Today in one sentence: Trump claimed that he told "his people" to "slow the testing down" for the coronavirus; Trump, Pence, and administration officials all gave conflicting explanations as to what Trump meant when he said he instructed staff to slow down coronavirus testing; Trump was reportedly "furious" about the "underwhelming" crowd at his rally in Tulsa; eight members of Trump's team involved in the Tulsa rally have tested positive for COVID-19; and Attorney General William Barr said Trump fired the federal prosecutor whose office prosecuted several of his associates.

  • 😷 Dept. of “We Have It Totally Under Control.”

  • Global: Total confirmed cases: ~9,037,000; deaths: ~471,000; recoveries: ~4,394,000. (Johns Hopkins University)

  • U.S.: Total confirmed cases: ~2,306,000; deaths: ~121,000; recoveries: ~641,000.

  • Trump claimed that he told “his people” to “slow the testing down” for the coronavirus, calling testing “a double-edged sword” because the “bad part” is the increase in recorded coronavirus cases. Speaking at a campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday, Trump remarked that “When you do testing to that extent, you’re going to find more people, you’re going to find more cases, so I said to my people, ‘Slow the testing down, please.’” (Washington Post / Axios / BuzzFeed News / Daily Beast)

  • Trump, Pence, and administration officials all gave conflicting explanations as to what Trump meant when he said he instructed staff to slow down coronavirus testing. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany claimed Trump had not “directed” a coronavirus testing slowdown and that his comment had been made “in jest.” White House trade adviser Peter Navarro claimed that Trump’s comments were clearly “tongue in cheek” and a light moment. Pence, meanwhile, told governors that Trump’s testing comments at the rally were “a passing observation.” Trump, however, wouldn’t directly answer whether he had ordered slowing testing down, saying “If it did slow down, frankly, I think we’re way ahead of ourselves, if you want to know the truth.” Trump also declined to confirm that he was joking about his comment to slow down testing. (Politico / NBC News / Daily Beast / Bloomberg / USA Today / Axios)

  • Trump referred to the coronavirus in racist terms, calling it both the “Chinese virus” and “Kung Flu” during his rally in Tulsa. In March, CBS News reporter Weijia Jiang, who is Chinese-American, said a White House official referred to the coronavirus as the “Kung Flu” to her face. And then in May, Trump told Jiang to “ask China” about his administration’s efforts to ramp up testing. (BuzzFeed News)

  • The Trump administration has yet to distribute up to $14 billion in funding authorized by Congress for coronavirus testing and contact tracing. Top Democrats sent a letter to Heath and Human Services secretary Alex Azar demanding to know why the administration has “still failed” to distribute more than $8 billion of the $25 billion Congress set aside in April to expand testing and contact tracing. The letter calls on the White House to “immediately disburse the remainder of the $25 billion in funds to ramp up testing and contact tracing capacity,” including up to $2 billion meant to ensure testing is available to uninsured Americans. (NBC News)

  • The White House stopped conducting mandatory temperature checks for staffers and visitors entering the grounds. Those who come in close contact with Trump and Pence, however, will still have their temperature checked and be questioned about symptoms. (NBC News)

  • The World Health Organization said the record number of global coronavirus cases are not the result of more testing. On Sunday, the number of new cases reported to WHO jumped by more than 183,000, “easily” the most in a single day so far, WHO officials said. As of Sunday, the U.S.′ seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases increased more than 24% compared with a week ago, and cases are growing by 5% or more in 25 states across the U.S. (CNBC)

1/ Trump was reportedly “furious” about the “underwhelming” crowd at his rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. About 6,200 attendees filled the 19,000-person capacity BOK Center, despite Trump’s re-election campaign earlier boasting that nearly one million people had registered for tickets to attend the event. Trump went on to spend nearly two hours airing grievances, falsehoods, and misleading claims, referring to COVID-19 as the “kung flu,” calling racial justice demonstrators “thugs,” attacking efforts to take down Confederate statues as an assault on “our heritage,” and even making up a hypothetical scenario involving a “very tough hombre” who broke into a woman’s home while her husband was away. Trump and Pence also canceled plans at the last minute to speak at an outdoor overflow rally, which was almost entirely empty. (Washington Post / NBC News / New York Times / Washington Post)

  • Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump “pissed” at campaign manager Brad Parscale over his promise of a much larger crowd at the Tulsa rally, according to a Trump campaign source. In a statement, Parscale, however, blamed the low attendance on “a week’s worth of the fake news media warning people away from the rally because of COVID and protesters”, which he said “coupled with recent images of American cities on fire, had a real impact on people bringing their families and children to the rally.” (CNN / The Guardian)

  • TikTok users and fans of Korean pop music may have inflated the Trump campaign’s expectations for attendance that led to Saturday’s disappointing turnout. TikTok and K-pop fan accounts claimed to have registered potentially hundreds of thousands of tickets for Trump’s campaign rally as a prank. (New York Times / Associated Press)

2/ Two members of Trump’s campaign team who attended Saturday’s rally have tested positive for the coronavirus. In total, eight members of Trump’s team involved in the Tulsa rally have tested positive. Hours before Trump was expected to arrive in Oklahoma, six campaign staffers tested positive for the coronavirus. Trump was “particularly angry that before he even left DC, aides made public that six members of team in Tulsa tested positive for COVID-19.” (CNBC / CNN / Associated Press / NBC News)

3/ Trump claimed on Twitter that the 2020 election will be “RIGGED” by “FOREIGN COUNTRIES, AND OTHERS”, who he says will print “MILLIONS OF MAIL-IN BALLOTS” to throw off the official vote counts. He added that “IT WILL BE THE SCANDAL OF OUR TIMES!” Trump argued that vote-by-mail isn’t necessary during the coronavirus pandemic because “we voted during World War One and World War Two with no problem.” To successfully forge mail-in ballots, a foreign entity would need to have a list of absentee voters in a state, know who had already voted, and be able to replicate key details like precinct and voter ID numbers and the local races on each ballot. It would have to also match the forged signature on the envelope to the one on file, and then mail them locally to ensure a proper postmark. (Bloomberg / The Independent / Washington Post)

4/ Attorney General William Barr said Trump fired the federal prosecutor whose office prosecuted several of his associates, including Michael Cohen and Rudy Giuliani. Late Friday, Barr announced that Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman had resigned and that Trump planned to nominate the current chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Jay Clayton, for the job. Berman, however, said he had not resigned and intended to stay in the job to ensure the cases continue unimpeded. The day before, supervisors at the Justice Department asked Berman to sign a letter criticizing New York Mayor Bill de Blasio for the city’s enforcement of social distancing rules to block religious gatherings but not protests. Berman refused to sign the letter Thursday, prompting Barr to abruptly announced Berman’s resignation Friday. In a letter released by the Justice Department, Barr told Berman that Trump had fired him and that he would be replaced temporarily with his chief deputy, Audrey Strauss. Barr said he had asked Trump to fire Berman. Trump, however, told reporters that Berman’s ouster was “all up to the attorney general” and that he wasn’t involved in the matter, because “That’s his department, not my department.” [Editor’s note: Including all the links to all the stories over this 48-hour span of news.] (Wall Street Journal / New York Times / New York Times / Associated Press / Washington Post / Wall Street Journal / CNN / NBC News / New York Times / Associated Press / Washington Post)

5/ A federal judge ruled that John Bolton can publish his memoir, rejecting the Trump administration’s effort to block the release because of concerns that it contained classified information. U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, however, said the former Trump national security adviser “likely jeopardized national security” and exposed himself to criminal prosecution. Lamberth noted that the book, which is scheduled to be released Tuesday, had already been widely distributed with more than 200,000 copies already shipped for sale, and could easily be distributed further on the internet, even if the court said it could not be. (New York Times / Associated Press / Washington Post / CNN)

  • Trump claimed that his niece had signed a nondisclosure agreement and is “not allowed” write her tell-all book about Trump and his family. Mary Trump signed a nondisclosure agreement following a 2001 settlement from litigation disputing Fred Trump Sr.‘s estate. Mary Trump’s book reportedly reveals that she was the primary source for The New York Times’ 2018 investigation that found Trump helped “his parents dodge taxes” in the 1990s, including “instances of outright fraud” that allowed him to amass a fortune from them. (Axios / Daily Beast / CNN)

Fox News poll/ 80% of voters have a favorable view of mask-wearers. Separately, 59% said presidential candidates holding large political events and rallies is a bad idea. (Fox News)

Notables.

  1. Trump issued an executive order barring many categories of foreign workers and curbing immigration visas through the end of the year. Administration officials claimed the move will safeguard jobs for unemployed Americans amid the coronavirus pandemic. The measures will apply only to applicants seeking to come to the United States, not workers who already are on U.S. soil. (Washington Post / NPR / Wall Street Journal)

  2. Trump backtracked on his remarks that he’s had second thoughts about his decision to recognize Juan Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela and that he was open to meeting with dictator Nicolás Maduro. (Washington Post / Axios)

  3. White House adviser Kevin Hassett will leave the administration this summer. Hassett, who returned to the White House as an unpaid volunteer in March, has consistently warned about the economic downsides from the pandemic and has pushed for more spending to combat an unemployment rate that he’s warned could hit 23%. (Axios / Washington Post)

Two years ago today: Day 519: Phony stories.
Three years ago today: Day 154: Win, win, win.