The Daily 202: As U.S. economy careens toward coronavirus cliffs, Trump looks to give FBI a new building near his hotel

More people are poised to lose work as money received from federal loans under the Paycheck Protection Program runs out. 

Enhanced federal unemployment benefits that have allowed tens of millions of Americans to make ends meet since the spring are due to expire at the end of next week.

Senate Republicans left town Thursday for a three-day weekend without unveiling their proposal for the next phase of coronavirus relief. They want to continue the expanded benefits at $200 per week, instead of the current $600, but there will be no extension at all without legislative action. Economists across the ideological spectrum agree that inaction would both worsen and prolong the recession.

Amid the cascading crises buffeting the country, one of the complications holding up the GOP’s release of their counteroffer to the bill that House Democrats previously passed had nothing to do with the contagion: The White House is pushing to include language related to the location of the FBI’s headquarters.

The FBI building is catty-corner from the Trump International Hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue NW. “Trump has expressed interest in the location of the FBI’s headquarters for some time,” Erica Werner, Seung Min Kim and Jeff Stein report. “The details were unclear, but the Trump administration previously scrapped a plan to move the FBI headquarters to the suburbs, instead seeking to rebuild a new FBI building in its current location.” 

During his daily coronavirus news conference on Thursday evening, Trump defended his push to keep the FBI based where it is now and to give the agency a new state-of-the-art building. Left unsaid was that this could raise property values and help put more potential customers next to his personal business. But he also suggested that he will not demand that it happen in this must-pass legislation. 

“This one is very old, and … it was never built to a very high standard,” Trump said of the FBI building. “Frankly, you have to be near the Justice Department. There’s nothing better than the site. … They were looking at sites in Maryland and Virginia, in different places, but they would’ve been too far away. So I am, I’ve been, encouraging them to build it.”

“Because FBI people like to work out a lot,” Trump said, a new facility at the current site could include quarter-mile running tracks on the roof. “You can renovate the existing building … or you could take it down and build a great building for the FBI for 100 years and have it be incredible,” he said. “So I think … the best idea would be to build a new building. … I know they’re talking about it, whether or not they put it in this bill or someplace else, but the FBI needs a new building, and we’ll get it done.”

Republicans had hoped to unveil the text of a plan that they could agree to on Wednesday, but the process has proven contentious within the conference. “Sensing the potential economic calamity of pulling back these (unemployment) benefits for up to 30 million people all at once, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin suggested Congress consider a smaller bill to keep these benefits in place while other details are negotiated on Capitol Hill. But Democrats and Republicans roundly dismissed that idea immediately,” per Erica, Seung Min and Jeff. 

The GOP’s new goal is to unveil a proposal on Monday. In a floor speech, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said what they eventually put out would include a new round of stimulus checks, aid for schools, money for testing, changes to unemployment assistance rules, more money for small businesses and legal protections to make it hard for people to sue their employers if they become sick after being called back to work. A new round of funding for the Paycheck Protection Program is also expected.

“The phone stopped ringing at the Nelsons’ auto-body shop in Broomfield, Colo., in March,” Eli Rosenberg reports. “The normal four-to-six-week wait for customers looking to have dents or bumps fixed on their cars disappeared, leaving the shop silent. Tammy Nelson and her husband, Scott, applied in April for a loan from … the federal government’s chaotic $660 billion aid program meant to help businesses and their workers stay afloat. But the PPP loan had only delayed the inevitable — the phone didn’t start ringing again amid the surging pandemic. Nelson laid off her five employees at the end of June, including herself and her husband.  … ‘It was just a Band-Aid on a bullet wound,’ Nelson said of the PPP. ‘All it really did was prolong the agony of having our workers file for unemployment. Whether it’s April 15 or June 30, the end result is still the same.’ …

“Although there’s no official tally on numbers of layoffs tied to companies whose PPP funding is expiring, the National Federation of Independent Business, a trade association for small businesses, found that 22 percent of PPP recipients surveyed have laid off or expect to lay off employees after using up their PPP loan … In recent weeks, layoffs have been reported at the Buffalo-based New Era Cap Co., which received $5 million to $10 million; Peoria Charter Coach, a bus travel company that laid of 132 workers — 95 percent of its workforce — after using up the $1 million to $2 million PPP loan; at least a dozen museums including National September 11 Memorial and Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art; and Rosen Hotels & Resorts, a Florida-based hotel company that received a loan of between $2 million and $5 million. … The program’s terms were originally slated to last eight weeks and was expanded to 24 weeks, although it was left up to companies whether to use the expansion.”

That is according to an analysis by the Covid-19 Eviction Defense Project, a Colorado-based community group. “African American and Hispanic renters are expected to be hit hardest,” Renae Merle reports. “Congress passed a national moratorium that has shielded about one-third of renters from eviction since late March. The renters protected under this moratorium live in buildings or homes with a mortgage that has some form of government backing. That moratorium expires Friday, but renters still have a little time. Once the ban ends, landlords are required to give renters 30 days’ notice before filing an eviction complaint in court. That means the eviction paperwork won’t be filed until late August. Some renters are also covered by a patchwork of state and local eviction bans that don’t end until August or September.”

• House Democrats proposed $100 billion in rental assistance, but Senate Republicans have said they will not include this in their proposal.
• Princeton University’s Eviction Lab maintains a Covid-19 Housing Policy Scorecard that includes some helpful information about local moratoriums.

The White House adviser’s initiative has been a ballyhooed centerpiece of her dad’s efforts to assist the unemployed. “People who’ve lost their jobs because of the coronavirus don’t need a new website. They need better guidance,” writes financial columnist Michelle Singletary. “The site is glitzy and gimmicky, but hardly amazing. … And despite the claim that FindSomethingNew.org will offer people an alternative path from two- and four-year colleges, many of the offerings require just that — an associate degree or a fair amount of technical training or coursework.”

“The first game of baseball’s return didn’t end with a walk-off hit, a high-pressure strikeout or any players on the field at Nationals Park. That would have been far too off-brand for 2020. Instead, on a rain-soaked Thursday in the District, the final pitch was thrown by Max Scherzer with one out in the sixth. The last sequence was the ace and his teammates jogging for cover beneath a violent midsummer storm. The New York Yankees led at that point, 4-1, and that held as the final result,” Jesse Dougherty and Scott Allen report. “It took months of labor negotiations and continued health scares to begin a 60-game season … So of course, on a night that was supposed to finally feature the sport, only the actual game was washed away. The action lasted 1 hour 43 minutes. The rain delay was 15 minutes longer.”

“The rapid spread of the virus this summer is striking, taking just 15 days to go from 3 million confirmed cases to 4 million. By comparison, the increase from 1 million cases to 2 million spanned 45 days from April 28 to June 11, and the leap to 3 million then took 27 days,” Anne Gearan, Marisa Iati and Jacqueline Dupree report. “The rolling seven-day average of infections has doubled in less than a month, reaching more than 66,000 new cases per day Wednesday. The U.S. death toll now exceeds 141,000.”

“Trump on Thursday abruptly canceled the Republican National Convention celebrations scheduled for next month in Jacksonville, Fla.,” Michael Scherer, Josh Dawsey and Colby Itkowitz report. “Trump has for months instructed his advisers to find a way to stage a loud, boisterous and packed convention celebration, after North Carolina officials said they could not guarantee such an event in Charlotte. … The president’s ambition, however, ran headlong into a massive spike in coronavirus cases in Florida, growing local opposition and enormous logistical hurdles. At one point, convention planners announced they would administer daily coronavirus tests to thousands of delegates, donors and members of the media to help reduce the viral risk. That plan was later scrapped to move large portions of the celebrations to an outdoor venue. …

“Trump advisers have repeatedly argued to him in recent days that a more cautious approach is likely to boost his popularity. Canceling the convention, they said, would also show he is taking the virus seriously. … Some White House and campaign officials were fearful of the negative press if delegates and others were infected … They also came to the conclusion that they would probably have to use the National Guard to protect the convention from protests and allow for distancing in the crowd. The president, advisers said, was less than enthusiastic about an arena or stadium that appeared less than full.” (Many GOP lawmakers have said they would not attend. During his news conference, Trump also walked back a little from his insistence that schools should open on time this fall.)

“A Quinnipiac University poll released Thursday found 62 percent of Florida voters opposed holding the convention. Sheriff Mike Williams announced this week that he did not have the resources to provide adequate security for the event. … The city council presented yet another obstacle to the Republican plans. Just minutes before Trump’s announcement, the Republican Party of Duval County sent an email asking party members to ‘call your councilmember and tell them to support’ the convention.”

Reminder: Trump has repeatedly mocked Democrats for signaling early that they would respect public health guidance to scale back on their convention festivities. Democrats will hold a four-day convention in August that will be anchored in Milwaukee, with simulcasts from satellite locations across the country and prerecorded video. But delegates and party officials have been urged to stay home, and the in-person crowd for major speeches, including Joe Biden’s acceptance of the nomination, will be small.

Earlier this week, Trump boasted that his administration has met most governors’ requests for supplies. That’s not true. Officials in Oregon, Indiana, Georgia, New Hampshire, Alaska, Montana, Wyoming, North Carolina, Maryland, Michigan, Idaho, Utah and Washington told ABC News they are either still waiting for requests to be fulfilled, had identified orders that were never filled or have made requests they understand are still being processed.

Trump is expected to sign three health-care executive orders today, including two that target the pharmaceutical industry on drug pricing. White House aides spent much of yesterday fielding calls from drug company executives expressing frustration with the orders, which come as the administration pushes the industry to develop and manufacture covid-19 vaccines. (Yasmeen Abutaleb and Josh Dawsey)

“The country is in very good shape, other than if you look South and West,” Trump said at the White House.

“On July 4, David Glosser, the brother of Miller’s mother, posted a Facebook note announcing the death of his mother, Ruth Glosser, who was Miller’s maternal grandmother,” Mother Jones reports. “David Glosser is a retired neuropsychologist and passionate Trump critic who has publicly decried Miller for his anti-immigrant policies, and he contends that Trump’s initial ‘lack of a response’ to the coronavirus crisis led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans who might have otherwise survived. In an interview, he says, ‘With the death of my mother, I’m angry and outraged at [Miller] directly and the administration he has devoted his energy to supporting.’” The White House, in a statement, claimed that Miller’s grandmother didn’t die from covid-19, saying she “died peacefully in her sleep from old age.” But David Glosser shared his mother’s official death certificate. It lists her cause of death as respiratory arrest resulting from covid-19.

• Texas’s Starr County might send its sickest patients home to die as cases soar in the state. The county’s hospital has 29 ICU beds, and it reported having 28 critically ill patients earlier this week. The county health leader blamed Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) for causing this problem by pushing to reopen the state too quickly. (Katie Shepherd)
• A 9-year-old girl became the youngest person to die of the virus in Florida. The child, whose identity hasn’t been released, was from Putnam County, Fla., about 60 miles south of Jacksonville. The county’s health officer said she’s not aware of any underlying conditions that contributed to the child’s death. (Katie Shepherd)
• Following days of teacher-led protests, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) said public schools will no longer be required to fully reopen in mid-August. While districts will have to offer in-person learning options for students who have nowhere else to go, not all schools will have to open and not all teachers will need to be present in classrooms. (Arizona Republic)
• Wearing masks could help you avoid major illness even if you become infected, experts said. Masks filter out a majority of viral particles. Breathing out small amounts of the virus may lead to no disease or at least a milder infection, while inhaling a huge volume of particles can result in serious disease or death. (Los Angeles Times)
• Workers at a meat plant in Pennsylvania are suing the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia, accusing the government of failing to protect essential workers from dangerous conditions that could expose them to the virus and ignoring concerns they raised early this year. (ProPublica)
• Disney postponed 17 movie releases, including its live-action remake of “Mulan”; Wes Anderson’s latest film, “The French Dispatch”; and James Cameron’s “Avatar” sequels. (Katie Shepherd)

“By quickly sealing the country, closing schools and imposing a nationwide lockdown when the virus first erupted here in February, Netanyahu won plaudits for making Israel a coronavirus success story. Now, he is the focus of blame for rising cases and the crumbling of the economy, with unemployment soaring to 22 percent,” Steve Hendrix reports. “Protests against the prime minister in Tel Aviv and outside his residence in Jerusalem have grown almost nightly, some turning unruly.” 

• Brazil reported record infections. Latin America’s largest country posted a record 67,860 new cases, bringing the total infected to 2.2 million, with nearly 83,000 dead. Both counts are second only to the United States, Terrence McCoy reports. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro – who tested positive for the virus – was photographed talking to staff outside the Alvorada Palace in Brasilia while not wearing a mask, per Jennifer Hassan.
• Canada has its own surge in cases in several provinces. Quebec has seen caseloads rising since bars reopened in June, and Ontario’s uptick has been largely concentrated among young people. In Alberta, which has the highest per capita infection rate in Canada, the number of people hospitalized with severe cases of covid-19 is quickly approaching levels not seen since late April and early May. (Antonia Farzan)
• U.S. military personnel in Japan will be double-tested after Tokyo complained that they are spreading the virus. The move to double-test U.S. military personnel comes as public anger grows in Japan, where there has been a rise in infections in an area that houses numerous U.S. bases. (Adam Taylor)

“Homeland Security officials made false statements in a bid to justify expelling New York residents from programs that let United States travelers speed through borders and airport lines, federal lawyers admitted on Thursday. The unusual admission, contained in a court filing, said the inaccuracies ‘undermine a central argument’ in the Trump administration’s case for barring New Yorkers from the programs after the state passed a law enabling undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses,” the New York Times reports. “Federal officials had previously insisted that New York was an outlier in the restrictions it placed on the access the immigration authorities have to State Department of Motor Vehicles records. … But in their filing on Thursday, the government lawyers acknowledged that several other states, Washington, D.C., and some U.S. territories also limited access to motor vehicle information and had not been subject to similar clampdowns. 

“Against that backdrop, the filing said, ‘The acting secretary of homeland security has decided to restore New York residents’ access to’ what is officially known as the Trusted Traveler Program ‘effective immediately.’ … ‘Defendants deeply regret the foregoing inaccurate or misleading statements and apologize to the court and plaintiffs for the need to make these corrections at this late stage in the litigation,’ said Audrey Strauss, the acting United States attorney in Manhattan. … 

“On Feb. 4, Mr. Trump criticized New York in his State of the Union address for not letting the police detain undocumented immigrants until federal agents could pick them up for deportation proceedings … The next day, Chad F. Wolf, the acting homeland security secretary and a favorite of Mr. Trump’s for his hard-line stance on enforcement matters, said on Fox News that New Yorkers would be barred from the travel programs because of the sanctuary policies. At the time, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo condemned the move, which had the potential to slow the travel routines of at least 175,000 New Yorkers, as ‘a form of extortion.’”

A federal judge on Thursday ordered Trump’s ex-lawyer to be released from prison to home confinement, saying the Justice Department’s move to take him back into custody earlier this month was retaliation for writing a book about his former boss. “U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein said Cohen must be released by 2 p.m. Friday … He has been held in a solitary setting at the federal prison in Otisville, N.Y., since being rearrested July 9,” Shayna Jacobs reports. “Cohen and his lawyers alleged his detention stemmed from plans to write an unflattering tell-all about the president … that would cite examples of Trump making racist and anti-Semitic comments in private settings.”

“In early 2017, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement prepared to carry out the hard-line agenda on which President Trump had campaigned, agency leaders jumped at the chance to let two filmmakers give a behind-the-scenes look at the process,” the Times reports. “Some of the contentious scenes include ICE officers lying to immigrants to gain access to their homes and mocking them after taking them into custody. One shows an officer illegally picking the lock to an apartment building during a raid. … Over the next two and a half years, the couple filmed a sweeping look at the federal immigration enforcement system, discovering many inherent contradictions. They followed Border Patrol tactical agents who took pride in rescuing migrants from deadly dehydration even as the agents acknowledged that their tactics were pushing the migrants further into harm’s way. They showed how the government had at times evaluated the success of its border policies based not only on the number of migrants apprehended, but on the number who died while crossing.”

“The United States could see a 25 percent drop in international enrollment in 2020,” Miriam Berger reports. “That specter has left U.S. institutions worried about a loss in revenue — alongside a more nebulous decline in their reputations abroad. A drop in international enrollment in the fall of 2020 could cost schools $3 billion … The greatest share of international students in the United States are from China and India, both countries that Trump’s administration has targeted with immigration and visa restrictions. … Meanwhile, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia have gained an edge.”

“Trump officials will conclude Friday that a proposed gold and copper mine in Alaska — which would be North America’s largest — would not pose serious environmental risks, a sharp reversal from a finding by the Obama administration that it would permanently harm the region’s prized sockeye salmon,” Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis report. “In a final environmental analysis obtained by The Washington Post, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers found that Pebble Mine, which targets a deposit of gold, copper and other minerals worth up $500 billion, ‘would not be expected to have a measurable effect on fish numbers’ in the Bristol Bay watershed that supports the world’s largest sockeye salmon fishery. The Obama administration, which looked at multiple project scenarios, concluded in 2014 that a major mine in the area could cause irreparable harm.”

Trump’s campaign to punish Beijing on a host of unrelated issues escalated this week after the administration ordered Chinese officials to shut down China’s Houston consulate. On Thursday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the nation can’t continue with its “old paradigm of blind engagement with China,” David Nakamura and Carol Morello report. “Yet the timing of the tougher strategy, coming less than four months before the presidential election, has alarmed Trump’s critics. They questioned whether the president’s eagerness to blame China for the pandemic — and paint [Biden] as weak on Beijing — has led the administration to lash out without thinking through the consequences, an approach one Capitol Hill aide privately termed the ‘burn it all down phase’ of its China policy.” 

• In retaliation for Houston, China ordered the U.S. to shut down its consulate in Chengdu. Analysts in Beijing called the retaliation measured. (Anna Fifield) 
• Trump trails Biden in the battlegrounds of Michigan by 9 points, Pennsylvania by 11 points and Minnesota by 13 points, according to new Fox News polls.
• Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) said that a “couple” of the president’s Cabinet secretaries encouraged him to consider challenging Trump for the 2020 GOP nomination. Hogan declined to identify them in an interview with Bloomberg News, saying he “wouldn’t want to see a couple of friends be fired from the administration.”
• Biden warned donors that Trump might try to “indirectly steal” the 2020 election. (Annie Linskey)

Kimberly Guilfoyle oversees a campaign fundraising unit that sources say has been “beset by departures, staffers with no prior fundraising experience and accusations of irresponsible spending,” Politico reports. “Her staff is in upheaval. Last week, several of them [met] with [campaign chief of staff Stephanie] Alexander. They described a feeling of confusion and said it felt like they were caught between the competing demands of longtime fundraiser Caroline Wren and Guilfoyle confidant Sergio Gor, who oversee the unit’s day-to-day operations.”

“Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz will investigate how U.S. marshals have used force in Portland, and how other parts of the Justice Department — such as the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — were used to quell unrest in the nation’s capital,” Devlin Barrett report. “The Department of Homeland Security inspector general, Joseph Cuffari, said in a letter to lawmakers that he opened an investigation into allegations that Customs and Border Protection agents ‘improperly detained and transported protesters’ in Portland, and that he would review the deployment there of DHS personnel in recent weeks.” The Democratic leaders of the Judiciary, Oversight and Homeland Security committees said the investigations are “critically important” because the Trump administration has pledged to send federal agents to more cities in the coming days. 

• Trump’s “Operation Legend” was supposed to combat crime but, so far, it has produced only one arrest but lots of suspicion. Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas (D) and other local leaders worry that the president is using law enforcement for political purposes. (Matt Zapotosky and Annie Gowen) 
• Trump said he could deploy as many as 75,000 federal agents into urban centers. There are approximately 100,000 federal law enforcement officers altogether. (CNN)
• The Trump administration is deploying CBP tactical officers to Seattle in anticipation of potential clashes with protesters in the city. (Nick Miroff) 
• The Fraternal Order of Police, which bills itself as the largest police union in the world, said it supports Trump’s plans to surge federal agents into Chicago and Albuquerque. (Mark Berman) 
• Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) signed a police accountability law that bans neck restraints, suspends “warrior style” training, and requires officers to intercede when colleagues use excessive force. (Alex Horton)
• NBA star LeBron James demanded the arrest of the Louisville police officers who shot and killed black ER technician Breonna Taylor in her home. (Ben Golliver)
• A Seattle judge ordered five media outlets, including the Seattle Times, to turn over footage from a May 30 protest that turned violent so that police can investigate possible crimes. (Seattle Times)

“The school board voted unanimously to change the name to John R. Lewis High School at a virtual meeting Thursday evening. The change comes after several years of efforts to rename the school, a push that stalled last year but gained new momentum after the killing of George Floyd,” Hannah Natanson reports. “Some who advocated for the name change were jubilant at the news. ‘I LOVE ITTTT,’ texted Kadija Ismail, a 17-year-old senior at the high school who launched an online petition in June to change the name. That petition earned more than 1,000 signatures in a day.” 

• Lewis will lie in state at the Capitol next week. (Colby Itkowitz)
• Workers wielding power tools and huge rolls of bubble wrap carted a life-size statue of Lee and busts of seven of his Confederate colleagues out of the Virginia Capitol overnight. “House Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn (D-Fairfax) ordered the removals from the historic Capitol’s Old House Chamber, the room where rebel lawmakers met when Richmond served as the capital of the Confederacy,” Greg Schneider reports.
• D.C.’s NFL franchise, formerly the Redskins, will simply go by “Washington Football Team” this season after it became apparent that there’s no simple way to pick a new name, navigate trademark issues and design a new logo before the start of training camp next week. The decision to punt is quite on-brand for Washington. (Les Carpenter and Mark Maske)
• Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D) plans to remove two Christopher Columbus statues from the city’s Grant Park and Little Italy. (ABC Chicago)
• Two Confederate statues were removed from Arizona state property. One of the statues, erected to commemorate Arizonans who fought for the South during the Civil War, stood outside the state capitol. The other, a statue of Jefferson Davis, marked a portion of Route 60 near the Gold Canyon. (Jessica Wolfrom)

“Dorsey said Thursday the company ‘fell behind’ in some of its security restrictions that led to the hack of prominent users including former president Barack Obama and Tesla chief executive Elon Musk on the social media site last week,” Rachel Lerman reports. “Dorsey apologized while announcing the company’s second-quarter earnings … Hackers were able to view the private messages of 36 accounts, including the account of one elected official in the Netherlands. The company doesn’t believe any other former or current elected officials’ direct messages were accessed.” As of early 2020, more than 1,000 Twitter employees and contractors had the ability to aid account hacking, two employees told Reuters.

Trump moved to repeal a fair housing rule that he claimed would lead to “destruction” of the suburbs. Trump had telegraphed the Housing and Urban Development Department’s move against the Obama-administration rule in recent tweets and comments that made thinly veiled appeals to suburban white voters:

Cardboard cutouts got prime seats to witness baseball’s return:

The violent lightning storm that stopped the home opener also created this ominous image of the Capitol:

Tony Fauci threw the first pitch at the Nationals home opener and ensured the ball was socially distant from the catcher:

Stephen Colbert is fascinated by Trump’s obsession with his cognitive test: 

In what Monica Hesse called “a comeback for the ages,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) condemned Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) in a House floor speech for accosting her: