Local leaders are playing politics with the COVID pandemic, say Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.
Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp joined “The Ingraham Angle” Friday to discuss his lawsuit against the city of Atlanta, and accused Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and other local officials of “playing politics” with the coronavirus pandemic.
“I’m working very hard every day, and have been for a long time now, to protect lives as well as the livelihoods of my fellow citizens,” Kemp told host Laura Ingraham. “However, we have people, local mayors, that are playing politics. They want to go back to shelter-in-place. They want to stop in-person dining with no notice, just pulling the rug out from under people, and I’m just not going to allow that to happen.
“We’re fighting two battles here now, one to protect lives, but also to protect livelihoods,” the governor went on. “And so I filed a lawsuit to stop them because those orders are in conflict with the statewide order that I have executed for the public health state of emergency.”
The suit by Kemp and state Attorney General Chris Carr argues that Bottoms overstepped her authority by announcing earlier this month that the city would go back to “Phase 1” of reopening due to an increase of coronavirus cases. That move would have shuttered restaurant dining rooms and non-essential city facilities, as well as mandated that city residents wear masks.
For her part, Bottoms described the lawsuit as “bizarre” and accused Kemp of putting “politics over people” during an appearance on NBC’s “Today” show Friday.
Kemp has also clarified his executive orders to expressly prohibit Atlanta and at least 14 other local governments across the state from requiring people to wear face coverings.
“I don’t feel like a mandate is needed for Georgians to do the right thing,” he told Ingraham. “We have existing orders on the books … What’s so frustrating about a lot of the locals that are playing politics with this is we have orders on the books that have worked in the past to help us flatten a curve and help to stop the spread.
“They have the ability, through my order, to use their law enforcement to enforce those orders,” the governor added. “And they’re not doing that. And that’s what I’ve been telling them.”
Kemp added that “it certainly seems like” Democrats are “trying to undermine our economic recovery.”
“I’m as concerned about the virus as anybody. We’re working with our local school leaders and our school superintendents to get schools open,” Kemp said. “You know, I got just accosted when I started opening businesses early on by the left because they were making fun of us opening barbershops and hair salons and now they’re saying that the guidance that we had, you know, having people wear a mask and use PPE and having these rules in place have kept the spread down in our salons and barbershops.
Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey have led tributes from across US society to the civil rights leader and Georgia congressman John Lewis, who died on Friday evening at the age of 80.
Lewis, who had been suffering from pancreatic cancer, dedicated his life to the fight for racial equality and justice and worked closely with Dr Martin Luther King Jr in the 1960s, the high water mark of the civil rights movement in the US. He became a congressman in 1987.
“He loved this country so much that he risked his life and his blood so that it might live up to its promise,” Obama wrote in a Medium post. “And through the decades, he not only gave all of himself to the cause of freedom and justice, but inspired generations that followed to try to live up to his example.”
Winfrey released footage of Lewis speaking during a recorded conversation between the two last week. Posting the footage, Winfrey wrote: “He sounded weak but was surprisingly more alert than we expected. I had a final chance to tell him what I’ve said every time I’ve been in his presence: ‘Thank you for your courage leading the fight for freedom. My life as it is would not have been possible without you.’
“I know for sure he heard me. I felt good about that. He understood and was so gracious.”
In the interview, shot to mark a CNN documentary entitled John Lewis: Good Trouble, the congressman said: “I tried to do what was right, fair and just. When I was growing up in rural Alabama, my mother always said, ‘Boy, don’t get in trouble … but I saw those signs that said ‘white’, ‘colored’, and I would say, ‘Why?’
“And she would say again, ‘Don’t get in trouble. You will be beaten. You will go to jail. You may not live. But … the words of Dr King and the actions of Rosa Parks inspired me to get in trouble. And I’ve been getting in trouble ever since. Good trouble. Necessary trouble.”
Oprah Winfrey (@Oprah)
Last week when there were false rumors of Congressman John Lewis’ passing, Gayle and I called and were able to speak with him. He sounded weak but was surprisingly more alert than we expected. pic.twitter.com/8kRRDMTvFm
Lewis was a prominent figure in many key events of the civil rights era, prominent among them the March on Washington in 1963 and a voting rights march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 on what would come to be known as Bloody Sunday.
State troopers attacked peaceful protesters with clubs and tear gas. A police officer knocked Lewis to the ground and hit him in the head with a nightstick, then struck him again as he tried to get up, he would later testify in court.
Images of Lewis being beaten are some of the most enduring of the era. Film of events in Selma was shown on national television, galvanizing support for the Voting Rights Act.
Pettus, for whom the bridge is named, was a slaveholding member of the Confederate army, a leader in the Klu Klux Klan and a man “bent on preserving slavery and segregation”, Smithsonian Magazine wrote.
A petition to change the name of the bridge to memorialize Lewis now has more than 400,000 signatures.
Lewis was the son of sharecroppers in Alabama but represented a Georgia district for 33 years in the US House of Representatives. In one of his last public appearances, he walked a street in front of the White House in Washington painted with a Black Lives Matter mural, a tribute to a movement he saw as a continuation of his fight for racial equality.
Politicians paid tribute on Saturday, among them former presidents Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter and George W Bush, House speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and, with a tweet and an order for flags to fly at half-staff, Donald Trump.
Ava DuVernay, the academy award-nominated director of the historical drama film Selma, a retelling of the 1965 march, wrote that she would “never forget what you taught me and what you challenged me to be”.
“Better. Stronger. Bolder. Braver. God bless you, Ancestor John Robert Lewis of Troy, Alabama. Run into His arms.”
Viola Davis, the first black actress to win a Tony, an Emmy and an Oscar, thanked Lewis for his “commitment to change” and “courage”. In one of Davis’s most famous roles, in the 2011 film The Help, she portrayed a maid in the Jim Crow south, a role she has since said catered to a white audience not “ready for the truth” about the black experience.
Stacey Abrams, who lost a race to become Georgia’s first black female governor after voting rolls were purged by her Republican opponent, called Lewis “a griot of this modern age”. Abrams’ organization Fair Fight continues to work to secure voting rights, a central demand of marchers in Selma.
Minister Bernice A King, the youngest daughter of Martin Luther King Jr and Coretta Scott King, said Lewis “did, indeed, fight the good fight and get into a lot of good trouble”, thereby ensuring he “served God and humanity well”.
Department of Homeland Security agents have swarmed the city in recent days, arguing that they are needed to restore order after nearly two months of demonstrations. But local officials, including Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) and Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler (D), have implored the agency to step down, with the mayor calling the police force President Trump’s “personal army” and suggesting its tactics are only making things worse.
The novel coronavirus pandemic has now killed more than 600,000 people worldwide.
Over 14.2 million people across the globe have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new respiratory virus, according to data compiled by the Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. The actual numbers are believed to be much higher due to testing shortages, many unreported cases and suspicions that some governments are hiding or downplaying the scope of their nations’ outbreaks.
The United States has become the worst-affected country, with more than 3.6 million diagnosed cases and at least 139,960 deaths.
Latest headlines:
US death count rises 19%
25 million Iranians infected, president says
Trump putting indoor rallies on hold
Here is how the news is developing. All times Eastern. Check back for updates.
8:41 p.m.: 19 states set single-day high this week
Nineteen states set single-day records for the most cases this week, according to The COVID Tracking Project.
The states that set records this week were Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin.
Three states set a record today.
There were 65,180 cases reported on Saturday, down more than 5,000 from the daily record set yesterday. The death toll was also down today (872) versus a day prior (951).
More than 5,000 people died in the U.S. this week, according to the project.
Kentucky reported 583 new cases, the state’s second-highest single-day total, as 22,184 overall now have been recorded.
“That means this is a dangerous time, and it can’t be explained away by our increase in tests,” Gov. Andy Beshear said in a statement. “We’ve got to be careful. We’ve got to make sure that we are wearing our facial coverings, because today’s cases are a reflection of 14 days ago before we mandated those. This is what it’s going to take if we want to save our economy and save lives and get our kids back in school, it’s really that simple.”
Kentucky reported nine more deaths, including a 93-year-old Jefferson County woman, and now has lost at least 667 to the virus.
At least 529,481 tests have been administered and 6,824 people have recovered, according to state health officials.
5:04 p.m.: Texas reports new high for hospitalizations as Oklahoma governor in good spirits
Hospitalizations in Texas reached 10,658 on Saturday, marking a new high for the state during the pandemic.
There were 10,158 new cases reported, the fifth day in a row new cases surpassed 10,000 in the Lone Star State.
Over the last 24 hours, 130 more deaths were reporters, pushing that total to 3,865.
Nearby, in Oklahoma, Gov. Kevin Stitt shared more uplifting news that he was “feeling 100%” after testing positive for COVID-19 earlier this week.
Stitt shared the message on Twitter: “I was a little achy on Tuesday, but feeling really really good. I had zoom calls all week. I’ll be back after it again on Monday.”
4:28 p.m.: Indianapolis delays start date for public schools
The Indianapolis Public Schools Board of School Commissioners voted on Saturday to delay the start of the school year by two weeks, to Aug. 17.
Superintendent Aleesia Johnson said in a statement the decision was made to give the city more time “to ensure we are turning the tide on the number of positive COVID-19 cases and confirm we are doing the right thing.”
Earlier this week, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb and State Health Commissioner Kristina Box shared that COVID-19 cases were rising in the state.
When school does start, the current plan is that there will be both in-person learning and full-time remote learning options for families.
2:23 p.m.: Trump putting indoor rallies on hold until COVID ‘gets solved’
Donald Trump said Friday night he will be putting on hold any large indoor events “until [COVID-19] gets solved,” a sharp turn for the president who, for months, has been adamant about hosting rallies despite the pandemic.
Trump made the comments during his first “tele-rally,” a 23-minute call that began streaming around 7 p.m.
It was billed as the president speaking to Wisconsin, but the call was only streamed on Facebook, a Trump campaign official said.
Trump said he was thrilled to be holding the “tele-rally,” before saying, “We have a COVID problem, COVID-19 problem, as you know.”
The president made familiar remarks regrading the coronavirus, touted his actions on ventilators and progress on therapeutics. Trump also reiterated his misleading talking point that cases were going up because there is more testing, which does not completely account for the spikes in positive cases around the country.
The “tele-rally,” in which Trump also criticized Joe Biden, ended before news broke that Rep. John Robert Lewis, a Georgia democrat and civil rights icon, had died.
Trump, about 14 hours later, tweeted his condolences.
1:55 p.m.: DeSantis not worried about virus affecting his kids
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called the risk of his children getting infected with COVID-19 “incredibly low,” adding that he does not “fear this virus’ effect on my kids.”
The governor said he came to this conclusion after looking at the data in the U.S., Florida and across the world. His comments come as many states are struggling with if and how to offer in-person schooling this fall in the absence of any meaningful federally issued guidelines.
He also updated the public on the state’s handling of the virus, including that hospitals in Florida will receive 30,000 more bottles of remdesivir, an antiviral COVID-19 drug candidate, within the next two days.
1:12 p.m.: FDA approves 1st emergency use authorization for pool testing
The Food and Drug Administration has issued the first emergency use authorization for pooled testing for COVID-19, according to a statement from the agency.
The sample pooling will allow up to four people to be tested at once, which is “an important public health tool because it allows for more people to be tested quickly using fewer testing resources,” the agency said.
Samples collected from the pool are tested using one test, the FDA said. If the pool is positive, it means one or more people tested positive so then each sample is tested again individually. This testing method still requires individual nasal swab specimens.
The authorization for the testing method was granted to Quest Diagnostics.
11:59 a.m.: Arizona reports record number of deaths
In Arizona, 147 people died over the last 24 hours, according to the state’s health department, marking the highest number of daily deaths to date.
The previous record was 117 on on July 7. At least 2,730 in the state have now died.
The daily positivity rate was particularly high, at 35%, in part because the number of new tests was half of what was reported Friday.
Hospitalizations, however, did drop by more than 200 — the most significant decline all summer.
10:46 a.m.: Florida deaths surpass 5,000
The Florida Department of Health reported that 90 people died in the last 24 hours, bringing the total number of deaths to 5,002.
The number of cases increased by 10,328, with the total reaching 337,569. This positivity rate clocked in at 12.17%, according to the department.
Hospitalizations rose 441 from Friday.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to address the media in his daily briefing later this afternoon.
9:14 a.m.: Miami Beach establishes 8 p.m. curfew
Miami Beach residents are now under an 8 p.m. curfew amid rising cases in Florida.
The curfew, which went into effect Saturday at 12:01 a.m., is two hours before the countywide curfew and will run through July 24.
All businesses in the area, including commercial, entertainment and restaurants, must close by 8 p.m. Takeout food will be prohibited from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m., but restaurant kitchens can remain open if providing delivery services.
8:37 a.m.: 25 million infected in Iran, president says
Iran President Hassan Rouhani said that a startling 25 million Iranians have been infected, a figure much higher than the official toll of some 271,000 and over 10 million more than officially recorded worldwide.
Rouhani said the 25 million figure was based off a new Health Ministry report, but he did not provide details on why there’s such a discrepancy.
The president also said that another 35 million people “will be at risk.” Iran has a population of more than 80 million.
“Our estimate is that as of now 25 million Iranians have been infected with this virus and about 14,000 have lost their dear lives,” Rouhani said in a televised speech.
Iran’s official toll of confirmed cases was 271,606, according to Johns Hopkins data, putting them among the top 10 hardest-hit nations.
The United States, with more than 3.6 million cases, lead globally.
7:02 a.m.: Florida Sheriff uses chopper to break up COVID-19 parties
The Osceola County Sheriff’s Office in Florida announced it’s using helicopters to patrol and break up COVID-19 parties.
The sheriff’s office released aerial footage from the helicopter Friday showing a large gathering happening in the street and then deputies pulling up to break it up.
Sheriff Russ Gibson told ABC affiliate WFTV that many young people are gathering at a house party to either plan to catch the coronavirus or not care if they get infected.
Gibson said his department plans to increase patrols this weekend and focus on three subdivisions in the west side of the county where he said people are renting homes for the weekend and having large groups over for house parties, according to WFTV.
The large gatherings come at a time when Florida is seeing a sharp surge in coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
Florida has more than 327,000 diagnosed cases and at least 4,805 deaths.
The Sunshine state added 11,548 new cases on Friday, the third consecutive day the state has had a single-day case total over 10,000. Friday also marks the third consecutive day where the state reported at least 120 deaths. Over 9,000 patients are currently hospitalized, nearly 1,900 of them in Miami-Dade county.
4:51 a.m.: US death count up 19%
The number of new coronavirus cases is up 19.7% from last week and the national death count is up 19% during the same period, according to an internal Federal Emergency Management Agency memo obtained by ABC News.
Those figures weren’t the only increases. The national fatality rate is now 3.8% and the test-positivity rate saw a slight increase to 10.1% from 9.8% the previous week, according to the FEMA memo.
Other concerning rises include that 13% of COVID-19 inpatients are on a ventilator, the first weekly rise since early June. Also, 32% of in-use ventilators across the U.S. are occupied by COVID-19 patients. At the coronavirus peak in April, it was 45%. In early June, it was 17%, according to FEMA.
The number of available ICU beds also continues to be a problem. The memo said that 19% of all medical facilities in the U.S. have more than 80% of their ICU beds filled.
Two of the hardest-hit states, Florida and Texas, are still not seeing a slowdown in cases. From July 8-14, Florida had its highest test-positivity rate to date at 17.9%. It also had a record daily death toll of 156 on July 16. Hospitalizations in the sunshine state, according to the FEMA memo, are expected to peak in 10 days.
Meanwhile in Texas, the state had record highs of cases and deaths on July 15.
This grim news is not exclusive to the U.S., COVID-19 cases reached 14 million across the globe Friday. The world hit 10 million on June 28 — a 40% increase in less than three weeks.
ABC News Josh Margolin, Kirit Radia, Somayeh Malekian, Matthew Fuhrman, Joshua Hoyos, Jason Volack, Will Steakin and Matthew Fuhrman contributed to this report.
CHICAGO – Hundreds of protesters attempting to topple the city’s Christopher Columbus statue faced off with dozens of Chicago police Friday evening in an encounter that turned violent.
Twelve people were arrested and could “potentially face charges,” including battery to an officer, mob action or other felonies, police said, after some protesters began throwing objects at officers, who hit protesters with their batons.
About 18 officers were injured, police said. Some were treated on the scene by paramedics while others were transported to the hospital.
Photos and videos of the incident shared to social media showed protesters bleeding from the mouth. At least one protester – 18-year-old Miracle Boyd with GoodKids MadCity, an anti-gun violence group – had her teeth knocked out when an officer punched her, according to video of the assault shared by the organization.
Boyd went to the hospital Friday night and was doing better Saturday morning, said Kofi Ademola, a Black Lives Matter organizer and spokesperson for GoodKids MadCity.
The protesters gathered in Grant Park on Friday afternoon for a “Black, Indigenous Solidarity Rally” organized by more than a dozen Chicago-based organizations. The event called for “the abolishment of police and the redistribution of funds to the people of Chicago,” according to the Facebook event page.
“We built this country as Black and Indigenous peoples. Our knowledge and labor has been exploited for too long,” the organizers wrote on the event page.
After the rally, some protesters moved south toward the statue, where police had gathered to protect it. Dozens of protesters, many holding black umbrellas, attempted to hurdle the short stone wall encircling the statue, according to dozens of videos shared to social media.
“Some members of the crowd turned on police and used the protest to attack officers with fireworks, rocks, frozen bottles, and other objects,” police said in a statement early Saturday.
In their official statement, police did not say what happened after protesters began throwing objects.
“We do not want to engage in violent clashes with protesters, but when the law is being broken, our oath demands that we act to uphold the law,” Chicago Police Superintendent wrote on Twitter Saturday afternoon.
According to dozens of videos shared to social media, police began to beat back protesters with batons and fired what appeared to be teargas. Amika Tendaji, an organizer with Black Lives Matter Chicago, said she saw people’s heads “gushing with blood.”
“With incredible rage and brutality, they pepper-sprayed until the air was thick with teargas. They beat young people – we’re talking about students,” Tendaji said in a Saturday morning press conference, wearing a face mask baring the words “defund the police.”
Anthony Tamez-Pochel, co-president of the Chi Nations Youth Council, said Saturday that the protest was “a beautiful display of Black and Indigenous solidarity that was met with pepper spray and batons by gun-holding police officers.”
Police reinforcements arrived on the scene, and protesters dispersed Friday evening.
At least one reporter said he was assaulted by officers while covering the protest.
“I was just assaulted by an officer for crossing the road to my bicycle while holding up my press badge and he called me a ‘smart ass’ for doing so, accused me of wanting to start a problem. I yelled help, he said ‘you’re gonna need help’ before throwing me,” Block Club Chi reporter Colin Boyle wrote on Twitter, where he posted video of the encounter.
Another journalist, CBSChicago reporter Marissa Parra, said on Twitter that an officer used his baton to swat her phone out of her hand while she was doing a live hit, and that he kicked it after it landed on the street. She also posted video of the incident.
Chicago police said in a statement that the department “strives to treat all individuals our officers encounter with respect.”
“We do not tolerate misconduct of any kind and if any wrongdoing is discovered, officers will be held accountable,” police said.
Images and videos of the statue shared to social media following the encounter showed the statue covered in graffiti.
“This is a difficult moment in our history. I know Chicagoans are frustrated and impatient for change,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in a statement Saturday afternoon. “It is my sincere hope that we can strike the right balance to ensure people can rightfully express themselves & their First Amendment rights, but do so in a way that does not put anyone’s physical safety at risk. That would be consistent with our long history of peaceful protest.”
Lightfoot said she supports the rights of protesters and that “the history and stories of the lives of Indigenous People here in Chicago need to be lifted up and celebrated.”
But Lightfoot condemned the “violent acts” of protesters, saying that throwing objects at officers was “unacceptable and put everyone at risk.”
Lightfoot said the reports of excessive force by police are “also unacceptable” and that she had spoken to the director of the city’s civilian police oversight agency, which “stands ready to address these complaints and will ensure that each of these is dealt with and investigated.”
“We will not spare any resources to do so,” Lightfoot said.
Groups of protesters in some cities have taken it upon themselves to remove the statues before states and localities intervene. Protesters toppled a statue of Confederate President Jefferson Davis in Richmond, Virginia, and ripped a brass cast of Charles Linn, a captain in the Confederate Navy, from its base in Birmingham, Alabama.
Many groups also have turned their attention to other prominent historic figures, including Christopher Columbus. More attention has been given in recent years to Columbus, who many say should be remembered as a violent colonizer responsible for countless deaths of indigenous Americans.
“That statue is a symbol of a history that we need to acknowledge but divorce ourselves from. That statue has nothing to (do) with where Chicago is going, and our future. And the world has spoken on that,” Tendaji said. “We cannot have our youth being brutality beaten over a statue that shouldn’t be here in the first place.”
Chicago Ald. Daniel La Spata, who said three of his four grandparents came from Italy, said he supported the protesters’ desire to take down the statue of Columbus.
“I would tear down that statue with my two hands if I could,” he said Saturday morning. “I say to Mayor Lightfoot, on behalf of the Italian American community … tear down this statue. In our name, tear down this statue.”
Contributing: Ryan W. Miller, USA TODAY
Follow USA TODAY NOW reporter Grace Hauck on Twitter @grace_hauck
Local leaders are playing politics with the COVID pandemic, say Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.
Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp joined “The Ingraham Angle” Friday to discuss his lawsuit against the city of Atlanta, and accused Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and other local officials of “playing politics” with the coronavirus pandemic.
“I’m working very hard every day, and have been for a long time now, to protect lives as well as the livelihoods of my fellow citizens,” Kemp told host Laura Ingraham. “However, we have people, local mayors, that are playing politics. They want to go back to shelter-in-place. They want to stop in-person dining with no notice, just pulling the rug out from under people, and I’m just not going to allow that to happen.
“We’re fighting two battles here now, one to protect lives, but also to protect livelihoods,” the governor went on. “And so I filed a lawsuit to stop them because those orders are in conflict with the statewide order that I have executed for the public health state of emergency.”
The suit by Kemp and state Attorney General Chris Carr argues that Bottoms overstepped her authority by announcing earlier this month that the city would go back to “Phase 1” of reopening due to an increase of coronavirus cases. That move would have shuttered restaurant dining rooms and non-essential city facilities, as well as mandated that city residents wear masks.
For her part, Bottoms described the lawsuit as “bizarre” and accused Kemp of putting “politics over people” during an appearance on NBC’s “Today” show Friday.
Kemp has also clarified his executive orders to expressly prohibit Atlanta and at least 14 other local governments across the state from requiring people to wear face coverings.
“I don’t feel like a mandate is needed for Georgians to do the right thing,” he told Ingraham. “We have existing orders on the books … What’s so frustrating about a lot of the locals that are playing politics with this is we have orders on the books that have worked in the past to help us flatten a curve and help to stop the spread.
“They have the ability, through my order, to use their law enforcement to enforce those orders,” the governor added. “And they’re not doing that. And that’s what I’ve been telling them.”
Kemp added that “it certainly seems like” Democrats are “trying to undermine our economic recovery.”
“I’m as concerned about the virus as anybody. We’re working with our local school leaders and our school superintendents to get schools open,” Kemp said. “You know, I got just accosted when I started opening businesses early on by the left because they were making fun of us opening barbershops and hair salons and now they’re saying that the guidance that we had, you know, having people wear a mask and use PPE and having these rules in place have kept the spread down in our salons and barbershops.
In the U.S. Navy, “shock trials” involve taking a warship to sea and conducting drills to see how well she might absorb the stress of combat. The Navy has lately experienced institutional shock trials: bribery scandals, collisions and sundry other public-relations nightmares. This week in San Diego the USS Bonhomme Richard, a $750 million amphibious assault ship, caught fire and burned for days. Earlier this year, Capt. Brett Crozier was relieved of command of the USS Theodore Roosevelt after writing a letter saying he needed to move his sailors off the aircraft carrier to arrest an outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
Fox News Congressional correspondent Chad Pergram pays tribute to U.S. Rep. John Lewis, one of the nation’s most preeminent civil rights figures, on ‘CAVUTO Live.’
Civil rights leader Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., was “an American icon decades before his election to the House in 1986,” Fox News Congressional correspondent Chad Pergram stated Saturday.
In an interview on “Cavuto LIVE,” Pergram remembered a passionate life of gargantuan accomplishments.
“He was the youngest speaker alongside Martin Luther King at the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington in August 1963. Lewis also led various protests in the south, sit-ins at restaurants and drug stores, protesting segregated lunch counters,” he recalled.
FILE – In this July 2, 1963, file photo, six leaders of the nation’s largest black civil rights organizations pose at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York. From left, are: John Lewis, chairman Student Non-Violence Coordinating Committee; Whitney Young, national director, Urban League; A. Philip Randolph, president of the Negro American Labor Council; Martin Luther King Jr., president Southern Christian Leadership Conference; James Farmer, Congress of Racial Equality director; and Roy Wilkins, executive secretary, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Lewis, who carried the struggle against racial discrimination from Southern battlegrounds of the 1960s to the halls of Congress, died Friday, July 17, 2020. (AP Photo/Harry Harris, File)
He was only 23 when he joined King and other speakers outside the Lincoln Memorial. According to The Washington Post,.Lewis was the last surviving speaker from the event.
“President Barack Obama spoke of how he first met John Lewis as a student in law school and hugged Lewis at his 2009 inauguration,” said Pergram. “The former president said he told Lewis he never would have become president without the sacrifices he made. Although interestingly enough, Lewis initially supported Hillary Clinton’s bid for president in 2008. That was much to the dismay of fellow members of the Congressional Black Caucus.”
“Bloody Sunday, the March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in March 1965, helped shape Lewis’ legacy,” he continued. “As Lewis led protesters across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, Alabama state troopers beat the future congressman so badly they cracked his skull and doctors later had to insert a steel plate into Lewis’s head which he carried to his grave.”
“And, decades after those nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins, Lewis was still deploying those same tactics practiced years before,” Pergram said. “After the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando and Florida [in] 2016, Lewis led a sit-in actually sitting on the carpet on the floor inside the House chamber to protest gun violence. That went on for more than 24 hours, Neil.”
“Fox is told that it’s possible Lewis could lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda,” he concluded.
Fox News’ Dom Calicchio, Chad Pergram, and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON – Flags have been lowered to half-staff at the Capitol and the White House, public buildings, and military bases as lawmakers honored Rep. Jonn Lewis’ death.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff Drew Hammill announced the lowering of flags at the Capitol in a Saturday morning tweet.
“Speaker Pelosi has ordered the flags at the U.S. Capitol to be flown at half-staff due to the passing of Congressman John Lewis,” Hammill wrote.
The flag at the White House was lowered to half-staff as well. In a proclamation released Saturday morning, President Donald Trump ordered flags to half-staff at public buildings and military installations throughout the country “as a mark of respect for the memory and longstanding public service of Representative John Lewis.” Trump had not yet made a public statement on Lewis’ death as of mid-morning Saturday.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany issued a statement on Twitter Saturday morning hailing the late congressman as an “icon of the civil rights movement” with an “enduring legacy that will never be forgotten.”
Trump arrived this morning at the Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia.
Lewis, who was diagnosed with Stage IV pancreatic cancer in December last year, died Friday night at the age of 80.
In 2017, Trump lashed out at Lewis, accusing him of being “all talk…no action or results,” after the congressman said he would skip Trump’s inauguration and considered Trump an illegitimate president because of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
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Policymakers should consider blanket forgiveness for all smaller businesses who received loans from the Paycheck Protection Program, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Friday.
Mnuchin told lawmakers that they should consider such an approach to reduce complexity, coupled with some form of fraud protection.
He also said the Trump administration supports adding more funds to the $660 billion program, as well as allowing especially hard-hit businesses to apply for a second emergency loan.
He did not define how small a loan would have to be to qualify for automatic forgiveness, and added it should be paired with some form of fraud protection, without going into detail. Several business and banking groups have pushed for blanket forgiveness for all loans under $150,000, arguing the requirements for applying for forgiveness under the program are too complex.
His comments come as Congress is preparing further economic relief legislation to support businesses and people harmed by pandemic lockdowns. Roughly $100 billion remains in the PPP, a forgivable loan program created by the initial stimulus package and set to expire on Aug. 8.
Mnuchin added that he would also support applying some sort of “revenue test” to future PPP loans to make sure the remaining funds go to businesses that need it the most. The PPP has come under criticism after wealthy and larger companies secured loans under the program, which was billed as relief for small businesses.
“This time, we need to have a revenue test and make sure that money is going to businesses that have significant revenue declines,” he said.
He also said he would support efforts to set aside a portion of remaining PPP funds for minority-owned businesses, amid concerns from some lawmakers that those businesses were struggling to secure funding.
New York City enters Phase 4 — the last region in the state to do so — on Monday, Gov. Andrew Cuomo confirmed in a Friday afternoon conference call, allowing film and TV production to ramp up and fanless pro sports to move foward after being cleared by global health experts.
Media production activities, meaning motion picture, music, television, and streaming productions on set, on location or at any production or recording site can accelerate work following health and safety guidelines set out by New York State in late June. The biggest change from Phase 3 would be a doubling of allowed capacity on set from 25% to 50%.
Outdoor filming, capped at 25 people in Phase 3, won’t have limits but realistically will be constrained by open streets and outdoor dining, NYC Film Commissioner Anne del Castillo said in a recent interview with Deadline.
Related Story
New York City To Enter Phase 4 Of Reopening Monday – But No Indoor Dining, Malls, Museums
But there’s not likely to be rush to the cameras as the industry awaits clarification from the state and city early next week. Del Castillo said she thinks production in the city will relaunch in earnest, and cautiously, in August.
Otherwise it’s a bit of a bummer of a Phase 4 since it still excludes movie theaters and additional indoor actitivies like malls, gyms and enclosed dining. Low-risk outdoor venues like zoos and botanical gardens with strict capacity limits and mandatory COVID-19 precautions in place can open.
New York was once the epicenter of COVID-19 but is now one of only a handful of states where it’s under control. Gov. Cuomo has been spooked by the surge in cases acrosst the country and wants to avoid mistakes make elsewhere. He’s said during his regular daily briefings that the state is looking at air conditing systems as a culprit in spreading the virus in enclosed locations and about the possibility of addressing that with special filters that block infected droplets from recirculating.
Cuomo didn’t provide a timeline for indoor reopenings.
“New York City will enter Phase Four on Monday. That is a hallmark for us. Every region of the state will now be in Phase Four. There are no more phases. Then Phase Four, so we are all in the final phase of reopening. And that’s great. Every region has made it through the four phases without having to close. And the numbers are consistent through all phases of reopening. And this is what we said from day one, reopen smart, and if you reopen smart and you reopen in phases, and you follow the data, it’s actually a better way for the economy to reopen because if you rush the reopening then you risk the probability of a viral increase,” Gov. Cuomo said.
“The Phase Four allows schools to reopen pursuant to the State guidance. It allows low-risk outdoor activities and entertainment at 33 percent capacity. It allows outdoor professional sports without fans and that is happening as you know. It allows media production. In New York City as I announced yesterday we’re not going to have any indoor activity in malls or cultural institutions and we’ll continue to monitor that situation and when the facts change we will let you know,” he added.
He said that, “What we’re really looking at now is the potential of a second wave – not the second wave that we originally discussed. The second wave that we originally feared was from the theory of the 1918 pandemic where there was Phase One and then the virus mutated and came back in Phase Four. That’s not what we’re looking at here. This second wave would be man-made, not made by Mother Nature. It would not be mutation of the virus. It would be a wave that comes from the West and the South, a southwesterly wave that comes back to New York from the increase in the other states. We are painfully aware now that an outbreak anywhere is an outbreak everywhere.”
Here’s a partial list for the interim Standards for Responsible Media Production Activities in New York State publishe in June:
-Responsible Parties must ensure that, for indoor media production facilities or locations, the presence of employees, cast, and crew members is limited to no more than 50% of the maximum occupancy for a particular area as set by the certificate of occupancy.
-Responsible Parties must prohibit live audiences unless they consist only of paid employees, cast, and crew. Employees, cast and crew may make up a live audience of no more than 100 individuals, or 25% the audience capacity, whichever is lower. Live audiences must maintain social distance of at least six feet in all directions.
-Responsible Parties must ensure that a distance of at least six feet is maintained between all employees, cast, and crew in all locations (e.g., meal areas, common areas, holding areas,trailers, video village, equipment areas) around the media production facility or location; provided that certain functions during media production may require coming within six feet of other individuals (e.g., wardrobe, hair, makeup, sound, filming, performing), Responsible Parties must identify such functions and implement a protocol for mitigation of risk for affected individuals.
-Responsible Parties must ensure that all employees, cast, and crew wear acceptable face coverings at all times within the media production facility or location, provided the individual is over the age of two and medically able to tolerate such a face covering.
-Performers may temporarily remove their face covering during performances or rehearsals, or when it interferes with a core activity such as hair, makeup, or wardrobe. Performers must don face coverings as soon as practicable following the above activities.
-Responsible Parties must limit the number of employees, cast, and crew to only essential individuals for both indoor and outdoor media production activities, and ensure that all social distancing guidelines are rigorously enforced. Any non-essential personnel and visitors (e.g., friends, family, guests, visitors) must be prohibited from entering the media production facility or location.
-Responsible Parties must prohibit live audiences unless they consist only of paid employees, cast, and crew. Employees, cast and crew may make up a live audience of no more than 100 individuals, or 25% the audience capacity, whichever is lower. Live audiences must maintain social distance of at least six feet in all directions.
Local leaders are playing politics with the COVID pandemic, say Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp.
Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp joined “The Ingraham Angle” Friday to discuss his lawsuit against the city of Atlanta, and accused Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and other local officials of “playing politics” with the coronavirus pandemic.
“I’m working very hard every day, and have been for a long time now, to protect lives as well as the livelihoods of my fellow citizens,” Kemp told host Laura Ingraham. “However, we have people, local mayors, that are playing politics. They want to go back to shelter-in-place. They want to stop in-person dining with no notice, just pulling the rug out from under people, and I’m just not going to allow that to happen.
“We’re fighting two battles here now, one to protect lives, but also to protect livelihoods,” the governor went on. “And so I filed a lawsuit to stop them because those orders are in conflict with the statewide order that I have executed for the public health state of emergency.”
The suit by Kemp and state Attorney General Chris Carr argues that Bottoms overstepped her authority by announcing earlier this month that the city would go back to “Phase 1” of reopening due to an increase of coronavirus cases. That move would have shuttered restaurant dining rooms and non-essential city facilities, as well as mandated that city residents wear masks.
For her part, Bottoms described the lawsuit as “bizarre” and accused Kemp of putting “politics over people” during an appearance on NBC’s “Today” show Friday.
Kemp has also clarified his executive orders to expressly prohibit Atlanta and at least 14 other local governments across the state from requiring people to wear face coverings.
“I don’t feel like a mandate is needed for Georgians to do the right thing,” he told Ingraham. “We have existing orders on the books … What’s so frustrating about a lot of the locals that are playing politics with this is we have orders on the books that have worked in the past to help us flatten a curve and help to stop the spread.
“They have the ability, through my order, to use their law enforcement to enforce those orders,” the governor added. “And they’re not doing that. And that’s what I’ve been telling them.”
Kemp added that “it certainly seems like” Democrats are “trying to undermine our economic recovery.”
“I’m as concerned about the virus as anybody. We’re working with our local school leaders and our school superintendents to get schools open,” Kemp said. “You know, I got just accosted when I started opening businesses early on by the left because they were making fun of us opening barbershops and hair salons and now they’re saying that the guidance that we had, you know, having people wear a mask and use PPE and having these rules in place have kept the spread down in our salons and barbershops.
Federal prosecutors said electric utility ComEd has agreed to pay $200 million to resolve a federal criminal investigation into a long-running bribery scheme that implicates Madigan. They say the company has admitted that from 2011 to 2019 it arranged for jobs and vendor subcontracts “for various associates of a high-level elected official for the state of Illinois.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office identified the high-level elected official as “Public Official A” in a news release. A deferred prosecution agreement for ComEd filed in federal court states that “Public Official A” is the Illinois House speaker, but Madigan — a Chicago Democrat who is the longest-serving state House speaker in modern American history — is not mentioned by name.
“The speaker has a lot that he needs to answer for, to authorities, to investigators, and most importantly, to the people of Illinois,” Pritzker said during a stop in suburban Chicago. “If these allegations of wrongdoing by the speaker are true, there is no question that he will have betrayed the public trust and he must resign.”
U.S. Attorney John Lausch said at a news conference that the agreement with ComEd “speaks for itself.”
“It also speaks volumes about the nature of the very stubborn public corruption problem we have here in Illinois,” he said.
Lausch wouldn’t comment on the identity of Public Official A, saying his office doesn’t identify people if they have not been charged. But he said the investigation is “vibrant” and will continue, and he asked for people with information to contact the FBI.
Former federal prosecutor Phil Turner, now a Chicago defense attorney, said it’s likely the government has pursued Madigan for years and with the ComEd allegations, found “something really solid” to reach him.
“To put it bluntly, they’re coming for him,” Turner said. “They’ll have some people who are very credible. With bribes, there’s a money trail, good documentation, and witness testimony corroborated by documents can make the case extremely strong.”
In the news release, prosecutors said Public Official A controlled what measures were called for a vote in the Illinois House of Representatives and exerted substantial influence over lawmakers concerning legislation affecting ComEd.” During the time of the scheme, the Illinois Legislature considered legislation that affected the company’s profitability, including regulatory processes used to determine rates the state’s largest electric utility charged customers, they said.
The alleged bribery scheme was orchestrated “to influence and reward the official’s efforts to assist ComEd with respect to legislation concerning ComEd and its business,” prosecutors said. That included arranging jobs and vendor contracts for Madigan allies and workers, including for people from his political operation, who performed little or no work, appointing a person to the company’s board at Madigan’s request and giving internships to students from his Chicago ward.
In October, WBEZ reported that Anne Pramaggiore, CEO of ComEd parent company Exelon, had abruptly left her job as the company’s ties to a federal investigation seemed to be deepening. The Chicago Tribune reported in December that Madigan was the subject of inquiries in the corruption probe that had already entangled several top Illinois Democrats.
More than half a dozen Illinois Democrats — including some former Madigan confidants and allies — have been charged with crimes or had agents raid their offices and homes.
Madigan, 78, who came up under the political machine of the late Mayor Richard J. Daley and considered him a mentor, was elected to the House of Representatives in 1970. He took over as speaker in 1983 and has held the gavel for all but two years since, building a reputation for canny strategizing, patience and outwitting his political rivals. In 2017 he bested the 32 ½-year record held by a midcentury South Carolina Democrat to become the nation’s longest-serving state House speaker in U.S. history.
Madigan also controls four campaign funds and millions in contributions, allowing him to wield considerable power at the ballot box as well as the state Capitol. But Possley said he has done nothing improper.
“The Speaker has never helped someone find a job with the expectation that the person would not be asked to perform work by their employer, nor did he ever expect to provide anything to a prospective employer if it should choose to hire a person he recommended,” she said in the statement. “He has never made a legislative decision with improper motives and has engaged in no wrongdoing here. Any claim to the contrary is unfounded.”
The ComEd investigation, which charges the company with one count of bribery, is the latest public corruption probe in a state where four of the last 11 governors have been sent to prison and several state lawmakers and Chicago City Council members have faced charges, been convicted, or cooperated with law enforcement investigations.
“Even for a state with a history of corruption, this is unprecedented,” Illinois Republican Party Chairman Tim Schneider said.
Under the deferred prosecution agreement, which still must be approved by a judge, the government will defer prosecution on the charge for three years and then seek to dismiss it if the utility “abides by certain conditions, including continuing to cooperate with ongoing investigations of individuals or other entities related to the conduct described in the bribery charge.”
Lausch said that ComEd has provided “substantial” cooperation in the investigation. Under the terms of its agreement the company will continue to cooperate until all investigations and prosecutions are complete.
Exelon CEO Christopher Crane said the company “acted swiftly to investigate” when it learned of inappropriate conduct and concluded “a small number of senior ComEd employees and outside contractors” who no longer work for the company orchestrated the misconduct.
“We apologize for the past conduct that didn’t live up to our own values, and we will ensure this cannot happen again,” he said.
John Lewis, the civil rights hero and Democratic congressman, has died at the age of 80.
On Friday night, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, confirmed Lewis’s death. He had been suffering from pancreatic cancer.
Barack Obama, the first African American president, said Lewis “loved this country so much that he risked his life and his blood so that it might live up to its promise”.
Lewis campaigned for civil rights to the very end of his life. Obama also said it was “fitting that the last time John and I shared a public forum was at a virtual town hall with a gathering of young activists who were helping to lead this summer’s demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd’s death”.
Born to sharecroppers in Troy, Alabama, in February 1940, Lewis became a prominent leader of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. He joined the Freedom Rides that began in 1961, traveling to the south by bus to fight segregation on interstate buses.
A founding member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, he became its chair in 1963 and helped organise the March on Washington, when Martin Luther King Jr delivered his “I have a dream” speech.
Lewis was the youngest and last survivor of the “Big Six” civil rights activists, a group led by King. When he attended Obama’s inauguration in January 2009, he was the last surviving speaker from the March on Washington. Obama presented Lewis with a commemorative photograph signed “Because of you, John. Barack Obama.” In 2011 he awarded Lewis the presidential medal of freedom.
John Lewis, front with arms folded, in Selma in 1965. Photograph: Anonymous/AP
In Selma, Alabama, in 1965, as activists tried to cross the Edmund Pettus bridge, Lewis was walking at the head of the march with his hands tucked in the pockets of his overcoat when he was knocked to the ground and beaten by police. His skull was fractured. Nationally televised images of the brutality forced attention on racial oppression in the south. That incident, along with other beatings during peaceful protests, left Lewis with scars for the rest of his life.
Within days, King led more marches in Alabama. President Lyndon B Johnson soon was pressing Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act, which became law later that year, removing barriers that had barred black people from voting.
Lewis was elected congressman for Georgia’s fifth district in 1987 and held the office until his death. In December last year, he announced he was being treated for stage four pancreatic cancer.
“I have been in some kind of fight – for freedom, equality, basic human rights – for nearly my entire life,” he said. “I have never faced a fight quite like the one I have now.”
On Friday, Obama said: “I first met John when I was in law school, and I told him then that he was one of my heroes. Years later, when I was elected a US senator, I told him that I stood on his shoulders. When I was elected president of the United States, I hugged him on the inauguration stand before I was sworn in and told him I was only there because of the sacrifices he made.
“And through all those years, he never stopped providing wisdom and encouragement to me and Michelle and our family. We will miss him dearly.
“It’s fitting that the last time John and I shared a public forum was at a virtual town hall with a gathering of young activists who were helping to lead this summer’s demonstrations in the wake of George Floyd’s death.
“Afterwards, I spoke to him privately, and he could not have been prouder of their efforts … I told him that all those young people – of every race, from every background and gender and sexual orientation – they were his children. They had learned from his example, even if they didn’t know it.”
Barack Obama walks alongside Lewis across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 2015 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery marches in Selma, Alabama. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King, said Lewis fought “the good fight”. Former president Bill Clinton said Lewis “gave all he had to redeem America’s unmet promise of equality and justice for all” and “became the conscience of the nation”.
Pelosi said: “Every day of John Lewis’s life was dedicated to bringing freedom and justice to all. As he declared 57 years ago during the March on Washington, standing in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial: ‘Our minds, souls, and hearts cannot rest until freedom and justice exist for all the people.’
“How fitting it is that even in the last weeks of his battle with cancer, John summoned the strength to visit the peaceful protests where the newest generation of Americans had poured into the streets to take up the unfinished work of racial justice.”
In 2001, Lewis boycotted the inauguration of George W Bush because he did not believe the Republican had fairly been awarded victory over the Democratic nominee, Al Gore. Donald Trump, the current Republican president, did not immediately comment on Friday night or Saturday morning. The most senior Republican in Congress, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, said Lewis was a “pioneering civil rights leader who put his life on the line to fight racism”.
“Congressman Lewis’ place among the giants of American history was secure before his career in Congress had even begun,” McConnell said. “You did not need to agree with John on many policy details to be awed by his life.”
John Lewis remembers ‘Bloody Sunday’ in Selma – video report
Late last year, a spokesperson for Lewis said the congressman had been arrested 40 times during the civil rights era and he had been arrested several times since, including in 2013 at a rally for immigration reform.
Even while ill earlier this year and unable to work on Capitol Hill, Lewis continued to speak out and expressed hope that Black Lives Matter protests would lead to real change. In early June, he said that while he had “been down this road before” in seeing large-scale protests against systemic racism, this time gave him hope.
“As a nation, and as a people, we’re going to get there. We’re going to make it,” he told NBC.
Clearly ailing, he appeared to be signaling to a new generation of leaders.
“We’re going to survive and there will be no turning back,” he said.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks in Dunmore, Pa., on July 9, at one of the few in-person events he’s holding. Despite a low-key approach to campaigning, he’s built a lead over President Trump in key battleground states.
Matt Slocum/AP
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Matt Slocum/AP
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks in Dunmore, Pa., on July 9, at one of the few in-person events he’s holding. Despite a low-key approach to campaigning, he’s built a lead over President Trump in key battleground states.
Matt Slocum/AP
In the span of one day this week, President Trump gave an interview in which he defended the Confederate flag and delivered a speech from the Rose Garden in which he accused Joe Biden of trying to make office buildings too cold.
It generated just a few of the news cycles Trump dominates in any given week.
The same day, Biden held his only in-person event in the last seven days, in his hometown of Wilmington, Del.
“I have to start by speaking about what millions of Americans know when they wake up with worry, anxiety and fear,” he said, trying to project a steady image amid soaring COVID-19 cases. “We’re still a country in crisis.”
This is typical for Biden. He rarely ventures beyond Delaware or Pennsylvania and rarely holds more than one or two in-person events a week. He tries to offer advice about how to deal with the pandemic, not to be goaded by inflammatory tweets. Occasionally, he rolls out a new plan about infrastructure or jobs.
Biden is not nearly as visible as Trump, but polling averages from RealClearPolitics show he’s leading the president in every key battleground state: Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, North Carolina and Florida.
“The Biden campaign is playing it as safe as possible,” said Glen Bolger, a Republican pollster with Public Opinion Strategies. “Biden’s team feels like they’re ahead by a pretty sizable margin and they don’t want to be making any mistakes … They don’t want him to sort of lose his train of thought, and so they’re trying to make it less risky.”
By laying low, Bolger says, Biden can try to make sure this election is a referendum on the incumbent, as most reelection campaigns are.
“There is nothing playing safe about what Joe Biden is doing,” said Anita Dunn, a senior adviser with the Biden campaign. “What he is doing is showing people what kind of president he will be.”
The Biden campaign admits that one of its most effective weapons against Trump is Trump himself, what he says and how he acts. But Dunn says their team is also trying to articulate the clear difference between these two candidates.
“Our best counter programming with Donald Trump is to contrast Joe Biden’s leadership — his vision for the future, his steadiness, his experience to deal with crises — with what people are getting from their president right now,” she added.
Democrats and Republicans agree the pandemic and the president’s response make the contrast between candidates feel sharper than it did in 2016.
“When he was just a candidate, people judged Trump the way they judged him when he was just a reality TV show. ‘Oh, look, he’s picked a Twitter war with Rosie O’Donnell.’ When you’re president and people are dying, picking a Twitter war with Bubba Wallace, the NASCAR driver, doesn’t save my mom’s life,” said Democratic strategist Paul Begala.
He thinks dominating a news cycle is traditionally important, but says the difficulty for Trump right now is that he’s dominating it with “incompetence.”
“Trump’s super power is diversion, and it has failed him in coronavirus. It used to work all the time, it worked on me,” added Begala, who in 2016 helped direct strategy for the main super PAC backing Hillary Clinton, Priorities USA.
Begala points out that in the last century, voters have fired only three elected presidents: Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush. In all of those cases, he said, there came a point where people just stopped listening to the president and essentially gave up on him.
“I think Biden’s strategy is to let Trump fail,” said Ari Fleischer, former press secretary to President George W. Bush. “Make Biden as small as possible, don’t make him an issue, don’t put him in a position to say ‘You ain’t black’ to anybody else again,” referring to a controversial comment that Biden made on the popular morning radio show The Breakfast Club.
Fleischer admits that part of what makes this current campaign challenging for Trump is that he has a “shadow” opponent in Joe Biden.
In the last month, Biden held three public virtual events, seven in-person events, all in Delaware or Pennsylvania, and a total of six TV interviews.
That schedule is depriving Trump of the daily back-and-forth he craves, and Fleischer says Trump doesn’t know how to handle this low key Biden.
For starters, he thinks the nickname “sleepy Joe” is off base.
“With three and half years of President Trump being as red hot as he is, and with the COVID scare underway, ‘sleepy’ also connotes calm, which very well may be the antidote for many voters to the Trump era,” Fleischer said.
The president has been trying out alternative names, like “corrupt Joe,” but Fleischer recommends painting Biden as “weak.” He thinks the president should try to portray his opponent as old, prone to gaffes and someone who, even before the pandemic, didn’t campaign as rigorously as some of his primary opponents.
Republicans also feel that Biden is benefiting by being a generic anti-Trump, someone who, in their view, is relatively undefined with voters, despite being in public life for decades. “Once he gets more defined, some Republicans who are taking a look at him will probably return home, and some of the more conservative independents will as well,” said Bolger.
Recent polls show Biden performing strongly with college educated white voters, a demographic that for decades has favored the Republican Party.
For now, the candidate may be focused on a “less is more” strategy, but Democrats say that their operation is bigger and better positioned than it was was four years ago.
“If you were to have parachuted in at this point in 2016, I think you would have found there were probably around 20 people on the ground,” said Lavora Barnes, chair of the Michigan Democratic Party. “The difference here is that we have about 160 people on the ground.
“On the ground” is figurative. Nobody from the Biden campaign is knocking on doors, even though Trump campaign volunteers working with the Republican Party have been.
Democrats say that’s foolish, given the rising number of COVID-19 cases.
They think a lot of what Trump is doing is foolish, but they just don’t see a point in picking a fight over it.
“I think there’s nothing wrong with following Napolean’s maxim, which is, when your opponent is destroying himself, don’t interrupt,” said Begala.
As Portland continues to be rocked by social protests, on Thursday the situation escalated as Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf visited the city and protestors accused the federal government of using Gestapo-like tactics. With Portland increasingly looking like a flashpoint among protestors and the federal government, could it foreshadow more violent conflict across America?
The chances are increasing.
Like much of the civic outrage across America, the protests in Portland were sparked following the killing of George Floyd by four Minneapolis police officers. But unlike the other cities where the social protests have become more tempered, the demonstrations in Portland show only a modest degree of slowing down. Many of the protests center around the Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse in downtown Portland, with protestors regularly defacing the building and sparking confrontations with authorities. The nightly occurrences are also a frequent topic of conservative and right-wing media outlets.
Chad Wolf Addressing Federal Officers. Acting DHS Secretary visited Portland, Oregon on Thursday, … [+] July 16, 2020
Chad Wold/via Twitter
This week a new dimension unfolded as Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) and other media outlets detailed reports of unmarked vans with camouflaged federal officers surveying the streets of Portland and arresting protestors. The OPB report of the federal law enforcement actions has been widely shared on social media via personal accounts and phone camera footage, prompting outrage. Many commentators tagged their posts with hashtags such as #TrumpFacism and #Gestopo, the latter being a reference to the secret police used by Nazi Germany.
The outbreak of violence in Portland prompted the federal government to send officers from the United States Border Control’s BORTAC unit, the tactical unit considered the SWAT team of the nation’s border control force. Officers from the U.S. Marshal’s Special Operations group have also been dispatched to Portland to quell the violence. On Thursday, Acting Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Chad Wolf visited Portland to assess the situation the same day he issued as strongly-worded statement referring to the protestors as “violent anarchists.”
“The city of Portland has been under siege for 47 straight days by a violent mob while local political leaders refuse to restore order to protect their city. Each night, lawless anarchists destroy and desecrate property, including the federal courthouse, and attack the brave law enforcement officers protecting it,” the statement read.
“Instead of addressing violent criminals in their communities, local and state leaders are instead focusing on placing blame on law enforcement and requesting fewer officers in their community. This failed response has only emboldened the violent mob as it escalates violence day after day.” The statement then went on to detail a list of violent actions that have been taken by protestors against federal properties since May 29.
Wolf’s statement, as well as his presence in Portland, comes at a time when President Trump has escalated rhetoric against Portland and other Democratic-controlled cities for failing to address violence in their cities. Both Trump and his Press Secretary Kaitlynn McEnany recently called out Chicago and New York as “Democrat cities not controlling their streets.” McEnany also referred to Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot as a “derelict,” which prompted a fierce reply from Lightfoot referring to McEnany as a “Karen.”
All of this comes after a federal officer shot a protestor in the head with a “nonlethal projectile,” drawing a strong rebuke from the Portland City Commissioner Jo Ann Hardesty. Addressing the federal officers’ deployment in Portland, Hardesty was accusatory. “Their presence brought on an escalation of violence towards protesters — an extreme response to a movement challenging police violence,” Hardesty said. “This reckless and aggressive behavior has now put someone in the hospital. Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler echoed the Hardesty’s sentiment. “We do not need or want [the federal officer’s] help,” Wheeler said. “The best thing they can do is stay inside their building, or leave Portland altogether.”
For her part, Oregon Governor Kate Brown also admonished Wolf, accusing him of “being on a mission to provoke conformation for political purposes.” She also pointed blame at President Trump. “The President is failing to lead this nation. Now he is deploying federal officers to patrol the streets of Portland in a blatant abuse of power by the federal government,” Brown said.
The escalating violence on the streets of Portland and the escalating rhetoric between local, state, and federal officials are creating a combustible situation that is likely to play out in other cities across America as the nation hurtles through a summer of rising temperatures and rising tensions. The combination of a worsening pandemic, a deepening recession, and heightened racial tensions are all variables that figure into an unpredictable year that is reshaping America on an almost daily basis. The November presidential election is also adding a degree of uncertainty to America’s political landscape, and with that uncertainty is a rising sense of fear.
Could the protests in Portland, and the federal government’s unconventional approach to interceding, spark an open outbreak in hostilities in Portland or elsewhere? While unlikely, it is possible that the violence sparks unintended consequences and perhaps emboldens groups like the Boogaloo Boys and other right-wing groups to exploit the situation for their own calls for a new American civil war. Either way, by ratcheting up the rhetoric and by refereeing to sieges and anarchists, Chad Wolf is playing with fire.
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