Coronavirus US: 61,492 new cases recorded, second highest day on record – live updates

The White House announced the president will hold a press conference in the Rose Garden at 5 pm ET today.

It’s unclear whether Trump will actually take questions from White House reporters at the event, considering the president has not stayed for questions at some of his recent press conferences.

If Trump does take questions, he will likely be pressed on his push for schools to reopen this fall, despite the coronavirus pandemic, and the White House’s recent efforts to cast doubt upon the credibility of Dr Anthony Fauci.

Republican congressman Morgan Griffith announced he has tested positive for coronavirus, days after participating in a press conference on the need to reopen schools.

“Congressman Morgan Griffith (R-VA) today was informed that he tested positive for COVID-19,” Griffith’s office said in a statement.

“Upon developing possible symptoms, he took the test and has since been self-isolating. Although he does not currently have significant symptoms, he will continue to self-isolate as he performs his duties on behalf of Virginia’s Ninth Congressional District.”

The news comes less than a week after Griffith participated in a press conference to urge schools to reopen this fall, despite concerns about the spread of coronavirus in the classroom.

Griffith defended calls from the president and his allies to reopen schools by saying, “It’s about making sure that we mitigate the risks, which we can easily do. We can take care of the students; we can take care of the teachers.”

Here’s where the day stands so far:

• The US carried out its first federal execution in 17 years. Convicted murderer Daniel Lewis Lee was put to death at a federal prison in Indiana after the supreme court issued a late night, 5-4 decision allowing the execution to proceed.
• Florida reported a record 132 coronavirus deaths in a single day. The grim figure brings Florida’s total coronavirus death toll to 4,409, as the state struggles to respond to a recent surge in new cases.
• Adm. Brett Giroir pushed back against a baseless claim, retweeted by the president, that the CDC is lying about coronavirus. Giroir, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, acknowledged mistakes in the government’s response to the pandemic, but he added, “None of us lie. We are completely transparent with the American people.”

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

New York is expanding the list of states on its travel advisory, telling travelers from 22 states that they must quarantine for 14 days upon arrival.

Cuomo, along with the governors or New Jersey and Connecticut, announced last month that travelers from states with high levels of community spread of coronavirus would have to quarantine after arriving.

Today, New York added Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio and Wisconsin to the list of impacted states and removed Delaware from the list.

The update comes one day after Cuomo announced out-of-state travelers would be required to provide their contact information upon arrival in New York. The Democratic governor warned those who refuse to do so could face a $2,000 fine.

Attorney general William Barr said “justice was done” in the execution of Daniel Lewis Lee, which took place this morning, making it the first federal execution since 2003.

“Today, Lee finally faced the justice he deserved,” Barr said in a statement released by the justice department.

“The American people have made the considered choice to permit capital punishment for the most egregious federal crimes, and justice was done today in implementing the sentence for Lee’s horrific offenses.”

Barr announced last year that the federal government was resuming capital punishment, which has only been carried out three times since the federal policy was reinstated in 1988.

The Trump administration faced a number of legal hurdles in advancing the policy, but the supreme court said Lee’s execution should move forward in a late night, 5-4 decision.

The White House has released its readout of Trump’s call yesterday with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and the readout, unlike Canada’s, interestingly includes no mention of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The White House readout says, in full, “Yesterday, President Donald J. Trump spoke with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada. The two leaders recognized the significance of the historic United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) recently entered into force on July 1, 2020.

“President Trump reiterated that USMCA is an unprecedented achievement for all three countries that will help ensure our economies emerge stronger from coronavirus. President Trump also underscored concerns regarding China’s deceptive and coercive behavior.”

In contrast, Trudeau tweeted yesterday that the two leaders “also discussed the Black Lives Matter movement and the need to end systemic racism.”

The call comes less than two months after George Floyd was killed in police custody, sparking protests across the country and a nationwide reckoning over racism and police brutality.

Trudeau participated in a Black Lives Matter demonstration in Ottawa last month, during which protesters called on the Canadian prime minister to stand up to Trump on issues of racism.

Ivanka Trump is holding an event at the White House this morning aimed at encouraging unemployed Americans to “find something new” in their careers.

According to the White House, the president’s daughter and senior adviser will hold a virtual roundtable this morning with IBM executive chair Ginni Rometty and Apple CEO Tim Cook to mark the launch of her “Find Something New” ad campaign.

The AP has more on the ad campaign:

The opening ad in the ‘Find Something New’ campaign beginning Tuesday features ordinary people sharing their stories. A companion website provides links to training and other resources.

The Trump administration has long emphasized skills-based job and vocational training as an alternative to two- or four-year college degree programs, arguing that college isn’t for everyone and that many jobs don’t require a degree.

But the long-in-the-works effort has taken on a new sense of urgency after the coronavirus outbreak cost millions of people their jobs, many of which may be lost forever.

The campaign quickly attracted the mockery of liberal commentators, many of whom argued the slogan was callous in the middle of a recession caused by a global pandemic.

From a former National Security Council spokesperson under Barack Obama:

From a New York Times columnist:

From an editor at large for the Daily Beast:

Florida has set a new record for the number of residents lost in a single day to coronavirus, as the state struggles to respond to a surge in new cases.

This morning, Florida reported 132 coronavirus deaths in the past day, bringing the state’s total death toll from the virus to 4,409.

Trump and other senior administration officials have pushed back against questions about the recent surge in cases by noting the death toll has not been rising as sharply.

However, a number of public health experts, including Dr Anthony Fauci, have noted the number of deaths often lags behind the number of new cases and warned the death toll could still see a sharp increase.

That grim predication now appears to be playing out in Florida, and other states may soon see similarly alarming numbers.

Louisiana’s attorney general will not be present to welcome Vice President Mike Pence today because he has reportedly tested positive for coronavirus.

The Advocate newspaper in Baton Rouge reports:

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry won’t be on the tarmac to greet Vice President Mike Pence later Tuesday morning because he has tested positive for coronavirus, according to an email blast to employees of the state Department of Justice.

‘Out of an overabundance of caution with the Vice President coming to our state, I was tested for Cornavirus,’ Landry wrote in the Tuesday email. ‘Though experiencing no symptoms, I tested positive for COVID-19.’

Landry wrote that he is quarantining, taking medications and remains asymptomatic. He contacted staffers in which he was in contact.

The news is likely not the backdrop Pence wanted as he travels to Louisiana to tour an emergency operations center and hold a roundtable discussion on reopening universities this fall.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany repeated a false claim about Joe Biden and the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s stance on police reform.

“Our police officers are selfless heroes, but … Joe Biden calls them ‘the ENEMY,’” McEnany said in a tweet from her personal Twitter account.

Vice President Mike Pence also made the “enemy” claim in a tweet last week, but fact-checkers have said the claim takes Biden’s comment out of context.

Biden was specifically talking about police officers coming into neighborhoods with military-grade equipment when he said last week, “Surplus military equipment for law enforcement: they don’t need that. The last thing you need is an up-armored Humvee coming into a neighborhood; it’s like the military invading. They don’t know anybody, they become the enemy; they’re supposed to be protecting these people.”

As the number of coronavirus cases continue to climb in many states, Trump is busy attacking the media on Twitter.

“Would be so great if the Media would get the word out to the people in a ‘fair and balanced’ way,” Trump said. “We will win anyway, but they are a far more difficult adversary than their Radical Left Do Nothing Democrat Partner!”

“Fair and balanced” is the former motto of Fox News, Trump’s favorite new network that he has recently criticized for featuring commentators who challenge the president’s handling of the pandemic.

The president’s tweet comes as a number of battleground state polls show Joe Biden leading or running neck and neck with Trump, sparking fear among Repubicans that the president is running out of time to change the course of the election.

Four former directors of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention penned an op-ed criticizing lawmakers for politicizing the health agency.

The four former directors — Tom Frieden, Jeffrey Koplan, David Satcher and Richard Besser — write in the Washington Post:

As America begins the formidable task of getting our kids back to school and all of us back to work safely amid a pandemic that is only getting worse, public health experts face two opponents: covid-19, but also political leaders and others attempting to undermine the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As the debate last week around reopening schools more safely showed, these repeated efforts to subvert sound public health guidelines introduce chaos and uncertainty while unnecessarily putting lives at risk.

The op-ed comes one day after Trump retweeted a message that accused the CDC (without evidence) of lying about coronavirus.

The White House has also recently sought to cast doubts upon the credibility of Dr Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert.

This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Martin Belam.

The latest challenge in the country’s coronavirus crisis centers on whether schools should reopen this fall, with the president and many of his advisers pushing for schools to resume in-person instruction.

However, many school districts have said they don’t have the money to safely reopen next month and have urged lawmakers to allocate additional funds for education in the next coronavirus relief bill.

Trump initially took the opposite approach, instead threatening to withhold government funding from schools that don’t reopen.

However, the president and his team now appear to be changing their tune. Senior White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow said yesterday that Trump was willing to consider additional funding for states and localities where schools have reopened.

Speaking to governors yesterday, Vice President Mike Pence reportedly said, “We’re in active discussions with leadership in the Congress about additional education funding support in the upcoming relief bill.”

But it’s still unclear how much money Congress will approve and when the House and the Senate will be able to come to an agreement on the bill.

Adm. Brett Giroir has been doing the TV round this morning, and gave a pretty snappy response when he was asked about the accusation that Donald Trump retweeted yesterday that the CDC and “most” doctors were lying about the coronavirus outbreak.

Asked directly on NBC’s Today whether the CDC and other doctors are lying, Giroir, a top member of the White House coronavirus task force, said that mistakes have been made and that public guidance is updated when more is learned about the virus, “but none of us lie. We are completely transparent with the American people.”

Trump has said on several occasion that the virus will “just disappear.” Giroir said that is unlikely “unless we take active steps to make it disappear.” He appealed to people to wear masks, practice social distancing and to avoid bars and other tightly packed areas.

Asked by NBC News if he was bothered by the White House’s treatment of Dr Anthony Fauci over the last few days – the president has singled him out for criticism and there has been a negative briefing operation about him – Giroir didn’t answer directly, but said “none of us are always right and that’s just the way things are.”

Giroir also appeared to disagree with Trump and education secretary Betsy DeVos over school reopenings. Giroir said it was important to “get the virus under control” first. “And if we get the virus under better control, clearly kids can get back into school safely,” he said.

You can watch the interview segment here: Trump testing czar Brett Giroir – ‘None of us lie’ about coronavirus crisis

Richard Wolffe has a new column for us today – where he argues that Donald Trump may be no good at leading America – but he’s really, really good at lying

Credibility was one of the most potent weapons in America’s arsenal of soft power. The kind of potency that allowed Kennedy’s secretary of state to convince Charles de Gaulle to support his case against the Soviet Union in the Cuban missile crisis. Based on Kennedy’s word, not the photographic evidence. Today America’s credibility has been contorted to protect the feelings of one man-child, not the security of a nation. That’s why someone like Anthony Fauci is so deeply offensive to the factory of fraud built inside this White House.

Read it here: Richard Wolffe – Trump may be no good at leading America – but he’s really, really good at lying