The White House moved aggressively on Friday to revive stimulus talks that President Donald Trump had called off just days earlier, putting forward its largest offer for economic relief yet as administration officials and embattled Republican lawmakers scrambled to avoid being blamed by voters for failing to deliver needed aid before the election.

The new proposal’s price tag of $1.8 trillion, which Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin presented to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a roughly 30-minute phone call, was nearly double the original offer the administration put forward when talks began in late summer.

It was the latest indication that the White House was eager to backtrack from Trump’s decision Tuesday to abruptly halt negotiations, and it reflected a growing sense of dread both at the White House and among vulnerable Senate Republicans facing reelection about the political consequences of his actions. The offer also highlighted the deep and persistent divisions among Republicans — most of whom have balked at a large new federal infusion of pandemic aid — that have complicated the negotiations for months.

Now, with Trump pressing to “Go Big,” as he put it in a tweet Friday, he has raised the prospect of pushing through a plan that his own party refuses to accept, giving Pelosi and Democrats fresh leverage to dictate the terms of any deal.

On Friday, she was continuing to hold out for more concessions. While Mnuchin’s latest offer “attempted to address some of the concerns Democrats have,” Drew Hammill, a spokesperson for Pelosi, said it did not include an agreement on a national strategy for testing, tracing and other efforts to contain the spread of the virus, which the speaker has pushed for in recent weeks. “For this and other provisions, we are still awaiting language from the administration as negotiations on the overall funding amount continue.”

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/election-less-than-a-month-away-trump-leans-on-barr-and-pompeo-for-a-lift-334254">Election less than a month away, Trump leans on Barr and Pompeo for a lift</a>

“I do hope we will have an agreement soon but, as you say, they keep changing,” Pelosi said on MSNBC. Referring to Trump’s tweets that temporarily ended the negotiations, she added that the president “got a terrible backlash from it, including in the stock market, which is what he cares about. And so then he started to come back little by little, and now a bigger package.”

Speaking on right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh’s show, Trump conceded that he had changed his position on approving additional coronavirus aid before Election Day, declaring “I would like to see a bigger stimulus package, frankly, than either the Democrats or Republicans are offering.” (Alyssa Farah, the White House communications director, later contradicted Trump’s assertion, telling reporters at the White House that the administration wanted a final package to remain below $2 trillion, which is less than the $2.2 trillion measure Pelosi pushed through the House this month.)

Such sums are deeply alarming to most Republicans, who are increasingly contemplating their party’s future after Trump departs the political scene and are determined to reclaim the mantle of the party of fiscal restraint. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, warned Trump in a phone call this week that most Republican senators would not embrace a stimulus measure as large as Pelosi wanted, an assessment that appeared to play a role in the president’s decision to tweet an end to the talks.

Speaking to reporters in Kentucky on Friday, McConnell continued to cast doubt on the chances of a deal in the coming weeks, saying political divisions remained too deep.

“The situation is kind of murky and I think the murkiness is a result of the proximity to the election and everybody kind of trying to elbow for political advantage,” McConnell said. “I’d like to see us rise above that like we did back in March and April, but I think that’s unlikely in the next three weeks.”

Privately though, McConnell has come under renewed pressure to allow a deal to go forward.

Multiple rank-and-file Republicans, including some in tough reelection contests, like Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Cory Gardner of Colorado and David Perdue of Georgia, pressed McConnell during a phone call Thursday for him to act on a stimulus measure, according to two people familiar with the discussion who asked for anonymity to disclose details of a private conversation.

Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa said on Twitter that she had spoken with Trump and “relayed to him what I’ve heard from folks across the state: Iowans need additional COVID-19 relief.”

“I’m hopeful Congress can come together once again — Rs and Ds — and provide more support to hardworking Americans,” Ernst added.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., one of the senators who was on the call with McConnell, said in an interview that he had pushed for a compromise with Democrats, noting that “if you really want to pass something, it has to be bipartisan, right?”

“We’re constitutionally required to work on the nation’s problems, and this is something we should work on,” he added.

But other Republicans are wary of the liberal provisions that Mnuchin may agree to in order to win Pelosi’s support. Many of them opposed the original $1 trillion offer McConnell presented in July, after days of haggling with the White House, in part because they were concerned about adding to the national debt. Top Republicans scaled back the offer considerably, proposing a $350 billion plan that drew objections from Democrats, who called it inadequate.

Pelosi’s $2.2 trillion plan is “not going to fly very far over here, at least on the Republican side, so we’ll see,” Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., told reporters Friday on Capitol Hill. “Maybe it’ll have to be after the election — if anybody can calm down after that.”

In the House, vulnerable Republicans have also raised concerns about facing voters without a stimulus deal.

“There is still room for bipartisan agreement on the next stimulus package, and I am committed to show up to vote at any hour to support legislation that will help American families and small businesses,” said Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Mo., chair of the House Suburban Caucus, who is facing a tough reelection battle in her district in the suburbs of St. Louis. “These priorities should not be politicized, and we must come to an agreement that helps America’s families at what is an incredibly difficult moment.”

With less than a month before Election Day, it also remains unclear if there is enough time for Congress to push through a stimulus agreement as Senate Republicans also move to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

In his series of tweets Tuesday, Trump instructed Senate Republicans “to instead focus full time on approving my outstanding nominee to the United States Supreme Court.” 
&nbsp;

The White House moved aggressively on Friday to revive stimulus talks that President Donald Trump had called off just days earlier, putting forward its largest offer for economic relief yet as administration officials and embattled Republican lawmakers scrambled to avoid being blamed by voters for failing to deliver needed aid before the election.

The White House moved aggressively on Friday to revive stimulus talks that President Donald Trump had called off just days earlier, putting forward its largest offer for economic relief yet as administration officials and embattled Republican lawmakers scrambled to avoid being blamed by voters for failing to deliver needed aid before the election. The new proposal’s price tag of $1.8 trillion, which Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin presented to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a roughly 30-minute phone call, was nearly double the original offer the administration put forward when talks began in late summer. It was the latest indication that the White House was eager to backtrack from Trump’s decision Tuesday to abruptly halt negotiations, and it reflected a growing sense of dread both at the White House and among vulnerable Senate Republicans facing reelection about the political consequences of his actions. The offer also highlighted the deep and persistent divisions among Republicans — most of whom have balked at a large new federal infusion of pandemic aid — that have complicated the negotiations for months. Now, with Trump pressing to “Go Big,” as he put it in a tweet Friday, he has raised the prospect of pushing through a plan that his own party refuses to accept, giving Pelosi and Democrats fresh leverage to dictate the terms of any deal. On Friday, she was continuing to hold out for more concessions. While Mnuchin’s latest offer “attempted to address some of the concerns Democrats have,” Drew Hammill, a spokesperson for Pelosi, said it did not include an agreement on a national strategy for testing, tracing and other efforts to contain the spread of the virus, which the speaker has pushed for in recent weeks. “For this and other provisions, we are still awaiting language from the administration as negotiations on the overall funding amount continue.” Also Read | Election less than a month away, Trump leans on Barr and Pompeo for a lift “I do hope we will have an agreement soon but, as you say, they keep changing,” Pelosi said on MSNBC. Referring to Trump’s tweets that temporarily ended the negotiations, she added that the president “got a terrible backlash from it, including in the stock market, which is what he cares about. And so then he started to come back little by little, and now a bigger package.” Speaking on right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh’s show, Trump conceded that he had changed his position on approving additional coronavirus aid before Election Day, declaring “I would like to see a bigger stimulus package, frankly, than either the Democrats or Republicans are offering.” (Alyssa Farah, the White House communications director, later contradicted Trump’s assertion, telling reporters at the White House that the administration wanted a final package to remain below $2 trillion, which is less than the $2.2 trillion measure Pelosi pushed through the House this month.) Such sums are deeply alarming to most Republicans, who are increasingly contemplating their party’s future after Trump departs the political scene and are determined to reclaim the mantle of the party of fiscal restraint. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, warned Trump in a phone call this week that most Republican senators would not embrace a stimulus measure as large as Pelosi wanted, an assessment that appeared to play a role in the president’s decision to tweet an end to the talks. Speaking to reporters in Kentucky on Friday, McConnell continued to cast doubt on the chances of a deal in the coming weeks, saying political divisions remained too deep. “The situation is kind of murky and I think the murkiness is a result of the proximity to the election and everybody kind of trying to elbow for political advantage,” McConnell said. “I’d like to see us rise above that like we did back in March and April, but I think that’s unlikely in the next three weeks.” Privately though, McConnell has come under renewed pressure to allow a deal to go forward. Multiple rank-and-file Republicans, including some in tough reelection contests, like Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Cory Gardner of Colorado and David Perdue of Georgia, pressed McConnell during a phone call Thursday for him to act on a stimulus measure, according to two people familiar with the discussion who asked for anonymity to disclose details of a private conversation. Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa said on Twitter that she had spoken with Trump and “relayed to him what I’ve heard from folks across the state: Iowans need additional COVID-19 relief.” “I’m hopeful Congress can come together once again — Rs and Ds — and provide more support to hardworking Americans,” Ernst added. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., one of the senators who was on the call with McConnell, said in an interview that he had pushed for a compromise with Democrats, noting that “if you really want to pass something, it has to be bipartisan, right?” “We’re constitutionally required to work on the nation’s problems, and this is something we should work on,” he added. But other Republicans are wary of the liberal provisions that Mnuchin may agree to in order to win Pelosi’s support. Many of them opposed the original $1 trillion offer McConnell presented in July, after days of haggling with the White House, in part because they were concerned about adding to the national debt. Top Republicans scaled back the offer considerably, proposing a $350 billion plan that drew objections from Democrats, who called it inadequate. Pelosi’s $2.2 trillion plan is “not going to fly very far over here, at least on the Republican side, so we’ll see,” Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., told reporters Friday on Capitol Hill. “Maybe it’ll have to be after the election — if anybody can calm down after that.” In the House, vulnerable Republicans have also raised concerns about facing voters without a stimulus deal. “There is still room for bipartisan agreement on the next stimulus package, and I am committed to show up to vote at any hour to support legislation that will help American families and small businesses,” said Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Mo., chair of the House Suburban Caucus, who is facing a tough reelection battle in her district in the suburbs of St. Louis. “These priorities should not be politicized, and we must come to an agreement that helps America’s families at what is an incredibly difficult moment.” With less than a month before Election Day, it also remains unclear if there is enough time for Congress to push through a stimulus agreement as Senate Republicans also move to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. In his series of tweets Tuesday, Trump instructed Senate Republicans “to instead focus full time on approving my outstanding nominee to the United States Supreme Court.”

Trump raises stimulus offer to USD 1.8 trillion days after halting negotiations

President Donald Trump forced the State Department on Friday to commit to releasing at least some of Hillary Clinton’s emails before next month’s election, resurrecting a 4-year-old issue in hopes that it would prove as helpful to his political prospects as it was when he defeated her in 2016.

Trailing badly in the polls and eager to change the subject from the coronavirus, Trump succeeded in compelling Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to announce that he would make public the emails even as Attorney General William Barr resisted pressure from the president to prosecute Democrats like former Vice President Joe Biden, this year’s Democratic nominee.

Still recovering from his own coronavirus infection, Trump made plans to host hundreds of supporters on the South Lawn of the White House on Saturday for his first in-person event since he tested positive last week, according to three people familiar with the schedule. The rally that he had previously said he wanted to hold Saturday in Florida will instead be held Monday, his campaign announced, as the president insisted on getting back on the road despite his illness.

The burst of activity and machinations reflected a president grasping for a way to make up a double-digit polling deficit against Biden with 25 days left before the election on Nov. 3. Biden’s lead has remained stable for months and, if anything, expanded in recent days, despite every effort by the president to shift the momentum of the race.

He lost one of the few obvious opportunities to transform the dynamics of the campaign Friday when the Commission on Presidential Debates formally canceled Thursday’s second showdown between Trump and Biden after the president refused to participate remotely.

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-raises-stimulus-offer-to-usd-18-trillion-days-after-halting-negotiations-334269">Trump raises stimulus offer to USD 1.8 trillion days after halting negotiations</a>

Battered by an October surprise that Trump did not anticipate — his hospitalization from a virus that he had played down even as it has killed 213,000 people in the United States — the president appeared intent Friday on creating an October surprise more to his liking, in this case tarring Democrats by using the instruments of government power at his disposal.

He publicly badgered Barr this week to indict Democrats connected to the original investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and any ties to Trump’s campaign, naming specifically Biden and former President Barack Obama. But Barr has told Republicans and others that he planned no major moves in his reexamination of the Russia investigation before Election Day.

Three government officials briefed on the investigation said that they had been told that it was unlikely that John Durham, the prosecutor tapped by Barr to lead the inquiry, would produce indictments or any other developments that could affect the trajectory of the election before Nov. 3.

“If that’s the case, I’m very disappointed,” Trump said Friday during a two-hour phone conversation with radio host Rush Limbaugh. “I think it’s a terrible thing, and I’ll say it to his face.”

The president has been consumed for months with the hope that the Durham investigation would provide him evidence that the Russia inquiry was an effort to smear him. He has told advisers he hoped for indictments of top former Obama administration national security officials or even Obama or Biden themselves. Short of that, he hoped for a report with the imprimatur of the Justice Department detailing their actions in 2016, according to people briefed on the conversations.

Beyond his public comments, the president has also conveyed to Barr, directly and through surrogates, that he wanted “scalps,” according to two government officials familiar with the conversations.

The Justice Department declined to comment on the president’s remarks.

While Barr defied the president’s desire for preelection action, Pompeo bowed to Trump’s wishes a day after he publicly chastised the secretary of state for not cooperating. Pompeo told Fox News that he would release at least some of Clinton’s emails from when she was secretary of state and using a private server.

“We’ve got the emails,” Pompeo said. “We’re getting them out. We’re going to get all this information out so the American people can see it.”

He made no effort to suggest that releasing them was unconnected to the political campaign. “We’re doing it as fast as we can,” he added. “I certainly think there’ll be more to see before the election.”

Neither Trump nor Pompeo explained why they would release the emails now, in the final weeks of a hotly contested presidential campaign, given that they could have done so at any point in the past four years. Nor did they explain why they would seek to prove that Clinton was too casual with emails containing classified information by releasing emails containing classified information.

But Pompeo said he did not expect Trump to declassify any documents that might include sensitive information that would be damaging to U.S. interests once it is made public. “We’ll get the information out that needs to get out,” Pompeo said. “We’ll do it in a way that protects the intelligence sources that we need to protect.”

While Pompeo made a name for himself as a Republican congressman from Kansas excoriating Clinton over the email issue, the State Department under his leadership concluded just last year that while she had risked compromising classified information, she did not systematically or deliberately mishandle it.

The FBI declined to recommend charges against Clinton in 2016 but made its decision public, contributing to the political liability for her. It ultimately cost her in the final days of the campaign when the investigation was briefly reopened after the discovery of emails on the laptop of an aide’s estranged husband and then quickly closed again when no further evidence of wrongdoing was found.

President Donald Trump forced the State Department on Friday to commit to releasing at least some of Hillary Clinton’s emails before next month’s election, resurrecting a 4-year-old issue in hopes that it would prove as helpful to his political prospects as it was when he defeated her in 2016.

President Donald Trump forced the State Department on Friday to commit to releasing at least some of Hillary Clinton’s emails before next month’s election, resurrecting a 4-year-old issue in hopes that it would prove as helpful to his political prospects as it was when he defeated her in 2016. Trailing badly in the polls and eager to change the subject from the coronavirus, Trump succeeded in compelling Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to announce that he would make public the emails even as Attorney General William Barr resisted pressure from the president to prosecute Democrats like former Vice President Joe Biden, this year’s Democratic nominee. Still recovering from his own coronavirus infection, Trump made plans to host hundreds of supporters on the South Lawn of the White House on Saturday for his first in-person event since he tested positive last week, according to three people familiar with the schedule. The rally that he had previously said he wanted to hold Saturday in Florida will instead be held Monday, his campaign announced, as the president insisted on getting back on the road despite his illness. The burst of activity and machinations reflected a president grasping for a way to make up a double-digit polling deficit against Biden with 25 days left before the election on Nov. 3. Biden’s lead has remained stable for months and, if anything, expanded in recent days, despite every effort by the president to shift the momentum of the race. He lost one of the few obvious opportunities to transform the dynamics of the campaign Friday when the Commission on Presidential Debates formally canceled Thursday’s second showdown between Trump and Biden after the president refused to participate remotely. Also Read | Trump raises stimulus offer to USD 1.8 trillion days after halting negotiations Battered by an October surprise that Trump did not anticipate — his hospitalization from a virus that he had played down even as it has killed 213,000 people in the United States — the president appeared intent Friday on creating an October surprise more to his liking, in this case tarring Democrats by using the instruments of government power at his disposal. He publicly badgered Barr this week to indict Democrats connected to the original investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and any ties to Trump’s campaign, naming specifically Biden and former President Barack Obama. But Barr has told Republicans and others that he planned no major moves in his reexamination of the Russia investigation before Election Day. Three government officials briefed on the investigation said that they had been told that it was unlikely that John Durham, the prosecutor tapped by Barr to lead the inquiry, would produce indictments or any other developments that could affect the trajectory of the election before Nov. 3. “If that’s the case, I’m very disappointed,” Trump said Friday during a two-hour phone conversation with radio host Rush Limbaugh. “I think it’s a terrible thing, and I’ll say it to his face.” The president has been consumed for months with the hope that the Durham investigation would provide him evidence that the Russia inquiry was an effort to smear him. He has told advisers he hoped for indictments of top former Obama administration national security officials or even Obama or Biden themselves. Short of that, he hoped for a report with the imprimatur of the Justice Department detailing their actions in 2016, according to people briefed on the conversations. Beyond his public comments, the president has also conveyed to Barr, directly and through surrogates, that he wanted “scalps,” according to two government officials familiar with the conversations. The Justice Department declined to comment on the president’s remarks. While Barr defied the president’s desire for preelection action, Pompeo bowed to Trump’s wishes a day after he publicly chastised the secretary of state for not cooperating. Pompeo told Fox News that he would release at least some of Clinton’s emails from when she was secretary of state and using a private server. “We’ve got the emails,” Pompeo said. “We’re getting them out. We’re going to get all this information out so the American people can see it.” He made no effort to suggest that releasing them was unconnected to the political campaign. “We’re doing it as fast as we can,” he added. “I certainly think there’ll be more to see before the election.” Neither Trump nor Pompeo explained why they would release the emails now, in the final weeks of a hotly contested presidential campaign, given that they could have done so at any point in the past four years. Nor did they explain why they would seek to prove that Clinton was too casual with emails containing classified information by releasing emails containing classified information. But Pompeo said he did not expect Trump to declassify any documents that might include sensitive information that would be damaging to U.S. interests once it is made public. “We’ll get the information out that needs to get out,” Pompeo said. “We’ll do it in a way that protects the intelligence sources that we need to protect.” While Pompeo made a name for himself as a Republican congressman from Kansas excoriating Clinton over the email issue, the State Department under his leadership concluded just last year that while she had risked compromising classified information, she did not systematically or deliberately mishandle it. The FBI declined to recommend charges against Clinton in 2016 but made its decision public, contributing to the political liability for her. It ultimately cost her in the final days of the campaign when the investigation was briefly reopened after the discovery of emails on the laptop of an aide’s estranged husband and then quickly closed again when no further evidence of wrongdoing was found.

Election less than a month away, Trump leans on Barr and Pompeo for a lift

When President Donald Trump used the prime-time debate last week to urge his supporters to “go into the polls and watch very carefully,” he wasn’t just issuing a call for a grassroots movement or raising the prospect of intimidation tactics at voting sites. He was also nodding to an extensive behind-the-scenes effort led by the lawyers and operatives on his campaign.

Over the summer, Trump named a new campaign manager, Bill Stepien, who was once a top aide to former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey before being fired amid the “Bridgegate” scandal. Stepien swiftly elevated a group of lieutenants focused on using aggressive electoral tactics, moves that led Marc E. Elias, the leading election lawyer for the Democratic Party, to tweet that Trump was “tripling down” on “opposing voting rights.”

One of the main architects of the effort is Justin Clark, whom Stepien promoted to deputy campaign manager. He has been viewed with suspicion among Democrats since he was recorded last year saying, “Traditionally it’s always been Republicans suppressing votes in places,” and adding that in 2020 the party would “start playing offense a little bit.”

Other key figures in the campaign include a senior aide who once oversaw a right-wing information-gathering operation for the conservative Koch brothers; an adviser who was involved in a secretive vote-challenge operation for President George W. Bush’s reelection campaign in 2004; and a campaign counsel who is coordinating a series of lawsuits aimed at preventing the expansion of mail voting.

With polls showing Trump trailing Joe Biden nationally and in most swing states, the president has increasingly focused attention on the voting process, declaring that the only way he could lose is if the election is rigged and refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. With the election less than a month away, his campaign has moved the idea of voting irregularities to the forefront of both its ground operations and its legal strategy.

The campaign is trying to shape the voting process in many ways. Following the president’s lead, it has undertaken a legal and rhetorical assault on mail-in balloting, claiming with no evidence that it is rife with fraud. It is also pushing the boundaries of traditional poll monitoring in ways that many Democrats believe amount to voter intimidation. And it has put legal pressure on states to aggressively purge their voter rolls.

Campaign officials tried to downplay Democratic anxiety and insisted they wanted everyone to vote who wants to do so.

“I think we need to just realize that we’re in a political campaign and all just follow the law,” Clark said in an interview. “There are laws everywhere about how many feet you can stand outside of a polling place and what you can wear and what you can do.”

Few of the campaign’s practices have prompted as much attention as its extensive plans for poll watching. While both parties have trained official poll watchers for decades, the president has stirred alarm among Democrats and some voting experts who fear he is encouraging extralegal menacing at polling sites by far-right groups and even random Trump supporters.

At the debate Trump said that the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, should “stand by,” a comment some interpreted as a call to arms in aiding his election prospects in ways that could intimidate voters.

Those fears were heightened by an episode in Fairfax, Virginia, last month, when Trump supporters disrupted early voting, impeding access to a polling site.

“These are not trained poll workers, these aren’t people who were recruited to do anything,” Clark said. “There are — shocker — there’s going to be politics in a presidential race. And people are going to wave flags and show stuff and drive around and hold mini-rallies and hold sign-waving rallies and do things like that, and it happens in a lot of places.”

Clark and other campaign officials have said they will put 50,000 poll watchers and electoral observers on the ground, including at least 1,600 in Philadelphia alone. They are instructing them to record minutiae like the timing of paper jams at polling places, but also pushing beyond the typical activity by monitoring people picking up absentee ballots and videotaping the drop boxes where they deposit them. Trump has even floated the idea of sending sheriffs to the polls.

Republican administrations in several states, including the battleground of Georgia, have appointed voter fraud task forces they say are designed to root out cheating, though Democrats view the panels, stacked with Republican prosecutors, as instruments of voter suppression.

“These come out of somebody’s Republican playbook,” said Cathy Cox, a Democrat who served as Georgia’s secretary of state. “Unfortunately the goal is to intimidate people and ultimately suppress votes.”

One Trump campaign official recently emailed party officials in North Carolina and told them “to not follow the procedures outlined” in a memo sent out by the state Board of Elections. Republican officials have also been tied to efforts to aid third-party candidates who could siphon votes from Biden.

The most visible Republican effort is in the courts. Matthew Morgan, who was promoted to campaign counsel this summer, had been directing a flurry of election litigation and challenging attempts to expand mail-in voting. Like Trump, he has disparaged mail balloting, claiming without evidence that “universal vote by mail opens the door to chaos and fraud.”

Election Day operations are now coordinated by Michael Roman, a Philadelphia native who once oversaw an operation for billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch that surveilled and gathered information on liberal adversaries. He frequently airs baseless claims that Democrats are plotting to “steal the election.” Roman also played a central role in promoting a 2008 video of two members of the New Black Panther Party outside a Philadelphia polling place, one carrying a baton; the video became a long running flash point for the right-wing media’s claims of election interference by Democrats.

“This is somebody who I think has a reputation for hyping and distorting incidents to make it appear as though Democrats are cheating, and I think it adds to an overall dangerous message about election rigging,” said Richard L. Hasen, a professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law who writes the widely read Election Law Blog.

Roman declined to comment for this article.

Other notable figures doing work for the campaign include Bob Paduchik, a senior campaign adviser, who was involved in a secretive operation during the 2004 Bush campaign dubbed the “Voter Reg Fraud Strategy.” The effort was aimed at challenging the legitimacy of absentee voters, according to emails released in a lawsuit filed by the Democratic National Committee.

Paduchik did not respond to requests for comment.

Poll watching is regulated by differing state laws. In official training videos, Republicans instruct workers to be courteous to Democrats, dress appropriately and stay on their toes: “Do not zone out.”

This year, for the first time in more than three decades, the Republican National Committee is taking an active role in poll watching, after the courts in 2018 lifted a consent decree that had barred the RNC from doing so. The ban stemmed from the committee’s involvement in an operation to intimidate New Jersey voters in 1981.

There are already signs that Republicans, who have won only one popular presidential vote since 1988, will be unusually aggressive. In recent weeks, the Trump campaign sent personnel to attempt to enter satellite facilities in Philadelphia where voters could pick up and fill out mail-in ballots — offices that are not regarded as polls. (In an interview, Morgan pushed back on that concept, saying: “They say this is not a polling place. To us this sounds absurd, when you can register, get your ballot and vote in that location. So we don’t accept that premise.”)

States led by Republicans are also working to restrict access to voting; in Texas, for instance, Gov. Greg Abbott last week moved to close many of the locations where voters can drop off their ballots.

Campaign officials said they had not been in contact with any outside groups to encourage or tacitly support unofficial poll watching and protests at polling sites, beyond the official poll watching activity that typically occurs. And they were confident there would not be a repeat of the kind of intimidation tactics that led to the consent decree.

“That’s why we are recruiting people,” Clark said. “We are training them, we are working with them to make sure that they’re doing things the right way.”

Still, Trump stirred alarm at the debate last week by equivocating when asked to condemn the Proud Boys; he only denounced them later amid criticism after the debate. When asked by The New York Times, the campaign also declined to renounce such groups.

Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI assistant director of counterintelligence, said the president’s remarks could be interpreted by violent right-wing groups as “a call to action, a call to arms.” Figliuzzi said the organizations’ online communications reveal they are making plans to gather at polling stations.

“There are specific posts, from Proud Boys, for example, that encourage it,” Figliuzzi said during a call held by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a voting rights group.

Such groups also point to curiously timed and seemingly alarmist announcements of voting fraud investigations arising from small incidents. The Justice Department, for instance, announced it was starting an inquiry after a handful of ballots were found in a garbage can in Pennsylvania, apparently accidentally discarded by a contract worker. It was a highly unusual step, coming as the Trump administration weakened long-standing department policy that discouraged making voter fraud investigations public before an election.

Like the Justice Department, Trump’s campaign is also amplifying his message.

“We’ve all seen the tweets about voter fraud and blah blah blah,” Clark said when he was recorded last year, referring to Trump’s claims. “Every time we’re in with him, he asks: ‘What are we doing about voter fraud, what are we doing about voter fraud?’”

Clark added, “He’s committed on this.”

When President Donald Trump used the prime-time debate last week to urge his supporters to “go into the polls and watch very carefully,” he wasn’t just issuing a call for a grassroots movement or raising the prospect of intimidation tactics at voting sites.

When President Donald Trump used the prime-time debate last week to urge his supporters to “go into the polls and watch very carefully,” he wasn’t just issuing a call for a grassroots movement or raising the prospect of intimidation tactics at voting sites. He was also nodding to an extensive behind-the-scenes effort led by the lawyers and operatives on his campaign. Over the summer, Trump named a new campaign manager, Bill Stepien, who was once a top aide to former Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey before being fired amid the “Bridgegate” scandal. Stepien swiftly elevated a group of lieutenants focused on using aggressive electoral tactics, moves that led Marc E. Elias, the leading election lawyer for the Democratic Party, to tweet that Trump was “tripling down” on “opposing voting rights.” One of the main architects of the effort is Justin Clark, whom Stepien promoted to deputy campaign manager. He has been viewed with suspicion among Democrats since he was recorded last year saying, “Traditionally it’s always been Republicans suppressing votes in places,” and adding that in 2020 the party would “start playing offense a little bit.” Other key figures in the campaign include a senior aide who once oversaw a right-wing information-gathering operation for the conservative Koch brothers; an adviser who was involved in a secretive vote-challenge operation for President George W. Bush’s reelection campaign in 2004; and a campaign counsel who is coordinating a series of lawsuits aimed at preventing the expansion of mail voting. With polls showing Trump trailing Joe Biden nationally and in most swing states, the president has increasingly focused attention on the voting process, declaring that the only way he could lose is if the election is rigged and refusing to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. With the election less than a month away, his campaign has moved the idea of voting irregularities to the forefront of both its ground operations and its legal strategy. The campaign is trying to shape the voting process in many ways. Following the president’s lead, it has undertaken a legal and rhetorical assault on mail-in balloting, claiming with no evidence that it is rife with fraud. It is also pushing the boundaries of traditional poll monitoring in ways that many Democrats believe amount to voter intimidation. And it has put legal pressure on states to aggressively purge their voter rolls. Campaign officials tried to downplay Democratic anxiety and insisted they wanted everyone to vote who wants to do so. “I think we need to just realize that we’re in a political campaign and all just follow the law,” Clark said in an interview. “There are laws everywhere about how many feet you can stand outside of a polling place and what you can wear and what you can do.” Few of the campaign’s practices have prompted as much attention as its extensive plans for poll watching. While both parties have trained official poll watchers for decades, the president has stirred alarm among Democrats and some voting experts who fear he is encouraging extralegal menacing at polling sites by far-right groups and even random Trump supporters. At the debate Trump said that the Proud Boys, a far-right extremist group, should “stand by,” a comment some interpreted as a call to arms in aiding his election prospects in ways that could intimidate voters. Those fears were heightened by an episode in Fairfax, Virginia, last month, when Trump supporters disrupted early voting, impeding access to a polling site. “These are not trained poll workers, these aren’t people who were recruited to do anything,” Clark said. “There are — shocker — there’s going to be politics in a presidential race. And people are going to wave flags and show stuff and drive around and hold mini-rallies and hold sign-waving rallies and do things like that, and it happens in a lot of places.” Clark and other campaign officials have said they will put 50,000 poll watchers and electoral observers on the ground, including at least 1,600 in Philadelphia alone. They are instructing them to record minutiae like the timing of paper jams at polling places, but also pushing beyond the typical activity by monitoring people picking up absentee ballots and videotaping the drop boxes where they deposit them. Trump has even floated the idea of sending sheriffs to the polls. Republican administrations in several states, including the battleground of Georgia, have appointed voter fraud task forces they say are designed to root out cheating, though Democrats view the panels, stacked with Republican prosecutors, as instruments of voter suppression. “These come out of somebody’s Republican playbook,” said Cathy Cox, a Democrat who served as Georgia’s secretary of state. “Unfortunately the goal is to intimidate people and ultimately suppress votes.” One Trump campaign official recently emailed party officials in North Carolina and told them “to not follow the procedures outlined” in a memo sent out by the state Board of Elections. Republican officials have also been tied to efforts to aid third-party candidates who could siphon votes from Biden. The most visible Republican effort is in the courts. Matthew Morgan, who was promoted to campaign counsel this summer, had been directing a flurry of election litigation and challenging attempts to expand mail-in voting. Like Trump, he has disparaged mail balloting, claiming without evidence that “universal vote by mail opens the door to chaos and fraud.” Election Day operations are now coordinated by Michael Roman, a Philadelphia native who once oversaw an operation for billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch that surveilled and gathered information on liberal adversaries. He frequently airs baseless claims that Democrats are plotting to “steal the election.” Roman also played a central role in promoting a 2008 video of two members of the New Black Panther Party outside a Philadelphia polling place, one carrying a baton; the video became a long running flash point for the right-wing media’s claims of election interference by Democrats. “This is somebody who I think has a reputation for hyping and distorting incidents to make it appear as though Democrats are cheating, and I think it adds to an overall dangerous message about election rigging,” said Richard L. Hasen, a professor at the University of California, Irvine School of Law who writes the widely read Election Law Blog. Roman declined to comment for this article. Other notable figures doing work for the campaign include Bob Paduchik, a senior campaign adviser, who was involved in a secretive operation during the 2004 Bush campaign dubbed the “Voter Reg Fraud Strategy.” The effort was aimed at challenging the legitimacy of absentee voters, according to emails released in a lawsuit filed by the Democratic National Committee. Paduchik did not respond to requests for comment. Poll watching is regulated by differing state laws. In official training videos, Republicans instruct workers to be courteous to Democrats, dress appropriately and stay on their toes: “Do not zone out.” This year, for the first time in more than three decades, the Republican National Committee is taking an active role in poll watching, after the courts in 2018 lifted a consent decree that had barred the RNC from doing so. The ban stemmed from the committee’s involvement in an operation to intimidate New Jersey voters in 1981. There are already signs that Republicans, who have won only one popular presidential vote since 1988, will be unusually aggressive. In recent weeks, the Trump campaign sent personnel to attempt to enter satellite facilities in Philadelphia where voters could pick up and fill out mail-in ballots — offices that are not regarded as polls. (In an interview, Morgan pushed back on that concept, saying: “They say this is not a polling place. To us this sounds absurd, when you can register, get your ballot and vote in that location. So we don’t accept that premise.”) States led by Republicans are also working to restrict access to voting; in Texas, for instance, Gov. Greg Abbott last week moved to close many of the locations where voters can drop off their ballots. Campaign officials said they had not been in contact with any outside groups to encourage or tacitly support unofficial poll watching and protests at polling sites, beyond the official poll watching activity that typically occurs. And they were confident there would not be a repeat of the kind of intimidation tactics that led to the consent decree. “That’s why we are recruiting people,” Clark said. “We are training them, we are working with them to make sure that they’re doing things the right way.” Still, Trump stirred alarm at the debate last week by equivocating when asked to condemn the Proud Boys; he only denounced them later amid criticism after the debate. When asked by The New York Times, the campaign also declined to renounce such groups. Frank Figliuzzi, a former FBI assistant director of counterintelligence, said the president’s remarks could be interpreted by violent right-wing groups as “a call to action, a call to arms.” Figliuzzi said the organizations’ online communications reveal they are making plans to gather at polling stations. “There are specific posts, from Proud Boys, for example, that encourage it,” Figliuzzi said during a call held by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a voting rights group. Such groups also point to curiously timed and seemingly alarmist announcements of voting fraud investigations arising from small incidents. The Justice Department, for instance, announced it was starting an inquiry after a handful of ballots were found in a garbage can in Pennsylvania, apparently accidentally discarded by a contract worker. It was a highly unusual step, coming as the Trump administration weakened long-standing department policy that discouraged making voter fraud investigations public before an election. Like the Justice Department, Trump’s campaign is also amplifying his message. “We’ve all seen the tweets about voter fraud and blah blah blah,” Clark said when he was recorded last year, referring to Trump’s claims. “Every time we’re in with him, he asks: ‘What are we doing about voter fraud, what are we doing about voter fraud?’” Clark added, “He’s committed on this.”

Inside the Trump campaign’s strategy to make voting a tooth-and-nail fight

The morning after Sen. Kamala Harris became the first woman of color to take a debate stage as a member of a major party’s ticket, President Donald Trump disparaged her as “totally unlikable” and a “communist.” Then, twice, he called her “this monster.”

His dehumanizing language, extraordinary even by Trump’s own standards, was an unusually explicit example of the biased attitudes — about how women should behave, how people of color should behave, and especially how women of color should behave — that have pervaded commentary regarding Harris.

There was the “condescending” label, too, that undecided voters applied to Harris’ facial expressions as they assessed the debate in a focus group run by a Republican pollster, Frank Luntz. There was the member of the Trump campaign’s advisory board who called her an “insufferable lying bitch.”

And there was Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson’s depiction of her as a power-hungry usurper of Joe Biden’s would-be presidency, which played to an old racist and sexist trope even as Carlson insisted his remark had nothing to do with her identity.

These sorts of personal attacks on Harris have been coming since the day Biden chose her as his running mate, when conservative commentators repeatedly mispronounced her name and suggested she wasn’t Black, and a top Google search around that time was whether she was born in the United States.

She was, in California. But the interest in that question — which evoked the birtherism lie that Trump weaponized against former President Barack Obama — spoke to how differently she was being treated than the white vice-presidential nominees who came before her.

Her selection as Biden’s running mate thrilled many Americans who saw themselves represented in a major presidential campaign for the first time. It also unleashed a steady drip of racism and sexism, underscoring not only the double standards women and people of color face, but what happens when multiple identities meet: a Black woman, an Indian American woman, a woman whose parents were immigrants.

Tropes and Caricatures

One of the oldest racist tropes is that of the “angry Black woman.”

It was popularized in the minstrel-like sitcom “Amos ’n’ Andy,” which included a character named Sapphire who became synonymous with the stereotype of an “emasculating” Black woman, said Nadia E. Brown, an associate professor of political science and African American studies at Purdue University.

“Angry,” “mean,” “aggressive,” “disrespectful”: All of these words, which Trump has used to describe Harris, play to this stereotype, which was also used against Michelle Obama. False suggestions that Harris is scheming to run the country in Biden’s stead play to it, too.

“She’ll bulldoze her elderly, sentimental boss,” Carlson, the Fox News host, said Wednesday. “So tonight we’ll be airing the vice-presidential debate, but what we’ll actually be looking at is Kamala Harris’ audition for the presidency. That’s the office she’s running for, no matter what they tell you.”

The attacks on Harris as “unlikable,” which Trump pushed Thursday, also play into a double standard. Voters are more likely to see likability as mandatory for women than for men, research shows, and experts say Black women are often judged even more harshly.

It is something of a tightrope: Stereotypically feminine behavior can lead voters to see women running for office as more likable but less of a leader, while stereotypically masculine behavior can make voters see them as more of a leader but less likable.

This is “the classic double bind,” said Amanda Clayton, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University. “Women can either be seen as leaders or they can be seen as feminine, and the two don’t go together.”

These caricatures and double standards have been accompanied by sexualization, common against women of all races but especially those who are Black. This is another racist trope, the promiscuous, hypersexual “Jezebel.”

After Biden chose Harris, right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh suggested falsely, quoting from a conservative website, that she had “slept her way up.” T-shirts with the slogan “Joe and the Hoe” were briefly available on Amazon. The mayor of Luray, Virginia, called her “Aunt Jemima,” a nod to yet another stereotype, the “Mammy.”

“These are distinctly misogynoir tactics,” Brown said, referring to the combination of racism and sexism that Black women face. “We would not see these stereotypes or these kind of threats used against her if she were not a Black woman.”

Lawyer and civil rights activist Kimberlé Crenshaw introduced the term “intersectionality” three decades ago to describe how various identities can overlap to produce discrimination more complex than just, for instance, racism plus sexism. Experts said Harris’ experience was a prime example.

Several activists and political scientists said they believed such attacks would backfire given voters’ increased awareness of double standards. But Crenshaw, who teaches at Columbia Law School and UCLA, said it was not necessarily that simple, because part of what makes intersectional bias so powerful is that prejudice against one identity can persist in communities of another identity.

She said she worried that “women may not vote against the rampant sexism because of race, and people of color may not vote against the racist and xenophobic dimensions of the Trump assault because of anti-Black racism within Indian communities and misogyny within Black communities.”

Identity Policing

Within hours of Harris’ selection, conservative talk-radio host Mark Levin went on a diatribe about descriptions of her as “the first African American woman” on a major presidential ticket.

“Kamala Harris is not an African American,” he said. “She is Indian and Jamaican. Jamaica’s part of the Caribbean. India is out there near China. I only point that out because if you dare raise that, you’re attacked, but the truth is she’s not, and so I just wanted to make that clear.”

There is nuanced debate within Black communities about what it means to be African American versus Black. But it is common, including among Black people, to use the two interchangeably.

Comments like Levin’s are sometimes referred to as identity policing. Among other things, it suggests that Harris is not who she says she is or that she cannot have multiple identities, as millions of Americans do.

“She’s going to be tasked with managing those perceptions of her identity,” Danielle Casarez Lemi, a fellow at Southern Methodist University’s John G. Tower Center for Political Studies who focuses on race and representation, said after Harris was nominated. “And that’s time that could be spent on the ground, building relationships with people and formulating policies.”

Identity policing is related to broader patterns of “othering,” or casting a person as “not one of us.”

The most brazen example for Harris was the revival of the “birther” lie: A conservative law professor made a discredited argument in Newsweek in August that being born in California might not make Harris a natural-born citizen if her parents were not citizens, and Trump suggested falsely that this notion might be valid.

But the same tendency can be seen in smaller forms, like the frequent mispronunciations of her name and descriptions of her as inauthentic.

On Wednesday, denying that sexism or racism played any role in criticism of Harris, Carlson said on Fox, “More likely, voters don’t like Kamala Harris because she is a transparent fraud, from her phony inflected accent to her synthetic bio to her featherweight work history.” (Harris has been the district attorney of San Francisco, the attorney general of California and a U.S. senator.)

Trump, for his part, began calling her “phony” over the summer. This is one of his favorite adjectives for nonhuman opponents like the Russia investigation and the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. But when used against a person, and especially a woman of color, experts say it has a harmful subtext.

“A word like ‘phony,’ neutral on its face, when leveled against a woman of color takes on a very culturally loaded meaning,” said Tina Tchen, chief executive of Time’s Up, which is part of the “We Have Her Back” coalition of groups formed to call out double standards related to Harris.

It speaks, Tchen said, “to this deeply held, internalized sense that we have in our culture that she’s a phony because she doesn’t belong here.”

The morning after Sen. Kamala Harris became the first woman of color to take a debate stage as a member of a major party’s ticket, President Donald Trump disparaged her as “totally unlikable” and a “communist.

The morning after Sen. Kamala Harris became the first woman of color to take a debate stage as a member of a major party’s ticket, President Donald Trump disparaged her as “totally unlikable” and a “communist.” Then, twice, he called her “this monster.” His dehumanizing language, extraordinary even by Trump’s own standards, was an unusually explicit example of the biased attitudes — about how women should behave, how people of color should behave, and especially how women of color should behave — that have pervaded commentary regarding Harris. There was the “condescending” label, too, that undecided voters applied to Harris’ facial expressions as they assessed the debate in a focus group run by a Republican pollster, Frank Luntz. There was the member of the Trump campaign’s advisory board who called her an “insufferable lying bitch.” And there was Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson’s depiction of her as a power-hungry usurper of Joe Biden’s would-be presidency, which played to an old racist and sexist trope even as Carlson insisted his remark had nothing to do with her identity. These sorts of personal attacks on Harris have been coming since the day Biden chose her as his running mate, when conservative commentators repeatedly mispronounced her name and suggested she wasn’t Black, and a top Google search around that time was whether she was born in the United States. She was, in California. But the interest in that question — which evoked the birtherism lie that Trump weaponized against former President Barack Obama — spoke to how differently she was being treated than the white vice-presidential nominees who came before her. Her selection as Biden’s running mate thrilled many Americans who saw themselves represented in a major presidential campaign for the first time. It also unleashed a steady drip of racism and sexism, underscoring not only the double standards women and people of color face, but what happens when multiple identities meet: a Black woman, an Indian American woman, a woman whose parents were immigrants. Tropes and Caricatures One of the oldest racist tropes is that of the “angry Black woman.” It was popularized in the minstrel-like sitcom “Amos ’n’ Andy,” which included a character named Sapphire who became synonymous with the stereotype of an “emasculating” Black woman, said Nadia E. Brown, an associate professor of political science and African American studies at Purdue University. “Angry,” “mean,” “aggressive,” “disrespectful”: All of these words, which Trump has used to describe Harris, play to this stereotype, which was also used against Michelle Obama. False suggestions that Harris is scheming to run the country in Biden’s stead play to it, too. “She’ll bulldoze her elderly, sentimental boss,” Carlson, the Fox News host, said Wednesday. “So tonight we’ll be airing the vice-presidential debate, but what we’ll actually be looking at is Kamala Harris’ audition for the presidency. That’s the office she’s running for, no matter what they tell you.” The attacks on Harris as “unlikable,” which Trump pushed Thursday, also play into a double standard. Voters are more likely to see likability as mandatory for women than for men, research shows, and experts say Black women are often judged even more harshly. It is something of a tightrope: Stereotypically feminine behavior can lead voters to see women running for office as more likable but less of a leader, while stereotypically masculine behavior can make voters see them as more of a leader but less likable. This is “the classic double bind,” said Amanda Clayton, a political scientist at Vanderbilt University. “Women can either be seen as leaders or they can be seen as feminine, and the two don’t go together.” These caricatures and double standards have been accompanied by sexualization, common against women of all races but especially those who are Black. This is another racist trope, the promiscuous, hypersexual “Jezebel.” After Biden chose Harris, right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh suggested falsely, quoting from a conservative website, that she had “slept her way up.” T-shirts with the slogan “Joe and the Hoe” were briefly available on Amazon. The mayor of Luray, Virginia, called her “Aunt Jemima,” a nod to yet another stereotype, the “Mammy.” “These are distinctly misogynoir tactics,” Brown said, referring to the combination of racism and sexism that Black women face. “We would not see these stereotypes or these kind of threats used against her if she were not a Black woman.” Lawyer and civil rights activist Kimberlé Crenshaw introduced the term “intersectionality” three decades ago to describe how various identities can overlap to produce discrimination more complex than just, for instance, racism plus sexism. Experts said Harris’ experience was a prime example. Several activists and political scientists said they believed such attacks would backfire given voters’ increased awareness of double standards. But Crenshaw, who teaches at Columbia Law School and UCLA, said it was not necessarily that simple, because part of what makes intersectional bias so powerful is that prejudice against one identity can persist in communities of another identity. She said she worried that “women may not vote against the rampant sexism because of race, and people of color may not vote against the racist and xenophobic dimensions of the Trump assault because of anti-Black racism within Indian communities and misogyny within Black communities.” Identity Policing Within hours of Harris’ selection, conservative talk-radio host Mark Levin went on a diatribe about descriptions of her as “the first African American woman” on a major presidential ticket. “Kamala Harris is not an African American,” he said. “She is Indian and Jamaican. Jamaica’s part of the Caribbean. India is out there near China. I only point that out because if you dare raise that, you’re attacked, but the truth is she’s not, and so I just wanted to make that clear.” There is nuanced debate within Black communities about what it means to be African American versus Black. But it is common, including among Black people, to use the two interchangeably. Comments like Levin’s are sometimes referred to as identity policing. Among other things, it suggests that Harris is not who she says she is or that she cannot have multiple identities, as millions of Americans do. “She’s going to be tasked with managing those perceptions of her identity,” Danielle Casarez Lemi, a fellow at Southern Methodist University’s John G. Tower Center for Political Studies who focuses on race and representation, said after Harris was nominated. “And that’s time that could be spent on the ground, building relationships with people and formulating policies.” Identity policing is related to broader patterns of “othering,” or casting a person as “not one of us.” The most brazen example for Harris was the revival of the “birther” lie: A conservative law professor made a discredited argument in Newsweek in August that being born in California might not make Harris a natural-born citizen if her parents were not citizens, and Trump suggested falsely that this notion might be valid. But the same tendency can be seen in smaller forms, like the frequent mispronunciations of her name and descriptions of her as inauthentic. On Wednesday, denying that sexism or racism played any role in criticism of Harris, Carlson said on Fox, “More likely, voters don’t like Kamala Harris because she is a transparent fraud, from her phony inflected accent to her synthetic bio to her featherweight work history.” (Harris has been the district attorney of San Francisco, the attorney general of California and a U.S. senator.) Trump, for his part, began calling her “phony” over the summer. This is one of his favorite adjectives for nonhuman opponents like the Russia investigation and the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution. But when used against a person, and especially a woman of color, experts say it has a harmful subtext. “A word like ‘phony,’ neutral on its face, when leveled against a woman of color takes on a very culturally loaded meaning,” said Tina Tchen, chief executive of Time’s Up, which is part of the “We Have Her Back” coalition of groups formed to call out double standards related to Harris. It speaks, Tchen said, “to this deeply held, internalized sense that we have in our culture that she’s a phony because she doesn’t belong here.”

Kamala Harris and the ‘double bind’ of racism and sexism

For the past decade, gun owners dressed in flak jackets and camouflage fatigues have brought their rifles into the Michigan Legislature at least twice every year, asserting their vehement support for gun rights by displaying weapons in the hallways.

This spring, those gatherings intensified as participants turned what had been a declaration about the Second Amendment into a protest over how far the government could go in limiting individual behavior amid the pandemic. Hundreds turned out to demand an end to lockdowns, social distancing and mask wearing.

Among the demonstrators who stormed into the Capitol to protest those measures were two brothers who have now been charged as part of an extremist plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and to commit other violence. The brothers subscribed to a larger anti-government movement that has evolved in Michigan and throughout the United States over decades, but was spurred on this year by the pandemic, social justice protests and the presidential election.

With its fervent gun culture and its gaping differences between urban and rural populations, Michigan has seen its divisions grow ever wider since at least the 1990s, when armed groups on the right adopted increasingly extreme positions on limiting the government’s power.

The brothers are among 13 men who face a variety of charges related to the kidnapping plot, including terrorism, conspiracy and weapons possession. The authorities said the men were also affiliated with an extremist group called the Wolverine Watchmen, which court documents called “an anti-government, anti-law enforcement militia group.” Such groups have existed in Michigan for decades, most notably in 1994 with the formation of the Michigan Militia.

“There have been militia-type groups in Michigan even before we started using the phrase domestic terrorism,” said Bill Ballenger, a former Republican state senator who represented a rural area. “Before it never got to armed insurrection or an attempt to overthrow the government or assassinate people or anything like that.”

In a sense, experts said, the fight over measures like mask requirements to contain the spread of the virus was the latest example of what these groups see as government overreach. “It is really the perfect issue for far-right conspiracy theorists to rally around,” said Daniel Levitas, a lawyer and the author of “The Terrorist Next Door,” a history of extremist groups.

In the early 1990s, armed groups in Michigan, and around the country, were formed in reaction to bloody federal sieges against Randy Weaver and his family in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 and against an armed cult in Waco, Texas, in 1993. The latter ended with the death of 76 people. The new far-right organizations accused the government of tyranny and began conducting paramilitary training and obtaining military equipment.

Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, later convicted of bombing a federal office building in Oklahoma City in April 1995, killing 168 people, attended some of the earliest meetings of the Michigan Militia. The gory details from the trial diminished the appeal of such groups, but they continued to exist.

“It has been a particularly fertile place for them,” said Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow with the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism.

Various violent plots emerged in Michigan during the 1990s and 2000s, including the murder of a state police officer. In the 1990s, there was a plot to attack Camp Grayling in northern Michigan because Russian tanks captured during the gulf war and used there for training were seen as part of a scheme to store armaments for a Communist invasion of Michigan, Levitas said.

In 2010, the FBI arrested five members of a group called the Hutaree and charged them with sedition based on a plot to overthrow the government, but a federal judge threw out most of the charges based on lack of evidence.

Various factors contribute to the current strength of the anti-government movement in Michigan, including the collapse of the auto industry, which stripped the state of countless jobs, said Amy Cooter, a senior sociology lecturer at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, who has studied such groups for a decade.

“We’ve always had some groups who had the potential to take things very personally,” she said, and they saw Whitmer’s handling of the pandemic as an affront. “They didn’t think it was being handled appropriately,” she said.

The pandemic hit much harder in cities like Detroit compared with rural areas, and the governor drew criticism from some parts of the state by using executive orders to put into place one-size-fits-all measures that treated counties with very few cases the same way as urban centers. She often clashed with President Donald Trump, who during the protests tweeted, “Liberate Michigan!”

Accusations by the president that Democrats like Whitmer were trying to steal the election have fed a certain paranoia and anxiety about the government that is standard among many of these extremist groups, experts said.

“It’s feeding into their beliefs that Trump will not get a fair shake and they’re seeing the open tensions between Trump and Whitmer,” Cooter said.

The anti-government movements in Michigan share ideology with other far-right groups across the country.

One of the men accused this week, Joseph Morrison, is considered the leader of the Wolverine Watchmen and used the online name Boogaloo Bunyan.

Adherents of the boogaloo movement express strong anti-government sentiments. The name “boogaloo” is a pop culture reference derived from a 1984 movie flop that became a cult classic called “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.” It went through various mutations online and emerged sometimes as the “Big Luau.”

That is why adherents sometimes wear Hawaiian shirts, including numerous armed protesters at the state Capitol in Lansing, in April. At least one of the men charged this week had posted a picture of himself in a Hawaiian shirt.

The six men directly accused of plotting to kidnap the governor seemed to adhere to a slightly different ideology, experts said, one that relied on a distorted interpretation of the Constitution. They contend it upholds individual liberty over all else, with people allowed to make citizen’s arrests against those who infringe on such rights. They labeled Whitmer a “tyrant,” and often couch their beliefs in the language of the American Revolution.

Both movements believe that only a new revolution or civil war will prevent the government from trying to control Americans, with the best government being almost none at all. Anti-immigrant, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic sentiments are widespread.

Given that many such groups support Trump, they have diminished their ire toward the federal government and focused on state governments instead, Pitcavage said.

Most lawmakers in the state strongly condemned the violent threat to Whitmer.

“A threat against our Governor is a threat against us all,” state Sen. Mike Shirkey, a Republican, wrote in a tweet Thursday.

But others adopted the false line that it was all a left-wing plot. “Anarchists want to destroy the government,” said state Rep. Beau LaFave, a Republican, who blamed the governor for “turning up the heat on the partisan divide in the state.”

Mark Koernke, a broadcaster whose support of the Michigan Militia helped its spread in the early 1990s, wrote on Facebook, “Same FBI that let antifa burn down the country now attacking militia in Michigan to promote the Communist agenda.”

State Sen. Dayna Polehanki, a Democrat, took pictures on April 30 of the protesters with rifles in the state Legislature, including two of the men arrested in the plot against the governor. She said she saw no hope that the divided, Republican-dominated Legislature would act any time soon to ban armed protesters from the building.

“Maybe they were recruiting that day, or sending up a trial balloon for how it might go somewhere down the road,” she said. “To learn that the men in that photo are co-conspirators shakes me to my core.”

For the past decade, gun owners dressed in flak jackets and camouflage fatigues have brought their rifles into the Michigan Legislature at least twice every year, asserting their vehement support for gun rights by displaying weapons in the hallways.

For the past decade, gun owners dressed in flak jackets and camouflage fatigues have brought their rifles into the Michigan Legislature at least twice every year, asserting their vehement support for gun rights by displaying weapons in the hallways. This spring, those gatherings intensified as participants turned what had been a declaration about the Second Amendment into a protest over how far the government could go in limiting individual behavior amid the pandemic. Hundreds turned out to demand an end to lockdowns, social distancing and mask wearing. Among the demonstrators who stormed into the Capitol to protest those measures were two brothers who have now been charged as part of an extremist plot to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and to commit other violence. The brothers subscribed to a larger anti-government movement that has evolved in Michigan and throughout the United States over decades, but was spurred on this year by the pandemic, social justice protests and the presidential election. With its fervent gun culture and its gaping differences between urban and rural populations, Michigan has seen its divisions grow ever wider since at least the 1990s, when armed groups on the right adopted increasingly extreme positions on limiting the government’s power. The brothers are among 13 men who face a variety of charges related to the kidnapping plot, including terrorism, conspiracy and weapons possession. The authorities said the men were also affiliated with an extremist group called the Wolverine Watchmen, which court documents called “an anti-government, anti-law enforcement militia group.” Such groups have existed in Michigan for decades, most notably in 1994 with the formation of the Michigan Militia. “There have been militia-type groups in Michigan even before we started using the phrase domestic terrorism,” said Bill Ballenger, a former Republican state senator who represented a rural area. “Before it never got to armed insurrection or an attempt to overthrow the government or assassinate people or anything like that.” In a sense, experts said, the fight over measures like mask requirements to contain the spread of the virus was the latest example of what these groups see as government overreach. “It is really the perfect issue for far-right conspiracy theorists to rally around,” said Daniel Levitas, a lawyer and the author of “The Terrorist Next Door,” a history of extremist groups. In the early 1990s, armed groups in Michigan, and around the country, were formed in reaction to bloody federal sieges against Randy Weaver and his family in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, in 1992 and against an armed cult in Waco, Texas, in 1993. The latter ended with the death of 76 people. The new far-right organizations accused the government of tyranny and began conducting paramilitary training and obtaining military equipment. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, later convicted of bombing a federal office building in Oklahoma City in April 1995, killing 168 people, attended some of the earliest meetings of the Michigan Militia. The gory details from the trial diminished the appeal of such groups, but they continued to exist. “It has been a particularly fertile place for them,” said Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow with the Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism. Various violent plots emerged in Michigan during the 1990s and 2000s, including the murder of a state police officer. In the 1990s, there was a plot to attack Camp Grayling in northern Michigan because Russian tanks captured during the gulf war and used there for training were seen as part of a scheme to store armaments for a Communist invasion of Michigan, Levitas said. In 2010, the FBI arrested five members of a group called the Hutaree and charged them with sedition based on a plot to overthrow the government, but a federal judge threw out most of the charges based on lack of evidence. Various factors contribute to the current strength of the anti-government movement in Michigan, including the collapse of the auto industry, which stripped the state of countless jobs, said Amy Cooter, a senior sociology lecturer at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, who has studied such groups for a decade. “We’ve always had some groups who had the potential to take things very personally,” she said, and they saw Whitmer’s handling of the pandemic as an affront. “They didn’t think it was being handled appropriately,” she said. The pandemic hit much harder in cities like Detroit compared with rural areas, and the governor drew criticism from some parts of the state by using executive orders to put into place one-size-fits-all measures that treated counties with very few cases the same way as urban centers. She often clashed with President Donald Trump, who during the protests tweeted, “Liberate Michigan!” Accusations by the president that Democrats like Whitmer were trying to steal the election have fed a certain paranoia and anxiety about the government that is standard among many of these extremist groups, experts said. “It’s feeding into their beliefs that Trump will not get a fair shake and they’re seeing the open tensions between Trump and Whitmer,” Cooter said. The anti-government movements in Michigan share ideology with other far-right groups across the country. One of the men accused this week, Joseph Morrison, is considered the leader of the Wolverine Watchmen and used the online name Boogaloo Bunyan. Adherents of the boogaloo movement express strong anti-government sentiments. The name “boogaloo” is a pop culture reference derived from a 1984 movie flop that became a cult classic called “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo.” It went through various mutations online and emerged sometimes as the “Big Luau.” That is why adherents sometimes wear Hawaiian shirts, including numerous armed protesters at the state Capitol in Lansing, in April. At least one of the men charged this week had posted a picture of himself in a Hawaiian shirt. The six men directly accused of plotting to kidnap the governor seemed to adhere to a slightly different ideology, experts said, one that relied on a distorted interpretation of the Constitution. They contend it upholds individual liberty over all else, with people allowed to make citizen’s arrests against those who infringe on such rights. They labeled Whitmer a “tyrant,” and often couch their beliefs in the language of the American Revolution. Both movements believe that only a new revolution or civil war will prevent the government from trying to control Americans, with the best government being almost none at all. Anti-immigrant, Islamophobic and anti-Semitic sentiments are widespread. Given that many such groups support Trump, they have diminished their ire toward the federal government and focused on state governments instead, Pitcavage said. Most lawmakers in the state strongly condemned the violent threat to Whitmer. “A threat against our Governor is a threat against us all,” state Sen. Mike Shirkey, a Republican, wrote in a tweet Thursday. But others adopted the false line that it was all a left-wing plot. “Anarchists want to destroy the government,” said state Rep. Beau LaFave, a Republican, who blamed the governor for “turning up the heat on the partisan divide in the state.” Mark Koernke, a broadcaster whose support of the Michigan Militia helped its spread in the early 1990s, wrote on Facebook, “Same FBI that let antifa burn down the country now attacking militia in Michigan to promote the Communist agenda.” State Sen. Dayna Polehanki, a Democrat, took pictures on April 30 of the protesters with rifles in the state Legislature, including two of the men arrested in the plot against the governor. She said she saw no hope that the divided, Republican-dominated Legislature would act any time soon to ban armed protesters from the building. “Maybe they were recruiting that day, or sending up a trial balloon for how it might go somewhere down the road,” she said. “To learn that the men in that photo are co-conspirators shakes me to my core.”

Why Michigan is considered ‘fertile’ ground for anti-government extremists

WASHINGTON — Elliott Broidy already had a record when he became a major fundraiser for the Trump campaign in 2016. Now he has become the latest Trump ally to face criminal charges, this time accused of evading foreign lobbying laws while trying to make money off his access to the administration.

Broidy was charged with a single count of conspiring to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act as part of an influence operation that prosecutors say sought to use his political ties to help Malaysian and Chinese interests, according to federal court filings that became public on Thursday.

The case centers on an accusation that Broidy accepted $6 million from a foreign client to lobby administration officials to end a federal investigation related to the looting of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad fund, known as 1MDB. The court filing also accuses him of seeking the extradition of a Chinese citizen from the United States.

He did not succeed in either effort, and at one point sought to deceive his client about having raised the 1MDB case directly with President Donald Trump, the court filing said.

While the foreign client was not identified, people familiar with the case said he was the Malaysian financier Jho Low, who the federal authorities say played a key role in the theft of billions of dollars from 1MDB.

Broidy, 63, is expected to enter a guilty plea to the charge, which was filed last week by prosecutors from the Justice Department’s public integrity section and its election crimes branch and unsealed this week.

Broidy’s representatives declined to comment. The charge against him was detailed in a criminal information, which is often filed in cases in which a guilty plea has been agreed to.

The details of the accusations against Broidy are especially striking: They include a promised $75 million “success fee” from Low, and discussions about arranging for Malaysia’s prime minister to play golf with Trump. But they follow a pattern that has become familiar since Trump began seeking the White House.

People who had backgrounds or were pursuing business that was likely to have raised red flags in other campaigns and administrations marketed themselves as intermediaries to individuals, companies and countries wanting something from the Trump administration. They were able to do so because Trump ran for office and came to Washington without the established networks of gatekeepers, lobbyists and fundraisers who typically surround a president.

A number of Trump’s associates have been charged in the nearly four years since he was elected. Among those who have pleaded or were found guilty of charges related to their work for him are Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser whose case the Justice Department is now seeking to dismiss; George Papadopoulos, a former campaign adviser; and Roger Stone, a longtime friend whose sentence the president commuted.

Trump’s former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, and his deputy, Rick Gates, were charged with lobbying and financial crimes that predated their work for the president’s campaign. The two pleaded guilty to lesser charges in exchange for agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors, as did Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer.

Cohen, Gates and Manafort had sought to parlay their perceived access to the president into business opportunities.

But few figures seized on the Trump presidency more ambitiously than Broidy, who owns a defense contracting firm.

He had been a top Republican fundraiser for years, but he had retreated from politics after pleading guilty in 2009 to a felony charge, later reduced to a misdemeanor, in an unrelated pension fund bribery case.

After Trump emerged as the Republican presidential nominee in 2016, Broidy threw his support behind him at a time when most elite Republican donors were staying away.

And when Trump was elected, Broidy became a leading fundraiser for Trump’s inauguration and the Republican National Committee, as well as a member of Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private resort in Florida.

Broidy enlisted Cohen to arrange a payout to a former Playboy model who became pregnant during an affair and paid Gates to help pursue a contract for his defense firm and administration appointments for his associates.

And Broidy began aggressively promoting his connection to the new administration to politicians, business executives and governments around the world, His defense company won big contracts from the United Arab Emirates and Angola. And Broidy discussed the possibility of a visit to Mar-a-Lago for an Angolan politician from whom he was seeking to collect additional payments.

But the charge against Broidy is not related to his defense company or its clients.

Rather, it stems from his arrangement with Low, a flamboyant Malaysian financier who federal authorities say orchestrated a multibillion-dollar embezzlement scheme from 1MDB.

Low, who is believed to be living in China, was charged in the United States in 2018 in connection with the 1MDB theft, but he has not appeared in criminal court in the United States.

The filing said that Broidy and a pair of associates agreed in 2017 to work for Low “to orchestrate back-channel, unregistered campaigns to lobby the administration,” to “end the 1MDB matters” and to send a dissident back to China.

The Chinese citizen is not identified by name in the filing, but he is known to be billionaire dissident Guo Wengui, an outspoken critic of China who has been charged by its government with corruption and is seeking asylum in the United States.

Some of Broidy’s associates have already been charged, including Nickie Lum Davis, a fundraiser who pleaded guilty in August and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Another, George Higginbotham, a former Justice Department employee, pleaded guilty in 2018 to conspiring to lie to banks about the source of tens of millions of dollars he funneled into the United States from Low.

In his guilty plea, Higginbotham admitted that he and entertainer and businessman Pras Michel, a former member of the Fugees, a defunct hip-hop group, arranged for millions of dollars of Low’s money to be transferred to a law firm owned by Broidy’s wife to pay them to try to end the 1MDB investigation.

Prosecutors said that Michel received $8.5 million from Low, while Broidy was paid $6 million and Davis $1.7 million, but that they tried to “conceal Broidy’s contacts with and payments from” Low “to maintain Broidy’s credibility with United States officials and to further the illegal advocacy scheme.”

The prosecutors cited a contract with Broidy’s wife’s law firm, which is not named, agreeing that if the Justice Department dropped its civil forfeiture proceedings against Low within 180 days, Low would pay a $75 million fee, or $50 million if the matter was resolved within 365 days.

As part of the effort, prosecutors say Broidy asked Trump in June 2017 “if he would play golf” with Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia. Najib is not identified in the charging document, but he was in office at the time and was planning a trip to Washington, despite being under investigation by federal prosecutors for his role in the 1MDB theft.

Broidy and Davis believed that a golf game with Trump “would please” Najib and allow him “to attempt to resolve the matter” of the 1MDB investigation, the filing said.

Najib did meet with Trump in September 2017, but he was denied the customary photograph in the Oval Office with the president, let alone the golf outing, despite Broidy’s repeated lobbying of Trump’s aides. Najib was later convicted in Malaysia of corruption charges related to the 1MDB theft.

In October 2017, the court filing said, Broidy met at the White House with Trump but did not raise the issue of 1MDB. Nonetheless, the filing said, Broidy told Davis that he had raised it, believing she would pass that misinformation to Low and Michel.

The Justice Department did not drop its investigation of 1MDB, instead charging Low and others in 2018 with conspiring to launder billions of dollars embezzled from 1MDB and of paying bribes to officials in Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates. Low agreed last year as part of a civil forfeiture case to give up his claim to hundreds of millions of dollars in luxury apartments, yachts, jets and artwork that prosecutors said were bought with stolen money.

Prosecutors also claimed that Broidy and his associates traveled to Thailand, Malaysia and China to meet with Low, a Chinese government official and others to negotiate a multimillion-dollar deal to lobby on their behalf.

After one such trip, Broidy drafted a memo to Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2017 about the possibility of extraditing Guo, recommending a meeting with the Chinese official, according to prosecutors. They said the contents of the memo were provided by the Chinese official and Low.

A person close to Broidy has said he never sent that memo, and a Justice Department spokesperson has said Sessions never received it.

Guo remains in the United States, though a company linked to him and Steve Bannon, Trump’s former adviser, is reportedly under investigation by federal and New York state authorities.

WASHINGTON — Elliott Broidy already had a record when he became a major fundraiser for the Trump campaign in 2016. Now he has become the latest Trump ally to face criminal charges, this time accused of evading foreign lobbying laws while trying to make money off his access to the administration.

WASHINGTON — Elliott Broidy already had a record when he became a major fundraiser for the Trump campaign in 2016. Now he has become the latest Trump ally to face criminal charges, this time accused of evading foreign lobbying laws while trying to make money off his access to the administration. Broidy was charged with a single count of conspiring to violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act as part of an influence operation that prosecutors say sought to use his political ties to help Malaysian and Chinese interests, according to federal court filings that became public on Thursday. The case centers on an accusation that Broidy accepted $6 million from a foreign client to lobby administration officials to end a federal investigation related to the looting of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad fund, known as 1MDB. The court filing also accuses him of seeking the extradition of a Chinese citizen from the United States. He did not succeed in either effort, and at one point sought to deceive his client about having raised the 1MDB case directly with President Donald Trump, the court filing said. While the foreign client was not identified, people familiar with the case said he was the Malaysian financier Jho Low, who the federal authorities say played a key role in the theft of billions of dollars from 1MDB. Broidy, 63, is expected to enter a guilty plea to the charge, which was filed last week by prosecutors from the Justice Department’s public integrity section and its election crimes branch and unsealed this week. Broidy’s representatives declined to comment. The charge against him was detailed in a criminal information, which is often filed in cases in which a guilty plea has been agreed to. The details of the accusations against Broidy are especially striking: They include a promised $75 million “success fee” from Low, and discussions about arranging for Malaysia’s prime minister to play golf with Trump. But they follow a pattern that has become familiar since Trump began seeking the White House. People who had backgrounds or were pursuing business that was likely to have raised red flags in other campaigns and administrations marketed themselves as intermediaries to individuals, companies and countries wanting something from the Trump administration. They were able to do so because Trump ran for office and came to Washington without the established networks of gatekeepers, lobbyists and fundraisers who typically surround a president. A number of Trump’s associates have been charged in the nearly four years since he was elected. Among those who have pleaded or were found guilty of charges related to their work for him are Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser whose case the Justice Department is now seeking to dismiss; George Papadopoulos, a former campaign adviser; and Roger Stone, a longtime friend whose sentence the president commuted. Trump’s former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, and his deputy, Rick Gates, were charged with lobbying and financial crimes that predated their work for the president’s campaign. The two pleaded guilty to lesser charges in exchange for agreeing to cooperate with prosecutors, as did Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer. Cohen, Gates and Manafort had sought to parlay their perceived access to the president into business opportunities. But few figures seized on the Trump presidency more ambitiously than Broidy, who owns a defense contracting firm. He had been a top Republican fundraiser for years, but he had retreated from politics after pleading guilty in 2009 to a felony charge, later reduced to a misdemeanor, in an unrelated pension fund bribery case. After Trump emerged as the Republican presidential nominee in 2016, Broidy threw his support behind him at a time when most elite Republican donors were staying away. And when Trump was elected, Broidy became a leading fundraiser for Trump’s inauguration and the Republican National Committee, as well as a member of Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private resort in Florida. Broidy enlisted Cohen to arrange a payout to a former Playboy model who became pregnant during an affair and paid Gates to help pursue a contract for his defense firm and administration appointments for his associates. And Broidy began aggressively promoting his connection to the new administration to politicians, business executives and governments around the world, His defense company won big contracts from the United Arab Emirates and Angola. And Broidy discussed the possibility of a visit to Mar-a-Lago for an Angolan politician from whom he was seeking to collect additional payments. But the charge against Broidy is not related to his defense company or its clients. Rather, it stems from his arrangement with Low, a flamboyant Malaysian financier who federal authorities say orchestrated a multibillion-dollar embezzlement scheme from 1MDB. Low, who is believed to be living in China, was charged in the United States in 2018 in connection with the 1MDB theft, but he has not appeared in criminal court in the United States. The filing said that Broidy and a pair of associates agreed in 2017 to work for Low “to orchestrate back-channel, unregistered campaigns to lobby the administration,” to “end the 1MDB matters” and to send a dissident back to China. The Chinese citizen is not identified by name in the filing, but he is known to be billionaire dissident Guo Wengui, an outspoken critic of China who has been charged by its government with corruption and is seeking asylum in the United States. Some of Broidy’s associates have already been charged, including Nickie Lum Davis, a fundraiser who pleaded guilty in August and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors. Another, George Higginbotham, a former Justice Department employee, pleaded guilty in 2018 to conspiring to lie to banks about the source of tens of millions of dollars he funneled into the United States from Low. In his guilty plea, Higginbotham admitted that he and entertainer and businessman Pras Michel, a former member of the Fugees, a defunct hip-hop group, arranged for millions of dollars of Low’s money to be transferred to a law firm owned by Broidy’s wife to pay them to try to end the 1MDB investigation. Prosecutors said that Michel received $8.5 million from Low, while Broidy was paid $6 million and Davis $1.7 million, but that they tried to “conceal Broidy’s contacts with and payments from” Low “to maintain Broidy’s credibility with United States officials and to further the illegal advocacy scheme.” The prosecutors cited a contract with Broidy’s wife’s law firm, which is not named, agreeing that if the Justice Department dropped its civil forfeiture proceedings against Low within 180 days, Low would pay a $75 million fee, or $50 million if the matter was resolved within 365 days. As part of the effort, prosecutors say Broidy asked Trump in June 2017 “if he would play golf” with Prime Minister Najib Razak of Malaysia. Najib is not identified in the charging document, but he was in office at the time and was planning a trip to Washington, despite being under investigation by federal prosecutors for his role in the 1MDB theft. Broidy and Davis believed that a golf game with Trump “would please” Najib and allow him “to attempt to resolve the matter” of the 1MDB investigation, the filing said. Najib did meet with Trump in September 2017, but he was denied the customary photograph in the Oval Office with the president, let alone the golf outing, despite Broidy’s repeated lobbying of Trump’s aides. Najib was later convicted in Malaysia of corruption charges related to the 1MDB theft. In October 2017, the court filing said, Broidy met at the White House with Trump but did not raise the issue of 1MDB. Nonetheless, the filing said, Broidy told Davis that he had raised it, believing she would pass that misinformation to Low and Michel. The Justice Department did not drop its investigation of 1MDB, instead charging Low and others in 2018 with conspiring to launder billions of dollars embezzled from 1MDB and of paying bribes to officials in Malaysia and the United Arab Emirates. Low agreed last year as part of a civil forfeiture case to give up his claim to hundreds of millions of dollars in luxury apartments, yachts, jets and artwork that prosecutors said were bought with stolen money. Prosecutors also claimed that Broidy and his associates traveled to Thailand, Malaysia and China to meet with Low, a Chinese government official and others to negotiate a multimillion-dollar deal to lobby on their behalf. After one such trip, Broidy drafted a memo to Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2017 about the possibility of extraditing Guo, recommending a meeting with the Chinese official, according to prosecutors. They said the contents of the memo were provided by the Chinese official and Low. A person close to Broidy has said he never sent that memo, and a Justice Department spokesperson has said Sessions never received it. Guo remains in the United States, though a company linked to him and Steve Bannon, Trump’s former adviser, is reportedly under investigation by federal and New York state authorities.

Elliott Broidy, a top Trump fundraiser, charged in foreign influence case

The Roosevelt Hotel, owned by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), has announced it will permanently close its doors for guests on October 31.

"We at The Roosevelt Hotel have enjoyed being a part of your stories, and an integral part of the history of Midtown Manhattan since 1924. But after almost 100 years of welcoming guests to New York, The Roosevelt Hotel is regretfully closing its doors permanently as of October 31, 2020," the hotel said in its Facebook post.&nbsp;

Located at the corner of Madison Avenue and 45th Street of New York's Manhattan, The Roosevelt Hotel is owned by the Government of Pakistan through PIA Investments Limited.

"For those guests with future reservations, we are working on communicating alternative accommodations. We truly love each and every one of you. And may your passion for our Great City continue...as Teddy would have wanted," the hotel added in its message.

The hotel originally opened in 1924 and it was taken by the national carrier on lease in 1979 and later purchased in 1999, according to Daily Pakistan.

This development comes months after the PTI government decided to not sell the iconic hotel located in Manhattan, New York. It had decided to run the hotel through a joint venture.

The hotel in its statement said that the decision has been taken due to economic reasons.&nbsp;

(with inputs)

The Roosevelt Hotel, owned by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), has announced it will permanently close its doors for guests on October 31. "We at The Roosevelt Hotel have enjoyed being a part of your stories, and an integral part of the history of Midtown Manhattan since 1924.

The Roosevelt Hotel, owned by Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), has announced it will permanently close its doors for guests on October 31. "We at The Roosevelt Hotel have enjoyed being a part of your stories, and an integral part of the history of Midtown Manhattan since 1924. But after almost 100 years of welcoming guests to New York, The Roosevelt Hotel is regretfully closing its doors permanently as of October 31, 2020," the hotel said in its Facebook post. Located at the corner of Madison Avenue and 45th Street of New York's Manhattan, The Roosevelt Hotel is owned by the Government of Pakistan through PIA Investments Limited. "For those guests with future reservations, we are working on communicating alternative accommodations. We truly love each and every one of you. And may your passion for our Great City continue...as Teddy would have wanted," the hotel added in its message. The hotel originally opened in 1924 and it was taken by the national carrier on lease in 1979 and later purchased in 1999, according to Daily Pakistan. This development comes months after the PTI government decided to not sell the iconic hotel located in Manhattan, New York. It had decided to run the hotel through a joint venture. The hotel in its statement said that the decision has been taken due to economic reasons. (with inputs)

Iconic Roosevelt hotel to shut doors on October 31

US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi is planning to demand setting up of a commission to evaluate US President Donald Trump's mental and physical capacity. Pelosi, along with Maryland Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin are planning to bring in a legislation to this effect.

The legislation would be brought under 25th Amendment of the US Constitution.

Section 4 of the amendment desribes the process according to which politicians can come together to infer that the president was unfit to carry out his duty as the head of the state.

Although the legislation being planned has to do with Trump's health, the addition of the mental health aspect has prompted many to wonder whether this was a potshot the Democratoc Party was talking at the president during the election season.

Donald Trump who caught coronavirus infection last week is recovering and has even hinted a plan to hold an election rally in Florida.

White House physician said on Thursday that Donald Trump should be able to "public engagements" from Saturday. He added that Trump responded "extremely well" to Covid-19 treatment.

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/will-talk-about-supreme-court-expansion-after-us-election-results-joe-biden-333764">Will talk about Supreme Court expansion after US election results: Joe Biden</a>

Just weeks before the November 3 election, Pelosi said Trump needs to disclose more about his health after his COVID-19 diagnosis. She noted Trump's 'strange tweet' halting talks on a new coronavirus aid package.

On Friday, she plans to roll out the legislation that would launch the commission for review. 
"The public needs to know the health condition of the president," Pelosi said, later invoking the 25th Amendment, which allows a president's cabinet or Congress to intervene when a president is unable to conduct the duties of the office.&nbsp;

Trump responded swiftly via Twitter.

"Crazy Nancy is the one who should be under observation. They don't call her Crazy for nothing!" the president said.

(With inputs from PTI)

US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi is planning to demand setting up of a commission to evaluate US President Donald Trump's mental and physical capacity.

US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi is planning to demand setting up of a commission to evaluate US President Donald Trump's mental and physical capacity. Pelosi, along with Maryland Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin are planning to bring in a legislation to this effect. The legislation would be brought under 25th Amendment of the US Constitution. Section 4 of the amendment desribes the process according to which politicians can come together to infer that the president was unfit to carry out his duty as the head of the state. Although the legislation being planned has to do with Trump's health, the addition of the mental health aspect has prompted many to wonder whether this was a potshot the Democratoc Party was talking at the president during the election season. Donald Trump who caught coronavirus infection last week is recovering and has even hinted a plan to hold an election rally in Florida. White House physician said on Thursday that Donald Trump should be able to "public engagements" from Saturday. He added that Trump responded "extremely well" to Covid-19 treatment. Also Read | Will talk about Supreme Court expansion after US election results: Joe Biden Just weeks before the November 3 election, Pelosi said Trump needs to disclose more about his health after his COVID-19 diagnosis. She noted Trump's 'strange tweet' halting talks on a new coronavirus aid package. On Friday, she plans to roll out the legislation that would launch the commission for review. "The public needs to know the health condition of the president," Pelosi said, later invoking the 25th Amendment, which allows a president's cabinet or Congress to intervene when a president is unable to conduct the duties of the office. Trump responded swiftly via Twitter. "Crazy Nancy is the one who should be under observation. They don't call her Crazy for nothing!" the president said. (With inputs from PTI)

Nancy Pelosi wants a commission to evaluate Trump's mental and physical health

2020 US Election Astrologers Prediction - The <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/us-election">US elections</a>&nbsp;are just a few weeks away and a lot of media houses and political experts have been trying to work out their strategies and calculate on the basis of polls that who would be the next President of the United States of America.

While the polls are being conducted and studied on a daily basis, some astrologers have also come ahead to lend their support in predicting the next President.

A lot of astrologers have been taking to the social media platforms to predict whether it will the President <a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;continuing his stay in the White House or will the US have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/joe-biden">Joe Biden</a> as the 46th President of the United States of America.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/nearly-58-million-watch-us-vice-presidential-debate-big-jump-from-2016-333722">Also read:&nbsp;Nearly 58 million watch US vice-presidential debate, big jump from 2016</a>

However, one thing that majority of the astrologers agree on is that this will be one of the most unpredictable elections in the history of the US.

US Election Astrologers Prediction: Joe Biden

As per few astrologers,&nbsp;Joe Biden&nbsp;is in his best days of his political career. As per the study of his stars and&nbsp;planets, and after calculating his birth details,&nbsp;numerologists have claimed that&nbsp;Biden&nbsp;will have an action-packed few months in his political career.&nbsp;

US Election Astrologers Prediction: Donald Trump

On the other hand, Donald Trump's sudden decline in health was something that the astrologers had feared for the past few months now. However, majority readers claim that his health will be on the path of a speedy recovery soon due to his&nbsp;planetary combination.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/when-a-fly-ruins-your-image-333587">Also read:&nbsp;When a fly ruins your image</a>

Technical glitches

One thing that the security experts are fearing in the upcoming&nbsp;US elections&nbsp;is technical glitches and international interference. Adding to the worries, astrologers have predicted that due to the movement of the Mercury planet, the country can face technical glitches and breakdowns. This has added to the worries of the already-controlversial mail-in voting system that has been adopted by the US states this year to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. The astrologers ar urging people to double check their voting slips and ensure that they participate in the early voting rather than waiting till the last moment.

US Election Prediction

The astrologers and numerologists, however, have refused to comment on who will be the ultimate winner, claiming that no study can give that answer 100% correctly. However, majority predictions have claimed that even the candidates will not learn about the result for a period longer than the other candidates had to wait for in the past.

Results, this year, will be unpredictable and the time leading up to the announcement of voting — including rallies and voting day — will only get more action-packed, and there will be no dull day till the new President is sworn in and shifts to the White House.

2020 US Election Astrologers Prediction - The US elections are just a few weeks away and a lot of media houses and political experts have been trying to work out their strategies and calculate on the basis of polls that who would be the next President of the United States of America.

2020 US Election Astrologers Prediction - The US elections are just a few weeks away and a lot of media houses and political experts have been trying to work out their strategies and calculate on the basis of polls that who would be the next President of the United States of America. While the polls are being conducted and studied on a daily basis, some astrologers have also come ahead to lend their support in predicting the next President. A lot of astrologers have been taking to the social media platforms to predict whether it will the President Donald Trump continuing his stay in the White House or will the US have Joe Biden as the 46th President of the United States of America. Also read: Nearly 58 million watch US vice-presidential debate, big jump from 2016 However, one thing that majority of the astrologers agree on is that this will be one of the most unpredictable elections in the history of the US. US Election Astrologers Prediction: Joe Biden As per few astrologers, Joe Biden is in his best days of his political career. As per the study of his stars and planets, and after calculating his birth details, numerologists have claimed that Biden will have an action-packed few months in his political career. US Election Astrologers Prediction: Donald Trump On the other hand, Donald Trump's sudden decline in health was something that the astrologers had feared for the past few months now. However, majority readers claim that his health will be on the path of a speedy recovery soon due to his planetary combination. Also read: When a fly ruins your image Technical glitches One thing that the security experts are fearing in the upcoming US elections is technical glitches and international interference. Adding to the worries, astrologers have predicted that due to the movement of the Mercury planet, the country can face technical glitches and breakdowns. This has added to the worries of the already-controlversial mail-in voting system that has been adopted by the US states this year to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus. The astrologers ar urging people to double check their voting slips and ensure that they participate in the early voting rather than waiting till the last moment. US Election Prediction The astrologers and numerologists, however, have refused to comment on who will be the ultimate winner, claiming that no study can give that answer 100% correctly. However, majority predictions have claimed that even the candidates will not learn about the result for a period longer than the other candidates had to wait for in the past. Results, this year, will be unpredictable and the time leading up to the announcement of voting — including rallies and voting day — will only get more action-packed, and there will be no dull day till the new President is sworn in and shifts to the White House.

US election 2020: Trump or Biden? Astrologers predict the next President

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows hosted a large wedding for his daughter that apparently violated a Georgia order and city of Atlanta guidelines to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

According to a newspaper report, photos of the event show guests crowding together during the May 31 nuptials at the Biltmore Ballrooms Atlanta.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on Thursday about 70 guests, including US Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, did not wear masks at the indoor wedding.

Photographs show groups of people clustered closely together in the same room throughout the evening, the newspaper said.

Governor Brian Kemp's orders at the time banned gatherings of more than 10 people. The governor later loosened some coronavirus restrictions.

Meanwhile, it has also been reported that on the same night as the wedding and less than 2 miles away, riot police were firing tear gas and Georgia National Guard troops were sealing off parts of downtown Atlanta during protests in response to the deaths of George Floyd in Minnesota and Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia. More than 60 people were arrested.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows hosted a large wedding for his daughter that apparently violated a Georgia order and city of Atlanta guidelines to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows hosted a large wedding for his daughter that apparently violated a Georgia order and city of Atlanta guidelines to stop the spread of the coronavirus. According to a newspaper report, photos of the event show guests crowding together during the May 31 nuptials at the Biltmore Ballrooms Atlanta. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported on Thursday about 70 guests, including US Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, did not wear masks at the indoor wedding. Photographs show groups of people clustered closely together in the same room throughout the evening, the newspaper said. Governor Brian Kemp's orders at the time banned gatherings of more than 10 people. The governor later loosened some coronavirus restrictions. Meanwhile, it has also been reported that on the same night as the wedding and less than 2 miles away, riot police were firing tear gas and Georgia National Guard troops were sealing off parts of downtown Atlanta during protests in response to the deaths of George Floyd in Minnesota and Ahmaud Arbery in Georgia. More than 60 people were arrested.

Trump official ignored virus rules at wedding, report says

US President Donald Trump's announcement of completing the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by Christmas has taken aback nation's military, with officials saying they haven't been informed about the process and concerned over its impact on Taliban-Afghanistan peace talks.&nbsp;

Trump on Wednesday tweeted that the remaining number of "brave" US military personnel would return by Christmas, a move welcomed by the Taliban.&nbsp;

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/nato-chief-says-allies-will-leave-afghanistan-together-333582">NATO chief says allies will leave Afghanistan together</a>

He elaborated his announcement in an interview to Fox News, saying: "We're down to 4,000 troops in Afghanistan. I'll have them home by the end of the year. They're coming home, you know, as we speak. Nineteen years is enough. They're acting as policemen, OK? They're not acting as troops."

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/donald-trump-wants-us-forces-to-pull-out-from-afghanistan-by-christmas-333352">Donald Trump wants US forces to pull out from Afghanistan by Christmas</a>

Several US officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity said they were not informed about any new deadline, reported news agency The Associated Press.

In fact, they pointed to remarks by National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien on Wednesday, in which he said: "as of today, there are under 5,000 and that will go to 2,500 by early next year".

The US military has also continually said that counterterrorism personnel would remain in Afghanistan for some time in view of threats by al-Qaida and Islamic State.&nbsp;

The US has earlier maintained that any troop withdrawal from Afghanistan would depend on the situation on the ground and a considerable reduction in Taliban attacks.&nbsp;

US President Donald Trump's announcement of completing the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by Christmas has taken aback nation's military, with officials saying they haven't been informed about the process and concerned over its impact on Taliban-Afghanistan peace talks.

US President Donald Trump's announcement of completing the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan by Christmas has taken aback nation's military, with officials saying they haven't been informed about the process and concerned over its impact on Taliban-Afghanistan peace talks. Trump on Wednesday tweeted that the remaining number of "brave" US military personnel would return by Christmas, a move welcomed by the Taliban. Also read | NATO chief says allies will leave Afghanistan together He elaborated his announcement in an interview to Fox News, saying: "We're down to 4,000 troops in Afghanistan. I'll have them home by the end of the year. They're coming home, you know, as we speak. Nineteen years is enough. They're acting as policemen, OK? They're not acting as troops." Also read | Donald Trump wants US forces to pull out from Afghanistan by Christmas Several US officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity said they were not informed about any new deadline, reported news agency The Associated Press. In fact, they pointed to remarks by National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien on Wednesday, in which he said: "as of today, there are under 5,000 and that will go to 2,500 by early next year". The US military has also continually said that counterterrorism personnel would remain in Afghanistan for some time in view of threats by al-Qaida and Islamic State. The US has earlier maintained that any troop withdrawal from Afghanistan would depend on the situation on the ground and a considerable reduction in Taliban attacks.

US military startled with Trump's announcement of complete troop withdrawal from Afghanistan

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-can-return-to-public-events-saturday-may-hold-a-rally-in-florida-333707">Trump can return to public events Saturday, may hold a rally in Florida</a>

US President Donald Trump should be able to resume "public engagements" from Saturday, the White House physician announced Thursday | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-can-return-to-public-events-saturday-may-hold-a-rally-in-florida-333707">READ MORE</a>

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/russia-invites-leaders-of-armenia-azerbaijan-for-urgent-peace-talks-333720">Russia invites leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan for urgent peace talks</a>

The foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia have been invited to take part in talks in Moscow on Friday, the Kremlin cited President Vladimir Putin as saying | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/russia-invites-leaders-of-armenia-azerbaijan-for-urgent-peace-talks-333720">READ MORE</a>

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/china-censors-us-vice-presidential-debate-when-pence-gets-asked-on-the-communist-nation-333731">China censors US Vice Presidential Debate when Pence gets asked on the communist nation</a>

Live coverage of US Vice-Presidential Debate was blocked in China at the time when US Vice President Mike Pence was asked a question on the communist nation | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/china-censors-us-vice-presidential-debate-when-pence-gets-asked-on-the-communist-nation-333731">READ MORE</a>

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/kidnapped-mali-politician-french-aid-worker-and-two-italians-freed-333710">Kidnapped Mali politician, French aid worker and two Italians freed</a>

An elderly French aid worker and a top Malian politician landed in the capital Bamako to an emotional reunion with their loved ones after being released from captivity by presumed jihadists | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/kidnapped-mali-politician-french-aid-worker-and-two-italians-freed-333710">READ MORE</a>

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/michigan-governor-links-trump-to-foiled-kidnapping-plot-333729">Michigan governor links Trump to foiled kidnapping plot</a>

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer linked a plot to kidnap her to US President Donald Trump, arguing on Thursday in a speech hours after arrests were announced that Trump's words had been a "rallying cry" for extremists | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/michigan-governor-links-trump-to-foiled-kidnapping-plot-333729">READ MORE</a>

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/nearly-58-million-watch-us-vice-presidential-debate-big-jump-from-2016-333722">Nearly 58 million watch US vice-presidential debate, big jump from 2016</a>

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence`s debate with Democrat Kamala Harris attracted 57.9 million TV viewers, the second-highest audience ever for a matchup between vice presidential candidates, according to Nielsen data released on Thursday | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/nearly-58-million-watch-us-vice-presidential-debate-big-jump-from-2016-333722">READ MORE</a>

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/kyrgyzstan-president-says-ready-to-resign-once-new-cabinet-appointed-333716">Kyrgyzstan president says ready to resign once new cabinet appointed</a>

Kyrgyzstan's President Sooronbai Jeenbekov said on Friday he was ready to resign once a new cabinet was appointed to end the power vacuum in the Central Asian nation gripped by unrest since opposition supporters seized government buildings on Tuesday | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/kyrgyzstan-president-says-ready-to-resign-once-new-cabinet-appointed-333716">READ MORE</a>

Trump can return to public events Saturday, may hold a rally in Florida US President Donald Trump should be able to resume "public engagements" from Saturday, the White House physician announced Thursday | READ MORE Russia invites leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan for urgent peace talks The foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia have been invited to take part in talks in Moscow on Friday, the Kremlin cited President Vladimir Putin as saying | READ MORE China censors US Vice Presidential Debate when Pence gets asked on the communist nation Live coverage of US Vice-Presidential Debate was blocked in China at the time when US Vice President Mike Pence was asked a question on the communist nation | READ MORE Kidnapped Mali politician, French aid worker and two Italians freed An elderly French aid worker and a top Malian politician landed in the capital Bamako to an emotional reunion with their loved ones after being released from captivity by presumed jihadists | READ MORE Michigan governor links Trump to foiled kidnapping plot Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer linked a plot to kidnap her to US President Donald Trump, arguing on Thursday in a speech hours after arrests were announced that Trump's words had been a "rallying cry" for extremists | READ MORE Nearly 58 million watch US vice-presidential debate, big jump from 2016 U.

Trump can return to public events Saturday, may hold a rally in Florida US President Donald Trump should be able to resume "public engagements" from Saturday, the White House physician announced Thursday | READ MORE Russia invites leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan for urgent peace talks The foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia have been invited to take part in talks in Moscow on Friday, the Kremlin cited President Vladimir Putin as saying | READ MORE China censors US Vice Presidential Debate when Pence gets asked on the communist nation Live coverage of US Vice-Presidential Debate was blocked in China at the time when US Vice President Mike Pence was asked a question on the communist nation | READ MORE Kidnapped Mali politician, French aid worker and two Italians freed An elderly French aid worker and a top Malian politician landed in the capital Bamako to an emotional reunion with their loved ones after being released from captivity by presumed jihadists | READ MORE Michigan governor links Trump to foiled kidnapping plot Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer linked a plot to kidnap her to US President Donald Trump, arguing on Thursday in a speech hours after arrests were announced that Trump's words had been a "rallying cry" for extremists | READ MORE Nearly 58 million watch US vice-presidential debate, big jump from 2016 U.S. Vice President Mike Pence`s debate with Democrat Kamala Harris attracted 57.9 million TV viewers, the second-highest audience ever for a matchup between vice presidential candidates, according to Nielsen data released on Thursday | READ MORE Kyrgyzstan president says ready to resign once new cabinet appointed Kyrgyzstan's President Sooronbai Jeenbekov said on Friday he was ready to resign once a new cabinet was appointed to end the power vacuum in the Central Asian nation gripped by unrest since opposition supporters seized government buildings on Tuesday | READ MORE

Morning news brief: Updates on Trump's health, Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict and more

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday if Joe Biden won the presidential election, Vice-Presidential candidate Kamala Harris will takeover his chair in a month's time.&nbsp;

In an interview to Fox News on Thursday, Trump also said Harris's performance in the vice-presidential debate was "terrible" and described her as a "communist".&nbsp;

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/nearly-58-million-watch-us-vice-presidential-debate-big-jump-from-2016-333722">Nearly 58 million watch US vice-presidential debate, big jump from 2016</a>

"I thought that wasn't even a contest last night. She was terrible. I don't think you could get worse. And totally unlikable. She's a Communist. She's left of Bernie (Sanders). She's rated left of Bernie by everybody. She's a Communist," Trump said.&nbsp;

Also read |&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/after-refusing-to-participate-in-virtual-debate-trump-team-pushes-for-schedule-changes-biden-refuses-333504">After refusing to participate in 'virtual' debate, Trump team pushes for schedule changes; Biden refuses</a>

"We're going to have a Communist. Look, I sit next to Joe and I looked at Joe. Joe's not lasting two months as president. That's my opinion. He's not going to be lasting two months."

The US president also said intends to open up the borders to let "rapists", "murderers" and "killers" enter into the US.&nbsp;

Trump, later in a tweet also said if a Republican lied the way Biden and Harris are, "Lame stream media would be calling them out at a level never recorded before."

"For one year they called for no fracking and big tax increases. Now they each say opposite. Fake news is working overtime!" Trump's tweet said.&nbsp;

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday if Joe Biden won the presidential election, Vice-Presidential candidate Kamala Harris will takeover his chair in a month's time.

US President Donald Trump said on Thursday if Joe Biden won the presidential election, Vice-Presidential candidate Kamala Harris will takeover his chair in a month's time. In an interview to Fox News on Thursday, Trump also said Harris's performance in the vice-presidential debate was "terrible" and described her as a "communist". Also read | Nearly 58 million watch US vice-presidential debate, big jump from 2016 "I thought that wasn't even a contest last night. She was terrible. I don't think you could get worse. And totally unlikable. She's a Communist. She's left of Bernie (Sanders). She's rated left of Bernie by everybody. She's a Communist," Trump said. Also read | After refusing to participate in 'virtual' debate, Trump team pushes for schedule changes; Biden refuses "We're going to have a Communist. Look, I sit next to Joe and I looked at Joe. Joe's not lasting two months as president. That's my opinion. He's not going to be lasting two months." The US president also said intends to open up the borders to let "rapists", "murderers" and "killers" enter into the US. Trump, later in a tweet also said if a Republican lied the way Biden and Harris are, "Lame stream media would be calling them out at a level never recorded before." "For one year they called for no fracking and big tax increases. Now they each say opposite. Fake news is working overtime!" Trump's tweet said.

If Biden wins election, Harris will takeover in a month: Donald Trump

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer linked a plot to kidnap her to US President Donald Trump, arguing on Thursday in a speech hours after arrests were announced that Trump's words had been a "rallying cry" for extremists.

Whitmer's coronavirus response has faced criticism from conservatives, and the GOP-led Michigan Legislature sued her in May to try to invalidate her stay-at-home order and other measures.

The arrests and Whitmer's comments come less than a month before the presidential election in a key battleground state, where recent polls show Biden has a lead.

Thirteen people, including seven men associated with the Wolverine Watchmen militia group, were arrested in a sweeping takedown of plots to kidnap the Michigan governor, attack the state capitol building and incite violence.

The group aimed to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who has traded barbs with Trump over her response to the coronavirus pandemic, ahead of the November 3 presidential election, according to a criminal complaint.

At one point, the alleged plotters discussed recruiting a force of 200 to storm the state capitol in Lansing and take hostages, but later abandoned the plan in favor of surveiling and kidnapping Whitmer at her vacation home, the complaint said.

At a news conference, Whitmer accused Trump of encouraging extremist groups like the "sick and depraved men" that targetted her, citing his failure to condemn white supremacists at the recent US presidential debate against Joe Biden as an example.

"When our leaders meet with, encourage and fraternise with domestic terrorists they legitimise their actions, and they are complicit," Whitmer said.

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany pushed back at her remarks, saying Trump has condemned all forms of hate.

Democrat Joe Biden sought to tie Trump to the plot as well, pointing to the president's tweet earlier this year to "LIBERATE MICHIGAN."

Whitmer, a Democrat, said the Republican president has spent the last seven months of the coronavirus pandemic "denying science, ignoring his own health experts, stoking distrust, fomenting anger and giving comfort to those who spread fear and hatred and division."

She singled out Trump's debate comments, when he didn't condemn white supremacist groups and told one far-right extremist group to "stand back and stand by."

Internal US security memos in recent months have warned that violent domestic extremists could pose a threat to election-related targets, a concern exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, political tensions, civil unrest and foreign disinformation campaigns.

The FBI became aware through social media in early 2020 that a group of people were discussing the "violent overthrow" of multiple state governments and used confidential sources to track their movements, according to the complaint.

The group of six facing federal charges -- Adam Fox, Barry Croft, Ty Garbin, Kaleb Franks, Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta -- could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted on charges of attempting to kidnap Whitmer.

The Wolverine Watchmen has used Facebook since November 2019 to recruit members, according to affidavits in support of the state charges. The group, which is anti-law enforcement, trained with firearms to prepare for an uprising against the government and what they believe is an "impending politically motivated civil war," according to the affidavits.

Michigan is a key swing state in the 2020 presidential race, and Trump and his supporters demanded the governor relax social-distancing rules. Militia members were among those that took to the streets in April to protest the various rules.

The militia movement in the United States became prominent in the mid-1990s and surged again a little more than a decade ago with the arrival of social media and election of former President Barack Obama, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer linked a plot to kidnap her to US President Donald Trump, arguing on Thursday in a speech hours after arrests were announced that Trump's words had been a "rallying cry" for extremists.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer linked a plot to kidnap her to US President Donald Trump, arguing on Thursday in a speech hours after arrests were announced that Trump's words had been a "rallying cry" for extremists. Whitmer's coronavirus response has faced criticism from conservatives, and the GOP-led Michigan Legislature sued her in May to try to invalidate her stay-at-home order and other measures. The arrests and Whitmer's comments come less than a month before the presidential election in a key battleground state, where recent polls show Biden has a lead. Thirteen people, including seven men associated with the Wolverine Watchmen militia group, were arrested in a sweeping takedown of plots to kidnap the Michigan governor, attack the state capitol building and incite violence. The group aimed to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who has traded barbs with Trump over her response to the coronavirus pandemic, ahead of the November 3 presidential election, according to a criminal complaint. At one point, the alleged plotters discussed recruiting a force of 200 to storm the state capitol in Lansing and take hostages, but later abandoned the plan in favor of surveiling and kidnapping Whitmer at her vacation home, the complaint said. At a news conference, Whitmer accused Trump of encouraging extremist groups like the "sick and depraved men" that targetted her, citing his failure to condemn white supremacists at the recent US presidential debate against Joe Biden as an example. "When our leaders meet with, encourage and fraternise with domestic terrorists they legitimise their actions, and they are complicit," Whitmer said. White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany pushed back at her remarks, saying Trump has condemned all forms of hate. Democrat Joe Biden sought to tie Trump to the plot as well, pointing to the president's tweet earlier this year to "LIBERATE MICHIGAN." Whitmer, a Democrat, said the Republican president has spent the last seven months of the coronavirus pandemic "denying science, ignoring his own health experts, stoking distrust, fomenting anger and giving comfort to those who spread fear and hatred and division." She singled out Trump's debate comments, when he didn't condemn white supremacist groups and told one far-right extremist group to "stand back and stand by." Internal US security memos in recent months have warned that violent domestic extremists could pose a threat to election-related targets, a concern exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, political tensions, civil unrest and foreign disinformation campaigns. The FBI became aware through social media in early 2020 that a group of people were discussing the "violent overthrow" of multiple state governments and used confidential sources to track their movements, according to the complaint. The group of six facing federal charges -- Adam Fox, Barry Croft, Ty Garbin, Kaleb Franks, Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta -- could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted on charges of attempting to kidnap Whitmer. The Wolverine Watchmen has used Facebook since November 2019 to recruit members, according to affidavits in support of the state charges. The group, which is anti-law enforcement, trained with firearms to prepare for an uprising against the government and what they believe is an "impending politically motivated civil war," according to the affidavits. Michigan is a key swing state in the 2020 presidential race, and Trump and his supporters demanded the governor relax social-distancing rules. Militia members were among those that took to the streets in April to protest the various rules. The militia movement in the United States became prominent in the mid-1990s and surged again a little more than a decade ago with the arrival of social media and election of former President Barack Obama, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

Michigan governor links Trump to foiled kidnapping plot

WASHINGTON —&nbsp;On Wednesday, President Donald Trump portrayed as a miracle “cure” the experimental antibody mixture he took for his case of COVID-19, which had landed him in Walter Reed National Medical Military Center just days before. Trump returned to the White House three days after taking the drug.

But the antibody treatment, made by the drug company Regeneron, has not yet been proven effective against the coronavirus by rigorous clinical trials in people.

Dr. Taison Bell, a critical care physician at the University of Virginia, noted that it was not yet possible to tell whether the treatment actually “cured,” or even significantly benefited, the president. Doctors administered it to Trump alongside other therapies, including an antiviral called remdesivir and the steroid dexamethasone. The latter is known to provoke a temporary surge in well-being.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/what-happens-if-a-us-presidential-candidate-dies-before-the-election-333986">Also read|&nbsp;What happens if a US presidential candidate dies before the election</a>

“From a scientific standpoint, it makes it extremely hard to figure out what benefit came from which of the three medications,” Bell said.

Medical experts were also quick to point out that Trump’s touting of the treatment was at least the third time this year that the president has exaggerated the benefits of an unapproved COVID-19 therapy. He had previously promoted hydroxychloroquine and convalescent plasma, and on Wednesday advocated making the antibody treatment “free” for anyone who needed it.

Hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug that researchers attempted to repurpose for use in people with the coronavirus, was repeatedly championed — and taken — by Trump, despite a lack of evidence that it worked. After granting emergency authorization for use of hydroxychloroquine, the Food and Drug Administration revoked it, citing studies showing that the drug did not help COVID-19 patients and could cause serious side effects in some.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/us-election-2020-trump-or-biden-astrologers-predict-the-next-president-333963">Also read|&nbsp;US election 2020: Trump or Biden? Astrologers predict the next President</a>

Convalescent plasma is the antibody-rich portion of blood donated by people who have recovered from COVID-19. Trump pressured the FDA to give the treatment emergency approval in August, even though there was no strong evidence that it benefited sick patients.

Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency medicine physician at Brown University, said that the endless cycle of talking up new treatments — many of which might not pan out — could erode public trust in science and medicine.

“It’s like the boy who cried wolf,” she said. “It’s going to make it more difficult to get the real changers.”

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/how-the-white-house-flouted-basic-coronavirus-rules-333870">Also read|&nbsp;How the White House flouted basic coronavirus rules</a>

Experts think monoclonal antibodies, like the combination taken by Trump, could fare better than hydroxychloroquine and convalescent plasma.

The treatment is “super promising, and all of us are excited from a theoretical perspective,” Ranney said. “But it’s just too early,” she added, to tell if theory will translate into practice.

Monoclonal antibodies are synthetic, mass-produced mimics of the molecules the human body produces in response to an infection. Some antibodies are powerful enough to block the coronavirus from infiltrating cells. Administered to people battling the coronavirus, the monoclonal antibodies could help naturally produced immune molecules fend off the virus.

Just days before Trump tested positive for the coronavirus and was admitted to the hospital, Regeneron announced a batch of preliminary results, collected from ongoing trials, via news release. They suggested Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody treatment could tamp down the amount of virus found in the nasal cavity, and hasten recovery in people who had contracted the virus but hadn’t been hospitalized.

On Wednesday evening, Regeneron announced it was seeking an emergency approval from the FDA for its antibody mixture.

The data so far for monoclonal antibodies looks “very promising,” said Dr. Phyllis Tien, an infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Francisco. But it’s crucial, she added, to let the trials run to completion to fully assess safety and efficacy. Unanticipated side effects could crop up, or the treatment might not perform as well in certain people as it does in others.

Trump’s allusions to making monoclonal antibodies “free” for widespread use are also probably off base. Monoclonal antibodies are expensive and difficult to produce in large quantities. Regeneron estimated that it would initially have enough doses for only 50,000 people, though the company plans to scale up production in coming months.

What’s cheaper, Ranney said, are the many preventive strategies available to keep the virus from infecting people in the first place, such as masks and physical distancing: “How about we focus on that?”

WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, President Donald Trump portrayed as a miracle “cure” the experimental antibody mixture he took for his case of COVID-19, which had landed him in Walter Reed National Medical Military Center just days before.

WASHINGTON — On Wednesday, President Donald Trump portrayed as a miracle “cure” the experimental antibody mixture he took for his case of COVID-19, which had landed him in Walter Reed National Medical Military Center just days before. Trump returned to the White House three days after taking the drug. But the antibody treatment, made by the drug company Regeneron, has not yet been proven effective against the coronavirus by rigorous clinical trials in people. Dr. Taison Bell, a critical care physician at the University of Virginia, noted that it was not yet possible to tell whether the treatment actually “cured,” or even significantly benefited, the president. Doctors administered it to Trump alongside other therapies, including an antiviral called remdesivir and the steroid dexamethasone. The latter is known to provoke a temporary surge in well-being. Also read| What happens if a US presidential candidate dies before the election “From a scientific standpoint, it makes it extremely hard to figure out what benefit came from which of the three medications,” Bell said. Medical experts were also quick to point out that Trump’s touting of the treatment was at least the third time this year that the president has exaggerated the benefits of an unapproved COVID-19 therapy. He had previously promoted hydroxychloroquine and convalescent plasma, and on Wednesday advocated making the antibody treatment “free” for anyone who needed it. Hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug that researchers attempted to repurpose for use in people with the coronavirus, was repeatedly championed — and taken — by Trump, despite a lack of evidence that it worked. After granting emergency authorization for use of hydroxychloroquine, the Food and Drug Administration revoked it, citing studies showing that the drug did not help COVID-19 patients and could cause serious side effects in some. Also read| US election 2020: Trump or Biden? Astrologers predict the next President Convalescent plasma is the antibody-rich portion of blood donated by people who have recovered from COVID-19. Trump pressured the FDA to give the treatment emergency approval in August, even though there was no strong evidence that it benefited sick patients. Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency medicine physician at Brown University, said that the endless cycle of talking up new treatments — many of which might not pan out — could erode public trust in science and medicine. “It’s like the boy who cried wolf,” she said. “It’s going to make it more difficult to get the real changers.” Also read| How the White House flouted basic coronavirus rules Experts think monoclonal antibodies, like the combination taken by Trump, could fare better than hydroxychloroquine and convalescent plasma. The treatment is “super promising, and all of us are excited from a theoretical perspective,” Ranney said. “But it’s just too early,” she added, to tell if theory will translate into practice. Monoclonal antibodies are synthetic, mass-produced mimics of the molecules the human body produces in response to an infection. Some antibodies are powerful enough to block the coronavirus from infiltrating cells. Administered to people battling the coronavirus, the monoclonal antibodies could help naturally produced immune molecules fend off the virus. Just days before Trump tested positive for the coronavirus and was admitted to the hospital, Regeneron announced a batch of preliminary results, collected from ongoing trials, via news release. They suggested Regeneron’s monoclonal antibody treatment could tamp down the amount of virus found in the nasal cavity, and hasten recovery in people who had contracted the virus but hadn’t been hospitalized. On Wednesday evening, Regeneron announced it was seeking an emergency approval from the FDA for its antibody mixture. The data so far for monoclonal antibodies looks “very promising,” said Dr. Phyllis Tien, an infectious disease physician at the University of California, San Francisco. But it’s crucial, she added, to let the trials run to completion to fully assess safety and efficacy. Unanticipated side effects could crop up, or the treatment might not perform as well in certain people as it does in others. Trump’s allusions to making monoclonal antibodies “free” for widespread use are also probably off base. Monoclonal antibodies are expensive and difficult to produce in large quantities. Regeneron estimated that it would initially have enough doses for only 50,000 people, though the company plans to scale up production in coming months. What’s cheaper, Ranney said, are the many preventive strategies available to keep the virus from infecting people in the first place, such as masks and physical distancing: “How about we focus on that?”

With ‘cure’ comment, Trump exaggerates known benefits of another COVID-19 therapy

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence`s debate with Democrat Kamala Harris attracted 57.9 million TV viewers, the second-highest audience ever for a matchup between vice presidential candidates, according to Nielsen data released on Thursday.

The viewership figure for the Wednesday evening faceoff in Salt Lake City included people watching across 18 networks. The tally came in 56% higher than four years ago, when 37 million people tuned in to see Pence debate Democrat Tim Kaine.

During the policy-heavy 90-minute event, Pence and Harris clashed over the Trump administration`s handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Vice presidential debates typically draw smaller audiences than presidential clashes. President Donald Trump`s Sept. 29 debate with Democratic challenger Joe Biden pulled in 73 million viewers, making it the second-biggest event on U.S. television this year, after the Super Bowl.

The TV viewing record for a vice presidential debate was set in 2008, when Biden debated Republican Sarah Palin. That telecast drew 69.9 million viewers.

For the Pence-Harris matchup, Fox News Channel&nbsp;led all networks, with 11.9 million viewers.

The Nielsen numbers included people watching at home and at such venues as bars and restaurants. It also included some digital viewership through televisions connected to the internet.

The figures do not capture the full extent of online viewing, which has grown in popularity as traditional TV audiences decline, however. The debate was streamed live on Twitter, YouTube, network websites and other digital platforms.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence`s debate with Democrat Kamala Harris attracted 57.9 million TV viewers, the second-highest audience ever for a matchup between vice presidential candidates, according to Nielsen data released on Thursday.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence`s debate with Democrat Kamala Harris attracted 57.9 million TV viewers, the second-highest audience ever for a matchup between vice presidential candidates, according to Nielsen data released on Thursday. The viewership figure for the Wednesday evening faceoff in Salt Lake City included people watching across 18 networks. The tally came in 56% higher than four years ago, when 37 million people tuned in to see Pence debate Democrat Tim Kaine. During the policy-heavy 90-minute event, Pence and Harris clashed over the Trump administration`s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Vice presidential debates typically draw smaller audiences than presidential clashes. President Donald Trump`s Sept. 29 debate with Democratic challenger Joe Biden pulled in 73 million viewers, making it the second-biggest event on U.S. television this year, after the Super Bowl. The TV viewing record for a vice presidential debate was set in 2008, when Biden debated Republican Sarah Palin. That telecast drew 69.9 million viewers. For the Pence-Harris matchup, Fox News Channel led all networks, with 11.9 million viewers. The Nielsen numbers included people watching at home and at such venues as bars and restaurants. It also included some digital viewership through televisions connected to the internet. The figures do not capture the full extent of online viewing, which has grown in popularity as traditional TV audiences decline, however. The debate was streamed live on Twitter, YouTube, network websites and other digital platforms.

Nearly 58 million watch US vice-presidential debate, big jump from 2016

After the US President&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/topics/donald-trump">Donald Trump</a>&nbsp;claimed to have recovered from the novel coronavirus by a drug that can "cure" the virus, the popularity of this drug has increase manifolds.

Few days ago,&nbsp;Trump&nbsp;claimed that the&nbsp;Regeneron Pharmaceuticals drug is “a blessing from God” and labelled it to be a “cure” for the virus.

Since then, people are showing more interest in this drug and are more willing to join the clinical trials of antibody-based COVID-19 drugs.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/with-cure-comment-trump-exaggerates-known-benefits-of-another-covid-19-therapy-334003">Also read|&nbsp;With ‘cure’ comment, Trump exaggerates known benefits of another COVID-19 therapy</a>

A team of doctors told the news agency Reuters that more and more people are now willing to participate in these clinical trials. However, the doctors have added that the drug&nbsp;REGN-COV2 is still in its early stages of development and the medical experts would need more information and data to take a final call on this drug.

Afetr&nbsp;Trump's&nbsp;statement on Wednesday,&nbsp;Regeneron announced that it has submitted an application to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) to obtain permission for&nbsp;an emergency use authorisation of the drug.&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/what-happens-if-a-us-presidential-candidate-dies-before-the-election-333986">Also read|&nbsp;What happens if a US presidential candidate dies before the election</a>

“The politics of the situation would suggest to me that the story could be Trump gets COVID … then American technology fostered by the Trump administration cures Covid,” said Dr Dirk Sostman, head of research network at Houston Methodist Hospital, a trial site for Regeneron’s antibody programsaid. “I would think there would be pressure on regulators [to approve the drug],” he said.

As of now, the company has claimed that nearly 275 people had participated in the first phase of the trial of the drug.&nbsp;Trump&nbsp;had announced that he would try to make this drug free for all Americans and would ask the company to immediately produce enough to help thousands of people.&nbsp;Regeneron&nbsp;has claimed that they have enough resources to ctaer to the needs of 50,000 patients and would have enough for 300,000 patients in the coming months.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/how-the-white-house-flouted-basic-coronavirus-rules-333870">Also read|&nbsp;How the White House flouted basic coronavirus rules</a>

Regeneron’s drug is a cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies that are manufactured copies of antibodies, which are one of the main shields generated by the immune system to fight infections.

“Patients most likely to benefit from this treatment have a similar profile to President Trump, in that they had undetectable antibodies at baseline and were early in the course of disease,” Regeneron spokeswoman Alexandra Bowie said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

After the US President Donald Trump claimed to have recovered from the novel coronavirus by a drug that can "cure" the virus, the popularity of this drug has increase manifolds.

After the US President Donald Trump claimed to have recovered from the novel coronavirus by a drug that can "cure" the virus, the popularity of this drug has increase manifolds. Few days ago, Trump claimed that the Regeneron Pharmaceuticals drug is “a blessing from God” and labelled it to be a “cure” for the virus. Since then, people are showing more interest in this drug and are more willing to join the clinical trials of antibody-based COVID-19 drugs. Also read| With ‘cure’ comment, Trump exaggerates known benefits of another COVID-19 therapy A team of doctors told the news agency Reuters that more and more people are now willing to participate in these clinical trials. However, the doctors have added that the drug REGN-COV2 is still in its early stages of development and the medical experts would need more information and data to take a final call on this drug. Afetr Trump's statement on Wednesday, Regeneron announced that it has submitted an application to the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) to obtain permission for an emergency use authorisation of the drug. Also read| What happens if a US presidential candidate dies before the election “The politics of the situation would suggest to me that the story could be Trump gets COVID … then American technology fostered by the Trump administration cures Covid,” said Dr Dirk Sostman, head of research network at Houston Methodist Hospital, a trial site for Regeneron’s antibody programsaid. “I would think there would be pressure on regulators [to approve the drug],” he said. As of now, the company has claimed that nearly 275 people had participated in the first phase of the trial of the drug. Trump had announced that he would try to make this drug free for all Americans and would ask the company to immediately produce enough to help thousands of people. Regeneron has claimed that they have enough resources to ctaer to the needs of 50,000 patients and would have enough for 300,000 patients in the coming months. Also read| How the White House flouted basic coronavirus rules Regeneron’s drug is a cocktail of two monoclonal antibodies that are manufactured copies of antibodies, which are one of the main shields generated by the immune system to fight infections. “Patients most likely to benefit from this treatment have a similar profile to President Trump, in that they had undetectable antibodies at baseline and were early in the course of disease,” Regeneron spokeswoman Alexandra Bowie said in an emailed statement to Reuters.

More people willing to participate in Regeneron's trial after Trump calls it a 'cure'

US President Donald Trump should be able to resume "public engagements" from Saturday, the White House physician announced Thursday. The doctor added he had responded "extremely well" to Covid-19 treatment.

Trump, on his part,&nbsp;said he might try to attend a rally on Saturday night, probably in Florida.

He said he was feeling "so good" and that he would be keen to get back to campaigning.

"I think I'm going to try doing a rally on Saturday night, if we have enough time to put it together, but we want to do a rally... probably in Florida on Saturday night, might come back and do one in Pennsylvania in the following night," he said, in an interview with Fox News.

During the telephonic interview, he insisted&nbsp;he had recovered from&nbsp;Covid-19 and was “not contagious at all”. However, by the end of the call,&nbsp;he coughed --&nbsp;his voice audibly hoarse, telling a different story altogether.

He also said he would probably get a COVID-19 test on Friday.

Trump spent three days in the hospital before returning to the White House on Monday evening.

"Saturday will be day 10 since Thursday's diagnosis, and based on the trajectory of advanced diagnostics the team has been conducting, I fully anticipate the President's safe return to public engagements at that time," Trump's doctor Sean Conley said in a statement.

Since his diagnosis, Trump has received an experimental antibody treatment, the antiviral drug remdesivir and the steroid dexamethasone.

With only 26 days to go until the November 3 election, the president is keen to get back on the campaign trail to rally his base, with polls showing him trailing Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

The White House has become a Covid-19 hotspot, with dozens of people close to Trump testing positive.

US President Donald Trump should be able to resume "public engagements" from Saturday, the White House physician announced Thursday. The doctor added he had responded "extremely well" to Covid-19 treatment.

US President Donald Trump should be able to resume "public engagements" from Saturday, the White House physician announced Thursday. The doctor added he had responded "extremely well" to Covid-19 treatment. Trump, on his part, said he might try to attend a rally on Saturday night, probably in Florida. He said he was feeling "so good" and that he would be keen to get back to campaigning. "I think I'm going to try doing a rally on Saturday night, if we have enough time to put it together, but we want to do a rally... probably in Florida on Saturday night, might come back and do one in Pennsylvania in the following night," he said, in an interview with Fox News. During the telephonic interview, he insisted he had recovered from Covid-19 and was “not contagious at all”. However, by the end of the call, he coughed -- his voice audibly hoarse, telling a different story altogether. He also said he would probably get a COVID-19 test on Friday. Trump spent three days in the hospital before returning to the White House on Monday evening. "Saturday will be day 10 since Thursday's diagnosis, and based on the trajectory of advanced diagnostics the team has been conducting, I fully anticipate the President's safe return to public engagements at that time," Trump's doctor Sean Conley said in a statement. Since his diagnosis, Trump has received an experimental antibody treatment, the antiviral drug remdesivir and the steroid dexamethasone. With only 26 days to go until the November 3 election, the president is keen to get back on the campaign trail to rally his base, with polls showing him trailing Democratic challenger Joe Biden. The White House has become a Covid-19 hotspot, with dozens of people close to Trump testing positive.

US Election 2020: Trump can return to public events Saturday, may hold a rally in Florida

Donald Trump's decision to walk away from the next presidential debate because it was set to be held virtually between the President and Democratic nominee Joe Biden into question. This was done because Trump's positive coronavirus diagnosis is altering his reelection bid.

Second Presidential debate to be virtual: Trump rejects virtual debate

The coronavirus outbreak at the White House has now grown to more than 20 people, and evidence is mounting that the administration did little to prevent or contain the virus’s spread. For months, President Donald Trump minimized the threat of the virus and ignored basic safety precautions like wearing a mask or maintaining 6 feet of distance from other people. And at several events last week, White House staff members defied recommendations — from scientists, local authorities and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — on curbing infection, even after the president tested positive. Here is a look at some of the ways Trump and his staff members ignored basic guidelines.

—

The White House relied too heavily on rapid tests.

THE GUIDELINES

The Food and Drug Administration approved the rapid coronavirus tests used by the White House for use only “within the first seven days of the onset of symptoms.” These tests frequently miss infections in people without symptoms.

The CDC says it may be necessary for those who test negative on a rapid test to confirm the result using a lab-based test, especially if they have symptoms or have been in contact with an infected person.

WHAT HAPPENED

Since the early days of the pandemic, the White House has regularly used rapid tests to screen staff members and guests for the coronavirus because they are fast, portable and easy to operate. But those who tested negative would often skip other precautions, like wearing a mask or social distancing. Experts say rapid tests are less accurate for people who are not showing any signs of infection, and they should not be used as the only precaution.

Testing negative does not guarantee a lack of infection, since people who have been recently infected may not have enough virus in their bodies for tests to detect. Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to the president, and Kayleigh McEnany, the press secretary, both tested positive early this week after testing negative in the preceding days.

And while officials had given the impression that Trump was getting tested every day, the White House has since conceded that tests were not as frequent and has refused to reveal the last time Trump tested negative.

—

Members of the administration held meetings indoors, did not wear masks, &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;strong&gt; and failed to maintain recommended social distance.

THE GUIDELINES

The CDC’s guidelines for preventing the spread of the coronavirus say to remain at least six feet away from people outside your household and to “cover your mouth and nose with a mask when around others.” The nation’s health protection agency also recommends hosting gatherings outdoors when possible.

WHAT HAPPENED

The Trump administration allowed those who received a negative result to go without a mask to meetings and events, including at a reception inside the White House for the Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett.

The president also huddled with advisers for maskless preparation sessions ahead of the first presidential debate, held on Sept. 29. Several of those involved — including Chris Christie, a former governor of New Jersey; Kellyanne Conway, a former White House adviser; Hope Hicks, a current adviser; and Bill Stepien, Trump’s campaign manager — have said they have since tested positive.

The president and his staff members also spent several hours in the enclosed space of Air Force One last week traveling to events in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Ohio and New Jersey. At least eight people aboard those flights, including Hicks, McEnany, Miller and Stepien, have since tested positive for the virus.

—

The White House and Trump campaign hosted large gatherings that flouted state and local restrictions.

THE GUIDELINES

CDC guidelines say large, in-person gatherings where it is difficult to maintain social distance of at least 6 feet apart pose the “highest risk” of spreading the coronavirus among all types of gatherings and events. This includes both indoor and outdoor events.

WHAT HAPPENED

The White House and Trump campaign held several large rallies, fundraisers and other events in the week before Trump tested positive.

The day after Trump hosted at least 200 people in the Rose Garden, the president hosted a White House reception honoring Gold Star families. At least 100 people attended the indoor event, including Adm. Charles Ray, the vice commandant of the Coast Guard, who has since tested positive, prompting many of the country’s top military officials to go into quarantine.

A citywide order in Washington prohibits gatherings of more than 50 people, but because the White House is on federal property, it is exempt from local rules.

The Trump campaign also held three large outdoor rallies that week in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Minnesota, three states whose guidelines limit gatherings to 250 people. Officials in Pennsylvania criticized the Trump campaign for flouting local regulations, and the Virginia event also drew scrutiny.

—

The White House is not tracing contacts of those at a potential ‘super-spreader’ event.

THE GUIDELINES

The CDC advises contact tracing for close contacts of people who have tested positive for the coronavirus or are considered probable cases. Contact tracers notify, interview and advise the close contacts of the infected person, and the CDC says close contacts should themselves be tested.

WHAT HAPPENED

Even though at least 12 attendees have since tested positive, the White House has decided not to trace the contacts of those who attended the Rose Garden event for Barrett. Instead, the White House said it would notify only those who came into contact with Trump in the two days before his positive test on Oct 1.

A White House spokesman did say contact tracing “was completed” for Trump’s Oct. 1 trip to Bedminster, New Jersey. One guest confirmed he received three emails alerting him to possible exposure — one from the Trump campaign and two from state and local government tracers — but said no one had called him.

—

The president and his aides did not quarantine after people near them showed symptoms and tested positive.

THE GUIDELINES

The CDC says those who have been in “close contact” with someone who tests positive should quarantine for 14 days, starting from two days before the infected person’s illness onset. The White House says it is following CDC guidelines for essential personnel who have come in contact with infected people.

WHAT HAPPENED

On Sept. 30, Trump flew aboard Air Force One with staff members and members of Congress to Minnesota for a fundraiser and rally. That night, Hicks felt ill and sat apart from others at the back of Air Force One on the way home.

Anyone who was in close contact with Hicks in the two days before she started feeling symptoms should have quarantined.

Yet despite knowing of Hicks’ illness, Trump and his aides traveled the next day to Bedminster, to a small indoor round table and then a larger outdoor fundraiser. That evening, Bloomberg News reported that Hicks had tested positive, and after midnight, Trump revealed he had also tested positive.

Even after Trump and Hicks tested positive, McEnany, who had been in close contact with both of them, continued to go to work. She hosted a news conference while maskless on the White House lawn the day after the president tested positive and went to work that weekend, later saying she acted as an essential worker. On Monday, she said she had tested positive.

Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, and Dan Scavino Jr., a deputy chief of staff, have continued to work from the West Wing despite repeated exposure to the president. Both were with Trump at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center after he was hospitalized over the weekend and joined the president in the Oval Office on Wednesday, six days after the president’s positive test.

—

The president failed to isolate after testing positive.

THE GUIDELINES

Those who test positive for the coronavirus should isolate themselves from others for a minimum of 10 days after testing positive, according to the CDC, or for at least 10 days after symptoms first appear.

WHAT HAPPENED

Officials say Trump tested positive on Oct. 1. That means he should have isolated until at least Sunday, Oct. 11 — even if he had stopped experiencing symptoms.

Instead, Trump, escorted by Secret Service agents, left isolation Sunday for a drive-by to greet supporters, flew to the White House on Marine One on Monday, and reentered the White House without wearing a mask, defying guidance that is intended to protect others. Video footage of the president before he walked into the White House on Monday showed him in proximity to a photographer and several other people.

The coronavirus outbreak at the White House has now grown to more than 20 people, and evidence is mounting that the administration did little to prevent or contain the virus’s spread.

The coronavirus outbreak at the White House has now grown to more than 20 people, and evidence is mounting that the administration did little to prevent or contain the virus’s spread. For months, President Donald Trump minimized the threat of the virus and ignored basic safety precautions like wearing a mask or maintaining 6 feet of distance from other people. And at several events last week, White House staff members defied recommendations — from scientists, local authorities and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — on curbing infection, even after the president tested positive. Here is a look at some of the ways Trump and his staff members ignored basic guidelines. — The White House relied too heavily on rapid tests. THE GUIDELINES The Food and Drug Administration approved the rapid coronavirus tests used by the White House for use only “within the first seven days of the onset of symptoms.” These tests frequently miss infections in people without symptoms. The CDC says it may be necessary for those who test negative on a rapid test to confirm the result using a lab-based test, especially if they have symptoms or have been in contact with an infected person. WHAT HAPPENED Since the early days of the pandemic, the White House has regularly used rapid tests to screen staff members and guests for the coronavirus because they are fast, portable and easy to operate. But those who tested negative would often skip other precautions, like wearing a mask or social distancing. Experts say rapid tests are less accurate for people who are not showing any signs of infection, and they should not be used as the only precaution. Testing negative does not guarantee a lack of infection, since people who have been recently infected may not have enough virus in their bodies for tests to detect. Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to the president, and Kayleigh McEnany, the press secretary, both tested positive early this week after testing negative in the preceding days. And while officials had given the impression that Trump was getting tested every day, the White House has since conceded that tests were not as frequent and has refused to reveal the last time Trump tested negative. — Members of the administration held meetings indoors, did not wear masks, and failed to maintain recommended social distance. THE GUIDELINES The CDC’s guidelines for preventing the spread of the coronavirus say to remain at least six feet away from people outside your household and to “cover your mouth and nose with a mask when around others.” The nation’s health protection agency also recommends hosting gatherings outdoors when possible. WHAT HAPPENED The Trump administration allowed those who received a negative result to go without a mask to meetings and events, including at a reception inside the White House for the Supreme Court nominee Judge Amy Coney Barrett. The president also huddled with advisers for maskless preparation sessions ahead of the first presidential debate, held on Sept. 29. Several of those involved — including Chris Christie, a former governor of New Jersey; Kellyanne Conway, a former White House adviser; Hope Hicks, a current adviser; and Bill Stepien, Trump’s campaign manager — have said they have since tested positive. The president and his staff members also spent several hours in the enclosed space of Air Force One last week traveling to events in Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Ohio and New Jersey. At least eight people aboard those flights, including Hicks, McEnany, Miller and Stepien, have since tested positive for the virus. — The White House and Trump campaign hosted large gatherings that flouted state and local restrictions. THE GUIDELINES CDC guidelines say large, in-person gatherings where it is difficult to maintain social distance of at least 6 feet apart pose the “highest risk” of spreading the coronavirus among all types of gatherings and events. This includes both indoor and outdoor events. WHAT HAPPENED The White House and Trump campaign held several large rallies, fundraisers and other events in the week before Trump tested positive. The day after Trump hosted at least 200 people in the Rose Garden, the president hosted a White House reception honoring Gold Star families. At least 100 people attended the indoor event, including Adm. Charles Ray, the vice commandant of the Coast Guard, who has since tested positive, prompting many of the country’s top military officials to go into quarantine. A citywide order in Washington prohibits gatherings of more than 50 people, but because the White House is on federal property, it is exempt from local rules. The Trump campaign also held three large outdoor rallies that week in Virginia, Pennsylvania and Minnesota, three states whose guidelines limit gatherings to 250 people. Officials in Pennsylvania criticized the Trump campaign for flouting local regulations, and the Virginia event also drew scrutiny. — The White House is not tracing contacts of those at a potential ‘super-spreader’ event. THE GUIDELINES The CDC advises contact tracing for close contacts of people who have tested positive for the coronavirus or are considered probable cases. Contact tracers notify, interview and advise the close contacts of the infected person, and the CDC says close contacts should themselves be tested. WHAT HAPPENED Even though at least 12 attendees have since tested positive, the White House has decided not to trace the contacts of those who attended the Rose Garden event for Barrett. Instead, the White House said it would notify only those who came into contact with Trump in the two days before his positive test on Oct 1. A White House spokesman did say contact tracing “was completed” for Trump’s Oct. 1 trip to Bedminster, New Jersey. One guest confirmed he received three emails alerting him to possible exposure — one from the Trump campaign and two from state and local government tracers — but said no one had called him. — The president and his aides did not quarantine after people near them showed symptoms and tested positive. THE GUIDELINES The CDC says those who have been in “close contact” with someone who tests positive should quarantine for 14 days, starting from two days before the infected person’s illness onset. The White House says it is following CDC guidelines for essential personnel who have come in contact with infected people. WHAT HAPPENED On Sept. 30, Trump flew aboard Air Force One with staff members and members of Congress to Minnesota for a fundraiser and rally. That night, Hicks felt ill and sat apart from others at the back of Air Force One on the way home. Anyone who was in close contact with Hicks in the two days before she started feeling symptoms should have quarantined. Yet despite knowing of Hicks’ illness, Trump and his aides traveled the next day to Bedminster, to a small indoor round table and then a larger outdoor fundraiser. That evening, Bloomberg News reported that Hicks had tested positive, and after midnight, Trump revealed he had also tested positive. Even after Trump and Hicks tested positive, McEnany, who had been in close contact with both of them, continued to go to work. She hosted a news conference while maskless on the White House lawn the day after the president tested positive and went to work that weekend, later saying she acted as an essential worker. On Monday, she said she had tested positive. Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff, and Dan Scavino Jr., a deputy chief of staff, have continued to work from the West Wing despite repeated exposure to the president. Both were with Trump at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center after he was hospitalized over the weekend and joined the president in the Oval Office on Wednesday, six days after the president’s positive test. — The president failed to isolate after testing positive. THE GUIDELINES Those who test positive for the coronavirus should isolate themselves from others for a minimum of 10 days after testing positive, according to the CDC, or for at least 10 days after symptoms first appear. WHAT HAPPENED Officials say Trump tested positive on Oct. 1. That means he should have isolated until at least Sunday, Oct. 11 — even if he had stopped experiencing symptoms. Instead, Trump, escorted by Secret Service agents, left isolation Sunday for a drive-by to greet supporters, flew to the White House on Marine One on Monday, and reentered the White House without wearing a mask, defying guidance that is intended to protect others. Video footage of the president before he walked into the White House on Monday showed him in proximity to a photographer and several other people.

How the White House flouted basic coronavirus rules

White House physician Sean Conley said today that US President <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/americans-now-trust-masks-after-donald-trump-tests-positive-for-covid-19-333171">Donald Trump</a> has had no coronavirus symptoms for the past 24 hours.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trumps-return-leaves-white-house-in-disarray-as-infections-jolt-west-wing-333183">Also Read:&nbsp;Trump’s return leaves White House in disarray as infections jolt West Wing</a>

"The president this morning says 'I feel great," Conley said.

Trump had returned to the White House on Monday after being tested positive for the virus last week. The US president was admitted at the Walter Reed military medical center for three days.

Meawhile, Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden said he wasn't in favour of going on the TV debate with Trump if the US president still had sytmptoms.

"I'm looking forward to being able to debate him, but I just hope all the protocols are followed," Biden said, adding," "If he still has COVID, we shouldn't have a debate."&nbsp;

Trump had tested positive for COVID-19 just two days after his first debate with Biden.

"It's a very serious problem, so I will be guided by... what the docs say is the right thing to do," Biden added.

Biden and Trump are set to clash again on October 15. The US president had said earlier that he was "looking forward" to the next debate.

White House physician Sean Conley said today that US President Donald Trump has had no coronavirus symptoms for the past 24 hours. Also Read: Trump’s return leaves White House in disarray as infections jolt West Wing "The president this morning says 'I feel great," Conley said.

White House physician Sean Conley said today that US President Donald Trump has had no coronavirus symptoms for the past 24 hours. Also Read: Trump’s return leaves White House in disarray as infections jolt West Wing "The president this morning says 'I feel great," Conley said. Trump had returned to the White House on Monday after being tested positive for the virus last week. The US president was admitted at the Walter Reed military medical center for three days. Meawhile, Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden said he wasn't in favour of going on the TV debate with Trump if the US president still had sytmptoms. "I'm looking forward to being able to debate him, but I just hope all the protocols are followed," Biden said, adding," "If he still has COVID, we shouldn't have a debate." Trump had tested positive for COVID-19 just two days after his first debate with Biden. "It's a very serious problem, so I will be guided by... what the docs say is the right thing to do," Biden added. Biden and Trump are set to clash again on October 15. The US president had said earlier that he was "looking forward" to the next debate.

Trump has shown no coronavirus symptoms for the past 24 hours: White House physician Sean Conley

With over 210,000 lives lost & more than 7.4 million affected, Donald Trump's 'DON'T BE AFRAID OF COVID' tweet comes as a hurtful & insensitive remark. WION tells you how some of the Affected families reacted to the tweet.

US Election 2020: Americans react to 'Don't be afraid' tweet

Kamala Harris & Mike Pence prepare for a historical Vice Presidential Debate at University of Utah, Salt lake. Here are some memorable moments from the past Vice Presidential Debates.

US Election 2020: Best Vice Presidential debate moments

The QAnon conspiracy theories have spread across the social media rapidly this year. Especially after Donald Trump acknowledged it. The movement is now facing a global crackdown with blanket bans everywhere. What is QAnon & Where did it come from?

US Election 2020: Global crackdown on QAnon content

With millions out of work, small businesses & airlines struggling to survive & mounting layoffs, Donald Trump halts stimulus talks. The federal help might not reach millions of waiting Americans till elections or even after. How dangerous is the delay for U.S. Economy?

US Election 2020: Dangerous tipping point for U.S Economy?

Although the #VPDebate was more composed & civil than last week's shout-fest, it was no less viral. A few moments created a BUZZ across social media platforms even before the debate was over.

US Election 2020: A polite phrase, evasive rhetoric & the fly

In latest news, Donald Trump refuses to debate Joe Biden in a virtual setup, after commission of Presidential debates announced the updated format. Earlier, Trump returned to Oval office claiming that he is cured. The 'back to work' video follows new claims & promises.

US Election 2020: Blessing in disguise & free drugs

Much to viewers surprise, Kamala Harris & Mike Pence seized the #VPDebate opportunity to offer clear views on all major issues. From Donald Trump's COVID-19 response to foreign policies & racism. WION gives you the big takeaways from the CIVIL Vice Presidential Debate.

US Election 2020: Verbal clash with clarity of opinions

Anything sells, if your business idea is one of a kind. And this is unexpectedly becoming increasingly evident just after US Vice-Presidential Debate. Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris' snub to US Vice President Mike Pence during the debate is quickly becoming a buzzword online and people are already selling mugs and T-shirts.

"Mr Vice President I am speaking. I am speaking," was Kamala Harris' warning for Mike Pence to stop interrupting her. Such was the force in her words and her gaze that Pence promptly stopped talking.
<img alt="Source: Etsy.com" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="c53945e2-08b4-4b4c-8b39-a203ff0acb7b" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/i%20am%20speaking.JPG" />
'I am still speaking' is appearing to be the buzzword everyone craves in the age of social media. Within minutes of Kamala Harris's snub, sellers started selling merch with the words printed on it.

Websites like Etsy were offering mugs, T-shirts and even coronavirus masks with words 'I am still speaking' printed on them.
<img alt="Source: Etsy.com" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="ab4fb5c9-55d3-4474-ba9a-0eb9a2e283a7" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/i%20am%20still%20speaking%201.JPG" />
Kamala Harris was criticising Trump administration's handling of coronavirus pandemic. 
&nbsp; 
"Whatever the Vice-President has said the administration has done, clearly it hasn't worked," Harris began before the interruption from Pence.
<img alt="Source: Etsy.com" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="c89fd9e0-591f-4d3f-9c6d-80e4052eb8c5" src="//cdn.wionews.com/sites/default/files/inline-images/I%20am%20still%20speaking%202.JPG" />
"When you look at more than 210,000 dead bodies in our country, American lives that have been lost, families that have been grieving that loss. And you know, the Vice-President is the head of the task force," she added.

The Vice Presidential debate was relatively a polite affair and nobody said anything to the effect of 'shut up man' but both debators overshot their time-limit. Pence was particularly prone and he was reminded of this many times by the moderator.

Anything sells, if your business idea is one of a kind. And this is unexpectedly becoming increasingly evident just after US Vice-Presidential Debate. Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris' snub to US Vice President Mike Pence during the debate is quickly becoming a buzzword online and people are already selling mugs and T-shirts.

Anything sells, if your business idea is one of a kind. And this is unexpectedly becoming increasingly evident just after US Vice-Presidential Debate. Democratic vice-presidential nominee Kamala Harris' snub to US Vice President Mike Pence during the debate is quickly becoming a buzzword online and people are already selling mugs and T-shirts. "Mr Vice President I am speaking. I am speaking," was Kamala Harris' warning for Mike Pence to stop interrupting her. Such was the force in her words and her gaze that Pence promptly stopped talking. 'I am still speaking' is appearing to be the buzzword everyone craves in the age of social media. Within minutes of Kamala Harris's snub, sellers started selling merch with the words printed on it. Websites like Etsy were offering mugs, T-shirts and even coronavirus masks with words 'I am still speaking' printed on them. Kamala Harris was criticising Trump administration's handling of coronavirus pandemic. "Whatever the Vice-President has said the administration has done, clearly it hasn't worked," Harris began before the interruption from Pence. "When you look at more than 210,000 dead bodies in our country, American lives that have been lost, families that have been grieving that loss. And you know, the Vice-President is the head of the task force," she added. The Vice Presidential debate was relatively a polite affair and nobody said anything to the effect of 'shut up man' but both debators overshot their time-limit. Pence was particularly prone and he was reminded of this many times by the moderator.

US VP Debate 2020: Kamala Harris' 'I'm speaking' snub to Pence appears on t-shirts, mugs online

Oh to be a fly on the wall -- or in the hair -- at Wednesday's US vice presidential debate.

Mike Pence received an unwelcome visitor during his showdown with Democrat Kamala Harris when a large fly perched on the vice president's white hair for two minutes, triggering an avalanche of online commentary.

Pence was discussing the somber issue of racial injustice and police reform when the winged interloper outmaneuvered the plexiglass barriers installed to prevent the spread of coronavirus and landed on the man who is just a heartbeat away from the US presidency. 
 
And there it stayed. For. Two. Agonizing. Minutes.

A split television screen showed Harris looking at Pence while the fly basked in the spotlight, but it was not immediately clear if she saw it.

Everyone else apparently did.

Social media, perhaps in a collective lull given that the evening was far more civil than the chaotic opening clash between President Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden last week, immediately pronounced the fly the winner of the debate.

"Ok, this is seriously important debate, but no one is gonna remember anything but that fly," tweeted a user named Sykersomatic.

"That fly was in Pence's hair a long time. It should quarantine," former Missouri secretary of state Jason Kander added, seemingly alluding to the rampant spread of the coronavirus through the White House's ranks.

Others suggested the critter check into Walter Reed, the military medical center just outside Washington where Trump spend three nights receiving treatment for Covid-19.

As the online banter snowballed, a new Twitter account, @MikePenceFly___, quickly racked up some 60,000 followers.

Even Biden himself got in on the action, fundraising off the insect drama.

"Pitch in $5 to help this campaign fly," the Democratic nominee tweeted.&nbsp;

And on cue, the Joe Biden campaign store kicked into gear to offer a "Truth Over Flies Fly Swatter," for $10.

Oh to be a fly on the wall -- or in the hair -- at Wednesday's US vice presidential debate. Mike Pence received an unwelcome visitor during his showdown with Democrat Kamala Harris when a large fly perched on the vice president's white hair for two minutes, triggering an avalanche of online commentary.

Oh to be a fly on the wall -- or in the hair -- at Wednesday's US vice presidential debate. Mike Pence received an unwelcome visitor during his showdown with Democrat Kamala Harris when a large fly perched on the vice president's white hair for two minutes, triggering an avalanche of online commentary. Pence was discussing the somber issue of racial injustice and police reform when the winged interloper outmaneuvered the plexiglass barriers installed to prevent the spread of coronavirus and landed on the man who is just a heartbeat away from the US presidency. And there it stayed. For. Two. Agonizing. Minutes. A split television screen showed Harris looking at Pence while the fly basked in the spotlight, but it was not immediately clear if she saw it. Everyone else apparently did. Social media, perhaps in a collective lull given that the evening was far more civil than the chaotic opening clash between President Donald Trump and challenger Joe Biden last week, immediately pronounced the fly the winner of the debate. "Ok, this is seriously important debate, but no one is gonna remember anything but that fly," tweeted a user named Sykersomatic. "That fly was in Pence's hair a long time. It should quarantine," former Missouri secretary of state Jason Kander added, seemingly alluding to the rampant spread of the coronavirus through the White House's ranks. Others suggested the critter check into Walter Reed, the military medical center just outside Washington where Trump spend three nights receiving treatment for Covid-19. As the online banter snowballed, a new Twitter account, @MikePenceFly___, quickly racked up some 60,000 followers. Even Biden himself got in on the action, fundraising off the insect drama. "Pitch in $5 to help this campaign fly," the Democratic nominee tweeted. And on cue, the Joe Biden campaign store kicked into gear to offer a "Truth Over Flies Fly Swatter," for $10.

Fly creates buzz at US vice-presidential debate and online 

Senator Kamala Harris hit out at Trump administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic and termed it "greatest failure" of any US administration. US remains the worst-hit country in the world with more than 7 million people infected with the deadly virus. Kamala Harris lashed out during Vice-Presidential debate with USA Vice President Mike Pence.

"The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country," Harris, running mate to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, said.

Donald Trump has faced flak from the Opposition over his handling of coronavirus pandemic. He has also faced criticism from the media for the 'lax' approach he had in early days of the pandemic in the US.

Trump has said on record that coronavirus was 'just a flu' and advocated medicines that had not been comprehensively and scientifically proven to help cure coronavirus. Trump dissed wearing mask in public which resulted in his supporters following in his suit. Even when thousands were dying almost daily, Trump was not seen wearing mask during his public appearances. Only when death toll kept on mounting and number of those infected rose exponentially, did Trump wear a mask.

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/trump-pence-dont-believe-in-science-kamala-harris-at-us-vice-presidential-debate-333337">Trump, Pence ‘don’t believe in science’: Kamala Harris at US Vice Presidential debate</a>

Trump caught coronavirus infection last week. He again caused furore when he removed his mask on camera.

During the Vice Presidential debate, Mike Pence slammed Kamala Harris for her statements questioning whether a vaccine released under Trump could be trusted due to the intense pressure on the president to tame the pandemic.

Also Read | <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/i-am-still-speaking-kamala-harris-stops-pence-from-interrupting-during-us-vp-debate-333362">I am still speaking: Kamala Harris stops Pence from interrupting during US VP Debate</a>

"The fact that you continue to undermine public confidence in a vaccine, if the vaccine emerges during the Trump administration, I think is unconscionable," Pence said.&nbsp;

The US death toll from the pandemic has exceeded 210,000. It remains the worst affected country in the world.

(With inputs from AFP)

Senator Kamala Harris hit out at Trump administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic and termed it "greatest failure" of any US administration. US remains the worst-hit country in the world with more than 7 million people infected with the deadly virus.

Senator Kamala Harris hit out at Trump administration's response to the coronavirus pandemic and termed it "greatest failure" of any US administration. US remains the worst-hit country in the world with more than 7 million people infected with the deadly virus. Kamala Harris lashed out during Vice-Presidential debate with USA Vice President Mike Pence. "The American people have witnessed what is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of our country," Harris, running mate to Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, said. Donald Trump has faced flak from the Opposition over his handling of coronavirus pandemic. He has also faced criticism from the media for the 'lax' approach he had in early days of the pandemic in the US. Trump has said on record that coronavirus was 'just a flu' and advocated medicines that had not been comprehensively and scientifically proven to help cure coronavirus. Trump dissed wearing mask in public which resulted in his supporters following in his suit. Even when thousands were dying almost daily, Trump was not seen wearing mask during his public appearances. Only when death toll kept on mounting and number of those infected rose exponentially, did Trump wear a mask. Also Read | Trump, Pence ‘don’t believe in science’: Kamala Harris at US Vice Presidential debate Trump caught coronavirus infection last week. He again caused furore when he removed his mask on camera. During the Vice Presidential debate, Mike Pence slammed Kamala Harris for her statements questioning whether a vaccine released under Trump could be trusted due to the intense pressure on the president to tame the pandemic. Also Read | I am still speaking: Kamala Harris stops Pence from interrupting during US VP Debate "The fact that you continue to undermine public confidence in a vaccine, if the vaccine emerges during the Trump administration, I think is unconscionable," Pence said. The US death toll from the pandemic has exceeded 210,000. It remains the worst affected country in the world. (With inputs from AFP)

US Vice-Presidential debate: Kamala Harris blasts Trump govt for 'greatest failure' over COVID-19 pandemic

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