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US Postmaster General Faces Tough Questioning in Senate Hearing

 U.S. lawmakers will aggressively question U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy in his first appearance before Congress on Friday about recent cost-cutting measures that Democrats say appeared to be an attempt to boost President Donald Trump’s re-election chances. Under pressure from the public and lawmakers, DeJoy on Tuesday suspended all mail service changes until after the Nov. 3 election. Critics feared they would interfere with mail-in balloting, which is expected to be much more widely used amid the COVID-19 pandemic. WATCH: Postmaster Dejoy on delivering election mailService unavailableTrump has repeatedly and without evidence said that an increase in mail-in ballots would lead to a surge in fraud, although Americans have long voted by mail.The Republican chairman of the Senate committee holding Friday’s hearing, Ron Johnson, will defend DeJoy in his opening statement, citing his “commendable attempt to reduce those excess costs that are now being cynically used to create this false political narrative.” Democrats will want to know whether DeJoy plans to undo changes to the mail made in recent weeks. Changes that threatened to slow mail delivery – and in some cases, already have – include reductions in overtime, restrictions on extra mail transportation trips, and new mail-sorting and delivery policies, enacted in an attempt to cut costs.DeJoy, who has also agreed to testify before the Democratic-led House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on Monday, will testify before the Republican-led Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on Friday. While criticism from Democrats is expected, any signs that Republican senators are unhappy with DeJoy’s cost-cutting efforts could suggest his tenure as postmaster general is at risk. DeJoy, a major political donor and ally of Trump, assumed the job in June. A group of 90 Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday called on the Postal Service’s board of governors to immediately remove DeJoy “to protect this critical institution,” according to a letter sent to board members. The House is set to vote on a bill on Saturday that would provide $25 billion in funding for the Postal Service and require the reversal of operational changes. 
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Trump Wants Supreme Court OK to Block Critics on His Personal Twitter

President Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to allow him to block critics from his personal Twitter account. The administration said in a high-court filing Thursday that Trump’s @realdonaldtrump account with more than 85 million followers is his personal property and blocking people from it is akin to elected officials who refuse to allow their opponents’ yard signs on their front lawns. “President Trump’s ability to use the features of his personal Twitter account, including the blocking function, are independent of his presidential office,” acting Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall wrote in urging the justices to review the case. The federal appeals court in New York ruled last year that Trump uses the account to make daily pronouncements and observations that are overwhelmingly official in nature. It held that Trump violated the First Amendment whenever he blocked a critic to silence a viewpoint. A decision about whether even to hear the case is not likely before the November election. The case grew out of a challenge brought by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, which sued on behalf of seven individuals blocked by Trump after criticizing his policies. Jameel Jaffer, the Knight Institute’s executive director, said the justices should decline to take up Trump’s appeal. “This case stands for a principle that is fundamental to our democracy and basically synonymous with the First Amendment: government officials can’t exclude people from public forums simply because they disagree with their political views,” Jaffer said in a statement. The administration argued in its appeal that the Supreme Court, not lower courts, “should decide where to draw the line between the President’s personal decisions and official conduct.” The pace of the case was slowed by the coronavirus pandemic as well as Trump’s decision to ask the full 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to review the ruling by a three-judge panel. The court refused to do so by a 7-2 vote in March. Two Trump appointees, Judges Michael H. Park and Richard J. Sullivan, were the only members of the court to side with the president. The Supreme Court extended its deadline to file an appeal from 90 days to 150 days when it shut the building to the public and abandoned in-person meetings in favor of telephone conferences because of the virus outbreak. 
 
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Biden Accepts Democratic Presidential Nomination, Criticizes Trump’s Coronavirus Response

In accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination for president Thursday, Joe Biden set out to make President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic the central issue in the November election. VOA’s Brian Padden reports on the conclusion of the virtual Democratic National Convention, which also strove to showcase party diversity and unity in opposition to Trump without physically gathering, to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
Produced by: Barry Unger
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Biden Says He Has Plan To Fight COVID

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said he has a plan to help the U.S. fight the coronavirus outbreak.“After all this time the president still does not have a plan,” Biden said. “Well, I do.”Biden said Thursday in his acceptance speech at the virtual Democratic convention that his plan would include a national mask-wearing mandate and immediate rapid testing results. His plan would also call for increased manufacturing of medical supplies in the U.S.Biden added that he would ensure that schools have whatever they need to “open, safe and effective.”The U.S. continues to lead the world in the number of COVID-19 cases and in deaths, with more than 5.5 million infections and more than 174,000 deaths. The U.S. has roughly one-fourth of the world’s more than 22.6 million COVID cases.The Philippines reported 4,786 new infections Friday, bringing its total case count to 182,365. It also recorded 59 deaths, increasing its death tally to 2,940.“The infectiousness has increased because the strain has evolved,” Health Secretary Francisco Duque said Friday.The humanitarian aid group CARE says the coronavirus pandemic is likely to aggravate the world’s food insecurity and hunger crisis.Public officials disinfect as a precaution against the coronavirus at the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, South Korea, Aug. 21, 2020.CARE says in a new report the number of people around the globe facing severe food insecurity or a food crisis could nearly double to 270 million by the end of the year.The number of people in Latin American facing food shortages has tripled, while the number has doubled in West and Central Africa and exploded by as much as 90% in Southern Africa, according to the report.People in developed countries are facing pandemic-related food insecurity as well. CARE reported that 1 in 4 adults in Britain struggles to gain access to affordable and nutritious food, while at least 6 million Americans have registered for food benefits since the virus began to spread.The number of COVID-19 deaths in Latin America passed the 250,000 mark on Thursday, according a Reuters count.The region is experiencing more than 3,000 deaths a day and the number of new cases reported each day is rising in Argentina, Colombia, and Peru.Brazil still leads Latin America with more than 3.5 million cases and 112,304 deaths, according to the People ride an escalator as they arrive at La Defense business district while wearing a protective face masks as a precaution against the coronavirus, in Paris, Aug. 21, 2020.MSF said it “has strict infection prevention and control protocols that it has successfully applied during its work to combat COVID-19 worldwide.”Indigenous protesters Thursday resumed their blockade of a key Brazilian grain highway in the state of Para, stopping trucks carrying corn, according to federal highway police.The Kayapó tribe says the federal government has failed to protect it from the coronavirus, which has killed four tribal elders.A senior Mexican official says Mexico will get at least 2,000 test doses of the new coronavirus vaccine developed in Russia, which approved it last week without the advanced trials usually required to prove the effectiveness of a vaccine.Medical experts around the world have expressed skepticism over the vaccine dubbed “Sputnik V” by its makers in a nod to a Soviet satellite that was part of an effort to develop a manned space program.Mexico will test it among its population, according to Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard. Russia says it will carry out its tests of the vaccine starting next week and says foreign researchers will help oversee the trials.U.S. medical experts are warning people against consuming the plant extract oleandrin or the plant itself after reports surfaced that U.S. President Donald Trump wants the Food and Drug Administration to approve it as a COVID treatment.”This is very worrisome as consumption of either the plant oleander, or its toxic compound oleandrin, can both cause death,” Emory University expert on plants and medicine Cassandra Quave told Newsweek magazine.Trump supporter Mike Lindell, best known as the manufacturer and TV pitchman of pillows, has told CNN that Trump is apparently enthusiastic about the plant.Oleandrin is one of several toxic compounds from the oleander plant—an evergreen shrub or small tree that is popular with landscapers.  
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VP Nominee Kamala Harris Faces Unique Challenges, and Opportunities

As the first woman of color on a major party’s ticket, Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris is expected to galvanize the minority vote. But Harris also faces unique challenges, and opportunities, as she campaigns alongside presidential nominee Joe Biden. White House correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this story from Wilmington, Delaware, where Harris delivered her acceptance speech.
Camera: Rob Parsell
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Joe Biden Accepts US Democratic Presidential Nomination

Joe Biden, after nearly a half-century on the American political scene, Thursday night accepted the Democratic nomination to seek the U.S presidency in the November 3 election, telling Americans it was time to oust Republican President Donald Trump after one term in the White House.“United we can, and will, overcome this season of darkness in America,” Biden declared as the United States faces the unrelenting coronavirus pandemic and millions of workers have lost their jobs. “We will choose hope over fear, facts over fiction, fairness over privilege.”In a nearly half-hour speech, Biden contended that Trump “takes no responsibility” for the spread of the infectious disease and “refuses to lead.”“After all this time,” Biden said, “this president still doesn’t have a plan” to fight the pandemic. “He failed to protect America. And, my fellow Americans, that is unforgivable.”Political conventionsBiden’s speech, from an event center in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, came on the fourth and final night of the virtual Democratic National Convention, a collection of taped and live presentations extolling Biden and assailing Trump’s presidency.Trump and Republicans will have a rejoinder at their virtual four-day national convention starting Monday. But Trump, in a visit Thursday to Old Forge, Pennsylvania, near Biden’s boyhood home of Scranton, forecast the coming Republican attacks.“If you want a vision of your life under [a] Biden presidency, think of the smoldering ruins in Minneapolis, the violent anarchy of Portland, the bloodstained sidewalks of Chicago, and imagine the mayhem coming to your town and every single town in America,” Trump told supporters hours ahead of the Biden speech.Biden, for 36 years a U.S. senator and eight years a vice president under former President Barack Obama, never once mentioned Trump by name but repeatedly attacked his 3½ years as the U.S. leader.Biden accused Trump of cozying up to dictators overseas while diminishing relations with traditional allies, threatening the financial stability of pensions and health care for older Americans and particularly for his failure to address long-standing concerns about racial injustice in the U.S.Biden recalled the white nationalist march in Charlottesville, Virginia, three years ago this month in which torch-carrying white nationalists chanted “Jews will not replace us … white lives matter!” in opposition to demonstrators calling for racial equality.Biden remembered Trump assessing the demonstration by saying there were “very fine people on both sides.”‘Systemic racism’Now, Biden said, it is time to do “the hard work of rooting out our systemic racism” in the United States.“I have always believed you can define America in one word: Possibilities,” Biden said, “That in America, everyone, and I mean everyone, should be given the opportunity to go as far as their dreams and God-given ability will take them.”Biden said, “The current president has cloaked America in darkness for much too long. Too much anger. Too much fear. Too much division.“Here and now, I give you my word: If you entrust me with the presidency, I will draw on the best of us not the worst. I will be an ally of the light not of the darkness,” he said.Biden said that if Trump, the real-estate-baron-turned-politician and onetime reality-TV star who won an upset victory in the 2016 election, wins again, “He will be what he’s been the last four years. … He will wake up every day believing the job is all about him. Never about you.”Democrats were forced to abandon their planned convention with thousands of people jammed into a basketball arena in the Midwestern city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, because of the spread of the coronavirus pandemic that has now killed in the United States a world-leading total of 174,000 people, according to Johns Hopkins University data.Biden, if he wins the November 3 election and is inaugurated next January, would be 78, the oldest-ever U.S. president, topping Trump, who is 74.But Biden bested two dozen other Democrats, all but one of them younger than him, to win his party’s nomination on his third run for the presidency, after failed attempts in 1988 and 2008.Vice presidential candidateMonths ago, Biden promised to choose a woman as his vice presidential running mate. He tapped California Senator Kamala Harris last week after a weekslong vetting process of numerous possibilities. Harris was a historic choice in U.S. political annals, the first Black woman and South Asian American on a national party ticket in the U.S.Several of the Democrats Biden defeated in the string of party primaries and caucuses earlier this year, including Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, gave convention speeches this week supporting the ticket.One of them, entrepreneur Andrew Yang, told viewers on the last night of the convention, “I have gotten to know both Joe and Kamala on the trail over the past year – the way you really get to know a person when the cameras are off, the crowds are gone, and it’s just you and them.“They understand the problems we face,” Yang said. “They are parents and patriots who want the best for our country. And if we give them the chance, they will fight for us and our families every single day.”Another former Biden opponent turned supporter, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said, “I’m telling you to vote against (Trump) because he’s done a bad job. He spends more time tweeting than working. Let’s put an end to this whole sorry chapter in American history.”On previous nights, Biden advocates, most notably former President Obama and his wife, former first lady Michelle Obama, assailed Trump as a failed U.S. leader, while some prominent Republicans also voiced their support for Biden, including former Ohio Governor John Kasich and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.Numerous speakers at the Democratic conclave praised Biden’s decency and common man approach to public life, saying he possesses empathy for the problems of others that they said Trump has been incapable of showing.They noted that Biden has overcome major losses in his life, including the deaths of his first wife and young daughter in a 1972 car accident and more recently, in 2015, the death of his eldest son, former Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden, from brain cancer.  
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74 Top Republicans Endorse Biden for President

Seventy-four former Republican national security officials say they are voting for Democrat Joe Biden for president because they believe Donald Trump is engaging “in corrupt behavior that renders him unfit to serve as president.” Most of those who signed the letter, released Thursday by the advocacy group Defending Democracy Together, put their names on a similar statement in 2016, which also warned against electing Trump. Thursday’s statement outlines 10 reasons why the signers believe Trump must not be reelected in November, including allegations that he has “gravely damaged America’s role as a world leader … undermined confidence in our presidential elections … aligned himself with dictators…” and “attacked and vilified immigrants to our country.” “While some of us hold policy positions that differ from those of Joe Biden and his party, the time to debate those policy differences will come later. For now, it is imperative that we stop Trump’s assault on our nation’s values and institutions and reinstate the moral foundations of our democracy,” the letter stated. Signatories to the letter include Republican stalwarts who served under Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and his son, George W. Bush, and Trump himself. They include former deputy and assistant secretaries of state, U.S. trade representatives, members of Congress and senior Pentagon officials. The White House has not yet responded to the statement. Trump and his supporters will get the chance to defend his record of nearly four years at next week’s virtual Republican National Convention, where he will be nominated for a second term.  The virtual Democratic National Convention, scheduled to conclude Thursday evening with Biden’s formal acceptance of the party’s presidential nomination, has included some Republicans, including former Ohio Governor John Kasich and former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, voicing their support for a Biden presidency.
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Trump to Speak Near Biden’s Hometown Shortly Before DNC Acceptance Speech

U.S. President Donald Trump is taking his reelection campaign Thursday to Old Forge, Pennsylvania, a town less than nine kilometers from Joe Biden’s birthplace, hours before Biden formally accepts the Democratic nomination for president.Trump’s campaign said his speech in the Keystone State would address what it calls “a half century of Joe Biden failing America.”Trump’s visit to the battleground state comes as recent opinion polls have him trailing Biden.  Biden will deliver his acceptance speech hours later from his home in Wilmington, Delaware as the four-day virtual Democratic National Convention nears an end.Trump has been making campaign stops and holding news conferences during Biden’s week in the political spotlight, traveling to several political battleground states.  Republicans are staging their virtual national convention next week, starting Monday and culminating with Trump’s renomination acceptance speech at the White House on August 27. Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 by less than one percentage point, or 44,000 votes. But Trump, who has since clashed with Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor over efforts to reopen its economy in the midst of the pandemic, has trailed Biden, whose campaign is working to recapture the state that Democrats won from 1992 through 2016. Polls indicate Biden, the former vice president in the Obama administration, is well-positioned to win Pennsylvania with his deep roots in Scranton and his appeal to white working-class and Black voters in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.Biden spokesman Andrew Bates said that Trump has “put the health of countless families across the Keystone State in danger and plunged the strong economy he inherited from the Obama-Biden administration into a tailspin.”Trump’s campaign is concerned about losing support among suburban voters, particularly women, in the areas around Philadelphia. The campaign hopes to offset the loss by pushing for high voter turnout among rural and exurban voters.  
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Biden Set to Formally Accept Democratic Party’s Presidential Nomination

Joe Biden formally accepts the Democratic Party’s nomination for the U.S. presidency Thursday evening in a speech that is expected to lay out his vision for the country as he seeks to defeat President Donald Trump in the November 3 election.  
 
Biden’s speech on the fourth and final night of the Democratic National Convention comes after nearly 50 years in public office and two failed attempts for the White House in 1988 and 2008.
 
The speech will be the culmination of a nominating convention that was held virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic. The convention has featured some of the party’s highest-profile figures and even prominent Republicans who praised Biden in video speeches and issued urgent appeals to voters to end what they called Trump’s chaotic presidency.
 
The 77-year-old former senator and vice president during the Obama administration will deliver the speech in an event center in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware. While the center will be mostly empty, Biden’s speech will be delivered before his largest audience since the pandemic forced him off the campaign trail in March.  
 
U.S. Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, a close Biden ally, said the speech would likely focus on unifying a divided country.
 
“He recognizes this isn’t about Donald Trump. It’s not about Joe Biden. It’s about us, and it’s about who’s going to move us forward in a way that reminds us of the best in America, not the worst,” Coons said.
 
Biden’s speech comes one day after Senator Kamala Harris of California made history in accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination to appear alongside Biden as the vice-presidential candidate on the November ballot. Harris urged people to fight for “the America we know is possible.”  
 
Harris, 55, a former prosecutor, is the fourth woman to be on a major U.S. party’s national ticket, but the first Black woman and first South Asian American. Her mother was a breast cancer scientist who emigrated from India. She died in 2009. Harris’ father, an economist, came to the U.S. from Jamaica.Senator from California and Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris speaks on the third day of the Democratic National Convention, at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware, Aug. 19, 2020.Addressing the third night of the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, Harris sharply criticized President Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the economy, saying his “failure of leadership has cost lives and livelihoods.”  Trump has continued to defend his administration’s response.
 
Earlier in the evening, former president Barack Obama delivered a blistering attack on Trump, his successor, saying Trump was treating the presidency like “one more reality show” and jeopardizing the democracy with inept leadership and an authoritarian style.
 
Responding to the speech the next day, White House adviser Stephen Miller called Obama “one of the worst presidents, if not the worst president, in U.S. history.”
 
In accepting the number two spot on the Democratic ticket, Senator Harris spoke of a nation with “complexities and imperfections,” and the need to put in the work to address its flaws, such as combatting racism and realizing “the promise of equal justice under the law.”
 
“Make no mistake, the road ahead is not easy. We will stumble. We may fall short. But I pledge to you that we will act boldly and deal with our challenges honestly. We will speak truths, and we will act with the same faith in you that we ask you to place in us,” Harris said.
 Historic nomination
 
Biden’s choice of a Black woman of Asian America descent as his running mate broke the mold of traditional political ticket making and has excited many minorities and women in the party who were lukewarm or opposed to the 77-year-old white Biden leading the party into the fall election.  
 
Harris pledged that a Biden-Harris administration would work to “build an economy that doesn’t leave anyone behind,” take steps to end the coronavirus pandemic, and build a community that is “strong and decent, just and kind.”Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden and running mate Sen. Kamala Harris, sign required documents for accepting the Democratic nomination for president and vice president of the United States in Wilmington, Aug. 14, 2020.”We must elect a president who will bring something different, something better, and do the important work,” Harris said. “A president who will bring all of us together — Black, White, Latino, Asian, Indigenous — to achieve the future we collectively want. We must elect Joe Biden.”
 
Harris also made reference to her birth at a hospital in Oakland, California, seemingly a reference to a baseless “birther” theory stoked last week by President Trump that Harris wasn’t qualified to be vice president because both of her parents were immigrants.  
 
Meanwhile, Obama delivered a speech taped in historic Philadelphia saying that for nearly four years Trump “has shown no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.”In this image from video, former President Barack Obama delivers a speech, taped in Philadelphia, during the third night of the Democratic National Convention, Aug. 19, 2020. (Democratic National Convention via AP)Obama warned that Trump’s reelection could undermine democracy and said he had hoped Trump would take the job of president seriously and “discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care.”“Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t,” Obama said. “And the consequences of that failure are severe.  One-hundred-seventy-thousand Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone, while those at the top take in more than ever. Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before.”Obama’s speech was extraordinary because former presidents rarely publicly criticize a sitting president.  
 
After excerpts of Obama’s comments were released earlier Wednesday, Trump responded, criticizing Obama as having been ineffective and putting U.S. democracy in danger.  
 
“When I listen to that and I see the horror that he’s left us, the stupidity of the transactions that he made. Look what we’re doing. We have our great border wall. We have security,” Trump said at an afternoon press conference. “Look how bad he was, how ineffective he was.”‘Setting an example’
 
Many who spoke emphasized Biden’s character and fortitude in overcoming major losses in his life, including the deaths of his first wife and young daughter in a 1972 car accident and more recently, in 2015, the death of one of his grown sons, former Delaware attorney general Beau Biden, from brain cancer.
 
Obama said Biden knows the true strength of the United States “comes from setting an example the world wants to follow,” and that Biden and Harris have plans to get the coronavirus pandemic under control, expand medical coverage, rescue the U.S. economy and “restore our standing in the world.”In this image from video, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaks during the third night of the Democratic National Convention Aug. 19, 2020. (Democratic National Convention via AP)Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in her 2016 bid for president, urged people to turn out to vote as she advocated for Biden and Harris in her convention address Wednesday.“This is the team to pull our nation back from the brink, but they can’t do it without us,” Clinton said. “This can’t be another woulda, coulda, shoulda election. If you vote by mail, request your ballot now, and send it back right away. If you vote in person, do it early. Most of all, no matter what, vote.”
 
Trump has been making campaign stops and holding news conferences during Biden’s week in the political spotlight, traveling to several political battleground states.  
 
On Thursday, he is visiting near Biden’s boyhood home in Scranton, Pennsylvania.Republicans are staging their virtual national convention next week, starting Monday and culminating with Trump’s renomination acceptance speech at the White House Aug. 27. 
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Ex-Trump Adviser Bannon Charged in Alleged Fraud Scheme

Steve Bannon, a former advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump, and three other men involved in an online crowdfunding campaign to build portions of a U.S.-Mexico border wall were arrested and charged on Thursday with defrauding hundreds of thousands of donors, the Justice Department said.Bannon, who served as CEO of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and later as his top White House strategist, and Brian Kolfage, Andrew Badolato and Timothy Shea used the “We Build the Wall” campaign to raise funds for construction of private sections of the nearly 2,000-mile-long U.S. Mexico border.But prosecutors said they used hundreds of thousands of dollars raised through the campaign for personal expenses.WATCH: President Trump reacts to Bannon indictment, arrest
 Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 4 MB480p | 6 MB540p | 6 MB720p | 11 MB1080p | 25 MBOriginal | 38 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioVOA has reached out to Bannon’s lawyer for comment on the indictment but has not received a response. “While repeatedly assuring donors that Brian Kolfage, the founder and public face of We Build the Wall, would not be paid a cent, the defendants secretly schemed to pass hundreds of thousands of dollars to Kolfage, which he used to fund his lavish lifestyle,” Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement.The fundraising campaign was launched by Kolfage, a U.S. Air Force Veteran in 2018. It had an initial goal of $1 billion but ultimately raised more than $25 million.To solicit donations, Kolfage “repeatedly and falsely assured the public that he would ‘not take a penny in salary or compensation’ and that ‘100% of the funds raised . . . will be used in the execution of our mission and purpose’ because, as Bannon publicly stated, ‘we’re a volunteer organization,’” the Justice Department said in a statement.“Those representations were false,” the Justice Department said in a statement.The four men were charged in an indictment unsealed in New York on Thursday and will make their first court appearances later in the day.The White House said “President Trump has not been involved with Steve Bannon since the campaign and the early part of the Administration, and he does not know the people involved with this project.”Bannon is the sixth former Trump Campaign associated to face federal charges.  He was fired in August 2017, just seven months after Trump took office but continues to support the president. 
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US Judge Dismisses Trump’s Lawsuit to Block Subpoena for Tax Records

A U.S. judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit by President Donald Trump that sought to block enforcement of a grand jury subpoena for eight years of his personal and corporate tax records.U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero said granting the relief Trump sought would be an “undue expansion” of presidential immunity.Jay Sekulow, a lawyer for Trump, told Reuters the president would appeal the ruling and seek to delay enforcement of the subpoena.The subpoena is related to an investigation by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance. In a court filing last month, Vance said his investigation was tied to “alleged insurance and bank fraud by the Trump Organization and its officers,” among other things.A spokesman for Vance declined comment.Trump, who is campaigning for re-election in November, has fought efforts by lawmakers and prosecutors to obtain his tax records, which should shed light on his financial dealings. He has also defied decades of precedent as a presidential candidate by refusing to release tax returns. 
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Accepting Historic VP Nomination, Harris Urges Fight for ‘the America We Know is Possible’

Democratic vice presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris of California urged people to fight for “the America we know is possible,” as she made history in accepting her party’s nomination to appear alongside presidential candidate Joe Biden on the ballot in November.Harris, 55, a former prosecutor, is the fourth woman to be on a major U.S. party’s national ticket, but the first Black woman and first South Asian American. Her mother was a breast cancer scientist who emigrated from India. She died in 2009. Harris’ father, an economist, came to the U.S. from Jamaica.Addressing the third night of the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, Harris sharply criticized President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the economy, saying his “failure of leadership has cost lives and livelihoods.”Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 8 MB480p | 12 MB540p | 15 MB720p | 27 MB1080p | 59 MBOriginal | 81 MB Embed” />Copy Download AudioEarlier in the evening, former President Barack Obama delivered a blistering attack on Trump, his successor, saying Trump was treating the presidency like “one more reality show” and jeopardizing the democracy with his inept leadership and authoritarian style.In accepting the No. 2 spot on the Democratic ticket, Harris spoke of a nation with “complexities and imperfections,” and the need to put in the work to address its flaws, such as combating racism and realizing “the promise of equal justice under the law.”“Make no mistake, the road ahead is not easy. We will stumble. We may fall short. But I pledge to you that we will act boldly and deal with our challenges honestly. We will speak truths, and we will act with the same faith in you that we ask you to place in us,” Harris said.Historic nominationBiden’s choice of a Black woman of Asian America descent as his running mate broke the mold of traditional political ticket-making and has excited many minorities and women in the party who were lukewarm or opposed to the 77-year-old white Biden leading the party into the fall election.Harris pledged that a Biden-Harris administration would work to “build an economy that doesn’t leave anyone behind,” take steps to end the coronavirus pandemic, and build a community that is “strong and decent, just and kind.””We must elect a president who will bring something different, something better, and do the important work,” Harris said. “A president who will bring all of us together — Black, White, Latino, Asian, Indigenous — to achieve the future we collectively want. We must elect Joe Biden.”Harris also made reference to her birth at a hospital in Oakland, California, seemingly a reference to a baseless “birther” theory stoked last week by President Trump that Harris wasn’t qualified to be vice president because both of her parents were immigrants.Meanwhile, Obama delivered a speech taped in historic Philadelphia saying that for nearly four years Trump “has shown no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.” Obama warned that Trump’s reelection could undermine democracy and said he had hoped Trump would take the job of president seriously and “discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care.”“Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t,” Obama said. “And the consequences of that failure are severe. 170,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone, while those at the top take in more than ever. Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before.”Obama’s speech was extraordinary because former presidents rarely publicly criticize a sitting president.After excerpts of Obama’s comments were released earlier Wednesday, Trump responded, criticizing Obama as having been ineffective and putting U.S. democracy in danger.”When I listen to that and I see the horror that he’s left us, the stupidity of the transactions that he made. Look what we’re doing. We have our great border wall. We have security,” Trump said at an afternoon press conference. “Look how bad he was, how ineffective he was.”‘Setting an example’Many who spoke emphasized Biden’s character and fortitude in overcoming major losses in his life, including the deaths of his first wife and young daughter in a 1972 car accident and more recently, in 2015, the death of one of his grown sons, former Delaware attorney general Beau Biden, from brain cancer.Obama said Biden knows the true strength of the United States “comes from setting an example the world wants to follow,” and that Biden and Harris have plans to get the coronavirus pandemic under control, expand medical coverage, rescue the U.S. economy and “restore our standing in the world.” “More than anything, what I know about Joe, what I know about Kamala, is they actually care about every American, and that they care deeply about this democracy,” Obama said. “They believe that in a democracy, the right to vote is sacred and we should be making it easier for people to cast their ballot, not harder. They believe that no one, not even the president, is above the law and that no public official, not even the president, should use their office to enrich themselves or their supporters.”Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in her 2016 bid for president, urged people to turn out to vote as she advocated for Biden and Harris in her convention address Wednesday.“This is the team to pull our nation back from the brink, but they can’t do it without us,” Clinton said. “This can’t be another woulda, coulda, shoulda election. If you vote by mail, request your ballot now, and send it back right away. If you vote in person, do it early. Most of all, no matter what, vote.”‘Strong at the broken places’She cited plans for job creation, paid family leave, health care for everyone, helping undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children, reforming law enforcement and having elections free from foreign interference.“There’s a lot of heartbreak in America now, and the truth is, many things were broken before the pandemic,” Clinton said. “But, as the saying goes, the world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places. That’s Joe Biden. He knows how to keep going, unify and lead, because he’s done that for his family and his country.”Trump has been making campaign stops and holding news conferences during Biden’s week in the political spotlight, traveling to several political battleground states.On Thursday, he is visiting near Biden’s boyhood home in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Republicans are staging their virtual national convention next week, starting Monday and culminating with Trump’s renomination acceptance speech at the White House on August 27. 
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Kamala Harris Accepts Vice Presidential Nomination

Gun violence, climate change and COVID-19, issues highlighted on night three of the Democratic National Convention Wednesday, when Senator Kamala Harris of California accepted the vice-presidential nomination as running mate to candidate Joe Biden. Mike O’Sullivan reports, viewers heard a litany of complaints against Republican President Donald Trump, all conveyed through a virtual format.
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Obama Criticizes Trump in Prime-Time Convention Speech

Former U.S. President Barack Obama said Wednesday that for nearly four years, President Donald Trump “has shown no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.”Speaking on the third night of the Democratic National Convention, where the party has nominated Obama’s vice president, Joe Biden, as its presidential candidate, Obama unleashed an extraordinary attack on Trump, warning that his reelection could undermine democracy. In typical U.S. campaigns, former presidents typically withhold criticisms of a sitting president.During a speech at the virtual convention taped in Philadelphia, Obama said he hoped Trump would take the job of president seriously and “discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care.”FILE – Former U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at an event in Oakland, California, Feb. 19, 2019.“Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t,” Obama said. “And the consequences of that failure are severe. 170,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone, while those at the top take in more than ever. Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before.”Obama delivered his address, including a ringing endorsement of Biden for president, shortly before Senator Kamala Harris was formally nominated by the convention as vice president and gave an acceptance speech stressing her family ties and commitment to economic, racial and social justice.After excerpts of Obama’s comments were released earlier Tuesday, Trump responded, criticizing Obama as having been ineffective and putting U.S. democracy in danger.  FILE – Sen. Kamala Harris speaks as Attorney General William Barr testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 1, 2019.”When I listen to that and I see the horror that he’s left us, the stupidity of the transactions that he made. Look what we’re doing. We have our great border wall. We have security,” Trump said at an afternoon press conference. “Look how bad he was, how ineffective he was.”Obama said Biden knows the true strength of the United States “comes from setting an example the world wants to follow,” and that Biden and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, have plans to get the coronavirus pandemic under control, expand medical coverage, rescue the U.S. economy and “restore our standing in the world.”“More than anything, what I know about Joe, what I know about Kamala, is they actually care about every American, and that they care deeply about this democracy,” Obama said. “They believe that in a democracy, the right to vote is sacred and we should be making it easier for people to cast their ballot, not harder. They believe that no one, not even the president, is above the law and that no public official, not even the president, should use their office to enrich themselves or their supporters.”Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in her 2016 bid for president, urged people to turn out to vote as she advocated for Biden and Harris in her convention address Wednesday.“This is the team to pull our nation back from the brink, but they can’t do it without us,” Clinton said. “This can’t be another woulda, coulda, shoulda election. If you vote by mail, request your ballot now, and send it back right away. If you vote in person, do it early. Most of all, no matter what, vote.”FILE – Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden, his wife, Jill Biden, vice presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris and her husband Douglas Emhoff are see in Wilmington, Delaware, Aug. 12, 2020.Clinton expressed criticism of Trump, particularly his response to the coronavirus pandemic, but spent more of her remarks portraying a Biden-Harris administration as the best choice for the future of the nation.“Let’s set our sights higher than getting one man out of the White House. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are going to give us so much to vote for,” Clinton said.She cited plans for job creation, paid family leave, health care for everyone, helping undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children, reforming law enforcement and having elections free from foreign interference.“There’s a lot of heartbreak in America now, and the truth is, many things were broken before the pandemic,” Clinton said. “But, as the saying goes, the world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places. That’s Joe Biden. He knows how to keep going, unify and lead, because he’s done that for his family and his country.”Trump has been making campaign stops and holding news conferences during Biden’s week in the political spotlight, traveling to several political battleground states.On Thursday, he is visiting near Biden’s boyhood home in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Republicans are staging their virtual national convention next week, starting Monday and culminating with Trump’s renomination acceptance speech at the White House on August 27.
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Harris Urges Fight for ‘the America We Know is Possible’ as She Accepts Historic Vice Presidential Nomination

Democratic vice presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris of California urged people to fight for “the America we know is possible,” as she made history in accepting her party’s nomination to appear alongside presidential candidate Joe Biden on the ballot in November.Harris, 55, a former prosecutor, is the fourth woman to be on a major U.S. party’s national ticket, but the first Black woman and first South Asian American. Her mother was a breast cancer scientist who emigrated from India. She died in 2009. Harris’ father, an economist, came to the U.S. from Jamaica.Addressing the third night of the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, Harris sharply criticized President Donald Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the economy, saying his “failure of leadership has cost lives and livelihoods.”Earlier in the evening, former President Barack Obama delivered a blistering attack on Trump, his successor, saying Trump was treating the presidency like “one more reality show” and jeopardizing the democracy with his inept leadership and authoritarian style.In accepting the No. 2 spot on the Democratic ticket, Harris spoke of a nation with “complexities and imperfections,” and the need to put in the work to address its flaws, such as combating racism and realizing “the promise of equal justice under the law.”“Make no mistake, the road ahead is not easy. We will stumble. We may fall short. But I pledge to you that we will act boldly and deal with our challenges honestly. We will speak truths, and we will act with the same faith in you that we ask you to place in us,” Harris said.Historic nominationBiden’s choice of a Black woman of Asian America descent as his running mate broke the mold of traditional political ticket-making and has excited many minorities and women in the party who were lukewarm or opposed to the 77-year-old white Biden leading the party into the fall election.Harris pledged that a Biden-Harris administration would work to “build an economy that doesn’t leave anyone behind,” take steps to end the coronavirus pandemic, and build a community that is “strong and decent, just and kind.””We must elect a president who will bring something different, something better, and do the important work,” Harris said. “A president who will bring all of us together — Black, White, Latino, Asian, Indigenous — to achieve the future we collectively want. We must elect Joe Biden.”Harris also made reference to her birth at a hospital in Oakland, California, seemingly a reference to a baseless “birther” theory stoked last week by President Trump that Harris wasn’t qualified to be vice president because both of her parents were immigrants.Meanwhile, Obama delivered a speech taped in historic Philadelphia saying that for nearly four years Trump “has shown no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves.” Obama warned that Trump’s reelection could undermine democracy and said he had hoped Trump would take the job of president seriously and “discover some reverence for the democracy that had been placed in his care.”“Donald Trump hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t,” Obama said. “And the consequences of that failure are severe. 170,000 Americans dead. Millions of jobs gone, while those at the top take in more than ever. Our worst impulses unleashed, our proud reputation around the world badly diminished, and our democratic institutions threatened like never before.”Obama’s speech was extraordinary because former presidents rarely publicly criticize a sitting president.After excerpts of Obama’s comments were released earlier Wednesday, Trump responded, criticizing Obama as having been ineffective and putting U.S. democracy in danger.”When I listen to that and I see the horror that he’s left us, the stupidity of the transactions that he made. Look what we’re doing. We have our great border wall. We have security,” Trump said at an afternoon press conference. “Look how bad he was, how ineffective he was.”‘Setting an example’Many who spoke emphasized Biden’s character and fortitude in overcoming major losses in his life, including the deaths of his first wife and young daughter in a 1972 car accident and more recently, in 2015, the death of one of his grown sons, former Delaware attorney general Beau Biden, from brain cancer.Obama said Biden knows the true strength of the United States “comes from setting an example the world wants to follow,” and that Biden and Harris have plans to get the coronavirus pandemic under control, expand medical coverage, rescue the U.S. economy and “restore our standing in the world.” “More than anything, what I know about Joe, what I know about Kamala, is they actually care about every American, and that they care deeply about this democracy,” Obama said. “They believe that in a democracy, the right to vote is sacred and we should be making it easier for people to cast their ballot, not harder. They believe that no one, not even the president, is above the law and that no public official, not even the president, should use their office to enrich themselves or their supporters.”Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lost to Trump in her 2016 bid for president, urged people to turn out to vote as she advocated for Biden and Harris in her convention address Wednesday.“This is the team to pull our nation back from the brink, but they can’t do it without us,” Clinton said. “This can’t be another woulda, coulda, shoulda election. If you vote by mail, request your ballot now, and send it back right away. If you vote in person, do it early. Most of all, no matter what, vote.”‘Strong at the broken places’She cited plans for job creation, paid family leave, health care for everyone, helping undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children, reforming law enforcement and having elections free from foreign interference.“There’s a lot of heartbreak in America now, and the truth is, many things were broken before the pandemic,” Clinton said. “But, as the saying goes, the world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places. That’s Joe Biden. He knows how to keep going, unify and lead, because he’s done that for his family and his country.”Trump has been making campaign stops and holding news conferences during Biden’s week in the political spotlight, traveling to several political battleground states.On Thursday, he is visiting near Biden’s boyhood home in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Republicans are staging their virtual national convention next week, starting Monday and culminating with Trump’s renomination acceptance speech at the White House on August 27. 
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Obama, Harris to Criticize Trump in Prime-Time Convention Speech

Former President Barack Obama intends to deliver his most pointed criticisms to date of current U.S. President Donald Trump during his prime-time address to the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday evening. In excerpts of his broadcast speech released in advance earlier Wednesday, Obama says, “I hoped, for the good of our country, that Donald Trump could show the desire to take his role seriously, that he could feel the weight of the office. But he never did.” Trump, 74, succeeded Obama, 59, as U.S. leader after the 2016 presidential election.  Watch Live: The Democratic National Convention*/

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“The consequences of this failure are serious: 170,000 Americans dead, millions of jobs lost, our worst instincts released, our glorious reputation around the world greatly tarnished,” Obama’s released excerpts say.  Upon release of the comments, Trump responded, criticizing Obama as having been “ineffective” and putting U.S. democracy in danger. “When I listen to that and I see the horror that he’s left us, the stupidity of the transactions that he made. Look what we’re doing. We have our great border wall. We have security,” Trump said at an afternoon news conference. “Look how bad he was, how ineffective he was.” In normal U.S. campaigns, former presidents typically withhold criticisms of a sitting president.FILE – Former U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at an event in Oakland, California, Feb. 19, 2019.Obama and vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris are among an array of U.S. Democratic luminaries making the case to Americans at the virtual Democratic National Convention to elect former Vice President Joe Biden as president in the November 3 election. Obama is expected to say that Trump “hasn’t grown into the job because he can’t,” a phrase in subject and tone similar to that struck during the convention’s opening night by former first lady Michelle Obama. As a featured speaker Monday, Michelle Obama said Trump “simply cannot be who we need him to be.” Trump responded early Tuesday, tweeting at Michelle Obama: “Somebody please explain to @MichelleObama that Donald J. Trump would not be here, in the beautiful White House, if it weren’t for the job done by your husband, Barack Obama.” For two nights, a host of Biden supporters, including prominent Republicans who have turned against Trump, have voiced their support for the 77-year-old Democrat while condemning Trump’s White House tenure as chaotic and erratic. More attacks on Trump can be expected on the third night of the convention, with Democrats both trying to convince the U.S. electorate it made a mistake in electing the real estate baron-turned-politician in 2016 and that Biden would bring a new sense of civility to U.S. political life and engagement with allies overseas. The 55-year-old Harris, one of two dozen Democrats who sought the party’s presidential nomination but lost to Biden, will be making her most significant national political address after serving for years as a prosecutor in the Western state of California before winning a Senate seat in 2016. In excerpts of her speech released earlier Wednesday, Harris also calls out what she sees as Trump’s “failure of leadership.” According to excerpts, she accuses Trump of turning “our tragedies into political weapons.” FILE – Sen. Kamala Harris speaks as Attorney General William Barr testifies during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, May 1, 2019.Biden tapped her as his running mate last week after months ago promising to pick a woman to join his quest to oust Trump and Vice President Mike Pence after a single four-year term. Harris, the daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, is the first Black and first South Asian American to join a major U.S. party’s national ticket. She will be speaking from Biden’s home state of Delaware, as he will be Thursday night when he accepts the party’s presidential nomination in his third run for the presidency over three decades. Biden served as Obama’s vice president for eight years before Trump defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Obama refrained from voicing a preference for a Democratic presidential nominee in the long string of 2020 Democratic primaries and caucuses that led to Biden’s eventual victory. For a large part of Trump’s presidency, Obama also refused to offer rejoinders to his successor’s frequent Twitter attacks on him. But that changed as Biden won the nomination, with Obama forcefully declaring his support for his former second in command and criticizing Trump. Obama, the first Black U.S. president, has raised money for Biden’s campaign at virtual gatherings with wealthy donors. But appearances at political rallies with Biden in the coming weeks before the election would appear unlikely for a simple reason: Biden has dropped such large-scale gatherings on the advice of medical experts worried about the spread of the coronavirus.   To date, Biden has mostly campaigned from Delaware, although occasionally appearing at small gatherings in the nearby large city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Other key Democrats are set to make the case for Biden on Wednesday night, including Clinton, who won nearly 3 million more votes than Trump in 2016 but lost the election in the country’s Electoral College, the indirect U.S. system of democracy in which the overall outcome is determined by the winners of each of the 50 states. Two other vocal Trump critics are also set to speak: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, leader of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, and progressive Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who also sought the Democratic presidential nomination and was on Biden’s short list as a possible running mate. FILE – Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden, his wife, Jill Biden, vice presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris and her husband Douglas Emhoff are see in Wilmington, Delaware, Aug. 12, 2020.Participants in the convention, conducted virtually after the national party all but closed down its planned gathering in the Midwestern city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for fear of spreading the coronavirus, officially nominated Biden for the presidency on Tuesday. Biden said the nomination “means the world to me and my family, and I’ll see you on Thursday,” looking ahead to his acceptance speech on the final night of the convention.Biden’s wife, Jill, a college English professor, spoke to the convention delegates and the American public from an empty high school classroom where she once taught. She said her husband of 43 years would bring to the White House “leadership worthy of our nation.” “The burdens we carry are heavy, and we need someone with strong shoulders,” she said on Tuesday night of the coronavirus pandemic and economic turmoil in which millions of U.S. workers have lost their jobs. “I know that if we entrust this nation to Joe, he will do for your family what he did for ours. Bring us together and make us whole.” Trump has been attempting to upstage Biden’s week in the political spotlight, traveling to several political battleground states. On Thursday, he is visiting near Biden’s boyhood home in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Republicans are staging their virtual national convention next week, starting Monday and culminating with Trump’s renomination acceptance speech at the White House on August 27.
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Trump Says He Doesn’t Know Much About QAnon, Appreciates Followers’ Support

President Donald Trump on Wednesday praised the supporters of QAnon, a convoluted, pro-Trump conspiracy theory, and suggested he appreciates their support of his candidacy.Trump insisted he hadn’t heard much about the movement, “other than I understand they like me very much” and “it is gaining in popularity.”Speaking during a news conference at the White House, Trump courted the support of those who put stock in the conspiracy theory, saying, “I heard that these are people that love our country.” It was Trump’s first public comment on the subject and continued a pattern of president appearing unwilling to resoundingly condemn extremists who support his candidacy.QAnon has ricocheted around the darker corners of the internet since late 2017 but has been creeping into mainstream politics more and more. The baseless theory centers on an alleged anonymous, high-ranking government official known as “Q” who shares information about an anti-Trump “deep state” often tied to satanism and child sex trafficking.Trump has retweeted QAnon-promoting accounts, and shirts and hats with QAnon symbols and slogans are not uncommon at his rallies.How the QAnon Conspiracy Theory Went Global At least 71 countries have an anti-‘Deep State’ QAnon community An FBI bulletin last May warned that conspiracy theory-driven extremists have become a domestic terrorism threat. The bulletin specifically mentioned QAnon. Earlier last year, the Southern Poverty Law Center warned that the movement is becoming increasingly popular with anti-government extremists.Trump’s comments were condemned by the campaign of his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.”After calling neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville ‘fine people’ and tear gassing peaceful protesters following the murder of George Floyd, Donald Trump just sought to legitimize a conspiracy theory that the FBI has identified as a domestic terrorism threat,” said Biden spokesman Andrew Bates. “Our country needs leadership that will bring us together more than ever to form a more perfect union. We have to win this battle for the soul of our nation.”Pressed on QAnon theories that Trump is allegedly saving the nation from a satanic cult of child sex traffickers, Trump claimed ignorance, but asked, “Is that supposed to be a bad thing?””If I can help save the world from problems, I’m willing to do it,” Trump said.QAnon supporters were quick to celebrate Trump’s comments on social media, with many calling them a validation of their views. Many have long contended he sends them coded messages of support, and on Twitter, one user claimed Trump’s choice of a pink tie on Wednesday was another signal of support.Trump’s comments came a week after he endorsed Marjorie Taylor Greene, who won her GOP House primary runoff in Georgia last week. Greene called the QAnon conspiracy theory “something worth listening to and paying attention to” and called Q a “patriot.” Trump praised her as a “future Republican Star.”Trump has a long history of advancing false and sometimes racist conspiracies, including last week, when he gave credence to a highly criticized op-ed that questioned Democrat Kamala Harris’ eligibility to serve as vice president even though she was born in Oakland, California.Asked about the matter, Trump told reporters he had “heard” rumors that Harris, a Black woman and U.S.-born citizen whose parents were immigrants, does not meet the requirement to serve in the White House. The president said he considered the rumors “very serious,” but later he and his campaign indicated they were not making an issue of the claim. Constitutional lawyers have dismissed it as nonsense.Facebook announced just hours before Trump’s statements that it was banning some QAnon Facebook groups and accounts. 
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Obama, Harris Headline Third Night of US Democratic Convention

An array of U.S. Democratic luminaries, topped by former President Barack Obama and vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris, are making the case to Americans Wednesday night at the virtual Democratic National Convention to elect former Vice President Joe Biden as president in the November 3 election. For two nights, a host of Biden supporters, including prominent Republicans who have turned against President Donald Trump, have voiced their support for the 77-year-old Democrat while condemning Trump’s White House tenure as chaotic and erratic. More attacks on Trump can be expected on the third night of the convention, with Democrats trying to convince the U.S. electorate it made a mistake in electing the real-estate-baron-turned-politician in 2016 and that Biden would bring a new sense of civility to U.S. political life and engagement with allies overseas. FILE – U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden and his running mate Sen. Kamala Harris appear on a video feed at the start of the second day of the Democratic National Convention, being held virtually, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Aug. 18, 2020.The 55-year-old Harris, one of two dozen Democrats who sought the party’s presidential nomination but lost to Biden, will be making her most significant national political address after serving for years as a prosecutor in the western state of California before winning a Senate seat in 2016. Biden tapped her as his running mate last week after months ago promising to pick a woman to join his quest to oust Trump and Vice President Mike Pence after a single four-year term. Harris, the daughter of an Indian mother and a Jamaican father, is the first Black and first South Asian American to join a major U.S. party’s national ticket. She will be speaking from Biden’s home state of Delaware, as he will be Thursday night when he accepts the party’s presidential nomination in his third run for the presidency over three decades. Biden served as Obama’s vice president for eight years before Trump defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. Obama refrained from voicing a preference for a Democratic presidential nominee in the long string of 2020 Democratic primaries and caucuses that led to Biden’s eventual victory. FILE – Former U.S. President Barack Obama speaks at an event in Oakland, California, Feb. 19, 2019.For a large part of Trump’s presidency, Obama also refused to offer rejoinders to his successor’s frequent Twitter attacks on him. But that changed as Biden won the nomination, with Obama forcefully declaring his support for his former second in command and criticizing Trump. Obama, the first Black U.S. president, has raised money for Biden’s campaign at virtual gatherings with wealthy donors. But appearances at political rallies with Biden in the coming weeks before the election would appear unlikely for a simple reason: Biden has dropped such large-scale gatherings on the advice of medical experts worried about the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.   To date, Biden has mostly campaigned from Delaware, although occasionally appearing at small gatherings in the nearby large city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, FILE – Former U.S. secretary of state Hillary Clinton speaks at United Nations headquarters in New York City, March 10, 2020.Other key Democrats are set to make the case for Biden on Wednesday night, including Clinton, who won nearly 3 million more votes than Trump in 2016 but lost the election in the country’s Electoral College, the indirect U.S. system of democracy in which the overall outcome is determined by the winners of each of the 50 states. Two other vocal Trump critics are also set to speak: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, leader of the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives, and progressive Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who also sought the Democratic presidential nomination and was on Biden’s short list as a possible running mate. Participants in the convention, conducted virtually after the national party all but closed down its planned gathering in the Midwestern city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for fear of spreading the coronavirus, officially nominated Biden for the presidency on Tuesday. Biden said the nomination “means the world to me and my family, and I’ll see you on Thursday,” looking ahead to his acceptance speech on the final night of the convention. Biden’s wife, Jill, a college English professor, spoke to the convention delegates and the American public from an empty high school classroom where she once taught. FILE – In this image from video, Jill Biden, wife of Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, speaks during the second night of the Democratic National Convention, Aug. 18, 2020. (Democratic National Convention via AP)She said her husband of 43 years would bring to the White House “leadership worthy of our nation.” “The burdens we carry are heavy and we need someone with strong shoulders,” she said of the coronavirus pandemic and economic turmoil in which millions of U.S. workers have lost their jobs. “I know that if we entrust this nation to Joe, he will do for your family what he did for ours. Bring us together and make us whole.” Trump has been attempting to upstage Biden’s week in the political spotlight, traveling to several political battleground states. On Thursday, he is visiting near Biden’s boyhood home in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Republican are staging their virtual national convention next week, starting Monday and culminating with Trump’s renomination acceptance speech at the White House on August 27. 
 
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Democrats Hope Unconventional Travelogue Entices Viewers

An unexpected travelogue connected as a television event during the second night of the Democrats’ virtual convention, livening up a show that so far is struggling in the ratings.
The roll call vote that formally sealed Joe Biden’s nomination as the Democratic candidate for president Tuesday came from sites in the 50 states and territories. Biden received votes from the foot of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Alabama and from the parents of murdered hate crime victim Matthew Shepard in Wyoming.
It became a guessing game for viewers: Where will my state’s delegates speak from? Washington Post editor Tanya Sichynsky tweeted that it was “the most any of us have traveled in months.”
“It’s like the Olympic parade of nations,” tweeted NBC’s Kasie Hunt, “which I so missed this year.”
It made the ABC and CBS decisions to cut away from the roll call to show portions of former President Bill Clinton’s address feel like old hat. None of Tuesday’s speakers had the immediate impact of former First Lady Michelle Obama on Monday night.
The nomination was marked by a Zoom-like outbreak of applause and streamers tossed at Biden and his wife, Jill, as Kool & The Gang’s “Celebration” played in the background.
“Not quite the same,” said ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
Democrats have worked to produce a relentlessly theme-driven facsimile, but it still isn’t a television event like past conventions. Television viewership for Monday’s first night was sharply down compared with the opening of Hillary Clinton’s nomination week in 2016.
An estimated 19.7 million people watched Monday’s coverage between 10 and 11 p.m. on some 10 different television networks, the Nielsen company said. Four years ago, opening night drew just under 26 million viewers.
The Biden campaign claimed their event was a hit online, with campaign spokesman T.J. Ducklo saying an additional 10 million people streamed live video of the convention on various platforms. Those numbers could not immediately be independently verified.
Broadcast networks were hit hardest by the changed format. NBC’s telecast drew 2.28 million viewers, down from 4.29 million four years ago, Nielsen said. ABC reached 2.44 million people on Monday, compared to 4.13 million.
The left-leaning MSNBC, where Rachel Maddow, Joy Reid and Nicolle Wallace were anchors, led the way Monday with 5.1 million viewers, up from four years ago. CNN had 4.78 million. Unlike the broadcasters, the two cable networks ran the Democrats’ production nearly in its entirety.
Fox News Channel’s audience was unimpressed; the 2.1 million viewers it reached for its hour of convention coverage compared poorly with the 3.4 million viewers that time slot occupant Laura Ingraham had on an average July day. Earlier in the evening, Fox kept to its regular lineup with Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity criticizing the Biden campaign, instead of showing news coverage of the convention.
Veteran television producer Don Mischer, whose credits include the Oscars, the Emmys and the 2004 Democratic national convention, said that while the convention’s first night was well-produced, it suffered from the lack of a live audience.
While Obama “hit a home run” with her speech, “had that been done in front of the crowd, with the crowd’s emotion getting stronger and stronger as she went through that speech, by the time she got to the end, there would have been a rush of palpable emotion that would have resonated with people many times greater than what came across,” he said.
Republicans will take their shot next week in nominating President Donald Trump for a second term.
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Kanye Campaign Workers in Wyoming Got Too Close To Polls, Official Says

Rapper and music producer Kanye West’s campaign ran into trouble Tuesday on his first day of trying to get on the presidential ballot in his home state of Wyoming.
People gathering signatures on behalf of West and another presidential candidate got too close to polling locations during the state’s primary, election officials said.
The signature-gatherers for West and candidate Brock Pierce refused to keep at least 100 yards (91 meters) away, prompting election workers to call police and sheriff’s deputies at five of the seven polling locations in and around Cheyenne, Laramie County Clerk Debra Lee said.
“Some of them became quite aggressive and refused to leave,” said Lee.
Election officials at Laramie County Community College confiscated a handwritten sign that read “registered voters sign here” on one side and “Kanye West” on the other, potentially causing people to falsely believe they needed to sign West’s petition in order to vote, Lee said.
A man standing outside a polling place in Cheyenne said he worked for Pierce’s national campaign and was gathering signatures for both candidates. He declined to provide his full name. He said he was 100 yards away from the polling place entrance but he actually appeared to be closer.
Social media messages seeking comment from West agent Trevian Kutti and Pierce weren’t immediately returned Tuesday. Election officials in Casper, where a state elections official said similar violations occurred, didn’t immediately return a phone message seeking comment.
West, who once backed Republican President Donald Trump, announced last month that he had broken with Trump and would launch his own presidential bid. His campaign filed paperwork on July 15 with the Federal Election Commission.
West has so far qualified in several states including Arkansas, Oklahoma, Utah and Colorado. His effort to get on the ballot has been challenged in Wisconsin.
The reported incidents in Wyoming don’t affect whether signatures count as valid, said secretary of state’s office spokesman Will Dinneen.
Widespread problems with people electioneering too close to polling places haven’t been reported in the state in at least 20 years.
“This has been really beyond anything we’ve ever seen,” Lee said.
West announced in July he’s running for president on a ticket he calls the “Birthday Party.” West has since been gathering signatures to get on the ballot in several states.
West filed with state officials on Monday to begin collecting signatures in Wyoming. He has until next Monday to submit 4,025 valid signatures to get on the ballot.
West bought a ranch and has lived in the Cody area in northwestern Wyoming since last year.
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Democrats Officially Nominate Joe Biden for US President

Democrats formally nominated former Vice President Joe Biden as their candidate for president Tuesday, during the second night of an extraordinary virtual convention that included criticism of President Donald Trump from Republicans as well as Democrats, and personal stories of Biden as a public servant, father and husband. White House Correspondent Patsy Widakuswara has this story from Wilmington, Delaware.
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Democrats Officially Nominate Joe Biden as Their Presidential Candidate

U.S. Democrats officially nominated former Vice President Joe Biden Tuesday to be their candidate in the November presidential election on another evening in which prominent Republicans joined with Democrats in criticizing President Donald Trump while praising Biden’s leadership skills.  Biden had been the party’s presumptive nominee for months after outlasting a crowded field of Democratic presidential hopefuls in state-by-state primary and caucus votes, including his closest rival, Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. On the second night of the Democratic National Convention, the traditional roll call vote of states officially picking the party nominee featured representatives speaking from their states and territories pledging their support for Biden as he now runs against Trump, a Republican.In this image from video, Gilbert Alaquinez of Arkansas speaks during the state roll call vote on second night of the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 18, 2020.Biden said the nomination “means the world to me and my family, and I’ll see you on Thursday,” looking ahead to his speech accepting the nomination on the final night of the convention. As Democrats gathered virtually, Trump traveled Tuesday to two key battleground states, Iowa and Arizona, and sought to curry favor with women voters with a pardon earlier in the day of women’s suffrage leader Susan B. Anthony who protested during the 1870s. ‘Finding mercy and grace’Biden’s wife, Jill, said that if elected, her husband would bring to the White House “leadership worthy of our nation” at the time of an historic coronavirus pandemic and economic depression.  “There are those who want to tell us that our country is hopelessly divided, that our differences are irreconcilable. But that’s not what I’ve seen over these months,” Jill Biden said as she gave the final remarks of the night. “We’re coming together and holding onto each other. We’re finding mercy and grace in the moments we might have once taken for granted. We’re seeing that our differences are precious and our similarities infinite.In this image from video, Jill Biden, wife of Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden, speaks during the second night of the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2020. “We have shown that the heart of this nation still beats with kindness and courage. That’s the soul of America Joe Biden is fighting for now,” she said, delivering her speech from a classroom in the high school where she once taught in Wilmington, Delaware. Jill Biden has played an active, behind-the-scenes role in her husband’s third run for the presidency over three decades. Aides say she offered her thoughts on his choice of a vice presidential running mate before he chose California Senator Kamala Harris last week, making Harris the first Black woman and South Asian American to be picked for a spot on a national U.S. political ticket. Harris is set to give her convention acceptance speech Wednesday, along with remarks from former President Barack Obama and Senator Elizabeth Warren. Former Secretary of State John Kerry, who served in the Obama-Biden administration, used his speech Tuesday night to portray Trump’s foreign policy as a failure. “When this president goes overseas, it isn’t a goodwill mission, it’s a blooper reel. He breaks up with our allies and writes love letters to dictators. America deserves a president who is looked up to, not laughed at,” Kerry said. Kerry added that Biden understands that the problems facing the world, including the coronavirus, terrorism and climate change, cannot be resolved “without bringing nations together with strength and humility.”John Kerry speaking at the Democratic National Convention held in Milwaukee, Aug. 18, 2020.Times of crisis Former President Bill Clinton criticized Trump’s leadership, particularly in times of crisis. “At a time like this, the Oval Office should be a command center. Instead, it’s a storm center. There’s only chaos,” Clinton said. “Now you have to decide whether to renew his contract or hire someone else.  “If you want a president who defines the job as spending hours a day watching TV and zapping people on social media, he’s your man. Denying, distracting, and demeaning works great if you’re trying to entertain and inflame. But in a real crisis, it collapses like a house of cards,” the former president said. Next week, Trump is set to officially accept his party’s nomination at the Republican National Convention. Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are making campaign stops during Biden’s week in the spotlight, traveling to political battleground states that could play a pivotal role in the election. Trump headed to the Midwestern state of Iowa on Tuesday and later visited Yuma, Arizona, near the border with Mexico to assess the construction of a border wall to thwart undocumented immigrants from crossing into the United States. The issue was a major plank of his successful 2016 run for the presidency.  On Thursday, Trump plans to visit a site near Biden’s boyhood home in Scranton, Pennsylvania. 
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Sanders Urges Progressives to Keep Agenda Alive with Vote for Biden

For the second time in four years, progressive voters’ hopes to elevate Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont to the top of the Democratic ticket were dashed this spring, when Sanders’ call for a social revolution and Medicare for All fell flat, and former Vice President Joe Biden surged to victory in the race for the presidential nomination. In 2016, many of these same liberal Democrats decided to sit out the general election after Hillary Clinton edged out Sanders for the Democratic presidential nomination – and Sanders appeared half-hearted in urging them to back Clinton at the polls.  But Sanders made a compelling argument Monday night – at the start of the 2020 Democratic National Convention – that progressives’ issues and policies will live on if they help the more moderate Biden defeat President Donald Trump in the November 3 general election.  “The future of our democracy is at stake,” Sanders said in a live speech from his home in Burlington, Vermont. He added, “Many of the ideas we fought for, that just a few years ago were considered radical, are now mainstream.” The appeal for party unity was a departure for the self-styled democratic socialist who was the last remaining primary rival to Biden earlier this year. Sanders has not always advocated loyalty to the Democratic party, with whom he usually caucuses in the U.S. Senate.  Progressive wing He is seen foremost as the leader of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, the group of liberal voters who support social reform policies intended to help working Americans, including universal health care, free college tuition, a higher minimum wage and a raft of other social benefits. Sanders rested his appeal to his supporters on the idea that defeating Trump is key to keeping progressive causes in the mainstream discussion.  FILE – Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden and his running mate Senator Kamala Harris, D-Calif., August 12, 2020.“I think he successfully showed that he’s strongly supporting Joe Biden and [vice presidential candidate Kamala] Harris, that he made the case to his movement that many of the issues that he was pushing now are mainstream and that he’s willing to work with progressives and, of course, moderates and even conservatives to help get Biden elected,” James Thurber, distinguished professor in the department of government at American University, said. He was referring to Biden’s running mate, California Senator Kamala Harris. Sanders’ conciliatory tone this year marks a departure from the 2016 election cycle, when he accused the Democratic Party of rigging the nomination process in favor of Clinton, and there was plenty of sniping between the Sanders and Clinton camps.  “This is a time where we’ve seen Senator Sanders be more of a party team player than he usually is. And I think it was quite impressive to many who were watching that he stayed on message,” said Lara Brown, director of the Graduate School of Political Management (GSPM) at the George Washington University. “Part of the case that he made last night was that the progressive agenda has really come more and more into the mainstream over the past few years and that that isn’t going to go away anytime soon,” Brown said.  But progressives’ values could be jeopardized, Sanders told supporters, unless they vote for Biden to ensure Trump does not win a second presidential term. “Under this administration, authoritarianism has taken root in our country. I, and my family, and many of yours, know the insidious way authoritarianism destroys democracy, decency and humanity,” Sanders said Monday.  Motivation to supporters Trump has repeatedly asserted that liberal Democrats like Sanders are out to “destroy the country,” and are promoting socialist values anathema to many Americans.  Sanders’ rhetoric was intended to motivate his supporters to vote for Biden instead of staying home or choosing another candidate.  FILE – Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump stands with Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton before the first presidential debate at Hofstra University, September 26, 2016, in Hempstead, N.Y.“In 2016, as we all know, Hillary lost by about 68,000 votes in three key states, collectively, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. And in those states, 100-200,000 people voted for third- and fourth-party candidates and many of them didn’t vote at all. And that’s the key here. He [Sanders] has to motivate his supporters to get out and vote for Biden, not to vote for another candidate,” Thurber said. While noting that he still has significant policy disagreements with Biden, Sanders also outlined in his speech the many areas where progressive causes could be advanced if Democrats retake the White House. Biden’s campaign worked with Sanders in the weeks leading up to the convention to ensure some of his progressive goals were included in the official platform of the Democratic Party.  Sanders said Biden supported progressive causes such as raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour, paid family leave and funding for universal schooling for 3- and 4-year-olds while making child care affordable for millions of families.  Sanders did note that his Medicare for All plan – a single, government-sponsored health insurance program for all Americans – did not make it into the party platform.  “While Joe and I disagree on the best path to get to universal coverage, he has a plan that will greatly expand health care and cut the cost of prescription drugs. Further, he will lower the eligibility age of Medicare from 65 to 60,” Sanders said.  Control of Senate With control of the Senate also at stake this election year, analysts say a key part of Sanders’ appeal to progressives was to remind them that putting a Democrat in the White House was the best way of ensuring their agenda becomes law.  “He was very good at explaining to his supporters that progressives have won. They are now the mainstream of the Democratic Party. Their issues are the ones that are a top concern,” Brown said.  If Democrats pick up the three to four seats needed for a majority in the Senate, Sanders is well-positioned to play a key role in leadership. One of his Democratic colleagues recognized his contribution Monday night after his speech.  Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut tweeted, “The careful, purposeful steps Bernie Sanders has taken to bring the party together this spring and summer will be a huge part of the story we tell when Joe Biden wins.”   
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Mississippi Group Narrows Flag Options to 5

A group recommending a new Mississippi state flag chose five final designs Tuesday — three with a magnolia blossom, one with a magnolia tree and one with a shield that has wavy lines representing water. Mississippi legislators voted in late June to retire the last state flag in the U.S. with the Confederate battle emblem that’s broadly condemned as racist. “When the flag came down, it was one of the great days of my life,” Reuben Anderson, chairman of a nine-member flag commission, said during Tuesday’s meeting. The law shelving the old flag created the commission to come up with a new design that cannot include the Confederate battle emblem and must have the phrase, “In God We Trust.” Four of the designs chosen Tuesday are mostly or entirely red, white and blue. One has a stylized white magnolia tree on a blue background. Most have stars representing Mississippi as the 20th state. Each includes one star made of five diamond shapes that reflect the state’s Choctaw heritage. The five final designs will be manufactured. Commissioners hold their next meeting August 25, and those flags will be hoisted outside the Old Capitol in downtown Jackson. The Old Capitol is now a museum but was still the statehouse in 1894, when white supremacists in the Mississippi Legislature adopted a state flag with the Confederate battle emblem in the upper left corner. That vote reflected the backlash against political power African Americans briefly gained during Reconstruction. The state Supreme Court ruled in 2000 that even though the flag had remained in use, it lacked official status because state laws were updated in 1906 and sections describing the flag were not included. Mississippi residents voted in a 2001 election to keep the Confederate-themed flag, but it remained a divisive symbol in a state with a 38% Black population. All of Mississippi’s public universities and many local governments stopped flying it. Legislative leaders said for decades that they could not muster support to change the flag, but momentum shifted rapidly after Minneapolis police killed a Black man named George Floyd and protests against racial injustice happened across the U.S., including outside the Mississippi governor’s mansion. The final push to change the flag came from business, education, religion and sports leaders. Legislators created a nine-member commission, and that group received nearly 3,000 designs from the public. Commissioners will choose one design September 2, and that will go on the November 3 ballot. If voters accept the design, it will become the new Mississippi flag. If they reject it, the commission will find a new design to go on the ballot later. Even as the commission is working toward a new flag, some Mississippi residents are rebelling against change. Organizers of a group called Let Mississippi Vote said Monday that they are starting an initiative  to put the old Confederate-themed flag and three other flag designs on the statewide ballot. But the initiative process is burdensome, and their efforts will be complicated by the coronavirus pandemic. If the initiative gets to the ballot, that election could be a year or two away. And, Mississippi could be flying a new flag by then.  
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US Postal Service Head to Testify Before Senate Panel Amid Criticism

The head of the U.S. Postal Service will testify Friday before the Republican-led Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, a panel spokesman confirmed Tuesday. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy faces bipartisan criticism asserting he has made changes that have slowed mail deliveries just months before the Nov. 3 presidential election.
 
The postmaster general, who took control of the agency in June, previously agreed to testify next Monday before the Democrat-led House Oversight Committee.
 
DeJoy’s pending testimony comes as millions of Americans fearful of voting at polling places due to the coronavirus pandemic prepare to vote by mail in the November 3 election, raising concerns the Postal Service is not able to handle in a timely manner an anticipated record-setting surge in mail-in ballots.
 
The Senate panel said the hearing will scrutinize the “finances and operations of the United States Postal Service during COVID-19 and upcoming elections.” COVID-19 is the illness caused by the coronavirus.
 
One day before DeJoy’s appearance before the Senate committee, Democrats in the House of Representatives plan to vote to limit changes they contend would inhibit the processing of mailed-in ballots and provide an additional $25 billion in funding for the agency.
 
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the Democratic-controlled House back into session Sunday from its summer recess to vote on the Postal Service funding and reverse DeJoy-instituted changes they claim would possibly keep mailed-in ballots from arriving at election offices throughout the country in time to be counted in the election.FILE – Mailboxes are seen on a sidewalk in New York City, Aug. 14, 2020.Senate Republicans this week are expected to introduce coronavirus relief legislation that will include billions for the Postal Service. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has not said, however, if he will bring senators back from recess to vote on the measure.
 
President Donald Trump, who said Monday he wants to “speed up” mail deliveries, said last week he opposes additional funding for the agency. For months, the Republican president has insisted, without evidence, that states mailing ballots to voters will lead to election fraud, a rigged vote against him, and more widespread voting by Democrats.  
 
Trump defended DeJoy, who has donated $1.2 million to his campaign since 2016 and almost $1.3 million to the Republican Party, for taking significant steps to cut costs at the agency and improve its performance.  
 
Pelosi accused Trump of conducting a “campaign to sabotage the election by manipulating the Postal Service to disenfranchise voters.”Sorry, but your browser cannot support embedded video of this type, you can
download this video to view it offline.Download File360p | 6 MB480p | 8 MB540p | 11 MB720p | 21 MB1080p | 45 MBOriginal | 50 MB Embed” />Copy Download Audio 
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Jill Biden to Make the Presidential Case for Her Husband

Jill Biden, a longtime college English professor, is set Tuesday night to try to persuade U.S. voters why they should elect her husband of 43 years, former Vice President Joe Biden, as the country’s next president.Jill Biden has played an active behind-the-scenes role in her husband’s third run for the presidency over three decades. Aides say she offered her thoughts on his choice of a vice presidential running mate before he chose California Senator Kamala Harris last week, making Harris the first Black and South Asian American to be picked for a spot on a national U.S. political ticket.Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden’s wife, Jill Biden, and vice presidential candidate Senator Kamala Harris are seen on stage in Wilmington, Delaware, Aug. 12, 2020.But with the coronavirus pandemic severely limiting public political appearances this year, Jill Biden’s speech on the second night of the virtual Democratic National Convention will be her televised introduction to millions of American voters, presenting her as a potential first lady for the next four years and offering insights on how she thinks her husband would act as president.Also making the case Tuesday for Joe Biden in his campaign against Republican President Donald Trump will be two former Democratic presidents — Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter — as well as 2004 presidential nominee John Kerry and late President John F. Kennedy’s daughter, Caroline.Two current Washington political figures, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both frequent and vocal Trump critics, are also speaking on Biden’s behalf.There will be a truncated roll call of states to nominate Biden and Harris as the Democratic ticket, a version of the time-worn practice from conventions past that often took hours. Tuesday’s streamlined vote may last as little as half an hour, an attempt to keep viewers across the country from turning off their television sets.Americans had never witnessed a virtual national political convention before Monday night. But the pandemic has forced the Democrats this week and the Republicans renominating Trump next week for a second White House term to abandon the hoopla-filled conventions of years past for fear of spreading the novel coronavirus.Gone are the thousands of cheering convention delegates that the Democrats had once planned on packing into a basketball arena in the midwestern city of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.That was replaced on Monday by short, taped endorsements of Biden by the candidates he defeated in a months-long competition to secure the party’s presidential nomination, capped with a fiery takedown of Trump’s 3 ½-year presidency from former first lady Michelle Obama, the wife of Trump’s Democratic predecessor whom he often assails, Barack Obama.In this image from video, former first lady Michelle Obama speaks during the first night of the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 17, 2020.“Let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can,” she said in a prerecorded speech. “Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country. He has had more than enough time to prove that he can do the job, but he is clearly in over his head.”“Whenever we look to this White House for some leadership or consolation or any semblance of steadiness, what we get instead is chaos, division, and a total and utter lack of empathy,” she said.“He cannot meet this moment,” Michelle Obama concluded. “He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us.”The Democrats’ two-hour presentation was slickly presented, but because Michelle Obama’s speech was taped days ago, she made no mention of Biden’s history-making choice of Harris as his running mate.Trump ridiculed her assessment of his presidency, tweeting Tuesday, “Thanks for your very kind words Michelle!”The U.S. leader added in comments from the White House, “She was over her head, and frankly, she should’ve made the speech live, which she didn’t do, she taped it. And it was not only taped, it was taped a long time ago, because she had the wrong [number of coronavirus] deaths.”The former first lady said 150,000 had died from the pandemic but Trump did not note that the death toll has now risen to more than 170,000, the biggest national total across the globe.The ObamaBiden Administration was the most corrupt in history, including the fact that they got caught SPYING ON MY CAMPAIGN, the biggest political scandal in the history of our Country. It’s called Treason, and more. Thanks for your very kind words Michelle!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 18, 2020“Somebody please explain to @MichelleObama that Donald J. Trump would not be here, in the beautiful White House, if it weren’t for the job done by your husband, Barack Obama. Biden was merely an afterthought, a good reason for that very late & unenthusiastic endorsement,” Trump said on Twitter.Somebody please explain to @MichelleObama that Donald J. Trump would not be here, in the beautiful White House, if it weren’t for the job done by your husband, Barack Obama. Biden was merely an afterthought, a good reason for that very late & unenthusiastic endorsement…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) In this image from video, former Republican Ohio Gov. John Kasich speaks during the first night of the Democratic National Convention on Monday, Aug. 17, 2020. (Democratic National Convention via AP)Former Ohio Governor John Kasich, who lost to Trump for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, said the country is “at a crossroads” and being led down “the wrong road” by a president who has pitted one person against another.“Joe Biden is a man for our times,” Kasich said. “Times that call for all of us to take off our partisan hats and put our nation first for ourselves, and of course, for our children.”Harris is set to speak Wednesday night. Biden will accept the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday night with a speech from his home state of Delaware. 
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