US Election 2020 results LIVE – Trump will NEVER concede presidential race to Biden 'as word is not in his vocabulary'
DONALD Trump will NEVER concede the US Election to Joe Biden because the word isn't "in his vocabulary", his campaign has claimed.
The President is refusing to admit defeat to the President-Elect, claiming widespread voter fraud despite providing no evidence of his claims and accusations that doing so is undermining confidence in democracy.
The President vowed to press ahead with legal challenges in key states, used Twitter to attack his enemies and blasted coronavirus vaccine manufacturer Pfizer for having the “courage” to break the news before last Tuesday’s election.
There is absolutely no evidence that the bombshell data showing Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine is effective in 90% of cases was available prior to the election, despite the Trump campaign's comments, and nothing to suggest it would have seen him pick up more voters, either.
The news comes as a Department of Justice official overseeing voter crime investigations, Richard Pilger, resigned after Attorney General Bill Barr granted authorization for US attorneys to investigate voter fraud claims.
Follow our US Election 2020 blog for the latest news and updates…
- Joseph Gamp
BIDEN TO GIVE SPEECH DEFENDING OBAMACARE
Joe Biden is planning to deliver a speech defending the Obama administration's signature health care law as the Trump administration plans to make one last attempt to dismantle it in the Supreme Court
Mr Biden will speak on the Affordable Care Act from Wilmington, Delaware today.
He campaigned for months on the law, arguing that President Donald Trump and top Republicans opposed it and therefore wanted to wipe out its mandated health insurance coverage.
A lawsuit challenging the law is being considered by the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority after Mr Trump's appointment of Amy Coney Barrett as a Supreme Court Justice.
- John Hall
TRUMP AGAIN ACCUSES PFIZER OF DELAYING VACCINE ANNOUNCEMENT
Trump tweeted: “As I have long said, Pfizer and the others would only announce a Vaccine after the Election, because they didn’t have the courage to do it before.
“Likewise, the @US_FDA should have announced it earlier, not for political purposes, but for saving lives!”
- John Hall
TWO MORE TEST POSITIVE FOR COVID-19 AT THE WHITE HOUSE
A further two people in the White House have tested positive for coronavirus, according to reports.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson. 69, has contracted the virus, his deputy chief of staff Coalter Baker told NPR.
“He is in good spirits and feels fortunate to have access to effective therapeutics which aid and markedly speed his recovery,” Mr Baker said in a statement.
According to ABC television, Mr Carson was briefly treated at Walter Reid military hospital outside Washington DC, where Mr Trump himself was treated for the virus.
Another top aide to the president, David Bossie, 55, was also at the White House event and tested positive on Sunday and has been self-isolating at home, NBC news said.
- John Hall
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO MAKE FINAL ATTEMPT AT DEMOLISHING OBAMACARE
The Trump's administration will make one last attempt to destroy the Obamacare health programme in the US Supreme Court today.
If the president was successful, it could cancel the health insurance of millions, a crucial blow in the middle of the nation's coronavirus crisis.
The high court will hear arguments in the long-brewing case over the constitutionality of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, under which then-president Barack Obama's government sought to extend health insurance to people who could not afford it.
- John Hall
THE RETURN OF 'THE FIRST DOGS' TO THE WHITE HOUSE
Joe Biden has two dogs – both German Shepherds.
They will just be the latest in a long line of pets to occupy the White House.
Donald Trump was the first president since 1897 to arrive at the White House without a pet.
Read more on the President-elect Biden's beloved canines here.
- John Hall
TRUMP USES TWEETS TO DIVERT FROM UNCOMFORTABLE TOPICS, STUDY FINDS
Donald Trump routinely uses his Twitter account to divert attention away from topics that are potentially harmful to his reputation, according to a study.
The international research, led by the University of Bristol and published in Nature Communications, found the US president's tweets resulted in reduced media coverage of the negative topic.
Professor Stephan Lewandowsky, of the University of Bristol, said: “Our analysis presents empirical evidence consistent with the theory that whenever the media report something threatening or politically uncomfortable for President Trump, his account increasingly tweets about unrelated topics representing his political strengths.
“This systematic diversion of attention away from a topic potentially damaging to him was shown to significantly reduce negative media coverage the next day.”
Mr Trump is one of the most prolific users of social media among world leaders.
- John Hall
WHAT IS THE 'HAMMER AND SCORECARD' CONSPIRACY THEORY?
Wild conspiracy theories which have no basis in fact or reality have flooded the country in wake of Joe Biden's election victory over Donald Trump.
The “Hammer and Scorecard” is one of those fabricated theories
But what is the theory and how has it surfaced?
Read more here.
- John Hall
US ATTORNEY GENERAL AUTHORIZES INVESTIGATION INTO 'VOTING IRREGULARITIES'
The US Attorney General has waded into the chaotic 2020 election to authorize the Department of Justice to look into alleged “voting irregularities” – despite there being no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
William Barr's unprecedented intervention on Monday led to Richard Pilger, who oversees the Justice Department's investigations of voter fraud, to quit just hours later.
Pilger, a career DOJ prosecutor who oversaw investigations related to voting fraud, wrote his resignation within hours of Barr's memo going public on Monday evening.
In an email to colleagues, he wrote: “Having familiarized myself with the new policy and its ramifications, I must regretfully resign from my role as director of the Election Crimes Branch.”
The explosive development comes as President Donald Trump and his aides and allies continue to claim the election was “stolen” by Democrats – but Barr admitted in the two-page memo to federal prosecutors that an investigation into voter fraud would likely not change the results of the election.
- John Hall
BIDEN URGES AMERICANS TO WEAR FACEMASKS – REGARDLESS OF WHO THEY VOTED FOR
President-elect Joe Biden has pleaded his fellow Americans to wear a face mask regardless of who they voted for, to help curb the spread of coronavirus.
In one of his first speeches as President-elect, Mr Biden told the US that even though he will not take office until January, he is already starting work to fight the virus.
- John Hall
TRUMP ACCUSES FDA OF DELIBERATELY NOT ANNOUNCING VACCINE UNTIL AFTER ELECTION
Donalf Trump has accused the FDA of deliberately not announcing the approval of a breakthrough coronavirus vaccine until after the election – his latest claim of a conspiracy to prevent his re-election.
After Pfizer announced early data from its coronavirus vaccine trial showed the vaccine was more than 90 per cent effective on Monday morning, Trump took to Twitter to blame the Food and Drug Administration – and the Democrats – for not announcing the news sooner.
Read more here
- John Hall
TRUMP 'WON'T GO TO BIDEN INAUGURATION'
Donald Trump is refusing to attend Biden's inauguration as he continues to decry the election results, according to reports.
Trump has repeatedly claimed his presidential battle with Joe Biden was “rigged” and has slammed the Democratic victor as a “phony” president.
Read more here.
- John Hall
TRUMP'S ARIZONA LAWSUIT IS DISPUTING JUST 200 BALLOTS
The Trump campaign challenge in Maricopa County in Arizona involves 200“incorrectly rejected” ballots, according to a report by azcentral.
GOP officials will get to put their case before a judge later this week but observers say it will not have any impact on the state’s election results.
- John Hall
VACCINE DRAMA
President Donald Trump claimed Pfizer announced the vaccine after the US election as they did not “have the courage to do it before”.
He tweeted: “The @US_FDA (Food and Drug Administration) and the Democrats didn’t want to have me get a Vaccine WIN, prior to the election, so instead it came out five days later – As I’ve said all along!”
- John Hall
ELECTION CRIMES DIRECTOR RESIGNS
A Department of Justice official overseeing voter crime investigations, Richard Pilger, resigned on Monday after Attorney General Bill Barr granted authorization for US attorneys to investigate voter fraud allegations.
In an email to his colleagues obtained by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Pilger wrote that the Justice Department policy is “abrogating the forty-year old Non-Interference Policy for ballot fraud investigation in the period prior to elections becoming certified and uncontested.”
“I must regretfully resign from my role as Director of the Election Crimes Branch,” Pilger wrote.
Pilger’s resignation comes as President Donald Trump refuses to concede and claims without evidence there was widespread fraud in the election.
- John Hall
‘NOTHING!’
President Donald Trump early Tuesday criticized President-elect Joe Biden for celebrating a coronavirus vaccine that may be available within weeks but having “nothing” to do with.
The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer had announced on Monday that interim findings from its vaccine clinical trial showed 90 percent efficacy and its CEO Albert Bourla said it “will be available for free to all American citizens.”
Biden hailed the news and Trump quote tweeted a post by lawyer Mark Levin stating, “Joe Biden is truly an ambulance chaser. He had nothing to do with the vaccine that is about to be made available to the public, he had nothing to do with the manufacturing process that is already underway,”
Trump commented, “NOTHING!”
- John Hall
TROUBLE IN TRUMP CAMP
Lawyers at some firms representing President Donald Trump’s campaign are worried about undermining US election integrity, The New York Times reported on Monday.
Attorneys from the firm Porter Wright Morris & Arthur, which has sued Pennsylvania, held meetings over their hesitance in representing the Trump campaign and one lawyer quit.
Meanwhile, lawyers at Jones Day, which also sued Pennsylvania, are reportedly uncomfortable with partner Donald F. McGahn II working as Trump’s outside lawyer.
- John Hall
MORE OF TRUMP'S AIDES HIT BY COVID
The coronavirus has spread further among President Donald Trump's top aides, infecting Housing Secretary Ben Carson, 69, a retired neurosurgeon.
Also testing positive for Covid is conservative political activist David Bossie, 55, – the man leading the Trump campaign's legal challenges to his election loss from making decisions, officials and sources said on Monday.
The infections of Carson and Bossie highlights the November 3 election night White House party and the administration's cavalier attitude toward public health guidelines encouraging Americans to wear masks and maintain a safe social distance.
“Secretary Carson has tested positive for the coronavirus. He is in good spirits and feels fortunate to have access to effective therapeutics which aid and markedly speed his recovery,” said deputy chief of staff Coalter Baker.
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who has frequently appeared at public events without wearing a mask, was diagnosed last week.
Carson, Meadows, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, Health Secretary Alex Azar and a number of other Trump Cabinet officials and top aides were at the White House for the Election night party on Tuesday.
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