COVID-19 and race riots couldn’t stop the President from planning an outdoor rally - but a tropical storm was the last straw
The President has vowed his outdoor rallies must go on despite COVID-19 and race riots - but even he can’t control the weather. He still managed to issue a unique challenge to his opponent Joe Biden.
Leaders
Don't miss out on the headlines from Leaders. Followed categories will be added to My News.
US President Donald Trump has cancelled an outdoor election rally this weekend in New Hampshire because of huge storms which hit the east coast of America.
It was to be the first Trump 2020 rally since last month’s controversial Tulsa stadium event, which drew underwhelming crowds.
The event in New Hampshire was called-off because of Tropical Storm Fay, which is forecast to hit America’s northeast hard over Friday and Saturday, local time.
The rally was to be held at open-air location in Portsmouth and will be rescheduled, his campaign said.
Polling shows Mr Trump trailing his Democratic rival Joe Biden by at least 10 points nationally, and new research published Friday, local time, said a record number of Americans disapproved of his handling of the coronavirus.
The pandemic is increasingly dominating the 2020 campaign, four months ahead of the presidential election.
More than two thirds of respondents to an ABC Ipsos poll said they disapproved of Mr Trump’s pandemic response, while just 33 per cent approved.
The same number, 67 per cent, said they also disapproved of how he was “handling race relations” in wake of social unrest sparked by the killing of George Floyd.
America is struggling with a resurgence in COVID-19 cases, with widespread outbreaks forcing some governors to roll back their reopening plans.
It came after Mr Trump accused Mr Biden of having been “brainwashed” by his party’s progressive wing and challenged him to prove his “cognitive abilities”.
“He’s been taken over by the radical left. He has no clue what they’re doing and what they’re getting him into,” Mr Trump said to Fox News host Sean Hannity late Thursday local time.
“And you look at the deal they made with Bernie Sanders now and the group, it’s all crazy, radical left stuff. And Joe’s never going to be able to fight it, even if he disagreed with it, which I actually don’t think he does.
“They brainwashed him. He doesn’t know where he is. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. And our country will suffer. Our stock markets will crash. Bad things will happen.”
Mr Trump challenged his rival to a cognitive test, with both septuagenarian candidates having faced claims by their opponents their mental acuity was suffering.
MORE NEWS
Glee star’s final moments caught on video
Prince Andrew could be on Ghislaine’s tapes
Family ‘concerned’ for ‘struggling’ Kanye West
“He hasn’t taken any cognitive test because he couldn’t pass one,” Mr Trump said.
“I actually took one very recently when, you know, the radical left was saying, ‘Is he all there? Is he all there?’ I proved I was all there, because I aced it,” Mr Trump boasted.
“I aced the test. … He should take the same exact test, a very standard test. I took it at Walter Reed Medical Center in front of doctors and they were very surprised. They said, ‘That’s an unbelievable thing. Rarely does anyone do what you just did.”.
US COURT RULES TRUMP MUST ‘HAND OVER’ TAX RETURNS
US President Donald Trump’s battle to keep his tax returns and financial records private was dealt a blow with the country’s highest court ruling he hand them to New York prosecutors.
While the Supreme Court ruled in a 7-2 verdict that Mr Trump’s tax returns be handed to the Manhattan District Attorney, it found in his favour over a separate investigation by Democrat-led House committees.
Hush-money payments allegedly made to women who claimed to have affairs with Mr Trump are part of a criminal investigation by New York prosecutors.
The Supreme Court said the president was not immune from subpoenas and criminal investigations.
“The President is neither absolutely immune from state criminal subpoenas seeking his private papers nor entitled to a heightened standard of need,” the ruling said.
But it separately found the attempt by Congress to access his financial information was too broad and threatened the separation of powers.
Mr Trump has lost every legal battle so far to keep his tax returns private, and it’s not clear how much will be made public and how much will remain sealed by a Grand Jury, following the ruling.
His lawyers indicated during a hearing in May, which was held by phone due to the coronavirus, that they would comply with the court’s order.
Among those joining the majority decision against him were Mr Trump’s two conservative high court appointees, Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Justice Neil Gorsuch.
The Supreme Court rejected arguments made by Mr Trump’s legal team and the Justice Department that as sitting president he was immune from criminal investigation.
Mr Trump has fought hard to keep his financial records and tax returns private, despite pledging during the 2016 election campaign that he would reveal them.
He is the first president to do so in more than 40 years and his refusal to do so has been increasingly targeted his Democrat opponent Joe Biden, ahead of the November election.
The court rejected Mr Trump‘s attempt to block New York prosecutors from enforcing a subpoena for historical data financial from his accountants.
That case will now return to the lower courts and will potentially open up his financial affairs to broad scrutiny.
Mr Trump reacted to the judgement on Twitter with a series of posts describing it as a “political prosecution” and saying it was ”not fair to this presidency” that he now had to ”keep fighting in a politically corrupt New York”.
Mr Trump took to Twitter to lash out against the decision in a multi-tweet tirade:
The Supreme Court sends case back to Lower Court, arguments to continue. This is all a political prosecution. I won the Mueller Witch Hunt, and others, and now I have to keep fighting in a politically corrupt New York. Not fair to this Presidency or Administration!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2020
Courts in the past have given “broad deferenceâ€. BUT NOT ME!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2020
....for another President. This is about PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT. We catch the other side SPYING on my campaign, the biggest political crime and scandal in U.S. history, and NOTHING HAPPENS. But despite this, I have done more than any President in history in first 3 1/2 years!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2020
...Won all against the Federal Government and the Democrats send everything to politically corrupt New York, which is falling apart with everyone leaving, to give it a second, third and fourth try. Now the Supreme Court gives a delay ruling that they would never have given...
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2020
We have a totally corrupt previous Administration, including a President and Vice President who spied on my campaign, AND GOT CAUGHT...and nothing happens to them. This crime was taking place even before my election, everyone knows it, and yet all are frozen stiff with fear....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2020
Democrats cast the rulings as a victory, but the White House said the president was “gratified” by Supreme Court verdicts.
“Last year, Democrat-run House committees subpoenaed President Trump’s financial records in an effort to gain partisan advantage in the upcoming presidential campaign. Their claim that the financial records could serve as “a useful case study” to learn about “unsafe lending practices” and “money laundering” was plainly disingenuous,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said in a statement.
“The Supreme Court saw through these transparent smoke-screens…. By recognising, yet again, that the job of Congress is to legislate—and not to grandstand, harass, or seek to embarrass its political opponents—the Supreme Court has reinforced the separation of powers that our Framers established as an essential bulwark of individual liberty.”
The ruling allows Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance to have a grand jury subpoena eight years of the president’s tax returns.
It is unlikely the records would be made public before the November election.