Trump news: President limits rally to 21 minutes after crowds kept out by Covid restrictions

Hello and welcome to The Independent’s rolling coverage of Donald Trump’s administration and 2020 presidential campaign. 

Trump warns Supreme Court not to facilitate ‘ridiculous Biden win’

Donald Trump has warned the US Supreme Court that Joe Biden would pack its benches with additional liberal justices if he were to become president, denouncing the prospect of it making “such a ridiculous win possible”, apparently resigned to the election result being determined by a legal ruling following a disputed ballot count.

“If Sleepy Joe Biden is actually elected President, the 4 Justices (plus1) that helped make such a ridiculous win possible would be relegated to sitting on not only a heavily PACKED COURT, but probably a REVOLVING COURT as well,” he tweeted in the early hours of Friday morning.

President misrepresents US  coronavirus death toll in Florida

Both candidates spoke in Tampa, Florida, on Thursday, with Mr Trump undercounting the coronavirus death toll by 15,000, claiming that just 210,000 had died - not 225,000.

Without irony, the president and the first lady addressed the crowd and insisted the administration was doing all it could to stamp out Covid-19 despite the total lack of social distancing taking place at the Tampa rally and a scarcity of face masks on show.

"We're never gonna lock down again," the president insisted, prioritising the public desire for a return to normality and his own for an economic recovery ahead of the national health.

He also attacked China, again blaming the rival superpower for the global pandemic since it originated in Wuhan, and welcoming chants of “Make them pay!” from his crowd.

Trump says ‘bad things are going to happen’ to White House insider turned whistleblower

It didn’t take long for the president to begin lashing out at his various enemies, not least Biden, telling his audience the fate of the country was in their hands.

"If Florida goes blue, it's over. It's over,” he said. “The heart and soul of this country's at stake right in Florida. It's up to you. You hold the key."

He also warned darkly that “bad things are going to happen” to ex-Homeland Security official Miles Taylor, revealed in midweek to be the anonymous White House insider who denounced the president in the pages of The New York Times in September 2018.

John T Bennett has this report.

Trump says America’s allies treat the country worse than its enemies

The president’s Festivus grievance tour also saw him hit out at Washington’s allies overseas in Florida yesterday, claiming that Germany prefers former president Barack Obama, betraying more than a little jealousy and hurt feelings.

Trump insisted Biden’s policies would put the US in a “depression” and weaken America’s  strength on the international stage.

“He wants you to surrender our country to China, to all of these other countries that have taken total advantage of us,” Trump said, as the crowd began to boo.

“You know in many ways our allies treat us worse than the enemy. The enemy at least we have our guard up. Our allies, what they have done to us in terms of military protection and trade is disgraceful.”

James Crump has more.

Biden and Trump attack Latin American dictators in bid to win Florida voters

The Democrat was also in Tampa and actually joined the president in lashing out at the authoritarian leaders of Central and South America as part of a late appeal to win over Spanish-speaking voters.

It was certainly a more convincing stance from Biden, given that Trump is known to admire the “strongman” style of statesman and fancy himself in a pair of military epaulettes. 

Justin Vallejo has this one what the candidates had to say.

Attention-seeking Trump supporter tears up pictures of Pelosi and Schumer at rally

While the president was speaking yesterday, a woman could be seen over his shoulder winking at the camera and ripping up images of House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer in ironic tribute to Pelosi doing the same to Trump’s speech at the close of his State of the Union address to Congress in February.

Trump campaign postpones North Carolina rally citing high winds from Tropical Storm Zeta

The president had expected to move north from Florida to Fayatteville, North Carolina, only to suddenly abandon the event, blaming the cancellation on the former hurricane.

He is due back on Monday.

Biden was also forced to wrap his speech up early at a drive-in rally at the Florida State Fairgrounds In Tampa due to a torrential downpour.

John T Bennett has this report.

Trump gets to meet Lil Wayne

Despite that disappointment, the president’s afternoon wasn’t entirely a damp squib.

Lil Wayne became the second rapper - after Ice Cube - to back his Platinum Plan to reform the criminal justice system - and will no doubt get plenty of flack for it.

Justin Vallejo has this on the 21st century’s answer to Nixon and Elvis.

Rivals head for Midwest in final weekend of campaigning

The candidates will barnstorm across battleground states in the Midwest where the coronavirus pandemic has exploded anew, as they head into the final weekend before Tuesday's Election Day.

Biden is in Iowa on Friday - with trips to Wisconsin and Minnesota upcoming - while his running mate, Kamala Harris, is due in Texas as the Democratic ticket targets another major red state.

Trump too is returning to Wisconsin and Michigan in a last-ditch bid to shore up support.

Michigan and Wisconsin were two of the three historically Democratic industrial states, along with Pennsylvania, that narrowly voted for the Republicanin 2016, delivering him an upset victory. Minnesota, which has not voted for a GOP presidential candidate since 1972, is one of the few Democratic states that Trump is trying to flip this year.

Trump has consistently trailed Biden in national polls for months, partly because of widespread disapproval of his handling of the coronavirus. Polls in the most competitive states, however, have shown a closer race.

The pandemic, as well as an extraordinary level of enthusiasm, has prompted Americans to vote early in unprecedented numbers. Already, more than 81.1m votes have been cast either by mail or in person, well over half the total number of votes in the entire 2016 election, according to the US Elections Project at the University of Florida.

The deluge of mail-in ballots makes it likely that the winner of several states, including major battlegrounds such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, will not be clear on Tuesday night, as election officials expect the vote-tallying to take days.

On Thursday, a federal appeals court barred Minnesota election officials from implementing a plan to count ballots arriving up to a week after Election Day as long as they were postmarked by next Tuesday.

Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that mail-in ballots are susceptible to fraud and has more recently argued that only the results available on election night should count.

Early voting data show that far more Democrats have voted by mail, while Republicans are expected to turn out in greater numbers on Tuesday.

This means preliminary results from states like Pennsylvania that do not begin counting mail-in ballots until Election Day could show Trump in the lead before flipping as more

Democratic-heavy ballots are added, a phenomenon some have called the "red mirage" and the "blue shift." Several Pennsylvania counties have said they will not begin counting mail-in ballots until Wednesday.

Reuters