As virus spreads across GOP ranks, some Republicans say party will pay price for ‘stupid’ approach

[Mary B]

As virus spreads across GOP ranks, some Republicans say party will pay price for ‘stupid’ approach

Robert Costa, Josh Dawsey 3 hrs ago

 

 

President Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis shook Republicans like an earthquake. Then came the troubling aftershocks. 

© Amanda Voisard/for The Washington Post President Trump walks to Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on Friday en route to Walter Reed Military Medical Center, after testing positive for covid-19.

There was the positive test result for a prominent conservative GOP senator, Mike Lee of Utah. Then another for Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Then the same news from Trump’s campaign manager, the chairwoman of the Republican Party and his former White House counselor.

And then on Saturday, as the president remained hospitalized, came word of two more high-profile Republicans close to the president testing positive for the virus — Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who had helped Trump prepare for last week’s debate.

After months in which Trump and others in his party questioned the danger of the virus and refused to take precautions such as wearing masks, the Republican Party is now coming face to face with the scientific realities of the pandemic.

The drip-drip-drip of positive tests, coupled with the specter of a president who as of Saturday was “not on a clear path to a full recovery,” as White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows put it, has prompted some Republicans to question whether the party is responsible for its own potential undoing.

And it has left them wondering how to wage a strong closing campaign when the judgment, actions and competence of its leaders were so squarely at issue just as voting is getting underway across the country.

“There was a panic before this started, but now we’re sort of the stupid party,” said Edward J. Rollins, co-chairman of the pro-Trump super PAC Great America. “Candidates are being forced to defend themselves every day on whether they agree with this or that, in terms of what the president did on the virus.”

“The president and the people around him flouted the rules,” said Republican strategist Michael Steel, who was an aide to former House Speaker John Boehner. “We wish him and his family a speedy recovery, but he has been reckless, and voters dealing with the health and economic effects on them and their families won’t look on that kindly.”

Stuart Stevens, a veteran Republican adviser who works with the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, said “there is fatalism” among GOP officials and donors. “They wonder, ‘What can you do? How can you spin this?’ ”

Stevens said, “If I were running a Senate race, I’d run out and say the White House should have taken this more seriously.”

Many Republican officeholders, however, remained publicly muted on Saturday about any unease over their political future as they hoped for Trump’s return and that voters would not deliver a harsh verdict in November.

Former New Hampshire senator Judd Gregg (R) said that will be the posture for most Republican candidates ahead of the election.

“There hasn’t been a coherent strategy from the president” but Democratic leaders have “politicized it and used it as a wedge,” Gregg said, arguing that voters would ultimately see the pandemic as “something that was like a horrible hurricane, where you can’t lay the blame and have little control over it.”

But Trump’s hospitalization at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, and a series of confusing statements from the White House about his condition, continued to send shudders of uncertainty through GOP ranks.

It was unclear when their leader would be able to return to the campaign trail, leaving the presidential race strangely quiet as Trump’s tweets dwindled in number and Democratic nominee Joe Biden took down negative advertising.

Even the event that only days ago was seen by many Republicans as a crowning achievement in an otherwise difficult year — installing Judge Amy Coney Barrett on the Supreme Court before Election Day — faced new hurdles amid senators’ virus diagnoses and revelations that multiple people may have become infected at her White House nomination ceremony.

Striking images of last weekend’s event, where influential Republicans and lawmakers mingled without masks, seemingly played on a loop on cable television, fueling critics who called the party reckless and enablers of superspreader events.

“Their extraordinary rejection of what scientists have been recommending is coming home to roost,” said Irwin E. Redlener, founding director of Columbia University’s National Center for Disaster Preparedness.

Redlener, a former Biden adviser, said that “everyone who hitched themselves to the president’s dishonest messaging about the virus is being confronted with the reality that the president himself is sick.”

While GOP leaders publicly shrugged off concerns about the party’s operations and its message, private anxiety was rampant as aides and donors voiced frustration about the perceived lack of a strategy and guidance from Trump’s team amid a crisis with health, economic and political challenges.

But Republicans’ ability to escape being seen by moderate and independent voters as a party that has adopted a politics-first, science-second attitude could be difficult following months of cheering Trump’s handling of a pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 Americans.

As the administration’s coronavirus task force has pleaded with Americans to wear masks and socially distance, Trump has hosted rallies where face coverings have been scarce, encouraged the reopening of the nation’s economy and schools, claimed the virus will “just disappear,” and intentionally misled the public about its lethality because he did not want to “create a panic.”

Key Republicans were isolating on Saturday after recently testing positive for the coronavirus, including Trump campaign manger Bill Stepien and Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee. Other Trump advisers — such as former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway and Christie — have also tested positive.

Campaign advisers said on Saturday that they do not believe Trump will be back on the campaign trail for 10 to 14 days and more than a dozen trips to swing states in that period will probably be canceled or rescheduled. They declined to say if the large rallies that have become Trump’s staple will cease.

“We’re going to mobilize the entire MAGA universe to carry the president forward until he returns to the campaign trail,” campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh said.

Republican anxiety extends to the battle over the GOP’s Senate majority after Tillis — who is behind in the polls and is on the Senate Judiciary Committee, announced he tested positive on Friday. While he is asymptomatic, the senator said he would isolate at home for 10 days.

Lee, another member of the Judiciary Committee, and Johnson have also been diagnosed with the coronavirus over the past week, potentially complicating the plans of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to push through Barrett’s nomination.

McConnell said on Saturday that “floor proceedings will be postponed until October 19th” but said the “confirmation hearings for Judge Barrett’s nomination” will proceed as scheduled. GOP aides said that Barrett’s hearings could be conducted at least partially by remote video conference.

Polling across the political map over the past week has further darkened the outlook as incumbents flail in traditional GOP enclaves, particularly in the South, where Democrats are energizing the Black community and White suburban voters amid significant changes in several states’ populations.

Beyond Tillis, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, remains locked in a tight race with Democrat Jaime Harrison.

In the industrial Midwest, Democrats see a path for Biden and Democrats as the pandemic keeps rattling the region.

“I felt it before the president’s circumstances and I feel it even more now,” former Ohio governor Ted Strickland (D), a Biden ally, said on Saturday. Referring to Trump family members who removed their face coverings after entering the presidential debate hall last week in violation of ground rules, Strickland added: “You had the president’s family sitting in Cleveland, mask-less, and all of the others were wearing them. That sent a message to everyone watching: There is an incredible amount of arrogance around the president. People can see it clearly.”

Nationally, Biden is holding a steady advantage over Trump, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll last month. Biden and vice-presidential nominee Sen. Kamala D. Harris (Calif.) lead Trump and Vice President Pence by 53 percent to 43 percent among registered voters, statistically unchanged from the 12-point margin in a poll taken in August before the conventions.

Inside the Trump campaign and Trump-allied GOP circles on Saturday, some aides and strategists said they remain confident despite the turbulence, pointing to Trump’s upbeat tweets — he called on Congress to pass another stimulus bill — and to Vice President Pence as a political troubleshooter.

Pence, who has tested negative for the coronavirus in recent days, plans to travel extensively after his upcoming debate with Harris on Oct. 7 in Salt Lake City, a Pence aide said. Justin Clark, the deputy campaign manager, is working with Pence’s staff to orchestrate trips, along with surrogates.

“We are going to be maximizing family members, allies and surrogates in this upcoming stretch,” said Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign.

Pence’s debate is seen by some Republicans as an opening to both boost Trump with skittish voters and refresh the party’s message on the pandemic since Pence has led the coronavirus task force.

“All he has to do is be kind and pleasant, to be reassuring and competent,” said former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R).

Meanwhile, RNC and Trump campaign volunteers are going to keep up with ongoing field efforts, such as door-knocking campaigns, even though in-person fundraisers have been canceled, party officials said.

On Saturday, a group of top Republicans carried on campaigning in Iowa. For Gov. Kim Reynolds (R) and Trump political adviser Marc Lotter, among others, the road trip across the state was business as usual.

Lotter tweeted out photos from the tour, including a shot of Reynolds and Republicans without masks and high-fiving indoors. Posters with “Trump 2020” and “Trump: Keep America Great” were on the wall.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/as-virus-spreads-across-gop-ranks-some-republicans-say-party-will-pay-price-for-stupid-approach/ar-BB19FM3f?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U453DHP

[Mary B]

AdChoices

 

New U.S. Coronavirus Cases Jump Above 50,000

Ted Mann 7 hrs ago

 

 

 

 

 

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With Trump hospitalized, more cases emerge in WH

Graham, Harrison spar over SCOTUS and Covid-19 in fiery Senate debate

New U.S. Coronavirus Cases Jump Above 50,000

 

 

 

 

 

 

© Marie Le Ble/Zuma Press

The tally of new coronavirus cases in the U.S. rose past 50,000 to hit the highest level since mid-August, as more people close to President Trump tested positive for the virus and the president received treatment after being diagnosed with Covid-19.

More than 54,000 new U.S. cases were reported Friday, the most since Aug. 14, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University. Friday’s number was likely inflated in the range of 2,000 to 3,000 because of reporting delays affecting the count of new cases in Missouri, according to Johns Hopkins.

In 29 states, the average number of new cases over the past seven days was higher than the 14-day average, an indicator of a surge in new infections. Over that period in Florida and Texas, Covid-19 has killed on average more than 90 people a day.

By midday Saturday, it was clear the virus had spread extensively through Mr. Trump’s inner circle, including many who attended a White House Rose Garden event last weekend at which Mr. Trump announced Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination.

 

At least eight people who attended that event had announced they had tested positive as of midday Saturday, including former White House adviser Kellyanne Conway and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. In addition to attending the Rose Garden event, Mr. Christie helped Mr. Trump prepare for his debate last Tuesday, and has said that none of the participants in those sessions wore masks to prevent infection.

 

The Trump campaign confirmed Friday that Bill Stepien, the president’s campaign manager, had tested positive for the virus. A third Republican senator, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, said he had tested positive.

President Trump was receiving treatment at the Walter Reed military hospital, where he was admitted Friday following his positive coronavirus test.

White House physician Sean Conley said Saturday that he was happy with the president’s condition and that his symptoms were improving. But after Dr. Conley concluded his briefing, a person familiar with the president’s health gave a statement to reporters saying that Mr. Trump’s vitals over the past 24 hours were “very concerning” and that the next 48 hours would be critical.

Mr. Trump will quarantine at the Bethesda, Md., hospital, based on the recommendation of his physician and medical experts, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said. He tweeted from the hospital late Friday: “Going well, I think!”

Cases and deaths: Total confirmed infections in the U.S. rose to nearly 7.4 million, while the death toll was about 209,000, according to Johns Hopkins data. Not all of those infected became ill, and most of those who did have since recovered.

Vaccines: Senior White House officials have raised objections to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s proposed standards for deciding whether a Covid-19 vaccine should be given widely and don’t appear likely to sign off on the agency’s guidelines, people familiar with the matter said. Meanwhile, a special U.S. committee recommended that certain health workers and first responders should be the first to receive a vaccine when one becomes available, followed by people with health conditions that put them at higher risk of severe Covid-19 disease.

Sports: The NFL announced it would reschedule Sunday’s game between the New England Patriots and the Kansas City Chiefs after players on both teams tested positive. ESPN reported that one of the players to test positive for the virus was New England quarterback Cam Newton.

India: The country surpassed a total of 100,000 deaths from the coronavirus Saturday, becoming the third country, after the U.S. and Brazil, to do so. It reported 1,069 fatalities in the preceding 24 hours, bringing the overall total to 100,842, data from the federal health ministry showed. The total number of confirmed cases stood at about 6.5 million, including 79,476 new infections.

Even as cases and fatalities rise, India’s government has moved to resume most economic activities. The country’s gross domestic product shrank by 23.9% in the April-June quarter because of the nationwide lockdown to control the spread of the virus.

 

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/new-us-coronavirus-cases-jump-above-50000/ar-BB19Fe7q?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=U453DHP

[Mary B]

Received a 'second dose' ... The White House issues a statement on Trump's health condition

2020.10.04 - 09:13

 

Baghdad - people  

Official circles in the United States announced that US President Donald Trump has made progress in the health condition after the second dose of remdesivir treatment without any complications.   

  

The White House said in a statement to the "People", (October 4, 2020) that "the health status of President Donald continues to improve, and has made real progress since his diagnosis."  

According to the statement, "The president finished this evening his second dose of remdesivir without complications. He was still without fever, without additional oxygen, and at a saturation level between 96 percent and 98 percent throughout the day."  

The statement stressed that Trump "spent most of the afternoon doing the work, was awake and moving around the medical ward without difficulty."  

The statement noted that until the president's status quo ends, "the team remains cautiously optimistic."  

The statement indicated that "tomorrow's plan is to follow up the observation between doses of remdesivir, and to closely monitor his clinical condition, during full support for his performance of presidential duties."  

Despite his presence in the hospital, Trump was keen to reassure the American people of his health, with tweets and a video clip, all of which he posted on his Twitter account.  

"I had arrived at the hospital tired and now I'm feeling a lot better," Trump, who is being treated for Covid-19 at a military hospital outside Washington, said in a new video on Twitter.  

For its part, the US State Department said that Secretary Mike Pompeo will travel to Japan later on Sunday, but he will not visit Mongolia and South Korea, as scheduled, after Trump's infection with Corona was announced.  

Pompeo was initially planning to visit the three countries between the fourth and the eighth of October.  

The minister will go to Japan today and return on October 6.  

https://www.nasnews.com/view.php?cat=41882