AP: On virus, Trump and health advisers go their separate ways
“A multi-state coronavirus surge in the countdown to Election Day has exposed a clear split between President Donald Trump’s bullish embrace of a return to normalcy and urgent public warnings from the government’s top health officials. … The Republican president and the health officials appear to be moving farther apart since White House chief of staff Mark Meadows declared last Sunday ‘we’re not going to control the pandemic’…” (Alonso-Zaldivar, 10/30).

POLITICO: Pence absent from Covid-19 planning calls for more than a month
“When Vice President Mike Pence first took charge of the White House’s coronavirus task force, among his earliest moves was establishing a standing call with all 50 governors aimed at closely coordinating the nation’s pandemic fight. Yet as the U.S. confronts its biggest Covid-19 surge to date, Pence hasn’t attended one of those meetings in over a month. … It’s a prolonged absence that represents just the latest sign of the task force’s diminished role in the face of the worsening public health crisis it was originally created to combat…” (Cancryn/Goldberg, 10/29).