Earlier today President Trump and the COVID-19 task force held a press conference to outline the latest mitigation steps.  [Transcript Below]

[Transcript] – THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, everyone. Thank you. Thank you.

A beautiful day in the Rose Garden. Appreciate everybody being here. Today, I’d like to provide an update to the American people on several decisive new actions we’re taking in our very vigilant effort to combat and ultimately defeat the coronavirus.

We’ve been working very hard on this. We’ve made tremendous progress. When you compare what we’ve done to other areas of the world, it’s pretty incredible. A lot of that had to do with the early designation and the closing of the borders.

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It took some digging but we found it. The 2020 Coronavirus Response Act is H.R.6201 [SEE HERE].

Speaker Nancy Pelosi is saying the Democrats and White House have made an agreement to pass the content of the Coronavirus Response Act.  However, there is no confirmation from the White House (yet).

President Trump is meeting with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in the White House right now.

WASHINGTON – House Democrats and the Trump administration reached agreement on a coronavirus response package Friday after a day of grueling negotiations, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

“We are proud to have reached an agreement with the Administration to resolve outstanding challenges, and now will soon pass the Families First Coronavirus Response Act,” she wrote to Democrats after hours of back-and-forth with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

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President Trump will hold a press conference on COVID-19 today at 3:00pm ET.  It is expected that President Trump will declare a national emergency.

UPDATE – Video Added

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The House Rules Committee previously released the text of proposed changes to FISA (full pdf).  The “deal” is intended to reauthorize the FISA “business records provision”, the “roving wiretap” provision, the “lone wolf” provision, and the more controversial bulk metadata provisions [Call Detail Records (CDR)], all parts of the Patriot Act.  However, key Senators and President Trump say not enough being done to change it.
The current FISA authorities expire on March 15th; it looks like they will lapse as Mitch McConnell tries to regroup for a possible vote next week.  McConnell was forced to delay consideration past the expiration date after Senators Mike Lee (R), Rand Paul (R) and  Ron Wyden  (D) said they would object.

WASHINGTON DC – President Trump told Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) on Thursday that he does not support a House-passed surveillance bill— raising fresh questions about the fate of the legislation.
A spokesman for Lee confirmed the conversation and that the president told the Utah Republican that he does not support the House legislation. Officials speaking for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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The White House Coronavirus Task Force includes: Vice President Mike Pence; Ambassador Debbie Brix, White House Corona Virus Response Coordinator; Secretary Alex Azar, Department of Health and Human Services; Dr. Robert Redfield, Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Dr. Anne Schuchat, Principal Deputy Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Dr. Stephen Hahn, Commissioner of Food and Drugs, Food and Drug Administration; and Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Earlier today Dr. Anthony Fauci gives an update on coronavirus outbreak and how the White House is trying to combat the spread.

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Speaker Nancy Pelosi is attempting to exploit the coronavirus issue to pass a litany of permanent laws inside what was supposed to be a temporary legislative bill to assist those economically impacted by the coronavirus mitigation efforts.

Two issues are stark: (1) permanent and mandatory paid sick leave; and (2) a massive and permanent increase in medicare spending to benefit health insurance companies.

(Via The Hill) […] “There’s a couple major problems with it. Here’s one glaring problem: Under [Speaker Nancy] Pelosi’s bill, the Social Security Administration will be set up to administer the paid sick leave program. Now this will take more than six months, so it won’t work in time. It will also hamper the administration from putting out Social Security for those who need it right now that are in harm’s way,” he added.

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Elania Plott is a CNN analyst who notes in her conversations with supporters of President Trump the disdain and distrust in media is worse than any time she can remember:

Perhaps this short recap video will help explain.  CNN is now claiming that anyone who uses the term “Wuhan Virus” or “Chinese Corona Virus” is being xenophobic and racist.  The Media Research Center looked into it and captured some rather stark hypocrisy:

The stock market is not the U.S. economy.  The stock market is an investment instrument.
Yes, the downstream consequences from coronavirus mitigation efforts means there is likely going to be temporary, very specific, fluxes within the Main Street economy.  Entertainment, hospitality and leisure are likely to see the strongest initial impacts. However, as noted by the release of weekly jobless claims the U.S. economy is very strong.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The number of Americans filing for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week as employers continued to hold on to their workers.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 4,000 to a seasonally adjusted 211,000 for the week ended March 7, the Labor Department said. Jobless claims are the most timely labor market indicator. They have declined for two straight weeks.

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Earlier today U.S. President Trump and Ireland Prime Minister Varadkar held a press availability prior to their bilateral meeting. [Video and Transcript Below]

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[Transcript] – PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, thank you all very much. It’s an honor to be with the Prime Minister of Ireland. We’ve known each other now for quite a while, and we have a great relationship and a great relationship with Ireland. And we have a lot to discuss.

We will be talking about the obvious, and we’ll also be talking about the virus that’s hit the world. I see they’ve cancelled their big soccer games, their championship games, and a lot of other games. They’ve cancelled a lot over in Europe and all over the world. So this is big world problem.

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The level of media opposition and snark against President Trump is simply so ridiculous at this point there’s a desperation to it.  So let us consider…
From the outset of Donald Trump’s entry into the world of politics he espoused a series of key tenets around what he called his “America-First” objectives:

1. The U.S. needed to have control over our borders, and a greater ability to control who was migrating to the United States.  A shift toward stopping ‘illegal’ migration.
2. The U.S. needed to stop the manufacture of goods overseas and return critical manufacturing back to the United States.  A return to economic independence.
3. The U.S. needed to decouple from an over-reliance on Chinese industrial and consumer products.  China viewed as a geopolitical and economic risk.

Donald Trump was alone on these issues.  No-one else was raising them; no-one else was so urgently pushing that discussion. In 2015, 2016 and even 2017, no-one other than Trump was talking about how close we were to the dependence point of no return.
Given the status of very consequential issues stemming from the Chinese Coronavirus threat; and the myriad of serious issues with critical supply chain dependencies; wasn’t President Trump correct in his warnings and proposals?
In early 2017 President Trump and his administration coined the phrase: “economic security is national security”, and the economic team set about starting a very complex process to ensure the past three decades of trade policy was reversed.
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