| "This moment is not normal," your regular 5-Minute Fix author Amber Phillips wrote on June 1, as protests over police brutality and racial justice were gripping the nation and President Trump was calling for greater force to quell them. Less than two hours after that hit your inboxes, demonstrators had been forced out of Lafayette Square in Washington and this photo had been snapped.  President Trump holds up a Bible outside of St John's Episcopal Church on June 1. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP) | Come to think of it, not much about 2020 was normal before that, but the last month has been extraordinary. "Inflection point" is an overused term, because those are hard to pinpoint until you can look back and see that things have, in fact, changed. But it's hard to see how the protests that followed George Floyd's death won't result in permanent changes to many institutions in this country; how President Trump's response to them and his leadership on the coronavirus and what we learn about Russian bounties on U.S. soldiers — and what Trump knew about them — won't shape the election in 2020; or how the June spike in coronavirus cases in many states won't prolong the United States' struggle to recover economically and otherwise from the virus. While we wait to see how lasting the impacts of June's events will be, here are three stories that will shape July. Can Joe Biden capitalize on a politically weakened Trump? And does he even need to try very hard to do so? Polling has been consistently showing him increasing his lead nationally and in swing states, even as Trump dominates headlines. Biden is running a "less-is more" campaign, for the moment, The Washington Post's Michael Scherer reports: A Biden strategy of caution and discipline, which has limited his travel and put news conferences on hold for 88 days, has allowed the Democrat to keep the national focus on Trump and his polarizing approach to the coronavirus pandemic, the economic crisis and widespread fury over racist policing practices. An election that Trump needs to be seen as a binary choice is, at this point, looking more like a referendum on a man who is viewed negatively by a majority of the country. Biden has made no secret of his own thinking on the matter. "The more that Donald Trump is out the worse he does. I think it is wonderful that he goes out," Biden joked Saturday. On coronavirus in particular, Biden is seeking to contrast himself with Trump. That's been a focus when he does step out, like he did on Tuesday. How bad will this wave of covid get? "I would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 [cases] a day if this does not turn around. And so I am very concerned," Anthony S. Fauci, the nation's top infectious-disease expert, said in a Senate hearing on Tuesday. Fauci couched that, saying he was reluctant to make predictions. But, he pointed out, we're at 40,000 cases per day now, and there are troubling signs coming out of states in the South and West. Many Republican lawmakers and are sounding alarms, too, pleading with the public — and the president — to wear masks to slow down the virus's spread. The country's daily death total remains relatively low compared to late spring. That's another thing July could change. The Veepstakes Biden said again Tuesday that he will name his pick for a running mate in early August. The Fix's Aaron Blake has a new list of who makes the most sense for Biden to pick. Here are his top 3 (full list here.)  Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.) in 2019 (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky, File) | 3. Val Demings: At at a hearing last week, the Florida congresswoman elicited one of the most newsworthy exchanges, getting former Republican attorney general Michael Mukasey to acknowledge that "maybe" Trump had injected politics into the legal cases of his allies. She is reportedly an increasingly intriguing pick for the Biden team. The prosecutor pasts of Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who took herself out of the running, and Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-Calif.) may not be ideal in the modern Democratic Party, but Demings provides something different as a former Orlando police chief. That said, some in the party are balking at her record on that, too. One thing's clear: Her record in Orlando will be at issue and will be vetted like never before. 2. Elizabeth Warren: Klobuchar and others have urged Biden to make a diverse pick. And the conventional wisdom is that things are headed in that direction. Those public comments will certainly weigh against the senator from Massachusetts. But it remains likely that nobody could bridge the ideological divisions in the party after the 2020 primaries like Warren, and many on the Biden team are fond of Warren. Given that potential consideration, it's still difficult not to put her near the top of this list. (Previous ranking: 2) 1. Kamala D. Harris: The senator from California has been the favorite from the start, and there's no changing that now — especially in light of Klobuchar and others encouraging Biden to pick a minority running mate. Nobody else on this list matches that description with such a high-ranking résumé or experience on the national stage. And whatever reservations exist about Harris's past as a prosecutor, she has shown she is a capable messenger. (Previous ranking: 1) | By Paul Sonne, Rosalind Helderman, Josh Dawsey and David L. Stern ● Read more » | | | | 
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