The Atlantic Daily: The President’s Most Dangerous Enabler
Plus: What happens when the flu and the coronavirus overlap this winter?
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Jared Kushner is the second-most-powerful man in the White House. He’s also the president’s most dangerous enabler, Franklin Foer writes.
For this new profile, Frank spent months poring over Kushner’s personal history, and interviewing more than a dozen former and current White House officials. (Kushner himself declined to comment.)
Frank attributes Kushner’s adeptness at handling his mercurial father-in-law, President Donald Trump, to years of practice with his own tough father, Charlie. Frank explains:
At the very center of his identity, Kushner is a Good Son. … It’s a role that he thrives at playing, because he’s spent his whole life rehearsing for it.
Two previous looks at Trump’s inner circle (as it happens, his family) are worth revisiting:
+ Ivanka Trump has spent years meticulously cultivating her image. Here’s a peek inside her dreamworld.
+ But she’s just one contender for heir to the Trump dynasty. Her brother Don Jr. may be the more natural successor.
One question, answered: What happens when the flu and the coronavirus overlap this winter?
Joe Pinsker looks at why the pairing could spell trouble:
Even though researchers don’t yet know how severe this year’s flu season will be, this overlap is worrying for three main reasons.
First, even in the absence of a pandemic, flu season can tax hospitals’ beds and resources, [Andrew Noymer, a public-health professor at UC Irvine] said; having both the flu and COVID-19 spreading at once could further strain an already strained health-care system. Second, “COVID compromises the respiratory system and so does flu, so each of them makes the other one worse,” [David Vlahov, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Nursing] told me. (He says that everyone who’s able should get the flu vaccine this year.) And third, because the two diseases have some symptoms in common, telling them apart can be difficult.
What to read if … you want practical tips:
What to read if … you’d like to read about something—anything—other than the coronavirus:
It’s normal (and maybe even healthy) to feel an unexpected spiritual pull in your middle years, Arthur C. Brooks writes in his latest “How to Build a Life” column. Arthur explores how to lean into this type of crisis and find “the beauty and transcendence in faith and spirituality”—whatever that looks like for you.
Thanks for reading. This email was written by Caroline Mimbs Nyce, with help from Isabel Fattal and Haley Weiss, and edited by Shan Wang.
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