Media
figures like CNN's Don Lemon, MSNBC's Joy Reid and journalist Roland
Martin do more harm than good for African-Americans, a black political
consultant told President Trump during a White House roundtable discussion Wednesday. Raynard Jackson accused the journalists of spreading "lies about the economy" -- before coronavirus
stay-at-home orders forced buisnesses to close -- including the claim
that the Obama administration deserved credit for gains made during
Trump's time in office. "That's just factually not true," Jackson said. "I have a degree in accounting. I keep up with the economy. They're lying." Commentators
such as Lemon, Reid and Martin are “putting more poison" into the black
community than any drug dealer," Jackson alleged. He
charged that the liberals had "killed more black folks than any white
person with a sheet ever their face,” in a likely reference to the Ku
Klux Klan, whose history of violence and intimidation against
African-Americans is well known. Jackson also called out CNN and
MSNBC, asking if the liberal networks were “afraid to have real black
Republicans [on] who know what the hell they're talking about?” The
White House roundtable was convened as Black Lives Matter protests
continued across the country – including in front of the White House –
following the May 25 death a George Floyd, a black man who died in police custody after a white police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes in Minneapolis. Trump
has been critical of the protests, which have mostly been peaceful but
have sometimes turned violent, and threatened at one point to bring in
the military to "dominate" protesters participating in looting,
vandalism and violence. Prior to the economic setback prompted by
the virus outbreak, Trump frequently touted that black unemployment
since he became president has been historically low. But the figure rose
slightly in May to 16.8 percent -- even as white unemployment fell by
nearly two percentage points to 12.4 percent, according to CNBC.
Joe Biden is set to attend a high-roller fundraiser Thursday evening headlined by anti-police activist John Legend, who has openly promised that he'll
try to push the former vice president towards totally defunding law
enforcement and adopting other far-left positions. Legend has
argued, for example, that President Trump's base consists of white
supremacist terrorists -- a line of attack reminiscent of Biden's assertions that
10 to 15 percent of Americans are "just not very good people," and that
many Trump supporters believe "Mexicans are rapists and all Muslims are
bad." Barbra Streisand, Jay Leno, and Jennifer Hudson will also
attend the 8 p.m. ET "Fabulous Evening" event, where attendance requires
a minimum $2,800 buy-in to shore up resources for the Biden Victory
Fund, a joint committee of the Biden campaign, the Democratic National
Committee (DNC) and state Democratic parties. EXCLUSIVE AUDIO: TOP BIDEN SURROGATE SAYS DEMS PREFER HE STAY IN BASEMENT “There
is no chance that Joe Biden will be able to stand up to the ‘Defund the
Police’ movement engulfing the Democrat Party and a growing number of
his most visible supporters, now including John Legend," Trump campaign
communications director Tim Murtaugh told Fox News. "Disbanding
police departments nationwide would send the country spiraling into
chaos," Murtaugh added. "The ‘Defund the Police’ train has already left
the Democrat station and Joe Biden is a hapless passenger, whether he
knows it or not.”
Chrissy Teigen, left, and John Legend arrive at the 58th annual
Grammy Awards at the Staples Center on Monday, Feb. 15, 2016, in Los
Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP)
Rolling Stone reported
last week that Legend was one of several celebrities to sign an open
letter calling for police to be defunded. The letter concludes: “Vote no
on all increases to police budgets. Vote yes to decrease police
spending and budgets. Vote yes to increase spending on Health care,
Education, and Community programs that keep us safe.” Legend
has tweeted that "we spend far too much on policing," and remarked on
June 7: "I'm almost 100% sure Biden won't be tweeting #DefundThePolice. It's the job of activists to push these politicians toward meaningful change." At the same time, the singer has also condemned private gun rights, claiming falsely that the Second Amendment was intended to preserve slavery. Biden has vowed to put Beto O'Rourke in charge of gun-control efforts; O'Rourke, in turn, has unequivocally said he would confiscate Americans' rifles at the first opportunity. Legend's wife, Chrissy Teigen, has pledged
$100,000 (and later doubled that amount) to "bail out" protesters
"across the country." That move drew criticism, given that many
protesters damaged property and attacked police officers. And, as President Trump moved to designate Antifa a terrorist organization earlier this month, Legend dismissed the group as a "minuscule group with almost no influence or impact." "Meanwhile actual white supremacist terrorism has been a persistent part of American life for centuries," Legend said. "Trump will never name them a terror group though. They're his base." Despite his strong advocacy for the vice president now, Legend's support for Biden in 2020 was not a given. In 2019, he remarked, "Republicans play to win. Biden plays to impress a panel on Meet the Press and Morning Joe." He
also charged: “Bernie was more successful at running for Dem nomination
in 2016 than Biden was in his two previous attempts. Both have won
small state US Senate races multiple times. VP doesn’t count because no
one was voting for Biden. They were voting for Obama.” Calls for defunding or even disbanding police departments have gained momentum among left-wing activists in the aftermath of George Floyd's May 25 death in Minneapolis. That city's councilmembers have since indicated that they have enough votes to disband their police department. On Monday, Minneapolis City Council President Lisa Bender told CNN that
people worried about having no one to call during a home invasion were
speaking from a "place of privilege." Those comments drew widespread
backlash. However, several key Democratic have come out against
defunding police. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said Sunday that it is "not a
slogan I will use." On Monday, presumptive Democratic presidential
nominee Joe Biden's campaign released a statement saying Biden “does not
believe that police should be defunded.” "Let me be clear: We
can't leave this moment and once again turn away and do nothing. We need
justice. We need action. We need reform," Biden wrote on Twitter. Donald Trump Jr.
immediately responded: "It makes me wonder why you didn’t do any of
these things in the first 50 years of your Washington DC career… Give me
a break!!!" Some Democrats have also come out against Biden
appearing in public. Top Biden surrogate Terry McAuliffe told a
videoconference meeting of Virginia Democrats over the weekend that the
former vice president should remain in his basement -- where he has
famously campaigned remotely during the coronavirus pandemic -- and that
Democratic officials are broadly "preferring" that Biden stay out of
the limelight. Fox News has exclusively obtained a video of McAuliffe's Norfolk comments, which came after Biden has made a series of gaffes in his already-limited public appearances as he social distanced from home -- including by declaring that African-Americans who support President Trump "ain’t black." "People say all the time, 'Oh, we got to get the vice president out of the basement,'" McAuliffe told the "monthly breakfast" of
the Norfolk City Democratic Committee. "He's fine in the basement. Two
people see him a day: his two body people. That's it. Let Trump keep
doing what Trump's doing." McAuliffe served as campaign chairman
for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential run. At the Zoom
videoconference, he was introduced by a senior Norfolk Democrat, Charlie Stanton, who compared soldiers who participated in the D-Day landing to modern-day Antifa members. "It's
hard for the vice president to break through," McAuliffe told the
group. "You've got the COVID crisis. He's not a governor, doesn't have
the National Guard. He's not the president, doesn't have the briefing
room. He needs to come out strategically. And when he says something
like he did on race relations two days ago, it needs to have a big
impact -- thoughtful, and that's what we're preferring that he actually
do at the time." "He's doing a lot of local," McAuliffe
added. "He's talking to two, three governors a day. He's doing
roundtables, Zoom calls. A lot of it's being done in those six
battleground states that we have going forward." Trump has
hammered Biden repeatedly for remaining in his basement and has openly
questioned whether Biden remains mentally competent. Also on Thursday, Trump will reportedly head to Dallas to hold his own fundraiser,
which is slated to net a whopping $10 million. The event will be the
first of its kind for the president since the coronavirus pandemic
began.
People wear protective masks outside a bank in the Queens borough of New York City, June 8, 2020. (Associated Press)
Confirmed cases of the coronavirus passed the 2 million mark in the U.S. on Wednesday, with infection rates in many areas appearing to spike -- despite declines in infections throughout Europe, according to a report.
The
U.S. has seen a 36.5 percent increase in daily cases in recent days
amid street protests and states' reversals of shutdown policies, a
striking difference compared to the top 10 other countries with the most
COVID-19 infections to date, according to data from the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) obtained by Yahoo News. “Worse
times are ahead,” said Joe Gerald, a public health researcher at the
University of Arizona, who is helping to provide projections to the
state's health department, according to the Washington Post. “The
preponderance of evidence indicates community transmission is
increasing.”
Britain, Spain, and Iran had roughly a 20 percent decrease in cases in recent days, the report added.
Meanwhile,
Italy and Germany saw their numbers decline by more than 38 percent.
Brazil, seen as the new virus epicenter in recent weeks, saw its
infections decrease by more than 10 percent, according to Yahoo News. In
the U.S., nine states -- Texas, Arkansas, South Carolina, Nevada,
Arizona, North Carolina, Oregon, Florida, and Utah -- all set new highs
Wednesday based on seven-day rolling-case averages, the Post reported. Five
states -- Montana, Arkansas, Utah, Arizona, and Texas -- have seen
coronavirus hospitalizations rise by at least 35 percent.
The latest figures appeared to contradict President Trump's rosier view of the outbreak last week. “We
were able to close our country, save millions of lives, open,” Trump
said last Friday, Yahoo News reported. “And now the trajectory is
great.” Arizona’s health director wrote to the state's hospitals, telling them to “fully activate” their emergency plans, as numbers climbed last week, the Arizona Republic of Phoenix reported. "We
have seen a steady climb of COVID-19 cases in Arizona over the last two
weeks. This trend is concerning to us, and also correlates with a rise
in cases that we are seeing in our hospital ICUs," Banner Health tweeted
Monday. The number of Arizona COVID-19 patients using ventilators has
quadrupled, the organization said. While South Carolina has seen
its highest number of daily cases, Gov. Henry McMaster relayed that the
Palmetto State wouldn't impose any new restrictions on the public. But
he stressed the importance of taking voluntary measures to stay safe. “Shutting down is not the answer,” he said, according to the Post. “People have to be able to go and work for a living.”
In California, nine counties reported spikes in new coronavirus cases or hospitalizations, The Guardian reported. “Many
of the cases that are showing up in hospitals are linked to gatherings
that are taking place in homes – birthday parties and funerals,” said
Olivia Kasirye, public health director of Sacramento County. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has urged calm as the state deals with the surge in recent cases and hospitalizations. “As
we phase in, in a responsible way, a reopening of the economy, we’ve
made it abundantly clear that we anticipate an increase in the total
number of positive cases,” Newsom said Tuesday, according to the Mercury News of
San Jose. “But we also made it abundantly clear that the concurrent
recognition and commitment that we are in a substantially different
place than we were 90 days ago. We have hundreds of millions of masks
now in our possession.” Health experts have worried that opening
up the country too early -- to prevent further damage to the economy --
could eventually hurt the country in the long run, with the coronavirus
pandemic lingering longer. Some have also worried that recent protests
against police brutality could also contribute to a second wave. Part of the increase could also be due to more testing, which hit a daily record of 545,690 tests last Friday, according to Reuters. Testing, however, has fallen since then.
“In a period of four months, it has devastated the whole world,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said during a virtual conference held by the Biotechnology Innovation Organization. “And it isn’t over yet.” He said he's unsure when the outbreak will end, adding medical professionals were "still at the beginning of really understanding" it. The
10 counties that saw the highest number of cases per 100,000 over the
last two weeks were located in eight states -- Georgia, Virginia,
Louisiana, Mississippi, Arizona, Texas, Minnesota and New Mexico, the
CDC said, according to Yahoo News. In
the U.S., all 50 states plus the District of Columbia have reported
confirmed cases of COVID-19, tallying more than 2,000,464 illnesses and
at least 112,924 deaths, based on data from Johns Hopkins University.
President Trump
tweeted late Wednesday that “domestic terrorists” have taken over
an area in Seattle amid George Floyd protests and blamed the city’s
“radical left Democrats” for contributing to the unrest. "Radical Left Governor @JayInslee
and the Mayor of Seattle are being taunted and played at a level that
our great Country has never seen before," Trump tweeted. "Take back your
city NOW. If you don’t do it, I will. This is not a game. These ugly
Anarchists must be stooped (sic) IMMEDIATELY. MOVE FAST!" His
tweet did not go unanswered. Mayor Jenny Durkan, a Democrat, took a
swipe at Trump, and responded, "Make us all safe. Go back to your
bunker. #BlackLivesMatter." Attorney General William Barr told Fox News
that on May 29, the unrest was tense near the White House and "the
Secret Service recommended the president go down to the bunker. We can’t
have that in our country.” Gov. Jay Inslee also fired back at
Trump on Twitter, posting, "A man who is totally incapable of governing
should stay out of Washington state’s business. “Stoop” tweeting." Hundreds of protesters stormed Seattle's
City Hall Tuesday night to demand Durkan's resignation, just days after
seizing a six-block downtown zone that includes a shuttered police
precinct. Demonstrators remained peaceful, without reports of violence
or injuries, but are pushing Durkan to step down if she refuses to
defund the city's police department. The city just suffered a
weekend of unrest, where officers used tear gas and pepper spray to
disperse demonstrators in the area after they say they were assaulted
with projectiles. Several city councilmembers say police overreacted and
needlessly exacerbated tensions. The Seattle Times reported Wednesday that
the area in the Capitol Hill section of the city has been called CHAZ
and it is “free of uniformed police.” The paper reported that the nearby
police precinct that was shuttered during the protests had a new sign
on Tuesday that read, “THIS SPACE IS NOW PROPERTY OF THE SEATTLE
PEOPLE.” House Judiciary Committee member Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., told "Hannity" Wednesday that "Antifa has
now designated Seattle their capital" after the protesters declared a
six-block neighborhood around the precinct a "Cop Free Zone." Assistant
Chief Deanna Nollette said barriers were removed from the front of the
precinct after it became a flashpoint between officers and protesters.
Police also have remained scarce in that area and in the several nights
since, protests have continued peacefully. Nollette said police
want to discuss reopening the precinct and noted officers are responding
to 911 calls in the area, the report said. She said protesters have set
up their own barricades, which are intimidating to some residents. “We
are dedicated to working with peaceful protesters on a way to move
forward,” Nollette said. “There’s a whole citywide effort to try to
identify who the leaders are. It’s just a matter of establishing a
dialogue so we can take down the plywood and welcome people back into
the lobby.” This is not the first time that Trump has called out state and city leadership in dealing with protests. Last
month, while looting and arson raged in Minneapolis, Trump tweeted, “I
can’t stand back & watch this happen to a great American City,
Minneapolis,” Trump tweeted. “A total lack of leadership. Either the
very weak Radical Left Mayor, Jacob Frey, get his act together and bring
the City under control, or I will send in the National Guard & get
the job done right." Trump appears intent on positioning himself
as the law-and-order candidate in 2020. There is a push among some
Democrats to defund police which has put Joe Biden in a tough position
of trying to bring together the moderates of the party and liberals
about the best approach on policing. Biden
was interviewed by Trevor Noah, the host of “The Daily Show,” and was
asked, “If you were to become president, do you think that there would
be a world where defunding the police would be a solution?” “Well
I think there are a lot of changes they can take place, period, without
having to defund the police completely,” Biden said. He continued, “I
don’t think the police should be defunded. But I think that conditions
should be placed upon them where departments are having to take
significant reforms." Fox News' Charles Creitz, Vandana Rambaran and the Associated Press contributed to this report
NEW YORK CITY – The focus of so much of the recent George Floyd protests has been on police violence against demonstrators and others, but in New York City, the union that represents NYPD detectives is turning the tables. "If
you assault a New York City Detective and there are no consequences
from the criminal justice system, we have to have other means to protect
our detectives," said Paul DiGiacomo, president of the Detectives'
Endowment Association, which has represented some 19,000 current and
former detectives. He vowed to sue any protestor, rioter or looter who
attacked its members. "It's heart-wrenching because they are out
there doing a job under very difficult circumstances, trying to protect
the innocent people that are protesting while the criminal element is
within that group, assaulting, looting and victimizing not only police
officers and detectives out there, but also the people of the city." The
first lawsuit has been filed against a looting suspect accused of
stealing items from a pharmacy in Manhattan and who allegedly attacked
Detective Joseph Nicolosi. The detective claimed he was injured in the
struggle when the 19-year-old suspect resisted arrest. "They've
had urine thrown at them, rocks thrown at them, shot at, assaulted. I
don't know how much more they could take a day of putting up with a lot
out there. And, you know, they are the finest in the world and they are
doing a fabulous job, but they are being demonized by the elected
officials," DiGiacomo said. GUARDIAN ANGEL DESCRIBES FENDING OFF LOOTERS WHO BROKE HIS NOSE, EYE SOCKET It's unclear if the lawsuits will succeed -- especially with laws in place protecting police. "This
is not a new tactic by the police. This was tried back in the 1990s in
New York City, at another time when there was a great deal of unrest and
ultimately, it didn't work," said noted civil rights attorney Ron Kuby,
a veteran activist who has dealt with police issues for decades. Kuby
said if the detectives wanted to sue citizens, they needed to surrender
the legal restrictions protecting them, such as qualified immunity. He
also pointed out that cities legally have indemnified law enforcement
officers, preventing them generally from being sued personally, and said
both exemptions should be dropped. "If the police want to use the
civil law as a tool in their policing, those of us who pay their
salaries have the opportunity now to engage in some real reform, which
is, stop the indemnification of cops, stop the free lawyers for the
police, stop the qualified immunity for the police -- and we'll see how
that works out for them," Kuby said. Lawmakers in Congress and
some state legislatures have moved to strip qualified immunity as a
legal protection for police. Kuby also said police officers have gone to
great lengths to protect their privacy, which would be removed by
filing a lawsuit. "The cops freak out about their privacy concerns
and don't want their personal history handed over to the very people
that they are suing," Kuby said. “That is another powerful reason not to
go through with these lawsuits.” Still,
DiGiacomo remained undeterred. “We will be behind our detectives and
pursue these cases civilly and send a message to the criminal element,
that you are not going to get away with this. If we can’t get you one
way, we will get you another.” The NYPD has said that more than 350 of its officers suffered injuries during the protests. Fox News' Ben Evansky contributed to this report.
Just as a new poll showed Kentucky Democrat Amy McGrath pulling into a statistical tie in her U.S. Senate election fight against the incumbent, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, some other news emerged that could spell trouble for her campaign. McGrath's
chief Democratic primary challenger -- state Rep. Charles Booker --
received endorsements Tuesday from two big-name fellow progressives:
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. "As
Louisville has become an epicenter of national tragedy and protests due
to the police murders of Breonna Taylor and David McAtee, Charles has
shown leadership by showing up on the frontlines," Sanders wrote in a
statement, according to the Courier Journal of Louisville. "He was
an endorser of our campaign for president and supports progressive
policies such as criminal justice reform, Medicare for All and getting
big money out of politics." Ocasio-Cortez said Booker would make the Senate “a better place.” "I'm proud to endorse him. Let’s go,” she added. Booker,
who will compete against McGrath in the Democratic primary June 23 for
the right to face McConnell in November is running to the left of
McGrath, a former U.S. Marine Corps fighter pilot who has positioned
herself as a moderate in a state that presidential candidate Donald
Trump won by 30 points in 2016. “I’m running for U.S. Senate
because, in this crisis, Kentucky needs a real Democrat to take on Mitch
McConnell,” Booker, in his first statewide TV ad, said this week,
according to the Lexington Herald Leader. “Someone who will fight to
guarantee health care and living wages for all, and not help Trump just
get his way.” In the same ad, Booker also calls McGrath a "pro-Trump Democrat." McConnell,
78, is Kentucky’s longest-serving U.S. senator, having held his seat
since January 1985. His campaign responded Tuesday to news of the
Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez endorsements of Booker.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is neck-and-neck in
a new poll with Democratic candidate Amy McGrath -- but McGrath is
facing a primary challenger who's endorsed by two big-name progressive
Democrats.
"Amy McGrath has been running an inauthentic, extreme
campaign for nearly a year, and she is still unattractive to Democratic
voters," McConnell campaign manager Kevin Golden told The Courier Journal,
still seemingly more concerned with McGrath than Booker. "It's not
surprising that Democrats are already looking for a replacement." Booker
has raised $700,000 just in June and more than $315,000 in the first
three months of the year, but McGrath, who is backed by the Democratic
National Committee, raised nearly $13 million in the first quarter of
the year.
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is joined onstage by
U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in Des Moines, Iowa, Nov. 9, 2019.
(Getty Images)
“Amy
McGrath spent over 20 years serving her country and doing what’s right
above partisan politics and that’s what she will do for Kentucky,”
McGrath spokesperson Terry Sebastian told the Herald Leader.
“Working families want to hear solutions not partisan rhetoric. That’s
one of the many things that makes her different from Mitch McConnell.” Booker is also backed by 16 House Democrats in Kentucky’s Legislature. McGrath has a one-point lead over McConnell in a new RMG Research poll conducted over May 21-24.
Donald Trump Jr. waves at campaign rally before President Donald
Trump appears Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2020 in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Rick
Scuteri)
Donald Trump Jr. called out Joe Biden on Twitter Wednesday over comments the presidential candidate made regarding the need for action against police brutality. "Let
me be clear: We can't leave this moment and once again turn away and do
nothing. We need justice. We need action. We need reform," Biden wrote
on Twitter. Trump Jr. pointed to Biden's career in politics and questioned what he was doing while in office all those years. "It
makes me wonder why you didn’t do any of these things in the first 50
years of your Washington DC career… Give me a break!!!" Trump Jr.
responded. The
exchange comes as protests have continued throughout the U.S. following
the death of George Floyd in police custody on May 25. Trump Jr.
suggested that Biden's statement on the need for reform didn't relate to
his actions representing Delaware in the U.S. Senate from 1973 to 2009,
or when he served as the 47th vice president of the United States from
2009 to 2017.
Biden supported a 1994 crime bill that many critics and fellow Democrats blame for high levels of incarceration among African-Americans.
Floyd was
taken to a cemetery for burial Tuesday in his hometown of Houston, with
his death inspiring worldwide demonstrations calling for an end to
systemic racism and police brutality. It appears to have already ignited
change within some schools and police departments throughout the U.S. President Trump, Biden, and some Democrats have pushed back against calls "defund the police." Instead, the former vice president suggested the “urgent need for reform," on Monday. "No,
I don't support defunding the police. I support conditioning federal
aid to police based on whether or not they meet certain basic standards
of decency and honorableness," he said during an interview with CBS. Biden directly addressed Floyd’s 6-year-old daughter, Gianna, in an emotional video message played Tuesday at the funeral for the 46-year old black man who died two weeks ago. “Little
Gianna, as I said to you when I saw you yesterday, you are so brave,”
said Biden. “Daddy is looking down at you, and he is so proud of you. I
know you miss that bear hug that only he could give, the pure joy of
riding on his shoulders so you could touch the sky.” Fox News' Dom Calicchio and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report
The
Democratic Senate primary in Georgia was too early to call Wednesday,
as Jon Ossoff held onto approximately 49 percent of the vote with more
ballots coming in -- amid widespread reports of hourslong lines, voting
machine malfunctions, provisional ballot shortages and absentee ballots
failing to arrive in time.
Ossoff, whose defeat in a 2017 special election was a gut-punch to Democrats who flooded his campaign with money,
was leading Sarah Riggs Amico and Teresa Tomlinson. They each have
roughly 13 percent of the counted vote, and candidates need 50 percent
of the vote to avoid a runoff. One of the state’s largest counties, De Kalb in the metro Atlanta area, has yet to report any results as of early Wednesday. As
the night wound on, and races were also held in South Carolina, Nevada
and West Virginia, it became evident that the long-standing nationwide
wrangle over voting rights and election security had come to a head in
Georgia -- where a messy primary and partisan finger-pointing offered an
unsettling preview of a November contest when battleground states could
face potentially record turnout. Joe Biden’s presidential
campaign called the situation “completely unacceptable.” Georgia
Republicans deflected responsibility to metro Atlanta’s heavily minority
and Democratic-controlled counties, while President Donald Trump’s top
campaign attorney decried “the chaos in Georgia.” It raised the
specter of a worst-case November scenario: a decisive state, like
Florida and its “hanging chads” and “butterfly ballots” in 2000,
remaining in dispute long after polls close. Meanwhile, Trump, Biden and
their supporters could offer competing claims of victory or question
the election’s legitimacy, inflaming an already boiling electorate.
Steven Posey checks his phone as he waits in line to vote,
Tuesday, June 9, 2020, at Central Park in Atlanta. Voters reported wait
times of three hours. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)
At Trump’s campaign headquarters, senior counsel
Justin Clark blamed Georgia’s vote-by-mail push amid the COVID-19
pandemic, alluding to the president’s argument that absentee voting
yields widespread fraud. “The American people want to know that
the results of an election accurately reflect the will of the voters,”
Clark said. “The only way to make sure that the American people will
have faith in the results is if people who can, show up and vote in
person.”
Rachana
Desai Martin, a top Biden campaign attorney, called the scenes in
Georgia a “threat” to democracy. “We only have a few months left until
voters around the nation head to the polls again, and efforts should
begin immediately to ensure that every Georgian — and every American —
is able to safely exercise their right to vote,” she said. Martin
stopped short of assigning blame, but two Georgia Democrats on Biden’s
list of potential running mates pointed at Republican Secretary of State
Brad Raffensperger, who led the selection of Georgia’s new voting
machine system and invited every active voter to request an absentee
ballot. Atlanta
Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms tweeted at Raffensperger about problems in
pockets of metro Atlanta. “Is this happening across the county or just
on the south end,” the Democrat asked, referring to an area with a
heavily black population. Stacey Abrams, the 2018 Democratic
nominee for governor and an Atlanta resident, tweeted that “Georgians
deserve better” and that Raffensperger “owns this disaster.” Abrams
established herself as a voting rights advocate after she refused to
concede her 2018 race because of voting irregularities when her
Republican opponent, now-Gov. Brian Kemp, was secretary of state. Fulton
County, which includes most of Atlanta, has a history of slow vote
tabulation. Its local elections chief, Richard Barron, called Tuesday a
“learning experience" while alluding to the state's role in the primary
process.
People wait in line at one of a few in person voting places during
a nearly all-mail primary election Tuesday, June 9, 2020, in Las Vegas.
(AP Photo/John Locher)
The finger-pointing goes beyond details of the law.
Raffensperger correctly noted that county officials train poll workers,
including on the use of the new voting machines. But Raffensperger is
the state’s chief elections official who decides how many machines to
send to each county, and his office provides training curriculum for
local officials.
On
absentee ballots, the Republican secretary of state pushed
unprecedented no-fault absentee access, paying to send an application to
every Georgian on the active voter rolls. But, as Barron noted, neither
the secretary of state nor the legislature provided additional money
for local officials to hire staff to process the influx, which dwarfed
the typical primary. History
suggests that both local and state officials, whether in Georgia or
elsewhere, could find themselves in the national crosshairs if their
election tallies leave the presidency in flux. “I know that in
these hyperpartisan times, half the people will be happy, and the other
half will be sad,” Raffensperger said. “But we want to make sure that
100% of people know ... the election was done fairly and we got the
accurate count.” Elsewhere in Tuesday's races, a progressive
candidate featured in a Netflix documentary on politics won the
Democratic Senate primary in West Virginia to face Republican Sen.
Shelly Moore Capito in November.
Voters wait in line to cast their ballots in the state's primary
election at a polling place, Tuesday, June 9, 2020, in Atlanta, Ga. Some
voting machines went dark and voters were left standing in long lines
in humid weather as the waiting game played out. (AP Photo/Ron Harris)
Paula Jean Swearengin was featured in the 2019
Netflix political documentary “Knock Down the House.” She accepted only
individual donations during her campaign and outraised one of her two
opponents, former state Sen. Richard Ojeda, by a more than 10-to-1
margin. Also seeking the Democratic nomination was former South
Charleston Mayor Richie Robb. Meanwhile, two incumbents won the Republican nominations for governor in West Virginia and South Dakota.
Gov.
Jim Justice was declared the primary winner in West Virginia on
Tuesday, while Gov. Doug Burgum captured the GOP nomination in South
Dakota. Justice, a billionaire coal and agricultural businessman,
defeated Woody Thrasher, Mike Folk and others to win the GOP nomination.
This week, President Trump tweeted a message of support for the
governor: “Big Jim is doing a tremendous job for West Virginia. Vote for
Big Jim!” Burgum, a former software executive, defeated Michael
Coachman in the election, which was conducted exclusively by mail. He’s
expected to be a heavy favorite in November over Democratic political
newcomer Shelley Lenz, a veterinarian and small-business owner. Kanawha County Commissioner Ben Salango won the Democratic nomination for governor of West Virginia. Two
Republican incumbent senators also won their primaries on Tuesday:
Shelley Moore Capito in West Virginia and Lindsey Graham in South
Carolina. In Nevada, voters were waiting in lines for three hours
and more Tuesday at limited polling places despite Nevada officials
encouraging people to cast their primary election ballots by mail
because of the coronavirus pandemic. Nevada Deputy Secretary of
State for Elections Wayne Thorley said his office had received a report
of a three-hour wait at one Clark County polling place.
Fox News' Tyler Olson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ossoff, whose defeat in a 2017 special election was a gut-punch to Democrats who flooded his campaign with money,
was leading Sarah Riggs Amico and Teresa Tomlinson. They each have
roughly 13 percent of the counted vote, and candidates need 50 percent
of the vote to avoid a runoff.
CNN’s Scott Jennings once again took liberals to the cleaners on the Abrego Garcia case, the ‘Maryland man...
