Harris or Trump? Millions vote in tense, tight US election

Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump (L) speaks during his final campaign rally at Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids, Michigan in the early hours of November 5, 2024, and US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris (R) speaks during a campaign rally on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 4, 2024. Jeff Kowalsky and Andrew Caballero-Reynolds, AFP  

The volatile, dramatic US presidential race between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump headed to an unpredictable finish Tuesday, with millions of Americans casting their votes in one of the tightest elections of modern times.

The result -- which may be known overnight or not for days -- carries major consequences, either making Harris the first woman in arguably the world's most powerful job or handing power back to Trump and his nationalist "America First" agenda.

As voters formed long lines across the country, several bomb threats were reported at polling stations, while police at the US Capitol -- where Trump's supporters rampaged following his 2020 defeat -- arrested a man who smelled like fuel and was carrying a flare gun.

Both the FBI and Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger said the bomb threats, while not credible, appeared to originate from Russia.

Polls show one of the tightest races in modern times between Democratic Vice President Harris, 60, and Republican Trump, 78, who would be the first felon president, the oldest ever to take office and only the second to serve non-consecutive terms.

Harris made a late, dramatic entrance into the race when President Joe Biden dropped out in July, while Trump has ridden out two assassination attempts and a criminal conviction.

Tens of millions of voters were expected to cast their ballots Tuesday, on top of the 83 million who have already voted early, and both candidates put in a final word to try to sway the last undecided voters.

After criss-crossing the country, Harris returned to Washington where she called in to radio stations in swing states and took a few calls personally at a phone bank for voters.

"We've got to get it done. Today is voting day, and people need to get out and be active," Harris told Atlanta station WVEE-FM.

She described her opponent as "full of vengeance. He's full of grievance. It's all about himself."

'IF IT'S A FAIR ELECTION'

Trump voted in Florida near his Mar-a-Lago residence, saying he felt "very confident" and that he wanted to be "very inclusive."

But he aired concerns about the vote count -- heightening fears he will reject the result and cite fraud if he loses.

"If it's a fair election, I would be the first one to acknowledge it," he said.

Trump has repeated baseless claims of election fraud while saying he should "never have left" the White House in 2021.

Casting a ballot in Arizona, Trump backer Camille Kroskey, 62, said she was voting in person due to concerns about voting fraud.

"I want to make sure I drop my ballot where it's going to actually land somewhere," she told AFP.

"Now, will it get counted?" she asked. "I don't know."

US stance on West PH Sea won’t change even with new president — analyst

In perhaps the most crucial battleground state, Pennsylvania, Harris voter Marchelle Beason, 46, said the lines were "way, way, way more" than in the last election.

"We're so divided right now, and she's about peace. And everything that her opponent has to say is really negative," she added.

MAJOR CONSEQUENCES

At the same school, 56-year-old Darlene Taylor, wearing a homemade Trump shirt, said her main issue is to "close the border."

Trump has vowed an unprecedented deportation campaign of millions of undocumented immigrants if elected.

The election is being watched closely around the world including in the war zones of Ukraine and the Middle East.

Harris has vowed to keep up support for Ukraine against Russia's invasion and to put a greater effort in ending the Gaza war, although she has also voiced support for Israel.

Trump has promised a quick end to the Ukraine war, likely by pressing Kyiv into concessions, and has made clear he will give freer rein to Israel, which relies on US support.

"We can fix every single problem our country faces and lead America -- indeed, the world -- to new heights of glory," Trump told his closing rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Harris hammered home her opposition to Trump-backed abortion bans in multiple states -- a vote-winning position with crucial women voters.

Control of Congress is also at stake, with Republicans widely expected to win back control of the Senate.

US election: When will we know who won?

Agence France-Presse

Trump launches new crypto platform with scant detail

NEW YORK, United States - Former US president Donald Trump along with his sons and entrepreneurs late Monday launched a cryptocurrency platform but provided few details.

Little was revealed about the Trump family crypto project during a two-hour online presentation other than an offer to let people buy digital "tokens" giving them a vote in platform decisions. The event went ahead as planned despite an apparent assassination attempt against Trump on Sunday at his golf club in West Palm Beach, Florida.

World Liberty Financial intends to offer services based on so-called decentralized finance, a mechanism that eliminates the need for an intermediary such as a bank to carry out transactions with a third party, the politics-laced discussion indicated.

The former president's son Donald Trump Jr. touted this as "the start of a financial revolution," during a session streamed on X, formerly Twitter. Zachary Folkman and Chase Herro, the linchpins of the project and established cryptocurrency entrepreneurs, said the platform would primarily use "stablecoins", which are backed by a traditional currency, most often the dollar.

As a result, they are free from the sometimes brutal fluctuations experienced by digital currencies untethered to real-world money. World Liberty Financial wants to attract the masses to cryptocurrencies, creating a platform easily accessible to people, Folkman said.

Project leaders said they would sell tokens that give owners the right to take part in governance of the platform, with 63 percent of them offered to the public, 20 percent going to the founding team and the rest set aside as rewards for users.

No timetable for the project was disclosed.

During his presidency Trump referred to cryptocurrencies as a scam, but has since radically changed his position, presenting himself as a "pro-bitcoin president" if elected in November. In so doing, he is standing in opposition to the Biden administration, which is seen as a proponent of regulating the sector.

Agence France-Presse

Violence, threats hang over Trump-Harris race after turbulent weekend

WASHINGTON -- Kamala Harris and Donald Trump on Monday head into a newly intense phase of the US presidential campaign, with tensions heightened after a second apparent assassination attempt against the Republican former president.

The Sunday arrest of a gunman on Donald Trump's golf course came the same day as more bomb threats poured into Springfield, Ohio, a small Midwestern city at the center of Republican-led conspiracies against immigrants.

But the dueling campaigns are set to march on with little interruption, a day after the Secret Service confirmed one or more of its agents "opened fire on a gunman" located near the boundary of Trump's Florida golf course, and that an "AK-47 style rifle" with a scope was recovered along with a GoPro video camera.

The FBI said it was "investigating what appears to be an attempted assassination of former President Trump."

US media named the suspect as Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, who had expressed support for Ukraine and had a lengthy arrest record.

Authorities said they had not identified a specific motive or political ideology for the shooter behind the previous bid on Trump's life, at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.

Trump was wounded in the ear in the July 13 shooting.

Authorities on Sunday said it wasn't clear whether a gunman actually fired a weapon in the direction of the former president before the Secret Service engaged the shooter.

Harris and President Joe Biden both denounced the attack on Trump, with Biden saying "There is no place for political violence or for any violence ever in our country."

Vice President Harris, the Democratic nominee who will face ex-president Trump at the polls November 5, said in a statement Sunday she was "disturbed by the possible assassination attempt" and "thankful that former president Trump is safe."

The same day, Clark State College, in Springfield, announced it would hold classes virtually this week, after receiving bomb and shooting threats over the weekend.

- Bomb threats -

The move comes on the fourth consecutive day of threats of bombings and other violence that have targeted the local city hall, public schools and nearby college Wittenberg University, following racist rumors about local Haitian immigrants pushed by Republicans including Trump.

What started as municipal growing pains in a rapidly growing city have morphed into allegations of an "invasion" by "illegal" Haitian newcomers, baselessly accused of stealing and eating people's pets and causing a crime wave.

Threats have hit hospitals, schools and municipal buildings since Trump declared the immigrants were stealing and eating resident's pets at Tuesday's presidential debate.

Some Haitians living in the city have told AFP they are scared for their lives.

- 'Hate' for Taylor Swift -

Adding to the country's acrimonious political atmosphere, Trump posted on his Truth Social website that "I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT!"

Earlier this week, the superstar singer/songwriter posted a message on Instagram saying she would be voting for Harris, calling her a "steady-handed, gifted leader."

Celebrity endorsements rarely carry enormous weight, but the hugely popular Swift is seen as being in a class of her own, with more than 400 million followers on Instagram, TikTok and other social media platforms -- 10 million of whom "liked" her Instagram post.

It was not clear what Trump hoped to gain by attacking Swift, though he may calculate that any publicity is better than none.

He has been criticized, even by fellow Republicans, for his recent association with conspiracy-minded right-wing influencer Laura Loomer, who has at times joined him on his campaign plane.

The 31-year-old Loomer -- who has called the September 11 terror attacks an "inside job" and said some of the country's recent mass shootings were staged by Democrats -- recently suggested that Swift had entered an "arranged relationship" with football star Travis Kelce "to influence the 2024 election."

There is no evidence to support any of those claims.

The race between Trump and Harris remains tight across the battleground states that will decide the election.

Agence France-Presse

Microsoft protests Amazon win of big US cloud contract

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Microsoft on Thursday confirmed it is challenging a decision to award a multibillion-dollar cloud computing contract to its rival Amazon.

US media reports said the contract valued at $10 billion is for modernizing storage of classified data at the National Security Agency (NSA).

"Based on the decision we are filing an administrative protest via the Government Accountability Office," Microsoft said in response to an AFP inquiry.

"We are exercising our legal rights and will do so carefully and responsibly."

The NSA spokesperson said that it "will respond to the protest in accordance with appropriate federal regulations," while Amazon declined to comment.

A post on the Government Accountability Office website showed that it is considering a protest filed by Microsoft in July concerning the NSA, but provided no details.

The move came as payback of sorts for Amazon successfully protesting a different $10-billion cloud computing contract that had been awarded to Microsoft.

The Pentagon in July scrapped the deal, known as the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI) contract, sidestepping a bitter dispute between Amazon and Microsoft over allegations of political bias that swayed the bidding.

Microsoft in late 2019 won the JEDI contract, sparking a challenge by Amazon on grounds that then president Donald Trump may have improperly influenced the outcome.

Amazon alleged it was shut out of the deal because of what it called Trump's vendetta against the company and its chief executive Jeff Bezos.

Agence France-Presse

Biden drops plan to ban Chinese-owned apps TikTok, WeChat

President Joe Biden on Wednesday revoked executive orders from his predecessor Donald Trump seeking to ban Chinese-owned mobile apps TikTok and WeChat over national security concerns, the White House said.

A statement said that instead of banning the popular apps, the Biden administration would carry out a "criteria-based decision framework and rigorous, evidence-based analysis to address the risks" from internet applications controlled by foreign entities.

Trump had claimed the apps posed national security risks and had sought to force the sale of TikTok, which is owned by China-based ByteDance and remains one of the world's most popular social media apps, to US investors.

The effort by the Trump administration prompted a series of legal challenges which delayed the efforts to ban or force the sale of the applications, which heightened tensions between Washington and Beijing.

There was no immediate comment from the two companies.

Biden issued a new executive order citing an "ongoing emergency" related to "the continuing effort of foreign adversaries to steal or otherwise obtain United States persons' data" and calling for a four-month review.

University of Texas law professor Bobby Chesney, who follows national security issues, called the Biden order "a good middle path."

"They affirmed the nature of the threat and the propriety of using sanctions to address it, and they have held the door open for reimposing some version of these sanctions... but likely with a far stronger and more defensible record," Chesney tweeted.

But officials said that Biden's order stopped short of rescinding a review of the 2017 acquisition of TikTok forerunner Musical.ly by ByteDance.

"It would be premature to celebrate; Bytedance remains subject to an entirely separate CFIUS divestment order," Chesney said in a blog post, referring to the intergovernmental Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which is carrying out the review.

"Today's action by President Biden does nothing to change that. Of course, it could be that this too will change," he added.

Finding 'unacceptable risks' -

Biden's order seeks to identify any "connected software applications that may pose an unacceptable risk to US national security and the American people" including "applications that are owned, controlled, or managed by persons that support foreign adversary military or intelligence activities, or are involved in malicious cyber activities, or involve applications that collect sensitive personal data."

The new order calls for the Commerce Department and other federal agencies to develop guidelines "to protect sensitive personal data... including personally identifiable information and genetic information" from misuse.

TikTok is believed to have some one billion users worldwide including more than 100 million in the United States, and is especially popular with young smartphone users.

Last September, US District Judge Carl Nichols issued a temporary injunction at the request of TikTok blocking the effort to ban downloads of the app in the United States.

Trump had given his blessing to a plan that would have given TikTok to US tech giant Oracle with investments from retail powerhouse Walmart, but that deal failed to win approval in Beijing.

WeChat, part of the Chinese tech giant Tencent, is a massively popular "super app" which includes social networking, messaging, e-commerce and more.

The ban on WeChat was also delayed by a lawsuit from users based in the United States claiming the ban infringed on their rights.

The Biden move comes a day after the US Senate passed a sweeping industrial policy bill aimed at countering the surging economic threat from China and pumping more than $170 billion into research and development.

The package, a key provision of which addresses a shortage of semiconductors that has slowed US auto production this year, will help American industry bolster its capacity and improve technology, in an effort to avoid being outmaneuvered by Beijing as the adversaries compete for tech leadership.

Agence France-Presse

Biden to hit reset on US fight against COVID-19

WASHINGTON - President Joe Biden on Wednesday will immediately reset the nation's response to the COVID-19 crisis when he heads to the Oval Office after being sworn in to lead a country reeling from its worst public health crisis in more than a century.

As part of a first sweep of executive actions, Biden will order that all federal employees wear masks and make face coverings mandatory on federal property. He will establish a new White House office to coordinate the coronavirus response and halt the withdrawal of the United States from the World Health Organization, a process initiated by the outgoing president, Donald Trump.

The orders signal that Biden aims to fulfill his campaign promise to make COVID-19 relief a top priority and will mark a sharp divergence from the Trump administration's pandemic response, which critics say was ineffectual, uncoordinated and at least partly responsible for the death of more than 400,000 Americans.

He will begin work on his executive actions after a scaled-back inauguration ceremony unlike any other in US presidential history, with the National Mall covered in a "field of flags" instead of the typical crowds, who were not permitted because of the risk of contagion.

"We can overcome the deadly virus," Biden said in his inaugural address, which called for unity in a nation gripped by tense political divide.

Biden was also poised to nominate an acting US surgeon general as soon as Wednesday, a person familiar with the decision told MSNBC, following the resignation of Trump appointee Jerome Adams.

Biden's actions, particularly the mask mandate, are intended to set an example for state and local officials to rein in the virus, which has hobbled the US economy. The United States has reported nearly 200,000 new COVID-19 cases and 3,000 deaths per day on a seven-day rolling average, according to Reuters data. More than 123,000 Americans were hospitalized with COVID-19 as of Wednesday.

Scientists and public health experts have said face masks can help prevent the spread of the highly contagious novel coronavirus, but the coverings have become a flashpoint in American life reflecting the nation's larger political divide.

Trump, who contracted COVID-19 last autumn, had eschewed their use at all but a handful of events and continued to hold crowded, largely maskless campaign rallies while Biden's campaign initially stuck to virtual events before expanding to other masked and socially distant gatherings.

There were few face masks as Trump departed Washington Wednesday morning. In remarks to the crowd at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland, Trump again painted his administration as a victim of the virus and listed a series of accomplishments such as tax cuts, deregulation and stock market gains before addressing COVID-19 deaths.

"We got hit. Nobody blames us for that. The whole world got it," he said of the pandemic's toll on the economy. He later touted the development of a vaccine as a "miracle" before paying his respects to people and families impacted by the virus.

-reuters-

Facebook exec says 'no plans' to end Trump ban

Facebook does not intend to lift the suspension on outgoing President Donald Trump, the platform's second in command Sheryl Sandberg said Monday. 

"Our ban is indefinite. We have said at least through the transition. But we have no plans to lift it," Facebook's chief operating officer said at an online forum organized by Reuters. 

The social network last week suspended Trump's Facebook and Instagram accounts in the aftermath the violent invasion of the US Capitol by a mob of his supporters, which disrupted the certification of President-elect Joe Biden's election victory.

Twitter went a step further on Friday by deleting Trump's account, depriving him of his favorite megaphone. 

Trump also was hit with suspensions from services like Snapchat and Twitch. 

"Our policies are applied to everyone," Sandberg said, noting that the platform has removed posts by the president's son and "other world leaders."

"This shows that even a president is not above the policies we have." 

In announcing the suspension last week, Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg said Trump used the platform to incite violent and was concerned he would continue to do so. 

Zuckerberg in late October warned about the potential for social unrest after the election.

Sandberg admitted that the platform faced some hiccups in the 2016 US presidential election, failing to do enough against manipulative campaigns orchestrated from Russia, but she said Facebook had learned from its errors.

Before the November 3 presidential election, the social network stepped up efforts to combat disinformation campaigns and suspended many accounts, groups and pages with violent or hate-filled content. 

Facebook said Monday that it is taking similar precautions leading up to the inauguration of Biden as president on Jan. 20, using the same teams to battle misinformation and content that could incite violence.

Content containing the phrase "stop the steal" will be removed from Facebook and Instagram, according to executives Monika Bickert and Guy Rosen.

A group by that name was removed from the social network late last year, Facebook said.

"We’ve been allowing robust conversations related to the election outcome and that will continue," Bickert and Rosen said in a post.

"But, with continued attempts to organize events against the outcome of the US presidential election that can lead to violence, and use of the term by those involved in Wednesday’s violence in DC, we’re taking this additional step in the lead up to the inauguration."

Facebook is also keeping in place a pause on all ads in the US about politics or elections, meaning no ads from politicians including Trump, according to Bickert and Rosen.

Asked about criticism the social media titans exert outsized power, Sandberg said she was in favor of more regulation and said she hoped to work with the Biden administration, which will take office on January 20. 

"We are a private company and we have a service we provide and it is our responsibility to make sure that service is not used for things it shouldn't be used for, like what happened last Wednesday," she said.

Agence France-Presse

Conservative social network Parler sues Amazon over web shutdown

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - The social platform Parler sued Amazon on Monday after the tech giant's web division forced the conservative-friendly network offline for failing to rein in incitements to violence.

Nevada-based Parler asked a federal court for a restraining order to block Amazon Web Services from cutting off access to internet servers.

The suit comes amid a wave of action by online giants blocking access to supporters of President Donald Trump in the wake of last week's US Capitol invasion and purported plans for new violent demonstrations, especially on the day President-elect Joe Biden is due to take office.

The lawsuit said Parler was due to go dark late Monday, but web trackers said it already was offline early in the day and had failed to find a new hosting service.

Shutting down the servers would be "the equivalent of pulling the plug on a hospital patient on life support," the lawsuit said. "It will kill Parler's business -- at the very time it is set to skyrocket."

Parler alleged Amazon was violating antitrust laws and acting to help social rival Twitter, which has banned Trump and other accounts promoting violent actions.

"AWS's decision to effectively terminate Parler's account is apparently motivated by political animus. It is also apparently designed to reduce competition in the microblogging services market to the benefit of Twitter," the complaint said.

Amazon said there was "no merit" to the lawsuit.

"We respect Parler’s right to determine for itself what content it will allow," an AWS spokesperson said.

"However, it is clear that there is significant content on Parler that encourages and incites violence against others, and that Parler is unable or unwilling to promptly identify and remove this content, which is a violation of our terms of service."

Amazon said it had been in contact with Parler "over a number of weeks" and that during that time "we saw a significant increase in this type of dangerous content, not a decrease, which led to our suspension of their services Sunday evening."

- 'War' on speech -

In a series of posts on Parler before the site went down, CEO John Matze accused the tech giants of a "war on free speech."

Matze also denied allegations that it enables violent content.

"Our team worked hard to produce a strong set of community guidelines, which expressly forbids content which incites or threatens violence, or other activity which breaks the law," he said in a statement.

But he also maintained that it is problematic to police all content because "Parler is not a surveillance app, so we can't just write a few algorithms that will quickly locate 100 percent of objectionable content."

The lawsuit is the latest twist in a tussle between online operators and supporters of the president which hit a new phase after the siege of the US Capitol last week.

Twitter and Facebook each suspended Trump's account, while online payment service Stripe said it would stop handling transactions on Trump's website following last week's assault.

Parler, which launched in 2018, operates much like Twitter, with profiles to follow and "parleys" instead of tweets.

In its early days, the platform attracted a crowd of ultraconservative and even extreme-right users. But more recently it has signed up many more traditional Republican voices.

Trump supporters expressed outrage at the news the platform was being taken down.

Ahead of the shutdown, the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., complained that "big tech has totally eliminated the notion of free speech in America."

The platform drew fierce criticism in 2018 when investigators found that the shooter who killed 11 people in an attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue had earlier posted anti-Semitic messages on the site.

Agence France-Presse

Asia shares mostly lower amid rising coronavirus cases, Washington turmoil

NEW YORK - Asian stocks were mostly lower on Tuesday, tracking Wall Street declines as political turmoil in Washington and rising coronavirus cases worldwide weighed on sentiment ahead of the start of the quarterly earnings season.

Political uncertainty dominated trading as House Democrats introduced a resolution to impeach U.S. President Donald Trump, accusing him of inciting insurrection following a violent attack on the Capitol last week.

Several big tech giants, including Twitter Inc, Amazon.com Inc , Alphabet Inc, Facebook Inc and Apple Inc, have taken actions against Trump and his network of supporters, as concerns mounted over the risk of continued violence.

Twitter’s stock tumbled 6.4 percent on Monday after the micro-blogging site permanently suspended Trump’s account last Friday.

Investors also kept an eye on the continued spread of the coronavirus globally as cases surpassed 90 million on Monday, according to a Reuters tally.

“The weakness was led by tech and I think the banning of Trump’s account by Twitter and Amazon stepping up against Parler all brought a renewed focus on increased regulation and reining in on tech,” said Thomas Hayes, chairman of Great Hill Capital in New York.

Japan’s Nikkei slipped 0.48 percent, South Korea’s KOSPI fell 0.91 percent and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index futures lost 0.54 percent.

Defying the broader selloff, Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.24 percent.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.29 percent, the S&P 500 lost 0.66 percent and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 1.25 percent.

Investors are expecting guidance on the extent to which executives see a rebound in 2021 earnings and the economy from results and conference calls from JP Morgan, Citi and Wells Fargo Friday.

Meanwhile, longer-term Treasury yields were at their highest since March before new long-dated supply coming this week and on speculation of more U.S. fiscal stimulus as Democrats will have control of Congress and the White House.

“People are optimistic to see the yield curve steepening and it could help spreads and net interest margins for banks,” Hayes said.

Benchmark 10-year notes last fell 11/32 in price to yield 1.1443 percent, from 1.107 percent late on Friday.

The spread between the two-year and 10-year Treasury yields brushed against 100 basis points to hit its steepest since July 2017.

The climb in yields in turn offered some support to the dollar, which rose to its highest in over two weeks against a basket of currencies.

The U.S. dollar index rose 0.256 percent, with the euro down 0.54 percent to $1.2152. The Japanese yen weakened 0.24 percent versus the greenback at 104.20 per dollar, while Sterling was last trading at $1.3516, down 0.35 percent on the day.

Crude oil prices fell, hit by renewed concerns about global fuel demand amid tough coronavirus lockdowns across the globe, as well as the stronger dollar.

U.S. crude recently fell 0.1 percent to $52.19 per barrel and Brent was at $55.61, down 0.68 percent on the day.

Safe-have spot gold dropped 0.2 percent to $1,844.27 an ounce. Silver fell 1.70 percent to $24.94.

-reuters-

US Capitol police officer dies of injuries in riot by Trump supporters

US Capitol police officer Brian Sicknick has died of injuries suffered during a riot led by supporters of President Donald Trump, the force said in a statement late on Thursday.

Wednesday's breach of the building was a stunning assault on American democracy at a time when Congress was certifying the victory of President-elect Joe Biden.

"Officer Sicknick was responding to the riots...and was injured while physically engaging with protesters," police said in a statement.

He succumbed on Thursday after being taken to hospital following his collapse upon returning to his divisional office, they added.

Metropolitan homicide officials will investigate the death of Sicknick, who joined the US Capitol Police in 2008, along with the USCP and its federal partners, police said.

Trump condemned the violence, saying rioters had defiled the seat of American democracy and must be held accountable. Critics and some world leaders have said he is to blame for the attack by his supporters on the US capitol. He had been claiming election fraud without proof. 

Among the four more killed were a woman demonstrator shot by authorities.

-reuters-

Investors celebrate Biden winning US presidency

NEW YORK - Investors and financial executives took a big sigh of relief on Saturday after major networks declared Democrat Joe Biden winner of the US presidential election, offering some certainty after days of conflicting reports about who might run the White House next term.

Although current President Donald Trump said he would fight the results in court, Wall Streeters who offered comments felt there was little doubt Biden would ultimately succeed after election predictors including the Associated Press, NBC and Edison Research, upon which Reuters relies, called the presidency for Biden.

"Biden is good news for the markets," Christopher Stanton, chief investment officer at Sunrise Capital Partners, said on Saturday. "We're all so tired of the whipsaw that came with the Trump tweets."

Republicans have filed several lawsuits over ballot counting already and Trump said his campaign will file more. The Republican National Committee has been trying to raise at least $60 million to fund legal challenges brought by Trump, Reuters reported on Friday.

Apart from those battles, investors have been worried about the people Biden might appoint to his Cabinet, and whether the U.S. Senate would go to Republicans or Democrats.

A Republican Senate would offer a check on Biden's appointments, forcing him to opt for more moderate selections. Expected run-offs in two Senate races in Georgia could muddy that scenario.

For now, though, investors said they were happy with the election finally being called after what seemed like unending tension as ballots were counted following Election Day on Tuesday.

"Markets are going to like it because Biden is not going to go too far left," said Jim Awad, senior managing director of Clearstead Advisors. "It’s going to be a centrist government, not a government by tweet."

The financial industry was not reacting in a bubble: major cities from New York to San Francisco erupted in celebration on Saturday. Though Trump undoubtedly has significant support throughout the country, including on Wall Street, 2020 has been a difficult year for the United States.

The coronavirus pandemic has taken a huge toll on the country, killing some 236,250 people so far, while social unrest over the police killing of George Floyd, a Black man, has only hardened divisions that already existed.

Many voters were hoping for a decisive election that would offer some calm, whichever candidate they cast ballots for.

JPMorgan Chase & Co Chief Executive Jamie Dimon, who heads the largest U.S. bank and is a leading voice for the financial industry, called for unity and calm.

"Now is a time for unity," Dimon said in a statement. "We must respect the results of the U.S. presidential election and, as we have with every election, honor the decision of the voters and support a peaceful transition of power."

Robert Wolf, a major Democratic donor and former UBS Group AG executive who now runs 32 Advisors, was less demure: "I am ecstatic, relieved and deeply hopeful for the future of this country," he said in a text message.

During his campaign, Biden issued a series of left-of-center policy proposals that made Wall Street cringe regarding taxes and regulations. The proposals were seen as a carrot for progressive voters who preferred other candidates, but few now believe he will actually get them passed, since Republicans may win the Senate and Biden is not showing a landslide win.

As such, it is not clear whether Biden's Cabinet choices will be seen as market-friendly. The picks are important, because some of those officials will likely be involved in economic stimulus packages the White House will have to negotiate with Congress and will have extensive powers to craft Wall Street regulations.

Current US Federal Reserve governor and former McKinsey consultant Lael Brainard's name has been floated as a potential Treasury Secretary, while Biden has already tapped former derivatives market regulator and Goldman Sachs Group Inc banker Gary Gensler for advice on financial regulation.

Major US stock indexes registered their biggest weekly gains since April this week, as investors bet that Biden would win and Republicans would hold onto the Senate, a scenario that could prevent any major tax increases or regulatory tightening that pinches companies.

Nonetheless, investors have worried that the candidates could contest results for weeks or months. If Trump gains traction with his challenges, it could shake asset prices.

"Investors need to be prepared for some volatility," said Jason Ware, chief investment officer at Albion Financial Group. "There is certainly a risk to stock prices if we get bad tweets. The good news is that it would be short-lived and we are changing hands to someone who I believe is a lot more capable."

-reuters-

Biden wins White House, ending Trump presidency

Democrat Joe Biden has won the White House, US media said Saturday, defeating Donald Trump and ending a presidency that convulsed American politics, shocked the world and left the United States more divided than at any time in decades.

CBS, NBC and CNN news networks announced the result just before 11:30 am (1630 GMT) as an insurmountable lead in Pennsylvania took Biden, 77, over the top in the state-by-state count that decides the presidency.

"America, I'm honored that you have chosen me to lead our great country," Biden said in a statement. 

"The work ahead of us will be hard, but I promise you this: I will be a president for all Americans — whether you voted for me or not. I will keep the faith that you have placed in me."

Trump quickly responded to the announcement by accusing Biden of falsely declaring himself the next president.

"We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to falsely pose as the winner, and why his media allies are trying so hard to help him: they don't want the truth to be exposed," Trump said in a statement.

"The simple fact is this election is far from over."

For Biden, who got more than 74 million votes, a record, the triumph after a tense contest conducted during a global coronavirus pandemic was the crowning achievement of his half century in US politics, including eight years as deputy to the first Black US president Barack Obama.

The result condemned 74-year-old Trump -- who made frantic attempts to claim fraud and stop the vote count -- to becoming the first one-term president since George H. W. Bush at the start of the 1990s.

The Republican, whose marathon press conferences, tweeting and raucous campaign rallies have made him a perpetual, noisy presence at home and abroad over the last four years, had no immediate reaction.

But ever since the night after Tuesday's election, when he prematurely claimed victory, Trump has been inhabiting a world increasingly disconnected from the reality of his approaching downfall.

Earlier Saturday, he left the White House for the first time since Election Day to play golf, tweeting: "I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!"

And in an extraordinary White House address to the nation on Thursday -- with Biden's lead in the partial results already consolidating rapidly -- he claimed "they are trying to steal the election."

Despite Trump's protests, the returns from vote counting offices around the country kept coming all week, with no credible reports of irregularities.

And when US television networks declared that Biden had taken an insurmountable lead in Pennsylvania, that put the Democrat over the magic number of 270 electoral college votes. Trump had no way back.

- Centrist in divided era -

The biggest ever turnout of voters -- some 160 million people, according to preliminary estimates -- poured out across the United States, ultimately favoring Biden's promise of calm to Trump's rollercoaster.

An old school centrist, Biden has fended off the energetic leftist wing of his party, while choosing Kamala Harris, the first Black woman on a major party presidential ticket, as his running mate.

Although a career politician -- a widely derided group today -- he is seen by many as a sympathetic character, humanized by having endured the loss of his wife and baby daughter in a car accident in 1972, then another son to cancer four decades later.

Yet despite his fervent promises to restore America's "soul," Biden will inherit a shaken, angry country.

Americans are bitterly split after an election campaign in which Trump deliberately stoked divisions over many of the country's most sensitive issues, including race, immigration and gun ownership.

And despite critics painting Trump as an aberration, he still won the votes of around 70 million people -- many of whom may not have liked Trump himself, yet consider Democrats as being out of touch with their traditional values.

That gulf in understanding between two Americas will likely continue to rage in Congress, threatening Biden's ability to govern at a time of economic upheaval and an accelerating coronavirus crisis.

- Humiliation -

For Trump, the defeat and his exit from the White House at the transition on January 20 will above all be a story of personal humiliation.

He shocked the country and the world when he stormed to victory in 2016 as a political newcomer taking down the seasoned Democrat Hillary Clinton in his first shot at public office.

Then for much of his administration he appeared invulnerable to the normal laws of politics.

His showbiz style of running the government made him perhaps the most watched -- and controversial -- individual on the planet.

He survived impeachment, tore up diplomatic norms, and was so omnipresent in the media that he lodging himself in the consciousness of ordinary Americans in a way never previously experienced.

A former reality TV star and celebrity real estate developer, he gave the impression of someone who always got his own way.

To crowds at rallies he loved to boast "we're going to win so much, you're going to be so sick and tired of winning." And to people he didn't like, his go-to insult was "loser." 

Yet now he's a loser himself -- as perhaps he already feared on the morning of the election.

"Winning is easy," he mused as polls opened. "Losing is never easy. Not for me."

- Pro-Biden or anti-Trump? -

Biden secured his win by recapturing the Midwestern states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin -- traditional Democratic territory that Trump had flipped in 2016 with his powerful appeal to white, working class voters.

The Democrat was also running slender majorities as vote counting approached an end in Arizona and Nevada, while the tally in Georgia was so close that the state declared it would hold a recount.

But it was the capture of Pennsylvania that sealed the deal, meaning that even if Trump somehow won all the other unannounced states he still wouldn't accumulate enough electoral college votes.

Biden built his campaign on driving inroads into Trump's working class base, while selling himself to the rest of the country as the responsible, steady leader needed to confront the Covid-19 crisis.

Rejecting Trump's erratic, often cavalier attitude to a virus that has killed more than 230,000 Americans, Biden promised to follow scientific advice and take the tough decisions needed to try and halt the pandemic.

He took a gamble, politically speaking, by not holding the traditional kind of mass rallies that Trump used to great effect, insisting that he wanted to set an example by following government guidelines on social distancing.

His campaign even held back from knocking on doors -- another basic, even essential tactic for rounding up supporters that Trump's team embraced to great effect.

And in a climate of ferocious political partisanship, where almost every aspect of life is now seen through Democratic or Republican lenses, Biden pledged repeatedly to "be a president for all Americans."

In many ways, though, the election was less about Biden, making his third presidential run, than a referendum on Trump -- a figure of hate for opponents and open adoration to his supporters.

Some Republicans pleaded for Trump to expand his coalition with a more moderate pitch aimed at independent voters. But this most polarizing of presidents took the opposite tack, focusing his energy on super-charging his core base.

In the last weeks before the election, Trump addressed rally after rally with extreme, often entirely fact-free speeches. He painted illegal immigrants as murderers and rapists, claimed that Biden opposed God, and said Democrats would strip Americans of their personal firearms and allow mobs to destroy suburbs.

"We love you!" the crowds chanted back.

Confronted with pre-election polls that pointed to his coming defeat, Trump appeared genuinely unable to comprehend what was happening.

"Running against the worst candidate in the history of presidential politics puts pressure on me," Trump said.

"Could you imagine if I lose?"

Agence France-Presse

Twitter flags 'president-elect Biden' posts as premature

Twitter on Friday flagged as premature posts referring to Joe Biden as "president-elect," as the vote count continued in the knife-edge US election with the Democrat leading Donald Trump in several key states.

Tweets referring to the former vice president with the victor's title and his running mate Kamala Harris as "vice president-elect" were tagged with messages saying counts were not yet final.

"Official sources may not have called the race when this was tweeted," read a message below a post from Democratic Coalition co-founder and podcaster Scott Dworkin using the two titles for Biden and Harris.

The notice came with a link to information about the status of the election.

Twitter and Facebook have been scrambling to flag, mask and limit the spread of premature claims of victory or false attacks on the voting process since the polls closed late Tuesday.

"As votes are still being counted across the country, our teams continue to take enforcement action on tweets that prematurely declare victory or contain misleading information about the election broadly," Twitter said.

"This is in line with our civic integrity policy and our recent guidance on labeling election results."

Unfounded claims by Trump regarding the voting process as well as premature claims of victory about either candidate in the race have been flagged or masked, with links provided to reliable sources of information.

Twitter's action made the comments less visible, and users seeking to read the posts were required to click through a warning.

'STRONG MANDATE TO LEAD'

Meanwhile, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress, on Friday called Biden the "president-elect" of the United States after he pulled ahead in key election results.

"This morning it is clear that the Biden-Harris ticket will win the White House," Pelosi told reporters after Biden overtook President Donald Trump in the potentially decisive state of Pennsylvania.

"President-Elect Biden has a strong mandate to lead," she said.

It is "a happy day for our country. Joe Biden is a unifier, because he is determined to bring people together."

Pennsylvania would be enough to put Biden past the magic number of 270 votes in the state-by-state Electoral College, which determines the presidency.

Biden also took a razor-thin lead in votes counted from Georgia, which Trump until late in the campaign did not consider to be in play.

The Democrat has stopped short of declaring victory but said he expected that he and his vice presidential pick Harris would triumph.

Trump has angrily made unsubstantiated claims of fraud and sought to halt vote counting after prematurely declaring victory himself following the close of polls Tuesday.

Biden's performance came despite projections that Democrats will lose several seats in the House of Representatives, a major disappointment for the party which had hoped to expand its majority.

Pelosi played down the losses but said that the next House election in 2022 "will be a steeper climb" without Trump on the ballot.

The party of the president nearly always loses seats in Congress in the first midterm election.

Agence France-Presse

Biden takes narrow lead in Georgia, putting White House in reach

WASHINGTON  — Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden took a narrow lead over President Donald Trump in the battleground state of Georgia for the first time early on Friday, putting the White House within his reach as it and other undecided states continue to count ballots.

Biden has a 253 to 214 lead in the state-by-state Electoral College vote that determines the winner, according to most major television networks. Winning Georgia's 16 electoral votes would put the former vice president on the cusp of the 270 he needs to secure the presidency.

Biden, 77, would become the next president by winning Pennsylvania, or by winning two out of the trio of Georgia, Nevada and Arizona. Trump's likeliest path appears narrower - he needs to hang onto both Pennsylvania and Georgia and also to overtake Biden in either Nevada or Arizona.

Biden is now ahead by 917 votes in Georgia, where counting continued early on Friday.

The shift in Georgia came hours after Trump appeared at the White House to falsely claim the election was being "stolen" from him.

Trump had seen his lead steadily shrink in Georgia, a Southern state that has not voted for a Democratic presidential nominee since 1992, as officials worked through tens of thousands of uncounted votes, many from Democratic strongholds such as Atlanta.

The Georgia secretary of state reported late on Thursday there were about 14,000 ballots still to count in the state.

The state also will have to sift through votes from military personnel and overseas residents as well as provisional ballots cast on Election Day by voters who had problems with their registration or identification.

Biden has been steadily chipping away at the Republican incumbent's lead in Pennsylvania as well. His deficit had shrunk to just more than 18,000 there by early on Friday, and was expected to continue falling with many of the ballots still to be counted being cast in Democratic areas.

Biden also maintained slim advantages in Arizona and Nevada. In Arizona, his lead narrowed to about 47,000 early on Friday and in Nevada he was ahead by about 11,500 votes.

As the country held its breath for a result in the White House race, Georgia and Pennsylvania officials expressed optimism they would finish counting on Friday, while Arizona and Nevada were still expected to take days to complete their vote totals.

NAIL-BITING COUNT

Trump, 74, has sought to portray as fraudulent the slow counting of mail-in ballots, which surged in popularity due to fears of exposure to the coronavirus through in-person voting. As counts from those ballots have been tallied, they have eroded the initial strong leads the president had in states like Georgia and Pennsylvania.

States have historically taken time after Election Day to tally all votes.

Trump fired off several tweets in the early morning hours on Friday, reiterating the complaints he aired earlier at the White House. "I easily WIN the Presidency of the United States with LEGAL VOTES CAST," he said on Twitter, without offering any evidence that any illegal votes have been cast.

Twitter flagged the post as possibly misleading, something it has done to numerous posts by Trump since Election Day.

In an extraordinary assault on the democratic process, Trump appeared in the White House briefing room on Thursday evening and baselessly alleged the election was being "stolen" from him.

Offering no evidence, Trump lambasted election workers and sharply criticized polling before the election that he said was designed to suppress the vote because it favored Biden.

'RIG AN ELECTION'

"They're trying to rig an election, and we can't let that happen," said Trump, who spoke for about 15 minutes in the White House briefing room before leaving without taking questions. Several TV networks cut away during his remarks, with anchors saying they needed to correct his statements.

Biden, who earlier in the day urged patience as votes were counted, responded on Twitter: "No one is going to take our democracy away from us. Not now, not ever."

Trump's incendiary remarks followed a series of Twitter posts from Trump earlier in the day that called for vote counting to stop, even though he currently trails Biden in enough states to hand the Democrat the presidency.

Trump's campaign, meanwhile, pursued a flurry of lawsuits in several states, though judges in Georgia and Michigan quickly rejected challenges there. Legal experts said the cases had little chance of affecting the electoral outcome, and Biden campaign senior legal adviser Bob Bauer call them part of a "broader misinformation campaign."

The close election underscored the nation's deep political divides, while the slow count of millions of mail-in ballots served as a reminder of the deadly coronavirus that continues to upend American life.

Biden, if he prevails, will nevertheless have failed to deliver the sweeping repudiation to Trump that Democrats had hoped for, reflecting the deep support the president enjoys despite his tumultuous four years in office. Trump's influence on the Republican Party will remain strong, even if he ultimately loses a tight election.

The winner will face a pandemic that has killed more than 234,000 Americans and left millions more out of work, even as the country still grapples with the aftermath of months of unrest over race relations and police brutality.

-reuters-

US networks break from live Trump address due to 'lies'

WASHINGTON - Several US TV networks late Thursday halted live coverage of Donald Trump's first public appearance since election night after concluding that the president was spreading disinformation.

Trump unleashed a flood of incendiary and unsubstantiated claims in a 17-minute address, insisting that Democrats were using "illegal votes" to "steal the election from us."

The president spoke as late vote counting in battleground states showed Democrat Joe Biden steadily closing in on victory.

"OK, here we are again in the unusual position of not only interrupting the president of the United States but correcting the president of the United States," said MSNBC anchor Brian Williams, as the network quickly ended its live coverage.

NBC and ABC News also pulled the plug on their live coverage of Trump.

"What a sad night for the United states of America to hear their president say that, to falsely accuse people of trying to steal the election," said CNN's Jake Tapper.

He described it as "lie after lie after lie about the election being stolen," with no evidence, "just smears."

Agence France-Presse

'Worrying calls for violence' prompt Facebook to remove pro-Trump group

Facebook Inc. on Thursday said it had taken down a rapidly growing group where some supporters of US President Donald Trump posted violent rhetoric and baseless claims that Democrats were stealing the election.

On Thursday afternoon, the "Stop the Steal" group, which called for "boots on the ground to protect the integrity of the vote," was adding 1,000 new members every 10 seconds and had grown to 365,000 members in a single day.

"The group was organized around the delegitimization of the election process, and we saw worrying calls for violence from some members of the group," a Facebook spokeswoman said in a statement.

She said the move was in line with the "exceptional measures" Facebook was taking during "this period of heightened tension."

Unfounded and debunked claims about the integrity of the US election have been spread on social media by Trump and high-profile Republican accounts and the hashtag #StopTheSteal has gained momentum.

The "Stop the Steal" group had prepared for Facebook to take action, directing new members to an email sign-up page "in the event that social media censors this group."

Another group using the same name but with different administrators, told its members that no threats would be allowed and that they should take precautions like using images with words rather than text. This group, which had more than 2,000 members, also said it would shift to become private in a few days.

Public Facebook groups can be seen, searched and joined by anyone on Facebook, while only members can see posts in private groups.

Facebook has billed groups as community forums for shared interests but watchdog organizations and social media researchers have argued that they can be hotbeds for hyper-partisan misinformation.

"Facebook has been enabling and amplifying the infrastructure that's now being used to attack our democratic process," said Arisha Hatch, executive director of the racial justice group Color Of Change.

Facebook, which normally recommends groups to users that they may want to join based on their activity on the site, last week suspended these recommendations for political groups and new groups around the election.

The now-removed "Stop the Steal" group was run by the Trump action group Women for America First. The non-profit organized protests against COVID-19 restrictions and supported Trump during his impeachment hearing.

On Twitter, one of the Facebook group's administrators, Amy Kremer, said: "The left is trying to steal an election and Social media is complicit," she said. "This is outrageous!"

Facebook's rules ban statements of intent or advocating for violence due to voting, voter registration or the outcome of an election.

-reuters-

2.2 million Facebook and Instagram ads rejected ahead of US vote: FB

PARIS - A total of 2.2 million ads on Facebook and Instagram have been rejected and 120,000 posts withdrawn for attempting to "obstruct voting" in the upcoming US presidential election, Facebook's vice president Nick Clegg said in an interview published Sunday.

In addition, warnings were posted on 150 million examples of false information posted online, the former British deputy prime minister told the French weekly Journal du Dimanche.

Facebook has been increasing its efforts to avoid a repeat of events leading up to the 2016 US presidential election, won by Donald Trump, when its network was used for attempts at voter manipulation, carried out from Russia.

There were similar problems ahead of Britain's 2016 referendum on leaving the European Union.

"Thirty-five thousand employees take care of the security of our platforms and contribute for elections," said Clegg, who is vice president of global affairs and communications at Facebook. 

"We have established partnerships with 70 specialized media, including five in France, on the verification of information", he added.

AFP is one of those partners.

Clegg added that the company also uses artificial intelligence which has "made it possible to delete billions of posts and fake accounts, even before they are reported by users".

Facebook also stores all advertisements and information on their funding and provenance for seven years "to insure transparency," he said.

In 2016, while he was still deputy prime minister, Clegg complained to the Journal du Dimanche that Facebook had not identified or suppressed a single foreign network interfering in the US election.

On Wednesday, President Trump rebuked Facebook and Twitter for blocking links to a New York Post article purporting to expose corrupt dealings by election rival Joe Biden and his son Hunter in Ukraine.

A day earlier, Facebook announced a ban on ads that discourage people from getting vaccinated, in light of the coronavirus pandemic which the social media giant said has "highlighted the importance of preventive health behaviors."

Agence France-Presse

Asian stocks at 2-week high as Trump returns to White House

SINGAPORE - Asian stock markets advanced to a two-week high on Tuesday after U.S. President Donald Trump was discharged from hospital following treatment for COVID-19 and as prospects for a fresh U.S. stimulus package appeared to brighten.

Bonds and the dollar nursed losses amid the improving risk appetite, while oil extended gains.

Trump returned to the White House on Monday after a three-night hospital stay and said he felt "real good", though one of his doctors cautioned that he may not be out of the woods yet. 

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.71 percent to a two week-high, led by Hong Kong climbing 0.88 percent. Japan's Nikkei also added 0.41 percent.

Separately, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin spoke by phone for about an hour and were preparing to talk again Tuesday, continuing their work towards a deal on coronavirus relief spending. 

As well as Trump's health, "there is also some market attention on whether the U.S. Congress will pass the extra stimulus bill," said Tai Hui, Chief Asia Market Strategist, J.P. Morgan Asset Management

"If we do see some form of stimulus coming through, I think the market will take it in a positive light as much of the important support from the previous round has expired," he said.

S&P 500 futures rose 0.08 percent after the best daily gain on the S&P 500 index in a month overnight. Oil held sharp overnight gains. 

Australia's ASX 200 was more subdued, up 0.17 percent, ahead of a central bank meeting at 0330 GMT and the government's budget later in the day.

China's markets remain closed for a holiday.

Asian markets on Monday unwound most of a Friday selloff in the wake of Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis. That improvement also caused Wall Street to rally sharply overnight with energy, tech and healthcare stocks leading. The Dow rose 1.7 percent, the S&P 500 1.8 percent and the Nasdaq 2.3 percent. 

Bond markets also joined in, with the safe-haven asset being sold - especially at the long end - in line with the optimistic mood. The yield on U.S. 30-year government bonds rose 10 basis points to a four month high of 1.5930 percent, before easing slightly. 

Benchmark 10-year yields hit a more than five-week high, and held just shy of that in Asian morning trading at 0.7634 percent.

"Improved near-term stimulus prospects and then potentially bigger deficits under a Biden presidency that has the benefit of clean sweep, are behind the yield gains here," said Ray Attrill, head of FX strategy at National Australia Bank in Sydney.

In currency markets, the dollar was under pressure on other majors apart from the yen, since higher yields can often draw flows from Japan. 

The yen hovered at 105.7 per dollar, while the risk-sensitive Australian and New Zealand dollars edged ahead, with the Aussie last up 0.13 percent at $0.7191.

Oil jumped more than 5 percent overnight and held there in Asia, supported by optimism surrounding Trump's health and a supply squeeze as a strike shut six Norwegian offshore oil and gas fields. 

The strike will cut Norway's total output capacity by just over 330,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, or about 8% of total production, according to the Norwegian Oil and Gas Association (NOG). 

U.S. crude last stood at $39.27 up 0.13 percent and, Brent crude rose 0.2 percent to $41.37. Gold was steady at $1,912 an ounce.

-reuters-

Trump criticized for leaving hospital to greet supporters

WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump sparked an angry backlash from the medical community Sunday with a protocol-breaking visit to his supporters outside the hospital where he is being treated for the highly-infectious, potentially deadly new coronavirus.

He was masked as he waved from inside his bulletproof vehicle during the short trip outside Walter Reed military medical center near Washington, which appeared designed to take back the narrative on his improving health after a weekend of muddled messaging from his doctors.

The last-minute limousine outing came with Trump's doctors satisfied enough about his progress to suggest the possibility of his being discharged on Monday.

But experts complained that the outing broke his own government's public health guidelines requiring patients to isolate while they are in treatment and still shedding virus -- and endangered his Secret Service protection. 

Trump, who has been repeatedly rebuked for flouting public health guidelines and spreading misinformation on the pandemic, said in a video that dropped on Twitter just before the appearance that he had "learned a lot about COVID" by "really going to school" as he has battled the virus.

But health experts took to the airwaves and social media to criticize the "stunt," which they said demonstrated that he had learned nothing at all. 

"Every single person in the vehicle during that completely unnecessary Presidential 'drive-by' just now has to be quarantined for 14 days," said James Phillips, chief of disaster medicine at George Washington University.

"They might get sick. They may die. For political theater. Commanded by Trump to put their lives at risk for theater. This is insanity."

White House spokesman Judd Deere said "appropriate" precautions had been taken to protect Trump and his support staff, including protective gear. 

"The movement was cleared by the medical team as safe to do," he added.

But Zeke Emanuel, chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania and regular TV pundit, described the appearance as "shameful."

"Making his Secret Service agents drive with a COVID-19 patient, with windows up no less, put them needlessly at risk for infection. And for what? A PR stunt," he tweeted.

CONFUSED MESSAGING

The episode came hours after a briefing by Trump's medical team, who said he had "continued to improve" and could be returned to the White House, which has the facilities to treat and isolate the president, as early as Monday.

The president was flown to Walter Reed with a high fever on Friday after a "rapid progression" of his illness, with his oxygen levels dropping worryingly low, Trump's physician Sean Conley said in a Sunday briefing.

Health experts have complained that the messaging from the administration -- and particularly Trump's medical team -- has caused widespread confusion.

Conley admitted Sunday that he had kept from the public the fact that the president had been given extra oxygen, in a bid to reflect an "upbeat attitude."

And he gave a rosy account of Trump's progress Saturday, only for White House chief of staff Mark Meadows to tell reporters immediately after that Trump's condition had been "very concerning" and that he was "still not on a clear path to a full recovery."

'WHITE HOUSE CLUSTER'

With his tough reelection campaign in its final month against Democratic rival Joe Biden, Trump's diagnosis and hospitalization have left him sidelined from what he does best -- campaigning.

Meanwhile, Biden -- who announced Sunday his latest negative test for the virus -- will start the week with a trip Monday to key swing state Florida.

But Trump and his advisors have done their best to project a sense of continuity.

His deputy campaign manager Jason Miller told ABC Sunday he had spoken to Trump for a half-hour Saturday and that the president was "cracking jokes." 

But controversy has been mounting over the possibility that Trump might have exposed numerous others to COVID-19 even after a close aide tested positive. 

A timeline provided by his advisors and doctors suggested he met more than 30 donors on Thursday in Bedminster, New Jersey, even after learning that Hope Hicks had the virus -- and just hours before he announced his own positive test.

There were more than 200 people at the fundraiser, and a contact-tracing operation underway in New Jersey was looking at potentially thousands of people who may have been exposed.

All this came in a week when a Wall Street Journal/NBC poll -- taken in the 2 days after a bruising presidential debate with Biden but before news emerged of Trump's illness -- gave Biden a significant 53-39 percent lead among registered voters.

As well as Trump and Hicks, numerous White House insiders and at least 3 Republican senators have contracted COVID-19, along with First Lady Melania Trump, who has not experienced severe symptoms.

Public health experts have expressed alarm at the "White House cluster" that has been linked to the Sept. 26 Rose Garden celebration of conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court.

Agence France-Presse

What you need to know about Regeneron's COVID-19 treatment

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump was treated Friday for COVID-19 with a high-dose of the experimental antibody drug developed by the US biotech firm Regeneron.

What is it, how far along are its clinical trials, and why do some experts disagree with using a medicine before it's been approved?

Here's what you need to know.

WHAT IS THE TREATMENT?

Regeneron's treatment, called REGN-COV2, is a combination or "cocktail" of two antibodies: infection-fighting proteins that were developed to bind to the part of the new coronavirus that it uses to invade human cells.

The antibodies attach themselves to different parts of the virus' "spike protein," distorting its structure -- similar in a way to knocking a key out of shape so it no longer fits its lock.

Vaccines work by teaching the body to make its own antibodies, but scientists are also testing ready-made antibodies from convalescent plasma, taken from the blood of recovered patients.

But it is not possible to make convalescent plasma a mass treatment.

Researchers can also comb through antibodies produced by recovered patients and select the most effective out of thousands, and then manufacture them at scale.

In a paper published in Science in June, Regeneron scientists described how they selected the two best antibodies from both recovered human patients and infected mice that were genetically modified to give them human-like immune systems.

In another paper in the same journal, scientists argued that by using two antibodies, they had guarded against the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 might randomly mutate to evade the blocking action of one, and then go on to become the dominant strain of the virus.

The company used the same "humanized mouse" technology to develop a triple-antibody cocktail which was shown to be effective against Ebola last year.

"That's part of what's giving us confidence, the platform has been tried and has been shown to be to work very, very well," Christos Kyratsous, Regeneron's lead infectious disease scientist told AFP in March.

The treatments are given by an intravenous drip.

DOES IT WORK?

Clinical trials are being carried out to test the drug's safety and efficacy at different dose levels and to compare it against a placebo, to answer this question.

On Tuesday, the firm announced some results from an early stage clinical trial, saying that its treatment reduced the viral load and recovery time in non-hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

The results related to 275 patients, and Regeneron's president George Yancopoulos said the company had begun talks with regulatory authorities -- presumably for temporary approval before full licensure.

But the detailed data hasn't yet been made public or peer-reviewed.

In terms of safety, it said "infusion reactions" were seen in four patients -- two on placebo and two on the drug, while "serious adverse events" occurred in two placebo patients and one on the drug. No one died.

The company did not detail what these side-effects were, but Arun Swaminath, a doctor at New York's Lenox Hill Hospital, said that in general, mild reactions to IV-therapies include fevers, chills and fatigue.

More serious symptoms include chest pain and shortness of breath.

The outpatient trial has now moved to late-stage.

Regeneron is also running late-stage trials for hospitalized COVID-19 patients in the UK and for the drug's potential use to prevent household contacts of COVID-19 patients from being infected.

WHY ARE SOME EXPERTS CONCERNED?

The decision to give Trump the treatment before the trials have even produced enough data for emergency use authorization has puzzled some scientists.

Carla Perissinotto, a geriatrician and professor at the University of California, San Francisco, told AFP that using unapproved treatments on a "compassionate use" basis normally happens when everything else has failed.

"The risk of having side effects is so much greater, that I usually am very cautious about anything that's experimental and not proven," she said. 

Jeremy Faust, a public health expert at Harvard, said it raised uncomfortable possibilities: Either the president's team had not understood the scientific process, or they had understood but were overridden by Trump on someone else's advice.

"People will see this and they'll think that this is the treatment you should have -- and if you don't give it to other people who have coronavirus that we're denying them special treatment. 

"In reality that's not the case... we shouldn't be treating the president as a guinea pig." 

Agence France-Presse