Today’s edition of quick hits:
* An important 5-4 ruling: “The Supreme Court issued an order Monday allowing the Trump administration to begin enforcing new limits on immigrants who are considered likely to become overly dependent on government benefit programs.”
* To date, there are five people in the U.S. who’ve been hospitalized with confirmed cases of the coronavirus: “As the coronavirus outbreak rages on in China, at least 110 people in the United States are undergoing testing for the new respiratory illness, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Monday.”
* Related jitters on Wall Street: “Just as the world economy appeared to emerge from the uncertainty of the trade war, the spread of the dangerous coronavirus in China has pierced the calm that had settled over financial markets.”
* Joe Biden has an op-ed in USA Today on the virus, arguing, “Trump’s demonstrated failures of judgment and his repeated rejection of science make him the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health challenge.”
* I’ll look forward to Team Trump arguing that the president barely knows Giuliani: “Jane Raskin, one of Trump’s defense lawyers, opened her argument by accusing the House impeachment managers of resorting to using Giuliani as a ‘colorful distraction’ to take away from the idea that ‘both the law and the facts’ were not on their side.” * The team of impeachment managers will soon be one person short: “Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) said on Sunday that he would miss part of the Senate impeachment trial of President Donald Trump to be with his wife, Joyce Miller, who has been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.” * The pastor in question is televangelist Paula White, who recently took on a new role in the White House Office of Public Liaison: “A Florida pastor and longtime spiritual adviser to President Trump says she was speaking in metaphor when she recently prayed in a sermon for all ‘satanic pregnancies’ to end in miscarriage.” See you tomorrow.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past." Recommended
