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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Maanvi Singh, Amanda Holpuch and Martin Belam

Congress to address rules for removing president amid health concerns – as it happened

Summary

  • You can continue to follow the latest updates on the global coronavirus blog
  • The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, plan to introduce a bill tomorrow morning that would create a commission to evaluate the president’s fitness for office under the 25th amendment of the US constitution. Republicans have responded by accusing Democrats of a “coup”. The Democrats’ discussion of presidential removal comes after Trump gave a meandering interview to the Fox Business channel during which he called for prosecuting his political enemies.
  • As the president continues to recover from Covid-19, his physician said he will be cleared to resume public engagements on Saturday. After refusing to participate in a virtual debate with Joe Biden next week, Trump said he would instead plan a rally.
  • The antibody cocktail that Trump was treated with, and has mischaracterized as a “cure” was developed with cells derived an aborted fetus – a practice that the administration opposes. Last year, the Trump administration restricted federal funding for research involving fetal tissue, suspending the newest research that involves tissue derived from abortions. The Covid-19 treatment that Trump was tested with a fetal tissue cell line from the 1980s, that was exempt from the administration’s restrictions.
  • The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced Thursday it thwarted an alleged plot to violently overthrow the government and kidnap the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer. The Democratic governor said Trump’s rhetoric has stoked threats against her.

Updated

A top Republican senator has said that “democracy isn’t the objective” of America’s political system, sparking widespread outrage at a time when his party has been accused by Democrats of plotting voter suppression and questioning a peaceful transition of power in November’s election.

The Utah senator Mike Lee made the inflammatory declaration in an early morning tweet following Wednesday’s vice-presidential debate.

“Democracy isn’t the objective; liberty, peace, and prospefity are. We want the human condition to flourish. Rank democracy can thwart that,” he wrote, misspelling prosperity.

It followed a series of tweets he made during the debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris in which Lee claimed “We’re not a democracy” and questioned its role in US government.

Lee is among a swath of Republicans who recently tested positive for coronavirus. His tweets came amid growing concerns over the integrity of the election on 3 November. Trump and Pence have refused to assure voters of a peaceful transfer of power if the Republicans lose November’s election.

The president has said: “Well, we’re going to have to see what happens.” And in the vice-presidential debate, when asked what he would do if Trump refused a peaceful transfer of power, Pence said: “First and foremost, I think we’re going to win this election.”

On CNN, Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, said the White House’s attacks have stoked threats against her.

Six people have been charged with a plot to kidnap Whitmer. Another seven have been charged with plotting to target law enforcement and attack the state capitol.

“We have to call it out for what it is – it is domestic terrorism,” she said.

Whitmer said White House had not checked up on her, while Joe Biden and Charlie Baker – the Republican governor of Massachusetts – had. “That’s what decent people do,” she said. Not long after news of the thwarted plot broke, Trump campaign official Jason Miller attacked Whitmer: “If we want to talk about hatred, then Gov Whitmer, go look in the mirror - the fact that she wakes up every day with such hatred in her heart towards President Trump.”

“Every time that this White House identifies me or takes a shot at me, we see an increase in rhetoric online – violent rhetoric,” the Michigan governor said. The foiled kidnapping plot “took it to a whole new level”.

Updated

Donald Trump is expected to call into Sean Hannity’s show on Fox News tonight, and guest host the Rush Limbaugh Show – a three-hour radio program.

This morning, he spent an hour on the phone with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo, saying he felt well after contracting Covid-19 and describing himself as a “perfect physical specimen”.

In a memo, the president’s physician Dr Sean Conley said he anticipates Trump will be able to safely return to public engagements on Saturday. Conley had previously said he didn’t think Trump would be cleared until Monday.

The CDC currently recommends that people who have had Covid-19 can be around others 10 days after symptoms first appeared.

Another member of the White House press corps has tested positive for coronavirus after taking a rapid test.

If their results are confirmed, this person would be the fourth journalist to have tested positive for Covid-19 after being exposed to an outbreak at the White House.

“In the immediate days ahead, we continue to insist that journalists who are not in the pool and do not have an enclosed workspace refrain from entering the indoor press areas of the White House,” the White House correspondents association said. “We would also strongly encourage all journalists to continue avoiding working from the White House grounds entirely if possible.”

Yesterday, BuzzFeed News pulled a political correspondent White House press pool due to coronavirus risks.

Martin Belam in London and Amanda Holpuch in New York:

Donald Trump suggested on Thursday that relatives of fallen soldiers could have given him coronavirus after they visited the White House – as the timetable for the remaining two presidential debates between Trump and Biden was thrown into turmoil.

In a phone interview with the Fox Business TV channel on Thursday morning, Trump complained about coming into close contact with the veterans’ families in a gathering one day after an event at the White House where Trump nominated a new supreme court justice. Many senior figures in attendance at that event later tested positive for Covid-19.

Of the Gold Star families event at the White House on Sunday 27 September, Trump told Fox he “went through, like 35 people” whose family members had died, “and everyone had a different story”, adding: “I can’t back up and say: ‘Give me room. I want room. Give me 12 feet. Stay 12 feet away when you talk,’” he said.

The military family members had “come within an inch of my face, sometimes”, Trump said. “They want to hug me, and they want to kiss me. And they do. And, frankly, I’m not telling them to back up. I’m not doing it.”

He also said he would not agree to debating his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, in a virtual setting, rather than in person, on 15 October, after the commission in charge of presidential debates said it was moving the debate online because of coronavirus concerns. There followed hours of back and forth between the two sides’ election campaigns that remained unresolved on Thursday afternoon.

What are Nancy Pelosi and Jamie Raskin proposing with their bill?

They say their bill would create a panel, operating under the confines of the 25th amendment, to help determine whether a sitting president is unfit for office.

The US adopted the 25th amendment to the constitution in the 1960s. It allows for a president to be removed from office if the vice-president and a majority of cabinet members or “such other body as Congress may by law provide” decide that the president is unable to serve. The amendment also allows the president to temporarily hand power over the vice-president before a foreseen event like a surgery.

While undergoing a colonoscopy, George W Bush handed over power to Dick Cheney. But after Reagan was shot and in hospital, he was unable to evoke the 25th – and didn’t hand over power, and his vice-president, George HW Bush, didn’t take it.

Pelosi and Raskin’s bill would seek to create that “other body” to consider whether presidential removal is appropriate.

Updated

The president appears to be back at the West Wing, outside of which a US Marine has been posted.

Trump, who is likely still contagious as he recovers from Covid-19, drew criticism for leaving his living quarters and returning to the West Wing earlier this week, where he could expose aides, advisers, cleaning staff, and others.

After the president’s first West Wing visit since returning from the hospital, a White House source told Axios: “It’s insane that he would return to the White House and jeopardize his staff’s health when we are still learning of new cases among senior staff. This place is a cesspool.”

Trump treatment tested with cells from fetal tissue – a practice his administration opposes

The antibody cocktail that Trump hasmischaracterized as a “cure” was developed with cells derived from human fetal tissue – a practice that the administration opposes.

Last year, the Trump administration restricted federal funding for research involving fetal tissue, suspending most new research that involves tissue derived from abortions.

The effectiveness of Regeneron Pharmaceutical’s antibody treatment for Covid-19 was tested by using a fetal tissue cell line from the 1980s, per the company, and falls outside the administration’s recent restrictions. Remdesivir, another drug the president was given as part of his treatment, was also tested with these cells.

“Promoting the dignity of human life from conception to natural death is one of the very top priorities of President Trump’s administration,” the Department of Health and Human Services said as the restrictions were imposed.

Updated

Hi there, it’s Maanvi Singh – blogging from the West Coast.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are in Arizona today.

The Democratic candidates were asked about Trump’s comments about Harris. “No, I don’t comment on his childish remarks,” she told reporters.

Per LA Times reporter Melanie Mason, Biden added: “It’s despicable. It’s despicable. It’s so beneath the office of the presidency, and the American people are sick and tired of it. They know who this man is, it’s got to stop.:

Today so far

  • Six people have been been charged with a plot to kidnap the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, that involves links to a rightwing militia group, the FBI said.
  • After the second presidential debate was made virtual and Donald Trump said he wouldn’t participate, ABC News said it will host a town hall with Joe Biden on 15 Oct in Philadelphia.

Updated

One last dispatch from Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer’s press conference from Miranda Bryant:

Whitmer said leaders who “meet with, encourage or fraternise” with domestic terrorists are “complicit” and “legitimise their actions”.

Citing Republican president Ronald Reagan’s speech to the NAACP’s annual convention in 1981 addressing racism and religious prejudice, she issued a warning that “hatred, bigotry and violence have no place in the great state of Michigan.”

She added: “If you break the law or conspire to commit heinous acts of violence against anyone, we will find you, we will hold you accountable and we will bring you to justice.”

Referencing lockdown restrictions - which attracted condemnation, including armed protests in the state capitol - she said she has had to make “gut-wrenching decisions no governor has ever had to make” over the last seven months and that coronavirus has caused “immeasurable” disruption to people’s lives and killed over 6,800 people in Michigan.

“As painful as these losses are, our hard work and sacrifices have saved thousands of lives,” she said, but warned there would be more difficult days to come.

Updated

Vice president Mike Pence has abruptly canceled his trip to vote in Indiana tomorrow, per an email from his office.

Pence is currently in Arizona and officials said he is still planning to travel to Florida on Saturday, according to the New York Times.

Pelosi to introduce bill to create commission on president's fitness for office

House speaker Nancy Pelosi and representative Jamie Raskin, a Democrat from Maryland, are tomorrow morning introducing a bill to create a commission to evaluate the president’s fitness for office under the 25th amendment.

This morning, Pelosi mentioned she would later discuss the 25th amendment, immediately inspiring accusations of a “coup” from Republicans online and on Fox News.

This included multiple retweets along those lines by the president, who also bizarrely shared a post by a journalist pointing out that using the 25th amendment is not a coup.

Updated

The White House director of strategic communications, Alyssa Farah, refused to answer questions from reporters about when Donald Trump last tested negative for Covid-19.

“I can’t reveal that at this time. Doctors would like to keep it private,” Farah told reporters, according to the White House pool.

When pressed to explain why, Farah said it was Trump’s private medical history, though much of it has been revealed already.

“I’m happy to raise that to the doctors, but my understanding is that we’re not making it public,” Farah said.

She said the president’s doctors would also likely be providing an update on his condition today.

Updated

More from Whitmer’s press conference from Miranda Bryant:

Whitmer said 2020 had been “a hard year for all of us” and warned “it’s not over yet” before striking a defiant tone. “But here’s what I know,” she said. “We’re Michiganders. We have grit, we have heart and we are tough as hell.”

She said the pandemic ought to be a time for unity - saying “we are not one another’s enemy, the virus is our enemy” - but instead of bringing the American people together, Donald Trump was stoking division.

“Our head of state has spent the past seven months denying science, ignoring his own health experts, stoking distrust, fermenting anger and giving comfort to those who spread fear and hatred and division,” she said.

Referencing the first presidential debate, when Trump told far-right group the Proud Boys to “stand back and standby”, she said he is “rallying” groups such as the ones that plotted her kidnap.

“Just last week the president of the United States stood before the American people and refused to condemn white supremacists and hate groups like these two Michigan militia groups. ‘Stand back and standby,’ he told them...Hate groups heard the president’s words not as a rebuke but as a rallying cry, as a call to action,” she said.

Miranda Bryant reports for the Guardian on Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer’s press conference about a plot to kidnap her, revealed by the FBI today.

Speaking for the first time since it was announced that members of two militia groups had been charged with her attempted kidnap, Whitmer this afternoon said she knew the job would be hard when she took the oath of office nearly two years ago but she “never could have imagined anything like this.”

She started by thanking law enforcement, the “fearless” FBI agents and the “brave” Michigan state troopers as well as state attorney general Dana Nessel and the US attorneys for pursuing criminal charges that will “hopefully lead to convictions, bringing these sick and depraved men to justice.”

Another debate update!

ABC News said it will host a town hall with Joe Biden on 15 Oct in Philadelphia.

Initially, 15 Oct was supposed to be the date of the second presidential debate. But the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) said this morning that debate would have to be virtual because of concerns about Donald Trump’s coronavirus infection.

Trump did not like that, then there were a lot of statements sent from both presidential campaigns which seemed to end with both agreeing to move that debate to 22 Oct.

The Trump campaign said the president would host a rally instead, though details of that have not been announced. Biden’s campaign has now confirmed it will be holding a town hall.

One key member of the Republican party has apparently been steering clear of the White House in recent months: Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.

McConnell told reporters in Kentucky that he hadn’t been to the White House for more than two months because of its response to the coronavirus.

“I actually haven’t been to the White House since August the 6th because my impression was their approach to how to handle this was different than mine and what I insisted that we do in the Senate, which is to wear a mask and practice social distancing,” McConnell said.

McConnell, who survived polio, said he talks to the president frequently by phone.

Some relatively good news from Wisconsin - fears that polling stations would not have enough workers to support them because of concerns about coronavirus have proven unfounded across the state.

In some places, the Washington Post reports, municipalities are overwhelmed by the amount of people stepping up to help:

“They’re stepping up to fill the role that grandma might ordinarily fill,” said Maribeth Witzel-Behl, city clerk in Madison. The capital city, a liberal bastion, was so inundated by September that it had to cut off applications at 6,000. Typically, about 3,000 people work the polls in a fall general election.

However, Wisconsin is a hot spot for Covid-19 and there is a concern that some parts of the state will struggle to attract enough volunteers or that people essential to the process will be infected with the illness.

Washington warns those at White House super-spreader event

In an extraordinary step, the Washington, DC, Department of Health has released an open letter appealing to all White House staff and anyone who attended a September 26 event in the Rose Garden and inside the building to mark the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court to seek medical advice and take a Covid-19 test.

The letter indicates a lack of confidence in the White House medical team’s own contact tracing efforts regarding an ongoing virus outbreak that has infected Donald Trump, multiple senior staff members and two US senators, among others, The Associated Press writes.

Co-signed by nine other local health departments from neighboring jurisdictions in Maryland and Virginia, the letter flatly states a belief that contact tracing on the outbreak has been insufficient.

It says the public appeal is based on, “our preliminary understanding that there has been limited contact tracing performed to date, there may be other staff and residents at risk for exposure to Covid positive individuals.”

It asks all White House employees, anyone who attended the Sept. 26 event and anyone who may have been in contact with those people to “contact your local health department for further guidance/questions regarding your potential need to quarantine.”

The letter represents a rising level of concern and a clear shift in strategy by Mayor Muriel Bowser’s government, which had previously remained publicly hands-off and said it trusted the White House’s robust medical operation to handle its own contact tracing and follow-up.

DC mayor Muriel Bowser speaking remotely at the Democratic National Convention in August, against a backdrop of the Black Lives Matter mural near the White House in Washington.
DC mayor Muriel Bowser speaking remotely at the Democratic National Convention in August, against a backdrop of the Black Lives Matter mural near the White House in Washington. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

Bowser said earlier this week that repeated attempts to contact the White House over the outbreak had received a “very cursory” response but that she believed the necessary steps were being taken.

“There are established public health protocols at the White House that are federal in nature,” Bowser said on Monday. “We assume that those protocols have been engaged.”

A Health Department spokeswoman did not respond to questions on whether the letter had been directly sent to any White House employees or people who attended the Sept. 26 event, or if the D.C. government had been provided with a list of attendees.

The move highlights the public health dilemma faced by Bowser’s government regarding the current outbreak. The Trump White House has operated for months in open violation of several D.C. virus regulations, hosting multiple gatherings that exceeded the local 50-person limit and in which many participants didn’t wear masks.

Washington’s local virus regulations don’t apply on federal property, but the current outbreak has blurred those distinctions.

Updated

Afternoon summary

It has been a busy morning, in part because the president gave his first interview since being admitted to the hospital for a Covid-19 infection.

In a morning that would have theoretically been focused on vice president Mike Pence’s performance at the debate last night, attention was instead on the president’s wide-ranging comments. Those and other major events summarized here:

  • In the same interview, Trump also said he was still being treated with a strong steroid, had done more for Black people than any president since Abraham Lincoln and was no longer contagious with coronavirus - though no doctor has publicly said that.

Joe Biden today tested negative for Covid-19, according to the campaign.

Donald Trump has posted a new video from the White House, which begins with him addressing seniors and explaining that he is a senior. “I know you don’t know that, nobody knows that,” Trump said.

He has decided to continue claiming that the medicines he took were a “cure” for coronavirus, something absolutely no legitimate medical body is saying is true.

More for the seniors: “You’re not vulnerable, but they like to say the vulnerable, but you’re the least vulnerable, but for this one thing you are vulnerable and so am I.”

He also promises to make a medication he was taking free and available to everyone, though that could take awhile to happen, if it happens at all.

There’s more on the second presidential debate ...

The Biden campaign just put out a statement.

Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager and communications director, said:

Donald Trump doesn’t make the debate schedule; the Debate Commission does. We accepted the three dates — Sept. 29, Oct. 15, and Oct. 22 — in June. Trump chose today to pull out of the October 15th debate. Trump’s erratic behavior does not allow him to rewrite the calendar, and pick new dates of his choosing. We look forward to participating in the final debate, scheduled for October 22, which already is tied for the latest debate date in 40 years. Donald Trump can show up, or he can decline again. That’s his choice.”

Time for a recap on what has happened today with the second presidential debate, which was originally scheduled to take place in Miami on 15 October.

  • The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) announced this morning the debate would be conducted virtually.
  • Almost immediately after, Donald Trump said in an interview with Fox Business: “I’m not gonna waste my time on a virtual debate.”
  • At first Joe Biden – and senior Trump economic advisor Larry Kudlow – suggested Trump might change his mind about the virtual debate.
  • A couple hours later, the Biden campaign called for the debate to be moved back a week to 22 Oct and said it would host its own town hall event on 15 Oct.
  • A little less than an hour after that, the Trump campaign said it also thought the debate should be moved to 22 Oct. Despite their agreement with the Biden campaign, the announcement was made in a paragraph of sensationalized statements including: “The CPD and the media cannot hide Joe Biden forever.”
  • Shortly after, the Biden campaign issued a statement challenging the Trump campaign’s request to *also* move the 22 Oct debate to 29 Oct.

Updated

Pelosi: 'His disassociation from reality would be funny if it weren’t so deadly'

House majority leader Nancy Pelosi spoke about Trump’s abrupt announcement that he was walking away from economic relief discussions. Pelosi said his comments were a surprise for many people though she did not specify if that included Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin, who has been negotiating with Pelosi for months.

“I do not want to go into who they are now, but it was a disservice to the discussion that we were having in good faith,” Pelosi said.

Later, she said she wondered if Mnuchin, or Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, knew Trump was going to walk away from the talks.

US House speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks during her weekly news conference at the US Capitol building
US House speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks during her weekly news conference at the US Capitol building Photograph: Alex Edelman/EPA

Pelosi also spoke about Trump calling himself a “perfect physical specimen.”

“His disassociation from reality would be funny if it weren’t so deadly,” Pelosi said.

She said the president owed it to the American people to share when he tested positive for Covid-19 after the White House refused to provide a timeline of the president’s testing before he was admitted to the hospital.

“Mr President, when was the last time you had a negative test before you tested positive? Why is the White House not telling the country this important fact?”

She also teased a discussion about the 25th amendment, which pertains to the president’s removal from office, for tomorrow.

Updated

Joe Biden’s presidential campaign has said it will host its own town hall on the planned date for the second presidential debate, 15 Oct.

The Commission on Presidential Debates said this morning the debate would have to be conducted virtually because of concerns about the spread of Covid-19. Donald Trump rejected this offer.

And now Biden’s campaign is pushing for the second debate to be moved to 22 October so “the president is not able to evade accountability,” the campaign said.

FBI says it thwarted militia plot to overthrow Michigan government

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) announced today it thwarted an alleged plot to violently overthrow the government and kidnap Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer.

The FBI said in an affidavit, obtained by the Detroit News, that the plot involved reaching out to members of a Michigan militia.

“Several members talked about murdering ‘tyrants’ or ‘taking’ a sitting governor,” an FBI agent wrote. “The group decided they needed to increase their numbers and encouraged each other to talk to their neighbors and spread their message.”

The affidavit was filed on Wednesday hours after FBI agents raided a home in Hartland Township, a town about an hour outside of Detroit.

The FBI is expected to provide more information on the incident today.

When Donald Trump confirmed he was still taking a strong steroid for his coronavirus infection, he also claimed he wasn’t contagious and feels well enough to attend rallies.

The president’s doctors have not said he is no longer contagious and the White House has refused to answer questions that would show how long he has been positive.

“I’m back because I’m a perfect physical specimen,” Trump told Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo.

In the Fox Business interview this morning, Donald Trump suggested he could have contracted coronavirus from the families of military members who died while serving, known as Gold Star families.

Politico reported on the president’s extensive comments:

At one event, Trump claimed to have “went through, like 35 people” whose family members had died, “and everyone had a different story.”

“I can’t back up, Maria, and say, ‘Give me room. I want room. Give me 12 feet. Stay 12 feet away when you talk,” he said.

The Gold Star family members “come within an inch of my face, sometimes,” Trump said. “They want to hug me, and they want to kiss me. And they do. And, frankly, I’m not telling them to back up. I’m not doing it.”

The White House has not disclosed when Trump contracted coronavirus and it has refused to provide details on Trump’s Covid-19 test results in the days leading up the announcement he had tested positive.

More from Politico:

Trump’s remarks Thursday were most likely in reference to a White House event on Sept. 27 celebrating Gold Star families. Several high-ranking military leaders also attended the event.

One of them, Vice Commandant of the Coast Guard Adm. Charles Ray, tested positive Monday, prompting all but one of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to self-quarantine this week after they met in a secure conference room at the Pentagon last Friday.

A second high-ranking officer who was at the Pentagon meeting, Assistant Marine Commandant Gen. Gary Thomas, tested positive Wednesday.

In a Guardian investigation published last month, Amy Dorris, a former model, accused Donald Trump of sexual assault in 1997.

Dawn Capp, who voted for Trump in 2016, told the New York Times in an article published today that she believed Dorris’s story because they are longtime friends and Dorris had described the allegations to her more than two decades ago.

Dorris alleged that Trump accosted her outside the bathroom in his VIP box at the US Open tennis tournament in New York on 5 September 1997. Dorris, who was 24 at the time, accuses Trump of forcing his tongue down her throat, assaulting her all over her body and holding her in a grip she was unable to escape from.

The Trump campaign has called Dorris’s account “totally false.”

“This is just another pathetic attempt to attack President Trump right before the election,” Jenna Ellis, a legal adviser to the Trump campaign, said in a statement to the New York Times.

With Donald Trump’s coronavirus infection, questions have returned about his November 2019 visit to the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Washington DC.

The White House never explained why Trump visited the hospital and its significance has grown in importance with his coronavirus case.

NBC News reports that medical personnel at Walter Reed were required to sign nondisclosure agreements before they could treat him last year, citing four anonymous people familiar with the process. Those sources did not know if the same process occurred when Trump was admitted to the hospital last week.

Two of those people told NBC that at least two doctors at Walter Reed refused to sign the NDAs and were then not allowed to be involved with the president’s care.

Biden on Trump's rejection of virtual debate: 'he changes his mind every second'

It took maybe an hour for someone close to Trump, as well as his opponents, to speculate that the president’s decision not to participate in the next presidential debate could change.

Trump economic advisor, Larry Kudlow, said in an interview with Fox News that Trump’s position could be a “negotiation point,” and that he would like to see the president participate.

Before boarding a flight to Arizona, Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, told reporters he didn’t know what he would do if Trump does not participate in the next debate. One reason Biden said he wasn’t sure about how to respond is because Trump “changes his mind every second.”

Vermont senator, Bernie Sanders, made a similar point in an interview with MSNBC, where he was asked about Trump skipping the debate. Sanders said: “That was 12 seconds ago right? He may have changed his mind since then.”

Updated

In a wide ranging interview with Fox Business, Donald Trump provided an update on his coronavirus infection.

The president confirmed he is still taking the strong steroid dexamethasone. It’s widely available in hospitals and doctors have highlighted it can make the patient feel better than they actually are, which could help explain some of the president’s unusually upbeat descriptions of how he is feeling over the past several days.

Trump downplayed the drug’s strength while sort of describing what medications he is still taking. “They have a steroid, it’s not a heavy steroid, they have that go a little longer. I’m almost not taking anything. I feel great.”

Several reporters noted that in the course of the 40 minute interview, Fox Business reporter, Maria Bartiromo, failed to ask a crucial question: when did Trump first test positive for Covid-19?

Bartiromo also ignored an open invitation to challenge Trump when he repeated his often used falsehood that he has done more for the Black community than any other president besides Abraham Lincoln.

Trump concluded: “People don’t even challenge me on that.”

And Bartiromo did not challenge him on that.

The Biden campaign shared a statement with reporters about the upcoming presidential debate.

Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager and communications director, said:

Vice President Biden looks forward to speaking directly to the American people and comparing his plan for bringing the country together and building back better with Donald Trump’s failed leadership on the coronavirus that has thrown the strong economy he inherited into the worst downturn since the Great Depression.

Donald Trump Jr, clearly not having seen the CNN poll that gave last night as a resounding win to Kamala Harris [see 6:53], has shared his thoughts about the CPD attempt to shift next week’s debate to a virtual format.

And with that, I’m off. It’s been quite an eventful morning to say the least, and Amanda Holpuch is here to take over for the next part of the day. Take care, stay safe…

The CPDs chairman Frank Fahrenkopf has responded to the Trump’s refusal to take part in next week’s debate by saying that no candidate is obliged to debate.

He cites Jimmy Carter opting out of the first debate in 1980, which left his opponent Ronald Reagan facing just independent candidate John B. Anderson on that occasion, although Carter did appear in a second event.

Well, this is awkward. Just after Senator Mike Lee has tweeted that, secretary of state Mike Pompeo has popped up to threaten anybody in Africa undermining democracy with visa restrictions.

Utah’s Republican Senator Mike Lee has just come out with the rather striking statement that democracy can thwart liberty.

Lee is currently in quarantine after becoming one of the people infected in the White House coronavirus cluster.

Updated

The Trump campaign have just issued this statement about the virtual presidential debate plan. I’d say it was quite strongly worded.

President Trump won the first debate despite a terrible and biased moderator in Chris Wallace, and everybody knows it. For the swamp creatures at the Presidential Debate Commission to now rush to Joe Biden’s defense by unilaterally canceling an in-person debate is pathetic. That’s not what debates are about or how they’re done. Here are the facts: President Trump will have posted multiple negative tests prior to the debate, so there is no need for this unilateral declaration. The safety of all involved can easily be achieved without canceling a chance for voters to see both candidates go head to head. We’ll pass on this sad excuse to bail out Joe Biden and do a rally instead

In a bit of a shock and awe tactic, while he is on air taking to Fox Business, Donald Trump has also simultaneously posted a two minute video to his social channels extolling what his term in office has meant for the military.

In the clip Trump claims to have spent $2.5 trillion on US forces while in office, saying again that he inherited a “depleted military”. He boasts of having got the forces three sets of pay rises, and says “There’s never seen [sic] anything like what I’ve done for the military”

Fact-checkers have previously labelled his claims over investing trillions of dollars into the military as a false ‘zombie claim’.

He says that now the military have “the best of everything” – including a reference to army uniforms having belts. Trump finishes the video by saying: “So for our military I just want to let you know there’s never been a president that has your back like I do.”

In the meantime, while he was on air, he said this about US troops:

'That’s not acceptable to us' – Trump says he will not participate in a virtual debate

Here’s a clip from Donald Trump’s interview on Fox this morning where he appears to rule out taking part in the proposed virtual debate format. The president says:

I heard that the commission a little while ago changed the debate style. That’s not acceptable to us. I’m not going to do a virtual debate. I’m not gonna waste my time on a virtual debate, that’s not what debating is all about. You sit behind a computer and do it, debates? Ridiculous. And then they cut you off whenever they want.

Trump asserts that the Commission on Presidential Debates did not tell his campaign of the plan before this morning’s announcement.

He also criticised the choice of moderator for the second debate, C-Span’s Steve Scully, who the president described as a “never Trumper”.

Updated

Maybe there isn’t going to be a virtual presidential debate after all…

The president’s son Eric has also begun to raise objections, returning to a common baseless allegation from the Trump campaign that Joe Biden has been using assistance during the debates.

After the first debate, the Trump campaign ran Facebook ads falsely claiming that Biden has used an earpiece in the first debate, using a manipulated photograph.

Updated

Second presidential debate between Trump and Biden to be virtual

The Commission on Presidential Debates has announced that the second Trump-Biden debate will be held virtually. The commission says in a statement:

In order to protect the health and safety of all, the second presidential debate will take the form of a town meeting, in which the candidates would participate from separate remote locations.

The town meeting participants and the moderator, C-SPAN’s Steve Scully, will still be located in the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts in Miami, Florida as planned. President Trump will participate from the White House. The televised debate is scheduled for 15 October. As yet there is no word statement from either campaign about the proposed new format.

One immediate effect is that it will take away any issues of how distant the two candidates should be from each other, or whether there should be plexiglass screens between them. This became a source of contention between the Mike Pence and Kamala Harris teams before their vice presidential debate on Wednesday night. Eventually they agreed to the debate being held with them both seated and at least 12 feet from each other, with screens between them.

There’s no word on whether Scully will be equipped with a mute button. The first debate between the president and Joe Biden was widely criticised for the number of times that Trump was allowed to interrupt the former vice president. Both campaigns would have to agree to any rule changes.

There is precedent for a US election to feature a virtual debate. In 1960, John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon debated remotely, with Nixon in Los Angeles, and Kennedy in New York.

Updated

Also unimpressed with Mike Pence last night is Philip Bump, who has written for the Washington Post this morning that “All honest politicians are the same. Each member of Trump’s ticket is dishonest in his own way.”

The first claim that Vice President Pence made in the vice-presidential debate on Wednesday night was not true. He claimed that President Trump had “suspended all travel from China” in order to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus in the United States. The travel restrictions were sufficiently porous that nearly 40,000 people traveled from China to this country after the restrictions went into place.

Pence’s second claim wasn’t much better, insisting that former vice president Joe Biden had called the restrictions “xenophobic.” Biden did call Trump xenophobic, but not obviously in relation to the restrictions that had been announced only minutes before and of which Biden was not aware.

Hitting two-for-two on false or misleading claims right out of the gates is hardly a novelty in the Trump administration. The difference between Pence and Trump is largely one of style.

Bump says that where Pence excelled was in “sweeping rhetoric that was either hopelessly cynical or endlessly ironic.”

He cited Pence criticising Kamala Harris for “playing politics with people’s lives” over vaccines, literally just a day after his boss tweeted this:

Bump writes:

The more egregious aspect of Pence’s response, of course, was Pence’s insistence that Harris not “play politics with people’s lives.” This is the vice president serving Donald Trump, saying that a politician should not play politics with the pandemic.

That’s the Donald Trump who has encouraged states to reject economic closures, risking broader spread of the virus, in hopes that the economy would rebound before Election Day. The Donald Trump who refused to wear a mask or embrace social distancing and mocked Biden for embracing those measures, relishing the applause of his base when he did so. The Donald Trump who has talked about how the death toll in the United States should be blamed on deaths in states that didn’t vote for him in 2016.

Read more here: Washington Post – All honest politicians are the same. Each member of Trump’s ticket is dishonest in his own way

Lisa Lerer writes for the New York Times this morning on how weirdly normal and ordinary last night’s vice presidential debate felt in the midst of a pandemic that has reached the president himself, and in the aftermath of last week’s tumultuous Trump-Biden debate. She says:

As candidates have done for decades, they largely dodged the most interesting questions. When asked whether they had discussed safeguards or procedures “when it comes to the issue of presidential disability” — a topical question given the two septuagenarians topping the tickets — both avoided giving an answer.

Mr. Pence refused to say whether he believed voters deserved more information about President Trump’s health, nor did he commit to a peaceful transfer of power. Ms. Harris refused to answer whether a future Biden administration would pack the Supreme Court — despite Mr. Pence’s best efforts.

“Are you and Joe Biden going to pack the court if Judge Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed?” demanded Mr. Pence. “I’d like you to answer the question.” She did not.

Lere was not, though, impressed with how the current vice president attempted to sign off on the debate.

In his final remarks of the debate, Pence pleaded for comity, a hard-to-swallow pitch given that he serves under a president who thrives on inflaming the country’s divisions and coming after a debate in which he frequently interrupted Ms. Harris.

His words sounded shockingly like the standard political pablum of a previous era. If the Trump campaign wanted to project some sense of normalcy, in the middle of this unending pandemic, Mr. Pence may have accomplished that goal for the 90 minutes of the debate.

But after four years of this administration, we all know it’s only a matter of time until a presidential tweetstorm blows everything up again. The talk of togetherness will seem distant and irrelevant.

Here’s some more on the dismayed and outraged reaction of relatives of Covid-19 victims to Donald Trump’s words “Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life” from Danielle Renwick. She reports:

When Marya Sherron read those comments, “It physically hurt,” she said. “It feels like he’s calling those that died like losers, like they were too weak to combat it.”

Amanda Kloots, whose husband, the actor Nick Cordero, died in July, called Trump’s comments “disgraceful”.

“I cried next to my husband for 95 days watching what Covid did to the person I love. It IS something to be afraid of. After you see the person you love the most die from this disease you would never say what this tweet says,” she posted to her 618,000 Instagram followers.

Kristin Urquiza, whose father Mark had supported Trump in 2016 and died of the virus in June, described Trump’s tweet as a “betrayal” of her father’s memory.

Read more here: Loved ones of Covid victims appalled by Trump’s ‘don’t be afraid’ tweet

CNN poll gives debate win to Harris 59-38, with huge gender split on verdict

CNN have a couple of interesting sets of poll numbers this morning. First off, their snap poll after the debate handed the win to Kamala Harris – but with a huge gender split in how people saw it.

Men rated it a narrow 48-46 win to the Democratic party VP nominee. Women saw it as a much clearer victory, 69-30. Overall that makes it 59 to 38.

A note of caution on that though, CNN point out their sample leans Democratic, and has less than a third of the panel as declared Republicans, which seems a bit skewed.

CNN have also published their Electoral College outlook this morning, which has Biden crossing the 270 threshold needed to take the White House.

Of the states that Trump won in 2016, CNN say recent polling shows Arizona, Michigan, Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin all leaning towards Biden.

This is how they calculate Trump’s possible path to victory on the basis of current polling:

Trump starts with a solid base of 125 electoral votes, from 20 states that are most likely to be uncontested Republican wins. When you combine that base of solid states with the additional 38 electoral votes from Texas that are currently leaning in his direction, it brings Trump’s total to 163 electoral votes – 107 away from reelection.

That leaves us with five states and one congressional district worth a total of 85 electoral votes that are the current toss-ups on the map: Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Maine’s 2nd Congressional District, North Carolina and Ohio.

If Trump is to have a successful reelection effort, it has to start with running the table with all of them and then still finding at least 22 electoral votes currently leaning toward Biden and bringing them back into his fold.

It sounds like a tough ask, but people said the same in 2016. Don’t forget you can plot your own election outcomes using our interactive election results builder.

Rudy Giuliani has delivered his verdict on Kamala Harris’ performance last night.

Rebecca Solnit writes for us this morning that Trump’s response to the pandemic has always been dishonest and cruel. She traces the root of the problem to the philosophy of the cult of individual freedom, disconnected from societal consequences, which she argues lies at the heart of current Republican ideology. She says:

The pandemic focused and intensified the need to recognize the interconnectedness of all things—in this case the way that viruses spread and the responsibility of those in power and each of us to do what we can to limit that spread, and to recognize the consequences that could break our educational system, our economy, and our daily lives and hopes and dreams if we did not take care, of ourselves, each other, and the whole.

The contemporary right has one central principle: nothing is really connected to anything else, so no one has any responsibility for anything else, and any attempt to, say, prevent a factory from poisoning a river is an infringement on freedom. They reject the evidence of climate change and other scientific realities on the grounds that it displeases them by undermining their ideology, rather than on the evidence. Freedom as they uphold it is the right to do anything you want with utter disregard for others.

In their logic, poverty must be caused by individual failings, not by systematic inequality and obstacles. Gun deaths must be disassociated from the deregulation and proliferation of guns. Taxes are a form of oppression, since no one owes anyone anything. Those who benefit from the system that taxes underwrite – infrastructure, law enforcement, education of workers – deny that their success has anything to do with anything but their own bootstrapping virtue and hard work. Climate change’s underlying message that what we do has longterm planetary consequences outrages their sense of autonomy.

Read it here: Rebecca Solnit – Trump’s response to the pandemic has always been dishonest and cruel

The Kamala Harris dodge on answering questions about expanding the number of justices on the US supreme court is one of the main themes that conservative voices are picking up on this morning in the wake of last night’s debate.

It’s worth noting, of course, that the number of justices on the court has varied over time, sometimes being six, seven or ten, although it has been (mostly) stable at nine since 1869. It was just eight for a period in 2016 after Republicans refused to countenance Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland.

There’s a very interesting backgrounder on the history of the size of the US supreme court, and when and why it has varied, here: National Geographic – Why the supreme court ended up with nine justices, and how that could change

34 White House staffers and other contacts infected with coronavirus – reports

Late last night ABC News reported that they had obtained a memo distributed among senior leadership at FEMA which said that the coronavirus outbreak has infected “34 White House staffers and other contacts” in recent days.

The new figures underscore both the growing crisis in the White House and the lengths to which government officials have gone to block information about the outbreak’s spread. ABC News had previously reported that a total of 24 White House aides and their contacts had contracted the virus. It was not clear in the FEMA memo with the larger number what “other contacts” referred to.

If you’ve lost track of the public figures that we know have contracted the coronavirus from this cluster, here’s a reminder.

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It’s important to remember though that this story isn’t just about politicians catching the virus. The White House is a working building with hundreds of staff, all of whom are potentially being exposed to the risks.

Bloomberg reported overnight that a top White House security official is gravely ill with Covid-19. They say that Crede Bailey has been hospitalized since September.

The White House has not publicly disclosed Bailey’s illness. He became sick before the Sept. 26 Rose Garden event President Donald Trump held to announce his Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett that has been connected to more than a dozen cases of the disease.

A White House spokesman declined to comment on Bailey. He is in charge of the White House security office, which handles credentialing for access to the White House and works closely with the U.S. Secret Service on security measures throughout the compound.

There are currently 211,834 deaths confirmed to be caused by Covid-19 in the US. With an estimated population of 322m, that equals to about 66 deaths per 100,000 Americans.

Here’s another clip from last night’s debate – one of the most memorable exchanges was about the nation’s healthcare. Kamala Harris issued a stark warning about the administration’s intentions on Obamacare.

Trump is seeking to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, which prevents health companies turning away patients with pre-existing conditions.

‘If you have a pre-existing condition, heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, they’re coming for you. If you love someone who has a pre-existing condition, they’re coming for you,’ Harris said.

Pence responded by claiming the Trump administration has a plan to protect people with pre-existing conditions. Trump has spent years claiming he will release a comprehensive healthcare plan. Four weeks before the election, and we’re yet to see it.

You are going to see a lot of this in the final weeks before the election – Republican candidates who are convinced that social media companies are stacked against them.

The usual answer for this is that the followers have disappeared not because Twitter operatives have intervened to target somebody like Moran’s account, but because they will have been accounts deleted or suspended for displaying suspicious bot activity or breaking the terms and conditions of the site.

However, these kinds of fears of bias against conservative voices is one of the reasons that the president has campaigned against Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which offers social media companies legal protection over what they allow to be published on their sites.

Louisiana bracing for sixth hurricane of 2020 – landfall expected Friday

One of the factors that has raised talk of climate change up the agenda in American politics is the extreme weather that both coasts have been experiencing this year – whether it is the searing wildfires on the west or an historic hurricane season on the east.

People in Louisiana today are once again preparing to hunker down as the state faces its sixth hurricane of 2020.

A satellite image of strengthening Hurricane Delta from Tuesday. It is now expected to make landfall in the US on Friday.
A satellite image of strengthening Hurricane Delta from Tuesday. It is now expected to make landfall in the US on Friday. Photograph: AP

The storm being watched is Hurricane Delta, the 25th named storm of the Atlantic’s unprecedented season. Forecasts placed most of Louisiana within Delta’s path, with the latest National Hurricane Center estimating landfall in the state on Friday.

The center’s forecasters warned of winds that could gust well above 100 mph (160 kph) and up to 11 feet (3.4 meters) of ocean water potentially rushing onshore when the storm’s center hits land.

“This season has been relentless. Prepare for the worst. Pray for the best,” said Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards

A hurricane warning has been issued for a stretch of the northern US Gulf Coast. The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Delta is expected to become a major hurricane again, like it was days earlier before crossing part of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

So far, Louisiana has seen both major strikes and near misses. The southwest area of the state around Lake Charles, which forecasts show is on Delta’s current trajectory, is still recovering from an 27 August landfall by Category 4 Hurricane Laura.

Nearly six weeks later, some 5,600 people remain in New Orleans hotels because their homes are too damaged to occupy report the Associated Press. Trees, roofs and other debris left in Laura’s wake still sit by roadsides in the Lake Charles area waiting for pickup even as forecasters warned that Delta could be a larger than average storm.

A view of the aftermath of Hurricane Laura near Lake Charles in August.
A view of the aftermath of Hurricane Laura near Lake Charles in August. Photograph: David J Phillip/AP

Edwards said President Donald Trump has agreed to sign a federal emergency declaration in advance for the state. The Democratic governor said he doesn’t expect widespread mandatory evacuations.

Lynn Nguyen, who works at the TLC Seafood Market in Abbeville, told the AP that each storm threat forces fisherman to spend days pulling hundreds of crab traps from the water or risk losing them.

“It’s been a rough year. The minute you get your traps out and get fishing, its time to pull them out again because something is brewing out there,” Nguyen said.

Abbeville’s Vermilion Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Lynn Guillory said “I think that the stress is not just the stress of the storm this year, it’s everything - one thing after another. Somebody just told me, ‘You know, we’ve really had enough.’”

Taliban welcome Trump tweet on withdrawing Afghanistan troops by Christmas

Reuters have just snapped that the Taliban have welcomed Donald Trump’s tweet on withdrawing troops from Afghanistan by Christmas.

It was “a positive step towards the implementation of the Doha agreement,” a spokesman for the Islamist group, Mohammad Naeem, said in a statement.

The Doha agreement, signed between the US and Taliban in February, drew up plans to pull out foreign forces from Afghanistan after two decades of war, in exchange for security guarantees from the insurgent group.

One of the topics that came up last night in the Pence-Harris debate was fracking. Time magazine’s Justin Worland explains why:

The moderator of Wednesday’s vice presidential debate hadn’t even brought up climate change when current Vice President Mike Pence jumped into the topic. But instead of talking about the science of the issue or offering a plan to address it, he sought to portray former Vice President Joe Biden’s climate stance as a radical ploy that would destroy the economy.

“They want to abolish fossil fuels, and ban fracking, which would cost hundreds of thousands of American jobs all across the heartland.” The statement was misleading at best. But what’s perhaps more significant about it, is that it signals the rise of climate change as a key issue in the presidential contest.

The Republican strategy of trying to pillory Biden for the Green New Deal was on full display Wednesday. Asked about the economy, Pence pivoted to the Green New Deal. Following criticism of the administration’s position on health care, Pence pivoted to the Green New Deal. Asked about the science of climate change, Pence pivoted to the Green New Deal.

Many Republicans now recognize climate change as a real issue, and the long-time strategy of casting doubt on the science no longer works. Still, many refuse to embrace significant climate measures, in large part because of the fossil-fuel industry’s strong and persistent lobby in Washington. So, instead, Republicans have sought to portray climate action as unaffordable.

Read it here: Time – Why Pence and Harris couldn’t stop talking about fracking during the vice presidential debate

Updated

Jessica Glenza has been looking at the thorny issue of just how much the healthcare given to the president over the last few days would cost the average American. She writes:

The answer, like everything else in American healthcare, is fiendishly complex and very expensive.

Americans pay more for healthcare than any other nation, including during a pandemic. At the same time, Americans rarely know how much a given treatment will cost even as they receive it.

Experts said Trump’s helicopter rides to and from the hospital, diagnostic testing and imaging, experimental prescription drugs, a private suite, round-the-clock care, and additional personal protective equipment required for outings would cost at least hundreds of thousands, and perhaps millions, of dollars.

“I would not be surprised if it were to exceed $1m,” said Dr Bruce Y Lee, a computational researcher studying healthcare at the City University of New York’s center on school of public health, whose recent work has estimated how much a course of Covid-19 treatment would cost an average American.

Read it here: Trump enjoys top Covid care that could cost ordinary Americans millions

Following in the footsteps of Scientific American, NBC News report that overnight the New England Journal of Medicine has broken with nearly two-centuries of tradition to lambast US politicians for their handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

35 editors have signed an editorial called ‘Dying in a leadership vacuum’ which does not call out president Donald Trump by name, but is full of allusions to his actions. Denise Chow writes:

In a first for the journal, the editors called for Americans to vote out leaders who have not done enough to address the pandemic.

“When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent,” the editors wrote. “We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.”

“The response of our nation’s leaders has been consistently inadequate,” they wrote. “The federal government has largely abandoned disease control to the states. Governors have varied in their responses, not so much by party as by competence. But whatever their competence, governors do not have the tools that Washington controls.”

Read NBC’s report here: NBC News – New England Journal of Medicine: ‘Dangerously incompetent’ politicians must go

Updated

Here’s Jill Filipovic’s verdict for us: Kamala Harris walked a tightrope, but still wiped the floor with Mike Pence.

This debate was less high-pitch without Donald Trump ranting and raving on stage. But it was frustrating in its own way – especially for any woman who has ever been in a room with an interjecting, condescending man. Pence repeatedly interrupted Harris, something she rarely did to him; he repeatedly talked over moderator Susan Page of USA Today when she told him his time was up; he repeatedly flouted the rules he had previously agreed to. The disrespect of women was tangible, and it happened over and over.

Harris had no such leeway to bulldoze either her opponent or the moderator. As a black woman on the national stage, she knew she had to walk a thread-thin line: Be likable, but authoritative; strong, but not “aggressive”. Interrupting Pence or even Page posed serious – and sexist – consequences with an electorate that has never seen a woman in the White House. But for better or worse, Harris is used to the Trump circus, and so she walked that tightrope deftly. She was tough, assertive, funny and charming, while Pence was patronizing and stiff.

Read it here: Jill Filipovic – Kamala Harris walked a tightrope, but still wiped the floor with Mike Pence

Women on social media have been praising the way that Kamala Harris dealt with Mike Pence’s attempts to interrupt her during the debate.

As Pence attempted to talk across her on Wednesday night, Harris said “Mr. Vice president, I’m speaking … I’m speaking.”

Delivered politely but sternly. It was heralded by many as a great pushback against a man trying to talk over you. “‘I’m speaking.’ This should be a 101 taught to all young girls. Nobody taught us this in the ‘80s,” tweeted screenwriter Elizabeth Hackett.

“I hope every little girl heard that” tweeted Orange Is the New Black actor Uzo Aduba.

The combination of the firm rebuke from Harris along with a series of disbelieving facial expressions from the California Senator while Pence spoke prompted widespread praise.

A snap CNN poll after the event found that among women, 69% thought Harris had won the debate, compared to 30% who thought Pence had won. Men saw the battle as a much closer 48%-46% to her.

As former New York prosecutor Mimi Roach put it, “‘I am speaking’ will and should be used by women everywhere when the daily mansplaining starts. Thank you Kamala Harris!”

Here are the highlights of Kamala Harris shutting down Mike Pence’s attempts to interrupt her.

Updated

One of the truisms of modern life appears to be that conservative figures will tell you that free speech is under threat, and that cancel culture is out of hand, and then attempt to get something cancelled for expressing an opinion they don’t agree with.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, resting up with a positive Covid diagnosis, was unhappy about pizza last night.

One of the key exchanges of last night’s debate between Mike Pence and Kamala Harris was around race and racism. USA Today’s Nicquel Terry Ellis has this breakdown of how it played out.

Harris criticized Trump for his refusal to condemn white supremacy at various points throughout his presidency. Trump set off a firestorm during last week’s presidential debate when he urged the Proud Boys, a violent far-right group, to “stand back and stand by” at Black Lives Matter protests. The White House later said the president has “always denounced” any form of white supremacy, despite evidence to the contrary.

Harris accused Trump of a “pattern” of racism, citing his ban on several Muslim-majority nations, labeling Mexicans rapists and criminals during his campaign launch, and his statement that there were “fine people on both sides” at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville in 2017 that saw a counterdemonstrator killed by a white supremacist.

“This is who we have as the president of the United States,” Harris said. “America, you deserve better.”

Meanwhile, Pence said he didn’t believe systemic racism exists in the United States when moderator Susan Page, asked about the police killing of Breonna Taylor. Pence and Harris disagreed on whether “justice was served” in Taylor’s case.

“Her family deserves justice,” Harris said. “Her life was taken unjustifiably and tragically and violently.”

Pence said, “Our heart breaks for any American innocent life...But I trust our justice system – a grand jury that reviews the evidence.”

Read it in full here: USA Today – Pence denies systemic racism, Harris decrys Trump administration ‘pattern’ of racism in historic debate

The New York Times, which earlier in the week endorsed Joe Biden as “offering an anxious, exhausted nation something beyond policy or ideology”, identified these six key points from the debate:

  1. The race was not upended. It was telling that a fly that landed on Mr. Pence’s head partway through the debate was among the biggest buzz generators of the night.
  2. Harris tried to keep 2020 as a referendum on Trump. It is not often that the first lines of a debate will be among the most important, but the opening answer from Ms. Harris succinctly summarized the Democratic plan for the final four weeks: “The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country.”
  3. Pence wanted to make the election an ideological choice. He was most comfortable on the economy and the traditional Republican message of cutting taxes and regulations.
  4. Pence’s interruptions revealed the stage’s gender dynamics. It was hard not to see the interjections and pushback refracted through the lens of gender in a contest where the outsize support of women is lifting the Democratic ticket.
  5. The weakest moment of the night for Harris came on the supreme court, when Pence challenged her directly to answer whether she and Joe Biden would endorse expanding it, Harris dodged. Pence called her out. And then Harris dodged some more.
  6. Pence and Harris sparred on race and racial justice. Harris’s presence onstage — the first woman of color on a major party ticket — was a statement in and of itself. Pence said that it would be an “great insult” to say America was “systemically racist”.

Read it in full here: New York Times – Six takeaways from the vice-presidential debate

Kamala Harris posted this campaign message to social media after last night’s debate.

In it she said “I just got off the debate stage and I just wanted to thank you for all that you’ve done to help Joe and me. We’ve got just 27 days to go.”

The vice-presidential debate was more courteous than last week’s horror show but still showed two contrasting faces of America.

One: white, male, midwestern, evangelical Christian. The other: Black, female, coastal, progressive.

Striking was Kamala Harris’s ability to weaponise facial expressions. The California senator’s fusillade of raised eyebrows, pursed lips and withering stares at her opponent will live in Democrats’ memory long after the words are forgotten (and probably be viewed by Republicans as sneering elitism).

It was also notable that both candidates did a better job than their bosses in last week’s debate apocalypse. Both were adept at sidestepping questions – such as whether they had discussed “the issue of presidential disability” with their septuagenarian running mates – in favour of talking points. At times, it almost felt like a brief holiday in political normality.

This may also have been a sneak preview of the 2024 election. Harris was on her game and looked ready to take over from Trump’s Democratic presidential challenger, Joe Biden. Pence, the current vice-president, used attack lines on taxes, the Green New Deal and the supreme court that Trump failed to land against Biden last week.

It was hardly a surprise that Pence reeked of white male privilege; it was less anticipated that the target was the moderator, Susan Page of USA Today, as much as Harris. Showing no respect for her questions, rules or timekeeping, he just kept talking and often called her “Susan”.

Struggling to gain control, she pleaded: “I did not create the rules for tonight ... I’m here to enforce them.”

So with that, Republicans may have lost more suburban women voters, if that is even possible. But the bottom line is that this VP debate won’t change the race.

Read more here: Looks speak louder than words as Harris makes quotable case against Pence

Michelle Obama – who issued a powerful video rebuke to the president this week – said that Kamala Harris was “Strong. Honest. Clear. Hopeful.”

More seriously than the fly though, Adam Gabbatt in New York had these five key takeaways for us:

  1. Harris hammered home criticism over coronavirus response. Pence’s staff insisted the vice-president had tested negative, but the Plexiglass barriers between Harris and Pence served as a constant reminder of the crisis. She kept her point simple – focused on the numbers dead, and the millions of people affected.
  2. One of the most memorable moments of the night was when Harris issued a stark warning about the Trump administration’s intentions on healthcare. “If you have a pre-existing condition, heart disease, diabetes, breast cancer, they’re coming for you. If you love someone who has a pre-existing condition, they’re coming for you.”
  3. Delivered with the tone a parent would reserve for a misbehaving child, Harris said to Pence “Mr Vice-President, I’m speaking. I’m speaking” as he tried to chirp in. Trump interrupted Biden 71 times during the first debate. Pence cut in a lot less – perhaps because of that early withering cut down.
  4. Pence ate up time. Moderator Susan Page, sought to stop Pence from taking longer than his allotted time. It didn’t work.
  5. Both candidates dodged questions. Harris on adding seats to the supreme court, Pence on coronavirus deaths per capita in the US. More troublingly, Pence refused to say he would accept the results of the election – just as Trump did in the presidential debate.

Read more here: Pence-Harris vice-presidential debate: five key takeaways

Without trivialising it too much, the breakout social media hit of the night was the fly that landed on Mike Pence during the debate. If featured in a lot of people’s reviews of the night.

And with the Covid outbreak currently gripping the White House, there was at least one congresswoman concerned about the health of the fly itself.

The Biden-Harris campaign was very quick to jump in to the jokes unfolding on social media.

Here’s a round-up of that social media reaction: Pretty fly for a white guy – insect on Mike Pence’s head upstages vice-president

The president, by the way, was unequivocal last night on who won the vice presidential debate.

Here’s how Donald Trump appeared yesterday in a video posted to social media.

In the message, he said that Regeneron was key to recovering from his infection. He said it was his suggestion to be treated with an experimental cocktail from the drug company, which has rarely been used outside clinical trials.

“I feel great. I feel like, perfect,” the president says in the video. “I think this was a blessing from God, that I caught it. This was a blessing in disguise. I caught it, I heard about this drug, I said let me take it, it was my suggestion.”

He promised to bring the drug to the American people for free, hawking it – falsely – as a “cure”. There is no cure for Covid-19. The president, who has often talked up unproven, unapproved treatments – from hydroxychloroquine to bleach – was doing so once again. The drug is has not yet been granted emergency authorization for use by the general public.

News that the president has been treated with Regeneron’s experimental cocktail caused the company’s stock to rise sharply. Donald Trump has ties to Regeneron’s CEO, Dr. Leonard Schleifer, who is a member of the president’s golf club in Westchester.

Schleifer’s company received $450m in government funding this summer as part of the president’s program to encourage the development of a vaccine and treatment.

Trump has owned shares in Regeneron and Gilead Sciences – maker of the antiviral remdesivir which the president is also said to be taking – per his 2017 filing with the Office of Government Ethics. Neither holdings were listed on the president’s most recent filing.

Here’s a reminder of the moment last night when Kamala Harris told Mike Pence that the Trump administration’s response to the growing coronavirus pandemic ‘the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country’.

Speaking directly to the camera, Harris then said, ‘They knew what was happening, and they didn’t tell you.’

Good morning, and welcome to our live coverage of US politics for Thursday. Here’s a catch up on where we are, and a little of what we can expect today.

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David Bowie Trailblazed the 'Everyday Exhibits' Trend in His '70s Living Room With A Retro Twist on Curated Clutter – It's Playful, Practical, and Replicable
A photo from 1971 shows that the musician was tapping into personality-led interiors long before they were a trend – experts say his look is the blueprint
Homes & Gardens
Homes & Gardens
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