US President Donald Trump and former US vice president Joe Biden were to return to the campaign trail yesterday with visits to three battleground states, a day after the contenders for next month’s US presidential election clashed from afar in separate televised town hall meetings.
The split-screen events replaced a presidential debate that was canceled in the wake of Trump’s diagnosis with COVID-19.
Moderator Samantha Guthrie of NBC asked Trump about the pandemic, the QAnon movement, and the possibility of fraud in the Nov. 3 election.
Photo: AP
More than 18 million Americans have already cast ballots, far more than at a similar juncture in 2016, according to a tracker at the US Elections Project at the University of Florida.
Louisiana began early voting yesterday, following record turnout in competitive states Georgia, Texas and North Carolina this week.
Trump is to travel to Florida and Georgia, two states that are seen as crucial to his chances of victory, while Biden planned to visit two cities in Michigan, another battleground state.
Photo: AFP
Biden focused his attacks on Trump’s handling of the pandemic, which has killed 216,000 Americans and hammered the economy.
The second presidential debate had been scheduled for Thursday, but Trump pulled out of the event after organizers said it would be virtual to lessen the risk of infection.
During his town hall on NBC in front of voters in Miami, Trump said of QAnon, a movement whose adherents believe that Democrats are part of a global pedophilia ring: “I do know they are against pedophilia, they fight it very hard.”
However, he said knew little else about the movement when pressed by Guthrie.
Trump questioned whether masks are effective at stopping the spread of the novel coronavirus.
In Philadelphia, Biden outlined plans to combat the pandemic and revive the economy by prioritizing testing, funding local and state governments, and hiking taxes dramatically on corporations and wealthy people.
He again deferred when asked whether he supports adding justices to the US Supreme Court, an idea known as “court packing.”
“It depends on how this turns out,” he said of the ongoing confirmation hearings for Trump’s latest Supreme Court nominee, Amy Coney Barrett.
The pandemic dominated the proceedings.
Trump said that the country has “rounded the corner.”
Biden’s campaign said that three people who recently traveled with him or his running mate, US Senator Kamala Harris, had tested positive.
Neither candidate had close contact with the infected people, the campaign said.
However, Harris canceled her in-person events through Sunday as a precaution.
The third presidential debate is scheduled for Oct. 22.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of