Tag: Joe Biden

Former U.S. attorney in Minnesota joins other former GOP federal prosecutors voting for Biden

Tom Heffelfinger says Trump uses Justice Department to pursue personal vendettas. 

Former U.S. Attorney Thomas Heffelfinger, a two-time Republican presidential appointee to the post in Minnesota, announced his support Tuesday for former Vice President Joe Biden in letters and in interviews with the Washington Post and the Star Tribune.

He was among 20 former U.S. attorneys appointed by Republican presidents from Eisenhower to Trump who signed the letter declaring their support for Biden and calling Trump a “threat to the rule of law.”

Heffelfinger has a deep history with the GOP. In an interview Tuesday, he said he’d already cast his vote for Biden at Edina City Hall and couldn’t be silent about his decision because of the importance of the presidential election. Heffelfinger’s cited reasons include Trump’s comments about Minnesota political leaders in the aftermath of the May 25 killing of George Floyd in police custody, his use of the Justice Department to pursue political enemies and his misogyny. Continue reading.

For Black Minnesota voters, equality is on the ballot

The national discourse on race is echoing in presidential race. 

lacards urging visitors to vote surround George Floyd Square, a reminder that the nationwide racial reckoning that emanated from this south Minneapolis intersection in May has reverberated through this year’s election.

Black voters in South Carolina helped propel Joe Biden to the Democratic presidential nomination, and polls show that former President Barack Obama’s vice president is overwhelmingly favored by African Americans nationwide over President Donald Trump.

But while many Black activists see a president who is running with the backing of self-styled white supremacist groups, some younger activists holding vigils at Chicago Avenue and 38th Street remain unconvinced that the outcome of the presidential contest will help achieve the racial equality they seek. Continue reading.

Trump’s smile falls from his face as his attempt to get a foreign leader to attack Biden backfires

AlterNet logo

In a now-infamous phone call, President Donald Trump pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to insert himself into American politics by announcing an investigation of his political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden. That call and the scheme surrounding it led to Democrats impeach Trump, alleging that he had corruptly leveraged his office and congressionally approved funds to benefit his own political campaign.

Trump appeared to be taking a shot at similar gambit, if on a much smaller and less elaborate scale, on Friday during a televised call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

While discussing a new plan for Israel to normalize relations with Sudan on speakerphone in front of reporters, Trump tried to goad Netanyahu into attacking Biden. Continue reading.

An expert in nonverbal communication watched the Trump-Biden debate with the sound turned down – here’s what he saw

President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden met on Oct. 22 for the final debate in the 2020 election and, like the first debate, it was unusual.

COVID-19 forced social distancing and largely took the studio audience, with their laughter, cheering and booing out of the equation. 

What’s more, with norm-breaking interruptions and stealing of speaking time an inherent part of Donald Trump’s debate strategy, the contentious crosstalk between the two candidates and the moderator made long sections of the candidates’ first debate nearly impossible to hear or follow. The threat of having the microphone cut off effectively muted this aggression.

But is what they say as important as we think? Continue reading.

Trump squeezed by cash crunch in final election sprint

The Hill logo

President Trump’s campaign faces a significant cash deficit against Democratic nominee Joe Biden less than two weeks out from Election Day, a stunning reversal of fortunes for a campaign that was once awash in cash.

Biden’s campaign came into October with more than $177 million in the bank, while the Trump campaign entered the final month with only $63.1 million. That’s a massive turn of events for the Trump campaign, which has raised and spent more than $1 billion this cycle. Trump started the year with more than $100 million in the bank, compared to less than $10 million for Biden.

The president’s grassroots fundraising and cash position once looked insurmountable, but now the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee will enter the final stretch with more cash on hand than the incumbent president’s campaign. Continue reading.

A 19-year-old with a van full of guns and explosives plotted to assassinate Biden, federal officials say

Washington Post logo

As it was becoming clear in March that Joe Biden would be the Democratic presidential nominee, Alexander Hillel Treisman started to map out his plot to assassinate the former vice president, federal authorities say.

“Should I kill Joe Biden?” Treisman wrote in a caption to a meme he posted in April.

It didn’t appear to be an idle threat, the feds say. Continue reading.

5 takeaways from the final 2020 presidential debate

Washington Post logo

After a mostly unwatchable first debate, then a canceled second one, we got a heated but relatively substantive final matchup between Joe Biden and President Trump on Thursday in Nashville.

Below, some takeaways.

1. Trump offers no course correction on coronavirus

For weeks now, perhaps the biggest question has been whether Trump, whose presidency is on the line as the clock ticks down toward Nov. 3, might actually try something different from what has earned him his current deficit in national polls. Continue reading.

Trump did what he came to do in Nashville, but Biden was ready for what came at him

Washington Post logo

With time running out and trailing in the polls, President Trump needed the strongest possible showing in his final debate against Joe Biden. But in the face of a series of attacks, the former vice president parried the president with a strong performance that is likely to leave the presidential campaign little changed from where it was at the start.

Trump arrived knowing that a repeat of the performance in the first debate would cost him and seemed determined to present a different face. Biden came in knowing that simply holding his own would amount to a victory.

Supporters of both candidates were cheered by what they saw during the 90 minutes at Belmont University in Nashville. But if, at worst, the debate was judged a draw, that alone would be less than the president needed politically. Continue reading.

Shift in tone dominates at final Trump-Biden clash

The Hill logo

President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden on Thursday clashed for a final time before Election Day, exchanging blows on the public health and economic crises facing the country in what was a decidedly more orderly — though still at times personal — contest than the first debate.

The proceedings, which took place in Nashville, Tenn., were aided in part by a mute button that allowed each candidate to speak uninterrupted for two minutes about each of the six topics before the two men could go back and forth.

Trump showed more discipline as the debate opened, adopting a muted tone as he fielded questions on the coronavirus pandemic during the first segment. Advisers had lamented that his aggressive approach in the first debate, where he regularly interrupted Biden and challenged moderator Chris Wallace, was ineffective and turned off undecided voters. Continue reading.

Trump aims for adulation. Biden goes virtual. The two presidential candidates are running vastly different campaigns as Election Day nears

Washington Post logo

With two weeks left before the close of voting, President Trump flew to the far northwest corner of Pennsylvania for a large rally where he aired grievances against the news media, complained that the pandemic had damaged his campaign and portrayed Democrats as purveyors of drugs and crime — all as a sea of loyal supporters in red MAGA hats cheered him on.

While Trump on Tuesday appealed in person to his most ardent fans with divisive themes, Joe Biden’s campaign beamed in to the nation’s living rooms during the World Series with a much broader audience in mind. “There is only one America. No Democratic rivers, no Republican mountains,” the actor Sam Elliott intoned as he narrated a commercial for Biden in his signature gravelly voice. Biden, meanwhile, was at home as the ad aired, eschewing public events to prepare for Thursday’s debate.

The split screen underlined the starkly different strategies Trump and Biden have deployed in the final stage of the presidential race. Trump has been spending heaps of cash staging crowded rallies designed to motivate his most fervent fans, despite the advice of public health officials to avoid large gatherings. Biden, who is leading in the polls, has been holding smaller, less expensive events and investing aggressively in television ads and virtual gatherings designed to persuade a wide audience that he can unify a divided country. Continue reading.