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Donald Trump faces a growing revolt among Republican senators, and at least three have openly criticized the US president in the past 48 hours.
Mitt Romney, Lamar Alexander and Susan Collins have called on the President of the United States to abandon his attempts to pressure state election officials to back up his unsubstantiated claims of massive voter fraud.
Several House Republicans, including Liz Cheney, have made similar calls, describing the Trump campaign’s legal efforts as “disgraceful.”
The criticism comes when Georgia’s secretary of state certified Joe Biden as the winner of the state recount on Friday. With the official results reported, Brad Raffensperger certified that Biden won the recount by 12,670 votes.
Good morning and welcome to The independentis up-to-the-minute coverage of the latest news from the White House and beyond.
Tom Embury-Dennis21 November 2020 10:56
Trump accuses Pfizer and Moderna of working to stop his re-election
Donald Trump has baselessly accused Pfizer and Moderna of working to stop his re-election by delaying their Covid vaccines.
The outgoing president again made the false claim that he had “won” the election when he gave a press conference at the White House on lowering drug prices.
And he claimed that regardless of a vaccine breakthrough, Democrats “would have found the ballots somewhere” to beat him.
Tom Embury-Dennis21 November 2020 11:01
Trump tells reporters he’s been ‘loyal to special interests’
At a bizarre moment in yesterday’s press conference, Donald Trump in an apparent slip of the tongue said he had “been loyal to special interests” before saying he had also been loyal to patients in talking about lowering prices for the drugs.
Trump appeared to be reading a pre-prepared speech, so it is unclear whether it was a mistake or not, but the US president has generally presented himself as a leader who opposes so-called special interests, even if his policies to they often prove otherwise.
Tom Embury-Dennis21 November 2020 11:10
White House aide and Rudy Giuliani’s son, Andrew Giuliani, becomes the latest administration official to hire Covid
Andrew Giuliani, a White House aide and the son of President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, said Friday that he had tested positive for COVID-19.
“This morning, I tested positive for Covid-19,” young Giuliani, who joined the Trump White House Office of Public Relations and Intergovernmental Affairs in 2017, said on Twitter. “I am experiencing mild symptoms and following all protocols. appropriate, including quarantine and contact tracing. “
Andrew attended his father’s press conference Thursday at the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington, according to multiple reports. Elder Giuliani and other Trump campaign lawyers spoke without masks from an indoor podium before an audience of dozens.
Jenna Ellis, another Trump attorney who spoke at the news conference, said on Twitter Friday that both she and the elderly Giuliani “tested negative for COVID-19.”
“The entire legal team will continue to follow the advice and protocols of our physicians,” Ellis wrote.
Several White House staff members tested positive for the disease in recent weeks, including Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, while six members of Congress tested positive this week.
At least four other people who work in the White House besides Andrew have contracted the disease in recent days, the New York Times reported Friday afternoon.
Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., also tested positive for the disease, his spokesman said Friday night.
Tom Embury-Dennis21 November 2020 11:26
Ed Norton calls on US to ‘mislead Trump’ over refusal to grant elections
Hollywood actor Ed Norton has gone viral on social media for a long Twitter thread in which he asks Americans to denounce Donald Trump’s “deception” for his refusal to concede an election he lost to Joe Biden.
Norton suggests that Trump is refusing to budge because the president is concerned about his legal danger once he is no longer in the White House, and seeks to gain immunity by creating ‘chaos and anxiety’ about the peaceful transfer of power.
Tom Embury-Dennis21 November 2020 11:39
Donald Trump Jr tests positive for coronavirus
Donald Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, tested positive for the coronavirus, having long played down its severity and taunted Joe Biden for wearing a face mask.
The 42-year-old, who has become one of his father’s most strident and aggressive champions and a potential candidate for the 2024 election, tested positive earlier this week, according to his spokesman.
“Don tested positive at the beginning of the week and has been in quarantine in his cabin since the result,” his spokesman told reporters.
Tom Embury-Dennis21 November 2020 11:51
Trump’s Former Acting DNI Makes False Claim About Media
Former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell, who is regularly ridiculed by his opponents for his false and misleading claims on Twitter, has again been caught making a strange claim after he attacked the media for reporting that Donald Trump Jr has contracted the coronavirus.
“Reporters must stop advertising protected health information. This is a violation of HIPAA rules, ”said Mr. Grenell regarding the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
Reporters were quick to point out that the news had been released by a spokesman for Trump Jr.
Tom Embury-Dennis21 November 2020 11:56
Republicans bet Trump will finally admit defeat to Biden
Republicans in Congress are engaged in a risky but calculated bet that once President Donald Trump has exhausted his legal challenges to the election, he will face defeat to President-elect Joe Biden.
But the opposite happens.
As one Trump court case after another falls by the wayside, Trump is redoubling his efforts to alter the outcome of the election. Instead of accepting the reality of the vote, the president is using the weight of his office to try to crush him. On Friday, he summoned Michigan state legislators to the White House after personally communicating with Republican officials before next week’s deadline to certify the election results. Similarly, you can invite others from Pennsylvania.
Republicans are waiting while everything unfolds. What started as a Republican strategy to give the president the time and space he needed to process his defeat is now turning into an unprecedented challenge to the election result like nothing since the Civil War.
“It’s gotten to the point where the Republican Party has let Trump’s pout go on too long,” said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley, a professor at Rice University in Texas.
With their silence, Republican lawmakers are taking a deeper step with the president they have been trying to appease for four years. Some have spoken. But most Republicans are allowing Trump as he launches an unsubstantiated attack on the election that threatens to erode civic confidence and impede Biden’s transition to the White House.
Tom Embury-Dennis21 November 2020 11:59
Trump falsely claims he ‘won’ the election
Here’s the clip of Donald Trump falsely claiming that he “won” the presidential election. In fact, Joe Biden won the election and is projected to have won 306 electoral college seats, the same number Trump received in 2016.
Tom Embury-Dennis21 November 2020 12:01
NBC News’ Ali Velshi reports there were 194,160 confirmed cases of coronavirus in the US on Friday, with a reported 1,880 deaths.
Tom Embury-Dennis21 November 2020 13:11