newyorker--2020-10-08--COVID-19 at the Vice-Presidential Debate

At the end of the debate between Vice-President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris , the candidates ’ spouses joined them onstage .
Harris ’ s husband , Douglas Emhoff , a lawyer , wore a mask , as he had throughout the debate .
Karen Pence had worn one while sitting in the audience , as the rules required .
She had little choice—members of the Trump family , along with the chief of staff , Mark Meadows , had so blatantly broken the mask rules at the first Presidential debate that the organizers made it clear that , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ without a mask , other than the two candidates and the moderator , to leave .
But , as Karen Pence approached the stage , she took hers off .
Perhaps she thought that Donald Trump—who tore off his own mask before walking into the White House with an active case of COVID-19 , and on Thursday said that he would refuse to participate in the next Presidential debate if it was held virtually—wouldn ’ t like how it looked if she kept it on .
Perhaps she herself really doesn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Back in April , she defended her husband after he visited the Mayo Clinic without one , in violation of that institution ’ s rules . )
After all , the debate organizers couldn ’ t really throw the Pences out—they were leaving anyway .
That moment , even more than the fly that landed on Mike Pence ’ s hair , as he defended the failure to prosecute police officers in Louisville for the shooting of Breonna Taylor—a fly that , intriguingly , would not depart , even as Pence bobbed and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ its presence—spoke to the strangely furtive character of the Pence Vice-Presidency .
He is sometimes praised for small differences with Trump , such as not actually shouting at his opponent or the moderator ( this time , Susan Page , of USA Today ) throughout the debate , as Trump did last week .
But the debate was a reminder that Pence ’ s role is not just to dodge responsibility for his boss ’ s disastrous acts and lies ; he nurtures and amplifies them , and tells his own lies , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it comes to the handling of the pandemic .
Pence , after all , is the head of the coronavirus task force for a White House that is now itself a hot spot ; more than two hundred thousand Americans are dead , and , as Page noted in her opening question to Harris , about what a Biden Administration would do differently , “ the coronavirus is not under control.
” “ The American people have witnessed the greatest failure of any Presidential Administration in our country , ” Harris began .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ with each day and each debate : two hundred and ten thousand Americans are dead ; but she also connected that figure to the problems of inequality and the economy .
“ We ’ re looking at front-line workers who have been treated like sacrificial workers .
We are looking at over thirty million people who in the last several months had to file for unemployment , ” she said .
It was a reminder of the self-destructiveness of the Trump Administration ’ s lackadaisical approach to the pandemic .
Failing to deal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it , as new outbreaks lead to new closures and , even in the absence of legal strictures , a reluctance of customers and businesses to fully return .
“ Here ’ s the thing , ” Harris continued .
“ On January 28th , the Vice-President and the President were informed about the nature of this pandemic .
.
.
.
They knew what was happening , and they didn ’ t tell you.
” This was a reference to reporting in Bob Woodward ’ s recent book , “ Rage , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump speaks in far more dire terms about the coronavirus to Woodward than he did to the public .
Harris echoed one of Biden ’ s lines from the first debate , which also sums up a basic truth : “ They still don ’ t have a plan.
” And , in answer to Page ’ s original question , she added , “ Joe Biden does .
And our plan is about what we need to do around a national strategy for contact tracing , for testing , for administration of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it will be free for all.
” That is a sketch ; the point , she emphasized , was that “ this Administration has forfeited their right to reëlection based on this.
” When Page turned to Pence , she had a direct question for him : “ Why is the U.S. death toll , as a percentage of our population , higher than that of almost every other wealthy country ?
” Trump ’ s tendency , when asked a question like that , is to say that the questioner ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ones to look at , and that actually , according to some mysterious measures that may exist only in his imagination , America is doing great—better than anybody else .
Pence just ignored the factual premise of the question and stuck to portraying the President as a hero who had saved hundreds of thousands of lives .
He said that Trump had quickly “ suspended all travel from China ” and that Biden had opposed that decision as “ xenophobic.
” According to the Washington Post ’ s Fact Checker , both parts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was only partial , and Biden had been referring to Trump ’ s xenophobia as a generally unhelpful element in a pandemic response , and not to the travel restrictions in particular .
More to the point , there was no effective testing or contact-tracing regimen for those travellers who did arrive , either from Asia or from Europe—and Europe , studies show , was the source of the strain of the virus that ravaged New York City .
Testing was botched at every crucial stage .
And yet , in the debate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the pandemic , spoke of the President ’ s response with wonder and awe , and showed no humility ; he bragged about the disaster and his own role in it .
He said that “ having led the coronavirus task force , ” he could assure people that the President ’ s decisions had saved lives—as if having led it was a token of expertise , not shame—and told Harris that Biden ’ s comprehensive plan “ reads an awful lot like what President Trump , and I , and our task @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the way.
” He added a cheap , Trumpian shot : “ It looks a little bit like plagiarism , which is something Joe Biden knows a little bit about.
” This was a reference to a speech Biden gave in 1987—thirty-three years ago—that borrowed lines of what was presented as family history from a speech by the British politician Neil Kinnock .
Page asked Harris to respond , and she came back with a memorable line : “ Whatever the Vice-President is claiming the Administration has done , clearly it hasn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at over two hundred and ten thousand dead bodies in our country.
” This was the moment for the senator to go in for a winning shot .
How could Pence claim that there is a comprehensive testing and contact-tracing plan in place when the Administration can ’ t even maintain its own protocols and track an outbreak in the White House ?
( Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are also quarantining , after senior military officials , including the second-highest-ranking Marine and Coast Guard officers , tested positive—a reminder of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ national security . )
Pence had boasted about all the personal protective equipment the Administration had manufactured—did he regret the moment when Trump told governors , on a phone call , that they were on their own ?
How about the need for people in the public to wear masks right now ?
Instead , Harris returned to January 28th , when the President first learned about the pandemic .
It is a good point , but one she had already made .
A more effective use of her time would have been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the months since .
Harris also needs to work on her answer on vaccines ; she said that if one was approved by public-health authorities she would be the first in line , “ but if Donald Trump tells us that we should take it , I ’ m not taking it.
” It would have been helpful if she had qualified that remark , for example , by saying that if Trump alone says it ’ s safe , contradicting public-health authorities , she would be reluctant to be vaccinated—given that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has all but guaranteed voters a vaccine before the election , suggesting a political , rather than scientific , timetable .
As it is , she opened herself to the criticism , which Pence quickly made , that any vaccine that emerged during the Trump Administration would be unacceptable to her .
Those shortfalls were eclipsed by the outrageousness of Pence ’ s responses .
“ When you say what the American people have done over these last eight months hasn ’ t worked , that ’ s a great disservice to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” he told her—a blatantly false rendition of what Harris had just said .
She had spoken about “ the Administration ” not “ the American people ” —though they are terms that Trump , too , likes to confuse .
Pence kept evading and lying : when Page asked him about the ceremony introducing Amy Coney Barrett as Trump ’ s Supreme Court nominee , which , in her words , is looking like “ a superspreader event , ” he first spoke vaguely about how the American people could be trusted @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be doing , but that “ the work of the President of the United States goes on ” —as if the essence of that work was to stage maskless , undistanced gatherings .
As for the Barrett introduction , he said , “ It was an outdoor event , which all of our scientists regularly and routinely advise.
” As Pence well knows , part of the event was held indoors , in crowded and closely confined rooms in the White House , and even outdoor events shouldn ’ t involve the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on display in the Rose Garden .
As Pence—as the head of the task force—also should have known , the tests that the attendees took before the event are not completely reliable .
His debate performance was a reminder not only of how little the Administration has learned but of its stubborn refusal to learn anything at all .
And Harris , like Biden , managed to connect the pandemic to the fate of the Affordable Care Act , which the Administration is currently trying to invalidate in court .
Harris hammered on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that case “ literally in the midst of a public-health pandemic , when over two hundred and ten thousand people have died ” —that key number again— “ and seven million people probably have what will be in the future considered a preëxisting condition , because you contracted the virus.
” Where would they go for insurance ?
The answer depends on when Donald Trump and Mike Pence will be leaving not only the debate stage but the White House .
Read More About the 2020 Election • The fall and rise of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ President threatens to delay a sacrosanct American ritual like an election , you should listen .
• To understand the path Donald Trump has taken to the 2020 election , look at what he has provided the executive class .
• What happens if Trump fights the election results ?
• The refusal by Mitch McConnell to rein in Trump is looking riskier than ever .
• Sign up for our election newsletter for insight and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

At the end of the debate between Vice-President Mike Pence and Senator Kamala Harris, the candidates’ spouses joined them onstage. Harris’s husband, Douglas Emhoff, a lawyer, wore a mask, as he had throughout the debate. Karen Pence had worn one while sitting in the audience, as the rules required. She had little choice—members of the Trump family, along with the chief of staff, Mark Meadows, had so blatantly broken the mask rules at the first Presidential debate that the organizers made it clear that, this time, they would ask anyone without a mask, other than the two candidates and the moderator, to leave. But, as Karen Pence approached the stage, she took hers off. Perhaps she thought that Donald Trump—who tore off his own mask before walking into the White House with an active case of COVID-19, and on Thursday said that he would refuse to participate in the next Presidential debate if it was held virtually—wouldn’t like how it looked if she kept it on. Perhaps she herself really doesn’t care about rules or masks. (Back in April, she defended her husband after he visited the Mayo Clinic without one, in violation of that institution’s rules.) After all, the debate organizers couldn’t really throw the Pences out—they were leaving anyway.
That moment, even more than the fly that landed on Mike Pence’s hair, as he defended the failure to prosecute police officers in Louisville for the shooting of Breonna Taylor—a fly that, intriguingly, would not depart, even as Pence bobbed and tilted his head, apparently oblivious to its presence—spoke to the strangely furtive character of the Pence Vice-Presidency. He is sometimes praised for small differences with Trump, such as not actually shouting at his opponent or the moderator (this time, Susan Page, of USA Today) throughout the debate, as Trump did last week. But the debate was a reminder that Pence’s role is not just to dodge responsibility for his boss’s disastrous acts and lies; he nurtures and amplifies them, and tells his own lies, too. That is particularly true when it comes to the handling of the pandemic. Pence, after all, is the head of the coronavirus task force for a White House that is now itself a hot spot; more than two hundred thousand Americans are dead, and, as Page noted in her opening question to Harris, about what a Biden Administration would do differently, “the coronavirus is not under control.”
“The American people have witnessed the greatest failure of any Presidential Administration in our country,” Harris began. She repeated a number that gets worse with each day and each debate: two hundred and ten thousand Americans are dead; but she also connected that figure to the problems of inequality and the economy. “We’re looking at front-line workers who have been treated like sacrificial workers. We are looking at over thirty million people who in the last several months had to file for unemployment,” she said. It was a reminder of the self-destructiveness of the Trump Administration’s lackadaisical approach to the pandemic. Failing to deal seriously with the public-health emergency only extends it, as new outbreaks lead to new closures and, even in the absence of legal strictures, a reluctance of customers and businesses to fully return.
“Here’s the thing,” Harris continued. “On January 28th, the Vice-President and the President were informed about the nature of this pandemic. . . . They knew what was happening, and they didn’t tell you.” This was a reference to reporting in Bob Woodward’s recent book, “Rage,” which includes an interview in which Trump speaks in far more dire terms about the coronavirus to Woodward than he did to the public. Harris echoed one of Biden’s lines from the first debate, which also sums up a basic truth: “They still don’t have a plan.” And, in answer to Page’s original question, she added, “Joe Biden does. And our plan is about what we need to do around a national strategy for contact tracing, for testing, for administration of the vaccine, and making sure that it will be free for all.” That is a sketch; the point, she emphasized, was that “this Administration has forfeited their right to reëlection based on this.”
When Page turned to Pence, she had a direct question for him: “Why is the U.S. death toll, as a percentage of our population, higher than that of almost every other wealthy country?” Trump’s tendency, when asked a question like that, is to say that the questioner’s numbers are wrong, or the wrong ones to look at, and that actually, according to some mysterious measures that may exist only in his imagination, America is doing great—better than anybody else. Pence just ignored the factual premise of the question and stuck to portraying the President as a hero who had saved hundreds of thousands of lives. He said that Trump had quickly “suspended all travel from China” and that Biden had opposed that decision as “xenophobic.” According to the Washington Post’s Fact Checker, both parts of that are untrue: the suspension was only partial, and Biden had been referring to Trump’s xenophobia as a generally unhelpful element in a pandemic response, and not to the travel restrictions in particular.
More to the point, there was no effective testing or contact-tracing regimen for those travellers who did arrive, either from Asia or from Europe—and Europe, studies show, was the source of the strain of the virus that ravaged New York City. Testing was botched at every crucial stage. And yet, in the debate, Pence, as he has throughout the pandemic, spoke of the President’s response with wonder and awe, and showed no humility; he bragged about the disaster and his own role in it. He said that “having led the coronavirus task force,” he could assure people that the President’s decisions had saved lives—as if having led it was a token of expertise, not shame—and told Harris that Biden’s comprehensive plan “reads an awful lot like what President Trump, and I, and our task force, have been doing every step of the way.” He added a cheap, Trumpian shot: “It looks a little bit like plagiarism, which is something Joe Biden knows a little bit about.” This was a reference to a speech Biden gave in 1987—thirty-three years ago—that borrowed lines of what was presented as family history from a speech by the British politician Neil Kinnock.
Page asked Harris to respond, and she came back with a memorable line: “Whatever the Vice-President is claiming the Administration has done, clearly it hasn’t worked—when you’re looking at over two hundred and ten thousand dead bodies in our country.” This was the moment for the senator to go in for a winning shot. How could Pence claim that there is a comprehensive testing and contact-tracing plan in place when the Administration can’t even maintain its own protocols and track an outbreak in the White House? (Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are also quarantining, after senior military officials, including the second-highest-ranking Marine and Coast Guard officers, tested positive—a reminder of the pandemic’s possible threat to national security.) Pence had boasted about all the personal protective equipment the Administration had manufactured—did he regret the moment when Trump told governors, on a phone call, that they were on their own? How about the need for people in the public to wear masks right now?
Instead, Harris returned to January 28th, when the President first learned about the pandemic. It is a good point, but one she had already made. A more effective use of her time would have been to point to the many missteps in the months since. Harris also needs to work on her answer on vaccines; she said that if one was approved by public-health authorities she would be the first in line, “but if Donald Trump tells us that we should take it, I’m not taking it.” It would have been helpful if she had qualified that remark, for example, by saying that if Trump alone says it’s safe, contradicting public-health authorities, she would be reluctant to be vaccinated—given that the President had previously mooted injecting bleach and has all but guaranteed voters a vaccine before the election, suggesting a political, rather than scientific, timetable. As it is, she opened herself to the criticism, which Pence quickly made, that any vaccine that emerged during the Trump Administration would be unacceptable to her.
Those shortfalls were eclipsed by the outrageousness of Pence’s responses. “When you say what the American people have done over these last eight months hasn’t worked, that’s a great disservice to the sacrifices the American people have made,” he told her—a blatantly false rendition of what Harris had just said. She had spoken about “the Administration” not “the American people”—though they are terms that Trump, too, likes to confuse. Pence kept evading and lying: when Page asked him about the ceremony introducing Amy Coney Barrett as Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, which, in her words, is looking like “a superspreader event,” he first spoke vaguely about how the American people could be trusted to do whatever it was they ought to be doing, but that “the work of the President of the United States goes on”—as if the essence of that work was to stage maskless, undistanced gatherings. As for the Barrett introduction, he said, “It was an outdoor event, which all of our scientists regularly and routinely advise.” As Pence well knows, part of the event was held indoors, in crowded and closely confined rooms in the White House, and even outdoor events shouldn’t involve the close seating, mingling, and hugging on display in the Rose Garden. As Pence—as the head of the task force—also should have known, the tests that the attendees took before the event are not completely reliable. His debate performance was a reminder not only of how little the Administration has learned but of its stubborn refusal to learn anything at all.


newyorker--2020-10-08--Ben Carson Wondering Where Everyone at White House Has Gone

WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report ) —Ben Carson , the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development , is wondering where everyone at the White House has gone , Carson has confirmed .
Carson showed up unannounced at the White House on Thursday morning , “ just to say hi , ” and was surprised to find the building virtually deserted .
“ I was wondering if there was some holiday I didn ’ t know about , ” Carson said .
“ I know there are a lot of holidays that Jewish people celebrate this time of year , but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weren ’ t there .
It ’ s kind of a head-scratcher.
” The H.U.D .
Secretary was also trying to make sense of the presence of cleaning crews throughout the White House , but “ couldn ’ t figure it out.
” “ Maybe there was a big party they ’ re cleaning up after , ” he said .
“ To be honest , I would be kind of hurt if I hadn ’ t been invited .
Unless , of course , it was a party to celebrate one of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not Jewish , like Jared and Ivanka .
Still , that must have been one heck of a Jewish-holiday party , if that ’ s what occurred.
” Carson said that he was prepared to accept the mystery of why the White House was deserted .
“ It ’ s like the pyramids of Egypt , ” he said .
“ For years , no one knew that they were used to store grain , and then it all became clear .
Someday we may know why the White House was deserted .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
”

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Ben Carson, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, is wondering where everyone at the White House has gone, Carson has confirmed.
Carson showed up unannounced at the White House on Thursday morning, “just to say hi,” and was surprised to find the building virtually deserted.
“I was wondering if there was some holiday I didn’t know about,” Carson said. “I know there are a lot of holidays that Jewish people celebrate this time of year, but that just explains why Jared and Ivanka weren’t there. It’s kind of a head-scratcher.”
The H.U.D. Secretary was also trying to make sense of the presence of cleaning crews throughout the White House, but “couldn’t figure it out.”
“Maybe there was a big party they’re cleaning up after,” he said. “To be honest, I would be kind of hurt if I hadn’t been invited. Unless, of course, it was a party to celebrate one of those Jewish holidays. I’m not Jewish, like Jared and Ivanka. Still, that must have been one heck of a Jewish-holiday party, if that’s what occurred.”
Carson said that he was prepared to accept the mystery of why the White House was deserted. “It’s like the pyramids of Egypt,” he said. “For years, no one knew that they were used to store grain, and then it all became clear. Someday we may know why the White House was deserted. And then it will all make sense.”


newyorker--2020-10-08--Mike Pence’s Trumpian Makeover at the Vice-Presidential Debate

Perhaps most significant , given that Trump is currently stricken with the coronavirus that he denied was an ongoing threat to the American people , Pence refused to say whether he had discussed the issue of “ Presidential disability ” with Trump .
But this particular dodge hardly stood out on a night when Pence avoided more of moderator Susan Page ’ s questions than he answered .
The Vice-President began the debate by refusing to say why the United States has had so many more deaths from the coronavirus than other leading nations .
He ended it by refusing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ peaceful transfer of power after the election .
In between , Pence managed to avoid numerous other questions , from whether he believes climate change is an “ existential threat ” to what the Administration ’ s plan is for providing health care to Americans with preëxisting conditions .
For much of the debate , in fact , Pence seemed more eager to deliver pre-planned attack lines against his Democratic opponent , Senator Kamala Harris , than he was to defend the Trump-Pence Administration ’ s record .
Harris , a sharp-tongued former @ @ @ @ @ @ @ summer immediately raised expectations for this debate with Pence , proved to be an agile and at times eloquent opponent .
She was especially pointed on the subject that Pence least wanted to discuss : the Administration ’ s abysmal handling of the pandemic .
Harris ’ s first line of the debate was also one of her best , calling the incumbent ’ s response to the coronavirus “ the greatest failure of any Presidential Administration in the history of our country , ” which sounds like an exaggeration until you remember @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the largest mass-casualty event in American history aside from the Second World War , the 1918 influenza pandemic , and the Civil War .
The only candidate on either ticket who has not held national office before , Harris had the most to prove going into the debate in Salt Lake City , and she did so while dodging a few questions of her own along the way .
Do she and Joe Biden plan to pack the Supreme Court in response to the Republicans ’ plan to ram through a new Justice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think Biden has been forthcoming enough about his health , given that he will be the oldest President ever elected if he wins on November 3rd ?
We don ’ t know , because Harris would not answer .
Both Harris and Pence are younger and far more articulate politicians than their running mates , fully capable of holding their own in a televised argument that cleared the low bar of not degenerating into a food fight at a senior-citizens ’ center .
The debate seemed sort of normal—at least after Trump ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But the more I listened to Pence the more I realized that the Vice-President of 2020 is no longer the deeply conventional , if fervently right-wing , evangelical of four years ago .
Or even the oleaginous Trump suck-up he has been for much of the Administration ’ s tenure .
He has been changed , and radically so , by his association with the President , and Wednesday night showed something both new and disturbing : Pence has come to resemble a lower-decibel Trump , lying with a fluency and brazenness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ self .
Once presented as the acceptable public front for Trumpism to those who might be offended by the President ’ s grosser displays of ego and misogyny , this new Pence was ruder and cruder , and he spent much of the evening interrupting the two women with whom he shared the stage , refusing to listen when the moderator implored him to follow the rules , and simply seizing extra time to rebut Harris whether Page offered it or not .
This Pence was not the Middle American cleanup man of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conferences ; he was nasty , an elbow-thrower who dropped snide references to Biden as a plagiarist , inserted random media-bashing into long-winded soliloquies , and peddled a pet Trump conspiracy theory about the 2016 campaign .
Like the boss , he repeated falsehoods about the Democratic platform with abandon—they are going to raise your taxes “ on Day One ” and “ abolish ” fossil fuels and eliminate fracking and allow taxpayer-funded abortions “ up to the moment of birth ” —all of which was not only untrue but so exaggerated beyond @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hard to imagine anyone but the most diehard Republican believing it .
This sounded like Donald Trump talking , not Mike Pence .
A quieter , less bombastic Donald Trump , to be sure , but Trump nonetheless .
Mike Pence wasn ’ t the only public official who channelled his inner Trump this week .
For the last few days , the White House physician , Dr. Sean Conley , has been doing a pretty good impression of the reality-denying President , including misleading the public about Trump ’ s health in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an “ upbeat ” impression .
On Wednesday , with even basic questions about how and when Trump contracted the illness still unanswered , Conley released an official statement to the public about the President ’ s treatment for a potentially lethal disease that began by saying , “ The president this morning says , ‘ I feel great !
’ ” That must surely be the first known use of an exclamation point and a quote from a patient in an official medical document meant to provide critical health information to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ merely the latest aide in this White House to find out what Pence has clearly learned : when the approach of a President running for reëlection in the midst of a deadly pandemic is to deny its seriousness , then all those in his orbit will be sucked into progressively more humiliating and absurd efforts to go along with the ruse .
This was bizarre enough as a strategy back in March and April , when relatively few Americans had yet to die of COVID-19 .
It is more or less politically impossible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ perished and the United States ’ response is a global embarrassment .
Trump , though , is immune to embarrassment—his lack of shame has long been one of his political superpowers—and so it must be for those around him .
Among the many questions that Pence refused to answer was one of the week ’ s more obvious , given the large cluster of coronavirus cases in the White House and the President ’ s own illness after months of refusing to wear a mask or observe social distancing : Why should the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to abide by public-health guidelines that you yourself refuse to follow ?
Pence ’ s response was a model of misdirection , which had something to do with the Green New Deal and the coming government takeover of health care under the radical-left Democrats .
Harris could only look on in amazement , shaking her head at the brazenness .
None of it really mattered , of course .
No matter how much of a Trumpian makeover Mike Pence has undergone , Vice-Presidential debates do not change the outcome of Presidential elections .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ By the time a fly improbably showed up on Pence ’ s close-cropped white hair and stayed there , without the Vice-President even appearing to notice , for a good two minutes , it was clear who the evening ’ s real winner would be .
It was the fly , who will surely be remembered in debate history after all of Pence ’ s whoppers are long forgotten .
Read More About the 2020 Election • The fall and rise of Kamala Harris .
• When a sitting President threatens to delay @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , you should listen .
• To understand the path Donald Trump has taken to the 2020 election , look at what he has provided the executive class .
• What happens if Trump fights the election results ?
• The refusal by Mitch McConnell to rein in Trump is looking riskier than ever .
• Sign up for our election newsletter for insight and analysis from our reporters and columnists .

In April, as the country’s coronavirus outbreak surged, President Trump mocked Mike Pence’s filibustering skills, presenting himself as a teller of tough truths compared with his slippery Vice-President. “That’s one of the greatest answers I’ve ever heard, because Mike was able to speak for five minutes and not even touch your question,” Trump said in a press briefing after Pence avoided answering a reporter. “I said, that’s what you call a great professional.” Throughout Wednesday night’s debate, Trump’s version of Pence was fully on display, as the Vice-President ducked questions and outright refused to answer them for much of the ninety minutes.
Perhaps most significant, given that Trump is currently stricken with the coronavirus that he denied was an ongoing threat to the American people, Pence refused to say whether he had discussed the issue of “Presidential disability” with Trump. But this particular dodge hardly stood out on a night when Pence avoided more of moderator Susan Page’s questions than he answered. The Vice-President began the debate by refusing to say why the United States has had so many more deaths from the coronavirus than other leading nations. He ended it by refusing to say whether he would accept the peaceful transfer of power after the election. In between, Pence managed to avoid numerous other questions, from whether he believes climate change is an “existential threat” to what the Administration’s plan is for providing health care to Americans with preëxisting conditions. For much of the debate, in fact, Pence seemed more eager to deliver pre-planned attack lines against his Democratic opponent, Senator Kamala Harris, than he was to defend the Trump-Pence Administration’s record.
Harris, a sharp-tongued former prosecutor whose appointment to the ticket this summer immediately raised expectations for this debate with Pence, proved to be an agile and at times eloquent opponent. She was especially pointed on the subject that Pence least wanted to discuss: the Administration’s abysmal handling of the pandemic. Harris’s first line of the debate was also one of her best, calling the incumbent’s response to the coronavirus “the greatest failure of any Presidential Administration in the history of our country,” which sounds like an exaggeration until you remember that the COVID-19 death toll is already the largest mass-casualty event in American history aside from the Second World War, the 1918 influenza pandemic, and the Civil War. The only candidate on either ticket who has not held national office before, Harris had the most to prove going into the debate in Salt Lake City, and she did so while dodging a few questions of her own along the way. Do she and Joe Biden plan to pack the Supreme Court in response to the Republicans’ plan to ram through a new Justice days before the election? Does she think Biden has been forthcoming enough about his health, given that he will be the oldest President ever elected if he wins on November 3rd? We don’t know, because Harris would not answer.
Both Harris and Pence are younger and far more articulate politicians than their running mates, fully capable of holding their own in a televised argument that cleared the low bar of not degenerating into a food fight at a senior-citizens’ center. The debate seemed sort of normal—at least after Trump’s frenetic performance of a week earlier. But the more I listened to Pence the more I realized that the Vice-President of 2020 is no longer the deeply conventional, if fervently right-wing, evangelical of four years ago. Or even the oleaginous Trump suck-up he has been for much of the Administration’s tenure. He has been changed, and radically so, by his association with the President, and Wednesday night showed something both new and disturbing: Pence has come to resemble a lower-decibel Trump, lying with a fluency and brazenness that might have shocked his former moralistic self.
Once presented as the acceptable public front for Trumpism to those who might be offended by the President’s grosser displays of ego and misogyny, this new Pence was ruder and cruder, and he spent much of the evening interrupting the two women with whom he shared the stage, refusing to listen when the moderator implored him to follow the rules, and simply seizing extra time to rebut Harris whether Page offered it or not. This Pence was not the Middle American cleanup man of this spring’s anxious coronavirus press conferences; he was nasty, an elbow-thrower who dropped snide references to Biden as a plagiarist, inserted random media-bashing into long-winded soliloquies, and peddled a pet Trump conspiracy theory about the 2016 campaign. Like the boss, he repeated falsehoods about the Democratic platform with abandon—they are going to raise your taxes “on Day One” and “abolish” fossil fuels and eliminate fracking and allow taxpayer-funded abortions “up to the moment of birth”—all of which was not only untrue but so exaggerated beyond the actual Democratic platform that it was hard to imagine anyone but the most diehard Republican believing it. This sounded like Donald Trump talking, not Mike Pence. A quieter, less bombastic Donald Trump, to be sure, but Trump nonetheless.
Mike Pence wasn’t the only public official who channelled his inner Trump this week. For the last few days, the White House physician, Dr. Sean Conley, has been doing a pretty good impression of the reality-denying President, including misleading the public about Trump’s health in order to leave what the doctor called an “upbeat” impression. On Wednesday, with even basic questions about how and when Trump contracted the illness still unanswered, Conley released an official statement to the public about the President’s treatment for a potentially lethal disease that began by saying, “The president this morning says, ‘I feel great!’ ” That must surely be the first known use of an exclamation point and a quote from a patient in an official medical document meant to provide critical health information to the American people.
The good doctor is merely the latest aide in this White House to find out what Pence has clearly learned: when the approach of a President running for reëlection in the midst of a deadly pandemic is to deny its seriousness, then all those in his orbit will be sucked into progressively more humiliating and absurd efforts to go along with the ruse. This was bizarre enough as a strategy back in March and April, when relatively few Americans had yet to die of COVID-19. It is more or less politically impossible now, when so many thousands have perished and the United States’ response is a global embarrassment.
Trump, though, is immune to embarrassment—his lack of shame has long been one of his political superpowers—and so it must be for those around him. Among the many questions that Pence refused to answer was one of the week’s more obvious, given the large cluster of coronavirus cases in the White House and the President’s own illness after months of refusing to wear a mask or observe social distancing: Why should the American people listen when you tell them to abide by public-health guidelines that you yourself refuse to follow? Pence’s response was a model of misdirection, which had something to do with the Green New Deal and the coming government takeover of health care under the radical-left Democrats. Harris could only look on in amazement, shaking her head at the brazenness.
None of it really mattered, of course. No matter how much of a Trumpian makeover Mike Pence has undergone, Vice-Presidential debates do not change the outcome of Presidential elections. This one won’t either. By the time a fly improbably showed up on Pence’s close-cropped white hair and stayed there, without the Vice-President even appearing to notice, for a good two minutes, it was clear who the evening’s real winner would be. It was the fly, who will surely be remembered in debate history after all of Pence’s whoppers are long forgotten.
Read More About the 2020 Election


newyorker--2020-10-09--Easy Exercises to Get Your Body Election-Day Ready

Step forward with your right foot and steady yourself as you log on to a Google Hangout with your extended family .
If you struggle to remain calm , engage your core and mute Aunt Susan whenever she insists that what this country needs isn ’ t a COVID-19 vaccine but to stop cancelling people just because they ’ re racist .
Set a timer and emotionally spiral as fast as you can .
Scream for twenty minutes about all the different ways in which the government has failed you .
For fifteen minutes , wring your hands while imagining @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would have been like if Bob Woodward had revealed Trump ’ s COVID-19 comments sooner .
Add intensity by berating yourself for not having read all of Elena Ferrante ’ s novels during quarantine , which you might have accomplished if you weren ’ t so scared about the current state of affairs , probably .
Stay informed and get your clicks in throughout the day by constantly refreshing FiveThirtyEight ’ s Presidential forecast and reading every article about climate change , even the ones behind a paywall .
To prevent injury , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the subject line “ Vaccination Truthers , ” forwarded to you by Aunt Susan .
Go downstairs to see if you have any mail .
Nope ?
Sure , it ’ s only 9 A.M. , and the mail doesn ’ t arrive until two , but get your hopes up and repeatedly check anyway .
Burn extra calories by praying that your mom will have cut out an article from Parade magazine and sent it to you , despite your having told her to stop doing that .
Or that maybe you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ same West Elm catalogues at once .
Increase your heart rate by convincing yourself that this mail delay must be Postmaster General Louis DeJoy ’ s fault and is not because no one cares about you .
Place a glass of wine between your hands and sob uncontrollably .
You can do this workout anywhere !
Grab on to a stable surface and assume the pose of a man who looks like John Goodman but if John Goodman were terrifying and everyone hated him .
Hold a bag of potato chips in front @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tuck your chin in and allow gravity to do the work as you rip open the bag of chips .
Continue snacking for thirty minutes or until it ’ s time to check the mail again .
Get into corpse pose and exhale as you let your fingers stretch and Google “ Nick Lachey Jessica Simpson what happened.
” Feel your thoughts expand as you wonder if now is really the time to be reading up on old celebrity gossip—shouldn ’ t you be confirming absentee-ballot deadlines or something ?
Exhale and release @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Achieve enlightenment as you finally get to the bottom of Nick and Jessica ’ s fourteen-year-old divorce .
Get your heart rate up and mobilize your friends to volunteer at phone banks and knock on doors to encourage people to register to vote .
Do as many reps as you can before November .
Maintain this routine , and you should see results soon .

Side-Eye Lunge
Step forward with your right foot and steady yourself as you log on to a Google Hangout with your extended family. If you struggle to remain calm, engage your core and mute Aunt Susan whenever she insists that what this country needs isn’t a COVID-19 vaccine but to stop cancelling people just because they’re racist.
Mental CrossFit
Set a timer and emotionally spiral as fast as you can. Scream for twenty minutes about all the different ways in which the government has failed you. For fifteen minutes, wring your hands while imagining what the country’s pandemic response would have been like if Bob Woodward had revealed Trump’s COVID-19 comments sooner. Add intensity by berating yourself for not having read all of Elena Ferrante’s novels during quarantine, which you might have accomplished if you weren’t so scared about the current state of affairs, probably.
Ten Thousand Steps Clicks
Stay informed and get your clicks in throughout the day by constantly refreshing FiveThirtyEight’s Presidential forecast and reading every article about climate change, even the ones behind a paywall. To prevent injury, do not click on any e-mails with the subject line “Vaccination Truthers,” forwarded to you by Aunt Susan.
Check the Mail
Go downstairs to see if you have any mail. Nope? Sure, it’s only 9 A.M., and the mail doesn’t arrive until two, but get your hopes up and repeatedly check anyway. Burn extra calories by praying that your mom will have cut out an article from Parade magazine and sent it to you, despite your having told her to stop doing that. Or that maybe you’ll receive a bunch of the same West Elm catalogues at once. Increase your heart rate by convincing yourself that this mail delay must be Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s fault and is not because no one cares about you.
CryMaster
Place a glass of wine between your hands and sob uncontrollably. You can do this workout anywhere!
William Barr Method
Grab on to a stable surface and assume the pose of a man who looks like John Goodman but if John Goodman were terrifying and everyone hated him.
Kettle Chips
Hold a bag of potato chips in front of you and let it hang. Tuck your chin in and allow gravity to do the work as you rip open the bag of chips. Continue snacking for thirty minutes or until it’s time to check the mail again.
98 Degrees Yoga
Get into corpse pose and exhale as you let your fingers stretch and Google “Nick Lachey Jessica Simpson what happened.” Feel your thoughts expand as you wonder if now is really the time to be reading up on old celebrity gossip—shouldn’t you be confirming absentee-ballot deadlines or something? Exhale and release any judgment. You need this distraction. Achieve enlightenment as you finally get to the bottom of Nick and Jessica’s fourteen-year-old divorce.
Biden’s Boot Camp
Get your heart rate up and mobilize your friends to volunteer at phone banks and knock on doors to encourage people to register to vote. Do as many reps as you can before November. Maintain this routine, and you should see results soon.


newyorker--2020-10-09--Spicy Noodles and Gossip at Public Village

Some people deem gossip immoral , even destructive .
I find it ( within reason , of course ) to be as stimulating and restorative as a bowl of spicy noodle soup .
And so I was delighted to partake of both , recently , at Public Village , a new restaurant on the Lower East Side .
After all , I was only following directions : the tagline of the place , as displayed on its Web site , is “ Eat , drink and gossip like Sichuanese.
” My lunch date and I—an old friend who happens to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lot to catch up on .
The best menu item for gossiping , we agreed , was the house-made beef jerky , dehydrated strips of eye of round coated in five-spice powder , sesame seeds , and crisp snips of dried chili , small enough to be popped into your mouth between juicy revelations and piquant enough to match the emotional rush with a physical one .
My friend and I were the only people sitting in the wooden pavilion that the tiny restaurant installed on the street out front , but , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or stricter social distancing , taking our jerky to go would have been a cinch : it comes in a vacuum-sealed packet .
( Enjoy it with a cup of “ Mom ’ s homestyle plum juice , ” an intensely smoky brew that helps to “ detox , ” and cleanse your system if not your conscience . )
Other dishes require a bit more attention .
Gesticulate wildly while pinching a smashed cucumber between your chopsticks and you might end up with a splatter of neon chili oil on your shirt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lotus root in your tote bag too casually and you could later find a garlic-scented puddle pooling in the depths .
Luckily , Public Village ’ s cooking is worthy of quiet reverence and thoughtful contemplation .
Fat white mung-bean noodles , made from scratch on the premises , are buttery in texture , so light that they seem to dissolve on the tongue and yet beguilingly sturdy , standing up to a generous portion of unctuous and fiery sauce .
Cubes of ruddy braised drunken beef , scented with cumin and star @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vibrant-green stems of Chinese broccoli , atop a tangle of thin wheat noodles dyed black with squid ink .
A gentle mash of yellow split peas is folded , with crumbles of ground pork , into a mix of ribbony egg and spinach noodles ; a Seussian puff of batter coating crispy pork strips , tingly with a dusting of Sichuan peppercorn , gives way to tender meat marbled with rendered fat .
So much of the theatre of restaurant-going has been quashed by the pandemic , but Public Village , which had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before the shutdown , and then relaunched in May for takeout and delivery ( the pavilion is seat-yourself ) , still manages to be charming .
A sign out front instructs you to ring a bell and wait , beside a glass case displaying flaky rainbow-patterned pastries filled with purple taro paste , for an employee to emerge .
You might catch a glimpse of the place ’ s mascot of sorts—Kaya , an adorable corgi who belongs to Kiyomi Wang , the restaurant ’ s chef and co-owner , who was born @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other owner , Karen Song , is from northeast China . )
Kaya the corgi is named for kaya the jam , a sweet coconut-and-egg concoction ubiquitous in Southeast Asia , where it ’ s often spread thickly on toast .
You can find kaya toast just around the corner at Kopitiam , a beloved Malaysian café co-owned by the chef Kyo Pang , to whom Wang is married .
Like Kopitiam , Public Village fits seamlessly into the micro-neighborhood , a pocket of the Lower East Side just east of Chinatown that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ after the endlessly mimicked California-style café Dimes .
The area has become a gold mine of restaurants ( including Cervo ’ s , Scarr ’ s Pizza , and Wu ’ s Wonton King , all holding strong for now ) that feel both indispensably timeless and unmistakably of the moment—not least because of their ability to adapt .
( Dishes $ 6- $ 15 . )
♦

Some people deem gossip immoral, even destructive. I find it (within reason, of course) to be as stimulating and restorative as a bowl of spicy noodle soup. And so I was delighted to partake of both, recently, at Public Village, a new restaurant on the Lower East Side. After all, I was only following directions: the tagline of the place, as displayed on its Web site, is “Eat, drink and gossip like Sichuanese.” My lunch date and I—an old friend who happens to be a native of Sichuan Province—had a lot to catch up on.
Stretchy sheets of noodle, made from a mix of rice, buckwheat, and potato flours, are wrapped around sliced chicken sausage, mozzarella cheese, cucumber, scallions, and sesame seeds, then coated in egg, griddled until crispy, and finished with a drizzle of spicy aioli. Photograph by Mengwen Cao for The New Yorker
The best menu item for gossiping, we agreed, was the house-made beef jerky, dehydrated strips of eye of round coated in five-spice powder, sesame seeds, and crisp snips of dried chili, small enough to be popped into your mouth between juicy revelations and piquant enough to match the emotional rush with a physical one. My friend and I were the only people sitting in the wooden pavilion that the tiny restaurant installed on the street out front, but, had we been worried about eavesdroppers, or stricter social distancing, taking our jerky to go would have been a cinch: it comes in a vacuum-sealed packet. (Enjoy it with a cup of “Mom’s homestyle plum juice,” an intensely smoky brew that helps to “detox,” and cleanse your system if not your conscience.)
A glass case just outside the front door displays flaky rainbow-patterned buns filled with purple taro paste. Photograph by Mengwen Cao for The New Yorker
Other dishes require a bit more attention. Gesticulate wildly while pinching a smashed cucumber between your chopsticks and you might end up with a splatter of neon chili oil on your shirt; pack a plastic clamshell of crunchy lotus root in your tote bag too casually and you could later find a garlic-scented puddle pooling in the depths. Luckily, Public Village’s cooking is worthy of quiet reverence and thoughtful contemplation.
Fat white mung-bean noodles, made from scratch on the premises, are buttery in texture, so light that they seem to dissolve on the tongue and yet beguilingly sturdy, standing up to a generous portion of unctuous and fiery sauce. Cubes of ruddy braised drunken beef, scented with cumin and star anise, come scattered, along with vibrant-green stems of Chinese broccoli, atop a tangle of thin wheat noodles dyed black with squid ink. A gentle mash of yellow split peas is folded, with crumbles of ground pork, into a mix of ribbony egg and spinach noodles; a Seussian puff of batter coating crispy pork strips, tingly with a dusting of Sichuan peppercorn, gives way to tender meat marbled with rendered fat.
House-made spinach noodles are topped with the classic Chinese combo of stir-fried tomato and egg, plus scallions, sesame seeds, and Chinese broccoli. Photograph by Mengwen Cao for The New Yorker
So much of the theatre of restaurant-going has been quashed by the pandemic, but Public Village, which had a soft opening in March, just before the shutdown, and then relaunched in May for takeout and delivery (the pavilion is seat-yourself), still manages to be charming. A sign out front instructs you to ring a bell and wait, beside a glass case displaying flaky rainbow-patterned pastries filled with purple taro paste, for an employee to emerge. You might catch a glimpse of the place’s mascot of sorts—Kaya, an adorable corgi who belongs to Kiyomi Wang, the restaurant’s chef and co-owner, who was born and raised in Chengdu. (The other owner, Karen Song, is from northeast China.)
Public Village joins a group of restaurants just east of Chinatown that feel unmistakably of the moment yet indispensably timeless. Photograph by Mengwen Cao for The New Yorker
Kaya the corgi is named for kaya the jam, a sweet coconut-and-egg concoction ubiquitous in Southeast Asia, where it’s often spread thickly on toast. You can find kaya toast just around the corner at Kopitiam, a beloved Malaysian café co-owned by the chef Kyo Pang, to whom Wang is married. Like Kopitiam, Public Village fits seamlessly into the micro-neighborhood, a pocket of the Lower East Side just east of Chinatown that’s sometimes called Dimes Square, after the endlessly mimicked California-style café Dimes. The area has become a gold mine of restaurants (including Cervo’s, Scarr’s Pizza, and Wu’s Wonton King, all holding strong for now) that feel both indispensably timeless and unmistakably of the moment—not least because of their ability to adapt. (Dishes $6-$15.) ♦


newyorker--2020-10-09--David Byrne’s “American Utopia” Comes to Television

At the start of David Byrne ’ s peculiar , exuberant “ American Utopia , ” which played on Broadway @ @ @ @ @ Talking Heads front man contemplates a model of a human brain .
Part concert , @ @ @ @ @ show is also a chance to contemplate Byrne ’ s own brain—a unique specimen—as he @ @ @ @ @ out many of his hits , and marches through the aisles with a roving twelve-piece @ @ @ @ @ silver suits and bare feet .
A ﬁlmed version , directed by Spike Lee , @ @ @ @ @ 17 .

At the start of David Byrne’s peculiar, exuberant “American Utopia,” which played on Broadway last season, the former Talking Heads front man contemplates a model of a human brain. Part concert, part vision quest, the show is also a chance to contemplate Byrne’s own brain—a unique specimen—as he expounds on philosophy, belts out many of his hits, and marches through the aisles with a roving twelve-piece band, all in matching silver suits and bare feet. A ﬁlmed version, directed by Spike Lee, comes to HBO on Oct. 17.


newyorker--2020-10-09--How the “QAnon Candidate” Marjorie Taylor Greene Reached the Doorstep of Congress

Today , eighty-five per cent of the Fourteenth ’ s more than seven hundred thousand residents are white .
Around fifteen per cent have graduated college , and most earn well below the national median income .
The vast majority adhere to some version of Protestant Christianity , including a few unorthodox variations—one local believer described the area to me as “ a greenhouse for heretical religious beliefs.
” Three-quarters of the district ’ s residents voted for Donald Trump in 2016 , and more than six thousand recently signed a petition to save a local statue of Nathan Bedford @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Ku Klux Klan .
Many politically active citizens in the area identify as Tea Party Republicans .
“ It ’ s never been a quiescent district , ” Neill Herring , a lobbyist who grew up in Dalton , the district ’ s second-largest city , told me , citing an attempt by one of its counties , in 1860 , to secede not only from the Union but from Georgia , too .
Dalton , population thirty-three thousand , calls itself “ the Carpet Capital of the world ” —it has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plants employing tens of thousands of people .
Slightly larger is Rome , a city in the center of the district which features a statue of Romulus and Remus—a gift from Mussolini , per local legend—whose naked bodies are occasionally diapered , in a show of modesty .
The Democratic Party has fielded a candidate in only three of the five congressional races held in the Fourteenth since it was created .
The winner in each of those races was Tom Graves , a Republican , who announced , in December , that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Eason , a former Delta Air Lines employee who lives in Rome and serves as the vice-chairman of candidate recruitment and membership for the Floyd County Democrats , told me it had been hard to find someone willing to run against Graves .
The Party ran a candidate in 2018 , but Eason couldn ’ t immediately recall his name .
It was Steven Lamar Foster , a former physician who had not been vetted by the Party .
His medical license had been suspended , it turned out , and he had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ before .
“ Something to do with federal boats that he confiscated , for runs down to Central America , ” Eason said .
( Foster , who couldn ’ t be reached for comment , was doing charitable work in Honduras at the time ; he was not convicted . )
Foster also ran a nudist camp .
“ And he had a D.U.I .
during the campaign , ” Eason noted .
In a drunken tirade during his arrest , Foster said , “ I hate this county .
I prayed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And guess what ?
He did.
” “ A truly wild candidacy , ” Eason said .
“ We wound up being embarrassed he was even in the race.
” Foster lost to Graves by fifty-three points , on the day he was released from jail .
This year , Eason helped the Party find a candidate with a clean record : a local I.T .
specialist named Kevin Van Ausdal .
When I first spoke to Eason , in early September , Van Ausdal was set to square off against Marjorie @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the district only recently and who has , in the past , expressed a belief in QAnon , a sprawling set of delusional notions centered on the idea that President Trump is leading a fight against a “ deep state ” engaged in child sex trafficking , cannibalism , and Satan worship .
Greene , who campaigns with a sort of aggro cheerfulness , has linked Hillary Clinton to pedophilia and human sacrifice and suggested that Barack Obama plotted to kill a Democratic operative with the help of MS-13 .
She described @ @ @ @ @ @ @ victorious candidacies of Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib , as “ an Islamic invasion of our government.
” Greene has also said that Americans now have “ a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out.
” None of these comments , many of which came to light during the spring and summer , seemed to hurt Greene during the state ’ s Republican primary , in June , or in a two-candidate runoff that followed , in August .
But the comments did garner national attention , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ felt a string of events could catapult Kevin towards victory , ” Eason told me .
“ No incumbent .
Then we have a coronavirus .
And we have a President losing ground in Georgia.
” He added , “ And we have Marjorie Taylor Greene , the QAnon poster child .
She ’ s a gift.
” Greene was an early adopter of QAnon , expressing her belief in the conspiracy in late 2017 , just weeks after cryptic posts began appearing on the message board 4chan under the name Q Clearance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is the Department of Energy equivalent to top-secret clearance in the Department of Defense , and grants those who hold it access to restricted information . )
She posted wide-eyed videos on Facebook describing Q as someone who “ very much loves his country ” and is “ on the same page as us , ” and she wrote pro-QAnon articles for a far-right Web outlet called American Truth Seekers .
( She also made videos about more conventional issues ; in one , she accosts the gun-control activist and Parkland survivor David @ @ @ @ @ @ @ street in Washington , D.C. ) In a recent survey , a third of self-identified Republicans said that they regarded QAnon as “ mostly true , ” but it ’ s hard to pinpoint support for its ideas precisely .
The QAnon community has grown in part by attaching itself to real-world concerns—in Georgia , for instance , a two-week operation , in August , to recover missing children was recast , on social media , as the bust of a sex-trafficking ring supposedly ignored by the media .
Greene tweeted a solidly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ # SavetheChildren , ” a hashtag that had already been hijacked by QAnon conspiracists .
Greene originally planned to run for Congress in the more competitive Sixth District , which is closer to Atlanta and where she lived until recently .
Then Graves announced his retirement , and Greene moved to Rome .
She has owned a CrossFit gym and co-owned a construction business started by her father , but she has never previously run for office .
An entrepreneur might find an advantage in the Fourteenth by campaigning on business-friendly policies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ culture war .
A few weeks ago , on Facebook , she posted a picture of herself holding a rifle next to images of Omar , Tlaib , and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , below the words “ We need strong conservative Christians to go on the offense against these socialists who want to rip our country apart.
” The post was subsequently removed by Facebook for violating the platform ’ s policy against inciting violence .
“ Poor white people in the countryside , who ’ ve been ignored by both parties for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” a local Republican named Jan Pourquoi , who works in the carpet industry , told me .
“ They feel that not only have they been ignored but their culture is under assault.
” Greene , he continued , “ taps into that the same way Trump does ” —although Greene , he said , is “ more aggressive ” about it .
Pourquoi , who grew up in Belgium , told me that he will likely vote for Trump , as he did in 2016 , because he trusts him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and on America ’ s relationship with China .
But he won ’ t vote for Greene , who , he said , “ is sending out racist signals.
” “ The Rambo-esque handling of guns—there is no need for that , ” Pourquoi said , calling Greene “ a dangerous demagogue.
” Still , he added , “ she can not lose .
You can be Mickey Mouse , you can be Marjorie Greene , you can be anything—if you have an ‘ R ’ behind your name in this district , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Erick Erickson , who lives in central Georgia but ran a campaign in the state ’ s northwest in the early two-thousands—and who is known for making his own inflammatory remarks—told me the same thing .
“ She ’ s bat-shit crazy , ” he said , referring to Greene .
“ But she ’ s going to Congress.
” Greene , on the other hand , had money .
Her father , Robert Taylor , is the founder of Taylor Commercial , a successful construction company , which he sold to his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Since then , according to Greene , the company has “ managed a quarter of a billion dollars in construction projects.
” ( Greene held several leadership roles at the company ; she was listed as its C.F.O .
from 2007 until 2011 , when company filings cease to show her as an officer . )
Greene gave roughly a million dollars to her campaign—and also got crucial support from the House Freedom Fund , which has ties to Jim Jordan , one of Trump ’ s most prominent allies in Congress , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s chief of staff .
Cowan felt that “ the Freedom Caucus had made their pick without getting to know me , ” he said .
Cowan told me he tried to get Trump ’ s endorsement .
“ Ben Carson taught me in medical school , and we called him asking to get in front of the President , ” he said .
“ But it didn ’ t happen.
” The Fourteenth , Erickson told me , has a fondness for “ the diehard Christian conservatives , as opposed to people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s penchant for controversy prompted a lot of free media coverage to go along with all the Facebook ads she was buying .
Erickson believes that few voters in the Fourteenth are familiar with QAnon , and that , even if they are , it didn ’ t matter .
“ They don ’ t care about QAnon , ” he said .
“ It ’ s ‘ Who ’ s the Trumpiest ?
Who sounds like the President ?
’ ” He added , “ When you look at John Cowan or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ candidates— “ there was a perception that they weren ’ t really with the President .
They were just saying it , while Greene meant it.
” Greene won the primary with more than forty per cent of the vote ; Cowan finished a distant second , but nearly every elected official in the district endorsed him in the runoff .
Greene sought Erickson ’ s support , but he found her entreaties “ annoying , ” he said .
“ She got my cell-phone number and would text constantly , trying to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , she boasted about how many mail-in votes she ’ d received—despite her public comments asserting , falsely , that mail-in voting brings with it a high risk of fraud .
“ I just never bothered to text back , ” Erickson said .
Cowan and Greene were not far apart when it came to major policy positions—and , when it became clear that she was getting traction with her Trump-like approach , Cowan appeared to adopt her style , or some version of it .
“ He wanted to try to beat @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Eason told me .
“ So he shot a watermelon with an AR-15.
” Cowan told me that the exploding-watermelon ad was meant to signal his commitment to gun rights , and to push back against ads that tied him to Chris Christie , who , in 1993 , expressed support for an assault-weapons ban .
( Cowan donated to Christie ’ s Presidential campaign five years ago .
The watermelon was decorated to look like the coronavirus , because the ad was also meant to show Cowan ’ s seriousness about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told me , needs a representative who “ can actually sit in a room and have an intelligent conversation with somebody , and not be outrageous or say something that ’ s gon na make national news in a bad way.
” He ended speeches by describing himself as “ All the conservative , none of the embarrassment.
” Cowan didn ’ t run ads targeting Greene ’ s QAnon comments , though he told me that if he ’ d had “ unlimited funds ” he might have .
Garner thought those @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Garner told me that he ’ d never heard of QAnon prior to Greene ’ s campaign .
“ But , you know , I read National Review , ” he added .
“ Maybe I ’ m not seeing the right stuff online.
” I spoke to one of the men with whom Greene allegedly had an affair .
He asked not to be named and told me that he , too , was bothered by Greene ’ s hypocrisy .
He provided me with a screenshot of a text exchange in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ She never talked about politics , ” he said .
He told me he later learned that she was also sleeping with another man who was not her husband , “ while the whole time being ‘ super Christian.
’ ” He added , “ She ’ s not the pro-family , pro-Christian , strong-business woman she touts herself to be.
” Chambers has described himself , politically , as “ somewhere between an eco-anarchist and a Marxist-Leninist ” ; in a Facebook post about Greene ’ s alleged affairs , he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her republican primary opponent , any democrat , or anyone in the bourgeois electoral trap.
” ( His grandmother Anne Cox Chambers was a billionaire and a major donor to the Democratic Party . )
Chambers told me that his politics didn ’ t seem to bother Greene when he knew her .
Ansley Saville told me that , after she forwarded Chambers ’ s posts to friends , “ it got back to Mrs. Greene , ” who then , she said , left her a voice mail to the effect of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wouldn ’ t want my community to know that I had anything to do with Antifa ” —an apparent reference to Chambers , who earned some local notoriety a few years ago after posting a sign on his gym saying that cops and active military were not welcome as members .
Saville said that she also received direct messages from Justin Kelley , a Greene staffer who often attends campaign events with a firearm tucked beneath his belt , and who , last year , completed felony probation for stealing thousands of hydrocodone @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in 2013 .
When I asked Greene about the alleged affair , she replied by texting me a series of screenshots from Chambers ’ s social-media accounts , including a photo of the sign he put up on his gym .
“ Let me be clear with you , ” Greene texted .
“ Writing defamatory articles about me is a very bad choice .
Be very wise in who your ‘ sources ’ are.
” She also directed me to her attorney , L. Lin Wood , who has lately been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s political opponents deliberately infected the President with the novel coronavirus .
When sent a series of claims and allegations about Greene that are addressed in this piece , Wood responded by insisting that the piece was “ intended to smear her with false accusations , half-truths , misrepresentations , out-of-context statements , and agenda driven lies ” —but , like Greene , he did not specifically refute or deny any of the particular allegations or claims presented to him .

Georgia’s Fourteenth Congressional District was created by Republican legislators about a decade ago, after the 2010 census. It’s bordered by Tennessee to the north and Alabama to the west, with jagged lines in between—which reflect, in part, an effort to redraw the neighboring Ninth District around the home of a Republican congressman, Doug Collins. Except for Athens, where the University of Georgia is based, north Georgia is highly Republican, “largely because it has very few minorities, and if you don’t have minorities you have a Republican district there,” Charles Bullock III, a political-science professor at U.G.A., told me. “But the kinds of Republicans there may have changed.” The Fourteenth incorporates some of the old Seventh District, which, in the seventies and eighties, was represented, as Bullock put it, by a “paranoid urologist” named Larry McDonald. McDonald was a Democrat, but he was also one of the most conservative members of Congress and the second president of the John Birch Society, a group committed to the idea that the civil-rights movement was a Communist plot. In 1983, McDonald was on a Korean Airlines flight to Seoul that accidentally flew into Soviet airspace. “He was very much a Russian conspiracist,” Bullock said. “And, sure enough, the Russians shot down a plane he was on, and killed him.” An investigation concluded that the Soviets had most likely misidentified the aircraft as a U.S. spy plane.
Today, eighty-five per cent of the Fourteenth’s more than seven hundred thousand residents are white. Around fifteen per cent have graduated from college, and most earn well below the national median income. The vast majority adhere to some version of Protestant Christianity, including a few unorthodox variations—one local believer described the area to me as “a greenhouse for heretical religious beliefs.” Three-quarters of the district’s residents voted for Donald Trump in 2016, and more than six thousand recently signed a petition to save a local statue of Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. Many politically active citizens in the area identify as Tea Party Republicans. “It’s never been a quiescent district,” Neill Herring, a lobbyist who grew up in Dalton, the district’s second-largest city, told me, citing an attempt by one of its counties, in 1860, to secede not only from the Union but from Georgia, too. Dalton, population thirty-three thousand, calls itself “the Carpet Capital of the world”—it has more than a hundred and fifty carpet plants employing tens of thousands of people. Slightly larger is Rome, a city in the center of the district which features a statue of Romulus and Remus—a gift from Mussolini, per local legend—whose naked bodies are occasionally diapered, in a show of modesty.
The Democratic Party has fielded a candidate in only three of the five congressional races held in the Fourteenth since it was created. The winner in each of those races was Tom Graves, a Republican, who announced, in December, that he would not seek reëlection. Daniel Eason, a former Delta Air Lines employee who lives in Rome and serves as the vice-chairman of candidate recruitment and membership for the Floyd County Democrats, told me it had been hard to find someone willing to run against Graves. The Party ran a candidate in 2018, but Eason couldn’t immediately recall his name. It was Steven Lamar Foster, a former physician who had not been vetted by the Party. His medical license had been suspended, it turned out, and he had been investigated by the U.S. Army years before. “Something to do with federal boats that he confiscated, for runs down to Central America,” Eason said. (Foster, who couldn’t be reached for comment, was doing charitable work in Honduras at the time; he was not convicted.) Foster also ran a nudist camp. “And he had a D.U.I. during the campaign,” Eason noted. In a drunken tirade during his arrest, Foster said, “I hate this county. I prayed to God that he would curse it. And guess what? He did.” “A truly wild candidacy,” Eason said. “We wound up being embarrassed he was even in the race.” Foster lost to Graves by fifty-three points, on the day he was released from jail.
This year, Eason helped the Party find a candidate with a clean record: a local I.T. specialist named Kevin Van Ausdal. When I first spoke to Eason, in early September, Van Ausdal was set to square off against Marjorie Taylor Greene, an entrepreneur who moved to the district only recently and who has, in the past, expressed a belief in QAnon, a sprawling set of delusional notions centered on the idea that President Trump is leading a fight against a “deep state” engaged in child sex trafficking, cannibalism, and Satan worship. Greene, who campaigns with a sort of aggro cheerfulness, has linked Hillary Clinton to pedophilia and human sacrifice and suggested that Barack Obama plotted to kill a Democratic operative with the help of MS-13. She described the 2018 midterms, which featured the victorious candidacies of Representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, as “an Islamic invasion of our government.” Greene has also said that Americans now have “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take this global cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles out.”
None of these comments, many of which came to light during the spring and summer, seemed to hurt Greene during the state’s Republican primary, in June, or in a two-candidate runoff that followed, in August. But the comments did garner national attention, and fired up district Democrats. “We felt a string of events could catapult Kevin towards victory,” Eason told me. “No incumbent. Then we have a coronavirus. And we have a President losing ground in Georgia.” He added, “And we have Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon poster child. She’s a gift.”
Greene was an early adopter of QAnon, expressing her belief in the conspiracy in late 2017, just weeks after cryptic posts began appearing on the message board 4chan under the name Q Clearance Patriot. (“Q clearance” is the Department of Energy equivalent to top-secret clearance in the Department of Defense, and grants those who hold it access to restricted information.) She posted wide-eyed videos on Facebook describing Q as someone who “very much loves his country” and is “on the same page as us,” and she wrote pro-QAnon articles for a far-right Web outlet called American Truth Seekers. (She also made videos about more conventional issues; in one, she accosts the gun-control activist and Parkland survivor David Hogg, as he walks down a street in Washington, D.C.) In a recent survey, a third of self-identified Republicans said that they regarded QAnon as “mostly true,” but it’s hard to pinpoint support for its ideas precisely. The QAnon community has grown in part by attaching itself to real-world concerns—in Georgia, for instance, a two-week operation, in August, to recover missing children was recast, on social media, as the bust of a sex-trafficking ring supposedly ignored by the media. Greene tweeted a solidly reported account of the news and added “#SavetheChildren,” a hashtag that had already been hijacked by QAnon conspiracists.
Greene originally planned to run for Congress in the more competitive Sixth District, which is closer to Atlanta and where she lived until recently. Then Graves announced his retirement, and Greene moved to Rome. She has owned a CrossFit gym and co-owned a construction business started by her father, but she has never previously run for office. An entrepreneur might find an advantage in the Fourteenth by campaigning on business-friendly policies, but she has mostly emphasized the culture war. A few weeks ago, on Facebook, she posted a picture of herself holding a rifle next to images of Omar, Tlaib, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, below the words “We need strong conservative Christians to go on the offense against these socialists who want to rip our country apart.” The post was subsequently removed by Facebook for violating the platform’s policy against inciting violence.
“Poor white people in the countryside, who’ve been ignored by both parties for years—they expect nothing from the federal government,” a local Republican named Jan Pourquoi, who works in the carpet industry, told me. “They feel that not only have they been ignored but their culture is under assault.” Greene, he continued, “taps into that the same way Trump does”—although Greene, he said, is “more aggressive” about it. Pourquoi, who grew up in Belgium, told me that he will likely vote for Trump, as he did in 2016, because he trusts him more than the Democrats on the economy and on America’s relationship with China. But he won’t vote for Greene, who, he said, “is sending out racist signals.”
“The Rambo-esque handling of guns—there is no need for that,” Pourquoi said, calling Greene “a dangerous demagogue.” Still, he added, “she cannot lose. You can be Mickey Mouse, you can be Marjorie Greene, you can be anything—if you have an ‘R’ behind your name in this district, you can win.”
The conservative commentator Erick Erickson, who lives in central Georgia but ran a campaign in the state’s northwest in the early two-thousands—and who is known for making his own inflammatory remarks—told me the same thing. “She’s bat-shit crazy,” he said, referring to Greene. “But she’s going to Congress.”
Erickson long ago soured on Graves, who had cultivated Tea Party support early in his career but appeared to soften over time. “He didn’t join the Freedom Caucus,” Erickson pointed out. “And he walked away from a lot of his Club for Growth positions.” Still, Graves was well liked in the district and probably would have been reëlected had he run again. After he announced his plan to retire, nine Republicans joined the race. John Cowan, a neurosurgeon from Rome, got the support of many local officials. His campaign chair was Andy Garner, a lawyer in Rome and the chairman of the Floyd County Republican Party, who told me that Cowan and Graves had a lot in common—though Cowan had the additional appeal of being a former college football player and a reserve deputy sheriff.
Greene, on the other hand, had money. Her father, Robert Taylor, is the founder of Taylor Commercial, a successful construction company, which he sold to his daughter and her husband in 2002. Since then, according to Greene, the company has “managed a quarter of a billion dollars in construction projects.” (Greene held several leadership roles at the company; she was listed as its C.F.O. from 2007 until 2011, when company filings cease to show her as an officer.) Greene gave roughly a million dollars to her campaign—and also got crucial support from the House Freedom Fund, which has ties to Jim Jordan, one of Trump’s most prominent allies in Congress, and to Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff. Cowan felt that “the Freedom Caucus had made their pick without getting to know me,” he said. Cowan told me he tried to get Trump’s endorsement. “Ben Carson taught me in medical school, and we called him asking to get in front of the President,” he said. “But it didn’t happen.”
The Fourteenth, Erickson told me, has a fondness for “the diehard Christian conservatives, as opposed to people with establishmentarian ties.” And Greene’s penchant for controversy prompted a lot of free media coverage to go along with all the Facebook ads she was buying. Erickson believes that few voters in the Fourteenth are familiar with QAnon, and that, even if they are, it didn’t matter. “They don’t care about QAnon,” he said. “It’s ‘Who’s the Trumpiest? Who sounds like the President?’ ” He added, “When you look at John Cowan or Kevin Cooke”—another of the Republican candidates—“there was a perception that they weren’t really with the President. They were just saying it, while Greene meant it.”
Greene won the primary with more than forty per cent of the vote; Cowan finished a distant second, but nearly every elected official in the district endorsed him in the runoff. Greene sought Erickson’s support, but he found her entreaties “annoying,” he said. “She got my cell-phone number and would text constantly, trying to get my endorsement.” In one text, she boasted about how many mail-in votes she’d received—despite her public comments asserting, falsely, that mail-in voting brings with it a high risk of fraud. “I just never bothered to text back,” Erickson said.