memeorandum: Can a reality-TV president create a new U.S. reality that pretends death, despair don't exist? (Will Bunch/The Philadelphia Inquirer)

6:10 PM ET, May 10, 2020

Top Items:

‘Scary to Go to Work’: White House Races to Contain Virus in Its Ranks — With two White House staff members testing positive, some officials fear the disease is already spreading rapidly through the West Wing. — WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is racing to contain an outbreak …

Discussion: CBS News, Mediaite, Rolling Stone and The Hill

Michelle Mark / Business Insider Nederland:

Birx said ‘there is nothing from the CDC that I can trust’ in a White House coronavirus task force meeting — Foto: Associated Press/Evan Vucci White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx listens as President Donald Trump holds a meeting about the coronavirus response with Gov. Greg Abbott …

Discussion: Raw Story and NBC News

Axios:

Lamar Alexander knocks Trump for pushing ahead with Obamacare lawsuit — Senate Health Committee Chairman Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) expressed disapproval on Sunday of the Trump administration's decision to continue backing a lawsuit seeking to strike down the entire Affordable Care Act.

Discussion: IJR, Breitbart and DCCC

Will Bunch / The Philadelphia Inquirer: Can a reality-TV president create a new U.S. reality that pretends death, despair don't exist?

Axios:
Illinois governor: White House has “not delivered” on coronavirus promises

Discussion: IJR, NPR, Politico, The Hill and Breitbart

Sophia Ankel / Business Insider Nederland:
11 Secret Service agents test positive for COVID-19 and fears of it spreading through the White House are mounting

Discussion: Raw Story

Maya Parthasarathy / Politico:
White House adviser Hassett: 'It's scary to go to work'

Discussion: Vanity Fair and Breitbart

Jennifer Bendery / HuffPost:
Trump Met With GOP Lawmakers For An Hour. Nobody Wore A Mask Or Stayed Apart.

Discussion: The Signorile Report

Mary B. McCord / New York Times:

Bill Barr Twisted My Words in Dropping the Flynn Case. Here's the Truth. — The F.B.I.'s interview of Mr. Flynn was constitutional, lawful and for a legitimate counterintelligence purpose. — Ms. McCord was an acting assistant attorney general for national security at the Justice Department from 2016 to 2017.

Discussion: Raw Story

Chuck Rosenberg / Washington Post:

The long list of people who thought Flynn's lies were material — Chuck Rosenberg is a former U.S. attorney, senior FBI official and acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration. — Michael Flynn made false statements to FBI agents interviewing him about his December 2016 telephone conversation with a Russian diplomat.

Discussion: New York Times

Mike Allen / Axios:
Exclusive: Pence says he'd be “happy” to see Michael Flynn back in government

Discussion: Reuters, Vanity Fair, The Daily Caller, The Week, New York Post, The Hill and Breitbart

New York Times:
William Barr's Perversion of Justice

Discussion: Balkinization

Washington Post:

Top White House advisers, unlike their boss, increasingly worry stimulus spending is costing too much — Conservatives are eyeing potential policies to reduce long-term budget impact, but they say Trump probably won't go along — Senior Trump administration officials are growing increasingly wary …

Discussion: Washington Monthly and CNN

Anita Kumar / Politico:
Meadows learns to navigate Kushner's sprawling White House influence

Discussion: Axios and Raw Story

Jacob Knutson / Axios:
Mnuchin: White House will decide on more coronavirus relief in “a few weeks”

Discussion: Mother Jones, Fox News, One America News Network and Associated Press

USA Today: Sanders, Harris, Markey want to give Americans $2,000 a month during coronavirus pandemic, but likely face GOP pushback

Isaac Chotiner / New Yorker:

How Chris Hayes Makes Sense of the “World-Historical Cataclysm” — Before the coronavirus pandemic reshaped media priorities, along with just about everything else, the MSNBC host Chris Hayes was spending most of his time covering the Democratic Presidential nomination and the transformation …

Harry Enten / CNN:

Biden's lead is the steadiest on record — (CNN)Poll of the week: A new Monmouth University poll finds that former Vice President Joe Biden leads President Donald Trump 50% to 41%. When Rep. Justin Amash is included as the Libertarian Party candidate, it's Biden 47%, Trump 40% and Amash 5%.

Discussion: Outside the Beltway and Washington Post

Wall Street Journal:

South Korea's Early Coronavirus Wins Dim After Rash of New Cases — More than 50 cases have been linked to Seoul's nightclubs and bars, which have now been ordered closed — SEOUL—South Korea, which largely succeeded in quelling the spread of the coronavirus, is back on the defensive …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo

Margaret Sullivan / Washington Post:

Trump wants America to ‘normalize’ coronavirus deaths. It's the media's job not to play along. — Comparing the number of deaths from covid-19 to those caused by car crashes never made any sense. But the gimmick caught on anyway. — “We don't shut down our economy because tens …

Discussion: Twitchy

New York Times:

Pork Chops vs. People: Battling Coronavirus in an Iowa Meat Plant — After President Trump's executive order, meat plants are reopening. Can they do so without endangering their low-wage workers and their communities? — On April 10, Tony Thompson, the sheriff for Black Hawk County in Iowa …

Marlow Stern / The Daily Beast:

Why Have Late-Night TV Hosts Gone Silent on Tara Reade? — HYPOCRISY — Colbert, Kimmel, Meyers and Noah have all repeatedly hammered Trump for his treatment of women and gone radio silent on Tara Reade's sexual assault allegation against Joe Biden. — On Oct. 8, 2016 …

Discussion: The Intercept and Instapundit, more at Mediagazer »

Washington Post:

Republicans grow nervous about losing the Senate amid worries over Trump's handling of the pandemic — Republicans are increasingly nervous they could lose control of the Senate this fall as a potent combination of a cratering economy, President Trump's controversial handling of the pandemic …

Discussion: Raw Story, POLITICUSUSA and Daily Kos

Andrew O'Reilly / Fox News:

Nunes: Transcripts show Russia investigation was ‘phony the whole time’ — Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said the Republican strategy during the House investigation into the Russia probe focused an asking if there was any collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. — The answer they got: none.

Discussion: Breitbart

Axios:
Trump tweets more than 50 times about Russia probe amid new revelations

Discussion: CBS News

Joe Lockhart / CNN:

Why aren't editorial boards screaming: Trump has to go? — Trump disagrees with nurse calling PPE availability ‘sporadic’ — Joe Lockhart is a CNN political analyst. He was the White House press secretary from 1998-2000 in President Bill Clinton's administration. He co-hosts the podcast “Words Matter.”

Discussion: ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES

Shelly Bradbury / Denver Post:

Castle Rock restaurant reopens to Mother's Day crowds in defiance of statewide public health order — A Castle Rock restaurant saw big crowds Sunday when it fully reopened for Mother's Day in open defiance of the statewide public health order that limits restaurants to takeout and delivery services.

Mark Sherman / Associated Press:

Trump asking justices to bar demands for taxes, bank records — WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is hoping to persuade a Supreme Court with two of his appointees to keep his tax and other financial records from being turned over to lawmakers and a New York district attorney.

Jesse Eisinger / ProPublica:

The Bailout Is Working — For the Rich — The economy is in free fall but Wall Street is thriving, and stocks of big private equity firms are soaring dramatically higher. That tells you who investors think is the real beneficiary of the federal government's massive rescue efforts.

New York Times:

Why the Path to Reopening New York City Will Be So Difficult — The factors that made the city one of the hardest hit on the planet — its density, mass transit and tourism — complicate a return to normalcy. — Nearly 190,000 people were tested for the coronavirus in New York City over the past two weeks, a record number.