The voters, who reside in New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Indiana, are suing to reverse several of DeJoy’s changes to the Postal Service by reinstating overtime pay for postal workers, re-implementing sorting machines and a court order barring Trump and DeJoy “from engaging in any further attempt to deny [the plaintiffs] the right to mail in their vote.”
Trump has repeatedly tried to dismiss mail-in voting as a gateway for voter fraud, despite the limited evidence to support his theory. The voters, however, allege that Trump is trying to stop mail-in voting for his own electoral benefit.
“In short, DeJoy, doing Trump’s public bidding, has ensured even greater chaos in the Fall elections, putting his thumb on the electoral scales to help ensure Trump’s reelection and/or provide grounds for an election contest – not to mention helping Trump sow doubt in the minds of Americans about the integrity of the electoral process and the outcome itself, a loathsome tactic once associated only with tin-horn dictators and banana republics,” the voters wrote in their complaint.
The plaintiffs also wrote they are afraid a gutted Postal Service would force them to vote in person in the middle of a pandemic. Gina Arfi, a voter from New York, said she requested an absentee ballot to vote in the state’s June 23 primary that never arrived. She was never able to cast her vote in person out of concern for her 85-year-old grandmother’s health, the lawsuit said.
Arfi isn’t alone in her concerns. AARP’s top lobbyist, Nancy LeaMond, sent a letter to DeJoy on Monday urging him to suspend changes to the Postal Service that are disrupting mail delivery during the pandemic right before the election.
“We urge you to suspend any adjustments that could negatively affect service during the pandemic,” LeaMond said. “Further, we urge the Postal Service to be more forthcoming and transparent regarding any changes, including a more detailed cost-benefit analysis of the operational changes you have made and will be making to assure timely delivery of all mail, including election-related mail.”
LeaMond said that the organization, which has 38 million members, was worried that DeJoy’s changes may be “compromising the health and safety of millions of older Americans and may unduly restrict the ability of all Americans to safely participate in the upcoming elections.”
The letter also said that many older Americans, to whom coronavirus poses the highest risk, are relying on the Postal Service to deliver their prescriptions and other necessities so that they can avoid unnecessary trips outside of the house.
DeJoy has agreed to testify before Congress on his changes to the Postal Service, in what is likely to be a caustic confrontation. Several Democrats have called on DeJoy to resign from his post.
The White House was dismissive of the lawsuit, pointing out that the administration agreed on $10 billion in additional funding for the Postal Service in the latest round of coronavirus relief negotiations. Trump also hinted at a willingness to compromise on additional USPS funding, despite his past hostility toward election security grants that could be used to mail out election materials.
“While Democrats are spreading baseless conspiracy theories about the Trump administration’s assistance to the USPS to score political points, President Trump will continue to work to ensure the security and integrity of our elections,” said White House spokeswoman Sarah Matthews in a statement to POLITICO.
Trump also tweeted on Monday: “SAVE THE POST OFFICE!”
A spokesperson for the Postal Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
WASHINGTON — Michelle Obama and Bernie Sanders headline the first night of the all-virtual Democratic National Convention Monday, with the Vermont senator making a direct appeal to his fans to support Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
“This election is the most important in the modern history of this country,” Sanders will say, according to prepared remarks released by the convention organizers. “My friends, I say to you, and to everyone who supported other candidates in this primary…we must come together, defeat Donald Trump and elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as our next president and vice president.”
Obama, one of the most popular public figures in the world, will speak to the more personal side of the Biden, who served as vice president with her husband, former President Barack Obama.
“I know Joe,” Obama will say, according to a video excerpt of her pre-recorded remarks. “He is a profoundly decent man guided by faith. He was a terrific vice president. He knows what it takes to rescue an economy, beat back a pandemic and lead our country.”
Actress Eva Longoria will serve as an emcee of sorts for the two-hour event, which kicks off at 9 p.m. ET. The program will feature speeches from political figures, videos and performances by singers Leon Bridges, Maggie Rogers, Billy Porter and Steven Stills.
Along with Sanders, many of other Democrats who ran for president this year will join for a “United We Stand” video presentation: Harris, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton, former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, billionaire Tom Steyer and entrepreneur Andrew Yang.
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Organizers also revealed Monday that the program also will include a slate of anti-Trump Republicans who are supporting Biden, including former New Jersey Gov. Christine Whitman, ex-Hewlett Packard CEO and California gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman, former New York Rep. Susan Molinari, and 2016 presidential candidate John Kasich.
“I’m a lifelong Republican, but that attachment holds second place to my responsibility to my country. That’s why I’ve chosen to appear at this convention,” Kasich will say, according to an excerpt released by organizers. “I know that Joe Biden, with his experience and his wisdom and his decency, can bring us together to help us find that better way.”
Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic will be a major theme, which will be addressed both by Democratic leaders and ordinary Americans suffering from the consequences of the pandemic.
“Only a strong body can fight off the virus, and America’s divisions weakened it,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo will say, according to an excerpt of his remarks. “Donald Trump didn’t create the initial division. The division created Trump; he only made it worse.”
Capitol Hill lawmakers have been deadlocked on a new stimulus package.
But another issue — sweeping changes to the U.S. Postal Service — now has both parties clashing again.
The crux of the argument: whether changes that would improve the balance sheet of the country’s mail service would deny Americans’ their right to vote and receive stimulus money in the mail.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has called House lawmakers back from summer recess to vote on a bill that would block the changes for now.
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats have also expressed concerns about changes initiated by new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.
“Mr. DeJoy appears to be engaged in a partisan effort, with the support of President Trump, to delay and degrade mail service and undermine the mission of the United States Postal Service,” a group of seven Democratic senators wrote in a letter to the USPS Board of Governors.
That includes cutting back hours at some locations, denying overtime pay and eliminating some sorting machines and mailboxes.
The changes threaten Americans’ ability to vote in the election and their access to Social Security, Veterans Affairs and other benefits, as well as prescription medications, the senators said. Signees include Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., as well as Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
The letter, however, does not name stimulus checks, another form of payment for which Americans may have to wait.
Congress authorized a first round of stimulus checks with the CARES Act this spring. That included payments of up to $1,200 per individual or $2,400 per married couple, plus $500 per child under age 17 to those who met certain income qualifications.
Caribou from the Porcupine caribou herd are seen migrating onto the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Alaska. The Interior Department hopes to conduct a lease sale for oil and gas drilling in the coastal plain by the end of 2020.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/AP
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U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/AP
Caribou from the Porcupine caribou herd are seen migrating onto the coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northeast Alaska. The Interior Department hopes to conduct a lease sale for oil and gas drilling in the coastal plain by the end of 2020.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/AP
Updated 5:10 p.m. ET
The Trump administration is pushing ahead with plans to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The first leases to drill for oil and gas in the area could be sold by the end of 2020, Interior Department Secretary David Bernhardt said as his agency formally announced its leasing program on Monday.
Laying out the terms of a leasing program is one of the last steps in a controversial plan to tap into the gas and oil resources in the region that has been fought over for decades. It’s backed by Republicans and opposed by environmental groups and some members of Alaska’s Indigenous communities.
The move applies to some 1.57 million acres of the refuge’s coastal plain.
“I do believe there certainly could be a lease sale by the end of the year,” Bernhardt said, according to NPR member station Alaska Public Media.
Environmental groups have pledged to sue to stop the move. They said that once drilling rights are sold, it will be harder for a future president to reverse course.
The Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups said oil operations in the federally protected lands threaten the pristine landscape, which sustains caribou, polar bears, migratory birds and other animals.
“The Trump administration never stops pushing to drill in the Arctic Refuge — and we will never stop suing them,” said Gina McCarthy, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “America has safeguarded the refuge for decades, and we will not allow the administration to strip that protection away now.”
Alaska’s congressional delegation — Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, and Rep. Don Young, all Republicans — celebrated the news, thanking President Trump and Bernhardt for what they said will be a boost for their state’s economy.
“This is a capstone moment in our decades-long push to allow for the responsible development” of oil resources in the refuge, Murkowski said.
“As we approach the day where the first drilling rigs arrive and crude starts flowing, I will continue working with great excitement to ensure that Alaska is front and center as we blaze the trail toward American energy dominance,” Young said.
It’s not clear how much demand there will be for Arctic leases. The oil industry has been hit hard by the pandemic. It’s also not clear exactly how much oil is in the refuge, and a growing list of investors have responded to environmental concerns and said they won’t fund oil and gas projects there.
Sierra Club lobbyist Athan Manuel has been fighting to keep rigs out of the refuge for more than 20 years. He said the Trump administration is rushing to get at least one company to bid on leases before the end of Trump’s term and the possible arrival of a new president who opposes drilling.
“I think they just want to ram this down people’s throats to show that they can still drill where they want to drill and still prop up the oil industry, even in the face of evidence of climate change,” he said.
Wilderness Society’s Alaska state director, Karlin Itchoak, said in a statement that the move by the Trump administration “ignores science and shortcuts the public process in an irresponsible rush to help oil companies secure leases on the coastal plain before the 2020 presidential election.”
The coastal plain represents about 8% of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge’s 19.3 million acres. It’s a place where caribou give birth and polar bears make their dens. Environmental groups call it the biological heart of a priceless ecosystem.
Once drilling rights are sold, it will be harder for a future president to reverse course. But Manual said the administration is making a fateful decision by not doing enough to protect polar bears.
“And so we have a lot of leverage in the courts under the Endangered Species Act, to push back aggressively, and that’s what we’re going to do. We’re not certainly giving up.”
The U.S. government made it legal to drill on the coastal plain in December 2017 when the Republican-led Congress added the stipulation to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
“Interior must conduct at least two lease sales within 10 years,” the 2017 law states. It adds, “Each lease sale must contain: (1) at least 400,000 acres, and (2) areas that have the highest potential for the discovery of hydrocarbons.”
The law allows oil and gas companies to build production and support facilities on up to 2,000 acres of the coastal plain as part of their operations.
Drilling advocates such as Murkowski like to point out that the coastal plain is a relatively small area on the edge of a refuge the size of South Carolina. She is largely responsible for including oil development in the tax bill Congress passed in 2017.
Murkowski said oil development on Alaska’s North Slope is always done with utmost care for the wildlife and the land.
“The environmental safeguards are such that you can’t take exploration rigs out on the tundra in summer when it might leave a mark,” she said. “No, we wait until it’s the coldest, the darkest, the ground is frozen as far as it possibly can.”
The decision doesn’t set a date for the oil lease sale, but the interior secretary said it could happen soon.
Joe Biden told Cardi B there’s “no reason” the United States can’t have “Medicare for all” and free college, after the “Bodak Yellow” singer laid out what she wants from the next president of the United States “seven days a week.”
In an Elle Magazine interview released Monday, the rap superstar spoke candidly to the presumptive Democratic nominee about what changes she wanted to see happen in the country, where Biden revealed his childhood nickname was “Joey B.”
“I have a whole list of things that I want our next president to do for us. But first, I just want [President] Trump out,” she told the former vice president.
Cardi went on to get more specific, touting her wish for Medicare-for-all to be passed through Congress as well as her support for tuition-free colleges and universities and police reform.
“What I want is free Medicare. It’s important to have free [health care] because look what is happening right now. Of course, I think we need free college,” the “WAP” artist told the presumptive Democratic nominee. “And I want black people to stop getting killed and no justice for it. I’m tired of it. I’m sick of it. I just want laws that are fair to black citizens and that are fair for cops, too.”
Without getting into specifics, Biden argued that there was “no reason why we can’t have all of that,” before referencing Cardi’s favorite president, Franklin D. Roosevelt.
“Presidents have to take responsibility. I understand one of your favorite presidents is Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt said the American people can take anything if you tell them the truth. Sometimes the truth is hard. But right now, we’re in a position where we have an opportunity to make so much progress. The American public has had the blinders taken off,” Biden responded.
The former vice president has been reaching out to Sanders’ wing of the Democratic Party as he tries to unify the groups ahead of November’s general election against Trump.
Biden has not included Medicare for all on his policy platform for his 2020 run.
Biden asked Cardi during their conversation what her fans are saying they are most concerned about.
“A lot of fans are concerned about free college and Medicare, especially now that people are getting sick left and right. Sometimes people have problems in their community. For example, a lot of after-school programs that I [had] growing up, [are] no more in my hood. Why is that?” she asked in response.
The two went on to discuss after-school programs, which Biden discussed championing funding for, and child care costs before turning to racial inequality.
“I feel like black people, we’re not asking for sympathy, we’re not asking for charity — we are just asking for equality. We are asking for fairness, and we are asking for justice. That is all. I feel like everything people are asking for is getting interpreted in a very different way. No, it’s simple: We just want justice. We want to feel like Americans,” she told the presumptive Democratic nominee during their 15-minute conversation.
Biden responded by telling the rapper that it was her generation, millennials, who made him optimistic for the future of the country.
“You’re the smartest, the best-educated, the least prejudiced, and the most engaged generation in history. And you’re going to change things. I really mean it! I’m not trying to be nice. And by the way, the rest of the world has always looked to us. Why? Not because we’re so powerful. But [because of] the power of our example,” he said.
Biden’s interview with Cardi appears to be the only line of questioning he faced on the weekend leading up to the Democratic National Convention.
The former vice president took part in no Sunday show interviews, something that was noted by “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace just before the weekend began.
Speaking on “The Guy Benson Show” on Fox News Radio on Friday, Wallace expressed shock that the Biden campaign was not making the candidate, or any campaign surrogates, available for Sunday press.
“At first I thought, well, maybe it’s because it’s Fox News and they’re boycotting us. No! They’re not putting anybody out on any of the Sunday shows,” he said.
“I don’t understand what’s going on here. This is the damnedest thing I’ve ever seen … the Biden campaign isn’t putting anybody out,” the legendary newsman said.
Donald Trump has said he may hold a funeral service at the White House for Robert Trump, his younger brother who died on Saturday.
Trump has been criticised for using the White House for political events. Though private ceremonies are not common at the executive mansion, they are not unknown.
“We’re looking at Friday, and we may do just a small service right here in the White House for my brother,” Trump told reporters. “I think he’d be greatly honored … He loved our country so much. He was so proud of what we were doing and what we are doing for our country.”
Earlier on Monday, Trump told Fox News his brother had been his “biggest fan”, showing “no jealousy” as his famous sibling signed real estate deals, had “the number one show” and eventually won the presidency.
In a rambling answer, Trump also said his brother “was so angry with China because of what happened where the plague came in”.
That was a reference to the coronavirus pandemic in which more than 5.4 million people have been infected in the US and around 170,000 have died.
Robert Trump, 71, died in hospital in New York on Saturday. The cause of his death was not immediately made public, though he had reportedly been ill for some time.
In statement, the president said Robert “was not just my brother, he was my best friend. He will be greatly missed, but we will meet again. His memory will live on in my heart forever. Robert, I love you. Rest in peace.”
In his phone interview with Fox and Friends, Trump said: “Well, we did interact and he was always there and he was, you know, he wasn’t a jealous person, he was a very smart guy but he wasn’t, you know, he would be there and he would be behind me and if … I had the No 1 show, if I had a big success and no matter what I did, whether it was real estate deals or anything else, he was right there. In many cases [he] helped me very much with whatever I did and then when I became president he was one of the most loyal people, there was no jealousy.”
She also details an attempt by Donald Trump in 1990 to rewrite his father’s will to benefit him over his siblings, and how Donald, Robert and their sister Maryanne moved to disinherit their niece and nephew after Fred Trump Sr, the family patriarch, died in 1999.
Robert Trump worked for his brother in the 1980s but the high-profile failure of Trump’s casino operations led to a professional split.
“A lot of times in families,” Trump told Fox News, “I hate to say it but there’s jealousy and especially among children … that are competitive [and Robert was] very competitive. There was not an ounce of jealousy and he’d go around talking about how great this is for the country and it’s so incredible and he was my biggest fan.”
Trump then turned to the coronavirus pandemic, insisting his brother had been “so angry with China because of what happened where the plague came in and they shouldn’t have allowed it to happen, they could have stopped it”.
As the US economy flatlines and an election looms, Trump has sought to shift the blame to the country in which the novel coronavirus originated, in Wuhan province.
His brother, he insisted, “was so upset by that … More than people would be upset. A lot of people have already forgotten, and you can’t forget. But he was a fantastic guy.”
WASHINGTON — Several Republicans are set to speak at the Democratic National Convention Monday evening in a show of bipartisan support for former Vice President Joe Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris.
Democrats announced the GOP lineup on the first day of their virtual convention, saying three former GOP elected officials would outline their party-switching support for Biden:
Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich
Former Rep. Susan Molinari, R-N.Y.
Former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman
Silicon Valley CEO and one-time Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman is also scheduled to address convention watchers.
The four Republicans will give remarks during a segment billed as “We The People Putting Country Over Party.” They have all been openly critical of Trump. Whitman gave $500,000 to the Biden Victory Fund at the end of June, campaign finance records show.
Molinari, who was a keynote speaker at the 1996 Republican National Convention and served as a member of House GOP leadership, said in January she supported Michael Bloomberg for president, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. But the former New York City Mayor’s bid did not gain traction, and she’s now throwing her support to Biden.
Kasich is the highest-profile Republican in the Monday’s line-up. Butprogressive activists have criticized Kasich’s previously announced addition to the program, arguing his record as governor is incompatible with progressive priorities.
Biden allies brushed aside the concerns about featuring Republicans at the Democratic convention. Speaking at a virtual press conference, Rep. Cedric Richmond, D-La., said the GOP officials would appeal to the “silent Biden voters” in America. Their remarks will aim to “make sure that every segment of the population understands that there are leaders just like them that are supporting the Biden-Harris ticket.”
Monday’s convention program, Richmond said, is just two hours long, meaning no stemwinders from those on the virtual stage.
One area of relative if uncertain strength for Mr. Trump is among nonwhite voters. On average, the most recent polls show Mr. Biden with a 41-point lead among this group, his lowest of the cycle. This may be statistical noise, given the small sample of nonwhite voters in most national surveys.
But Mr. Biden has underperformed Hillary Clinton’s 2016 lead among registered nonwhite voters throughout this year, and it was notable that Mr. Biden made no gains at all among nonwhite voters in June and July, when the national political conversation was focused on issues with seemingly disproportionate resonance in Black and Hispanic communities, like criminal justice and policing.
A longer-term average of polling suggests that Mr. Trump’s relative strength among nonwhite voters is broad. He is faring better than he did four years ago among both Black and Hispanic voters.
The selection of Kamala Harris for vice president might offer at least some upside to Mr. Biden, though it is too soon to evaluate any effect she might have on the race. So far, there are no early signs that she has revitalized his standing among nonwhite voters. The only two telephone surveys conducted entirely after her selection, from CNN/SSRS and ABC News/Washington Post, show Mr. Biden faring somewhat worse among nonwhite voters than in their prior surveys from June or July.
We probably won’t have another clear sense of the overall state of the race until mid-September, after the two convention bounces have faded and the race briefly settles into a new normal ahead of the debates.
The Trump administration is taking the final steps to let oil and gas companies drill in the Arctic national wildlife refuge – which environment advocates call the nation’s “last great wilderness”.
The US interior department will auction leases before the end of the year, secretary David Bernhardt told the Wall Street Journal. That could make it harder for Democrats to reverse the decision if Joe Biden wins the election in November.
The 19-million-acre refuge in north-east Alaska, known as ANWR, is a wellspring for wildlife. The move will open up the 1.6 million-acre coastal plane, where polar bears and foxes reside and to or through which millions of migratory birds fly. The porcupine caribou herd is critically important to the indigenous Gwich’in people, many of whom make their homes on or near its migration route.
“This is our nation’s last great wilderness,” said Adam Kolton, the executive director of the Alaska Wilderness League. “Nowhere else in the five-nation circle polar north do you have such abundant and diverse wildlife.”
The lease sales will set off legal battles. Environmental groups and tribes argue that the administration’s assessment of environmental risks was flawed.
Bernadette Demienti, executive director of the Gwich’in steering committee, said her tribe has had a spiritual and cultural connection to the porcupine caribou “since time immemorial”.
“This area they just opened is their calving grounds. This is a place that is so sacred to the Gwich’in that we don’t go there. Our creation story tells us that we made a vow with the caribou that we would take care of each other. They have taken care of us, and now it is our turn to take care of them.”
The caribou are already changing their migration paths because of global heating caused by fossil fuel use, which is happening at a much faster rate in the Arctic than the rest of the world, Demienti said.
The announcement comes as Democrats open their virtual convention, in which Biden’s climate plan will be a central focus. Biden spokesman Matt Hill reiterated that Biden wold “permanently protect ANWR and other areas impacted by President Trump’s attacks on federal lands and waters”.
Trump, meanwhile, has been touting his “energy dominance” agenda, rolling back methane standards for the oil and gas industry last week.
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Republicans in Congress changed the laws to requireleasing in part of the refuge in their tax bill in 2017, when they controlled both chambers. The refuge has been protected since 1980.
It is unclear if oil companies will be interested in drilling in the area any time soon, because oil is cheap and abundant elsewhere.
Five of the largest US banks have said they will not finance ANWR projects.
Kolton said any company considering bidding on leases needs to be “cognizant of the enormous reputational, political and financial risks”.
Polls show a majority of Americans oppose drilling in ANWR.
“There’s no good time to open up America’s largest wildlife refuge to drilling, but it’s absolutely bonkers to endanger this beautiful place during a worldwide oil glut,” said Kristen Monsell, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity’s oceans program.
“An oil spill in this special sanctuary could devastate polar bears and caribou and cause irreparable harm to a pristine Arctic ecosystem. We’ve reached a dangerous new low in the Trump administration’s obsession with expanding the extraction of dirty fossil fuels.”
Bernie Sanders has said Donald Trump’s attacks on mail-in voting and his administration’s efforts to block funds for the US post office amount to “a crisis for American democracy” ahead of the November presidential election.
The Vermont senator’s comments came as House Democrats accelerated their scrutiny of the cuts to the US Postal Service (USPS), which will be vital in the effort to minimize the risk to voters while the country still struggles to contain the coronavirus outbreak.
“What you are witnessing is a president of the United States who is doing everything he can to suppress the vote, make it harder for people to engage in mail-in balloting at a time when people will be putting their lives on the line by having to go out to a polling station and vote,” Sanders told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, referring to the coronavirus pandemic.
“This is a crisis for American democracy. We have got to act and act now.”
An unprecedented number of Americans are expected to vote by mail this year because of the Covid-19 pandemic. Over the last few months, states across the US have seen record numbers of Americans request ballots and submit votes by mail in primary and other elections.
However, there is concern over whether the USPS, which is already facing a severe financial crisis, will be able get ballots to voters and return them to election offices in time to have them counted.
The postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, a major Republican donor and Trump ally, has been accused of deliberately making further recent cuts to the USPS. Congressional Democrats announced on Sunday that DeJoy and Robert Duncan, the chair of the postal service’s board of governors, have been invited to a 24 August hearing of the House oversight committee. The hearing will investigate the recent removal of mailboxes and shutting down of sorting machines nationwide.
Postal service leaders “must answer to the Congress and American people as to why they are pushing these dangerous new policies that threaten to silence the voices of millions, just months before the election,” House speaker Nancy Pelosi and other senior Democrats said in a statement Sunday. Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer of New York called for the Senate to follow suit.
DeJoy has strongly denied any political interference, and Trump said in a press briefing on Saturday that DeJoy is, in fact, trying to “make the post office great again”.
But last week, Trump openly admitted he was blocking $25bn in proposed aid to the post office because he wanted to make it harder to vote by mail. The president has also attempted to blame Democrats for fueling the crisis by holding up negotiations over a stimulus bill that includes billions of dollars for the postal service.
The announcement of the hearing coincided with efforts by White House aides and postal officials to dial back on the president’s rhetoric, claiming that the measures taken so far were “routine” and promising that no more mailboxes or sorting machines would be curtailed before November.
“There’s no sorting machines that are going offline between now and the election,” Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, said on CNN’s State of the Union. “That’s something that my Democrat friends are trying to stoke fear [over].
“The president of the United States is not going to interfere with anybody casting their vote in a legitimate way, whether it’s the post office or anything else.”
In a statement, USPS spokesperson Kim Frum acknowledged complaints over the removal of mailboxes in several states, but insisted it was because of an ongoing evaluation of operational practices.
“Given the recent customer concerns, the postal service will postpone removing boxes for a period of 90 days while we evaluate our customers’ concerns,” Frum said.
Neither Meadows or Frum indicated that the removed mailboxes or dismantled sorting machines would be restored.
Trump has insisted, without evidence, that voting by mail leads to massive ballot fraud, even though cases of mail-in voting fraud are, in fact, almost non-existent. Some Republicans, including the Utah senator Mitt Romney, have been critical of Trump’s position.
Both the president and first lady Melania Trump applied to vote by mail in Florida, a state that makes no distinction between absentee ballots, which Trump has said he approves of, and mail-in ballots, which he derides.
The president is trailing Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in the polls and his focus on the USPS is widely seen as an attempt to sow chaos. Vote-by-mail does not benefit one party over the other, but Trump’s comments suggest he believes if fewer people vote, it will improve his re-election chances.
On Sunday, Meadows said he would welcome a return from summer recess of members of Congress to work on a standalone funding bill for the USPS, something Sanders has called for, and which Pelosi has said she is mulling.
“Congress needs to come back and get their act together and work,” Meadows said, claiming that Republicans had offered $10bn for the USPS but that Democrats were holding things up. As Sanders pointed out, House Democrats passed the Heroes Act in May, providing $25bn for the postal service, but the measure laid dormant on senate majority leader Mitch McConnell’s desk.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday that gyms across the state can resume indoor operations with new precautions as soon as next week after being closed for about five months, .
Cuomo said gyms will be allowed to resume operations at 33% capacity. He added that gyms must comply with state health requirements, which will be released later Monday. Clients and staff will need to wear masks inside the facilities, and gyms will be subject to new ventilation requirements.
While gyms will be subject to new restrictions, the reopening is another step towards normalcy in New York, which has managed to keep the level of Covid-19 spread low throughout the state while continuing to gradually reopen parts of the economy. The state, which was one of the first in the U.S. to be hit by the coronavirus and endured one of the most deadly outbreaks yet, is now charting a path forward.
“The gyms can open as soon as August 24,” Cuomo said at a news briefing. “The guidance goes out today on gyms. Basically, the outline is 33% capacity. There are health requirements that are in the guidelines that have to be maintained to their ventilation requirements. This is a whole new topic where we can do a whole lot of good work.”
Shares of Planet Fitness were 1.7% in Monday afternoon trading.
“We look forward to working with our franchisees to safely reopen our locations in New York under Governor Cuomo’s guidelines, in order to provide New Yorkers with much needed access to high quality, affordable health and fitness,” the company said in a statement to CNBC.
Cuomo added that local officials must inspect gyms before they reopen or within two weeks of their opening “to make sure they’re meeting all the requirements.” He said localities have until Sept. 2 to inspect the gyms and determine whether they can reopen if they’re unable to do so before Aug. 24.
“The state will make, frankly, the hard decisions. I’ll say the businesses have to close. I’ll say the gyms have to close. I’ll say the bars have to close. Let them blame me,” Cuomo said. “You, local governments, have to do the compliance and enforcement work.”
He acknowledged that gym owners will likely criticize the state’s health requirements as too difficult, but added that the guidelines were crafted by health officials and engineers. He said gyms are an “area of concern” and “that’s why we went slow on it.”
“If it’s not done right, it can be a problem and we’ve seen that,” he said about reopening gyms. “You need to get the economy back up, you need to get life moving forward. That’s the constant tension you’re trying to walk and so far we’ve walked it right.”
Another reason why the state is ready to allow gyms to reopen, Cuomo said, is because everyone signs into gyms, which allows for effective contact tracing if there is a cluster of infections traced back to a gym. He added that the state’s low overall infection rate means that residents can safely do more activities without risking a massive outbreak.
Cuomo said 0.7% of all coronavirus tests in New York came back positive on Sunday, the most recent data available, adding that the state has averaged below 1% of positive tests since June. He added that six people died of Covid-19 on Sunday, far below the more than 800 daily deaths the state was seeing at the peak of the outbreak in April.
New York, once the epicenter of the U.S. coronavirus outbreak, has made strides in beating back the initial outbreak and keeping the daily infection rate low compared with many other states. Still, the virus has infected more than 425,500 people and killed at least 32,800 people in the state, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Cuomo has repeatedly warned in recent weeks that even as the numbers remain low, New Yorkers must remain vigilant as the virus could quickly bounce back if people, businesses and officials rush to reopen.
The entire state is now in the fourth and final phase of Cuomo’s reopening plan, but a number of businesses, including gyms and restaurants, remain closed for indoor operations. Cuomo announced last week that bowling alleys could reopen with modifications starting Monday and that museums and other cultural sites will be allowed to reopen on Aug. 24.
Cuomo has expressed particular caution when it comes to reopening gyms.
“We know gyms are highly problematic from the other states. They opened them and they had to close them,” Cuomo said at a news briefing on Aug. 6. “We’re here, poised delicately on this island of New York state with this sea of spread all around us so we know we have this storm and we have to be very, very careful.”
Health officials are still learning about how exactly the coronavirus spreads and what kind of environments present the greatest risk of infection. Infectious disease specialists say outdoor environments in which people can spread out from one another are the lowest risk. Crowded, indoor environments with poor ventilation are among the highest risk environments, specialists say, adding that it’s crucial that people wear masks in such conditions.
An outline of a stimulus deal appears to be getting closer, how will the markets react? (Photo by … [+] Alex Wong/Getty Images)
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The outline of a stimulus deal is there, though disagreements remain. Negotiators may be edging closer to an apparent middle ground, where a stimulus deal can be reached, including core elements such as stimulus checks, a renewed Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and greater clarity on unemployment benefits following the executive order. However, the clock is ticking. Without a deal the decline for elements of personal income for August, and beyond, could be stark, when compared to recent generous stimulus in Q2 and into July. It may take a decline in markets to prompt action and get a stimulus deal over the line.
Recent international data has made clear just how much stimulus spend has boosted the U.S. economy in recent months. Stalled stimulus could hurt the economy and markets. That said, the markets haven’t reacted negatively yet.
President Trump attempted to bridge the gap with executive actions earlier in the month. However, little spending can be done without the participation of lawmakers. Compared to a dollar from most estimates of what a potential stimulus package could produce, the executive actions spend around five cents and even then there are challenges to implementation.
Ironically, within stimulus package, the areas of division such as postal service funding and state and local government spend are less relevant to financial markets, but these gaps need to be closed for a deal to land.
Limited Market Reaction
It is noteworthy that the lack of further stimulus hasn’t brought much of a market reaction yet, despite stimulus underpinning the U.S. economic performance in Q2. Markets’ upward trajectory has continued in July and into August despite stimulus talks that currently appear stalled or, at best, behind schedule. Lawmakers had planned for a deal to be struck last month before key measures such as unemployment benefits tapered. That didn’t happen.
We haven’t felt the economic fallout from delay yet, but it could be coming as August data starts to trickle in over the coming weeks. That said, the economics of Covid-19 are a roller coaster and Q3 will likely show many positive numbers as the broad Q2 lockdown ends and the U.S. appears out of recession at this point. Q2 was so catastrophic, that Q3 will almost invariably show a major rebound in most areas on current economists’ forecasts.
Circularity
There is some circularity here in terms of the market reaction creating pressure for a deal. If the markets were to decline sharply with an election imminent, that might provide impetus to bring urgency to a stimulus deal. We saw that dynamic when stimulus talks broke down at certain points during the last recession, but for now the calm markets may be reassuring lawmakers that they don’t need to rush. Hence watch the markets as much as the lawmakers for signals on the likelihood of any deal. Sharp market decline could bring negotiators back to the table. Further calm markets may lead to further deadlock.
The Middle Ground For A Deal
The middle ground for a deal doesn’t appear to have changed all that much since July. Republicans would rather spend less, to the tune of around $1 trillion, Democrats are looking for closer to $3 trillion. Perhaps not coincidentally, the $2 trillion of spend under the Cares Act, passed in March, suggests roughly where things could land.
Areas Of Agreement
There appears to be general agreement on more stimulus checks (Economic Impact Payments) on similar terms to last time and the Paycheck Protection Program would likely continue in a revised form. Also, though the debate on the amount and timing remains, both sides think some enhanced unemployment benefit should continue. Indeed, that was the key piece of Trump’s executive order earlier this month.
Sticking Points
Sticking points are clear too. The Democrats want more funding for state and local government. The Republicans resist that at the scale the Democrats envision. They are worried, in part, about the impact of stimulus on the national debt, a theme that’s less pressing for the stock market, but could ultimately impact government bonds in the coming years.
The Postal Service
Also, USPS funding has been a hot political issue in recent days. It’s an extremely minor spend item in the context of stimulus proposals at around $10 billion to $25 billion, but the political significance is high. Nancy Pelosi has signaled that she may recall the House this week to make progress on this topic. However, the proposed Delivering For America Act, should it become law, deals only with USPS standalone without tying it to broader stimulus funding. So the issue may be resolved standalone, without necessarily moving the stimulus debate forward.
Liability protection for businesses is a further issue in the talks. These are a key item for Republicans, less so for Democrats.
A Path Forward
The elements of a stimulus measure that a majority from both sides could accept appear in view. However, that has been true for several weeks now, and deadlock has persisted. The markets appear calm, if not optimistic, for now. This week progress could be made on USPS funding standalone, in a way that doesn’t necessarily push the stimulus debate forward.
A framework for an acceptable deal for both sides can be envisioned. Yet an agreement is still out of reach. It’s possible that the market reaction or economic data could prompt renewed urgency. Otherwise stimulus may remain stalled.
Biden will enter the convention riding high, with a party largely united behind him, despite the lukewarm-at-best feelings of progressives.
Biden has opened up a substantial lead in national polls and he has smaller, but clear advantages in the key battleground states of Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Arizona.
Biden is seeking to convince voters that he’s a steady hand at an uncertain time and the leader the country needs to turn to after the unprecedented roller coaster nature of the Trump administration.
More pointedly, he wants to make the case that the country needs new, more settled leadership to overcome the coronavirus pandemic, an economic downturn and racial turmoil.
“I hate to get optimistic because I’ve been there before — I didn’t think Trump could win in 2016,” said former Sen. Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.), who worked with Biden for 16 years in the Senate. “Last time, I know a lot of Democrats were just tired of the Clintons. Some even voted for Trump, but they won’t this time. I even have some Republican friends who aren’t sticking with Trump.”
There is enormous pressure on Biden not to falter in the final 78 days. He’ll have to withstand three debates with Trump and his own propensity for untimely gaffes.
Democrats picked Biden in the primary because they viewed him as the most electable candidate. Starting with the convention, they’re looking for evidence down the stretch they were right.
“This is it, the opening gate for the real start of the race,” said DeConcini. “Sure, there’s pressure, and Biden knows that. But when you seek this office, you welcome that pressure.”
The convention will not be the spectacle that it has been in the past, when thousands of lawmakers, political operatives and reporters would descend on the site for a week of speeches, organizing events and parties.
There will be only scattered attendees on the ground in Milwaukee because of the coronavirus. Biden and Harris will give their acceptance speeches from the Chase Center in Wilmington, Del.
Strategists are not expecting Biden to receive a meaningful post-convention bump in the polls.
“Some earned media coming out of the convention would be helpful, but no one is getting an appreciable convention bump this year in my view,” said Adrian Hemond, a Democratic operative in Michigan. “The virtual convention is likely to be a dud for both parties.”
Biden won the Democratic nomination with the help of Black voters who remembered his years serving former President Obama, and viewers of the convention will get constant reminders of those times.
“People are in the streets demanding justice … and working their butts off but still not being able to survive. … To the extent the Biden-Harris team is committed to working toward solutions to long-standing problems, people will unite to move our country and planet in a better direction,” Shepherd said.
While Biden enters the convention with a lead, there are factors keeping Democrats up at night.
They view the political landscape as volatile and believe any number of unforeseen events could rock the election in the final months, including potential foreign meddling.
“It’s going to be a battle,” said Mike Erlandson, a former chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party. “I think anybody that puts a lot of credence in national polls didn’t learn anything from 2016.”
There is fury over what Democrats view as an effort by Trump to sabotage the U.S. Postal Service ahead of an expected surge in mailed ballots due to the coronavirus.
And several Democrats said they’re worried the party isn’t taking the violent aspects of the protests seriously enough, believing that Trump’s best path back into contention revolves around him being seen as the candidate who is serious about law and order.
But Democrats are largely happy with where Biden stands as he begins the final sprint to Election Day, even as they brace for a flurry of attacks from Trump.
“Joe Biden and Kamala Harris control their own destiny,” said Mark Nevins, a veteran Democratic campaigns operative in Philadelphia. “If they can run a clean campaign, they will win this election. The Trump campaign needs them to make a mistake and they’ll be trying to force those. I fully expect Trump to become more outrageous with his attacks to try to throw them off their game the more desperate he becomes.”
President Donald Trump on Monday repeated his belief that Amazon is to blame for the U.S. Postal Service’s demise.
“Amazon and other companies like it, they come and they drop all of their mail into a post office,” Trump said in an interview with “Fox & Friends.” “They drop packages into the post office by the thousands and then they say, ‘Here, you deliver them.’ We lose $3 and $4 a package on average. We lose massive amounts of money.”
The president was asked about concerns that the Trump administration is interfering with the post office in order to impact voting in the November presidential election. The Postal Service has removed hundreds of mail-processing machines across the country and warned dozens of states that it may not be able to process mail-in ballots in time to be counted in the Nov. 3 presidential election. At the same time, it faces widespread mail delays and has seen its financial woes increase as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is calling the House back into session, cutting lawmakers’ summer recess short as concerns grow among Democrats over whether the Trump White House is trying to undermine the Postal Service ahead of the election.
Trump said the post office could solve its financial issues by raising delivery rates to offset alleged delivery costs fueled by online retailers. “This guy is supposed to be so wealthy, so let him pay for it,” Trump added, appearing to refer to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
Amazon declined to comment on Trump’s remarks.
Trump’s comments echoed similar remarks by him in April and launched a series of attacks in 2018, when he claimed Amazon was costing the post office “billions.”
Trump is right that the Postal Service is losing money, but Amazon and other internet e-commerce companies aren’t necessarily to blame for that. Previous analysis conducted by CNBC found Amazon may be saving the post office from financial demise, due to growth in package shipping from online retailers like Amazon. Amazon also relies on a range of carriers to deliver packages, such as UPS and FedEx, and is increasingly building its own network of contracted delivery partners, which now total 1,300 firms.
A major factor behind the post office’s continuing shortfall is a requirement that the USPS fund health benefits for its workers, which costs more than $5 billion annually. Other worker-related expenses, such as workers’ compensation, fluctuate from year to year based on “changes in actuarial assumptions, such as interest and inflation rates, and employee and retiree demographics,” as the USPS said in its 2019 annual report.
The Postal Service has benefited from a surge in package deliveries to Americans who remain indoors because of the pandemic, but it has experienced continued declines in first-class and business mail, according to its latest financial results.
“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president,” then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in October 2010.
The unemployment rate was 9.4 percent that month. The need for stimulus was desperate. But led by McConnell, Republicans blocked Democrats’ every attempt at further support. The GOP didn’t have a better plan for restarting the economy, but they didn’t need one. The belief, then, was that relentless opposition reflected the strategic incentives of the minority party. Obama and the Democrats carried the burden of governance, and would bear the blame for failure. The red wave in the 2010 election seemed to prove McConnell’s approach right, tactically if not morally.
Today, unemployment stands at 10.2 percent — higher than during the peak of the previous financial crisis, and that’s almost certainly an underestimate of the true employment calamity. The death toll from Covid-19 has likely passed 200,000. Vast swaths of the US remain at varying levels of lockdown. But McConnell — and, to be fair, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows — is acting as if the most important thing to achieve is for President Trump to be a one-term president.
This is the strange truth of 2020: The dynamic in Congress is virtually identical to what we saw in 2010. Democrats want more economic support; they passed a $3.5 trillion bill in the House in May. Republicans don’t, and they’ve refused to act on the House bill, or offer an alternative that reflects the size of the crisis — the main feature of the $1 trillion HEALS Act is that it cuts the expanded unemployment benefits in an attempt to push people back to work, even though the virus is anything but controlled.
Worse, in the absence of an agreement, they’ve let the provisions from previous packages expire or run out of money, draining aid from workers and businesses that remain under lockdown and now face poverty or bankruptcy. The total failure of governance is matched by a bizarre absence of urgency: McConnell could hold round-the-clock sessions in an attempt to strike a deal. Instead, the Senate is adjourned until September.
What’s baffling is that Republicans are running this strategy while they are in the majority. Donald Trump is president of the United States, and Mitch McConnell is Senate majority leader. They carry the burden of governance, and they will bear the blame for failure. If polls are to believed, both of them are likely to lose those jobs come November. What, after all, is the case for reelecting a Republican Party that has no coherent policy response to a virus that Europe and Asia have managed to control, or to an economy in free fall? “GOP 2020: More of this!” is not a winning slogan when 70 percent of Americans say the country is on the wrong track.
President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference in the briefing room of the White House on August 14, 2020, in Washington, DC.Alex Wong/Getty Images
Politically, the Republican Party’s current approach is so self-sabotaging that I figured I must be missing something. Someone must have a plan, a theory, an alternative. Chaos is Trump’s brand, but surely McConnell won’t walk passively back into the minority. And so I began asking Republican Hill staffers and policy experts for correction. What wasn’t I seeing? What was the GOP’s policy theory right now? What do Republicans actually want?
I posed these questions to Tea Party conservatives, populist reformers, and old-line Reaganites. The answer, in every case, was the same. Different Republican senators have different ideas, but across the party as a whole, there is no plan. The Republican Party has no policy theory for how to contain the coronavirus, nor for how to drive the economy back to full employment. And there is no plan to come up with a plan, nor anyone with both the interest and authority to do so. The Republican Party is broken as a policymaking institution, and it has been for some time.
“I don’t think you’re missing anything,” said a top Republican Senate staffer. “You have a whole bunch of people in the Senate posturing for 2024 rather than governing for the crisis we’re in.”
“There hasn’t been a coherent GOP policy on anything for almost five years now,” a senior aide to a conservative Senate Republican told me. “Other than judges, I don’t think you can point to any united policy priorities.”
Oh. Well, then.
Four theories for the GOP’s governance crisis
The Republicans I spoke to were clear-eyed on the electoral disaster that threatens their party. There is no campaign ad that will overwhelm mass death, no tweetstorm that will convince Americans to ignore immiseration. So what accounts for the governing political party ceasing to govern amid a global crisis and the prospect of an electoral wipeout? A few theories dominated.
It’s Trump’s fault. There was wide agreement that Trump has broken the Republican Party’s ability to govern — particularly on coronavirus. It’s not just that he is uninterested in the daily, difficult work of governance. It’s that he poses a threat to anyone who tries to step out in front of him. Any strategy congressional Republicans attempt could be shredded the next time the president picks up his phone. And with Trump still at 91 percent among Republican voters, few GOP members of Congress are comfortable crossing him.
“A lot of the Republicans I talk to seem almost emasculated by the White House,” says Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who spent six years as Sen. Rob Portman’s (R-OH) chief economist. “The president will do what he’s going to do. Any strategy they come up with will be undermined tomorrow by a tweet. Their fate is tied to a president they can’t control or even influence.”
President Donald Trump speaks during a rally at UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on January 14, 2020. Joshua Lott/Getty Images
The result has been, effectively, paralysis. Trump won’t govern. Without clarity on what he will support, congressional Republicans feel they can’t govern.
“A lot of Republican politicians are still fundamentally perplexed by Trump’s immense popularity with their core voters,” says Yuval Levin, director of social, cultural, and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute. “They just don’t think they can pick a fight with him and win it on any subject. They’re just not sure what the dynamics are, where the boundaries are. They’re so afraid of being in the crosshairs that they really aren’t doing a damn thing.”
Conservative thinking has no room for Covid-19. The coronavirus death toll shows that whatever it is America is doing now, it’s not working. The experiences of Europe and Asia show that the virus can be controlled. So what do congressional Republicans think should happen next?
On this question, every answer was a verbal shrug. Collectively, congressional Republicans have no theory for containing the virus. And they don’t really see it as their job to come up with one. It may have been the Trump administration’s job, but the White House decided to leave it to state and local governments.
That’s left congressional Republicans in a bind. To admit a new strategy is needed is to say that Trump is failing, and few are willing to risk the predictable reprisals. Moreover, congressional Republicans are uncomfortable proposing the kinds of strategies that have worked elsewhere. For instance: Pushing America back into lockdown while spending tens of billions to set up a true test-trace-isolate strategy would also require a multitrillion-dollar support package so families and businesses could survive the return to economic deep-freeze. Few Republicans want to do that.
“There’s a certain amount of motivated reasoning here,” says the top GOP staffer. “If you’re not going to have government intervention, you can’t have the lockdowns.”
Managing a pandemic is difficult in the best of circumstances, but it’s almost impossible if the party is built around mistrust of the government and opposition to social services.
They’re worried about Tea Party 2.0. The most unexpected argument that recurred in my reporting is that congressional Republicans are already acting in fear of a post-Trump backlash, with the coronavirus-support bills playing the role in 2022 that the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) vote played in 2010.
“They are already looking ahead to a Tea Party reawakening in the next couple of years, and they’re voting with that in mind,” says Riedl.
One Senate staffer noted that many of the GOP’s loudest voices against further stimulus won their seats in the Tea Party wave of 2010. “Ted Cruz was elected on Cut, Cap, and balance. Rand Paul was in the 2010, post-TARP election. Nikki Haley won her governor’s race in 2010 on the TARP issue. Ron Johnson was 2010. Those are the four loudest anti-spending folks on the right.” Opposing Democratic stimulus bills is, on some level, the foundation of their politics.
A surprising number of Republicans think the Tea Party will roar back. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), among others, wants to be ready.Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
That ideology has a firmer hold on the White House now, too. Mark Meadows, the North Carolina Congress member who is now Trump’s chief of staff, also rode the Tea Party energy to Congress, winning in 2012 and becoming a leader in the Freedom Caucus. He’s heading a faction inside the White House that’s trying to block Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin from cutting another multitrillion-dollar deal with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
They’ve given up on 2020, and many are looking toward 2024. Some Senate GOP aides griped to me that Trump’s falling poll numbers have led to too many GOP senators looking past 2020 and beginning to position themselves for 2024. Those senators know they can’t cross powerful factions in their own party — the Trumpist faction chief among those — but they also need to build their own profiles. Being the loudest voice against whatever it is the Democrats want to do is the easiest way to square the circle. But it’s left America without a governing party at a time when good governance is desperately needed.
That brings me to the explanation for GOP behavior that is almost unanimous among Senate Democrats I’ve spoken to. They believe Republicans are readying themselves to run the strategy against former Vice President Joe Biden they ran against President Obama: Weaponize the debt — which Republicans ran up by trillions during the Trump administration — as a cudgel against anything and everything the Democrats want to do. Force Democrats to take sole ownership of an economic response that’s too small to truly counteract the pain.
If Republicans are behaving like an opposition party that primarily wants to stop Democrats from doing anything, that’s because it’s the role they’re most comfortable playing, and one many of them expect to reprise soon.
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Fox News contributor Rachel Campos Duffy delves into the tale of two campaigns: Joe Biden campaigning from his basement while President Trump holds counter-campaign events.
The president and co-hosts Ainsley Earhardt, Steve Doocy and Brian Kilmeade are expected to discuss the latest news surrounding the ongoing coronavirus pandemic and the upcoming election as dozens of top Democrats give speeches and voice their support for the Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden.
The interview is expected to air during the 8 a.m. ET hour of “FOX & Friends.”
Trump’s interview with Fox News Channel’s morning show comes as his campaign launches a four-day advertising blitz, aggressively inundating digital platforms with front-page takeovers and banner ads, targeting more than just political programs.
As some of the most influential party leaders address the nation, the GOP plans to “outshine” the Democrats with its rapid response strategy, expanded digital operation, and on-the-ground campaigning in battleground states.
Trump has also conducted interviews recently with “Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace, Fox Business Network host Lou Dobbs, Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy and Axios reporter Jonathan Swan.
Fox News’ Brian Flood and Brooke Singman contributed to this report.
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