POLITICO NIGHTLY: The pandemic’s dangerous transition

 

BY RENUKA RAYASAM

Presented by The Bouqs Co.

With help from Myah Ward and Tyler Weyant FAUCI AND BIDEN CAN'T TALK YET — Joe Biden wants Anthony Fauci to play a leading role in his administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. But he and his transition advisers are staying away from the nation’s top infectious-disease expert for now. President Donald Trump’s refusal to concede the election means that officials at the FDA, CDC and NIH cannot legally speak with Biden’s advisers about the progress of vaccine development, plans for distributing an eventual shot, or testing capacity. THE VIRUS DOESN’T NEED A RECOUNT — Today El Paso County extended an order shutting down its non-essential businesses to Dec. 1. Even as Covid-sickened patients overwhelmed local hospitals and flooded morgues, the original two-week order became embroiled in politics: City leaders said they weren’t consulted on the order and refused to enforce it. Texas’ attorney general Ken Paxton joined a suit against the county order. Finally, on Friday a state judge kept the order in place. An appeals court could yet overturn it. El Paso’s Covid situation in November recalls New York’s situation in April: Hospitals have set up tents in parking lots. They’ve evacuated patients to other cities. The county ran out of morgue space. The public health department reported another 14 deaths and 863 cases today. But this time the virus hasn’t just settled into one isolated hotspot. Covid Exit Strategy’s map shows a sea of dark red across the country, indicating uncontrolled spread in all but three states. In many ways the country is worse off than it was in the spring . Yes, Covid treatments have improved and researchers have figured out more about how the virus spreads. There’s more testing. A vaccine may be around the corner. But the country is entering this new phase with already high transmission levels, so spread is faster. It took just 10 days for the country to get to 10 million Covid cases from 9 million. It took 44 days to get to 2 million cases from 1 million. Like El Paso, cities and towns across the country are facing circumstances that make it harder to combat the virus. The public is weary of stay-at-home orders. There is no new support from Congress for hospitals and businesses affected by closures. Many people remain skeptical of masks, despite new CDC guidance that they also protect the mask-wearer. Winter is around the corner, making outdoor socializing more difficult and bringing holidays when people want to gather. Airlines are no longer blocking off middle seats. In short, there’s more reason to panic, but less panicking. The lack of a national strategy, and sometimes state strategy, is forcing cities and towns to figure things out on their own. Utah Gov. Gary Herbert announced a statewide mask mandate earlier this week, but more than a dozen states still don’t require masks. Nevada’s Gov. Steve Sisolak asked residents Tuesday to stay at home for two weeks and urged cities to step up mask enforcement. The places now being hit aren’t as equipped as bigger cities to deal with the crisis. “El Paso is by far the worst place that I have ever gone,” said one travel nurse who has worked in intensive care units in New York City, California and Florida since March and who didn’t want to give her name because it would jeopardize her job with her agency. The El Paso hospital where she is now stationed does have protective equipment, she said, but it is severely understaffed even with the more than 1,300 personnel the city has brought in from out of state. She will often spend her entire 12-hour shift covered in protective equipment in a room with two patients hooked up to a ventilator without a break to go to eat or go to the restroom, she said. The hospital lacks equipment to monitor patients remotely. About a quarter of the small businesses in El Paso have shut down since March, El Paso mayor Dee Margo told me today. “If you have financial support to subsist with a shutdown, then fine that’s OK,” said Margo. “That’s not occurring now. People are trying to put food on the table, to pay their rent.” The mayor, a former Republican state representative now occupying a nonpartisan office, said he and other city leaders were caught between state and county officials. “We felt like we were in a legal juggling act because the governors’ orders said, ‘No, you can’t do this’; the county judge said, ‘Oh yes I can.’” Rural areas seeing surges for the first time are ill-equipped to deal with rising cases. Already this year 17 rural hospitals have closed, said Alan Morgan, CEO of the National Rural Health Association. Because Covid is now so widespread, health care staff frequently quarantine after coming into close contact with someone who tests positive for Covid, said Darrold Bertsch, CEO of Sakakawea Medical Center and Coal Country Community Health Center in the North Dakota towns of Hazen and Beulah. Plus there’s only one day care in the area. When it closes, health care workers have no place to send their kids. Because of statewide staffing shortages, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is now allowing some nurses who test positive for Covid but are asymptomatic to remain at work. But he’s not mandating masks, which is especially needed in rural areas where people remain skeptical of them, said Morgan and Bertsch. Morgan thought that by the time the virus hit rural areas, the country would be better prepared for the surge it’s now seeing. “When you and both I talked at the beginning of this, I was very careful because I didn’t want to be alarmist,” he said. “In hindsight that was the wrong approach. I should have been an alarmist about this.” The nurse said that despite skyrocketing caseloads, El Paso residents aren’t taking the pandemic seriously enough. This is the first time since March, she said, that she’s been concerned for her own safety. She is considering going back to New York City. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Kamala Harris is first vice president-elect to do a victory lap to the beat of Mary J. Blige. Read about what she faces with all of her firsts. Reach out at rrayasam@politico.com, or on Twitter at @renurayasam.

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Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) takes questions from the media during a campaign rally for Republican Senate candidates David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in Marietta, Ga. | Getty Images

AROUND THE NATION

CALI CLIMATE POLICY HEADS EAST — Trump spent the last four years trying to rein in California’s vast influence on American emissions, energy and environmental policy, because any rule made by the nation’s biggest state ripples through the national economy. That ends in just over two months, when Biden enters the Oval Office, and has consequences that stretch well beyond the Golden State, as key California officials regain their clout in Washington. California environment reporter Debra Kahn highlights some key areas of California environmental policy where a Biden administration could significantly change direction: — Emissions: The Trump EPA withdrew permission under the Clean Air Act for California to impose greenhouse gas standards on vehicles and mandate zero-emission car sales. Biden’s EPA could immediately let California move forward with its own standards for model years 2016-25 — and at the same time restore the rules of 13 other states that had agreed to follow California’s lead. — Water: Trump has catered to farmers by seeking to increase pumping from the state’s main water hub, the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, both through executive order and by revising protections for fish under the Endangered Species Act. Biden could choose to stop defending the endangered species rules in court, though it would be more complicated than just stopping proceedings. In general, Biden’s administration would have to find legal flaws in the Trump rules. — Wildfires: A Biden administration promises to put an end to federal attacks on state forest management policies as well as Trump’s head-scratching calls for raking California’s forests. It’s not clear Biden would be able to break the logjam that’s resulted in overgrown forests that, along with climate change, are fueling the state’s record-setting blazes. — Fossil fuel drilling: The Trump administration plans to open hundreds of thousands of acres of public land in California to oil and gas drilling despite legal challenges. The Bureau of Land Management is scheduled to hold its first lease sale in the state since 2012 on Dec. 10. Environmentalists say Biden could revise two resource management plans that allow oil and gas leasing: one that covers 725,000 acres in the Central Coast and San Francisco Bay Area, and another that covers 1 million acres in the Central Valley and Central Coast. Those groups are planning to challenge next month’s sale in Kern County, but they also say Biden’s administration could cancel leases by finding they were improperly issued.   TRACK THE TRANSITION, SUBSCRIBE TO TRANSITION PLAYBOOK: The definitive guide to what could be one of the most consequential transfers of power in American history. Our Transition Playbook newsletter—written for political insiders—tracks the appointments, people, and power centers of the new administration. Don't miss out. Subscribe today.     BIDENOLOGY Matt Wuerker Welcome to Bidenology, Nightly’s look at the president-elect and what to expect in his administration. We start the series where Biden has started many days: On the rails. Transportation reporter Sam Mintz emails the Nightly: Train travel may be the best conduit for what truly appears to be one of Biden’s favorite hobbies: having long conversations with strangers. The man who rode the rails to work in Washington for decades, kicked off a previous presidential run on the back of an Amtrak train, and spent time on a charter chugging between states during the late stages of his 2020 campaign is now president-elect. His personal affinity for trains has rail advocates fired up, especially when combined with the campaign’s plans for rail expansion. What that means for rail policy in the Biden administration is a “steady, incremental, supportive type of atmosphere for Amtrak specifically and for passenger rail generally,” Jim Mathews of the Rail Passengers Association said. At a September campaign stop in Cleveland, Biden looked up and got distracted by a passing train. “Here comes the train that he tried to make sure didn’t continue to run,” Biden said, perhaps referring to Amtrak’s Capitol Limited line, which was slated for elimination by the Trump administration’s proposed budget. The train rumbled by and blew its horn. “No, that’s the commuter. Alright,” Biden said, trailing off and watching it roll into the distance. The Trump campaign plastered video of the moment on social media, trying to paint Biden as scatterbrained. But maybe it’s just an illustration that, yes, Joe Biden really does love trains.       COVID-2020 A COMPETITION UNLIKE ANY OTHER — It’s the election that keeps on giving! In the latest POLITICO Dispatch, campaigns reporter Elena Schneider breaks down how both parties plan to win Georgia’s two Senate runoffs in January — and how Trump’s refusal to concede could shape the campaigns. Listen to the latest POLITICO Dispatch podcast FROM THE DEFENSE DESK TBD AT DOD — Trump’s decapitation strike on the Pentagon this week is raising fears that the U.S. will accelerate the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, putting newly installed leaders on a collision course with top generals and others who are urging a more deliberate drawdown, Lara Seligman and Natasha Bertrand write. Current and former administration officials say Trump fired Defense Secretary Mark Esper Monday in part over his opposition to accelerating troop drawdowns worldwide, and especially in Afghanistan. The upheaval accelerated on Tuesday with the resignation of three high-level civilians and the installation of loyalists who are expected to ram through Trump’s agenda, and continued today when retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor, an outspoken critic of the war in Afghanistan, was brought on as senior adviser to new acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller. Any move to accelerate withdrawals would set up a clash with the nation’s top generals and other civilians, who have argued publicly against leaving Afghanistan too quickly while the security situation remains volatile. It would also complicate Biden’s pledge to leave a small number of troops in the country to guard against terrorist attacks.   JOIN THURSDAY: A WOMEN RULE ROUNDTABLE : 2020 has been a history-making year for women in politics. Kamala Harris is vice president-elect, a record number of Republican women were elected to Congress and more women of color ran for public office than ever before. Join POLITICO's Elizabeth Ralph, Crooked Media's Shaniqua McClendon, and Winning for Women's Micah Yousefi for a conversation that examines the results for women who ran for office and what progress still needs to be made. REGISTER HERE.     TRANSITION 2020 ANOTHER FIRST? Ohio Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge is making her case for Agriculture secretary, arguing she’s best positioned to take on a Cabinet post that has never gone to an African American woman. It’s a move that sets up a battle with former North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, long seen as the frontrunner for the post in the Biden administration. In her first public remarks about her interest, Fudge told POLITICO today that as an African American woman that she represents a crucial segment of the electorate that helped create Biden’s victory over Trump. “When you look at what African American women did in particular in this election, you will see that a major part of the reason that this Biden-Harris team won was because of African American women,” Fudge said. ON THE HILL INSERT YOUR OWN DISARRAY SYNONYM — Despite Biden’s win, congressional Democrats’ lackluster Election Day performance has caused strife within their caucus. In the latest 2020 Check-In, Eugene Daniels talks to Heather Caygle about how Democrats underperformed and what to expect in 2021 during a Biden administration. NIGHTLY NUMBER 14,111 The number of votes dividing Biden and Trump in Georgia. The state’s chief election official announced today that the state will conduct a recount by hand of every ballot cast in the presidential race. PARTING WORDS EXIT STAGE RIGHT — Suppose you’re Trump, slowly coming to grips with the likelihood that the election hasn’t gone your way and that — whatever your advisers are telling you about legal strategies — you have lost the White House. What do you say and do to acknowledge that fact? For most defeated candidates, there’s a rich history of gracious, even moving concession speeches, Jeff Greenfield writes. Trump could draw from John McCain, who spoke of the historic significance of the election of the first Black president, and give a nod to the first woman of color in the vice presidency. He could call for unity in the face of a close, disputed election as Al Gore did in 2000. He could follow the path of the candidate he defeated in 2016. (“Donald Trump is going to be our president,” Hillary Clinton said. “We owe him an open mind and the chance to lead.”) He could display a sense of humor, and quote Lincoln’s story about a man being ridden out of town on a rail (“If it wasn’t for the honor of the thing, I’d rather walk”) or Dick Tuck’s assertion after losing a California state Senate seat in 1966: “The people have spoken — the bastards!” He’s unlikely to do any of these things. Given everything we know about Trump’s character and temperament, there are really only two examples from American politics that would appeal to him. One was an incumbent who refused to leave the office and ended up an odd footnote in the history of his state. The other was Richard Nixon. Jeff has more on how history might guide the 45th president’s departure.   A message from The Bouqs Co.: Gatherings are looking a little bit different this holiday season. Luckily, The Bouqs Co. has everything you need to make home feel like somewhere you want to be versus somewhere you have to be. Festive autumn bouquets, wreaths, and plants from The Bouqs stay fresher longer because everything is sourced directly from the farm — even farms from the side of a volcano! Bouqs.com has all the fresh goodness to help spice up your space or brighten someone’s day, and with a thoughtful assortment that has something for everyone, sending smiles no matter the miles has never been easier. Treat yourself or someone else with flower bouquets, plants, wreaths, and gifts from The Bouqs — perfect for birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, apologies, or just because you adulted today! Use code POLITICO for 25% off your order.   Did someone forward this email to you? Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter Renuka Rayasam @renurayasam Chris Suellentrop @suellentrop Tyler Weyant @tweyant Myah Ward @myahward   FOLLOW US  POLITICO, LLC 1000 Wilson Blvd. Arlington, VA, 22209, USA