Don Jr tests positive, as his father dodges media questions

Donald Trump’s election fraud lawyers – who describe themselves as an “elite strike force team” – have alleged that the vote was hacked and ballots switched from the president to Joe Biden, thanks to technology developed in Venezuela.

Rudy Giuliani, Mr Trump’s personal lawyer, leading the team, said that the election had been rigged by “a company owned by affiliates of Chavez and Maduro”.

They were angered by the use of Dominion, a Canadian-based company.

He was also upset at a Venezuelan firm, Smartmatic, being used - despite them only operating in Los Angeles County.

Also, Hugo Chavez died in 2013.

The Independent’s Harriet Alexander has the story.

“And uh, but, it just, I just… It’s hard to fathom how this man thinks, it’s hard to fathom… I’m confident he knows he hasn’t won and is not going to be able to win and we’re going to be sworn in January 20th and I just uh, you know but, far from me to question his motive it’s just outrageous what he’s doing.”

Watch Biden’s full commentary below:

Joe Biden will name his pick for treasury secretary just before or after the Thanksgiving holiday.

Speaking at a press conference in Delaware, the president-elect said that the person he and Kamala Harris have chosen is someone that will be acceptable to “all elements of the Democratic party, progressives and moderates”.

Mr Biden was answering questions from reporters after a briefing about his video conference with the National Governors’ Association when he made the remarks.

Reporting from Politico originally suggested that Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren could be tapped to lead the Treasury Department, but subsequent speculation is that she may be considered too progressive for the role by some voters and centrists.

Oliver O’Connell has more.

Fired US cybersecurity official Chris Krebs said Rudy Giuliani's "path to victory" press conference was the "most dangerous" 1 hour and 45 minutes in the history of American television.

A day after he was sacked by Donald Trump for claiming the presidential election was the most secure in US history, Mr Krebs tuned into Mr Giuliani's theories of a "national conspiracy" backed by a communist cabal of Venezuelan, Chinese and Cuban collaborators to place Joe Biden in the White House.

"And possibly the craziest. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’re lucky," Mr Krebes said in a tweet.

Billed by the president as his "viable path to victory", the focus of the press conference was waylaid by Mr Giuliani's leaking hair dye sweating down his face and reenactment of the movie My Cousin Vinnie.

Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease official, called two potential coronavirus vaccines “extraordinary” as both show promise during testing.

He went to great lengths to try convincing the American public that development of the inoculation was not rushed, something Democrats have warned about for months even though one developed by Pfizer was not part of a Trump Administration program known as “Warp Speed.”

John T Bennett has the latest from the White House coronavirus taskforce.

My Cousin Vinny director Jonathan Lynn weighed in with this thoughts after a bizarre press conference where Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani quoted the 1992 film—which he cited as one of his favorites—in order to make a point.

"I regard Giuliani's praise of My Cousin Vinny as generous from the man who is currently giving the Comedy Performance of the Year," Lynn told The Hollywood Reporter.

During the press conference, New York City's former mayor compared the presidential election observers being corralled away from the votes counts to a scene in the film where Joe Pesci's Vinny asks a witness in court how many fingers he's holding up from across the court room. (The witness' glasses are so thick, she guesses incorrectly.)

Referring to Presidential election Republican poll watchers, Giuliani said, "These people were further away than My Cousin Vinny was from the witness. They couldn’t see a thing!"

Rachel Brodsky has the story.

“Together--we can flatten the curve again,” said Newsom in a tweet.

Together. And by together, he means…

Donald Trump, in an extraordinary move, is inviting Michigan state Republican lawmakers to the White House on Friday as he apparently opens a new front in his battle to overturn election results there.

The outgoing president has lost several legal challenges in Michigan based on claims of voter fraud his team has yet to prove. Now he has invited the GOP majority leader of the Michigan State Senate and other members of his party to Washington, a source confirmed on Thursday.

The planned meeting comes as some Trump surrogates are pushing the idea that Republican-controlled state legislatures could override the election process by sending pro-Trump delegates to the Electoral College session to formally count the electoral votes.

John T Bennett reports.

The world’s press convened once more to hear an update from the president’s legal counsellors, which one member modestly described as being “an elite, strike force team,” but which in reality has been shrinking in size and ability for weeks, writes The Independent’s Richard Hall.  

“In yet another meandering press conference, Rudy Giuliani — at times sweating so profusely that at times black hair dye ran down both sides of his face — came armed with a map highlighting the states where he believed the results could be overcome in the courts. Marked in red were Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Georgia.”

While septuagenarians Donald Trump and Joe Biden battle for the soul of the political industrial complex, the next generation of Republican and Democratic influencers aren't waiting in the rank file to join partisan feuding.

Nikki Haley and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both widely touted as future presidential candidates, clashed on Twitter over coronavirus relief funding after the latter said the government needed to pay Americans to stay home to get the virus under control.

Seemingly heeding Mr Biden's plea for unity as the nation heals post-2020 election, the two came together on Twitter for a nuanced discussion of economic stimulus.

Ms Haley, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, engaged her diplomatic experience clarify Ms Ocasio-Cortez's policy position on payments for stay-at-home-people.

"AOC, Are you suggesting you want to pay people to stay home from the money you take by defunding the police? Or was that for the student debts you wanted to pay off, the Green New Deal or Medicare for All? #WhereIsTheMoney," Ms Haley said

Ms Ocasio-Cortez, saying she picked up on confusion over the former governor's confusion over governance, explained her understanding of police budgets.

"Nikki, I’m suggesting Republicans find the spine to stand up to their corporate donors & vote for the same measures they did in March, except without the Wall St bailout this time," Ms Ocasio-Cortez said.

"Utterly embarrassing that this woman was a governor & still doesn’t have a grasp on public investment. Wonder if she says federal financing works like a piggy bank or household too?"

Ms Haley is near the top of the betting odds for a 2024 presidential bid, but with Mr Trump also able to try again in four years she may have to wait until 2028.

By then, Ms Ocasio-Cortez will be old enough for a presidential bid of her own, so this could be the start of a long and fruitful friendship.