On Monday, Georgia allowed restaurants and movie theaters to begin reopening to the public. That move, which follows the reopening of several other types of businesses on Friday, has been widely criticized.
Even President Trump, who had been tweeting at different states to 'LIBERATE' themselves, said that he disagreed strongly with Georgia's Governor Brian Kemp on his timing on easing restrictions.
But renowned neurosurgeon and Trump's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, Dr. Ben Carson said that the rest of the country will gain a lot of insight from Georgia's experiment if it leads to success or added hardship.
"I think we'll soon know the answer to that. Either way, we're going to get some beneficial information," Carson told Cheddar over the phone Monday. "If what they did results in a thick spike and a horrible situation, then that tells everybody else, 'hold on.'"
Georgia also has one of the highest African-American populations in the country. Carson discussed the higher mortality rate observed particularly among black and Hispanic populations is actually a problem known about for a long time, yet little has been done to address it.
"Minority communities have a much higher mortality rate because of the underlying diseases," Carson said, listing hypertension and heart disease as examples. "We haven't done what we need to do to change the environments… If we don't go to the very foundation of the problem, then it's just patchwork."
Carson's Twitter feed itself is filled with positive stories of 'Neighbors Helping Neighbors,' a campaign his office is promoting amid the pandemic. The former brain surgeon also said there have been positive developments taking place regarding the virus.
"There are a number of [treatments] that are on the horizon that actually look extremely promising," he said.
Carson credited another government agency, the FDA, for being aggressive in allowing more treatments to be studied faster.
"Some of the double-blind studies are being done now on things that are controversial," Carson admitted. "In another month or two, we'll have the information on whether certain things are helpful or not helpful."
Researchers call the opposite of a double-blind study, open-label, where health care providers and patients are all aware of the experiment taking place. Georgia's experiment certainly will be visible to an entire country watching.
President Donald Trump says a deal struck by Netflix last week to buy Warner Bros. Discovery “could be a problem” because of the size of the combined market share. The Republican president says he will be involved in the decision about whether federal regulators should approve the deal. Trump commented Sunday when he was asked about the deal as he walked the red carpet at the Kennedy Center Honors. The $72 billion deal would bring together two of the biggest players in television and film and potentially reshape the entertainment industry.
Real estate software company RealPage has agreed to stop sharing nonpublic information between landlords as part of a settlement with the Department of Justice.
A legislative package to end the government shutdown appears on track. A handful of Senate Democrats joined with Republicans to advance the bill after what's become a deepening disruption of federal programs and services. But hurdles remain. Senators are hopeful they can pass the package as soon as Monday and send it to the House. What’s in and out of the bipartisan deal has drawn criticism and leaves few senators fully satisfied. The legislation includes funding for SNAP food aid and other programs while ensuring backpay for furloughed federal workers. But it fails to fund expiring health care subsidies Democrats have been fighting for, pushing that debate off for a vote next month.
Sabrina Siddiqui, National Politics Reporter at The Wall Street Journal, joins to break down the SNAP funding delays and the human cost of the ongoing shutdown.
Arguments at the Supreme Court have concluded for the day as the justices consider President Donald Trump's sweeping unilateral tariffs in a trillion-dollar test of executive power.
President Donald Trump said he has decided to lower his combined tariff rates on imports of Chinese goods to 47% after talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on curbing fentanyl trafficking.
The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate Wednesday for a second time this year as it seeks to shore up economic growth and hiring even as inflation stays elevated. The move comes amid a fraught time for the central bank, with hiring sluggish and yet inflation stuck above the Fed’s 2% target. Compounding its challenges, the central bank is navigating without much of the economic data it typically relies on from the government. The Fed has signaled it may reduce its key rate again in December but the data drought raises the uncertainty around its next moves. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters that there were “strongly differing views” at the central bank's policy meeting about to proceed going forward.
U.S. and Chinese officials say a trade deal between the world’s two largest economies is drawing closer. The sides have reached an initial consensus for President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to aim to finalize during their high-stakes meeting Thursday in South Korea. Any agreement would be a relief to international markets. Trump's treasury secretary says discussions with China yielded preliminary agreements to stop the precursor chemicals for fentanyl from coming into the United States. Scott Bessent also says Beijing would make “substantial” purchases of soybean and other agricultural products while putting off export controls on rare earth elements needed for advanced technologies.
