Right off the bat, we now know that coronavirus has entered the White House, with both a presidential valet and the vice president's press secretary having tested positive. I understand now that the valets will be wearing masks, which makes sense, at least according to the CDC experts. Better late than never, I guess. Pence's aide, Katie Miller, happens to be married to Trump's immigration policy guru, Stephen Miller. She's being quarantined for 14 days, not sure about him.
The president went to a mask company in Arizona this week, where he wore glasses but not a mask. But that's OK, I guess, because as the song says, Live and Let Die. Also while he was in Arizona, the president did an interview with ABC's David Muir which was, well, Trumpian to the extreme. I'll have more on that tomorrow.
Attorney General Snitty Snitty Bill Barr tried (and failed, it would seem) to convince the Administration to drop their assault on the Affordable Care Act, and he tried (and succeeded) in getting the DOJ to drop the charges against Michael Flynn, who cooperated with the Mueller Investigation. On the former, Barr's concern seems to be kicking tens of millions of people off their insurance, or appearing to, during an election year - which would not be an actual crime, only a political crime. On the latter, Barr said that "people sometimes plead guilty to things that turn out not to be crimes." As with the Roger Stone case, the line prosecutor on the Flynn case withdrew. Seems things continue to be not so warm and fuzzy at DOJ...
Unemployment numbers for April came out today, and they were not good. I had heard estimates of between 16-17% but the unemployment rate came in at 14.7%. All of the job gains over the past 11 years have been wiped out. The 10.3% increase was the largest "over the month" increase in the metric's history.
For a somewhat unusual reason, Andrew Yang is in the news again this week. Last week, Yang sued the NYS Board of Elections for cancelling this year's presidential primary, as there are no candidates still officially in the running other than Joe Biden. And just the other day, a federal judge ordered NY to hold the primary after all. While some saw it as a victory for delegates who still have a chance to impact the party's platform at the convention, others don't feel the same. Ben Adler, writing in City and State New York, disagrees. Adler said "this is just more proof - as if any were needed after Trump - that "outsider" candidates who run to promote their personal brand or idiosyncratic ideas usually leave politics worse for their involvement." Ouch.
And finally, Joe Biden. Evidence appears to be mounting against him vis a vis Tara Reade. On the heels of a recording alleged to be her mother calling in to the Larry King Show that came to light last month, we now have documents from her divorce, filed in 1996, in which her ex-husband references Reade saying she was sexually harassed while working for Biden's office.
I don't know how anyone looks at this, with a believing or disbelieving eye, and doesn't think it seriously hurts the Biden campaign.
TGIF, everyone.
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