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Good Morning. Georgia’s secretary of state has said he was asked by Republican Senator Lindsey Graham if legal ballots could be discarded, following Donald Trump’s narrow defeat in the state.
In an explosive interview with the Washington Post, Brad Raffensperger said he was “stunned” by the question, in which Graham seemed to suggest that he find a way to reject legally cast absentee votes. “It sure looked like he wanted to go that way,” he said. Graham, who is chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, confirmed the conversation to reporters on Capitol Hill, but said allegations that he had pressured Raffensperger to cast the ballots were “ridiculous.”
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A PennsylvanA court will hear Trump’s election fraud lawsuit today, in the president’s latest attempt to reverse the election result. Trump’s team had asked for a delay, but Judge Matthew Brann told the attorneys they should come forward and “be prepared for discussion and questioning.”
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Trump’s refusal to budge could be a deliberate strategy to keep Republican voters energized for the second round of the Senate in Georgia, political strategists have said. However, others warn that this could backfire, leading Republicans to wonder “If that election was not legitimate, why should Georgia’s elections be any different?” Daniel Strauss examines the impact Trump’s head-in-the-sand approach could have.
“It’s a highly calculated political move to keep the base energized and demonstrate the ‘the other guy is the enemy’ kind of ‘battle royale’ mentality,” said Beth Noveck, who served on Barack Obama’s transition team.
Trump considered an attack on Iran
Donald Trump asked his aides last week about the possibility of attacking Iran’s nuclear sites in the final weeks of his presidency, according to a New York Times report. Top officials apparently “dissuaded the president” from taking the move, warning that it could spark a wider conflict.
The outgoing president is also believed to plan to cut the US military presence in Afghanistan by almost half, from 4,500 to 2,500, before Joe Biden takes office in January. The plans come just a week after senior Pentagon officials were replaced en masse by relatively inexperienced Trump loyalists. These reports suggest that previous warnings from political analysts that the final weeks of Trump’s presidency could be the most dangerous could be coming to fruition.
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Following his divorce from Fox News, Trump has found new networks to promote. The latest is the far-right media outlet One America News Network (OANN), which has repeatedly pushed forward a number of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories and spread outlandish disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic. Jason Wilson finds out more about OANN.
Biden warned that ‘more people can die’ without Trump’s cooperation
Joe Biden warned that Trump’s refusal to grant the election, and thus allow a smooth transition to the next administration, could cost lives. Without cooperation between the incoming and outgoing administrations, “more people could die,” he said. “We are entering a very dark winter. Things will get a lot more difficult before they get easier, ”added Biden. Currently, the virus is killing about 1,000 Americans every day.
Yesterday, California was forced to pull the “emergency brake” on reopening plans after an alarming increase in the number of coronavirus cases. In the first week of November, California saw the fastest rate of increase in cases since the start of the pandemic, and case rates have doubled in the state over the past 10 days.
However, there is some good news. The American biotech firm Moderna has announced that its coronavirus vaccine candidate, of which 100 million doses have been promised to the United States, is nearly 95% effective. Moderna’s vaccine is easier to store and distribute than Pfizer’s, which was declared over 90% effective last week, and news of the trial’s success sent share prices around the world skyrocketing. .
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Pfizer has launched a vaccine administration trial in four US states.. The trial is designed to address distribution problems caused by the requirement to keep the vaccine at extremely cold temperatures.
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The United States has recorded nearly 245,000 deaths by coronavirus, and more than 11 million cases. Follow live updates on the pandemic in the US with our coronavirus map, which offers state-specific information.
In other news…
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CEOs of Twitter and Facebook testify again on allegations that its platforms have an anti-conservative bias. While investigations have found no evidence for this claim, a Senate hearing was called in response to the companies’ handling of a New York Post article on Joe Biden.
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Obama said he “sympathizes with a certain strain of conservatism,” saying he shared the “religious critique of modern society” that the country has lost its sense of community. He also took aim at Trump and said: “If we had a right-wing populist in this country, I would have expected someone a little more attractive.”
Statistics of the day
While Trump pushed through a number of anti-Muslim policies during his presidency, he still enjoys reasonably strong support among Muslims. A poll by the Associated Press revealed that 35% of Muslims said they voted for Trump, and the Trump-Biden margin among Muslims was closer than experts predicted.
Don’t miss this
In this lengthy read, Gary Younge examines Trump’s attempts to stop blacks from making their vote count by applying “old-school racism to new demographics.” Explore the history of racism in voting and how voters fought it in 2020.
It is important to remember that the United States was a slave state for more than 200 years and an apartheid state, after the abolition of slavery, for another century. Throughout that time, in certain parts of the country, all black votes were, by definition, illegal, and conservatives worked hard to keep it that way. It has only been a non-racial democracy for 55 years. And that brief reign is now at stake.
Last thing: Hollywood comes to… Wrexham
It is not just Joe Biden who is taking on the job of improving relations with America’s allies. Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney are in the process of deepening their ties with a small town in Wales, where their offer to buy the local football club was accepted. The pair have already started courting local businesses, releasing a video message promoting an advancement maker, the club’s title sponsor.
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