newyorker--2020-10-10--What Wisconsin Democrats Learned from 2016

A line of police officers kept the crowd away from the brick foundry , where Biden ’ s motorcade was parked .
Closest to the building , about a hundred Trump supporters had gathered , many waving campaign banners .
One homemade poster read “ A Vote for Biden = Socialism.
” Another said , “ Build the Wall with Liberal Tears.
” A chant for four more years merged into one for four more terms .
Few on the Trump side wore a mask .
All of the Biden supporters did , including Darlene Wellner , an eighty-year-old retired @ @ @ @ @ @ @ brought her out for Biden .
She started with Trump ’ s dishonesty and turned to his environmental policies .
“ So much damage has been done .
It ’ s just heartbreaking what is happening in this country , ” she said .
Wellner has taken it upon herself to write thirty postcards to people she considers fence-sitters .
“ If I can influence five of them , it wouldn ’ t be bad.
” Biden had arrived in Manitowoc , a town on Lake Michigan , largely thanks to Sachin Shivaram @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Foundry , who was so worried about Biden ’ s chances in the state that he contacted everyone he knew in hopes of persuading the campaign to deploy the candidate .
“ If you don ’ t have that on-the-ground presence of the candidate , it trickles down , ” he told me .
In his community of De Pere , he saw a surfeit of Trump signs , and almost none for his rival .
At the factory , the union leadership supported Biden , but he noticed that some workers were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to hear , about seventy-two hours ahead of time , that Biden would be seeking attention in Manitowoc , in a state where Hillary Clinton barely competed .
He wasn ’ t alone .
On the afternoon of the visit , the Manitowoc County Democratic Party storefront was bustling .
“ We ’ re in Trump country , ” Karen Steingraber , a volunteer , said , as she assembled Biden-Harris signs , “ but we do what we can.
” Inside the foundry , Biden delivered a series of sharp-edged attacks to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reporters .
The speech was good stuff for the faithful—evidence that Biden , at seventy-seven , could deliver a biting anti-Trump narrative , along with his customary empathy toward the families of the COVID-19 dead and those who are struggling financially .
Addressing the working-class voters in Wisconsin who favored Trump last time , he pledged , “ You will be seen , heard , and respected by me.
” Speaking , as he often does , from behind a surgical mask , he said , “ Frankly , I ’ ve dealt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Guys from the neighborhood I come from who would look down on us because we didn ’ t have a lot of money or your parents didn ’ t go to college .
Guys who think they ’ re better than you .
Guys who inherit everything they ’ ve ever gotten in their life and squander it .
Guys who stretch and squeeze and stiff electricians and plumbers and contractors working on their hotels and casinos and golf courses just to put a few more bucks in their pocket .
Guys @ @ @ @ @ @ @ paying the taxes they owe because they figure the rest of us , the little people , we can pick up the tab for the country.
” On paper , Wisconsin looks eminently winnable this year for Biden and the Democrats .
The respected Marquette Law School poll , released on Wednesday , showed Biden ahead by five points , with a Libertarian candidate , Jo Jorgensen , receiving four per cent , and Trump favored by just forty-one per cent of likely voters .
If it weren ’ t for the shock @ @ @ @ @ @ @ comfortably ahead in October , Biden supporters ’ worry meter would be much lower .
“ Every Democrat is on edge , ” Ben Wikler , the chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party , told me as we sat on his back porch , in Madison .
“ To me , it means that every Democrat will work their heart out.
” Trump was the first Republican Presidential candidate to win the state since 1984 , but his winning margin was less than one per cent of the roughly three million votes cast @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Clinton campaign ’ s message or tactics could have changed the outcome .
Clinton received 238,449 fewer votes than Barack Obama had four years earlier , including forty thousand fewer in Milwaukee alone .
Yet she lost the state by only 22,748 votes .
Clinton and her team assumed that they would win Wisconsin with a minimal investment , even after she was pummelled in the Democratic primary , losing to Bernie Sanders by thirteen points .
Only in the last two weeks of the campaign did Clinton advertise on television in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This year , Biden has dominated television advertising for months .
In one measure of the intensified effort , a list of campaign events , Biden interviews , surrogate appearances , and radio and television advertisements stretches to two single-spaced pages .
And the ground game is broad .
By the campaign ’ s count , three thousand people have done phone-banking sessions in Milwaukee , where there are forty teams of volunteers and dozens of paid staffers .
( The campaign declined to say exactly how many . )
“ We @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nicholson , the chairwoman of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors , told me .
Despite polling averages that have shown Trump lagging Biden for months , the Republicans , too , are boasting of their efforts on the ground and including rallies in the schedule .
Before his coronavirus diagnosis , Trump had planned to hold events in La Crosse and Green Bay ; Vice-President Mike Pence has visited the state five times since July , including a recent trip to Eau Claire , where he was joined by Ivanka Trump .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ counties that voted for Obama twice before flipping to Trump in 2016 ; it also took the rare step of opening an office in Milwaukee , aiming to reduce Biden ’ s large margins among Black and Latino voters .
Team Trump has held training sessions with more than six thousand people , according to the campaign .
Samantha Zager , the deputy national press secretary , noted , “ We ’ re the only campaign in the state currently asking Wisconsinites for their votes in person.
” She described Biden ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , too late.
” I asked Wikler how Democrats intend to avoid a nail-biter this time .
“ Organizing , ” he said .
“ In 2016 , you ’ d go into an office and no one would be there .
Someone behind a table would tell you to pick up a clipboard and bring it back when you ’ re done.
” The next year , Martha Laning , Wikler ’ s predecessor , began building a statewide organizing effort that would operate year-round rather than emerge near the end of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ organizers to recruit local leaders to build neighborhood teams .
They ’ re volunteer team leaders , they recruit volunteers .
Those teams are responsible for organizing their neighborhoods , ” Wikler said , likening them to old-school ward captains .
In 2018 , Democrats swept the elections for statewide offices for the first time since 1982 .
The current ground game is a joint operation of the Biden campaign and the Wisconsin Democrats .
In addition , staff and volunteers from a raft of independent organizations are working to get out the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are under way by Black Leaders Organizing for Communities ( BLOC ) and Voces de la Frontera Action , which focusses on the city ’ s hundred thousand Latino residents , as well as other Latinos around the state .
Since Kamala Harris , a Howard University graduate and member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority , joined the ticket , organizers have been drawing strength from members of the Divine Nine historically Black fraternities and sororities .
In Fitchburg , the state ’ s first elected Black mayor , Frances Huntley-Cooper , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ an automatic network .
I have so many sisters who are on the phone every day.
” Many others , she said , are helping people navigate the requirements for voting by mail , and volunteering as poll workers .
Then there is money .
In one sign of the Democrats ’ success , last month ’ s live reading of the script of “ The Princess Bride , ” by most of the original cast , attracted an astonishing hundred and ten thousand viewers and raised $ 4.25 million .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , ” “ The West Wing , ” and “ Veep ” appeared on other nights .
Citing the organizing oomph , the Democrats I spoke to in several Wisconsin cities expressed confidence in Biden ’ s chances , if the election is fair and square .
Their worry is that Republicans will find ways to suppress Democratic turnout .
For months , Trump has been groundlessly attacking mail-in voting , recently tweeting falsely , for example , “ The Ballots being returned to States can not be accurately counted .
Many things @ @ @ @ @ @ @ battles over voting rules already under way in Wisconsin , I asked Mandela Barnes , the state ’ s Democratic lieutenant governor , what he foresees .
He said , “ Republicans are going to use any tactic they can try to keep people from voting , because they know that lower turnout is typically beneficial to them .
”

It was a most unusual sight for Joe Biden’s campaign: a crowd. Across the street from the Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry, in the town of Manitowoc, several hundred fans of the former Vice-President gathered in the afternoon sunshine late last month, carrying signs and wearing masks that allowed them to muster energetic, if muffled, chants. This was not a planned rally, more like a flash mob without the theatrics. Biden, insistent on modelling good medical etiquette during the pandemic, schedules no grand gatherings, leaving them to his rival, Donald Trump, who, before his coronavirus diagnosis, routinely spoke from a stage, with Air Force One positioned scenically behind him, as thousands cheered his boasts and invective.
A line of police officers kept the crowd away from the brick foundry, where Biden’s motorcade was parked. Closest to the building, about a hundred Trump supporters had gathered, many waving campaign banners. One homemade poster read “A Vote for Biden = Socialism.” Another said, “Build the Wall with Liberal Tears.” A chant for four more years merged into one for four more terms. Few on the Trump side wore a mask. All of the Biden supporters did, including Darlene Wellner, an eighty-year-old retired social worker. I asked Wellner what brought her out for Biden. She started with Trump’s dishonesty and turned to his environmental policies. “So much damage has been done. It’s just heartbreaking what is happening in this country,” she said. Wellner has taken it upon herself to write thirty postcards to people she considers fence-sitters. “If I can influence five of them, it wouldn’t be bad.”
Biden had arrived in Manitowoc, a town on Lake Michigan, largely thanks to Sachin Shivaram, the C.E.O. of Wisconsin Aluminum Foundry, who was so worried about Biden’s chances in the state that he contacted everyone he knew in hopes of persuading the campaign to deploy the candidate. “If you don’t have that on-the-ground presence of the candidate, it trickles down,” he told me. In his community of De Pere, he saw a surfeit of Trump signs, and almost none for his rival. At the factory, the union leadership supported Biden, but he noticed that some workers were wearing MAGA gear. He was thrilled to hear, about seventy-two hours ahead of time, that Biden would be seeking attention in Manitowoc, in a state where Hillary Clinton barely competed. He wasn’t alone. On the afternoon of the visit, the Manitowoc County Democratic Party storefront was bustling. “We’re in Trump country,” Karen Steingraber, a volunteer, said, as she assembled Biden-Harris signs, “but we do what we can.”
Inside the foundry, Biden delivered a series of sharp-edged attacks to a few dozen carefully distanced onlookers and reporters. The speech was good stuff for the faithful—evidence that Biden, at seventy-seven, could deliver a biting anti-Trump narrative, along with his customary empathy toward the families of the COVID-19 dead and those who are struggling financially. Addressing the working-class voters in Wisconsin who favored Trump last time, he pledged, “You will be seen, heard, and respected by me.” Speaking, as he often does, from behind a surgical mask, he said, “Frankly, I’ve dealt with guys like Trump my whole life. Guys from the neighborhood I come from who would look down on us because we didn’t have a lot of money or your parents didn’t go to college. Guys who think they’re better than you. Guys who inherit everything they’ve ever gotten in their life and squander it. Guys who stretch and squeeze and stiff electricians and plumbers and contractors working on their hotels and casinos and golf courses just to put a few more bucks in their pocket. Guys who do everything they can to avoid paying the taxes they owe because they figure the rest of us, the little people, we can pick up the tab for the country.”
On paper, Wisconsin looks eminently winnable this year for Biden and the Democrats. The respected Marquette Law School poll, released on Wednesday, showed Biden ahead by five points, with a Libertarian candidate, Jo Jorgensen, receiving four per cent, and Trump favored by just forty-one per cent of likely voters. If it weren’t for the shock of 2016, when polls showed Clinton comfortably ahead in October, Biden supporters’ worry meter would be much lower. “Every Democrat is on edge,” Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, told me as we sat on his back porch, in Madison. “To me, it means that every Democrat will work their heart out.” Trump was the first Republican Presidential candidate to win the state since 1984, but his winning margin was less than one per cent of the roughly three million votes cast, suggesting that even minor adjustments in the Clinton campaign’s message or tactics could have changed the outcome. Clinton received 238,449 fewer votes than Barack Obama had four years earlier, including forty thousand fewer in Milwaukee alone. Yet she lost the state by only 22,748 votes.
Clinton and her team assumed that they would win Wisconsin with a minimal investment, even after she was pummelled in the Democratic primary, losing to Bernie Sanders by thirteen points. Only in the last two weeks of the campaign did Clinton advertise on television in Milwaukee, Green Bay, and Madison. This year, Biden has dominated television advertising for months. In one measure of the intensified effort, a list of campaign events, Biden interviews, surrogate appearances, and radio and television advertisements stretches to two single-spaced pages. And the ground game is broad. By the campaign’s count, three thousand people have done phone-banking sessions in Milwaukee, where there are forty teams of volunteers and dozens of paid staffers. (The campaign declined to say exactly how many.) “We definitely learned our lesson,” Marcelia Nicholson, the chairwoman of the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors, told me.
Despite polling averages that have shown Trump lagging Biden for months, the Republicans, too, are boasting of their efforts on the ground and including rallies in the schedule. Before his coronavirus diagnosis, Trump had planned to hold events in La Crosse and Green Bay; Vice-President Mike Pence has visited the state five times since July, including a recent trip to Eau Claire, where he was joined by Ivanka Trump. The campaign is trying to fortify rural counties that voted for Obama twice before flipping to Trump in 2016; it also took the rare step of opening an office in Milwaukee, aiming to reduce Biden’s large margins among Black and Latino voters. Team Trump has held training sessions with more than six thousand people, according to the campaign. Samantha Zager, the deputy national press secretary, noted, “We’re the only campaign in the state currently asking Wisconsinites for their votes in person.” She described Biden’s bid for Wisconsin as “too little, too late.”
I asked Wikler how Democrats intend to avoid a nail-biter this time. “Organizing,” he said. “In 2016, you’d go into an office and no one would be there. Someone behind a table would tell you to pick up a clipboard and bring it back when you’re done.” The next year, Martha Laning, Wikler’s predecessor, began building a statewide organizing effort that would operate year-round rather than emerge near the end of a campaign cycle. “You hire organizers to recruit local leaders to build neighborhood teams. They’re volunteer team leaders, they recruit volunteers. Those teams are responsible for organizing their neighborhoods,” Wikler said, likening them to old-school ward captains. In 2018, Democrats swept the elections for statewide offices for the first time since 1982.


newyorker--2020-10-10--Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren on Wielding Political Power

At the end of September , a reporter asked President Donald Trump a simple question : if he lost the election in November , would he commit to a peaceful transfer of power ?
We all know , now , how he responded .
As The New Yorker ’ s Susan Glasser put it in her column that week , “ There is only one answer to this question in America .
The answer is yes .
But not for Trump.
” This week , as part of the twenty-first New Yorker Festival , the staff writer Andrew Marantz spoke @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Warren about their perspectives on an especially precarious and consequential election season , and what would happen if the President refuses to accept the results .
You can see an excerpt from their conversation in the video above .
Warren ’ s key message was a familiar one : a call for progressives to vote .
“ We can ’ t afford to beat Donald Trump by a little bit ; we ’ ve got ta beat Donald Trump by a huge amount .
And that ’ s how we reassert the strength @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Ocasio-Cortez added that , in addition to voting , Americans need to be prepared to demonstrate if Trump ’ s actions make it necessary .
“ It ’ s extremely important that people be ready for mass civil demonstrations .
Non-violent , of course , ” she said .
“ There need to be immediate political , popular , and social consequences for leadership that refuses to adhere to the rule of law.
” Warren emphasized that it is a combination of different types of pressure that makes political figures change course @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plan is if the President loses the vote and refuses to leave office—and she believes her Republican colleagues should be getting that question as well .
“ Mitch McConnell should be asked this question every single day , ” she said .
“ ‘ What is your plan , Mr. Leader of the Senate , if Donald Trump loses the vote and refuses to acknowledge it ?
’ ” During the conversation , Warren and Ocasio-Cortez also spoke about the need to address climate change , whether politicians grasp its growing import to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s politics are being shaped by the tumult of 2020 .
Like most of the Festival lineup , Warren and Ocasio-Cortez ’ s discussion with Marantz will be available for viewing , in its entirety , through October 13th , with the purchase of a ticket .

At the end of September, a reporter asked President Donald Trump a simple question: if he lost the election in November, would he commit to a peaceful transfer of power? We all know, now, how he responded. As The New Yorker’s Susan Glasser put it in her column that week, “There is only one answer to this question in America. The answer is yes. But not for Trump.” This week, as part of the twenty-first New Yorker Festival, the staff writer Andrew Marantz spoke with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Elizabeth Warren about their perspectives on an especially precarious and consequential election season, and what would happen if the President refuses to accept the results. You can see an excerpt from their conversation in the video above.
Warren’s key message was a familiar one: a call for progressives to vote. “We can’t afford to beat Donald Trump by a little bit; we’ve gotta beat Donald Trump by a huge amount. And that’s how we reassert the strength of our democracy,” she said. Ocasio-Cortez added that, in addition to voting, Americans need to be prepared to demonstrate if Trump’s actions make it necessary. “It’s extremely important that people be ready for mass civil demonstrations. Non-violent, of course,” she said. “There need to be immediate political, popular, and social consequences for leadership that refuses to adhere to the rule of law.” Warren emphasized that it is a combination of different types of pressure that makes political figures change course. She is often asked what her plan is if the President loses the vote and refuses to leave office—and she believes her Republican colleagues should be getting that question as well. “Mitch McConnell should be asked this question every single day,” she said. “ ‘What is your plan, Mr. Leader of the Senate, if Donald Trump loses the vote and refuses to acknowledge it?’ ”
During the conversation, Warren and Ocasio-Cortez also spoke about the need to address climate change, whether politicians grasp its growing import to voters, and how young people’s politics are being shaped by the tumult of 2020. Like most of the Festival lineup, Warren and Ocasio-Cortez’s discussion with Marantz will be available for viewing, in its entirety, through October 19th, with the purchase of a ticket.


newyorker--2020-10-10--Donald Trump’s Loopy Self-Pity Tour of Conservative Media Outlets

The other interviews between the President and his conservative interlocutors have ranged across a broad expanse of well-trodden Trump terrain , from the iniquities of the Russian probe to the perfidy of the news media , the extremism of the Democratic policy agenda , and the mental health of his opponent , Joe Biden .
At times , Trump has added some new variations to his familiar laments .
Rather than simply accusing the Obama Administration of spying on him during the 2016 campaign , which he ’ s done many times before , he suggested to Bartiromo that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Vice-President .
“ This was the greatest political crime in the history of our country , and that includes Obama and it includes Biden , ” he said .
During a two-hour appearance on Rush Limbaugh ’ s radio show on Friday afternoon , he supplemented his normal sabre-rattling toward Iran with an F-bomb .
“ They ’ ve been put on notice , ” he said .
“ If you fuck around with us , if you do something bad to us , we are going to do things to you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It ’ s been widely suggested that dexamethasone , the powerful steroid Trump has been taking , may have contributed to his verbal tirades .
( Tommy Vietor , a former Obama staffer who co-hosts the “ Pod Save America ” podcast , commented on Twitter that Trump seemed “ High as a giraffe ’ s ass ” during an interview with Sean Hannity . )
For what it ’ s worth , which might not be much , Trump told Limbaugh that he ’ s no longer taking drugs for his illness @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s show , he said the same thing to Dr. Marc Siegel , a Fox News medical contributor , who interviewed him .
“ I feel really , really strong , ” Trump said .
For the first time , he indicated that the chest scans he received at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center indicated “ congestion ” in his lungs , but he also said , “ with each day it got better.
” Once again , he attributed his rapid rebound to the infusion he received of Regeneron , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which , to the horror of the medical profession , he has described as a miracle cure for COVID-19 .
Whether or not dexamethasone played some role in Trump ’ s bizarre statements over the past few days , he long ago mastered the art of engaging in marathon rants that are rife with falsehoods , incitements , and defamatory statements .
In fact , the most surprising thing about his latest round of interviews has been their pathos rather than their bluster .
Far from pursuing a particular political strategy , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ narrative on the economy , or unveiling a new critique of Biden ’ s policy platform , he has seemed to be most intent on evoking sympathy for his own political predicament , which , in his telling , is absolutely no fault of his own .
Limbaugh , a veteran superspreader of right-wing conspiracy theories , to whom Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom earlier this year , told his audience of retirees and right-wing “ ditto-heads ” that he wanted them to get to know the Trump he knows privately—a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about everybody .
( No , I ’ m not making this up . )
Trump immediately blamed the communication problem on the media .
“ No matter what you do , they try and find fault , ” he complained .
“ Not only fault .
Vicious .
They are vicious people.
” Limbaugh agreed with his guest , and things went on in this vein for a bit .
Then , Limbaugh asked Trump why he decided , in 2015 , to cast aside his opulent private life and run for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Trump went into a long digression about the “ Russia hoax ” and how the Democrats impeached him for a “ perfect phone call ” with the President of Ukraine .
Finally , he offered that he would do it all again , but added , “ I never knew it would be so unpleasant.
” Unpleasant ?
In his interview with Bartiromo , Trump called Kamala Harris “ a Communist.
” On the Hannity show , he criticized Gretchen Whitmer , the Democratic governor of Michigan who was the object of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and he claimed that Ralph Northam , the Democratic governor of Virginia , endorses the execution of babies .
In his interview with Limbaugh , he described Nancy Pelosi , the Speaker of the House of Representatives , as “ a nutjob , ” and he strongly implied that Biden is suffering from dementia .
( “ He ’ s in a daze .
.
.
.
There ’ s something wrong.
” ) In that interview , and in a subsequent one on Friday afternoon , with Mark Levin , another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Pelosi had a hidden motive for backing the creation of a congressionally appointed commission that would determine whether a President is capable of performing his duties .
“ I think they want to use it so that Kamala can take over for Biden , ” Trump said .
“ Because Biden ’ s not there , everybody knows that .
He ’ s batting at fifty per cent if he ’ s lucky.
” Trump is truly addled , of course .
In his mind , no matter what he says or does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ person who is wronged , belittled , and underappreciated .
He extends this twisted world view well beyond the orbit of liberal journalists and elected Democrats , whom he regards as part of the same rival team .
Over the past few days , indeed , he has seemed even more agitated about actual and potential traitors on his own side : lily-livered Republicans ; Fox News journalists and executives that fail to follow a sufficiently slavish pro-Trump line ; even some members of his Cabinet .
In several of his interviews , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ News anchor , of repeatedly rescuing Biden during last week ’ s Presidential debate .
When talking to Limbaugh , he also suggested that the presence of Paul Ryan , the former Speaker of the House , on the board of Fox ’ s parent company , News Corporation , might be influencing the network ’ s coverage of him .
( Only Trump could complain that a network which has just allowed him to speak to its audience practically unfiltered and at length three times in two days wasn ’ t sufficiently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reserved his greatest scorn for his current Republican colleagues , and for his own Attorney General , William Barr .
When Limbaugh asked him about a report from Axios that Barr has informed senior Republicans that the Justice Department ’ s review of the origins of the Russia probe won ’ t be published before the election , Trump seemed stunned .
“ If Bill Barr made that statement , I would be very disappointed in him , ” he replied .
The real problem was that Republicans “ don ’ t play @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ If this were the other side , you would have had twenty-five people in jail for the rest of their lives.
” The implication was clear .
If Trump had his way , the Justice Department would have had no compunction about indicting James Comey , the former F.B.I .
director , and Andrew McCabe , Comey ’ s former deputy—or Biden and Obama , for that matter—regardless of the evidence or the law .
In Trump ’ s view , that ’ s how the “ game ” should be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But not even Barr , who has repeatedly flouted Justice Department precedent on his behalf , understands this necessity .
To Trump , that makes Barr , whom many critics regard as the ultimate Presidential lackey , another failure and disappointment .
On Saturday , the embattled President is intending to address a group of supporters from the White House balcony—the same balcony where , on Monday evening , he took off his mask and preened after returning from Walter Reed .
Since then , his antic behavior and all-pervading self-pity have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ history closing in on them .
As November 3rd gets closer , there is every reason to expect that he will get even more unhinged .
It ’ s going to be a crazy three and a half weeks .
Read More About the 2020 Election • The fall and rise of Kamala Harris .
• When a sitting 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 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 .

Over the decades, Presidents who are trailing in the polls going into an election have resorted to many different tactics, such as whistle-stop tours, fresh policy initiatives, and military adventurism. Confined to the White House for the past few days as he has been recovering from the coronavirus, Donald Trump has adopted a less taxing campaign tactic. Beginning with a telephone call with Maria Bartiromo, of the Fox Business Network, on Thursday morning, he’s conducted a series of lengthy interviews with sympathetic media outlets, including an on-camera interview about his illness with “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” the top-rated Fox News Channel show, on Friday, in which he said he’d been retested for the virus but was vague about the result. (“I’m either at the bottom of the scale, or free,” he said.)
The other interviews between the President and his conservative interlocutors have ranged across a broad expanse of well-trodden Trump terrain, from the iniquities of the Russian probe to the perfidy of the news media, the extremism of the Democratic policy agenda, and the mental health of his opponent, Joe Biden. At times, Trump has added some new variations to his familiar laments. Rather than simply accusing the Obama Administration of spying on him during the 2016 campaign, which he’s done many times before, he suggested to Bartiromo that the Justice Department should indict the former President and Vice-President. “This was the greatest political crime in the history of our country, and that includes Obama and it includes Biden,” he said. During a two-hour appearance on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show on Friday afternoon, he supplemented his normal sabre-rattling toward Iran with an F-bomb. “They’ve been put on notice,” he said. “If you fuck around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done before.”
It’s been widely suggested that dexamethasone, the powerful steroid Trump has been taking, may have contributed to his verbal tirades. (Tommy Vietor, a former Obama staffer who co-hosts the “Pod Save America” podcast, commented on Twitter that Trump seemed “High as a giraffe’s ass” during an interview with Sean Hannity.) For what it’s worth, which might not be much, Trump told Limbaugh that he’s no longer taking drugs for his illness. In his subsequent appearance on Carlson’s show, he said the same thing to Dr. Marc Siegel, a Fox News medical contributor, who interviewed him. “I feel really, really strong,” Trump said. For the first time, he indicated that the chest scans he received at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center indicated “congestion” in his lungs, but he also said, “with each day it got better.” Once again, he attributed his rapid rebound to the infusion he received of Regeneron, an experimental cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies, which, to the horror of the medical profession, he has described as a miracle cure for COVID-19.
Whether or not dexamethasone played some role in Trump’s bizarre statements over the past few days, he long ago mastered the art of engaging in marathon rants that are rife with falsehoods, incitements, and defamatory statements. In fact, the most surprising thing about his latest round of interviews has been their pathos rather than their bluster. Far from pursuing a particular political strategy, such as trying to refocus the campaign narrative on the economy, or unveiling a new critique of Biden’s policy platform, he has seemed to be most intent on evoking sympathy for his own political predicament, which, in his telling, is absolutely no fault of his own.
Limbaugh, a veteran superspreader of right-wing conspiracy theories, to whom Trump awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom earlier this year, told his audience of retirees and right-wing “ditto-heads” that he wanted them to get to know the Trump he knows privately—a loyal, unwavering person who cares deeply about everybody. (No, I’m not making this up.) Trump immediately blamed the communication problem on the media. “No matter what you do, they try and find fault,” he complained. “Not only fault. Vicious. They are vicious people.” Limbaugh agreed with his guest, and things went on in this vein for a bit. Then, Limbaugh asked Trump why he decided, in 2015, to cast aside his opulent private life and run for office. Rather than answering the question, Trump went into a long digression about the “Russia hoax” and how the Democrats impeached him for a “perfect phone call” with the President of Ukraine. Finally, he offered that he would do it all again, but added, “I never knew it would be so unpleasant.”
Unpleasant? In his interview with Bartiromo, Trump called Kamala Harris “a Communist.” On the Hannity show, he criticized Gretchen Whitmer, the Democratic governor of Michigan who was the object of an alleged kidnapping plot by right-wing extremists, and he claimed that Ralph Northam, the Democratic governor of Virginia, endorses the execution of babies. In his interview with Limbaugh, he described Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, as “a nutjob,” and he strongly implied that Biden is suffering from dementia. (“He’s in a daze. . . . There’s something wrong.”) In that interview, and in a subsequent one on Friday afternoon, with Mark Levin, another right-wing talk-radio host, he suggested that Pelosi had a hidden motive for backing the creation of a congressionally appointed commission that would determine whether a President is capable of performing his duties. “I think they want to use it so that Kamala can take over for Biden,” Trump said. “Because Biden’s not there, everybody knows that. He’s batting at fifty per cent if he’s lucky.”
Trump is truly addled, of course. In his mind, no matter what he says or does, he’s always the victim—the person who is wronged, belittled, and underappreciated. He extends this twisted world view well beyond the orbit of liberal journalists and elected Democrats, whom he regards as part of the same rival team. Over the past few days, indeed, he has seemed even more agitated about actual and potential traitors on his own side: lily-livered Republicans; Fox News journalists and executives that fail to follow a sufficiently slavish pro-Trump line; even some members of his Cabinet.
In several of his interviews, he accused Chris Wallace, the Fox News anchor, of repeatedly rescuing Biden during last week’s Presidential debate. When talking to Limbaugh, he also suggested that the presence of Paul Ryan, the former Speaker of the House, on the board of Fox’s parent company, News Corporation, might be influencing the network’s coverage of him. (Only Trump could complain that a network which has just allowed him to speak to its audience practically unfiltered and at length three times in two days wasn’t sufficiently supportive of him.) But Trump reserved his greatest scorn for his current Republican colleagues, and for his own Attorney General, William Barr. When Limbaugh asked him about a report from Axios that Barr has informed senior Republicans that the Justice Department’s review of the origins of the Russia probe won’t be published before the election, Trump seemed stunned. “If Bill Barr made that statement, I would be very disappointed in him,” he replied. The real problem was that Republicans “don’t play the tough game,” he said. “If this were the other side, you would have had twenty-five people in jail for the rest of their lives.”
The implication was clear. If Trump had his way, the Justice Department would have had no compunction about indicting James Comey, the former F.B.I. director, and Andrew McCabe, Comey’s former deputy—or Biden and Obama, for that matter—regardless of the evidence or the law. In Trump’s view, that’s how the “game” should be played, especially in the late innings. But not even Barr, who has repeatedly flouted Justice Department precedent on his behalf, understands this necessity. To Trump, that makes Barr, whom many critics regard as the ultimate Presidential lackey, another failure and disappointment.
On Saturday, the embattled President is intending to address a group of supporters from the White House balcony—the same balcony where, on Monday evening, he took off his mask and preened after returning from Walter Reed. Since then, his antic behavior and all-pervading self-pity have been redolent of other strongmen who felt history closing in on them. As November 3rd gets closer, there is every reason to expect that he will get even more unhinged. It’s going to be a crazy three and a half weeks.
Read More About the 2020 Election


newyorker--2020-10-10--How to Make Sense of the Polls

How to Make Sense of the Polls

Still , a plurality of Americans believe Trump will win the election , and the President ’ s approval rating has remained in the low-to-mid-forties all year , despite the fact that a clear majority of Americans disapprove of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic .
There also remains considerable skepticism about the accuracy of polls , which missed Trump ’ s strength in the key Midwestern states that delivered him the White House in 2016 .
Moreover , Trump is likely to perform better in the Midwest and Florida than he will nationally , which means that he could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ popular vote by several percentage points .
( Currently , Biden leads narrowly in Florida , and by slightly larger margins in Pennsylvania , Wisconsin , and Michigan . )
The numbers place Biden in the lead , but much uncertainty remains , with record numbers of voters submitting ballots by mail , a coronavirus outbreak in the White House , and the continued effects of the pandemic across the country .
I recently spoke by phone with Sean Trende , the senior elections analyst at RealClearPolitics , and the co-author of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our conversation , which has been edited for length and clarity , we discussed whether pollsters have addressed the mistakes of 2016 , whether the Biden campaign should go all out to try to win Texas , and how Trump might perform differently now that he is running as an incumbent .
Why should we trust the polls ?
Generally speaking , the polls have been pretty good over the years , and given enough time you 'll do better with polls than just your gut instinct .
But polls are imperfect instruments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you need to trust them for what they are , which is not oracular , perfect insights of wisdom but , rather , a good metric of where things stand right now .
How confident are you that pollsters have fixed the problems we saw in 2016 , especially in the Midwest ?
I ’ m still concerned .
If you look at 2018 , the polling in the Midwest was n't that great .
We were supposed to have a Democratic governor in Ohio .
There was supposed to be a Democratic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to be a Democratic senator from Indiana .
The Democratic senators in Ohio and Michigan both underperformed the polls .
Florida was off a little , too , right ?
Florida was very off .
I think there were , like , one or two polls that showed Ron DeSantis winning the entire way .
And people forget that in 2012 there was a big polling miss , but it just happened to be in the Democrats ’ favor , so it didn ’ t affect the outcome .
It ’ s good @ @ @ @ @ @ @ results ] by college education , because that ’ s a salient factor , but in terms of treating [ polls ] as things that can ’ t be off by two , three , four points ?
No , I wouldn ’ t do that .
Is there anything in the polls that you are concerned about this time ?
Anything along the lines of not weighting by college education ?
There ’ s a possibility that the problem wasn ’ t , in fact , that pollsters weren ’ t weighting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ big , easy fix .
But maybe it was something else .
We don ’ t know what it is .
The 2018 results give me some pause .
I look at the polls showing Biden with twenty-per-cent-plus leads among older voters , with boomers voting roughly the same as millennials , and Gen Z , and that makes me nervous .
I can tell myself a story about why that would happen , but I can also tell myself a story about conservative Trump voters hearing , “ Hi , I ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” and hanging up the phone because they don ’ t trust the mainstream media .
That makes me very nervous .
What you ’ re talking about is not exactly the same , but it seems connected to this idea of the “ shy Trump voter , ” which is this theory that there is social stigma attached to voting for Trump , so voters would not tell pollsters that they were going to do so .
But we don ’ t really have any evidence that shy Trump voters actually exist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ story you can tell yourself , but I don ’ t think the evidence is that good for it .
Why do you think the evidence isn ’ t very good for it ?
In Internet polling , you just click on your keyboard , and no one really knows how you answered .
When you get a robo poll , it ’ s just that automated voice , and you ’ re pressing buttons .
But when it ’ s a live person on the other end , there ’ s maybe @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s performance from the live polls , and you might ascribe that to shy Trumpers .
There ’ s also this question of Trump ’ s job approval , which is running two or three points ahead of his vote share .
And , going back in time , Presidential job approval is one of the strongest indicators we have of how the President is going to fare .
Who are these people that approve of the job he ’ s doing but aren ’ t going to vote for him ?
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ story .
There are people who like his policies , but hate his persona .
But it could also be that these are voters who are saying they ’ re undecided , but they really aren ’ t .
But , again , this is just kind of conjecture , it ’ s not really good evidence .
So you ’ re saying we have reasons to think the polls might be off for various reasons , but there ’ s not great evidence for any of them ?
Yeah , there aren @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lights , but there are things where , if Trump does end up winning , or coming very close , we ’ re going to look at these things and say , “ Ah , there it was all along.
” It seems like the best case for Biden right now is not just that he ’ s ahead and that there are fewer undecided voters than in 2016 but that he ’ s been ahead so consistently .
It ’ s not clear that there ’ s been any point in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the year , where Trump actually was leading him in enough states to get to two hundred and sixty-nine electoral votes .
Is that your sense , too ?
I think that is probably the single best argument why we wouldn ’ t see something like 2016 .
If you go back to 2016 , that race wanted to be a two-point race .
It would be close to two points , and then Trump would do something stupid like talk about the judge who couldn ’ t rule for him because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would blow up a lead , and then it would tighten back to two points , and then he would insult Khizr Khan and his family , and the lead would blow open .
This is different .
This is a race where it ’ s actually been kind of boring .
Polls usually have Biden up six , seven points .
It seems like that ’ s the number that the polls want to be at .
You have events like the murder of George Floyd , and Trump ’ s response @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the debate , and Trump ’ s positive test last week , which pushed them a little higher .
But , basically , since the pandemic started , it hovers around seven .
So , then , what would need to change for Trump to win ?
What , in addition to the polls being wrong , are we going to look back at in a month and say , “ Boy , we were sure wrong when we talked in October ” ?
The story I have mentally pre-written is that job-approval @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like forty-six per cent [ among likely voters ] , which means that a lot of these undecideds are probably going to break for him , because they ultimately approve of the job he ’ s doing .
If what we ’ re seeing right now is just differential response , which is a well-established phenomenon .
When there ’ s a big blowup in the news cycles , one party won ’ t answer polls .
That could be what we ’ re seeing right now .
And so if , in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gone back to him being at forty-five or forty-six per cent , and he ’ s leading Biden on the economy by eight , nine points , that ’ s the story for why he wins if he does .

With less than a month to go until Election Day, former Vice-President Joe Biden leads President Donald Trump by an average of more than nine percentage points in national polls. Biden has been ahead for the entire year, and he also received something of a polling bounce after Trump’s chaotic performance in the first Presidential debate.
Still, a plurality of Americans believe Trump will win the election, and the President’s approval rating has remained in the low-to-mid-forties all year, despite the fact that a clear majority of Americans disapprove of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. There also remains considerable skepticism about the accuracy of polls, which missed Trump’s strength in the key Midwestern states that delivered him the White House in 2016. Moreover, Trump is likely to perform better in the Midwest and Florida than he will nationally, which means that he could still win the election despite losing the popular vote by several percentage points. (Currently, Biden leads narrowly in Florida, and by slightly larger margins in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan.) The numbers place Biden in the lead, but much uncertainty remains, with record numbers of voters submitting ballots by mail, a coronavirus outbreak in the White House, and the continued effects of the pandemic across the country.
I recently spoke by phone with Sean Trende, the senior elections analyst at RealClearPolitics, and the co-author of the Almanac of American Politics 2014. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed whether pollsters have addressed the mistakes of 2016, whether the Biden campaign should go all out to try to win Texas, and how Trump might perform differently now that he is running as an incumbent.
Why should we trust the polls?
Generally speaking, the polls have been pretty good over the years, and given enough time you'll do better with polls than just your gut instinct. But polls are imperfect instruments. When you trust the polls, you need to trust them for what they are, which is not oracular, perfect insights of wisdom but, rather, a good metric of where things stand right now.
How confident are you that pollsters have fixed the problems we saw in 2016, especially in the Midwest?
I’m still concerned. If you look at 2018, the polling in the Midwest wasn't that great. We were supposed to have a Democratic governor in Ohio. There was supposed to be a Democratic governor in Iowa. There was supposed to be a Democratic senator from Indiana. The Democratic senators in Ohio and Michigan both underperformed the polls.
Florida was off a little, too, right?
Florida was very off. I think there were, like, one or two polls that showed Ron DeSantis winning the entire way. And people forget that in 2012 there was a big polling miss, but it just happened to be in the Democrats’ favor, so it didn’t affect the outcome. It’s good that people are starting to weight [results] by college education, because that’s a salient factor, but in terms of treating [polls] as things that can’t be off by two, three, four points? No, I wouldn’t do that.
Is there anything in the polls that you are concerned about this time? Anything along the lines of not weighting by college education?
There’s a possibility that the problem wasn’t, in fact, that pollsters weren’t weighting by college education. That was the big, easy fix. But maybe it was something else. We don’t know what it is. The 2018 results give me some pause. I look at the polls showing Biden with twenty-per-cent-plus leads among older voters, with boomers voting roughly the same as millennials, and Gen Z, and that makes me nervous. I can tell myself a story about why that would happen, but I can also tell myself a story about conservative Trump voters hearing, “Hi, I’m from NBC/Wall Street Journal polling,” and hanging up the phone because they don’t trust the mainstream media. That makes me very nervous.
What you’re talking about is not exactly the same, but it seems connected to this idea of the “shy Trump voter,” which is this theory that there is social stigma attached to voting for Trump, so voters would not tell pollsters that they were going to do so. But we don’t really have any evidence that shy Trump voters actually exist, correct?
It’s a story you can tell yourself, but I don’t think the evidence is that good for it.
Why do you think the evidence isn’t very good for it?
In Internet polling, you just click on your keyboard, and no one really knows how you answered. When you get a robo poll, it’s just that automated voice, and you’re pressing buttons. But when it’s a live person on the other end, there’s maybe a one- or two-point dropoff in Trump’s performance from the live polls, and you might ascribe that to shy Trumpers.
There’s also this question of Trump’s job approval, which is running two or three points ahead of his vote share. And, going back in time, Presidential job approval is one of the strongest indicators we have of how the President is going to fare. Who are these people that approve of the job he’s doing but aren’t going to vote for him? Again, you can tell yourself a story. There are people who like his policies, but hate his persona. But it could also be that these are voters who are saying they’re undecided, but they really aren’t. But, again, this is just kind of conjecture, it’s not really good evidence.
So you’re saying we have reasons to think the polls might be off for various reasons, but there’s not great evidence for any of them?
Yeah, there aren’t, like, flashing red lights, but there are things where, if Trump does end up winning, or coming very close, we’re going to look at these things and say, “Ah, there it was all along.”
It seems like the best case for Biden right now is not just that he’s ahead and that there are fewer undecided voters than in 2016 but that he’s been ahead so consistently. It’s not clear that there’s been any point in the race, going back to the beginning of the year, where Trump actually was leading him in enough states to get to two hundred and sixty-nine electoral votes. Is that your sense, too?
I think that is probably the single best argument why we wouldn’t see something like 2016. If you go back to 2016, that race wanted to be a two-point race. It would be close to two points, and then Trump would do something stupid like talk about the judge who couldn’t rule for him because he was “Mexican.” And Clinton would blow up a lead, and then it would tighten back to two points, and then he would insult Khizr Khan and his family, and the lead would blow open. This is different. This is a race where it’s actually been kind of boring. Polls usually have Biden up six, seven points.


newyorker--2020-10-10--Donald Trump’s Campaign Rallies Are Now Confirmed Public-Health Hazards

Since March 11th , when the first confirmed cases of the coronavirus were reported in Allegheny County , Pennsylvania—which encompasses Pittsburgh and counts some 1.2 million residents—thirteen thousand people there have tested positive , and nearly four hundred people have died .
Cases spiked in June and July , after local bars reopened , but the numbers have since come down .
“ We ’ ve really struggled to keep our numbers where they are , ” Rich Fitzgerald , the county executive , told me recently .
“ It ’ s a lot of people coöperating , being very @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” There have been exceptions to these efforts .
On September 22nd , nine days before he revealed he had tested positive for the coronavirus , Donald Trump rented out a private hangar at Pittsburgh International Airport , where he spoke for an hour and a half in front of a large crowd of fans , some wearing MAGA-branded face masks , some not .
At the time , local reporters asked Fitzgerald why the President was allowed to flout the state ’ s emergency limits on outdoor gatherings .
“ You think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me ?
” Fitzgerald , a Democrat and no fan of the President ’ s politics , told them .
“ He gets subpoenas he ignores .
He doesn ’ t listen to the court , he doesn ’ t listen to Congress.
” This week , Trump , still suffering symptoms of his illness , began to publicly muse about going back on the campaign trail .
Allegheny County was reportedly a possible destination .
It was unwelcome news for Fitzgerald .
“ You want to get your message out , certainly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ weeks from an election , ” Fitzgerald said , of the President .
“ But putting people at risk , it ’ s just irresponsible .
I don ’ t know how many people come with him—fifty , a hundred people that are going to be part of the entourage ?
They ’ re going to be in contact , and potentially spreading this disease in western Pennsylvania.
” What ’ s a local official to do about a heedless President ?
Trump , of course , has shown few signs of caring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
There has been a full-fledged outbreak among both White House and campaign staffers—seemingly related to the events that were held late last month in honor of Trump ’ s Supreme Court nominee , Amy Coney Barrett .
And yet the Administration ’ s contact-tracing efforts have been minimal .
It has refused to disclose when the President last tested negative , leaving open the possibility that he was contagious when he shared a debate stage with Joe Biden .
He almost certainly was contagious a few hours before his first known positive @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attended an indoor fund-raiser with supporters at his golf club in New Jersey .
And he was definitely contagious at Walter Reed military hospital , when he compelled Secret Service agents to drive him around in a hermetically sealed S.U.V .
so that he could wave at fans who had gathered outside .
The first thing Trump did upon returning to the White House on Monday night was remove his mask for a photo op .
His doctor , Sean Conley , initially said he wouldn ’ t consider Trump out of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as Trump increasingly made noise about wanting to get back out there , Conley suddenly issued a statement saying that he thought Trump would be “ safe ” to return to public engagements by Saturday .
Outside experts disagreed .
“ Trump still contagious ?
Experts say it ’ s impossible to know , ” one Associated Press headline ran .
On Thursday night , Trump coughed through a telephone interview with Fox News ’ s Sean Hannity .
“ What I took is incredible , ” Trump said , of the drugs @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the infection .
“ To me , I viewed it as a cure.
” There ’ s not much evidence that the rallies Trump was holding before he fell ill were doing him much good , politically .
Now the country may be about to witness the spectacle of a President who has already been at the center of at least one superspreader event actively hosting other potential superspreader events .
Before his diagnosis , Trump had taken to describing his rallies as “ peaceful protests , ” a swipe at the Black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the country this spring and summer despite the restrictions on outdoor events .
As the days left before Election Day tick down , this is all Trump really has left to offer : grievance .
His tweets and interviews since returning to the White House have been a stew of rants about Hillary Clinton , the F.B.I.
, the Democrats , his own Attorney General .
“ They send millions of gallons of water out to sea , out to the Pacific , ” Trump told Hannity on Thursday , during an impenetrable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Because they want to take care of certain little tiny fish that are n't doing very well without water.
” In the face of such recklessness , even a booster like Hannity was compelled to commit journalism .
“ Have you been tested recently ?
” he asked Trump on Thursday , as the President went on about his treatment and his plans for upcoming events .
“ Did you test negative ?
” This past week , Mitch McConnell , the Senate Majority Leader , disclosed that he hasn ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ out of concerns for his personal health .
And health officials in and around Washington , D.C. , put out an open letter urging anyone who attended the Barrett event at the White House , or who has worked at the White House in the past two weeks , or who has had contact with people in either of those two groups , to get a coronavirus test .
“ We had a superspreader event at the White House , ” Anthony Fauci told an interviewer on Friday .
Not long after , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inviting a few hundred people to the South Lawn on Saturday .
“ He pitched the idea of staging events and concerts on the South Lawn every week up through Election Day , ” a Times reporter tweeted .
“ He appeared to be half kidding , but half intrigued by the idea , aides said.
” The campaign then announced that Trump planned to attend a rally in Sanford , Florida , on Monday .
According to the press release , “ All attendees will be given a temperature check , masks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and access to hand sanitizer.
” The President and his team have given local officials no reason to trust that these events will be safe .
But those same local officials will be left to deal with the consequences .
Already , Trump ’ s rally last month in Bemidji , Minnesota , has been linked to nine cases and two hospitalizations .
The President ’ s campaign rallies are now confirmed public-health hazards .
Fitzgerald , in Allegheny County , also worries about what else these events might stir up .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” he said .
“ He ’ s got a lot of supporters that are going to want to show up and show support .
And then on the other side you ’ re going to have a lot of people who are anti the President and might want to show up and protest .
I don ’ t want either one of those things .
Stay home.
” Read More About the 2020 Election • The fall and rise of Kamala Harris .
• When a sitting President threatens to delay a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 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 .

Since March 11th, when the first confirmed cases of the coronavirus were reported in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania—which encompasses Pittsburgh and counts some 1.2 million residents—thirteen thousand people there have tested positive, and nearly four hundred people have died. Cases spiked in June and July, after local bars reopened, but the numbers have since come down. “We’ve really struggled to keep our numbers where they are,” Rich Fitzgerald, the county executive, told me recently. “It’s a lot of people coöperating, being very vigilant about listening to our medical experts.” There have been exceptions to these efforts. On September 22nd, nine days before he revealed he had tested positive for the coronavirus, Donald Trump rented out a private hangar at Pittsburgh International Airport, where he spoke for an hour and a half in front of a large crowd of fans, some wearing MAGA-branded face masks, some not. At the time, local reporters asked Fitzgerald why the President was allowed to flout the state’s emergency limits on outdoor gatherings. “You think he’s gonna listen to me?” Fitzgerald, a Democrat and no fan of the President’s politics, told them. “He gets subpoenas he ignores. He doesn’t listen to the court, he doesn’t listen to Congress.”
This week, Trump, still suffering symptoms of his illness, began to publicly muse about going back on the campaign trail. Allegheny County was reportedly a possible destination. It was unwelcome news for Fitzgerald. “You want to get your message out, certainly I get it—we’re a couple weeks from an election,” Fitzgerald said, of the President. “But putting people at risk, it’s just irresponsible. I don’t know how many people come with him—fifty, a hundred people that are going to be part of the entourage? They’re going to be in contact, and potentially spreading this disease in western Pennsylvania.”
What’s a local official to do about a heedless President? Trump, of course, has shown few signs of caring about the health of anyone but himself. There has been a full-fledged outbreak among both White House and campaign staffers—seemingly related to the events that were held late last month in honor of Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett. And yet the Administration’s contact-tracing efforts have been minimal. It has refused to disclose when the President last tested negative, leaving open the possibility that he was contagious when he shared a debate stage with Joe Biden. He almost certainly was contagious a few hours before his first known positive test, last Thursday, when he attended an indoor fund-raiser with supporters at his golf club in New Jersey. And he was definitely contagious at Walter Reed military hospital, when he compelled Secret Service agents to drive him around in a hermetically sealed S.U.V. so that he could wave at fans who had gathered outside. The first thing Trump did upon returning to the White House on Monday night was remove his mask for a photo op. His doctor, Sean Conley, initially said he wouldn’t consider Trump out of the woods until this coming Monday, but as Trump increasingly made noise about wanting to get back out there, Conley suddenly issued a statement saying that he thought Trump would be “safe” to return to public engagements by Saturday. Outside experts disagreed. “Trump still contagious? Experts say it’s impossible to know,” one Associated Press headline ran. On Thursday night, Trump coughed through a telephone interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity. “What I took is incredible,” Trump said, of the drugs the doctors had given him to fight the infection. “To me, I viewed it as a cure.”
There’s not much evidence that the rallies Trump was holding before he fell ill were doing him much good, politically. Now the country may be about to witness the spectacle of a President who has already been at the center of at least one superspreader event actively hosting other potential superspreader events. Before his diagnosis, Trump had taken to describing his rallies as “peaceful protests,” a swipe at the Black Lives Matter demonstrations that took place around the country this spring and summer despite the restrictions on outdoor events. As the days left before Election Day tick down, this is all Trump really has left to offer: grievance. His tweets and interviews since returning to the White House have been a stew of rants about Hillary Clinton, the F.B.I., the Democrats, his own Attorney General. “They send millions of gallons of water out to sea, out to the Pacific,” Trump told Hannity on Thursday, during an impenetrable tangent about water shortages in California. “Because they want to take care of certain little tiny fish that aren't doing very well without water.”
In the face of such recklessness, even a booster like Hannity was compelled to commit journalism. “Have you been tested recently?” he asked Trump on Thursday, as the President went on about his treatment and his plans for upcoming events. “Did you test negative?” This past week, Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, disclosed that he hasn’t visited the White House since August, out of concerns for his personal health. And health officials in and around Washington, D.C., put out an open letter urging anyone who attended the Barrett event at the White House, or who has worked at the White House in the past two weeks, or who has had contact with people in either of those two groups, to get a coronavirus test. “We had a superspreader event at the White House,” Anthony Fauci told an interviewer on Friday. Not long after, news broke that Trump was thinking about inviting a few hundred people to the South Lawn on Saturday. “He pitched the idea of staging events and concerts on the South Lawn every week up through Election Day,” a Times reporter tweeted. “He appeared to be half kidding, but half intrigued by the idea, aides said.” The campaign then announced that Trump planned to attend a rally in Sanford, Florida, on Monday. According to the press release, “All attendees will be given a temperature check, masks which they are encouraged to wear, and access to hand sanitizer.”
The President and his team have given local officials no reason to trust that these events will be safe. But those same local officials will be left to deal with the consequences. Already, Trump’s rally last month in Bemidji, Minnesota, has been linked to nine cases and two hospitalizations. The President’s campaign rallies are now confirmed public-health hazards. Fitzgerald, in Allegheny County, also worries about what else these events might stir up. “Tensions right now are so high,” he said. “He’s got a lot of supporters that are going to want to show up and show support. And then on the other side you’re going to have a lot of people who are anti the President and might want to show up and protest. I don’t want either one of those things. Stay home.”
Read More About the 2020 Election


newyorker--2020-10-10--Ivanka Trump Applies for Job as Biden’s Daughter

WASHINGTON ( The Borowitz Report ) —In what many viewed as an ominous sign for Donald J. Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ has applied for a job as Joe Biden ’ s daughter .
Trump ’ s @ @ @ @ @ leaked to the press on Saturday , included her promise to make Biden ’ s @ @ @ @ @ ” than her father ’ s .
“ As awesome as Ivanka Trump has been @ @ @ @ @ will be even more awesome , ” she wrote .
Trump appeared to have difficulty @ @ @ @ @ on her application , other than “ Did not write a tell-all book.
” Finally @ @ @ @ @ with an attempt to boost her chances of being hired as Biden ’ s daughter @ @ @ @ @ t have to take Jared .
”

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—In what many viewed as an ominous sign for Donald J. Trump’s reëlection prospects, Ivanka Trump has applied for a job as Joe Biden’s daughter.
Trump’s job application, which was leaked to the press on Saturday, included her promise to make Biden’s Presidency “even more successful” than her father’s.
“As awesome as Ivanka Trump has been, I believe Ivanka Biden will be even more awesome,” she wrote.
Trump appeared to have difficulty finding tangible achievements to include on her application, other than “Did not write a tell-all book.”
Finally, she ended her application with an attempt to boost her chances of being hired as Biden’s daughter: “You don’t have to take Jared.”
Read More Satire from the Borowitz Report


newyorker--2020-10-11--The Cryptic Crossword: No. 85

The Cryptic Crossword: No. 85

Some clues have been edited for clarity .
Subscribers can find explanations of the original puzzle ’ s answers in @ @ @

Some clues have been edited for clarity. Subscribers can find explanations of the original puzzle’s answers in our archive.


newyorker--2020-10-11--All That Could Burn

All That Could Burn

Even then , there is a difference between living in the Bay Area and living in the tinderbox that the wine country has become .
Every mile north of the Golden Gate , it gets hotter and drier and more susceptible to any spark .
In San Francisco , we deal with the smoke of the northern fires , but none of the terror .
The terror is lived by the residents of Paradise , and Journey ’ s End , and Santa Rosa , and Spanish Flat .
And every time another fire comes , I think of my @ @ @ @ @ @ @ KC Garrett and I grew up in the Chicago suburbs in the nineteen-eighties ; we ’ ve known each other for thirty-seven years .
She moved to California , in 1992 , and became a teacher in San Francisco .
Ten years later , she got her real-estate license and began selling homes in Napa and Sonoma .
She married Tom Garrett , who had grown up in Santa Rosa , spending much of his childhood on his family ’ s vineyard , in Oakville .
He ’ s now a winemaker who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , making his own wine under the Detert and Dakota Shy winery labels .
On August 16th , an electrical storm hit California .
In seventy-two hours , the state was struck by lightning eleven thousand times .
The storm brought no rain but sparked hundreds of fires—many of them eventually merging to form the L.N.U .
Lightning Complex .
Part of the complex , the Hennessey Fire , burned thousands of acres just a few miles northeast of the Garretts ’ home .
I visited Tom and KC in St. Helena in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ largely contained .
“ It ’ s been challenging , ” he said evenly .
Tom , the most even-tempered person I know , is six feet five , with ginger hair , intellectual eyeglasses , and an unwavering earnestness about his work .
“ You should have seen me last week , ” he said .
When smoke overtook the region , he made the decision to harvest many of his grapes early , given the possibility of smoke taint .
Then he had to get them tested .
Hundreds of wineries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and only a handful of labs could do it .
“ The joke was that it was sort of like getting your COVID test , ” he said .
“ because the lab was still backed up .
You could go in for your test and you wouldn ’ t find out the results until you ’ d already harvested the grapes and made wine.
” In the meantime , one of his main buyers , Mondavi—which has been owned by Constellation Brands since 2004—tested his grapes themselves , and determined that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
After days of calls and negotiations , Tom managed to sell his harvest to an array of smaller buyers , but lost a significant amount of money in the process .
But it could have been far worse .
His vines had not burned , and his home was safe .
With their three sons , ages seventeen , thirteen , and ten , Tom and KC live on Vineyard Avenue , a neighborhood dense with cottages and ranch houses , oaks and elms and olive trees .
It looks a lot @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The kids ride their bikes to and from school , and the neighbors know one another .
Because the vegetation is lush and well-watered , KC and Tom , and everyone in valley-floor areas like this , feel somewhat inured to the fires .
The town of St. Helena proper had only once been evacuated in all the years the Garretts had lived there , and KC was not yet worried about the real-estate market .
“ So far , it ’ s been gangbusters , ” she said .
COVID-19 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over the wine country .
People were leaving cities , especially San Francisco , and buying primary or secondary homes .
“ We can ’ t keep up with the demand , ” she said .
The fires of 2020 had already burned 3.2 million acres throughout California .
The smoke had covered the Bay Area for weeks—white , then yellow , like teargas , then crimson , then a sickly pink .
As always , there was speculation that people would move out of the region , especially Napa and Sonoma , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , dispiriting fires .
But there were degrees of risk , KC noted .
“ You might see price reductions up in the hills , ” she said .
Throughout Napa and Sonoma , there were a number of homes at high elevations or in remote valleys , difficult to access and hard to defend .
But the homes in town were considered safe bets .
Most of her buyers were from California , so , she said , “ they know the risks.
” She only knew of one family moving out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ yesterday and said , ‘ I ’ m out.
’ She lives in Pope Valley.
” Pope Valley had been hit hard by the Hennessey Fire .
“ Other than that , most of the activity is coming in , not leaving.
” FIVE DAYS BEFORE THE GLASS FIRE When we met , amid the slatted shade and bubbling fountains of the Caymus Winery , Mike was dressed in khakis and a black button-down .
He is a burly man of fifty , married for twenty-four years to his wife , Heather , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
At forty , missing the camaraderie that he ’ d had as a college athlete , Carlson joined a volunteer department in Marin County and then , in 2016 , the Napa County Fire Department .
There are about twenty-eight thousand firefighters in California , and a third of them , mostly in rural areas , are volunteers .
These days , though , limning the difference between a full-time firefighter and a volunteer is difficult .
Carlson has spent fifteen of the last thirty-two days fighting fires .
I asked him @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
He pulled out his pager and placed it on top of his smartphone .
“ 24/7 , ” he said .
He showed me an app that lists all the incoming calls for local firefighters , from car accidents to kitchen fires .
“ They ’ re very understanding here at the winery , ” he said .
When we met , it felt a bit like meeting a soldier on R. and R. , before he gets sent back to the front .
There ’ s been little to no rain @ @ @ @ @ @ @ August , and October brings the dry and wild Santa Ana winds from the south .
And this is a La Niña year , which means even drier conditions than normal .
“ Remember those October rains that we used to get ?
” Carlson asked .
“ When my kids were kids , it would always be around Halloween we ’ d get that rain .
We ’ re not getting that rain now.
” THE DAY OF THE GLASS FIRE On the drive north from San Francisco , the radio is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It started at 3:48 A.M. , in Deer Park , a small neighborhood just east of St. Helena .
With just over a thousand residents , it sits on the eastern slope of a six-hundred-and-ten-foot rise called Glass Mountain .
This morning , Cal Fire , the state ’ s fire-protection agency , calculates the scope of the fire at eight hundred acres .
The fire is close to dozens of wineries and the Meadowood resort , which houses a three-star Michelin restaurant .
Residents of Deer Park have been ordered to evacuate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Helena Hospital have been transferred , by ambulance and car and bus , to facilities elsewhere .
KC calls as I ’ m driving .
A few years ago , she ’ d sold the Brasswood winery to a client—a small home , a barn , a guesthouse , and sixty-two acres of vineyards .
Marcus Marquez had been her contact for the transaction .
He ’ d just called to say all the buildings had burned to the ground that morning , everything but some vines .
“ Mike Carlson ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tells me .
He ’ d been called in just after 4 A.M .
I drive north on Route 101 .
The traffic is heavy for a Sunday morning .
There are campers , cars pulling fishing boats , pickup trucks loaded with bikes and kayaks .
The fires have become normalized to a degree that life goes on all around them .
The skies this Sunday are blue until Petaluma .
Then the highway passes under a stripe of dirty , acrid air .
But , a few miles later , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of smoke is an almost orderly stripe , two miles wide and about ten miles long , blowing southeast from the fire in St. Helena .
It reinforces the impression , this morning , that this new fire is circumscribed , contained or containable .
I cut east on Highway 12 and then north on Calistoga Road .
The two-lane road winds through dry hill country , following Deadhorse Creek , dense trees and underbrush all around .
The homes stand on the downward slope , between the road and the creek below @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Keep Out.
” “ Beware of Dogs.
” “ No Trespassing.
” Near Gates Road , I pass two enormous piles of freshly cut wood on the side of the road .
Driving through this densely wooded land parched by drought , it ’ s impossible not to think about it burning .
In California , everywhere we go , we look for risk .
Underbrush , dead trees , dry leaves on roofs and in gutters .
That could burn , we find ourselves saying .
All that could burn .
Calistoga @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or so , and today it ’ s as lively as any Sunday during the pandemic .
The smoke from the fire , only two miles south , is travelling southwest , so here in Calistoga the skies are blue and the town is bustling .
People sit and eat outdoors at outdoor cafés .
It ’ s hard to say how people in other parts of the country or the world would react to a fire so close and now burning a thousand acres , but Californians are calm .
Maybe we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Maybe we have such deep faith in our firefighters that we don ’ t panic until they tell us to .
Meanwhile , though , we pay close attention to which way the winds are blowing .
Right now , from Calistoga , the winds are blowing the other way , so brunch is served .

TEN DAYS BEFORE THE GLASS FIRE
What are we doing here? When the air is red and the street lights are on at noon, we ask this question. When there are twenty-three major fires burning at once throughout California, and seventeen thousand firefighters battling them, we ask this question. When a firefighter dies in a blaze begun during a gender-reveal party, we ask this question. We ponder these questions on a smoke-tinged Friday, and on Saturday the sky is clear and we’re at the beach again. This is life in 2020 California.
Even then, there is a difference between living in the Bay Area and living in the tinderbox that the wine country has become. Every mile north of the Golden Gate, it gets hotter and drier and more susceptible to any spark. In San Francisco, we deal with the smoke of the northern fires, but none of the terror. The terror is lived by the residents of Paradise, and Journey’s End, and Santa Rosa, and Spanish Flat. And every time another fire comes, I think of my friends who live up that way.
KC Garrett and I grew up in the Chicago suburbs in the nineteen-eighties; we’ve known each other for thirty-seven years. She moved to California, in 1992, and became a teacher in San Francisco. Ten years later, she got her real-estate license and began selling homes in Napa and Sonoma. She married Tom Garrett, who had grown up in Santa Rosa, spending much of his childhood on his family’s vineyard, in Oakville. He’s now a winemaker who buys grapes from a number of vineyards, making his own wine under the Detert and Dakota Shy winery labels.
On August 16th, an electrical storm hit California. In seventy-two hours, the state was struck by lightning eleven thousand times. The storm brought no rain but sparked hundreds of fires—many of them eventually merging to form the L.N.U. Lightning Complex. Part of the complex, the Hennessey Fire, burned thousands of acres just a few miles northeast of the Garretts’ home. I visited Tom and KC in St. Helena in September, once that fire had been largely contained.
Tom poured some wine.
“It’s been challenging,” he said evenly. Tom, the most even-tempered person I know, is six feet five, with ginger hair, intellectual eyeglasses, and an unwavering earnestness about his work. “You should have seen me last week,” he said.
When smoke overtook the region, he made the decision to harvest many of his grapes early, given the possibility of smoke taint. Then he had to get them tested. Hundreds of wineries needed smoke-taint tests at the same time, and only a handful of labs could do it.
“The joke was that it was sort of like getting your COVID test,” he said, “because the lab was still backed up. You could go in for your test and you wouldn’t find out the results until you’d already harvested the grapes and made wine.”
In the meantime, one of his main buyers, Mondavi—which has been owned by Constellation Brands since 2004—tested his grapes themselves, and determined that they had an unacceptable amount of taint. After days of calls and negotiations, Tom managed to sell his harvest to an array of smaller buyers, but lost a significant amount of money in the process.
But it could have been far worse. His vines had not burned, and his home was safe. With their three sons, ages seventeen, thirteen, and ten, Tom and KC live on Vineyard Avenue, a neighborhood dense with cottages and ranch houses, oaks and elms and olive trees. It looks a lot like it probably did in the nineteen-fifties. The kids ride their bikes to and from school, and the neighbors know one another. Because the vegetation is lush and well-watered, KC and Tom, and everyone in valley-floor areas like this, feel somewhat inured to the fires. The town of St. Helena proper had only once been evacuated in all the years the Garretts had lived there, and KC was not yet worried about the real-estate market.
“So far, it’s been gangbusters,” she said. COVID-19, in fact, had spurred demand all over the wine country. People were leaving cities, especially San Francisco, and buying primary or secondary homes. “We can’t keep up with the demand,” she said.
The fires of 2020 had already burned 3.2 million acres throughout California. The smoke had covered the Bay Area for weeks—white, then yellow, like teargas, then crimson, then a sickly pink. As always, there was speculation that people would move out of the region, especially Napa and Sonoma, which had endured four years of debilitating, dispiriting fires. But there were degrees of risk, KC noted.
“You might see price reductions up in the hills,” she said. Throughout Napa and Sonoma, there were a number of homes at high elevations or in remote valleys, difficult to access and hard to defend. But the homes in town were considered safe bets. Most of her buyers were from California, so, she said, “they know the risks.”
She only knew of one family moving out. “A client of mine called yesterday and said, ‘I’m out.’ She lives in Pope Valley.” Pope Valley had been hit hard by the Hennessey Fire. “Other than that, most of the activity is coming in, not leaving.”
FIVE DAYS BEFORE THE GLASS FIRE
Mike Carlson, a volunteer firefighter, is the in-house attorney and vice-president for the Caymus Winery, based in Rutherford, a few miles south of St. Helena. He and the Garretts have known one another for years. When the Hennessey Fire started, Carlson drove one of the first engines to confront it, and then he and a crew of two spent nine days fighting it in Chiles Valley and Pope Valley. When that fire was under control, Carlson had a week off before he was sent out on a strike team to fight the Slater Fire, in southern Oregon. He was there for ten days.
When we met, amid the slatted shade and bubbling fountains of the Caymus Winery, Mike was dressed in khakis and a black button-down. He is a burly man of fifty, married for twenty-four years to his wife, Heather, with two kids, seventeen and nineteen. At forty, missing the camaraderie that he’d had as a college athlete, Carlson joined a volunteer department in Marin County and then, in 2016, the Napa County Fire Department. There are about twenty-eight thousand firefighters in California, and a third of them, mostly in rural areas, are volunteers. These days, though, limning the difference between a full-time firefighter and a volunteer is difficult. Carlson has spent fifteen of the last thirty-two days fighting fires. I asked him how often he’s on call.
He pulled out his pager and placed it on top of his smartphone. “24/7,” he said. He showed me an app that lists all the incoming calls for local firefighters, from car accidents to kitchen fires. “They’re very understanding here at the winery,” he said.
When we met, it felt a bit like meeting a soldier on R. and R., before he gets sent back to the front. There’s been little to no rain since the fires broke out, in August, and October brings the dry and wild Diablo winds. And this is a La Niña year, which means even drier conditions than normal.
“Remember those October rains that we used to get?” Carlson asked. “When my kids were kids, it would always be around Halloween we’d get that rain. We’re not getting that rain now.”
THE DAY OF THE GLASS FIRE
9:01 A.M.
It’s Sunday. KC texts to tell me that another fire started that morning. I call her. “It’s about a mile away,” she says. “You should come up.”
10:39 A.M.
On the drive north from San Francisco, the radio is full of snippets about the fire. It started at 3:48 A.M., in Deer Park, a small neighborhood just east of St. Helena. With just over a thousand residents, it sits on the eastern slope of a six-hundred-and-ten-foot rise called Glass Mountain. This morning, Cal Fire, the state’s fire-protection agency, calculates the scope of the fire at eight hundred acres.
The fire is close to dozens of wineries and the Meadowood resort, which houses a three-star Michelin restaurant. Residents of Deer Park have been ordered to evacuate, and the fifty-five patients at St. Helena Hospital have been transferred, by ambulance and car and bus, to facilities elsewhere.
11:02 A.M.
KC calls as I’m driving. A few years ago, she’d sold to the Brasswood winery—a small home, a barn, a guesthouse, and sixty-two acres of vineyards. Marcus Marquez had been her contact for the transaction. He’d just called to say all the buildings had burned to the ground that morning, everything but some vines.
“Mike Carlson’s up there, too,” she tells me. He’d been called in just after 4 A.M.
I drive north on Route 101. The traffic is heavy for a Sunday morning. There are campers, cars pulling fishing boats, pickup trucks loaded with bikes and kayaks. The fires have become normalized to a degree that life goes on all around them.
The skies this Sunday are blue until Petaluma. Then the highway passes under a stripe of dirty, acrid air. But, a few miles later, the sky is blue again. The plume of smoke is an almost orderly stripe, two miles wide and about ten miles long, blowing southeast from the fire in St. Helena. It reinforces the impression, this morning, that this new fire is circumscribed, contained or containable.