Trump Administration

The New York Times reports: The Food and Drug Administration late on Sunday gave emergency approval for expanded use of antibody-rich blood plasma to help hospitalized coronavirus patients, allowing President Trump, who has been pressuring the agency to move faster to address the pandemic, to claim progress on the eve of the Republican convention. Mr. Trump cited the approval, which …

The Washington Post reports: Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to President Trump and one of his longest-serving aides, is leaving the White House at the end of the month. Conway, whose title is counselor to the president, was Trump’s third campaign manager in 2016 and the first woman to successfully manage a presidential bid to victory. She joined the White …

Axios reports: Former FBI director James Comey argued on Sunday that the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on 2016 Russian interference “blows up” President Trump and Attorney General Bill Barr’s claims that the FBI’s Russia investigation was unjustified and a “hoax.” The 966-page bipartisan report, which goes into more detail than the Mueller report, found that Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort …

NBC News reports: White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Sunday dodged questions about President Donald Trump’s embrace of QAnon days after the president said followers of the conspiracy theory “love our country.” “We don’t even know what it is,” Meadows told “Fox News Sunday” after host Chris Wallace asked whether the president would denounce QAnon, which the FBI …

The Hill reports: Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said Sunday that DHS has no authority to send federal agents to oversee polling locations in November, despite President Trump’s vow to have a federal law enforcement presence at the polls on Election Day. “That’s not what we do at the Department of Homeland Security,” Wolf said on CNN’s …

The New York Post reports: The White House is touting a “breakthrough” on a coronavirus therapeutic that President Trump will announce in a news conference Sunday evening. Trump will make the announcement alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and the director of the Food and Drug Administration Stephen Hahn. Earlier Saturday, Trump accused the FDA of delaying possible …

The Washington Post reports: The House voted Saturday on legislation to provide $25 billion to the U.S. Postal Service and explicitly prohibit any operational changes amid widespread Democratic fears that the Trump administration is trying to disenfranchise millions of Americans casting mail ballots this November. The 257-to-150 vote was largely along party lines as Republicans accused Democrats of manufacturing “baseless …

The Texas Tribune reports: A postal workers’ union leader in San Antonio said today that local Postal Service operations are experiencing major delays in mail delivery and that the agency sought to hide evidence of the problems from a congressman when he visited its facility this week. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, toured the main San Antonio post office Wednesday …

The Guardian reports: The attorney general, William Barr, told Rupert Murdoch to “muzzle” Andrew Napolitano, a prominent Fox News personality who became a critic of Donald Trump, according to a new book about the rightwing TV network. Barr’s meeting with Murdoch, at the media mogul’s New York home in October 2019, was widely reported at the time, with speculation surrounding …

The Washington Post reports: House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.) released internal U.S. Postal Service documents that show steeper declines in on-time deliveries than lawmakers had previously been told. The drop in service standards since early July is across all categories of mail, including priority mail, periodicals, marketing and first class, the documents show. “After being confronted on …

NBC News reports: The White House Rose Garden has been spruced up in time for its moment in the campaign spotlight. First lady Melania Trump will deliver her Republican National Convention speech Tuesday night from the garden, famous for its close proximity to the Oval Office. The three weeks of work on the garden, which was done in the spirit …

Reuters reports: TikTok is preparing to mount a legal challenge as early as Monday to President Donald Trump’s executive order prohibiting transactions with the popular short video app and its Chinese parent ByteDance, according to people familiar with the matter. TikTok’s legal challenge pertains to an earlier executive order, which Trump issued on Aug. 6, the sources said. That order …

Mediaite reports: President Donald Trump accused members of his own Food and Drug Administration of deliberately hampering coronavirus vaccine and drug trials in order to prevent their develop0ment until after the election. On Saturday morning, Trump took time out from flogging his “Suburban Women” pitch to casually accuse an agency of his own government of conspiring to allow more Americans …

Reuters reports: The White House said on Friday it strongly opposes a bill backed by congressional Democrats addressing U.S. Postal Service policies ahead of the Nov. 3 election and would recommend President Donald Trump veto it. The White House Office of Management and Budget said in a statement that the House of Representatives bill “would arbitrarily give USPS $25 billion …

The Independent reports: Vice President Mike Pence has responded to Joe Biden‘s acceptance speech criticism of the handling of the coronavirus pandemic, saying he believes there is “a miracle around the corner.” In an interview on CNN on Friday, Pence was asked how many Americans would lose their lives due to the pandemic by the end of the year. “As …

The Associated Press reports: Attorney General William Barr said he would be “vehemently opposed” to any attempt to pardon former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, after the president suggested he might consider it. The attorney general’s comments in an interview with The Associated Press come days after President Donald Trump said he would “look at” whether to pardon Snowden, …

The Associated Press reports: Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, pressed by senators over mail delivery disruptions, said Friday he was unaware of changes that sparked a public uproar, but his responses raised fresh questions about how the Postal Service will ensure timely delivery of ballots for the November election. DeJoy told senators he has zero plans to restore blue mailboxes and …

ProPublica reports: The draft policy released by the U.S. Agency for International Development on Wednesday was billed as an update and replacement to the original 2012 policy, released under the Obama administration. Though written subtly, the agency’s gender policy is parsed closely by experts and grantees as a clue to the kind of initiatives the agency will prioritize, and it …

USA Today reports: The head of the U.S. Postal Service will testify before the Republican-controlled Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Friday morning. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy will address concerns over the latest changes to the agency, which include service delays until after the November election. On Monday, DeJoy will testify before the House Oversight Committee. Things just …

NBC News reports: In early May 2018, after weeks of phone calls and private meetings, 11 of the president’s most senior advisers were called to the White House Situation Room where they were asked, by a show-of-hands vote, to decide the fate of thousands of migrant parents and their children, according to two officials who were there. Trump’s senior adviser, …