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      in Elections

      Crowds eschew masks at Trump rally as president mocks Biden over social distancing

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      A packed crowd of hundreds gathered in North Carolina for a Donald Trump campaign rally on Tuesday, with many people forgoing masks, in defiance of state guidelines capping gatherings at 50 people.Ahead of the president’s visit to Winston-Salem, the chair of the local county commission, a Republican, urged Trump to wear a face mask. The state has a mask requirement in place to slow the spread of coronavirus.“It’s been ordered by the governor,” said Dave Plyler, the Republican chairman of the Forsyth county board of commissioners, according to the Winston-Salem Journal. “When in Rome, do as the Romans do. When in North Carolina, do as the governor says.”Trump “is a citizen of the United States, but he is also a guest in our county”, Plyler said. “Without a mask, he could get sick, and he could blame the governor.”However Trump did not wear a mask, and used the event to mock his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, for following social distancing guidelines. “You ever see the gyms with the circles?” he said, an apparent reference to a Biden event held in a school gymnasium with attendees observing social distancing guidelines.Nearly 178,000 people in North Carolina have tested positive Covid-19, with more than 1,000 cases reported on Tuesday – though the number of cases and deaths are slowly trending downward.Recent polls have found Trump locked in a close race with Biden in North Carolina. As the coronavirus pandemic rages on, the president has often sought to focus on the economy and policing rather than the virus.While supporters waited for Trump to arrive, Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door played over the loudspeakers, making for an inadvertently dark soundtrack.Deriding the mass demonstrations across the country against racism and policing, Trump told the jam-packed, cheering crowd: “We decided to call our rallies peaceful protests.”The president has previously used the phrase to describe gatherings of his supporters, saying that if protestors against police brutality are allowed to gather then his supporters should be able to as well.“Because they have rules in these Democrat-run states that if you campaign you cannot have more than five people,” the president said. “You can’t go to church, you can’t do anything outside. If you are willing to riot, running down the main street, if you want to riot and stand on top of each other’s face and do whatever the hell you want to do, you are allowed to do that because you are considered a peaceful protester.”His claims, however, are an exaggeration. In North Carolina, governed by Democrat Roy Cooper, gatherings are currently capped at 50, and masks are mandated. Going outside is allowed in North Carolina (as it is in all states), and churches are allowed to conduct services, though officials recommend that worshippers follow social distancing and wear masks.There have been more than 6.3 million cases of coronavirus in the US, with the country approaching 190,000 deaths. Trump’s rally comes as health experts warn the hunt for a vaccine has become increasingly politicized, with the Trump administration rushing to release one ahead of the November election.Dr Anthony Fauci, the leading White House infectious disease expert, who has been increasingly at odds with Trump, stressed on Tuesday that a coronavirus vaccine would be unlikely to be ready “by the end of the year”. Fauci contradicted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which has signaled that health officials might expect a vaccine to be ready before the election.“It’s unlikely we’ll have a definitive answer” on whether a vaccine is safe and effective by the election, Fauci said at the Research! America 2020 National Health Research Forum. More

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      Trump expected to announce new list of potential supreme court justices

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      The White House is expected to announce a new list of potential supreme court justices as soon as Wednesday, a move designed to shore up conservative support for Donald Trump as his race for the White House against Joe Biden enters the final stretch.Trump’s decision to name a list of possible picks during the 2016 election is widely seen to have boosted support among conservatives otherwise queasy about backing him against Hillary Clinton. Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, both now on the court, were included on that list of reliably conservative picks.Last week, the White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, flagged the impending announcement, telling reporters: “You will see it soon.” On Tuesday, Politico reported that the list was imminent.Trump signaled he was compiling a new list after a pair of supreme court rulings went against his administration in June.The updated list is expected to include many of the 2016 lineup, including Raymond Kethledge, 53, an appeals court judge on the sixth circuit, and Amy Coney Barrett, 48, a member of the seventh circuit appeals court.Both were reported to have been close to being nominated when Kavanaugh was picked in late 2018, to fill a seat vacated by the retirement of Anthony Kennedy. Kavanaugh, a former White House aide to George W Bush, was confirmed after contentious confirmation hearings featuring allegations of sexual assault, which he vehemently denied.After Trump’s two picks, conservatives hold a 5-4 majority on the supreme court, where seats are vacated by the retirement or death of an incumbent. Over the summer, the liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 87, has announced health problems including treatment for cancer.Trump promotes his judicial appointments as perhaps his most important accomplishment. A Biden presidency, he warns, would mean more liberals on the highest court.But Trump’s appointees have not always performed as anticipated. This summer, for example, Gorsuch sided with the chief justice, John Roberts, and the liberal justices to guarantee protection from discrimination in the workplace for LGBTQ individuals – a disappointment to conservatives.Last month, Vice-President Mike Pence told the Christian Broadcasting Network that Roberts, who was appointed by George W Bush, had been “a disappointment to conservatives”.But Trump’s appointments to lower courts offer plentiful consolation. During his first term, nearly 200 judges have been installed with lifetime appointments.According to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the Federal Judicial Center, in July there were 792 active judges across the three main tiers of the federal system.Of those, Trump has appointed 194, or 24% of the total. Barack Obama appointed the largest share of currently active federal judges, 39%. Of judges still sitting, George W Bush appointed 21% and 11% were appointed by Bill Clinton.Much smaller shares were appointed by George HW Bush (2%) and Ronald Reagan (2%). A single federal judge, Puerto Rico’s Carmen Consuelo Cerezo, dates her appointment to Jimmy Carter’s administration. More

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      in US Politics

      John Kerry on Biden's foreign policy: 'He’d never lavish praise on dictators'

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      Among the many crises triggered by Donald Trump’s presidency, there is one that has been largely overlooked by the 2020 election. It also just happens to be the one that Joe Biden has spent his entire career preparing for: the crisis of global confidence in American leadership.The former vice-president spent 34 years on the Senate foreign relations committee, and another eight years in the Obama White House with an expansive brief on foreign affairs including the American withdrawal from Iraq. Today he stands as the presidential nominee with the most formidable foreign policy credentials of any candidate since George HW Bush in 1988.But at a time when respect for American leadership has largely collapsed around the world, Biden’s worldview, and the foreign policy he would likely pursue, is mostly an afterthought in an election dominated by the antics and outrages of the incumbent in the White House.Biden’s team is under no illusions about the scale of the diplomatic challenge. According to recent polling, European confidence in Trump’s leadership is between 40 and 60 points lower than it was at the same point in Obama’s presidency. Even in Russia, confidence in Trump is 16 points lower than it was for Obama at the end of his first term.How can Biden heal the damage? John Kerry, the former secretary of state and long-time Biden confidant, believes the former vice-president’s long relationships with allies will help.I think his unique credibility and years of relationships in Europe will help restore those alliances on day one of a Biden presidencyJohn Kerry“I’m not going to sugarcoat it,” he told The Guardian. “I know there are worries among friends and allies that the United States could just rip up treaties and norms if we just ping pong back and forth from one election to another. But I think Joe Biden’s presence is reassuring. I wouldn’t speak for the vice-president and his team, but it’s clear for anyone who has known him and worked with him and watched him over many years, just how much he values our European alliances. He traveled for decades on the foreign relations committee in the Senate to learn and listen and get to know dozens of young parliamentarians who grew up to become prime ministers and foreign ministers.”“I think his unique credibility and years of relationships in Europe will help restore those alliances on day one of a Biden presidency. I know he’s respected, and he earned those relationships. In 2008, when Russian tanks rolled into a neighboring country called Georgia, it was Joe Biden who immediately picked up the phone, and called an old friend, who happened to be the president of the country. So Joe got on a plane, flew all night, and sat on a hilltop in Georgia with the president of our democratic ally and made it clear the United States stands with allies. People remember those moments.”At a New York speech in 2019, Biden spelled out a return to Obama-era agreements that Trump has been determined to destroy: especially the international deal to halt Iran’s nuclear program, and the Paris climate agreement. Biden has promised to host his own climate summit in his first 100 days, setting higher targets for the world’s biggest carbon-polluting countries.“Just think about the positive signals an administration could send right away on climate change,” Kerry said. “Obviously, he’s said he’ll rejoin the Paris climate agreement immediately, but I think he’ll also send the signal in Glasgow, Scotland, at the next COP [climate change conference] that the world must ratchet up its ambition. Paris itself was a goal not a guarantee.”‘He saw his son deployed to a war zone’Biden was never fully aligned with Obama’s foreign policy. He diverged with his boss in the White House, especially on the decision to send more American troops to Afghanistan. In the Senate, where Obama was a new member on the foreign relations committee, Biden was particularly distant.Over the years, Biden has been hard to compartmentalize on the use of American force. He voted against the Gulf War in 1990 because it did not advance American national interests. But he voted for the invasion of Iraq 12 years later, after his preferred option to prioritize diplomacy failed to pass. Between those two votes, Biden became a liberal hawk in the Senate, pushing hard for military action against Serbia for its ethnic cleansing wars in Bosnia and Kosovo.So where does Biden stand today?“We have to retire the hawk-dove frame. It’s counterproductive,” said Kerry. “What was Joe Biden on the Balkans? He was the guy in the Senate pounding on his colleagues and a Democratic administration to move with urgency to stop genocide. What do you call that? The thread that runs through all these areas is that Joe Biden wrestled with facts and values and he grilled people who agreed with him and those who disagreed with him and hew pressure-tested everyone’s assumptions.”“He’s a guy who saw his son deployed to a war zone. He knows what it’s like to live with that worry. So, he’s healthily impatient with countries that benefit from our troops’ sacrifice but allow politicians to squander those sacrifices. You tell me: is that being a hawk or being a dove?” More

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      in US Politics

      Trump's south lawn rally fails to evoke usual adulation from stony-faced reporters

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      After turning the south lawn into a convention stage last month, Donald Trump held a surprise press conference-cum-campaign event on Monday at the White House’s front door – where Jackie Kennedy wore black on the day of JFK’s funeral, and where the Obamas greeted their successors on inauguration day.On a glorious late summer’s day, Trump’s vantage point behind a presidential lectern at the north portico afforded him a view of former president Andrew Jackson’s statue in Lafayette Square and, beyond that, the newly minted Black Lives Matter Plaza. Give him a second term in November, and perhaps he’ll install a golden escalator like the one he descended in at Trump Tower to launch his first campaign.Despite the lofty surroundings, the president dropped all pretense of rising above the political hurly-burly. Over 46 minutes, he branded his Democratic presidential election rival, Joe Biden, “stupid”, falsely accused Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris of peddling anti-vaccination conspiracy theories, and unleashed a torrent of half-truths and non-truths.But unlike the loyalists on the south lawn for the convention speech, or the devotees who gather at Trump’s increasingly frequent airport-hangar rallies, there was a stony silence from mask-wearing reporters sitting under columns, ornate carvings and a giant lamp on the White House driveway.The perennial salesman, Trump wanted to use Labor Day to boast about economic recovery. The numbers are “terrific”, he said. “We are in the midst of the fastest economic recovery in US history,” he claimed. Some 10.6m jobs had been added since May, he said, though he did not acknowledge nearly half the jobs lost in the pandemic had still not returned.Of the recovery, he said: “We have V-shape. It’s probably a super-V.” No mention of the more than 100,000 small businesses that shut down or the unemployment benefits that had expired for millions of Americans. As for his claim about the pandemic – “We are an absolute leader, in every way” – well, no one can dispute that America has the highest caseload (more than 6.2m) or the highest death toll (more than 189,000) in the world.Biden and Harris “should immediately apologise for the reckless anti-vaccine rhetoric that they are talking right now, talking about ‘endangering lives’”, Trump charged, after Harris said she would rely on the decisions of public health officials and medical experts for news on a Covid-19 vaccine rather than the president.“It undermines science, and what happens is all of a sudden you’ll have this incredible vaccine and because of that fake rhetoric, it’s a political rhetoric, that’s all that is, just for politics,” Trump said.He added later: “The numbers are looking unbelievably strong, unbelievably good. So now they’re saying, ‘Wow, Trump’s pulled this off, OK, let’s disparage the vaccine.’ That’s so bad for this country. That’s so bad for the world to even say that, and that’s what they’re saying.”Yes, the man who said the coronavirus would “just disappear”, suggested injecting bleach as a cure and dismissed the climate crisis as a hoax accused his opponents of undermining science. Perhaps Neil deGrasse Tyson should moderate the first presidential debate later this month.Despite the White House trappings, this was a campaign event in disguise. Biden and the “radical socialist Democrats would immediately collapse the economy”, Trump warned darkly. “You’ll have a crash the likes of which you’ve never seen before.”Biden wants to demolish the energy industry, he went on ever more fancifully, and will cause more electricity blackouts in California. “He wants to have things lit up with wind.”There was also a long diatribe about trade. China, he said, “took advantage of stupid people. Stupid people. And Biden’s a stupid person. You know that, you’re not gonna write it, but you know that … If Biden wins, China will own this country.”After more than 20 minutes of darkness, doom and fearmongering, the president said, rather unconvincingly, “Happy Labor Day, everybody!” and then took questions, trying and failing to get the first reporter to remove his mask (“If you don’t take it off, you’re very muffled”).Naturally, Trump was asked about the Atlantic magazine’s report that he had disparaged dead soldiers as “losers” and suckers”. Though several former Trump administration officials have said the report chimes with their knowledge, the president described it as a “totally made-up story” and demanded: “Who would say a thing like that? Only an animal would say a thing like that.”Trump also claimed that he was “taking the high road” by not meeting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer to discuss a coronavirus stimulus package. “I don’t need to meet with them to be turned down,” he said.“They don’t want to make a deal because they think if the country does as badly as possible … that’s good for the Democrats. I am taking the high road. I’m taking the high road by not seeing them.”Then someone lit the blue touchpaper by asking about the Russia investigation. “They spied on my campaign, and that includes Biden and Obama!” Trump fumed, suddenly animated by the conspiracy theory. “If we did what they did, you would have many people in jail right now.”And when asked if he would support an investigation into allegations against Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, the president added: “Yeah, if something can be proven that he did something wrong, always. They’ve been looking at me for four years, they found nothing.“Four years, think of it. For four years. From the day I came down the escalator, I’ve been under investigation by sleaze. And they found nothing. They found nothing. A friend of mine said you have to be the most innocent, honorable man to ever hold the office of president.”Trump also spared some venom for Harris, insisting that “she will never be president, although I have to be careful because Obama used to say that about me, so I have to be a little bit careful. But you have to look at her a little bit more closely because obviously Joe’s not doing too well.”Polling, however, shows Biden continuing to enjoy a steady lead on Trump. Standing at the front door of the White House two months before election day, the president sounded like a desperate man, as if firing a machine-gun in all directions like Al Pacino’s Tony Montana under siege at his luxury mansion in Scarface. The election might go the same way. More

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      Joe Biden if president will push allies like Australia to do more on climate, adviser says

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      Joe Biden will not pull any punches with allies including Australia in seeking to build international momentum for stronger action on the climate crisis, an adviser to the US presidential candidate has said.If elected in November, Biden will hold heavy emitters such as China accountable for doing more “but he’s also going to push our friends to do more as well”, according to Jake Sullivan, who was the national security adviser to Biden when he was vice-president and is now in the candidate’s inner circle.In a wide-ranging podcast interview with the Sydney-based Lowy Institute, Sullivan also signalled that Biden would work closely with Australia and other regional allies in responding to the challenges posed by the rise of China.While Australia’s prime minister, Scott Morrison, is likely to welcome the pledge of US coordination with allies on regional security issues, there may be unease in government ranks about the potential for tough conversations about Australia’s climate policies.The Coalition government has resisted calls to embrace a target of net-zero emissions by 2050 and it proposes to use Kyoto carryover credits to meet Australia’s 2030 emission reductions pledge. Some Coalition backbenchers still openly dispute climate science.Sullivan said climate change would be a big priority for Biden, both in domestic policy – with climate and clean energy issues placed at the heart of his economic recovery visions – and in foreign policy, where he would do more than just reverse Donald Trump’s decision to abandon the Paris agreement.“He has said right out of the gate, we’re not just rejoining Paris – we are going to rally the nations of the world to get everyone to up their game, to elevate their ambition, to do more,” Sullivan told the Lowy Institute.“And in that regard he will hold countries like China accountable for doing more but he’s also going to push our friends to do more as well and to step up and fulfil their responsibilities to what is fundamentally a global problem, that every country needs to be participating in and contributing to.”Sullivan said there was “no reason it has to get awkward” for countries like Australia.“The vice-president is not going to come to play games around that issue if he’s fortunate enough to be elected. He’ll lay it out in the way only Joe Biden can do – just plain and straight, down the line, respectful – but he’s not going to pull any punches on it.”Sullivan made the remarks in an interview with Michael Fullilove, the executive director of the Lowy Institute, who told Guardian Australia last month that climate was likely to “come roaring back as an issue in US foreign policy under a Biden administration” and that it “may be harder to say no to a Biden administration”.Biden has vowed to put the US on “an irreversible path to achieve net-zero emissions, economy-wide” by 2050, and to rally the rest of the world to meet the climate threat – indicating that he would “fully integrate climate change” into US foreign policy and national security strategies, as well as its approach to trade.The economist Ross Garnaut has also speculated that a Biden win could lead to Australia being placed “in the naughty corner” on climate policy.More broadly, Sullivan said Biden would be “eager to develop a really strong relationship” with Morrison – who has formed close working ties with Trump, even though the Australian government has emphasised points of difference from time to time.Sullivan said Biden had a deep respect for Australia and its contributions to US security and the history of the alliance between the two countries.Biden and Morrison were likely to “get off to a strong start” because the former vice-president saw Australia as the kind of partner that was central to a finding successful strategies when faced with a range of issues in a fast-changing world.Sullivan said Biden put like-minded democratic allies at the heart of his foreign policy, because he believed that was the platform upon which the US could most effectively deal with great power competition and transnational challenges.“Allies are going to have pride of place in the hierarchy of priorities in a Biden administration foreign policy,” Sullivan said. He said allies including Australia, Japan, South Korea and Nato were important not just on regional issues but more broadly.“And yes, the rise of China is at or near the top of the list of big global challenges that we all have to be working effectively together on.” More