| | | | | |  | | By Jake Sherman, Anna Palmer, Garrett Ross and Eli Okun | Presented by |  | | | JOHN BOEHNER once told us in an interview that "garbage men get used to the smell of bad garbage." He was referring to the speakership. LOOK AROUND AT YOUR GOVERNMENT TODAY … … PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP falsely accused Michigan and Nevada of voter fraud for following their voting laws. He suggested he'd halt badly needed emergency funding for those states. … SECRETARY OF STATE MIKE POMPEO has been under fire for recommending to the president that he fire an inspector general who was investigating him. He didn't waver in a news conference this morning, but rather, he took it a step further, and said he wished he had made the suggestion sooner. … POMPEO accused Sen. BOB MENENDEZ (D-N.J.) of leaking stories about him, and rattled off the case number from when MENENDEZ was on trial in New Jersey. For the record, POMPEO said the case number was "15-155 New Jersey federal district court." "I don't get my ethics guidance from a man who was criminally prosecuted." (He got the case number right. Menendez was acquitted.) … SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI said she was giving TRUMP a taste of his own medicine by calling him morbidly obese. Which, she added by the way, is true. She noted she was being "factual, in a very sympathetic way." … KELLYANNE CONWAY, speaking on FOX NEWS, said JOE BIDEN'S priority of putting a woman on his presidential ticket made him sound "like a co-ed at the end of a frat party: 'I need a woman.'" MAYBE IT'S THE CABIN FEVER. Maybe our government has gone mad. MAYBE WE ARE THE GARBAGE MEN and we've become desensitized to the trash. NEW … THE LINCOLN PROJECT has a new spot tweaking TRUMP campaign manager BRAD PARSCALE for allegedly getting rich off of the president's campaigns. The 41-second spot -- N.B.: The Lincoln Project disclosed a $50,497 expenditure Tuesday: $4,784 on production and $45,712 on a media buy. Both were with Summit Strategic Communications, which is owned by Reed Galen, an adviser for the Lincoln Project. | | | | A message from Blue Cross Blue Shield Association: Maintaining access to affordable health insurance is critical, especially today. See our proposals to ensure Americans stay covered, providing security when they need it most. | | | MOVING ON … ON CHINA: POMPEO said the United States "greatly underestimated the degree to which Beijing is hostile to free nations." POMPEO said the U.S. thought China would become more like a Western, free nation through trade and other avenues. But that was a miscalculation. MORE … NAHAL TOOSI: "Fired State Department watchdog was probing protocol office": "The probe into Cam Henderson, who leads the department's Office of Protocol, could have been another factor in what Pompeo and his deputies have described as mounting frustration with the inspector general, Steve Linick, and may have contributed to Pompeo's push to oust him. … "Henderson took over as the chief of the Office of Protocol last summer, after her former boss, Sean Lawler was pushed out. Some in that office accused Lawler of intimidating and harassing his staffers, and even carrying around a whip on the job. "The inspector general had investigated further claims that Henderson, while Lawler's deputy, had violated State Department policy by not reporting allegations involving Lawler and workplace violence to higher ups. The person said Linick's office had determined that Henderson likely had violated regulations and that the State Department should take appropriate action." POLITICO REMEMBER THIS? -- "Senate committee authorizes subpoena in Hunter Biden probe," by Andrew Desiderio Good Wednesday afternoon. FINALLY PUBLIC -- "CDC releases detailed guidelines for reopening," by Adam Cancryn: "The 60-page document is the most extensive guidance yet offered by the health agency, which has spent weeks embroiled in controversy over how far it should go in influencing institutions' decisions about how to open safely. … "The document includes specific guidance for reopening child care centers, schools, businesses, restaurants and public transit. Among the additions is more detailed advice for mass transit that suggests encouraging social distancing by adding floor decals or colored tape to ensure people remain six feet apart. It also lays out an extensive blueprint for containing the disease at federal and state levels through contact tracing and monitoring for outbreaks — capabilities that large parts of the [country] still lack." The guidance SOME GOOD NEWS -- "Two studies suggest that COVID-19 antibodies provide immunity," by The Boston Globe's Jonathan Saltzman: "[R]esearch teams led by a Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center vaccine specialist have published two studies of laboratory monkeys that suggest the answer is yes ― antibodies do provide protection, whether they are triggered by an infection or a vaccine. "Both studies, which appear to be among the first peer-reviewed papers studying immunity to COVID-19 in primates, were published Wednesday in the journal Science. … Dr. Dan Barouch, head of Beth Israel's Center for Virology and Vaccine Research and lead author of the studies, said more research must be done to determine whether the findings apply to humans. But he's hopeful." Globe ICYMI -- IMPORTANT NEWS … ZACH WARMBRODT and HEATHER CAYGLE: "Pelosi moving to revamp small business rescue program": "House leaders have agreed to hold a vote on bipartisan legislation to ease restrictions on how businesses use so-called Paycheck Protection Program loans, which can be forgiven if employers agree to maintain their payroll and avert layoffs during the coronavirus pandemic." | | | | HELP THOSE WHO NEED IT MOST: Families in the DMV have been crushed by layoffs, and they are trying to keep kids home from school and are worried about their health. Our neighbors need us now more than ever. You can help. From grab-and-go dinners for kids to boxes of groceries for seniors, your support will help provide millions of meals for people in the greater Washington, D.C., community who need it the most during this crisis. Please support the Capital Area Food Bank's Covid-19 response today. | | | | | WHAT'S ON THE PRESIDENT'S MIND -- @realDonaldTrump at 7:51 a.m.: "Breaking: Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election. This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!.." -- FACT CHECK: Michigan is sending out applications for absentee ballots, like other states. -- ALSO … WHY WOULD the president threaten to hold up funding to a state his party wants to win in the presidential and a seat they are looking to capture in the Senate? YEP … NYT'S @Nate_Cohn: "One of the odd things about the Trump effort to suppress absentee mail voting is that it's totally conceivable to me that higher turnout would help him in these Midwestern states, where the kind of lower turnout and less educated voters who sat out the midterms probably tilt-GOP." JAYAPAL SPEAKS -- ANNA spoke with Rep. PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-Wash.), the House progressive leader who voted against the HEROES Act, in the latest Women Rule podcast about everything from dealing with Trump to facing sexism in Congress to how the progressive wing can use their power more effectively. Listen to the podcast ... Highlights: -- ON TRUMP'S COVID-19 RESPONSE: "States have sort of been left to play out 'The Hunger Games' on procuring swabs," said Jayapal. "Literally, we have governors -- my governor included -- calling random people in China to try to get swabs off the back of a truck somewhere and get them here, only to find out then that perhaps they're not validated; they're not good for use. Same thing with PPE." -- ON PROGRESSIVES USING THEIR POWER: "I always resist comparisons to the Freedom Caucus, because I think the Freedom Caucus was a party of 'no' and the Progressive Caucus as a party of 'yes.' But is it true that we need to be willing to flex our muscles, if you will? … I think that we just need to get a little bit more comfortable in two things. [One is] really being united around one specific ask. I don't think we do that very well because progressives care about a lot of things and so it becomes difficult to say, well, this is the one thing that if it's not in the bill, we won't vote for it. "And I think the second issue is we do have to get comfortable with recognizing that power never concedes anything without a demand, as Frederick Douglass said. There is no reason to change the way things are if you don't actually give a challenge to it. And it doesn't mean that you're taking on leadership in a negative way. That's not how I think about it. … People have to understand that it isn't a slap in the face to leadership to take something on and to try to make it better; sometimes they may even be looking for that every once in a while, though they'll never say it." AP: "U.S.: 2 men accused of smuggling ex-Nissan boss out of Japan," by Alanna Durkin Richer and Michael Balsamo in Boston: "A former Green Beret and his son were arrested Wednesday on charges they smuggled Nissan Motor Co. Chairman Carlos Ghosn out of Japan in a box while he awaited trial there on financial misconduct charges. Michael Taylor, a 59-year-old former Green Beret and private security specialist, and Peter Taylor, 27, are wanted by Japan on charges that they helped Ghosn escape the country in December after he was released on bail. "They were arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service in Harvard, Massachusetts, Justice Department spokeswoman Nicole Navas said. The Taylors were expected to appear before a judge via videoconference later Wednesday. There were no lawyers listed for them in court documents. Ghosn said he fled because he could not expect a fair trial, was subjected to unfair conditions in detention and was barred from meeting his wife under his bail conditions." AP | | | | GO BEYOND OUR BORDERS FROM YOUR HOME: Global Translations, presented by Bank of America, is the only newsletter focused on essential global news, trends and decisions layered with critical contextual analysis from the sharpest minds around the world. From how countries are dealing with economic crisis, to technology advances, trade challenges and climate change, Global Translations offers a unique perspective that cannot be found anywhere else. SUBSCRIBE TODAY. | | | | | IMMIGRATION FILES -- "More Than 900 Children Have Been Expelled Under a Pandemic Border Policy," by NYT's Caitlin Dickerson: "Hundreds of migrant children and teenagers have been swiftly deported by American authorities amid the coronavirus pandemic without the opportunity to speak to a social worker or plea for asylum from the violence in their home countries — a reversal of years of established practice for dealing with young foreigners who arrive in the United States. "The deportations represent an extraordinary shift in policy that has been unfolding in recent weeks on the southwestern border, under which safeguards that have for decades been granted to migrant children by both Democratic and Republican administrations appear to have been abandoned. … immigration officials in recent weeks have also been abruptly expelling migrant children and teenagers who were already in the United States when the pandemic-related order came down in late March." NYT THE LATEST RESEARCH -- "Superspreader Events Offer a Clue on Curbing Coronavirus," by WSJ's Bojan Pancevski: "Some scientists looking for ways to prevent a return to exponential growth in coronavirus infections after lockdowns are lifted are zeroing in on a new approach: focus on avoiding superspreading events. The theory is that banning mass public events where hundreds of attendees can infect themselves in the space of a few hours, along with other measures such as wearing face masks, might slow the pace of the new coronavirus's progression to a manageable level … "Researchers believe that the explosive growth of coronavirus infections that overwhelmed hospitals in some countries was primarily driven by such events earlier this year … A more surprising finding is that mass infections tend to be more serious than those contracted in other circumstances, perhaps because of sustained exposure to a larger amount of virus." WSJ INVESTIGATING THE INVESTIGATORS -- "Barr met with prosecutor now reviewing Russia probe immediately after Mueller investigation ended, documents reveal," by CNN's Katelyn Polantz and Marshall Cohen: "Barr met at least six times with US Attorney John 'Bull' Durham over a 10-week period in spring 2019, including once during the critical days after Mueller submitted his report to the Department of Justice and before it was released to the public, according to Justice Department records released to the transparency group American Oversight and shared with CNN this week. … "The newly released records show Barr moved quickly after becoming attorney general in February 2019 to get face time with Durham. … Since last summer, Barr and President Donald Trump have used the Durham investigation to sow skepticism about the Mueller investigation — and its findings." CNN HITS KEEP COMING FOR TED HOWZE -- "GOP House candidate demeans Muslims and compares Dreamers to pedophiles," by Ally Mutnick MEGATREND -- "U.S. Birthrates Fall to Record Low," by WSJ's Janet Adamy: "About 3.75 million babies were born in the U.S. in 2019, down 1% from the prior year … The data are the latest sign of how American childbearing, which began declining during the 2007-09 recession, never fully rebounded when the economy bounced back. … "The total fertility rate—a snapshot of the average number of babies a woman would have over her lifetime—ticked down to 1.7 in 2019, a slight decline from the previous year and another record low. In almost all years since 1971, that rate has been below the level of 2.1 needed for the population to replace itself, without accounting for immigration." WSJ TRANSITION -- Andrew Tabler is now deputy assistant secretary of Defense for legislative affairs. 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