WASHINGTON (MaceNews) – The following is Wednesday’s status check of developments in the U.S. that can influence economic, health and political outcomes.
· Twenty days until Election Day, a countdown to – what? Is it time to wonder what kind of lame-duck president Donald Trump would be? Of course he might win. But if not, whenever the final verdict is in, then what? A gracious exit, methodically tying up loose ends for weeks, resuming a push for another round of pandemic relief, a quieting of the Twitter channel? In a presidency that has been irregular – for his critics a generous term – why expect a suddenly regular stretch from early November until Wednesday, Jan. 20, Inauguration Day. Will there instead be unending vitriol, conspiracy theories, unfounded accusations about undocumented voters trucked to the polls? Pardons? Twenty-days until Election Day.
· The president began the day with a speech to the Economic Club of New York, simulcast to some other clubs in Washington, Chicago, Florida, Pittsburgh and Sheboygan. Pre-election speeches to venues like the Economic Club of New York are traditionally a chance for candidates to lay out future policies in a way an audience of business executives, economists and analysts can chew on. There was some of that, probably prepared by economic policy coordinator Larry Kudlow who sat next to Trump in the Rose Garden. Mostly, though, it was a MAGA rally address by another name, warning of “crippling poverty and a steep depression under the radical left” and between a “Socialist nightmare and the American dream.” Some in the audiences, Trump acknowledged, were Democrats. “You’re wrong,” he said.
· Later, in Des Moines, Trump performed before the usual sea of red MAGA hats under which were very few masks, with a shoulder-to-shoulder lack of distancing. He briefly referred to son Barron, whom First Lady Melania had revealed had tested positive and who now is negative. “And he had it for such a short period of time. I don’t even think he knew he had it because they’re young and their immune systems are strong and they fight it off 99.9 percent. And Barron is beautiful, and he’s free, free.” Trump’s frenetic campaign sxhedule takes him to Greenville, N.C. and then to Miami on Thursday
· Barack Obama turned his campaign firepower on Trump in behalf of Joe Biden Wednesday, warning in a long podcast for the company formed by his former staffers, Crooked Media, that if Trump is voted out, there will be others who will fill the market demand for the same kind of messaging. He said there will be an “ongoing tug of war between our better angels of our nature and our worst impulses.” The challenge will be “reestablishing the baseline of truth.” He said the conservative efforts to suppress the vote is unique to America and has a very long history.
· The obscure charges of improper “unmasking” of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and others never was anything that got a lot of attention. But the inconclusive end of the Justice Department probe that had been promised by Trump and some Republicans to come up with big negative implications for Obama and some of his staff, even prosecutions, was highlighted during the day by Trump’s critics.
· Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts made his opposition to his party’s nominee more explicit Wednesday. His spokesperson said he will not be voting for President Trump.
· Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett spent another day answering questions and didn’t slip, batting away efforts to pin down her legal philosophy beyond being an acolyte of conservative justice Antonin Scalia. She did acknowledge her admiration for the jurist for whom she clerked didn’t mean she agreed with him in all instances. Now the Senate Judiciary Committee will hear Thursday from admirers, eventually her nomination will be sent to the full Senate and if and when the senators are called back to town she’ll take her place on the high court if Republican majorities mean anything.
· The resurgence of the coronavirus has reached the point where no state is improving. One study provided new evidence, as if any was needed, that the U.S. death rate of 36.9 per 100,000 is the worst by far of any developed nation. Additions to the death toll of 216,000 are expected by medical commentators to accelerate given the growing daily average of new cases, now above 51,000 a day.
· Thursday evening will see ABC present a Town Hall where questions will be posed to candidate Biden at the same time incumbent Trump will be undergoing an interrogation on NBC, replacing the virtual presidential debate in which Trump refused to participate with mutually exclusive counter programming, the opposite of debate.
· A lot of economic data coming up in the morning at 8:30a ET, fresh jobless claims which have refused to taper down for weeks, the Philly Fed manufacturing index, the New York Fed’s Empire State manufacturing index and import and export prices. Wednesday’s Producer Price Index came in hot. The latest business inflation details were provided by Kevin Kastner elsewhere on this macenews.com site. Also there, a status report on Federal Reserve policy by Steve Beckner.
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