Only a day after President Trump’s personal valet was reported to have tested positive for covid-19, another White House insider has been revealed to have come down with the virus, inching us closer to the inevitable future in which our distinctly over-the-hill elected officials, a population not particularly known for its vigor or good health, begin to suffer the same fate as the hundreds of thousands of people—the majority people of color—who have been left to die unnecessary and lonely deaths.
The person, first reported to be a “senior aide” to Mike Pence, has since been revealed as Katie Miller, the vice president’s press secretary. “She’s a wonderful young woman, Katie,” President Trump said, according to NBC News, during a meeting at the White House. “She hasn’t come into contact with me, spent some time with the vice president. So she tested positive out of the blue.”
But, as NBC also reported, Miller had been at the White House the morning she tested positive, and an unnamed official told the outlet she had displayed “symptoms.” In the meeting today, Trump managed to simultaneously manipulate his vocal cords and move his mouth to address the situation: “The tests are perfect,” he said, “but something can happen between a test where it’s good and then something happens and all of a sudden ... today I guess for some reason she tested positive.”
Politico has a rather stark analysis of the situation:
Katie Miller’s positive diagnosis raises the risk that, through both her and her husband’s daily work, a large swath of the West Wing’s senior aides may also have been exposed to the novel coronavirus.
Katie’s husband, of course, is Stephen Miller, the architect of the White House’s arcane immigration policy. The two married earlier this year. Trump is close enough to the couple to have attended the wedding. And while I am generally loathe to wish physical harm on those I disagree with, and while I do wish Katie a speedy recovery, I’m comfortable shedding whatever objectivity I have here to say I desperately hope Stephen Miller contracts covid-19.
This is the man who has spent his entire life pursuing the idea that America’s diversity is a disease; who laundered white nationalist talking points first through right-wing blogs and then wrote them into the now-President’s campaign speeches; who has been “obsessed” with the idea of “consequences” for immigrants; who “actually enjoys seeing those pictures at the border.” This is the person who relentlessly hammered the idea that the only punishment of consequence was to treat children as poorly as the law could possibly allow. If thousands of Americans, the vast majority of them black and Latinx, are going to die every day from the new coronavirus, Stephen Miller should absolutely get it too.
[Politico]
I do appreciate the sentiment, Pastor Paula:
Payday lending chains, those famed backbones of the American economy, were some of the last businesses to remain open during statewide lockdowns. Now, some are lobbying for access to the Small Business Administration loans that were floated by lawmakers as a way for crucial local shops to stay afloat. The Washington Post has details on Payday Money Centers, a chain that charges 400% interest rates to customers and has taken the government to court for being “unfairly excluded” from the relief program.
“I am struggling to understand the difference between my employees who want into our store fronts and the employees at the dry cleaners next door,” the CEO told the paper.
- The Guardian has obtained audio and documents suggesting American Revolution 2.0, one of the major groups behind anti-lockdown protests, has far-right and extremist links. [The Guardian]
- Republicans are preparing to replace Ruth Bader Ginsberg. [Politico]
- Mike Pence did not, in fact, deliver empty boxes of PPE to a nursing home, thought you might be forgiven for believing that he did. [BuzzFeed]
- Everyone is unemployed. [NBC]