The nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, said in an interview on 60 Minutes that aired Sunday that he realized the superspreader event held at the White House Rose Garden on September 26th “Nothing good can come out of that.”

According to CNN, Fauci was “absolutely not” surprised when Trump tested positive for coronavirus.  “I was worried that he was going to get sick when I saw him in a completely precarious situation of crowded — no separation between people, and almost nobody wearing a mask.”

“Contrary to what we thought, masks really do work in preventing infection,” says Dr. Fauci about a statement he made early in the pandemic about masks. “When you find out you’re wrong, it’s a manifestation of your honesty to say ‘Hey, I was wrong.’” https://t.co/zZg1MS7fPP pic.twitter.com/jwHYBYxtDX

— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) October 18, 2020

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: “Republican U.S. Sen. David Perdue inadvertently sparked a movement that benefited his rival’s campaign when he mocked the pronunciation of Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris’ name. Perdue delighted the crowd Friday at President Donald Trump’s rally in Macon when he butchered the California senator’s name multiple times, saying: ‘Kamala? Kamala? Kamala-mala-mala? I don’t know. Whatever.'”

“But the repeated mispronunciation, which his campaign claimed was not purposeful, competed for media attention with Trump’s remarks in Georgia and led to searing criticism on the airwaves and the campaign trail. By Sunday evening, Democrat Jon Ossoff said he raised more than $1.8 million from at least 42,000 donors from Perdue’s viral moment.”

Washington Post: “Two weeks before Election Day, Black Americans have voted in striking numbers, helping to drive historic levels of early voting as mail ballots have flooded election offices and people have endured huge lines to cast ballots in person across the country. In interviews in 10 states where early voting is underway, Black voters said this year’s presidential election is the most important of their lifetime — some calling it more consequential even than 2008, when those who were old enough went to the polls in record numbers to make Barack Obama the country’s first Black president. They spoke of a sense of urgency to protect the nation’s democracy, and their role in it, which they believe a second Trump term would erode beyond repair. Many said they view the president as a racist who cannot bring himself to disavow white supremacists or the year’s spate of police killings of unarmed Black Americans, and they believe the country is less safe for themselves and their families.”

Ewic Trump, the middle son of Donald Trump and the youngest child of Trump’s first wife, is very angry with how his current wife, Lara, was treated during a CNN interview where she mocked Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s history of stuttering, Yahoo reports.

Lara Trump, who has no political experience but is collecting $15,000 per month from the Trump campaign, appeared on CNN’s State of the Union with Jake Tapper and claimed that Biden is showing signs of cognitive decline.  The current Mrs. Trump has no experience in medicine, either.

The current Mrs. Trump claimed that watching Biden speak made her feel “uncomfortable” though she never commented about how her father-in-law’s comments stoking violence and hatred made her feel.

From Right Wing Watch.

Democratic Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said today that if there’s any hope of passing a coronavirus relief bill before Election Day, the White House and the Democrats must be done in the next 48 hours, CNN reports.

“The 48 only relates to if we want to get it done before the election, which we do,” Pelosi said on ABC’s “This Week.” “But we’re saying to them we have to freeze the design on some of these things. Are we going with it or not? And what is the language.”

Roll Call has reevaluated 23 House races in the upcoming November election, moving 20 of the seats–as well as two Senate races–closer to the Democratic side.

The ratings put the Colorado Senate seat firmly in grasp for former Governor Democrat John Hickenlooper.  In the race for the Kansas seat held by retiring republican Pat Roberts, Roll Call moves it from Leans republicans to Tilts republican, thanks in large part to Democratic candidate Barbara Bollier raising four times as much money in the last quarter than GOP nominee Roger Marshall.

New York Times: “The New York Post’s front-page article about Hunter Biden on Wednesday was written mostly by a staff reporter who refused to put his name on it, two Post employees said. Bruce Golding, a reporter at the Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid since 2007, did not allow his byline to be used because he had concerns over the article’s credibility, the two Post employees said, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.”

“Coming late in a heated presidential campaign, the article suggested that Joseph R. Biden Jr. had used his position to enrich his son Hunter when he was vice president. The Post based the story on photos and documents the paper said it had taken from the hard drive of a laptop purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden. Many Post staff members questioned whether the paper had done enough to verify the authenticity of the hard drive’s contents, said five people with knowledge of the tabloid’s inner workings. Staff members also had concerns about the reliability of its sources and its timing, the people said.”

“By overlooking and excusing the president’s staggering array of personal and public corruptions, Trump’s evangelical supporters have forfeited the right to ever again argue that character counts in America’s political leaders. They might try, but if they do, they will be met with belly laughs. It’s not that their argument is invalidated; it is that because of their glaring hypocrisy, they have sabotaged their credibility in making the argument.”

“The carefully choreographed dance goes like this: Moral character in public officials matters quite a lot when the public officials who morally fail are Democrats; it matters hardly at all when they are Republicans. If it’s a liberal who has crossed ethical lines, emphasize righteous conduct; if it’s a conservative, emphasize forgiveness and verses like ‘Judge not lest you be judged.’ If it’s Bill Clinton in the dock, savage him; if it’s Donald Trump, savage his critics. But the problem goes far beyond an inconsistent application of a biblical ethic. What the Trump years have exposed is something more fundamental, which is that many evangelical Christians have not brought anything distinctively Christian to politics” – The Atlantic.

Otter Globe and Intelligencer: “A recent New York Post article with claims about Hunter Biden’s behavior while he was an adviser at the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma represents a return to the tactics the GOP employed in 2016 with spurious claims over John Podesta’s e-mails. Instead of recognizing this recycling of campaign tactics, the American media is making many of the same mistakes that they made in 2016, and there is a very real danger that their failure could pave the way for Trump’s re-election. While we should never take Trump’s ‘the media is the enemy of the people’ remarks seriously, we should heed the warnings of former Daily Show host Jon Stewart who repeatedly admonished 24 hour cable news outlets for being lazy, gullible and repetitive.”

“American citizens have a right to expect our media outlets to do a better job of putting the pieces together. In the Hunter Biden case, a laptop which the GOP is claiming once belonged to Hunter Biden was ‘discovered’ at a computer repair shop in Delaware, and that laptop was then turned over to Rudy Giuliani who is insisting that he found e-mails, text messages, and other information on the laptop that is potentially damaging to the Biden campaign, as that information may be used to compromise Biden and render him susceptible to blackmail. This effort by Republicans is a repeat of propaganda tactics they’ve used before, and has the appearance of yet another attempt to distract attention from profiteering by the Trump family, and to interfere in the outcome of a Presidential election.”

Governor Gretchen Whitmer displayed an "86 45" sign during her TV appearance.

86 can be shorthand for killing someone.

Whitmer is encouraging assassination attempts against President Trump just weeks after someone sent a ricin-laced package to the White House. pic.twitter.com/GzvtrjH40A

— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) October 18, 2020

Speaking to The Australian newspaper, for Trump advisor and multiple-collared shirt aficionado Steve Bannon said that Donald Trump will run for president again in 2024 if he isn’t named president after the November election, Newsweek reports.

“I’ll make this prediction right now: If for any reason the election is stolen from, or in some sort of way Joe Biden is declared the winner, Trump will announce he’s going to run for re-election in 2024,” Bannon told the newspaper. “You’re not going to see the end of Donald Trump.”

Dr. Scott Atlas, the neuroradiologist with no epidemiology or public health experience who’s emerged as President Trump’s chief advisor on the coronavirus epidemic, had a post removed by Twitter for spreading false information about the effectiveness of masks, NBC News reports.

Atlas’s Saturday tweet was a mix of wrong information and confusing grammar:  “Masks work? NO: LA, Miami, Hawaii, Alabama, France, Phlippnes, UK, Spain, Israel. WHO:”widesprd use not supported” + many harms; Heneghan/Oxf CEBM:”despite decades, considerble uncertainty re value”; CDC rvw May:”no sig red’n in inflnz transm’n”; learn why.”

Check this and other bullshit products out here.

Politico: “Football fans in Phoenix will tune their TVs to ESPN to watch their Arizona Cardinals play the Dallas Cowboys on Monday night. They’ll also see Joe Biden running up the score in advertising over President Trump: The Democrat’s campaign is spending nearly $400,000 for three TV spots during the game. Two of them will air locally in the massive Phoenix market – which has more political ads than anywhere else in the nation — and the third will be shown nationally. Trump is spending just $36,000 on one local spot during the game. Beyond the messages that both sides relay in their commercials, the ad buys themselves tell the story of the state of the presidential race — particularly the way that the Biden campaign deployed freighter-loads of cash to gain an advantage over Trump in national and many battleground polls. The scale of Biden’s fundraising and ad buying have been jarring for Trump’s campaign, which once likened the president’s now-evaporated advantage to the ‘Death Star.'”

Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, the target of a kidnap plot by white nationalist militia groups from her state, called Donald Trump’s encouragement of a “Lock her up” chant at a rally in Michigan Saturday night “incredibly disturbing,” Reuters reports.

“It’s got to end,” Whitmer said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet The Press” Sunday. “It is dangerous, not just for me and my family, but for public servants everywhere who are doing their jobs and trying to protect their fellow Americans.”

Trump advisor Jason Miller said the incumbent republican nominee Donald Trump will allow Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden “more room to explain himself” in Thursday’s scheduled presidential debate, the Washington Post reports.

Speaking on Fox “News” Sunday, Miller–who is infamously known for slipping his girlfriend an abortion pill unbeknownst to her–said, “I do think the president’s going to want to hear Joe Biden’s answer on some of these, and we’ll definitely give him all the time that Joe Biden wants to talk about packing the court.”

New York Times: “Some midlevel aides on the Trump campaign have even begun inquiring about employment on Capitol Hill after the election, apparently under the assumption that there will not be a second Trump administration for them to serve in. Less than three weeks before Election Day, there is now an extraordinary gulf separating Mr. Trump’s experience of the campaign from the more sobering political assessments of a number of party officials and operatives, according to interviews with nearly a dozen Republican strategists, White House allies and elected officials. Among some of Mr. Trump’s lieutenants, there is an attitude of grit mixed with resignation: a sense that the best they can do for the final stretch is to keep the president occupied, happy and off Twitter as much as possible, rather than producing a major shift in strategy.”