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In Trump’s Final Chapter, a Failure to Rise to the Covid-19 Moment
by Aurelia Butler 1 January 2021, 01:57
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Covid-19 VaccinesVaccine QuestionsDoses Per StateAfter Your VaccineHow the Moderna Vaccine WorksWhy You’ll Still Need a MaskAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main story‘Covid, Covid, Covid’: In Trump’s Final Chapter, a Failure to Rise to the MomentAs the U.S. confronted a new wave of infection and death through the summer and fall, the president’s approach to the pandemic came down to a single question: What would it mean for him?President Trump not only ended up soundly defeated by Joseph R. Biden Jr., but missed his chance to show that he could meet the defining challenge of his tenure.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesMichael D. Shear, Maggie Haberman, Noah Weiland, Sharon LaFraniere and Dec. 31, 2020Updated 9:57 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — It was a warm summer Wednesday, Election Day was looming and President Trump was even angrier than usual at the relentless focus on the coronavirus pandemic.“You’re killing me! This whole thing is! We’ve got all the damn cases,” Mr. Trump yelled at Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior adviser, during a gathering of top aides in the Oval Office on Aug. 19. “I want to do what Mexico does. They don’t give you a test till you get to the emergency room and you’re vomiting.”Mexico’s record in fighting the virus was hardly one for the United States to emulate. But the president had long seen testing not as a vital way to track and contain the pandemic but as a mechanism for making him look bad by driving up the number of known cases.And on that day he was especially furious after being informed by Dr. Francis S. Collins, the head of the National Institutes of Health, that it would be days before the government could give emergency approval to the use of convalescent plasma as a treatment, something Mr. Trump was eager to promote as a personal victory going into the Republican National Convention the following week.“They’re Democrats! They’re against me!” he said, convinced that the government’s top doctors and scientists were conspiring to undermine him. “They want to wait!”Throughout late summer and fall, in the heat of a re-election campaign that he would go on to lose, and in the face of mounting evidence of a surge in infections and deaths far worse than in the spring, Mr. Trump’s management of the crisis — unsteady, unscientific and colored by politics all year — was in effect reduced to a single question: What would it mean for him?The result, according to interviews with more than two dozen current and former administration officials and others in contact with the White House, was a lose-lose situation. Mr. Trump not only ended up soundly defeated by Joseph R. Biden Jr., but missed his chance to show that he could rise to the moment in the final chapter of his presidency and meet the defining challenge of his tenure.Efforts by his aides to persuade him to promote mask wearing, among the simplest and most effective ways to curb the spread of the disease, were derailed by his conviction that his political base would rebel against anything that would smack of limiting their personal freedom. Even his own campaign’s polling data to the contrary could not sway him.His explicit demand for a vaccine by Election Day — a push that came to a head in a contentious Oval Office meeting with top health aides in late September — became a misguided substitute for warning the nation that failure to adhere to social distancing and other mitigation efforts would contribute to a slow-rolling disaster this winter.His concern? That the man he called “Sleepy Joe” Biden, who was leading him in the polls, would get credit for a vaccine, not him.The government’s public health experts were all but silenced by the arrival in August of Dr. Scott W. Atlas, the Stanford professor of neuroradiology recruited after appearances on Fox News.With Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the coordinator of the White House virus task force, losing influence and often on the road, Dr. Atlas became the sole doctor Mr. Trump listened to. His theories, some of which scientists viewed as bordering on the crackpot, were exactly what the president wanted to hear: The virus is overblown, the number of deaths is exaggerated, testing is overrated, lockdowns do more harm than good.The president has long seen testing not as a vital way to track and contain the pandemic but as a mechanism for making him look bad by driving up the number of known cases.Credit…William DeShazer for The New York TimesAs the gap between politics and science grew, the infighting that Mr. Trump had allowed to plague the administration’s response from the beginning only intensified. Threats of firings worsened the leadership vacuum as key figures undercut each other and distanced themselves from responsibility.The administration had some positive stories to tell. Mr. Trump’s vaccine development program, Operation Warp Speed, had helped drive the pharmaceutical industry’s remarkably fast progress in developing several promising approaches. By the end of the year, two highly effective vaccines would be approved for emergency use, providing hope for 2021.The White House rejected any suggestions that the president’s response had fallen short, saying he had worked to provide adequate testing, protective equipment and hospital capacity and that the vaccine development program had succeeded in record time.“President Trump has led the largest mobilization of the public and private sectors since WWII to defeat Covid-19 and save lives,” said Brian Morgenstern, a White House spokesman.But Mr. Trump’s unwillingness to put aside his political self-centeredness as Americans died by the thousands each day or to embrace the steps necessary to deal with the crisis remains confounding even to some administration officials. “Making masks a culture war issue was the dumbest thing imaginable,” one former senior adviser said.His own bout with Covid-19 in early October left him extremely ill and dependent on care and drugs not available to most Americans, including a still-experimental monoclonal antibody treatment, and he saw firsthand how the disease coursed through the White House and some of his close allies.Yet his instinct was to treat that experience not as a learning moment or an opportunity for empathy, but as a chance to portray himself as a Superman who had vanquished the disease. His own experience to the contrary, he assured a crowd at the White House just a week after his hospitalization, “It’s going to disappear; it is disappearing.”Weeks after his own recovery, he would still complain about the nation’s preoccupation with the pandemic.“All you hear is Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid, Covid,” Mr. Trump said at one campaign stop, uttering the word 11 times.In the end he could not escape it.Supporters of Mr. Trump outside Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he was treated for the coronavirus, in October. He largely rejected aides’ efforts to use his bout with the illness to demonstrate a new compassion.Credit…Oliver Contreras for The New York Times‘The Base Will Revolt’By late July, new cases were at record highs, defying Mr. Trump’s predictions through the spring that the virus was under control, and deaths were spiking to alarming levels. Herman Cain, a 2012 Republican presidential candidate, died from the coronavirus; the previous month he had attended a Trump rally without a mask.With the pandemic defining the campaign despite Mr. Trump’s efforts to make it about law and order, Tony Fabrizio, the president’s main pollster, came to the Oval Office for a meeting in the middle of the summer prepared to make a surprising case: that mask wearing was acceptable even among Mr. Trump’s supporters.Arrayed in front of the Resolute Desk, Mr. Trump’s advisers listened as Mr. Fabrizio presented the numbers. According to his research, some of which was reported by The Washington Post, voters believed the pandemic was bad and getting worse, they were more concerned about getting sick than about the virus’s effects on their personal financial situation, the president’s approval rating on handling the pandemic had hit new lows and a little more than half the country did not think he was taking the situation seriously.But what set off debate that day was Mr. Fabrizio’s finding that more than 70 percent of voters in the states being targeted by the campaign supported mandatory mask wearing in public, at least indoors, including a majority of Republicans.Mr. Kushner, who along with Hope Hicks, another top adviser, had been trying for months to convince Mr. Trump that masks could be portrayed as the key to regaining freedom to go safely to a restaurant or a sporting event, called embracing mask-wearing a “no-brainer.”Mr. Kushner had some reason for optimism. Mr. Trump had agreed to wear one not long before for a visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, after finding one he believed he looked good in: dark blue, with a presidential seal.But Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff — backed up by other aides including Stephen Miller — said the politics for Mr. Trump would be devastating.“The base will revolt,” Mr. Meadows said, adding that he was not sure Mr. Trump could legally make it happen in any case.The president removed his mask upon arriving at the White House on Oct. 5, after being hospitalized with Covid-19. He was rarely seen wearing one again.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesThat was all Mr. Trump needed to hear. “I’m not doing a mask mandate,” he concluded.Aside from when he was sick, he was rarely seen in a mask again.The president had other opportunities to show leadership rather than put his political fortunes first..css-fk3g7a{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:1.125rem;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-fk3g7a{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;}}.css-1sjr751{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1sjr751 a:hover{border-bottom:1px solid #dcdcdc;}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-zs9392{margin:10px auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-zs9392{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-zs9392{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.75rem;margin-bottom:20px;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-zs9392{font-size:1.5rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-121grtr{margin:0 auto 10px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-qmg6q8{background-color:white;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;max-width:600px;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-qmg6q8{padding:0;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin-right:auto;margin-left:auto;}.css-qmg6q8 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qmg6q8 em{font-style:italic;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-qmg6q8{margin:40px auto;}}.css-qmg6q8:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-qmg6q8 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-qmg6q8 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-qmg6q8 a:hover{border-bottom:none;}.css-qmg6q8[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-qmg6q8[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-qmg6q8[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-qmg6q8[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-11uwurf{border:1px solid #e2e2e2;padding:15px;border-radius:0;margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}@media (min-width:600px){.css-11uwurf{padding:20px;}}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-11uwurf{border-top:1px solid #121212;border-bottom:none;}Covid-19 Vaccines ›Answers to Your Vaccine QuestionsWith distribution of a coronavirus vaccine beginning in the U.S., here are answers to some questions you may be wondering about:If I live in the U.S., when can I get the vaccine? While the exact order of vaccine recipients may vary by state, most will likely put medical workers and residents of long-term care facilities first. If you want to understand how this decision is getting made, this article will help.When can I return to normal life after being vaccinated? Life will return to normal only when society as a whole gains enough protection against the coronavirus. Once countries authorize a vaccine, they’ll only be able to vaccinate a few percent of their citizens at most in the first couple months. The unvaccinated majority will still remain vulnerable to getting infected. A growing number of coronavirus vaccines are showing robust protection against becoming sick. But it’s also possible for people to spread the virus without even knowing they’re infected because they experience only mild symptoms or none at all. Scientists don’t yet know if the vaccines also block the transmission of the coronavirus. So for the time being, even vaccinated people will need to wear masks, avoid indoor crowds, and so on. Once enough people get vaccinated, it will become very difficult for the coronavirus to find vulnerable people to infect. Depending on how quickly we as a society achieve that goal, life might start approaching something like normal by the fall 2021.If I’ve been vaccinated, do I still need to wear a mask? Yes, but not forever. Here’s why. The coronavirus vaccines are injected deep into the muscles and stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies. This appears to be enough protection to keep the vaccinated person from getting ill. But what’s not clear is whether it’s possible for the virus to bloom in the nose — and be sneezed or breathed out to infect others — even as antibodies elsewhere in the body have mobilized to prevent the vaccinated person from getting sick. The vaccine clinical trials were designed to determine whether vaccinated people are protected from illness — not to find out whether they could still spread the coronavirus. Based on studies of flu vaccine and even patients infected with Covid-19, researchers have reason to be hopeful that vaccinated people won’t spread the virus, but more research is needed. In the meantime, everyone — even vaccinated people — will need to think of themselves as possible silent spreaders and keep wearing a mask. Read more here.Will it hurt? What are the side effects? The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is delivered as a shot in the arm, like other typical vaccines. The injection into your arm won’t feel different than any other vaccine, but the rate of short-lived side effects does appear higher than a flu shot. Tens of thousands of people have already received the vaccines, and none of them have reported any serious health problems. The side effects, which can resemble the symptoms of Covid-19, last about a day and appear more likely after the second dose. Early reports from vaccine trials suggest some people might need to take a day off from work because they feel lousy after receiving the second dose. In the Pfizer study, about half developed fatigue. Other side effects occurred in at least 25 to 33 percent of patients, sometimes more, including headaches, chills and muscle pain. While these experiences aren’t pleasant, they are a good sign that your own immune system is mounting a potent response to the vaccine that will provide long-lasting immunity.Will mRNA vaccines change my genes? No. The vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer use a genetic molecule to prime the immune system. That molecule, known as mRNA, is eventually destroyed by the body. The mRNA is packaged in an oily bubble that can fuse to a cell, allowing the molecule to slip in. The cell uses the mRNA to make proteins from the coronavirus, which can stimulate the immune system. At any moment, each of our cells may contain hundreds of thousands of mRNA molecules, which they produce in order to make proteins of their own. Once those proteins are made, our cells then shred the mRNA with special enzymes. The mRNA molecules our cells make can only survive a matter of minutes. The mRNA in vaccines is engineered to withstand the cell’s enzymes a bit longer, so that the cells can make extra virus proteins and prompt a stronger immune response. But the mRNA can only last for a few days at most before they are destroyed.After he recovered from his bout with the virus, some of his top aides, including Mr. Kushner and Jason Miller, a senior campaign strategist, thought the illness offered an opportunity to demonstrate the kind of compassion and resolve about the pandemic’s toll that Mr. Trump had so far failed to show.When Mr. Trump returned from the hospital, his communications aides, with the help of Ivanka Trump, his daughter, urged him to deliver a national address in which he would say: “I had it. It was tough, it kicked my ass, but we’re going to get through it.”He refused, choosing instead to address a boisterous campaign rally for himself from the balcony of the White House overlooking the South Lawn.Mr. Trump never came around to the idea that he had a responsibility to be a role model, much less that his leadership role might require him to publicly acknowledge hard truths about the virus — or even to stop insisting that the issue was not a rampaging pandemic but too much testing.Alex M. Azar II, the health and human services secretary, briefed the president this fall on a Japanese study documenting the effectiveness of face masks, telling him: “We have the proof. They work.” But the president resisted, criticizing Mr. Kushner for pushing them and again blaming too much testing — an area Mr. Kushner had been helping to oversee — for his problems.“I’m going to lose,” Mr. Trump told Mr. Kushner during debate preparations. “And it’s going to be your fault, because of the testing.”Mr. Morgenstern, the White House spokesman, said that exchange between the president and Mr. Kushner “never happened.”Mr. Azar, who was sometimes one of the few people wearing a mask at White House events, privately bemoaned what he called a political, anti-mask culture set by Mr. Trump. At White House Christmas parties, Mr. Azar asked maskless guests to back away from him.Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, center, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the coordinator of the White House virus task force, and Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, in the Oval Office in May. Conflicts on the president’s team only intensified as the year went on.Credit…Erin Schaff/The New York TimesDivisions and DisagreementsThe decision to run the government’s response out of the West Wing was made in the early days of the pandemic. The idea was to break down barriers between disparate agencies, assemble public health expertise and encourage quick and coordinated decision-making.It did not work out like that, and by fall the consequences were clear.Mr. Trump had always tolerated if not encouraged clashes among subordinates, a tendency that in this case led only to policy paralysis, confusion about who was in charge and a lack of a clear, consistent message about how to reduce the risks from the pandemic.Keeping decision-making power close to him was another Trump trait, but in this case it also elevated the myriad choices facing the administration to the presidential level, bogging the process down in infighting, raising the political stakes and encouraging aides to jockey for favor with Mr. Trump.The result at times was a systemwide failure that extended well beyond the president.“What we needed was a coordinated response that involved contributions from multiple agencies,” said Dr. Scott Gottlieb, who was commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration for the first two years of the Trump administration.“Someone needed to pull that all together early,” he said. “It wasn’t the job of the White House, either. This needed to happen closer to the agencies. That didn’t happen on testing, or on a whole lot of other things.”The relationship between Mr. Azar and Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, grew increasingly tense; by early November, they were communicating only by text and in meetings.Dr. Birx had lost the clout she enjoyed early on in the crisis and spent much of the summer and fall on the road counseling governors and state health officials.Mr. Meadows was at odds with almost everyone as he sought to impose the president’s will on scientists and public health professionals. In conversations with top health officials, Mr. Meadows would rail against regulatory “bureaucrats” he thought were more interested in process than outcome.Some of the doctors on the task force, including Dr. Anthony S. Fauci and Dr. Robert R. Redfield, were reluctant to show up in person at the White House, worried that the disdain there for mask wearing and social distancing would leave them at risk of infection.Vice President Mike Pence was nominally in charge of the task force but was so cautious about getting crosswise with Mr. Trump as they battled for re-election that, in public at least, he became nearly invisible.The debates inside the White House increasingly revolved around Dr. Atlas, who had no formal training in infectious diseases but whose views — which Mr. Trump saw him deliver on Fox News — appealed to the president’s belief that the crisis was overblown.Dr. Scott W. Atlas, the Stanford professor of neuroradiology recruited after appearances on Fox News, became the sole doctor Mr. Trump listened to.Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York TimesHis arrival at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was itself something of a mystery. Some aides said he was discovered by Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary. Others said John McEntee, the president’s personnel chief, had been Googling for a Trump-friendly doctor who would be loyal.Marc Short, Mr. Pence’s chief of staff, opposed hiring Dr. Atlas. But once the president and his team brought him in, Mr. Short insisted that Dr. Atlas have a seat at the task force table, hoping to avoid having him become yet another internal — and destructive — critic.Once inside, Dr. Atlas used the perch of a West Wing office to shape the response. During a meeting in early fall, Dr. Atlas asserted that college students were at no risk from the virus. We should let them go back to school, he said. It’s not a problem.Dr. Birx exploded. What aspect of the fact that you can be asymptomatic and still spread it do you not understand? she demanded. You might not die, but you can give it to somebody who can die from it. She was livid.“Your strategy is literally going to cost us lives,” she yelled at Dr. Atlas. She attacked Dr. Atlas’s ideas in daily emails she sent to senior officials. And she was mindful of a pact she had made with Dr. Hahn, Dr. Fauci and Dr. Redfield even before Dr. Atlas came on board: They would stick together if one of them was fired for doing what they considered the right thing.Health officials often had a hard time finding an audience in the upper reaches of the West Wing. In a mid-November task force meeting, they issued a dire warning to Mr. Meadows about the looming surge in cases set to devastate the country. Mr. Meadows demanded data to back up their claim.One outcome of the meeting was a Nov. 19 news conference on the virus’s dire threat, the first in many weeks. But while Mr. Pence, who led the briefing, often urged Americans to “do their part” to slow the spread of the virus, he never directly challenged Mr. Trump’s hesitancy on masks and social distancing. At the briefing, he said that “decision making at the local level” was key, continuing a long pattern of the administration seeking to push responsibility to the states.Mr. Azar had been cut out of key decision-making as early as February, when Mr. Pence took over the task force. Mr. Azar would complain to his associates that Mr. Pence’s staff and task force members went around him to issue orders to his subordinates.On tenterhooks about his job status, Mr. Azar found an opening that offered a kind of redemption, steering his attention through the summer and fall to Operation Warp Speed, the government’s effort to support rapid development of a vaccine, lavishing praise on Mr. Trump and crediting him for nearly every advance.Behind the scenes, Mr. Azar portrayed Dr. Hahn to the White House as a flailing manager — a complaint he also voiced about Dr. Redfield. In late September, he told the White House he was willing to fire Dr. Hahn, according to officials familiar with the offer.For their part, Dr. Hahn, Dr. Redfield, Dr. Birx and other senior health officials saw Mr. Azar as crushing the morale of the agencies he oversaw as he sought to escape blame for a worsening crisis and to strengthen his own image publicly and with the White House.Health officials on the task force several times took their complaints about Mr. Azar to Mr. Pence’s office, hoping for an intervention.Caitlin B. Oakley, a spokeswoman for Mr. Azar, said he had “always stood up for balanced, scientific, public health information and insisted that science and data drive the decisions.”Once eager to visit the White House, Dr. Hahn became disillusioned with what he saw as its efforts to politicize the work of the Food and Drug Administration, and he eventually shied away from task force meetings, fearing his statements there would leak.If there was a bureaucratic winner in this West Wing cage match, it was Dr. Atlas.He told Mr. Trump that the right way to think about the virus was how much “excess mortality” there was above what would have been expected without a pandemic.Mr. Trump seized on the idea, often telling aides that the real number of dead was no more than 10,000 people.As of Thursday, 342,577 Americans had died from the pandemic.Two coronavirus vaccines arrived at sites across the country this month. Mr. Trump was furious that a successful vaccine was not announced until after the election.Credit…Bryan Anselm for The New York TimesTrump vs. Vaccine RegulatorsIn an Oval Office meeting with senior health officials on Sept. 24, the president made explicit what he had long implied: He wanted a vaccine before the election, according to three people who witnessed his demand.Pfizer’s chief executive had been encouraging the belief that the company could deliver initial results by late October. But Mr. Trump’s aides tried in vain to make clear that they could not completely control the timing.Dr. Fauci and Dr. Hahn reminded West Wing officials that a company’s vaccine trial results were a “black box,” impossible to see until an independent monitoring board revealed them. A vaccine that did not go through the usual, rigorous government approval process would be a “Pyrrhic victory,” Mr. Azar told them. It would be a shot no one would take.Dr. Moncef Slaoui, the scientific leader of Operation Warp Speed, said the president never asked him to deliver a vaccine on a specific timetable. But he said Mr. Trump sometimes complained in meetings that “it was not going to happen before the election and it will be ‘Sleepy Joe’” who would ultimately get credit.In late October, science and regulations worked against Mr. Trump’s waning hopes for pre-Election Day good news. At the F.D.A., scientists had refined the standards for authorizing a vaccine for emergency use. And at Pfizer, executives realized that the agency was unlikely to authorize its vaccine on the basis of so few Covid-19 cases among its clinical trial volunteers.They decided to wait for more data, a delay of up to a week.When Pfizer announced on Nov. 9 — two days after Mr. Biden clinched his victory — that its vaccine was a stunning success, Mr. Trump was furious. He lashed out at the company, Dr. Hahn and the F.D.A., accusing “deep state regulators” of conspiring with Pfizer to slow approval until after the election.The president’s frustration with the pace of regulatory action would continue into December, as the F.D.A. went through a time-consuming process of evaluating Pfizer’s data and then that of a second vaccine maker, Moderna.On Dec. 11, Mr. Meadows exploded during a morning call with Dr. Hahn and Dr. Peter Marks, the agency’s top vaccine regulator. He accused Dr. Hahn of mismanagement and suggested he resign, then slammed down the phone. That night, the F.D.A. authorized the Pfizer vaccine.In the weeks that followed, Mr. Pence, Mr. Azar, Dr. Fauci and other health officials rolled up their sleeves to be vaccinated for the cameras.Mr. Trump, who after contracting Covid-19 had declared himself immune, has not announced plans to be vaccinated.Michael D. Shear More
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‘Let’s Talk About “Personal Responsibility”’: A Year of Tough Conversations in the Comments
by Aurelia Butler 30 December 2020, 09:26
AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main story‘Let’s Talk About “Personal Responsibility”’: A Year of Tough Conversations in the CommentsOpinion writers reflect on what readers had to say in 2020.Dec. 30, 2020, 5:26 a.m. ETCredit…Matt ChaseThis has been a tumultuous 12 months, a harrowing ride through the pandemic and elections, racial injustices and civic turmoil. Through it all, in your comments, you’ve shared your fears, frustrations and anger, but also hope, humor and much wisdom. In the process, you helped document this extraordinary year.We took a look at some of our most popular and moving pieces of 2020 and asked the authors to pick just one comment that resonated with them (not an easy task, given the quality of your contributions) and respond to it. Some chose comments that sparked deeper debate or helped hone perspective; others chose one that evoked a visceral response — in a few cases, even tears.Your voices are a vital part of our community at Opinion. Thank you for a year of thoughtful, engaging conversation. We look forward to more in 2021.‘It was an act of kindness to tell me this’ — Jennifer SeniorMary in Dallas on “Happiness Won’t Save You” (Nov. 24):My 47 year old son died of suicide a few weeks ago. I think about it for the majority of my waking hours, and I often dream about it. I read everything I can find to try to understand it enough to forgive him and myself. Reading this article, and many of the comments added by readers, is like getting a message from my son. I am very grateful.Jennifer: Thank you for this beautiful note, which made me cry when I read it. It was an act of kindness to tell me this. It let me know my work has meaning, and I don’t always feel that way. And it was an act of generosity, too, letting those who are quietly suffering know that they are by no means alone in their grief.I received many letters after this piece appeared. The most common, by far, was from people whose loved ones had died by suicide. At first, I was surprised. But in hindsight, I should not have been: As I wrote in the story, the irremediable pain of the suicidal is all too frequently passed along to those they leave behind. Writing, commenting, talking — these are some of the only ways survivors have to work their tortured emotions through. I can only hope that, as Roxane Cohen Silver’s work has shown, you will one day come to terms with your loss, even if you can’t make sense of it.I am so, so sorry about your son, Mary.‘By all means, let’s talk about “personal responsibility”’ — Nicholas KristofCarol in Berkeley, Calif., on “Who Killed the Knapp Family?” (Jan. 9):So long as poverty is seen as an individual or cultural failing (e.g. the culture of poverty which was linked to race, even though the evidence was nonexistent) we will not treat this with the seriousness it deserves. Yes, every individual has responsibility for their lives. But pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps, after we take away not only your boots but your capacity to buy or make boots is unfair and is also emblematic of how poverty is understood. We need to understand that collectively this costs us all — both morally and financially. The solution is collective. It is jobs that pay a living wage, it is opportunities for upward mobility for oneself and one’s children, it is training for these jobs and it is a real safety net. Will some people still be poor? Will they self destruct? Of course. But the numbers will be far smaller. And we will be far richer as a society.Nick: This observation by Carol struck me as exactly right. One of America’s mistakes over the last half century was to go too far down the track of extolling “personal responsibility” and haranguing people to lift themselves up by their bootstraps. When an infant in three counties in the United States has a shorter life expectancy than an infant in Bangladesh, that’s not because the American newborn is making “bad choices”; it’s because we as a country are. So by all means, let’s talk about “personal responsibility” — it’s real — but also about our collective responsibility to help America’s children and give them a fighting chance to succeed.‘America’s daughters — my own teenager among them — received quite a political education’ — Michelle CottleWoman in Iowa on “Elizabeth Warren Had a Good Run. Maybe Next Time, Ladies.” (March 4):I have no idea how to face my 7-yr-old daughter tonight who keeps asking if Warren won. She watched me caucus for Warren in Iowa and is highly curious why we don’t have many female leaders in our country. It doesn’t help that she knows about female political leaders and activists from India, my birth country, including her great-grandmother who was an activist herself.I am personally devastated that after all the women’s marches and pink hats and what not, the “liberal” party comes up with two bitter bickering old white men, both of whom have personally mansplained to Warren at different times in her career.Michelle: I heard this kind of heartbreak and frustration from more than one reader, and it got me every time. America’s daughters — my own teenager among them — received quite a political education these past four years, much of it dismaying. But witnessing the up-and-coming generations of kick-ass women demand better and push for progress offered both reassurance and inspiration. And while Joe Biden certainly isn’t changing the face of the presidency, his choice of Kamala Harris as a running mate means there will be a Madame Vice President for the first time ever. This is another step forward. Our daughters are watching.‘We have to acknowledge and confront these existing problems’ — Wajahat Ali8theist in Stowe, Vt., on “What Makes You Think 2021 Will Be Better?” (Dec. 16):I think you’re missing a key story here. We are all driven by some variable sense of hope or doom relative to what’s to come. The on-the-ground things won’t change much. In fact with climate change raging and right wing bubbles getting tighter and the economy worsening from Covid fall out, things will actually get worse. But to know that we are no longer at the will and whim of a terrible leader, that our global allies are back in the trenches with us, and to know the man and woman running the country are genuinely trying to make this county better. That hope helps me sleep, plan, spend and invest with more confidence.Wajahat: I agree that the Biden-Harris administration will bring forth principled, experienced leadership that replaces the corrupt cruelty and buffoonery of Trump’s presidency, which has revealed and exalted the worst demons of our country. I refuse to be a cynic, and remain hopeful. However, to ensure that we move this country toward progress and success, we have to acknowledge and confront these existing problems with fierce dedication and resolve. We can and should exhale; we’ve earned it. But there’s no rest for me yet. Much work must be done.‘Let me challenge you on the subject of unemployment’ — Bret StephensBruce L in Sharon, Mass., on “Groupthink Has Left the Left Blind” (Nov. 17):One can’t keep trying to rationalize Trump or Trumpism by pointing to the fact that unemployment was low — it is not like under a Democrat the rate would have been much different. Trump is unworthy of the office and trying to conceive of a rationale as to why he gets out the vote other than the love of a pseudo macho man who spews hate (“he tells it like it is”) is plain wrong — if I can be so black and white.Bret: Thanks for this note, Bruce. I agree completely with your broad point about Trump’s unfitness for office. But let me challenge you on the subject of unemployment. If, as many prominent economists predicted in 2016, the U.S. economy had taken a nosedive in Trump’s first years in office, would his critics, including you, not have blamed him? I doubt it. I don’t think it’s fair to have it both ways: Blaming Trump when things go wrong, while refusing to give him credit when things go right. Trump inherited a reasonably good economy, but — until the pandemic — it got better in nearly every respect, including wage growth for the bottom half. That’s a fact that needs to be acknowledged for the sake of intellectual honesty.In my five-plus years of covering Trump as a columnist, I’ve tried to give him credit where I think it’s due. I feel I owe that to every politician I’ve ever covered. I hope that makes my overall verdict about his presidency — the most disastrous in U.S. history since James Buchanan’s — that much more stinging.‘Our own innocence isn’t the point.’ — Margaret RenklJRC in N.Y.C. on “An Open Letter to My Fellow White Christians” (June 8):Not buying it at all. I was born white into a Christian family. Didn’t do it on purpose. And feel no guilt for it. I’ve never oppressed anyone. Or abused anyone. My faith? Just means I treat everyone I meet with love and respect. I’m not responsible for what Christians did three or four hundred years ago, for goodness sake. All any of us can be responsible for is how we wake up in the morning every day and treat people with loving kindness. That is what being a white Christian is. And a black Christian is. And an Asian and Latin American Christian is.Margaret: I understand why people who have done no harm and feel no malice bristle when grouped with those who cause enormous harm and who feel actual malice. But implicating Christianity in white supremacy is not the same thing as implicating every white Christian, and that’s why the column mentions by name many who are working for positive change.I chose this comment because the writer lives in New York, not in the South, but the argument here echoes what Southerners often say in the context of race generally: I didn’t own slaves. I didn’t make anyone sit at the back of the bus. Why should I feel guilty for atrocities committed by earlier generations?My response to that question is the same as my response to this commenter: Our own innocence isn’t the point. We live in a culture that remains saturated with racism, and so we are morally obliged to recognize the ways in which we have benefited from that system and to work passionately for its reform. It’s true that Christians should treat everyone we meet with love and respect, as this commenter does. But surely that’s not enough in a country where these senseless murders keep playing out right in front of our eyes. I’m convinced it would not be enough for Jesus Christ. Why is it enough for so many of my fellow white Christians?‘As if we have nothing to learn from the rest of the world’ — Paul KrugmanHolly in Canada on “The Cult of Selfishness Is Killing America” (July 27):Here’s the thing: We are in the middle of a global pandemic, not an American pandemic, so the U.S. has the world to look to for examples on how to best control this virus if necessary. In Canada, we were given guidance based on science, advancing stages based on rates of infection in each province so we could safely reopen our economy. The difference is trust, trust that our governments, both federal and provincial, will protect us over petty politics. We have a duty to one another and we are reminded of that duty by our leaders. If you are not willing to do what it takes to protect your entire community, not just your tribe, then you are destined to fail.Paul: This gets at one of my enduring gripes about the way we discuss policy in America — namely, as if we have nothing to learn from the rest of the world. It’s not just the presumption of American superiority — I still run into people who are sure that we have the world’s highest life expectancy, when we actually die a lot younger than people in other rich countries. It’s the way we don’t learn from policy successes abroad. It’s not just the pandemic: Every other advanced country has universal health care, yet we talk as if that’s an unattainable goal. These days, nations are the laboratories of democracy, but we’re too insular to learn from their experience.‘Was it possible to cover this territory without making readers want to throw themselves out a window?’ — Gail CollinsScott O’Pottamus in Right Here On The Left on “Vote for Trump’s Worst!” (Aug. 5):Ms. Collins,How dare you make light of the tragedy that is our Trump Administration! It is offensive that you find humor in a situation that is devoid of both light and humor. Why can’t you just write a column telling us how awful this so-called President Trump is? Why must you search for a light moment when you could instead choose to dwell on the darkness, rot, slime, and stench of this awful Administration?Stop being funny, Madame! Be morose, please! Dagnabbit!Gail: I get a lot of letters along your line, Scott, so I appreciate the chance to comment. It goes back to a time when I was working for one of the New York tabloids as a city politics columnist. At that time, said politics were really, really bad and involved a lot of indictments. One day as I was posting another enraged column, I wondered, was it possible to cover this territory without making readers want to throw themselves out a window? That’s sorta been my mission ever since, and Trump has made it pretty easy.‘I’m always worried about my role as an amplifier’ — Charlie WarzelLindaP in Boston on “Protesting for the Freedom to Catch the Coronavirus” (April 19):Why the outsized coverage? Why have I — and I’m sure many like me, who follow the news rabidly — felt these protests were a wave across the country? They have not been presented as large rallies, true. Nor have they been reported as “at most, hundreds.” Seems to me this entire nonsensical, dangerous movement would have been best left ignored. How many more now have doubt in the science, in what is safe, where doubt did not exist before because of the media coverage? This is almost as disturbing as the protests.Charlie: I really appreciate this type of criticism from readers as it is the kind that sharpens my own thinking on what I choose to write about and how I frame it. As somebody who covers a lot of fringe-y subjects, I’m always worried about my role as an amplifier. I think that — broadly speaking — the press is pretty uncritical about what we deem newsworthy when, in reality, it is all a choice.For this particular column, I actually agonized a bit over whether to give this protest movement the oxygen it was looking for. Ultimately, I saw the group’s tactics as important and felt that, even though the protests were small, they were indicative of something larger in American political culture that deserves understanding. My hope was, with the right context, that exploration would be useful. But I really appreciate that readers are asking these hard questions and challenging me on it. Frequently, they bring up something that I hadn’t considered and that informs how I tackle similar subjects on the next go-round.‘Sometimes I think religion must be the last remaining taboo’— Linda GreenhouseJM in Palm Springs, Fla., on “Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s Choice” (Dec. 3):I’ve been waiting for you to weigh in on this. I say if churches want to disregard our laws go ahead and do so, but not with exemption from federal taxes. Why should we, the taxpayers, subsidize the overtly political actions of thousands of religious groups? Republicans have effectively ended I.R.S. oversight and prosecution through intimidation and loss of funding. This nation needs to decide if we are a secular society in which one is free to practice whatever faith one chooses or a religious state which imposes its notions on our laws and their faithful execution. As you suggest, this insignificant action is freighted with dire implications for the future. We ignore it at our peril.Linda: I’m always heartened — who wouldn’t be? — by a reader who says, “I’ve been waiting to hear what you think.” JM clearly knows I’ve been writing a lot about the Supreme Court’s religion cases and understands why I’m concerned about the court’s increasing deference to religion above all else, such as the right not to be discriminated against. I don’t think this trend gets enough attention — sometimes I think religion must be the last remaining taboo — so I plan to keep at it.‘I completely sympathize with your situation’ — David BrooksMark in Missouri on “No, Not Sanders, Not Ever” (Feb. 28):As a member of Gen Z, the points Brooks makes are exactly why I and many of my generation support Bernie and his cause. I don’t want to implement communism, I just want to be able to get a job that actually pays me enough to pay off my student loans, not have 50 percent of my income go toward rent, and be able to retire. I don’t care about keeping my doctor or having to wait in lines to see one, I just don’t want to pay $1,500 plus for an X-ray.But please, continue to tell us that we don’t know what we want, sabotage who we support, and continue to marginalize us. Keep alienating the soon-to-be largest voting block in the U.S. while you’re starting to retire and depend on the social systems; I’m sure that will end great for you.David: Mark, I completely sympathize with your situation. Millennial and Gen Z workers are getting hammered by high housing, school and health care costs. I just think you’re more likely to get relief under a Biden presidency than you would if Sanders had won the nomination. In the first place, it’s highly unlikely Sanders would have been elected. Democrats were beaten in 2020 in congressional and state legislative races across the country. The only Democrat who could have won the presidency was Biden, in my view, precisely because he overperformed among suburban moderates who’d given Trump a chance in 2016. Beating Trump was Job 1, and Sanders was ill suited to that task.Second, even if Sanders had been elected, passing bills requires the ability to compromise. In his decades in Congress, he has not been a productive legislator because of his unwillingness to do that. He never would have won over even moderate Democrats like Joe Manchin, let alone the bipartisan group we just saw write the Covid relief compromise. My column started from the assumption that we live in an evenly divided, pluralistic society. We need leaders who can flourish within that complex system, not leaders who undermine the legitimacy of that system or overturn it through some imaginary mass uprising that will never come.Thanks so much for taking the time to respond.‘What’s so gutting is the element of random chance in our downfall.’ — Michelle GoldbergDupuis in Paris on “Can Mitch McConnell Be Stopped?” (Sept. 19):The old Republican world is actually the one dying. Justice Ginsburg’s ideals will prevail sooner or later. Be confident that the U.S. some day will become again a country the world envies. It might take time and patience but compassion and understanding will survive and thrive again. U.S. citizens will find the peaceful means to resist and win the battle for a better country.Michelle: I think I used to believe this — that, as Martin Luther King Jr. said, the “arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” I don’t think I do anymore. I certainly don’t think the United States will ever again be the envy of the world; I’m not even sure how it survives as a functioning democracy. And part of what’s so gutting is the element of random chance in our downfall. Yes, our current predicament is the culmination of long-term structural forces. But had 80,000 votes in three states gone the other way in 2016, the Supreme Court would be a force for justice rather than reaction for the foreseeable future. Had Ginsburg lived a little longer, we could have saved Roe v. Wade and many other laws protecting civil rights, workers’ rights and the environment. But she died, and so, I suspect, did the America I once expected my children to inherit.‘It is to appreciate the magnitude of relief we’re experiencing’ — Frank BruniAllison in Colorado on “After That Fiasco, Biden Should Refuse to Debate Trump Again” (Sept. 30):Last night, I think I was too gobsmacked by the spectacle to form coherent thoughts about the debate, but this morning I feel overwhelmed with grief. Tears are welling in my eyes as I fathom another four years of Trump in the White House. It is, quite simply, unbearable even to imagine.Frank: To read this now is to be reacquainted, in the most poignant way, with how titanically much this election meant to the tens of millions of Americans who, like me, felt that Trump was a very grave danger and, almost minute by minute, a soul-corroding insult to basic American decency. It is to appreciate the magnitude of relief we’re experiencing at the end of this terrifying and tumultuous year. It is to be grateful: Sometimes, at a crucial time, we get the second chance we so acutely need.‘I am used to being on the receiving end of harsh words’ — Jennifer Finney BoylanNorma Manna Blum in Washington, D.C., on “Time Won’t Let Me Wait That Long” (Dec. 9):Beautiful Boylan:I love it when I don’t quite understand what moves me so in the shared experiences of a stranger. Ergo, today’s column which made, willy nilly, the tears to flow. And then, I went out into the nearly deserted streets of East Hollywood and walked about trying to make sense of who we are in our present isolation and incomprehension.And then to home to wrap my old Timex watch in a copy of your column and bury the small parcel in my garden. Perhaps one day someone will find my gift and understand that what I was trying, dying, to say is “I was here. And I tried. And I am still trying.”Jenny: It may be that I am used to being on the receiving end of harsh words, especially when I mention trans issues. Or maybe I just like making people cry. But every last comment on this column about my visit to a clock-repair store was generous and sweet. I wonder if the topic — the way time has frozen in 2020, and our yearning for our clocks to start ticking again — just hit a nerve. Or maybe people are more sentimental than I thought. In this comment, Norma Blum spoke of burying her watch, wrapped in this column, in her garden. In response, it was my turn to get all teary for a change.I am so grateful for my readers at Times Opinion, and look forward to hearing more of their reactions in 2021.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
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How Trump's Attack on Relief Bill Has Divided GOP
by Aurelia Butler 24 December 2020, 02:33
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesThe Stimulus DealThe Latest Vaccine InformationF.A.Q.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTrump’s Attack on Coronavirus Relief Divides G.O.P. and Threatens RecoveryFrom the campaign trail in Georgia to Capitol Hill, President Trump’s demand for changes to the $900 billion pandemic relief plan upended political and economic calculations.President Trump posted a video on Tuesday night demanding significant changes to the pandemic relief bill and larger direct stimulus checks to Americans.Credit…Oliver Contreras for The New York TimesLuke Broadwater, Emily Cochrane, Astead W. Herndon and Dec. 23, 2020WASHINGTON — President Trump’s denunciation of the $900 billion coronavirus relief deal drove a wedge through the Republican Party on Wednesday, drawing harsh criticism from House Republicans and threatening the delivery of unemployment checks, a reprieve on evictions and direct payments to struggling Americans.His four-minute video on Tuesday night demanding significant changes to the bill and larger direct stimulus checks also complicated his party’s push to hold the Senate with victories in two runoff races in Georgia next month. The Republican candidates he pledged to support went from campaigning on their triumphant votes for the relief bill to facing questions on Mr. Trump’s view that the measure was a “disgrace.”Their Democratic rivals appeared to turn a liability into a political advantage 13 days before the election on Jan. 5, agreeing with the president’s demand for $2,000 direct payment checks and calling for Republicans to accede to his wish. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and top Democrats prepared to move forward on Thursday with new legislation that would provide the $2,000 checks, daring Republicans to break with the president and block passage of the bill in the House.But the effect on struggling Americans was perhaps the most profound: With no deal signed by the president, some unemployment programs are set to run out this week, and several other critical provisions are to end this month. The uncertainty that Mr. Trump injected into the process came at a perilous moment for the economy, as consumer spending and personal incomes resumed their slides.“Does the president realize that unemployment benefits expire the day after Christmas?” an exasperated Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia and one of the key negotiators of the package, wrote on Twitter.It is not clear whether Mr. Trump, who is furious at congressional Republicans who have acknowledged his defeat, would actually veto the package. But given how late it is in the 116th Congress, even refusing to sign it could ensure that the bill dies with the Congress on Jan. 3 and must be taken up all over again next year.The 5,593-page spending package would not only provide relief but also fund the government through September. With his threat, the president raised the prospects of a government shutdown beyond Monday and also jeopardized a promise of swift relief to millions of struggling Americans and businesses.Mr. Trump on Wednesday also made good on his promise to veto a major defense policy bill, in part because it directed the military to strip the names of Confederate generals from bases. That sets up a showdown for next week; when the House returns on Monday for the override vote, it could also vote on another stopgap spending bill to prevent government funding from lapsing.Before the turmoil, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had promised that $600 direct payments from the pandemic relief bill could be distributed as early as next week; that is an untenable timeline without Mr. Trump’s signature. The end to two expanded unemployment programs the day after Christmas could push nearly five million people into poverty virtually overnight, according to an estimate from researchers at Columbia University.Some state labor departments — which administer both state and federal unemployment benefits — are already preparing for the end of the programs because of the delay in reaching an agreement, meaning some jobless workers may temporarily lose their benefits all the same because many states will not be able to reverse course in time to avoid a lapse in payments.Frustration with Mr. Trump boiled over on Wednesday during a private conference call of House Republicans who had loyally stood by the president; many of them had joined a baseless lawsuit to try to overturn the results of the election. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader, told members that he had spoken to the president and that he had not yet committed to a veto of the bill.But Mr. McCarthy conceded, “This bill has been tainted,” according to one person on the call.“The bill has been tainted,” Representative Kevin McCarthy of California told House Republicans on a private conference call on Wednesday.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesIn his videotaped statement on Tuesday, Mr. Trump accused lawmakers of putting aid for foreign governments before the needs of the American people.Some lawmakers on the call complained about the pork projects in the spending measure; others chimed in to challenge the characterization of the projects as pork, and one longtime House Republican vented generally about voter perceptions of the package after Mr. Trump’s scathing critique.“I don’t know if we recover from this,” said Representative Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, according to three officials on the call. “We will have a hell of a time getting this out of people’s head.”The Coronavirus Outbreak More
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Trump’s Attack on Coronavirus Relief Divides G.O.P. and Threatens Recovery
by Aurelia Butler 24 December 2020, 01:55
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesThe Stimulus DealThe Latest Vaccine InformationF.A.Q.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyTrump’s Attack on Coronavirus Relief Divides G.O.P. and Threatens RecoveryFrom the campaign trail in Georgia to Capitol Hill, President Trump’s demand for changes to the $900 billion pandemic relief plan upended political and economic calculations.President Trump posted a video on Tuesday night demanding significant changes to the pandemic relief bill and larger direct stimulus checks to Americans.Credit…Oliver Contreras for The New York TimesLuke Broadwater, Emily Cochrane, Astead W. Herndon and Dec. 23, 2020Updated 9:55 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — President Trump’s denunciation of the $900 billion coronavirus relief deal drove a wedge through the Republican Party on Wednesday, drawing harsh criticism from House Republicans and threatening the delivery of unemployment checks, a reprieve on evictions and direct payments to struggling Americans.His four-minute video on Tuesday night demanding significant changes to the bill and larger direct stimulus checks also complicated his party’s push to hold the Senate with victories in two runoff races in Georgia next month. The Republican candidates he pledged to support went from campaigning on their triumphant votes for the relief bill to facing questions on Mr. Trump’s view that the measure was a “disgrace.”Their Democratic rivals appeared to turn a liability into a political advantage 13 days before the election on Jan. 5, agreeing with the president’s demand for $2,000 direct payment checks and calling for Republicans to accede to his wish. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and top Democrats prepared to move forward on Thursday with new legislation that would provide the $2,000 checks, daring Republicans to break with the president and block passage of the bill in the House.But the effect on struggling Americans was perhaps the most profound: With no deal signed by the president, some unemployment programs are set to run out this week, and several other critical provisions are to end this month. The uncertainty that Mr. Trump injected into the process came at a perilous moment for the economy, as consumer spending and personal incomes resumed their slides.“Does the president realize that unemployment benefits expire the day after Christmas?” an exasperated Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia and one of the key negotiators of the package, wrote on Twitter.It is not clear whether Mr. Trump, who is furious at congressional Republicans who have acknowledged his defeat, would actually veto the package. But given how late it is in the 116th Congress, even refusing to sign it could ensure that the bill dies with the Congress on Jan. 3 and must be taken up all over again next year.The 5,593-page spending package would not only provide relief but also fund the government through September. With his threat, the president raised the prospects of a government shutdown beyond Monday and also jeopardized a promise of swift relief to millions of struggling Americans and businesses.Mr. Trump on Wednesday also made good on his promise to veto a major defense policy bill, in part because it directed the military to strip the names of Confederate generals from bases. That sets up a showdown for next week; when the House returns on Monday for the override vote, it could also vote on another stopgap spending bill to prevent government funding from lapsing.Before the turmoil, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had promised that $600 direct payments from the pandemic relief bill could be distributed as early as next week; that is an untenable timeline without Mr. Trump’s signature. The end to two expanded unemployment programs the day after Christmas could push nearly five million people into poverty virtually overnight, according to an estimate from researchers at Columbia University.Some state labor departments — which administer both state and federal unemployment benefits — are already preparing for the end of the programs because of the delay in reaching an agreement, meaning some jobless workers may temporarily lose their benefits all the same because many states will not be able to reverse course in time to avoid a lapse in payments.Frustration with Mr. Trump boiled over on Wednesday during a private conference call of House Republicans who had loyally stood by the president; many of them had joined a baseless lawsuit to try to overturn the results of election. Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader, told members that he had spoken to the president and that he had not yet committed to a veto of the bill.But Mr. McCarthy conceded, “This bill has been tainted,” according to one person on the call.“The bill has been tainted,” Representative Kevin McCarthy of California told House Republicans on a private conference call on Wednesday.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesIn his videotaped statement on Tuesday, Mr. Trump accused lawmakers of putting aid for foreign governments before the needs of the American people.Some lawmakers on the call complained about the pork projects in the spending measure; others chimed in to challenge the characterization of the projects as pork, and one longtime House Republican vented generally about voter perceptions of the package after Mr. Trump’s scathing critique.“I don’t know if we recover from this,” said Representative Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, according to three officials on the call. “We will have a hell of a time getting this out of people’s head.”The Coronavirus Outbreak More
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Israeli Election, Take Four: Conservatives vs. Conservatives
by Aurelia Butler 23 December 2020, 22:28
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesThe Stimulus DealThe Latest Vaccine InformationF.A.Q.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyNews analysisIsraeli Election, Take Four: Conservatives vs. ConservativesAfter the center-left failed in three elections to oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the fourth one is shaping up into a contest among right-wing leaders.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has survived three electoral challenges in a row from the center-left. Now he faces two challengers from the right.Credit…Pool photo by Yonatan SindelDec. 23, 2020, 6:28 p.m. ETJERUSALEM — For three elections in a row, Israel’s conservative prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has managed to stave off challenges from the center-left.Now, as Israel moves to an unprecedented fourth early election in two years, the center-left has imploded and Mr. Netanyahu faces a challenge from his own former allies on the right.The election, set for March 23 after a fragile, fractious unity coalition disintegrated on Tuesday, is shaping up as a battle of conservatives versus conservatives, an intramural contest for the leadership of the roughly half of Israeli voters who consider themselves right-of-center.“It will be a right-wing government,” said Gadi Wolfsfeld, a veteran analyst of Israeli elections. “The question is who will lead it, and how right-wing will it be?”Leading the charge against Mr. Netanyahu, the longtime premier and leader of the conservative Likud party, are two former protégés-turned-rivals: Naftali Bennett, a former education and defense minister who leads the religious-right Yamina party, and Gideon Saar, a popular former education and interior minister.Mr. Bennett, 48, sitting in the opposition, elevated his stature and his standing in the polls this year by assailing Mr. Netanyahu’s handling of the coronavirus. He toured the country’s hospitals, courted business owners suffering repeated lockdowns and published a book-length list of recommendations on contact tracing, testing and more, a number of which the government adopted.Naftali Bennett, right, a former education and defense minister, leads the religious-right Yamina party.Credit…Dan Balilty for The New York TimesBut it was the defection this month of Mr. Saar, 54, from Likud to form a breakaway right-wing party called “New Hope” that catapulted him into contention overnight. His move has invigorated critics of the prime minister, known to Israelis as Bibi, raising hopes that this election could be the one that sends Mr. Netanyahu, 71, into retirement.“For the first time, the fight is on the right side of the map,” said Karine Nahon, a political scientist at the Interdisciplinary Center-Herzliya. “Usually it fell in behind Bibi without any questions. Now, two parties are actually challenging the hegemony of the Likud.”Mr. Netanyahu, Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, will scarcely be at a disadvantage heading into the March contest: He is already trumpeting Israel’s speedy start to vaccinations and its historic normalization deals with four Arab states. And he is a master of controlling the news cycle, among the many benefits of incumbency.Still, the pandemic has thrown a million Israelis out of work, business leaders warn that tens of thousands of companies could be wiped out, and yet another lockdown is looming to remind voters of the government’s inability to curb the virus.But Mr. Netanyahu’s biggest liability could emerge in February, when testimony is to begin in his trial on felony corruption charges, including bribery and breach of trust. A key reason that Israel is being subjected to yet another election, analysts say, is Mr. Netanyahu’s burning desire to bolster his support in Parliament for a possible move to mitigate his legal exposure, defer prosecution or even have the case tossed altogether.The Coronavirus Outbreak More
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Pfizer Nears Deal to Provide More Vaccine Doses
by Aurelia Butler 22 December 2020, 22:17
#masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }Covid-19 VaccinesVaccine QuestionsDoses Per StateAfter Your VaccineHow the Moderna Vaccine WorksWhy You’ll Still Need a MaskAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyPfizer Nears Deal With Trump Administration to Provide More Vaccine DosesThe company could provide at least tens of millions of additional doses of a coronavirus vaccine under an agreement that would give it better access to the supplies it needs to expand manufacturing.A health worker receiving the Pfizer vaccine in Arlington, Va., on Wednesday. The Trump administration is nearing a deal with Pfizer to provide tens of millions of additional doses in the second quarter of next year, helping to address a looming shortage.Credit…Michael A. McCoy for The New York TimesSharon LaFraniere and Dec. 22, 2020Updated 6:17 p.m. ETThe Trump administration and Pfizer are close to a deal under which the pharmaceutical company would bolster supply of its coronavirus vaccine for the United States by at least tens of millions of doses next year in exchange for a government directive giving it better access to manufacturing supplies, people familiar with the discussions said.An agreement, which could be announced as early as Wednesday, would help the United States at least partly offset a looming vaccine shortage that could leave as many as 110 million adult Americans uncovered in the first half of 2021.So far, only two pharmaceutical companies — Pfizer and Moderna — have won federal authorization for emergency distribution of Covid-19 vaccines, and most of what they are capable of producing for the next six months has already been allocated through contracts with the United States and other governments.In the negotiations, the government is asking for 100 million additional doses from Pfizer from April through June. The company has signaled that it should be able to produce at least 70 million, and perhaps more, if it can get more access to supplies and raw materials.To help Pfizer, the deal calls for the government to invoke the Defense Production Act to give the company better access to roughly nine specialized products it needs to make the vaccine. One person familiar with the list said it included lipids, the oily molecules in which the genetic material that is used in both the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines is encased.Pfizer first started asking for the government’s help in obtaining supplies as early as September and has been unhappy about the lack of response, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times.Moderna and other companies that worked more closely than Pfizer with the administration through its Operation Warp Speed to develop their vaccines already receive favored treatment from suppliers, putting Pfizer at a disadvantage. That includes two companies — Sanofi and Novavax — that have yet to begin large-scale clinical trials in the United States.Pfizer and the administration have been negotiating for more doses from Pfizer for more than a month. But a host of other issues have stood in the way of a deal, including Pfizer’s commitments to other nations that moved faster than the United States to lock in a big supply, according to people familiar with the situation.Pfizer already has a federal contract, signed in July, to deliver 100 million doses of its vaccine by the end of March. Moderna has the same agreement, and has also pledged to sell the government 100 million more doses in the second quarter of the year, from the start of April to the end of June.Because the Pfizer and the Moderna vaccine both require two doses, that supply would cover only 150 million Americans out of the roughly 260 million who are eligible at the moment to be vaccinated. (Moderna’s vaccine is now restricted to those 18 and over, and Pfizer’s is limited to those 16 and over.)If Pfizer provides another 100 million doses, that would leave about 60 million eligible Americans uncovered in the first half of the year. Other producers could also cover the shortfall should their vaccines prove successful.It is not clear how many more doses Pfizer can quickly produce even if the administration uses the Defense Production Act to clear away supply obstacles. One person familiar with the situation said the firm may only be able to deliver 70 million by the end of June, even with better access to supplies. Had the government agreed to prioritize its supply needs earlier, one person familiar with Pfizer’s situation said, the company might be better positioned now to fully meet the demands. Documents reviewed by The Times showed that Pfizer officials began asking Gen. Gustave F. Perna, the chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed, in September for help with supplies and brought up the issue repeatedly in weekly meetings.A senior Trump administration official said the government was unwilling to intervene because Pfizer refused to promise that it would use those materials to produce vaccines solely for Americans..css-fk3g7a{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:0.875rem;line-height:1.125rem;color:#121212 !important;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-fk3g7a{font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;}}.css-1sjr751{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1sjr751 a:hover{border-bottom:1px solid #dcdcdc;}.css-rqynmc{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.9375rem;line-height:1.25rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-rqynmc{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-rqynmc strong{font-weight:600;}.css-rqynmc em{font-style:italic;}.css-zs9392{margin:10px auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-zs9392{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-zs9392{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.75rem;margin-bottom:20px;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-zs9392{font-size:1.5rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}.css-121grtr{margin:0 auto 10px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}#masthead-bar-one{display:none;}.css-qmg6q8{background-color:white;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;max-width:600px;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-qmg6q8{padding:0;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin-right:auto;margin-left:auto;}.css-qmg6q8 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qmg6q8 em{font-style:italic;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-qmg6q8{margin:40px auto;}}.css-qmg6q8:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}.css-qmg6q8 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ccd9e3;}.css-qmg6q8 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;border-bottom:1px solid #ddd;}.css-qmg6q8 a:hover{border-bottom:none;}.css-qmg6q8[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-qmg6q8[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-qmg6q8[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-qmg6q8[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-11uwurf{border:1px solid #e2e2e2;padding:15px;border-radius:0;margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}@media (min-width:600px){.css-11uwurf{padding:20px;}}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-11uwurf{border-top:1px solid #121212;border-bottom:none;}Covid-19 Vaccines ›Answers to Your Vaccine QuestionsWith distribution of a coronavirus vaccine beginning in the U.S., here are answers to some questions you may be wondering about:If I live in the U.S., when can I get the vaccine? While the exact order of vaccine recipients may vary by state, most will likely put medical workers and residents of long-term care facilities first. If you want to understand how this decision is getting made, this article will help.When can I return to normal life after being vaccinated? Life will return to normal only when society as a whole gains enough protection against the coronavirus. Once countries authorize a vaccine, they’ll only be able to vaccinate a few percent of their citizens at most in the first couple months. The unvaccinated majority will still remain vulnerable to getting infected. A growing number of coronavirus vaccines are showing robust protection against becoming sick. But it’s also possible for people to spread the virus without even knowing they’re infected because they experience only mild symptoms or none at all. Scientists don’t yet know if the vaccines also block the transmission of the coronavirus. So for the time being, even vaccinated people will need to wear masks, avoid indoor crowds, and so on. Once enough people get vaccinated, it will become very difficult for the coronavirus to find vulnerable people to infect. Depending on how quickly we as a society achieve that goal, life might start approaching something like normal by the fall 2021.If I’ve been vaccinated, do I still need to wear a mask? Yes, but not forever. Here’s why. The coronavirus vaccines are injected deep into the muscles and stimulate the immune system to produce antibodies. This appears to be enough protection to keep the vaccinated person from getting ill. But what’s not clear is whether it’s possible for the virus to bloom in the nose — and be sneezed or breathed out to infect others — even as antibodies elsewhere in the body have mobilized to prevent the vaccinated person from getting sick. The vaccine clinical trials were designed to determine whether vaccinated people are protected from illness — not to find out whether they could still spread the coronavirus. Based on studies of flu vaccine and even patients infected with Covid-19, researchers have reason to be hopeful that vaccinated people won’t spread the virus, but more research is needed. In the meantime, everyone — even vaccinated people — will need to think of themselves as possible silent spreaders and keep wearing a mask. Read more here.Will it hurt? What are the side effects? The Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine is delivered as a shot in the arm, like other typical vaccines. The injection into your arm won’t feel different than any other vaccine, but the rate of short-lived side effects does appear higher than a flu shot. Tens of thousands of people have already received the vaccines, and none of them have reported any serious health problems. The side effects, which can resemble the symptoms of Covid-19, last about a day and appear more likely after the second dose. Early reports from vaccine trials suggest some people might need to take a day off from work because they feel lousy after receiving the second dose. In the Pfizer study, about half developed fatigue. Other side effects occurred in at least 25 to 33 percent of patients, sometimes more, including headaches, chills and muscle pain. While these experiences aren’t pleasant, they are a good sign that your own immune system is mounting a potent response to the vaccine that will provide long-lasting immunity.Will mRNA vaccines change my genes? No. The vaccines from Moderna and Pfizer use a genetic molecule to prime the immune system. That molecule, known as mRNA, is eventually destroyed by the body. The mRNA is packaged in an oily bubble that can fuse to a cell, allowing the molecule to slip in. The cell uses the mRNA to make proteins from the coronavirus, which can stimulate the immune system. At any moment, each of our cells may contain hundreds of thousands of mRNA molecules, which they produce in order to make proteins of their own. Once those proteins are made, our cells then shred the mRNA with special enzymes. The mRNA molecules our cells make can only survive a matter of minutes. The mRNA in vaccines is engineered to withstand the cell’s enzymes a bit longer, so that the cells can make extra virus proteins and prompt a stronger immune response. But the mRNA can only last for a few days at most before they are destroyed.“It’s our obligation under that type of priority rating to make sure that assets are used only for U.S. sales or production,” the official said, “and they weren’t willing to do that.”People knowledgeable about the talks said General Perna had raised a different concern with Pfizer, saying the government wanted to protect its investment in the other companies under Warp Speed’s umbrella, so it did not want to grant Pfizer the same priority with supplies.According to a report last month by the Government Accountability Office, the Defense Production Act gives the federal government vast authority over private companies, including the power to prevent supplies from being diverted to a different purpose or products from being sold overseas. The administration has granted the kind of status that Pfizer has been seeking to multiple contractors for medical supplies since the pandemic began, including companies that produce ventilators and N-95 respirators, the report states.Because the Pfizer vaccine, developed with the German company BioNTech, is one of only two that the Food and Drug Administration has approved for emergency use, the company has had leverage in negotiating the new contract.That advantage could erode if other vaccines are authorized. A third firm, Johnson & Johnson, is expected to announce results from its clinical trials next month. A fourth, AstraZeneca, has announced some interim results, but it has yet to fully enroll its trial in the United States.With infections, hospitalizations and deaths surging to record levels from a pandemic that has already killed more than 320,000 Americans, the pressure on Pfizer and the government to come to terms is growing.“The last thing we want is for this to turn acrimonious,” said Dr. Walid F. Gellad, who leads the Center for Pharmaceutical Policy and Prescribing at the University of Pittsburgh. “This kind of corrosive back-and-forth is not helping the public feel any better about what’s going to happen in the future.”Pfizer’s relationship with the administration has been tense for months. After he lost the election in November, President Trump accused Pfizer of deliberately slow-walking federal approval of its vaccine to hurt him politically.Alex M. Azar II, the secretary of health and human services, and his aides have complained that Pfizer has kept the government at arm’s length, has faced production problems and has sometimes been uncooperative in negotiations.Another snag in the relationship surfaced Friday when a European official released on Twitter — and then quickly deleted — a price list that showing that vaccine shipments to the U.S. government cost a third more per dose than shipments to European customers.Pfizer completed a deal last month to sell the European Union 200 million doses at a cost of $14.50 each. The contract signed by the Trump administration with Pfizer in July for the original 100 million doses put the price at $19.50.It is unclear how much the United States would pay if Pfizer and the federal government struck a new deal. In a statement, Pfizer said only that the European Union’s order was its largest to date, and that Pfizer and BioNTech “are using a tiered pricing formula based on volume and delivery dates.” It declined to disclose further details of the agreement.Pfizer executives have been frustrated because, according to people familiar with the negotiations, they repeatedly urged the federal government this summer and fall to lock in more doses early, before other nations snapped them up. Administration officials declined, later saying that Pfizer refused to commit to specific dates when it would deliver them.The pharmaceutical firm has struggled to navigate the politics of the situation. Pfizer’s chief executive, Dr. Albert Bourla, repeatedly suggested that the firm would know if its vaccine worked by October. Mr. Trump, who saw a vaccine breakthrough as crucial to his re-election chances, initially praised Dr. Bourla as a “great guy” — then blamed the firm for his loss when the results were released after Election Day.At the same time, the president and his top aides have claimed credit for Pfizer’s success, even though, unlike the other five vaccine makers in the Operation Warp Speed program, Pfizer did not take federal subsidies for the vaccine development or manufacturing, assuming all of the risk itself.Pfizer is insisting that in order to bolster production, the Trump administration must direct suppliers to prioritize the company’s purchases of raw materials.Credit…Benjamin Rasmussen for The New York TimesPfizer has also vacillated in describing its relationship with the federal government. A top Pfizer official at one point stated that “we were never part of Operation Warp Speed,” then the company backtracked and acknowledged the firm was.Mr. Azar alluded to the friction with Pfizer in an interview last week with CNBC, saying the federal government was willing to help Pfizer manufacture more “if they are willing to take our help.” He added, “I do wish we would just stop talking about this Pfizer thing.”He denied that there was any threat of a vaccine shortage, saying the government had commitments for three times as many doses as it has now ordered for the first half of next year. Mr. Azar’s total appears to include either doses of vaccines that have not yet been shown to work or doses described in contract options that are not set in stone and include no firm date of delivery, or both.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
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Mulling Martial Law
by Aurelia Butler 22 December 2020, 20:25
AdvertisementContinue reading the main storyOpinionSupported byContinue reading the main storylettersMulling Martial LawA reader thinks a report that President Trump was considering Michael Flynn’s idea was downplayed. Also: The prison at Guantánamo; cancer care in the pandemic; Black writers; a case of hacking.Dec. 22, 2020, 4:25 p.m. ETMore from our inbox:What Right Do We Have to Guantánamo?Don’t Put Off Medical CareBarriers for Black AuthorsOur Very Predictable PresidentPresident Trump has been in contact with Sidney Powell in recent days, even though his campaign last month sought to distance itself from her as she aired baseless claims about Dominion Voting Systems machines.Credit…Samuel Corum for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Trump Discussed Making Conspiracist Special Counsel” (news article, Dec. 20):This reader is disturbed not to see the following headline on the front page: “President Considers Using Military to Overturn Election.”Have we reached the point where it is not major news when our president mulls a proposal to declare martial law and use the army to override American democracy? Perhaps Donald Trump’s cogitations are now deemed too unhinged to take seriously. Yet for the last four years his bizarre, reality-free tweets have been deemed newsworthy.That Mr. Trump cannot get America’s military to join in perpetrating a coup scarcely makes it a minor matter that a president of the United States has explored the possibility. Equally significant is the nonresponse of Republican officeholders.When Mr. Trump pinned his hopes on judges reversing the voters’ verdict, the attitude of silent G.O.P. leaders appeared to be “not likely to work, but more power to you, Mr. President, if you can pull it off.” Perhaps they have the same attitude toward militarizing American politics.Mitchell ZimmermanPalo Alto, Calif.What Right Do We Have to Guantánamo? Credit…Doug Mills/The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Decaying Buildings and Sluggish Justice System at Guantánamo Prison” (news article, Dec. 16):Over the years, there have been discussions over Guantánamo Bay prison and its inmates, but there has not been enough discussion about what right we have to be there in the first place.The colonial treaty we imposed on Cuba in 1903 (modified in 1934) allowed the American use of the base only as a coaling and naval station, which certainly did not include a prison complex. In any case, colonial-imposed treaties should not be viewed as valid.We have long felt that Cuba should be our property. President James Polk offered Spain $100 million to buy the island. President Franklin Pierce increased that to $130 million, while President Willliam McKinley upped the offer to $300 million. When Spain still refused to sell, we invaded Cuba and turned it into a colony or protectorate that lasted until the Castro-led overthrow of Batista in 1959.The 1903 treaty, which we had compelled the occupied Cubans to sign, gave us the naval station in Guantánamo Bay. But we nullified it by violating Article II, which declared that the base was “for use as coaling or naval stations only, and for no other purpose.” This does not include a prison complex. The real issue is our imperialism.Roger CarassoSanta Fe, N.M.The writer is professor emeritus of political science at California State University, Northridge.Don’t Put Off Medical Care Credit…iStockTo the Editor:The prolonged Covid-19 pandemic has led to an increase in the number of patients who present with late-stage, previously undiagnosed cancers, and recurrence of a previously diagnosed malignancy.This is probably due to the reluctance of people to seek medical care because of fear of contracting Covid-19 at medical facilities; the closing or reduction in clinical services; the requirement to obtain Covid-19 testing before some medical procedures; and the use of telemedicine without physical examination instead of an actual office visit.It is important that people not defer their medical care during the pandemic. It is especially important that those who previously received a cancer diagnosis continue their treatment and follow-up. Those who experience new or unusual signs and symptoms that may indicate aggravation of their condition or a new ailment should seek medical care without delay.Postponing care or ignoring symptoms may lead to complications and deterioration, making future care more difficult and leading to increased morbidity and mortality.Itzhak BrookWashingtonThe writer is a professor of pediatrics at Georgetown University.Barriers for Black Authors Credit…Cj Gunther/EPA, via ShutterstockTo the Editor:Re “Just How White Is the Book Industry?,” by Richard Jean So and Gus Wezerek (Opinion, nytimes.com, Dec. 11):The authors posit that the disparity in publishing rates between Black and white authors is primarily due to the dearth of Black gatekeepers in the industry. In addition, it is critical to understand the systemic barriers that prevent countless Black authors from getting to the gate.Writing a book requires access to critical resources: books as a child, formal classes that teach the craft of writing, a community of writers, the kind of financial support required to write an entire novel with no pay, published Black role models, the insular network of literary agents, among other barriers.Success requires access to an ecosystem of knowledge, networks and support. Until aspiring Black authors are embraced and bolstered at the same rate as aspiring white authors, the literary canon of the future will never be as glorious and impressive as all the people who have a story to tell.Deborah L. PlummerKatherine A. SherbrookeThe writers are authors and board members of GrubStreet, a creative writing center.Our Very Predictable PresidentPresident Trump returning to the White House after the Army-Navy football game earlier this month. Mr. Trump has made few public appearances in the last few weeks.Credit…Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesTo the Editor:A week ago, our discussion over dinner regarding President Trump and the massive hacking of our government and American industry turned into an exchange of predictions.“I bet he blames China,” I suggested. My husband replied, “He’ll say it’s a hoax.” In our final exchange on the topic, we predicted he might even blame the breach for the election results.So there was no surprise when we read “Trump Shifts Hack Blame From Russia” (front page, Dec. 20), which confirmed we were right on all counts.Mr. Trump’s supporters often say they like him because he is unpredictable. Au contraire, after watching and listening to him ad nauseam for four years, we find him very predictable. And dangerous.Patricia WellerEmmitsburg, Md.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More
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Biden to Pick Latino Chief of Connecticut Schools as Education Secretary
by Aurelia Butler 22 December 2020, 13:37
Dr. Miguel A. Cardona will fulfill Mr. Biden’s promise to appoint a diverse cabinet with an education secretary with public school experience. More

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