Summary
From me and Joan E Greve:
- Speaking at a crowded campaign rally in North Carolina where many voters were not wearing face masks, as mandated by the state, Donald Trump referred to his supporters as “peaceful protestors”. He said his supporters – at planned campaign rallies – should be able to gather like demonstrators against police brutality. Trump also mocked his opponent for following safety guidelines amid an ongoing pandemic. During the rally, Trump said that Kamala Harris, “could never be the first woman president ... That would be an insult to our country,” and once again encouraged voters to commit voter fraud.
- Dr Anthony Fauci, the leading White House infectious disease expert, who has been increasingly at odds with Donald Trump, stressed that a coronavirus vaccine would be unlikely to be ready “by the end of the year”. Fauci contradicted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has signaled that health officials might expect a vaccine to be ready before the November election.
- Trump is considering spending his own money on his reelection campaign. “If I have to, I will,” the president told reporters today. “Whatever it takes, we have to win.” The comments come as Trump’s fundraising advantage over Democratic nominee Joe Biden has vanished in recent months.
- Democratic congressional leaders rejected Republicans proposal to pass a “skinny” coronavirus relief bill. House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement, “[T]his emaciated bill is only intended to help vulnerable Republican Senators by giving them a ‘check the box’ vote to maintain the appearance that they’re not held hostage by their extreme right-wing that doesn’t want to spend a nickel to help people.”
- The police chief of Rochester, New York, resigned amid protests over the death of Daniel Prude. Prude, an African American man, died earlier this year after being hooded and held down by police officers.
- House Democrats are launching an investigation of the postmaster general, Louis DeJoy. Democrats intend to investigate reports that DeJoy pressured employees at his former company to donate to Republican candidates, violating campaign finance laws.
- Trump signed an executive order to expand an offshore drilling moratorium to include Florida’s Atlantic coast, Georgia and South Carolina. The moratorium already applied to Florida’s Gulf coast, and it was expected to expire in 2022. Some Florida officials expressed concern that the state’s tourism industry could be negatively impacted if the moratorium was allowed to expire. Trump’s announcement of the order appeared to be an attempt to curry favor with voters in the crucial swing state.
Updated
Trump: 'We decided to call our rallies peaceful protests'
Deriding demonstrators across the country protesting racist policing, Donald Trump told a jam-packed, cheering crowd at his North Carolina: “We decided to call our rallies peaceful protests.”
“Because they have rules in these Democrat-run states that if you campaign you cannot have more than five people,” the president said. “You can’t go to church, you can’t do anything outside. If you are willing to riot, running down the main street, if you want to riot and stand on top of each other’s face and do whatever the hell you want to do, you are allowed to do that because you are considered a peaceful protester.”
That’s a lot of exaggeration: In North Carolina, run by Democrat Roy Cooper, gatherings are currently capped at 50, and masks are mandated. Going outside is allowed in North Carolina (as it in all states), and churches are allowed to conduct services, though officials recommend that worshippers space out and wear masks.
Trump mocked his opponent Joe Biden for following social distancing guidelines. “You ever see the gyms with the circles?” he said of Biden’s events.
Updated
Donald Trump is speaking to supporters in North Carolina, many of whom are not wearing face masks. The packed crowd has defied state guidelines that cap gatherings at 50 people. Behind him, some are carrying signs proclaiming that they are “peaceful protestors”.
The president previously suggested that unmasked, crammed members of a Trump country club who were spectators at a press conference were peaceful protestors, and Trump supporters have said that if protestors against police brutality are allowed to gather then they should be too.
Speaking at his rally, Trump said that Kamala Harris “could never be the first woman president. She could never be. That would be an insult to our country”.
Updated
More than a thousand people gathered on a San Francisco beach over the weekend to celebrate Burning Man, the desert arts festival that was cancelled this year because of coronavirus, San Francisco’s mayor announced, saying the “absolutely reckless” party had put people’s lives at risk.
Social media video of people dancing, some without wearing masks, and setting fires at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach on Saturday prompted widespread condemnation.
“You are putting our progress at risk,” San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed, tweeted Sunday morning, announcing that the city was closing down the parking lots at one of the city’s most accessible beaches to prevent another Burning Man gathering.
San Francisco had seen only 86 coronavirus deaths, according to public health data, compared to a toll of nearly 14,000 deaths statewide.
The news that San Francisco’s mayor was reducing access to a public beach on a holiday weekend of record-breaking heat only renewed criticism of Burning Man, an event that is often derided as elitist and exclusionary, despite its stated principles of radical inclusion and self-reliance.
Burning Man, which takes place each year in Nevada’s remote Black Rock desert, actually began on a San Francisco beach in 1986 when a group of friends built a figure out of wood and burned him. Since then it has grown into a massive international arts and music festival that attracts 80,000 participants a year, with the cheapest tickets costing hundreds of dollars.
Shahid Buttar, a progressive candidate who challenged Nancy Pelosi in a Democratic congressional primary earlier this year, called the Ocean Beach gathering “lovely” and tweeted that he had seen “dozens of groups scattered across the beach at sunset”.
Georgia’s secretary of state said his office is looking into how 1,000 Georgians allegedly voted twice, via absentee ballot and in person, during the 9 June primary elections.
A voter who requests an absentee ballot but decides to vote in person is required to sign an affidavit confirming that they haven’t already mailed-in their vote, and poll workers are required to confirm that county elections officials haven’t received an absentee ballot from that voter. Donald Trump, who has repeatedly falsely alleged that mail-in-voting is rife with fraud, also suggested last week that voters commit fraud by voting twice as a way to test the election system.
“Let me reiterate this: Every double voter will be investigated thoroughly,” said secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, a Republican. “A double voter knows exactly what they’re doing, diluting the votes of each and every voter that follows the law. Those that make the choice to game the system are breaking the law.”
Even if someone votes twice, the state’s election system is designed to catch it - and only count one voter person.
Scott Hogan, the Democratic Party of Georgia executive director, said that Raffensperger is undermining voters’ trust in the system ahead of the elections. “It is clear that rather than do his job of promoting the safety and security of our voting process, the secretary of state is instead pushing the GOP’s voting conspiracy theories and disinformation, as he fights in court to make voting by mail less accessible to all voters,” he told Georgia Public Radio.
Voting rights group Common Cause Georgia also criticized the secretary of state’s announcement that his office would investigate possible fraud that might at most concern one-tenth of one percent of absentee ballots cast. “Speculating about ‘potential’ double-voting is irresponsible,” Aunna Dennis, Executive Director of Common Cause Georgia. “Generating headlines that might cause voters to question our elections systems does a grave disservice – not just to voters, but to our entire system of government.”
Dr Anthony Fauci, the leading White House infectious disease expert, who has been increasingly at odds with Donald Trump, stressed that a coronavirus vaccine would be unlikely to be ready “by the end of the year”. Fauci contradicted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has signaled that health officials might expect a vaccine to be ready before the election.
“It’s unlikely we’ll have a definitive answer” on whether a vaccine is safe and effective by the election, Fauci said at the Research! America 2020 National Health Research Forum.
Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that he’s also worried that the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted efforts to prevent other diseases as people skip screenings.
“You can wind up getting into a situation where diseases that have nothing to do with Covid, diseases of different types, infection, cancer, autoimmune, inflammatory, they might get neglected and routine checkups that you would need tend to get neglected,” he said.
Updated
A packed crowd of supporters – many without masks – have gathered and are awaiting Donald Trump in North Carolina.
The state’s mask mandate is still in place, but many among the crowd in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, don’t seem to be paying it any mind. Nearly 178,000 people in the state have tested positive Covid-19, and there were more than 1,000 cases reported today – though the number of cases and deaths are slowly trending downward.
While supporters waited for Trump, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door played over the loudspeakers, which made for an inadvertently dark soundtrack for a scene of people overcrowded while viral respiratory illness raged on.
“Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” is playing at Trump's event in NC. pic.twitter.com/If8R2iCwjW
— The Recount (@therecount) September 8, 2020
Updated
Local Republican official asks Trump to wear a mask ahead of president's visit to North Carolina
North Carolina, where Trump is making an appearance this evening, has a mask requirement in place to slow the spread of coronavirus. Ahead of the president’s visit to Winston-Salem, NC, the chair of the local county commission, a Republican, urged Trump to wear a face mask.
“It’s been ordered by the governor,” said Dave Plyler, the Republican chairman of the Forsyth county board of commissioners, according to the Winston-Salem Journal. “When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in North Carolina, do as the governor says.”
Trump “is a citizen of the United States, but he is also a guest in our county”, Plyler said. “Without a mask, he could get sick, and he could blame the governor.”
Recent polls have found Trump locked in a close race with Joe Biden in North Carolina. As the coronavirus pandemic rages on, the president has often sought to focus on the economy and policing rather than the disease.
Updated
Kenya Evelyn reports:
A 13-year-old boy with autism was shot several times by police officers who responded to his home in Salt Lake City after his mother called for help.
Linden Cameron was recovering in a Utah hospital, his mother said, after suffering injuries to his shoulder, both ankles, his intestines and his bladder.
Golda Barton told KUTV she called 911 to request a crisis intervention team because her son, who has Asperger’s syndrome, was having an episode caused by “bad separation anxiety” as his mother went to work for the first time in more than a year.
“I said, ‘He’s unarmed, he doesn’t have anything, he just gets mad and he starts yelling and screaming,’” she said. “He’s a kid, he’s trying to get attention, he doesn’t know how to regulate.”
She added: “They’re supposed to come out and be able to de-escalate a situation using the most minimal force possible.”
Instead, she said, two officers went through the front door of the home and in less than five minutes were yelling “get down on the ground” before firing several shots.
“He’s a small child,” she said. “Why didn’t you just tackle him? He’s a baby. He has mental issues.”
Updated
Today so far
That’s it from me today. My west coast colleague, Maanvi Singh, will take over the blog for the next few hours.
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Trump is considering spending his own money on his reelection campaign. “If I have to, I will,” the president told reporters today. “Whatever it takes, we have to win.” The comments come as Trump’s fundraising advantage over Democratic nominee Joe Biden has vanished in recent months.
- Democratic congressional leaders rejected Republicans proposal to pass a “skinny” coronavirus relief bill. House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement, “[T]his emaciated bill is only intended to help vulnerable Republican Senators by giving them a ‘check the box’ vote to maintain the appearance that they’re not held hostage by their extreme right-wing that doesn’t want to spend a nickel to help people.”
- The police chief of Rochester, New York, resigned amid protests over the death of Daniel Prude. Prude, an African American man, died earlier this year after being hooded and held down by police officers.
- House Democrats are launching an investigation of the postmaster general, Louis DeJoy. Democrats intend to investigate reports that DeJoy pressured employees at his former company to donate to Republican candidates, violating campaign finance laws.
- Trump signed an executive order to expand an offshore drilling moratorium to include Florida’s Atlantic coast, Georgia and South Carolina. The moratorium already applied to Florida’s Gulf coast, and it was expected to expire in 2022. Some Florida officials expressed concern that the state’s tourism industry could be negatively impacted if the moratorium was allowed to expire. Trump’s announcement of the order appeared to be an attempt to curry favor with voters in the crucial swing state.
Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Joe Biden’s speech in Warren, Michigan, tomorrow will make a new phase of his campaign, focused on delivering an economic pitch to voters in key swing states.
Bloomberg News reports:
Biden opens the new front with a campaign trip to Michigan on Wednesday, a must-win state that Democrats just barely lost in 2016. There he’ll unveil a new policy aimed at tackling offshoring -- the practice of U.S. companies basing some operations in lower-tax countries -- and hammer at what he sees as President Donald Trump’s broken promises on improving U.S. manufacturing and reducing offshoring, senior policy adviser Jake Sullivan said. ...
Biden turns to economic issues as recent polls show his standing on the issue improving. It has long been the one policy area where the former vice president lagged Trump. But in several new polls, Biden is tied or within 1 point of Trump on who voters trust to handle the economy.
The president has tried to attack Biden on the economy by claiming the Democratic nominee is a “Trojan horse for socialism” who is trying to “abolish” the suburbs. (In reality, Biden is not a socialist, and he is not trying to destroy American suburbs.)
President Trump has announced a 10-year ban on oil drilling off the coasts of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina -- in a political reversal likely meant to help shore up his support in swing states.
There is already a moratorium against drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, on Florida’s west coast. That ban will be extended until 2032. The drilling ban for the southern Atlantic coast will begin July 1, 2022.
Just months ago, Donald Trump was planning to allow oil and gas drilling off the coast of Florida.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 8, 2020
Now, with 56 days until the election, he conveniently says that he changed his mind. Unbelievable.
You don't have to guess where I stand: I oppose new offshore drilling. https://t.co/oxfQNIymBh
Industry officials were not expecting the decision and called it an “ambush,” according to Politico.
Trump in 2017 proposed opening essentially all US coasts to offshore drilling. But Florida’s Republican Governor Rick Scott and other coastal leaders opposed the plan, arguing that any oil spill could jeopardize tourism and fisheries.
Rochester police chief resigns amid protests over Daniel Prude's death
The police chief of Rochester, New York, has announced his resignation amid protests over the death of Daniel Prude, who died earlier this year after being hooded and held down by officers.
“As a man of integrity, I will not sit idly by while outside entities attempt to destroy my character,” the police chief, La’Ron D Singletary, said in a statement.
“The mischaracterization and the politicization of the actions that I took after being informed of Mr. Prude’s death is not based on facts, and is not what I stand for.”
Singletary’s resignation comes three days after the attorney general of New York, Letitia James, announced she had moved to form a grand jury to investigate Prude’s death.
“The Prude family and the Rochester community have been through great pain and anguish,“ James said on Saturday, promising to launch an “exhaustive investigation” into the matter.
Joe Biden’s campaign just announced the Democratic nominee will deliver remarks in Warren, Michigan, tomorrow.
According to his campaign, Biden will speak about “his plan to ensure the future is Made in America by all of America’s workers.”
Biden’s appearance comes one day before Trump is scheduled to speak at an airport hangar in Freeland, Michigan.
The president carried Michigan by less than 1 point in 2016, but Biden has been leading in recent polls of the swing state.
Speaking in Jupiter, Florida, Trump announced he was signing an order to expand a moratorium on offshore drilling to include Florida’s Atlantic coast, Georgia and South Carolina.
The current moratorium on offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico off Florida is set to expire in 2022.
The Trump administration has generally been enthusiastic about oil and gas drilling, but some Florida officials had expressed fear that the state’s tourism industry would be negatively impacted if the moratorium was allowed to expire.
Trump’s announcement seems to be an attempt to curry favor with voters in a key swing state that could determine the winner of the presidential election.
Trump is now delivering a speech on the environment in Jupiter, Florida, his first of two speeches in swing states today.
Praising Florida as “my home state,” Trump celebrated his record on the environment and conservation, even though his administration has pursued numerous cuts to environmental regulations.
Trump, a lifelong New Yorker, changed his permanent residence from Manhattan to Palm Beach, Florida, late last year.
The White House Rose Garden is reportedly under repair, less than three weeks after the completion of renovations to the well-known site.
According to CNN, the garden is experiencing “issues with water drainage” and “some minor complications with updated construction”.
The renovations were spearheaded by Melania Trump, who delivered her convention speech from the Rose Garden days after the White House announced the renovations were done.
Excited to honor history & celebrate the future in our beautiful @WhiteHouse Rose Garden this evening. Thank you to all who helped renew this iconic & truly gorgeous space. pic.twitter.com/ggiqLkdGbw
— Melania Trump (@FLOTUS) August 22, 2020
A source told CNN that a “turf” lawn had to be put down for the 75 guests who were present for the first lady’s speech because the grass was too muddy after heavy rain storms.
Trump received pushback for the garden renovations, with critics complaining the first lady had substantially altered the space from its original 1962 design.
The race to succeed Bill de Blasio as New York mayor has a new potential entrant.
Kathryn Garcia, the city’s sanitation commissioner and one of de Blasio’s most trusted cabinet members, resigned on Tuesday in anticipation of a run.
The election is in November 2021 but party primaries will be held in June. Until the coronavirus hit, killing at least 25,000, infecting around 440,000 and devastating the economy, the city was looking at a Democratic race dominated by men: city comptroller Scott Stringer; Brooklyn borough president Eric Adams; and Corey Johnson, speaker of the city council.
Now Garcia, 50, is the third woman to emerge as a probable candidate. Loree Sutton, former head of the department of veterans’ services, has announced her candidacy while civil rights activist Maya Wiley, a former top counsel to de Blasio, is reportedly weighing a challenge.
Garcia grew up in Park Slope in Brooklyn, attended public schools and comes from a diverse family. “It was madness and craziness, but we were a little crew,” she told the New York Times. She has a reputation as de Blasio’s problem solver, having run the emergency initiative to distribute millions of free meals during lockdown and previously having managed the housing authority.
While high-profile de Blasio-ordered environmental initiatives ended in failure, Garcia managed to reform the private garbage carting industry and is also credited with a curbside electronics waste disposal program and expanding curbside composting.
“Battling climate change requires sustained commitment and leadership,” she has said.
According to the Times, Garcia plans to cast herself as a competent executive and a non-ideological technocrat. But her ability to fundraise is untested.
“We need to be focused on core basic services and how that translates into quality of life for residents,” she said. “And we need to be hyper-focused on getting the economy back up and running.”
Michael Cohen: Trump should resign to get a Pence pardon
Michael Cohen’s Trump book is out today and it may or may not be a coincidence that the president was exceedingly busy on Twitter this morning as NBC’s Today was broadcasting excerpts of in interview between his former lawyer and fixer and Lester Holt, of NBC Nightly News.
Disloyal leaked extensively before publication and we’ve also had a read and the results of that particularly cultivating experience are below.
NBC released some extracts from Cohen’s interview, of which the juiciest, if not the likeliest to ever come to pass, is that Cohen thinks Trump “should resign now” and “let Mike Pence pardon” him “from any and all potential crimes”.
The whole thing goes out at 6.30pm ET.
- On Trump being a racist: “We had one where right after Nelson Mandela had passed away – and I talk about this in the book – he asked me if I had known of any country that’s run by a Black that’s not a s-hole. And I said, ‘Well, how about America?’ To which he gave me the proverbial F-you.”
- On Melania and Trump’s alleged affairs: “I would lie to her and I would lie to her at the, sort of, at the request of, for the benefit of, you know, Mr Trump, my boss. And I knew what he wanted me to say. I would tell her nothing happened and the whole story is not accurate and I have a document from the individual stating that it didn’t happen. But the one thing I can tell you about our first lady Melania Trump is that she knew I was lying the whole time, but she had enough class not to call me out on it.”
- On Trump’s finances: “Mr Trump wanted to be higher in the Forbes 500 list, and the way to do that – he would just come up with a number. He’d say, ‘I’m worth $8bn,’ ‘I’m worth $10bn,’ and our job was then to take the assets and to figure how you’re going to back that $10bn number that he wants to be.”
Our review of Cohen’s book – be still your beating hearts, etc – will run tomorrow.
Congress is reportedly launching an investigation of Fort Hood, after 28 soldiers stationed at the Texas Army base died this year.
The AP reports:
Democratic Reps. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts and Jackie Speier of California sent a letter to Army Secretary Ryan D. McCarthy requesting documents and information on the deaths. Lynch chairs the Committee on Oversight and Reform’s Subcommittee on National Security, and Speier leads the Committee on Armed Services’ Subcommittee on Military Personnel.
According to the letter, the subcommittees will jointly investigate if recent deaths ‘may be symptomatic of underlying leadership, discipline, and morale deficiencies throughout the chain-of-command.’
The letter said that according to Army data there were an average of 129 felonies committed annually at Fort Hood between 2014 and 2019, including cases of homicide, sexual assault, kidnapping, robbery and aggravated assault.
The investigation comes nearly three months after the remains of soldier Vanessa Guillén were discovered near the base, sparking outcry. Authorities believe Guillén was murdered by a fellow soldier who was accused of sexually harassing her.
A new poll shows Trump and Biden locked in a dead heat in the crucial swing state of Florida.
According to a new NBC News/Marist poll, Biden and Trump are each attracting the support of 48% of likely voters in the state.
Trump won the state and its 29 electoral votes in 2016, edging out Hillary Clinton by just 1 point.
The new poll indicates that since 2016, Trump has lost ground among the state’s seniors, but the president has expanded his Latino support in Florida.
According to election analyst Harry Enten, if Biden carries Florida, his odds of winning the presidency are around 95%. If the Democrat loses Florida, his odds drop to below 50%.
Florida is likely going to count its votes fast on Nov 3... Models I look at suggest Biden's chance of winning the prez if he wins FL is ~95%. It drops below 50% if he loses FL.
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) August 29, 2020
Today so far
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- Trump is considering spending his own money on his reelection campaign. “If I have to, I will,” the president told reporters today. “Whatever it takes, we have to win.” The comments come as Trump’s fundraising advantage over Democratic nominee Joe Biden has vanished in recent months.
- Democratic congressional leaders rejected Republicans proposal to pass a “skinny” coronavirus relief bill. House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement, “[T]his emaciated bill is only intended to help vulnerable Republican Senators by giving them a ‘check the box’ vote to maintain the appearance that they’re not held hostage by their extreme right-wing that doesn’t want to spend a nickel to help people.”
- House Democrats are launching an investigation of the postmaster general, Louis DeJoy. Democrats intend to investigate reports that DeJoy pressured employees at his former company to donate to Republican candidates, violating campaign finance laws.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Shortly after telling reporters he was considering spending his own money on his reelection campaign, Trump said he did not think that would be necessary.
....Like I did in the 2016 Primaries, if more money is needed, which I doubt it will be, I will put it up!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 8, 2020
The president’s cash advantage over Democratic nominee Joe Biden has vanished in recent months, which Trump blames on advertising costs aimed at combating “fake news reporting” about his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
(As of now, more than 189,000 Americans have died of the virus, a far higher death toll than any other country in the world.)
But Trump insisted his campaign still has “a lot of money left over.” “Like I did in the 2016 Primaries, if more money is needed, which I doubt it will be, I will put it up!” Trump said in a tweet.
Biden raised a record-shattering $364.5 million last month, while the Trump campaign has not yet released its August numbers.
Trump weighs spending his own money on campaign
Trump said that he was considering spending his own money on his presidential campaign, as national polls show him trailing Democratic nominee Joe Biden by several points.
“If I have to, I will,” the president told reporters when asked about using his own money to fund his reelection bid. “Whatever it takes, we have to win.”
Trump’s comments come as his cash advantage over Biden has evaporated in recent months. The Democrat raised a record-shattering $364.5 million last month, while the Trump team has not yet released its August fundraising numbers.
The New York Times published a story over the holiday weekend explaining how the president’s campaign lost its fundraising edge over Biden:
Under [former campaign manager Brad] Parscale, more than $350 million — almost half of the $800 million spent — went to fund-raising operations, as no expense was spared in finding new donors online. The campaign assembled a big and well-paid staff and housed the team at a cavernous, well-appointed office in the Virginia suburbs; outsize legal bills were treated as campaign costs; and more than $100 million was spent on a television advertising blitz before the party convention, the point when most of the electorate historically begins to pay close attention to the race.
Among the splashiest and perhaps most questionable purchases was a pair of Super Bowl ads the campaign reserved for $11 million, according to Advertising Analytics — more than it has spent on TV in some top battleground states. It was a vanity splurge that allowed Mr. Trump to match the billionaire Michael R. Bloomberg’s buy for the big game.
There was also a cascade of smaller choices that added up: The campaign hired a coterie of highly paid consultants (Mr. Trump’s former bodyguard and White House aide has been paid more than $500,000 by the R.N.C. since late 2017); spent $156,000 for planes to pull aerial banners in recent months; and paid nearly $110,000 to Yondr, a company that makes magnetic pouches used to store cellphones during fund-raisers so that donors could not secretly record Mr. Trump and leak his remarks.
Pelosi and Schumer reject Republicans' 'skinny' relief bill
House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer have released a statement rejecting Republicans’ proposal to pass a “skinny” coronavirus relief bill.
“As they scramble to make up for this historic mistake, Senate Republicans appear dead-set on another bill which doesn’t come close to addressing the problems and is headed nowhere,” the Democratic leaders said in the statement.
“[T]his emaciated bill is only intended to help vulnerable Republican Senators by giving them a ‘check the box’ vote to maintain the appearance that they’re not held hostage by their extreme right-wing that doesn’t want to spend a nickel to help people.”
Pelosi and Schumer closed the statement by calling for “bipartisan legislation that will meet the urgent needs of the American people.”
The Senate is expected to vote on the Republican relief bill, which is estimated to cost around $500 billion, later this week, but Democrats continue to insist that more funding is necessary. Pelosi and Schumer have proposed a $2.2 trillion relief bill, but the White House has flatly rejected that.
Trump has left the White House to travel to Florida and North Carolina, where he will deliver two speeches later today.
.@realDonaldTrump departs the White House via a motorcade as he heads to Joint Base Andrews, Md, for a for a trip to Florida and North Carolina. pic.twitter.com/uOTQBssEKR
— Doug Mills (@dougmillsnyt) September 8, 2020
The president will first travel to Jupiter, Florida, to speak about his “environmental accomplishments for the people of Florida.” Trump will then fly to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for a campaign speech.
Recent polls of Florida and North Carolina show Trump locked in very close races with Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Both states voted for the president in 2016.
Despite his severe skepticism of the House investigation of Louis DeJoy, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said the postmaster general would “cooperate completely” with the oversight committee’s inquiry.
“We serve in a great country where you’re innocent until proven guilty, especially when that guilt is thrown your way by members of Congress,” Meadows said.
Democrats on the oversight committee have said they plan to investigate DeJoy over accusations that he pressured employees of his former business to donate to Republican candidates.
Trump’s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, dismissed the House investigation of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy as politically motivated.
WH chief of staff Mark Meadows calls the DeJoy investigation politically motivated. He told me: "I think you would acknowledge covering Congress as much as you have the political rhetoric gets heated and then many times right after the presidential election, voilà, they go away."
— Geoff Bennett (@GeoffRBennett) September 8, 2020
But DeJoy’s former longtime director of human resources confirmed the story to the Washington Post.
“Louis was a national fundraiser for the Republican party. He asked employees for money. We gave him the money, and then he reciprocated by giving us big bonuses,” David Young said.
House to investigate DeJoy over alleged campaign finance violations
House Democrats plan to investigate the postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, over allegations that he encouraged employees at his former business to donate to Republican candidates in violation of campaign finance laws.
The Washington Post reported yesterday:
Five people who worked for DeJoy’s former business, New Breed Logistics, say they were urged by DeJoy’s aides or by the chief executive himself to write checks and attend fundraisers at his 15,000-square-foot gated mansion beside a Greensboro, N.C., country club. There, events for Republicans running for the White House and Congress routinely fetched $100,000 or more apiece.
Two other employees familiar with New Breed’s financial and payroll systems said DeJoy would instruct that bonus payments to staffers be boosted to help defray the cost of their contributions, an arrangement that would be unlawful.
Democrats, who have previously criticized DeJoy over his handling of the US Postal Service, pledged to hold him accountable.
My colleagues and I on @OversightDems will follow the facts and hold Postmaster General DeJoy accountable. https://t.co/6G8nHp6zzw
— Rep. John Sarbanes (@RepSarbanes) September 8, 2020
Updated
The White House is trying to walk back Trump’s disparaging comment about Pentagon leaders, after the president claimed senior officials at the defense department were beholden to government contractors.
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows claimed Trump’s comment was “directed about the military industrial complex.”
After Trump said Pentagon leaders were beholden to defense contractors, Mark Meadows says his comments were not directed specifically at people like Defense Secretary Esper or Joint Chiefs Chairman Milley. “That comment was more directed about the military industrial complex."
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) September 8, 2020
Trump said yesterday that Pentagon leaders probably weren’t happy with his leadership, telling reporters at a White House press conference, “The top people in the Pentagon probably aren’t because they want to do nothing but fight wars so all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy.”
Trump is defending his campaign’s spending practices, as national polls show him trailing Democratic nominee Joe Biden by an average of about 8 points.
My Campaign spent a lot of money up front in order to compensate for the false reporting and Fake News concerning our handling of the China Virus. Now they see the GREAT job we have done, and we have 3 times more than we had 4 years ago - & are up in polls. Lots of $’s & ENERGY!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 8, 2020
“My Campaign spent a lot of money up front in order to compensate for the false reporting and Fake News concerning our handling of the China Virus. Now they see the GREAT job we have done, and we have 3 times more than we had 4 years ago - & are up in polls,” Trump said in a tweet.
The tweet appears to be a reaction to this New York Times story about how the president’s cash advantage over Biden evaporated in recent months:
Brad Parscale, the former campaign manager, liked to call Mr. Trump’s re-election war machine an ‘unstoppable juggernaut.’ But interviews with more than a dozen current and former campaign aides and Trump allies, and a review of thousands of items in federal campaign filings, show that the president’s campaign and the R.N.C. developed some profligate habits as they burned through hundreds of millions of dollars. Since Bill Stepien replaced Mr. Parscale in July, the campaign has imposed a series of belt-tightening measures that have reshaped initiatives, including hiring practices, travel and the advertising budget.
Under Mr. Parscale, more than $350 million — almost half of the $800 million spent — went to fund-raising operations, as no expense was spared in finding new donors online. The campaign assembled a big and well-paid staff and housed the team at a cavernous, well-appointed office in the Virginia suburbs; outsize legal bills were treated as campaign costs; and more than $100 million was spent on a television advertising blitz before the party convention, the point when most of the electorate historically begins to pay close attention to the race.
Among the splashiest and perhaps most questionable purchases was a pair of Super Bowl ads the campaign reserved for $11 million, according to Advertising Analytics — more than it has spent on TV in some top battleground states. It was a vanity splurge that allowed Mr. Trump to match the billionaire Michael R. Bloomberg’s buy for the big game.
Updated
This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Martin Belam.
As the president tries to address the ongoing fallout from the Atlantic story, dangerous fires continue to burn in California.
The AP reports:
Wildfires have burned more than 2m acres (809,000 hectares) in California this year, setting a state record even as crews battled dozens of growing blazes in sweltering temperatures Monday that strained the electrical grid and threatened power outages for millions.
The previous high was 1.96m acres (793,184 hectares) burned in 2018. the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire, began tracking the numbers in 1987.
Lynne Tolmachoff, spokeswoman for Cal Fire, said the most striking thing about the record was how early it was set, with the most dangerous part of the year ahead.
Edward Helmore reports for us this morning on how Donald Trump is expected to announce a new list of potential supreme court justices:
The White House is expected to announce a new list of potential supreme court justices as soon as Wednesday, a move designed to shore up conservative support for Donald Trump as his race for the White House against Joe Biden enters the final stretch.
Trump’s decision to name a list of possible picks during the 2016 election is widely seen to have boosted support among conservatives otherwise queasy about backing him against Hillary Clinton. Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, both now on the court, were included on that list of reliably conservative picks.
Read it here: Trump expected to announce new list of potential supreme court justices
And with that, before we all get replaced by the robot that wrote an op-ed for us today, I will hand over from London to my colleague Joan E Greve across the water.
The president is back to pushing the line that the Democratic party are in favour of measures to try and arrest the spread of Covid-19 not for their own sake, but as a political tool against him.
The Democrats will open up their states on November 4th, the day after the Election. These shutdowns are ridiculous, and only being done to hurt the economy prior to the most important election, perhaps, in our history! #MAGA
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 8, 2020
It is worth remembering that while Donald Trump describes shutdowns as ridiculous, the country has the largest toll of coronavirus cases, 6.3m, and deaths, 189,000, in the world.
He was earlier specifically railing against efforts to keep the coronavirus contained in New York.
New York City must stop the Shutdown now. The Governor & Mayor are destroying the place!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 8, 2020
Over in London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been appearing in the second day of a court hearing that is expected to last four weeks and which will decide whether he can be extradited to the US. It’s been an eventful morning in the court, as my colleague Ben Quinn reports:
Julian Assange has been warned by the judge in his extradition case that he would be removed from the court and tried in his absence after he interjected while a lawyer for the US authorities sparred with a high-profile witness giving evidence in support of the WikiLeaks founder.
The incident came on the second day of Assange’s extradition hearing at the Old Bailey, where the founder of the legal charity Reprieve said “grave violations of law” such as the use of US drones for targeted strikes in Pakistan had been brought to light with the help of documents published by WikiLeaks.
Questioned by James Lewis QC, acting for the US authorities, Clive Stafford-Smith was told, however, that Assange was not being prosecuted because of the leaked cables which he had cited. Rather, the US charges related to the publication of the names of informants in Iraq and Afghanistan that had put their lives at risk.
As the row developed, Assange attempted to intervene, and was told by the judge “I understand you’ll hear things you disagree with … and you’d like to contradict and speak about these things yourself, but this is not your opportunity to do so.”
Read it here: Julian Assange rapped by judge after outburst during extradition trial
Kayleigh McEnany, who currently has her pinned tweet stating that “This Atlantic story is garbage!” has being doing the media rounds again this morning in defence of the president in the row about his alleged remarks about US war dead in France which will not go away.
.@PressSec says there are 19 on-the-record sources denying the allegations in @TheAtlantic report on the Pres disparaging American military personnel & scrubbing cemetery visit. On @foxnews, she says report based on "cowardly anonymous sources."
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) September 8, 2020
Former president Barack Obama has just posted a video to Twitter of him having a conversation with VP pick Kamala Harris about campaigning and what to do to keep energised and enthusiastic. He spoke about how often it was small little conversations with young activists or with, he suggests, a security guard or someone like that, that kept him fired up, to which Harris said:
And those conversations, because also the people of our country, they really are full of hope. There’s a lot that gives them a reason to be concerned about the future, but there’s also a lot that folks carry in their hearts and their spirit that is truly born out of optimism. So when you have those conversations and people share with you their hardships but also, they’re there because they believe that things are possible. That all things are possible. And I agree with you, those interactions, those one-on-one interactions, really do inspire and help you to keep it real.
Great to catch up with our next Vice President, @KamalaHarris. I wanted to make sure to share a few tips about serving alongside our friend @JoeBiden. pic.twitter.com/ncidvmylch
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) September 8, 2020
On the one hand the video has high production values, background music, is tightly edited, and has subtitles, but on the other the conversation is pretty informal and relaxed. Harris also revealed that she has Mary J. Blige on her workout playlist.
They also discussed Joe Biden’s favorite things.
.@JoeBiden’s favorite things aren’t just aviators, ice cream, and Amtrak. Thanks, @BarackObama, for giving me the inside scoop on what it’s like to work with our next President.pic.twitter.com/ZoGCkk9OKc
— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) September 8, 2020
Updated
Away from Trump’s Twitter tirade – he’s tweeted or retweeted over 40 things in the last 35 minutes – the Senate is back in action today. Marianne Levine and John Bresnahan have previewed that over at Politico this morning, and this bit caught my beady eye:
Republicans may feel like some of the pressure has lifted to reach a quick agreement after a decent set of jobs numbers on Friday along with executive actions taken by President Donald Trump and administration officials. The actions include diverting tens of billions of dollars in disaster aid to go toward federal unemployment payments while also extending an eviction moratorium through the end of the year. While both sides insist they want a compromise, neither is making any real concessions that would be needed to get there.
They quote Sen. John Barrasso saying that for progress to happen, any bill needs to be “targeted on specifically getting people back to work, getting kids back to school and getting the virus into the rearview mirror. And that’s where the focus is. The problem is going to be the roadblocks from Schumer and Pelosi.”
Read it here: Politico – Senate returns with a path to nowhere on coronavirus aid
Talking of Trump’s appeals to culture wars, the president is on his usual early morning tweeting frenzy. One tweet had an obvious appeal to the QAnon constituency of his base, quote-tweeting Curt Schilling praising Trump and the Attorney General over action on child traffic rings. The former Red Sox pitcher is one of those who has helped promote the antisemitic conspiracy theory.
Trump has also returned to the theme that he disparaged the military, retweeting a two-day old suggestion that Republicans believe the story was “planted” by the Biden campaign.
And he has also again launched a tirade against Black Lives Matter protests.
....And because of weak and pathetic Democrat leadership, this thuggery is happening in other Democrat run cities and states. Must shut them down fast. Biden and his most Liberal in Senate running mate, Kamala, won’t even talk about it. They won’t utter the words, LAW & ORDER!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 8, 2020
He’s also retweeting claims that nobody has reported the deal brokered by the US between Kosovo and Serbia. We did, and it has taken me about twenty seconds Googling to find the reports from the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, Fox News et al…
CNN’s Kevin Liptak has an analysis piece this morning to remind us that it is just 56 days to go until the election. He has run the rule over how the two campaigns are shaping up for the final stretch, saying that Labor Day has assumed an outsized starting-gun quality as both candidates begin fervent in-person attempts to mobilize their voters.
Trump, brazenly breaking ethical norms by using the White House as his campaign stage, hopes his outsized attacks will either draw in or drown out his rival – and to some extent he’s been successful in forcing Biden to defend himself against accusations he’s fomenting riots or declining mentally. Biden hopes to turn the election into a referendum on Trump’s character – in part by allowing the President’s words and actions to speak for themselves.
Liptak goes on to write about what he describes as “Trump’s recent attempts to shore up base supporters using appeals to White grievance”:
Trump has made championing nascent culture wars a central aspect of his political persona and has scaled up his efforts in recent days. He instructed the White House budget chief to withdraw funding from federal agencies for racial sensitivity training that he deemed “divisive, anti-American propaganda.” He also threatened to pull funding from public schools that teach an interpretation of US history that uses the arrival of the first slave ships on American shores to reframe traditional narratives. The actions seem to codify Trump’s dismissive views of systemic racism, which he says isn’t a worthy area of focus, while violence persists on American streets. “We grew up with a certain history and now they’re trying to change our history,” Trump said.
Read it here: CNN – Biden and Trump take aim at each other as Labor Day election sprint begins
Both the Trump and the Biden campaigns have new ad spots launching this week in the battleground states.
In his ad, the Trump team are hailing the “Great American Comeback”.
The advert mis-represents a Joe Biden quote from a TV interview. In in interview, asked what he would do if advised by scientists that the spread of coronavirus was out of control and another shutdown was needed, Biden said “I would shut it down. I would listen to the scientists”. The Trump advert simply has Biden saying “I would shut it down” after listing some of the recent economic recovery stats.
The advert also repeats the much fact-checked false claim that under Donald Trump the American economy was the greatest it has ever been.
Biden’s new campaign ad is called “Fresh start”, and has a narrator saying:
This is our chance to put the darkness of the last four years behind us and start fresh in America. We’ve had four years of a president who brings out the worst in America. Isn’t it time we had a president who brought out the best?
Latest @JoeBiden ad contrasts former VP with President Trump: "This is our chance to put the darkness of the past four years behind us. To end the anger, the insults, division, violence, and start fresh in America."
— Johnny Verhovek (@JTHVerhovek) September 8, 2020
Running on national cables + AZ, FL, MI, MN, NV, NC, OH, PA, WI pic.twitter.com/r8dwnYwHaI
Biden’s ad will run in Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nevada and Ohio. Trump’s team has opted for North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. Both will appear on national cable.
Updated
Ed Pilkington has been reporting in New York for us on some alarming news about the coronavirus outbreak in the US – that the Covid-19 death rate among African Americans and Latinos is rising sharply.
New figures compiled by the Color of Coronavirus project shared with the Guardian show that both total numbers of deaths and per capita death rates have increased dramatically in August for black and brown Americans. Though fatalities have also increased for white Americans, the impact on this group has been notably less severe.
That striking disparity underlines a major failing at the heart of the US response to Covid. It has been known now for several months that the virus is extracting an especially punishing toll among communities of color, yet federal and state governments have not taken steps effectively to ameliorate the disaster.
Read it here: Covid-19 death rate among African Americans and Latinos rising sharply
If you missed it, the Washington Post’s editorial board published an excoriating op-ed about the president yesterday, headed “Four more years of Trump’s contempt for competence would be devastating”.
The so-called adults in the room in the early days of this term have left and written books about how unpleasant it was to be in that room. Often it didn’t matter anyway, because this president rarely listens and almost never reads. He has been called “unbriefable.” Only once or twice a week does he bother to listen to the intelligence briefings other presidents received daily, and even then he reportedly interrupts with kooky conspiracy theories, or spends his time marveling over a miniature weapon constructed as a visual aid to hold his wayward attention. He takes the advice not of the most qualified, or even most persuasive, person around him but of the person who manages to sneak in the last word.
They say that Trump’s “manifestations of deliberate ignorance come together in a disdain for gathering information at all” that permeates the administration, and poses a grave threat.
If we don’t gather information, we cannot see the depth of Mr. Trump’s failures. Another term could allow Mr. Trump to complete the demoralization, politicization and destruction of a workforce that was once the envy of the world: the American civil service, health service, Foreign Service and uniformed military. In everything from consumer safety to air quality to life expectancy, the results would be catastrophic. But there would be nobody left to measure them.
Read it here: The Washington Post – Four more years of Trump’s contempt for competence would be devastating
Richard Wolffe has interviewed former secretary of state John Kerry for us. He was keen to espouse Joe Biden’s credentials on foreign policy, and contrast them with the approach of the current incumbent of the White House. Kerry says:
I think Joe’s unique credibility and years of relationships in Europe will help restore those alliances on day one of a Biden presidency. I know he’s respected, and he earned those relationships. In 2008, when Russian tanks rolled into a neighboring country called Georgia, it was Joe Biden who immediately picked up the phone, and called an old friend, who happened to be the president of the country. So Joe got on a plane, flew all night, and sat on a hilltop in Georgia with the president of our democratic ally and made it clear the United States stands with allies. People remember those moments.
Read it here: John Kerry on Biden’s foreign policy: ‘He’d never lavish praise on dictators’
Jordain Carney over at The Hill has a decent scene-setter for today’s return of the Senate. It is going to be a fraught session, with Carney observing that they have a matter of weeks to wrap up their work before the November election, and that work includes preventing another government shutdown and trying to revive a coronavirus relief package.
The Republican approach is to present a stripped-down bill that they can get consensus on, but the two sides are far apart.
The sticking points on the negotiations are largely the same as they were when Congress left DC: Republicans have proposed a $1.1 trillion package, while Democrats have lined up behind the $3.4 trillion House-passed bill.
As Democratic Senate minority leader Charles Schumer puts it: “Republicans may call their proposal ‘skinny,’ but it would be more appropriate to call it ‘emaciated.’”
Read more here: The Hill – Lawmakers return with coronavirus talks stalemated, funding deadline looming
Good morning, and welcome to today’s live coverage of US politics. Here’s a quick catch-up on what’s happening, and a little of what we can expect later on today.
- There were 261 new coronavirus deaths and 25,167 new Covid-19 cases recorded yesterday – but it was the Labor Day weekend, so that is likely to have affected the collection of the numbers. North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa and Missouri continue to have high numbers of new cases per 100,000 residents.
- The Senate returns after the summer break. They’ll walk straight back into the battle to provide some kind of continued coronavirus stimulus package.
- Michael Cohen is publishing his “tell-all” book today. In an NBC interview he has said that Donald Trump is a racist “cult leader” who should resign before he’s hit with criminal charges.
- The row over whether Trump disparaged America’s war dead during a trip to Europe rumbles on. Several former Trump administration officials have confirmed the reports. Trump and the White House have denied it. US veterans and soldiers remain divided over it.
- Protests in Rochester over the death of Daniel Prude continue, and right-wing groups displaying Trump and QAnon banners clashed with Black Lives Matter protesters in Oregon City.
- The president has trips to battleground states Florida and North Carolina in the diary today. He’ll be speaking about “environmental accomplishments” in West Palm Beach, and then heads to Winston-Salem.
- Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are both campaigning today in virtual fund-raising events.
I’m Martin Belam and you can get in touch with me at martin.belam@theguardian.com
