Coronavirus US live: top Republicans urge Trump to step back and let 'his experts speak'

State officials forge ahead to expand vote-by-mail despite Trump’s warnings.

Without evidence the president has repeatedly charged voting by mail would dilute the election process and open voting up to rampant fraud. The Associated Press reports:

President Donald Trump is warning without evidence that expanding mail-in voting will increase voter fraud. But several GOP state officials are forging ahead to do just that, undermining one of Trumps arguments about how elections should be conducted amid the coronavirus outbreak.

While Trump has complained that voting by mail was ripe for fraud,” Republican state officials in Iowa, Ohio and West Virginia have all taken steps to ease access to mail-in ballots, following health officials warnings that voting in person can risk transmission of the deadly virus. The Republican governor of Nebraska urged voters to apply for absentee ballots. Florida’s GOP chairman says the party will continue to run a robust vote-by-mail program.

The disconnect between Trump and Republican state officials illustrates the abrupt, hard turn the president and his national political allies have taken on the issue. Before the coronavirus hit, many in the GOP had warmed to mail-in voting, agreeing that it can be conducted without fraud and even used to their political advantage.

But Trump’s hard line appears to be driven by his personal suspicions and concerns about his own reelection prospects. Statewide mail-in voting doesnt work out well for Republicans,” he tweeted this week.

Trumps comments put his Republican allies in states in the awkward position of trying to defend their practices without criticizing the president. Some said they agreed with Trump, even as their actions seem to suggest otherwise. Others suggested Trump was out of line.

New York governor Andrew Cuomo is holding his daily press conference live at 11:30 ET. I will be liveblogging it. At 1 p.m. today Trump is holding his own daily press conference and I’ll be liveblogging that one as well. Stay tuned.

Advisers, other top Republicans urge Trump to let advisers speak more

A growing set of Republicans are urging Trump to cool it on the daily press conferences. They’re arguing that a lighter touch would benefit the president more.

There’s Nikki Haley, the former Trump administration ambassador to the United Nations and a potential 2024 presidential candidate, who said Trump should let “his experts speak.” In an interview on Fox & Friends Haley praised Trump’s ability to “over-communicate.”

“I think he should go and set the tone. I think he should let them put out the data. I think they should answer any questions that the press has. And then they should leave,” Haley said. “I don’t think they need to be too long. I don’t think he needs to feel like he needs to answer everything.”

Trump’s advisers are also beginning to worry about the ripple effect of Trump’s long daily press conferences. It sometimes “drowns out his message,” South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham told the New York Times. He’s urged Trump to cut down to a once-a-week presser.

Trump, it should be noted, enjoys doing the press conferences.

Donald Trump’s reelection campaign included an image of former Obama administration ambassador to China Gary Locke in a new attack ad. Locke, a former two-term governor of Washington, is a third generation Chinese-American who was born in Seattle.

The subject of the attack ad is Joe Biden and China. The use of Locke’s image implies that he is some kind of Chinese official. According to The New York Times (bolds mine):

The image, which appears briefly, was pulled from a 2013 event in Beijing, where Mr. Biden, now the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, shared a stage with Gary Locke, the former governor of Washington, who also served as President Barack Obama’s commerce secretary and ambassador to China. Mr. Locke is Chinese-American.

“During America’s crisis, Biden protected China’s feelings,” the online ad says, presenting a montage of clips of Mr. Biden complimenting and praising the Chinese, including the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, and of a news segment accusing Mr. Biden of helping his son Hunter profit off Chinese investments. The picture of Mr. Biden and Mr. Locke is spliced in among the clips.

Steve Guest, the rapid response director for the Republican National Committee tweeted that Locke is not the point of the ad. Guest was responding to a tweet from Biden campaign spokesman T.J. Ducklo:

Similarly, the Trump reelection team’s communications director said the reason the image was included in the ad was the Chinese flag behind Biden and Locke.

In a rare appearance in front of a group of mayors former President Barack Obama urged them to use experts and speak truth when publicly discussing the coronavirus pandemic.

Here’s the CNN report (bolds are from me):

Former President Barack Obama on Thursday gave some advice to a group of mayors on how to deal with the coronavirus outbreak, saying that “the biggest mistake any (of) us can make in these situations is to misinform.”

Obama was speaking during a virtual meeting organized by Bloomberg Philanthropies.”Speak the truth. Speak it clearly. Speak it with compassion. Speak it with empathy for what folks are going through,” Obama said, according to a press release on the virtual meeting.Obama also pushed the mayors to bring in as many smart advisers and experts as possible.

“The more smart people you have around you, and the less embarrassed you are to ask questions, the better your response is going to be,” Obama said. This is the fourth virtual meeting Bloomberg’s group has held with mayors. Two of the previous meetings have featured speeches by former Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Obama has repeatedly weighed in on the response to the virus, largely offering a more cautious message than that of President Donald Trump and advocating for protecting public health over re-starting economic activity.

And Obama also urged the mayors to pay special attention to the most vulnerable. Here’s his remark according to a press release from Bloomberg Philanthropies:

“We’re seeing disparities in how people are affected in cities and towns and communities across the country. Look out for the vulnerable. When you start looking at issues of domestic abuse and you start looking at racial disparities that are popping up in your cities, paying attention to that is the kind of leadership I know all of you aspire to. You have to be intentional about it, and dedicate folks to thinking about those issues.”

Here’s a sign of the times:

There’s been an ongoing concern about how Capitol Hill lawmakers can legislate amid the coronavirus. In an interview with Politico, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signaled the chamber is unlikely to return later this month (bolds mine):

Speaker Nancy Pelosi signaled Thursday that the House is unlikely to return to session later this month, her clearest indication yet that Congress — like the rest of the country — could remain shuttered for weeks or even longer as the coronavirus crisis continues.

In a half-hour interview, Pelosi issued a stark warning to President Donald Trump, urging him not to prematurely rush to reopen major segments of the country before the coronavirus is under control, which she said could further send the U.S. economy into a tailspin.

“Nobody can really tell you that and I would never venture a guess. I certainly don’t think we should do it sooner than we should,” Pelosi said when asked if she still planned to bring the House back on April 20, which is the current target date.

“This has taken an acceleration from when we started this…Little did we know then that at this point, we’d be further confined.”

A new CBS poll finds Americans’ views on Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic is dipping again.

According to the poll:

Views on President Trump’s handling of the outbreak response have ticked down for the second consecutive week. The president is seen doing a good job by 47%, down four points from 51% last week and 53% the prior week. Now is the first time more say he’s doing a bad job than a good one.

The president gets comparably better marks on his handling of the economic impact of the outbreak, specifically, with 51% saying he’s doing a good job.