President-elect Joe Biden has thanked the American people for their support after winning the US presidential election against Donald Trump. From razor-thin margins, record voter turnout and protests via false claims of victory and Joe and Kamala Harris's congratulatory call - here's the story of how the presidency was won
A campaign aide has also tested positive, Bloomberg reports. CNN and NBC have also confirmed the Meadows has contracted Covid-19.
Worth noting that Mark Meadows was at the election night party at the White House Tuesday that hundreds of people attended. Officials said everyone would be tested beforehand.
Mark Meadows has tested positive for coronavirus, according to reporters from Bloomberg news.
BREAKING: Trump's chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has the coronavirus. Meadows informed a close circle of advisers after the election.
Story by me, @tylerpager and @MarioDParker out soon.
‘We don’t know who won the presidential race yet,’ said Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell as he defended Trump’s threat to challenge election results in the supreme court, a statement that drew wide criticism.
McConnell on Wednesday said Trump should not be criticised for threatening to bring in his lawyers, adding the Biden campaign would do the same.
‘In a close election you can anticipate in some of these states you are going to end up in court, (it’s) the American way,’ McConnell said during a news conference in Louisville, Kentucky
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The AP has confirmed that Senator John Cornyn has won another Senate term in Texas, defeating Democratic candidate MJ Hegar.
BREAKING: Republican John Cornyn wins reelection to U.S. Senate from Texas. #APracecall at 9:06 p.m. CST. #Election2020 #TXelection https://t.co/lGfinjTqT4
Donald Trump has won Kansas and its 6 electoral votes, the AP just announced.
BREAKING: Donald Trump wins Kansas. #APracecall at 9:00 p.m. CST. #Election2020
Continue reading...Senate’s confirmation of Barrett, 48, cements rightwing domination of court for years to come
The US Senate has confirmed Amy Coney Barrett to the supreme court, delivering Donald Trump a huge but partisan victory just eight days before the election and locking in rightwing domination of the nation’s highest court for years to come.
Continue reading...After the Senate voted to move forward with the final vote to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell spoke on the Senate floor, celebrating the lasting influence of the vote for posterity.
'By tomorrow night, we’ll have a new member of the United States Supreme Court,' he told the chamber.
The Senate voted 51-48 to move forward with the final vote for Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination, and the final vote for her confirmation will take place on Monday
Continue reading...Amy Coney Barrett’s supreme court nomination was advanced by a unilateral Republican vote to the full Senate despite Democrats’ refusal to participate in the Senate judiciary committee hearing for what they called a ‘naked power grab’.
Democratic senators stood outside the Capital and boycotted the vote to install Donald Trump’s third supreme court nominee less than two weeks before the election.
No supreme court nominee has ever been installed so close to a presidential election and, just four years ago, the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and senator Lindsey Graham, who now chairs the judiciary committee, said that installing a nominee in an election year would be a shameful defiance of the will of voters
The president issued a familiar stream of insults on Twitter after the Nebraska senator heavily criticised him to constituents
Down in the polls to Joe Biden and campaigning through a surging pandemic, Donald Trump chose to devote time on Saturday morning to a Twitter rant against a member of his own party in the Senate, a chamber Republicans face losing on 3 November.
Related: Trump trails Biden with two weeks to go – but there could yet be surprises
Continue reading...Judiciary committee expected to confirm supreme court justice nomination on 22 October before advancing to full Senate ballot
The Republican Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, said he has the votes to confirm the nomination of conservative Amy Coney Barrett as a supreme court justice as the upper chamber’s judiciary committee scheduled a vote for 22 October to advance the nomination towards a full Senate ballot shortly after.
Barrett’s progression towards taking up the seat vacated by the death of the liberal favorite Ruth Bader Ginsburg now appears virtually assured, but the unprecedented nomination of a new justice so close to a presidential election – and one who will shift the balance of the court rightward – has been contentious.
Continue reading...Amy Coney Barrett’s supreme court confirmation hearings bring few surprises – with occasional glimpses of truth
It was the five-hour mark when the tech gods finally pulled the plug.
As Senator Richard Blumenthal started questioning supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, the Senate’s audio system crashed and her words floated away on the air.
Continue reading...On the second day of hearings before the Senate judiciary committee, Democrats pressed supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett on healthcare, election law and abortion rights – and met with little success.
Related: 'Slayer Pete': Buttigieg emerges as Biden's unlikely Fox News fighter
Continue reading...Amid talk of originalism, harking to a time when only white men with property could vote, Republican ears pricked up
Depending on your point of view, the woman seated before the Senate judiciary committee for her first day of questioning was either the female Scalia or the anti-RBG. Or maybe, of course, both.
Related: Amy Coney Barrett dodges abortion, healthcare and election law questions
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One other extraordinary dodge today: Barrett said that while she has “read things about climate change”, she does not have “firm views on it”.
Amy Coney Barrett tells Sen. Kennedy: “I have read things about climate change. I would not say I have firm views on it.” pic.twitter.com/kG3cv8XN5Q
The day was characterized by Barrett dodging questions on abortion, voting rights, the Affordable Care Act, and the presidential transfer of power.
Continue reading...Republicans sought to normalise her rushed nomination while Democrats maintained a laser-like focus on the future of Obamacare
That was rich. Senate Republicans, otherwise known as Donald Trump’s Praetorian Guard, lined up on Monday to pay pious homage to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the separation of powers and the halcyon days of political bipartisanship.
Related: What Amy Coney Barrett's likely confirmation means for America
Continue reading...Senate Republicans are facing a shrinking window of time before the November 3 election to confirm Donald Trump’s supreme court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, following the news that at least three Republican senators have tested positive for the coronavirus and more are quarantining after likely exposure.
Related: Confusion mounts over Trump's true condition after doctor's Covid briefing – live
Continue reading...Donald Trump’s pick for America’s highest court, Amy Coney Barrett, is an “ideological fanatic” who threatens abortion rights, healthcare and the environment, activists warned on Saturday, before Trump unveiled his third supreme court nominee in the White House Rose Garden.
Related: 'Not special any more': how the Senate has failed the American people
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A quick glance at the guest list for Amy Comey Barrett’s nomination ceremony today makes troubling reading. Among the guests were representatives from Judicial Watch, which has described climate science as a “fraud”; the Heritage Foundation (which has also pushed back against climate science); and the Family Research Council (which has opposed abortion, divorce and LGBT rights).
Attendees at Trump's SCOTUS nomination of Amy Coney Barrett:
•Judicial Crisis Network's Carrie Severino
Heritage Foundation's Kay Cole James
•Judicial Watch's Tom Fitton
•Family Research Council's Tony Perkins
•Cleta Mitchell—a lawyer tied to many GOP 'dark money' nonprofits https://t.co/q5BzTkPBs9
Now that Amy Coney Barrett has been nominated for the supreme court, the senate hearings are likely to last from 12-15 October. And, as is more than likely, she will be confirmed by the Republican-held Senate by 29 October, well before the 3 November elections.
Donald Trump’s rival for the presidency, Joe Biden, has issued a statement saying the process should be delayed until after the election.
Election Day is just weeks away, and millions of Americans are already voting because the stakes in this election could not be higher. They feel the urgency of this choice – an urgency made all the more acute by what’s at stake at the U.S. Supreme Court.
They are voting because their health care hangs in the balance. They are voting because they worry about losing their right to vote or being expelled from the only country they have ever known. They are voting right now because they fear losing their collective bargaining rights. They are voting to demand that equal justice be guaranteed for all. They are voting because they don’t want Roe v. Wade, which has been the law of the land for nearly half a century, to be overturned.
Continue reading...Open seat offers chance for both parties to rally their bases as Democrats see chance to take control of chamber
The shock of a sudden new vacancy on the US supreme court has rippled out to some of the most contentious Senate races in the final weeks before the 3 November elections, throwing the vital issue of who might win control of the body into confusion.
The recent death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg while Republicans control the Senate and the White House virtually ensures that her replacement will be conservative, swinging the court into a 6-3 conservative majority.
Continue reading...Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, made an urgent plea on Sunday to the conscience of Senate Republicans, asking them to defy Donald Trump and refuse to ram through his nominee to the supreme court before the November election.
Related: Rushing to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg, McConnell shows power trumps principle | Robert Reich
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Tim Alberta, the chap I quoted a while back re Mitch “Mule Piss” McConnell and his single-minded pursuit of judicial appointments, has a fascinating piece up at Politico.
“If there’s one Republican who could be convinced that filling the sudden supreme court vacancy is a bad idea,” he writes, “it’s President Donald Trump.”
Related: Trump names three sitting senators among 20 possible supreme court picks
Any number of variables could tip the scales in such a tight election. But it’s not difficult to deduce that had a supreme court seat not been hanging in the balance, Hillary Clinton would be president right now. When I offered this theory last year to McConnell … he grinned.
“I agree,” McConnell said.
Having been reminded countless times over the past 45 months that his Supreme Court gambit won him the trust of social conservatives – which, in turn, won him the election – Trump surely realizes that this is a moment of maximum leverage. Maybe he doesn’t bother using it; maybe he automatically produces more of the goods, keeping his most important customers satisfied, believing it’s one more accomplishment to point to.
But the president is transactional to his core. This was exactly the word– “transactional” – that Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, used when we discussed the supreme court list Trump unveiled in 2016.
News is starting to come out of the Senate Democrats’ caucus call today…
Per source Schumer started with moment of silence for RBG and said “nothing is off the table” next year if GOP moves forward w/nominating process
Related: Battle hymn of the Democrats: why it's time for liberals to fight dirty
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