The Past 24 Hours or So

Read Time: 5 Minutes

Protest/Race Relations News

• The Minnesota Twins announced that it would remove a statue of the baseball team’s former owner Calvin Griffith over his history of making racist comments.

“While we acknowledge the prominent role Calvin Griffith played in our history, we cannot remain silent and continue ignoring the racist comments he made in Waseca in 1978,” the team announced. Griffith moved the team from Washington, D.C. to Minnesota in 1961.

In 1978, Griffith went on a racist tirade at the Waseca Lions Club.

“I’ll tell you why we came to Minnesota. It was when I found out you only had 15,000 blacks here. Black people don’t go to ballgames, but they’ll fill up a rassling ring and put up such a chant it’ll scare you to death. It’s unbelievable,” Griffith said. “We came here because you’ve got good, hardworking, white people here.”

The speech was widely condemned at the time and the Minneapolis Star wrote a front page editorial demanding Griffith sell the team, The Star Tribune reported.

• Authorities are investigating allegations claiming that the mayor of Phoenix, Oregon hit a Black Lives Matter protester while steadily moving through a crowd of demonstrators.

• Georgia’s state House on Friday passed a bill that would shutter the Glynn County Police Department after its handling of the killing of Ahmaud Arbery. The bill, which passed by a 152-3 vote, would allow Georgia voters to decide whether or not to eliminate their county police departments.

• In an interview with Philadelphia outlet 6ABCAction News, Vice President Mike Pence repeatedly refused to say the words “Black lives matter,” instead saying that, “all lives matter in a very real sense.” 

Coronavirus/COVID-19

• The National Institutes of Health has halted its clinical trial of hydroxychloroquine, citing that while there are no serious side effects, the anti-Malaria drug touted by President Trump provides no benefit to COVID-19 patients.

• Six of Trump’s staffers, who were part of the campaign’s advance team for the president’s rally in Tulsa, OK have tested positive for the coronavirus, the campaign announced. The campaign says that group will not be in attendance at Trump’s rally.

• At least thirty LSU football players have been in quarantine. Some have tested positive; others found to have been in contact with positives. A portion got infected at the Baton Rouge nightclub outbreak. No hospitalizations or serious illness.

• In a reversal of position, the Trump administration announced that it would publicize the names of large Paycheck Protection Program loan recipients.

The Small Business Administration and the Treasury Department said they had “agreed with bipartisan” leaders in Congress to enhance the transparency of the program by releasing additional data about borrowers.

That information will include business names, addresses, NAIC codes, business type, demographic data, nonprofit information, jobs supported and loan amount ranges for people who received more than $150,000.

• At least two Buccaneers’ players have now tested positive for COVID-19, per sources. Earlier this week one Buccaneers’ coach tested positive and two other assistants were quarantined.

• Florida health officials announced that 4,049 people tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, setting a single-day record as the state continues to see a spike in numbers.

• At his Tulsa, OK rally, President Trump quipped that he encouraged administration officials to slow down testing capacity for the coronavirus because the increased identification of cases made the country look bad.

“Here’s the bad part,” he said. “When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people. You’re going to find more cases. So I said to my people, ‘slow the testing down, please!’”

Administration News

• A federal judge has denied a Trump administration request to block former national security adviser John Bolton’s book from being published.

• Following the ruling, the president Tweeted: “BIG COURT WIN against Bolton. Obviously, with the book already given out and leaked to many people and the media, nothing the highly respected Judge could have done about stopping it…BUT, strong & powerful statements & rulings on MONEY & on BREAKING CLASSIFICATION were made,” Trump tweeted.

• Attorney General Barr said in a letter to Manhattan US Attorney Geoffrey Berman that Trump has now officially fired him, rejecting any argument by Berman that a judicial appointment means he can’t be removed.

In a letter to Berman, Barr wrote, “Because you have declared that you have no intention of resigning, I have asked the President to remove you as of today, and he has done so.  By operation of law, the Deputy United States Attorney, Audrey Strauss, will become the Acting” US attorney. 

• President Trump told reporters at the White House that he’s “not involved” with the firing of US Attorney Berman. Trump said it’s up to Attorney General Bill Barr.

• Manhattan’s top federal prosecutor Geoffrey Berman agreed to resign from his post on Saturday, after Attorney General William Barr said he would allow Berman’s deputy to take over the job until a permanent replacement can be installed.

• House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) announced Saturday that the committee will immediately open an investigation into the Trump administration’s decision to fire Manhattan U.S. attorney Geoff Berman. 

“The House Judiciary Committee will immediately open an investigation into this incident, as part of our broader investigation into Barr’s unacceptable politicization of the Department of Justice,” Nadler said in a statement.

• President Trump’s nominee to head the Pentagon’s policy shop, retired Army Brig. Gen. Anthony Tata, is denouncing Islamophobic remarks and controversial comments he made about Democratic lawmakers and former President Obama on Twitter in the past.

In several tweets from 2018, Tata said that Islam was the “most oppressive violent religion I know of” and claimed Obama was a “terrorist leader” who did more to harm the US “and help Islamic countries than any president in history.” Tata, in one radio appearance, speculated the Iran deal was born out of Obama’s “Islamic roots” in an attempt “to help Iranians and the greater Islamic state crush Israel.”

• President Trump scrapped a planned address to supporters outside the BOK Center in Tulsa, OK., on Saturday as attendance appeared to fall short of expectations.

The Trump campaign said in a statement the president and Vice President Pence would not give speeches at a separate stage outside the arena as originally planned.

Sources:  ABC News, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, NBC News, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post