POLITICO NIGHTLY: Mississippi’s GOP governor on Covid and college football

 

BY RENUKA RAYASAM With help from Myah Ward RNC’S NIGHT 3 — Tonight’s big speech: Vice President Mike Pence. Live video and analysis at politico.com/rnc. Pregame begins with a live edition of Four Square at 8 p.m. ET. GAME TIME — On Tuesday, 67 people died in Mississippi because of Covid. It was the state’s highest one-day death toll since the pandemic began. Mississippi Republican Gov. Tate Reeves was slow to address the crisis in the state — he first prevented local leaders from imposing Covid restrictions and waited until April to issue a stay-at-home order. But this month he issued a temporary statewide mask mandate, even as he also opened schools and colleges. About 900 teachers and students in Mississippi have tested positive for Covid. As states across the country continue to struggle to contain Covid, the pandemic has sometimes been discussed this week during the Republican National Convention as an event that already ended. Many speakers spoke as if the worst of the pandemic were in the past. Your host spoke with Reeves today about whether Democrats can make any inroads in the South, why he feels college football is essential and where he stands on the state’s new flag. This conversation has been edited. Schools have opened across Mississippi and Covid cases are climbing among teachers and students. Did the state open too early? It's really public health versus public health. We know that things like child abuse, sexual abuse reports are down significantly in America over the last six months. One of the reasons they're down so much is not because it’s not occurring, it is because these kids are not in school. We think it’s a better public health decision to get the kids in schools. We’ve had 500 kids who have gotten the virus. We’ve got 450,000 kids in Mississippi, approximately, who are in our pre-kindergarten through 12th grade schools. That's a very, very, very high percentage of kids who are actually sitting in the classroom and learning. That's important. Mississippi is seeing the highest Covid infection rates in the country. What are you planning to do to bring that down? We believe our mitigation measures, which we have put in place over the summer, are having a very positive impact. The total number of cases over seven-day periods is approximately half today what it was just four weeks ago. Our goal is not to eradicate and eliminate this virus, because we don't believe that's a realistic goal. Our goal is to ensure that every single Mississippian who gets the virus can be treated. The SEC starts games next month. Other conferences have cancelled their seasons. Why do you say college football is essential? College football is a way of life in the South. College football is a way of life in Mississippi. This gives these kids, the ones who aren’t going to become professional athletes, the opportunity to be in a structured environment, where they are learning and hopefully preparing for life after sports. Then there’s a large number of them who actually are going to play professional sports, and there are significant amounts of income riding on that. We believe that if you have these student athletes in a structured environment, that they are less likely to either contract or to spread the virus — if they’re playing football in between those lines, than if they’re in a bar or a saloon. Do you think Republicans are starting to lose ground in Southern states? The president is going to win very big here. You’ll see an election here that is very similar to what happened in 2016. I would think we would win between 15 and 18 points again this year. There’s no doubt that there has been some erosion in the suburbs of support from Republicans around the country. And we’ve seen a little bit of that in Mississippi. I ran in 2019, and we certainly battled that throughout that campaign. There’s no doubt that many of these speakers are speaking to those individuals in suburban areas, and in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and in Madison and Mississippi. I think that’s important, as we remind those voters why they have voted Republican for many, many, many years in the past and why our policies are better for them and their kids and their grandkids. On the question of the Mississippi flag, are you for magnolia or shield? I'm taking a look at them. I'm trying to determine if it makes sense for me to be publicly for either one of them. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly: Coronavirus Special Edition. It’s 2020 — women can now have strong opinions about turkey brining and criminal justice reform. Reach out rrayasam@politico.com or on Twitter at @renurayasam.   HAPPENING TOMORROW - POWERING AMERICA’S ECONOMIC RECOVERY: The economy will be a driving factor in determining the 2020 election outcome. Join POLITICO chief economic correspondent Ben White for a virtual conversation with Larry Kudlow, director of the White House National Economic Council, on how post-November economic and labor policies will lay the groundwork for an inclusive recovery that helps workers and businesses bounce back. REGISTER HERE.     FIRST IN NIGHTLY MAKE RALLIES SMALL AGAIN — President Donald Trump has finally given up on his MAGA rallies. After he formally accepts the Republican nomination for president Thursday night, Trump will launch a general election campaign with a new playbook, according to four people familiar with it: short speeches, mostly outdoors, multiple times a day, with the occasional stop at a diner or store to greet people, minus the handshakes, White House correspondent Anita Kumar writes. Many events will take place at airports, where Trump will fly in on Air Force One to greet crowds of no more than a few hundred people, as his campaign playlist blares and U.S. flags wave around him. Welcome to the most unusual election season in modern presidential history — where the coronavirus outbreak has forced the most nontraditional candidate to embrace a more traditional campaign style. Trump has finally settled on a mega rally-free campaign model he can live with for the next nine weeks. He’s expected to travel a couple times a week, with the number of trips increasing as Election Day draws closer. His first stop after convention wraps up will be Manchester, N.H., where he will deliver remarks at an airport. Trump hopes to draw a contrast to Democratic nominee Joe Biden, who has participated in only a few live campaign events outside his Wilmington, Del. home, since the pandemic struck. Trump employed a similar strategy in 2016 against Democrat Hillary Clinton, who he tried to portray as weak and lacking stamina. Last week, both Trump and Vice President Mike Pence visited Wisconsin, the official host of the Democratic National Convention before it was transformed into a virtual event. “I think Vice President Biden has an understanding of the gravity of the pandemic and the need to emphasize safety and model safety,” said Rep. Ami Bera (D-Calif.), a doctor and Biden surrogate. “Certainly he is starting to do more … but again in an appropriate physically distanced way.” A worker carries picked grapes during harvest at the Chateau de Jasson vineyard in La Londe-les-Maures, France. | Getty Images AROUND THE NATION SPORTS STOP, AGAIN — All three NBA playoff games scheduled today have been postponed, with players around the league choosing not to play, in their strongest statement yet against racial injustice after the shooting by police officers of Jacob Blake, a Black man, in Kenosha, Wis. The NBA said the games between Milwaukee and Orlando, Houston and Oklahoma City, and the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland would be rescheduled. In baseball, the Milwaukee Brewers and Cincinnati Reds, along with the Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres, decided to sit out tonight’s games. The WNBA also postponed three games. IN COVID’S SHADOW — Nursing homes across the country have closed their doors to visitors. In the latest POLITICO Dispatch, Alexandra Levine explains how the lack of human connection — combined with communication problems — has left nursing home residents and their families in the dark. Listen to the latest POLITICO Dispatch podcast COVID-2020 NO MEDDLING SEEN FOR MAIL-IN VOTING — The intelligence community has seen no evidence that foreign powers intend to manipulate mail-in voting in the 2020 election, senior Trump administration officials said today, undercutting a claim by Trump that such fraud “will be the scandal of our times.” “We have no information or intelligence that any nation-state threat actor is engaging in any activity to undermine the mail-in vote or ballots,” said a top official with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, who joined other senior intel community officials from the Department of Homeland Security and FBI to brief media on the status of foreign election threats. They spoke with reporters on condition they not be named. Trump has repeatedly and groundlessly asserted that mail-in ballots will be subject to widespread fraud, sowing doubts about the security of the election, Kyle Cheney and Natasha Bertrand write. Intelligence community leaders and lawmakers of both parties have pleaded with political leaders to refrain from casting doubt on the legitimacy of the election, which could be amplified by foreign adversaries like Russia who seek to cast doubts about the validity of American institutions. PENCE TAKES THE STAGE — Nightly’s Myah Ward talked to Tom LoBianco , Washington correspondent for Business Insider and the author of Piety and Power: Mike Pence and the Taking of the White House, about Pence’s politics, his role in the Covid-19 response and the 2024 presidential campaign. This conversation has been edited. What kind of politician is Pence? Boring and methodical. His political superpower is almost uniquely designed for the Trump presidency and the Trump campaign — which is just this superhuman discipline. What’s his role in the administration? You have these two extreme caricatures of him, which I think have elements of truth but miss the bigger picture. The caricature goalposts were either glorified coat rack — the elf on the shelf, the guy standing there smiling and nodding in the back of every meeting — or the “shadow president,” the guy who's secretly pulling the strings on everything. If you look throughout the presidency, when trouble arrives, Pence tends to make himself scarce. He’s been around a long time. He knows what to do, and I think sometimes people mistake that discipline, and that sort of flat affect, for acquiescence. It’s hard to see the human there sometimes. And the skill, he’s got a lot of political skill. What about his role in the pandemic? He plays a big role leading the task force, yet he’s managed to stay away from becoming the face of the pandemic. There was some chatter that Pence would become a fall guy for the coronavirus response, assuming everything went to hell. And things went pretty badly. They still are going pretty badly. But he hasn’t become the fall guy, and the reason why is Trump. Who’s going to steal the spotlight from him? Mike Pence is like the last person who’s going to steal the spotlight from him. How well has he set himself up to run for president in 2024? Most of the races he’s run successfully have been races where the party has cleared the field for him. That doesn’t work in 2024. He himself has never had a knock-down, drag-out Republican intra-party fight. He doesn't have that experience. If you look at what he’s doing right now, he’s kind of doing what he’s always known, which is trying to run as the de facto frontrunner, perhaps even prohibitive frontrunner. FROM THE HEALTH DESK TESTING TURBULENCE — Top Trump administration officials involved with the White House coronavirus task force ordered the CDC to stop promoting coronavirus testing for most people who have been exposed to the virus but aren’t showing symptoms, health care reporters David Lim and Adam Cancryn write. Federal testing czar Brett Giroir denied those allegations today. “The new guidelines are a CDC action,” Giroir said. “As always, the guidelines received appropriate attention, consultation and input from Task Force experts, and I mean the medical and scientific experts, including CDC Director [Robert] Redfield.” The revised testing guidelines, which CDC released late Monday with no public notice, say it is up to state and local public health officials and health providers to decide whether people without symptoms or underlying risk factors need a test after high-risk situations — such as coming into contact with an infected person for more than 15 minutes. The agency also says it is now up to local public health experts to decide whether testing is needed for people who attend a public or private gathering of more than 10 individuals when masks are not worn and social-distancing guidelines are not followed. Anthony Fauci, the government's top infectious disease expert, said the change could send the wrong message. “I'm worried it will give people the incorrect assumption that asymptomatic spread is not of great concern,” Fauci said in a statement read by CNN's Sanjay Gupta on-air this afternoon. “In fact, it is.” THE BACKSTORY AFTER THE 19TH — One hundred years ago, on Aug. 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment was officially adopted into the Constitution, giving women the constitutional right to cast a ballot. While many focus on the struggle to gain the vote, deputy magazine editor Elizabeth Ralph looks at how the women’s vote has evolved through history, and the challenges many still face at the ballot box, in the latest edition of Backstory. ASK THE AUDIENCE Nightly asks you: What is your favorite memory from previous editions of the RNC or DNC? Send us your response on our form and we'll include select responses in Friday's edition. NIGHTLY NUMBER 225,000 The number of hotel rooms available across Texas to provide shelter to Hurricane Laura evacuees, according to Gov. Greg Abbott. Because of the pandemic, Texas has reduced the capacity of emergency shelters and is instead sending evacuees to vacant hotels. PARTING WORDS SEMI-CHARMED CITY — Nightly’s Tyler Weyant writes: After Trump’s rodent-inspired tweet about Maryland’s largest city last summer, a rebuttal ad appeared in The Baltimore Sun with a simple message: “People are talking about Baltimore.” A year later, they haven’t stopped. The last 12 months have seen: The federal prosecution of a former mayor for a self-enrichment scheme involving a children’s book and clothing line; the death of a Democratic House stalwart and continued high homicide rates. The White House hasn’t stopped talking about Baltimore either. Kimberly Klacik, a Republican running for the late Elijah Cummings seat, was invited to speak on the first night of the RNC after the president retweeted her viral campaign video. Tonight, the vice president will speak from Baltimore’s Fort McHenry, the home of the national anthem. I write this north of Baltimore, credentialed by blood that likely has specks of Old Bay in it and a dog named after Cal Ripken Jr. Here’s my advice for Pence tonight (he may need it after already leaving a bit of a mark at the fort): Don’t mention The Wire . If you’re looking for a local business to highlight, we all love a good mention of Under Armour (no need to remind us of the current stock price). If you want to pander to us, mention how the O’s are exceeding expectations. At the end of the day, as with all voters, people here are looking for leaders who speak to their concerns and have a plan for the future, not simply someone they want to crack open a Natty Boh with. If Pence can find a way to speak to the actual lives of Baltimoreans, and not merely castigate the city as another Democratic stronghold run amok, he might just find himself invited to a crab feast once the RNC concludes. And if he doesn’t, well, at least people will still be talking about Baltimore.   INTRODUCING POLITICO MINUTES: These unprecedented times demand an unconventional approach to political news coverage. POLITICO Minutes is a new, interactive content experience that delivers the top takeaways you need to know in an easy-to-digest, swipeable format straight to your inbox. Get a breakdown of what we've learned so far, why it matters and what to watch for going forward. Sign up for POLITICO Minutes, launching at the 2020 Conventions.     Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam   FOLLOW US

POLITICO, LLC 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA, 22209, USA