google has rejected accusations that it's breaking us competition rules, after the federal government filed a lawsuit against the company. washington says the tech giant has abused its market dominance by paying to ensure its search engine is installed as the default option on devices. nigerian soldiers have opened fire on anti—government protestors in the city of lagos. it comes after a second day of unrest. a witness said he'd counted around twenty bodies and at least fifty people who were injured. demonstrators have been calling for widespread reforms, but intially started protesting against the notorious police unit, known as sars. nasa says its osiris—rex space probe has touched down on the asteroid bennu. the mission of the probe is to collect a rare sample of dust, that could reveal how our sun and solar system came into being billions of years ago. now on bbc news... hardtalk.

welcome to hardtalk. i'm stephen sackur. in a few days‘ time, americans will give their verdict on president donald trump. do they want four more years of mr trump in the white house, or will they opt for the other septuagenarian, joe biden, wholly different in style and worldview? well, my guest is former republican congressman and loyal trump campaigner, jack kingston. the polls say trump is in big trouble. is there good reason to think they are wrong? theme music plays.

jack kingston in washington, dc, welcome to hardtalk. thank you, stephen. you are a loyal trump campaigner. it strikes me that, when you are in a position like yours, there is a fine line to tread between optimism and realism. in the spirit of realism can you acknowledge to me that the trump campaign is in deep trouble? well, i would say this, it is a tough competitive race but we know that last time, 2016, we went into election day having hardly won a single poll. i think something is going on in polls. i've read lots of them, not just for presidential races but for my own races and many other candidates‘ and they have been wrong many, many times. i am not saying they are not useful but they are not 100% reliable.

so as i look back at 2016 i think here we are again. but another thing, stephen, is if you look at where isjoe biden spending his time, and he is in the same states as we are — arizona, pennsylvania, north carolina, florida, ohio — the so—called swing states. if he had the double digit leads which some outlets are reporting that he has, he would not be going to those states, instead he would be going to another state he only had a single digit in, to try grow his lead, or great seats in the us senate and house. but he's not doing that. and so what i do believe is that our internal polls and their internal polls are telling them and us something a lot different than we read into the newspaper. i absolutely take the point that we cannot rely on polls, experience tells us that, but one thing that we see consistently in opinion surveys, including pew surveys that go far beyond the usual polling to survey many thousands of people at the same time, is that americans are deeply dissatisfied with donald trump's handling of the coronavirus crisis. would you at least

accept that? i think that they are but i think they are also looking on just frustration in the general that you have a new disease, a new virus that we're dealing with in real time and there have been mistakes. i mean, you look at the world health organization, which originally said that it was not transmitted human to human, and the who did not declare it a pandemic until late march — certainly a misstep. joe biden said that our travel ban from china was xenophobic, when president trump implemented it in january so and the other thing... hang on, hang on, mr kingston, joe biden has not been in power for the last eight months, donald trump has and, in the past eight months, there were some pretty stunning mistakes that donald trump has made. if one thinks about his decision — as he said it — to downplay the virus from the very beginning to the american public. he never levelled with the american people. he told them that facemasks were not necessary.

he refused a mask for an awful long time — that clearly was a huge mistake. and right now, seven or eight months after this disease hit the united states, we have 43 of your states where the levels of infection are still rising. that is shameful. you know what though is true, is that the death level has stabilised and that is very significant. we have far more capacity than we did in february and we have that because of donald trump. we went out and made sure we had plenty of ppes, plenty of hospital beds. donald trump sent ships, mercy ship, and the ship named comfort, to los angeles and new york city for access bed capacity, a private organisation set up beds in central park as temporary facilities. those were not used but it was the democrat mayor of new york, andrew cuomo, who sent healthy people to nursing homes and they were infecting people. something like 10,000—

50,000 people have died in a new york state nursing homes because of that stupid, incredibly dump move. also look at the state... mr kingston, obviously i am on the show to challenge you about donald trump, who is your man. we challenge democrats on their records but i need you to address donald trump's record. that is the point of this interview, and i want to ask you whether you think it is right that in a democracy, the democratically elected president deliberately and consciously chooses to mislead the american people from the very get go? i did not think he was misleading people at all. if you look at the panic level of people rushing out to buy toilet paper, we had shortages. we had shortages of paper towels. you could not get masks. the reason why we were trying to prioritise masks is so that people in healthcare, in hospitals and healthcare

facilities had masks, because the average person originally did not need a mask and that was part of the cdc and the who and everybody else. it was a big controversy about masks. but the reason why it is relevant about the democrats is that if donald trump is going to get the full blame, which is not accurate, but if he does have the blame for anything that goes wrong with coronavirus, we need to look at the american system which actually says the governors of the 50 states have huge authority in terms of the management of coronavirus. .. excuse me, but mr kingston, the point is, donald trump repeatedly undermined the authority of the states and their leadership, the governors, in particular, for example, back in april, he was screaming at states, like minnesota, to lift the very serious lockdown conditions they'd imposed on their people. you remember those tweets from donald trump, screaming out, "liberate minnesota". he was undermining the state democratically—elected officials.

i actually believe that the excessive crackdowns have led to problems in their own right. suicide and drug abuse and spouse abuse and depression because people have not been allowed to leave their houses and, in many cases, these people are young people, that are not the high vulnerable population. statistically, if we want to follow the science, we have t admit that the people who are 70 years old or older, particularly those with pre—existing illnesses, they are the most vulnerable and that is where we should be focusing, not young people who are very healthy. the thing that is so important is, under cdc guidelines, their only guidelines that local municipal health authorities still have the ultimate say so about schools and playgrounds and cafeterias and food distribution and so — i mean, it is nice during an election year to blame all the problems on one person — but it is a decentralised system and local authorities have had a major

role in the coronavirus response. one big issue in the campaign, clearly, is not just coronavirus, but it is the american healthcare system. it seems a very challenging environment for you republicans, and donald trump in particular, to go to the american people and say that you continue to want to completely undermine and repeal obama's affordable healthcare act and yet you still have no idea what you'd put in its place. is that a message that will resonate with the american people? i think it is because people know that the healthcare sector of the economy is huge and major and it does not lend itself to centralised planning. i look at your healthcare system — i got sick twice when i have been in the uk, and the last time i actually went to a private doctor because the hotel that i was staying in said, if you want to see a doctor today, you have to go to a private doctor, and i paid for it with my own mastercard and i was fortunate to be able to afford to do that.

here is a system totally outside of the government and it worked well — it worked well for me, so i have seen it. and that is what happens in countries with socialised medicine. but are you aware that between february and may, of this year, as the coronavirus really gripped the united states, 5 million people lost their health insurance because they lost their jobs and, according to the kaiser foundation, a non—party, highly respected medical research organisation, 80% of those people were still covered, still got healthcare because of the reforms in the affordable healthcare act, that is the link between coronavirus and healthcare and donald trump wants to destroy that. well, actually, the way they got their healthcare in the absence of employer—sponsored healthcare was through medicaid and that has always as been there for people who fall through the cracks financially, and what we do know as americans is that we

want to keep our own private healthcare. if we had that option, joe biden wants to take away the private healthcare of americans. we do not like that. we don't think there should be an insurance company or a government agency between our doctors and ourselves. whatjoe biden promises is that, with his extension of the affordable healthcare, he will ensure 97% of americans are covered, one way or another. he will take away my healthcare, i want to keep my own healthcare. now, someone who wants to depend on the government, they'll probably will have that option, they can go through a government exchange, if that is what they want, but personally speaking i do not think the government is very effective. one aspect of this domestic policy agenda that trump is fighting on is healthcare, another is the economy. and his message to the us people is i've delivered on the economy, i've truly made the american economy great again and he points to the stock market which albeit had a big dip because of coronavirus but it is still high — there's no doubt about that. but do you think that is really the measure that most american people care about, when the jobless rate in the united states has soared

over the last seven months? do you think they are all looking at the stock market and celebrating? i think they are looking at theirjobs more than the stock market, and the interesting thing is that the unemployment rate now is the same as it was when joe biden left office. so whenjoe biden talks about the recovery he brought, he had unemployment at the same level that we have, and unemployment right now is way too high. this is what it was during the malaise of the obama—biden years. we have to go back to 2019 when we had historically low unemployment rates for african americans, for hispanic americans, for women in the workplace, for younger people — people out making money and wages were going up. the v—shape recovery that we are having under donald trump right now is what's going to save america. 2021 is going to be a very, very strong year if donald trump is in the white house. i guess it depends whether the american public believe that. because they will remember his promises —

2016 he was promising the industrial mid west — michigan and other states, wisconsin — he promised them that they would once again be the manufacturing hub of the world. look at the recent reality. general motors, for example, recently announced another shutdown. in lordstown, ohio, they've got five other plants that they plan to shut down. this restoration, this magical reinvention of american manufacturing in those key swing states, it just has not happened. stephen, that sounds a little bit like what barack obama and hillary clinton and joe biden said in 2016, that it is never going to come back, we are never going to have manufacturing. yet what we found under donald trump, with tougher trade agreements and watching out for foreign companies dumping their products in america, manufacturing did come back... all the survey evidence across the mid west is that it hasn't come back. if you are look at the big data look for example at donald trump's promise

to completely rebalance the trading relationship with china because he said — and it's a nasty phrase but i'll use it — he said that the chinese "have been raping the us economy and us workers". look at the reality, the trade deficit with china, when he took office was $31 billion — guess what it is today? around $31 billion. he has not delivered on his economic promises. well, what do you think joe biden is going to do when his son is on the payroll of chinese companies? forgive me, i am not talking aboutjoe biden, i'm talking about donald trump. donald trump is the incumbent. donald trump is the guy with a record to run on and this is the record that we are discussing today. but we're also talking about the election and the choice americans have. donald trump, in the words of mike pence, at least has engaged in the economic war with china. donald trump has been out there fighting for tougher agreements, fighting against intellectual property theft, fighting against forced technology transfers, fighting against china using the sea lanes that belong to japan or international waters, he has fought against many other technologies

that china has been stealing from around the world. i think that is a good thing. what i would love to see is a more united coalition with european countries being part of this because i think together we can stand up to china but right now it is just very, very hard to go it alone but donald trump had to do that because the international community has not given him the support they should have and they know they want it by the way. i want to say this, as a member of congress for 22 years, democrats and republicans have been talking this game forever. donald trump finally did something about it. well, you keep telling me donald trump has delivered. and we've discussed it in the economy, we've discussed it in healthcare. how do you feel when donald trump just brazenly lies about his record? and i'm thinking, for example, how on the campaign trail over the last week or so he has been telling mass audiences that mexico has paid for the wall. that's not

true. i think there's a lot of hyperbole in that, stephen. and i'm not going to argue that. but i can say this, whenjoe biden says i'm for fracking, i'm against fracking, i'm forfracking, i'm against fracking, you can keep your own healthcare, no, we're going to take it away through socialised medicine, or i'm not going to tell you if i'm going to pack the supreme court or not, those are lies. when he says that he never had anything to do with his son's dealings with burisma, but now we know that there was a meeting in the white house about it — 100% lies. so, unfortunately, if you're looking for purity, you might find it in the pulpit, maybe not, you're not going to find it in politics. i'm not saying that's an excuse for it, but i'm saying part of this is a rough—and—tumble game where there's a lot of hyperbole. it sounds like you're to excuse donald trump's untruths and falsifications than many people who worked much more closely with him than you ever have are prepared to do. i'm thinking, for example of former defence secretary james mattis, who has accused trump of making a mockery of the us

constitution. i'm thinking ofjohn kelly, his former white house chief of staff, a guy he drafted in ‘cause trusted him so much, and kelly now says the depths of his dishonesty, that is trump's dishonesty, "are just astounding to me". these are guys who know trump very well, very personally, seen him in action, and they don't trust him one inch to represent america's best interests. but, stephen, everything you've said, quoting them, quoting them, and i'm sure you've quoted them accurately, they arejust opinions. if i say "that guy is a rascal," that's opinion. if i sayjoe biden came out against fracking, then he said he's for fracking, and then he says he's against it, that can be proven as a fact. those are statements he has made. but with respect, mr kingston... saying donald trump's a bad lie, that is an opinion. saying donald trump's a bad guy, that is an opinion. crosstalk. mr kingston, i think you're misunderstanding what a lie is. joe biden may flip—flop on issues, that's not the issue today, but flip—flopping isn't lying. donald trump has proven to be

a teller of untruths. and i can catalogue literally hundreds if not thousands of them. but it doesn't really matter what i think, it's what his own closest associates think. that's what disturbs the american people. but none of those statements you've said from mattis were said were a lie. those were still based on opinions. those were opinions that they had. we do know for a factjoe biden said he had nothing to do with hunter biden‘s dealings with burisma and the corrupt company that he was on the board of. he said he never met with them. but we know now that he did meet with them. in fact, there's even a picture of them playing golf together. so, that is a lie. he said he didn't. the evidence is something else. with respect, the republican senate report into hunter biden‘s work in ukraine found, ultimately, that there was no evidence that us foreign policy had been influenced by it. so i'm not really sure quite how far you're going to get with that argument. but let us stick with you and your party... crosstalk. stephen, i don't think that's what that statement said. hang on.

the republican senate did not come up with that conclusion. and they're going to take another look at it now that we have these emails and more evidence about it... crosstalk. they may take another look at it, but i'm telling you what their first report said. but let us not get stuck on that. because the point about you, mr kingston, is that you're here to tell me why americans should vote for donald trump. and i'm telling you that there are many people in your own party right now, including serving democratically elected senators, like ben sasse, who basically say donald trump is unfit. and i'm going to quote his fairly graphic words recently. "the president kisses dictators‘ butts. he flirts with white supremacists." and people like ben sasse say that if your party sticks with trump over the next, let‘s face it, you‘re bound to now, you‘re tied him, but it is going to be in ben sasse‘s words, disastrous for you at the polls. it could see you taking a terrible beating in us congress, notjust in the white house. well, i‘m glad that our party is big enough to have

critics in the family. ben sasse‘s has always been one that has consistently been one. he likes that independent streak. he‘ll say the same thing about democrats as well. one of the things i learned out of my 22 years of service, is if you want to be a hero criticise the institution and criticise your colleague and then you‘re always the darling of the press for the day or the darling of the other party. and that‘s unfortunate. but here‘s what we do know under donald trump, when he assumed office, isis had an area the size of the state of rhode island. isis now has been reduced. we are at peace. we‘re trying to end the endless wars which america still has troops on the ground in iraq and afghanistan. that‘s a good thing. i would love to have more international support when it comes to dealing with syria. but he has not been a warmonger. what we have seen... crosstalk. ..under biden was bombing in libya. and i still don‘t know why we were in libya. why... you know, gaddafi was a bad

guy, does that mean we all go bomb all the dictators? because that‘s howjoe biden and barack obama see the world. i don‘t think so. it‘s interesting when you turn the argument to national security, i‘m just mindful that 500 recently retired senior national security officials, including the recently retired deputy former vice—chair of the chiefs of staff, have all come out saying they will have to back joe biden, because they do not believe donald trump represents, properly, us national security interests. that is a big problem for him on the national security front. but, stephen, that‘s 500 people. i‘m very proud that joe biden has 500 veterans. you know how many veterans are in america? 17.4 million. we‘ll take the 17 million. we‘ll give him the 500 who have endorsed him. those guys are... let me say this, and you know how government works, those guys who want to be in with in crowd, they‘re not republican, they‘re not democratic, they‘re not philosophical,

they just want a job. they just want to feel that they‘re in with the elite. that‘s why donald trump is so good. his allegiance to the common man. he is a populist. he is a guy that breaks up that kind of cabal. i‘ve seen it over and over in washington. it‘s a very incestuous town. doesn‘t matter if you‘re republican or democrat. well, you call him a populist. the question in the next few weeks is is he a democrat? there are many people, even on your side of the fence, i spoke the other day to the leading republican pollster, frank lu ntz. i‘m going to quote to you. another guy who has been on the show, the former gop chairman michael steele, they‘re all desperately worried that donald trump will not accept defeat come november 4 after the election. michael still says "this sitting president of the united states as indicated is lack of interest and desire in transferring power, should he lose the election." michael steele‘s very troubled about that. are you?

if there is a fair election, he will absolutely accept defeat. and i would encourage him to do that. if the election‘s stolen then i think we should go to court, that‘s what hillary clinton would do, that‘s what al gore did do. donald trump has decided that mail—in votes represent a major threat to the democracy when in the words of the commissioner of the federal election commission, "there is simply no basis for this conspiracy theory that voting by mail causes fraud." so donald trump may well be rejecting the vote on a basis which independent experts do not accept. will you back the independent experts or will you back your man, donald trump? i‘m going to take you, from a microlevel, i ordered my independent ballot august 26, last week i checked on it, still hadn‘t received. found out they send it to the wrong address. what a bipartisan commission has looked at is that mail voting does have a lot of inefficiencies. the ballots get lost. there are inefficiencies. there are problems

collecting it. so there are some problems with it. anyone who says there are not has a vested interest in having them. the state of michigan right now has 3.4 million people who have voted by absentee ballot. it‘s going to take them days and weeks to count those. and there‘s no telling what the governor of michigan, being a staunch anti—trump person that it‘s going to be done fairly. i went down to florida for the recount between bush and gore and i can tell you, stephen, it‘s an incredibly frustrating process and you just hope that good people step forward from both parties and count these ballots and sorted out right. crosstalk. we have seen a lot of institutions and a lot of corruption. would you just accept there are some potentially dangerous and maybe even dark days ahead for american democracy? there are ifjoe biden is elected. if donald trump‘s re—elected i think our economy will come back, america will remain strong. we are going to keep having world peace and i think people will be working again, we will beat coronavirus, we can do it on an international basis. donald trump has been very

transparent and i think he is a great american and world leader. well, we have to end there. but, jack kingston, thank you very much indeed forjoining me on hardtalk. thanks, stephen. hello. tuesday may not have been the sunniest day of the month thus far, but it ended on something of a high. water contrast there as we move into the new day to see some really quite heavy rain moving into parts of england and wales. it will feel a little bit cooler across some areas.

low pressure certainly dominating the weather through tuesday, throwing the weather front across the northern and western scotland, but down towards biscay that we look for the next development. that, in fact, is all tied in with storm barbara. the air is coming in from the south, so, it‘s not a cold start to the new day on wednesday, but it really will be a wet one across the southern areas and the rain just keeps on coming through the morning, easily 30 to 40 mm quite widely. bits and pieces of the rain further to the north and the old weather fronts still producing rain across the northern western isles of scotland and the northwest of the mainland. but the odd drip and drab getting into northern ireland. come the afternoon, top temperatures 17 rather than 19

of tuesday, the rain becoming a little bit lighter as that area of low pressure and its energy gradually move away towards scandinavia. as you move into thursday, the isobars begin to open up a touch, a little ridge of high pressure just meanders in from the atlantic. that is not to say that it will be completely dry day, certainly much drier for the greater part of england and wales, but the northerly ushers in showers to the eastern side of scotland, some getting into the north of england, the odd shower a little bit further towards the south of wales and maybe to the southeast. the highs of the day, if you‘re lucky, around 16. in lerwick, closer to 8 degrees. make the most of the dry weather on thursday, if that‘s the way, because here we are on friday with a new set of weather fronts bringing in the cloud and wind and rain back in from the atlantic and i‘m really not promising anybody a dry day through friday, the rain starts off across northern and western parts but you‘ll see, yes, the band weakens as it works its way down towards to east anglia and even here, there will be a spot of rain. brighter skies falling off behind, temperatures pretty much where we would expect to see them for this time of year.

and a quick look at the weekend, another set of fronts working their way across northern and western parts, trying to get across towards east anglia in the southeast. just to make it open for some doubt.

this is bbc news. i‘m lewis vaughan jones with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. going in, we are going in. celebration as nasa‘s space probe touches down on an asteroid 200 million miles away — in a mission that could give us a clue to how life on earth began. reports of fatal shootings in nigeria as police try to clear anti government protests in the city of lagos. google rejects accusations that it‘s breaking us competition rules, as the federal government files a lawsuit against the tech giant. and... putting aside animosity and embracing civility — we speak to two us election candidates hoping