Trump news: President claims US doing ‘sooo much better on testing’ than any other country as coronavirus cases pass 1m and death toll surpasses Vietnam War
White House pushes for meatpacking plants to reopen as Covid-19 deaths reach another grim milestone
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Donald Trump declared, without evidence, that the US is “doing sooo much better than any other country in the world” in testing for coronavirus after pledging at the White House that America would “soon” have the capacity to test 5m people per day.
But on Wednesday, less than 24 hours later, he falsely claimed that he never said the US would be testing at that rate.
The president’s optimism came despite the country passing 1m cases of Covid-19 and 60,000 deaths, a grim marker that officials initially said the US wouldn't reach until August.
Within four months of the outbreak, the nation's death toll has surpassed the total deaths from conflicts leading up to and during the Vietnam War over two decades.
Mr Trump has meanwhile invoked the Defense Production Act to keep American meatpacking plants open, despite declining to do so for the sake of ventilators or personal protective equipment, as his vice president Mike Pence finds himself in hot water for refusing to wear a mask during an official visit to the Mayo Clinic medical facility in Minnesota on Tuesday.
For the third day in a row, the president met with business leaders to discuss the coronavirus response and reopening plans as states begin to preparations to "reopen" against the warnings of health officials and epidemiologists.
He also claimed that coronavirus is "going to leave" despite, even without a vaccine.
"It's gonna be eradicated," he said. "It might take longer, it might be in smaller sections. It won't be what we had."
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New York Times rebuffs Sean Hannity's apology demands
The NYT is not budging in the face of pressure from the Fox host to publish a retraction after one of its columnists trashed his coverage of the coronavirus, which Hannity has insisted is a "new hoax" to bring down his dear friend Donald Trump.
This was the newspaper's response to his outrage:
Justin Vallejo has more on this.
FBI documents expose Roger Stone's efforts to collude with Julian Assange
In more crony news, new FBI documents reveal that Roger Stone reassured WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a Twitter message that if prosecutors came after him in response to Robert Mueller's Russia investigation, "I will bring down the entire house of cards."
The records reveal the extent of communications between Stone and Assange, whose anti-secrecy website published Democratic emails hacked by Russians during the 2016 presidential election and underscore efforts by Trump allies to gain insight about the release of information they expected would embarrass Hillary Clinton.
The documents - FBI affidavits submitted to obtain search warrants in the criminal investigation into Stone - were released following a court case brought by The Associated Press and other media organisations.
They were made public as Stone, convicted last year in Mueller's investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, awaits a date to surrender to a federal prison system that has grappled with outbreaks of the coronavirus.
In a June 2017 Twitter direct message cited in the records, Stone reassured Assange that the issue was "still nonsense" and said "as a journalist it doesn't matter where you get information only that it is accurate and authentic."
He cited as an example the 1971 Supreme Court ruling that facilitated the publishing by newspapers of the Pentagon Papers, classified government documents about the Vietnam War.
"If the US government moves on you I will bring down the entire house of cards," Stone wrote, according to a transcript of the message cited in the search warrant affidavit. "With the trumped-up sexual assault charges dropped I don't know of any crime you need to be pardoned for - best regards. R."
Stone was likely referring to a sexual assault investigation dropped by Swedish authorities. Assange, who at the time was holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, was charged last year with a series of crimes by the US Justice Department, including Espionage Act violations for allegedly directing former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in one of the largest compromises of classified information in US history.
According to the documents, Assange, who is imprisoned in London and is fighting his extradition to the United States, responded to Stone's 2017 Twitter message by saying: "Between CIA and DoJ they're doing quite a lot. On the DoJ side that's coming most strongly from those obsessed with taking down Trump trying to squeeze us into a deal."
Stone replied that he was doing everything possible to "address the issues at the highest level of Government."
The records illustrate the Trump campaign's curiosity about what information WikiLeaks was going to make public. Former White House adviser Steve Bannon told Mueller's team under questioning that he had asked Stone about WikiLeaks because he had heard that Stone had a channel to Assange and he was hoping for more releases of damaging information.
Why so many people are desperate to end Mitch McConnell’s political career
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Mike Pence's refusal to wear a face mask 'to look patients in the eye' mercilessly ridiculed online
For Indy100, here's Greg Evans to round up the day's memes, with AOC leading the charge.
'The key in leadership is recognising you’re not the smartest guy in the room'
Utah senator Mitt Romney, whom Trump still bears a king-size grudge against for breaking GOP ranks to vote for his impeachment, will hardly endear himself to the president any further with these thoughts on his leadership during the pandemic.
Andrew Naughtie has the full story.
Trump lashes out at media because ultimately it's just a Wednesday like any other
Here's the president's latest score-settling with the press as his preoccupation with petty grievances and negative coverage rumbles on.
It's almost become a reassuring background noise at this point, his discontent with the Fourth Estate a familiar constant amid the endless upheaval of our times.
Here's Andrew Naughtie on the president backing up another of his spurious arguments after making a fool of himself.
Two men in Georgia drink disinfectant in bid to protect themselves against Covid-19
Listen to the experts folks, not the president.
Dr Fauci: US could face 'bad winter and bad fall' if coronavirus returns
Speaking of experts, the Trump administration's top coronavirus adviser took part in a webinar event hosted by the Economic Club of Washington and told his online audience that the US should prepare for the virus to return and hit hard later this year.
However, Dr Fauci also said he was “cautiously optimistic” that a vaccine for Covid-19 can be developed and that provided measures put in place to limit the virus’s spread are adhered to, the worst effects of a winter resurgence can at least be mitigated.
“I’m almost certain it will come back,” he said, “because the virus is so transmissible, and it’s globally spread. Remember, all kinds of viruses like this when people are indoors and congregated in the cold dry weather, they tend to do better than when you’re in a warmer climate.
“I don’t know whether that’s going to make a major difference here, but what we do know is that right now, as we start to stabilise, southern Africa, places like KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, and Cape Town and other places are starting to see the emergence of cases. So it’s not going to disappear from the planet.”
As we saw at last night's presser, Trump's messaging is rather different.
He continues to maintain it's just going to "go away".
Steve Mnuchin asks for coronavirus stimulus cheques sent to dead people to be returned
In what sounds like the plot of a satirical Russian novella, Trump's treasury secretary is demanding that the deceased return their $1,200 (£954) cheques to the federal government.
“We’re checking the databases, but there could be a scenario where we missed something, and yes, the heirs should be returning that money,” the executive producer of Suicide Squad told The Wall Street Journal.
Gino Spocchia is your guide to the underworld.
Trump trash talks Justin Amash
The president has served up his inevitable takedown of the ex-Republican after he touted a run for the Oval Office as an independent candidate, suggesting he would split the Democratic vote and harm Biden by going ahead with it.
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