WTF Community

The Latest - Tuesday October 6

:zap: Welcome to a new community space for breaking news :zap:

A daily community thread to collect updates and events pertinent to the daily shock and awe, this is The Latest. Updates will contribute to @matt’s daily WTFJHT posts.


:warning: This thread has ended. The discussion continues here: The Latest - Wednesday, October 7.


Today so far:

  • Trump returned to the White House after leaving Walter Reed medical center. Upon his arrival, Trump stood outside and removed his mask, despite the fact that he is still infected and contagious. He flashed a double thumbs up and posed for photos before walking inside as his helicopter departed. Shortly after, he released a video produced by his aides, in which he claimed that he “had to” face the coronavirus because he is a leader. “We’re going back. We’re going back to work. We’re gonna be out front. As your leader I had to do that. I knew there’s danger to it but I had to do it,” Trump said. “I stood out front. I led. Nobody that’s a leader would not do what I did. I know there’s a risk there’s a danger.” He added: “And now I’m better, and maybe I’m immune? I don’t know.” Trump then encouraged Americans to “get out there” and to not let the virus “dominate your lives.” (CNN / Washington Post / CBS News / Associated Press / The Guardian / Axios)

  • The White House is not conducting contact tracing for guests and staff members who attended the Rose Garden party where at least eight people, including Trump, are believed to have contracted COVID-19. Officials with the D.C. Department of Health have been unable to connect with the White House to assist with contact tracing and other protocols regarding the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak. Instead, the White House has only been notifying people who came in close contact with Trump during the two days before his diagnosis on Thursday. “We have reached out to the White House on a couple of different levels, a political level and a public health level,” said Mayor Muriel Bowser. White House spokesman Brian Morgenstern said in a statement that the White House “has a robust contact tracing program in place led by the White House Medical Unit with CDC personnel and guidance.” (New York Times / NBC News)

  • Top White House officials are blocking new federal guidelines for the emergency release of a coronavirus vaccine. Officials are objecting to a strict new provision that would effectively guarantee that no vaccine could be authorized before the election on Nov. 3. The FDA is trying to find other ways to ensure that the vaccines meet the guidelines, including by sharing them with an outside advisory committee of experts in the hopes that the committee will enforce them even if the White House objects. Health experts are concerned that by refusing to allow the FDA to release the guidelines, the White House is undercutting the government’s effort to reassure the public that any vaccine will be safe and effective. (New York Times)

  • Eric Trump was deposed under oath as part of New York’s investigation into the Trump Organization’s financial dealings. The New York attorney general’s office is probing whether Trump’s real-estate company falsely reported property values in order to obtain loans or tax benefits. Eric initially refused to provide testimony until after the November election, but a state judge rejected his argument that he was too busy working on his father’s re-election campaign to submit to questioning. New York AG Letitia James is focusing on a property called Seven Springs that sits on 212 acres outside New York City, as well as transactions involving the Trump-owned 40 Wall Street building in lower Manhattan, a golf club in Los Angeles, and the Trump International Hotel and Tower Chicago. The Trump Organization has denied any wrongdoing. (Bloomberg / Axios)

  • poll/ 57% of likely voters now say they support Biden for president, while 41% support Trump. The poll was conducted entirely after the first debate and mostly after Trump’s coronavirus infection was made public. 52% of Americans say they have a positive impression of Biden, compared with 39% who have a positive view of Trump. (CNN)


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What we’re all talking about?


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:information_source: Voter Guides: FiveThirtyEight / Washington Post / NBC News / Wall Street Journal


Reminders

Wednesday Watch Party - look for a thread :thread: tomorrow


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:trophy: Most liked meme from yesterday

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@matt let me know if you like this format? I can do this no problem

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@Pet_Proletariat you are awesome as always! I can help out too once I get the hang of it. (don’t want to step on toes tho, just here if/when you need me.)

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Awesome layout…perfecto! @Pet_Proletariat

Fallout - lots of it just within the WH Communications area

Covid +
Kaleigh McEneny WH Communications
Chad Gilmartin WH Communications Assistant
Karoline Leavitt - WH Communications Assistant

Michael Shear - Wapo WH Correspondent
WH Reporter ?
WH Reporter ?

Must Quarantine 2 weeks
Paula Reid CBS

Here’s mention of one of the 3 WH press correspondents who did get Covid
Michael Shear - Washington Post WH correspondent (and his wife)

White House reporters are increasingly anxious and angry about the Trump administration’s handling of COVID-19 cases within its own building.

State of play: Several White House reporters have tested positive and many are trying to figure out whether they and their families need to quarantine.

My wife has now tested positive for COVID. The collateral damage is going to be pretty significant I think.”
— N.Y. Times White House correspondent Michael Shear in an interview with Axios

Driving the news: White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany announced Monday that she tested positive for coronavirus, sending White House reporters scrambling to figure out whether they had been exposed.

  • McEnany briefed reporters without wearing a mask at the White House, a practice that speaks to the overall dismissal of White House officials around COVID-19 safety protocols.
  • On Monday, one of the reporters at the briefing confirmed to Axios that they would be quarantining for the next two weeks.

What they’re saying: Members of the press corps have expressed frustration that they’ve been directly exposed to officials with the virus without being warned.

  • They cite being on flights with Hope Hicks, as well as last week’s presidential debate and the press briefing Sunday with McEnany, as events deserving more precautions.
  • “What frustrates me is that the White House could have and should have taken steps to mitigate or minimize the risk if they had just done simple things like wearing masks,” said Shear, who believes he contracted the virus aboard Air Force One on September 26th, following the White House nomination event for Amy Coney Barrett.
  • “I felt safer reporting in North Korea than I currently do reporting at The White House. This is just crazy,” tweeted CBS News White House Correspondent Ben Tracy.

The other side: Ben Williamson, a White House official who works in the communications department and is also an aide to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, tweeted Monday that McEnany “briefly removed her mask at the mic to answer questions, was there for two questions and only 58 seconds (would not constitute ‘sustained contact’ per the CDC), and was socially distanced from reporters in the area.”

A reporter who believes he contracted COVID-19 either at the White House or on Air Force One says he’s still had absolutely no contact from any officials since he tested positive for the disease. Speaking to CNN Monday morning, Michael D. Shear of The New York Times said he visited the White House last Saturday ahead of taking a flight on the presidential plane, where Trump spoke to him and other reporters without wearing a mask. Since then, despite the White House’s insistence that “full contact tracing” was taking place in light of the outbreak that reached Trump himself, Shear has heard nothing—even after testing positive. He told CNN: “It’s now, you know, 10 days, 11 days, whatever, since I think I was probably infected on that Saturday. I have not been contacted by the White House. Nobody from the White House has said ‘boo’ and asked anything about where I was, who I talked to, or who else I might have infected.

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@Pet_Proletariat @matt

Question - is this to be the general ‘landing’ page for the day, and an area for concentrated events per day? Like when we had an ‘early page’ for day 1352 because it was such a FREAKISH NEWSDAY?

And then we comment…?

I just started in on it. #DidIDoTheRightThing?

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@dragonfly9

The idea is that you share breaking news here, if something relates to a topic you are already working just cross post. But feel free to still post to the longer topic threads as we try to trim them down to a more comprehensive size. Anything off topic will not be included.

New Readers don’t know how to jump into this forum, so this was my way of giving them a landing page to start.

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We can also go the other way, this big news

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This too

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Trump says he intends to debate Biden next week in Miami.

President Trump announced on Tuesday that he is planning to attend next Thursday’s debate in Miami against former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. despite his continued struggle with the coronavirus and unresolved questions about the event’s rules.

“I am looking forward to the debate on the evening of Thursday, October 15th in Miami. It will be great!” the president tweeted early Tuesday, the morning after he returned to the White House from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

“FEELING GREAT!” he added in a separate Tweet.

By midday Monday, Mr. Trump made it clear he would soon be moving forward with his campaign, even as medical experts warned that the course of his illness is unpredictablein a man of his age and weight.

Poor man thinks he’s going to be able to still debate while contagious.

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I love this. Thanks for taking this on! I’m pretty sure I can create a bunch of these “stub” pages and set them to publish automatically on the correct day. I’ll look into that.

I’ll add some more notes later but I’m super stoked on this!


https://talk.whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/t/the-latest-tuesday-october-6/5923/9?u=matt

@dragonfly9 I think what @Pet_Proletariat said is right: Use this as an in the thick of it catch-all for the day’s news. The examples of cross-posting also make a ton of sense: put the news in the topic that it has the greatest affinity for, then (using the :link: icon url) cross-post it here. That way we end up with an accounting for the “day” while also maintaining the flexibility of the forum and all the other threads.

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Facebook and Twitter both blocked Trump’s post falsely claiming that coronavirus is less deadly than flu.

Facebook and Twitter on Tuesday took action against a post from President Donald Trump that falsely claimed the seasonal flu is more deadly than the coronavirus.

Facebook removed the post, and Twitter added a label warning of misinformation about the coronavirus before a user could click to view it. Twitter also prevented the tweet from being shared.

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And now we have a way to go back if we wanted to and break down some those larger threads into shorter timeframes for easier reader comprehension. There’s so much good archival work floating in this forum, we should actually manage it better.

@MissJava
@celena

How do you feel about that?

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FYI I might play a little with the format, including adding the notes from the blog to the main post here. It might not be right but I think we can play with it till we find something that works and makes sense. Hopefully in time we can merge some of the work being done here w/ the work I’m doing over on the main site, and bring the community closer to the publishing process.

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Trump tweeted that he is “looking forward to” the second presidential debate even as he continues treatment this week for Covid-19.

“I am looking forward to the debate on the evening of Thursday, October 15th in Miami,” Trump said. “It will be great!”

The president is still battling his Covid-19 infection after first showing symptoms on Thursday, according to the White House. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines say people should isolate for 10 days from the point of showing systems, and in severe cases, 20 days.

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Senior Pentagon leadership quarantining after exposure to coronavirus

Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with several of the Pentagon’s most senior uniformed leaders, are quarantining after being exposed to the coronavirus

The Chief of Staff of the US Air Force, Charles Brown, the Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Michael Gilday and the Chief of Space Operations, Gen. John Raymond, also are all working from home, according to several officials.

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