Saturday, November 23, 2024
At Mar-a-Lago, Trump builds a team of rivals - The Washington Post
Sharp elbows and raised voices: Inside Trump’s bumpy transition
His freewheeling team has returned to the patterns of his first term in office — with shouting matches, expulsions from meetings and name-calling.
Donald Trump’s attorney and adviser Boris Epshteyn arrived recently for a meeting about Cabinet picks in the Tea Room at Mar-a-Lago only to find his way blocked.
Transition co-chair Howard Lutnick, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, told Epshteyn in front of others that this was not a meeting for him. “We’re not talking legal nominees today,” Lutnick said, according to one person familiar with the exchange.
Epshteyn refused to budge. Using his forearm, he pushed Lutnick out of the way, according to two people familiar with the incident, which Lutnick later recounted to others. “I’m coming in,” Epshteyn retorted, according to one of the people.
A third person described the incident more as Epshteyn simply brushing past Lutnick on his way into the meeting, and someone close to both men said the two “have been working closely together in assisting President Trump in putting together the greatest administration in American history.” Epshteyn and Lutnick both declined to comment.
In any other presidential transition, such a showdown and physical confrontation between two top advisers to the president-elect would be a showstopping breakdown in decorum.
But in Trump’s freewheeling orbit, the incident was soon forgotten as his team has returned to the patterns of his first term in office — with shouting matches, expulsions from meetings and name-calling, all between the public celebrations and rocket-ship photo ops. As during Trump’s first term, competing factions have begun to run roughshod over each other, sometimes kicking up clouds of dust.
This portrait of Trump’s blooming team of rivals is the result of interviews with more than half a dozen aides, advisers, confidants and others involved in the transition process, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to offer a candid assessment.
Trump presidential transition
Elon Musk, who has embraced the nickname “first buddy” on his own social network X, got in a recent tense discussion at Mar-a-Lago with Epshteyn in full view of others, said people familiar with the incident. Incoming chief of staff Susie Wiles has also had to traffic-cop meetings, asking people to leave when they’re not welcome.
And Vice President-elect JD Vance even took to social media this week to dress down a lieutenant of another Trump whisperer, Stephen K. Bannon, calling her a “mouth breathing imbecile” for criticizing his decision to work with Trump instead of attending Senate votes.
Many of the power centers of the first Trump term have moved on, with his daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, keeping their distance. Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager and White House senior adviser, is also not expected to return to the administration. And Bannon, a former top White House adviser, now operates from a distance.
But new camps have formed, with little sign that Trump sees conflict as a problem at this point. At the same time, none of the people interviewed for this article described factions as vast and warring as during the 2016 transition and early days of the first Trump White House. And Trump has picked Cabinet members quickly, essentially filling most of the top jobs days before Thanksgiving. While some of the picks are viewed as challenging Senate confirmations, many have been widely praised by Republicans.
“The president loves when people are kind of going at it with each other because often it is the way to get to the right people,” said someone involved in the discussions.
A transition official downplayed any tensions. “President Trump has a dedicated transition team full of patriots who are committed to serving the President and helping him staff his new administration,” Steven Cheung said in a statement. “President Trump won a historic election in decisive fashion and he will put together a team that will ensure the will of the American people is represented.”
Pete Hegseth, a former “Fox & Friends” weekend co-host and Trump’s choice to lead the Defense Department, is facing a challenging confirmation process following reports that police investigated an allegation in 2017 that he sexually assaulted a woman in a hotel following a Republican conference in California. He has denied the allegations and said the encounter was consensual.
Matt Gaetz, Trump’s initial choice for attorney general, was accused of paying for sex and having sex with a 17-year-old girl at a drug-fueled party — allegations Gaetz has denied. On Thursday, Gaetz withdrew his name, saying he believed he had become a distraction.
The transition has unfolded as a rolling set of gala events and business meetings, with clear cliques beginning to emerge. In one group, unofficially helmed by Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., sits Vance alongside other longtime MAGA warriors such as former Fox News host Tucker Carlson; and former Trump administration official Cliff Sims. Another group, unofficially helmed by Wiles, consists largely of her cadre of loyal and disciplined campaign aides, including Trump’s 2024 political director James Blair; deputies Taylor Budowich and Robert Gabriel; and the communications team.
One person familiar with the dynamic, however, described those silos as “two friend groups” that are totally politically aligned in support of Trump and his agenda.
A third group consists of people connected to the America First Policy Institute, including AFPI President Brooke Rollins, transition co-chair Linda McMahon — who Trump on Tuesday announced as his choice for secretary of education — and Keith Kellogg, who served as national security adviser to Trump’s previous vice president, Mike Pence. The group served as a sort of government-in-waiting during the campaign, and held an event at Trump’s club last week. But many observers have been surprised at their lack of influence in these first few weeks.
There are also a number of independent actors whose power extends directly from their personal relationship with Trump. Epshteyn — a longtime adviser who took a coordinating role in Trump’s criminal defense efforts in recent years — frustrated a number of fellow Trump advisers when, on a flight to Washington last week, he encouraged Trump to pick Gaetz for attorney general. He was not the only person on the plane who was supportive of Gaetz for attorney general, and Epshteyn has played a crucial role in a number of picks.
The fledgling relationship between Epshteyn and Musk — the billionaire SpaceX and Tesla chief who Trump tapped to lead a “Department of Government Efficiency” — has also been strained. Musk grew frustrated with Epshteyn over what he saw as his outsize influence over staffing and Musk’s belief that he was leaking to the media — griping to anyone who would listen, including Trump.
The tensions came to a head last week on the patio of Mar-a-Lago, in what one witness described as “a big blowup” and a “huge fight.” The two men grew loud as Musk accused Epshteyn of leaking, with Epshteyn replying: “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t do anything wrong.”
Axios first reported the fight on the patio.
“It’s Boris against the world,” said one Trump confidant, while another described him as on “an island of his own.” But one of them added that Epshteyn’s power emanates from Trump himself, who appreciates him as a loyal fixer and attack dog.
Epshteyn, for instance, was part of the legal effort that culminated Friday with the judge in the Manhattan hush money case against Trump indefinitely postponing his sentencing.
Last week, someone in the president-elect’s orbit helped agitate Trump after sharing with him a folder of clips from Sims’s 2019 book, “Team of Vipers,” about his time in the Trump administration — a behind-the-scenes memoir that was critical of some of the people around Trump, but not of Trump himself.
After the memoir, Sims had worked his way back into Trump’s graces, serving as a key deputy to then-Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe — Trump’s current pick for CIA director — as well as coordinating speechwriting for the 2020 and 2024 conventions, hosting a fundraiser for Trump in his home state of Alabama, and working closely with Lutnick on the transition.
But the dossier of old news stories about the memoir briefly angered Trump, until Sims’s various allies — including Lutnick, Ratcliffe, Trump Jr., Vance and Wiles — helped calm the president-elect down and gave a string of on-the-record quotes in support of Sims to Politico, which first reported the incident.
Less than three weeks after the election, Musk has already begun rubbing some people the wrong way with his omnipresence around Trump, earning headlines for being a houseguest who overstays their welcome. But for now, like Epshteyn, he has a powerful constituency of one — the president-elect, who on Tuesday traveled to Texas to join Musk for a SpaceX Starship rocket launch.
Lutnick, who some privately describe as an alpha with a big ego, has also irritated some fellow Trump advisers, who complain of his aggressive personality. Lutnick exasperated Trump in his behind-the-scenes maneuvering for treasury secretary, including lobbying Trump himself. Though Lutnick did not persuade the president-elect, he did emerge with a plum assignment nonetheless as Trump’s choice for commerce secretary.
Another surprise was Trump’s decision to choose Sergio Gor to head the White House Presidential Personnel Office, a quiet but influential role that helps staff the federal government.
Gor, along with Trump Jr., founded Winning Team Publishing — the firm that produces Trump’s books — and the president-elect likes Gor because of the money he’s made him on book deals, multiple people briefed on the decision said.
And some of the tensions have begun to spill into public view. On Tuesday, Vance went after Grace Chong — the chief operating officer of Bannon’s “WarRoom” podcast — calling her “a mouth breathing imbecile” on X after she attacked him for missing Senate votes Monday, when Democrats approved a new judge to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit.
“You guys better show up and do your one fricken job!!” Chong wrote, referring to Vance and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), Trump’s pick for secretary of state.
After Vance insulted her, she deleted her post, while Vance followed suit soon after. But the first line of Chong’s X profile now reads: “mouth breathing imbecile.”
Trump Won More of New York’s Votes. Did He Win More of Its Love, Too? - The New York Times
Trump Won More of New York’s Votes. Did He Win More of Its Love, Too?
"The city tolerated Donald J. Trump, and then it loathed him. Now, some New Yorkers have begun to embrace him. The Kid from Queens couldn’t be happier.
Even though Donald J. Trump is cloistered in Florida and planning his return to Washington, it seems like he has been stuck in a New York state of mind.
He went out of his way to throw rallies in the Bronx, Nassau County and at Madison Square Garden, and then, after winning the election, he went right back to the Garden to watch a fight there. He has been uncharacteristically friendly toward the governor and both of the state’s senators (and they have been uncharacteristically friendly back). He keeps talking about how he wants to fix the subways and rebuild Penn Station. The Trump Organization just announced it is trying to get back control of Wollman Rink in Central Park. And he has been stocking his new administration with New Yorkers (Elise Stefanik, Lee Zeldin, Howard Lutnick).
This thaw follows a decade-long freeze in which Mr. Trump was reviled in his hometown. During his presidency, his very name became tantamount to a curse in Manhattan. He could barely step foot on the island without protests erupting. In 2019, he and his wife, Melania, officially switched their residence to Palm Beach, Fla. But those who know him say he never really became a Florida man.
“He’s a New Yorker — that’s what he is, that’s the first thing he is,” said Cindy Adams, a longtime New York Post columnist and Trump confidante. The president-elect is such a New Yorker, she said, that he even has a special phone line that can be reached only by “a few super New Yorkers” he trusts. Naturally, she is one of them. “I just talked to him on his private number,” she said. “I call him, and he answers it automatically. Nobody else answers that phone.”
John Catsimatidis, the billionaire owner of the Gristedes grocery store chain who has known Mr. Trump for many years, said simply: “I think he misses New York.”
He pointed out that Mr. Trump’s son Barron just started school in the city. “He could have sent him to the University of Miami,” Mr. Catsimatidis said. “Why did he send him to N.Y.U.?” He said that becoming such a hated figure in the city definitely got to Mr. Trump. “He was disappointed that New York didn’t love him back,” he said.
And what about now?
New York may not exactly love him back, but it certainly has feelings for him.
He won 30 percent of the votes cast for president in the city this month, a seven-point jump from last time. In a place so disproportionately affected by Covid and crime spikes and the migrant crisis, it turned out there was a lot about Mr. Trump’s pitch that connected. New Yorkers rich and poor turned out for him, and the stigma of backing him no longer seems as strong as it once was. There’s MAGA merchandise being sold in Times Square and on Canal Street. The mayor is yukking it up with him ringside at the Garden. He is hovering over the city as a parade float on this week’s cover of New York magazine, whose story is headlined: “How Even This City Swung Hard Toward Trump.” Are we at the point where people would start to clap if Mr. Trump walked into the Polo Bar on a Saturday night?
The Rev. Al Sharpton has been tangling with Mr. Trump for decades — “We have fought more than we have agreed,” he said, “but we have known each other”— and figures he’s got his number by now. He explained that this latest “romance we’re seeing” between Mr. Trump and New York goes back to Mr. Trump’s original insecurity of “being an outer-borough guy from Queens” who just wants to be accepted by the city, even still.
Mr. Sharpton put it this way: “They indicted him, convicted him, but it’s like, ‘Look at me now!’ I think it’s like the girl in high school that turned you down for the prom. You always want to say, what about me now? And I think that’s what he’s going through. I think he sincerely wants to try to be embraced by this town.”
Last month, Mr. Trump mixed with Manhattan power players and partisan foes alike at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in Midtown. Several attendees said afterward that they were shocked at the way Mr. Trump behaved backstage — very nicely.
Onstage, he praised Senators Chuck Schumer (“He’s a good man actually, I hate to say it”) and Kirsten Gillibrand (“Thank you very much for working hard”), as well as Gov. Kathy Hochul (“Good job. It’s not an easy one, is it? But you’re doing all right. We have to get a little money from the federal government.”)
But how long can such niceties last? It wasn’t his outer-borough status that made Mr. Trump abhorred by so many New Yorkers last time. It was his policies and rhetoric and conduct. And not much has changed there. “I think he has the chance, but, knowing him, he’ll blow it with deportations and all,” Mr. Sharpton said.
When Mr. Trump was president, it sometimes seemed as if he were out to punish the city that had made him. He derailed the $30 billion infrastructure project known as Gateway, which would have funded new rail tunnels between New York and New Jersey, and spent years describing the place as a lawless hellhole. Might he take a different tack toward the city this time around, now that he knows he has more voters here? And, in turn, might the people who run New York take a different approach with him now that they’ve learned he is not as hated here as they assumed?
“Whether we like it or not, we’re stuck with him,” said Ken Sunshine, the public relations pro who once worked as a chief of staff to Mayor David Dinkins. “Look,” Mr. Sunshine added, sounding skeptical, “I’d like nothing more than for him to shock people like me and my crowd and actually do some good things for New York.”
Mr. Sharpton recalled a telling exchange with his old frenemy in the days after the 2016 election.
Mr. Sharpton went on MSNBC one morning to try to explain Mr. Trump’s victory to a stunned nation. “I said, ‘You have to understand Donald Trump as a New Yorker,’” Mr. Sharpton said. He went on to give his theory about the Kid from Queens, saying that Mr. Trump, privileged though he may be, was somehow able to extrapolate his lifelong feeling of being an outsider to many people around the country who also felt looked down upon by elites.
Mr. Sharpton said that a short while later his phone began to ring. The number was not familiar to him, so he didn’t answer it.
The phone kept ringing. Finally, he picked it up. “The lady said, ‘The president-elect would like to speak to you,’” Mr. Sharpton remembered, “and he comes on the phone, and he says, ‘Al! I saw you this morning. You got me.’”
Dr. Oz, Tapped to Run Medicare, Has a Record of Promoting Health Misinformation
Dr. Oz, Tapped to Run Medicare, Has a Record of Promoting Health Misinformation
“The heart surgeon turned TV star has championed healthy lifestyle habits. But he’s also promoted sham diet pills and ineffective Covid-19 treatments.
“America’s doctor” could soon have an even bigger hand in shaping health care in the United States.
On Tuesday, President-elect Donald J. Trump announced that he would nominate Dr. Mehmet Oz, a longtime TV personality, to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, a powerful role that would give him control over a more than $1 trillion budget and influence over drug price negotiations, medication coverage decisions, the Affordable Care Act and more.
Dr. Oz, a heart surgeon by training, first gained fame with appearances on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” where Ms. Winfrey referred to him as “America’s doctor,” and shot to stardom with the debut of his own daytime program, “The Dr. Oz Show,” in 2009. On and off the screen, he has used his influence as one of the nation’s most recognizable doctors to champion healthy habits like a nutritious diet. But he has also sown misinformation — about Covid treatments, weight loss hacks and unproven supplements. He has invested in drug companies, even as he has publicly taken aim at Big Pharma, and has profited from a medical device that he helped invent but that has been subject to several recalls.
Over roughly two decades in the public eye, Dr. Oz has drawn the ire of medical experts, members of Congress and even his own peers, including a group of 10 doctors who called for him to be fired from a faculty position at Columbia University, arguing he had shown a “disdain for science.” (The university appeared to quietly cut its public ties with the physician in 2022.)
Dr. Oz did not respond to a request for comment.
His nomination has alarmed some doctors and those who work in public health. “I just don’t know what side of Dr. Oz we’re going to see,” said Dr. Pieter Cohen, a physician and associate professor at Harvard Medical School who studies supplements. “I hope we see the meticulous cardiothoracic surgeon, and I hope we don’t see the promoter of unproven botanicals.”
Here are five key areas of Dr. Oz’s track record on health.
Weight Loss
Dr. Oz has a long history of promoting dubious weight loss products, including raspberry ketones, garcinia cambogia and green coffee bean extract, frequently extolling their “magic” or “miracle” ability to help people drop pounds. Many of these claims lack evidence or have been proved false.
In 2014, a Senate subcommittee grilled Dr. Oz about his endorsements of weight loss products, with Senator Claire McCaskill telling him that “the scientific community is almost monolithic against you in terms of the efficacy of a few products that you have called miracles.”
He admitted before that panel that his claims often “don’t have the scientific muster to present as fact.” A few months later, the researchers behind a green coffee bean extract study Dr. Oz featured on his show retracted the paper. And in 2018, Dr. Oz reached a $5.25 million deal in a lawsuit that accused him of exaggerating the benefits of weight loss supplements.
Some of his advice is more grounded in evidence: Dr. Oz has promoted exercise and diets that focus on lean proteins, fiber and healthy fats, and he has suggested staying away from soft drinks.
He has also hailed the advent of drugs like Ozempic for weight loss. In a 2021 segment on his show, Dr. Oz lugged a cinder block around the set to illustrate the average amount of weight patients lost in a clinical trial. He has cautioned that there is not data on the long-term effects of these medications yet but has also expressed excitement over the wide range of conditions the drugs are being studied for, such as alcohol use disorder.
His views may become especially relevant if he ends up at the helm of Medicare, which does not currently cover medications strictly for weight loss. Medicaid coverage for obesity drugs varies state by state.
Covid-19
Early in the pandemic, Dr. Oz offered the public tips to avoid getting sick and devoted time on his show to demonstrating how to wear a mask without fogging up one’s glasses.
But he also heavily promoted the malaria drugs hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine early on. He was in contact with advisers to President Trump about accelerating the approval to use hydroxychloroquine against the coronavirus. At the time, the drugs had not been substantially tested against the virus. Scientists soon found those treatments were ineffective against it, and came with significant risks, including heart issues.
Dr. Oz posted a video of himself receiving the first dose of a Covid vaccine in January 2021 and said he “didn’t hesitate” to get the shot. But he has since criticized the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations that young people get booster shots.
He has pushed for a greater emphasis on treatments, like monoclonal antibodyinfusions, instead of focusing on vaccination.
During his run for Senate in Pennsylvania in 2022, Dr. Oz also seized on conservative ire over lockdowns and pandemic restrictions. “It’s not a healthy way to live!” he said in one TikTok video.
Routine Vaccinations
As the leader of C.M.S., Dr. Oz would have oversight over the insurance marketplace created by the Affordable Care Act as well as programs offering low-cost health coverage and free vaccines to children.
He has alternately encouraged people to get vaccinated while also questioning certain vaccines and their schedules. “He has some attitudes that are strange and internally conflicting,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a vaccine expert at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who appeared on Dr. Oz’s show in 2021 to discuss Covid vaccines.
In 2010, Dr. Oz told the television host Joy Behar that his children had not gotten flu or swine flu shots, and said that he spread out his children’s vaccines instead of following the immunization schedule widely recommended by medical experts.
In 2019, Dr. Oz endorsed the M.M.R. vaccine, which is primarily given in childhood to protect against measles, mumps and rubella, on his show. Researchers found that people were more likely to view the vaccine as low risk after watching the episode than before.
But he has criticized vaccine mandates, particularly for Covid-19 shots. In 2022, he told The Washington Examiner that he would block private companies from mandating “invasive procedures, which a vaccine is,” he said.
Supplements
In a 2014 episode of the Dr. Oz Show, the camera panned over a table with a tincture, some tea and a bottle of supplements.
“They were once considered fringe therapies,” Dr. Oz said. “Now, they’ve gone mainstream.”
He pointed to coenzyme Q10, a popular diet supplement, as a remedy for high blood pressure and suggested viewers try Valerian root to treat anxiety. There is some evidence to suggest that coenzyme Q10 might help reduce systolic blood pressure in certain patients, but experts have said more research is needed. The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health has said there’s not enough evidence to show that Valerian root is helpful for anxiety.
Dr. Cohen appeared on the show several times more than a decade ago to discuss the health risks of taking untested supplements. He said he stopped making appearances after Dr. Oz started encouraging treatments that were not based on evidence.
“It was unfortunate, because his show started with such good advice and then it veered into misinformation,” Dr. Cohen said.
In recent years, Dr. Oz has continued to recommend supplements on his popular social media channels. In a May Instagram post, for example, he promoted nootropics — which include dietary supplements like fish oil — as a potential way to “maximize your brainpower so you can improve learning and productivity.” There isn’t robust evidence to support such a claim.
In 2023, Dr. Oz announced that he had become a “global adviser and stakeholder” of iHerb, an online supplement store. He has shared his own personal supplement regimen on its website, listing products like ashwagandha, a staple of Ayurvedic medicine. Dr. Oz said in the post that he took the supplement for thyroid health, but the Cleveland Clinic has cautioned that the product can exacerbate existing thyroid problems.
Ties to drug and device makers
During his Senate run, Dr. Oz said that he had “taken on Big Pharma” and had “scars to prove it.”
“I cannot be bought,” he added.
But his own history and financial disclosures from that run show that he has had financial ties to a number of medical companies.
One of these involves a medical device called MitraClip, which was designed to treat leaky heart valves and offered an alternative to open-heart surgery. A patent related to the device, initially developed by the Silicon Valley start-up Evalve, lists Dr. Oz first among the inventors, according to a report this year on MitraClip by the nonprofit news site KFF Health News.
The Food and Drug Administration approved MitraClip in 2013. The agency had hesitations about the product’s effectiveness and the caliber of the research behind it, KFF Health News found, but chose to approve it for a narrow group of patients. Since then, versions of the device have been the subject of three recalls, according to the F.D.A. The agency has also received thousands of reports about malfunctions or patient injuries, including hundreds of deaths, that were potentially related to the device.
Dr. Oz’s financial disclosures from his Senate run show that he received hundreds of thousands of dollars in MitraClip royalties from Abbott Laboratories, which acquired Evalve in 2009. In addition, the disclosures showed that he and his wife owned shares in a number of pharmaceutical companies, including, at one point, AbbVie; Johnson & Johnson; Thermo Fisher Scientific, a supplier of lab equipment, instruments and chemicals, including hydroxychloroquine; and CVS Health Corporation.
Dr. Oz also listed holdings worth millions of dollars in Numilk, the maker of a plant-based alternative to milk; Prelude, a network of fertility clinics; and PanTheryx, a company specializing in products made with bovine colostrum. Because he is no longer a Senate candidate, more recent disclosures are not available. But nominees for federal positions must also submit financial disclosures to be confirmed.
“The financial ties need to be investigated fully,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Families USA, a consumer health advocacy organization that has supported the Affordable Care Act and pushed to broaden health care access and coverage.
The incoming leader of C.M.S. will have a hand in the next chapter of negotiations over Medicare prescription drug prices as a result of the Inflation Reduction Act approved under President Biden. Among the first round of discounts announced this year were some for drugs manufactured by AbbVie and Johnson & Johnson.
The negotiating authority is “one of the main levers that the administration will have to try to provide real relief for people” on drug prices, Mr. Wright said.
“We want to make sure that when those negotiations on drug prices happen, that pharma is not on both sides of the negotiating table,” he said.“
Friday, November 22, 2024
POLITICO Playbook PM: Washington gets a brutal Covid reality check
POLITICO Playbook PM: Washington gets a brutal Covid reality check
Presented by
AMERICANS HAVE BEEN LIVING A GRIM REALITY for seven months -- a sheltered and lonely existence tainted by disease, layoffs and general malaise.
BUT THE POLITICAL CLASS IN WASHINGTON has been chugging along as if little has changed. Congress comes into session nearly every week without an institutional testing mandate -- thank the bipartisan leadership for that. President DONALD TRUMP holds mostly maskless rallies -- and, for good measure, this week his out-of-town event was matched with a Trump Victory watch party at the Trump Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue, where lawmakers mingled with one another. And Congress and the administration have been unable to notch a Covid relief agreement for months.
REALITY HAS SUDDENLY INTRUDED ON THE CAPITAL CITY.
TRUMP is in the White House residence, suffering from what aides say are mild symptoms from Covid-19 -- the protective bubble the White House created, pierced. At least one member of the Senate -- MIKE LEE, Republican of Utah -- tested positive, after hobnobbing on the White House lawn, meeting with AMY CONEY BARRETT and attending a Senate Judiciary meeting, at times without a mask.
AND, ALL OF A SUDDEN, the city’s political calculuses appear to have changed.
A COVID RELIEF DEAL between Speaker NANCY PELOSI and Treasury Secretary STEVEN MNUCHIN is suddenly looking a smidge more likely. PELOSIsuggested the two sides were coming to terms on a price tag, and were expected to focus now on crafting legislative language. (Stay tuned to see what the Senate thinks of it.) And if a deal isn’t reached, Congress seems poised to bail out the nation’s airlines, once again. (FWIW: House Majority Leader STENY HOYER is getting plaudits for pushing the vote on the pared-back relief package Thursday night -- who knows if and when the chamber will vote again.)
WELCOME TO OCTOBER, FOLKS. ONE MONTH and one day until Election Day. TEN DAYS until confirmation hearings are due to commence for BARRETT.
WILD DETAIL: PELOSI learned about TRUMP’S Covid diagnosis from her staff -- they did not hear from the White House, according to a source with direct knowledge. The BIDEN camp also did not hear from the WHITE HOUSE.
VIRUS CHECK … CORONA POSITIVE: TRUMP, first lady MELANIA TRUMP,RNC Chair RONNA ROMNEY MCDANIEL, White House aide HOPE HICKS and LEE. Notre Dame President Rev. JOHN JENKINS, who was at the White House unmasked for the Barrett announcement Saturday, also tested positive.
-- AWAITING RESULTS: PELOSI (she did television hits from Russell and we tried to catch her in the halls, but she was on the phone).
-- NOT BEEN TESTED: Sen. CHUCK GRASSLEY (R-Iowa), No. 3 in line to the president, per BURGESS EVERETT -- GRASSLEY was at Wednesday’s Judiciary hearing with LEE.
-- RADIO SILENCE: Senate Majority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL.
-- NEGATIVE: JOE and JILL BIDEN, VP MIKE PENCE and KAREN PENCE, Secretary of State MIKE POMPEO, MNUCHIN, W.H. COS MARK MEADOWS, HHS Secretary ALEX AZAR, and Sen. KAMALA HARRIS (D-Calif.) and DOUG EMHOFF.
IT’S WORTH REMEMBERING that these tests don’t always capture coronavirus infections, especially very recent ones. There can be false positives as well.
SENATE MINORITY LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER says he thinks Congress needs a testing program. He said Trump testing positive “demonstrates that the Senate needs a testing and contact tracing program for Senators, staff, and all who work in the Capitol complex. We simply cannot allow the administration’s cavalier attitude to adversely affect this branch of government.” (h/t BURGESS)
-- BOTH MCCONNELL and PELOSI have declined to move forward with instituting a congressional testing system. The White House in May offered to provide rapid testing kits.
NYT’S MAGGIE HABERMAN on TRUMP: “President Trump is showing symptoms of the novel coronavirus, but mild ones, according to two people familiar with his condition. The president has had what one person described as cold-like symptoms. At a fund-raiser he attended at his golf club at Bedminster, N.J., on Thursday, where one attendee said the president came in contact with about 100 people, he seemed lethargic.
“A person briefed on the matter said that Mr. Trump fell asleep at one point on Air Force One on the way back from a rally in Minnesota on Wednesday night. A White House official said that as of Thursday night, the president’s treatment plan was still being discussed. So was a possible national address or a videotaped statement from the president to demonstrate that he was functioning and that the government is uninterrupted.”
THE PRESIDENT has canceled his travel for this evening, according to W.H. pooler Thomas Howell of the Washington Times.
IN NEW JERSEY -- “Murphy urges attendees at Trump fundraiser in Bedminster to get tested, self-quarantine,” by Matt Friedman
THE POLITICAL FALLOUT -- “‘This is the worst nightmare for the Trump campaign,’” by David Siders and Charlie Mahtesian: “Donald Trump had done everything possible to shift the focus of the presidential campaign away from his handling of the coronavirus.
“His own infection now ensures that he can’t – pulling Trump off the road 32 days before the election, throwing debates into question and fixing the [public’s attention] more squarely than ever on a pandemic dragging down his prospects for a second term. A president who once seemed impervious to October surprises is suddenly confronting one big enough to alter the outcome of the election.”
WILL ENEMIES POUNCE? -- “Trump team on watch for adversaries to exploit the president’s illness,” by Natasha Bertrand, Lara Seligman and Nahal Toosi: “Current and former national security officials and experts said on Friday morning that they are watching carefully how Iran, China, North Korea and Russia react to the news, particularly when it comes to influence operations and disinformation that they might try to inject into the national conversation in a highly uncertain moment. …
“Defense Department officials acknowledged separately that they will be on the lookout for opportunistic activities by adversaries, both on the ground, in cyberspace and in the form of information warfare.” POLITICO
LAST PRE-ELECTION JOBS REPORT -- “U.S. hiring slows for 3rd month but jobless rate falls to 7.9%,” by AP’s Christopher Rugaber: “America’s employers added 661,000 jobs in September, the third straight month of slower hiring and evidence from the final jobs report before the presidential election that the economic recovery has weakened. With September’s hiring gain, the economy has recovered only slightly more than half the 22 million jobs that were wiped out by the viral pandemic. The roughly 10 million jobs that remain lost exceed the number that the nation shed during the entire 2008-2009 Great Recession.
“The unemployment rate for September fell to 7.9%, down from 8.4% in August, the Labor Department said Friday. Since April, the jobless rate has tumbled from a peak of 14.7%. The September jobs report coincides with other data that suggests that while the economic picture may be improving, the gains have slowed since summer.”
-- BEN WHITE: “Trump’s celebrated economic rebound fizzles out”: “[I]t was well below expectations for close to 1 million [new jobs] and represents a further slowdown in monthly job growth from the initial 4.8 million gained back in June … The Labor Department’s final jobs report before the election — strong on the surface but far less impressive in context — highlights challenges facing both Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden in the final month of the campaign.” POLITICO
SCOTUS WATCH -- “McConnell vows ‘full steam ahead’ on Barrett nomination,” by Andrew Desiderio
-- CNN: “Supreme Court takes up Arizona voting rights law that will be heard after the election,” by Ariane de Vogue: “The Supreme Court said Friday it will review two provisions of an Arizona voting rights law that a federal appeals court said could have a discriminatory impact for American Indian, Hispanic and African Americans in violation of the Voting Rights Act.
“One provision concerns an ‘out of precinct policy’ that does not count provisional ballots cast in person on Election Day outside of the voter’s designated precinct. Another concerns the ‘ballot collection law’ which permits only certain persons — family and household members, caregivers, mail carriers and elections officials — to handle another person’s completed ballot.” CNN
ICYMI -- “Secretly recorded tapes show Melania Trump’s frustration at criticism for family separation policy and her bashing of Christmas decorations,” by CNN’s Caroline Kelly: “‘They say I’m complicit. I’m the same like him, I support him. I don’t say enough I don’t do enough where I am,’ she said in a tape secretly recorded by Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a former friend and senior adviser to the first lady who wrote a book about their relationship, ‘Melania and Me.’ … ‘I’m working … my a** off on the Christmas stuff, that you know, who gives a f*** about the Christmas stuff and decorations? But I need to do it, right?’
“She continued, ‘OK, and then I do it and I say that I’m working on Christmas and planning for the Christmas and they said, “Oh, what about the children that they were separated?” Give me a f****** break. Where they were saying anything when Obama did that? I can not go, I was trying get the kid reunited with the mom. I didn’t have a chance -- needs to go through the process and through the law.’” CNN
-- THE NEW YORKER’S JANE MAYER: “The Secret History of Kimberly Guilfoyle’s Departure from Fox”
-- BUSINESS INSIDER’S TOM LOBIANCO: “Former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale told friends he was under federal investigation just days before meltdown”
BEHIND THE SCENES -- “Memo details HHS push to upend FDA’s testing oversight,” by Dan Diamond and David Lim: “Two months before Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar overruled FDA officials to revoke the agency’s oversight of lab-developed tests this August, the health department’s top lawyer began building a legal case that would lead to its controversial decision to remove that authority, according to a memo obtained by POLITICO. …
“FDA officials have said they were largely blindsided by the decision to roll back FDA authority … The newly revealed memo from HHS general counsel Robert Charow, dated June 22, indicates [FDA Commissioner Stephen] Hahn and other senior HHS officials were notified months earlier that the department was intensifying its review of FDA’s testing oversight.” POLITICO … The memo
VALLEY TALK -- “QAnon Lands on LinkedIn, Prompting Networking Site to Limit Spread,” by WSJ’s Stu Woo: “Hundreds of LinkedIn members have updated their professional profiles with phrases and acronyms associated with QAnon, or have supported QAnon-related posts with positive comments or ‘likes,’ according to an analysis by social-media research firm Storyful.
“In response, Microsoft Corp.-owned LinkedIn has taken steps to remove QAnon posts with misleading information and to kick out people who break the site’s rules on sharing articles and videos.” WSJ
TRANSITION -- Sarah Delahunty is now senior manager for government outreach at the Hoover Institution’s D.C. office. She previously was a special assistant at the Department of Education.“