Trump says coronavirus is ‘under control’
ASSOCIATED PRESS
President Donald Trump, spoke before a ceremony for Vice President Mike Pence to swear in Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., as Chief of Staff of the Air Force in the Oval Office of the White House, today, in Washington.
President Donald Trump says the coronavirus pandemic is “under control as much as you can control it.” Democratic nominee Joe Biden backs no-excuse vote-by-mail in all 50 states. And Wisconsin and Pennsylvania rejected nearly 2% of mail-in ballots in this year’s primaries.
There are 91 days until the election.
Other Developments:
Trump says coronavirus is ‘under control’ in interview
Trump says the coronavirus pandemic is “under control as much as you can control it” in the U.S.
In an interview with “Axios on HBO” taped last week, the president said that “right now it’s under control,” when pressed about the fact that 1,000 Americans are dying each day.
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“They are dying, that’s true. And you have — it is what it is,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean we aren’t doing everything we can. It’s under control as much as you can control it. This is a horrible plague.”
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Trump then said that his administration sent the states equipment they needed to fight the pandemic, but many governors “didn’t do their job.”
Biden urges no-excuse absentee voting in all 50 states
The Biden campaign says no-excuse absentee voting should be available in every election.
By law, 34 states and the District of Columbia allow any voter to cast their ballot by mail without an excuse. But other states have loosened or suspended that requirement during the coronavirus.
In two new ads on Facebook, Biden says that mail-in voting should be “an option for all voters, for all elections,” and questions Trump’s criticism of it.
“Why is he so afraid of making voting more accessible?” the ad says. “Because he knows expanding access to the vote would get him pushed right out of office by the will of the people.”
A short video contrasts Trump’s tweets against mail-in voting with members of his administration who have voted by mail, including Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, Attorney General William Barr and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
A July poll from the Pew Research Center showed nearly two-thirds of Americans support allowing absentee voting without an excuse.
Nearly 2% of mail-in ballots rejected in two key 2020 states
In the Wisconsin and Pennsylvania primaries held during the pandemic, nearly 2% of mail-in ballots were rejected, a new report says.
The research by the MIT Election Data and Science Lab and CBS News found that 1.9% of returned mail ballots in Wisconsin were rejected. That’s 22,401 ballots — just a few hundred votes less than the margin of victory for Trump in 2016.
In Pennsylvania, 1.8% of returned mail ballots were rejected, or 26,594.
By comparison, the U.S. Election Assistance Commission found that in 2016, just under 1% of returned ballots were rejected, most commonly for failing to sign the ballot envelope, for a signature that didn’t match the one on file or for arriving after a deadline.
Trump highlights family at upcoming fundraisers
For the Trump campaign, fundraising is all in the family.
On Thursday, the president will hold a roundtable discussion as part of a fundraiser in the Hamptons, a swanky part of Long Island, with his son Donald Jr. and his son’s girlfriend, former Fox News journalist Kimberly Guilfoyle.
The two will also join Trump on Monday, along with the pesident’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, for a roundtable at a fundraiser in Jackson, Wyoming.
