Earlier today, the City Council voted 38–12 to rename the Queensboro Bridge the “Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge,” a name that nobody will ever actually use in conversation, ever. Amiright, Robert F. Kennedy Bridge? [NY1]
Our most patriotic president ever
When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that “the helicopter couldn’t fly” and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true.
Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day.
In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.
Belleau Wood is a consequential battle in American history, and the ground on which it was fought is venerated by the Marine Corps. America and its allies stopped the German advance toward Paris there in the spring of 1918. But Trump, on that same trip, asked aides, “Who were the good guys in this war?” He also said that he didn’t understand why the United States would intervene on the side of the Allies.
The stock market is taking a beating today
The background for Trump’s Twitter battle of the day
“He can’t have enough bodyguards to walk through New York City,” [Governor Andrew] Cuomo told reporters during a conference call on Wednesday evening. “Forget bodyguards. He better have an army if he thinks he’s going to walk down the streets in New York.”
After Trump moved to slash federal funding from several cities his administration labeled as “anarchist jurisdictions” late Wednesday, specifically singling out New York, Cuomo shot back. The commander in chief, he said, was “persona non grata” in their shared hometown.
“From the point of view of New York City, [Trump] has been the worst president,” Cuomo said. “President Ford said drop dead. President Trump has been actively trying to kill New York City ever since he was elected.”
The sharp comments — perhaps Cuomo’s strongest rebuke yet — raised so many eyebrows online that a senior adviser to the governor later had to issue a clarification: No, Trump would not literally need protection on the streets of Manhattan, he said. The president had simply abandoned New York, he claimed.
NYC has an ambitious, unprecedented plan for testing students and teachers going back to school
Coronavirus testing tents will be constructed outside New York City schools. More than 10 percent of students and teachers will get a nose swab once a month. At $70 per test, the operation could cost the city $10 million per month.
Bringing children back to classrooms in the nation’s largest school system was already a monumental challenge. Now New York City is also rushing to set up mandatory random testing at 1,800 schools by Oct. 1 — a last-minute wild-card mission that no other major city has tried.
… The city is planning to randomly test about 10 percent to 20 percent of students, teachers and staffers at each school once a month, which could mean processing 60,000 to 120,000 tests every month. Officials hope to return test results in 48 hours and provide individual students with their results, city officials said.
… The city’s health and hospital system will oversee the schools testing program and is likely to rely on school nurses to help administer the tests. The city is contracting with additional labs to process test results and is working to secure a partnership with a lab in New York City.
Biden is headed to Kenosha today
Joe Biden faces the most intense test yet of his pledge to be a calming, unifying leader for a divided nation when he travels Thursday to Kenosha, Wisconsin, a city now at the center of America’s election-year reckoning with systemic racism.
The 77-year-old former vice president, traveling two days after President Donald Trump visited the same city, plans to meet with family of Jacob Blake, who remains hospitalized after being shot seven times in the back by a white police officer as authorities tried to arrest him. Biden also plans a community discussion with business figures, civic leaders and law enforcement officials.
“This is about making sure that we move forward,” Biden told reporters Wednesday. He added that he’s “not going to tell Kenosha what they have to do” but instead encourage a community to “talk about what has to be done.”
Another batch of Republican leaders announce their support for Biden
Nearly 100 Republican and independent leaders will endorse Democrat Joe Biden for president on Thursday, including one-time 2020 Republican presidential candidate Bill Weld and the former Republican governors of Michigan and New Jersey, people involved in the effort told Reuters.
The latest Republican-led effort to oppose the re-election of President Donald Trump also includes current and former Republicans in the key battleground state of Michigan that will help decide the outcome of the Nov. 3 election, the group’s members said.
Called ‘Republicans and Independents for Biden’, the group is headed by Christine Todd Whitman, a former Republican governor of New Jersey who has become one of Trump’s fiercest critics and who spoke at the recent Democratic National Convention in support of Biden.
A big day for new polls ends on a very positive note for Biden
Pelosi’s explanation for the salon incident is really something
Pelosi addresses Monday’s salon incident: “I take responsibility for trusting the word of the neighborhood salon that I’ve been to…many times…It was a set up, and I take responsibility for falling for a setup.” “I think that this salon owes me an apology, for setting me up”
She says she’s been “inundated” with people in the hair service industry telling her, “Thank you for calling attention to this, we need to get back to work. … Many of them annoyed at the setup, that was there, for a purpose that has nothing to do with ending the crisis.”
As for the short clip showing her mask around her neck: “I just had my hair washed. I don’t wear a mask when I’m washing my hair. Do you wear a mask when you’re washing your hair? I always wear a mask … And that picture is when I just came out of the bowl.”
We all should have seen this coming
Fact check: True
Your 2020 debate moderators
Already a subscriber? Log in or link your magazine subscription
