Pence, Harris to face off in VP debate: US election live news
- Mike Pence and Kamala Harris will face off in their only vice-presidential debate on Wednesday, after a spat over the event’s coronavirus precautions.
- Donald Trump and Joe Biden are set to lay low, with the president as of Monday “not an entirely out of the woods” with his coronavirus infection.
- Early voting begins in Arizona, a battleground that has become increasingly competitive for Biden.
- With Trump still recovering from the coronavirus, the next steps for his campaign remain uncertain with 27 days left until the November 3 election.
Wednesday, October 7:
13:00 ET – Trump Covid symptom-free for 24 hours, no fever in four days: Doctor
Trump’s personal physician has said the president has been free of COVID-19 symptoms for 24 hours and has not had a fever in four days.
The doctor Sean Conley, in a statement, also said Trump has not received supplemental oxygen since he left the hospital and his vital signs are stable.
12:30 ET – Harris again tests negative for coronavirus
The campaign reported that Harris has again tested negative for the coronavirus, less than 12 hours before she is scheduled to debate Vice President Mike Pence. She took the test Tuesday.
Pence also tested negative on Tuesday, according to the White House.
Harris and Pence will appear on stage at the University of Utah for a 90-minute debate. Both candidates will have plexiglass around them as an additional precaution. That was requested by the Biden-Harris campaign, and Pence’s team objected.
12:00 ET – Biden campaign announces debate guests
The Biden campaign’s guests for the vice presidential debate will be a local state representative and teacher running for Salt Lake City council.
The guests will be state representative Angela Romero, who the campaign describes as “a longtime community organizer advancing progressive causes, equality and social justice” and Deborah Gatrell, a veteran and full-time teacher at Hunter High School currently running for Salt Lake County Council, according to the campaign.
The guests are meant to “showcase the resolve hard-working Americans have shown as Donald Trump has failed to control the virus and save the economy,” the campaign said.
11:30 ET – Texas high court blocks Houston plan to offer mail ballots
The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that 2 million Houston voters cannot receive unsolicited mail ballot applications from local elections officials, who have sought to expand ways to vote in November in the nation’s third-largest county.
The decision by the all-Republican court is the latest defeat in a string of losses for Democrats whose efforts to change Texas voting laws during the coronavirus pandemic have largely failed.
Polls show unusually tight races this year in America’s biggest red state, intensifying battles over voting access. Texas is one of just five states not allowing widespread mail-in voting this year.
Republican Governor Greg Abbott has resisted calls to expand eligibility and courts have sided with GOP leaders who say fear of catching COVID-19 doesn’t qualify voters for mail-in ballots.
11:00 ET – Meadows says ‘safety protocols in place’ for Trump Oval office return
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows says they have “safety protocols in place” if and when the president, who is still infected with COVID-19, decides to go back to work in the Oval Office.
“His schedule right now is fluid, we’re looking at his prognosis from a health standpoint, he wanted to go to the Oval yesterday. If he decides to go the Oval, we’ve got safety protocols there,” said Meadows while talking to reporters on the White House driveway Wednesday. “Not only from a PPE standpoint, but from a ventilation standpoint in the Oval where we can actually work to that in as well. ”
This comes after President Donald Trump, said to be making progress in his recovery, tweeted his eagerness to return to the campaign trail even as the outbreak that has killed more than 210,000 Americans reached ever more widely into the upper echelons of the U.S. government.
Trump has been working out of makeshift office space on the ground floor of the White House residence, in close proximity to the White House Medical Unit’s office suite, with only a few aides granted a face-to-face audience.
10:30 ET – Appeals court: Trump must turn over taxes to prosecutor
Trump’s accountant must turn over his tax records to a New York state prosecutor, an appeals court ruled Wednesday in a decision that likely sets up a second trip to the US Supreme Court over the issue.
The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said in a written decision that a stay of a lower-court decision will remain in effect so Trump’s lawyers can appeal the ruling to the high court.
Part of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr probe pertains to an investigation related to payoffs to two women — porn actress Stormy Daniels and model Karen McDougal — to keep them quiet during the 2016 presidential campaign about alleged extramarital affairs with Trump. Trump has denied the affairs.
Ruling comes days after the New York Times released a bombshell report on Trump’s taxes that showed, among other things, that he paid only $750 in taxes in 2016 and 2017.
10:00 ET – Who has tested positive in Trump’s orbit?
A growing number of White House staff and senior Republicans have tested positive for the novel coronavirus since United States President Donald Trump revealed he had contracted the disease.
The infections have roiled campaigning for the November 3 presidential election, rattled financial markets and slowed the work of Congress, with the Senate vowing to delay any votes now that three members of the Republican majority have tested positive.
