The Morning Dispatch: Obama Goes After Trump in DNC Address

Happy Thursday! We’ve swapped out our interns! A big thanks to Nate Hochman for all of his hard work and a warm welcome to James Sutton.

Quick Hits: Today’s Top Stories

• The United States confirmed 43,568 new cases of COVID-19 yesterday, with 6.6 percent of the 665,145 tests reported coming back positive. An additional 1,177 deaths were attributed to the virus on Wednesday, bringing the pandemic’s American death toll to 172,970.

• President Trump announced last night the United States intends to restore “virtually all the previously suspended United Nations sanctions on Iran,” referencing the U.N. Security Council’s “snapback” mechanism.

• The state of Michigan is expected to announce a $600 million settlement with children and families poisoned by the lead-tainted water in Flint after a change in the water supply six years ago.

• Alexei Navalny, a Russian opposition leader, is in a coma after falling ill in a suspected poisoning. The spokeswoman for Navalny, 44, said he is in “grave condition” after losing consciousness on a flight from Siberia to Moscow. The Associated Press reports that Belarusian dictator Alexander Lukashenko has accused Navalny of organizing protests in the wake of Lukashenko’s re-election.

• Attorney General William Barr told the United Kingdom on Tuesday that the United States will not seek the death penalty for Alexanda Kotey or El Shafee Elsheikh—two detainees affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham—if the U.K. government grants the mutual legal assistance request for evidence involving the case. The two are accused of kidnapping and murdering citizens of both the U.S. and the U.K.

• Facebook announced it removed hundreds of groups, pages, and ads tied to the QAnon conspiracy theory from the Facebook and Instagram platforms, just hours before President Trump said he’s heard that QAnon adherents “are people who love our country” and that “they do supposedly like [him].”

President Obama’s A Cynic Now, Too

Sixteen years ago, then-Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama catapulted his political career to new heights with a keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention in Boston. “There’s not a liberal America and a conservative America—there’s the United States of America,” he declared to the cheers of a packed crowd at the FleetCenter. “We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.”

His speech last night—delivered after serving two presidential terms of his own and watching his successor repudiate him at every turn—was much less sunny. He praised his former vice president—and his former vice president’s vice president—for understanding “that political opponents aren’t ‘un-American’ just because they disagree with you; that a free press isn’t the ‘enemy’ but the way we hold officials accountable; that our ability to work together to solve big problems like a pandemic depends on a fidelity to facts and science and logic and not just making stuff up.”

“None of this should be controversial,” he continued, speaking to a camera from the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia. “These shouldn’t be Republican principles or Democratic principles. They’re American principles. But at this moment, this president and those who enable him, have shown they don’t believe in these things.”

Former President George W. Bush rather famously opted not to weigh in on his successor’s presidency, saying in a 2009 speech that Obama “deserves my silence.” Bush doubled down four years later. “It’s a hard job. He’s got plenty on his agenda. It’s difficult. A former president doesn’t need to make it any harder.”

Other presidents have strayed from this unwritten rule—Jimmy Carter is a notorious offender; Teddy Roosevelt literally launched a third-party run against his successor (and former Secretary of War*) William Howard Taft, calling him a “fathead” with “the brains of a guinea pig”—but Obama’s criticism of Trump last night was the most striking instance of a president-on-president attack in recent memory.

“For close to four years now, [Trump has] shown no interest in putting in the work; no interest in finding common ground; no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends; no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves,” Obama said. “Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t.”

Trump, who was watching, chimed in moments later.

Earlier in the day, Trump told reporters Obama and Joe Biden were the reason he was elected in the first place. “If they did a good job, I wouldn’t be here,” he said.

Obama, in a way, seemed to ever-so-subtly acknowledge the kernel of truth in that statement before pivoting back to hammering Trump. “Look, I understand why many Americans are down on government,” he said. “I understand why a white factory worker who’s seen his wages cut or his job shipped overseas might feel like the government no longer looks out for him, and why a black mother might feel like it never looked out for her at all. I understand why a new immigrant might look around this country and wonder whether there’s still a place for him here; why a young person might look at politics right now, the circus of it all, the meanness and the lies and crazy conspiracy theories and think, what’s the point?”

The point, he continued, is to prevent democracy from “withering.” Striking a more populist tone than he’s known for, Obama referenced an amorphous “they”—“this president and those in power”— conspiring against the true will of the people. “They know they can’t win you over with their policies. So they’re hoping to make it as hard as possible for you to vote, and to convince you that your vote doesn’t matter,” he said. “We can’t let that happen. Do not let them take away your power. Don’t let them take away your democracy.”

The Washington Post and ABC News reported that Obama was originally slated to speak after Kamala Harris on Wednesday, but requested to swap slots in order to symbolically “pass the torch” to the vice presidential nominee. It didn’t matter. Harris’ speech was both historic and fine—mostly autobiographical as a means of introducing herself to the country; its deliverance in an empty ballroom slightly underwhelming—but it remains Barack Obama’s Democratic Party. Four years after leaving office, he’s still the glue that holds its various factions together.

How We Treat the Virus

In recent months, we’ve frequently looked at America’s efforts to minimize the number of people who catch the coronavirus. What we haven’t reported on as much about is what happens once a person has caught it anyway. Up at the site today, Andrew has a piece examining that question: Absent a true cure or a vaccine, how goes the fight to keep sick COVID patients alive?

The very short answer is: It’s going well, although it’s a little hard to tell how well. The case-fatality rate, which you might hope would give a sense of how treating the virus is going now as opposed to a few months ago, is also strongly affected by other factors, including how much better our testing is now and the comparatively better job we’re doing now of keeping the virus out of nursing homes and other places where at-risk populations are clustered. 

Progress in treating the virus is taking place along several tracks at once. Solid clinical research continues to roll out, slowly and steadily, giving a baseline for treatment with such drugs as the antiviral remdesivir and such protocols as laying patients struggling to breath on their stomachs rather than their backs. 

Meanwhile, months of doctors swapping tips on treatments that seem to have paid dividends in their own experience have led to a body of working knowledge beyond what randomized trials have confirmed.

In fact, part of the problem facing doctors now is one of too many options: There is a plethora of treatments that have shown some promise, but there’s little guidance to be had on the best way of mixing and matching them to achieve the best results:

“The standard of treatment for a severe COVID-19 illness is changing,” Dr. David Ingbar, a professor of medicine and pulmonary care expert at the University of Minnesota, told The Dispatch. Dr. Ingbar is currently heading up an early clinical trial into treating COVID with MSCs.

“Now we believe dexamethasone works in certain populations at certain levels of illness,” he said. “We know that remdesivir has some benefit in terms of shortening the disease and maybe improving mortality. There are suggestions that, if given early, convalescent plasma might be beneficial. What we don’t know very much about is, how do all of these treatments interact? Is it better to get one from column A, B, C, D, and E? Or are only certain combinations beneficial? So it’s a complicated field, and I think we all as clinicians want to help our patients as much as possible. But there is potential to do harm as well as good with all these treatments.” 

Still, it’s encouraging to keep in mind: The fight to control the pandemic may grow better or worse, but the fight to treat the disease continues to plod slowly but surely on.

Belarus on the Brink

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko ordered security forces to clear the streets of Minsk yesterday, sparking a new wave of demonstrations in opposition to his continued rule following the country’s widely discredited August 9 election. “There should no longer be any disorder in Minsk of any kind,” the dictator said. “People are tired. People demand peace and quiet.” 

Hundreds of thousands of protesters have been in the streets since last Sunday’s vote, thousands of whom have been beaten by police and imprisoned for their activism.

The international community is getting involved. “These elections were neither free nor fair and did not meet international standards,” European Council President Charles Michel said on Wednesday, referring to Lukashenko’s implausible 80 percent vote share. “The [European Union] will impose shortly sanctions on a substantial number of individuals responsible for violence, repression, and election fraud.”

But for the EU and its allies, the possibility of Minsk forging closer bonds with its neighbors in Moscow in response to Western antagonism is also worrisome. In a series of covert calls between Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin, the Russian president reportedly promised to offer “full assistance” pending an escalation of protests in Belarus, and, according to tracking data, a Russian government-owned plane that has previously been used to carry the FSB security service flew to Belarus and back yesterday, foreshadowing possible Russian military intervention.

But Matthew Rojansky, an expert on Eastern Europe at the Woodrow Wilson Center, believes the assumption that Putin has Lukashenko in his back pocket is mistaken. “There’s a big misconception here with Lukashenko that he’s Moscow’s man. He’s not Moscow’s man. He’s driven hard bargains with Russia over and over,” he told The Dispatch on Wednesday. “In some ways, an acceptable outcome for Moscow might be that Lukashenko loses power and they have reasonably cordial relations with whoever succeeds him.”

“Right now, there’s essentially zero reason for Russia to intervene,” Rojansky continued. “Lukashenko is not in the best position he’s ever been in, but he’s still in control of a relatively effective state repressive apparatus.”

The one thing that could provoke Russian intervention, Rojansky noted, is an escalation of anti-government demonstrations sufficient to threaten Lukashenko’s rule or life. “If they pull Lukashenko out by his mustache and hang him from a lamppost,” he explained, “it’s fairly likely that the Russians will at a minimum take command of Belarusian forces.”

Workers at a major industrial plant on Monday booed Lukashenko as he was addressing them, chanting “leave!” over and over again. “We held the elections,” the Belarusian president shot back. “Until you kill me, there won’t be any new elections.”

Although this is at present a far-off scenario, the protests have grown and seem to have staying power. A whopping 200,000 people gathered in Minsk on Sunday with very little reaction from Lukashenko’s government. Many have adopted the white-red-white flag of the short-lived Belarusian Democratic Republic as a unifying symbol.

“Democracy is a very important word,” President Trump said when asked the administration’s stance on these events, adding he will be speaking to Russia. “It doesn’t seem like it’s too much democracy there, in Belarus.” 

“It seems to be a very peaceful march,” he continued, “unlike some of the so-called ‘peaceful protests’ that we have, where they burn down stores.”

Joe Biden also weighed in via Twitter. “The brave citizens of Belarus are showing their voices will not be silenced by terror or torture,” he said. “The U.S. should support Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya’s call for fair elections. Russia must be told not to interfere—this is not about geopolitics but the right to choose one’s leaders.”

Worth Your Time

• We’ve mentioned QAnon a lot in recent days, as it seems to really be ‘having a moment,’ so to speak. But it’s worth stepping back for a minute and explaining what, exactly, the conspiracy alleges. That’s what this piece from the New York Times’ Kevin Roose—an expert on the theory—does. “QAnon is an incredibly convoluted theory, and you could fill an entire book explaining its various tributaries and sub-theories,” he writes. “But here are some basic things you should know.”

• Matt Viser at the Washington Post is one of the best reporters covering Joe Biden right now. Check out Viser’s piece on why today—the day Biden will deliver a keynote address at his nominating convention—is 50 years in the making, and the ups and downs that led him here. According to Biden’s longtime chief of staff Ted Kaufman, the former vice president is “the luckiest person I have ever met in my entire life, and he’s also the unluckiest person I have ever met in my life.”

• The pandemic has been especially strange for food critics, who’ve had to navigate unprecedented changes in the restaurant world after COVID-19 took an axe to fine dining. “The restaurant ecosystem in New York is like a huge teeming reef that has been struck out of nowhere by a poisonous tide,” writes restaurant critic Adam Platt in New York Magazine. Read Platt’s piece for some insights into the return of lavish tipping, the new emphasis on diner safety, and some thoughts about what restaurant culture will look like when all of this is over.

Presented Without Comment

Toeing the Company Line

• The Senate Intelligence Committee report we broke down yesterday “debunks both Russia hoaxes,” David argues in his latest French Press (🔒). The report is “unsparing” in its criticism of the Steele dossier and the FBI’s use of it, David writes, but it also blows a hole in “the emerging right-wing narrative that the Trump campaign was an innocent victim of Obama administration perfidy.”

• Sarah talked to Georgetown Institute of Politics director Mo Elleithee for Wednesday’s Midweek Mop-Up (🔒), breaking down the highlights of the Democratic National Convention thus far. “I have always found Mo to be the platonic ideal of a political operative,” Sarah writes. “Thoughtful, patriotic, competitive, generous, and clever. So when it comes to the Democratic Convention, there’s no one’s opinion I wanted to hear more than Mo’s.”

• In his column this week, Jonah takes a whack at the baseless claim that Kamala Harris isn’t constitutionally qualified for the vice presidency. What’s interesting, Jonah argues, is that the conservatives who are advancing this argument seem to have forgotten about the Republican politicians—John McCain and Ted Cruz—who were born abroad. “It seems that having elected officials who are supposedly less than 100 percent American is only terrifying when those officials are Democrats, particularly nonwhite Democrats.”

Let Us Know

Nearly six months into this pandemic, given what we currently know about the virus and its treatments: Are you personally scared of contracting the thing? Or do you consider yourself low-risk and trust either the treatment options currently available or that you’ll be asymptomatic?

Reporting by Declan Garvey (@declanpgarvey), Andrew Egger (@EggerDC), Charlotte Lawson (@charlotteUVA), Audrey Fahlberg (@FahlOutBerg), and James Sutton (@jamespsuttonsf), and Steve Hayes (@stephenfhayes).

Photograph of Barack Obama speaking at the DNC by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images.

Correction, August 20: This newsletter originally referred to William Howard Taft as Teddy Roosevelt’s former vice president. Taft served as Roosevelt’s Secretary of War.