October 26, 2019

Financial anxiety is creeping into former Vice President Joe Biden's Democratic presidential campaign, The New York Times reports.

In a confidential memo this week, Biden's campaign manager Greg Schultz, asked top donors to "dig deep" to help alleviate some of the struggles. The Biden campaign is spending more than it's taking in and only has $9 million in cash on hand, which pales in comparison to Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), and even trails South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.). One of the cost-cutting solutions being considered is to have campaign staffers sleep at the homes of volunteers.

In the same memo Schultz ultimately dismissed concerns and assured donors the campaign "will have the resources we need to execute our plan." But it's not clear if Biden's supporters feel the same way. Bradley Tusk, who served as a re-election campaign manager for former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, hosted a fundraiser Monday for Buttigieg, and he told the Times the crowd was filled with "a lot of those people you would have thought would be Biden people. And they weren't." Tusk said the "feeling in the room was that Biden has already lost."

It can't be said for certain whether that was an accurate read of the room, but it does fall in line with the perception that Buttigieg is looking to snag the moderate Democratic vote from Biden. Still, not everyone's worried. "Any other candidate, it might concern you," Texas Biden bundler Mike Collier said of the campaign's financial situation. "But with someone like Joe, I'm not anywhere near as concerned." Read more at The New York Times. Tim O'Donnell

5:29 p.m.

Somehow, Boba Fett returned.

The second season of the Disney+ Star Wars show The Mandalorian will reportedly feature the return of Boba Fett, who will be played by Temuera Morrison, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Boba Fett, for those keeping track at home, seemingly died when he fell into the Sarlacc pit in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, though fans have long speculated that he'd claw his way out in time to appear in The Mandalorian, which takes place afterward. The show revolves around a Mandalorian bounty hunter, and Boba Fett is also a bounty hunter who wears Mandalorian armor, though he isn't from Mandalore. He's a clone of Jango Fett, who Morrison played in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones.

Boba Fett's role in the season will be minor, according to the Reporter, and the show may have already secretly introduced him. A season one episode of The Mandalorian featured a brief glimpse at a mysterious character with spurs whose face we don't see, and the Reporter describes this as a tease of Boba, as some fans speculated at the time. Boba Fett previously escaped his apparent death in the old Star Wars expanded universe, but those stories are no longer canon.

After Emperor Palpatine's return in December's Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, this will also be the second time within the span of 12 months that Star Wars has brought back a character who apparently died in Return of the Jedi. No one's ever really gone, indeed. Brendan Morrow

4:39 p.m.

A good way to get people to take social distancing seriously is to send a horrifying robot dog to yell at them. At least, that's the thinking in Singapore, where a four-legged robot innocuously named "Spot" is patrolling the grounds of Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park to remind people to keep six feet apart, The Straits Times reports.

For now, the pilot program only involves broadcasting a recorded message about proper protocol in public spaces during the pandemic, although the robot is also fitted with cameras that will also help authorities keep track of potential crowding (the cameras are apparently not collecting personal data, nor will they be able to recognize or track people). If the trial is successful, more robocops will be rolled out to enforce social distancing measures in public spaces.

The robot may be familiar to Americans who enjoy watching dystopic YouTube videos, given that Spot was developed by Boston Dynamics, which often publishes viral footage of its inventions going for jogs or slipping on banana peels or resisting their puny human overlords.

On the one hand, Singapore's robot could have the counterproductive result of attracting a bunch of people to gawk at it and take pictures. Then again, if you are being yelled at by a yellow mechanical canine, it's probably best to listen. Jeva Lange

4:37 p.m.

The Office of Special Counsel is recommending that ousted vaccine official Dr. Rick Bright be reinstated while it investigates his case, his lawyers announced Friday.

Bright while leading coronavirus vaccine development was recently removed from his position as the director of the Department of Health and Human Services' Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, and he alleges it was because he insisted congressional funding not go toward "drugs, vaccines, and other technologies that lack scientific merit" and limited the "broad use" of hydroxychloroquine after it was touted by President Trump. In a whistleblower complaint, he alleged "cronyism" at HHS. He has also alleged he was "pressured to ignore or dismiss expert scientific recommendations and instead to award lucrative contracts based on political connections."

On Friday, Bright's lawyers said that the Office of Special Counsel has determined there are "reasonable grounds to believe" his firing was retaliation, The New York Times reports. The federal watchdog also recommended he be reinstated for 45 days to give the office "sufficient time to complete its investigation of Bright's allegations," CNN reports. The decision on whether to do so falls on Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, and Office of Special Counsel recommendations are "not binding," the Times notes. Brendan Morrow

3:41 p.m.

President Trump commemorated the 75th anniversary of VE Day on Friday with eight World War II veterans, the youngest of whom was 96 and the oldest of whom was 100, CBS News reports. The president, however, did not wear a mask around the veterans despite the CDC's warning that anyone over the age of 65 is at a higher risk for severe illness if they catch COVID-19.

Trump, notably, could have been exposed to the virus by one of his personal valets, who tested positive for COVID-19 this week and potentially wasn't wearing a mask when he interacted with the president. Asked if Trump gave "any consideration to wearing a mask" with the veterans "given that his valet just tested positive," White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Friday that Trump is "regularly tested." She added that the veterans "made the choice" to attend the ceremony "because they've chosen to put their nation first. They wanted to be with their commander-in-chief on this momentous day. And it was there choice to come here."

Antibody tests of the sort Trump is regularly taking are famously unreliable, and there is also the chance that if someone is just starting to get sick, their blood antibody levels might not yet be at a height detectable by a test.

Trump additionally addressed criticism about attending the event without a mask, CNN reports, with the president telling the press "I was very far away from [the veterans] … Plus the wind was blowing so hard in such a direction that if the plague ever reached them, I'd be very surprised." Jeva Lange

3:33 p.m.

The staffer of Vice President Mike Pence who tested positive for coronavirus is apparently his press secretary and the wife of White House senior adviser Stephen Miller.

Reports emerged on Friday that a member of Pence's staff had tested positive for COVID-19, creating a delay in his flight to Iowa amid concern over who may have been exposed. Later in the day, Trump said the staffer is a "press person" named Katie.

Politico reported he was referring to Katie Miller, Pence's press secretary and the wife of Stephen Miller. This report noted this raises the risk that "a large swath of the West Wing's senior aides may also have been exposed." She confirmed her positive diagnosis to NBC News, saying she does not have symptoms.

Trump spilled the beans to reporters, saying Katie Miller "hasn't come into contact with me" but has "spent some time with the vice president." This news comes one day after a personal valet to Trump tested positive for COVID-19, which reportedly made the president "lava level mad." Pence and Trump are being tested for COVID-19 every day.

Asked Friday if he's concerned about the potential spread of coronavirus in the White House, Trump said "I'm not worried, no," adding that "we've taken very strong precautions." Brendan Morrow

2:41 p.m.

Tonight's feature presentation: a Trump rally?

President Trump is hoping to continue holding political rallies during the coronavirus pandemic, and The Daily Beast reports his advisers are considering turning to drive-in movie theaters to allow him to do so.

Trump's aides and operatives have reportedly spent several weeks pitching ideas for socially-distanced versions of the large rallies the president loves, and "repurposing drive-ins for a political gathering" is reportedly one of the most popular ideas. "Attendees would roll up in their cars and be required to mostly remain in their respective vehicles as the president addressed them in-person from the outdoor stage," the report says.

Drive-in theaters have been experiencing something of a revival during the coronavirus crisis while major theater chains shutter, although the Beast notes there are only about 300 of them in the United States.

Trump said at a recent briefing that "I hope we can do rallies" again because "for me, it's a tremendous way of getting the word out," and his campaign last month said he's "looking forward to getting back out on the campaign trail and holding rallies." Health experts, however, have warned that large gatherings of this kind may not be safe until 2021.

Former Vice President Joe Biden in recent weeks has been holding virtual campaign rallies from his home, a fact Trump mocked him for on Friday, telling Fox & Friends he'd "love to see him get out of the basement so he can speak." Brendan Morrow

2:37 p.m.

President Trump's estimation of the U.S.'s eventual coronavirus death toll keeps growing, and so far, he maintains the country has made the right choices to mitigate it.

On Friday, Trump spoke at a meeting with Republican lawmakers about the growing coronavirus death toll, saying "so many people have died" but "that's the one thing we can't do anything about, unfortunately." "What I can say is if we did it a different way," perhaps by letting people go about their normal lives in hopes of building up herd immunity to COVID-19, "we would've been talking about numbers that would've been unsustainable," Trump continued. The ultimate death toll, Trump now posits, is "95,000 people" or "more than that."

That's one of the highest numbers of potential coronavirus deaths Trump has estimated so far. He suggested a few weeks ago that anywhere from 50-60,000 Americans would ultimately die, but those numbers were quickly surpassed, with 77,000 deaths reported as of Friday. Kathryn Krawczyk

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