WASHINGTON, D.C. — With a third coronavirus surge taking hold in the United States and the economy teetering on the brink, where are President Trump and his allies in Congress focusing their energy? Not on securing aid for working Americans or distributing funds to fight COVID-19, but instead on rushing through a Supreme Court nominee before her full record is known or available to the public. 

“With COVID-19 cases on the rise and American small businesses, workers, and their families struggling to make ends meet, Trump and his allies are laser focused on rushing their radical judicial pick through for a lifetime appointment — not on getting people the support they need,” Kyle Herrig, president of government watchdog Accountable.US. “But the president and his friends in the Senate would rather push through an extremist Supreme Court nominee — about whom we know almost nothing — than act to protect workers, small businesses, and communities that need help.”

Reporting this week revealed that the Trump administration is sitting on $9 billion meant for COVID-19 testing at the advisement of controversial coronavirus task force advisor Scott Atlas. And now, it appears the White House is considering cutting pandemic relief funds for large, populous cities including Washington, D.C., New York City, New York, Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon — even as one expert suggests the country could be coming into “the worst period during this epidemic,” confirmed cases of the virus climb past 8,200,000, and more than 221,000 lives have been lost nationwide. 

And while Americans brace themselves for another spike in layoffs, with Black and Latino communities facing some of the worst consequences of the struggling pandemic economy, the Washington Post reported last night that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell discouraged the White House from securing a new relief package until after Election Day — after another month of rent is due. 

Meanwhile, the Senate is slotted to take its first vote on Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s extremist Supreme Court pick, tomorrow, despite a wealth of essential information about her record still being obscured from the public — including records from her fifteen years working at Notre Dame College. The vote will follow an onslaught of reports in recent days showing that Barrett ruled: 

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