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      Town hall takeaways: Biden at ease while Trump struggles under pressure

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      US elections 2020

      The Democrat’s comfort in the town-hall format was in contrast to a clearly frustrated Trump, whose claims were opposed by host Savannah Guthrie

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      2:42

      Joe Biden lays out plans for tax, Covid and the supreme court in town hall event – video

      The dueling town halls between Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden may not have had the face-to-face fireworks of the presidential debate they replaced, but they still provided moments of drama and offered clear insight into the dynamics of the 2020 campaign.
      Here are some of the key takeaways from an evening when America had a split-screen experience of the race to the White House.
      1) Biden more at ease in a town hall setting, Trump not so much
      Whether he was more at ease or felt less restrained, Joe Biden was clearly more comfortable in the town-hall format than a debate setting. He seemed more energetic and his answers were thoughtful, although they became, sometimes, overly wonky. That’s in contrast to Donald Trump, who clearly was frustrated at times during his rival town hall. The president tried to angrily talk over the moderator, Savannah Guthrie, and his frustration with her follow-up questions was visible.
      2) Trump still won’t disavow QAnon
      In perhaps the most notable moment of the night, Trump again refrained from condemning QAnon, the internet conspiracy theory that a massive cabal of high-profile figures are involved in a satanic pedophilia ring. The movement has no basis in fact.
      Trump, as he has done before, denied any knowledge of the ring but quixotically also said he knows its adherents oppose pedophilia.
      “I do know they are very much against pedophilia. They fight it very hard. But I know nothing about it,” Trump said.
      When pressed, Trump still declined to criticize the conspiracy movement.

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      2:21

      Trump grilled on white supremacy, QAnon and his taxes by Savannah Guthrie – video
      3) Biden open to court-packing
      Biden didn’t commit to supporting adding seats to the supreme court, but he suggested more openness than he has in the past. When asked about the issue by the moderator George Stephanopoulos, Biden first argued that a new judge should only be appointed after the 3 November election.
      But when pressed on whether he would consider adding seats to the high court if Trump’s nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, was confirmed, Biden said: “I’m open to considering what happens from that point on.” It was the clearest indicator yet that he intends to make his position on the issue clear before Americans go to the polls on election day.
      4) Guthrie was on her game and did her homework
      NBC host Savannah Guthrie came ready to press Trump. She had follow-up questions. She was ready for Trump’s false statements and incorrect claims.
      When asked about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program, Trump said his administration would “take care” of it. But then Guthrie pointed out the Trump administration has methodically undercut the program. Trump blamed the coronavirus pandemic and the number of cases in Mexico for the program’s decline.
      That was just one of numerous incidents – including Trump’s repeated refusal to be clear on his own coronavirus testing regimen – in which Guthrie grilled the president in ways that he was clearly uncomfortable with.
      5) Trump unclear on coronavirus testing
      The president during his town hall was once again unclear on the severity or specifics of the coronavirus pandemic. He downplayed its seriousness. He also falsely said a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study found that “85% of people who wear a mask catch it”.
      Guthrie pushed back, noting that was not what the study found.
      6) Trump won’t apologize for anything
      Trump refused to apologize or admit fault for anything. He refused to admit his administration could have done more to curtail the coronavirus from spreading. He refused to apologize for retweeting a tweet suggesting that the navy Seals involved in the raid that resulted in Osama bin Laden’s death actually killed a Bin Laden double. He also refused to offer specifics on when he first tested positive for Covid-19.

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      US elections 2020

      Donald Trump

      Joe Biden

      US politics

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      in Elections

      Rudy Giuliani's daughter endorses Joe Biden

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      Rudy Giuliani’s daughter has endorsed Joe Biden for president in an essay for Vanity Fair, writing that in this historic election “none of us can afford to be silent”.“My father is Rudy Giuliani,” Caroline Rose Giuliani said in the magazine. “We are multiverses apart, politically and otherwise. I’ve spent a lifetime forging an identity in the arts separate from my last name, so publicly declaring myself as a ‘Giuliani’ feels counterintuitive, but I’ve come to realize that none of us can afford to be silent right now.”The younger Giuliani, a director, actor and writer who lives in Los Angeles, endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016 and voted for Barack Obama in 2012. She writes that since childhood she has engaged in debates with her father about LGBTQ rights, policing and other issues.“It felt important to speak my mind, and I’m glad we at least managed to communicate at all. But the chasm was painful nonetheless, and has gotten exponentially more so in Trump’s era of chest-thumping partisan tribalism. I imagine many Americans can relate to the helpless feeling this confrontation cycle created in me, but we are not helpless. I may not be able to change my father’s mind, but together, we can vote this toxic administration out of office.”Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York, is a personal lawyer to Donald Trump and has been one of the president’s loudest endorsers, whether during the Russian investigation, the president’s impeachment or the coronavirus crisis.With less than a month before the 3 November election, Giuliani is back in the spotlight with claims to have found incriminating evidence on a discarded computer of Joe Biden’s son Hunter. Twitter and Facebook have been restricting the dissemination of the New York Post’s article reporting the unlikely and unsubstantiated claim.“If being the daughter of a polarizing mayor who became the president’s personal bulldog has taught me anything, it is that corruption starts with ‘yes-men’ and women, the cronies who create an echo chamber of lies and subservience to maintain their proximity to power,” his daughter writes.“We have to stand and fight,” she argues. “The only way to end this nightmare is to vote. There is hope on the horizon, but we’ll only grasp it if we elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.” More

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      in US Politics

      Demi Lovato has made the most damning protest song of the Trump era

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      How do you solve a problem like Donald? Like Nixon, Reagan and Thatcher before him, President Trump has been a great catalyst for protest in the arts but his villainy is so absurd and flamboyant that it is hard to attack him without stating the obvious. Assaulting him head-on is like staring into the sun. It is no surprise that his most effective satirist is the comedian Sarah Cooper, who lip-syncs to his own words rather than writing her own.In music, to sing about the US these past four years is to allude to the elephant in the White House. Trump’s influence is often oblique: his presence seeps into records like poison gas. In songs such as Childish Gambino’s This Is America, Kendrick Lamar’s XXX, the 1975’s Love It If We Made It or Hurray for the Riff Raff’s Pa’lante, he is mentioned briefly or not at all. So who would have predicted that one of the most powerful songs about Trump – Demi Lovato’s Commander in Chief – would come so late in the day, and be so direct?It’s not that it’s unusual for a mainstream pop artist to speak out at the risk of losing fans. The likes of Beyoncé, Taylor Swift and Katy Perry have been moved to take political positions and even channel them into songs, such as Swift’s Miss Americana & the Heartbreak Prince or Lana Del Rey’s Looking for America. Lovato, who describes herself as “a queer, Hispanic woman”, has previously been vocal about issues such as mental health and body image: her most recent hit was called OK Not to Be OK. Still, there is something wonderfully unexpected and bold about the moral clarity of her latest song that she debuted at the Billboard music awards last night. I’ve listened to nothing else since.Produced by Eren Cannata and Billie Eilish’s brother Finneas, the song sounds like a heartbreak ballad. In a sense that’s what it is, as it expresses the emotional pain of the Trump era, and 2020 in particular. While it’s not without lyrical flourishes (“Fighting fires with flyers and praying for rain”), it is largely plain-spoken and direct, conveying grief, resilience and disgust. Lovato has said that she has often thought of writing Trump a letter, or sitting down with him to ask him why he behaves the way he does, but that a song opens these questions up to everybody: “I’m not the only one / That’s been affected and resented every story you’ve spun / And I’m a lucky one / ’Cause there are people worse off that have suffered enough.” In the arrestingly stark video, a diverse range of Americans lip-sync the song before Lovato takes over for the final minute.Commander in Chief opens with a wholesome, relatable line about the values that we are supposedly taught (unless our father is Fred Trump) when we are young. It’s not really partisan. Lovato the protest singer is an exasperated everywoman, interrogating Trump’s failings as a human being as much as a politician: his corruption, his vanity, his carelessness, his sadism. The line, “Do you get off on pain?” reminds me of Adam Serwer’s classic 2018 Atlantic essay, The Cruelty Is the Point. She gets to the fundamental incomprehensibility of Trump’s callousness: “Honestly, if I did the things you do, I couldn’t sleep, seriously.” The gospel-elevated bridge rises above the president’s toxic headspace and turns to the summer’s Black Lives Matter protests: “We’ll be in the streets while you’re bunkering down.” The final line of the chorus (“How does it feel to still be able to breathe?”) references both Covid-19, which has killed more than 215,000 Americans on Trump’s watch, and the BLM slogan “I can’t breathe”. More

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      in Elections

      Kamala Harris cancels events after flying with two people who tested positive for Covid – live

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      Harris’s communications director and a ‘non-staff flight crew member’ tested positive
      Senate Judiciary committee to vote on Amy Coney Barrett nomination on 22 October
      Trump and Biden to hold town halls tonight
      Civil rights and Qanon candidates: the fight for facts in Georgia
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