Axios

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris both warned Americans this holiday weekend to be skeptical of anything Trump says about a potential coronavirus vaccine, saying they’ll take their cues from scientists and not the president.

Why it matters: The Democratic ticket is trying to strike the right balance — they want to warn that Trump may be making premature claims for political gain, but they don’t want t0 dissuade Americans from actually using a vaccine once one is safe and available.

If mail-in ballots are rejected in the 2020 election at the same level as this year's primaries, "up to three times as many voters in November could be disenfranchised" in battleground states compared to the 2016 election, AP reports.

Why it matters: Americans are expected to vote by mail in record numbers in November due to the coronavirus pandemic.

President Trump told reporters at a Labor Day briefing on Monday that he is "taking the high road" by not meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other top Democrats to negotiate the next coronavirus stimulus package.

Why it matters: Unemployment benefits have expired for millions of Americans, but House Democrats and the White House are no closer to a deal — while nearly one in eight households are struggling to get enough to eat.

Sen. Kamala Harris spoke with Jacob Blake by phone during a private meeting with his family and legal team in Milwaukee, per a campaign official, four days after Joe Biden met with them in the wake of Blake’s shooting by Kenosha police. 

Driving the news: This is Harris’ first visit to a battleground state since being named Biden’s running mate. She's also meeting with local labor leaders and business owners to discuss workers’ rights, the economy and systemic racism. 

Money concerns are very real for President Trump's campaign — an unusual predicament for a sitting president, and one that worries veteran Republican operatives, with Trump so far behind in swing states as the race climaxes.

Why it matters: The campaign's view is that Trump will get his message out, and he depends less on paid media than normal politicians. But the number of states Trump has to worry about has actually grown, and Joe Biden's massive August fundraising haul has given his campaign a lift as early voting begins.

The collision of three unprecedented events — the pandemic, its economic toll and an uprising against racial injustice — is causing an extraordinary level of angst among workers.

Why it matters: High anxiety levels are touching employees in nearly every industry — as measured by the Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus Index and other polls — and labor unrest could be bubbling beneath the surface.

Lovely Warren, mayor of Rochester, New York, pledged reforms to the city's police as protests continued Sunday over the death of Daniel Prude, a Black man who was experiencing mental health issues when he was detained.

Driving the news: Prude died seven days after being hooded and held down by Rochester police. Police Chief La’Ron Singletary said at a news conference with Warren that he supported the changes and he was "dedicated to taking the necessary actions to prevent this from ever happening again."

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Sunday the United Kingdom will walk away from Brexit talks if no agreement is struck with the European Union by Oct. 15.

The big picture: The U.K. has five weeks to reach a deal with the EU, with negotiations due to resume in London on Tuesday. The threat comes as the U.K. plans legislation to "override" key aspects of the Brexit withdrawal agreement reached with the European Union — including on Northern Ireland, the Financial Times first reported Sunday.

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy is privately encouraging voting by mail and warned President Trump the party could be "screwed" by his fight against mail-in voting.

The big picture: "We could lose based on that," McCarthy (R-Calif.) told me at a diner in Salt Lake City last week, during a campaign swing that began in the Pacific Northwest. McCarthy said the party can't afford for Republicans to sit home, afraid of getting COVID-19, while Democrats flood the field with mail-in ballots.

President Trump is on the hunt for foreign policy wins he can showcase ahead of November's election — even if that means getting creative.

Why it matters: Trump's aides are working to recast him as "a true peacemaker," as national security adviser Robert O'Brien put it on Friday. “It’s happened in the Balkans, it’s happened in the Middle East, and we have more to come.”

As Congress remains deadlocked on new stimulus funding, Senate Republicans are preparing to pass their own slimmed-down version of a bill this week — without Democrats.

Why it matters: Several weeks have now passed since key relief programs from the CARES Act expired and millions of Americans continue to struggle under the enormous weight of the pandemic.

The aftermath of national protests around racial injustice is giving Republicans two strategic paths in their uphill fight to take back the majority in the House of Representatives — but those paths may be on a collision course.

The big picture: The GOP is leaning hard into courting women and people of color to be their candidates and to vote for them. They’re also running with Trump's law-and-order message to try to win back softening support with white, college-educated men. But it's hard to do both at the same time.

The Travis County Sheriff's Office in Austin, Texas, announced that no injuries or deaths resulted from five boats sinking at a Trump boat parade on Lake Travis on Saturday, and that there is "no evidence of foul play."

The big picture: The sheriff's office said it responded to 15 "distress calls" after waves generated by the large number of boats moving together caused several vessels to be swamped by water. Three of the boats that sank were towed out and two remain submerged.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie defended then-candidate Donald Trump's 2015 comments disparaging John McCain's service in the Vietnam War, telling CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday that the comments were made "in the heat of the campaign."

Flashback: Trump publicly rejected the notion that McCain, who was held as a prisoner of war for more than five years while serving in the Navy during the Vietnam War, was a war hero. “He’s not a war hero," Trump said. "He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured."

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) pushed back on Attorney General Bill Barr's assertion on CNN that there are not two systems of justice in America, arguing that he and President Trump "are spending full time in a different reality."

Why it matters: The question of whether there is "systemic racism" in policing and criminal justice is a clear, dividing line between Democrats and the Trump administration.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told "Fox News Sunday" that he thought the national debt, which reached a record $23 trillion at the end of 2019, was "very manageable" prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

Why it matters: President Trump promised during the 2016 campaign to reduce the national debt and eliminate it entirely within eight years. Last week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected that the debt will exceed 100% of GDP in 2021 and rise to 107% in 2023 — the highest in U.S. history.

The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg told CNN's "Reliable Sources" on Sunday that he expects "more confirmation and new pieces of information" to come out in the coming days and weeks that will corroborate his story about alleged incendiary comments President Trump made about the military.

The big picture: Reporters from the AP, Washington Post and Fox News are among those who have confirmed aspects of Goldberg's story, which has been vehemently denied by the White House. The story alleges, among other things, that Trump attacked the intelligence of soldiers who died in war, calling them "suckers" and "losers."

In today's WashPost Outlook section, Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown law professor and co-founder of the Transition Integrity Project, tells the inside story of post-election simulations that included veteran operatives from each party:

Never before has a sitting president been hit by so many blistering books, so many times, in a one-month period. 

Why it matters: President Trump's niece and his former fixer paint a devastating portrait of a corrupt, racist, dishonest commander in chief, just two months before the election. Michael Schmidt, a top N.Y. Times investigative reporter, begins with a quote from "King Lear" in his new book reporting that Trump's Russia ties have never been fully investigated.

Michigan may not have its final election results until the Friday following the election, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) told CNN's "Inside Politics" on Sunday.

Driving the news: It comes days after Josh Mendelsohn, the CEO of Democratic data and analytics firm Hawkfish, told "Axios on HBO" of a scenario in which President Trump will appear to have won — potentially in a landslide — on election night, even if he ultimately loses when all the votes are counted. 

Joe Biden's campaign is seizing on new accusations about President Trump insulting veterans, investing heavily in ads to sway voters around military bases in five swing states.

Driving the news: "Protect Our Troops," an ad that debuted earlier this year highlighting Biden's family connections to the U.S. military and plans to support troops, will relaunch this week as part of a $47 million ad buy across TV, digital and radio.

The White House dismissed claims by Michael Cohen that President Trump is "a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man" — noting Saturday that the president's former fixer is a convicted felon who lied to Congress, per CNN.

Driving the news: Cohen alleges in his tell-all book, "Disloyal," that Trump is "guilty of the same crimes" that saw the president's former personal attorney sentenced, notes AP, which obtained an advance copy of the memoir.

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden added former 2020 rival Pete Buttigieg, former National Security Adviser Susan Rice, other Obama administration officials, politicians and advisers to his transition team on Saturday.

The big picture: Many of the new appointees worked directly for Biden in the previous administration. Joining Ted Kaufman and Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.) as co-chairs if the former vice president is elected will be New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D), Biden campaign adviser Anita Dunn and former Obama economic adviser Jeffrey Zients.

Democratic vice presidential nominee Sen. Kamala Harris told CNN in an interview airing Sunday she "would not trust" President Trump "about the efficacy and the reliability" of a coronavirus vaccine if approved before November's election.

Driving the news: The CDC has requested governors "urgently" speed up their permit applications so vaccine distribution sites are operational by early November. The Trump administration has this week pushed back on questions of political interference in vaccine development.

Jacob Blake spoke from his hospital bed about being in constant pain after being shot multiple times by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in video shared by his attorney Ben Crump Saturday.

Details: In his first comments about his injuries since being left paralyzed by the waist down, Blake said, "I got staples in my back, staples in my damn stomach. ... Every twenty-four hours it's pain, nothing but pain.

Protesters in Portland, Oregon, are marking 100 days of demonstrations against police brutality and systemic racism with a series of events this holiday weekend amid a backdrop of unrest.

The big picture: Demonstrators are holding vigils and speeches, while supporters of President Trump plan another caravan rally, AP notes. Police declared an unlawful assembly and arrested 27 people over Friday night, but there were peaceful scenes Saturday as protesters held sit-ins, played music and "stenciled the names of 39 Black people" killed by police or racially motivated violence, the Oregonian reports. The protests began over the May death of George Floyd.

Officers responded to "multiple calls involving boats in distress during the Trump parade" on Lake Travis in Texas Saturday, Travis County Sheriff's Office said, adding, "Several boats did sink."

The big picture: A sheriff’s office spokesperson noted there were no adverse weather conditions and no foul play was suspected, but an investigation into the incident had begun, per AP. It was one of several boat rallies in the U.S. supporting President Trump Saturday. Chris Molla, who organized a New Jersey event supporting police officers, veterans and Trump, told Fox News they hoped to break the Guinness World Record for the largest boat parade.