2020
Biden Creates Legal War Room, Preparing for a Big Fight Over Voting
Shane Goldmacher, The New York Times
Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s campaign is establishing a major new legal operation, bringing in two former solicitor generals and hundreds of lawyers in what the campaign billed as the largest election protection program in presidential campaign history. Legal battles are already raging over how people will vote — and how ballots will be counted — this fall during the pandemic, and senior Biden officials described the ramp-up as necessary to guard the integrity of a fall election already clouded by President Trump’s baseless accusations of widespread fraud.
Trump Campaign Slashes Ad Spending in Key States in Cash Crunch
Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou et al., Bloomberg
President Donald Trump’s campaign is scaling back its television advertising spending and in some cases abandoning it altogether for now in key states, facing a cash crunch brought on by huge investments in staff and operations. Trump’s re-election campaign vowed last month to saturate voters early with ads in battleground states where voters cast large numbers of ballots before Election Day.
How the Trump Campaign’s Mobile App Is Collecting Massive Amounts of Voter Data
Sue Halpern, The New Yorker
Since the Trump campaign set up a shell company called American Made Media Consultants, in 2018, an entity it describes as a “vendor responsible for arranging and executing media buys and related services at fair market value,” it’s been nearly impossible to know whom the campaign is paying, for what, and how much. But, on May 27th, Alan Knitowski, the C.E.O. of Phunware, an Austin-based ad broker and software company, announced a “strategic relationship with American Made Media Consultants on the development, launch and ongoing management and evolution of the Trump-Pence 2020 Reelection Campaign’s mobile application portfolio.”
Minnesota Seemed Ripe for a Trump Breakout. It Has Not Arrived.
Astead W. Herndon, The New York Times
For a campaign event featuring Donald Trump Jr., the brash-talking, liberal-dunking namesake of the president, it was all rather mundane. There was no large rally with thronging crowds, but a few hundred seats at a community center, each socially distanced.
In defiance of Nevada governor, Trump holds indoor rally
Jonathan Lemire and Ken Ritter, The Associated Press
In open defiance of state regulations and his own administration’s pandemic health guidelines, President Donald Trump hosted his first indoor rally since June, telling a packed, nearly mask-less Nevada crowd that the nation was “making the last turn” in defeating the virus. Eager to project a sense of normalcy in imagery, Trump soaked up the raucous cheers inside a warehouse Sunday night.
Inside Joe’s bubble: How Biden’s campaign is trying to avoid the virus
Christopher Cadelago and Natasha Korecki, Politico
Joe Biden’s chartered airplanes and SUVs are meticulously sprayed with disinfectant and scrubbed. The microphones, lecterns and folders he uses are wiped down in the moments before his arrival.
‘This is f—ing crazy’: Florida Latinos swamped by wild conspiracy theories
Sabrina Rodriguez and Marc Caputo, Politico
George Soros directs a “Deep State” global conspiracy network. A Joe Biden win would put America in control of “Jews and Blacks.” The Democratic nominee has a pedophilia problem.
Biden, After Rejecting Progressive Spending Plans, Now Hones Multi-Trillion-Dollar Budget
Jacob M. Schlesinger and Eliza Collins, The New York Times
Joe Biden won the Democratic presidential nomination running as a moderate, rejecting the big-government plans of progressive rivals as unaffordable. In the general election campaign, he has rolled out his own multi-trillion-dollar platform that a new study finds would push long-term Washington spending to its highest level in decades.
Warren Buffett Silent So Far in 2020 Presidential Election
John McCormick and Catherine Lucey, The Wall Street Journal
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett was an active fundraiser and campaigner for the past two Democratic presidential nominees. In 2020, he’s yet to become publicly involved with former Vice President Joe Biden’s bid to reclaim the White House for Democrats.
What to watch in Delaware’s primaries this week
Katherine Tully-McManus, Roll Call
The state that was first to ratify the Constitution is one of the last to hold primary contests this year, with Delaware Democratic Sen. Chris Coons facing a challenge from the left Tuesday, while Republican contests for House and Senate feature establishment-backed candidates against younger opponents with a history of opioid addiction.
White House & Administration
In Visiting a Charred California, Trump Confronts a Scientific Reality He Denies
Michael D. Shear and Coral Davenport, The New York Times
When President Trump flies to California on Monday to assess the state’s raging forest fires, he will come face to face with the grim consequences of a reality he has stubbornly refused to accept: the devastating effects of a warming planet. To the global scientific community, the acres of scorched earth and ash-filled skies across the American West are the tragic, but predictable, result of accelerating climate change.
Trump officials race against time to build massive vaccine tracking system
Darius Tahir and Rachel Roubein, Politico
The Trump administration is betting it can get millions of coronavirus shots to the Americans who need them most using a new, unproven data system that threatens to bypass state trackers that have long been mainstays in public immunization programs. The effort, funded by an almost $16 million sole-source contract, would help public health officials schedule Covid-19 immunizations, and manage vaccine supplies.
Donald Trump’s conversations with Bob Woodward about coronavirus, Black Lives Matter and nuclear war
Scott Pelley, CBS News
In taped conversations with a Washington Post journalist, President Trump said he wanted to downplay the severity of the coronavirus. And the recordings reveal the President’s view on how close the United States came to nuclear war with North Korea.
‘Beyond negligent’: Census workers describe logistical nightmare as deadline approaches
Dartunorro Clark, NBC News
When Dean Arnold started working for the Census Bureau in late August, the work was more difficult than he had imagined. The agency gave him about two weeks of training as an enumerator after the coronavirus pandemic disrupted the original timeline of the 2020 census this year.
After a Pandemic Pause, ICE Resumes Deportation Arrests
Miriam Jordan, The New York Times
For Alicia Flores Gonzalez, Aug. 4 began like any other day. She dropped her little girl at day care and drove to work at a winery in the Sonoma Valley. But as she was parking her white Toyota Tacoma, she found herself surrounded by several armed men. “What happened? What did I do?”
War Crimes Risk Grows for U.S. Over Saudi Strikes in Yemen
Michael LaForgia and Edward Wong, The New York Times
When President Trump hosts the signing of a diplomatic agreement between Israel and the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, the White House ceremony will also serve as tacit recognition of Mr. Trump’s embrace of arms sales as a cornerstone of his foreign policy. The president sweetened the Middle East deal with a secret commitment to sell advanced fighter jets and lethal drones to the Emirates.
Emails show Pompeos knew their requests of State Dept. staff were personal tasks
Michael Wilner and Bryan Lowry, The Kansas City Star
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s wife wanted senior State Department staff to work during the week of Christmas to complete their personal holiday cards, requesting they keep the circle small because of the private nature of the assignment, emails obtained by McClatchy show. Susan Pompeo wrote to Toni Porter, a longtime confidante and aide to the secretary from his days as a Kansas congressman, asking who would be in the office that week to help with the cards.
Pompeo bringing back ‘Madison Dinners’ mid-pandemic
Josh Lederman, NBC News
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is quietly relaunching his extravagant, taxpayer-funded “Madison Dinners” during the coronavirus pandemic, even as Congress scrutinizes his use of government resources to entertain CEOs, big-dollar Republican donors and television anchors. Pompeo’s Madison Dinners, which an NBC News investigation revealed in May, had been on pause since March, when the country shut down because of the coronavirus.
NOAA taps David Legates, professor who questions the seriousness and severity of global warming, for top role
Andrew Freedman and Jason Samenow, The Washington Post
The Trump administration has tapped David Legates, an academic who has long questioned the scientific consensus that human activity is causing global warming, to help run the agency that produces much of the climate research funded by the U.S. government. Legates, a University of Delaware professor who was forced out of his role as that state’s climatologist because of his controversial views, has taken a senior leadership role at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
At U.S.A.I.D., Juggling Political Priorities and Pandemic Response
Lara Jakes and Pranshu Verma, The New York Times
The coronavirus was spreading around the world, and officials at the United States Agency for International Development were anxious to rush humanitarian aid to nations in need. But first, they had to settle a debate over American branding and whether it should be displayed on assistance headed to conflict zones. Political appointees from the White House and the State Department wanted the aid agency’s logo affixed to all assistance packages to show the world how much the United States was sending abroad, even as it grappled with its own outbreak.
Congress
This week: House returns for pre-election sprint
Jordain Carney and Juliegrace Brufke, The Hill
The House is returning this week for its final work period before the November election, with a government funding fight looming and uncertainty growing over whether Congress will pass a fifth coronavirus relief bill. The House, set to reconvene on Monday, has only 12 working days before they are scheduled to leave Washington, D.C., again until after the election.
House of Representatives, and its longest-serving Democrat, adapts to the pandemic
Paul Kane, The Washington Post
Nobody ever saw Steny H. Hoyer as a technological visionary, least of all the 81-year-old Democrat. “Let me tell you what — Steny Hoyer looks in the mirror and doesn’t see that guy either,” the House majority leader said in an interview Friday.
House parliamentarian to retire, will be succeeded by deputy
Chris Cioffi and Katherine Tully-McManus, Roll Call
After almost a decade on the job, House Parliamentarian Tom Wickham is stepping down. Wickham was named to the job in February 2012 and began as deputy parliamentarian in 2005.
General
Oracle Wins Bid for TikTok in U.S., After Microsoft Proposal Rejected
Georgia Wells and Aaron Tilley, The Wall Street Journal
Oracle Corp. won the bidding for the U.S. operations of the video-sharing app TikTok, a person familiar with the matter said, beating out Microsoft Corp. in a deal to salvage a social-media service that has been caught in the middle of a geopolitical standoff. Oracle is set to be announced as TikTok’s “trusted tech partner” in the U.S., and the deal is likely not to be structured as an outright sale, the person said.
Vaccine Makers Keep Safety Details Quiet, Alarming Scientists
Katie Thomas, The New York Times
The morning after the world learned that a closely watched clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine had been halted last week over safety concerns, the company’s chief executive disclosed that a person given the vaccine had experienced serious neurological symptoms. But the remarks weren’t public.
How former Trump adviser Steve Bannon joined forces with a Chinese billionaire who has divided the president’s allies
Rosalind S. Helderman et al., The Washington Post
When federal agents arrested former chief White House strategist Stephen K. Bannon off the coast of Connecticut on Aug. 20, he was relaxing on a 150-foot yacht belonging to a flashy Chinese billionaire whose efforts to obtain asylum in the United States have divided top allies of President Trump. Most of the attention after Bannon’s arrest has been on the federal charges alleging that he fleeced donors to a nonprofit group that claimed it was privately building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
States
Court Blocks Postal-Service Election Mailer in Colorado
Alexa Corse, The Wall Street Journal
Colorado won a temporary restraining order blocking the U.S. Postal Service from sending the state’s households a postcard about voting by mail, after its top election official said the information on the mailer was misleading. Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, said in a written statement that the mailer included multiple inaccurate statements about the state’s voting process.
States plow forward with pot, with or without Congress
Paul Demko et al., Politico
Roughly 1 in 3 Americans could have access to legal recreational marijuana if voters approve state ballot initiatives this November. While a planned House vote on legalizing weed at the federal level is scheduled for later this month, the real action remains in the states.
Advocacy
NRA’s political influence dwindling ahead of the election
Sara Fischer and Alayna Treene, Axios
The National Rifle Association has spent $9.2 million on political expenditures this cycle, about one-sixth of the $54.4 million reported in 2016, according to Federal Election Commission data tracked by Open Secrets. While the group has vowed to support President Trump’s re-election, mounting fees from fights with regulators, internal infighting and the pandemic have devastated its finances — and could mute its future influence.
Progressive Donor Susan Sandler to Give $200 Million to Racial Justice Groups
Astead W. Herndon, The New York Times
Susan Sandler, a liberal philanthropist, will invest $200 million in racial justice organizations, targeting areas across the South and the Southwest that are experiencing rapid demographic transformation. Ms. Sandler, who learned she had a rare form of brain cancer four years ago, will announce the effort in a lengthy post on Medium scheduled to publish on Monday morning.
A Message from the National Association of Chain Drug Stores:
An August poll commissioned by NACDS and conducted by Morning Consult found that two-thirds of adults (67%) say getting a flu vaccination is important to protect health during the pandemic. This is shy of the percentage of adults who consider it important to wear a mask (86%), distance (89%), wash hands (93%), and stay home when sick (93%). Pharmacies and our partners are spreading the word to stop the flu, and you can too.
Opinions, Editorials and Perspectives
There’s a smarter way to be tough on Iran
Joe Biden, CNN
When Donald Trump ran for President, he promised a “better deal” to constrain Iran’s nuclear program and pledged to pressure Tehran into curbing its aggressive behavior across the Middle East. Like so many of President Trump’s promises, these proved to be just empty words.
How ‘Emergency Use’ Can Help Roll Out a Covid Vaccine
Scott Gottlieb and Mark McClellan, The Wall Street Journal
A vaccine for Covid-19 could emerge in the next several months. But first, clinical trials need to reach completion showing that the vaccines reduce Covid. The data must undergo multiple layers of scientific review to weigh risks against benefits.
Research Reports and Polling
Why Biden’s national lead matters
Harry Enten, CNN
A new Monmouth University poll finds that former Vice President Joe Biden holds a 51% to 44% lead over President Donald Trump among likely voters. Among registered voters, it’s Biden 51% to 42% for Trump. The average of the two, an 8-point Biden advantage, is in-line with the national polling average.
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