Daily Beast

Trump thought it was a good idea for Hannity to explore legal action against the news outlet for its critical coverage of how Fox News handled the coronavirus crisis.

Asawin Suebsaeng
Maxwell Tani
Lachlan Cartwright
Updated Apr. 29, 2020 5:25PM ET / Published Apr. 29, 2020 5:09PM ET

Over the past month, as Fox News personality Sean Hannity seethed over his—and his network’s—treatment in The New York Times, one of the host’s closest friends quietly encouraged him to exact some revenge on the newspaper for reporting that Hannity had downplayed the threat of the coronavirus.

This particular friend was none other than President Donald Trump, who at the time was busy overseeing the federal response to the pandemic and resulting U.S. economic implosion, as his reelection campaign was also filing lawsuits against various local and national media outlets.

According to two people familiar with the matter, Trump had privately gossiped with Hannity—a prominent informal adviser to this president and one of Trump’s preferred late-night phone buddies—about the Fox host’s desire to make an example of the Times. Though President Trump thought it was a good idea for Hannity to explore legal action against the news outlet, one of the two sources stressed that it “wasn’t the president’s idea” for Hannity and his attorney to shoot off a threatening letter to the Times. Trump did not order or direct Hannity to do so, this source said.

snip

Daily Beast

Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi are making some wild claims about coronavirus fatality rates. It’s made them media stars. But actual doctors are appalled.

Will Sommer
Updated Apr. 29, 2020 5:00AM ET / Published Apr. 29, 2020 4:47AM ET

Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi co-own a chain of urgent-care clinics. They don’t appear to have any significant epidemiological experience. And their claims about coronavirus have been widely debunked by experts, including a national physician and emergency-care group that issued a joint statement “emphatically” condemning their “reckless and untested musings.”

Nevertheless, the two California doctors have managed to become rising stars on Fox News for downplaying COVID-19’s severity. And they recently garnered another round of news coverage after inviting local media outlets to their office last week with an announcement that they had research that proved it was time to end the state’s shelter-in-place order.

“Do we need to shelter in place?” Erickson said. “Our answer is emphatically no. Do we need businesses to be shut down? Emphatically no.”

snip

Daily Beast

Sacramento’s Black Lives Matter chapter said there is “not one reason that validates a full-size armed man, to sit on, punch, and try and break the arms of a child.”

Pilar Melendez
Reporter
Updated Apr. 29, 2020 12:51PM ET / Published Apr. 29, 2020 12:17PM ET

A California deputy is under investigation after a disturbing viral video showed him punching and choking a teenage boy during an arrest, authorities said.

The Rancho Cordova Police Department and the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office announced an “investigation into the use of force by our deputy” after a video of the April 27 incident posted on Twitter on Tuesday received more than two million views and was shared by former Democratic presidential candidates Julian Castro and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA).

“This is a horrific abuse of power,” Harris tweeted. “This officer must be held accountable.”

snip

Politico

By CHARLIE COOPER

04/28/2020 10:57 PM EDT

It took the coronavirus three months to change the world. And it’s only just getting started.

As Europe begins to emerge from the awful first wave of the pandemic — and absorbs the shock of a Continental death toll that has exceeded 100,000 — the fire-fighting stage of the crisis appears to be coming to an end.

Next up? A long, slow march to a vaccine. A successful candidate, reproduced several billion times over and distributed to everyone in the world who needs it, is — at best — anywhere between nine and 18 months away, according to most experts.

With social distancing here to stay for the foreseeable future, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the next stage of the pandemic is going to change many lives for the worse.

Specifically, it’s going to exasperate existing inequalities, as the privileged buffer themselves against its pernicious effects while the world’s most vulnerable struggle not to fall through the rapidly widening economic fissures.

snip

Daily Beast

They understand the state of the crisis and the stakes. They just don’t seem to care, so long as those deaths are slow enough that they don’t get in the way of November.

Rick Wilson
Editor-At-Large
Updated Apr. 28, 2020 10:57PM ET / Published Apr. 28, 2020 8:56PM ET

Sometimes, people are so deep in their bullshit they can’t be retrieved with a tow strap and a Ford F-450.

So it is with the Republican members of the United States Senate. I’ve exhausted all my previous analytical tools in trying to explain the power Donald Trump has over them, but the last few days of this crisis have been a hell of a lesson in how supine and cowardly they’ve become.

Trump’s pronunciamientos over the desirability of bleach, disinfectants, and UV light as treatments for COVID-19, his lies about testing, and his shitter-tweeted rage fits at the “Noble Prize” media? All greeted with a wall of silence from Republican senators, even as their grip on power weakens each time Trump humiliates himself and endangers the American people.

snip

Politico

This is the moment for Medicare for All—without forcing anyone off their private insurance.

By SEN. BERNIE SANDERS

04/28/2020 11:30 AM EDT

As the coronavirus continues to spread, and the United States climbs closer to 1 million cases and nearly 60,000 deaths, we face an unprecedented economic and health care crisis that demands an unprecedented response. While we work towards an economic solution that keeps people on the payroll, Washington is also in the midst of a crucial argument over how to help cover the costs of testing, treatment and all other essential care for the millions of people who are now uninsured or soon will be as the country faces record levels of job loss. This pandemic makes even more clear that we are all only as safe as the least-insured in our country.

Last week, the White House said it would give an unspecified amount of federal aid directly to hospitals to cover the costs of treating uninsured Covid patients, but details have not been released, and the proposal leaves out all non-Covid—but still crucial—medical care. The week before, a handful of Democrats proposed spending hundreds of billions of dollars on expanding subsidies for COBRA—the program that allows those who have lost their jobs to continue, on a temporary basis, paying out-of-pocket for the health insurance coverage they received from their previous employer.

snip

Daily Beast

Canadian authorities said Monday that Gabriel Wortman “targeted” some of his victims, while others were killed at random.

Pilar Melendez
Reporter

A Canadian denturist who murdered at least 19 people during a 12-hour rampage in Nova Scotia over the weekend killed his ex and her new boyfriend first and then later executed a married couple in front of their children, according to authorities and local media reports.

Gabriel Wortman, a 51-year-old with a life-long obsession with law enforcement, killed “at least 19” people across 55 miles before dying in a Sunday night shootout with police, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said. The slayings, which Wortman carried out in a police uniform and with two decommissioned RCMP cruisers, occurred at over a dozen crime scenes.

Authorities believe the death toll will continue to rise, as Wortman also burned several homes during his murder spree.

“His ability to move around was certainly aided by the fact he had what looked like a police vehicle and that he was wearing a police uniform,” Royal Canadian Mounted Police Chief Superintendent Chris Leather said in a Monday press conference. The attack is considered the largest mass shooting in Canadian history.

snip

Politico

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf’s approach to the coronavirus crisis makes him an outlier among his big-state Democratic colleagues.

By HOLLY OTTERBEIN

04/18/2020 07:00 AM EDT

PHILADELPHIA — Across the country, Democratic governors battling coronavirus have bashed President Donald Trump for botching the federal response, upstaged him on television, and even trolled him by proudly reappropriating his derogatory nicknames.

In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf is following a different approach.

The soft-spoken Democrat rarely does national TV. His news conferences don’t regularly air on cable news like New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s. Sometimes, he even praises Vice President Mike Pence.

“They’ve done pretty well,” Wolf said in an interview with POLITICO. “We needed additional N95 masks and I had a couple conversations with the vice president and he actually made it happen.”

It’s a leadership model that has left some Democrats quietly wishing he were a more prominent figure — and a more critical voice — during the crisis. But as the governor of a big battleground state that Trump carried in 2016, Wolf isn’t afforded the same luxuries as his blue-state colleagues.

snip