Under Pence, Politics Regularly Seeped Into the Coronavirus Task Force - The New York Times

Politics

Under Pence, Politics Regularly Seeped Into the Coronavirus Task Force – The New York Times

Published

4 years ago

October 8, 2020

WASHINGTON — Aboard Air Force Two en route to the Mayo Clinic on April 28, White House aides walked down the aisle distributing masks to members of Vice President Mike Pence’s entourage, a requirement for everyone entering the renowned hospital in Minnesota as the coronavirus spread.

But Marc Short, the vice president’s powerful chief of staff, said Mr. Pence, the leader of the White House’s coronavirus task force, would not be wearing one. Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, tried to intervene, saying it would be a bad message to the public if the vice president were to flout hospital rules.

But according to a person who witnessed the discussion and a senior administration official familiar with the episode, Mr. Short responded that photographs of Mr. Pence in a mask could be used by Democrats as campaign ammunition against President Trump, who had consistently refused to wear one as he downplayed the severity of the crisis.

Mr. Pence’s decision to walk the halls of the Mayo Clinic without a mask turned into a public relations mess — the hospital said on Twitter during the visit that the vice president’s staff had been informed about the mask policy — and Mr. Pence would later say his choice was wrong.

But it was only one example of how, over nearly eight months since the vice president was given a leading role in managing the nation’s pandemic response, political considerations seeped into decisions by Mr. Pence and his staff about how to combat a disease that has now killed more than 210,000 Americans.

At the task force, grim science-based projections were sometimes de-emphasized for rosier predictions, and guidance from public health agencies — about schools and summer camps, for example — was sometimes massaged by the vice president’s staff.

Credit…Nicholas Pfosi/Reuters

At one point, Mr. Short directed Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to soften the agency’s recommendations to a meat processing company about safety steps, in part to placate the embattled industry. Mr. Short was also part of a small group, which included Kellyanne Conway, then a senior adviser to Mr. Trump, that pushed to change C.D.C. guidance on church reopenings.

Interviews with task force members, government public health officials and current and former White House officials show how public health considerations were sometimes at odds in the task force with the White House’s imperative for 2020: winning re-election on the basis of a strong economy.

“The vice president admittedly was in a difficult situation; he was asked to lead a project where his boss wasn’t on board,” said Senator Angus King, independent of Maine, who clashed with Mr. Pence during an April conference call about coronavirus testing. During that call, Mr. King erupted at the vice president for what he believed were his evasive answers.

“And so, the question is: To what extent, if any, did he try to push back on the president, minimizing masks, minimizing testing, continually claiming the virus was behind us?” Mr. King said. “And it looks like he didn’t.”

He said Mr. Pence “was complicit in the real abdication of the federal role in confronting” the pandemic.

Several people directly engaged in the pandemic response said that Mr. Pence, whose stewardship of the task force was a subtext of the vice-presidential debate on Wednesday, was respectful of scientific arguments and often was a calming presence amid fractious arguments about how best to respond to the virus.

But his inclination to stay above the fray was also seen by some people involved in the effort as a fault, allowing an aggressive team of political aides to gain outsize influence over scientific decisions and allowing a task force created to protect public health to morph at times into an operation bent on carrying out the president’s agenda.

Mr. Pence acknowledged these political crosswinds this year during a quiet moment with a member of his staff. “Fighting a pandemic of this magnitude is very hard,” he said. “Fighting a pandemic in an election year is even harder.”

Mr. Pence took over the coronavirus response in late February, a time of reluctant recognition inside the White House that Mr. Trump’s reassurances that the pandemic posed little threat was detached from reality.

A public briefing on Feb. 25 by a top C.D.C. official, Dr. Nancy Messonnier, warned that the spread of the disease could shut down businesses and schools — sending the stock market plummeting and infuriating the president as he was flying home from India.

The president put Mr. Pence in charge the next day. Some members of the task force, which included medical doctors and scientists from public health agencies as well as political appointees and national security officials, noticed an almost immediate change.

Soon after Mr. Pence took over, Katie Miller, the vice president’s top communications aide, announced to the entire task force that no health guidelines, recommendations or other public statements from the agencies were to be released without first being cleared by Mr. Pence’s press team.

Some members of Mr. Pence’s staff viewed with suspicion officials from the health agencies, including the C.D.C., which had traditionally led the federal government’s responses to infectious disease outbreaks. C.D.C. officials in particular were seen inside the White House as alarmist and a possible source of damaging leaks.

Inside the C.D.C., in the initial days after the Pence takeover, officials managing the response would learn of policy decisions by crowding into the agency’s emergency operations center to watch the White House news conferences on several televisions, one federal health official said. This sometimes led to confusion, including an episode in mid-March when the task force and the C.D.C. issued parallel and conflicting guidelines about recommended limits on the size of social gatherings.

Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

Sometimes the interventions were more direct. In April, a team of C.D.C. scientists inspected a Smithfield Foods plant in South Dakota and wrote a report to the company about new guidelines that needed to be adopted to ensure the safety of workers and the sanitation of the food. Mr. Short directed Dr. Redfield, the C.D.C. director, to soften the language of the report sent to the company, reducing the agency’s recommendations to suggestions.

Not long after Dr. Redfield dictated changes to the report to his staff in Atlanta from the vestibule outside Mr. Pence’s office, he confided to one of Mr. Pence’s aides at the time, Olivia Troye, that he felt that he was in an impossible position.

“My scientists are telling me what I need to do,” he said, according to Ms. Troye, who worked on the task force for Mr. Pence. But, he added, “I want to make sure the vice president is happy.”

Ms. Troye left the White House this summer and has since become an outspoken critic of Mr. Trump and his coronavirus response.

From then on, a former senior health official recalled, Dr. Redfield would tell colleagues that the C.D.C. was not a regulatory agency, reflecting Mr. Short’s view of the limits of its authority.

In a response to questions, Ms. Miller, the vice president’s communications director, said, “It’s now twice in two weeks that The New York Times is relying on disgruntled former staff hearsay to print more opinion as ‘news’ four weeks before an election.”

Through the spring, Mr. Short told numerous colleagues that the threat of the virus was overhyped, a position held by other senior White House officials, including Mark Meadows, the chief of staff. Mr. Meadows and other top West Wing officials took a dim view of the task force, seeing it as a sideshow without much influence on the administration’s pandemic response.

Mr. Short supported a White House decision, later walked partly back by Mr. Trump and never completely carried out, to wind the task force down by Memorial Day, when many in the administration believed the outbreak would bottom out.

As the task force’s public presence receded and the group began meeting less frequently, other White House officials, including Dr. Scott W. Atlas, a controversial radiologist now advising Mr. Trump on the pandemic, became more prominent than the doctors on the task force, including Dr. Deborah L. Birx, the coronavirus response coordinator.

The administration’s crash vaccine development program, Operation Warp Speed, drew Mr. Trump’s attention, with its seeming promise of a quick fix, one that has yet to materialize despite the president’s repeated assurances that a vaccine is just around the corner.

Several people who participated in the task force said that Mr. Pence often tried to beat back Mr. Short’s and Ms. Miller’s attempts to weave overtly political messages into the vice president’s frequent public briefings.

Credit…Erin Scott for The New York Times

“I never saw the vice president do anything that I thought was negligent,” Ms. Troye said.

Mr. Pence also tried to defuse tense moments. In one flourish during a task force meeting, Peter Navarro, a trade adviser, stood up and dropped a pile of papers on the conference table that he said were studies showing the benefits of hydroxychloroquine — a malaria drug promoted by the president. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the top infectious disease doctor on the task force, responded that the evidence was inconclusive that the drug had any success in fighting the virus.

Rather than referee an escalating dispute, Mr. Pence directed the conversation to a different subject.

Joe Grogan, the former director of the White House’s domestic policy office and a former task force official, said Mr. Pence “built people up under a lot of stress.” Seema Verma, the Medicare chief and a task force member, said that Mr. Pence had led an “inclusive, deliberative process” within the task force.

“He encourages vigorous debate among the experts and those advising him — a process he calls ‘iron sharpening iron’ — which is a hallmark of his leadership style and how I’ve known him to operate,” said Ms. Verma, who worked with Mr. Pence as his health policy adviser when he was governor of Indiana.

Mr. Pence has also led regular conference calls with governors, cooling tension between Mr. Trump and perceived political enemies who had been critical of the federal response, including Gov. Jay Inslee of Washington.

Others, such as Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, a Democrat, had a direct line to Mr. Pence, at one point privately appealing to him for the federal government to set up test sites in June when the state was desperate for help stemming a surge in cases.

And yet the ideological impulses of his staff sometimes led to embarrassing episodes for Mr. Pence. In mid-June, Mr. Short directed the vice president’s speechwriter to produce an opinion piece in Mr. Pence’s name for The Wall Street Journal promoting the administration’s response to the pandemic and downplaying the risks.

Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

Published under the title “There Isn’t a Coronavirus ‘Second Wave,’” the piece said that the “media has tried to scare the American people every step of the way, and these grim predictions of a second wave are no different.”

After the piece was published, Dr. Fauci made indirect criticisms of its arguments during interviews. “People keep talking about a second wave,” he said during one interview. “We’re still in a first wave.”

Mr. Pence used a subsequent task force meeting to raise these criticisms with Dr. Fauci. So I’m right, the vice president said with a wry smile. “There isn’t a second wave.”

At the time, coronavirus cases were exploding across the south, a precursor to a summer surge in the death toll nationwide.

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Politics Briefing: Younger demographics not swayed by federal budget benefits targeted at them, poll indicates

Published

3 hours ago

April 24, 2024

Harry Miller

Hello,

The federal government’s efforts to connect with Gen Z adults and millennials through programs in last week’s federal budget has not yet worked, says a new poll.

The Angus Reid Institute says today that the opposition Conservatives are running at 43 per cent voter support compared to 23 per cent for the governing Liberals, while the NDP are at 19 per cent.

Polling by the institute also finds the Liberals are the third choice among Gen Z and millennial voters, falling behind the NDP and Conservatives.

According to the institute, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is viewed more positively among Gen Z adults than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, with Poilievre at 29 per cent approval and Trudeau at 17 per cent. Poilievre also has a higher favorability than Trudeau’s approval among younger and older millennials.

Gen Z adults were born between 1997 and 2012, while the birth period of millennials was 1981 to 1996.

The poll conclusions are based on online polling conducted from April 19 – three days after the budget was released – to April 23, among a randomized sample of 3, 015 Canadians. Such research has a probability sample of plus or minus two percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Asked about the poll today, Trudeau said the budget is aimed at solving problems, helping young people and delivering homes and services such as child care.

“I am confident that as Canadians see these measures happening, they will be more optimistic about their future, the way we need them to be,” Trudeau told a news conference in Oakville, Ont.

He also said he expected Canadians to be thoughtful about the future when they vote. “I trust Canadians to be reasonable,” he said.

The Globe and Mail has previously reported that Trudeau’s government has set an internal goal of narrowing the Conservative Party’s double-digit lead by five points every six months. A federal election is expected next year.

This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, written by Ian Bailey. It is available exclusively to our digital subscribers. If you’re reading this on the web, subscribers can sign up for the Politics newsletter and more than 20 others on our newsletter sign-up page. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.

TODAY’S HEADLINES

Pierre Poilievre visits convoy camp, claims Trudeau is lying about ‘everything’: CBC reports that the Conservative Leader is facing questions after stopping to cheer on an anti-carbon tax convoy camp near the border between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, where he bluntly accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of lying about “everything.”

Smith defends appointment of task force led by doctor skeptical of COVID-19 measures: The Globe and Mail has published details of the little-known task force that was given a sweeping mandate by the government to assess data used to inform pandemic decision-making. Story here.

Canadians should expect politicians to support right to bail, Arif Virani’s office says: The office of Canada’s Justice Minister says, warning that “immediate” and “uninformed reactions” only worsens matters.

Parti Québécois is on its way back to the centre of Quebec politics: The province’s next general election isn’t until 2026, a political eternity away, and support for separating from Canada remains stagnant. But a resurgent Quebec nationalism, frustration with Ottawa, and the PQ’s youthful, upbeat leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon have put sovereignty back on the agenda.

Anaida Poilievre in B.C.: The wife of the federal Conservative Leader has been on a visit to Kelowna in recent days that was expected to conclude today, according to Castanet.net.

Ontario to do away with sick note requirement for short absences: The province will soon introduce legislation that, if passed, will no longer allow employers to require a sick note from a doctor for the provincially protected three days of sick leave workers are entitled to.

Australian reporter runs into visa trouble in India after reporting on slaying of Canadian Sikh separatist: In a statement, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said Indian authorities should safeguard press freedom and stop using visa regulations to prevent foreign journalists covering sensitive subjects.

Canadian military to destroy 11,000 Second World War-era pistols: The Ottawa Citizen reports that the move comes as the Canadian Forces confirmed it has received the final deliveries of a new nine-millimetre pistol as part of a $19.4-million project.

B.C. opposition leader in politics-free oasis: The first hint that there may be more to Kevin Falcon, leader of the official opposition BC United party, than his political stereotype comes when you pull up to his North Vancouver home – a single-level country cottage rancher dwarfed on one side by large, angular, modern monstrosity. A NorthernBeat profile.

TODAY’S POLITICAL QUOTES.

“Having an argument with CRA about not wanting to pay your taxes is not a position I want anyone to be in. Good luck with that Premier Moe.” – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the Canada Revenue Agency weighing in on Saskatchewan’s government move to stop collecting and remitting the federal carbon levy.

“That’s not something that we’re hoping for. We’re not trying to plan for an election.“ – NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, at a news conference in Edmonton today, on the possibilities of an election now ahead of the vote expected in the fall of 2025.

THIS AND THAT

Commons, Senate: The House of Commons is on a break until April 29. The Senate sits again April 30.

Deputy Prime Minister’s day: In the Newfoundland and Labrador city of Mount Pearl, Chrystia Freeland held an event to talk about the federal budget.

Ministers on the road: Cabinet efforts to sell the budget continue, with announcements largely focused on housing. Citizens’ Services Minister Terry Beech and Small Business Minister Rechie Valdez are in Burnaby, B.C. Defence Minister Bill Blair is in Yellowknife. Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault is in Edmonton. Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, Industry Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Natural Revenue Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau are in the Quebec city of Trois-Rivières.

Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu is in Lytton, B.C., with an additional event welcoming members of the Skwlāx te Secwepemcúl̓ecw band to four new subdivisions built after the 2023 Bush Creek East wildfire. International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen is in Sault Ste. Marie. Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly is in Québec City. Diversity Minister Kamal Khera is in Kingston, Ontario. Immigration Minister Marc Miller and Tourism Minister Soraya Martinez Ferrada are in Whitehorse. Justice Minister Arif Virani and Families Minister Jenna Sudds are in North York, Ont. Veterans Affairs Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor is in Charlottetown.

Meanwhile, International Trade Minister Mary Ng is in South Korea leading a group of businesses and organizations through to tomorrow.

GG in Saskatchewan: Mary Simon and her partner, Whit Fraser, on the last day of their official visit to Saskatchewan, is in Saskatoon, with commitments that include visiting the Maternal Care Centre at the Jim Pattison Hospital and meeting with Indigenous leaders.

Ukraine needs more military aid, UCC says: The Ukrainian Canadian Congress says Canada should substantially increase military assistance to Ukraine. “As President Zelensky stated, “The key now is speed,’” said a statement today from the organization. The appeal coincides with U.S. President Joe Biden signing into law an aid package that provides over US$61-billion in aid for Ukraine. “We call on the Canadian government and all allies to follow suit and to immediately and substantially increase military assistance to Ukraine,” said the statement. An update issued on the occasion of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s February visit to Ukraine noted that, since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, the Canadian government has provided $13.3-billion to Ukraine.

New chief commissioner of the Canadian Grain Commission: David Hunt, most recently an assistant deputy minister in Manitoba’s environment department, has been named to the post for a four-year term by Agriculture Minister Lawrence MacAulay.

PRIME MINISTER’S DAY

In Oakville, near Toronto, Justin Trudeau talked about federal-budget housing measures, and took media questions.

LEADERS

Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet is in the Quebec city of Victoriaville, with commitments that include a meeting at the Centre for Social Innovation in Agriculture

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, in the Vancouver Island city of Nanaimo, attended the sentencing of deputy party leader Angela Davidson, also known as Rainbow Eyes, convicted of seven counts of criminal contempt for her participation in the Fairy Creek logging blockades on Vancouver Island.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, in Edmonton, held a media availability.

No schedule released for Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre.

THE DECIBEL

James Griffiths, The Globe’s Asia correspondent, is on the show t to discuss Article 23 – a new national security law in Hong Kong that includes seven new offences related to sedition, treason and state secrets that is expected to have a chilling effect on protest. The Decibel is here.

OPINION

The Liberals’ capital-gains tax hike punishes prosperity

“In her budget speech this month, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pointed to 1980s-era tax changes by the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney as a precedent for boosting the tax take on capital gains. … If one were to leave it at that, the Liberals come off quite well, having decided to boost the inclusion rate for capital gains – the amount subject to tax – to two-thirds, well below that of the latter years of the Mulroney government. But Ms. Freeland was only telling half the story.” – The Globe and Mail Editorial Board

The Liberals weight-loss goal shows they are running out of options

“The bad polls are weighing down the Liberals, so they have decided to shed some weight: They aim to cut the Conservatives’ lead by five percentage points by July. Like middle-aged dieters beginning a new regime, they’ve looked in the mirror and decided they have to do something. They’ve committed to it, too.” – Campbell Clark

Fear the politicization of pensions, no matter the politician

“Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland don’t have a lot in common. But they do share at least one view: that governments could play a bigger role directing pension investments to the benefit of domestic industries and economic priorities. Canadians, no matter who they vote for, should be worried that these two political heavyweights share any common ground in this regard.” – Kelly Cryderman

The failure of Canada’s health care system is a disgrace – and a deadly one

“What can be said about Canada’s health care system that hasn’t been said countless times over, as we watch more and more people suffer and die as they wait for baseline standards of care? Despite our delusions, we don’t have “world-class” health care, as our Prime Minister has said; we don’t even have universal health care. What we have is health care if you’re lucky, or well connected, or if you happen to have a heart attack on a day when your closest ER is merely overcapacity as usual, and not stuffed to the point of incapacitation.” – Robyn Urback

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Pecker’s Trump Trial Testimony Is a Lesson in Power Politics

Published

9 hours ago

April 24, 2024

Harry Miller

David Pecker, convivial, accommodating and as bright as a button, sat in the witness stand in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday and described how power is used and abused.

“What I would do is publish positive stories about Mr. Trump,” the former tabloid hegemon and fabulist allowed, as if he was sharing some of his favorite dessert recipes. “And I would publish negative stories about his opponents.”

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Opinion: Fear the politicization of pensions, no matter the politician

Published

10 hours ago

April 24, 2024

Harry Miller

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland don’t have a lot in common. But they do share at least one view: that governments could play a bigger role directing pension investments to the benefit of domestic industries and economic priorities.

Canadians, no matter who they vote for, should be worried that these two political heavyweights share any common ground in this regard.

It became clearer in the federal budget last week as Ottawa appointed former Bank of Canada governor Stephen Poloz to lead a working group to explore “how to catalyze greater domestic investment opportunities for Canadian pension funds.” The group will examine how Canadian pension funds can spur innovation and drive economic growth, while still meeting fiduciary and actuarial responsibilities.

This idea has been in discussion since it was highlighted in the fall economic statement. In March, dozens of chief executives signed an open letter urging federal and provincial finance ministers to “amend the rules governing pension funds to encourage them to invest in Canada.”

Rewind to last fall, and it was Alberta’s plans that were dominating controversial pension discussions. As Ms. Smith championed Alberta going it alone, Canadians (including Albertans) were dumbfounded by her government’s claim the province could be entitled to 53 per cent of Canada Pension Plan assets – $334-billion of the plan’s expected $575-billion by 2027. The Premier has made the argument that starting with this nest egg, and with the province’s large working-age population, a separate Alberta plan could provide more in the way of benefits to seniors with lower premiums.

The main point of contention between the Smith government and Justin Trudeau’s Liberals has been what amount Alberta would take, should it exit the Canada Pension Plan. All parties are now waiting on Ottawa’s counter assessment; the Office of the Chief Actuary will provide a calculation sometime this fall.

But lost in this furious debate over that dollar amount is Ms. Smith’s desire to see the province have a say in how the pension contributions of Albertans are invested. The Premier has long expressed frustration that Canadian pension funds were being influenced by fossil-fuel divestment movements, and has suggested a separate Alberta pension plan could be a counterweight to this.

In addition, a key part of the promise for many supporters of the Alberta pension plan idea – including former premier Jason Kenney and pension panel chair Jim Dinning – has been the benefits that would accrue to the province’s financial services sector.

But just as the UCP government might see the potential of using the heft of pension assets to bolster the province’s energy sector, or to spur white-collar jobs in Calgary, the federal Liberals would like see more pension dollars directed toward Canadian AI, digital infrastructure and housing. These are some of the areas Ms. Freeland has directed Mr. Poloz’s working group to focus on.

Some would deem Mr. Freeland’s goals admirable. Tax dollars are already flowing to these sectors. It comes at a time of increasing concern about the housing crunch, Canada’s weak GDP numbers, and the fact that Canada’s economy is being carried along by strong population growth.

But many Canadians are already concerned with government priorities and federal spending. Many more would balk at governments picking winning industries with pension contributions. And governments change. A Conservative government, for instance, might have very different industries in mind for its own pension-fund working group – say, for instance, to make sure Canada doesn’t cede oil market share to Venezuela or the United States.

This pension working group is a convenient sweetener for a business community that has in many ways soured on this Liberal government. It comes at a moment when Ottawa is facing pushback – from technology entrepreneurs to doctors – to its proposed capital-gains tax hike.

It doesn’t appear Ottawa wants to go as far as recreating the CPP in the image of the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, which has a formal mandate that includes contributing to the province’s economic development. And this isn’t to say there’s such a thing as complete neutrality in pension management now. The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board makes decisions open to debate and criticism. It should hear what governments and industry have to say, and setting up a couple of regional offices, beyond Toronto, could be helpful.

But if pension plans are formally burdened with policy imperatives from politicians, it could distract from the main goals of reasonable premiums and retirement security for Canadians. It could see the prioritization of being re-elected over returns. The regional and sectoral tug-of-wars over the cash would be never-ending.

There’s good reason to fear what an Alberta government would do should it take control of its citizens’ pension wealth. The same is most definitely true for Ottawa.

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