Death confirmed in Washington state as president says he used word hoax ‘with regard to Democrats and what they were saying’Shortly after confirmation of the first coronavirus death in the US, Donald Trump rebuffed criticism for using the word “hoax” in describing the outbreak. The president also touted his administration’s response as “the most aggressive action in modern history to confront this disease”.Trump made his startling claim at a rally on Friday night in North Charleston, South Carolina, the state holding a Democratic primary on Saturday.“The Democrats are politicising the coronavirus,” Trump said. “They’re politicising it. One of my people came up to me and said: ‘Mr President, they tried to beat you on Russia, Russia, Russia.’ That did not work out too well. They could not do it. They tried the impeachment hoax.“This is their new hoax.”Washington state governor Jay Inslee confirmed the death on Saturday.“It is a sad day in our state as we learn a Washingtonian has died from Covid-19,” Inslee said in a statement. “Our hearts go out to his family and friends. We will continue to work toward a day where no one dies from this virus.”According to the latest World Health Organization (WHO) situation report, 83,652 cases of coronavirus and nearly 2,800 deaths have been reported worldwide. The vast majority of cases are in China but the virus has caused havoc with stock markets and international travel and sporting and business events.Before news of the Washington state death, US authorities reported three new cases in the Pacific north-west overnight, bringing the total to 62.At the White House on Saturday, Trump was asked if he regretted using “hoax” now that someone had died.His use of the word referred to “the action they [Democrats] tried to take to try to pin this on somebody because we’ve done such a good job”, he said.“The hoax is on them. I’m not talking about what’s happening here,” Trump added, also saying he was “certainly not referring to this … I don’t like it when they are criticizing these people, and that’s the hoax.”Trump was also asked if his use of “hoax” could deter people from taking cautionary steps against the coronavirus. He insisted again the word was used “with regard to Democrats and what they were saying”.Regarding the White House’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, Trump said he would meet with pharmaceutical companies on Monday to discuss expedited vaccine development.Vice-president Mike Pence, heading the coronavirus task force, described four new initiatives to combat the virus. They included expanding the federal ban on travel from Iran, barring foreign nationals who have visited the country within 14 days from entering the US.Pence said US officials would also increase to “the highest level” an advisory warning Americans not to visit areas of Italy and South Korea most impacted by coronavirus, and said the state department would work with these countries to screen individuals.Pence also said the administration had contracted with 3M to produce an additional 35 million face masks per month.Trump’s comments about a supposed hoax were condemned by Democrats seeking the nomination to face him in the presidential election.“For him to … start talking about being a hoax is absolutely dangerous,” Biden said in Greenville, South Carolina, on Saturday. “It’s just not a decent way to act.”Biden added: “Some of the stuff he says is so bizarre that you can laugh at it. It just so diminishes the faith that people around the world have in the United States.”Trump repeatedly called Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian election interference a hoax. The former special counsel did not establish a criminal conspiracy but did lay out extensive evidence of contacts between the Trump campaign and Russians and numerous instances of potential obstruction of justice.“Look, this is a serious, serious, serious problem,” Biden said. “It’s able to be solved, but it requires us to be absolutely levelheaded and let the scientists have the lead in all of this.“But for [Trump] to … start talking about being a hoax is absolutely dangerous. It’s just not a decent way to act.”Other Democratic candidates weighed in. Sanders asked why Trump “repeatedly think[s] that scientific facts are hoaxes” and said “the most dangerous president in the modern history of our country” was “putting our people’s lives at risk”.Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, told NBC News: “It’s critically important that the administration and the White House handle this in a way that’s based on science and not on politics. I was particularly disturbed to hear the word ‘hoax’ used by the president.”American lives, Buttigieg added, “depend on the wisdom and the judgement of the president at a time like this”.Amid criticism for previous budget cuts to epidemic defences as his administration asked Congress for funding to address the coronavirus outbreak, Trump’s decision to put Pence in charge of US response has also met with widespread criticism.Republicans and supporters of Trump have fired back, accusing the president’s opponents and the media of seeking political gain from the outbreak. On Friday the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, told Fox News Democrats had reached a “new level of sickness” and wanted to see coronavirus kill “millions of people”.On Friday night, the president said: “We are doing everything in our power to keep the infection and those carrying the infection from entering the country. We have no choice.” He also sought without offering evidence to tie coronavirus cases in the US to the southern border, the focus of his hardline immigration policy.“Whether it’s the virus that we’re talking about,” Trump said, “or the many other public health threats, the Democrat policy of open borders is a direct threat to the health and wellbeing of all Americans.”At the White House on Saturday Trump said the administration was not seriously considering closing the border with Mexico.

Senator ‘very suspect of the Taliban’, ex-national security adviser slams ‘Obama-style deal’ and Democrats call for oversightIn Doha on Saturday, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo hailed the “historic talks” which led to the signing of an agreement with the Taliban which will see the US begin to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan after more than 18 years of war.In Washington, however, the deal was not greeted with universal enthusiasm even by Trump allies such as Lindsey Graham or by former presidential aides, among them the former national security adviser John Bolton.Many observers counselled caution and pointed to a difficult road ahead.Most pointed out that the deal leaves peace in Afghanistan to be negotiated between the Taliban and an Afghan government the militants have always denounced as a puppet.Many voiced concerns about safeguarding human rights advances, particularly concerning the lives of Afghan women, made since the US invasion in 2001 which also denied al-Qaida terrorists their base for the 9/11 attacks.US troops could be out by spring 2021 but that will depend on the Taliban refraining from violent action. In the US on Saturday a planned prisoner exchange was also criticised as a potential concession too far.The White House said: “President Trump promised to bring our troops home from overseas and is following through on that promise.”Opponents of the Trump administration emphasised the timing of the deal in an election year.In a statement, Graham, a foreign policy hawk who appeared at a Trump campaign rally in his home state on Friday, said he would “support any reasonable effort to negotiate an end to the war in Afghanistan.“However, any peace agreement must be sustainable, honorable and include protections for the American homeland against international terrorist organisations that are alive and well in Afghanistan.”The South Carolina Republican added: “I am very suspect of the Taliban ever accepting the Afghan constitution and honouring the rights of religious minorities and women. Time will tell if reconciliation in Afghanistan can be accomplished with honour and security, but after more than 18 years of war, it is time to try.”John Bolton, Trump’s third national security adviser who was fired in September last year, was more damning.“Signing this agreement with Taliban is an unacceptable risk to America’s civilian population,” he said in a tweet. “This is an Obama-style deal. Legitimising Taliban sends the wrong signal to [Islamic State] and al-Qaida terrorists, and to America’s enemies generally.”The mention of Obama would have been particularly stinging to Trump, who has repeatedly sought to reverse his predecessor’s actions.Bolton was also a key figure in Trump’s impeachment, over his approaches to Ukraine, which the president survived. The former adviser has a book coming out – Trump is trying to block it.At the White House on Saturday afternoon, at a press conference to discuss the coronavirus outbreak, Trump was asked about Bolton’s comment.“He had his chance, he didn’t do it,” he said, before seeming to refer to Bolton’s role in the administration of George W Bush, under which the US invaded Afghanistan.“He was very much in favour of going in, we should never have gone in in the first place. When they went into Iraq, when they went into the Middle East in such a fashion I was very much against it.”In fact, at the time Trump voiced his support for the Iraq war.The candidates for the Democratic nomination to face Trump in November were campaigning on Saturday, mostly in South Carolina which was staging its primary.A senior figure on Capitol Hill, the Connecticut senator Chris Murphy, said the agreement with the Taliban was “a step in the right direction”.But, he added: “It’s critical that women and minorities are brought to the table in the coming negotiations … we must sustain our diplomatic engagement with the Afghan people as we also work to begin bringing our troops home, while leaving critical counterterrorism operations in place.“This is the longest war in our country’s history, and that’s exactly why Congress must be consulted before any final agreement is reached. That’s why I am requesting Ambassador [Zalmay] Khalilzad” – the peace envoy who signed the deal in Doha – come before the Senate foreign relations committee in the coming weeks.”Elliot Engel, the Democratic chair of the House foreign relations committe, said he was “concerned that this negotiation was carried out without any meaningful input from Congress and with little transparency for the American people – a recurring problem with this administration”. He also said he expected Khalilzad to appear before his committee.Experts also advised caution.Kate Clark, co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, said: “This is not yet a peace deal, it’s a withdrawal deal. You can’t help hoping for something like a momentum being created by this reduction in violence but it didn’t happen after the Eid ceasefire [in 2018].”Richard Haas, president of the Council on Foreign Relations thinktank, said: “As welcome as peace in Afghanistan would be, it is hard to believe it is at hand. I see no mention of Taliban disarmament or closing its Pakistan sanctuary. The risk is the US removes capabilities in the long-shot hope the Taliban will change its ways.”

US secretary of state Mike Pompeo has refused to deny a conspiracy theory that the severity of the coronavirus outbreak is a "hoax", after the White House tried to paint coverage of the disease's spread as a conspiracy to undermine Donald Trump.The president accused his opponents and the media of “politicising” the virus, adding, “This is their new hoax,” following the investigation over Russian interference in his election and his impeachment.

As global markets plunged amid growing fears about the coronavirus outbreak, President Donald Trump and his allies pulled from a familiar playbook Friday and blamed others for the slide. Trump tweeted that “The Do Nothing Democrats" had wasted time on impeachment and “anything else they could do to make the Republican Party look bad" while defending his own response to the virus outbreak, which many across the aisle have deemed sluggish and scattershot. “So, the Coronavirus, which started in China and spread to various countries throughout the world, but very slowly in the U.S. because President Trump closed our border, and ended flights, VERY EARLY, is now being blamed, by the Do Nothing Democrats, to be the fault of ‘Trump,'" the president wrote, aggressively employing third-person narration.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo defended the Trump administration's response to the spreading coronavirus but also faced contentious questions from Democrats about the basis for an airstrike that killed Iran's most powerful general and whether the attack had put American security at risk. Democrats on the House Foreign Affairs Committee repeatedly expressed frustration that the panel was afforded only two hours to question Pompeo, who until Friday had gone months without testifying publicly on Capitol Hill.

Republicans gathered at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday to cheer on their conservative heroes. But they also had an opportunity to shame GOP politicians they deemed not pro-Trump enough, casting ballots for the “phoniest ‘conservative’ lawmaker.” Next to a stuffed donkey with a fake elephant’s snout, attendees voted for the likes of former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and former Ohio Gov. John Kasich, who led the ballot count as of Thursday afternoon. One prominent GOP Trump critic wasn’t an option, though—because everybody already knew he’d win in a landslide. “Of course you can’t have Romney out here,” said the CPAC organizer running the vote, who declined to give his name on the grounds he’d be fired. “He’d get all the votes.” CPAC chief Matt Schlapp banned Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) from the annual conservative confab in January after Romney cast the sole Republican vote in the Senate for impeachment, claiming that he couldn’t guarantee Romney’s physical safety. And while there was no evidence that Romney would actually have been at risk on Thursday, CPAC-goers still raged about their party’s former presidential nominee, with Romney often seeming as much a target at CPAC as the Democratic presidential candidates. Speakers repeatedly slammed Romney from the stage. Trump ally Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) asked the crowd whether they’d prefer Romney or Trump at the conference—to cheers in favor of the president. Schlapp declared that snubbing Romney had worked out “just fine.” On Thursday morning, young conservative star and Turning Point USA chief Charlie Kirk encouraged a crowd to boo Romney’s name every time they hear it. “Every time his name is mentioned you should react this way,” Kirk said. “Because he lied to every single person in this room.”Kirk portrayed Romney as a dinosaur of the pre-Trump GOP, to whoops from the crowd. Trump Spends 45 Minutes With ‘Deep State’ Play Actors Amid Coronavirus Mayhem“The party of Mitt Romney was a party that did not fight,” Kirk said. “It was a party that wanted to preserve the ruling class.” CPAC attendees claimed to be just as sick of their party’s one-time standard bearer. “I never liked him, and I’m glad he’s not here,” said Diane Ventura, who was at CPAC to sell “Trump Towels,” a commemorative towel modeled on the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Terrible Towel. “That is the most jealous man on the planet,” agreed Dion Cini, a fellow Trump Towel vendor. Romney was also a target for the conservative pundits roaming the floor at CPAC. Newsmax host John Cardillo claimed Romney voted in favor of impeachment just to position himself as a “Never Trump” foil to the president. “He wanted that dubious distinction,” Cardillo said.Sinclair host Eric Bolling summed up Romney’s status as CPAC’s enemy No. 1. “He should switch parties,” Bolling 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.

(Bloomberg) -- In a matter of days, South Korea has swung from confidence that it had escaped the worst of the coronavirus outbreak to a cautionary tale of how quickly the disease can plunge a nation into crisis.Confirmed cases of the deadly disease surged past 2,000 on Friday -- doubling in two days and raising alarm about the worst outbreak outside of neighboring China. Supermarket shelves are emptying, mask prices are soaring and hospital beds are running out in Daegu city, where the disease has stricken many from a religious sect. Epidemiological models predict that infections in Korea will top 10,000 in March.The surge has citizens looking for someone to blame, prompting fresh criticism of South Korea President Moon Jae-in, who confidently predicted two weeks ago that the virus would be terminated “before long” while refusing calls to halt all arrivals from China. With 13 dead from the virus, public fury is coalescing around the government’s handling of the outbreak, especially its efforts to accommodate the country’s bigger, more powerful neighbor.“The government failed to contain this outbreak,” said Kim Su-yeon, a self-development lecturer who lives in Suji, near Seoul. “They were late in their response and they should have blocked the Chinese from coming in from the start,” Kim said, adding, “They have been ineffective in all of their policies.”Governments in places including Japan and Hong Kong have suffered similar backlash for being slow to restrict Chinese visitors, while others that took a harder line, such as Singapore and Taiwan, have seen the pace of new cases slow. Still, it may already be too late for any policy shifts, with outbreaks centered in countries as far-flung as Iran and Italy making it harder to calibrate travel restrictions.Ban EntryIn Korea, disapproval of Moon has risen five percentage points to 51%, the highest since October, according to a weekly Gallup Korea tracking poll released Friday. Some 41% were satisfied by the president’s handling of the virus, compared with 64% two weeks ago. Tellingly, almost two-thirds said they wanted the government to ban all foreign entries from China, rather than the current policy of barring visitors from certain hot spots.The anger is translating into action, with more than 1.2 million people signing a petition demanding Moon’s impeachment for taking what it calls a pro-China approach to the outbreak. The backlash comes just weeks ahead of April 15 parliamentary elections that could put the president’s rivals back into power. A competing petition supporting Moon and the government has garnered more than 900,000 signatures.Moon spokesman Kang Min-seok called criticism of the country’s entry policies “regrettable” and argued that they had helped stem new cases from China.“We’ve rationally taken into consideration the effectiveness of outbreak-prevention measures, as well as the interests of our people,” Kang said in a statement Thursday.Coronavirus: Places That Have Imposed Travel RestrictionsInfections in South Korea are now accelerating more quickly than in China. Daily life has largely ground to a halt in hard-hit Daegu, a southern city of 2.5 million people known for producing textile and apples that’s long been a stronghold of the conservative opposition.“When the president said the virus will soon be under control and that we can go back to our everyday life to continue economic activities, that’s when people started to take their protective masks off, and things got out of hand from there,” said Lee Haemin, a 31-year-old man in the financial industry living in Seoul. “The local economy is now on the verge of falling apart.”Now, buses are empty, restaurants are shut and kids are staying home from school. A concert featuring K-Pop boy band BTS scheduled for March 8 was postponed. Seomun market -- the city’s largest, where vendors hawk everything from fresh vegetables to clothing -- has been closed until Sunday.“Our business is in trouble and we might need to extend the shutdown if this continues,” said Kim Young-ou, president of the Daegu Merchant Association. “I asked the president for financial aid and tax deductions when he visited Daegu, but I don’t know if it’s feasible.”Economic HitAnxiety about the impact on the economy is rising across the country, with the Bank of Korea on Thursday lowering its growth forecast for 2020 to 2.1% from 2.3% in November. The benchmark Kospi index had its worst week since August 2011. Korea’s Finance Ministry said Friday that stabilizing the economy would require extra budget funds in excess of the 6.2 trillion won ($5.1 billion) spent to counter the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, or MERS, outbreak five years ago.Many Daegu cases have been traced back to South Korea’s “Patient 31,” a 61-year-old local woman who belongs to the Shincheonji religious sect. The church, whose founder says he’s a prophet sent by Jesus Christ to prepare for the end of the word, claims it has 300,000 members. Congregates sit elbow-to-elbow and knee-to-knee, in services that typically last one to two hours.How One Patient Turned Korea’s Virus Outbreak Into an EpidemicWhile authorities don’t yet know how Patient 31 was infected -- she didn’t have a record of traveling overseas -- reports of the sect’s members returning from services in China have inflamed public sentiment. Moreover, several Chinese cities have in recent days moved to enforce quarantines on anyone who recently returned from South Korea, a blanket action of the sort that Seoul has so far spared Chinese arrivals.Fraught RelationsDespite strong business and cultural links, China and South Korea have a complex and fraught relationship, including a shared history of Japanese occupation and fighting on opposite sides in the Korean War. Recent tensions, like how China froze out South Korean businesses and stopped tourism in 2017 after Seoul agreed to host a U.S.-backed missile system, linger close to the surface.Moon’s government fueled public anger when Health and Welfare Minister Park Neung-hoo said in an exchange with lawmakers Wednesday that the “biggest cause was Korean nationals coming in from China.” He was emphasizing that most of the initial confirmed cases involved Korean nationals who visited Wuhan, not Chinese nationals visiting Korea.The administration has come under fire for failing to stockpile protective masks and sending many to China, when the country now faces shortages. South Korea exported $61.3 million worth of masks to China in January, up from $600,000 in December, according to customs data. Another $118.5 million of masks were sent in the first 20 days of February.‘Hasty Call’“Moon apparently prioritized the economy and diplomacy -- two issues that will really matter once the virus situation is over -- based on a hasty call that this will be over soon,” said Lee Jae-mook, who teaches political science at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul. “That made sense to the majority of South Koreans only before they saw other nations do the opposite: sacrifice potential economic benefit for the sake of people’s safety.”On Wednesday, the government limited mask exports to only 10% of daily production and pledged to distribute 3.5 million masks daily via post offices and pharmacies. Health authorities are also now testing around 10,000 people a day while sending extra hospital beds to Daegu.That’s done little to relieve anxiety for residents like Cho Eun-mi. The 32-year-old mother of two says she’s too afraid to go outside.“When I wake up, hundreds of patients are increasing every day,” she said. “The fact that those patients also visited places where I go, like Starbucks, supermarkets near my home, is really freaking me out.”\--With assistance from Peter Pae, Kanga Kong, Jihye Lee and Sam Kim.To contact the reporters on this story: Kyungji Cho in Seoul at kcho54@bloomberg.net;Yoojung Lee in Seoul at ylee504@bloomberg.net;Heesu Lee in Seoul at hlee425@bloomberg.net;Kyunghee Park in Singapore at kpark3@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Rachel Chang at wchang98@bloomberg.net, Brendan Scott, Emma O'BrienFor 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.

(Bloomberg) -- Vice President Mike Pence said he is now leading the government’s coronavirus task force instead of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar.“I’m leading the task force,” Pence said Thursday at a meeting on the virus at HHS headquarters. “We’ll continue to rely on the secretary’s role as chairman of the task force and the leader of Health and Human Services.”President Donald Trump initially appointed Azar to lead the government’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, but on Wednesday, he named Pence to the role at a news conference. The Washington Post reported that Azar was blindsided by the decision, though Azar said he had been consulted and told lawmakers he thought Pence’s appointment was “genius.”“The president has every confidence in the secretary, as I do,” Pence said in response to a reporter’s question about who is in charge. “The President wanted to make it clear to the American people that we’re going to bring a whole-of-government approach to this.”Financial markets were not reassured. The S&P 500 fell 4.4% on Thursday, the biggest plunge since 2011, turning lower after California Governor Gavin Newsom said the state is monitoring about 8,400 people for signs of the disease after they traveled to Asia.Pence added another layer to the government’s management of the virus response on Thursday by appointing the State Department’s top AIDS official, Deborah Birx, to temporarily join his team.Former Obama OfficialBirx is a career government official who was nominated by former President Barack Obama in 2014 as the U.S. global AIDS coordinator responsible for overseeing humanitarian aid programs combating the epidemic. She also served as head of the global HIV/AIDS division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and was a top research official at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.Trump announced Wednesday during a news conference that Pence would take over the administration’s response to the coronavirus, which has now spread to more than 80,000 people worldwide and sparked a major sell-off on Wall Street.Pence and Azar announced earlier Thursday that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams and Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow, would join the administration’s coronavirus task force.Pence said in a speech to conservative activists at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in suburban Maryland that it’s not a time for partisanship.“We’re ready,” he said. “We’re ready for anything.”The president sought to calm U.S. fears by appearing Wednesday with public health officials at a news conference, where he said the risk to Americans remains low. But health officials said there are likely to be more cases in the U.S., and Trump acknowledged that the outbreak could become “substantially worse.”“But nothing’s inevitable,” he said.Market TumbleDuring the news conference, he took jabs at Democrats who had criticized his request for $2.5 billion to fight the virus as insufficient. He said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “is trying to create a panic and there’s no reason to panic because we have done so good, these professionals behind me, and over here, and over there, and back here, and in some conference rooms.”Global stocks tumbled to four-month lows on Thursday, government debt yields sunk and crude oil extended declines as anxiety over the spread of the coronavirus surged.Pence’s selection of Birx comes at a time when Trump has focused on rooting out political appointees from government whom he considers disloyal in the aftermath of his impeachment acquittal. Trump allies outside the administration have called for a purge of so-called “deep state” career national security officials.Investors anxious about the spread of the coronavirus from its origins in China have sought assurances that the Trump administration is prepared to confront a potential public health crisis. Trump, who in the past has called for budget cuts at the CDC and other health agencies, said Wednesday he would bring in officials from within the government to help with the virus response.(Updates with market plunge in fifth paragraph.)To contact the reporters on this story: Jennifer Jacobs in Washington at jjacobs68@bloomberg.net;Jordan Fabian in Washington at jfabian6@bloomberg.net;Ryan Beene in Washington at rbeene@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Alex Wayne at awayne3@bloomberg.net, Justin BlumFor 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.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah.) isn't getting the warmest of receptions at the Conservative Political Action Conference he was specifically not invited to. The Utah Senator and 2012 Republican presidential nominee's name was mentioned during Turning Point USA's Charlie Kirk's CPAC speech on Thursday, at which point the crowd booed and Kirk encouraged this as the proper response."Correct," Kirk said. "Every time his name is mentioned, you should respond that way."Kirk went on to rage that Romney "lied to every single person in this room" and voted "for that sham, unconstitutional impeachment." Romney was the only Republican senator to vote in favor of convicting President Trump in his impeachment trial, as well as the only senator in U.S. history to vote to remove a president of his party. After his vote to call additional witnesses in the impeachment trial, CPAC organizer Matt Schlapp said Romney was not invited to the event, with Schlapp later saying, "I'd actually be afraid for his physical safety" because "people are so mad at him." This type of backlash is something Romney clearly expected, saying in an interview the day of his impeachment vote, "the personal consequences, the political consequences that fall on me as a result of that are going to be extraordinary." > Charlie Kirk sets the tone, telling CPAC crowd that booing is the appropriate response to Mitt Romney's name. pic.twitter.com/eFCJXc8yqT> > -- Anthony L. Fisher (@anthonyLfisher) February 27, 2020More stories from theweek.com What it's like to be in Venice during coronavirus lockdown Trump freaks out about all the wrong things California monitors more than 8,000 people for coronavirus

Leveraging her impeachment performance, Rep. Elise Stefanik raised $3.2 million in the last three months of 2019, exceeding the reelection haul of progressive darling Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.