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      Obama hails arrival of a more 'caring government' as memoir launches – video

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      In an interview marking the launch of his memoir A Promised Land, Barack Obama tells Oprah Winfrey that the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will help lead the US back to the ‘competent, caring government we so badly need’. 
      He lamented the standard of governance over the past four years, saying Biden and Harris will ‘level set’ and show that the presidency will not label journalists ‘enemies of the state’ or ‘routinely lie’  
      A Promised Land by Barack Obama review – memoir of a president
      Obama scolds ‘petulant’ Trump but reveals conservative sympathies More

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      ‘We should be thankful to him’: why some Muslim voters stood by Trump

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      Dr Khalid Khan is an internal medicine physician in Houston, Texas. Even in the face of a pandemic that has cost almost a quarter of a million American lives, and an administration that often seemed to demonize Islam, the doctor and self-proclaimed devout Muslim cast his ballot for Donald Trump.“When you eat a dish, you might not like every ingredient. But you like the whole dish. We should take the good and leave the bad,” Khan said, comparing the US president to a mediocre meal.Trump spent much of his presidency pushing anti-Muslim policies. Trump’s travel ban that targeted mainly Muslim countries in 2017 sparked outrage not just from American Muslims but from Senator Bernie Sanders; the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer; and the then US senator for California and now the vice-president-elect, Kamala Harris.“Make no mistake – this is a Muslim ban. Broad-brush discrimination against refugees and immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, most of whom are women and children runs counter to our national security interests, and will likely be used as a terrorist recruitment tool,” Harris said at the time.But despite Trump’s policies against the religious group, some Muslims like Khan, still voted for him. In fact, the margin between Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden among Muslims was closer than experts predicted, revealing Muslim voters are not a monolithic bloc and can be courted by Republicans, even when apparently targeted by their policies.We should take the good and leave the badA survey conducted by the Associated Press revealed that while the majority of Muslims interviewed voted for the president-elect, 35% said they voted for Trump. That percentage was higher than the results from an exit poll conducted by the Council on American Islamic Relations, or Cair, that counted 18% of Muslim votes going for Trump.Though Muslims account for less than 1% of the total US electorate, in places like Michigan, these voters can potentially be key to winning a state in a tight election battle, as happened in 2016 and again in 2020.Exit polls can be notoriously misleading due to a number of factors such as the time the poll was conducted and whether or not a voter is telling the truth about if and who they voted for. But Trump-voting Muslims who spoke to the Guardian revealed a wide variety of reasons for backing a president who had termed their own religious group “a massive problem”.Even as the United States leads in coronavirus case count and number of deaths, Khan said he believed Trump handled the pandemic as best he could, but wished he would advise Americans to wear a mask more.“As a physician, if we took everything a patient said out of their mouth, we would never be able to diagnose them,” Khan said. “Anybody in his place would have done the same. But I don’t believe we should reject him over that. He is lacking in really making people wear a mask.”Khan’s wife, Annette, a nurse and a white Christian convert to Islam, said she believed her husband’s support for Trump was valid.“I do acknowledge that during his presidency he said some things that would be perceived as anti-Muslim. I believe it was out of ignorance,” Annette Khan said. “His lack of dealings with Muslims and lack of knowledge are the cause. When he banned Muslims from coming into the country he was referring to those who were already established by the Obama administration as being terrorist-harboring countries. Not all Muslim countries.”On the heels of the newly appointed supreme court justice Amy Coney Barrett, abortion remains a hot topic and a key issue for faith-based voters. Annette Khan credits her social conservative views on abortion and sexuality to her faith as well and sees them reflected in the Republican party under Trump.“The Republican party is anti-abortion, and anti-gay marriage, which honestly is an oxymoron. For gay marriage does not exist for conservative and fundamental people of faith groups, regardless of their affiliation, be they Christians, Jews or Muslims. This is consistent with Islamic beliefs,” she said.Salman Razzaqi is a Minnesota native that now lives in Houston. Razzaqi, a proud Indian American Muslim, voted for Trump. But his reasons for doing so are not all based on his religion.I wish 95% of people voted for Trump. He’s the one who harmed Muslims the least“Shame on us for bringing our religion and ethnicity into this. I wish 95% of people voted for Trump. He’s the one who harmed Muslims the least,” Razzaqi said, citing Obama’s interventionist history in the Middle East – an important issue for many Muslim voters.“They [Democrats] always start a war. [Obama] destroyed Libya. He destroyed Syria. He started a war in Sudan. He started a war in Yemen. Last eight months, there was not one bombing in Iraq. There was not one drone attack in Pakistan in four years. Syria is much better now than it was four years ago. Libya was left alone,” Razzaqi said. “He is an angel compared to Obama and Bush. We should be thankful to him.”While it’s true that the Obama administration carried out 1,878 drone strikes predominantly in the Middle East, Trump has repealed an Obama era rule that mandated the release of data on drone strikes and resulting deaths in 2019.Razzaqi said he voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, but he wasn’t always a fan of the Republican party.“Obama came and I liked him a lot. Very humble, very nice guy, but he just started handing out money,” Razzaqi said. “I’ve always been a Democrat but I realize that they’re spoiling their own people and destroying American values that require you to get up and go and work and make your earning.”Razzaqi makes his living by renting out and managing his properties. When asked if he would be affected by Biden’s plan to tax those making over $400,000 annually, he said he would. Like many who voted for Trump, Razzaqi sees the president as a “shrewd businessman” and Democrats as too generous on welfare issues.“He’s not a seasoned politician. He’s a borderline crook and knows how to mend the laws and play the IRS. Making money in America is not a problem. Increasing wealth is not a problem,” Razzaqi said. “Running a country is a business.”Razzaqi acknowledged Trump’s Muslim ban but chalked it up to a lack of self-restraint.“He’s got the biggest mouth. That’s the biggest problem,” Razzaqi said. “If he had the etiquette, he would be remembered as the best president ever.”While Razzaqi ardently supports Trump, he believes Biden has fairly won the election, despite Trump’s false and unfounded claims that he lost due to fraudulent voting,“I think [Trump] lost the election,” Razzaqi said. “He should concede and walk away.” More

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      Will Trump’s refusal to concede help his base turn out in Georgia’s runoffs?

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      Donald Trump’s refusal to admit defeat in the 2020 presidential election won’t stop President-elect Joe Biden from taking office in January. But it is having a lasting and divisive impact on the American electorate and that might be exactly what Republicans have in mind as they gear up for a Democratic White House.Biden has easily surpassed the 270 electoral vote threshold needed to win the the presidency and he has won millions more raw votes than Trump. But Trump has refused to concede and while he has publicly – and baselessly – argued that the election results show widespread voter fraud favoring Democrats, the president has also reportedly queried advisers about additional ways to stall or stop his departure from office.Those options are increasingly unlikely yet Trump’s campaign team has also continued to file lawsuits and recounts in key states challenging how the vote-counting process happened. Similarly those lawsuits have been unsuccessful.But other political strategists and veterans of transitions see another incentive: keeping Republican voters energized for upcoming Senate elections in Georgia, which could decide which party controls the Senate in 2021.That thinking goes that if voters are still paying attention to politics through November and December instead of taking a break because major elections have been decided, they are more likely to donate and come out to vote in Georgia (if they live there).That is vital in that keeping control of the Senate will give Republicans a powerful weapon to hobble Biden, frustrating his policy agenda and even limiting who he can pick for his cabinet posts.The strategy – and the attendant creation of a powerful myth of a stolen election – could also serve to keep many Republican voters motivated in midterm elections in 2022 and eventually the next presidential election in 2024. It could help Republican aims of reducing the Democrats to a single term in the White House in which they will be unable to achieve major policies, especially if Republicans continue to win more House seats.This refusal to accept Biden’s victory to varying degrees has sparked a high level of concern among veterans of past presidential transitions.“I think that there’s some truth to that and there’s some truth to defending for the sake of defending it in order to, again, rally this portion of the base that are the diehards, which I think is a minority but it’s an important minority to the party,” said Beth Noveck, who served on the transition team for Barack Obama.“So what all of this means about the future of the Republican party and the direction it will take and the role Trump will play and the cult of personality, it’s a very calculated political move to keep the base energized and demonstrate the kind of ‘pitched battle’ mentality of the other guy is the enemy is to maintain that sort of, frankly, rather fascist position.”But some Republicans worry that the larger Republican universe focusing on arguing that the election is flawed could actually backfire in Georgia. They fear it could even depress Republican turnout in Georgia as voters might wonder ‘If that election wasn’t legitimate, why should the Georgia elections be different?’ and ultimately not come out to match a highly enthusiastic Democratic voter base.At the same time, other Republicans see Trump’s loss and the opportunity to reinforce Republican numbers in Congress as a motivator for voters.“The last four years the singular message for Democrats has largely been around President Trump and when he’s gone how much of a motivator is that for him? And while Georgia may have delivered an electoral victory to Biden it’s by such a narrow margin I don’t think that anyone can buy into the idea that these voters are also wanting to give Biden a blank checkbook by giving him both the House and the Senate,” said Republican strategist Tim Cameron.Cameron added that for Democrats, “the last four years their rallying cry has been Trump and Russia stole this election from them and subsequently we’ve seen record-level turnouts in 2018 and 2020 and I don’t know why why we expect this to be any different for Republicans now that Biden’s president. If anything it may lead to record levels of Republican turnout in 2022. It’s too soon to say that but I just wouldn’t discount this.”There are signs that Trump’s quixotic arguments against the election results are dividing the country, creating a mass of people who see the election of Biden as illegitimate even as millions of Democrats celebrate his win.A recent Politico/Morning Consult poll found that 70% of Republicans don’t feel the election was free and fair. Only a few Republican lawmakers have openly acknowledged Biden as the legitimate victor out of the presidential election, most have either said that the outcome of the election is still unclear or that Trump is within his rights to wait until every last vote is counted, including the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, the highest-ranking Republican in the chamber.Here’s how this must work in our great country: Every legal vote should be counted. Any illegally-submitted ballots must not. All sides must get to observe the process. And the courts are here to apply the laws & resolve disputes.That’s how Americans’ votes decide the result.— Leader McConnell (@senatemajldr) November 6, 2020
      The Republican National Committee, the main political arm for the president, has been encouraging these arguments as well. RNC talking points obtained by the Guardian urge supporters to argue that “The fight is not over. President Trump will continue to fight for us, and we will continue to fight for him” and “allowing these recounts and lawsuits to run their course will ensure that all Americans can be confident of the results of the election”. More

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      Trump 'considered striking Iran's nuclear sites' after election loss

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      Donald Trump asked top aides last week about the possibility of striking Iran’s nuclear facilities in the coming weeks, according to a New York Times report.
      During a meeting at the Oval Office on Thursday, the outgoing US president asked several top aides, including the vice-president, Mike Pence, the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, and the chairman of the joint chiefs, Gen Mark Milley, “whether he had options to take action against Iran’s main nuclear site in the coming weeks”, the newspaper says.
      The senior officials “dissuaded the president from moving ahead with a military strike”, warning him that an attack could escalate into a broader conflict in the final weeks of his presidency, the Times writes.
      Trump reportedly asked the question after a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran was continuing to stockpile uranium.
      According to the Times, the most likely target of such a strike would have been Natanz, where the IAEA reported that Tehran’s “uranium stockpile was now 12 times larger than permitted under the nuclear accord that Mr Trump abandoned in 2018”, three years after it was signed in an attempt to curb Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
      Iran has long been Trump’s bete noire, and he reintroduced sanctions then tightened them even further after scrapping the nuclear accord.
      European partners in the accord, which have struggled to keep the deal afloat despite Trump’s efforts to torpedo it, hope for a renewed diplomatic approach after Joe Biden’s election victory on 3 November, although Trump refuses to concede defeat.
      The Trump administration has pledged to increase the punitive measures, which some critics see as an attempt to build a “wall of sanctions” that Biden would have difficulty dismantling when he takes office next year. More

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      Joe Biden says Trump blocking Covid plans may lead to more deaths – video

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      ‘The idea the president is still playing golf and not doing anything about it is beyond my comprehension. You’d think he’d at least want to go off on a positive note’, US president-elect, Joe Biden, said after a meeting with  CEOs and labor leaders. ‘I find this more embarrassing for the country than debilitating for my ability to get started’, he said. Biden warned that if outgoing president Donald Trump continues blocking a US transition of power as the coronavirus pandemic worsens, ‘more people may die’. 
       Biden warns ‘more people may die’ unless Trump starts cooperating More

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      Georgia’s secretary of state says Lindsey Graham suggested he throw out legal ballots

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      Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger has said that Senator Lindsey Graham asked whether it was possible to invalidate legally cast ballots after Donald Trump was narrowly defeated in the state.
      In an interview with the Washington Post, Raffensperger said that his fellow Republican, the chairman of the Senate judiciary committee, questioned him about the state’s signature-matching law and asked whether political bias might have played a role in counties where poll workers accepted higher rates of mismatched signatures. According to Raffensperger, Graham then asked whether he had the authority to toss out all mail-in ballots in these counties.
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      Raffensperger was reportedly “stunned” by the question, in which Graham appeared to suggest that he find a way to throw out legally cast absentee ballots.
      “It sure looked like he was wanting to go down that road,” he said.
      Graham confirmed the conversation to reporters on Capitol Hill but said it was “ridiculous” to suggest that he pressured Raffensperger to throw out legally cast absentee ballots. According to Graham, he only wanted to learn more about the process for verifying signatures, because what happens in Georgia “affects the whole nation”.
      “I thought it was a good conversation,” Graham said on Monday after the interview was published. “I’m surprised to hear he characterized it that way.”
      Trump has refused to accept results showing Joe Biden as the winner of the 2020 presidential election, falsely blaming rampant fraud and irregularities that election officials in both parties have dismissed as meritless.

      Georgia, a reliably Republican state with 16 electoral votes, is currently conducting a hand recount of roughly 5m presidential ballots, which is expected to be completed by 20 November. Biden led in the state by about 14,000 votes after the initial tally.
      This comes as Raffensperger faces mounting backlash from his own party after defending the state’s electoral process. The state’s two Republican senators, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler, both locked in tight run-off elections to keep their seats, have called for Raffensperger’s resignation – calls that Raffensperger has dismissed.
      Congressman Doug Collins of Georgia, who is spearheading the president’s effort to prove fraud in the state, has also been critical of Raffensperger, accusing him of siding with Democrats because he refused to endorse the false claim that the election was stolen from Trump. In the interview, Raffensperger called Collins, who has not contested the result of the special election race he lost to Loeffler, a “liar” and a “charlatan”.
      Raffensperger said every accusation of voter fraud would be thoroughly vetted but there was currently no credible evidence that wrongdoing had occurred on a large enough scale to affect the outcome of the election. He also told the Post that the recount would “affirm” the results of the initial count and prove the accuracy of the Dominion voting machines, which Trump has falsely claimed deleted votes cast for him.
      Voting rights and ethics groups condemned Graham’s comments, and some called for his resignation as chair of the Senate judiciary committee.
      “Not only is it wrong for Senator Graham to apparently contemplate illegal behavior, but his suggestion undermines the integrity of our elections and the faith of the American people in our democracy,” said Noah Bookbinder, the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, in a statement. “Under the guise of rooting out election fraud, it looks like Graham is suggesting committing it.” More

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      Trump bids to take credit for Moderna vaccine while Biden offers cautious optimism

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      Donald Trump and Joe Biden offered sharply contrasting reactions on Monday to news of a coronavirus vaccine that proved nearly 95% effective in trials.
      In a press conference the president-elect called the vaccine news “really encouraging” but warned “more people may die” unless the Trump administration starts cooperating with the incoming Democratic administration. “We are going into a very dark winter. Things are going to get much tougher before they get easier,” he said.
      Rather than working to combat the virus, which is spreading faster than ever and on average killing more than 1,000 Americans a day, Trump has stayed focused on unsubstantiated claims that the presidential election was stolen.
      Pharmaceutical giant Moderna said on Monday its experimental vaccine was 94.5% effective, based on interim data from a late-stage clinical trial.
      “Another vaccine just announced,” Trump tweeted, seeking to claim credit. “This time by Moderna, 95% effective. For those great ‘historians’, please remember that these great discoveries, which will end the China Plague, all took place on my watch!”
      Critics say Trump has all but surrendered to the pandemic, which has killed more than 244,000 people in the US and is averaging more than 100,000 cases per day. Michael Osterholm, an adviser to Biden, told NBC on Sunday: “We are in a very dangerous period – the most dangerous public health period since 1918.”
      Yet Trump has not attended a taskforce meeting in “at least five months”, public health expert Dr Anthony Fauci said on Sunday, and seems to have bet everything on a vaccine. Trump appeared consumed instead by the election – and now by denying its outcome.
      Biden beat him by the same 306-232 margin in the electoral college Trump described as a “landslide” when he won in 2016. The Democrat is also ahead in the popular vote by 5.5m votes, or 3.6%, with ballots still being counted.
      The Trump administration has not recognised Biden as president-elect, preventing his team from gaining access to government office space and funding. Democrats and some Republicans have warned that refusal to give Biden access to intelligence poses a risk to national security and hampers the battle against the virus, including vaccine distribution planning.
      Biden said the delay was “more embarrassing than debilitating” and that he was continuing to put in place his team and plans to deal with the pandemic and its economic fallout.
      The pandemic is the most pressing crisis facing the incoming president. Ron Klain, who will be White House chief of staff, said Biden advisers would meet Pfizer and other drugmakers this week.
      White House officials and Republicans in Congress are outnumbered by world leaders in acknowledging Biden’s win. On Monday Robert O’Brien, Trump’s national security adviser, noted that a transition would only take place “if the current lawsuits don’t work out for the president”.
      But speaking at the Global Security Forum, O’Brien acknowledged: “If there is a new administration, they deserve some time to come in and implement their policies.
      “We may have policy disagreements but look, if the Biden-Harris ticket is determined to be the winner – and obviously things look that way now – we’ll have a very professional transition from the National Security Council. There’s no question about it.”
      The president appeared on Sunday to publicly acknowledge that Biden had won the election, but then backtracked and reiterated his false claim the vote was rigged.
      Trump, who has put Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, in charge of his legal offensive, tweeted on Sunday that he would soon file “big cases” challenging election results. However, his campaign has already lost numerous court battles and dropped a major part of a suit seeking to prevent Pennsylvania from certifying its results, narrowing the case to a small number of ballots. Biden won the state by more than 68,000 votes.
      On Monday Trump tweeted: “The Radical Left Democrats, working with their partner, the Fake News Media, are trying to STEAL this Election. We won’t let them!”
      In a statement issued last week by the lead US cybersecurity agency, federal election security officials dismissed such “unfounded claims” and expressed “utmost confidence” in the integrity of the elections. Officials from both parties have said there is no evidence of major irregularities.
      Biden has called Trump’s refusal to concede “an embarrassment” and is pressing ahead with the transition. On Monday afternoon he and running mate Kamala Harris were due to speak “on the economic recovery and building back better in the long term”, in their first speech addressing the economic situation since their victory.
      Biden outlined a $7.3tn plan ahead of the election that among other goals would bolster crumbling infrastructure, build a clean energy economy and support domestic manufacturing with cash for research and development.
      His first aim is to pass a new stimulus plan. But it is unclear how likely he is to pass any deal while Republicans control the Senate, which will hinge on runoff elections in Georgia in January. Talks about a new stimulus package have been deadlocked for months.
      The economic situation has improved but remains on a knife edge. Unemployment has dropped dramatically since a high of 14.7% in April but worrying signs remain.
      By October the unemployment rate had fallen to 6.9% but the number of long-term unemployed – those jobless for 27 weeks or more – increased by 1.2 million to 3.6 million. Almost a third of the total number of people out of work are now long-term unemployed, black and latino Americans suffering far higher rates of unemployment than their white neighbors.
      Jobs growth has continued to slow and each week people are filing unemployment claims at a rate still more than three times as high as before the pandemic.
      Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economics Policy Institute, said: “If this drags on and the pace of jobs growth continues to slow, it will take years before we get back to a pre-pandemic economy. Americans can not afford the political games that are being played.” More