- Donald Trump spoke in Phoenix, Arizona, to a packed crowd of supporters who weren’t wearing face masks. The city’s mayor expressed concerns about the event, as coronavirus cases surged in the state.
- Voters in Kentucky and New York voted in primaries today, but don’t bank on results tonight. Both states have expanded mail-in voting because of the Covid-19 pandemic and will continue to accept ballots postmarked by today. In Kentucky, a Democratic candidate vying to challenge the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, filed an injunction to keep polls in Louisville open late, as voters who didn’t vote absentee banged on doors to register their choices
- Joe Biden and Barack Obama raised $7.6m at a virtual fundraiser today. The event was virtually attended by 175,000 people, according to the Biden campaign. This is the most money raised by a single Biden event so far in this cycle.
- The European Union is reportedly considering denying entry to Americans once borders reopen, due to the US response to the coronavirus pandemic. The move would be a sharp rebuke of Trump and his administration’s handling of the crisis, which has already claimed more than 120,000 American lives.
- Rayshard Brooks’ funeral was held in Atlanta, Georgia. Family members and friends offered fond remembrances of Brooks, who was fatally shot in the back by a white police officer earlier this month.
- The officer who fired 10 rounds into Breonna Taylor’s home was made redundant by the Louisville police. In a termination letter, the police chief, Robert Schroeder, wrote that officer Brett Hankison “blindly” fired into Taylor’s apartment. “I am alarmed and stunned you used deadly force in this fashion,” he wrote. But Hankinson can still appeal the termination.
- Senate Democrats signaled they would block the Republican police reform bill from being taken up for debate. Three Democratic senators said in a letter to the majority leader Mitch McConnell that the legislation was “not salvageable”, leaving many lawmakers pessimistic about police reform passing Congress before the November elections.
- Trump said he would soon sign an executive order on monuments. The president said the order would be aimed at punishing “vandals” and “hoodlums” who have defaced or tried to take down controversial monuments since the start of the George Floyd protests. However, it’s unclear what impact the order would have, considering it’s already a federal crime to deface federal property.
-
Senior health officials, including Dr Anthony Fauci, testified on Capitol Hill. Fauci said he was “cautiously optimistic” a coronavirus vaccine would be made available by early next year. The health officials also said Trump never told them to slow down coronavirus testing, contradicting the president’s comments.
- A former federal prosecutor said the sentencing of Roger Stone was politicized by senior officials. Former prosecutor Aaron SJ Zelinsky, who withdrew from the Stone case after justice department leaders overrode prosecutors’ initial sentencing recommendation in order to recommend a more lenient sentence for the former Trump associate, will testify before the House judiciary committee tomorrow.
Updated
Washington’s governor, Jay Inslee, announced a mandate requiring all residents to wear a face mask when in public.
The order goes into effect on Friday and violations could result in a misdemeanor.
“I think this is the way we need to look at this,” Inslee said at a news conference. “We just cannot wish this virus to go away. We have to use tools that are available to us that we know, that work.”
The mandate will be formally issued by the health secretary, John Wiesman, and exempts children under the age of five – though kids 3-5 years old are recommended to wear face coverings. People who are deaf or hard of hearing are also exempt, in in scenarios when they are communicating with others.
The requirement comes as cases surged in some parts of Washington, even as the state continued reopening businesses and public spaces.
Updated
“Absentee ballots are fine,” Trump said, justifying why he voted absentee in Florida but opposes mail-in voting.
As we all know, absentee votes are mailed through the postal service, whereas mail-in ballots are posted, though the mail system.
Trump actually voted absentee in the Florida primaries, even though he was in Florida at the time and could have voted in person, as CNN reports.
Updated
Trump continued to lie about mail-in voting, suggesting that absentee ballots will be “stolen from mailboxes” and “forged”.
“Will they be counterfeited maybe by the millions by foreign powers?” Trump speculated.
I’ll let my colleague, voting rights reporter Sam Levine, explain why the president’s claims are false and misleading:
Experts have said that it would be nearly impossible for a foreign country to orchestrate the kind of fraud Trump and Barr are hyping.
Many election offices have systems in place to closely track mail-in ballots and have other methods of verifying the identity of a voter such as comparing the signature on the ballot to ones on file.
Donald Trump just quoted Martin Luther King, Jr, saying he and the Right “believe that people should not be judged based on the color of their skin but the content of their character”.
He used racist phrases to described coronavirus, including “kung flu” earlier in the speech.
Updated
In Philadelphia, a reporter and several demonstrators demanding that the city demilitarize the police were reportedly apprehended, by officers outfitted in “counter-terrorism” gear.
So here is the video before I got detained... pic.twitter.com/2U6NEsvBTa
— Samantha Melamed (@samanthamelamed) June 23, 2020
So I just told a police officer wielding a baton that im a reporter. He told me to “put this on Twitter”. Then he tightly handcuffed me with zip ties and he and another one mocked me while dragging me backward down two flights of stairs along with few dozen others arrested in MSB
— Samantha Melamed (@samanthamelamed) June 23, 2020
Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Samanta Melamed told police she was a reporter but was detained nonetheless.
Protestors gathered in the lobby of the city’s Municipal Services Building to demand that officials amend the budget and defund the police. Hundreds also stood outside city hall, as nationwide demonstrations against police brutality continued nearly a month after George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis.
In Phoenix, more false claims from Trump:
Trump on healthcare: “We will always protect people with pre-existing conditions.”
Fact check: Trump tried to weaken protections for patients with pre-existing conditions provided by Obamacare through repeal and replace proposals that didn’t make it through Congress. The White House is also championing a federal lawsuit to repeal Obamacare.
Trump: “We passed VA Choice... Nobody thought we were going to get that one done.”
Fact check: The Veterans Choice Program was started in 2014 by Obama, following a scandal over wait times at veterans health facilities. Trump signed legislation to continue the program.
More from voting rights reporter Sam Levine:
Kentucky voters banged on shut doors demanding to be able to vote at the Kentucky Expo center in Louisville after the official poll time in Kentucky.
Voters are entitled to vote as long as they are in line when the polls close, but the local county clerk had argued that people had to be physically inside the Expo center, not outside on the pavement, to vote at 6pm. That left about 100 voters locked outside the expo doors on the pavement demanding to be let in.
The rush to get inside before 6pm: pic.twitter.com/gxTEQwphDR
— Joe Sonka 😐 (@joesonka) June 23, 2020
Door banging getting really aggressive now: pic.twitter.com/YJhNOn2fJf
— Joe Sonka 😐 (@joesonka) June 23, 2020
A judge then granted a request from Charles Booker, a state representative seeking the Democratic nomination for a US Senate seat, and the doors were briefly opened until 6.30.
In addition to the voters just outside the expo center, there were also reports that voters were lined up in their cars waiting to get into the Expo center so voters could cast a ballot. It’s unclear if those voters will get to vote.
Updated
Louisville officer fired over Breonna Taylor killing
The Louisville cop who shot 10 rounds into Breonna Taylor’s home has been fired, according to the police department.
— LMPD (@LMPD) June 23, 2020
In a termination letter, the police chief, Robert Schroeder, wrote that officer Brett Hankison “blindly” fired into Taylor’s apartment, creating a “substantial danger of death and serious injury”.
“I find your conduct a shock to the conscience,” he wrote. “I am alarmed and stunned you used deadly force in this fashion.”
Hankison can still appeal his termination, because of “due process rights granted to police officers under Kentucky state law and the collective bargaining agreement between the police union and city” the Louisville Courier-Journal reports.
Taylor, a 26-year-old EMT, was killed more than two months ago, after officers forced their way into her apartment with a “no-knock” warrant. Activists have been calling for those that killed her to be arrested.
Updated
Trump has repeated one false claim after another.
Trump: Democrats “get everybody even if they’re not registered, if they’re not citizens if they’re here illegally” to vote.
Fact check: This is not true. Trump has repeatedly undermined efforts to expand voting by mail by spreading misinformation about potential cheating.
Trump: California admitted that 1m or more people voted illegally.
Fact check: This is not true. The settlement that Trump is referencing concerned inactive voters on registration rolls in a case that had to do with updating old records.
Updated
In Phoenix, Donald Trump appears pleased with the packed house, a few days after seeing thousands of empty seats in Tulsa.
As his opponent’s fundraiser with Barack Obama winds down, Trump derided Biden. “It only took [Obama] how long? A year and a half to endorse him?” he mocked. Obama — who avoided picking favorites among the Democratic primary candidates — endorsed Biden in mid-April, a day after Biden’s last remaining Democratic rival Bernie Sanders endorsed the former vice president.
In Louisville, Charles Booker, who is vying to be the Democratic challenger to Senate leader Mitch McConnell in November, had filed an injunction to keep polls open until 9pm local time due to long lines at Kentucky Expo Center, the county’s only in-person election day polling place.
He urged voters to stay in line, even after the polling place officially closed at 6pm.
STAY IN LINE! A judge is reviewing the situation.
— Charles Booker (@Booker4KY) June 23, 2020
STAY IN LINE.
After a bipartisan agreement between the Republican secretary of state Michael Adams and Democratic governor Andy Beshear, all registered voters in Kentucky had the option to vote by mail. More than 883,000 ballots were requested, and 452,000 were returned by Monday afternoon, according to officials.
Updated
Joe Biden and Barack Obama raised $7.6m at a virtual fundraiser today, which was virtually attended by 175,000 people, according to the Biden campaign. This is the most money raised by a single Biden event so far in this cycle.
Obama criticized the Trump administration, noting that the president has broken long-held norms. “What we have seen over the last couple of years is a White House enabled by Republicans in Congress and a media structure that supports them that has not just differed in terms of policy, but has gone at the very foundations of who we are and who we should be,” he said, according to the pool report.
The Trump administration is one that, “suggests facts don’t matter, science doesn’t matter. That suggests that a deadly disease is fake news. That sees the justice department as simply an extension and arm of the personal concerns of the president. That actively promotes division. And considers some people in this country more real as Americans than others,” he continued.
The Trump campaign has so far been ahead in fundraising, with $265m in cash at the end of May. Biden and the Democrats had a combined $122m, Reuters reported, though the former vice-president’s fundraising efforts appear to have picked up in recent weeks.
Updated
Here’s more from my colleague Sam Levine, on the primaries today:
Don’t expect to know the results of the primary contests in New York and Kentucky after the polls close on Tuesday.
Both states have dramatically expanded mail-in voting because of the Covid-19 pandemic and will continue to accept ballots that are postmarked by election day. (In New York ballots are counted if they arrive within 7 days, in Kentucky until Saturday) Because a significant chunk of voters are expected to vote by mail, it will likely take a while to know the result. In New York, absentee ballots won’t be counted until next week and it could take weeks to know the winners of races.
There is growing concern over how similar delays across the country will play out in November. An increase in mail-in balloting will mean that states across the country will need more time to count the results. The uncertainty during that waiting period could allow one candidate to claim the election is being tainted by fraud.
Updated
The New York City Bar Association wrote to Congressional leaders after the Trump administration ousted Geoffrey Berman, the US attorney for the southern district of New York that oversaw investigations of the president’s allies.
The professional membership organization for lawyers said they were writing, “in response to continuing actions by attorney general William P Barr that raise the most serious questions about Mr Barr’s fitness for the high office that he holds”.
Barr had Berman removed from office amid what appeared to be an ongoing purge of officials who could threaten his re-election. Berman’s office had put Trump’s former personal lawyer in prison and is investigating his current lawyer Rudy Giuliani.
“To summarily remove a US attorney in a context in which associates of the president (and possibly the president himself) are reported to be under active investigation by that office suggests political interference and undermines confidence in the integrity of our justice system,” the bar association wrote. “For this reason, we believe it essential that Congress examine closely Mr Barr’s motives for taking this precipitous action and whether or not he communicated with the president before, during or after doing so.”
Berman initially refused to confirm his resignation following an unexpected announcement from Barr refusing the attorney of his position. This prompted Barr to announced that he had Trump fire Berman.
Updated
FBI says no crime was committed after a noose was found at Black Nascar driver's garage
In a statement, the FBI said that “no federal crime was committed” when a noose was left at Bubba Wallace’s garage at Talladega Superspeedway.
According to the FBI, evidence, including video, showed that the noose found at the garage was there last October before Wallace and his team were assigned to the space. “The decision not to pursue federal charges is proper after reviewing all available facts and all applicable federal laws,” the agency said in a joint statement with US attorney Jay E Town.
The noose was reported after Wallace, Nascar’s only full-time Black driver, led a successful campaign to ban the Confederate flag at events. In a statement on Twitter, Wallace called the noose incident a “despicable act of racism and hatred”.
Updated
Hi there, it’s Maanvi Singh blogging from the West coast.
Donald Trump has just landed in Phoenix, where he is expected to speak at a student for Trump event. The crowd that awaits has reportedly eschewed masks, as expected.
Air Force One, wheels down in Phoenix. What awaits: https://t.co/WIsOhjHlgh
— Jonathan Lemire (@JonLemire) June 23, 2020
The Democratic mayor of Phoenix, Kate Gallego, had expressed concerns about the risks of holding a large indoor event in a state that has seen cases surge. She urged Trump to wear a mask. “Everyone attending tomorrow’s event, particularly any elected official, should set an example to residents by wearing a mask,” she said. “This includes the president.”
Updated
Coronavirus has brought America "to its knees" - public health chief
Robert Redfield, director of the federal agency the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) told Congress at a hearing this afternoon that Covid-19 has “brought this nation to its knees”.
With 2.3 million confirmed coronavirus cases and 121,000 deaths so far, and a surge in cases in almost half of US states in recent weeks as they try to get back to business, the US is struggling to control the virus. The economy has cratered.
“We’ve all done the best that we can do to tackle this virus,” Redfield told House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing.
Donald Trump is seen by many to have mismanaged the pandemic, after dismissing the dangers of the virus early on as it hit the US.
Redfield did not speak of that but did point to the pandemic having exposed decades of underspending on the “core capabilities of public health data”, and he called for the fix of a broken system.
“This needs to be a partnership. It’s not all the burden of the federal government to invest in public health at the local level. If your funding of CDC was to go away tomorrow, public health infrastructure across this nation would just crash,” he said.
Protestors demonstrate outside the home of Tucson’s Mayor Regina Romero at the weekend in opposition to the new mask mandate. Donald Trump is visiting Arizona today, as the states breaks a record for daily coronavirus cases. Photograph: Cheney Orr/Reuters
Today so far
That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- The European Union is reportedly considering denying entry to Americans once borders reopen, due to the US response to the coronavirus pandemic. The move would be a sharp rebuke of Trump and his administration’s handling of the crisis, which has already claimed more than 120,000 American lives.
- Rayshard Brooks’ funeral was held in Atlanta, Georgia. Family members and friends offered fond remembrances of Brooks, who was fatally shot in the back by a white police officer earlier this month.
- Senate Democrats signaled they would block the Republican police reform bill from being taken up for debate. Three Democratic senators said in a letter to majority leader Mitch McConnell that the legislation was “not salvageable,” leaving many lawmakers pessimistic about police reform passing Congress before the November elections.
- Trump said he would soon sign an executive order on monuments. The president said the order would be aimed at punishing “vandals” and “hoodlums” who have defaced or tried to take down controversial monuments since the start of the George Floyd protests. However, it’s unclear what impact the order would have, considering it’s already a federal crime to deface federal property.
-
Senior health officials, including Dr Anthony Fauci, testified on Capitol Hill. Fauci said he was “cautiously optimistic” a coronavirus vaccine would be made available by early next year. The health officials also said Trump never told them to slow down coronavirus testing, contradicting the president’s comments this morning.
- A former federal prosecutor said the sentencing of Roger Stone was politicized by senior officials. Former prosecutor Aaron S.J. Zelinsky, who withdrew from the Stone case after justice department leaders overrode prosecutors’ initial sentencing recommendation in order to recommend a more lenient sentence for the former Trump associate, will testify before the House judiciary committee tomorrow.
Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Trump family attempts to block publication of tell-all memoir - report
The Trump family is reportedly requesting a temporary restraining order to block publication of a tell-all memoir by the president’s niece, Mary Trump.
The New York Times reports:
Ms. Trump is the daughter of the president’s late brother, Fred Trump Jr., and her book, ‘Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,’ is scheduled to be published by Simon & Schuster on July 28.
A person familiar with the matter said a request for a temporary restraining order was filed on Tuesday by Mr. Trump’s younger brother, Robert S. Trump, in Queens County Surrogate’s Court, where the estate of the president’s father, Fred Trump Sr., was settled.
The filing is against Ms. Trump and Simon & Schuster, and it seeks to stop publication on the grounds that Ms. Trump is violating a nondisclosure agreement related to the settlement of the estate.
According to Simon & Schuster, the book will describe “a nightmare of traumas, destructive relationships, and a tragic combination of neglect and abuse” that created “one of the world’s most powerful and dysfunctional families”.
While touring a section of the border wall in Arizona, Trump also addressed the recent supreme court decision on Daca. He said he would resubmit paperwork to end the Obama-era program.
In response to press questions, Pres Trump said he's not giving up on DACA and will resubmit his proposal to undo the Obama program. "Good things are happening with DACA. We'll resubmit but we'll work it out." Asserts "I'll get it done." pic.twitter.com/kqfCl67S9h
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) June 23, 2020
The president told reporters, “Good things are happening with Daca. We’ll resubmit, but we’ll work it out.” He added, “I’ll get it done.”
Specifically addressing Daca receipients, also known as “dreamers,” Trump said, “Put your chin up. Good things are going to happen.”
The supreme court ruled last week to block Trump’s effort to end the program, sparking outrage from the president and his Republican allies.
If Trump tried to end the program again, it would almost certainly prompt another lengthy legal battle that would not be settled before November’s election.
Updated
The president is currently touring a section of the border wall in Arizona, after hosting a roundtable discussion on border security in Yuma.
Trump added his signature to a plaque on the border wall as he and his administration celebrated the 200th mile of new wall construction between the US and Mexico.
.@realDonaldTrump after signing plaque on the Border Wall as he participates in a Commemoration of the 200th Mile of New Border Wall in San Luis, AZ. pic.twitter.com/UGfuIKXAGs
— Doug Mills (@dougmillsnyt) June 23, 2020
The president told reporters who joined him for his trip to Arizona that the border wall is “really foolproof.” His administration has pledged to build 450 miles of border wall by the end of the year.
Asked about his executive order freezing some employment-based visas through the end of the year, Trump said, “So we want to give jobs to Americans right now.”
However, a number of US businessowners have said they rely on the visas and warned the order will negatively impact their companies.
Republican senator Lamar Alexander called for “dramatically expanding” coronavirus testing, as nearly half of US states report rises in new positive cases.
Alexander, the Republican chairman of the Senate committee on health, education, labor and pensions, emphasized that increased testing was crucial for a safe reopening.
“We need the tests,” Alexander said in a Senate floor speech moments ago. “They help us contain the disease, and they build confidence, so we can go back to work, back to school.”
His comments come as four senior health officials, including Dr Anthony Fauci, testify before the House energy and commerce committee.
All four officials commited to increasing testing in the weeks and months to come, even though Trump has claimed he told his administration to slow down testing in order to limit the number of positive results. The health officials said they never received that directive.
More from the Guardian’s Sam Levine on today’s elections:
Voters in one central New York county only had one place to vote in person on Tuesday: the local sheriff’s office.
Voters have to have their temperature taken and answer questions about whether or not they have had coronavirus symptoms or exposure to the virus before entering the polling place in Chenango County, which has about 20,000 registered voters.
If they don’t want to submit to temperature testing or refuse to answer the questions, they are taken to a separate room to vote, said Mary Lou Monahan, the Republican commissioner on the county board of elections.
Chenango County election officials determined the county sheriff’s office was the best place to hold in-person voting on election day as they faced a shortage of poll workers and election equipment.
Olivia Powell, a former county resident, was concerned that holding voting in a law enforcement station would deter people from voting, especially given increased scrutiny on police brutality, according to WSKG. She delivered a petition signed by more than 200 people asking that the polling place be moved and to replace the sheriff’s deputies with civilian poll workers, the station reported.
“I can honestly say it never entered my mind that anyone would feel that would be an intimidating process,” Monahan said. “But I understand people’s points and their point of view. I respect that. I just ask that same respect is extended to us with the decision that we made.”
Twitter said Trump’s tweet about quashing a potential autonomous zone in Washington would remain on the platform, although it is hidden from his page.
Twitter has flagged Trump’s tweet about quashing a potential autonomous zone in DC for violating its policy against abusive behavior. This is how the tweet now appears on Trump’s page. pic.twitter.com/jq2Os3iFMu
— Joan Greve (@joanegreve) June 23, 2020
“Per our policies, this Tweet will remain on the service given its relevance to ongoing public conversation,” Twitter said in a tweet about its decision.
“Engagements with the Tweet will be limited. People will be able to Retweet with Comment, but not Like, Reply, or Retweet it.”
Last month, Twitter flagged one of Trump’s tweets about the George Floyd protests, saying it glorified violence. The president’s tweet read, in part, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.”
Twitter places public interest notice on Trump tweet
Twitter has put a public interest notice on Trump’s tweet about quashing a potential “autonomous zone” in Washington.
The social media platform said the tweet was in volation of “our policy against abusive behavior, specifically, the presence of a threat of harm against an identifiable group.”
We’ve placed a public interest notice on this Tweet for violating our policy against abusive behavior, specifically, the presence of a threat of harm against an identifiable group.https://t.co/AcmW6O6d4t
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) June 23, 2020
Trump tweeted earlier today, “There will never be an ‘Autonomous Zone’ in Washington, D.C., as long as I’m your President. If they try they will be met with serious force!”
The tweet came one day after protesters defaced the statue of Andrew Jackson in Lafayette Square near the White House. The demonstrators also spray-painted the phrase “BHAZ: Black House Autonomous Zone” on a piece of plywood.
Protesters in Seattle, Washington, have set up a police-free autonomous zone in the city, which has become a target of conservative ire in recent weeks.
Former prosecutor to testify Stone sentencing was politicized
A former federal prosecutor who withdrew from the Roger Stone case intends to testify tomorrow that the sentencing of the former Trump associate was politicized by senior officials.
Former prosecutor Aaron S.J. Zelinsky, who previously worked with special counsel Robert Mueller, is expected to testify before the House judiciary committee tomorrow.
According to a copy of his opening statement, Zelinsky will say, “What I heard — repeatedly — was that Roger Stone was being treated differently from any other defendant because of his relationship to the president.”
Zelinsky plans to tell the panel that Timothy Shea, the acting US attorney for the District of Columbia, “was receiving heavy pressure from the highest levels of the Department of Justice to cut Stone a break” and agreed to do so because he was “afraid of the president.”
Zelinsky and three other prosecutors withdrew from the Stone case after justice department officials overrode their inital sentencing recommendation of seven to nine years in prison in order to offer a more lenient recommendation.
More from the Guardian’s Sam Levine on today’s elections:
Civil rights groups monitoring an election protection hotline said they had received under 100 complaints from voters in New York City about various issues at the polls on Tuesday.
Those issues included polling places opening late, an issue that could be related to the fact that New York City subways, ordinarily a mode of transportation for poll workers, are closed from 1 a.m. to 5 a.m, said Susan Lerner, the executive director of the New York chapter of Common Cause, a watchdog group. In order for polls to open at the required 6 a.m. time, poll workers would have to be in place by 5 a.m.
Lerner said there were also reports that poll workers were not giving voters a second page to their ballot which had additional races on it.
Several people also reported not receiving an absentee ballot in the mail, despite requesting one ahead of the state’s June 16 cutoff. Around 708,000 people requested an absentee ballot for Tuesday’s primary, a dramatic increase from 2016 when just over 23,000 people in the city voted by mail.
The city board of elections said they processed 95% of absentee ballot requests, which would leave more than 35,000 requests unfulfilled.
EU considering blocking Americans from entering - report
The European Union is looking to soon reopen its borders, and it is reportedly considering denying entry to Americans because of how the US has handled the coronavirus pandemic.
The New York Timess reports:
That prospect, which would lump American visitors in with Russians and Brazilians as unwelcome, is a stinging blow to American prestige in the world and a repudiation of President Trump’s handling of the virus in the United States, which has more than 2.3 million cases and upward of 120,000 deaths, more than any other country.
European nations are currently haggling over two potential lists of acceptable visitors based on how countries are faring with the coronavirus pandemic. Both include China, as well as developing nations like Uganda, Cuba and Vietnam.
Travelers from the United States and the rest of the world have been excluded from visiting the European Union — with few exceptions mostly for repatriations or ‘essential travel’ —- since mid-March. But a final decision on reopening the borders is expected early next week, before the bloc reopens on July 1.
The report comes as nearly half of US states report increases in coronavirus cases after starting to reopen their economies.
Testifying before the House today, Dr Anthony Fauci warned some parts of the country are seeing a “disturbing surge” in coronavirus infections and commended states like New York for taking a more cautious approach to reopening.
Brooks' funeral takes place in Atlanta
Rayshard Brooks’ funeral is now underway in Atlanta, Georgia, with family members and friends offering their remembrances of him.
Brooks, a black man, was shot and killed by a white police officer while running away from him earlier this month. The officer, Garrett Rolfe, has since been charged with felony murder.
#RayshardBrooks casket carried inside Ebenezer Baptist Church for today’s funeral. pic.twitter.com/PdhyED61MH
— Darryl Forges (@Darryl_Forges) June 23, 2020
Brooks’ gold casket arrived at the Atlanta church in a black and white funeral hearse, which featured a poster reading “killed in Atlanta Georgia 2020”.
The funeral is taking place at Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev Martin Luther King Jr once preached, and King’s daughter, the Rev Bernice King, just delivered remarks at the service.
Lawmakers are sounding pessimistic about the chances of passing police reform through Congress, after Senate Democrats signaled they would block the Republican bill from being taken up for debate.
“There’s probably no path forward in this Congress if they block debate tomorrow,” Republican senator Roy Blunt said on Capitol Hill.
House Democrats are expected to pass their police reform bill later this week, but Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has said the Democratic legislation is a non-starter.
Unless something dramatic shifts in the next few days, it’s seeming increasingly likely that Congress will do nothing to address police brutality before the November elections, despite the nationwide protests calling for change.
More from the Guardian’s Sam Levine:
A long wait formed to vote at the football stadium for the University of Kentucky, the only site open for in-person voting on Tuesday.
Laura Rogers, 55, is now at the front of the line. It’s been an hour and thirty minutes.
— Daniel Desrochers (@drdesrochers) June 23, 2020
27. Line in Lexington is up to 2 hours.
— Josh Douglas (@JoshuaADouglas) June 23, 2020
I’ve heard from multiple sources, including @heraldleader (buy a subscription!) that they will be adding more tablets to ease check-in soon. It’s sorely needed right now.
Donald Blevins, the county clerk, said in an email the county was adding additional check-in stations to ease the lines.
“It’s a combination of things- the venue is not as big as we would like, but the conference center in Lexington was under construction so it is the best I can do,” he said in an email. “In addition, a little heavier turnout that we expected, and without our normal late morning ‘lull’ where lines usually get caught up.”
There has been widespread attention focused on attention as local officials have had to rapidly consolidate polling places because of a shortage of polworkers. Many voters, however, have already cast their ballots by mail, and in Louisville, the state’s largest city, there weren’t long lines on Tuesday morning.
Updated
More from The Guardian’s Sam Levine:
Ahead of Tuesday’s elections, experts were skeptical that the polling place consolidations in states like Kentucky would lead to the kind of massive lines Americans saw in Georgia and Wisconsin earlier this year.
There was a surge in voters who took advantage of expanded absentee voting, said Joshua Douglas, a law professor at the University of Kentucky. As voting got underway on Tuesday, there were not long lines in Louisville. Wait times in Lexington were nearly two hours, but the delay appeared to be an issue checking people in.
18: Lexington wait time holding steady at 1 hour. Sounds like the check-in process is slowing things down (one of the things I had said I would be watching for): https://t.co/VmJylKDSPu
— Josh Douglas (@JoshuaADouglas) June 23, 2020
There is also close scrutiny on New York City, where several progressive insurgents are trying to oust Democratic incumbents. New York, like Kentucky, waived a longstanding requirement that voters provide an excuse to request an absentee ballot.
In New York City, local officials were overwhelmed by the number of requests for ballots. As of Friday, there were more than 30,000 people who hadn’t received their ballots despite putting in a request, according to the New York Times.
Both New York and Kentucky will count ballots as long as they are postmarked by Tuesday. That means the public likely won’t know the results for days because ballots will still be coming in after the polls close.
The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:
Polls were open for voters in Kentucky, New York, and Virginia on Tuesday in the latest test of whether states can successfully hold elections amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Observers are closely watching the elections in New York and Kentucky, states that usually limit voting by mail to those with an excuse but have significantly expanded it during the pandemic.
In Kentucky, where there is a closely-watched race to choose an opponent to take on Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell this fall, there was national outcry over the severe consolidation of polling places after many poll workers dropped out due to health concerns.
In Jefferson County, home of Louisville, there was only one polling place open on Tuesday for 767,000 residents.
Today so far
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Trump said he would soon sign an executive order on monuments. The president said the order would be aimed at punishing “vandals” and “hoodlums” who have defaced or tried to take down controversial monuments since the start of the George Floyd protests. However, it’s unclear what impact the order would have, considering it’s already a federal crime to deface federal property.
- Senior health officials, including Dr Anthony Fauci, are testifying on Capitol Hill. Fauci said he was “cautiously optimistic” a coronavirus vaccine would be made available by early next year. The health officials also said Trump never told them to slow down coronavirus testing, contradicting the president’s comments this morning.
- Senate Democrats signaled they would block the Republican police reform bill. Three Democratic senators sent a letter to majority leader Mitch McConnell saying the bill was “not salvageable” and should not be taken up for debate. But McConnell has already said House Democrats’ police reform bill is dead on arrival in the Senate, making it less and less likely that police reform legislation will pass before the November elections.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
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Dr Anthony Fauci reiterated that he is “cautiously optimistic that we will be successful in getting a vaccine” by the beginning of next year.
Fauci said, “I think there is a reasonably good chance that by the beginning of 2021 that, if we are going to have a vaccine, we will have it by then.”
The infectious disease expert noted at the beginning of the hearing that one promising vaccine candidate will enter phase three trials next month.
Dr. Anthony Fauci: "You've probably heard that one of those vaccines -- and there are more than one, there are several that are moving along at various paces -- one of them will enter phase three study in July."
— CSPAN (@cspan) June 23, 2020
Full video here: https://t.co/hyeFjLtxiH pic.twitter.com/tcHfgbxUYP
Dr Brett Giroir, a top official at the department of health and human services, said neither Trump nor anyone in his administration has asked him to slow down coronavirus testing.
“We are proceeding in just the opposite,” Giroir said, pledging to do more coronavirus testing in the weeks and months to come.
Asked whether he would support decreasing testing, Giroir said it was crucial to “test appropriately, smartly and as many people as we can.”
Just hours before the House hearing, Trump insisted he was not kidding when he said during his Saturday rally in Tulsa that he had ordered testing to be slowed because it was revealing more cases of coronavirus.
Congressman Bobby Rush asked Dr Anthony Fauci if he believed institutional racism was to blame for the higher rate of coronavirus deaths among African Americans.
Fauci said he believed that institutional racism was one contributing factor to the disparity in coronavirus outcomes, as well as African Americans making up a disproportionately high percentage of frontline workers.
“I cannot imagine that [institutional racism] has not contributed to the conditions they find themselves in econmically and otherwise,” Fauci said.
Figures compiled last month by the non-partisan APM Research Lab showed African Americans are dying of coronavirus at three times the rate of white Americans.
Fauci: 'We will be doing more testing'
House energy and commerce committee chairman Frank Pallone asked the senior health officials whether Trump has ever told them to slow down coronavirus testing, as the president claimed over the weekend.
Each of the four officials said they had not been asked to slow down testing and would oppose such a move.
“To my knowledge, none of us have ever been told to slow down on testing,” Fauci said. “That just is a fact. In fact, we will be doing more testing.”
CDC director Robert Redfield added, “All of us have been and continue to be committed to increasing readily, timely access to testing.”
Dr Anthony Fauci applauded some states, such as New York, for their cautious approach ro reopening, but he warned of “a disturbing surge of infections” in certain parts of the country.
“We’ve been hit badly,” Fauci said. But he added, “In some respects, we have done very well.”
The infectious disease expert then told congressman Frank Pallone, the chairman of the House energy and commerce committee, “Bottom line Mr. Chairman, it’s a mixed bag. Some [areas] are good. Some now have a problem.”
Dr Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious disease expert, said he is “cautiously optimistic” a coronavirus vaccine would be ready by late 2020 or early 2021.
Fauci said there have been “financial risks” taken to quickly develop a vaccine, but he emphasized there have not been any health or safety risks taken for vaccine development.
Some public health experts have expressed fear that Trump will try to fast-track development of a vaccine to make it available before the November election, which could increase safety risks.
Fauci testifies before the House
Senior health officials, including Dr Anthony Fauci, are now testifying before the House energy and commerce committee on the coronavirus pandemic.
House @EnergyCommerce underway with Fauci, Redfield, Hahn and Giroir testifying. pic.twitter.com/ONZFCjcjhg
— Haley Talbot (@haleytalbotnbc) June 23, 2020
Fauci is testifying alongside CDC director Robert Redfield, FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn and Brett Giroir, a top official at the department of health and human services.
The hearing comes as nearly half of US states are seeing increases in coronavirus cases after starting to reopen their economies.
Despite that alarming trend, Trump said over the weekend that he has asked his administration to slow down coronavirus testing because it is revealing more positive results.
Updated
So here’s the current state of play: it looks like Senate Republicans will not even get their police reform bill considered, and House Democrats’ bill will likely pass but won’t be taken up in the Senate.
This partisan standoff means it is less and less likely that Congress will approve any police reform legislation before the November election, despite the widespread protests in response to the police killing of George Floyd.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris said in their letter that the Republican police reform bill did not go far enough to address police brutality.
Democratic lawmakers have previously complained that Republican senator Tim Scott’s bill only incentivizes police departments to ban police chokeholds by threatening to hold up federal funds.
In contrast, House Democrats’ police reform bill explictly bans police chokeholds and no-knock warrants.
The House is expected to pass the Democratic police reform bill later this week, but Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell has already said he considers it dead on arrival.
Senate Democrats signal they will block Republican police reform bill
Senate Democrats have sent a letter to majority leader Mitch McConnell signaling they will block Republican senator Tim Scott’s police reform bill, describing the legislation as “woefully inadequate.”
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and senators Cory Booker and Kamala Harris wrote, “This bill is not salvageable and we need bipartisan talks to get to a constructive starting point.”
Heading to the Senate floor with @SenSchumer & @SenKamalaHarris to urge Mitch McConnell to call a vote on meaningful legislation to help fix our broken system of policing. The GOP bill does not come close to being the solution. Watch live: https://t.co/MdUyGVLug9
— Sen. Cory Booker (@SenBooker) June 23, 2020
Senate Republicans need seven of their Democratic colleagues to vote with them on the motion to proceed in order for the Scott bill to advance, so the Democrats have the ability to block the legislation if they are unified in opposition to it.
McConnell has called on Democrats to vote in favor of the motion to proceed and allow for disagreements on the bill to be worked out through debate and amendments, but the latest letter makes clear that Democratic senators believe there are too many issues with the legislation to move forward.
“This is a serious challenge requiring serious solutions,” the three senators’ letter says. “Bringing the JUSTICE Act to the floor of the Senate is a woefully inadequate response, and we urge you to bring meaningful legislation to the floor for a vote.”
The vote on whether to advance the police reform bill is expected to take place tomorrow.
Joe Biden released a statement criticizing Trump for his trip today to Arizona, which is experiencing a surge in coronavirus cases after starting its reopening process.
“Make no mistake: this visit is a distraction,” Biden said in the statement. “It’s a distraction from Donald Trump’s failed response to combat the spread of COVID-19. It’s a distraction from his failure to get Americans — including many in Arizona — the testing we need.”
Trump is scheduled to hold a roundtable discussion on border security in Yuma and then speak at a Students for Trump event in Phoenix, for which attendees were asked to sign coronavirus liability waivers.
“Mr. President, this disease is rearing its head in Arizona again and families are hurting,” Biden said. “Arizonans deserve a President who will rise to the moment amid the challenges we face today.”
Trump referred to the protesters who tried to tear down the Andrew Jackson statue near the White House as “vandals” and “hoodlums” who don’t love America.
“We are looking at long term jail sentences for these vandals and these hoodlums and these anarchists and agitators,” the president told reporters shortly before leaving for Arizona.
“Call them whatever you want. Some people don’t like that language, but that’s what they are. They’re bad people. They don’t love our country. And they’re not taking down our monuments. I just want to make that clear.”
The president was previously criticized for referring to those participating in George Floyd protests as “thugs.”
A Reuters reporter noted Trump’s expected executive order on monuments would likely be meaningless because it is already a federal crime to deface federal property:
This is silly. It's already a federal crime to deface or steal federal property, and an executive order can't make it any more of a crime. The government can arrest people for it whenever it can show probable cause that they have broken the law, and he can't change that, either. https://t.co/QhiHGJ7OAU
— Brad Heath (@bradheath) June 23, 2020
Trump to sign executive order on monuments
Trump said he would sign an executive order “very soon” on punishing those who attempt to deface or destroy monuments.
As he left the White House to travel to Arizona, the president told reporters that his administration is “looking at long-term jail sentences” for “anarchists.”
Trump also thanked law enforcement for helping to save a “great monument” last night, referring to the Andrew Jackson statue in Lafayette Square near the White House.
Protesters defaced the statue of the seventh president and attempted to topple it, but it is still on its pedestal as of this morning.
Trump similarly tweeted this morning that he has “authorized the Federal Government to arrest anyone who vandalizes or destroys any monument, statue or other such Federal property in the U.S. with up to 10 years in prison, per the Veteran’s Memorial Preservation Act.”
A number of states have taken down statues of controversial figures, particularly Confederate leaders, since the start of the George Floyd protests. Some of the statues, such as that of Confederate general Albert Pike in Washington, have also been torn down by protesters.
Updated
Trump said he was serious on Saturday when he claimed he had asked his administration to slow down coronavirus testing.
As he was leaving the White House to travel to Arizona, the president was asked by a CBS News reporter whether he was kidding when he made the claim at his Tulsa rally.
“I don’t kid,” Trump replied.
Just now I asked the President if he was kidding when he said he told his people to slow down testing, which is how White House officials explained the comment.
— Weijia Jiang (@weijia) June 23, 2020
He said, “I don’t kid.”
He also said again testing is a double-edged sword, and praised the job the U.S. has done.
Several senior administration officials, including press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, have tried to dismiss the comment as a joke.
However, Trump has continued to complain about how increased testing reveals more cases of coronavirus, and he deflected another reporter’s question about testing yesterday, saying, “We’ve done too good a job.”
Of course, public health experts have said states reopening and Americans relaxing their social distancing practices are much more to blame for the country’s high number of cases.
This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Martin Belam.
The Commission on Presidential Debates confirmed the University of Michigan has dropped out of hosting the second presidential debate.
Instead, the October 15 debate between Trump and Joe Biden will take place at the Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami, Florida.
In its statement announcing the change, the commission simply said, “the University has concluded that it is not feasible to host the presidential debate as planned.”
However, news reports yesterday indicated the university was worried about hosting a major event in the middle of a pandemic, making the debate the latest event to be affected by coronavirus.
Biden’s campaign said in a letter yesterday that the Democratic candidate would participate in the three already-planned debates, but it did not commit to the expanded debate schedule that the Trump campaign has been pushing for.
The polls have opened in Kentucky, and some of the first pictures of early morning voters have begun to come through.
The Louisville Courier Journal is reporting that it is “so far, so good” in terms of the mechanics of the vote.
The paper says that the lines at the Kentucky Exposition Center in Louisville, which is acting as Jefferson County’s only polling location, are spaced with 6 feet between people in an effort to practice social distancing, and that most voters appear to have brought face masks with them. The voting booths are being sanitized by a cleaning crew after each use.
There were some lines before voting opened - but the paper’s live coverage quotes one voter as saying that at around 8am in Louisville, the whole process had been “a breeze”.
While Trump/Biden is a done deal for November, there’s a competitive race between Amy McGrath, Charles Booker and Mike Broihier for the Democratic nomination for the Senate, and the November chance to unseat Mitch McConnell.
USA Today have published a thought-provoking set of interviews ahead of what would have been Tamir Rice’s 18th birthday on 25 June. Rice was just 12 when he was killed. They’ve pulled together 31 interviews with 18-year-old black men from across the US, to hear their thoughts on growing up in “Tamir Rice’s America”
You can read it here: USA Today - These black teens are turning 18 in Tamir Rice’s America
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Arwa Mahdawi’s latest column for us has arrived - she’s looking at why Trump believes playing the victim will help him win in November.
Donald Trump will not go gentle into that good night: he will rage, rage, rage-tweet against the dying of his might. Indeed, he is already doing so. After a humiliating turnout at Saturday’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma – which capped one of the worst weeks of his presidency – Trump’s re-election chances look shakier by the day. Rattled and belligerent, he seems to be gearing up to contest a defeat in November.
Read it here: Arwa Mahdawi - Presidential harassment! Why Trump believes playing the victim will help him win
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Donald Trump will be in Arizona today, and his visit is not entirely welcomed by the state’s official. Arizona will be a key battleground in November, but it is also a coronavirus hotspot - it has reported over 11,000 new Covid-19 cases in the last four days alone.
The Democratic mayor of Phoenix, Kate Gallego, has said that she does not believe that Trump’s planned speech can be safely held in the city. She urged him to wear a face mask - as she does on her own official Twitter avatar - saying “Everyone attending tomorrow’s event, particularly any elected official, should set an example to residents by wearing a mask. This includes the President.”
It’s unlikely - Trump has yet to show any willingness to wear a mask in public. He’ll be addressing a group of young Republicans at a Phoenix megachurch, where event organizers have pledged thousands will attend. After Tulsa’s empty seats, the world be watching to see if they can be taken at their word.
Before the rally, the president will travel to Yuma to mark the construction of more than 200 miles (322 km) of wall along the US-Mexico border. His administration has promised to build 450 miles by the end of the year, a target they seem unlikely to meet. It is Trump’s first visit to the border in more than a year, and comes a day after he ordered an extended a ban on employment-based visas throughout 2020.
Rayshard Brooks, who was fatally shot by a police officer in Atlanta, Georgia on 12 June, will be remembered later today in a funeral service in a church where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. once preached.
The private funeral at Ebenezer Baptist Church will see Rev. Raphael Warnock, senior pastor at the church and a Democratic candidate for Senate, deliver the eulogy.
A short excerpt was released in advance, and he is expected to say: “Rayshard Brooks wasn’t just running from the police. He was running from a system that makes slaves out of people. A system that doesn’t give ordinary people who’ve made mistakes a second chance, a real shot at redemption.”
“Ebenezer is a parish for all people, a sanctuary for those who suffer,” Warnock said in a statement when the funeral plans were first announced.
“Rayshard was not a member of our church but he, and his loved ones, are a part of our family. We seek to embrace them, comfort them and walk beside them in the days ahead.”
King’s daughter, the Rev. Bernice King, also plans to deliver remarks at Brooks’ funeral, along with a friend of his and his mother-in-law, according to a draft programme released by the church.
Brooks was fatally shot in the back by officer Garrett Rolfe. Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard announced 11 charges against him, including felony murder, and Rolfe is being held without bond.
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One of the other events today is the publishing of John Bolton’s book The Room Where It Happened. Donald Trump has already dismissed him as “washed up creepster” and “a lowlife who should be in jail” this morning.
Over at Politico this morning, Meridith McGraw has an analysis of the way that the Trump administration has fought back against the book. At times claiming that what Bolton says is untrue, arguing that he has also exposed classified information, and oftentimes suggesting that he wasn’t “in the room” as many times as Bolton appears to make out.
The coordinated attack is ultimately an attempt to counteract Bolton’s central thesis as he promotes his book: Trump poses a danger to the country. It’s the other way around, Trump and his aides are insisting: Bolton is the national security threat.
An array of current and former White House aides surfaced to make these points on Monday, both publicly and privately. The White House is promoting statements from top intelligence officials testifying that Bolton’s book, which will be published on Tuesday, is endangering American intelligence sources. And the president is trumpeting the words of a judge who refused to stop Bolton’s book from coming out but excoriated the author for imperilling national security with his efforts.
It is packed full of detail and a good read: Politico - Trump’s response to Bolton: No, you’re the threat
The president has just re-iterated his line that the US has so many coronavirus cases because the US is testing so much.
Cases are going up in the U.S. because we are testing far more than any other country, and ever expanding. With smaller testing we would show fewer cases!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 23, 2020
Yesterday more than half of all US states have reported a rise in new coronavirus cases, with some breaking their daily records. The US has over 2.3 million cases of coronavirus recorded, out of just over 9 million cases worldwide.
Donald Trump has just tweeted that he has “authorized the Federal Government to arrest anyone who vandalizes or destroys any monument, statue or other such Federal property in the US with up to 10 years in prison.”
.....This action is taken effective immediately, but may also be used retroactively for destruction or vandalism already caused. There will be no exceptions!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 23, 2020
He hasn’t cited it directly but last night there was a stand-off between police and protesters as there was an attempt to pull down a statue of former president Andrew Jackson near the White House.
WUSA-TV in Washington reported that police used pepper spray to move the protesters out of Lafayette Square, while videos posted on social media showed protesters had climbed on to the statue and tied ropes around it, then tried to pull it off its pedestal.
The 19th century president’s ruthless treatment of Native Americans has made his statue a target of demonstrators protesting racial injustice.
Trump tweeted about the attack on the statue late last night - again with the threat of 10 years jail.
Numerous people arrested in D.C. for the disgraceful vandalism, in Lafayette Park, of the magnificent Statue of Andrew Jackson, in addition to the exterior defacing of St. John’s Church across the street. 10 years in prison under the Veteran’s Memorial Preservation Act. Beware!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 23, 2020
The Associated Press is reporting that a Baltimore restaurant issued an apology Monday after a video showed a black woman and her son being denied service because of the boy’s clothes, while a white child dressed a similar way had been served.
The Atlas Restaurant Group, which owns Ouzo Bay, posted the apology on Facebook, saying it was disturbed by the incident and had put the manager seen in the video on “indefinite leave.”
This should never have happened. We are sickened by this incident. We sincerely apologize to Marcia Grant, her son and everyone impacted by this painful incident.
The video posted by Marcia Grant shows her son wearing athletic shorts, sneakers and an Air Jordan T-shirt. The unidentified manager tells Grant that her son’s outfit violates the restaurant’s dress code.
Grant turns her camera toward a white boy at the restaurant wearing a graphic T-shirt and similar-looking shorts who was being served, but the manager replies the child wasn’t wearing shorts like Grant’s son.
Atlas said they were immediately changing their policy so that children ages 12 and under aren’t subject to the dress code and said the dress code wasn’t “intended to be discriminatory.”
Kentucky and New York are voting today in what are going to be unusual primaries. Both of them have been delayed due to the coronavirus outbreak, and with Donald Trump and Joe Biden essentially confirmed as presidential nominees, there’s not much interest at the top of the ballot.
We also won’t be getting the results in anywhere near the usual timescale either. Mail-in ballots in Kentucky have until 27 June to be received, and in New York that deadline is 30 June - provided they are post-marked 23 June at the latest.
Two of the largest counties in Kentucky, Jefferson and Fayette, which include Louisville and Lexington respectively, have already said they will not be releasing any results until 30 June.
But if there isn’t much at stake for presidential candidates, that’s not true of the rest of the slate, especially in New York. Jonathan Easley and Julia Manchester have been reporting for The Hill on how Democrats in New York are bracing for a turbulent election day.
They say that there is growing consensus hat Rep. Eliot Engel, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, will lose to Jamaal Bowman, “potentially giving progressives their biggest primary victory of the cycle.”
You can read about the state of the race in New York here: The Hill - NY Democrats brace for primary night stunners
Today, in partnership with Consumer Reports and others, the Guardian is launching a one-year series of investigations highlighting the US water crisis. America’s water crisis is looking at the challenges many in the US face getting access to safe, clean, affordable water, and the injustices of those most at risk.
Bernie Sanders and Brenda Lawrence have written a joint op-ed, saying:
Not only do Americans have to deal with poor-quality and often toxic drinking water, we have the “privilege” of paying an arm and a leg for it. Furthermore, due to the economic meltdown caused by the coronavirus, millions of Americans who don’t know where their next paycheck will come from are now at risk of losing their water service. It should not be a radical idea to say that all families should be able to protect themselves from the coronavirus and other illnesses by practicing good handwashing and hygiene with affordable, clean water in their homes.
Read it here: Bernie Sanders and Brenda Lawrence - Clean water should be an American human right, not a government profit machine
Updated
Good morning, welcome to our live coverage of US politics. Here’s what we can expect coming up.
Today will see the emotional funeral of Rayshard Brooks at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Brooks was killed by police on 12 June.
Donald Trump will be looking to re-energise his re-election campaign after his Tulsa disaster with a trip to Arizona and a visit to the border wall.
Joe Biden will be taking part in a virtual fund-raiser with former president Barack Obama. It is the first time the two have appeared together since Obama endorsed him in April.
I’m joining my friend @JoeBiden tomorrow to talk about everything that’s at stake in this election.
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 22, 2020
I hope you’ll join us, too. This is a critical moment in our history––and all of us have to do our part to build this country into what we know it can be. https://t.co/diQxk3uFH2
We can expect long lines in Kentucky for a primary where authorities have drastically reduced the number of polling locations in response, they say, to the coronavirus outbreak. New York votes as well.
I’m Martin Belam - you can get in touch with me at martin.belam@theguardian.com
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