Elizabeth Warren likened Mike Bloomberg to President Trump at the top of Wednesday night’s debate, warning Democrats not to substitute one “arrogant billionaire” with a history of misogyny for another. But it was Bernie Sanders who displayed flashes of his Trumpian side during the two-hour clash. The most significant illustration of this came as the senator from Vermont sought to justify his refusal to release his full medical records.

The 78-year-old would be the oldest president ever elected. Sanders suffered a heart attack in October just a few miles from the site of the debate, but his campaign refused to acknowledge the extent of what happened until three days later — late on a Friday. During the two weeks he spent recuperating at home, the senator told CNN’s Sanjay Gupta that the American people have a right to “full disclosure” about the health of someone running for president. “And we will make, at the appropriate time, all of our medical records public for you or anybody else who wants to see them,” he said.

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On New Year’s Eve, Sanders released summary letters from three physicians that concluded he’s healthy enough to be president. That’s far from his full medical records. Now leading in the national polls, after winning the most votes in the first two states, Sanders says that will have to suffice for people worried about his physical fitness to be commander in chief.

NBC correspondent Hallie Jackson, one of the debate moderators, noted that Sanders has attacked Trump for refusing to release his tax returns. “What,” she asked, “happened to your promise of full transparency?”

After thanking the doctors who took care of him, Sanders began his answer with the kind of whataboutism that we’ve grown to expect from Trump. “I think the one area maybe that Mayor Bloomberg and I share, you have two stents, as well,” he said. The former New York mayor, who has never had a heart attack, replied that those were installed two decades ago. “Well, we both have two stents,” Sanders replied. “It's a procedure that is done about a million times a year.”

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Then the septuagenarian claimed he’s released “the full report” of “all of my history,” which he has not. Sanders finished his answer by challenging anyone who doubts that he can deal with the stress of being president to “follow me around” on the campaign trail. “See how you're doing compared to me,” he said.

When John McCain ran for president in 2008, the then-72-year-old allowed reporters to review 1,173 pages of his medical records. But Trump, too, would only release a letter in 2016 from his doctor that said he was “in excellent physical health.” Like Sanders, he pointed to his stamina at rallies as evidence he was in good shape. He won anyway. The 73-year-old president raised a round of fresh questions about his medical status in November after making an unscheduled trip to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and then insisting that he merely wanted to get an early start on his physical.

After kneecapping Bloomberg during Wednesday’s debate, Warren trained her fire toward Sanders on Thursday. Asked what differentiates her from Sanders, she told MSNBC last night: “I get stuff done. … I don't want to be president just to yell at people. I want to be president to change things.” During a gaggle with reporters earlier in the day in Las Vegas, Warren attacked Sanders for not releasing his full medical records. “He had made a promise,” she said. “I don't think that's a question of opinion. Those aren’t medical records.”

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The 70-year-old senator from Massachusetts released a letter from her physician and five pages of supporting medical data last year. Former vice president Joe Biden, 77, released a three-page letter from his physician outlining his current condition and medical history. The youngest candidate in the race, 38-year-old Pete Buttigieg, noted that Barack Obama released his full medical records and details of annual physicals. “President Trump lowered that standard,” Buttigieg said during the debate. “He said just a letter from a doctor is enough. And a lot of folks on this stage are now saying that's enough. But I am certainly prepared to get a physical and put out the results. I think everybody here should be willing to do the same.”

When Sanders spokeswoman Briahna Joy Gray was pressed during a CNN appearance on Wednesday about why he hasn’t put out more medical records, she called it a “smear.” She even likened requests for more health information from Sanders to demands that Obama release his birth certificate.

To be sure, Trump and Sanders have vastly different agendas and stand on different sides of the ideological spectrum. It would be unfair to put too much emphasis on similarities. But one reason Sanders supporters like him, indisputably, is that he promises to fight Trump’s fire with more fire. His Trumpian flashes this week foreshadow what the general election might look like if he won the nomination.

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Sanders has been attacked for more than a week now after some of his supporters harassed Culinary Union officials on social media after they criticized his Medicare-for-all plan. Asked about this during the debate, Sanders distanced himself. “We have over 10.6 million people on Twitter, and 99.9 percent of them are decent human beings,” he said. “And if there are a few people who make ugly remarks, who attack trade union leaders, I disown those people. They are not part of our movement.”

Then he deflected in a way that seemed reminiscent of how Trump has deflected in the face of similar attacks. Sanders said his own surrogates, especially women of color, face similarly vicious attacks online. “And let me say something else about this, not being too paranoid,” he added. “All of us remember 2016, and what we remember is efforts by Russians and others to try to interfere in our election and divide us up. I'm not saying that's happening, but it would not shock me.”

Experts say there’s no evidence of Russians masquerading as Bernie Bros. “Absent direct evidence, researchers said Sanders’s comments threaten to foment further doubt about a campaign that has been buffeted by confidence-shaking missteps, beginning with the technical glitches that marred the Iowa caucuses earlier this month,” Isaac Stanley-Becker and Tony Romm report. “Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said Thursday it also had not seen evidence of Russian trolls masquerading as Sanders supporters. Twitter spokeswoman Katie Rosborough said the company would ‘disclose’ activity by Russia or other foreign actors if it had ‘reasonable evidence of state-backed information operations.’ … Researchers have found some of the most divisive tweets and memes during the 2020 election originate with specific, verified Sanders supporters. That includes the viral #mayorcheat hashtag that attacked Buttigieg for ties between the former mayor’s presidential campaign and Iowa caucus organizers, said Ben Nimmo, director of investigations at Graphika.”

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“The problem we face is the impression of meddling can be as damaging to the legitimacy of an election as meddling itself,” said Jessica Brandt, the head of policy and research at the Alliance for Securing Democracy, an arm of the German Marshall Fund.

House minority whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) recalled Thursday that he was wounded by a Sanders supporter during baseball practice 2017:

Both Trump and Sanders didn’t adopt the parties they now lead until late in life. Sanders, who still hasn’t formally become a Democrat, reportedly considered a primary challenge against Obama from the left in 2011 more seriously than he’s acknowledged. In 1987, Sanders — as a mayor of Burlington, Vt., — told the University of Vermont student newspaper that he was “physically nauseated” as a young man when he watched John F. Kennedy speak out against Fidel Castro’s revolution in Cuba. He said this was a factor in his decision to work outside the party system. That same year, Trump paid to run full-page ads in The Washington Post attacking Ronald Reagan’s foreign policy for lacking “backbone.”

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Ironically, Trump now touts Reagan and Sanders is currently airing a television commercial that likens him to Kennedy. After playing the sound bite from the speech in which Kennedy said that “we choose to go to the moon … not because it is easy but because it is hard,” Sanders narrates: “President Kennedy knew that settling for half-measures wasn't good enough. So when candidates say we can’t guarantee health care for all, make college affordable for all, combat climate change, or create a world at peace, remember: America is best when we strive to do big things, even when it’s hard.”

The debate again put in stark relief the collective action problem facing those who want to be the leading Sanders alternative, a dynamic I wrote about on the eve of the New Hampshire primary. Bloomberg’s spotty performance will prevent him from consolidating support in that lane. Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar went after each other because both are running close to even and competing for the same set of voters. It was the most-watched Democratic debate ever, with nearly 20 million people tuning into the telecast on NBC and MSNBC. The Sanders campaign said it raised $2.7 million from about 150,000 donors on Wednesday, his best haul of any of the nine debate days this cycle.

Of the six candidates onstage, Sanders was the only one who said the person with the most pledged delegates going into the convention this summer should definitely be the nominee. This represents a reversal from 2016 when he trailed Hillary Clinton among pledged delegates but thought he might persuade superdelegates that he’d be more electable. “What’s clear out of [Wednesday] night is, it’s hard to see what forces will stop Bernie from becoming the front-runner and just as hard to see how there will be any consolidation into a single candidate to oppose him,” said Robby Mook, who was Clinton’s campaign manager.

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“The dawning realization for many in the party is that what Democrats had envisioned as a jubilant national convention in Milwaukee … has the potential to turn into a pitched battle among multiple candidates and their supporters, each representing dueling ideological wings of the party and convinced that the other side would lose to Trump,” Matt Viser, Dan Balz and Annie Linskey report. “Top campaigns have not only staffed up with delegate experts to guide them through the intricacies of the primaries, but they also have built legal teams preparing to challenge any results that don’t go their way, according to interviews with 16 top party officials and strategists. And in preparation for a contested convention, some campaigns have started to reach out to superdelegates, in an attempt to secure support for a second ballot when they would come into play.”

Former Senate majority leader Harry Reid said no candidate should be given the nomination without winning an outright majority of delegates. “I don’t think that anybody — Bernie Sanders or anyone else — should simply get the nomination because they have 30 percent of the delegates and no one else has that many,” the Nevada Democrat told Paul Kane during an interview in his office at the Bellagio hotel. “We have to let the system work its way out. I do not believe anyone should get the nomination unless they have 50-plus-one.” Reid added that moderates could align themselves in an attempt to combine their delegates and overtake Sanders.

A favorite parlor game for Washington elites right now is speculating about how badly Sanders might lose in a general election. Veterans Democratic operatives wonder whether Democrats would lose the House if he’s at the top of the ticket. Many of them privately fear a blowout more akin to Michael Dukakis’s in 1988 than George McGovern’s in 1972. These conversations sound similar to the ones Republican operatives had as Trump took over their party four years ago.

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Republicans are increasingly using Sanders as a foil to target down-ballot Democrats. “Arizona Sen. Martha McSally launched a TV ad titled ‘Bernie Bro’ likening her Democratic opponent, retired astronaut Mark Kelly, to the Vermont senator,” Politico’s Alex Isenstadt notes. “North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis held a press conference last week linking his Democratic rivals to the Sanders-backed Green New Deal. In Michigan, a conservative group has aired a series of commercials that go after Democratic Sen. Gary Peters by invoking Sanders and his support for Medicare for All. And the Republican State Leadership Committee, which focuses on state legislative races, has been running digital ads asking whether down-ballot Democrats in more than a half-dozen states are ‘feeling burned yet’ — a take on the Sanders mantra, ‘Feel the Bern.’”

Sanders is dismissive of electability concerns. Asked during the debate about a poll that showed two-thirds of Americans uncomfortable with a socialist president, Sanders replied that the same poll showed him winning. “You might mention that,” he told NBC moderator Lester Holt. Indeed, the NBC-Wall Street Journal poll showed Sanders leading among Democratic primary voters, with 27 percent, followed by four candidates bunched together with support between 15 percent to 13 percent. It also found Sanders beating Trump 50 percent to 46 percent in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, which was within the margin of error. The same survey discovered that 67 percent said they have “reservations” or are “very uncomfortable” with a socialist candidate, 57 percent said the same about someone who had a heart attack in the last year and 53 percent said the same about someone who's older than 75.

After Buttigieg accused Sanders of wanting “to burn this party down,” Holt asked Sanders whether he’s polarizing. “If speaking to the needs and the pain of a long-neglected working class is polarizing,” he said, “I think you got the wrong word.”

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The Trump presidency

A senior U.S. intelligence official said Russia wants to see Trump reelected.

“After learning of that analysis, which was provided to House lawmakers in a classified hearing, Trump grew angry at his acting director of national intelligence, Joseph Maguire, in the Oval Office, seeing Maguire and his staff as disloyal for speaking to Congress about Russia’s perceived preference,” Ellen Nakashima, Shane Harris, Josh Dawsey and Anne Gearan report. “The intelligence official’s analysis and Trump’s furious response ­ruined Maguire’s chances of becoming the permanent intelligence chief. … It was not clear what specific steps, if any, U.S. intelligence officials think Russia may have taken to help Trump. … Trump announced on Wednesday that he was replacing Maguire with a vocal loyalist, Richard Grenell. … Maguire, a career official who is respected by the intelligence rank and file, was considered a leading candidate to be nominated to the post of DNI, White House aides had said. …

“The official, Shelby Pierson, said several times during the briefing that Russia had ‘developed a preference’ for Trump. … That conclusion was part of a broader discussion of election security that also touched on when the U.S. government should warn Democratic candidates if they are being targeted by foreign governments. … Trump erroneously believed that Pierson had given the assessment exclusively to Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.). … Trump also believed that the information would be helpful to Democrats if it were released publicly. … Trump learned about Pierson’s remarks from Rep. Devin Nunes (Calif.). …

“Trump became angry with Maguire and blamed him for Pierson’s remarks when the two met the next day during a special briefing for Trump on election security attended by officials from other agencies, but not Pierson. … He said that Maguire should not have let the Capitol Hill briefing happen. … Trump told Maguire and other aides in the Oval Office that he did not believe Russia was interfering to help him or planning to do so, and that the intelligence community was getting ‘played.’ … He said that the information would be used against him unfairly and that he could not believe that people were believing such a story again, reflecting his opinion that Russian interference in 2016 was a ‘hoax’ made up by officials with a political agenda. … Maguire struck an apologetic tone …

“White House officials said Trump’s decision to make Grenell the acting director rather than nominate him for the permanent position reflected concerns that he might not win confirmation in the Senate, given his polarizing reputation. … The president told reporters aboard Air Force One that Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.), a staunch Trump supporter who also is running for U.S. Senate, is under consideration for the permanent post. …

"The shake-up at the top of the intelligence community is the latest move in a post-impeachment purge. … The deputy national security adviser, Victoria Coates, has also been removed from her post after some colleagues, including trade adviser Peter Navarro, accused her of being the author of ‘Anonymous.’ … Coates has strenuously denied the accusation. She was moved to an advisory position in the Energy Department.” Meanwhile, a former NSC aide who tried to discredit the Russia probe has been promoted. Kash Patel is now a senior adviser for Grenell, per Politico. It’s not clear what exact role Patel, who used to work for Nunes, will play.

Breaking this morning: The U.S. plans to sign a peace deal with the Taliban on Feb. 29.

The deal will pass as long as a week-long reduction in violence across the country holds, according to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Susannah George and John Hudson report: “The violence reduction, the decisive condition of the possible peace deal, is set to begin early Saturday — just after midnight, according to Afghanistan's National Security Council and a senior State Department official. ‘U.S. negotiators in Doha have come to an understanding with the Taliban on a significant and nationwide reduction in violence across Afghanistan,’ Pompeo said in a statement Friday, referring to U.S.-Taliban talks in the Qatari capital. … The Taliban said ‘both parties will now create a suitable security situation in advance of agreement signing date, extend invitations to senior representatives of numerous countries and organizations to participate in the signing ceremony, make arrangements for the release of prisoners’ and prepare for intra-Afghan negotiations, according to the group's statement released to the media Friday. The U.S. military command in Kabul said it has nothing to announce at this time. … The week-long reduction in violence will require the Taliban, the United States and Afghan government-aligned forces to largely cease all planned offensive operations nationwide.”

Trump confidant and former adviser Roger Stone was sentenced to 40 months in prison.

“The penalty from U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson comes after weeks of infighting over the politically charged case that threw the Justice Department into crisis, and it is likely not to be the final word. Even before the sentencing hearing began, Trump seemed to suggest on Twitter that he might pardon Stone,” Rachel Weiner, Matt Zapotosky, Tom Jackman and Devlin Barrett report. “With the proceedings ongoing, Trump questioned whether his ally was being treated fairly. Afterward, he attacked the jury in the case and said he would ‘love to see Roger exonerated.’ … In a lengthy speech before imposing the penalty, Jackson seemed to take aim at Trump, saying Stone ‘was not prosecuted for standing up for the president; he was prosecuted for covering up for the president.’ She also appeared to call out Attorney General William P. Barr, saying his intervention to reduce career prosecutors’ sentencing recommendation was ‘unprecedented.’ But she said the politics surrounding the case had not influenced her decision.”

“Stone did not speak in court and showed no visible emotion as the sentence was read. Emerging from the courtroom in a wide-striped suit and polka-dot tie, he appeared calm. ‘I have nothing to say,’ Stone said. … Stone, 67, was convicted by a federal jury on seven counts of lying to Congress and tampering with a witness about his efforts to learn about hacked Democratic emails related to Clinton. … Stone, his wife and a large entourage exited the courthouse to a large crowd of photographers, supporters and antagonists. As he climbed into an SUV, protesters shouted ‘Lock him up!’ while supporters yelled ‘Pardon Roger Stone!’ …

“Stone requested a new trial last week, after Trump suggested the forewoman in Stone’s case had ‘significant bias.’ Jackson, the judge, said previously that she would delay implementing his sentence until she resolves that request. A filing is due from Stone’s defense team Monday. In addition to prison, Jackson ordered Stone to pay a $20,000 fine and serve two years of supervised release. He remains out of prison on bond, and even if he loses his motion for a new trial, he will have at least two weeks to turn himself in — unless an appeal further delays things.”

The Justice Department breathed a sigh of relief as Stone’s sentence hit Barr’s target. “‘It was messier than we wanted, but we ended up in the same place,’ said one senior official,” Barrett and Zapotosky report. “Another Justice Department official called Stone’s sentence a ‘vindication’ of the attorney general’s decision last week to insert himself into the process, calling for a revised sentencing memorandum that undercut the line prosecutors’ prior recommendation of seven to nine years in prison. … After a week of nervous tension atop the agency, anxiety levels have dropped, at least for the moment. … Senior Justice Department officials are, however, increasingly resigned to the idea that Trump is likely to continue upbraiding the department and the FBI, and that it may be a staple of his reelection campaign rhetoric — the odd spectacle of an incumbent president bashing his own Justice Department.”

Quote of the day

“The truth still exists; the truth still matters,” Judge Jackson said. “Roger Stone’s insistence that it doesn’t, his belligerence, his pride in his own lies are a threat to our most fundamental institutions, to the foundations of our democracy. If it goes unpunished, it will not be a victory for one party or another. Everyone loses. … The dismay and disgust at the defendant’s belligerence should transcend party.”

Former congressman Dana Rohrabacher confirmed that he offered a Trump pardon to Julian Assange.

“Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) said his goal during the meeting was to find proof for a widely debunked conspiracy theory: that WikiLeaks’ real source for the DNC emails was not Russian intelligence agents, as U.S. officials have since concluded, but former DNC staffer Seth Rich, who was murdered on the streets of Washington in July 2016 in what police believe was a botched robbery,” Yahoo News reports.

Rudy Giuliani’s work for a candidate in the Dominican Republic raised eyebrows amid the Ukraine swirl.

“The politics of this Caribbean island nation do not frequently capture the attention of the stewards of America's foreign policy, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo phoned down last summer with a clear message,” Joshua Partlow and Josh Dawsey report. “Dominican President Danilo Medina’s supporters were pushing to change the country’s constitution to allow him to run for an unprecedented third term. In a call with the president, Pompeo emphasized the importance of ‘adherence to rule of law and the constitution,’ according to a State Department readout. That message was echoed a week later in person by [Giuliani]. … [But] Giuliani was not in the Dominican Republic as Trump’s representative. He was speaking as a paid consultant to an opposition presidential candidate.”

A man was charged with making death threats against the Ukraine whistleblower's attorney.

A day after Trump lashed out against Mark Zaid during a 2019 rally, the attorney received a disquieting email. “All traitors must die miserable deaths,” the message read. “Those that represent traitors shall meet the same fate. We will hunt you down and bleed you out like the pigs you are.” Federal prosecutors have indicted Brittan J. Atkinson and accused him of sending the message. (Reis Thebault)

Mick Mulvaney said the U.S. is “desperate” for more legal immigrants.

The acting White House chief of staff told a crowd at a gathering in England that the Trump administration “needs more immigration” for the U.S. economy to continue growing, according to audio of his remarks obtained by Nick Miroff and Josh Dawsey. “‘We are desperate — desperate — for more people,’ Mulvaney said. ‘We are running out of people to fuel the economic growth that we’ve had in our nation over the last four years. We need more immigrants.’ The Trump administration wants those immigrants to come in a ‘legal fashion,’ Mulvaney said. … Mulvaney’s remarks appear in contrast to the public position of several top figures in Trump’s White House — especially that of senior policy adviser Stephen Miller. … Mulvaney’s private remarks were more in line with conventional GOP views of immigration as a major engine for the U.S. economy. … He praised the immigration systems in Canada and Australia and said the Trump administration wants the United States to embrace a model closer to those nations.”

Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program is dwindling as more migrants are sent to Guatemala.

“Immigration attorneys and migrant advocates say the Trump administration is phasing out its year-old Migrant Protection Protocols policy, … instead prioritizing newer, more restrictive programs that make qualifying for asylum in the United States extremely difficult,” Arelis R. Hernández and Kevin Sieff report. “‘MPP is dying,’ said Charlene D’Cruz, a lawyer who represents Central American asylum seekers and has advocated for dozens of vulnerable migrants to be removed from the program and allowed into the United States. ‘And something worse is taking its place. Everything is changing.’”

A Mexican man just became the seventh immigrant to die in ICE custody since October. BuzzFeed News reported that the preliminary cause appears to be suicide. He was 34.

The State Department delayed the visa of a renowned German professor and far-right extremism expert.

Academic Hajo Funke delivered documentation for a visa to the U.S. Consulate in Berlin in November 2019, Moriah Balingit reports. But when the consulate returned his passport, “it was accompanied not by a visa but by a letter that said a decision about his visa had been delayed for three to six months. The two classes he was set to teach — one on far-right populism and another on political memory in Germany — were in jeopardy.” The professor finally got his visa granted Thursday, but questions have been raised about what prompted the delay. Last year, Funke “wrote an article for the website of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at Johns Hopkins University linking violence in Charlottesville, where a white nationalist rally turned deadly in 2017, to [Trump’s election]. He has also visited Iran … for an academic conference and to visit the family of his wife, who emigrated from Iran to Germany in the 1980s and is now a German citizen.”

More on 2020

Warren flip-flopped on outside money, refusing to disavow a new super PAC.

Warren refused to disavow a new super PAC created to support her candidacy after spending a year criticizing her Democratic rivals for not disavowing super PACs set up to help them. “We reached the point a few weeks ago, where all of the men who were still in this race, and on the debate stage, all had either super PACs or they were multi-billionaires, and could just rummage around in their sock drawers and find enough money to be able to fund a campaign,” the senator told reporters. “And the only people who didn't have them were the two women. And at that point, there are some women saying, you know, that's just not right.” CNN reports that Persist PAC will spend more than $1 million to air a biography-focused television ad that links Warren to Obama.

During Thursday night's CNN town hall, Warren said Bloomberg’s refusal to release former employees from nondisclosure agreements is disqualifying. She showed up with her own version of a “release and covenant not to sue” document for him to sign and release his past employees from their NDAs. She even offered to text it to him. Warren said that if Bloomberg is ultimately the nominee, she’ll support him, but added that “what we’ve got right now is a chance for the Nevada voters to make sure that Michael Bloomberg is not our nominee, and that’s what I’m asking.”

Warren desperately needed a post-debate cash infusion.

Warren’s campaign says her fiery performance Wednesday has turned February into her best fundraising month yet. “But January figures show the Massachusetts senator was in deep trouble before her sudden apparent reversal — so much so that her campaign took out a $3 million line of credit and tapped into $400,000 of it as a loan, as contingency cash before the Iowa caucuses. She spent more than double ($22.3 million) the amount she raised ($10.8 million) in January,” per Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Anu Narayanswamy.

Two Bloombergs are running for president at the same time.

“One is the tough, get-it-done, rich guy who stars in $340 million worth of advertising, emotes in scripted speeches and is praised daily by his surrogate army,” write Michael Scherer, Josh Dawsey and Michael Kranish. “The other is the sometimes bumbling, frequently ineffective and often peevish politician who showed up Wednesday night, operating on the fly. … Bloomberg’s advisers, well aware of his uneven public performance as New York mayor, have tried to reconcile the two identities. They have scripted a campaign message that focuses heavily on the sheer scale of his operation and power of his purse, not the campaign talents of the candidate. On the trail, he boasts of having ‘the record and the resources’ to challenge Trump, not the heart or the passion.”

“So, how was your night last night?” Bloomberg asked a crowd in Salt Lake City Thursday night. (AP)

Conservatives have learned to wield power inside Facebook.

“Trump and other party leaders have pressured Facebook by making unproven claims of bias against conservatives amid rising signs of government action on the issue, including investigations by Congress and the Justice Department. Republicans also have leveraged Facebook’s fears of alienating conservative Americans to win concessions from a company whose most widely shared news content typically includes stories from Fox News and other right-leaning sources,” Craig Timberg reports. “These sensitivities — in conjunction with the company’s long-standing resistance to acting as ‘an arbiter of truth’ — have affected Facebook’s responses to a range of major issues, from how to address fake news and Russian manipulation of American voters on the platform to, more recently, the advertising policies that have set the political ground rules for the 2020 election, say people privy to internal debates. … Critics — both outside Facebook and within its ranks — see something more akin to corporate realpolitik, a willingness to accede to political demands in an era when Republicans control most levers of power in Washington.”

Twitter is testing new ways to fight misinformation.

“Twitter is experimenting with adding brightly colored labels directly beneath lies and misinformation posted by politicians and other public figures,” according to a demo sent to NBC News. “Twitter confirmed that the leaked demo, which was accessible on a publicly available site, is one possible iteration of a new policy to target misinformation. The company does not have a date to roll out any new misinformation features. In this version, disinformation or misleading information posted by public figures would be corrected directly beneath a tweet by fact-checkers and journalists who are verified on the platform and possibly by other users who would participate in a new ‘community reports’ feature, which the demo claims is ‘like Wikipedia.’”

Quinnipiac polling shows Trump running strong in the Rust Belt.

The president leads in head-to-head matchups against the top Democratic candidates in Wisconsin, loses or trails within the margin of error in Pennsylvania, and is locked in tight competitions in Michigan.

The coronavirus

Infected Americans were flown home from Japan against the CDC’s advice.

“In the wee hours of a rainy Monday, more than a dozen buses sat on the tarmac at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport. Inside, 328 weary Americans wearing surgical masks and gloves waited anxiously to fly home after weeks in quarantine aboard the Diamond Princess, the luxury liner where the novel coronavirus had ­exploded into a shipwide epidemic,” Lena Sun, Lenny Bernstein, Shibani Mahtani and Joel Achenbach report. “But as the buses idled, U.S. officials wrestled with troubling news. New test results showed that 14 passengers were infected with the virus. The U.S. State Department had promised that no one with the infection would be allowed to board the planes. … In Washington, where it was still Sunday afternoon, a fierce debate broke out: The State Department and a top Trump administration health official wanted to forge ahead. The infected passengers had no symptoms and could be segregated on the plane in a plastic-lined enclosure. But officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention disagreed, contending they could still spread the virus. The CDC believed the 14 should not be flown back with uninfected passengers. … The State Department won the argument. But unhappy CDC officials demanded to be left out of the news release that explained that infected people were being flown back to the United States — a move that would nearly double the number of known coronavirus cases in this country.”

A coronavirus outbreak in Chinese prisons raised alarm.

“Chinese authorities on Friday reported hundreds of new coronavirus infections at prisons around the country,” Gerry Shih reports. “A handful of prisons reported nearly 500 new cases, a significant portion of the more than 1,100 new cases reported in mainland China on Friday — and a marked increase after several days of declines. Tests at a prison in eastern Shandong province showed 207 out of 2,077 inmates and staff were infected, and the provincial justice department’s Communist Party secretary was dismissed as a result. … Another jail in Zhejiang province found 34 cases. Hubei province, at the center of the outbreak, said Friday it found 220 new cases inside penitentiaries. …

“In South Korea, new cases skyrocketed, bringing the national total to 204, as worries mounted that the country is becoming a new hot spot. Many of the new cases have been traced to … a regional branch of a fringe religious sect named Shincheonji Church of God in the southern city of Daegu, according to the KCDC. The church’s founder Lee Man-hee called the outbreak ‘the devil’s deed to curb the rapid growth of Shincheonji,’ in an internal message published by South Korea’s Yonhap News Agency on Friday. Daegu city and surrounding North Gyeongsang province have been designated ‘special care zones’ after a jump in cases in the area, Prime Minister Chung Sye Kyun said earlier Friday.”

Chinese researchers could submit a vaccine for clinical trials in late April.

“Animal models of mice and monkeys infected with the novel coronavirus have also been constructed, which will provide support for drug screening, vaccine development and research on viral transmission mechanism. China set up a coronavirus scientific research group about one month ago, with 14 experts led by renowned pulmonologist Zhong Nanshan,” Liu Yang reports.

Confusion continues to grow over China’s counting methods, as infection numbers swing wildly.

“Early Friday, China’s National Health Commission reported new infections increased again to 889. There are now a cumulative total of 75,465 infections and 2,236 deaths, mostly in Hubei province, the agency said. Hubei authorities have changed their criteria for counting cases twice in the past week,” Shih and Miriam Berger report. “The latest inconsistency — under which one city appeared to have more cases than the total in the province — apparently arose because Hubei province deducted cases that have not been confirmed through genetic tests from a total reported case number, which includes all diagnoses made by physicians using other methods. At best, the constant changes have frustrated scholars. At worst, they have raised suspicions.”

The USDA estimates that China will not buy as much U.S. farm output as Trump claims.

“The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s chief economist, Robert Johansson, projected that agricultural exports to China would reach roughly $14 billion in the year that ends Sept. 30, a $4 billion increase from one year ago. But that amount would still fall far short of what White House officials said would take place based on the recently announced ‘Phase One’ trade deal with Chinese leaders,” Laura Reiley reports. “White House officials have said agricultural exports to China would be between $40 billion and $50 billion in each of the next two years. Last year, when he was promising the trade deal would lead to a huge increase in purchases, Trump told farmers to buy ‘more land’ and ‘bigger tractors.’”

Social media speed read

After Trump attacked him again, former FBI director James Comey posted an image from Mariah Carey's music video for her song “Obsessed”:

Several of the 2020 candidates attacked Trump's response to the intelligence community's conclusion that Russia favors his reelection:

Obama's former political director celebrated Stone's sentence:

The New York Times has published an op-ed by the deputy leader of the Taliban: “What We, the Taliban, Want.” The paper's senior Afghanistan correspondent criticized his own publication for running the piece:

Videos of the day

James Corden wondered if Democrats are headed to an Iowa-repeat in Nevada:

Mike Bloomberg's campaign posted a highly misleading video from the debate: