Here is Haberman’s report on Trump’s recent support for lockdown protests: “he is road-testing a new turn on a familiar theme — veering into messages aimed at appealing to Americans whose lives have been disrupted by the stay-at-home orders… two other people close to the president, who asked for anonymity in order to speak candidly, said they thought the protests could be politically helpful to Mr. Trump, while acknowledging there might be public health risks.”
Frum puts it more starkly: “What if reopening leads to a surge in deaths that cannot be politically contained? In that case, Trump reverts to his Plan B: a culture war against Democratic governors and blue states.”
Here is a good piece on the Washington lobbying groups who are behind the protests, mainly old Tea Party groups Freedom Works and Tea Party Patriots.
This week the Governor of Georgia, taking cues from Trump, said he was re-opening his state, discussed with with Trump on the phone Tuesday night, and then Wednesday Trump said at a press briefing that he disagreed with the decision. The article is also a good list of states that are relaxing their lockdowns by the end of the month: Alabama, Tennessee, Texas, South Carolina, Florida, and Colorado.
The Senate passed a $484 billion deal Tuesday to replenish a small-business loan program that’s been overrun by demand and to devote more money to hospitals and coronavirus testing.
The House passed a new stimulus bill Thursday. Democrats got much of what they wanted: the small-business “got $320 billion in new funds, including $60 billion secured by Democrats to be funneled through smaller community lenders to reach businesses that can struggle to get loans from big banks. Also included were $60 billion to replenish exhausted Small Business Administration disaster relief accounts, $75 billion for hospitals and $25 billion for Covid-19 testing, plus a mandate that the Trump administration establish a strategy to help states vastly step up the deployment of tests throughout the country — a move Republicans had opposed.”
As an indication for how the daily press briefings are going, on Thursday Trump said this: So supposing we hit the body with tremendous whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light. And I think you said that hasn’t been checked but you’re going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you’re going to test that too. Sounds interesting. And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that, so, that, you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me, so we’ll see. But the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute, that’s pretty powerful.
This New York Times piece checks in on how Trump is dealing with his own lock down:
-“President Trump arrives in the Oval Office these days as late as noon, when he is usually in a sour mood after his morning marathon of television.”
-“the president’s primary focus, advisers said, is assessing how his performance on the virus is measured in the news media, and the extent to which history will blame him.”
-“The daily White House coronavirus task force briefing is the one portion of the day that Mr. Trump looks forward to, although even Republicans say that the two hours of political attacks, grievances and falsehoods by the president are hurting him politically. Mr. Trump will hear none of it. Aides say he views them as prime-time shows that are the best substitute for the rallies he can no longer attend but craves.”
-“Mr. Trump rarely attends the task force meetings that precede the briefings, and he typically does not prepare before he steps in front of the cameras. He is often seeing the final version of the day’s main talking points that aides have prepared for him for the first time although aides said he makes tweaks with a Sharpie just before he reads them live. “
This from the New York Times on Trump’s election prospects: President Trump’s erratic handling of the coronavirus outbreak, the worsening economy and a cascade of ominous public and private polling have Republicans increasingly nervous that they are at risk of losing the presidency and the Senate if Mr. Trump does not put the nation on a radically improved course.
According to reporting by the New York Times: In recent weeks, the president’s family business has inquired about changing its lease payments, according to people familiar with the matter, which the federal government has reported amount to nearly $268,000 per month. … The younger Mr. Trump said the company was asking the G.S.A. for any relief that it might be granting other federal tenants.
Another 4.4 million people filed for unemployment, bringing the total to 26 million.
Personal Log: Relatives in New Jersey with prior health conditions got a note from their doctor to be tested; they went to a drive through testing cite, were initially told they could not be tested without a doctor’s note and an appointment, but after stating their conditions, were allowed to be tested: the nasal swab through the window. They received their negative results via phone call the next day.
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Trump Approval Rating: 43.4%
US COVID-19 Cases/Deaths with % increase: 865,585 (30.8%) / 48,816 (47.7%)