Trump news: President plays down record Covid spike as Obama mocks him for ending 60 Minutes interview
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Your support makes all the difference.The campaign heated up on Saturday with multiple events scheduled for both the Trump and Biden campaign, as Election Day draws closer with just 10 days left.
Mr Trump started his day by voting early in West Palm Beach, Florida. After he voted, the president claimed going to the polls was “much more secure” than mail-in voting. He’s used this rhetoric in the last couple of months to discourage Americans from choosing mail-in voting over going to the polls in person amid the coronavirus pandemic, claiming the method encourages fraud.
Then Mr Trump stopped in the battleground state of North Carolina for an afternoon rally in Lumberton. During the rally, the president claimed he won the last presidential debate by 91 per cent to 9 per cent without citing a specific pollster. Polls by CNN, Politico, and YouGov all have Democratic challenger Joe Biden as the winner of the debate.
After North Carolina, Mr Trump continued his tour of battleground states by stopping in Circleville, Ohio. He is scheduled to also speak in Wisconsin later this evening.
All three of these states are currently hotspot locations for the coronavirus with cases and hospitalisations increasing.
On Friday, the US hit the grim milestone of the most new coronavirus cases in a single day since the start of the pandemic. Mr Trump belittled the milestone by claiming both at his rallies and in tweets that only cases were increasing, but hospitalisations are also on the rise in at least 33 states. Experts warn the mortality rate could soon follow.
Mr Biden was also on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania on Saturday. He held two rallies, and they involved him accusing the president of lying about the severity of the novel virus.
The former vice president’s campaign got an added boost with President Barack Obama campaigning for him in Miami, Florida, and singer Jon Bon Jovi campaigning for him in Pennsylvania.
Donald Trump arrives in North Carolina
The president woke up at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida; voted; then got on a plane to North Carolina.
He’s just landed.
The “wonderful Indian tribe” are the Lumbee Nation, a group of approximately 60,000 people living across Robeson, Scotland, Hoke and Cumberland counties.
The Native American group was given partial recognition 64 years ago in Congress, but Mr Trump, needing every vote possible in North Carolina, on Wednesday announced that he supports legislation pending in Congress that would extend federal recognition to the Lumbee.
Joe Biden also backs their cause.
"The Lumbee people are excited to have the president's support," said Harvey Godwin Jr, Tribal Chairman.
"We have fought for full federal recognition for our people for over a century now. I am hopeful that the Lumbee bill will be on the president's desk before the end of the year."
North Carolina recognized the Lumbee tribe in 1885.
After North Carolina he moves on to Ohio and Wisconsin.
Donald Trump jokes about the heat in North Carolina
The president, in Lumberton, North Carolina, jokes about the hot sunshine.
He has a long day ahead of him - starting in Florida, now North Carolina, later Ohio and then Wisconsin.
Donald Trump takes to the stage in North Carolina
The president has kicked off his rally in Lumberton, North Carolina.
Joe Biden has a very slim lead — 2.8 per cent — in the vital swing state.
But Trump is fighting hard.
“I’m fighting for every American - including Native Americans,” he says, addressing the Lumbee Nation.
“That's all I hear about now. Turn on TV, 'Covid, Covid, Covid Covid Covid.'”
“It was like a movie — it was so professional”
Donald Trump, in North Carolina, is telling the crowd about voting this morning, in Florida.
He’s astonished at how easy they made it for him.
“It was like a movie — it was so professional,” he says, surprised.
I’d dare to guess — perhaps — that he was given preferential treatment.
The president says this shows how ridiculous mail-in voting is.
It’s easy for everyone, he suggests. Maybe he hasn’t seen the lines of people waiting five hours in Georgia, in Texas, and today in New York City?
Trump wraps up in North Carolina, and is on to Ohio
The president’s next stop on his four-state campaign blitz is Ohio.
In Ohio, he has the slight edge over Joe Biden — he’s at 47.6 per cent support, according to FiveThirtyEight’s poll aggregator, with Biden at 46.5 per cent.
It’s a nail biter.
Ohio has 18 electoral votes, making it a prize well worth having — California has 55, Texas 38, Florida and New York 29, while Illinois and Pennsylvania both have 20.
By comparison, the seven least-populous states — Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming — all have three electoral votes.
In 2016 Trump defeat Hillary Clinton by over eight points; the largest margin there since 1988.
And the state has proved itself to be a remarkably good predictor of the election winner. Since 1944, Ohioans have sided with the losing candidate only once — opting for Nixon over Kennedy in 1960.
Both Biden and Trump would very much like to win Ohio this year.
Highlights from the North Carolina rally
Donald Trump has again made the claim that the only reason why coronavirus cases are up across the United States was because of the increased testing initiative.
It was reported on Friday that the US recorded its largest single-day jump in cases since the start of the coronavirus pandemic – with 83,000 new Covid-19 cases.
Mr Trump addressed the rise in cases during a campaign rally in Lumberton, North Carolina, on Saturday by blaming testing.
“You know why we have cases? It’s because we test so much,” the president told his rally crowd. “In a lot of ways it’s good, and in a lot of ways it’s foolish.”
Danielle Zoellner reports:
Trump says 'in many ways it's foolish' to test for Covid after US suffers record number of new cases
There were more than 83,000 new Covid-19 cases on Friday
Barack Obama is on the ground in Miami, campaigning for Joe Biden
He is making only his second outing for Biden, following a rally earlier this week in Pennsylvania.
On Saturday afternoon he is campaigning in Miami, but prior to that he stopped in Miami Springs to whip up some support for Democrats.
Note the loud-hailer — it looks like he’s getting back to his community organiser roots…
Kamala Harris is in Ohio
“We are looking at a failure of a presidential administration the likes of which we have never seen in history,” she tells the crowd in Cleveland.
She speaks of the lines for food, of the fact that one in five American mothers describes her child under 12 as being hungry.
She talks about food insecurity, job insecurity, housing insecurity.
"And yet we have a Donald Trump who walks around and says, oh, we are turning the corner.
“The nerve!”
Barack Obama has just taken to the stage in Miami
The noise of the car horns is deafening…
“You’ve got mad horn honking good!” he tells them.
“Ten days, Miami! Ten days, until the most important election in our lifetime.”
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