Category Archives: US Politics

What does the first climate question at a US debate in 20 years reveal?

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The question framed the existence of a human-made climate crisis as something that is for some Americans still debatable

The long-awaited climate question in last night’s presidential debate broke a 20-year silent streak from moderators on the crisis – thrusting it into prime time but also revealing just how stuck in the past much of the US is on the issue.

After more than an hour of chaos as the candidates talked over each other, the Fox News anchor Chris Wallace asked Donald Trump: “What do you believe about the science of climate change and what will you do in the next four years to confront it?”

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The Guardian view on the US presidential debate: a bad night for the world | Editorial

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The dismal spectacle reminded viewers what is at stake in November for the US – and the rest of us

One unmistakable winner emerged from Tuesday’s presidential debate: Xi Jinping. The loser was the American public – and anyone else unfortunate enough to have sat through the grim 90-minute spectacle.

Variously described by commentators as a trainwreck, dumpster fire, shitshow and the worst debate in presidential history, it reflected the state of the race and the nation after four years of Donald Trump. This is America in 2020: wracked by a pandemic that has killed 200,000 people and highlighted its deep structural failings on healthcare and inequality, as well as the parlous state of its politics – a realm of bitter divisions in which facts appear to be optional.

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Trump’s refusal to condemn white supremacy fits pattern of extremist rhetoric

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President ‘made his call to violence crystal clear’, critics say, after he exhorted the far-right Proud Boys to ‘stand back and stand by’

Donald Trump’s refusal to condemn white supremacy during Tuesday night’s debate fits into a pattern of extremist rhetoric that has already baselessly stoked fear of voting fraud amid the president’s urging of his supporters to descend on polling stations in November’s election.

Related: Presidential debate reaction: Trump condemned over failure to criticise far-right group – live

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Biden and Trump trade insults in frenzied presidential debate – video highlights

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The first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden deteriorated into an ugly display of contempt on Tuesday night, as the president relentlessly interrupted and attacked his Democratic rival during clashes over the coronavirus pandemic, racism, the economy, mail-in voting and the future of the supreme court

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Biden tells Trump ‘you are the worst president America has ever had’ in battle over taxes – video

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During the first presidential debate, Donald Trump was pressed on the New York Times story over his tax returns, which showed he paid only $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017. The president claimed he had paid “millions” in income taxes and said he would release his tax returns soon, which he has been saying since 2015. 

Joe Biden said Trump 'does take advantage of the tax code' and 'pays less tax than a schoolteacher'. Trump shrugged off the criticism, saying all business leaders do the same 'unless they are stupid'. The exchange escalated with Biden telling his rival: 'You are the worst president America has ever had'

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Presidential debate live: Trump tries to steamroll Biden in chaotic clash

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Here is the full story from my colleagues Kari Paul and Lois Beckett on how the Trump was received at watch parties in California:

Related: How the chaos of the first debate was received at three very different watch parties

After recording in the early hours UK time and with, he says, his “jaw somewhere close to the floor,” the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland discusses the highlights and lowlights of the debate with Guardian columnist Richard Wolffe on this today’s episode Politics Weekly Extra:

Related: Insults and interruptions on US election debate night: Politics Weekly Extra

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America is in crisis. The presidential debate did nothing to help | Moira Donegan

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Donald Trump spent the evening whining in a circus of vanity, lies, and hostility

With more than 200,000 Americans dead from Covid-19, the economy in tatters, the West on fire, schools shuttered, police brutality against Black people still rampant, and millions of Americans grieving, scared, and unable to recognize their lives, the first of three presidential debates on Tuesday night came at a time of pain, desperation, and anxiety for the American people. The debate itself reflected absolutely none of this anxiety. It was a display of vulgarity and egotism that insulted the Americans it was purportedly meant to persuade.

For more than 90 minutes, instead of substantive discussion of the multiple ongoing national emergencies that have warped their lives, viewers were shown three old white men—Donald Trump, Joe Biden, and Fox News’ Chris Wallace, nominally the moderator—interrupting, shouting at, and insulting one another. The coarseness, dishonestly, and grandstanding on display was a mockery of the dignity of the electoral process and a slap in the face to the Americans whose lives will be shaped by the actions of the next president.

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How the chaos of the first debate was received at three very different watch parties

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The reality of the coronavirus pandemic was never far off as Americans gathered to watch the first presidential debate of 2020

The first US presidential debate of the 2020 campaign cycle was an experience most American voters had never witnessed before: a bitter and divisive spectacle on a night in which the reality of the coronavirus pandemic was never far off.

At a debate watch party for Donald Trump supporters at Glory Days, a bar in Seal Beach near Los Angeles, servers, but few patrons, were wearing masks. The crowd cheered whenever the president landed a line they liked, but stayed mostly quiet during the section of the debate when Biden made his case for why Trump had failed the country during the coronavirus pandemic.

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Trump ensures first presidential debate is national humiliation | Analysis

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Analysis: Only one man looked remotely presidential on the debate stage in Cleveland, Ohio, and it was not the incumbent

Cry, the beloved country. Donald Trump ensured Tuesday’s first US presidential debate was the worst in American history, a national humiliation. The rest of the world – and future historians – will presumably look at it and weep.

More likely than not, according to opinion polls, his opponent Joe Biden will win the November election and bring the republic back from the brink. If Trump is re-elected, however, this dark, horrifying, unwatchable fever dream will surely be the first line of America’s obituary.

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What is QAnon and why is it so dangerous? – video explainer

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Donald Trump has referred to QAnon followers as 'people who love our country' - while to the FBI considers them a potential domestic terror threat. The Guardian US technology reporter Julia Carrie Wong explains the roots - and rise - of QAnon, the unfounded conspiracy theory that emerged in the US in 2017, and is now spreading across the world

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Troubled Florida, divided America: will Donald Trump hold this vital swing state? – video

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Donald Trump’s presidency has changed American society. With six weeks until the most important election in a generation, Oliver Laughland and Tom Silverstone are crossing the US to uncover the fault lines that underpin American politics. In the vital swing state of Florida, where disinformation on Covid-19 has spread unchecked, the race for the White House is tightening by the day

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Democrats on the attack after Trump tax return revelations – live

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Trump said back in 2011 that even low-income Americans should have to pay some taxes and that he pays “a lot of tax,” a new CNN report reveals.

The tax information obtained by the New York Times indicates Trump paid only $750 in federal income taxes the year that he won the presidency.

Related: Trump reels from taxes bombshell as he gets set for crunch debate with Biden

Florida police have released body camera footage from officers’ interaction with Brad Parscale, the president’s former campaign manager who was involuntarily hospitalized yesterday.

In the video, Parscale’s wife, Candice, can be heard saying he brandished a gun and has multiple firearms in the home.

New: Police just released body camera footage of the incident involving Brad Parscale https://t.co/QBpA7jIjEg

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Trump reels from taxes bombshell as he gets set for crunch debate with Biden

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  • President under pressure from New York Times revelations
  • First TV head-to-head takes place in Cleveland on Tuesday

Donald Trump heads into the first US presidential debate against Joe Biden on Tuesday night trailing in opinion polls and now reeling from dramatic newspaper revelations detailing his chronic financial losses and years of tax avoidance.

Related: Democrats on the attack after Trump tax return revelations – live

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Trump ‘paid $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017’ – video report

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A New York Times report into Donald Trump's tax records has revealed he paid just $750 in federal income tax in his first year as president. Trump, who in 2016 suggested reports of tax avoidance showed he was 'smart', denounced the findings as 'completely fake news'. The New York Times said that of the 18 years its reporters examined, Trump had paid no income tax at all in 11 of them.

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Trump claims Joe Biden is on ‘performance-enhancing drugs’ – video

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After the New York Times' revelations about his tax returns, Donald Trump hit back with a series of baseless allegations, including that his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden, had used 'performance-enhancing drugs' during appearances. In an unfocused White House briefing, the US president also accused Biden's son, Hunter, of corruption and speculated about non-existent Democrat policies of unattended open borders

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Case to extradite Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou to US resumes

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Telecoms group to claim abuse of process, saying US government has provided partial evidence

The legal battle between Washington and Huawei resumes this week when a Canada-based senior executive at the Chinese state-backed telecommunications firm reappears in a Vancouver court on Monday claiming the effort to extradite her to the US should be thrown out.

Huawei will claim an abuse of process, arguing the US government has provided Canadian authorities with partial and misleading evidence in an effort to show finance officer Meng Wanzhou tried to circumvent US sanctions on Iran 10 years ago.

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‘Fake news’: Trump denies tax claims from New York Times – video

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US president Donald Trump paid very little in income taxes in recent years as heavy losses from his business enterprises offset hundreds of millions of dollars in income, the New York Times reported on Sunday citing tax-return data. Trump denied the report, calling it 'total fake news' at a White House news conference

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Will the New York Times taxes report sink Donald Trump?

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His returns examined at last, the president stands exposed as a tax avoider and serial debtor. It raises serious questions – but also, most likely, the passions of his fervent supporters

From the moment he rode down an escalator in the marble-clad, gold-trimmed Trump Tower to declare his candidacy for US president, Donald Trump was selling himself as a successful businessman who could run a successful economy.

Related: New York Times publishes Donald Trump's tax returns in election bombshell

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New York Times publishes Donald Trump’s tax returns in election bombshell

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Donald Trump, a self-proclaimed billionaire, paid only $750 in federal income taxes in the year he was elected US president, according to a stunning New York Times investigation that could shake up the presidential election.

Related: Trump says overturning Roe v Wade 'possible' with Barrett on supreme court

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Biden’s team hopes for repeat of his 2012 performance as Trump debate nears

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The vice-presidential candidate who debated Paul Ryan helped turn the trajectory of Obama’s reelection campaign

For Democrats and supporters of former vice-president Joe Biden’s presidential campaign, the hope is that the version of Biden who faced then-congressman Paul Ryan back in 2012 shows up for the debate against Donald Trump on Tuesday in Ohio.

The Biden who showed up for the Ryan debate eight years ago helped turn around the trajectory of then-President Barack Obama’s reelection campaign. Ask just about any former Obama campaign alumna or Democratic strategist and they will concede that Obama’s performance against Mitt Romney in the first debate was lacking.

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