Coronavirus US: Biden tells Trump ‘step up and do your job’ over Covid-19 death toll – live
Donald Trump refused to praise the late John Lewis, the Georgia congressman and original Freedom Rider, during his latest one-on-one interview, and also questioned the value of the pivotal Civil Rights Act of the 1960s, which Lewis fought and almost died for.
When asked how history would remember the civil rights leader, the president replied, “I don’t know. I really don’t know” and brought the point back around to himself.
“I never met John Lewis, I don’t believe,” Trump said.
Representative John Lewis speaks at a news conference held by Democrats on the state of voting rights in America the US Capitol. Photograph: Leah Millis/Reuters
In the interview, released late on Monday, with the Axios reporter Jonathan Swan, Trump instead centered his view of the late congressman on their lack of a personal relationship, noting Lewis “chose not to come to [his] inauguration”.
“He didn’t come to my State of the Union speeches, and that’s OK,” he said. “That’s his right. He should’ve come. I think he made a big mistake.”
The interview was conducted as the Georgia congressman lay in state in the Capitol rotunda. Trump did not pay his respects while Lewis’s casket was in Washington, nor attend Lewis’s funeral in Atlanta last week, at which Barack Obama delivered a soaring eulogy that was personally poignant but also a barnstorming political attack on the Trump administration’s efforts at voter and protest suppression.
Read further:
“Veep” the hit politics satire series starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus found seven seasons of success on HBO.
Louis-Dreyfus does not like the new HBO material:
Julia Louis-Dreyfus (@OfficialJLD)
God, I wish this was just a dumb show like ours. t.co/n3edLDiqiq
August 4, 2020
Joe Biden’s election campaign on Tuesday unveiled a plan to address the economic inequalities facing Latinos in America amid financial turmoil caused by the coronavirus pandemic, which has disproportionately harmed communities of color.
The plan was introduced a day after the anniversary of the mass shooting in El Paso, Texas, that took the lives of 23 people and where the shooter is accused in federal court of deliberately targeting Hispanics.
It comes as Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee to face Donald Trump in November, attempts to build a bridge to Latino voters, who are poised to make up the largest share of non-white voters in the country this election.
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden holds campaign event in Wilmington, Delaware. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Senior campaign officials announced plans and commitments focused on investing in the economic mobility of Latinos, starting with education and healthcare, as well as a commitment to support the building of a Smithsonian Latino museum on the National Mall in Washington DC.
Biden had previously promised to introduce a sweeping immigration plan on his first day in office, including protecting recipients of the Daca program, affording protections and rights to qualifying, young, undocumented immigrants, known as Dreamers– and also undoing the Trump administration’s hardline international asylum policies.
“The policies of [the Trump] administration amount to an onslaught of violence and fear against the community. That ends when Joe Biden is president,” a senior campaign official said on a call with reporters on Tuesday morning.
Read further:
Neil Young is suing Donald Trump’s campaign for alleged illegal usage of his music at a rally.
The musician claims that Rockin’ in the Free World and Devil’s Sidewalk were played at the president’s recent rally in Tulsa without a license. Both songs have also been used before by the campaign.
“This complaint is not intended to disrespect the rights and opinions of American citizens, who are free to support the candidate of their choosing,” reads the copyright infringement complaint filed in New York federal court. “However, Plaintiff in good conscience cannot allow his music to be used as a ‘theme song’ for a divisive, un-American campaign of ignorance and hate.”
Neil Young performs in concert during Farm Aid 34 at Alpine Valley Music Theatre on September 21, 2019 in East Troy, Wisconsin. Photograph: Gary Miller/Getty Images for Shock Ink
Young posted details of the lawsuit on his official site which details the singer “continuously and publicly” objecting to his music being used by Trump going back to 2015. “The Campaign has willfully ignored Plaintiff’s telling it not to play the songs and willfully proceeded to play the songs despite a lack of license,” it reads.
Young’s lawyers are asking for statutory damages in the maximum amount allowed for copyright infringement.
Last month, Young published a blogpost criticising the president for using his music and for his recent actions. “Imagine what it feels like to hear Rockin’ in the Free World after this president speaks, like it is his theme song,” he wrote. ‘I did not write it for that.”
Readers, there has been an appalling explosion in Beirut, Lebanon.
The Guardian is following this event closely and if you would like up-to-the-minute developments, we have a separate live blog on the site.
You can follow it here.
It’s been a lively morning in US political news, with more to come, so stay tuned.
Here’s where we are so far today:
Donald Trump signed the Great American Outdoors Act, major conservation legislation that permanently funds the Land and Water Conservation Fund and addresses a nearly $12bn maintenance backlog in national parks and other public lands. He managed to pronounce sequoia, but struggled with Yosemite.
After Trump’s disastrous handling of the coronavirus figures in last night’s Axios TV interview, Joe Biden has this morning directly attacked the US president over the deaths of Americans from Covid-19, telling him to “step up and do your job”.
In new polling, almost half of Americans (46%) report knowing someone who has tested positive for the coronavirus. Only 29% of Americans have a “fair amount” or a “great deal” of trust in the federal government looking out for the best interests of them and their families – that’s a new low.
Kim Gardner, St. Louis’, Missouri’s first Black circuit attorney, is facing a primary challenge today from Mary Pat Carl. Gardner recently drew criticism from Donald Trump for filing charges against a couple who waved their guns at Black Lives Matter protesters marching near their home.
Lunch
Senator Mitt Romney arriving for lunch with fellow Republicans. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
Senator Lisa Murkowski en route to the Republican lunch. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
Unidentified mask fail at Trump’s signing ceremony for the Great American Outdoors Act today. Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Senator Ted Cruz arrives for the Senate Republican luncheon. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell arrives for the Senate Republican luncheon at the Hart Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images
As postscript to that last bit about mail-in voting, here’s Guardian US voting rights reporter Sam Levine on the difference between “absentee” voting and “mail-in” voting, a semantic distinction Trump and others for whom voter suppression is a political strategy insist on (spoiler alert: they are the same thing, although the use of the terms has evolved over time in various places):
Sam Levine (@srl)
A good explainer from @NCSLorg on why “absentee” and “mail-in voting” are used interchangeably. In a few states, all registered voters are automatically mailed a ballot, a system commonly referred to as “all-mail voting,” or “universal mail-in voting” t.co/183aUoIWjFpic.twitter.com/EtzZhsEZVq
August 4, 2020
McEnany has been asked a couple times about a new Donald Trump tweet™, in which the president reverses himself on the dangers of mail-in voting, at least in Florida, where Trump seems to have realized he needs people who usually vote by mail to keep doing that if he is to win the state.
Attacking vote-by-mail: could it backfire for the president?
Don’t worry, Trump now says, mail-in is OK, in Florida at least, which as everyone knows has one of the country’s most airtight elections systems:
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
Whether you call it Vote by Mail or Absentee Voting, in Florida the election system is Safe and Secure, Tried and True. Florida’s Voting system has been cleaned up (we defeated Democrats attempts at change), so in Florida I encourage all to request a Ballot & Vote by Mail! #MAGA
August 4, 2020
Compare that with Trump’s constant attacks on mail-in voting over the last months, like this one:
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history. It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???
July 30, 2020
Will Steakin (@wsteaks)
Republicans in FL reading Trump’s tweet after he’s spent months trying to discredit mail-in voting pic.twitter.com/VNUE9GTKns
August 4, 2020
McEnany is asked about Trump’s claim in the Axios/HBO interview that he is doing all he can to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
“We are hard at work each and every day to defeat the invisible enemy,” she says. “…This president’s hard at work and he’ll continue to work hard.”
She says the US “leads the world in testing” and has a low fatality rate with respect to cases. Those of course are the same distortions and irrelevancies Trump trotted out in the interview.
McEnany says Trump will hold “a Covid briefing” at 530pm.
McEnany wades in a bit on the coronavirus relief bill.
Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim)
.@PressSec just said Democrats have no plan, then noted that their $3 trillion plan has gone up to a $3.4 trillion plan.
August 4, 2020
She’s asked what Trump could do unilaterally to provide relief if Congress does not act.
“I won’t get ahead of the president,” McEnany says. She says the Republicans keep making offers for a relief package but the Democrats won’t budge.
Sounds like there is some daylight there between the Republican and Democratic visions for the next coronavirus relief package.
McEnany is asked about the terrible explosions in the Beirut, Lebanon, port hours ago.
“Rest assured that we’re taking a very good look at that,” she says.
We’re listening to the White House briefing.
“The president is not considering a national lockdown,” press secretary Kayleigh McEnany says, in response to a question about potential future coronavirus mitigation measures. “What he is encouraging is mitigation efforts.”
That’s not true; Trump is urging schools across the country to open, attacking his own health advisers for describing the scope of the pandemic and attacking local leaders for urging caution.