‘Deep down, he’s a terrified little boy’: Bob Woodward, John Bolton and others on Trump

The authors of recent exposés, including Mary Trump and Anthony Scaramucci, on the president, his time in office – and what they expect to happen at the polls

Bob Woodward is associate editor of the Washington Post and the author of 20 books on American politics. In 50 years as a journalist he has covered nine presidents. His reporting on the Watergate break-in and cover-up with his colleague Carl Bernstein helped bring down Richard Nixon and won the Post a Pulitzer prize. His latest book about Donald Trump, Rage, is based on 10 hours of interviews, spread over 19 taped phone calls, often initiated by the president himself, in which Trump proved “only too willing to blow the whistle on himself”, as the Observer’s review noted.

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‘Power grab’: how Republican hardball gave us Amy Coney Barrett

Confirmation of a sixth conservative on the nine-member court is due on Monday, the result of ruthless Republican politics

The almost certain confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court on Monday represents a “power grab” by Republicans facing possible wipeout at the ballot box, activists and analysts say.

Related: Revealed: ex-members of Amy Coney Barrett faith group tell of trauma and sexual abuse

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From climate to China, how Joe Biden is plotting America’s restoration

The challenger aims to fix the foreign policy upheaval of the Trump years but such an agenda presents many challenges

By any measure, Joe Biden is old in the ways of the world. As Barack Obama’s vice-president, he met all the big international actors. As chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, he helped direct US foreign policy.

After four years of Donald Trump’s manic leadership, the Democrat offers a steady, dependable hand on the tiller. Biden’s grand aim: a glorious American restoration, at home and abroad.

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Biden gains as suburban women and elderly voters turn backs on Trump

Nine days out from election day, polling shows the Democratic nominee with big leads in key demographics

Joe Biden’s hopes of reaching the White House could rest on two crucial demographic groups that appear to be deserting Donald Trump: elderly people and suburban women.

Related: Trump assaulted American democracy – here's how Democrats can save it

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Obama campaigns for Biden in Florida as Trump heads to battleground Ohio – as it happened

It’s been a lively day on the election trail. We’re closing this blog now but will be back with all the developments in US political news, as it happens, tomorrow.

Here are the main events of the day:

Democratic vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris is calling for an administration that is frank about racist police brutality in America.

“There isn’t a Black man I know, be it a relative or friend, who has not had some sort of experience with police that’s been about an unreasonable stop, some sort of profiling or excessive force,” she said.

We can’t just speak the truth about police brutality in our nation—we must act to change our systems of justice and demand accountability. pic.twitter.com/arSdFLi7Wj

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Johnson will wait for US election result before no-deal Brexit decision

Ivan Rogers, former UK ambassador to the EU, says prime minister will think ‘history was going his way’ if Donald Trump is re-elected

Senior figures in European governments believe Boris Johnson is waiting for the result of the US presidential election before finally deciding whether to risk plunging the UK into a no-deal Brexit, according to a former British ambassador to the EU.

Ivan Rogers, who was the UK’s permanent representative in Brussels from 2013 to 2017, told the Observer that a view shared by ministers and officials he has talked to in recent weeks in several European capitals, is that Johnson is biding his time – and is much more likely to opt for no deal if his friend and Brexit supporter Donald Trump prevails over the Democratic challenger, Joe Biden.

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As election day nears, what final dirty tricks could Trump turn to?

Days before the election, Hunter Biden emails dropped with a roll call of Trump associates involved in ‘discovering’ them – and experts say it probably isn’t the last of the dirty tricks

On 28 October 2016, the then director of the FBI, James Comey, dropped a bomb into the middle of the presidential race. With just 11 days to go until election day, he announced that his agents were investigating a newly discovered batch of emails from Hillary Clinton’s personal server.

Related: ‘What did we all do?’: why women who voted for Trump could decide the 2020 election

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US 2020 election could have the highest rate of voter turnout since 1908

Data from the US Elections Project predicts a record 150m ballots, representing 65% of eligible voters, for this election

More than 50 million Americans have cast ballots in the US presidential election with 11 days to go in the campaign, a pace that could lead to the highest voter turnout in over a century, according to data from the US Elections Project on Friday.

The eye-popping figure is a sign of intense interest in the contest between Republican Donald Trump and Joe Biden, his Democratic challenger, as well as Americans’ desire to reduce their risk of exposure to Covid-19, which has killed more than 221,000 people across the United States.

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Joe Biden: I’m going to ‘shut down the virus’, not the US – video

Joe Biden said he would not shut down the country in response to the coronavirus pandemic during a campaign event in Wilmington, Delaware, reinforcing his answers during Thursday's presidential debate.

Donald Trump had claimed Biden would force a nationwide lockdown if he became president, but the Democratic nominee has repeatedly said he does not believe that will be necessary to get the virus under control

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US election: early voting could reportedly fuel highest turnout since 1908 – live

And now for a semi-regular feature when I’m blogging, entitled Fun With Polls and basically just a read-off of the averages from fivethirtyeight.com but nonetheless it paints a picture, less than two weeks out from election day.

Herewith, the current scores on the doors in the battleground states, both the ones everyone always thinks of and some – Georgia, Iowa, Texas – which really shouldn’t be close but with this Republican in the White House, are:

What you said about Texas, don’t worry about Texas. Texas is with us. [Democrats] want to take away your guns, your oil and your God. OK, that’s what they want. They want to take away your second amendment. They want to take away fracking and oil. They don’t care. They want to take it away they want to go to the Green New Deal. That’s not for Texas. Texas is not going to be losing the guns, and they’re not going to be losing their oil and they’re not going to be losing their religion or their God.

Following up the post below, Reuters has an eye-catching line about early voting and what it might say about turnout:

More than 50m Americans have cast ballots in the presidential election with 11 days to go, a pace that could lead to the highest turnout in more than a century, according to data from the US Elections Project.

The eye-popping figure is a sign of intense interest in the contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, as well as Americans’ desire to reduce their risk of exposure to Covid-19, which has killed more than 221,000 people across the US.

Grrr....I'm getting emails from orgs cheering 50 million #earlyvote without saying where these data are coming from. All I ask for this free site is attribution. If you want to show appreciation, please donate to this charitable @UF election science fund https://t.co/xtN28Mq9Nn

The Attorney General has to act. He’s got to act, and he’s got to act fast, he’s got to appoint somebody, this is major corruption, and this has to be known about before the election, and by the way we’re doing very well, we’re gonna win the election, we’re doing very well, if you look at all of what’s happening and all of the people that come in and don’t come in, you take a look all around the country and with Texas early voting. Those are our votes and we were doing well in Texas. I mean, I just got to report we’re doing great in Texas, but we’re doing great all over, but forget that, this has to be done early. So the attorney general has to act.

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With 10 days to go, time and history are not on Donald Trump’s side

Covid has tanked the gains he made in the economy and any new stimulus could be too late

It all looked so simple for Donald Trump as he took the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January this year. At the start of an election year, the annual gathering of the global business elite was an opportunity to launch his campaign.

It was one Trump eagerly seized. The next 30 minutes was one long boast, detailing how a US economy that had allegedly been on its knees under Barack Obama had been transformed under his stewardship.

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Trump v Biden: the key moments of the final presidential debate – video highlights

Joe Biden and Donald Trump have gone head-to-head for the final time before the US election on 3 November in the final television debate, helped by a mute button on the candidates’ microphones that prevented interruptions.

Squaring off in Nashville, Biden had to field aggressive questioning about his son’s business dealings and when Trump compared himself to Abraham Lincoln, the challenger branded his opponent 'one of the most racist presidents we’ve had in modern history'. Here is a look back at the key moments

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‘Kills all the birds’: Trump and Biden spar over climate in TV debate – video

The closing moments of the final presidential debate focused on climate change. Joe Biden stressed the need to expand sources of renewable energy while again disputing Donald Trump’s claim that he intended to ban fracking, which he does not. 'I know more about wind than you do,' Trump retorted, drawing an exasperated laugh from Biden. 'It’s extremely expensive. Kills all the birds'

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Trump and Biden clash on coronavirus during final presidential debate – video

Donald Trump and Joe Biden have clashed over the handling of the coronavirus pandemic during the final presidential debate. While Trump says a vaccine will be available within weeks, Biden questioned the veracity of Trump's claims after the president's previous predictions the pandemic would end by Easter. The pandemic has killed more than 220,000 Americans and infected millions more, including the president

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‘Children brought here by coyotes’: Trump squares off with Biden on immigration – video

Donald Trump and Joe Biden have squared off over immigration policies, including the US government being unable to locate the parents of more than 500 immigrant children. 'Children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels, and they're brought here and they used to use them to get into our country. We now have as strong a border as we've ever had,' Trump said. The president also criticised immigration under the previous Obama-Biden administration, including the catch and release policy, saying 'those with the lowest IQ' were the only ones who returned for an immigration hearing

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The final Trump-Biden presidential debate: five key takeaways

Trump tried to change his tone, Biden calls the president a racist and ‘Bidencare’ is now a thing

In the days leading up to the debate, Donald Trump’s advisers urged the president to stay calmer than he was at the first presidential debate in Cleveland last month, when he was widely criticized for repeatedly and aggressively interrupting his Democratic presidential rival, Joe Biden.

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‘Abraham Lincoln over here’: Trump and Biden clash on racism at presidential debate – video

Donald Trump has defended his handling of race issues in the US, declaring three times during the final presidential debate he is 'the least racist person in this room'. Trump was questioned on his handling of incidents such as describing the Black Lives Matter movement as a symbol of hate and saying protesting Black athletes should be fired. Presidential rival Joe Biden called Trump 'one of the most racist presidents we've had in modern history. He pours fuel on every racist fire', before adding 'this guy has a dog whistle about as big as a foghorn'

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Humanity has eight years to get climate crisis under control – and Trump’s plan won’t fix it

Donald Trump presented a fantasy world in which fossil fuels are ‘very clean’ but realpolitik tempers Biden’s climate crisis stance

In Donald Trump’s world – laid bare during Thursday night’s final presidential debate with his Democratic rival Joe Biden in Nashville – fossil fuels are “very clean”, the US has the best air and water despite his administration’s extensive regulatory rollbacks, and the country can fix climate change by planting trees.

Related: Biden mauls Trump's record on coronavirus in final presidential debate

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Presidential debate live: Trump and Biden to face off in final clash

Joe Biden has arrived at the debate venue as well, with just 15 minutes to go until the start of the event.

The Democratic nominee sent this one-word tweet before the debate got underway.

Ready. pic.twitter.com/RYbnSpEsKB

You got this, @JoeBiden. pic.twitter.com/RXoM5CEAkg

Trump has arrived at Belmont University, where tonight’s presidential debate will take place in Nashville, Tennessee.

Presidential Motorcade rolls into Belmont University pic.twitter.com/yJJIgQbxtL

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