thehuffingtonpost--2020-10-31--Fauci: We 'Could Not Be Positioned More Poorly' On COVID-19

The nation ’ s top infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci painted a grim future in a bombshell interview on COVID-19 with The Washington Post Saturday , warning that the nation “ could not be positioned more poorly ” to battle the pandemic .
“ We ’ re in for a whole lot of hurt .
It ’ s not a good situation , ” said the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases .
“ All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season , with people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ added .
“ You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.
” Fauci praised Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden for taking COVID-19 “ seriously from a public health perspective.
” President Donald Trump , on the other hand , is focused on the “ economy and opening businesses , ” he said .
Fauci called for the government to make an “ abrupt change ” in addressing the danger .
He warned that COVID-19 cases in the U.S. could hit 100,000 each day — just as the nation hit that record on Saturday @ @ @ @ @ @ @ contrast to Trump ’ s repeated claims that the country is turning the corner on the pandemic , and that COVID-19 will “ go away.
” Trump has claimed that the “ fake news ” focus on “ cases , cases , cases ” is a plot to stoke fear to hurt his presidential campaign , and that COVID-19 reporting will stop after Election Day .
In reality , nearly a quarter of a million Americans have died of COVID-19 , and that trend will likely continue without massive intervention .
He also @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Scott Atlas , who supports allowing the coronavirus to spread among the young and the healthy.
” “ I have real problems with that guy , ” Fauci said .
He ’ s “ talking about things that I believe he doesn ’ t have any real insight or knowledge or experience in .
He keeps talking about things that ... .
[ don ’ t ] make any sense.
” White House spokesman Judd Deere angrily insisted to the Post in response to the interview that Fauci “ knows the risks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dramatically lower than they were only a few months ago.
” He added that the president has “ always put the well-being of the American people first .
”

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The nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, painted a grim future in a bombshell interview on COVID-19 with The Washington Post Saturday, warning that the nation “could not be positioned more poorly” to battle the pandemic.
“We’re in for a whole lot of hurt. It’s not a good situation,” said the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
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“All the stars are aligned in the wrong place as you go into the fall and winter season, with people congregating at home indoors,” Fauci added. “You could not possibly be positioned more poorly.”
Fauci praised Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden for taking COVID-19 “seriously from a public health perspective.” President Donald Trump, on the other hand, is focused on the “economy and opening businesses,” he said.
Fauci called for the government to make an “abrupt change” in addressing the danger. He warned that COVID-19 cases in the U.S. could hit 100,000 each day — just as the nation hit that record on Saturday.
The dire warnings were a dramatic contrast to Trump’s repeated claims that the country is turning the corner on the pandemic, and that COVID-19 will “go away.”
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Trump has claimed that the “fake news” focus on “cases, cases, cases” is a plot to stoke fear to hurt his presidential campaign, and that COVID-19 reporting will stop after Election Day. In reality, nearly a quarter of a million Americans have died of COVID-19, and that trend will likely continue without massive intervention.
Fauci complained that the “public health aspect” of the White House coronavirus task force has “diminished greatly.”
He also attacked Trump’s new health adviser, Scott Atlas, who supports allowing the coronavirus to spread among the young and the healthy.”
“I have real problems with that guy,” Fauci said. He’s “talking about things that I believe he doesn’t have any real insight or knowledge or experience in. He keeps talking about things that .... [don’t] make any sense.”
White House spokesman Judd Deere angrily insisted to the Post in response to the interview that Fauci “knows the risks [from the coronavirus] today are dramatically lower than they were only a few months ago.” He added that the president has “always put the well-being of the American people first.”
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thehuffingtonpost--2020-10-31--Obama: Trump Failed To Take Pandemic And Presidency Seriously

DETROIT ( AP ) — Calling Joe Biden his “ brother , ” Barack Obama on Saturday accused Donald Trump of failing to take the coronavirus pandemic and the presidency seriously as Democrats leaned on America ’ s first Black president to energize Black voters in battleground Michigan on the final weekend of the 2020 campaign .
Obama , the 44th president , and Biden , his vice president who wants to be the 46th , held drive-in rallies in Flint and Detroit , predominantly Black cities where strong turnout will be essential to swing the longtime Democratic state to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it in 2016 .
The memories of Trump ’ s win in Michigan and the rest of the Upper Midwest are still searing in the minds of many Democrats during this closing stretch before Tuesday ’ s election .
That leaves Biden in the position of holding a consistent lead in the national polls and an advantage in most battlegrounds , including Michigan , yet still facing anxiety it could all slip away .
“ In other words , if one of these maniacs come along and they say we ’ re gon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gon na destroy the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania , ” Trump said in announcing his memorandum .
“ You can say , sorry about that.
” Republicans are betting that Trump can win a second term by driving up turnout among his strongest supporters — white , noncollege-educated men and rural voters — while limiting Biden ’ s advantage with Blacks and Latinos .
Democrats in several swing states worry that voters of color may not be excited enough about Biden to show up in the numbers they need .
Biden ’ s campaign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Georgia on Monday .
He is the campaign ’ s most valuable asset to help energize the nonwhite voters Democrats so badly need to defeat Trump .
“ Joe Biden is my brother .
I love Joe Biden , and he will be a great president , ” Obama said Saturday .
The press for Michigan ’ s Black voters comes after voting was down roughly 15 % in Flint and Detroit four years ago — a combined 48,000-plus votes in a state Trump carried by about 10,700 votes .
Overall , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the first time in 20 years in a presidential election , falling to 59.6 % in 2016 after reaching a record-high 66.6 % four years earlier , according to the Pew Research Center .
Biden will close out his campaign on Monday in Pennsylvania , the state where he was born and the one he ’ s visited more than any other .
The Biden team announced that the candidate , his wife , Jill , running mate Kamala Harris , and the senator ’ s husband , Doug Emhoff , plan to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the state .
”

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DETROIT (AP) — Calling Joe Biden his “brother,” Barack Obama on Saturday accused Donald Trump of failing to take the coronavirus pandemic and the presidency seriously as Democrats leaned on America’s first Black president to energize Black voters in battleground Michigan on the final weekend of the 2020 campaign.
Obama in Flint: "He's accusing doctors of profiting off this pandemic...[Trump] said doctors are overblowing it because they're going to make money off of it. He cannot fathom, he doesn't understand that somebody would risk their life to save others without trying to make a buck" pic.twitter.com/psKUg3ysmv — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 31, 2020
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Obama, the 44th president, and Biden, his vice president who wants to be the 46th, held drive-in rallies in Flint and Detroit, predominantly Black cities where strong turnout will be essential to swing the longtime Democratic state to Biden’s column after Trump won it in 2016.
“Three days until the most important election of our lifetime — and that includes mine, which was pretty important,” said Obama, urging Democrats to get to the polls.
The memories of Trump’s win in Michigan and the rest of the Upper Midwest are still searing in the minds of many Democrats during this closing stretch before Tuesday’s election. That leaves Biden in the position of holding a consistent lead in the national polls and an advantage in most battlegrounds, including Michigan, yet still facing anxiety it could all slip away.
As of Saturday, nearly 92 million voters had already cast ballots nationwide, according to a tally by The Associated Press. Tens of millions more will vote by the time polls close on Tuesday night.
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The former president hammered on Trump’s continued focus on the size of his campaign crowds.
“Did no one come to his birthday party when he was a kid? Was he traumatized?” Obama said in a mocking tone. “The country’s going through a pandemic. That’s not what you’re supposed to be worrying about.”
Throughout the day, Trump and Biden, both septuagenarians, threw stinging barbs at one another that at moments verged into schoolyard taunt territory.
Speaking in Flint, Biden joked of Trump, “When you were in high school, wouldn’t you have liked to take a shot?” He also mocked the president as a “macho man.”
Trump, too, on Saturday suggested he could beat up Biden if given the chance and suggested the former vice president wears sunglasses to cover up “surgery on the eyes.”
“He’s not a big guy,” Trump said of Biden. “A slight slap, you wouldn’t have to close your fist.”
Later in Detroit, Biden ridiculed Trump for calling himself a “perfect specimen,” called him Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “puppy,” and joked about a New York Times report that showed Trump had spent $70,000 on hair care.
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As Biden campaigned in Michigan, Trump made an aggressive play for pivotal Pennsylvania, focusing largely on his white, working-class base in four rallies, the last ending about 10 p.m.
At an evening rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Trump announced that he had issued a memorandum that calls on government agencies to determine fracking’s impact on the economy and trade and the costs of banning the oil and gas extraction through fracking.
The president has repeatedly charged that Biden will end fracking — a big industry in Pennsylvania and other states — even as the former vice president has said that he does not support a ban on fracking.
“In other words, if one of these maniacs come along and they say we’re gonna end fracking, we’re gonna destroy the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Trump said in announcing his memorandum. “You can say, sorry about that.”
Earlier in the day in a small town in Bucks County on the eastern edge of the state, Trump raised baseless concerns about election fraud, pointing specifically at Philadelphia, a city whose large African American population is key to Biden’s fate in the state.
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“They say you have to be very, very careful — what happens in Philadelphia,” Trump charged. “Everybody has to watch.”
Republicans are betting that Trump can win a second term by driving up turnout among his strongest supporters — white, noncollege-educated men and rural voters — while limiting Biden’s advantage with Blacks and Latinos. Democrats in several swing states worry that voters of color may not be excited enough about Biden to show up in the numbers they need.
In Michigan, Rep. Dan Kildee, a Democrat who represents the Flint area, said he had been pressing for a couple of months for Biden or Obama to visit the majority Black city where a water crisis that began in 2014 sickened the city’s residents, exposing stark racial inequities.
“Showing up matters,” Kildee said. “The message is important, no question about it. But there’s a message implicit in showing up, especially in Flint.”
Biden’s campaign announced it was sending Obama to Florida and Georgia on Monday. He is the campaign’s most valuable asset to help energize the nonwhite voters Democrats so badly need to defeat Trump. “Joe Biden is my brother. I love Joe Biden, and he will be a great president,” Obama said Saturday.
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The press for Michigan’s Black voters comes after voting was down roughly 15% in Flint and Detroit four years ago — a combined 48,000-plus votes in a state Trump carried by about 10,700 votes. Overall, the Black voter turnout rate declined for the first time in 20 years in a presidential election, falling to 59.6% in 2016 after reaching a record-high 66.6% four years earlier, according to the Pew Research Center.
Trump isn’t ceding Michigan to Biden. He visited Waterford Township, near Detroit, on Friday and held a rally in the state capital, Lansing, this past week, though the surging coronavirus cases are clouding his presidency.
The worst week of the year, in terms of new infections, arrived with Election Day looming. More than 99,000 Americans reported new infections on Friday, a record high, according to Johns Hopkins University.
Trump told Pennsylvania voters that his administration has done “an incredible job” dealing with the pandemic. He promised that the mass distribution of a vaccine was “just weeks away.” He’s been saying that since August.
Biden has focused almost exclusively on Trump’s inability to control the pandemic. “We’re gonna beat this virus and get it under control and the first step to doing that is beating Donald Trump,” Biden said.
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With the campaign down to the final days, Trump’s closing sprint includes, in addition to the four stops in Pennsylvania, nearly a dozen events in the final 48 hours across states he carried in 2016.
Biden will close out his campaign on Monday in Pennsylvania, the state where he was born and the one he’s visited more than any other. The Biden team announced that the candidate, his wife, Jill, running mate Kamala Harris, and the senator’s husband, Doug Emhoff, plan to “fan out across all four corners of the state.”
___
Associated Press writers David Eggert in Lansing, Michigan, and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.
___


thehuffingtonpost--2020-10-31--Trump Writes 'I Love Texas!' Over Video Of MAGA Truck Attack On Biden Caravan

President Donald Trump appeared to celebrate in a tweet Saturday a dangerous MAGA truck ambush of Joe Biden ’ s bus caravan on a busy Texas highway the previous day .
“ I LOVE TEXAS !
” posted the president over a video of a truck nearly sideswiping Biden ’ s campaign bus on Interstate 35 near Austin .
He later happily crowed at a Pennsylvania rally that it was a “ hot thing.
” The Texas Tribune reported Saturday that the FBI is investigating the incident .
Scores of trucks bristling with Make America Great Again signs and flags @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Friday , jamming traffic and creating a dangerous situation for the Biden crew and anyone else on the highway .
A large pickup truck at one point struck a white SUV driven by a Democratic campaign staffer , Katie Naranjo , chair of the Travis County Democratic Party .
The truck pushed the car out of its lane , causing damage to the vehicle in an aggressive and risky stunt .
These tactics have no place in Texas , my home state , and no place in America .
Please vote .
Please @ @ @ @ @ @ @ our democracy is at stake .
pic.twitter.com/G0O4yg2vnJ — Dr. Eric Cervini ( @ ericcervini ) October 31 , 2020 A Biden rally planned for later that afternoon was canceled after the highway confrontation .
Trump talked excitedly about the dangerous highway confrontation at a Pennsylvania rally Saturday , and indicated that the media wouldn ’ t report what he appeared to consider a positive event .
It ’ s a “ hot thing , ” he said .
“ That ’ s really number one trending .
They won ’ t put that.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of that crazy bus driving down the highway , they 're surrounded by like , hundreds of cars ?
They 're all Trump flags all over the place . ''
-- Trump glorifies an incident in Texas where his supporters tried to drive a Biden/Harris bus off the road pic.twitter.com/ZBSdEcvWHE — Aaron Rupar ( @ atrupar ) November 1 , 2020 The chairman of the Texas Republican Party , Allen West , was furious when a reporter asked him about the incident .
West claimed without any evidence that three Trump supporters had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Portland and Denver .
He also said that a “ leftist mob ” attempted to “ storm the house ” of Mark and Patricia McCloskey , and “ burn the house down and rape Mrs. McCloskey.
” None of that is true .
Officials have reported no “ executions ” of Trump supporters in those cities .
As for the McCloskeys , the white couple pointed automatic weapons at peaceful Black protesters outside their St. Louis home in June .
The couple has been charged with felony unlawful use of a weapon .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) from the highly regarded @ TexasTribune reached out to the Texas Republican Party for a comment on yesterday ’ s bus incident along I-35 .
Their response is ... something : pic.twitter.com/ZmYe0YJ7LD — Steve Vladeck ( @ steve_vladeck ) November 1 , 2020

President Donald Trump appeared to celebrate in a tweet Saturday about a dangerous MAGA truck ambush of Joe Biden’s bus caravan on a busy Texas highway the previous day.
“I LOVE TEXAS!” posted the president over a video of a truck nearly sideswiping Biden’s campaign bus on Interstate 35 near Austin. He later happily crowed at a Pennsylvania rally that it was a “hot thing.”
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The Texas Tribune reported Saturday that the FBI is investigating the incident.
Scores of trucks bristling with Make America Great Again signs and flags swarmed the bus and accompanying vehicles on Friday, jamming traffic and creating a dangerous situation for the Biden crew and anyone else on the highway.
A large pickup truck at one point struck a white SUV driven by Democratic campaign staffer, Katie Naranjo, chair of the Travis County Democratic Party. The truck pushed the car out of its lane, causing damage to the vehicle in an aggressive and risky stunt.
These tactics have no place in Texas, my home state, and no place in America.
Please vote. Please volunteer this weekend. The future of our democracy is at stake. pic.twitter.com/G0O4yg2vnJ — Dr. Eric Cervini (@ericcervini) October 31, 2020
this is the aftermath of trump truck convoy hitting a Biden volunteer's car pic.twitter.com/juItfqHw6M — ALT-immigration 🛂 (@ALT_uscis) October 31, 2020
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A Biden rally planned for later that afternoon was canceled after the highway confrontation.
Trump talked excitedly about the dangerous highway confrontation at a Pennsylvania rally Saturday and indicated that the media wouldn’t report what he appeared to consider a positive event. It’s a “hot thing,” he said. “That’s really number one trending. They won’t put that.”
"Did anybody see the picture of that crazy bus driving down the highway, they're surrounded by like, hundreds of cars? They're all Trump flags all over the place." -- Trump glorifies an incident in Texas where his supporters tried to drive a Biden/Harris bus off the road pic.twitter.com/ZBSdEcvWHE — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 1, 2020
The chairman of the Texas Republican Party, Allen West, was furious when a reporter asked him about the incident.
West claimed without any evidence that three Trump supporters had been “executed” in Milwaukee, Portland and Denver. He also said that a “leftist mob” attempted to “storm the house” of Mark and Patricia McCloskey, and “burn the house down and rape Mrs. McCloskey.” None of that is true.
Officials have reported no “executions” of Trump supporters in those cities. As for the McCloskeys, the white couple pointed automatic weapons at peaceful Black protesters outside their St. Louis home in June. The couple has been charged with felony unlawful use of a weapon.
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“Where’s the liberal corporate media’s outrage concern about that real violence?” West asked.


thehuffingtonpost--2020-10-31--Billboards Taunting Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner Sail Down To Mar-a-Lago

A pair of provocative billboard ads that drew a lawsuit threat for skewering Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner took a cruise down to Donald Trump ’ s Mar-a-Lago golf resort .
The ads , which bash the two White House senior advisers for their “ what me worry ” attitude about America ’ s COVID-19 death toll , have been drawing gawkers at New York ’ s Times Square .
But their Lincoln Project creators wanted to catch eyes in Florida heading into Election Day , too .
The anti-Trump Republican group has also arranged for digital versions of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue .
.
@ jaredkushner and @ IvankaTrump demanded we take the billboards down .
They threatened to sue @ ProjectLincoln for “ enormous ” sums .
In honor of their demands , here is the boat we hired , on its way to Mar-A-Lago .
And our digital billboard truck circling Trump Tower in NYC .
pic.twitter.com/pZmqvRIrvL — Ron Steslow ( @ RonSteslow ) October 30 , 2020 The Florida billboard versions are floating off Mar-a-Lago all weekend , then will head to the waters off Miami .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Politics that the move is part of the group ’ s “ psy ops ” attacks , aimed at the “ friends and family ” of the president — as well as at New Yorkers wintering in South Florida .
The ads feature Kushner and Ivanka Trump beaming next to the number tallying America ’ s COVID-19 deaths .
New Yorkers are “ going to suffer , and that ’ s their problem , ” Kushner is quoted as saying .
The couple ’ s lawyer fired off a letter last week blasting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ libel , ” and demanded they be removed or he would sue .
Attorney Marc Kasowitz insisted that Ivanka Trump had never made the gesture on the billboard , and that Kushner had never uttered such a callous comment .
In fact , the first daughter did make the gesture while posing on Twitter with a can of Goya beans after the company ’ s CEO praised her dad .
And Kushner did say those words , according to a Vanity Fair report last month .
Lincoln Project lawyer Matthew Sanderson fired back @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that he would love to depose all witnesses in the event of a lawsuit .
“ Please peddle your scare tactics elsewhere , ” he wrote in a letter to Kasowitz .
“ The Lincoln Project will not be intimidated by such empty bluster.
” Sanderson noted : “ Your clients are no longer mere Upper East Side socialites , able to sue at the slightest offense to their personal sensitivities.
” They are now public officials due to a “ gross act of nepotism , ” and are consequently legally subject to @ @ @ @

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A pair of provocative billboard ads that drew a lawsuit threat for skewering Ivanka Trump and husband Jared Kushner took a cruise down to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago golf resort.
The ads, which bash the two White House senior advisers for their “what me worry” attitude about America’s COVID-19 death toll, have been drawing gawkers at New York’s Times Square. But their Lincoln Project creators wanted to catch eyes in Florida heading into Election Day, too.
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The anti-Trump Republican group has also arranged for digital versions of the ads on a truck to circle Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue.
.@jaredkushner and @IvankaTrump demanded we take the billboards down.
They threatened to sue @ProjectLincoln for “enormous” sums.
In honor of their demands, here is the boat we hired, on its way to Mar-A-Lago.
And our digital billboard truck circling Trump Tower in NYC. pic.twitter.com/pZmqvRIrvL — Ron Steslow (@RonSteslow) October 30, 2020
The Florida billboard versions are floating off Mar-a-Lago all weekend, then will head to the waters off Miami.
Lincoln Project co-founder Ron Steslow told Florida Politics that the move is part of the group’s “psy ops” attacks, aimed at the “friends and family” of the president — as well as at New Yorkers wintering in South Florida.
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The ads feature Kushner and Ivanka Trump beaming next to the number tallying America’s COVID-19 deaths. New Yorkers are “going to suffer, and that’s their problem,” Kushner is quoted as saying.
The couple’s lawyer fired off a letter last week blasting the ads as “outrageous and shameful libel,” and demanded they be removed or he would sue. Attorney Marc Kasowitz insisted that Ivanka Trump had never made the gesture on the billboard, and that Kushner had never uttered such a callous comment.
In fact, the first daughter did make the gesture while posing on Twitter with a can of Goya beans after the company’s CEO praised her dad. And Kushner did say those words, according to a Vanity Fair report last month.
Lincoln Project lawyer Matthew Sanderson fired back that the ads were staying, and that he would love to depose all witnesses in the event of a lawsuit.
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“Please peddle your scare tactics elsewhere,” he wrote in a letter to Kasowitz. “The Lincoln Project will not be intimidated by such empty bluster.”
Sanderson noted: “Your clients are no longer mere Upper East Side socialites, able to sue at the slightest offense to their personal sensitivities.” They are now public officials due to a “gross act of nepotism,” and are consequently legally subject to scrutiny and criticism.
A HuffPost Guide To Coronavirus


thehuffingtonpost--2020-11-01--'All Cash': LeBron James Hails Barack Obama's Smooth 3-Pointer Before Michigan Rally

Basketball king LeBron James gave a sweet shoutout Saturday to Barack Obama , who effortlessly made a three-point shot on a Flint , Michigan , basketball court before a campaign rally .
“ That ’ s I what do , ” Obama bragged just a little as he strode off the court .
He later tweeted a clip of the feat , with the message “ Shoot your shot ” and a link to iwillvote.com .
James shot back on Twitter : “ You just showing out now my friend !
!
... Ok ok I see .
All cash @ @ @ @ @ @ @ now my friend !
!
That ’ s what you do huh ?
?
Ok ok I see .
All cash !
👌🏾 https : //t.co/8pZzXLJIJj — LeBron James ( @ KingJames ) October 31 , 2020 The court where Obama nailed his three-pointer was at Flint Northwestern High School , where a number of NBA players got their start .
Obama often played basketball when he was in the White House .
In the new documentary “ The Way I See It , ” Obama ’ s White House photographer , Pete @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the former president blocking a shot by former NBA player Reggie Love .
As Obama walked away from the court , he asked Souza : “ Did you get that block ?
” Twitter followers couldn ’ t help comparing Obama ’ s three-pointer to Trump ’ s “ shots , ” like the time he chucked rolls of paper towels at Puerto Rican hurricane survivors in 2017 .

Basketball king LeBron James gave a sweet shoutout Saturday to Barack Obama, who effortlessly made a three-point shot on a Flint, Michigan, basketball court before a campaign rally.
“Whoah, whoah, whoah!” responded one stunned spectator.
“That’s I what do,” Obama bragged just a little as he strode off the court.
He later tweeted a clip of the feat, with the message “Shoot your shot” and a link to iwillvote.com.
James shot back on Twitter: “You just showing out now my friend!! ... Ok ok I see. All cash!”
Now you just showing out now my friend!! That’s what you do huh?? Ok ok I see. All cash! 👌🏾 https://t.co/8pZzXLJIJj — LeBron James (@KingJames) October 31, 2020
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The court where Obama nailed his three-pointer was at Flint Northwestern High School, where a number of NBA players got their start.
Obama often played basketball when he was in the White House.
In the new documentary “The Way I See It,” Obama’s White House photographer, Pete Souza, recalled the time he captured the former president blocking a shot by former NBA player Reggie Love. As Obama walked away from the court, he asked Souza: “Did you get that block?”
Twitter followers couldn’t help comparing Obama’s three-pointer to Trump’s “shots,” like the time he chucked rolls of paper towels at Puerto Rican hurricane survivors in 2017.
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Hold on y’all I got a gif for this... pic.twitter.com/80b5wotMgj — Տɑղժɾɑ ժҽҽ ☮ (@heyitsSandraDee) November 1, 2020


thehuffingtonpost--2020-11-01--Trump Closing With Breakneck Pace Of Lie Fests — Even Though They May Be Hurting

As his reelection campaign winds through its final days , President Donald Trump has fallen back on a strategy of what he believed worked for him in 2016 — a breakneck schedule of veritable festivals of falsehoods — even as evidence mounts that the “ WrestleMania ” -style rallies are hurting him in the polls and contributing to the spread of the coronavirus .
Through Saturday night , Trump has held 57 campaign rallies following a three-month hiatus this spring at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States .
Thirty-five of those have taken place since Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ last month .
He plans another five Sunday and five more — so far — on Monday , the day before the election .
The Democratic super PAC Priorities USA found similar results in its polling of the six states most likely to swing the election .
In Pennsylvania , where Trump staged four rallies Saturday , 58 percent of voters said Trump ’ s rallies made them think less favorably of Trump , while only 22 percent said they made them think of him more favorably .
Guy Cecil , Priorities ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Trump ’ s behavior given the obvious polling .
“ Why did he tell people to inject bleach into their system ?
Why does he call Anthony Fauci an idiot ?
Because he is a reckless , egotistical , self-centered , uncontrollable president who is not doing anything that makes any sense , ” Cecil said .
“ It is because he is a reckless asshole that has no self-control and is putting hundreds of thousands of lives at risk through his policies and putting thousands of lives at risk by holding @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” The Trump campaign did not respond to queries about the Stanford study .
Deputy press secretary Courtney Parella offered the campaign ’ s stock answer about its rallies : “ Americans have the right to gather under the First Amendment to hear from the president of the United States , and we take strong precautions for our campaign events , requiring every attendee to have their temperature checked , providing masks they ’ re instructed to wear , and ensuring access to plenty of hand sanitizer .
We also have signs at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ masks.
” The vast majority of Trump rally attendees , however , do not wear masks , even as they are jammed in together — with the exception of those standing in view of the camera behind Trump , most of whom do wear them .
The choice of forgoing a mask follows the lead of Trump , who almost never wears a mask and frequently ridicules those who do , as he did to Biden in their Sept. 29 debate and to Fox News host Laura Ingraham Friday at a rally in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , meanwhile , have been a font of misinformation about the virus , such as Trump ’ s repeated claims that the pandemic is “ rounding the turn , ” that the disease is relatively harmless and that a deployable vaccine is imminent .
Those statements are all false , as are a host of other things Trump says at his events .
At a rally last week at the Lancaster Airport in Lititz , Pennsylvania , Trump spoke for 85 minutes under cloudy skies and an occasional light drizzle — a total @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the identification of two Republican congressmen and some others in attendance , was a mixture of exaggerations , insults and groundless smears against Biden , dubious promises about his second term and 33 specific lies .
These included the size of the tax cuts he delivered ( they were nowhere near the largest in U.S. history ) ; whether the Biden campaign had abandoned Ohio ( it has not ) ; Trump ’ s unwillingness to solicit big-dollar donations ( he has ) ; his winning a “ Michigan Man of the Year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; the military ’ s running out of ammunition under predecessor Barack Obama ( it didn ’ t ) ; who is paying for his proposed wall along the southern border ( Mexico is not doing so ) ; and whether retailers have resumed saying , “ Merry Christmas ” again ( many still don ’ t , and many never stopped ) .
At this and other rallies , Trump has also delivered wild claims about what Biden would do as president : Biden would abolish suburbs ; Biden would abolish windows @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The claims appear to be based on nothing outside of his and chief speechwriter Stephen Miller ’ s imaginations .
Rallies in front of his fervent supporters have been one of the few activities that Trump has truly seemed to enjoy as president , and he began staging them just three weeks after taking office in January 2017 .
But unlike most candidates ’ rally speeches that center on a particular set of themes , Trump ’ s have always been more a hybrid of a comedy routine and a staged professional @ @ @ @ @ @ @ known villains — 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton , the news media — whom Trump verbally assaults over the course of 80 or 90 minutes .
“ At this stage in the campaign , everyone who goes to the rally is already voting for you .
It ’ s about getting earned media , ” said Ryan Williams , who worked on the 2012 presidential campaign of GOP nominee Mitt Romney .
“ But you have to have a message .
If he ’ s going in to talk about Adam Schiff as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not a great message .
”

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LITITZ, Pa. — Fly. Lie. Fly. Lie. Fly some more. Lie some more. Tweet. Repeat.
As his reelection campaign winds through its final days, President Donald Trump has fallen back on a strategy of what he believed worked for him in 2016 — a breakneck schedule of veritable festivals of falsehoods — even as evidence mounts that the “WrestleMania”-style rallies are hurting him in the polls and contributing to the spread of the coronavirus.
Through Saturday night, Trump has held 57 campaign rallies following a three-month hiatus this spring at the start of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. Thirty-five of those have taken place since Trump’s apparent recovery from COVID-19 earlier last month. He plans another five Sunday and five more — so far — on Monday, the day before the election.
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White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told reporters on the way back from Latrobe, Pennsylvania, in September that Trump was always in a better mood after doing rallies in front of his fans.
Trump himself said during his first debate with Democratic nominee Joe Biden that his supporters enjoyed hearing from him. “People want to hear what I have to say,” he said. “I mean, I’m doing a great job as the president.”
A new study by Stanford University researchers, though, concluded that Trump rallies likely caused 30,000 new coronavirus cases and 700 additional deaths. “The communities in which Trump rallies took place paid a high price in terms of disease and death,” they said.
Even before news of that study broke on Saturday, most Americans had already decided that Trump’s rallies were a bad idea during a pandemic.
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Fifty-eight percent of likely voters nationally disapproved of Trump’s decision to hold large rallies, while only 34 percent approved, according to a Suffolk University/USA Today poll conducted last week.
The Democratic super PAC Priorities USA found similar results in its polling of the six states most likely to swing the election. In Pennsylvania, where Trump staged four rallies Saturday, 58 percent of voters said Trump’s rallies made them think less favorably of Trump, while only 22 percent said they made them think of him more favorably.
Guy Cecil, Priorities’ chairman, said he has no explanation for Trump’s behavior given the obvious polling. “Why did he tell people to inject bleach into their system? Why does he call Anthony Fauci an idiot? Because he is a reckless, egotistical, self-centered, uncontrollable president who is not doing anything that makes any sense,” Cecil said. “It is because he is a reckless asshole that has no self-control and is putting hundreds of thousands of lives at risk through his policies and putting thousands of lives at risk by holding superspreader events in places across the country.”
The Trump campaign did not respond to queries about the Stanford study. Deputy press secretary Courtney Parella offered the campaign’s stock answer about its rallies: “Americans have the right to gather under the First Amendment to hear from the president of the United States, and we take strong precautions for our campaign events, requiring every attendee to have their temperature checked, providing masks they’re instructed to wear, and ensuring access to plenty of hand sanitizer. We also have signs at our events instructing attendees to wear their masks.”
The vast majority of Trump rally attendees, however, do not wear masks, even as they are jammed in together — with the exception of those standing in view of the camera behind Trump, most of whom do wear them. The choice of forgoing a mask follows the lead of Trump, who almost never wears a mask and frequently ridicules those who do, as he did to Biden in their Sept. 29 debate and to Fox News host Laura Ingraham Friday at a rally in Michigan.
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Trump’s rallies themselves, meanwhile, have been a font of misinformation about the virus, such as Trump’s repeated claims that the pandemic is “rounding the turn,” that the disease is relatively harmless and that a deployable vaccine is imminent. Those statements are all false, as are a host of other things Trump says at his events.
At a rally last week at the Lancaster Airport in Lititz, Pennsylvania, Trump spoke for 85 minutes under cloudy skies and an occasional light drizzle — a total of 13,500 words that, except for the identification of two Republican congressmen and some others in attendance, was a mixture of exaggerations, insults and groundless smears against Biden, dubious promises about his second term and 33 specific lies.
These included the size of the tax cuts he delivered (they were nowhere near the largest in U.S. history); whether the Biden campaign had abandoned Ohio (it has not); Trump’s unwillingness to solicit big-dollar donations (he has); his winning a “Michigan Man of the Year” award (he never did); the military’s running out of ammunition under predecessor Barack Obama (it didn’t); who is paying for his proposed wall along the southern border (Mexico is not doing so); and whether retailers have resumed saying, “Merry Christmas” again (many still don’t, and many never stopped).
At this and other rallies, Trump has also delivered wild claims about what Biden would do as president: Biden would abolish suburbs; Biden would abolish windows in buildings; Biden would hurt God. The claims appear to be based on nothing outside of his and chief speechwriter Stephen Miller’s imaginations.
President Donald Trump addresses a crowd of several thousand rallygoers in Gastonia, North Carolina, on Oct. 21. Melissa Sue Gerrits via Getty Images
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Rallies in front of his fervent supporters have been one of the few activities that Trump has truly seemed to enjoy as president, and he began staging them just three weeks after taking office in January 2017. But unlike most candidates’ rally speeches that center on a particular set of themes, Trump’s have always been more a hybrid of a comedy routine and a staged professional wrestling event, with a set of known villains — 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, the news media — whom Trump verbally assaults over the course of 80 or 90 minutes.
None of that is particularly useful in the final days of a presidential campaign, when the entire point is to win local television and print media coverage to reach area voters, campaign veterans said.
“At this stage in the campaign, everyone who goes to the rally is already voting for you. It’s about getting earned media,” said Ryan Williams, who worked on the 2012 presidential campaign of GOP nominee Mitt Romney. “But you have to have a message. If he’s going in to talk about Adam Schiff as a watermelon head, that’s not a great message.”
Whether Trump appreciates that strategy is unclear. Local media generally cover a visiting president extensively whether he speaks before 100 supporters or 10,000.
But when Trump arrived in Rochester, Minnesota, Friday night to learn that the Democratic governor had refused to waive COVID-19 restrictions on public gatherings for him, Trump spoke in a glum monotone for 21 minutes before 250 supporters — his shortest rally speech on record — and quickly left.


thehuffingtonpost--2020-11-01--Donald Trump Is Turning An Independent Taxpayer-Funded News Network Into Political Propaganda

“ Regardless of the issues at [ the agency ] that might be addressed during your tenure , the credibility @ @ @ @ @ , as required by law , is critical for audiences overseas living under repressive regimes @ @ @ @ @ brave journalists who often come under threat for their work , and the future of @ @ @ @ @ senators , four of them Republicans , wrote in a letter to Pack in July @ @ @ @ @ States faces global challenges , … it can not afford to invest in an enterprise @ @ @ @ @ and staff to the satisfaction of dictators and despots , nor can it be one @ @ @ @ @ to its promise of providing access to a free and independent press .
”

The massive taxpayer-funded collection of news outlets under the U.S. Agency for Global Media is supposed to be a nonpartisan booster of information and American ideals abroad. But over the past six months, President Donald Trump’s handpicked leader, Michael Pack, has dramatically reshaped the agency — to promote not news or democracy but the president himself.
Pack announced last week that he was “rescinding” the firewall between the agency’s political leaders and its newsrooms. The agency employs hundreds of journalists who work for Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Radio Free Asia, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting and other organizations.
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Many correspondents are among the few sources of reliable news for people living in the world’s most repressive societies, places where press freedom is a dream and rulers rarely face real public scrutiny.
Now Trump and his appointee want to make their work more vulnerable to political whims.
Pack argued in a statement Monday that he should be able to take actions such as blocking stories to check what he views as “biased reporting.” The result is that an $800 million dollar news operation with major influence on global opinion is in disarray and vulnerable to exploitation just ahead of a presidential election that Trump is already undermining with unfounded allegations of fraud and corruption.
For a president who is clear that he doesn’t see winning the most votes or even counting all of them as his path to reelection, the biggest priority over the next week is messaging: Persuading people that any outcome in which he does not win is illegitimate.
The agency is not permitted to target Americans with its journalism. But it can help shape the international conversation about the likely election chaos in the U.S., affecting the calculus of foreign officials and governments that Trump administration officials said the president is counting on to help him retain power.
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The Republican-held Senate confirmed Pack — a conservative filmmaker who once railed against liberal “indoctrination” on campuses — to head the agency in June, soon after Trump and the White House began publicly berating VOA for not hewing to the administration’s line that the devastating effects of the coronavirus were due to China and not Trump’s own failed strategy.
Since then, Pack’s team has accused a longtime correspondent of anti-Trump bias and ousted veteran officials while hiring people such as a former conservative radio host who once called House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) a Nazi.
Other agency leaders pushed editors to highlight damage caused by Black Lives Matter protests and told reporters that Twitter behavior disparaging the president could harm their jobs.
Pack’s aides dug around in trash cans for signs of employees’ disloyalty, ran content promoting Ivanka Trump and Vice President Mike Pence and denied visa renewals to dozens of foreign journalists.
It would be very difficult for the president to convert a taxpayer-funded news outlet entirely into Radio Trump without congressional approval. But lawmakers, experts and journalists themselves are terrified about the damage Pack could do to the agency’s professionalism and credibility ― both in the post-election period and in the long run, even if he is ultimately removed by a President Joe Biden next year.
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Pack has already signaled one of his priorities is not original reporting but the renewal of VOA editorials, the part of USAGM that is intended to directly communicate the views of the U.S. government. In recent months, these editorials have put an enormous emphasis on religious liberty above other human rights issues.
Meanwhile, BBGWatch, a website run by current and former USAGM staff, has become increasingly aggressive in pushing a pro-Trump line.
The attempted removal of the firewall suggested that even broader changes lie ahead, putting journalists on edge as they wonder if the future will involve restrictions on their reporting.
“The action seems to send a very clear message to the newsroom,” said an employee with a USAGM-supported network who spoke to HuffPost on condition of anonymity out of fear of retribution. “Fall in line or else.”
A USAGM spokesperson denied that Pack aimed to instill political loyalty to Trump or to promote propaganda.
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“When [Pack] served at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, he sought to bring objectivity and balance to its programming. He fully intends to do the same with USAGM’s networks in order to ensure that they adhere to their mission statements and maintain their professional journalistic standards and principles,” the spokesperson wrote in an email to HuffPost.
Pack’s shake-up has chilling parallels in other nations. For hard-right political forces worldwide, a top goal is reshaping independent media organizations to amplify their own message and reduce the risk of reporting that can challenge their power. In Poland, for instance, the ruling Law and Justice party quickly turned the country’s state media into a mouthpiece that now spreads disinformation and targets party enemies.
“If USAGM becomes sort of Fox [News] international, which I fear it will, or a sort of [Steve] Bannon news on steroids, then basically we will have replicated the information space that we tried to resist in Eastern Europe,” said Jay Tolson, a former news director for Radio Free Europe.
A Partisan Process
Trump nominated Pack in June 2018. But top Democrats and a handful of Republicans held up his confirmation in the Senate over concerns that he would harm the agency.
Pack rejected offers to be briefed by existing leaders at the agency and by outside analysts of its work, such as Martha Bayles, a Boston College expert on American public diplomacy who has known him for years.
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“When he was first nominated, … I felt relieved,” Bayles later wrote in The American Interest. She now sees the beginnings of “a nightmare.”
Right-wing activists pressured the Senate to move Pack forward, particularly after former agency chief John Lansing left the post last September. They argued the president’s nominee deserved a vote and that a new leader was needed to clean up the agency, which they believed too often took what they viewed as the liberal bent of mainstream media and was vulnerable to foreign influence.
Pack and his supporters received an unexpected boost this spring when Trump began alleging that the VOA was unfair to the U.S. and overly sympathetic to Beijing, picking up a complaint that his former adviser Bannon, a long-time Pack associate, had promoted for years.
The White House on April 10 issued a statement claiming the agency “spends your money to promote foreign propaganda,” citing its coverage of a Chinese light show to celebrate the end of the coronavirus-related lockdown in Wuhan. Days later, the president called the agency out during a briefing on the pandemic: “What things they say are disgusting toward our country,” Trump said.
By the end of the month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told employees to ignore interview requests from VOA because of the White House’s view of the agency, according to an email later obtained and published by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.
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Faced with clear intent to challenge USAGM’s journalistic independence, Pack and his supporters avoided challenging Trump and instead saw an opportunity.
“It was unusual when the president sort of expressed his views on VOA in a press conference,” said Katrina Lantos Swett of the Lantos Foundation, a longtime human rights advocate who is one of the few Washington establishment figures to welcome Pack. “I think that certainly raised the profile of the quieter battle that was going on, and it may have had an impact in sort of coalescing Republican votes.”
A USAGM spokesperson told HuffPost that Pack found Trump’s remark “absolutely appropriate, for he is also firmly on the side of reform.”
In early May, Trump personally called Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky to tell him pushing Pack through was a priority. The Senate approved him 58-38 on June 4 ― as Pack’s opponents noted that he was under investigation by the District of Columbia attorney general over allegations he had illegally funded his private film company with nonprofit donor funds. (That probe is ongoing.)
Republicans and Democrats both supported Voice of America and other news outlets under the U.S. Agency for Global Media for decades. Reuters Photographer / Reuters
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Pack’s installation caused immediate turmoil at USAGM. Within days, the agency’s various branches were left rudderless, as some leaders resigned and Pack fired four others, including two Republicans nominated by Trump. By the following month, both parties were raising the alarm.
“Regardless of the issues at [the agency] that might be addressed during your tenure, the credibility and independence of these networks, as required by law, is critical for audiences overseas living under repressive regimes, the network’s brave journalists who often come under threat for their work, and the future of U.S. broadcasting,” seven senators, four of them Republicans, wrote in a letter to Pack in July. “As the United States faces global challenges, … it cannot afford to invest in an enterprise that denigrates its own journalists and staff to the satisfaction of dictators and despots, nor can it be one that fails to live up to its promise of providing access to a free and independent press.”
After The Massacre
Pack’s mass firing, dubbed a “Wednesday night massacre” by a former official, was the first sign the agency’s leader might have a darker agenda ― that he wasn’t incompetent or uncertain but rather committed to dramatic and potentially dangerous changes.
“The radios certainly have their problems. This is not the way to fix them. This is going to do exactly the opposite,” said Gregory Feifer, a former senior correspondent for Radio Free Europe.
Other worrying signs about Pack piled up quickly.
In one of his few interviews after taking office, with the conspiratorial pro-Trump newspaper Epoch Times, Pack warned that he had other employees in his sights. “Obviously, there are some bad actors who need to be pushed aside,” he said. Elsewhere, he parroted Trump’s depiction of America’s bureaucracy as a self-interested, anti-democratic “deep state” and praised Bannon, who sought “the deconstruction of the administrative state.”
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Bannon began publicly boasting that Pack would “clean house” at the agency and redirect it to echo Trump’s narrative about the evils of China. The two men worked together during Pack’s time making documentaries ― a period in which he was clear that ideology guided his work.
With regard to Pack’s most recent production for PBS, a documentary on conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, a watchdog for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting determined that he violated the government-funded organization’s standards by featuring only Thomas’ view of his controversial career without seeking additional perspectives or opposing opinions. (The USAGM spokesperson declined to respond to that claim, instead citing praise for Pack’s work by outlets such as The New York Times.)
“A little morsel” like the Bannon link should not be seen as the sum total of someone like Pack, Swett told HuffPost. “I know that he is eager to sort of mend fences and reassure those who have expressed concerns. … His background is probably quite a bit broader and much less sort of ideological than perhaps some of the coverage would indicate.”
But a New York Post op-ed in which Pack described his goals focused on the go-to grievances of Trump’s Republican Party rather than outreach to skeptics. He criticized the reaction to his mass firing of agency heads as “over the top,” accused his critics of McCarthyism for noting his connection to Bannon and argued his firing of Republicans showed he was not biased.
“Powerful forces were and remain deeply committed to the status quo at the agency I now lead,” Pack wrote.
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Pack has continued to signal that he sees the White House as a far more important constituency than his own staff or audience. He’s fixated on efforts to identify and publicize apparent anti-Trump bias among employees, such as probing employees who produced a video Pack’s team considered pro-Biden and investigating VOA White House correspondent Steve Herman, who was already threatened by Vice President Mike Pence’s staff before Pack took over the agency.
“He’s trying to find one incident and examples he can show that he is improving the content,” a person familiar with the Biden video incident told Politico.
Pack’s open challenge to the firewall between political leaders and journalists is the most alarming development yet.
“It is unclear why CEO Pack is opposed to journalistic objectivity,” Rep. Michael McCaul of Texas, the top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the next day. “Fortunately, the requirement that [the agency’s] broadcasts be objective and conform with the highest professional standards in broadcast journalism is mandated in statute. Mr. Pack may be able to repeal a regulation, but he cannot repeal the law.”
‘Hard Days’
For agency staff with far less power and few ways to respond to Pack’s allegations, the past few months have been nightmarish.
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“These are hard days, depressing days. … It’s not a comfortable environment because you don’t know what is next,” said a journalist at Voice of America, one of the outlets now under Pack’s purview, who requested anonymity to protect their position.
A person with knowledge of internal conversations among managers at the agency told HuffPost they have “no indication” of Pack’s plans for permanent new leaders for the news outlets. (“These positions are a priority, and a comprehensive search is underway to find the most qualified individuals to lead these important networks and grantees,” a USAGM spokesperson told HuffPost.)
Pack’s denial of visa renewals for reporters has been especially wrenching, prompting a letter from high-profile agency employees. He’s carried out the policy anyway, causing at least 15 journalists to prepare to leave the U.S. already.
He justified his decision not to renew visas for VOA journalists by suggesting there are security lapses in the vetting process for them while refusing to provide additional details or examples.
But at a House of Representatives hearing on Sept. 24, former agency figures told lawmakers that Pack cut off visas for dozens of journalists to match Trump’s hard line on immigration.
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By publicly suggesting that those U.S. government employees could be foreign spies posing as reporters, Pack was “basically writing a press release” that autocrats such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin could use to harm journalists, said Jamie Fly, a former adviser to GOP Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who ran the agency’s Radio Free Europe arm before Pack fired him via email days after entering the job.
Pack skipped the hearing, defying a congressional subpoena.
VOA headquarters in Washington. Staff at the agency are terrified and demoralized. Caroline Brehman via Getty Images
Denying visa renewals is a life-and-death proposition: Sometimes just associating with the media agencies is enough for reporters or their family members to be targeted, former officials told HuffPost. Staff members have previously been abducted from their homes or detained while visiting relatives, the former officials said.
“Anybody who knows any of these organizations knows dozens and dozens of examples like that,” said Jeffrey Gedmin, a former president of RFE/RL. “We owe these journalists our support and our appreciation and our loyalty. They’re not pieces of an auto engine being manufactured in a plant. They’re human beings.”
Dangerous Implications
Some of USAGM’s problems predate Pack. Many experts and agency staff members question a move by a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers and then-President Barack Obama in 2016 to centralize a significant amount of power in the CEO position Pack now holds. Having authority delegated was helpful, and policymakers opted for an easy apparent fix instead of understanding systemic problems in agency morale and operations, they believed.
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“You really need to meet the kind of people who are working for the system ― there are bad ones but there are a lot of good ones ― and not just stay in Washington and feed off of the very narrow and rather misguided debate that occurs,” said Bayles, the scholar, who opposed the CEO change. Officials at the agency told HuffPost that no matter who was elected in 2016, the risk to their work would have been higher than before.
A Voice of America employee told HuffPost that Pack was correct to note unhappiness among agency staff, saying that under past leadership, “there was a wall ― you were in the same building but very hard to reach.”
The employee requested anonymity to avoid retribution.
That hasn’t improved under Pack, however. Instead, agency employees are under tight scrutiny and anxious about holding onto their jobs as they wonder what the CEO may institute next.
“One thing for Mr. Pack is to listen to [journalists] and give them the opportunity to express themselves on … how to improve. That would be my humble suggestion,” the VOA employee said.
Asked about Pack’s effect on his staffers’ spirits, the USAGM spokesperson said, “Every action that he takes, as he has said previously, is intended to improve not only USAGM’s reputation and effectiveness but also employee morale.”
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In addition to raising alarm among staff, some of Pack’s moves have put the agency in legal jeopardy.
Last month, a District of Columbia judge declared that Pack broke the law when he took control of the Open Technology Fund, an offshoot of Radio Free Asia that works on internet freedom tools for people in autocratic societies, and fired its bipartisan board.
The State Department’s inspector general and congressional committees are investigating a whistleblower report from six former top officials that claims Pack illegally tried to divert funds and check agency employees’ voting histories.
And Pack’s changes may hurt USAGM outlets’ standing with social media platforms and foreign governments deciding whether to add a label to them that indicates they are affiliated with the U.S. government. These agencies have largely resisted such designations in the past, but a change in perception or structure could give an opening to those who want to delegitimize independent reporting. Russia’s federal communications agency has already introduced a draft order that would demand RFE/RL and VOA list themselves as “foreign agents” at the start of every report.
Another concern is that Pack may simply downsize the agencies’ mission and personnel in the name of efficiency or removing red tape, weakening their ability to operate and provide news coverage.
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This could undo decades of work bolstering the reputation of the agencies as trusted sources of political developments in the U.S. and other nations.
Supporters of USAGM like to compare the agencies to the British Broadcasting Corporation, but they worry that if their credibility is dismantled, they may instead resemble the Kremlin-owned outlet RT.


thehuffingtonpost--2020-11-01--To Beat Mitch McConnell, Democrats Need A Last-Minute Miracle From Amy McGrath

The dream scenario goes something like this : Trump ’ s margin in Kentucky , which polls suggest has already been halved from his 30-point romp there four years ago , might be even smaller than projected .
The suburbs of Louisville , Lexington and Cincinnati , all of which followed national shifts toward Democrats in the 2018 midterms and 2019 gubernatorial race , turn out even more fervently than expected and lean even harder for McGrath than originally hoped .
A Libertarian candidate draws enough of the vote to knock a couple more points off McConnell ’ s total @ @ @ @ @ @ @ voters , thinking both McConnell and Trump have Kentucky in the bag , don ’ t show up to vote in person on Tuesday .
And McConnell ’ s refusal to pass a new economic relief package in the midst of a worsening COVID-19 pandemic comes back to haunt him in the end .
But his arguments play to the fears and desires of many voters in a conservative state .
Abortion and cultural conservatism still dominate races in Kentucky , especially at the national level , and McConnell uses those to fashion @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has helped him blunt a more economically focused populism .
In the debate against McGrath , he repeatedly noted that he was the only member of leadership who wasn ’ t from New York or California , a sort of anti-elitism that positions McConnell as the last defender of the Real American everyman .
It ’ s no less cynical than any of his other arguments ― throughout McConnell ’ s career , he has been one of Washington ’ s staunchest advocates for eroding campaign finance laws and handing outsized influence to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ afford to participate in democracy .
But in a state that doesn ’ t have much national influence , McConnell has ably sold his own nihilistic quest for power as one that benefits Kentuckians , and he brings just enough home to keep the argument fresh .
Case in point : Last December , as the election cycle began , McConnell steered a bill to protect the pensions of 90,000 coal miners through the Senate .
“ Kentuckians know that they are sometimes the butt of jokes from people on the coasts , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kentucky political journalist and the director of the Institute for Rural Journalism at the University of Kentucky .
“ When McConnell says , ‘ I ’ m the only one from the middle of the country , and the rest of them are from the coasts , ’ that ’ s almost a dog whistle that those people out there are making fun of us , and I ’ m standing up for us.
” The McGrath campaign is expecting record turnout across Kentucky , especially among new voters , and said its @ @ @ @ @ @ @ among key demographics she has targeted .
McGrath , the campaign said , leads McConnell among voters who hadn ’ t voted in any of the last three Kentucky elections , and has the support of two-thirds of young voters who have cast ballots so far .
Ninety-one percent of Black voters have backed McGrath , and more than half of newly registered voters and women support her , according to the campaign .

ILLUSTRATION: REBECCA ZISSER/HUFFPOST; PHOTOS: GETTY
Another battle to defeat Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky is shaping up much like his previous reelection contests: with a relatively easy victory for McConnell, the senator Democrats love to hate but can’t figure out how to beat.
Early optimism around retired fighter pilot Amy McGrath, a former Marine who nearly won a seat in Congress in 2018 before challenging McConnell this year, has, in recent weeks, given way to a realization of McConnell’s brute strength in Kentucky.
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A recent survey from Mason-Dixon, which nailed the state’s deadlocked gubernatorial contest a year ago, found McConnell ahead by 9 points, well behind Trump ― who enjoys a 17-point lead in the state ― but still comfortably ahead of McGrath. Another poll, from the GOP-aligned firm Cygnal, found McConnell ahead by a similar margin and with a positive approval rating that the firm said had closed the door on the race.
“At this point,” Chris Kratzer, Cygnal’s vice president of research and analysis, said, “McGrath just doesn’t have a path to victory.”
Democrats in Kentucky, however, insist that’s not true. Pointing to early vote totals in key areas and the uncertainty brought on by the coronavirus pandemic, they argue that there are still signs of hope in the race, even if it might take a miraculous finish for McGrath to pull off the upset.
“McConnell is still a pretty big favorite,” said Robert Kahne, a co-host of the “My Old Kentucky Podcast,” which covers state politics from a progressive perspective. “But it’s certainly not outside of the realm of possibility, especially in a big wave, for her to get caught up in it and win the seat.”
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The dream scenario goes something like this: Trump’s margin in Kentucky, which polls suggest has already been halved from his 30-point romp there four years ago, might be even smaller than projected. The suburbs of Louisville, Lexington and Cincinnati, all of which followed national shifts toward Democrats in the 2018 midterms and 2019 gubernatorial race, turn out even more fervently than expected and lean even harder for McGrath than originally hoped. A Libertarian candidate draws enough of the vote to knock a couple more points off McConnell’s total, while a sizable chunk of Republican voters, thinking both McConnell and Trump have Kentucky in the bag, don’t show up to vote in person on Tuesday. And McConnell’s refusal to pass a new economic relief package in the midst of a worsening COVID-19 pandemic comes back to haunt him in the end.
Amy McGrath has hammered Sen. Mitch McConnell in the closing weeks of the Kentucky Senate race for adjourning the Senate after Amy Coney Barrett's Supreme Court confirmation without holding a vote on a new COVID-19 economic relief package. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta
McGrath seized on that last point in the final stages of the race. During the only debate of the race in mid-October, she hammered McConnell for refusing to negotiate a new stimulus package with House Democrats even as the pandemic batters the economy of Kentucky, where the unemployment rate’s recent decline to 5.6% is due largely to people leaving the workforce altogether, according to state officials.
She returned to it again in a piece published last week in the Lexington Herald-Leader, the state’s second-largest newspaper, that blasted McConnell for bailing out corporations and passing tax cuts for the wealthy early in the Trump administration’s tenure.
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“Sen. McConnell could find $500 billion for a slush fund for big corporations and $250 billion in tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans,” McGrath wrote, “but apparently there are no resources for Kentucky as families and small businesses continue to struggle.”
It’s the sort of closing argument many Democrats in the state believe can be effective against McConnell. Half of Kentuckians rated COVID-19 the biggest problem facing the state in a recent poll, which also found that 51% of Kentuckians disapprove of McConnell.
That has driven hope that McGrath’s coronavirus-focused message could tap into voter frustrations that might not be reflected in the horse race polls, especially during an unprecedented election cycle in which Kentuckians can vote early or by mail for the first time. Those shifts may have made a lightly polled state even harder to forecast.
Or so Democrats hope.
“We are doing things that we have never done before in Kentucky with early voting, so nobody knows how this is going to work out,” one Democratic consultant there said this week. “There is no crystal ball in Kentucky. All bets are off.”
It’s a long shot ― McGrath may have a 1-in-5 chance, the consultant guessed. But it’s also 2020. Stranger things have happened.
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And even if she doesn’t pull it off, a strong showing might help the state Democratic Party and its down-ballot candidates in close races ― especially in Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District, where another former Marine, Josh Hicks, is hoping to win the GOP House seat McGrath barely lost out on just two years ago.
Early Stumbles
McGrath entered the race against McConnell in 2019 to national fanfare that offered an early sign of just how enthusiastic Democratic voters were about the chance to oust Trump, McConnell and other top Republicans this fall. She immediately set Kentucky fundraising records and never stopped hauling in otherworldly amounts of cash, even as election forecasters and independent observers consistently viewed McConnell as a relatively safe incumbent, especially compared to Republicans running in states far more favorable to Democrats.
Winning as a Democrat in Kentucky isn’t impossible: Last year, Andy Beshear narrowly defeated then-Gov. Matt Bevin in a high-profile gubernatorial race that proved the state’s Democratic Party wasn’t quite dead yet. But it is hard: Beshear was the popular son of a well-liked former governor running against one of the least popular elected officials in America. He won by just 5,000 votes ― roughly one per voting precinct.
Repeating that feat, even against a politician as unpopular as McConnell, was always going to be difficult. Kentucky Democrats have a solid track record in gubernatorial races ― Beshear’s victory made them 11 for their last 13 in such contests ― but they haven’t elected a senator since 1992, and haven’t come within 100,000 votes of beating McConnell since his first bid for reelection in 1990.
McGrath has argued that McConnell's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic proves he's been in the Senate too long and is either unaware of or doesn't care about the needs of ordinary Kentuckians back home. AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley
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Knocking McConnell off requires running a near-perfect race, but McGrath stumbled out of the gate, when she flip-flopped on whether she’d have supported Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court and tried to paint McConnell as the chief roadblock to key parts of Trump’s agenda. The argument made sense as an attempt to appeal to wavering Trump voters. But its execution was sloppy, and it inspired headlines about whether McGrath was trying to run as a “pro-Trump Democrat.”
Much like Beshear, McGrath is more progressive than she’s often perceived to be: She supports adding a public option to the Affordable Care Act, boosting the minimum wage to $15, is pro-choice, and has argued for sizable investments in rural infrastructure, especially in places the coal industry has left behind. She backed Trump’s impeachment and was an early supporter of eventual Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
But while the stumbles didn’t dent her fundraising ability, they hurt her among progressives in Kentucky and nationally, especially during an unexpectedly fierce Democratic primary race that she barely survived.
McGrath’s populist appeal around COVID-19 and the underlying message that McConnell has simply been in office too long mimic her approach to the 2018 House race. And it follows the contours of Beshear’s race against Bevin last year, when the Democrat focused the contest on plans to bolster public education, protect health care coverage, and invest in working-class Kentuckians he accused Bevin of targeting at every turn.
But it took McGrath time to settle on a clear message, and in the meantime, McConnell spent big trying to nationalize the race. He has painted McGrath as a tool of the more liberal national Democratic establishment, thanks to her support for abortion rights and her insistence, during the 2018 House race, that she was “further left” and “more progressive” than anyone in Kentucky.
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“There’s a certain kind of grudging respect for McConnell, and even a regard among some people, just because he’s given Kentucky a seat at the national table.” - Al Cross, Kentucky political journalist
McConnell has also made appeals ― beneath the thinnest of racist veils ― to Kentucky’s mostly white voting population by suggesting that Democrats like McGrath support rioting because they backed anti-racist protests over the police killings of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville.
His campaign’s arguments are often misleading: McGrath does not support allowing abortions “through the ninth month,” as McConnell and his allies have suggested. And at times, the Republican senator doesn’t even pretend he’s running in Kentucky: An early campaign ad about protesters tearing down Confederate monuments exaggerates the movement to claim that demonstrators are broadly targeting statues of presidents George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Thomas Jefferson. None of the cities the ad focused on were located in the Bluegrass State.
But his arguments play to the fears and desires of many voters in a conservative state. Abortion and cultural conservatism still dominate races in Kentucky, especially at the national level, and McConnell uses those to fashion his own sort of cultural populism that has helped him blunt a more economically focused populism. In the debate against McGrath, he repeatedly noted that he was the only member of leadership who wasn’t from New York or California, a sort of anti-elitism that positions McConnell as the last defender of the Real American everyman.
“It’s not complicated,” McConnell said at the debate. “Do you want somebody from New York to be setting the agenda for America and not terribly interested in Kentucky? Or do you want to continue to have one of the four congressional leaders [be] from our state, looking out for Kentucky, giving Kentucky an opportunity to punch above its weight, providing extra assistance for Kentucky?”
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It’s no less cynical than any of his other arguments ― throughout McConnell’s career, he has been one of Washington’s staunchest advocates for eroding campaign finance laws and handing outsized influence to corporations, lobbyists and those who can afford to participate in democracy. But in a state that doesn’t have much national influence, McConnell has ably sold his own nihilistic quest for power as one that benefits Kentuckians, and he brings just enough home to keep the argument fresh. Case in point: Last December, as the election cycle began, McConnell steered a bill to protect the pensions of 90,000 coal miners through the Senate.
“Kentuckians know that they are sometimes the butt of jokes from people on the coasts,” said Al Cross, a longtime Kentucky political journalist and the director of the Institute for Rural Journalism at the University of Kentucky. “When McConnell says, ‘I’m the only one from the middle of the country, and the rest of them are from the coasts,’ that’s almost a dog whistle that those people out there are making fun of us, and I’m standing up for us.”
“There’s a certain kind of grudging respect for McConnell, and even a regard among some people,” Cross said, “just because he’s given Kentucky a seat at the national table.”
Hope For The Future?
If beating McConnell in 2020 required a perfect set of circumstances, Trump and the Kentucky senator have done much to create them. The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing economic collapse have cratered Trump’s popularity and potentially his reelection hopes nationwide, setting the stage for another potential Blue Wave. Kentucky hasn’t fared as poorly as other states during the pandemic, although its case numbers are rising to record levels now and its already-fragile economy has been bludgeoned.
McConnell’s lack of action could blunt the idea that he’s in the Senate to get things done for Kentuckians, although many others may be motivated by his rush to appoint Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, given its potential implications for abortion law.
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Even if McGrath loses to McConnell, her campaign could help Democrat Josh Hicks upset GOP Rep. Andy Barr (pictured above) in a closely watched U.S. House race. McGrath lost to Barr by 3 points in 2018. AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley, File
Turnout in Lexington is already nearing levels from past elections, and suburban areas in Louisville, where McConnell has traditionally remained strong but that have trended blue in recent elections, have seen high levels of early voting, too. And polls have suggested that Trump isn’t as strong in eastern Kentucky ― ancestral Democratic territory that turned against the party in the Obama and Trump years ― as he was four years ago.
The McGrath campaign is expecting record turnout across Kentucky, especially among new voters, and said its data showed that she was performing well among key demographics she has targeted. McGrath, the campaign said, leads McConnell among voters who hadn’t voted in any of the last three Kentucky elections, and has the support of two-thirds of young voters who have cast ballots so far. Ninety-one percent of Black voters have backed McGrath, and more than half of newly registered voters and women support her, according to the campaign.
Still, it may be too little, too late. If recent polls are accurate, McGrath hasn’t yet hit the margins she’d need in any of Kentucky’s six congressional districts to pull off the upset in what remains a Republican-friendly state.
“This is the best possible environment. And if you’re going to win, this is the environment you have to have,” Kahne said. “But she’s running in a new world. Andy Beshear was the pioneer. It’s like, we know how to do it. But it’s still really hard.”
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There are other potential sources of hope for Democrats in Kentucky. McGrath has a chance to cement the party’s progress with a strong showing in the state’s growing suburbs, and doing so could help Democrats farther down the ballot. Democrats are hoping to flip state legislative seats in suburban GOP districts in northern Kentucky and Louisville, where the party could elect a record 12 Democratic women to the state assembly this year.
McGrath could also help send another Democrat to Washington if she keeps the race close in central Kentucky, where Hicks is locked in a tight contest with GOP Rep. Andy Barr in the state’s 6th Congressional District. The work McGrath put into the district during her narrow loss there two years ago, and the millions of dollars she’s spent there this time around, may ultimately help push Hicks over the line, Democrats in the state say.
It’s impossible to know now whether the pandemic-driven voting changes will last beyond this election. But together with Beshear’s reenfranchisement of 100,000 Kentuckians with nonviolent felony convictions, the changes have made one of the most restrictive states in the nation more small-d democratic. That has generated newfound energy for both elections and the fight to expand voting rights in Kentucky, said Cassia Herron, the board chair of the progressive group Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, and it may leave officials with little choice but to make voting by mail and early voting permanent.
Winning that sort of change when Republicans hold every statewide office but one and supermajorities in both legislative chambers is no small feat.
Beating McConnell in Kentucky, where the state Democratic Party reached its nadir four years ago, is likely a generational fight. The hope there is still that McGrath can pull off the miracle.
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thehuffingtonpost--2020-11-01--TV Hosts Confront Trump Advisers On President's Smear Against Doctors

“ Our doctors get more money if somebody dies from COVID , ” Trump told the crowd .
“ You know that , right ?
I mean , our doctors are very smart people .
So what they do is , they say , ‘ I ’ m sorry , but everybody dies of COVID.
’ ” “ What is the president ’ s evidence that doctors , many of whom are risking their lives treating these patients , are in fact lining their pockets by saying they are inflating the number of COVID deaths ?
” Wallace asked .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ sometimes , individuals who may have COVID who aren ’ t dying from that and claiming it as a COVID death , which is not accurate , ” Lewandowski said .
Wallace pointed out that several studies suggested the number of people dying from COVID-19 was actually underreported .
He also mentioned that the American Medical Association condemned Trump ’ s claim , calling it “ malicious , outrageous and completely misguided.
” “ You know , Chris , I haven ’ t spoke to the president about this directly so I couldn @ @ @ @ @ @ @ can tell you that ― ” Miller said he wasn ’ t going to “ get into the billing aspects ” and claimed there have been “ all sorts of independent things pointing to that.
” But Miller did not cite a single report backing up Trump ’ s claim .
“ I ’ m astonished that Jason Miller spent as much time as he did without ever saying that the doctors who are on front lines ... without ever defending them , ” Dunn told Stephanopoulos .
She added : “ These @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the beginning of this crisis.
” “ They have been out there every day ― many of them working double shifts , ” she continued .
“ And I just want to say , for the record , that it tells you everything you need to know about the difference between the Trump campaign and the Biden campaign.
” The U.S. continues to lead the world in reported COVID-19 cases and deaths , with more than 9 million infections and at least 230,000 deaths as of Sunday .
The U.S. reported just over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a record for the most coronavirus cases confirmed in a single 24-hour period .

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President Donald Trump’s campaign advisers on Sunday faced tough questions from political talk show hosts about the president’s unsubstantiated claim that doctors are being paid to inflate the number of COVID-19 deaths.
Trump claimed without evidence at a campaign rally Friday that doctors were falsely reporting coronavirus-linked deaths for monetary gain.
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“Our doctors get more money if somebody dies from COVID,” Trump told the crowd. “You know that, right? I mean, our doctors are very smart people. So what they do is, they say, ‘I’m sorry, but everybody dies of COVID.’”
“Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace confronted Trump campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski about the president’s conspiracy theory.
“What is the president’s evidence that doctors, many of whom are risking their lives treating these patients, are in fact lining their pockets by saying they are inflating the number of COVID deaths?” Wallace asked.
Lewandowski admitted that he hasn’t seen “evidence” backing up Trump’s claim, but suggested anyway that doctors are inflating the numbers.
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“I think we are categorizing, sometimes, individuals who may have COVID who aren’t dying from that and claiming it as a COVID death, which is not accurate,” Lewandowski said.
Wallace pointed out that several studies suggested the number of people dying from COVID-19 was actually underreported. He also mentioned that the American Medical Association condemned Trump’s claim, calling it “malicious, outrageous and completely misguided.”
“Does the president stand by his accusation that doctors are profiteering off this virus?” Wallace pressed Lewandowski.
“You know, Chris, I haven’t spoke to the president about this directly so I couldn’t answer that. But I can tell you that ―”
Wallace interrupted: “You understand it’s a pretty serious ... thing to say about the nation’s doctors who are on the front lines?”
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Lewandowski said the Trump campaign has “enormous respect” for doctors before praising the administration’s handling of the coronavirus crisis.
Jason Miller, another Trump campaign adviser, defended Trump’s smear against doctors in an interview Sunday with ABC’s “This Week.”
″Why does the president repeatedly attack doctors ... working on the front lines, saying they’re inflating COVID numbers?” host George Stephanopoulos asked.
Miller denied that Trump was “attacking” anyone, arguing that the president was simply discussing Americans’ desire to “get back to life as normal.”
Stephanopoulos pushed back: “But, Jason, we all just saw it. He was talking about doctors inflating COVID deaths for money.”
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Miller said he wasn’t going to “get into the billing aspects” and claimed there have been “all sorts of independent things pointing to that.” But Miller did not cite a single report backing up Trump’s claim.
“The fact of the matter is, people want to get their life back to normal,” Miller said.
.@GStephanopoulos repeatedly presses Jason Miller on Trump’s false claims on doctors and COVID-19: Why does he "repeatedly attack doctors working on the frontlines?”
Miller: “I don’t think he was attacking anybody at all.”
G.S.: “We all just saw it.” https://t.co/PPoWucYWDV pic.twitter.com/i3VkGcrM4R — This Week (@ThisWeekABC) November 1, 2020
In a subsequent interview on “This Week,” Anita Dunn, an adviser to Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign, bashed Miller for defending Trump’s attack on doctors.
“I’m astonished that Jason Miller spent as much time as he did without ever saying that the doctors who are on front lines ... without ever defending them,” Dunn told Stephanopoulos. She added: “These people have been risking their lives since the beginning of this crisis.”
“They have been out there every day ― many of them working double shifts,” she continued. “And I just want to say, for the record, that it tells you everything you need to know about the difference between the Trump campaign and the Biden campaign.”
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The U.S. continues to lead the world in reported COVID-19 cases and deaths, with more than 9 million infections and at least 230,000 deaths as of Sunday. The U.S. reported just over 100,000 new infections on Friday, setting a record for the most coronavirus cases confirmed in a single 24-hour period.
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie ― who was hospitalized for COVID-19 last month days after helping prep Trump for a presidential debate ― appeared baffled by the president’s smear against doctors.
″I have no explanation for that,” Christie, a Republican and ABC News contributor, told Stephanopoulos on Sunday. “I don’t understand it.”


thehuffingtonpost--2020-11-01--Trump Administration Funds Plasma Company Based In Owner's Condo

Plasma Technologies LLC , has received seed money to test a possible COVID-19-fighting blood plasma technology .
But as much as $ 65 million more could be on the way , a windfall for the company that operates out of the founder ’ s luxury condo , according to internal government records and other documents obtained by The Associated Press .
And it ’ s another in a series of contracts awarded despite concerns over their proposals voiced by government scientists .
The others include an $ 21 million study of the heartburn drug Pepcid as a COVID therapy , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ApiJect Systems America , a startup with an unapproved medicine injection technology and no factory to manufacture the devices .
In addition , a government whistleblower claimed that a $ 1.6 billion vaccine contract to Novavax Inc. was made over objections of scientific staff .
At the center of these deals is Dr. Robert Kadlec , a senior Trump appointee at the Department of the Health and Human Services , who backed the Pepcid , Novavax and ApiJect projects .
Records obtained by the AP also describe Kadlec as a key supporter of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a former pharmaceutical industry executive and well-connected Republican donor .
Three years ago , Zurlo brought Rick Santorum , who spent 12 years as a GOP senator from Pennsylvania , aboard as a part-owner .
Kadlec has come under pressure from the White House to act with more urgency and not be bound by lower-level science officials whom Trump has castigated as the “ deep state ” and accused of politically motivated delays in fielding COVID-19 vaccines and remedies .
Zurlo said in an email that the shortage of plasma from recovered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make these therapies , underlines the need for the technology he ’ s patented to harvest as many of these proteins as possible .
In early April , shortly after Congress supplied hundreds of billions of dollars to combat the pandemic , Santorum stepped up his sales pitch for Plasma Technologies and the process the company has described as “ disruptive and transformative , ” according to the records .
Plasma Technologies seemed to be on its way in 2014 after the company licensed its system to a Dallas-based business , according to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Exchange Commission .
But three years later , the agreement ended abruptly , without producing any therapies approved by the Food and Drug Administration .
But Santorum ’ s initial pitch to HHS failed to gain traction among its experts , who didn ’ t see Zurlo ’ s technology as worthy of millions in emergency pandemic funding , according to the emails and Rick Bright , the former director of HHS ’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority .
Kadlec oversees the agency , known as BARDA .
So , Plasma Technologies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ engaged heavily in the government ’ s COVID-19 response .
The AP obtained a copy of the company ’ s May 28 proposal , which sought $ 51.6 million to build a plasma fractionation facility in Raleigh , North Carolina , or Atlanta , where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is headquarters is located .
By late July , Plasma Technologies ’ fortunes began to change .
Steven Morani , a senior Pentagon official who helps oversee the maintenance of billions of dollars in military equipment , had conferred with other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the idea of a U.S.-owned and operated facility to make plasma-based therapies .
HHS would eventually support the $ 750,000 initial grant , according to the government emails , with as much as $ 65 million in government money to come later for a commercial facility .
That ’ s more than Plasma Technologies had requested .
The messages don ’ t say where that additional money would come from , or why it was required .
But Santorum had different plans for any financial returns .
“ I have made no such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has three weddings this year , ” he said .
“ If any money were to come , I would welcome that money to help pay my bills .
”

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WASHINGTON (AP) — An obscure South Carolina company may be in line for millions of dollars in U.S. government funding to produce a coronavirus treatment after a former Republican senator with a financial stake in the business lobbied senior U.S. government officials.
Plasma Technologies LLC, has received seed money to test a possible COVID-19-fighting blood plasma technology. But as much as $65 million more could be on the way, a windfall for the company that operates out of the founder’s luxury condo, according to internal government records and other documents obtained by The Associated Press.
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The story of how a tiny business, which exists only on paper, has managed to snare so much top-level attention is emblematic of the Trump administration’s frenetic response to the coronavirus pandemic.
And it’s another in a series of contracts awarded despite concerns over their proposals voiced by government scientists. The others include an $21 million study of the heartburn drug Pepcid as a COVID therapy, and more than a half-billion dollars to ApiJect Systems America, a startup with an unapproved medicine injection technology and no factory to manufacture the devices. In addition, a government whistleblower claimed that a $1.6 billion vaccine contract to Novavax Inc. was made over objections of scientific staff.
At the center of these deals is Dr. Robert Kadlec, a senior Trump appointee at the Department of the Health and Human Services, who backed the Pepcid, Novavax and ApiJect projects. Records obtained by the AP also describe Kadlec as a key supporter of Plasma Tech, owned by Eugene Zurlo, a former pharmaceutical industry executive and well-connected Republican donor. Three years ago, Zurlo brought Rick Santorum, who spent 12 years as a GOP senator from Pennsylvania, aboard as a part-owner.
Kadlec has come under pressure from the White House to act with more urgency and not be bound by lower-level science officials whom Trump has castigated as the “deep state” and accused of politically motivated delays in fielding COVID-19 vaccines and remedies.
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The AP reached out to more than a dozen blood plasma industry leaders and medical experts. Few had heard of Zurlo’s company or its technology for turning human plasma into protein-rich antibody therapies, and would not comment.
Zurlo said in an email that the shortage of plasma from recovered COVID-19 patients, which is needed to make these therapies, underlines the need for the technology he’s patented to harvest as many of these proteins as possible.
In early April, shortly after Congress supplied hundreds of billions of dollars to combat the pandemic, Santorum stepped up his sales pitch for Plasma Technologies and the process the company has described as “disruptive and transformative,” according to the records.
In mid-August, the federal government awarded Plasma Technologies a $750,000 grant to demonstrate that it could deliver on its promises.
HHS would not comment when asked whether Santorum’s public backing of the president helped the company he has a financial stake in getting a government contract.
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Santorum told the AP it would have been a “crime” if he hadn’t used his influence to get Plasma Technologies recognized.
“Shame on me if I hadn’t,” he said, while deriding the industry that makes plasma products as more focused on profits than making advances in technology.
Plasma Technologies seemed to be on its way in 2014 after the company licensed its system to a Dallas-based business, according to financial records filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. But three years later, the agreement ended abruptly, without producing any therapies approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
Santorum told the AP he communicated directly with Kadlec, whom he described as “very supportive” of Plasma Technologies. An HHS spokesperson said Kadlec “does not have a role in technical review of proposals nor in negotiating contracts.”
But Santorum’s initial pitch to HHS failed to gain traction among its experts, who didn’t see Zurlo’s technology as worthy of millions in emergency pandemic funding, according to the emails and Rick Bright, the former director of HHS’ Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. Kadlec oversees the agency, known as BARDA.
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BARDA’s experts sought COVID-19 vaccines and treatments that could be delivered quickly, and Plasma Technologies’ project was a longer-term effort. “They were not excited,” recalled Bright, a vaccine expert who has been sharply critical of Kadlec’s HHS tenure and a filed a whistleblower complaint in May.
So, Plasma Technologies turned to the Defense Department, also engaged heavily in the government’s COVID-19 response. The AP obtained a copy of the company’s May 28 proposal, which sought $51.6 million to build a plasma fractionation facility in Raleigh, North Carolina, or Atlanta, where the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is headquarters is located.
By late July, Plasma Technologies’ fortunes began to change. Steven Morani, a senior Pentagon official who helps oversee the maintenance of billions of dollars in military equipment, had conferred with other military leaders. They were drawn to the idea of a U.S.-owned and operated facility to make plasma-based therapies.
HHS would eventually support the $750,000 initial grant, according to the government emails, with as much as $65 million in government money to come later for a commercial facility. That’s more than Plasma Technologies had requested. The messages don’t say where that additional money would come from, or why it was required.
Morani referred the AP’s questions about the contract to a Defense Department spokeswoman, Jessica Maxwell, who declined to discuss future funding for Plasma Technologies.
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Santorum, who criticized a reporter for writing what he termed a “political hit piece,” said Zurlo intends to donate any profits generated by Plasma Technologies to charities that support the Catholic Church.
But Santorum had different plans for any financial returns. “I have made no such claims as a father of seven who has three weddings this year,” he said. “If any money were to come, I would welcome that money to help pay my bills.”
___
Dearen reported from New York. Associated Press writer Meg Kinnard in Charleston, South Carolina, contributed to this report.
___