… and welcome to another day of coverage of the US coronavirus outbreak – and, of course, its policy and everything else.
The United States is now, according to Johns Hopkins University, in more than 4.1 million confirmed cases and more than 145,000 people dead. The economy is still crumbling and negotiations on the next stimulus and aid package in Congress are dragging on, with additional unemployment assistance running out in less than a week and evictions beginning to escalate.
The president has resumed coronavirus briefings, without his senior public health experts and as hilarity flares about him. fixation on a simple cognitive test He says he proves he is stronger than his electoral opponent.
Ongoing protests for racial injusticeMeanwhile, they are encountering a militarized response in Portland, Oregon, and federal agents head to other cities at the behest of Donald Trump, seeking to present themselves as president of law and order.
And amid all this, local television stations in the United States owned by Sinclair Television will conduct an interview this weekend with a conspiracy theorist in which the question “DID YOU CREATE DR FAUCI COVID-19?“Will appear on the screen.
Anthony Fauci is the 79-year-old director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. He has served six presidents, but this president has tried to keep him away from television, calling him “alarmist” and generally undermining his work.
The conspiracy theorist is Judy Mikovits, who is behind the widely discredited Plandemic video. Her attorney, Larry Klayman, also appears on the segment with former Fox News presenter Eric Bolling, who is online ahead of its broadcast this weekend.
Mikovits claimed that in the past decade Fauci “manufactured” and shipped coronaviruses to Wuhan, China, which is widely accepted as the origin of the coronavirus outbreak.
Bolling told CNN that he “did not know of any video [Mikovits] I was before or after I appeared on my show, “and she said,” Frankly, I was surprised when she made the accusation. “
Bolling said he had questioned his claim about Fauci, which he called “strong” on the air, and had added Dr. Nicole Saphier, a Fox News contributor, to the show to balance the segment.
“I asked our producers to add Saphier to the program for the express purpose of discrediting the conspiracy theory,” he told CNN. “I think viewers see that I didn’t and I don’t endorse their theory.”
Sinclair is the largest owner of local television stations in the United States. Its president said that in 2016 he told Trump: “We are here to deliver your message.”
More to come. Here are some sobering readings from our head of the Washington office, David Smith:
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