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      Amy Coney Barrett supreme court hearing sets stage for partisan clash

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      Judge Amy Coney Barrett will appear on Capitol Hill for the opening of her supreme court confirmation hearings on Monday, setting the stage for an extraordinary partisan clash three weeks before election day.Four days of hearings are scheduled before the Senate judiciary committee, beginning with opening statements on Monday, followed by two days of questioning. Thursday, the Senate panel will hear from outside experts.Republicans are moving ahead with the nomination over the strident objections of Democrats, who have argued that the winner of the November election should nominate the next justice to the supreme court as was the case in 2016, after the death of Antonin Scalia.Donald Trump thrilled conservatives and anti-abortion activists when he nominated Barrett last month to fill the vacancy left by the death of justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a liberal icon whose legacy was championing women’s rights.Upon Scalia’s death in February 2016, the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, took the unprecedented step of refusing to hold a hearing for President Barack Obama’s nominee, Judge Merrick Garland, explaining that it was too close to a presidential election.McConnell has already lost the support of Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine locked in a tight re-election battle, who said she would vote against Barrett on the floor if the vote was held before the election. Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, also said she believed the Senate should wait until after the election to move forward with the nomination.But Republicans are confident that they will have the votes to rush Barrett’s nomination through before the election.Complicating this, however, is a coronavirus outbreak at the White House, which infected the president and has spread to senior government officials and Republican lawmakers.Two Republican senators on the committee – Mike Lee of Utah and Thom Tillis of North Carolina – tested positive for the coronavirus after attending a Rose Garden ceremony for Barrett on 26 September. Two other members – Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Ted Cruz of Texas – are self-quarantining after possible exposure to the virus but have tested negative. All plan to attend the hearing in person, though the committee chairman, Lindsey Graham, has said members would be allowed to participate remotely.If any more members fall ill or are unable to participate in person, the math could be complicated for McConnell. But for now, Republicans are determined to press forward. More

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      What Dr Fauci actually said versus how Trump used clip in campaign ad – video

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      Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert, has criticised Donald Trump’s re-election campaign for using his words out of context to make it appear as if he was praising the president’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. In the video released on Saturday, Fauci can be heard saying: ‘I can’t imagine that … anyone could be doing more’ as the advert boasts of Trump’s response to Covid-19, which in the US has killed more than 214,000 and infected more than 7.7m. The clip came from an interview Fauci gave to Fox News, in which he was describing the work that he and other members of the White House coronavirus task force undertook to respond to the virus 
      Anthony Fauci criticises Donald Trump for using his words out of context

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      US election 2020: who is supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett?

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      Today is the start of the confirmation process for Amy Coney Barrett, a deeply conservative judge who is Donald Trump’s pick for supreme court judge. Guardian US investigative journalist Stephanie Kirchgaessner has been looking at her career and personal life, including membership to the secretive Catholic group People of Praise, and discusses what her appointment would mean for the US

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      If Donald Trump has his way then he will use the few weeks remaining before Americans go to the polls on 3 November to install his choice as the ninth supreme court justice. If successful, it would mean replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a ferocious campaigner for women’s rights whose work turned her into a liberal icon, with Amy Coney Barrett, a deeply conservative judge whose values push in the opposite direction. The move would shift the balance so starkly in America’s highest court that some fear it could lead to key rulings protecting civil rights being overturned – and possibly hamper the ability of Democrats to change laws for decades to come. The Guardian US investigative journalist Stephanie Kirchgaessner talks to Anushka Asthana about Barrett’s career and personal life – including membership of a secretive Catholic “covenant community” called People of Praise that is accused of adhering to a “highly authoritarian” structure. She discusses Barrett’s views on abortion and the Affordable Care Act, the Obama-era law that extended health insurance to millions of Americans. If she is confirmed before the election, one of Barrett’s first cases could determine the fate of that act. More

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      Trump claims he’s Covid ‘immune’ as he aims for barrage of rallies in swing states

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      Donald Trump has claimed he no longer has coronavirus and is now “immune” to Covid-19 as he prepares to return to the campaign trail on Monday for a barrage of rallies in swing states in his pursuit of a second term in the White House.Numerous opinion polls have continued to show the US president trailing his Democratic challenger Joe Biden by a significant margin nationally, adding urgency to Trump’s desire to get back to the in-person appearances he believes are key to his success on the 3 November election day.He will appear at a rally in Sanford, Florida, on Monday night and follow up with events in Pennsylvania and Iowa on Tuesday and Wednesday, all closely-contested states he won by thin margins in 2016 but now appear to be leaning towards Biden.Yet questions remain over the state of the 74-year-old president’s health following his infection with Covid-19 and a three-night stay in the Walter Reed military medical center in Maryland. He was discharged one week ago, but the White House and medical professionals have refused to release details on his lung scans or when he last tested negative for Covid-19.In a wide ranging 30-minute interview on Fox News on Sunday, Trump insisted he was completely free of the virus, without providing medical evidence, and further claimed, implausibly, he was immune after receiving an experimental cocktail of antibodies, antiviral drugs and steroids during his hospital stay.“To me it’s a cure, it’s much more than a therapeutic,” Trump said. “Once you’ve recovered, you’re immune. I am immune… maybe for a short time, maybe for a long time. The president is in very good shape,” Trump said, adding that immunity gave him a “protective glow”.There are, however, some documented cases of patients who have recovered from coronavirus being reinfected.Later on Sunday, Twitter flagged a tweet in which Trump claimed he was immune to the coronavirus, saying it violated the social media platform’s rules about misleading information related to the pandemic.“A total and complete sign off from White House Doctors yesterday. That means I can’t get it (immune), and can’t give it. Very nice to know,” Trump said in the tweet.“This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about spreading misleading and potentially harmful information related to Covid-19,” Twitter’s disclaimer read.A Twitter spokeswoman told Reuters that the tweet made “misleading health claims” about Covid-19 and that engagements with the post would be “significantly limited”, as is standard in such cases.The White House physician who oversaw Trump’s treatment at Walter Reed has spoken only in general terms about the president’s condition. In a memo released late on Saturday, Dr Sean Conley cleared Trump to return to public events, saying “he is no longer considered a transmission risk”. More

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      Jaime Harrison sets Senate fundraising record in race against Lindsey Graham

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      South Carolina Democrat Jaime Harrison has shattered congressional fundraising records, bringing in $57m in the final quarter for his US Senate campaign against Republican incumbent and Trump ally Lindsey Graham as the Republican party tries to retain control of the chamber in November’s election.Harrison’s campaign said Sunday that the total was the largest-ever during a single three-month period by any Senate candidate. That tops the $38m raised by Democrat Beto O’Rourke in 2018 in the final fundraising period of his challenge to Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, who won the race.Graham, a longtime senator, is tied with Harrison in a highly competitive race.Graham hasn’t released fundraising totals for the previous quarter, although it’s likely he’s been eclipsed by Harrison. Last month, Graham made a public plea for fundraising to help him keep up with Harrison, saying on Fox News that he was “getting killed financially” by Harrison, who he predicted would “raise $100m in the state of South Carolina.”“The money is because they hate my guts,” Graham added.At the end of June, both candidates were roughly matched at about $30m apiece, money that has come largely from out of-state donors. For the race overall, not including the most recent quarter, Harrison’s in-state contribution amount is 10%. Graham’s is 14%.“This campaign is making history, because we’re focused on restoring hope back to South Carolina,” said Guy King, Harrison’s campaign spokesman. “While Lindsey Graham continues playing political games in Washington, Jaime Harrison is remaining laser-focused on the real issues impacting people here – like health care, broadband access, and Covid relief for businesses and families.”The latest fundraising report comes one day before the start of what is predicted to be a contentious hearing in the Senate judiciary committee on Donald Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court. Graham is the committee chairman.His commitment to confirming Trump’s third nominee to the court has become a focal point in the Senate campaign, with Harrison frequently chiding Graham for reversing on previous promises not to consider election-year nominations. Graham has responded by saying he feels Democrats would do the same if given the choice.Attributing the fundraising success to grassroots support, Harrison’s campaign said the $57m came in the form of 1.5m donations from 994,000 donors. The average contribution was $37.During Harrison’s debate with Graham on 3 October, social media users across the country chimed into tweet threads with pledges to donate as often as they could. In the two days following that matchup, Harrison’s campaign said they brought in $1.5m – as much as the effort had raised in some previous entire fundraising quarters.At the beginning of the campaign, Harrison, an associate Democratic National Committee chairman, told The Associated Press he felt it could take $10m to win the race, an amount he felt he could raise given his national-level connections. To date, he has brought in nearly $86m. More