Don Jr tests positive, as his father dodges media questions

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Trump refuses to take questions after prescription drugs presser

Donald Trump held a press conference on Friday to discuss prescription drug prices, but the moment also included him falsely claiming “he won” the 2020 election while accusing Moderna and Pfizer of working to stop his re-election efforts. The two pharmaceutical companies announced their coronavirus vaccines were 90 per cent or more effective against the novel virus following the election. 

The press conference was actually not a press conference because the president took no questions. His decision not to take questions potentially came after White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany held her press briefing since 1 October on Friday. 

Ms McEnany, who defended Mr Trump’s refusal to concede the election, was heckled by one reporter during the briefing over her inability to accept the election results. She also entered into a verbal spat with a CNN reporter, whom she called an “activist”, after refusing to answer more questions. 

This comes after Mr Trump was told to to move aside by Republican senator Lamar Alexander, who said on Friday that the US president should allow the transition to a Biden administration to take place after more than two weeks of delay. Sources close to the president suggested that his refusal to concede was, in part, an act of revenge on Democrats who investigated Russian interference in his 2016 win over Hillary Clinton. 

And later in the day it was confirmed that the president’s son, Don Jr, had tested positive for coronavirus and was quarantining.

• Trump 2024? What’s next for this president after the White House
• President insists ‘we will win’ and repeats rigged election claims
• Trump should concede and put country above his ego, Obama says

Key Points

• Don Jr tests positive for coronavirus
• Kayleigh McEnany heckled for not accepting election results
• Leading Republican senator says Trump should allow transition
• Trump attacks Romney over criticism and hints senator ‘lost his mind’
• Giuliani quotes My Cousin Vinny at bizarre press conference
• Biden says refusal to concede sends ‘damaging message’ to world

[17 November 2020 14:40 · Joe Sommerlad]

‘Nobody said it would be easy to overturn an election without evidence’

For a timely recap on how the president’s legal battles contesting the election result are going - he’s losing 12-0 at this point and is down two law firms - this from the withering John Avlon on CNN’s New Day is pretty unbeatable.

Perhaps he’s being too hard on them - how’s that evidence hunt coming guys?

Oh…

[17 November 2020 15:00 · Joe Sommerlad]

Democrat harangues Senate colleagues for not wearing face masks

This was a great moment from Ohio’s Sherrod Brown in the upper chamber yesterday.

[17 November 2020 15:20 · Gino Spocchia]

Advert for Atlanta Trump march misspells ‘Georgia’

Donald Trump’s supporters have made two obvious errors with their promotion of a weekend march in Atlanta, Georgia. 

The advert, shared to Twitter byThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s senior editor, Jennifer Brett, appeared to paint the Peach state blue - in apparent contradiction with the president’s claims to have won the state, as well as the march’s purpose. 

Eagle-eyed Twitter users also noticed that “Georgia” was misspelled on the advert for the event, which follows Saturday’s “Million MAGA March” in Washington DC, in support of Mr Trump’s false claims about election “fraud”. 

Here’s hoping it doesn’t effect attendance… 

[17 November 2020 15:40 · Gino Spocchia]

Michelle Obama on ‘Trump’s racist lies’

Here’s more on the former first lady’s condemnation of the US president who, unlike her husband in 2016, has so far refused to follow normal protocol for a presidential transition, and delayed Joe Biden’s pathway to office. 

In comments she shared to social media, Ms Obama wrote how she found the strength to put Mr Trump’s “racist lies” about Barack Obama aside, following his election victory against Hillary Clinton in 2016. 

“That wasn’t something I was ready to forgive. But I knew that, for the sake of our country, I had to find the strength and maturity to put my anger aside." she wrote. 

Harriet Alexander has the latest: 

…And if you needed a reminder of Mr Trump’s current stance on the matter,  now two weeks after election day, here’s his Twitter post from Monday, once more claiming to have “won”. 

[17 November 2020 16:00 · Gino Spocchia]

Rudy Giuliani in last-minute bid to push Trump’s case in Pennsylvania

In another unexpected turn of events for both Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, and the president’s lawsuit challenging election results in Pennsylvania, the former mayor of New York was reported to have filed a last-minute request to join the case himself, just hours before judges were due to hear it in court. 

Mr Giuliani’s request comes after two law firms withdrew from the Trump campaign case in the past week, while its main allegations of illegal ballots were also dropped. 

[17 November 2020 16:15 · Joe Sommerlad]

British photographer shares images captured amid turmoil of 2016 US election: ‘People were shocked’

Ben Elwes’s forthcoming book Divided States carries the award-winning photographs he took of a nation in shock four years ago this month when Donald Trump stormed to victory in the presidential race, upsetting the odds to beat a complacent Hillary Clinton.

Elwes has been speaking to Gino Spocchia about his experiences over the course of a 12,000-mile journey that took him across a dozen states and DC.

[17 November 2020 16:30 · Joe Sommerlad]

Donald Trump appears as top result for ‘tin-pot dictator’ in Google image search

With the Big Tech hearing underway in the Senate and Mark Zuckerberg already feeling the heat over Facebook’s failure to find fault with Steve Bannon even when he called for Dr Anthony Fauci’s beheading…

…here’s a slightly lighter IT story from Anthony Cuthbertson concerning “your favourite president”.

[17 November 2020 17:31 · Justin Vallejo]

Watch: Mark Zuckerberg denies senator’s plea to remove Steve Bannon for threatening to behead Fauci and Wray

“No. … That’s not what our policies suggest that we should do,” Mr Zuckerberg said, after Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut asked whether Mr Bannon should be banned from Facebook for his comments.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg calmly dismissed a suggestion from a Democratic senator on Tuesday to de-platform former Trump administration adviser Steve Bannon for threatening to behead Dr Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Mr Zuckerberg and Mr Dorsey appeared alongside Google CEO Sundar Pichai at a separate hearing before the Senate Commerce Committee in late October. 

The Independent’s Griffin Connolly has the report:

[17 November 2020 17:51 · Justin Vallejo]

Beijing prepares for Trump’s ‘final act of madness’

China’s state-controlled newspaper Global Times says that Beijing is preparing for a “final act of madness” before Donald Trump leaves office.

The newspaper says the communist regime expects the president to launch attacks on China’s technology industry by signing a series of executive orders which, if reversed by Joe Biden, would brand him a “Panda Hugger”.  

“Trump is actually setting a trap or planting a landmine for the Biden administration,' Shen Yi, a professor at the School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Fudan University, told the Global Times.

“He is such an emotional and unpredictable person that we can't use a normal person's mentality to judge him.”

[17 November 2020 18:10 · Justin Vallejo]

Joe Biden announces who will be in his White House team

Joe Biden has named nine top staff appointments to his incoming administration, including key White House aides, counsellors and senior advisers.

His campaign manager, Jen O’Malley has been named deputy chief of staff and will join Ron Klain, who was previously announced chief of staff, in two of the most central positions to the Oval Office.

The senior staff appointments reflects a mix of longtime loyalist and Democratic operatives, as well as an absence of high-profile progressives far-left faction of the party.