Herman Cain, 1945-

The former pizza chain

executive and 2012 GOP

presidential candidate is

one of the most prominent

Americans to die of covid-19.

News, A

Obituary, B

WEEKEND

Island hopping

Georgia Avenue NW is

D.C.’s capital for

Caribbean food.

STYLE

An upbeat study

A new documentary

provides a fresher,

feminist perspective on

the Go-Go’s, TV critic

Hank Stuever writes. C

In the News

THE NATION

NASA’s Mars rover

Perseverance success-

fully blasted off to

search for ancient life

on the Red Planet. A

A federal appeals court

said it will rehear a case

involving former na-

tional security adviser

Michael Flynn. A

THE WORLD

Afghans turn to tradi-

tional remedies as an

overwhelmed health

system obscures the

pandemic’s true toll. A

In Hong Kong, the re-

versal of a ban on eating

in restaurants was the

latest instance of virus

policy flip-flops that left

residents confused and

distrustful. A

THE ECONOMY

Tyson Foods is the first

major American em-

ployer to undertake

weekly on-site corona -

virus testing for employ-

ees at all 140 of its U.S.

plants. A

Senate Democrats are

scrutinizing whether

private education lend-

ers are raising the price

of credit for marginal-

ized groups. A

THE REGION

D.C. public schools will

start the academic year

entirely remotely. B

Kramerbooks & After-

words Cafe will remain

in Dupont Circle for at

least three years, the

owner says, despite ear-

lier reports of a move. B

CONTENT © 2020

The Washington Post

Year 143, No. 239

BUSINESS NEWS.........................A

COMICS.........................................C

OPINION PAGES..........................A

LOTTERIES....................................B

OBITUARIES..................................B

SPORTS........................................D

TELEVISION...................................C

WORLD NEWS.............................A

1

Sources: Nathan Balke and Robert Gordon (before 1947); Commerce Department (after 1947)

−20%

−30%

−10%

No

change

+20%

+30%

+10%

1920 1930 1940 1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020

Quarterly U.S. GDP

Change in gross

domestic product,

adjusted for inflation

and seasonality

U.S. GDP is traditionally reported at an annualized rate. In this case, the

Commerce Department is saying the economy would shrink 32.9 percent if

the current losses were repeated for a full year. But since this worst-in-history

quarter is not likely to be repeated, the one-quarter drop of 9.5 is likely to be

more representative.

Even when not

using the

annualized rate,

last quarter’s

9.5 percent

contraction is

unprecedented.

32.9%

Annualized

change

9.5%

Quarterly

change

Great

Recession

Double-dip

recession

ECONOMIC

GROWTH

ECONOMIC

CONTRACTION

—World War II

demobilization

Great

Depression

ANNUALIZED CHANGE QUARTERLY CHANGE

Covid

Recession

BY RACHEL SIEGEL

AND ANDREW VAN DAM

The U.S. economy shrank by a

stunning 9.5 percent from April

through June, a historic contrac-

tion and a stinging reminder of

how much was lost in such a

short period.

The drop in gross domestic

product was the fastest the quar-

terly rate has fallen in modern

record-keeping. As the ground

beneath the economy buckled

amid the coronavirus pandemic,

tens of millions of jobs were

erased, businesses were gutted

and the future of the economy

became further intertwined with

an uncontrolled public health

crisis.

With that pain still fresh for

millions of Americans, econo-

mists say the second quarter

stands as an urgent warning for

what is at stake if the vestiges of a

recovery from earlier this sum-

mer vanish. While Congress

clashes over another stimulus

bill and the coronavirus forces

more states to shut down bars

and restaurants again, there is

mounting fear that the economy

could be held back even more,

making a true recovery much

more fraught.

On Thursday, the government

also reported that jobless claims

increased once again last week to

1.4 million, another sign that any

recovery is stalling.

G DP shrank at an annual rate

of 32.9 percent, according to the

Bureau of Economic Analysis,

the agency that publishes the

statistics on quarterly economic

activity. Although it usually

stresses the annualized rate, that

figure is less useful this quarter

SEE GDP ON A

U.S. economy contracts at record rate

HISTORIC DROP IN

2ND-QUARTER GDP

Commerce Dept. data

lays bare pandemic’s toll

best tool the nation has to pre-

vent a long, ugly downturn is for

Congress to go big on another

relief package.

Out of 25 economists surveyed

SEE ECONOMY ON A

to less consumer spending lead-

ing to more business closures

leading to more job losses — it

can lead to an even deeper down-

turn that permanently damages

the economy for years to come.

Economists say the United States

is not spiraling yet, but the na-

tion is at an inflection point.

With a vaccine still months

away, there’s a growing consen-

sus among economists that the

economy is going to backslide, a

painful scenario where workers

who regained jobs in May and

June lose them again, and busi-

nesses that had started to reopen

are forced to shutter, possibly

forever. It’s already happening in

parts of the country that are

seeing a spike in coronavirus

cases.

Once the downward spiral

starts — more job losses leading

BY HEATHER LONG

The nation learned Thursday

that the U.S. economy endured

its worst slump on record this

spring, but a larger problem now

looms: The nascent recovery ap-

pears to be faltering in July, and

lawmakers are more divided

than ever over what to do about

it.

The risk is growing that the

Many economists urge Congress to ‘go big’ on next relief bill

ABCDE

Prices may vary in areas outside metropolitan Washington. SU V1 V2 V3 V

Heavy t-storms 80/73 • Tomorrow: T-storms 86/75 B8 Democracy Dies in Darkness FRIDAY, JULY 31 , 2020. $

BY AMY GARDNER,

JOSH DAWSEY

AND JOHN WAGNER

P resident Trump drew im-
mediate rebukes from across the
political spectrum Thursday af-
ter proposing a delay to the
November election and claiming
without evidence that wide-
spread mail balloting would be a
“catastrophic disaster” leading
to fraudulent results.
The suggestion represented
Trump’s latest, and most dramat-
ic, attempt to undermine public
faith in the Nov. 3 election, with a
series of attacks that have grown
more frequent and emphatic as
polls have shown his political
fortunes declining. The presi-
dent has gone after mail voting
nearly 70 times since late March
in interviews, remarks and
tweets, including at least 17 times
this month, according to a tally
by The Washington Post.
Thursday’s tweet came on the
heels of a devastating report
showing that the economy
shrank nearly 10 percent from
April through June, the largest
quarterly decline since the gov-
ernment began publishing such
data 70 years ago.
The president does not have
the authority to change the date
of the general election, which is
set by Congress. Trump encoun-
tered unprecedented pushback
to his idea from senior Republi-
cans on Capitol Hill and con-
servative leaders outside govern-
SEE ELECTION ON A

Trump

suggests

delaying

election

Idea faces unprecedented

GOP rebuff a s president

says vote fraud is certain

BY SHANE HARRIS

The Department of Homeland

Security has compiled “intelli-

gence reports” about the work of

American journalists covering

protests in Portland, Ore., in what

current and former officials

called an alarming use of a gov-

ernment system meant to share

information about suspected ter-

rorists and violent actors.

Over the past week, the depart-

ment’s Office of Intelligence and

Analysis has disseminated three

Open Source Intelligence Reports

to federal law enforcement agen-

cies and others, summarizing

tweets written by two journalists

— a reporter for the New York

Times and the editor in chief of

the blog Lawfare — and noting

they had published leaked, un-

classified documents about DHS

operations in Portland. The intel-

ligence reports, obtained by The

Washington Post, include written

descriptions and images of the

tweets and the number of times

they had been liked or retweeted

by others.

Some of the leaked DHS docu-

ments the journalists posted and

wrote about revealed shortcom-

ings in the department’s under-

standing of the nature of the

protests in Portland, as well as

techniques that intelligence ana-

lysts have used. A memo by the

department’s top intelligence of-

SEE DHS ON A

DHS gathers

‘intelligence’

on journalists

covering Ore.

gressman at Ebenezer Baptist

Church in Atlanta. A fourth,

95-year-old Jimmy Carter, too

frail to travel, sent a tribute

note read from the podium.

The service came just hours

after Trump, the only living

president not to participate in

any Lewis tribute, suggested

that the November elections

SEE LEWIS ON A

president said at Lewis’s final

memorial service. “George Wal-

lace may be gone, but we can

witness our federal government

sending agents to use tear gas

and batons against peaceful

demonstrators. We may no lon-

ger have to guess the number of

jelly beans in a jar in order to

cast a ballot, but even as we sit

here there are those in power

who are doing their darndest to

discourage people from voting.”

Obama was one of three for-

mer presidents — along with

George W. Bush and Bill Clin-

ton — to honor the late con-

preached, tied Lewis’s early life

as a Freedom Rider to the

nationwide protests that fol-

lowed the killing of George

Floyd at the hands of Minneap-

olis police. He compared today’s

federal agents using tear gas

against peaceful protesters, an

action that Trump has cheered

on, to the same attacks Lewis

faced on the Edmund Pettus

Bridge in Selma, Ala., in 1965.

“Bull Connor may be gone,

but today we witness with our

own eyes police officers kneel-

ing on the necks of Black Ameri-

cans,” the nation’s first Black

BY PAUL KANE

AND JOHN WAGNER

Former president Barack

Obama delivered a call to action

in his eulogy Thursday of late

congressman John Lewis, urg-

ing Congress to pass new voting

rights laws and likening tactics

by President Trump and his

administration to those used by

racist Southern leaders who

fought the civil rights move-

ment in the 1960s.

Obama, speaking for 40 min-

utes at the pulpit where the Rev.

Martin Luther King Jr. once

Nation’s unrest looms large as Lewis is eulogized

BY MICHELLE YE HEE LEE

AND JACOB BOGAGE

The U.S. Postal Service is ex-
periencing days-long backlogs of
mail across the country after a top
Trump donor running the agency
put in place new procedures de-
scribed as cost-cutting efforts,
alarming postal workers who
warn that the policies could un-
dermine their ability to deliver
ballots on time for the November
election.
As President Trump ramps up
his unfounded attacks on mail
balloting as being susceptible to
widespread fraud, postal employ-
ees and union officials say the
changes implemented by T rump
fundraiser-turned-postmaster
general Louis DeJoy are contrib-
uting to a growing perception
that mail delays are the result of a
political effort to undermine ab-
sentee voting.
The backlog comes as the presi-
dent, who is trailing p resumptive
Democratic presidential nominee
Joe Biden in the polls, has escalat-
ed his efforts to cast doubt about
the integrity of the November
vote, which is expected to y ield
record numbers of mail ballots
because of the coronavirus pan-
demic.
On Thursday, Trump floated
the idea of delaying the Nov. 3
general election, a notion that
was widely condemned by Demo-

SEE USPS ON A

Mail backlog

raises fears

of d elays in

ballot delivery

PHOTOS BY ALYSSA POINTER/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Former presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton speak at the service for the late congressman John Lewis in

Atlanta on Thursday. They drew parallels between Lewis’s life and today’s protests.  F or more, visit wapo.st/lewisobama.

Behind the numbers: D id a third

of the economy really vanish? A

Aid: G OP faces pressure to extend

expanded jobless benefits. A

On the scene: More photos from

Lewis’s funeral in Atlanta. A

Visions of U.S.: P residents past,

present offer stark contrast. A