Trump Campaign Wins Legal Victory in Iowa: Campaign Update
Protesters could be heard but not seen during the last night of the Republican National Convention.
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump’s campaign won a legal victory over voting in Iowa. Kentucky Senator Rand Paul said a group of protesters who harassed him Thursday night missed the point. And four people tested positive for Covid-19 ahead of the Republican convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.
There are 67 days until the election.
Other Developments:
Trump Campaign Wins Legal Victory Over Voting in Iowa
The Trump campaign won a legal victory Thursday, as a judge ordered elections officials in a Democratic-leaning county to invalidate 50,000 requests for absentee ballots.
Judge Ian Thornhill ordered the county auditor of Linn County to notify the voters that their requests could not be processed because they had been pre-filled by elections officials.
The affected voters will still have several weeks to request an absentee ballot. Iowa voters have until 10 days before the election to turn in a request for an absentee ballot by mail, and can request one in person at the elections office up until the day before the election.
The lawsuit centered on a law passed by the Republican-controlled legislature not long after the June primary, which saw record levels of mail-in voting. Among other restrictions, the law required that voters, and not elections officials, fill in a voting ID number on absentee request forms.
The Trump campaign has similar lawsuits pending in Woodbury and Johnson counties in Iowa, and is suing to restrict voting practices in Nevada, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
Rand Paul Says ‘Mob’ Missed the Point (12:27 p.m.)
Kentucky Senator Rand Paul said a “mob” of protesters who harassed him Thursday night was ignorant of his actual positions.
After leaving President Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the White House, Paul, his wife, Kelley, and two friends were surrounded by protesters calling on him to support criminal justice reform, and referencing the shooting death of Breonna Taylor by police in Louisville.
Paul, who has long advocated for criminal justice reform, introduced a “Justice for Breonna Taylor” act in June that would bar no-knock warrants like the one that led to her death.
“It’s like you couldn’t reason with this mob, but I’m actually the author of the Breonna Taylor law to end no-knock raids, so the irony is lost on these idiots,” he said in a Fox News interview Friday morning.
Paul called the protesters “unhinged” and said that he feared for his life.
Four People Tested Positive at RNC in Charlotte (11:12 a.m.)
Four people -- two attendees and two support staff members -- tested positive for coronavirus ahead of the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, this week, Mecklenburg County Public Health officials said Friday.
The agency said that approximately 792 COVID-19 tests were conducted at the start of Monday’s meeting. The four individuals who were positive were immediately advised to quarantine and their contacts were also issued “isolation instructions.”
“The RNC had diligent safety protocols in place, including testing all attendees before arriving in Charlotte, and again upon arrival. Out of roughly 1,000 tests administered, two RNC attendees, despite having negative tests prior to travel, and two Charlotte locals who planned to serve as event support staff tested positive upon arrival. All were sent home,” Michael Ahrens, a RNC spokesman said.
President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence attended Monday’s event where they were nominated for re-election by a small group of delegates. The full convention was initially set for Charlotte, but was moved after Trump balked at the state’s coronavirus prevention measures. Plans to hold the events in Jacksonville, Florida, were also scrapped after cases continued to rise there. On Thursday night, Trump delivered his acceptance speech at the White House with an audience of some 1,500. -- Mario Parker
Harris Says Wisconsin Officer Should Be Charged (8:47 a.m.)
The police officer who shot a Black man in Kenosha, Wisconsin, should face criminal charges, Kamala Harris said.
“Based on what I’ve seen, it seems that the officer should be charged,” the Democratic vice-presidential nominee said in an interview with NBC’s “Today” show that aired Friday.
The shooting of Jacob Blake on Sunday, which was captured on mobile phone video, set off another round of protests against police brutality -- an issue that was thrust back into the national political spotlight earlier this summer when George Floyd was killed by police in Minneapolis. Republicans have seized on the violence at some of those protests to argue that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden would make the country less safe, a theme President Donald Trump hammered home during his speech accepting the Republican nomination Thursday.
Harris called for protesters to remain peaceful but also accused Trump and Republicans of ignoring the topic of racial injustice at their convention. “I have yet to see these people who profess to be national leaders, speak about this issue of the killing of unarmed Black men, brown men, indigenous men in our country,” she said.
Harris also said the national mask mandate Biden has proposed would not be punishable by law. “It’s a standard. I mean, nobody’s going to be punished,” she said. -- Jordan Fabian
Protesters Made Themselves Heard During Trump’s Speech (7:33 a.m.)
President Donald Trump’s decision to hold his speech on the South Lawn of the White House gave protesters an opportunity Thursday.
As he and his daughter, Ivanka, spoke, the sounds of protesters on nearby streets could be heard at times.
Although specific chants couldn’t be heard, the chants, music, air horns, honking and sirens from the protests were occasionally loud enough to be picked up by network TV microphones, as a sort of faint rumble beneath Trump’s speech.
Several different protests took place around Washington, but one in particular was designed to be heard: the Drown Out Trump Live GoGo Show and Noise Demo held at the corner of 17th Street and Pennsylvania Ave., not far from the White House.
Coming up:
Both Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden have vowed to travel across the U.S. in final stage of presidential campaign.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.