Trump news: President calls coronavirus testing 'double-edged sword' as 17 states sue over student visa rule
White House defends relationship with Dr Fauci despite memo undermining his Covid-19 warnings
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump has again lashed out on Twitter against his key media ally, Fox News, accusing the network of “working so hard against the people that got them there” and saying its contributors are “all over the place”.
A move by the White House to discredit the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, Dr Anthony Fauci, by labelling him too frequently “wrong” about the coronavirus pandemic has meanwhile been derided as “atrocious” by House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo denounced the administration's push to reopen schools, saying that the states is "not going to use our children as guinea pigs" or as a "litmus test" for national reopenings as he accused the president of "gross negligence" for "denying" public health experts.
The president defended his "very good" relationship with the nation's leading infectious disease expert as he falsely claimed that the US has one of the lowest Covid-19 mortality rates and blamed the Obama administration for US testing shortfalls, claiming that his predecessor "stopped their testing" despite the pandemic beginning three years after he left office.
During a White House roundtable discussion with law enforcement and people reflecting on their "positive experience" with police, the president repeated that coronavirus testing is a "double-edged sword" – implying that the discovery and spread of the disease also negatively impacts him.
Political rival Joe Biden's campaign criticised the president's "refusal to listen to science" and public falling out with Dr Fauci.
"The president's disgusting attempt to pass the buck by blaming the top infectious disease expert in the country ... is yet another horrible and revealing failure of leadership as the tragic death toll continues to needlessly grow," a statement said.
His latest spats come as new cases of Covid-19 continue to surge in the Sun Belt states, with Florida reporting a record 15,299 cases on Sunday and the Texas city of Houston weighing a return to lockdown.
Meanwhile, 17 states and Washington DC have sued the administration over its plans to drop certain visas for students at universities moving to online classes despite the raging pandemic.
A lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security argues that the order "fails to consider the harm to international students and their families whose lives will be upended" and that it "will also cause irreparable harm to the public health and the economy" of each state.
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Coronavirus crisis may get 'worse and worse and worse', warns WHO
World Health Organisation director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus delivered a stern warning on Monday: "Let me be blunt. Too many countries are headed in the wrong direction. The virus remains public enemy number one."
No coronavirus deaths reported in New York City for the first time in four months
After emerging as a global epicenter of Covid-19 infections and deaths during the coronavirus pandemic, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio reported on Monday that there were no new deaths reported within the last 24 hours.
"Let’s have many more days like that,” he said.
The mayor warned that despite the significant decline in deaths, the city is seeing an uptick in new infections among younger people. He demanded that the federal government "step up" and assist with testing sites as demand grows.
Meanwhile, several states have seen an alarming rise in hospitalisations and new infections, with Florida overtaking New York's single-day record in April for new cases over the weekend.
Several states also are seeing a rise in deaths.
White House press secretary: Fauci 'represents one viewpoint'
Asked on Monday about Donald Trump's relationship with Dr Anthony Fauci following reports that the White House had attempted to discredit the nation's top infectious disease expert amid pressure to reopen the US, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Dr Fauci "represents one viewpoint" in the administration's coronavirus task force.
She told Fox & Friends that Dr Fauci presents "from a public health standpoint" while SAMHSA chief Elinore F McCance-Katz presents "psychological" impacts of closures.
“Dr Fauci is one member of a team,” she said. “But rest assured, his viewpoint is represented and the information gets to the president through the task force.”
That "viewpoint" is echoed by national and international health experts and does not belong to one man.
New York governor accuses Trump of 'gross negligence': 'He is denying reality and jeopardizing public health'
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has blasted Donald Trump for pushing schools to reopen to traditional schooling despite warnings from public health officials. He said that the state is "not going to use our children as guinea pigs" and slammed the administration for failing to follow the leads of scientists and data.
"He was wrong on the economic reopening, he's wrong on the schools reopening," he said. "We reopen if it's safe to reopen ... We look at the data, we don't hold our finger up to the wind ... We're not going to use our children as a litmus test."
Cuomo: New York schools will reopen if infection rate is below 5 per cent
In his Monday briefing, New York Andrew Cuomo criticised Donald Trump's administration for pushing states to reopen schools despite alarming surges in coronavirus infections across the US.
The governor announced that schools will reopen if daily infection rates remain below 5 percent over a two-week average. Schools will close if regional infection rates are greater than 9 per cent over a seven-day average after 1 August.
Based on yesterday's 557 tests, Sunday's infection rate was 1.08 per cent. Current hospitalisations dropped to 792, though 10 people in the state died.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced earlier on Monday that there were no new Covid-19-linked deaths in the city within a 24-hour period.
New York visitors from high-infection states must report where they're from and where they're going
Visitors to New York who fail to comply with a new mandate that instructs them to fill out a form upon entry will face a $2,000 fine and "mandatory quarantine".
Governor Andrew Cuomo says the rule applies to visitors from "designated high-Covid" states.
Visitors must provide their contact information and declare where they're going and where they've been.
Trump has made 20,000 misleading or false statements since taking office
It took Donald Trump 827 days to utter or tweet 10,000 misleading or false statements during his term. But it took the president just 440 to double it.
Washington bureau chief John T Bennett on the president's streak:
Roger Stone: 'I will do anything necessary to elect my candidate, short of breaking the law'
Fresh from avoiding a prison sentence after he was found guilty of lying to Congress and intimidating witnesses for his role in Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and subsequent federal investigation into foreign election interference, Roger Stone plans to campaign for the president's re-election, he told Axios.
"I will do anything necessary to elect my candidate, short of breaking the law," he told the outlet. "First, I'm going to write a book about this entire ordeal to, once and for all, put to bed the myth of Russian collusion."
White House condemns 'cherry picking' science for political reasons despite doing exactly that
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said that science "has to be used in a way that is not political" through the administration's coronavirus response.
The White House should "lean into science" but not "cherry pick" it, though the administration has faced criticism for months for ignoring health officials in the administration, including its recent push to reopen schools, which Dr Anthony Fauci has been resistant to support.
Ms McEnany has also denied that the White House has sent materials to reporters in an attempt to undermine Dr Fauci.
White House: Native Americans 'not offended' by Washington team name
Asked about the imminent name change for Washington's NFL team name that uses a Native American slur, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said that most Native Americans are not offended by the name and that they would be "very angry" if it changed.
She repeated Donald Trump's message on Twitter from last week, pointing to the names of two teams, saying they are named "out of STRENGTH, not weakness" and only being changed "in order to be politically correct." (He also implied an attack on Elizabeth Warren, who he has repeatedly mocked with a Native American slur.)
She pointed to a 2016 poll of 504 Native people that said they don't find the name offensive, but several studies have found overwhelming majorities of Native Americans surveyed disagree.
The shorter opinion polls have been used to undermine "clear examples of Native people speaking up and protesting these problematic team names and mascots," according to a 2020 report.
In a survey of 1,000 Native Americans, "the number of those offended rose for study participants who were heavily engaged in their native or tribal cultures (67%), young people (60%) and people with tribal affiliations such as members of federally recognized tribes (52%)."
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