POLITICO NIGHTLY: Covering Biden-Trump in your pajamas

 

BY RENUKA RAYASAM AND ELI OKUN Presented by With help from Myah Ward OFF THE TRAIL — Put covering a presidential campaign on the long list of things the pandemic has upended. The campaign reporters who normally spent the years and months leading up to a presidential election on the road — living out of hotels, attending rallies and events and nominating conventions, meeting potential voters and grabbing drinks with campaign staffers — are now trapped in their homes. And for the reporters who nabbed a career-making chance to cover their first presidential, it’s been an especially devastating blow. “I feel so bad for reporters who are doing this for the first time,” said Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for The New York Times. “It’s not nearly as fun or exciting as being on the trail. Zoom does not substitute for that.” Kat Stafford’s first, and only, out-of-state campaign reporting trip was to Houston for Super Tuesday on March 3. On the flight back to her home in Detroit, she saw a couple wearing masks and wiping down the seats. A week later, Stafford, who joined the Associated Press as a national race and ethnicity writer in late February, began covering the campaign mostly remotely. “The trick has been developing sources via Zoom, via phone,” Stafford said. Others have gotten stuck even further afield. Anna-Sofia Berner, the U.S. correspondent for Helsingin Sanomat, Finland’s newspaper of record, covered the Democratic presidential primary across America before ending up in Finland for months during the pandemic. Lately, “I started feeling like I’m out of touch,” she said. “I don’t know what’s happening in the country.” Berner finally made it back to Washington this past weekend, and hopes to ramp up her coverage — mostly by road trip, for safety reasons. Baker’s first experience on a presidential campaign trail was covering Bill Clinton’s four-day train trip to Chicago for the Democratic National Convention in the summer of 1996 for The Washington Post. He remembers Clinton yelling out the window of the train in his Arkansas drawl: “Love your dog!” and “That’s a great satellite dish!” When the train pulled into Lansing, Mich., at 11 p.m. one night, a crowd of 20,000 people were waiting for him. The observations reporters can normally make on the campaign trail — how people respond to a candidate’s message, how the candidate deals with heckling, where they stumble when they deliver the same speech over and over again, whether there’s enthusiasm around a certain campaign, how the candidate interacts with voters — have been lost this year, Baker said. “Now we’re all watching from the outside.” Bo Erickson, who was assigned in 2019 to cover the Biden campaign for CBS News, followed the former vice president after the South Carolina primary, when for 12 days he traveled through 11 states, drawing huge, energetic crowds. Then the shutdowns hit and Erickson went back to his apartment in Washington, D.C., where he reports live from his living room. It’s become more of a challenge breaking news or catching candidates off guard, he said. “It’s much easier to ignore a reporter’s calls than it is to ignore them in a gym somewhere in America.” Yet the campaign trail — at least for those who experienced it from inside candidate caravans — should not be sentimentalized. It always had an element of manipulation and make-believe. The New York Times’ Astead Herndon has racked up some datelines during the pandemic. And some of the failures of campaign journalism — under-covering marginalized communities, regurgitating candidate statements, mistaking Twitter for the world — aren’t limited to remote reporting, he said. Just look at the coverage of the pre-pandemic Democratic primary for evidence of that. Read more about how campaign reporters are trying to cover the 2020 election remotely — and whether it makes their jobs harder or easier — from Eli and John F. Harris. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly: Coronavirus Special Edition. Operation Warp Speed has a logo now. Reach out rrayasam@politico.com or on Twitter at @renurayasam.   A message from PhRMA: America’s biopharmaceutical companies are sharing manufacturing capabilities with each other so that once a treatment or vaccine is ready, they can get it to millions of people fast. And there’s no slowing down. America’s biopharmaceutical companies will continue working day and night until they beat coronavirus. More.   Biden and Harris attended a coronavirus briefing today at a makeshift studio at the Hotel DuPont in Wilmington, Del. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images FIRST IN NIGHTLY THE STAY-AT-HOME CONVENTION — The Republican National Convention is coming to D.C. — and to government property, White House correspondent Anita Kumar writes. The Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, a grand historic federal building located close to the Trump International Hotel, will serve as a “central hub” for speeches, according to two people familiar with the plans. The convention could also spread out across federal properties both in and around Washington. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are expected to deliver their acceptance speeches on federal property — perhaps even the White House — as the Republicans scramble to rework the event following a resurgence of the coronavirus. The unusual arrangement is already drawing ethical concerns that federal resources will be used for campaign events and that administration officials will violate the law by campaigning for the president on government property. And it’s not lost on Trump critics that the president’s flagship hotel, already a gathering spot for Republicans, will be conveniently located a short walk from the Mellon Auditorium. More than 300 delegates will still gather in Charlotte, N.C., the official host city of the Republican National Convention, on the first day to officially nominate Trump for president. But most other in-person activities will be held in Washington, including some of the four nights of prime-time speeches, according to the two people. Trump abruptly canceled last month the events that had been moved to Jacksonville, Fla., as the state grapples with a surge in infections. Social distancing guidelines in the nation’s capital currently limit gatherings to 50 people. Federal buildings are exempt from the restrictions but a person familiar with the plans said no large gatherings are expected. “There will be no large crowds or audiences at Mellon Auditorium,” the person said. Trump said today that he plans to deliver his acceptance speech on the fourth and final night of the convention from the White House, though some aides had pushed him to choose another location. “It’s a place that makes me feel good. It makes the country feel good,” Trump told the New York Post in an interview. For his acceptance speech, Pence is considering Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Md., best known as the site of a major battle in the War of 1812, The Washington Post reported . His office didn’t respond to questions. FROM THE HEALTH DESK THE MESS IN TEXAS — More than one in five Texans who are tested for coronavirus are positive, the worst statewide rate in the country. But the number of people getting tests has plummeted in the last two weeks, which could understate how widespread the virus really is as schools reopen and hospitalizations and deaths remain near record highs, health care reporter Dan Goldberg writes. That's left Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in a tough spot, forced to make decisions about reopening his state based on incomplete and possibly faulty data. Abbott said today he's instructed his administration to figure out which numbers can be trusted, why positive tests have doubled this month and what the trends could signal as Labor Day approaches and students start filling classrooms.   PLUG IN WITH PLAYBOOK AT THE DNC : Join POLITICO Playbook Co-authors Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman from Aug. 18 to 20 for "Plug in with Playbook," our new political show making its virtual debut at this year's conventions. Get the latest developments on presumptive nominee Joe Biden's campaign, analysis of down-ballot races, a look at this cycle’s swing states, along with other election-related updates. Featured guests include DNC chair Tom Perez, convention CEO Joe Solmonese, Biden campaign senior adviser Symone Sanders, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) and others. REGISTER HERE.     AROUND THE NATION 6.4% — The states reporting the highest per capita rates of Covid-19 cases among Black Americans have smaller Black populations, graphics reporter Annette Choi writes. South Dakota — which has a Black population of about 16,000 — has the highest per capita rate of Covid-19 cases for Black residents in the country at 6.4 percent. A close second to South Dakota is Maine with a rate of 5.7 percent. Annette Choi | POLITICO PALACE INTRIGUE MAIL STOP — Trump suggested today that he opposes Democratic efforts to fund the U.S Postal Service because he wants to curtail mail-in voting before the November election. Democrats have proposed spending $25 billion on the Postal Service as part of a Covid relief package. “Now they need that money in order to have the Post Office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” Trump said. Your host spoke with politics editor Scott Bland today about Trump’s comments. This conversation has been edited. Are you surprised by what Trump said? Some have described it as saying “the quiet part out loud.” Yes, because I'm still adjusting to the idea that there was a quiet part before this, if that makes sense. We’ve been talking for months about how big a role mail balloting was going to have to play in the 2020 general election. The idea that the Postal Service potentially wouldn't be able to handle it is a fairly recent development — and that being a result of policy changes by Trump appointees and, as Trump said, a lack of new funding, is pretty remarkable. What can states do if the USPS funding is blocked? There are things that election officials and Democrats can try to do to ameliorate postal problems. We just don't know how effective they will be. And it's not just the money, it's also potential internal USPS policy changes that could cause election-shifting results if they delay the delivery of ballots. Some states are adding more things like secure drop-boxes where people can drop off mail ballots without actually sending them through the mail. There’s already a big push starting to get people to cast their votes early. And, there’s the hope, I suppose, that fears about huge delays in the mail won’t come to pass — but that's a tough one to pin hopes on, because in many states if your ballot doesn't arrive by Election Day, it won't count. In some states, what’s called “ballot harvesting” is also allowed. Organizations can collect people’s sealed ballots and turn those in for them. Why is Trump opposed to mail-in voting? Trump doesn’t seem to actually have anything against mail balloting, except that it seems in this election to be something that’s important to Democrats. He recently tweeted urging people to vote by mail in Florida, where the state Republican Party happens to have a very robust and long-term vote by mail program — which, I'm sure, was in danger because Trump has now convinced a number of rank-and-file Republicans that voting by mail is bad.       COVID-2020 MASK NOT WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN DO FOR YOU — Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris today called for every governor to mandate mask-wearing in public for at least the next three months, citing studies that say it would save more than 40,000 lives and speed the nation’s economic recovery, health care reporter Alice Miranda Ollstein writes. Biden did not say whether he would implement a national mask mandate if elected and, if so, how it would be enforced. For the moment, he called on all governors to impose such policies. Currently, only 35 states require masks in public, though many individual cities and counties have their own mandates in the remaining states. KAMALACARE — In the latest episode of POLITICO Dispatch, health care reporter Dan Diamond breaks down how Kamala Harris’ past positions on health care could provide some fresh fodder for Trump attacks, while also sparking new passion among progressives. Listen to today's POLITICO Dispatch FOUR SQUARE THE ZOOM PANEL — Eugene Daniels, Tim Alberta, Ryan Lizza and Elena Schneider talk about the most important thing Democrats need to do next week at their convention, on the latest episode of Four Square.   BECOME A CHINA WATCHER: Mounting concerns over foreign interference are casting a shadow on the U.S. election this fall. Are concerns that Beijing might seek to influence the results valid? Join the conversation and gain expert insight from informed and influential voices in government, business, law, tech and academia. China Watcher is as much a platform as it is a newsletter. Subscribe today.     ASK THE AUDIENCE Nightly asks you: How has the pandemic changed your relationship to sports? Do you think it will permanently change how much you watch sports and attend live games when the pandemic ends? Let us know your thoughts, and we’ll include select answers in our Friday edition. NIGHTLY NUMBER 25.5 percent The proportion of young adults between 18 and 24 who say they’ve considered suicide in the past month because of the pandemic, according to new CDC data. (For help, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline can be reached at 1-800-273-8255.) PARTING WORDS RAISING KAINE — Americans are “uniquely bad” at electing women to office, Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s running mate, tells Jennifer Palmieri in a preview of the next episode of Showtime’s “The Circus” shared exclusively with Nightly. The series is returning from pandemic hiatus this Sunday with a show devoted to Biden’s pick of Harris for veep. “The worst part of 2016 for me was a front row center seat in the just the misogyny event of the century,” Kaine tells Palmieri, Hillary Clinton’s communications director, in an outdoor interview. “The absence of a woman president, the absence of a woman vice president, is not just an accident.”   A message from PhRMA: America’s biopharmaceutical companies are sharing their knowledge and resources more than ever before to speed up the development of new medicines to fight COVID-19. They’re working with doctors and hospitals on over 1,100 clinical trials. And there’s no slowing down. America’s biopharmaceutical companies will continue working day and night until they beat coronavirus. Because science is how we get back to normal. See how biopharmaceutical companies are working together to get people what they need during this pandemic.   Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam   FOLLOW US

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