House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says the Capitol physician is advising against the House coming back into session as planned on May 4.
AP
hide caption
toggle caption
AP
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says the Capitol physician is advising against the House coming back into session as planned on May 4.
AP
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is cancelling plans to bring lawmakers back to the Capitol next week, based on advice from the attending physician in Congress.
A bipartisan task force will continue to negotiate ways to hold virtual committee hearings and markups as Congress struggles with legislating in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. Republicans, including President Trump, are increasing pressure on Democratic leaders to reopen the House as lawmakers debate elements of the next coronavirus relief package.
“We will not come back next week but we hope to come back very soon to consider the CARES 2 legislation,” Hoyer, D-Md., said during a teleconference with reporters. “The House physician’s view was that there was a risk to members that was one he would not recommend taking.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has taken a different approach and still plans to bring the Senate back into session on Monday. It has confirmation votes planned, but it’s unclear whether the Senate will act on any coronavirus-related legislation.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters on a separate call that the House is following the guidance from the attending physician and noted that there are far more House members and staff than there are in the Senate. Pelosi said it is possible the House could return in smaller numbers and conduct meetings remotely.
Pelosi noted that the House successfully held a voice vote with limited attendance in March and conducted a recorded vote last week in coordination with the House sergeant-at-arms and the Capitol physician.
“It was fine,” Pelosi said. “They are prepared for us to do that again.”
One issue complicating the return is the continued rise in coronavirus cases in and around Washington, D.C. Two suburban counties have been identified as active hotspots, making the district a particularly risky place for members and staff to congregate. Further, calling Congress back into session is a complicated task that also involves bringing thousands of people, including cafeteria workers, staff and security, to the Capitol complex.
McConnell has promised that Senate business will be conducted in accordance with new safety guidelines but his office has not released the details of that plan. A spokesman for McConnell declined to comment on any guidance provided to their office from the attending physician regarding the reopening of the Senate.
“We will modify routines in ways that are smart and safe, but we will honor our constitutional duty to the American people and conduct critical business in person,” McConnell said in a statement. “If it is essential for doctors, nurses, healthcare workers, truck drivers, grocery-store workers, and many other brave Americans to keep carefully manning their own duty stations, then it is essential for Senators to carefully man ours and support them.”
A group of House Republicans led by Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., protested the House being out of session earlier this month ahead of the vote on additional funding for coronavirus relief loans for small businesses. He and other Republicans have demanded that the House reconvene.
I’m at the Capitol today. Most Members of Congress are not. That’s a serious problem. Every hour we don’t vote means more businesses closing & more people losing jobs.
I will keep fighting to get the other 534 Members of Congress to realize this urgency before its too late! pic.twitter.com/kWvEdxXy1y
Trump mocked Hoyer’s decision to keep members home, during an event at the White House Tuesday.
“The Democrats, they don’t want to come,” he said, suggesting “they’re enjoying their vacation” and adding “I think they should be here.”
Democrats argue they are following public health guidelines. They say members are still working from their home districts and should not travel through airports and train stations and convene in the enclosed space of the Capitol without pressing legislative business.
Senate Democrats echoed Hoyer’s concerns Tuesday. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and other Democrats sent a letter to McConnell asking that they remain out of session unless they are conducting legislative business.
The Senate Democrats are calling for the Senate to use the time in session to focus on oversight of the relief bills that have already passed, including public hearings with Trump administration officials.
“There is currently no scheduled legislative or committee business related to the COVID-19 public health and economic emergencies,” the letter said. “We respectfully urge you to have the Senate focus on COVID-19 related matters and oversight of all COVID-related legislation enacted by Congress.”
Hundreds of thousands of people have been told that they are “ineligible” to receive unemployment benefits in Florida after waiting weeks for confirmation from the state’s website which has struggled to deal with the onslaught of applications.
The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity’s (DEO) CONNECT website was taken offline over the weekend to help sort through several hundred thousand claims as a result of people losing their jobs amid the coronavirus outbreak.
The site went back up on Monday, although people were still complaining that the site was glitching and not allowing people to log in, reports Spectrum News.
More than 267,000 people—just over 40 percent of all applications—were told that they were ineligible to receive unemployment benefits, according to the DEO website. Many believe this was a mistake.
Keanan Bender, who was laid off from her job as the manager at a custom apparel shop in March, had been trying to file her unemployment benefits with the DEO‘s website for the past six weeks.
She described how she had hope when the site was taken offline in order to deal with the backlog.
“I thought great! Maybe they will finally approve my claim,” she told WFLA. “And then I logged in this morning and it said ineligible.”
Bender said she believed that she was eligible for benefits as she met the minimum wages threshold, her employer paid into the system and she had worked at the store for a year.
Laura Colt, who was furloughed from her tourism job, also waited weeks for her application to be processed only to be told she was ineligible despite believing she met the requirements.
“I think state leaders need to take a closer look at how citizens of the state are being treated, this is not acceptable,” Colt told Spectrum News. “I know it was a strain on the system, it was unexpected, unprecedented, but you need to take quicker action. Do something about it.”
In a statement to WFTV, the DEO said: “If you are not eligible, the written determination will explain the reason we denied your claim and will explain your appeal rights. If you disagree with a determination that denies benefits, you may request an appeal hearing.
“You have the option to request an appeal with our team within 20 calendar days after the distributed date of the determination.”
Others who were told they are ineligible for benefits are contractors or the self-employed, according to Click Orlando. While they are not able to claim state benefits, they are eligible under the Coronavirus Aid Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act.
In a statement, the DEO offered guidance for self-employed and contract workers who were deemed ineligible for benefits.
“During this process, many individuals were deemed ineligible for state Reemployment Assistance benefits. There are numerous reasons someone could be deemed not eligible for state Reemployment Assistance benefits, including wage base period issues, lack of wage history, among others.
“You can review the Reemployment Assistance Handbook here, which has examples of why individuals could be deemed ineligible. Each person deemed not eligible for state Reemployment Assistance receives a notification regarding their eligibility.
“Many of the individuals that were deemed ineligible this weekend could be eligible for federal benefits through the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program. The agency is working diligently to get more detailed information to individuals who may be eligible for federal benefits.”
A few small, remote districts might try to reopen this spring, including the Shoshone School District in Lincoln County, Idaho, which serves 500 students. “We’re in the category of, ‘We don’t know,’” said Rob Waite, the superintendent. With small class sizes — the largest is 22 students — children could easily sit six feet apart. And on the bus, students who are not part of the same household could be assigned to sit in every other seat.
Vice President Mike Pence, center, visits with Dennis Nelson, right, who survived the coronavirus, at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., Tuesday. Pence toured facilities supporting COVID-19 research and treatment.
Jim Mone/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Jim Mone/AP
Vice President Mike Pence, center, visits with Dennis Nelson, right, who survived the coronavirus, at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., Tuesday. Pence toured facilities supporting COVID-19 research and treatment.
Jim Mone/AP
Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday responded to criticisms that he defied Mayo Clinic policy by not wearing a mask during his visit to the campus, saying he complied with federal guidelines and felt it his duty to speak to workers at the facility unencumbered by a facial covering.
“As vice president of the United States I’m tested for the coronavirus on a regular basis, and everyone who is around me is tested for the coronavirus,” he told reporters, saying he is following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
The CDC recommends wearing cloth face masks in public to help prevent transmitting the virus to others.
“And since I don’t have the coronavirus, I thought it’d be a good opportunity for me to be here, to be able to speak to these researchers, these incredible health care personnel, and look them in the eye and say thank you.”
Instructions on the Mayo Clinic website request that all patients, visitors and personnel bring and wear a face mask to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
In a tweet eventually deleted but captured in screenshots and by the Internet Archive’s Wayback machine, the Mayo Clinic wrote that it had “informed @VP of the masking policy prior to his arrival today.”
The Mayo Clinic visit is one of two trips Pence will conduct this week as the White House seeks to ease back into travel.
Trump himself has not publicly worn face masks during press briefings and other events, saying earlier this month: “I just don’t want to wear one myself. It’s a recommendation. They recommend it.”
“I don’t know. Somehow, I don’t see it for myself,” Trump said during an April 3 coronavirus task force briefing.
Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, said of the jockeying, “I think it’s a good thing the candidates are campaigning for the position because it gives us a chance to evaluate.”
With the Biden campaign’s vetting process soon to begin, supporters of potential running mates are also getting involved: opposition research that was shelved at the end of the presidential primary is now starting to recirculate in an effort to stealthily drag down prospective vice presidential rivals. Harris, Warren and to a lesser extent Klobuchar — who gained traction relatively late in the campaign — all faced intense scrutiny during the presidential primary. Now, in conversations with reporters, Democrats working to hobble them are reupping old criticisms about their records.
“There are definitely internal and external battles over who’s going to leak the most shit on people,” one Democratic strategist said.
Overt campaigning for the vice presidency has traditionally been frowned upon, weakening those who appear overly eager or insufficiently deferential to the nominee. And with the exception of Abrams — who has said “I would be an excellent running mate” — most top-shelf candidates this year have been guarded about their ambitions, even as they position themselves for a potential selection.
“I just know that, you know, you don’t run for that,” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer told POLITICO Playbook on Monday — one of many national media appearances Whitmer has made in recent weeks — when asked about the vice presidency, adding, “That is a selection of the top of the ticket, and everyone else should be just busy doing their jobs.”
Harris has said she would “be honored to serve.” When Warren was asked by Rachel Maddow on MSNBC whether she would take the job if Biden offered it, she replied, simply, “Yes.”
The most vocal pressure on Biden is to nominate a black woman. Biden would not be the presumptive nominee if not for his victory in South Carolina, and black voters — particularly black women — are critical to the party’s prospects in the general election.
Harris, who fielded a robust presidential campaign operation but dropped out before the Iowa caucuses, has a large number of former staffers promoting her — many of them with ties to prominent Democrats inside Biden’s orbit. But Abrams and Val Demings, the Florida congresswoman and former Orlando police chief, also have groups of supporters.
“Donors have known about her for a decade,” one strategist said of Demings.
Of all the contenders, Abrams has been the most assertive on the issue of race, telling ABC’s “The View” that it would be a “concern” if Biden did not choose a woman of color.
“As a young black woman, growing up in Mississippi, I learned that if you don’t raise your hand, people won’t see you, and they won’t give you attention,” she recently told CNN.
But navigating the Biden campaign’s internal politics may be tricky for Abrams given Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ close relationships with Biden brass. Bottoms has long been an Abrams rival, declining to endorse her in the 2018 gubernatorial primary and speaking positively about her opponent, Stacey Evans.
“What a black female candidate would bring is an ability to heighten the enthusiasm … and we’re going to need that in an election that is unlike one that we’ve ever seen before,” said the Rev. Leah Daughtry, a longtime Democratic operative who served as CEO of the 2008 and 2016 Democratic National Convention committees.
Daughtry, who wants Biden to select a black woman, said the Biden campaign is now confronting “the age-old bet … is it better to place your fortunes on turning out the base of your party, increasing that turnout, or is it better to go after voters you may or may not get.”
Of the Democratic Party’s African American base, Daughtry said, “That’s your sure bet.”
But Biden is also laboring to win over progressive Democrats, and he has a history with Warren.
Before Biden decided not to run for president in 2016, Biden wanted Warren to be his running mate. After they met in August 2015, Warren came away pleasantly surprised despite their past ideological battles, a close ally said during the primary when the two were fighting for the nomination.
Biden also thought Warren would have been a smart choice for Hillary Clinton — and he was not alone.
In a July 2016 memo to Clinton, Philippe Reines, a longtime Clinton confidant, advised that “purely to get you elected, meaning in a perfect world where you’d run with someone but then ditch them for the person you’d prefer as a governing partner, it’s hard to argue that Warren wouldn’t be the most effective running mate. I don’t think it’s close.”
Reines called Warren a “superstar fundraiser” and told Clinton that aside from President Barack Obama, “nobody has Trump’s number like she does. Nobody gets under his skin more. She’s head and shoulders above every other name I’ve seen floated, or out there. I think that would be comforting to you to have such firepower watching your back, and someone who can so easily bait him. That has real strategic value.”
This year, Warren has been casting herself as a governance-first pick, releasing a wave of policyplans and proposed reforms to address the health and economic fallout from the coronavirus.
But she has also been subtly trying to demonstrate her political upside on the ticket. After endorsing Biden, she tried to brandish her small-dollar fundraising machine that raised over $100 million in the primary, deploying her email list on behalf of Biden. It’s not known how much the email raised, but one Democrat familiar with the effort said it impressed at least some Biden staffers.
Several Democratic digital strategists said the strength of the candidate’s social media and email lists may be an underrated factor in the vice presidential search, especially given Biden’s relative weakness in online fundraising.
“This would be maybe the first time in history someone considers grassroots fundraising prowess as a pro for a VP candidate,” said one strategist. “Like, ‘how big of an email list are you bringing us’ is as important as any number of other traditional factors.”
One disadvantage for potential candidates who did not run for president is that they have not been subjected to as rigorous a vetting as those who did. While most of the former presidential candidates’ liabilities are already widely known, less certain are the potential weaknesses of contenders who did not run for president, including their ability to perform in debates and on other platforms in a national campaign.
Of the lesser-known commodities, Whitmer is appealing to many Midwestern Democrats because of her forceful response to the coronavirus pandemic in a swing state. But many Democrats also worry about how the electorate would respond to a governor joining a ticket in the midst of the pandemic raging in her state. And if conditions in Michigan worsen, it could become a drag on the campaign.
Biden, who has committed to picking a woman running mate, is expected to announce his vice presidential selection committee by May 1. But the selection itself may not come until July.
Most Democrats familiar with campaign staffs’ discussions about the nomination believe the former vice president will make a decision based largely on personal chemistry and on his confidence in a running mate’s ability to not only help him win — but to govern.
Many Democrats are inclined to give him room to make that decision. Despite calls from Reps. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and John Lewis (D-Ga.) for Biden to pick a black woman as his vice president, some black lawmakers are hesitant to add to the pressure.
“If [Biden] got somebody black or brown, I’m happy, I’m in heaven, but I want to win,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) “And if Mary Lou, who lives in Pennsylvania, can help him win, I don’t care what color she might be.”
“We’re going to do ourselves a disservice … if we fence him in,” Cleaver said. “I don’t want to be a part of the fencing-in group.”
Trump assured reporters “we’re going to be there very soon.” He said he didn’t have the exact data off the top of his head, but “if you look at the numbers, it could be that we’re getting very close.”
Trump has set more modest testing goals in the recent past. A week earlier, he and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomoagreed to work toward testing 40,000 people each day across the state – roughly double the current rate. “It’s a very aggressive goal,” Cuomo said at the time.
New York, the epicenter of the coronavirus crisis in the U.S. and the nation’s fourth-most populated state, has done far more testing than any other. If every state in the country conducted 40,000 tests daily, that would total 2 million tests per day – far below the 5 million that Trump said he will exceed in the “very near future.”
State officials including Cuomo have previously lamented shortages of supplies necessary to ramp up testing, including the test kits themselves, swabs and reagents, which are chemicals needed to analyze tests. Due to scarcity, cities such as New York City still have to prioritize testing for first responders and patients in the hospital, Mayor Bill de Blasio said last week. Limited testing means health officials can’t monitor the spread of the virus throughout the general population.
The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 hit a new milestone, surpassing the number of Americans who died in the prolonged conflict with Vietnam. Here, the Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens, N.Y., holds a vigil for medical workers and patients who have died in the pandemic.
John Nacion/NurPhoto via Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
John Nacion/NurPhoto via Getty Images
The U.S. death toll from COVID-19 hit a new milestone, surpassing the number of Americans who died in the prolonged conflict with Vietnam. Here, the Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens, N.Y., holds a vigil for medical workers and patients who have died in the pandemic.
John Nacion/NurPhoto via Getty Images
In not even three months since the first known U.S. deaths from COVID-19, more lives have now been lost to the coronavirus pandemic on U.S. soil than the 58,220 Americans who died over nearly two decades in Vietnam.
While the number of lives lost in the U.S. during the pandemic and the U.S. death toll in that war are roughly the same now, the death rate from the coronavirus in America is considerably higher. It now stands at about 17.6 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.
During 1968, the deadliest year for the U.S. in Vietnam, the death toll of 16,899 occurred at about half the pandemic’s rate — 8.5 troops were killed for every 100,000 U.S. residents.
The pandemic has also been marked by nationwide death tolls surpassing 2,000 on six days this month. The highest daily toll for Americans fighting in the Vietnam War was on Jan. 31, 1968, when 246 U.S. personnel were killed during the Tet Offensive.
There are other parallels — as well as contrasts — between that conflagration and what’s unfolding now.
It was television that brought a war on the other side of the world into Americans’ living rooms for the first time, as on-the-ground reporters chronicled the grinding mayhem of Vietnam for evening network news shows.
By the same token, this pandemic may be the first ever to be televised on a daily basis.
U.S. Marines carry their dead and wounded to a waiting helicopter near the western edge of the demilitarized zone in South Vietnam on June 21, 1968.
Stone/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Stone/AP
U.S. Marines carry their dead and wounded to a waiting helicopter near the western edge of the demilitarized zone in South Vietnam on June 21, 1968.
Stone/AP
But while the five presidents — from Dwight Eisenhower to Gerald Ford — who held office during the Vietnam conflict only occasionally spoke to the nation about the clash, the American public has seen President Trump casting himself as a wartime leader and dominating lengthy news conferences televised live nightly from the White House.
The claims Trump has made in his pandemic pronouncements — from saying his administration had “tremendous” control over the virus to promising it would “miraculously” go away to accusing the news media of trying to “inflame” the outbreak — have done little to boost his credibility. Fewer than a quarter of the respondents in a recent nationwide poll professed a high level of trust in Trump.
Likewise, as early as 1966, critics of President Lyndon Johnson’s upbeat portrayals of an increasingly unpopular war pointed to a “credibility gap.” It was defined by then-Sen. Ernest Gruening, D-Alaska, as “a euphemism for what actually goes on — namely, that the American people are being misled by their government officials.”
Vietnam hasn’t reported a single COVID-19 death, and as of April 24, it had 268 confirmed cases.
A closer parallel to the total of lives lost so far to the pandemic in the U.S. may be the 2017-2018 flu season, the deadliest in the past decade. There were 61,000 influenza-related deaths nationally reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for a roughly eight-month period.
In an interview on “Fox & Friends” with host Ainsley Earhardt, Severino complained that it has been frustrating for her to watch the mainstream media not ask prominent women in politics–like Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., who is currently stumping for Biden–questions about the allegations.
“She, after congressional hearings, after an FBI investigation [of Brett Kavanaugh] said this hasn’t been a search for the truth. This wasn’t an investigation; this was an abdication of responsibility. She thought that was not enough investigation? And, here there has been nothing,” Severino stated.
“Even last year — it’s funny — when she was running against him for president, she said she believed the women who were uncomfortable with the way he had touched them inappropriately in public even. And now, when something much more egregious has been alleged, she is just radio silent,” she remarked. “And, it’s not just her. It’s Senator Sanders. It’s President Obama. It’s Nancy Pelosi.
“All of these people endorsing him and nobody being will to say, you know, what you think about these allegations?” asked Severino. “Now, obviously, we don’t have all the facts on them yet. But, they are suddenly uninterested in even trying to find out what the actual facts on the ground are because they are so busy trying to protect Biden.”
Tara Reade, a former Senate aide to Joe Biden, alleged the assault occurred in the basement of a Capitol Hill office building in the spring of 1993. It’s not the first time Reade has made an accusation against the former vice president. Last year, Reade publicly accused Biden of inappropriate touching but did not allege sexual assault.
Now Lynda LaCasse, who was Reade’s neighbor in the 1990s, says Reade told her about the alleged assault around the time it happened. LaCasse said that when they were neighbors in 1995 or 1996, Reade told her “about the senator that she had worked for and he put his hand up her skirt.”
“She felt like she was assaulted, and she really didn’t feel there was anything she could do,” LaCasse told Business Insider.
Biden’s campaign denies the charges.
In a statement to Fox News, Reade said, “ … It’s shocking that this much time has passed and that he is an actual nominee for president and they’re not asking the questions … If this were Donald Trump, would they treat it the same way? If this were Brett Kavanaugh did they treat it the same way? In other words, it’s politics and political agenda playing a role in objective reporting and asking the question.”
FILE – In this March 12, 2020, file photo Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks about the coronavirus in Wilmington, Del. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
When Christine Blasey Ford publicly accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault in a September 2018 interview with The Washington Post, prominent Democrats and media organizations rushed to the story — demanding answers and, in many cases, the end of Kavanaugh’s career.
In the weeks after Reade publicly charged in a podcast released March 25 that Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993, however, those same politicians and outlets have become either silent or equivocal — even as mounting video and testimonial evidence from several sources corroborates Reade’s claim, where Ford presented no contemporaneous support for her allegations.
“Well, some of them — like Alyssa Milano — completely turned around. She said, ‘Oh, well, you know, I never said that men shouldn’t have due process.’ Well, yes, you pretty much did,” Severino told Earhardt. “I think that the [refusal] to give a presumption of innocence does exactly that. And, I think Joe Biden deserves a presumption of innocence, but I think it’s shocking to see the people…And, you know, Fox was just reporting yesterday they have asked all of the potential VP picks and no one but Governor Whitmer is the only person who even gave any comment and she danced around the issue — said she didn’t want to speculate.”
On Sunday, two female potential running mates for Biden – former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. – appeared on three national political shows, but were not asked about the explosive allegations against the presumptive Democratic nominee.
“This is a real problem to see the double standard,” Severino continued. “And I think, again, if there is another Supreme Court nomination, you’re going to see them turn on a dime again. Suddenly there’s probably going to be similar allegations, attacks, refusal to even believe [the] information on the other side rather than actually looking at things in a fair-minded way.
“It’s really disturbing to see the double standard and to see that people, unfortunately, aren’t calling the politicians to account for that standard,” she concluded.
President Trump on Tuesday said the coronavirus is “going to go away,” repeating a line he’s said in the past that contradicts his own health experts. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the administration’s leading infectious diseases expert, has said the deadly virus will not disappear, and the U.S. should be prepared for another wave in fall.
Mr. Trump, making the remarks in an East Room event with businesses that turned into a press conference, said a vaccine is looking promising, but he thinks the virus is going to go away, and if it does return in a “modified” form in fall the U.S. will handle it.
CBS News White House correspondent Ben Tracy asked, “Mr. President, you said at the top of your remarks that you feel the worst of the pandemic is behind us. But without a treatment, without a vaccine, and states now reopening, how can you be so sure?”
The president responded: “Well I think that like other things, we’re going to hopefully we’re going to come up with a vaccine, you never know about a vaccine, but tremendous progress has been made. Johnson & Johnson and Oxford and lots of good things, you’ve been hearing the same things as I do. Tremendous progress has been made, we think, on a vaccine. You always have to say think and then you have to test it, and that takes a period of time. But uh, a lot of movement and a lot of progress has been made on a vaccine.”
“But I think what happens is it’s going to go away,” Mr. Trump added. “This is going to go away. And whether it comes back in a modified form in the fall, we’ll be able to handle it, we’ll be able to put out spurts, and we’re very prepared to handle it. We’ve learned a lot, we’ve learned a lot about it, the invisible enemy.”
WASHINGTON – Faced with worries of a meat shortage caused by the coronavirus, President Donald Trump plans to order meat-processing plants to remain open and will try to protect them from legal liability, officials said Tuesday.
Trump plans to declare meat plants as critical infrastructure, and cite the Defense Production Act to justify an order to keep them open, said two officials familiar with the discussions, speaking on condition of anonymity because the order is not yet completed.
Trump could sign the order as early as Tuesday, officials said, and it will likely cover other types of food processing facilities.
Trump also said he would issue an executive order to shield meat plants from legal liability if they are sued by employees who contract coronavirus while on the job. While Trump only mentioned Tyson Foods specifically, he suggested his order would protect other businesses from liability as well.
The order would be designed to protect businesses in court if they are sued, but would likely be challenged in court. Judges would ultimately decide whether coronavirus lawsuits against businesses can go forward.
Concerns about the nation’s meat supply have been growing, as the number of meat packing facilities shuttered due to coronavirus outbreaks has accelerated over the past several weeks.
More than 4,400 meatpacking workers have tested positive for the virus, and at least 18 have died from the virus as of Tuesday morning, according to USA TODAY/Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting tracking. Workers have tested positive at at least 80 plants in 26 states, and there have been 28 closures of at least a day.
USA TODAY also found that 153 of the nation’s largest meatpacking plants, about one in three, operates in a county with a high rate of COVID-19 infection, raising concerns that more workers at more plants will fall ill.
In a full-page newspaper ad over the weekend, Tyson Foods board Chairman John Tyson said “the food supply chain is breaking,” and “there will be limited supply of our products available in grocery stores until we are able to reopen our facilities that are currently closed.”
Some plant employees have told reporters that Tyson did not adequately protect them from the virus, setting up the prospect of lawsuits.
Supply chain experts have mostly said a significant domestic meat shortage is unlikely, due to the large number of processing plants and resulting resiliency. But those assurances are being tested by steadily dropping production numbers from the nation’s meatpacking plants.
Department of Agriculture data show at least 838,000 fewer cattle, hogs and sheep were slaughtered for meat processing over the past week compared to the same time period last year, a 28% drop. Tuesday marked the worst day yet, with total slaughter falling 39% compared to the same day last year.
While some have offered assurances that the nation’s “cold storage,” or the amount of meat frozen in commercial warehouses, could act as a stopgap should production plummet, data indicate a limited supply. The most recent USDA figures show those supplies store only about a week’s worth of food compared to average monthly production.
Trump said Tuesday he did not fear any kind of food shortage.
“There’s plenty of supply,” Trump told reporters after meeting with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. “It’s distribution.”
The order was slammed by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.
“We only wish that this administration cared as much about the lives of working people as it does about meat, pork and poultry products,” said Stuart Appelbaum, the union’s president. “If the administration had developed meaningful safety requirements early on as they should have and still must do, this would not even have become an issue. Employers and government must do better. If they want to keep the meat and poultry supply chain healthy, they need to make sure that workers are safe and healthy.”
The food issue is a politically challenging one in the midst of a pandemic.
Some local officials said outbreaks of coronavirus at processing plants prove that the economy needs to be locked down to curb the spread of the disease. Industry leaders said their work is essential to maintaining the food supply, and are seeking protections from prospective lawsuits.
Congressional Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., have said shielding companies from lawsuits will help the economy reopen after weeks of lockdowns.
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat, questioned McConnell’s idea.
“Is he saying, if an owner tells a worker he needs to work next to a sick person without a mask and wouldn’t be liable?” Schumer told reporters. “That wouldn’t make sense.”
Trump spoke with reporters after a meeting with DeSantis in which he lauded Florida as a model for other states seeking to reopen their economies, despite the risks of resurgences in coronavius cases.
Contributing: USA TODAY Network investigative reporter Kyle Bagenstose and Midwest Center For Investigative Reporting reporter Sky Chadde.
The clinic said in a Twitter post that it had informed Pence of its policy mandating mask before he toured the facility.
About a half hour after that tweet was posted, it was deleted by the Mayo Clinic.
Other video shows people wearing masks when they greeted Pence at an airport. The vice president was not wearing a mask when he got off his plane and headed to the Mayo Clinic.
While at the facility, Pence participated in a discussion with top doctors there, along with Minnesota Gov. Governor Tim Walz and Rep. Jim Hagedorn, a Republican whose district in Minnesota includes the city of Rochester.
Pence appeared to be the only official who participated in that discussion who did not wear a mask, according to a pool report.
On the same day that Pence visited the Mayo Clinic, the tally of Americans who have been diagnosed with with coronavirus infection topped 1 million. At least 57,266 Americans have died from Covid-19.
CNBC has requested comment from Pence’s office.
A Mayo Clinic spokesman, when asked for comment, said in email that, “Mayo shared the masking policy with the VP’s office.” The spokesman did not repond to the question of why the Mayo Clinic deleted its tweet about Pence.
Pence’s aides last week told The New York Times that he does not need to wear a mask because he is regularly tested for the coronavirus.
“When the face-covering guidelines were developed, it was with the intention to not only protect yourself, but primarily to protect others from asymptomatic spread,” Pence’s spokeswoman, Katie Miller, told The Times. “Vice President Pence is negative for Covid-19 and is therefore not asymptomatic.”
But the newspaper noted that Pence could contract the virus between his tests, and that the tests are not always accurate.
Reuters brings you the latest business, finance and breaking news video from around the globe. Our reputation for accuracy and impartiality is unparalleled.
The United States topped 1 million confirmed cases of coronavirus Tuesday – nearly a third of the world’s cases – as health authorities here and around the globe try to understand the full scope of who is at risk and who has been infected.
Reaching seven figures – 1,002,498 to be exact – is the latest milestone for the U.S., which has topped 57,000 deaths during the pandemic, according to the Johns Hopkins University dashboard. That’s a number approaching the 58,220 Americans killed in the Vietnam War from 1955 to 1975.
And despite warnings from national health leaders that the country could face a second wave of the virus in late 2020, states and cities are drafting or implementing plans to get people out of their homes and back into mainstream life.
Shortness of breath was tweaked to “shortness of breath or difficulty breathing” by the CDC, which recommends seeking “medical attention immediately” for trouble breathing, persistent pain or pressure on chest, bluish lips or face, or a new confusion or inability to awaken.
The daily spike in new cases had slowed in recent weeks, but April 24 saw a new daily high for the U.S. with 36,200 new cases reported.
According to Johns Hopkins University data, 5.6 million people of the estimated 328 million people in the country have been tested for the virus. Still, testing is not as widely available as President Donald Trump says and many governors say they’re running low on testing equipment.
The lack of testing “is probably the No. 1 problem in America, and has been from the beginning of this crisis,” said Maryland’s Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, the chairman of the National Governors Association.
The number of cases would be substantially higher if testing was more readily available and steady increases are to be expected as testing expands further.
Will we ever have an accurate number of cases?
Dr. Tom Ingelsby, director of the Center for Health Security of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said numbers represented on the Hopkins dashboard don’t accurately portray the total amount of cases and deaths in the U.S.
“We know at this point that there has been a very, very important undercounting of total cases,” he said.
He said the lack of testing mild and moderate cases is the main driver of this misrepresentation, as hospitals only tests patients who are in need of critical care. Ingelsby also doesn’t doubt that there’s an undercounting of deaths as well, although probably less so.
The first phase of testing has been about determining who has COVID-19. The next will be about who had it. Instead of looking for the virus itself, the second phase will look for signs in our blood that we developed antibodies to fight the virus.
However, antibodies for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 look very similar to other coronavirus antibodies that cause illnesses, such as the common cold.
Tests could mistakenly identify antibodies as being for the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, producing a false positive, said Dr. Raed Dweik, chairman of the Respiratory Institute at the Cleveland Clinic. As antibody testing develops further, the accuracy should improve.
The implementation of widespread antibody testing will face similar challenges as testing for the virus, and Dweik said it will take more time to develop a test that can accurately detect the right antibodies.
Meanwhile, states big and small are evaluating when they can restart their economies after weeks in lockdown necessitated by the coronavirus, and they’re taking different approaches.
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott said Monday he will let his stay-at-home order expire Thursday as the state begins a phased reopening that will permit malls, restaurants and movie theaters to operate starting Friday, with occupancy limitations.
In Ohio, Gov. Mike DeWine announced a partial reopening beginning Friday, with some openings delayed until May 12. Dental offices and veterinarian clinics are allowed to open Friday. General offices, distribution centers, manufacturers and construction companies can open May 4. Retail stores, consumer and service businesses will have to wait until May 12.
Masks will be required for workers and shoppers.
“No masks, no work, no service, no exception,” DeWine said.
However, New Jersey is not ready to take those stepsGov. Phil Murphy said Monday. The state ranks second to New York for the most coronavirus cases and deaths in the country, and Murphy suggested a phased reopening may not take place until Memorial Day weekend. He did not commit to a timeline.
Contributing: Jorge Ortiz, Ryan Miller, Joel Shannon, USA TODAY
In an interview on “Fox & Friends” with host Ainsley Earhardt, Severino complained that it has been frustrating for her to watch the mainstream media not ask prominent women in politics–like Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., who is currently stumping for Biden–questions about the allegations.
“She, after congressional hearings, after an FBI investigation [of Brett Kavanaugh] said this hasn’t been a search for the truth. This wasn’t an investigation; this was an abdication of responsibility. She thought that was not enough investigation? And, here there has been nothing,” Severino stated.
“Even last year — it’s funny — when she was running against him for president, she said she believed the women who were uncomfortable with the way he had touched them inappropriately in public even. And now, when something much more egregious has been alleged, she is just radio silent,” she remarked. “And, it’s not just her. It’s Senator Sanders. It’s President Obama. It’s Nancy Pelosi.
“All of these people endorsing him and nobody being will to say, you know, what you think about these allegations?” asked Severino. “Now, obviously, we don’t have all the facts on them yet. But, they are suddenly uninterested in even trying to find out what the actual facts on the ground are because they are so busy trying to protect Biden.”
Tara Reade, a former Senate aide to Joe Biden, alleged the assault occurred in the basement of a Capitol Hill office building in the spring of 1993. It’s not the first time Reade has made an accusation against the former vice president. Last year, Reade publicly accused Biden of inappropriate touching but did not allege sexual assault.
Now Lynda LaCasse, who was Reade’s neighbor in the 1990s, says Reade told her about the alleged assault around the time it happened. LaCasse said that when they were neighbors in 1995 or 1996, Reade told her “about the senator that she had worked for and he put his hand up her skirt.”
“She felt like she was assaulted, and she really didn’t feel there was anything she could do,” LaCasse told Business Insider.
Biden’s campaign denies the charges.
In a statement to Fox News, Reade said, “ … It’s shocking that this much time has passed and that he is an actual nominee for president and they’re not asking the questions … If this were Donald Trump, would they treat it the same way? If this were Brett Kavanaugh did they treat it the same way? In other words, it’s politics and political agenda playing a role in objective reporting and asking the question.”
FILE – In this March 12, 2020, file photo Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks about the coronavirus in Wilmington, Del. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)
When Christine Blasey Ford publicly accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault in a September 2018 interview with The Washington Post, prominent Democrats and media organizations rushed to the story — demanding answers and, in many cases, the end of Kavanaugh’s career.
In the weeks after Reade publicly charged in a podcast released March 25 that Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993, however, those same politicians and outlets have become either silent or equivocal — even as mounting video and testimonial evidence from several sources corroborates Reade’s claim, where Ford presented no contemporaneous support for her allegations.
“Well, some of them — like Alyssa Milano — completely turned around. She said, ‘Oh, well, you know, I never said that men shouldn’t have due process.’ Well, yes, you pretty much did,” Severino told Earhardt. “I think that the [refusal] to give a presumption of innocence does exactly that. And, I think Joe Biden deserves a presumption of innocence, but I think it’s shocking to see the people…And, you know, Fox was just reporting yesterday they have asked all of the potential VP picks and no one but Governor Whitmer is the only person who even gave any comment and she danced around the issue — said she didn’t want to speculate.”
On Sunday, two female potential running mates for Biden – former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. – appeared on three national political shows, but were not asked about the explosive allegations against the presumptive Democratic nominee.
“This is a real problem to see the double standard,” Severino continued. “And I think, again, if there is another Supreme Court nomination, you’re going to see them turn on a dime again. Suddenly there’s probably going to be similar allegations, attacks, refusal to even believe [the] information on the other side rather than actually looking at things in a fair-minded way.
“It’s really disturbing to see the double standard and to see that people, unfortunately, aren’t calling the politicians to account for that standard,” she concluded.
ATLANTA (Reuters) – Georgia, at the vanguard of states testing the safety of reopening the U.S. economy in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak, permitted restaurant dining for the first time in a month on Monday while governors in regions with fewer cases also eased restrictions.
Eager to revive battered commerce despite warnings from medical experts that public health safeguards such as large-scale virus screenings remain largely absent, a handful of states from Montana to Mississippi were also set to reopen some workplaces that were shuttered for being non-essential.
Alaska, Oklahoma and South Carolina, along with Georgia, previously took such steps after weeks of mandatory lockdowns that have thrown millions of Americans out of work and led to forecasts that an economic shock of historic proportions is at hand.
President Donald Trump and some local officials have criticized Georgia Governor Brian Kemp for forging ahead to add restaurants and movie theaters to the list of businesses – hair and nail salons, barber shops and tattoo parlors – that he allowed to reopen last week, albeit with social-distancing restrictions still in force.
No companies are required to reopen, and it remained to be seen how many merchants would choose to return to business and how many customers would show up if they do.
Some owners and managers of eateries in Atlanta, the state’s largest city and capital, were less than enthusiastic.
“It’s not safe,” said Brian Maloof, owner of Manuel’s Tavern, a fixture for more than 60 years. “I don’t know when we’ll open, but I’m afraid it won’t be anytime soon.”
But Moe’s Original BBQ by the Georgia Tech campus hung an open sign on the door for the first time in a month.
“I don’t know if this is a big step to normal, but at least it’s something,” owner Brian Mancuso said of his trickle of lunch customers.
In the hardest-hit states of New York and New Jersey, part of a metropolitan region of about 32 million people, governors signaled that even limited restarting of business activities was at least weeks away.
Even though Georgia has allowed movie theaters to reopen, three major movie theater chains – AMC, Regal and Cinemark – as well as most if not all smaller exhibitors have no plans to reopen anywhere for the time being.
“We don’t feel it’s safe enough for our staff or our customers to just open up for regular business, even with sort of preventive measures,” said Christopher Escobar, owner of the Plaza Theater, billed as Atlanta’s only independent cinema.
Drive-in theaters may be an exception. The Swan Drive-In Theatre in Blue Ridge, north of Atlanta, planned to open this weekend, with new rules for parking and concessions to assure social distancing.
UNEMPLOYMENT SHOCK
Business shutdowns to stem the spread of coronavirus have led to a record 26.5 million Americans filing for unemployment benefits since mid-March – nearly one in six workers – with the Trump administration projecting that the jobless rate will likely hit 16% or more in April.
Almost a third of all U.S. adults have already reported seeing their jobs or finances diminished by the pandemic, according to a Gallup survey released on Monday.
States moving ahead with reopenings, by and large, are concentrated in the South, the Midwest and the mountain West, where outbreaks have generally been less severe.
The more densely populated states of New York and New Jersey, by contrast, account for nearly 30,000 COVID-19 fatalities, or more than half the U.S. total of more than 56,000 as the country’s coronavirus cases approached 1 million on Monday.
Georgia ranks 11th among the 50 U.S. states in number of deaths, with 994.
Public health authorities warn that increasing human interactions and economic activity now, without the means to do so safely, may spark a fresh surge of infections just as social distancing measures appeared to be bringing cases under control.
Federal guidelines call for a state to register 14 days of declining case numbers before moving ahead with phased-in reopenings. The guidelines also call for greatly expanded testing to systematically screen for infected people who may be contagious, and to trace their contacts with others they might have exposed.
PATCHWORK
In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis said the White House advised him on Monday that his state satisfied reopening criteria, but that heavily impacted areas, including greater Miami, may be different.
In the Midwest, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Monday outlined “first steps” for easing restrictions, with elective surgeries being permitted to resume this week before moves to restart the state’s manufacturing and retail sectors.
Ohio’s blueprint contrasted with the more cautious approach of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who said she would not be held to “artificial timelines.”
The divergent progressions could complicate matters for automakers and others with interdependent industrial operations in the region.
Under a plan outlined on Monday by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, dental and medical practices and churches will be allowed to reopen on May 1, but gyms, barbershops, nail salons and bars will remain shuttered for now.
Officials in New York, New Jersey and Massachusetts have for weeks insisted more testing and contact tracing be in place before they relax stay-at-home orders and other restrictions.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said on Monday that any easing must be carefully monitored and fit into a multi-state plan. Cuomo said he would likely extend stay-home orders in much of the state on May 15 but may reopen some businesses, including manufacturing and construction, in areas with fewer cases of the virus.
California Governor Gavin Newsom said social-distancing enforcement would be stepped up after crowds jammed beaches over the weekend.
Slideshow (14 Images)
Hours later, Governor Jay Inslee of Washington, whose state was hit by one of the earliest U.S. coronavirus outbreaks, said parks and other outdoor areas would reopen on May 5 for golf, hunting, fishing and other recreational activities.
GRAPHIC: Tracking the novel coronavirus in the U.S. – here
Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Susan Heavey in Washington; additional reporting by Maria Caspani, Jessica Resnick-Ault, Barbara Goldberg, Nathan Layne, Andrew Hay, Lisa Shumaker, Sharon Bernstein, Ben Klayman, Michael Martina and Jill Serjeant; writing by Grant McCool and Steve Gorman; Editing by Bill Tarrant and Sonya Hepinstall
This is a widget area - If you go to "Appearance" in your WP-Admin you can change the content of this box in "Widgets", or you can remove this box completely under "Theme Options"
