Voters in North Carolina become first in nation to receive mail-in ballots
Mail-in voting kicked off in the key swing state of North Carolina on Friday, with a record 600,000 absentee ballots sent out. By comparison, at this time in 2016, a little more than 37,500 voters had asked for mail-in ballots.
This comes as a new Monmouth poll finds one in four North Carolina voters saying they're at least somewhat likely to cast their ballot by mail this year. This included 41% Democrats, 27% independents and 13% Republicans.
President Trump has consistently attacked voting by mail, but this week he's urged supporters who do vote by mail to also go to the polls in person.
"Send in your early ballot, and then go and make sure that ballot is tabulated or counted," Mr. Trump said on Thursday. "And if it's not counted, vote."
"How many times does this president have to suggest things and say things where you all don't just write he's a fraud?" former Vice President Joe Biden asked.
Following a report in "The Atlantic" which alleged the president privately referred to fallen American troops as "suckers" and "losers," on Friday, a visibly angry Biden condemned Mr. Trump's alleged insults.
"If these statements are true, the president should humbly apologize to every Gold Star mother and father and every Blue Star family that he's denigrated and insulted," Biden said. "Who the heck does he think he is?
Biden himself never served in uniform, but his late son, Beau, did.
"When my son volunteered and joined the United States military as the attorney general and went to Iraq for a year, he wasn't a sucker," Biden said. "The servicemen and women he served with, particularly those who did not come home, were not losers."
Biden originally planned to speak about the economy but said the president's remarks made him the closest he's come to losing his temper on the campaign trail.
"There are probably a lot of people out there who are supporting you who are inclined to not vote for the president who would say, 'Why isn't Joe Biden angrier about all this?'" CBS News asked.
"Getting down in the gutter like the president does, saying things that I'd be inclined if we were behind a barn somewhere, would be a different thing. But that's not the job of a president," Biden responded.
On Friday evening, the president said the report is a "hoax" and called Americans in uniform "heroes."
"It was a terrible thing that somebody could say the kind of things, especially to me because I've done more for the military than almost anybody else," Mr. Trump said.