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      Big Short author Michael Lewis on the inside story of America’s failed Covid response

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      The author and journalist Michael Lewis discusses reporting on a group of individuals who tried to alert the US government to the dangers of its inaction as coronavirus cases began to rise at an alarming rate

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      The author and journalist Michael Lewis has made a career of writing about people who see things coming that most of us don’t. His book The Big Short, which was turned into an Oscar-winning film, followed a group of investors who predicted the collapse of the American housing market in 2007. He tells Rachel Humphreys about the group of individuals who have become the focus of his new book, The Premonition. As Covid case numbers began to rise at an alarming rate across America, Lewis discovered a group of medics and scientists who were trying to alert the US government to the dangers of its inaction. To order The Premonition, visit the Guardian bookshop. More

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      Ex-Pentagon chief will defend military’s Capitol riots response to Congress

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      Donald Trump’s acting defense secretary during the 6 January Capitol riots plans to tell Congress that he was concerned in the days before the insurrection that sending troops to the building would fan fears of a military coup and could cause a repeat of the deadly Kent State shootings, according to a copy of prepared remarks obtained by the Associated Press.Christopher Miller’s testimony is aimed at defending the Pentagon’s response to the chaos of the day and rebutting broad criticism that military forces were too slow to arrive even as pro-Trump rioters violently breached the building and stormed inside. He casts himself as a deliberate leader who was determined that the military have only limited involvement, a perspective he says was shaped by criticism of the aggressive response to the civil unrest that roiled American cities months earlier, as well as decades-old episodes that ended in violence.The defense department, he will tell members of the House oversight committee on Wednesday, has “an extremely poor record in supporting domestic law enforcement”, including during civil rights and anti-Vietnam war demonstrations in the 1960s and 1970s.“And some 51 years ago, on May 4, 1970, Ohio national guard troops fired at demonstrators at Kent State University and killed four American civilians,” Miller will say, adding, “I was committed to avoiding repeating these scenarios.”He will also deny that Trump, criticized for failing to forcefully condemn the rioters, had any involvement in the defense department’s response and will say that Trump had even suggested that 10,000 troops might be needed for 6 January.Miller, expected to testify alongside the former acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen and District of Columbia police chief, Robert Contee III, will be the most senior defense department official to participate in congressional hearings on the riots. The sessions have been characterized by finger-pointing by officials across agencies about missed intelligence, poor preparations and an inadequate law enforcement response.The Capitol police have faced criticism for being badly overmatched, the FBI for failing to share with sufficient urgency intelligence suggesting a possible “war” at the Capitol, and the defense department for an hours-long delay in getting support to the complex despite the violent, deadly chaos unfolding on TV.Rosen, for his part, is expected to tell lawmakers that the justice department “took appropriate precautions” ahead of the riot, putting tactical and other elite units on standby after local police reports indicated that 10,000 to 30,000 people were expected at rallies and protests, according to prepared remarks obtained by the AP.Miller’s testimony will amount to the most thorough explanation of Pentagon actions after months of criticism that it took hours for the national guard to arrive.In his remarks, he defends his resistance to a heavy military response as being shaped by public “hysteria” about the possibility of a military coup or concerns that the military might be used to help overturn the election results. Democrats have signaled that they intend to press Miller on why it took so long for the national guard to arrive despite urgent plans for help. Miller will contend that those complaints are unjustified, though he also concedes that the guard was not rushed to the scene – a decision that he maintains was intentional.“This isn’t a video game where you can move forces with a flick of the thumb or a movie that glosses over the logistical challenges and the time required to coordinate and synchronize with the multitude of other entities involved, or with complying with the important legal requirements involved in the use of such forces,“ he will say.Even after the guard was requested, he said he felt compelled to send them “in with a plan to not only succeed but that would spare them unnecessary exposure and spare everyone the consequences of poor planning or execution”.Although the timeline Miller offers in his remarks generally matches up with that provided by other high-ranking leaders, he notably puts himself at odds with William Walker, who as commanding general of the DC national guard testified to what he said were unusual Pentagon restrictions that impeded his response and contributed to a three-hour delay between the time he requested aid and the time it was received. Walker has since become the House sergeant-at-arms, in charge of the chamber’s security.Miller will say that Walker was given “all the authority he needed to fulfill the mission” and that before 6 January he had never expressed any concern about the forces he had at his disposal. Miller said he approved the activation of the guard at 3pm. He said that though that support did not arrive at the Capitol complex until 5.22pm, the coordination, planning and deputizing of personnel by civilian law enforcement all took time.Miller, a Green Beret and retired army colonel, served as a White House counter-terrorism adviser under Trump before being tapped as the acting defense secretary for the final months of the Trump administration. He replaced Mark Esper, who was fired after the election after being seen by Trump as insufficiently loyal.The abrupt appointment raised concerns that Miller was in place to be a Trump loyalist. In his opening statement, though, he will say that he believes Trump “encouraged the protesters” but decline to say if he thinks the president bears responsibility. He recounts a conversation on 5 January when Trump, struck by a crowd of supporters at a rally that day, told him that 10,000 troops would be needed the next day.“The call lasted fewer than 30 seconds and I did not respond substantively, and there was no elaboration. I took his comment to mean that a large force would be required to maintain order the following day,” Miller says in his statement. More

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      A mother’s happy day: military spouse deported by Trump returns to family

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      Three years ago Alejandra Juarez fell victim to Donald Trump’s cruelty as the wife of a decorated US Marine Corps veteran and mother of two young US citizen daughters was deported to Mexico under the former president’s zero-tolerance immigration policies.On Saturday Juarez will rejoin her family in Florida as one of the first beneficiaries of a humanitarian program set up by Joe Biden’s administration to reunify parents Trump separated from their children.But while Juarez’s Mother’s Day weekend reunion with daughters Pamela, 19, Estela, 11, and husband Temo will close a lengthy, painful journey of isolation and depression, she sees it as a door opening for other families torn apart by deportation.“I’m happy this is behind me and my family, and hoping this will lead to a permanent solution not only for military spouses like myself, but for everyone,” she told the Guardian from Mérida, Mexico, where she has been living since being forced from her home in Davenport, Florida, in 2018.“I hope it will have a domino effect and bring many more people back.”The Biden administration’s family reunification taskforce was set up by the new president’s executive order in February and began returning some of those “unjustly separated at the US-Mexico border” during the Trump era this week by granting them “humanitarian parole”.The numbers, however, are uncertain. The homeland security department (DHS) taskforce has been working to identify cases, but admits finding them all will be a lengthy process. It is scheduled to deliver its first report on 2 June.Also unclear is how many military families were affected by what Biden has called the “human tragedy” of separations during the four years Trump was in office. Federal agencies do not record military service in immigration cases, but a 2018 report by the advocacy group American Families United estimated that up to 11,800 active service men and women, all US citizens or permanent residents, had a spouse vulnerable to deportation.Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary who is also the taskforce’s chair, said this week’s first wave of reunifications was “just the beginning”.“Many more will follow, and we recognize the importance of providing these families with the stability and resources they need to heal,” he said, noting the taskforce was “exploring options” for long-term legal stability for reunified families.Juarez, 41, and her 43-year-old husband Cuauhtemoc, known as Temo, were both born in Mexico. But while he came to the US legally as a child and was naturalized in 2002, shortly before a 16-month deployment in Iraq, she spent the 18 years of their marriage until her deportation undocumented.As a teenager she was caught crossing the border illegally and chose to sign a document in English she said she didn’t understand and return to Mexico voluntarily instead of being placed in detention. The document permanently forfeited her right to legal status, which she did not discover until after her marriage.She returned to the US and lived anonymously in Florida with her husband until a traffic stop in 2013 exposed her undocumented status. Even then, under the more relaxed policies of Barack Obama’s administration, she was allowed to stay with twice-yearly check-ins with immigration authorities.Juarez self-deported in 2018 after Trump implemented his no-tolerance approach, and before authorities could enforce a removal order issued against her. She rented an apartment in Mexico with Estela while her husband remained in Florida to run his roofing business and allow Pamela to finish high school, but with money running out and two households to run, visits to Mexico became less frequent.When the coronavirus pandemic struck, Juarez said, her jobs teaching English slowed up and Estela returned to Florida. The knowledge her daughters were growing up without their mother, she said, caused her depression for which she needed therapy.Darren Soto, a Florida Democratic US congressman, lobbied the White House for Juarez to be allowed to return, and has introduced the Protect Patriot Spouses Act to Congress to protect military families from deportations.“President Trump’s administration was an aberration in American history with regard to immigration. Now we have humanitarian considerations, which are American values, reincorporated into our federal government,” said Soto, who also backs the American Families United Act that would allow some undocumented immigrants with US citizen family members to stay.“It’s been a long time coming, but Alejandra never gave up on us and we never gave up on her. They’ve missed almost three years of cherished memories together and it’s been traumatic for all of them.”Juarez said she was grateful for the efforts of Soto, her immigration lawyers and daughter Estela, who was one of her mother’s biggest cheerleaders. The 11-year-old excoriated Trump at last year’s Democratic national convention, reading a letter in which she told him: “You tore our world apart.”In January, she appealed for Biden’s help in an emotional video in which she likened her father’s military service to that of the new president’s late son Beau. Estela, Juarez said, is documenting the family’s story in a forthcoming book titled Until Someone Listens.For now, Juarez said, her intention is making up for lost time.“They need my cooking and they already told me what they want for breakfast on Sunday, so I’ll go grocery shopping like I always did, make breakfast for all of them and go to church like we used to,” she said. “I just want to enjoy my house and my family again.” More

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      The first 100 days of Biden were also the first 100 without Trump – that’s telling | Robert Reich

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      By almost any measure, Joe Biden’s first 100 days have been hugely successful. Getting millions of Americans inoculated against Covid-19 and beginning to revive the economy are central to that success.Two-thirds of Americans support Biden’s $1.9tn stimulus plan, already enacted. His infrastructure and family plans, which he outlined on Wednesday night at a joint session of Congress, also have broad backing. The $6tn price tag for all this would make it the largest expansion of the federal government since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. But for most Americans, it doesn’t feel radical.Rather than bet it all on a single large-scale program such as universal healthcare – which Bill Clinton failed to accomplish and which Barack Obama turned into a target of Republican fearmongering – Biden has picked an array of popular initiatives, such as preschool, public community college, paid family and medical leave, home care and infrastructure repairs, which are harder to vilify.Economists talk about pent-up demand for private consumer goods, caused by the pandemic. Biden is responding to a pent-up demand for public goods. The demand has been there for years but the pandemic has starkly revealed it. Compared with workers in other developed nations, Americans enjoy few if any social benefits and safety nets. Biden is saying, in effect, it’s time we caught up.Even on the fraught issue of race, the contrast with Trump has strengthened Biden’s handBesides, it’s hard for Republicans to paint Biden as a radical. He doesn’t feel scary. He’s old, grandfatherly. He speaks haltingly. He’s humble. When he talks about the needs of average working people, it’s clear he knows them.Biden has also been helped by the contrast to his immediate predecessor – the most divisive and authoritarian personality to occupy the Oval Office in modern memory. Had Biden been elected directly after Obama, regardless of the pandemic and economic crisis, it’s unlikely he and his ambitious plans would seem so benign.In his address to Congress, Biden credited others for the achievements of his first 100 days. They had been accomplished “because of you”, he said, even giving a nod to Republicans. His predecessor was incapable of crediting anyone else for anything.Meanwhile, the Republican party, still captive to its Trumpian base, has no message or policies to counter Biden’s proposals. Donald Trump left it with little more than a list of grievances irrelevant to the practical needs of most Americans: that Trump would have been re-elected but for fraudulent votes and a “deep state” conspiracy, that Democrats are “socialists” and that the “left” is intent on taking away American freedoms.Biden has a razor-thin majority in Congress and must keep every Democratic senator in line if he is to get his plans enacted. But the vacuum on the right has allowed him to dominate the public conversation about his initiatives, which makes passage more likely.Trump is aiding Biden in other ways. Trump’s yawning budget deficits help normalize Biden’s. When Trump sent $1,200 stimulus checks to most Americans last year regardless of whether they had a job, he cleared the way for Biden to deliver generous jobless benefits.Trump’s giant $1.9tn tax cut for big corporations and the wealthy, none of which “trickled down”, make Biden’s proposals to increase taxes on corporations and the wealthy to pay for infrastructure and education seem even more reasonable.Trump’s fierce economic nationalism has made Biden’s “buy American” initiative appear innocent by comparison. Trump’s angry populism has allowed Biden to criticize Wall Street and support unions without causing a ripple.At the same time, Trumpian lawmakers’ refusal to concede the election and their efforts to suppress votes have alienated much of corporate America, pushing executives toward Biden by default.Even on the fraught issue of race, the contrast with Trump has strengthened Biden’s hand. Most Americans were so repulsed by Trump’s overt racism and overtures to white supremacists, especially after the police murder of George Floyd, that Biden’s initiatives to end police brutality and “root out systemic racism”, as he said on Wednesday night, seem appropriate correctives.The first 100 days of the Biden presidency were also the first 100 days of America without Trump, and the two cannot be separated.With any luck, Biden’s plans might prove to be the antidote to Trumpism – creating enough decent-paying working-class jobs, along with benefits such as childcare and free community college, as to forestall some of the rightwing dyspepsia that Trump whipped into a fury. More

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      Trump’s border wall hits a wall as Pentagon cancels parts funded from its budget

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      The US Department of Defense said on Friday it was cancelling the construction of parts of former president Donald Trump’s border wall with Mexico that were being built using military funds.All unobligated money was being returned to military, the Pentagon said.Trump declared a national emergency in 2019, in an effort to redirect funding to build a wall along the southern border.Joe Biden issued a proclamation on 20 January, his first day in office, ordering a freeze on border wall projects and directing a review of the legality of funding and contracting methods.“The Department of Defense is proceeding with canceling all border barrier construction projects paid for with funds originally intended for other military missions and functions such as schools for military children, overseas military construction projects in partner nations, and the national guard and reserve equipment account,” said a Pentagon spokesperson, Jamal Brown.Brown said the returned funds would be used for deferred military construction projects.It was not immediately clear how much would be returned to the military, but it was likely to be several billion dollars.Trump’s diversion of funds from the Pentagon was heavily criticized by lawmakers, who said it put national security at risk and circumvented Congress.In 2019, the military said more than 120 construction projects would be adversely affected by Trump’s move.The Department of Homeland Security also announced on Friday that it would take steps to address “physical dangers resulting from the previous administration’s approach to border wall construction”.It said it would repair the Rio Grande Valley flood barrier system, into which it said wall construction under the Trump administration had blown large holes. The department also said it work to remediate soil erosion along a wall segment in San Diego. More

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      Restorationists urge Jill Biden to erase Melania Trump’s Rose Garden makeover

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      Efforts to erase the Trump family legacy have reached the White House potting sheds and nurseries with Jill Biden being urged to restore the mansion’s garden to a state that predates ex-First Lady Melania Trump’s 2019 makeover.An online petition calling on the first lady to return the Rose Garden to its “former glory” has been signed by more than 54,000 people. The petition says Biden’s predecessor “had the cherry trees, a gift from Japan, removed as well as the rest of the foliage and replaced with a boring tribute to herself”.Restorationists urge that the garden be returned to a state that was created in the early 1960s by Jacqueline Kennedy with the help of famed designer Bunny Mellon.“Jackie’s legacy was ripped away from Americans who remembered all that the Kennedys meant to us,” the petition reads, and notes that her husband, the president, had said that “the White House had no garden equal in quality or attractiveness to the gardens that he had seen and in which he had been entertained in Europe.”In July 2020, as her husband fought for re-election and the coronavirus pandemic raged, Trump announced that her renovation project, which included electrical upgrades for television appearances, a new walkway and new flowers and shrubs, would be an “act of expressing hope and optimism for the future”.The changes to the garden were the first since Michelle Obama initiated a project in 2009 to dig up an 1,100 square foot plot on the South Lawn adjacent to the tennis courts for a vegetable garden.The plan included replacing crab apple trees, introducing a new assortment of white “JFK” and pale pink “peace” roses, and a new drainage system. “In a way, the metaphor of openness and improved access became our overall plan concept,” wrote Perry Guillot, the landscape architect overseeing the project.But the renovation met with criticism focused on Trump’s decision to go ahead with her project during the Covid-19 pandemic. There is no indication, as yet, that Jill Biden plans to act on the petition’s recommendations.On Thursday, her husband was spotted by the White House press corps picking a dandelion for his wife from the White House lawn before they boarded a helicopter.A day later, on Friday, the first lady commemorated Arbor Day by planting a linden tree on the north lawn of the White House. Her press office said it was to replace one removed last month that was deemed a risk and had not been planted by a historical figure.“Who doesn’t plant trees in high heels?” she said. More

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      Josh Hawley attacks ‘woke capitalism’ and claims to be victim of cancel culture

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      In a new book, the Republican senator Josh Hawley of Missouri attacks what he calls “woke capitalism” and claims to be a victim of cancel culture over his actions around the Capitol attack of 6 January.Hawley, 41, is a leading figure on the far right of the Republican party, jostling to inherit Donald Trump’s populist crown and with it the presidential nomination in 2024.The Tyranny of Big Tech will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.In his introduction, Hawley seeks to defend his actions surrounding what he calls the “grisly riot” at the US Capitol which was stormed by a pro-Trump mob in scenes of violence that shocked the world and cost five lives.But he does not mention his most controversial act: raising a fist in solidarity with Trump supporters told by the then president to march on the building and “fight like hell” in service of his lie that his defeat by Joe Biden was the result of electoral fraud.Hawley’s gesture became a worldwide symbol of a riot in which the mob roamed the halls Congress, in some cases looking for lawmakers to kidnap or kill. More than 400 people have been charged.Later on 6 January, in a process delayed by the riot and with the world in shock, Republicans in the House and Senate went through with formal objections to results in Arizona and Pennsylvania, states which Biden won.Hawley objected to the Pennsylvania result. In Arizona, Republicans are proceeding with a hugely controversial audit which Trump has backed. Had the two states been overturned, Biden would still be president.Publisher Simon & Schuster dropped Hawley’s book, only for it to be swiftly picked up by Regnery, a conservative imprint for which Simon & Schuster handles distribution.That notwithstanding, Hawley writes: “This is the book the corporate monopolies did not want you to read.”He also claims “not [to have] encourag[ed] the riot, as the publisher certainly knew” and says he “fiercely condemned the violence and the thugs who perpetrated it”.He says his “sin” was to formally object to election results in one state, “precisely as permitted by law” and as Democrats had done before.Hawley writes that he was “branded a ‘seditionist’ and worse. But like many others attacked by the corporations and the left, my real crime was to have challenged the reign of the woke capitalists.”On Monday, the senator responded to this story on Twitter.“Oh dear,” he wrote. “I’ve offended the delicate sensibilities of The Guardian! I didn’t get their approval before I wrote my book. Order a copy today and own the libs.”On the page, Google and Facebook are among Hawley’s main targets, in part for their exploitation of user data. He does not discuss his own links with donor Peter Thiel, founder of the tech firm Palantir, which became embroiled in the Cambridge Analytica data scandal.Hawley has introduced the “Bust Up Big Tech Act” and found some common ground with Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a Democrat seeking antitrust reform. But the Republican remains a leading troll for liberal discontent. Last week, his was the sole vote against an anti-Asian hate crimes bill which 94 senators backed.On Monday, meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reported that more than 200 staff members at Simon & Schuster had signed and delivered a petition demanding the company cease all dealings with people connected to the Trump administration.The petition, reportedly supported by “several thousand outside supporters, including well-known Black writers”, followed the company’s rejection last week of a staff demand it not publish two books by former vice-president Mike Pence. More

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      Trump delayed $20bn in aid to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, report finds

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      The Trump administration delayed more than $20bn in hurricane relief aid for Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, according to a report by the housing department’s office of the inspector General.The efforts to deliver recovery funding to the island were “unnecessarily delayed by bureaucratic obstacles”, according to the 46-page report. The hurricane, which hit the island in 2017, killed thousands of people and left thousands more without electricity or water for months.One of the main hurdles was the requirement imposed by the Office of Management and Budget, which established an interagency review before grant approvals, according to a report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (Hud). The process, which was never before required for allocating disaster funds, prevented Hud from publishing its draft notice of funding by the target date.The investigators were unable to determine why the extra layer of review was required due “denials of access and refusals to cooperate”, according to the report.The inspector general’s office conducted 31 interviews of 20 current and former Hud officials and two now-former Puerto Rico department of housing senior officials to write the report. However, investigators did not have access to the former Hud secretary Ben Carson and other political officials. The investigators were also denied or delayed access to Hud information on several occasions.The report found that Hud’s review and approval of their funding action plan for Puerto Rico was delayed due to the 2018-2019 government shutdown.“Staffing shortages due to the shutdown and miscommunications between HUD and the Puerto Rico Department of Housing pertaining to the grantee’s bank information delayed PRDOH’s ability to access grant funds until several days after the shutdown ended,” reads the document.The office of the inspector general investigation also said that both the former Hud secretary and former Hud assistant secretary Brian Montgomery expressed “mounting concerns and frustrations” to the then OMB director, Russell Vought, about Hud’s “inability” to expedite the release of funds.The report was conducted after a request from representatives Nydia Velázquez, Bennie Thompson, and Raúl Grijalva to investigate several allegations that had been reported in a January 2019 Washington Post article related to the Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Program (CDBG-DR) funds appropriated for Puerto Rico.In February 2020, the office of the inspector general received a request from Senators Elizabeth Warren, Edward Markey, Richard Blumenthal, Bernie Sanders and Chris Van Hollen, and Representatives Joaquín Castro, Darren Soto, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, James P McGovern, Raúl Grijvala, and José Serrano, asking the office to conduct an inquiry into whether delays in Hud’s release of the disaster-recovery funds for Puerto Rico violated the Impoundment Control Act of 1974.On Monday, Hud removed restrictions imposed by the Trump administration on access to $8.2bn in Community Development Block Grant Mitigation. The agency stalled the release of the disaster relief aid in 2019 and imposed additional restrictions on how the island could access the funds. The agency cited corruption and financial mismanagement concerns for the blocks.Hurricane Maria hit hundreds of thousands of homes on 20 September 2017, and many were still living under blue tarps three years later.More than 5,000 people died in Puerto Rico in 2017 due to the hurricane, according to a study by the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. A George Washington University suggests more than 2,000 died due to the hurricane.On Wednesday, a group of Puerto Rican scientists said they will begin to conduct verbal autopsies or surveys with relatives, friends and other acquaintances of the fatal victims of the hurricane. The study aims to elaborate on the causes and factors that contributed to the deaths.The study is a collaboration between the University of Puerto Rico Graduate School of Public Health and George Washington University, which were hired by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and will conduct the report as part of an order by the US Congress.“Some people might have died instantly due to drowning, landslides or collapses, but others might have died days, weeks or months later due to socio-environmental and infrastructure factors, such as the lack of water or electricity, oxygen or medicines,” Pablo Méndez Lázaro, associate professor of the department of environmental health at the University of Puerto Rico Graduate School of Public Health, told a local news outlet. More