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As we enter the final weeks of the presidential campaign, our politics are getting uglier, and the attacks on President Trump even more unhinged. That’s saying something. Gov. Andrew Cuomo blames the president for COVID-19 deaths in his state of New York while his brother, CNN’s Chris Cuomo, says House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., fell “under Trump’s influence,” which caused her to illicitly visit a hair salon. Seriously. Gov. Gavin Newsom blames Trump for the wildfires burning out of control in the West and, unimaginably, Joe Biden’s newest ad campaign says the president is responsible for the riots that have savaged our Democrat-led cities. Pelosi blames Trump for Democrats’ refusal to send more aid to Americans and Biden says it’s the president’s fault that schools can’t reopen. (Liz Peek, 9/14)

We know from reporter Bob Woodward’s new book, “Rage,” that last spring, when the coronavirus pandemic was spreading across the United States, President Trump was aware that it posed a grave threat. Still, he lied to the public frequently and unforgivably, saying the virus would just go away. Yet it may be even less forgivable that now, six months later, Mr. Trump is still lying and still denying the reality of the virus. His campaign rally on Sunday in Nevada is clear evidence. Thousands of Mr. Trump’s supporters crowded into a manufacturing hall in Henderson, a Las Vegas suburb, most of them forgoing face masks and not socially distanced, violating Nevada’s pandemic rules limiting social gatherings to 50 people or fewer. (9/14)

It’s been said that you should never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity. So I will take President Donald Trump at his word when he says he played down the threat of the coronavirus because he didn't want to "create a panic.” Unfortunately, that makes Trump look worse, not better.This isn’t leadership. It’s not even a parody of leadership. The three rules of crisis communications are: Be first. Be right. Be credible. In a crisis, a good leader lays out the facts, follows that up with a comprehensive plan, and then reassures everyone that, while it isn’t going to be easy, we are going to pull together and beat this. That’s not the way President Trump does things though. (Chris Truax, 9/15)

President Donald Trump's most basic calculation -- in, well, everything he does -- boils down to this: How does this affect me? So when his campaign made the decision to hold a campaign rally indoors in Nevada on Sunday night, Trump was, first and foremost, looking out for No. 1. "I'm on a stage and it's very far away," Trump told the Las Vegas Review Journal when asked whether he was nervous about getting Covid-19 from the indoor rally. "And so I'm not at all concerned." He went on to add: "I'm more concerned about how close you are, to be honest." (Chis Cillizza, 9/14)

Everyone is talking about the insane rant that Michael Caputo, the senior communications official at the Department of Health and Human Services, delivered during a live video talk from his Facebook page on Sunday. Caputo, who is playing a leading role in dictating the administration’s public communications about the coronavirus pandemic, suggested that “deep state” scientists are shaping their handling of coronavirus around the deliberate goal of not allowing “America to get well, not until after Joe Biden is president.” And Caputo, who admitted that his “mental health has definitely failed,” also referred to leftist “hit squads being trained all over the country,” who will enter into a shooting war to depose President Trump after he’s reelected, and advised his supporters to prepare. (Greg Sargent, 9/14)

We generally approve of Western New York having an influential voice in Washington, but Michael Caputo’s is no longer needed. It’s hard to decide which is more outrageous – that Caputo and a top aide run Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports through a political vetting process, or that Caputo sees nothing wrong with that. (9/14)

Even in suburbia, many are no longer confident our authorities would or could keep us safe. In a small suburb such as mine, what would happen if even 100 or 200 people bent on violence were to arrive at once? Could our small police force really handle it? Or would we be left to fend for ourselves like Mark and Pat McCloskey in St. Louis, who defended their home and were then treated as if they were criminals? A few years back, I asked a former colleague whom I knew to be pro-Second Amendment philosophically if he owned a gun. He answered no, and then asked if I had one. I said I wouldn’t know what to write down as my reason for wanting one.He told me, “Write down, ‘Because I don’t trust the government.’ ” (William McGurn, 9/14)

The COVID-19 pandemic is the defining issue in the 2020 campaign, but other problems will also shape the outcome of the vital election that will dictate how the nation faces up to the threats to its survival. The sorry state of the economy and the destructive impact of racism will also play a decisive role in the verdict that voters hand down in November. (Brad Bannon, 9/14)

President Trump arrived in California Monday to offer his own assessment of the wildfires that have left vast swaths of the West charred and smoky. It’s not climate change driving the ever worsening fires, in the president’s view. It’s the exploding trees. And all those dried leaves piled up on the ground. If California would just clean up its messes and do more forest management, Trump suggested, the problem could be solved. (9/14)

Trump will join Gov. Gavin Newsom for a briefing on the state’s record-breaking fires, extreme heat and unprecedented air pollution. Massive wildfires made worse by climate change have turned most of the West Coast into a pollution-choked nightmare. Smoke from multiple fires around the state has reduced our air quality to hazardous levels and blotted out the sun. At least 10 people have died in California. (9/14)