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      Biden is far from perfect – but we should still take a moment to savour his victory | Suzanne Moore

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      There are many things Joe Biden is not. He is not young. He is not an anti-establishment peacenik. He is not unbeholden to huge, anonymous donors. He is not free of accusations of using male privilege to be gropey with women. He is neither a radical, nor exciting. He is not a brilliant orator. He is not Bernie Sanders. And on it goes: the disappointments pile up thick and fast.
      But he is not a loser – and he is not Donald Trump. So let us have a moment, however brief, of celebration.
      Is the left so downright miserable that it cannot accept winning if the winner is imperfect or even worse than Trump, as I have seen some Instagram revolutionaries claim? Can we not luxuriate in Trump’s ongoing golf strop while creepy Rudy Giuliani rummages around in a car park next to a sex shop for a so-called press conference? Can we not speculate that Melania Trump already has the lawyers in? That pre-nup won’t go to waste.
      The left is so accustomed to losing that a strange phenomenon has occurred: we have become sore winners. Biden did not win by enough, the complaints go, nor did he immediately acknowledge the groundwork by the left, nor the part played by the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in his victory. Biden will be hamstrung, as the Democrats are unlikely to take control of the Senate, which hangs on the traditionally Republican vote in Georgia. The normality that Biden wants to restore is profoundly unequal … and on it goes.
      Then there is Kamala Harris, who is also not good enough, apparently, because of her former role as a prosecutor, in which she ended up incarcerating a lot of black men. Yet here she is telling us that she is the first – but not the last – woman of colour to be vice-president. If that doesn’t gladden your heart, I don’t know what will.
      God knows what damage Trump will do in the next months, assuming it is illegal to Taser him during his terrible swing and cart him off in a buggy. I imagine there will be lots of pardons for those still bobbing about in the cesspit. He is friendless, in denial and in enormous debt, apparently rejecting the advice of family members to concede. It is said that he screamed at Rupert Murdoch when Fox News called Arizona for Biden. Covid death figures mean nothing, ratings everything. His interior landscape seems to be a void.
      Seventy million votes for Trump and these people are not going away – and don’t we know it?
      Shops and offices are boarded up. The armed militias that Trump tells to stand by are still there. Many remain fearful. It strikes me that hope and fear are more intimately connected than we acknowledge. Many of us were afraid to hope for a Biden win because, lately, hopes have been dashed repeatedly. Yet, as the composer Ernest Bloch said: “Hope can learn and become smarter through damaging experience, but it can never be driven off course.” Hope, he said, is “characteristically daring”.
      Biden has a huge mandate. In terms of the environment, surely the most important issue, he has room for manoeuvre: he can develop Barack Obama’s clean power plan; he can rejoin international accords; he can, in short, act as if the climate emergency is real. This is no small thing.
      This election emphasised the gulf between the urban and rural populations of the US. The gulf is huge because the US is huge. I have read far too many leftist takes by those for whom New York, San Francisco and Washington DC constitute the US. Alabama, Montana, Kentucky, anyone?
      The coastal elites are as ignorant of their own country as Europeans are. One of the shocks about the US is that the media remains local, rather than national. Trump worked this well, utilising what the historian Timothy Snyder has called “sadopopulism”, in which the state is not about governing, but about making others suffer more – hence the ever-expanding list of enemies, from Mexican “rapists” to journalists to the post office.
      Covid exacerbated this. Mask wearers and people who told the truth about the disease were to be added to the long list of un-Americans. The delusion that “vulnerability is for losers” penetrated the psyches of those who were losing. The fantasy of winning back jobs is more appealing than the truth that some jobs can’t be won back. Trump voters remind me of something an MP in a leave constituency told me about Brexit: “You have to understand, it’s the first time they have been on the winning side in their lives.”
      It is easy enough to mock that, but I wouldn’t. It is also easy enough to say Biden is not the revolution. Now that Trump is a gouged-out egomaniac, his narcissism has metastasised to many parts of the US, where the malignancy grows.
      None of this easy, but a little light has got in. Celebrate the feeling while it lasts. The virus continues. Almost half of the US supports Trump, but something is changing. Take a deep breath. Inhale the hope, while you can.
      Suzanne Moore is a Guardian columnist More

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      Who will tell Trump to go? Not Melania or Jared, reports say

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      As Donald Trump spent Sunday morning visiting one of his golf clubs and doubling down on bogus election fraud claims, conflicting reports emerged about whether the president’s family and top advisers were advising him to admit defeat.
      The disparate reports likely reflected a White House in deep turmoil, some officials digesting the scale of their defeat in the presidential election but others, especially Trump himself, cling to a false narrative that the election was somehow stolen.
      Citing two sources, CNN reported that Jared Kushner, Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, had spoken to him about conceding. Another source told CNN Trump’s wife, Melania, told him that it was time to accept Joe Biden’s victory.
      Melania Trump was then yet to make a public statement on the election but had reportedly voiced her opinion in private.
      “She has offered it, as she often does,” CNN reported this source as saying.
      Later on Sunday she tweeted support for her husband, saying: “The American people deserve fair elections. Every legal – not illegal – vote should be counted.”
      Shortly after noon, the New York Times said a White House official disputed CNN’s reporting on Kushner. This official claimed that Kushner had advised Trump to seek “legal remedies”.
      Axios also reported on Kushner’s counsel. “A second source close to Kushner confirmed he had not advised Trump to concede,” the news site said.
      Any advice would appear to have had little impact on Trump himself, who continued to tweet false and baseless allegations of electoral fraud and had yet to call Biden to concede the race, a longstanding tradition in US politics. There was little sign that the president’s two oldest sons, Eric and Don Jr, were advising him to concede.
      Both the Times and Axios described behind-the-scenes conversations.
      According to the Times, White House advisers and staffers convened on Saturday at Trump campaign headquarters. After campaign officials explained that any legal strategy likely would not change election results, Kushner asked some to explain this to Trump. When they asked Kushner if he should also be part of this conversation, Kushner reportedly said he would participate in subsequent discussions.
      According to Axios, a source claimed there were some uncomfortable conversations in Trump’s circle, and that the majority accepted that Biden had won.
      A spokeswoman for Melania Trump did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.
      Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has emphatically pushed for legal intervention. CNN also reported that White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, who tested positive for Covid-19 this week, had discussed next moves with Trump’s legal team.
      Regardless of Trump’s view of the outcome, there has been no communication between the White House and Biden’s camp.
      Biden senior adviser Symone Sanders told CNN’s State of the Union that while “a number of Republicans from the Hill have reached out … I don’t believe anyone from the White House has.” More

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      'Thank you for all the love': Melania Trump returns to campaign after Covid diagnosis

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      Melania Trump returned to the campaign trail on Tuesday afternoon, a week before election day and nearly a month after her positive test for coronavirus.The first lady, a reluctant campaigner at the best of times, postponed a planned return last week, citing a “lingering cough” and an abundance of caution. She has not appeared at a Trump rally since the president kicked off his re-election campaign in Florida in June 2019. But on Tuesday she headed for the suburbs of Philadelphia, for an event aimed at appealing to female voters.Pennsylvania, one of the post-industrial Democratic strongholds which Donald Trump won from Hillary Clinton in 2016, is emerging as perhaps the key battleground state in 2020. Joe Biden leads polling there by more than five points, according to the fivethirtyeight.com average, but results have narrowed as the president has returned to the state again and again.Speaking in Atglen, the first lady told a crowd: “Thank you for the all the love you gave us when our family was diagnosed with Covid-19. We are feeling so much better now thanks to healthy living and some of the amazing therapeutic options available in our country.”On Monday, Donald Trump staged rallies in Allentown, Lititz and Martinsburg. Melania Trump’s event on Tuesday was moderated by the former White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway.The president is seeking to make up ground with women, particularly in suburban areas, who have deserted him in droves. At one recent rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Donald Trump pleaded: “Suburban women, will you please like me? Remember? Hey, please, I saved your damn neighborhood, OK?”The first lady appeared with her husband at the White House on Sunday, for a Halloween celebration, and on Monday night, for a ceremony marking the conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett’s controversial confirmation to the supreme court.Melania Trump in Pennsylvania: “Thank you for the all the love you gave us when our family was diagnosed with COVID-19. We are feeling so much better now thanks to healthy living and some of the amazing therapeutic options available in our country.” https://t.co/dlmHTmd8jP pic.twitter.com/w5N2oXBrLd— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) October 27, 2020
      A previous event for Barrett, on 26 September, has been called a “super-spreader event”, given that coronavirus prevention measures such as mask-wearing and social distancing were not observed and the president, first lady, senior advisers and leading Republicans all fell sick. Melania Trump’s son, Barron, also contracted the virus.Announcing her recovery, Melania Trump said she had been “very fortunate as my diagnosis came with minimal symptoms, though they hit me all at once and it seemed to be a rollercoaster of symptoms in the days after. I experienced body aches, a cough and headaches, and felt extremely tired most of the time.”In contrast to her husband, who was hospitalised and received treatment not available to the public, the first lady said she “chose to go a more natural route in terms of medicine, opting more for vitamins and healthy food”.The Trump administration has been strongly criticised for continuing to stage campaign events with minimal Covid mitigation measures, even as cases surge across the country and as an outbreak was detected among senior aides to Mike Pence, the vice-president.Pennsylvania is currently seeing rising case numbers, particularly around Philadelphia. More than 8.6m cases have been recorded in the US as a whole, and nearly 226,000 deaths. More

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      Melania Trump discusses Stormy Daniels in secretly recorded tapes

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      Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, a New York socialite turned author of a tell-all book about her relationship with Melania Trump, has released another recording of America’s first lady in embarrassingly candid conversation, this time discussing an adult film star accused of an affair with her husband.On the recording Melania Trump discusses Stormy Daniels, who the first lady calls “the porn hooker”. Wolkoff released the recording on Mea Culpa, a podcast presented by Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer.Cohen has also written a tell-all but Wolkoff’s book, Melania & Me, has perhaps become more of a headache for the White House, as the author releases recordings of conversations with the first lady that she says she made in self-defence.Wolkoff left the White House amid investigations of fundraising for the inauguration. In February 2018, the New York Times reported that from $107m raised, a company started by Wolkoff received nearly $26m. Wolkoff reportedly banked $500,000. The Times also reported that a government watchdog accused the inaugural committee of “fiscal mismanagement at its worst”.Wolkoff, who denies wrongdoing, says Melania Trump refused to defend her.Speaking to Cohen, Wolkoff said she had “needed to let a reporter listen to the tapes, because [the White House] made sure that people didn’t believe what I was saying … once I had already been severed and accused of criminal activity.”“The White House created a narrative,” she added, “because I didn’t follow along with the one they wanted.” That narrative, she said, was that the Trumps did not know about fundraising for the inaugural and any alleged improprieties.“Nothing took place without Donald’s approval,” Wolkoff told Cohen. “Nothing took place without Melania knowing.”Midway through the hour-long interview, Wolkoff played a snatch of tape in which the first lady complained about a Vogue photoshoot from 2018.“Go Google and read it,” the first lady says. “Annie Leibovitz shot the porn hooker, and she will be [in] one of the issues, September or October.”“What do you mean?” Wolkoff asks.“Stormy,” Trump says.Donald Trump denies an affair with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. But Cohen orchestrated a hush money payment in the case, an act that contributed to his three-year prison sentence arising from the work of special counsel Robert Mueller.“Shut the fuck up,” Wolkoff responds on the tape. “For what?”“It was yesterday it came up,” Melania Trump says. “For Vogue. It will be in Vogue. Annie Leibovitz shot her.”Leibovitz photographed Daniels and her then attorney, Michael Avenatti, for an August 2018 story entitled Stormy Daniels Isn’t Backing Down.In her book, Wolkoff writes of meeting the then Melania Knauss at the Vogue offices in New York in 2003.Speaking to Cohen, she said: “I actually opened the door for her while I was working at Vogue, and I think I was more of an attraction to Melania and Donald than they were for me. Because what were they doing for me? It wasn’t as if I needed anything from them. I actually saw Melania as this nice, sweet, young, striving model.”Cohen also asked Wolkoff about how the first lady reacted to reports of her husband’s affairs, such as with Daniels, which the model says happened shortly after the birth of Melania’s son, Barron.“She told me,” Wolkoff said, “that Donald had to be prepared for his whole life to be open to the media, to the world if he won [the presidency]. And in that moment I thought to myself, ‘And so do you.’”Last week, the Trumps both announced they had contracted the coronavirus. On the same night, Wolkoff provided to CNN a recording of the first lady complaining about having to supervise White House decorations (“Who gives a fuck about the Christmas stuff?) and being criticized over her husband’s policy of separating migrant families (“Give me a fucking break”). More

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      Trump in quarantine as Covid diagnosis throws US into fresh upheaval

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      America’s leadership has been plunged into extraordinary uncertainty after Donald Trump tested positive for the coronavirus, raising questions over how far the infection has penetrated the heart of government.The US president continued to carry out his duties under quarantine from the White House residence on Friday and was showing “mild symptoms” of Covid-19, an official said. But his election campaigning was on hold.The Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden, said late Friday afternoon that he had tested negative for the virus. He continued on the campaign trail, making a speech in Grand Rapids, Michigan, while wearing a mask and advocating mask-wearing, something the president has conspicuously equivocated on.Biden had earlier tweeted good wishes to Donald and Melania Trump and in his speech, added: “My wife Jill and I pray they’ll make a quick and full recovery. This is not a matter of politics. It’s a bracing reminder to all of us we have to take this virus seriously.”The virus can take several days to manifest fully and Trump, aged 74 and clinically obese, is medically vulnerable. Should he be incapacitated, Mike Pence, the vice-president, who has tested negative, would take over. A presidential election takes place on 3 November.Trump, who has spent months defying science and downplaying the threat of a virus that has killed more than 205,000 Americans, was also facing criticism for pressing ahead with a campaign fundraising event after learning that a senior aide, Hope Hicks, had tested positive.One attendee said the president came into contact with about 100 people at the fundraiser in Bedminster, New Jersey, on Thursday and “seemed lethargic”, the New York Times reported.Trump has travelled extensively in recent days, to a presidential debate, a campaign rally and the fundraiser. A scramble was under way to test those who have been with him at close quarters. The first lady, Melania Trump, also tested positive and tweeted: “I have mild symptoms but overall feeling good. I am looking forward to a speedy recovery.”On Friday, the Utah senator Mike Lee, who attended the White House event last Saturday where Trump nominated Amy Coney Barrett for the supreme court, also said he had tested positive.The White House moved to assuage fears of a constitutional and national security crisis. “The president does have mild symptoms and as we look to try to make sure that not only his health and safety and welfare is good, we continue to look at that for all of the American people,” Mark Meadows, the chief of staff, told reporters.“He continues to be not only in good spirits but very energetic. We’ve talked a number of times this morning, I’ve got the five or six things he tasked me to do, like I do every single morning and he is certainly wanting to make sure we stay engaged.”Meadows, not wearing a face mask, said: “The American people can rest assured that we have a president that is not only on the job, will remain on the job, and I’m optimistic that he’ll have a very quick and speedy recovery.” More