FILE - President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa.(Erin Schaff/The New York Times)US Presidential Elections 2020 Live Updates: As in mailing ballots to voters begins in North Carolina Friday, US President Donald Trump has urged residents to try and vote twice – once by mail and once in person, advocating a potential act of voter fraud. “Let them send it in and let them go vote, and if the system is as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote” in person, Trump said in an interview on Wednesday. Despite rising covid numbers, Trump repeated his call for voters to go the polls even if they have mailed in their ballot, and he suggested Democrats would try to steal the election by manipulating the mail-in vote.
Nearly 100 Republican and independent leaders will endorse Democrat Joe Biden for president on Thursday, including one-time 2020 Republican presidential candidate Bill Weld and the former Republican governors of Michigan and New Jersey, according to a Reuters report. The latest Republican-led effort to oppose the re-election of President Donald Trump also includes current and former Republicans in the key battleground state of Michigan that will help decide the outcome of the Nov. 3 election, the group’s members told Reuters.
Meanwhile, with just two months left until the US presidential election, Facebook says it is taking more steps to encourage voting, minimise misinformation and reduce the likelihood of post-election civil unrest. The company said Thursday it will restrict new political ads in the week before the election and remove posts that convey misinformation about COVID-19 and voting.
In the November 3 presidential election, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his Indian-American running mate Kamala Harris will challenge incumbent Republican President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence. This is, perhaps, for the first time in the history of the US presidential elections that the two major political parties have made an outreach coalition for the Hindus in the country. The development is being seen as a sign of the growing political prominence of Hindus in America. Hinduism is the fourth largest faith in the US, representing approximately one per cent of the US population in 2016.
President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence stand on stage during the first day of the 2020 Republican National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)
Mail balloting was set to begin Friday in the presidential election as North Carolina starts sending out more than 600,000 ballots to voters _ responding to a massive spike in requests that has been seen across the country due to the fear of the coronavirus.
The 618,000 ballots requested in the initial wave in North Carolina were more than 16 times the number the state sent out at the same time four years ago.
While ballots go out in two weeks in other battlegrounds like Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, all eyes are on North Carolina as it leads off. North Carolina is under the twin stresses of record mail voting and the pandemic this week.(With AP)
President Donald Trump on Thursday honed the law and order message he intends to wield for the next two months against his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, stepping up attacks that his campaign believes are resonating with battleground state voters.
"Biden's plan is to appease the domestic terrorists and my plan is to arrest them and prosecute them, Trump declared at a rally in Pennsylvania a state that flipped in his favour in 2016, helping to pave his road to victory.
The rally comes as Trump's campaign is claiming new signs of momentum, including in the longtime Democratic stronghold that Trump won by less than 45,000 votes in 2016.(AP)
President Donald Trump has urged residents in the critical political battleground of North Carolina to try to vote twice in the Nov. 3 election, once by mail and once in person, igniting a furor for appearing to urge a potential act of voter fraud.
“Let them send it in and let them go vote,” Trump said in an interview on Wednesday with WECT-TV in Wilmington, North Carolina. “And if the system is as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote” in person. At a rally on Thursday night, Trump repeated his call for voters to go the polls even if they have mailed in their ballot, and he suggested Democrats would try to steal the election by manipulating the mail-in vote.(Reuters)
About 68,000 pieces of political mail were delayed for five days upon arriving at a Baltimore mail processing facility ahead of Maryland's June primary, according to a U.S. Postal Service audit. The mail, described as campaign materials from a candidate, was sent May 12 and sat unprocessed for nearly a week before management discovered it, the audit's findings, published Monday, show.
Brooklyn, New York; Charleston, W.Va.; Indianapolis; Oklahoma City; Portland, Ore.; and Santa Clarita, Calif., were also included in the Postal Service inspector general's national audit. The audit specified political mail as any mailpiece created by a registered political candidate, a campaign committee or a committee of a political party for political campaign purposes.
Auditors found that no ballots were among the delayed mail in Baltimore, though 200 ballots were found untouched in Oklahoma City and several facilities did not properly verify that all political mail had been processed in the weeks before the primaries. The audit was intended to evaluate the Postal Service's readiness ahead of the November general election, the inspector general said in a statement Monday. (AP)
Progressives trying to shove Congress to the left by competing in this year's Democratic primaries ousted three moderate incumbents, won other victories and established themselves as a force that's not going away. But some challengers lost, and their overall wins were a modest number compared with the 535 House and Senate members. That means it's been a mixed bag of results for progressives in this year's races, leading party centrists to minimize those gains and assert that congressional Democrats' power is really wielded by moderates.
“Centrists won the big enchilada, the presidential race,” said Jim Kessler, an executive vice president at the moderate Third Way, citing Joe Biden's triumph over Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders for the party's nomination. Kessler wasn't impressed with the three progressive challengers who defeated Democratic incumbents, either.
“If this is what they call a win, they can have this cycle every two years for the next 20,” he said. 'I'd be thrilled.'
As the long parade of House and Senate Democratic state primaries finally nears its end, progressives suffered a high-profile setback Tuesday in western Massachusetts. Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse, 31, openly gay and backed by a host of progressive stars, lost an expensive bid to defeat Rep. Richard Neal, a 16-term House veteran who chairs the Ways and Means Committee. (AP)
According to a Reuters report, nearly 100 Republican and independent leaders will endorse Democrat Joe Biden for president on Thursday, including one-time 2020 Republican presidential candidate Bill Weld and the former Republican governors of Michigan and New Jersey.
The latest Republican-led effort to oppose the re-election of President Donald Trump also includes current and former Republicans in the key battleground state of Michigan that will help decide the outcome of the Nov. 3 election, the group’s members told Reuters.
With just two months left until the US presidential election, Facebook says it is taking more steps to encourage voting, minimise misinformation and reduce the likelihood of post-election civil unrest. The company said Thursday it will restrict new political ads in the week before the election and remove posts that convey misinformation about COVID-19 and voting. It also will attach links to official results to posts from candidates and campaigns declaring premature victories.
"This election is not going to be business as usual. We all have a responsibility to protect our democracy," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on Thursday. "That means helping people register and vote, clearing up confusion about how this election will work, and taking steps to reduce the chances of violence and unrest."
Facebook and other social media companies are being scrutinized over how they handle misinformation, given issues with President Donald Trump and other candidates posting false information and Russia's interference in the 2016 White House elections and ongoing attempts to interfere in US politics.
Campaigning for more than a year as a calming, unifying figure, Joe Biden and his core pitch for the presidency face the most intense test yet when he travels to Kenosha, Wisconsin, a city wrenched by police and protest violence that makes it a microcosm of the nation's election-year reckoning with systemic racism.
The 77-year-old former vice president, travelling two days after President Donald Trump visited the same city, plans to meet Thursday with family of Jacob Blake, who remains hospitalised after being shot seven times in the back by a white police officer as authorities attempted to arrest him.
Biden also plans a community discussion that he indicated would draw business figures, civic leaders and law enforcement officials.
"This is about making sure that we move forward," Biden told reporters Wednesday. He added that he's not going to tell Kenosha what they have to do but instead encourage a community talk about what has to be done. Falling exactly two months before Election Day, the trip presents Biden both opportunity and risks as he tests his promise, made again and again for 16 months
As thunderstorms threatened, President Donald Trump sped through a V-J Day speech on Wednesday, trumpeting American strength and managing to squeeze in a swipe at Democratic rival Joe Biden. Trump stood before an iconic World War II-era battleship to declare the port city of Wilmington, North Carolina, a World War II Heritage City. He pointed to a bolt of lightning and said it was God saluting the event.
He honoured war veterans, including 97-year-old Hershel Wood Williams, the sole surviving Marine from the war to receive the Medal of Honour. The West Virginia native fought in the Battle of Iwo Jima in the Pacific. 'He's 100 percent sharp,' Trump said of Williams, who travelled to the key battleground state with the president aboard Air Force One.
'I know a 78-year-old who's not so sharp,' Trump added, a clear allusion to Biden.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany had insisted earlier this week that there was no 'political purpose' to Trump's visit to North Carolina. But when the president landed in Wilmington, Trump lost no time in criticising Biden. 'This is the most important election in the history of our country. I really believe that, because we're running against people that have got some big issues,' he told supporters on the airport tarmac. 'They have got some big, big problems. They're stone cold crazy.'
U.S. President Donald Trump suggested on Wednesday that voters in the state of North Carolina should vote twice in the November election, once by vote and once by mail, to make sure their vote was counted."So, let them send it in and let them go vote," Trump said in an interview with WECT-TV in Wilmington, North Carolina, when asked about the security of mail-in votes.
"And if the system is as good as they say it is then obviously they won't be able to vote" in person.Voting more than once in an election is illegal.Activists raised concerns over Trump's remarks, saying what he suggested was in violation of law and urging the public not to listen to his suggestion."Casting two ballots is illegal. Don't listen to the president", the American Civil Liberties Union said on Twitter.U.S. Attorney General William Barr said on Wednesday that mail-in ballots for the Nov. 3 election could be vulnerable to fraud, echoing an argument Trump has made to denounce the use of voting by mail.
As the 2020 presidential race between President Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden heats up, Attorney General William Barr warned of the potential of substantial fraud in voting by mail, but he omitted necessary context, and states that rely on the process say there is little evidence of such activity. He also suggested that China poses more of a threat to election security than Russia, even though that was not the conclusion of an official intelligence assessment last month. Here's a look at the claims, made in a Wednesday night interview with CNN: BARR on fraud in the vote-by-mail process: "Elections that have been held with mail have found substantial fraud and coercion." Multiple studies have debunked the notion of pervasive voter fraud in general and in the vote-by-mail process.
U.S. Attorney General William Barr said on Wednesday that mail-in ballots for the Nov. 3 election could be vulnerable to fraud, echoing an argument President Donald Trump has made to denounce the use of voting by mail."People trying to change the rules to this methodology, which, as a matter of logic, is very open to fraud and coercion. It's reckless and dangerous, and people are playing with fire," Barr said in an interview with CNN.Voting by mail is not new in the United States - nearly one in four voters cast presidential ballots in 2016 that way.
Joe Biden is calling the struggle to reopen US schools amid the coronavirus a "national emergency" and accusing President Donald Trump of turning his back to instead stoke passions about unrest in America's cities. The Democratic presidential nominee's broadsides came a day ahead of his own trip to Kenosha, Wisconsin, where Biden said he wants to help "heal" a city reeling from another police shooting of a Black man. The wounding of Jacob Blake and subsequent demonstrations have made the political battleground state a focal point for debate over police and protest violence, as well as the actions of vigilante militias.
A law firm with ties to prominent Democrats has filed a lawsuit attempting to keep rapper Kanye West off presidential ballots in Virginia. Attorneys for Perkins Coie filed a lawsuit in Richmond on Tuesday on behalf of two people who say they were tricked into signing an Elector Oath backing West's candidacy. Under state law, a candidate must have 13 electors pledge their support for a candidate as part of the criteria to appear on the ballot.
The lawsuit alleges that 11 of West's 13 electors may be invalid and asks the court to block West's name from appearing on ballots, which are set to be printed soon. Virginia will begin mailing absentee ballots later this month.
West supported President Donald Trump for reelection until announcing his own presidential bid in July. (AP)
President Donald Trump is recycling a baseless conspiracy theory to claim that recent protests have been orchestrated by powerful people in "dark shadows" intent on undermining his reelection prospects.
The claims first took root on Facebook and Twitter earlier this year after racial justice protests swelled across the country following the deaths of Black Americans in police custody. Thousands of social media users shared posts suggesting a covert network was coordinating the protests and rioters were descending on communities across the country.
Trump appeared to amplify those unfounded conspiracy theories in an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham that aired Monday night, suggesting that protests in Washington during the Republican National Convention were orchestrated by unspecified forces. "We had somebody get on a plane from a certain city this weekend. And in the plane, it was almost completely loaded with thugs wearing these dark uniforms, black uniforms with gear and this and that," said Trump, adding that the matter is under investigation. When asked by reporters Tuesday for additional details on his assertion, Trump said someone else witnessed the activity and he would have to check to see if that person was willing to speak with news media. (AP)
China has taken a "naive" US and its leaders for a ride over the past several decades, according to former top Indian-American diplomat Nikki Haley, who said the Trump administration through its robust Indo-Pacific strategy is now learning who its real friends are.
Speaking at the third India-US Leadership Summit organised virtually by the US India Strategic and Partnership Forum (USISPF), former US Ambassador to the UN Haley on Tuesday said Americans know that Indians are not a threat to them and as such, it is time for Indians to share their success story.
The US has been pushing for a greater role for India in the strategic Indo-Pacific which is seen by many countries as an effort to contain China's growing clout in the region. "Let's acknowledge how China did it. China was very strategic. This was very planned out and America was very naive. The thought leaders in America thought that if we were nice to China, if we open doors to China, it would become more like the West, that China would become more democratic," Haley said.
President Donald Trump charged into the latest eruption in the nation's reckoning over racial injustice on Tuesday, blaming "domestic terror" that he said fuelled the violence in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and declaring it was enabled by Democratic leaders.
While Trump declared the violence "anti-American," he offered no words for the underlying cause of the anger and protests - accusations of police violence against Black men - and did not mention Jacob Blake, who was badly wounded last week in Kenosha. Soon after arriving in the city, a visit made over the objections of state and local leaders, Trump toured the charred remains of a block besieged by violence and fire.
With the scent of smoke still in the air, he spoke to the owners of a century-old store that had been destroyed and continued to link the violence to the Democrats, blaming those in charge of Kenosha and Wisconsin while raising apocalyptic warnings if their party should capture the White House. (AP)
Facebook said Tuesday that it removed a small network of accounts and pages linked to Russia's Internet Research Agency, the "troll factory" that has used social media accounts to sow political discord in the U.S. since the 2016 presidential election.
The people behind the accounts recruited "unwitting" freelance journalists to post in English and Arabic, mainly targeting left-leaning audiences. Facebook said Tuesday the network's activity focused on the U.S., U.K., Algeria and Egypt and other English-speaking countries and countries in the Middle East and North Africa.
The company said it started investigating the network based on information from the FBI about its off-Facebook activities. The network was in the early stages of development, Facebook added, and saw "nearly no engagement" on Facebook before it was removed. The network consisted of 13 Facebook accounts and two pages. About 14,000 accounts followed one or more of the pages, though the English-language page had a little over 200 followers, Facebook said. (AP)
Massachusetts voters on Tuesday were deciding one of the high profile battles on this year's primary ballot - the contest pitting incumbent Democratic U.S. Sen. Edward Markey against U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy III.
The 39-year-old grandson of Robert F. Kennedy, promising a new generation of leadership, is hoping to become the next Kennedy to take a seat in the U.S. Senate by ousting the 74-year-old Markey. While the two agree on many policies, each has tried to paint the other as out of touch on key issues.
Kennedy has gone after Markey on the issue of racial inequity, criticising his initial opposition to school desegregation efforts in Boston in the 1970s and noting criticism of Markey by the father of Danroy "DJ" Henry, a young Black man from Massachusetts killed by police 10 years ago. Kennedy has also highlighted his family's political legacy, in part in response to Markey, who during one debate told Kennedy he should tell his father - former U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy II - not to help fund a political action committee that was going after Markey. (AP)