Trump news: Fears of new White House super-spreader debacle as president invites guests to public event

Biden and Harris attract Republican criticism for avoiding questions on court-packing

A day after Kamala Harris ducked a question at the vice presidential debate on whether the Democratic ticket planned to increase the number of places on the Supreme Court to counteract its conservative bias in the wake of Amy Coney Barrett joining the bench, the candidate himself followed suit in Arizona.

"You will know my opinion on court-packing when the election is over," Biden told reporters at Phoenix Sky Harbour International Airport. 

"The moment I answer that question, the headline in every one of your papers will be about that rather than focusing on what's happening now. This election has begun. There's never been a court appointment once the election has begun."

But for many, refusing to come clean on the issue is simply not good enough - and leaves them wide open to attacks from Trump and Pence.

Facebook finds Turning Point USA helped make hundreds of accounts to fire out spam attacks on Biden 

The social media giant has removed hundreds of fake accounts tied to Charlie Kirk’s right-wing group Turning Point USA after it enlisted a now-banned marketing group to flood comment sections of news stories with attacks on Joe Biden and Democrats while praising Donald Trump.

The social media company announced on Thursday that marketing firm Rally Forge had worked with Turning Point USA to make 200 profiles and 55 pages on the platform and 76 on Instagram, beginning in 2018 and continuing through 2020.

Facebook said the accounts violated the company’s polices about “co-ordinated inauthentic behaviour” that relied “on real people, not automation” to “create the perception of wide-spread support of their narratives by leaving comments on posts by media entities and public figures.”

Alex Woodward has more on this.

‘Clearly, he is trying to buy the election’: Critics slam Trump’s scramble to send key voting blocs federal aid

Trump’s critics are slamming what they say is a last-minute scramble by his administration to send federal dollars to voting blocs like farmers and seniors in order to help the president secure a victory in the upcoming election.

As the president blows up stimulus talks on Capitol Hill after abruptly scrapping negotiations with House Democrats, reports in recent weeks have painted a picture of his White House racing to send federal aid to voters crucial in his re-election bid.

Just last month, Trump held a rally in central Wisconsin where he announced a new round of pandemic aid to farmers amounting to a reported $13bn.

The president has also sought to take credit for initiatives supplying aid to Americans in need just weeks ahead of the election.

Chris Riotta has more on this.

Nancy Pelosi unveils plan for 25th Amendment commission 

The House speaker and congressman Jamie Raskin have been discussing their dramatically-trailed new bill proposing the formation of a commission that would rule on the president's fitness for office.

Disappointingly, it would not be ready in time to apply to Trump before the election but would instead apply to all future presidents - assuming, that is, it survived the mauling it would surely get in a Republican-controlled Senate.

"This isn't about any judgement anybody has about somebody's behaviour. This is about a diagnosis, a professional medical diagnosis," Pelosi said.

Of Trump specifically, she says: "Any of us who's under medication of that seriousness is in an altered state. He's bragged about the medication he's taken, there are articles by medical professionals saying this could have an impact on judgement."

"We're living in an age of a lot of chaos,” adds Raskin. 

“We need to create some constitutional and institutional foundations for dealing with the chaos. And our forebears who wrote the 25th Amendment gave us the fools we need to deal with these kinds of crisis.”

Whitmer hits back at Trump: 'A decent human being would pick up the phone and say, are you OK?’

Speaking to ABC this morning, the Michigan governor offered this brutal contrast of the two presidential candidates in the wake of her foiled kidnapping ordeal.

Trump second term would ‘shatter’ US democracy, warns retired general

A retired general who was held in Vietnam for seven years as a prisoner of war has said a second Donald Trump term in the White House poses a fundamental threat to American democracy.

Chuck Boyd, who earned four stars while serving in the United States Air Force, offered a scathing assessment of Mr Trump's tenure in the White House before doubling down on his support for Joe Biden.

"As I watched him over the years, my unease with his presidency has increased," Mr Boyd, a Republican, told NPR on Friday. "It increased to the point that I believe that our democracy will be in shatters by the time he has served two terms".

He added: "While I am reticent about getting involved in presidential politics by any military men, in this case, keeping out of the political process is something I don't feel like I can do."

Matt Mathers has more.

Trump says Nancy Pelosi’s Commission on Presidential Capacity aimed at Joe Biden

Pelosi today announce she would introduce a bill called “Commission on Presidential Capacity to Discharge the Powers and Duties of Office” to use the 25th Amendment to remove presidents if they’re not mentally and physically fit to hold office.

She said the bill was not intended to determine Trump’s fitness of office, saying “he will face the judgment of voters. But he shows the need to create a process for future presidents".

That was chum in the water for Trump, given that if he’s not the next president then Pelosi’s bill would first apply to Joe Biden.

Trump lashes out at ‘Never Trumper’ moderator of now-cancelled second debate

C’SPAN’s Steve Scully my be out of a gig if the second debate remains cancelled, but that didn’t stop Donald Trump from continuing his criticism of the former Biden intern.

The president’s comments today as Scully deleted a tweet asking short-lived White House communications spokesman Anthony Scaramucci for advice on whether he should “respond to Trump”.

In the now-deleted tweet, Scully said “@Sccaramucci should I respond to Trump”, to which Scaramucci responded: “Ignore. He’s having a hard enough time. Some more bad stuff about to go down.” 

The Commission on Presidential Debate co-chair, Frank Fahrenkoph, said it was a hack.

“He was hacked, it didn’t happen,” CPD Co-Chair Frank Fahrenkopf told Brian Kilmeade on “The Brian Kilmeade Show” Friday morning.

The Trump campaign has used Scully’s previous employment history to claim he is bias against the president, saying the C-SPAN anchor interned for Joe Biden in 1970s and worked in the office of Ted Kennedy.

Scully has also tweeted “Gotta love the @VP at the Biden Beach Bash ’16, while also tweeting “no, not Trump, not ever, in a signal boost of a New York Times Op-Ed similarly titled “No, Not Trump, Not Ever”, also in 2016.

BREAKING: Trump benefited from ‘highly unusual’ $21m windfall from Vegas hotel in 2016, NYT claims

Donald Trump’s tax records show more than $21m in highly unusual payments from the Las Vegas hotel he owns with Phil Ruffin was routed through other Trump companies and then paid out in cash, The New York Times reports.

The sudden windfall in 2016 came as Trump’s presidential campaign was short on funds. Tax records seen by The Times do not specify what the payments were used for, but they do show they flowed through to Trump himself.

Oliver O’Connell is following this developing story.

Trump hails coronavirus 'cure,' saying it would have taken another year if he hadn't been infected

Donald Trump on Friday claimed the coronavirus medication cocktail he was given is a “cure,” hailing his infection as something of a miracle that will help people get over the sometimes-deadly virus “immediately” – but one that would not have been available for a year without his sickness.

“People are going to get immediately better, like I did," the president said on what might be the final day of his shorter-than-normal Covid convalescence, hailing  Regeneron Pharmaceuticals' antibody cocktail as the drug that he pushed to get at Walter Reed military hospital last weekend as the medication that could save “hundreds of thousands” of Americans’ lives.

“A day later, I was fine,” Mr Trump said, claiming he felt better on Sunday despite his military doctor and White House aides as late in the week as Monday saying he was not yet out of the woods.

John T Bennett has more.