Current Affairs Of Pakistan & World: Playbook PM: Washington gets a brutal Covid reality check

Playbook PM: Washington gets a brutal Covid reality check

Oct 02, 2020

By Anna Palmer, Jake Sherman, Eli Okun and Garrett Ross

Presented by Facebook

AMERICANS HAVE BEEN LIVING A GRIM REALITY for seven months -- a sheltered and lonely existence tainted by disease, layoffs and general malaise.

BUT THE POLITICAL CLASS IN WASHINGTON has been chugging along as if little has changed. Congress comes into session nearly every week without an institutional testing mandate -- thank the bipartisan leadership for that. President DONALD TRUMP holds mostly maskless rallies -- and, for good measure, this week his out-of-town event was matched with a Trump Victory watch party at the Trump Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, where lawmakers mingled with one another. And Congress and the administration have been unable to notch a Covid relief agreement for months.

REALITY HAS SUDDENLY INTRUDED ON THE CAPITAL CITY.

TRUMP is in the White House residence, suffering from what aides say are mild symptoms from Covid-19 -- the protective bubble the White House created, pierced. At least one member of the Senate -- MIKE LEE, Republican of Utah -- tested positive, after hobnobbing on the White House lawn, meeting with AMY CONEY BARRETT and attending a Senate Judiciary meeting, at times without a mask.

AND, ALL OF A SUDDEN, the city's political calculuses appear to have changed.

A COVID RELIEF DEAL between Speaker NANCY PELOSI and Treasury Secretary STEVEN MNUCHIN is suddenly looking a smidge more likely. PELOSI suggested the two sides were coming to terms on a price tag, and were expected to focus now on crafting legislative language. (Stay tuned to see what the Senate thinks of it.) And if a deal isn't reached, Congress seems poised to bail out the nation's airlines, once again. (FWIW: House Majority Leader STENY HOYER is getting plaudits for pushing the vote on the pared-back relief package Thursday night -- who knows if and when the chamber will vote again.)

WELCOME TO OCTOBER, FOLKS. ONE MONTH and one day until Election Day. TEN DAYS until confirmation hearings are due to commence for BARRETT.

WILD DETAIL: PELOSI learned about TRUMP'S Covid diagnosis from her staff -- they did not hear from the White House, according to a source with direct knowledge. The BIDEN camp also did not hear from the WHITE HOUSE.

VIRUS CHECK … CORONA POSITIVE: TRUMP, first lady MELANIA TRUMP, RNC Chair RONNA ROMNEY MCDANIEL, White House aide HOPE HICKS and LEE. Notre Dame President Rev. JOHN JENKINS, who was at the White House unmasked for the Barrett announcement Saturday, also tested positive.

-- AWAITING RESULTS: PELOSI (she did television hits from Russell and we tried to catch her in the halls, but she was on the phone).

-- NOT BEEN TESTED: Sen. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-Iowa), No. 3 in line to the president, per BURGESS EVERETT -- GRASSLEY was at Wednesday's Judiciary hearing with LEE.

-- RADIO SILENCE: Senate Majority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL.

-- NEGATIVE: JOE and JILL BIDEN, VP MIKE PENCE and KAREN PENCE, Secretary of State MIKE POMPEO, MNUCHIN, W.H. COS MARK MEADOWS, HHS Secretary ALEX AZAR, and Sen. KAMALA HARRIS (D-Calif.) and DOUG EMHOFF.

IT'S WORTH REMEMBERING that these tests don't always capture coronavirus infections, especially very recent ones. There can be false positives as well.

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SENATE MINORITY LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER says he thinks Congress needs a testing program. He said Trump testing positive "demonstrates that the Senate needs a testing and contact tracing program for Senators, staff, and all who work in the Capitol complex. We simply cannot allow the administration's cavalier attitude to adversely affect this branch of government." (h/t BURGESS )

-- BOTH MCCONNELL and PELOSI have declined to move forward with instituting a congressional testing system. The White House in May offered to provide rapid testing kits.

NYT'S MAGGIE HABERMAN on TRUMP: "President Trump is showing symptoms of the novel coronavirus, but mild ones, according to two people familiar with his condition. The president has had what one person described as cold-like symptoms. At a fund-raiser he attended at his golf club at Bedminster, N.J., on Thursday, where one attendee said the president came in contact with about 100 people, he seemed lethargic.

"A person briefed on the matter said that Mr. Trump fell asleep at one point on Air Force One on the way back from a rally in Minnesota on Wednesday night. A White House official said that as of Thursday night, the president's treatment plan was still being discussed. So was a possible national address or a videotaped statement from the president to demonstrate that he was functioning and that the government is uninterrupted."

THE PRESIDENT has canceled his travel for this evening, according to W.H. pooler Thomas Howell of the Washington Times.

IN NEW JERSEY -- "Murphy urges attendees at Trump fundraiser in Bedminster to get tested, self-quarantine," by Matt Friedman

THE POLITICAL FALLOUT -- "'This is the worst nightmare for the Trump campaign,'" by David Siders and Charlie Mahtesian: "Donald Trump had done everything possible to shift the focus of the presidential campaign away from his handling of the coronavirus.

"His own infection now ensures that he can't – pulling Trump off the road 32 days before the election, throwing debates into question and fixing the [public's attention] more squarely than ever on a pandemic dragging down his prospects for a second term. A president who once seemed impervious to October surprises is suddenly confronting one big enough to alter the outcome of the election."

WILL ENEMIES POUNCE? -- "Trump team on watch for adversaries to exploit the president's illness," by Natasha Bertrand, Lara Seligman and Nahal Toosi: "Current and former national security officials and experts said on Friday morning that they are watching carefully how Iran, China, North Korea and Russia react to the news, particularly when it comes to influence operations and disinformation that they might try to inject into the national conversation in a highly uncertain moment. …

"Defense Department officials acknowledged separately that they will be on the lookout for opportunistic activities by adversaries, both on the ground, in cyberspace and in the form of information warfare." POLITICO

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LAST PRE-ELECTION JOBS REPORT -- "U.S. hiring slows for 3rd month but jobless rate falls to 7.9%," by AP's Christopher Rugaber: "America's employers added 661,000 jobs in September, the third straight month of slower hiring and evidence from the final jobs report before the presidential election that the economic recovery has weakened. With September's hiring gain, the economy has recovered only slightly more than half the 22 million jobs that were wiped out by the viral pandemic. The roughly 10 million jobs that remain lost exceed the number that the nation shed during the entire 2008-2009 Great Recession.

"The unemployment rate for September fell to 7.9%, down from 8.4% in August, the Labor Department said Friday. Since April, the jobless rate has tumbled from a peak of 14.7%. The September jobs report coincides with other data that suggests that while the economic picture may be improving, the gains have slowed since summer."

-- BEN WHITE: "Trump's celebrated economic rebound fizzles out": "[I]t was well below expectations for close to 1 million [new jobs] and represents a further slowdown in monthly job growth from the initial 4.8 million gained back in June … The Labor Department's final jobs report before the election — strong on the surface but far less impressive in context — highlights challenges facing both Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the final month of the campaign." POLITICO

SCOTUS WATCH -- "McConnell vows 'full steam ahead' on Barrett nomination," by Andrew Desiderio

-- CNN: "Supreme Court takes up Arizona voting rights law that will be heard after the election," by Ariane de Vogue: "The Supreme Court said Friday it will review two provisions of an Arizona voting rights law that a federal appeals court said could have a discriminatory impact for American Indian, Hispanic and African Americans in violation of the Voting Rights Act.

"One provision concerns an 'out of precinct policy' that does not count provisional ballots cast in person on Election Day outside of the voter's designated precinct. Another concerns the 'ballot collection law' which permits only certain persons — family and household members, caregivers, mail carriers and elections officials — to handle another person's completed ballot." CNN

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ICYMI -- "Secretly recorded tapes show Melania Trump's frustration at criticism for family separation policy and her bashing of Christmas decorations," by CNN's Caroline Kelly: "'They say I'm complicit. I'm the same like him, I support him. I don't say enough I don't do enough where I am,' she said in a tape secretly recorded by Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former friend and senior adviser to the first lady who wrote a book about their relationship, 'Melania and Me.' … 'I'm working … my a** off on the Christmas stuff, that you know, who gives a f*** about the Christmas stuff and decorations? But I need to do it, right?'

"She continued, 'OK, and then I do it and I say that I'm working on Christmas and planning for the Christmas and they said, "Oh, what about the children that they were separated?" Give me a f****** break. Where they were saying anything when Obama did that? I can not go, I was trying get the kid reunited with the mom. I didn't have a chance -- needs to go through the process and through the law.'" CNN

-- THE NEW YORKER'S JANE MAYER: "The Secret History of Kimberly Guilfoyle's Departure from Fox"

-- BUSINESS INSIDER'S TOM LOBIANCO: "Former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale told friends he was under federal investigation just days before meltdown"

BEHIND THE SCENES -- "Memo details HHS push to upend FDA's testing oversight," by Dan Diamond and David Lim: "Two months before Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar overruled FDA officials to revoke the agency's oversight of lab-developed tests this August, the health department's top lawyer began building a legal case that would lead to its controversial decision to remove that authority, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO. …

"FDA officials have said they were largely blindsided by the decision to roll back FDA authority … The newly revealed memo from HHS general counsel Robert Charow, dated June 22, indicates [FDA Commissioner Stephen] Hahn and other senior HHS officials were notified months earlier that the department was intensifying its review of FDA's testing oversight." POLITICO … The memo

VALLEY TALK -- "QAnon Lands on LinkedIn, Prompting Networking Site to Limit Spread," by WSJ's Stu Woo: "Hundreds of LinkedIn members have updated their professional profiles with phrases and acronyms associated with QAnon, or have supported QAnon-related posts with positive comments or 'likes,' according to an analysis by social-media research firm Storyful.

"In response, Microsoft Corp.-owned LinkedIn has taken steps to remove QAnon posts with misleading information and to kick out people who break the site's rules on sharing articles and videos." WSJ

TRANSITION -- Sarah Delahunty is now senior manager for government outreach at the Hoover Institution's D.C. office. She previously was a special assistant at the Department of Education.