Almost every aspect of government and certainly the legislative and executive branches are addressing multiple aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic from medical protocols and providing medical supplies to economic devastation.

Some view the partisan pull about this issue in Washington as a battle between science/medicine and ideologies. However, TIME Washington Correspondent Philip Elliott says that characterization is not quite accurate.

Instead, he claims it is more nuanced.

He says that members of the federal government are traveling paths never trod before. They are trying to find their way and they are trying to overcome major fear factors simultaneously. There is fear in government itself and fear across the nation, he adds.

This pandemic is unprecedented, according to Elliott, and it is having an unprecedented impact on our government and our politics. There is no roadmap to follow to predict next events or next steps.

This pandemic is drawing battle lines between the President and Governors who are on the front lines. It is drawing lines between the medical and scientific communities and economists who demand that we re-open the economy now.

It also is rewriting traditional campaign playbooks and demanding journalists cover politics in a new way.

These battles ensue simultaneously while polls show there is a major fear factor among the population about reopening society too soon and suffering another wave of the virus and deaths.

Elliott talks with Spectrum Podcast about how these factors are impacting the White House and the Presidency, Congress, the judiciary, and the upcoming elections. He touches on all branches of government.

Elliott joined TIME in 2015, after spending almost a decade with the Associated Press covering politics, campaign finance, education and the White House.

He is a frequent guest on the Spectrum Podcast giving us Washington insight from a journalist’s perspective.