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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Maanvi Singh, Joan E Greve and Martin Belam

Joe Biden officially declared winner of Georgia following recount – as it happened

Gwinnett county election workers handle ballots as part of the recount for the 2020 presidential election, 16 November 2020 in Lawrenceville, Georgia.
Gwinnett county election workers handle ballots as part of the recount for the 2020 presidential election, 16 November 2020 in Lawrenceville, Georgia. Photograph: Megan Varner/Getty Images

Summary

Here’s a recap, from me and Joan E Greve:

  • Georgia has completed its hand recount and found that Joe Biden remains the winner. “The results of the Risk Limiting Audit of Georgia’s presidential contest, which upheld and reaffirmed the original outcome produced by the machine tally of votes cast,” the secretary of state’s office said in a statement. Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by about .2 percentage points in the state.
  • Dr Anthony Fauci spoke at the coronavirus task force press briefing, marking his first appearance at the White House podium in months, Fauci celebrated the development of coronavirus vaccine candidates but urged Americans to remain vigilant about respecting public health guidelines. “If you’re fighting a battle and the cavalry is on the way, you don’t stop shooting,” the infectious disease expert said.
  • Joe Biden offered his condolences to the loved ones of the 250,000 Americans who have now died of coronavirus. Speaking at a press conference in Wilmington, Delaware, the president-elect warned, “The country is still in crisis. And there’s a dark winter still ahead.”
  • The Trump campaign continued to push false claims of voter fraud, as states move toward certifying their election results. When reporters pressed the Trump campaign for evidence to substantiate their allegations during a press conference today, the president’s lawyers lashed out against the journalists, accusing them of “making light” of their false claims.
  • Another 742,000 Americans filed claims for new unemployment benefits last week, marking a slight increase from a week earlier. The news comes a month before 12 million Americans are expected to lose their unemployment benefits unless Congress can pass another coronavirus relief bill.
  • A Republican canvasser in Wayne county confirmed that Donald Trump called her on Tuesday night, after she and a colleague briefly tried to block the county from certifying its election results. Trump has also reportedly invited Michigan state legislators to the White House, as the president and his allies attempt to overturn the election results in the state.

Biden is the first Democratic presidential candidate to win Georgia since Bill Clinton in 1992. The state is expected to certify the election results tomorrow, which is the deadline for certification.

Earlier, my colleague Sam Levine interviewed Brad Raffensperger, the state’s top election official, who oversaw the recount:

After Georgia finished hand tallying some 5m votes, and state officials affirmed that Biden is the winner, the Associated Press has finally made it’s call:

Updated

Trump administration in 'staggering' isolation at UN on health issues

The outgoing Trump administration’s final days at the United Nations have resulted in a deepening of US isolation on social and health issues, with only a handful of allies including Russia, Belarus and Syria.

In one vote this week, the US was entirely alone in backing its own amendment to a seemingly uncontroversial resolution about efforts to treat medical complications from childbirth. It called for the removal of references to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Population Fund.

No other nation agreed, with 153 voting against the amendment and 11 abstaining.

A UN diplomat said the spectacle of a western ally and a superpower so totally isolated was “staggering”.

“It’s amazing that they decided they want to put their isolation on record, on full display, like that,” the diplomat said.

Debates at the UN general assembly this week have been on social and humanitarian affairs and human rights issues, on which the US mission stepped up its largely unsuccessful campaign to remove mention of reproductive health from UN documents. The Trump administration sees the phrase as synonymous with abortion.

The US backed eight amendments to resolutions on issues such as violence against women and girls, trafficking of women and girls, female genital mutilation, and early, child and forced marriages.

Apart from the move to delete a reference to the WHO, which Donald Trump has blamed for the coronavirus pandemic, the proposed amendment involved removing references to providing reproductive health services to female victims of violence and oppression.

Here’s the final tally:

Biden won 2,475,141 votes (49.5%).

Trump won 2,462,857 votes (49.3%).

“The results of the Risk Limiting Audit of Georgia’s presidential contest, which upheld and reaffirmed the original outcome produced by the machine tally of votes cast,” the secretary of state’s office said in a statement.

“Due to the tight margin of the race and the principles of risk-limiting audits, this audit was a full manual tally of all votes cast. The audit confirmed that the original machine count accurately portrayed the winner of the election.”

“Georgia’s historic first statewide audit reaffirmed that the state’s new secure paper ballot voting system accurately counted and reported results,” said Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state. “This is a credit to the hard work of our county and local elections officials who moved quickly to undertake and complete such a momentous task in a short period of time.”

A top elections official in Georgia affirmed that the hand tally of the presidential race in Georgia is complete, the AP has reported. Biden remains in the lead.

Gabriel Sterling released the information to The Associated Press on Thursday. The hand recount of nearly 5 million votes stemmed from an audit required by a new state law and wasn’t in response to any suspected problems with the state’s results or an official recount request.

The state has until Friday to certify the results that have been certified and submitted by the counties. Once the results are certified, the losing

Georgia is on track to certify on Friday that Joe Biden won the state.

The state’s hand recount is wrapping up. The secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, told WSB-TV Atlanta that “there’s no doubt” the recount will affirm Biden’s victory.

“The audit has aligned very close to what we had in election night reporting,” Raffensperger told the news channel. “It’s so close, it’s not a thimble full of difference.”

The recount resulted in officials in four counties discovering a total of about 5,800 votes. Trump has inched about 1,400 votes closer to Biden as a result but remains the loser. Raffensperger has said that the discount was due to human error, and there was no evidence of rigging or widespread fraud.

Updated

US hospitals face influx of patients and staffing shortages amid worsening pandemic

A new ad campaign from more than 100 of the nation’s health systems beseeches the American public to wear masks. The campaign includes both print advertising and a black and white video showing photographs of exhausted healthcare workers.

The ad ends with a simple message – “Wear. A. Mask.” – one that captures the frustration and anxiety of health workers who feel the public is ignoring their pleas to work together to slow the spread of Covid-19. Together, the signatories represent thousands of individual hospitals.

More than 11.5 million Americans have been diagnosed with Covid-19 and more than 250,000 have died, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Resource Center. More than 76,000 people are hospitalized, the highest number of the entire pandemic, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

“As the top nationally-ranked hospitals, we know it’s tough that we all need to do our part and keep wearing masks. But, here’s what we also know: The science has not changed. Masks slow the spread of Covid-19,” the PSA reads.

“So, please join us as we all embrace this simple ask: Wear. Care. Share with #MaskUp. Together, wearing is caring. And together, we are saving lives.”

The ad comes just before the Thanksgiving holiday, when families traditionally gather indoors, and when many health experts worry will lead to an explosion of new Covid-19 cases. It also comes nearly a year into the pandemic, with healthcare workers facing severe burnout.

“We are depressed, disheartened and tired to the bone,” said Alison Johnson, director of critical care at Johnson City Medical Center in Tennessee, adding that she drives to and from work some days in tears.

Agencies contributed to this report.

Read more:

California is imposing an overnight curfew to curb the spread of coronavirus.

The state’s governor Gavin Newsom announced that all non-essential work and gathering must stop between 10pm and 5am, starting Saturday. The order will apply to 41 counties – most of the state’s population.

Read more:

Updated

The Guardian’s Daniel Strauss reports:

Joe Biden’s comments about who he planned to pick to run the Treasury Department in his administration offered only a few clues about who that might be.

Biden’s description underscores the approach he said he would take to shaping his administration. The president-elect has promised to fill out a Biden administration with a heavy emphasis on inclusivity. He has said he wanted his cabinet to reflect the country and represent a range of viewpoints and ethnicities.

Biden’s comments though suggest that his first treasury secretary will not be someone who viewed as an antagonist to progressives, like JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon or to the banking or business community. That effectively also means a liberal favorite like Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren is probably not Biden’s pick as well.

Lael Brainerd, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, is often mentioned as a consensus pick for Biden. She is not too closely aligned with any energized wing of the party and could satisfy or at least not enrage any interest group too much. She would also be the first woman to serve as secretary of the treasury.

Today so far

The White House coronavirus task force press briefing has now concluded, so that’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over for the next few hours.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • Dr Anthony Fauci spoke at the coronavirus task force press briefing, marking his first appearance at the White House podium in months, Fauci celebrated the development of coronavirus vaccine candidates but urged Americans to remain vigilant about respecting public health guidelines. “If you’re fighting a battle and the cavalry is on the way, you don’t stop shooting,” the infectious disease expert said.
  • Joe Biden offered his condolences to the loved ones of the 250,000 Americans who have now died of coronavirus. Speaking at a press conference in Wilmington, Delaware, the president-elect warned, “The country is still in crisis. And there’s a dark winter still ahead.”
  • The Trump campaign continued to push false claims of voter fraud, as states move toward certifying their election results. When reporters pressed the Trump campaign for evidence to substantiate their allegations during a press conference today, the president’s lawyers lashed out against the journalists, accusing them of “making light” of their false claims.
  • Another 742,000 Americans filed claims for new unemployment benefits last week, marking a slight increase from a week earlier. The news comes a month before 12 million Americans are expected to lose their unemployment benefits, unless Congress can pass another coronavirus relief bill.
  • A Republican canvasser in Wayne county confirmed that Donald Trump called her on Tuesday night, after she and a colleague briefly tried to block the county from certifying its election results. Trump has also reportedly invited Michigan state legislators to the White House, as the president and his allies attempt to overturn the election results in the state.

Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

The administration officials speaking at the White House coronavirus task force briefing are all sending a similar message to Americans: remain vigilant because the end of the pandemic is in sight.

“There is light at the end of the tunnel,” said Alex Azar, health and human services secretary. “This isn’t forever.”

Azar said a brighter future awaited America once coronavirus vaccines could be distributed. “I want to see everyone get there,” Azar added.

Updated

Vice-president Mike Pence turned over the briefing to Dr Robert Redfield, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to discuss school closures.

Redfield argued it was possible for K-12 schools to safely conduct in-person instruction, saying, “They can do it safely, and they can do it responsibly.”

Redfield’s comments came one day after New York officials announced public schools would once again close, after the city’s positivity rate hit 3%.

Echoing Dr Anthony Fauci, Redfield said the country could see “the light at the end of the tunnel” with the development of coronavirus vaccine candidates, urging Americans to remain vigilant about respecting public health guidelines.

While celebrating news about the development of coronavirus vaccine candidates, Dr Anthony Fauci emphasized the need to remain vigilant about social-distancing and mask usage.

Fauci noted he has used the metaphor of “the cavalry is coming” to describe the potentially imminent distribution of a coronavirus vaccine.

But the infectious disease expert noted that the impending arrival of a cavalry did not mean we should stop fighting.

“If you’re fighting a battle and the cavalry is on the way, you don’t stop shooting,” Fauci said. “You keep going until the cavalry gets here, and then you might even want to continue fighting.”

Instead, Fauci said Americans needed to “double down on the public health measures as we’re waiting for that help to come, which will be soon.”

“We’re not talking about shutting down the country. We’re not talking about locking down. We’re talking about intensifying the simple public health measures that we all talk about,” Fauci said.

Fauci speaks at White House coronavirus task force briefing

Dr Anthony Fauci addressed the development of coronavirus vaccine candidates at the White House task force briefing, marking the first time in months that the infectious disease expert has spoken from the White House podium.

Fauci noted that Operation Warp Speed has been “supporting directly and indirectly” six potential vaccine candidates, four of which are now in late-stage trials.

Fauci said the apparent effectiveness of the Pfizer and Moderna coronavirus vaccines are “extraordinarily impressive.”

Dr Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, is speaking at the briefing.

Birx called on Americans to “increase their vigilance at this moment,” expressing alarm about the rate of coronavirus spread across the country.

Birx noted much of the spread seems to be caused by asymptomatic people unknowingly passing the virus on to loved ones.

She said those cases underscored the need to wear masks and avoid congregating indoors, despite the colder weather settling in across the country.

Mike Pence expressed confidence about the country’s ability to limit the spread of coronavirus, despite the recent surge in infections.

“America has never been more prepared to combat this virus than we are today,” Pence said.

The vice-president touted recent announcements about the development of coronavirus vaccine candidates, saying, “Help is on the way.”

Public health experts, including Dr Anthony Fauci, has said a vaccine will likely not be widely available to the American public until April.

Pence speaks at White House coronavirus task force briefing

Vice-president Mike Pence has kicked off the White House coronavirus task force press briefing, the first such briefing since July.

It does not look like Donald Trump will participate in the event, as he is not in the briefing room.

Drs Anthony Fauci and Deborah Birx are seated in the briefing room, but it’s unclear whether they will speak during the briefing.

Speaking a day after the US coronavirus death toll surpassed 250,000, Pence said, “Our hearts and our prayers are with all of those families that have been impacted by the coronavirus.”

Joe Biden pledged he would not pursue a nationwide shutdown after his inauguration in January, despite the recent surge in coronavirus cases.

“No national shutdown,” the president-elect told reporters. “I am not going to shut down the economy. I am going to shut down the virus.”

Asked by another reporter about Donald Trump’s baseless attacks on the integrity of the presidential election, Biden said, “It’s hard to fathom how this man thinks.”

The president-elect added of his opponent, “I’m confident he knows he hasn’t won.”

Asked about Donald Trump’s refusal to concede that he has lost the presidential election, Joe Biden said the president’s comments are “incredibly damaging”.

Biden told reporters in Wilmington, “I don’t know his motive, but I just think it’s totally irresponsible.”

The president and his allies have peddled baseless claims of election fraud, which his legal team repeated at a press conference this afternoon.

Updated

Taking questions from reporters in Wilmington, Joe Biden said he has decided who he will nominate to lead the treasury department.

The president-elect would not identify the person, saying the announcement would come “just before or just after Thanksgiving”.

Although he did not name his nominee, Biden predicted the person would be “accepted by all elements of the Democratic party”.

Updated

Biden: 'There’s a dark winter still ahead'

President-elect Joe Biden offered his condolences to the loved ones of the 250,000 Americans who have now died of coronavirus.

Biden emphasized that the coronavirus death toll is not just a statistic, noting it represents “empty chairs in dining room tables” across the country.

“The country is still in crisis,” Biden said. “And there’s a dark winter still ahead.”

The president-elect noted he and vice-president-elect Kamala Harris had a “great meeting” with the National Governors Association’s executive committee this afternoon, saying the group “congratulated us heartily for our win.”

Biden said he was “deeply impressed by how much consensus there was on how to move forward” among the bipartisan group of governors.

Biden and Harris deliver remarks after meeting with governors

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are delivering remarks in Wilmington, Delaware, after meeting with the National Governors Association’s executive committee.

The vice-president-elect spoke first, pledging to provide governors with all the necessary support to confront a nationwide surge in coronavirus cases.

Quoting Gary Herbert, the Republican governor of Utah, Harris said, “When the states are successful, the country is successful.”

Harris added, “President-elect Biden and I will make sure you have the resources and support you need to save lives and help get our economy back on track.”

Joe Biden reportedly plans to meet with House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer in Wilmington, Delaware, tomorrow.

Bloomberg News reports:

The meeting will be the first in-person conversation between the top three Democratic leaders since Biden won the presidency. Biden has spoken with both leaders by phone, but he has had very limited in-person meetings because of the worsening coronavirus pandemic.

The meeting is scheduled to take place at The Queen, the theater in Wilmington that Biden has been using for meetings and events since the campaign.

Biden and the two Democratic congressional leaders have called for the passage of another coronavirus relief package, but Republican lawmakers have shown little appetite for another massive relief bill.

Chris Krebs, the former director of the cybersecurity and infrastructure security agency, criticized Trump campaign officials for peddling baseless claims of election fraud at today’s press conference.

“That press conference was the most dangerous 1hr 45 minutes of television in American history. And possibly the craziest,” Krebs said in a tweet. “If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re lucky.”

Krebs was fired from his role within the department of homeland security on Tuesday, after he defended the reliability of the election results.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle have criticized the president for firing Krebs, with several Republican senators saying it was a mistake.

Updated

Donald Trump’s daughter-in law, Lara Trump, is reportedly considering a 2022 Senate run in North Carolina.

The New York Times reports:

As Mr. Trump attempts to subvert the election to remain in power, Ms. Trump, three allies said, has been telling associates she is considering a run for Senate in 2022, in what is expected to be a competitive race for the first open Senate seat in a very swingy swing state in a generation. Senator Richard Burr, an unobtrusive Republican legislator who was thrust into the spotlight as chairman of a committee investigating the president’s ties to Russia, has said he will retire at the end of his term. Despite expanded turnout in rural areas, Mr. Trump won North Carolina by a smaller margin than he did four years ago, just 1.3 percentage points, a sign that overall the state is trending blue and that the race for the Senate seat will be tightly contested by both parties in the first post-Donald Trump election.

Lara Trump served as a senior adviser to her father-in-law’s 2020 presidential campaign, and she spoke at the Republican convention in August.

Since election day, she has echoed the president’s baseless claims of widespread fraud to explain Joe Biden’s victory in the race.

CDC advises against Thanksgiving travel

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised Americans not to travel for next week’s Thanksgiving holiday, due to the nationwide surge in new coronavirus cases.

“CDC is recommending against travel during the Thanksgiving period,” Dr Henry Walke, the CDC’s coronavirus incident manager, said during a briefing today.

“For Americans who decide to travel, CDC recommends doing so as safely as possible by following the same recommendations for everyday living,” Walke added.

Walke particularly expressed fear about the possibility of Americans unknowingly spreading coronavirus to family members, saying, “One of our concerns is that as people over the holiday season get together, they may actually be bringing infections with them to that small gathering and not even know it.”

In a set of updated guidelines, the CDC recommended celebrating Thanksgiving virtually or only with members of one’s own household.

The guidance says, “In-person gatherings that bring together family members or friends from different households, including college students returning home, pose varying levels of risk.”

The news comes a day after the US coronavirus death toll surpassed 250,000, which is far higher than any other country in the world.

Programming note: the White House coronavirus task force will hold a press briefing at 4pm ET today.

It’s not clear whether Donald Trump will appear at the briefing, but Mike Pence, who leads the task force, is expected to participate.

This will mark the first time since July that the task force will publicly brief reporters, and it comes amid a national surge in coronavirus infections.

According to Johns Hopkins University, the US coronavirus death toll surpassed 250,000 yesterday.

Updated

Trump to meet with Michigan legislators amid efforts to overturn election results - reports

Donald Trump has mounted an all-out assault on the election result in Michigan, reportedly planning to fly state lawmakers to meet with him in Washington and phoning county officials in an apparent attempt to derail the certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s 150,000-vote victory in the state.

On Tuesday night, Trump placed phone calls to two Republican members of a county-level vote certification board the night before the pair tried to reverse their previous endorsement of a large chunk of the vote in Michigan.

The news emerged as Republican lawmakers in Michigan prepared to fly to Washington on Friday to meet with Trump at his request, the Washington Post first reported.

While no explanation for the meeting has been given, Trump has been pressuring Republican state lawmakers to try to hijack the electoral college by advancing slates of electors that could compete with those selected by the states’ voters.

There was no indication that Trump’s strategy, which in addition to the consent of legislatures would require a string of highly unlikely court victories and ultimately participation by Democrats in Congress to succeed, had any remote chance of overturning the election.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are virtually meeting with the National Governors Association’s executive committee at the Queen Theater in Wilmington, Delaware.

The governors participating in the meeting are Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, Andrew Cuomo of New York, Gary Herbert of Utah, Larry Hogan of Maryland, Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, Kay Ivey of Alabama, Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, Jared Polis of Colorado, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and John Carney of Delaware.

Of the 10 attendees, five of them -- Baker, Herbert, Hogan, Hutchinson and Ivey -- are Republicans.

“I want you to know I will be your partner in the White House,” Biden told the governors. ““I want to work with you and Congress on a bipartisan basis to make sure you get what you need.”

After the meeting, Biden and Harris are expected to deliver remarks and take questions from reporters.

A federal judge today agreed to briefly stay the execution of Lisa Montgomery, the lone woman on federal death row, after her attorneys fell ill with Covid-19 and were unable to file a timely clemency petition on her behalf.

US District Judge Randolph Moss said that though his order will temporarily stay the execution, now slated for December 8, it will “not enjoin any government official, including the President,” from taking any adverse action on her request for a reprieve, Reuters writes.

He added that if her lawyers are not able to file her clemency request by December 24, then they must have other counsel appointed on her behalf.

His ruling came after a hearing earlier this week, where Moss had at times appeared skeptical on whether to grant Montgomery more time to petition for clemency.

Montgomery, now 52, was convicted in 2007 of kidnapping and strangling Bobbie Jo Stinnett, who was eight months pregnant. Montgomery then cut the baby, who survived the attack, out from the womb.

Both her lead clemency attorneys, Kelley Henry and Amy Harwell, have been too sick with Covid-19 to prepare and file her petition.

Her lawyers had said that Montgomery has long suffered from severe mental illness and was the victim of sexual assault, including gang rape.

*The district court*s ruling gives Lisa Montgomery a meaningful opportunity to prepare and present a clemency application after her attorneys recover from Covid,” said Sandra Babcock, one of her attorneys, in a statement in response to today’s ruling.

Today so far

The Trump campaign’s press conference, which focused on baseless claims of election fraud and attacks on the media, has now concluded.

Here’s where the day stands so far:

  • The president’s lawyers continued to push false claims of voter fraud, as states move toward certifying their election results. When reporters pressed the Trump campaign for evidence to substantiate their allegations, the lawyers lashed out against the journalists, accusing them of “making light” of their false claims.
  • Another 742,000 Americans filed claims for new unemployment benefits last week, marking a slight increase from a week earlier. The news comes as coronavirus cases surge across the country, forcing a number of states to heighten their health restrictions.
  • A Republican canvasser in Wayne county confirmed that Donald Trump called her on Tuesday night, after she and a colleague briefly tried to block the county from certifying its election results. A day later, the two Republican canvassers said they wanted to rescind their votes to certify, but Michigan is on track to certify statewide results by Monday.

The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.

Jenna Ellis, a senior legal adviser for the Trump campaign, attacked a reporter for requesting evidence of the campaign’s baseless claims of election fraud.

“Your question is fundamentally flawed, when you’re asking, ‘Where’s the evidence?’ You clearly don’t understand the legal process,” Ellis said.

The Trump campaign lawyers have had dozens of opportunities to present evidence of widespread fraud in court, and they have yet to substantiate those claims.

The Trump campaign turned off its live feed of the legal team’s press conference after the audio was briefly taken over by people offering running commentary on Rudy Giuliani’s dripping hair dye and other aspects of the presser.

Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, criticized reporters for noting in their coverage that the Trump campaign has presented no evidence of widespread election fraud.

The former New York mayor accused journalists of failing to do their jobs, seemingly complaining about major news outlets fact-checking the campaign’s false claims.

“Please don’t make light of it,” Giuliani said of the campaign’s baseless claims of election fraud, as hair dye continued to drip down the sides of his face.

Rudy Giuliani perspires as he speaks during a press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, DC.
Rudy Giuliani perspires as he speaks during a press conference at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, DC. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Jenna Ellis, a senior legal adviser for the Trump campaign, opened her remarks by attacking journalists for their coverage of the presidential election, which Joe Biden has won.

“The American people deserve to know what we have uncovered in the last couple of weeks,” Ellis said.

“This is an elite strike force team that is working on behalf of the president and the campaign to make sure that our constitution is protected.”

Fact-check: the president’s team has presented no evidence to substantiate claims of massive voter fraud in battleground states. Most of the campaign’s lawsuits have also already been defeated or dismissed.

Sidney Powell, another lawyer for the Trump campaign, presented a baseless claim linking allegedly defective voting machines to Hugo Chávez.

Chávez served as the president of Venezuela until his death in 2013.

It’s unclear how Chávez may have impacted the 2020 US presidential election, given that he died more than seven years before it took place.

Powell -- who previously represented Michael Flynn, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser -- also linked this non-existent conspiracy to Antifa and the Clinton Foundation.

Underscoring the surreal nature of the Trump campaign press conference, Rudy Giuliani appears to be sweating through his hair dye as he pushes baseless claims of election fraud.

Rudy Giuliani defended the Trump campaign’s lawsuits in battleground states, many of which have already been defeated or dismissed.

Giuliani noted that Democrat Al Gore continued his election dispute against George W Bush for weeks after the 2000 election.

However, the 2000 election hinged on one state, Florida, where Bush led by a few hundred votes, and there were protracted arguments about counting disputed ballots.

That is not the case we face now. Biden currently has 290 electoral votes, and that is likely to grow to 306 votes once Georgia completes its recount.

So, even if one state were to flip to Donald Trump, which is extremely unlikely, it would not be enough to change the outcome of the presidential election.

More importantly, the president’s team has not produced any evidence to substantiate claims of widespread election fraud.

This race is over. The only remaining question is when (if ever) Trump and his team will acknowledge that.

At one point during the press conference, Rudy Giuliani reenacted a scene from the movie “My Cousin Vinny,” which focuses on a New York lawyer defending his cousin and a friend in a murder trial.

“Did you all watch My Cousin Vinny?” the president’s personal lawyer asked the reporters gathered at the press conference. “It’s one of my favorite law movies.”

Giuliani used a scene from the movie to push baseless claims of election fraud in the presidential race.

So yes, things are going very well over at the Trump campaign’s press conference.

Trump campaign continues to peddle baseless fraud claims

Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, continued to peddle baseless claims of election fraud at a press conference in Washington.

Giuliani claimed the hand recount in Georgia, which is expected to conclude today, would not be legitimate because officials were simply recounting fraudulent ballots. (There is no evidence of fraudulent ballots being counted.)

The former New York mayor also insisted it was statistically impossible for Joe Biden to have pulled ahead in key battleground states like Michigan and Pennsylvania when he was trailing on election night.

Biden pulled ahead of Donald Trump after those states counted more valid ballots. He has been named the winner of those states and the winner of the presidential election overall.

The Trump campaign will soon hold a press conference in Washington, as its legal efforts to block Joe Biden’s election victory continue to dwindle.

Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, and Jenna Ellis, a senior legal adviser for the campaign, are expected to speak at the press conference.

Even though coronavirus cases are surging across the country, the press conference is being held inside with seemingly no social distancing.

Another lawyer for the Trump campaign has withdrawn from the lawsuit in Pennsylvania, as the president’s legal efforts to block Joe Biden’s election victory dwindle.

Linda Kerns has dropped out of the Pennsylvania lawsuit, according to a filing from this morning.

Kerns had requested to withdraw from the lawsuit earlier this week, but the judge overseeing the case made her stick around for Rudy Giuliani’s opening argument.

Echoing the president’s talking points, Giuliani used his opening argument to peddle baseless claims of widespread election fraud.

Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, said a Trump administration official confirmed the White House is not coordinating with Joe Biden’s transition team about the distribution of a coronavirus vaccine.

“Just off a conference call with Trump Administration vaccine distribution team. They confirmed that they have not briefed anyone on President-elect Biden’s team and have no plans to do so,” Murphy said in a tweet. “This is potentially catastrophic.”

Murphy emphasized the need for the outgoing administration to coordinate with the incoming team in order to “assure a clean hand-off of a complicated distribution plan.”

Biden has criticized the General Services Administration for refusing to acknowledge his victory in the presidential election, blocking him from key resources for his transition.

The president-elect warned on Monday that the stalled transition could hamper vaccine distribution efforts.

Biden said, “More people may die if we don’t coordinate.”

The Senate is now out until after Thanksgiving, even as negotiations over a coronavirus relief bill remain stalled.

Meanwhile, 12 million Americans are facing the possibility of losing their unemployment benefits, and food banks are dealing with incredibly high demand, as coronavirus infections surge across the country.

Speaking to CNN this morning, Karin Smith, a single mother in Florida who could lose her unemployment benefits next month, said the situation is bleak for her and her teenaged son.

“Luckily Florida’s unemployment is so low that we qualify for food stamps, so I can feed the 14-year-old growing boy,” Smith said. “We stopped going to food banks because they’re closing and they’re far now.” She added, “If they open at 9, you have to be there at 5 am to hope to get anything.”

Smith described the day-to-day struggles of making ends meet as “exhausting” and “terrifying.”

One of the Republican canvassers in Wayne county confirmed that Donald Trump called her shortly after she and a colleague tried to block the county’s certification process.

“I did receive a call from President Trump, late Tuesday evening, after the meeting,” Monica Palmer told the Washington Post. “He was checking in to make sure I was safe after hearing the threats and doxing that had occurred.”

Palmer and her fellow Republican canvasser, William Hartmann, voted against certifying the county’s results on Tuesday night, but they quickly backtracked amid an intense public pressure campaign.

Last night, Palmer and Hartmann said they wanted to rescind their votes to certify, but the Michigan secretary of state has said that wish is irrelevant because the certification is now before the state board, which is scheduled to meet on Monday.

The Trump campaign said it is dropping a lawsuit in Michigan, after two Republican canvassers in Wayne county briefly declined to certify the county’s election results.

Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, said in a statement, “This morning we are withdrawing our lawsuit in Michigan as a direct result of achieving the relief we sought: to stop the election in Wayne County from being prematurely certified before residents can be assured that every legal vote has been counted and every illegal vote has not been counted.”

However, the Republican canvassers quickly dropped their objections to the certification amid an intense public pressure campaign, so Wayne county did ultimately certify its results on Tuesday.

The two Republican canvassers then attempted to rescind their votes to certify last night, but the Michigan secretary of state has said that will have no effect on the state’s certification process.

The certification is now before the state board, which is scheduled to meet on Monday and certify the final results.

Coronavirus has now affected the pivotal post-Brexit trade talks in Brussels, as negotiators from the EU and the UK attempt to reach a deal.

Michael Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, said one of his team members had tested positive for the virus, so they were suspending discussions “for a short period”.

“The teams will continue their work in full respect of guidelines,” Barnier said in a tweet.

The UK’s top negotiator, David Frost, said he had been in close contact with Barnier, and he thanked the European commission for their support.

Donald Trump reportedly called the two Republican officials in Wayne county, Michigan, who initially voted against certifying the Democratic-leaning county’s election results on Tuesday.

The AP reports:

In Wayne County, the two Republican canvassers at first balked at certifying the vote, winning praise from Trump, and then reversed course after widespread condemnation. A person familiar with the matter said Trump reached out to the canvassers, Monica Palmer and William Hartmann, on Tuesday evening after the revised vote to express gratitude for their support. Then, on Wednesday, Palmer and Hartmann signed affidavits saying they believe the county vote ‘should not be certified.’

Palmer and Hartmann were widely criticized for trying to block the certification, with a number of their opponents accusing them of trying to disenfranchise black voters in the county.

The certification process has now moved on to the state board in Michigan, but Trump’s phone call to the two officials demonstrates how the president is trying (albeit not very effectively) to undermine American democracy by pressing Republicans to use their power to baselessly cast doubt upon the election.

Updated

This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Martin Belam.

Here’s what the blog is keeping its eye on today: Donald Trump’s reelection campaign is holding a press conference at 12 pm ET in Washington, as more states move toward certifying their election results.

The press conference will be led by Rudy Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer, and Jenna Ellis, a senior legal adviser to the campaign. Giuliani and Ellis have been leading the campaign’s lawsuits in battleground states, many of which have already failed.

Meanwhile, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will meet virtually with the National Governors Association’s executive committee in Wilmington, Delaware. They will later deliver remarks and are expected to take questions from reporters.

That’s all still coming up, so stay tuned.

Former official in the George W. Bush administration Matt Becker has a blunt message for General Services Administration (GSA) Administrator Emily Murphy today. She’s the person who has so far failed to sign the documents to begin the official transition process to a Biden-Harris administration. Becker writes this morning:

When you serve in the executive branch, you are required to take an oath of office on your first day. Your oath is not to the president of the United States but to the Constitution and the American people. When Emily accepted this leadership role, she also accepted the responsibility to make the tough choices. This is one of those times.

Make no mistake, I absolutely want the Trump campaign to expose fraud, if it is there. As a father, small business owner and lifelong Republican, I do not want a Joe Biden presidency. I simply do not agree with Joe Biden on how to move America forward. But, as an American, I know elections have consequences and my support of our Constitution outweighs my distress at who will be in the Oval Office.

I take no pleasure in writing this. But short of a miracle, Joe Biden will be the next president of the United States. I know many Trump supporters may call me a RINO for this.

Let me be clear, I do not care.

I have served in the executive branch, I have seen the work involved, I know the importance of the transition, and I cannot be silent any more.

Read it here: Tampa Bay Times – Matt Becker – It is time to begin the Biden transition

New weekly jobless claims total rises to 742,000 – first increase since October

New claims for unemployment benefits in the US rose to 742,000 last week. It is the first increase since early October, as a surge in coronavirus cases keeps a tight check on the US economic recovery.

More than 21 million Americans are currently claiming some form of unemployment insurance.

Lucy Bayly notes for NBC News that:

Even with news of two promising vaccines, the consumer spending that powers the nation’s economic growth could shrivel amid extended business closures.

While the holiday season traditionally brings enormous sales volume for retailers, restaurants, and movie theaters, many are facing a challenging season. Travel is at a near-standstill, consumers’ wallets are already tightly squeezed, and extended pandemic unemployment assistance is set to expire by the end of December.

There’s still no sign of a coronavirus relief package being put together on Capitol Hill.

In a separate gloomy economic indicator, Macy’s reported a more than 20% drop in quarterly comparable sales on Thursday and said it expects that loss to continue into the fall, signaling a tough holiday season for the coronavirus-battered department store chain.

Updated

There’s lots of focus on division between the progressive and more centrists wings of the Democratic party, but the new Republican group in the House is going to have its fair share of splits and divisions too.

Take Marjorie Taylor Greene, who will be representing Georgia’s 14th congressional district come January. She has tweeted this morning that “Masks are a symbol of tyrannical control. Americans have had enough! I’ll lead the fight in the halls of Congress against the Democrats’ hypocritical mask mandates and shut downs that are strangling the life out of our country.”

That came just a couple of minutes after Missouri’s Republican Governor Mike Parson tweeted out, well, basically the complete opposite…

Glenn Kessler, the editor and chief writer of the Washington Post’s frequently exasperated fact checks of Donald Trump, makes this point about the president not complaining about widespread voter fraud when he was narrowly winning and opposing a recount in 2016.

We’ve reported before on the sheer numbers of people who were charged with felonies during the summer’s Black Lives Matter protests. Neil MacFarquhar this morning for the New York Times has a look at how many of those charges are now falling by the wayside as they hit court.

Prosecutors called the scale of both the mass arrests and mass dismissals within a few short months unrivaled, at least since the civil rights protests of the early 1960s. With the police detaining hundreds of people in major cities, the arrests this year ended up colliding with the limitations of the court system.

In the aftermath, prosecutors declined to pursue many of the cases because they concluded that the protesters were exercising their basic civil rights. Cases involving free speech or free assembly rarely succeed in court, according to prosecutors across the country, and the coronavirus pandemic also played a role in the decision. A wave of thousands of minor cases threatened to capsize courts already floundering under hefty lockdown backlogs.

There was also the recognition that law enforcement officers often use mass arrests as a technique to help clear the streets, not to confront illegal behavior.

For those handling the cases, the task has felt Sisyphean. “Every day I would think I was done and the next morning there would be 50 or 100 cases to tally,” said Mary Ellen Heng, a deputy city attorney for Minneapolis. So far the city is pursuing about 75 of 666 cases.

“What’s happened in the last few months here is nothing like I have seen in my 23 years when it comes to the volume of cases,” she said.

Read more here: New York Times – Why charges against protesters are being dismissed by the thousands

Also due today, by the way, vice president Mike Pence will be leading a White House Coronavirus Task Force meeting at 2.30pm.

President-elect Joe Biden and vice president-elect Kamala Harris meet virtually with the National Governors Association’s executive committee in Wilmington, Delaware, and are then expected to deliver remarks.

Former president Barack Obama is continuing to promote his new memoir, and will be interviewed by Jonathan Capehart on MSNBC at 10pm and Jimmy Kimmel on ABC at 11:35pm.

President Donald Trump has no public events scheduled in his diary for today.

Trump announces news conference on 'a very clear and viable path to victory'

President Donald Trump, who is currently projected to lose the election by at least 290 electoral college votes to 232, and trails Joe Biden in the popular vote by some 5.9 million votes, has announced there will be a press conference today.

He says his lawyers will outline “a very clear and viable path to victory” and that “Pieces are very nicely falling into place”. It’s at noon.

A Los Angeles urban planner who made homelessness and housing the central issues of her campaign and condemned the Los Angeles police department for “responding to protests against police brutality with more police brutality”, won a crucial local race this November.

Nithya Raman, 39, joins the list of Bernie Sanders-endorsed progressives who have beaten Democratic party incumbents in closely-watched races. Her opponent, David Ryu, had been endorsed by Nancy Pelosi and Hillary Clinton.

Raman’s Los Angeles city council victory won’t change the balance of power among Democrats in Washington. But her win does show the impact progressives can have by organizing at the local level, and the intensity of enthusiasm she prompted among Angelenos has earned her comparisons to the New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Raman’s campaign was powered by local advocacy groups, including the Sunrise Movement and Democratic Socialists of America, and she has endorsed a swathe of bold progressive policies, from backing a Green New Deal, to arguing that some of the Los Angeles police department’s budget should be diverted to pay for unarmed community crisis specialists and outreach workers. She is pushing for a rent forgiveness program in response to the coronavirus crisis, and opposes all policies that criminalize people who are unhoused.

Read Lois Beckett’s interview with Nithya Raman here: ‘We knocked on 80,000 doors:’ how progressive Nithya Raman won Los Angeles

Just a reminder as well that last night NBC News fact-checked Donald Trump’s false claims yesterday about “winning” Michigan. Jane C. Timm wrote:

“In Detroit, there are FAR MORE VOTES THAN PEOPLE. Nothing can be done to cure that giant scam. I win Michigan!” Trump tweeted, later alleging that in Michigan, the number of votes was larger than the number of people who voted, although it’s not clear what the president was talking about.

There has been no evidence of widespread fraud and NBC News has projected Joe Biden to be the winner of Michigan.

Trump’s claim about Detroit is demonstrably false. There are 670,000 people living in Detroit, according to the U.S. Census Bureau’s most recent estimate, and the city says that 250,138 ballots were cast there.

Read more here: NBC News – Fact check: Trump’s bogus claim of more votes in Detroit than people

The election count shenanigans in Michigan are still not over. The Associated Press report that the two Michigan Republicans who initially blocked certification of election results for the county that includes Detroit, before approving them, now say they want to rescind their certification.

Monica Palmer and William Hartmann, the two Republican canvassers in Wayne County, said in a statement issued late last night that they only voted to certify the results after “hours of sustained pressure” and after getting promises that their concerns about the election would be investigated.

“We deserve better but more importantly, the American people deserve better than to be forced to accept an outcome achieved through intimidation, deception, and threats of violence,” they said in the statement. “Wayne County voters need to have full confidence in this process.”

Palmer and Hartmann initially voted against certification Tuesday, leaving the Wayne County Board of Canvassers deadlocked at 2-2 along party lines. Palmer complained that certain Detroit precincts were out of balance, meaning that absentee ballot books did not match the number of ballots cast.

The Republican move drew an immediate rebuke from the public and injected partisan politics into the business of an unsung panel that is supposed to confirm the will of the voters.

Biden crushed Trump in Wayne County, a Democratic stronghold, by a more than 2-1 margin on his way to winning Michigan by 146,000 votes, according to unofficial results. His victory reversed Trump’s 2016 gains in the industrial Midwest and put Biden on the path to achieving the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the White House.

The county canvassers later voted again and certified the results, 4-0. Then, on Wednesday, Palmer and Hartmann signed affidavits saying they believe the county vote “should not be certified.”

They said in their statement Wednesday that they’ve reported threats against them to law enforcement.

There has been no evidence of widespread voting fraud in Michigan or any other state. Federal and state officials from both parties have declared the 2020 election safe and secure. But Trump and his allies have spent two weeks raising false claims of fraud and refusing to concede to Biden.

Meanwhile the president is again tweeting, without providing supporting evidence, that the election was rigged.

Updated

When Donald Trump took office it was with the mantra ‘America first’. International agreements were torn up, the US withdrew from commitments like the Paris climate agreement and cut its funding for the World Health Organization. Allies in Europe were scorned in favour of creating new relationships with ‘strongmen’ leaders such as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un.

Joe Biden will enter the White House in 2021 facing numerous domestic crises. But as Patrick Wintour explains in today’s episode of Today in Focus, he cannot ignore the rest of the world. He tells Anushka Asthana that the next four years will not be simply spent turning the clock back on global affairs: instead Biden will forge his own foreign policy based on promoting democracy and standing up to authoritarianism.

You can listen to it here…

Donald Trump is up and tweeting about the election. Far be it from me to question the president of the United State, but for someone who has insisted for days and days that the election was rigged, unfair, riddled with voter fraud and suspicious counting of mail-in ballots and so on, he seems quite happy with these results.

Or as CNN’s Manu Raju puts it…

A little more detail coming out from that Mike Pompeo visit to Israel. Reuters have just snapped that the US will in future require that imports from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank be labelled as having been “Made in Israel” or “Product of Israel”, according to the secretary of state in a statement.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu make a joint statement in Jerusalem this morning.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu make a joint statement in Jerusalem this morning. Photograph: Maya Alleruzzo/AFP/Getty Images

He has also made a public pronouncement on Twitter about US plans to counter the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and label it as antisemitism.

Just one more thing, for now, on the Georgia Senate run-off races front, Newsweek this morning have this on criticism of Republican incumbent Sen. Kelly Loeffler who has been accused of violating ethics rules with a fundraising appeal in a federal building. Darragh Roche writes:

Senator Kelly Loeffler has been accused of violating Senate ethics rules by soliciting donations in the US Capitol building. She made the appeal for campaign contributions on Fox News.

Loeffler spoke to the network from the Capitol with its pillars behind her and said that “hundreds of millions of dark, liberal money is pouring into our state” for the 5 January Senate runoffs in Georgia.

“That’s why it’s so important that everyone across the country get involved,” Loeffler said. “They can visit KellyforSenate.com to chip in 5 or 10 bucks, and get involved, volunteer.”

Loeffler will face Rev. Raphael Warnock in one of two runoff elections in Georgia that will determine control of the Senate. The other race pits Republican Senator David Perdue against Jon Ossoff.

18 US Code Section 607 makes it illegal for members of Congress to solicit or receive a donation of money while on federal property. Punishment can be a fine of up to $5,000 and up to three years in jail.

Read more here: Newsweek – Kelly Loeffler accused of violating Senate ethics rules with fundraising appeal in federal building

Bill Barrow at the Associated Press has a slightly different take on the national figures rushing to support the Republican campaign in Georgia. He suggests that for some of them at least, it is all rather more about 2024 presidential runs already.

He points out that Sen. Marco Rubio, who arrived in Georgia last week to rally Republicans behind Senate colleagues David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. Fellow Florida Sen. Rick Scott followed last Friday. Tom Cotton, an Arkansas senator widely viewed as having presidential ambitions, will campaign in central Georgia on Friday. Vice president Mike Pence is also due in the state on Friday.

Meanwhile, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley has sent a flurry of fundraising emails coaxing rank-and-file Republicans to bankroll the Georgia runoff campaigns. Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, a former presidential candidate, has mentioned the contests in his regular circuit of cable television appearances. And Loeffler’s campaign website homepage features a photo of the senator with former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

“Georgia gives anyone looking at their own run a chance at some action, where they can show some leadership and their campaign ability,” said Matt Moore, a Republican operative who saw plenty of presidential ambition as leader of the South Carolina Republican Party in 2016.

Notably, observed Barrow, Donald Trump is the glaring potential 2024 contender who has not yet publicly committed to a Georgia visit.

He may have been overwhelmingly defeated by Joe Biden in the popular vote earlier this month, but Trump also won millions more votes than he received four years ago and fueled rural and small-town turnout that helped Republicans pick up House seats, protect several vulnerable GOP senators and maintain control of key state legislatures, including in Georgia.

That popularity makes it politically risky for Republicans with White House ambitions to call out Trump’s falsehoods. And it gives them incentives to align with Trump, even as he works to undermine a smooth transfer of power.

“He showed the Republican base is still his base,” Moore said. “That’s the story of 2020. It’s not just about raising money and making the rounds in the party. These candidates want to show they can connect with voters” the way Trump has.

David Catanese has been having a look for McClatchy DC at the differing tactics the two parties are taking for January’s Georgia Senate run-off races. He writes:

When Vice President Mike Pence arrives in Georgia on Friday, he’ll become the fourth national Republican figure to campaign for Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in nine days.

During the same period, no outside Democrats have visited the state on behalf of challengers Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock — and that’s just fine with them.

The diverging approaches between the parties illustrate the initial strategic calculations they are making in the opening phase of Georgia’s US Senate runoff elections, following a cycle where a stable of well-funded, high-profile Democratic candidates severely underperformed.

While Republicans are embracing an all-hands-on-deck approach to rejuvenate a base still grappling with President Donald Trump’s defeat in Georgia and nationwide, Democrats are so far resisting the temptation to fully nationalize races that will determine the balance of power in a closely divided Senate, instead hoping to keep the focus on the records of the GOP incumbents.

Read more here: McClatchy DC – As GOP heavyweights storm Georgia for Senate run-offs, Democrats hold back — for now

Donald Trump has cast himself as an isolationist president focused on Americans. However, in one major foreign policy issue, Israel and Palestine, the US leader has possibly made more of an impact than any of his predecessors.

What has he done?

The list is long but has generally focused on making concessions to Israel’s ultranationalist government, weakening the Palestinians, and pressuring Arab states to end regional isolation of Israel.

Early in his term, Trump recognised Israel’s claim to the divided city of Jerusalem and moved the US embassy there, taking a clear side in one of the most contentious issues in the Middle East.

In January, Washington went even further by releasing a “vision for peace” that afforded Israel’s government the majority of its territorial demands by recognising vast swathes of the Palestinian territories as part of Israel.

Trump has also recognised Israel’s claim to the Golan Heights – an area Israeli forces captured from Syria and that the country still claims sovereignty over.

Aren’t these all symbolic gestures?

Yes, in some respects they are. Regardless, the impact of these moves has been momentous as they have broken a decades-long US foreign policy status quo. Israel has been emboldened in its efforts to entrench the occupation. Meanwhile, few Palestinians believe Joe Biden, who is close to the Israel lobby, will prioritise rolling back these measures if he considers it at all.

Why has Trump taken such an interest in the issue?

The president’s own views on the Middle East have often been opaque. Apart from his anti-Muslim rhetoric, Trump has displayed a fairly light grasp on major issues in the region.

It has been the people around him who appear to have driven the vision.

Jason Greenblatt, a former Trump Organization real estate lawyer with almost no prior experience of foreign relations, was picked to be Washington’s special envoy for Middle East peace. Greenblatt, who has now left and works for an Israeli investment company, has said settlements are not an “obstacle for peace”.

Trump’s ambassador to Israel, David Friedman, another former Trump Organization lawyer, has been even more vocal in his pro-settler views, and has strong personal ties to the movement. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who has spoken with disdain about Palestinians, has equally been a key figure.

Read more of Oliver Holmes’ report from Jerusalem: Will Trump’s major foreign policy legacy be Israel and Palestine?

Mike Pompeo makes provocative visit to Israeli settlement

Mike Pompeo has visited an archaeological dig run by an Israeli settler group accused of displacing Palestinian families from their homes in occupied neighbourhoods of Jerusalem.

The trip on Wednesday night was the first time a US secretary of state had officially visited a settlement, a deeply provocative move that previous American administrations went to lengths to avoid.

“Wonderful to see the work being done to preserve the ancient @City_of_David and the new discoveries by archaeologists working in the area,” Pompeo, who is on a three-day tour to the region, tweeted on Thursday morning.

The City of David, a huge tourist attraction next to the Old City in East Jerusalem, is run by Elad, an Israeli settler organisation that seeks to strengthen the Jewish presence in the neighbourhood of Silwan at the expense of its Arab residents.

EU diplomats have criticised the dig as seeking to ignore the ancient city’s diverse history in favour of “an exclusively Jewish narrative, while detaching the place from its Palestinian surroundings”.

Elad has expanded by buying Palestinian houses and using Israeli laws that allow the state to take over Palestinian property. Approximately 450 settlers now live alongside almost 10,000 Palestinians in Silwan.

Pompeo’s trip, part of a farewell international tour, is expected to include an equally explosive visit to an Israeli winery in a settlement deep in the occupied West Bank. On Thursday, Pompeo said he would visit the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 war and now claims as its own.

Read more of Oliver Holmes’ report from Jerusalem: Mike Pompeo makes provocative visit to Israeli settlement

Here’s the Washington Post verdict this morning on trying to understand what Donald Trump is trying to actually achieve with his protracted dispute of his election defeat.

President Trump has abandoned his plan to win reelection by disqualifying enough ballots to reverse President-elect Joe Biden’s wins in key battleground states, pivoting instead to a goal that appears equally unattainable: delaying a final count long enough to cast doubt on Biden’s decisive victory.

Rudy Giuliani has told Trump and associates that his ambition is to pressure GOP lawmakers and officials across the political map to stall the vote certification in an effort to have Republican lawmakers pick electors and disrupt the electoral college when it convenes next month — and Trump is encouraging of that plan, according to two senior Republicans who have conferred with Giuliani and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the matter candidly.

But that outcome appears impossible. It is against the law in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin law gives no role to the legislature in choosing presidential electors, and there is little public will in other states to pursue such a path.

Read more here: Washington Post – As defeats pile up, Trump tries to delay vote count in last-ditch attempt to cast doubt on Biden victory

Erin Brockovich, who needs no introduction, writes for us this morning, asking “Dear Joe Biden: are you kidding me?”

For years, I’ve been trying to impart a simple concept that Superman is not coming.

Dare I say, I had hopes that this new administration would usher in the dawning of a new day. As picks for President-elect Joe Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) transition team were announced, I felt concerned and disheartened about a chemical industry insider being on the list. Are you kidding me?

This smells of the dawn of the same old. To quote the Who: meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

It should go without saying that someone who advised DuPont on how to avoid regulations is not someone we want advising this new administration.

Are we the people supposed to trust a former DuPont man in a transition team tasked with reviewing the Chemical Safety Board? Is this how the newly elected leadership wants to start what is supposed to be a healing and unifying administration? Are we already falling back on the old and antiquated, hide-and-seek, conceal, dodge and deny leadership or are you going to come out and be the change and the hope needed when it comes to the environment?

Read more here: Erin Brockovich – Dear Joe Biden: are you kidding me?

Talking of Rudy Giuliani’s legal prowess, Robin Givhan, the senior critic-at-large at the Washington Post, is as forthright as ever on the topic of Donald Trump’s personal lawyer in a piece you’ll enjoy that is simply titled “Rudy Giuliani is a mess”:

His return to federal court as a practicing attorney, for the first time in nearly three decades, would not be the worst of Giuliani’s water-carrying for Trump, but it was, perhaps, the saddest. It was so small and petty. He was in Pennsylvania court Tuesday not to tell a convoluted tale of international intrigue about shadowy figures and powerful people skulking around in Ukraine. His story of malfeasance was closer to home and it was simply mean. Giuliani argued that a vast swathe of perfectly reasonable, good-hearted Americans masterminded a huge scheme that cheated Trump out of reelection. Giuliani couldn’t offer any evidence that this awful plot existed, but nevertheless he was sure it did and it just so happened to be centered in places like Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Detroit, which have substantial populations of Black and brown people.

As a culture, we like to believe that with age comes wisdom. The truth of it may be that age only makes people more obviously what they’ve always been. Freed of the urgent need to prove and define themselves for a future that’s yet to unfold, people can simply be. Giuliani, at 76, has revealed himself to be a man who believes that he can summon truth from falsehoods, bend the law to his will and conjure whatever reality suits him simply by speaking his hopes and dreams aloud.

Read more here: Washington Post – Rudy Giuliani is a mess

When Kamala Harris returned to the Senate this week for the first time as vice president-elect, her Republican colleagues offered their congratulations and Sen. Lindsey Graham greeted her with a fist bump. A move that Harris has been criticised in some quarters for indulging.

Nevertheless, it was a sign that many Republicans have privately acknowledged what they refuse to say openly: Joe Biden and Harris won the election and will take office in January.

Jonathan Memire and Lisa Mascaro of the Associated Press report that the GOP’s public silence on the reality of Biden’s victory amounts to tacit approval of Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud. That has significant repercussions, delaying the transition during a deadly pandemic, sowing public doubt and endangering Biden’s ability to lead the portion of the country that may question his legitimacy.

“The real-world consequences are perilous,” said Eddie Glaude, chair of the Department of African American studies at Princeton University. “The long-term implications are calcifying the doubt about the election and what that means for the body politic. It could lead to half the country not just being deeply suspicious of the democratic process but also actively hostile toward it. It becomes difficult to imagine how we move forward.”

Republicans are closing the Trump era much the way they started it: by joining the president in shattering civic norms and sowing uncertainty in institutions. But their efforts to maintain a public face of support for the president began to deteriorate yesterday.

Backroom whispers about the futility of Trump’s legal fight have become louder after Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani appeared in a Pennsylvania courtroom making wide and unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud in seeking to undo the election results. Asked about the case, Sen. Pat Toomey, said, “Let me just say, I don’t think they have a strong case.”

And when White House chief of staff Mark Meadows visited with Senate Republicans, he encouraged them to “make the most” of their remaining time with Trump, according to two senators.

Sen. John Cornyn, said the message from Meadows was “basically just that we got about 45 days left of the president’s term.” Meadows told them the administration wanted to make sure that if the senators “had ideas of things that the White House could and should do during that period of time, that we got them to him.”

But even then, there remained a glimmer of denial.

“But he did, I have to be honest with you, he did say whether it’s 45 days or four years and 45 days,” Cornyn added.

Despite the private admissions, it has been worth noting that there still has been no public effort by senior Republicans to nudge Trump toward the exit waiting for him as the first one-term US president of the 21st century.

“Trump is behaving exactly as everyone should have expected he would do. Nothing he has done in the last two weeks is out of character,” said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist who advised Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential bid. “And Senate Republicans are responding to him the same way they always do: Ignore him and focus on the Senate calendar.”

“But there’s no guarantee this works out well for Republicans.”

You basically want to know what is happening with Donald Trump’s lawsuits over his election defeat, and whether he has any glimmer of a chance of over-turning it, don’t you? Associated Press have put together this summary:

ARIZONA
THE CASE: The Arizona Republican Party is trying to block the certification of the election results in the state’s most populous county, Maricopa, until the court rules on the party’s lawsuit asking for a new hand count of a sampling of ballots. An audit already completed by the county found no discrepancies, officials said.
WHAT HAPPENED: The judge has not issued a decision. A hearing in the case is scheduled for Wednesday.

GEORGIA
THE CASE: A high-profile conservative attorney, L. Lin Wood Jr., has sued in an attempt to block the certification of election results in Georgia. Wood alleges Georgia illegally changed the process for handling absentee ballots. Georgia’s deputy secretary of state has called Wood’s case a “silly, baseless claim.”
WHAT HAPPENED: A judge has scheduled a hearing for Thursday to consider a request for a temporary restraining order to halt certification.

MICHIGAN
THE CASE: Trump’s campaign is trying to block the certification of election results in the state, alleging that election officials “allowed fraud and incompetence to corrupt the conduct of the 2020 general election.” Trump’s legal team alleges that their observers were prevented from being able to properly watch the vote counting, that ineligible ballots were counted and that Republican challenges to ballots were ignored.
Another lawsuit filed this week on behalf of two poll challengers asks a court to halt the certification of election results until an independent audit is completed to “ensure the accuracy and integrity of the election.”
WHAT HAPPENED: There have been no decisions in either case. Judges have already swatted down several other Republican efforts to block certification in the Detroit area. Wayne County, which is home to Detroit, unanimously certified its election results on Tuesday, hours after Republicans first blocked formal approval of voters’ intentions – although they appear now to be rowing back on that.

NEVADA
THE CASE: Trump’s campaign is asking a judge to nullify Nevada’s election results or set them aside and declare him the winner, arguing that illegal or improper votes were cast and the use of optical scanning to process signatures on mail-in ballots violated state law. The Trump lawsuit, filed Tuesday, rehashes arguments that judges in Nevada and elsewhere have already rejected. It claims that votes were cast on behalf of dead people, that election observers weren’t allowed to witness “key points” of processing and that people on American Indian territories were illegally given incentives to vote. In a separate court filing this week, a voting watchdog group led by a conservative former state lawmaker wants a judge to block statewide certification of the election.
WHAT HAPPENED: There have been no rulings in either case.


PENNSYLVANIA
THE CASE: A Trump campaign case aims to stop the state from certifying the election, alleging Philadelphia and six counties wrongly allowed voters to correct problems with mail-in ballots that were otherwise going to be disqualified for a technicality, like lacking a secrecy envelope or a signature. The total number of affected ballots was not expected to come anywhere close to Biden’s margin of more than 80,000 votes.
WHAT HAPPENED: Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, signed onto the case this week after others abruptly withdrew, and the former New York City mayor argued in court on Tuesday for the first time since the 1990s. Giuliani made wild, unsupported allegations of a nationwide conspiracy by Democrats to steal the election. The judge did not immediately issue a ruling and canceled a hearing that was set for Thursday but set out a schedule for both sides to make new filings this week.

WISCONSIN
THE CASE: Trump’s campaign on Wednesday filed for a recount in the counties that cover Milwaukee and Madison, both Democratic strongholds. It alleged — again without evidence — that absentee ballots were illegally altered or issued and that government officials violated state law.
WHAT HAPPENED: Biden leads Trump by 20,000 votes statewide. The recount requested by Trump will begin Friday and has to be complete by 1 December, the deadline for the vote to be certified at the state level. State and local elections officials reiterated that there was no evidence to back up the claims Trump was making.

To win, Donald Trump needs to somehow flip 38 electoral college seats, which means getting at least three of these states to overturn their current election counts.

Updated

This may have some diplomatic repercussions – Reuters report that Russia’s parliament has presented draft legislation that, if passed, would enable the government to restrict internet access to US social media giants deemed to have discriminated against Russian media outlets.

The authors of the bill said they had received complaints from home-grown outlets like Russia Today, RIA Novosti and Crimea 24 about accounts being suspended or labelled by Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

Twitter began labelling the accounts of several Russian media outlets with the description “state-affiliated media”, along with those of their senior staff and some key government officials in August, a move decried by Russia at the time.

“The urgency in adopting the draft law is due to numerous cases of unjustified restriction of Russian citizens’ access to information in the Russian media by certain internet resources, including those registered outside Russia,” a note attached to the document said.

To come into force, the bill would first need to be approved by lawmakers in the State Duma, Russia’s lower house of parliament, before being approved in the upper house of parliament and signed by President Vladimir Putin.

Asked about the legislation, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said measures needed to be carefully considered, but that a mechanism to counter the problem was necessary.

Microsoft’s LinkedIn is already blocked in Russia after a court found it breached a data storage rule, passed in 2015, which required all data about Russian citizens to be stored in the country.

It’s worth catching up with what Virginia’s Democratic senator Mark Warner has said on MSNBC about the Trump attempts to cling to power. Warner is the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He was asked whether people were over-reacting to the president’s recent actions. He said:

I view that the vast majority of Republicans are embarrassed by what Donald Trump is doing. But I don’t think they can continue, and should continue, to enable him, just because they don’t want to be the victim of a tweetstorm. And I really think it is not going to be the mainstream media or Democratic elected officials who are going to get this guy to change his behaviour. It is going to have to be business leaders, our retired military leaders, our intelligence community leaders, who just say this is not acceptable. My fear now is about the CIA director, and the FBI Director. My fear is whether he will take other arbitrary actions in terms of our long standing alliances. We can’t allow this to continue.

You can watch that here: MSNBC – Sen. Warner: ‘Majority of Republicans are embarrassed by what’ Trump is doing

Since Donald Trump’s defeat, Kristi Noem, the Republican governor of South Dakota, has still clung to the president and to his policies as though her political life depends on it.

The actual lives of many South Dakotans could depend, in turn, upon that decision given the terrifying surge of Covid-19 cases that is battering the state under Noem’s contentious leadership. South Dakota has been listed by Forbes as one of the 10 most dangerous states in the Union, all of them in the Midwest.

Coronavirus in South Dakota is running at an intensity only surpassed in the US by its neighbor North Dakota. The state has an alarming positivity rate of almost 60% – nearly six out of 10 people who take a Covid test are infected – second only to another neighbor, Wyoming.

Viewed through the lens of cases and deaths, South Dakota is also at the top of the league table. More than 66,000 South Dakotans have contracted the disease and at least 644 have died, a number likely to rise as hospitals reach breaking point.

Amid this devastating contagion, Noem is rigidly sticking to the strategy she has adopted since the pandemic began. It consists of a refusal to accept mask mandates and repeated denial of the science around the efficacy of wearing masks; resistance to imposing any restrictions on bars and restaurants; no limits on gatherings in churches or other places of worship; and no orders to stay at home.

While the statistics are clear – the virus is running wild in South Dakota – Noem has turned a public health emergency into an issue of “freedom” and “liberty”, consistently lying about the trajectory of the disease under her watch. “We’re doing really good in South Dakota. We’re managing Covid-19,” she has said.

She has also embraced the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for Covid, even after it was proven to be ineffective and potentially dangerous.

If all of this sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Since the start of the pandemic, Noem has consciously adopted the posture of a mini-Trump, following the president’s every move in the handling of the health crisis.

Read more of Ed Pilkington’s report here: Kristi Noem rigidly follows Trump strategy of denial as Covid ravages South Dakota

You may recall Huffington Post’s White House correspondent SV Dáte as the journalist who once asked Donald Trump to his face “Do you regret all your lying?”. This morning he has laid out how Trump is getting ever more brazen in his attempts to steal the election he lost.

In recent days, his campaign has welcomed the idea of disenfranchising all of the voters of Nevada, pushed to have Michigan’s 16 electoral votes awarded by its Republican legislature and alleged, without evidence, “massive fraud” all over the country in a court case in Pennsylvania ― all as Trump posts one lie after another on social media.

Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert on authoritarianism at New York University, said Trump’s claim to have won an election he lost by 74 Electoral College votes and 6 million votes overall is a clear danger sign.

“The red line is the election,” said Ben-Ghiat, whose new book, “Strongmen,” puts Trump in the context of a century of fascist leaders. “If you don’t recognize an election, you have gone into the territory of a non-democracy. It’s pretty easy.”

While most Americans do appear to take Trump’s assertions with several, if not more, grains of salt, some of his hard-core supporters do not and have taken to harassing and threatening election officials in battleground states.

Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, released a statement reporting threats to her family and her office, and called on Trump and others in Republican leadership to take responsibility.

Read more here: Huffington Post – Trump is getting ever more brazen in his attempts to steal the election he lost

Here’s a quick clip of that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo blow-up last night. He clashed with reporters after being asked whether New York city still had the ability to close its schools.

Cuomo, who also has a history of clashing with New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, suggested schools remain open as the state expanded testing, citing a state law, and responded to reporters telling them “You’re confused. Read the law. Read the law and you won’t be confused.”

After Cuomo’s news conference, de Blasio announced the city would halt in-person learning, starting today.

Welcome to our live coverage of US politics for Thursday. Here’s a quick summary of where we are…

  • The US coronavirus death toll surpassed 250,000 yesterday. That’s higher than any other country in the world. There were over 170,000 new cases recorded yesterday.
  • President-elect Joe Biden held a virtual meeting with frontline health care workers, pledging to pursue a robust response to the coronavirus pandemic after he is inaugurated in January.
  • Donald Trump’s public pronouncements have revolved around tweeting out more false allegations of election fraud, rather than addressing the pandemic.
  • More states, including Kentucky and Minnesota, announced new restrictions on gathering. Kentucky’s governor Andy Beshear said at a news conference today that “when fighting Covid-19, action is unpopular, but inaction is deadly”.
  • New York Governor Andrew Cuomo lashed out at reporters when questioned about a New York City decision to close all public schools.
  • Pfizer said a late-stage vaccine trial showed its coronavirus vaccine is actually 95% effective, after previously saying it was more than 90% effective. The company expects to apply for emergency authorization in the US within days.
  • Donald Trump’s campaign said it would request recounts of two Wisconsin counties. Biden currently leads in Wisconsin by more than 20,000 votes, so a partial recount is unlikely to reverse his victory there.
  • House Democrats re-elected Nancy Pelosi as their nominee for speaker. In her acceptance speech, Pelosi said the next Congress should focus on “justice”.
  • Fresh wildfires in Nevada and California have forced evacuations again, and kill at least one.

Updated

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