Good morning. The coronavirus keeps spreading. A New York museum is removing a statue of Theodore Roosevelt. And President Trump suffered a disappointing weekend. |
The growing defiance against Trump |
 | | Lindsey Graham declined to support the Trump administration’s choice of a new federal prosecutor.Pool photo by Jonathan Ernst |
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The list of prominent people who have publicly defied President Trump — including onetime allies — keeps growing. Consider what has happened in just the past few weeks: |
- Senate Republicans over the weekend refused to support Trump’s firing of a federal prosecutor who had investigated two of the president’s personal lawyers. As a result, the prosecutor’s deputy, rather than the administration’s choice, replaced him.
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- The author of that book — John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser — said in an interview with ABC News on Sunday that Trump posed a “danger for the republic.”
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- Another former administration official — Jim Mattis, a retired Marine general who served as defense secretary — said Trump was trying to divide the country and “make a mockery of our Constitution.”
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- The commissioner of the N.F.L. switched his position on player protests about racial injustice, which angered Trump.
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These acts of defiance are both a sign of Trump’s current weakness and a further cause of it, as Matt Glassman, a Georgetown University political scientist, told me. People feel more comfortable opposing Trump because they think he is on the wrong side of public opinion on several major issues. |
And the more people who defy Trump, the less difficult it becomes for others to do so. It was especially striking to see Senator Lindsey Graham, a frequent Trump defender, decline to support the Trump administration’s choice of a new federal prosecutor. “It’s not a random, rogue action,” Glassman said. “It’s a calculated move based on the weakness of the president.” |
None of this means Trump is doomed to lose in November. Past presidential candidates, like George H.W. Bush and Harry Truman, overcame polling deficits bigger than the one Trump currently has against Joe Biden. But sustained weakness is very dangerous for a politician. |
1. A million tickets? Not exactly |
 | | A thin crowd in the upper deck at President Trump’s rally on Saturday.Doug Mills/The New York Times |
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“The president, who had been warned aboard Air Force One that the crowds at the arena were smaller than expected, was stunned, and he yelled at aides backstage while looking at the endless rows of empty blue seats in the upper bowl of the stadium, according to four people familiar with what took place.” |
A safe space for believers: In his speech, Trump dismissed challenges facing the country — including a pandemic with no end in sight and enduring racial inequities — in favor of describing the U.S. as he wished it to be, The Times’s Astead Herndon writes. |
2. The coronavirus keeps spreading |
The recent surge in new cases isn’t simply about the nationwide growth in testing. The percentage of positive tests has also been rising in recent days, to 5.3 percent on Sunday, from 4.4 percent a week earlier, as FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver noted. |
In other virus developments: |
3. Missed signs before a base shooting |
In December, an international military student from Saudi Arabia opened fire at the naval air station in Pensacola, Fla., killing three sailors and wounding eight other people. A Times investigation into the shooting found that U.S. and Saudi officials missed numerous clues on social media that the gunman had been radicalized. |
Here’s what else is happening |
 | | Patrick T. Fallon/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
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- A survey of state legislators in Mississippi found that 63 wanted to change the state flag, the only one in the U.S. to still feature the Confederate battle flag. Only seven legislators wanted to keep it, and 51 wanted voters to decide.
- Another night of gunfire at Seattle’s protester-led “autonomous zone” — from which police have pulled back — sent one person to the hospital.
- NASCAR is investigating a noose found in the garage of Bubba Wallace, the only black driver in its top racing series.
- The American Museum of Natural History in New York said it would remove a bronze statue of Theodore Roosevelt, on horseback and flanked by a Native American man and an African man, that has presided over the museum’s entrance since 1940.
- Twelve women are under consideration to be Joe Biden’s running mate, according to Times reporting. Here’s a guide.
- Lives lived: The Italian prosecutor Paolo Ferri hunted down looted antiquities, recovering thousands of items that had been smuggled from ancient Greek and Roman sites. His work led to “the great giveback,” during which American museums have returned at least 120 ill-gotten artifacts. He has died at 72.
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| BACK STORY: SURPRISE MEDICAL BILLS |
Last week, my colleague Sarah Kliff noticed something strange. A medical lab in Dallas had charged as much as $2,315 apiece for coronavirus tests, even though a test typically costs $100. Sarah called the lab to ask about the price — and the lab quickly dropped it to $300. |
It isn’t the first time something like this happened. In her years of covering health care for Vox and now The Times, Sarah has frequently reported on the arbitrary nature of medical costs, often highlighting extreme examples. After these examples receive public attention, health care providers sometimes reduce the price. |
Of course, most medical bills don’t become the subject of journalistic investigations. Which means that medical labs, drug companies, hospitals and doctors’ offices are often able to charge high prices to insurance companies and patients, without consequence. |
“If you look at pretty much any other developed country — Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Singapore, the list goes on — the government does some version of rate setting,” Sarah told us. “The United States doesn’t.” That’s one reason that the cost of health care in the U.S. is higher than in any other country. |
There is, of course, plenty of mouthwatering food: hot gumbo with okra, kebabs turning over a fire, beef simmering in a coconut curry. But as the long-running “Top Chef” host visits farms, homes and community centers across the country, the camera lingers on the people who make the food, using the dishes to highlight the history of specific communities through a “nuanced, truth-seeking point of view.” |
 | | Naomi Campbell, photographed via FaceTime.Gioncarlo Valentine for The New York Times |
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There are few people in this world who were as equipped for a pandemic as the supermodel Naomi Campbell. Long before most people were taking such steps, Campbell was wearing a face mask on planes and meticulously wiping down nearly every surface near her seat. She even owns a hazmat suit. |
The Times caught up with her in Los Angeles, where she has kept busy by sharing her daily workouts on Instagram, attending virtual meetings and filming interviews with old friends like Cindy Crawford. |
Across the country, hundreds of rodeos have been canceled because of the pandemic. Tumbleweeds gather in the box seats of arenas, and the loss of millions of dollars in prize money is a blow to the 5,000 registered cowboys and cowgirls who compete each year. |
Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David |
P.S. Join The Times’s Tara Parker-Pope for a conversation (and a live workout) with the creator of the original 7-Minute Workout, Chris Jordan, today at 1 p.m. Eastern. |
Today’s episode of “The Daily” is about how social media giants are undermining the Black Lives Matter movement. |
Ian Prasad Philbrick and Sanam Yar contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com. |
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