Crooked Media - What A Day: The plague's the thing

President Trump threatened to withhold federal funding to Michigan and Nevada if they proceed with plans to make it easier to vote during a deadly pandemic, falsely claiming that those states were “creating a great Voter Fraud scenario.” It is once again time to wearily point out that Trump himself votes by mail. 
 

• Trump railed on Twitter that Michigan “sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people,” either misunderstanding or lying about Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s announcement on Tuesday that Michigan will send out absentee ballot applications to all voters. Several Republican-led states plan to do the same thing, but those aren’t swing states, so Trump needn’t pretend to worry about voter fraud there. What Trump is threatening is completely illegal, and while there is no “appropriate” time to extort a state for political gain, it’s particularly wild to pick a day when Michigan is responding to life-threatening floods. 
   
• While Trump went online to reiterate that he cares more about his re-election odds than the safety of people voting in plague conditions, CDC officials told reporters that the agency’s response efforts had been hindered by the White House prioritizing politics over science. Huh, some subtle parallels there. Officials told CNN that their proposed travel advisory for Europe was delayed by a week because the Trump administration was overly focused on China, and reluctant to risk pissing off Europe. As a result of scientific guidance being sidelined, CDC officials said, the crisis worsened: “We've been muzzled...What's tough is that if we would have acted earlier on what we knew and recommended, we would have saved lives and money.”
   
• The CDC has quietly released a 60-page document with detailed guidelines for relaxing restrictions on social activity, which closely matches the draft that the White House shelved last week. The final document does not contain guidance for religious institutions, reportedly after Health and Human Services officials told the CDC not to single out churches or issue specific faith-based recommendations like “maybe don’t share a communion cup.” 

All 50 states have begun reopening to some degree, and far from amplifying the CDC’s stringent advice, Trump and his allies are recruiting anyone in a lab coat who’ll say the opposite, louder.
 

• Republican operatives have been rounding up “extremely pro-Trump” doctors to go on TV and say that reopening the economy as quickly as possible is a terrific idea, and there’s no need for states to wait until their coronavirus metrics meet the CDC’s safety criteria. Everyone complaining about Trump not listening to science is gonna feel pretty dumb when they see how many lying scientists he found.
   
• As states reopen and risk triggering new outbreaks, medical workers are still insufficiently protected. Of 23,000 nurses surveyed by the union National Nurses United, 87 percent said they’ve had to reuse N95 respirators or surgical masks while treating COVID-19 patients due to persistent mass shortages. Never fear, though, the Trump administration bought some wildly overpriced mask-cleaning machines that have been successfully proven to (checks notes) destroy the masks. 
   

Trump failed to stop a deadly virus from killing 100,000 Americans, and is now threatening to hurt the residents of states that try to ensure voters can cast ballots without fearing for their lives. Re-election at all costs is Trump’s only guiding star, and the Republican politicians who are running in 2020 support him every step of the way. Vote them all out: votesaveamerica.com 

Both President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have now confirmed that Trump fired the State Department's inspector general at Pompeo’s urging. To rephrase, a senior official under investigation told the president to fire the person investigating him, and both the official and president plainly admit this. What’s not yet clear is which investigation(s) prompted the retaliatory firing. Pompeo denied knowing that Inspector General Steve Linick was investigating him, which is a lie: He had declined an interview request in one probe, about his “emergency” arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and answered written questions instead. Linick was also looking into whether Pompeo made a political appointee do personal errands for him, and may have been investigating a series of taxpayer-funded dinners Pompeo held for political donors and supporters. 

In the extended fired-inspector-general universe, House Democrats will open an investigation of the replacement of the Transportation Department’s acting inspector general, which happened in the middle of a probe of Secretary Elaine Chao’s preferential treatment of Kentucky (the state her husband, Mitch McConnell, represents). And Christi Grimm, the Health and Human Services watchdog who drew Trump’s ire by releasing a report on severe coronavirus-supply shortages, will testify before the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Tuesday.

• The Supreme Court has temporarily blocked the release of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s grand jury materials to House Democrats. It’s not a final ruling, but it means those documents will likely (and conveniently!) remain concealed until after the election. 
   
• Utah spent $2.75 million on a contact-tracing app, but so far, very few people are using it. As of May 18, only 45,000 of the state’s 3.2 million residents had downloaded the app, rendering it useless for the time being.
   
• Oklahoma has become the first state to pass an “anti-red-flag” gun bill, which prohibits cities and counties from passing ordinances that would allow police to confiscate firearms from people who might hurt themselves or others.
   
• Officials in Franklin County, OH, have declared racism a public health crisis, noting that while the resolution was in the works well before the pandemic, the coronavirus has highlighted the racial health divide.
   
• Joe Rogan has struck an exclusive podcast deal with Spotify, reportedly worth more than $100 million.
   
• Alison Roman’s New York Times column is on “temporary leave” following her controversial comments about Chrissy Teigen and Marie Kondo. Bret Stephens is still cranking out those eugenics hot takes, though. 
   
• Trump congratulated his daughter Tiffany on graduating from Georgetown Law, a mere four days after the fact. We’ll cut him some slack, he was probably super busy raising Barron.
   
• Gov. Tate Reeves (R-MS) got pranked during a virtual high school graduation ceremony, and diligently read out the name “Harry Azcrac.” Now more than ever, in these uncertain times, it is a comfort to remember that the children are our future.

Senate Republicans have issued the first subpoena in their shambolic Biden/Burisma probe, while the Trump administration is over at the Supreme Court arguing that Congress can’t subpoena anyone without true legislative purpose. The Senate Homeland Security Committee voted along party lines to subpoena Blue Star Strategies, which represented Burisma when Hunter Biden was on the board. A few interesting things about this: 1) There’s been zero evidence of any wrongdoing by either Biden, 2) there is a pandemic happening, and this is what Senate Republicans are up to instead of passing more desperately needed aid, and 3) Trump’s lawyers told the Supreme Court just a week ago that Congress is only allowed to conduct investigations that will inform legislation. 

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A federal judge ruled that all Texas voters worried about catching the coronavirus are eligible to vote by mail.

A Montana court has temporarily blocked a state law that made it almost impossible for Native Americans on rural reservations to vote.

The One Campaign announced a program in which celebrities will hand over their social media accounts to health experts to discuss the pandemic and global response efforts.

Comedian Jo Firestone has been leading virtual comedy workshops for senior New Yorkers. (Do yourself a favor and watch the video.)