Joe Biden under fire as new COVID cases rock White House
Five close aides to Donald Trump’s vice president, Mike Pence, have been diagnosed with coronavirus as Joe Biden faces criticism over his energy levels.
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At least five people who work closely with US Vice President Mike Pence’s have tested positive for coronavirus in recent days, including chief of staff Marc Short and outside adviser Marty Obst, according to US reports.
There are concerns that more people within Mr Pence’s inner circle will test positive in the coming days, a source reportedly told CNN.
“They’re scared,” the source said of staffers in the vice president’s office.
Vice President Mike Pence and second lady Karen Pence each tested negative for coronavirus on Sunday (local time), a White House official said.
Despite contact with multiple people who recently tested positive, Mike Pence is refusing to quarantine in defiance of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and will continue to campaign, just a little over a week out from the US election.
The vice president is going to continue his travel schedule,” Trump campaign spokesman Tim Murtaugh told Fox News.
“The folks on his staff are in quarantine, and he relies on the very sound medical advice of the White House medical unit.”
Mr Pence’s office announced on Saturday night that Mr Short had been diagnosed with COVID-19.
Mr Obst, who is a senior political adviser to Mr Pence but is not a government employee, and at least three staffers in Mr Pence’s office have also tested positive for the virus.
And just over a week before the vote — and with total US coronavirus deaths nearing the grim total of 225,000 — Mr Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows conceded that “we are not going to control the pandemic.”
Instead, he said, “We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation areas.”
But Democrat challenger Joe Biden’s campaign immediately seized on Meadows’ comments to hammer the administration over the virus, which has set records for new cases in recent days.
“They are admitting defeat,” Mr Biden’s running mate Kamala Harris said during a campaign stop in Michigan, “and I’ve been saying that, and Joe Biden has been saying that since the beginning.”
Trump officials sought to brush aside the crush of bad COVID news by attacking Mr Biden’s energy levels and what it says is his paltry list of accomplishments in his 47 years in Washington.
Mr Murtaugh slammed Mr Biden for his light campaign schedule, saying the Democratic challenger was “feeling the heat” and “took five out of six days off” before the last presidential debate on Thursday.
The remarks drew a contrast to the furious pace that Mr Trump, 74, has maintained for days — including stops on Sunday (local time) in New Hampshire and Maine — while Mr Biden has set a more cautious course, speaking less frequently and to smaller, socially distanced groups.
CONTRASTING CAMPAIGNS
Meanwhile, Mr Biden’s campaign announced he planned on Sunday (local time) only to take part in a virtual “I will vote” concert.
But his deputy campaign manager vigorously defended him, saying in a US TV interview that “we are campaigning incredibly hard.”
“The difference between what we’re doing and what Donald Trump is doing,” said Kate Bedingfield, is that “we’re doing it safely.”
Ahead of the November 3 election — and with more than 57 million Americans having cast early votes — both campaigns are scrambling to make their closing arguments and win over the few still undecided voters.
On Saturday, an energised Mr Biden and former president Barack Obama accused Mr Trump of massively mishandling the pandemic.
“Donald Trump isn’t suddenly going to protect all of us. He can’t even take the basic steps to protect himself,” Mr Obama said, referring to Mr Trump’s hospitalisation for COVID-19 three weeks ago.
But the president has remained ebullient and constantly sought to project confidence despite trailing in national polls.
Mr Trump, who has sought to shift voters’ attention to his plans for the economy, told supporters in North Carolina over the weekend, “This election is a choice between a Trump super-recovery and a Biden depression.”
Mr Trump ploughed through three campaign rallies in one day on Saturday as he sought to close the gap with Mr Biden by playing down the severity of the coronavirus crisis and complaining that the media was fixated on the problem.
Mr Biden’s response: “Donald Trump said, and is still saying, ‘we’re rounding the corner. It’s going away. We’re learning how to live with it.’ We’re not learning how to live with it. You’re asking us to learn how to die with it.”
Mr Biden has maintained a stable lead of around 10 points in national polls, and narrower leads in battleground states like Florida that typically decide the winner of US presidential elections.
KAMALA HARRIS TAKES SWIPE AT TRUMP
Meanwhile, Kamala Harris took aim at Mr Trump over his administration’s handling of the coronavirus during a campaign stop in Michigan.
“This is the greatest failure of any presidential administration in the history of America,” she said.
Mr Biden and Ms Harris have been hammering Mr Trump over his handling of the pandemic, which has seen the US suffer roughly one-fifth the world death total though its population is only four per cent the total.
Mr Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, as well as a number of other aides, tested positive for the virus over the weekend, swelling the list of the administration staff to have caught the virus.
Speaking to cheering crowds over the weekend as she dropped in to neighbourhood coffee shops or paid “surprise” visits to college students, 56-year-old Ms Harris has brought a jolt of youthful energy to the low-key presidential campaign of her 77-year-old running mate, Mr Biden.
“I’m very happy to be back in Atlanta, Georgia,” she said as she stepped jauntily down the stairs of a private plane onto the tarmac of the city’s international airport in the autumnal warmth of the US South.
“I’m Kamala Harris and I’m running to become the next vice president of the United States.”
TRUMP VOTES FOR HIMSELF
“We love you! We Love you! We Love you!”. That was the chant from Donald Trump’s supporters in Ohio on Saturday (local time), after the US President cast a vote for himself at an early polling station.
“I voted for a guy named Trump,” Mr Trump said before taking another shot at his election rival, Democratic candidate Joe Biden.
Mr Trump has had a busy schedule, with visits to Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin nine days out of the US election.
Speaking on Saturday, Mr Trump claimed Mr Biden would “pack the supreme court with far-left judges who will eliminate your second amendment and if you happen to be pro-life, you can forget that” if he won the election.
“They will change everything,” Mr Trump told a rally in Ohio, his third of the day. Describing himself as the Democrats’ “worst nightmare”, Mr Trump said he was not a politician.
“If I don’t sound like a typical Washington politician, it’s because I’m not a politician,” he said.
“And if I don’t always play by the rules of the Washington establishment, it’s because I was elected to fight for you and I am fighting for you harder than any president has ever done before.”
He ridiculed the mental state of Mr Biden.
“You know, Joe Biden used to say he made a lot of mistakes because he was never sure where he was, right?”
Mimicking Mr Biden, the President said: “I’m standing up for the great people of … F-F-Florida. But there are no palm trees! He did that about seven times, right? You know, once you do that and walk off the stage, no matter what speech you gave, it’s no good.
“Standing up for the great people of Idaho! You know, he had Iowa and Idaho and he couldn’t figure it out.
“This is not what we need! I am relying on you to deliver another historic victory for our country!”
He once again refused to say he would leave the White House “peacefully” if he lost the election.
“Then they talk about, if you lose, will it be a friendly transition, and I say, let me ask you a question, when I won, did they give me a friendly transition?” Mr Trump said.
“They spied on my campaign, they did all this stuff, that was not a friendly transition.”
Meanwhile, Democratic hopeful Joe Biden called Trump supporters “chumps” in a barb that revived memories of Hillary Clinton calling Trump supporters “a basket of deplorables”.
“We don’t do things like those chumps out there with the microphones, those Trump guys,” he told supporters ensconced in about 130 cars at a drive-in rally at Bucks County Community College in Newtown.
He was referring to scores of Trump fans, driving trucks and SUVs draped with American flags and campaign banners, who invaded a nearby parking lot to honk horns and try to shout the Democrat down.
In 2016, Ms Clinton said: “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up.”
OBAMA BACKS BIDEN
Former President Barack Obama rallied for Biden in Miami, urging Americans to vote in “the most important election in a lifetime”.
“This election requires every single one of us (to vote) … what we do in this next 10 days will matter for decades to come,” Mr Obama told a drive-in rally, as the crowd honked their car horns.
“Donald Trump, I knew he would not embrace my vision, I knew he would not continue my policies, but I did hope for the country’s sake that he would show at least a little bit of interest in taking the job seriously,” Mr Obama told the crowd, in support of Biden.
“Half a million jobs are gone just here in Florida. Do you think he is hard at work to get us out of this mess? Trump was asked in the debate, what is your new plan for COVID? He just said, it wasn’t his fault and he didn’t have a plan,” Mr Obama said.
“It’s a good idea if you are running for re-election to be able to say, here is what I want to accomplish. What did Trump say? He got mad and walked out of the interview (with US 60 Minutes),” Mr Obama said, urging the swing state of Florida to support Mr Biden.
Later, Mr Biden said this would be an election for the heart and soul of America.
“It’s go time! Times are hard, unemployment is way up, people are worried about making the next rent payment,” Mr Biden said.
“Folks, there is a dark winter ahead, the experts are saying we are going to lose another 200,000 lives to the virus if we don’t step up. He refuses to accept the science.
“He still has no plan. He can only double down on his Park Avenue way of looking at the world.
“He thinks the way to get the economy back on track is to give tax cuts to the wealthy. This guy doesn’t get it. I’ll do what he’s not able to do. I’ll have an effective strategy to mobilise true international pressure to isolate and punish China.
“I’m gonna start to ask the wealthy and the corporations to pay their fair share.
He said Mr Trump knew how serious the virus was back in January, but hid it from the country.
“He knew how dangerous it was, but what did he do? Did he tell you, did he tell us?
John Bon Jovi appeared at an event in Pennsylvania to support Joe Biden.
Mr Biden said Mr Trump was “unwilling and unable to do the hard work” to get the pandemic under control.”
NEW YORKERS VOTE EARLY
It comes as thousands of New Yorkers — some rising before dawn — stood in line outside polling sites on Saturday local time as they got their first-ever chance to vote early in a presidential election.
“We want to vote. We don’t want any hassle or any drama [or] to deal with anybody that might deter people from voting. We want to be safe,” said a Manhattan retiree named Ellen, who stood at the front of the line to cast her ballot for Joe Biden at Madison Square Garden. According to the New York Post, she arrived just before 7am and by 9:30am there were about 400 people behind her.
Jettie Thomas, an administrative judge for the state, got to the Garden two and a half hours ahead of the polls opening at 10am.
“I’m excited to get it over with. And hopefully it will come out for the best,” said Thomas, a Biden supporter. “We’ve all had enough of all of this.”
Election officials expect 60,000 people to vote at Madison Square Garden, which is being used for the first time as a polling site, as is the Barclays Center in Brooklyn. There are 86 other early-polling sites in the city.