/Trump and Biden town halls: Start time, how to watch and live updates

Trump and Biden town halls: Start time, how to watch and live updates

Biden, Trump arrive at town hall events

Biden and Trump have arrived at their respective event sites. Biden pulled up to the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia at 7:32 p.m. ET. Trump’s motorcade arrived at the Pérez Art Museum around 7:45 p.m. ET.

In Florida, Biden courted seniors and hit Trump on Covid-19

Biden on Tuesday delivered a scathing review of how Trump’s presidency has hurt senior citizens, telling a group of older voters that his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic — which has been especially deadly to the elderly — suggests he feels they’re “expendable” and “forgettable.”

Biden, speaking to a socially distanced crowd at a senior citizen community center in southern Florida, also hit Trump over his statements on possibly cutting Social Security and his record on lowering prescription drug costs, but saved his breath almost entirely for criticism of how the president’s response to the virus has hurt older people in particular.

“While you’re losing precious time with your loved ones, he’s been stuck in a sand trap at one of his golf courses, and when he does decide to lift a finger it isn’t to help you,” Biden said.

“While he throws superspreader parties at the White House, while Republicans hug each other, without concern of the consequences, how many of you have been unable to hug your grandkids the last seven months?” Biden said.

Read more about Biden’s Florida push.

Biden tests negative for Covid-19

After announcing that a crew member on his flights to Ohio and Florida tested positive, Biden underwent another coronavirus test Thursday. 

“Vice President Biden underwent PCR testing for COVID-19 today and COVID-19 was not detected,” the campaign said in a statement.

This marks Biden’s fourth negative test since seeing Harris on Oct. 8 and second since traveling to Ohio earlier this week.

C-SPAN suspends host Steve Scully after he admits lying about Twitter hack

C-SPAN announced Thursday that it had it suspended host Steve Scully after he admitted having falsely claimed that his Twitter account was hacked last week.

Scully appeared to seek advice on Twitter last Thursday from a prominent critic of Trump and then denied it.

Scully, who had been scheduled to moderate this week’s presidential debate before it was canceled, admitted that he had lied about sending a tweet to former White House adviser Anthony Scaramucci, “for which I am totally responsible.”

Scully said he had been relentlessly targeted in conservative news outlets and social media and by Trump himself. And then, at that point, he turned to Scaramucci for advice, Scully now admits.

“Out of frustration I sent a brief tweet addressed to Anthony Scaramucci,” Scully said in a statement. “The next morning when I saw that this tweet had created a new controversy, I falsely claimed that my Twitter account had been hacked.”

Read more here.

Twitter suffers through extended outage

What would a big night in politics look like without Twitter? We might get to find out.

The microblogging platform suffered an extended outage late Thursday afternoon. Some functionality returned at around 7 p.m. ET, but at least some users were still unable to send tweets. DownDetector.org, a website that tracks outages, found that the outage started around 5 p.m. 

It’s not uncommon for Twitter to have service issues from time to time. In early October, the site experienced partial outages that lasted for around seven hours. 

Twitter said in a tweet later that the outage was the result of “some trouble with our internal systems” and likely not a hack.

Biden and Harris react to Trump falsehoods in new video

In a new campaign video posted to Biden’s Twitter account, the former vice president and Sen. Kamala Harris sit several feet apart with masks on as they watch videos of Trump speaking at campaign rallies, interviews and in a campaign ad.

The two-and-a-half-minute video shows the Democratic ticket reacting to falsehoods from the president against their health care and economic record and plans. In response to Trump falsely saying at a rally that Biden’s health care plan “would destroy protections for people with pre-existing conditions,” Harris calls the president “heartless.”

Biden says it’s “painful just watching him” as they hear Trump accuse him of wanting “to inflict a painful shutdown on the entire country” if elected. 

Trump campaign’s efforts for an October surprise are falling short

Kamala Harris cancels travel after top aide tests positive for Covid-19

Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., has canceled travel through Sunday after two people involved in the campaign tested positive for Covid-19, Joe Biden’s campaign manager, Jen O’Malley Dillon, said in a statement Thursday.

Dillon said the campaign learned of the positive tests, of a nonstaff flight crew member and Harris’ communications director Liz Allen, late Wednesday. Dillon said Harris was not in close contact with those two, as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, within two days ahead of their positive tests. Both Harris and her husband Douglas Emhoff tested negative.

Dillion said there is no requirement for Harris to quarantine but that “out of an abundance of caution and in line with our campaign’s commitment to the highest levels of precaution, we are canceling Senator Harris’s travel through Sunday, October 18th.”

Read more here.

Here are the coronavirus-related safety measures in place tonight

Both town hall venues will have extra coronavirus-related safety measures in place on Thursday.

The Trump event will take place outdoors at the Pérez Art Museum in accordance with guidelines set forth by health officials and consistent with all government regulations. Moderator Savannah Guthrie and the president will be at least 12 feet apart from each other and the audience

The audience will also be socially distanced and required to wear masks, answer a symptoms questionnaire and take a temperature check before entering the outdoor venue.

The Biden town hall at the National Constitution Center, which is being moderated by George Stephanopoulos, will be held in accordance with state and local government health and safety regulations, and guidelines set by health officials, according to ABC.

Will Trump win again? Watch this Florida’s county for first election night clue

Last week, Democrats took delight in the spectacle of a 500-golf cart flotilla of Joe Biden supporters parading through Florida’s largest retirement community en route to turn in their vote-by-mail ballots.

It was a rare sight: The Villages is one of the most staunchly Republican enclaves in the Sunshine State.

But The Villages isn’t just worth watching for its warring buggies and flags. From a data standpoint, it could be the best early indicator on Election Night of a “gray revolt” against President Donald Trump — and who’s on track to win Florida.

Trump’s campaign assigns so much importance on the 122,000-resident community dubbed “Florida’s friendliest hometown” that Vice President Mike Pence visited last Saturday and Trump is scheduled to hold a rally in nearby Ocala on Friday. Biden was in Broward County on Tuesday making a pitch to seniors.

Read more about this pivotal Florida county here.

2020 sea wars: DNC floating billboard vs. Trump boat parade

In politics, there’s the ground game, where campaigns try to out-organize each other door-to-door and the airwar, where they spend millions pummeling each other in TV ads. But what about the sea war? 

Hours before Trump’s town hall in Miami, a pro-Trump boat parade passed within mere fathoms of a floating billboard commissioned by the Democratic National Committee to display the message “Trump Lied, 215,000+ Died” in the politically turbulent waters of Biscayne Bay.

Democrats, in an unusual act of political trawling, hired the naval billboard for a four-hour tour that saw it ply the waters around downtown Miami and up the Miami river while displaying its message in three local languages, English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole.

“215,000 Americans have lost their lives, including more than 15,000 in Florida, and countless families have been unable to see their loved ones. But Trump — who lied to the American people about the threat of the virus — has tried to pretend the pandemic doesn’t exist, refused to make a plan, and continues to jeopardize the safety of the American people,” said DNC War Room spokesperson Lily Adams.

Trump’s town hall will take place in the same waterfront location as Biden’s last week, the Pérez Art Museum in Miami, but the Coast Guard plans to blockade all water traffic in the area when the president arrives so a real naval battle doesn’t break out.

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