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How Joe Biden’s Enduring Grief For His Son Helped Lead Him to Kamala Harris

Wed, 12 Aug 2020 17:29:18 GMT

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As Joe Biden was mulling his choice of a running mate, there may have been one important question in the back of his mind. Sure, the polling and focus groups were informative. He listened to his advisers’ research and they felt like their insights were instructive. He kept calling old friends to get their impressions. Biden had liked all of the women he considered, his advisers said, but in interviews they suggested one thing he might have been asking himself all along was this: What Would Beau Do?

Beau Biden, the former vice president’s late son, was at the fore this week when Biden selected Sen. Kamala Harris of California from the group of qualified and formidable women on his shortlist of V.P. picks. Perhaps just as important as her Howard University education and whip-smart political instincts was her time as a state Attorney General. Harris and Beau Biden overlapped for four years as their states’ top prosecutors, Harris running California and Biden running Delaware. That connection, for a Washington veteran who places personal relationships above almost any other trait, stuck with Biden, his advisers said.

“I first met Kamala through my son Beau,” Joe Biden said on Tuesday during the long-awaited announcement. “He had enormous respect for her and her work. I thought a lot about that as I made this decision. There is no one’s opinion I valued more than Beau’s and I’m proud to have Kamala standing with me on this campaign.”

Beau Biden’s death in 2015 rocked the Biden clan in ways that escape description. Biden, who was then the Vice President of the United States, was visibly destroyed by the loss. No stranger to grief, Joe Biden still found himself paralyzed and numb, as we reported in a cover story earlier this year on Biden’s resilience. Biden and others saw Beau as his political heir: There was talk about Beau making a run at the job that had eluded his father during two earlier White House runs. In 2013, Beau Biden had been diagnosed with brain cancer, although he believed it to be in remission and was preparing for a 2016 run for Governor as the man he called “Pop” plotted a third presidential campaign of his own. Ultimately, the cancer returned and showed no mercy.

Through all of this, the elder Biden had continued to hold out hope for his son’s future — and to lean on his son’s advice. Their shared love of politics was something that couldn’t be faked. Even Joe Biden’s memoir of Beau’s fight with cancer cites his son’s enduring piece of advice; in “Promise Me, Dad,” Joe Biden says his son made him pledge to stay in the fight for what’s right. In due course, though, Joe Biden recognized he was in no state emotionally to seek the nomination, and in 2015 President Barack Obama helped him exit the race he never formally joined during a joint Rose Garden appearance.

Which is why Beau’s character, in absentia, helped his father make the final decision on his next partner. Bolstered by Joe Biden’s unshaking confidence that personal relationships can trump political rivalries, Harris seemed to be the most logical choice. The presumptive Democratic nominee has a great deal of affinity for Harris, even though she arrived in the Senate just as Biden was packing his boxes to leave the White House. Harris’ broadside of Biden during the campaign’s first debate may have left a bad impression on some Biden advisers, but ultimately Biden came to see it as just politics.

As Biden prepared to inform Harris that her life was about to change, he sat down at a desk with a framed greeting card that was a gift from Biden’s own father. In it, Hagar the Horrible screams at the heavens, “Why me?” From the sky comes the you-can-do-it mantra that has kept Biden going in the wake of the deep loss of his own son: “Why not?” The thought of campaigning with one of his son’s pals sounded like it could be fun, a way to memorialize his chief political gut-checker. Harris now stands in Beau Biden’s shadow — and it’s one unlike any other in the Biden orbit.

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Radical or Moderate? Trump Campaign Struggles to Define the Democratic Party Ticket

Wed, 12 Aug 2020 17:28:19 GMT

(WASHINGTON) — A former prosecutor trying to hide her crime-fighting past — who is also weak on crime. The most radical pick for vice president ever — but too moderate to energize the Democratic base.

President Donald Trump’s campaign is struggling to define Sen. Kamala Harris, Democrat Joe Biden‘s newly announced running mate. Biden’s decision to choose Harris — who ran for president last year in the same pragmatic vein as Biden did and is now the first Black woman to compete on a major party’s presidential ticket — has further complicated the Trump campaign’s crude efforts to depict Biden as out of step with the country as Trump continues to lag in the polls.

Less than 90 days out from Election Day, Trump’s team faces a pivotal choice in how it tries to define the Democratic ticket, as it looks to reset its strategy and recover from a coronavirus-induced summer slump.

Do they attempt to fire up their own base and scare off moderates by painting Biden and Harris as radical socialists? Or do they aim to depress enthusiasm among the Democratic base by arguing Biden and Harris are opportunistic and insufficiently liberal?

Biden and Harris can’t be both. But that hasn’t stopped Trump’s team from trying to make the incongruous portrayals stick.

“Clearly, Phony Kamala will abandon her own morals, as well as try to bury her record as a prosecutor, in order to appease the anti-police extremists controlling the Democrat Party,” senior campaign adviser Katrina Pierson said in the Trump’s campaign’s first statement responding to the news.

Further, as Trump’s team and his allies tried to present Harris as the “most radical running mate ever,” in the words of Fox News host Sean Hannity, the Republican National Committee sought to frame her as insufficiently liberal, gleefully declaring: “liberals revolt against Biden, Harris ticket.”

“So to sum up: Kamala Harris is a cop — who is an anti-police extremist. A radical leftist — who is causing a ‘revolt’ among Bernie voters. A phony — who was too nasty to Joe Biden. Got that?” wrote Tim Miller, who previously served as senior adviser to an anti-Trump political action committee and an RNC spokesperson.

In his own response, Trump, who saw Harris as a potentially formidable challenger had she won the Democratic nomination, has reverted to his usual playbook, resorting to sexist and racist attacks aimed to stoke white grievance. He repeatedly called Harris “nasty” and has leaned into appeals that appear stuck in a fictionalized version of the 1950s.

“The ‘suburban housewife’ will be voting for me. They want safety & are thrilled that I ended the long running program where low income housing would invade their neighborhood. Biden would reinstall it, in a bigger form, with Corey Booker in charge!” he tweeted Wednesday, referring to Sen. Cory Booker, the former mayor of Newark, New Jersey, who is also Black.

Biden campaign spokesperson Andrew Bates pushed back.

“As he struggles in vain attempts to tear the American people apart and distract the country from his devastating mismanagement with clumsy, bigoted lies, he’s only further discrediting himself — and proving that he’s dumbfounded after Joe Biden’s selection of a strong running mate who he himself said not two weeks ago would be a ‘fine choice,’” he said.

One Trump campaign official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss strategy said the mixed messages were aimed at different audiences — the political equivalent of Trump’s campaign trying to have its cake and eat it, too — as it looks to animate its own supporters against “radicals” and sow apathy across the aisle.

But the lack of a clear, consistent message — as Trump deployed with devastating effect against “Crooked Hillary” Clinton in 2016 — could portend trouble closer to Election Day.

Trump’s campaign has been plotting for almost two years to characterize the Democratic nominee and running mate as beholden to the “radical left,” though that met its greatest test with Biden, who remains well known and relatively well liked among voters after a 40-plus-year career in Washington.

Harris, who dropped out of the Democratic presidential primary in December, ran her own race as a relative moderate in the field. The former California attorney general also served as district attorney in San Francisco, and her record in law enforcement came under scrutiny and turned away some liberals and younger Black voters who saw her as out of step on issues of racism in the legal system and police brutality.

Yet on a conference call with reporters responding to the news Tuesday evening, Trump’s campaign continued to push the narrative that Harris is a “leftist” pushing a “radical agenda.”

“This has completed the leftist takeover of the party and of their radical agenda,” said Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, who claimed Harris “will be the most liberal leftist nominee for VP that our country has ever seen” and cited her support for the Black Lives Matter group.

“With this move to left,” she predicted, “what you’re going to see is a lot of security moms that are all across this nation who are going to say, ‘You know what? Law and order is important to me. And I don’t want a vice president who is out there marching in the streets with the BLM organization.’ …. Security in our communities is important and I don’t want someone who says that they are not going to be tough on hardened criminals.’”

On the same call, Pierson went after Harris’ record as attorney general, saying that “she fought to keep inmates locked up in overcrowded prisons so they could be used for cheap labor” and that she “championed laws that put parents in jail and prosecuted the mentally ill.”

‘It Was a Planned Attack.’ Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot Says Looting Was Organized

Wed, 12 Aug 2020 16:56:29 GMT

A day after looters smashed-in retailer’s windows, carried away loads of high-end merchandise and overwhelmed police officers in downtown Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot says the violence was an organized raid and not a demonstration of angry protest.

“When people showed up on Michigan Avenue in the downtown area with U-Haul trucks and cargo vans, and sophisticated equipment used to cut metal, and the methods that were used, and how quickly it got spun up… that wasn’t any spontaneous reaction,” Lightfoot told TIME in her fifth-floor offices at Chicago’s City Hall on Tuesday.

The chaos that unfolded Sunday night, and into the predawn hours Monday, was initially blamed on a police shooting in the city’s southside Englewood neighborhood. News of the incident—along with misinformation that a minor had been shot—pinballed on social media, resulting in “caravans” of cars headed north downtown, Lightfoot says.

“To be sure, there are people that did join in that were motivated by lots of different reasons, and certainly were motivated by social media posts encouraging people to come downtown,” Lightfoot says. “But the core of what happened — that’s organized criminal activity… It was a planned attack.”

For three hours that night, Chicago was under virtual siege. Hundreds of people flooded the streets. Looters broke into buildings and came out with armfuls of jewelry, clothes, electronics and other goods. The 911 switchboard was swamped with 1,800 calls between midnight and 3 a.m., a figure that’s typically in the teens at those hours. Lightfoot says the looters knew that police staffing would be low that early Monday morning and therefore picked “the moments where they feel like they have the best opportunity to make a move.”

RMV/ShutterstockThe aftermath seen at the store Nordstrom on Aug. 10, 2020, following a night of unrest in Chicago.

The city’s Magnificent Mile and other shopping districts were hit with widespread theft, vandalism and destruction. Many of the businesses were big-name retailers like Gucci, Nordstrom and Apple. Some were looted just six weeks earlier amid the violent unrest that erupted after George Floyd, an unarmed black man, died in Minneapolis police custody in May. And all were struggling to deal with the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chicago, like many other U.S. cities, is in the midst of a surge in violent crime. Last month, 573 people were shot in America’s third largest city — at least 58 of them juveniles. There have been 430 recorded homicides through July, which represents a 51% increase over the same period last year. Compare that to New York City, for example, which had just 237 murders, despite having nearly three times the population.

In recent days, the Chicago Police Department has instituted 12-hour shifts and canceled days off for all officers until further notice. On Monday, the department sent 400 officers downtown. Expressway exits were closed and nearly every bridge was raised to seal off the area. By dawn, it was clear Chicago was an American city in distress. Shattered glass carpeted sidewalks. Trash billowed down major streets. Police stood guard in riot gear on corners.

Lightfoot says authorities have yet to identify ringleaders or individuals who she believes strategized the violence. A task force of police detectives, FBI agents and officials with the U.S. Attorney’s office are now busy collecting and analyzing hundreds of hours of security camera footage to identify those involved.

“We’re still going through lots and lots of video tape,” Lightfoot says. “But people were able to fairly quickly take out cash registers, ATM machines, cut through metal grate, and to get beyond and behind security systems that are pretty sophisticated. That’s not your average looter.”

The mayor says she’s instructed police to locate every automobile spotted downtown amid the looting for “being part of a criminal operation.” “Every car that we can trace to a resident of the Chicago, I want that car found and I want it towed,” she says. “We’re not messing around.”

#ChicagoPolice Public Transportation officers recovered two dangerous firearms last night near Grand Ave & Clark St after stopping a box truck for improper lane change. Burglary tools in the truck were also recovered. Two offenders were taken into custody and charged accordingly. pic.twitter.com/r85TUYCKsF

— Chicago Police (@Chicago_Police) August 11, 2020

On State Street, in Chicago’s River North downtown neighborhood, Bill LaMacchia, 54, estimated about $20,000 damage on his bar and restaurant, Bijan’s Chicago. Shards of glass that used to be part of his revolving door and window panels crunched under his gym shoes as he walked. A group of looters had heaved a marble-top table through a massive picture window overlooking the outside patio. They took nearly every bottle of liquor from his shelves. Some of them even sat and drank the bottles in his patio seats. The whole scene was captured on his security camera. “It was like a video game,” LaMacchia said. “They did whatever they wanted.”

Ariel Atkins, a Black Lives Matter Chicago organizer, dismissed authorities’ narrative during a rally Monday in support of the more than 100 individuals arrested for various offenses during the looting. Her organization believes Sunday night’s unrest was an organic reaction to the shooting in Englewood, which she pointed out was yet another example of the distrust between police and many Black Americans.

“The Mayor cannot expect people to play by her rules as she refuses to treat them with basic dignity,” a Black Lives Matter Chicago statement said. “These protests can only end when the safety and well-being of our communities is finally prioritized.”

On Sunday afternoon, police in Englewood say they approached Latrell Allen, 20, under suspicion of carrying a gun. Police allege Allen then ran, pulled a gun and shot at officers who returned fire. Allen is now recovering from multiple gunshot wounds. “Police say a lot of things,” Atkins said, pointing to the fact that the police did not have body camera footage of the incident.

So the police don't have any evidence to show us because their body cams were conveniently off, but they can still lock up the man that THEY SHOT for not having a MILLION DOLLARS. We say bullshithttps://t.co/3yqjCbkhIs

— BLMChicago (@BLMChi) August 11, 2020

To Lightfoot, the police shooting was simply subterfuge for a larger criminal scheme. She warned against conflating the necessary conversations Americans need to have about racial injustice and policing with criminal activity that often harms communities of color.

As the city’s first Black female and openly gay mayor, Lightfoot insists it’s important to lift the voices of organizers, activists and citizens seeking to upend legacies of injustice in Chicago. But the looting this week represented something different to her.

“To see young people who are Black act in the way that they acted, like they had every right to take somebody else’s property — and not just the big guys who have lots of insurance, but the little shop owners in neighborhoods all across the city — they have so little respect for all the sacrifice that people who look like them put into forming a business, all their hurdles, all their challenges that small businesses have,” Lightfoot says. “Particularly small businesses of color, without any regard for not only hurting those business owners but hurting also employees, who also are generally employees of color. That offends me to the core.”

On Jeweler’s Row along Wabash Avenue, in Chicago’s central business district, some small business owners saw their entire livelihood wiped away. Mohammad Ashiq, the 60-year-old owner of Watch Clinic, entered his watch repair shop to discover all of his inventory, some $900,000 worth, had been stolen from his glass showcases. Hundreds of watches for sale and in the process of being fixed for customers were missing. None of it insured. “It is my entire life,” he says as a nearby L-train rumbled above his store. “Forty-two years in this business. I am left with nothing but my health.”

With such a risk hanging over business owners’ heads, many are now reassessing what they should do next. Al Wojtek Macniak, 57 and his daughter, Marta, 35, say they plan to move out their business, M&M Jewelers, out of the ground-floor Jeweler’s Row storefront after looters broke into their building a second time in two months. “We moved here 10 years ago because we wanted the foot-traffic,” Marta says. “But it’s no longer worth it to stay.”

Lightfoot recognizes Chicago is at an inflection point, as violent crime rises and the gulf of suspicion widens between the Black community and her police force. She hopes she can bridge it. “The question is how do we find opportunity out of even these very dark days?” Lightfoot asks. “And what we do to band together because together — it sounds like a cliche — but it is so true, we won’t survive this moment. We will not thrive. We will not move beyond, get stronger, and better if we don’t unite.”

Ilhan Omar Defeats Well-Funded Challenger in House Primary

Wed, 12 Aug 2020 04:03:13 GMT

(MINNEAPOLIS) — Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota survived a stiff Democratic primary challenge Tuesday from a well-funded opponent who tried to make an issue of her national celebrity, the latest in a string of victories by a new generation of emboldened progressive lawmakers.

Omar, seeking her second term in November, easily defeated Antone Melton-Meaux, an attorney and mediator who raised millions in anti-Omar money.

Omar and her allies gained confidence in her reelection chances after primary victories last week by fellow “Squad” member Rashida Tlaib in Michigan and by Cori Bush, a Black Lives Matter activist who ousted a longtime St. Louis-area congressman. They also claimed momentum from the renewed focus on racial and economic justice after George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis.

“Tonight, our movement didn’t just win,” Omar tweeted. “We earned a mandate for change. Despite outside efforts to defeat us, we once again broke turnout records. Despite the attacks, our support has only grown.”

Melton-Meaux used the cash to paper the district and flood airwaves with his “Focused on the Fifth” message that portrayed Omar as out of touch with the heavily Democratic Minneapolis-area 5th District, which hasn’t elected a Republican to Congress since 1960. He conceded defeat and acknowledged that his efforts weren’t enough, while declining to speculate on why.

“I’m also incredibly proud of the work that we did, that garnered at least over 60,000 votes from the district, from people who resonated with our message of effective leadership grounded in the district, and bringing people together to get things done,” Melton-Meaux told The Associated Press.

Omar in 2018 became one of the first two Muslim women elected to Congress, building on a national profile that started when the onetime refugee from Somalia was elected to the Minnesota Legislature just two years earlier. Her aggressive advocacy on liberal issues, and her eagerness to take on Donald Trump, made her even more prominent.

Omar rejected Melton-Meaux’s attacks, saying they were funded by interests who wanted to get her out of Congress because she’s effective. She also downplayed Melton-Meaux’s prodigious fundraising before the vote, saying, “Organized people will always beat organized money.”

Democratic U.S. Sen. Tina Smith and Republican challenger Jason Lewis easily won their primaries in the only statewide races on the ballot. Elsewhere, in western Minnesota’s conservative 7th District, former state Sen. Michelle Fischbach won a three-way Republican race for the right to challenge Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson. Peterson, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, is one of the GOP’s top targets to flip a House seat in November.

After entering Congress with fanfare, Omar hurt herself early with comments about Israel and money that even some fellow Democrats called anti-Semitic, and found herself apologizing. She also came under scrutiny when her marriage fell apart and she married her political consultant months after denying they were having an affair.

Republicans also raised questions about continuing payments to her new husband’s firm, though experts said they aren’t necessarily improper.

In the wake of Floyd’s death, police reform also emerged as an issue. Omar supported a push by a majority of the Minneapolis City Council to replace the city’s police department with something new. Melton-Meaux did not support that but did support shifting some funding away from police to more social service-oriented programs. Both touched on the issue in personal ways, with Omar saying she wanted her son to grow up safely. Melton-Meaux, who is also Black, told a personal story of being detained while at the University of Virginia by police seeking an assault suspect reported to have run into his apartment building.

Wendy Helgeson, 57, a consultant, backed Omar two years ago, even installing a lawn sign in her yard, and said she was “awfully proud of her being the first Black Muslim woman that we elected.” But she said she was concerned about campaign payments to Omar’s husband’s firm as well as her national presence, and found it easy to vote for Melton-Meaux, whom she said has been her friend for 12 years.

“I admire her as a woman,” Helgeson said of Omar. “As a candidate, ehhh … I have some reservations.”

John Hildebrand, a 47-year-old teacher in Minneapolis who voted for Omar, said her national profile is an advantage.

“I think just her presence encourages other Muslims and Somalis to run for office and to seek to be represented,” he said. “I think she just engages people in the political system more and more.”

Blake Smith, 23, a parks worker who is Black and described himself as a leftist, also backed Omar. He’s concerned about climate change, Medicare for all and getting money out of politics, and he sees her as an ally.

“It’s more time for radical change than like small — I don’t think we have time for incremental change anymore,” Smith said.

What Kamala Harris Means For Joe Biden’s Campaign—and the Democratic Party’s Future

Tue, 11 Aug 2020 22:53:22 GMT

In selecting Kamala Harris as his running mate, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden did more than make history by putting the first Black woman and first Asian-American on a major national ticket. He all but anointed an heir, positioning Harris as the future standard bearer of a party in transition.

Biden announced the selection in a text message to supporters Tuesday afternoon. In a series of tweets, the former vice president called the California senator “a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants,” noting that she had served as a state attorney general alongside his late son Beau. In a fundraising email to supporters, he called her “smart, tough and ready to lead.” The two are scheduled to hold their first official event together on Wednesday in Wilmington, Del.

Harris, who ran against Biden for the Democratic nomination, had long been considered a front-runner for the vice-presidential pick, which was the subject of intense and unusually overt jockeying. Biden took the unprecedented step of pledging to select a woman, and many activists urged him to choose a Black woman, especially in the wake of this summer’s racial-justice protests. The only Black woman in the Senate, Harris, 55, brings both racial and generational diversity to the ticket. More than Biden himself, she reflects a Democratic Party that is increasingly young, diverse and cosmopolitan.

Harris, also on Twitter, said Biden “can unify the American people because he’s spent his life fighting for us. And as president, he’ll build an America that lives up to our ideals.”

Biden’s pick took on outsize importance due to his age. At 77, he is the oldest major party nominee in American history, and has described himself as a transitional figure. More than most would-be presidents, Biden was choosing not just a governing partner, but the woman who would lead the Democratic Party into the future. In Harris, he saw someone who could accomplish three things at once: help him win the November election, help him govern through a national crisis, and help him pass the torch to a new and diverse generation of Democrats.

Analysts described Harris as a sort of Goldilocks choice: not too far left or too inexperienced, she would neither jeopardize a Democratic Senate seat nor give the GOP unnecessary ammunition. “She checks a lot of boxes,” says Democratic strategist David Axelrod, who advised then-Democratic nominee Barack Obama on his 2008 decision to put Biden on the ticket.

Her selection is a nod to the pivotal role that Black voters have played as the engine of Biden’s own campaign, which roared back into contention in the primary thanks to the overwhelming support of Black South Carolina voters. Black voters are seen as crucially important to defeating Trump in November. Black turnout dipped in 2016 when Democrats nominated an all-white ticket, which may have cost the party vital votes in battleground states. Black women in particular are increasingly acknowledged as the party’s most loyal voting bloc: 98% of black women voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, while roughly half of white women voted for Trump.

The selection comes at a precarious moment for the country. The COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic devastation have heightened the stakes of the race; if elected, Biden will assume office during a national crisis. Biden’s experience as a senator and two-term vice president gave him a keen appreciation of what the job entails, and a strong desire for a running mate he could work closely with in the White House. He and Obama didn’t know each other well when they ran against one another in 2008, and their relationship was rocky at points during the fall campaign. But they grew close, and Biden describes their partnership as a model of what he was searching for. As one former Obama administration official put it: “Biden has a template, and the template is Biden.”

Harris’s biography is full of firsts. Born in 1965 in Oakland, Calif., to a Jamaican father and a Tamil Indian mother, she grew up mostly in Berkeley, where she attended a Black Baptist church and a Hindu temple. She went to Howard University, becoming a member of the legendary Black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha, followed by law school at the University of California, Hastings College of Law in San Francisco. She worked her way up in local district attorneys’ offices before being elected San Francisco District Attorney in 2003. In 2010, she was elected California’s attorney general, becoming the first Black top prosecutor in the state’s history and the first woman to serve in that post. In 2016, she was elected the second Black woman and first Indian-American ever to serve in the U.S. Senate.

In California, Harris—who lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two stepchildren—has long been considered talented but politically malleable. Well-connected and skilled at winning over wealthy donors, she was equally comfortable in San Francisco’s elite parlors and its low-income neighborhoods. She impressed audiences less with a clear ideology than with personal charisma and infectious optimism. As D.A., she angered the San Francisco police union by refusing to seek the death penalty for a young gang member who killed an officer. But she also angered criminal-justice reformers with aggressive tactics, such as threatening to prosecute parents whose kids were chronically absent from school.

As attorney general, she went after big banks and the pharmaceutical industry, for-profit colleges and oil companies. She refused to defend the voter-approved Proposition 8 banning gay marriage, paving the way for the Supreme Court’s 2015 decision legalizing it. But she also backed down from many fights, declining to endorse ballot initiatives that would have reformed the three-strikes law and ended the death penalty. She even appealed a federal court decision striking down the death penalty as unconstitutional, successfully reinstating a penalty she claimed to oppose.

In the Senate, Harris thrilled liberal audiences with her punishing interrogations of Trump Administration officials such as former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, as well as Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. But when she attempted to parlay that appeal into a 2020 presidential campaign, she struggled to articulate her driving values, instead speaking to vague themes of unity and “truth” that left audiences befuddled. She called for abolishing private health insurance in an early interview, then took it back and released a health-care plan that would allow both public and private health insurance.

Many liberals viewed Harris’s prosecutorial record as a strike against her, especially in the era of Black Lives Matter and amid heightened awareness of the criminal-justice system’s brutal disparities. She attempted to retroactively cast herself as a “progressive prosecutor” who was trying to reform a flawed system from within, a description that rang hollow to many who followed her rise. Prominent Black Lives Matter activists say her prosecutorial record is more complex than the caricature. “While there are some valid criticisms of her actions during her time as a prosecutor, I can also say pretty definitively that she was seen as an enemy of the police,” says Oakland-based Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza, who saw Harris’s policies in California firsthand. “If you were to talk to the police unions at that time, you would have thought that Kamala Harris was Huey Newton, the way they talked about her.”

Harris also sought to convince voters that her experience uniquely qualified her to prosecute the case against Trump. “This guy has completely trampled on the rule of law, avoided consequence and accountability under law,” she told TIME in a September 2019 interview. “For all the sh-t people give me for being a prosecutor, listen. I believe there should be accountability and consequence.”

Harris and Biden have a history. They memorably clashed in their first debate in June 2019, when she attacked him in emotional terms for his opposition to federally mandated busing in the 1970s. “That little girl was me,” she said, leaving Biden struggling to articulate a response to an allegation he considered unfair. But Harris’s subsequent surge in the polls dissipated when she couldn’t answer follow-up questions about her own position on busing, or her plans to end the continuing segregation of America’s schools. By December, languishing in the single digits in polls and running out of campaign funds, Harris quit the race before any votes were cast.

Speaking to the National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists last week, Biden said that he did not “hold grudges” against Harris for the exchange. “It was a debate, it’s as simple as that,” he said. But some in Biden’s inner circle took the attack as a sign of political ruthlessness and worried she would not be sufficiently loyal if selected. Former Senator Chris Dodd, Biden’s close friend and the head of his Vice Presidential search committee, reportedly complained to a donor that Harris “had no remorse” for the debate exchange. Some party operators who disliked Harris pushed instead for Representative Karen Bass, a well-liked Californian with good relationships in Congress who was perceived to be, as Dodd reportedly put it, a “loyal Number 2.”

The efforts to undermine Harris may have ultimately strengthened her bid. Feminist Democrats seized on Dodd’s comment, rallying to her defense and noting a male candidate never would have been slammed for being perceived as ambitious. “It’s undeniable how qualified she is, how symbolic she is, but also just how ready she is to assume this level of leadership,” says Democratic strategist Jess Morales Rocketto, who was pushing for Biden to choose former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. “She’s aggressive in the best possible way. The leadership style she has is really fitting to this moment.”

Even though Harris’s presidential bid fizzled out, many Democrats saw it as proof that she had been tested by the rigors of a national campaign and would be unlikely to embarrass Biden with scandals or surprises. “You don’t want to throw people into the deep end of the pool,” says Axelrod, who said a similar calculation informed Biden’s selection. Harris also appears politically aligned with Biden: an Obama-style moderate Democrat who mostly refrained from embracing the progressive movement represented in the primaries by Senators. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.

As he weighed his choices, Biden was faced with several competing political realities. On the one hand, the nationwide uprising to demand racial justice in the wake of the killing of George Floyd increased the pressure on Biden to pick a Black woman. A running mate like Warren or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer would have struck many activists as tone-deaf under the circumstances. And yet the spate of crises the nation faces would make it difficult for a talented but less experienced pol, like Representative Val Demings, a two-term member of Congress, or former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, who has never held elected office, to learn on the job.

But Biden’s chief political priority in selecting Harris was the Hippocratic imperative to do no harm. On the eve of his nominating convention next week, the Democrat holds a steady lead over President Trump in national and swing-state polling; Republicans accuse Biden of avoiding the spotlight as he seeks to keep the electorate’s focus on the unpopular incumbent. That dynamic made it all the more important to avoid picking a running mate who could give Trump ammunition by creating embarrassing scandals or unwelcome political contrasts.

After Harris’s selection was announced on Tuesday, Trump’s campaign quickly published a video that accused “phony Kamala” of “rushing to the radical left.” But any attempt to paint her as a flip-flopper will have to compete with the President’s own record. When Harris was running for re-election as California A.G. in 2014, both Trump and his daughter Ivanka contributed to her campaign.

Joe Biden Taps California Sen. Kamala Harris as Vice Presidential Running Mate

Tue, 11 Aug 2020 20:32:08 GMT

(WILMINGTON, Del.) — Joe Biden named California Sen. Kamala Harris as his running mate on Tuesday, making history by selecting the first Black woman to compete on a major party’s presidential ticket and acknowledging the vital role Black voters will play in his bid to defeat President Donald Trump.

“I have the great honor to announce that I’ve picked @KamalaHarris — a fearless fighter for the little guy, and one of the country’s finest public servants — as my running mate,” Biden tweeted. In a text message to supporters, Biden said, “Together, with you, we’re going to beat Trump.”

Harris and Biden plan to deliver remarks Wednesday in Wilmington.

In choosing Harris, Biden is embracing a former rival from the Democratic primary who is familiar with the unique rigor of a national campaign. Harris, a 55-year-old first-term senator, is also one of the party’s most prominent figures and quickly became a top contender for the No. 2 spot after her own White House campaign ended.

Harris, who is also Indian American, joins Biden in the 2020 race at a moment of unprecedented national crisis. The coronavirus pandemic has claimed the lives of more than 150,000 people in the U.S., far more than the toll experienced in other countries. Business closures and disruptions resulting from the pandemic have caused an economic collapse. Unrest, meanwhile, has emerged across the country as Americans protest racism and police brutality.

Trump’s uneven handling of the crises has given Biden an opening, and he enters the fall campaign in strong position against the president. In adding Harris to the ticket, he can point to her relatively centrist record on issues such as health care and her background in law enforcement in the nation’s largest state.

Harris’ record as California attorney general and district attorney in San Francisco was heavily scrutinized during the Democratic primary and turned off some liberals and younger Black voters who saw her as out of step on issues of systemic racism in the legal system and police brutality. She tried to strike a balance on these issues, declaring herself a “progressive prosecutor” who backs law enforcement reforms.

Biden, who spent eight years as President Barack Obama’s vice president, has spent months weighing who would fill that same role in his White House. He pledged in March to select a woman as his vice president, easing frustration among Democrats that the presidential race would center on two white men in their 70s.

Biden’s search was expansive, including Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a leading progressive, Florida Rep. Val Demings, whose impeachment prosecution of Trump won plaudits, California Rep. Karen Bass, who leads the Congressional Black Caucus, former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, whose passionate response to unrest in her city garnered national attention.

Rice congratulated Harris on her selection, calling her a “tenacious and trailblazing leader.” Rice said she would support Biden and Harris “with all my energy and commitment.”

Bass tweeted, “@KamalaHarris is a great choice for Vice President. Her tenacious pursuit of justice and relentless advocacy for the people is what is needed right now.”

A woman has never served as president or vice president in the United States. Two women have been nominated as running mates on major party tickets: Democrat Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 and Republican Sarah Palin in 2008. Their party lost in the general election.

The vice presidential pick carries increased significance this year. If elected, Biden would be 78 when he’s inaugurated in January, the oldest man to ever assume the presidency. He’s spoken of himself as a transitional figure and hasn’t fully committed to seeking a second term in 2024. If he declines to do so, his running mate would likely become a front-runner for the nomination that year.

Born in Oakland to a Jamaican father and Indian mother, Harris won her first election in 2003 when she became San Francisco’s district attorney. In the role, she created a reentry program for low-level drug offenders and cracked down on student truancy.

She was elected California’s attorney general in 2010, the first woman and Black person to hold the job, and focused on issues including the foreclosure crisis. She declined to defend the state’s Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage and was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

As her national profile grew, Harris built a reputation around her work as a prosecutor. After being elected to the Senate in 2016, she quickly gained attention for her assertive questioning of Trump administration officials during congressional hearings. In one memorable moment last year, Harris tripped up Attorney General William Barr when she repeatedly pressed him on whether Trump or other White House officials pressured him to investigate certain people.

Harris launched her presidential campaign in early 2019 with the slogan “Kamala Harris For the People,” a reference to her courtroom work. She was one of the highest-profile contenders in a crowded Democratic primary and attracted 20,000 people to her first campaign rally in Oakland.

But the early promise of her campaign eventually faded. Her law enforcement background prompted skepticism from some progressives, and she struggled to land on a consistent message that resonated with voters. Facing fundraising problems, Harris abruptly withdrew from the race in December 2019, two months before the first votes of the primary were cast.

One of Harris’ standout moments of her presidential campaign came at the expense of Biden. During a debate, Harris said Biden made “very hurtful” comments about his past work with segregationist senators and slammed his opposition to busing as schools began to integrate in the 1970s.

“There was a little girl in California who was a part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day,” she said. “And that little girl was me.”

Shaken by the attack, Biden called her comments “a mischaracterization of my position.”

The exchange resurfaced recently one of Biden’s closest friends and a co-chair of his vice presidential vetting committee, former Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd, still harbors concerns about the debate and that Harris hadn’t expressed regret. The comments attributed to Dodd and first reported by Politico drew condemnation, especially from influential Democratic women who said Harris was being held to a standard that wouldn’t apply to a man running for president.

Some Biden confidants said Harris’ campaign attack did irritate the former vice president, who had a friendly relationship with her. Harris was also close with Biden’s late son, Beau, who served as Delaware attorney general while she held the same post in California.

But Biden and Harris have since returned to a warm relationship.

“Joe has empathy, he has a proven track record of leadership and more than ever before we need a president of the United States who understands who the people are, sees them where they are, and has a genuine desire to help and knows how to fight to get us where we need to be,” Harris said at an event for Biden earlier this summer.

At the same event, she bluntly attacked Trump, labeling him a “drug pusher” for his promotion of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for the coronavirus, which has not been proved to be an effective treatment and may even be more harmful. After Trump tweeted “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” in response to protests about the death of George Floyd, a Black man, in police custody, Harris said his remarks “yet again show what racism looks like.”

Harris has taken a tougher stand on policing since Floyd’s killing. She co-sponsored legislation in June that would ban police from using chokeholds and no-knock warrants, set a national use-of-force standard and create a national police misconduct registry, among other things. It would also reform the qualified immunity system that shields officers from liability.

The list included practices Harris did not vocally fight to reform while leading California’s Department of Justice. Although she required DOJ officers to wear body cameras, she did not support legislation mandating it statewide. And while she now wants independent investigations of police shootings, she didn’t support a 2015 California bill that would have required her office to take on such cases.

“We made progress, but clearly we are not at the place yet as a country where we need to be and California is no exception,” she told The Associated Press recently. But the national focus on racial injustice now shows “there’s no reason that we have to continue to wait.”

___

Ronayne reported from Sacramento, Calif. Associated Press writers Alexandra Jaffe and Julie Pace contributed to this report from Washington.

Kamala Harris Is the Third Woman to Run as a Vice Presidential Candidate for a Major U.S. Party. ...

Tue, 11 Aug 2020 20:23:06 GMT

Diana WalkerThe July 23, 1984, cover of TIME with Geraldine Ferraro.

Joe Biden picked Kamala Harris to be his vice presidential candidate for the 2020 presidential election, his campaign announced Tuesday. Harris will be the third woman —as well as the first Black woman and the first person of Indian descent — to be selected as a running mate on a major presidential party ticket.

She follows in the footsteps of Geraldine Ferraro, who became the first woman on a major White House ticket when she was picked to be the running mate of 1984 Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale. (Sarah Palin, a Republican, was second.)

In a July 23, 1984, cover story headlined “A Historic Choice,” TIME reported that Democratic presidential candidate Walter Mondale picked a woman in order to liven up the ticket. (In fact, Ferraro wasn’t the only woman he considered; TIME reported that then-San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein was en route to a studio for a TIME photo shoot when Mondale called her to say he had chosen someone else.)

The magazine argued that choosing Ferraro, who was also the first Italian-American vice presidential candidate for a major party, was also practical on some level. It could woo women—who represent a majority of the electorate—as well as “ethnic” and “urban” voters, the story read. The choice “transformed” what had become a “dull” campaign by adding “verve” and “flair.” It also energized a women’s movement recently disappointed by the lapsed deadline to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment in 1982.

TIMEThe June 4, 1984, TIME cover, featuring potential Democratic vice presidential prospects San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein (right) and Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro.

No matter what it would mean to the ticket, Ferraro knew what it meant to women across the country.

“We always have anxieties until we do it the first time, and then we usually recognize that those anxieties are baseless,” she said, responding to polls indicating resistance to a female vice presidential candidate among Southern white men. “This is a first, and it’s bound to create concerns; but we are going to put those concerns to rest quickly.”

Speaking more broadly about the broader significance of her candidacy on society, she said, “If a woman can be Vice President of the U.S., what job is there that a woman cannot do?”

The magazine further described the significance of the choice back then in that issue:

History. So this is how it’s made. One tends to think of history making in terms of treaties, crownings, facts, but it’s the mind that makes the changes. Come November, a woman from Tulsa (Hartford, Butte) will hear the curtain of the voting booth shut behind her, and she will be alone with America and her own life. Another woman’s name will be on the ballot before her. However she votes, her thoughts about her place in the world will not be the same again…

Feminism has scored no more spectacular triumph since women won the right to vote. Even with universal suffrage, American women had enjoyed, until last Thursday, nothing more than the right to elect a man to the White House. With one swift stroke, however, the Democrats have made it possible for women to enter the final phase of their enfranchisement. Win or lose in November, Geraldine Ferraro is now emblematic of the truest, purest facet of the American dream: that every citizen is entitled to an equal chance…

As Dr. Carol Nadelson, the Incoming President of the American Psychiatric Association, pointed out, male children will learn the new rules too. “A fifth-grade boy,” she says, “also has a view of a woman as being in a kind of role. This change expands his view of women.”…

The high-pitched hopefulness coursed through every social realm, not just that of national politics. “Any time a woman reaches a revered status, it is easier for the secretary in an office to have a better sense of her self-worth,” said Faye Wattleton, President of Planned Parenthood. “That secretary may not want to be President of the U.S., but she may want to be president of her company.”

Ferraro was born in Newburgh, N.Y., on Aug. 26, 1935, (now known as Women’s Equality Day) in the middle of the Great Depression. Her father died when she was young, and her mother, a seamstress, raised the family in the South Bronx. After college, Ferraro taught second grade in the 1950s, but got bored and started attending Fordham Law School at night. After graduation, however, she found that Wall Street law firms were still resistant to hiring women, and she became a stay-at-home parent—until her cousin, who was Queens District Attorney, hired her as a prosecutor. When she wasn’t handling child abuse, rape and domestic violence cases, she was involved in local Democratic politics and talking to voters.

In 1978, she ran for Congress, to represent the neighborhood in Queens, N.Y., known for being home to Archie Bunker. She won. True to her campaign slogan, “Finally, A Tough Democrat,” she became known for not seeking out the cameras and her behind-the-scenes deal-making skills.

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Ted ThaiThe Sept. 3, 1984, cover of TIME.

The excitement about Democratic vice presidential nominee Ferraro was short-lived, however. By August, a controversy over her husband’s reluctance to release his tax returns raised eyebrows, and the couple ended up paying $53,000 to the IRS for a so-called accounting error. Her lack of foreign policy experience also made her vulnerable to attacks, especially in the middle of the Cold War.

In the end, America re-elected President Reagan in a landslide. Catholics, women and Italian Americans voted for him over Mondale by large margins, leaving TIME to conclude in the Nov. 19, 1984, issue that Ferraro “appears to have hurt Mondale at the polls more than she helped him.” A woman in Memphis told TIME, “I’m a liberated woman, but I don’t think a woman should be running things in Washington.”

After the election, Ferraro returned to practicing law, accepted a fellowship at Harvard, wrote books and served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. She also made unsuccessful bids for the U.S. Senate.

Today, Ferraro, who died in 2011 at the age of 75, is remembered less for the elections she lost, and more for the elections that her 1984 vice presidential candidacy helped other women win.

“Gerry and I are often linked together,” Secretary of State and future presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton said at Ferraro’s funeral. “She is seen correctly as paving the way for my political career and those of many other women. We owe her so much. She inspired us women and girls. All of us thought new thoughts and imagined new possibilities because of Gerry.”

At the time, Mondale also recalled the resistance she faced from men on the 1984 campaign trail.

“We went down to Mississippi, and some old farmer said, ‘Young lady, do you make good blueberry muffins?’ And she said, ‘Yes. Do you?’ That was the kind of thing that she was bumping up against,” he told TIME. “She had to keep her cool. She had to be nice about it. And yet she was undergoing a revolution. It wasn’t just automatic. It was her guts and her vision and the depth of her beliefs that helped her get it done.”

Long a Republican Safety Net, White Middle-Class Voters Are Slipping From Trump’s Grip

Tue, 11 Aug 2020 17:08:13 GMT

On Monday evening, President Donald Trump stood at the front of the White House’s briefing room and uttered yet another proposal that lacked both specifics and any probability of becoming a reality. “So, we’re looking very seriously at a capital-gains tax cut and also at an income-tax cut for middle-income families,” Trump said, echoing a promise to cut taxes before the 2018 midterms. “We’re looking at expanding the tax cuts we’ve already done, but specifically for middle-income families.”

Politically, it makes sense. Some 70% of Americans consider themselves in the middle class. (In reality, the middle class makes up around 50% of the country, although a definition is hard to nail down.) In an election year, cutting — or at least offering to cut — taxes can be appealing. In the middle of a pandemic, it’s an even sweeter promise, assuming you’re not one of the 31 million Americans who have already lost their jobs and have a lot less income to tax. Economic anxiety is through the roof and maybe the prospect of a few extra bucks in the wallet could ease some of those legitimate jitters.

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But in trying to appeal to middle-class voters, Trump may have tipped us off to his biggest threat to a second term. Recent elections already indicate that the group has been drifting steadily away from Republicans. In 2016, Hillary Clinton carried 49% of voters earning less than $100,000 annually, outpacing Trump by 4 percentage points. Two years later, Democrats boosted that support to 56% to carry the midterms and recapture a majority in the House.

Hours before Trump spoke at the White House, a bipartisan pair of respected pollsters released their latest polls taken in battleground states. Their findings: white voters in the middle class are defecting from Trump at a pace that could send him into history books as a one-term President. The bipartisan Georgetown University Institute of Politics and Public Service/ Battleground Poll puts the slice of the electorate in the middle class around 59% — a chunk you cannot ignore. Specifically, they found, white voters in the middle class presently account for 46% of the electorate.

Within that group, deep problems lurk for Republicans, who historically have banked those votes. Back in October, the pollsters found Trump with a 9-point advantage over a generic Democrat among white middle-class voters. By the first week in August, Biden claimed an 8-point advantage over Trump. “Normally, a successful nationwide Republican campaign is winning a majority of middle-class voters, driven by winning white middle-class voters by 20 points,” Republican pollster Ed Goeas writes. “For many of the reluctant Trump supporters who were willing to put up with his persona in exchange for economic prosperity, the current economic climate no longer upholds this bargain.”

If that sentiment holds steady, it could mean a disaster for both Trump and other Republican candidates lower down the ballot. Those middle-class voters have been the GOP’s insurance policy against rock-ribbed support among Black voters for Democrats. With the electorate expanding via vote-by-mail options and a new energy on the Left over a Civil Rights renaissance, Republicans may need more than a phantom tax cut for the middle class to hold the line.

A version of this article first appeared in The DC Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday.

Trump Was Abruptly Escorted From a Briefing After a Shooting Near the White House

Tue, 11 Aug 2020 05:13:44 GMT

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump was abruptly escorted by a U.S. Secret Service agent out of the White House briefing room as he was beginning a coronavirus briefing Monday afternoon. He returned minutes later, saying there had been a “shooting” outside the White House that was “under control.”

“There was an actual shooting and somebody’s been taken to the hospital,” Trump said. The president said the shots were fired by law enforcement and that he believed the individual who was shot was armed. “It was the suspect who was shot,” Trump said.

Trump said he was escorted to the Oval Office by the agent. The White House was placed on lockdown following the incident.

The shooting occurred just before 6 p.m. after a 51-year-old man approached a uniformed Secret Service officer near 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue just blocks from the White House and told the officer he had a weapon, Tom Sullivan, chief of the Secret Service Uniformed Division, said Monday night.

The man then turned around and “ran aggressively toward the officer, and in a drawing motion, removed an object from his clothing,” Sullivan said. The suspect then “crouched into a shooter’s stance, as if about to fire a weapon” before the officer shot the man once in the torso, he said.

Sullivan would not answer any questions at a late-night news conference near the scene and did not say whether the suspect was armed.

Both the suspect and the officer were taken to the hospital. The District of Columbia fire department said the suspect suffered serious or possibly critical injuries. Sullivan released no information about the officer.

Law enforcement officials were still trying to determine the suspect’s motive and authorities were investigating whether he has a history of mental illness. The suspect’s name was not immediately released.

“At no time during this incident was the White House complex breached or were any protectees in danger,” Sullivan said. The shooting has prompted an internal review by the Secret Service and is also being investigated by the Metropolitan Police Department, a standard protocol.

Trump praised the work of Secret Service personnel for their work in keeping him safe. Asked if he was shaken by the incident, Trump asked reporters: “I don’t know. Do I seem rattled?”

Tech Companies Are Transforming People’s Bedrooms Into ‘Virtual Hospitals. ...

Mon, 10 Aug 2020 18:57:31 GMT

When Curtis Carlson started having back pain this spring, he tried to put off seeing a doctor. The COVID-19 pandemic was raging, his job at a transitional housing organization in Ukiah, Calif. was busier than ever amid the economic collapse, and a hospital seemed like the last place he wanted to be.

But when he finally took himself to the emergency room and he was diagnosed with a kidney infection, Carlson figured he would have no choice but to stay. Instead, his doctors told him about a new program that would allow him to finish the rest of his hospital care at home, with a medical team monitoring him virtually around the clock and making in-person visits multiple times each day.

“I was blown away,” says Carlson, 49. When it became clear that staff would set up the equipment, which all fit on a TV tray, in Carlson’s home, and that he’d be able to communicate with his medical team via iPad, he was on board. “It was easy enough that I could use it, which was awesome,” says Carlson, who describes himself as “terrible” at technology.

Carlson’s experience was revolutionary, he says. After one night in the hospital, he was back at home with his wife and their four sons. “The biggest part for me was when I got home, seeing the look of relief on my seven-year-old’s face,” Carlson recalls. “While they were putting in the electrical wizardry, I asked him, ‘Were you worried about me?’ You could see him just crumble a little bit. He was definitely very happy Dad was home.”

Hospital administrators at Adventist Health, the system that runs the Ukiah hospital where Carlson went for care, had been looking for ways to reach rural patients outside their hospitals for years. But when the COVID-19 pandemic came to California this spring, administrators felt the timeline collapse. After finding the right technology in April, they began offering the service to patients like Carlson within 29 days. By May, Adventist Health had the infrastructure ready to care for 200 patients in their own homes.

Adventist is not alone in its warp-speed embrace of new technology during COVID-19. In recent months, hospitals around the country, looking for ways to free up beds for coronavirus patients, began expanding their virtual offerings, launching video doctors’ visits and virtual therapy sessions, and rolling out programs to remotely monitor vulnerable patients, like those in nursing homes. As doctors and patients embraced these new, online methods of care, Medicare, Medicaid and many private insurers temporarily changed their payment rules to accommodate them. But many of these changes are only guaranteed through October, and plenty of regulatory hurdles remain.

Now that it’s clear the pandemic is not going away anytime soon, medical providers and hospital administrators say they need more substantial reforms to ensure their investments in telehealth can continue. Whether innovations like remote hospital recovery beds will be available in the long term depends primarily on whether public and private insurers will continue to pay for them. In other words, in the topsy-turvy health care economy of the United States, it’s payment models—not technological ability or patient benefit—that will now determine the future of virtual care.

Hospital care at home

Prior to COVID-19, Medicare only covered telehealth services from certain providers. It also generally required telehealth patients to be located in a rural area and at a medical facility. Many Medicaid plans and most private insurers had similar restrictions. But after the coronavirus outbreak this spring forced nearly all doctors to stop seeing patients in-person, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a number of waivers relaxing these rules, and private insurers followed suit.

Once CMS led the way, private insurers temporarily changed their rules too, and telehealth usage exploded. Between April 2019 and April 2020, telehealth claims increased 8,336%, according to FAIR Health, a nonprofit that analyzes private health insurance claims. More than nine million Medicare beneficiaries used telehealth services during the first three months of the crisis. And at University of Virginia’s network, which already had a more robust telehealth program than many others, virtual visits increased 9,000% between February and May.

“COVID-19 changed everything when it comes to telemedicine services,” says Dr. Karen Rheuban, director of the University of Virginia Center for Telehealth. “The genie’s not going back in the bottle.”

The Trump Administration is now pushing for more telehealth access. On Aug. 3, the President signed an executive order calling on CMS to permanently expand the kinds of telehealth services that Medicare covers, and the agency’s administrator Seema Verma has also said she believes access to telehealth should continue beyond the public health emergency. Broader expansions would need to come from Congress, where dozens of bills on telehealth have been introduced in recent months, but lawmakers have not yet seriously considered the topic.

Courtesy of Adventist HealthCurtis Carlson and his family at their home in Ukiah, California.

Telehealth advocates say now is the time to act. A range of virtual offerings could be revolutionary for patients who are seriously sick, need long-term care, or live in rural areas, where hospital closings have left millions of Americans without easy access to treatment. “The environment in a hospital, although it’s very conducive to high intensity care, is not that conducive to being able to engage in normal activities of daily living that might be actually important for recovery,” says Dr. Michael Apkon, president and CEO of Tufts Medical Center.

In March, when Apkon watched Italian hospitals overflow with coronavirus patients, he sped up Tuft’s long-simmering telehealth plans. Apkon called Raphael Rakowski, the CEO of the tech startup Medically Home, and by April, the two organizations had launched a program that would provide hospital-level care in patients’ homes. Rakowski says he’s spent years telling hospitals they could reduce overhead costs and improve the patient experience by embracing care at home. “Sadly, it took a pandemic to amplify the patient’s role in their own care,” he says.

In order to be eligible for the Tufts-Medically Home partnership program, patients must typically have a similar profile to Curtis Carlson: they must have relatively stable health, be suffering from common conditions such as heart failure, diabetes, pneumonia, or kidney infections, and they must have a safe, stable place to live. If a patient meets that criteria, Medically Home provides all the equipment, including communications devices, monitors, backup internet, cell signals and power sources. (Some locations are admitting patients such as those with cancer, COVID-19 or who need longer-term care, and over time those will grow, says Rakowski.)

In Boston, where Medically Home is based, the tech company itself employs nurses, paramedics and other staffers who visit the Tufts patients in person several times each day to administer IVs, do blood tests or provide other care, and the patient checks in with their doctors via video. In California, where Carlson was treated, and in other locations, Medically Home’s partner hospitals provide the staff. Teams of nurses and physicians also monitor each patient 24 hours a day from a “command center,” and can be reached immediately if any questions or complications arise.

Even accounting for the time and cost of staff traveling to visit patients at their homes, Rakowski says at-home hospitalization costs about 20 to 25% less on average than care in a traditional hospital setting. In California, where Carlson was one of Adventist Health’s first patients to use the Medically Home model, Adventist Health President Bill Wing sees significant savings in the future. Maintaining hospital facilities and building new infrastructure is very expensive, he notes, so if Adventist Health can care for more patients remotely, it could potentially avoid hundreds of millions in construction costs.

“I believe that longer term we’ll see at least 20 percent less utilization inside the four walls,” Wing says. Adventist Health had been considering building a couple new hospitals, but may no longer pursue those plans, he says.

Keeping patients healthy

Telehealth can also play an important role in helping patients before they reach the point of needing hospital care. When non-urgent procedures were canceled during the early months of the pandemic, many Americans turned to virtual visits to keep up with routine treatment and ask for guidance from health care providers before venturing into offices.

While some doctors have returned to in-person visits, telehealth remains an important component of many practices, says Dr. Joseph Kvedar, a dermatologist in Massachusetts and president of the American Telemedicine Association. Physicians in his office have all added a half day of telehealth onto their in-person schedules so that they can keep the number of patients in the waiting room low and minimize their exposure to the coronavirus.

Even emergency rooms, which typically serve the purpose of receiving unexpected in-person visits, have turned to telehealth. This spring, the University of Virginia started a virtual urgent care service to address smaller problems without requiring patients to come to the hospital. UVA also expanded its remote monitoring program to keep tabs on patients quarantined at home with COVID-19.

And as nursing homes and other congregate care settings saw massive outbreaks of the virus, University of Virginia doctors developed a telemedicine strategy that allowed them to partner with long-term care facilities, rapidly deploy technology, coordinate care with on-site nursing staff and reduce hospitalizations.

These kinds of programs do require large investments in technology and training, UVA’s Rheuban says, but in the long-term, she has seen that telemedicine “diminishes the need for in person visits and improves clinical outcomes.”

Paying for the care

For these innovations to continue, doctors and health systems need to convince insurers—or lawmakers—that virtual services go beyond convenience and are important for treating a broad range of conditions. Already, commercial insurers are raising questions. “Since we’ve had this explosive growth, we don’t necessarily know what the impact on patient outcomes has been,” says Kate Berry, senior vice president of clinical affairs and strategic partnerships at America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), the industry’s main lobbying group.

During the pandemic, many major insurers have reimbursed telehealth at the same rates as in-person visits. Some have said they will continue these rates until the end of the year, while others have not made decisions past September or October. AHIP says it wants patients to have access to telehealth, but is opposed to laws that would mandate coverage or require insurers to reimburse telehealth at specific rates.

Nancy Foster, vice president of quality and patient safety policy at the American Hospital Association, says that some of her organization’s members have already heard from insurers that don’t plan to cover telehealth beyond the emergency, or that only want to cover it at reduced rates. “They seem to be taking some steps back, which is unfortunate,” she says. “It may be yet another thing that creates a greater opportunity for the wealthy than for those who are unable to afford the additional cost of paying for it themselves.”

The AHA supports the changes that CMS has made and is advocating for Congress to pass legislation that would allow more permanent flexibility in where patients could be and what technologies they use to access telehealth.

But cost is still a central concern for lawmakers and insurers. “There have been a bunch of barriers to telehealth,” says Glenn Melnick, a health care economist at the University of Southern California who studies hospital systems. “If you take those out of the equation, utilization is going to go up.”

In the current system where each visit means a separate fee, this could add up quickly. Physicians typically argue that telehealth should be paid the same as in-person care because the work is equally complex and time-consuming, but insurers will want to find savings. “It’s sort of a balancing act,” says Josh Seidman, managing director at consulting firm Avalere Health. “There are going to be a lot of changes over the next six to 12 months that will last long term in terms of how care is delivered and paid for.”

In the meantime, Medically Home and its hospital partners are working to secure more commitments from private and government insurers to cover their care. Both Adventist Health and Tufts are excited with the results of the program so far, but their leaders say the program’s ability to scale remains to be seen.

Carlson, the patient in California, had his stay covered by his state Medicaid plan, and says he would choose the at-home model again if he needs care in the future. After four days of treatment at home, his doctors determined he was ready to be discharged. But before the Adventist team moved forward, they helped Carlson find a primary care physician, transitioned his records and relevant information, and made sure he scheduled a follow up appointment. The tech team arrived to pick up the equipment and Carlson remained in place. “No complaints,” he says.

How President Trump’s Weekend Executive Actions Laid a Dangerous Trap for Democrats

Mon, 10 Aug 2020 17:46:09 GMT

The Sharpies squeaked as President Donald Trump put his signature on four documents over the weekend promising aid for Americans feeling the economic brunt of the coronavirus pandemic. The orders were ostensibly meant to deliver action after lawmakers on the Hill failed to reach an agreement last week on the terms of the next federal aid package and further talks are on permanent hold. But beyond the toxic fumes, there’s still no tangible help on the way for Americans facing evictions, student loans, payroll taxes or even reduced unemployment checks — the four threats that the memos covered. Instead, what Trump signed over the weekend sets in motion a constitutional standoff over federal powers and a political quagmire for Democrats trying to check this President’s wanton rebudgeting of taxpayers’ dollars.

The President knew exactly what he was doing. The political show was one designed for cameras’ flashes, not action. When pushed by reporters at his golf club in New Jersey for details of how the orders will work, Trump couldn’t confirm when any of his promises would turn into reality. They weren’t designed to. The eviction relief plan was merely an encouragement for landlords and tenants to find a compromise, his student-loans and payroll-tax holidays were merely suspensions of due dates, and the plus-up on unemployment benefits was only an idea that requires states’ buy-in, which is not going to happen.

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During normal times, Congress decides how much programs like student-loan deferments can have and the Administration spends the cash. These days, Trump is redirecting money as if Congress didn’t weigh in at all. For instance, Trump, in his edicts, re-imagines hurricane-relief dollars as pandemic bailout cash.

Theoretically, that leaves Congress primed to challenge the White House, a move that would demand Democrats stand up and say Trump has no power to repurpose taxpayer dollars this way. It’s a constitutionally-sound objection, but one that puts Democrats arguing against rescuing struggling Americans. Do Democrats, in an election year, want to be the ones signing onto lawsuits that challenge a President’s power to unilaterally re-budget dollars that help the 30-plus-million Americans who have lost their jobs so far? On Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the orders bypassing Congress “absurdly unconstitutional,” but dodged the question whether she and fellow Democrats would take Trump to court over them.

Trump has been buoyed by last month’s Supreme Court ruling that permits him to retool Pentagon dollars to build his border wall — despite the fact that Congress didn’t mean for those dollars to do that. In interviews, Trump has cited that ruling as rationale for near-absolute power to reprogram taxpayer dollars as he sees fit. It is inevitably a course that will send him back to the Supreme Court. His efforts to shift dollars through these orders is a prime example of where Democrats have good cause to check him. But, with fewer than 100 days before Election Day, the ground is plenty shaky. Democrats may end up prevailing in the long run — but their win would mean the pandemic’s victims lose out on Trump’s promised bounty.

A version of this article first appeared in The DC Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday.

The X Factor: How Joe Biden’s Running Mate Will Face Sexist Double-Standards

Mon, 10 Aug 2020 15:03:54 GMT

The questions have gotten obsessive: Will she be young or old? Black or white? A campaign asset or a governing ally? A partner or an heir?

Much of the coverage of Joe Biden’s vice-presidential selection process has focused on the specifics of the various contenders, parsing out their records and assets, their potential liabilities, their relationship with the candidate and their fitness for the moment. The hand-wringing over the choice has come to embody what Hillary Clinton once described as “a pernicious double standard aided and abetted by the idea of perfectionism.” All of the women on Biden’s shortlist are smart, qualified, experienced leaders; none of them are perfect.

Which, of course, is true of any Vice Presidential selection. “Joe Biden was not perfect, Paul Ryan was not perfect, Tim Kaine was not perfect,” says Jennifer Lawless, a professor of politics at the University of Virginia. “But perfect is not the bar for men. What we’re seeing this time is anything short of a flawless candidate is a problem.”

But given the stakes of the choice, Democrats are understandably preoccupied with perfection. Biden holds a steady lead over President Donald Trump in both national and battleground-state polls. Putting a woman—and very possibly a Black woman—onto the Democratic ticket is like adding an X factor into what has so far been a stable political equation between two white male candidates. And the way it changes the calculation, whether it helps Biden excite the base or exposes him to attacks he had previously avoided, could reveal the value of X.

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There are many good reasons to think X will have a positive value: a woman Vice Presidential candidate is likely to excite the Democratic voters who backed Clinton, elected a record number of women to Congress in 2018, and rooted for the six women contenders in this year’s presidential primary. Biden has suffered from muted enthusiasm among some key demographics groups. Many Democrats say they’ll vote for him but aren’t very excited about it; helping to elect the first woman Vice President could add a jolt of history. “There’s definitely this buzz,” says Stephanie Schriock, executive director of Emily’s List. “Everybody needs a little boost of energy.”

But if X changes the equation, it also reveals why that equation was so stable in the first place. Even though he’s politically similar to Clinton in some ways, Biden’s race and gender have given him some measure of political Teflon. The misogynistic attacks that worked so well against Clinton in 2016 don’t stick to this 77-year-old white grandfather from Scranton. When it comes to landing a hit on Biden, none of Trump’s old tricks seem to be working.

Which means that Biden’s running mate, whoever she is, will immediately become a top target for Trump. After struggling to attack Biden, the Trump campaign has settled on painting him as a “hapless tool of the extreme left.” As soon as his vice presidential pick is announced, they will likely paint Biden as her Trojan Horse. Senior Trump adviser Jason Miller called Biden’s VP his “political living will.”

New research by Lucina Di Meco, a global fellow at the Wilson Center, suggests that social media chatter about women candidates tends to be more negative and more personal than online discussion about male candidates. No wonder, then, that Democrats are trying to find the perfect woman to reduce the target. “They will attempt the racist and sexist attacks against the VP, there’s no doubt,” says Tim Miller, political director of Republican Voters Against Trump. “No matter who the Veep is, they’re not going to have any of those advantages that Biden has. They’re not going to have any of the armor that has protected him, being a moderate white guy, from Trump’s broadsides.”

Already, feminist leaders are bracing for an onslaught. Top women leaders from Emily’s List, NARAL, Time’s Up, Planned Parenthood, Supermajority and the National Women’s Law Center have teamed up to form We Have Her Back. On Friday, they sent a letter to major news organizations warning about “the double standards we’ve seen in the public and media expectations of women leaders,” and asking newsrooms have a “thoughtful conversation internally” about how to avoid perpetuating sexist stereotypes about the vice-presidential pick, including characterizing her ambition, her relationships, and her “likability” in ways that wouldn’t be done for a man.

“If you have kept your eyes open from birth onwards, you would know that major sexism exists, and that it plays out in elections in specific ways,” says Jess Morales Rocketto, a Democratic strategist who signed the We Have Her Back letter. Whoever Biden picks, she says, will be “representative of something, whether or not she wants to be, whether or not she is representative of that herself. I don’t know if anyone can withstand that level of scrutiny.”

Of course, the value of X could be negligible; experts say that the Vice Presidential pick almost never decides the outcome. “Historically they haven’t, and in the ways they have it’s generally if something goes off the rails rather than anything positive,” says David Axelrod, a former top adviser to President Barack Obama. “This notion that a VP candidate is gonna is drive turnout, I don’t buy it.”

And others say that even if Trump blitzes Biden’s running mate with racist and sexist attacks, it’s likely to backfire against the President. “Card-carrying sexists and racists are not voting for Joe Biden anyway,” says Lawless. “And people who are turned off by those kinds of attacks are more likely to say, ‘I’m not standing for that anymore.’”

But no matter she helps Biden or hurts him, X will at least deliver some clarity: she’ll reveal exactly how much a woman can change the equation.

President Trump’s Order Would Leave States on the Hook for Billions in Unemployment Claims

Mon, 10 Aug 2020 02:45:02 GMT

(FALLS CHURCH, Va.) — Whether President Donald Trump has the constitutional authority to extend federal unemployment benefits by executive order remains unclear. Equally up in the air is whether states, which are necessary partners in Trump’s plan to bypass Congress, will sign on.

Trump announced an executive order Saturday that extends additional unemployment payments of up to $400 a week to help cushion the economic fallout of the pandemic. Congress had approved payments of $600 a week at the outset of the coronavirus outbreak, but those benefits expired Aug. 1 and Congress has been unable to agree on an extension. Many Republicans have expressed concern that a $600 weekly benefit, on top of existing state benefits, gives people an incentive to stay unemployed.

But under Trump’s plan, the $400 a week requires a state to commit to providing $100.

Many states are already facing budget crunches caused by the pandemic. Asked at a news conference how many governors had signed on to participate, Trump answered: “If they don’t, they don’t. That’s up to them.”

Trump expressed a different view on Sunday night, following a day of state officials questioning how they could afford even $100 per person in additional weekly payments. He told reporters as he returned to Washington that states could make application to have the federal government provide all or part of the $400 payments. Decisions would be made state by state, he said.

Several state officials questioned how Trump’s initial proposal would work and often expressed doubt that they could afford to participate at the level Trump initially set without using federal funds.

Aubrey Layne, secretary of finance for Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, a Democrat, said in a phone interview Sunday he believes it would be feasible for Virginia to participate in such a program if states are allowed to use money that’s been allocated to them under the already passed CARES Act. He said his preliminary understanding is that states can do so, but he and others are waiting to see the rules published.

The better solution, Layne said, would be for Congress to pass legislation.

“It’s ludicrous to me that Congress can’t get together on this,” he said. “I think it would have been better for the president to use his influence in those negotiations, rather than standing on the sideline and then riding in like a shining knight.”

Details about the program were confused on Sunday — and that was even before Trump’s declaration that states could ask the federal government to pay all or part of the $400 week payments.

On CNN’s “State of the Nation” White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said conflicting things about whether the federal money was contingent on an additional contribution from the states. Initially Kudlow said that “for an extra $100, we will lever it up. We will pay three-quarters, and the states will pay 25 percent.” In the same interview, though, he later said that “at a minimum, we will put in 300 bucks … but I think all they (the states) have to do is put up an extra dollar, and we will be able to throw in the extra $100.”

A clarifying statement from the White House said the “funds will be available for those who qualify by, among other things, receiving $100/week of existing assistance and certify that they have lost their jobs due to COVID-19.”

Several advocacy groups that follow the issue, though, said it’s clear the way the executive order is structured that the federal money will be contingent on states making a 25 percent contribution.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, called the plan “an impossibility.”

“I don’t know if the president is genuine in thinking the executive order is a resolution or if this is just a tactic in the negotiation,” Cuomo said. “But this is irreconcilable for the state. And I expect this is just a chapter in the book of Washington COVID mismanagement.”

In Connecticut, Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that the plan would cost his state $500 million to provide that benefit for the rest of the year, and called Trump’s plan “not a good idea.”

“I could take that money from testing — I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Lamont said.

On CNN, Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine praised Trump for issuing the order.

“He’s trying to do something. He’s trying to move the ball forward,” DeWine said.

Still, he was noncommittal about whether Ohio would participate.

“We’re looking at it right now to see whether we can do this,” he said.

Christina Stephens, a spokeswoman for Democratic Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards said: “Right now we are reviewing the President’s order to determine exactly what the impact to the state would be.”

In Maryland, Michael Ricci, spokesman for Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, said in an email that “we will wait on new guidance from US Department of Labor before looking at any (unemployment insurance) changes.”

In Minnesota, Department of Employment and Economic Development Commissioner Steve Grove said his agency is “awaiting further guidance from the U.S. Department of Labor.”

Nearly 2 million Pennsylvanians are relying on that additional unemployment to pay their bills and put food on the table.

Kevin Hensil, a spokesman for Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf of Pennsylvania, said “reducing the benefit by a third will make it harder for families to get by and it places a larger financial burden on states.” He said state officials are studying the impact of the cuts.

And in Michigan, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said in a press release that Trump “cut federal funding for unemployed workers and is requiring states that are facing severe holes in our budgets to provide 25% of the funding.”

On ABC”s “This Week,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called it “an unworkable plan.

“Most states will take months to implement it, because it’s brand new. It’s sort of put together with spit and paste. And many states, because they have to chip in $100, and they don’t have money, won’t do it,” Schumer said.

Many states struggled to adjust outdated computer systems to accommodate the $600 payment, which along with the massive influx of new claims resulted in long delays in providing benefits. Reprogramming the computers again to accommodate the new amount could result in similar glitches.

On ABC, Kudlow said that many of those outdated systems have since been upgraded.

“I don’t think there will be a huge delay. Labor Department has been working with the states. The states are the ones that process the federal benefits before. So, I don’t see any reason why it would be all that difficult,” he said.

___

Associated Press Writers Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland; Larry Neumeister in New York; Melinda Deslatte in Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Mark Scolforo in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania; Susan Haigh in Hartford, Connecticut; Stephen Groves in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Thomas Strong in Washington; and Jonathan Lemire in Bedminster, New Jersey, contributed to this report.

Trump Signs Executive Order, Saying It Will Extend Unemployment Benefits and Defer Payroll Tax

Sat, 08 Aug 2020 21:19:01 GMT

(BEDMINSTER, N.J.) — Bypassing Congress, President Donald Trump on Saturday signed executive orders deferring payroll taxes for some Americans and extending unemployment benefits after negotiations on a new coronavirus rescue package collapsed.

Trump accused Democrats of loading up their rescue bill with priorities unrelated to the coronavirus. “We’ve had it,” he said at a news conference at his country club in Bedminister, New Jersey.

Trump said the payroll tax cut would apply to those earning less than $100,000 a year. He said that if he is reelected in November, he would look at the possibility of making the payroll tax permanent.

Extra aid for the unemployed will total $400 a week, a cut from the $600 that just expired.

Trump also signed executive orders holding off student loan payments and extending the freeze on evictions.

Trump has largely stayed on the sidelines during the administration’s negotiations with congressional leaders. The talks, which broke down in recent days, were led on his side by chief of staff Mark Meadows and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.

The president said at his club on Friday night that “if Democrats continue to hold this critical relief hostage I will act under my authority as president to get Americans the relief they need.”

Democrats had said they would lower their spending demands from $3.4 trillion to $2 trillion but said the White House needed to increase their offer. Republicans have proposed a $1 trillion plan.

White House aides have watched the talks break down with apprehension, fearful that failure to close a deal could further damage an economic recovery already showing signs of slowing down. Friday’s jobs report, though it beat expectations, was smaller than the past two months, in part because a resurgence of the virus has led to states rolling back their reopenings.

The president’s team believes the economy needs to stabilize and show signs of growth for him to have any chance at winning reelection. Aides were hoping to frame the expected executive orders signings as a sign that Trump was taking action in a time of crisis. But it also would reinforce the view that the president, who took office declaring he was a dealmaker, was unable to steer the process to an agreement.

Also, the anticipated orders would be smaller in scope than congressional legislation.

“This is not a perfect answer — we’ll be the first ones to say that,” Meadows said Friday as talks broke down. “But it is all that we can do and all the president can do within the confines of his executive power, and we’re going to encourage him to do it.”

Trump has not specified how the payroll tax deferral would work, and it was unclear whether he had the authority to take such an action without approval from Congress.

The move would not aid unemployed workers, who do not pay the tax when they are jobless, and would face bipartisan opposition in Congress. The cut, long a Trump wish, would affect payroll taxes that are intended to cover Medicare and Social Security benefits and take 7 percent of an employee’s income. Employers also pay 7.65% of their payrolls into the funds.

Both the House and Senate have left Washington, with members sent home on instructions to be ready to return for a vote on an agreement. With no deal in sight, their absence raised the possibility of a prolonged stalemate that stretches well into August and even September.

Often an impasse in Washington is of little consequence for the public — but not so this time. It would mean more hardship for millions of people who are losing enhanced jobless benefits and further damage for an economy pummeled by the still-raging coronavirus.

Friday’s negotiations at the Capitol added up to only “a disappointing meeting,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York. He said the White House had rejected an offer by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to curb Democratic demands by about $1 trillion. Schumer urged the White House to “negotiate with Democrats and meet us in the middle. Don’t say it’s your way or no way.”

That Capitol Hill session followed a combative meeting Thursday evening that for the first time cast real doubt on the ability of the Trump administration and Democrats to come together on a fifth COVID-19 response bill.

Pelosi declared the talks all but dead until Meadows and Mnuchin give ground.

The breakdown in the negotiations is particularly distressing for schools, which have been counting on billions of dollars from Washington to help with the costs of reopening. But other priorities are also languishing, including a fresh round of $1,200 direct payments to most people, a cash infusion for the struggling Postal Service and money to help states hold elections in November.

Mnuchin said renewal of a $600 per-week pandemic jobless boost and huge demands by Democrats for aid to state and local governments are the key areas where they are stuck.

Democrats have offered to reduce her almost $1 trillion demand for state and local governments considerably, but some of Pelosi’s proposed cost savings would accrue chiefly because she would shorten the timeframe for benefits like food stamps.

Pelosi and Schumer continue to insist on a huge aid package to address a surge in cases and deaths, double-digit joblessness and the threat of poverty for millions of the newly unemployed.

Senate Republicans have been split, with roughly half of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s rank and file opposed to another rescue bill at all. Four prior coronavirus response bills totaling almost $3 trillion have won approval on bipartisan votes despite intense wrangling, but conservatives have recoiled at the prospect of another Pelosi-brokered agreement with a whopping deficit-financed cost.

McConnell has kept his distance from the negotiations while coordinating with Mnuchin and Meadows.

Libertarian Presidential Candidate Skips Campaign Rally After Saying She Was Bitten by a Bat

Sat, 08 Aug 2020 20:44:57 GMT

Here’s one for 2020 bingo: Libertarian presidential candidate Jo Jorgensen announced she’d have to skip a rally on Saturday because she’d been bitten by a bat.

“I will not be able to attend the campaign rally tomorrow morning,” she tweeted Friday. “I will be getting a rabies vaccine as a precaution after having been bitten by a bat near the start of this campaign tour!”

…the #LetHerSpeak rally in Hattiesburg later in the afternoon.

The #LetHerSpeak convoy to Hattiesburg is on time, and is scheduled to depart at 2 PM.

— Jo Jorgensen (@Jorgensen4POTUS) August 8, 2020

Jorgensen, a senior lecturer of psychology at Clemson University in South Carolina, won the Libertarian Party’s nomination for President in late May. She had been the party’s vice presidential pick with Harry Browne in 1996.

She was set to hold in-person rallies in Mississippi and Louisiana over the weekend, although her campaign asked that attendees wear masks, follow social distancing guidelines and stay home if they’re not feeling well. Despite the bat-related delay, Jorgensen said she’d still attend her campaign events in Hattiesburg, Miss., Saturday afternoon.

Luckily, the presidential candidate doesn’t seem particularly traumatized by the bat attack. Her tweet soon went viral and she jokingly leaned into her new status as the new Dark Knight.

“I’m not Batman,” she replied. Yet, when another user pointed out that’s exactly what Batman would say, Jorgensen suggested that she is, in fact, the caped crusader.

I'm not Batman. 😉

— Jo Jorgensen (@Jorgensen4POTUS) August 8, 2020

pic.twitter.com/mYee50Phs2

— Jo Jorgensen (@Jorgensen4POTUS) August 8, 2020

Coming in to the debates like… pic.twitter.com/R6C367VDeH

— Jo Jorgensen (@Jorgensen4POTUS) August 8, 2020

pic.twitter.com/voCD2ELlhZ

— Jo Jorgensen (@Jorgensen4POTUS) August 8, 2020

When the media starts talking… pic.twitter.com/KHjpg7YuWe

— Jo Jorgensen (@Jorgensen4POTUS) August 8, 2020

If you’ve been bitten by a bat, the U.S. Centers for Disease Controls and Prevention (CDC) recommends you “wash the affected area thoroughly with soap and water and get medical advice immediately,” as bats can carry rabies.

As she signed off Friday night, Jorgensen told her followers she’d returned to tweeting about her campaign the following day. But she made clear there’s no bad blood between her and the nocturnal mammal.

You all have been fun tonight but it's time to get ready for a busy day tomorrow. Twitter will be filled with all the #LetHerSpeak photos everyone shares and I'll be retweeting them!
In the meantime… pic.twitter.com/uqIUfYdhp0

— Jo Jorgensen (@Jorgensen4POTUS) August 8, 2020

A CNBC/Change Research poll in July found Jorgensen was polling at 2% in the 2020 presidential contest.

U.S. Intel: Russia Works to Undermine Biden as China Opposes Trump’s Re-Election

Sat, 08 Aug 2020 14:53:49 GMT

(WASHINGTON) — U.S. intelligence officials believe that Russia is using a variety of measures to denigrate Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden ahead of the November election and that individuals linked to the Kremlin are boosting President Donald Trump’s reelection bid, the country’s counterintelligence chief said in the most specific warning to date about the threat of foreign interference.

U.S. officials also believe China does not want Trump to win a second term and has accelerated its criticism of the White House, expanding its efforts to shape public policy in America and to pressure political figures seen as opposed to Beijing’s interests.

The statement Friday from William Evanina is believed to be the most pointed declaration by the U.S. intelligence community linking the Kremlin to efforts to get Trump reelected — a sensitive subject for a president who has rejected intelligence agency assessments that Russia tried to help him in 2016. It also connects Moscow’s disapproval of Biden to his role as vice president in shaping Obama administration policies supporting Ukraine, an important U.S. ally, and opposing Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Asked about the intelligence assessment Friday evening in Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump appeared to dispute the idea that Russia was disparaging Biden. “I think the last person Russia wants to see in office is Donald Trump because nobody has been tougher on Russia than I have — ever,” he said.

But the president seemed to agree with the intelligence indicating China didn’t want him reelected. “If Joe Biden was president, China would own our country,” he said.

Evanina’s statement, three months before the election, comes amid criticism from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other congressional Democrats that the intelligence community has been withholding from the public specific intelligence information about the threat of foreign interference in American politics.

“The facts are chilling,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., wrote in an op-ed published Friday evening in The Washington Post. “I believe the American public needs and deserves to know them. The information should be declassified immediately.”

The latest intelligence assessment reflects concerns not only about Russia but China and Iran as well, warning that hostile foreign actors may seek to compromise election infrastructure, interfere with the voting process or call into question voting results. Despite those efforts, officials see it as unlikely that anyone could manipulate voting results in any sweeping way, Evanina said.

“Many foreign actors have a preference for who wins the election, which they express through a range of overt and private statements; covert influence efforts are rarer,” said Evanina, director of the National Counterintelligence and Security Center. “We are primarily concerned about the ongoing and potential activity by China, Russia and Iran.”

Concerns about election interference are especially acute following a wide-ranging effort by Russia to meddle in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf through both the hacking of Democratic emails and a covert social media campaign aimed at sowing discord among U.S. voters. Trump has routinely resisted the idea that the Kremlin favored him in 2016, but the intelligence assessment released Friday indicates that unnamed Kremlin-linked actors are again working to boost his candidacy on social media and Russian television.

The White House reacted to Friday’s news with a statement saying “the United States will not tolerate foreign interference in our electoral processes and will respond to malicious foreign threats that target our democratic institutions.”

Tony Blinken, a senior adviser to Biden’s campaign, responded that Trump “has publicly and repeatedly invited, emboldened, and even tried to coerce foreign interference in American elections. … Joe Biden, on the other hand, has led the fight against foreign interference for years.”

Democrats in Congress who have participated in recent classified briefings on election interference have expressed alarm at what they have heard. They have urged the U.S. intelligence community to make public some of their concerns in part to avoid a repeat of 2016, when Obama administration officials were seen as slow and overly deliberate in their public discussion of active Russian measures in that year’s election.

Pelosi and Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, both California Democrats, said Friday that they were “pleased that Mr. Evanina heeded our call to make additional details public about Russia’s malign interference campaign.” But they also criticized him for naming Iran and China “as equal threats to our democratic elections.”

When it comes to Russia, U.S. officials assess that it is working to “denigrate” Biden and what it sees as an anti-Russia “establishment” among his supporters, Evanina said. U.S. officials believe that tracks Moscow’s criticism of Biden when he was vice president for his role in Ukraine policies and his support of opposition to Putin inside Russia.

The U.S. statement called out by name Andrii Derkach, a pro-Russia Ukrainian lawmaker who has been active in leveling unsubstantiated corruption allegations against Biden and his son Hunter, who used to sit on the board of Burisma, an Ukrainian natural gas company. That effort has included publicizing leaked phone calls.

Democrats, including members of the Senate intelligence panel, have voiced concerns that an ongoing Republican probe into Hunter Biden and his work in Ukraine would parallel Russian efforts and amplify Russian disinformation. That investigation is being led by Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the chairman of Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs committee. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Though U.S. officials allege that China has its own preference, Friday’s statement did not directly accuse Beijing of election interference or taking action to prop up Biden.

Instead, the statement said, China views Trump as “unpredictable” and does not want to see him win reelection. China has been expanding its influence efforts ahead of the November election in an effort to shape U.S. policy and pressure political figures it sees as against Beijing.

The Trump administration’s relationship with Beijing has taken a starkly more adversarial tone in recent weeks, including the closure of China’s consulate in Houston and an executive order Thursday that banned dealings with the Chinese owners of consumer apps TikTok and WeChat,

“Although China will continue to weigh the risks and benefits of aggressive action, its public rhetoric over the past few months has grown increasingly critical of the current Administration’s COVID-19 response, closure of China’s Houston Consulate, and actions on other issues,” the statement said.

The top foreign policy adviser of China’s ruling Communist Party, Yang Jiechi, said Friday that “China has no interest in meddling in

U.S. domestic politics.”

On Iran, the assessment said Tehran seeks to undermine U.S. democratic institutions as well as Trump and divide America before the election.

“Iran’s efforts along these lines probably will focus on online influence, such as spreading disinformation on social media and recirculating anti-U.S. content,” Evanina wrote. “Tehran’s motivation to conduct such activities is, in part, driven by a perception that President Trump’s re-election would result in a continuation of U.S. pressure on Iran in an effort to foment regime change.”

During a panel discussion later Friday at the DEF CON hacker convention, federal cybersecurity officials were asked which foreign threat they considered most serious.

“I don’t think I would say one is scarier than the other, per se. Certainly some of these adversaries are at little bit more experienced,” said the National Security Agency’s election lead, David Imbordino.

“I couldn’t agree more,” said Cynthia Kaiser, the FBI’s deputy chief of analysis for national cyber threats. “If if you ask me what the biggest threat is, it’s the kind of constant drumbeat or influence campaigns that are going to make people feel like they are less confident in our (elections) system.”

____

Tucker reported from Stonington, Connecticut. Associated Press writers Jonathan Lemire in Bridgewater, New Jersey, and Frank Bajak in Boston contributed to this report.

Coronavirus Relief Talks Collapse on Capitol Hill, as Millions of Unemployed Americans Lose ...

Sat, 08 Aug 2020 14:05:58 GMT

(WASHINGTON) — A last-ditch effort by Democrats to revive Capitol Hill talks on vital COVID-19 rescue money collapsed in disappointment at week’s end, making it increasingly likely that Washington gridlock will mean more hardship for millions of people who are losing enhanced jobless benefits and further damage for an economy pummeled by the still-raging coronavirus.

President Donald Trump said Friday night he was likely to issue more limited executive orders related to COVID, perhaps in the next day or so, if he can’t reach a broad agreement with Congress.

The day’s negotiations at the Capitol added up to only “a disappointing meeting,” declared top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer, saying the White House had rejected an offer by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to curb Democratic demands by about $1 trillion. He urged the White House to “negotiate with Democrats and meet us in the middle. Don’t say it’s your way or no way.”

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said, “Unfortunately we did not make any progress today.” Republicans said Pelosi was relying on budget maneuvers to curb costs and contended she has overplayed her hand.

Often an impasse in Washington is of little consequence for the public — not so this time. It means longer and perhaps permanent expiration of a $600 per-week bonus pandemic jobless benefit that’s kept millions of people from falling into poverty. It denies more than $100 billion to help schools reopen this fall. It blocks additional funding for virus testing as cases are surging this summer. And it denies billions of dollars to state and local governments considering furloughs as their revenue craters.

Ahead is uncertainty. Both the House and Senate have left Washington, with members sent home on instructions to be ready to return for a vote on an agreement. With no deal in sight, their absence raises the possibility of a prolonged stalemate that stretches well into August and even September.

Speaking from his New Jersey golf club Friday evening, Trump said “if Democrats continue to hold this critical relief hostage I will act under my authority as president to get Americans the relief they need.”

Trump said he may issue executive orders on home evictions, student loan debt and allowing states to repurpose COVID relief funding into their unemployment insurance programs. He also said he’ll likely issue an executive order to defer collection of Social Security payroll taxes, an idea that has less support among his Republican allies.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said, “This is not a perfect answer — we’ll be the first ones to say that — but it is all that we can do, and all the president can do within the confines of his executive power.”

Friday’s Capitol Hill session followed a combative meeting Thursday evening that for the first time cast real doubt on the ability of the Trump administration and Democrats to come together on a fifth COVID-19 response bill. Pelosi summoned Mnuchin and Meadows in hopes of breathing life into the negotiations, which have been characterized by frustration and intransigence on both sides — particularly on top issues such as extending the bonus jobless benefit that expired last week.

Pelosi declared the talks all but dead until Meadows and Mnuchin give ground.

“I’ve told them ‘come back when you are ready to give us a higher number,’” she said.

In a news conference on Friday Pelosi said she offered a major concession to Republicans.

“We’ll go down $1 trillion, you go up $1 trillion,” Pelosi said. The figures are approximate, but a Pelosi spokesman said the speaker is in general terms seeking a “top line” of perhaps $2.4 trillion since the House-passed HEROES Act is scored at $3.45 trillion. Republicans say their starting offer was about $1 trillion but have offered some concessions on jobless benefits and aid to states, among others, that have brought the White House offer higher.

Mnuchin said renewal of a $600 per-week pandemic jobless boost and huge demands by Democrats for aid to state and local governments are the key areas where they are stuck.

“There’s a lot of areas of compromise,” he said after Friday’s meeting. “I think if we can reach an agreement on state and local and unemployment, we will reach an overall deal. And if we can’t we can’t.”

Pelosi and Schumer continue to insist on a huge aid package to address a surge in cases and deaths, double-digit joblessness and the threat of poverty for millions of the newly unemployed.

On Friday, they pointed to the new July jobs report to try to bolster their proposals. The report showed that the U.S. added 1.8 million jobs last month, a much lower increase than in May and June.

“It’s clear the economy is losing steam,” Schumer said. “That means we need big, bold investments in America to help average folks.”

McConnell has kept his distance from the negotiations while coordinating with Mnuchin and Meadows.

In addition to restoring the lapsed $600-per-week bonus jobless benefit, Pelosi and Schumer have staked out a firm position to extend demanded generous child care assistance and reiterated their insistence on additional funding for food stamps and assistance to renters and homeowners facing eviction or foreclosure.

“This virus is like a freight train coming so fast and they are responding like a convoy going as slow as the slowest ship. It just doesn’t work,” Pelosi said Friday.

Republicans Go All-In on Kanye West Campaign As a Way To Sink Joe Biden

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 18:19:01 GMT

The most offensive thing about Republicans with ties to President Donald Trump’s re-election efforts openly working to put rapper Kanye West on swing states’ ballots isn’t that they’re trying to pull votes away from Joe Biden. It’s that they’re doing so with very little effort to hide their true intention: to chip away at Biden’s support among Black voters.

Reports are coming in fast and shameless about GOP efforts in places like Ohio, Wisconsin and Colorado to get West’s name on the ballot in what can only be seen as an exploitative campaign to suppress the votes of those who may see the 43-year-old celebrity’s name and think, ‘Why not?’ It’s a cousin to Trump’s roll-the-dice pitch four years ago, when his main offering to Black voters was, “What do you have to lose?”

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The GOP effort isn’t even trying conceal its desired effect. Biden won the nomination with tremendous help from Black voters who have known him for decades, but will also be counting on support from younger voters who may now see West’s name on the ballot and flip. Trump himself retweeted an article saying a West candidacy is designed “to siphon [B]lack votes away from Biden” and added that “Corrupt Joe has done nothing good for Black people!” And West is saying he doesn’t care if he costs Biden the White House and seems fine with that if it helps his pal Trump. “I’m not denying it; I just told you,” he told Fortune.

The Trump campaign professes no knowledge of West’s efforts or who is behind them.

“No, I have nothing to do with him getting on the ballot. We’ll have to see what happens,” Trump said at the White House on Wednesday, saying he liked the artists “very much.”

One thing that’s certain is that West’s candidacy is that of spoiler and not of real contender: there is no mathematical path for him to earn the 270 Electoral College votes required to win. But if West can scatter the vote in a three-way race in enough precincts, it could deny Biden his return to the West Wing. Clinton lost Pennsylvania, for instance, by just five votes per precinct in 2016. When asked about his non-path to a win, West told Fortune: “I’m not here to argue with you. Jesus is king.”

The perplexing sound bites and appearances from the talented musician who, according to his family, lives with bipolar disorder, has made the entertainment desks in global newsrooms churn, of course. But the more sobering reality is that the future of the country may hinge on West. Sure, Biden is leading in the polls, but those polls only measure a head-to-head race with Trump — not a three-way contest. Biden is also behind where Clinton was with Black voters four years ago, according to Harry Enten’s analysis at CNN.

Americans still in the grip of a pandemic are not paying close attention to the election, which is largely playing out on social platforms like Twitter, where only 1 in 5 adults are active, according to Pew research. In-person campaigns are largely on pause. The Biden campaign has ceded door-to-door efforts and instead booked more than a quarter-million-dollars in ads for the final push. Trump is banking on his hardcore supporters staying with him until the end. In a distracted nation, West could find a very narrow lane to swing this election.

Take Michigan, where 15% of the electorate was Black, according to exit polls four years ago. Imprecise extrapolation puts that at roughly 724,000 of the 4.8 million votes cast statewide. Hillary Clinton claimed 92% of them and still came up 10,704 votes short. If she had swung the Black vote by just one percentage point, Michigan and its 16 electoral votes would have gone her way.

To be fair, the Black vote on its own isn’t why Clinton came up short. In Wisconsin, Trump won by 22,748 votes four years ago. The state’s electorate was 7% Black then, or roughly 208,000 Black votes. Clinton won 92% of them. That again puts Clinton within striking distance only had she carried 95% of them — a figure she didn’t reach anywhere.

Still, margins matter in politics, and third-party races have a whole host of complicating factors when the contenders are legitimately trying to make a point or even dream of winning. They seldom “cost” the two-party system’s nominees a win but can complicate things. For instance, Al Gore lost Florida — and thus the White House — in 2000 because roughly 300,000 Democrats voted for George W. Bush in a state that was decided by 537 votes. Third-party contender Ralph Nader’s 97,488 votes weren’t the sole reason he lost, but they sure didn’t help Gore either.

If you don’t think West could have a similar effect, ask yourself this: Are you sure you don’t have five neighbors in your precinct who could throw West their vote for a giggle?

A version of this article first appeared in The DC Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday.

U.S. Sanctions Hong Kong Leader Carrie Lam and Other Officials

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 15:30:13 GMT

(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. on Friday imposed sanctions on Hong Kong officials, including the pro-China leader of the government, accusing them of roles in squashing freedom in the former British colony.

The Treasury Department announced sanctions on Carrie Lam, the leader of the government in Hong Kong, and other officials. The sanctions are the latest in a string of actions the Trump administration has taken targeting China as tensions between the two nations rise over trade disputes and the coronavirus.

The sanctions were authorized by an executive order that President Donald Trump signed recently to levy penalties against China for its efforts to curtail anti-government protesters in Hong Kong.

Hong Kong has long enjoyed civil liberties not seen elsewhere in mainland China because it is governed under a “one country, two systems” principle in place since it reverted to Chinese rule in 1997.

However, Beijing imposed a sweeping national security law on Hong Kong earlier this year, raising widespread concerns about the Chinese government cracking down on the anti-government protests.

Judge Denies Trump’s Bid to Delay Defamation Suit From Woman Alleging Rape

Fri, 07 Aug 2020 02:22:32 GMT

(NEW YORK) — A New York judge knocked down President Donald Trump’s bid to delay a lawsuit from a woman who accused him of rape, ruling in a decision released Thursday that the presidency doesn’t shield him from the case.

Pointing to a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the president isn’t immune from a New York prosecutor’s criminal investigation, Manhattan judge Verna Saunders said the same principle applies to E. Jean Carroll’s defamation suit, in which Trump’s lawyers have argued that the Constitution bars presidents from being dragged into lawsuits in state courts.

“No, it does not,” Saunders wrote.

The decision allows Carroll — who’s seeking Trump’s DNA as potential evidence — to keep pursuing her suit. She says he slurred her in denying her claim that he raped her in the 1990s.

“We are now eager to move forward with discovery so that we can prove that Donald Trump defamed E. Jean Carroll when he lied about her in connection with her brave decision to tell the truth about the fact that Donald Trump had sexually assaulted her,” said her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan.

Email and phone messages were sent to Trump’s lawyers about the ruling.

Carroll, who was a longtime Elle magazine advice columnist until December, went public last year with an allegation that Trump raped her in a Manhattan luxury department store dressing room in the mid-1990s. She said it happened after they ran into each other and bantered about trying on a bodysuit.

Trump said Carroll was “totally lying” to sell a memoir and that he’d never met her, though a 1987 photo showed them and their then-spouses at a social event. He said it just captured a moment when he was standing in a line.

Carroll is trying to get a DNA sample from Trump to see whether it matches as-yet-unidentified male genetic material found on a dress that she says she was wearing during the alleged attack and didn’t don again until a photo shoot last year.

Trump’s lawyers have argued the suit shouldn’t proceed at least until New York’s highest court decides — in a separate case — whether an incumbent president is shielded from all state-court suits unrelated to his official duties.

Previous U.S. Supreme Court decisions have said incumbent presidents can’t be sued anywhere over official actions — so as to prevent the prospect of suits from influencing their decision-making — but they are subject to federal civil suits regarding private behavior.

The high court hasn’t specifically addressed whether suits over a president’s private conduct can unfold in state courts.

Carroll’s lawyers, however, have argued the justices essentially settled the question when they ruled last month on Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr.’s ability to subpoena Trump’s tax records for a state grand jury investigation.

“We cannot conclude that absolute immunity is necessary or appropriate,” the Supreme Court said.

The ruling left leeway for Trump’s lawyers to challenge Vance’s subpoena on other grounds, and they are doing so. Trump, a Republican, has called the Democratic DA’s inquiry into his financial dealings “a pure witch hunt.”

Trump lawyer Marc Kasowitz has contended that the Supreme Court’s ruling “was limited to the criminal context, and its reasoning does not extend to civil actions.”

Carroll’s suit seeks damages and a retraction of Trump’s statements, saying they hurt her career and reputation.

The Associated Press does not identify people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly.