Congress rushed to get hundreds of billions of dollars out the door to help small businesses amid a collapsing economy. Now lawmakers are preparing to fix the glitches in the next round. Banks have agreed to lend out more than $500 billion of the $670 billion allocated in the first phases of the small business…
America’s governors indicated Sunday they are continuing to walk a fine line in dealing with a global pandemic and economic desperation, as well as pushing back against a backlash over the measures designed to curb the spread of Covid-19. Governors from both parties discussed a range of difficult choices that would have been almost unimaginable…
Amy Klobuchar is kicking off her next act. Two months after ending her presidential campaign and amid vice presidential speculation, the Minnesota Democrat is launching a new effort to help direct money and campaign help to down-ballot Democrats. The endeavor — called the Win Big Project, a play on one of Klobuchar’s 2020 campaign slogans…
President Donald Trump plans to travel to Phoenix next Tuesday to visit a Honeywell facility that produces face masks, marking his first trip outside of Washington in a month. Trump’s visit is expected to highlight Honeywell’s investment in the production of critical medical equipment, as well as the addition of 500 manufacturing jobs in Arizona,…
With coronavirus infections and deaths mounting in the United States, the race to find treatments and vaccines is accelerating. There are now 72 registered clinical trials ongoing in the U.S. and abroad, according to the Food and Drug Administration. Here’s a rundown of how this process is taking shape, and the key results expected in…
Crises nearly always create political upheaval. In recent history the catastrophes of 9/11 and the Great Recession both defined American politics for the decade that came after each event. The crisis of Covid-19, which has already killed far more Americans than the 9/11 attacks and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that were waged in…
An EU report about Chinese and Russian disinformation on coronavirus was watered down after pressure from Beijing. Three people confirmed to POLITICO that Chinese diplomats exerted pressure on the EU to change the wording of the report, details of which were first reported in Brussels Playbook on Tuesday. The report — on "narratives and disinformation"…
It’s hard to tell from watching President Donald Trump and members of his Coronavirus Task Force just how many people can be tested for coronavirus in the U.S. and whether there’s enough testing capacity to reopen the economy. Task force officials have been citing the millions of swabs and test tubes now in production as…
President Donald Trump on Sunday admitted he’s still holding a grudge against Mitt Romney, the only GOP senator to be left off a congressional task force on reopening the U.S. economy during the coronavirus pandemic. In February, Romney broke ranks with his party, voting to impeach the president on a charge of abusing his power….
The president had just retweeted a call to #FireFauci, and activity on the @FauciFanClub Instagram account was spiking. Donald Trump had given a presidential platform to a bellicose movement to oust Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s ubiquitous face of science and sober coronavirus warnings, and his detractors were coming out of the digital woodworks. But…
The $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief bill was just the beginning of a Washington lobbying bonanza — but lobbyists are rushing to get a piece of the action in case it evaporates with a cratering economy. Lobbyists are hustling to influence the rules dictating how the first bundle of stimulus money will be spent, and looking…
President Donald Trump is ready to move past the coronavirus — and his most fervent followers are choosing who to blame. While the president spent the week teasing guidelines for restarting the country’s economy and belittling some states with strict lockdown measures, vocal Trump supporters coalesced around the people that they are blaming for getting…
The only hospital in Grand Island, Neb., is full. The mayor has asked for a statewide stay-at-home order that the GOP governor insists isn’t needed. More than one-third of those tested for coronavirus in the surrounding county are positive — and there aren’t enough tests to go around. Grand Island is the fourth-biggest city in…
President Donald Trump yanked U.S. funding for the World Health Organization on Tuesday, complaining that the United Nations public health agency was overly deferential to China and had put too much faith in Beijing’s assertions that it had the coronavirus outbreak there was under control. “Had the W.H.O. done its job to get medical experts…
Amid a rising death toll, a brewing constitutional clash with governors, and news reports criticizing the White House’s early inaction in combating the coronavirus outbreak, President Donald Trump took about 40 minutes out of his day Tuesday to meet and shoot the breeze with recovered patients at the White House. As cameras rolled and bulbs…
Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York warned Tuesday that he and President Donald Trump "would have a problem" if the White House forged ahead with plans to reopen the state absent Albany’s approval, setting the stage for a potential constitutional clash against the backdrop of a global pandemic. "Look, if he pushed it to that…
SAN FRANCISCO — In California’s Santa Clara County, which quickly shut things down as coronavirus descended, the county executive is warning that major sporting events may not resume by Thanksgiving. The San Francisco Bay Area was the nation’s first metro area to impose shelter-in-place orders 25 days ago, but the bellwether region for the U.S….
It was late February, and Bernie Sanders was days away from the most important debate of his political career. The Vermont senator had finally clawed his way to the top of the presidential primary after winning New Hampshire and crushing the field in Nevada. His closest rival, Joe Biden, was reeling. Moderate Democrats were terrified…