Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Trump Team Struggles With Public Health Realities And Political Rallies
Politico: A New Dilemma For Trump’s Team: Preventing Super-Spreader Churches
One month after President Donald Trump ordered the nation’s governors to immediately reopen churches, his administration is facing a difficult dilemma. Clusters of Covid-19 cases are surfacing in counties across the U.S. where in-person religious services have resumed, triggering questions about whether his administration should reassess its campaign to treat houses of worship the same as other essential businesses, or leave them alone and risk additional transmission of the deadly coronavirus — including in communities that are largely supportive of the president. (Orr, 6/28)
AP: AP FACT CHECK: Trump Hypes Bid To Stem Monument Vandalism
President Donald Trump’s persistent see-no-evil posture on coronavirus testing — if you don’t look for the virus, the cases go away — defies both science and street sense. Yet he took it a step further with a comment suggesting that testing be restrained so the pandemic doesn’t look so bad. His aides passed that off as a joke. Trump contradicted them, saying he wasn’t kidding. Then he contradicted himself, saying he was. (Woodward and Yen, 6/29)
CNN: Trump Indulges His Obsessions As The Pandemic Rages
With the pandemic exploding and setting record infection rates, President Donald Trump spent the weekend on his own often divisive obsessions, piling up new evidence for detractors who say he's not fit for office. The President largely ignored the implications of the disastrous US government response to the worst public health crisis in 100 years, even though it emerged late on Friday in CNN reporting that the White House is taking vigorous efforts to protect him from infection at rallies that contravene social distancing and masking guidelines, and that put even his own supporters at risk of getting sick. (Collinson, 6/29)
CNN: The Lincoln Project: Anti-Trump Republican Group's New Ad Slams President Over Coronavirus Deaths Hitting 'Greatest Generation'
A group formed by anti-Trump Republicans will air a new ad Sunday that slams President Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic and for the deaths of World War II veterans and other senior citizens who belonged to the 'Greatest Generation.' "They did nothing less than save the world ... and it didn't come without great sacrifice," the narrator intones over images from the World War II era, a reminder of how previous generations have given up their comfortable lives for noble causes. (Acosta, 6/28)
