Two top Washington Post journalists are out with a stunning story Saturday morning, an inside look at President Donald Trump’s “risky push to reopen the country amid the coronavirus crisis.”

Robert Costa and Philip Rucker took a deep dive into this week’s developments, writing that “in private discussions, the president has been driven much more by economic concerns, according to people involved in internal debates or briefed on them. Trump has long viewed the stock market as a barometer for his own reelection hopes, and he has been distraught at the meltdown in recent weeks. He has been inundated with calls from business leaders, wealthy supporters and conservative allies urging him to get Americans back to work and stave off further calamity, even if doing so carries health risks.”

Then, this chilling insight from a former Trump official:

“There’s a fatalism that no matter what he does, he’s going to get blamed by half of the country,” said a former senior administration official with knowledge of Trump’s thinking. “If there is something he has some measure of control over, which is the economy, why not potentially try to take action? Yes, there will be a death toll, and he’ll get blamed one way or another, but in all likelihood, whether he gets reelected or not will depend on where the economy is and where people’s perceptions of the economy are six months from now. That’s where he is primarily focused.”

Read the entire story here.

Image: Official White House Photo by Tia Dufour via Flickr 

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for the second time in two weeks has just blocked Democratic bills that would end the shutdown and reopen the government from being voted on.

Leader McConnell, a Republican of Kentucky, has been largely absent from the entire shutdown, instead holding back and allowing voters to blame the President and Congressional Democrats for the shutdown.

“The solution to this is a negotiation between the one person in the country who can sign something into law, the president of the United States, and our Democratic colleagues,” McConnell said Tuesday morning, as The Hill reported.

Leader McConnell has refused to challenge President Trump with any legislation, instead working to support the President at every turn. He says he will not allow any bill to receive a vote if he cannot be certain Trump will sign it.

President Trump has never been put in a position where he has vetoed a bill, and the Senate has never been tested to override a Trump veto.

In December, the Senate voted unanimously to keep the federal government open and running, but the President announced he would not sign the legislation once the House voted on it. The Senate  has the ability to override a Trump veto on funding the government.