As the Senate continued its stalemate ahead of Friday’s expiration of the weekly $600 in federal jobless aid, President Trump, whose unsteady handling of the virus has left him trailing in the polls, floated the idea of changing the date of the presidential election — which he has no authority to do, and which instantly drew rare rebukes from top Republicans.
The president, who has been pushing for schools across the country to reopen for in-person instruction and calling on more governors to reopen their states even as federal data shows serious outbreaks across many states, broached the idea on Twitter, writing, “Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”
And as the U.S. surpassed 150,000 deaths, the highest toll of any nation in the world, Arizona, California, Florida and Mississippi all set records this week for the most deaths they have reported in a single day. Herman Cain, the businessman who made a bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012, died of the virus.
Arizona reported 158 new deaths on Thursday, a single-day record, according to a New York Times database. Florida set death records three days in a row this week, hitting its latest record, 253, on Thursday. And California saw back-to-back records, with 172 deaths reported on Tuesday and 192 on Wednesday.
In recent days the number of new cases in those states have stopped spiking, but the virus continues to spread widely and infect thousands of people. On average, in Arizona, there have been about 2,500 new cases a day; in California, more than 9,000 new cases a day; and more than 10,000 a day in Florida, which leads the country with the most new cases per 100,000 in the past week, according to the Times database.