Coronavirus US live: ousted vaccine expert to file whistleblower complaint

The owner of the Ruth’s Chris Steak House chain said the company could return $20m in federal loans intended for small businesses. This week, Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, said the government would ask bigcompanies to return money after the Payroll Protection Program, created to help companies cover payroll and expenses, ran out of money last week.

Congress is expecting to add an additional $320bn to the fund.

Hi there, it’s Maanvi, blogging from the West Coast.

First up, Nancy Pelosi demonstrates distancing:

Earlier, her technique was less effective.

When asked about Dr Rick Bright’s claim that he was ousted from his role at HHS because he refused to echo questionable claims regarding potential coronavirus treatments, Trump pleaded ignorance.

“I never heard of him,” the president said at his press conference yesterday. “If a guy says he was pushed out of a job, maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t. You’d have to hear the other side. I don’t know who he is.”

But some of the president’s critics raised concerns that Bright’s demotion was further evidence of the administration’s efforts to sideline experts in the middle of a pandemic.

Ron Klain, who oversaw the Obama administration’s response to the Ebola outbreak, warned the White House was trying to “put politics ahead of science and safety.”

Dr Rick Bright formerly served as the director of the department of health and human services’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, or Barda, and as the deputy assistant secretary for preparedness and response, but he was recently demoted to a much smaller role at the National Institutes of Health.

Bright said in a statement yesterday that he believed he was ousted because he refused to back some of Trump’s questionable claims about coronavirus.

“Specifically, and contrary to misguided directives, I limited the broad use of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, promoted by the administration as a panacea, but which clearly lack scientific merit,” Bright said.

“While I am prepared to look at all options and to think ‘outside the box’ for effective treatments, I rightly resisted efforts to provide an unproven drug on demand to the American public.”

The Guardian’s Mario Koran reports on the latest from California:

In response to the economic fallout triggered by the coronavirus, California is putting in place protections for those facing debts, governor Gavin Newsom announced today.

Twenty-one loan services in California agreed to a 90-day forbearance on student loan debt, with no impact to credit scores — a move that could mean relief for more than 1.1 million Californians. Illinois has already planned to implement a similar measure.

Additionally, Newsom has signed an executive order that prevents debt collectors from garnishing the $1,200 checks provided by the CARES Act.

“No debt collector can take those direct payments from the CARES Act any longer in the state of California, and you can take back those funds that were taken by these collectors”, Newsom said.

The order will be retroactive; if debt collectors have already garnished those funds, they’ll have to give it back, Newsom said. The pause on debt-collection will not apply to those who owe financial support to children and former spouses, or those who owe restitution to courts and victims.

While the number of coronavirus cases has in some ways stabilized, with hospitalizations and ICU admissions down by 4.4 and 1.2% respectively, the state of California is not yet out of the woods.

Yesterday marked a grim milestone in California, with 115 coronavirus deaths recorded, marking the state’s deadliest day so far and an 8.5% increase from the previous day.

The treasury department has issued new guidance on the Paycheck Protection Program making it harder for publicly traded companies to receive small-business loans.

“Borrowers still must certify in good faith that their PPP loan request is necessary,” the guidance reads. “[I]t is unlikely that a public company with substantial market value and access to capital markets will be able to make the required certification in good faith, and such a company should be prepared to demonstrate to SBA, upon request, the basis for its certification.”

The guidance goes on to add, “Any borrower that applied for a PPP loan prior to the issuance of this guidance and repays the loan in full by May 7, 2020 will be deemed by SBA to have made the required certification in good faith.”

In effect, this gives publicly traded companies two weeks to return the money they may have already received in order to avoid scrutiny from the federal government.

The administration has attracted criticism for allocating nearly $600 million of the PPP’s funds to publicly traded companies, especially considering so many small businesses were not able to have their applications processed before the program ran out of money last week.

The House is about to pass a bill that would give PPP an additional $320 billion in funds, and the treasury department is clearly looking to avoid additional criticism as the program gets up and running again.

The House is now voting on whether to establish a select committee to oversee the proper distribution of coronavirus relief funds, which is expected to break largely along party lines but will likely still pass thanks to Democratic support.

House speaker Nancy Pelosi has already cast her vote, and she is now standing at the back of the chamber helping to direct foot traffic as members vote in staggered groups to limit the risk of spreading the virus.

The vote will take longer to complete because of these precautions, but once the count has been finalized, the chamber will be thoroughly cleaned before members return to vote on the nearly $500 billion coronavirus relief bill.

A new spokesperson for the deaprtment of health and human services sent a series of now-deleted racist tweets about Chinese people and coronavirus.

CNN reports:

Michael Caputo, a longtime New York Republican political operative who worked on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, was appointed last week as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs at HHS, a prominent communications role at the department which serves a central role in the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Caputo, a prolific user who often tweeted insults and profanity, recently erased nearly his entire Twitter history from before April 12. CNN’s KFile used the Internet Archive’s Way Back Machine to review more than 1300 deleted tweets and retweets from late February to early April many of which were regarding the rapidly spreading coronavirus. …

In a series of tweets on March 12, Caputo responded to a baseless conspiracy theory that the United States brought the coronavirus to Wuhan, China, by tweeting that ‘millions of Chinese suck the blood out of rabid bats as an appetizer and eat the ass out of anteaters.’

He followed up at another user, ‘Don’t you have a bat to eat?’ and tweeted at another user named, ‘You’re very convincing, Wang.’

Caputo also used his account to attack Democratic lawmakers and journalist as Trump received criticism for his administration’s early response to coronavirus.

Gordon Sondland, the former US ambassador to the EU and a star witness in Trump’s impeachment trial, received a small business loan from the Paycheck Protection Program.

A spokesperson for Provenance Hotels, the hotel chain Sondland founded, confirmed to Bloomberg News that the company had been approved for a PPP loan.

Sondland, who was recalled from his post as EU ambassador two days after Trump was acuitted in his Senate impeachment trial, has a net worth of at least $78 million.

The administration has been criticized for its handling of the PPP program, as small businesses complain larger companies have gotten priority in receiving loans.

The burger chain Shake Shack announced earlier this week that it would return a $10 million PPP loan amid criticism.

Congresswoman Maxine Waters said she was dedicating the next coronavirus relief bill to her sister, who is dying of the virus in St. Louis.

“I not only rise in support of this legislation,” the California Democrat said on the House floor. “I also would like to rise in support of what we’re doing for the health care enhancement act in this bill.

“And I’m going to take a moment to dedicate this legislation to my dear sister who is dying in a hospital in St. Louis, Mo., right now infected by the coronavirus.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren similarly announced earlier today that her older brother, Don Reed Herring, died of coronavirus earlier this week.

Waters went on to say that Congress must now turn its attention to the next coronavirus relief bill in order to “provide more funding for people hurting by the exploding economic fallout of the pandemic.”

Dr Deborah Birx reportedly had to convince Trump to come out against Georgia’s plan to start reopening non-essential businesses this Friday.

Trump said during yesterday’s press conference that he disagreed “strongly” with Georgia governor Brian Kemp’s reopening plan, which many public health experts have warned is dangerously hasty.

That criticism represented a reversal from Trump, who expressed confidence in Kemp’s leadership a day before coming out against the plan.

CNN has the details on how Birx convinced Trump to reconsider his position:

At a meeting before Wednesday’s briefing, task force members discussed the likelihood of being asked about [Kemp’s] controversial move to open up many businesses such as nail salons and bowling alleys, [a White House] source added. …

During the meeting, Dr. Anthony Fauci and other task force members said if the scientists were not in agreement with Trump on the Georgia issue during the news conference it would pose a problem.

‘I cannot defend this publicly,’ Fauci said to others at the meeting, the source said. Members of the group agreed it was necessary to attempt to change Trump’s mind on the subject.

They then asked Dr. Deborah Birx, the panel’s coordinator, to try to convince Trump to oppose Kemp’s move. She had a private meeting with the President just prior to the news conference and successfully convinced him to denounce Kemp’s decision.

Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer said she would likely extend the state’s stay-at-home order while looking at allowing some activties with restrictions in place, emphasizing that the state’s reopening would take place in waves.

“It will permit some activity if our numbers continue to go down and our testing continues to go up,” the Democratic governor told MSNBC this morning. “But It’s too early to say precisely what each wave looks like and when it happens.”

Whitmer similarly told CNN this morning that the reopening process had to be “strategic and thoughtful,” as many public health experts express concern about the handful of Republican governors who are planning to soon relax restrictions.

Whitmer has faced protests in her state over the stay-at-home order, with thousands of people ignoring social distancing guidelines to demonstrate against the order outside the state capitol.

“The worst irony that could come about from these demonstrations is that they force us to stay in this posture longer than we’re already planning to,” Whitmer told MSNBC. “That’s the last thing any of us wants.”

Despite the protests, a new Fox News poll shows Whitmer is still broadly popular in the state, with 63% of Michigan voters approving of her job performance. In comparison, Trump has a 47% approval rating among Michigan voters.