Category: Joe Biden

5 takeaways from the dueling Trump and Biden town halls

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President Trump and former vice president Joe Biden held dueling town halls Thursday night — forums that took the place of the presidential debate originally scheduled for the same night and which Trump pulled out of when it went to a virtual format.

The decision by NBC to air the event at the same time as Biden’s previously scheduled one on ABC was a source of controversy, but the simultaneous events provided a pretty good window into the contrasting approaches, as a debate would have, even if this was not side by side. Here are the takeaways.

1. Trump’s smorgasbord of misinformation and false choices — deftly called out

A couple of recent Trump interviews have stood out for the interviewers’ rare abilities and efforts to call out Trump in real time — one from Fox News’s Chris Wallace and another from Axios’s Jonathan Swan.

Harris pauses campaign travel after aide tests positive for coronavirus

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Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) will pause her travel through Sunday after her communications director tested positive for the coronavirus, the Biden campaign announced Thursday.

The state of play: The campaign said that the vice presidential nominee, who tested negative for the virus on Wednesday, was “not in close contact” with the aide, Liz Allen, under CDC guidelines. She will still pause her travel “out of an abundance of caution and in line with [the] campaign’s commitment to the highest levels of precaution,” the campaign said.

  • An administrative member of the aviation company that charters Joe Biden’s plane has also tested positive for COVID-19, though he was “not in close contact as defined by the CDC, with this individual at any time,” Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon said Thursday afternoon. The individual traveled with the former VP on Monday and Tuesday to Ohio and Florida, respectively. Continue reading.

Why Trump’s Efforts to Paint Biden as a Socialist Are Not Working

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A barrage of attacks trying to link the Democratic nominee to policies like Medicare for All aren’t hurting him, polls show, as many of the policies remain popular with most Americans.

WASHINGTON — President Trump delivered a familiar warning at his rally on Tuesday night, telling supporters that his opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr., and his allies would turn America into a socialist state if given the chance.

“Biden has made a corrupt bargain in exchange for his party’s nomination,” Mr. Trump said. “He has handed control to the socialists and Marxists and left-wing extremists like his vice-presidential candidate.”

The lines were a riff on one of Mr. Trump’s favorite attacks on Mr. Biden — and an illustration of its limits. Despite repeated efforts on Twitter, on a debate stage and in speeches, Mr. Trump has failed to convince voters that Mr. Biden is a socialist. Continue reading.

Why The Sunbelt Is Turning Away From Trump’s Republicans

During the 1980s and 1990s, political pundits used the term “Solid South” to refer to the seemingly impenetrable red wall that Republicans had achieved in southern states — which was a big departure from the years in which that term referred to all the southern states that allied themselves with the Democratic Party. Now, the Republican Party finds itself losing ground in the Sun Belt, and that shift is the focus of a New York Times article by reporters Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns.

The piece not only describes the ground that Republicans have been losing in parts of the Deep South, but also, in southwestern states like Arizona — which has evolved into a swing state after being heavily Republican for generations.

“Nowhere has [President Donald] Trump harmed himself and his party more than across the Sun Belt, where the electoral coalition that secured a generation of Republican dominance is in danger of coming apart,” Martin and Burns explain. Continue reading.

Democrats warn voters: Don’t get complacent

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Democrats are warning their voters not to become complacent as Joe Bidenbuilds up a formidable polling lead in the race for the White House.

Party leaders are seeing new polls that show the entire battleground map move against President Trump with just more than three weeks to go before Nov. 3. Republicans are beginning to worry that Trump could face a landslide loss that costs the party the White House and the majority in the Senate.

But Democrats are still deeply scarred from 2016, when Democrat Hillary Clinton was viewed as the heavy favorite heading into Election Day. Continue reading.

Trump’s Wacky Babble Will Make You Forget Biden’s ‘Gaffes’

President Donald Trump’s antics have gotten progressively worse over the last week, and his interviews have been littered with epic blunders that have raised more questions about his mental capacity amid his battle with COVID-19.

1. The Nonexistent ‘Second Debate’ Victory

When Trump appeared on Fox News Thursday morning, he claimed to have beaten Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in the first and second debates. However, there is one glaring problem with Trump’s remarks: the second debate has not occurred yet and likely will not because the president refuses to commit to participating virtually despite being COVID-positive.

2. ‘Tiny Windows’

When asked about Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and Democratic vice-presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.)’s proposed Green New Deal, Trump claimed the Democrats’ plan focused on replacing regular sized-windows with tiny ones. Continue reading.

Debate commission cancels Oct. 15 Trump-Biden debate

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The Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) has officially canceled the second debate between President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden scheduled for Oct. 15 after the candidates signaled they planned to attend other events that day amid a dispute over the terms for the debate.

The announcement puts to rest speculation over whether the event would take place in a modified format next week following a back-and-forth that began early Thursday when Trump rejected the commission’s plans to shift the debate to a virtual event amid health concerns after he tested positive for COVID-19.

Biden’s campaign initially committed to continue on with the debate, though it indicated later Thursday after it became apparent that Trump would not participate in a virtual debate that Biden planned to instead attend a town hall in Pennsylvania hosted by ABC News. Continue reading.

Despite debate talk, Biden virus approach differs from Trump’s

Their plans share some broad similarities but diverge on the role of the federal government

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s plan for addressing the COVID-19 pandemic has much in common with what the Trump administration has attempted so far, but Biden’s overall approach would likely differ from Trump’s in important ways, experts say.

Both campaigns emphasize access to testing, developing vaccines and making more medical supplies in the United States. The broad similarities provided Vice President Mike Pence with a stinging attack line in Wednesday night’s debate with Biden’s running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif. 

“When you look at the Biden plan, it reads an awful lot like what President Trump and I and our task force have been doing every step of the way,” Pence said, describing the plan as “plagiarism” and alluding to a 1987 incident when Biden copied a British politician’s speech.  Continue reading.

Pence’s allegations about Hillary Clinton: A guide for the perplexed

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“Talk about accepting the outcome of the election. I must tell you, Senator, your party has spent the last three and a half years trying to overturn the results of the last election. It’s amazing. When Joe Biden was vice president of the United States, the FBI actually spied on President Trump and my campaign. I mean, there were documents released this week that the CIA actually made a referral to the FBI documenting that those allegations were coming from the Hillary Clinton campaign.” 

— Vice President Pence, in remarks during the vice-presidential debate with Sen. Kamala D. Harris, Oct. 7

If you are not a regular viewer of Fox News, these remarks by Pence during the debate might have seemed surprising.

After all, a special counsel appointed by President Trump’s Justice Department documentedthat the Russian government, at its highest levels, sought to influence the outcome of the 2016 election — and the Trump campaign was a willing recipient of that help. Moreover, a bipartisan report released in August by the Senate Intelligence Committee also concluded that the Russian government interfered in the election with the goal of electing Trump. Continue reading.

Both parties prepare for possibility of contested election as chaotic White House race hurtles to a close

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Even as a coronavirus outbreak has upended the White House, Democrats and Republicans have been gaming out another potential crisis that experts agree could plunge the country into unprecedented turmoil: a contested election in the weeks after Nov. 3.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has recently spoken in multiple meetings about preparing for a situation in which neither candidate attains the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency, according to multiple Democrats familiar with her remarks — a historic development that would throw the outcome to the new Congress in January.

She has also directed some of her members to be ready if GOP legislatures in states with narrow margins or unfinished counts seek to appoint their own electors, a situation Democrats hope to head off with an obscure law from the 19th century that allows Congress to intervene. Continue reading.