Week of first presidential debate begins: US election live news | US & Canada

• President Donald Trump on Monday will give remarks on the coronavirus testing strategy as he and challenger Joe Biden prepare for Tuesday’s debate.
• Senator Kamala Harris, the vice presidential candidate, is in North Carolina to address the Republican push to confirm a new Supreme Court justice.
• A report on Trump’s taxes may tarnish his image as a successful businessman.
• Jill Biden will visit Wisconsin, a battleground state that has received special attention from both candidates, with 36 days until November 3.

Hello and welcome to Al Jazeera’s continuing coverage of the US elections. This is Joseph Stepansky.

Here are the latest updates:

Monday, September 28:

11:30 ET – Trump former campaign manager hospitalised

President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale has been hospitalised after he threatened to harm himself, according to Florida police and campaign officials.

Police officers talked Parscale out of his Fort Lauderdale home after his wife called police to say that he had multiple firearms and was threatening to hurt himself when he was hospitalized Sunday under the state’s Baker Act. That act allows anyone deemed to be a threat to themselves or others to be detained for 72 hours for psychiatric evaluation.

“Brad Parscale is a member of our family and we love him,” said Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh. “We are ready to support him and his family in any way possible.”

Parscale was demoted from the campaign manager’s post in July but remained part of the campaign, helping run its digital operation. The demotion came after Parscale hyped a million ticket requests for the president’s comeback rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Just 6,000 people attended, reportedly drawing the president’s ire.

Parscale was demoted from the campaign manager position in July, but still helped to run the digital operation [Evan Vucci/the Associated Press]

11:00 ET – Former campaign official says Trump suggested daughter as running mate

Rick Gates, the former deputy campaign manager to Trump’s successful 2016 presidential bid, details in his new book how Trump suggested his daughter Ivanka be his vice president, according to the Washington Post.

“I think it should be Ivanka. What about Ivanka as my VP?” Trump asked a group of campaign aides during a June 2016 meeting. “She’s bright, she’s smart, she’s beautiful, and the people would love her!”

Gates book says that Trump repeated the idea for weeks, and his team conducted polls twice to see how it would play.

Then-candidate Trump ceased pushing the idea only after Ivanka herself intervened and said it was not a good idea, according to the new book, as reported by the newspaper.

Trump gives a thumbs up as his campaign manager Paul Manafort and daughter Ivanka look on during Trump”s walk through at the Republican National Convention in 2016 [File: Rick Wilking/Reuters]

10:30 ET – Trump says he paid ‘millions’ in taxes

Trump has said that he paid “many millions of dollars in taxes” but was entitled to depreciation and tax credits and also said he was under-leveraged, having more assets than debt.

The Republican president was responding to a New York Times report that he paid just $750 in federal income taxes in both 2016 and 2017, after years of reporting heavy losses from his business enterprises.

“I paid many millions of dollars in taxes but was entitled, like everyone else, to depreciation & tax credits,” he wrote on Twitter. “I am extremely under leveraged – I have very little debt compared to the value of assets.”

The Fake News Media, just like Election time 2016, is bringing up my Taxes & all sorts of other nonsense with illegally obtained information & only bad intent. I paid many millions of dollars in taxes but was entitled, like everyone else, to depreciation & tax credits…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 28, 2020

10:00 ET – Pelosi prepares Dems for possible House decision on election: Report

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been preparing Democrats for a scenario where neither Biden nor Trump wins an outright Electoral College victory in November, which would send the outcome of the election to the House of Representatives, according to a Politico report.

In the rare event that both candidates receive 269 Electoral College votes, each state delegation in the chamber would cast a single vote to determine the winner. While Democrats have a majority in the House, Republicans control 26 delegations, while Democrats control 22, according to Politico.

In a Sunday letter to House Democrats, Pelosi urged them to consider that the chamber might be pulled into deciding who is president as they determine where to focus resources on winning seats in November, according to the news site.

According to the constitution, the winner of the presidential election is not officially chosen until Congress certifies the Electoral College tally on January 6, after new members are sworn in. That means any changes in seat could affect the balance of state delegations per party.

09:30 ET – Supreme Court nominee Barrett readies on Capitol Hill meetings

Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, Amy Coney Barrett, will begin meeting with senators this week as Republicans push ahead with a rapid Senate confirmation process ahead of November’s presidential election over the objections of Democrats.

Trump on Saturday announced Barrett, 48, as his selection to replace liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on September 18 at the age of 87.  Barrett’s confirmation by the Senate would result in a 6-3 conservative majority on the court.

Barrett is set to start meeting with senators ahead of a multi-day confirmation hearing scheduled to begin on October 12, when she will face questions about her judicial philosophy and approach to the law.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, who chairs the committee, told Fox News on Sunday the panel will likely vote on the nomination on October 22, setting up a final vote on the Senate floor by the end of the month.

09:00 ET – Trump Jr says tax report paints ‘selective picture’

Trump’s son on Monday accused the New York Times of publishing a “selective picture” of his father’s taxes in its explosive investigative report.

“Of course the New York Times does this, they put out a selective picture of all of these things the day before the debate to try to give someone like Joe Biden an attack line,” Donald Trump Jr told Fox News, referring to the upcoming debate between the president and his Democratic rival on Tuesday.

The New York Times on Sunday reported Trump paid just $750 in federal income tax in both 2016 and 2017, and nothing at all in 10 of the 15 previous years largely because he lost so much more money than he made. The paper said it had acquired more than 20 years’ worth of tax documents.

“It doesn’t include so many of the things that he’s been paying taxes on forever as he’s also putting thousands and thousands of people to work on an annual basis,” Trump Jr said. “People don’t understand what goes into a business.”

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Read all the updates from Friday, (September 24) here.