Politics Election category, Page 289
Kanye West talks Trump, presidential bid, having covid-19 in Forbes interview
Kanye West is definitely planning to run for president in 2020, according to Forbes. The rapper and fashion designer did his first interview since announcing he was running July 4 and filled in some blanks about the situation. West, 43, whose original plan was to run in 2024, will seek...
In risky bid, Trump stokes racial rancor to motivate voters
NEW YORK — President Donald Trump is wielding America’s racial tensions as a reelection weapon, fiercely denouncing the racial justice movement on a near-daily basis with language stoking white resentment and aiming to drive his supporters to the polls. The incendiary discourse is alarming many in his own party and...
Atlanta Dream owner Kelly Loeffler objects to WNBA’s social justice plans
NEW YORK — Atlanta Dream co-owner Kelly Loeffler is not in favor of the WNBA’s social justice plans and has sent a letter to Commissioner Cathy Engelbert objecting to the league’s initiatives to honor the Black Lives Matter movement. Loeffler, who is also a Republican U.S. senator running for re-election...
Mitch McConnell eyes coronavirus aid as evictions, benefits cuts loom
WASHINGTON — An eviction moratorium is lifting. Extra unemployment benefits are ending. Parents are being called to work, but schools are struggling to reopen for fall as the covid-19 crisis shows no signs of easing. With Congress bracing for the next coronavirus aid package, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.,...
Betsy DeVos rejects part-time reopening for schools amid pandemicVideo
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos on Tuesday assailed plans by some local districts to offer in-person instruction only a few days a week and said schools must be “fully operational” even amid the coronavirus pandemic. Anything less, she says, would fail students and taxpayers. DeVos made the comments during a call...
GOP worries Trump’s divisive June imperils Senate control
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s June began with his Bible-clutching photo op outside a church after authorities used chemicals and batons to scatter peaceful demonstrators. It never got less jarring or divisive. By month’s end, he was downplaying a coronavirus pandemic upsurge that was forcing Western and Southern states to...
Mexico president heads to Washington for meeting with Trump
MEXICO CITY — For his first foreign trip as president, Mexico’s Andrés Manuel López Obrador travels to Washington on Tuesday to meet with President Donald Trump, a leader who has repeatedly used Mexico as a piñata to rally his base. The visit, coming just four months before U.S. elections, has...
Lindsey Graham, facing tough reelection, breaks with Trump
WASHINGTON — Sen. Lindsey Graham has publicly opposed President Donald Trump five times in the past few weeks, an unusual torrent of dissent from one of the president’s top allies in Washington just months before the South Carolina Republican faces a tough reelection challenge. Since June 20, Graham has blocked...
Trump-connected lobbyists reap windfall in federal coronavirus aid
WASHINGTON — Forty lobbyists with ties to President Donald Trump helped clients secure more than $10 billion in federal coronavirus aid, among them five former administration officials whose work potentially violates Trump’s own ethics policy, according to a report. The lobbyists identified Monday by the watchdog group Public Citizen either...
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, exposed to coronavirus, joined Trump on jetVideo
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — Shortly after fireworks above Mount Rushmore disappeared into the night sky on Friday, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem accompanied President Donald Trump aboard Air Force One despite having had close contact with Trump’s son’s girlfriend, who had tested positive for coronavirus. Trump has been in a...
Trump’s leadership is tested in time of fear, pandemic
WASHINGTON — Not long after noon on Feb. 6, President Donald Trump strode into the elegant East Room of the White House. The night before, his impeachment trial had ended with acquittal in the Republican-controlled Senate. It was time to gloat and settle scores. “It was evil,” Trump said of...
Trump’s views — bleak about the U.S., rosy about coronavirus — put Republicans on the spotVideo
WASHINGTON — White House surrogates and GOP lawmakers struggled Sunday to defend President Donald Trump after he spent the Fourth of July holiday weekend denigrating the racial-justice movement galvanized by George Floyd’s killing and playing down a deadly pandemic by claiming that 99% of coronavirus cases are “completely harmless.” In...
Trump’s taxes, birth control top Supreme Court’s closing agenda
The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to cap a term like no other with potentially blockbuster decisions covering birth control, religious rights and President Donald Trump’s efforts to keep his financial records private. The justices will tackle their eight remaining cases starting Monday, when they issue opinions in July for...
Kanye West says he’s running for president in 2020
The debate stage could be a little more crowded as President Donald Trump and presumptive Democratic nominee for president Joe Biden may have to make room for musician Kanye West. The rapper posted a message on Twitter Saturday night saying he is joining the race. “We must now realize the...
Trump Cabinet members look to reassure battleground voters
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue tromped through a strawberry festival in central Florida, detailing the government’s new trade pact. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo talked about foreign policy at a roundtable in south Florida. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler toured parts of Michigan and Wisconsin, where...
For nation’s birthday, Trump lashes out at ‘radical left’
WASHINGTON — On a day meant for unity and celebration, President Trump vowed to “safeguard our values” from enemies within — leftists, looters, agitators, he said — in a Fourth of July speech packed with all the grievances and combativeness of his political rallies. Trump watched paratroopers float to the...
Governors stress ‘personal responsibility’ over virus orders
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Earlier this week, as Tennessee registered what then was its highest single-day coronavirus case increase, Gov. Bill Lee held a news conference and issued a stern response. It wasn’t a mandate to wear masks in public or clamp down on businesses or social gatherings. Instead, it was...
Amid virus fight, campaign season brings ethical quandaries
BILLINGS, Mont. — Candidates in the November election who already hold office are grappling with a thorny question: where does the coronavirus stop and the campaign begin? In Montana, Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock’s actions helped keep the state’s infection rate from the COVID-19 pandemic among the lowest in the nation....
Trump’s Mount Rushmore trip draws real and figurative fireworks
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — President Donald Trump will begin his Independence Day weekend on Friday with a patriotic display of fireworks at Mount Rushmore, an event expected to draw thousands where masks and social distancing aren’t required as coronavirus cases spike across the country. Trump is expected to speak at...
US jobs surge: Trump sees sunshine, Biden ‘no victory yet’
NEW YORK — The U.S. economy just posted its best single-month job gain in history. U.S. unemployment is at one of its worst points since the Great Depression. Both are true. As Republicans and Democrats fought to spin Thursday’s jobs numbers to their advantage, both sides face tremendous political risks...
Booker reaches out to unite Democrats against McConnell
LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Looking to flex his newfound influence among Kentucky Democrats after his Senate campaign fell just short, Charles Booker reached out Thursday to unite behind Amy McGrath’s uphill fight to unseat Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Booker, a progressive who lost to McGrath by about 15,100 votes...
Texas governor issues mask order to fight coronavirus
AUSTIN, Texas — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott on Thursday ordered that face coverings must be worn in public across most of the state, a dramatic ramp-up of the Republican’s efforts to control spiking numbers of confirmed coronavirus cases and hospitalizations. Abbott, who had pushed Texas’ aggressive reopening of the state...
Trump, top officials defend response to Russia bounty threatVideo
WASHINGTON — Criticized for inaction, President Donald Trump and top officials on Wednesday stepped up their defense of the administration’s response to intelligence assessments that Russia offered bounties for killing U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Trump’s national security adviser said he had prepared a list of retaliatory options if the intelligence...
Billionaires’ political spending grew 37-fold in 10 years
WASHINGTON — Billionaires gave 37 times as much in political contributions in the last election as they did 10 years earlier, according to a new study. During the 2018 election cycle, billionaires gave $611 million, up from $17 million in 2008, according to the report from Americans for Tax Fairness...
Ex-Bush officials launch super PAC backing Biden over Trump
WASHINGTON — A group of former George W. Bush administration and campaign officials have launched a new super PAC supporting Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, the latest in a growing number of Republican groups to come out in support of Biden over President Donald Trump. The group, 43 Alumni for...
