Trump news – live: Obama tells Michigan crowd that 'Joe Biden is my brother, and will make a great president' as Trump campaigns in Pennsylvania
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Barack Obama has delivered a passionate endorsement of Joe Biden, telling a crowd in Michigan: “Joe Biden is my brother, and he will be a great president.”
Mr Biden thanked him for his support, telling him he was proud of their eight years together in the White House. It is the first time they have been seen together since January 2017.
“President Obama and I created more jobs in the last three years of our administration than Donald Trump did in the first three years of his,” Mr Biden said.
“Only Donald Trump is going to have fewer jobs at the end of this presidency than when he started it. He’s done nothing but wage war on American labour. We believe you should be rewarding work, not wealth, in this country.”
Donald Trump, meanwhile, has landed in Pennsylvania, where he will have four rallies today in Newton, Reading, Butler and Montoursville.
With only three days left of campaigning both sides are giving it their everything.
Kamala Harris is in Florida, with rallies in Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Lake Worth, while Mike Pence is in North Carolina.
NBC’s Geoff Bennett has provided a summary of Joe Biden’s push in Michigan to attract black voters just days before the election. To help, he’s roped in Barack Obama, who remains very popular nationally.
Mr Biden also is this clip rebuts Donald Trump’s dangerous and false claim doctors are inflating coronavirus death numbers in order to receive more money.
Donald Trump has begun tweeting on Saturday, quoting a supporter of his who claims Barack Obama “didn’t do a thing” for black people.
The US president then insists he has paid “millions” in taxes after the New York Times reported he had paid just $750 in income tax in two consecutive years when he became president, and absolutely nothing in a number of years before that.
He then claims without evidence that Joe Biden will add to the number of US Supreme Court justices if he becomes president. Mr Biden has already said he will set up a bipartisan commission looking into the issue after Mr Trump’s Republicans forced through a right-wing judge just days before the election.
Coronavirus surges are helping flip swing states back for Biden, analysis suggests
For months now, the president has been incorrectly assuring Americans that the country is “rounding the turn” on Covid-19.
At a rally on Sunday in North Carolina, for example, he said, “We're rounding the turn, our numbers are incredible,” the day after new daily coronavirus infections hit a record-breaking 83,757 people, signalling that the US has entered a feared “third wave” of the disease.
Now according to an analysis from Vox, the president’s handling of coronavirus in states with major Covid surges is beginning to affect his polling numbers, even among Republicans who previously supported him.
Read more:
Coronavirus surges are helping flip swing states back for Biden, analysis suggests
The trend mirrors national polling, which shows the president behind by about 8 points
The White House has released a bizarre document titled, “National Day of Remembrance for Americans Killed by Illegal Aliens, 2020.”
In it, Donald Trump claims to be honouring the Americans killed by “illegal aliens” specifically. The number of murders committed by illegal immigrants in the US is utterly miniscule compared to American-on-American killings, which in turn pale into comparison to the daily number of deaths from coronavirus.
One in five believe Covid-19 a ‘depopulation plan orchestrated by UN’ amid disturbing rise in conspiracy theories
Amid a disturbing rise in the number of conspiracy theories taking root in the US population, a new poll has found that nearly one in five people believe that the coronavirus pandemic is a “depopulation tactic”.
Some 19 per cent of adults across the country agreed that “Covid-19 has been intentionally released as part of a ‘depopulation’ plan orchestrated by the UN or New World Order”, according to new polling data shared exclusively with The Independent by HOPE not hate (Hnh), an anti-extremism non-profit.
The survey of 5,500 people also found that nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of Americans asked think that it’s definitely, or probably, true that a Covid-19 vaccine “will be used maliciously to infect people with poison”.
Read more:
One in five believe Covid-19 is a ‘depopulation plan orchestrated by UN’ amid disturbing rise in conspiracy theories
Exclusive: Only half of people questioned in US poll said that they would take a Covid-19 vaccine
Biden campaign event cancelled as 'armed' Trump supporters threaten campaign bus
Joe Biden campaigners were forced to cancel an event in Texas on Friday as tensions flared in the key battleground state ahead of election day.
Local Democrats said they were forced to pull the plug on a gathering scheduled to take place in Pflugerville – a small city about 17 miles north of Austin – due to “security reasons”.
It came as vice-presidential candidate, senator Kamala Harris, completed a whistle-stop three-city tour of the Lone Star state in a last-minute bid for votes.
Read more:
Biden event cancelled as 'armed' Trump supporters threaten campaign bus
VP candidate Kamala Harris made three stops in Texas on Friday
A new Stanford study estimated that 18 Trump rallies have led to 700 deaths from coronavirus - and that was only rallies up to September. He has done many, many more since then, with often a majority of attendees failing even to wear masks.
Biden seeking to climb mountaintop after decades in US politics
Joe Biden, a fixture in US politics for a half century as a senator and vice-president, is seeking to complete a long climb to the political mountaintop that includes two previous failed presidential bids by defeating President Donald Trump on Tuesday.
If Mr Biden beats the Republican president, a fellow septuagenarian, the 77-year-old Democrat from Delaware would become the oldest person ever elected to the White House.
Mr Biden has sought to portray his political experience as a benefit, casting himself as a tested leader up to the tasks of healing a nation battered by the coronavirus pandemic and providing steadiness after the turbulence of Mr Trump's presidency.
Accepting the Democratic presidential nomination in August, Mr Biden stressed compassion and decency, seeking to draw a contrast with the pugnacious Mr Trump.
“I'll be an ally of the light,” Mr Biden said, “not the darkness.”
Mr Trump has derided him as “Sleepy Joe” and said his mental capacity was “shot” as the president's allies sought to portray Mr Biden as senile.
If elected, Mr Biden would be 78 years old upon inauguration on January 20. Trump, 74, was the oldest person to assume the presidency when he was sworn in at age 70 in 2017.
Reuters
Donald Trump is previewing what will likely be an attempt to claim personal credit for an American military operation in which troops on Saturday morning rescued an American citizen who was taken hostage last week in Niger.
“US forces conducted a hostage rescue operation during the early hours of 31 October in Northern Nigeria to recover an American citizen held hostage by a group of armed men,” a Pentagon spokesman said earlier this morning.
“This American citizen is safe and is now in the care of the US Department of State. No U.S military personnel were injured during the operation.”
Speaking to reporters as he boarded Air Force One for the first of four rallies in Pennsylvania today, Donald Trump said, “Its going to be a very interesting Tuesday … a big red wave has formed," despite the fact a Fox News poll shows him down eight points nationally.
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