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Donald Trump’s positive test after hectic week puts White House into crisis mode
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As the United States’ coronavirus death toll edged closer to 200,000, US president Donald Trump claimed falsely at a rally in Ohio that the country’s fatality rate was “among the lowest in the world” and that the virus has “virtually” no effect on young people.Speaking in the town of Swanton, Trump said: “It affects elderly people. Elderly people with heart problems and other problems. If they have other problems that’s what it really affects, that’s it,” he claimed. “You know in some states, thousands of people – nobody young.”“Take your hat off to the young, because they have a hell of an immune system. But it affects virtually nobody. It’s an amazing thing. By the way, open your schools.”Trump also claimed that the United States had “among the lowest case-fatality rates of any country in the world.” The US ranks 53rd highest out of 195 countries in the world with a case-fatality rate of 2.9%, according to Johns Hopkins University. It is the 11th worst on deaths per 100,000 people, at 60.98.At least 199,815 Americans are known to have died since the start of the pandemic, according to Johns Hopkins, which relies on official government data. With the worst death toll in the world, the US accounts for one in five coronavirus-related fatalities worldwide. Just under one in every 1,600 Americans has died in the pandemic.In August, the World Health Organization warned that young people were becoming the primary drivers of the spread of coronavirus in many countries.Meanwhile, in Europe, stocks posted their worst fall in three months on Monday as fears of a second wave hit travel and leisure shares, while banks tumbled on reports of about $2tn-worth of potentially suspect transfers by leading lenders. Pubs, bars and restaurants in England will have to shut by 10pm from Thursday under new nationwide restrictions to halt an “exponential” rise in coronavirus cases.Boris Johnson is expected to make an address to the nation on Tuesday setting out the new measures. With cases doubling every week across the UK and a second wave expected to last up to six months, health officials are said to have advised the government over the weekend to “move hard and fast”. There could be up to 50,000 new coronavirus cases a day in Britain by the middle of October if the pandemic continues at its current pace, the country’s chief scientific adviser warned. Scotland is also expected to announce new restrictions on Tuesday.The Czech Republic prime minister, Andrej Babis, admitted on Monday that his government had made a mistake when it eased restrictions over the summer. “Even I got carried away by the coming summer and the general mood. That was a mistake I don’t want to make again,” the billionaire populist said in a televised speech.After fending off much of the pandemic earlier in the year with timely steps, including mandatory face masks outdoors, the government lifted most measures before the summer holidays.The Czech Republic registered a record high of 3,130 coronavirus cases on Thursday last week, almost matching the total for the whole of March, although testing capacity was low at the start of the pandemic.In other developments:There are 31.2m coronavirus cases worldwide, according to Johns Hopkins, and 963,068 people have died over the course of the pandemic so far.
New Zealand recorded no new cases of Covid-19 on Tuesday, as restrictions on much of the country were entirely removed, and measures imposed on Auckland, the largest city, were due to ease further. There was no recorded community spread of the virus in the rest of New Zealand, where the government has now lifted all physical distancing restrictions and limits on gatherings.
Mexico surpassed 700,000 confirmed cases on Monday after the health ministry reported 2,917 new confirmed cases in the Latin American country, bringing the total to 700,580 as well as a cumulative death toll of 73,697. More
Coronavirus outbreak
Pando, Miss Rona and Covid Toe: how the language of a disease develops – shaped by fear and prejudice
Deadly outbreaks always lead to a new vocabulary, as people search for ways to understand a growing threat. And while some of the new words are merely descriptive, others have ugly underpinnings More
Donald Trump
President again says he is doing ‘incredible job’ fighting pandemic and casts doubt on Jeffrey Epstein’s cause of death
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‘You can’t do that’: Trump argues with reporter over Covid-19 death figures – video
Donald Trump visibly floundered in an interview when pressed on a range of issues, including the number of coronavirus cases and deaths in the US, his claims that mail-in voting is fraudulent, and his inaction over the “Russian bounty” scandal.
The US president also repeatedly cast doubt on the cause of death of Jeffrey Epstein, and said of Ghislaine Maxwell, the British socialite who has pleaded not guilty to participating in the sex-trafficking of girls by Epstein, that he wished her well.
In the interview, broadcast on HBO on Monday and conducted by Axios’s national political correspondent, Jonathan Swan, Trump again asserted that his administration was doing an “incredible job” responding to the coronavirus.
Claiming that the pandemic was unique, Trump said: “This has never happened before. Nineteen seventeen, but it was totally different, it was a flu in that case. If you watch the fake news on television, they don’t even talk about it, but there are 188 other countries right now that are suffering. Some, proportionately, far greater than we are.”
Trump has repeatedly referred to the 1917 flu pandemic, whereas the outbreak happened in 1918 and into 1919.
And when asked about the death toll from coronavirus so far in the US, of almost 155,000 killed, Trump appeared irritated and said: “It is what it is”
His opponent in the upcoming presidential election, Democrat Joe Biden, tweeted on Tuesday morning: “Mr President, step up and do your job before even more American families feel the pain of losing a loved one.”
Biden also wrote: “On July 1st, Donald Trump predicted the coronavirus was going to ‘just disappear.’ He was wrong – and more than 25,000 Americans died due to the virus last month.”
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Swan pressed the president on which countries were doing worse. Trump brandished several pieces of paper with graphs and charts on them that he referred to as he attempted to suggest the US figures compared well internationally.
“Right here, United States is lowest in numerous categories. We’re lower than the world. Lower than Europe.”
“In what?” asks Swan. As it becomes apparent that Trump is talking about the number of deaths as a proportion of cases, Swan says said: “Oh, you’re doing death as a proportion of cases. I’m talking about death as a proportion of population. That’s where the US is really bad. Much worse than Germany, South Korea.”
Trump then says: “You can’t do that.”
According to figures from Johns Hopkins University, the US has had over 4.7m confirmed Covid-19 cases, with 155,471 deaths. The US accounts for more than a quarter of all global confirmed infections.
In another section of the interview, Trump repeats his false assertion that the reason the US has a significantly higher number of cases is because it tests more than anyone else, saying: “You know, there are those that say you can test too much. You do know that.”
Asked who says that, Trump replies: “Oh, just read the manuals. Read the books.”
Trump also appears, without evidence, to assert that children are receiving positive Covid-19 test results for having a runny nose – which is not generally listed among the symptoms of coronavirus, which include a high temperature and a new continuous cough.
“You test, some kid has even just a little runny nose, it’s a case. And then you report many cases,” Trump says.
The president attempts to shift blame for the outbreaks of coronavirus on to state governors, saying: “We have done a great job. We’ve got the governors everything they needed. They didn’t do their job – many of them didn’t, some of them did.”
The actor and activist Mia Farrow tweeted that: “Every American should watch this, the full, flabbergasting interview.”
Trump was also asked about his previous baseless assertion that due to mail-in voting, the forthcoming US election would be “the most inaccurate and fraudulent election in history”.
In the interview, Trump says: “So we have a new phenomena [sic], it’s called mail-in voting.” Swan then clarifies that mail-in voting has existed since the US civil war.
Further attempting to cast doubt on the process, Trump says: “So they’re going to send tens of millions of ballots to California, all over the place. Who’s going to get them? Somebody got a ballot for a dog. Somebody got a ballot for something else. You got millions of ballots going. Nobody even knows where they’re going.”
The interview took place last Tuesday, before the president’s tweet that falsely floated the idea that November’s election could be delayed.
On Maxwell and Epstein, the president appeared to cast doubt on the official account of the cause of Epstein’s death, which has been a repeated source of conspiracy theories.
Of Maxwell, Trump says “Her friend or boyfriend Epstein was either killed or committed suicide in jail. She’s now in jail. Yeah, I wish her well.” Trump goes on twice more to say of Epstein: “Was it suicide or was he killed?”
Parker Molloy
(@ParkerMolloy)
Trump again wishes Ghislaine Maxwell well pic.twitter.com/whWhZoO4mC
August 4, 2020
In another part of the interview, he dismissed again as “fake news” intelligence reports that Russia had been offering bounties to the Taliban for attacks on US forces in Afghanistan. Asked specifically by Swan whether he had ever discussed the issue with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, Trump confirms he has never mentioned it to him.
When Swan asks Trump about Russia supplying weapons to the Taliban, the president asserts: “I have heard that, but it has never reached my desk.”
Lily Adams, a spokeswoman and adviser for the so-called war room of the Democratic party’s national committee slammed the president as incoherent and rambling through misinformation.
“Trump’s disastrous interview would be laughable if the stakes weren’t so high. More than 155,000 Americans have died, over 4.7 million have been infected, and we are in the sharpest economic downturn on record … coronavirus cases are skyrocketing and the economy is spiraling because of his failed response,” Adams said.
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Donald Trump’s suggestion that the 2020 US election could be crooked is a challenge to democracy itself Postponing elections is what autocracies do. On Friday, Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, announced a delay to September’s planned legislative council (LegCo) elections. Ms Lam cited the coronavirus public health emergency as her justification. Yet the real reason is Hong Kong’s political emergency. Hong Kong’s elections have been postponed because even with its very limited democracy, Ms Lam and the Chinese government are afraid the voters will choose a LegCo with greater sympathy for the protests.In spite of their very different systems, Donald Trump’s reasons for proposing the postponement of November’s US presidential election are essentially the same. Mr Trump also cites the pandemic. But his real motives are also political. He thinks he is losing the campaign. He thinks Joe Biden will be elected in November. He wants to stop him if he can, by fair means or foul. And he wants to discredit his own defeat. Continue reading… More
Coronavirus outbreak
Highest one-day total as Democrats urged to skip convention; restrictions reimposed in Mexico, Spain and Israel
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Coronavirus outbreak
Trump administration at war with Fauci as aides claim he has made series of ‘mistakes’ in his predictions
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Donald Trump: ‘I have a very good relationship with Anthony Fauci’ – video
The Trump administration is increasingly at war with Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s top public health expert, over the handling of the coronavirus crisis, as the US continues to report around 60,000 new cases a day.
In what appeared to be a concerted effort to discredit the infectious diseases expert, Trump aides told news outlets over the weekend Fauci, who has become the public face of the government’s response, had made a series of “mistakes” in his predictions.
Fauci’s unvarnished manner and willingness to be blunt in a way that may question or contradict statements by the president have fed reports he has been barred from major media appearances, though he has testified in Congress and continued to speak to the press. Fauci said last week he had not briefed Trump in months.
The US contributed heavily to 230,000 new cases of Covid-19 being reported to the World Health Organization on Sunday. Trump has formally started the process of withdrawing the US from the WHO. Joe Biden, Trump’s opponent for the presidency in November, has said he will reverse that decision, which will take effect in July 2021.
States in the American south in particular appear to be suffering from lifting lockdowns too early. The WHO director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, warned on Monday that those witnessing resurgences of the virus were not following proven methods to reduce risk.
“Let me blunt,” he said. “Too many countries are headed in the wrong direction. The virus remains public enemy number one, but the actions of many governments and people do not reflect this.”
The Trump administration’s unseemly effort against Fauci came as doctors warned that hospitals in several large cities across the US south are close to being overrun.
Florida reported 12,264 new cases on Monday, its second-highest total after 15,299 on Sunday. Just over four months after the first coronavirus death in the US, and as many countries have seemingly managed a decline in cases, the US is still in the grip of the virus. As of Monday morning, Johns Hopkins University reported more than 3.3m cases and 135,219 deaths.
Donald Trump wore a mask in public for the first time over the weekend, a long-delayed concession to the importance of face coverings in preventing the spread of Covid-19. But the government’s predominant focus appeared to be on discrediting the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a 79-year-old public figure who has served under six presidents.
“Several White House officials are concerned about the number of times Dr Fauci has been wrong on things,” an anonymous Trump aide said in a statement released to news outlets.
CNN reported being given bullet points listing statements made by Fauci early in the pandemic, a list which it said “resembled opposition research on a political opponent”.
On Monday Trump himself picked up the offensive, retweeting a post from a former TV dating show host which criticized the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Everyone is lying,” said the post from Chuck Woolery, who hosted the show Love Connection in the 1980s and 90s. “The CDC, media, Democrats, our doctors, not all but most, that we are told to trust.”
Adam Schiff, an influential Democratic congressman, described the president’s behaviour as “atrocious”, telling CNN it was “so characteristic of Donald Trump. He can’t stand the fact that the American people trust Dr Fauci and they don’t trust Donald Trump – and so he has to tear him down.”
At a briefing on Monday afternoon, Trump’s press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, denied the White House was sending out opposition research on Fauci, adding that the bullet points had been provided as “a direct answer to a direct question” from the Washington Post.
Despite the US recording more daily cases than in the early days of the pandemic, deaths are yet to hit the highs of April, when Covid-19 ravaged New York City and areas in other eastern seaboard states.
On Sunday, New York City health officials recorded no coronavirus deaths for the first time since the first death on 11 March, though Mayor Bill de Blasio said there had been an increase in infections among 20- to 29-year olds.
Experts nonetheless say deaths are likely to rise in the coming weeks. Florida alone has now recorded 269,811 coronavirus cases, and the state reported 514 fatalities over the past week, an average of 73 a day. Three weeks ago, Florida was averaging 30 deaths a day.
Texas has also set records for cases in recent days, and on Monday the chief executive of Houston’s public health system warned hospitals were struggling to cope.
“The situation, the best I can describe it is dire and it’s getting worse, it seems like, every day,” Esmail Porsa told MSNBC.
Houston was taken to court by the Texas Republican party over its refusal to allow the party’s convention to go ahead with in-person events. The city won a minor battle on Monday when the state supreme court ruled it was able to cancel the convention.
After Trump wore a mask on Saturday, Adm Brett Giroir, a member of the White House coronavirus taskforce, said mask-wearing in public, which has met with resistance in some Republican-dominated states, was “absolutely essential”.
Giroir, assistant secretary at the health and human services department, told ABC: “If we don’t have that, we will not get control of the virus.”
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Coronavirus outbreak
The president says the scientist leading the US fight against the virus has ‘made a lot of mistakes’
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Donald Trump: ‘I have a very good relationship with Anthony Fauci’ – video
He is the US scientist who became the figurehead of attempts to combat the country’s coronavirus epidemic, described in some quarters as “America’s doctor”.
Now Anthony Fauci appears sidelined by Donald Trump’s White House after repeatedly contradicting the president’s view about the effectiveness of the government response.
In recent days the 79-year-old director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has come under increasing fire from the president and his proxies. Trump told Fox news interviewers that Fauci had “made a lot of mistakes” and said he “disagreed” with Fauci’s claim that the US was in a bad place in its coronavirus response.
Q&A Coronavirus pandemic: 10 countries of concern
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Brazil 67,964 deaths, 1,713,160 cases
President Jair Bolsonaro dismissed the disease as a “little flu” as it rampaged through his country and mocked measures such as wearing masks. Two health ministers have quit and Brazil’s outbreak is the second-deadliest in the world.
India 21,129 deaths, 767,296 cases
India brought in a strict nationwide lockdown in March that slowed the spread of the virus but did not bring it under control. As the country began easing controls, cases surged and it now has the third highest number. Mortality rates are low, but it is unclear if this reflects reporting problems or a relatively resilient population.
Iran 250,458 cases, 12,305 deaths
Iran had one of the first major outbreaks outside China. A lockdown slowed its spread but after that was eased in April, cases rebounded. Several senior officials have tested positive, and the government has strengthened controls, including making masks obligatory in public places.
Israel 33,947 cases, 346 deaths
Israel had an early travel ban and strict lockdowns, and in April the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, declared the country an example to the world in controlling Covid-19. But cases that in May were down to just 20 a day, skyrocketed after the country started opening up. Partial controls have been brought back with warnings more could follow.
Mexico 275,003 cases, 32,796 deaths
President Andrés Manuel López Obrador joined other populists from across the political spectrum in dismissing the threat from coronavirus; when schools closed in March he shared a video of himself hugging fans and kissing a baby. The outbreak is now one of the worst on the continent.
Philippines 51,754 cases, 1,314 deaths
A strict lockdown from March to June kept the disease under control but shrank the economy for the first time in 20 years. Cases have climbed steadily since the country started coming out of lockdown, and President Rodrigo Duterte has said the country cannot afford to fully reopen because it would be overwhelmed by another spike.
Russia 706,179 cases, 10,825 deaths
Coronavirus was slow to arrive in Russia, and travel bans and a lockdown initially slowed its spread, but controls were lifted twice for political reasons – a military parade and a referendum on allowing Putin to stay in power longer. Despite having the fourth biggest outbreak in the world controls are now being eased nationwide.
Serbia 17,342 cases, 352 deaths
Cases are rising rapidly, hospitals are full and doctors exhausted. But the government has rowed back from plans to bring back lockdown controls, after two days of violent protests. Critics blame the sharp rise in cases on authorities who allowed mass gatherings in May and elections in June. Officials say it is due to a lack of sanitary discipline, especially in nightclubs.
South Africa 224,664 cases, 3,602 deaths
South Africa has by far the largest outbreak on the African continent, despite one of the strictest lockdowns in the world. Sales of alcohol and cigarettes were even banned. But it began reopening in May, apparently fuelling the recent rise in cases which have more than doubled over the last two weeks.
US 132,310 deaths, 3,055,491 cases
The US ban on travellers from overseas came too late, and though most states had lockdowns of some form in spring, they varied in length and strictness. Some places that were among the earliest to lift them are now battling fast-rising outbreaks, and the country has the highest number of confirmed cases and deaths. Opposition to lockdowns and mask-wearing remains widespread.
Source: Johns Hopkins CSSE, 9 July
Photograph: Mark R Cristino/EPA
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Described as driven and a workaholic, Fauci had found himself in the uncomfortable position of gently correcting Trump’s false or misleading statements for months. As far back as April the president retweeted a call for him to be fired, although that threat appeared to have receded.
In any case, Trump cannot fire Fauci, who enjoys support on both sides of Congress and has a public approval rating for his coronavirus response of 67% – almost three times that of Trump’s. Instead the strategy appears aimed at damaging his standing while keeping him out of the public eye by cancelling media appearances.
In the latest salvo of a coordinated briefing campaign, a White House official told CNN on Saturday that “several White House officials are concerned about the number of times Dr Fauci has been wrong on things”.
Fauci, who has diplomatically navigated Trump’s often chaotic and sometimes bizarre response to the pandemic, has long been the target of pro-Trump rightwing media in the US, where he has been denounced as “Dr Doom” or accused of being leftwing.
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And having originally been a prominent fixture of Trump’s coronavirus press conferences, he is now markedly less visible.
His influence on the White House too appears to be waning. According to the Washington Post, quoting an unnamed White House official, Fauci last briefed Trump in the first week of June.
Fauci has had a long career in public health, and first came to prominence during the Aids crisis. In recent weeks he has baldly contradicted Trump’s assessments that the US is winning the fight against coronavirus, and criticised the partisan political atmosphere that he suggests has impeded the response.
In an interview for a podcast hosted by the FiveThirtyEight website last week he delivered a damning assessment of the United States’s response to the pandemic in comparison to other countries.
Conceding that some cities and states such as New York had responded better than others, Fauci said: “As a country, when you compare us to other countries, I don’t think you can say we’re doing great. I mean, we’re just not.” He added that it was “understandable” why the European Union and others had banned US citizens from entering.
On the role of America’s toxic political climate, he said: “You have to be having blind-folders on and covering your ears to think that we don’t live in a very divisive society now, from a political standpoint … So I think you’d have to make the assumption that if there wasn’t such divisiveness, that we would have a more coordinated approach.”
Although Fauci has been at odds with Trump publicly before – not least over the president’s advocacy for the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 treatment – his most recent interventions have strayed from the strictly scientific field to the political.
In doing so he has departed from what he has previously said is his guiding credo that “you stay completely apolitical and non-ideological, and you stick to what it is that you do. I’m a scientist and I’m a physician. And that’s it.”
The pushback against Fauci continued on Sunday when Admiral Brett Giroir, the Trump-appointed coronavirus testing tsar, told NBC that Fauci “is not 100% right” and that he doesn’t necessarily “have the whole national interest in mind”, adding that “he looks at it from a very narrow public health point of view”.
Described in a 2012 profile as “demanding and caustic with a dollop of charm”, Fauci has long given the impression that, as a general rule, he does not suffer fools gladly. Some of his colleagues told Science magazine in March that his approach to the coronavirus would be to walk a fine line in “being honest to the public and policymakers but not so openly critical that he loses influence by being ignored or forced to resign”.
Increasingly it appears that approach has collided with the reality of a president unwilling to brook any criticism or dissent.
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