The latest on the 2020 election and SCOTUS battle

Peter Eyre, senior advisor for the Commission on Presidential Debates, has provided more details for how Tuesday night’s debate between President Trump and Joe Biden will play out.

There will be no handshake between Trump and Biden or with the moderator, Chris Wallace, due to coronavirus concerns. Once on stage, the three men will not wear masks.

Biden and Trump will stand on the right side of the stage looking at the audience, while the former vice president will be on the left. Wallace will be seated at a desk facing the two candidates.  

There are no opening statements and President Trump will receive the first question.

President Trump announced yesterday he’s nominating Judge Amy Coney Barrett to fill the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat.

Republicans, who control the Senate, have outlined a swift confirmation process, but many Democrats say the vacancy shouldn’t be filled until after Election Day.

Here’s where things stand now:

The presidential debates are around the corner, with Democratic nominee Joe Biden and President  Trump set to square off for the first time on stage next Tuesday.

All debates are scheduled to take place from 9 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. ET on their respective dates without commercial breaks.

Here’s what we know about the first debate:

In the wake of President Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, some Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee have called for Barrett to recuse herself from any cases related to the presidential election if she is confirmed.

On ABC’s “This Week,” Democratic Whip Dick Durbin said Barrett’s recusal in such cases “would evidence the fact that she wants to be fair in addressing this.”

“Why? Because this president has been outspoken and outrageous. To think that he would not accept the verdict of the election and that he would make it clear that he’s filling this vacancy on the Supreme Court to make sure it tips his way if there’s any election contest, that’s an outrage. No president has ever said that in our nation’s history,” Durbin said.

On Wednesday, President Trump refused to tell reporters whether he would agree to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses to Joe Biden and, in recent days, he has continued to claim the only way he will lose the election is if Democrats cheat, casting further doubt on whether he will accept the results.

Sen. Cory Booker said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he would ask Barrett if she would recuse herself from election-related cases when he meets with her ahead of her confirmation hearing.

“If she does not recuse herself, I fear that the court will be further delegitimized,” Booker said, also mentioning concerns about the President’s intentions.

Additionally, when asked about the possibility of Senate Democrats ending the filibuster or expanding the Supreme Court should they retake the majority, Durbin said a conversation about Senate rules is on the table. 

“Well, I can say a conversation about the future of the Senate rules is on the table and I’m part of it,” Durbin said. “And the reason is this. We have seen under Mitch McConnell the destruction and denigration of the United States Senate.”

As the country grapples with more than 200,000 deaths from coronavirus, the pandemic has become a defining campaign issue in the battle for the presidency between President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.

President Trump has been holding rallies with thousands of attendees— which are sometimes indoors, physical distancing is not required and masks are optional.

Biden, however, hasn’t held a rally since March. Instead, he has held smaller in-person events like roundtables that follow Covid-19 safety and prevention protocols. However, the Democratic presidential nominee announced on Sunday that he will take a campaign trip through Ohio and Pennsylvania following the upcoming debate.

Here’s a look at how the two candidates’ events have compared:

Many Democratic lawmakers have responded to President Trump’s decision to nominate Amy Coney Barrett to the US Supreme Court by bringing up health care and the Affordable Care Act.

Moments ago, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said Republicans seeking to quickly confirm Barrett to the nation’s highest court want to “overturn the Affordable Care Act.” And last night, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer told his fellow senators that a vote to confirm Barrett “is a vote to strike down the Affordable Care Act”

Here’s why they’re focusing on health care: The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments just after the November election in a case about the Affordable Care Act.

Senate Republicans have indicated they may vote to confirm Barrett before Election Day — meaning she could be seated on the bench for that case.

What Barrett has said about the Affordable Care Act: In an early 2017 law review essay reviewing a book related to the Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act, Barrett criticized Chief Justice John Roberts’ rationale that saved the law in 2012.

“Chief Justice Roberts pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute,” Barrett wrote. “He construed the penalty imposed on those without health insurance as a tax, which permitted him to sustain the statute as a valid exercise of the taxing power.”

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden urged the Senate not to act on President Trump’s Supreme Court nomination because the 2020 election — which includes mail-in ballots already sent out in some places — is already underway.

“Never before in our nation’s history has a Supreme Court justice been nominated and installed while a presidential election is already underway,” Biden said.

President Trump yesterday nominated Amy Coney Barrett to fill the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat. Senate Republicans have outlined a timeline to confirm the nomination before Election Day.

“There are senate Republicans out there who know in their hearts that if they shut out the voices of those during a voting period, during an election, closing the door on American democracy thereafter,” Biden said while speaking in Delaware today.

He continued:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said President Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court and Senate Republicans’ promise to quickly confirm her is about overturning the Affordable Care Act.

Biden said Republicans are going against their own standards, which they set when they refused to hold a hearing for former President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee in 2016 because it was an election year.

“All that matters is they see an opportunity to overturn the Affordable Care Act on their way out the door,” Biden said.

He continued:

“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what the American people want. President Trump sees a chance to fulfill his explicit mission — steal away the vital protection of the ACA for countless families who have come to rely on them for their health, their financial security, the lives of those they love.”

What this is about: Senate Republicans have outlined a possible confirmation hearing for Barrett that could have her confirmed before Election Day.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments just after the election in a case about the Affordable Care Act. The case is brought by a coalition of Republican state attorneys general and the Trump administration, who argue the law’s individual mandate is unconstitutional, and the entire law must fall.

Following President Trump’s formal nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, more Senate Democrats weighed in on whether they would be willing to meet with the nominee, despite widespread disapproval within their party of the expedited confirmation process.

Some Democratic senators, including Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Mazie Hirono, have said they won’t meet with Barrett. 

Although he has said he would not vote to confirm a Supreme Court justice before Election Day, Sen. Joe Manchin, the only Democrat who voted to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday he would meet with the judge, saying he thinks the “greatest responsibility” of a US senator is to “hear all sides of whatever the debate might be” and noting it is the duty of the Senate to “meet and confirm” with presidential nominees.

Manchin specifically mentioned that he would like to discuss the Affordable Care Act with Barrett.

“How do I explain to 800,000 that their pre-existing condition is not going to be covered, that they’re not going to have the ability to even buy insurance?” the West Virginia Democrat asked.

Sens. Cory Booker and Chris Coons, both members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, also intend to meet with Barrett.

Booker said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” it’s his “spirit” to sit down and have conversations with people. Coons told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that he would meet with the nominee either in-person or by phone and that he would also press her on the ACA.

Sen. Dick Durbin, the Democratic Whip and also a Judiciary Committee member, reiterated on ABC’s “This Week” that he would meet with Barrett, as he told CNN’s Michael Smerconish on Saturday.

“I’ve met with every Supreme Court nominee since I’ve been in the Senate, I will extend that courtesy, if she requests it, for at least a socially distanced safe meeting, perhaps over the phone,” Durbin explained.

Democratic Presidential nominee Joe Biden is now delivering remarks on the US Supreme Court from Wilmington, Delaware this afternoon.

The former Vice President had been expected to be largely out of the public eye this weekend as he prepares for Tuesday’s debate. However, the campaign announced this event early Sunday morning. 

Last night, shortly after President Trump announced he was nominating Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court, Biden released a statement focused on health care and protecting the Affordable Care Act.

“Today, President Trump has nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett as the successor to Justice Ginsburg’s seat. She has a written track record of disagreeing with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision upholding the Affordable Care Act. She critiqued Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion upholding the law in 2012,” Biden said.

He added that the Senate should not act on the vacancy until after the American people select their next president. 

Remember: Senate Republicans have outlined a possible confirmation hearing for Barrett that could have her confirmed before Election Day.

The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments just after the election in a case about the Affordable Care Act. The case is brought by a coalition of Republican state attorneys general and the Trump administration, who argue the law’s individual mandate is unconstitutional, and the entire law must fall.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows Sunday again criticized FBI Director Chris Wray. He said that his “problem” with Wray, who the White House has criticized recently, is that Wray has done so little to investigate voter fraud – and he declined to affirm President Trump’s confidence in the director. 

“To suggest that there is a process that is full of integrity is trying to make a verdict before you’ve actually heard the case,” Meadows told CBS’ “Face the Nation,” referring to Wray’s testimony on Capitol Hill denying widespread voter fraud. Meadows first criticized the comments Friday. 

“That’s my problem with Director Wray. They need to investigate it, and make sure that the voting populace — makes sure that their vote counts and no one else’s does,” Wray said Sunday. 

Meadows declined to offer the President’s confidence in the FBI director, while noting Trump will consider replacing those in whom he does lose confidence. CNN has reported Trump is highly unlikely to dismiss Wray before the election.

“Well, I mean, as we look at this, we want to make sure he’s doing his job. There are different degrees of confidence in different Cabinet members. Certainly, he’s still there,” Meadows said. “The minute the President loses confidence in any of his Cabinet members — they serve at his pleasure — he will certainly look at replacing them.”

The FBI has not commented on Meadows’ comments.

What is this about: Wray during his testimony last week did say the FBI does investigate voter fraud when there are accusations.

“Well, senator, I think what I would say is this. We take all election related threats seriously, whether it’s voter fraud, voter suppression, whether it’s in person, whether it’s by mail, and our role is to investigate the threat actors.
Now, we have not seen, historically, any kind of coordinated national voter fraud effort in a major election, whether it’s by mail or–or otherwise. We have seen voter fraud at the local level from time to time and so my comment should, in no way, be construed as minimizing how seriously we take our responsibility to investigate such incidents or the potential impact those things could have at the local level. So, it’s in our radar.
Certainly to change a—a federal election outcome by mounting that kind of fraud at scale would be a major challenge for an adversary, but people should make no mistake, we’re vigilant as to the threat and watching it carefully.”

Senate Judiciary Chair Lindsey Graham this morning clarified his committee’s timeline to address the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

Graham said in an interview with Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo that confirmation hearings for Barrett would begin on Oct. 12 with an introduction day.

After that, there will be two days of questioning, and on Oct. 15th, the committee will begin its markup.

They will hold a committee vote to send her nomination before the entire chamber on Oct. 22.

Last night on Fox News, Graham said the committee would vote on Barrett’s nomination by Oct. 26. 

President Trump arrived at Trump National golf club in Sterling, Virginia at just after 10 a.m. today, according to pool reports.

This is his 397th visit to one of his properties and 298th visit to one of his golf clubs during his presidency.

The President’s trip comes a day after he announced he’s nominating Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

As Trump arrived at the golf club, there was a woman dressed in a “Handmaid’s Tale” costume with a sign that said “VOTE” and a large crowd right near the entrance of the club with a sign that read “204k.” 

More than 204,500 people have died from coronavirus in the US since the pandemic began, according to Johns Hopkins University’s latest tally.

There were a few Trump supporters as well although only a fraction of the crowd, per CNN’s Allie Malloy.

Asked about President Trump’s refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power should he lose the election, Jill Biden said her husband, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, will bring “calm” back to the US.

“We go back to Joe Biden, we have calm. We have steady leadership,” she added. “We don’t have all of this chaos in America.”

Some background: Earlier this week, Trump would not commit to providing a peaceful transition of power after Election Day, lending further fuel to concerns he may not relinquish his office should he lose in November.

“Well, we’re going to have to see what happens,” Trump said when asked whether he’d commit to a peaceful transition, one of the cornerstones of American democracy.

Trump has previously refused to say whether he would accept the election results, echoing his sentiments from 2016. And he has joked — he says — about staying in office well past the constitutionally bound two terms.

Jill Biden, Joe Biden’s wife, said reports that Trump called fallen US military members losers “heartbreaking,” if it’s true.

“If it is true, it’s pretty heartbreaking,” she said in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper. “We should have a Commander in Chief who supports our military family, as Joe says it’s our one sacred obligation to take care of our military and their families.”

What this is about: Earlier this month, a report in The Atlantic magazine cited sources who said Trump rejected the idea of a visit to Aisne-Marne cemetery in France to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. He and proceeded to refer to the fallen soldiers as “losers” and “suckers,” according to the sources.

Trump has forcefully denied the report in The Atlantic.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said “it doesn’t matter” that Judge Amy Coney Barrett is Catholic this morning on CNN’s State of the Union.

Pelosi, who is Catholic herself, was asked by CNN’s Jake Tapper if she thinks it’s appropriate for Democratic senators to ask Judge Barrett about her Catholic faith.

She continued: “It doesn’t matter what her faith is, or what religion she believes in. What matters is does she believe in the Constitution of the United States. Does she believe in the precedent on the Supreme Court that has upheld the Affordable Care Act? This is, again, directly related to a major concern of the American people, as it was in 2018.”

Some context: In 2017, Democrats were criticized for questioning how Judge Barrett’s Catholic faith influences her views from the bench. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein told Barrett at the time “the dogma lives loudly within you.”

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi criticized President Trump’s swift nomination to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat, saying he’s moving quickly in order to fill the vacancy before the court hears a case on the Affordable Care Act in November.

Pelosi warned that a conservative court could overturn the Affordable Care Act.

“If you are a woman, we’ll be back to a time where being a woman in a preexisting medical condition,” she said.

She noted that it’s the job of the Senate — not the House — to consider and possibly confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination.

“It’s up to the Senate to make that judgment and have that process,” she said.

Some background: The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments just after the November election in a case about the Affordable Care Act.

Senate Republicans have indicated they may vote to confirm Barrett before Election Day — meaning she could be seated on the bench for that case.

What Barrett has said about the Affordable Care Act: In an early 2017 law review essay reviewing a book related to the Supreme Court ruling on the Affordable Care Act, Barrett criticized Chief Justice John Roberts’ rationale that saved the law in 2012.

“Chief Justice Roberts pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute,” Barrett wrote. “He construed the penalty imposed on those without health insurance as a tax, which permitted him to sustain the statute as a valid exercise of the taxing power.”

Tom Ridge, former Department of Homeland Secretary during the George W. Bush administration, endorsed Joe Biden in an op-ed in The Philadelphia Inquirer this morning. 

“I will cast my vote for Joe Biden on Nov. 3. It will be my first vote for a Democratic candidate for president of the United States,” Ridge, a former Republican governor of Pennsylvania, wrote in the Philadelphia Inquirer. “But it is not the first time I have said ‘no’ to Donald Trump. I urge my fellow Pennsylvanians to join me.”

Ridge offered a scathing critique of Trump’s time in office, including his attempts to cast doubt on the election process. 

“With just about one month until Election Day, President Trump continues to claim the only way he can possibly be defeated is a rigged election. Can you imagine the hubris? Can you imagine any other president in our lifetime — or ever — saying something so dangerous and un-American? We are in the midst of a health crisis, when we should be doing all we can to help citizens vote safely, yet he continues to cast doubt on the sanctity of the vote. He’s done so multiple times here in Pennsylvania. It’s deplorable, yet utterly consistent with past reprehensible behavior.”

Ridge noted, “While I do not agree with many of Biden’s policies, I do know him to be a decent man who can begin to undo the damage President Trump has caused.”

Democratic nominee Joe Biden is moving from briefing books into full days of preparations. President Trump is studying notecards and getting help from a long-time ally, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

As we get closer to the debate showdown in Cleveland on Tuesday, both campaigns have been quiet about how the candidates are preparing.

Biden’s early debate preparations focused on reading briefing books and holding smaller prep sessions with policy aides, people familiar with his preparations said. He typically prefers having aides pepper him with questions in rapid-fire form over conducting full mock debates, those people said.

Ron Klain, Biden’s former chief of staff who also managed ex-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s presidential debate work, is helping to oversee Biden’s debate preparations ahead of Tuesday night, those sources said. Other longtime close Biden advisers who have been involved in recent debate prep sessions include Anita Dunn, Steve Ricchetti and Mike Donilon.

Trump, according to a source familiar with his debate preparations, is studying expected attacks from Biden. The focus of the preparations are a series of notecards the President is reviewing — the front lays out an expected Biden attack while the back of the card has bullets of what Trump has done on the topic, what he will do in a second term and how to turn the attack back on the former vice president. Christie, who played Clinton in Trump’s 2016 debate, is also helping with Trump’s debate preparations, the source added.

The first debate, moderated by Fox News’ Chris Wallace, will be 90 minutes and focus on six topics:

President Trump told Fox News he thinks he prepares “every day” for the first presidential debate on Tuesday.

In a pre-taped interview airing on Sunday, the President did not elaborate much further on his preparations, adding, “when you’re president, you sort of see everything that they’re going to be asking.”

He went on to tout the economy and claimed his administration has saved “millions and millions” of lives in its efforts to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

The US surpassed the staggering milestone of 200,000 coronavirus deaths this week.

President Trump this evening yesterday he’s nominating Amy Coney Barrett to the US Supreme Court. The battle over the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat has become a focal point of the election.

Barrett, 48, was a finalist for the Supreme Court spot that went to Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. She was confirmed in 2017 for her current judgeship on the 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin.

Now, the Republican-led Senate will begin the confirmation process for Barrett — and some GOP senators signaled they will quickly move to take up the nomination.

Here’s what we know about next steps: