The Evening: Protests, CBO Pandemic Projections, Chest Fever and More

June 1, 2020

Trump Pushes Governors to Get Tough

President Trump pushed governors to get tough on the violent demonstrations that have followed widespread peaceful protests against police brutality, telling state leaders, “most of you are weak,” as the Wall Street Journal reports.

CBO Projects $16 Trillion Loss

A report out today by the Congressional Budget Office projects that the U.S. gross domestic product will lose nearly $16 trillion over the next decade because of the pandemic. Meantime, U.S. public health officials are warning that the massive countrywide demonstrations against police brutality, which show no sign of abating, could be followed by a sudden increase in novel coronavirus cases, as the Washington Post reports.

Afghan Peace Talks

The U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan sounded upbeat on Monday about the chances for peace talks starting between the Kabul government and the Taliban militant group but suggested further prisoner releases were needed first, as Reuters reports.

CSIS Executive Education

CSIS’s flagship course on Understanding Washington is now being offered in a real-time online format from June 8 to 10. This format eliminates the need for travel and includes a reduction in tuition. We recommend this course to corporate and government professionals responsible for their organization’s government relations portfolio. Register here.

Video Shorts

Check out CSIS’s new series of video shorts: “Testify,” "What's Happening," "Preview," and “High Resolution.” And don’t forget to subscribe to the CSIS YouTube Channel!

In That Number

5

Five people have recently died from Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, as new clusters of the virus appear in the country's Northwest.

Source: WSJ

Critical Quote

“It's a movement. If you don't put it down, it will get worse and worse. The only time it's successful is when you're weak, and most of you are weak.”

— President Trump on a call to the nation’s governors today

iDeas Lab

Recent satellite imagery shows that the Pyongsan Uranium Concentrate Plant remains operational and continues to be updated, despite the absence of any nuclear testing by North Korea since 2017.

The Andreas C. Dracopoulos iDeas Lab at CSIS enhances our research with the latest in cutting-edge web technologies, design, and multimedia.

Optics

(Photo credit: Samuel Coram/AFP/Getty Images). A protester raises a fist near a fire during a demonstration outside the White House over the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police.

Recommended Reading

“Burden-sharing talks are distracting Washington and Seoul from the North Korean threat,” by CSIS's Victor Cha and Congressman Ami Bera (D-CA) in the Washington Post.

Online Events

At 9:00 a.m., join CSIS for the Future Strategy Forum: Cooperation and Conflict in the Time of Covid-19, featuring a keynote conversation with the Honorable Michèle Flournoy, foamier Under Secretary of defense for Policy.

At 2:00 p.m., Brookings for will host a virtual event to complement the report launch of “Reopening America: How to Save Lives and Livelihoods,” which provides key considerations implicit to conversations regarding reopening, recovery, and renewal across the United States.

And, at 3:00 p.m., join CSIS for a conversation on the new Global Health Security and Diplomacy Act was formed, its rationale, its major element, and the way forward.

Video

The CSIS Economics Program hosted former treasury secretary Lawrence Summers in the first episode of a new event series "Economy Disrupted," which explores the big questions facing the global economy. Watch it here.

Podcasts

In the second episode of The Reopening, billionaire investor Leon “Lee” Cooperman, chairman and CEO of Omega Advisors, joins Scott Miller and I to discuss the future of the stock market, investing, capitalism, the U.S. economy, future of work, and decoupling with China.

Listen on Apple Podcast & Spotify.

Smiles

It’s hard to smile today. I always look to music when I’m upset, angry, frustrated, incredulous…It helps me get though. There are several artists that I always return to for comfort. At the very top of the list is The Band.

I’ve been thinking a lot about The Band over the past couple of weeks. If you haven’t seen the new documentary produced by Martin Scorsese “Once Were Brothers,” I strongly recommend it. It’s the story of The Band as told from guitarist/songwriter Robbie Robertson’s point of view. It’s a fascinating history and features footage that I had never seen before.

When The Band released their debut album, “Music From Big Pink” in the summer of 1968, the United States was burning. The record was revolutionary and changed music forever, but it wasn’t about the revolution that was happening in the streets.

The album evoked a simple life centered around family and a rural, rustic America that wasn’t in fashion at the time. The music The Band created with Big Pink changed the way artists like Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton and George Harrison thought about music. It has inspired generations of musicians since. Many of us have seen “The Last Waltz,” Martin Scorsese’s 1978 film about The Band’s last live performance. It features unforgettable musical moments. But this clip of The Band performing one of Big Pink’s standout tracks “Chest Fever,” live at Wembley Stadium in ‘74 has a raw essence to it that I love as well.