Biden's VP shortlist As the coronavirus pandemic sweeps across the globe, party politics have taken a backseat. As a result, Maclean's is pausing this America 2020 U.S. politics newsletter and will restart closer to the presidential election campaign. The other newsletters in our stable will continue — if you're not already subscribed to our daily coronavirus newsletter, you can do so here. Thanks for reading, and see you in the fall! Biden to choose his own replacement: If Joe Biden becomes the Democratic presidential nominee as expected, he would be the oldest person ever elected president, so a lot would be riding on his choice of vice president: “The most important thing is that there has to be someone who, the day after they’re picked, is prepared to be president of the United States of America, if something happened," Biden recently told a group of donors. And while he wants a running mate who agrees with him on the major issues —"The reason why it worked for Barack [Obama] and me so well is we agreed substantively on every major issue," Biden recently said, not entirely accurately. The ongoing public health crisis has made it an important priority to find someone who is ready to step up if something happens to him. The Biden running-mate bracket: Biden has already pledged that his vice president will be a woman, and according to Gabriel Debenedetti of New York magazine, most insiders think the three top prospects are three U.S. Senators who ran unsuccessfully for the presidential nomination: California's Kamala Harris, whose Senate seat the Democrats would have no trouble holding, Minnesota's Amy Klobuchar, a Midwestern moderate, and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who might theoretically help Biden shore up his support with progressive voters. Others who have been mentioned include Gretchen Whitmer, the current governor of Michigan, Florida congresswoman Val Demings and Stacey Abrams, who ran a close though unsuccessful race for Governor of Georgia. Klobuchar's husband recovering: One of Biden's potential VP picks, Amy Klobuchar, recently announced that her husband John Bessler had been hospitalized due to pneumonia and breathing complications caused by COVID-19. On Thursday, the Senator had better news, announcing that Bessler "took a good turn, was just released and is now recovering at home. Thanks to those who cared for him and for all front line health care workers." Governors try to get Trump's attention: It's not fun being a U.S. state governor in the middle of the worst pandemic in living memory. Not only are they desperate for help, but a lot of that help needs to come from a federal government run by Donald J. Trump, who is notoriously capricious. Some Democratic governors have tried to flatter Trump to make sure that he won't turn his back on them, which is why Trump critics like Gavin Newsom in California and Andrew Cuomo in New York have begun praising the president for his response every chance they get. However, Illinois' J.B. Pritzker took a different tack: The first-term Democrat blasted the Trump administration Sunday on CNN for failing to help states obtain masks, gloves and other protective gear. It got President Donald Trump’s attention. After a Twitter feud and some mudslinging (Pritzker compared Trump to a “carnival barker”), the two got on the phone Monday, and Trump promised Illinois 250,000 masks and 300 ventilators. It may turn out that Trump's defining trait is not that he loves to be flattered, but that he only cares about something when he hears about it on TV. — Jaime Weinman | 
