(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump has been determined to talk his way through the coronavirus crisis, but frequent misstatements at his daily news conferences have caused a litany of public health and political headaches for the White House.On Friday, Trump sought to clean up his briefing room riff from the day before about the possibility of fighting coronavirus infection in patients with chemical disinfectant or sunlight -- a dangerous idea that doctors and a manufacturer of cleaning products felt obliged to publicly warn against.By Saturday, Trump suggested the briefings, which have become a televised daily substitute for his campaign rallies, were “not worth the time and effort,” a day after a report that he plans to scale back such appearances. Trump on Friday said he had “sarcastically” suggested Americans be injected with disinfectant. The president’s new spokeswoman also sought to clarify his remarks.“President Trump has repeatedly said that Americans should consult with medical doctors regarding coronavirus treatment, a point that he emphasized again during yesterday’s briefing,” the press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, said in a statement. “Leave it to the media to irresponsibly take President Trump out of context and run with negative headlines.”Trump’s most public response to the U.S. coronavirus outbreak has been the extended news conferences he’s held almost every day, including most weekends, to talk about it. He pulled off his 2016 election upset and survived the Russia investigation and impeachment in part due to his ability to dominate media coverage. But the president has never been known as a detail-oriented leader and his off-the-cuff briefings have left many Americans distrustful of what he says.As questions mounted about Trump’s comments on disinfectant, Trump and his coronavirus task force on Friday evening held their shortest news conference yet, at just 22 minutes. He took no questions.There was no briefing on Saturday but instead, a series of Twitter messages that returned to familiar targets including the media and Democrats. Just 23% of Americans consider Trump a trustworthy source of information on the virus, while 52% trust their state and local leaders, according to poll published Thursday by the Associated Press and NORC at the University of Chicago.Trump’s QuestionsTrump’s remarks on Thursday followed a presentation by a Department of Homeland Security undersecretary, Bill Bryan, who showed White House reporters new research indicating the virus wouldn’t survive as long on nonporous surfaces in higher temperatures and humidity. The research suggested summer heat could help temper the U.S. outbreak, at least temporarily, although places in warm climates such as Singapore are still battling their own outbreaks.After Bryan’s presentation, Trump chimed in, off script.“So I asked Bill a question that probably some of you are thinking of, if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous -- whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light -- and I think you said that that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it,” Trump said. “And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that too. It sounds interesting.”Bryan responded: “We’ll get to the right folks who could.”“Right,” Trump continued. “And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute. And is there a way we can do something like that, by injection inside or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it would be interesting to check that.”Two-Hour BriefingsEven some Republicans have said Trump would be better served by holding fewer news conferences or speaking less during the events, leaving his medical experts and others to convey the information. But the former reality TV star has until now shown no sign of surrendering the lectern and has repeatedly bragged about his television ratings.In the last month, the White House has held a coronavirus briefing on all but three days, and the last time Trump did not speak at one was late March, according to data compiled by C-SPAN. Of the 47 briefings held since the start of the pandemic response, Trump has spoken at 43 of them -- the most of any administration official, the data show.His marathon public remarks -- the news conferences have extended for as long as two hours and 23 minutes, according to C-SPAN -- have been peppered with false claims, exaggerations and misstatements, opening the president to criticism by Democrats seeking to defeat him in November. Trump’s claims that the virus would “disappear” and that “nobody could have ever seen something like this coming” have been included in political ads arguing he is ill-equipped to combat the pandemic.Even government health authorities have been forced to rebut the president. On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration cautioned against the use of two drugs Trump has promoted to treat coronavirus infection, hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine. The malaria medicine has not been shown to be effective against the virus. Nonetheless, the FDA issued an emergency order last month permitting the drug to be prescribed for hospitalized coronavirus patients, after Trump repeatedly recommended it and directed his administration to procure millions of doses.The medicines “can cause abnormal heart rhythms” as well as “a dangerously rapid heart rate called ventricular tachycardia,” the FDA said Friday. “These risks may increase when these medicines are combined with other medicines” including azithromycin, the FDA said.The U.S. Surgeon General, Jerome Adams, meanwhile tweeted on Friday an admonition against Americans self-medicating without their doctors’ advice.The state of Maryland’s Emergency Management Agency said in a tweet on Friday that it had “received several calls regarding questions about disinfectant use and Covid-10.”“This is a reminder that under no circumstances should any disinfectant product be administered into the body through injection, ingestion or any other route,” the agency said.And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a tweet Friday that household cleaners and disinfectants “can cause health problems when not used properly.”‘Something There’Trump views the daily White House briefings as an opportunity to share his optimistic view of the U.S. effort against the virus and battle critics, according to a person familiar with the matter. That has included insulting and arguing with individual reporters, particularly those from news organizations such as CNN that he considers unfair.The briefings also serve as an outlet for the president, who is no longer able to stage the boisterous political rallies that were the spine of both his 2016 and 2020 campaigns, the person said.But his frequent speaking appearances have also exposed his lack of preparedness. Trump rarely attends the White House coronavirus task force meetings that precede the briefings and does not typically rehearse his opening remarks, often reading them for the first time just minutes before he goes on air, the New York Times reported.After his remarks about light and disinfectant on Thursday, a litany of scientists and doctors called the president’s suggestions dangerous. The maker of Lysol, Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc, issued a statement saying that “under no circumstance” should its disinfectant products be administered into the human body. The company said it felt obliged to issue a statement because it has a “responsibility in providing consumers with access to accurate, up-to-date information as advised by leading public health experts.”In the Oval Office on Friday, Trump was invited to clarify his remarks. “I do think that disinfectant on the hands could have a very good effect,” he said, adding that he’d like the government to research the effect of sunlight, heat and humidity on infected patients.“Maybe there’s something that’s there,” Trump said. “They have to work with the doctors. I’m not a doctor.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

For the first time in nearly a month, House members returned to a largely deserted Capitol Hill. Congress — like the entire country — seemed changed forever. Or maybe not.

They came by plane, train and automobile, with some lawmakers driving for days to get back to Washington to vote on a $484 billion coronavirus relief bill. They fought, as usual, about everything. Who was to blame for the two-week delay in passing the latest aid package? Why wasn’t Speaker Nancy Pelosi bringing them back into regular session immediately? Why hasn’t President Donald Trump done better on testing and PPE?

There was even a partisan split over face masks.

A group of at least a dozen House Republicans pointedly didn't wear masks during the House vote, even while hundreds of their colleagues — and all but seemingly one Democrat — were doing so. Their excuses for abstaining were flimsy. “I didn’t want to take one from someone who needed it,” or “I left mine in my office” were offered, if they didn’t run away from the question posed by reporters. The culture war happening throughout the United States over the coronavirus was also playing out on the House floor.

And like the rest of America, lawmakers grieved for friends and family members who were suffering from a disease that’s already killed more than 45,000 of their fellow citizens. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) announced that her sister was “dying in a hospital in St. Louis, Mo., right now, infected by the coronavirus.” Waters dedicated the bill to her. Other members held up photos of dead constituents, openly weeping on the floor for the victims.

“Yes, I know a number of people who have died, unfortunately,” added Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler, whose New York City district covers parts of hard-hit Manhattan and Brooklyn. “We’re still having a large number of deaths, although thankfully that’s been going down because we’re practicing social distancing. We’ve closed the place down basically, and it will have to continue for a while.”

Getting to Washington wasn’t easy for some. GOP Rep. Mike Simpson made the 33-hour drive from Idaho Falls, Idaho starting before dawn on Monday morning. Simpson arrived late Tuesday night — stopping only to sleep and stretch his legs. Rep. Billy Long drove back with fellow Missouri Republican Jason Smith. When asked how it was, the former auctioneer only said, “Long.”

With air traffic severely curtailed, some lawmakers found themselves with unusual travel companions. Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan said her flight included not just members of her state delegation but lawmakers from Utah — whose direct flight to D.C. had been canceled.

Members were also worried about getting home with fewer flight options. Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) said the next flight home was 3 p.m. Friday, while fellow Democrat Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico said direct flights back to his home state have been canceled.

GOP Rep. Richard Hudson took a different tack. He simply never went back to North Carolina after Congress adjourned on March 27, remaining in D.C. with his family instead.

“I’ve been here, never left,” Hudson said. “I’ve been in the office every day and working.”

Once they did get to the Hill on Thursday, most members huddled in their offices as instructed by leadership, although a half dozen sneaked into the empty Visitors’ Gallery to watch the floor debate, despite being asked not to do so.

Others roamed through the House buildings alone, taking direction from masked floor staff without their usual entourage of aides. There were no clusters of close-knit colleagues sitting together on the floor or slapping each other on the back. The House’s basement cafe, a favorite for lawmakers on the go, was mostly deserted, offering just a bare-bones menu.

"Politicians are extreme extroverts and suddenly you can't go out and press the flesh," Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said, noting the inability of members to comfort each other amid the crisis. "That's tough."

Raskin said conversations that may normally have happened in hallways or caucus meetings have moved to text or Zoom. Raskin joked that all Democrats have become tech masters except Majority Leader Steny Hoyer “whose middle name is ‘Oops I forgot to mute myself.’”

Members also understood the extraordinary circumstances they were living through. Much of the country remains on involuntary lockdown, with more than 26 million Americans out of work and tens of thousands of companies shuttered, many permanently. Members desperately want to do something, anything, to respond to the barrage of desperate calls coming into their congressional offices, but also recognize they are potentially endangering each other just by being in the same building together.

“Ever since I’ve come to Congress, it’s always been bizarre situations,” said Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.). “As a freshman, it was the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Then it was 9/11 [attacks] in 2001. Then, of course, the second impeachment, and all the things in between. And now this. This is just sort of par for the course.”

Special care was taken to shield lawmakers from catching or spreading the coronavirus. When it came time to vote, members cycled through the floor alphabetically in groups of 50 to 60 rather than swarm the chamber all at once like usual. The process dragged out for more than an hour during each of two votes.

As they entered the House chamber, there were also stations that held masks, gloves and giant bottles of hand sanitizer. Members were advised to employ social distancing — “Please stand at least six feet apart” read signs all over the floor.

When it was Rep. Henry Cuellar's turn to vote, the senior Texas Democrat turned to the small group of staff and colleagues and shouted: "I miss y'all!"

Cuellar, who is quick to chat up other members or reporters in hallways, held up his hands and offered a pretend embrace. "Hugs, hugs, hugs!" Cuellar said loudly from the floor as he exited.

Pelosi herself — clad in blue latex gloves and with a white scarf over her face — stood in the back of the chamber to serve as impromptu traffic cop as members meandered slowly. The first vote took 87 minutes, and Pelosi was pleased by the process.

“Fabulously, it went fabulously,” the speaker gushed as she left the chamber.

Then the House was closed for 10 minutes between votes so Capitol employees could speed-clean every surface in the chamber. The dozen-plus House employees were supposed to do the job in 30 minutes, but they frantically called out the time to one another as they worked and finished in a fraction of the allotted period. Reporters watching them applauded the effort.

Members also accomplished some work of their own. On a party-line vote, the House created a new select oversight committee — to be chaired by Majority Whip Jim Clyburn — on the coronavirus relief effort. The panel is “charged with ensuring the efficient, effective and equitable allocation of the trillions of dollars in taxpayer funds” approved by Congress, Clyburn said in a statement.

Clyburn, though, couldn’t say exactly when his panel was going to start meeting or who would be on it. “I have no idea. I suspect I will be talking to the speaker over the weekend,” Clyburn said after the vote.

The House then passed the $484 billion rescue bill on an overwhelming vote of 388-5 that masked the partisan recriminations underlying the effort.

As part of that aid package — the fourth approved by Congress since the crisis began — $381 billion is for small businesses, $75 billion is going to hospitals, and $25 billion will be spent to ramp up what Democrats complain is “woeful” national testing efforts.

Democrats noted that the White House had originally only asked for $250 billion for small businesses, and argued their efforts made an incomplete bill far better.

“The bill that passed today could have passed two weeks ago,” Hoyer said, if not for Republican resistance to Democratic priorities. “It’s a shame that it took a couple of weeks to get there.”

Republicans countered that the delay hurt thousands of small business that were unable to get loans because the Small Business Administration loan program ran out of money.

“This bill is 16 days too late. We could have agreed to this in 16 minutes,” said Rep. Kevin Brady (Texas), the top Republican on the Ways and Means Committee.

The House is not formally scheduled to meet in full session until May 5, yet even that is a source of disagreement.

Democrats had initially planned on authorizing some limited proxy voting on the floor this week, which would allow some lawmakers to vote remotely during the pandemic. But House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and other Republicans had bitterly opposed the plan, and Democrats held off on pushing a change in the rules.

On Wednesday, Hoyer and McCarthy met for over an hour in the Capitol basement to discuss proxy voting as well as the prospect of holding hearings remotely. They failed to reach any kind of consensus, with Republicans objecting to whatever the Democrats proposed, while also beating up Democrats for not wanting to work, according to sources who attended the meeting.

“We had a discussion about a lot of different options. We'll continue to discuss those,” Hoyer said leaving the meeting, which perfectly sums up everything about Congress right now.

Small business owners have had a lot of trouble securing loans to help them weather the coronavirus crisis. Gordon Sondland's business didn't.Sondland is the founder of Provenance Hotels, a chain of high-end joints that secured a loan from the Paycheck Protection Program, which will distribute more than $300 billion. But he's probably better known as the former U.S. ambassador to the European Union who played a major role in President Trump's impeachment — and who got his job after making a $1 million donation to Trump's inaugural committee.Provenance Hotels laid off around 1,000 employees, and said it hopes to use the loan to hire them back. Sondland didn't work for the company for the past few years while in the White House, but he'll become its chair again in May after Provenance's president stepped down amid the financial panic. Sondland's wife Katherine Durant remained Provenance's CEO during the ex-ambassador's time in office.The funding for small business loans doled out under the federal COVID-19 relief package ran dry within days of its passage. It has since been revealed that huge national chains, including some with valuations over $100 million, managed to secure loans while far smaller businesses never made it through the long lines to apply.More stories from theweek.com Trump adviser suggests reopening economy by putting 'everybody in a space outfit' Cuomo rips McConnell's 'blue state bailout' by noting 'your state is living on the money that we generate' Small music venues ask Congress for special consideration in coronavirus aid

The House voted Thursday to establish a new investigative committee to monitor President Donald Trump's implementation of nearly $3 trillion in coronavirus relief measures, a step they said would safeguard the massive sums flowing to businesses, hospitals and individual taxpayers.

"It will be laser-focused on ensuring that taxpayer money goes to workers' paychecks and benefits and it will ensure that the federal response is based on the best possible science and guided by health experts — and that the money invested is not being exploited by profiteers and price gougers," said Speaker Nancy Pelosi in remarks on the House floor.

But the measure passed on a party line vote of 212-182, with Republicans unanimously slamming the effort as a veiled attempt to damage Trump politically. They described it as redundant to the multiple congressional committees already have jurisdiction to monitor the law.

"Why do we need another oversight committee? Speaker Pelosi said it's all going to be bipartisan. I'm sorry, I don't believe it," said Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.), who accused other Democrat-led committees of working "nonstop to criticize President Trump and try to influence the 2020 election."

"I'm sorry. I call B.S.,” she added.

Democrats said the newly established select committee, which will operate under the umbrella of the House Oversight Committee, is a crucial addition to an lengthening list of entities tasked with guarding against waste or mismanagement by the Trump administration, which has been notoriously averse to any form of independent scrutiny.

They noted that Trump has already begun resisting efforts by internal watchdogs — the inspectors general placed inside each federal agency — to communicate potential problems to Congress. Trump has also repeatedly stonewalled congressional oversight in non-coronavirus-related probes, eventually fueling an article of impeachment in the House.

But Republicans insisted from the start that Pelosi's intention could not be bipartisan. Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the top Republican on the House Oversight Committee, said the panel appeared to be an effort to aid former vice president Joe Biden's presidential bid.

He noted that multiple congressional committees were already responsible for conducting oversight, as well as several new mechanisms created in the multitrillion-dollar coronavirus relief laws. Those include a five-member Congressional Oversight Commission, a committee of inspectors general given broad authority over implementation of the law and a newly established inspector general for pandemic response. Lawmakers also sent millions of dollars to shore up the auditing power of the Government Accountability Office.

The measure passed after a remarkable House floor debate that featured lawmakers and aides clad in face masks, adhering to social distancing on the House floor. Several members, including Pelosi, removed their masks to deliver remarks.

A handful of Republicans, including Jordan, disregarded the House physician's recommendation that lawmakers wear masks when in the chamber and in other Capitol rooms shared by colleagues. Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) thanked Pelosi for setting the trend of briefly removing face masks to speak, though some lawmakers wore theirs during floor remarks.

Pelosi reiterated that she intends to name House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) to lead the new select committee, citing his work overseeing the federal response to Hurricane Katrina. The new panel will be established as a 12-member subcommittee of the House Oversight Committee, but it allows the speaker to name seven members and House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to name five. McCarthy previously told Pelosi he would hold off on appointing Republicans until he sees whom Democrats tap.

The new subcommittee will begin with a $2 million budget, and Clyburn will be authorized to issue subpoenas or take depositions. The committee's official charge is to examine the use of taxpayer funds to address the coronavirus crisis, potential waste or mismanagement, the effectiveness of new laws meant to address the pandemic, federal preparedness, the economic impact of the crisis, socioeconomic disparities in the impact of the crisis, the Trump administration's handling of the crisis, the ability of whistleblowers to report waste or abuse and the Trump administration's cooperativeness with Congress and other oversight entities.

Pelosi quickly dismissed Republican assertions that the panel would be a partisan weapon, suggesting it would focus less on Trump and more on those who would seek to exploit the massive infusion of taxpayer funds for wasteful or nefarious purposes.

"This isn't about assigning blame," Pelosi said, citing scam artists who have already sought to divert funds from pots of money meant to aid small businesses or support hospitals with lifesaving equipment. "This is about taking responsibility."

Sens. Mitt Romney and Kyrsten Sinema are raising alarms that the federal government is “behind the curve” in tallying the scope of the coronavirus’s spread in the United States, pressing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to quickly devise a real-time national system for tracking the pandemic.

The Utah Republican and Arizona Democrat sent a letter to CDC Director Robert Redfield on Thursday laying out the challenges the United States is facing in trying to assess an accurate national picture for the disease’s creep across the country. So far, more than 850,000 Americans have contracted the virus and over 43,500 have died. The bipartisan pair conclude that they are “deeply concerned” about the state of affairs in tracking how many people have it and where, according to a copy provided to POLITICO.

In an interview on Thursday, Romney bluntly laid out his worries about the federal government’s inability to get a grip of the scope of the disease in real time. He said earlier this spring he spoke to Redfield and asked for information on the ages and conditions of people being put into intensive care units.

Redfield “was unable to provide almost any information on that front,” Romney said, explaining the patchwork reporting system that hospitals and states use to report coronavirus infections. Some of them are done in pen and pencil which “struck me as the kind of thing that I would have expected from the 1960s, not the 2020s,” Romney said.

“We have one eye closed and the other eye is clouded over instead of having a clear, real time dashboard of all the patients in the country," Romney said.

Romney made clear he was not blaming Redfield, the CDC or even President Donald Trump and his administration, even though Romney has been the GOP senator most critical of the president over the past year and voted to remove him from office during the Senate's impeachment trial. He laid the current predicament at the feet of lackluster, long-running funding from Congress and lack of focus from several administrations.

“I blame, if you will, Congress and administrations, all of us who are responsible for public health not blowing the whistle on this,” Romney said. Notably, Congress on Thursday was finalizing approval of $25 billion for testing for coronavirus as part of a $484 billion coronavirus relief measure.

But that's only a piece of the puzzle, the senators say. Even if testing expands, policymakers and politicians can't make informed decisions without a treasure trove of data.

In the letter, Sinema and Romney indicated how problematic it could be for decisions to be made to reopen economies without a clear picture of what is happening nationwide. They expressed concern that there isn’t standardized data from each state and asked the CDC for a comprehensive look at state-by-state case information, hospitalization rates, patients’ treatment status, ICU statistics and demographics.

“Here we are at the end of April, we’ve had this now for a quarter of a year or longer and we’re still not quite certain who is getting impacted and why,” Romney added. “It’s very hard to make clear-eyed decisions without full data on where the disease exists.”

In a statement, Sinema said she’s also “urging the CDC to implement a contact-tracing system that will keep Arizonans safe and help save lives.”

Sinema might have some extra sway on the matter, as she was named by Trump to a congressional task force on reopening the economy. Romney was the only Republican senator to be left out and Trump said it was because he holds a grudge against Romney's impeachment vote.

“Oh, I don’t worry about those things,” Romney said with a chuckle.

(Bloomberg) -- A Dallas hotel executive and major donor to President Donald Trump has emerged as the biggest winner from the coronavirus bailout for small businesses.A combined total of $59 million from the small business lending package went to three lodging companies chaired by Monty Bennett, according to regulatory filings. The money went to Braemar Hotels & Resorts, which owns luxury properties including the Ritz-Carlton in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Ashford Hospitality Trust Inc., which owns more than 100 hotels around the country, and the firm that manages both.The PPP has come under fire after big restaurant chains like Potbelly Corp. and Ruth’s Chris Steak House got loans, while many mom-and-pop firms were left stranded when the initial $349 billion in funding for the program ran out of money last week. The House is expected to vote Thursday on a bill approving an additional $320 billion for the initiative.The loans to Bennett’s companies underscore how large firms were able to take advantage of the small business program because of a loophole nestled in the bailout package that allowed companies with multiple locations to apply for loans that can convert to grants if they maintain employees and payrolls at certain levels.That provision was inserted after lobbyists for hotels and restaurants pleaded with lawmakers designing the program, especially Republican Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, for special consideration. The carveout allowed hotels and restaurants to apply for the funds regardless of how many workers they had, so long as each location employed fewer than 500.Bennett donated $150,000 in the last six months to a fundraising committee for Trump’s reelection campaign and for Republicans, according to Federal Election Commission records. He also gave to Trump in 2016, and has made donations to prominent allies such as House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy and Senator Lindsey Graham.Ashford said in a statement that PPP “is working exactly as intended by providing much needed capital to small businesses and larger businesses that have been the hardest hit -- hotels and restaurants” with fewer than 500 employees per location.Another Trump supporter and hotelier -- Gordon Sondland -- was also a beneficiary of the small-business relief package. Provenance Hotels, the hotel chain he founded, received a PPP loan, according to a spokeswoman. Sondland is the former ambassador to the EU who played a starring role in the Trump impeachment proceedings. The group has more than a dozen properties, including three in Washington state, which has been hard-hit by the virus. The Portland Business Journal reported earlier on Sondland’s hotel group winning a PPP loan.Ashford Hospitality said in a regulatory filing Tuesday that it expects to receive additional loans. The $30 million it received -- the most money disclosed by a public company yet-- was in 42 PPP loans to company affiliates that own hotels. Braemar, which also owns the Ritz-Carlton in Lake Tahoe, California, received $15.8 million in eight loans. Ashford Inc., which manages properties for Ashford and Braemar Hotels, got six loans totaling $12.8 million.Major hotel brands like Marriott International Inc., Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc., and Hyatt Hotels Corp. didn’t apply for the small business loans. The companies make most of their money by selling brand licenses and services to the investors who own hotel properties.Restaurants and hotels together account for less than 10% of the PPP loans, according to the SBA, which administers the program. They’ve said the requirement to use the money in eight weeks to get loan forgiveness isn’t long enough and the program’s emphasis on keeping workers employed doesn’t give them enough flexibility to cover other costs.Brian Crawford, the executive vice president of government affairs at the American Hotel & Lodging Association, said funds are going to industries that have suffered fewer consequences from the pandemic.“Seemingly healthy industries are taking advantage of this program and that’s why we’re running out of money,” Crawford said.A spokeswoman for Marriott, which owns five hotels in the U.S., said that while it didn’t apply as a corporation, some of its franchisees, which could qualify as small businesses, are pursuing loans.Marriott, which has temporarily closed about 1,000 U.S. hotels and furloughed thousands of workers, has had little trouble accessing credit markets. On April 14, Marriott raised $1.6 billion in five-year bonds in a move the company said would substantially replace a $1.5 billion revolving credit facility that the company announced earlier the same day.Hilton and Hyatt have each raised hundreds of millions of dollars in debt since the Federal Reserve pledged to support the corporate bond market earlier this month. The hotel brand companies have a menu of options for raising cash, including selling loyalty points or borrowing against real estate portfolios.A Hilton spokesperson said that the company, which owns no U.S. hotel properties, has no plans to seek financial support from the U.S. Treasury Department. A Hyatt representative also said it has no plans to apply for any small business loans under the SBA program, although some third-party owners of properties it operates have.“What they did was the least expensive, least restrictive option: a simple unsecured corporate bond offering,” said Michael Bellisario, an analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co.(Updates with Trump donation in sixth paragraph)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

As concerns have risen about voter safety in the midst of a global pandemic, the past few weeks have seen proposed solutions put forward by voter-rights organizations, Democratic lawmakers, and almost the entirety of former Vice President Joe Biden’s short list of potential running mates.But Biden himself has held back on endorsing any particular plan for expanding access to mail-in ballots—a decision that campaign sources told The Daily Beast is by design.“Joe Biden throwing his support behind any specific legislation to expand vote-by-mail is as good as drawing a target on it in red ink,” said one person familiar with the campaign’s thinking.Under guidance from Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan is sending absentee ballot applications to all registered voters in the state ahead of its May 5 primary. Last week, Sen. Kamala Harris of California introduced the “VoteSafe Act,” which would require states to permit no-excuse mail-in voting by absentee. In March, Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota introduced the “Natural Disaster and Emergency Ballot Act of 2020,” which would do the same, and reimburse states for additional costs of administering elections during the pandemic. Former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who created the group Fair Fight to campaign for increased voting access after her narrow loss in 2018, has fought ever since for expanding the use of vote-by-mail in Georgia.“The reality is, if we go ahead and get mail-in ballots to as many voters as possible, you shorten the lines, which means you can move as many people out of needing to be in-person,” Abrams told MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Tuesday, calling the Wisconsin election and its aftermath “a travesty and a tragedy.”Even former first lady Michelle Obama, who has largely eschewed politics since her husband left office, has returned to the political stage to advocate for increased mail-in ballot access.“Americans should never have to choose between making their voices heard and keeping themselves and their families safe,” Obama said in a statement released last week by the voter-access nonprofit When We All Vote.The Wisconsin contest caused concerns from some Democrats that people voting in person could get sick and possibly die from the virus. But Republican leaders in the state resisted efforts to delay the election. ‘I Could Get the Virus If I Vote’: Wisconsin’s Terrifying Election DayAt least 19 cases of COVID-19 in Wisconsin linked to potential exposure during the state’s primary election two weeks ago, according to ABC News, which is why, Abrams continued, “we are all working so hard to ensure that we can not only flatten the curve but ensure our democracy.”Biden himself, however, has taken a slower approach to pushing a specific plan for conducting a national election in the midst of a pandemic, instead making unspecific calls for “voter security” after the Wisconsin election had wrapped. “We have to make sure that we secure for all Americans the right to vote, including options for safe, accessible in-person voting and expanded vote-by-mail and early voting,” campaign spokesperson Bill Russo told The Daily Beast earlier this month, after Biden came out against in-person voting in the Wisconsin primary. “It is imperative that we protect our democracy and every American’s right to vote and we know that is going to be complicated while we are also simultaneously taking the critical steps we need to take to protect our health and get this virus under control.”Two sources familiar with the Biden campaign’s approach on the matter told The Daily Beast that the former vice president is wary of leading the charge on the issue, lest the notion of voter safety in a pandemic become an issue of Democrats vs. Republicans—potentially dooming efforts to pass such measures in Mitch McConnell’s Senate when so-called “Phase Four” relief legislation comes to a vote.“Trump was willing to risk literal impeachment to block Joe’s chances at winning in the general,” said one source familiar with the campaign’s calculus. “You think he wouldn’t be willing to veto COVID relief?”Voting rights have already proven to be a potentially explosive political issue in the Trump era, even before the coronavirus pandemic made the safe casting of ballots a matter of life or potential death. After winning the 2016 general election, Trump has persistently (and baselessly) declared that millions of illegal votes cost him the popular vote victory. Unwilling to let the issue go, a voter fraud commission shepherded by the Trump administration in 2017 quickly turned into a fiasco with little to show for in the way of results. In the midst of the coronavirus pandemic the president, once again returned to a voter fraud conspiracy as he disparaged voting by mail as causing widespread voter fraud.The day of the Wisconsin election, Trump told reporters at a coronavirus briefing that mail-in ballots are “a very dangerous thing for this country ’cause they’re cheaters.”“The mail ballots are corrupt in my opinion,” said Trump, who himself had asked for a mail-in ballot for the Florida primary, according to The Palm Beach Post. “I think mail in voting is horrible. It’s corrupt.”While experts say fraud can occur with mail-in voting, Trump’s claim of such large-scale election corruption is baseless, and he has offered no evidence to back the major fraud charges.It also runs counter to Republican officials who have emphasized absentee voting during the pandemic.  The pandemic has led to voting becoming an even more fraught topic, with Wisconsin’s April contest serving as the starkest example. But even a trio of March 17 contests were plagued  with issues tied to the coronavirus. A fourth contest was supposed to be held that same day in Ohio until the state’s Republican governor made a drastic maneuver at the last minute to keep in-person voting from happening on the originally scheduled day, citing public health concerns. One elections expert told The Daily Beast that voting rights will likely be a major issue in the presidential campaign. “[It’s] something that especially Biden’s vice presidential candidate would be likely to be hammering on as a way of attacking the Republicans,” said Richard Hasen, an expert on election law at the University of California, Irvine. “Biden may be trying to stay above the fray in that sense.”Hasen expects Biden’s "voting rights people” will pick up on the issue more as the sense grows “that steps are going to need to be taken in the fall to assure that people can vote safely.” And the risk of politicization has not stopped figures like Abrams and Klobuchar from advocating for a national solution to the question.“These are both people who have track records in dealing with voting issues for some time and so they may be the logical people to be doing this,” said Richard Briffault, a professor at Columbia Law School specializing in election law. Before the coronavirus pandemic further highlighted the issue, access to voting could be a difficult frontline issue on which to build a campaign—especially for presidential candidates. Worries about the economy and health care can often prove to be more at the top-of-mind for voters, though it’s unclear how the voting issues that have emerged during the pandemic could change that thought process for some. “To be honest, in terms of what resonates with the public, it’s very rarely the No. 1 or No. 2 or No. 3 issue for anybody,” Briffault said.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.