British health secretary Matt Hancock gave an incredibly painful interview to Sky News while defending former Australian prime minister Tony Abbott amid concerns about his attitudes towards women and homosexuality, declaring: “Well, he’s also an expert in trade.”
Trump Isn’t Winning on ‘Law and Order’
Join now to continue reading.
Members get exclusive analysis, bonus features and no advertising. Learn more.
Trump and Top Aides Ditch Masks Again
“Donald Trump and his top aides are conducting near-daily public events without wearing masks, disregarding government guidelines as well as the president’s short-lived effort to encourage Americans to cover their faces out of patriotism,” Bloomberg reports.
Ex-GOP Governor In Michigan Endorses Biden
Former Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) writes in USA Today that he’s backing Joe Biden for President.
“Donald Trump is a bully who lacks a moral compass. Joe Biden would bring back civility.”
Facebook Will Ban Political Ads In Final Week
“Facebook will prohibit new political advertisements in the week before the U.S. presidential election in November and seek to flag premature claims of victory by candidates,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“The steps are meant to head off last-minute misinformation campaigns and limit the potential for civil unrest.”
Race Remains the Same After Conventions
Politico: “A glut of new national and state polling out since the Republican National Convention ended last week shows either a small bump for Trump or no bounce at all. The net result: Biden still holds a high-single-digit lead nationally, along with a smaller-but-consistent advantage in the battleground states. Biden’s lead over Trump is large in some swing-state polls, while others show Trump still behind but within striking distance.”
New York Times: What all the new polls mean for Biden.
Pennsylvania Democrats Scramble to Avoid Fiasco
“With concerns about an Election Day debacle rising in this critical swing state, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf privately convened a group of Philadelphia Democrats recently to underscore the consequences of another vote-counting fiasco like the one that took place in the June primary,” Politico reports.
“The city took more than two weeks to count all of its votes due to a massive surge in mail voting amid the coronavirus pandemic — and a repeat performance might make it unclear who won the presidential election in the key battleground state long past Nov. 3.”
“Wolf’s intervention accentuated the fears that state Democrats have of the nation being forced to wait on Pennsylvania to call the election — and that President Trump might exploit the fact that it could take days or weeks to count mail ballots in states across the country. Trump has already stoked fears of mail-in voting, and Democrats worry that he could falsely claim that delays in Pennsylvania and elsewhere are proof of fraud, or perhaps even declare victory before all of the votes are tallied.”
Trump Moves to Cut Funding from Democratic Cities
“President Trump has directed federal officials to find ways to cut funding to a string of cities controlled by Democrats, citing violence amid protests against systemic racism in policing, a move that threatens billions of dollars for many of the country’s largest urban hubs as the president makes the unrest a centerpiece of his re-election campaign,” the New York Times reports.
“Mr. Trump laid out the directive in a memo, released Wednesday, to Russell T. Vought, the acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Attorney General William Barr. It accuses state and local officials of abdicating their duties.”
Trump’s Rebound Story Meets Mounting Bankruptcies
Politico: “Economic-relief money drying up in August and September will mark a final blow for some firms that had managed to hang on so far with government aid — which now appears unlikely to be renewed for weeks, if ever.”
“Cold weather and flu season could end outdoor dining, halt other indoor activities and contribute to Covid-19 outbreaks at workplaces. And economists expect weak demand and tight credit — especially for smaller businesses — to add to the tens of thousands of firms that have already collapsed amid the Covid-19 pandemic, while restraining entrepreneurs hoping to replace them.”
More Republicans Endorse Biden
“Nearly 100 Republican and independent leaders will endorse Democrat Joe Biden for president on Thursday, including one-time 2020 Republican presidential candidate Bill Weld and the former Republican governors of Michigan and New Jersey,” Reuters reports.
Cuomo Says Trump Needs Protection in New York
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo all but threatened President Trump’s safety if he returns to New York City in a rant responding to a story that Trump is looking to pull federal funds from “lawless” cities including New York, the New York Post reports.
Said Cuomo: “He better have an army if he thinks he’s gonna walk down the street in New York. New Yorkers don’t want to have anything to do with him.”
Why Joe Kennedy’s Senate Campaign Flopped
Politico: “The question seemed to trail him everywhere, from the day Joe Kennedy announced he’d challenge Sen. Ed Markey in the Democratic primary to the final hours of the campaign: Why are you running?”
“In a year of campaigning across Massachusetts, Kennedy never seemed to come up with a satisfactory answer. In the end, he simply gave up trying.”
Conway Says More ‘Hidden’ Trump Voters Will Come Out
Former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told Showtime that there are more “hidden” President Trump supporters that will boost him during his reelection bid in November.
Said Conway: “A the person who coined the term, ‘hidden undercover Trump voter in 2016,’ there are even more of them and they’re even more committed now, and they’re going to surprise you as to who they are this time.”
Nunes May Be Trump’s Witness of the ‘Antifa Plane’
Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) was apparently the first person in Trumpworld to publicly float the rumor of a plane full of geared-up antifa soldiers — days before the President Trump embraced the story and spread it, the Daily Beast reports.
Said Nunes to Breitbart, over the weekend: “So, these people that descended on Washington, D.C., most of them were not local. In fact, I flew in with a bunch of them where I got on a plane in Salt Lake City where I had to commute through and I saw maybe two dozen BLM people.”
Nunes continued: “The irony is they were all white people, they weren’t even Black, but somebody was paying for those people to go there—they were coordinated, paying for that, and then what they did was they were not protesting.”
Trump’s ‘Law and Order’ Message Not Resonating
The new Fox News poll in Wisconsin — conducted entirely after the unrest in Kenosha — suggests President Trump’s law and order stance isn’t working: Trump trails Biden by 5 percentage points in the state on the issue of “policing and criminal justice.”
Biden Leads In Key Battlegrounds
New Fox News polls:
- Arizona: Biden 49%, Trump 40%
- Wisconsin: Biden 50%, Trump 42%
- North Carolina: Biden 50%, Trump 46%
And the U.S. Senate races:
- Arizona: Mark Kelly (D) 56%, Martha McSally (R) 39%
- North Carolina: Cal Cunningham (D) 48%, Thom Tillis (R) 42%
Biden’s Support Is Firmer
Philip Bump: “Trump regularly touts the record enthusiasm in his base. In CNN’s poll, that is clear, including that 87 percent of his supporters say there is no way they will change their minds about whom they will vote for.”
“Among supporters of Biden, the figure is 94 percent.”
Trump Encourages People to Vote Twice
President Trump suggested that people in North Carolina should vote twice in the November election, once by mail and once in-person, escalating his attempts to cast confusion and doubt on the validity of the results, NBC News reports.
Said Trump: “So let them send it in and let them go vote, and if their system’s as good as they say it is, then obviously they won’t be able to vote. If it isn’t tabulated, they’ll be able to vote.”
It is illegal to vote more than once in an election.