Coronavirus US live: press secretary defends Trump over blocking Fauci’s testimony – as it happened

• Trump has reportedly suggested the US coronavirus death count is an exaggeration, even though experts have said the official tally is likely an undercount, considering some people died of the virus without being tested. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany denied the report at her briefing moments ago.
• McEnany defended Trump’s decision to block Dr Anthony Fauci from testifying before the House. The press secretary described the request from the Democratic-controlled House as a “publicity stunt,” even though Fauci will testify before the Senate next week.
• Trump said the White House coronavirus task force would “continue on indefinitely,” a reversal from his comments yesterday suggesting the group’s work would be winding down. The president said today he “had no idea how popular the task force is.”
• Trump vetoed a bipartisan resolution limiting his ability to take military action against Iran without congressional approval. “This was a very insulting resolution, introduced by Democrats as part of a strategy to win an election on November 3 by dividing the Republican Party,” the president said. It’s unlikely that either legislative branch will have the two-thirds majority to override Trump’s veto.
• Nancy Pelosi criticized Trump for pushing to reopen the country, as health experts warn relaxing social distancing restrictions too soon could cause a surge in coronavirus cases. “Death is not an economic motivator, stimulus, so why are we going down that path?” Pelosi said.
• The Supreme Court declined to block Pennsylvania’s shutdown order. The justices, echoing an earlier decision from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, affirmed Democratic governor Tom Wolf’s right to shut down most non-essential businesses to limit the spread of the virus.
• Trump said Dr Rick Bright is a “disgruntled guy.” Bright has said he was removed from his role overseeing the development of a coronavirus vaccine after he refused to promote hydroxychloroquine as a potential coronavirus treatment.

A migrant detained at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in California has died from Covid-19, according to the ACLU.

“This is a terrible tragedy, and it was entirely predictable and preventable. For months, public health experts and corrections officials have warned that detention centers would be Petri dishes for the spread of Covid-19 — and a death trap for thousands of people in civil detention,” said Andrea Flores, the ACLU deputy director of immigration policy. “Unless ICE acts quickly to release far more people from detention, they will keep getting sick and many more will die,” she added.

Joe Biden just singled out and praised Amy Klobuchar during a virtual campaign event. Klobuchar is leading “efforts in the United States Senate to provide for the money and the means by which we can have early voting,” Biden said, complementing the Minnesota senator for her work on the issue.

Klobuchar looks like a top candidate for Biden’s running mate pick. Here’s an overview of who else could be under consideration:

Helen Sullivan

• WHO warns of more lockdowns if transition not managed carefully. The director general of the World Health Organization warns of the risks of returning to lockdown if countries emerging from pandemic restrictions do not manage transitions “extremely carefully and in a phased approach”. preparedness.
  
  
• Germany eases restrictions but retains ‘emergency brake’. The country’s top football league, the Bundesliga, is set to resume this month – one of various restrictions to be lifted as Germans are once again allowed to meet a limited number of friends and family and some shops are allowed to reopen.
• UK could start easing virus lockdown next week. The British government will set out details of its plan to ease lockdown on Sunday, the prime minister, Boris Johnson, says, adding his hope that some measures could come into force the following day. Speaking in parliament for the first time since being hospitalised with Covid-19, Johnson says “every death is a tragedy”, calling the statistics “appalling”.
• Spain extends state of emergency after bitter political dispute. Pred Sanchez’s Socialist-led coalition government secured an extension until 24 May. Congress’s approval for the latest extension of the crisis powers comes after days of bitter rowing and frantic negotiations.
• Diplomatic split widens amid virus origin row and China shrugs off US claims and calls for focus on beating pandemic. China will not invite international experts in to investigate the source of Covid-19 while the pandemic is still raging, its UN ambassador says. China’s foreign ministry says the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, is wrong to claim he has evidence suggesting the virus originated in a Chinese lab. The US-China relationship is one of disappointment and frustration, the White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has said, highlighting the deepening rift between Washington and Beijing.
• Sweden nears 3,000 deaths. “We are starting to near 3,000 deceased, a horrifyingly large number,” Sweden’s state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, says. The country’s public health agency reports that a total of 23,918 cases have been confirmed and 2,941 deaths recorded; an increase of 87 deaths from the day before. Rather than enforcing a lockdown, Sweden has allowed many businesses to remain open, while asking citizens to keep their distance.
• Iran warns of ‘rising trend’ as virus cases top 100,000. Iran records 1,680 new infections, the highest daily figure since 11 April, taking its overall caseload beyond the 100,000 mark. The country’s apparent success in controlling the epidemic has gone into reverse, with a sharp rise in the number of new daily infections over the past four days.
• ‘More than 90,000 health workers infected worldwide’. At least 90,000 healthcare workers globally are believed to have been infected, the International Council of Nurses (ICN) says, noting that the the true figure could be as much as twice that. It says more than 260 nurses have died amid reports of continuing shortages of protective equipment, as it urges authorities to keep more accurate records.

Follow the Guardian’s global liveblog for more updates:

A crowd-sourced tracking tool launched on Wednesday will allow Amazon workers to report and monitor the growing number of coronavirus cases in their facilities, as the company refuses to publicly release comprehensive figures.

United for Respect, a worker advocacy group, has released the new system, which will rely on reports from employees to keep a more accurate count of how many workers have been diagnosed with Covid-19.

The tool comes as Amazon confirmed the death of a worker in one of its New York warehouses from coronavirus this week and employees demand paid sick leave and protest lack of protection. The company still refuses to share publicly – or with its employees – the total number of sick workers at each facility.

Workers say Amazon sends them an alert when someone in their workplace is diagnosed with coronavirus, but does not include the total numbers.

Not knowing the scale of the pandemic has contributed to growing anxiety in the workplace where employees have become frontline workers, said Courtenay Brown, an Amazon warehouse worker in New Jersey and member of United for Respect said.

Senator Richard Burr’s brother-in-law, a Trump appointee, dumped tens of thousands of dollars worth of shares right before the stock market fell due to the coronavirus crisis, per a ProPublica investigation.

Gerald Fauth, an appointee on the National Mediation Board, sold between $97,000 and $280,000 worth of shares. Burr, a Republican senator of North Carolina, was found to have sold off between $628,000 and $1.72m of his holdings on 13 Feb. As chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee and a member of the health committee Burr may have had access to classified information about public health threats.

Oliver Milman

Donald Trump has all but abandoned a public health strategy of societal restrictions to tackle the coronavirus pandemic and opted instead to push for a restart of the US economy. Experts have warned that the move is premature and risks handing a “death sentence” to many Americans.

The US president has praised governors of states that have started to loosen restrictions on social distancing and business activity, even though he has admitted that people will suffer as a result. “Will some people be affected badly? Yes,” Trump said on Tuesday. “But we have to get our country open, and we have to get it open soon.”

Public health experts have pointed out that Covid-19 infections and deaths are mounting dangerously in much of the US.

New York has drawn attention as a global hotspot for the virus but has now flattened its rate of infections whereas large parts of the country are still to reach their own peak. When New York is discounted, the US is still on an upward trajectory of new infections.

Julian Borger

In response to Donald Trump’s veto of a joint resolution aimed at limiting the president’s authority to go to war with Iran, Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, the author of the bill, went on Twitter to contrast what the president has said about great nations not fighting “endless wars” with his veto of legislation intended “to help avoid unnecessary war in the Middle East”.

Kaine urged Congress to override the veto, but it is highly unlikely that a two-thirds majority would oppose the president.

The resolution, passed on 11 March, was passed after the January US drone strike that killed Iranian general Qassem Suleimani, and a reprisal Iranian missile strike against a base in Iraq which left more than 100 US soldiers with traumatic brain injury.

It invokes the War Powers Resolution of 1973 to demand that the president seek authorization from Congress before further hostilities.

In vetoing the resolution, Trump said he had authority to carry out the attack on Suleimani by the 2002 Authorization of the Use of Military Force against Iraq passed by Congress in the run-up to the Iraq invasion.

Trump’s critics in congress say there is nothing in that authorization to give Trump the right to carry out attacks on Iran.

The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, initially claimed that Suleimani posed an “imminent threat” to four US embassies in the region, but the administration quietly dropped that argument in a formal justification of the attack to Congress in February. The White House said killing the general was justified as a response to earlier attacks and as a deterrent against future aggression.

The bipartisan resolution would rein in his ability to take direct military action against Iran without congressional authorization.

“This was a very insulting resolution, introduced by Democrats as part of a strategy to win an election on November 3 by dividing the Republican Party. The few Republicans who voted for it played right into their hands,” the president said.

It’s unlikely that either legislative branch will have the two-thirds majority to override Trump’s veto.

David Smith

Kayleigh McEnany, the White House press secretary, has defended Donald Trump’s description of US citizens as “warriors” of the coronavirus pandemic.

When the president used the term on Tuesday, MSNBC host Chris Hayes objected: “I personally don’t think of the folks in say nursing homes as warriors that need to be sacrificed. But what the president seems to be saying is, you’re on your own, thoughts and prayers. Sorry if you were one of those people badly affected. Think of yourself as a soldier dying for the cause.”

At her second White House briefing on Wednesday, McEnany denied that Trump was asking Americans to put themselves in harm’s way. “Not in the slightest,” she said. “It’s actually the opposite. The president’s been clear that, at this moment, we’re at a wartime moment where we’re fighting the invisible enemy and by that I mean Covid-19.

“On the contrary, the notion that the American people are warriors, they’re warriors because they’ve stayed home, they’re warriors because they’ve social distanced, they’re warriors because this mitigation effort is something that could only be done by the American people coming together and making really hard sacrifices.”

This got the US to the point of having one of the lowest mortality rates in the world and of reopening its economy, McEnany added. But public health experts have warned that easing the lockdown restrictions too soon could result in a sharp increase in infections and deaths.

She also defended the White House’s decision to block infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci from testifying at a House of Representatives committee, accusing Democrats of failing to act in good faith. “We don’t have time in the middle of a pandemic for publicity stunts,” she said.

The press secretary described America’s relationship with China as “one of disappointment and frustration”, accusing Beijing not sharing the genetic sequence of the virus when it could and refusing access to US investigators, putting American lives at risk.

Asked to name world leaders who have praised Trump’s response to the pandemic, McEnany reeled off a list of state governors instead.

From my vantage point in the briefing room, it struck me as another assured but truth-bending performance from the new press secretary, avoiding controversies that risk stealing the limelight from her boss.

Donald Trump’s push to paint the southern border wall black is projected to add at least $500m in costs, according to contracting estimates obtained by the Washington Post.

Trump has long advocated for coat the steel bars of the border wall black, despite military commanders and border officials’ warnings that the design change would cost too much both in the short and long term due to maintainence costs.

The Post reports:

During a border wall meeting at the White House last month amid the coronavirus pandemic, the president told senior adviser Jared Kushner and aides to move forward with the paint job and to seek out cost estimates, according to four administration officials with knowledge of the meeting,” the Post reports.

“POTUS has changed his mind and now wants the fence painted. We are modifying contracts to add,” said one official involved in the construction effort who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of being fired.

Trump, during that meeting, directed aides to seek input from North Dakota-based Fisher Sand and Gravel, a company the president favors. Fisher has a $400 million contract to build a section of new barrier in Arizona, an award that is under review by the Department of Defense inspector general.

The Post obtained a copy of painting estimates that federal contracting officials produced, and it shows costs ranging from $500 million for two coats of acrylic paint to more than $3 billion for a premium “powder coating” on the structure’s 30-foot steel bollards, the high end of the options the officials have identified.

A U.S. Border Patrol agent sits near the Calexico Port of Entry, where the section of the border fence that is painted black is to the right and the unpainted border fence is to the left. (Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post)

The White House has not yet chosen a grade of paint, but Trump has insisted for years that the barrier should be black to discourage climbers. He has favored a shade known as “flat black” or “matte black” because of its heat-absorbent properties.

Hi, there — it’s Maanvi Singh, blogging from the West Coast.

Even as Donald Trump pivots to a focus on reopening the economy, state governors are the ones who hold much of the power to do so. A new Quinnipiac poll in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut found that voters are on board with a slow, cautious approach.

• New York’s Andrew Cuomo had a 72 – 24 percent job approval rating, and an 81 – 17 percent approval rating for his handling of the coronavirus crisis.
• New Jersey’s Phil Murphy had a 68 – 23 percent job approval rating, and a 78 – 18 percent approval rating for his handling of the crisis.
• Connecticut’s Ned Lamont had a 65 – 26 percent job approval rating, and a 78 – 17 percent approval rating for his handling of the crisis.

In each state, Trump’s approval rating lagged at about 36% overall and for his crisis response. The majority of those polled in all three states said it would be safe to lift the stay-at-home orders and reopen businesses in the next few months or even later, rather than immediately.

That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

• Trump has reportedly suggested the US coronavirus death count is an exaggeration, even though experts have said the official tally is likely an undercount, considering some people died of the virus without being tested. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany denied the report at her briefing moments ago.
• McEnany defended Trump’s decision to block Dr Anthony Fauci from testifying before the House. The press secretary described the request from the Democratic-controlled House as a “publicity stunt,” even though Fauci will testify before the Senate next week.
• Trump said the White House coronavirus task force would “continue on indefinitely,” a reversal from his comments yesterday suggesting the group’s work would be winding down. The president said today he “had no idea how popular the task force is.”
• Nancy Pelosi criticized Trump for pushing to reopen the country, as health experts warn relaxing social distancing restrictions too soon could cause a surge in coronavirus cases. “Death is not an economic motivator, stimulus, so why are we going down that path?” Pelosi said.
• The Supreme Court declined to block Pennsylvania’s shutdown order. The justices, echoing an earlier decision from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, affirmed Democratic governor Tom Wolf’s right to shut down most non-essential businesses to limit the spread of the virus.
• Trump said Dr Rick Bright is a “disgruntled guy.” Bright has said he was removed from his role overseeing the development of a coronavirus vaccine after he refused to promote hydroxychloroquine as a potential coronavirus treatment.
  
  

Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany has defended Donald Trump’s decision to block Dr Anthony Fauci from testifying before the Democrat-led House. The president said he made the move to prevent officials taking questions from “a bunch of Trump haters.”

In the briefing McEnany accused the House of attempting to orchestrate a “publicity stunt” and said Fauci would instead testify before “the Republican-controlled Senate” where he will also “indeed be asked questions by Democrats.”

Fauci is the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and a key member of the government’s coronavirus task force. He is expected to testify on 12 May.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was asked about her comment from February that, “We will not see diseases like the coronavirus come here. And isn’t it refreshing when contrasting it with the awful presidency of President Obama?”

Asked whether she would like to retract that comment in light of the current pandemic, McEnany tried to turn it back around on the press, citing some headlines from news outlets that she said downplayed the pandemic.

After rattling off a list of headlines, McEnany left the briefing room without taking any more questions.

Responding to a question from the Guardian’s David Smith, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany denied that the president believes the coronavirus death toll has been exaggerated.

Axios reported earlier today that Trump and some of his advisers have suggested the official tally is an overcount, despite the fact that experts have said there have likely been even more coronavirus deaths because some victims were not tested before dying.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany is holding a briefing, her second formal briefing since taking on the role.

Taking questions from reporters, the press secretary said the White House coronavirus task force was “here to stay,” but she dodged questions about which official first suggested winding down the group’s work.

McEnany also argued that the country needed to be “strategic with our testing,” specifically saying testing should be expanded in vulnerable communities like nursing homes and meat-packing plants.

But she added, “The notion that everybody needs to be tested is simply nonsensical.” Public health experts have said testing needs to be dramatically ramped up to safely reopen the country.

Trump said Dr Rick Bright, the vaccine expert who has said he was demoted for refusing to promote hydroxychloroquine as a potential coronavirus treatment, is a “disgruntled guy.”

“I never met him, I know nothing about him, but he’s a disgruntled guy,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office. “And I don’t think disgruntled people should be working for a certain administration.”

Bright filed a whistleblower complaint with the office of special counsel yesterday after he was removed from his post as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.

Bright claimed he was ousted from his role helping to oversee the development of a coronavirus vaccine because he expressed doubts about the hydroxychloroquine.

He said he was moved to a smaller role after he “made clear that BARDA would only invest the billions of dollars allocated by Congress to address the COVID-19 pandemic in safe and scientifically vetted solutions and it would not succumb to the pressure of politics or cronyism.”