F.D.A. AUTHORIZES STUNG BY TRUMP,Aug 24, 2020 · Trump urged everyone who has recovered from the...
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U(DF463D)X+%!,!=!?!" NEWTON FALLS, Ohio — An hour after Kamala Harris was an- nounced as Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s running mate last week, Dan Moore sat in his living room watching the Fox News coverage of her selection. “I would’ve liked to see any other candidate for a V.P. than Ka- mala Harris; what’s that one woman’s name? Amy?” said Mr. Moore, a 60-year-old boiler opera- tor at a steel plant just over the state line in Pennsylvania. “He was influenced to pick a Black woman. I don’t understand the reasoning behind Kamala Harris other than, from what we’re hear- ing right now, is that she knows how to debate.” Before Donald J. Trump began his first presidential campaign, Mr. Moore was a reliable Demo- crat who had twice voted for Barack Obama. Like legions of white union workers, he found Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign pledge to shake up Washington appealing. He plans to vote for him again in November. Two hours away in Columbus, Ohio, Mr. Moore’s stepdaughter, Kelley Boorn, cheered Ms. Har- ris’s selection. A longtime Repub- lican who was once a vehement anti-abortion activist, she shifted her views after a difficult preg- nancy. She went from being a one- issue voter and an enthusiastic backer of John McCain in 2008, to sitting out in 2012 to becoming an In a Shifting Ohio, Two Voters Share a Family, but Not a Party By REID J. EPSTEIN Continued on Page A16 Just weeks after President Trump’s administration agreed to pull back federal officers from demonstrations in Portland, Ore., where his attempt at a high-profile crackdown backfired, the fate of the city’s protests now rests to a large extent with an altogether different leader: A brand-new, 39- year-old district attorney whose approach to enforcing the law is as contested as the demonstrations themselves. The new prosecutor, Mike Schmidt, took office Aug. 1 after defeating an experienced federal prosecutor by a 3-to-1 margin in Multnomah County, which in- cludes most of Portland. Even his critics say the breadth of his vic- tory gave him a mandate to re- shape prosecutions in Portland, a city of frequent protests, where there is no clear end in sight to demonstrations against police brutality that began after the killing of George Floyd in Minne- apolis. He has not been slow to shake things up: Ten days after taking office, Mr. Schmidt effectively dis- missed charges against more than half of about 600 people arrested since the protests began at the end of May. His directive met with strong objections from the Portland po- lice and Multnomah County sher- iff. But it was in keeping with his progressive campaign platform as Portland’s New D.A. Lets Off 300 Protesters as the Police Fume By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. Continued on Page A13 A Tightrope on Speech and Enforcement The Food and Drug Administra- tion on Sunday gave emergency approval for expanded use of anti- body-rich blood plasma to help hospitalized coronavirus patients, allowing President Trump, who has been pressuring the agency to move faster to address the pan- demic, to claim progress on the eve of the Republican convention. Mr. Trump cited the approval, which had been held up by con- cerns among top government sci- entists about the data behind it, as welcome news in fighting a dis- ease that has led to 176,000 deaths in the United States and left the nation lagging far behind most others in the effectiveness of its response. At a news briefing, he described the treatment as “a powerful ther- apy” made possible “by marshal- ing the full power of the federal government.” The decision will broaden use of a treatment that has already been administered to more than 70,000 patients. But the F.D.A. cited benefits for only some patients. And, unlike a new drug, plasma cannot be manufactured in mil- lions of doses; its availability is limited by blood donations. Mr. Trump urged everyone who has recovered from the virus to do- nate plasma, saying there is a na- tionwide campaign to collect it. Mr. Trump has portrayed his demands to cut red tape and speed approval of treatments and vaccines as a necessary response to a public health emergency. But Sunday’s announcement came a day after he repeated his unfounded claim that the F.D.A. was deliberately holding up deci- sion-making until after the elec- tion, this time citing a “deep state.” That accusation exacerbat- ed concerns among some govern- ment scientists, outside experts and Democrats that the presi- dent’s political needs could under- mine the integrity of the regula- tory process, hurt public confi- dence in safety and introduce a different kind of public health risk. No randomized trials of the sort researchers consider most robust have yet shown benefit from con- valescent plasma. But the F.D.A. said the data it had so far, includ- ing more than a dozen published studies, showed that “it is reason- STUNG BY TRUMP, F.D.A. AUTHORIZES PLASMA THERAPY NO RANDOMIZED TRIALS Agency Was Accused of ‘Deep State’ Delay Tied to Election This article is by Sharon LaFra- niere, Sheri Fink, Katie Thomas and Maggie Haberman. Continued on Page A8 WASHINGTON — When Presi- dent Trump’s strategists mapped out their plans for the critical week leading to the Republican National Convention that would nominate him for a second term, the schedule somehow did not in- clude a sensational arrest on a Chinese billionaire’s yacht. The last thing the president wanted to see as he kick-starts his campaign was the architect of his last campaign hauled away in handcuffs on charges of bilking his own supporters in a build-the- wall fund-raising scam. Yet there was Stephen K. Bannon, the mas- termind of the 2016 election, with his hair now long and scraggly and his face weathered, marched into court and called a crook. That was only part of the presi- dent’s tough week or so. In recent days, the Senate released a damn- ing bipartisan report on Russia’s efforts to help Mr. Trump win in 2016. A government agency con- cluded that a member of the presi- dent’s cabinet is serving in vio- lation of the law. A court rejected Mr. Trump’s effort to keep his tax returns secret. Unemployment claims ticked back up. And former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. smoothly pulled off his own con- vention without the gaffes Mr. Trump had predicted. If that were not enough, the president found his family dys- function playing out in public at the same time he was presiding over a funeral for his younger brother at the White House. Tapes secretly made by his niece over the past couple of years and pro- vided to The Washington Post captured the president’s own sis- ter saying that he “has no princi- ples, none,” railing about “his god- damned tweet and lying” and de- nouncing his “phoniness” and “cruelty.” It was a week that in some ways encapsulated the volatile Trump presidency and the baggage he brings into the contest this fall with Mr. Biden: a team at constant As Woes Grow, President Aims To Recast Story Looking to Convention for a Campaign Lift By PETER BAKER The G.O.P. convention follows a tough week for the president. ANNA MONEYMAKER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES Continued on Page A14 AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES A party this month in Wuhan, China, the virus’s early epicenter. With local transmissions near zero, life feels more normal. Page A5. Buoyant at Last WASHINGTON — With the 2020 census into its final stage, more than one in three people hired as census takers have quit or failed to show up. Many still on the job are going door to door in areas that largely track places where there are ele- vated rates of coronavirus infec- tions, according to calculations by the National Conference on Citi- zenship, Civis Analytics and The New York Times. And with 38 million households still uncounted, state and local of- ficials are raising growing con- cerns that many poor and minor- ity households will be left out of the count. Wracked by pandemic and poli- tics and desperately short of time, the last stage of the national popu- lation count — a constitutional mandate to tally everyone living in the United States accurately — is unfolding in historic doubt. Covid-19 and rising mistrust of the government on the part of hard-to-reach groups like immi- grants and Latinos already had made this census challenging. But another issue has upended it: an order last month to finish the count a month early, guaranteeing that population figures will be de- livered to the White House while President Trump is still in office. Unlike the Postal Service, an- other fundamental American in- stitution suddenly under siege and where problems have un- leashed a furious public backlash, the census is racing toward a fi- nale largely out of sight. But many experts are increasingly con- vinced that a public reckoning over a deeply flawed count may be Census Facing Severe Doubts Over Accuracy By MICHAEL WINES Continued on Page A6 JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES Marris Mielnick preparing the Antieau Gallery in New Orleans for back-to-back storms. Page A13. Louisiana Braces for Rare One-Two Punch He jokes about running a dicta- torship. He makes his generals sa- lute his teenage son, who shares his penchant for dressing in mili- tary uniforms. He commands a brutal security service that makes people disappear. And when Covid-19 arrived, he told his peo- ple to play hockey, drive tractors and not worry about it. Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, the embattled ruler of Belarus and the most enduring leader in the for- mer Soviet Union, heads a regime that is less a one-party state than a one-person state. In 26 years as president, he has turned Belarus into a strategically important and reliably authoritarian buffer be- tween Russia and NATO-member democracies like Poland. Clinging to power amid mass protests this month, Mr. Luka- shenko, the former director of a Soviet collective pig farm, might seem like a relic of an era the world had forgotten, or barely no- ticed. But years before Vladimir V. Putin took power, vowing to “clean up” Russia, Mr. Lukashen- ko made similar promises to his country, and blazed the trail Mr. Putin would follow: an obscure figure on an unlikely, meteoric rise to personal rule. Since a disputed election on Aug. 9, however, the biggest dem- onstrations in the country’s his- tory have tested whether Mr. Lu- kashenko’s iron-fisted suppres- sion of dissent can keep him in power after he claimed a landslide victory that is widely seen as fic- tion. As many as 100,000 pro- testers poured into central Minsk, the capital, on Sunday — a power- ful show of defiance in a country with only 9.5 million people. Mr. Lukashenko sent his own defiant message, flying by heli- copter to his presidential palace and walking off to a thank a squad of riot police officers with an auto- Defiance in Belarus Tests Limits of 26-Year Rule By ANDREW HIGGINS Continued on Page A11 ‘Last Remaining True Dictatorship in the Heart of Europe’ Northern California wineries have lost valuable grapes, and revenue, in the blaze and smoke of wildfires. PAGE A12 NATIONAL A12-17, 20 California’s Familiar Threat After a series of missteps, Mayor G.T. Bynum loses ground with many of Tulsa’s Black residents. PAGE A17 A Mayor on the Defensive A hearing begins Monday for the man who killed 51 people at two mosques in New Zealand last year. PAGE A10 INTERNATIONAL A9-11 Christchurch Sentencing Moscow dismisses skepticism as West- ern sour grapes. But Russian doctors also have concerns. PAGE A7 News of Vaccine Falls Flat Over several days this summer, The New York Times tallied the face-cover- ing status of over 7,000 people at 14 spots across New York City. PAGE A4 TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-8 Masks and the City Bayern Munich, an old power, overcame a new-money rival in the Champions League final. On Soccer. PAGE D1 SPORTSMONDAY D1-5 Champion of Champions As politics and medicine clash, a lack of transparency surrounds universities’ calls on whether to play this fall. PAGE D1 College Football’s Mixed Signals A historic run of government borrowing has not led to the end of the world, the traditional warning of deficit hawks. In fact, many say there’s room for the U.S. to take on more debt. PAGE B1 BUSINESS B1-6 Over the (Red) Line So-called special purpose acquisition companies are helping manufacturers of electric vehicles raise capital, and speeding up their journey to a listing on the stock market. PAGE B1 Power Brokers Nicholas Kristof PAGE A18 EDITORIAL, OP-ED A18-19 Black artists in Portland, Ore., are speaking out on injustice. Above, “Solar Power,” by Christine Miller, Kareem Blair and Danielle McCoy. PAGE C1 ARTS C1-6 Race, Art and Protests VOL. CLXIX . . . No. 58,795 © 2020 The New York Times Company MONDAY, AUGUST 24, 2020 Printed in Chicago $3.00 Mostly sunny. Partly cloudy north. Afternoon thunderstorms east. Very warm and humid. Highs upper 80s to middle 90s. Humid tonight. Weather map appears on Page D8. National Edition
Transcript of F.D.A. AUTHORIZES STUNG BY TRUMP,Aug 24, 2020 · Trump urged everyone who has recovered from the...
C M Y K Yxxx,2020-08-24,A,001,Bs-4C,E2
U(DF463D)X+%!,!=!?!"
NEWTON FALLS, Ohio — Anhour after Kamala Harris was an-nounced as Joseph R. Biden Jr.’srunning mate last week, DanMoore sat in his living roomwatching the Fox News coverageof her selection.
“I would’ve liked to see anyother candidate for a V.P. than Ka-mala Harris; what’s that onewoman’s name? Amy?” said Mr.Moore, a 60-year-old boiler opera-tor at a steel plant just over thestate line in Pennsylvania. “Hewas influenced to pick a Blackwoman. I don’t understand thereasoning behind Kamala Harrisother than, from what we’re hear-ing right now, is that she knowshow to debate.”
Before Donald J. Trump began
his first presidential campaign,Mr. Moore was a reliable Demo-crat who had twice voted forBarack Obama. Like legions ofwhite union workers, he found Mr.Trump’s 2016 campaign pledge toshake up Washington appealing.He plans to vote for him again inNovember.
Two hours away in Columbus,Ohio, Mr. Moore’s stepdaughter,Kelley Boorn, cheered Ms. Har-ris’s selection. A longtime Repub-lican who was once a vehementanti-abortion activist, she shiftedher views after a difficult preg-nancy. She went from being a one-issue voter and an enthusiasticbacker of John McCain in 2008, tositting out in 2012 to becoming an
In a Shifting Ohio, Two VotersShare a Family, but Not a Party
By REID J. EPSTEIN
Continued on Page A16
Just weeks after PresidentTrump’s administration agreed topull back federal officers fromdemonstrations in Portland, Ore.,where his attempt at a high-profilecrackdown backfired, the fate ofthe city’s protests now rests to alarge extent with an altogetherdifferent leader: A brand-new, 39-year-old district attorney whose
approach to enforcing the law is ascontested as the demonstrationsthemselves.
The new prosecutor, MikeSchmidt, took office Aug. 1 afterdefeating an experienced federalprosecutor by a 3-to-1 margin inMultnomah County, which in-cludes most of Portland. Even hiscritics say the breadth of his vic-tory gave him a mandate to re-shape prosecutions in Portland, acity of frequent protests, where
there is no clear end in sight todemonstrations against policebrutality that began after thekilling of George Floyd in Minne-apolis.
He has not been slow to shake
things up: Ten days after takingoffice, Mr. Schmidt effectively dis-missed charges against more thanhalf of about 600 people arrestedsince the protests began at theend of May.
His directive met with strongobjections from the Portland po-lice and Multnomah County sher-iff. But it was in keeping with hisprogressive campaign platform as
Portland’s New D.A. Lets Off 300 Protesters as the Police FumeBy RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
Continued on Page A13
A Tightrope on Speechand Enforcement
The Food and Drug Administra-tion on Sunday gave emergencyapproval for expanded use of anti-body-rich blood plasma to helphospitalized coronavirus patients,allowing President Trump, whohas been pressuring the agency tomove faster to address the pan-demic, to claim progress on theeve of the Republican convention.
Mr. Trump cited the approval,which had been held up by con-cerns among top government sci-entists about the data behind it, aswelcome news in fighting a dis-ease that has led to 176,000 deathsin the United States and left thenation lagging far behind mostothers in the effectiveness of itsresponse.
At a news briefing, he describedthe treatment as “a powerful ther-apy” made possible “by marshal-ing the full power of the federalgovernment.”
The decision will broaden use ofa treatment that has already beenadministered to more than 70,000patients. But the F.D.A. citedbenefits for only some patients.And, unlike a new drug, plasmacannot be manufactured in mil-lions of doses; its availability islimited by blood donations. Mr.Trump urged everyone who hasrecovered from the virus to do-nate plasma, saying there is a na-tionwide campaign to collect it.
Mr. Trump has portrayed hisdemands to cut red tape andspeed approval of treatments andvaccines as a necessary responseto a public health emergency.
But Sunday’s announcementcame a day after he repeated hisunfounded claim that the F.D.A.was deliberately holding up deci-sion-making until after the elec-tion, this time citing a “deepstate.” That accusation exacerbat-ed concerns among some govern-ment scientists, outside expertsand Democrats that the presi-dent’s political needs could under-mine the integrity of the regula-tory process, hurt public confi-dence in safety and introduce adifferent kind of public health risk.
No randomized trials of the sortresearchers consider most robusthave yet shown benefit from con-valescent plasma. But the F.D.A.said the data it had so far, includ-ing more than a dozen publishedstudies, showed that “it is reason-
STUNG BY TRUMP,F.D.A. AUTHORIZESPLASMA THERAPY
NO RANDOMIZED TRIALS
Agency Was Accused of‘Deep State’ Delay
Tied to Election
This article is by Sharon LaFra-niere, Sheri Fink, Katie Thomas andMaggie Haberman.
Continued on Page A8
WASHINGTON — When Presi-dent Trump’s strategists mappedout their plans for the criticalweek leading to the RepublicanNational Convention that wouldnominate him for a second term,the schedule somehow did not in-clude a sensational arrest on aChinese billionaire’s yacht.
The last thing the presidentwanted to see as he kick-starts hiscampaign was the architect of hislast campaign hauled away inhandcuffs on charges of bilkinghis own supporters in a build-the-wall fund-raising scam. Yet therewas Stephen K. Bannon, the mas-termind of the 2016 election, withhis hair now long and scragglyand his face weathered, marchedinto court and called a crook.
That was only part of the presi-dent’s tough week or so. In recentdays, the Senate released a damn-ing bipartisan report on Russia’sefforts to help Mr. Trump win in2016. A government agency con-cluded that a member of the presi-dent’s cabinet is serving in vio-lation of the law. A court rejectedMr. Trump’s effort to keep his taxreturns secret. Unemploymentclaims ticked back up. And formerVice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.smoothly pulled off his own con-vention without the gaffes Mr.Trump had predicted.
If that were not enough, thepresident found his family dys-function playing out in public atthe same time he was presidingover a funeral for his youngerbrother at the White House. Tapessecretly made by his niece overthe past couple of years and pro-vided to The Washington Postcaptured the president’s own sis-ter saying that he “has no princi-ples, none,” railing about “his god-damned tweet and lying” and de-nouncing his “phoniness” and“cruelty.”
It was a week that in some waysencapsulated the volatile Trumppresidency and the baggage hebrings into the contest this fallwith Mr. Biden: a team at constant
As Woes Grow,President AimsTo Recast Story
Looking to Conventionfor a Campaign Lift
By PETER BAKER
The G.O.P. convention followsa tough week for the president.
ANNA MONEYMAKER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
Continued on Page A14
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES
A party this month in Wuhan, China, the virus’s early epicenter. With local transmissions near zero, life feels more normal. Page A5.Buoyant at Last
WASHINGTON — With the2020 census into its final stage,more than one in three peoplehired as census takers have quitor failed to show up.
Many still on the job are goingdoor to door in areas that largelytrack places where there are ele-vated rates of coronavirus infec-tions, according to calculations bythe National Conference on Citi-zenship, Civis Analytics and TheNew York Times.
And with 38 million householdsstill uncounted, state and local of-ficials are raising growing con-cerns that many poor and minor-ity households will be left out ofthe count.
Wracked by pandemic and poli-tics and desperately short of time,the last stage of the national popu-lation count — a constitutionalmandate to tally everyone livingin the United States accurately —is unfolding in historic doubt.
Covid-19 and rising mistrust ofthe government on the part ofhard-to-reach groups like immi-grants and Latinos already hadmade this census challenging. Butanother issue has upended it: anorder last month to finish thecount a month early, guaranteeingthat population figures will be de-livered to the White House whilePresident Trump is still in office.
Unlike the Postal Service, an-other fundamental American in-stitution suddenly under siegeand where problems have un-leashed a furious public backlash,the census is racing toward a fi-nale largely out of sight. But manyexperts are increasingly con-vinced that a public reckoningover a deeply flawed count may be
Census FacingSevere DoubtsOver Accuracy
By MICHAEL WINES
Continued on Page A6
JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES
Marris Mielnick preparing the Antieau Gallery in New Orleans for back-to-back storms. Page A13.Louisiana Braces for Rare One-Two Punch
He jokes about running a dicta-torship. He makes his generals sa-lute his teenage son, who shareshis penchant for dressing in mili-tary uniforms. He commands abrutal security service that makespeople disappear. And whenCovid-19 arrived, he told his peo-ple to play hockey, drive tractorsand not worry about it.
Aleksandr G. Lukashenko, theembattled ruler of Belarus and themost enduring leader in the for-mer Soviet Union, heads a regimethat is less a one-party state than aone-person state. In 26 years aspresident, he has turned Belarusinto a strategically important andreliably authoritarian buffer be-
tween Russia and NATO-memberdemocracies like Poland.
Clinging to power amid massprotests this month, Mr. Luka-shenko, the former director of aSoviet collective pig farm, mightseem like a relic of an era theworld had forgotten, or barely no-ticed. But years before Vladimir V.Putin took power, vowing to“clean up” Russia, Mr. Lukashen-ko made similar promises to hiscountry, and blazed the trail Mr.
Putin would follow: an obscurefigure on an unlikely, meteoricrise to personal rule.
Since a disputed election onAug. 9, however, the biggest dem-onstrations in the country’s his-tory have tested whether Mr. Lu-kashenko’s iron-fisted suppres-sion of dissent can keep him inpower after he claimed a landslidevictory that is widely seen as fic-tion. As many as 100,000 pro-testers poured into central Minsk,the capital, on Sunday — a power-ful show of defiance in a countrywith only 9.5 million people.
Mr. Lukashenko sent his owndefiant message, flying by heli-copter to his presidential palaceand walking off to a thank a squadof riot police officers with an auto-
Defiance in Belarus Tests Limits of 26-Year RuleBy ANDREW HIGGINS
Continued on Page A11
‘Last Remaining TrueDictatorship in theHeart of Europe’
Northern California wineries have lostvaluable grapes, and revenue, in theblaze and smoke of wildfires. PAGE A12
NATIONAL A12-17, 20
California’s Familiar Threat
After a series of missteps, Mayor G.T.Bynum loses ground with many ofTulsa’s Black residents. PAGE A17
A Mayor on the DefensiveA hearing begins Monday for the manwho killed 51 people at two mosques inNew Zealand last year. PAGE A10
INTERNATIONAL A9-11
Christchurch Sentencing
Moscow dismisses skepticism as West-ern sour grapes. But Russian doctorsalso have concerns. PAGE A7
News of Vaccine Falls Flat
Over several days this summer, TheNew York Times tallied the face-cover-ing status of over 7,000 people at 14spots across New York City. PAGE A4
TRACKING AN OUTBREAK A4-8
Masks and the City
Bayern Munich, an old power, overcamea new-money rival in the ChampionsLeague final. On Soccer. PAGE D1
SPORTSMONDAY D1-5
Champion of Champions
As politics and medicine clash, a lack oftransparency surrounds universities’calls on whether to play this fall. PAGE D1
College Football’s Mixed Signals
A historic run of government borrowinghas not led to the end of the world, thetraditional warning of deficit hawks. Infact, many say there’s room for the U.S.to take on more debt. PAGE B1
BUSINESS B1-6
Over the (Red) Line
So-called special purpose acquisitioncompanies are helping manufacturersof electric vehicles raise capital, andspeeding up their journey to a listing onthe stock market. PAGE B1
Power Brokers
Nicholas Kristof PAGE A18
EDITORIAL, OP-ED A18-19
Black artists in Portland, Ore., arespeaking out on injustice. Above, “SolarPower,” by Christine Miller, KareemBlair and Danielle McCoy. PAGE C1
ARTS C1-6
Race, Art and Protests
VOL. CLXIX . . . No. 58,795 © 2020 The New York Times Company MONDAY, AUGUST 24, 2020 Printed in Chicago $3.00
Mostly sunny. Partly cloudy north.Afternoon thunderstorms east.Very warm and humid. Highs upper80s to middle 90s. Humid tonight.Weather map appears on Page D8.
National Edition
