Summary
From me and Joan E Greve:
- Trump signaled he would not agree to rule changes for the remaining debates. The Commission on Presidential Debates said yesterday that “additional structure” would be required for the remaining debates, after Tuesday’s event devolved into a chaotic mess, largely because of Trump’s constant interruptions. But the president and his re-election campaign said they would not sign off on any rule changes for the remaining two debates.
- The White House press secretary deflected questions about whether Trump denounces white supremacy. Fox News’s John Roberts asked Kayleigh McEnany if she would denounce white supremacy in all forms on behalf of the president, who told an extremist far-right group to “stand back and stand by” during Tuesday’s debate. McEnany declined to do so, instead reading out past quotes from the president and attacking the media for asking about the controversy.
- The Biden campaign will launch in-person canvassing efforts in several battleground states. The announcement comes as the Trump campaign’s canvassing work has sparked concerns among some of Biden’s allies about Republicans outnumbering Democrats in voter registration.
- An additional 837,000 Americans filed new unemployment claims last week. The figure marks a slight decline from a week earlier, but new claims remain alarmingly high nearly seven months into the coronavirus pandemic.
- The Department of Homeland Security reportedly instructed officials to paint Kyle Rittenhouse in a sympathetic light. Rittenhouse has been charged with the fatal shooting of two anti-racism protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
- Texas governor Greg Abbot, a Republican, backtracked an executive order from July that had made it slightly easier for voters to return their ballots during the pandemic. The move is the latest in a series of attempts by Republicans across the country to limit how and when Americans can return their ballots.
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Kimberly Guilfoyle had been accused of repeated sexual harassment by a former assistant. A New Yorker report has revealed new details of how Guilfoyle – a former Fox News host and Trump advisor who has featured prominently in the president’s 2020 campaign, and the partner of Donald Trump, Jr – allegedly harassed and intimidated her direct employee.
Updated
In a memorable moment from the Republican National Convention, Guilfoyle rallied supporters in what Guardian Washington bureau chief David Smith described as “a high-octane audition for Evita – without an audience”.
She said that Democrats “want to destroy this country and everything that we have fought for and hold dear” and later screamed, “Ladies and gentlemen, leaders and fighters for liberty and the American Dream: the best is yet to come!”
Guilfoyle has traveled the country as a surrogate for the president no the campaign trail and hosted prominent “Women for Trump” events.
Prior to working for the Trump campaign, Guilfoyle was a co-host of the political show “The Five” on Fox news. She left in July 2018, with reports suggesting that she was forced out amid accusations that she had acted inappropriately toward colleagues.
Updated
Report: A former employee alleges that Trump advisor Kimberly Guilfoyle sexually harassed her while at Fox News
Guilfoyle – a former Fox News host and Trump advisor who has featured prominently in the president’s 2020 campaign, and the partner of Donald Trump, Jr – had been accused of repeated sexual harassment by a former assistant.
A New Yorker report has revealed that the former employee, a young woman who worked for Guilfoyle at Fox News, filed a November 2018 complaint alleging that Guilfoyle, her direct supervisor, “subjected her frequently to degrading, abusive, and sexually inappropriate behavior”.
Two sources who spoke to the New Yorker said that Fox News had agreed to pay the woman more than $4m in order to avoid going to trial over the complaints.
The former assistant also alleged that while a law firm was investigating sexual harassment across Fox News, Guilfoyle offered as much as $1m as well as a private plane ride to Rome, a percentage of her future speaking fees and a work opportunity “in exchange for demonstrating what Guilfoyle called loyalty”
From the New Yorker:
[The former assistant] said that she was frequently required to work at Guilfoyle’s New York apartment while the Fox host displayed herself naked, and was shown photographs of the genitalia of men with whom Guilfoyle had had sexual relations. The draft complaint also alleged that Guilfoyle spoke incessantly and luridly about her sex life, and on one occasion demanded a massage of her bare thighs; other times, she said, Guilfoyle told her to submit to a Fox employee’s demands for sexual favors, encouraged her to sleep with wealthy and powerful men, asked her to critique her naked body, demanded that she share a room with her on business trips, required her to sleep over at her apartment, and exposed herself to her, making her feel deeply uncomfortable.
Read the full report here. Guilfoyle has denied any wrongdoing.
Updated
From Erum Salam in Houston and Sam Levine in New York:
Texas is already one of the hardest places in America to vote, and Greg Abbott, the Texas governor, on Thursday made it even harder.
The announcement from Abbott, a Republican, limits an executive order from July that made it modestly easier for voters to return their ballots during the pandemic. Texas usually only lets voters return their mail-in ballots in person on election day, but Abbott’s July order said voters could return their ballots in person to the election clerk’s office earlier. He also extended early voting by six days.
As a result, some of the biggest counties in the state had planned to offer voters multiple places to drop off their ballots. Harris county, the most populous in the state, planned to let voters return ballots at 11 of the clerk’s annex offices around the county. Travis county, home of Austin, planned to offer four places to return ballots. But the move drew backlash within his own party; Republicans sued the governor over the changes.
On Thursday, Abbott backtracked on his earlier order and issued a new executive order only allowing counties to offer voters a single place to return their ballots. Abbott’s order also said officials had to let official poll-watchers inspect the process.
Abbott’s order quickly drew outcry and accusations of voter suppression. Texas already severely limits mail-in voting to those who are 65 and older, or who meet a select few other requirements. The state has aggressively opposed a slew of lawsuits seeking to ease those restrictions amid the pandemic. Texas has seen massive growth among Hispanic and other minority voters in recent years, and many of the restrictions in place are seen as a blatant effort to preserve white political power.
Harris county clerk Chris Hollins said the new proclamation issued by Abbott “will result in widespread confusion and voter suppression”.
Abbott’s order is the latest in a series of moves Republicans across the country have made to limit how Americans can return their mail-in ballots. In Ohio, Frank LaRose, the state’s top election official, is seeking to limit each county to a single drop box for voters to return their ballots. In Pennsylvania, the Trump campaign is seeking to block the use of drop boxes. Voting advocates have stressed the need for in-person drop-off locations amid concerns about the reliability of the United States Postal Service after widespread delays this summer.
Updated
Procedural vote on bill to protect people with preexisting conditions fails in Senate
A procedural vote on a bill that would stop Trump’s justice department from intervening in a lawsuit to strike down the Affordable Care Act has failed.
In a rare move, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer forced a procedural vote to consider the measure, in an attempt to force Republicans – many of whom had said they support protections for people with pre-existing conditions – to prove it with their votes. The bill would “protect the health care of hundreds of millions of people of the United States and prevent efforts of the Department of Justice to advocate courts to strike down the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” per Senate Democrats.
As expected, Senators voted down the opportunity to consider such a bill. Sixty votes were required, but only 51 Senators voted in favor. Republicans Susan Collins, Joanie Ernst, Cory Gardner, Martha McSally and Lisa Murkowski sided with Democrats.
Several senators, including Lindsay Graham, abstained.
Democrats have increasingly sought to focus on healthcare as a key policy at stake if Trump’s supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is affirmed. Barrett is expected to side with the Trump administration in a case seeking to strike down the ACA as unconstitutional.
Updated
Two conservative operatives have been charged with felony voter intimidation for allegedly orchestrating racist robocalls that spread false information about voting.
Michigan attorney general Dana Nessel filed a number of charges against Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman, including conspiracy to commit an election law violation and using a computer to commit crimes.
In what appeared to be a blatant attempt to scare Black voters away from casting a mail-in ballot, Detroit residents were targeted with messages that claimed, falsely: “Mail in voting sounds great, but did you know that if you vote by mail, your information will be part of a public database that will be used by police departments to track down old warrants? And will be used by credit card companies to collect outstanding debt? The CDC is even pushing to give preference to mail-in voting to track people for mandatory vaccines.”
The calls went out to nearly 12,000 Detroit residents in August, according to the attorney general.
“Any effort to interfere with, intimidate or intentionally mislead Michigan voters will be met with swift and severe consequences,” Nessel said. “This effort specifically targeted minority voters in an attempt to deter them from voting in the November election.”
Michigan is a battleground state in the presidential election, and recent polls have shown Democrat Joe Biden with a consistent lead.
Updated
Amy Coney Barrett, the supreme court nominee, signed off on an advertisement in 2006 that called for the overturning of Roe v Wade, and called the landmark abortion rights decision “barbaric” and a “raw exercise of judicial power”.
The two-page ad, published by the St Joseph County Right to Life group, an extreme anti-choice organization in South Bend, Indiana, is the most striking evidence to have emerged to date of Barrett’s personal opposition to Roe v Wade.
The Guardian first reported the existence of the advertisement, which Barrett has not disclosed in documents submitted to the Senate ahead of her confirmation hearing.
The first page of the ad, which is signed by Barrett and her husband, Jesse, states that life begins at “fertilization”. The ad, which the organization publishes every year to mark the anniversary of Roe v Wade, was signed by Barrett while she was working as a law professor at Notre Dame.
On the second page of the two-page spread, the group condemns Roe and claims that “the majority of those abortions were performed for social reasons”. It also claims that an “increasing majority” of Americans are opposed to abortion as a “method of birth control”.
“It’s time to put an end to the barbaric legacy of Roe v Wade and restore law that protects the lives of unborn children,” it states.
Hi there, it’s Maanvi Singh – blogging from the West Coast.
First up, an update on Richard Nixon’s former pastor:
John Huffman, who was the former president’s pastor in the 1960s and 1970s, is launching a “Pro-life Evangelicals for Biden” group, CNN reports. “We want to make it clear that there is a dimension to pro-life that goes beyond abortion,” he told the news network. “The evangelical movement we represent seems to have focused so much on the pro-life aspect of the president’s catering, in fact, grooming, of the evangelical movement.”
The group is not financially associated with the Democratic party or the Biden campaign, Huffman said. “We are articulating where we are as human beings who take a strong position on this and are speaking to the parties and to individual voters, not for any political party,” he told CNN.
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 signaled he would not agree to rules changes for the remaining debates. The Commission on Presidential Debates said yesterday that “additional structure” would be required for the remaining debates, after Tuesday’s event devolved into a chaotic mess, largely because of Trump’s constant interruptions. But the president and his re-election campaign said they would not sign off on any rules changes for the remaining two debates.
- The White House press secretary deflected questions about whether Trump denounces white supremacy. Fox News’s John Roberts asked Kayleigh McEnany if she would denounce white supremacy in all forms on behalf of the president, who told an extremist far-right group to “stand back and stand by” during Tuesday’s debate. McEnany declined to do so, instead reading out past quotes from the president and attacking the media for asking about the controversy.
- The Biden campaign will launch in-person canvassing efforts in several battleground states. The announcement comes as the Trump campaign’s canvassing work has sparked concerns among some of Biden’s allies about Republicans outnumbering Democrats in voter registration.
- Another 837,000 Americans filed new unemployment claims last week. The figure marks a slight decline from a week earlier, but new claims remain alarmingly high nearly seven months into the coronavirus pandemic.
- The Department of Homeland Security reportedly instructed officials to paint Kyle Rittenhouse in a sympathetic light. Rittenhouse has been charged with the fatal shooting of two anti-racism protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Maanvi will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
Updated
Joe Biden set another single-month fundraising record in September, according to a Bloomberg News reporter.
SCOOP: Joe Biden’s campaign and the DNC set another fundraising record for the month of September, surpassing the massive $364.5 million haul it raised in August. Story to come with @bill_allison
— Tyler Pager (@tylerpager) October 1, 2020
In August, Biden and the Democratic national committee raised a record-shattering $364.5 million, outraising Trump and the Republican national committee by more than $150 million.
The death of supreme court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last month appeared to inspire massive donations among Democrats.
The Democratic fundraising site ActBlue reported raising more than $100 million the weekend after Ginsburg’s death was announced.
The Trump campaign confirmed it will be moving its planned rally in La Crosse, Wisconsin, after local officials asked him not to to come because of a surge in coronavirus cases.
According to an updated guidance released by the Trump campaign, the president will instead hold an outdoor rally in Janesville, Wisconsin, on Saturday. His previously announced rally in Green Bay, Wisconsin, is moving forward as planned.
Local officials had asked Trump to reconsider his trip because both La Crosse and Green Bay are in “red zones”, as designated by the White House coronavirus taskforce.
The taskforce strongly encourages those in red zones to practice social distancing to the “maximum degree possible” in order to limit the spread of coronavirus.
Trump’s rallies have been mostly outdoors, but many rally attendees have been photographed not wearing masks and not practicing social distancing.
Updated
A message from Ankita Rao, who writes our weekly Fight to Vote newsletter on the US election.
With all this focus on the he-said … he-said, it’s easy to forget that there’s something bigger at stake in the election than just the politics: the actual process of voting.
Voting rights are fundamental to US democracy, and won by long and difficult movements. But the country is still fighting for what the late John Lewis and suffragettes demanded.
This year the promise of a free and fair election has been tested unlike ever before:
- Millions of Americans have switched to voting by mail to avoid Covid-19 risks, yet Congress has refused to invest adequate funding in the process.
- Polling stations have shut down or consolidated.
- Donald Trump and the Republican party are spreading fear of voter fraud and trying their best to undermine the integrity of the election.
- Misinformation about voting runs rampant on Facebook and other platforms.
That’s why we’ve launched the Fight to Vote newsletter. It’s a weekly email that goes beyond the campaign crosstalk and focuses on democracy itself, asking: who can vote, who can’t, and what’s in the way. Because if Americans can’t vote, it doesn’t matter who’s running.
Sign up to the newsletter here
The president’s re-election campaign said Trump would participate in the remaining two presidential debates, but they made clear they would oppose any attempts to change the rules of the debates.
Trump Campaign manager @BillStepien says the campaign is "hearing rumblings" that the @debates commission will impose new rules for the second debate, not agreed to by both candidates.
— Nicole Sganga (@NicoleSganga) October 1, 2020
Stepien argues, "that's not history," stressing that the rules must not change. [2/2]
Trump deputy campaign manager Max Miller said the Biden campaign is pushing for opening and closing statements and a mute button for when candidates ignore the structure of the debate.
Campaign manager Bill Stepien said it was “not history” for the commission to change the rules after a debate has been held. The president has also signaled he would oppose any rules changes.
Updated
The Trump campaign attacked the Commission on Presidential Debates in a press call this afternoon.
The president’s reelection campaign claimed the commission was biased against Trump, after the CPD called for “additional structure” in the remaining debates.
The Trump campaign appears to be declaring war on the Commission on Presidential Debates in a call happening right now, describing it as biased against POTUS
— Alex Isenstadt (@politicoalex) October 1, 2020
“We do not want any changes,” Jason Miller, a senior campaign adviser, said on the call.
Trump similarly tweeted this afternoon that he would not support changing the structure of the two remaining presidential debates.
A number of commentators have called for allowing moderators to cut candidates’ microphones if they ignore the agreed-upon format of the debate, as Trump did on Tuesday.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi said earlier today that she did not believe Biden should participate in the remaining debates.
“I think one and done,” Pelosi told Bloomberg TV’s David Westin.
"One and done."
— Bloomberg TV (@BloombergTV) October 1, 2020
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says Joe Biden should not dignify a debate with the president https://t.co/QbKybblgvU pic.twitter.com/qRx0ltwMC7
The Democratic speaker previously said she did not believe Biden should “legitimize” a discussion with Trump by participating in the debates, a position she reiterated today.
“I myself did not think that Joe Biden should dignify debate with the president who has no commitment to fact, evidence, data, demeans the office he holds,” Pelosi said.
“I never thought he shouldn’t do it because I didn’t think he would do well. I thought he shouldn’t do it because I thought something like this could happen.”
Biden’s advisers have said the Democrat intends to participate in the remaining debates, despite the chaotic nature of Tuesday’s event.
Trump advisers have said he intends to participate in the two remaining presidential debates, despite his tweet signaling he would oppose rules changes from the Commission on Presidential Debates.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said earlier today that Trump “wants to debate.”
“He plans on being at the debate, but wants the rules to be fair and wants a fair exchange and doesn’t want rules that cover for a certain candidate’s inability to perform,” McEnany said.
The Biden campaign has also repeatedly said the Democratic nominee will participate in the remaining debates, despite arguments from some of Biden’s allies that Trump has made the events pointless.
Trump appears to have canceled a planned rally in western Wisconsin, after local Democratic officials urged him not to come as the state experiences a surge in coronavirus cases.
The AP reports:
‘We have received word that Air Force One is not coming to La Crosse on Saturday, so we are assuming the Trump campaign has changed its plan and is not coming to La Crosse,’ Caley Cavadini, spokeswoman for La Crosse Mayor Tim Kabat, said Thursday. Kabat had called for Trump to cancel the rally.
Trump’s campaign spokeswoman Anna Kelly did not immediately return a message seeking comment. The La Crosse rally was still listed on the president’s campaign website as of Thursday afternoon.
Trump planned to hold two rallies in La Crosse and Green Bay this weekend, even though both areas have been identified as “red zones” by the White House coronavirus task force.
The task force strongly encourages those in “red zones” to practice social distancing to the “maximum degree possible” in order to limit the spread of coronavirus.
Both of Trump’s rallies were going to be held outdoors, but many attendees of the president’s recent campaign events have not worn masks and have not practiced social distancing.
The Guardian’s Sam Levine reports:
Texas is already one of the hardest places in America to vote, and Texas Governor Greg Abbott on Thursday made it even harder.
The announcement from Abbott, a Republican, limits an earlier executive order from July that made it modestly easier for voters to return their ballots. Texas usually only lets voters return their ballots in person to election clerks on election day, but Abbott’s July order said voters could return their ballots in person to the clerk’s office during early voting, which he also extended.
Some of the biggest counties in the state had planned to offer voters multiple places where they could drop off their ballots. Harris County, the most populous in the state, planned 12 sites. Travis County, home of Austin, planned to offer 4.
But on Thursday, Abbott issued a new executive order only allowing counties to offer voters a single place to return their ballots. Abbott’s Thursday order also said officials had to let official poll watchers inspect the process.
BREAKING: Gov. Abbott issues proclamation CLOSING (as of Oct. 2) satellite offices where voters can drop off completed mail-in ballots.
— Chuck Lindell (@chucklindell) October 1, 2020
Counties can only have 1 dropoff point, he says.
Travis has 4, including 3 downtown.
Harris has 12.
The move quickly drew outcry and accusations of voter suppression. Texas already severely limits mail-in voting to voters who are 65 and older or meet a select few other circumstances. The state has aggressively opposed a slew of lawsuits seeking to ease those restrictions amid the pandemic.
“Republicans are on the verge of losing, so Governor Abbott is trying to adjust the rules last minute,” Gilberto Hinojosa, the chairman of the state Democratic Party said in a statement describing state Republicans as “cheaters.”
“Make no mistake, Democracy itself is on the ballot. Every Texan must get out and vote these cowards out!”
Trump signals he won't agree to rules changes for remaining debates
Trump signaled he would not agree to rules changes for the remaining debates, after the Commission on Presidential Debates said “additional structure” was needed for the events.
“Why would I allow the Debate Commission to change the rules for the second and third Debates when I easily won last time?” Trump said.
Why would I allow the Debate Commission to change the rules for the second and third Debates when I easily won last time?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 1, 2020
In reality, polls show a majority of American voters believe the president lost his first debate against Biden.
A CNBC/Change Research poll found 53% of likely voters nationwide said Biden had a better debate performance, while 29% said the same of Trump.
After Tuesday’s debate devolved into a chaotic mess, largely thanks to Trump’s constant interruptions, the CPD issued a statement saying, “Last night’s debate made clear that additional structure should be added to the format of the remaining debates to ensure a more orderly discussion of the issues.”
However, both major presidential campaigns would likely have to agree to the rules changes to allow them to go into effect.
Updated
House speaker Nancy Pelosi and treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin discussed the next coronavirus relief package by phone this afternoon.
“Speaker Pelosi and Secretary Mnuchin spoke by phone today at 1 p.m.,” said Pelosi’s spokesperson, Drew Hammill. “The two discussed further clarifications on amounts and language but distance on key areas remain. Their conversation will continue this afternoon.”
Speaker Pelosi and Secretary Mnuchin spoke by phone today at 1 p.m. The two discussed further clarifications on amounts and language but distance on key areas remain. Their conversation will continue this afternoon.
— Drew Hammill (@Drew_Hammill) October 1, 2020
Pelosi and Mnuchin met yesterday to discuss the package as well, but the Democratic speaker said she and the treasury secretary remain far apart on a number of provisions in the legislation.
When Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell was asked today about Pelosi and Mnuchin resuming negotiations, McConnell said, “Well, I’m wishing them well.”
There doesn’t seem to be much optimism from leaders of either party on reaching a deal.
Some members of Congress push for more action vs white supremacists in America, while others perhaps sing la-la-la to themselves.
Here’s the senior Senator from Hawaii, Democrat Brian Schatz:
Senate Republicans just blocked a unanimous vote on a resolution condemning white supremacy. It passed the House unanimously. They said that after 9 months of the legislation languishing that the committees of jurisdiction needed to look at it and consider their “equities.”
— Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) October 1, 2020
Meanwhile, “White nationalist groups are organizing and we need to organize as well,” said Illinois Democratic Representative Brad Schneider, according to this news report by WFLA based in Florida.
For the past several months, Schneider has pushed the FBI to create a special office dedicated to right-wing extremism to monitor, track and address these groups.
In September, FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress racially motivated extremism made up the majority of domestic terrorism threats.
Schneider’s bill to create the new FBI office passed the House last week but not without pushback from some Republicans.
“We got a bill on domestic terrorism but a bill that barely mentions antifa,” said Ohio Republican Representative Jim Jordan [referring to activists who subscribe to an overtly anti-fascist ideology].
Simon Clark studies white supremacy at the Center for American Progress.
“The white supremacist threat is a much greater threat of actual violence,” Clark said.
FBI Director Wray said as much during his September testimony.
“We look at antifa as more of an ideology or a movement, than an organization,” Wray said.
Here’s one political commentator’s thought:
Every voter needs to focus on this. The Republican party in the Senate will not pass a resolution condemning white supremacy groups and the violent threat they pose to our country. The "law and order" party won't confront what the FBI calls out top terrorism risk. Now go vote https://t.co/XVTybw9r5G
— Joe Lockhart (@joelockhart) October 1, 2020
Biden plans late election in-person campaign push
Joe Biden’s campaign is about to launch in-person canvassing efforts across several battleground states.
The decision comes amid growing concern from Democratic officials on the ground in key states who fear that the Biden campaigns’ avoidance of in-person campaigning because of the coronavirus pandemic has handed an advantage to Donald Trump and his Republican allies.
The Trump campaign been aggressively courting voters at their doorsteps for months, in addition to the president holding large rallies both indoors and, increasingly, outdoors.
The change from Biden reflects a sense of rising urgency as polls tighten in key states just a month before election day, The Associated Press reports.
Biden has been focusing on phone, online and TV ad campaigning. The Democratic nominee’s campaign manager, Jenn O’Malley Dillon, said: “We’re now expanding on our strategy in a targeted way that puts the safety of communities first and foremost and helps us mobilize voters who are harder to reach by phone now that we’re in the final stretch — and now that Americans are fully dialed-in and ready to make their voices heard.”
Biden this weekend will dispatch several hundred newly-trained volunteers to engage voters across Nevada, Michigan, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania and the plan is to spread into several more battleground states with many more volunteers thenceforth, the campaign told AP.
“It’s just harder and harder to get people on the phone,” said Patrick Sullivan, a Biden volunteer who lives in suburban Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. “So being able to go to someone’s door and talk to them makes a big difference.”
Mairi Luce, an attorney and a Biden volunteer who lives in Philadelphia, said: “Passions run high on both sides, and a lot of people are motivated to vote. I don’t think there are a lot of undecided voters out there.”
But the campaign wants to sway those who do remain undecided, as well as pushing to get out the vote and inform voters about how to vote and make sure their ballot is counted.
This is a big tactical shift coming at the start of October https://t.co/zqo1a6hsDM
— Shane Goldmacher (@ShaneGoldmacher) October 1, 2020
Updated
Today so far
Here’s where the day stands so far:
- The White House press secretary deflected questions about whether Trump denounces white supremacy. Fox News’ John Roberts asked Kayleigh McEnany if she would denounce white supremacy in all forms on behalf of the president, who told an extremist far-right group to “stand back and stand by” during Tuesday’s debate. McEnany declined to do so, instead reading out past quotes from the president and attacking the media for asking about the controversy.
- Another 837,000 Americans filed new unemployment claims last week. The figure marks a slight decline from a week earlier, but new claims remain alarming high nearly seven months into the coronavirus pandemic.
- The department of homeland security reportedly instructed officials to paint Kyle Rittenhouse in a sympathetic light. Rittenhouse has been charged with the fatal shooting of two anti-racism protesters in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.
The White House press secretary is picking a fight with a Fox News reporter, after Kayleigh McEnany deflected John Roberts’ question about Trump denouncing white supremacy.
Roberts asked McEnany if she would denounce white supremacy in all forms on behalf of the president. She declined to do so, instead reading off past quotes from Trump on the issue.
Speaking on air shortly after the briefing ended, Roberts said, “Stop deflecting. Stop blaming the media. I’m tired of it.”
McEnany has responded by referring Roberts to reporting from his wife, an ABC News reporter, about Trump’s comments yesterday on white supremacy.
.@johnrobertsFox I would refer you to your wife’s reporting from 21 hours ago... accurate reporting I cited in the White House Press Briefing. https://t.co/dV3Hzp1UaI
— Kayleigh McEnany (@PressSec) October 1, 2020
As the president took questions from reporters yesterday, Kyra Phillips of ABC News asked Trump, “So, Mr President, let me follow up: White supremacists, they clearly love you and support you. Do you welcome that?”
Trump did not take issue with the characterization of white supremacists loving him. Instead, he said, “I want law and order to be a very important part — it’s a very important part of my campaign.”
When Phillips brought the conversation back to white supremacists, Trump said, “I’ve always denounced any form,
any form, any form of any of that, you have to denounce.”
.@KyraPhillips: “What about white supremacists, do you denounce them?”
— ABC News (@ABC) September 30, 2020
“Any form of any of that, you have to denounce,” Pres. Trump says after failing to categorically and clearly condemn them when given the change during the first presidential debate. https://t.co/g1aG9wUjyB pic.twitter.com/PTmdJDxPdT
During the White House briefing, Kayleigh McEnany was also pressed on Trump’s repeated attacks on voting by mail.
The press secretary was specifically asked what the president meant when he claimed last week, “They found a lot of ballots in a river.”
"When the President said they found a lot of ballots in the river: Where is the river?"@PressSec doesn't answer. pic.twitter.com/Y9WoXayEBo
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) October 1, 2020
Fox Radio’s Jon Decker asked McEnany, “Who is ‘they’ that found those ballots and where is this river anywhere in this country?”
McEnany said the president was referring to a story out of Wisconsin about mail, including absentee ballots, being found in a ditch. Of course, a ditch is not a river.
Decker said, “If he misspoke, that’s fine.”
McEnany told the reporter, “You’re missing the forest for the trees here.”
Decker replied, “I cover the news, and I like to report accurately on the news. And when the president says, ‘They found a lot of ballots in a river,’ I simply want to know where the river is.”
McEnany accused Decker of “ignoring the problem here,” saying, “I actually don’t understand the lack of journalistic curiosity and reporting on this.”
After McEnany launched more attacks against reporters, Decker said, “I’m very curious. Where’s the river? That’s curiosity.”
It’s rather remarkable for a White House press secretary to claim a “lack of journalistic curiosity” as she is simultaneously being asked by a reporter about the very issue she says is being ignored by the media.
Fox News correspondent John Roberts was visibly angry on air after Kayleigh McEnany deflected his question about Trump condemning white supremacy.
Roberts got the first question at the White House briefing, and he asked Trump’s press secretary if she would unambiguously condemn white supremacy on behalf of the president.
On Fox News, @johnrobertsFox is visibly angry that @PressSec won't offer a clear denunciation of white supremacy: "Stop deflecting. Stop blaming the media. I'm tired of it. " pic.twitter.com/GcPcOsAHqJ
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) October 1, 2020
Instead, McEnany simply read off past quotes from Trump and falsely claimed the president had condemned white supremacy at the debate.
“For some reason they aren’t saying the word — and that’s what is very puzzling,” Roberts said after the briefing, much of which focused on McEnany attacking the media.
“For all of you on Twitter who are hammering me for asking that question, I don’t care because it’s a question that needs to be asked, and clearly the president’s Republican colleagues a mile away from here are looking for an answer for it, too,” Roberts said.
“So stop deflecting. Stop blaming the media. I’m tired of it.”
The White House press briefing has now concluded, wrapping up one of the most contentious meetings yet between press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and reporters.
The briefing opened with a Fox News reporter asking McEnany if she would unambiguously denounce white supremacy on behalf of Trump, after the president declined to do so at Tuesday’s debate.
McEnany would not do so, instead insisting Trump did denounce white supremacy at the debate.
Here is that clip again:
The exchange begins with moderator Chris Wallace of Fox News asking Trump if he wants to “condemn white supremacists and militia groups.”
Trump responds, “Sure, I’m willing to do that, but I would say ... almost everything I see is from the left wing, not the right wing.”
Biden then tells Trump, “Say it, do it, say it.”
Trump says in response, “Give me a name, give me a name, go ahead. Who do you want me to condemn?”
Of course, Trump could have just uniformly condemned all white supremacist groups, as Wallace asked him to do, but he chose not to do so.
Biden provides Trump with the name of the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group. That is when Trump tells the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.” The president then pivots back to denouncing leftist violence.
So ... no, the president did not condemn white supremacists at the debate. A day later, Trump followed that up by claiming he did not know who the Proud Boys were, even though yesterday’s news cycle was dominated by coverage of the president’s comment about the group.
A reporter at the White House briefing noted Tim Scott, a Republican senator, suggested yesterday that Trump “misspoke” when he refused to condemn white supremacy at the presidential debate.
Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was asked if the president did indeed misspeak. “No, he did not misspeak,” McEnany said, again noting Trump initially said “sure” when asked to condemn white supremacy.
But after saying “sure,” the president instead told the far-right extremist group Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.”
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany incorrectly claimed that supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett is a Rhodes Scholar at the beginning of the briefing.
When a reporter pressed her on that, she initially said, “Well, that’s what I have written down.”
She then acknowledged Barrett is actually a graduate of Rhodes College in Tennessee.
From a Washington Post White House reporter:
Kayleigh McEnany, when corrected, says: “Well, that’s what I have written down.” Yet another example of the sloppiness of this White House, re the truth, which has utterly eroded its credibility not just w the media, but w the public. https://t.co/pcwZqJYMM2
— Ashley Parker (@AshleyRParker) October 1, 2020
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was again asked to unambiguously denounce white supremacy on behalf of the president and declined to do so.
McEnany criticized the CNN reporter who asked her to do so for posing a “partisan attack question.”
The press secretary has repeatedly defended Trump by noting the president said “sure” when asked to denounce white supremacy at Tuesday’s debate.
But after saying “sure,” the president instead told the far-right extremist group Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.”
McEnany refused to outright condemn white supremacy
Following in the footsteps of her boss, White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany refused to out-right condemn white supremacy.
John Roberts of Fox News posed the first question to McEnany at today’s briefing, and he asked if she would, right now, condemn white supremacy on behalf of the president.
McEnany declined to do so, instead reading off Trump’s past quotes on the issue.
During the presidential debate, Trump told the far-right extremist group Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by.” Amid outcry over the statement, Trump claimed yesterday that he did not know who the Proud Boys were.
“He has condemned white supremacy more than any president in modern history,” McEnany said of Trump.
Again, McEnany could simply say that the president condemns white supremacy in all forms. She chose not to do so.
Updated
McEnany holds White House briefing
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany opened her briefing by acknowledging today is the third anniversary of the Las Vegas shooting, which claimed 60 lives.
McEnany then launched into defending Trump’s decision to move forward with a supreme court nomination weeks before the presidential election.
The press secretary claimed Trump was following “well-established precedent” by pursuing the nomination. However, no supreme court nomination has even been confirmed between July and November of an election year.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi said she is “optimistic” that a deal can be reached on the next coronavirus relief package.
But the speaker went on to list a litany of issues in the package where Democrats remain far apart from the White House.
Specifically, Pelosi said Democrats are demanding much more money for state and local governments, which Republicans are against.
The speaker said the two parties are “coming closer” to agreement on the health provisions and the small business funds in the legislation, but overall, it sounds like there is a long road ahead to reach a deal.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi is holding her weekly press conference on Capitol Hill, and she opened the event by criticizing Trump’s performance in the presidential debate.
“The night of the debate, you saw what keeps me up at night,” the Democratic speaker said.
Pelosi argued the president showed his authentic self during the debate because he is “authentically a bully.”
Republicans are being forced to spend significant money in South Carolina, a state that has not voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1976.
McClatchy reports:
A Republican super PAC is preparing a massive ad blitz in South Carolina, hoping to boost GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham in a re-election campaign that has become unexpectedly competitive despite the state’s rightward lean.
Senate Leadership Fund plans to spend $10 million over three weeks starting Saturday on TV and radio ads in the state, an enormous late push into the state the group’s leader says is reflective of the massive spending disparity between Graham and his Democratic opponent, Jaime Harrison.
Harrison has significantly outraised Graham thanks to a surge of small-dollar online donations, creating a financial advantage in the race even before a Democratic super PAC this week announced its own ad campaign in South Carolina totalling $6.5 million.
The news comes a day after a Quinnipiac University poll showed Graham and Harrison tied in the race, as Democrats seek to take control of the Senate.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi and treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin are expected to speak again today, but it’s unclear whether Mnuchin will come to Capitol Hill, as he did yesterday.
The House was supposed to vote on Democrats’ scaled-back coronavirus relief bill yesterday. but that vote was pushed to today.
Even if Democrats can pass the $2.2 trillion relief bill, it faces a very uncertain future in the Republican-controlled Senate.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi is skeptical about reaching a deal on the next coronavirus relief package, she reportedly said on a Democratic whip call this morning.
🚨🚨NEW — @SpeakerPelosi sounded VERY skeptical about a deal with @stevenmnuchin1 just now on a Dem whip call
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) October 1, 2020
Said Republicans and democrats don’t share the same values. She cited the child income tax credit. Dems have gone down significantly and republicans are at 0, she said.
Pelosi met with treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin yesterday to discuss the negotiations, but the Democratic speaker reportedly said the two parties remain far apart on what the package should look like.
The stalemate makes it more likely that a deal will not be reached until after the November elections, even as millions of Americans remain unemployed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
This is Joan Greve in Washington, taking over for Martin Belam.
Republicans in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives are moving forward with a proposal to create an “election integrity committee” to investigate the results of the election.
The House’s government committee approved a resolution on the issue yesterday, on a party line vote of 15-10. A full House vote could come as soon as today.
The move by Republican comes as Trump has repeatedly suggested the presidential election will be illegitimate due to widespread fraud, even though voter fraud is actually very rare.
Pennsylvania Democrats warned the committee represented a threat to democracy and could be a sign that Trump allies are prepared to disregard the outcome of the election.
“This is an unprecedented attack on non-partisan election administrators at a time when we should all be doing everything we can to instill confidence in our elections,” Democratic governor Tom Wolf said in a statement.
Trump narrowly carried Pennsylvania in 2016, but recent polls show Biden leading in the state by several points.
Amy Coney Barrett supported group that said life begins at fertilization
Amy Coney Barrett, the Trump administration’s supreme court nominee, publicly supported an organization in 2006 that has said life begins at “fertilization”. It has also said that the discarding of unused or frozen embryos created in the in vitro fertilization (IVF) process ought to be criminalized, a view that is considered to be extreme even within the anti-abortion movement.
The revelation is likely to lead to new questions about how Barrett’s personal views on abortion may not only shape reproductive rights in the US for decades to come if she is confirmed by the Senate, but how her appointment could affect legal rights for women undergoing fertility treatment, as well as their doctors.
In 2006, while Barrett worked as a law professor at Notre Dame, she was one of hundreds of people who signed a full-page newspaper advertisement sponsored by St Joseph County Right to Life, an extreme anti-choice group located in the city of South Bend, which is in the region know as Michiana.
The advertisement, which appeared in the South Bend Tribune, stated: “We, the following citizens of Michiana, oppose abortion on demand and defend the right to life from fertilization to natural death. Please continue to pray to end abortion.”
The statement was signed by Barrett and her husband, Jesse.
In an interview with the Guardian, Jackie Appleman, the executive director of St Joseph County Right to Life, said that the organization’s view on life beginning at “fertilization” – as opposed to the implementation of an embryo or a fetus being viable – did have implications for in vitro fertilization, which usually involves the creation of multiple embryos.
“Whether embryos are implanted in the woman and then selectively reduced or it’s done in a petri dish and then discarded, you’re still ending a new human life at that point and we do oppose that,” Appleman said, adding that the discarding of embryos during the IVF process was equal to the act of having an abortion.
Read Stephanie Kirchgaessner’s full report here: Revealed – Amy Coney Barrett supported group that said life begins at fertilization
Officials were directed to make sympathetic public comments about Kyle Rittenhouse – reports
NBC News have a story this morning, suggesting that the Department of Homeland Security was instructing officials to paint Kyle Rittenhouse in a sympathetic light. The teenager is charged with killing two people and injuring another during protests against the police shooting of Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin. They report:
Federal law enforcement officials were directed to make public comments sympathetic to Kyle Rittenhouse according to internal Department of Homeland Security talking points obtained by NBC News.
In preparing Homeland Security officials for questions about Rittenhouse from the media, the document suggests that they note that he “took his rifle to the scene of the rioting to help defend small business owners.”
Another set of talking points distributed to Homeland Security officials said the media were incorrectly labeling the group Patriot Prayer as racists after clashes erupted between the group and protesters in Portland, Oregon.
It is unclear whether any of the talking points originated at the White House or within Homeland Security’s own press office.
Read more here: NBC News – Internal document shows Trump officials were told to make comments sympathetic to Kyle Rittenhouse
Well, I can’t imagine she’ll have much to talk about this week…
I’ll be doing a White House Press Briefing at 11 am ET!
— Kayleigh McEnany (@PressSec) October 1, 2020
837,000 Americans filed new unemployment claims last week
It is the weekly ritual of the jobless totals. The numbers have just come out and 837,000 Americans filed new unemployment claims last week. That’s down slightly on the week before, but it leaves around 26 million people on some kind of unemployment benefit in the US.
The weekly number remains seven times higher than it was during pre-pandemic era. The number of new claims has hovered at around 900,000 for the past few weeks — down from a March spike of almost 7 million.
Updated
Donald Trump might have second thoughts about his actions on TikTok if he realises it is becoming a useful vector for the spread of misinformations about his election rival Joe Biden.
I mentioned earlier [see 6:09] the the Trump campaign had been using Facebook ads to seed the idea that Biden had been wearing some kind of secret earpiece during Tuesday nights debate.
The Washington Post reports this morning that a video featuring that claim also went viral on social video sharing app TikTok.
On the video platform TikTok, four grainy videos alleging that Biden was wearing a wire to “cheat” during the debate racked up more than half a million combined views on Wednesday, according to research by the left-leaning media watchdog group Media Matters. One of the videos shows a still of Biden with his hand inside his suit, while another overlays an arrow over Biden’s tie, but neither video shows any visual evidence of Biden wearing an electronic device of any kind.
TikTok said it would remove the Biden video after being contacted by The Washington Post. The company prohibits misinformation that “misleads community members about elections or other civic processes.”
Read it here: Washington Post – Misinformation about Biden’s health spreads after debate
One of the themes that is emerging in the run-up to the election is Donald Trump urging his supporters to act as unofficial poll watchers. It can be an intimidatory voter suppression tactic – as the Republicans demonstrated in New Jersey in 1981.
The New York Times this morning features a report on what happened when some Republican supporters attempted to intervene in the voting process in Philadelphia this time around. During Tuesday night’s debate, Trump said that “bad things happen in Philadelphia”. The paper reports:
The group of Trump campaign officials came carrying cellphone cameras and a determination to help the president’s re-election efforts in Philadelphia. But they were asked to leave the city’s newly opened satellite election offices on Tuesday after being told local election laws did not permit them to monitor voters coming to request and complete absentee ballots.
Thea McDonald, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, has justified the practice, saying “Democrats have proven their lack of trustworthiness time and again this election cycle. President Trump’s volunteer poll watchers will be trained to ensure all rules are applied equally, all valid ballots are counted, and all Democrat rule-breaking is called out.”
But, the paper says, while the Republican party is sending volunteers videos explaining the legal ins and outs of what poll watchers are allowed to do, Trump and some of his closest allies have continued to float “conspiracy theories that also sound like calls to arms.”
During a recent appearance on “The Alex Jones Show,” a far-right radio program that peddles conspiracy theories, Roger Stone said that ballots in Nevada should be seized by federal marshals, claiming that “they are already corrupted” and that Mr. Trump should consider nationalizing the state police. Mr. Stone, a felon whose sentence was commuted this year by the president, has ties to the Proud Boys.
In a video imploring Trump supporters to join a poll-watching brigade called “Army for Trump,” Donald Trump Jr. made similarly evidence-free claims of fraud. “The radical left are laying the groundwork to steal this election from my father” the younger Trump says on the video.
Read more here: New York Times – Trump renews fears of voter intimidation as Republican poll watchers mobilize
Trump, Putin and Macron make joint call for ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh
A quick snap from Reuters here that the US has joined France and Russia in demanding an immediate ceasefire between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces around the Caucasus region of Nagorno-Karabakh, calling for a return to negotiations without delay.
“We call for an immediate cessation of hostilities between the relevant military forces,” the French, Russia and US presidents said in a joint statement in their capacity as co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group.
“We also call on the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to commit without delay to resuming substantive negotiations, in good faith and without preconditions, under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs.”
The group was set up in 1992 to mediate a peaceful resolution over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave in the South Caucasus.
The United Nations urged a ceasefire yesterday as Azerbaijan and Armenia dismissed the possibility of talks.
Helena Bottemiller Evich has some strong quotes this morning in a report for Politico on the fact that the Agriculture Department last week began mandating that millions of boxes of surplus food for needy families have to include a letter from Donald Trump claiming credit.
“In my 30 years of doing this work, I’ve never seen something this egregious”, Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Food Banks told her.
A statement from the Agriculture Department says “Politics has played zero role in the Farmers to Families food box program”, but the boxes must now include a letter in both English and Spanish on White House letterhead which reads “As President, safeguarding the health and well-being of our citizens is one of my highest priorities. As part of our response to coronavirus, I prioritized sending nutritious food from our farmers to families in need throughout America.”
“This is supposed to be about helping hungry people. It is one of the worst things I’ve seen in a long time” said Ohio’s Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge, who chairs a panel overseeing nutrition on the House Agriculture Committee.
Non-partisan organisations that help distribute the food, say they are concerned that they are being unwittingly used to campaign just a few weeks out from the election.
Read more here: Politico – Trump requires food aid boxes to come with a letter from him
It’s Jimmy Carter’s birthday today. He’s the longest lived man ever to hold the US presidency, and he’ll be 96.
The 39th president hasn’t played a particularly active role in politics in recent years, and has largely receded from public view amid the coronavirus pandemic and his own health challenges due to a series of falls in 2019.
Carter remained neutral in Democrats’ 2020 presidential primary contest, but recorded an audio address for Democrats’ virtual national convention urging the election of nominee Joe Biden, who was a young senator from Delaware when Jimmy Carter won the presidency in 1976.
“Joe Biden was my first and most effective supporter in the Senate,” Carter told the convention. “For decades, he’s been my loyal and dedicated friend” report the Associated Press.
The Carter Center, founded in 1982, two years after he lost the presidency to Ronald Reagan, has monitored more than 110 elections in 39 countries since 1989, but strikingly this year designated the US a “backsliding” democracy.
Explaining the decision to monitor a US election, a Carter Center statement at the time said “backsliding” democracies are “often characterized by polarization, a lack of public trust, ethnic or racial divisions and injustice, and fears that election results won’t be seen as credible or could trigger violence.”
Amid the furore around Donald Trump’s business interests and lack of federal tax payments over the years, it is worth remembering that, no, Carter wasn’t forced to sell his peanut farm when he became president, but yes, he did have to put his businesses, including the farm, in a blind trust so that he would not profit from them while in the White House.
ABC News have a look at Wisconsin this morning. It is one of the states that Trump very narrowly flipped in the 2016 election, helping him seal his Electoral College victory. He heads there to campaign again at the weekend, but as Cheyenne Haslett and Soo Rin Kim, the state is seeing a rise in coronavirus cases.
Wisconsin, which is a must-win state in the president’s path to victory, is in the midst of an alarming surge of coronavirus cases just a month before the election – an unprecedented political curveball that could alter Wisconsin voters’ opinions on who they trust to handle the pandemic, as more are personally impacted by the virus.
The president is scheduled to make his third visit to Wisconsin over the past couple months, this time in La Crosse and Green Bay – but his visit also comes at odds with the advice of his own White House Coronavirus Task Force, which has just classified the cities as “red zones” in a new report. The report urged for “the maximum degree possible” of social distancing in the state.
In contrast to Joe Biden’s much scarcer public events, Donald Trump’s rallies have been characterised by crowds who are seldom making much effort with social distancing or mask wearing.
Democratic party Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers has been quite clear what he wants to see at the weekend:
The president could do two things: One is maybe not come to these two municipalities and cities that are ranked right up towards the top of all the places in the country. The second thing that could be done is for him to insist that if people are there, they wear a mask. He can make that happen. He could wear one too. Those are the two things that he could do to make sure that it doesn’t become a superspreader event.
During Tuesday night’s debate, Trump again insisted that holding his rallies was “no problem whatsoever” in the midst of a pandemic that has killed over 200,000 Americans.
Read it here: ABC News – Behind in Wisconsin, Trump plans to visit battleground amid Covid-19 surge
Nobody is calling it the Snapchat election, but the company says it has helped more than 1 million users register to vote. More than half of them are first-time voters, and more than 80 percent are younger than 30, according to a company statement.
NEW: Over 1 million people have registered to vote on @Snapchat
— Sara Fischer (@sarafischer) October 1, 2020
- A Snap spokesperson confirms that more than half -- 56% -- of those Snapchatters are first-time voters pic.twitter.com/H3cwVqpTlH
It is fewer than the 2.5 million which Facebook says have signed up to vote via its platform, but the younger demographic could play a crucial role yet in some key districts.
The social app’s efforts will almost certainly benefit Joe Biden and the Democratic party, as voters in the 18-39 age bracket consistently poll that they favour him over Trump by a margin of nearly two-to-one.
David Renton, barrister and author of Fascism: History and Theory, has written for us this morning about how when Trump defends armed rightwing gangs, his rhetoric has echoes of the fascism on the 1930s.
“The SA men are the first men in the party,” Aldof Hitler told his opponent, the private prosecutor Hans Litten in 1931. Then, in answer to Kurt Ohnesorge, the judge who moderated the hearing, Hitler said that the “red murderers” of the left were the real problem: “If an SA man really oversteps the boundary of self-defence, you can’t hold a man responsible for that.”
Compare this to Donald Trump signalling to his base. During Tuesday’s presidential debate, he was asked: “Are you willing tonight to condemn white supremacist and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence?”
He answered, “I would say almost everything I see is from the left wing, not from the right wing.” He continued: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.” Then came the justification: “But I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left. Because this is not a rightwing problem, this is a leftwing problem.”
Trump is wrong to pretend that the left is responsible for the violence on America’s streets. Between 1 January 1994 and 8 May 2020, white supremacists and other rightwing extremists in the US carried out attacks that left 329 people dead. In the same period, a single attack staged by an anti-fascist resulted in a killing.
Read it here: David Renton – When Trump defends armed rightwing gangs, his rhetoric has echoes of fascism
Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar appears confident on social media this morning that the state isn’t going to turn red in November.
Goodbye. https://t.co/bOAg9RvBgL
— Amy Klobuchar (@amyklobuchar) October 1, 2020
Jason Wilson has further reporting on the far right in the US for us this morning:
The far-right Proud Boys group whom Donald Trump told to “stand by” during this week’s presidential debate is seen as a dangerous organization by law enforcement, according to leaked assessments of the organization from federal, state and local agencies.
Trump’s refusal to condemn white supremacists during the debate, and his suggestion that the Proud Boys “stand by” during the current 2020 election campaign sent shockwaves through American politics. The Southern Poverty Law Center calls the Proud Boys a hate group.
Files from the Blueleaks trove of leaked law enforcement documents reveal warnings that the Proud Boys, who some of the US agencies label as “white supremacists” and “extremists”, and others as a “gang”, show persistent concerns about the group’s menace to minority groups and even police officers, and its dissemination of dangerous conspiracy theories.
Repeated warnings about the Proud Boys, and descriptions of them as a dangerous white supremacist group, were issued by members of the national network of counterterrorist fusion centers. The Colorado Information Analysis Center (CIAC) showed particular, repeated concerns about the group, and their activities in that state.
Read it here: Proud Boys are a dangerous ‘white supremacist’ group say US agencies
Here’s a reminder of the two very different approaches that have emerged from the Trump and Biden camps since that exchange during the debate on Tuesday night when Donald Trump told the Proud Boys, a white supremacist group, to “stand back and stand by” before saying that “somebody’s got to do something about antifa and the left”.
The president later claimed that he did not know who the Proud Boys were, and again insisted that something needed to be said about antifa.
Joe Biden warned white supremacist groups – including the Proud Boys – to ‘cease and desist’.
And if you need a refresher on who the Proud Boys are, and what they stand for, we’ve got you covered.
Chris Wallace, the Fox New journalist who acted as moderator during Tuesday’s chaotic US presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, has spoke to the New York Times yesterday about the experience, saying: “I never dreamt that it would go off the tracks the way it did.”
At the start of the evening, when Trump first started speaking directly at Biden, Wallace recalled thinking: “This was great – this is a debate!”, but it soon transpired that Trump’s plan was to attempt to steamroller Biden with constant hectoring interruptions.
“I guess I didn’t realise – and there was no way you could, hindsight being 20/20 – that this was going to be the president’s strategy, not just for the beginning of the debate but the entire debate”, Wallace observed.
On the reaction to his performance in the chair, Wallace said “I’ve read some of the reviews. I know people think, well, gee, I didn’t jump in soon enough.”
Describing the process on the night, the Fox News Sunday anchor said “You’re reluctant — as somebody who has said from the very beginning that I wanted to be as invisible as possible, and to enable them to talk — to rise to the point at which you begin to interject more and more.”
“First to say, ‘Please don’t interrupt,’ then ‘Please obey the rules,’ and third, ‘This isn’t serving the country well.’ Those are all tough steps at real time, at that moment, on that stage.”
Wallace said that as he told the two candidates “the country would be better served if we allowed both people to speak with fewer interruptions”, he felt “desperation”.
There’s more here: ‘It is what it is’: debate moderator reflects on Trump-Biden clash
Marianna Spring, who is specialist disinformation reporter for BBC News, has reported on the baseless conspiracy adverts about Joe Biden that have been pushed onto social media by the Trump campaign after Tuesday’s debate. She reports:
US President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign is running hundreds of Facebook advertisements pushing an unfounded conspiracy theory that Joe Biden cheated during the first US presidential debate.
The adverts show the Democratic Party challenger with an earpiece, and say that he refused to have his ears checked for devices prior to the debate.
The Biden campaign rejected the claims.
The Trump campaign adverts ask: “Why won’t Sleepy Joe commit to an ear test?” and “Who is in Joe’s ear?”
She reports that there are 15 different versions of the adverts running, which the social media company has allowed to be published.
Read it here: BBC News – Trump ads push baseless Biden earpiece conspiracy
Yesterday the tech giant did act on another set of Trump ads, rejecting ads that claimed, without evidence, that Biden would allow more refugees into the US and thus increase Americans’ risk of Covid-19.
Read it here: Facebook removes Trump campaign ads with misleading claims about refugees
Good morning, and welcome to our live coverage today of US politics. Here’s a quick round-up of where we are, and a little look ahead to what we might expect today.
- Joe Biden raised record funds as his aides jabbed ‘train wreck’ Donald Trump after Tuesday night’s sorry debate.
- The presidential debates format is to be overhauled after that calamity in Cleveland.
- Facebook removed a Trump campaign ad with misleading claims about refugees. It said, without evidence, that Biden would allow more refugees and thus increase Americans’ risk of Covid-19.
- Religious group People of Praise has admitted to removing all references to supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett from its website.
- A judge gave Kentucky attorney general Daniel Cameron two days to redact personal details and release the audio recordings of the Breonna Taylor grand jury proceedings.
- Northern California fires rage on as hot, dry weather holds. 70,000 people are under evacuation orders.
- There were 41,983 new cases of the coronavirus and 974 deaths from it in the US yesterday.
- President Trump is doing a roundtable with supporters in Bedminster, New Jersey today, while vice president Mike Pence is campaigning in Iowa.
I’m Martin Belam, and I’ll be with you for the next couple of hours.
