<em>The Atlantic Daily</em>: The President’s Plague

“This week, a friendly interviewer asked in the gentlest of terms what Trump has in mind for America if he wins,” our White House correspondent, Peter Nicholas, reports. “He gave no real answer.”

And he’s struggling to run against Joe Biden, a white man.

“For the past few months, Trump and the conservative propaganda apparatus have struggled to make the old race-and-gender-baiting rhetoric stick to Biden,” Adam Serwer argues.

One question, answered: Should I be taking vitamins to “boost” my immune system during this pandemic?

James Hamblin and Katherine Wells discussed why such offerings might not be as effective as they are marketed on our Social Distancing podcast. Here’s a snippet of their conversation:

Wells: I’ve been taking a multivitamin every day because I’m like: ‘I don’t know. Couldn’t hurt.’ But you are a multivitamin skeptic for reasons that I don’t remember or understand. What’s wrong with taking a multivitamin? Isn’t that just good if you need it and not bad if you don’t?

Hamblin: I think that’s generally true. It’s probably fine. Depending on if you’re taking a lot of other vitamins and supplements with it, there’s a potential with some vitamins that you can get too much, but most likely these vitamins are balanced such that you’re not going to have too much of anything. But what I’m interested in is that same fallacy I’m worried about with hydroxychloroquine: a false sense of protection.

It’s been my experience that when I have taken multivitamins, I feel some sort of ‘Maybe I don’t need to eat quite as well’ … But it’s not the same. It doesn’t work. It would be amazing if you could replicate a healthy diet in one pill a day, but we’re so far from that.

Listen to the rest (or read the transcript).

What to read if … you want practical tips:

What to read if … you’d like to better understand today’s Supreme Court decision on abortion:

Emma Green, a staff writer who covers politics and religion, has a good piece on what today’s ruling means.

What to read if … your Netflix queue is currently empty:

Eurovision Song Contest is “Will Ferrell’s best comedy in years,” our critic David Sims writes. “Also, it has invisible elves.”

Sign yourself up for The Daily here.

Caroline Mimbs Nyce is a senior associate editor at The Atlantic.