mercurynews--2020-08-15--The Latest: In Kansas visit, Dr. Birx urges use of masks

By The Associated Press KANSAS CITY — Trump ’ s top coronavirus adviser used a visit to Kansas to urge people to wear masks regardless of where they live .
“ What ’ s really important for every Kansan to understand is that this epidemic that we have been seeing this summer is both urban and rural , ” Dr. Deborah Birx , coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force said Saturday .
“ So we are really asking all communities , whether you are urban or rural communities , to really wear a mask inside , outside , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people should socially distance and not have gatherings while in Kansas City , Kansas , for a meeting with Kansas Gov .
Laura Kelly , as well as community and state health officials at KU Medical Center , The Kansas City Star reports .
“ You can ’ t tell who ’ s infected , ” Birx said .
“ Much of the spread is asymptomatic .
I know we all want to believe that our family members can not be positive .
They are.
” Birx said when communities start seeing a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to close the bars , restrict indoor dining , decrease social gatherings and ensure there ’ s a mask mandate .
“ We have been doing that across the South and we ’ ve seen a dramatic decrease in cases where the population has followed those guidelines , ” she said .
HERE ’ S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VIRUS OUTBREAK : — Millions of seniors live in homes with at least one child , and the new school year could bring new worries for them .
— Testing for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reopen and the state prepares for football .
The drop comes even as deaths are continuing to climb .
— Thousands of British tourists beat a hasty retreat from France to avoid a mandatory 14-day quarantine at home .
— The year the music might die : British clubs face closure because of coronavirus pandemic .
More than 400 grassroots music venues face possible closure despite some short-term government aid .
HERE ’ S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING : AUSTIN , Texas — The death toll in Texas from the coronavirus inched nearer @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deaths bringing the total to 9,840 .
The Texas Department of State Health Services said the number of reported cases increased by 8,245 to 528,838 .
Health officials said Saturday that 6,481 people with COVID-19 , the disease caused by the virus , were hospitalized .
The number of hospitalizations has been decreasing since peaking in July at 10,893 , and the number of newly reported cases is shrinking .
But the virus is still spreading geographically .
SANTA FE , N.M. — New Mexico on Saturday reported 146 additional confirmed COVID-19 cases @ @ @ @ @ @ @ state ’ s totals to 23,302 cases and 711 deaths .
Over half of the newly reported cases occurred in five counties — Bernalillo , Dona Ana , Eddy , Lea and McKinley .
The deaths reported Saturday involved people from six counties — Bernalillo , Cibola , Dona Ana , Eddy and Rio Arriba .
The 7-day rolling averages of daily new cases in New Mexico and daily deaths in the state both dropped over the past two weeks .
OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma on Saturday reported an additional 901 cases of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The Oklahoma State Department of Health says the number of reported cases is now at 47,798 .
There have been a total of 657 deaths from COVID-19 , the illness caused by the virus .
The true number of cases in Oklahoma is likely higher because many people have not been tested , and studies suggest people can be infected and not feel sick .
The health department said that as of Saturday , there were 7,234 active cases and 39,907 people have recovered .
That increases the state ’ s totals to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases decreased from 2,550 to 1,021 per day from July 30 to Aug. 13 .
The seven-day rolling average of daily deaths decreased from 94 to 54 in the same time period .
The latest COVID-19-related hospitalization numbers posted by the state Department of Health Services were at levels last seen in early June .
The COVID-19-related hospitalizations in Arizona peaked about a month ago following Gov .
Doug Ducey ’ s lifting of stay-home orders in May .
Ducey re-imposed some restrictions and allowed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ late June .
NEW YORK — New York ’ s annual light display honoring victims of 9/11 is back on , officials announced Saturday .
They say health officials will supervise this year ’ s tribute to ensure workers ’ safety amid concerns related to the coronavirus pandemic .
Gov .
Andrew Cuomo said in a statement that it is especially important this year to commemorate the lives lost and heroism displayed in the Sept. 11 attacks “ as New Yorkers are once again called upon to face a common enemy.
” The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 11 Memorial & Museum canceled the Tribute in Light over concerns the coronavirus might spread among crews creating twin columns of light to represent the World Trade Center in the Manhattan sky .
Alice Greenwald , president and CEO of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum , thanked former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg , Cuomo and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation “ for their assistance in offsetting the increased costs associated with the health and safety considerations around the tribute this year.
” “ This year , its message of hope , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ever , ” she said in a statement .
JOHANNESBURG — South Africa is lifting its month-long ban on cigarette sales and will allow limited alcohol sales .
President Cyril Ramaphosa says the country has passed the peak of coronavirus infections and a “ ray of light is visible now on the horizon.
” The loosening of the lockdown on Monday will remove nearly all restrictions on economic activity , including the hospitality industry , and allow inter-provincial travel .
But international travel restrictions are still in place and gatherings of more than @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Africa has the world ’ s fifth-largest virus caseload with more than 583,000 .
The health ministry announced Saturday a total of more than 11,600 confirmed deaths .
Ramaphosa says in the past three weeks , confirmed cases have dropped from more than 12,000 a day to around 5,000 .
The president acknowledged the hardship of the lockdown and warned South Africans not to be complacent because of asymptomatic spread , when people don ’ t realize they have the virus .
ISTANBUL — Turkey ’ s health minister says the 1,256 coronavirus @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 45 days .
There ’ s been 21 deaths from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours , bringing the confirmed death toll to 5,955 .
More than 248,000 people have tested positive for the virus in Turkey since March .
Mask wearing in public is mandatory in much of the country , which has lifted many social restrictions to curb the spread of the virus .
DES MOINES — Iowa is reporting 832 new coronavirus cases for its second-largest single-day increase .
KRCG reports the cases brought the state ’ s total number @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The state also added nine more deaths to bring the confirmed total to 973 , according to health officials .
The only other day with more new cases was July 17 , with 879 .
Both days had large numbers of tests processed .
An additional 9,539 tests were reported by public and private labs in the last 24 hours .
The positivity rate of tests during that period was 8.7 % , lower than the previous 11.7 % .
A total of 552,389 tests have been processed since the start of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Managers of the federal government ’ s underground nuclear waste repository in southern New Mexico say operations are ongoing despite a recent increase in coronavirus cases among workers .
The Carlsbad Current-Argus reports the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant has had cases among employees and contract workers more than double in the last week .
This week , the plant announced four new cases among employees of Nuclear Waste Partnership , the contractor hired to oversee daily operations at the facility .
The plant is in the second phase of resuming normal operations .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases surged past 600 daily for the first time in three months .
Tourists and vacationing people returning are considered major factors in rising caseloads .
The Health Ministry registered 629 coronavirus cases Saturday in the previous 24 hours , increasing the confirmed total to more than 253,000 .
The last time the daily number was higher was 669 cases on May 23 .
Only a few weeks ago , Italy had daily cases numbers in the 200s .
Italy ’ s confirmed deaths has reached more than 35,000 .
OPELIKA , Ala. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at football games this fall because of the coronavirus pandemic .
Opelika High School says it will cap attendance at about 30 % of the stadium capacity of 8,000 so fans can maintain proper social distancing .
Gulf Shores says attendance at athletic events will be cut by 50 % .
Other schools are announcing attendance reductions or still working on plans .
Some are skipping fall sports .
The first football games are scheduled for this week , although some schools have delayed games after players or staff tested positive for the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ daily cases in Alabama has dropped below 1,000 , after reaching 1,800 in mid-July .
The number of hospitalized patients has lessened from about 1,600 to 1,400 , and the percent of positive tests has gone from 16.7 % to 12.3 % .
However , Dr. Don Williamson , the former state health officer who heads the Alabama Hospital Association , says 89 % of ICU beds are full .
ROME — Some 455,000 people in Italy received citations or fines for not obeying early lockdown rules , according to Italian Interior Ministry @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a nationwide lockdown in a bid to slow the coronavirus on March 11 .
Citizens could go out for essential work or food shopping in a country that became the epicenter of the virus in Europe .
Authorities says they cited 1,117 people for violating quarantine through July 31 .
The numbers of cases and deaths have dramatically decreased since the peak in Italy .
Italy currently has 252,809 known cases .
More than 35,000 people have died , sixth highest in the world .
ALGIERS , Algeria — Algeria reopened mosques , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for the first time in five months , relaxing one of the world ’ s longer virus confinement periods .
Curfews remain in place in more than half the country as Algeria tries to contain the virus .
Crowds packed beaches in the capital Algiers , celebrating the opportunity to swim in the Mediterranean amid the August heat .
Restaurants reopened , and mosques that can hold more than 1,000 people must ensure social distancing measures .
However , mosques remain closed to all women , children and the elderly .
Algeria reported @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1,350 deaths on Friday .
It ’ s the third-highest death rate reported in Africa , after South Africa and Egypt .
JOHANNESBURG — A report in South Africa says there is a higher risk of Black or mixed-race patients dying of COVID-19 in the country ’ s hospitals than white patients .
A report by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases indicates the association but doesn ’ t go into detail .
South Africa has released little data by race during the coronavirus pandemic .
The country has the world ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 579,000 confirmed cases and ranks No .
13 with more than 11,000 deaths , according to the tally by Johns Hopkins University .
The report says overall , 18 % of people with coronavirus admitted to hospitals die .
Public hospitals are generally more poorly funded than private hospitals .
The report includes data from more than 150 public and private hospitals across the country .
According to the 2011 census , 86 % of South Africans are Black or mixed race , with 9 % white .
BERLIN — Germany ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ declare all of mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands “ risk areas ” for coronavirus infection .
Travelers must undergo compulsory testing and two-week quarantine after arriving from there .
Health Minister Jens Spahn told Bild on Saturday that he knows “ how much Germans love Spain as a vacation destination .
But the numbers there are rising quickly , too quickly.
” The travel classification also includes the Spanish island of Mallorca , a popular destination for German tourists .
Germany is providing free testing for coronavirus at airports and those who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ full 14 days .
The Robert Koch Institute says Spain ’ s Canary Islands weren ’ t deemed a risk area .
That designation now covers most non-EU countries , including the United States , and several regions within the 27-nation bloc .
PARIS — Pressure is growing on the French government to require masks in all workplaces and in public as coronavirus infections surge .
Paris police stepped up mask patrols Saturday as the French capital expanded the zones where face coverings are required in public , including neighborhoods around the Louvre @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cases in Paris rising particularly fast , police can now shut down cafes or any gathering of more than 10 people where distancing and other hygiene measures aren ’ t respected .
Masks are currently required outdoors in hundreds of French towns , but rules vary widely .
In an appeal published in the daily Liberation , a collective of medical workers urged a nationwide return to working at home , which France largely abandoned after two months of strict lockdown .
France recorded more than 2,800 new cases Friday , up from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ago .
While the rise is partly attributed to increased testing , the rate of positive tests is also growing , and is now at 2.4 % .
However , the number of virus patients in French hospitals and intensive care units has not risen so far .
The rising infections prompted Britain to impose quarantine on vacationers returning from France starting on Saturday .

By The Associated Press
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea has reported 279 newly confirmed cases of the coronavirus, it’s highest daily jump since early March, as fears grow about a massive outbreak in the greater capital region.
The figures released by the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Sunday brought the national caseload to 15,318, including 305 deaths.
The number of new cases was the highest since 367 were reported on March 8, when the country was concentrating public health tools and personnel from nationwide to combat an outbreak in the less populated southern region.
The KCDC said 253 of the new cases came from the Seoul metropolitan area, home to 26 million people, where health authorities have been struggling to stem transmissions linked to various places and groups, including churches, nursery homes, schools, restaurants and door-to-door salespeople.
Infections were also reported in other major cities, such as Busan and Daegu, a southeastern city that was the epicenter of the country’s previous virus crisis in late February and March, when hundreds of new cases were reported each day.
___
HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE VIRUS OUTBREAK:
— Millions of seniors live in homes with at least one child, and the new school year could bring new worries for them.
— Fear, language barriers hinder immigrant contact-tracing.
— Testing for the coronavirus drops in Texas as schools reopen and the state prepares for football. The drop comes even as deaths are continuing to climb.
— Thousands of British tourists beat a hasty retreat from France to avoid a mandatory 14-day quarantine at home.
— The year the music might die: British clubs face closure because of coronavirus pandemic. More than 400 grassroots music venues face possible closure despite some short-term government aid.
___
— Follow AP’s pandemic coverage at http://apnews.com/VirusOutbreak and https://apnews.com/UnderstandingtheOutbreak
___
HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:
KAHULUI, Hawaii — Kahului Airport on Maui has completed its second phase of its thermal screening project meant to combat the spread of the coronavirus. The screening uses thermal imaging and facial recognition technology to pinpoint people with a temperature of 100.4 degrees or higher. Dual lens cameras have been installed at all arrival gates and TSA checkpoints in the airport. The Maui News reports that when phase three is completed, the cameras will be able to track travelers with high body temperatures so contact tracers can stop and screen them before they leave the airport.
___
KANSAS CITY — Trump’s top coronavirus adviser used a visit to Kansas to urge people to wear masks regardless of where they live.
“What’s really important for every Kansan to understand is that this epidemic that we have been seeing this summer is both urban and rural,” Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force said Saturday. “So we are really asking all communities, whether you are urban or rural communities, to really wear a mask inside, outside, every day.”
She also stressed that people should socially distance and not have gatherings while in Kansas City, Kansas, for a meeting with Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, as well as community and state health officials at KU Medical Center, The Kansas City Star reports.
“You can’t tell who’s infected,” Birx said. “Much of the spread is asymptomatic. I know we all want to believe that our family members cannot be positive. They are.”
Birx said when communities start seeing a rise in positive cases, leaders need to close the bars, restrict indoor dining, decrease social gatherings and ensure there’s a mask mandate.
“We have been doing that across the South and we’ve seen a dramatic decrease in cases where the population has followed those guidelines,” she said.
___
AUSTIN, Texas — The death toll in Texas from the coronavirus inched nearer to 10,000 on Saturday, with 238 deaths bringing the total to 9,840. The Texas Department of State Health Services said the number of reported cases increased by 8,245 to 528,838. Health officials said Saturday that 6,481 people with COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus, were hospitalized. The number of hospitalizations has been decreasing since peaking in July at 10,893, and the number of newly reported cases is shrinking. But the virus is still spreading geographically.
___
SANTA FE, N.M. — New Mexico on Saturday reported 146 additional confirmed COVID-19 cases with eight more deaths, increasing the state’s totals to 23,302 cases and 711 deaths. Over half of the newly reported cases occurred in five counties — Bernalillo, Dona Ana, Eddy, Lea and McKinley. The deaths reported Saturday involved people from six counties — Bernalillo, Cibola, Dona Ana, Eddy and Rio Arriba. The 7-day rolling averages of daily new cases in New Mexico and daily deaths in the state both dropped over the past two weeks.
___
OKLAHOMA CITY — Oklahoma on Saturday reported an additional 901 cases of the coronavirus and 13 more deaths. The Oklahoma State Department of Health says the number of reported cases is now at 47,798. There have been a total of 657 deaths from COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. The true number of cases in Oklahoma is likely higher because many people have not been tested, and studies suggest people can be infected and not feel sick. The health department said that as of Saturday, there were 7,234 active cases and 39,907 people have recovered.
___
PHOENIX — Arizona reported 933 confirmed coronavirus cases and 69 deaths on Saturday.
That increases the state’s totals to more than 192,000 cases and 4,492 deaths.
The seven-day rolling average of daily new cases decreased from 2,550 to 1,021 per day from July 30 to Aug. 13. The seven-day rolling average of daily deaths decreased from 94 to 54 in the same time period.
The latest COVID-19-related hospitalization numbers posted by the state Department of Health Services were at levels last seen in early June.
The COVID-19-related hospitalizations in Arizona peaked about a month ago following Gov. Doug Ducey’s lifting of stay-home orders in May. Ducey re-imposed some restrictions and allowed local governments to impose mask requirements in late June.
___
NEW YORK — New York’s annual light display honoring victims of 9/11 is back on, officials announced Saturday. They say health officials will supervise this year’s tribute to ensure workers’ safety amid concerns related to the coronavirus pandemic.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo said in a statement that it is especially important this year to commemorate the lives lost and heroism displayed in the Sept. 11 attacks “as New Yorkers are once again called upon to face a common enemy.”
The announcement came days after the National September 11 Memorial & Museum canceled the Tribute in Light over concerns the coronavirus might spread among crews creating twin columns of light to represent the World Trade Center in the Manhattan sky.
Alice Greenwald, president and CEO of the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, thanked former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, Cuomo and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation “for their assistance in offsetting the increased costs associated with the health and safety considerations around the tribute this year.”
“This year, its message of hope, endurance and resilience are more important than ever,” she said in a statement.
___
JOHANNESBURG — South Africa is lifting its month-long ban on cigarette sales and will allow limited alcohol sales.
President Cyril Ramaphosa says the country has passed the peak of coronavirus infections and a “ray of light is visible now on the horizon.”
The loosening of the lockdown on Monday will remove nearly all restrictions on economic activity, including the hospitality industry, and allow inter-provincial travel. But international travel restrictions are still in place and gatherings of more than 50 people are still banned.
South Africa has the world’s fifth-largest virus caseload with more than 583,000. The health ministry announced Saturday a total of more than 11,600 confirmed deaths.
Ramaphosa says in the past three weeks, confirmed cases have dropped from more than 12,000 a day to around 5,000. The president acknowledged the hardship of the lockdown and warned South Africans not to be complacent because of asymptomatic spread, when people don’t realize they have the virus.
___
ISTANBUL — Turkey’s health minister says the 1,256 coronavirus cases reported Saturday is the highest in 45 days.
There’s been 21 deaths from COVID-19 in the past 24 hours, bringing the confirmed death toll to 5,955.
More than 248,000 people have tested positive for the virus in Turkey since March.
Mask wearing in public is mandatory in much of the country, which has lifted many social restrictions to curb the spread of the virus.
___
DES MOINES — Iowa is reporting 832 new coronavirus cases for its second-largest single-day increase.
KRCG reports the cases brought the state’s total number of confirmed infections to 51,640 on Saturday. The state also added nine more deaths to bring the confirmed total to 973, according to health officials.
The only other day with more new cases was July 17, with 879. Both days had large numbers of tests processed.
An additional 9,539 tests were reported by public and private labs in the last 24 hours. The positivity rate of tests during that period was 8.7%, lower than the previous 11.7%.
A total of 552,389 tests have been processed since the start of the pandemic.
___
CARLSBAD, N.M. — Managers of the federal government’s underground nuclear waste repository in southern New Mexico say operations are ongoing despite a recent increase in coronavirus cases among workers.
The Carlsbad Current-Argus reports the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant has had cases among employees and contract workers more than double in the last week. This week, the plant announced four new cases among employees of Nuclear Waste Partnership, the contractor hired to oversee daily operations at the facility.
The plant is in the second phase of resuming normal operations.
___
ROME — Italy’s new coronavirus cases surged past 600 daily for the first time in three months.
Tourists and vacationing people returning are considered major factors in rising caseloads.
The Health Ministry registered 629 coronavirus cases Saturday in the previous 24 hours, increasing the confirmed total to more than 253,000.
The last time the daily number was higher was 669 cases on May 23. Only a few weeks ago, Italy had daily cases numbers in the 200s.
Italy’s confirmed deaths has reached more than 35,000.
___
OPELIKA, Ala. — Alabama high schools are limiting attendance at football games this fall because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Opelika High School says it will cap attendance at about 30% of the stadium capacity of 8,000 so fans can maintain proper social distancing. Gulf Shores says attendance at athletic events will be cut by 50%.
Other schools are announcing attendance reductions or still working on plans. Some are skipping fall sports. The first football games are scheduled for this week, although some schools have delayed games after players or staff tested positive for the coronavirus.
The seven-day average number of daily cases in Alabama has dropped below 1,000, after reaching 1,800 in mid-July. The number of hospitalized patients has lessened from about 1,600 to 1,400, and the percent of positive tests has gone from 16.7% to 12.3%.
However, Dr. Don Williamson, the former state health officer who heads the Alabama Hospital Association, says 89% of ICU beds are full.
___
ROME — Some 455,000 people in Italy received citations or fines for not obeying early lockdown rules, according to Italian Interior Ministry figures released Saturday.
The government imposed a nationwide lockdown in a bid to slow the coronavirus on March 11. Citizens could go out for essential work or food shopping in a country that became the epicenter of the virus in Europe.
Authorities says they cited 1,117 people for violating quarantine through July 31. The numbers of cases and deaths have dramatically decreased since the peak in Italy.
Italy currently has 252,809 known cases. More than 35,000 people have died, sixth highest in the world.
___
ALGIERS, Algeria — Algeria reopened mosques, cafes, beaches and parks on Saturday for the first time in five months, relaxing one of the world’s longer virus confinement periods.
Curfews remain in place in more than half the country as Algeria tries to contain the virus.
Crowds packed beaches in the capital Algiers, celebrating the opportunity to swim in the Mediterranean amid the August heat. Restaurants reopened, and mosques that can hold more than 1,000 people must ensure social distancing measures.
However, mosques remain closed to all women, children and the elderly.
Algeria reported more than 37,000 total virus infections and 1,350 deaths on Friday. It’s the third-highest death rate reported in Africa, after South Africa and Egypt.
___
JOHANNESBURG — A report in South Africa says there is a higher risk of Black or mixed-race patients dying of COVID-19 in the country’s hospitals than white patients.
A report by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases indicates the association but doesn’t go into detail. South Africa has released little data by race during the coronavirus pandemic.
The country has the world’s fifth largest virus caseload with more than 579,000 confirmed cases and ranks No. 13 with more than 11,000 deaths, according to the tally by Johns Hopkins University.
The report says overall, 18% of people with coronavirus admitted to hospitals die. Public hospitals are generally more poorly funded than private hospitals.
The report includes data from more than 150 public and private hospitals across the country. According to the 2011 census, 86% of South Africans are Black or mixed race, with 9% white.
___
BERLIN — Germany’s health minister has defended the decision to declare all of mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands “risk areas” for coronavirus infection.
Travelers must undergo compulsory testing and two-week quarantine after arriving from there.
Health Minister Jens Spahn told Bild on Saturday that he knows “how much Germans love Spain as a vacation destination. But the numbers there are rising quickly, too quickly.”
The travel classification also includes the Spanish island of Mallorca, a popular destination for German tourists.
Germany is providing free testing for coronavirus at airports and those who test negative can avoid quarantining for the full 14 days.
The Robert Koch Institute says Spain’s Canary Islands weren’t deemed a risk area. That designation now covers most non-EU countries, including the United States, and several regions within the 27-nation bloc.


mercurynews--2020-08-15--AP FACT CHECK: Trump skews record on Biden-Harris, economy

By Hope Yen and Josh Boak | Associated Press WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump greeted the Democratic presidential ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris this past week with a litany of distortion and falsehoods , raging against cases of voting fraud where they didn ’ t exist and declining to quash conspiracy theories about Harris ’ eligibility for office .
Trump also misrepresented Biden ’ s position on taxes , again minimized the coronavirus threat and exaggerated his own record on the economy .
A look at some of the past week ’ s rhetoric and the facts : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ … he ’ s going to double and triple everybody ’ s taxes.
” — news conference Wednesday .
THE FACTS : Trump is exaggerating .
Wildly so .
Biden would raise taxes , primarily on the wealthy .
But a July estimate by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget finds that the increase is a small fraction of what Trump claimed .
The former vice president ’ s plan would raise “ taxes for the top 1 percent of earners by 13 to 18 % of after-tax income , while indirectly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 0.2 to 0.6 % , ” the nonpartisan group said .
To put that in perspective , tax collections would increase by $ 3.4 trillion to $ 3.7 trillion over the next decade .
That is a lot of money .
But it ’ s not a doubling or tripling .
The government is on pace to collect $ 47 trillion over the next decade , so the Biden plan would be roughly be a 7.8 % increase in revenues .
TRUMP , asked about social media claims that Harris is not eligible @ @ @ @ @ @ @ parents were immigrants to the U.S. : “ I heard it today that she doesn ’ t meet the requirements .
… I have no idea if that ’ s right .
I would have assumed that the Democrats would have checked that out.
” — news conference Thursday .
TRUMP , asked about the subject again : “ I have nothing to do with it .
I read something about it , ” Trump said Saturday during a news conference .
He added : “ It ’ s not something that bothers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ something that we will be pursuing.
” Asked point blank if Harris is eligible , Trump replied : “ I just told you .
I have not got into it in great detail.
” — news conference Saturday .
THE FACTS : Harris , a senator from California , is without question eligible .
Harris , 55 , was born in Oakland , California , making her a natural-born U.S. citizen and eligible to be president if Biden were unable to serve a full term .
Her father , an economist from Jamaica @ @ @ @ @ @ @ researcher from India , met at the University of California , Berkeley , as graduate students .
The Constitution requires a vice president to meet the eligibility requirements to be president .
That includes being a natural-born U.S. citizen , at least 35 years old and a resident in the U.S. for at least 14 years .
“ I can ’ t believe people are making this idiotic comment , ” Laurence Tribe , a Harvard University professor of constitutional law , told The Associated Press in 2019 , when similar false claims @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ She is a natural born citizen and there is no question about her eligibility to run , ” Tribe said .
Harris is the first Black woman and Asian American to compete on a major party ’ s presidential ticket .
Trump in past years indulged in the false conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama was born abroad .
TRUMP CAMPAIGN : “ Not long ago , Kamala Harris called Joe Biden a racist and asked for an apology she never received.
” — statement Tuesday from Katrina Pierson , Trump @ @ @ @ @ @ @ She never called Biden a racist .
Pierson appears to be referring to Harris ’ remarks during a Democratic primary debate in Miami in June 2019 when the California senator challenged Biden ’ s record of opposing busing as a way to integrate schools in the 1970s .
Harris prefaced her criticism by telling Biden at that time , “ I do not believe you are a racist .
I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground.
” She then went on : “ It was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country .
It was not only that but you also worked with them to oppose busing .
“ There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools , ” Harris said .
“ She was bused to school every day .
That little girl was me.
” It was a breakthrough moment for Harris at the candidates ’ first debate , stunning Biden @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not praise racists ” and provided a hairsplitting defense of his position on busing .
But she did not accuse him of being racist .
TRUMP : “ At the end of the year , the assumption that I win , I ’ m going to terminate the payroll tax … We ’ ll be paying into Social Security through the general fund.
” — news conference Wednesday .
THE FACTS : Under Trump ’ s proposal , Social Security would lose its dedicated funding source .
Payroll taxes raise about $ 1 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the president was unconcerned about the loss of those revenues .
Trump campaign officials stressed that the general fund consists of assets and liabilities that finance government operations and could do so for Social Security .
The general fund is nicknamed “ America ’ s Checkbook ” on the Treasury Department ’ s website .
The risk is that the loss of a dedicated funding source could destabilize an anti-poverty program that provides payments to roughly 65 million Americans .
It also could force people to cut back on the spending that drives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ own retirement and health care needs if they believe the government backstop is in jeopardy .
A 12.4 % payroll tax split between employers and workers funds Social Security , while a 2.9 % payroll tax finances Medicare .
The Social Security tax raised roughly $ 1 trillion last year , according to government figures .
Over a 10-year period , Trump ’ s idea would blow a $ 13 trillion hole in a U.S. budget that is already laden with rising debt loads .
Trump announced a payroll tax deferral through the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a series of moves to bypass Congress after talks on a broader coronavirus relief bill that has stalled .
He says he will make it a permanent tax cut with the help of Congress .
Democrats have described that idea as a nonstarter .
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Thursday suggested to reporters that Trump misspoke when he said he would eliminate the payroll tax if reelected .
She said the president would only push to make the payroll tax deferrals permanent .
But Trump clearly said that he would eliminate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Wednesday press briefing and even answered a question about “ permanently ” rescinding it .
TRUMP , asked how the general fund can sustain the payments : “ We ’ re going to have tremendous growth .
… You will see growth like you have not seen in a long time.
” — news conference Wednesday .
THE FACTS : It is highly unlikely that economic growth would be enough to offset the loss of the payroll tax .
Trump has a record of making wildly improbable growth projections .
He suggested that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economic growth as high as 6 % annually .
That never happened .
Growth reached 3 % in 2018 , then slumped to 2.2 % and the U.S. economy crumbled into recession this year because of the coronavirus .
TRUMP , on COVID-19 : “ Nobody understood it because nobody has ever seen anything like this .
The closest thing is , in 1917 , they say — right ?
The great — the great pandemic certainly was a terrible thing , where they lost , anywhere from 50 to 100 million people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ; all the soldiers were sick.
” — news briefing Monday .
THE FACTS : He got the year wrong for the Spanish flu , as he routinely does , and may have overstated deaths from it .
The pandemic spread from early 1918 to late 1920 .
It killed an estimated 50 million worldwide , with about 675,000 of the deaths in the U.S. , according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .
That pandemic did not end World War II , which came two decades later .
TRUMP : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pandemic , which will be going away , as I say , it will be going away .
And they scream , how you can you say that ?
I said , because it ’ s going to be going away.
” — interview Thursday on Fox Business Network .
THE FACTS : No matter how many times he says it , the virus is not going to just magically disappear .
The virus is now blamed for more than 166,000 deaths and more than 5.2 million confirmed infections in the U.S. — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In the past week , the average number of new cases per day was on the rise in eight states , and deaths per day were climbing in 26 , according to an Associated Press analysis .
Dr. Anthony Fauci , the government ’ s top infectious diseases official , has warned that increased cases across the South and West in particular put “ the entire country at risk.
” On Thursday , for instance , the rate of positive virus cases in Texas soared to the highest levels of the pandemic @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus tests coming back positive .
Nevada had its biggest daily jump in coronavirus fatalities to date .
In February , Trump asserted coronavirus cases were going “ very substantially down , not up , ” and said it will be fine because “ in April , supposedly , it dies with the hotter weather.
” Fauci says there “ certainly ” will be coronavirus infections in the fall and winter .
TRUMP , on whether he still thinks kids are essentially immune from COVID-19 : “ Yeah , I think that , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ very well .
I mean , they — they don ’ t get very sick .
They don ’ t catch it easily.
” — news briefing Tuesday .
THE FACTS : They aren ’ t immune , and he ignores racial disparities among those kids who get infected .
Although it ’ s true that children are less likely than adults to develop COVID-19 , the CDC has nevertheless counted more than 250,000 infections by the virus in Americans younger than 18 , or roughly 7 % of all cases .
Racial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to children , with Hispanic and Black children with COVID-19 more likely to be hospitalized than white kids .
The total number of kids who have been infected but not confirmed is almost certainly far higher than the CDC figures , experts say , because those with mild or no symptoms are less likely to get tested .
Trump also glosses over the fact that kids can spread disease without showing symptoms themselves .
The CDC in May also warned doctors to be on the lookout for a rare but life-threatening inflammatory reaction @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the coronavirus .
The condition had been reported in more than 100 children in New York , and in some kids in several other states and in Europe , with some deaths .
One of the CDC reports looked at children with COVID-19 who needed hospitalization .
Hispanic children were hospitalized at a rate eight times higher than white kids , and Black children were hospitalized at a rate five times higher , it found .
The second report examined cases of the rare virus-associated syndrome in kids .
It found that nearly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were either Hispanic or Black , well above their representation in the general population .
TRUMP : “ The manufacturing sector is booming and the production index is at the highest reading since October of ’ 18 , which was an extraordinary period of time.
” — news conference Wednesday .
THE FACTS : The pandemic crushed U.S. factories and the damage persists .
There is no boom .
Even after three months of job gains , the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the manufacturing sector has 740,000 fewer jobs than before @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gains under Trump have disappeared .
There were 257,000 more manufacturing jobs on the day Trump became president than now .
More important , the jobs recovery has shown signs of stalling .
Just 26,000 factory jobs were added in July , down from 357,000 added jobs in June .
The sector has been recovering .
Yet after increases in production in June , the Federal Reserve said U.S. factory output was running 11.1 % below pre-pandemic levels .
Trump cited one component of an index composed by the Institute for Supply Management @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as well .
It was the best reading since August of 2018 , not October as claimed by the president .
But that same report showed that manufacturers are also cutting back on employment , suggesting that a boom has yet to begin .
TRUMP , on tariffs on China : “ We ’ ve taken in tens of billions of dollars from China .
We never took 10 cents from China , never — not even 10 cents.
” — news conference Monday .
THE FACTS : It ’ s false to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in tariffs on Chinese goods before he took action .
They are simply higher in some cases than they were before .
It ’ s also wrong to suggest that the tariffs are being paid by China .
Tariff money coming into the treasury is mainly from U.S. businesses and consumers , not from China .
Tariffs are primarily if not entirely a tax paid domestically .
TRUMP : Universal mail-in voting is “ a system riddled by fraud and corruption.
” — news conference Wednesday .
THE FACTS : Voting fraud actually @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for Justice in 2017 ranked the risk of ballot fraud at 0.00004 % to 0.0009 % , based on studies of past elections .
Five states relied on mail-in ballots even before the coronavirus pandemic raised concerns about voting in person .
“ Trump is simply wrong about mail-in balloting raising a ‘ tremendous ’ potential for fraud , ” Richard L. Hasen , an elections expert at the University of California , Irvine , School of Law , wrote recently .
“ While certain pockets of the country have seen their share @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rare in the five states that rely primarily on vote-by-mail , including the heavily Republican state of Utah.
” TRUMP : “ You just look at what happened with the Carolyn Maloney race .
They should do that race over , by the way .
… When you look at the ballot , the ballots that are missing , and the ballot frauds — nobody knows what ’ s going on with that race , and yet they declared her a winner.
” — news conference Wednesday .
THE FACTS : There ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Democratic congressional primary in New York City that was won by Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney .
Nor did Trump offer any proof of fraud .
New York State decided to allow anyone to vote by mail in the June primary because of the pandemic .
More than 400,000 people voted by absentee ballot in New York City , a figure that was 10 times the number of absentee ballots cast in the 2016 primary .
Opening and counting those ballots by elections officials took weeks , leading to a legal dispute over nonfraud @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Candidates observing the count say that thousands of ballots were disqualified because of technical errors voters wouldn ’ t have encountered if they had voted in person , like problems with their signature .
New York City ’ s Board of Elections ultimately certified the results six weeks after the election .
Associated Press writers Amanda Seitz in Chicago , and Lauran Neergaard , Aamer Madhani and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report .

By Hope Yen and Josh Boak | Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump greeted the Democratic presidential ticket of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris this past week with a litany of distortion and falsehoods, raging against cases of voting fraud where they didn’t exist and declining to quash conspiracy theories about Harris’ eligibility for office.
Trump also misrepresented Biden’s position on taxes, again minimized the coronavirus threat and exaggerated his own record on the economy.
A look at some of the past week’s rhetoric and the facts:
ON BIDEN-HARRIS
TRUMP: “If Biden would win … he’s going to double and triple everybody’s taxes.” — news conference Wednesday.
THE FACTS: Trump is exaggerating. Wildly so.
Biden would raise taxes, primarily on the wealthy. But a July estimate by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget finds that the increase is a small fraction of what Trump claimed. The former vice president’s plan would raise “taxes for the top 1 percent of earners by 13 to 18% of after-tax income, while indirectly increasing taxes for most other groups by 0.2 to 0.6%,” the nonpartisan group said.
To put that in perspective, tax collections would increase by $3.4 trillion to $3.7 trillion over the next decade. That is a lot of money. But it’s not a doubling or tripling. The government is on pace to collect $47 trillion over the next decade, so the Biden plan would be roughly be a 7.8% increase in revenues.
___
TRUMP, asked about social media claims that Harris is not eligible to run for vice president because her parents were immigrants to the U.S.: “I heard it today that she doesn’t meet the requirements. … I have no idea if that’s right. I would have assumed that the Democrats would have checked that out.” — news conference Thursday.
TRUMP, asked about the subject again: “I have nothing to do with it. I read something about it,” Trump said Saturday during a news conference. He added: “It’s not something that bothers me. … It’s not something that we will be pursuing.” Asked point blank if Harris is eligible, Trump replied: “I just told you. I have not got into it in great detail.” — news conference Saturday.
THE FACTS: Harris, a senator from California, is without question eligible.
Harris, 55, was born in Oakland, California, making her a natural-born U.S. citizen and eligible to be president if Biden were unable to serve a full term. Her father, an economist from Jamaica, and her mother, a cancer researcher from India, met at the University of California, Berkeley, as graduate students.
The Constitution requires a vice president to meet the eligibility requirements to be president. That includes being a natural-born U.S. citizen, at least 35 years old and a resident in the U.S. for at least 14 years.
“I can’t believe people are making this idiotic comment,” Laurence Tribe, a Harvard University professor of constitutional law, told The Associated Press in 2019, when similar false claims emerged about Harris during her presidential run.
“She is a natural born citizen and there is no question about her eligibility to run,” Tribe said.
Harris is the first Black woman and Asian American to compete on a major party’s presidential ticket. Trump in past years indulged in the false conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama was born abroad.
___
TRUMP CAMPAIGN: “Not long ago, Kamala Harris called Joe Biden a racist and asked for an apology she never received.” — statement Tuesday from Katrina Pierson, Trump 2020 senior adviser.
THE FACTS: She never called Biden a racist.
Pierson appears to be referring to Harris’ remarks during a Democratic primary debate in Miami in June 2019 when the California senator challenged Biden’s record of opposing busing as a way to integrate schools in the 1970s.
Harris prefaced her criticism by telling Biden at that time, “I do not believe you are a racist. I agree with you when you commit yourself to the importance of finding common ground.”
She then went on: “It was actually hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country. It was not only that but you also worked with them to oppose busing.
“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools,” Harris said. “She was bused to school every day. That little girl was me.”
It was a breakthrough moment for Harris at the candidates’ first debate, stunning Biden, who responded that “he did not praise racists” and provided a hairsplitting defense of his position on busing. But she did not accuse him of being racist.
___
SOCIAL SECURITY
TRUMP: “At the end of the year, the assumption that I win, I’m going to terminate the payroll tax … We’ll be paying into Social Security through the general fund.” — news conference Wednesday.
THE FACTS: Under Trump’s proposal, Social Security would lose its dedicated funding source.
Payroll taxes raise about $1 trillion annually for Social Security, and the president was unconcerned about the loss of those revenues. Trump campaign officials stressed that the general fund consists of assets and liabilities that finance government operations and could do so for Social Security. The general fund is nicknamed “America’s Checkbook” on the Treasury Department’s website.
The risk is that the loss of a dedicated funding source could destabilize an anti-poverty program that provides payments to roughly 65 million Americans. It also could force people to cut back on the spending that drives growth so they can save for their own retirement and health care needs if they believe the government backstop is in jeopardy.
A 12.4% payroll tax split between employers and workers funds Social Security, while a 2.9% payroll tax finances Medicare. The Social Security tax raised roughly $1 trillion last year, according to government figures. Over a 10-year period, Trump’s idea would blow a $13 trillion hole in a U.S. budget that is already laden with rising debt loads.
Trump announced a payroll tax deferral through the end of the year, part of a series of moves to bypass Congress after talks on a broader coronavirus relief bill that has stalled. He says he will make it a permanent tax cut with the help of Congress. Democrats have described that idea as a nonstarter.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Thursday suggested to reporters that Trump misspoke when he said he would eliminate the payroll tax if reelected. She said the president would only push to make the payroll tax deferrals permanent. But Trump clearly said that he would eliminate the payroll tax four times at his Wednesday press briefing and even answered a question about “permanently” rescinding it.
___
TRUMP, asked how the general fund can sustain the payments: “We’re going to have tremendous growth. … You will see growth like you have not seen in a long time.” — news conference Wednesday.
THE FACTS: It is highly unlikely that economic growth would be enough to offset the loss of the payroll tax. Trump has a record of making wildly improbable growth projections. He suggested that his 2017 income tax cuts would propel economic growth as high as 6% annually. That never happened. Growth reached 3% in 2018, then slumped to 2.2% and the U.S. economy crumbled into recession this year because of the coronavirus.
___
VIRUS THREAT
TRUMP, on COVID-19: “Nobody understood it because nobody has ever seen anything like this. The closest thing is, in 1917, they say — right? The great — the great pandemic certainly was a terrible thing, where they lost, anywhere from 50 to 100 million people. Probably ended the Second World War; all the soldiers were sick.” — news briefing Monday.
THE FACTS: He got the year wrong for the Spanish flu, as he routinely does, and may have overstated deaths from it. The pandemic spread from early 1918 to late 1920. It killed an estimated 50 million worldwide, with about 675,000 of the deaths in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
That pandemic did not end World War II, which came two decades later.
___
TRUMP: “We’re still in the pandemic, which will be going away, as I say, it will be going away. And they scream, how you can you say that? I said, because it’s going to be going away.” — interview Thursday on Fox Business Network.
THE FACTS: No matter how many times he says it, the virus is not going to just magically disappear.
The virus is now blamed for more than 166,000 deaths and more than 5.2 million confirmed infections in the U.S. — easily the highest totals in the world. In the past week, the average number of new cases per day was on the rise in eight states, and deaths per day were climbing in 26, according to an Associated Press analysis.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top infectious diseases official, has warned that increased cases across the South and West in particular put “the entire country at risk.” On Thursday, for instance, the rate of positive virus cases in Texas soared to the highest levels of the pandemic, with nearly 1 in every 4 coronavirus tests coming back positive. Nevada had its biggest daily jump in coronavirus fatalities to date.
In February, Trump asserted coronavirus cases were going “very substantially down, not up,” and said it will be fine because “in April, supposedly, it dies with the hotter weather.”
Fauci says there “certainly” will be coronavirus infections in the fall and winter.
___
TRUMP, on whether he still thinks kids are essentially immune from COVID-19: “Yeah, I think that, for the most part, they do very well. I mean, they — they don’t get very sick. They don’t catch it easily.” — news briefing Tuesday.
THE FACTS: They aren’t immune, and he ignores racial disparities among those kids who get infected.
Although it’s true that children are less likely than adults to develop COVID-19, the CDC has nevertheless counted more than 250,000 infections by the virus in Americans younger than 18, or roughly 7% of all cases. Racial disparities in the U.S. outbreak also extend to children, with Hispanic and Black children with COVID-19 more likely to be hospitalized than white kids.
The total number of kids who have been infected but not confirmed is almost certainly far higher than the CDC figures, experts say, because those with mild or no symptoms are less likely to get tested. Trump also glosses over the fact that kids can spread disease without showing symptoms themselves.
The CDC in May also warned doctors to be on the lookout for a rare but life-threatening inflammatory reaction in some children who’ve had the coronavirus. The condition had been reported in more than 100 children in New York, and in some kids in several other states and in Europe, with some deaths.
Two recent government reports laid bare the racial disparities.
One of the CDC reports looked at children with COVID-19 who needed hospitalization. Hispanic children were hospitalized at a rate eight times higher than white kids, and Black children were hospitalized at a rate five times higher, it found.
The second report examined cases of the rare virus-associated syndrome in kids. It found that nearly three-quarters of the children with the syndrome were either Hispanic or Black, well above their representation in the general population.
___
ECONOMY
TRUMP: “The manufacturing sector is booming and the production index is at the highest reading since October of ’18, which was an extraordinary period of time.” — news conference Wednesday.
THE FACTS: The pandemic crushed U.S. factories and the damage persists. There is no boom.
Even after three months of job gains, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the manufacturing sector has 740,000 fewer jobs than before the outbreak. All the factory hiring gains under Trump have disappeared. There were 257,000 more manufacturing jobs on the day Trump became president than now. More important, the jobs recovery has shown signs of stalling. Just 26,000 factory jobs were added in July, down from 357,000 added jobs in June.
The sector has been recovering. Yet after increases in production in June, the Federal Reserve said U.S. factory output was running 11.1% below pre-pandemic levels. Trump cited one component of an index composed by the Institute for Supply Management that indicates factory production grew in July as well. It was the best reading since August of 2018, not October as claimed by the president. But that same report showed that manufacturers are also cutting back on employment, suggesting that a boom has yet to begin.
___
TRUMP, on tariffs on China: “We’ve taken in tens of billions of dollars from China. We never took 10 cents from China, never — not even 10 cents.” — news conference Monday.
THE FACTS: It’s false to say the U.S. never collected a dime in tariffs on Chinese goods before he took action. They are simply higher in some cases than they were before. It’s also wrong to suggest that the tariffs are being paid by China. Tariff money coming into the treasury is mainly from U.S. businesses and consumers, not from China. Tariffs are primarily if not entirely a tax paid domestically.
___
MAIL VOTING
TRUMP: Universal mail-in voting is “a system riddled by fraud and corruption.” — news conference Wednesday.
THE FACTS: Voting fraud actually is very rare.
The Brennan Center for Justice in 2017 ranked the risk of ballot fraud at 0.00004% to 0.0009%, based on studies of past elections.
Five states relied on mail-in ballots even before the coronavirus pandemic raised concerns about voting in person.
“Trump is simply wrong about mail-in balloting raising a ‘tremendous’ potential for fraud,” Richard L. Hasen, an elections expert at the University of California, Irvine, School of Law, wrote recently. “While certain pockets of the country have seen their share of absentee-ballot scandals, problems are extremely rare in the five states that rely primarily on vote-by-mail, including the heavily Republican state of Utah.”
___
NEW YORK VOTING
TRUMP: “You just look at what happened with the Carolyn Maloney race. They should do that race over, by the way. … When you look at the ballot, the ballots that are missing, and the ballot frauds — nobody knows what’s going on with that race, and yet they declared her a winner.” — news conference Wednesday.
THE FACTS: There’s no evidence of fraud in the Democratic congressional primary in New York City that was won by Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney. Nor did Trump offer any proof of fraud.
New York State decided to allow anyone to vote by mail in the June primary because of the pandemic. More than 400,000 people voted by absentee ballot in New York City, a figure that was 10 times the number of absentee ballots cast in the 2016 primary.
Opening and counting those ballots by elections officials took weeks, leading to a legal dispute over nonfraud issues, such as missing postmarks. Candidates observing the count say that thousands of ballots were disqualified because of technical errors voters wouldn’t have encountered if they had voted in person, like problems with their signature.
New York City’s Board of Elections ultimately certified the results six weeks after the election.
Associated Press writers Amanda Seitz in Chicago, and Lauran Neergaard, Aamer Madhani and Darlene Superville in Washington contributed to this report.
Find AP Fact Checks at http://apnews.com/APFactCheck


mercurynews--2020-08-15--Police move in after fights break out during Georgia protest

STONE MOUNTAIN , Ga. ( AP ) — After several hours of mostly peaceful demonstrations Saturday in an Atlanta suburb that ’ s home to a giant Confederate memorial , large numbers of police moved in to disperse the crowds when fights broke out .
Several dozen right-wing demonstrators , some waving the Confederate battle flag and many wearing military gear , gathered in downtown Stone Mountain where they faced off against a few hundred counterprotesters , many of whom wore shirts or carried signs expressing support for the Black Lives Matter movement .
People in both groups carried rifles @ @ @ @ @ @ @ little visible police presence and things were largely peaceful , aside from some shoving and pushing and spirited arguments .
But just before 1 p.m. , fights broke out , with people punching and kicking each other and throwing rocks .
That ’ s when police officers in riot gear moved in to disperse the crowds .
By 2 p.m. , almost all of the protesters had left the area .
Right-wing groups led by an Arkansas group called Confederate States III % , had applied for a permit to hold a rally @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s a giant sculpture of Confederate leaders .
The event was planned as a response to a march in the park by a Black militia group on July 4 .
But the Stone Mountain Memorial Association denied the permit on Aug. 4 , citing a violent clash between groups in April 2016 , spokesman John Bankhead said .
The park closed to visitors Saturday and was set to reopen Sunday .
With police manning barriers to keep people from entering the park , demonstrators took to the streets of the adjoining city @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had advised people to stay away all day and urged residents to stay home and businesses to shut down .
The predominantly Black demonstrators on July 4 spoke out against the huge sculpture depicting Gen. Robert E. Lee , Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gen. Thomas J .
“ Stonewall ” Jackson .
Carved into a granite mountain , the bas-relief sculpture is the largest Confederate monument ever crafted .
The 100 to 200 protesters , many of whom carried large rifles , were peaceful .
Although the park has historically been a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ adjoining city of Stone Mountain has a majority-Black population today .
• Hundreds of arrested Portland protesters won ’ t be prosecuted , DA says The park at Stone Mountain markets itself as a family theme park rather than a shrine to the “ Lost Cause ” mythology that romanticizes the Confederacy as chivalrous defenders of states ’ rights .
It ’ s a popular recreation spot for many families on the east side of Atlanta , with hiking trails , a golf course , boat rentals and other attractions .
The park @ @ @ @ @ @ @ light shows , but those have been canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic .

STONE MOUNTAIN, Ga. (AP) — After several hours of mostly peaceful demonstrations Saturday in an Atlanta suburb that’s home to a giant Confederate memorial, large numbers of police moved in to disperse the crowds when fights broke out.
Several dozen right-wing demonstrators, some waving the Confederate battle flag and many wearing military gear, gathered in downtown Stone Mountain where they faced off against a few hundred counterprotesters, many of whom wore shirts or carried signs expressing support for the Black Lives Matter movement. People in both groups carried rifles. For several hours, there was little visible police presence and things were largely peaceful, aside from some shoving and pushing and spirited arguments.
But just before 1 p.m., fights broke out, with people punching and kicking each other and throwing rocks. That’s when police officers in riot gear moved in to disperse the crowds.
By 2 p.m., almost all of the protesters had left the area.
Right-wing groups led by an Arkansas group called Confederate States III%, had applied for a permit to hold a rally in Stone Mountain Park, where there’s a giant sculpture of Confederate leaders. The event was planned as a response to a march in the park by a Black militia group on July 4.
But the Stone Mountain Memorial Association denied the permit on Aug. 4, citing a violent clash between groups in April 2016, spokesman John Bankhead said. The park closed to visitors Saturday and was set to reopen Sunday.
With police manning barriers to keep people from entering the park, demonstrators took to the streets of the adjoining city of Stone Mountain, which on Friday had advised people to stay away all day and urged residents to stay home and businesses to shut down.
The predominantly Black demonstrators on July 4 spoke out against the huge sculpture depicting Gen. Robert E. Lee, Confederate President Jefferson Davis and Gen. Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. Carved into a granite mountain, the bas-relief sculpture is the largest Confederate monument ever crafted. The 100 to 200 protesters, many of whom carried large rifles, were peaceful.
Although the park has historically been a gathering spot for white supremacists, the adjoining city of Stone Mountain has a majority-Black population today.


mercurynews--2020-08-15--‘Do something:’ Harris’ rapid rise driven by call to action

By Kathleen Ronayne and Maryclaire Dale | Associated Press SACRAMENTO — Hours before Kamala Harris took the stage for the first time as Joe Biden ’ s vice-presidential pick , she received a text message from a childhood classmate with photos from their school days .
In one of the pictures , a racially diverse group of first-graders are gathered in a classroom .
Some had taken the bus from their homes across town to join white students from the affluent hillside neighborhoods in Berkeley , California .
A pensive Harris sits on the floor , dutifully looking ahead , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ experiment in racial integration .
“ That ’ s how it started .
There ’ s no question !
” Harris , 55 , texted back to Aaron Peskin , the former classmate who is now a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors .
Fifty years after she was part of the second class to integrate Berkeley ’ s public schools , Harris is now the first Black woman and first Asian-American woman named to a major party presidential ticket .
From her earliest years , Harris ’ path toward the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tracked the nation ’ s struggle for racial equality .
The start-and-stop progress and sometimes messy debate have shaped her life , from an upbringing by immigrant parents , a childhood among civil rights activists , a career at the helm of a flawed criminal justice system and her rapid ascent to the top of Democratic politics .
Those experiences forged a politician who is unafraid to buck the political powers that be but also charts a cautious course through policy debates .
As a senator and candidate , she ’ s emerged @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of tough questioning and a viral moment , and also the weight of her role as a voice for women of color .
“ She ’ s the right thing at the right time in this country , ” said Peskin .
“ She understands how complicated life is , and what the promises of America are.
” Harris ’ s political rise , while fast , has not been without criticism and setbacks .
She ’ s been criticized for shifting policy positions .
She faced questions familiar to women in politics @ @ @ @ @ @ @ her ambition .
Republican President Donald Trump labeled her “ nasty ” for her piercing interrogation of his nominees , including now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh .
Some progressive Democrats , meanwhile , view her work as a prosecutor skeptically , questioning her use of policies they say are discriminatory .
Her own presidential bid , announced before 20,000 people in her hometown of Oakland , flamed out before primary season voting began .
She struggled to raise money and present a clear vision .
Now she ’ s back in an election @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lifetime .
“ My mother Shyamala raised my sister Maya and me to believe that it was up to us and every generation of Americans to keep on marching , ” Harris said Wednesday in her first speech after Biden announced his selection .
“ She ’ d tell us : Don ’ t sit around and complain about things .
Do something.
” Harris seemed bound to rise in politics from the very earliest days of her career .
She was a Howard University graduate without family wealth or high-powered ties when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for law school and took a job at the Alameda County District Attorney ’ s office in 1990 .
She quickly began making connections in San Francisco ’ s tight-knit and competitive political circles .
She served on the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art board , where she reached out to Libby Schaaf , now Oakland ’ s mayor , who was running a volunteer program in Oakland ’ s public schools .
They launched a mentoring program to connect inner-city students interested in fine arts with museum members , giving the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s elite institutions .
“ I love to say that Kamala has been fighting for the people long before anyone was looking , ” Schaaf said .
Among Harris ’ s friends and later political backers were members of the Getty family of oil fortunes and then-California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown .
In 2001 Harris joined a group of women working to enhance their political representation in the city .
Brown , whom Harris briefly dated , appointed her to two state boards in 1994 and 1995 .
It was her first @ @ @ @ @ @ @ came with accusations of political favoritism that would surface in 2003 when Harris made her first political run for San Francisco district attorney .
Harris , then working for the city attorney , challenged her former boss , San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan .
He backed the legalization of medical marijuana and other progressive issues .
But critics questioned his priorities .
Harris tacked right on the issues to run against him , pledging to be tough on crime and repair relationships with police .
Harris had the backing of monied donors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
So she used an ironing board as a pop-up table outside grocery stores to meet voters .
She promised to bring more attention to domestic violence cases and to Black mothers who had lost their children to homicide , issues she felt Hallinan was neglecting .
Debbie Mesloh , a longtime friend and adviser , said Harris cut her teeth in that first race , learning lessons that she would carry into national politics .
Harris faced both the scrutiny of her personal life and the resistance to her rise as she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ She had to be strong , she had to be bold , she had to be ambitious , ” Mesloh recalled .
“ There was a big question , too , of ‘ Who do you think you are ?
’ ” Just months into her tenure , Harris decided not to seek the death penalty against a man charged with killing a police officer .
That decision angered law enforcement officers and drew a rebuke from Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein , the city ’ s former mayor and a force @ @ @ @ @ @ @ run as a death penalty opponent and her move made good on a campaign promise .
The issue would later fuel Harris ’ reputation as a political shape-shifter .
Years later , when she ran for California attorney general and needed support beyond her liberal home base , Harris tempered her stance on capital punishment .
She pledged to uphold the death penalty if elected , then stayed silent when ballot measures to repeal it went before voters in 2012 and 2016 .
She said it would be inappropriate to weigh in because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ measures .
In 2014 , she had a chance to effectively abolish the death penalty when a federal judge said it was so rarely used that it amounted to cruel and unusual punishment for those languishing on death row .
Harris appealed the decision and won , keeping capital punishment on the books .
She now calls for a federal moratorium .
Observers and critics point to these episodes as evidence of Harris ’ s penchant for staking out cautious positions that uphold the status quo .
“ There was nothing about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the way she handled cases , that made you say , ‘ Oh wow , she ’ s really shaking things up , ’ ” said John Raphling , a former public defender in California who is now a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch .
But , he added , the debate over criminal justice reform was different at the time .
“ The whole idea of a progressive prosecutor is a pretty recent phenomenon , ” he said .
Harris ’ allies argue that she worked within the confines of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ time .
Harris found ways to make change when possible , they say .
As district attorney , she launched a reentry program that connected nonviolent offenders to jobs and education that became a national model .
“ I remember the first time I visited the county jail .
So many young men , and they were mostly Black or brown or poor , ” she wrote in her 2019 book , “ The Truths We Hold , ” recalling her time as a young prosecutor .
“ They represented a living monument @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to tear it down.
” But she also focused on issues that activists said punished poor and minority families .
She took on truancy and supported a statewide law modeled on her city initiative that threatened parents with jail time , fines and lost public benefits if parents failed to send their children to school .
“ We took the relationship between a school , a parent and a child — instead of making a metric out of it , to improve the opportunities to get to school , to understand the barriers @ @ @ @ @ @ @ them criminals , ” said Jessica Bartholow , a policy advocate at the Western Center on Law & Poverty .
Harris only barely won her race for state attorney general in 2010 , claiming the title of California ’ s “ top cop ” during a period of rapidly shifting views on criminal justice .
Soon the Black Lives Matter movement was taking hold , along with outrage over police brutality , prompted by the killings of Black people such as Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown .
Harris declined to support state legislation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conduct independent investigations of officer-involved shootings .
While she made state law enforcement officers wear body cameras , she did not support forcing local departments to do so .
As a former prosecutor , she believed the decisions were best made locally , she said .
Now Harris supports outside investigations of police shootings , one of several shifts on policing policies she ’ s made in the U.S. Senate .
It was also as attorney general that she became friends with then-Vice President Joe Biden ’ s son , Beau , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Harris and the younger Biden worked together on a settlement with the nation ’ s five largest mortgage lenders following the foreclosure crisis .
The deal would reduce loans for roughly 1 million households , but Harris and Biden were among the last attorneys general to sign on , arguing it let the lenders off too easily .
They talked nearly every day , Harris said , with Beau Biden supporting her decision to keep fighting despite political pressure to take the deal .
Joe Biden said this past week that relationship was @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as his running mate , and he was visibly emotional Wednesday when she talked about his son , who died of a brain tumor in 2015 .
Harris won her Senate seat in 2016 as Trump won the presidency , setting off an immediate scramble among Democrats about who would run to replace him .
Within a week of her swearing-in ceremony , Harris turned to her prosecutorial skills to grill retired Gen. John Kelly , then Trump ’ s nominee for homeland security secretary , about the new administration ’ s handling @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ We would not use this information against them ?
” she asked .
Kelly fumbled his answer .
The moment was an early demonstration of the kind of senator Harris would be — one unafraid to battle Trump and good at creating viral moments that energized Democrats .
Nearly all of the Democratic senators joined Republicans in voting for Kelly .
But Harris was among 11 Democrats , and just three first-term senators , who did not .
Nathan Barankin , then Harris ’ s chief of staff and a longtime aide @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to her colleagues that they should not be satisfied by Kelly ’ s answers despite his record as a well-respected military officer .
“ I don ’ t think there are too many freshmen that do that , ” Barankin said .
Harris was quickly viewed as a Democrat with White House potential .
By 2017 , Harris was feeling out a run in the Democratic primary .
It wasn ’ t her initial plan , Barankin said , but Trump ’ s brief tenure had convinced her that perspective , particularly as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the Democratic primary field .
That perspective was steeped in Harris ’ s upbringing by two immigrant parents .
Her father , Donald Harris , who is of Afro Caribbean descent , left Jamaica to study economics at the University of California at Berkeley .
Shyamala Gopalan , the daughter of an Indian diplomat who had fought for India ’ s independence , came to Berkeley for graduate school and stayed .
The couple had two daughters , Kamala Devi and Maya Lakshmi .
The parents told their daughters stories , she @ @ @ @ @ @ @ met by police with fire hoses as they marched for civil rights and against the Vietnam War , of meeting Martin Luther King Jr. when he spoke at Berkeley , of forming reading groups to study Black intellectuals .
The couple split soon after Harris started school .
The girls continued to see their father , but Gopalan became the main force in their lives .
They moved to Toronto for several years while she worked at McGill University .
In Berkeley , Gopalan immersed the girls in the Black community she and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ above a daycare center with posters of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman on the walls , even as they celebrated their South Asian heritage through their names , their close ties with their mother ’ s family in India and occasional visits to her homeland .
They attended a Pentacostal church on Sundays and , on Thursdays , a Black cultural space called the Rainbow Sign that was a gathering spot for artists , intellectuals and activists .
Many of her mother ’ s closest friends were Black men and women who became @ @ @ @ @ @ @ girls , later influencing Harris ’ s decision to attend a historically Black university , Harris said .
“ She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as Black girls , and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident , proud Black women , ” Harris wrote of her mother .
At Howard , Harris joined Alpha Kappa Alpha , the nation ’ s oldest sorority for Black women .
Its network , along with those of eight other Black fraternities and sororities known as the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ powerful base of support .
She ’ ll also have her sister , Maya , who has been one of her closest advisors , and husband , entertainment lawyer Doug Emhoff , who led a band of Harris supporters known as the # Khive during her presidential primary bid .
The couple married in 2014 , after her friend set them up on a date .
His two adult children call her “ Momala , ” a play on her name and the Yiddish word for “ little mother.
” Harris also bolstered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to Senate finance records .
She earns $ 174,000 from the Senate and reported an additional $ 277,000 in income from book advances in 2019 .
But their combined net worth , excluding real estate , ranges from $ 2.8 million to as much as $ 6.3 million , the records show .
Harris , mindful of her history-making role , on Friday called Biden bold for choosing a Black woman to join him on the ticket .
• Kamala Harris ’ blended background may look like America , but will it help @ @ @ @ @ @ @ State Sen. Jim Beall endorses Dave Cortese to succeed him in District 15 “ I have not achieved anything that I have without the support of many who believed in the possibility of someone who has never been there before , ” she said in an interview with the news outlet The 19th .
Dale reported from Philadelphia .
Associated Press writer Brian Slodysko in Washington contributed to this report .

By Kathleen Ronayne and Maryclaire Dale | Associated Press
SACRAMENTO — Hours before Kamala Harris took the stage for the first time as Joe Biden’s vice-presidential pick, she received a text message from a childhood classmate with photos from their school days.
In one of the pictures, a racially diverse group of first-graders are gathered in a classroom. Some had taken the bus from their homes across town to join white students from the affluent hillside neighborhoods in Berkeley, California. A pensive Harris sits on the floor, dutifully looking ahead, a child in the center of an experiment in racial integration.
“That’s how it started. There’s no question!” Harris, 55, texted back to Aaron Peskin, the former classmate who is now a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.
Fifty years after she was part of the second class to integrate Berkeley’s public schools, Harris is now the first Black woman and first Asian-American woman named to a major party presidential ticket.
From her earliest years, Harris’ path toward the second-highest office in the United States has tracked the nation’s struggle for racial equality. The start-and-stop progress and sometimes messy debate have shaped her life, from an upbringing by immigrant parents, a childhood among civil rights activists, a career at the helm of a flawed criminal justice system and her rapid ascent to the top of Democratic politics.
Those experiences forged a politician who is unafraid to buck the political powers that be but also charts a cautious course through policy debates. As a senator and candidate, she’s emerged as a leader who knows the power of tough questioning and a viral moment, and also the weight of her role as a voice for women of color.
“She’s the right thing at the right time in this country,” said Peskin. “She understands how complicated life is, and what the promises of America are.”
Harris’s political rise, while fast, has not been without criticism and setbacks.
[vemba-video id=”politics/2020/08/15/kamala-harris-aka-sorority-howard-university-lah-pkg-ebof-vpx.cnn”]
She’s been criticized for shifting policy positions. She faced questions familiar to women in politics, particularly women of color, about her ambition. Republican President Donald Trump labeled her “nasty” for her piercing interrogation of his nominees, including now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Some progressive Democrats, meanwhile, view her work as a prosecutor skeptically, questioning her use of policies they say are discriminatory.
Her own presidential bid, announced before 20,000 people in her hometown of Oakland, flamed out before primary season voting began. She struggled to raise money and present a clear vision.
Now she’s back in an election she calls the most consequential of her lifetime.
“My mother Shyamala raised my sister Maya and me to believe that it was up to us and every generation of Americans to keep on marching,” Harris said Wednesday in her first speech after Biden announced his selection. “She’d tell us: Don’t sit around and complain about things. Do something.”
Bound to rise
Harris seemed bound to rise in politics from the very earliest days of her career.
She was a Howard University graduate without family wealth or high-powered ties when she returned to her native Bay Area for law school and took a job at the Alameda County District Attorney’s office in 1990. She quickly began making connections in San Francisco’s tight-knit and competitive political circles.
She served on the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art board, where she reached out to Libby Schaaf, now Oakland’s mayor, who was running a volunteer program in Oakland’s public schools. They launched a mentoring program to connect inner-city students interested in fine arts with museum members, giving the kids access to one of the city’s elite institutions.
“I love to say that Kamala has been fighting for the people long before anyone was looking,” Schaaf said.
Among Harris’s friends and later political backers were members of the Getty family of oil fortunes and then-California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. In 2001 Harris joined a group of women working to enhance their political representation in the city.
Brown, whom Harris briefly dated, appointed her to two state boards in 1994 and 1995. It was her first foray into state politics, and it came with accusations of political favoritism that would surface in 2003 when Harris made her first political run for San Francisco district attorney.
Harris, then working for the city attorney, challenged her former boss, San Francisco District Attorney Terence Hallinan. He backed the legalization of medical marijuana and other progressive issues. But critics questioned his priorities. Harris tacked right on the issues to run against him, pledging to be tough on crime and repair relationships with police.
Harris had the backing of monied donors, but the public barely knew her. So she used an ironing board as a pop-up table outside grocery stores to meet voters. She promised to bring more attention to domestic violence cases and to Black mothers who had lost their children to homicide, issues she felt Hallinan was neglecting.
Debbie Mesloh, a longtime friend and adviser, said Harris cut her teeth in that first race, learning lessons that she would carry into national politics. Harris faced both the scrutiny of her personal life and the resistance to her rise as she raced past rivals from more well-connected families.
“She had to be strong, she had to be bold, she had to be ambitious,” Mesloh recalled. “There was a big question, too, of ‘Who do you think you are?’”
Harris, then 39, won handily.
Making good
Just months into her tenure, Harris decided not to seek the death penalty against a man charged with killing a police officer. That decision angered law enforcement officers and drew a rebuke from Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the city’s former mayor and a force in California politics. But Harris had run as a death penalty opponent and her move made good on a campaign promise.
The issue would later fuel Harris’ reputation as a political shape-shifter. Years later, when she ran for California attorney general and needed support beyond her liberal home base, Harris tempered her stance on capital punishment.
She pledged to uphold the death penalty if elected, then stayed silent when ballot measures to repeal it went before voters in 2012 and 2016. She said it would be inappropriate to weigh in because her office was responsible for writing the measures.
In 2014, she had a chance to effectively abolish the death penalty when a federal judge said it was so rarely used that it amounted to cruel and unusual punishment for those languishing on death row. Harris appealed the decision and won, keeping capital punishment on the books. She now calls for a federal moratorium.
Observers and critics point to these episodes as evidence of Harris’s penchant for staking out cautious positions that uphold the status quo.
“There was nothing about the way she carried herself as a prosecutor, the way she handled cases, that made you say, ‘Oh wow, she’s really shaking things up,’” said John Raphling, a former public defender in California who is now a senior researcher for Human Rights Watch. But, he added, the debate over criminal justice reform was different at the time. “The whole idea of a progressive prosecutor is a pretty recent phenomenon,” he said.
Harris’ allies argue that she worked within the confines of the system and the politics of the time. Harris found ways to make change when possible, they say. As district attorney, she launched a reentry program that connected nonviolent offenders to jobs and education that became a national model.
“I remember the first time I visited the county jail. So many young men, and they were mostly Black or brown or poor,” she wrote in her 2019 book, “The Truths We Hold,” recalling her time as a young prosecutor. “They represented a living monument to lost potential, and I wanted to tear it down.”
But she also focused on issues that activists said punished poor and minority families. She took on truancy and supported a statewide law modeled on her city initiative that threatened parents with jail time, fines and lost public benefits if parents failed to send their children to school.
“We took the relationship between a school, a parent and a child — instead of making a metric out of it, to improve the opportunities to get to school, to understand the barriers to get to school — we made them criminals,” said Jessica Bartholow, a policy advocate at the Western Center on Law & Poverty.
Harris only barely won her race for state attorney general in 2010, claiming the title of California’s “top cop” during a period of rapidly shifting views on criminal justice. Soon the Black Lives Matter movement was taking hold, along with outrage over police brutality, prompted by the killings of Black people such as Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.
Harris declined to support state legislation that would have required her office to conduct independent investigations of officer-involved shootings. While she made state law enforcement officers wear body cameras, she did not support forcing local departments to do so. As a former prosecutor, she believed the decisions were best made locally, she said.
Now Harris supports outside investigations of police shootings, one of several shifts on policing policies she’s made in the U.S. Senate.
Crucial friendship
It was also as attorney general that she became friends with then-Vice President Joe Biden’s son, Beau, who was Delaware’s attorney general.
Harris and the younger Biden worked together on a settlement with the nation’s five largest mortgage lenders following the foreclosure crisis. The deal would reduce loans for roughly 1 million households, but Harris and Biden were among the last attorneys general to sign on, arguing it let the lenders off too easily.
They talked nearly every day, Harris said, with Beau Biden supporting her decision to keep fighting despite political pressure to take the deal. Joe Biden said this past week that relationship was key in his decision to tap Harris as his running mate, and he was visibly emotional Wednesday when she talked about his son, who died of a brain tumor in 2015.
Harris won her Senate seat in 2016 as Trump won the presidency, setting off an immediate scramble among Democrats about who would run to replace him. Within a week of her swearing-in ceremony, Harris turned to her prosecutorial skills to grill retired Gen. John Kelly, then Trump’s nominee for homeland security secretary, about the new administration’s handling of some young immigrants personal information.
“We would not use this information against them?” she asked. Kelly fumbled his answer.
The moment was an early demonstration of the kind of senator Harris would be — one unafraid to battle Trump and good at creating viral moments that energized Democrats.
Nearly all of the Democratic senators joined Republicans in voting for Kelly. But Harris was among 11 Democrats, and just three first-term senators, who did not. Nathan Barankin, then Harris’s chief of staff and a longtime aide, recalled Harris making an aggressive case to her colleagues that they should not be satisfied by Kelly’s answers despite his record as a well-respected military officer.
“I don’t think there are too many freshmen that do that,” Barankin said.
Harris was quickly viewed as a Democrat with White House potential. By 2017, Harris was feeling out a run in the Democratic primary. It wasn’t her initial plan, Barankin said, but Trump’s brief tenure had convinced her that perspective, particularly as a Black woman, should be represented in the Democratic primary field.
Daughter of immigrants
That perspective was steeped in Harris’s upbringing by two immigrant parents.
Her father, Donald Harris, who is of Afro Caribbean descent, left Jamaica to study economics at the University of California at Berkeley. Shyamala Gopalan, the daughter of an Indian diplomat who had fought for India’s independence, came to Berkeley for graduate school and stayed.
The couple had two daughters, Kamala Devi and Maya Lakshmi. The parents told their daughters stories, she writes in her book, of being met by police with fire hoses as they marched for civil rights and against the Vietnam War, of meeting Martin Luther King Jr. when he spoke at Berkeley, of forming reading groups to study Black intellectuals.
The couple split soon after Harris started school. The girls continued to see their father, but Gopalan became the main force in their lives. They moved to Toronto for several years while she worked at McGill University.
In Berkeley, Gopalan immersed the girls in the Black community she and her ex-husband had embraced. They lived above a daycare center with posters of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman on the walls, even as they celebrated their South Asian heritage through their names, their close ties with their mother’s family in India and occasional visits to her homeland.
They attended a Pentacostal church on Sundays and, on Thursdays, a Black cultural space called the Rainbow Sign that was a gathering spot for artists, intellectuals and activists. Many of her mother’s closest friends were Black men and women who became “aunts and uncles” to the girls, later influencing Harris’s decision to attend a historically Black university, Harris said.
“She knew that her adopted homeland would see Maya and me as Black girls, and she was determined to make sure we would grow into confident, proud Black women,” Harris wrote of her mother.
At Howard, Harris joined Alpha Kappa Alpha, the nation’s oldest sorority for Black women. Its network, along with those of eight other Black fraternities and sororities known as the Divine Nine, now offers Harris a powerful base of support.
She’ll also have her sister, Maya, who has been one of her closest advisors, and husband, entertainment lawyer Doug Emhoff, who led a band of Harris supporters known as the #Khive during her presidential primary bid. The couple married in 2014, after her friend set them up on a date. His two adult children call her “Momala,” a play on her name and the Yiddish word for “little mother.”
Harris also bolstered her assets with the marriage, according to Senate finance records. She earns $174,000 from the Senate and reported an additional $277,000 in income from book advances in 2019. But their combined net worth, excluding real estate, ranges from $2.8 million to as much as $6.3 million, the records show.
Harris, mindful of her history-making role, on Friday called Biden bold for choosing a Black woman to join him on the ticket.
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Dale reported from Philadelphia. Associated Press writer Brian Slodysko in Washington contributed to this report.