US Senate Democrats plan debt-limit vote, Biden hints filibuster could go

WASHINGTON - Senate Democrats are set to try again on Wednesday to extend the US government's borrowing authority to head off a catastrophic default, after President Joe Biden suggested they could change the chamber's rules to bypass a Republican roadblock.

Republicans for months have refused to help raise the self-imposed $28.4 trillion borrowing cap, instead trying to force Democrats to use a different parliamentary maneuver to do so in hopes of scoring political points with voters.

With less than two weeks to go before the Treasury Department expects to run out of ways to meet the government's expenses, Democrats are looking at all their options.

Biden said on Tuesday that it was "real possibility" that Democrats might use their current razor-thin majority to drop the Senate's filibuster rule, which requires 60 of the chamber's 100 members to agree to pass most legislation.

Biden, himself a former Senator, had previously opposed changes to the filibuster, which is meant to help maintain government stability through election cycles.

If Democrats follow through, they could easily suspend the debt ceiling before the deadline of about Oct. 18. That would head off the risk of a crippling default and allow them to focus on passing two mammoth spending bills that make up the bulk of Biden's domestic agenda.

In an effort to underline the severe economic risks of a default, Biden will meet on Wednesday with a group including CEOs of major corporations including JPMorgan Chase & Co , Intel Corp and Nasdaq Inc.

Many Democrats have long argued that the Senate should dump the filibuster entirely, saying it prevents progress on climate change, voting rights and other priorities. The chamber already allows federal judges, including Supreme Court justices, to win approval on a straight majority vote.

Centrist Democratic senators including Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema have said repeatedly they are not willing to dump the filibuster, which would leave the party short of the votes they need to change the rule, however. They could not be reached for comment on whether Biden's words would change their minds.

Democratic Senators John Hickenlooper and Ron Wyden on Tuesday said they were open to dropping the filibuster requirement for the debt-limit vote. Manchin declined to comment when asked about it prior to Biden's remarks.

The Senate was due to hold a Wednesday afternoon procedural vote that would allow them to begin debating a bill that would suspend the debt limit until December 2022, after the elections that will determine control of Congress for the next two years.

That passed the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives last week but Republicans have stalled it in the Senate with the filibuster.

Without a quick resolution, some government services might be suspended, such as delivering Social Security benefit checks to the elderly.

Even a close call would likely be damaging. A 2011 debt ceiling dispute, which Congress resolved two days before the borrowing limit was due to have been reached, caused stocks to tumble and prompted a first-ever credit downgrade for US debt.

The Bipartisan Policy Center on Wednesday issued forecasts on when some federal payments could be postponed as a result of the standoff. Among them: Unemployment insurance payments due Oct. 20 could be delayed five days, federal salaries for civilian employees due Oct. 29 could be pushed back to Nov. 9 and Medicare payments to doctors could be delayed from Nov. 1 to Nov. 19.

Moody's Investors Service said on Tuesday it expects Washington will raise the debt limit.

Democratic Senator Mark Warner said Congress was already risking US creditworthiness, however.

"We're in the danger zone right now," he told reporters on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Andy Sullivan and Susan Cornwell, additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Steve Holland; Editing by Scott Malone, Sonya Hepinstall and Nick Zieminski)

-reuters-

Michelle Obama makes rousing call to dump Trump at Democratic convention

MILWAUKEE - US Democrats opened their nominating convention Monday with a show of unity behind Joe Biden and former first lady Michelle Obama delivering a scathing rebuke of Donald Trump as she urged voters to reject his politics of "division."

"Donald Trump is the wrong president for our country," former US President Barack Obama's wife said in a keynote speech on the first night of a convention that has shifted entirely online due to the coronavirus pandemic. 

"Whenever we look to this White House for some leadership, or consolation, or any semblance of steadiness, what we get instead is chaos, division and a total and utter lack of empathy."

The pre-taped remarks came as unprecedented criticism by a former first lady of a sitting US president, painting him as a man who lacks the competence, character or decency for the job.

It was a potent message for voters who tuned in unsure of what to expect from a virtual convention that lacked the showstopping pizzazz and stagecraft of a live event.

With the Democratic Party poised to officially anoint the 77-year-old Biden as its nominee, Trump defied coronavirus concerns and staged a competing event in Wisconsin, the state where Democrats were supposed to hold their in-person convention.

The carefully choreographed opening for the four-day unifying gathering featured actress Eva Longoria as convention moderator. 

"Every four years we come together to reaffirm our democracy," she said. "This year we've come to save it." 

Dozens of speakers, including a host of Republicans opposed to Trump, offered a similar message.


In a poignant moment, everyday American Kristine Urquiza described how her father died from coronavirus after going out with friends when he believed the pandemic was not serious.

"His only pre-existing condition was trusting Donald Trump, and for that he paid with his life," Urquiza said.

'Truth and trust' 

Obama also took pains to describe Biden as a "terrific vice president" she grew to know well during the eight years he served as her husband's number two.

"He knows what it takes to rescue an economy, beat back a pandemic and lead our country," she added.

Biden "will tell the truth, and trust science," she said in a jab at Trump, who has been accused of repeatedly ignoring the advice of his scientific advisors on how to respond to the pandemic.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, who challenged Biden for the nomination from the progressive left, also addressed the convention by videolink, and warned that Trump is "leading us down the path of authoritarianism."

"The future of our democracy is at stake," and electing Biden over Trump is an absolute necessity, he stressed. 

"My friends, the price of failure is just too great to imagine." 

 'Crazy socialist policies' 

Trump flew on Air Force One meanwhile to Oshkosh, Wisconsin and delivered remarks to supporters gathered on the airport tarmac.

He accused Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris of seeking to enact "crazy socialist policies" and warned the 2020 election will be "the most dangerous" ever.

"The only way we're going to lose this election is if the election is rigged," added the president, who trails Biden in nearly all national polls as well as multiple battleground states.

The Democratic convention is taking place amid a furor over Trump's own efforts to limit mail-in voting.

Insisting without proof that it fosters fraud, Trump has threatened to block extra funding that Democrats say is urgently needed to allow the US Postal Service to process millions of ballots.

Obama addressed the controversy in her remarks, warning that Trump and Republicans were "lying about the security of our ballots."

Oshkosh, where Trump spoke, is about a 90-minute drive north of the Milwaukee arena where Democrats had intended to gather in a sign of eagerness to win back Wisconsin, one of multiple Democratic strongholds which flipped to Trump in 2016.

But the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed some 170,000 people in the United States, upended election campaigning.

Biden did not speak live on Monday, but he tweeted his support afterward.

"Tonight we saw that Americans are ready to come together, and that we the people can overcome these crises and emerge stronger than ever," he wrote.

While some speeches Monday were clearly pre-taped, Biden and Harris, 55, will address the convention live via videolink, according to the campaign.

Biden, whose poll leads over Trump remain significant, despite a slight tightening of the race, is hoping Harris -- the first woman of color on a major party's presidential ticket -- will invigorate Democrats.

Tuesday will see addresses from former president Bill Clinton and Jill Biden, the nominee's wife.

On Wednesday, Barack Obama will speak, and Harris will have her spotlight moment before the convention culminates Thursday when Biden formally accepts the Democratic nomination and delivers his acceptance speech.

Agence France-Presse

US Senate rejects witnesses in Trump impeachment trial, clearing way for acquittal

WASHINGTON - The US Senate voted on Friday against calling witnesses and collecting new evidence in President Donald Trump's impeachment trial, clearing the way for Trump's almost certain acquittal next week.

By a vote of 51-49, the Republican-controlled Senate stopped Democrats' drive to hear testimony from witnesses like former national security adviser John Bolton, who is thought to have first-hand knowledge of Trump's efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate a political rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.

Those actions prompted the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives to formally charge Trump with abuse of power and obstruction of Congress in December, making Trump only the third president in US history to be impeached.

He denies wrongdoing and has accused Democrats of an "attempted coup."

The Senate approved on a party-line vote a timeline for the rest of the trial that calls for a final vote on the impeachment charges at 4 p.m. EST (2100 GMT) on Wednesday.

Closing arguments will begin at 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT) on Monday, with 4 hours split between the prosecution and defense. That will give the 4 Democratic senators who are running to be their party's presidential nominee time to get to Iowa for that night's first nominating contest.

In between the closing arguments and final vote, senators will have an opportunity to give speeches on the Senate floor, but the trial will not formally be in session. Trump will deliver his State of the Union speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night.

The Senate is almost certain to acquit Trump of the charges, as a two-thirds Senate majority is required to remove Trump and none of the chamber's 53 Republicans have indicated they would vote to convict.

Trump is seeking re-election in the Nov. 3 vote. Biden is a leading contender for the Democratic nomination to face him.

In Friday's vote on witnesses, only 2 Republicans - Mitt Romney, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee, and Susan Collins, who faces a tough re-election in November in her home state of Maine - broke with their party and voted with Democrats.

"America will remember this day, unfortunately, where the Senate did not live up to its responsibilities, where the Senate turned away from truth and went along with a sham trial," Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters.

After the first vote on calling witnesses, Schumer offered more amendments seeking to call witnesses and obtain more evidence, but the Senate rejected them all. Romney and Collins were again the only Republicans to support calling Bolton as a witness.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said the trial should end as soon as possible. 

"The cake is baked and we just need to move as soon as we can to get it behind us," he told reporters.

NEW DETAILS

Friday's vote on witnesses came hours after the New York Times reported new details from an unpublished book manuscript written by Bolton in which the former aide said Trump directed him in May to help in a pressure campaign to get Ukraine to pursue investigations that would benefit Trump politically.

Bolton wrote that Trump told him to call Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to ensure Zelenskiy would meet with Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, a key player in the campaign, the Times reported.

Robert Costello, a lawyer for Giuliani, called the Times report "categorically untrue." Bolton's lawyer and spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.

The Times previously reported that Bolton - contradicting Trump's version of events - wrote the president told him he wanted to freeze $391 million in security aid to Ukraine until Kiev pursued investigations of Democrats, including Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.

Democrats had said the news illustrated the need for the Senate to put Bolton under oath.

But Republicans said they had heard enough. Some said they did not think that Trump did anything wrong, while Senators Lamar Alexander and Rob Portman said his actions were wrong but did not amount to impeachable conduct. Sen. Marco Rubio said impeachment would be too divisive for the country, even if a president engaged in clearly impeachable activity.

Lisa Murkowski, a Republican moderate who Democrats had hoped would vote with them to extend the trial, said the case against Trump was rushed and flawed. She told reporters she was "angry at all sides" and the prospect of a tie vote on witnesses weighed heavily on her decision.

After the Senate adjourned on Friday, she said she knew how she would vote on the charges but she would not reveal it yet.

"Will I share it with you tonight? I’ve had so much drama today, I’m just going to chill. How’s that? Was that fair?" Murkowski told reporters.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Trump impeachment sets stage for trial in Senate

WASHINGTON - The impeachment of President Donald Trump in the US House of Representatives on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress sets the stage for a historic trial next month in the Republican-controlled Senate on whether he should be removed from office.

But it was unclear on Thursday how or when that trial would play out after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she might delay sending over the articles of impeachment to the Senate in order to pressure that chamber to conduct what she viewed as a fair trial.

Trump said the ball was now in the Senate's court.

"Now the Do Nothing Party want to Do Nothing with the Articles & not deliver them to the Senate, but it’s Senate’s call!" Trump said on Twitter. "If the Do Nothing Democrats decide, in their great wisdom, not to show up, they would lose by Default!"

Representative Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 House Democrat, said on MSNBC that Democrats would like the Senate to first approve a $1.4 trillion spending plan and a trade agreement with Canada and Mexico before turning to impeachment.

He said Democrats were also concerned that Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell may not allow a full trial. McConnell has predicted there is "no chance" his chamber will convict Trump.

"It's very hard to believe that Mitch McConnell can raise his right hand and pledge to be impartial," Hoyer said.

The mostly party-line votes on Wednesday in the Democratic-led House came after long hours of bitter debate that reflected the partisan tensions in a divided America, and made Trump the third US President to be impeached.

Republicans argued that Democrats were using a rigged process to nullify the 2016 election and influence Trump's 2020 re-election campaign, while Democrats said Trump's actions in pressuring Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, a leading Democratic presidential contender, were a threat to democracy.

Trump is certain to face more friendly terrain during a trial in the 100-member Senate, where a vote to remove him would require a two-thirds majority. That means at least 20 Republicans would have to join Democrats in voting against Trump - and none have indicated they will.

Pelosi said after the vote she would wait to name the House managers, who will prosecute the case, until she knew more about the Senate trial procedures. She did not specify when she would send the impeachment articles to the Senate.

Republican Senator Ted Cruz said it would not bother him if Pelosi did not send over the impeachment articles.

"My attitude is OK, throw us in that briar patch, don't send them, that's all right," he said on Fox News. "We actually have work to do."

Trump, 73, is accused of abusing his power by pressuring Ukraine to investigate Biden, a former US vice president, as well as a discredited theory that Democrats conspired with Ukraine to meddle in the 2016 election.

Democrats said Trump held back $391 million in security aid intended to combat Russia-backed separatists and a coveted White House meeting for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as leverage to coerce Kiev into interfering in the 2020 election by smearing Biden.

Trump is also accused of obstruction of Congress by directing administration officials and agencies not to comply with lawful House subpoenas for testimony and documents related to impeachment.

Trump, who is seeking another four-year term in the November 2020 presidential election, has denied wrongdoing and called the impeachment inquiry launched by Pelosi in September a "witch hunt."

At a raucous rally for his re-election in Battle Creek, Michigan, as the House voted, Trump said the impeachment would be a "mark of shame" for Democrats and Pelosi, and cost them in the 2020 election.

"This lawless, partisan impeachment is a political suicide march for the Democrat Party," Trump said. "They're the ones who should be impeached, every one of them."

DEEP DIVISIONS

Trump's election has polarized the United States, dividing families and friends and making it more difficult for politicians in Washington to find middle ground as they try to confront pressing challenges like the rise of China and climate change.

The impeachment vote comes ahead of Trump's re-election campaign, which will pit him against the winner among a field of Democratic contenders, including Biden, who have repeatedly criticized Trump's conduct in office and promised to make it a key issue.

Reuters/Ipsos polls show that while most Democrats wanted to see him impeached, most Republicans did not. Televised hearings last month that were meant to build public support for impeachment appear to have pushed the two sides further apart.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

How Trump's impeachment will unroll

WASHINGTON - The start of open hearings in the impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump on Wednesday will give the American public their first chance to witness live the explosive showdown between Democrats and Republicans over the US leader's future.

The hearing before the House Intelligence Committee marks the second phase of the impeachment investigation into allegations that Trump abused his powers by seeking help for his 2020 reelection campaign from Ukraine.

Trump is under threat of becoming only the third president in US history to be impeached -- formally charged with violating his duties as president or committing crimes, and placed on trial in the Senate.

With Democrats in control of the House of Representatives, impeachment appears highly likely, as soon as the end of 2019.

But the Republicans hold a majority in the Senate, a bulwark against him being convicted and removed from office -- unless they turn against him.

There is still much to do, but analysts believe the entire process could be completed before the end of January.

Evidentiary hearings

On Wednesday, the House Intelligence Committee takes the impeachment investigation public after six weeks of closed-door depositions from White House, State Department and other officials.

Those depositions have already painted a fairly complete picture of how Trump and aides, including personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, pressured Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky to open investigations that could conceivably find political dirt against the Democrats and Trump's possible 2020 election rival Joe Biden.

Some of the witnesses who already testified privately will be recalled to face the public panel, starting with Ambassador William Taylor, Washington's top diplomat in Ukraine, and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Kent on Wednesday, and former Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch on Friday.

The aim is to further compile the evidence against the president, or, for Republicans, in his support.

Democrats chose all the witnesses for the initial private depositions phase. 

In the open hearings, both parties can propose and subpoena witnesses -- although Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff will be able to prevent Republicans from inviting witnesses who have no relation to the core allegations or who simply seek to stall the proceedings.

Setting the charges

The next step is hearings by the Judiciary Committee, under Chairmen Jerry Nadler, a longtime Trump nemesis, to decide whether the evidence is strong enough to support formal charges, or articles of impeachment.

Trump and his lawyers will be able to appear, cross-examine witnesses, and submit evidence in their favor.

At the end of those hearings, the Democratic-controlled committee will vote on specific articles of impeachment, based on the US Constitution's standard of "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors," and whether Trump's actions constituted abuse of presidential power. 

Currently, the charges are expected to be abuse of power and obstruction of the investigation. 

The impeachment vote

The Judiciary Committee then sends the articles of impeachment to the entire House for a vote.

Only a basic majority of the 435 member House is required to approve impeachment. Democrats currently hold a solid majority, 233 seats to 197 for Republicans, with four seats currently vacant and one held by an independent.

That suggests that, if the evidence is strong enough, Democrats will easily pass the impeachment resolution.

The trial

The resolution would then go to the Senate, where Trump would stand trial, with the 100 senators his jury.

Democrats from the House would act as the prosecuting team, while Trump's lawyers would defend him, and Trump could argue in his own favor. Both sides can call witnesses and present testimony.

Presiding over the trial would likely be Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who was appointed to the court by Republican President George W. Bush in 2005.

A trial could take a few weeks. The impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton in 1999 lasted five weeks, and ultimately ended in his acquittal: while Republicans had a majority in the Senate, Clinton had enough support among Democrats to easily beat the required two-thirds majority to convict.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Trump to urge unity in State of the Union speech

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump was to appeal for unity among Americans in a State of the Union speech Tuesday where he sought to turn the page on 2 years of divisive turmoil and recast himself as a bipartisan national leader.

"The agenda I will lay out this evening is not a Republican Agenda or a Democrat Agenda. It is the agenda of the American People," Trump told Congress and a huge television audience, according to a draft of his speech released by the White House.

In the speech, Trump highlighted "incredible economic success" and said he had been right to embark on a muscular new trading policy that has brought Washington and Beijing to the brink of a trade war.

And he urged his Republican Party and the opposition Democrats to work together "for a great rebuilding of America's crumbling infrastructure."

This was the "optimistic" Trump promised by White House aides.

But nothing could have been further from a unified picture in Congress, where Democrats control the House of Representatives, Republicans are in charge of the Senate, and Trump finds himself stymied at every turn.

After 2 years of a presidency in which Trump has driven an already polarized country into bitter, even violent debate over almost every aspect of politics, his calming words were likely to fall on many deaf ears.

'CHAOS'

Just a few hours before the speech got underway, the senior Democrat in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, gave a blistering preview.

"The state of the Trump economy is failing America's middle class," Schumer tweeted. "The state of the Trump healthcare system is failing American families. The state of the Trump Administration is chaos."

Trump ripped back at Schumer for "already criticizing my State of the Union speech, even though he hasn't seen it yet."

Another tough preview was due a few minutes before the speech when Democratic Senator Kamala Harris, who has announced a challenge to Trump in the 2020 presidential election, planned a so-called "prebuttal."

Once Trump finishes, the Democrats were to field another woman, Stacey Abrams, who almost upset the odds to win Georgia's governorship, to deliver the traditional rebuttal.

WALLED IN

At the heart of the rancor is Trump's single-minded drive -- and failure -- to get congressional funding for walls along the US-Mexican border.

Trump says a wall or fence is needed to prevent an "invasion" of Central American migrants whom he repeatedly casts as a horde of killers and rapists.

Democrats accuse Trump of fearmongering and refuse to give their approval.

The resulting standoff has turned a relatively minor funding debate into an existential test of political strength in the buildup to 2020 presidential elections.

Increasingly frustrated, Trump took revenge on Congress by triggering a crippling five-week partial shutdown of government. Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was to sit behind Trump for the State of the Union, exacted her own reprisal by forcing the speech to be delayed by a week.

Things could soon escalate, with Trump threatening to declare a national emergency so that he can bypass Congress and give himself power to take military funds for his project.

FOREIGN POLICY CLAIMS

Trump's claims to foreign policy successes are not necessarily endorsed even in his own party.

He repeated in the speech, according to the prepared text, that he wants US troops to pull out from long-running wars, such as Afghanistan and Syria as soon as possible.

"Great nations do not fight endless wars," he said.

But that has been criticized by some in the security services and many Republicans, who fear a loss of American influence on the world stage.

Trump was likewise expected to update Congress on China trade talks and on his intention to hold a second summit with reclusive North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, whom he is trying to persuade to give up nuclear weapons.

Closer to home, he dialed up the pressure on Venezuela's leftist leader Nicolas Maduro, saying "we stand with the Venezuelan people in their noble quest for freedom."

Opposition leader Juan Guaido's envoy to Washington was among the top guests invited to attend the speech.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Ex-Starbucks CEO aims to oust Trump in 2020

WASHINGTON- Billionaire former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said in a TV interview that he is looking into running against Donald Trump in 2020 as an independent presidential candidate.

"I am seriously thinking of running for president," Schultz told the CBS news show "60 Minutes" late Sunday.

The self-described "lifelong Democrat" said he "will run as a centrist independent outside of the two-party system."

According to Schultz, 65, "We're living at a most fragile time."

Not only is Trump "not qualified to be the president," but Republicans and Democrats "are consistently not doing what's necessary on behalf of the American people and are engaged, every single day, in revenge politics."

Schultz grew up in a working class neighborhood in New York City, but made his fortune when he moved to the northwestern state of Washington in the 1980s and built Starbucks into a global coffee shop behemoth.

Schultz blamed both parties for the country's $21.5 trillion debt, which he portrayed as "a reckless example" of the "failure of their constitutional responsibility."

Schultz dismissed fears that his bid could split the opposition vote and result in a second term for Trump.

"I want to see the American people win. I want to see America win," Schultz told CBS.

At least one Democratic presidential hopeful, Texan Julian Castro, told CNN that if Schultz runs "it would provide Donald Trump with his best hope of getting reelected."

According to Castro, "I don't think that would be in the best interest of our country."

While third-party candidates in US politics often face insurmountable odds, they have played the role of spoilers.

In 1992 conservative billionaire Ross Perot siphoned enough votes away from George H.W. Bush to hand the presidency to Democrat Bill Clinton.

And Democrats blame consumer advocate Ralph Nader for taking votes away from Democrat Al Gore in the 2000 election, allowing Republican George W. Bush to become president. Nader rejects the accusation.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

US government shutdown extends into next week

WASHINGTON- The US government partial shutdown was set to stretch deep into next week after legislators failed Thursday to make a breakthrough in the row over President Donald Trump's demand for a US-Mexico border wall.

After convening for just a few minutes following the official Christmas break, a still nearly empty Senate adjourned, deciding to renew budget deliberations only next Wednesday, the last day of the current Republican-controlled Congress.

That would take the government shutdown, already on its sixth day, into 12.

Both sides have dug in, with Democrats refusing to provide $5 billion for Trump's border wall project and the president insisting he will not fully fund the government unless he gets the money.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders accused Democrats of "openly choosing to keep our government closed to protect illegal immigrants rather than the American people."

She said Trump "will not sign a proposal that does not first prioritize our country's safety and security."

As long as the wall debate holds up approval of a wider spending bill, about 800,000 federal employees are not getting salaries and non-essential parts of the government are unable to function.

Trump made clear he does not intend to give way first.

In a tweet Thursday, he once more accused Democrats of wanting to encourage illegal immigrants, "an Open Southern Border and the large-scale crime that comes with such stupidity!"

"Need to stop Drugs, Human Trafficking, Gang Members & Criminals from coming into our Country," he said in another tweet, also lambasting "Democrat obstruction of the needed Wall."

Opponents, including some in his Republican party, accuse the president of exaggerating the danger from illegal immigration for his own political gain.

"No end in sight to the President's government shutdown," Dick Durbin, a senior Democratic senator, tweeted.

"He's taken our government hostage over his outrageous demand for a $5 billion border wall that would be both wasteful and ineffective."

ECONOMY WORRIES

Partial government shutdowns are not an unusual weapon in Washington budget negotiations, where party divides make cooperation a rarity.

But the rancor has spiraled under Trump's abrasive administration and is set to go even higher after January 3 when the Democrats take over the House of Representatives, following their midterm election victory.

The mess has contributed to worries over the outlook for the US economy in 2019, following a surging 2018 performance.

The stock market has plummeted in recent days, before a record recovery on Wednesday, under a variety of factors including Trump's barrage of criticism against the independent Federal Reserve.

Continuing the see-saw performance, Wall Street opened sharply lower Thursday but ended solidly higher on bargain hunting.

CHILDREN SUFFER

Large sections of the nearly 2,000-mile (3,200 kilometer) border with Mexico are already divided by fences and other barriers.

But immigrants -- some fleeing danger and others just looking for jobs -- continue to cross illegally.

Trump's critics say that he is trampling over legally protected asylum rights and argue that resources should be channeled into higher-tech alternatives to a wall.

Managing the flow of illegal border crossers has been complicated by a shift from single men to more vulnerable families, including small children.

Two youngsters from Guatemala have died while in custody of US authorities this month and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said that "extraordinary protective measures" were required to handle the flow.

US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan warned Wednesday that the agency was unable to cope with the thousands of arrivals, as most facilities were built decades ago for men arriving alone.

"We need help from Congress. We need to budget for medical care and mental health care for children in our facilities," he told CBS News.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Trump faces a blitz of investigations from Democratic-run House

WASHINGTON - Armed with subpoenas and a long list of grievances, a small group of lawmakers will lead the investigations poised to make President Donald Trump's life a lot tougher now that Democrats have won a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Using their control of House committees, Democrats can demand to see Trump's long-hidden tax returns, probe possible conflicts of interest from his business empire and dig into any evidence of collusion between Russia and Trump's campaign team in the 2016 election.

Trump said early on Wednesday that House investigations would be countered by investigations of Democrats by the Senate, which remains in Republican hands after Tuesday's congressional elections.

"If the Democrats think they are going to waste Taxpayer Money investigating us at the House level, then we will likewise be forced to consider investigating them for all of the leaks of Classified Information, and much else, at the Senate level. Two can play that game!" the president said on Twitter.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell's office was not immediately available for comment on Trump's tweet.

Democrats said Republican lawmakers will no longer be able to protect Trump from a watchful Congress.

"The American people have demanded accountability from their government and sent a clear message of what they want from Congress," Representative Jerrold Nadler, the New York Democrat poised to become chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said in a tweet after Democrats claimed the majority.

Trump "may not like it, but he and his administration will be held accountable to our laws and to the American people."

Nadler, once described by Trump as "one of the most egregious hacks in contemporary politics," is one of three prominent Democrats who have clashed with the president and who will take over key House committees when the new Congress convenes in January.

The others are Elijah Cummings, who will almost certainly head the House Oversight Committee, and Adam Schiff of the Intelligence Committee, slammed by the president as "sleazy."

Control of the committees - where they are currently the highest-ranking Democrats - will give them the power to demand documents and testimony from White House officials and important figures in Trump's campaign team and businesses, and to issue subpoenas if needed.

They will also have more money and staff for investigations that could delay or derail Trump's agenda.

"I plan to shine a light on waste, fraud, and abuse in the Trump administration," Cummings said on Wednesday.

"I want to probe senior administration officials across the government who have abused their positions of power and wasted taxpayer money, as well as President Trump's decisions to act in his own financial self-interest," he said in a statement.

The White House could respond to committee demands by citing executive privilege, but that would likely result in court battles.

A first salvo in the battle is expected to come from Representative Richard Neal, who is the likely Democratic chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee and who has said he will demand Trump's tax returns from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Such a move could set in motion a cascade of probes into any disclosures the documents might hold.

Even before the election, Schiff said his committee would look at allegations that Russian money may have been laundered though Trump's businesses and that Moscow might have financial leverage over the president.

Nadler's panel would handle any effort to impeach Trump, depending on the outcome of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's federal probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. elections and possible Trump campaign collusion with Moscow.

The panel is expected to look for ways to protect Mueller and his probe from any Trump effort to torpedo the investigation or suppress its findings.

Trump denies any collusion by his campaign and has long denounced Mueller's investigation as a witch hunt. Moscow has denied meddling in the 2016 election.

NO RUSH TO IMPEACH

Nadler's committee is unlikely, however, to move quickly toward impeachment. He has said that any impeachment effort must be based on evidence of action to subvert the Constitution that is so overwhelming it would trouble even some Trump supporters.

Nadler, Cummings and Schiff are expected to coordinate their efforts and seek bipartisan cooperation to avoid the appearance of unbridled partisanship ahead of the 2020 presidential election.

Still, Republicans accuse Democrats of preparing to abuse their authority with political attacks on Trump and his allies. They predict a partisan drive that could backfire on Democrats, like the Republican effort to impeach former President Bill Clinton did in the 1990s.

"There will be irresistible pressure to overreach in their investigations and ultimately impeach the president," said Republican strategist Michael Steel.

Cummings' team says his Oversight Committee will also focus on public issues including skyrocketing prescription drug costs, the opioid epidemic, voting rights, the Census and the U.S. Postal Service.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Trump, Obama tout clashing visions of US as elections near

WASHINGTON - Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Barack Obama made dueling election appearances on Sunday, offering sharply different views on the country's problems but agreeing on the high stakes for voters in the final 48 hours of a tight campaign.

With opinion polls showing dozens of tight US congressional and gubernatorial races in Tuesday's election, the current and former presidents said the results would determine what kind of country Americans live in for the next 2 years.

"This election will decide whether we build on this extraordinary prosperity we have created," Trump told a cheering crowd in Macon, Georgia, warning that Democrats would "take a giant wrecking ball to our economy."

Trump campaigned with Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp, who is in a tight race with Democrat Stacey Abrams for the governor's office.

Obama condemned Trump, without addressing him by name, and Republicans for what he described as their divisive policies and repeated lies. He hammered Trump and Republicans for trying to repeal his signature healthcare law, a move they have repeatedly made while also claiming to support protections for those with pre-existing conditions that the law includes.

"The only check right now on the behavior of these Republicans is you and your vote," Obama told supporters in Gary, Indiana, during a rally for endangered Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly.

Trump and Obama are the most popular figures in their parties, and their appearances on the campaign trail are designed to stoke enthusiasm among core supporters in the late stages of a midterm congressional election widely seen as a referendum on Trump's first two years in the White House.

Opinion polls and election forecasters have made Democrats favorites on Tuesday to pick up the 23 seats they need to capture a majority in the US House of Representatives, which would enable them to stymie Trump's legislative agenda and investigate his administration.

Republicans are favored to retain their slight majority in the US Senate, currently at 2 seats, which would let them retain the power to approve US Supreme Court and other judicial nominations on straight party-line votes.

In the midst of a 6-day national blitz of rallies ahead of Tuesday's election, Trump will also appear later on Sunday in Tennessee, which hosts a vital US Senate race.

HARD-LINE RHETORIC

In the final stages of the campaign, Trump has ramped up his hard-line rhetoric on immigration and cultural issues including warnings about a caravan of migrants headed to the border with Mexico and of liberal "mobs."

He repeated those themes in Georgia, urging voters to "look at what is marching up - that's an invasion." He said Democrats encouraged chaos at the borders because it was good politics.

Ronna McDaniel, head of the Republican National Committee, said on ABC's "This Week" program that the media had chosen to focus on Trump's immigration rhetoric but the president was also emphasizing economic and job gains under his presidency.

The Labor Department on Friday reported sharply better-than-expected job creation in October, with the unemployment rate steady at a 49-year low of 3.7 percent and wages notching their best annual gain in almost a decade.

But in Indiana, Obama said Republicans were taking credit for the economic renewal that started under his presidency. "You hear those Republicans brag about how good the economy is, where do you think that started?" he asked.

Obama also will appear later on Sunday in his old home state of Illinois, which hosts a competitive governor's race and several tight US House of Representative races. Obama's appearance on the campaign trail is his second in three days.

In the battle for the Senate, Democrats are defending seats in 10 states that Trump won in the 2016 presidential election, including a handful that he won by double digits.

US Senator Chris Van Hollen, who heads the Democratic Senate campaign arm, said it was "remarkable" that Democrats were even in striking distance of capturing the Senate given the unfavorable map they faced.

"The fact we still have a narrow path to a majority is a sea change from where we were 2 years ago," he said on ABC. "These are some very close races and they are in states where Trump won big."

As of Sunday morning, almost 34.4 million people had cast ballots early, according to the Election Project at the University of Florida, which tracks turnout. That is up 67.8 percent from the 20.5 million early votes cast in all of 2014, the last federal election when the White House was not at stake.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Why a Republican election win may be better for Wall Street

SAN FRANCISCO -- US President Donald Trump has warned that his favorite measure of success, the stock market, is imperiled if voters favor Democrats in next week's congressional elections.

While not fully accurate - stocks tend to rise regardless of who controls the government - it does bear out that the market has delivered a slightly stronger performance on average when Republicans dominate in Washington.

A Reuters analysis of the past half century shows stocks fared better in the 2 calendar years after congressional elections when Republicans control Congress and the presidency than when Democrats controlled the two branches, and at least as well as during times of gridlock. Many investors are now hoping for a continuation of the Republican agenda.

"There is Trump 'the person', who is very controversial," said Stephen Massocca, Senior Vice President at Wedbush Securities in San Francisco. "And there's also Trump 'the agenda'. The Trump agenda, the stock market loves. To the extent it continues, the market will like that."

Republicans traditionally push pro-business policies such as
tax cuts and deregulation, which boost stock prices. The market has, on the whole, given Trump a thumbs-up, with the market rising almost 20 percent during his presidency so far.

Polls show strong chances that the Democratic Party may win control of the House of Representatives in the Nov. 6 midterm elections after two years of wielding no practical political power in Washington, with Republicans likely to keep the Senate.

Trump warned in a tweet on Tuesday that a change in Congress
would be bad for the market, saying: "If you want your Stocks to go down, I strongly suggest voting Democrat."

Investors often favor Washington gridlock because it preserves the status quo and reduces uncertainty.

"Traditionally, gridlock is good for the markets. But I think this election is very tricky; I'm not sure that's the preferred market outcome because a lot of the benefits of the past 2 years have come from not being in a gridlock environment," said Mike O'Rourke, Chief Market Strategist at JonesTrading.

Should his fellow Republicans maintain or extend their grip on Congress, Trump may be emboldened to pursue more of his political agenda, including further tax overhauls.

By contrast, Democratic gains that allow the party to control the House of Representatives, and possibly the Senate, could stifle Trump's policy aims and perhaps lead to attempts to impeach him. It could also lead to resistance to increasing the government's debt limit next year.

"Our economists believe that two likely consequences of a divided Congress would be an increase in investigations and uncertainty surrounding fiscal deadlines, which could raise equity volatility," Goldman Sachs said in a report this week.

Over the past 50 years, gridlock has been the norm rather than the exception in Washington, with the presidency and Congress won by one party in just seven out of 25 congressional election years.

Looking at the 2 calendar years following each congressional election, the S&P 500 had a mean annual increase of 12 percent under Republican-controlled governments, compared to an increase of 9 percent for Democrat-controlled governments and a 7 percent rise for gridlocked governments.

However, using median averages, which exclude outliers, differences are less clear, with the S&P 500 seeing annual increases of 11 percent under Republican-controlled governments and under gridlock, and 10 percent gains under Democrat-controlled governments.

An analysis by BTIG brokerage of data going back to 1928 also indicates gridlock is not necessarily ideal. It showed US stocks performing better under united governments.

"While government control is by no means the sole determinant of market performance, investors clearly favor a unified regime," BTIG strategist Julian Emanuel wrote in his report.

Interest rates, economic growth, company earnings and inflation are widely viewed as strong influences on stock prices, making the balance of power in Washington just one of many factors affecting investor sentiment.

Two Democratic presidents - Bill Clinton and Barack Obama -have presided over the strongest S&P 500 performances since 1952, with gains of 208 percent and 166 percent, respectively.

Wall Street has applauded Trump since he took power in January 2017 and quickly pushed through measures to deregulate banks and other companies. Last December, his Republican party passed sweeping corporate tax cuts that have S&P 500 companies on track this year to grow their earnings per share by over 20 percent, the biggest jump since 2010, according to Refinitiv IBES data.

"Volatility may rise regardless of the outcome, but, based on historical relationships, equities may be more likely to rise if Republicans manage to maintain control of Congress," Deutsche Bank said in a recent report.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Obama versus Trump on final US campaign weekend

After boasting about the economy and raising fears over immigration, US President Donald Trump is facing pushback from his predecessor Barack Obama, who is taking on an increasingly prominent role in the final weekend of campaigning before midterm elections in which Republican control of Congress is threatened.

With rallies planned in Montana and Florida, a state he had already visited on Wednesday, Trump on Saturday is keeping up his relentless campaign schedule before Tuesday's ballot, which has become a referendum on his unconventional presidency.

"Heading to Montana and Florida today! Everyone is excited about the Jobs Numbers - 250,000 new jobs in October. Also, wages rising. Wow!" Trump said on Twitter Saturday morning.

The campaigning comes one week after a gunman, who allegedly hated immigrants and Jews, killed 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, and after a fanatical Trump supporter was arrested in Florida on charges of mailing homemade bombs to more than a dozen Trump opponents, including Obama.

At a moment of deep national division, with the political temperature soaring, the president's critics say he has helped create an atmosphere in which the two attackers felt comfortable to carry out their crimes.

Trump says his Republicans are in a good position ahead of the midterm congressional elections, particularly with new employment figures out showing the economy booming.

But polls point to the Democrats capturing at least the House of Representatives, threatening the billionaire president with the specter of an opposition finally able to block policies and dig into his highly opaque personal finances.

In the last stages of the campaign, Trump is dueling with former president Obama, who came out of relative seclusion to appear at a Florida rally on Friday. 

Obama is to campaign again Sunday in his hometown of Chicago, as well as in Indiana, where the seat of Democratic Senator Joe Donnelly is in danger.

- America at 'a crossroads' -

At a rally on Friday, Trump called America's first black president "Barack H. Obama," a reference to Obama's middle name of Hussein. Before his presidential run, Trump fanned conspiracy theories about the origins of Obama, who was born in Hawaii.

Obama explained his re-emergence on Friday at a Georgia rally in support of Stacey Abrams, who is seeking to be the first black female governor of any US state.

"I'm here for one simple reason: to ask you to vote," Obama said. "The consequences of any of us staying home are profound because America is at a crossroads... The character of our country is on the ballot."

Trump has brought an unprecedented brand of confrontational politics to the White House, and clearly enjoys a fight.

Friday's latest official jobs figures, which showed 250,000 net new positions in October -- ahead of forecasts -- gave him a golden opportunity to crow over what he almost daily claims to be the world's "hottest economy."

But if, on the one hand, the president has been touting the United States as a land of plenty with jobs for all, on the other he has stirred fear and loathing.

Even as illegal immigration has dipped to a quarter of what it was in 2000, Trump claims that the country faces an "invasion" of Central Americans.

He has ordered regular army troops to the US-Mexican border as a caravan of a few thousand impoverished migrants slowly marches toward the boundary. He has also announced "tent cities" to detain people demanding political asylum, and claimed the power to scrap the right to citizenship for anyone born on US soil -- until now considered protected by the US Constitution.

A military spokesman said that more than 7,000 US soldiers will be positioned in states bordering Mexico by the end of the weekend.

Newsweek reported that it had obtained documents which showed intelligence officials did not anticipate high involvement of criminal gangs among the migrants, and that the administration anticipates only a minority of those in the caravan would actually reach the border.

Trump last week tweeted that "many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan." 

Obama decried Trump's troop deployment as a "political stunt" serving to "get folks angry and ginned up." 

He added: "There's just constant fear-mongering to distract from the record." 

At his rally in Indianapolis on Friday, Trump warned against voting for Democratic blue instead of Republican red.

"A Republican Congress means more jobs, less crime," he said.

"A blue wave would equal a crime wave, very simple. And a red wave equals jobs and security."

source: news.abs-cbn.com

In US midterm race, racial tensions never far from surface

MIAMI - In a sea of white faces at a Florida campaign rally stirred to a froth by President Donald Trump, a woman named June and 2 friends stand out: they are among just a handful of black people cheering for him.

Although he is not on the ballot, Trump's polarizing presence has loomed large over the campaign for Tuesday's midterm elections, and in many ways the US political landscape reflects the deep racial divisions manifested recently in deadly attacks in Pittsburgh and Kentucky.

As the president's rallies have thrown the spotlight on his overwhelmingly white support base, on the Democratic side rising African-American stars have pulled in heavyweight support from the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama, who was stumping for Florida's Andrew Gillum on Friday.

Trump himself -- who infamously pushed the falsehood that the country's first black president was not born in the United States -- stands accused of driving Americans ever further apart, with almost 8in 10 black people surveyed by Quinnipiac in July judging that he is racist. 

His white supporters among the adoring crowd in Estero, Florida were not convinced. 

"No, he's not racist. I give everybody the benefit of the doubt," one supporter, who gave her name only as June, told AFP. "But all I know, what he stands for is America, making America great again and that's what I stand for."

The vast majority of the 8,000-odd people at last Wednesday's rally in the southwestern tourist town of Fort Myers -- where attendees shouted things like "CNN sucks" and "build the wall" -- were white.

There were even white people wearing T-shirts with the slogan "Blacks for Trump."

Many of the tiny minority of black faces in the crowd were there to sell Trump paraphernalia as the president rallied support for Republican candidates.

DEEPENING DIVISIONS
  
The final stretch of the campaign has been marred by the murder of 2 African American grocery shoppers in Louisville, Kentucky -- shot dead by a white gunman in what police say was a racially-motivated attack.

Their deaths came days before an anti-Semitic massacre in Pittsburgh that left 11 dead and as a spate of mail bombs sent to high-profile liberals was fueling a national reckoning over deepening political and racial divisions.

Stacy Pignatti, a 46-year-old white supporter in Estero, pins blame on Obama -- America's first black president -- for the fraught state of race relations in the country.

"It never was like that way before. When Bush was in here, we didn't have the racial tensions that we have now," she told AFP.

But Trump's detractors accuse him of fueling hate through his bitter and divisive rhetoric.

The president has tarred Mexican immigrants as "rapists," sought to ban Muslims from entering the country, and assailed the mostly-African American footballers who knelt during the national anthem to protest police brutality.

His failure to squarely condemn last year's deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia was widely judged to have emboldened the country's far-right, racist fringe.

"The environment today is absolutely a function of Trump and Obama, the way the discourse has gone, the way people talk about race now," said Senator Perry Thurston, a member of the black caucus in the Florida state legislature.

"It's a touchy subject. And it's painful. But it's good to get it out in the open to talk about these issues," he told Politico.

Against this backdrop, Gillum in Florida, Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Ben Jealous in Maryland -- all Democrats with agendas at the left end of the party spectrum -- are vying to become their states' first black governors. 

"Black progressive candidates are betting that Trump's high disapproval rating among black voters coupled with the chance to make history will be sufficient motivation to increase turnout," wrote Theodore Johnson of the Brennan Center for Justice.

VIRTUAL DEAD HEAT

"Race has been an issue from the very beginning in this campaign, not because I introduced it," Gillum said this week on "The Daily Show," a late night talk show with Trevor Noah.

He recalled that it was his Republican opponent Ron DeSantis who said after winning his party's primary that "the last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda."

That remark was widely viewed as racist. DeSantis denies this was his intention and says Gillum is trying to deflect attention from an FBI probe into alleged corruption in the state capital Tallahassee, of which he is mayor.

The Democrat meanwhile accuses his rival of "giving too much harbor to racists and xenophobes and anti-Semites."

This kind of vicious back and forth has marked the Florida campaign, with the 2 candidates in a virtual dead heat in a state whose voting results have a history of leaving the country on tenterhooks.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Democrats favored to take House, Republicans to hold Senate

WASHINGTON -- As the US midterm election campaign enters the final stretch before Tuesday's vote, many races are too close to call but most polls have Democrats seizing control of the House of Representatives -- and Republicans clinging on to the Senate.

President Donald Trump is ratcheting up the rhetoric and campaigning furiously as he seeks to hold on to the Republican majorities in the two chambers of Congress.

All 435 seats in the House are up for grabs on Tuesday while 35 seats in the 100-member Senate are at stake. Americans will choose new governors in 36 states.

Republicans currently have a slim 51-49 hold on the Senate, where Democrats have a tough hill to climb with 26 Democratic seats on the ballot, while Republicans must only defend 9.

Democrats need a net gain of 23 seats to take control of the House they lost in 2010, and House minority leader Nancy Pelosi predicted this week they would do so.

"Democrats will carry the House," Pelosi said on "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert," while also forecasting victory in the Senate.

Political forecasting outlet FiveThirtyEight.com gives Democrats a 5 in 6, or 84.5 percent, chance of gaining control of the House but only a 1 in 7, or roughly 15 percent, chance of winning the Senate.

As election day approaches and with turnout a major factor, Trump has sought to drive Republicans to the polls and rekindle the enthusiasm of his successful 2016 presidential bid.

"I'm not on the ticket, but I am on the ticket because this is also a referendum about me," he said at a rally last month in Mississippi. "Pretend I'm on the ballot."

ANTI-IMMIGRATION RHETORIC

Trump has scheduled 10 campaign rallies over the next 5 days in 8 states -- Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia.

Trump has dialed up the rhetoric on immigration, issuing dire warnings about caravans of Central American migrants heading to the US border with Mexico.

Claiming the caravans include "very bad thugs and gang members," Trump has ordered 5,000 active-duty troops to the border and said he is considering sending up to 15,000.

"This isn't an innocent group of people," Trump said Thursday. "This is an invasion."

Trump also posted a political ad on his Twitter account on Wednesday that shows a Mexican man boasting about killing police officers and includes the caption "Democrats let him into the country."

Democrats accused the president of seeking to inflame his supporters with his anti-immigration appeals.

"This is fear mongering," Tom Perez, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, told CNN. "This has been Donald Trump's playbook for so long."

Control of the Senate will come down to a handful of races, in Arizona, Florida, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia, according to political analysts.

TIGHT SENATE RACES

In Arizona, 2 women -- Democratic Representative Kyrsten Sinema and Republican Representative Martha McSally, a former air force fighter pilot -- are battling to replace Senator Jeff Flake, a Trump critic who is not running for re-election. 538.com currently gives Sinema a slight edge.

In Florida, incumbent Democratic Senator Bill Nelson is involved in a tough re-election battle with Republican governor Rick Scott. 538.com has Nelson with a small lead.

In Missouri, 538.com gives incumbent Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill a 3-in-5 chance of holding off a stiff challenge from 38-year-old state attorney general Josh Hawley.

In other closely watched races, Democratic Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota is trailing in most polls and incumbent Republican Senator Dean Heller of Nevada is locked in a dead heat with Democratic challenger Jacky Rosen.

In reliably Republican Texas, Senator Ted Cruz is facing a surprisingly competitive challenge from rising Democratic star Beto O'Rourke but most polls give the edge to the Republican incumbent.

Two races for governor have drawn widespread attention.

In Georgia, Democrat Stacey Abrams is seeking to become the first black woman to become governor of a US state. She got a helping hand on the campaign trail Thursday from Oprah Winfrey.

And in Florida, the African-American mayor of Tallahassee, Andrew Gillum, is in a bitter battle with a Trump acolyte, Republican Representative Ron DeSantis.

source: news.abs-cbn.com