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Capital Journal |
Good morning from the WSJ Washington bureau. |
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Trump's Day: President Trump and first lady Melania Trump pay their respects to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at the Supreme Court. Later, Mr. Trump delivers remarks in North Carolina and Florida. Louisville: Two Louisville police officers were shot during protests after a grand jury decision in the Breonna Taylor case. The grand jury indicted one of the officers involved in Ms. Taylor’s fatal shooting on charges related to endangering her neighbors, Kentucky’s attorney general said. TikTok: Chinese-owned TikTok Inc. asked a federal judge to stop the Trump administration from imposing a ban on the popular video-sharing app over national-security concerns. A hearing was set for this morning. |
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| ▶️ Video: Three days of remembrance began for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, as her casket arrived at the Supreme Court on Wednesday morning. Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP |
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Official commemorations for the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg began at the Supreme Court Wednesday, honoring the groundbreaking jurist and touching off an intense political clash over who will succeed her, report Kristina Peterson and Siobhan Hughes. U.S. Appeals Court Judge Amy Coney Barrett of the Seventh Circuit in Chicago is thought to be a leading contender, as is Judge Barbara Lagoa of the 11th Circuit in Atlanta, a Republican close to the process said. Senate Democrats have conceded they have few tools to slow a Republican push to confirm Mr. Trump’s expected nominee. |
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President Trump has seized on the vacancy to energize his supporters around a conservative priority, while his Democratic rival, Joe Biden, has focused more on Americans’ access to health care, report Catherine Lucey and Sabrina Siddiqui. |
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Mr. Trump on Wednesday predicted the outcome of the November election would be decided by the Supreme Court, and said that is one reason he wants to see a successor quickly fill the vacancy, Alex Leary and Alexa Corse report. “I think it’s very important that we have nine justices,” he said in remarks in which he asserted without providing evidence the idea that Democrats plan to use mail-in voting to tilt the election in their favor. |
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Judge Lagoa would bring an atypical background to the high court: The only child of Cuban exiles, she attended a public university and has limited experience in the federal court system. She has spent the bulk of her judicial career in Florida’s state courts. |
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Judge Barrett has a reputation for possessing a first-rate legal mind and solidly conservative views. She was a finalist when Mr. Trump chose Justice Kavanaugh in 2018 but had been on the appellate bench less than a year. |
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Republicans Fall in Line With Plan to Fill Supreme Court Seat Quickly |
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Republican senators have rallied behind President Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s plan to fill the Supreme Court vacancy before the election. Here are three reasons why they’re eager to move forward quickly. |
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| Photo: Michael Brochstein/ZUMA Wire |
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| Since joining the Democratic presidential ticket, Kamala Harris has held more than two dozen virtual fundraisers, including with many donors outside the entertainment industry. PHOTO: RICKY FITCHETT/ZUMA PRESS |
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Sen. Kamala Harris has helped Joe Biden land a surge of political donations since joining the Democratic ticket. She also brought along a loyal base in her home state’s star-studded sector: Hollywood, report Emily Glazer and Chad Day. |
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The Trump team is huntig for votes in person, while Biden's works the phones. Former field operatives extol in-person communications, but some voters don’t want to deal with door-knockers during the pandemic, Julie Bykowicz reports. |
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Why It’s Florida Week at the White House |
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President Trump has been dropping into battleground states with increasing frequency but the biggest one of them all — Florida — is getting outsize attention. Thursday evening, Mr. Trump will hold a rally in Jacksonville and on Friday in Miami he’ll have a discussion with Latinos. Expect him to tout his support for the Cuban American community — which he did during White House ceremony on Wednesday honoring veterans of the Bay of Pigs invasion. “Trump has gone through the roof with the poll numbers from Hispanics,” the president boasted on Wednesday. The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC poll shows him winning 26% of Latino voters to Democratic nominee Joe Biden's 62%, roughly in line with 2016 results. But 12% of Latino voters are undecided and Mr. Trump’s favorability has improved. In a state expected to deliver another close election, any votes that shift to the president could be vital. Polling in the state shows a tight contest between Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden. The Florida hits don’t end there. Mr. Trump’s advisers have let it be known that he is considering Judge Barbara Lagoa, the child of Cuban exiles, for the Supreme Court. That has sparked excitement in Florida, even if Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a member of the Chicago-based Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, is viewed as the favorite. Mr. Trump is using policy to attract attention in Florida as well. Last week, the administration said it was sending $11.6 billion in aid to Puerto Rico for the continued recovery from Hurricane Maria — a move widely interpreted as aimed at shoring up support among the sizable Puerto Rican community around Orlando. A week before that, Mr. Trump traveled to Florida’s east coast to declare an expansion of a ban on offshore oil drilling. Democrats howled about election politics, but Mr. Trump enjoyed ample news coverage. Members of Mr. Trump’s administration have also been dropping in on Florida. Ivanka Trump made Cuban bread at a bakery in Tampa last week and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross went to Tallahassee to deliver a $10.2 million business development grant. Florida is likely to continue to demand Mr. Trump’s attention. He won the state by 1.2 percentage points in 2016 and without a repeat, it will be very difficult for him to win re-election. Write to Alex Leary at alex.leary@wsj.com. |
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Latest Numbers 31,920,652 cases world-wide an 977,311 deaths. 6,935,414 cases in the U.S. and 201,920 deaths. Source: Johns Hopkins University, as of 8 a.m. ET. |
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Four leading government health officials told a Senate hearing Wednesday they wouldn’t hesitate to get a Covid-19 vaccine if one is cleared by the federal Food and Drug Administration, report Thomas M. Burton and Betsy McKay. In some states less than 1% of people have been infected, Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the CDC, told the panel. |
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Newly reported cases of Covid-19 in the U.S. were down slightly Wednesday from a day earlier. |
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Chad Wolf, who has overseen the Department of Homeland Security in an acting role, faced sharp questions at his Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday, Rachael Levy reports. He denied the whistleblower’s allegations that he and his deputy pressured him to modify assessments to bring them in line with the White House’s agenda. |
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Prosecutors moved to drop charges that a visiting Chinese scientist at the University of Virginia had stolen trade secrets, after the university acknowledged he was authorized to access some of the material, report Kate O’Keeffe and Aruna Viswanatha. |
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The government official who examined John Bolton's book described unusual White House intervention, saying administration lawyers pressed her to sign misleading statements about her review, reports Aruna Viswanatha. |
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Deadly violence in Afghanistan has marred the first-ever direct talks between Kabul and the Taliban, underscoring the high stakes as they struggle to get negotiations off the ground to end nearly two decades of fighting, Ehsanullah Amiri and Sune Engel Rasmussen report. |
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Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned about the dangers of Chinese political influence in the U.S. in a statehouse speech in Wisconsin on Wednesday, William Mauldin reports. |
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India's border conflict with China is pushing the country to flex its naval might as it deepens cooperation with other democracies that seek to counter Beijing’s ambitions, reports Yaroslav Trofimov. |
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The Securities and Exchange Commission raised the bar for investors to submit proposals for a vote at companies’ annual meetings, a win for executives who have bristled at shareholder efforts to influence policies on climate change and other issues, Paul Kiernan reports. |
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The SEC also approved amendments to the rules governing monetary awards made to whistleblowers who voluntarily report potential wrongdoing, Mengqi Sun reports. The regulator said the new rules would bring transparency to the award determination process. |
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Close students of elections and the law warn the conditions are right in this election for a constitutional crisis. (The Atlantic) After their questions about her religious beliefs generated controversy in an earlier confirmation hearing, Democrats are trying to figure out their strategy for questioning Amy Coney Barrett if she is nominated for the Supreme Court vacancy. (CNN) The Trump campaign has cancelled $4.5 million in ads in key states this week, suggesting more money troubles. (Bloomberg News) |
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This newsletter is a production of the WSJ Washington bureau. Our newsletter editors are Kate Milani, Troy McCullough, James Graff and Toula Vlahou. Send feedback to capitaljournal@wsj.com. You can follow politics coverage on our Politics page and at @wsjpolitics on Twitter. |
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