Coronavirus US live: Cuomo says Trump cannot order New York to reopen

Trump compared the current tension between him and some Democratic governors to the movie “Mutiny on the Bounty” in a new tweet.

“Tell the Democrat Governors that ‘Mutiny On The Bounty’ was one of my all time favorite movies. A good old fashioned mutiny every now and then is an exciting and invigorating thing to watch, especially when the mutineers need so much from the Captain,” Trump wrote. “Too easy!”

Trump’s movie reference seems odd, considering the film focuses on a cruel captain who is eventually ousted from command after torturing his crew and causing several deaths.

On Capitol Hill, congresswoman Jennifer Wexton presided over the House’s pro forma session today wearing a hot pink suit that matched her face mask.

The Virginia Democrat’s outfit (and matching protective gear) added a joyful pop of color to this truly surreal era in Washington and across the country.

Joe Biden pushed back against Trump’s claim that he has “total” authority to decide when the US economy will reopen, which is contradicted by the Constitution.

“I am not running for office to be King of America. I respect the Constitution,” Biden said in a tweet, going on to applaud the job many states’ governors are doing to respond to the current crisis.

Many commentators have said that Trump’s claim of having the ability to reopen the economy flies in the face of federalism and the specific powers granted to governors in times of public health emergencies.

Even some Republican lawmakers, including senator Marco Rubio, have specifically said since Trump’s press conference yesterday that decisions about when and how to reopen the economy should be left to the governors.

Trump mocked Andrew Cuomo after the New York governor said he would not be forced to unsafely reopen the state’s economy.

“Cuomo’s been calling daily, even hourly, begging for everything, most of which should have been the state’s responsibility, such as new hospitals, beds, ventilators, etc,” Trump wrote in a tweet. “I got it all done for him, and everyone else, and now he seems to want Independence! That won’t happen!”

In reality, Cuomo has repeatedly asked for more coordination with the Trump administration to address the crisis, and his team has complained that the federal government was “absent” in the early response to the virus.

Trump’s tweet came shortly after Cuomo said in a CNN interview that he would not be pressured to reopen New York’s economy if he thought it would lead to a surge of infections.

“If he ordered me to reopen in a way that would endanger the public health of the people of my state, I wouldn’t do it,” Cuomo said.

That comment was in response to the president saying yesterday that he has “total” authority to reopen the economy, which constitutional experts have contradicted.

Barack Obama intends to endorse Joe Biden in a video statement to be released later today, the Guardian has confirmed with a source close to the former president.

The endorsement will clear the way for Obama, who remains incredibly popular among Democrats, to potentially act as a surrogate for Biden on the campaign trail.

In 2016, while he was still in office, Obama stumped for Hillary Clinton across several battleground states, drawing massive crowds. But the historic campaigning by a sitting president was ultimately not enough to secure a victory for Clinton.

An endorsement from Barack Obama would cap Joe Biden’s stunning comeback in the Democratic presidential primary after the former vice president stumbled in the early contests.

Biden came in fourth in the Iowa caucuses and fifth in the New Hampshire primary before capturing second place in the Nevada caucuses.

By that point, Bernie Sanders had become the undisputed frontrunner in the race, and many Democrats were preparing for a likely Sanders nomination.

But Biden’s landslide victory in South Carolina, followed by a series of Super Tuesday wins a few days later, gave him the delegate lead and the momentum to capture the nomination.

Trump lashed out against congressional Democrats after they pushed for more funding for hospitals and state and local governments in the next coronavirus relief bill.

“The Democrats don’t want to approve more money for our great workers under the incredibly successful ‘Paycheck’ plan,” Trump wrote in a tweet. “Replenish Account Now!”

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell tried to pass a relief bill by unanimous consent last week, but Democratic senators objected on the grounds that the bill did not go far enough.

McConnell’s bill would have granted $250 billion in additional funding to the small business loan program created by the stimulus package, while Democrats also wanted $250 billion for hospitals and state and local governments.

The bill failed to advance because of the back-and-forth, and the two parties appear to be at a stalemate over the issue, as small businesses and state governments wait for more of the desperately needed funds.

Nearly 4 in 10 registered US voters support delaying the November election until coronavirus is under control, according to a new poll.

The TargetSmart survey found that 68 percent of voters think the pandemic will have a big effect on turnout in November. That number includes 80% of Democrats, 66% of independents and 58% of Republicans.

The poll also shows that 39% of voters think the November election should be delayed, although a majority (53%) oppose that idea.

The date of the election is established by a set of federal laws, so Congress would have to pass a law to move the date, which seems unlikely considering the House is controlled by the Democrats.

Joe Biden, now the presumptive Democratic nominee, has said he is opposed to delaying the election. “[W]e cannot, we cannot delay or postpone a constitutionally required November election,” Biden said last week.

The former vice president has voiced support for expanding absentee voting options, which was also a popular idea among respondents in the TargetSmart poll. Nearly 8 in 10 registered voters said it’s important for state and local governments to provide alternatives to in-person voting.

This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Martin Pengelly.

The Democratic super PAC Priorities USA is out with a new ad contrasting Trump’s comments downplaying the coronavirus pandemic and doctors’ pleas for more personal protective equipment and ventilators.

Priorities is spending nearly $2 million to air the ad in several states that Trump won in 2016, including Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

“In this time of crisis, we need to listen to our medical professionals and ensure they have the resources they need to keep them safe while they keep us safe. Unfortunately, Donald Trump is more concerned with deflecting blame and protecting his own political standing than taking the necessary steps to protect our country,” Guy Cecil, the chairman of Priorities USA, told ABC News.

Some of Trump’s allies have feared that the president’s daily briefings, which often include falsehoods and outlandish comments, would soon be featured in attack ads to bolster Joe Biden’s chances in the November election.

On the subject of Donald Trump’s extraordinary – and extraordinarily worrying – White House briefing on Monday night, some interesting words from Howell Raines, formerly executive editor of the New York Times.

Raines was speaking on MSNBC – the liberal-skewing network which Trump likes to call MSDNC, in what passes for a joke from a notoriously humorless chap, being a pun on the initials of the Democratic National Committee – after it cut away from the briefing, the propreity of showing which is a whole other argument going on in US newsrooms including the Guardian’s right now.

Anyway. Raines:

“I think this is one of the astonishing acts of disinformation we’ve seen from a White House since the Vietnam era and the five o’clock follies* of the Lyndon Johnson administration.

“What we are seeing here, I think, is a kind of imploding presidency. And with an implosion, you have to have a black hole at the center. And I think what we have here is a black hole that consists of two elements: President Trump’s extremely fragile ego, and his distrust of government experts.”

Raines also said that the still-not-fired-for-undercutting-the-president-and-becoming-more-famous-and-trusted Dr Anthony Fauci and the other White House public health experts “remind me of nervous parents trying to cope with a three-year-old on a sugar high”.

Our Washington bureau chief David Smith had a similar thought, in a fine take on the briefing, which is here:

*Five o’clock follies: notorious military briefings during the Vietnam war which bore very little resemblance to disastrous reality. See here.

And now, Fun With Polls…

I’m no Harry Enten (formerly of this parish, you know) but I do, partly because of Harry Enten, know an interesting poll or polls story when I see one. Honest.

In short, Axios this morning puts Joe Biden in the lead against Donald Trump six key states, firstly Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, three of the rust belt, usually blue states which Trump famously won from under Hillary Clinton’s nose in 2016.

But it also has Biden up in Florida, Arizona and North Carolina, sunnier places, usually Republican, which if picked up would allow the former vice-president some leeway in those first three, where Trump remains strong.

And here’s a new poll from Arizona: Biden 52%, Trump 43%.

There are of course caveats to every poll and OH Insights lists them here.

Either which way, Bernie Sanders’ endorsement of Biden yesterday has seemingly wrapped up the Democratic primary – some sort of House of Cards-esque Andrew Cuomo late move notwithstanding – and for now the question is will the 3 November election go ahead in its usual form or will the bizarre scenes in Wisconsin last week presage some move to making voting easier and safer? Not if Trump can help it, of course.

Here’s Tom McCarthy and Sam Levine on the Wisconsin results which came in on Monday night: