Trump's stealth rallies Welcome to the Maclean's Politics Insider: America 2020, launched for readers who crave U.S. political news during primary season. If you want to receive this new newsletter, take no action, it will arrive in your inbox every weekday at noon. If you'd rather not receive it, please unsubscribe here. Trump uses COVID briefings as stealth rallies: Every day, President Donald Trump appears alongside various officials and experts to brief reporters on the U.S.'s fight against COVID-19. And while those officials and experts sometimes give useful information, veteran Trump-checker Daniel Dale has noticed that Trump himself appears to be using these events as a substitute for his beloved campaign rallies, which he's currently unable to hold because of the pandemic: Trump's rally scripts included a list of positive economic statistics. Now that those numbers have been rendered obsolete by the virus, Trump has turned to reminding Americans that the economy used to be thriving -- and making vague pledges that things will be just as prosperous, or even more so, once the virus is gone. Biden uncomfortable on the attack: While Trump uses the briefings to make daily marathon TV appearances (and boost his approval ratings), his likely opponent Joe Biden continues to face criticism within his party for his low media profile. The New York Times looked into some of the reasons for Biden's reticence, including the fact that he's a good party man who doesn't want to tell elected Democrats like Nancy Pelosi how to do their jobs: "he is deferential to his party’s current leaders," the paper explains, "and does not want to complicate their already difficult tasks at a moment of crisis." One thing he's been doing to deal with this is to build "a kind of government-in-exile" of experts he will call on if elected, who can act as his media surrogates: the best-received Biden campaign video was one where Biden stepped aside and turned the whole thing over to Ron Klain, his former chief of staff. Georgia moves toward all-mail voting: The pandemic has led to increased calls to give all U.S. elections a vote-by-mail option. Georgia, whose primary has been rescheduled for May 12 (it was originally supposed to take place yesterday), demonstrated how this can be done without changing the existing laws: the state's Secretary of State, Republican Brad Raffensperger, announced that every active voter will receive a request form for an absentee ballot , giving them an option that has traditionally been reserved for residents who can't be in the state. However, voters "will still be required to return their absentee ballot request forms before they receive an actual ballot." Trump benching pandemic expert?: One notable absence at Trump's recent briefings was Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime head of the U.S.'s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Fauci's statements on the epidemic got him the best media reviews of anyone in the administration, but he vanished from the briefings after a session where he openly contradicted some of Trump's statements, amid rumours that Trump and his advisers no longer trusted him. On Tuesday, Trump did a live town hall on Fox News and another press conference, and Fauci was conspicuously absent from both; when a Fox host asked him where the scene-stealing doctor was, Trump replied, "we get along very well. He has other things to do." — Jaime Weinman | 
