Donald Trump

New Yorker writer Jane Mayer reports on conditions at a Delaware poultry processing plant owned by a major Trump donor: "No matter what's going on, they've got to keep those chicken lines running."

Larry Tye has written a new biography of Senator Joseph McCarthy who led an Anti-communist crusade in the 1950s. More than 70 years later, Tye draws a parallel between McCarthy's tactics and President Trump's divisive rhetoric. He notes that McCarthy's chief legal counsel, Roy Cohn, served as Trump's lawyer and mentor in the 1970s. But beyond that, he says, both McCarthy and Trump are "bullies" who exploit fears and "point fingers when they're attacked."

Atlantic writer Anne Applebaum draws parallels between regimes in Eastern Europe and the Trump White House. She says our democracy can be destroyed — unless people fight back.

In her New York Times Magazine article, Emily Bazelon says it's estimated that it would take $4 billion to properly run the election in November; Congress has allocated only $400 million.

New York Times reporter Jesse Drucker says the economic relief package is full of provisions aimed at big companies and wealthy individuals — some of whom may not have been impacted by the pandemic.

New Yorker writer Jane Mayer says the Senate majority leader has thrown his support behind the president — despite the fact that "behind Trump's back, he says he detests him, can't stand him."

Actor Zoe Kazan describes her new HBO series, The Plot Against America, as "scarily prescient." The show, which is adapted from Philip Roth's 2004 novel, is set in the U.S. between 1940 and 1942, and imagines a world in which aviator Charles Lindbergh has defeated Franklin D. Roosevelt in the race for the presidency, moving the country toward fascism.

President Trump's daily briefings on the COVID-19 pandemic have introduced millions of Americans to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. At times, the specialist in infectious diseases has differed with the president during the briefings, correcting him on the seriousness of the virus or on the timeline for developing a vaccine. That's fueled speculation that Fauci's tenure might be cut short.

Author David Rohde refutes Trump's claims about a "deep state" — and argues that the president is the one creating a parallel shadow government filled with like-minded loyalists.