The Senate majority leader oversaw a huge handout to big business and drew bipartisan ire for suggesting struggling states should go bankruptIt was, New York’s governor, Andrew Cuomo observed, “one of the really dumb ideas of all time”. Larry Hogan, his counterpart in Maryland, called it “complete nonsense”. Congressman Pete King of New York said it was the work of the “Marie Antoinette of the Senate”.It would be an understatement to say Mitch McConnell’s suggestion that state and local governments should declare bankruptcy rather than seek more federal funding went down like a lead balloon. It was a rare instance of the Senate majority leader overplaying his hand.It also showed that Donald Trump is not the only figure embodying liberal nightmares in the time of coronavirus. When historians contemplate a death toll in the tens of thousands and an economy fallen off a cliff, they will pay close attention to the president’s most important ally.“I think Mitch McConnell is the guy to be watching and focusing on in terms of what’s going on,” said Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota. “His messaging around the coronavirus has been tone deaf.“It’s not just the fact that McConnell was remarkably brutal in pairing Americans into red and blue states at a time of national crisis – that is pretty shameless – but I think it was also politically inept because he’s got his colleagues in tough races in blue states.”McConnell’s role in the pandemic drama has been criticised. On 12 March, just before Trump declared a national emergency, the senator flew back to Kentucky for a celebration for Justin Walker, a young rightwing judge nominated to America’s second highest court. The ill-timed absence was noted. “WheresMitch?” trended on Twitter.With the economy in a tailspin, Senate Republicans came up with emergency funding. But it was skewed in favour of corporate executives and shareholders. Democrats refused it. A New York Times editorial was headlined: “The Coronavirus Bailout Stalled. And It’s Mitch McConnell’s Fault.”Democrats forced concessions in a record $2.2tn bill that increased support to workers and reduced handouts to business, though these still amounted to what critics called a $500bn “corporate slush fund”.Trump was earning global opprobrium for his bungling of the pandemic, but it was apparently too late for McConnell to untether himself from the president, even if he so desired. Instead, he blamed Democrats for impeaching Trump.“[The coronavirus] came up while we were tied down in the impeachment trial,” McConnell told the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt. “And I think it diverted the attention of the government because everything every day was all about impeachment.”Opponents saw that as a feeble attempt to excuse the inexcusable.Moe Vela, a former senior adviser to Joe Biden, said: “Almost any good Mitch McConnell did by cooperating and collaborating on the legislative side is undone by his enabling of the president at a time when he could have been a real leader and called out the president on his lack of responsiveness and leadership.“It’s disappointing because he had the chance to redeem himself from all the negative and enabling and divisiveness of the past several years as the majority leader and he didn’t take it.Vela, a board director of TransparentBusiness, added: “Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump are battling for who is the greatest hypocrite in our nation – it’s like they’re competing for the hypocrisy trophy. It’s not about unity, it’s not about bringing the American people together at a time of crisis. For McConnell and Trump, it’s all about politics and power.”Last week McConnell retreated from his much-derided position on “blue state bailouts” and bankruptcy, indicating he would consider funds in the next relief bill for state and local governments struggling to pay police and firefighters.“There’s no question all governors, regardless of party, would like to have more money, I’m open to discussing that,” he said on Fox News Radio.But he sailed into fresh controversy by insisting that senators, unlike their counterparts in the House, return to work on Monday. Washington DC remains a virus hotspot. At least one senator, eight Capitol police officers and 11 workers have tested positive. Democrat Chris Van Hollen of Maryland warned that “without effective safeguards in place, Mitch McConnell is endangering the lives of the staff”.Chuck Schumer, the minority leader, condemned McConnell for priorities that include confirming Walker and demanded oversight hearings into the White House’s “dreadful response to this public health crisis”.Schumer said: “The American people are demanding answers and solutions – Senator McConnell ought to focus the Senate’s work on the crises caused by Covid-19, not rightwing judges or fulfilling his ‘pre-existing partisan wishlist’ of protecting big business from any harm done to the American people.”Another confrontation is looming, over the next stimulus package. McConnell is insisting on protections for businesses from coronavirus-related lawsuits as states reopen. Democrats warn workers’ health could be jeopardised.Public Citizen, a corporate and government watchdog, tweeted: “McConnell is now refusing to pass ANY stimulus bill that doesn’t include TOTAL LEGAL IMMUNITY for corporations that get people sick [with] the coronavirus. It’s abhorrent. It’s also totally impractical. How can we reopen the economy if companies have no incentive to keep us safe?”Trump and McConnell appear bound together. Should the president lose in November, he could bring down Senate Republicans – perhaps even McConnell in Kentucky. Challenger Amy McGrath, a fighter pilot, outraised McConnell in the first three months of this year.Defeat would be an ignominious end to a divisive career. Kurt Bardella, a former senior adviser for the House oversight committee, said: “History will not look back on Mitch McConnell kindly. He has been the most effective enabler of Donald Trump.“Everything Trump has inflicted on the American people has been done with the blessing of McConnell. Through this entire coronavirus pandemic, McConnell has displayed he is a soulless person who is willing to let people suffer so he can continue to wield power.”

President Donald Trump tweeted that the 43rd president was "nowhere to be found" during the impeachment trial.

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump moved Friday night to replace a top official at the Department of Health and Human Services who angered him with a report last month highlighting supply shortages and testing delays at hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic.The White House waited until after business hours to announce the nomination of a new inspector general for the department who, if confirmed, would take over for Christi A. Grimm, the principal deputy inspector general who was publicly assailed by the president at a news briefing three weeks ago.The nomination was the latest effort by Trump against watchdog offices around his administration that have defied him. In recent weeks, he fired an inspector general involved in the inquiry that led to the president's impeachment, nominated a White House aide to another key inspector general post overseeing virus relief spending and moved to block still another inspector general from taking over as chairman of a pandemic spending oversight panel.Trump has sought to assert more authority over his administration and clear out officials deemed insufficiently loyal in the three months since his Senate impeachment trial on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress ended in acquittal largely along party lines. While inspectors general are appointed by the president, they are meant to be semiautonomous watchdogs ferreting out waste, fraud and corruption in executive agencies.The purge has continued unabated even during the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed about 65,000 lives in the U.S. Grimm's case in effect merged the conflict over Trump's response to the outbreak with his determination to sweep out those he perceives to be speaking out against him.Her report, released last month and based on extensive interviews with hospitals around the country, identified critical shortages of supplies, revealing that hundreds of medical centers were struggling to obtain test kits, protective gear for staff members and ventilators. Trump was embarrassed by the report at a time he was already under fire for playing down the threat of the virus and not acting quickly enough to ramp up testing and provide equipment to doctors and nurses."It's just wrong," the president said when asked about the report on April 6. "Did I hear the word 'inspector general'? Really? It's wrong. And they'll talk to you about it. It's wrong." He then sought to find out who wrote the report. "Where did he come from, the inspector general? What's his name? No, what's his name? What's his name?"When the reporter did not know, Trump insisted. "Well, find me his name," the president said. "Let me know." He expressed no interest in the report's findings except to categorically reject them sight unseen.After learning that Grimm had worked during President Barack Obama's administration, Trump asserted that the report was politically biased. In fact, Grimm is not a political appointee but a career official who began working in the inspector general office late in President Bill Clinton's administration and served under President George W. Bush as well as Obama. She took over the office in an acting capacity when the previous inspector general stepped down.Trump was undaunted and attacked her on Twitter. "Why didn't the I.G., who spent 8 years with the Obama Administration (Did she Report on the failed H1N1 Swine Flu debacle where 17,000 people died?), want to talk to the Admirals, Generals, V.P. & others in charge, before doing her report," he wrote, mischaracterizing the government's generally praised response the 2009 epidemic that actually killed about 12,000 in the U.S. "Another Fake Dossier!"To take over as inspector general, Trump on Friday night named Jason C. Weida, an assistant U.S. attorney in Boston. The White House said in its announcement that he had "overseen numerous complex investigations in health care and other sectors." He must be confirmed by the Senate before assuming the position.Among several other nominations announced Friday was the president's choice for a new ambassador to Ukraine, filling a position last occupied by Marie L. Yovanovitch.Yovanovitch was ousted a year ago because she was seen as an obstacle by the president's advisers as they tried to pressure the government in Kyiv to incriminate Trump's Democratic rivals. That effort to solicit political benefit from Ukraine, while withholding security aid, led to Trump's impeachment largely along party lines in December.Trump selected Lt. Gen. Keith W. Dayton, a retired 40-year Army officer now serving as the director of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Germany. Dayton speaks Russian and served as defense attache in Moscow. More recently, he served as a senior U.S. defense adviser in Ukraine appointed by Jim Mattis, Trump's first defense secretary.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

If you’re mad at me, then welcome to the club. Ever since I said this week that I would vote for Rep. Justin Amash (if he ends up on my state’s ballot this November), I’ve been happy that social distancing is still in place.  Compared to the Never Trump criticism Amash endured, I’m hardly a martyr. But within hours of tweeting my support, I was down hundreds of followers, having been kicked to the curb by folks who presumably (based on my penchant for criticizing Donald Trump) assumed I was part of La Résistance. Others merely voiced anger or disappointment. One such critic was Tom Nichols, a prominent Never Trumper, who responded to my Amash support by tweeting, “Well, at least it will give us something more to argue about during that second Trump term.”Trump Critics Pan Justin Amash’s New Presidential Bid: ‘Absolute Bullshit’What frustrates me most about this is that I wrote columns in May and July of 2019 urging Amash to mount a third party bid, and then went on CNN and reiterated it. Likewise, for a year I’ve been saying I wouldn’t vote for Joe Biden in a general election. (Although I decided that I would vote for him in the primary, I stipulated that I would not do so in the general—a controversial position that I also defended on CNN). I was hardly hiding my opinions.   So why do I support Amash? It’s simple. As a conservative, his political philosophy is much closer to mine than either Trump’s or Biden’s. What is more, he demonstrated great character and integrity by being the only House Republican who was willing to stand up to Trump and support impeachment. Still, I get why people are on edge. Donald Trump is bleeding support in the polls because he mishandled the pandemic and the economy is struggling. Joe Biden is finally on the cusp of having his moment, and the last thing Democrats need is some third-party campaign to suddenly materialize. There’s also this: Recent developments (the Tara Reade allegations and the Amash candidacy) threaten to strip away some of the Biden coalition. The Reade story may alienate some progressive women who embrace the MeToo “Believe All Women” mantra, and the Amash candidacy may peel off some Never-Trump suburbanites like yours truly. And this is all happening within the context of a world where some view Trump as an existential threat to the future of the republic. Erstwhile Republicans who hold this view are willing to temporarily ally with anyone—even with someone whose stated positions run counter to their own—to defeat Trump. This might become a regrettable or inconvenient legacy, if and when Biden (or his successors) usher in a new left-wing agenda, but I can certainly respect people who have made this calculated decision. Likewise, I respect my conservative friends and relatives who do not like or trust Trump—yet have made a transactional calculation that supporting the left is worse. I suspect they may regret many things they will now “own” in perpetuity, but theirs is not an irrational choice. Personally, I am not willing to make either compromise. Donald Trump is disqualified on character and temperamental grounds, just as Joe Biden is disqualified on philosophical grounds. And here, I’m not talking about some disagreement over tax rates. My differences with Biden include abortion, which is literally a life or death issue.Democrats, of all people, ought to approve my right to choose for whom to vote. And rather than wasting time criticizing me for this decision, I suggest that my liberal friends might even want to thank me. That’s because, considering that my natural inclination is to vote for a Republican for president, my embracing a more fluid, non-binary lifestyle is tantamount to a “win” for Biden. Here’s why. The slur that abstaining from voting or voting for a third party is a “privileged” decision and is “the same as a vote for Trump” is demonstrably false and insulting. Progressives might even consider the possibility that urging some disaffected conservatives to simply deprive Trump of their votes—in any capacity that they find morally agreeable—would yield better results than attempting to shame them into compliance for supporting a hypothetical candidate for president. I say hypothetical, because it’s still not clear whether Amash will win the Libertarian Party’s nomination. Several candidates are running, including Jacob Hornberger, a combative Ron Paul disciple who has won the most primaries. Regardless, the delegates, who are all unbound, will decide the nominee at the convention (which is now up in the air).  Even if Amash does win, there’s the problem of trying to get on the ballot in all 50 states during a pandemic (the irony does not escape me that I may not be able to cast a ballot for Amash, even if I want to). Even if he does win the nomination, who’s to say he would play a decisive role in the election? Or it might actually help Joe Biden.You might wonder why I’m even wasting my time with all of this. There is a chance that Amash’s campaign could be the beginning of a movement or a party that is hospitable to classical liberals. Likewise, rejecting the binary paradigm may force one of the political parties to actually attempt to woo people like me. As P.J. O’Rourke advises, “Don’t vote. It just encourages the bastards!” But even if this situation is just a one-off, I’m simply excited at the prospect of voting for someone I respect and agree with. If that makes me selfish, so be it. By voicing my support for Amash, I am attempting to be transparent as a columnist. What I am not trying to do is urge you to follow me off a cliff. If you live in a vital state like Michigan and prefer Amash, but worry that your vote could play a decisive role in helping one candidate or another win, then you should vote your conscience. And if your conscience is cautious—if your conscience tells you that you should abide by the lesser-of-two-evils paradigm—then that is a perfectly respectable decision. It’s your vote. You don’t have to listen to anyone. This is America, after all.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.

Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan said Wednesday he is seeking the Libertarian nod for president because millions of Americans do not feel well represented by either major political party and their standard-bearers: President Donald Trump and presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Amash, a Trump critic who left the Republican Party to become an independent and later supported his impeachment, told The Associated Press that too many people vote Republican or Democrat because they do not feel they have any other choice.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) is proposing a bill to ban President Trump from signing coronavirus checks, calling the current practice “a waste of time and money” and the “exploitation of taxpayer money for promotional material.”Schumer’s legislation, titled the “No PR Act,” blocks the use of federal dollars to promote Trump or Vice President Mike Pence’s names or signatures with any future coronavirus economic relief.“President Trump unfortunately appears to see the pandemic as just another opportunity to promote his own political interests,” Schumer told Politico in a statement. “The No PR Act puts an end to the president’s exploitation of taxpayer money for promotional material that only benefits his re-election campaign.”Following the president’s signing of the phase-three $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief package in March, which included government payments for certain Americans based on their level of income, the Treasury Department issued a directive for Trump’s name to appear on stimulus checks sent out by the Internal Revenue Service.Trump and Schumer sparred earlier this month over the administration’s coronavirus response, with Schumer calling repeatedly for an “unpolitical” appointee to oversee the distribution of medical supplies. The president countered by highlighting the role of Rear Admiral John P. Polowczyk, head of FEMA’s the supply chain task force.“If you spent less time on your ridiculous impeachment hoax, which went haplessly on forever and ended up going nowhere (except increasing my poll numbers), and instead focused on helping the people of New York, then New York would not have been so completely unprepared,” Trump told Schumer in a strongly-worded letter. “You have been missing in action, except when it comes to the ‘press.’”

President Donald Trump's self-assessment has been consistent."I'm, like, a very smart person," he assured voters in 2016."A very stable genius," he ruled two years later."I'm not a doctor," he allowed Thursday, pointing to his skull inside the White House briefing room, "but I'm, like, a person that has a good you-know-what."Trump's performance that evening, when he suggested that injections of disinfectants into the human body could help combat the coronavirus, did not sound like the work of a doctor, a genius, or a person with a good you-know-what.Even by the turbulent standards of this president, his musings on virus remedies have landed with uncommon force, drawing widespread condemnation as dangerous to the health of Americans and inspiring a near-universal alarm that many of his past remarks -- whether offensive or fearmongering or simply untrue -- did not.Trump's typical name-calling can be recast to receptive audiences as mere "counterpunching." His impeachment was explained away as the dastardly opus of overreaching Democrats. It is more difficult to insist that the man floating disinfectant injection knows what he's doing.The reaction has so rattled the president's allies and advisers that he was compelled over the weekend to remove himself from the pandemic briefings entirely, at least temporarily accepting two fates he loathes: giving in to advice (from Republicans who said the appearances did far more harm than good to his political standing) and surrendering the mass viewership he relishes.Some at the White House have expressed frustration that the issue has lingered. "It bothers me that this is still in the news cycle," Dr. Deborah Birx, the coronavirus response coordinator, told CNN on Sunday, adding, "I worry that we don't get the information to the American people that they need, when we continue to bring up something that was from Thursday night."Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland, a Republican who has been willing to speak skeptically about Trump's virus leadership, said on ABC's "This Week" on Sunday that it "does send a wrong message" when misinformation spreads from a public official or "you just say something that pops in your head." Asked to explain the president's words, Hogan said, "You know, I can't really explain it."No modern American politician can match Trump's record of false or illogical statements, which has invited questions about his intelligence. Insinuations and gaffes have trailed former President George W. Bush, former Vice President Dan Quayle and Joe Biden, now the presumptive Democratic nominee, among many others. But Trump's stark pronouncement -- on live television, amid a grave public health crisis, and leaving little room for interpretation -- was at once in a class of its own and wholly consistent with a reputation for carelessness in speech.Still, for weeks, the president's political team has been strikingly explicit about its intended messaging against Biden: presenting him as a doddering 77-year-old not up to the rigors of the office -- and setting off on the kind of whisper campaign that does not bother with whispers.A Trump campaign Twitter account Saturday celebrated the anniversary of Biden's 2020 bid by highlighting all that he had "forgotten" as a candidate, with corresponding video clips of momentary flubs and verbal stumbles: "Joe Biden forgot the name of the coronavirus." "Joe Biden forgot the G7 was not the G8." "Joe Biden forgot Super Tuesday was on a Tuesday."On Sunday, the Trump campaign made clear that the disinfectant affair would not disrupt its plans. "Joe Biden is often lost," said Tim Murtaugh, a Trump campaign spokesman, "losing his train of thought during friendly interviews, even when he relies on written notes in front of him."T.J. Ducklo, a Biden spokesman, called this approach "a distraction tactic -- as if anything could erase the memory of the president suggesting people drink disinfectant on national television."Carlos Curbelo, a Republican former Florida congressman who clashed at times with Trump and did not vote for him, said the president's comments on disinfectants were likely to resonate precisely because he was running a race premised largely on Biden's mental capacity."Given Joe Biden's gaffes and mistakes, I think the Trump campaign had a strong narrative there," he said. "At the very least, that advantage was completely erased."Curbelo said a friend had suggested recently that Trump's toxic virus idea was "the craziest thing he ever said.""I said, 'I don't know,'" Curbelo recalled. "'Maybe. I'd have to look back and check.'"This history, of course, is the argument for Democratic caution. The list of episodes that were supposed to end Trump -- the "Access Hollywood" tape, the "very fine people" on both sides of a white supremacist rally, insulting John McCain's service as a prisoner of war -- is longer than most voters' memories.The president can register as more time-bending than Teflon. Plenty sticks to him; it just tends to be buried quickly enough by the next stack of outrages, limiting the exposure of any single one.But if most Trump admirers have long since made up their minds about him, recent polling on his handling of the crisis does suggest some measure of electoral risk. Governors and public health officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci are viewed as far more trustworthy on the pandemic, according to surveys.Lily Adams, a former aide on the presidential campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris, who is now advising Unite the Country, a pro-Biden super PAC, said that swing voters in focus groups were especially dismayed at Trump's refusal to listen to experts."Any person who has ever done a load of laundry, or installed a childproof lock on a cleaning supplies cabinet, or just looked at one of those skulls on the label, knows it's an idiotic idea," she said.Even some of the president's reliable cheerleaders at Fox News have not tried to defend him. And recent visitors to the Drudge Report -- the powerful conservative news aggregation site whose proprietor, Matt Drudge, has increasingly ridiculed Trump of late -- were greeted with a doctored image of "Clorox Chewables." "Trump Recommended," the tagline read. "Don't Die Maybe!"For Trump, such mockery tends to singe. Since long before his 2016 campaign, few subjects have been as meaningful to him as appraisals of his intellect.It is a source of perpetual obsession and manifest insecurity, former aides say, so much so that Trump has felt the need to allude to his brainpower regularly: tales of his academic credentials at the University of Pennsylvania; his "natural ability" in complicated disciplines; his connection to a "super genius" uncle, an engineer who taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.When Rex Tillerson, the president's first secretary of state, was reported to have called Trump a "moron" in private -- one of several former senior administration officials said to have rendered equivalent verdicts -- Trump challenged him to "compare IQ tests." A favorite Trump insult on Twitter, reserved for Mr. Biden among others, is "low IQ individual.""He doesn't want to feel like anybody is better than he is," said Barbara A. Res, a former executive vice president of the Trump Organization, who recalled Trump bragging about his college grades. "He can't deal with that. I can see it now with the doctors, and that's why he dismisses them. He used to be intimidated by lawyers. Anyone who knows more than he does makes him feel less than he is."Steve Schmidt, a former Republican strategist and prominent Trump critic, said the president's meditation on disinfectants stood apart from a trope that Schmidt came to recognize as an adviser to conservatives like Bush: "that the conservative candidate in the race was also always portrayed as the dumb candidate.""But a caricature is distinct from a narrative," Schmidt said. And Trump's reckless medical fare, he reasoned, had given adversaries a narrative by confirming a caricature.The president's own attempts at damage control have been scattershot. First, his new press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, accused the news media of taking Trump out of context. Shortly afterward, he undercut her case by saying his comments had in fact been a sarcastic prank on reporters, an explanation even some supporters found implausible.He left his Friday briefing on the coronavirus without taking questions. By Saturday, when Trump tweeted that the events were "not worth the time & effort," his opponents conceded this much:The president had probably done something smart.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

(Bloomberg) -- President Jair Bolsonaro is expected to nominate a close ally to head Brazil’s justice ministry, replacing a previous cabinet member who accused him of trying to meddle in police investigations, according to Folha de S.Paulo newspaper.The move would do little to dismiss allegations of political interference leveled against the president by Sergio Moro, a former star judge who landed behind bars top politicians and business leaders during a sprawling anti-corruption investigation dubbed Carwash. Moro set off a political storm in Brazil when he resigned as justice minister on Friday, just after Bolsonaro fired the head of the federal police.The president intends to announce Jorge Oliveira, an old-time friend and currently his secretary general, as justice minister, Folha reported, citing a person familiar with his plan. The new police chief will be Alexadre Ramagem, who leads the national intelligence agency and is close to the president’s sons, according to the paper.Bolsonaro’s press office didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.Moro’s abrupt resignation tainted Bolsonaro’s anti-corruption credentials, one of the pillars of his government, leaving the president more vulnerable to impeachment efforts and criminal investigations. The political crisis hits the government just as Brazil braces for the worst weeks of the coronavirus pandemic and months of economic disaster. The real has lost almost 30% of its value this year, the most among the world’s main currencies, as investors fear Brazil’s political and fiscal stabilities are at risk.Read More: Bolsonaro Bet Big With Two Promises and Both Are in TroubleCriminal InvestigationPressure against Bolsonaro is mounting as the country’s top court is expected to endorse as early as Monday a request from the nation’s top prosecutor to investigate Moro’s allegations. In his resignation speech, the former judge said Bolsonaro had started to demand the replacement of the police chief in the second half of 2019, without good reason.The federal police carry out a number of investigations with potential to implicate Bolsonaro’s family, including a probe on the spread of fake news and another on alleged irregularities at Rio de Janeiro’s state assembly, where one of his sons served as lawmaker. The family has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.Another threat to Bolsonaro could come from Congress, where Lower House Speaker Rodrigo Maia sits on two dozen impeachment requests against the president. Others are expected to be filed in the next few days. Yet the speaker is in no rush to initiate impeachment proceedings, according to people familiar with his thinking.In an attempt to build support among legislators, Bolsonaro has started to offer positions in state-controlled companies to lawmakers from centrist parties.Moro is not the only minister to clash with Bolsonaro. Earlier this month the president fired his health minister after he refusing to bow to demands to ease coronavirus social distancing policies in favor of reopening the economy. Tensions with Economy Minister Paulo Guedes are also on the rise.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.

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump's erratic handling of the coronavirus outbreak, the worsening economy and a cascade of ominous public and private polling have Republicans increasingly nervous that they are at risk of losing the presidency and the Senate if Trump does not put the nation on a radically improved course.The scale of the GOP's challenge has crystallized in the last week. With 26 million Americans now having filed for unemployment benefits, Trump's standing in states that he carried in 2016 looks increasingly wobbly: New surveys show him trailing significantly in battleground states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, and he is even narrowly behind in must-win Florida.Democrats raised substantially more money than Republicans did in the first quarter in the most pivotal congressional races, according to recent campaign finance reports. And while Trump is well ahead in money compared with the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, Democratic donors are only beginning to focus on the general election, and several super political action committees plan to spend heavily on behalf of him and the party.Perhaps most significantly, Trump's single best advantage as an incumbent -- his access to the bully pulpit -- has effectively become a platform for self-sabotage.His daily news briefings on the coronavirus outbreak are inflicting grave damage on his political standing, Republicans believe, and his recent remarks about combating the virus with sunlight and disinfectant were a breaking point for a number of senior party officials.On Friday evening, Trump conducted only a short briefing and took no questions, a format that a senior administration official said was being discussed as the best option for the president going forward.Glen Bolger, a longtime Republican pollster, said the landscape for his party had become far grimmer compared with the previrus plan to run almost singularly around the country's prosperity."With the economy in free-fall, Republicans face a very challenging environment, and it's a total shift from where we were a few months ago," Bolger said. "Democrats are angry, and now we have the foundation of the campaign yanked out from underneath us."Trump's advisers and allies have often blamed external events for his most self-destructive acts, such as his repeated outbursts during the two-year investigation into his campaign's dealings with Russia. Now there is no such explanation -- and, so far, there have been exceedingly few successful interventions regarding Trump's behavior at the podium.Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said the president had to change his tone and offer more than a campaign of grievance."You got to have some hope to sell people," Cole said. "But Trump usually sells anger, division and 'we're the victim.'"There are still more than six months until the election, and many Republicans are hoping that the dynamics of the race will shift once Biden is thrust back into the campaign spotlight. At that point, they believe, the race will not simply be the up-or-down referendum on the president it is now, and Trump will be able to more effectively sell himself as the person to rebuild the economy."We built the greatest economy in the world; I'll do it a second time," Trump said earlier this month, road-testing a theme he will deploy in the coming weeks.Still, a recent wave of polling has fueled Republican anxieties, as Biden leads in virtually every competitive state.The surveys also showed Republican senators in Arizona, Colorado, North Carolina and Maine trailing or locked in a dead heat with potential Democratic rivals -- in part because their fate is linked to Trump's job performance. If incumbents in those states lose and Republicans pick up only the Senate seat in Alabama, Democrats would take control of the chamber should Biden win the presidency."He's got to run very close for us to keep the Senate," Charles Black, a veteran Republican consultant, said of Trump. "I've always thought we were favored to, but I can't say that now with all these cards up in the air."Republicans were taken aback this past week by the results of a 17-state survey commissioned by the Republican National Committee. It found the president struggling in the Electoral College battlegrounds and likely to lose without signs of an economic rebound this fall, according to a party strategist outside the RNC who is familiar with the poll's results.The Trump campaign's own surveys have also shown an erosion of support, according to four people familiar with the data, as the coronavirus remains the No. 1 issue worrying voters.Polling this early is, of course, not determinative: In 2016 Hillary Clinton also enjoyed a wide advantage in many states well before November.Yet Trump's best hope to win a state he lost in 2016, Minnesota, also seems increasingly challenging. A Democratic survey taken by Sen. Tina Smith showed the president trailing by 10 percentage points there, according to a Democratic strategist who viewed the poll.The private data of the two parties is largely mirrored by public surveys. Just last week, three Pennsylvania polls and two Michigan surveys were released showing Trump losing outside the margin of error. And a pair of Florida polls were released that showed Biden enjoying a slim advantage in a state that is all but essential for Republicans to retain the presidency.To some in the party, this feels all too similar to the last time they held the White House.In 2006, anger at President George W. Bush and unease with the Iraq War propelled Democrats to reclaim Congress; two years later they captured the presidency thanks to the same anti-incumbent themes and an unexpected crisis that accelerated their advantage: the economic collapse of 2008. The two elections were effectively a single continuous rejection of Republican rule -- as some in the GOP fear 2018 and 2020 could become in a worst-case scenario."It already feels very similar to the 2008 cycle," said Billy Piper, a Republican lobbyist and former chief of staff to Sen. Mitch McConnell.Significant questions remain that could tilt the outcome of this election: whether Americans experience a second wave of the virus in the fall, the condition of the economy and how well Biden performs after he emerges from his Wilmington, Delaware, basement, which many in his party are privately happy to keep him in so long as Trump is fumbling as he governs amid a crisis.But if Republicans are comforted by the uncertainties that remain, they are alarmed by one element of this election that is already abundantly clear: The small-dollar fundraising energy Democrats enjoyed in the midterms has not abated.Most of the incumbent House Democrats facing competitive races enjoy a vast financial advantage over Republican challengers, who are struggling to garner attention as the virus overwhelms news coverage.Still, few officials in either party believed the House was in play this year. There was also similar skepticism about the Senate. Then the virus struck, and fundraising reports covering the first three months of this year were released in mid-April.Republican senators facing difficult races were not only all outraised by Democrats, they were also overwhelmed.In Maine, for example, Sen. Susan Collins brought in $2.4 million, while her little-known rival, House speaker Sara Gideon, raised more than $7 million. Even more concerning to Republicans is lesser-known Thom Tillis of North Carolina. Republican officials are especially irritated at Tillis because he has little small-dollar support and raised only $2.1 million, which was more than doubled by his Democratic opponent."These Senate first-quarter fundraising numbers are a serious wake-up call for the GOP," said Scott Reed, the top political strategist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.The Republican Senate woes come as anger toward Trump is rising from some of the party's most influential figures on Capitol Hill.After working closely with Senate Republicans at the start of the year, some of the party's top congressional strategists say the handful of political advisers Trump retains have communicated little with them since the health crisis began.In a campaign steered by Trump, whose rallies drove fundraising and data harvesting, the center of gravity has of late shifted to the White House. His campaign headquarters will remain closed for another few weeks, and West Wing officials say the president's campaign manager, Brad Parscale, hasn't been to the White House since last month, though he is in touch by phone.Then there is the president's conduct.In just the last week, he has undercut the efforts of his campaign and his allies to attack Biden on China; suddenly proposed a halt on immigration; and said governors should not move too soon to reopen their economies -- a week after calling on protesters to "liberate" their states. And that was all before his digression into the potential healing powers of disinfectants.Republican lawmakers have gone from watching his lengthy daily briefings with a tight-lipped grimace to looking upon them with horror."Any of us can be onstage too much," said longtime Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon, noting that "there's a burnout factor no matter who you are; you've got to think about that."Privately, other party leaders are less restrained about the political damage they believe Trump is doing to himself and Republican candidates. One prominent GOP senator said the nightly sessions were so painful he could not bear watching any longer."I would urge the president to focus on the positive, all that has been done and how we are preparing for a possible renewal of the pandemic in the fall," said Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y.Asked about concerns over Trump's briefings, the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, said, "Millions and millions of Americans tune in each day to hear directly from President Trump and appreciate his leadership, unprecedented coronavirus response, and confident outlook for America's future."Trump's thrashing about partly reflects his frustration with the virus and his inability to slow Biden's rise in the polls. It's also an illustration of his broader inability to shift the public conversation to another topic, something he has almost always been able to do when confronted with negative storylines ranging from impeachment proceedings to payouts to adult film stars.Trump is also restless. Administration officials said they were looking to resume his travel in as soon as a week, although campaign rallies remain distant for now.As they look for ways to regain the advantage, some Republicans believe the party must mount an immediate ad campaign blitzing Biden, identifying him to their advantage and framing the election as a clear choice."If Trump is the issue, he probably loses," said Black, the consultant. "If he makes it about Biden and the economy is getting better, he has a chance."This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company

Pulitzer-winner David Rohde dismisses the Deep State theory – but also shows government does pursue entrenched interestsThe 2016 election left the US gaping at a brewing battle between the president-elect and the most senior members of the law enforcement and intelligence communities.Into the conflagration jumped Virgil, a pseudonymous contributor to Breitbart, who wrote of a “deep state” within the US government, bolstered by the mainstream media and a “galaxy of contractors, profiteers, supporters”, all purportedly intent on destroying Donald Trump.His near-4,000 word essay appeared weeks before the FBI director, James Comey, briefed the president-elect about the Steele dossier, on 5 January 2017, before 11 January when Trump compared America’s intelligence agencies to Adolf Hitler’s Gestapo. For Trump and his minions, Virgil’s take became a touchstone.Enter the New Yorker’s David Rohde. Under the subtitle “The FBI, the CIA, and the Truth About America’s ‘Deep State’”, the two-time Pulitzer-winner rejects the nomenclature of conspiracy theorists. In doing so he relies in part on Will Hurd, a moderate Republican congressman from Texas who served overseas with the CIA, opposed impeachment and is not seeking re-election.> Trump placing his hand on the shoulder of an FBI director and whispering into his ear is the stuff of Scorsese’s filmsBut Rohde does little to dispel the notion that government is riddled with entrenched interests, and that career officials can find themselves at odds with incumbent presidents and vice versa. In Rohde’s view, civil servants are part of “‘institutional government’”, a relatively benign term that masks turf fights, budget battles, policy skirmishes, built-in biases and well-formed points of view. The left has frequently derided the military industrial complex. Name-calling plays both ways.Rohde acknowledges that “all countries have permanent governments”, but says the US imposes greater political control over its employees and the resultant process. Even so, campaign finance records reflect that the federal bureaucracy is not a Republican bastion.Going back in time, in 2012 Internal Revenue Service employees donated to Barack Obama over Mitt Romney by a 4–1 ratio while lawyers at the National Labor Relations Board and the education department shut out Romney completely. In 2020, Joe Biden is outpacing Trump at the IRS and the justice department, as Hillary Clinton did in 2016.Of course, who joins the federal government is not necessarily in sync with who prevails on election day. But the Trump presidency appears unique and disheartening. The fight between the president and law enforcement and intelligence was an avoidable consequence of Russia’s “active measures” in support of the Trump campaign, and a candidate all too willing to accept the sordid bounty.“I love WikiLeaks” was bound to gain attention. And as Rohde makes clear, Trump has waged a persistent assault upon the rule of law, the ideal of a justice department removed from politics and the concept of an intelligence community loyal to the country rather than the man in the Oval Office.A recent Senate intelligence committee report observed that the intelligence community has “present[ed] a coherent and well-constructed intelligence basis for the case of unprecedented Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election”. As Robert Mueller reminded us, absence of indictment was not akin to prosecutorial absolution, despite what the attorney general, William Barr, may have thought and said.On that score, in an opinion issued last month Reggie Walton, a George W Bush appointee to the federal bench, “seriously” questioned Barr’s integrity and credibility, using words like “distorted” and “misleading” to drive the point home.Suffice to say, all this is coming with a steep cost to our democracy and our post-Watergate system, which sought to make law enforcement something other than the handmaiden of the White House. Trump placing his hand on the shoulder of an FBI director and whispering into his ear is the stuff of Martin Scorsese’s films. “Lock her up” is chant befitting a democracy in decay – or worse.> In Deep also pays attention to the Trump administration’s privatization of foreign policyRohde, however, reminds us that Trump’s predecessor was by no means angelic when it came to encroachment on civil liberties, despite stints on the Harvard Law Review and as a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago. Under Obama the Pentagon regarded leaking non-classified information as “tantamount to aiding the enemies of the United States”.Rohde recalls how the intelligence community under Obama spied on a Senate committee, misled Congress about spying on Americans and expanded the use of drone warfare. He offers granular detail on how James Clapper, Obama’s director of national intelligence, obfuscated before the Senate intelligence committee on data collection and surveillance of US citizens.Years later, Clapper would accuse Trump and his administration of an “assault on truth” and posit that Trump might be a “witting or unwitting” Russian asset. Regardless of the validity of the charges, Rohde voices discomfort with intelligence community alumni playing an outsized role in clashes with the administration.In Deep also pays attention to the Trump administration’s privatization of foreign policy. Among other things, Rohde describes at length how the efforts in Ukraine of Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, helped lead to Trump’s impeachment. Not surprisingly, Republican stalwarts have failed to thunder paroxysms of outrage over this dubious practice as they do over the supposed deep state.As Rohde repeatedly reminds us, negative partisanship increasingly drives our politics. With social chasms underlying most of the divide, don’t expect it to disappear anytime soon. In our cold civil war, elections have morphed into safety valves and battlefields. Wisconsin’s potentially lethal conflict over mail-in ballots is just the latest reminder.In assessing the existence of a deep state, or otherwise, it is worth remembering what Steve Bannon had to say about it – the same Steve Bannon who skippered Trump’s upset victory and signed Virgil’s paycheck back in his Breitbart days. As Bannon admitted to James Stewart of the New York Times, the “deep state conspiracy theory is for nut cases”, because “America isn’t Turkey or Egypt”.True enough, but our freedom and trust continue to erode with no end in sight.