Category Archives: Republicans

Coronavirus US live: death toll nears 80,000 as Trump rages over Russia

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Precautions against Covid-19 infection have been stepped up at the White House but are hampered by the cramped and poorly ventilated conditions in the West Wing, Kevin Hassett, a special adviser to Donald Trump on the pandemic response, said on Sunday.

Treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin has been talking to Fox News Sunday about the Trump administration’s attempts to reopen and restart the stalled US economy, and whether there will be another huge stimulus bill. Democrats who control the House want one of those but the White House doesn’t – that’s the short version.

The White House is “absolutely pushing for a payroll tax cut”, Mnuchin says. Most observers think that is a non-starter, because Democrats won’t let it. Payroll taxes, meaning deductions from regular paychecks, include funds for Social Security and Medicare, vital social benefits.

Related: US job losses have reached Great Depression levels. Did it have to be that way?

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Trump loyalist set to become national intelligence director on second attempt

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John Ratcliffe was forced to withdraw his nomination for the same post nine months ago for exaggerating his security experience

A Trump loyalist nominated as director of national intelligence (DNI) looked set to sail through Senate confirmation hearings on Tuesday, only nine months after being forced to withdraw for having exaggerated his security experience.

Related: John Ratcliffe: Trump's intelligence chief pick withdraws amid qualification doubts

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Trump gives up on virus fight to focus on economic recovery – and re-election

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With Covid-19 deaths set to almost double this month, the president is putting the stock market before lives, critics say

Donald Trump is effectively abandoning a public health strategy for the coronavirus pandemic and showing “clear willingness to trade lives for the Dow Jones”, critics say.

Related: Will Americans ever forgive Trump for his heartless lack of compassion? | Francine Prose

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Coronavirus US live: FDA approves experimental drug remdesivir for emergency use

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Donald Trump appears to have revised upward to 100,000 his expectations for the number of Americans who will die of Covid-19.

“Hopefully we’re going to come in below that 100,000 lives lost, which is a horrible number nevertheless,” Trump said at a White House event to honor people who are doing work related to the coronavirus pandemic, according to Reuters.

The last patient has left the field hospital that was erected in New York City’s Javits convention center, the AP reports.

The emergency facility was erected by the members of the US military to alleviate strain on the city’s hospital system at the height of the outbreak. It ultimately treated 1,095 patients, the last 8 of whom left the hospital today.

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Trump is seizing the courts – only a Democratic win in November can stop him

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Trump’s transformation of the federal judiciary means the stakes have never been higher in an election than they are for Democrats

He is 37 and less than 10 years out of law school. He had never tried a case, nor served as co-counsel at trial, when he was tapped last year for America’s federal bench. But he did go on Fox News to push the cause of Brett Kavanaugh when Trump’s supreme court pick was mired in sexual abuse claims two years ago.

And now he is bound for the second highest court in the land.

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Democrats not confident 2020 US election will be fair, survey finds

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Findings underscore partisan divide over voting as Democrats push to ease restrictions while Republicans defend them

As America hurtles towards the critical 2020 presidential election during the Covid-19 pandemic, less than half of Democrats are confident it will be fair and accurate, according to a new national survey from the Pew Research Center.

Just 46% of Democrats are confident in the fairness and accuracy of the November election, the survey found. Even fewer are confident all citizens will be able to vote if they want to.

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Donald Trump set to fall back on xenophobia with re-election plan in tatters

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The president had been intending to campaign on a strong economy and facing a socialist opponent but scapegoating foreigners has worked for him before

Donald Trump had been intending to run a re-election campaign based on a strong economy and a socialist opponent. Both have vanished in the past month. But the US president still has his ultimate weapon: xenophobia.

Related: Debacle of Trump's coronavirus disinfectant comments could be tipping point

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Coronavirus US live: Cuomo says Trump should ‘go to work’ after president lashes out during briefing

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New York governor Andrew Cuomo reiterated that the federal government must be involved in expanding testing capacity, after Trump tweeted it was up to the states to make tests more widely available.

“If we don’t have federal help on testing, that’s a real problem,” Cuomo said.

Trump sent a series of tweets trying to deflect responsibility for the coronavirus crisis, suggesting states are the ones who need to expand testing capacity.

The States have to step up their TESTING!

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Americans with lower incomes more worried about coronavirus, study finds

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People who made less than $50,000 per year were 10 percentage points more concerned about threat posed by infectious disease

Americans with lower incomes and less education were more like to say the spread of infectious disease was a major threat to the US, according to a Pew Research Center survey released Monday.

Nearly all US adults said the spread of infectious disease is a threat to the country, but people who made less than $50,000 per year were 10 percentage points more concerned about the threat posed by infectious disease than those with higher incomes in a survey conducted in March.

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Republican who floated virus conspiracy says ‘common sense has been my guide’

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Tom Cotton told Fox News he did not believe virus originated in Wuhan market and said bioweapons link should not be ruled out

A Republican senator who floated a conspiracy theory which said the Chinese government created Covid-19 in a weapons lab claimed on Saturday that since he first learned of the outbreak, in mid-January, “common sense has been my guide”.

The Covid-19 outbreak began in the Chinese city of Wuhan, but has spread globally and by Saturday evening had killed more people in America, nearly 20,000, than in any other country. White House public health experts have said they currently expect a death toll of around 60,000 in the United States.

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Coronavirus US news: New York sees record daily death toll as unemployment rises by 6.6m – as it happened

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Fact check: The majority of states have less than 10% positive cases

Earlier, Dr Deborah Birx, a coordinator on the coronavirus response task force, said that 63% of the states (31 states) had less than 10% of total people tested for Covid-19 be positive. A quick glance at data provided by the Covid Tracking Project, a collaborative, volunteer-run project that collects data from local health departments, shows that about 28 states plus US Samoa meet that threshold.

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Coronavirus US live: 400,000 cases confirmed in America as Cuomo says New York is flattening curve

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The White House is reportedly having discussions about reopening the economy next month, which could cause friction with health experts who have warned against lifting “stay at home” orders too quickly.

CNN reports:

Officials said the options being discussed on reopening the country vary widely in scope, from recommendations on benchmarks for when individual states can begin easing restrictions to a nationwide ‘big bang’ that Trump previewed Tuesday evening on Fox News. The officials said the conversations were still preliminary and would likely evolve over the course of the next weeks.

Still, some officials have even begun mulling the type of event Trump may want to mark the day when nationwide restrictions are lifted after he suggested a ‘big celebration’ when the crisis is over. ...

At some point, the president is going to have to look at Drs. Fauci and Birx and say, we're opening on May 1. Give me your best guidance on protocols, but we cannot deny our people their basic freedoms any longer.

Barack Obama called for a “robust system of testing and monitoring” to confront the coronavirus crisis.

Social distancing bends the curve and relieves some pressure on our heroic medical professionals. But in order to shift off current policies, the key will be a robust system of testing and monitoring – something we have yet to put in place nationwide. https://t.co/evkTSrzReB

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Trump says Republicans would ‘never’ be elected again if it was easier to vote

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President dismissed Democratic-led push for voter reforms amid coronavirus pandemic during Fox & Friends appearance

Donald Trump admitted on Monday that making it easier to vote in America would hurt the Republican party.

The president made the comments as he dismissed a Democratic-led push for reforms such as vote-by-mail, same-day registration and early voting as states seek to safely run elections amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Democrats had proposed the measures as part of the coronavirus stimulus. They ultimately were not included in the $2.2tn final package, which included only $400m to states to help them run elections.

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Donald Trump in ‘near tie’ with Joe Biden, new poll finds

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Washington Post-ABC News poll puts former vice-president ahead by 49% to 47% among registered voters

Donald Trump has gained ground on his probable challenger in November’s presidential election and is in a “near tie” with Joe Biden, according to a new poll released on Sunday.

The Washington Post-ABC News poll put the former vice-president ahead by 49% to 47% among registered voters. In February, the same poll put the US president seven points behind.

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Disunited states of America: responses to coronavirus shaped by hyper-partisan politics

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Democratic states have tended to be more proactive while some Republican governors followed Trump in downplaying the crisis

It was a tale of two beaches. On Florida’s Atlantic coast, at the height of spring break season, the sand was deserted in the cities of Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale, where Democratic mayors had imposed closures to fight the spread of coronavirus.

Across the narrow neck of the state, the Gulf coast beaches in Clearwater were a world apart. There the Republican mayor had declined to impose a closure, and photos that would circle the world captured the result: thousands of carefree sunbathers lining the sand and mingling in the water.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez decries ‘shameful’ corporate bailout – video

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez clashed with Republicans as the US Senate voted on a $2.2tn coronavirus relief bill on Friday. She said it was a ‘shameful’ corporate bailout that would further widen the income inequality gap. ‘What did the Senate majority fight for?’ the New York congresswoman asled. ‘One of the largest corporate bailouts with as few strings as possible in American history’


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A Citizen’s Guide to Beating Donald Trump review: dispatches from a time before the virus

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David Plouffe went to the White House with Obama then predicted a Clinton victory. Has he learned from that reverse? Have we?

On Tuesday, Joe Biden and his juggernaut left Bernie Sanders’ dream in tatters. The former vice-president swept primaries in Arizona, Florida and Illinois. Fact: Sanders looks a lot less appealing without Hillary Clinton to kick around.

Related: MBS review: why Trump and the west took a pass on the Khashoggi killing

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Coronavirus: Republican senators sold stocks before markets plunged on Covid-19 fears – reports

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Richard Burr, chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia have denied they kept the public in the dark

Two Republican senators have faced demands to resign after it was reported they sold off millions of dollars worth of stocks just before the market dropped amid fears of the coronavirus pandemic.

Richard Burr of North Carolina, chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, whose husband is chairman of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), denied that they kept the public in the dark about the scale of the threat.

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Trump reportedly to announce order calling for medical supplies to be US-made – live

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The administration celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the enforcement of a policy that makes asylum seekers wait in Mexico for US court hearings. The “Remain in Mexico” policy will be upheld while a lawsuit challenging it continues.

In a statement, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said, “Today’s order from the Supreme Court is a major victory for the Trump Administration.”

Related: 'We need the Wall!': Trump uses coronavirus to push his own agenda

The House approved a resolution to limit Donald Trump’s ability to order direct military action against Iran without authorization from Congress. The Senate has also passed the bill, but it’s expected to be vetoed by Trump.

Lawmakers introduced the bill after Trump ordered a strike to kill Iranian general Qasem Suleimani, bringing the US to the brink of war, without consulting Consulting congress.

Related: After Suleimani: Iran's scramble to recover from general's death

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Cory Booker and Kamala Harris to appear at Biden rally after endorsements – live

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  • New Michigan poll shows Biden leading Sanders by 24 points
  • Trump appears to minimize coronavirus compared to flu
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The Dow has dropped more than 1,900 points today, as fears intensify about the spread of coronavirus.

The New York Stock Exchange briefly halted trading this morning as the markets nosedived.

Related: Coronavirus live updates: fifth death confirmed in UK, as head of New York's airports tests positive

Joe Biden’s campaign dismissed a report about the Democratic frontrunner’s potential Cabinet picks.

Axios reported that the former vice president is considering billionaires Mike Bloomberg and Jamie Dimon for senior roles like head of the World Bank and treasury secretary.

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