Our live coverage has ended. Read more about the 2020 election here.
Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said Wednesday both Iran and Russia have obtained US voter registration information in an effort to interfere in the election, including Iran posing as the far-right group Proud Boys to send intimidating emails to voters.
“This data can be used by foreign actors to attempt to communicate false information to registered voters that they hope will cause confusion, sow chaos and undermine your confidence in American democracy,” Ratcliffe said.
Iranians are responsible for a voter intimidation email campaign that was made to look like it came from the Proud Boys and was also spreading disinformation about voter fraud through a video linked in some of the emails.
“We have already seen Iran sending spoof emails designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest and damage President Trump,” Ratcliffe added. “You may have seen some reporting on this in the last 24 hours, or you may have even been one of the recipients of those emails.”
Ratcliffe did not explain what he meant by his statement that the emails — which were sent to registered voters from “info@proudboys.com” and warned recipients to “Vote for Trump or else!” — were intended to damage the President. The Twitter account for Democrats on the House Homeland Security Committee responded to Ratcliffe’s remark by saying: “DO NOT listen to Ratcliffe. Partisan hack.” Ratcliffe has been accused by Democrats of working to further Trump’s political aims by declassifying unverified intelligence.
A source in a Florida election office told CNN that during an FBI briefing Wednesday, agents told them the Proud Boy email threats about voting for Trump came from a nation state — and they are seeing them across the country. The source said the agents told them these emails “were not the work of a Florida guy in his basement.”
Russia has not taken the same actions, Ratcliffe said, but has obtained some voter information, just as Moscow did in 2016.
Ratcliffe spoke alongside FBI Director Chris Wray at a hastily arranged news conference on Wednesday evening to announce the foreign election interference.
Watch the moment:
John Danforth, a member of the Commission on Presidential Debates, brushed aside President Trump’s criticism of changes made to the format of Thursday’s final debate, saying their plan to mute the microphone of one candidate while the other candidate is speaking during some portions of the debate are merely enforcement of existing rules agreed to by both campaigns during the summer.
“Back in the summer when the… rules of the debate were negotiated by the two parties, it was agreed by everybody that at the beginning of the 15 minute segment each candidate would be able to speak uninterrupted for period of two minutes,” said Danforth, a former Republican senator who has served on the bipartisan commission since 1994.
“It’s the same rule, just an enforcement of that rule,” he continued, speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper today.
On Tuesday, Trump railed agains the commission’s announcement saying of the commission, “these are not good people.”
“This commission — a lot of funny things go on with them,” Trump added.
When asked whether he would try to interrupt Joe Biden less during Thursday’s debate, Trump said he “may do that” adding, “there’s a lot of people that say let him talk because he loses his train — he loses his mind frankly.”
Speaking with CNN today, Danforth said he believed the first presidential debate, which devolved into chaos, with the President frequently interrupting the former vice president, was a missed opportunity for the American people.
“I think it was not a good opportunity for the American people to be educated about the positions of the two candidates on various issues,” he said. “People felt they were deprived of what they should have gotten out of that debate.”
In a newly released clip from tonight’s town hall with Sinclair Broadcasting host Eric Bolling, President Trump again called the mute button at the debate unfair and called NBC News’ Kristen Welker and her parents biased.
“Well that’s not fair, plus they changed the topics which isn’t fair, just happened. Plus Kristen Welker is a heavily biased person with her parents being fundraisers and having supported the Democrats and she’s a Democrat, I know her well,” Trump claimed.
Trump also attacked the moderator of the first debate, Chris Wallace, calling him “very biased” and saying he had to “leave in disgrace.”
Trump said he may let Joe Biden speak uninterrupted in Thursday’s debate, though his strategy might change as the debate goes on.
“Some people think let him talk because he loses his train, he just loses it, he doesn’t speak the train of thought but we’ll see what happens,” Trump said. “But the fact is I find you always have to just wait. You have a strategy but all of a sudden you change your strategy. We’ll see what it is. Whatever it is, it is.”
In his closing pitch to voters in Philadelphia, former President Barack Obama argued that voters need to realize that they have become “numb” and “immune” to the lies President Trump tells every day.
“Our democracy’s not going to work if the people who are supposed to be our leaders lie every day and just make things up. And we’ve just become numb to it. We’ve just become immune to it. Every single day,” Obama said.
Obama argued that voters cannot lose sight of the core values in this country.
Former President Barack Obama made the case for Joe Biden for president, saying “you’re not going to have to think about the crazy things” said every day by President Trump.
Obama went on to criticize Trump for going out of “his way to insult anybody who doesn’t support him or threaten them with jail.”
“That’s not normal presidential behavior. We wouldn’t tolerate it from a high school principal. We wouldn’t tolerate it from a coach. We wouldn’t tolerate it from a co-worker. We wouldn’t tolerate it in our own family, except for maybe crazy uncle somewhere … why would we expect and accept this from the President of the United States? And why are folks making excuses for that? Oh, well, that’s just him. No, it’s —no. There are consequences to these actions. They embolden other people to be cruel and divisive and racist,” Obama added.
The former president implored people to get out the vote no matter what the polls may indicate.
“We cannot leave any doubt in this election, because you know, the President’s already said, ‘if it’s even close, I’m just gonna make stuff up.’ He’s already starting to do it, so we can’t have any doubt, we can’t be complacent, I don’t care about the polls,” Obama said.
Watch:
Former President Barack Obama criticized President Trump this afternoon during a campaign event for Joe Biden in Philadelphia, saying the President has treated his tenure “like a reality show he can use to get attention.”
Obama, who wore a mask with “VOTE” on it before making his speech, also spoke at lengths about how Americans can vote through mail and in-person on Nov. 3.
“We’ve got 13 days. That’s our lucky number. Thirteen days until the most important election of our lifetimes,” Obama said. “What we do these next 13 days will matter for decades to come.”
Watch the moment:
Businessman Andrew Yang will join Young Americans for Biden and youth-focused organizations Student Debt Crisis and Rise, as well as the student loan start-up Savi, for a town hall and phone bank Wednesday.
Yang, a former Democratic presidential candidate and CNN contributor, ran on a platform that emphasized Universal Basic Income and student debt relief for young Americans.
During the virtual event with Yang, Student Debt Crisis, Rise and Savi will announce the launch of a new joint initiative between the groups, which includes a student loan education tool and hotline for student loan borrowers.
“With 45 million student loan borrowers, it’s a massive bloc of voters who could easily tip the election and Rise’s work with Student Debt Crisis is the first concerted effort to define ‘student loan voter’ as a category with political power,” Rise CEO Maxwell Lubin told CNN.
In September, Rise and Student Debt Crisis teamed up to endorse the Biden-Harris ticket. Wednesday’s virtual event with Yang marks the first time the student-focused groups will partner with Savi.
Rise, a student-led advocacy group with chapters on college campuses across the country, has mobilized more than 80,000 students in battle ground states with a get out the vote campaign since the summer, Lubin said.
Student Debt Crisis is a national organization dedicated to teaching young people how to manage their student loans. They regularly hold clinics to help young people understand their loans and work nationally to reform student debt and higher education policies.
More than 40 million Americans have already cast their general election ballots, according to a survey of election officials by CNN, Edison Research, and Catalist.
Voters in the 47 states and DC with pre-Election Day data available are already setting records as they seek to cast their ballots either by mail or in-person where available less than two weeks before Election Day.
Ballots cast so far represents almost 30% of the more than 136 million total ballots cast in the 2016 presidential election.
Some voter information comes from Catalist, a company that provides data, analytics and other services to Democrats, academics and nonprofit issue-advocacy organizations and is giving new insights into who is voting before November.
Republican Sen. Mitt Romney told CNN he has already voted in this year’s election but he wouldn’t say if he voted for Joe Biden or wrote someone else in.
Kamala Harris rallied Democrats at an early voter mobilization event in Asheville, North Carolina — this event was rescheduled from last week after the Biden-Harris campaign halted travel because of two positive Covid-19 cases.
There were about 25 people in the crowd, many stood in socially distant circles in front of a mountain vista. And most raised their hands when asked if they had already early voted.
Harris delivered brief remarks, eliciting “boos” and “call him out” from the small crowd, when she — without naming him — called out Sen. Thom Tillis and GOP senators for trying to push through a Supreme Court nominee instead of passing another stimulus bill.
“You know who I’m talking about,” Harris said.
The Democratic vice presidential nominee gave her usual stump speech, with a mention of getting rid of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, which again elicited some boos from the crowd.
Harris said she would be counting on the people of North Carolina, and made no mention of Democratic senate candidate Cal Cunningham in her remarks.
More than two million voters in the state have already successfully cast their ballots for the election.
No matter who wins the US presidential contest in November, one of the most pressing problems for the administration to solve will be America’s broken jobs market.
In fact, the unemployment rate, which peaked at 14.7% in April may actually under-represent the fragility of America’s pandemic labor market: Those discouraged by a lack of available jobs, worried about health precautions or needing to stay home to care for children or elderly relatives have dropped out of the labor force altogether. And the unemployment rate doesn’t factor them in.
If we add back all the people who have dropped out of the labor force since February -— many of whom are women — and count them as unemployed, the jobless rate would have been 10.3% last month, the S&P report said.
The unemployment rate isn’t expected to get back to its pre-pandemic level before 2024. Come January, the administration needs to throw a lifeline to those in need, Bovino said.
Read the full story here.
Ahead of their final debate, President Trump is tweeting dire and unfounded predictions for Americans should his Democratic rival win the White House.
“Your 401k’s will crash with Biden. Massive Biden Tax and Regulation increases will destroy all that you have built! Additionally, 180 Million People will lose their Private Healthcare Plans,” Trump warned, without evidence, Wednesday morning. He wrote that Biden would “raise your taxes at a level never seen before.”
Biden has said repeatedly that his tax plan would only raise taxes for those earning more than $400,000 a year. You can read more about his tax plan here.
“This will not only be very costly for you, it will destroy our economy, which is coming back very rapidly,” he claimed.
Trump has sent numerous tweets this morning, including claiming without evidence that “California is never in play for Republicans” because of “rigged” elections. There is no evidence this is true and there is no evidence that widespread voter fraud is an issue at all in the US.
A member of the Commission on Presidential Debates said President Trump’s attacks on the commission are “just wrong,” a rare rebuke coming from a member of an organization that strives to stay neutral.
Trump has repeatedly attacked debate moderators and the commission, falsely claiming during an interview on “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday that his matchup with former Vice President Joe Biden this week is “so set up,” even though the debate topics and moderator were agreed to by both campaigns weeks ago.
Danforth noted that like other members of the commission he has maintained a “strict vow of silence” regarding personal feelings about the campaign, but now that the President and his supporters “have attacked the commission’s integrity, I feel compelled to respond.”
Mentioning Trump’s attacks on Fox News anchor Chris Wallace, who moderated the first presidential debate, Trump campaign senior adviser Steve Cortes accused the commission in a tweet of a “scheme to protect their preferred candidate” – Biden.
Read more here.
John King reports:
More than 5.3 million people cast their vote in Texas, including the first eight days of early voting, according to data posted on the Texas Secretary of State website Wednesday morning. That represents a little more than 31% of registered voters.
On Tuesday, 519,696 people voted in person, bringing the total in-person votes to more than 4.6 million. Cumulative ballots-by-mail so far this cycle were 698,599.
Comparing early voting data from 2016 can be complicated for multiple reasons, in addition to the pandemic. Texas has three weeks of in-person early voting this cycle compared to two weeks in 2016. The state is also tracking early voting data from all 254 counties this cycle, but it only collected data from the top 15 most populous counties in 2016.
Still, when looking at the data from the first eight days of early voting in the top five most populous counties in both cycles, turnout has increased by 375,540 in those counties – an increase of about 20%. It’s worth noting that those counties represent 42% of all registered voters.
The wife of a New Jersey police officer who died from coronavirus said Joe Biden called her late last night and expressed empathy for her loss.
Roberts and the Democratic presidential nominee spoke for about 20 minutes around 11:30 p.m. ET, she said.
“He’s a kind, caring guy, and that to me is a huge piece of what we need right now in the White House,” she said.
She said that she wouldn’t want to hear from President Trump even if he called her.
“He’s spoken in his actions and, you know, as they say, actions speak louder than words,” she said.
Her husband, Charles Roberts, died of Covid-19 at 45 years old, leaving behind three children. Roberts said that she hopes the loss of her husband “can have some meaning and greater purpose.”
“This world has lost a really excellent police officer. … I’ve lost a partner, I’ve lost a cook, I’ve lost the guy who made me laugh all the time,” Roberts said.
“I just hope that his death can bring about some positive change in this country. And I want people to know we are a real family and we are really grieving, and this isn’t fake news and it’s not exaggerated,” she said.
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President Trump isn’t planning formal debate prep sessions ahead of his second encounter with Joe Biden on Thursday but is receiving advice to lower the temperature, people familiar with the matter said.
Advisers have told Trump that Thursday’s debate could be his final chance to reverse negative impressions about his behavior among women and seniors. He’s been encouraged to appear less angry and even deploy some self-deprecating humor, which some of his advisers believe is when he is at his most likable, one person familiar with the matter said.
Trump has appeared somewhat receptive to the advice in meetings, and has said he may try to interrupt less. But he has maintained that he won’t hold back if he believes he’s being maligned or unfairly treated by the moderator.
But he is clearly heading into the debate in an agitated state of mind, feuding with Dr. Anthony Fauci and Lesley Stahl and telling reporters he is “running angry” in the final stretch. He has been upset at stories depicting his campaign as doomed, and in particular the notion of Republicans starting to distance themselves, believing he still has a good shot of winning.
That has left some aides without a good idea of what Thursday’s debate will really look like; heading into the first debate, few expected Trump to come off as angry as he did. There are also fears Trump will go too hard against Kristen Welker, the moderator, which could only further erode his standing with women.
Instead of mock debates, Trump is spending the days leading up to the event on the road campaigning and participating in interviews. He has said that schedule provides him adequate debate experience instead of the formal practice debates. A majority of the participants in his practice sessions in September contracted coronavirus.
President Trump’s campaign entered October with just $63.1 million in remaining cash reserves, new filings show, underscoring his financial vulnerabilities as Election Day fast approaches.
His Democratic rival, Joe Biden, had nearly three times that amount — more than $177 million — remaining in his war chest, highlighting how the former vice president’s fundraising success in recent months left him with a substantial money advantage as the fall campaign got underway.
Trump’s campaign burned through more money than it took in last month, spending more than $91 million on advertising alone, according to a report it filed Tuesday evening with the Federal Election Commission.
But the President’s campaign has been outspent on television in recent weeks, as Biden has battered him on the airwaves, particularly in three swing states —Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin – that helped Trump secure the White House four years ago.
One sign of the President’s cash crunch: Over the weekend, he flew to deep-blue California for a high-dollar fundraising event that aides say brought in $11 million for his reelection.
Biden outraised Trump in both August and September and together with the Democratic Party committees started October with $432 million remaining in the bank. In all, Trump’s political operation — including his joint fundraising committees with the Republican National Committee — was expected to report $251.4 million in available cash on hand.
But while the President can rely on the larger pool of Republican cash to fund his broader reelection push, including the ground campaign to turn out voters, his main campaign account generally handles advertising. Television stations must offer lower rates to candidates than to other political players, such as super PACs, so candidate money buys more ads.
Trump has trailed Biden in most polling. But Trump campaign officials insist they have sufficient funds to prevail, noting that Democrat Hillary Clinton outraised and outspent Trump in 2016 and still lost the presidency.
Read more here.
White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said there is a “high probability” that President Trump will release an interview he did with 60 Minutes before it airs Sunday, and accused journalist Lesley Stahl of acting “more like an opinion journalist.
“He didn’t walk out,” Meadows told Fox Business on Wednesday. “I mean, the characterization of that – he spent over 45 minutes with Lesley Stahl. I’ve looked at every single minute of the interview and then some. We have tape of every single minute.”
“Listen,” he continued, “when you have a 60 Minutes reporter, they should be a reporter not an opinion journalist. And she came across more like an opinion journalist.”
Asked if the President would release the video before it’s scheduled to air Sunday, as he threatened to do on Twitter, Meadows said “there’s a high probability.”
Later during a press gaggle, CNN’s Joe Johns also asked Meadows what happened during the interview, to which Meadows responded, “you’ll get to see it.”
Some background: According to multiple sources familiar with what happened, Trump abruptly ended a solo interview with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” Tuesday and did not return for an appearance he was supposed to tape with Vice President Mike Pence.
After camera crews set up at the White House on Monday, Trump sat down with host Lesley Stahl for about 45 minutes on Tuesday before he abruptly ended the interview and told the network he believed they had enough material to use, according to two sources.
Trump walked out of the interview because he was frustrated with Stahl’s line of questioning, one source said. Another person said the bulk of the interview was focused on coronavirus.
SEE TRUMP’S TWEETS AFTER ENDING THE INTERVIEW:
This election isn’t just about the race for the White House. For a lot of us, the issues we care most about, are handled at the local level and that’s why it’s important to understand who’s running and what they stand for.
This week, CNN’s Kristen Holmes talks with ProPublica’s Jessica Huseman about who else is on your ballot and why they matter.
Listen to the latest Election 101 podcast episode here.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said Tuesday that he thinks the new rule instituted for Thursday’s debate — the plan to mute an opposing candidate’s microphone while the other candidate speaks — is a good idea, saying that it should go even further.
Biden said he will come to the debate ready to discuss issues that affect the American people and he hopes President Trump will do the same.
But he noted that the President seems to be signaling that “all gonna be about personal attacks.”
“But I’m going to try very hard to focus on the issues that affect the American people and talk to them and I hope they keep the rule – that uninterrupted two minutes,” Biden said.
