They voted for him and now regret it. Why White women are turning away from Trump.

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From her home in the Philadelphia suburbs, Nin Bell works for an answering service, taking calls from people trying to reach more than 10,000 funeral homes and end-of-life companies. As the coronavirus began to sweep the country earlier this year, the number of calls related to new deaths tripled.

Caller after caller told her about losing a loved one to covid-19, as well as to suicides and drug overdoses. They provided an overwhelmingly painful window into just how badly the country was suffering.

And then Bell would hear President Trump — whom she voted for in 2016, helping him win Pennsylvania — downplay the severity of the pandemic. Continue reading.

Political Appointees Meddled in C.D.C.’s ‘Holiest of the Holy’ Health Reports

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Trump loyalists at the Health and Human Services Department have been exerting influence on the Centers for Disease Control’s weekly reports on all disease outbreaks, the coronavirus and beyond.

WASHINGTON — Political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services have repeatedly asked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to revise, delay and even scuttle weekly reports on the coronavirus that they believed were unflattering to President Trump.

Current and former senior health officials with direct knowledge of phone calls, emails and other communication between the agencies said on Saturday that meddling from Washington was turning widely followed and otherwise apolitical guidance on infectious disease, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports, into a political loyalty test, with career scientists framed as adversaries of the administration.

They confirmed an article in Politico Friday night that the C.D.C.’s public morbidity reports, which one former top health official described on Saturday as the “holiest of the holy” in agency literature, have been targeted for months by senior officials in the health department’s communications office. It is unclear whether any of the reports were substantially altered, but important federal health studies have been delayed because of the pressure. Continue reading.

Trump Insists His Cowardice is Just Like Churchill’s Courage

Donald Trump on Thursday night sought to defend his public downplaying of the coronavirus threat by comparing his response to former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill.

“As the British government advised the British people in the face of World War II, ‘Keep calm and carry on.’ That’s what I did,” Trump said at a rally in Michigan, where images showed the majority of rallygoers did not wear masks, nor adhere to social-distancing guidelines mandated in the state.

Trump added, “When Hitler was bombing London, Churchill, a great leader, would oftentimes go to a roof in London and speak. And he always spoke with calmness. He said we have to show calmness. No, we did it the right way. We’ve done a job like nobody.”

The comparison is historically inaccurate. Continue reading.