Attention to the Unseen

Jake Sherman writes: Let’s not mince words: Washington has been plunged into a crisis of historic proportions, frozen by a disease it is both unwilling and unable to control. Washington crises typically conform to a predictable rhythm: They simmer, boil and come to their expected conclusion. The government shuts down for a few days, but it always reopens. A national security emergency demands an urgent response — and gets one. But this time, America’s capital itself is crippled, leaving the…

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Politico reports: Donald Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis has stunned MAGA world, but it hasn’t changed how it reacts to bad news: blame others, accuse the left of craven behavior and cling tighter to the president. As updates around Trump’s health fluctuated throughout the day — before the medical staff decided to move Trump to Walter Reed hospital Friday night — Trump’s hardcore base seemed unable to deviate from its traditional impulses. The president’s backers furiously descended upon commentators who pointed out…

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NBC News reports: At least 11 positive coronavirus tests can be traced to organizers of this week’s presidential debate in Cleveland, city officials said Friday. The city’s announcement came after President Donald Trump, who debated Democratic rival Joe Biden on Tuesday in Cleveland, revealed that he and his wife have both tested positive for Covid-19 and are in isolation. Trump was transported to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on Friday. “The City of Cleveland is aware of positive cases…

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CNN reports: A widening coronavirus outbreak at the White House has left members of the media scrambling to find out if they, too, are infected. Three journalists who work at the White House tested positive on Friday, according to a series of memos from the White House Correspondents Association. “Given these positive cases, the president’s diagnosis and positive cases among other members of the White House staff, a number of White House journalists are self-isolating pending diagnostic testing,” the correspondents…

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Olivia Nuzzi writes: “At the best of times, Trumpworld operates with all the strategic direction of a chicken with its head cut off,” a senior Republican official told me. “Right now, they’re operating like a chicken with its head cut off, lit on fire, and thrown off a cliff.” The world has heard little from Donald Trump since he announced, just before 1 a.m. on Friday, that he has been diagnosed with COVID-19. Usually it’s the tweets that cause concern,…

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Yahoo News reports: Hours after President Trump announced he had tested positive for the coronavirus, some of his own top aides were still appearing in public without protective masks, including most prominently White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, the conservative former North Carolina congressman. Briefing reporters on Friday morning outside the West Wing, Meadows stood at a lectern without covering his mouth and nose, flouting the guidance of the president’s own coronavirus task force. Masks protect other people from…

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Bloomberg reports: President Donald Trump learned on Thursday morning that his aide Hope Hicks tested positive for coronavirus, yet continued on with a full schedule of events, including a fundraiser at his New Jersey resort that raised $5 million, according to people familiar with the situation. Trump’s movements are being closely scrutinized since he later tested positive for coronavirus, announcing the news shortly before 1 a.m. Friday, Washington time. The White House has not said when Trump first tested positive…

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Philip Bump writes: Trump’s broad effort to suggest that the pandemic was all but over meant that a number of states and tens of thousands of Americans treated it as if it was. Over the summer, that approach contributed to a big surge in new cases in the South. Trump’s own infection seems like a microcosm of his “ignore-it-and-it-will-go-away” national strategy. Trump’s diagnosis occurred in parallel with a number of other newly confirmed infections, including that of Sen. Mike Lee…

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Politico reports: The Agriculture Department last week began mandating that millions of boxes of surplus food for needy families include a letter from President Donald Trump claiming credit for the program. The USDA’s $4 billion Farmers to Families Food Box Program has distributed more than 100 million boxes to those in need since May, with the aim of redirecting meat, dairy and produce that might normally go to restaurants and other food-service businesses. But organizations handing out the aid complain…

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The Daily Beast reports: The truck-revving, banner-waving, loudspeaker-blaring pro-Trump rally took place, conveniently, on Sept. 19, the first Saturday of early voting in the swing state of Virginia, in a parking lot where voters in Democratic-leaning Fairfax County were lined up to cast their ballots. Some Trump supporters drove circles around the voters while others—many without face masks—mingled with the line, chanting and waving flags. “We had a couple poll observers there that had to actually escort voters in because…

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Politico reports: Former national security adviser H.R. McMaster said Thursday that President Donald Trump is “aiding and abetting” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s efforts to sow doubt about the American electoral system. The stern warning from McMaster, who Trump handpicked to lead the White House National Security Council in 2017, came in an interview on MSNBC, after he was asked whether he agreed that the president posed the greatest threat to U.S. election integrity. “I agree that he is aiding and…

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Mike Giglio reports: Stewart Rhodes was living his vision of the future. On television, American cities were burning, while on the internet, rumors warned that antifa bands were coming to terrorize the suburbs. Rhodes was driving around South Texas, getting ready for them. He answered his phone. “Let’s not fuck around,” he said. “We’ve descended into civil war.” It was a Friday evening in June. Rhodes, 55, is a stocky man with a gray buzz cut, a wardrobe of tactical-casual…

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