THE PRESIDENT’S MEMORIAL DAY MESSAGES, on Twitter this morning: 8:16 a.m.: “HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!” … 8:18 a.m.: “TRANSITION TO GREATNESS! Get ready, it is already happening again!” … retweet of 11:06 p.m. tweet: “OBAMAGATE” … retweet of another 11:06 p.m. tweet: “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” … And this image
SOME MEMORIAL DAY fronts: L.A. Times: “REMEMBERING THE FALLEN” … Sacramento Bee: “Veterans home could close due to budget cuts” … The Desert Sun (Palm Springs, Calif.): “HONORING THEIR COURAGE” … Chicago Tribune: “They survived wars, died of virus” … Boston Herald: “SALUTE THE FALLEN” … N.Y. Post: “Mourning in America” … Columbus Dispatch: “THE FLAG THEY FOUGHT FOR”
INSIDE THE OVAL, from JOHN BRESNAHAN and JAKE: Sen. RICHARD SHELBY (R-Ala.) — the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee — went to see President DONALD TRUMP Tuesday to talk about spending bills for 2021.
SHELBY’S PRIORITY in visiting the White House was to convince the president to declare the VA Mission Act as emergency spending. The program — which allows veterans see doctors in their communities rather than the VA — costs $12.5 billion or so each year, and declaring it an emergency would remove it from the budget’s bottom line, thus giving SHELBY additional money to spend on other priorities.
IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CONVERSATION, TRUMP dialed House Minority Leader KEVIN MCCARTHY to see what “My Kevin” — his name for the California Republican — thought. The president and his aides knew what MCCARTHY thought: He’d be opposed.
MCCARTHY immediately said no, and he and SHELBY got into a heated conversation over federal spending. MCCARTHY and SHELBY have a bit of bad blood. MCCARTHY fought SHELBY over funding for harbor dredging, and SHELBY tried to complicate California water projects.
THE CALL LASTED for roughly 20 minutes. When SHELBY returned to the Capitol, he told reporters that the president was “neutral” on his priority. MCCARTHY believes TRUMP is on his side. It’s a telling yet familiar episode about governing in the era of TRUMP. The president revels in stoking rivalries, and lawmakers are left wondering where he stands. More: Sarah Ferris on Congress’s agenda
NEW … RNC CONVENTION LEAVING CHARLOTTE? … “I love the Great State of North Carolina, so much so that I insisted on having the Republican National Convention in Charlotte at the end of August. Unfortunately, Democrat Governor, @RoyCooperNC is still in Shutdown mood & unable to guarantee that by August we will be allowed…
“…full attendance in the Arena. In other words, we would be spending millions of dollars building the Arena to a very high standard without even knowing if the Democrat Governor would allow the Republican Party to fully occupy the space. Plans are being….
“…made by many thousands of enthusiastic Republicans, and others, to head to beautiful North Carolina in August. They must be immediately given an answer by the Governor as to whether or not the space will be allowed to be fully occupied. If not, we will be reluctantly forced…
“…to find, with all of the jobs and economic development it brings, another Republican National Convention site. This is not something I want to do. Thank you, and I LOVE the people of North Carolina!”
Good Monday morning, and, again, happy Memorial Day.
STATE OF THE WORLD … AP/ATHENS, GREECE: “Americans prepared to mark a Memorial Day like no other as the coronavirus pandemic upended traditional commemorations, while Greece sought to revive its crucial tourism sector by restoring ferry services to its popular Aegean islands. …
“Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe lifted a coronavirus state of emergency in Tokyo and four other remaining areas on Monday, but said that does not mean the end of the outbreak. He also unveiled a new stimulus package worth about 100 trillion yen ($930 billion) to provide financial support for pandemic-hit companies. That’s on top of an initial, 117 trillion yen package.”
WAPO: “Administration leaves testing responsibility to states in report to Congress,” by Amy Goldstein: “In a report to Congress, the Trump administration is pledging to buy 100 million swabs by the year’s end and distribute them to states to help expand the nation’s capacity to test for the novel coronavirus.
“The report, delivered on the Sunday deadline lawmakers had set for federal health officials to submit a national testing strategy, doubles down on the administration’s stance that individual states, not the federal government, should bear primary responsibility for carrying out diagnostic tests to help curb the pandemic.”
— L.A. TIMES’ NOAM LEVEY in Bakersfield: “Coronavirus widens healthcare divide between red states and blue states”: “Regional differences have long been a hallmark of American healthcare. But the gap between blue and red states has yawned wider in the 10 years of political battles that followed passage of the 2010 health law, often called Obamacare. Now, the coronavirus crisis threatens to widen disparities further as tens of millions of Americans lose jobs and health coverage.”
NEW IMMIGRATION LIMITS? … “Trump expected to broaden foreign worker bans,” by Anita Kumar: “President Donald Trump is expected to extend and expand restrictions on foreign workers coming into the United States during the coronavirus pandemic, aiming to appease a frustrated political base as Americans try to return to work.
“Immigration hardliners have been lobbying Trump to take the step, which would broaden an April executive order that barred several categories of foreign workers from entering the country for a temporary period. They argue that the directive didn’t go far enough, given the skyrocketing unemployment rate and an election only months away.”
ECONOMY STARTING TO COME TO LIFE … WSJ, by Harriet Torry and Josh Mitchell: “Truck loads are growing again. Air travel and hotel bookings are up slightly. Mortgage applications are rising. And more people are applying to open new businesses.
“These are among some early signs the U.S. economy is, ever so slowly, creeping back to life. Plenty of data show the country was still mired in a severe downturn in April and May, with overall business activity falling and layoffs rising—though more slowly than in the early weeks of the coronavirus crisis. Current projections have the economy contracting by 6% to 7% this year and unemployment lingering in double-digit percentages for a while. But, for the first time since the pandemic forced widespread U.S. business closures in March, it appears conditions in some corners of the economy aren’t getting worse, and might even be improving.”
— NYSE FLOOR will open tomorrow. WSJ
JOSH GERSTEIN: “California church appeals to U.S. Supreme Court over lockdown”: “The battle over the impact of coronavirus lockdown measures on Americans’ religious observances has reached the Supreme Court as a Southern California church and its pastor made an emergency appeal for relief from executive orders issued by Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“Lawyers for the South Bay United Pentecostal Church and Bishop Arthur Hodges asked the justices to step in Sunday after a federal appeals court panel rejected a similar emergency application Friday.
“The decision from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals came on the same day President Donald Trump publicly backed churches seeking to escape various stay-at-home orders in place across the country. Trump said he was ordering governors to exempt churches “right now” by declaring religious services to be essential, although he lacks any evident legal authority to impose his view on state officials.”
LOUISVILLE COURIER JOURNAL: “Beshear hanged in effigy as Second Amendment supporters rally at Capitol before Memorial Day,” by Sarah Ladd: “What started out as a freedom-loving celebration of the Second Amendment ahead of Memorial Day turned into Gov. Andy Beshear being hanged in effigy and protesters chanting outside the governor’s mansion.
“The Second Amendment rally, meant to inspire people ‘about what it really means to be FREE,’ according to Take Back Kentucky, attracted at least 100 people on Sunday. They gathered from 1-4 p.m. at the Kentucky State Capitol in Frankfort.
“It began as a celebration of constitutional rights but turned into a protest of coronavirus restrictions and Beshear’s administration. Folks toted their guns and waved American and ‘Don’t tread on me’ flags. Taps honored the fallen, and free flags were given to veterans from all military branches.”
NYT: “Which Party Would Benefit Most From Voting by Mail? It’s Complicated,” by Michael Wines:
BIDEN UP 5 IN MINNESOTA … THE STAR TRIBUNE/MPR/KARE POLL has BIDEN at 49 and TRUMP at 44. TRUMP’S approval is at 45, and disapproval is at 53. The poll … Strib front page, with the poll striped across the top
THE PRESIDENT’S MONDAY: THE PRESIDENT AND FIRST LADY will leave the White House at 9:45 a.m. for Arlington National Cemetery for a 10 a.m. wreath laying. At 10:20, they’ll head back to the White House. At 11:15 a.m., they will leave the White House for Baltimore for a noon ceremony at the Fort McHenry National Monument and Historic Shrine. At 1:05, they will leave Baltimore for the White House.
ACROSS THE POND … JACK BLANCHARD: “Furious backlash after Boris Johnson defends aide’s lockdown journey”: “U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson will chair a tense bank holiday Cabinet meeting this morning with the Tory Party in a state of near-mutiny over his decision to stand by lockdown-flouting aide Dominic Cummings.
“The prime minister will gather his senior ministers via Zoom to agree a further tweaking of lockdown restrictions in the coming weeks, with Johnson planning to update the nation — and, he hopes, change the narrative — at another must-see press conference tonight.
“The PM’s most senior aides have canceled planned leave and flooded what was a pretty empty half-term news grid with attention-grabbing lockdown stories, starting with last night’s rushed-out announcement on schools. But trouble is still bubbling up from below, with Tory MPs from every wing of the party reporting abject rage from their constituents — and letting their whips know in no uncertain terms. This is not going away anytime soon.” POLITICO
MUCK READ — “As Trump removes federal watchdogs, some loyalists replacing them have ‘preposterous’ conflicts,” by WaPo’s Lisa Rein and Tom Hamburger: “The political appointee President Trump installed last week to investigate waste, fraud and abuse at the Transportation Department is the same official in charge of one of the agency’s key divisions.
“That means Howard ‘Skip’ Elliott is now running an office charged with investigating his own actions.
“Elliott serves simultaneously as the Transportation Department’s inspector general and head of the department’s pipeline and hazardous materials agency, whose mission includes enforcement of safety regulations on nearly 1 million daily shipments of gas, oil and other dangerous compounds.” WaPo
BEYOND THE BELTWAY — “In rural NC, racing fans packed a speedway to defy governor in pursuit of ‘freedom’,” by the News and Observer’s Andrew Carter: “They lined up more than two hours before the first race Saturday at Ace Speedway, and soon that line stretched 700 feet from the little ticket hut near the front gate all the way to the road. Some of them drank beer while they waited, or smoked cigarettes. They stood close together, without fear of the virus or concern for social distancing.
“At the country speedway in the northwest corner of Alamance County, it was as if the coronavirus pandemic was a thing of the past. It was as if the United States wasn’t approaching 100,000 deaths from the virus, and as though much of North Carolina hadn’t been on lockdown just a week or so earlier. It was, amid a global crisis, a scene from life before.”
Send tips to Eli Okun and Garrett Ross at [email protected].
TRANSITION — Heidi Obermeyer will be a policy manager at BSA – The Software Alliance. She previously was comms and policy manager at CTIA.
BIRTHDAYS: Anna Palmer … Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) is 6-0 … Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan is 64 … Mark Shields is 83 … David Martosko, White House correspondent for Daily Mail TV … Emily Bittner … Ron Nessen is 86 … Mike Russell, SVP at CRC Public Relations … Greg Bluestein, political reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution … Laurie Rubiner (h/t Jon Haber) … Megan Van Etten, senior director of public affairs at PhRMA … former Rep. Steve Russell (R-Okla.) is 57 … former Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.) is 77 … John Flynn … Andrew Gumbel … Savannah Haeger of the Institute of International Finance … Kate Ackley Zeller, senior staff writer at CQ Roll Call … Capricia Marshall (h/t Ben Chang) … Alice Germond (h/ts Teresa Vilmain) … Stefan Becket …
… Annie Clark, comms director for Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) … Hamasa Ebadi … John Kelly, EVP of public affairs and social impact at Starbucks, is 54 … Edelman’s Amy Fox … Carolyn Bobb, AFL-CIO national media manager … Laura Goldman … former Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) is 68 … Dorrance Smith … HRC’s Hayley Miller … Courtney Joline … Sean Rushton … Margaret Dobrydnio Motes … Carla Robbins, adjunct senior fellow at CFR … Phil Karsting … Carol Thompson … Conor Powell … Alice Mooney … Brian Flaherty … Matthew Colbert … Matt Lakin is 4-0 … Alan Brody … Lesley Sillaman … Alex Brummer is 71 … Britt Kahn, Conan O’Brien booker … Tim Zenk … Alycyn Keeling … Amazon’s Kevin McElligott … Graham James, head of comms at Canopy
- Anna Palmer @apalmerdc
- Jake Sherman @JakeSherman
