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Trump is holding a rountable on supporting the people of Venezuela in Doral, Florida, where many Venezuelan immigrants reside.

But the president’s remarks took a turn for the blatantly political when he attacked his opponent, Joe Biden, as a “puppet” of the “radical left.”

“The patriots here today fled socialism to find freedom,” Trump said. “And now Joe Biden and the radical left are trying to impose the same system.”

The president continued, “Joe Biden is a puppet of Bernie Sanders, AOC, the militant left, the people that want to rip down statues and monuments to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin.”

Trump then repeated his bizarre claim that Democrats are pushing for the removal of statues of Jesus Christ. “Jesus! Okay, Jesus. They want to rip down statues to Jesus,” Trump said, before confidently predicting Biden would lose the election.

Biden has said he prefers for Confederate statues and monuments to be taken down through legislative action rather than being torn down by protesters, and he has not expressed support for taking down statues of American leaders like Washington and Jefferson.

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer insisted school districts need more federal funding in order to safely reopen this fall.

The Democratic leader sent a tweet about school reopenings shortly after Trump threatened universities’ funding and tax-exempt status as the president pushes schools to reopen.

Earlier this week, the president similarly threatened to withhold federal funding from schools that do not reopen this fall.

“We all want our schools to re-open. But if we want them to open safely for our students, workers, and families, our schools and child care providers need MORE federal funding to make it happen,” Schumer said.

“President Trump’s erratic demands and threats won’t do anything to keep people safe.”

Shortly before landing in Florida this afternoon, Trump sent a pair of tweets threatening the funding and tax-exempt status of universities and schools.

“Too many Universities and School Systems are about Radical Left Indoctrination, not Education,” Trump said in the tweet thread.

“Therefore, I am telling the Treasury Department to re-examine their Tax-Exempt Status … and/or Funding, which will be taken away if this Propaganda or Act Against Public Policy continues. Our children must be Educated, not Indoctrinated!”

Trump’s warning comes two days after he threatened to withhold federal funding from schools that do not reopen in the fall.

The president has repeatedly insisted that schools must reopen, even as his administration sends mixed signals about guidelines on how to reopen safely.

Many school officials have also expressed concern about the spread of coronavirus in classrooms once in-person instruction resumes.

Several White House reporters noted the president has previously held rallies despite bad weather conditions, raising questions about his rationale for postponing the event in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

A spokesman for Joe Biden mocked Trump after the president’s campaign announced his Portsmouth, New Hampshire, rally would be postponed due to a tropical storm that is not expected to make landfall in Portsmouth.

“The storm is coming, and his name is @JoeBiden,” said TJ Ducklo, the national press secretary for the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

Trump said Tropical Storm Fay had “forced” his campaign to postpone his planned rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which was supposed to take place tomorrow night.

But as the blog has noted, the tropical storm is not expected to make landfall in Portsmouth, and the announcement comes as some campaign officials have reportedly expressed concerns about turnout at the event.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

• Trump postponed his planned rally in New Hampshire tomorrow night due to weather. The Trump campaign blamed the delay on an incoming tropical storm, but the storm is not expected to make landfall in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The announcement comes as campaign officials have reportedly expressed concerns about the turnout for the event because of coronavirus.
• Approval of the president’s handling of the pandemic hit a new low in one poll. According to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll, disapproval of Trump’s response to the pandemic now stands at 67%, up from 43% in March.
• Trump said he is “looking at” a pardon for his former associate Roger Stone. The president said Stone, who is expected to report to prison on Tuesday, “was very unfairly treated.”

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Trump campaign officials were reportedly concerned about how much of a crowd would show up for his rally tomorrow in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which has now been postponed.

The AP reports:

The Portsmouth rally was scheduled after aides spent weeks studying what went wrong in Tulsa three weeks ago. It was billed as a massive, defiant return to the political stage but instead produced a humiliating sea of empty seats and questions about the campaign’s ability to attract people to large events in a pandemic. …

It was unclear how many people would attend the New Hampshire rally, campaign officials acknowledged. Conceding that another sparse crowd would raise questions about the future of Trump’s rallies, the campaign [had] taken additional steps to make attendees feel safe. …

[W]hile masks were distributed in Tulsa, few rallygoers wore them after weeks of Trump deriding their use. This time, the campaign [had] strongly encouraged their use.

Some New Hampshire officials had called on Republican governor Chris Sununu to issue a statewide mask requirement in the days leading up to the rally, but Sununu refused to do so.

The announcement that Trump’s rally in New Hampshire tomorrow will be postponed comes weeks after the president’s Tulsa rally saw disappointing turnout.

Campaign officials told NBC News that they were determined to avoid “a repeat of Tulsa,” when thousands of seats in the indoor arena chosen for the rally went unfilled.

Instead, the campaign planned to hold tomorrow’s rally in Potsmouth at an open-air airport tarmac hangar to mitigate concerns about the spread of coronavirus at the event.

However, the large event still raised alarms with local officials, and Republican governor Chris Sununu said he would not attend the event out of an abundance of caution.

The announcement that the Trump campaign rally in New Hampshire was being delayed due to weather struck one local meteorologist as odd, considering the forecast for tomorrow night is currently party cloudy and 78 degrees.

The Trump campaign has confirmed that tomorrow’s planned rally in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, has been delayed because of a tropical storm headed for the region.

“The rally scheduled for Saturday in Portsmouth, New Hampshire has been postponed for safety reasons because of Tropical Storm Fay. It will be rescheduled and a new date will be announced soon,” communications director Tim Murtaugh said in a statement.

Some local New Hampshire officials had criticized Trump for the planned rally because of the pandemic, but the campaign and the White House press secretary both said the cancellation was due to weather, not coronavirus.

The president’s planned rally tomorrow in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, has been delayed due to weather.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters aboard Air Force One that the event would be delayed “a week or two” because of a “big storm” headed for the region.

The rally was supposed to take place partly outdoors — reportedly because the president’s advisers were trying to avoid a repeat of his Tulsa rally, when thousands of seats in the indoor arena went unfilled.

Coronavirus testing sites in the most populous Texas county will close early today due to a heat advisory.

Officials in Harris county said testing sites would close at noon because of the high temperatures today. The announcement comes as Texas, and Harris county specifically, grapple with a surge in new cases.

The early closure raises questions about how southern states in particular will ensure testing continues amid the hot summer months and hurricane season later in the year.

Texas reported a record number of new cases in a single day on Tuesday, recording more than 10,000 new cases. Harris county and Dallas county, home to Houston and Dallas, have reported the highest number of cases across the state.

The Guardian’s Maanvi Singh reports from California:

A dozen California firefighting camps that house incarcerated firefighters have been quarantined and taken out of commission after a coronavirus outbreak at a state prison, highlighting the precarious situation for these crews.

Since the second world war, California has trained and deployed thousands of prisoners to fight fires each year, recruiting those who are willing to fight wildfires at great personal risk in exchange for low wages and reduced sentences.

This year, after a historically dry winter followed by a hot spring, thousands of inmates have been among those battling blazes in the state, doing the backbreaking work of clearing the dead wood and vegetation that fuel the most destructive fires.

“Every fire season it’s the same,” said Romarilyn Ralston, who leads Project Rebound, a California State University program that supports formerly incarcerated students. “The pay is so little, the work is so dangerous. Now we add Covid-19 to the story, and it gets even worse.”

In June, as California prisons saw a dramatic surge in Covid-19 cases and more than two hundred prisoners at the California Correction Center (CCC) in the north of the state tested positive for coronavirus, officials stopped all movement in and out of the prison and placed 12 camps that house more than a thousand prisoners training to fight fires under lockdown. There were no confirmed cases of Covid-19 at those dozen camps – though one member initially tested positive, a second test came back negative.

Across the state, devastating outbreaks at prisons have left more than 5,700 people who are incarcerated sick with the infection. Of the 192 crews of incarcerated firefighters, only 94 are currently available, Governor Gavin Newsom announced on Thursday.

South Carolina is setting a curfew for alcohol sales at bars and restaurants as the state grapples with a surge in new cases of coronavirus.

Republican governor Henry McMaster announced restaurants and bars would no longer be able to sell alcohol after 11 pm starting tomorrow night.

The announcement marks South Carolina’s first step to roll back its reopening process, and it comes after states like Texas and Florida decided to reimpose limits on bars in an effort to limit the spread of the virus.

South Carolina’s number of coronavirus cases has jumped in recent days, with 21,560 cases recorded in the past two weeks. The state has confirmed more than 50,000 cases total since the start of the pandemic.