Don Jr tests positive, as his father dodges media questions
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Donald Trump held a press conference on Friday to discuss prescription drug prices, but the moment also included him falsely claiming “he won” the 2020 election while accusing Moderna and Pfizer of working to stop his re-election efforts. The two pharmaceutical companies announced their coronavirus vaccines were 90 per cent or more effective against the novel virus following the election.
The press conference was actually not a press conference because the president took no questions. His decision not to take questions potentially came after White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany held her press briefing since 1 October on Friday.
Ms McEnany, who defended Mr Trump’s refusal to concede the election, was heckled by one reporter during the briefing over her inability to accept the election results. She also entered into a verbal spat with a CNN reporter, whom she called an “activist”, after refusing to answer more questions.
This comes after Mr Trump was told to to move aside by Republican senator Lamar Alexander, who said on Friday that the US president should allow the transition to a Biden administration to take place after more than two weeks of delay. Sources close to the president suggested that his refusal to concede was, in part, an act of revenge on Democrats who investigated Russian interference in his 2016 win over Hillary Clinton.
And later in the day it was confirmed that the president’s son, Don Jr, had tested positive for coronavirus and was quarantining.
Pompeo reverses Obama-era ruling and designates products made in West Bank communities as ‘Made in Israel’
Secretary of Mike Pompeo has reversed an Obama administration ruling and designated that imports from West Bank settlements should be labelled as “Made in Israel”.
Changing the labelling was “consistent with our reality-based foreign policy approach” and would “eliminate confusion by recognising that producers in other parts of the West Bank are for all practical purposes administratively separate and that their goods should be marked accordingly,” the State Department said.
In 2016, the Obama administration reestablished a 1995 policy that required products produced in Judea and Samaria, called the West Bank by the Israeli government but considered occupied territory by many countries, to be labelled “Made in the West Bank”.
EU guidelines state that farm and other products made in Israeli settlements and exported to member countries should be clearly labelled as coming from the settlements, which the bloc considers illegal under international law.
The Independent’s Danielle Zoellner has the report.
Pompeo reverses Obama-era ruling and designates products made in West Bank communities as ‘Made in Israel’
Changing the labelling was ‘consistent with our reality-based foreign policy approach,’ secretary of state says
Lawyer Sidney Powell talks about the Dominion voting system
She says it was created by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez with wild claims about the system’s algorithm to switch votes from Trump to Biden, with the company’s leadership tied to George Soros and the Clinton Foundation.
The room full of media is standing by for the evidence of these claims.
Rudy’s sweaty hair dye is the new Pence blowfly
After an hour hearing from Trump’s lawyers, the Twitter universe is obsessed with the sweat running down both sides of Rudy Giuliani’s face.
Unless his sweat is brown, it seems his hair dye is leaking.
This requires a gallery.
And just like that the sweaty hair dye is gone
Nothing is permanent. Everything fades. Like Pence’s blowfly, Giuliani wiped away the rare moment of levity during this 73 minute (so far) press conference.
Watch: Giuliani attacks media for ‘pathological hatred’ of Trump
Is the country ready for the Kraken to be unleashed?
Sidney Powell had threatened to unleash the Kraken. Was that it? Did we just see the Kraken?
She was asked by an unseen reporter: “You’ve spoken about unleashing the Kraken, is the country ready for this? Americans should be astonished at what you’re saying here today. Is the country on the verge of an electoral breakdown?”
Still no confirmation if said Kraken was unleashed, or remains curbed, in her response: “We’ve already had it, we have already had that electoral breakdown. But the constitution has provisions in it for how you fix this.”
Giuliani says his theory is of a national conspiracy
A national conspiracy… is his theory.
“It began as a national conspiracy, clearly, that evidence emerged very, very quickly. The minute I saw that it was the same thing in 10 states, just using logic, I said this can’t be an accident,” Giuliani said.
A theory. Of a Conspiracy.
That is all.
Trump team’s ‘path to victory’ press conference concludes
And it’s unclear if that path brought the country any closer to a Trump or Biden victory.
More in-depth reporting on some of the more notable aspects of that wild 1.5 hour ride will follow shortly.
Giuliani quotes ‘My Cousin Vinny’ at bizarre press conference
Speaking at a press conference, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani reiterated many conspiracy theories regarding alleged voter fraud in the 2020 election that he has cited before, before also quoting the movie My Cousin Vinny.
In the midst of working through the states in which he believes the Trump campaign can overturn the results of the election, Mr Giuliani acted out one of the courtroom scenes from the 1992 movie.
He compared election observers being corralled away from the votes counts to a moment in the movie in which the eponymous character asks a witness in court how many fingers he is holding up, claiming that they could not see a thing.
Mr Giuliani’s allegations mostly focussed on mail-in ballots which he believes are wide open to fraud, and the logistics of counting votes. He claimed to have hundreds of affidavits to back up his accusations.
The Independent’s Oliver O’Connell brings the Pesci.
Giuliani quotes ‘My Cousin Vinny’ as he sets out conspiracy theories at bizarre press conference
Speaking at a press conference, Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani reiterated many conspiracy theories regarding alleged voter fraud in the 2020 election that he has cited before, before also quoting the movie My Cousin Vinny.
BREAKING: Trump invites Michigan GOP state lawmakers to White House as legal challenges there fail
Donald Trump, in an extraordinary move, is inviting Michigan state Republican lawmakers to the White House on Friday as he apparently opens a new front in his battle to overturn election results there.
The outgoing president has lost several legal challenges in Michigan based on claims of voter fraud his team has yet to prove. Now he has invited the GOP majority leader of the Michigan State Senate and other members of his party to Washington, a source confirmed on Thursday.
The Independent’s Washington Bureau Chief John T Bennett is following the story as it unfolds.
Trump invites Michigan GOP state lawmakers to White House as legal challenges there fail
Donald Trump, in an extraordinary move, is inviting Michigan state Republican lawmakers to the White House on Friday as he apparently opens a new front in his battle to overturn election results there.
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