A year ago, things were looking pretty rosy for GOP Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa, with her approval rating hitting a high point of 57% in February 2019. A year later, following Senate Republicans' sham zero-witness impeachment trial and their subsequent acquittal of Donald Trump, Ernst's approval ratings have taken a hit, slipping fully 10 points to 46%.
A plurality of Iowa voters, 41%, still say they will definitely vote for Ernst this fall, but 31% also vowed to vote against her, and another 20% were open to considering someone else. Democrats are currently fielding candidates in a five-way primary, so Ernst's challenger isn't clear yet. But starting the race with 51% of your constituents either vowing to vote against you or open to an alternative is not a strong start for an incumbent senator.
Hawkeye State independents reflect the wariness of the larger electorate, with 32% pledging to back Ernst and 25% promising to vote against her, while 31% consider voting for someone else.
Trump's stumbles on trade and Ernst's unwillingness to challenge him on anything are also part of the equation. One undecided voter said she would support whoever was willing to take on Trump. "You have to get people in there who are willing to take him on,” said 62-year-old Kerri Christian.
Ernst joins a quartet of GOP senators who are facing an uphill climb to reelection: Susan Collins of Maine, Cory Gardner of Colorado, Martha McSally of Arizona, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. In addition, Democrats just put another GOP seat in play with the announcement that Montana Gov. Steve Bullock would take on GOP Sen. Steve Daines for his seat in November.
That's half a dozen solid GOP targets to work with in a year in which Democrats need a net gain of three or four pick-ups, depending on whether Trump is reelected, in order to flip the chamber.
They traverse the country every week by plane, appear at events with hundreds of people and shake countless hands. They work in a sprawling complex with a constant influx of tourists. And two-thirds of them are over the age of 60.
In other words, U.S. senators are among those most at-risk of contracting — and potentially succumbing — to the coronavirus that is spreading rapidly around the globe.
But most of them have no intention of radically changing their habits amid a seemingly uncontrolled outbreak.
“Our lifestyle is the exact opposite of a quarantine. We are by nature public animals and in contact with the public, and you know I spent the weekend going to a dozen events — a dozen — and half the time people elbow, fist bump, shake hands,” Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), 75, said. “I’m not scared, I’m healthy, I can deal with it — but I’m in the age group and I take it seriously.”
Senators described their institution as uniquely vulnerable to the virus, which has disproportionately impacted the elderly. And they acknowledged that the nature of their jobs makes it much more likely that they will come in contact with the virus.
“Somewhere between a football team and a nursing home is where I’d put us,” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), 64, quipped when asked about senators’ susceptibility.
“I think most members are in good shape,” he added. “But it does attack older people like myself. But again, it’s a lot like the flu in terms of the way it interacts — without a vaccine.”
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), 62, said he doubled the number of paid sick days for his staffers on Monday to encourage them to stay home if they are sick. But those who have been infected with the virus often do not show symptoms for several days, and he acknowledged that it will be difficult for those who work in the Capitol to remain healthy.
“You can’t just not shake people’s hands,” Kaine said. “We are in a profession where we are with a ton of people and we are interacting with them in ways where even if it’s a disease where you can be asymptomatic and transmit. It’s challenging.”
Both the House and Senate are scheduled to head off on a week-long recess next week, and in the meantime lawmakers will grapple with twin — and often competing — priorities: protecting themselves, but also standing ready to legislate on a possible economic stimulus package.
Lawmakers are also worried about inducing potentially unnecessary panic among Americans, and said it was too early to consider operational changes like barring tourists or asking staffers to work from home.
So far, Senate leaders have not hinted at any imminent changes to the chamber’s schedule that could keep lawmakers on recess for longer. The matter was not discussed at the Senate GOP leadership meeting on Monday evening, according to an attendee. And Speaker Nancy Pelosi said there was no reason to alter the congressional calendar “at this time.”
But on Sunday and Monday alone, there were new reasons for senators to be alarmed about their daily and weekly routines.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz announced that he would self-quarantine this week at his home in Texas after coming into contact with an attendee at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) who later tested positive for the coronavirus. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) opted against attending a House GOP retreat over the weekend, citing concerns about transmitting the virus to vulnerable family members.
Two additional House Republicans — Doug Collins of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida — announced they, too, would self-quarantine. Both men interacted with the president in recent days: Collins shook hands with him last week and Gaetz rode with him on Air Force One on Monday.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell thanked Cruz for staying home “out of an abundance of caution” and urged his colleagues to listen to health experts.
“Our great nation is very strong,” he said. “We have enormous expertise and tremendous capabilities.”
On top of that, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new guidance on Sunday warning the elderly and those with underlying health conditions against taking long flights. The federal government’s guidance has changed almost daily as officials learn more about the coronavirus and its effects on the human body, and lawmakers said they are prepared for more restrictions.
“I’m on an airplane twice a week for an hour or two each time and there will come a point where they’re going to tell me that’s not a smart thing to do,” Durbin acknowledged.
Senators said it was all but inevitable that one of them contracts the virus or comes in contact with someone who has tested positive for it, especially given the high volume of tourists who visit the Capitol every day.
“I don’t think there’s any way to avoid that, to be frank,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), 48, who travels between Washington and Miami every week. “Nobody wants to talk about it, but it’s a fact.”
“I think we should assume that there are going to be cases,” Rubio added.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s top infectious disease expert, said the top Democratic presidential candidates — a senator and ex-senator in their 70s — as well as Trump himself should assess their own risks and make decisions accordingly.
“They have made a commitment of their life to serve publicly, and that’s what they're doing,” Fauci said during an interview on CNN. “There are risks that people take. And there are relative risks. Each individual makes up their mind for their own safety.”
Not all senators have seen a cause for alarm. Many of them have yet to cancel events and are doing what countless other Americans do: wash their hands more often, use hand sanitizer and adopt the growing elbow-bump trend.
“[Medical officials] haven’t suggested anything yet. And because they’re experts — and we need to listen to the experts more now than ever before — I’m not concerned,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), 86, said in a brief interview.
“I’m using more hand sanitizer. I was disappointed Tito’s Vodka isn’t an approved sanitizer, but you got to make do with what you got,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), 68, quipped. “But I think seriously, just exercising good personal hygiene will help a lot.”
Heather Caygle and Myah Ward contributed to this report.
U.S. coronavirus response has been … not the best. And that’s coming from the top, expert after expert says. While the career officials and scientists working on the issue throughout the government remain the same as in previous disease outbreaks, Donald Trump has set the conditions under which they’re working in important ways, through his emphasis on political messaging, his aides’ reluctance to give him news he doesn’t want to hear, and his own vast and sweeping ignorance.
From the moment COVID-19 started making news, Trump’s public statements have focused on the message that everything is fine. “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China,” told Sean Hannity on February 2. “But we can’t have thousands of people coming in who may have this problem, the coronavirus. So, we’re going to see what happens, but we did shut it down, yes.” Fast forward five weeks and around 580 cases in the United States and it’s clear that Trump did not “shut it down, yes.”
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Of course not every case of coronavirus in the U.S. is attributable to Trump’s failures. The disease was always going to spread—but there’s the big problem. It was always going to spread, and Trump was working against preparedness. Jeremy Konyndyk, former director of the USAID’s Office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance under President Barack Obama—including during the Ebola outbreak—told Vox that once Trump has declared victory for his response to any crisis, “if in reality the response is anything less than a great success, it’s very, very hard for the government to acknowledge that and adjust accordingly.”
Specifically, “President Trump’s insistence that the strategy of keeping the disease out of the country was succeeding really handicapped the rest of the response. Here’s why: It makes it harder for the government to plan for the moment the strategy stops working. That’s critical in this kind of situation,” Konyndyk said. “The whole point of an overseas containment strategy is to buy you time. It delays the arrival of an outbreak in a country, but it cannot ultimately stop it. You’re not, or you shouldn’t be, hoping that that will be all that you need to do.”
The White House response to the outbreak has also suffered from typical Trumpian management, with muddled lines of authority over the response and lots of infighting. “The boss has made it clear, he likes to see his people fight, and he wants the news to be good,” an “adviser to a senior health official involved in the coronavirus response” told Politico. “This is the world he’s made.”
Trump’s message to the public also poses dangers, as when, talking to Hannity again, Trump downplayed the fatality rate from COVID-19, saying that “we have thousands or hundreds of thousands of people that get better, just by, you know, sitting around and even going to work, some of them go to work, but they get better[.]” Talking about people with coronavirus going to work? Not helpful in slowing the spread of the disease, even though it was not expressed as a direct suggestion.
Trump is able to botch this so thoroughly in part because he has no serious pushback from his own party. Senate Republicans are not sending him a strong message that he needs to respond quickly and effectively—instead, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell dragged his feet on adequate funding to fight the disease and used it as yet another excuse to attack Democrats. In early February, Sen. Tom Cotton spread a conspiracy theory when he suggested that COVID-19 could have come from a “superlaboratory.” And, of course, every Republican senator other than Mitt Romney owns every damn thing Trump does after voting to acquit him in his impeachment trial.
Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), who made a name for herself during the House impeachment trial by staunchly defending President Donald Trump, was just viciously harassed and attacked while shopping at a grocery store.
Stefanik, who represents New York’s 21st district, took to Twitter to post a photo of a hateful note that was left on her windshield by a liberal who had recognized her.
“Rot in hell FASCIST PIG,” the note read.
It is truly sad that the radical Far-Left cannot see beyond their vicious hate.
My husband and I went grocery shopping this morning before district events and enjoyed chatting with constituents throughout the store.
This vile anonymous note was left on our car. pic.twitter.com/4K5OBN8qVj
— Elise Stefanik (@EliseStefanik) March 7, 2020
“My husband and I went grocery shopping this morning before district events and enjoyed chatting with constituents throughout the store,” Stefanik wrote. “This vile anonymous note was left on our car.”
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Republicans have long been warning Democrats that encouraging their followers to target GOP officials in public is a very bad idea. Maxine Waters (D-CA) infamously told her supporters in July of 2018 to confront Trump supporters whenever they see them in public.
“Let’s make sure we show up wherever we have to show up,” Waters said, according to The Blaze. “And if you see anybody from that Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. And you push back on them. And you tell them they’re not welcome anymore, anywhere. We’ve got to get the children connected to their parents.”
Stefanik has asked Tedra Cobb, her Democratic opponent, to condemn the attack against her.
“As an elected official, I understand that respectful & passionate policy disagreements are foundational to our democracy. But this note is just sad hatred,” Stefanik said. “We are praying for the author. This hateful rhetoric should be publicly condemned by my opponent immediately.”
Cobb, however, refused to condemn the attack, only describing the note as “damaging and wrong.”
“I think it’s time you joined me in pledging not to name call in this campaign. I’d love to work with you to set a better example for #NY21,” Cobb said.
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Stefanik responded by pointing out that Cobb didn’t condemn the attack.
“One is a policy difference (you have voted numerous times to raise taxes) the other is a vicious, vile, sick attack,” she said. “They are not the same and voters know it.”
Democrats and the mainstream media have vilified conservatives to the point where crazed liberals think it is acceptable to attack them in any way they see fit. Attacks such as this one are only escalating, and if Democrats don’t start condemning them soon, something really bad is likely going to happen to a Republican.
Please keep all Republican lawmakers in your thoughts and prayers.
This piece originally appeared in LifeZette and is used by permission.
Read more at LifeZette:
GOP lawmakers say Obama DHS whistleblower Philip Haney was ‘murdered’
Why the Democrat machine is terrified of Tulsi Gabbard
New Coronavirus models predicts a minimum of 15 million dead, $2.4 trillion economic collapse
The post GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik Suffers ‘Vicious, Vile, Sick Attack’ In Grocery Store appeared first on The Political Insider.
Most Americans are holding their breath while we wait for the incompetence of our current administration and their gutted health infrastructure to catch up and reveal—by way of more comprehensive testing—how much COVID-19, caused by the coronavirus, has penetrated our country. Every day news cases are reported, new people are being monitored, but anyone paying attention to the news should understand that no one can fully know how many people are at risk. The anxiety has led to runs on supplies across the country, and a general unease about what we are, and are not, doing to take preventative measures. Business Insider interviewed a 36-year-old Bay Area man from Cupertino, California, who has been self-quarantined since returning from Kunming, China, on Feb. 2.
The man, who wished to remain anonymous, explained that he arrived in China on January 25, when at least 217 confirmed cases of COVID-19 were publicly known. According to the man, the differences between his experience in China and in the U.S. are alarming.
Starting with the difference at the airports, the man explains that full-body screenings with infrared thermometers were performed at the Kunming airport while most people were wearing masks.* Upon his arrival at San Francisco International Airport, he says that no one was wearing masks and no one was taking temperatures. He waited for hours in customs before his temperature was taken, and according to the man, the paperwork he was asked to fill out was handwritten and photocopied. "They literally had no idea what they were doing."
He tells Business Insider that since he and his family were not experiencing symptoms of the virus, no testing was done. Instead, he was given a “verbal recommendation” to stay home for 14 days. If he were in China he would have been given a test and quarantined pending the outcome of that test. Most importantly, he said that the CDC never contacted him to see how he and his family were doing, and that the school where his son attended would not allow him to be excused, so the boy returned a day after returning from China.
Luckily, it seems, he and his family were not carrying the virus. But the man has still considered returning to China simply because, "As someone who was in China during the initial outbreak/lockdowns and restrictions and seeing the situation develop here in the US I am 100x more concerned for my own safety during this crisis than I ever was in China."
Conservatives have held up passing much-needed funding in order to insure that pharmaceutical companies can price gouge. The president of the United States has continued to say stupid, misleading, and scientifically fictitious things in order to possibly keep the economy from going into a panic. Right-wing media has attempted to not directly communicate to their audience, instead they have pulled out their impeachment notebook to negate the problems we are facing in order to strictly attack the Chinese and Democratic leadership. Meanwhile, getting testing done, the first step toward figuring out the best way to handle containment of this problem, remains chaotic.
*While masks can help prevent the spread of the virus by individuals with the illness, it is not a prophylactic against infection.