Trump Administration, Week 186: Friday, 7 August – Thursday, 13 August 2020 (Days 1,295-1,301)

 

Passages in bold in the body of the texts below are usually my emphasis, though not always. This is an ongoing project, and I update the site frequently during the day. Because I try to stay focused on what has actually happened, I usually let the news ‘settle’ for a day or so before posting. I hope readers will peruse the articles in full for a better understanding of the issues and their context; our democracy and our future depend on citizens who can distinguish between facts and falsehoods and who are engaged in the political process.

 

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Friday, 7 August 2020, Day 1,295:

 

Some Global Coronavirus Updates for Friday, 7 August 2020: Trump Vows to Issue Executive Orders if Coronavirus Relief Talks Collapse, The New York Times, Friday, 7 August 2020:

• As the U.S. relief talks falter again, Trump says he is prepared to act on his own.
• Cuomo says N.Y. schools can reopen in-person but leaves it up to districts to determine if, when and how.
• Thousands of cases went unreported in California when a computer server failed.
• At Europe’s illegal dance parties, the virus is the last thing on anyone’s mind.
• Africa reaches one million confirmed cases, although the true toll may be higher.
• As Myanmar tourism collapses, horses become too expensive to keep alive.
• An Indian vaccine maker gets a big dose of money.

Many other significant developments are included in this article.

Some Business Coronavirus Updates for Friday, 7 August 2020: U.S. Added 1.8 Million Jobs in July, The New York Times, Friday, 7 August 2020:

• U.S. employers added 1.8 million jobs in July despite a coronavirus surge.
• Wealthy families are throwing a lifeline to distressed businesses.
• Canada outlines its response to the new U.S. aluminum tariff.
• An expert on economic calamities sees ‘very, very dangerous territory.’
• Wall Street is held back by China tensions and gridlock in Washington.

Some significant developments in the coronavirus pandemic on Friday, 7 August 2020: Coronavirus relief package talks stall; Trump might use executive actions to bypass Congress, The Washington Post, Brittany Shammas, Lateshia Beachum, Siobhán O’Grady, Kim Bellware, Hamza Shaban, Marisa Iati, and Meryl Kornfield, Thursday, 7 August 2020: “Talks regarding a coronavius relief package collapsed on Capitol Hill on Friday, and White House officials said they will recommend that President Trump move ahead without Congress to try and address unemployment benefits, eviction rules, and student loan relief. ‘The president would like us to make a deal, but unfortunately we did not make any progress today,’ Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said after he and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). ‘At this point we are going to recommend to the president that over the weekend we move forward with some executive actions,’ Mnuchin said.

Negotiators fail to reach deal in coronavirus relief talks, Politico, Marianne Levine, John Bresnahan, and Anita Kumar, Friday, 7 August 2020: “Last-ditch negotiations over a new coronavirus relief package failed to yield a deal Friday, ending talks for now and leaving bitter feelings among White House officials and Democratic leaders. As the negotiations collapsed, President Donald Trump vowed again that he would issue a series of controversial executive orders in response to the breakdown…. Clinching an agreement was never going to be easy. From the start, the White House and Democratic leaders were trillions of dollars apart, with Democrats pushing for the $3 trillion HEROES Act and the White House aiming to stay at $1 trillion. Senate Republicans also were divided on their own opening offer, with hard-line conservatives opposing additional federal spending. Pelosi and Schumer said Friday that they were willing to cut down their ask by $1 trillion if the White House increased their offer by $1 trillion, a move administration officials rejected.”

New York governor Andrew Cuomo says schools can reopen for in-person classes, NBC News, Joe Murphy and Corky Siemaszko, Friday, 7 August 2020: “Gov. Andrew Cuomo gave New York schools the green light Friday to reopen classrooms in the fall. Cuomo’s announcement ended weeks of speculation about whether New York would follow others in delaying in-person education — and as the number of new coronavirus cases continued to tick down in a state that was once the nation’s pandemic hot spot. ‘We are probably in the best situation in the country right now,’ Cuomo said on a call with reporters. ‘If anybody can open schools, we can open schools and that’s true for every region in the state.’ But Cuomo’s announcement is not likely to be the last word on this contentious issue. There continues to be stiff opposition from  teachers and parents to resuming in-class education, especially in New York City which has the nation’s biggest public school system with more than 1.1 million students. ‘If the teachers don’t come back, then you can’t really open the schools,’ Cuomo said. ‘If the parents don’t send their students, then you’re not really opening the schools.’ Cuomo’s directive leaves it up to local politicians and superintendents to decide whether and how to reopen.”

Covid-19 Pandemic Triggers Wave of Long-Term Unemployment. Numbers of people unemployed between 15 and 26 weeks rose to record high in July. The Wall Street Journal, Eric Morath and Danny Dougherty, Friday, 7 August 2020: “An increasing number of workers were unemployed for more than three months in July, a signal that the coronavirus pandemic is likely to have a lasting economic impact on many people. The number who were unemployed between 15 and 26 weeks rose by a seasonally adjusted 4.6 million to 6.5 million people last month, according to the Labor Department. The July reading is the highest on record for the category in data going back to 1948, and it is nearly double the prior peak, set in 2009 at the end of the last recession. It is an ominous signal that even as overall hiring improves, millions of workers are facing the prospect of being out of a job for a long time.”

U.S. unemployment rate fell to 10.2 percent in July. That’s down from a peak of 14.7 percent in April, but it is still far above pre-coronavirus levels. Politico, Friday, 7 August 2020: “The unemployment rate fell to 10.2 percent in July, the Labor Department reported Friday. That’s down from a peak of 14.7 percent in April, but still far above the 3.5 percent rate in February before the coronavirus pandemic led to mass economic shutdowns across the country. The economy also added 1.8 million jobs in July, the department said, a slowdown from a 4.8 million gain in June. The number of unemployed is up by 10.6 million since February.”

‘Shameful’: Biden slams Trump for saying he would ‘hurt God’ if elected, Politico, Quint Forgey, Friday, 7 August 2020: “Former Vice President Joe Biden defended his faith Thursday in the face of fresh attacks from President Donald Trump, who declared the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee is ‘against the Bible’ and claimed he would ‘hurt God’ if elected to the White House. ‘Like so many people, my faith has been the bedrock foundation of my life: it’s provided me comfort in moments of loss and tragedy, it’s kept me grounded and humbled in times of triumph and joy,’ Biden said in a statement. ‘And in this moment of darkness for our country — of pain, of division, and of sickness for so many Americans — my faith has been a guiding light for me and a constant reminder of the fundamental dignity and humanity that God has bestowed upon all of us.’ A devout Catholic, Biden has recited Scripture on the 2020 campaign trail and is known to carry rosary beads in his pocket. ‘Faith sees best in the dark,’ he says frequently in public remarks, quoting the Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard. Biden also has spoken and written at length about how his faith helped him grieve the deaths of his wife and 1-year-old daughter after a car accident in 1972, as well as the death of his son Beau in 2015 due to brain cancer. But in a radio interview Thursday with television personality Geraldo Rivera, Trump said of Biden: ‘He’s against the Bible. Essentially against religion. But against the Bible.’ The president repeated his claims when addressing supporters in Cleveland hours later. ‘He’s following the radical left agenda. Take away your guns, destroy your Second Amendment. No religion, no anything. Hurt the Bible, hurt God. He’s against God,’ Trump said. Biden said in his statement late Thursday that Trump’s ‘shameful’ comments were ‘beneath the office he holds’ and ‘beneath the dignity the American people so rightly expect and deserve from their leaders.'”

Senior U.S. intelligence official William Evanina says Russia is trying to ‘denigrate’ Biden while China prefers ‘unpredictable’ Trump not be reelected, The Washington Post, Shane Harris, Ellen Nakashima, and Josh Dawsey, Friday, 7 August 2020: “Russia is ‘using a range of measures’ to interfere in the 2020 election and has enlisted a pro-Russian lawmaker from Ukraine — who has met with President Trump’s personal lawyer — ‘to undermine former vice president [Joe] Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party,’ a top U.S. intelligence official said in a statement Friday. The remarks by William Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, were some of the most detailed to date about foreign interference in the presidential race and come after earlier criticism from Democratic lawmakers that Evanina had not shared with the public some of the alarming intelligence he gave them in classified briefings. Evanina also said that the government of China does not want Trump to win reelection in November, seeing the incumbent as ‘unpredictable.’ Evanina described China’s efforts to date as largely rhetorical and aimed at shaping policy and criticizing the Trump administration for actions Beijing sees as harmful to its long-term strategic interests. By contrast, Evanina described Russia as actively engaged in efforts that are reminiscent of the Kremlin’s attempts to influence the outcome of the 2016 election. ‘We assess that Russia is using a range of measures to primarily denigrate former vice president Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia establishment,’ Evanina said. He noted that a Ukrainian lawmaker who has been in contact with Rudolph W. Giuliani, Trump’s personal lawyer, is part of a Russian disinformation effort.” See also, Intelligence community’s top election security official says China and Iran don’t want trump to win reelection, and Russia is working against Biden, CNN Politics, Alex Marquardt, Evan Perez, Zachary Cohen, and Veronica Stracqualursi, Friday, 7 August 2020: “The US intelligence community’s top election security official said in a statement Friday that China ‘prefers’ an outcome where President Donald Trump is not reelected in November and Russia is working to ‘denigrate’ former Vice President Joe Biden’s White House bid.” See also, Russia Is Working to Damage Joe Biden’s White House Bid, U.S. Intelligence Agencies Say, The Wall Street Journal, Dustin Volz, Friday, 7 August 2020: “The U.S. intelligence community has assessed that Russia has undertaken a broad effort to damage Democratic Joe Biden’s bid for the presidency, while China prefers that President Trump not win re-election, a senior intelligence official said Friday. Iran is also seeking to undermine U.S. democratic institutions and President Trump, and to divide the country ahead of the November contest, Bill Evanina, who runs the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, wrote in a brief public report.” See also, Russia Continues Interfering in Election to Try to Help Trump, U.S. Intelligence Says, The New York Times, Julian E. Barnes, Friday, 7 August 2020: “Russia is using a range of techniques to denigrate Joseph R. Biden Jr., American intelligence officials said Friday in their first public assessment that Moscow continues to try to interfere in the 2020 campaign to help President Trump. At the same time, the officials said China preferred that Mr. Trump be defeated in November and was weighing whether to take more aggressive action in the election. But officials briefed on the intelligence said that Russia was the far graver, and more immediate, threat. While China seeks to gain influence in American politics, its leaders have not yet decided to wade directly into the presidential contest, however much they may dislike Mr. Trump, the officials said.”

Sensitive to claims of bias, Facebook relaxed misinformation rules for conservative pages, NBC News, Olivia Solon, Friday, 7 August 2020: “Facebook has allowed conservative news outlets and personalities to repeatedly spread false information without facing any of the company’s stated penalties, according to leaked materials reviewed by NBC News. According to internal discussions from the last six months, Facebook has relaxed its rules so that conservative pages, including those run by Breitbart, former Fox News personalities Diamond and Silk, the nonprofit media outlet PragerU and the pundit Charlie Kirk, were not penalized for violations of the company’s misinformation policies.”

Trump issues orders banning TikTok and WeChat from operating in 45 days if they are not sold by Chinese parent companies, CNN Politics, Nikki Carvajal and Caroline Kelly, Friday, 7 August 2020: “President Donald Trump on Thursday issued executive orders that would ban the social media app TikTok and WeChat from operating in the US in 45 days if they are not sold by their Chinese-owned parent companies. The orders, which use similar language, do not state that a certain amount of money from the sale needs to be sent to the US Treasury Department, which the President has been insisting on for several days. The order regarding TikTok prohibits after 45 days ‘any transaction by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, with ByteDance Ltd.,’ the Chinese company that owns the social media platform. The move turns up the pressure on negotiations over the popular video app’s future through a potential sale. The dramatic back and forth began when Trump said last Friday night that he would ban TikTok from operating in the United States using emergency economic powers or an executive order…. Thursday’s order alleges that TikTok ‘automatically captures vast swaths of information from its users,’ such as location data and browsing and search histories, which ‘threatens to allow the Chinese Communist Party access to Americans’ personal and proprietary information — potentially allowing China to track the locations of Federal employees and contractors, build dossiers of personal information for blackmail, and conduct corporate espionage.'”

House can sue to force former White House counsel Don McGahn to comply with subpoena, The Washington Post, Ann E. Marimow and Spencer S. Hsu, Friday 7 August 2020: “House Democrats can sue to force President Trump’s former White House counsel Donald McGahn to comply with a congressional subpoena, a federal appeals court ruled Friday. In a 7-2 decision, the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit affirmed Congress’s oversight powers and said the House has a long-standing right to compel government officials to testify and produce documents. The ruling came in one of a set of historic clashes between the White House and Democratic lawmakers. The ‘effective functioning of the Legislative Branch critically depends on the legislative prerogative to obtain information, and constitutional structure and historical practice support judicial enforcement of congressional subpoenas when necessary,’ Judge Judith W. Rogers wrote for the majority. The decision is a legal victory for House Democrats, but the ruling does not mean that McGahn will immediately appear on Capitol Hill. The court sent the case back to the initial three-judge panel, which had ruled against the House, to consider McGahn’s other challenges to the subpoena. The timeline makes it unlikely that the case will be resolved before Congress adjourns in January and the subpoena expires.” See also,  House Judiciary Committee Can Sue to Force Testimony From Former White House Counsel Don McGahn, The New York Times, Hailey Fuchs, Friday, 7 August 2020: “The House Judiciary Committee can sue to force the former White House counsel Donald F. McGahn II to testify before Congress, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday. The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said in a 7-to-2 decision that enforcement of congressional subpoenas was crucial to its oversight duties over the executive branch and remanded to a panel of judges other issues Mr. McGahn raised in the case. Mr. McGahn is unlikely to appear before Congress ahead of the election, but the decision endorsed strong congressional oversight powers and Congress’s ability to take the White House to court if an administration fails to comply with its subpoenas.”

Postal Service overhauls leadership as Democrats press for investigation of mail delays. Lawmakers want the inspector general to examine Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s cost-cutting measures and investments. The Washington Post, Jacob Bogage, Friday, 7 August 2020: “Postmaster General Louis DeJoy unveiled a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s mail service, displacing the two top executives overseeing day-to-day operations, according to a reorganization memo released Friday. The shake-up came as congressional Democrats called for an investigation of DeJoy and the cost-cutting measures that have slowed mail delivery and ensnared ballots in recent primary elections. Twenty-three postal executives were reassigned or displaced, the new organizational chart shows. Analysts say the structure centralizes power around DeJoy, a former logistics executive and major ally of President Trump, and de-emphasizes decades of institutional postal knowledge. All told, 33 staffers included in the old postal hierarchy either kept their jobs or were reassigned in the restructuring, with five more staffers joining the leadership from other roles. The reshuffling threatens to heighten tensions between postal officials and lawmakers, who are troubled by delivery delays — the Postal Service banned employees from working overtime and making extra trips to deliver mail — and wary of the Trump administration’s influence on the Postal Service as the coronavirus pandemic rages and November’s election draws near. It also adds another layer to DeJoy’s disputes with Democratic leaders, who have pushed him to rescind the cost-cutting directives that have caused days-long backlogs and steady the Postal Service in the run-up to the election. DeJoy clashed with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), in a meeting on the issue earlier this week.” See also, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy Announces a Substantial Reorganization of the Postal Service Amid Scrutiny Over Mail Ballots, The New York Times, Michael D. Shear, Friday, 7 August 2020: “The Postal Service on Friday announced a substantial reorganization meant to increase efficiency as Democratic lawmakers demanded an inquiry into whether changes by President Trump’s postal officials could threaten the effective use of mail-in ballots for the November election. Louis DeJoy, the postmaster general and a major donor to Mr. Trump’s campaigns, was named to oversee the service in May. On Friday, he shifted top personnel, including some decades-long veterans of the Postal Service, and made changes to its organizational structure…. The changes come at a time of heightened scrutiny for Mr. DeJoy, as critics charge that changes to overtime policies and other previous actions threaten to slow delivery of ballots when millions of people are expected to vote by mail because of the coronavirus pandemic. There are anecdotal reports around the country of slow mail delivery, and in New York City, thousands of ballots in a Democratic primary were invalidated in part because the post office had not delivered some of them in time.”

E. Jean Carroll, Who Accused Trump of Rape, Can Go Forward With Suit. A judge rejected President Trump’s bid to delay a defamation suit by Ms. Carroll, pointing to the recent Supreme Court ruling over his tax returns. The New York Times, Nicole Hong, Friday, 7 August 2020: “A New York judge has rejected President Trump’s bid to temporarily halt proceedings in a lawsuit filed against him by the writer E. Jean Carroll, who has accused him of rape, a ruling that allows the case to move forward in the months before the presidential election. The decision was a victory for Ms. Carroll, who sued Mr. Trump last November for defamation after he called her a liar and said he had never met her. She published a memoir last summer that accused Mr. Trump of attacking her in a department store dressing room in Manhattan in the 1990s. Lawyers for Mr. Trump had sought to put the lawsuit on hold while an appeals court is deciding whether to dismiss a similar lawsuit filed against Mr. Trump by Summer Zervos, a former contestant on ‘The Apprentice’ who has accused him of sexually assaulting her. In their bid for a delay, the lawyers also said the Constitution gave a sitting president immunity against civil lawsuits in state court. On Thursday, Justice Verna L. Saunders in New York rejected their arguments, pointing to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that concluded Mr. Trump could not block a subpoena for his tax returns by the Manhattan district attorney’s office. The Supreme Court ruling determined that the president did not possess absolute immunity against state criminal subpoenas.”

U.S. Government Contractor Embedded Software in Apps to Track Phones. Anomaly Six has ties to military and intelligence agencies and draws location data from more than 500 apps with hundreds of millions of users. The Wall Street Journal, Byron Tau, Friday, 7 August 2020: “A small U.S. company with ties to the U.S. defense and intelligence communities has embedded its software in numerous mobile apps, allowing it to track the movements of hundreds of millions of mobile phones world-wide, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Anomaly Six LLC a Virginia-based company founded by two U.S. military veterans with a background in intelligence, said in marketing material it is able to draw location data from more than 500 mobile applications, in part through its own software development kit, or SDK, that is embedded directly in some of the apps. An SDK allows the company to obtain the phone’s location if consumers have allowed the app containing the software to access the phone’s GPS coordinates. App publishers often allow third-party companies, for a fee, to insert SDKs into their apps. The SDK maker then sells the consumer data harvested from the app, and the app publisher gets a chunk of revenue. But consumers have no way to know whether SDKs are embedded in apps; most privacy policies don’t disclose that information. Anomaly Six says it embeds its own SDK in some apps, and in other cases gets location data from other partners.”

 

Saturday, 8 August 2020, Day 1,296:

 

Some Global Coronavirus Updates for Saturday, 8 August 2020: U.S. Surpasses 5 Million Cases, The New York Times, Saturday, 8 August 2020:

• At 5 million cases, the U.S. has passed another coronavirus milestone.
• With Congress at an impasse, Trump signs actions for another round of economic aid.
• Brazil surpasses 100,000 virus deaths a month earlier than health officials predicted.
• Universities make reopening plans, and parents see tough choices no matter what.
• At least nine killed in a fire at a makeshift virus clinic in India.
• Motorcycles fill the streets of Sturgis, S.D., for a 10-day rally expected to attract 250,000 people.
• Parents in the U.S. are suing schools, demanding they teach children in person.

Many other significant developments are included in this article.

Some significant coronavirus updates for Saturday, 8 August 2020: California surpasses 10,000 deaths as Trump signs economic relief orders, The Washington Post, Derek Hawkins and Marisa Iati, Saturday, 8 August 2020: “California on Friday became the third U.S. state to report more than 10,000 deaths from the novel coronavirus, offering a stark reminder of the pandemic’s mounting human toll as President Trump announced several executive actions meant to provide economic relief to hurting Americans. The measures, one of which aims to offer $400 in weekly unemployment aid, came after the White House failed to reach an agreement with congressional Democrats. The benefit could affect nearly 3,000 people without work in California, where the unemployment rate in June stood at about 15 percent. At least 10,189 people have died of the virus in California, and daily deaths have steadily increased since early July, according to The Washington Post’s tracking. Only New York and New Jersey have reported more deaths since outbreaks began there, with 29,821 and 15,869, respectively.

Trump attempts to wrest tax and spending powers from Congress with new executive actions, The Washington Post, Jeff Stein, Erica Werner, and Renae Merle, Saturday, 8 August 2020: “President Trump on Saturday attempted to bypass Congress and make dramatic changes to tax and spending policy, signing executive actions that challenge the boundaries of power that separate the White House and Capitol Hill…. But there were instant questions about whether Trump’s actions were as ironclad as he made them out to be. A leading national expert on unemployment benefits said one of the actions would not increase federal unemployment benefits at all. Instead, the expert said it would instead create a new program that could take ‘months’ to set up. And Trump’s directive to halt evictions primarily calls for federal agencies to ‘consider’ if they should be stopped. Trump also mischaracterized the legal stature of the measures, referring to them as ‘bills.’ Congress writes and votes on bills, not the White House. The documents Trump signed on Saturday were a combination of memorandums and an executive order.” See also, Sidestepping Congress, Trump Signs Executive Measures for Pandemic Relief, The New York Times, Maggie Haberman, Emily Cochrane, and Jim Tankersley, Saturday, 8 August 2020: “President Trump took executive action on Saturday to circumvent Congress and try to extend an array of federal pandemic relief, resorting to a legally dubious set of edicts whose impact was unclear, as negotiations over an economic recovery package appeared on the brink of collapse. It was not clear what authority Mr. Trump had to act on his own on the measures or what immediate effect, if any, they would have, given that Congress controls federal spending. But his decision to sign the measures — billed as a federal eviction ban, a payroll tax suspension, and relief for student borrowers and $400 a week for the unemployed — reflected the failure of two weeks of talks between White House officials and top congressional Democrats to strike a deal on a broad relief plan as crucial benefits have expired with no resolution in sight. Mr. Trump’s move also illustrated the heightened concern of a president staring down re-election in the middle of a historic recession and a pandemic, and determined to show voters that he was doing something to address the crises. But despite Mr. Trump’s assertions on Saturday that his actions ‘will take care of this entire situation,’ the orders also leave a number of critical bipartisan funding proposals unaddressed, including providing assistance to small businesses, billions of dollars to schools ahead of the new school year, aid to states and cities and a second round of $1,200 stimulus checks to Americans.”

The lost days of summer: How Trump fell short in containing the virus, The Washington Post, Philip Rucker, Yasmeen Abutaleb, Josh Dawsey, and Robert Costa, Saturday, 8 August 2020: “As the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows is responsible for coordinating the vast executive branch, including its coronavirus response. But in closed-door meetings, he has revealed his skepticism of the two physicians guiding the anti-pandemic effort, Deborah Birx and Anthony S. Fauci, routinely questioning their expertise, according to senior administration officials and other people briefed on the internal discussions. Meadows no longer holds a daily 8 a.m. meeting that includes health professionals to discuss the raging pandemic. Instead, aides said, he huddles in the mornings with a half-dozen politically oriented aides — and when the virus comes up, their focus is more on how to convince the public that President Trump has the crisis under control, rather than on methodically planning ways to contain it. During coronavirus meetings, Meadows has repeatedly questioned the scientific consensus that wearing masks helps contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, officials said. He has regularly raised with Fauci and others a range of issues on which he thinks Fauci has been wrong, and he personally monitors the infectious-disease expert’s media appearances. When he catches Fauci sounding out of sync with Trump, the chief of staff admonishes the doctor to ‘stay on message,’ officials said — and he has impressed upon Fauci, Birx and other public health professionals that they should not opine on restrictions or make policy in the media.”

Trump aides are exploring executive actions to curb voting by mail, Politico, Anita Kumar, Saturday, 8 August 2020: “This past spring, President Donald Trump began a full-fledged assault on voting by mail, tweeting, retweeting and railing about massive fraud and rigged elections with scant evidence. Then the Republican apparatus got to work backing up the president. In the weeks since, Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee have taken to the courts dozens of times as part of a $20 million effort to challenge voting rules, including filing their own lawsuits in several battleground states, including Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Nevada. And around the time Trump started musing about delaying the election last week, aides and outside advisers began scrambling to ponder possible executive actions he could take to curb mail-in voting — everything from directing the postal service to not deliver certain ballots to stopping local officials from counting them after Election Day.”

Inside Trump’s Battles With U.S. Intelligence Agencies. Last year, intelligence officials gathered to write a classified report on Russia’s interest in the 2020 election. An investigation from the magazine uncovered what happened next. The New York Times Magazine, Robert Draper, Saturday, 8 August 2020: “In early July of last year, the first draft of a classified document known as a National Intelligence Estimate circulated among key members of the agencies making up the U.S. intelligence community. N.I.E.s are intended to be that community’s most authoritative class of top-secret document, reflecting its consensus judgment on national-security matters ranging from Iran’s nuclear capabilities to global terrorism. The draft of the July 2019 N.I.E. ran to about 15 pages, with another 10 pages of appendices and source notes. According to multiple officials who saw it, the document discussed Russia’s ongoing efforts to influence U.S. elections: the 2020 presidential contest and 2024’s as well. It was compiled by a working group consisting of about a dozen senior analysts, led by Christopher Bort, a veteran national intelligence officer with nearly four decades of experience, principally focused on Russia and Eurasia. The N.I.E. began by enumerating the authors’ ‘key judgments.’ Key Judgment 2 was that in the 2020 election, Russia favored the current president: Donald Trump. The intelligence provided to the N.I.E.’s authors indicated that in the lead-up to 2020, Russia worked in support of the Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders as well. But Bort explained to his colleagues, according to notes taken by one participant in the process, that this reflected not a genuine preference for Sanders but rather an effort ‘to weaken that party and ultimately help the current U.S. president.’ To allay any speculation that Putin’s interest in Trump had cooled, Key Judgment 2 was substantiated by current information from a highly sensitive foreign source described by someone who read the N.I.E. as ‘100 percent reliable.’… Yet Trump never accepted this and often actively disputed it, judging officials who expressed such a view to be disloyal. As a former senior adviser to Trump, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told me, ‘You couldn’t have any conversation about Russia and the election without the president assuming you were calling his election into question. Everyone in the White House knew that, and so you just didn’t talk about that with him.’ According to this former adviser, both John Bolton and Mick Mulvaney, who were Trump’s national security adviser and acting chief of staff in 2019, went to considerable lengths to keep the subject of Russian election interference off the president’s agenda.” See also, Trump, Russia, and an Intelligence Document: Key Moments. Officials told The New York Times Magazine that the draft of a classified document reporting that Russia favored President Trump in the 2020 election was changed to soften its assessment. The New York Times, Alan Yuhas, Saturday, 8 August 2020: “A little more than a year ago, American intelligence agencies drafted a classified document reporting that the Russian government favored President Trump in the 2020 presidential election, a finding that fit with their consensus that the Kremlin tried to help him in 2016. The director of national intelligence was asked to modify the assessment — he did not — and not long afterward, Mr. Trump declared the director was out. Soon after the new acting director arrived, an intelligence official changed the document, softening the claim that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia wanted Mr. Trump to win, according to an article published on Saturday by The New York Times Magazine. The investigation includes details not previously reported about the fears of officials in U.S. intelligence agencies under the Trump administration, who described struggling to brief the president without provoking his anger or losing their jobs.”

 

Sunday, 9 August 2020, Day 1,297:

 

Some Global Coronavirus Updates on Sunday, 9 August 2020: At Least 97,000 Children in the U.S. Tested Positive in the Last 2 Weeks of July, The New York Times, Sunday, 9 August 2020:

• At least 97,000 children in the U.S. tested positive for the coronavirus in the last two weeks of July.
• The Georgia high school whose crowded hallways flooded social media has nine new coronavirus cases.
• Use rapid tests, but use them carefully, Ohio’s governor says after a false-positive scare.
• Trump’s moves on economic aid draw fire on the Sunday news shows.
• Kansas City, a potential hot spot, needs federal aid to cope, the mayor says.
• Pfizer strikes a deal with Gilead, the maker of remdesivir, to manufacture the urgently needed drug.
• Your immune system may already recognize the coronavirus.

Other significant developments are included in this article.

Some significant developments in the coronavirus pandemic on Sunday, 9 August 2020: U.S. coronavirus infections surpass 5 million, The Washington Post, Derek Hawkins, Marisa Iati, and Jacqueline Dupree, Sunday, 9 August 2020: “The number of reported coronavirus cases in the United States surpassed 5 million on Sunday, double the number since the end of June, as the Midwest grappled with new spikes and states across the South and the West fought to contain surges. The 5 million mark comes just 17 days after the U.S. total exceeded 4 million, according to The Washington Post’s tracking. The previous million cases were also reported in about a two-week span. Reported U.S. cases have doubled since late June, peaking on July 17 with a staggering 76,491 cases in a single day. The United States leads the world with a quarter of all global infections. Brazil and India follow, with 3 million and 2.1 million reported infections, respectively.

 

Monday, 10 August 2020, Day 1,298:

 

Some Global Coronavirus Updates for Monday, 10 August 2020: Trump’s Order on Coronavirus Relief Alarms Governors as Stimulus Talks Stall, The New York Times, Monday, 10 August 2020:

• Governors say Trump’s order on pandemic relief would wreck state budgets.
• Trump considers a rule that would block Americans thought to have the virus from returning home.
• Britain’s push to open schools may force it to close pubs.
• Federal schools on Native American reservations, where infection rates can run high, are told to reopen.
• Kentucky’s governor asks schools to delay the start of in-person classes.
• The chief health officer in California is out after the state’s virus data tracking system breaks down.
• As U.S. schools reopen, a study finds at least 97,000 children were recently infected.

Many other significant developments are included in this article.

Some Business Coronavirus Updates for Monday, 10 August 2020: Trump’s Proposals Confuse States and Businesses, The New York Times, Monday, 10 August 2020:

• Trump’s plan to bolster unemployment pay has states bewildered.
• Employers are confused about how to handle the ‘payroll tax holiday.’
• Americans are souring on the job market, a Fed survey shows.
• Stocks inch higher, bringing Wall Street closer to a record.
• The latest: Simon says rent collection is up, and Saudi Aramco’s profit plummets.

Some significant updates in the coronavirus pandemic on Monday, 10 August 2020: Trump dismisses coronavirus cases in children and says they’re a ‘tiny fraction’ of deaths, The Washington Post, Siobhán O’Grady, Brittany Shammas, Hannah Knowles, Kim Bellware, Hamza Shaban, Reis Thebault, and Meryl Kornfield, Monday, 10 August 2020: “Despite a study that found nearly 100,000 children were infected with the coronavirus in the final two weeks of July, President Trump on Monday reiterated the false claim that children are essentially immune to the virus, and that schools should reopen for in-person instruction in the fall. ‘I think, for the most part, they don’t get very sick,’ Trump said of children. ‘… It’s also a case where there’s a tiny fraction of death, tiny fraction, and they get better very quickly.’

 

Tuesday, 11 August 2020, Day 1,299:

 

Some Global Coronavirus Updates for Tuesday, 11 August 2020: Governor Warns Texas Has Too Many Cases to Reopen, The New York Times, Tuesday, 11 August 2020:

• The governor of Texas says virus cases are still too numerous to warrant reopening.
• Emerging clusters at U.S. schools raise concerns about wider community spread.
• Russia approves a vaccine before it completed Phase 3 tests, prompting alarm from experts.
• New Zealand returns to a partial lockdown after a resurgence of locally transmitted cases.
• The Big Ten and Pac-12 announce they will not play football this fall.
• The top U.S. health official praises Taiwan’s response to the virus.
• Scientists produce ‘unambiguous evidence that there is infectious virus in aerosols.’

Many other significant developments are included in this article.

Some Business Coronavirus Updates for Tuesday, 11 August 2020: Tesla Announces 5-for-1 Stock Split, The New York Times, Tuesday, 11 August 2020:

• Tesla’s board approves a 5-for-1 split in its soaring stock.
• Stocks reverse early gains as Big Tech shares sink.
• Russian economy shrank 8.5 percent in second quarter.
• The pandemic tests the leadership style of Goldman Sachs’s chief executive.
• Airline stocks are jumping after a pick up in travel.

Other significant developments are included in this article.

Some significant developments in the coronavirus pandemic for Tuesday, 11 August 2020: Florida and Georgia report highest single-day death tolls since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, The Washington Post, Antonia Noori Farzan, Jennifer Hassan, Kim Bellware, Brittany Shammas, Miriam Berger, Hamza Shaban, Meryl Kornfield, and Reis Thebault, Tuesday, 11 August 2020: “Coronavirus-related deaths in the United States topped 1,300 on Tuesday, with Florida and Georgia recording their highest single-day death tolls since the start of the pandemic.

 

Wednesday, 12 August 2020, Day 1,300:

 

Some Global Coronavirus Updates for Wednesday, 12 August 2020: U.S. Coronavirus Death Toll Reflects Sun Belt Outbreaks, The New York Times, Wednesday, 12 August 2020:

• The U.S. reports its highest single-day virus death toll of the month.
• New York principals and teachers call for the mayor to delay in-person instruction by weeks.
• Experts warn that new U.S. rules on virus data collection are creating problems for hospitals.
• Penn State to students: Come to campus at your own risk.
• Fauci: ‘I seriously doubt’ Russia has proved its new vaccine is safe and effective.
• As the U.S. economy sputters, Congress and the White House remain deadlocked on more aid.
• New Zealand reports 13 more local transmissions in its new cluster.

Other significant developments are included in this article.

Some Business Coronavirus Updates for Wednesday, 12 August 2020: Disney to Allow Virus Testing at Florida Resort, The New York Times, Wednesday, 12 August 2020:

• Disney will allow virus testing at its Florida resort.
• Lyft’s revenue falls 61 percent as customers take fewer rides.
• The U.S. deficit ballooned to $2.8 trillion in July, but the monthly gap fell.
• Want the economy to rebound? Wear a mask, Federal Reserve official says.
• Tencent says Trump’s order against WeChat won’t affect its other U.S. business.
• Britain’s recession is worse than in Europe and North America.

Other significant developments are included in this article.

Some  significant developments in the coronavirus pandemic on Wednesday, 12 August 2020: S&P 500 nearly breaks all-time record, despite pandemic’s hit on U.S. economy, The Washington Post, Antonia Noori Farzan, Rick Noack, Jennifer Hassan, Miriam Berger, Lateshia Beachum, Derek Hawkins, Brittany Shammas, Hamza Shaban, Reis Thebault, and Marisa Iati, Wednesday, 12 August 2020: “The Standard & Poor’s 500 nearly broke its all-time record on Wednesday, falling 5.8 points short — about two-tenths of a percent — of matching the record close from February.

Many other significant developments are included in this article.

Health Experts Warn About Perils of New Virus Data Collection System. An administration shift is putting a burden on hospitals and undercutting the integrity of data on the pandemic, current and former members of a federal advisory panel said. The New York Times, Sheryl Gay Stolberg, published on Wednesday, 12 August 2020: “Nearly three dozen current and former members of a federal health advisory committee, including nine appointed or reappointed by the health secretary, Alex M. Azar II, are warning that the Trump administration’s new coronavirus database is placing an undue burden on hospitals and will have ‘serious consequences on data integrity.’ The advisers, all current or former members of the Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee, issued their warning in a previously unpublished letter shared with The New York Times. The letter was made public as both hospital officials and independent data experts around the country were reporting kinks in the new system, which critics say is undermining the government’s ability to understand the course of the pandemic. The Covid Tracking Project, a respected and widely used resource, identified ‘major problems’ with the new Department of Health and Human Services system in late July, and reported this week that ‘the federal data continue to be unreliable.’ The concern grows out of an order, issued last month by Mr. Azar, for hospitals to send daily reports about virus cases to a private vendor that transmits them to a central database in Washington instead of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which had previously housed the data. The information, including patient and hospital bed counts, helps guide the government’s response to the pandemic, informing critical health care decisions like how to allocate scarce supplies, including ventilators or the drug Remdesivir, approved as a treatment for Covid-19 patients.”

‘This is no longer a debate’: Florida sheriff bans deputies and visitors from wearing masks, The Washington Post, Tim Elfrink, Wednesday, 12 August 2020: “On Tuesday, as Florida set a daily record for covid-19 deaths, Marion County Sheriff Billy Woods prohibited his deputies from wearing masks at work. His order, which also applies to visitors to the sheriff’s office, carves out an exception for officers in some locations, including hospitals, and when dealing with people who are high-risk or suspected of having the novel coronavirus. In an email to the sheriff’s department shared with The Washington Post, Woods disputed the idea that masks are a consensus approach to battling the pandemic. ‘We can debate and argue all day of why and why not. The fact is, the amount of professionals that give the reason why we should, I can find the exact same amount of professionals that say why we shouldn’t,’ Woods wrote in the email, which was first reported by the Ocala Star-Banner. A majority of epidemiologists and other health experts say face masks and social distancing are key to slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus, which has ravaged Florida. The state, which has recorded more than 542,000 cases and more than 8,600 deaths, added 277 more deaths on Tuesday; Marion County also set a record for daily deaths on Tuesday, with 13.”

1,193 Quarantined for Covid. Is This a Successful School Reopening? A suburban Atlanta county opened its schools amid controversy and a growing case count, previewing a difficult national back-to-school season. The New York Times, Richard Fausset, Wednesday, 12 August 2020: “While many of the nation’s largest school systems have opted in recent weeks to start the academic year online, other districts have forged ahead with reopening. In Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Indiana and elsewhere, some schools, mainly in suburban and rural areas, have been open for almost two weeks. Their experience reveals the perils of returning to classrooms in places where the coronavirus has hardly been tamed. Students and teachers have immediately tested positive, sending others into two-week quarantines and creating whiplash for schools that were eager to open, only to have to consider closing again right away.”

Biden formally introduces Harris as the Democratic ticket goes after Trump, The Washington Post, Annie Linskey and Matt Viser, Wednesday, 12 August 2020: “Joe Biden and Kamala D. Harris opened a new front in the presidential campaign on Wednesday, forcefully prosecuting their case against President Trump and attempting to showcase a much different vision for the country as the Democratic ticket appeared together for the first time. In what were perhaps the most crisp and focused speeches either has given during the presidential campaign, the new running mates defined how they will pursue the general election: with a sharp focus on what they cast as Trump’s inadequacies, an embrace of the power of women, a call to action on climate change and a defense of the protesters who have filled America’s streets in recent months.”

Biden and Harris Make First Appearance as Running Mates as Trump and Allies Launch Attacks, The New York Times, Thursday, 12 August 2020:

• Biden and Harris, rivals turned running mates, stood united against Trump in first appearance together.
• Trump called her ‘nasty.’ Tucker Carlson mangled her name. Attacks on Harris quickly got personal.
• Biden’s record-breaking day: ActBlue processes $30 million after Harris pick.
• Kanye West, who is pursuing a spot on the 2020 ballot, met with Jared Kushner.
• Wall Street and Silicon Valley see Harris as a good pick.
• Harris is strong on environmental justice, climate activists say.
• A House candidate in Connecticut who was arrested Monday holds a slim lead.

Other significant developments are included in this article.

Trump calls Kamala Harris ‘the kind of opponent everyone dreams of,’ Politico, Quint Forgey, Wednesday, 12 August 2020: “President Donald Trump on Wednesday morning cast California Sen. Kamala Harris as a dream opponent, pointing to her lackluster showing in the 2020 Democratic primary as his campaign searches for effective lines of attack against the presumptive vice presidential nominee. ‘.@KamalaHarris started strong in the Democrat Primaries, and finished weak, ultimately fleeing the race with almost zero support,’ Trump wrote on Twitter. ‘That’s the kind of opponent everyone dreams of!’ The president made similar remarks at a White House news conference Tuesday, where he said Harris ‘did very poorly’ in her party’s nominating contest, and repeatedly referred to her treatment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his contentious Senate confirmation process as ‘nasty.’ Trump has previously employed that same descriptor to criticize other female political rivals and perceived enemies, including former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, the late former first lady Barbara Bush, Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen. ‘She was nasty to a level that was just a horrible thing,’ Trump told reporters of Harris, adding that he thought she ‘was the meanest, most horrible, most disrespectful of anybody in the U.S. Senate.'” See also, Kamala Harris Crystallizes Trump’s View of Women: They’re ‘Nasty’ or They’re Housewives, The New York Times, Katie Rogers, Wednesday, 12 August 2020: “In the hours since Senator Kamala Harris joined the Democratic presidential ticket, President Trump has responded by sorting women into two categories: the good ‘suburban housewife’ he believes will vote for him, and nasty women who have not shown him or his political allies a sufficient amount of respect. After Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive Democratic nominee, announced on Tuesday that Ms. Harris would be his running mate, Mr. Trump wasted no time sorting her into the ‘nasty’ camp, a category occupied by the last woman to run against him on a Democratic ticket…. Attacks soon followed. On Wednesday morning, after his allies on Fox News had spent the evening comparing Ms. Harris, who is of Jamaican and Indian descent, to unethical ‘time-share salesmen’ and ‘payday lenders,’ Mr. Trump crowed that the American ‘suburban housewife’ — a label used by the president to play into white racist fears about neighborhood integration efforts — would be on his side in November.” See also, Tucker Carlson’s mangling of Kamala Harris’s name was all about disrespect, The Washington Post, Margaret Sullivan, Wednesday, 12 August 2020.

Trump Donated to Kamala Harris in 2011 and 2013, Bloomberg, Ryan Teague Beckwith, Wednesday, 12 August 2020: “Donald Trump donated to Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris in 2011 and 2013. Trump called Harris the ‘meanest’ and ‘most horrible’ senator when asked about her joining the Joe Biden ticket on Tuesday. Yet he gave donations of $5,000 on Sept. 26, 2011, and $1,000 on Feb. 20, 2013, to Harris’s re-election campaign for California attorney general, according to state campaign finance records. A Harris spokesman told the Sacramento Bee that she donated the $6,000 to a nonprofit that advocates for Central Americans in 2015. Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, also gave $2,000 to Harris on June 3, 2014, campaign finance records show.”

Quoting ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni strikes down Trump administration rollback of historic law protecting birds, The Washington Post, Darryl Fears, Wednesday, 12 August 2020: “A federal judge in New York has invalidated rule changes by the Trump administration that allowed individuals and corporations to kill scores of birds as long as they could prove they did not intentionally set out to do so. In a blistering ruling that cited Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ U.S. District Judge Valerie E. Caproni ripped the administration’s interpretation of ‘takings’ and ‘killings’ of birds under the century-old Migratory Bird Treaty Act as applying only if the animals are specifically targeted. Tuesday’s ruling was the latest legal setback for the Trump administration as it has systematically tried to weaken or nullify scores of federal environmental protections. In her decision, Caproni said the administration had gone too far. ‘There is nothing in the text of the MBTA that suggests that in order to fall within its prohibition, activity must be directed specifically at birds,’ wrote Caproni, who was nominated to the Southern District of New York by President Obama in 2012. ‘Nor does the statute prohibit only intentionally killing migratory birds. And it certainly does not say that only ‘some’ kills are prohibited.’ The changes made by the Trump administration largely benefited oil companies, which have paid most of the fines for violating the act, according to an analysis by the National Audubon Society.”

U.S. Ambassador to Britain Woody Johnson Asked State Department Auditors to Delete Claims of Racially and Sexually Inappropriate Comments He Made Toward Employees at the U.S. Embassy in London From Their Report on Him, The New York Times, Lara Jakes and Mark Landler, Wednesday, 12 August 2020: “The American ambassador to Britain, Robert Wood Johnson IV, urged State Department investigators against publicly reporting allegations that he made sexually or racially inappropriate comments to embassy staff, according to a report released on Wednesday. The report, the product of a routine inspection of the U.S. diplomatic mission to Britain that was conducted over a three-month period in the fall, recommended that officials at the State Department’s headquarters review Mr. Johnson’s conduct. But the senior diplomat overseeing European issues in Washington indicated he would not open a new investigation of the findings and said Mr. Johnson has since watched a video about workplace harassment and could receive additional training to prevent violations of employees’ civil rights. It was not clear if Secretary of State Mike Pompeo or other top leaders would demand an additional inquiry amid a groundswell from American diplomats who are women or people of color and say they have been sidelined at a department that promotes equal rights and civil liberties around the world. The final report from the State Department’s Office of Inspector General said that staff at the American Embassy in London had reported being subject to ‘inappropriate or insensitive comments’ by Mr. Johnson on topics that may have included references to ‘religion, sex, or color.’ It did not provide specific examples of his remarks.”

 

Thursday, 13 August 2020, Day 1,301:

 

Some Global Coronavirus Updates for Thursday, 13 August 2020: California Becomes the First State to Report 600,000 Coronavirus Cases, The New York Times, Thursday, 13 August 2020:

• Even as the picture improves in California, the state becomes the first to report 600,000 virus cases.
• Australia and New Zealand confront border failures amid new outbreaks.
• Five communities in South Texas have escalating rates of new cases.
• America’s $400 unemployment supplement is really $300, and won’t arrive soon.
• North Korea, fighting floods and the virus, lifts a border city’s lockdown.
• Biden, appealing to governors, calls for nationwide mask mandates to fight the virus.
• Vietnam registers to buy Russia’s Covid-19 vaccine.

Many other significant developments are included in this article.

Some Business Coronavirus Updates for Thursday, 13 August 2020: Mortgage Finance Giants to Charge More for Refinancing, The New York Times, Thursday, 13 August 2020:

• Refinancing your home loan just got more expensive.
• The economy is in for a rough spell. Or maybe not. Depends on who’s talking.
• 963,000 filed state unemployment claims last week, but layoffs remained high.
• In an industry dependent on gathering crowds, no sign of a return to work.
• Stocks fall with Washington at an impasse as unemployment claims remain high.

Other significant developments are included in this article.

Some significant developments in the coronavirus pandemic for Thursday, 13 August 2020: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield says U.S. was ‘unprepared’ for ‘greatest public health crisis in a century, The Washington Post, Antonia Noori Farzan, Jennifer Hassan, Kim Bellware, Siobhán O’Grady, Derek Hawkins, Lateshia Beachum, Hamza Shaban, Meryl Kornfield, and Marisa Iati, Thursday, 13 August 2020: “Years of underinvestment in public health infrastructure left the United States ‘unprepared’ for the coronavirus pandemic — the country’s greatest public health crisis in 100 years — Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield said during an interview with WebMD on Wednesday. At least 163,000 people in the U.S. have died of covid-19 as of mid-August.