memeorandum: Trump offered a confusing coronavirus theory. Conservative pundits explained it for him. (Tina Nguyen/Politico)

5:10 PM ET, April 26, 2020

Top Items:

What does CNN know about the Biden assault allegation that we don't? — Right now, the available evidence does not prove that Joe Biden more likely than not committed the 1993 assault that his former Senate staffer Tara Reade has alleged. Part of this is purely on the virtue of the age …

Discussion: NB Blog

Harry Enten / CNN:
Biden's invisible campaign is winning

Discussion: Outside the Beltway

Joseph Wulfsohn / Fox News:
Biden accuser Tara Reade ‘lost total respect’ for CNN's Anderson Cooper for not asking former VP about assault claim

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Redstate, Conservative News Today, PJ Media Home and Twitchy

Joseph Wulfsohn / Fox News:
CNN ‘Larry King’ episode featuring Biden accuser's mother disappears from Google Play catalog

Discussion: Redstate, The Daily Caller, Twitchy, The Gateway Pundit and Slate

Henry Rodgers / The Daily Caller:
Senate Democrats Refuse To Acknowledge Sexual Assault Accusations Against Joe Biden

Discussion: Fox News, The Gateway Pundit and TheBlaze

Connor O'Brien / Politico:

‘It bothers me that this is still in the news cycle,’ Birx says of Trump's disinfectant and light comments — Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, downplayed President Donald Trump's suggestion last week that injected disinfectants and light could work as treatments …

Discussion: Breitbart

Tina Nguyen / Politico:

Trump offered a confusing coronavirus theory. Conservative pundits explained it for him. — For once, President Donald Trump's latest tossed-out suggestion for a way to combat coronavirus — injecting ultraviolet rays — did not originate from a Fox News guest, a viral Twitter thread or an article on a conservative website.

Joe Scarborough / Washington Post:
The cost of Trump's deadly state of denial

Discussion: Raw Story and The Daily Caller

Meg Cunningham / ABC News:
Amid pandemic, country lacks national leadership: Sen. Amy Klobuchar

Discussion: The Hill

Charles Duhigg / New Yorker:

Seattle's Leaders Let Scientists Take the Lead. New York's Did Not — The initial coronavirus outbreaks on the East and West Coasts emerged at roughly the same time. But the danger was communicated very differently. — The first diagnosis of the coronavirus in the United States occurred …

Washington Post:

Kim Jong Un's train spotted at coastal resort, intel reports scotch death rumors — TOKYO — Evidence that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is still alive and in the coastal resort of Wonsan is mounting, as satellite images showed his train apparently traveled there in the past few days …

Discussion: Catalog of Curiosities

Hyung-jin Kim / Associated Press:

Satellite imagery finds likely Kim train amid health rumors — SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A train likely belonging to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been parked at his compound on the country's east coast since last week, satellite imagery showed, amid speculation about his health that has been caused …

Discussion: Washington Post, New York Post, Slate, Bloomberg and The Week

Paul Farhi / Washington Post:

The White House tried to move a reporter to the back of the press room, but she refused. Then Trump walked out. — A White House official ordered a CNN reporter to give up her front-row seat and move to the back of the press room before President Trump's briefing on Friday …

Discussion: Conservative News Today and Contemptor, more at Mediagazer »

Erik Wemple / Washington Post:
The White House attempts to humiliate CNN's Kaitlan Collins

Discussion: CNN

Washington Post:

13 hours of Trump: The president fills briefings with attacks and boasts, but little empathy — President Trump strode to the lectern in the White House briefing room Thursday and, for just over an hour, attacked his rivals, dismissing Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden as a …

Discussion: Mother Jones and No More Mister Nice Blog

Financial Times:

Global coronavirus death toll could be 60% higher than reported — Mortality statistics show 111,000 deaths in excess of normal levels across 15 countries analysed by the FT — The death toll from coronavirus may be almost 60 per cent higher than reported in official counts …

Will Bunch / The Philadelphia Inquirer:

Hey, teachers, cops, etc. — Mitch McConnell wants your job, pension. Will he kill the GOP instead? — It's been a generation since the right-wing activist Grover Norquist said his movement's goal wasn't to eliminate government but merely to “shrink it down to the size where we can drown it in a bathtub.”

Discussion: POLITICUSUSA

Abigail Leonard / TIME:

This Japanese Island Lifted Its Coronavirus Lockdown Too Soon and Became a Warning to the World — Japan's northern island of Hokkaido offers a grim lesson in the next phase of the battle against COVID-19. It acted quickly and contained an early outbreak of the coronavirus with a 3-week lockdown.

Helena Bottemiller Evich / Politico:

USDA let millions of pounds of food rot while food-bank demand soared — Tens of millions of pounds of American-grown produce is rotting in fields as food banks across the country scramble to meet a massive surge in demand, a two-pronged disaster that has deprived farmers of billions of dollars …

Mark Leibovich / New York Times:

Trump Turns Shared American Experiences Into Us vs. Them — Nostalgia for a time when Democratic leaders could embrace Republican leaders in a moment of crisis — and when a bipartisan group would gather for an annual roasting in Washington. — WASHINGTON — Last weekend …

ABC News:

COVID-19 jobless rates will be comparable to Great Depression: Trump economic adviser — Kevin Hassett, the president's economic adviser, appeared on ABC's “This Week.” — The U.S. is going to see a jobless rate comparable to what happened during the Great Depression as it recovers …

Discussion: HuffPost, Forbes, The Hill, Raw Story and Townhall

Zack Budryk / The Hill: Mnuchin: 'You're going to see the economy really bounce back in July, August, September'

New York Times:

One Rich N.Y. Hospital Got Warren Buffett's Help. This One Got Duct Tape. — The inequities of New York City's health care system are clear at a public hospital in a section of Brooklyn hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic. — It has been hours since the 71-year-old man in Room 3 …

Washington Post:

'We're basically ill-prepared': Hobbled House majority frets about its effectiveness amid pandemic — House Democrats have blasted President Trump's response to the coronavirus pandemic as inept and dangerous. Party leaders insisted on the creation of a special committee to root out abuse …

Discussion: Politico and ncsl.org

New York Times:

Closed Hospitals Leave Rural Patients ‘Stranded’ as Coronavirus Spreads — A for-profit company bought three struggling hospitals in West Virginia and Ohio. Doctors were fired, supplies ran low and many in need of care had to journey elsewhere. Then the doors shut for good.

Ramesh Ponnuru / Bloomberg:

America Isn't Actually Doing So Badly Against Coronavirus — The U.S., like all countries, has made its share of mistakes, but that doesn't make it a “failed state.” — We don't have enough tests for Covid-19 in the U.S. President Donald Trump spent weeks minimizing the threat …

Doree Lewak / New York Post:

NYC tailor defies state order: 'I'm opening my doors come hell or high water' — One defiant NYC business owner — who's been deemed “non-essential” during the pandemic — has a message to New York: “I'm opening my doors come hell or high water.” — Eliot Rabin, whose Upper East Side boutique …

Eric Levitz / New York Magazine:

Why Americans Don't Vote Their Class Anymore — For decades now, major left-wing parties throughout the West have been bleeding support from the working-class voters whose interests they claim to represent. — In the mid-20th century, a voter's socioeconomic position strongly predicted …

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Ashe Schow / The Daily Wire:

New York Required Nursing Homes To Admit ‘Medically Stable’ Coronavirus Patients. The Results Were Deadly. — On March 25, New York's Health Department issued a mandate that state nursing homes could not refuse COVID-19-positive patients who were “medically stable,” meaning facilities …

Discussion: Redstate and Big League Politics

David Edwards / Raw Story:

Tom Cotton: Ban Chinese students from learning science so they can't ‘steal’ coronavirus vaccine — Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) on Sunday argued that the United States should ban Chinese students from learning about science while they are in the United States. — During an interview …

San Francisco Chronicle:

Exclusive: Coronavirus caused heart to rupture in nation's first known victim, autopsy shows — The Santa Clara woman whose death from COVID-19 is the earliest so far known in the United States suffered a massive heart attack caused by coronavirus infection, signs of which were found throughout her body …

Discussion: CNN, NBC Los Angeles, Politico and The Hill

New York Post:

De Blasio appoints wife head of coronavirus racial inequality task force — Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Sunday that he has put First Lady Chirlane McCray in charge of a special coronavirus task force — insisting her work with her embattled ThriveNYC initiative made her perfect for the new job.