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Election 2020 live updates: Trump campaign website hacked

Former Vice President Joe Biden campaigned in Georgia on Tuesday, quoting President Franklin D. Roosevelet at a stop in Warm Springs:

"‘Today … we must cultivate the science of human relationships — the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together and work together in the same world at peace,’” Biden said. “To live together and work together. That’s how I see America. That’s how I see the presidency, and that’s how I see the future.”

Meanwhile, his former boss, President Barack Obama, accused President Donald Trump of whining at an Orlando, Florida, rally.

Florida and Georgia are just a few of the battleground areas the two sides are fighting for with exactly one week until Election Day Nov. 3. Trump has been on a Rust Belt swing as of late, with a focus on Pennsylvania, where Biden also visited yesterday. Trump campaigns in Michigan and Wisconsin today before heading to Nebraska.

Sen. Kamala Harris campaigns in Reno, Nevada, and Las Vegas Tuesday while Vice President Mike Pence gives speeches in South Carolina and North Carolina.

The latest:

📊 What the polls are saying: USA TODAY's average of averages showed Trump gained on Biden in nine of the 12 battleground states over the past week, though Biden still leads in 10 of those states.

📆 Seven days until Election Day, 85 days until Inauguration Day, 66 days left in 2020.

🗳️ Voting: See USA TODAY's Voter Guide for information on registering to vote, when your state begins voting and what the candidates think about the issues.

We will update this article throughout the day. You can follow all of USA TODAY's politics reporters on Twitter or subscribe to our daily On Politics newsletter.

Trump campaign website hacked

President Donald Trump’s campaign website was hacked Tuesday – a week before the election – an aide to the president's reelection confirmed.

“Earlier this evening, the Trump campaign website was defaced and we are working with law enforcement authorities to investigate the source of the attack,” Trump spokesman Tim Murtaugh said in statement.

Screen grabs of Trump’s site posted on social media showed a page that said the website had been “seized” and that it was “time to allow the world to know the truth.” The website was restored shortly after the attack, Murtaugh said.

The campaign said there was no exposure to sensitive data.

John Fritze

Trump claims the law requires a 'winner' on Election Day, which is not true

As part of his political war against mail-in voting, President Donald Trump suggested Tuesday the law requires naming a "winner" on Election Night, and forbids states from counting ballots for days and weeks afterward, but that is simply not the case.

"It would be very, very proper and very nice if a winner were declared on November 3rd, instead of counting ballots for two weeks, which is totally inappropriate and I don't believe that that's by our laws," Trump told reporters as he left the White House on a Midwest campaign trip.

In fact, the law allows states to count ballots for weeks and gives them a little more than a month to do so.

WHEN WILL WE KNOW? A look at possible scenarios for president

And states do not declare winners on Election Night; media organizations do so based on projections of votes cast while states tabulate ballots in processes that could indeed take days or weeks to complete.

The reasons include overseas ballots, military voting, and mail-in voting – and many states are expecting more mail-in votes this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

There's also the prospect of recounts, as happened in Florida in the 2000 presidential election.

There is also the possibility that one candidate could be "ahead" on Election Night, but fall behind and lose the state in the days after that after ballots legally submitted are counted.

The law provides for all this; states don't have to report official results until the Electoral College meets in December, and that is 41 days after Election Day.

So if the media doesn't call a state or an election right away, "that's not because of some nefarious plot," tweeted Steve Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas.

Responding to a Trump tweet that states "must have final total on November 3," Vladeck said: "It's simply because the results are sufficiently close in the right number of states that it isn't yet clear who won – and won't be until those states finish counting all legal ballots."

–David Jackson

Obama to Trump: 'You shouldn't brag that some of our greatest adversaries want you in office'

Former President Barack Obama rallied voters again in Florida with an acid mixture of criticism and ridicule of Trump.

"Our current president, he whines that '60 Minutes' is too tough,” Obama said of Trump’s interview that was broadcast Sunday. “You think he's gonna stand up to dictators? He thinks Lesley Stahl is a bully.”

Obama’s appearance in Orlando for Biden followed campaign visits Saturday to Miami and Wednesday to Philadelphia. Florida is a swing state that Trump won in 2016, and the corridor along Interstate 4 between Orlando and Tampa is the most fought-over part of the state.

OBAMA BLASTS TRUMP: Trump only out to benefit himself, Obama says in Philly

Obama made many of the same points criticizing Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the resulting economic collapse. But his sharpest commentary landed as humor, such as when Trump complains about the amount of news coverage about the number of deaths and cases of COVID-19.

"He's jealous of COVID's media coverage!" Obama said. "If he had been focused on COVID from the beginning, cases would not be reaching new record highs.”

Obama, the first Black president, also ridiculed Trump’s comment in the Thursday debate that he was the best president for Blacks since Abraham Lincoln, which drew boos from the crowd in 273 cars for the drive-in event.

"His son-in-law says Black folks have to want to be successful," Obama said of comments Monday on "Fox & Friends" by Jared Kushner, a senior White House aide and Trump’s son-in-law. "That's the problem. Who are these folks? What history books do they read? Who do they talk to?"

Obama said leaders of China, North Korea and Russia want Trump to remain in office.

“We know because you've been giving them whatever you want. Of course they want you to win,” Obama said. “That's not a good thing. You shouldn't brag that some of our greatest adversaries want you in office," he said. "Why are you bragging about that? It doesn't make any sense."

--Bart Jansen

Trump plays Electoral College defense

Trump aimed to appeal to three Midwestern states he carried in 2016 but now risks losing in this year's uphill contest with Biden.

Trump held rallies in Michigan and Wisconsin on Tuesday, he then travels to Omaha, Neb., to address a congressional district he won in 2016 to earn a single electoral vote. The Omaha event also figures to draw television coverage just across the border in western Iowa, another state Trump carried that now features a close race with Biden.

Speaking in rain-soaked Lansing, the state capital of Michigan, Trump predicted that a "red wave" would wash over Michigan and other states.

"You have to get out there and vote," Trump told backers at one point.

A week out from Election Day, and with more than 60 million early votes already cast, the Trump campaign is engaged in a state-by-state slog designed to make up ground and capture the 270 electoral votes necessary for re-election.

Biden and supporters said Trump is losing in the Midwest and elsewhere because of his policies, particularly his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As for places like Michigan and Wisconsin, Democratic National Committee spokesman Daniel Wessel said that "Trump failed to bring back factories, boost job growth, or deliver the manufacturing renaissance he promised, even before the pandemic hit."

TRUMP: Did he deliver on 2016 promises to Michigan?

"Now," he added, "millions are still out of work, the economic recovery is slowing, and coronavirus cases and deaths are once again surging across the Midwest. Voters know Trump has failed them."

– David Jackson

Ex-US attorneys appointed by GOP presidents endorse Biden

A group of former U.S. attorneys appointed by Republican presidents are endorsing Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden, citing what they described as politicization of the Justice Department under President Donald Trump.

"The president has clearly conveyed that he expects his Justice Department appointees and prosecutors to serve his personal and political interests in the handling of certain cases – such as the investigations into foreign election interference and the prosecution of his political associates – and has taken action against those who have stood up for the interests of justice," according to a statement from 20 U.S. attorneys who were appointed by Republican presidents, including George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon and Dwight Eisenhower.

– Kristine Phillips

DOJ can't represent Trump in E. Jean Carroll case

A federal judge Tuesday blocked the Justice Department's effort to intervene in a defamation case against President Donald Trump brought by E. Jean Carroll, who claimed the president disparaged her when he denied her claim that Trump raped her in the mid-1990s.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan rejected the government's central argument that Trump was acting in his official duties as president last year when he denied magazine writer Carroll's allegation that he had raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in New York City.

The Justice Department's intervention was seen as an effort to shield the president from the potentially damaging legal action in the midst of a re-election campaign. The judge's ruling effectively keeps Carroll's claim alive.

Nineteen women, including Carroll, have accused Trump of non-consensual sexual contact.

– Kevin Johnson

Trump holds late-night swearing-in for Amy Coney Barrett

President Donald Trump held a hasty swearing-in ceremony Monday night following the Senate's confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett.

Trump rushed back from the campaign trail in Pennsylvania for a ceremony on the South Lawn of the White House in the midst of a global pandemic.

The event took place near the Rose Garden, where a month earlier the federal appeals court judge from Indiana was introduced in a crowded setting that contributed to the spread of COVID-19, both at the White House and in the Senate.

Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, the longest-serving member of the current court, delivered the constitutional oath of office. Most of the assembled guests wore masks.

On Tuesday, Chief Justice John Roberts completes the process by delivering the judicial oath to the court's newest member.

– Richard Wolf and David Jackson

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Election 2020 live: Trump makes false statement about ballot counts