Democratic U.S. vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris delivers a campaign speech in Washington, US (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)US Presidential Elections 2020 LIVE news updates: Soon after Joe Biden tapped Kamala Harris as his running mate, some conservatives began trying to portray her as anti-Catholic – a line of attack that President Donald Trump’s campaign continues to amplify as Democrats court Roman Catholic voters.
The charge stems in part from questions Harris posed in 2018 to a federal judicial nominee about his membership in the Knights of Columbus, a lay Catholic fraternal organisation. Harris asked the nominee if he agreed with the anti-abortion views of the group’s leader, views that broadly align with the church’s stance.
It inflamed Republicans at the time, with one senator authoring a resolution to affirm the constitutional ban on religious tests for federal officials and state that membership in the Catholic group is not “disqualifying.” Now that Harris is Biden’s running mate, conservatives are replaying the moment to try to chip at the pro-abortion-rights Democratic ticket’s appeals to religious voters.
Meanwhile, with less than eight weeks until Election Day, Donald Trump and Joe Biden are taking diametrically opposite approaches to campaigning during a pandemic — and the differences amount to more than political theater. The candidates are effectively staking out different visions for the country with Biden emphasizing guidelines supported by local health officials while Trump rails against restrictions that he argues — without evidence — are politically motivated.
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Georgia's top elections official said Tuesday that his office has identified about 1,000 cases of "potential double voting" in the June primary election - a felony he's determined to see prosecuted.
These voters submitted absentee ballots but also voted in person, a problem that happened across 100 Georgia counties, and election officials didn't catch them in time to keep the second votes from being tallied, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said. "No one gets to vote twice. Everyone gets one vote," Raffensperger said.
It wasn't immediately clear whether the outcome of any races may have been affected. The revelation follows a suggestion last week by President Donald Trump that people who vote early by mail should show up at their local polling places on Election Day and vote again if their ballots haven't been counted.
The president said in a series of tweets Thursday that voters who submitted absentee ballots should go to their polling site to see whether or not your Mail In Vote has been Tabulated (Counted). (AP)
Soon after Joe Biden tapped Kamala Harris as his running mate, some conservatives began trying to portray her as anti-Catholic - a line of attack that President Donald Trump's campaign continues to amplify as Democrats court Roman Catholic voters.
The charge stems in part from questions Harris posed in 2018 to a federal judicial nominee about his membership in the Knights of Columbus, a lay Catholic fraternal organisation.
Harris asked the nominee if he agreed with the anti-abortion views of the group's leader, views that broadly align with the church's stance. It inflamed Republicans at the time, with one senator authoring a resolution to affirm the constitutional ban on religious tests for federal officials and state that membership in the Catholic group is not "disqualifying."
Now that Harris is Biden's running mate, conservatives are replaying the moment to try to chip at the pro-abortion-rights Democratic ticket's appeals to religious voters. As Biden's campaign launched its Catholic voter outreach effort last week, the Trump campaign blasted Harris' questioning as "anti-Catholic bigotry" and said the Democrats' stance on abortion "clashes strongly with Catholic pro-life beliefs." It used similar language to refer to Harris alongside an online ad it rolled out last month. (AP)
Democractic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris slammed Trump for "failing to lead on every significant aspect of US Covid-19 response"
A Norwegian lawmaker has nominated Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for 2021 for helping broker a deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, the second time he has put forward the U.S. president for the honor.
In 2016, Donald Trump tore down Democrats' "blue wall," winning the White House with surprise victories in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
This year, Joe Biden is trying to rebuild.
The Democratic presidential nominee's first pandemic-era campaign trips beyond his home in Delaware are taking him to all three states, an indication of how closely Biden's electoral prospects are tied to his ability to flip those political battlegrounds. Last week, Biden traveled to Wisconsin and was followed quickly by running mate Kamala Harris, who held her own events there on Labor Day.
On Wednesday, Biden heads to Michigan to tout a plan for boosting U.S. manufacturing. He also has two stops scheduled this week in Pennsylvania. Though the Biden campaign often emphasises that it sees multiple ways to secure the 270 Electoral College votes they need to win in November, the quickest path runs through Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
"If Biden wins any of them - but particularly any two, with some of the other states that are in play - it's pretty impossible for Trump to win the Electoral College," said veteran Democratic strategist Joe Trippi. "It makes tremendous sense to make those three states the base foundation of any strategy to win. If Biden wins all three, it's over." (AP)
A Republican campaign video comprising of visuals from the two historic rallies of President Donald Trump and PM Narendra Modi in the last one year - "Howdy, Modi!" and "Namaste Trump" - is making waves in the US ahead of the November 3 Presidential elections, particularly among Indian-Americans, whose votes may be the deciding factor in some of the battleground states, reported PTI.
Titled "4 More Years", the 107-second video begins with the footage of Modi and Trump walking hand-in-hand at the NRG Stadium in Houston during PM Modi's visit to the US last year.
The video then cuts to the two leaders, along with US First Lady Melania Trump, waving at a massive crowd in Ahmedabad during the Namaste Trump event in February this year.
It ends with Trump pledging American loyalty to India. "America loves India. America respects India. America will always be faithful and loyal friends to the Indian people," Trump is heard saying in the video.
US President Donald Trump basked in a largely maskless crowd of several thousand supporters during a Tuesday rally in North Carolina, where a cap of 50 people has been placed on outdoor gatherings to prevent the spread of coronavirus, the Associated Press reported.
"As far as the eye can see", Trump said, reveling at the sight of people flouting public health guidelines. "I really believe that these crowds are bigger than they were four years ago."
Trump's Democratic challenger Joe Biden, meanwhile, held a socially distanced meeting in a backyard a day earlier in Pennsylvania. His team has been attentive to local regulations, with some staffers even leaving the room if they risked breaking the rules on crowd limits.
"I really miss being able to, you know, grab hands and shake hands," Biden recently told reporters. "You can't do that now."
Kanye West will appear as a presidential candidate on Mississippi's ballot in November, after being approved as a qualified candidate by the State Board of Election Commissioners on Tuesday.
The rapper has already qualified to appear on the ballot as an independent candidate in several states, including Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Tennessee, Oklahoma and Utah. To qualify in Mississippi, he was required to pay a USD 2,500 fee to the Secretary of State's Office and get the signatures of at least 1,000 Mississippi voters.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, under pressure from GOP senators in tough reelection races, said Tuesday the Senate would vote on a trimmed-down Republican coronavirus relief package, though it has a slim chance of passage in the face of Democrats' insistence for more sweeping aid.
"The Senate Republican majority is introducing a new targeted proposal, focused on some of the very most urgent healthcare, education, and economic issues," McConnell said in a statement.
The GOP leader acknowledged the package he will be putting forward "does not contain every idea our party likes." And he said it was far less than what Democrats are seeking. (AP)
Taking a jibe at US President Donald Trump, Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden said that the current economy can only work for "Trump and his wealthy friends."
Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris met the family of a Wisconsin man shot by police last month to kick off her Labor Day visit to a critical swing state, while President Donald Trump assailed the Democratic ticket and tried to put the halting economic recovery under the best light. Harris gathered with Jacob Blake's father, two sisters and members of his legal team at the airport in Milwaukee while Blake's mother and attorney Ben Crump joined by phone. Blake joined the conversation by phone from his hospital bed, and Harris told him she was proud of him for how he was working through his pain, his attorneys said in a statement. Harris also spoke individually to each member of the family and discussed Biden's police reform agenda, they said.
The prospect of a vaccine to shield Americans from coronavirus infection emerged as a point of contention in the White House race as President Donald Trump accused Democrats of "disparaging: for political gain a vaccine he repeatedly has said could be available before the election.
"It's so dangerous for our country, what they say, but the vaccine will be very safe and very effective," the president pledged Monday at a White House news conference. Trump leveled the accusation a day after Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democrats' vice presidential candidate, said she would not trust his word on getting the vaccine. "I would trust the word of public health experts and scientists, but not Donald Trump," Harris said.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden amplified Harris' comments Monday after he was asked if he would get a vaccine for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Biden said he would take a vaccine but wants to see what the scientists have to say, too. Biden said Trump has said so many things that aren't true, I'm worried if we do have a really good vaccine, people are going to be reluctant to take it. So he's undermining public confidence."
Trump supporters rally near Portland and at Oregon's Capitol Salem (US), Sep 8 (AP) Hundreds of people gathered Monday afternoon in a small town south of Portland for a pro-President Donald Trump vehicle rally - just over a week after member of a far-right group was fatally shot after a Trump caravan went through Oregon's largest city.
Later, pro-Trump supporters and counter-protesters clashed in Oregon's Capitol city of Salem. Vehicles waving flags for Trump, the QAnon conspiracy theory and in support of police gathered at about noon at Clackamas Community College in Oregon City.
The rally's organisers said they would drive to toward Salem and most left the caravan before that. A smaller group of members of the right-wing group the Proud Boys went on to Salem, where a crowd of several dozen pro-Trump supporters had gathered. At one point Monday afternoon, the right-wing crowd rushed a smaller group of Black Lives Matters counter-demonstrators, firing paint-gun pellets at them.
Videos on social media showed right-wing protesters chasing, tackling and assaulting left-wing protestors with weapons, their fists and with pepper spray, The Oregonian/OregonLive reported. Paintballs were also fired between the two groups. (AP)
House Democrats said Tuesday they will investigate whether Postmaster General Louis DeJoy encouraged employees at his former business to contribute to Republican candidates and then reimbursed them in the guise of bonuses, a violation of campaign finance laws.
Five people who worked for DeJoy's former company, New Breed Logistics, say they were urged by DeJoy's aides or by DeJoy himself to write checks and attend fundraisers at his mansion in Greensboro, North Carolina,
The Washington Post reported. Two former employees told the newspaper that DeJoy would later give bigger bonuses to reimburse for the contributions. It's not illegal to encourage employees to contribute to candidates, but it is illegal to reimburse them as a way of avoiding federal campaign contribution limits.
Republican Carolyn Maloney, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, said in a statement Tuesday that if the allegations are true, "DeJoy could face criminal exposure" not only for his actions in North Carolina, but also for lying to our Committee under oath." She was referring to DeJoy's testimony before her committee last month, when he forcefully denied that he had repaid executives for contributing to Trump's campaign. (AP)
The prospect of a vaccine to shield Americans from coronavirus infection emerged as a point of contention in the White House race as President Donald Trump accused Democrats of "disparaging" for political gain a vaccine he repeatedly has said could be available before the election.
"It's so dangerous for our country, what they say, but the vaccine will be very safe and very effective," the president pledged Monday at a White House news conference.
Trump leveled the accusation a day after Sen. Kamala Harris, the Democrats' vice presidential candidate, said she "would not trust his word" on getting the vaccine. "I would trust the word of public health experts and scientists, but not Donald Trump," Harris said. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden amplified Harris' comments Monday after he was asked if he would get a vaccine for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Biden said he would take a vaccine but wants to see what the scientists have to say, too. (AP)