| | |  | By Marc Caputo and Renuka Rayasam | Presented by The Mortgage Bankers Association | | 
Matt Wuerker/POLITICO | FROM THE NON-FRONTLINES — Good evening, and greetings from Florida, where we feel the need to inform you that it’s not a post-apocalyptic hellscape of coronavirus infection and cadavers stacked like cordwood. That is, Florida just doesn’t look nearly as bad as the national news media and sky-is-falling critics have been predicting for about two months now. But then, the national news media is mostly based in New York and loves to love its Democratic governor, Andrew Cuomo, about as much as it loves to hate on Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. First, let’s just come out and say it: DeSantis looks more right than those who criticized the Sunshine State’s coronavirus response. According to the latest Florida figures, fewer than 2,000 have died, and around 43,000 have been infected. That’s a fraction of the dire predictions made for Florida when spring breakers swarmed the beaches, and those numbers are dwarfed by similarly sized New York, which has seen 12 times more deaths and nearly eight times more infections. (Check out POLITICO’s coronavirus tracker for more.) More people reportedly died in New York nursing homes than in all of Florida. The polling disparity: DeSantis is actually polling worse than Cuomo in their respective states, and the Florida press is wondering why . Part of that is style. Cuomo has a smooth delivery, a deep and calming voice and an attitude that projects he can answer any question. DeSantis sometimes comes across as peevish and defensive, has made a misstatement or two and was mocked for struggling to put on a mask. But most of the difference between DeSantis and Cuomo is due to politics. DeSantis governs a politically divided state. Cuomo is a scion of Democratic royalty in a deeply Democratic state. Yes, there’s media bias, too. Cuomo also has something else DeSantis doesn’t: a press that defers to him, one that preferred to cover “Florida Morons” at the beach (where it’s relatively hard to get infected) over New Yorkers riding cramped subway cars (where it’s easy to get infected). In fact, people can still ride the subways for most hours of the day in New York, but Miami Beach’s sands remain closed. Maybe things would be different if DeSantis had a brother who worked in cable news and interviewed him for a “sweet moment” in primetime. DeSantis can’t quite take a victory lap, however. For one, he can’t take all the credit. He deferred to local leaders early on as they issued closure orders in places like Miami-Dade County — the most populous in the state, and the one with the most coronavirus cases — which shuttered dine-in restaurants and nightclubs two months ago. And, for all of the relatively OK news about coronavirus infection and death rates, there’s a looming problem associated with coronavirus and Republican rule of the state: Florida’s horrendous unemployment compensation system, which can’t handle the volume of claims and, critics charge, was designed to discourage people from getting government help. According to the state’s figures, more than 1.4 million unique unemployment claims have been submitted, but only half have received compensation. DeSantis is trying to get it fixed quickly . He knows that in a state he won by less than half a point two years ago, and one that President Donald Trump won by slightly more than a point in 2016, it’s a political time bomb to have potentially hundreds of thousands of people blaming the party in power for their woes in an election year. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly: Coronavirus Special Edition. We should have listened to astrologer Susan Miller’s warnings about this year’s doomed wedding season. Reach out with tips: rrayasam@politico.com or on Twitter at @renurayasam.
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| | A message from The Mortgage Bankers Association: Individual Needs. Individual Solutions. We understand that mortgage relief is not one-size-fits-all. The COVID-19 pandemic has left many Americans in unique financial situations. That’s why we encourage you to contact your mortgage company if paying your mortgage poses a financial hardship. There are options to help meet your needs. MBA.org/consumerinfo | | | | | MEASURING TRUMP’S PANDEMIC — A falling unemployment rate and rising stock market were once Trump’s measures of success. But after a manic three-and-a-half years, the referendum on Trump may come down to the single issue of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Now, in a White House once obsessed with statistical boasts, those close to the president are loath to set any milestones defining a positive outcome, chief Washington correspondent Ryan Lizza and Daniel Lippman write. By far the most sensitive subject is the awful reality of the growing number of deaths. “I’m not going to play that game,” said one White House official when asked if there was a number of dead Americans beyond which the public would not tolerate. “I think all these body count things are somewhat gross.” When American war deaths in Vietnam spiked in 1967 and early 1968, Lyndon Johnson announced that he wouldn’t run for president. When the Iraq war spun out of control in George W. Bush’s second term, his presidency collapsed. Similarly, there is now a grim conversation quietly happening in Republican circles about the Covid-19 death count, with some saying that if there are 250,000 people dead by election day, it will be hard for Trump to win reelection. Others are slightly more optimistic that the overall number of deaths is less important than the trajectory of new cases and whether there are signs of an economic rebound. “Allowing people to get to some semblance of normal without a second wave occurring and the economy showing glimmers of hope would be a success,” argued one Republican close to the president. But, he added, “If things don’t look like they’re bouncing back by September, I think that’s going to be a problem.”
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| | JOIN TOMORROW - HOW DOES THE GLOBAL ECONOMY START MOVING AGAIN? The pandemic has caused the global economy to come to a halt, triggering economic crises around the world. What happens next? Join Global Translations author Ryan Heath tomorrow at 1 p.m. EDT for a virtual discussion with Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, focused on the trade-offs and investments needed to get the global economy moving again, the role that China can be expected to play, and how growing debt and deficits will impact the developing world. Have questions? Submit yours by tweeting it to @POLITICOLive using #AskPOLITICO. REGISTER HERE TO PARTICIPATE. | | | | | | | | |
39 percent The share of working people whose household income is less than $40,000 and who lost their jobs or were furloughed in March, according to a Federal Reserve survey . That compares to 19 percent of people in households making between $40,000 and $100,000, and 13 percent of people in households with an income above $100,000, a Fed official told reporters. (h/t financial services reporter Victoria Guida) |
| | | Our question for readers this week: What does reopening look like where you live? Snap a photo sometime this week and send it to nightly@politico.com. We’ll share our favorites on Friday.
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| | | | | UNDER THE BRIGHT LIGHTS — Ousted federal vaccine expert Rick Bright testified before a House subcommittee today and described what he saw as the Trump administration’s failures to prepare for Covid-19 and its missteps in the response. “I believe Americans need to be told the truth,” Bright testified. “And I believe that the best scientific advice and guidance was not being conveyed to the American public” in the early days of the pandemic. HHS released an extensive rebuttal of Bright's claims, pushing back on nearly 20 allegations. Watch the key moments from Bright’s testimony in the video below.
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| Inside the whistleblower’s case — Bright’s claims, that he was unfairly ousted from his position, are explosive, but some of his complaints leave out key context. Health care reporters Dan Diamond and Sarah Owermohle break down the complicated case in the latest edition of POLITICO Dispatch.
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Antonio Olmos/Guardian/Redux | THE SOCIAL DISTANCING NETWORK — Former British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg is tapping into the pandemic in his push to fix Facebook's global public image, senior technology reporter Nancy Scola writes in a new POLITICO Magazine profile of the social network's newish head of policy and communications. Will a full-throated response to coronavirus solve all of Facebook's considerable political problems? Even Clegg says no: “I strongly suspect a lot of the long standing debates, which are wholly legitimate debates around data privacy, around encryption, around the role of social media and elections, these are not going to go away. They're not either removed or absolved by this pandemic.” Still, it's a prime moment for the company to re-prove it's worth having around. Clegg says, “All we can do in the meantime is seek to play a useful, helpful role for the very large numbers of people who are affected by the pandemic and also use our apps.”
| | NOT SO HOT — The same places that had high Covid death rates in mid-April are still the deadliest in the country, according to new regression analysis from Jed Kolko, chief economist at Indeed, the job search website. Kolko’s analysis was an attempt to figure out if job postings were declining in the cities with the most severe outbreaks. He wasn’t trying to answer a question that’s been on the mind of public health experts and politicians: where the virus will turn lethal next. But his research revealed some clear patterns for who is most likely to die from Covid: The closer you live to New York City, the higher the number of deaths around you. Cities like Bridgeport, Conn., and Trenton, N.J., have higher death rates than New Orleans and Detroit. There were some less surprising findings: Places that are dense, and that had crowded households with more people sharing a room, saw more deaths. Places that were colder in March saw more deaths than warmer places. And cities with a high share of African American residents, as well as cities with large levels of income inequality, saw more Covid deaths. Your host called Kolko today, and he stressed when we talked that he’s an economist, not a public health researcher. Still, he had one clear point here he wanted to make about the pandemic: “Local patterns and death rates look less random as the pandemic goes on,” he said. “That’s important for thinking about where we might direct resources.” The analysis is helpful for understanding pandemic politics. The cities that went for Hillary Clinton in 2016 have seen more deaths than places that voted for Trump, but the economic pain has been felt more evenly across the country. “There are some places where coronavirus may feel more like an economic crisis than a health crisis,” Kolko said.
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| | | VOTING AND THE VIRUS — The Industrial Midwest was always going to be a battleground in November. The region is now becoming a new frontline for Americans’ lives and livelihoods as coronavirus hotspots proliferate and jobless rates spiral, write Christopher Cadelago, Megan Cassella and Nolan D. McCaskill. The confluence of a ferocious pandemic, deepening economic turmoil and rising political tensions is more pronounced there than anywhere else in the country. The virus has moved from urban centers like Detroit and Chicago into suburbs and more sparsely populated counties, a trend seen from western Pennsylvania to Minnesota and Iowa. In Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania — Democrats’ so-called “Blue Wall” — 19 counties report coronavirus cases doubling in less than 14 days. Trump won all but one of those counties, by an average of 65 percent. The double shock of the virus and financial meltdown has further sharpened partisan divides in the states. Wisconsin and Michigan were home to the highest percentage of people saying their state governments were overreacting to the crisis, according to a survey conducted by researchers at Harvard, Northeastern and Rutgers Universities last month. Overall, however, the public has remained solidly behind governors who are urging caution, giving them high marks for their performances while their assessments of Trump’s handling of the outbreak sag. And private surveys conducted by both parties and described to POLITICO show concerns about the virus and health care running ahead of worries over the economy. | |
| | YOUR DAILY AUDIBLE CORONAVIRUS UPDATE: States across the country are trying to balance public health with economic health. Get quick, reliable, updates and analysis with POLITICO Dispatch, a short, daily podcast featuring experts from across our newsroom who provide the news and context you need in 15 minutes or less. Subscribe and listen today. | | | | | | | A ‘PEOPLE’S VACCINE’ — National leaders, including South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa and Pakistan’s Imran Khan, are calling for a free-to-access “people’s vaccine,” POLITICO’S Global Translations author Ryan Heath writes. The most practical form of that wish comes from diplomats who have agreed in principle to new intellectual property flexibility for future coronavirus drugs — a major win for groups pushing for access to medicines. A resolution is scheduled to be voted on next week by the World Health Organization’s governing body. The text calls for “the universal, timely and equitable access to and fair distribution of all quality, safe, efficacious and affordable essential health technologies and products.” It was controversial, said Ellen ‘t Hoen, a researcher at the Global Health Unit of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, because “it’s basically code language for compulsory licensing” of new vaccines that are developed in the coming months. That’s when a government overrides a patent and allows another entity to make the patented product — usually for a public health emergency like the pandemic. Developing countries took that approach with HIV treatments they said they couldn’t afford.
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The Argentine National Congress meets Wednesday in Buenos Aires, with a majority of attendants video conferencing remotely. | Ricardo Ceppi/Getty Images | | | STARTING OVER IN SEOUL — A country with England’s population occupying land the size of Belgium, South Korea has done a relatively good job controlling the coronavirus, with just under 11,000 cases since the first reported positive on Jan. 20. The nation’s targeted testing and contact tracing methods have been hailed as global examples. But, as Michael Breen writes, Koreans are not in the clear yet, as a surge of cases in the last week has authorities nervous about a second wave and considering a stiffer response. The newest outbreak, traced to a 29-year-old man who tested positive on May 6 after visiting gay clubs in the Itaewon entertainment area of Seoul, has seen a weaker tracing effort. Those who need testing don’t want to be associated with the clubs in the socially conservative country.
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| | A message from The Mortgage Bankers Association: Individual Needs. Individual Solutions. We understand that mortgage relief is not one-size-fits-all. The COVID-19 pandemic has left many Americans in unique financial situations. That’s why we encourage you to contact your mortgage company if paying your mortgage poses a financial hardship. There are options to help meet your needs. Visit MBA.org/consumerinfo for more information on forbearance options. | | | Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. | |
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