US election briefing for Australia: Covid changes everything – except Trump
Welcome to the first US election briefing for Australia.
This year, Covid has profoundly changed everything – how we live, how we work, how we socialise and how we grieve. But, as the events of the past 72 hours show, it has not changed Donald Trump.
Even with Trump in hospital with a potentially life-threatening virus that has killed more than 209,000 Americans, the behaviour of the president and his aides has been, well, spectacularly Trumpian.Heavy ontheatrics and obsequiousness, and totally absent of clear information or respect for normal protocols, the White House has been nothing if not consistent in its handling of the president’s diagnosis.
Trump, who has always fed off the fervour of his adoring crowds and boasted of his personal vigour, abandoned his hospital room on Sunday. He conducted a drive-by visit to fans outside, a move that left medical experts (and countless numbers of people who have obeyed stay-at-home orders around the world) aghast. The White House press secretary took only two questions from reporters, stonewalling on the number of infections among her colleagues. And Trump’s own doctor admitted he wanted to reflect the “upbeat attitude” of the president and his team when delivering his public prognosis earlier this weekend.
But while the virus may not change the man, this turn of events will dramatically change the election.
In this daily newsletter, which you can sign up for here, I’ll do my best to keep you on top of the maelstrom of events emanating from the US each day, and to bring you the best in Guardian analysis from America, our global network and here in Australia, to help you make sense of it all.
We have a month to go.
The big stories
Donald Trump’s doctors have said his oxygen levels dipped suddenly twice in two days and he was on medication normally prescribed for severe coronavirus cases, but they insisted his condition was improving, on a day of
mixed messages about the severity of the president’s condition.
News that the president is being treated with dexamethasone, a steroid proven to benefit Covid-19 patients who are having breathing difficulties, added to the questions about his condition. Here’s what we know about the drug.
That confusion has raised questions about whether Trump himself is controlling the information he is allowing his personal physician, Dr Sean Conley, to release. Here’s a close look at the president’s most senior doctor.
Other medical experts denounced Trump’s drive-by visit to supporters outside the hospital as “insane” and “the height of irresponsibility ”. There are also questions about who knew about and authorised the stunt.
“He cannot admit to the weakness of being ill or of other people being ill.” That’s how Mary Trump, the president’s niece, who is suing the president, described his attitude to illness in a new interview.
The White House refused to say how many officials have tested positive to Covid-19, but the growing number includes several Republican senators. Many of those who have contracted the virus were present at a rose garden ceremony for Trump’s supreme court pick on 26 September – our infographic shows just how closely they were all seated, contravening social distancing guidelines.
Quote of the day
How a source described the president’s feelings towards chief of staff Mark Meadows, after Meadows told reporters the president’s condition was more serious than his physician had described. Election views
“Why should we feel empathy for one of the most unempathetic people in the world?”asks Guardian US columnist Robert Reich. It’s possible to be sympathetic towards Trump as a person, he argues, while acknowledging that the president would not extend the same courtesy to his foes, and while continuing to fight against an administration that lost control of the pandemic, endangering millions.
There was something almost biblical about the hubris of the ceremony held last week in the White House rose garden, now thought to be a possible “super-spreader event”, writes Nesrine Malik. She likens Trump to “the pharaoh who believed he was a god [and] flaunted his impunity, and was punished by pestilence.”
Video of the day
Martin Luther King statues wearing MAGA hats and Democrats getting heckled on golf courses – Guardian reporter Oliver Laughland takes you to the key battleground state of Florida (think Queensland with more guns) to see if Trump can repeat his 2016 victory.
Around the web
The president did not disclose a positive result from a rapid test for Covid-19 on Thursday as he awaited the findings from a more thorough coronavirus screening, according to people familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal reported exclusively.
Vice-president Mike Pence is hitting the campaign trail this week in an attempt to maintain the Republicans’ momentum. But it’s a risky strategy, says Politico, givenhe may be required to step into the president’s shoes at any moment.
And Jim Carrey made his debut as Saturday Night Live’s Joe Biden impersonator over the weekend. I think it lands as poorly as Alec Baldwin’s tiresome Trump impression, but hey, at least we have Maya Rudolph as Kamala Harris.
What the numbers say: 14
How many points Joe Biden leads Donald Trump by in the latest national NBC/Wall Street Journal survey. Some perspective, though – a survey by the same pollsters in early October 2016 had Hillary Clinton leading Trump by nine points.
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