BY NANCY SCOLA
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QUESTIONING THE PANDEMIC'S WINNERS — For all its many horrors, coronavirus has had a clarifying effect. We can better see what’s important, the objects and experiences that improve the quality of our otherwise challenging lives. At the same time, the great slowdown has led us to call so many of the big things into question. Are our critical systems — health care, higher ed, how we work — really functioning the best they could or should?
And so it’s gone with Silicon Valley.
The role of the country’s biggest internet companies in our daily lives has intensified during the Covid-19 crisis. Some of us have discovered the joy of using YouTube to find that perfect home yoga instructor, or Instagram to remember life beyond our front door, or Whole Foods home delivery to make that fortifying family dinner, or FaceTime to reconnect with our high school friends. With Americans out of work and small businesses dying off at a rapid clip, the companies behind those products and services are growing bigger, more dominant, more seemingly unstoppable.
That tension comes to a head tomorrow on Capitol Hill, where the House antitrust subcommittee will hold the marquee hearing in its long-running bipartisan investigation into competition in the technology industry. Rhode Island Democrat David Cicilline will chair the hearing. It’s an intense moment for Washington. The CEOs of four of the most important companies in the world — Google’s Sundar Pichai, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Apple’s Tim Cook — will be there.
Well, not there, exactly. This being 2020, the CEOs will testify virtually. (Congress is at least going into the hearing platform neutral: The subcommittee won’t be using any of the companies’ videoconferencing tools, but Cisco Webex.)
The question on the formal agenda: is there enough competition in Silicon Valley to check the Big Four’s power? The CEOs will insist that yes, of course there is, likely pointing out how they’re sitting alongside the bosses of three tech companies with deep enough pockets and killer enough instincts to keep them up at night. But, with at least some of Silicon Valley emboldened by their recent experiences tackling coronavirus misinformation, you can also expect some Republicans to argue the industry is abusing its power to silence those with whom it disagrees.
What happens after that? Cicilline has said he’ll issue recommendations for how the country could rethink its competition policy to cope with tech, and he’ll do it by the end of the year. One possibility: The document becomes a roadmap for a brand-new President Joe Biden. The former VP has been critical of the Big Tech but has shied away from detailing what antitrust enforcement would look like under a Biden administration.
The hearing starts at noon ET. Have a question on the hearing? Ask it here.
Welcome to POLITICO Nightly: Coronavirus Special Edition. Renu will be back tomorrow. Reach out rrayasam@politico.com or on Twitter at @renurayasam.
A message from AARP:
More than 59,000 residents and staff of nursing homes and long-term care facilities have died from COVID-19. With cases continuing to spike across the country, desperate families are demanding Congress take immediate action. More lives can be saved if Congress makes sure necessary precautions are put in place. Take action
| FIRST IN NIGHTLY |
POLITICO illustration/iStock and Pyeongyang Press Corps/Pool/Getty Images
PYONGYANG’S PANDEMIC PLAY — North Korea recently surprised the world by announcing it’s developing a Covid-19 vaccine, joining a high-stakes race to show off its scientific chops. But experts increasingly believe the famously secretive Kim Jong Un could also have a more nefarious goal in mind: Using the humanitarian crisis to beef up his biological weapons arsenal.
North Korea “could use this legitimate vaccine aspiration as a way to enhance their biotechnology capability,” said Andrew Weber, who was assistant secretary of defense for nuclear, chemical and biological defense programs during the Obama administration. “They could buy equipment from Western or Chinese sources that would be necessary for their vaccine effort and then next year they could turn around and use it to produce biological weapons.”
The pandemic, Weber and other experts say, presents a unique opportunity for the regime, whose imports are normally hampered by international sanctions, deputy magazine editor Elizabeth Ralph writes.
“Anything coronavirus related is going to be viewed as humanitarian, and humanitarian things are not prohibited by sanctions,” said Bruce Bennett, a defense researcher at the RAND Corporation. “You have to get item by item approval, but there have been lots of humanitarian shipments going” into North Korea. “Lots of stuff could be flowing in that.”
| ON THE HILL |
‘IT’S A MESS’ — Senate Republicans complained today about key provisions in the GOP-authored coronavirus relief bill one day after its unveiling, as Democrats panned the proposal as a non-starter. The jockeying on Capitol Hill underscores how far apart both parties remain — and the treacherous path Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell faces as he confronts internal GOP divisions and kicks off negotiations with Democrats, Andrew Desiderio, Marianne LeVine and Heather Caygle write.
“It seems to me that Sen. McConnell really doesn’t want to get an agreement,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said after an hour-long meeting in her office with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Meadows Tuesday afternoon.
The group will meet again tomorrow but Pelosi didn’t sound optimistic about reaching a deal anytime soon. “What we’re doing now is really airing our differences — this discovery and understanding where there might be opportunity or not,” Pelosi added.
| FROM THE HEALTH DESK |
FOLLOW THE MONEY — Alice Miranda Ollstein and Laura Barrón-López have been documenting how the Trump administration’s efforts to address racial Covid-19 disparities have been fragmented and underfunded.
Today, the Republican-controlled Arkansas legislature tried to help change that, voting to spend $7 million to begin to chip away at the problem — funding bilingual contact tracing, case management and testing the uninsured in Latino and Marshallese communities in the state's northwest. It’s a hefty sum, Alice reports: In the same session, the legislature approved a $16 million boost for contact tracing across the entire state.
The vote comes just a few weeks after a CDC team came to the state to investigate the outbreaks in those populations and made several recommendations, but offered no new money to implement them. Health leaders on the ground say without dedicated funding, people of color will continue to die at disproportionate rates.
“Once you tell someone to stay home, you need to connect them with the services they need in order to do that,” Pearl McElfish of the University of Arkansas School of Medical Sciences said. “That’s necessary to beginning to slow the spread.” She added that the workers she’ll hire will likely have to go door to door in Marshallese and Latino neighborhoods. “This is a community that doesn’t trust us. They’re not going to respond to a phone call.”
HAPPENING TOMORROW @ 12 p.m. EDT – A DEEP DIVE INTO 2020 CAMPAIGN POLLING : With less than 100 days remaining until Election Day, it’s time for a deep dive into campaign polling with POLITICO senior campaign and elections editor Steven Shepard and national political reporter Laura Barrón-López. Hear from expert pollsters Margie Omero and Jon McHenry on how the polls look today and what they portend for the future, how the industry corrected mistakes made in 2016, and the impact of Covid-19 on their work. REGISTER HERE.
| COVID-2020 |
DEMS TRY TO REBUILD THE BLUE WALL — In 2016, Donald Trump became the first Republican to win Michigan since 1988, albeit barely. It was the last brick in the Democratic Party’s blue wall to get knocked down. Eugene Daniels goes through the Biden campaign’s plan to take back the state’s 16 electoral votes — and Trump’s strategy for convincing voters he’s followed through for them.
‘A tournament of shadows’ — Biden hasn't given much insight into how he's choosing his running mate. As Marc Caputo puts it, “There's really only six or seven people in the United States who know what the hell is going on.” In the latest edition of POLITICO Dispatch's Veepstakes series, Marc explains what you need to know about four of the top contenders: Val Demmings, Tammy Baldwin, Karen Bass and Kamala Harris.
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| ASK THE AUDIENCE |
Nightly asks you: Have you taken up a new hobby or activity because of the pandemic? Send a picture capturing it to nightly@politico.com and we'll include some of our favorites in our Friday edition.
| NIGHTLY NUMBER |
$765 million
The amount of money the U.S. government will loan Eastman Kodak as part of an attempt to bring pharmaceutical ingredient manufacturing back to the U.S. The 25-year loan will enable Kodak, which has long focused on photography, to build up the capacity to produce up to 25 percent of active ingredients used in U.S. generic drugs, not including antibiotics, the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation said.
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BECOME A CHINA WATCHER: Across the globe, America’s allies are pushing back hard on Beijing as evidence of human rights abuses against Uighurs pile up. How should the U.S. and its allies approach the China challenge? Join the conversation and gain expert insight from informed and influential voices in government, business, law, tech, and academia. China Watcher is as much of a platform as it is a newsletter. Subscribe today.
Motorbike riders with face masks are stuck in traffic during the morning peak hour in Hanoi, Vietnam. Though some restrictions remain in place, Vietnam has lifted the ban on certain entertainment facilities and non-essential businesses, including pubs, cinemas and spas & other tourist attractions to recover domestic tourism. | Getty Images
| THE GLOBAL FIGHT |
BACK IN BERLIN — After weeks of minor outbreaks, the head of Germany's Robert Koch Institute — its CDC equivalent — went on television to announce he is “very concerned” about an emerging second wave of the virus. Lothas Wieler blamed a doubling of Germany’s infection rate since mid-June on negligence at parties and other social gatherings. U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson also joined the chorus of fear today: “I'm afraid you are starting to see, in some places, the signs of a second wave of the pandemic,” Johnson said.
With 3,899 cases in the past week, Germany’s infection rate is still far below the U.S. rate, and that of other European countries experiencing spikes, including Spain and Romania. The upshot: If the well-prepared German government, which won plaudits for its rapid testing and efficient hospital care earlier in 2020, can be knocked over by a second coronavirus wave, then any Western democracy can.
Next steps could include mandatory coronavirus tests for travelers entering the country, German health minister Jens Spahn told local radio. Travelers from countries deemed high-risk — including the U.S. and Brazil — are currently offered free and voluntary tests when they arrive in Germany.
| PARTING WORDS |
I’ll be the first to selfishly admit: I want the baseball season to continue. The clichés were true this weekend: Watching my hometown Baltimore Orioles win their opening series against the Boston Red Sox was an oasis in a desert of Covid anxiety.
But the calm of the weekend now feels like a distant memory, with the outbreak among the Miami Marlins throwing their season — and the league’s — into chaos. The pausing of the Marlins’ season, the rejiggering of multiple team schedules and Major League Baseball’s carefully worded statements bring back the panic that started on March 11, when most sports shut down after a positive test by a Utah Jazz player.
For players, the hard work leading up to a professional baseball career has screeched to a halt. If your team is still playing, do you suit up and go out on the field, knowing you could catch the virus and end your career?
We want schools to reopen because we want our kids to be well educated. But do we as a nation require baseball to exist? We do not, much as I might wish that were the case.
For athletes, sports journalists and beer vendors, this is literally a case of employment vs. unemployment. The rest of us are just uneasy and unsure fans, wanting the games to be played while knowing they could endanger the athletes who play them. At this point, it seems the risks outweigh the rewards.
In 1994, a canceled World Series was considered a low point for baseball. In 2020, it might elicit a sigh of relief.
A message from AARP:
SENIORS DEMAND ACTION
It is an outrage that more than 59,000 residents and staff of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities have died from COVID-19. Cases are continuing to spike across the country and Congress must act now to help save lives in these facilities.
Protect nursing home residents with AARP’s five-point plan calling for:
1. Regular, ongoing testing and adequate personal protective equipment (PPE)
2. Transparency focused on daily, public reporting of cases and deaths in facilities; communication with families about discharges and transfers; and, funding accountability.
3. Access to facilitated virtual visitation.
4. Better care for residents through adequate staffing, oversight, and access to in-person formal advocates (called long-term care ombudsmen)
5. No blanket immunity to long-term care facilities related to COVID-19.
Tell Congress to act now to protect the residents and staff of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. Take action
It is an outrage that more than 59,000 residents and staff of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities have died from COVID-19. Cases are continuing to spike across the country and Congress must act now to help save lives in these facilities.
Protect nursing home residents with AARP’s five-point plan calling for:
1. Regular, ongoing testing and adequate personal protective equipment (PPE)
2. Transparency focused on daily, public reporting of cases and deaths in facilities; communication with families about discharges and transfers; and, funding accountability.
3. Access to facilitated virtual visitation.
4. Better care for residents through adequate staffing, oversight, and access to in-person formal advocates (called long-term care ombudsmen)
5. No blanket immunity to long-term care facilities related to COVID-19.
Tell Congress to act now to protect the residents and staff of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities. Take action
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