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      in US Politics

      CBS releases footage of Trump walking out of 60 Minutes interview

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      US president halts recording after question about his use of social media and name-callingUS politics live – the latest updatesFootage of the US president abruptly walking out of a CBS 60 Minutes interview has been released by the network, in a row that has been rumbling since the interview was taped on Tuesday.Donald Trump had already posted clips on his own social media, in an effort to show he had been mistreated by the interviewer, Lesley Stahl. He had called the segment “fake” and “biased” in advance. Continue reading… More

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      Democrats hold Senate floor overnight to protest Amy Coney Barrett confirmation – live

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      Key events

      Show

      5.52am EDT05:52
      Kremlin criticises Joe Biden over his Russia comments, saying they ‘encourage hatred of Russia’

      3.27am EDT03:27
      McConnell: ‘they won’t be able to do much about this for a long time’

      1.46am EDT01:46
      Democrats hold senate floor overnight in protest of Barrett

      Live feed

      Show

      5.52am EDT05:52

      Kremlin criticises Joe Biden over his Russia comments, saying they ‘encourage hatred of Russia’

      A quick bit of foreign policy news from Reuters here, firstly over nuclear weapons. The New Start treaty between Russia and the US expires shortly, it’s the last remaining nuclear agreement between the two nations, and there’s as yet no concrete signs of it being extended.
      Russia has today suggested that it would refrain from deploying thousands of missiles if Nato would agree to similar measures, and is proposing “mutual verification measures”.
      The Kremlin has also commented again on the US election, saying that a statement from Joe Biden that Russia is the main threat to the US is “not true”. A Kremlin spokesperson said such statements encourage hatred of Russia.

      5.47am EDT05:47

      We’ve got a live feed of Senate proceedings up above in the blog – you may need to refresh the page to get the play button to appear. Here’s a clip of Sen. Chris Murphy from earlier.

      Senate Democrats
      (@SenateDems)
      Senate Republicans are rushing through Judge Barrett’s nomination so they can finally do what they’ve been trying to do for years: repeal the ACA, end insurance for millions, and strip protections for pre-existing conditions.Sen. Murphy explains. pic.twitter.com/HBiWQUn70d

      October 26, 2020

      Sen. Tim Kaine followed him, and he finished his speech by saying that Republican leaders would not wear masks to cover their noses and mouths and protect themselves and others from the coronavirus, but that the “soulless process” of confirming Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court showed they were willing to “cover their eyes and their ears”.

      5.43am EDT05:43

      Oliver Milman writes for us that the choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden is pretty stark in terms of consequences for the global environment.

      The international effort to constrain dangerous global heating will hinge, in large part, on which of the dichotomous approaches of Donald Trump or Joe Biden prevails.
      On 4 November, the day after the election, the US will exit the Paris climate agreement, a global pact that has wobbled but not collapsed from nearly four years of disparagement and disengagement under Trump.
      Biden has vowed to immediately rejoin the Paris deal. The potential of a second Trump term, however, is foreboding for those whose anxiety has only escalated during the hottest summer ever recorded in the northern hemisphere, with huge wildfires scorching California and swaths of central South America, and extraordinary temperatures baking the Arctic.
      “It’s a decision of great consequence, to both the US and the world,” said Laurence Tubiana, a French diplomat and key architect of the Paris accords. “The rest of the world is moving to a low-carbon future, but we need to collectively start moving even faster, and the US still has a significant global role to play in marshaling this effort.”
      Few countries are on track to fulfill commitments made in Paris five years ago to slash their planet-heating emissions and keep the global temperature rise to “well below” 2C of warming beyond the pre-industrial era. The world has already warmed by about 1C since this time, helping set in motion a cascade of heatwaves, fierce storms and flooding around the planet.

      Read more here: Climate at a crossroads as Trump and Biden point in different directions

      5.31am EDT05:31

      The summer has been characterised by a series of extreme weather events on both coasts of the US, and that looks set to continue.
      Hundreds of thousands of Californians lost power as utilities sought to prevent the chance of their equipment sparking wildfires and the fire-weary state braced for a new bout of dry, windy weather.
      More than 1 million people were expected be in the dark Monday during what officials have said could be the strongest wind event in California this year, reports the Associate Press. More

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      White House chief of staff says 'we're not going to control pandemic', after Pence staffers test positive – as it happened

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      Key events

      Show

      5.32pm EDT17:32
      Summary

      1.35pm EDT13:35
      Senate to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to Supreme Court tomorrow

      9.50am EDT09:50
      Meadows: ‘We’re not going to control the pandemic’

      9.06am EDT09:06
      Lincoln Project lawyer to Kushner and Ivanka: ‘Sue if you must’

      8.21am EDT08:21
      US just misses new Covid case record – a day after setting it

      8.02am EDT08:02
      Good morning…

      Live feed

      Show

      5.32pm EDT17:32

      Summary

      Here’s a quick overview of what happened today:
      The Senate, which is in the middle of a special weekend session, made its final step toward confirming Amy Coney Barrett to the US Supreme Court. Senate Republicans overrode a Democratic filibuster and are set to confirm Barrett tomorrow night.
      White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said in an interview with CNN that the president is “not going to control the pandemic”. The unusually candid statement gave insight into the mindset of a White House that has, from the beginning, played down the effect of the coronavirus.
      Meanwhile, the US merely set a new Covid case record on Saturday, coming close to the 83,757 cases that were reported on Friday – the highest number in a single day – at 83,718 new cases. US health officials have for weeks voiced concerns of a new surge as the weather gets colder, and people stay indoors where the virus is more likely to spread.
      We’ll be back tomorrow with more live updates. Thanks for reading.

      5.24pm EDT17:24

      A ballot drop box that held more than 120 ballots was set on fire in Boston earlier Sunday. The box was outside the Boston Public Library in downtown Boston. Police say that the fire appears to have been a “deliberate attack”.
      Officials said that of the 122 ballots that were inside the box when it was emptied, and 87 of the ballots were still legible and able to process. The Massachusetts secretary of state said that voters whose ballots were affected by the fire will be sent a new ballot and will also have the option of voting early in person, if they choose.
      Security cameras around the box showed footage of a person setting fire to the box. The Boston Police Department is asking the public to help identify the person who started the fire.

      Boston Police Dept.
      (@bostonpolice)
      BPD Investigating Ballot Box Fire in the area of 700 Boylston Street in Boston. https://t.co/8FYA34H815 pic.twitter.com/FNrO1PpEUg

      October 25, 2020

      In a joint statement, William Galvin, Massachusetts’ secretary of state, and Boston mayor Marty Walsh said: “We ask voters not to be intimidated by this bad act, and remain committed to making their voices heard in this and every election.”

      5.08pm EDT17:08

      Donald Trump Jr. posed in front of a “Don Jr. 2024” sign for a picture he posted on Instagram yesterday.
      “Hahahahaha. Oh boy. This was a sign up at the Fallon Nevada Livestock Auction,” he wrote on Instagram. “This will make the lib heads explode. To whomever made that thanks for the compliment… but let’s get through 2020 with a big win first!!!!!”

      Ben Riley-Smith
      (@benrileysmith)
      Hmm. Don Jr not going out of his way to play down the 2024 speculation. pic.twitter.com/G99NigQSpA

      October 24, 2020

      Though Nevada went blue for Hillary Clinton in 2016, the state is technically a swing state that leans slightly left. Joe Biden holds a lead over Trump in the state, where Democratic voters are concentrated in Las Vegas and its surrounding suburbs while Republicans can be found in more rural areas of the state.
      Donald Trump Jr, 42, is best known for being an internet provocateur, complementing his father’s brashness and inclination for sharing disinformation on Twitter. Trump hasn’t been as involved in White House policy as his sister, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, nor has he been as active in running the Trump Organization as his brother, Eric, but Don Jr. has seemed to be the Trump offspring most inclined to politics and has turned into a valuable asset for his father’s campaign.
      “Don Jr. represents the emotional center of the MAGA universe,” Jason MIller, a senior advisor on Trump’s campaign, told the New York Times.
      While Trump has only joked about running for office, a Vice reporter suggested that Pennsylvania Republicans were floating the idea of Trump replacing a Republican Senator from the state who will be retiring. Trump himself has not spoken about the Pennsylvania Senate seat.

      4.34pm EDT16:34

      At least 58 million Americans have voted in the 2020 general election through early voting, according to Michael McDonald, a professor at the University of Florida who is running the US Election Project that’s keeping tabs on early voting count.
      Using individual state reports with ballot counts, the project estimates that 39.7 million Americans have voted by mail while 19 million have voted early in-person. Over 19 million of the total early votes come from California, Texas and Florida – the states with the highest population. Across 19 states that provide party registration with their reports, 13 million have been Democrat while 7 million are Republican. Another 6 million are registered independents.
      On Twitter, McDonald pointed out that Texas has hit nearly 80% of the total turnout in the state in 2016. McDonald has suggested that this election could have the highest voter turnout since 1908, with an estimated 65% of eligible voters participating in the election.

      Michael McDonald
      (@ElectProject)
      #earlyvote morning update 10/25At least 58 million people have voted in the 2020 general election 🥳https://t.co/s8K2xFDeSA pic.twitter.com/8NI64sWGRq

      October 25, 2020

      Joining the group of early voters is this interesting group of Joe Biden supporters in Nevada.

      Rex Chapman🏇🏼
      (@RexChapman)
      Nevada: Biden voters. Latinos. On horseback. In style.This is my America… pic.twitter.com/8ri9Ur7SyH

      October 25, 2020

      4.13pm EDT16:13

      From the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe in Miami:
      Born in Hawaii with deep roots in Chicago, Barack Obama is far removed from the traditional image of Florida Man. But with two appearances here in four days stumping for Joe Biden, the former president is relishing the atmosphere of the Sunshine State in the final days of the 2020 campaign.
      On Tuesday, Obama will follow up Saturday’s skewering of Donald Trump at a drive-in rally in North Miami with a similar gathering in Orlando, the exact details yet to be released by the Biden campaign.
      But the event means that, inside 96 hours, Obama will have made the same number of Florida appearances campaigning for his former vice-president that he did for Hillary Clinton in the last weeks of her run for the White House four years ago,
      “Oh, it’s good to be back in Florida,” Obama told the crowd in North Miami, shortly after paying a surprise visit to thank campaign workers in the nearby city of Miami Springs who helped him carry the state in 2008 and 2012.
      “You delivered twice for me, Florida. And now I’m asking you to deliver for Joe and deliver for Kamala.”
      Obama’s role in flipping Florida back blue after Trump seized the state by barely 1.2 percent in 2016 is more than just symbolic. Popular with Hispanic voters to a level that Biden has not been able to achieve, his messaging in a state where 2.5 million Latinos make up 17 percent of the electorate is crucial.
      On Saturday, he attacked Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic, and noted it had “hit African Americans and Latinos harder than anybody in Florida.”
      It is a point he is certain to press again on Tuesday in Orlando, the heart of the I-4 corridor with a significant Hispanic population, including about 300,000 Puerto Ricans.
      The demographic also offers Obama another opportunity to slam Trump. Criticism of the president’s handling of 2017’s Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island, was loud among Central Florida’s Puerto Rican community, with images of Trump casually tossing rolls of paper towels to suffering residents still fresh.
      “When a hurricane devastates Puerto Rico, a president’s supposed to help it rebuild, not toss paper towels [or] withhold billions of dollars in aid until just before an election,” Obama told the crowd in Miami.
      Expect more of the same in Orlando on Tuesday as Trump, the ultimate Florida Man, gets roasted by his nemesis once again.

      3.53pm EDT15:53

      Joe Biden released a statement in response to White House chief of staff Mark Meadows’ interview with CNN today where he said that the White House is not going to control the pandemic.
      “We’re not going to control the pandemic. We’re going to control the fact that we get a vaccine, therapeutics and other mitigation,” Meadows told CNN’s Jake Tapper.
      Biden said that the interview wasn’t a slip-up, but “a candid acknowledgement of what President Trump’s strategy has clearly been from the beginning of this crisis: to wave the white flag of defeat and hope that by ignoring it, the virus would simply go away. It hasn’t, and it won’t.”

      Scott Wong
      (@scottwongDC)
      BIDEN: “This wasn’t a slip by Meadows, it was a candid acknowledgement of what President Trump’s strategy has clearly been from the beginning of this crisis: to wave the white flag of defeat and hope that by ignoring it, the virus would simply go away. It hasn’t, and it won’t.” pic.twitter.com/BTizJZMQdf

      October 25, 2020

      3.30pm EDT15:30

      Vladimir Putin has made it clear that he’s happy with Donald Trump’s coziness with Russia, but the Kremlin today contradicted Trump and said that he doesn’t believe Joe Biden’s ties with Ukraine are criminal.
      Trump used Thursday’s debate with Biden as an opportunity to accuse Biden’s son of having unethical ties to Ukraine, accusations that have not been verified and that Biden has denied.
      According to Reuters, Putin said today that he is willing to work with any US leader, but noted that Biden has “sharp anti-Russian rhetoric”. Here’s more from the Reuters report:

      Putin appeared less friendly towards Trump in remarks broadcast by Russian state TV on Sunday. In what may be seen by some analysts as an attempt to try to curry favour with the Biden camp, the Russian presdient took the time to knock down what he made clear he regarded as false allegations from Trump about the Bidens.
      “Yes, in Ukraine he [Hunter Biden] had or maybe still has a business, I don’t know. It doesn’t concern us. It concerns the Americans and the Ukrainians,” said Putin.
      “But well yes he had at least one company, which he practically headed up, and judging from everything he made good money. I don’t see anything criminal about this, at least we don’t know anything about this [being criminal]”.

      3.00pm EDT15:00

      Mike Pence, who as vice president is technically the president of the Senate, is coming under criticism from Democrats for planning to come into the chamber to preside over the vote for Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.
      At a rally in Florida yesterday, Pence said “I wouldn’t miss that vote for the world”. Pence’s appearance would be symbolic as he does not need to be physically present in the Senate for the confirmation to go through.
      Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer denounced Pence’s plan to attend the vote tomorrow, saying it sets “a terrible, terrible example for the American public”.
      “It is clear to me that their closing message is that they’re going to personally deliver Covid to as many people as possible,” Brian Schatz, a Democratic senator for Hawaii, told a reporter.

      Igor Bobic
      (@igorbobic)
      “It is clear to me that their closing message is that they’re going to personally deliver COVID to as many people as possible,” Schatz adds

      October 25, 2020

      At least five people close to Pence, including his chief of staff, have tested positive for Covid-19. A White House official said Sunday that Pence and his wife have tested negative for the virus. His office said that the vice president does not plan to quarantine. Guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) say a person should quarantine for 14 days if they were in close contact with a person who tested positive, even if they themselves do not have symptoms or tested negative.
      Pence, who is head of the White House’s coronavirus task force, has said that he can bypass CDC guidelines because he is an essential worker – a claim that has been questioned by health experts.

      2.27pm EDT14:27

      Ed Pilkington

      Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York state, is having a field day over the comments of the White House chief of staff Mark Meadows this morning. In a rare moment of transparency, Meadows admitted to a Sunday political talk show that the Trump administration had no intention of containing coronavirus, saying: “We’re not going to control the pandemic”.
      Cuomo said that thinking was tantamount to giving in to the virus. “They surrendered without firing a shot. It was the great American surrender,” he said on Sunday, as reported by the Daily News.
      The New York governor said that the Trump administration’s approach to Covid was summed up from the start by such capitulation. “They have believed from the beginning that they can’t control the virus,” he said.
      By contrast, Cuomo prides himself on having wrestled coronavirus to the ground. After a bad start to the pandemic, which saw New York City become the world’s top hotspot, the rate of infection has been reduced to one of the lowest in the country through an aggressive program of testing and contact tracing.
      There have been a total of almost 500,000 confirmed cases in the state, and 25,730 deaths. About 120,000 New Yorkers are being tested every day.
      “What we learned in New York was, if you put up a fight you will have won. Because New York won,” Cuomo said.

      2.10pm EDT14:10

      After the Senate voted to move forward with the final vote to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Mitch McConnell spoke on the Senate floor, celebrating the lasting influence of the vote for posterity.
      “By tomorrow night, we’ll have a new member of the United States Supreme Court,” he told the chamber.
      McConnell acknowledged that this election could change the tide in Washington but said that not much could be done to change the nature of the court “for a long time to come”.

      Nicholas Fandos
      (@npfandos)
      McConnell, just after the Senate votes to limit debate on Amy Coney Barrett: “A lot of what we’ve done over the last four years will be undone sooner or later by the next election. They won’t be able to do much about this for a long time to come.”

      October 25, 2020

      One Capitol Hill reporter noted that it appears the bruising on McConnell’s face and hands that were seen on Friday appeared to have gotten better. Apparently, getting three judges onto the Supreme Court in four years can do wonders to one’s health.

      Seung Min Kim
      (@seungminkim)
      Also, McConnell’s right hand, which was deeply bruised earlier this week and prompted several Qs about his health, appears much better. Most of the bruising is gone https://t.co/WPFJcqsog2

      October 25, 2020

      Updated
      at 2.19pm EDT

      1.35pm EDT13:35

      Senate to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to Supreme Court tomorrow

      The Senate just made a 51-48 vote to move forward with the final vote for Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Republicans overrode a Democratic filibuster with today’s vote, and the final vote for her confirmation will take place tomorrow night.
      With the Republican majority in the Senate, Barrett’s nomination is pretty much a guarantee, despite weeks of criticism from Democrats about a Supreme Court nomination weeks before the presidential election.

      Manu Raju
      (@mkraju)
      #Breaking: Amy Coney Barrett on track for confirmation tomorrow evening after Senate Republicans defeat a Democratic filibuster, 51-48, during a rare Sunday session just nine days before the election

      October 25, 2020

      Updated
      at 4.31pm EDT

      1.10pm EDT13:10

      The NFL has fined the Tennessee Titans $350,000 for violating protocols leading to the league’s first Covid-19 outbreak during the season, multiple outlets are reporting.
      The Titans had 24 people, including 13 players, test positive for the coronavirus between 24 September and 11 October. The outbreak led the NFL to postpone two Tennessee games and the rescheduling of a game against Pittsburgh from 4 October to today and the second against Buffalo from 11 October to 13 October.
      The league and its players association sent officials, including infectious disease experts, to Nashville where they reviewed video and interviewed players, coaches and other personnel.
      ESPN reports the NFL informed the Titans last week that their review had concluded and the organization would face a potential fine. Individuals would not be disciplined and there was no discussion of forfeiture of draft picks.

      12.35pm EDT12:35

      Archie Bland

      One of the more surprising headlines of the day comes from the Wall Street Journal in: Health Agency Halts Coronavirus Ad Campaign, Leaving Santa Claus in the Cold.
      The WSJ reports that the Trump administration offered Santa Claus performers a deal: if they agreed to promote a Covid-19 vaccine, they would get early access to it. The story says that performers playing Mrs Claus or elves would also have been included. But the plan has now been called off.
      The article continues:

      Ric Erwin, chairman of the Fraternal Order of Real Bearded Santas, called the news “extremely disappointing”, adding: “this was our greatest hope for Christmas 2020, and now it looks like it won’t happen.”

      You can read more of this belter at the Wall Street Journal (although it’s behind a paywall).

      12.08pm EDT12:08

      The US Senate has started day two of a rare weekend session to continue debate over the confirmation of federal appeals court judge Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court.
      Democrats have expressed outrage at the vacancy being filled so close to the election – in fact boycotting Thursday’s vote to advance her nomination to the full Senate – but the Republicans’ 53-37 majority in the upper chamber ensures they have the votes they need to approve her nomination and cement a 6-3 conservative majority on the high court for years to come.
      No supreme court nominee has ever been installed so close to a presidential election and, just four years ago, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and senator Lindsey Graham, who now chairs the judiciary committee, said that installing a nominee in an election year would be a shameful defiance of the will of voters.
      Barrett, 48, is expected to be confirmed Monday and quickly join the court.

      12.04pm EDT12:04

      More from Richard Luscombe…
      Joe Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Kate Bedingfield, was grilled on NBC’s Meet the Press about the Democrat nominee’s “light physical footprint”.
      To the backdrop of a graphic comparing Biden’s appearances since September in four key battleground states – North Carolina, Arizona, Florida and Pennsylvania – to Trump’s (the president leads 19-14), host Chuck Todd wanted to know why Biden was concentrating heavily on Georgia instead of more northerly swing states.
      The answer: Biden is “focused on maintaining as many paths to 270 electoral votes as we possibly can.” Bedingfield also pointed out that at a scheduled appearance in Warm Springs, Georgia, on Tuesday, Biden would deliver his closing arguments at a place “which obviously has historical significance in this country”.
      Warm Springs is the resort town where the 32nd president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, built his Little White House, a cottage he used while suffering from polio in the 1930s.
      “Vice-President Biden has visited all of these battleground states multiple times,” Bedingfield said. “He was in Pennsylvania yesterday, doing two events, along with Dr [Jill] Biden. So no, we have been very aggressively campaigning.
      “Here’s the difference between what we’re doing and what Donald Trump is doing, we’re doing it safely.”
      Bedingfield noted that the president’s rallies feature large, mostly maskless crowds with no social distancing.
      A new CBS poll, meanwhile, showed Biden tied with Trump in Georgia and holding narrow leads in other southern battlegrounds, including Florida and North Carolina.
      Todd also pressed Bedingfield on Biden’s comments at last week’s final debate about the oil industry. Why, he wondered, would oil workers in Texas or elsewhere support a candidate who supports a transition away from the industry at a risk to their jobs?
      “There is only one person in this country who Joe Biden thinks should lose his job and it’s Donald Trump,” she said.
      “Joe Biden … is not going to end the fossil fuel industry, he’s going to end subsidies for the oil industry. He believes your taxpayer dollars should go to education. Donald Trump believes they should go to Exxon. That’s a conversation we’re willing to have any day.”

      11.26am EDT11:26

      A CBS News/YouGov poll of three southern battleground states finds Joe Biden in a dead heat with Donald Trump in Georgia with slight edges in Florida (by two points) and North Carolina (by four).
      Some other key findings from CBS News:

      • Early voters in each told us they favored Joe Biden, but those who have not yet voted favor Donald Trump, setting up a key turnout test running now through Election Day for both parties.
      • Very different views on the coronavirus outbreak still shape the race in all these states. In all, most Biden voters are very concerned about getting it, and Trump’s voters, by comparison, are far less concerned. Biden also gets better marks overall on how he would handle the outbreak.
      • Biden voters are more likely to say the outbreak and a candidate’s personal character are major factors in their vote. For Trump voters, the economy and immigration are the biggest factors.
      • In splits among key demographic groups, Biden currently leads among White women with college degrees in Florida and North Carolina; and across all three states it’s shifts from 2016 that are helping Biden. In Georgia, White voters without college degrees – both men and women – tend to like how Trump handles himself personally and dislike Biden’s approach. Biden is cutting into Trump’s 2016 margins with seniors in Florida and Georgia, cutting Trump’s 2016 advantage in half. In North Carolina Biden has a two-point edge with seniors.

      Last week Trump was forced to play defense when he staged a prime-time rally in Georgia, which no Republican presidential candidate has lost since George HW Bush in 1992 – a far cry from his original designs on expanding the map into Democratic-leaning states. More

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      Nearly 60 million Americans cast early vote as record-shattering turnout expected

      by

      Their enthusiasm reflected in post boxes stuffed with mail-in ballots and by hours-long queues at voting sites across the country, by early Sunday almost 60 million Americans had cast a vote in the presidential election, even as the candidates scrambled to deliver their closing message more than a week before election day, 3 November.
      The vast numbers of early voters in the most consequential election in generations is fuelling what promises to be record-shattering turnout. Not since 1908 have more than 65% of eligible US voters actually exercised that right.
      Behind the eye-popping headline figures lie clues to why voters are so engaged, so early. Democrats hold a sizeable advantage in the early returns. The reason, analysts believe, is simply Donald Trump, and by extension his handling of the coronavirus pandemic that has infected 8.5 million people and killed 224,000.
      “The pandemic is part of it, particularly for older voters,” said Dr Larry Sabato, founder and director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “I’m pushing 70 myself, and it has to be a part of your calculations, we’re kind of vulnerable.
      “But to me, that doesn’t explain the lines. People really have bought into the understanding that if this isn’t the most important election we’ve ever had, it’s one of several. People are determined to express themselves and we all know why: Donald Trump. That includes his base: the cult is going to support the cult leader. But there are more, maybe quite a bit more, who want to end this nightmare. And that’s the way people put it. If you don’t like the word I’m sorry – that’s just the way it is.”
      [embedded content]
      More than one third of the votes already returned come from the three most populous states, California, Texas and Florida, according to the US Elections project, an independent data analysis by the University of Florida.
      California is staunchly Democrat, and its 55 electoral college votes are all but a lock for former vice-president Joe Biden. The race for the 38 votes in Texas is closer, but leaning strongly Republican.
      That leaves the swing state of Florida and its 29 electoral college votes as a glittering prize. So far, from 5.3m mail-in and in-person votes recorded, representing almost 40% of 14 million registered voters, Democrats hold an advantage of more than 7%, or around 400,000 votes.
      “It is our most mega, mega state,” Sabato said. “I like to put it that way, and there’s no way practically for Trump to get elected without Florida.”
      The president voted in Florida on Saturday.
      “If he loses there it will be obvious he’s going to lose,” Sabato said. “If Biden loses Florida, though, it is not the end for him. He has quite a number of other paths. [But] the problem with losing Florida is it is an indication that you’re likely not to do well in other states – we’re talking about Georgia, North Carolina, even parts of the midwest.”
      The Democrats’ lead in Florida appears to be amplified nationally, at least in the 19 states that release party affiliations with their statistics. In those states, registered Democrats have sent in more than 13m votes to Republicans’ 7.4m, with 6m votes from minor or no party affiliates making up the remainder.
      Across all states, the University of Florida reports, votes cast early amount to more than 42% of those from the entire 2016 election. In some places the figure is even higher, such as Hays county, Texas, where 73,277 early votes are several hundred more than the total four years ago.
      Sabato cautioned Republicans not to rely on the tradition of Democrats’ early voting advantages being wiped out when their own supporters turn out on election day.
      Trump “sure can win in the swing states”, he said, “Trump people who weren’t registered or didn’t vote the last time, they have spent four years identifying them. That’s been the hidden campaign that people haven’t talked about.
      “But you’re taking a tremendous chance when you put all your chips on the election day vote. Suppose there’s a hurricane barreling toward Florida. Almost certainly there will be really bad weather in at least a couple of swing states, you know, lots of things happen in life, and maybe the spike up in coronavirus will keep a lot of those older Republicans away on the day.”
      Michael McDonald, a professor of political science who maintains the University of Florida database, told the Guardian’s Fight to Vote project extraordinarily brisk early voting had handed Democrats a clear advantage, noting that the party’s supporters had not only submitted significantly larger numbers of ballot requests, but were also returning them at a higher rate than Republicans.
      Like Sabato, however, McDonald also urged caution.
      “The irony here is Democrats are actually doing Republicans a favour,” he said. “It should benefit Republicans who are trying to vote on election day that the Democrats have done them this favour of not standing in line in front of them.” More

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      A Joe Biden White House will have little time and less love for ‘Britain’s Trump’ | Andrew Rawnsley

      by

      When the long race for the White House ends, another begins: the sprint to be the first European leader to be granted an audience by the new US president. In 2016, Theresa May was distraught to have got a wooden spoon in the competition to put in an early congratulatory telephone call to Trump Tower. That made her even more neuralgic about beating a path to Washington ahead of her European rivals. Mrs May had to throw in the promise of a Trump state visit to the UK – I rather rudely called it “pimping out the Queen” – to ensure that she got to the White House first.
      This desperation can make British prime ministers look pathetically needy, but there is a reason why they set so much store by displays of proximity with the Oval Office. How important a prime minister is to the United States, the planet’s largest economy and most potent military force, sends a message about how much influence the UK wields in the world. So it is telling that Number 10 is resigned to the prospect that Boris Johnson will not be the first name on Joe Biden’s call sheet if he becomes the 46th president. Nor is there any expectation that Mr Johnson will be first in line when they hand out invitations to the White House. He has already quit a race UK prime ministers are usually pretty good at winning.
      “There is an intrinsic problem for Boris,” observes Sir Christopher Meyer, the UK’s ambassador in Washington during the presidencies of Bill Clinton and George W Bush. “The Democrats think Boris is a pea from the same pod as Trump.” Being “Britain’s Trump” goes down almost as poisonously as being Trump himself among many in Team Biden. They are bracketed together in the minds of Democrats not just because both are rule-breaking populists who have polarised their countries and trashed historic alliances. Likely members of a Biden administration remember examples of the Tory leader’s insultingly Trumpian behaviour. Ben Rhodes, who was deputy national security adviser when Mr Biden was vice-president to Barack Obama, has remarked: “I’m old enough to remember when Boris Johnson said Obama opposed Brexit because he was Kenyan.” A more recent inflammatory episode exposed a complete absence of thought in Number 10 about the man whom the polls suggest will be the next US president.
      One of the most essential things to know about Mr Biden – it would be on the first page if anyone wrote a book called Biden for Beginners – is that he is a Catholic who is extremely proud of his Irish ancestry. Mr Johnson was either blithe or ignorant about that when he declared that he was ready to break international law by dishonouring clauses concerning Ireland in the withdrawal agreement with the EU. Mr Biden was one of the voices in the chorus of American condemnation that the Johnson government was jeopardising the Good Friday agreement. “That was profoundly clumsy and stupid,” says Sir Chris. “It immediately ignited the Irish-American lobby in Washington, which is second in power only to the pro-Israeli lobby.”
      Mr Johnson can be quite adept at shape-shifting when he thinks it suits his interests. He was a liberal mayor of London before he became the face of the anti-immigrant Brexit campaign. Confronted with a Democrat in the White House, he may try to slough off his Trumpian skin and offer himself as a useful partner for an internationalist president. For his part, Mr Biden will say that America’s ties with the UK are important to him, if only because that is what all American presidents say. It is nevertheless set to start out as one of the frostiest relationships between Number 10 and the White House since Harold Wilson and Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s.
      Though Mr Biden has been a large figure in US politics for decades, one well-placed observer says that Number 10 is “absolutely clueless” about him and his key people. In the past, it has been usual for the Washington embassy to attach a diplomat to the campaigns of presidential candidates, the better to get to know their teams and likely priorities in office. Wary of any suggestion of outside interference in the US election, the Biden team banned meetings with foreign diplomats. Downing Street has found it hard to find other ways to establish connections. Previous Tory governments had good lines of communication to both parties in the US. This Brexiter-dominated cabinet has cultivated ties solely with Republicans. It was only very recently and very belatedly that Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, managed to get some time with Biden allies on Capitol Hill. If they were smarter, the Johnson government would also have paid a lot of attention to Mr Biden’s running mate, Kamala Harris, because she will be a 77-year-old’s heartbeat away from the presidency.
      Even if a Biden administration decides to let bygones be bygones, the Johnson government will still struggle to make itself relevant in Washington. After a Trump presidency that has massively strained America’s historic alliances while often fawning to authoritarians, a Biden presidency will try to reassert US leadership of the world’s democracies. A critical feature of that will be detraumatising the transatlantic relationship. At a recent Ditchley conference of foreign policy experts from America, Britain and elsewhere, one question that preoccupied the gathering was who would become Mr Biden’s “special friend” in Europe. Emmanuel Macron is very eager to secure that status, though others familiar with thinking among the Biden team believe that their highest priority will be re-establishing strong relations with Germany. Almost no one expects the UK to have preferred partnership status.
      After the huge distress to European leaders of enduring a US president who willed the breakup of the European Union, a Biden administration will revert to something much closer to America’s traditional post-1945 policy. Namely that US interests are best served by Europe being stable and cohesive. Having severed its central bond with its neighbours, the UK can no longer hope to offer itself to Washington as America’s bridge across the Atlantic.
      Searching for areas where the relationship could still be close, some emphasise “the hard security issues” – military co-operation, counter-terrorism and intelligence – where there are mutual interests that have historically transcended the personalities of leaders. “When the Americans are looking for military help, they ask who are our allies and what have they got?” says one senior Tory who thinks this still matters. But Johnson government officials sound rather desperate when they try to talk up the importance of the UK’s much-reduced military heft. Mr Biden is not planning any wars and, even if he were, the United States can act without the help of Britain.
      The biggest foreign policy challenge of the Biden presidency will be managing his country’s tense strategic competition with China while avoiding a deterioration into armed confrontation. Britain’s ability to be of use to Washington in that sphere is limited because our capacity to apply meaningful pressure on China is not high. The UK government has protested in vain about China’s treatment of Hong Kong.
      Downing Street also sounds as if it is clutching at very feeble straws when it suggests that there will be an opportunity to win favour next year when Britain hosts the UN climate change conference. Mr Biden is not exactly a summit novice and his team have clocked that Britain was mealymouthed when Mr Trump ripped up American commitments to tackling the climate crisis.
      There are compelling reasons why a change at the White House ought to unnerve Mr Johnson. The Trump presidency emboldens populist nationalists around the world by encouraging them to believe that they are part of an irresistibly triumphant global trend. Defeat for him will give his one term in office more the character of a freakish spasm and leave imitators looking like purveyors of an ideological style that is going out of fashion.
      During the Trump period, Mr Johnson has tried to lever influence with other leaders by presenting himself as the man who has the ear of, and can help to interpret, the White House wild man. “Boris Johnson sold himself as the Trump whisperer,” says Jonathan Powell, a diplomat in Washington before he became Tony Blair’s chief of staff. “Without Trump, what is the point of Johnson?” More existentially, the British may ask themselves where his policies have left this country other than looking alone in a dangerous world. Brexit has fractured the relationship with Europe, one pillar of the postwar foreign policy. Now it looks highly likely that the other pillar, a close relationship with the US, will be shuddering.
      • Andrew Rawnsley is Chief Political Commentator of the Observer More

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      Biden gains as suburban women and elderly voters look to dump Trump

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      Joe Biden’s hopes of reaching the White House could rest on two crucial demographic groups that appear to be deserting Donald Trump: elderly people and suburban women.
      They would join a broad coalition that includes strong support among African Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, the LGBTQ community and young people. With the gender gap potentially bigger than ever, the president appears more reliant than ever on white men.
      Little more than a week before election day, Biden enjoys a double-digit lead in almost every national poll and is ahead in the crucial battleground states. More than 52 million people have already voted, according to the US Elections Project.
      In the past four presidential elections, Republicans have led among the elderly by around 10 points. But about four in five Americans killed by the coronavirus were older than 65 and a majority of Americans say Trump has mishandled the pandemic.
      The president trails among elderly voters by more than 20 points, according to recent CNN and Wall Street Journal/NBC News polls. This swing could prove critical in states such as Arizona and Florida, which have a high number of retirees.
      “In terms of voting blocs, there are two that are absolutely dooming Donald Trump,” said Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota.
      “He won the senior vote by seven points in 2016; that was very important in Florida and a few other states. He’s now losing that bloc and the polls differ about how much, but the fact that he no longer has an advantage among seniors is really crippling for him.
      “And then he has so alienated suburban women that it’s put a whole number of states in play, including states you wouldn’t expect, like Georgia. This kind of macho presidency has gotten the ringing rejection by women, particularly educated women who are so tired of the 1950s.”
      The suburban revolt against Trump’s bigotry, hardline agenda and chaotic leadership was manifest in the 2018 midterm elections when Democrats gained 41 seats in the House of Representatives, the biggest such shift since the post-Watergate 1974 elections, and won the popular vote by 8.6%.
      Trump’s campaign to win back this constituency, variously known as “soccer moms”, “security moms” and “hockey moms”, has been anything but subtle. He has tried to tap racist fears of suburbs overrun by crime, violence and low-income housing. In one tweet, he promised to protect “the Suburban Housewives of America”. At a recent rally in Pennsylvania, he pleaded: “Suburban women, will you please like me? Remember? Hey, please, I saved your damn neighborhood, OK?”

      Polls suggest the plea is falling on deaf ears. Biden leads by 23 points among suburban women in swing states, according to the New York Times and Siena College, and by 19 points among suburban women overall, according to Pew Research. Pew also found that Hispanic women prefer Biden by 44 points and Black women go for the Democrat by a staggering 85 points.
      Andrea Moore, 45, a stay-at-home mom in suburban Wayne county, Michigan, voted for Trump in 2016 because she was tired of career politicians.
      “He was an unknown quantity, but now we know,” she told the Associated Press, explaining that she will not vote for the president again because of “a million little things” including his divisiveness, fearmongering and failed Covid-19 response.
      The trends were underlined this week by a national survey of 2,538 Americans by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) that showed Trump haemorrhaging support among the elderly and suburban women as well as another, less expected group: white Catholics.
      Only 38% of people aged 65 or older approve of Trump’s handling of the pandemic while 61% say they disapprove, the PRRI found. Among white college-educated women, seven in 10 disapprove of Trump’s handling of the pandemic, seven in 10 disapprove of his response to racial justice protests and a similar share believe he has encouraged white supremacists.
      There are also signs of erosion among religious conservatives, a bulwark of Trump’s base. PRRI found that while three in four (76%) white evangelical Protestants still approve of the job Trump is doing, only 52% of white mainline Protestants and 49% of white Catholics agree. Biden would be only the second Catholic president.
      Robert P Jones, chief executive and founder of PRRI, said: “White Catholics are a group that particularly in those swing rust belt states – Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Ohio – are really on the president’s must-win list. They’re also important in a place like Arizona. They are as big or bigger than white evangelicals in those states, so in terms of religious groups they are quite an important constituency.
      “White Catholics in 2016 were basically evenly divided between Trump and Hillary Clinton at this stage in the race. We have them at 54% Biden, 41% Trump, so that’s a sea change. This group is going to play an outsized role in Trump’s path to the electoral college and he’s not doing well with them at all.”
      Clinton was beaten in the electoral college after suffering heavy losses among non-college-educated white voters – a majority of the population in battleground states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – and failing to turn out African Americans at levels Barack Obama achieved. Current polling suggests Biden will do better on both accounts. More

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      Trump assaulted American democracy – here's how Democrats can save it | Robert Reich

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      Barring a miracle, Amy Coney Barrett will be confirmed on Monday as the ninth justice on the US supreme court.
      This is a travesty of democracy.
      The vote on Barrett’s confirmation will occur just eight days before election day. By contrast, the Senate didn’t even hold a hearing on Merrick Garland, who Barack Obama nominated almost a year before the end of his term. Majority leader Mitch McConnell argued at the time that any vote should wait “until we have a new president”.
      Barrett was nominated by a president who lost the popular vote by nearly 3m ballots, and who was impeached by the House of Representatives. When Barrett joins the court, five of the nine justices will have been appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote.
      The Republican senators who will vote for her represent 15 million fewer Americans than their Democratic colleagues.
      Once on the high court, Barrett will join five other reactionaries who together will be able to declare laws unconstitutional, for perhaps a generation.
      Barrett’s confirmation is the culmination of years in which a shrinking and increasingly conservative, rural and white segment of the US population has been imposing its will on the rest of America. They’ve been bankrolled by big business, seeking lower taxes and fewer regulations.
      In the event Joe Biden becomes president on 20 January and both houses of Congress come under control of the Democrats, they can reverse this trend. It may be the last chance – both for the Democrats and, more importantly, for American democracy.
      How?
      For starters, increase the size of the supreme court. The constitution says nothing about the number of justices. The court changed size seven times in its first 80 years, from as few as five justices under John Adams to 10 under Abraham Lincoln.
      Biden says if elected he’ll create a bipartisan commission to study a possible court overhaul “because it’s getting out of whack”. That’s fine, but he’ll need to move quickly. The window of opportunity could close by the 2022 midterm elections.
      Second, abolish the Senate filibuster. Under current rules, 60 votes are needed to enact legislation. This means that if Democrats win a bare majority there, Republicans could block any new legislation Biden hopes to pass.
      The filibuster could be ended with a rule change requiring 51 votes. There is growing support among Democrats for doing this if they gain that many seats. During the campaign, Biden acknowledged that the filibuster has become a negative force in government.
      The filibuster is not in the constitution either.
      The most ambitious structural reform would be to rebalance the Senate itself. For decades, rural states have been emptying as the US population has shifted to vast megalopolises. The result is a growing disparity in representation, especially of nonwhite voters.
      For example, both California, with a population of 40 million, and Wyoming, whose population is 579,000, get two senators. If population trends continue, by 2040 some 40% of Americans will live in just five states, and half of America will be represented by 18 Senators, the other half by 82.
      This distortion also skews the electoral college, because each state’s number of electors equals its total of senators and representatives. Hence, the recent presidents who have lost the popular vote.
      This growing imbalance can be remedied by creating more states representing a larger majority of Americans. At the least, statehood should be granted to Washington DC. And given that one out of eight Americans now lives in California – whose economy, if it were a separate country, would be the ninth-largest in the world – why not split it into a North and South California?
      The constitution is also silent on the number of states.
      Those who recoil from structural reforms such as the three I’ve outlined warn that Republicans will retaliate when they return to power. That’s rubbish. Republicans have already altered the ground rules. In 2016, they failed to win a majority of votes cast for the House, Senate or the presidency, yet secured control of all three.
      Barrett’s ascent is the latest illustration of how grotesque the power imbalance has become, and how it continues to entrench itself ever more deeply. If not reversed soon, it will be impossible to remedy.
      What’s at stake is not partisan politics. It is representative government. If Democrats get the opportunity, they must redress this growing imbalance – for the sake of democracy.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a columnist for Guardian US More

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      Obama campaigns for Biden in Florida as Trump heads to battleground Ohio – live coverage

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      Key events

      Show

      5.00pm EDT17:00
      Alaska’s Murkowski will confirm Barrett for supreme court

      3.55pm EDT15:55
      Obama speaks in Florida: slams Trump, says Biden made Obama himself “a better president”

      3.50pm EDT15:50
      Sanders in PA, Booker in NC

      3.33pm EDT15:33
      Harris laments “hunger crisis”

      2.33pm EDT14:33
      Biden on fracking – no ban

      2.00pm EDT14:00
      Fauci supports national mask mandate

      1.40pm EDT13:40
      Trump coronavirus adviser plays down importance of case numbers and testing

      Live feed

      Show

      5.53pm EDT17:53

      Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris is calling for an administration that is frank about racist police brutality in America.
      “There isn’t a Black man I know, be it a relative or friend, who has not had some sort of experience with police that’s been about an unreasonable stop, some sort of profiling or excessive force,” she said. More