Naomi Osaka Wins Her Second U.S. Open and Sends a Resounding Message That She Stands for Black Lives

Twenty-two year old tennis phenomenon Naomi Osaka won the U.S. Open tournament at Arthur Ashe Stadium in NYC on Saturday, netting her second U.S. Open title and her third Grand Slam win overall.

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Trump team says history will vindicate him on coronavirus

President Donald Trump’s allies on Sunday blamed anybody but him for his handling of the deadly virus that has killed more than 193,000 Americans.

In interviews across the morning political talk shows, Trump officials portrayed the president as a calm leader throughout the pandemic and singled out China, corporate media — including CNN and Jake Tapper, specifically — and Democrats for lying and politicizing the coronavirus.

The chair of the Republican National Committee and Trump advisers were asked about last week’s revelation that the president told The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward in February and March that the virus was deadlier than the flu and that he downplayed it publicly to avoid causing panic — something Trump continued to do well after his Woodward interviews.

RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said the president has been calm, steady and methodical throughout this crisis, comparing his leadership throughout the pandemic to President George W. Bush’s in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

“Think of what would have happened if he’d have gone out and said: ‘This is awful. We should all be afraid. We don’t have a plan,’” McDaniel told host Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “The president was calm and steady in a time of unrest and uncertainty. And I think history will look back on him well as how he handled this pandemic.”

The only difference between the responses to the coronavirus and 9/11, McDaniel added, is, “Democrats are politicizing it because we have an election instead of saying, ‘Let’s work with you, Mr. President, and make sure we’re all fighting a virus like we’ve never seen together.’”

Critics of Trump have cited the discrepancy between what he was saying to Woodward and what he was saying publicly as evidence that the president has badly mishandled the pandemic. But Steve Cortes, a Trump campaign senior adviser, said Sunday that the president’s recorded calls with Woodward reveal “an exemplary record of crisis management.”

“Unfortunately, corporate media has been relatively successful at pushing out a myth that the president mishandled the virus,” Cortes told host Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday.”

Cortes called the Chinese Communist Party — “not Donald Trump, not the Democrats, no American,” he said — the “ultimate culprit” for lying to the world about the virus early on and failing to contain it to Wuhan, where it originated in China. And he said the president’s constant fear-mongering about the dangers of a Joe Biden administration is “legitimate.”

“What is not helpful is to tell the American people that this virus is out of control,” he argued. “The president’s job in a time of crisis is partly to be reassuring to the American people, to convince them that we can and will persevere through this epidemiological Pearl Harbor, and that’s what he did. He was reassuring to the American people at the same time he was taking decisive action. He didn’t just offer flowery phrases and then sit back.”

Facing questions about their own candidate’s response to the virus, Biden advisers insisted their candidate wasn’t privy to the same information the president was.

“In January and February, Joe Biden was not being briefed by national security experts who warned him how deadly the virus was,” Biden campaign senior adviser Symone Sanders told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week.” “In January and February, Joe Biden did not have the knowledge that President Trump did.”

“But I will tell you that if Joe Biden were president in January or February, he would have taken proper precautions,” she continued. “He would have warned the American people. He would have told folks to social distance. He would model good behavior and wear a mask.”

Jake Sullivan, a Biden campaign senior policy adviser, echoed that message on “Fox News Sunday,” contending that Biden continued to hold large rallies until March “because he wasn’t the president, and he didn’t get the information from government experts telling him this was deadly and airborne the way President Trump did.”

“He wasn’t being told by his national security adviser the way that Donald Trump was that this was going to be the worst crisis of his presidency,” Sullivan added. “He didn’t have access to the kind of information that Donald Trump had, and Donald Trump got all that information … and then lied to the American people and did nothing about it. That is the difference in the record between Donald Trump and Joe Biden in this regard.”

Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb also cited a general lack of information as being a big problem in the early months of pandemic, saying it afflicted all levels of government.

“The public messaging wasn’t clear and consistent in the outset and could have been better at all levels of government,” he said on CBS‘ “Face the Nation. “I think if you look back in February, and I think when history looks back, the biggest failing over that month was that we were — we were situationally blind. We had no idea where this virus was and wasn’'t spreading.“

Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller said on “This Week” that Trump is “not at all” still downplaying the virus, and White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told host Jake Tapper in a contentious interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Trump was right to play it calm and that he was straightforward with the American people.

Tapper repeatedly told Navarro he wasn’t answering his question, while Navarro accused him of cherry-picking facts.

“In February, nobody knew,” Navarro falsely claimed. “No, nobody knew. Not the president, not you, not [House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi, not [New York Mayor] Bill de Blasio.”

“He knew it was deadlier than the flu, and he was lying to the American public two weeks later,” Tapper said of the president. “He was not honest with the American people. You’re not answering the question.”

“You’re wrong,” Navarro shot back. “You’re not honest with the American people. CNN is not honest with the American people.”

The network cut Navarro’s feed from outside the White House shortly after as Tapper closed that segment.

“I would just like to remind the American people watching that the United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population, and the United States has more than 20 percent of the world’s coronavirus deaths,” Tapper said. “That is a fact. It does not matter how many times he insults CNN.”

Trump himself weighed in later Sunday morning with his own coronavirus facts.

“Deaths and hospitalizations way down, and even cases down despite far more Testing than any other country in the World, by far,” he tweeted.

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Pompeo to resume 'Madison Dinners' despite controversy

They’ve been criticized by Democrats as a questionable use of taxpayer dollars, upset State Department employees skeptical of their diplomatic value, and postponed for months due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is bringing back the Madison Dinners anyway.

The gatherings are set to resume with a dinner Monday and at least three more during September and October, two State Department officials told POLITICO. Prior to the pandemic shelving them this past spring, roughly two dozen such dinners had been held since Pompeo became secretary of State in April 2018.

It’s not clear who’s been invited to the upcoming dinners, which previously were not listed on Pompeo’s public schedule and thus largely unknown to the public. The current guest lists are being closely guarded by a small group of State Department officials as well as by Pompeo’s wife, Susan, who is deeply involved in organizing the dinners.

The Pompeos are currently under investigation by the State Department inspector general’s office over whether they used department resources for personal reasons. State Department legal advisers signed off on the dinners, but critics suspect the guest lists — which NBC News first reported included major GOP financiers and media luminaries— are designed to help Mike Pompeo build his political network and donor base ahead of potential future runs for office.

Asked for comment Sunday on the resumption of the dinners, the State Department’s public affairs office sent along the same statement it has been using for months to respond to inquiries on the topic.

In it, State spokesperson Morgan Ortagus defends the events as a way to promote the mission of the State Department among influential figures in the “finest tradition” of U.S. diplomacy. Ortagus also promises that the dinners would continue.
Mike Pompeo, meanwhile, has dismissed accusations of wrongdoing against him and his wife. His allies have argued that it’s perfectly normal — desirable, even — for a secretary of State to engage a variety of individuals in the department’s diplomatic work.

But the return of the dinners has led to some grumbling among State officials.

Although the dinners usually are intimate affairs, they require significant staffing, and department employees are worried about the public health implications given the Covid-19 crisis.

The pandemic has killed nearly 200,000 Americans, with hundreds still dying each day, but President Donald Trump and his aides have been downplaying the crisis ahead of November’s presidential election. The caseload has shrunk in Washington, D.C., but city rules still urge people to practice social distancing and mandate mask-wearing, including when inside a building open to the public.

It’s not clear whether those rules apply to federal facilities such as the State Department, whose workforce is still largely operating remotely.

Some State Department employees also said they still question the diplomatic value of the dinners. They noted that those held in the past included hardly any State Department officials beyond the secretary, and few foreign diplomats.

Instead, invitees were generally prominent figures from well beyond the foreign policy realm, including many from the corporate or entertainment and media worlds, as well as conservative lawmakers and thought leaders. (Robert Allbritton, the publisher and owner of POLITICO, attended a Madison Dinner.)

One State Department official called the return of the dinners “frustrating.”

“Dozens of department employees who support these dinners, from security officers to catering staff who prepare the food, facilities management and protocol staff, do not have the option to work these events remotely or turn down an assignment,” the official said.

At least two of the upcoming dinners will be held during the main week of the United Nations General Assembly, although that gathering is largely virtual this year. Those dinners are planned for Sept. 23 and Sept. 24.

Monday’s dinner comes as Bahraini, United Arab Emirates and Israeli officials are heading to Washington for a White House ceremony recognizing the two Arab countries’ decision to normalize relations with Israel. It’s not clear, however, whether any of those foreign officials have been invited to a Madison Dinner.

A fourth such dinner may take place on Oct. 20, the two State Department officials said.

The dinners usually have been held in the State Department’s swanky diplomatic reception rooms, in particular one named after James Madison.

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United CEO sees low air travel until a widely available vaccine

United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said on Sunday that, while he believes it’s safe to fly now, he doesn't see air travel returning to pre-pandemic levels until a coronavirus vaccine is developed and widely distributed.

“Our view is, demand is not coming back, people are not going to get back and travel like they did before until there is a vaccine that’s been widely distributed and available to a large portion of the population,” Kirby said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “I hope that happens sooner, but our guess is that's the end of next year.”

Airlines have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic, which has decimated demand for both leisure and business travel amid safety concerns and as other countries bar American travelers. Specifically, Kirby touted United’s partnership with cleaning products firm Clorox and studies the company is conducting on air filtration in its airliner cabins.

Some sectors of the economy may be able to bounce back before a coronavirus vaccine is widely distributed, Kirby said, but the aviation industry is not one of them. Without an extension of funds for airlines in March’s CARES Act by Oct. 1, Kirby predicted about 16,000 layoffs at his company.

The airline chief said international travel, which represents half of United’s revenue, was still badly lagging and that business travel was almost nonexistent.

“In a business like ours, demand is not going to come back until people feel safe being around other people, and that's going to take a vaccine,” Kirby said.

Appearing separately Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," infectious disease expert Michael Osterholm, asked to explain recent comments by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci that Americans would need to “hunker down” in the coming months, predicted it would take months of vaccine distribution to have a meaningful effect on the American population.

“When the vaccine does become available, it won't be in any meaningful way until the beginning of next year, and then it's still going to take us months to vaccinate the population of just this country,” said Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

“We really have another 12 to 14 months of a really hard road ahead of us,” he added.

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Trump’s Nevada rally was an exercise in delegitimizing voting — and denying reality

US President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a campaign rally at the Minden-Tahoe airport in Minden (50miles/80km south of Reno), Nevada on September 12, 2020. | BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

Trump keeps holding probable superspreader events in the middle of a pandemic.

President Donald Trump traveled to Minden, Nevada — a town about 50 miles south of Reno — for a rambling, grievance-filled campaign rally on Saturday.

Over the course of a 90-minute speech, Trump attacked mail-in voting, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, and Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak, while lamenting his press coverage, long drives, and the fact he was not able to have Air Force One behind him as he spoke. He also once again suggested that he should be allowed to serve more than two terms in office, which would be unconstitutional.

Notably absent from his speech was anything approaching a cohesive second-term agenda or a policy platform. What little policy his speech did contain was delivered suggestively, in the context of what the president is against, including limiting fracking and teaching children “poisonous anti-American lies in school.” Far more of Trump’s remarks focused on attempts to demean his opponents and preemptively cast doubt on an election that national polls show him trailing in.

Trump has spent much of the summer searching for an attack that will stick to Biden — that he’s senile; he’s a puppet of the radical left; and that he’ll usher in the apocalypse — and all three messages were on display in abundance Saturday.

Biden, Trump claimed Saturday, is “unable,” a “pathetic human being,” and suggested that his physical and mental condition are such that he “doesn’t know he’s alive.” The president worked to assert vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris is the actual driver of Biden’s policy, incorrectly calling her to the left of Sen. Bernie Sanders, and telling supporters that if Biden were to win, Harris would become president “in about a month.” Later in the speech, Trump also told supporters that a Biden victory would “permanently destroy the lives and dreams of tens of millions of Americans ... and lead [to] countless deaths from suicide.”

Trump, slurring, calls Joe Biden "a pathetic human being." If a guy sounding like this approached you on the other street, you'd run the other way. pic.twitter.com/cIcnxolFGQ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 13, 2020

It isn’t clear that these sorts of attacks have changed public opinion; many polls have found that most Americans believe Biden is the stronger candidate on public safety, and a new Fox News poll recently found more voters see Biden as “mentally sound” than the president.

Trump wants to delegitimize the November election

Trump devoted a great deal of time Saturday to going after the legitimacy of the November election, telling supporters that “we have a rigged election. It’s a rigged election.”

"We have a rigged election. It's a rigged election" -- Trump plants the seeds for challenging the results of November's election pic.twitter.com/iTsOSPAweG

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 13, 2020

It’s not a new talking point for Trump, who has already mounted a sustained campaign against mail-in voting and the US Postal Service — and who continues to allege that there was widespread voter fraud in the 2016 election, when there was not.

But in an election where as many as six in 10 Americans say they plan to vote early and a historic number of ballots are likely to be cast by mail, such rhetoric takes on a dangerous new dimension. There’s a fair chance we won’t know who won on election night as ballots are counted — many states accept ballots postmarked on Election Day for days afterward — and Trump is already sending up a signal that he plans to dispute the results or even prematurely claim victory on Election Day if early returns show him ahead.

“The only way we’re tied is if they screw around with the ballots, which they will do in my opinion,” Trump said Saturday.

In anticipation of a candidate announcing they have won before ballots are all counted, Facebook and Twitter have announced new policies prohibiting candidates from “claiming victory before election results have been certified.”

Trump also suggested Saturday that his supporters should turn out as poll watchers, “because with you people watching the polls it’s going to be pretty hard to cheat. I’ll tell you, I wouldn’t want to be a cheater.”

"I hope you're all going to be poll watchers, because with you people watching the polls it's going to be pretty hard to cheat. I'll tell you, I wouldn't want to be a cheater" -- Trump pic.twitter.com/zihzzgx6LI

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 13, 2020

The suggestion is a concerning one, however. There is a history of GOP poll watchers engaging in voter intimidation — one that led to a since-expired federal consent decree curbing such activity. With instances of armed Trump supporters engaging in pseudo-law enforcement vigilantism, there’s reason for concern that poll watching could lead to further voter intimidation in November.

Trump is still pretending Covid-19 doesn’t exist

In addition to his attacks on voting, Trump used his rally to hold forth on the merits of his coronavirus response.

“We’re at like, around 180,000 [deaths],” he told rallygoers Saturday. “We’ve done an incredible job.”

"We're at like, around 180,000 ... we've done an incredible job" -- Trump undercounts the US coronavirus death toll by about 15,000 human beings pic.twitter.com/VNFwf4XbII

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 13, 2020

In reality, more than 193,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the US, and the US response has been uniquely poor compared to other nations. On Friday alone — the first day in more than five months that Canada reported zero Covid-19 deaths — more than 1,000 Americans died.

As evidenced by Saturday’s unmasked and undistanced crowd, though, the Trump campaign has by and large decided to move on from the coronavirus, even as the US death toll continues to climb. A gathering the size of the president’s rally flies in the face of virtually every pandemic best practice under the sun, and, in fact, Trump’s event was shunted from the Reno airport to neighboring Minden after Reno officials refused to allow the rally to be held for public health reasons.

As Vox’s Aaron Rupar wrote after a similar Trump rally in North Carolina last week, the president’s insistence on holding rallies reflects an unwillingness to learn from past mistakes that borders on callousness:

The recent batch of Trump rallies were the first since June 20, when he held one at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that ended up being a disaster. The Trump campaign’s decision to ignore warnings from public health experts likely fueled a spike in coronavirus cases in the area.

“In the past few days, we’ve seen almost 500 new cases, and we had several large events just over two weeks ago, so I guess we just connect the dots,” Tulsa City/County Health Department Director Dr. Bruce Dart said days after the rally, according to the Associated Press.

Herman Cain, a prominent Trump supporter who was photographed at the rally without a mask, contracted Covid-19 after the rally and died.

In short, between spinning a fictional narrative on the pandemic, eroding trust in voting, and his personal attacks on Biden, Trump spent a disparate amount of time Saturday constructing an alternate reality for himself and his supporters. It wasn’t a policy speech — it was barely even a reelection message — but it was pure, unfiltered Trump.

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