Thread by @sahilkapur

Trump and Biden town halls begin

First few questions for Joe Biden are about Covid. He says he’d follow the science and doesn’t see a need to re-lock down the economy. On a vaccine, he says he won’t trust Trump because he says “crazy stuff” and that scientists don’t expect one imminently.

Second topic for Biden is taxes: He promises to preserve the Trump tax cuts for the middle class but to repeal the bulk of them that went to upper earners, even if the economy remains bad, so he can reinvest the money for relief and jobs.

PSA: Biden is not talking about QAnon.

Biden: "A guy named Arlen Specter, you may remember."

STEPHANOPOULOS: Was it a mistake to support (the crime bill)?

BIDEN: Yes, it was.

Joe Biden elaborated on the crime bill question, saying things have "changed drastically" since '94, noting that most Black leaders supported it at the time, pinning some of the blame on "what states did locally." But in the end he repeated: "But it was a mistake."

Joe Biden on Amy Coney Barrett: "My reading online — what the judge said was, she didn’t answer very many questions at all." (Fact check: True.)

Joe Biden just gave his most extensive remarks yet on restructuring the Supreme Court. Bottom line: Still not a fan of "court-packing," open to rule changes on life tenure, no commitment to any course of action, says a lot "depends" on how the Barrett nomination is handled.

Biden repeatedly calls the Green New Deal the "new green deal" and, asked if he still considers it a crucial framework, says: "My deal is a crucial framework."

Not a joke, folks: Biden says that once he's president he's gonna "pick up the phone" and calls Republicans "and say, let's get together."

He predicts that with Trump gone, "there's going to be, I promise you, between 4 and 8 Republican senators" willing to work with him.