US President Donald Trump has called his Democratic rival Joe Biden “incompetent,” rejecting polls which show the former vice president was leading in the race for the White House.

“I don’t believe the polls,” Trump told Reuters on Wednesday. “I believe the people of this country are smart. And I don’t think that they will put a man in who’s incompetent.”

“And I don’t mean incompetent because of a condition that he’s got now. I mean he’s incompetent for 30 years. Everything he ever did was bad. His foreign policy was a disaster,” he continued.

He also touched on Biden’s victory over Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary, saying the Vermont Senator should have won the race.

Trump placed the blame on Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) for Sander’s loss, saying she stayed in the race and prevented Sanders from forming a coalition that could defeat Biden.

“He (Biden) should never have won the primary, ever in a million years, because those votes were taken away. They were taken away from Bernie Sanders. And I think I’m going to get a lot of Bernie Sanders voters,” Trump said.

Trump to launch nationwide advertising blitz targeting Biden

Trump’s re-election campaign plans to roll out a new advertising blitz targeting Biden’s record on China in must-win states for the 2020 election.

The move is seen as part of a bid by the president to reverse a dangerous slide six months out from the election.

Last week, Trump’s political advisers told him about internal polling which showed the Republican president trailing Biden in battleground states.

The polling also indicated that an initial surge in support for Trump over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic has weakened.

This comes as Biden and his campaign have been unloading ads accusing Trump of weakness on China, where the coronavirus originally spread. They have also spoken during a series of local television interviews in swing states such as Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, criticizing the president for his mishandling of the virus crisis.

Speaking with Reuters, TJ Ducklo, Biden’s campaign spokesman, asked, “How does the Trump campaign defend the worst failure of presidential leadership in modern history that costs thousands of Americans their lives?”

The Trump campaign’s new video highlights the president’s decisions to ban most travel from China and Europe during the coronavirus outbreak, which has so far affected more than 1,089,000 and killed over 63,500 in the US.

The ad, seen by Reuters ahead of its release, also targets Biden for earlier remarks that travel restrictions were ineffective and for calling Trump “xenophobic” and “fear-mongering.”

Sex assault allegation poses challenge for Biden’s presidential campaign

Biden’s presidential campaign is currently grappling with sexual assault allegations against him after his former Senate staffer Tara Reade accused him of assaulting her in the basement of a Capitol Hill office building in the 1990s.

Although his campaign has denied the allegation first made more than a month ago, the story attracted fresh attention this week after two of Reade’s associates said she had previously told them about elements of her allegations.

The story also has fueled attacks by Republicans, who are concerned about Trump’s political standing, but now are taking advantage of the allegation, trying to depict Democrats as hypocrites who only defend women who allege wrongdoing against conservatives.

Meanwhile, top Democrats have come out in support of Biden against allegations, saying that women have the right to be heard but that they do not believe the allegations.

Two powerful Democratic women — Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), a former rival to Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination, and Stacey Abrams, a top candidate to be Biden’s running mate — have come to Biden’s defense.

“I know Joe Biden, and I think he’s telling the truth and this did not happen,” Abrams said on CNN.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has also backed Biden over the allegation, telling reporters that there was never any record of the assault.

“The happiest day for me this week was to support Joe Biden for President of the United States,” she said in her first in-person press conference at the Capitol in weeks.

Several other women accused Biden last year of inappropriate touching. Biden apologized to them, saying he would adjust his behavior.

Source: Presstv

US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday endorsed Joe Biden for president, joining a list of top Democrats, who have thrown their support behind the former vice president.

“Today I am proud to endorse Joe Biden for president of the United States because he will be an extraordinary president,” said Pelosi in the pre-recorded message.

Her endorsement of the Democratic presidential candidate follows that of US Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, former president Barack Obama and former vice president Al Gore, who all threw their weight behind Biden earlier this month.

In her video statement, Pelosi cited Biden’s experience in government, including his role in passing the Affordable Care Act, as evidence of his leadership qualities. She said Biden is well-positioned to lead the country amid the ongoing coronanvirus outbreak.

“As we face coronavirus, Joe has been a voice of reason and resilience, with a clear path to lead us out of this crisis,” Pelosi said in her endorsement.

A boost during pandemic campaign lull

The endorsement comes at an opportune time for Biden, who has struggled to maintain a high profile during the Covid-19 pandemic and sustain the momentum he had built up in his lightning-quick run toward becoming the Democratic nominee.

Besides current and past Democratic leaders, Biden has also won endorsements from some other key stakeholders such as Washington state Governor Jay Inslee, a prominent climate change campaigner, and the 400,000-member United Auto Workers union.

The endorsements have given Biden a series of headlines at a time when his campaign is effectively on hold due to the coronavirus outbreak, and when US President Donald Trump has dominated media attention with his combative White House briefings.

The Democrats are eager to project unity heading into the presidential race against Trump for the November 3 general elections.

In recent weeks, the more moderate Biden has made attempts to win the support of the liberal backers of Sanders and Warren.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP and REUTERS)

Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden has predicted that US President Donald Trump will try to postpone the country’s November election in an attempt to win.

“Mark my words, I think he is gonna try to kick back the election somehow, come up with some rationale why it can’t be held,” Biden said during an online fundraiser Thursday.

The 77-year-old former vice president said it is “the only way he thinks he can possibly win.”

Six months before US voters head to the polls, Trump’s mind is already in election mode.

But with a pandemic raging and job losses climbing to 26.4 million on Thursday, Trump’s path to victory may be harder than he anticipated.

Biden, highlighting Trump’s recent threat to veto emergency funding for the US Post Office, claimed it was an example of the president’s intention to “do all he can to make it very hard for people to vote.”

While mail-in voting and absentee ballots remain methods many say could help limit voters spreading coronavirus, Trump maintains they create the potential for fraud.

Meanwhile, dozens of US states have postponed their primary races, which will officially determine who will be the presidential nominee.

The 73-year-old Trump has been criticized for turning his daily White House coronavirus briefings into campaign events — rallying his base and taking swipes at his detractors such as Biden, who is sheltering at home.

“We have a sleepy guy in a basement of a house that the press is giving a free pass to, who doesn’t want to do debates because of COVID,” Trump said during the Thursday briefing.

Source: AFP

The US coronavirus crisis took a sharp political turn on Friday as President Donald Trump lashed out at four Democratic governors over their handling of the pandemic after having conceded that states bear ultimate control of restrictions to contain the outbreak.

The Republican president targeted three swing states critical to his re-election bid – Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia – where his conservative loyalists have mounted pressure campaigns challenging those governors’ stay-at-home orders.

Amplifying a theme that his supporters have trumpeted this week in street protests at the state capitals of Lansing, St. Paul, and Richmond, Trump issued a series of matching Twitter posts touting the slogans: “LIBERATE MICHIGAN!” “LIBERATE MINNESOTA!” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA!”

Michigan has become a particular focus of agitation to relax social-distancing rules that rank among the strictest in the nation after Governor Gretchen Whitmer, widely seen as a potential running mate for presumed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, extended them through the end of April.

Protesters defying the restrictions from the steps of the state Capitol on Wednesday shouted “lock her up,” a chant that was a staple of Trump’s campaign rallies and originally referred to his 2016 Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton.

‘When it’s safe’

Whitmer said on Friday she was hopeful her state, which suffered one of the country’s fastest-growing coronavirus infection rates, can begin to restart parts of its economy on May 1. But she urged doing so cautiously to avoid reigniting the outbreak just as it was being brought to heel.

Responding to Trump’s critique later in the day, Whitmer said Michigan will re-engage its economy when it’s safe, adding: “The last thing I want to do is to have a second wave here.”

Trump also took renewed aim at one of his favorite political foils, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, suggesting on Twitter that his state, the US epicenter of the outbreak, had asked for too much assistance that was never fully used.

At his daily news briefing, Cuomo shot back saying Trump should “maybe get up and go to work” instead of watching TV, and accused the president of favoring the airline industry and business cronies in a recent bailout package that left little for the states.

The flare-up in political sparring came as the number of known coronavirus infections in the United States surpassed 700,000, the most of any country. At the same time, the tally of lives lost from COVID-19, the highly contagious lung disease caused by the virus, has soared to more than 35,000. New York state accounts for nearly half those deaths.

While the death toll continued to climb, the rate of hospitalizations and other indicators have been leveling off, a sign that drastic social-distancing restrictions imposed in 42 of the 50 US states were working to curtail the outbreak.

Stay-at-home orders and the closure of non-essential businesses have also strangled US commerce, triggering millions of layoffs and forecasts that America is headed for its deepest recession since the economic collapse of the 1930s.

The result has been mounting pressure to ease the shutdowns, leading to clashes between Trump, who had touted the strength of the US economy as the best case for his re-election in November, and governors in hard-hit states who warned against lifting restrictions too quickly.

Trump, who played down the coronavirus threat in its early stages, had been pressing to restart idled businesses as soon as May 1, at first declaring “total” authority to do so and branding governors who resisted his approach, many of them Democrats, as “mutineers.”

State control and testing

In the end Trump acknowledged it was up to the governors to decide when and how to relax the restrictions they themselves had imposed since last month, presenting new federal guidelines on Thursday as recommendations.

While the guidelines call for a phased-in, science-based strategy in keeping with the advice of leading health experts, the plan hinges on widespread testing to gauge the scope of infections and how many people might have developed immunity to the virus.

At a White House briefing on Friday, Trump’s coronavirus task force members, through statements and graphics, pushed back against criticism from some governors and lawmakers that limited testing ability is impeding the country’s return to normalcy.

“We believe today that we have the capacity in the United States to do a sufficient amount of testing for states to move into phase one in the time and manner that they deem appropriate,” Vice President Mike Pence told reporters.

Cuomo argued earlier that the Trump administration was foisting responsibility for a massive testing program on the states without providing necessary financial resources.

“Is there any funding so I can do these things that you want us to do? No. That is passing the buck without passing the bucks,” Cuomo said.

Even as Cuomo was addressing reporters, Trump immediately took to Twitter in Washington to fire back, saying he “should spend more time ‘doing’ and less time ‘complaining.’”

Trump struck a more conciliatory tone during the White House briefing. Asked about criticism leveled at him earlier in the day by Washington state Governor Jay Inslee, a Democrat who accused Trump of “fomenting domestic rebellion” with his “LIBERATE” tweets, the president demurred.

Trump denied he was suggesting that Michigan, Minnesota and Virginia lift their stay-at-home orders altogether, but added, “I think elements of what they’ve done are too much.”

Of the protesters, Trump said, “These are people expressing their views.” He added, “They seem to be very responsible to me. … But they’ve been treated a little bit rough.”

(Source: Reuters)

Former President Barack Obama endorsed Joe Biden in a video on Tuesday, giving the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee a boost from the party’s biggest fundraiser and one of its most popular figures.

“I believe Joe has all the qualities we need in a president right now,” Obama said in a nearly 12- minute video, touting him as a “close friend” and lauding him for his perseverance and compassion.

Obama and Biden are close friends from their two terms in the White House, when Biden served as vice president. Biden leaned heavily on his affiliation with the former president throughout the Democratic primary, framing his pitch as an extension of Obama’s presidency. In recent weeks, he has told donors he’s been in touch with Obama about his vice-presidential pick.

The endorsement marks Obama’s return to presidential politics more than three years after leaving the White House. He rarely talks directly about his successor, President Donald Trump, and avoided intervening in the Democratic primary. The field at one point spanned nearly two dozen candidates and Obama offered private counsel to anyone who asked it, but but made no efforts to bolster an individual campaign — including Biden’s.

But Obama has been following the Democratic race closely from the sidelines and is eager to take a more active public role in the campaign. He’s expected to headline fundraisers for Biden and public events in key swing states, if those events can still be held given social distancing guidelines during the pandemic. An Obama adviser said the former president is taking his cues from Biden’s campaign on how he can be most useful as he eases back into a more overtly political role.

The endorsement comes a day after Bernie Sanders also backed Biden. The former vice president now has the support of all of his former Democratic primary rivals except for Elizabeth Warren. The Massachusetts senator is expected to formally throw her support behind Biden soon, according to a person familiar with her plans.

Two other prominent Democrats who have yet to formally endorse Biden are former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, the party’s 2016 nominee. Hillary Clinton has been in regular touch with Biden, including several times since Sanders dropped out of the race, according to an aide.

Obama has been an obvious shadow throughout the 2020 Democratic primary. Biden coined the “Obama-Biden administration” moniker when he’d talk about various accomplishments.

But he also tried to insist he was running as his own man, telling anyone who asked that he urged Obama not to endorse him out of the gate or even in the thick of the primary.

Obama’s tenure became a sort of punching bag for some presidential hopefuls in a primary fight that early on was defined by a debate over the need for generational and systemic change versus a return to normalcy after the Trump era.

Julian Castro, 45, pushed Biden repeatedly on whether he argued with Obama privately over deportations overseen by that administration. Pete Buttigieg, 38, and Beto O’Rourke, 47, subtly jabbed Biden – and by extension Obama — by suggesting the party shouldn’t “return to the past.” Sanders and Warren suggested that the 2010 Affordable Care Act hadn’t gone far enough.

But Biden was a staunch defender of the Affordable Care Act and on the trail, often referred to himself as an “Obama-Biden Democrat.” The former vice president called it “bizarre” for Democrats, even faintly, to attack Obama’s record.

The conversation around Obama’s presidency shifted as the primary wore on. By the time voting began, Buttigieg was almost explicitly comparing his youthful bid to Obama’s 2008 campaign and the progressives were framing their health-care proposals as a way to build on Obama’s legacy. Billionaire candidate Mike Bloomberg, meanwhile, featured Obama in his ubiquitous advertising effort, much to Biden’s chagrin.

“You’d think Mike was Barack’s vice president,” Biden once quipped to donors.

For his part, Biden leaned even more heavily into Obama as primary voting began. Aiming at Sanders, the self-described “democratic socialist,” and billionaire Bloomberg, who’d been elected New York City mayor as a Republican, Biden said in a Feb. 21 interview with The Associated Press that “they’re not bad folks. They’re just not Democrats.”

Campaigning before increasingly diverse audiences in Nevada and South Carolina, Biden ramped up his recollections of when Obama tapped him for the ticket in 2008. Biden recalled Inauguration Day 2009, waiting for the train in his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, “for a black man to pick me up … for the two of us to be sworn in as president and vice president of the United States.”

Often drawing nods and vocal affirmation from his audiences, Biden said he had thought of that day as a national victory over institutional racism. Now, in the Trump era, Biden calls that conclusion a mistake.

“I thought we could defeat hate,” he said, but, “it never goes away.“

On Feb. 29, Biden took the stage in South Carolina to celebrate a nearly 30-point victory that would propel him past Sanders and everyone.

He dusted off a line he’d used many times before: “I’m a proud Obama-Biden Democrat,” Biden said.

Obama was watching. His sideline approach nearing its end, he called his former vice president that night to congratulate him on his victory.

(AP)

The resignations of US President Donald Trump’s chief spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham and Acting US Navy Secretary Thomas Modly show absolute dysfunction in the White House, according to Myles Hoenig, an American political analyst and activist.

Hoenig, a former Green Party candidate for Congress, made the remarks in an interview with Press TV on Thursday after Grisham stepped down Tuesday and the US Navy chief offered to resign in the wake of an aircraft carrier coronavirus crisis.

Modly’s trip last weekend to address sailors aboard the COVID-19-stricken USS Theodore Roosevelt cost taxpayers more than $243,000, according to a Navy official.

In a speech to the sailors, Modly branded the fired captain of the ship as “naive” and “stupid” for seeking aid, causing his resignation Tuesday.

“When Donald Trump was running for president he promised to hire only the best. Maybe he saw himself as the reincarnation of John Kennedy with a cabinet of the ‘best and the brightest’ but like that previous administration, this term referred to the utter failure of its foreign policy regarding Vietnam,” Hoenig told Press TV.

“For Trump, it relates more to the idea of dumb and dumber when it comes to his choice of advisors, personnel picks, and overall policies. The latest resignations of Acting Navy Secretary Modly, followed by press secretary Grisham shows more than just looking for the best to represent the administration, but shows absolute dysfunction in the White House,” he said.

“Rarely has there been a near mutiny on board a US Naval ship which caused the ranking civilian close to the President to step down. Secretary Modly relieved of his command Captain Crozier for publicly highlighting a critical medical problem on board in order to get the attention of much higher ups. Modly, in talking with the naval personnel on board called him stupid and naïve. This didn’t go well and he was cursed at by many of the sailors. Discipline and decorum flew out the window, or porthole,” he added.

“On the political side the resignation of Stephanie Grisham, who never held a press briefing, only showed that in all policies it is President Trump who leads the way and is leading the way towards utter confusion, chaos, misinformation, and ridiculous conspiracy theories coming from the White House. On the Corona virus he’s not a doctor but plays one on TV, often offering to his supporters medical advice that contravenes the wisdom of the medical profession. But like everything else, it isn’t just that he thinks he is smarter than anyone in the room, as he so often states, but he has financial interests in the quackery that he’s promoting,” he noted.

“Overall, these two most recent resignation serve as a metaphor for a collapse of societal norms and capitalist dysfunction, not at all started by Trump, but certainly exaggerated by him. Overt racism, homophobia, misogyny, failure to accept responsibility, conspiracy theories, saving the very wealthy over the needs of everyday people, long preceded Trump but are all the hallmark of the Trump administration,” he concluded.

Source: Presstv

Leading US Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has ended his presidential campaign, paving the way for his rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, to win the Democratic presidential race.

This is Sanders’ second failed attempt to grab the Democratic party’s nomination after he fell short of defeating former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2016 primaries.

“The path toward victory is virtually impossible,” Sanders said in a livestreamed speech to supporters from his hometown of Burlington, Vermont, on Wednesday.

“I have concluded that this battle for the Democratic nomination will not be successful. And so today, I am announcing the suspension of my campaign,” the 78-year-old US senator added.

Sanders’ exit comes after a series of losses to Biden, beginning in South Carolina in late February and continuing with losses in crucial states like Michigan and Florida last month.

Source: Presstv

Joe Biden took a vice-like grip on the Democratic nomination race Tuesday with big primary wins in Michigan and other states confirming his growing advantage over leftist Bernie Sanders in the contest to take on President Donald Trump.

First US networks projected a huge victory in Mississippi for Biden, reflecting his popularity among strategically vital African American voters. Then came Missouri and, biggest of all, Michigan — one of the industrial Midwestern giants due to be a key battleground in the general election.

“Thank you Michigan!” tweeted Biden, still waiting for results from three more states holding primaries before the night was over.

Barring major surprises, Biden now eyes a strong path to becoming the Democrats’ candidate in the bruising and deeply divisive November polls.

But if the veteran centrist and former vice president under Barack Obama might increasingly shift focus on trying to make Trump a one-term president, Sanders’ next step remains a big question.

Will he fight on to the bitter end, as he did four years ago against the eventual nominee Hillary Clinton? Or will he bow out early?

Many Democrats blame the uncompromising, self-declared democratic socialist for subjecting Clinton to friendly fire just as she was struggling — ultimately unsuccessfully — against the Trump insurgency.

Adding to nerves in a country on edge after three tumultuous years under Trump, fears of the coronavirus epidemic prompted both campaigns to cancel election-night rallies.

Organizers of a live television debate scheduled Sunday, pitting the fiery Sanders and the moderate Biden, likewise said they would take the extraordinary step of not allowing the usual live audience.

‘Powerful’ coalition

For Biden, Tuesday’s six-state contest, coming a week after his surprise comeback in voting on Super Tuesday, demonstrated that his once shambolic campaign is in rude health and now ready to face Trump.

Michigan in particular — an industrial giant that Trump won in an upset in 2016 — was targeted by Biden as a place to put down a marker ahead of the November election.

Sanders accused Biden of selling out to corporate interests and ignoring a passionate leftist base.

But the former vice president has insisted on steering a centrist line that he says can bring the divided country back together, and it appears to have paid off.

Banking on his credibility as Obama’s vice president, he has managed to get out an enthusiastic black vote.

But with stories of a hard-knock childhood in Pennsylvania and Delaware frequently featuring in his speeches, Biden also wants to recapture the blue collar white voters that Trump successfully poached from the Democrats in 2016.

“Biden is putting together the traditional Democratic coalition, and that’s still a very powerful one,” said Julian Zelizer, a professor of political history at Princeton University and media pundit.

Early Tuesday, Biden began his final push by meeting workers at an under-construction automobile plant in Detroit, where he received cheers but also was confronted by one worker.

In a startling exchange, the worker, wearing a construction helmet and reflective vest, accused Biden of seeking to take away Americans’ firearms.

“You’re full of shit,” an angry Biden shot back, insisting that he supports the constitutional right to bear arms.

“I’m not taking your gun away,” he said in the encounter, which Trump supporters quickly pointed to as evidence of Biden’s inability to stand pressure — but supporters saw as a show of mettle.

“Gimme a break, man,” Biden added.

Coronavirus fears

Voters came out under the growing shadow of the global coronavirus epidemic, which has infected over 900 people across the United States and killed 28.

Sanders and Biden called off customary election-night rallies — both planned in Cleveland, part of another Rust Belt state, Ohio, which votes next week — in line with public health warnings from state officials.

Their precaution is at odds with Trump, who has vowed to keep holding his campaign’s sometimes raucous rallies despite the concerns.

Washington state, which has borne the brunt of the crisis and also was going to the polls Tuesday, votes entirely by mail — an option some experts say should become more widespread as the epidemic grows.

Idaho and North Dakota were also voting.

‘Get 45 out’

Artist and designer Cecilia Covington, 61, was the first person to vote in Precinct 123 in downtown Detroit, braving the drizzle as she arrived at Chrysler Elementary School to vote for Biden.

“When he wasn’t doing well in the polls I was really concerned,” she said, adding that his stunning comeback on Super Tuesday “put my confidence back.”

“We’ve got to get ’45’ out of office,” she said, referring to the current president.

On Super Tuesday, Biden won 10 out of 14 states that voted, giving him a healthy lead even before the latest round of primaries.

(Source: AFP)

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday backed a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow him to seek re-election after his current term ends in 2024, ending uncertainty about his future.

Putin gave his support to the amendment put forward by lawmaker Valentina Tereshkova, who as a Soviet cosmonaut in 1963 became the first woman to fly to space. She proposed either scrapping Russian’s two-term limit for presidents or resetting the clock so Putin’s four terms wouldn’t count.

Lawmakers in the Kremlin-controlled State Duma quickly endorsed Tereshkova’s proposal, along with a sweeping set of constitutional changes proposed by Putin.

In a speech to lawmakers Tuesday, Putin spoke against scrapping presidential term limits altogether but backed the idea that if the constitution is revised, the two-term limit only would apply from 2024 on. The president’s current six-year term expires in 2024.

Putin, 67, has been in power for more than 20 years, becoming Russia’s longest-serving leader since Soviet dictator Josef Stalin. After serving two presidential terms in 2000-2008, he shifted to the Russian prime minister’s office while protege Dmitry Medvedev served as a placeholder president.

Putin reclaimed the presidency in 2012 and won another term in 2018.

A series of constitutional amendments Putin proposed in January were widely seen by Kremlin foes as part of his efforts to stay in power. However, it wasn’t clear until Tuesday how Putin could achieve that goal.

Observers had speculated that Putin could use the changes to scrap term limits; move into the prime minister’s seat with strengthened powers; or continue calling the shots as the head of the State Council.

He rejected all those options and finally revealed his cards Tuesday after Tereshkova, a legendary figure widely revered for her pioneering space flight, offered her ideas.

“I propose to either lift the presidential term limit or add a clause that after the revised constitution enters force, the incumbent president, just like any other citizen, has the right to seek the presidency,” she said to a raucous applause.

After Tereshkova spoke, Putin quickly came to parliament to address lawmakers.

He said he was aware of public calls for him to stay on as preisdent and emphasized that Russia needs stability above all.

“The president is a guarantor of security of our state, its internal stability and evolutionary development,” Putin said. “We have had enough revolutions.”

However, he said that since the constitution is a long-term document, scrapping the term limit wasn’t a good idea.

Then he dropped the bombshell, saying he positively viewed Tereshkova’s alternate proposal to restart the term count when the revamped constitution enters force.

“As for the proposal to lift restrictions for any person, including the incumbent, to allow running in elections, this option is possible,” Putin said.

He added that the Constitutional Court would need to judge if the move would be legal, although the court’s assent is all but guaranteed.

Putin’s statement came as lawmakers were considering the amendments in a crucial second reading when changes in the document are made.

The Kremlin-controlled lower house, the State Duma, quickly endorsed the proposed amendments by a 382-0 vote with 44 abstentions. A vote on a third reading will be a quick formality. A nationwide vote on the proposed amendments is set for April 22.

Source: AP

US Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, surging in the polls and with several weighty endorsements in his pocket, and rival Bernie Sanders hit the campaign trail in Michigan on Monday on the eve of a primary vote in the key battleground state.

Biden, 77, was joined at an event in Flint, Michigan, by Cory Booker just hours after the New Jersey senator and one-time presidential hopeful announced he was throwing his support behind the former vice president.

“This could be the turning point not just of a primary campaign,” Booker said. “This could be the day we turned a whole nation around.”

Michigan is the biggest prize of six states that hold primaries on Tuesday to decide on a Democratic candidate to face Republican incumbent Donald Trump in November.

Speaking at the event with Booker in Flint, Biden said Michigan “is an important contest not just for the Democratic primary.

“The outcome of Michigan in November may determine who the next president of the United States is going to be,” he said.

“We’re not looking for a revolution,” Biden said in a jab at Sanders, the 78-year-old senator from Vermont who is a self-described democratic socialist.

“What we ought to be able to do is trust the water that comes out of the pipes,” Biden said in a reference to a drinking water pollution crisis gripping Flint for the past six years.

Sanders was campaigning in Detroit, Michigan, on Monday and held a roundtable with experts on the coronavirus, which has left at least 26 people dead in the United States and sent stock markets plunging.

Sanders criticized Trump’s handling of the crisis.

“Donald Trump does not have a natural ability to understand the coronavirus and his reckless statements are confusing people in this country and all over the world,” Sanders said.

Booker, the charismatic former mayor of Newark who dropped out of the race in January, is the latest prominent African-American politician to back Biden’s bid for the White House, his third following unsuccessful runs in 1988 and 2008.

California Senator Kamala Harris, who ended her campaign for the nomination in December, also endorsed Biden, who served for eight years as vice president to Barack Obama, America’s first black president, as did another also-ran, former Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick.

Booker and Harris, both touted as possible vice presidential picks for Biden, were to join him for a “Get Out the Vote” rally in Detroit on Monday evening.

Biden leads in polls 

Biden has surged since scoring a decisive victory in the South Carolina primary on February 29, with endorsements from key African-American leaders helping him claim the frontrunner mantle in the race.

Former Democratic candidates Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Michael Bloomberg and Beto O’Rourke have also swung behind Biden, seeing a moderate as having the best chance of defeating Trump.

Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, who dropped out of the race last week and has a sizeable following on the left, has yet to decide whether to endorse Biden or Sanders.

Tuesday’s primaries will be the first one-on-one duel between Biden and Sanders since all the other major candidates dropped out of the grueling nomination battle that began more than a year ago.

Besides Michigan, Democrats will also be voting in Idaho, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota and Washington.

Michigan is shaping up as a must win for Sanders, who narrowly won the state over Hillary Clinton during his failed 2016 bid for the Democratic nomination.

The latest polls for Michigan, however, have Biden with a lead of between 15 and 20 points.

The latest Missouri poll has Biden up there by nearly 19 points while he leads Sanders by a narrow two-point margin in Washington.

Sanders, desperate to reboot his campaign after losing 10 of the 14 states which voted on Super Tuesday last week, cancelled plans to speak in Mississippi, Missouri and Illinois in order to focus on Michigan.

Sanders gained the endorsement of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson on Sunday.

Jackson endorsed Sanders at a rally on Sunday in Grand Rapids, Michigan, repaying the Vermont senator for having supported his 1988 bid for the White House.

“I stand with Bernie Sanders today because he stood with me,” Jackson said. “I stand with him because he stands with you.”

Biden’s Super Tuesday surge brought an influx of donations — $22 million in the past few days, his campaign said in a statement Sunday.

It said $12 million would be spent on hiring new staff and launching a major media campaign in battleground states.

(AFP)