Joe Biden is expected to announce his running mate within days, an event that could be about as normal as the 2020 campaign gets.<\/p>\n
Right Now<\/p>\n
President Trump said that he may give his nomination speech at Gettysburg, Pa.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n Image<\/span><\/p>\n Hillary Clinton will deliver a prime-time speech next Wednesday for the Democratic National Convention, part of a preliminary lineup of speakers for the truncated, mostly virtual four-night event, three Democratic officials with knowledge of the schedule said Monday.<\/p>\n Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., the presumptive presidential nominee, has said he will not travel to Milwaukee<\/a>, where the convention is nominally being held but has been scaled back to just a few hundred attendees<\/a>. He will speak from Delaware on Thursday, the final night of the convention, in a form and fashion yet to be announced.<\/p>\n Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts will join Mrs. Clinton, the 2016 nominee, on the Wednesday night program if she is not selected as Mr. Biden\u2019s running mate, according to the officials. Former President Bill Clinton will speak as well, one of the officials said.<\/p>\n Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and former Gov. John Kasich of Ohio, a Republican who is a harsh critic of President Trump, will deliver addresses Monday night, the officials said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Former President Barack Obama\u2019s time slot has not been announced (or leaked), but he could be included on a crammed Wednesday night program, or possibly introduce Mr. Biden on Thursday \u2014 to deliver a nationally televised rendition of the-Joe-I-know speech he has been giving during online Biden fund-raisers and round tables.<\/p>\n It is not clear when Michelle Obama, who delivered what was widely regarded as the best speech at the 2012 convention, will speak. But planners have privately said they believe her address could attract the widest viewership outside of Mr. Biden\u2019s.<\/p>\n Mrs. Obama has been spending much of her time in recent days working on her speech at her family\u2019s mansion on Martha\u2019s Vineyard, and has told friends that she views it as her major contribution to the 2020 race, according to two people with knowledge of her planning.<\/p>\n The big names will be augmented by testimonials from \u201cvoters of all kinds \u2014 delegates, parents, teachers, small-business owners, essential workers, activists and elected leaders,\u201d culled from \u201c1,000 crowdsourced videos,\u201d officials with the convention\u2019s organizing committee announced on Monday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The \u201cBig Three\u201d broadcast networks \u2014 ABC, CBS and NBC \u2014 plan to air an hour of the convention live each night, from 10 to 11 p.m. Eastern, according to network officials. Cable channels like CNN, Fox News and MSNBC will cover the full length of the nightly proceedings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Republican National Committee chairwoman, Ronna McDaniel, said on Monday that Mr. Trump had \u201cevery right\u201d to give his acceptance speech from the South Lawn of the White House \u2014 just a day after the president\u2019s chief of staff, Mark Meadows, suggested the speech be delivered from another ZIP code.<\/p>\n \u201cHere\u2019s my personal opinion: If Joe Biden can live in his basement, the president has every right to talk in front of his house, which is the White House,\u201d Ms. McDaniel said on \u201cFox & Friends\u201d<\/a> \u2014 a show Mr. Trump watches regularly.<\/p>\n \u201cOh, I\u2019m not going to go there yet,\u201d she added, when asked if any decision had been made. \u201cI think that\u2019s going to be up to the president to announce that.\u201d<\/p>\n On Sunday, Mr. Meadows, a former North Carolina congressman who frequently accused President Barack Obama of abusing his executive authority, expressed disapproval for the idea, which was widely panned by ethics experts.<\/p>\n \u201cThose decisions are still in flux, but I can tell you what I\u2019m advocating for is miles and miles away from here,\u201d Mr. Meadows said in an interview with Greta Van Susteren that aired Sunday morning<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mr. Meadows appeared to backtrack in a later interview with CNN<\/a> on Sunday, saying that the ceremonial East Wing of the White House would be an appropriate venue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Trump, who has obliterated the line between the political and the governmental in a series of Biden-bashing events on White House property, floated the idea of delivering his speech from the lawn after announcing he would not attend convention events in North Carolina or Florida<\/a>.<\/p>\n Federal employees are barred from politicking on government property by the Hatch Act; the president and vice president are exempted from those restrictions.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump, in a court filing seeking to block the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., from obtaining eight years of his tax returns, said Monday that the efforts amounted to illegal harassment<\/a>.<\/p>\n The argument came in response to a filing last week by Mr. Vance\u2019s office, which said prosecutors had a wide basis to subpoena financial documents. The office suggested it was investigating the president and his company for possible bank and insurance fraud<\/a>, a broader inquiry than prosecutors have acknowledged in the past.<\/p>\n In their new filing, Mr. Trump\u2019s lawyers wrote that even if Mr. Vance\u2019s office were conducting a sprawling inquiry into financial crimes, the subpoena was still too broad.<\/p>\n \u201cIf anything, it shows that the district attorney is still fishing for a way to justify his harassment of the president,\u201d Mr. Trump\u2019s lawyers wrote.<\/p>\n The filing was the latest salvo in Mr. Trump\u2019s nearly yearlong fight with Mr. Vance, a Democrat who last August subpoenaed Mr. Trump\u2019s accounting firm, Mazars USA, seeking eight years of his personal and business tax returns and other financial records<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Trump\u2019s lawyers noted that the subpoena \u201casks for every document and communication related to the president and his businesses over about the last decade.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Image<\/span><\/p>\n There are traditionally three hinge-point moments for presidential challengers: the selection of a running mate, the convention and the debates.<\/p>\n Of course, this is no traditional campaign.<\/p>\n But with the pandemic transforming the conventions from balloon-and-bunting extravaganzas to online events, and Mr. Trump<\/a>\u2019s demands for additional debates and specific moderators, Mr. Biden<\/a>\u2019s announcement this week of his running mate could be as close as the campaign gets to normal.<\/p>\n Mr. Biden\u2019s advisers say he has spoken with several of the leading candidates in recent days, and it has been confirmed that he met in person Aug. 2<\/a> with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan. We do not know how many face-to-face interviews Mr. Biden has conducted with potential running mates. A small number of women<\/a> remain under serious consideration.<\/p>\n Mr. Biden\u2019s vice-presidential rollout won\u2019t look much like past unveilings. With him and his campaign strictly adhering to social distancing guidelines, the former vice president is expected to appear publicly with his running mate by the end of the week \u2014 just not before the usual crowd of cheering supporters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n For a candidate who\u2019s leading but not enjoying a groundswell of enthusiasm, that means an event that looks much like his appearances since he claimed the nomination: carefully staged, produced for television and online consumption, and decaffeinated.<\/p>\n Democrats, of course, will take it, preferring a scripted and front-running Biden in these sober times to the alternative. But the vice-presidential reveal is just a trial run for next week. That\u2019s when the party will have to recreate an entire convention across four nights of prime-time with no live audience \u2014 to say nothing of balloons or bunting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Image<\/span><\/p>\n Immodest. Ambitious. Unlikable. These are the strangely enduring criticisms that travel with women in politics, no matter how many firsts keep adding up or how numerous their congressional numbers become, The Times\u2019s Jessica Bennett writes in a news analysis<\/a>.<\/p>\n And those words have reignited another debate about sexist double standards, as Mr. Biden inches closer to announcing his running mate.<\/p>\n When Stacey Abrams, the former Georgia legislator and the first Black woman in the country to be a major party\u2019s nominee for governor, stated bluntly in April that she \u201cwould be an excellent running mate<\/a>\u201d for Mr. Biden, she was criticized as being inadequately self-effacing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Senator Kamala Harris, one of three Black women considered a front-runner for that slot, has not said publicly that she wants the position. But she did of course run for president \u2014 causing at least one Democratic donor to remark that she had too much \u201cambition<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n She can also \u201crub people the wrong way,\u201d according to Ed Rendell<\/a>, the former Pennsylvania governor who is close with Mr. Biden. And she was viewed as insufficiently apologetic after she excoriated Mr. Biden on an early debate stage, questioning his policies on busing, with the nerve to later laugh it off as \u201cpolitics.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe had no remorse<\/a>,\u201d Chris Dodd, a longtime friend of Mr. Biden\u2019s<\/a> who is on his vice-presidential vetting panel, reportedly told donors<\/a>.<\/p>\n American politics may have moved beyond a time when a female candidate would be asked if she could bake a blueberry muffin (that was Geraldine Ferraro in 1984), but it hasn\u2019t moved that far.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Image<\/span><\/p>\n Attorney General William P. Barr, embracing dual roles of partisan warrior and the nation\u2019s top law enforcement official, on Sunday described demonstrators against police brutality as \u201cfascistic\u201d standard-bearers of a Democratic Party veering dangerously to the left.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Barr, who was present when federal officers tear-gassed peaceful demonstrators<\/a> near the White House in June, vowed to use the Justice Department to combat what he called \u201curban guerrilla warfare\u201d waged by protesters in Portland, Ore., and other cities, during an interview with the right-wing radio personality Mark Levin<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThey are a revolutionary group that is interested in some form of socialism, communism. They\u2019re essentially Bolsheviks. Their tactics are fascistic,\u201d Mr. Barr said when asked by Mr. Levin about Black Lives Matter protesters and demonstrators Mr. Levin described as \u201cantifa.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Barr has been a fierce defender of Mr. Trump throughout his tenure. But his comments to Mr. Levin were among his most pointed verbal attacks to date, blurring the distinction between mainstream Democratic leaders \u2014 who have expressed support for peaceful protest<\/a> \u2014 and the violent minority of demonstrators in Oregon and elsewhere.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump has seized on scenes of national unrest to build a law-and-order message for his re-election campaign, and on Monday he again called<\/a> for the National Guard to be sent to Portland. But the Trump administration\u2019s decision to dispatch militarized federal agents to the city last month drew criticism from state and city officials, who said the agents exceeded their authority and harmed peaceful protesters.<\/p>\n Mr. Biden said last month that the deployment of federal agents to an already volatile situation showed that Mr. Trump was \u201cdetermined to sow chaos and division. To make matters worse instead of better.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Barr on Sunday portrayed the protests, which erupted after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, as part of a long-term strategy to defeat Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were trying to impeach him from Day 1,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s the lust for power. And they weren\u2019t expecting Trump\u2019s victory. And it outrages them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Image<\/span><\/p>\n Alex Morse, the Democratic mayor of Holyoke, Mass., who is seeking to unseat the House Ways and Means Committee Chairman, Richard E. Neal, is remaining in the race despite allegations he misused his teaching position at the University of Massachusetts Amherst to have sex with students.<\/p>\n Mr. Morse, 31, admitted in a statement on Sunday<\/a> that he had engaged in \u201cconsensual relationships with other men, including students enrolled at local universities that I\u2019ve met using dating apps,\u201d but denied he had done anything inappropriate or unethical.<\/p>\n \u201cWhile I am confident that a full investigation into these matters will clear my name completely of any unethical conduct, I also recognize that some students felt uncomfortable with interactions they had with me,\u201d he wrote. \u201cI am sorry for that. This is unacceptable behavior for anyone with institutional power.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Morse, whose candidacy has been supported by progressive groups like Justice Democrats, faces Mr. Neal in a Sept. 1 primary.<\/p>\n His statement came after the school\u2019s student newspaper, The Massachusetts Daily Collegian, reported that the university was investigating claims, made in a letter from the College Democrats of Massachusetts, that Mr. Morse had abused \u201chis position of power for romantic or sexual gain.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Mr. Morse was hired as a political science lecturer in 2014 and last taught as an adjunct professor in an urban politics course last fall. He is not currently employed at the school, university officials have said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The allegations present a major challenge for a man widely seen as a rising star in local Democratic politics. Mr. Morse was elected mayor of Holyoke, a city of 40,000 near Springfield, nine years ago at the age of 22, becoming the city\u2019s first openly gay and youngest mayor.<\/p>\n Mr. Biden has been critical of Big Tech, admonishing Facebook<\/a> for mishandling misinformation and saying internet companies should lose a central legal protection<\/a>.<\/p>\n But his campaign has quietly welcomed onto its staff<\/a> and policy groups people who have worked with or for Silicon Valley giants, raising concerns among the industry\u2019s critics that the companies are seeking to co-opt a potential Biden administration.<\/p>\n One of Mr. Biden\u2019s closest aides joined the campaign from Apple, <\/strong>while others held senior roles at firms that consulted for major tech companies. And a nearly 700-person volunteer group advising the campaign, the Innovation Policy Committee, includes at least eight people who work for Facebook, Amazon, Google and Apple, according to documents reviewed by The New York Times. Other committee members have close ties to the companies, including economists and lawyers who have advised them, and officials at think tanks funded by them.<\/p>\n The group\u2019s members also include some prominent progressives arguing for stiffer regulation of tech. But the presence of the industry\u2019s allies inside Mr. Biden\u2019s policy apparatus and campaign and transition teams \u2014 and his campaign\u2019s effort to ensure the confidentiality of its policy process \u2014 has alarmed an increasingly influential coalition of liberals who say the tech titans stifle competition, disregard user privacy and fail to adequately police hate speech and disinformation.<\/p>\n They are hoping to dissuade Mr. Biden, who has not made tech issues a major focus of his campaign, from following the example of his former boss, Mr. Obama, whose embrace of tech companies<\/a> helped turn them into darlings in Washington.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Image<\/span><\/p>\n The three hosts of a new podcast, \u201cPod Is a Woman,\u201d said last week that their first choice for a guest on the first episode was Jill Biden.<\/p>\n \u201cJoe Biden was our backup,\u201d said one of the hosts, Johanna Maska.<\/p>\n The podcast, hosted by three women who worked in the Obama White House, debuted on Monday morning with discussions of current events, popular culture \u2014 and, of course, the 2020 presidential election.<\/p>\n On the episode, Dr. Biden rejected efforts to minimize or demean the decision by Mr. Biden to select a woman as his running mate.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a major job,\u201d Jill Biden said. \u201cThis woman is going to have to handle all kinds of problems and be a governing partner.\u201d<\/p>\n (The co-host Alejandra Campoverdi\u2019s effort to persuade Dr. Biden to reveal her husband\u2019s selection \u2014 \u201cDr. Biden, we\u2019re among friends right now, right?\u201d \u2014 was unsuccessful.)<\/p>\n An English professor at a community college, Dr. Biden said she hoped to teach part time, perhaps virtually, should she become first lady, and pledged that a Biden administration would make community college free.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cOne thing that will create equity in education is to make sure that we have universal prekindergarten,\u201d she said. \u201cSo that every 3- and 4-year-old starts at the same level \u2014 exact same level.\u201d<\/p>\n Along with Ms. Campoverdi, a former White House deputy director of Hispanic media, and Ms. Maska, who was the White House press advance director, \u201cPod Is A Woman\u201d is hosted by Darienne Page, President Barack Obama\u2019s director of veterans and military families outreach.<\/p>\n As podcasters who are friends from the Obama administration, they recall Crooked Media\u2019s stable of shows, including \u201cPod Save America.\u201d Theirs is another instance of the increasingly porous line between political operatives and media personalities.<\/p>\n Not that the three were conceiving their show so deliberatively. \u201cWe didn\u2019t say, \u2018OK, let\u2019s get a blonde and a brunette,\u2019\u201d Ms. Campoverdi said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t Noah\u2019s Ark this podcast.\u201d<\/p>\n Reporting was contributed by Alexander Burns, Jessica Bennett, Shane Goldmacher, Michael M. Grynbaum, Nicole Hong, Thomas Kaplan, Kate Kelly, Jonathan Martin, David McCabe, Ben Smith, Glenn Thrush, Marc Tracy, Kenneth P. Vogel and Benjamin Weiser.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n Updated Aug. 10, 2020<\/p>\n![\"Hillary](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2020\/08\/10\/business\/10elections-briefing-clinton\/merlin_170036250_f7e1f169-a7ab-497f-a4e7-3d1bb9203f64-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale\")
<\/img><\/picture><\/div>Democratic convention speakers will include the Clintons and Obamas, along with Sanders and Kasich.<\/h2>\n
Team Trump sends mixed messages on the president\u2019s idea of accepting the nomination at the White House.<\/h2>\n
Trump calls subpoena for his tax returns illegal \u2018harassment.\u2019<\/h2>\n
A traditionally huge moment in the race will unfold soon \u2014 but much differently.<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
With two men running for president, sexism shifts to the V.P. race.<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Barr says \u2018fascistic\u2019 protests are fueled by the left\u2019s \u2018lust for power.\u2019<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Massachusetts mayor stays in House race amid sexual misconduct investigation.<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Biden\u2019s campaign welcomes allies of Big Tech.<\/h2>\n
Jill Biden wants to keep teaching as first lady, she said on a new podcast with Obama administration alums.<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n<\/hr>\n\n
\n<\/hr>\n\n
\n<\/hr>\n