Trump stokes row about election debate with Biden – live

And here’s the Biden campaign’s response to the Rudy Giuliani letter on debates, via Biden campaign rapid response director Andrew Bates:

“We have said all along, including in a letter to the commission in June, that Joe Biden will appear on the dates that the commission selected and in the locations they chose. Donald Trump has not, continually trying to insert his choice of friendly moderators, now including one who just published an op-ed offering ‘the case’ for Trump’s reelection. Joe Biden will be there. We await Donald Trump’s decision — and perhaps the president should put as much time into managing COVID as does into this.”

Biden advisers have not taken the arguments by Giuliani seriously. Part of that is simply because the campaign’s arguments are coming through Giuliani.

And it’s also that Trump has switched positions on mail-in ballots and early voting. At moments he has argued that it is an opportunity for massive fraud and then at other moments he’s said that some parts of the country, like Florida with its Republican governor, can execute a vote-by-mail influx safely.

The Trump campaign is asking the body in charge of overseeing general election debates to either add a debate to the agreed upon three or bump one of the existing ones up.

In a letter penned by Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, the campaign argues “By the time of the first presidential debate on September 29, 2020, at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, as many as eight million Americans in 16 states will have already started voting.”

Trump himself made a similar argument during an interview with Fox News on Wednesday.

The campaign also suggested a list of potential moderators. It’s a mix of right-leaning journalists and ones working for nonpartisan outlets:

Bret Baier, Gerry Baker, Maria Bartiromo, Shannon Bream, David Brody, Rachel Campos-Duffy, Kevin Cirilli, Larry Elder ,Saagar Enjeti, Harris Faulkner, Major Garrett, Michael Goodwin, Ambrosio Hernandez, Joe Kernen, Hoda Kotb, Susan Li, Bill Hemmer, Hugh Hewitt, Tom Llamas, Dagen McDowell, David Muir, Norah O’Donnell, Charles Payne, Rick Santelli.

There are early indicators that Republican and Democratic negotiators are inching closer to some kind of agreement on another stimulus package.

The most telling sign is that top congressional Democratic officials and White House officials have agreed to a deadline of Friday for some kind of agreement.

More telling, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate will be in session next week.

But a CNN report this afternoon suggests there’s still a long way to go:

Bottom line: There is still a long way to go and an agreement to a timeline to reach an agreement — one that is already one week after the initial deadline — isn’t much on its face. But what’s happening behind the scenes is a signal things are actually starting to kick into gear.

What to watch: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows will be back on Capitol Hill for negotiations.

At a fundraiser this afternoon Joe Biden himself acknowledged that he would not be accepting the Democratic nomination for president in Milwaukee.

According to a pool report of the Biden fundraiser featuring a set of Connecticut politicians:

Biden acknowledged the recent news that he will not be accepting the Democratic nomination in person in Milwaukee.

“The mayor has put in place a 225 person limit on people assembling in any one place. I think it’s the right thing to do. I’ve wanted to set an example as to how we should respond individually to this crisis.

“From the start of the process, we’ve made it clear […] Science matters.”

”I think it’s going to be an exciting convention.”

Updated guidance from the White House says there will be a press briefing at 5:30 ET. Those briefings have consistently featured Donald Trump reading a prepared statement on his administration’s assessment of its accomplishments followed by a short question and answer session between Trump and reporters.

The Guardian’s Julian Borger lays out the confusion over the Trump administration’s assessment of what happened in Beirut:

Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that the massive explosion in Beirut was a bomb attack has revived fears of the president’s potential to foment international crises.

In off-the-cuff remarks at the White House on Tuesday, Trump called the blast a “terrible attack”.

“I’ve met with some of our great generals and they just seem to feel that this was not some kind of a manufacturing explosion type of event,” the president told reporters. “It was a bomb of some kind.”

Soon after, CNN quoted Pentagon officials as saying there was no evidence of any attack, raising the question of where Trump got his information. Lebanese officials were reported to have sought urgent clarification from US diplomats.

The defence secretary, Mark Esper, said on Wednesday: “Most believe that it was an accident as reported.” But he added that the Pentagon was still gathering information about the explosion.

In a statement about Beirut, the state department referred to the “horrible explosion” but made no mention of an attack.

Read more below:

Florida surpassed another benchmark in the coronavirus pandemic. According to the Orlando Sentinel: “Florida added 5,409 coronavirus cases Wednesday to push the statewide total past 500,000, to 502,739 infected. And with 225 new virus fatalities reported Wednesday, 7,627 Florida residents are now dead.”

The Sentinel report also says:

It’s the 11th day in a row the Florida Department of Health reported an increase below 10,000 cases. But Wednesday saw a record in new COVID-19 hospitalizations, with over 600 for the first time.

California surpassed the 500,000 mark four days earlier, according to The Los Angeles Times.

Utah senator Mitt Romney gave an effective shrug to the possibility of Donald Trump giving his RNC convention speech from the South Lawn or another location near the White House.

To be clear though, Trump has only said he and his team are considering delivering the speech from the South Lawn. They have not made a forma announcement.

The acting inspector general at the State Department is resigning and returning to the private sector after less than three months in his role.

Diana Shaw, the deputy inspector general, will succeed the outgoing acting inspector general, Stephen Akard.

More from The Wall Street Journal (bolds mine):

Stephen Akard, who has served as the acting State Department inspector general since the May ouster of Steve Linick, has resigned his post and plans to join the private sector, the department said Wednesday.

Diana Shaw, the deputy inspector general, will serve as the next acting inspector general.

A former career foreign-service officer, Mr. Akard has led the department’s Office of Foreign Missions since September 2019, a position he continued to hold while serving as acting inspector general. He served as a foreign-affairs adviser to Vice President Mike Pence during the latter’s time as Indiana governor.

Mr. Akard had faced criticism from congressional Democrats over his dual roles—one in which he reported to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and the other in which he was meant to serve as an independent watchdog over the department and its officials.

Congressional Democrats have opened an inquiry into Mr. Linick’s firing, on Monday issuing subpoenas to four State Department officials.

Mr. Linick has said that at the time of his termination, his office was examining the Trump administration’s May 24, 2019, use of an emergency declaration to expedite arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The departure of Akard is the latest in a string of inspectors general leaving the Trump administration. In a span of about six weeks Trump ousted five attorneys general according to CBS.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as well, is criticizing Donald Trump for considering holding aspects of the Republican National Convention from the South Lawn of the White House.

Pelosi weighed in during an appearance on MSNBC.

South Dakota senator John Thune, the second highest ranking Republican in the Senate, questioned whether it would even be legal for Donald Trump to hold part of the RNC on the South Lawn:

“Is that even legal?” Thune said to a group of reporters according to Politico’s Playbook newsletter. “I assume that’s not something that you could do. I assume there’s some Hatch Act issues or something. I don’t know the answer to that but I haven’t, and I haven’t heard him say that. But I think anything you do on federal property would seem to be problematic.”

The Democratic National Convention’s press team just confirmed the Bloomberg scoop that Joe Biden will not travel to Milwaukee to accept his party nomination for the presidency:

For those keeping count, this means there will be no Biden and no delegates traveling to the convention. Other attendees won’t be going either.

Joe Biden won’t travel to Milwaukee for the Democratic National Convention because of concerns over coronavirus, according to Bloomberg News:

Joe Biden will not travel to Milwaukee this month to accept the Democratic nomination for president at the party convention due to concerns about the coronavirus, according to two people familiar with the travel plans.

Biden had been planning to attend the convention in person and deliver his acceptance speech, but the campaign recently scrapped those plans.

The Biden campaign declined to comment on his travel.

The nominating conventions for both parties have been dramatically scaled back because of the pandemic. The Republican Party has switched locations twice and President Donald Trump said Wednesday he will “probably” give his acceptance speech from the White House.

The Democrats have planned an almost entirely virtual convention, but Biden had still planned to travel to Milwaukee to give the formal acceptance speech.

Both Biden and Donald Trump have had to consider retooling some of the the traditional aspects of a presidential national convention because of the coronavirus pandemic. Trump’s team is considering holding some of the Republican National Committee events on the South Lawn of the White House.

Kansas state senator Barbara Bollier’s Senate campaign is releasing a new 30-second ad not 24 hours after she won the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.

Bollier decisively won the Democratic nomination while Kansas congressman Roger Marshall won a multicandidate primary for the Republican nomination for Senate.

Bollier’s ad underscores the theme of the general election. The ad, obtained by the Guardian, features a rancher and Republican saying he will vote for Bollier. Bollier, a former Republican, needs to appeal to both Democrats and Republicans to win the Senate seat in deep red Kansas.

Watch the ad below:

There hasn’t been a Democratic senator from Kansas for over 80 years. But Democrats have seen recent victories in statewide and congressional races there and hoped that the bitter primary between Marshall and former Kansas Secretary of state Kris Kobach, an immigration hardliner, would clear a way for a moderate Democrat.

Democrats had hoped Kobach would win the nomination, a scenario top Republican Senate officials worried would doom their chances of keeping the seat. But Marshall’s victory doesn’t mean Bollier is now a non-factor. She starts the general election with $4 million cash on hand to Marshall’s $1 million.

Polling has been scant but what few surveys there have been suggests Bollier and Marshall are separated by just a few percentage points.

Democrats need to win only three Senate seats to win control of the Senate. The outcome of the Kansas Senate race could be that final seat.

Joe Biden has not taken a cognitive test like Donald Trump.

Biden was asked whether he had taken a cognitive test while being interviewed by National Association of Black Journalists and National Association of Hispanic Journalists.

He responded: ““No, I haven’t taken a test. Why the hell would I take a test?”

Biden then went on to say “Come on, man. That’s like saying you, before you got on this program, you take a test where you’re taking cocaine or not. What do you think? Huh? Are you a junkie?”

Trump has repeatedly challenged Biden’s cognitive abilities and argued that his own are sharper than ever. Trump has pointed to a Montreal test he recently took. That test, though, is usually taken to detect early signs of dementia, rather than measure intelligence.

Trump’s reelection campaign was quick to pounce on Biden’s comments.

Planners for the Republican National Convention are considering holding some of the ceremonies on the South Lawn at the White House, federal law be damned.

According to the Washington Post’s Michael Scherer and Josh Dawsey (bolds mine):

Republican National Convention planners are considering the White House South Lawn as the site of President Trump’s nationally televised nomination acceptance speech later this month, according to a Republican familiar with the discussions.

The decision to stage the most high-profile political event of Trump’s reelection campaign at the national seat of presidential power would be just the latest break by Trump in presidential norms, which have historically drawn clear lines between official business of the president and campaign events.

People involved in the planning said that no final decision had been made on the location of the Republican convention’s celebratory events. Trump abandoned plans to hold the full convention in Charlotte, and later Jacksonville, Fla., over concerns that large crowds could spread the novel coronavirus.

Political observers might wonder if such an event would violate the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from participating in political activities while actively serving in their positions.

But per the Post, “act also does not apply to “rooms in the White House or in the residence of the Vice President, which are part of the residence area or which are not regularly used solely in the discharge of official duties.” The New York Times reported Monday that a Trump speech from the confines of the White House was under consideration.”

The Guardian’s Amanda Hopluch has more:

Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib has won the Democratic primary for her state’s 13th congressional seat.

The primary was called for Tlaib on Wednesday morning.

Tlaib faced a formidable primary challenge from Detroit City Council President Brenda Jones.

Tlaib represents Michigan’s 13th congressional district, which is reliably Democratic. She is unlikely to face serious opposition in the general election.

Tlaib is a member of the informal group of young liberal congresswoman known as “The Squad.” The other members of that group are New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar, and Massachusetts congresswoman Ayanna Pressley.