The Daily 202: With GOP at crossroads, Trump team employs fear tactics in bid to keep Republican lawmakers in line

The Secret Service is ramping up protection for Biden in anticipation that he will declare victory and may soon be considered the president-elect. A squad of agents was deployed overnight to Wilmington, Del., to reinforce the bubble around Biden after his campaign alerted the agency that he could make a major speech later today.

Against this backdrop, elected Republicans can be grouped into three categories: Those who embrace Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud, those who embolden him by staying silent and those who defend the integrity of the American system by speaking out. Right now, that last group is the smallest. 

This is a testament to the degree to which most Republican lawmakers continue to live in fear of drawing Trump’s ire, even as many privately expect him to lose. The pervasive feeling on Capitol Hill is that neither Trump nor Trumpism will go away, even if Biden becomes president in January. Few ambitious Republicans have been willing to risk getting crosswise with the president’s diehard supporters, and none of them want to be on the receiving end of a Twitter jeremiad.

A handful of the usual suspects put out strongly worded statements Thursday night after Trump assailed the vote-counting process as systematically corrupt and rigged against him in a grievance-filled speech from the White House briefing room that fact checkers are calling the most dishonest of his presidency.

Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), the only GOP lawmaker to back Trump’s impeachment for abuse of power early this year, said “counting every vote is at the heart of democracy.” The 2012 presidential nominee added: “That process is often long and, for those running, frustrating. The votes will be counted. … Have faith in democracy, in our Constitution, and in the American people.” 

“STOP Spreading debunked misinformation,” tweeted Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), who has routinely been critical of Trump over the last four years. “This is getting insane.” 

Two House Republicans who are leaving Congress next month also criticized Trump’s speech. Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Va.) lost the GOP nomination after officiating a same-sex marriage ceremony. “I took an oath to defend this country and fight for the democratic ideals it stands for,” he tweeted. “Count every vote, yes, but stop the Bravo Sierra, Mr. President, and respect the democratic process that makes America great.”

Bravo Sierra is military slang for B.S.

Rep. Will Hurd (R-Tex.), who is retiring from Congress next month in his early 40s, added: “A sitting president undermining our political process & questioning the legality of the voices of countless Americans without evidence is not only dangerous & wrong, it undermines the very foundation this nation was built upon.”

But these folks were the noteworthy exceptions. A louder chorus of prominent Republicans in both chambers of Congress defended Trump. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) falsely declared on Fox News that “Trump won this election.” 

Fox News host Sean Hannity asked Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) whether Pennsylvania’s GOP-controlled legislature should “invalidate” the results and hold a “do-over” election. “Look, that’s exactly right,” Cruz replied. “Now, that’s a big cannon to use. I can tell you during Bush v. Gore we were having very explicit conversations about that.”

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told Hannity that he is donating $500,000 from what’s left in his reelection campaign coffers to Trump’s legal defense fund. Asked about invalidating the election results and having the legislature award Pennsylvania’s electoral votes to Trump, Graham told Hannity: “Everything should be on the table.”

Graham’s announcement about chipping in half a million bucks to back the president’s legal challenges to the results came a few hours after Donald Trump Jr. criticized him. Someone on Twitter had accused Graham of being silent, and the president’s eldest son tweeted back, “No one is surprised.”

Trump Jr. also tweeted Thursday at 3:48 p.m.: “The total lack of action from virtually all of the ‘2024 GOP hopefuls’ is pretty amazing. They have a perfect platform to show that they’re willing & able to fight but they will cower to the media mob instead.” (Eric Trump also tweeted: “Where is the GOP?! Our voters will never forget.”)

At 4:06 p.m., Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) tweeted out a link to urge his followers to give money to Trump’s legal defense fund.

At 4:31 p.m., former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley tweeted: “We all owe @realDonaldTrump for his leadership of conservative victories for Senate, House, & state legislatures. He and the American people deserve transparency & fairness as the votes are counted. The law must be followed. We have to keep the faith that the truth will prevail.”

Trump Jr., who has encouraged speculation in recent weeks that he wants to run for president in 2024, followed up on his initial post to thank two Republicans. At 3:50 p.m., Trump Jr. added that “one notable exception seems to be Ron DeSantis.” The president’s eldest son said Florida’s GOP governor “has been active and vocal.” At 4:53 p.m., he tweeted again to credit Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) for “also” being helpful to his father. 

The implicit threat from Trump’s team is that he will come after Republicans who don’t have his back right now. “If you want to win in 2024 as a Republican,” former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted, “I would probably start saying something. Just saying.”

In a 2016 interview with The Washington Post, Trump said: “Real power is, I don’t even want to use the word, ‘Fear.’”

This Machiavellian view – that it is better to be feared than loved – has been a hallmark of his governing style. Trump has scared his adopted party into submission by being willing to go after apostates. The departures of independent-minded conservative senators like Jeff Flake from Arizona and Bob Corker from Tennessee had a chilling effect on those who remained. 

Each time Trump has avoided any consequences for norm-busting or worse, whether the Ukraine affair or the 10 episodes of possible obstruction of justice outlined in special counsel Bob Mueller’s report, he has appeared to become more emboldened to keep pushing the limits to see how much he can get away with. 

If Trump loses, it seems a safe bet that he will at the very least encourage speculation that he might run again in 2024 to set up a rematch with Biden. And he could spend his days throwing spitballs from Trump Tower.

Most of the Republicans who are criticizing Trump for trying to subvert democracy are former officials.  Former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge (R), the first secretary of Homeland Security under George W. Bush after the 9/11 attacks, voted for Biden. “With his remarks from the White House tonight, the President disrespected every single American who figured out a way to safely vote amid a pandemic that has taken 235,000 lives. Not to mention those who are dutifully counting that vote. Absolutely shameful. Yet so predictable,” Ridge tweeted.

In a striking editorial decision, the country’s three leading television news networks cut away from Trump’s misinformation-heavy address. NBC, ABC and CBS all initially aired the White House briefing before cutting away to scrutinize his false claims, per Jeremy Barr. On CNBC, former Fox News anchor Shepard Smith also cut off the president, saying, “There has not been one scintilla of truth in anything he has said.” CNN contributor Rick Santorum, a former GOP senator from Pennsylvania, said: “I hope that Republicans will stand up at this moment and say to Trump what needs to be said.”

ABC News contributor Chris Christie was the most prominent Trump ally to publicly decry the president’s speech. “If you’re gonna say those things from behind the podium at the White House, it’s his right to do it … but show us the evidence,” the former New Jersey governor told George Stephanopoulos. “We heard nothing today about any evidence. This kind of thing, all it does is inflame without. And we cannot permit inflammation without information.”

I will be in The Washington Post newsroom all afternoon as ballots continue to be tabulated. Stay with us for potential race calls, news conferences and other analysis. You can watch for free on our homepage or stream on YouTube.

“In Georgia, a local judge in Chatham County, home of Savannah, denied the Trump campaign’s effort to disqualify about 50 ballots that a Republican poll watcher claimed may have arrived after the 7 p.m. deadline on Election Day. In court, the poll watcher offered no evidence that the ballots had arrived late, and county election officials testified that they had arrived on time. And in Michigan, a Court of Claims judge said she would deny the campaign’s request for an emergency halt to the counting of votes in the state. She noted that the request made little sense, given that the counting has essentially been finished in the state, with Biden ahead by about 150,000 votes,” Amy Gardner, Jon Swaine, Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Emma Brown report. 

“Meanwhile, the Trump campaign announced its intent to file a lawsuit in another state where counting is continuing apace: Nevada. At a chaotic news conference in Las Vegas, campaign officials said that they plan to file a suit in federal court to stop the counting of what they called ‘improper votes.’ [They offered no evidence.] … The campaign also joined in a lawsuit against Maricopa County, home of Phoenix, claiming that large numbers of Republican ballots were invalidated after voters used Sharpie pens to mark their choices. … The Maricopa County attorney’s office wrote to the state attorney general’s office Thursday saying that no ballots were rejected at the county’s voting centers. …

“The president’s allies touted a minor legal victory in Pennsylvania, where a state appeals court on Thursday allowed GOP poll watchers to observe the counting of ballots from six feet away. … The Trump team is engaged in half a dozen lawsuits in Pennsylvania, including those seeking to halt the counting of a small number of mail ballots whose voters were given the opportunity to correct errors. A new suit filed late Thursday seeks to disqualify 600 ballots in Montgomery County that had no secrecy envelopes as required by law. The president sought to intervene in a Pennsylvania case already filed at the U.S. Supreme Court seeking to reverse a state court’s decision to extend the deadline for receiving mail ballots from 8 p.m. on Election Day to 5 p.m. Friday.”

“The legal team driving the efforts under the leadership of deputy campaign manager Justin Clark includes longtime Trump loyalists and the president’s personal attorneys. Among them: Jay Sekulow, the conservative lawyer who defended the president during the special counsel probe and the impeachment process, and William Consovoy, an experienced Supreme Court litigator who has led the efforts in New York courts to withhold the president’s tax returns from investigators,” Rosalind Helderman, Josh Dawsey and Elise Viebeck report. “In public, the legal maneuvers are being touted by some of the president’s most combative and unpredictable allies, including former New York mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski and Richard Grenell, Trump’s former acting director of national intelligence, as well as by Trump’s son Eric, an executive at his father’s development company, and former Florida attorney general Pam Bondi.”  

“A senior campaign official said Thursday night’s appearance was the kind of news conference they wanted to avoid,” Ashley Parker and Dawsey report. “Campaign officials also tried to show pugilism with donors and surrogates, asking for money and encouraging allies to go on television and defend the president — saying he would be declared the victor by Friday. But privately, several people close to the campaign said the mood began to darken. In one call, Hogan Gidley, a campaign press secretary, promised that Trump would be declared the victor on Friday. ‘It was kind of laughable,’ said a person on the call.”

Trump reportedly wants a “James Baker-like” figure to lead his legal battle. But Baker said Trump should stop trying to stop the count. The former secretary of state who led the legal and political team during the epic Florida recount battle in 2000 that secured the presidency for George W. Bush told the New York Times: “We never said don’t count the votes. That’s a very hard decision to defend in a democracy.”

• “Local Republican officials were recruiting volunteers on Thursday to call Pennsylvania voters and urge them to send in their ballots—two full days after Election Day. … The request, election lawyers say, appears to flagrantly run afoul of state law,” the Daily Beast reports.
• Trump falsely claimed that elections in the uncalled states are all overseen by Democrats. In fact, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske are Republicans. (WSJ)

“We’re waiting for the United States Supreme Court, of which the president has nominated three justices, to step in and do something. And hopefully Amy Coney Barrett will come through and pick it up,” Trump campaign legal adviser Harmeet Dhillon, the co-chair of Lawyers for Trump, said on Fox Business.

This includes more than 12,000 in five of the states that have yet to be called. “Despite assurances from Postal Service leaders that agency officials were conducting daily sweeps for misplaced ballots, the mail service acknowledged in a court filing Thursday that thousands of ballots had not been processed in time, and that more ballots were processed Wednesday than on Election Day,” Jacob Bogage and Christopher Ingraham report. “In several swing states, late ballots will still be counted as long as they were postmarked by Election Day and received by Friday, according to state law. They include Nevada, where 4,518 ballots arrived after Election Day, as well as North Carolina (2,958) and Pennsylvania (3,439). But in other states — such as Arizona, where 864 ballots were delayed, and Georgia, where 853 were delayed — votes that did not reach election officials by Nov. 3 will be disqualified. … Under Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a major Trump financier who took over the agency in June, first-class mail delivery rates have steadily declined, especially in urban areas that are bastions of Democratic voters.”

“It relies on sowing doubt about the institutions of law and government, spreading misinformation or outright lies that serve a leader’s political ends, and relying on a cadre of loyal supporters to believe what they are told, Putin scholars said. Trump’s attempts to brand legal election practices as fraud and to use the courts — one pillar in the nation’s democratic architecture — to intervene in the counting of votes — another pillar — are the latest examples of what has long been his malleable view of the democratic system,” Anne Gearan reports. “Like Putin, Trump takes a selective approach to the rule of law that shifts to suit his perceived advantage, said Georgetown University professor Angela Stent, author of ‘Putin’s World: Russia Against the West and with the Rest.’ …

“Consistency is irrelevant to Putin and other authoritarians accustomed to controlling the levers of government by diktat, said Evelyn Farkas, a senior Defense Department specialist on Russia and its region under [President Barack] Obama. … Trump has similarly conditioned his supporters to accept his claims at face value, Farkas said, or to regard some of his outlandish suggestions as entertainment. ‘Cherry-picking your facts,’ isn’t a new idea with Trump, Farkas said. ‘He did learn something from Putin.’”

• The Editorial Board: “Losing an election, Trump chooses to slander American democracy.” 
• George Conway: “A presidency fueled by lies finishes with the worst of them all.”
• Michael Gerson: “This election was a reflection of who we are as a country.”
• Eugene Robinson: “How much damage can Trump do on his way out? Expect the worst.”
• Catherine Rampell: “The house is on fire. Politicians in office today have a duty to put it out.”

Centrist members blasted their liberal colleagues during a private conference call, which lasted more than three hours, for pushing far-left views that cost the party at least half a dozen seats. “The explanation laid out by centrists, according to multiple people who were on the call and spoke on the condition of anonymity, is that Republicans were easily able to paint them all as socialists and radical leftists who endorse far-left positions such as defunding the police,” Rachael Bade and Erica Werner report. “‘We need to not ever use the word ‘socialist’ or ‘socialism’ ever again. . . . We lost good members because of that,’ Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), who narrowly leads in her reelection bid, said heatedly. ‘If we are classifying Tuesday as a success … we will get f—ing torn apart in 2022.’ … Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, a Florida Democrat who suffered an unexpected loss to a Republican challenger, argued through tears that the party’s infighting on Twitter needs to stop. 

“Liberals, meanwhile, fired back. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), co-chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, argued that Democrats shouldn’t single out people and ideas that energize the party base. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), a self-described democratic socialist, grew angry, accusing her colleagues of only being interested in appealing to White people in suburbia. ‘To be real, it sounds like you are saying stop pushing for what Black folks want,’ she said. Democrats are poised to hold the smallest majority in 18 years, undercutting [Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s] leverage. … During the call, Pelosi sought to reassure her members that the election wasn’t as bad as it seemed. … Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), however, cautioned that if Democrats run on socialized medicine and defunding the police, ‘we’re not going to win’ those races. … 

“Several moderate Democrats said in interviews that Pelosi should have made a deal with the Trump administration on a coronavirus relief package. Many moderates had been pushing her to compromise, fearful that constituents would blame them as Democratic leadership was unwilling to give Trump a legislative victory before the election. … Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), the chairwoman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee who nearly lost her seat, is also facing members’ wrath. On the call, Bustos defended her operation … One member noted that 130 House Democrats faced primaries this cycle, with such groups as Justice Democrats defeating establishment Democrats and seeking to punish members who aren’t liberal enough. … Even some liberals agreed with their moderate colleagues that the language being embraced by the far left needs to change. Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), a member of the Progressive Caucus who supports universal health care, said the party needs to stop using the word ‘socialist’ altogether.”

“As the dust settled on almost every race, Republicans have secured 48 seats in next year’s Senate and hold steady leads in two other contests but need to win at least one of the two races in Georgia to land a clear majority of 51 seats,” Paul Kane reports. “That leaves Democrats, with a caucus of 48 senators so far, one last chance to reclaim the majority by trying to secure a double victory in what used to be a conservative Republican stronghold. If successful, and if Biden secures the White House, the 50-50 Senate would tilt to the Democrats once Harris is sworn in as vice president. … All four campaigns, and their various outside supporters, expect to try to nationalize the race and focus their messaging on the impact that victories could have for each side, with Democrats trying to achieve a historically high Black turnout normally associated with a presidential race. 

“Raphael Warnock, seeking to become the first elected Black Democratic senator from the Deep South, faces Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R) in a race that was long expected to go to a runoff because it is a special election to fill the remainder of the term won four years ago by Johnny Isakson (R). Loeffler was appointed to the seat after Isakson resigned for health reasons at the end of last year. But by Thursday afternoon the state got the double-bonus when Sen. David Perdue (R), running for a second term, fell below the 50 percent threshold that is required by Georgia law to win a Senate race. If his share of the vote remains below that marker, Perdue would face Democrat Jon Ossoff, a documentary filmmaker running his first statewide race. Ossoff’s campaign expressed confidence even as Perdue was likely to finish this round about two percentage points ahead. … Republicans are ready to paint the races as securing a GOP majority to shore up the conservative bulwark against liberal Democrats, particularly if there is an incoming Biden administration.”

The heart of the late John Lewis’s district dealt a heavy blow to Trump. “A few weeks ago, Democrats were antsy about turnout in Clayton, which lagged behind some metro counties. As Friday dawned, Biden supporters celebrated each batch of absentee ballots,” the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports. “[Democratic] Party figures … brought up Trump’s 2017 attack on Lewis’ ‘crime-infested’ and ‘horrible’ district, which stretches across parts of Clayton, DeKalb and Fulton. Clayton’s role in his possible defeat in Georgia, they said, was a measure of revenge. ‘I love the idea that Clayton County could put Biden over in GA,’ tweeted former U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill. ‘That’s John Lewis’ district. He would do one of his trademark happy dances in heaven. Symmetry.’”

• Under Georgia law, a candidate can request a recount if the margin is less than 0.5 percent. That request must be made within two days of results being certified.  
• The Office of Special Counsel opened an investigation into allegations that the Trump campaign’s use of the White House as an Election Day headquarters violated federal law, according to Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-N.J.). (Reuters)
• A poll worker in Missouri found out she had the coronavirus less than a week before Election Day. She showed up to work anyway and died soon afterward. Nearly 2,000 voters cast ballots at the polling place where she worked, but it is unclear whether any of them had direct contact with her. (Andrea Salcedo)
• Republican women saw record-breaking success in their House races. At least 13 non-incumbent Republican women have won so far, according to CNN. That’s a big change from 2018, when only one new Republican woman was elected to Congress.
• Republicans are poised to expand their control of the Pennsylvania state Senate and hold the House majority in a major blow to Gov. Tom Wolf (D). (Philadelphia Inquirer)
• A record number of Native American women were elected to Congress. (Guardian)
• Democrats Ritchie Torres and Mondaire Jones will become the first openly gay Black members of Congress after winning solidly blue seats in New York. (NYT)

“Democrats endured the second polling shock in four years, with election returns frequently coming in more favorable to Trump than in public surveys, in some cases outside the margin of error,” Michael Scherer reports. “The underestimation of Trump’s turnout and support in many places, after similar issues in 2016, has raised again questions about the reliance of campaigns, the press and the public on surveys to shape the race. … Although the degree of polling misses is not yet clear as states continue to count mail-in ballots, a review of polling in 10 key states with more than 85 percent of the vote counted finds that public polls underestimated Trump’s vote margin by about 4.5 percentage points on average, similar to the size of errors in key states four years ago.”

“Various groups across the country pledged to continue protests outside ballot-counting locations in Phoenix, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, Atlanta and Detroit,” Robert Klemko, Hannah Knowles, Mark Berman and Abigail Hauslohner report. “On Thursday evening, a text message circulated in the Philadelphia area urging Trump supporters to demonstrate in front of the city’s downtown convention center, where ballots were still being tallied. ‘Radical Liberals & Dems are trying to steal this election from Trump!’ the text read … In the early evening, a couple hundred Trump supporters gathered at the Clark County Election Headquarters in Las Vegas, waving American flags and carrying ‘Trump 2020’ banners. They held signs reading ‘Don’t steal my vote’ and ‘Count all Legal Votes.'”

“The online efforts have unfolded not on the Republican Party’s fringes but well within its mainstream. Among the most vocal leaders is Amy Kremer, a former congressional candidate in Georgia and a co-founder and co-chair of Women for Trump. She used a Facebook page called Women for America First, which boasts more than 100,000 followers, to drive users to a newly launched Facebook group called ‘STOP THE STEAL,’ which garnered more than 360,000 members before the company removed it midday Thursday for violating the platform’s rules,” Tony Romm, Isaac Stanley-Becker and Elizabeth Dwoskin report. “Although some of the events say the goal is to be peaceful, some of the commentary that spilled forth in the ‘STOP THE STEAL’ group veered into planning for armed conflict. ‘We are on the verge of civil war due to those types of people,’ one user wrote. … Another asked, ‘how do we go about overthrowing the government?’ Hundreds of users replied, with one proclaiming, ‘Civil war!’ … The anti-democratic resentment ultimately resulted in disciplinary action from Facebook, where spokesman Andy Stone pointed to the ‘exceptional measures that we are taking during this period of heightened tension.’”

• Twitter banned an account associated with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, and YouTube removed one of his videos, after he said he wanted to see the beheading of FBI Director Chris Wray and the NIH’s Anthony Fauci. (NBC)
• Philadelphia police detained two men after receiving a tip that a Hummer from Virginia carrying people with firearms was headed to the Pennsylvania Convention Center, where ballots were being counted. The Hummer had decals associated with the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy movement, including a large “Q.” (Philadelphia Inquirer)
• A viral video implied a man was illegally moving ballots in Detroit. It was actually a photographer and his equipment. (Marisa Iati and Adriana Usero) 
• Viral Twitter and Facebook posts have spread unfounded fears among some Virginians that their votes were not counted. State Elections Commissioner Christopher Piper said nothing is amiss. (Laura Vozzella, Antonio Olivo and Gregory Schneider)
• Defense Secretary Mark Esper has prepared an undated letter of resignation, NBC News reports, which says he is also helping members of Congress draft legislation that would strip names of Confederate leaders from military bases. This puts him at odds with Trump, and he reportedly believes could get him fired. But Pentagon insiders say it should be viewed as part of a bid by the longtime defense lobbyist to salvage his tarnished reputation before going back to K Street.
• “Officials and newspapers around the world lamented the polarization and dysfunction in the world’s oldest democracy,” Simon Denyer, Jennifer Hassan and Isabelle Khurshudyan report. “The damage to the image of America, a deeply flawed but nevertheless beguiling model of democracy, may not be easily undone.”

“The United States reported 116,707 new coronavirus infections on Thursday, as 20 states saw their highest daily counts yet and the number of fatalities nationwide exceeded 1,000 for the third consecutive day,” Antonia Farzan and Rick Noack report. “A second day of six-figure case counts pushed the total number of infections reported in the United States to nearly 9.6 million on Thursday … At least 234,000 fatalities have been reported to date. No region of the country is being spared from the onslaught: The 20 states reporting record single-day increases on Thursday span New England, the Midwest, the Great Plains and the Pacific Northwest. Those witnessing the most dramatic increases over the past week include Maine, Iowa, Colorado, Minnesota and Nebraska.” Officials say they’re worried that Americans are “giving up.” 

The U.S. economy added 638,000 jobs in October, the latest sign that the economic recovery has slowed compared to earlier in the summer. The unemployment rate fell to 6.9 from 7.9 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the pace of the economic recovery is slowing and cautioned that the surge in cases is “particularly concerning.” (Eli Rosenberg)

“Nationally, the mortality rate from covid-19 has declined, in part because doctors have learned to use medications such as the steroid dexamethasone and techniques such as proning — laying patients on their stomachs to ease their ability to breathe. But increases in deaths lag behind rises in the case count by several weeks. Authorities expect that to occur again in November and December, and mortality rates could rise if hospitals are overwhelmed,” Lenny Bernstein, Joel Achenbach, Alexandra Hinojosa and Carolyn Johnson report. “Janis M. Orlowski, chief health-care officer for the Association of American Medical Colleges, said ‘in those areas where there’s an explosion, like Utah, like Nebraska, like in the Dakotas, like Colorado, we are seeing what we saw in the South at the end of the spring and the beginning of the summer. . . . The hospitals are overrun. There are no ICU beds.’ Health-care workers are taking off work because they are sick, burned out or have child-care problems, she said. … One bright spot is the effort to develop vaccines and therapeutics, which continues to plow ahead at a record pace, though neither will be widely available soon enough to blunt the surge of cases this winter. Two companies, Eli Lilly & Co. and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, have developed laboratory-brewed antibody drugs that show promise in protecting recently infected people from developing severe disease.”

D.C. abandoned its mandatory two-week quarantine for visitors from most states, which was widely ignored and not enforced. In London, more than 100 people were arrested last night during a demonstration against England’s month-long lockdown, which went into place earlier in the day. So far, strict stay-at-home orders appear to be paying off in Ireland, which last month became the first European country to enter a second national lockdown. Health officials said Thursday that case numbers appear to be declining rapidly.

Other countries are taking this far more seriously than us: Denmark, one of the largest fur producers in the world, plans to kill every one of the country’s 15 million minks to contain a coronavirus mutation that has been spreading back to humans. Although the virus mutates constantly, this variation prompted particular concern because 12 of the people infected showed less ability to produce antibodies, which could reduce the potential effectiveness of a vaccine. Genomic analysis suggested nearly 400 human coronavirus cases in northern Denmark were related to mink farms, about half of all their cases. (Loveday Morris)

“Westminster Management, an apartment company owned in part by White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, has submitted hundreds of eviction filings in court against tenants with past due rent during the pandemic, according to interviews with more than a dozen tenants and a review of hundreds of the company’s filings,” Jonathan O’Connell, Aaron Gregg and Anu Narayanswamy report. “A state eviction moratorium currently bars Maryland courts from removing tenants from their homes, and a federal moratorium offers renters additional protection. But like other landlords around the country, Westminster has been sending letters to tenants threatening legal fees and then filing eviction notices in court ― a first legal step toward removing tenants. … 

“Many of the Westminster tenants facing eviction live on low or middle incomes in modest apartments in the Baltimore area … Some of them told The Washington Post they fell behind on rent after losing jobs or wages due to the pandemic. Those facing eviction proceedings once courts begin hearing cases again include a nurse who struggled financially during the pandemic, health-care administrators and a single mother who is currently unemployed.” 

“Many Americans have had it with waiting. Waiting for the all-clear to go back to work and school. Waiting for the vaccine. Waiting for a decision on the country’s future. The message from people across the political and cultural divide is united, for once: It’s too much,” Marc Fisher reports. “Now, as Election Day — one of the country’s grandest instant gratification traditions — stretches into a third day and a fourth day and who knows how many more, many people just want it to stop. … ‘This is kind of like an acid flashback,’ said Jean Elliott Brown, who should know: Twenty years ago, in South Florida, she spent day after day recounting ballots in the 2000 version of this week’s nail-biter election extension. … The waiting is worse than the wanting, some voters say. And Americans in particular are an impatient bunch, according to psychologists who study patience and self-control. … Many people say they are losing sleep, unable to work or falling into stress-eating to get through to a final result. ‘We have lost some of our capacity to wait,’ said Sarah Schnitker, a psychologist at Baylor University who studies patience. … The pandemic has left patience in even shorter supply, Schnitker said.”

• Johnson & Johnson, McKesson, Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen, the four companies that made or distributed prescription opioids and played roles in the catastrophic opioid crisis, have reached a tentative $26 billion settlement with counties and cities that sued them for damages. The deal, which has been in the works for months, must pass muster with judges who have been handling the complex litigation. (Joel Achenbach, Christopher Rowland, Katie Zezima and Aaron Davis)
• The former police officers charged with killing George Floyd will be tried together in March in a downtown Minneapolis courthouse. (Holly Bailey)
• Hurricane Eta ravaged coastal communities in northern Nicaragua with 140 mph winds, killing at least 13 in Central America. Now, the storm is heading toward Cuba and could affect the Gulf of Mexico and, possibly, Florida. (Matthew Cappucci) 
• Mexico’s former top military official, Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, pleaded not guilty to drug charges. He was transferred to New York on Wednesday following his arrest in Los Angeles on charges that he assisted the H-2 Cartel traffic heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana into the United States. (Shayna Jacobs)
• Kosovo President Hashim Thaci resigned to face war crimes charges in The Hague, becoming a high-profile target of international efforts to bring justice to victims of the two-decade conflict that led to Kosovo’s independence. (Michael Birnbaum)

Donald Trump Jr. seemed to endorse the idea of having GOP legislatures send dueling slates of electors to compete with those selected by voters:

And, as always, there is a tweet for everything:

Georgia’s two Republican Senate candidates – who appear headed to runoffs – voiced their support for the president. Loeffler said she donated the maximum $2,800 allowed to the Trump campaign’s “Recount Account”: a fund designated for financing post-election recounts and election contests:

Stephen Colbert briefly broke down during his monologue, saying Trump’s baseless claims of fraud “cast a dark shadow on our most sacred right”:

Seth Meyers also took a “a closer look” at what he said is Trump “trying to destroy democracy”:

And this was a scene in Philadelphia: