POLITICO NIGHTLY: This changes everything — except the polls

By Ryan Lizza and Renuka Rayasam

Presented by

CAMPAIGN 2020 UNAFFECTED BY 2020 — Lisa Murkowski, the moderate Republican senator from Alaska, told reporters today she is struggling with whether to support President Donald Trump for reelection. In some ways this isn’t terribly surprising. In 2016, Murkowski vacillated on an endorsement of the then-Republican nominee until early October, when the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape was released and she announced Trump had “forfeited the right to be our party's nominee” and should “step aside.” After similar dithering, she declined to support either of the articles of impeachment against Trump. Yet, she votes more often with Trump than Rand Paul, a critic-turned champion of the president. For all the talk of how Trump has recrafted the Republican Party in his image, Murkowski’s comments today, like Mitt Romney’s guilty vote on the abuse-of-power article of impeachment against Trump in February, are a reminder that there are still pockets of resistance. In Maryland on Tuesday, Bill Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts who has stopped running against Trump for the party’s presidential nomination, won more than 20 percent of the vote in a pair of counties abutting Washington, D.C. Demographically, Murkowski is in some ways the archetype of the vacillating Republican of the Trump era: an upper middle class white mother of two appalled by the president’s style and tone. These moderate suburban women fled to the Democrats two years ago, handing Nancy Pelosi control of the House of Representatives, and many political strategists see them as the key to 2020, too. Since February, a crush of once-in-a-decade (or longer) events has rattled the United States: impeachment, pandemic, recession, civic unrest. One after the other, each of these four events replaced its predecessor as the story, the one that would decide Trump’s fate. But take a glance at the polling averages of the Biden vs. Trump matchup this year and what’s most surprising is how little has changed. Joe Biden had a six-point lead on New Year’s Day. He has a seven-point lead today, five points ahead of where Hillary Clinton was on this day in 2016. If a trial against the president for high crimes and misdemeanors, the death of more than 100,000 Americans to a highly contagious disease, an economic collapse and coast-to-coast protests haven’t changed the race, maybe nothing will. It’s commonplace to note that Trump’s poll numbers are unshakeable. It turns out that Biden’s numbers are, too. Which might mean that, unlike the wavering Murkowski, many of those suburban female swing voters already made up their mind about Trump before any of this. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly: Coronavirus Special Edition. Wish I could visit this soothing exhibit in Berlin. Lee Mingwei’s show at Martin Gropius Bau, one of the first new museum exhibits to open post-lockdown, has been adapted for the corona era. Reach out with tips: rrayasam@politico.com or on Twitter at @renurayasam.

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Senate Democrats, including Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and Michael Bennet (D-Colo.), take a knee as they participate in a moment of silence to honor George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement at the Capitol today. | Getty Images

First In Nightly

CORONA CASH — Programs designed to help the elderly with coronavirus are creating a perverse financial incentive for nursing homes with bad track records to bring in sick patients, raising the risks of infections and substandard care for seriously ill patients, according to advocates and industry experts, write Maggie Severns and Rachel Roubein . Coronavirus-positive patients can bring in double the money, or more, of other residents. The homes most desperate for money are often those with low ratings and a history of citations for poor cleanliness or neglecting patients. In Michigan, for example, eight of 20 nursing homes selected by the state government to build wings for coronavirus-positive patients are currently rated as “below average” or “much below average,” the two lowest designations, on the Health and Human Services department’s five-star nursing home rating scale. One was sued in 2017 by a state watchdog group after a man died in its care.

Nightly Interview

‘THE COUNTRY IS SCREAMING’ — Will Hurd, the only black Republican in the U.S. House, has for some time attempted the feat of criticizing Trump’s remarks about minorities while supporting the president. His job became harder this week when Trump said he would, if necessary, bring in the military to patrol American streets. The next day Hurd, who represents a large swath of Texas’s Southern border but is retiring, joined a Houston rally protesting George Floyd’s death. Your host spoke with Hurd today about how the Republican Party can earn the trust of more people of color and whether Trump is the right leader for the country now. This conversation has been edited. Do you agree with Trump that the military might need to be sent to American cities? The protests and the violence that's happening in our cities are real. We should be doing everything to stop them. I believe local law enforcement working with federal law enforcement and having the National Guard deployed is sufficient. I believe that political leaders need to get out of the way. We should separate peaceful protesters from the criminals who are trying to take advantage of this opportunity. I participated in a peaceful protest in Houston in a march of 80,000 people, and nobody was chanting anything negative about the police. You even had Houston PD handing out water to some of the protesters because it was hot. Then when it's over you have these anarchist groups and folks. This Antifa thing is real. What should Republicans do to deal with massive societal upheaval — not just civil unrest, but the 40 million people who are out of a job? We, Republicans, have put policies in place that helped get unemployment to the lowest level it was. We know how to do that. The Senate finally passed the House version on the PPP loan, which is going to help small businesses continue to keep people employed. I think not just Republicans, but Republicans and Democrats should be looking at, “How do we use legislation to address the specific issue of black men being killed in police custody?” There's a lot of federal dollars, especially out of the Department of Justice, that goes to the police departments. That money should go to people who are following best practices when it comes to community policing. If they're not doing that, they should not be getting federal funds. We should also be figuring how we can make it easier for police chiefs to fire police officers that are bad. Most law enforcement are protecting and serving. Those good police officers know the bad apples. Oftentimes a bad police officer gets fired, and they get put back on the force or get to go another jurisdiction and get rehired. Right now in this moment, let’s stand up and let's be outraged by another black man dying in police custody and do something to change society so that that can't happen. That’s the first step. To make sure and recognize and understand that the people who are unemployed are concerned about their future. We have to continue to do things to help them. Is Trump the right president for the country now? What General Mattis said, about we need someone who can unite the country right now, is what is absolutely necessary. The country is screaming. The country is scared. The three largest-growing groups of voters are communities of color, women with college degrees in the suburbs, and people under the age of 29. The Republican Party needs to be making sure we’re passing policies and are viewed by those three communities as fighting for them. Ultimately, I believe this comes down to a fundamental question of, How do you solve problems? Is it by empowering the government or empowering individuals? I think when you empower people, this is how you help people move up the economic ladder. So does that mean Trump? I think the Republican Party is the party that can do that. Why aren’t there more black people in the Republican party? It’s hard to run for office, right? If it wasn’t for people like J.C. Watts, you wouldn't have had a Will Hurd or a Mia Love or a Tim Scott. I think it wasn’t for us, you wouldn't see great candidates like John James and Wesley Hunt. I represent a 71 percent Latino district, and they have voted for a black Republican multiple times. I think it starts with going out to communities, and sometimes communities of color haven’t seen or been exposed to conservative principles.

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Four Square

REPORTERS ZOOMTABLE — Eugene Daniels, Tim Alberta, Ryan Lizza and Laura Barrón-López discuss race in America, the nation’s leadership void and the government’s response in the wake of George Floyd’s death, on the latest episode of Four Square.

From the Health Desk

COVID’S JAILBREAK — Mass arrests of protesters across the country — many held for hours in vans, cells and other enclosed spaces — are heightening the risk of coronavirus spread , according to public health experts and lawsuits filed by civil rights groups, write health care reporters Alice Ollstein and Dan Goldberg . The use of tear gas and pepper spray, which provoke coughing, adds to the health risk, as do crowd-control techniques like “kettling” — pushing demonstrators into smaller, contained and tightly packed spaces. “The police tactics — the kettling, the mass arrests, the use of chemical irritants — those are completely opposed to public health recommendations,” said Malika Fair, director of Public Health Initiatives at the Association of American Medical Colleges. Cities jump from crisis to crisis — For cities like Washington, D.C., Atlanta and Minneapolis, protests, outcry over police brutality and systemic racism come after a long and not-yet-over battle with Covid-19. Some areas, like Washington and Fulton County, Ga., are a month or more past their peak of new infection rates, while Minnesota’s Hennepin County saw its peak about a week ago. From the Defense Desk THE HOMEFRONT — Trump threatened this week to send in the military if governors can’t control civil disturbances sparked by George Floyd’s death. Bryan Bender emails us this explanation of how he can actually do that. Generally, active-duty soldiers are barred from conducting domestic law enforcement under the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. But there is a big exception: the Insurrection Act of 1807. “The president can call out federal troops to assist with civil law enforcement under two very specific instances,” said Claire Finkelstein, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law. “One is to defend state law upon the request of the state governors if it is threatened by civil unrest. The other is to defend federal law if indeed circumstances exist in which it is impossible to maintain order.” It is the first justification that most experts agree applies now. It was used numerous times by presidents in the modern era — by George H.W. Bush in 1992 during the L.A. riots and Lyndon Johnson during an extended period of nationwide racial unrest in the 1960s. But a major difference today: Governors have not sought backup for their states’ National Guard. And some outright oppose it. “It has been done in very focused cases and usually at the request of the governors,” said Ronald Spector, a military historian at George Washington University. Added Finkelstein: “It is really unprecedented for a president to foist federal troops on a state governor.” The Insurrection Act has been used, however, without the consent of governors — by Dwight Eisenhower in 1957 to integrate a public school in Arkansas and John F. Kennedy in 1963 to ensure black students could enroll in the University of Alabama. “Even there it was very focused,” said Spector. “They didn’t send federal troops to occupy all of Tuscaloosa. And they didn’t say, ‘We are also going to occupy the neighboring states.’” Mark Nevitt, a retired Navy commander and professor of military leadership and law at the U.S. Naval Academy, said if Trump were to invoke the act, he would likely argue that the protests are interfering with state or federal law. “That seems to be pretty broad for me,” he said. But Finkelstein worries about the potential for highly questionable justifications, such as doubling down on his claims that left-wing “terrorists” are responsible. “That might set up: ‘We couldn’t get these federally declared terrorists under control so we have to call out the military to quell the civil unrest on grounds of federal terrorism law,’” she said. “The more the attorney general can identify a federal interest in what is basically a state law matter — destruction of property, failure to abide by curfews — they potentially orchestrate a basis.” The use of federal troops “is a last resort option because everything else has failed,” said retired Navy Captain Robert Sanders, chair of national security studies at the University of New Haven. “This is not, ’I am pissed off and I am going unleash the military on you.’” Around the Nation SUNSHINE STATE SPIKE — Florida has reported a three-day run of increased coronavirus cases as it reopens its economy and jockeys to host the Republican National Convention, senior Florida reporter Matt Dixon writes from Tallahassee. The state health department today reported 1,419 new coronavirus cases, the biggest single-day increase since the state began reporting daily figures in March. More than 1,000 infections have been reported daily since Tuesday. “Memorial Day weekend is likely to blame for the increase in cases,” said Jill Roberts, of the University of South Florida College of Public Health, “both due to relaxation of social distancing measures and the holiday resulting in more people moving about.” The increase in daily reported cases are not connected to protests across the state sparked by the death of George Floyd, she said. “These infections occurred weeks ago, they are not the result of current protests as some have suggested.” Roberts said. “The role of the current protests has yet to be determined, as cases would not occur for another week or so.” Talking to the Experts How much Covid testing is enough, and what strategies should the United States be pursuing? “Testing alone does very little good. Testing huge numbers of people does very little. Testing to get your percentage positivity down does very little good unless you have a comprehensive program. So you can achieve high levels of testing and still not be controlling disease. That means every patient admitted to a hospital should be tested in areas where there’s any significant community spread of Covid. That's not only to identify cases but it’s to protect health care workers and prevent outbreaks. Any person with symptoms in a congregate facility should be tested, and that means nursing homes, correctional facilities, jails and prisons, homeless shelters, and in any facility, which has at least one positive person, everyone who’s asymptomatic needs to be tested. Every person who’s a contact of a patient with Covid should be tested.” — Tom Frieden, former CDC director and president and CEO of Resolve to Save Lives, a global public health initiative, as told to Myah Ward “It really depends on what you're using the testing for. If you were going to develop a strategy where you wanted to detect every single case, you’d really have to test everyone every day before they left their house. That’s just not practical or reasonable financially for the United States. So the way our governments’ approach this, and our public health labs, is really focusing on the times where it’s a little easier to answer, as you have a good, clear-cut purpose for what you would do with the test result.” — Bobbi Pritt, clinical microbiologist at the Mayo Clinic as told to Myah Ward Protect Yourself and Others From Coronavirus: Even if you don’t have symptoms, you could spread the coronavirus. Practice these physical distancing and hygiene tips to keep yourself and your loved ones safe: Stay 6 feet away from others in public; wash your hands often for 20+ seconds; disinfect frequently touched surfaces like cellphones and light switches; and wear a cloth face covering when out in public. Together, we can slow the spread. Visit coronavirus.gov to learn more. Ask The Audience With so many crises gripping the nation, what worries you the most right now and why? Is it coronavirus, the economy, racial injustice, policing, protests, the 2020 election or something else? Please write us and we’ll include some answers in our Friday edition.  Nightly Number 76 percent The proportion of Americans who say it is important that Congress provide a second stimulus payment in the next round of pandemic relief, according to poll results released today by the Financial Times and the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which advocates for awareness about federal debt. Parting Words JOLT TO THE SYSTEM — “Almost across the board, police officials around America are denouncing the murder of George Floyd,” Corey Pegues, a former New York Police Department commander, a professor of criminology, and the author of Once A Cop, writes in POLITICO Magazine. “ That is unprecedented. Usually, the response to a police-initiated homicide is to ‘toe the police line,’ wait for all of the evidence to come out and do not dare criticize the officer(s) involved. America was jolted out of its pandemic stupor this week by a shocking cycle of police violence, protests, looting and retaliation — one that quickly jumped from city to city and crashed, literally, against gates of the White House. In some ways, this wave feels familiar: It echoes what happened in Ferguson, in Baltimore, in Los Angeles and in every other city that has exploded in anger after a police killing. To offer some context for what we’re living through, and why it feels especially unsettling right now, POLITICO Magazine asked a range of thinkers, including Pegues, to tell us: What’s really different this time around? A message from PhRMA: While America’s biopharmaceutical companies are working around the clock to develop a treatment for COVID-19, companies are also expanding efforts to help patients access other medicines they need. PhRMA’s Medicine Assistance Tool was built to connect patients with resources that may help lower out-of-pocket costs. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam POLITICO, LLC 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA, 22209, USA