Elections

US elections 2020

Biden and Trump campaigns await final decision after both propose delaying debate until 22 October

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Donald Trump says he will not participate in virtual debate with Joe Biden – video

Donald Trump added more turbulence on Thursday to the US presidential race by refusing to participate in the next presidential debate with Joe Biden after it was changed to a virtual event to guard against the spread of Covid-19, prompting both campaigns to propose postponing it a week.
On Thursday morning, the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) said that the next presidential debate, due on 15 October, would be a virtual affair, with the candidates appearing remotely.
“In order to protect the health and safety of all, the second presidential debate will take the form of a town meeting, in which the candidates would participate from separate remote locations,” it said.
But Trump, who was hospitalized for three days after disclosing last Friday that he had tested positive for the coronavirus, blasted the format change announced by the nonpartisan commission in charge of the debates and expressed concern that his microphone could be cut off at the event. Trump, who is still receiving Covid-19 treatment at the White House, also said he wanted to resume campaign rallies.
“I’m not going to waste my time on a virtual debate. That’s not what debating is all about,” Trump said in a nearly hour-long phone interview with Fox Business. “You sit behind a computer and do a debate – it’s ridiculous, and then they cut you off whenever they want.”
Following the president’s comments, the Biden and Trump campaigns both proposed pushing back the debate – which had been planned as the second of three – until 22 October, the date of what was scheduled as their final encounter before the 3 November election. Trump’s campaign also proposed holding another debate on 29 October, which Biden’s campaign rejected, saying the 22 October debate should be the final one.
“Trump’s erratic behavior does not allow him to rewrite the calendar, and pick new dates of his choosing,” said Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager.
The two campaigns now await final decisions from the CPD.
Even before his illness was announced, Trump’s performance in the chaotic first debate with Biden last week prompted calls for a change in format. Trump constantly interrupted and talked over both Biden and the moderator.
With election day less than four weeks away, early voting has exceeded records. More than 6 million ballots already have been cast as Americans change their behavior to avoid possible infection at polling places amid a pandemic that already has killed more than 210,000 Americans. Opinion polls show Biden leading Trump nationally, though the race appears closer in battleground states that could decide the outcome.
The two vice-presidential contenders, the incumbent Mike Pence and Democratic vice presidential nominee Senator Kamala Harris, engaged in a debate on Wednesday evening that was far more orderly than the first Trump-Biden encounter.
After the first presidential debate, some observers had proposed giving the moderator in future debates the power to cut off any candidate who disrupted the proceedings. The debate commission said nothing about muting the participants in its announcement on Thursday.
In the interview on Thursday, Trump said he was feeling “really good”. Trump called himself ready to resume campaign rallies. Such rallies, particularly held indoors, have raised concern among public health exerts about spreading the virus. Trump said he was still taking steroids to treat the respiratory disease.
Trump said he did not believe he was still contagious, though that contention was not yet backed up by solid evidence from his doctors.
“I’d love to do a rally tonight. I wanted to do one last night,” Trump said, adding: “If I’m at a rally, I stand by myself very far away from everybody.”
US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines say people who are severely ill with Covid-19 might need to stay home for up to 20 days after symptoms first appear. The White House has not provided detailed information on the severity of Trump’s illness and has refused to say when he last tested negative for the virus.
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, challenged Trump to reveal when he last tested negative, asking at a press briefing: “Why is the White House not telling the country that important fact?“

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Last year Donald Trump called Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, a “nasty, vindictive, horrible person.” Actually, she isn’t — but he is.Trump’s vindictiveness has become a major worry as the election approaches. He has already signaled that he won’t accept the result if he loses, which seems increasingly likely though not certain. Nobody knows what chaos, possibly including violence, he may unleash if the election doesn’t go his way.Even aside from that concern, however, a defeated Trump would still be president for two and a half months. Would he spend that time acting destructively, in effect taking revenge on America for rejecting him?Well, we got a preview of what a lame-duck Trump presidency might look like Tuesday. Trump hasn’t even lost yet, but he abruptly cut off talks on an economic relief package millions of Americans desperately need (although as of Thursday he seemed to be backtracking). And his motivation seems to have been sheer spite.Why do we need economic relief? Despite several months of large employment gains, America has only partly recovered from horrific job losses in the early months of the pandemic — and the pace of recovery has slowed to a relative crawl. All indications are that the economy will remain weak for many months, maybe even years.Given this grim reality, the federal government should still be providing the kind of relief it offered in the first few months of the crisis: generous aid to the unemployed and loans that help keep small businesses afloat. Otherwise we’ll soon be seeing millions of families unable to pay their rent, hundreds of thousands of businesses going under.In addition, state and local governments — which, unlike the federal government, are generally required to balance their budgets — are in desperate fiscal straits, because the pandemic slump has drastically reduced their revenues. They need a lot of aid, soon, or they will be forced into deep cuts in employment and services. We’ve already lost around 900,000 jobs in state and local education.So there’s an overwhelming humanitarian case for major spending on relief: Unless the federal government steps in, there will be huge unnecessary suffering. There’s also a macroeconomic case: If families are forced to slash consumption, if businesses are forced to close and if state and local governments are forced into extreme spending cuts, the economy’s growth will slow and we might even slide back into recession.I know, I know, the usual suspects will say that the calls for economic relief are just more big-government liberalism. But warnings about the dangers of failing to provide more relief aren’t just coming from progressive Democrats; they’re coming from Wall Street analysts and Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve.Yet negotiations over relief have been stalled for months, even as special aid to the unemployed and small businesses has expired. The main stumbling block, I’d argue, has been the adamant refusal of Senate Republicans to consider aid to state and local governments; Democrats would probably have agreed to a deal that included significant aid, even though it would have helped Trump politically.But Republicans have insisted — falsely — that this is all about rescuing badly run blue states. And Trump echoed that falsehood as he pulled the plug on Tuesday, claiming that Pelosi’s proposals are nothing but a bailout of “high crime, poorly run, Democrat States.” (Not that facts matter, but Democratic states actually have lower crime rates, on average, than Republican states.)The question is, why did Trump choose to reject even the possibility of a deal less than a month before Election Day? True, it’s too late for legislation to make much difference to the state of the economy on Nov. 3, although a deal might have averted some corporate layoffs. But it would surely be in Trump’s political interest to at least look as if he’s trying to help Americans in distress. Why would Trump choose this, of all moments, to torpedo economic policy?As far as I can tell, nobody has offered a plausible political motive, any way in which refusing even to try rescuing the economy helps Trump’s prospects. What this looks like, instead, is vindictiveness.I don’t know whether Trump expects to lose the election. But he’s already acting like a deeply embittered man, lashing out at people he feels have treated him unfairly, which is basically everyone. And as usual he reserves special rage for smart, tough women; on Thursday he called Kamala Harris a “monster.”Yet getting a relief deal would have required accepting a compromise with that “nasty” woman Nancy Pelosi. And it seems that he would rather let the economy burn.The thing is, if he’s behaving like this now, when he still has some chance of winning, how will he act if he loses?The most immediate concern is that he won’t accept the election results. But we should also be worried about what will follow if he is forced to accept the will of the people, but is still running the country. Trump has always been vindictive; what will he do if and when he has nothing left but spite?The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected] The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Thursday imposed a new round of economic sanctions against Iran’s financial sector, as Washington seeks to increase pressure on Tehran in the weeks leading up to the presidential election.The measure imposes penalties against 18 Iranian banks and comes days before a United Nations arms embargo on the country is set to expire. The action could effectively lock Iran out of the global financial system, further cratering its already collapsing economy.It was the United States’ latest round of sanctions against Iran after the Trump administration’s attempt last month to unilaterally restore international economic penalties that much of the rest of the world has refused to enforce.Critics said the new sanctions were unlikely to achieve the Trump administration’s goal of forcing Iran back into negotiations — both to limit its nuclear program and to end its hostilities across the Middle East — and would further distance the United States from key European allies.“Our maximum economic pressure campaign will continue until Iran is willing to conclude a comprehensive negotiation that addresses the regime’s malign behavior,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement. “Our sanctions are directed at the regime and its corrupt officials that have used the wealth of the Iranian people to fuel a radical, revolutionary cause that has brought untold suffering across the Middle East and beyond.”Last month, the Trump administration said it was reimposing United Nations sanctions against Iran over the fierce objection of American allies, in part to keep a global arms embargo in place beyond its expiration date of Oct. 18.But the European Union has its own weapons embargo against Iran that is not set to expire until 2023, and officials in Britain, France and Germany resisted supporting the broader international sanctions in hopes of keeping alive an accord to limit Tehran’s nuclear program that has faltered since the United States withdrew from the deal in 2018.Critics of the American sanctions announced on Thursday said they could have a chilling effect on investment in Iran and potentially deter humanitarian aid from flowing into the country, where over 27,000 people have died from the coronavirus pandemic.“Iranians WILL survive this latest of cruelties,” Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, said on Twitter, adding, “Culprits & enablers—who block our money—WILL face justice.”Multiple experts say that the Treasury Department has carved out exemptions in the sanctions for humanitarian aid transactions, issuing waivers and written assurances that tell financial institutions or businesses engaged in humanitarian aid that they will not be penalized. Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said that the sanctions issued Thursday would “continue to allow for humanitarian transactions to support the Iranian people.”But the sanctions will most likely weaken Iran’s currency, the rial, and further restrict Iran’s foreign exchange reserves. Earlier sanctions banned most major commercial sales and limited Iran’s oil trade.Election 2020 More

WASHINGTON — Even as he scrambles to shore up support from his base, President Trump on Thursday again suggested that veterans and their families had spread the coronavirus at the White House, floating the idea that a meeting with the loved ones of fallen military members might have been the source of his own infection.In an interview on Fox Business, Mr. Trump described an event at the White House on Sept. 27 with a group of Gold Star families — those whose relatives have died in military conflicts — and said he had “figured there would be a chance” he would become infected there, because the family members “come within an inch of my face sometimes.”“They want to hug me and they want to kiss me,” he added. “And they do. And frankly, I’m not telling them to back up. I’m not doing it. But I did say it’s obviously dangerous.”Last week, Mr. Trump suggested that Marines and other service members, as well as police officers, might have infected one of his top advisers, Hope Hicks. In fact, by the time the president made those comments, in an interview with Fox News on Thursday night, he had already tested positive using a rapid test and was awaiting the results of a more precise test.The remarks came weeks after a report in The Atlantic that Mr. Trump — whose relationship with military leaders and prominent veterans has been a complex political brew of admiration and disdain — had disparaged American troops who died in wars as “losers” and “suckers.”Mr. Trump has counted on veterans as well as active-duty service members as a key slice of his political base; in 2016, about 60 percent voted for him, according to exit polls, and swing-state counties with especially high numbers of veterans helped him win. But that support appears to have slipped.Moreover, a large group of Republican former national security officials, including several retired generals, have thrown their support behind the president’s Democratic opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr., as have a large number of former cabinet officials from both Bush administrations; Cindy McCain, the widow of Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona; and many other prominent veterans.The decline in military support, which mirrors that among other voters once loyal to the president, stems from a variety of factors, including increasing disenchantment with his attempts to insert the armed forces into his domestic political battles.Groups associated with veterans and disillusioned Republican voters have raised millions of dollars to attack Mr. Trump since the Atlantic report early last month, which cited anonymous people who said the president had rejected a visit to a World War I military cemetery in northern France in part because it was “filled with losers.”The group VoteVets alone raised $3.3 million in the last quarter, $1.5 million of it in September after it released an online ad critical of Mr. Trump that featured the parents of troops slain in Iraq and Afghanistan.The president’s remarks on Thursday drew rebukes from liberal veterans and their political groups, as well as from elected Democrats, including the usually circumspect Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Whether he intended it or not, the president has blamed an event with families who lost their loved ones in battle for giving him Covid,” he said in a statement.Mr. Reed added: “Instead of casting aspersions on the families of the fallen for infecting him, President Trump should be transparent about his own actions, who he met with and when, and release detailed medical information including a timeline and do some real contact tracing to help stop the spread. Instead, President Trump is continuing his pattern of irresponsible behavior.”Alyssa Farah, a White House spokeswoman, said Mr. Trump had not been implicating the families. “His point was merely that in the time frame that he was potentially exposed,” she said, “there were a number of different venues he’d been at and individuals that he had interacted with that it could have come from.”Many senior Pentagon leaders attended the event for military families late last month, and several guests there have since tested positive for the coronavirus, including Adm. Charles Ray, the vice commandant of the Coast Guard. The first lady, Melania Trump, was there and has also tested positive. Gen. Mark A. Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and several other senior uniformed leaders at the Pentagon are quarantining after interacting with Admiral Ray.Scrutiny has also surrounded a White House gathering on Sept. 26, a day before the military event, which was held to honor Mr. Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Numerous Trump aides and several Republican senators who were there have since tested positive, and the White House has done little to track the contacts of attendees.In an email on Thursday, Timothy Davis, the president of the Greatest Generations Foundation, a veterans organization involved in organizing the Gold Star event on Sept. 27, said that all attendees had tested negative beforehand and that all were “doing well and exhibit no symptoms of Covid-19.” Mr. Davis said the group had been told late on Oct. 1 that Mr. Trump had tested positive, and the families in attendance were notified the next morning.Tests, especially the rapid tests used by the White House for screening staff members and visitors, are not always accurate. For months, experts have emphasized the need to combine testing with other disease containment strategies, like mask-wearing and physical distancing.Maggie Haberman contributed reporting. More

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Three weeks ago, a news story caught the attention of Dawn Capp, a Texas math teacher. A former model had accused President Trump of assault, the latest in a long line of sexual misconduct complaints against him. At the United States Open tennis tournament in 1997, the woman told The Guardian, he groped and forcibly kissed her.Ms. Capp voted for Mr. Trump in 2016. But she immediately believed the story, she said in a telephone interview, because she had heard it more than two decades ago from Amy Dorris, the woman making the allegation and one of Ms. Capp’s oldest friends.The Trump campaign has called Ms. Dorris’s account “totally false.” “This is just another pathetic attempt to attack President Trump right before the election,” Jenna Ellis, a legal adviser to the Trump campaign, said in a statement. In phone interviews, Ms. Dorris recounted meeting Mr. Trump during a strange, star-filled long weekend nearly a quarter-century ago. At the time, she was 24 years old, a Florida-based model and aspiring actress who was also working as a bartender to make rent. One night in Miami, she met Jason Binn, who was just a few years older but already had a magazine and a network of celebrity friends. After they had dated for two weeks, he whisked her off to New York.ImageAmy Dorris with Jason Binn, whom she was dating, and Donald J. Trump at the 1997 United States Open. Ms. Dorris has said she was sexually assaulted at the tournament by Mr. Trump, to whom Mr. Binn had introduced her.The days were a blur of splashy events and celebrity encounters. Ms. Dorris met Leonardo DiCaprio and attended a memorial for the fashion designer Gianni Versace. Mr. Binn and Mr. Trump, then 51, seemed especially close. But as the new couple spent time with the real estate developer in his box at the U.S. Open, at Trump Tower and in limousines, he wouldn’t leave her alone, she said. He told her to picture herself living with him in Trump Tower. He tried to impress her with Trump-branded water and other gear. His hands wandered repeatedly to her waist and her legs, she said.“It was like he claimed me — that’s how it felt,” she said.On a Friday afternoon, he crossed a more serious physical line, Ms. Dorris said. During the tennis matches, Ms. Dorris excused herself to use a bathroom behind the box’s private seating area. When she emerged, Mr. Trump was waiting. He told her that she belonged with him and moved toward her, she said.“It started as him trying to kiss me,” Ms. Dorris said. She said she had told him to stop, first with giggles, and then in a more serious tone. He had “a tiger grip — he wasn’t letting me go,” she said. Mr. Trump was shoving his tongue into her mouth, she said. “I couldn’t get loose from him,” she said. “His hands were all over me.” As she extracted herself, she pushed against his chest in protest, she said.She returned to her seat, embarrassed, and pretended nothing had happened, but soon phoned her mother and a friend for counsel. (In phone interviews, both confirmed Ms. Dorris’s account of the calls.) Ms. Dorris said she had asked Mr. Binn for help in fending off Mr. Trump, but she doubts that she told him about the specifics of the encounter. “I didn’t process what was going on,” she said. “I don’t think I even understood it.”The next day, as she and Mr. Binn sat with Mr. Trump in a limousine, her new boyfriend told the future president to back off from making advances to her, she said. Mr. Trump replied by laughing and telling Mr. Binn that Ms. Dorris was out of his league, she said.ImageMr. Trump, Ms. Dorris, and Jason Binn pose with celebrities at Trump Tower during the U.S. Open in 1997. Ms. Dorris’s accusations against Mr. Trump were recently published in The Guardian.Ms. Capp, the math teacher, said that soon afterward, her friend had told her the same story about Mr. Trump that she later told publicly. Kerri Whitfield, another friend, echoed those recollections, saying that Ms. Dorris had shared the story privately in the autumn of 1997. Neither friend has previously spoken publicly; both say they are confident of Ms. Dorris’s truthfulness.Mr. Binn said that while he remembered the weekend, he had no recollection of Mr. Trump’s making any advances toward Ms. Dorris. The publication of the Guardian article was the “first time I heard or saw anything,” he said in a phone interview.Over the years, Ms. Dorris held on to traces of that weekend: ticket stubs, photographs of her with Mr. Trump. She encountered Mr. Trump a few times, once at Mar-a-Lago, but moved on with her life, taking small acting roles, working in marketing and rearing twin daughters.In 2016, other women began to publicly tell stories about Mr. Trump, some of them similar to hers. The disclosure of the “Access Hollywood” tape, which captured Mr. Trump making crude remarks about sexually assaulting women, provoked widespread outrage, and recognition among Ms. Dorris and the friends in whom she had confided.But she stayed silent then, she said, in part out of fear that her daughters could face a backlash, and because her husband was reluctant.After more than a year of speaking privately with The Guardian, Ms. Dorris said, she decided to share her account. She is in the process of getting divorced, making her husband’s reservations less of a factor. She hopes to feel relief in going public. A registered independent who once served as a campaign volunteer for Jeb Bush, the Republican former Florida governor, she said she wanted to speak out about Mr. Trump’s character.“It’s the person, not the party,” she said. “This man should not be the president.”Kitty Bennett and Jack Begg contributed research. More