campaign – The Past 24 Hours Or So

The Past 24 Hours or So – Protests/Race Relations, Trump Administration, and Presidential Campaign Updates

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Protests/Race Relations

In a Fox News interview, Mr. Trump refused to back down from supporting people who were against abolishing the Confederate flag, even as Chris Wallace pointed out that they had used it in defense of slavery. The president equated the movement to pull down the flags and Confederate monuments to “cancel culture,” a term more commonly used to describe a boycott against a person, often a celebrity, who says or does something culturally offensive.

“And you know, the whole thing with cancel culture, we can’t cancel our whole history,” Mr. Trump said. “We can’t forget that the North and the South fought. We have to remember that. Otherwise we’ll end up fighting again.”

Top Homeland Security officials said on Monday they had no intention of pulling back in Portland, Oregon, and defended the federal crackdown on anti-racism protests, including the use of unmarked cars and unidentified officers in camouflage.

Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf reacted to the pushback on their crackdown in Portland, Oregon, “I don’t need invitations by the state, state mayors, or state governors to do our job. We’re going to do that, whether they like us there or not.”

Trader Joe’s will remove ‘racist branding and packaging’ from some of its international food items.

The grocery store chain said it will change product branding on some of its international food products, following an online petition that called for the elimination of the labels “Trader Ming’s,” “Trader José,” and “Trader Giotto’s.”

Mark and Patricia McCloskey, the couple that drew national attention earlier this month after footage of them pointing guns at protesters outside their home went viral, have been charged with felony unlawful use of a weapon.

The Department of Homeland Security expanded the authority of personnel to collect information on people they say are threatening to harm or destroy public monuments

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a four-star general who served under former President George W. Bush, said Sunday he supports the push to rename Army bases named after Confederate leaders.

Trump Administration

A whistleblower complaint from a State Department employee about Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s conduct, made public for the first time through a lawsuit, reveals that eyewitnesses made repeated attempts to inform executive leadership and legal advisers about his “questionable activities.”

The whistleblower said they had additional evidence to back up their allegations against Pompeo, according to a redacted complaint to the State Department inspector general’s hotline. The complainant said concerned parties were “blocked” from reporting the activity to the department’s Office of Legal Affairs.

White house Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said the Trump administration is readying a new executive order to expand the federal takeover of cities based on alleged lawlessness: “Attorney General Barr is weighing in on that with Secretary Wolf, and you’ll see something rolled out on that this week.”

Homeland Security officials said they are making preparations to deploy federal agents to Chicago, while President Trump threatened to send U.S. law enforcement personnel to other Democratic-led cities experiencing spates of crime.

Trump made the pronouncement as he defended his administration’s use of force in Portland, where agents have clashed nightly with protesters and made arrests from unmarked cars. Calling the unrest in Portland “worse than Afghanistan.”

Trump’s rhetoric escalated tensions with Democratic mayors and governors who have criticized the presence of federal agents on U.S. streets, telling reporters at the White House that he would send forces into jurisdictions with or without the cooperation of their elected leaders.

“We’re looking at Chicago too. We’re looking at New York,” he said. “All run by very liberal Democrats. All run, really, by the radical left.”

“This is worse than anything anyone’s ever seen,” Trump continued. “And you know what? If Biden got in, that would be true for the country. The whole country would go to hell.”

A coalition of 20 states, several cities and a county are suing the EPA over a regulation that undermines the justification for certain clean air standards.

The states sued over changes to the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) rule, which regulates pollution from power plants.

Presidential Campaign

“I understand you still have more than 100 days to this election, but at this point you’re losing,” Mr. Wallace told Mr. Trump after detailing a new Fox News poll that showed Mr. Biden leading the president by eight points, 49 percent to 41 percent, among registered voters.

“First of all, I’m not losing,” Mr. Trump replied, “because those are fake polls. They were fake in 2016, and now they’re even more fake. The polls were much worse in 2016.”

In an interview with Fox News’ Chris Wallace, President Trump wouldn’t commit to honoring the results of the November election.

TRUMP: “I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election.”

WALLACE: “Are you suggesting that you might not accept the results?”

TRUMP: “I have to see.”

WALLACE: “Can you give a direct answer that you will accept the election?

TRUMP: “I have to see.”

Former Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) is expected to speak on behalf of former Vice President Joe Biden at the Democratic National Convention next month. Kasich has been fiercely critical of President Trump, going as far as to call for his impeachment last year. Kasich’s expected speech on Biden’s behalf could also give the former vice president a boost in Ohio, a longtime swing state that has increasingly moved in Republicans’ favor in recent years.

With the Republican National Convention just over one month away, Jacksonville, Florida, Sheriff Mike Williams issued a statement Monday questioning whether the event can still be held safely in his city.

“I am compelled to express my significant concerns with the viability of this event,” Williams said in the statement. “It is my sole responsibility to provide safety and security for our city and more importantly, for the citizens who I serve. With a growing list of challenges — be it finances, communication and timeline, I cannot say with confidence that this event and our community will not be at risk.”

Democratic leaders in the House and Senate wrote to FBI Director Chris Wray requesting a “defensive counterintelligence briefing” for all members about Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2020 presidential election, according to a copy of the letter released Monday.

Sources: ABC News, Associated Press, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, Independent, NBC News, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So – Protests/Race Relations, Trump Administration, and Presidential Campaign News

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Protests/Race Relations

The U.S. Army wants to remove any sort of divisive symbols from military bases, potentially including Confederate flags, the Army secretary said, suggesting that the Pentagon was close to a broader policy barring such symbols from all military installations.

A number of military services, including the Marine Corps, have already banned the display of Confederate flags even as President Donald Trump has said that flying the flag is “freedom of speech.”

The South Orange-Maplewood School District in NJ, which was accused of allowing racial segregation of schools and classrooms, has agreed to a settlement that will see its integration efforts overseen by a retired New Jersey Supreme Court justice.

Eighty-seven people were arrested and charged with a felony after a protest on the lawn of Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron, the Louisville Metro Police Department said in a statement. The protesters were demanding that charges be filed against the officers responsible for the March shooting death of Breonna Taylor.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) introduced legislation that would cut federal aid to state and local governments if they do not protect statues, after protesters attacked monuments to people who owned slaves or fought for the Confederacy.

The parish school board agreed to rename a Baton Rouge high school bearing the name of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee to Liberty High School.

Trump Administration

A federal court has struck down a Trump administration rule that weakened restrictions on methane gas releases from drilling on public land, which would have allowed increased air pollution, restoring an Obama-era rule. The judge said Trump officials failed to explain the rollback and “failed to consider scientific findings and institutions relied upon by both prior Republican and Democratic administrations.”

CNN host Chris Cuomo railed against President Trump’s “pandemic priorities” on Wednesday evening after the president posed for an Oval Office photo with several Goya Foods products as the White House doubled down on its support of the company amid boycott calls after its CEO praised Trump.

“You tell me how a president in the middle of a pandemic has got time for this bullshit,” Cuomo said on his nightly news program. “Are you kidding me?”

A new inspector general report out today finds that Trump’s Medicare chief Seema Verma broke federal rules when she spent $5M of taxpayer money on consultants who helped polish her image, including writing her tweets.⁣

The U.S. Space Force has chosen an initial batch of more than 2,400 airmen to transfer into the military’s newest branch.

Presidential Campaign

Republicans will significantly limit the number of attendees at the party’s August convention nominating President Donald Trump for a second White House term in Jacksonville, Florida, as coronavirus cases continue to spike sharply across the state.

Democratic officials are instructing members of the House and Senate and party delegates to skip their national convention this summer.

The Past 24 Hours or So – Protests/Race Relations, Trump Administration, and Presidential Campaign News

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Protests/Race Relations

Attorneys representing the family of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who died earlier this year after a police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes, have filed a civil suit against the city of Minneapolis and the four officers involved.

Kimberly Gardner, the circuit attorney for St. Louis County ripped President Trump and her state’s governor in a statement after the two criticized her office’s investigation into a couple seen on a viral video threatening Black Lives Matter protesters at gunpoint.

“While they continue to play politics with the handling of this matter, spreading misinformation and distorting the truth, I refuse to do so,” Gardner said.

The Asheville City Council has apologized for the North Carolina city’s historic role in slavery, discrimination and denial of basic liberties to Black residents and voted to provide reparations to them and their descendants.

The measure calls for a plan to provide reparations to its Black residents in the form of investments in their community such as “increasing minority homeownership,” “increasing minority business ownership and career opportunities,” and “strategies to grow equity and generational wealth,” according to the resolution.

A Confederate flag banner was flown over the Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee on Wednesday ahead of NASCAR’s All-Star Race.

The banner flown over the Wednesday race also included the website “SCV.org,” a website operated by the organization The Sons of Confederate Veterans.

Trump Administration News

The Trump administration is escalating its fight against the Chinese telecom giant Huawei by placing unspecified restrictions on visas of company employees within U.S. borders, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced.

Senior adviser Ivanka Trump was accused of violating a federal ethics law that bans government employees from using their public office to endorse products when she posted a picture supporting Goya. The White House, however, blamed the media and the “cancel culture movement” for the criticism she received.

President Donald Trump said that he would welcome retired Gen. Michael Flynn back into his administration now that the former national security adviser’s legal troubles are on the verge of receding.

Nearly two dozen of the country’s Democratic attorneys general are suing Education Secretary Betsy DeVos over her rollback of Obama-era regulations that allowed students to seek student loan relief if they were scammed by their higher education institution.

President Trump has officially finalized the rollback to one of the nation’s bedrock environmental laws in a move critics say will be particularly harmful to minority communities. The change would undo the requirement for environmental reviews of major construction projects and pipelines, which some say will allow for increased pollution in non-white communities.

President Trump intends to fight a subpoena for his tax returns and financial records from the Manhattan district attorney after the Supreme Court rejected his claim that he’s immune to criminal investigation, the president’s lawyers told a judge

A report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s nonpartisan investigative arm, found the Trump administration set a rock-bottom price on the damages done by greenhouse gas emissions, enabling the government to justify the costs of repealing or weakening dozens of climate change regulations.

The report said the Trump administration estimated the harm that global warming will cause future generations to be seven times lower than previous federal estimates.

Last week, Lt. Col. Alex Vindman announced his retirement from the Army, with his attorney accusing Trump of “a campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation” since Vindman’s testimony. Now, the White House is accusing the former National Security Council member of creating a hostile work environment after testifying in the impeachment inquiry against President Trump.

An earlier review found no basis for the claim against Vindman.

The Supreme Court has cleared the way for a second federal execution to take place this week.

Senior White House adviser Jared Kushner has reportedly halted his plans to divest from a tech startup that he co-founded even after it was revealed that it had been partially fueled by foreign investors, which critics worry violates ethics rules and creates a conflict of interest.

Presidential Campaign

Joe Biden’s choice of a running mate is the talk of Washington, but a majority of American voters said Biden’s VP selection won’t affect their vote, according to a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released Wednesday.

Fifty-four percent of respondents said that Biden’s running mate will have no impact on how they’ll cast their ballot. Only 16 percent said that it would have a “major impact” on their vote. Another 20 percent said it would have a “minor impact.”

President Trump is replacing his campaign manager less than four months from Election Day, removing Brad Parscale from the role and promoting another top political aide, Bill Stepien.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has widened his lead over President Trump to 15 points in a new national Quinnipiac University poll.

The poll released Wednesday shows Biden with 52 percent of the vote to Trump’s 37 percent, the widest lead for the presumptive Democratic nominee recorded by a Quinnipiac survey to date.

The Past 24 Hours or So – Presidential Campaign News

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President Trump will hold an outdoor rally in New Hampshire this weekend.

The president’s next “Make America Great Again” rally will gather supporters at Portsmouth International Airport on Saturday, July 11.

Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) are getting most of the buzz, but former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice is also getting a lot of attention in Joe Biden’s campaign as he considers who to pick as his running mate, sources say.

Rice, who also served as former President Obama’s national security adviser, has seen her stock rise amid a series of crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I know she’s very much in the mix,” a source close to the Biden campaign said.

The Supreme Court says states can punish Electoral College members who break a pledge to vote for a state’s presidential popular vote winner.

GOP Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker has signed a bill that allows all residents to have a vote-by-mail option for the 2020 primary and general elections, a move that comes as President Trump rails against the voting method and claims without evidence it will lead to fraud.

Joe Biden Tweeted: “Americans are safer when America is engaged in strengthening global health. On my first day as President, I will rejoin the @WHO and restore our leadership on the world stage.”

With the number of Americans voting by mail on Nov. 3 expected to nearly double due to COVID-19, election experts see little reason to expect an increase in ballot fraud, despite President Donald Trump’s repeated claims.

The liberal super PAC American Bridge is launching a new round of television, radio and digital ads across three battleground states aimed at weakening President Trump among key groups that supported his 2016 White House bid.

The Trump campaign is considering displaying statues at future rallies.

The idea has been discussed by White House and Trump campaign aides, but no final decision has been made, sources familiar with the planning told ABC News.

A task force set up by Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, and former presidential contender Sen. Bernie Sanders released a sweeping set of platform recommendations on Wednesday that lays out a progressive roadmap for Democrats, though one that falls short of Sanders’s push for radical change.

Biden and Sanders focused heavily on police reforms and reducing incarceration following the death of George Floyd while in police custody, which has sparked nationwide protests. The health care platform focuses on expanding ObamaCare, rather than moving toward Sanders’s “Medicare for All.” The commission also called for environmental reforms, including carbon-free electricity generation by 2035.

Joe Biden promised on Thursday to spend $700 billion on American-made products and industrial research, which he said would give at least 5 million more people a paycheck during a job-killing pandemic.

President Trump is planning to hold a fundraising event in Odessa, Texas later this month, even as Texas experiences a surge in coronavirus infections that caused the governor to pause its reopening and require face masks in public.

Sources: ABC News, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, NBC News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So

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Coronavirus/COVID-19

The death toll from COVID-19 reached half a million people on Sunday.

Vice President Mike Pence said new outbreaks of the coronavirus may be arising because younger Americans aren’t abiding by federal guidance.

Pence said people “should wear masks whenever social distancing is not possible” and “wherever it is indicated by state or local authorities.”

A choir of more than 100 people performed without masks at an event in Texas at the First Baptist Church on Sunday that featured a speech by Vice President Mike Pence.

Nearly 2,200 people attended the “Celebrate Freedom Rally,” according to rally organizers. The venue capacity for the indoor event was close to 3,000 attendees, organizers say. Face masks at the event were “strongly encouraged,” with signs posted around the venue. According to reports, at least half of the crowd was wearing a face covering.

Throughout the service, the members of the choir sang at full volume, behind an orchestra. Between songs, the choir members put their masks back on when they sat down.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday a nationwide mandate to wear face coverings to prevent the spread of coronavirus is “definitely long overdue.”

The speaker called on President Trump to “be an example” to the U.S. and wear a face covering, saying “real men wear masks.”

Vice President Pence said the federal government would extend support for coronavirus testing in Texas as long as necessary amid a dangerous surge in new cases. U.S. health officials had originally moved to end supporting sites at the end of the month..

Florida Gov. DeSantis says his state’s rise in coronavirus cases is being “driven by a big increase over the last three weeks in individuals testing positive throughout the state of Florida in younger age groups.”

California Governor. Gavin Newsom ordered bars in several counties to close due to the spread of COVID-19, including Los Angeles County.

Newsom tweeted the order around Noon on Sunday, which also affects Fresno, Imperial, Kern, Kings, Los Angeles, San Joaquin, and Tulare counties.

The governor also recommended bars close in Contra Costa, Riverside, Sacramento, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, Santa Clara, Stanislaus and Ventura counties.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar warned Sunday that “the window is closing” to take action to curb the spread of the coronavirus as cases across the southern United States continue “surging.”

In an interview with “Meet the Press,” Azar said that the country has “more tools than we had months ago” to fight the virus and the disease it causes, including new treatments and more personal protective equipment. But he stressed that America is facing a “very serious situation.”

A CBS News poll shows record numbers saying efforts against the outbreak are going badly (including new highs saying efforts are going very badly); President Trump receives his lowest marks for handling the pandemic since it began; and the outlook for the summer is grim. Twice as many expect the outbreak to worsen, rather than improve.

In addition to coronavirus concerns, overall, views of how things are generally going in the country are decidedly negative. Seventy-six percent of Americans say things are going badly compared to 56% who felt that way in December 2019.

Allegheny County, PA officials say they are banning on-site consumption of alcohol following a recent surge of new Coronavirus cases.

“For the first time since COVID-19 cases were confirmed in the state, Allegheny County led the state in the number of new COVID-19 cases,” said County Executive Rich Fitzgerald. “We’re going the wrong direction.”

The United Kingdom reported a weekly total of 6,820 coronavirus infections, that’s a decrease of 19.2% over last week and 80.9% since the week of April 19th.

Brazil tallied 38,693 new coronavirus cases in 24 hours and 1,109 additional deaths. The number of COVID19 infections stands at 1,313,667 and the death toll at 57,070 as of Saturday night, with no sign of policy changes by the Bolsonaro government.

The University of Tennessee will require students to have both flu and, when available, COVID-19 vaccines.

Governor Andrew Cuomo announced Sunday New York State’s lowest death toll and hospitalizations due to COVID-19 since the pandemic began. Saturday, there were five deaths and 869 hospitalizations in New York State.

Of the 61,906 tests conducted in New York State Saturday, 616, or 0.99 percent, were positive.

Oklahoma (478), South Carolina (1,384), Louisiana (1,454), North Carolina (1,576), Georgia (2,225), and Arizona (3,857) all set records for new coronavirus cases.

Protest/Race Relations News

Two street murals, one reading, “All Black Lives Matter” and the other “Abolish White Supremacy” were painted on two streets in Newark, NJ by artists with the support of the city.

The Mississippi state legislature — both the House and Senate — passed a bill on Sunday to change the state’s flag in a historic step toward removing the flag’s Confederate battle emblem.

The bill will now go to Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, who has said he would sign legislation that state lawmakers send him to remove the Confederate insignia. The legislation cleared the state House in a 91-23 vote and the state Senate with a 37-14 vote

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy Tweeted: “Today, Mississippi lawmakers voted to remove the Confederate symbol from its state flag.

We replaced the MS flag with the American flag at Liberty State Park last year due to its hateful imagery. We look forward to raising a new MS flag soon.”

Administration News

United States intelligence officers and Special Operations forces in Afghanistan alerted their superiors as early as January to a Russian plot to pay bounties to the Taliban to kill American troops in Afghanistan, according to officials briefed on the matter.

Interrogations of captured militants and criminals played a central role in making the intelligence community confident in its assessment that the Russians had offered and paid bounties in 2019, another official has said.

Officials briefed on the matter said the assessment had been treated as a closely held secret but that the administration expanded briefings about it over the last week — including sharing information about it with the British government, whose forces were among those said to have been targeted.

In addition to saying he was never “briefed or told” about the intelligence report, Mr. Trump also cast doubt on the assessment’s credibility. He described the intelligence report as being about “so-called attacks on our troops in Afghanistan by Russians.” The report described bounties paid to Taliban militants by Russian military intelligence officers, not direct attacks. Mr. Trump also suggested that the developments could be a “hoax” and questioned whether The Times’s sources existed.

Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the third-ranking House Republican, said in a Twitter message on Sunday: “If reporting about Russian bounties on U.S. forces is true, the White House must explain: 1. Why weren’t the president or vice president briefed? Was the info in the [Presidential Daily Briefing]? 2. Who did know and when? 3. What has been done in response to protect our forces & hold Putin accountable?”

Russian bounties offered to Taliban-linked militants to kill coalition forces in Afghanistan are believed to have resulted in the deaths of several U.S. service members, according to intelligence gleaned from U.S. military interrogations of captured militants in recent months.

Several people familiar with the matter said it was unclear exactly how many Americans or coalition troops from other countries may have been killed. U.S. forces in Afghanistan suffered a total 26 deaths from 2018-2019.

British security officials have confirmed to Sky News that the reports about the Russian bounty plot are true.

The president Tweeted late Sunday night: “Intel just reported to me that they did not find this info credible, and therefore did not report it to me or @VP . Possibly another fabricated Russia Hoax, maybe by the Fake News @nytimesbooks, wanting to make Republicans look bad!!!

Presidential Campaign

5% of Americans say they feel things in America today, generally speaking, are going “very well” according to a new CBS poll.

Following pressure to disclose the number of minorities on their staffs, the campaigns for former Vice President Joe Biden and President Donald Trump released diversity statistics.

In a summary of staff data obtained by NBC News, the Biden campaign disclosed that 35 percent of the full-time staff and 36 percent of senior advisors are people of color.

After the Biden campaign revealed its numbers, the Trump campaign followed, announcing that 25 percent of its senior staff are people of color but declining to provide information for all full-time staff.

Fox News Senior Correspondent Charles Gasparino Tweeted: “BREAKING— (thread)GOP operatives are for the first time raising the possibility that @realDonaldTrump could drop out of the race if his poll numbers don’t rebound. Over the weekend I spoke to a sample of major players; one described Trumps current psyche as “fragile.”

“I’m not convinced yet; he’s got time and he’s running against an opponent who is literally hiding in his basement. Plus the public isn’t focusing yet on just how left wing @JoeBiden has become, so much so, he can bring himself to denounce rioting.

“That said the speculation indicates how tense GOP operatives are about Trump losing and the party losing the senate and having their entire agenda abolished in a leftist wave election. Again lots of time and Trump has endured a horrible couple of months but that’s the snap [shot]”

Sources: ABC News, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, NBC News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So – Presidential Campaign News

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President Trump’s disapproval rating has soared to an all-time high, the latest sign that Americans’ dissatisfaction with the president’s handling of national crises is mounting. At least 58 percent of Americans disapprove of the job he’s doing in the White House.

The Supreme Court declined Friday to force Texas officials to offer mail-in ballots to all voters in the state because of the threat of the coronavirus, not just those over 65.

A look at six core battleground states shows the RealClearPolitics average of polls Biden leading Trump by 6 points or more in Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. The race is much closer in North Carolina and Arizona. Trump won all six states in 2016.

Trump’s campaign is spending money defending Iowa and Ohio, two states that weren’t on anyone’s radar at the beginning of the cycle. Biden has pulled even with Trump in both states, despite not allocating many resources there.

President Trump Tweeted: “Corrupt Joe Biden said yesterday that we have over “120 million” people dead of Coronavirus!” in reference to the former VP mispeaking. Biden immediately corrected himself.

Former Vice President Joe Biden bashed President Trump for not sanctioning Russia after the New York Times reported that he was allegedly briefed on American intelligence findings that Russian military operatives reportedly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill coalition forces in Afghanistan, including US troops, amid peace talks.

“Not only has he failed to sanction or impose any kind of consequences on Russia for this egregious violation of international law, Donald Trump has continued his embarrassing campaign of deference and debasing himself before Vladimir Putin,” Biden said.

The newspaper’s reporting resulted in a renewed push among lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to sanction Russia.

Biden said he was “outraged” by the Times report and said that Trump’s “entire presence has been a gift to Putin.”

The Rolling Stones are taking “further steps” to prevent Donald Trump from using their music at his rallies after the president’s campaign ignored the previous cease-and-desist letters. “This could be the last time Trump uses any Jagger/ Richards songs on his campaigns,” the band’s rep said in a statement.

In a statement Saturday, the band announced that their legal team and performing rights organization BMI sent another warning to Trump’s campaign that, if the president continued to use the band’s music, he could face a lawsuit.

In The Know About Joe

Read Time: 3 Minutes

In a jab at Donald Trump, Biden said, “You know, Barack and I never went down to the bunker. They tell me it had cobwebs from lack of use during our 8 years. Never actually seen the bunker. I called up Barack, he said he’s never seen it either.”

Joe Biden says there’s “no more excuses” and if lawmakers have the time to confirm President Trump’s court nominees, they have time to immediately pass legislation to address police brutality, outlaw chokeholds, limit the transfer of “weapons of war” to police departments, and create a new oversight and accountability model for police, adding of Trump: “I just wished he’d open [the bible] once in a while instead of brandishing it.”

Joe Biden does not support some calls to “defund the police,” the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign said Monday.

Biden backs advocates’ calls to increase spending on social programs separate from local police budgets, but he also wants more funding for police reforms such as body cameras and training on community policing approaches, campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement.

“Vice President Biden does not believe that police should be defunded,” Bates said. “He hears and shares the deep grief and frustration of those calling out for change, and is driven to ensure that justice is done and that we put a stop to this terrible pain.”

The campaign’s comment came as President Donald Trump and his campaign sought to tie Biden to calls to “defund the police,” which have emerged in recent days at protests over police brutality and the killing of George Floyd

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign launched a get out the vote initiative geared toward LGBTQ voters on Monday, an initiative that was announced as Pride Month is under way.

The campaign said the program, known as Out for Biden, is being led by a steering committee that includes Human Rights Campaign president Alphonso David, Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.), along with Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), the first openly gay member of the Senate.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) is among the women under consideration to be former Vice President Biden’s running mate, according to a new report.

Politico reported on Monday that Bottoms, along with Florida Rep. Val Demings (D), are under consideration for the Democratic ticket.

Joe Biden’s presidential campaign raised $3.5 million in a fundraiser co-hosted with Sen. Kamala Harris, a top contender to be the former vice president’s running mate this November.

Former Vice President Joe Biden said systemic racism exists “across the board,” including in policing, in an interview with CBS’s Norah O’Donnell.

“Absolutely,” Biden said, asked whether there is systemic racism within law enforcement.

“It’s not just in law enforcement, it’s across the board. It’s in housing, it’s in education, and it’s in everything we do. It’s real. It’s genuine. It’s serious,”

Biden wrote in an op-ed: “I’m proposing an additional $300 million to reinvigorate community policing in our country. Every single police department should have the money they need to institute real reforms”

Also, in the op-ed, Biden said, “Donald Trump’s hate-filled, conspiracy-laden rhetoric is inflaming the racial divides in our country—but just fixing the way the president talks won’t cut it. We need to root out systemic racism and ensure Black Americans have a real shot to get ahead.”

Joe Biden on Wednesday night had a blunt warning about President Trump and the lengths he would take to limit access to ballots in November, sharply escalating his rhetoric about his Republican rival five months before voters head to the polls.

“This president is going to try to steal this election,” Biden said in an interview on “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.” Biden said of ensuring that the voting process is fair: “It’s my greatest concern, my single greatest concern.”

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Friday called for action to combat gun violence while marking the fourth anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida: “Our places of worship have been attacked, Hispanics have been targeted in places like El Paso, the death toll from mass shootings continues to mount, and LGBTQ+ people, particularly transgender women of color, are disproportionately targeted by violence.”

In The Know About Joe

Read TIme: 3 Minutes

Joe Biden, Trump’s presumptive challenger in the presidential election in November, spoke to the family of George Floyd and issued a video address in which he called for calm.

“I asked Vice-President Biden – I never had to beg a man before – but I asked him, could he please, please get justice for my brother,” Philonise Floyd said.

“I need it. I do not want to see him on a shirt just like the other guys. Nobody deserved that. Black folk don’t deserve that. We’re all dying.

Former Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday visited a site in Wilmington, Del., that has seen protests over the George Floyd killing.

“We are a nation in pain, but we must not allow this pain to destroy us. We are a nation enraged, but we cannot allow our rage to consume us. We are a nation exhausted, but we will not allow our exhaustion to defeat us,” Biden wrote Sunday on social media posts across Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

His posts showed a picture of him wearing a mask and kneeling across from a black man and a child. Videos on his Instagram story show the presumptive Democratic nominee taking photos and chatting with other masked men.

Stan Greenberg, who served as President Clinton’s lead pollster, called progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren the “obvious solution” to be presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s running mate.

“The biggest threat to Democrats in 2020 is the lack of support and disengagement of millennials and the fragmentation of non-Biden primary voters.”

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden promised black community leaders in Delaware on Monday he would earn their support amid nationwide police brutality protests, saying he would create a police oversight board within his first 100 days in the White House.

Biden, who met with more than a dozen black leaders in a church in Wilmington, also said he would soon unveil an economic plan to deal with the disproportionate toll on the black and Latino communities from the coronavirus outbreak.

Joe Biden’s campaign is launching a digital ad in key swing states that features the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s speech on civil unrest and protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

The minute-long ad, titled “Build The Future,” overlays footage of Biden’s speech with video and pictures from protests across the country. It also includes clips from the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., that left one counter protester dead.

Former Vice President Joe Biden clinched the Democratic presidential nomination on Friday, officially setting the stage for a contentious general election fight with President Trump this November.

The former vice president hit the delegate threshold Friday, most recently winning a series of primaries Tuesday night across the country.

Speaking during a virtual town hall with young Americans, Biden discussed the importance of a president setting an example for the country.

Biden accused President Trump of dividing the nation, saying “The words a president says matter, so when a president stands up and divides people all the time, you’re going to get the worst of us to come out.”

“Do we really think this is as good as we can be as a nation? I don’t think the vast majority of people think that,” the former vice president added. “There are probably anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of the people out there that are just not very good people, but that’s not who we are. The vast majority of the people are decent, and we have to appeal to that and we have to unite people — bring them together. Bring them together.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden tore into President Trump for saying economic gains reported Friday marked a “great day for equality” and a “great day” for George Floyd, an unarmed black man who was killed in police custody in Minneapolis.

“George Floyd’s last words — ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe’ — have echoed across our nation,” Biden said in a speech Friday, referring to bystander video that went viral showing Floyd being pinned down by his neck before he died. “For the president to try to put any other words in the mouth of George Floyd — is frankly despicable.

“And, the fact that he did so on a day when black unemployment rose and black youth unemployment skyrocketed — tells you everything you need to know about who this man is and what he cares about.”