Presidential hopefuls Donald Trump and Kamala Harris went head to head
This was the second presidential debate this year for Donald Trump, who also went up against Joe Biden in June. Biden’s devastating performance triggered an upheaval within the Democratic party that would ultimately push him to step down and position Harris to head the ticket, an outcome Trump both takes credit for and complains about at his rallies. Donald Trump and Kamala Harris went into the event virtually tied in the polls with just weeks to convince a small but mighty minority of unsure voters on how to cast their ballot.
After weeks of arguments over the format and rules, the debate aired live on ABC from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a key swing state, with no audience in attendance and each candidate’s microphone muted while their opponent spoke. With just 55 days until votes are tallied, Harris strived to highlight that she has a plan, and clearly responded to criticisms that she has not shared enough details with voters about her platform and priorities. With focused rhetoric on planning for the future, building the middle class, and reframing her record on everything from immigration to climate, Harris was able to show voters how she hopes to lead.
Analysts, meanwhile, were watching Trump’s demeanor and clarity. The former president repeated frequent rhetoric from his rallies – including widely disputed claims about abortion, crime, and his belief that he won the 2020 election – but shared little about how he would address key problems Americans are facing. Beyond their differences in policy positions, the candidates also displayed diverging visions of the country.
Donald Trump promised his base to restore what he sees as the glory of the past, and Harris heralded the hope of a brighter future.
In December 2023, Colorado’s Supreme Court has ruled that Trump cannot run for president next year in the state, citing a constitutional insurrection clause. The court ruled 4-3 that Trump was not an eligible candidate because he had engaged in an insurrection over the United States Capitol riot nearly three years ago. It does not stop Trump running in the other states and his campaign says it will appeal to the United States Supreme Court.
The ruling only mentions the state’s primary election on March 5th 2024, when Republican voters will choose their preferred candidate for president. But it could affect the general election in Colorado November 2024. It is the first ever use of Section 3 of the United States Constitution’s 14th Amendment to disqualify a presidential candidate. The decision, which has been placed on hold pending appeal, only applies in Colorado.
Similar attempts to kick Trump off the ballot in New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Michigan have failed. The justices do not reach these conclusions lightly. The justices are mindful of the magnitude and weight of the questions, mindful of their solemn duty to apply the law, without fear or favor, and without being swayed by public reaction to the decisions that the law mandates they reach.
The decision reverses an earlier one from a Colorado judge, who ruled that the 14th Amendment’s insurrection ban did not apply to presidents because the section did not explicitly mention them.
That same lower court judge also found that Trump had participated in an insurrection in the United States Capitol riot. Trump’s supporters stormed Congress on January 6th 2021, while lawmakers were certifying Biden’s election victory. The Colorado Supreme Court’s decision does not go into effect until January 4th 2024. That is the eve of the deadline for the state to print its presidential primary ballots.
The Trump campaign called the ruling completely flawed and lambasted the justices, who were all appointed by Democratic governors. The Trump campaign stated Democrat Party leaders are in a state of paranoia over the growing, dominant lead he has amassed in the polls. The Trump campaign added that his legal team would swiftly file an appeal to the United States Supreme Court, where conservatives hold a 6 to 3 majority.
The decision would help Democrats by supporting their argument that the United States Capitol riot was an attempted insurrection. The decision would also aid Democrats in showcasing the stark differences between Trump and Biden. Republican lawmakers condemned the decision, including House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, who called it a thinly veiled partisan attack.
Republicans stated that regardless of political affiliation, every citizen registered to vote should not be denied the right to support Donald Trump and the individual who is the leader in every poll of the Republican primary.
On the campaign trail Trump’s Republican primary rivals also assailed the ruling, with Vivek Ramaswamy pledging to withdraw his name from the ballot if his candidacy is not reinstated. Speaking at a campaign event in Iowa, Trump did not address the ruling, but a fundraising email sent by his campaign to supporters said this is how dictatorships are born. The Colorado Republican Party also responded, saying it would withdraw from the state’s primary process if the ruling was allowed to stand.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), the group that brought the case, welcomed the ruling. The ruling is not only historic and justified, but is necessary to protect the future of democracy in the country. The 14th Amendment was ratified after the American Civil War. Section 3 was intended to block secessionists from returning to previous government roles once southern states re-joined the Union.
Section 3 was used against Confederate president Jefferson Davis and his vice-president Alexander Stephens, both of whom had served in Congress. Section 3 has seldom been invoked since. Trump lost the state of Colorado by a wide margin in the last presidential election. But if courts in more competitive states followed suit, Trump’s White House bid could face serious problems.
During a one-week trial in Colorado, Donald Trump’s lawyers argued he should not be disqualified because he did not bear responsibility for the United States Capitol riot.
But in its ruling, the Colorado Supreme Court majority disagreed. The Colorado Supreme Court said Trump’s messages before the riot were a call to his supporters to fight and his supporters responded to that call. Carlos Samour, one of three justices who dissented, argued the government could not deprive someone of the right to hold public office without due process of law.
Even if the Colorado Supreme Court is convinced that a candidate committed horrible acts in the past, Samour believes there must be procedural due process before the Colorado Supreme Court can declare that individual disqualified from holding public office. Trump is facing four criminal cases, including one federal and one state case in Georgia related to his alleged election subversion efforts. In October 2020, Trump’s public praise for an experimental covid antibody treatment is putting new pressure on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to quickly give emergency clearance to a drug he has touted as a miracle.
Doctors think the drugs show promise as a potential treatment of covid, though Trump has created confusion by quickly elevating them to a cure. Trump said that he felt better immediately after taking the drugs. But by placing himself in the middle of the drug evaluation process, Trump is once again igniting concerns about politics encroaching on science at a crucial time.
The pressure threatens to undermine confidence in government regulators and turn the science of drug evaluation into yet another political dispute, confusing Americans and sowing distrust about helpful therapies.
Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said that the agency should grant emergency authorization to antibody treatments such as the one Trump took and that people should not be so quick to attack such a promising therapy. Gottlieb also said the safety bar for antibody treatments is lower than it is for vaccines because the science for antibodies is better understood. Two companies have filed for emergency use authorization (EUA) for antibody drugs: Regeneron and Eli Lilly.
The treatment from Eli Lilly consists of a single monoclonal antibody, while the treatment from Regeneron consists of a cocktail of antibodies. Monoclonal antibodies are lab-generated versions of one of the human body’s main defenses against pathogens. Doctors and health experts think antibody drugs could be a bridge to a covid vaccine but have cautioned that the results to date are preliminary and that longer studies are needed.
Regeneron issued a press release touting its preliminary results but has not publicly released any data. According to Regeneron, a high dose of its drug led to reduced levels of the virus in non-hospitalized patients with mild to moderate symptoms. Eli Lilly’s submission was based on studies showing that its antibody treatment reduces hospitalizations and serious complications.
There is no evidence Regeneron’s antibody therapy was responsible for Donald Trump’s apparent recovery.
But in the days since his covid diagnosis, Trump has seized on the promise of the treatments and claimed they will be broadly available to the public for free. Yet the companies themselves have said there will be a limited number of doses available. Regeneron will have just 300,000 doses available by the end of 2020, which is enough to last one week, given the current rate of infections.
Eli Lilly has said it will be similarly limited, with 1 million doses. Federal officials are confident that if emergency authorization is granted, the administration will be able to purchase enough of the drugs to treat vulnerable populations. Trump’s fixation on the antibody treatment is reminiscent of his promotion of convalescent plasma and hydroxychloroquine.
In both cases, the FDA issued an EUA for unproven therapies after coming under apparent pressure from the White House. Even though antibody drugs may be effective, Trump’s effusive praise and pressure campaign run the risk of leading the public to think the FDA’s decision was driven by politics, not science. Medical groups, led by the Infectious Diseases Society of America, urged the FDA not to rush its decision, and to make sure any authorization or approval is based on established scientific standards.
Promising results among small numbers of patients to approaches that include antibody therapies are not a substitute for the rigorous scientific review that is essential to ensuring the safety and effectiveness of medicines.
Relying on such limited data can put patients at risk of adverse events, and an EUA can reduce the ability to conduct the clinical trials that are needed to assess the safety and efficacy of antibody treatments. Trump abruptly pulled the plug on negotiations for another covid spending package, all but ending the prospect of additional federal relief before Election Day in November 2020. The announcement sparked a sharp drop in the stock market, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average immediately erasing gains and finishing the day 376 points lower.
The delay in pandemic aid raises the prospect that more small businesses will fail, particularly restaurants. The National Restaurant Association said 40% of restaurant owners would go bankrupt within the next six months without government assistance. Many economists have long urged Congress to pass another bill designed to keep individuals and businesses afloat with the pandemic showing few signs of ending soon.
About 26.5 million people are still receiving unemployment benefits, and permanent job losses are mounting. Experts say that a lack of additional aid could devastate the finances of millions of jobless Americans and set back an already-shaky economic recovery. This is incredibly cruel and also just terrible economics. People on unemployment would typically draw about 40% of their lost wages.
The size of the average weekly unemployment check is about $330, an amount varying greatly by state.
They are meager benefits, and people can not exist on them. It will mean more people dropping into poverty and people making terrible choices between rent, medicine, and food on the table. Hardship would most likely increase among the unemployed without another government rescue package in the short term. It is disappointing so many people are going to have to suffer despite the fact they were close to getting something.
Some states were attempting to recoup money they accidentally overpaid jobless people, which in many cases has already been spent. A legislative fix was included in the Democratic aid proposal. The United States economy has regained only about half the jobs it lost in March and April 2020 at the height of the pandemic-related economic shutdowns.
But it is now at a higher risk of backtracking as more families pull back on their spending. The latest jobs report showed the United States economy added 661,000 jobs in September 2020, less than half the prior month’s figure and by far the smallest monthly increase since the labor market bottomed out in April 2020. As job growth slows down, that means it is going to take longer to fully recover from this recession.
Too little support would lead to a weak recovery, creating unnecessary hardship for households and businesses.
Trump was airlifted to hospital for covid treatment. Trump tweeted an upbeat message from hospital where he is being treated with an experimental antibody treatment after reports claimed that he was having trouble breathing. Trump is doing well and is undergoing a range of treatments including a polyclonal antibody cocktail made by Regeneron, which is not available to the public.
Trump is also taking remdesivir, zinc, vitamin D, famotidine, melatonin, and daily aspirin. Trump’s former adviser Kellyanne Conway has tested positive for covid. The news was first revealed by Conway’s teenage daughter Claudia in a TikTok video. Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump have expressed their well-wishes for their father. New Jersey contact tracers are struggling to work out the names of all of the people who were present at a fundraiser Trump attended just hours before he was diagnosed with covid.
Trump tested positive after political adviser Hope Hicks was confirmed to have covid. In September 2020, a political appointee of Trump has been interfering with covid reports by health experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) because their data does not match the optimistic messages sought by the White House. In one instance, CDC Director Robert Redfield and his scientists were accused of trying to hurt Trump with their reports about covid.
The reported interference was learned a day after it was revealed that the same group of Donald Trump loyalists were seeking to muzzle Doctor Anthony Fauci, United States’ top infectious disease expert.
Since being named spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services, Michael Caputo, the Republican Party operative and former Trump campaign official, and his staff have pressured CDC personnel to alter the wording of its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR). The report has usually been published without any political interference and is a key method by which the CDC advises doctors and the general public about covid. Caputo, who has no medical or health background, was named to the spokesperson’s position in April 2020.
Caputo and his staff delayed the CDC report for a month while they questioned the authors’ political motivations. The report stated that the potential benefits of these drugs do not outweigh their risks. Paul Alexander, a political appointee, demanded that Redfield re-edit two published reports which he claimed overstated the risks of covid to children.
Alexander also accused Redfield and the CDC of undermining Trump’s efforts to get schools reopened. Alexander demanded that Redfield stop all future MMWR reports until the CDC changed its longstanding publication process and allowed him to personally review the whole report before it was published. Alexander also demanded that the CDC let him make line edits.
Alexander also wanted the CDC to make an immediate stop to the reports.
Caputo recruited Alexander, an assistant professor of health research at Toronto’s McMaster University, to be his scientific adviser. While CDC officials have pushed back on Caputo’s encroachment into their work, they have allowed his team to review the reports before their publication. Caputo said it was appropriate for his department, the United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), to review CDC reports.
Alexander is the same HHS official who has reportedly been working to stop Fauci from speaking publicly about the risks of covid in children. Alexander has been trying to instruct Fauci’s staff about what he should say during media interviews. Alexander asked for Fauci to avoid advocating for children to wear masks. Fauci’s aides have pushed back against Alexander’s requests.
While transmission dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 involving children are not fully understood, potentially complex, and probably differ across age groups, it is incorrect to say there is no evidence, zero, that children spread this virus to children in schools or to adults, citing four different studies, including a CDC report on an outbreak at a Georgia summer camp that said 44 percent of children and young adults had tested positive in June 2020. Fauci denied the suggestion that he was being muzzled, no one on his staff advised him on what to say. Fauci has, at times, been at odds with the Trump administration during the covid pandemic.
Fauci disagreed with Donald Trump’s assessment the United States has rounded the corner on the covid pandemic, saying the statistics are disturbing.
Fauci, the outspoken director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), said the United States was starting the flu season with a high baseline of around 40,000 new cases a day and deaths are averaging around 1,000 daily. Trump, who has admitted playing down the severity of covid since it emerged, said the United States was rounding the corner on the crisis. Fauci hoped United States did not see a spike in cases after the Labor Day weekend as it did after other long holiday weekends since May 2020.
It was important to get those infection rates down before the autumn and winter seasons when people will be spending more time indoors. Asked about the outdoor campaign rallies Trump has resumed before his matchup against Biden, Fauci said they are absolutely risky. Fauci has previously warned that some schools in certain areas should be more cautious about reopening amid the pandemic.
Fauci said schools in regions with low infections, which would be considered green zones, would have no problem reopening. If schools are in a yellow zone, it is more of a risk, so the schools may want to modify their schedule. If schools are in a red zone, there is a high degree of viral activity, the schools need to think twice before they get children to go back to school.
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