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Sure, Donald Trump lied to everyone except wealthy investors about the dangers of coronavirus while withholding life-saving information from millions of people, but you’ve gotta look at the whole picture here: He also denied those people a financial lifeline just to stick it to Nancy Pelosi.
- In late February, as Trump publicly insisted that the coronavirus was “very much under control” in the U.S., his top economic advisors tipped off board members of the right-wing Hoover Institution to the impending disaster. That quiet warning from the administration spread quickly among financial elites, and gave Trump’s wealthy donors an opportunity to sell off stocks and get a jump on hoarding toilet paper while the rest of the country flew blind, and ultimately had to scrounge through the trash can for used napkins.
- Seven months later those investors cheerfully refuse to wear masks at a Porsche dealership somewhere, while the Trump administration’s coronavirus failures have forced millions of Americans into poverty. One Columbia University study found that the number of poor people has grown by eight million since May, while another study by researchers using a different metric estimated that six million people have slipped into poverty in the last three months, with the worst impacts befalling Black people and children.
- These numbers are the direct result of Republicans blocking further coronavirus aid after funding from the CARES Act, which temporarily kept 18 million people out of poverty, expired several months ago. So it’s several different levels of appalling that Donald Trump today cited his own ego as the reason he wouldn’t accept Democrats’ $2.2 trillion stimulus proposal: “She wants to bail out badly run Democrat states and cities. She wants money for things that you would never—just, your pride couldn’t let it happen.” For sure! Anyway, this feels like a good time to re-up the finding that a set of three policy proposals from Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would cut poverty in half (from pre-coronavirus levels).
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Between GOP leaders’ disinterest in reaching a stimulus deal and coronavirus numbers rising across the U.S., the next few months don’t look great.
- The U.S. is now experiencing its third surge of coronavirus hospitalizations (though we cunningly avoided a second wave of infections by simply never making it out of the first wave). The worst spikes are ravaging the midwest and northern plains—North Dakota hospitals are near capacity, and Wisconsin, where Trump is scheduled to hold a superspreading rally this weekend, opened a field hospital on Wednesday. The worsening outbreaks have already had a measurable economic impact: new unemployment claims rose to 898,000 last week, the highest level since late August.
- If only we had a clear idea of which presidential candidate could turn this around! On Thursday the Biden campaign announced that Kamala Harris’s communications director, along with a member of the flight crew, had tested positive for coronavirus. The campaign released a detailed statement about its existing safety protocols and next steps, which include Harris suspending her travel and immediate contact tracing. (Harris has tested negative.) On Wednesday night, the president—who infected his own staff and then prohibited contact tracing—wandered back to the press cabin on Air Force One and spoke to captive reporters without a mask for ten minutes. Nearly indistinguishable, voters will just have to flip a coin.
It seems fair to say at this point that a pro-coronavirus president who only looks out for the stock market wasn’t the best choice of a leader during a pandemic. We tried it, it didn’t work out, and we have less than three weeks left to turn out every possible voter for the guy with basic human empathy and a fully-formed coronavirus plan. Leave it all on the field: votesaveamerica.com.
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The most important election of our lifetime arrives near the end of a year of social unrest, and your choice will affect all aspects of American life. (No pressure!) What A Day co-host Akilah Hughes joined Complex's Natasha Martinez, actor and entrepreneur CJ Wallace, and rapper Yellopain for a wide-ranging discussion on what your vote could mean for activism and law enforcement in our communities. Check it out here →
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Federal prosecutors spent three years investigating whether Trump funnelled millions of dollars in foreign funds into his 2016 campaign, but didn’t finish the job seemingly out of fear of reprisals. The investigation, which both predated and continued after special counsel Robert Mueller's probe, focused on a potential link between an Egpytian state-owned bank and Trump’s last-minute infusion of $10 million into his campaign. Prosecutors never reached a conclusion about whether Trump accepted support from or was indebted to a foreign power, but it sure would explain Trump calling out “Where’s my favorite dictator?” while awaiting Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi at the 2019 G7 summit, and it sure would have been cool if Mueller had fought for access to Trump’s financial records.
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- Nobody panic, but a crew member on Joe Biden’s airplane tested positive for coronavirus and Biden still has plans to travel on Friday? Biden was never within 50 feet of the crew member, and tested negative today, so that’s something? Did you know we sell stress balls?
- Senate Democrats denied Republicans a quorum to schedule a vote on Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination, but Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-SC) violated judiciary committee rules to hold a vote anyway. For some unfathomable reason, ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) ended the hearing by thanking Graham for a wonderful time and giving him a hug. The committee’s vote to approve Barrett’s nomination is now scheduled for October 22.
- It seems quaint to point out now, but public Notre Dame calendars show at least seven more talks that Barrett didn’t disclose on her Senate paperwork, including one with the law school’s anti-abortion group.
- YouTube has banned QAnon content, following similar changes by Twitter and Facebook only two years after an armed QAnon believer blocked the Hoover Dam with an armored truck.
- Sitting U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) has proudly announced the endorsement of QAnon follower Marjorie Taylor Greene. Again, terrific work by everyone who leapt into action to nip this thing in the bud.
- A user on a far-right message board was hinting about the New York Post’s Hunter Biden articles days in advance. Also, intelligence analysts had picked up chatter that stolen Burisma emails would be leaked as an October surprise. Also, Rudy Giuliani has changed his story about how he came to obtain “Hunter Biden’s laptop,” which still doesn’t align with the various stories the computer repair shop owner told reporters on Wednesday. Other than that, seems legit!
- A group of 100 Hollywood bigwigs have sent a petition to NBCUniversal and Comcast executives protesting the timing of Trump’s town hall tonight, while Trump made his own contempt for the network known.
- C-SPAN has suspended Steve Scully after he admitted that his Twitter was not, in fact, hacked by someone with a fervent wish to send one innocuous tweet to Anthony Scaramucci.
- Rudy Giuliani’s daughter is out here making the best of a bad situation and we look forward to reading whatever response Rudy meant to send her but instead accidentally texted to 50 reporters.
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The Supreme Court ruling that has allowed the Trump administration to halt the Census count early will almost certainly result in an egregious undercount. The case is still in litigation in the Ninth Circuit, but the Bureau’s deadline was October 31, and the Supreme Court allowed Trump to stop counting efforts immediately. Here’s Robert Santos, the president-elect of the American Statistical Association: “I do not believe that a fair and accurate census can occur. I expect it to be one of the most flawed censuses in history.” Minority communities and immigrants will be seriously undercounted, which means those communities will be cut out of federal funding. Census data affects the distribution of nearly $1.5 trillion in federal funds, for things like food stamps, Medicaid, rural education, and road construction. You can still respond to the Census online if you haven’t yet, until 6 a.m. ET on Friday, October 16, and encourage everyone in your network to do the same, and we can mitigate the damage of a flawed Census by keeping the House and taking the Senate.
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The government works for you. The User’s Guide to Democracy can help you become a better boss. In a series of eight, personalized emails, you’ll learn everything you need to navigate this election — and everything after. You’ll get easy-to-follow guidance on how to research candidates, track campaigns, vote safely during this pandemic, and hold your congressional representatives accountable once they take office. Sign up for free.
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Over 300,000 Coloradans had voted as of Wednesday, 24 times more than at the same point in 2016, when Colorado was already a universal vote-by-mail state.
Democratic candidates and left-wing groups have raised a staggering $1.5 billion through ActBlue in the last three months.
More than 500 LGBTQ candidates will appear on November ballots, breaking 2018’s record.
A Jewish family’s painting that was looted by the Nazis in 1933 was returned today, after 87 years.
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