Category Archives: Joe Biden

Joe Biden and Barack Obama raise $11m in first 2020 fundraiser together

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In official return to the campaign trail, former president urged 175,000 viewers not to be ‘complacent’ about 2020 race

Barack Obama made his first campaign appearance alongside Joe Biden since endorsing him for president in April, helping raise more than $11m while warning Democrats against being “complacent or smug” about the presidential race.

The virtual fundraiser collected $7.6m from 175,000 grassroots contributors according to the Biden campaign. The former president and the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee also hosted a private online portion for high-dollar donors, which was not open to reporters, and brought in more than $3.4m.

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Rayshard Brooks funeral set for Atlanta, as Kentucky and New York vote – live updates

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Arwa Mahdawi’s latest column for us has arrived - she’s looking at why Trump believes playing the victim will help him win in November.

Donald Trump will not go gentle into that good night: he will rage, rage, rage-tweet against the dying of his might. Indeed, he is already doing so. After a humiliating turnout at Saturday’s rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma – which capped one of the worst weeks of his presidency – Trump’s re-election chances look shakier by the day. Rattled and belligerent, he seems to be gearing up to contest a defeat in November.

Related: Presidential harassment! Why Trump believes playing the victim will help him win

Donald Trump will be in Arizona today, and his visit is not entirely welcomed by the state’s official. Arizona will be a key battleground in November, but it is also a coronavirus hotspot - it has reported over 11,000 new Covid-19 cases in the last four days alone.

The Democratic mayor of Phoenix, Kate Gallego, has said that she does not believe that Trump’s planned speech can be safely held in the city. She urged him to wear a face mask - as she does on her own official Twitter avatar - saying “Everyone attending tomorrow’s event, particularly any elected official, should set an example to residents by wearing a mask. This includes the President.”

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Voting in the New York primary is by no means futile for Sanders supporters | Billy Richling and Francisco Navas

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Voters need to understand that Sanders’ delegate candidates aren’t running against Biden’s delegate candidates – they’re running against each other

Although Joe Biden is the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, voting in the New York primary on Tuesday (or during early voting) is by no means futile for progressives who were largely supporting Bernie Sanders and policies such as the Green New Deal and Medicare for All.

Related: 'Just ridiculous': what it’s like to wait five hours in line to vote in the US

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Black Lives Matter protests: Republicans to unveil police reform plan – live updates

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Another statue went down in Richmond, Virginia last night - this time from the Howitzers Monument which was erected in 1892 to commemorate a Richmond Civil War artillery unit.

Activists have been demanding not just reforms to policing in the US, but a deep-seated change in police culture. A report this morning by Jesselyn Cook and Nick Robins-Early for the Huffington Post website illustrates exactly why some people see this as a necessary goal. They’ve been studying the places they describe as “the dangerous online fever swamps of American police”:

This police media ecosystem is not necessarily a broad representation of what most cops believe. But inside this echo chamber, which has thousands of users and readers, extremist views dictate the narrative. Wild misinformation and bigotry are rampant, with people who claim to be current and former officers posting debunked falsehoods and racist stereotypes about protesters.

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Trump administration sues former adviser John Bolton to block his book – live

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The lawsuit filed by the US against John Bolton aims to stop the former administration official “ from compromising national security by publishing a book containing classified information.”

But it states that “on or around” 27 April, Ellen Knight, who was reviewing Bolton’s manuscript, “had completed her review and was of the judgment that the manuscript draft did not contain classified information”.

Bolton’s book The Room Where It Happened will be a critical account of the Trump administration, according to the publisher.

Bolton “shows a president addicted to chaos, who embraced our enemies and spurned our friends, and was deeply suspicious of his own government”, according to Simon and Schuster.

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Pandemic, what pandemic? Trump sees mass rallies as path to re-election

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Tens of thousands of Americans are dead from Covid-19, millions have lost their jobs but the president hopes adoring crowds will change the narrative

On the day that America reached a world record 2m coronavirus infections, Donald Trump announced a campaign rally and his deputy, Mike Pence, posted (then deleted) a tweet of campaign staff gathered indoors without face masks or physical distancing.

Related: It's the economy, stupid – but will Trump or Biden win the argument?

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ABC News executive placed on leave after allegations of racist remarks – live

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The Fulton county district attorney’s office has opened an investigation into an incident in which Atlanta police shot and killed a man on Friday night. Police responded to reports that a man had fallen asleep in his car at a Wendy’s drive-thru and was blocking traffic. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) says the man was shot and killed after police tried to take him into custody. One report says the man tried to grab a police taser. The GBI is conducting its own investigation. Unverified reports on social media say the man who died was black.

JUST IN: The #FultonCounty DA’s statement about the @Atlanta_Police involved shooting Friday night. pic.twitter.com/Z3mwwvOnNz

Athletes at the University of Texas have asked the school song to be changed along with the names of buildings on campus.

“The recent events across the country regarding racial injustice have brought to light the systemic racism that has always been prevalent in our country as well as the racism that has historically plagued our campus,” the athletes said in a statement.

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Biden predicts military will intervene if Trump refuses to accept election loss

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  • Biden says biggest fear is Trump will ‘try to steal the election’
  • Democratic challenger leads president in opinion polls

Joe Biden has predicted the military will escort Donald Trump from the White House should the president lose November’s election but refuse to leave office.

Biden, speaking to the Daily Show’s Trevor Noah, said that his single greatest concern is that the president will “try to steal this election”.

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UK diplomats fear end of special relationship if Trump re-elected

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Former senior officials also worry Britain may be sidelined if Joe Biden becomes president

The UK’s special relationship with the US may end if Donald Trump wins a second term, some of the UK’s most senior retired diplomats and Conservative foreign policy specialists have said. They also say that if the Democrat Joe Biden wins, Washington may view the EU rather than the UK as its primary partner.

The anxious assessment of what is at stake for Britain in the US presidential election in November has been made on and off the record in a variety of seminars over the past month, and underlines concerns at Trump’s performance during the coronavirus pandemic. It also reflects diplomatic outreach to the UK by Biden’s chief foreign policy adviser, Antony Blinken.

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Colin Powell endorses Joe Biden for US president

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Ex-secretary of state and military leader during Bush presidencies becomes first major Republican to back Trump’s Democratic rival


Colin Powell endorsed Democratic former US vice-president Joe Biden on Sunday and said Donald Trump’s behaviour endangers democracy, becoming the first major Republican to publicly back Trump’s rival ahead of November’s election. 

Powell, who led the US military during the 1991 Gulf War in Iraq under Republican former President George HW Bush and later led the Department of State under President George W Bush, said Trump has “drifted away” from the US Constitution and “lies about things”. 

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The George Floyd murder and Covid-19 have hurt Trump, but maybe not fatally

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The president’s approval ratings have dipped sharply but he could still beat Biden

Voter disapproval of Donald Trump’s handling of the George Floyd protests and the Covid-19 pandemic, plus the accompanying economic meltdown, have undoubtedly hurt the president’s re-election chances.

But it’s unclear whether the damage is fatal. Could Trump, despite everything, still stage a comeback and beat the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden?

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Joe Biden officially clinches Democratic presidential nomination

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Former vice-president crosses delegate threshold in latest round of primaries as he campaigns largely from home

Joe Biden has officially captured the Democratic presidential nomination, crossing the delegate threshold to represent the party in a general election contest against Donald Trump.

The Associated Press called the nomination for the former vice-president on Friday night.

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Ukrainian prosecutors find no evidence against Hunter Biden

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Audit probed energy company Burisma, of which Biden was a board member from 2014-2019

An audit of thousands of old case files by Ukrainian prosecutors found no evidence of wrongdoing on the part of Hunter Biden, the former prosecutor general, who had launched the audit, told Reuters.

Ruslan Ryaboshapka was in the spotlight last year as the man who would decide whether to launch an investigation into former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter, in what became a key issue in the impeachment of President Donald Trump.

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Trump hankers for roar of the crowd while Biden takes campaign virtual

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Despite the pandemic, the president can’t wait to get back packed rallies while his Democratic rival practices caution. Each thinks he has a winning strategy

Donald Trump wants to be nominated by a Republican national convention with all the trappings of a normal, packed event: the thronging crowds, the balloon drop, the scores of sideshow events. Meanwhile, former vice-president Joe Biden and senior Democratic officials are strongly considering a partially or completely virtual convention.

Related: Can Joe Biden convince protesters he would be a 'transformational' president?

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Can Joe Biden convince protesters he would be a ‘transformational’ president?

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‘It’s not enough to just be better than Trump’ Democratic hopeful told amid anti-racist uprising sparked by killing of George Floyd

Hours before peaceful protests against police brutality were forcibly dispersed so that Donald Trump could pose with a Bible in front of St John’s church, Joe Biden also went to church. 

Head bowed, Biden prayed with community leaders at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal church in his home town of Wilmington, Delaware. For days the nation had been convulsed over the killing of George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man pinned under the knee of a white Minneapolis police officer for a fatal eight minutes and 46 seconds. 

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‘A wake-up call for the nation’: Joe Biden addresses the killing of George Floyd – video

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Joe Biden has addressed the killing of George Floyd and the protests that his death has sparked. During a speech in Philadelphia, the Democratic presidential candidate said Floyd’s last words, 'I can’t breathe', were a 'wake-up call for our nation'. Biden also sought to draw a clear distinction between himself and Donald Trump, saying the US president was 'part of the problem'

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America’s seniors ebb away from Trump as coronavirus response disappoints

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The country’s most reliable voting bloc are also the most vulnerable to the virus, which looks to be benefiting Biden

At a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden last week, a maskless Donald Trump appealed directly to a constituency that could determine his political fate in November’s election: America’s seniors. 

Related: Biden sets solemn tone as Trump waits 15 hours to mark Covid-19 milestone

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‘A national crisis’: how the killing of George Floyd is changing US politics

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As people protest across the US, Donald Trump and Joe Biden have offered divergent responses that point to a divisive political debate on race relations

Riots in Minneapolis and across the US triggered by video footage showing George Floyd, a black man, killed under the knee of a police officer, has caused a dramatic shift in the national political debate in America and thrust race to the center of the stage.

Donald Trump and Joe Biden offered divergent responses that point to an even more divisive political debate on race relations and between Democrats and Republicans playing out in the months ahead.

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Biden sets solemn tone as Trump waits 15 hours to mark Covid-19 milestone

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As the toll of Americans killed by the coronavirus passed 100,000, the president was lashing out at Twitter for factchecking his posts

Four hours after Johns Hopkins University recorded that 100,000 American lives were lost to the coronavirus, Joe Biden released a solemn speech.

“My fellow Americans, there are moments in our history so grim, so heart-rending, that they are forever fixed in each of our hearts as shared grief. Today is one of those moments,” said Biden, speaking directly to the camera from an office adorned with American flags.

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Joe Biden addresses US as its coronavirus death toll passes 100,000 – video

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Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate, has addressed the US as the country’s coronavirus death toll passes 100,000. The US has recorded more deaths from the disease than any other country, and almost three times as many as the second-ranking country, Britain, which has recorded more than 37,000 Covid-19 deaths. The grim milestone comes even as many states relax measures intended to stop the spread of the coronavirus

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