TUESDAY, OCTOBER 20 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ SU A
election 2020en, White House Chief of Staff
Mark Meadows, campaign strat-
egist Jason Miller — and attacked
news reports that mentioned
them in specific detail.
“I love my team. I am happy
with my team,” Trump said, after
denying friction among his top
lieutenants.
Trump ticked through individ-
ual states and bragged about the
crowds he gets and the unspeci-
fied poll results he has seen,
which he claimed were different
from the voter “suppression
polls” reported publicly.
“I go to a rally I have 25,
people,” Trump said, greatly exag-
gerating the size of his crowds
while making a comparison with
Biden. “He goes to a rally, he has
four people.” Most of Trump’s ral-
lies are held outside at airports
because of the pandemic.
Trump also made a range of
startling accusations and com-
ments, including that Biden
should be “in jail.”
“He’s a criminal,” Trump said,
without offering evidence what
crime he had committed.
Trump also made repeated ref-
erences to alleged communica-
tions between Biden’s son Hunter
and foreign officials that have
been reported in the New York
Post in recent days. The newspa-
per said the information it re-
ported was provided by Rudolph
W. Giuliani, the president’s per-
sonal attorney, who has not
shared with other news organiza-
tions a hard drive from a comput-
er allegedly owned by Hunter
Biden that the former New York
mayor claims to possess. The
Washington Post has not been
able to independently verify the
information in the New York Post
reports.
“I think Joe Biden has a scan-
dal coming up that will make him
almost an impotent candidate,”
he said. “This scandal is so big.
And the only thing he has going is
he has a corrupt press who will
not write about it.”
Trump made a number of dubi-
ous or false statements, including
saying he was back at campaign
rallies one day after he was re-
leased from the hospital. It was
one week later. He again said he
could lose the election only if it
was “rigged” and made false
claims about voter fraud. He ex-
aggerated his record in terms he
usually uses on the campaign
trail.
The president said the New
York Times has not reached out to
him in two years, but the outlet
interviewed him in August and
like almost all news organiza-
tions regularly requests com-
ment from the White House.
In closing, he offered some ad-
vice for his campaign’s employ-
ees, saying they need to “work
their asses off.”
“You have two weeks,” he said.
“Don’t listen to anybody. Don’t
even read the papers.”
[email protected]
[email protected]Felicia Sonmez contributed to this
report.off a candidate’s microphone —
an idea that has been floated in
the aftermath of the first debate,
during which Trump repeatedly
interrupted and jeered at Biden.
The Trump campaign call on
Monday, which some reporters
were invited to listen in on, ap-
peared to have been motivated by
recent news reports on internal
concerns about the president’s
reelection chances and division
within the president’s team. He
spoke about the New York Times
and The Washington Post with
particular derision and threat-
ened to take legal action against
one particular poll over its re-
sults.
The call had been scheduled as
a staffwide “attaboy” morale
booster, with top aides and the
president presenting a rosy case
for his reelection and trying to
boost what several aides said
were flagging spirits.
Trump repeatedly told his
campaign staff on the call that he
had never felt more confident as a
politician that he would win elec-
tion — even though he said he was
concerned two or three weeks ago
during his hospital stay after con-
tracting the coronavirus. He re-
peatedly attacked the news me-
dia but also said he hoped the
media was listening to the call.
He praised his senior team,
naming aides one by one — Stepi-said.
On Monday afternoon, Trump
campaign manager Bill Stepien
wrote a letter to the Commission
on Presidential Debates, seeking
to move the conversation in the
final debate away from domestic
issues such as the coronavirus to
foreign policy issues. Trump’s
aides have made clear that the
president wants to talk about the
foreign business dealings of
Biden’s younger son, Hunter.
Trump and his allies have also
repeatedly claimed that the de-
bate commission, which is bipar-
tisan, is being unfair to him even
though its rules apply equally to
both candidates and the terms of
the face-to-face events were nego-
tiated in advance with both cam-
paigns.
A few hours later, the commis-
sion said that it will mute Trump’s
and Biden’s microphones during
parts of the debate at Belmont
University in Nashville. The 90-
minute debate will be broken i nto
six 15-minute segments, each
with a different topic. The com-
mission said it will give Trump
and Biden two minutes apiece to
speak uninterrupted at the start
of each segment. A period of
“open discussion” will follow un-
til the next segment begins.
Trump’s campaign has repeat-
edly opposed the idea of granting
the moderator the power to shuttheir jobs because you refuse to
take this pandemic seriously.”
The president was angry at
Fauci after he was critical of him
and the White House in the “
Minutes” interview, saying that
the president’s conduct made it
unsurprising that he caught the
coronavirus and that the admin-
istration had tried to muzzle him.
Fauci has a higher approval rat-
ing than the president, which has
long rankled Trump, according to
advisers who, like others, spoke
on the condition of anonymity to
describe internal discussions.
Trump has also repeatedly
claimed to top senior aides that
Fauci is on TV far too often.
The president later posted a
video online of him throwing a
first pitch and another video of
Fauci’s botched first pitch.
Trump has been barnstorming
Western states in recent days,
while Biden has mostly stayed
out of public view, preparing for
Thursday’s presidential debate
and avoiding the large crowds
amid the global pandemic.
Trump is taking a less rigorous
preparation plan for the debate,
advisers said, and is unlikely to
do extensive formal prepara-
tions. The president is instead
maintaining an extensive in-per-
son campaign schedule and is
expected to visit Florida after the
debate for several events, aideshave grown, occasionally prais-
ing him and assuring Americans
that he is intimately involved in
the White House response.
Trump’s campaign aides have
even put excerpts from a Fauci
interview into their advertising,
hoping to convince voters that
the infectious-disease expert has
approved of Trump’s response to
the coronavirus. Fauci has react-
ed angrily to the ads, which he
says quote him out of context.
“I do not and nor will I ever
publicly endorse any political
candidate,” Fauci said in his Sun-
day interview on “60 Minutes.”
“They’re sticking me right in the
middle of a campaign ad, which I
thought was outrageous.”
Trump tried to tie Biden to
Fauci on Monday — a connection
his Democratic rival said he wel-
comed.
“He wants to listen to Dr. Fau-
ci,” Trump said of Biden at the
rally.
Biden responded to the attacks
with a statement that said he
considered the claim that he
would listen to scientists “a badge
of honor.”
“Mr. President, you’re right
about one thing: The American
people are tired. They’re tired of
your lies about this virus,” the
Biden statement read. “They’re
tired of watching more Ameri-
cans die and more people loseit would have led to the deaths of
hundreds of thousands more peo-
ple.
“And yet we keep him,” Trump
continued, calling in from his Las
Vegas hotel. “Every time he goes on
television, there’s always a bomb,
but there’s a bigger bomb if you fire
him. But Fauci is a disaster.”
Later in the day, the president
again attacked Fauci, mocking
him for his botched ceremonial
first pitch at Nationals Park on
Opening Day and misrepresent-
ing some of the doctor’s positions
on the coronavirus in tweets.
Trump’s comments and his ag-
gressive travel schedule, which
continued Monday with two
stops in Arizona as Democratic
nominee J oe Biden was at home
in Delaware, is part of a broader
and more aggressive bet that the
American public will reward his
projection of strength and gener-
al defiance toward the virus,
which hospitalized the president
and infected many of his top
aides this month.
He argued Monday that the
American people were no longer
interested in taking precautions
to prevent the spread of the coro-
navirus.
“They’re getting tired of the
pandemic — aren’t they?” Trump
said at a rally in Arizona. “You
turn on CNN. That’s all they cov-
er. Covid, covid, pandemic. Covid,
covid, covid.... They’re trying to
talk people out of voting. People
aren’t buying it, CNN, you dumb
bastards.”
The crowd was packed shoul-
der to shoulder outside, with few
masks in sight.
Trump is expected to do three
or four rallies a day starting this
weekend, according to people fa-
miliar with the plans.
The president’s comments
come as infection rates have been
rising in recent weeks, with na-
tional daily infection rates re-
turning to midsummer levels.
Polled voters continue to give
Trump poor marks on his han-
dling of the pandemic, and nearly
2 out of 3 voters said they were
“very” or “somewhat” worried
that they or a family member
might catch the virus, according
to a Washington Post-ABC News
poll this month. Eight percent
said an immediate family mem-
ber has been infected.
Trump aides said they had
hoped the last-minute call with
staffers would not become a story
about the coronavirus. Senior ad-
visers to the president say they
still want the closing message to
be about the economy and what
they say would be the negative
effects of a Biden victory, with a
campaign focus on Pennsylvania,
Michigan, North Carolina and
Florida. They see the coronavirus
— and the president’s handling of
the pandemic — as their biggest
political weakness, and Biden’s
top advisers agree. But Trump
continues to call attention to the
outbreak.
For months, Trump has treated
Fauci delicately even as divisions
TRUMP FROM A
Trump says Biden ‘wants to listen to Dr. Fauci.’ B iden says Trump is right.
CASSIDY ARAIZAFOR THE WASHINGTON POST
TUCSON, AZ - OCTOBER 19: President Donald Trump speaks at a Make America Great Again rally at the Tucson Jet Center in Tucson,
Arizona on October 19, 2020. (Photo by Cassidy Araiza/ for The Washington Post)BY LENA H. SUN,
MICHAEL LARIS
AND LORI ARATANIThe Centers for Disease Con-
trol and Prevention on Monday
strongly recommended in newly
issued guidelines that all passen-
gers and workers on planes,
trains, buses and other public
transportation wear masks to
control the spread of the novel
coronavirus.
The guidance was issued fol-
lowing pressure from the airline
industry and amid surging cases
of the coronavirus and strong
evidence on the effectiveness of
masks in curbing transmission,
according to CDC officials.
The recommendations fall
short of what transportation in-
dustry leaders and unions had
sought, and come long after evi-
dence in favor of mask-wearing
was well established.
The CDC had previously draft-
ed an order under the agency’s
quarantine powers that would
have required all passengers and
employees to wear masks on all
forms of public transportation,
according to a CDC official who
spoke on the condition of ano-
nymity to discuss internal delib-
erations. Such orders typically
carry penalties. The order was
blocked by the White House, the
official said. It was first reported
by the New York Times.
Monday’s recommendation
followed a request from Vice
President Pence to CDC Director
Robert Redfield, CDC officials
said. Although the agency already
recommends the use of masks
generally, the new language is
more strongly worded and gives
the airline industry more cover to
press for mask-wearing, one CDC
official said.
In a statement Monday, the
agency said “transmission of the
virus through travel has led to —
and continues to lead to — inter-
state and international spread of
the virus.” It added: “Local trans-
mission can grow quickly into
interstate and international
transmission when infected per-
sons travel on public conveyances
without wearing a mask and with
others who are not wearing
masks.”
Traveling on airplanes, ships,
ferries, trains, subways, buses,
taxis, ride-shares and in locations
such as airports, train stations,
and bus or ferry terminals in-
creases the risk of getting and
spreading covid-19, the disease
caused by the virus. That can
happen because people are
brought into close contact with
others, often for prolonged peri-
ods, and because they can be
exposed to frequently touched
surfaces, the CDC guidance says.
“Face masks help prevent peo-
ple who have COVID-19, includ-
ing those who are pre-symptom-
atic or asymptomatic, from
spreading the virus to others,” the
CDC guidelines say. “Masks are
most likely to reduce the spread
of COVID-19 when they are wide-
ly used by people in public set-
tings.”
The recommendations from
the CDC come at a time wheninfection rates are rising in the
United States and President
Trump’s favored pandemic advis-
er, Scott Atlas, has railed against
masks, falsely claiming they are
ineffective. On Saturday, Atlas
wrote on Twitter that masks do
not work, prompting the social
media site to remove the tweet for
violating its safety rules for
spreading misinformation. Sev-
eral medical and public-health
experts flagged the tweet as dan-
gerous misinformation.
Numerous studies have shown
the effectiveness of masks in pre-
venting transmission. Before a
mandatory mask regimen was
put in place this spring at Mass
General Brigham, the largest
health-care system in Massachu-setts, covid-19 cases were increas-
ing exponentially among medical
workers, according to a research
letter published in JAMA. After
the mask rule was imposed, cases
steadily declined.
Trump has cast doubt on the
efficacy of masks for months. In-
fectious-disease experts have crit-
icized what they have described
as flagrant flouting of basic pub-
lic-health guidance at the White
House, such as the failure to wear
masks and socially distance.
Trump and at least 34 White
House aides and other contacts
tested positive for the virus, ac-
cording to an Oct. 7 internal ad-
ministration document. Some of
them are suspected of having be-
come infected at the White HouseRose Garden event celebrating
the Supreme Court nomination of
Judge Amy Coney Barrett.
Ensuring every passenger on a
plane or bus is properly wearing a
mask has proved to be a major
challenge. The new CDC guidance
received mixed reactions from
the transportation industry.
Sara Nelson, international
president of the Association of
Flight Attendants-CWA, applaud-
ed the CDC for being “as strong as
possible” with the guidance, de-
spite the previous failure of the
agency to implement the stronger
action.
But she expressed frustration
that a debate continues over
whether people should wear
masks when in public.
“We have flight attendants
from other countries wearing
space suits on the plane and we’re
still talking about whether every-
one should be wearing masks?”
Nelson said. “We asked for this on
April 23 and within seven days
the airlines had policies. Why?
They understood very quickly
that if there’s any chance for air
travel, you’ve got to put pro-
cedures in place that give the
public confidence that it’s safe to
fly.”
While airlines threaten to ban
passengers who fail to follow cor-
porate mask mandates and tran-
sit agencies urge riders to follow
local mask rules, operators’ in-
structions are sometimes ig-
nored, unions representing trans-
portation workers said.
Some said the CDC’s new rec-
ommendation falls short of whatharried transportation employ-
ees need.
The guidance is “a good step in
the right direction,” said Larry
Willis, president of the Transpor-
tation Trades Department of the
AFL-CIO.
“But at the end of the day, these
are still just recommendations.... To really give teeth to these
requirements, there actually has
to be a federal mandate,” he said,
casting blame at the top of the
Trump administration.
“The White House has made its
hostility to common sense CDC
guidelines, including their mask
requirement, a central part of
their message” in the pandemic,
Willis said.
The Transportation Trades De-
partment had petitioned the De-
partment of Transportation to in-
stitute a mask requirement, but a
senior official there said the de-
partment “embraces the notion
that there should be no more
regulations than necessary.”
“This is too little, too late and
downright shameful,” John A.
Costa, international president of
the Amalgamated Transit Union,
said in a statement. After at least
219,000 deaths, including 90 of
the union’s members, the “inad-
equate” federal recommendation
also “jeopardizes the safety of
operators by asking them to kick
people off who aren’t wearing
masks,” Costa said. “This can only
lead to potentially dangerous
confrontations.”
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CDC strongly recommends m ask use on public transit
MICHAEL NAGLE/BLOOMBERG NEWS
Subway passengers wear masks in New York City on Sept. 21. New
guidance issued Monday by the CDC s aid all passengers and workers
should don masks when taking most forms of public transportation.