Live reporting on US politics and the coronavirus continues in Thursday’s blog:
Evening Summary
That’s all from me today! If you’re looking for the latest on coronavirus around the world, you can keep following our global blog here.
Here’s a rundown of the biggest political stories of the day:
-
Trump floated the idea of extending unemployment benefits and eviction protection by executive order, a constitutionally dubious plan that would be challenged in court. Meanwhile, congressional negotiations over a new coronavirus relief package remained stalled.
- Facebook removed a post by Trump that included false information about Covid-19, the first time the company has enforced its coronavirus misinformation policy against the president. The action came on the same day that 20 state attorneys general sent a letter to Facebook calling on it to improve its handing of hate speech, harassment and disinformation.
- New York prosecutors subpoenaed Trump’s longtime lender, Deutsche Bank, the New York Times reported.
- Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib won the primary for her congressional seat.
- Black Lives Matter activist Cori Bush won a St Louis, Missouri primary against a 20-year Democratic congressman.
And finally, Joe Biden said he will not travel to Milwaukee for the Democratic National Convention. Read our full report here.
Updated
Courtney Parella, deputy national press secretary for the Trump campaign, has responded to Facebook’s takedown with a statement that mischaracterizes Trump’s appearance on Fox News, when he falsely said that children are “almost immune” from Covid-19.
“The President was stating a fact that children are less susceptible to the coronavirus,” Parella said. “Another day, another display of Silicon Valley’s flagrant bias against this President, where the rules are only enforced in one direction. Social media companies are not the arbiters of truth.”
Trump and the Republican party have repeatedly claimed without evidence that major tech companies are biased conservatives.
No evidence has emerged to suggest that tech company moderators (or the rules the tech companies employ them to enforce) display partisan political bias. Most of the platforms do have rules against hate speech, the incitement of violence, and dangerous misinformation about Covid-19.
During the uprisings over the police killing of George Floyd, Twitter censored a tweet by Trump that threatened that “when the looting starts the shooting starts”, citing a rule against “glorifying violence”. Trump’s statement was widely condemned as a clear incitement to violence, but Facebook chose not to remove it, citing a policy to allow warnings of the use of force by state actors.
Facebook’s decision to take down a post by Donald Trump over Covid-19 misinformation came on the same day that a group of 20 state Attorneys General released a letter calling on the company to prevent the spread of hate, harassment and disinformation.
The letter was organized by Karl Racine, Gurbir Grewal and Kwame Raoul, the attorneys general of Washington DC, New Jersey and Illiniois, respectively. It was signed by their counterparts from California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Virginia, Vermont and Wisconsin.
Citing the national “reckoning on issues of racial justice and civil rights”, the state AGs said their roles require them to “constantly contend with the impacts of online hate, intimidation, and harassment”.
As part of our responsibilities to our communities, Attorneys General have helped residents navigate Facebook’s processes for victims to address abuse on its platform. While Facebook has – on occasion – taken action to address violations of its terms of service in cases where we have helped elevate our constituents’ concerns, we know that everyday users of Facebook can find the process slow, frustrating, and ineffective.
The letter goes on to recommend a number of reforms, including aggressive and consistent enforcement of policies against hate speech and hate groups; public, third-party audits of hateful content and Facebook’s ability to take it down; an independent analysis of Facebook’s algorithms and the development of protocols to avoid steering users toward extremist content; and revising Facebook’s rules for ads, which currently allow ads to characterize certain groups as “threats to national culture or values”.
The AGs also said Facebook should improve the services it provides for victims of online harassment, such as offering the ability to receive real-time assistance from a Facebook employee.
“Facebook has a responsibility to protect hundreds of thousands of District residents – and, indeed, millions of Americans – from hate and harassment while interacting on the company’s online platforms,” Racine said in a statement. “Our coalition of state Attorneys General are calling on Facebook to not only meet the commitments it has already laid out for itself, but to step up its guard against the spread of extremism online.”
Updated
The New York prosecutors who are trying to access Donald Trump’s tax records have also subpoenaed his longtime lender, Deutsche Bank, the New York Times reports.
Manhattan district attorney Cy Vance subpoenaed the bank last year, the Times writes.
Earlier this week, Vance’s office told a judge their investigation into the Trump organization was not limited to “hush-money” payments, citing public reports of “extensive and protracted criminal conduct at the Trump Organization”.
Per the report:
The subpoena to Deutsche Bank sought documents on various topics related to Mr Trump and his company, including any materials that might point to possible fraud, according to two people briefed on the subpoena’s contents.
Deutsche Bank complied with the subpoena. Over a period of months last year, it provided Mr Vance’s office with detailed records, including financial statements and other materials that Mr Trump had provided to the bank as he sought loans.
Deutsche Bank’s cooperation with Mr Vance’s office is significant because other investigations that have sought Mr Trump’s financial records have been stymied by legal challenges from the president and his family.
Read the full New York Times story here.
Facebook censors Trump's Covid-19 misinformation for first time
Facebook has removed a post from Donald Trump’s Facebook page for spreading false information about the coronavirus, a first for the company that has been harshly criticized for repeatedly allowing the president to break its content rules.
The post included video of a Trump falsely asserting that children are “almost immune from Covid-19” during an appearance on Fox News. There is evidence to suggest that children who contract Covid-19 generally experience milder symptoms than adults do. However, they are not immune, and some children have become severely ill or died from the disease.
“This video includes false claims that a group of people is immune from Covid-19 which is a violation of our policies around harmful Covid misinformation,” a Facebook spokesperson said.
#BREAK Facebook removes post from President Trump's page for breaking its rules on Covid-19 misinformation.
— Donie O'Sullivan (@donie) August 5, 2020
The post was a clip of his interview with Fox & Friends this morning where he made claims about children and Covid-19 immunity pic.twitter.com/tPYPAVLYY8
During a press briefing on Wednesday afternoon, Trump repeated his false claims about children and the disease.
Trump’s presidential campaign and tenure in office have been defined by his aggressive and frequently inappropriate use of social media platforms to spread racism, xenophobia, threats, and misinformation. For years, the US-based social media platforms that enabled him to broadcast his unrestrained invective and misinformation to the public were hesitant to enforce their own rules against him.
But the combined crises of the coronavirus pandemic and widespread civil unrest over the police killing of George Floyd appear to have inspire greater resolve among social media executives, with Twitter and Twitch taking action against Trump for threatening protesters, spreading misinformation about voting and, in Twitch’s case, hate speech.
Facebook was a holdout, prompting anger among Democrats and civil rights activists who objected to the double standard that allowed Trump to continue to spread misinformation that would likely be taken down if posted by other accounts.
While this is the first time that Facebook has taken action against Trump’s account for coronavirus misinformation, earlier this year the company did remove a series of ads and an organic post by Trump that featured a symbol historically associated with Nazis.
The Guardian has contacted the White House and the Trump campaign for comment.
Updated
Trump floats constitutionally dubious idea of extending unemployment benefits by executive order
Donald Trump floated the idea of using executive orders to break the impasse in Congress over enhanced unemployment benefits and eviction protections, a seemingly radical move of dubious constitutionality.
“My administration is exploring executive actions to provide protection against eviction ... additional relief to those who are unemployed, and a term-limited suspension of the payroll tax,” Trump said at a White House press briefing.
The idea of a president extending unemployment benefits by executive order is unusual, to say the least. Congress is the branch of the US government that appropriates funds; the president can influence budgetary negotiations, but cannot draft legislation.
According to Politico, Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows is arguing that the administration can take this move by simply repurposing money that was appropriated by Congress under the Cares Act, a move that will certainly draw immediate legal challenge.
Per Politico:
Trump has openly speculated about whether he has the authority to take such sweeping actions, which could potentially set up a another huge legal battle with Congress over who controls the federal purse. Democratic congressional leaders have already sued Trump over his decision to divert several billion dollars in Pentagon funding to build a border wall between the United States and Mexico, but the decision to divert tens of billions of dollars in CARES Act funds to unemployment payments would be the most dramatic power grab yet.
The payroll tax cut deferral would be another aggressive gamble by the White House. The move would essentially cuts taxes for workers, who along with their employers pay to fund Medicare and Social Security. Trump allies, including economic analysts Stephen Moore, say Trump can take this action under the same authority that allowed him to postpone the filing of income tax until July.
Updated
Hello everyone, this is Julia Carrie Wong in Oakland, taking over the blog for the rest of the afternoon.
Sally Yates, who served as deputy attorney general during the Obama administration, testified before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today about the behavior of Trump adviser Michael Flynn during the presidential transition, calling it “highly irregular”, Reuters reports.
Flynn, you will recall, was part of Trump’s transition team in December 2016 when he spoke with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. The Obama administration had expelled 35 suspected Russian spies in response to Russia’s interference in the US election, but Flynn reassured Kislyak that Trump would “essentially neutralize” sanctions imposed on Russia,” Yates told Congress.
“This was an attack on our democracy. This attack was absolutely unprecedented,” she said.
Flynn twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about the conversations with Kislyak, but subsequently asked a federal judge to dismiss the case against him, arguing that the FBI set him up. The Department of Justice has supported Flynn’s request, which is pending before an appeals court.
We’re standing by for a Trump press conference that was supposed to begin at 5:30pm Eastern. Stay tuned...
Afternoon summary
That’s it for me. My west coast counterpart Julia Carrie Wong will be taking over. Here’s what happened today:
- Joe Biden will not be going to Milwaukee, the site of the Democratic national convention, to accept his party’s nomination for president.
- Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib won the primary for her congressional seat.
- The South Dakota senator John Thune and Utah senator Mitt Romney aren’t sure whether Donald Trump would be violating the Hatch Act by holding his acceptance speech for the Republican presidential nomination on the White House’s South Lawn.
- The acting inspector general for the state department is stepping down after less than three months in the job.
- Trump’s re-election campaign wants either an additional debate scheduled or to have one of the three agreed upon debates to come earlier.
Updated
And here’s the Biden campaign’s response to the Rudy Giuliani letter on debates, via Biden campaign rapid response director Andrew Bates:
We have said all along, including in a letter to the commission in June, that Joe Biden will appear on the dates that the commission selected and in the locations they chose. Donald Trump has not, continually trying to insert his choice of friendly moderators, now including one who just published an op-ed offering ‘the case’ for Trump’s reelection. Joe Biden will be there. We await Donald Trump’s decision – and perhaps the president should put as much time into managing COVID as does into this.”
Biden advisers have not taken the arguments by Giuliani seriously. Part of that is simply because the campaign’s arguments are coming through Giuliani.
And it’s also that Trump has switched positions on mail-in ballots and early voting. At moments he has argued that it is an opportunity for massive fraud and then at other moments he’s said that some parts of the country, like Florida with its Republican governor, can execute a vote-by-mail influx safely.
Updated
Trump wants changes in presidential debates – stoking row
The Trump campaign is asking the body in charge of overseeing general election debates to either add a debate to the agreed upon three or bump one of the existing ones up.
In a letter penned by Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, the campaign argues: “By the time of the first presidential debate on September 29, 2020, at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, as many as eight million Americans in 16 states will have already started voting.”
This Trump campaign letter arguing for adding a fourth debate or bumping up one of the agreed upon lays out pretty clearly why: lots of folks will have already been casting ballots under the current schedule. pic.twitter.com/rsjrK2oyAg
— Daniel Strauss (@DanielStrauss4) August 5, 2020
Trump himself made a similar argument during an interview with Fox News on Wednesday.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 5, 2020
The campaign also suggested a list of potential moderators. It’s a mix of right-leaning journalists and ones working for nonpartisan outlets:
Bret Baier, Gerry Baker, Maria Bartiromo, Shannon Bream, David Brody, Rachel Campos-Duffy, Kevin Cirilli, Larry Elder, Saagar Enjeti, Harris Faulkner, Major Garrett, Michael Goodwin, Ambrosio Hernandez, Joe Kernen, Hoda Kotb, Susan Li, Bill Hemmer, Hugh Hewitt, Tom Llamas, Dagen McDowell, David Muir, Norah O’Donnell, Charles Payne, Rick Santelli.
Updated
Washington negotiations on more coronavirus relief aid inch forward
There are early indicators that Republican and Democratic negotiators are inching closer to some kind of agreement on another stimulus package.
The most telling sign is that top congressional Democratic officials and White House officials have agreed to a deadline of Friday for some kind of agreement.
WH Chief of Staff Mark Meadows confirms he believes if there's not an agreement in principle by Friday there won't be a deal.
— Jennifer Shutt (@JenniferShutt) August 5, 2020
"We've been spending so much time together, if you're not making progress there's no sense to continue." https://t.co/b64O7FBWc3
More telling, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate will be in session next week.
Cancel next week’s vacation plans. The Senate will be in session. pic.twitter.com/RR2O9O4okV
— Kristin Wilson (@kristin__wilson) August 5, 2020
But a CNN report this afternoon suggests there’s still a long way to go:
Bottom line: There is still a long way to go and an agreement to a timeline to reach an agreement -- one that is already one week after the initial deadline -- isn’t much on its face. But what’s happening behind the scenes is a signal things are actually starting to kick into gear.
What to watch: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows will be back on Capitol Hill for negotiations.
Updated
At a fundraiser this afternoon Joe Biden himself acknowledged that he would not be accepting the Democratic nomination for president in Milwaukee.
According to a pool report of the Biden fundraiser featuring a set of Connecticut politicians:
Biden acknowledged the recent news that he will not be accepting the Democratic nomination in person in Milwaukee.
“The mayor has put in place a 225 person limit on people assembling in any one place. I think it’s the right thing to do. I’ve wanted to set an example as to how we should respond individually to this crisis.
“From the start of the process, we’ve made it clear [...] Science matters.”
”I think it’s going to be an exciting convention.”
Updated guidance from the White House says there will be a press briefing at 5:30 ET. Those briefings have consistently featured Donald Trump reading a prepared statement on his administration’s assessment of its accomplishments followed by a short question and answer session between Trump and reporters.
The Guardian’s Julian Borger lays out the confusion over the Trump administration’s assessment of what happened in Beirut:
Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that the massive explosion in Beirut was a bomb attack has revived fears of the president’s potential to foment international crises.
In off-the-cuff remarks at the White House on Tuesday, Trump called the blast a “terrible attack”.
“I’ve met with some of our great generals and they just seem to feel that this was not some kind of a manufacturing explosion type of event,” the president told reporters. “It was a bomb of some kind.”
Soon after, CNN quoted Pentagon officials as saying there was no evidence of any attack, raising the question of where Trump got his information. Lebanese officials were reported to have sought urgent clarification from US diplomats.
The defence secretary, Mark Esper, said on Wednesday: “Most believe that it was an accident as reported.” But he added that the Pentagon was still gathering information about the explosion.
In a statement about Beirut, the state department referred to the “horrible explosion” but made no mention of an attack.
Read more below:
Florida surpassed another benchmark in the coronavirus pandemic. According to the Orlando Sentinel: “Florida added 5,409 coronavirus cases Wednesday to push the statewide total past 500,000, to 502,739 infected. And with 225 new virus fatalities reported Wednesday, 7,627 Florida residents are now dead.”
The Sentinel report also says:
It’s the 11th day in a row the Florida Department of Health reported an increase below 10,000 cases. But Wednesday saw a record in new COVID-19 hospitalizations, with over 600 for the first time.
California surpassed the 500,000 mark four days earlier, according to The Los Angeles Times.
Utah senator Mitt Romney gave an effective shrug to the possibility of Donald Trump giving his RNC convention speech from the South Lawn or another location near the White House.
Republican Sen. Mitt Romney reax to Trump considering giving a RNC convention speech at the WH to @mkraju
— Ali Zaslav (@alizaslav) August 5, 2020
“Uh, I don’t know whether that's technically legal or not, but it’s gotta be somewhere"
To be clear though, Trump has only said he and his team are considering delivering the speech from the South Lawn. They have not made a forma announcement.
The acting inspector general at the State Department is resigning and returning to the private sector after less than three months in his role.
Diana Shaw, the deputy inspector general, will succeed the outgoing acting inspector general, Stephen Akard.
More from The Wall Street Journal (bolds mine):
Stephen Akard, who has served as the acting State Department inspector general since the May ouster of Steve Linick, has resigned his post and plans to join the private sector, the department said Wednesday.
Diana Shaw, the deputy inspector general, will serve as the next acting inspector general.
A former career foreign-service officer, Mr. Akard has led the department’s Office of Foreign Missions since September 2019, a position he continued to hold while serving as acting inspector general. He served as a foreign-affairs adviser to Vice President Mike Pence during the latter’s time as Indiana governor.
Mr. Akard had faced criticism from congressional Democrats over his dual roles—one in which he reported to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and the other in which he was meant to serve as an independent watchdog over the department and its officials.
Congressional Democrats have opened an inquiry into Mr. Linick’s firing, on Monday issuing subpoenas to four State Department officials.
Mr. Linick has said that at the time of his termination, his office was examining the Trump administration’s May 24, 2019, use of an emergency declaration to expedite arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The departure of Akard is the latest in a string of inspectors general leaving the Trump administration. In a span of about six weeks Trump ousted five attorneys general according to CBS.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as well, is criticizing Donald Trump for considering holding aspects of the Republican National Convention from the South Lawn of the White House.
Pelosi weighed in during an appearance on MSNBC.
Speaker Pelosi says President Trump accepting the GOP nomination from the White House “is something that should be rejected right out of hand.”
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 5, 2020
“It’s a diversion, and that is what he is, a master of diversion.” pic.twitter.com/GUJWHnEw68
South Dakota senator John Thune, the second highest ranking Republican in the Senate, questioned whether it would even be legal for Donald Trump to hold part of the RNC on the South Lawn:
“Is that even legal?” Thune said to a group of reporters according to Politico’s Playbook newsletter. “I assume that’s not something that you could do. I assume there’s some Hatch Act issues or something. I don’t know the answer to that but I haven’t, and I haven’t heard him say that. But I think anything you do on federal property would seem to be problematic.”
Perez: Biden decision comes after ‘we followed the science’
Democrats had already been planning for their presidential nominating convention in Milwaukee to be almost entirely virtual. Previously the DNC had said they would ask delegates not to travel to the city, though stressing Wisconsin is a key battleground state.
On Wednesday, DNC chair Tom Perez said the decision to halt Biden and others from speaking in Milwaukee was made after consulting public health officials and experts. “We followed the science, listened to doctors and public health experts and we continued making adjustments in order to protect lives,” Perez said in a statement.
Biden’s move follows Trump floating the idea earlier Wednesday that he could make his acceptance speech from the south lawn of the White House.
The Democratic National Convention’s press team just confirmed the Bloomberg scoop that Joe Biden will not travel to Milwaukee to accept his party nomination for the presidency:
And here's the official announcement from the DNC, confirming @tylerpager's scoop: Biden won't travel to Milwaukee for his acceptance speech. pic.twitter.com/nQs4ZyZvzl
— Daniel Strauss (@DanielStrauss4) August 5, 2020
For those keeping count, this means there will be no Biden and no delegates traveling to the convention. Other attendees won’t be going either.
DNC: Other speakers who had been planning to come to Milwaukee will not travel to the city.
— Jesse Rodriguez (@JesseRodriguez) August 5, 2020
Updated
Biden won’t travel to Milwaukee for the Democratic National Convention
Joe Biden won’t travel to Milwaukee for the Democratic National Convention because of concerns over coronavirus, according to Bloomberg News:
Joe Biden will not travel to Milwaukee this month to accept the Democratic nomination for president at the party convention due to concerns about the coronavirus, according to two people familiar with the travel plans.
Biden had been planning to attend the convention in person and deliver his acceptance speech, but the campaign recently scrapped those plans.
The Biden campaign declined to comment on his travel.
The nominating conventions for both parties have been dramatically scaled back because of the pandemic. The Republican Party has switched locations twice and President Donald Trump said Wednesday he will “probably” give his acceptance speech from the White House.
The Democrats have planned an almost entirely virtual convention, but Biden had still planned to travel to Milwaukee to give the formal acceptance speech.
Both Biden and Donald Trump have had to consider retooling some of the the traditional aspects of a presidential national convention because of the coronavirus pandemic. Trump’s team is considering holding some of the Republican National Committee events on the South Lawn of the White House.
Updated
Kansas state senator Barbara Bollier’s Senate campaign is releasing a new 30-second ad not 24 hours after she won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.
Bollier decisively won the Democratic nomination while Kansas congressman Roger Marshall won a multicandidate primary for the Republican nomination for Senate.
Bollier’s ad underscores the theme of the general election. The ad, obtained by the Guardian, features a rancher and Republican saying he will vote for Bollier. Bollier, a former Republican, needs to appeal to both Democrats and Republicans to win the Senate seat in deep red Kansas.
Watch the ad below:
There hasn’t been a Democratic senator from Kansas for over 80 years. But Democrats have seen recent victories in statewide and congressional races there and hoped that the bitter primary between Marshall and former Kansas Secretary of state Kris Kobach, an immigration hardliner, would clear a way for a moderate Democrat.
Democrats had hoped Kobach would win the nomination, a scenario top Republican Senate officials worried would doom their chances of keeping the seat. But Marshall’s victory doesn’t mean Bollier is now a non-factor. She starts the general election with $4 million cash on hand to Marshall’s $1 million.
Polling has been scant but what few surveys there have been suggests Bollier and Marshall are separated by just a few percentage points.
Democrats need to win only three Senate seats to win control of the Senate. The outcome of the Kansas Senate race could be that final seat.
Joe Biden has not taken a cognitive test like Donald Trump.
Biden was asked whether he had taken a cognitive test while being interviewed by National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists.
He responded: ““No, I haven’t taken a test. Why the hell would I take a test?”
Biden then went on to say “Come on, man. That’s like saying you, before you got on this program, you take a test where you’re taking cocaine or not. What do you think? Huh? Are you a junkie?”
Trump has repeatedly challenged Biden’s cognitive abilities and argued that his own are sharper than ever. Trump has pointed to a Montreal test he recently took. That test, though, is usually taken to detect early signs of dementia, rather than measure intelligence.
Trump’s reelection campaign was quick to pounce on Biden’s comments.
BIDEN: "No, I haven't taken a test. Why the hell would I take a test? C'mon man. That's like saying you, before you got in this program, if you take a test where you're taking cocaine or not, what do you think huh? Are you a junkie?" pic.twitter.com/f6UMPJq381
— Trump War Room - Text TRUMP to 88022 (@TrumpWarRoom) August 5, 2020
Planners for the Republican National Convention are considering holding some of the ceremonies on the South Lawn at the White House, federal law be damned.
According to the Washington Post’s Michael Scherer and Josh Dawsey (bolds mine):
Republican National Convention planners are considering the White House South Lawn as the site of President Trump’s nationally televised nomination acceptance speech later this month, according to a Republican familiar with the discussions.
The decision to stage the most high-profile political event of Trump’s reelection campaign at the national seat of presidential power would be just the latest break by Trump in presidential norms, which have historically drawn clear lines between official business of the president and campaign events.
People involved in the planning said that no final decision had been made on the location of the Republican convention’s celebratory events. Trump abandoned plans to hold the full convention in Charlotte, and later Jacksonville, Fla., over concerns that large crowds could spread the novel coronavirus.
Political observers might wonder if such an event would violate the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from participating in political activities while actively serving in their positions.
But per the Post, “act also does not apply to “rooms in the White House or in the residence of the Vice President, which are part of the residence area or which are not regularly used solely in the discharge of official duties.” The New York Times reported Monday that a Trump speech from the confines of the White House was under consideration.”
The Guardian’s Amanda Hopluch has more:
Updated
Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has won the Democratic primary for her state’s 13th congressional seat.
The primary was called for Tlaib on Wednesday morning.
BREAKING: Rashida Tlaib wins Democratic nomination for U.S. House in Michigan's 13th congressional district. #APracecall at 9:47 a.m. EDT. #Election2020 #MIprimary https://t.co/lGfinjTqT4
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) August 5, 2020
Tlaib faced a formidable primary challenge from Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones.
Tlaib represents Michigan’s 13th congressional district, which is reliably Democratic. She is unlikely to face serious opposition in the general election.
Tlaib is a member of the informal group of young liberal congresswoman known as “The Squad.” The other members of that group are New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar, and Massachusetts congresswoman Ayanna Pressley.
Updated
Coming soon to your TV, radio, news feed and wherever else you get your news: Joe Biden.
The Biden campaign on Wednesday launched what it says is the “largest presidential campaign advertising time reservation in history.”
The campaign reserved $220m in commercials that will air over the next 90 days before Election Day. It has set aside another $60m for ads on digital, social media and gaming platforms.
The ads will run in 15 states, including a number of nontraditional battleground states where the campaign sees an opportunity to expand the electoral map. Those states include: Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, Colorado, Virginia, Georgia, Iowa, Ohio and Texas.
The ads will feature Biden speaking about the coronavirus epidemic and the ensuing economic crisis.
“This election is a referendum on a President who has proven incapable of leading effectively in times of peril and struggle,” Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said in a memo. “Joe Biden has proven time and again he can deliver the empathetic leadership we need when it counts the most, and has the experience and character to see it through.”O’Malley Dillon also detailed the campaign’s plan to target key constituencies, including Hispanics, African Americans, Asian Americans, seniors and young voters. She also vowed an “unprecedented focus on voter education” as many Americans will vote by mail for the first time due to the pandemic.
“With voting in general we’ve seen chaos in recent primary elections and we know that our responsibility is to make sure that we give voters everything they need to be able to vote—vote early and vote safely,” she said.
Daniel Strauss here now taking the reins.
A new report from Axios’s Hans Nichols and Alexi McCammond says former vice president Joe Biden’s vp search is now down to two potential runningmates: California senator Kamala Harris and former Obama administration national security adviser Susan Rice.
California congresswoman Karen Bass is effectively in third place in the running.
But an announcement is still at least a fortnite away. Democratic sources with ties to other potential runningmates have told me that there has not been much movement by the Biden campaign on other possible vice presidential picks. That suggests that at this point Biden’s vetting team is really only focusing on a few preferred candidates.
Per Axios:
What’s happening: The campaign is now in methodical mode as it finalizes vetting, looks at internal polling results on potential picks and talks to finalists one-on-one.
Trade deficit narrowed in June as exports rebound
A couple of bits of economics news coming in from Reuters just now. The US trade deficit narrowed in June as exports rebounded following several months of decreases, suggesting an improvement in global demand after being depressed by the Covid-19 pandemic. The Commerce Department said the trade deficit fell to $50.7 billion from $54.8 billion.
Less encouragingly, US businesses sharply reduced hiring last month, suggesting that the resurgent viral outbreak this summer slowed the economic recovery as many states closed parts of their economies again and consumers remained cautious about spending.
Firms added just 167,000 jobs in July, payroll processor ADP said Wednesday, far below June’s gain of 4.3m and May’s increase of 3.3m. July’s limited hiring means the economy still has 13 million fewer jobs than it did in February before the viral outbreak intensified. Hiring collapsed among companies of all sizes and in nearly all industries.
And that’s it from me today - I’m handing over to my colleague Daniel Strauss. Take care and stay safe.
Cori Bush has been on CNN this morning after her primary victory last night. Of what it demonstrated that she was able to topple the political dynasty of William Lacy Clay, she said:
It says that it’s time for regular everyday people to have a voice. People are looking for a fighter right now, a champion. And you know that’s something that I’ve exhibited for years, and the community is ready for that. St. Louis said ‘It’s time’.
Cori Bush, a nurse who became politically active following the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, defeated 10-term incumbent Rep. William Lacy Clay in the Democratic primary for Missouri's First Congressional District: "It's time for regular, everyday people to have a voice" pic.twitter.com/x9TQs0Ksib
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) August 5, 2020
Sen. Kelly Loeffler did not endear herself to WNBA players earlier in the year when the staunch supporter of Donald Trump wrote to the WNBA opposing the league’s support of Black Lives Matter.
The players have responded – by wearing shirts wearing “Vote Warnock” t-shirts to games, in reference to Raphael Warnock, who is running in Georgia against Loeffler for her US Senate seat.
Warnock, a pastor and Democrat, said in a statement that he was “honored and humbled” by the move. “This movement gives us the opportunity to fight for what we believe in, and I stand by all athletes promoting social justice on and off the court.”
Read it here: WNBA players’ shirts urge fans to vote against Dream owner and senator Loeffler
Most American voters support voting by mail due to Covid-19 crisis – poll
As much as Donald Trump may keep shouting falsely about mail-in ballots being fraudulent, he appears to be out of step with most of the country. The latest POLITICO/Morning Consult poll is out this morning and it finds that most voters approve of voting by mail. Quint Forgey reports that:
86 percent of those polled said the election should be held on schedule even if Covid-19 still poses a threat — with 34 percent saying most Americans should vote in-person under those conditions and 52 percent saying most Americans should vote by mail.
Read it here: Politico – Majority support voting by mail, bucking Trump
Daniel Strauss – who will be taking over from me on the live blog later on – and Lauren Gambino have been looking at the sexism that has marred the process of Joe Biden’s VP pick.
There is a long history of disparaging women who seek political power as “too ambitious”. But many Democratic women have found the suggestion especially galling in light of Biden’s own rise to the vice-presidency.
“The point of being VP is that you’re next in line to being president,” Katherine Grainger, a partner at Civitas Public Affairs Group, and a co-founder of the women’s advocacy organization SuperMajority. “If we just look at Biden, he ran for president in 1988 and ran again in 2008 against Obama, and yet when he was chosen as the VP nobody said he was too ambitious to have that job.”
When women run for office, they disrupt a “patriarchal order” that has helped preserve a male-dominated status quo, Grainger said. Yet she is hopeful that elevating a woman to the vice-presidency could help shatter some of the old stereotypes that continue to constrain female candidates, more than 100 years after women won the right to vote in the United States.
Read it here: Sexism casts shadow over Biden’s search for a female running mate
The Los Angeles Times have an op-ed this morning from Samuel J. Abrams looking at how even red state residents aren’t happy with Republicans over the party’s handling of the Covid-19 crisis. He quotes some worrying stats for those in the party looking ahead to November:
The level of dissatisfaction in red states that went for President Trump in 2016 is ominous for Republicans. Only about 11% of red state residents believe that the federal government is managing the crisis very well, compared with 8% of blue state residents. Many leaders in red states have taken a cue from Trump to discount the severity of Covid-19 and limit interventions to reduce virus’ spread such as mask wearing mandates and business shutdowns. Their constituents, however, rate them harshly. In fact, people surveyed in conservative states were often more displeased with their state leaders than people in more liberal states.
There’s more here: Los Angeles Times – Covid-19 has been such a disaster even red state residents aren’t happy with Republicans
Trump campaign statement on legal action over Nevada election bill
The Trump team have issued a press release this morning about their legal attempts to stop Nevada’s changes to November’s election procedures.
Jenna Ellis, a senior legal advisor to the Trump 2020 campaign, is quoted as saying:
Democrats know President Trump is gaining ground in Nevada, so they fully and fundamentally overhauled Nevada’s election laws in a rushed 72-hour attempt to rig the election. This unconstitutional legislation implements the exact universal vote-by-mail system President Trump has been warning against for months, making it nearly impossible for every Nevada voter’s ballot to count. Nevada Democrats are allowing ballots cast after Election Day to count, practically inviting Nevada’s elected liberal leaders to hold the election open until their political operatives harvest enough ballots to swing the election in their favor—ultimately delaying the election. President Trump will not stand for this attack on election integrity, and he is fighting to protect Nevada’s right to vote.
The full lawsuit is available to read here. Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., along with the Republican National Committee and the Nevada Republican Party, filed the suit Tuesday night in the United States District Court for the District of Nevada to attempt to invalidate Nevada’s Assembly Bill 4 (AB4)
Donald Trump interviewed on Fox and Friends
Donald Trump has been on Fox and Friends and continues to rail against mail-in voting in Nevada in particular - suggesting that the outcome of the election could be left unknown for “years”.
Trump on Fox & Friends is railing against Nevada's mail-in voting, falsely claiming: "They plan to send these ballots to everyone who ever walked in the state."
— Geoff Bennett (@GeoffRBennett) August 5, 2020
He also says that with mail-in voting that we may not know the results for "years."
Misinformation on both counts.
"The Post Office will never be equipped to handle it," says Pres Trump this morning about Nevada "blanketing" the state with mail-in ballots. "It will be a disaster," he said on @FoxNews. Says tabulation of the vote could take months and even years.
— Mark Knoller (@markknoller) August 5, 2020
Trump has suggested, without any evidence, that the country will be in good shape with regards to the coronavirus come November.
Reminded on Fox News that seniors have real, legitimate concerns about in-person voting in a pandemic, Trump says Nov. 3 is an "eternity" away and, "By the time we get there, we'll probably be in very good shape." He adds, "It's going to be very safe."
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 5, 2020
He has claimed that Joe Biden wants to get out of the television debates that form part of the closing stages of the election campaign. There has, so far, been no indication of this from the Biden camp.
"I hear he wants to get out, but in all fairness to him, he has not said that," President Trump tells Fox News regarding Joe Biden debating him.
— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) August 5, 2020
Trump has again floated the idea that with an impasse on a coronavirus bailout package, he may take unilateral action.
Trump on Fox&Friends, again threatening unilateral action on payroll tax cut:
— Erica Werner (@ericawerner) August 5, 2020
"I may do it myself … we’re negotiating right now … I have the absolute right to do it."
He has also backed reopening schools, because the virus is “going away”.
Trump says schools should open because: "This thing's going away. It will go away like things go away."
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) August 5, 2020
The president confirmed chatter that he may give his Republican Convention speech from the White House itself.
Trump on Fox & Friends says the "easiest, least expensive" place to deliver his GOP convention speech is "live from the White House." He says no final decision has been made.
— Geoff Bennett (@GeoffRBennett) August 5, 2020
Trump has again criticised Black Lives Matter and athletes who make peaceful kneeling protests.
Pres Trump on a tear on Fox. He says Black Lives Matter is a “Marxist group” & that it’s wrong for the group to have gained “respectability.” He is bashing athletes for kneeling during the anthem.
— Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) August 5, 2020
“If I’m wrong, I’m going to lose an election. OK? And that’s OK with me,” he says.
Trump says “with the possible exception of Abraham Lincoln, it’s true” that “nobody has done better” for the black community than “what I’ve done.” He’s not challenged on “Fox and Friends” on this statement. He then calls Black Lives Matter a “Marxist group”
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) August 5, 2020
Updated
Technical issue may be causing California to under-report Covid-19 cases
Some potentially not good news about coronavirus numbers is coming out of California, where, the Associated Press reports, figures showing the state has slowed the rate of infections may be in doubt because a technical problem.
For days, California hasn’t received full counts on the number of tests conducted, nor the number that come back positive , Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Mark Ghaly said Tuesday.
He blamed an unspecified technical problem affecting the state’s database that provides test results to local health departments. Ghaly said it’s unclear when the issue would be fixed, adding that the state is relaying information manually to county health officials.
At issue is CalREDIE, a state system that electronically receives COVID-19 test data from lab providers. “There’s a specific component that feeds information from labs to both the state’s system and the local public health system,” Ghaly said. “That may actually be the place where data is getting stuck.”
The announcement came a day after Gov. Gavin Newsom gave his most optimistic report on the state’s virus efforts since a second surge of cases in early June. Newsom said daily cases had dropped by an average of 2,200 in the last week and the infection rate of 6.1% was significantly lower than the nearly 8% recorded last month.
Even with the under-reporting of cases, California has recorded more positive tests than any other state, about 520,000.
Ghaly said hospitalization data, which doesn’t run through the same troubled system, has seen signs of improvement. The latest count Tuesday showed 6,302 people were hospitalized, a 12% drop from the high recorded in July. Deaths have now topped 9,500.
And talking of coronavirus, we have this first person piece today from Brooklyn-based Hannah Davis talking about her experiences of being one of the Covid-19 ‘long haulers’, who are seemingly ill with the disease for weeks on end. It makes for a grim read.
Read it here: Hannah Davis – Brain fog, phantom smells and tinnitus: my experience as a Covid ‘long hauler’
You know that the issue of mail-in ballots and in-person voting is going to rumble for the remaining duration of an coronavirus affected election campaign. Zachary Wolf over at CNN has some analysis on Trump’s flip-flop messaging over the last couple of days: Trump may finally realize he’s suppressing his own vote
It’s time to come to terms with absentee voting and voting by mail. President Donald Trump, in one of the most epic reversals in recent political history, encouraged Floridians to do it on Tuesday, the day after he said it was part of an effort to steal the election from him in Nevada. This is the kind of stuff that confuses people.
Wolf has spoken to Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at Brookings and the founder of their Center on Effective Public Management, about a new grading system they have devised to indicate how easy, or not, it will be to avoid in-person voting in each state in November.
Her guess is that in November “we’re going to have 50% absentee ballots”, and that we should be preparing ourselves not for election night, but for election month. Gulp.
Read it here: CNN – Trump may finally realize he’s suppressing his own vote
Or maybe not…
Nevada has ZERO infrastructure for Mail-In Voting. It will be a corrupt disaster if not ended by the Courts. It will take months, or years, to figure out. Florida has built a great infrastructure, over years, with two great Republican Governors. Florida, send in your Ballots!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 5, 2020
Missouri votes to expand Medicaid health care coverage
Voters on Tuesday made Missouri the 38th state to approve expanding Medicaid health care coverage to thousands more low-income adults, report the Associated Press.
Support for the constitutional amendment means that as many as 250,000 more adults could choose to be covered by government health insurance beginning in July 2021, according to estimates from the state auditor.
“As Medicaid expansion is fully and expeditiously implemented so that Missourians are no longer forced to choose between putting food on the table and seeing a doctor, today’s victory will be a true turning point in the history of the Show Me State,” said A.J. Bockelman, the pro-Medicaid campaign manager.
The vote on health care, which was paired with Missouri’s primary elections, came as confirmed coronavirus case s have been rising in the state and the economy continues to suffer. Missouri’s Republican-led Legislature has repeatedly rejected Medicaid expansion proposals over the past decade, prompting supporters to turn to the initiative process.
Missouri’s Medicaid program currently does not cover most adults without children, and its income eligibility threshold for parents is one of the lowest in the nation at about one-fifth of the poverty level. The ballot proposal will expand eligibility under the terms of the 2010 federal health care law signed by president Barack Obama.
Concerns about the virus appear to have driven a record number of people to cast absentee ballots in Missouri’s largest jurisdiction of St. Louis County, said county election director Eric Fey. Local election authorities projected a statewide voter turnout of nearly 37%.
Election officials said coronavirus concerns also led to a somewhat larger number of cancellations and no-shows among poll workers in the St. Louis and Kansas City areas, though substitutes were dispatched to fill the gaps.
At the same time St. Louis circuit attorney Kim Gardner, whose job performance has been lauded by some civil rights activists and criticised by Donald Trump and other leading Republicans, also won the challenge against her from former homicide prosecutor Mary Pat Carl.
Minneapolis commission to look at dismantling city's police department
A Minneapolis commission is expected to take up a proposed amendment today that would dismantle the city’s police department in the wake of George Floyd’s death and replace it with a new public safety department.
A majority of the City Council backs the idea, with supporters saying it would do away with a troubled department that has resisted change, and replace it with a more “holistic” and public health-oriented approach to public safety.
If it advances to the November ballot, voters would get the final say.
The 15-member volunteer commission could approve the proposal; reject it; propose a substitute or ask for more time to review it. Rejection wouldn’t be fatal, because the City Council isn’t bound by the commission’s decision. But a delay would be, by making it impossible to get the idea onto November’s ballot.
The City Council’s proposal would eliminate the Police Department from the city charter, and replace it with a “Department of Community Safety and Violence Prevention.” The new department would prioritise public health, with a director who has “non-law enforcement experience in community safety services.” It would still allow for armed police officers, but they would answer to the new director.
Some members of the commission have worried that the process which has included two public hearings and online comments is moving too quickly. City Council members have promised a robust process to get public input on how a new department would look and work.
Council member Steve Fletcher, one of the authors of the proposal, said that even if the commission decides it needs more time, the city will continue moving ahead with the community engagement process to “build a collective vision of what we really want the future of public safety to look like.”
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told the Associated Press yesterday that he remains opposed to eliminating the department.
“We should not go down the route of simply abolishing the Police Department,” Frey said. “What we need to see within this department, and within many departments throughout the country, is a full-on culture shift.”
The mayor and police chief Medaria Arradondo have moved ahead with their own changes since Floyd’s death, including requiring officers to document attempts to de-escalate situations whether or not force is used. They also have expanded requirements for reporting use-of-force incidents, ordering officers to provide more detail.
Hans Nichols and Alexi McCammond write for Axios this morning that Joe Biden’s VP pick is apparently down to a final two – Susan Rice or Kamala Harris. They say:
The case for Harris: Biden’s brain trust — Steve Ricchetti, Mike Donilon and Ted Kaufman — skew older and have deep and trusting relationships with many of the Obama and Clinton veterans who are advocating for Harris.
The case for Rice: Rice is getting a big bounce from Obama people who claim her presence on the ticket would guarantee the enthusiastic presence of both Barack and Michelle Obama on the campaign trail.
Read it here: Axios – Biden confidants see VP choices narrowing to Harris and Rice
Gov. Jay Inslee wins Washington primary - aims for third term
Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee was another primary victor yesterday, as he advanced in Washington’s election. He is seeking to become the first incumbent elected to a third term in the state in more than 40 years.
Inslee has been a frequent and high-profile critic of Donald Trump and said in a statement “At such a pivotal moment, Washington state needs the opposite of Trump-style chaos.”
He’ll face a police chief in November, Loren Culp. Culp has campaigned against Inslee’s coronavirus restrictions like mandatory masks. Local media report that he held a large election night rally, despite the statewide mandates against large group gatherings during the coronavirus pandemic.
Culp’s team billed the rally as the “biggest party of the year so far.”
Culp told the Seattle Times last night that people “are ready for individual freedom and liberty being returned to this state, where citizens have the choice on what they want to do in their personal lives and business, and not have it dictated to them.”
Donald Trump has been up early and tweeting today across a range of topics. He has described “America’s Liberal Cities” as lawless, claimed that Nasa was “closed and dead” until he got it going again, and criticised media coverage of his environmental credentials.
There is TREMENDOUS Lawlessness in America’s Liberal Cities. Would be so easy to stop but they have a clouded vision of what should be done. They are indoctrinated with a philosophy which will never work, a philosophy which would destroy America. Portland would be the norm!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 5, 2020
Trump has also, after he won last night, finally endorsed Roger Marshall in Kansas, albeit while praising Kris Kobach as “very tough and smart”.
A great race run by Roger against a very tough and smart opponent. Roger loves Kansas and will represent it incredibly well. He has my Complete and Total Endorsement. Will be a Big Win on November 3rd. This is not the opponent the Democrats wanted! https://t.co/eSG6utLq5H
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 5, 2020
Biden campaign announces $280m ad spend across 15 states
The New York Times is reporting this morning on Joe Biden’s expensive plans to saturate the airwaves in 15 states during the fall campaign.
Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign manager, told the paper “This election is a clear referendum on Donald Trump and his failed leadership on Covid and also on the economy”
The Biden campaign ads will start on 1 September and involve spending $220m on TV spots and $60m in digital ads. It’s by far the biggest ad-play of the campaign so far. Among the 15 states targeted there are ten that Trump won in 2016 – Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Wisconsin.
The New York Times reports on how the campaign plans to message during the autumn:
Biden campaign officials previewed some of the messages and contrasts they intend to press in the ad campaign. Mike Donilon, Biden’s chief strategist, said that the former vice president offers stability compared to an “erratic” Mr. Trump, that he represents “core American values” compared to “walking away from them,” and that Mr. Biden represents someone “willing to bear the burden” of leading. The campaign officials promised that Mr. Biden would make his own case through ads that would often be in his own voice.
Read it here: New York Times – Biden announces $280 million fall ad buy across 15 states
Rep. Roger Marshall defeats Kris Kobach in Kansas primary
A big sigh of relief at Republican HQ you would imagine, after Kansas Republicans nominated Rep. Roger Marshall for the Senate rather than the divisive figure of Kris Kobach. It had been thought that if Kobach got the nod, it might put the Senate seat seriously in-play in November’s election.
In the end Marshall prevailed comfortably in a crowded primary field without the pre-election endorsement from Donald Trump that some senior Republicans had urged for.
Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state, is nationally known for advocating restrictive immigration policies and had alienated independent and moderate Republican voters while losing the Kansas governor’s race in 2018. Marshall and his allies tried to make that loss a key issue this time around.
The race for retiring four-term Republican Sen. Pat Roberts’ seat had national implications even though the party hasn’t lost a Senate contest in Kansas since 1932. Republicans are desperately trying to keep their 53-47 Senate majority with competitive races in other states, including Arizona, Colorado and Maine. The unpopularity of Trump at the top of the ballot is causing concern that it could depress the Republican votes for those crucial seats.
Marshall immediately called for party unity. He told his supporters that the Republican Senate majority is at stake and said he was strengthened by the contentious primary.
“I’ve always believed in this iron sharpening iron,” Marshall said in live-streamed remarks, report the Associated Press. “After this primary, our swords are sharp and our shields are thick.”
Kobach said in his concession speech that he had faced a “very steep, uphill struggle” after telling reporters earlier in the day that the party establishment had a recent history of crushing conservatives like him. But he urged Republicans to get behind Marshall.
“We will hold this seat, and I will do everything I can to make sure that happens for the Republican Party,” Kobach said.
Cori Bush defeats 10-time incumbent William Lacy Clay
Cori Bush, a onetime homeless woman who led protests following a white police officer’s fatal shooting of a Black 18-year-old in Ferguson, ousted longtime Rep. William Lacy Clay in Missouri’s Democratic primary, ending a political dynasty that has spanned more than a half-century, report the Associated Press.
Bush’s supporters said protests over the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis, and outrage over racial injustice had allowed her to win this time in a re-run of a race that she lost in 2018.
— Cori Bush (@CoriBush) August 5, 2020
An emotional Bush, speaking to supporters while wearing a mask, said few people expected her to win.
“They counted us out,” she said. “They called me I’m just the protester, I’m just the activist with no name, no title and no real money. That’s all they said that I was. But St. Louis showed up today.”
Bush’s campaign spokeswoman, Keenan Korth, said voters in the district were “galvanized.”
“They’re ready to turn the page on decades of failed leadership,” Korth said.
Bush was congratulated by Bernie Sanders online, who described her as a “true progressive”
Congratulations to @CoriBush on her primary victory tonight! She is a true progressive who stands with working people and will take on the corporate elite of this country when she gets to Congress. pic.twitter.com/Q3hJGasjXe
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) August 5, 2020
Bush, 44, is virtually guaranteed a seat in Congress representing the heavily Democratic St. Louis area. Missouri’s 1st Congressional District has been represented by Clay or his father for a half-century. Bill Clay served 32 years before retiring in 2000. William Lacy Clay, 64, was elected that year.
Bush became ill while pregnant with her second child in 2001 and had to quit her job at a preschool. When she and her then-husband were evicted from a rental home, the couple, their newborn and 14-month-old son lived out of a Ford Explorer for several months.
Michael Brown’s death in 2014 in Ferguson vaulted her into another role: activist. She became a leader of some of the many protests that followed the fatal police shooting of the Black, unarmed 18-year-old. She was back on the streets in 2017 after a white St. Louis officer was acquitted in the shooting death of a Black suspect.
Good morning, welcome to our live coverage of US politics, the coronavirus crisis and the Black Lives Matter protest movement. Here’s a quick catch-up on where we are, and a look ahead at what we can expect today
- At least 1,358 deaths and 53,304 new coronavirus cases were reported yesterday – the numbers ticking back up after a few days of falling. The rolling weekly average number of new cases is still lower than a fortnight ago though
- Kris Kobach lost in the Kansas primary, easing Republican fears that putting the divisive figure on November’s ballot could help flip the seat to the Democratic party
- In St Louis, progressive Cori Bush ousted veteran Rep. William Lacy Clay Jr in the Democratic primary
- Missouri has voted to expand Medicaid health care coverage
- Joe Biden reached out to Latino voters yesterday, with a plan to tackle inequalities
- New York state is introducing a bill that would make it easier to sue big tech companies for alleged abuses of their monopoly powers
- Mike Pompeo is doing a press briefing at 10:30 this morning. Donald Trump is meeting Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona at 3pm. Biden will be fundraising in the evening
I’m Martin Belam and you can get in touch with me at martin.belam@theguardian.com
