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US elections 2020
Louis DeJoy announces pause following widespread outcry
Pelosi says suspension ‘does not reverse damage already done’
The US women leading the fight against voter suppression More
Donald Trump
Bipartisan intelligence panel says that Russian who worked on Trump’s 2016 bid was career spy, amid a stunning range of contacts More
Biden: ‘Every governor should mandate mandatory masks’
Yang and Bloomberg to speak at virtual Democratic convention
Biden campaign gets $26m boost in donations after Harris pick
Highest daily Covid-19 deaths recorded in US since mid-May
US unemployment claims dip below 1m for first time in 20 weeks
Postal service changes pose threat to voting, says ex-USPS deputy
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1:28
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris call for nationwide mask mandate – video
Key events
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5.17pm EDT17:17
Today so far
4.28pm EDT16:28
Senate adjourns until 8 September without stimulus deal
3.44pm EDT15:44
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris call for a nationwide mask mandate
3.02pm EDT15:02
Biden says Trump’s USPS comments are “pure Trump”
1.05pm EDT13:05
Kamala Harris to deliver DNC speech in Wilmington, Delaware
11.25am EDT11:25
Trump announces normalization of relations between Israel and UAE
9.45am EDT09:45
Kamala Harris brings in $26m to Biden campaign in first 24-hours as VP candidate
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5.44pm EDT17:44
“Sleepy Joe rejects the scientific approach,” Trump said, in a peak case of projection.
As we have reported before — Trump has devalued and undermined science throughout the pandemic.
Here’s me, looking back at how Trump has contradicted science:
Play Video
5:28
From miracle cures to slowing testing: how Trump has defied science on coronavirus – video explainer
Here’s my colleague Oliver Milman, on how Trump’s habit of rejecting scientific fact has raised alarm among health experts:
5.33pm EDT17:33
Trump, who has lied, misled and misrepresented the reality of the coronavirus pandemic in the US, contradicting and ignoring his own public health experts, has begun but attacking Joe Biden: “At every turn, Biden has been wrong about the virus – ignoring the scientific evidence.”
He said Biden’s immigration policies would allow “the pandemic to infiltrate every US community.” The pandemic is already widespread
5.25pm EDT17:25
Hi there, it’s Maanvi Singh, reporting from the West Coast.
We’re expecting Trump to deliver his press conference in a few minutes — and will keep you updated with news and fact checks.
5.17pm EDT17:17
Today so far
Here’s a quick summary of what’s been happening today:
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are continuing to make the rounds as a president-vice-president duo. The pair announced they are calling for a nationwide mask mandate and said every governor should implement a mask mandate in their state.
The Senate adjourned today with no coronavirus stimulus package in sight and will be out of session until after September 8. This means that millions of Americans will be left with low unemployment insurance for at least a few more weeks.
Donald Trump announced a normalization of relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, with Israel agreeing to halt plans to annex parts of the West Bank. While Trump called it a “historic peace agreement”, Israel’s prime minister said on Thursday that the country will still annex parts of the West Bank but had agreed to a temporary halt.
Former Trump fixer Michael Cohen released a teaser for his new book, Disloyal, which is slated to be released in September after attempts to stop publication from the Trump administration.
Updated
at 5.19pm EDT
5.07pm EDT17:07
Vice president Mike Pence is continuing to put out some jabs toward his new Democratic opponent, sentor Kamala Harris, this time criticizing remarks she made about Americans’ eating habits and the environment.
Speaking at the “Farmers and Ranchers for Trump” launch event in Iowa, Pence told the crowd that Harris said during her primary campaign that she was concerned about the impact Americans’ diet was having on the diet. “She would change the change the dietary guidelines of this country to reduce the amount of red meat that Americans can eat,” Pence said, the crowd booing in response.
“Well I’ve got some red meat for you: We’re not going to let Joe Biden & Kamala Harris cut America’s meat!”
The Hill
(@thehill)
VP Mike Pence: “Sen. Kamala Harris said she would change the dietary guidelines of this country to reduce the amount of red meat that Americans can eat.”Crowd boos.VP: “Well I’ve got some red meat for you: We’re not going to let Joe Biden & Kamala Harris cut America’s meat!” pic.twitter.com/TPqcy92rdw
August 13, 2020
That supporters of the Green New Deal are out to ban hamburgers altogether has long been a talking point of conservatives. While Green New Deal advocates have indicated they want to work with farmers and ranchers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, a complete ban on red meat has not been a part of the plan.
4.46pm EDT16:46
The teaser for Michael Cohen’s book is now out after the justice department issued a gag order, which has since been dropped, to stop the book’s publication.
The book, titled Disloyal: The True Story of the Former Personal Attorney to President Donald J Trump, is slated to be released sometime in September, ahead of the presidential election in November.
Michael Cohen
(@MichaelCohen212)
The day has finally arrived. I have waited a long time to share my truth. To read the foreword and pre-order my book DISLOYAL, visit https://t.co/Va4Rt0Zear
August 13, 2020
The book’s foreword is now available online and details Cohen’s feelings of bewilderment at seeing Trump for who he really is after being “Trump’s first call every morning and his last call every night”.
“In some ways, I knew him better than even his family did because I bore witness to the real man, in strip clubs, shady business meetings, and in the unguarded moments when he revealed who he really was: a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man,” Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, writes.
Cohen was serving a three-year prison on federal charges of tax evasion, making false statements, lying to Congress and facilitating illegal payments to silence women about their affairs with Trump. But Cohen was released in May after fears of Covid-19 spreading in federal prisons.
After tweeting that he was nearly finished with his book in July, Cohen was sent back to prison. The ACLU ended up joining a suit on his behalf to get him out, which was ultimately successful. A gag order from the justice department to halt the book’s publication was also dropped.
The Trump administration has made very obvious efforts to stop the publication of high-profile tell-alls, all which have been ultimately unsuccessful. Former national security adviser John Bolton book The Room Where It Happened was published was published in June and Mary L Trump’s, Trump’s niece, book Too Much and Never Enough was published in July.
Updated
at 5.13pm EDT
4.28pm EDT16:28
Senate adjourns until 8 September without stimulus deal
The Senate has adjourned its session this afternoon without reaching an agreement with House Democrats on a new stimulus package. The Senate is slated to go back into regular session 8 September.
Steven Dennis
(@StevenTDennis)
McConnell adjourns the Senate for August, save for pro forma sessions. Next regular session scheduled for *Sept. 8* — 26 days from today. pic.twitter.com/1gxFDmlvjq
August 13, 2020
The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, told senators that they would be called back to Capitol Hill with a 24-hour notice if a deal is reached. McConnell said that he hopes that a bipartisan deal can be reached “in the coming weeks”.
Earlier today the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said that Democrats will come back to the negotiating table when Senate Republicans agree on a larger stimulus package. “We’re not inching away from their meager piecemeal proposal,” she said.
At the press conference, Pelosi had beside her a chart comparing the Democrats’ $3tn Heroes Act, which passed the House in June, to the $1tn Heals Act in the Senate. One line indicated that House Democrats want $100bn for rental assistance while Senate Republicans want nothing.
Without a new stimulus package, millions of Americans are left with much lower unemployment insurance since the federal government stopped giving an additional $600 a week at the end of July. The steep drop in income is expected to lead to widespread evictions.
Robert Reich
(@RBReich)
In which the Senate leaves town for 25 days as 30,000,000 are receiving $0 in extra unemployment benefits and 40,000,000 are on the brink of eviction. https://t.co/Ieh1JdZ58V
August 13, 2020
Updated
at 5.05pm EDT
4.09pm EDT16:09
Two new speakers slated to make appearances at next week’s Democratic National Convention were announced today. Billionaire and former NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg and entrepreneur Andrew Yang both announced today that they will be speaking at the virtual convention.
Andrew Yang🧢🇺🇸
(@AndrewYang)
And it’s official – we have been added to the DNC Convention speaker lineup! Thank you #YangGang and everyone else who made this happen! 😀👏🇺🇸#YangIsSpeaking
August 13, 2020
Mike Bloomberg
(@MikeBloomberg)
This November, America has the opportunity to turn the page on the last four years & invest in our future.That starts at the @DemConvention when we nominate @JoeBiden & @KamalaHarris.I’m honored to be speaking at the DNC next week. I hope you’ll join us.
August 13, 2020
Yang and Bloomberg will be joining a list of former candidates including senators Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren and Amy Klobuchar. Pete Buttigieg is also slated to speak at the virtual convention.
After the Democratic National Committee, which runs the convention, announced the DNC’s speaker lineup, Yang tweeted that he was disappointed that he was not asked to speak. “I’ve got to be honest I kind of expected to speak,” he tweeted on Tuesday.
Ted Lieu, a US representative from California, tweeted in response his disappointment that there was little Asian American representation at the convention. “Asian Americans are the fastest increasing group in America, including in multiple swing states,” Lieu tweeted. “The gross underrepresentation of Asian American speakers in the four days of the DNC Convention is tone deaf and a slap in the face.”
3.44pm EDT15:44
Joe Biden and Kamala Harris call for a nationwide mask mandate
In other mask news, Joe Biden and senator Kamala Harris emerged from a briefing with a panel of public health experts announcing their call for a nationwide mask mandate.
“Every single American should be wearing a mask when they’re outside for the next three months, at a minimum. Every governor should mandate — every governor should mandate mandatory mask wearing,” Biden said.
Biden, referring to Americans who refuse to wear a mask and say that it infringes on their individual rights, said “it’s not about your rights” but rather a person’s responsibility as an American.
“Be a patriot. Protect your fellow citizens,” he implored. “Protect your fellow citizens. Step up. Do the right thing.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) currently recommends that people wear masks in public to prevent the spread of Covid-19. More
California
Speculation has already begun as to who might be appointed by Gavin Newsom – and several contenders are in the running More
TikTok
Executive order comes as TikTok faces scrutiny from US lawmakers and Trump administration over national security concerns More
The Arkansas Republican senator Tom Cotton has called the enslavement of millions of African people “the necessary evil upon which the union was built”.Cotton, widely seen as a possible presidential candidate in 2024, made the comment in an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette published on Sunday.He was speaking in support of legislation he introduced on Thursday that aims to prohibit use of federal funds to teach the 1619 Project, an initiative from the New York Times that reframes US history around August 1619 and the arrival of slave ships on American shores for the first time.Cotton’s Saving American History Act of 2020 and “would prohibit the use of federal funds to teach the 1619 Project by K-12 schools or school districts”, according to a statement from the senator’s office.“The entire premise of the New York Times’ factually, historically flawed 1619 Project … is that America is at root, a systemically racist country to the core and irredeemable,” Cotton told the Democrat-Gazette.“I reject that root and branch. America is a great and noble country founded on the proposition that all mankind is created equal. We have always struggled to live up to that promise, but no country has ever done more to achieve it.”He added: “We have to study the history of slavery and its role and impact on the development of our country because otherwise we can’t understand our country. As the Founding Fathers said, it was the necessary evil upon which the union was built, but the union was built in a way, as [Abraham] Lincoln said, to put slavery on the course to its ultimate extinction.”Nikole Hannah-Jones, who was awarded this year’s Pulitzer Prize for commentary for her introductory essay to the 1619 Project, said on Friday that Cotton’s bill “speaks to the power of journalism more than anything I’ve ever done in my career”.On Sunday, she tweeted: “If chattel slavery – heritable, generational, permanent, race-based slavery where it was legal to rape, torture, and sell human beings for profit – were a ‘necessary evil’ as Tom Cotton says, it’s hard to imagine what cannot be justified if it is a means to an end.“Imagine thinking a non-divisive curriculum is one that tells black children the buying and selling of their ancestors, the rape, torture, and forced labor of their ancestors for PROFIT, was just a ‘necessary evil’ for the creation of the ‘noblest’ country the world has ever seen.“So, was slavery foundational to the Union on which it was built, or nah? You heard it from Tom Cotton himself.”Cotton responded: “More lies from the debunked 1619 Project. Describing the views of the Founders and how they put the evil institution on a path to extinction, a point frequently made by Lincoln, is not endorsing or justifying slavery. No surprise that the 1619 Project can’t get facts right.”In June, the Times was forced to issue a mea culpa after publishing an op-ed written by Cotton and entitled “Send in the troops”. The article, which drew widespread criticism, advocated for the deployment of the military to protests against police brutality toward black Americans.Times publisher AG Sulzberger initially defended the decision, saying the paper was committed to representing “views from across the spectrum”.But the Times subsequently issued a statement saying the op-ed fell short of its editorial standards, leading to the resignation of editorial page director James Bennet. More
Coronavirus outbreak
White House: $600 unemployment payments will not continue
Evictions moratorium on table as Trump golfs and slams Pelosi
100 days to go: Biden holds daunting lead over Trump More
The White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and the treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin, were on Capitol Hill on Saturday, for talks with aides to Senate Republicans over the next coronavirus relief package.The stakes are high. US unemployment rose again on Friday after months of falls, enhanced benefits are due to run out and Americans unable to pay rent are starting to be evicted. The expanded unemployment benefit officially expires on 31 July, but due to the way states process payments, the cut-off is effectively Saturday.On Friday Richard Neal, a Massachusetts Democrat who chairs the House ways and means committee, said the US was on “the eve of an economic catastrophe”.Nonetheless the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, sent members of his party home, promising a proposal by Monday.Facing re-election this year, McConnell also went home. At an event in Kentucky, he said: “This has been one heck of a challenge for everybody in the country. Hopefully we can come together behind some package we can agree on in the next few weeks.”In a joint statement, the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said: “We call upon Leader McConnell to get serious.”In a tweet referring to the pandemic-inspired unemployment boost of $600 a week, Pelosi added: “The Senate must take up the House-passed Heroes Act and extend this critical lifeline for working families.”The Democratic-held House passed that $3tn relief package in May but the Senate is held by Republicans and has not taken it up.Among other issues, Republicans are debating reducing the special unemployment payments, which they say provide a disincentive to seek work. The White House has suggested cutting the payments to as little as $100.Many regular Americans counter that the funds are vital, not just to meet rent but to buy food and other necessary items.The economy has been battered by the coronavirus pandemic, which is now surging in mainly Republican-run states which reopened from late May. Democrat-run California, an early hotspot, is also seeing a resurgence.More than 4.1m cases have been recorded in the US and more than 145,000 people have died.The Trump White House sees economic recovery as key to the president’s hopes of re-election. But amid protests over police brutality and racism, and confrontations between protesters and federal agents in Portland, Oregon, Trump has also pivoted to law and order.On Friday, Trump added a new priority to the relief package: money to build a new FBI headquarters, across the street in Washington from his own hotel.McConnell’s proposal is expected to include new direct $1,200 cash payments to many Americans, $105bn to help reopen schools and $25bn for virus testing.The Senate leader’s top priority is a liability shield to protect businesses, hospitals and others against Covid-19 lawsuits. Trump is pressing to reopen schools, threatening to withhold funding from those which do not return fully in September.The White House was also pushing a payroll tax cut. Senate Republicans rejected the move, which would pull revenue away from social security and Medicare in the middle of an economic and public health disaster.“This is disarray,” Pelosi said on Friday at the Capitol.Her statement with Schumer said: “We had expected to be working throughout this weekend. It is simply unacceptable that Republicans have had this entire time to reach consensus among themselves and continue to flail.”Amid widespread criticism of his response to the pandemic, Trump trails Joe Biden in most national and battleground state polls. The nonpartisan Cook Report website recently said a “Democratic tsunami” may be on the way.But some observers counter that an election held amid social restrictions due to the pandemic, and subject to Republican voter suppression efforts, could give Trump a chance of a second win in the electoral college. More
