Summary
Here’s a rundown of Sunday’s events. We’ll be back tomorrow for all Monday’s news.
- New York Times publishes Donald Trump’s tax returns in election bombshell. The US president, a self-proclaimed billionaire, paid only $750 in federal income taxes in the year he was elected, according to a stunning New York Times investigation that could shake up the presidential election. (Six key findings from the Times’ Trump taxes bombshell.)
- Trump says overturning Roe v Wade ‘possible’ with Barrett on supreme court. Trump has said it “is certainly possible” Amy Coney Barrett will be part of a supreme court decision overturning Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling which made abortion legal in the US.
- McMaster: Trump suggestion he might not cede power is ‘gift to our adversaries’. Trump’s suggestion that he might not cede power if he loses the election to Joe Biden is “a gift to our adversaries”, the former national security adviser HR McMaster said on Sunday, though he added that “even talking about” the US military removing the president if necessary was “irresponsible”.
- Biden’s team hopes for repeat of his 2012 performance as Trump debate nears. For Democrats and supporters of Biden’s presidential campaign, the hope is that the version of the former vice-president who faced then congressman Paul Ryan back in 2012 shows up to debate Trump on Tuesday in Ohio.
- Breonna Taylor protests: legislator accuses police of detaining her on false pretenses. A Kentucky legislator who was arrested during demonstrations over the Breonna Taylor case has accused Louisville police of detaining her and about 20 allies on false pretenses and called for charges to be dropped.
- Trump deserves four more years, says ex-counsel who called him ‘King Kong’. Don McGahn, the former White House counsel credited as an architect of Trump’s makeover of the federal judiciary, has defended Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the supreme court, declaring the conservative judge he vetted was “the right person at the right time”.
- Kenosha officer claims he thought Jacob Blake was trying to abduct child. The Kenosha police officer who shot Jacob Blake in the back seven times last month told investigators he thought Blake was trying to abduct one of his own children and opened fire because Blake started turning toward the officer while holding a knife, the officer’s lawyer contends.
- TikTok: US judge set to rule on ban preventing new downloads of app. A federal judge in Washington will decide later on Sunday whether to block a Trump administration order banning Apple and Google from offering TikTok for download.
- NFL great Joe Montana and wife Jennifer save grandchild from kidnapping. The former San Francisco 49ers quarterback foiled a kidnapping in his Malibu home on Saturday evening.
A federal appeals court on Sunday temporarily halted a six-day extension for counting absentee ballots in Wisconsin’s presidential election, a momentary victory for Republicans in the one of the key battleground states.
The AP reports:
As it stands, ballots will now be due by 8 p.m. on Election Day. A lower court judge had sided with Democrats and their allies to extend the deadline until Nov. 9. Democrats sought more time as a way to help deal with an expected historic high number of absentee ballots.
The Democratic National Committee, the state Democratic Party and allied groups including the League of Women Voters sued to extend the deadline for counting absentee ballots after the April presidential primary saw long lines, fewer polling places, a shortage of workers and thousands of ballots mailed days after the election.
U.S. District Judge William Conley ruled Sept. 21 that ballots that arrive up to six days after Election Day will count as long as they’re postmarked by Election Day. Sunday’s action puts Conley’s order on hold until the 7th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals or U.S. Supreme Court issues any further action.
No further details were immediately posted by the appeals court.
With Donald Trump’s news conference having concluded, here’s a report from our David Smith and Martin Pengelly on today’s New York Times bombshell.
Trump is pressed further on his tax information. Asked if he could give the American people a sense of what he pays in federal income tax, he says: “First of all, I’ve paid a lot and I’ve paid a lot of state income taxes, too. ... It’ll all be revealed. It’s going to come out, but after after the audit. They’re doing their assessment. We’ve been negotiating for a long time. Things get settled, like in the IRS. But right now when you’re under audit, you don’t do it. You don’t do that. So we’re under audit. But the story is a total fake.”
Updated
Trump dismisses New York Times expose as 'fake news'
Donald Trump has dismissed the New York Times revelation of his tax information as “fake news”.
“It’s fake news,” he says. “It’s totally fake news. Made up, fake. We went through the same stories, you could have asked me the same questions four years ago, I had to litigate this and had to talk about it. Totally fake news. Actually, I paid tax. And you’ll see that as soon as my tax returns – it’s under audit, they’ve been under audit for a long time, the IRS does not treat me well, they treat me like the Tea Party, like they treated the Tea Party, and they don’t treat me well. They treat me very badly. You have people in the IRS that treat me very, very badly. But they’re under audit. And when they’re not, I would be proud to show you. But that’s just fake news.”
Trump says he didn’t know the story was going to be published today, but “somebody said they were going to a negative [story].” (His attorney is on record in the piece.)
Updated
President Trump says he did not discuss the November election with his third supreme court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, as he thought it would not be appropriate.
He’s then asked whether he was joking about demanding Joe Biden take a drug test before Tuesday’s debate.
“I’m not joking,” he says. “I’m willing to take a drug test and I think he should, too. Because he’s had a very uneven – I watched him when he was debating Pocahontas and Harris, who treated him so badly – but I watched him and he was out of it.”
Donald Trump has spent more than 10 minutes riffing on an array of baseless conspiracy theories: Hunter Biden, the impeachment “hoax”, widespread voter fraud and more.
“These are all things that are very big on the internet,” he says.
He has yet to acknowledge the New York Times expose.
Updated
“We have noticed some comments made in the media about my incredibly qualified nominee, Amy,” Trump says in opening Sunday afternoon’s news conference from the White House podium as Rudy Giuliani and Chris Christie look on from the wings. “I’m sort of waiting for the New York Times and the Washington Post, ABC, CBS NBC, CNN, MSDNC – I’m waiting for them to endorse me.”
The briefing has immediately taken on the tenor of a campaign speech.
New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet has written a note explaining the newspaper’s decision to publish Trump’s tax information.
“We are publishing this report because we believe citizens should understand as much as possible about their leaders and representatives – their priorities, their experiences and also their finances,” he writes. “Every president since the mid-1970s has made his tax information public. The tradition ensures that an official with the power to shake markets and change policy does not seek to benefit financially from his actions.”
Baquet continues: “Mr. Trump, one of the wealthiest presidents in the nation’s history, has broken with that practice. As a candidate and as president, Mr. Trump has said he wanted to make his tax returns public, but he has never done so. In fact, he has fought relentlessly to hide them from public view and has falsely asserted that he could not release them because he was being audited by the Internal Revenue Service. More recently, Mr. Trump and the Justice Department have fought subpoenas from congressional and New York State investigators seeking his taxes and other financial records.”
New York Times publishes Trump's tax information
As we wait for Donald Trump to take the podium in the White House briefing room, the New York Times reveals it has obtained the US president’s tax return data for thousands of personal and corporate returns going back more than two decades.
Donald J. Trump paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he won the presidency. In his first year in the White House, he paid another $750.
He had paid no income taxes at all in 10 of the previous 15 years — largely because he reported losing much more money than he made.
As the president wages a re-election campaign that polls say he is in danger of losing, his finances are under stress, beset by losses and hundreds of millions of dollars in debt coming due that he has personally guaranteed. Also hanging over him is a decade-long audit battle with the Internal Revenue Service over the legitimacy of a $72.9 million tax refund that he claimed, and received, after declaring huge losses. An adverse ruling could cost him more than $100 million.
The Times report also reveals the financial pressure on Trump is mounting as he is personally responsible for loans and other debts totaling $421m, with most of it coming due within four years.
“Should he win re-election, his lenders could be placed in the unprecedented position of weighing whether to foreclose on a sitting president,” it reads.
Updated
The Washington Post has published an investigation on Donald Trump’s seizure of his father’s estate while the future US president faced personal financial ruin in 1990. Notably, Michael Kranish’s piece does not rely on any anonymous sources, rather audiotaped conversations, depositions and other public documents:
Donald Trump was facing financial disaster in 1990 when he came up with an audacious plan to exert control of his father’s estate.
His creditors threatened to force him into personal bankruptcy, and his first wife, Ivana, wanted “a billion dollars” in a divorce settlement, Donald Trump said in a deposition. So he sent an accountant and a lawyer to see his father, Fred Trump Sr., who was told he needed to immediately sign a document changing the will according to his son’s wishes, according to depositions from family members.
It was a fragile moment for the senior Trump, who was 85 years old and had built a real estate empire worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He would soon be diagnosed with cognitive problems, such as being unable to recall things he was told 30 minutes earlier or remember his birth date, according to his medical records, which were included in a related court case.
Now, those records and other sources of information about the episode obtained by The Washington Post reveal the extent of Fred Trump Sr.’s cognitive impairment and how Donald’s effort to change his father’s will tore apart the Trump family, which continues to reverberate today.
The recent release of a tell-all book by the president’s niece Mary L. Trump and the disclosure of secret recordings of her conversations with her aunt reflect the ongoing resentment of some family members toward Donald Trump’s attempt to change his father’s will.
With the election weeks away, the documents and recordings provide more fodder for Mary Trump’s continuing efforts to see her uncle defeated by Democrat Joe Biden, whom she has said she would do “everything in my power” to elect.
Trump’s sister Maryanne Trump Barry was recorded by her niece in January 2019 expressing outrage over her brother’s efforts to change the will as their father’s mental capacity was declining. “Dad was in dementia,” Barry said.
Updated
Nancy Pelosi, the Speaker of the House, said on Sunday she thinks a deal can be reached with the White House on a coronavirus relief package and that talks were continuing, Reuters reports.
“We are having our conversations. And when I have a conversation with the administration, it is in good faith,” Pelosi said on CNN. “I trust (Treasury) Secretary (Steve) Mnuchin to represent something that can reach a solution. And I believe we can come to an agreement.”
Formal talks between Pelosi, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, Mnuchin and the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, aimed at hammering out a relief package broke down on 7 August with the two sides far apart. Pelosi and Mnuchin have since spoken by phone.
With formal Covid-19 relief talks stalled for weeks, the house ways and means committee chairman, Richard Neal, on Thursday said Democratic lawmakers were starting to draft a bill totalling at least $2.2tn.
Pelosi on Sunday said it was “definitely a possibility” that she would offer legislation in the coming days if the impasse with the Trump administration continued but said she would rather have a deal with the White House than a “rhetorical argument”.
Any legislation the Democratic-led House might approve would be unlikely to advance in the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans.
Pelosi and Schumer had originally sought a $3.4tn relief package but have scaled back their demands. Meadows has previously said that Trump would be willing to sign a $1.3tn bill.
The White House has announced Donald Trump will hold a news conference in the Brady briefing room at 5pm as the US senate prepares to begin the confirmation process for Amy Coney Barrett. Republican lawmakers have floated 12 October as a possible start date for Senate judiciary committee hearings.
We can also expect to hear about debate drug-testing protocols and how Hobbs & Shaw was overrated.
Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, who will moderate Tuesday night’s first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, will not be tasked with fact-checking the candidates in real time, the co-chair of the debate commission has confirmed.
“We don’t expect Chris or our other moderators to be fact checkers,” Frank Fahrenkopf, co-chair of the non-partisan Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), said Sunday on CNN’s Reliable Sources. “The minute the TV is off there will be plenty of fact checkers.”
He added: “When we choose moderators, we make very clear to them that there’s a vast difference between being a moderator in a debate and being a reporter who is interviewing someone. When you’re interviewing someone, if they say something that is in direct opposition to something they said a week ago, your duty is to follow up and say, wait a minute, you didn’t say that a week ago. But that’s not the case in the debate. If one of these candidates says something on the stage Tuesday, it’s the role of the other person in a debate to be the one to raise that and say, wait a minute, you’re changing the position and so forth rather than the moderator.”
Fahrenkopf went on to say the CPD would not comply with Trump’s demand – which he reiterated in a tweet on Sunday morning – that both candidates be drug-tested before Tuesday’s meeting.
“One of my daughters is a doctor and I’m sure she doesn’t want me taking anybody’s drug test,” Fahrenkopf said. “So, no, that’s not – that’s not within our bailiwick that the commission is going to do or consider.”
Donald Trump departed Trump National in the presidential motorcade shortly before 2pm after spending the morning at his private golf club in Virginia.
As has become customary during the president’s visits to the Loudoun county property, groups of supporters and protesters gathered outside were there to make themselves heard as Trump left the property.
According to a White House pool report:
There is still a cluster of protesters outside the club, both pro and anti Trump. One sign read “GOP senators are hypocrites.” Another person was laying out small fake gravestones along the side of the road with a sign that said “he knew.” Another sign said “Epic failure democracy killer.” There were also pro-Trump flags and 3 Jeeps drove back and forth on the road with Trump campaign flags waving from the back. Dueling chants of “vote him out” and “four more years” broke out among the assembled group. The chants intensified when the motorcade began rolling. There were about 20 protesters on one side of the street; pool didn’t have visibility to count on the other side, but it was a roughly similar amount.
Updated
I’ve been meaning to post this all day, so indulge me.
At the White House on Saturday, Donald Trump made a rather unlikely appeal for civility (reminding me if no one else of Monty Python’s appeal for sanity), regarding forthcoming confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett.
“This should be a straightforward and prompt confirmation,” the president said, “should be very easy. Good luck. It’s gonna be very quick. I’ll sure it’ll be extremely noncontroversial. We said that the last time, didn’t we?”
That was a reference to the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh, which wasn’t noncontroversial. Some reading follows, if you can bear it:
Don McGahn: Trump deserves four more years
I’ve said this before and I’ll no doubt say it again, but if there is going to be a #ButHerEmails hashtag for this election, it should be #ButTheJudges.
The Trump administration has not just appointed (probably) three supreme court justices – it has appointed around 200 federal judges, a hugely consequential achievement with the power to shape US society for decades to come.
Senate majority leader Mitch “Mule Piss” McConnell deserves more credit – in the sense of giving the devil his due, if you’re a Democrat or a progressive – than Trump.
But if there is one person connected to Trump who should be doing victory laps right now it is Don McGahn, the former White House counsel and Federalist Society mover and shaker who put up with no end of what is technically known as shit, in order to see the judges project through.
And he is doing victory laps, telling CBS Face the Nation earlier Trump “made a number of promises on the campaign trail, one is his judicial selection, which he’s done. He’s had a record number of judges out there – on the circuit courts.”
The New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt wrote an extremely good book about all this. In response to McGahn’s interview on CBS Face the Nation earlier, he tweeted:
McGahn breaks silence. Despite calling Trump “King Kong” behind back for unnecessary destruction and having to serve as chief witness against him in Mueller investigation, McGahn believes so much in mission of remaking federal judiciary that he says Trump deserves 4 more years. https://t.co/q2DZpOkJ5N
— Michael S. Schmidt (@nytmike) September 27, 2020
It really is the case that the Republican establishment has decided to put up with everything Trump can fling at it – temptation to make a King Kong-related gag about what apes often fling at the bars of their cages … resisted – because he has delivered, in the words of former White House chief of staff, treasury secretary and secretary of state James Baker, “conservative judges, tax cuts and deregulation”.
I can’t say often enough that Baker is a man whose best friend was George HW Bush, the head of a family Trump has trashed, trampled and traduced. Baker rubbed Bush’s feet as he died. And yet Baker will vote for Trump.
McGahn was subject to truly astonishing pressure, stress and abuse before he finally left the White House. He’ll vote for Trump too.
Amazing what power can do.
Biden returned to his theme from earlier remarks about the process for replacing Ginsburg, lamenting Republicans’ determination to rush Amy Coney Barrett on to the court in defiance of their own precedent, if not of any actual constitutional provision. More in hope than expectation, surely, he also repeated his call for Republican senators to “step back from the brink” and pause the rush to confirmation.
Two, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska – both supporters of abortion rights, as it happens – have said they do not think a justice should be confirmed before the election. That leaves Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, with a 51-49 vote to confirm – more than enough.
In Wilmington, Biden insisted:
The voters will not stand for this abuse of power. And if we are to call ourselves a democracy, their voices must be heard.
I urge the American people to keep voting and to let your current Senators know that you want to be heard before they vote to confirm a new Justice.
And I urge every Senator to take a step back from the brink — to take off the blinders of politics for just one critical moment — and stand up for the Constitution you swore to uphold.
This is the time to de-escalate, to put an end to the shattering of precedents that has thrown our nation into chaos.
Just because you have the power to do something doesn’t absolve you from your responsibility to do right by the American people.
Uphold your constitutional duty. Summon your conscience. Stand up for the people. Stand up for our cherished system of checks and balances.
Americans are watching. Americans are voting. We must listen to them now. We must allow them to exercise their sacred power.
Updated
More from Joe Biden’s speech in Wilmington earlier:
“As we speak, we are still in the midst of the worst global health crisis in a century – a crisis that has already taken more than 200,000 American lives. And yet, the Trump administration is asking the supreme court right now to eliminate the entire Affordable Care Act. The administration filed a brief with the court that concludes: ‘The entire ACA thus must fall.’
President Trump can claim all he wants that he’s going to protect people with pre-existing conditions, but the fact is, he’s actively fighting to take those protections away as we speak.
If he has his way, more than 100 million people with pre-existing conditions like asthma, diabetes and cancer could once again be denied coverage. Complications from Covid-19, like lung scarring and heart damage, could become the next flood of pre-existing conditions used as an excuse to deny coverage to millions.
Women could once again be charged higher premiums just because they are women. And seniors would see their prescription drug prices go up and funding for Medicare go down.
It doesn’t matter what the American people want. President Trump sees a chance to fulfill his explicit mission to steal away the vital protections of the ACA from countless families who have come to rely on them for their health, their financial security, and the lives of those they love.
Edited highlights of Biden’s prepared remarks in Wilmington follow, with thanks to Lauren Gambino, ace Guardian Washington reporter, for relaying them while I was busy swearing at a VPN…
Shortly before Justice Ginsburg passed, she told her granddaughter, ‘My most fervent wish is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed.’ It wasn’t a personal request. It wasn’t a favor being asked for. It was the last act in a long, unflinching career of standing up for American democracy.
“Never before in our nation’s history has a supreme court justice been nominated and installed while a presidential election is already under way. It defies every precedent and every expectation of a nation where the people are sovereign and the rule of law reigns.
But yesterday, before Justice Ginsburg could be laid to rest, and after hundreds of thousands of Americans have already cast their ballots, the president nominated a successor to her seat.
There is no mystery about what’s happening here.
President Trump has been trying to throw out the Affordable Care Act for four years. The Republican party has been trying to eliminate it for a decade. Twice already the supreme court has upheld the law. And the Congress, expressing the popular will of the American people, has rejected President Trump’s efforts as well.
Now, all of a sudden this administration believes they’ve found a loophole in the tragedy of Justice Ginsburg’s death.”
Biden keeps focus on healthcare
Biden spoke briefly then answered a few questions. As he did so, he sought to keep a focus on what Amy Coney Barrett’s supreme court nomination means for the Affordable Care Act, which was passed in 2010 when the Democratic nominee was vice-president to Barack Obama.
A challenge to the ACA is due to be heard by the court on 10 November – Republicans want Barrett, who has written critically about the law, on the bench before the election, a week before that.
Democrats are powerless to stop that effort, meaning the court will in all likelihood shift to a 6-3 conservative majority before the crucial hearing. Biden and other senior Democrats are thus focusing on the threat to the health insurance coverage the ACA provides to millions, as a key election issue.
In Wilmington, Biden said: “The clear focus is, this is about your healthcare. This is about whether or not the ACA will exist. This is about whether or not pre-existing conditions will be continue to be covered. This is about whether or not a woman can be charged more for the same procedure as a man. This is about people’s healthcare in the middle of a pandemic.
He was asked if as president he would consider moves advocated by some on the left in response to Republican moves to solidify their control of the court since 2016, including increasing the number of judges on the court.
Biden said:
I know you’re going to be upset with my answer. But what I’m not going to do is play the Trump game, which is a good game he plays. Take your eye off the issue before us. If I were to say yes or no to that, that becomes a big issue. That’s the headline here.
I am focused on one thing right now and I really mean it. I’m focused on making sure the American people understand that they’re being cut out of this process they’re entitled to be part of.
The cutout is designed in order to take away the ACA, and your healthcare in the midst of a pandemic. That’s the focus. That’s what it’s on. And that’s the deal.
Updated
Biden speaks on supreme court
Joe Biden is speaking on the supreme court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett now – and you can follow a livestream at the top of this blog.
Donald Trump’s suggestion that he may not cede power if he loses the presidential election to Joe Biden is “a gift to our adversaries”, former national security adviser HR McMaster said on Sunday, though he added that “even taking about” the US military removing the president if necessary was “irresponsible”.
“I think what’s really clear for the American people to understand is the military will have no role in a transition,” the retired army general told NBC’s Meet the Press.
“In fact, even talking about it, I think, is irresponsible. And that’s maybe why, if you detect some reticence on the part of senior military leaders or those in the Pentagon to talk about it, it’s because it shouldn’t even be a topic for discussion.”
Nonetheless it is under discussion, as the US military deals with an unprecedented focus on its relations with political leaders and numerous senior figures, among them former defense secretary James Mattis, express public criticism of Trump.
McMaster said military participation in Trump’s famous St John’s church photo op on 1 June, for which peaceful protesters were forcibly cleared from around the White House, was “just wrong” and “more than unfortunate”.
“Some of the things the president said I think have been irresponsible,” he said.
But he added: “But oftentimes, the reaction to what he says is equally irresponsible. So I think all politicians have a responsibility of keeping that bold line in place.”
Donald Trump’s repeated refusals this week to accept the presidential election result unless he wins competed for attention amid the noise of Amy Coney Barrett’s supreme court nomination, writes Richard Luscombe. But on NBC’s Meet the Press host Chuck Todd was keen not to let that story, nor the coronavirus pandemic that has claimed more than 200,000 American lives, fall from prominence.
Todd pressed Roy Blunt, Republican senator for Missouri and chair of the congressional inauguration committee, on the president’s evidence-free statements that November’s election will be rigged and that mail-in ballots - trusted by dozens of states - were somehow fraudulent.
“I am concerned about this idea that somehow the election won’t be fair,” Blunt said, coming as close as he could to a rebuttal without criticizing Trump’s baseless comments.
“I think maybe the election will be complicated. The best place to cast a ballot is at the polling place on election day.”
Blunt also saw the likelihood of legal challenges from the Trump administration if he lost, a scenario given added exposure this week by the president’s push to confirm Barrett on the supreme court bench quickly.
But, he promised: “If the president is re-elected he’ll be sworn in on 20 January. If Vice President Biden is elected he’ll be sworn in on 20 January. At this point I’m chairing the inauguration, I look forward to seeing that happen.”
Todd also queried why no progress appeared to have been made in the Senate over a new Covid-19 stimulus package, in contrast to the speed Republicans were moving to advance Barrett’s nomination.
“It’s a huge mistake,” Blunt conceded. “To get back to school, to get back to work, to get back to better health we need a bill, we’re in very near agreement on all the Covid things that matter. What we’re not in agreement on is about a trillion dollars on other things.”
Cory Booker, Democratic senator from New Jersey who sits on the senate judiciary committee, said he would be pressing Barrett about the election outcome during the upcoming confirmation hearings.
“One of things I want to ask her is if she’ll recuse herself in terms of any election issues, because if she does not I fear that the court will be further delegitimized,” he said.
“The president has said he’s not going to honor the peaceful transition of power. That is a stunning statement and a betrayal of the oath to defend the constitution of the United States. It’s an anti-democratic thing to say.”
Member of Bush administration says he will vote for Biden
Another prominent Republican has said he will vote for Joe Biden in the forthcoming elections.
Colin Powell said earlier this year that he will vote for the Democrat candidate in November and now Tom Ridge, the former governor of Pennsylvania and secretary of homeland security under George W Bush, has given his backing to Biden.
Ridge said that Donald Trump “routinely dismisses the opinions of experts who know far more about the subject at hand than he does – intelligence, military, and public health,” in an op-ed in the Philadelphia Inquirer on Sunday. He added that Trump’s leadership means that “our country has paid dearly in lives lost, social unrest, economic hardship and our standing in the world.”
Ridge also voiced his disapproval of Trump’s attacks on mail-in voting. “Can you imagine any other president in our lifetime – or ever – saying something so dangerous and un-American?” Ridge wrote. “We are in the midst of a health crisis, when we should be doing all we can to help citizens vote safely, yet he continues to cast doubt on the sanctity of the vote.”
Trump narrowly won Pennsylvania in the 2016 election but trails Biden by 4.9% in the most recent polling.
Democrat senator Joe Manchin said he would oppose any efforts from his party to rebalance a conservative supreme court by adding more justices.
Some Democrats have posited a plan that – should they win control of the presidency, House and Senate in November – justices could be added to the supreme court. They would then presumably add liberal members to a court that will be 6-4 conservative when Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination is confirmed (something that appears all but inevitable). Another option that some have raised is requiring important pieces of legislation to get 60 votes in the Senate.
During an appearance on CNN on Sunday, Manchin said that such moves would only exacerbate distrust in US institutions.
“That is not something that I would support. I can’t support that,” he said. “The whole premise of this Senate and this democracy experiment of ours is certain decency and social order that basically has been expected from us and especially from the Senate … now all of the sudden they’re going to say, ‘Oh you don’t have to talk anymore, you just have to have 51 votes and forget about the minority,’ well the minority has always played an important part in the Senate’s proceedings.”
Manchin is known for his willingness to work with Republicans and is a senator for West Virginia, which voted for Trump in the 2016 election. He is often called the most conservative Democrat senator.
Jill Biden, the next First Lady if her husband Joe wins the White House in November, has decried the “chaos” Donald Trump has brought to America.
Last week, Trump refused to say whether he would give up power peacefully if he loses the election, and has thrived on disrupting norms – and often decency – during his presidency.
“This is Donald Trump’s America, this is the chaos,” Jill Biden said in an interview with CNN on Sunday. She added: “We go back to Joe Biden, we have calm. We have steady leadership. We don’t have all of this chaos in America.”
Jill Biden also responded to reports earlier this month that Trump had called the war dead “suckers” and “losers”.
“If it is true, it’s pretty heartbreaking,” said Biden. “We should have a Commander in Chief who supports our military family, as Joe says it’s our one sacred obligation to take care of our military and their families.”
Updated
Durbin: Democrats can only slow Barrett nomination 'by days'
The Senate minority whip, Dick Durbin, has said that Amy Coney Barrett’s ascension to the supreme court is all but inevitable and that Democrats can merely slow the process by hours or “days” at best.
“We could slow it down perhaps a matter of hours, maybe days at the most, but we can’t stop the outcome,” the Democrat senator from Illinois said on ABC’s This Week. “What we should do is to address this now respectfully.”
NEW: Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin tells @GStephanopoulos that Senate Democrats can “slow” the process of confirming Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett “perhaps a matter of hours, maybe days at the most, but we can’t stop the outcome.” https://t.co/zTNMzk2uyg pic.twitter.com/mA8TYkY9Df
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) September 27, 2020
The Republicans control the Senate, meaning Barrett’s nomination will almost certainly be passed before the 3 November election. Two Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins, may oppose nominating Barrett before the election and Durbin said that would mean “then we could have a different timing, perhaps a different outcome.”
Durbin said he would approach the nomination process with respect. “I want to be respectful,” he said. “We disagree on some things. And in terms of participating in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, I’ll be there to do my job.”
The ever-eloquent John Kennedy, Republican senator for Louisiana and member of the senate judiciary committee that will examine Amy Coney Barrett’s credentials for the US supreme court, appears worried her confirmation hearings could be as rowdy as those that clouded Brett Kavanaugh’s controversial elevation two years ago.
“If my Democratic friends want to turn it into an intergalactic freak show, bring back the protestors with the genitalia-shaped headgear, I can’t stop them,” he said on Fox News Sunday.
“I’m going to do my job. I think she’s a good nominee, but my job is to advise and consent. I’m going to probe her intellect, her temperament, her judicial philosophy, her character. I’m going to be sure she doesn’t think justices are politicians in robes.
“I want to be assured she’s not one of these justices that tries to rewrite the constitution to advance a political agenda that the voters won’t accept.”
Kennedy knocked back a suggestion made by Michigan Democratic senator Debbie Stabenow moments earlier that Barrett, once seated, would vote to overturn the Affordable Care Act.
“Sell crazy somewhere else. We’re all stocked up here,” he said. “Unless Debbie is clairvoyant I don’t think she knows how the nominee’s going to vote, or any other member of the United States supreme court.”
Fox host Brit Hume pressed Kennedy on Republican efforts to speed through Barrett’s confirmation just weeks before the presidential election, four years after blocking Barack Obama’s supreme court pick Merrick Garland for months claiming the next president should make the choice.
“As far as I can tell, here’s the rule. When the Democrats are in charge of the process they do what they think is right, consistent with the constitution. When the Republicans are in charge of the process, they do what they think is right,” Kennedy said.
“I think that’s what our founders intended, I think our founders intended elections to have consequences and when they send people to Washington of a particular party they expect them to represent their vote. That’s been the tradition and the precedent.”
Updated
Joe Biden got some literal heavyweight backing on Sunday when Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson said he would be voting for the Democrat nominee in November’s election.
The wrestler turned Hollywood star addressed the Republican National Convention in 2000, voted for Barack Obama twice and said he chose not to vote in the 2016 election. This time he says he is choosing Biden.
As a political independent & centrist, I’ve voted for both parties in the past. In this critical presidential election, I’m endorsing @JoeBiden & @KamalaHarris.
— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) September 27, 2020
Progress takes courage, humanity, empathy, strength, KINDNESS & RESPECT.
We must ALL VOTE: https://t.co/rZi1mxh8DC pic.twitter.com/auLbc8xDBv
“As a political independent & centrist, I’ve voted for both parties in the past,” wrote Johnson on Twitter. “In this critical presidential election, I’m endorsing @JoeBiden & @KamalaHarris. Progress takes courage, humanity, empathy, strength, KINDNESS & RESPECT.”
Johnson tweeted a video of a recent conversation he had with Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris. During the clip, Johnson praised the pair’s leadership.
“You guys are both experienced to lead, you’ve done great things. Joe you’ve had such an incredible career, and you’ve led with such great compassion, heart, drive, and soul,” Johnson said. “Kamala you have been a district attorney, a state attorney, a US Senator. You are smart and tough. I have seen you in those hearings.”
Much has been made of Amy Coney Barrett’s Catholic faith following her nomination for the supreme court. Some have speculated it may affect her rulings on matters such as abortion and LGBT rights, while others have expressed disquiet about her membership of the secretive People of Praise group.
Barrett herself has said she will follow the law rather than her own beliefs, and she appears to have a supporter from a prominent Democrat, House speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“It doesn’t matter what her faith is, or what religion she believes in,” said Pelosi who, like Joe Biden and Barrett, is Catholic. “What matters is does she believe in the Constitution of the United States. Does she believe in the precedent on the Supreme Court that has upheld the Affordable Care Act? This is, again, directly related to a major concern of the American people, as it was in 2018.”
Pelosi was speaking during an appearance on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday morning. She also said that Donald Trump is trying to rush through Barrett’s nomination before the supreme court hears a case on the Affordable Care Act in November.
“That is why he was in such a hurry,” Pelosi said. She added: “If you are a woman, we’ll be back to a time where being a woman in a preexisting medical condition.”
A central plank of Republican efforts to seat Amy Coney Barrett on the supreme court appears to be blunting Democratic criticism over her stance on the Affordable Care Act, at least if labor secretary Eugene Scalia’s appearance on Fox News Sunday is anything to go by, writes Richard Luscombe.
Scalia, the son of the late supreme court justice Antonin Scalia, dismissed the importance of Barrett’s previous writings attacking chief justice John Roberts for his swing vote that upheld the constitutionality of Obamacare in a 5-4 vote in 2012.
“It’s a red herring. It reflects frustration on the part of the Democrats as to how they might attack the nomination,” said Scalia. Barrett, who once clerked for his father, could contribute to a supreme court vote a week after the election that Democrats fear will overturn the ACA, if she is confirmed.
Scalia went on: “There’s absolutely zero reason to believe that Judge Barrett is somebody who does not have views about the importance of health care. She’s a working mother to school age children.
“She made the observation that it appeared the chief justice had bent over backwards to twist the language of that statute to save its constitutionality ... that was the criticism a number of people made at the time. She will go where the law takes her. Her view of judging is that any personal views she may have on health care, or any other matter you can name, is not relevant to determining what Congress wrote and what’s in our constitution. Her authority derives from those documents.”
Another emerging White House tactic appears to be playing up Barrett’s personal image over her views on abortion or healthcare.
“She’s a beloved teacher, a very respected scholar, she has shown herself to be a thoughtful jurist and just a wonderful, warm admirable human being as well,” Scalia said.
“[She is a] mother to seven, mother to school-age children, she’s a very impressive delightful person. I think the American people as they come to know her are going to find her very admirable in so many ways.”
Updated
Donald Trump has returned to a familiar (and baseless) accusation against Joe Biden: that his rival for the presidency may be on drugs.
I will be strongly demanding a Drug Test of Sleepy Joe Biden prior to, or after, the Debate on Tuesday night. Naturally, I will agree to take one also. His Debate performances have been record setting UNEVEN, to put it mildly. Only drugs could have caused this discrepancy???
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 27, 2020
“I will be strongly demanding a Drug Test of Sleepy Joe Biden prior to, or after, the Debate on Tuesday night. Naturally, I will agree to take one also. His Debate performances have been record setting UNEVEN, to put it mildly. Only drugs could have caused this discrepancy???” wrote the president on Twitter on Sunday morning.
Trump, without any evidence, made a similar claim earlier this month during an interview on Fox News when he talked about Biden’s performance during debates. “I think there’s probably – possibly – drugs involved,” Trump told Jeanine Pirro on 12 September. “That’s what I hear. I mean, there’s possibly drugs. I don’t know how you can go from being so bad where you can’t even get out a sentence … ”
It is a classic Trump tactic: make wild and ridiculous claims enough times about someone and eventually some people may believe it. The president has had to deny accusations about his own mental faculties recently. After speculation about his physical and cognitive health, earlier this month Trump was moved to deny rumours that a “series of mini-strokes” prompted a visit to hospital in Washington last November.
Updated
One sort of polling hasn’t moved much in the last week – majorities of US voters think the winner of the presidential election should pick the next supreme court justice, rather than the current president who is down in the polls and, with the help of Republicans who also face losing the Senate, jamming through a hardline conservative pick before 3 November.
The New York Times and Siena College are out with a survey today, and it says 56% think the next president should make the pick.
Of that pick – here is Stephanie Kirchgaessner’s look at People of Praise, the secretive Catholic group to which Amy Coney Barrett belongs, of interest given a) how progressives fear her faith may colour her decisions on healthcare, contraception and abortion and b) how others respond that her faith should have nothing to do with her fitness, or otherwise, for high public office.
Trump says overturning Roe v Wade is 'certainly possible'
Donald Trump has said it “is certainly possible” that Amy Coney Barrett will be part of a supreme court decision overturning Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling which made abortion legal in the US.
“She is certainly conservative in her views, in her rulings, and we’ll have to see how that all works out but I think it will work out,” Trump told Fox & Friends Weekend in an interview broadcast on Sunday, asked about whether Barrett, if confirmed, would be part of a 6-3 conservative-liberal ruling “on a life issue”.
“It’s certainly possible. And maybe they do it in a different way. Maybe they’d give it back to the states. You just don’t know what’s going to happen.”
Progressives and Democrats fear the Indiana appeals judge’s strict Catholicism and conservative views will colour any ruling on abortion rights. They also worry about the Affordable Care Act, which provides healthcare to millions of Americans. A Republican attempt to strike it down is due before the court on 10 November.
Republicans in the Senate are rushing to confirm Barrett before the presidential election on 3 November. Democrats oppose the timetable and are backed by extensive public polling which shows majorities saying the winner of the election should choose the replacement for the liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died aged 87 last week.
But Democrats have few options when it comes to trying to stop or even merely delay Barrett’s confirmation.
Trump has nominated two conservatives to the court already but it has not always ruled in his favour, with justices recently upholding LGBTQ+ rights in a discrimination case and going against the administration on immigration. The president told Fox he had been “surprised by some of the rulings that we’ve already had over the last year”.
“You know, you think you know somebody and then you get rulings federal a little bit different than you think could happen,” he said. “So you never know what’s going to happen. Mostly, I’m looking for somebody that can interpret the constitution as written. We say it all the time and she [Judge Amy Coney Barrett] is very strong on that. And it’ll be very interesting.”
Trump was famously reported to have said he was “saving” Barrett “for Ginsburg”. But he told Fox that in meetings with Barrett before her unveiling on Saturday, he “didn’t discuss certain concepts and certain things.
“And some people say you shouldn’t. I don’t see any reason why you shouldn’t. But I decided not to do it. And I think it gives her freedom to do what she has to do. She has to make rulings. But I think she’s going to make a lot of people very proud.”
Updated
New York records 1,000 Covid cases in a day
The supreme court fight is one thing, of course, and the debate and the election another. Another, lest we forget, is the coronavirus pandemic, which as of this writing has infected more than 7m people in the US and killed more than 200,000. There was of course no social distancing and not much mask-wearing at the White House for the introduction of Amy Comey Barrett, nor at Donald Trump’s Pennsylvania rally later on.
Worrying reports of cases ticking back up in states which relatively speaking got a handle on things are common. Here’s the AP on New York:
More than 1,000 New Yorkers tested positive for Covid-19 in a single day, the first time since 5 June the state has seen a daily number that high.
The number of positive tests reported daily in the state has been steadily inching up, a trend possibly related to businesses reopening, college campuses reopening and children returning to school. Governor Andrew Cuomo announced on Saturday there were 1,005 positive cases on the previous day, Friday, out of 99,953 tests, for a 1% positive rate.
From late July through the start of September the state was seeing an average of around 660 people test positive per day. In the seven-day period that ended Friday, the state had averaged 817 positive tests per day.
Cuomo aide Gareth Rhodes stressed that the new positive-case number came out of nearly 100,000 tests, compared to about 60,000 tests daily in June.
“Is there cause for concern? As long as Covid is here, yes,” Rhodes posted on Twitter, noting that certain ZIP codes in Brooklyn and the lower Hudson Valley have seen increases in new cases and hospital admissions. “Key is ensuring these clusters don’t spread into neighboring/other ZIPs.”
Rhodes also noted improving numbers among college-aged people, suggesting better compliance on campuses.
Here’s a report from Nina Lakhani and Amanda Holpuch, on the challenges facing a key New York industry: restaurants.
Biden to speak on supreme court
Joe Biden, we are told, will speak about the supreme court at 12.15pm ET today, from Wilmington, Delaware.
Last week, in the aftermath of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death, the Democratic candidate spoke powerfully, appealing to Republican senators not to rush a replacement through.
That didn’t work, and yesterday, during the unveiling of Amy Coney Barrett in the White House Rose Garden, Biden perhaps previewed today’s remarks and the thrust of his campaigning on the issue as he focused on highlighting the danger he and other progressives say the new justice will, if confirmed, pose to healthcare access.
CNN reports that Barrett could be confirmed by mid-October. Election day is 3 November. On 10 November, the court is due to hear yet another Republican attempt to destroy the Affordable Care Act, the Obama-era law which extended health insurance cover to millions of less well-off Americans.
Trump speaks to Fox & Friends
Donald Trump, meanwhile, has spoken to Fox & Friends host Pete Hegseth about his supreme court pick, in an interview broadcast on Sunday.
“Mostly, I’m looking for somebody that can interpret the constitution as written,” Trump said. “We say it all the time and [Judge Amy Coney Barrett] is very strong on that.”
He also bragged about his undoubted legacy, a makeover of the federal court system orchestrated by Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader, and to some extent by Don McGahn, Trump’s first, beleaguered but resilient White House counsel.
“By the end of the term, we’ll have almost 300 federal judges and court of appeals judges, which is a record. So we will have had a great impact on the court system going forward,” Trump said. The actual number is around 200, but there’s time.
If you’re wondering what all this has to do with why Republicans vote for Trump, here’s a report on what the Republican grandee James Baker thinks about that kind of thing, which has persuaded him to keep voting for Trump despite everything Trump has done to his party, and the abuse Trump threw at George HW Bush, Baker’s closest friend whose feet he rubbed while he died:
Trump also discussed Tuesday’s debate, telling Hegseth he had been preparing every day and saying: “When you’re president, you sort of see everything that they’re going to be asking.
“And they may disagree with you, but we’ve done a great job. We created the greatest economy in history. And now it’s coming back. We closed it. We saved millions and millions of lives by doing what I did. And now we’re bringing it back.”
Good morning …
… and welcome to another day of politics in the US, which in this instance means the fallout from Donald Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court, to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and also the countdown to the first presidential debate, on Tuesday. A countdown and a fallout and it’s not even 9am: the news is explosive these days, after all.
In terms of what’s moving, obviously the polling isn’t yet in terms of what effect Barrett’s nomination, a strict conservative to replace a liberal lion, might have on the presidential race. An ABC News/Washington Post poll out today has Biden 10 points up nationally and the New York Times and Siena College make it eight – which is nice, but as Rick Wilson likes to say, national polls mean nothing. Remember who won the popular vote by nearly 3m in 2016? Not Trump. Remember who won the presidency? Not Hillary Clinton.
The swing state polls show Biden ahead in some, and razor-thin margins in others. Look at Florida, Ohio, Nevada, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and so on. Keep looking. Whatever Trump might tell you about how he’s going to win New York, or even Virginia where he rallied on Friday night, look where he was rallying on Saturday: Pennsylvania. Not surprising.
Anyway, here’s a sampling of our coverage of the Barrett announcement, for which the White House Rose Garden was tricked out to recall the nomination of RBG. David Smith’s Hamlet-infused sketch, which noted the trolling, follows at the end of this post. Otherwise:
- Our full report
- Spotlight falls on secretive Catholic group People of Praise
- Amy Coney Barrett: what will she mean for women’s rights?
- What happens next?
More to come, including more links to polls and remarks from Joe Biden about the supreme court, from Delaware at lunchtime. I also think people should find it as funny as I do that at present the Guardian US Spotlight section features few talking heads, but plenty of stories about buildings and food. Post-punk gag.
Here’s David’s sketch. It’s worth a moment of your time.
