WHAT'S BREWING
FAUCI RESPONDS TO BANNON'S 'BEHEADING' CALL Dr. Anthony Fauci acknowledged former White House strategist Steve Bannon’s horrifying remarks about beheading him, calling the situation “really kind of unusual.” Fauci, a member of Trump’s coronavirus task force, was discussing the stresses of his job during an interview on Australian television. “It’s obviously been very stressful. I mean, to deny that would be to deny reality,” Fauci said. [HuffPost]
HURRICANES ARE LASTING LONGER OVER LAND Peer-reviewed findings indicate that the intense storms like those that have wreaked havoc across the U.S. Gulf Coast are a sign of things to come as the climate warms. The research offers a sound rebuttal of the Trump administration’s stance that hurricanes today are virtually unchanged from a century ago. “The havoc will not be constrained to the coastal areas but will creep further inland, which of course then catches people unprepared,” physicist Pinaki Chakraborty says. [HuffPost]
ELECTION LIES SPREAD BY TRUMP'S ADULT KIDS LAID BARE CNN’s Don Lemon highlighted the misinformation that has been spread by Trump’s adult children in the wake of their father’s election defeat. Donald Trump Jr. has flooded his Twitter feed with “unhinged and unfounded” claims about election fraud. Eric Trump, meanwhile, was busted for sharing a fake video that falsely claimed to show ballots cast for his dad being burned. [HuffPost]
POSTAL WORKER RECANTS VOTE FRAUD ALLEGATION A Pennsylvania postal worker who levied unfounded allegations of voter fraud recanted his statement with federal officials even as he continued to publicly cast doubt on the U.S. presidential election results. Richard Hopkins claimed last week that a postmaster in Erie had instructed postal workers to backdate ballots mailed after Election Day. On Tuesday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee said Hopkins had signed a sworn affidavit recanting his allegations. [HuffPost]
TRUMP-SUPPORTING PASTOR BREAKS RANKS An evangelical Christian leader who has been one of Trump’s biggest supporters is breaking ranks with the president over who won the election. In an op-ed for Fox News, Robert Jeffress said “it appears that former Vice President Joe Biden will become the 46th president of the United States on Jan. 20, unless President Trump succeeds in legal challenges to the counting of votes in several states.” [HuffPost]
TRUMP'S ELECTION PARTY LOOKS LIKE ANOTHER SUPERSPREADER Just over a month after the first COVID-19 superspreader event at the White House, which hospitalized the president and infected around three dozen others, it looks like team Trump is responsible for another one. The cluster of cases this time appears linked to an election night watch party inside the White House East Room, where hundreds of guests mingled for hours unmasked without any social distancing. [HuffPost] | 