National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien tested positive for coronavirus, Bloomberg reported and an administration official later confirmed to Politico.
O'Brien is the highest ranking White House official and the closest to President Trump known to test positive for the virus. He reportedly came down with the virus after a family event and has been working at home since late last week. He had recently been in Europe, meeting with officials in the U.K., France, Germany, and Italy, CNN notes.
O'Brien, senior National Security Council staff, and other people close to Trump are tested daily for COVID-19. The U.S. has so far seen 4 million of the world's 16 million coronavirus cases and about 149,000 of its nearly 650,000 deaths. Kathryn Krawczyk
College football has fractured into at least two camps, with the Big Ten and Pac-12 canceling their fall seasons due to COVID-19 on Tuesday and the other three Power Five conferences — the SEC, Big 12, and ACC — confirming Wednesday that they will try to plow ahead with their truncated schedules. At least two smaller conferences have also scrapped their seasons and as of now, 53 of America's 130 Football Bowl Subdivision teams will sit this autumn out.
Fans are despondent, and "the loss of college football will have a crushing impact on bars, restaurants, and other businesses that rely on football fans," The Associated Press notes.
Ohio State devotee Jeff Hewitt, a Democratic strategist in Texas, called Politico's Renuka Rayasam with a theory, she wrote Tuesday night: "If college football gets canceled in the Midwest it would cost Trump the presidency. I laughed, but Hewitt was serious." And he's not alone. The Big Ten conference covers seven key battleground states with massively popular college football teams, and Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray told The New York Times the loss of their Saturday fix could push Republican voters away from Trump, especially the tiny sliver of undecideds. "It's just one of those markers that reminds people of how much has been disrupted in their life," he said.
Politics is simply "not as important as college football in Ohio, in Georgia, in Alabama," ESPN college football radio host Paul Finebaum tells the Times. "And without it, people will be lost and people will be angry." He said he has strained to keep politics out of his program this summer, but "we don't have a day that doesn't pass where someone doesn't call up and blame the president. Even from the South, I've heard more anger directed at the president than I thought."
Some Republican operatives said Trump will be insulated from the anger because he has publicly urged colleges to play football and even called up some players and coaches to enlist their help salvaging the season. But the loss of college football on Saturdays feels like "yet another piece of fabric was being torn from American life," the Times notes, and especially in the rural areas of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio where Trump's support runs deepest, "losing football may be a political stain that the president is unable to blame on his enemies in the Democratic Party or on the media." Peter Weber
President Trump has been notably vague about his plans for a potential second term, but he has recently proffered one idea: tax cuts. Specifically, taxes on capital gains, income taxes, and the payroll taxes used to fund Social Security and Medicare. Trump signed an executive order Sunday directing the Treasury Department to defer payroll taxes from Sept. 1 until the end of the year, leaving workers to pay the money back later.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, generally a Trump ally on tax cuts, has some serious concerns.
Trump has pitched the payroll tax deferral as a boost to the economy before the November election, but the Chamber asked Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in a letter Wednesday if it would be optional, whether businesses will be liable for repaying the deferred taxes, and how the White House expects the deferred withholdings to help the economy. Trump's order is "surrounded by uncertainty as to its application and implementation" and "only exacerbates the challenges" companies face, the Chamber said. "As American employers, workers, and families work to navigate the COVID-19 crisis they need clarity not more confusion," the business group added in a statement.
Trump touted his executive order in a news conference Wednesday evening, saying he would make the payroll tax holiday permanent if re-elected — something that would require an act of Congress, where there is little appetite for the idea in either party. Asked how he planned to finance Social Security and Medicare without the payroll tax, Trump suggested "we're taking it out of the general fund" and then claimed it wouldn't further blow up the ballooning budget deficit because "we're going to have tremendous growth."
Trump issued the payroll tax order and other executive actions rather than reaching a deal with congressional Democrats on a new bill to shore up the coronavirus-addled economy and individual Americans. Negotiations resumed Wednesday and then quickly died, each side blaming the other.
Meanwhile, "Trump's advisers have sought legal guidance from White House lawyers about whether the president has the authority to eliminate certain taxes, including income and business taxes, without the approval of Congress," The New York Times reports. "The legality of such a move is dubious," because the Constitution gives Congress the sole power to set tax policy, but "the executive branch does have wide latitude" regarding tax collection, and "Trump has not been shy about pushing the boundaries of his authority." Peter Weber
Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) is an early success as presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's running mate, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds. Indian Americans are thrilled to have someone of Indian descent on a major party ticket, Black women are similarly excited, and even progressive groups and activists who were hoping Biden would pick someone more to the left expressed support for Harris on the ticket.
They aren't alone. Nearly 90 percent of Democrats approve of Harris as Biden's running mate, and she is more popular than Biden among younger voters, women, and Republicans, Reuters found in its poll, conducted Tuesday and Wednesday. Sixty percent of Americans, including 37 percent of Republicans and 87 percent of Democrats, agreed that choosing Harris for a major party ticket is a "major milestone" for the U.S. She is viewed favorably by 56 percent of Americans overall — about the same as Biden — including 60 percent of women, 62 percent of U.S. adults under 35, and 25 percent of Republicans.
President Trump's favorability rating lags at 42 percent in the Reuters/Ipsos poll, and Vice President Mike Pence sits a little higher, at 47 percent.
The popularity of the Harris pick did not translate into much of an electoral boost for Biden, though. He gained 1 percentage point over Trump since the previous Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted Monday and Tuesday. The Biden-Harris ticket now has an 8 point lead over Trump-Pence, 46 percent to 38 percent, according to the new poll, conducted online in English with 1,000 adults participating. The poll's credibility interval is about 3 percentage points. Peter Weber
Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Bob Woodward's new book about President Trump now has a name: Rage.
Rage is scheduled for release on Sept. 15, and people familiar with the book's contents told CNN it goes into detail about how Trump makes decisions and his thoughts on the coronavirus pandemic, national security, and the Black Lives Matter protests.
Rage will be published by Simon & Schuster, the same company behind recent tell-alls by former National Security Adviser John Bolton and the president's niece, Mary Trump. CEO Jonathan Karp told CNN Rage is "the most important book Simon & Schuster will publish this year. Every voter should read it before Nov. 3."
In January, Trump announced that he sat down with Woodward for the book; he ignored earlier interview requests from Woodward when the author was working on his 2018 tome, Fear, and criticized the book after it was published. CNN reports that Woodward recorded hundreds of hours of interviews with Trump and other people close to him and the White House, and also obtained "notes, emails, diaries, calendars, and confidential documents," including 25 personal letters between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
A person familiar with the letters called them "extraordinary," and Simon & Schuster revealed that in one of them, "Kim describes the bond between the two leaders as out of a 'fantasy film.'" Catherine Garcia
Millie, a Jack Russell Terrier, has a second chance at life, thanks to the firefighter who saved her last month.
On July 28, a crew was called to an apartment fire in Newham, a London borough. Paramedics were already outside the building treating a woman, who told the firefighters her dog, Millie, was still somewhere inside.
Lead firefighter Jamie Trew spotted Millie under a bed. She looked lifeless, and he quickly administered oxygen. After 10 minutes, Millie "showed signs of life and she eventually regained consciousness enough to start walking and was taken to a local emergency vet," station officer Dean Ivil told BBC News. Millie's owner is still recovering, and for now, the dog is "happily" being fostered by Trew.
"It's a lovely ending for what could have been a tragic story," Ivil said. "If her owner decides it's best, Millie has a forever home with Jamie and his family." Catherine Garcia