In early April, Jason Furman, a top economist in the Obama administration and now a professor at Harvard, was speaking via Zoom to a large bipartisan group of top officials from both parties. The economy had just been shut down, unemployment was spiking, and some policymakers were predicting an era worse than the Great Depression. The economic carnage seemed likely to doom President Donald Trump’s chances at reelection.

Furman, tapped to give the opening presentation, looked into his screen of poorly lit boxes of frightened wonks and made a startling claim.

“We are about to see the best economic data we’ve seen in the history of this country,” he said.

The former cabinet secretaries and Federal Reserve chairs in the Zoom boxes were confused, though some of the Republicans may have been newly relieved and some of the Democrats suddenly concerned.

“Everyone looked puzzled and thought I had misspoken,” Furman said in an interview. Instead of forecasting a prolonged depression-level economic catastrophe, Furman laid out a detailed case for why the months preceding the November election could offer Trump the chance to brag — truthfully — about the most explosive monthly employment numbers and GDP growth ever.

President Donald Trump on Monday morning threatened to move August’s Republican National Convention out of North Carolina unless there are guarantees the state will let everyone attend.

“I love the Great State of North Carolina, so much so that I insisted on having the Republican National Convention in Charlotte at the end of August. Unfortunately, Democrat Governor, @RoyCooperNC is still in Shutdown mood & unable to guarantee that by August we will be allowed … ..full attendance in the Arena,” he began in a string of four tweets. …

The RNC is scheduled to be held in Charlotte on Aug. 24-27, less than a week after Democrats are set to wrap up their rescheduled convention in Milwaukee. It’s not clear where the Republican convention might be moved or how easily that could be done on relatively short notice.

The Europe restrictions followed six weeks later but unleashed chaos in ways that surpassed even that of the Muslim ban.

Current and former officials said key agencies, including the Departments of Homeland Security and Transportation, had no meaningful input in the nature of the Europe restrictions or how and when they would be executed. An administration official said officials from both agencies were present at meetings where the ban was discussed.

The administration scrambled to round up contractors to conduct temperature checks on tens of thousands of passengers. Officials said the magnitude of the mobilization was unprecedented. Even so, the contractors were overrun by the rush of travelers that Trump had helped unleash.

Even the most basic screening steps seemed to backfire. The CDC failed to distribute a new paper questionnaire in time for it to be shared with airlines in advance, meaning passengers had to fill it out upon arrival. As a result, travelers found themselves reaching around one another for slips of paper and pencils, risking transmission as the bottlenecks got worse.

It’s been more than six months since President Donald Trump claimed to have started his annual physical at Walter Reed hospital but the White House is declining to explain why he has yet to complete the yearly doctor’s examination.

Senior administration officials did not immediately respond to NBC News’ request for comment about the delay — despite Trump announcing this week he was taking an unproven and potentially dangerous drug after being exposed to an aide who tested positive for coronavirus.

Asked in early March about when he would complete his physical, the president told reporters, “I’m going probably over the next 90 days. I’m so busy, I can’t do it.”