The Weekly List

On Thursday of this week, around 5 p.m., I  tweeted that this week was unusually quiet in terms of the chaos, and  was on pace for the fewest broken norms in 2020. I wrote that I was not  sure what to attribute it to, but “We might be heading toward the end.”  Hours later, Bloomberg News  reporter Jennifer Jacobs broke the news that Hope Hicks had tested  positive for...

This week Trump said he would not accept a  peaceful transition of power — a remarkable, unprecedented statement.  While there was pushback in the form of the Senate voting for a  resolution affirming its commitment to a peaceful transition — without  mentioning Trump by name or condemning his statement — Trump persisted  with his lies about mail-in ballot voter fraud, and...

It’s hard to express the sense of loss this year  has brought to the our country: already we’ve endured three years of  division, broken norms, lawlessness, kleptocracy, bigotry and hate,  gaslighting and non-stop lies — leaving our country anxious and  exhausted entering 2020. This year has brought illness, unemployment,  starvation, death, wildfires, hurricanes, social u...

Things are getting worse in America, week by  week. This week, as the West Coast saw wildfires spread, with much of  California, Oregon, and Washington covered in smoke so thick the sun  couldn’t break through and the sky was a hazy gray or shade of yellow  and orange, Trump ignored it. Just as he skipped a commemorative  ceremony in lower Manhattan for the anniversary of...

This week, with no discernible post-convention  bounce and the election two months away, Trump was frenzied. He started  the week with a storm of tweets, and then embarked on espousing a series  of bizarre conspiracy theories that made him appear mentally unfit to  lead, some of which were then backed in part by Attorney General William  Barr — our country’s chief law enfo...

This week, the Republican Party held its  convention — which was likened to a Trump convention — a four-day span  of shattered norms, and possibly multiple violations of the law. Gone  were names familiar to the Grand Old Party, replaced by Trump loyalists  and his family members. Republicans, for the first time 1856, didn’t  even produce a platform! Instead, the conventio...

This was the longest weekly list, and it was  simply exhausting. The Democrats held a very successful first virtual  Democratic National Convention, while Trump spent the week advancing  lies and conspiracy theories about voting to undermine the election.  Polls continue to show he will lose by a wide margin. In a break from tradition, both former First  Lady Michelle and...

This week, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe  Biden chose his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, the first Black and  Asian American vice presidential candidate. An oddly unprepared Trump  campaign and Republican Party reacted with a deluge of sexist and racist  attacks, including shameful accusations of “birtherism.” Trump also  threw his support behind a House candidate...

This week U.S. intelligence revealed Russia is  actively interfering in the 2020 presidential election, with a goal of  harming presumptive Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Democratic leaders  pressed NCSC Director William Evanina to inform the American people,  while Republicans, reminiscent of 2016, tried to obfuscate intelligence  by publicly claiming it was unclear Russ...

This week, for the first time, Trump publicly  floated the idea of delaying the November election, drawing swift  condemnation from Democrats and a mild rebuke from Republican  leadership. The co-founder of conservative Federalist Society said in an  op-ed that Trump should be removed if he tries to follow through.  Undeterred, Trump spent the week continuing to sow doubt...

This week, as the coronavirus raged out of  control, passing 4 million U.S. cases and 145,000 deaths, Trump  resurrected his daily coronavirus briefings — by himself, with no health  officials. He also sought to divert attention to Portland, Oregon,  where alarming images of unmarked federal law enforcement were seen  shoving and tear-gassing growing crowds of Black Lives...

This week, as the coronavirus raged out of  control in many states, Trump sought to discredit Dr. Anthony Fauci,  with several members of the regime publicly attacking Fauci’s  credibility. Reporting indicated Trump had lost interest in the  pandemic, with an adviser telling the Post ,  Trump’s “not really working this anymore. He doesn’t want to be  distracted by it”...

This week, the pandemic continued to worsen,  with many states seeing new highs and the death toll starting to rise.  By week’s end, the U.S. registered an unthinkable nearly 70,000 new  daily coronavirus cases. Amid the surge, issues that plagued the April  wave of cases in New York and elsewhere, like shortages of PPE and  testing, reappeared, making it clear the federal...

This week the coronavirus spread further out of  control, topping 50,000 daily cases for three consecutive days — more  than 10,000 higher than the early peak in April. Trump continued to  largely ignore the pandemic, refuse to wear a mask, and make the most  trusted source of information, Dr. Anthony Fauci, less accessible,  leading to confusion in the patchwork of state...

This week started with a humiliating return to  the campaign trail for Trump, as a mere 6,200 supporters showed up for  his rally in Tulsa, after the campaign bragged more than one million had  registered. Trump’s poll numbers continue to sag amid his mishandling  of the pandemic and racial justice protests. Instead of rising to the  challenge, Trump reverted to drumming u...

This week grave polling results revealed a  downtrodden country feeling the impact of concurrent and intersecting  crises, as national pride fell to its lowest level in two decades, while  just 20% were satisfied with the direction of the country. Trump  received poor marks for his handling of the coronavirus and for dividing  the country amid social unrest. The coronaviru...

This week Trump seemed to fade into the  background, unsure of how to respond to a triple set of crises that  gripped the nation: continuing social unrest, a second wave of  coronavirus, and the stock market plunging with the economy officially  entering a recession. Trump spent most of the week locked up in the  White House, behind the layers of fencing he had constructed...

This week, in a scene reminiscent of a crackdown  in an authoritarian regime, U.S. troops stationed in our nation’s  capital at Trump’s behest fired tear gas and rubber bullets on peaceful  protestors to disperse them as Trump delivered a “law and order” speech  from the White House Rose Garden. The sounds of protestors screaming and  shots being fired could be heard in th...

This was one of the darkest weeks since I  started the list. The week began with Trump spinning conspiracy theories  to distract from the country reaching the grim milestone of losing  100,000 Americans to the coronavirus, and ended with our country  literally burning in the flames of our racial divide, with Trump  throwing kerosene on the flames. Susan Glasser, a writer f...

This week, Trump fully transitioned from leader  to salesman, leaving the states to fend for themselves, while he  promoted a “transition to greatness.” After a week when two White House  employees tested positive for the coronavirus, Trump made the remarkable  claim he has been taking hydroxychloroquine prophylactically — leading  public health experts to sound the alarms...

This week Trump tried out a new, more positive  approach as the death toll passed 80,000 and more than 36 million  Americans were unemployed, claiming, “We have met the moment and we have  prevailed.” Trump bragged the U.S. leads the world in testing, then  later seemed to indicate testing was not important, and if we didn’t  test so much, we wouldn’t have so many cases — ...

This week, despite a White House model showing  ending social distancing would result in a spike of 200,000 new cases a  day and deaths of 3,000 a day, the majority of the country started to  reopen. Public health officials warned of dire consequences, with one  likening the premature reopening to genocide, but Trump triumphantly  declared Phase 1 was over, and now the Ame...

This week, with his approval dropping and  Republicans alarmed about losing the Senate in 2020, Trump shifted away  from holding daily task force briefings. Instead, he and his regime  sought to portray a great economic recovery coming soon, with the worst  of the pandemic behind us. Trump told reporters, “I see the light at the  end of the tunnel very strongly,” and Jared...

This week opened and closed with Russia: opening  with a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report reaffirming U.S.  intelligence’s January 2017 conclusion that Russia interfered to help  install Trump, and closing with Trump surreptitiously signing an unusual  joint statement with Russian President Vladimir Putin amid the  pandemic. This week the country passed the...

This week Trump threw a series of shiny coins to  distract from the growing death toll and his mishandling of the  coronavirus response. On Monday, he proclaimed he, not the governors,  had “absolute authority” to reopen the country; on Tuesday he halted  funding to the World Health Organization in the midst of a global  pandemic; on Wednesday he threatened to adjourn Cong...