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The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, held a press conference on Capitol Hill, calling on Republican lawmakers to accept the results of the presidential election.
Pelosi emphasised the need to pass another coronavirus relief bill, saying: ‘Stop the circus and get to work on what really matters to the American people’
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says the Democrats have held the majority in the House of Representatives as counting continues in the US election. Pelosi says campaigning on healthcare helped the Democrats retain their majority, with their message amplified during the coronavirus pandemic. ‘Our purpose in this race was to win so that we could protect the Affordable Care Act and that we could crush the virus,’ she says
US election 2020 live updates: Biden takes early lead over Trump as millions of votes still being counted More
Marjorie Taylor Greene has become the first supporter of the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory to win a US House seat after AP declared her the winner in Georgia’s 14th congressional district. The future congresswoman has previously voiced support for QAnon, a baseless conspiracy theory rooted in antisemitic tropes whose followers believe Donald Trump is secretly fighting against a cabal of Democratic politicians, billionaires and celebrities engaged in child trafficking. In a video shared on social media, Taylor Greene promised to stand up to Nancy Pelosi, declaring that the country was never meant to be a socialist nation
QAnon supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene wins seat in US House
US election 2020 live updates: follow the latest news, results and reaction More
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As a young Texan I feel like a political outsider everywhere
Where do I sit between the rampant, full-throated Trump supporters and those who care about anything at all? More
Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney released an extraordinary statement on Tuesday, decrying a political scene he said “has moved away from spirited debate to a vile, vituperative, hate-filled morass, that is unbecoming of any free nation”.“The world is watching America with abject horror,” he added.The presidential election is on 3 November. Donald Trump, the incumbent, trails challenger Joe Biden by double digits in many national polls and by smaller but significant margins in battleground states.On Tuesday morning, Trump’s Twitter feed was as usual filled with abuse of Biden and other presidential hate figures. Romney, a Utah senator who was the 2012 Republican nominee for president, decried such attacks on Biden, his running mate Kamala Harris, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, recently the subject of an alleged kidnap plot by anti-government domestic terrorists.But Romney also sought to blame both sides, saying: “Pelosi tears up the president’s State of the Union speech on national television. Keith Olbermann calls the president a terrorist.”Why Romney felt it necessary to single out Olbermann, a former MSNBC and ESPN host and GQ columnist who campaigns online to save stray dogs, was not immediately clear.Romney tweeted his statement under the title “My thoughts on the current state of our politics”.“I have stayed quiet,” he said, “with the approach of the election.”In fact the senator has spoken out on a range of issues recently, prominent among them Trump’s hugely controversial attempt to ram his nominee Amy Coney Barrett on to the supreme court so close to election day, a key cause of bitter partisan debate.Claiming the US was a “centre-right” country, a position not supported by polling on key issues before the court including healthcare and abortion rights, Romney has said he supports the move to establish a 6-3 conservative majority.“But I’m troubled by our politics,” the sole Republican to vote to impeach Trump added in his statement.“The president calls the Democratic vice-presidential candidate ‘a monster’. He repeatedly labels the Speaker of the House ‘crazy’. He calls for the justice department to put the prior president in jail. He attacks the governor of Michigan on the very day a plot is discovered to kidnap her.“Democrats launch blistering attacks of their own, though their presidential nominee refuses to stoop as low as others.”The “media”, Romney said in a statement which he released to the media, “on the left and right, amplify, all of it.“The rabid attacks kindle the conspiracy mongers and the haters who take the small and predictable step from intemperate word to dangerous action. The world is watching America with abject horror.”Romney also said: “More consequently, our children are watching. Many Americans are frightened for our country, so divided, so angry, so mean, so violent. It is time to lower the heat.“The leaders must tone it down, leaders from the top and leaders of all stripes. Parents, bosses, reporters, columnists, professors, union chiefs, everyone. The consequence of the crescendo of anger leads to a very bad place. No sane person can want that.” More
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Nancy Pelosi has announced that the House will invoke the 25th amendment, which gives Congress power to evaluate the health and stability of US presidents in conducting the duties of their office.
Although the amendment enables the House Speaker to create a commission to review the president’s fitness for office, the House of Representatives would not be able to remove Donald Trump from office without the agreement of the vice-president, Mike Pence, and members of the cabinet.
Pelosi insisted the proposed commission was not about Trump, but said of the president: ‘He is under medication. Any of us who is under medication of that seriousness is in an altered state.’
Trump outraged by Democrats’ plan to assess president’s fitness to serve
Trump unlikely to travel for rally while Pelosi says medication has him ‘in an altered state’ – live
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Bipartisan commission would gauge president’s capability
Nancy Pelosi insists proposal is not about Trump
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Pelosi says Trump’s Covid medication has him ‘in an altered state’ – video
Democrats provoked an angry tirade from Donald Trump on Friday by proposing a congressional commission to assess whether US presidents are capable of performing their duties or should be removed from office.
The gambit came a week after Trump was flown to a military hospital for treatment for coronavirus and 25 days before an election. The president returned to the White House on Monday but has caused concern with erratic behaviour.
“This is not about President Trump. He will face the judgment of the voters but he shows the need for us to create a process for future presidents,” Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House of Representatives, told a press conference in which she also took a swipe at the British prime minister, Boris Johnson.
But the timing was impossible to ignore as Trump has continued to give rambling TV interviews, tweet false and contradictory statements and potentially endanger his own White House staff by defying public health guidance.
The president tweeted in response: “Crazy Nancy Pelosi is looking at the 25th Amendment in order to replace Joe Biden with Kamala Harris. The Dems want that to happen fast because Sleepy Joe is out of it!!!”
The 25th amendment to the US constitution provides the procedure for the vice-president to take over the duties of president if he or she dies or resigns or it is determined that he or she cannot fulfill the functions of the office.
The Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland, introducing the legislation on Friday, said: “The 25th amendment is all about the stability of the presidency and the continuity of the office.
“Now, it’s never been necessary, but the authors of the 25th amendment thought it essential in the nuclear age to have a safety valve option and, as they often said, we have 535 members of Congress but we only have one president.”
He added: “In the age of Covid-19, which has killed more than 210,000 Americans and now ravaged the White House staff, the wisdom of the 25th amendment is clear. What happens if a president – any president – ends up in a coma or on a ventilator and has made no provisions for the temporary transfer of power? This situation is what demands action.”
This panel would be known as the Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of Office. Raskin, a constitutional law professor, said it would be bipartisan and consist of 17 members, including medical personnel, and could only act in concert with the vice-president.
Asked about the timing of the bill, Raskin explained “this situation has focused everyone’s mind” on the 25th amendment.
Pelosi repeated her insistence that it did not apply to Trump: “Again, this isn’t about any judgment anybody has about somebody’s behaviour. It isn’t about any of us making a decision as to whether the 25th amendment should be invoked. That’s totally not the point. That’s not up to us.”
Invoking the 25th amendment would require the support of Vice-President Mike Pence and members of Trump’s cabinet. There has been no hint that this is imminent.
A reporter asked Pelosi if Johnson was an example of someone whose capacity to govern was reduced by coronavirus. She replied: “I have no idea. Nor do I have of President Trump.
“I just said clearly, he is under medication. Any of us who is under medication of that seriousness is in an altered state. He has bragged about the medication he has taken. And again, there are articles by medical professionals saying, as was said earlier, this could have an impact on judgment.”
She then made a surprise attack on the UK’s efforts to create a vaccine, describing the US Food and Drug Administration’s “very stringent” rules for clinical trials and approval. “My concern is that the UK’s system for that kind of judgment is not on a par with ours in the United States. So if Boris Johnson decides he’s going to approve a drug and this president embraces that, that’s the concern I have about any similarity between the two.”
The initiative on the 25th amendment was not without political risks for Democrats as Trump’s allies sought to portray it as a power grab ahead of the election. Josh Holmes, former chief of staff and campaign manager for Senate majority leader, the Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell, tweeted: “Every time I think our goose is cooked, Nancy Pelosi grabs the microphone and I say to myself, we still have a shot.”
Trump was flown to a military hospital on 2 October after testing positive for Covid-19. He spent three nights there receiving a menu of treatments before his doctors said he was well enough to be discharged. He returned to the White House and immediately removed his face mask, provoking criticism.
Since then his conduct has raised concerns, even by the turbulent standards of the Trump presidency. He suddenly called off negotiations with Congress over an economic stimulus package, taking his Republican allies by surprise, but then performed an equally jarring U-turn. And boasted about being a “perfect physical specimen” and “extremely young” in another Fox phone interview.
Both Trump’s doctors and White House officials still refuse to say when the president received his last negative test, raising questions over who he might have infected.
Trump floated the idea that he might travel to a rally on Saturday in Florida, but the administration indicated on Friday morning that this was unlikely.
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