The pandemic has led the presumptive Democratic nominee, like other politicians to take his high-dollar events online
The coronavirus pandemic may have driven Joe Biden into his basement and forced his campaign online, but one crucial factor is still the same: his run for the White House still needs to raise giant amounts of money.
Related: Campaign wars: Trump rallies base while Biden tries to broaden his
Continue reading...The president rarely misses a chance to sling mud but he has been uncharacteristically quiet about Tara Reade’s claim
Sometimes Donald Trump portrays his election rival, Joe Biden, as a sleepy geriatric who should be in a care home because “he doesn’t know he’s alive”. At others, the president speaks of Biden as a wily manipulator who conspired with the deep state and China.
Related: Who is Tara Reade and what are her allegations against Joe Biden?
Continue reading...Judge Robert Hinkle says current law is unconstitutional but his ruling is likely to face Republican challenge in key battleground state
A law in Florida requiring felons to pay legal fees as part of their sentences before regaining the vote is unconstitutional for those unable to pay, or unable to find out how much they owe, a federal judge has ruled.
Related: Democrats not confident 2020 US election will be fair, survey finds
Continue reading...Val Demings, a Democratic representative from Florida among contenders to be Joe Biden’s presidential running mate, has castigated Donald Trump for having the “gall and nerve” to use a gaffe by Biden as a weapon on the campaign trail.
Related: Jeff Sessions protests loyalty to Trump – again – despite Twitter abuse
Continue reading...The former president, the most popular politician in America with a huge social media following, can bolster the Democratic nominee with key groups and drive voter registration
Former president Barack Obama has dipped his toes into the 2020 presidential campaign recently and is positioned to do more in the coming months as Joe Biden’s effort to defeat Donald Trump gathers steam.
Interviews with about a dozen Democratic strategists, officials and people close to Obama indicated members of the party want the popular former president to use his powerful online presence and focus on rallying key Democrat constituencies that are critical to a Biden victory.
Continue reading...Joe Biden has been criticised after saying,'If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black'. The former vice-president made the comment in an interview with Charlamagne tha God, a co-host of the radio show 'The Breakfast Club'.
After a campaign aide said Biden had to wrap up the conversation, Charlamagne said: 'Listen, you’ve got to come see us when you come to New York, VP Biden. It’s a long way until November. We’ve got more questions.'
'You’ve got more questions?' Biden replied. 'Well I tell you what, if you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black.' He said Charlamagne and voters should 'take a look at my record, man!'
Former vice-president said in an interview ‘If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black’
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden triggered a fresh controversy on Friday morning when he suggested that if American voters supported Donald Trump “then you ain’t black”.
The former vice-president did an interview with Charlamagne tha God, a co-host of the radio show The Breakfast Club. Charlamagne had pressed Biden on a number of issues, including the legalization of marijuana and his choice of running mate.
Continue reading...The presumptive Democratic nominee who once promised ‘nothing would fundamentally change’ now has a different tune
When Joe Biden launched his campaign for president in April last year, the unemployment rate was 3.6%, the lowest it had been in nearly half a century. Now, months into a once-in-a-century public health crisis, unemployment in the US is nearly four times that, soaring to levels not seen since the Great Depression.
Related: Coronavirus US live: experts urge caution on first holiday weekend of summer as deaths pass 94,000
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Joe Biden assailed Donald Trump in a pair of virtual events in Wisconsin, calling him “a destroyer of everything he touches.”
“All he’s ever done is hollow out what really matters and then slap a gold sign on a flimsy foundation,” Biden said during the virtual rally in the battleground state.
“Donald Trump claimed he would fight for the forgotten man, the working class,” the former vice president continued. “But as soon as he got into office, he forgot them.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Biden held a virtual roundtable with Wisconsin congressman Ron Kind and community advocates who spoke about the challenges facing rural Americans during the epidemic.
During the back and forth, Biden, referring to federal funding to combat the economic fallout from the virus, said: “Not one more penny should go to a Fortune 500 company. Period. Period. They don’t need it.”
“Among the speakers at the “rally” was Wisconsin senator Tammy Baldwin, who has been mentioned as a possible vice presidential nominee after she won re-election in 2018. Biden called her a “true champion for Wisconsin, a true leader.”
Biden has been ramping up his virtual campaign schedule in recent weeks. Earlier events have been riddled with technical glitches - and the occasional honking duck. By contrast, Wednesday’s events went smoothly.
Related: Biden's lead over Trump widens – but strain on his virtual campaign grows
Prisoners and advocates told the Guardian that some infected inmates are in isolation without medical care or adequate food, cut off from family and attorneys
More than 3,200 prisoners in California have contracted Covid-19 and at least 16 inmates have died, in a public health catastrophe that advocates say was both predictable and preventable.
Related: 'People are sick all around me': inside the coronavirus catastrophe in California prisons
Continue reading...Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, the US president’s oldest sons, have attracted fierce criticism for attacking Joe Biden and Democrats in terms most observers considered beyond the pale even in America’s toxic political climate.
Related: ‘They don’t give him enough credit’: the voters who back Trump, even through the pandemic
Continue reading...The electoral map does not favor Republicans and the pandemic has helped put them on defense in states they once thought safe
Just three months ago, centrist Democrats were panicking. After strong performances in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders appeared poised to sail away with the nomination for president. Some in the party feared the self-identified democratic socialist would wreak havoc down the ballot.
Related: Could Susan Collins' vote for Kavanaugh help the Democrats flip the Senate in 2020?
Continue reading...After more than 50 years fighting for civil rights, the activist is now watching coronavirus ravage African American communities. But he has a warning for the rich and powerful
The Rev Jesse Jackson was born in the racially segregated south when Franklin Roosevelt occupied the White House and war raged in Europe. He was an eyewitness to the assassination of Martin Luther King, campaigned against the Vietnam war and twice ran for US president.
But, now an elder statesman of 78, he has never seen anything like the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than 1 million Americans and killed more in April alone than died in Vietnam over 15 years. The world’s most powerful and wealthy country also bears by far its biggest death toll: almost 90,000. It is enough to shake faith in American exceptionalism.
Continue reading...Sanders: Biden should focus on student debt relief, health insurance coverage, a living wage, climate change and racism
Former Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has said he thinks his supporters will vote for Joe Biden in November’s US election, despite a former aide’s warning that Biden was not consolidating Sanders supporters.
In a memo released last week, former Sanders adviser Jeff Weaver said Sanders supporters were “currently unsupportive and unenthusiastic” about Biden and “there is a real and urgent need to help Biden consolidate Sanders supporters”.
Continue reading...With few positive messages available, advisers have launched a multi-pronged attack on the former vice-president
Donald Trump had planned to run on a pledge to “Keep America great”. But with a global pandemic claiming the lives of more than 85,000 Americans and causing economic devastation, the slogan does not seem to hold the same promise it did at the start of the year – even for his most ardent fans.
In a recently released campaign ad titled American Comeback, the president instead returned to the “Make America great again” slogan that first brought him to power and whose Maga initials have become global shorthand for Trumpism and its adherents.
Continue reading...Donald Trump has ratcheted up his “Obamagate” conspiracy theory to implicate Joe Biden and other former White House officials in what critics say is a desperate attempt to distract from the coronavirus pandemic.
Related: What is 'Obamagate' and why is Trump so worked up about it?
Continue reading...Mike Garcia will replace Hill, who resigned amid scandal in 2019 after securing the first Democratic victory in district in decades
Republican Mike Garcia has beat Democrat Christy Smith in the special election to fill the seat of the former US representative Katie Hill, who resigned amid scandal in late 2019.
After a bitter political battle complicated and constrained by the pandemic, Garcia’s win was a blow for Democrats who in 2018 had secured the suburban Los Angeles district for the first time in since 1990. But the candidates will soon have a rematch. Garcia will serve only five months before the seat is up for a vote again in November.
Continue reading...The genius may think we are suckers, but in Iowa we don’t ruin good corn liquor with Clorox
Drake Custer is a union man who, along with about 30 of his buddies, had an Old English “K” tattooed on their chests about 15 years ago. It stands for “Keokuk”, a deflated Mississippi River manufacturing town of 10,000 tucked into the south-east corner of Iowa that Washington and Des Moines forgot.
“We know who we are,” said Custer.
Continue reading...The presumptive Democratic nominee has said his No2 will be a woman and Warren, Abrams, Harris, Whitmer and Klobuchar lead the contenders
Traditionally, American presidential candidates pick vice-presidential running mates largely in secret, outside the view of the public or even members of their own party so as to maximize news value – and not offend those passed over for the job.
But in 2020 – during a campaign already driven mostly online due to the coronavirus pandemic – Joe Biden’s quest to make a vice-presidential pick has been an unusually open, vocal and public audition, both within the campaign and outside it.
Continue reading...Coronavirus has robbed the Democrat of his typical back-slapping approach as he faces growing scrutiny and a third-party challenge
The Tampa, Florida, rally for Joe Biden on Thursday evening began as it normally might have, before a once-in-a-century pandemic transformed all aspects of American life, including the presidential campaign. A local high school student recited the pledge of allegiance, a campaign organizer pleaded with supporters to volunteer and a local DJ spun R&B music between speakers.
But in a sign of how profoundly the coronavirus crisis has reshaped American politics, that was where the similarities ended.
Continue reading...Former staffer discusses allegation in in-depth interview with the former Fox News and NBC host
Tara Reade repeated her allegations of sexual assault against Joe Biden in an in-depth interview with Megyn Kelly released on Friday evening, answering questions on who she shared her story with and why she supported the former vice-president publicly in the past.
Related: Gretchen Whitmer backs Joe Biden on alleged assault: 'not every claim is equal'
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