stepped in to distribute meals in major cities. More than 30,000 coronavirus-related GoFundMe fund-raisers have started
in the past few weeks. (The sheer number of fund-raisers means more of them are
likely to fail to meet their goal, though.)
What
should I do if I feel sick?
If you’ve
been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms
like a cough or difficulty breathing, call a doctor. They should give you
advice on whether you should be tested, how to get tested, and how to seek
medical treatment without potentially infecting or exposing others.
Should I wear
a mask?
The C.D.C.
has recommended that all Americans wear cloth masks if they go out in public.
This is a shift in federal guidance reflecting new concerns that the
coronavirus is being spread by infected people who have no symptoms. Until now, the C.D.C., like the W.H.O., has advised that ordinary
people don’t need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing. Part of
the reason was to preserve medical-grade masks for health care workers who
desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply. Masks
don’t replace hand washing and social distancing.
How do I
get tested?
If you’re
sick and you think you’ve been exposed to the new coronavirus, the C.D.C.
recommends that you call your healthcare provider and explain your symptoms and
fears. They will decide if you need to be tested. Keep in mind that there’s
a chance — because of a lack of testing kits or because you’re asymptomatic,
for instance — you won’t be able to get tested.
How does
coronavirus spread?
It seems
to spread very easily from person to person, especially in homes, hospitals and
other confined spaces. The pathogen can be carried on tiny respiratory
droplets that fall as they are coughed or sneezed out. It may also be
transmitted when we touch a contaminated surface and then touch our
face.
Is there a vaccine yet?
No.
Clinical trials are underway in the United States, China and Europe. But American
officials and pharmaceutical executives have said that a vaccine remains at
least 12 to 18 months away.
What makes
this outbreak so different?
Unlike the
flu, there is no known treatment or vaccine, and
little is known about this particular virus so far. It seems to be more lethal
than the flu, but the numbers are still uncertain. And it hits the elderly and
those with underlying conditions — not just those with respiratory diseases —
particularly hard.
. . . .
The evidence suggests it’s not just stay-at-home orders and other government restrictions that have chilled economic
activity in the United States over the last month: It’s also a behavioral
response from workers and consumers scared of contracting the virus.
Some
government officials have been cautioning that the restart would not happen
instantly and equally nationwide.
Dr. Robert
Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Monday that he expected the reopening to play out “community by
community, county by county,” but that the U.S. would first need to
“substantially augment our public health capacity to do early case identification,
isolation and contact tracing.”
“There’s no doubt that we have to reopen
correctly,” Dr. Redfield said on NBC’s “Today.” “It’s going to be a
step-by-step, gradual process. It’s got to be data-driven.”
Even in places without lockdown orders,
business has suffered and unemployment has increased because Americans are
avoiding restaurants, airports and shopping centers on their own accord to
minimize the risk of infection.
Until
Americans feel widely confident that the risks of the virus have fallen — either through a testing system that far exceeds what is currently
available or ultimately via a vaccine — many economists and business owners
say there will be no economic rebound for the country, regardless of government
restrictions.
Image -- One
member of the Federal Reserve board warned that the process to reopen could
take 18 months.
“This
could be a long, hard road that we have ahead of us until we get to either an
effective therapy or a vaccine,” Neel Kashkari, the president and chief executive
of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, said Sunday on CBS.
The key
will be having enough tests to separate those who have had the virus and those
who have not, particularly finding people who have the virus but are
asymptomatic.
“We should prepare
for the worst-case scenario,” Mr. Kashkari said.
Peter
Navarro, the White House trade adviser who was
among the first to warn Mr. Trump about the potential economic damage from the
virus, is now warning that a prolonged shutdown could be more detrimental to
the U.S. than the virus itself.
“It’s
disappointing that so many of the medical experts and pundits pontificating
in the press appear tone deaf to the very significant losses of life and
blows to American families that may result from an extended economic shutdown,”
Mr. Navarro said in an interview.
Business
owners like Walter Isenberg are among those who Mr. Trump has in mind when he
talks about the need to reopen the economy. Mr. Isenberg’s hotel and restaurant
group in Denver has seen its revenues drop to $40,000 a day from $3 million a
day last year.
But Mr.
Isenberg has no expectation that his company, Sage Hospitality Group,
will see the economic boom that Mr. Trump has promised, even after
state officials allow his properties to begin hosting customers again.
“It’s just
going to be a very long and slow recovery until such time as there is a
therapeutic solution or a vaccine,” Mr. Isenberg, who has furloughed more
than 5,000 of his 6,000 employees, said in an interview. “I’m not a scientist,
but I just don’t see the psyche of people — I don’t see people coming out of
this and rushing out to start traveling and having big conventions.”
RELATED
ARTICLE -- RESTARTING THE ECONOMY WON’T BE SO EASY Economic pain will
persist long after the lockdowns end, evidence suggests.
A major
meat plant is closing indefinitely, and a chief executive warns about supply
chain.
Image -- Nearly
300 workers tested positive at the Smithfield Foods plant in Sioux Falls,
S.D.Credit...Erin Bormett/The Argus Leader, via Associated Press
Smithfield
Foods said Sunday that its plant in Sioux Falls, S.D., one of the nation’s
largest pork processing facilities, would remain closed indefinitely at the
urging of the governor and mayor after 293 workers tested positive for the
virus.
The plant,
which employs 3,700 workers and produces about 130 million servings of
food per week, is responsible for about half of the state’s total number of
cases.
Meat
production workers often work elbow to elbow, cleaning and deboning products
in large open areas filled with hundreds of people. The closure at
Smithfield follows the halting of production at several other poultry and meat
plants across the country as workers have fallen ill with Covid-19.
Many meat
processing facilities have been hit hard by the virus. Three workers have
died at a Tyson Foods poultry plant in Camilla, Ga. Tyson also shut a pork
plant in Iowa after an outbreak there among workers. JBS USA, the world’s
largest meat processor, confirmed the death of one worker at a Colorado facility
and shuttered a plant in Pennsylvania for two weeks.
In a
statement announcing the closure, Smithfield’s chief executive warned that the
closures were threatening the U.S. meat supply. The shuttered plant produces
about 4 percent to 5 percent of the country’s pork, Smithfield said.
“The
closure of this facility, combined with a growing list of other protein plants
that have shuttered across our industry, is pushing our country perilously
close to the edge in terms of our meat supply,” Kenneth M. Sullivan, the
president and chief executive of Smithfield, warned in a statement.
He
continued, “It is impossible to keep our grocery stores stocked if our
plants are not running.”
Several
meat processing corporations are offering cash bonuses to workers who
continue showing up for work amid the pandemic. Workers have said they feel
pressured to do so, even if they are feeling unwell. Smithfield said it
would continue paying Sioux Falls plant workers for two weeks, “and hopes to
keep them from joining the ranks of the tens of millions of unemployed
Americans across the country.”
*Coronavirus
in the U.S.: Latest Map and Case Count
A detailed
county map shows the extent of the coronavirus outbreak, with tables of the
number of cases by county.
A
stalemate in Congress over interim emergency aid seems likely to continue.
Image -- Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Capitol Hill on Thursday.Credit...Anna
Moneymaker/The New York Times
Top
Democratic leaders on Monday doubled down on their insistence that any infusion
of cash for a new loan program to help small businesses affected by the
pandemic must include additional funds for state and local governments,
hospitals, food assistance and rapid testing.
The
demands, reiterated by Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and Senator Chuck
Schumer of New York, the minority leader, is likely to further prolong a
stalemate between lawmakers over what was intended to be an interim emergency
package before another broader stimulus package.
They came
as Democratic leaders announced that the House was pushing back its date for
returning to Washington by two weeks, to May 4. Representative Steny
Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the majority leader, said the House would
remain in recess until that date, “absent an emergency.”
Democrats
on Thursday blocked a bid by Republicans to inject $250 billion of new
funding into the loan program, insisting on adding money for other priorities
and conditions to ensure the loan money would be distributed to small businesses
that typically have trouble obtaining credit. But Republicans refused,
arguing that any additional funding or policy proposals should wait until
future legislation.
“We have real
problems facing this country, and it’s time for the Republicans to quit the
political posturing by proposing bills they know will not pass either chamber
and get serious and work with us toward a solution,” the Democratic leaders
said in a joint statement.
Over the
weekend, Republican leaders said they would continue to push for stand-alone funding* for small businesses. Senator Mitch McConnell
of Kentucky and Representative Kevin McCarthy of California criticized
Democrats for what they called a “reckless threat to continue blocking
job-saving funding unless we renegotiate unrelated programs which are not
in similar peril.”
The
congressional standoff comes as administration officials warn that the loan
program, known as the Paycheck Protection Program and created as
part of the $2 trillion economic stimulus law enacted last month, will soon run
out of funds, even as businesses say they have yet to receive a majority of
the slated billions. The National Governors Association on Saturday also
called on Congress to allocate an additional $500 billion to states and
governments to help offset state revenue shortfalls, more than double what
Democrats initially demanded.
“In the
absence of unrestricted fiscal support of at least $500 billion from the
federal government, states will have to confront the prospect of significant
reductions to critically important services all across this country,
hampering public health, the economic recovery, and — in turn — our collective
effort to get people back to work,” the governors association’s chairman,
Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican, said in a statement with its
vice chairman, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York, a Democrat.
Fauci
seeks to clarify his remarks about Trump’s response as the White House says the
president does not intend to fire him.
Image -- Dr.
Anthony S. Fauci and President Trump during a White House briefing on
Monday.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
Dr.
Anthony S. Fauci, the federal government’s top infectious diseases
specialist, said Monday night during the White House briefing that he had been
responding to a “hypothetical question” when he said over the weekend that more
lives could have been saved had the federal government moved earlier to
shut down schools, businesses and other gatherings.
His
original comments, in an interview on CNN, were seen by some as a veiled
criticism of Mr. Trump, and on Sunday night the president retweeted a message
that said, “Time to #FireFauci” — leading the White House to issue a statement
on Monday saying that the president had no intention of firing him.
On Monday
night Dr. Fauci moved to clean up the controversy. He noted during the White
House’s coronavirus task force briefing that he had been responding to a
hypothetical question, and “there were interpretations of that response to a
hypothetical question” and said that he wanted to clarify what he meant.
Dr. Fauci
said that mitigation policies e — limiting [sic] large gatherings, and
encouraging social distancing — save lives, and could save more lives the
earlier they are put into place. He added that Mr. Trump had taken his
advice when he and Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House task
force on the coronavirus, recommended that he issue guidelines asking Americans
to stay home.
The
unusual White House statement was issued to allay
concerns that Mr. Trump might seek to sideline the veteran scientist at the
very moment when the president is trying to craft a plan to reopen the country
amid the ongoing pandemic, which has killed more than 22,000 Americans.
Dr. Fauci
has urged caution about moving too quickly for fear of unleashing a second wave
of the virus. Hogan Gidley, a White House
spokesman, sought to blame the news media for the confusion over the
president’s intentions even though Mr. Trump retweeted a sharply critical
Twitter message about Dr. Fauci that ended with the hashtag calling for his
dismissal.
“This media
chatter is ridiculous — President Trump is not firing Dr. Fauci,” Mr.
Gidley said in the statement. He added, “Dr. Fauci has been and remains a
trusted adviser to President Trump.”
The president
retweeted the #FireFauci message on Sunday shortly after Dr. Fauci gave
the CNN interview. Along with the retweet, Mr. Trump wrote on Sunday: “Sorry
Fake News, it’s all on tape. I banned China long before people spoke up. ”
Dr. Fauci
was talking about measures that public health experts argued should have come
after limiting travel from China, such as aggressive testing and social
distancing, neither of which took place until weeks later. “The president’s tweet clearly exposed media attempts to maliciously
push a falsehood about his China decision in an attempt to rewrite
history,” Mr. Gidley said.
RELATED
STORY -- A NEW YORK TIMES EXAMINATION
He Could
Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus
An
examination reveals the president was warned about the potential for a
pandemic but that internal divisions, lack of planning and his faith in his own
instincts led to a halting response.
April 11,
2020
Facing
testing backlogs, sick patients wait all night in their cars at drive-through
sites. Then they wait more.
Image -- Nurses
administered Covid-19 nasal swab tests at a drive-thru facility at Bergen
Community College in New Jersey last week.Credit...Ryan Christopher Jones for
The New York Times
The lines
start forming the night before, as people with glassy eyes and violent coughs
try to get tested before the next day’s supplies run out. In the darkness, they
park their cars, cut their engines and try to sleep.
The
backlog for virus testing in New Jersey, the
state with the second-highest caseload in the country, has been getting worse,
not better, officials say.
So far,
New Jersey has conducted over 115,000 tests, about one for every 75 residents.
In New York City, the epicenter of the crisis, there is about one for every 18.
The tests are a critical tool in measuring the disease’s spread and a
requirement for certain forms of treatment. Yet they
remain hard to get, and many are actively discouraged from trying.
“It’s
unequivocally worsening,” Gov. Philip D. Murphy of New Jersey said recently.
Initially,
the strain came from a lack of test kits, but now there are not enough nasal
swabs or nurses. There is a pileup at the labs themselves and a limited supply
of the chemicals needed to identify the virus.
Last
Monday, Anita Holmes-Perez felt so sick that she asked her husband to drive her to a testing site at 10:45 p.m. She spent the night constantly
adjusting her reclining car seat, lying down until the congestion in her chest
forced her to sit up again.
She was
battling a fever, a cough, dizziness and a feeling of confusion. “Like you
don’t know where you are,” she said.
When
medical workers finally took a sample from her the next morning, it would be
shipped across the country because the local lab was too full. Three vans would
take it part of the way. A plane, sent on a detour by a storm, would take it
further. It would be days before she got a result. Until then, Ms.
Holmes-Perez waited.
3 Vans, 6
Coolers, a Plane, a Storm and 2 Labs: A Nasal Swab’s JourneyApril 13, 2020
Emails
reveal why New Orleans went ahead with Mardi Gras, even as the virus loomed.
Image -- Revelers
celebrate Fat Tuesday, the final day of Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans,
on Feb. 25. Credit...Dan Anderson/EPA, via Shutterstock
Twelve
days before thousands gathered in the streets of New Orleans to celebrate Mardi
Gras, Sarah A. Babcock, the director of policy and emergency preparedness
for the city health department, prepared a list of bullet points about the
troubling disease that had already sickened thousands in China but had only
infected 13 known patients in the United States.
“The
chance of us getting someone with coronavirus is low,” Ms. Babcock advised
community health providers, according to internal City of New Orleans emails
obtained by Columbia University’s Brown Institute for Media Innovation and
reviewed by The New York Times.
The
projection proved to be terribly off-base, as New Orleans would soon erupt into
one of the largest hot spots for the virus in the U.S., with one of the nation’s
highest death rates. Experts now widely agree that
the Mardi Gras festivities likely served to accelerate the spread of the highly
contagious disease.
But in the
run-up to Mardi Gras Day, on Feb. 25, there were still only 15 confirmed
cases of the virus in the country. No major events were being canceled anywhere
in the U.S., and “no red flags” had been raised by federal officials, the
city’s mayor said in an interview on CNN.
Still,
according to the emails, city and state officials were planning both for the
celebration and the virus’s eventual arrival, but those preparations were based
on a misunderstanding of how the virus was spreading.
As the
parades began, things appeared fine. A few days later, the first presumptive
virus patient was identified, and reports surfaced of people in other states
who had been to Mardi Gras testing positive for the virus.
stand-alone funding*
“A
retirement (pension or provident) fund is a legal entity, separate from the
employer and service providers. All contributions and investments are held by
the fund in the name of the fund.
A
stand-alone fund serves just one employer; an
umbrella fund combines many employers under one legal structure.”
RELATED STORY
-- MARDI GRAS
Why New Orleans
Pushed Ahead With Mardi Gras, Even as It Planned for Coronavirus
A cache of
internal emails reveals city officials believed chances were “low” that the
festivities would help spread the virus, a prediction that proved
tragically off base.
By Richard
Fausset and Derek Kravitz
April 13, 2020,
2:48 p.m. ET
PHOTOGRAPH
-- Bourbon Street in the French Quarter of New Orleans during Mardi Gras
celebrations on Feb. 25. It would be weeks before the city banned mass
gatherings. Credit...Dan Anderson/EPA, via Shutterstock
ATLANTA —
Twelve days before New Orleans celebrated Mardi Gras Day, the citywide
pre-Lenten bash that would pack thousands of visitors onto the streets, Sarah
A. Babcock, the director of policy and emergency preparedness for the city
health department, prepared a list of bullet points about the troubling disease
that had already sickened thousands in China but had only infected 13 known
patients in the United States.
“The
chance of us getting someone with coronavirus is low,” Ms. Babcock advised
community health providers, according to internal emails obtained by Columbia
University’s Brown Institute for Media Innovation and reviewed by The New York
Times.
The
projection proved to be terribly off base, as New Orleans would soon erupt into
one of the largest hot spots for the coronavirus in the U.S., with one of the
nation’s highest death rates. Experts now believe that the multiweek Mardi Gras
festivities likely served to accelerate the spread of the highly contagious
disease in the New Orleans area.
In recent
days, city officials, including Mayor LaToya Cantrell, have pushed back
forcefully against any suggestion that they had erred by not canceling the celebrations.
And they have found support among public health experts, who note that no major
events were being canceled around the country in the run-up to Mardi Gras Day,
on Feb. 25, when there were still only 15 confirmed cases of the coronavirus in
the country.
“I think
we all were thinking that this was not going to be a huge issue, quite frankly,
and then exponential growth started,” said Dr. Carlos del Rio, Chair of the
Hubert Department of Global Health at the Rollins School of Public Health of
Emory University.
At the
time, he added, “I think the mayor would have been executed if she would have
said, ‘Let’s cancel Mardi Gras.’”
Still, the
emails, more than 2,200 pages in all, offer insight into how one major American
city began planning in mid-January for the virus’s eventual arrival, even as it
continued to prepare for its signature annual party.
The plans
were predicated on a misunderstanding — one seen not just in New Orleans — of
how widely the virus had potentially already spread in the city and across the
country.
TO VIEW
THE EMAILS, GO TO WEBSITE.
Dr.
Jennifer Avegno, director of the New Orleans Health Department, said that the
city’s focus before Mardi Gras was on visitors who might bring the virus with
them. But “there was no way for us to know if we had community spread,” she
said, “because we could not test for it.”
There was
also a tragedy of timing: It was on Mardi Gras Day itself, as floats were
rolling through the streets, that the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention issued its starkest warning up to that point that the virus would
almost certainly spread in the U.S., and that cities should begin planning
social distancing measures.
Ms.
Cantrell, in a March 26 interview on CNN, defended the decision not to cancel
Mardi Gras, noting that “no red flags” had been raised by federal officials at
that point. On the day before Fat Tuesday, in fact, President Trump had
tweeted: “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA.”
ImageMayor
LaToya Cantrell, right, at the start of Mardi Gras, pushed back forcefully
against any suggestion that they had erred by not considering canceling the
celebrations.
Mayor
LaToya Cantrell, right, at the start of Mardi Gras, pushed back forcefully
against any suggestion that they had erred by not considering canceling the
celebrations.Credit...Max Becherer/The Advocate, via Associated Press
“When it’s
not taken seriously at the federal level, it’s very difficult to transcend down
to the local level in making these decisions,” Ms. Cantrell told CNN. “But when
the experts told me that social gatherings would be an issue, I moved forward
with canceling them.”
That was
long after the last Mardi Gras floats had passed through the city.
On Friday,
the C.D.C. released a report stating that Mardi Gras had occurred at a time
when canceling mass gatherings “was not yet common in the United States.” It
also described Louisiana’s elevated number of cases and its “temporarily high
population density because of an influx of visitors during Mardi Gras
celebrations in mid-February.”
The Mardi
Gras season officially began this year, as it does every year, 12 nights after
Christmas, when a 150-year-old carnival krewe, the Twelfth Night Revelers, held
an elegant society ball. The next day, Chinese authorities thousands of miles
away announced they had isolated the new coronavirus that had been sickening
residents of Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province in China.
By
mid-January, according to the internal New Orleans emails, city and state
officials were circulating and digesting the latest updates on the disease from
the federal government, which advised them to look out for patients with a
fever and symptoms of a lower respiratory illness, like a cough or shortness of
breath, as well as a history of traveling from Wuhan.
On Jan.
21, Ms. Babcock circulated a statement among colleagues meant for the news
media that said the department’s emergency preparedness team had been
monitoring the coronavirus “for the past few weeks and began weekly conference
calls with the CDC last week.”
“At this
time,” the note continued, “the CDC is only recommending screening at airports
that receive flights directly from Wuhan, China.”
On Jan.
23, Chinese authorities closed off Wuhan, and its 11 million residents, in an
effort to curb the spread there. Two days later, Dr. Avegno, the head of the
New Orleans Health Department, told colleagues that the “uptick in cases” in
China was “coming fast and furious.”
From that
point, the emails show, the city appeared to go into a more concerted
coronavirus preparation mode.
Image -- Gov.
John Bel Edwards ordered the closures of bars, gyms and movie theaters on March
16, and he limited restaurants to take-out and delivery service.
Gov. John
Bel Edwards ordered the closures of bars, gyms and movie theaters on March 16,
and he limited restaurants to take-out and delivery service.Credit...William
Widmer for The New York Times
William T.
Salmeron, the chief of Emergency Medical Services for the city, told his
colleagues that workers should take “routine exposure control precautions” as
they would in dealing with any respiratory illness. Those included getting the
travel history of anyone with symptoms, giving patients surgical masks, and
moving up to gloves, gown, protective eyewear and an N95 mask “if travel
history risk factors warrant.”
“At this
time the potential risk of infection in the US is LOW,” he wrote.
Collin M.
Arnold, director of the city’s homeland security office, sent an email to Dr.
Avegno and other city officials on Jan. 27, suggesting they “should probably
get together and discuss public safety concerns during Mardi Gras and on the
parade route.”
The New
Orleans Police Department, he said, had been asking about personal protective
equipment “and general concerns (they shake a lot of hands and come in contact
with a lot of people on the route every day).” He suggested putting together a
“guide sheet for all responders” that would offer them “common sense mitigation
tasks.”
That same
day, Tyrell Morris, the executive director of the city’s 911 service, told city
officials about a questionnaire and worksheet that the International Academies
of Emergency Dispatch was suggesting they use for all suspected coronavirus
patients.
Dr. Emily
Nichols, the medical director for the city’s emergency medical services,
suggested they add a question asking suspected carriers whether they had been
within six feet of another person thought to be infected with the virus.
In late
January, the city health department’s emergency preparedness branch emailed
local health care facilities with updates on an active shooter training set for
Jan. 30 at Lambeth House, a retirement community in Uptown New Orleans. Lambeth
House would eventually emerge as the site of one of the worst outbreaks in the
South, with at least 13 residents dying from Covid-19.
The city
was alive to the possibility of the virus arriving by air or by sea.
On Jan.
28, Mr. Salmeron proposed a meeting of city, state and airport officials to
discuss “emergency response actions to ill passengers” arriving at the local
airport. The president of the Louisiana Maritime Association reminded city
officials that the Coast Guard would review incoming ships to the port of New
Orleans.
A
multiagency meeting was scheduled for Feb. 5, with Ms. Babcock telling state
health officials that the city was “trying to make sure that everyone is
prepared for coronavirus before Mardi Gras.”
The day of
the meeting, the mayor’s office posted a news item on the city’s website noting
that the federal government had not recommended screening at Louis Armstrong
New Orleans International Airport, and had begun rerouting all flights with
passengers from China to one of 11 other airports where screening was taking
place.
“Our
public health and health care systems are ready for Mardi Gras,” it said, “and
the coronavirus poses a very low risk to the Carnival celebrations.”
In an
email sent Feb. 26, the day after Mardi Gras Day, Dr. Avegno made it clear
that, while the city was taking the coronavirus threat seriously, officials
were not yet planning to call for strict measures to limit its spread.
“I’m a little
hesitant to put in the social distancing stuff but since CDC mentioned it, we
probably should” she wrote. “I added some words to make it more clear we
weren’t going to run around willy-nilly quarantining people, but would be
following state/federal guidance.”
Daily “sit
reps,” or situation reports, began going out to New Orleans officials beginning
March 3. While acknowledging the spread of the virus was a “rapidly evolving
situation,” the city did not recommend any closures because the state had no confirmed
cases.
IMAGE –
PHOTOGRAPH -- A drive-through testing site for Covid-19 in New Orleans on March
27.Credit...Kathleen Flynn/Reuters
A few days
later, on March 9, the first presumptive coronavirus patient in Louisiana was
identified in New Orleans — a resident of nearby Jefferson Parish who was in a
city hospital. Reports began surfacing of people in other states, including
Arkansas, Texas and Tennessee, who had been to Mardi Gras and were testing
positive for the virus.
The next
day, Ms. Cantrell canceled a number of beloved street-level events that have
traditionally served as raucous addenda to Mardi Gras — parades celebrating St.
Joseph’s Day and St. Patrick’s Day, and Super Sunday, in which the city’s Mardi
Gras Indian tribes display their beaded and feathered suits.
By March
16, three people had died from complications of Covid-19 in Louisiana and there
were 136 confirmed cases in the state. Gov. John Bel Edwards ordered the
closures of bars, gyms, and cinemas, and limited restaurants to takeout and
delivery service.
Dr. Avegno
said city and state officials had moved as quickly as they could once they
realized what they were facing.
“We shut
down parades, we shut down schools — within a week, completely changing our way
of life,” Dr. Avegno said. “I can’t think of anything more drastic than
shutting down the bars of New Orleans.”
Over the
next several weeks, the virus continued its unabated spread across Louisiana.
By Monday,
state officials had reported more than 10,500 coronavirus cases in Orleans
Parish and the adjacent suburb of Jefferson Parish. Across the state, at least
840 residents infected with the coronavirus have died.
Richard
Fausset reported from Atlanta and Derek Kravitz, a data journalist at Columbia
University’s Brown Institute for Media Innovation, from New York.
More on
the Coronavirus in the U.S.
The Costly
Toll of Not Shutting Down Spring Break EarlierApril 11, 2020
AND NOW, BACK
TO GOOD OLD ALL-AMERICAN PARTY POLITICS.
THE FOLLOWING
ARTICLES ARE ON THE GENERAL SUBJECT OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY NOMINATING PROCESS
AND NOVEMBER ELECTION.
Opinion
It’s Obvious
Whom Joe Biden Should Pick as Vice President
He needs a
running mate who strengthens the ticket in the areas where he is weakest. One
person stands out.
By Steve
Phillips
Mr. Phillips is
the host of the podcast “Democracy in Color With Steve Phillips.”
April 14, 2020
PHOTOGRAPH
-- Stacey Abrams can boost enthusiasm among voters that crosses racial, gender
and age demographics — precisely the areas Joe Biden needs to bolster.
Credit...Audra Melton for The New York Times
As Joe
Biden formally begins his vice-presidential selection process, he needs to find
a running mate who strengthens the Democratic ticket in the areas where he is
weakest. The nomination contest has highlighted three sizable shortcomings that
imperil his quest to defeat President Trump.
First, he
has failed to generate nearly any interest, let alone meaningful support, among
young people in the presidential primaries. Second, he has consistently lost
the Latino vote. And third, he suffers from a well-documented enthusiasm gap
that could undermine his candidacy in the same way that Hillary Clinton failed
to generate voter excitement, resulting in a drop in voter turnout among key
constituencies, particularly African-Americans, whose diminished motivation and
engagement resulted in the collapse of the Democratic “Blue Wall” states of Wisconsin,
Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Mr.
Biden’s minuscule levels of support among voters 18 to 29 — the electoral
engine of Bernie Sanders’s campaign — has been alarming. In Michigan, a state
he won handily over Mr. Sanders, Mr. Biden still secured only 19 percent of the
youth vote. Even in South Carolina, the place that transformed the Biden
candidacy, he still lost the under-30 vote to Mr. Sanders by 17 points, a
margin that was twice as bad as Mrs. Clinton’s 2016 deficit against the same
opponent in the same state.
Of note —
and what should be of great concern to the Biden team — is that this weakness
with young voters transcends racial lines. A veritable rainbow coalition of
young voters have regularly rejected the former vice president in state after state.
In November, this weakness will loom large as Generation Z voters, those 18 to
24 years old, will make up twice the percentage of all voters that they did in
2016.
A second
priority needs to be targeting Latinos, who are now the largest nonwhite group
in America and whose swelling population numbers bolster Democratic prospects
in emerging swing states like Arizona and Texas, as well as closely fought
Florida. Even in the key Midwestern states, there are hundreds of thousands of
Latino voters who could tip the balance in a close contest. In the presidential
primaries, Mr. Biden has lost the Latino vote to Mr. Sanders in every state.
More on
Joe Biden and the 2020 election
Opinion |
Joe Biden
Joe Biden:
My Plan to Safely Reopen AmericaApril 12, 2020
Opinion |
The Editorial Board
Hey Kids:
Get Out There and Vote!April 12, 2020
The
Democrats’ biggest challenge lies in the lack of enthusiasm for Mr. Biden among
voters, even those who generally support him. The enthusiasm problem is highly
problematic across the board — recent polls show Mr. Trump’s supporters are far
more enthusiastic than Mr. Biden’s — but it is acutely dangerous with
African-Americans, the most reliably Democratic voters.
The
greatest potential risk is the same kind of overconfidence and complacency
regarding black voters that doomed Mrs. Clinton’s campaign. She dominated among
black voters in her primary contest against Mr. Sanders and consequently felt
secure enough in her standing with African-Americans that she chose to present
an all-white Democratic ticket. The results were cataclysmic, with black voter
turnout falling off a cliff and dropping to a 16-year low, enabling Mr. Trump
to prevail in critical Midwestern states that tipped the Electoral College.
There is
no question that Mr. Biden will win an overwhelming percentage of those
African-Americans who cast ballots. But more important, victory or defeat will
depend on what percentage of eligible black voters actually turn out.
His search
committee is likely to conduct polling designed to determine how particular
demographic groups will respond to his potential political partners. At best,
polling is predictive, offering educated guesses. However, the analysis need
not be left to conjecture: Many of the possible picks have run in statewide
elections, the data from which offer actual evidence of the relative strengths
and weaknesses of the prospects.
All that
Mr. Biden has said on the subject is that he intends to name a woman as his
running mate.
Of the
people most often mentioned as being on the vice-presidential short list,
Stacey Abrams of Georgia, Senator Kamala Harris of California, Senator Amy
Klobuchar of Minnesota, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Senator Catherine
Cortez Masto of Nevada and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts have all
run in statewide elections in which exit polls were conducted. That data offers
the chance for an apples-to-apples comparison of relative electoral strength
with the key demographic groups needed to strengthen the Democratic ticket.
A close
examination of the electoral track records of the possible partners shows that
Ms. Abrams best offers what Mr. Biden most needs (to be clear, Ms. Abrams is on
the board of the Center for American Progress, where I am a senior fellow, but
board members, including Ms. Abrams, have no input on what fellows write). In
terms of success with young people, Barack Obama’s political popularity is
unquestioned, and therefore his support levels among that demographic offer a
valuable measuring stick. Of the potential nominees, only Ms. Abrams
outperformed Mr. Obama in her state, winning the 18-to-29-year-old vote in
Georgia by nearly 30 points; Mr. Obama lost that group by three points. Only Senator
Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, another common name on potential V.P. lists,
equaled Mr. Obama’s performance with young voters in her state. The other
contenders for whom there is data underperformed Mr. Obama in their most recent
competitive race by significant margins.
The
available data on popularity among Latinos is more limited, but in the states
that do offer such information — Georgia, California, Michigan and Nevada — Ms.
Abrams secured the most Latino support, garnering 62 percent of her state’s
Latino vote in 2018. Ms. Cortez Masto, who is herself Latina, was also very
strong with that demographic.
It is in
the realm of African-American voter enthusiasm that Ms. Abrams is without peer.
Not only did she win 93 percent of the black vote in her race for governor — a
higher percentage than any of the other potential vice-presidential picks won
in their statewide races — but few candidates (if any) in the history of this
country have increased black turnout in a statewide election to the extent that
Ms. Abrams did in 2018. Black voter turnout jumped 40 percent in Georgia in
2018, an astounding level of strength that not only can bring the Midwestern
states back into the Democratic fold but also has the potential to expand the
map of competitive states to Georgia, North Carolina, Florida and Texas.
Among the
other contenders, a recent poll (by Data for Progress for the group Way to Win)
found that Ms. Harris ran a close second to Ms. Abrams in terms of support
among African-Americans.
Ultimately,
Mr. Biden will make a pick based on comfort, fit and fitness for the office,
and there is no shortage of talented women he can choose. If he wants to base
his decision on the available evidence and proven success in areas where he has
failed, then choosing Stacey Abrams is the smartest move.
Steve
Phillips (@StevePtweets), the host of the podcast “Democracy in Color With
Steve Phillips” and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, is the
author of “Brown Is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a
New American Majority.”
The Times
is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to
hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And
here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.
Follow The
New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and
Instagram.
READER
COMMENTS
Maxy Green
Teslaville2h
ago
Times Pick
One name.
Happens to be a white male. Andrew Cuomo.
Depending how he handles the "re-opening" of NY State and a possible
battle with Trump over that, he can help Biden beat Trump. Stacy Abrams, not
exactly someone who is in a position to lead anything. Bad timing for her with
this virus situation.
Bill
Brasky
USA3h ago
Times Pick
NOT Stacey
Abrams!
She has NO
executive experience
NO national
experience
She
couldn't even win a statewide race against a weak candidate.
She's not
ready for the big leagues and couldn't even hold her own against Pence.
Dwntwnatty
LA5h ago
Times Pick
It’s going
to be, it has to be Klobuchar.
jrs
hollywood,
ca5h ago
Times Pick
How about
forgetting polling data and choosing the person who would be the best president
should something happen to Joe?
Iris
NY6h ago
Times Pick
People
vote for president, not for vice president. Lots of VP picks have been based on
hopes that they would help with this or that constituency, and there is no
empirical evidence that it has ever worked. Biden should pick the candidate who
would make the best president in the event of his death. His VP pick will not
materially affect the election.
Marni
St. Paul,
MN6h ago
Times Pick
One of the
drawbacks to selecting Abrams is certainly her limited experience in holding
political office. Let's not forget,
however, that Trump was elected to the presidency with ZERO experience. Trump's lack of experience was exacerbated by
his underwhelming intelligence and
inability to lead a cohesive administration.
I believe that Abrams has clearly demonstrated all the necessary
characteristics for being an extraordinary leader this country so desperately
needs. Her vision, life experience, and
innate ability to reach across all boundaries make her much more prepared for
the role of a strong (and empathetic) political leader.
Dylan
Indiana6h
ago
Times Pick
I wonder
when we'll get to the point that having the right candidate for minorities will
go further than being the right color. When we market our politicians based on
their skin tone, does that increase or decrease the speed of progress? That's a
fairly abstract question and I doubt there is an answer.
What is
less abstract is how silly it is comparing different states demographic data
and using that to evaluate how popular individual candidates are nationwide.
That seems as far from "apples-to-apples" as anything. We even admit
that some states don't have data at all.
Furthermore,
do the blacks and latino populations have the same concerns in the south as in
the north? Between Michigan and Nevade? I guess since we give them one name
they must be a homogeneous group, faceless except for broad, general
declarations of their wants and needs. Another dividing line that we have
carefully constructed.
tedb
St. Paul
MN6h ago
Times Pick
I'll take
a sitting U.S. Senator over a former Georgia state legislator any day. Welcome,
Kamala Harris!
This
conversation wouldn't even be necessary, were it not for Biden's hasty
announcement about guaranteeing a female running mate. Otherwise Andrew Cuomo's
addition to the ticket would've reflected the perfect pairing of competence and
compassion.
Mindful
Ohio6h ago
Times Pick
I love
Stacey Abrams, but I also agree with other commenters that we need someone with
more experience in VP role given Biden’s age. I favor Elizabeth Warren for VP.
I think Ms. Abrams would do a great job in President Biden’s cabinet. Perhaps
she can repair in Housing and Urban Development what Carson has destroyed, and
I can see her fixing the problems made by DeVos in Education. Perhaps we can
create a new cabinet level post for elections? She has lots of experience
addressing inequities there given her leadership on this issue.
Scarlett
NYC6h ago
Times Pick
@Barbara
Escher I agree. No. Kamala Harris, Klobuchar or Whitmer are much
better choices. We need someone ready on
Day 1. Abrams has a very promising future
but not ready for VP now. We cant take
any chances!
BARACK OBAMA
FINALLY SPEAKS UP. OF COURSE, HIS HIGH ETHICAL SENSE AND PERSONAL RESTRAINT
ALLOWED HIM TO HOLD BACK UNTIL NOW. THERE HAVE BEEN RUMBLINGS ABOUT HIS
OPPOSITION TO BERNIE SANDERS’ AS A CANDIDATE: “UNABLE TO WIN” AND PERHAPS
WORSE, BUT HE DOESN’T MERELY SPEAK WELL OF BERNIE. HE GIVES HIM HIGH
PRAISE.
Barack Obama
Endorsed Joe Biden For President And Praised Bernie Sanders' Campaign
"I believe
Joe has all of the qualities we need in a president right now," Obama said
of his former vice president.
Posted on April
14, 2020, at 1:12 p.m. ET
Ryan Brooks
BuzzFeed News
Reporter
PHOTOGRAPH
-- Screen capture from the endorsement video.
Barack
Obama endorsed his former vice president Joe Biden’s presidential campaign in a
nearly 12-minute address uploaded to YouTube on Tuesday morning, while
acknowledging the movement that Sen. Bernie Sanders built over the course of
his two presidential runs.
“I’m so
proud to endorse Joe Biden for president of the United States,” Obama said near
the top of his address. “Choosing Joe to be my vice president was one of the
best decisions I ever made and he became a close friend. And I believe Joe has
all of the qualities we need in a president right now.”
Obama
recalled Biden’s work in his administration to come back from crises like the
coronavirus pandemic facing America now, specifically highlighting Biden’s
roles in creating and implementing programs to recover from the recession at
the start of his term and his work in response to the H1N1 and Ebola outbreaks.
“Joe has
the character and the experience to guide us through one of our darkest times
and heal us through a long recovery,” Obama said.
The Obama
endorsement comes after a primary that saw nearly 30 Democrats seek the party’s
presidential nomination and that was interspersed with events that have taken
the spotlight off the election, including an impeachment trial and a global
pandemic that has now left the general election campaign stuck in a
livestreamed purgatory.
“Joe will
be a better candidate for having run the gauntlet of primaries and caucuses
alongside one of the most impressive Democratic fields ever. Each of our
candidates were talented and decent with the track record of
accomplishment, smart ideas, and serious visions for the future,” Obama said. “That’s
certainly true for the candidate that made it farther than any other — Bernie
Sanders.”
“Bernie is
an American original,” he added. “A man who has devoted his life to giving
voice to working people’s hopes, dreams, and frustrations.” He said that they
both know that “nothing is more powerful than millions of voices calling for
change” and that the ideas and energy he has inspired is “critical” to move the
country forward.
youtube.com
The praise
for Sanders and his movement comes less than a week after the senator ended his
own presidential campaign and just a day after he appeared on a surprise
livestreamed event with Biden to offer his endorsement.
Biden has
moved to embrace policy suggestions from both Sanders' and Warren’s campaigns in
an effort to bring their voters his corner. In mid-March, while Sanders was
still in the race, Biden announced over a series of tweets that he was adopting
a past Sanders proposal to make universities tuition-free for families who make
under $125,000 (Sanders now supports free tuition for all). Biden then adopted
Warren’s plan to overhaul the consumer bankruptcy system.
Some
high-profile Sanders supporters, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, are
calling for Biden to do much more.
Biden has
also made efforts to directly address Sanders supporters and spoken about their
concerns over the course of his
livestreamed events since he became the presumptive Democratic nominee.
In his
endorsement, Obama specifically called for changing the health care system by
creating a public option and expanding Medicare and giving “relief” to people
with “crushing student loan debt.”
“The world
is different. There’s too much unfinished business for us to just look
backwards,” Obama said. “We have to look to the future. Bernie understands that
and Joe understands that.”
MORE ON
THE 2020 CAMPAIGN
Bernie
Sanders Endorsed Joe Biden And Previewed A Big Role In His Campaign
Henry J.
Gomez · April 13, 2020
THIS FOX
ARTICLE GIVES MORE DETAIL THAN ONE FROM YESTERDAY ON SANDERS’ WORKERS’ REVOLT,
BUT I CAN’T HELP NOTICING THE NUMBER OF TIMES THE WRITER GREG RE COMPLAINED
THAT WHILE THE NYT HAD GIVEN BIDEN A BREAK, IT HAD BEEN MUCH HARSHER TOWARD
KAVANAUGH. HE WAS MISTREATED, APPARENTLY.
Published 6
hours agoLast Update 2 hours ago, [APRIL 13, 2020]
Sanders
campaign reps revolt after Sanders endorses Biden, openly attack former vice
president
Gregg Re By
Gregg Re | Fox News
Bernie
Sanders endorsed Joe Biden for president on Monday, but any illusions that the
move would bring an end to long-simmering tensions between the Democratic Party's
liberal and moderate wings quickly evaporated in a matter of minutes.
Briahna
Joy Gray, who served as Sanders' national press secretary, and prominent Sanders
surrogate Shaun King immediately took aim at Biden --
and they made it clear just how much the former vice president's platform
differed from Sanders' longstanding policy goals.
"With
the utmost respect for Bernie Sanders, who is an incredible human being & a
genuine inspiration, I don't endorse Joe Biden," Gray wrote. "I
supported Bernie Sanders because he backed ideas like #MedicareForAll,
cancelling ALL student debt, & a wealth tax. Biden supports none of
those."
Additionally,
Gray indicated she agreed that it was "almost insulting" for Biden
to suggest lowering the Medicare eligibility age to 60, in lieu of adopting
universal health coverage.
NEW YORK
TIMES STEALTH-EDITS PIECE ON BIDEN SEXUAL HARASSMENT ALLEGATION
Gray had
also hammered Biden on Sunday after The New York Times belatedly covered a
sexual assault allegation against him on Sunday: "I’m not sure how
that line from the NYT’s long-delayed coverage of Tara Reade’s accusation can
sit alongside reporting that 7 other women have accused Biden of sexual
misconduct," Gray tweeted. (Biden's campaign has denied the accusation.)
Briahna Joy
Gray
✔
@briebriejoy
With the
utmost respect for Bernie Sanders, who is an incredible human being & a
genuine inspiration, I don't endorse Joe Biden.
I
supported Bernie Sanders because he backed ideas like #MedicareForAll,
cancelling ALL student debt, & a wealth tax. Biden supports none of
those.
40.6K
3:03 PM -
Apr 13, 2020
Twitter
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13.1K
people are talking about this
She then
noted that Sanders, during the campaign, had "graciously" not
mentioned Biden's "credible sexual assault allegations,"
"pattern of unwanted touching," involvement with Burisma Holdings, or
"lying [about his] civil rights record."
Meanwhile,
as Sanders and Biden conversed via livestream on Monday, King called the moment
an obviously choreographed and embarrassing exercise.
"I
can hardly believe what I am watching. In his conversation with @BernieSanders,
@JoeBiden is clearly reading from a
TelePrompTer. It's supposed to be a CONVERSATION. I've never seen this happen
in my entire life," he said.
Video -- Why
Bernie Sanders is staying on Democrat ballot
King
posted an article outlining a slew of requirements before he would consider
endorsing Biden, including action on "mass incarceration" and a
promise to pick a running mate to his satisfaction.
"I've
now counted at least 50 times that @JoeBiden blatantly lied about his participation
in the Civil Rights Movement from sit-ins he never participated in to marches
he was not a part of, to being trained in Black churches as a boy,"
King wrote. "He must apologize & explain this."
A former
Sanders aide told Fox News after the announcement that the senator "always
said he was going to fully support the nominee and do everything he could to
help them get Trump out of office, so this is just making good on his word
which Bernie Sanders always does."
Shaun King
✔
@shaunking
I can
hardly believe what I am watching.
In his
conversation with @BernieSanders - @JoeBiden is clearly reading from a
TelePrompTer.
It's
supposed to be a CONVERSATION.
I've never
seen this happen in my entire life.
https://twitter.com/BernieSanders/status/1249760437853401097 …
Bernie
Sanders
✔
@BernieSanders
We must
come together to defeat the most dangerous president in modern history. I'm
joining @JoeBiden's livestream with a special announcement. https://www.pscp.tv/w/cWNPujMyNzU3OTl8MXZPeHdvQWpRVlZ4Qvbax3QDC0yb4kTtT7-BHtbhgi4RRgnR9qCSW_S160hl
…
8,167
2:26 PM -
Apr 13, 2020
Twitter
Ads info and privacy
3,170
people are talking about this
Sen.
Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who is closer ideologically with Sanders, still has not
endorsed anybody since suspending her presidential campaign and has not
responded to requests for comment on an update.
And,
President Trump has also taken to pointing out that Biden still hasn't secured
the support of his former boss Barack Obama.
HUNTER
BIDEN SCANDALS EXPLAINED: UKRAINE, COCAINE, AND MORE
"I
don't know why President Obama hasn't supported Joe Biden a long time ago. There's
something he feels is wrong," Trump said last week.
"He
knows something that you don't know, that I think I know. But you don't
know," he added. "I'm sure he's got to come
out at some point because he certainly doesn't want to see me for four more
years."
Fox News'
Paul Steinhauser, Madeleine Rivera, Allie Raffa, and Andrew Craft contributed
to this report.
Gregg Re
is a lawyer and editor based in Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter @gregg_re or
email him at gregory.re@foxnews.com.
HERE ARE BERNIE
AND BIDEN TOGETHER ON PROPER GOALS FOR DEMOCRATS AND PROGRESSIVES IN A POSITIVE
DISCUSSION ON UNIONS AND MORE. MOST OF BERNIE’S SUBJECTS ARE TOUCHED ON AT
LEAST A BIT IN THIS SPEECH, INCLUDING HIS WELL-KNOWN DESCRIPTION OF DONALD
TRUMP; AND BERNIE FORMALLY ENDORSES JOE BIDEN, WITH APPARENT WARMTH AND WILLINGNESS.
OF COURSE, HE HAS TO BE DISAPPOINTED. HE’S A STRONG PERSON, THOUGH, AND IS
BEHAVING LIKE A GENTLEMAN, UNLIKE SOMEONE I CAN THINK OF. YOU CAN HAVE THREE
GUESSES, AND THE FIRST TWO DON’T COUNT AS TO WHO THAT MIGHT BE.
I HOPE THIS WILL
MAKE ALL OF US BERNIECRATS VOTE FOR BIDEN IN NOVEMBER (IF THE ELECTION HASN’T
BEEN PUSHED BACK THAT IS), BECAUSE NOT TO DO SO IS SIMPLY FOOLISH. OF COURSE,
THAT DOESN’T MEAN IT WILL HAPPEN, AND IF IT DOESN’T, PREPARE FOR FOUR MORE
YEARS OF D.J. TRUMP.
WE MUST DEFEAT
DONALD TRUMP
LIVE AT 2:00
PM, APRIL 13, 2020
BERNIE SANDERS
WATCH LIVE:
Bernie Sanders endorses Joe Biden during virtual event on economic response to
COVID-19
5,082 views •
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HERE IS BARACK
OBAMA RAZZING THE REPUBLICANS AT THE ANNUAL PRESS CLUB CORRESPONDENTS’ DINNER.
32:37 minutes
duration
"Obama
out:" President Barack Obama's hilarious final White House correspondents'
dinner speech
33,866,139
views • Apr 30, 2016
Ups 301K
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**** ****
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