Trump Administration

Roll Call reports: The Homeland Security Department, reacting to what it called an “unprecedented crisis,” will allow farmers facing delays in getting approval for petitions for foreign agricultural labor to hire farmworkers holding H-2A visas and already in the United States. How many farmers this will help is unknown. The temporary final rule announced Wednesday comes after mounting pressure from …

CNN reports: US intelligence and national security officials say the United States government is looking into the possibility that the novel coronavirus originated in a Chinese laboratory rather than a market, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter who caution it is premature to draw any conclusions. The theory has been pushed by supporters of the President, including some …

The New York Times reports: Ivanka Trump, President Trump’s eldest daughter and a senior White House adviser, has positioned herself as one of the leaders of the administration’s economic relief efforts and one of its most vocal advocates of social distancing. But Ms. Trump herself has not followed the federal guidelines advising against discretionary travel, leaving Washington for another one …

The Washington Post reports: In mid-March, a National Security Council team rushed to fix what they saw as a threat to the U.S. government’s ability to function amid the advancing pandemic: a lack of masks to protect enough staff on the White House complex. Alarmed by the small cache and the growing signs of an acute shortage of protective gear …

Raw Story reports: In defending the president’s controversial move, Kellyanne Conway blamed the group for not being more on the ball when it came to handling the COVID-19 pandemic. “We have every right to know because of what’s happened here in this global pandemic, but there’s another reason, some of the scientists and doctors say that there could be other …

From opinion columnist Dana Milbank: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) have insisted that Congress spend another $250 billion on small businesses devastated by the pandemic, but they refuse to “renegotiate unrelated programs” from last month’s emergency coronavirus bill. What are they afraid of? Well, maybe it’s this: As the dust settles on …

The Hill reports: Major U.S. airlines have reached an agreement with the Treasury Department to accept billions of dollars in coronavirus stimulus funds, the department announced Tuesday. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement that he and the department “welcome the news” that 10 airlines have agreed to participate in the program. The airlines applied for parts of $25 …

Fox News reports: The Justice Department intervened in a Mississippi church’s lawsuit by saying in a court filing that it “strongly suggests that the city’s actions target religious conduct” after the church sued police for ticketing congregants during a drive-in service amid coronavirus, Fox News has learned. The DOJ is siding with Temple Baptist Church in Greenville, Miss., after Greenville …

The Washington Post reports: The CIA has privately advised its workforce that taking an anti-malarial drug touted by President Trump and some of his supporters as a promising treatment for the novel coronavirus has potentially dangerous side effects, including sudden death. The warning, featured on a website for CIA employees with questions related to the spread of covid-19, came in …

ESPN reports: WWE was deemed an “essential business” in Florida, Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings said Monday, allowing the company to resume live television shows from its Orlando training facility and Full Sail University in Winter Park. The decision, outlined in an April 9 memo from Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office, could open the door for other sports to resume in …

Business Standard reports: President Donald Trump on Friday said he would soon set up a new advisory council of doctors and businessmen to recommend when to open America, whose economy has come to a grinding halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic. More than 95 percent of the country’s 330 million population are under stay-at-home order as part of the measures …

The New York Daily News reports: President Trump won’t fire White House coronavirus task force member Anthony Fauci despite sharing a tweet with the hashtag #FireFauci, a spokesman said on Monday. “This media chatter is ridiculous – President Trump is not firing Dr. Fauci,” said White House principal deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley. “The President’s tweet clearly exposed media attempts …

The Washington Post reports: President Trump is likely to announce restrictions on U.S. funding for the World Health Organization this week over its handling of the coronavirus pandemic, as the administration and conservative allies ramped up their criticism that the United Nations agency catered to China early in the outbreak and jeopardized global health. Trump hinted at a temporary hold …

“The estimates now from the University of Washington, which is the model everybody’s been going on — even though its been wrong most of the time, by a lot, overstating it — is now, they say 60,000 people will die, Sixty-one thousand is what we lost to the flu in 2017 and 2018 — the flu. “Now, we all regret …

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reports: Reports emerged this week that the White House may be moving “soon” on withdrawing from the Open Skies treaty, a nearly two-decade-old agreement that allows 34 countries to fly and share reconnaissance missions over each other to promote military cooperation and transparency. Last month, defense secretary Mark Esper said he was freezing a long-overdue …

Politico reports: With the White House moving to reopen the economy as early as May 1, top officials have yet to coalesce around a single plan to allow Americans and businesses to safely resume work as the coronavirus pandemic rages on. Instead, senior administration officials are engaged in an earnest yet scattershot effort to support President Donald Trump’s long-expressed desire …

The Washington Post reports: The Postal Service’s decades-long financial troubles have worsened dramatically as the volume of the kind of mail that pays the agency’s bills ― first-class and marketing mail ― withers during the pandemic. The USPS needs an infusion of money, and President Trump has blocked potential emergency funding for the agency that employs around 600,000 workers, repeating …

Politico reports: Justice Department leaders say they are focusing on efforts to stop coronavirus fraud. In a memo to U.S. attorneys, Attorney General Bill Barr wrote that they have seen reports of phishing emails pretending to be from the CDC and of people selling fake cures for Covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. “The pandemic is dangerous enough …

The Hill reports: “I would hope that by November we would have things under such control that we could have a real degree of normality. That’s my interest and my job as a public health person,” Fauci, a leading member of the Trump administration’s coronavirus task force, said Friday on MSNBC. The remarks come as Democrats and Republicans feud over …

From the editorial board of the Washington Post: The White House has just confirmed, no doubt unintentionally, that the U.S. government’s premier international broadcaster, Voice of America, is independent from the Trump administration. A shrill commentary posted on the White House website Friday assailed VOA for “promoting propaganda” of the Chinese government about the novel coronavirus epidemic. The evidence? A …