White House Weighs Overhauling CDC As COVID Cases Surge Ahead Of Election

Politico: Trump Team Weighs A CDC Scrubbing To Deflect Mounting Criticism
White House officials are putting a target on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, positioning the agency as a coronavirus scapegoat as cases surge in many states and the U.S. falls behind other nations that are taming the pandemic. Trump administration aides in recent weeks have seriously discussed launching an in-depth evaluation of the agency to chart what they view as its missteps in responding to the pandemic including an early failure to deploy working test kits, according to four senior administration officials. Part of that audit would include examining more closely the state-by-state death toll to tally only the Americans who died directly of Covid-19 rather than other factors. About 120,000 people in the U.S. have died of the coronavirus so far, according to the CDC’s official count. (Cook and Cancryn, 6/23)

ProPublica: An Illustrated History Of Government Agencies Twisting The Truth To Align With White House Misinformation
It has become a familiar pattern: President Donald Trump says something that doesn’t line up with the facts held by scientists and other experts at government agencies. Then, instead of pushing back, federal officials scramble to reconcile the fiction with their own public statements. It happened in March, when Trump pushed his opinion that antimalarial drugs could treat COVID-19. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an unusual directive that lent credence to the president’s perspective: “Although optimal dosing and duration of hydroxychloroquine for treatment of COVID-19 are unknown, some U.S. clinicians have reported anecdotally” on specific dosages that the CDC then lists. (Umansky, 6/22)

The Washington Post: Trump Is Increasingly Preoccupied With Defending His Physical And Mental Health 
The early June meeting in the Cabinet Room was intended as a general update on President Trump’s reelection campaign, but the president had other topics on his mind. Trump had taken a cognitive screening test as part of his 2018 physical, and now, more than two years later, he brought up the 10-minute exam. He waxed on about how he’d dazzled the proctors with his stellar performance, according to two people familiar with his comments. He walked the room of about two dozen White House and reelection officials through some of the questions he said he’d aced, such as being able to repeat five words in order. (Parker and Dawsey, 6/22)

Politico: Trump’s 2020 Strategy: A Never-Ending War With States
In 2020, President Donald Trump has found reusable scapegoats for the parade of crises that have afflicted the country — governors. When the country faced a shortage of medical supplies during the coronavirus outbreak, Trump accused governors of being unprepared. When stay-at-home orders left millions unemployed and businesses tittering on the brink, Trump blamed governors for not letting Americans return to work. And when massive protests erupted against racial injustice, Trump said governors were siding with “antifia-led anarchists.” (Kumar, 6/23)

CNN: Trump's Pandemic Failing Is Now Directly Impacting His Campaign 
President Donald Trump is now paying a direct, personal price for his pandemic denial -- the possible shelving of the thing he cares about most, the raucous rallies that defined his political rise and are crucial to his reelection hopes. Trump spent the weekend seething about the disappointing crowd for his comeback event in Oklahoma on Saturday night, according to CNN reporting. His hopes of a full-time return to the campaign trail then took another blow with news that eight staffers and two Secret Service agents at the event are now positive for the coronavirus. (Collinson, 6/23)

The fallout from Trump's Tulsa rally continues as attention turns to Arizona, the site of his next campaign event —

The Associated Press: Trump Rally Size Raises Question About Risk In Age Of Virus
President Donald Trump’s paltry crowd for his weekend campaign rally in Oklahoma raises new questions about politics in the age of the coronavirus: Maybe pandemic-scarred Americans just aren’t ready to risk exposure for close-up engagement in the 2020 presidential election. Only about a third of seats in the 19,000-seat BOK Center were filled for the rally, despite boasts by Trump and his campaign team that they had received more than 1 million ticket requests. (Madhani, Lemire and Jaffe, 6/23)

The Associated Press: After Tulsa, Trump Heads To Virus Hotspot Arizona And Border
Regrouping after a humbling weekend rally, President Donald Trump faces another test of his ability to draw a crowd during a pandemic Tuesday as he visits Arizona and tries to remind voters of one of his key 2016 campaign promises. Trump’s weekend rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, had been meant to be a sign of the nation’s reopening and a show of political force but instead generated thousands of empty seats and swirling questions about the president’s campaign leadership and his case for another four years in office. (Lemire, 6/23)

NBC News: Trump Visit To Arizona Amid Coronavirus Surge Draws Concern
When President Donald Trump takes to a church podium Tuesday at a campaign event organized by Turning Point Action, the conservative advocacy group based here, he will be visiting a very different Arizona from the one he last traveled to just six weeks ago. This time around, the president is facing a spiking coronavirus pandemic that is ravaging the state with no signs of abating. (Hillyard and Farivar, 6/23)

ABC News: As Trump Visits Wall, Fears At The Border With Uptick In Coronavirus Cases 
As President Donald Trump plans to visit Arizona Tuesday to highlight his promised border wall project, he will be dropping into a region where there are growing fears that a novel coronavirus that respects no borders may be helping fuel fast-growing infection rates. The president is scheduled to hold a photo opportunity for the completion of the 200th mile of new border wall in Yuma, Ariz. Dave Nash, a spokesperson for the city, told ABC News that cases in Arizona are "going up like a hockey stick," rising alongside cases in Yuma itself, though he said he felt the county was prepared for uptick. (Kim, 6/23)

ABC News: Health Precautions A 'Game-Time Decision' For Trump’s Arizona Gathering, Organizers Say 
Organizers are expecting roughly 3,000 conservative activists to attend the event at a Phoenix megachurch. Attendees will be asked, but not required, to wear masks. "We are asking people to be responsible citizens, so while we won't tackle people in the pews if they aren't wearing [masks], we will be asking folks to be respectful of local ordinances and rules," Andrew Kolvet, a spokesman for the Students for Trump convention, told ABC News. (Steakin and Siegel, 6/23)

In other Trump administration news —

CNN: Geoffrey Berman Refused To Sign DOJ Letter Criticizing New York's Covid Restrictions 
Geoffrey Berman, the federal prosecutor ousted over the weekend by the Trump administration, recently refused to sign a letter from the Justice Department that criticized New York City's coronavirus restrictions that affect religious institutions, a person briefed on the matter said. Attorney General William Barr wasn't aware of the dispute, and it had nothing to do with the ouster of Berman, the person said. The letter was sent Friday from the Justice Department. (Perez and Duster, 6/22)