Trump tweets continued from medical center
President Donald Trump spent the early hours of Monday unleashing a barrage of tweets – most of them in all caps – promoting his reelection bid.
“MASSIVE REGULATION CUTS. VOTE!” the president wrote in one of the tweets from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he had been battling a case of COVID-19 since Friday.
In more than 15 tweets before 7:15 a.m. EST, Trump stated various campaign slogans and policy platforms, often ending the messages with “VOTE!”
Political opponents pushed back against Trump’s hospital-based tweet storm.
“IF YOU WANT A PRESIDENT WHO ACTUALLY PAYS THEIR TAXES VOTE FOR JOE BIDEN,” tweeted Joe Lockhart, a press secretary for President Bill Clinton.
— David Jackson
By the numbers
As of Monday, there were 29 days until Election Day, two days until the vice presidential debate, 107 days until Inauguration Day and 88 days left in 2020.
Mike Pence, Karen Pence test negative
Vice President Mike Pence and second lady Karen Pence both tested negative Monday for the coronavirus, an administration official said.
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump tested positive for the virus last week. The president has been at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center since Friday for treatment. He was expected to be discharged Monday evening.
The Pences are scheduled to leave Washington Monday afternoon for Salt Lake City, the site of the vice presidential debate Wednesday.
— David Jackson and Sean Rossman
Former Secret Service officials decry president’s SUV ride at Walter Reed
After President Donald Trump took a spin around Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in an SUV on Sunday, many decried the decision to risk exposing the Secret Service agents in the vehicle with him to COVID-19.
While agents make safety recommendations that generally are accepted, the bottom line is that the president makes final the call.
“Ultimately, our job is not to say ‘no,’ it is to protect,” Patricia Beckford Acheson, who worked on then-Vice President George H.W. Bush’s protective detail in the early 1980s, told USA TODAY.
Former Secret Service Director W. Ralph Basham said the security and health challenge posed by the coronavirus is unprecedented.
“We are in uncharted waters,” said Basham. “We haven’t seen anything like this before.”
— John Bacon and Kevin Johnson
Want to ride on public transit? Wear a mask, Biden says
Another clash between the Trump administration and Democratic nominee Joe Biden erupted over the weekend over whether passengers on public transit should be required to wear masks.
The Trump administration declined to require passengers’ masks while Biden, who again tested negative for COVID-19, said if he were elected, the Transportation Department would require passengers on buses, trains and planes to wear masks.
“I promise you: My Department of Transportation will insist on it,” Biden told the Amalgamated Transit Union on Saturday.
His comments came a day after the Transportation Department rejected a July 27 petition from the Transportation Trades Department AFL-CIO for a federal regulation to require passengers on public transportation to wear masks.
Larry Willis, the union president, argued the requirement would be a small imposition on passengers in exchange for protecting workers.