Trump Touts Covid Response as Cases Surge to New Highs

Plus, Pelosi declares ‘red alert’ on stimulus  [The Fisc](   By Yuval Rosenberg and Michael Rainey Trump Touts Covid Response as Cases Surge to New Highs President Donald Trump on Friday broke a week-long public silence, appearing in the White House Rose Garden to tout his administration’s pandemic response even as the coronavirus [rages across the country]( with a record [153,000 new cases]( reported on Thursday, the seventh new high in nine days. Trump again falsely claimed that the surge in virus cases is the result of increased testing and he highlighted the progress of Operation Warp Speed, the administration’s vaccine development program, and the strength of the economy. "The past nine months, my administration has initiated the single greatest mobilization in U.S. history, pioneering, developing and manufacturing therapies and vaccines in record time," he said, adding that millions of doses of vaccine "will soon be going out the door" and that a vaccine could be widely available as early as April. Trump took credit for Pfizer’s announcement this week that its vaccine candidate was more than 90% effective, claiming that the pharmaceutical giant had been part of Operation Warp Speed, despite its [claims otherwise]( because his administration in July had entered into a $1.95 billion deal to buy 100 million doses of a vaccine developed by the company. Trump did not concede his election loss, but he came close to acknowledging that he won’t be president much longer while saying that his administration would not enter another lockdown: "This administration will not be going to a lockdown. Hopefully, the, uh — whatever happens in the future, who knows which administration it will be, I guess time will tell, but I can tell you this administration will not go to a lockdown." Trump took no questions from reporters. ‘Publicly disengaged’: Trump’s speech followed an unusual days-long stretch during which the president remained largely out of sight and reportedly showed "little evidence of -- or interest in -- governing in the wake of the election," as [ABC News]( put it. Trump had made an appearance at Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday to honor veterans, but he hadn’t spoken publicly or taken questions since last Thursday, when he told reporters that the election was being stolen from him. He has been active on Twitter, but his tweets have been focused on [unsubstantiated claims]( of election fraud. "President Donald Trump has publicly disengaged from the battle against the coronavirus at a moment when the disease is tearing across the United States at an alarming pace," the [Associated Press]( reported Friday, adding that aides say the president has shown little interest in the pandemic as it worsens — even as numerous officials in the White House and his reelection campaign have tested positive for the virus over the last couple of weeks. [More than 130]( Secret Service officers have reportedly been ordered to isolate or quarantine because they were infected or came in close contact with co-workers who had the virus, with the outbreak believed to be linked in part to Trump rallies over the final weeks of the campaign. "The situation now is akin to a fire chief assuring people that the best approach to fires breaking out in an apartment complex is to let the fires burn themselves out while he provides them with fire extinguishers. And then not providing the fire extinguishers. And then spending most of his time tweeting about how he won the vote for best fire chief," The Washington Post’s Philip Bump [writes](. "It’s a fierce competition, but this may define Trump’s legacy. He will be remembered as the president who faced a deadly crisis and decided to look away." The country can’t wait: Trump’s silence had drawn criticism from public health experts and others worried that his lack of action and unwillingness to coordinate with President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team would hinder efforts to curb the spread of the virus and prepare for eventual distribution of a vaccine. "It’s a big problem," Dr. Abraar Karan, a global health specialist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, told the AP. "The transition is not going to happen until January, and we are in a complete crisis right now. We already know where this is headed. ... It’s not good enough to say we’re going to wait until the next president to address this." What Trump could do: Bloomberg’s Josh Wingrove and Emma Court provide a number of suggestions from health experts. "The president could help by asking Americans directly to wear masks, encouraging Republican governors to do more to slow the spread, publicly backing health officials or even directing his staff to jointly coordinate with President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team, to ensure a smooth hand-off," they [write](. "Trump has instead been absent. He’s discouraged masks and social distancing and is blocking the start of Biden’s transition while refusing to concede defeat, compounding the federal inaction." The bottom line: The vaccine development timeline truly is encouraging and remarkable, with the White House saying that two vaccines may be authorized for emergency use by the end of the year. But the pandemic picture stands to grow much worse by then, let alone a time when vaccines are widely available. "I fear the next three months ahead could be the worst we’ve faced during the pandemic," Lawrence Gostin, a public health expert at Georgetown University’s law school, told the Associated Press. "America is like a ship at storm, and the captain has decided to go play golf." Pelosi Declares ‘Red Alert’ on Stimulus House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Friday called for a renewal of negotiations on the stalled Covid-19 relief bill, saying that Congress must act now as the virus surges again around the country. "Our focus in the lame duck continues to be on Covid relief -- this is a red alert," Pelosi said at a press conference. "I urge Republicans to acknowledge the crisis and come to the table to work on Covid relief." No talks are currently scheduled, however, and as we told you [yesterday]( there is considerable doubt that Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) can bridge the more than $1 trillion gap between Democratic and Republican proposals for the relief bill before President-elect Joe Biden takes office. Looking for federal help: State and local officials are hesitating to take aggressive steps to halt the spread of the virus, due in part to a lack of fiscal support, the Associated Press [reported]( Friday. "I think that governors and mayors are, again, are in a really tough spot," Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician at Brown University, told the AP. "The American population is emotionally and economically exhausted. I think that there are some minimum things that governors and mayors could and should be doing right now. But the trouble is, without support from the federal government, it becomes very difficult to do these things." Biden Team Embraces a Trump Tax Break President-elect Joe Biden plans to undo some of President Trump’s tax cuts by raising rates on businesses and high-income households, but Biden’s team has reportedly embraced one part of the 2017 Republican tax overhaul: special treatment for investments in federally defined "opportunity zones." The idea of using tax breaks to encourage investment in distressed areas has long been popular in both parties. According to [Bloomberg’s]( Noah Buhayar and Lydia O'Neal, one of Biden’s top advisers wrote a paper that contributed to their creation, while Vice President-elect Kamala Harris has cited them as a means to foster entrepreneurship. "There are a lot of people in his universe who care about this," former Obama administration official Steve Glickman, who is involved in opportunity zone investing, told Bloomberg. "They think it’s a good idea." That doesn’t mean, however, that the Biden administration doesn’t want to make changes in the program. The Trump administration has provided little data about how the program is operating, and some critics have charged that the zones are being used to give tax breaks to developers in places that don’t need help, such as Brooklyn and the Boston waterfront. Biden’s platform calls for more transparency in the program and for the U.S. Treasury to review projects to assure the public is benefiting. Have a great weekend! Send your feedback to yrosenberg@thefiscaltimes.com. Follow us on Twitter: [@yuvalrosenberg]( [@mdrainey]( and [@TheFiscalTimes](. And please tell your friends they can [sign up here]( for their own copy of this newsletter. News - [Biden Team Seeks Covid-19 Back-Channels With Transition Locked Out]( – CNN - [Officials Across the U.S. Increase Warnings and Adopt New Measures as the Pandemic Accelerates]( – New York Times - [‘Covid-Hell.’ ‘Humanitarian Disaster.’ Experts Sound the Alarm About U.S. Coronavirus Outbreak.]( – Washington Post - [Virus Surge: Schools Abandon Classes, States Retreat]( – Associated Press - [Cities and States Are Imposing New COVID-19 Restrictions. Experts Say It's Not Enough]( – Reuters - [These Charts Show How Serious This Fall's Covid-19 Surge Is in the US]( – CNN - [‘Catastrophic’ Lack of Hospital Beds in Upper Midwest as Coronavirus Cases Surge]( – Washington Post - [Labs Sound Alarm on Coronavirus Testing Capacity, Supplies]( – Politico - [Workers Who Lost Jobs Due to COVID May Need Help Getting Coverage This Fall]( – Kaiser Health News - [Navarro: White House’s Operating ‘Assumption Is a Second Trump Term’]( – Politico - [Biden's Day 1: Stimulus Stall]( – Axios - [President-Elect Joe Biden’s COVID Advisors Nix Idea of U.S. Lockdown to Curb Pandemic]( – CNBC - [Biden’s Team Sees Promise in a Tax Break Championed by Trump]( – Bloomberg - [Sen. Tina Smith: We Need to Expand Telehealth]( – Axios - [Anti-Hunger Groups Call on Biden to Reverse Some of Trump’s Signature Initiatives]( – Washington Post - [Trump Races Clock on Remaining Environmental Rollbacks]( – The Hill Views and Analysis - [Trump and Republicans Are Making the Coming Covid-19 Nightmare Worse]( – Paul Waldman, Washington Post - [Remarkable Vaccine Results Leave a Lot of Questions Unanswered]( – James Paton and Robert Langreth, Bloomberg Businessweek - [Which Governor Could You Live With in the Covid-19 Era?]( – Timothy L. O’Brien, Bloomberg - [America's Coronavirus Complacency]( – Felix Salmon, Axios - [Why Biden Can Overcome Political Gridlock]( – Anatole Kaletsky, Project Syndicate - [Biden Faces a Global Economy That's Tired of U.S. Antics]( – Ferdinando Giugliano, Bloomberg - [A Republican Senate Would Be Bad for Business]( – Paul Krugman, New York Times - [Republican Malice Has Turned the Pandemic Into a Deadly Loop]( – Nick Martin, New Republic Copyright © 2020 The Fiscal Times, All rights reserved. You are receiving this newsletter because you subscribed at our website, [thefiscaltimes.com]( or through Facebook. The Fiscal Times, 399 Park Avenue, 14th Floor, New York, NY 10022, United States Want to change how you receive these emails? [Update your preferences]( or [unsubscribe](