| | |  | BY MYAH WARD AND RENUKA RAYASAM | Presented by Uber | SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO NOW — The CDC urged Americans today not to travel for Thanksgiving and to avoid mingling with anyone who hasn’t resided in their household for the last 14 days — including college students scheduled to come home for the holiday at schools that aren’t reopening until January. This wasn’t part of the plan. Early on colleges failed to contain outbreaks, helping to spread the virus across the country as students continued to gather, party and be, well, college students. So they shifted direction. Some altered the fall semester schedule, cutting breaks and sending college students home right before Thanksgiving. The idea was to keep students from bringing the virus back to campus in the last weeks before final exams. But now the problem is exactly the opposite. As college students pack their bags, they are potentially scattering Covid across the country and into their loved one’s homes. College students should be viewed as high-risk contacts, said Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security during a JHU Bloomberg School of Public Health panel discussion on holiday travel. Northeast governors are calling on colleges and universities in their states to provide tests for all students traveling home for Thanksgiving. But the reality is some universities don’t have the resources to offer free Covid testing, and even if they did, they couldn’t force students to test before leaving campus. “This would be one way out of that, that we all know our status at all times,” Adalja said. So the burden falls on households to assess the risk of welcoming back a student. “Think about who’s in your household,” Adalja said. “Is this a multi-generational household, which has elderly people or individuals with high risk conditions?” Austin mayor Steve Adler, whose city is home to the University of Texas, moved his city to the Stage 4 level risk category today, recommending that people avoid non-essential travel because of rising hospitalizations. “One of the factors considered in doing that was the return of students from other colleges,” he said. The University of Texas at Austin has been testing students, tracing outbreaks and isolating Covid positive patients, Adler said. And the state has a mask mandate, so he’s not as worried about UT students exporting the virus. It might be too late. Most people have already made their holiday plans. Some in the White House seem fatalistic about the outcome. Covid Task Force adviser Scott Atlas said this week that it’s fine for people to visit their frail grandparents this Thanksgiving because it might be their last one anyway. “It may well be the last Thanksgiving for many of our loved ones if we follow this bad advice,” wrote former CDC director Tom Frieden on Twitter in response to Atlas’s comments. “We can PREVENT deaths from Covid. Unless we change our plans, family celebrations over Thanksgiving could mean funerals by New Year’s.” Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out at mward@politico.com and rrayasam@politico.com, or on Twitter at @myahward and @renurayasam.
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A message from Uber: CA voters & app workers voted overwhelmingly to protect workers’ flexibility and provide new benefits. Time for other states to follow, see how here. | | | | | | 
Illustration by Eiko Ojala | WHAT TRUMP TAUGHT US — For tomorrow’s Friday Cover, POLITICO Magazine asked 35 smart political and cultural observers to tell us what big, new insight the Trump era has given them about America — and what that insight means for the country’s future. Here are two answers: What did the Trump years teach us about ourselves, and the country he was elected to lead? “The single most confounding thing about the Trump era is that we still do not really understand why more than 70 million Americans voted for Donald Trump, and why there remains a smaller core of fanatical supporters who will believe anything he says — most recently, that he won the election but that it is being stolen through voter fraud. “Over the past several years, a legion of explanations for the Trump phenomenon have been put forward — that it is a backlash against the inequalities created by globalization, that it represents the fear of white voters fearing a loss of power and prestige, that is has been generated by social media companies, that it reflects a huge social divide between people living in big cities and those in smaller communities, that it is based on level of education, and so on. “All of these factors are probably true to some extent, but none of them adequately explains the fear and loathing evident on the right in America today. There is a qualitative change in the nature of partisanship that conventional explanations fail to capture, reflected in poll data showing that a majority of Republican voters believe some version of QAnon theories about Democrats drinking children’s blood. Nor have I seen a good explanation for why so many conservatives can see such an imperfect vessel as Trump as the object of cult-like worship, or fear the Democrats as the embodiment of Satan. “At the end of Trump’s term, what I’ve learned is that I really don’t understand America well at all.” — Francis Fukuyama is senior fellow at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Mosbacher director of its Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law “I mostly live in a rural area, and my county voted for Donald Trump. Yet nearly all the conversations I have are with like-minded people. Our blue/red segregation is complete. The local newspaper that once served as a common source of information is gone. There’s always a sadness when a beloved shopkeeper puts up a Trump sign or another ironic “Cold Beer Matters” pops up in a front yard, but mostly the past four years have brought about a resignation of reaching over to the other side and finding a common purpose. After Charlottesville, the dream of an exceptional nation marching among others, our disagreements in tow, died a quick death. Was the dream fraudulent to begin with? Joe Biden’s acceptance speech hit all the right notes, but I doubt it will make much of a difference up and down my rural drive. Time is your friend, a doctor told me after a recent wound refused to quickly heal. I would like to believe so. But how do we heal when my newfound hope in this country is mirrored by a neighbor’s hopeless despair?” — Gary Shteyngart is the author, most recently, of the novel Lake Success
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| | DON'T MISS NEW EPISODES OF GLOBAL TRANSLATIONS PODCAST: The world has long been beset by big problems that defy political boundaries, and these issues have exploded in 2020 amid a global pandemic. Global Translations podcast, presented by Citi, unpacks the roadblocks to smart policy decisions and examines the long-term costs of the short-term thinking that drives many political and business decisions. Subscribe for Season Two, available now. | | | | | | | DYNASTY? Lara Trump is considering a Senate run in North Carolina, according to two people familiar with her plans. The president’s daughter-in-law, a North Carolina native, is looking at a possible run in 2022 , as Republican Sen. Richard Burr’s term comes to a close. Burr has said he will not seek reelection after more than 15 years in office. NEWSOM TO CALI: BE HOME BEFORE 10 — Gov. Gavin Newsom has ordered California into a statewide curfew , escalating his response to rapidly rising coronavirus numbers. More than 94 percent of Californians must remain in their homes between 10 p.m and 5 a.m. unless performing essential activities. The requirement applies to the 41 counties that have landed in the state’s most restrictive tier because of wide coronavirus spread, Jeremy B. White and Victoria Colliver write. The curfew will start Saturday at 10 p.m. and last until 5 a.m. on Dec. 21, more than a full month. To explain the curfew, Newsom’s statement essentially said higher spread occurs during activities fueled by inebriation and late-night antics.
| | DEFENDING ‘DEFUND’ — Black Lives Matter activists have a message for Democrats blaming their call to “defund the police” on the party’s losses down ballot: Show us the receipts. In the wake of weeks-long public attacks on the slogan by Democratic elected officials, movement leaders are planning a counteroffensive to push back on the criticism, Laura Barrón-López and Holly Otterbein write. Should they opt for a formal response, a major theme would likely be what activists call a lack of evidence from moderate Democrats who blame the push to pull funding from police departments for unexpected defeats in House and Senate seats. They said the complaints have been mostly anecdotal and data-free. Without a defense, some organizers fear centrist Democrats could use the election results as an excuse to not tackle police reform, a major campaign promise made by Biden. “I am disappointed that this has been the post-election conversation and I have not seen the data sets to support it,” said Rashad Robinson, president of nonprofit civil rights group Color of Change, a partner organization in the Black Lives Matter movement. “Which means that it’s reflective because it’s always easier to blame Black people.”
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A message from Uber: In order to raise the standard for independent work for all, government and business need to work together. That’s why Uber created our Working Together Priorities, which can help people who earn through app-based work receive more security, protection, and transparency. This work is already underway in California, where voters overwhelmingly approved Prop 22. | | | | | SO THIS HAPPENED — They called themselves an “elite strike force team.” But the madcap news conference by Trump’s attorneys this afternoon was more campaign farce than cogent legal argument, as Rudy Giuliani offered several conspiracy theories and a litany of false claims that he pledged would reverse the outcome of the 2020 White House race, Quint Forgey and Alex Isenstadt write. “I guess we’re the senior lawyers,” Giuliani told a packed room of reporters inside the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., flanked by fellow Trump campaign attorneys Jenna Ellis, Joseph diGenova and Sidney Powell. In the 90 minutes that followed, the former New York mayor and his colleagues spun a web of mistruths that made mention of the Clinton Foundation, liberal megadonor George Soros and the late Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chávez. And although Ellis described their remarks as merely an “opening statement” on behalf of the campaign, the discursive briefing — during which streams of what appeared to be hair dye dripped down both sides of Giuliani’s face — betrayed almost immediately the desperation of Trump’s flailing effort to undermine Biden’s victory.
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| | | Welcome to Bidenology, Nightly’s look at the president-elect and what to expect in his administration. Tonight, Delaware native and energy reporter Alex Guillén takes us inside Biden’s home state. If your only experience in Delaware is tanning on a Rehoboth beach before hitting up Grotto’s or the Purple Parrot, here’s your guide to the state where Fight Club was set (really). With just three counties and fewer than a million people, Delaware has spawned celebrities like the actors Aubrey Plaza and Ryan Philippe, and WNBA star Elena Delle Donne. The northernmost county, New Castle, is home to the state’s largest city, Wilmington, as well as much of the industrial base, bank and corporate headquarters, not to mention the University of Delaware and the bulk of the population. It trends deep blue. Kent, in the middle, hosts the state capital, a major Air Force base and the Dover Downs racetrack (plus the Firefly Festival for you music lovers) and runs more toward the middle politically. Sussex County in the south has lots of farmland and the Delaware beaches, a popular destination for Washingtonians, and is typically the splash of red on the state map. Biden toppled Republican Sen. Caleb Boggs in 1972 and was easily reelected another half-dozen times before becoming vice president. For much of his time in the Senate, Delaware was not overwhelmingly Democratic. During Biden’s first three decades in office, Delaware’s senior senator was Republican William Roth (most remembered now for his legislation creating the Roth IRA), until he was defeated in 2000 by Tom Carper, then the outgoing governor. A decade ago, Republican Mike Castle — a popular, moderate former governor who held the state’s only U.S. House seat for a decade — was poised to soar into Biden’s old Senate seat. But the 2010 Tea Party wave that elevated hard-right candidates around the country hit the First State as well, and Republicans instead nominated Christine O’Donnell, who memorably was not a witch but did prove to be too far right for the state. New Castle County Executive Chris Coons won instead, setting him on a path that ultimately could lead to Foggy Bottom. Should Coons be picked for an administration job, Democratic Gov. John Carney is widely expected to elevate third-term Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester to the Senate. That would make Blunt Rochester the only Black woman in the Senate as Kamala Harris leaves for the vice presidency.
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| | TRACK THE TRANSITION, SUBSCRIBE TO TRANSITION PLAYBOOK: As states certify their election results, President-elect Biden is building an administration. The staffing decisions made in the coming days, weeks, and months will send clear-cut signals about his administration’s agenda and priorities. Transition Playbook is the definitive guide to what could be one of the most consequential transfers of power in American history. Written for political insiders, it tracks the appointments, people, and the emerging power centers of the new administration. Stay in the know, subscribe today. | | | | | | | Nightly asks you: What are your plans for Thanksgiving this year during the spike in Covid-19 cases? Submit your answers in our form, and we’ll use select responses in next Wednesday’s edition.
| | CROSSROADS — In the latest POLITICO Dispatch, health care reporters Adam Cancryn and Dan Diamond break down the state of the Covid crisis. Plus, the nation’s largest public school system shuts down in-person learning.
| | | | EU JOINS THE VAX RACE — Europe could have each of the frontrunning coronavirus vaccines approved for widespread use next month, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said this evening. The statement follows promising results from trials of two separate shots — one a joint collaboration between U.S. pharma company Pfizer and Germany’s BioNTech, and a second by the U.S.’s Moderna — over the past two weeks, Laura Greenhalgh writes. “If all proceeds with no problems, EMA [the European Medicines Agency] tell us that the conditional marketing authorization for BioNTech and Moderna could happen as early as the second half of December 2020,” von der Leyen told a press conference following a videoconference of EU leaders. The head of the EMA, Emer Cooke, told POLITICO on Wednesday she was “hopeful” of approval for the BioNTech vaccine by the end of the year.
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$10 million The amount of funds the General Services Administration has not yet released while waiting to “ascertain” Biden’s election win. Biden’s team is appealing to its high-dollar donors to help raise millions of dollars more for his presidential transition, because of concerns the Trump administration will continue to block public funding. |
| | | THE MAN SHOW — 2020 was never going to be easy. But it didn’t have to be a dumpster fire. There’s an alternate timeline where vast majorities of Americans followed medical experts’ advice, POLITICO magazine digital editor Zack Stanton writes. In that timeline, the White House set a clear and simple example: Wear a mask; keep your distance. And then a hard-fought presidential election ended with a gracious concession speech. But we don’t live in that world. And there’s a bit of a grand-unified theory that explains why 2020 has been so miserable: A particularly noxious strain of masculinity. Peter Glick, a social psychologist at Lawrence University in Wisconsin, has been watching the way Americans relate to each other for decades, and he’s recently seen an uptick in a very locked-in, confrontational version of American manhood. Trump, especially, embodies it, Glick says. “You can never show a chink in the armor, even if that involves denying reality,” as Glick puts it. With America confronting a series of challenges — economic dislocation, racial tension, a viral pandemic — this leadership style is both appealing for its strength, and utterly destructive in its effects, from the top down. Though it’s common to point out that Trump likes to project strength, it’s less common to argue that an extreme concept of masculinity is driving many of the problems we face, and is not just a reaction to them. Most political analysts don’t turn to “masculinity” when they think about how we got here. To Glick, that’s a mistake: To understand the shape of American politics, we need to understand the social psychology behind it. Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here. | |
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