Newsletter

The Evening: Watchdog Removed, Navy Sec Resigns, Won’t Get Fooled Again and More

April 7, 2020

Watchdog Removed

President Trump removed the chairman of the federal panel Congress created to oversee his administration’s management of the $2 trillion stimulus package, and in New York the death toll reached a new one-day high, but Gov. Andrew Cuomo called the downward trend in hospitalizations encouraging, as the Washington Post reports.

Meanwhile, as the NYT’s Maggie Haberman reports , White House trade adviser Peter Navarro starkly warned Trump administration officials in late January that the coronavirus crisis could cost the United States trillions of dollars and put millions of Americans at risk of illness or death.

Dive Deeper: Listen to the NYT’s Maggie Haberman discuss her scoop about the Navarro memo on the new episode of The Truth of the Matter .

Navy Secretary Resigns

Thomas B. Modly, the acting Navy secretary, resigned Tuesday following his response to an outbreak of the virus aboard the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, as Politico’s Laura Seligman reports.

U.S. Oil Production

U.S. production of crude oil will fall 13% by year’s end, according to a government forecast Tuesday—numbers the White House hopes to use to convince Saudi Arabia and Russia to end their price war, as the WSJ ’s Timothy Puko reports.

On the Horizon

On the Horizon banner image
The Covid-19 crisis will change the Europe we have known for the past 70 years. What is on the short- and long-term horizon once the pandemic passes?

CSIS’s “On the Horizon” series offers insights into the more fundamental changes we might anticipate for our future social and economic world as a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic.

CSIS Executive Education

We invite you to apply to Unpacking the Defense Enterprise, a a three-day live, online course exploring defense strategy, budgetary and technical issues, and future challenges and opportunities in the U.S. defense enterprise.

Video Shorts

Check out CSIS’s new series of video shorts: “Testify,” "What's Happening," "Preview," and “High Resolution.” And don’t forget to subscribe to the CSIS YouTube Channel!

In That Number

73%

Nearly three in four Americans (73%) surveyed between March 24 and March 29 said that their family incomes have been reduced during the coronavirus outbreak.

Source: Financial Times-Peterson Foundation US Economic Monitor

Critical Quote

“This is not an act of God we’re looking at. It’s an act of what society actually does.”

— New York Governor Andrew Cuomo

iDeas Lab

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a flagship of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) officially launched in April 2015, promised transformational gains. Five years later, however, only one-quarter of the announced projects have been completed.

The Andreas C. Dracopoulos iDeas Lab at CSIS enhances our research with the latest in cutting-edge web technologies, design, and video.

Optics

CSIS
(Photo credit: Derek R. Henkle/AFP via Getty Images). Elections Chief Inspector Mary Magdalen Moser runs a polling location in Kenosha, Wisconsin today.

Online Events

At 10:00 a.m., CSIS will webcast a conversation with Special Representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams on U.S. policy toward Venezuela and the State Department's newly released Democratic Transition Framework for Venezuela.

Later, at 1:00 p.m., CSIS will livestream a discussion on the trajectory of

U.S.-China technology cooperation after the Covid-19 pandemic.

And, at 2:30 p.m., the Atlantic Council will host a webcast debate on the impact of spheres of influence on U.S. foreign policy.

Video

Sarah Ladislaw, director of the CSIS Energy Security and Climate Change program, explains the origins of the current oil market crisis, how it impacts the greater global economy, and U.S. government response. Watch the full video here.

Podcasts

Die Welt
In the latest episode of Coronavirus Crisis Update, Steve and I spoke with Ron Klain, former Ebola response coordinator in the Obama administration and adviser to the Joe Biden 2020 presidential campaign. With the pandemic expected to reach peak levels these upcoming weeks, we asked him to look ahead—what will people think about our response and how we reached this treacherous moment?

Listen on Apple Podcasts & Spotify.

New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman joined me to trade adviser Peter Navarro's memo to the Trump administration about the implications of Covid-19, dated back in January, and what it's like covering the White House during this pandemic.