Politics Election category, Page 269
C-SPAN suspends Steve Scully after he admits to lie about Twitter hack
NEW YORK — C-SPAN suspended its political editor Steve Scully indefinitely Thursday because he admitted to lying about his Twitter feed being hacked when he was confronted about a questionable exchange with former Trump aide Anthony Scaramucci. The news came on the day of what was supposed to be a...
CNN, New York Times spotlight Westmoreland County as key in presidential race
National media outlets are eyeing Westmoreland County as a key battleground in the looming presidential election. Both CNN and the New York Times this week spotlighted the county in reports, talking to residents and politicians about their efforts to swing the race in favor of either President Donald Trump or...
Biden raises record $383 million in September
WASHINGTON — Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden raised $383 million for his election effort in September, a record-breaking sum that eclipses the unprecedented fundraising from the previous month. The haul, announced Wednesday night, leaves him with $432 million in the bank just weeks before the Nov. 3 election. He raised...
Facebook, Twitter seek to keep Hunter Biden report from going viral amid disinformation crackdown
After heavy criticism over the way they let misinformation run wild on their platforms in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, social media companies gradually have been adopting stronger policies to stem the spread of misinformation. For the first time, Facebook and Twitter deployed those policies Wednesday against a...
NBC faces backlash over scheduling its Trump town hall against ABC’s Biden eventVideo
NBC News is sticking with its plan to air a live televised town hall on Thursday night with President Trump, competing directly against ABC’s event with Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. The news division will have Trump answer questions from “Today” co-anchor Savannah Guthrie and a group of voters in...
Nearly 29K Allegheny County voters receive wrong mail-in ballots
Nearly 29,000 Allegheny County voters have received the wrong ballot because of a programming and printing error by the company hired to print and mail the county’s ballots, officials said Wednesday. Elections officials began hearing of the misprinted ballots on Friday, said Elections Division Manager David Voye. About 20 county...
5 takeaways from 2nd day of Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearingVideo
WASHINGTON — It was a very 2020 Supreme Court confirmation hearing Tuesday, as Amy Coney Barrett fielded her first round of questions on socially divisive issues from socially distanced members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senate Republicans have said they want to hold a floor vote on Barrett’s nomination by...
President Trump swoops into Johnstown for rally as Election Day grows closerVideo
Chants of “four more years” greeted President Trump as he emerged from Air Force One at the John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport on Tuesday evening, just days after declaring himself cured of covid-19. The enthusiastic crowd, estimated at anywhere from 6,000 to 10,000 strong, was still streaming into the airport...
Supreme Court temporarily halts census in latest twist of 2020 count
The Supreme Court on Tuesday stopped the once-a-decade head count of every U.S. resident from continuing through the end of October. President Donald Trump’s administration had asked the nation’s high court to suspend a district court’s order permitting the 2020 census to continue through the end of the month. The...
Despite coronavirus fears, Texas sends most voters to the pollsVideo
HOUSTON — Early voting began Tuesday with long lines in Texas, one of the few places in the U.S. not allowing widespread mail balloting during the pandemic, and Jill Biden rallied supporters across the red state that Democrats are no longer writing off. Texas is one of just five states...
Bipartisan Christian group forms super PAC to oppose Trump
WASHINGTON — A group of prominent Christians from both sides of the aisle, including a past faith adviser to former President Barack Obama, is forming a political action committee designed to chip away at Christian support for President Donald Trump in the final weeks of the 2020 campaign. Dubbed Not...
Biden addresses idea of high court packing: ‘I’m not a fan’
WASHINGTON — Joe Biden says he is “not a fan” of adding seats to the Supreme Court, after weeks of avoiding questions about the proposal that’s been pushed by progressives and used by Republicans to attack him. “I’ve already spoken on — I’m not a fan of court packing, but...
Defiant Trump defends virus record in 1st post-covid rallyVideo
SANFORD, Fla. — Defiant as ever about the coronavirus, President Donald Trump on Monday turned his first campaign rally since contracting covid-19 into a full-throated defense of his handling of the pandemic that has killed 215,000 Americans, joking that he was healthy enough to plunge into the crowd and give...
Takeaways: Coronavirus at center of Supreme Court hearingsVideo
WASHINGTON — The coronavirus won’t surrender the national stage to anyone — not to President Donald Trump, Judge Amy Coney Barrett or majority Republicans holding the power to confirm nominees to the Supreme Court. The disease that’s killed more than 213,000 people in the United States dominated the Senate hearings...
Big turnout as early in-person voting starts in GeorgiaVideo
ATLANTA — The chance to cast ballots on Georgia’s first day of in-person early voting Monday had thousands of people waiting for hours to make their voices heard. Eager voters endured waits of six hours or more in Cobb County, which was once solidly Republican but has voted for Democrats...
Attorney General Barr broke elections law, ethics groups say in call to impeach
WASHINGTON — Two groups promoting ethics in government called for the impeachment of U.S. Attorney General William Barr, accusing him of violating laws and undermining public confidence in the Justice Department. Barr has used the department to further President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, a bipartisan group of lawyers from the...
California GOP says it owns unofficial ballot drop boxes
LOS ANGELES — California’s Republican Party on Monday acknowledged owning unofficial ballot drop boxes that state election officials said are illegal. California election officials received reports over the weekend about the boxes in Fresno, Los Angeles and Orange counties. On Sunday, the secretary of state issued a memo telling county...
Pa. Republicans drop effort to create ‘election integrity’ panel with subpoena power
Spotlight PA is an independent, non-partisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free weekly newsletter. HARRISBURG — Pennsylvania Republicans have dropped their plan to create an “election integrity” panel with subpoena power, an effort Democrats...
Supreme Court nominee Barrett vows to interpret laws ‘as they are written’Video
Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett declared Monday that Americans “deserve an independent Supreme Court that interprets our Constitution and laws as they are written,” encapsulating her conservative approach to the law that has Republicans excited about the prospect of her taking the place of the late Justice Ruth Bader...
Report: Fauci rips recent Trump campaign ad, says he was taken out of contextVideo
Dr. Anthony Fauci told CNN on Sunday that he did not consent to a clip of him being used in an ad by the Trump campaign, adding that the footage is out of context. “In my nearly five decades of public service, I have never publicly endorsed any political candidate....
Anti-police ‘satanist’ runs for sheriff as Republican in NH
With more than 4,200 votes, Republicans in one New Hampshire county nominated an unconventional candidate for sheriff: a self-described satanist whose campaign slogan disparages the police. Since then, Aria DiMezzo, a transgender woman in her early 30s, has become a minor celebrity — and the target of online attacks, vandalism...
Whitmer plot could affect fight for battleground Michigan
Gretchen Whitmer knew she’d have the spotlight Thursday. And she decided not to waste it. Hours after the FBI revealed a group of anti-government vigilantes had plotted to kidnap her, the Democratic governor of Michigan addressed her state — and the nation — with a message that didn’t mince words...
Judge throws out Trump campaign’s Pennsylvania lawsuit
HARRISBURG, Pa. — A federal judge in Pennsylvania on Saturday threw out a lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump’s campaign, dismissing its challenges to the battleground state’s poll-watching law and its efforts to limit how mail-in ballots can be collected and which of them can be counted. “This is a...
Trump restarting campaign with White House, Florida events
WASHINGTON — Looking to shove his campaign back on track, President Donald Trump and his team laid out an aggressive return to political activities, including a big White House event on Saturday and a rally in Florida on Monday, a week after his hospitalization for a virus that has killed...
Embattled Texas AG drops case that set off staff revolt
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Friday dropped an investigation sought by a wealthy donor that set off an extraordinary revolt by the Republican’s top deputies, who accused him of bribery and abuse of office, and fueled new calls for his resignation. The announcement came hours after...
