Trump said Wednesday that a vaccine will be available as early as October and in mass distribution soon afterward — much sooner than was projected in congressional testimony earlier in the day by Dr. Robert Redfield. (AP Photo)US Presidential Elections 2020 LIVE news updates: US President Donald Trump escalated his unfounded attacks on mail-in voting on Thursday, suggesting the result of the 2020 presidential race could “never be accurately determined”. Trump, lagging his Democratic challenger Joe Biden in public opinion polls, has continued to make unsubstantiated attacks on voting by mail as vulnerable to fraud as state officials embrace it as an alternative to in-person balloting during the coronavirus pandemic.
Meanwhile, Trump also took exception on Wednesday to comments from the director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who said a vaccine for the novel coronavirus could be broadly rolled out in mid-2021 and that masks might be even more effective. Robert Redfield, in testimony to a congressional committee, said that general availability of a vaccine could come by “late second quarter, third quarter 2021.”
Trump also urged his fellow Republicans on Wednesday to go for “much higher numbers” in a coronavirus aid bill, as Washington remained deadlocked over economic relief from the crisis ahead of the November 3 elections. “Go for the much higher numbers, Republicans, it all comes back to the USA anyway (one way or another!)” Trump wrote on Twitter Wednesday. Later in the day, he spoke favourably about a proposal for $1.5 trillion in aid made by a bipartisan group of centrist lawmakers.
Since the nomination, many have taken to social media to congratulate the US president. (AP/PTI Photo)
The Green Partys candidate for president did not strictly follow procedures for getting on Pennsylvania's ballot in the November election and cannot appear on it the state, Supreme Court ruled Thursday, delivering a win for Democrats as Joe Biden tries to capture the battleground states' electoral votes.
The court, with a 52 Democratic majority, reversed the ruling by a Republican judge in a lower court on the candidacy of Green Party presidential candidate Howie Hawkins.
Democrats have long gone to court to keep Green Party candidates off the ballot, worried that they will siphon otherwise liberal voters in close contests against Republicans in the politically divided state. (AP)
US President Donald Trump escalated his unfounded attacks on mail-in voting on Thursday, suggesting the result of the 2020 presidential race could "never be accurately determined". Trump, lagging his Democratic challenger Joe Biden in public opinion polls, has continued to make unsubstantiated attacks on voting by mail as vulnerable to fraud as state officials embrace it as an alternative to in-person balloting during the coronavirus pandemic.
Outgoing US Ambassador to China Terry Branstad said he will help out Republicans campaigning in his native Iowa after returning home next month.
Branstad also told Hong Kong’s Phoenix TV that he considered the phase one trade deal between China and the US as the biggest achievement of his three years in China.
Branstad, 73, said he would be working on behalf of President Donald Trump, Senator Joni Ernst and others, but not in any official role. “My son is very involved in (Trump's) campaign, and I will be a volunteer to help him, to help Joni Ernst and other friends for the election in Iowa. But I will strictly be a volunteer,” Branstad told the station in a report broadcast Thursday. (AP)
US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden warned the United Kingdom that it must honour the Northern Irish peace deal as it extracts itself from the European Union or there would be no US trade deal. "We can't allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit," Biden said in a tweet.
"Any trade deal between the US and UK must be contingent upon respect for the Agreement and preventing the return of a hard border. Period."
Johnson unveiled legislation that would break parts of the Brexit divorce treaty relating to Northern Ireland, blaming the EU for putting a revolver on the table in trade talks and trying to divide up the United Kingdom. (Reuters)
US President Donald Trump on Wednesday openly contradicted his government’s top health experts by predicting that a safe and effective vaccine against the coronavirus could be ready as early as next month and in mass distribution soon after.
Trump said Wednesday that a vaccine will be available as early as October and in mass distribution soon afterward — much sooner than was projected in congressional testimony earlier in the day by Dr. Robert Redfield.
Trump says Redfield “made a mistake” when he told lawmakers that any vaccine available in November or December would be in “very limited supply,” and reserved for first responders and people most vulnerable to COVID-19. Redfield estimated the shot wouldn’t be broadly available until the spring or summer of 2021.
Meanwhile, his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, said in Delaware that he trusts what scientists say about a potential coronavirus vaccine but does not trust Trump. (AP)
Joe Biden is set to join Senate Democrats for an online lunch, returning virtually to the place that fostered his political career as he fields questions from allies on the race for the White House and the down-ballot effort to wrest the Senate's majority control from Republicans. The event Thursday will be a homecoming, of sorts, for the former U.S. senator now the party's presidential nominee. Yet it takes place at a grave moment with the COVID-19 crisis and economic distress ahead of an election like no other. While a welcome former colleague, Biden will likely face tough questions about his strategy to defeat President Donald Trump. Biden is on offense this week over the president's handling of the coronavirus crisis. He will travel later in the day to Scranton, Pennsylvania, his boyhood hometown, for a CNN town hall after Trump's own town hall earlier this week on ABC. The nearly back-to-back forums have been considered tuneups ahead of three presidential debates, the first scheduled for Sept. 29.
Joe Biden is set to join Senate Democrats for an online lunch, returning virtually to the place that fostered his political career as he fields questions from allies on the race for the White House and the down-ballot effort to wrest the Senate's majority control from Republicans. The event Thursday will be a homecoming, of sorts, for the former U.S. senator now the party's presidential nominee. Yet it takes place at a grave moment with the COVID-19 crisis and economic distress ahead of an election like no other. While a welcome former colleague, Biden will likely face tough questions about his strategy to defeat President Donald Trump. Biden is on offense this week over the president's handling of the coronavirus crisis. He will travel later in the day to Scranton, Pennsylvania, his boyhood hometown, for a CNN town hall after Trump's own town hall earlier this week on ABC. The nearly back-to-back forums have been considered tuneups ahead of three presidential debates, the first scheduled for Sept. 29.
Kanye West wants to bring back prayer in schools, give more government support to religious groups and has even asked his campaign staff to refrain from “fornicating” outside of marriage, according to people aiding his candidacy.
West, the billionaire hip-hop artist and fashion mogul turned Christian revivalist, is not running for president but “walking,” as he puts it. He entered the race late and is not going to make the ballot in states including Florida, Texas and Michigan, but he will be on the ballot in others like Colorado, Minnesota and Iowa. Some Democrats fear he could be a spoiler, even if his political appeal is minuscule. Third-party candidacies don’t need that many votes to make an impact, as Jill Stein showed in 2016 and Ralph Nader in 2000.
Kanye West wants to bring back prayer in schools, give more government support to religious groups and has even asked his campaign staff to refrain from “fornicating” outside of marriage, according to people aiding his candidacy.
West, the billionaire hip-hop artist and fashion mogul turned Christian revivalist, is not running for president but “walking,” as he puts it. He entered the race late and is not going to make the ballot in states including Florida, Texas and Michigan, but he will be on the ballot in others like Colorado, Minnesota and Iowa. Some Democrats fear he could be a spoiler, even if his political appeal is minuscule. Third-party candidacies don’t need that many votes to make an impact, as Jill Stein showed in 2016 and Ralph Nader in 2000.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Wednesday rejected President Donald Trump's charge that he is spreading fear about the safety of a potential coronavirus vaccine, urging Trump to defer to scientists and not rush its rollout. "Let me be clear: I trust vaccines, I trust scientists, but I don’t trust Donald Trump," Biden said. "At this moment, the American people can’t either." Biden warned against trying to rush out an unfinished vaccine ahead of the Nov. 3 election. Trump, who has accused Biden and his campaign of stoking doubt among Americans about the efficacy of a vaccine, told reporters at the White House later that Biden should stop promoting "anti-vaccine theories." "They're recklessly endangering lives. You can't do that," said Trump, who predicted at least 100 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine could be distributed by the end of 2020.
Top U.S. intelligence officials will provide in-person briefings to congressional intelligence committees on foreign efforts to meddle in the 2020 election after all, having previously said they would communicate mainly in writing, senators said on Wednesday. The leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committees said in a statement that John Ratcliffe, the former Republican Congressman who is President Donald Trump's new Director of National Intelligence (DNI), had confirmed that their committee would continue receiving in-person briefings. In late August, a DNI statement said that it would stop in-person election-related briefings because it had concerns information had been leaked to the public, a plan that drew immediate criticism from Democrats.
As Congress balks, well-funded nonprofits are donating hundreds of millions of dollars to help state and local officials run elections during the pandemic a sudden infusion of private cash in what was once considered a core government function. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, earlier this month announced they will donate $300 million to two nonpartisan nonprofits.
The groups, the Center for Tech and Civic Life and Center for Election Innovation and Research, will funnel the money to local officials working to ensure that everyone can vote and every vote can be counted," Zuckerberg said in announcing the donation. The Center for Tech and Civic Life had already doled out more than $20 million from other donors money that allowed the city of Philadelphia to double its election budget and quadruple its mail-ballot-processing capacity.
Transgender activist Sarah McBride won a Democratic state Senate primary in Delaware on Tuesday and is poised to make history as the first transgender person elected to the state's General Assembly.
McBride, who interned at the White House during President Barack Obama’s administration, made history at the 2016 Democratic National Convention by becoming the first transgender person to speak at a major party convention. She later served as national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign.
McBride defeated Joseph McCole on Tuesday to advance to the November general election. The Senate district in contention stretches from northern Wilmington to the Pennsylvania border, and has been held by Democrat Harris McDowell since 1976. McDowell, who is retiring and endorsed McBride, is the longest-serving legislator in Delaware history.
President Donald Trump ... and “Spike?” Local election clerks in Michigan downloading absentee ballots for residents overseas were given ballots that listed Trump's Republican running mate as Jeremy Cohen, who is the Libertarian Party candidate for vice president, the Michigan Secretary of State's office said.
Vice President Mike Pence wasn't on the ballot next to Trump. Cohen, whose nickname is “Spike,” is running with Jo Jorgensen.
It was a “temporary error” that was fixed within 90 minutes Tuesday, said Tracy Wimmer, a spokeswoman for Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
“Approximately 400 ballots were downloaded by clerks during this period; we don’t know how many were sent," Wimmer said.
Clerks were told to reissue correct ballots and tell voters to ignore the erroneous ballot if they received one.
“If a voter does happen to return the incorrect ballot instead of the correct ballot, it will still count. The clerk will be instructed to duplicate a vote for Trump onto a ballot for Trump/Pence,” Wimmer said.
Fielding compelling questions about voters’ real-world problems, President Donald Trump denied during a televised town hall that he had played down the threat of the coronavirus earlier this year, although there is an audio recording of him stating he did just that.
Trump, in what could well be a preview of his performance in the presidential debates less than two weeks away, cast doubt on the widely accepted scientific conclusions of his own administration strongly urging the use of face coverings and seemed to bat away the suggestion that the nation has racial inequities.
“Well, I hope there’s not a race problem,” Trump said Tuesday when asked about his campaign rhetoric seeming to ignore the historical injustices carried out against Black Americans.
Face-to-face with everyday voters for the first time in months, Trump was defensive but resisted agitation as he was pressed on his administration's response to the COVID-19 pandemic and why he doesn't more aggressively promote the use of masks to reduce the spread of the disease.
“There are people that don’t think masks are good,” Trump said, though his own Centers for Disease Control and Prevention strongly urges their use.
Joe Biden made his first trip to Florida as the Democratic presidential nominee with an urgent mission to boost support among Latinos who could decide the election in one of the nation's fiercest battleground states.
"More than any other time, the Hispanic community, Latino community holds in the palm of their hand the destiny of this country," Biden said Tuesday during a Hispanic Heritage Month kickoff event in Kissimmee. You can decide the direction of this country.
A win for Biden in Florida would dramatically narrow Trump's path to reelection. But in a state where elections are often decided by a percentage point, there are mounting concerns that Biden may be slipping, particularly with the state's influential Latino voters. An NBC-Marist poll released last week found Latinos in the state about evenly divided between Biden and Trump. Democrat Hillary Clinton led Trump by a 59 per cent to 36 per cent margin among Latinos in the same poll in 2016 and Trump won Florida by about 1 percentage point.
US President Donald Trump has made inroads into the Indian-American vote bank, the biggest ever by a Republican president, according to a survey which has sent worrying signals to the Democrats that the support of this influential ethnic community can no longer be taken for granted.
The survey by Indiaspora and Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders (AAPI) Data on Tuesday showed that a majority of Indian-Americans still favour former vice president Biden, the Democratic Party's nominee in the November 3 US presidential election. It found that 74-year-old Trump, seeking re-election, is making a big dent into the Indian-American vote bank despite the fact that Biden has a strong relationship with the community and played a key role in bilateral ties over the past few decades. Biden, 77, also scripted history last month by selecting Senator Kamala Harris, 55, as his running mate.