Amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the United States is all set to vote in the upcoming presidential elections due in November. The elections are seen as a direct contest between sitting US President and Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden, who was vice-president during the Barack Obama presidency.
Presumptive Democratic party presidential nominee Joe Biden named California Senator Kamala Harris as his running mate on Tuesday, making history by selecting the first Black woman to compete on a major party’s presidential ticket and acknowledging the vital role Black voters will play in his bid to defeat President Donald Trump. He will today make his first appearance with Harris.
Trump has hit the right chord with India, Indian-Americans, say his campaign officials
US President Trump has hit the right chord with India by standing up to China and never intervening in the Kashmir issue, officials of his presidential campaign have asserted.
Seeking re-election for a second consecutive term, Trump, 74, is pitted against Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, 77, in the November 3 presidential elections.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the US, there was a record drop in unemployment rate of Indian-Americans under the Trump administration, his Indian-American supporters said.
President Trump elevated India's stature on the world stage, stood up to China in support of India and has never intervened in the Kashmir issue, they claimed.
"In a nutshell, Trump has hit the right chord with India and Indian-Americans," said Al Mason, the co-chair for the Trump Victory Indian-American Finance Committee and for the recently created Indian Voices for Trump.
Further reading:
In Kamala Harris, a choice at once safe and energising
From policy to family: How the Kamala Harris nomination is relevant to India
After Kamala Harris’ nomination — Your mother would be proud: In Delhi, an uncle remembers
Kamala Harris's sister, step-daughter and niece will deliver the vice-presidential nominating speeches for the Indian-origin senator, who is poised to make history on Wednesday as the first-ever American of Indian and African descent to be nominated by a major party for the top post. Democratic National Convention Committee (DNCC) in a statement said Harris's sister Maya Harris, neice Meena and step-daughter Ella Emhoff will make nominating speechs for her.
The stage for the historic convention night would be set by former US President Barack Obama, who was the first non-White president of the United States from January 2009 to January 2017. Obama, 59, delivering the convention speech, immediately before Harris being formally nominated is apt, as during the eight years of his presidency, he mentored the Indian-American Senator for the bigger role. (PTI)
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A former FBI lawyer pleaded guilty Wednesday to altering a document related to the secret surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser during the Russia investigation.
Kevin Clinesmith is the first current or former official to be charged in a special Justice Department review of the investigation into ties between Russia and Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign.
Attorney General William Barr appointed John Durham, the US attorney in Connecticut, to scrutinize decisions made by officials during that probe.
Clinesmith pleaded guilty via audio conference to a single false statement charge, admitting that he doctored an email that the FBI relied on as it sought court approval to eavesdrop on former Trump campaign aide Carter Page in 2017.
The sentencing guideline calls for zero to six months in prison, but the punishment is ultimately up to US District Judge James Boasberg, who accepted Clinesmith's plea. (AP)
The Guardian reported that Barack Obama has planned to warn on Wednesday night that “democracy itself is on the line” in the approaching presidential election contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, Obama’s former vice-president. In a speech on the third night of the Democratic national convention, airing after Senator Kamala Harris was due to officially accept the party’s nomination to be vice-president, Obama was expected to attack Republican efforts to sabotage mail-in voting and ballot access.
“President Obama will highlight the cynical moves by the current administration and the Republican party to discourage Americans from voting,” a spokeswoman, Katie Hill, was quoted as saying. “He’ll make a pointed case that democracy itself is on the line – along with the chance to create a better version of it.”
Continuing his barrage against t he 'vote by mail' system, United States President Donald Trump tweeted Wednesday that: "IF YOU CAN PROTEST IN PERSON, YOU CAN VOTE IN PERSON!".
Jill Biden is pushing back against President Donald Trump's claims her husband, Joe Biden, lacks the stamina to serve as president and is calling a Trump campaign ad questioning his mental fitness 'ridiculous'. Speaking on NBC's "Today" show on Wednesday, Jill Biden defended the Democratic presidential nominee against Trump's allegations. She says Joe Biden is 'on the phone every single minute of the day' talking to governors.
Jill Biden says her husband spends time on Zoom chats and doing fundraisers and briefings and "he doesn't stop from 9 in the morning till 11 at night."
Democrat Joe Biden says virtual gatherings are the conventions of the future and that he doubts they will go back to what they did before the coronavirus pandemic. The presumptive presidential nominee made the comment Tuesday while addressing an online group of delegates from Florida.
He called this week's virtual Democratic National Convention 'the most creative, inclusive convention we've ever had'. He says, "I doubt we'll ever go back to the same, exact convention we had in the past." Also on Tuesday's call, Biden questioned whether President Donald Trump is smart enough to be president.
When Hazel Dukes stepped onto the Democratic National Convention stage in 1972 to second Shirley Chisholm’s presidential nomination, it amounted to more than history.
It was a moment of hope. The legacy of Chisholm, who famously said she was “unbossed and unbothered,” was cemented that day as the first Black woman to run for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.
Dukes said Chisholm and others hoped her historic run would lay the foundation for future generations of Black women to ascend into powerful political roles to usher in systemic change within their communities. READ MORE
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'.
In a sign of the growing political prominence of Hindus in America, the Trump and Biden campaigns are wooing this small religious minority community like never before. Hinduism is the fourth largest faith in the US, representing approximately one per cent of the US population in 2016. While the Trump campaign promises that re-electing President Donald Trump will reduce obstacles to religious freedoms or Hindus in America, the rival Biden campaign on Tuesday said former vice president Joe Biden has made outreach to the Hindu faith community a priority. For the first time in an American presidential election, the Trump Campaign on August 14 announced the formation of the 'Hindu Voices for Trump'.
Two days later, prominent Hindu leader Neelima Gonuguntla participated in an interfaith service to kick off the Democratic National Convention, which the Biden campaign said was another sign of the growing political prominence of Hindus in America. The details of the new coalition of the Trump Campaign to woo the Hindu-American community in the US is expected to be announced during the Republican National Convention next week. "Hindus for Trump honours contributions by millions of Americans of Hindu faith," said the campaign which has taken a lead ahead of the Biden campaign.
"The inclusive economy, commitment to building up US-Indian relations, and fierce support for religious liberties for all is unmatched. Re-electing President Trump will reduce obstacles to religious freedoms for Hindus in America," asserted the Trump campaign.
The Democratic National Convention on Tuesday showcased the party’s elder statesmen, up-and-coming political stars and delegates from colorful locations across the country all pressing to make Joe Biden the next US president.
A TENTATIVE TRUCE
The Democratic Party’s moderates and progressives have declared a truce to establish a unified front against President Donald Trump. But it may last only as long as Biden’s presidential campaign, win or lose.
ROLL-CALL ROAD TRIP
If the Democratic convention reverts to normal in four years with an in-person gathering, the one element viewers may miss most will be the virtual roll call that formally handed Biden the party’s nomination. A diverse group of delegates from each state stood before local backdrops and recited delegate counts for Biden and Sanders in a manner that felt like a quick, coronavirus-safe road trip with some humorous and sobering reminders of the nation’s history.
SUFFERING AND RESILIENCE
In a year when lives and livelihoods have been upended by the pandemic, Jill Biden closed out Tuesday night by serving as an ambassador to all the American families in pain. She detailed her family’s slate of unimaginable losses, then shared their story of recovery and resilience. Joe Biden has credited Jill for rebuilding his family after his first wife and young daughter died in a car accident. His older son, Beau, succumbed to brain cancer in 2015.
A CROWDED KEYNOTE
The keynote speech that opened Tuesday’s program featured 17 voices, a departure from a tradition that most famously anointed Barack Obama as a rising Democratic star at the 2004 convention. That speech, in which Obama argued there was no true Red-Blue divide in the country, paved the way for the largely post-partisan presidential campaign he tried to run in 2008.
AN IRONIC MODEL
Jimmy Carter and Trump could not be more different people, but there was a certain irony to the former Democratic president speaking at the virtual convention. Carter’s tenure as president from 1977 to 1981 is the model that Democrats hope now fits the Republican Trump, a single term marked by economic turmoil and a loss of U.S. standing in the world.
(Reuters)
Preliminary estimates show that viewership for the first night of the Democrats' virtual convention was down compared with the opening of Hillary Clinton's nominating party four years ago.
An estimated 18.7 million people watched coverage between 10 and 11 p.m. on ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC, the Nielsen company said. Four years ago, opening night drew just under 26 million viewers. Nielsen's preliminary numbers did not include streaming or networks like PBS and CSPAN; a more comprehensive estimate is due later Tuesday.
MSNBC and CNN, which aired the Democrats' two-hour prepared telecast essentially in its entirety, were rewarded with the biggest audiences. MSNBC had 5.1 million viewers and CNN had 4.78 million, roughly twice what the broadcast networks reached. Fox News Channel's audience of 2.1 million viewers was smaller than what time slot occupant Laura Ingraham reaches on a typical night, perhaps explaining why Fox didn't preempt Tucker Carlson or Sean Hannity earlier in the evening.
Former US president Bill Clinton has launched a scathing attack on Donald Trump, saying the Oval Office under him is a chaotic "storm centre" instead of being a "command centre" and for him, the presidency is about spending hours a day watching TV and "zapping" people on social media and not taking responsibility for his actions. "Donald Trump says we're leading the world. Well, we are the only major industrial economy to have its unemployment rate triple," Clinton said in his address to the 2nd day of the 2020 Democratic National Convention that formally nominated former vice president Joe Biden as the party's presidential candidate. (PTI)
Joe Biden accepts the formal nomination of the Democrats to take on current President Donald Trump in the upcoming US presidential elections. 'It is the honour of my life to accept the Democratic Party's nomination for President of the United States of America,' Biden tweeted.
The widow of Republican Senator John McCain will speak at the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday on behalf of presidential candidate Joe Biden, offering a reminder of her late husband's bitter relationship with President Donald Trump. The prerecorded segment will add to the parade of Republicans invited to speak about Biden's life and career at the four-night political convention and sketches an implicit contrast with the Republican Trump.
Biden and McCain became friends after meeting in the 1970s, when the young Democratic senator traveled on work trips with the former Navy captain and Vietnam War prisoner of war. The relationship endured through the Republican's own Senate career and as the two competed on rival White House tickets when McCain, as the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, faced Barack Obama, who won the election with Biden as running mate."They would just sit and joke," Cindy McCain said in a clip of the video about the Biden-McCain relationship released by convention organizers. (Reuters)
Bill Clinton has delivered a stinging attack on President Donald Trump, saying the nation knows what he'd do with four more years in the White House: "Blame, bully and belittle." The former president addressed the second night of the virtual Democratic National Convention on Tuesday and said Trump "defines the job as spending hours a day watching TV and zapping people on social media."
Clinton said, "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." He also praised Democratic candidate Joe Biden but spent far more time on the offensive against Trump, who defeated his wife, Hillary, to clinch the presidency in 2016. (AP)
Democrats formally nominated Joe Biden as their 2020 presidential nominee Tuesday night, as party officials and activists from across the nation gave the former vice president their overwhelming support during his party's all-virtual national convention. The moment marked a political high point for Biden, who had sought the presidency twice before and is now cemented as the embodiment of Democrats' desperate desire to defeat President Donald Trump this fall.
The roll call of convention delegates formalized what has been clear for months since Biden took the lead in the primary elections' chase for the nomination. It came as he worked to demonstrate the breadth of his coalition for a second consecutive night, this time blending support from his party's elders and fresher faces to make the case that he has the experience and energy to repair chaos that Trump has created at home and abroad. (AP)
Backlash mounting, President Donald Trump's embattled Postmaster General Louis DeJoy will appear Friday before the Senate to testify on mail delivery delays and service changes that lawmakers and others are warning could imperil the November election.
Trump has flatly denied he was asking for a slow-walk of the mail. But his newly-installed postmaster, a Republican donor with no previous postal management, is facing pressure by Democrats to halt any changes as millions of Americans prepare to vote by mail during the COVID-19 crisis. Demonstrations are being held Tuesday in several cities.
Key Republicans are now sounding the alarm.
In the pivotal swing state of Ohio, Attorney General Dave Yost pleaded with Trump to postpone any needed changes to the Postal Service until after Election Day. GOP Sen. Rob Portman and other Republicans in Ohio's congressional delegation urged DeJoy to "ensure timely and accurate delivery of election-related materials."
(AP)
Former Secretary of State John Kerry is condemning President Donald Trump's foreign policy as he prepares to address the Democratic National Convention, saying the United States "is not the leader of the free world.
Speaking online to reporters during the daily convention briefing Tuesday, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee said, "the world does not have a leader in the free world at this moment."
Kerry faults Trump for pulling away from traditional European allies and failing to have a cohesive foreign policy strategy. He says French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are "casting about trying hard."
Kerry says no one easily replaces what former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and others "have frequently reminded people is the indispensable nation." Kerry was secretary of state during President Barack Obama's second term. (AP)
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday hit back at Michelle Obama, describing the former first lady's speech at the Democratic National Convention as "extremely divisive" and claimed that her husband's Oval Office performance is what put him into the "beautiful White House".
President Trump was responding to the former first lady's speech on the first day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC).
"She was over her head, and frankly she should've made the speech live, which she didn't do," Trump told reporters at a White House event held to commemorate the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage.
"I thought it was a very divisive speech. Extremely divisive," he was quoted as saying by PTI.
Amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, a Democratic National Convention like no other began on Monday with a common call of uniting the country and defeating President Donald Trump in the upcoming presidential election on November 3.
During the convention, the party is to formally nominate former vice-president Joe Biden (77) as its presidential candidate and Indian-origin Senator Kamala Harris (55) as his running mate.
The four-day convention is being held virtually in view of the coronavirus that has so far killed over 170,000 people and infected 5.4 million in the US. On the first day of the convention, several speakers including Senator Bernie Sander, Governor Andrew Cuomo, Senator Amy Klobuchar and Former First Lady Michelle Obama, shared their vision about affordable health care, housing and education and Trump’s response to COVID-19. Here’s what all was said on Day 1.
President Donald Trump is pushing back against former first lady Michelle Obama, claiming that her husband's Oval Office performance is what catapulted him into the White House.
In her remarks Monday night at the Democratic National Convention, Michelle declared Trump was "in over his head" and the "wrong president for our country."
In tweets Tuesday morning Trump taunted that someone should explain to her that he wouldn't be in the "beautiful White House" today if it "weren't for the job done by her husband." (AP)
"The Obama-Biden 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," Trump said in a tweet. Trump ended his tweet with a sarcastic thanks to Michelle Obama for her very kind words at Day 1 of the Democratic National Convention.
On Day 2 of their national convention on Tuesday, Democrats leaders including former President Bill Clinton, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Joe Biden's wife, Jill Biden will make a case for US presidential candidate Joe Biden, who will be formally nominated today, Reuters reported.
The United States will choose its next president in November. Here's a Quixplained by Express Explained.
US President Donald Trump's election campaign has described the Democratic National Convention as a "Hollywood-produced infomercial" which fails to hide the radical-leftist takeover of presumptive nominee Joe Biden.
"Democrats can try to conceal the dangerous truth with a Hollywood-produced infomercial, but they cannot hide the fact that the radical socialist leftist takeover of Joe Biden is complete," Trump 2020 national press secretary, Hogan Gidley was quoted as saying by PTI.
Trump Campaign also said the two-hour virtual event left out a few crucial points.
Perhaps it was just an oversight but the first night of the Democratic convention left out the fact that Biden would raise taxes on more than 80 per cent of Americans by at least USD 4 trillion, Gidley said.
"If we want to end the chaos and division—and keep alive the possibility of progress on the issues we hold dear—we’ve got to vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris like our lives depend on it," former US First Lady Michelle Obama said during the Democratic National convention.
As November draws nearer, a few current and former Republican officials have begun to break ranks with the rest of their party, saying in public and private conversations that they will not support President Donald Trump in his reelection. Some have even said that they will be voting for his Democratic opponent, Joe Biden.
As Trump’s political standing has slipped, fueled by his failures in handling the coronavirus pandemic and by the economic recession, some Republicans have found it easier to publicly renounce their backing. Here is a running list of those who have said they will not support Trump in the fall, those who have gone a step further and said they’ll vote for Biden, and those who have hinted they may not back the president.
"More than 1,50,000 people have died, and our economy is in shambles because of a virus that this president downplayed for too long. It has left millions of people jobless. Too many have lost their health care; too many are struggling to take care of basic necessities like food and rent; too many communities have been left in the lurch to grapple with whether and how to open our schools safely. Internationally, we’ve turned our back, not just on agreements forged by my husband, but on alliances championed by presidents like Reagan and Eisenhower," the former first lady said at the DNC.
US’ former first lady Michelle Obama ripped through Donald Trump at the opening of the Democratic National Convention, saying he is the “wrong president for our country” who is “clearly in over his head”. The four-day convention was initially scheduled to be held in Wisconsin but it began virtually on Monday amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Senator Kamala Harris, 55, is all set to be formally nominated by the DNC as the first-ever Black as well as the first-ever American of Indian and African descent as a vice presidential candidate by a major political party.
“Let me be as honest and clear as I possibly can. 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. He cannot meet at this moment. He simply cannot be who we need him to be for us. It is what it is,” Obama said in her address on the opening night of the 2020 Democratic National Convention.
A Democratic National Convention like no other began on Monday, with virtual guests beamed in from across the country, prerecorded speeches delivered straight to camera and a handful of Republicans urging fellow conservatives to vote for Joe Biden instead of President Donald Trump. Click here to read the key takeaways from the opening night of the first-ever virtual convention.
Senator Bernie Sanders Monday urged his supporters to vote for Joe Biden, saying that without a unified Democratic Party, years of gains by the progressive movement could be lost and that the country may not even survive four more years of President Donald Trump.
“At its most basic, this election is about preserving our democracy,” the Vermont senator said Monday night, in his opening night speech at the virtual Democratic National Convention. “During this president’s term, the unthinkable has become normal,” he was quoted as saying by the Associated Press.
Sanders also said Trump "has tried to prevent people from voting, undermined the U.S. Postal Service, deployed the military and federal agents against peaceful protesters, threatened to delay the election and suggested that he will not leave office if he loses.”
As the US presidential election is set to take place in November, many states are making postal voting options more accessible due to the coronavirus pandemic – which has impacted the US significantly, the country with this highest number of cases .
Many have pushed for the expanded use of postal ballots as opposed to in-person voting to ensure social distancing, a critical measure adopted around the world to halt the outbreak.
President Trump’s Republican party has been resisting these efforts – with its legislators and court appointees at both state and federal levels working against the expansion of postal balloting. Republicans have argued that postal voting could increase risks of voter fraud, and have accused Democrats of using the pandemic as a pretext to further election reforms. READ MORE
The four-day 2020 Democratic National Convention (DNC) starts on Monday (August 17), during which the Democratic party in the United States will officially choose its nominees for the posts of President and Vice President of the United States in the presidential election of November 3.
The coronavirus pandemic and especially high rates of infections in the US has forced the Democratic party to postpone the convention by a month to August. The outbreak has also forced the convention to go largely online, instead of it being physically hosted in Milwaukee, Wisconsin as had been originally planned. READ MORE
Indian-American Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris has said that President Donald Trump and his campaign will "engage in lies" and "dirty tactics" to distract from the real issues that are impacting the American people. She was responding to President Trump's promotion of the conspiracy theories about her eligibility to serve as the vice president and president. On Saturday, Trump said that he would not be "pursuing" questions about Harris' eligibility, but did not dismiss the conspiracy theories as false.
Trump on Thursday said he heard on "social media" that Harris could be ineligible. "I heard today that she doesn't meet the requirements," Trump said, referring to John Eastman, the lawyer and Chapman University professor who raised the issue in a Newsweek op-ed, as "very highly qualified." Responding to Trump's remarks, Harris, 55, told the American news website TheGrio on Sunday that the president and his campaign will engage in deception.
"They're going to engage in lies. They're going to engage in deception. They're going to engage in an attempt to distract from the real issues that are impacting the American people. And I expect that they will engage in dirty tactics. And this is going to be a knockdown, drag-out. And we're ready," she said.