Health News at Your Fingertips

Florida’s department of health reported 77 deaths from Covid-19 and 6,190 new cases of the virus on Sunday. Although the number of new cases has fallen since a few weeks ago when the state regularly had more than 9,000 new cases a day, it is still the 13th consecutive day with more than 6,000 new cases of the virus, according to CNN.

The state’s department of health says Florida has now recorded a total of 532,806 Covid-19 cases since the start of the pandemic. Only five countries have recorded more cases than Florida, while the US total passed 5m earlier today.

Senate minority whip Dick Durbin has said Democrats face a moral dilemma over whether to challenge Donald Trump’s latest executive actions in court.

While some have questioned the legality of the president’s actions, Durbin admitted a legal fight may not be worth it if it means delaying benefits for those in need.

“This is a moral dilemma, we want unemployed people to receive benefits, we never wanted them cut off at all, I’m not going to suggest we run out to court at this point,” he said on NBC’s Meet the Press.

He also criticised Trump’s plan to reduce weekly unemployment benefits from $600 to $400 during the pandemic. “This country-club fix suggested by the president is going to be a cut in the unemployment benefits for 30 million Americans,” Durbin said.

Some Republicans have said the benefits discourage people from working, an accusation Durbin vehemently denied.

“These people are not lazy people,” he said. “We have five unemployed Americans for every available job. This urban legend, which I say is an urban lie, about people sitting at home, binging on Netflix and eating chocolate-covered cherries. Listen, I’ve met with these families, they are desperate to get back to work.”

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro has described Donald Trump, who has notched up 284 golf course visits during his presidency, as “the hardest working president in history”.

Navarro was appearing on NBC’s Meet The Press when host Chuck Todd asked him why the president has been at his golf course in New Jersey rather than leading negotiations over an economic relief package.

“This is the hardest working president in history,” said Navarro. “He works 24/7 in Bedminster, Mar-a-lago, the Oval Office or anywhere in between.”

Navarro also said he had heard a theory – which he would not reveal the source of, possibly because he is the source – that “Democrats would prefer to see the economy go into the tank for another 90 days because that harms the president.”

With Democrats and Republicans said to be more than $1tn apart on their economic relief packages (Democrats want a higher figure) treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin says his political opponents need to compromise to get a deal done.

“I think we’ve been very clear that they need to come back with a compromise on the state and local from their trillion dollars, and the unemployment benefits, and if so we’ll respond. I think the majority of the other issues, we’ve reached a compromise on,” Mnuchin told CNN on Sunday.

Mnuchin also appeared on Fox News Sunday to say state governors had told him they did not need as much money as Democrats have suggested.

“I’ve also spoke to many governors over the last few days. We offered more money for the states. They still have $150bn from last time. Most of them haven’t even used half of the money,” Mnuchin said. “The governors are saying we need more money for education. We need help, and the President said, we’ll give it to you. But not a trillion dollars.”

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow has admitted Donald Trump’s executive actions for economic relief may not be legally enforceable. Republican senator Ben Sasse called the orders “constitutional slop”, while congressman Justin Amash, a Republican turned Libertarian, said Trump was acting like “a king”.

On ABC’s This Week, Kudlow said the White House was preparing for a legal battle over the orders but it is “going to go ahead with our actions anyway.”

Kudlow added: “Our counsel’s office, the Treasury Department believes it has the authority to temporarily suspend tax collections. So we’re banking on that. We’ve had also a repurposing of funds. … That was decided in our favor in the Supreme Court case regarding the Mexican wall a while back. So we think we can do it,”

The Associated Press reports on the incredulity from many in Europe at the failure of the US to get the Covid-19 pandemic under control, particularly given the fact that America is the wealthiest country in the world. Here’s sample from the report, the full version of which you can read here:

“Don’t they care about their health?” a mask-clad Patrizia Antonini asked about people in the United States as she walked with friends along the banks of Lake Bracciano, north of Rome. “They need to take our precautions. … They need a real lockdown.”

Much of the incredulity in Europe stems from the fact that America had the benefit of time, European experience and medical know-how to treat the virus that the continent itself didn’t have when the first Covid-19 patients started filling intensive care units.

Yet, more than four months into a sustained outbreak, the US reached the 5m mark, according to the running count kept by Johns Hopkins University. Health officials believe the actual number is perhaps 10 times higher, or closer to 50m, given testing limitations and the fact that as many as 40% of all those who are infected have no symptoms.

“We Italians always saw America as a model,” said Massimo Franco, a columnist with daily Corriere della Sera. “But with this virus we’ve discovered a country that is very fragile, with bad infrastructure and a public health system that is nonexistent.”

House speaker Nancy Pelosi has appeared on CNN’s State of the Union. Like her Democrat colleague Chuck Schumer, she is unimpressed with Donald Trump’s executive actions to provide economic relief for Americans during the Covid.-19 pandemic.

“Everything is left out,” she said of the actions ordered by Trump on Saturday night. “Assistance to the schools, feeding the hungry, helping people who are going to be evicted. He didn’t do a moratorium [on evictions] he just did a study, a look at a moratorium.”

It is still unclear whether Trump’s orders are legally enforceable. “Something’s wrong,” said Pelosi. “Either the president doesn’t know what he’s talking about – his aides don’t know what he is talking about – or something’s very wrong here about meeting the needs of the American people at this time.”

Under Trump’s plans, the unemployed will get an extra benefit of $400 a week rather than $600 as was the case until the end of July. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told CNN earlier today that states have already been allocated enough money to cover $100 of that $400. Pelosi dismissed Kudlow’s claim.

“What [he] said really shows the weakness and the meagerness of what the president proposed,” she said. “First of all he’s saying the states have the money. No they don’t, they have expenses from the coronavirus. They have lost revenue, because of that they are firing health care workers, first responders, teachers, sanitation, transportation workers because they don’t have the money.”

Chuck Schumer is followed on ABC’s This Week by White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow. He defended the president’s actions, saying they would help Americans struggling during the economic crisis caused by Covid-19.

“[Trump’s actions] provide significant economic assistance,” he said.

Kudlow also aimed a shot at Democrats, indicating they were to blame for the failure of Congress to agree a new economic relief bill. That deadlock, in turn, led to Trump deciding to lay out executive actions on Saturday.

“There’s still a lot of hardship out there there’s a lot of heartbreak out there and the point that President Trump made yesterday, is that on several occasions, we tried to get, for example, a compromise deal on the unemployment assistance” Kudlow said.

The US has now passed 5m Covid-19 cases according to figures from Johns Hopkins University. The figure was passed a short while ago, and America leads the world by quite some way in cases of the deadly virus. Brazil, the country with the next highest number of cases, has just over 3m in total. India, in third, has recorded just over 2.1m. New Zealand, meanwhile, has gone 100 days without a local transmission.

The US also has the highest number of deaths in the world from the virus. Johns Hopkins has the count at 162,000, although others have the figure higher. Brazil has just over 100,000 deaths from Covid-19.

For more on how the US has mishandled the pandemic, you can read my colleague Ed Pilkington’s in-depth report:

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer has issued a withering assessment of Donald Trump’s announcement of economic relief measures on Saturday.

During an appearance on ABC’s This Week on Sunday morning, Schumer said the president’s plans would not do enough to address the financial hardship faced by millions of Americans due to the Covid-19 pandemic. He also called the directives “faulty”, “unworkable” and “weak”.

“The event at the country club is just what Trump does: a big show, but it doesn’t do anything,” Schumer said. “If the American people look at these executive orders, they’ll see that they don’t come close to doing the job.”

Schumer and House speaker Nancy Pelosi have been spearheading Democrats’ negotiations with Republicans over a new economic relief package. The two sides are at an impasse, with Democrats wanting to spend around $1tn more than the Republicans. Trump’s executive order on Saturday, which is likely to face challenges over its legality, was an attempt to break that deadlock. Schumer was asked on Sunday about whether Trump’s order was legal or not. “I’ll leave that up to the attorneys,” he said.

On Saturday, Schumer and Pelosi attacked Trump’s plans in a joint statement.

“We’re disappointed that instead of putting in the work to solve Americans’ problems, the president instead chose to stay on his luxury golf course to announce unworkable, weak and narrow policy announcements to slash the unemployment benefits that millions desperately need and endanger seniors’ Social Security and Medicare,” they said.

“Democrats repeat our call to Republicans to return to the table, meet us halfway and work together to deliver immediate relief to the American people.”

Joe Biden has dismissed part of Donald Trump executive order yesterday as “a reckless war on social security”. The president said he would defer payroll tax through the end of 2020. He has also said he would make permanent cuts to payroll tax if he beats Biden in November’s election. Employer payroll taxes help fund social security.

“[Trump] is laying out his roadmap to cutting Social Security,” Biden wrote in a statement. “Our seniors and millions of Americans with disabilities are under enough stress without Trump putting their hard-earned Social Security benefits in doubt.”

It remains unclear if Trump actually has the authority to suspends payroll taxes through executive order, and his moves this weekend are expected to be challenged in court.

You can read more on Trump’s executive order here:

Good morning, it may be Sunday but there’s a lot going on in US political news. We’ll be covering all the developments, so stay tuned.

Here are the main stories so far today:

• The United States will pass the sobering mark today of five million cases of Covid-19.
• Donald Trump has signed an order for coronavirus relief, with lower level of extra aid for jobless
• Big oil remembers ‘friend’ Trump with millions in campaign funds