Coronavirus US live: Washington governor says Trump 'fomenting domestic rebellion and spreading lies'

After the president tweeted “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” on Friday morning, as well as “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA, and save your great 2nd Amendment. It is under siege!” online far-right communities speculated over whether Trump was advocating armed conflict, NBC reports:

Anti-government sentiment has percolated among far-right extremists in recent weeks over the stay-at-home orders governors have issued to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

Trump’s tweets, however, pushed many online extremist communities to speculate whether the president was advocating for armed conflict, an event they’ve termed “the boogaloo,” for which many far-right activists have been gearing up and advocating since last year.

There were sharp increases on Twitter in terms associated with conspiracies such as QAnon and the “boogaloo” term immediately following the president’s tweets, according to the Network Contagion Research Institute, an independent nonprofit group of scientists and engineers that tracks and reports on misinformation and hate speech across social media.

Posts about the “boogaloo” on Twitter skyrocketed in the hours after the president’s tweets, with more than 1,000 tweets featuring the term, some of which received hundreds of retweets.

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

Soon, we’ll be covering the White House press briefing, and fact-checking the president’s claims.

In the meantime, Samantha Power, the former US ambassador to the United Nations during the Obama administration, has taken on the president on Twitter. Refuting Donald Trump’s assertion that Barack Obama and Joe Biden “were a disaster in handling the H1N1 swine flu,” Powers refuted that the FDA approved a test kit within two weeks of the identification of an outbreak.

Indeed, in 2009, soon after the CDC raised concerns about a virulent new strain of swine flu circulating in California and Texas, Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, then the Food and Drug Administration’s principal deputy commissioner, has test kits swiftly approved through an FDA process called “Emergency Use Authorization.”

Minnesota governor Tim Walz said he has been unable to reach the president or the vice president to decipher the meaning of Trump’s “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” tweet.

The Democratic governor told the Wall Street Journal that his calls to the White House in the past couple of hours have gone unreturned.

Trump’s tweet echoed messaging from right-wing protesters who have expressed outrage about stay-at-home orders meant to limit the spread of coronavirus.

Walz has issued a statewide stay-at-home order, which is currently in effect until at least May 4, and hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the governor’s mansion earlier today to protest the order, completely ignoring social distancing guidelines.

Trump’s surprising announcement yesterday that gyms would be included in “phase one” of the economy reopening reportedly came one day after the president spoke to the chairman of SoulCycle’s parent company.

The Daily Beast reports:

The inclusion struck public health experts as bizarre. ‘Gyms are like a petri dish,’ said Laurence Gostin, the director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. ‘People are close to one another, they’re sweating, they’re coughing and sneezing, they’re touching multiple surfaces, they’re sharing equipment, they’re indoors. Literally all of the heightened risk factors for COVID transmission are all entwined together in a gym.’

The White House’s guidance included mitigation measures that would ostensibly minimize the risk of transmission at gyms that opt to reopen, including ‘strict physical distancing and sanitation protocols.’ But Gostin said he’s not convinced that the risks of transmission could be sufficiently minimized. …

The decision on gyms came a day after Trump’s phone call with sixteen business leaders including Stephen Ross, the founder and chairman of the Related Companies. That firm’s portfolio includes Equinox Holdings, which owns its own eponymous chain of luxury gyms as well as fitness brands SoulCycle, Blink Fitness, and Pure Yoga.

Those businesses, like the larger fitness industry, have been hit particularly hard by the coronavirus. SoulCycle has slashed payroll and furloughed employees. Equinox and Blink have both frozen membership charges.

Ross has previously faced backlash for his connections to Trump. When it was announced last summer that Ross would host a Hamptons fundraiser for the president’s reelection campaign, a number of SoulCycle and Equinox customers said they would boycott the companies.

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

As California’s death toll climbs, state leaders are sketching a plan to battle the other front of the pandemic: the economic fallout.

“We are now in a pandemic-induced recession here in the state of California,” governor Gavin Newsom said.

Already 3.1 m people in California have filed for unemployment since 12 March, helping raise the unemployment rate to 5.3%. But that figure doesn’t capture all state residents who are out of work.

In response to the rising unemployment, Newsom said he’s formed an economic recovery panel to guide California back to job growth.

The board will be led by former presidential candidate Tom Steyer. Joining him will be Newsom’s chief of staff, Ann O’Leary, Apple CEO Tim Cook, former chair of the Federal Reserve Janet Yellen and Disney head Robert Iger.

The 80-member group will also include all four of California’s living ex-governors: Jerry Brown, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gray Davis and Pete Wilson.

House minority leader Kevin McCarthy said lawmakers were making some progress on the next coronavirus relief bill.

“I think we got a little [progress],” the California Republican told Politico. “Only because the pressure is mounting in the Democratic conference.”

Republicans and Democrats have been at a stalemate over the scope of the bill, with Democrats pushing for more money for hospitals and state and local governments as well as the small business loan program known as the Paycheck Protection Program.

Republicans have argued the next bill should be focused solely on PPP, which was originally granted $350bn in funds from the stimulus package and ran out of money yesterday.

McCarthy expressed openness to giving money to hospitals but not state governments. “A deal would look like the PPP,” McCarthy said. “You could possibly get some hospital [funds]. I think that would be the deal. I don’t think you’d get any state money.”

Governors have warned their states are running desperately low on cash, and the National Governors Association said last week that states need $500bn from Congress to adequately address the current crisis.

Twitter said Trump’s tweets calling for states with stay-at-home orders to be liberated did not violate the platform’s rules, according to a New York Times reporter.

A Twitter spokesperson said Trump’s tweets were “vague and unclear” and thus did not constitute a clear threat, even though a number of people raised concerns that the messages might encourage the president’s supporters to ignored stay-at-home orders and jeopardize their health.

Hours after the president sent the tweets, an anti-lockdown protest occurred outside the Minnesota governor’s mansion, and footage showed hundreds of demonstrators standing close together and not wearing masks.

Florida governor OKs reopening beaches, parks

Florida governor Ron DeSantis green lit some municipalities to start opening parks and beaches. In a news conference in Fort Lauderdale, the governor said permissions would be given if reopening can be done safely, with social distancing guidelines still in place.

The AP reports:

The governor said it was important for people to have outlets for getting exercise, sunshine and fresh air.

“Do it in a good way. Do it in a safe way,” DeSantis said.

Florida officials were criticized for leaving beaches open during part of the spring break period last month. Most counties closed their beaches in response or kept them open under very restrictive conditions. Other more high-profile beaches in South Florida including Miami Beach were closed by state order.

Florida’s northern beaches became among the first to allow beach-goers to return, permitting residents to walk, bike, hike, fish, run, or swim during limited hours beginning Friday afternoon. Crowds of more than 50 people would still be banned.

Texas to close schools for rest of academic year

Texas governor Greg Abbott ordered schools remain closed through the remainder of the school year. The Republican governor announced the order in a Friday news conference.

From the El Paso Times:

Abbott previously ordered schools closed to students until May 4, but did not rule out extending his order to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.

He said Friday the team of doctors advising his office determined “it would be unsafe for students to gather in schools for the foreseeable future.”

The Texas Education Agency, the state entity overseeing primary and secondary education, released a statement in support of the decision.

According to the Times, the order applies to public, charter and private K-12 schools, and higher education institutions.

Florida officials attempted blocking COVID-19 data from public

The Miami Herald reports that as Gov. Ron DeSantis touted Florida as one of the most transparent states in coronavirus reporting, state attorneys and lawmakers attempted to block COVID-19 information from being released to the public.

From the Herald:

Emails and phone conference appointments obtained through a public records request show that, while medical examiners across Florida had already released details about deaths in their counties, attorneys for the state spent more than a week trying to convince their counterparts in Miami-Dade County not to provide that information to the Herald.

CNN reports call between Pence, Democrats did not go as planned

CNN is reporting that a call between Vice President Mike Pence and top Democratic senators to discuss the administration’s response to the coronavirus outbreak did not go as planned.

From CNN’s Lauren Fox:

Fox went on to confirm that Hawaii senator Brian Schultz to her Democrats were frustrated with the administration’s delays, relaying that officials still had not “assessed how many tests they need every day.”

Hundreds of protesters have gathered outside the Minnesota governors’ mansion to protest the statewide stay-at-home order.

Footage of the protest showed demonstrators standing closely together and not wearing masks, potentially risking spread of coronavirus at the event.

Videos also showed protesters waving Americans flags and at least one “Trump 2020” flag as they demonstrated against Democratic governor Tim Walz’s stay-at-home order, which is in effect until at least May 4.

Trump wrote in a tweet earlier today, “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” The tweet echoed messaging from right-wing protesters in recent days and raised concerns that the president’s supporters would feel encouraged to ignore social distancing guidelines, as the Minnesota demonstrators are doing.