As President Trump's "West Wing careens through one of the most turbulent weeks of his presidency, White House officials are struggling to understand the source of the fury fueling the president's eruptions," Vanity Fair reported Wednesday, quoting a former West Wing staffer: "This is a level of insanity I've never seen before." But Trump's "oddly detailed condemnation" of Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Twitter Thursday bolsters the speculation that Trump's mood is tied to the Russia investigation, Politico reports.
"Half a dozen people in contact with the White House and other Trump officials say a deep anxiety has started to set in that Mueller is about to pounce after his self-imposed quiet period, and that any number of Trump's allies and family members may soon be staring down the barrel of an indictment," Politico says. Trump and his lawyers have been meeting this week to answer Mueller's questions about Russia's Trump-friendly interference in the 2016 election. But Trump's "unusually specific" accusations against Mueller suggest the cause of his anxiety is based on specific knowledge, Natasha Bertrand reports at The Atlantic.
Trump's angry tweets "could just be another rant," former Manhattan federal prosecutor Elie Honig tells Bertrand. But Trump allies may also have informed Trump that Mueller's prosecutors are getting impatient with a less-than-forthcoming witness. "My hunch is that prosecutors had some sort of 'Time to get real' conversation with someone implicated in the investigation, which was then relayed to Trump by defense attorneys," Honig said. Fellow former federal prosecutor Dan Goldman agreed, saying he believes "indictments are coming," maybe Friday.
"You can see it in Trump's body language all week long, there's something troubling him," a senior Republican official in touch with the White House speculates to Politico. "It led me to believe the walls are closing in and they've been notified by counsel of some actions about to happen. Folks are preparing for the worst." Peter Weber
Should President Trump lose re-election, could Rep. Kevin McCarthy's (R-Calif.) leadership position be in danger?
A new report in The Washington Post describes how "discontent" with the Republican minority leader is "on the rise" in the House of Representatives, and a "small group of members is discussing whether someone should challenge him for minority leader if Trump is defeated," as Republicans prepare for a potential "intraparty war."
While the report notes that the anti-McCarthy sentiment in the House is certainly "far from unanimous," it describes how some Republicans feel he's too close to Trump and has given the president "too much of a pass," with one House Republican saying McCarthy "does nothing but lick Trump's boots." It isn't clear who could actually challenge McCarthy, though the report says House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) has been eyed.
"[McCarthy] becomes damaged goods [if Trump loses], but it could be offset if he is successful in helping the GOP conference win back a bunch of seats," a senior House Republican told the Post. "But if we lose ... the Republican conference is probably going to be looking for something different in leadership."
A spokesperson for McCarthy downplayed this talk, saying Republicans "are united and singularly focused on working with President Trump to renew the American Dream, restore our way of life, and rebuild the greatest economy ever." Read more at The Washington Post.
Brendan MorrowBillie Eilish and more stars are headed (virtually) to this year's Democratic convention.
Organizers of the 2020 Democratic National Convention on Friday announced that the event scheduled to begin next week will feature performances from Leon Bridges, The Chicks, Common, Billie Eilish, Jennifer Hudson, John Legend, Billy Porter, Maggie Rogers, Prince Royce, and Stephen Stills.
While the Democratic convention was originally set to take place entirely in person in Wisconsin, it has since been revamped into a primarily virtual event, with even former Vice President Joe Biden himself set to accept the party's nomination for president from Delaware. These artists, too, are expected to deliver their performances remotely, People reports.
As CBS notes, Legend and Hudson previously performed at the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Most recently, the 2016 convention featured performances from artists including Alicia Keys and Katy Perry. Stephanie Cutter, program executive for the DNC, in a statement said that the stars set to perform this year are "committed to engaging with, registering and mobilizing voters to get us over the finish line in November." The convention is set to begin on Aug. 17. Brendan Morrow
The United States Postal Service has warned that in Pennsylvania, some mail-in ballots may not be delivered in time to be counted this November.
In a July letter to Pennsylvania State Secretary Kathy Boockvar, USPS general counsel Thomas Marshall described the "risk that ballots requested near the deadline under state law will not be returned by mail in time to be counted under your laws as we understand them," NBC News reports.
The USPS also described Pennsylvania's current deadlines as "incongruous with the Postal Service's delivery standards," per Axios. Voters in the swing state can request a mail-in ballot up to Oct. 27, and they have to be received by 8:00 p.m. on Election Day, according to The Hill.
But officials in the state are looking to extend the deadline to receive mail-in ballots three days, with Boockvar raising concern in a court filing that "voters who apply for mail-in ballots in the last week of the application period and return their completed ballot by mail will, through no fault of their own, likely be disenfranchised," CNN reports.
The warning in Pennsylvania came just after President Trump in an interview cited his desire to prevent universal mail-in voting this November, noting that if the Postal Service doesn't get the funding that Democrats are seeking, "that means you can't have universal mail-in voting, because they're not equipped to have it." Brendan Morrow
Newly installed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy met with President Trump in the Oval Office last week, before a contentious meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) about his controversial new policies at the U.S. Postal Service, The Washington Post reports. A few days later, DeJoy removed several top USPS officials, including two that oversaw day-to-day operations, and postal employees are now warning about the unexplained removal of vote-sorting machines.
Trump spokesman Judd Deere told the Post the Oval Office meeting was "congratulatory," because DeJoy took over the post on June 15, though "he declined to offer any other details." The measures enacted by DeJoy, a billionaire donor to Trump and other Republicans with significant financial interests in USPS competitors and contractors, have slowed mail delivery — a temporary "unintended consequences" of his cost-cutting measures, he told postal workers in a letter Thursday. DeJoy is also "in frequent contact with top Republican Party officials," the Post reports.
The reliability of the USPS is now an overtly political issue after Trump directly tied funding for the independent agency to his opposition to mail-in voting during the 2020 election. Democrats, who have insisted at least $10 billion be given to the USPS as part of a COVID-19 deal, "need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots," Trump told Fox Business on Thursday morning. "If they don't get those two items, that means you can't have universal mail-in voting because they're not equipped to have it." Trump later suggested he was using USPS funding as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Pelosi and Schumer.
USPS officials have repeatedly said the post office can handle the expected surge in mail-in ballots, The New York Times notes.
Trump has claimed baselessly and frequently that widespread mail-in voting will lead to significant fraud, and the Republican National Committee and conservative groups are spending tens of millions of dollars to fight mail-in voting expansion, before and after the election, the Post reports. "The president is afraid of the American people," Pelosi argued. "He's been afraid for a while, he knows that on the legit, it'd be hard for him to win, so he wants to put obstacles of participation." Peter Weber
"Symptoms of anxiety disorder and depressive disorder increased considerably in the United States during April–June of 2020, compared with the same period in 2019," the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in a report released Friday. Just over 40 percent of respondents in a June 24-30 survey reported at least one adverse mental or behavioral health condition, ranging from anxiety disorder to increased substance use to cope with the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic.
And 10.7 percent of respondents reported having seriously considered suicide over the previous 30 days because of the pandemic. That's a high number, but it was especially prevalent among certain groups.
For example, 25.5 percent of young adults age 18 to 24 said they had considered suicide in June, versus 16 percent of respondents age 25-44 and 3.8 percent of those 45 to 64. Other groups with high rates of suicidal ideation included essential workers (21.7 percent), people with less than a high school diploma (30 percent), Black (15.1 percent) and Hispanic (18.6 percent) respondents — 7.9 percent of white respondents said they had considered suicide — and unpaid adult caregivers (32.9 percent). Men (12.6 percent) were more likely to have considered suicide than women (8.9 percent).
"Community-level intervention and prevention efforts, including health communication strategies, designed to reach these groups could help address various mental health conditions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic," the CDC suggested. The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, for those needing help, is 1-800-273-8255. Peter Weber