police in france, italy and tunisia are investigating a 21—year—old tunisian man being held in hospital on suspicion of killing three churchgoers in nice. it's reported that he migrated to europe last month, landing on the italian island of lampedusa. president macron has called the attack islamist terrorism. as europe struggles to cope with a surge of coronavirus infections, the president of the european commission says work should start immediately to prepare the infrastructure for a mass—vaccination programme. the scale of the problem was outlined by the german chancellor, who warned of a long, hard winter ahead. there are now only five days left until the us election. as president trump and joe biden continue campagining, early voting has hit record levels. in texas, drive—through polling stations are contributing to the high turn—out. some campaigners have expressed fears of voter suppression aimed at minority communities.

now on bbc news, hardtalk with stephen sackur. welcome to hardtalk. i am stephen sackur. according to the polls, joe biden is favourite to be the next president of the united states but the parties leaders bear deep scars from 2016. then, donald trump overcame the odds and beat hillary clinton. he claims he can do it again next week even ifjoe biden wins, does america really know what his presidency looks like? my guess is one of the most senior democrats in congress, house majority whiinm clyburn. is democratic party confidence more than skin deep?

congressman jim clyburn in columbia, south carolina, welcome to hardtalk. thank you very much by having me. that are starting with the horse race aspect of donald trump versus joe biden, all the national polls havejoe biden up by eight, nine, even ten points of them but how deep are some of these scars from 2016 and how worried are you that there is a hidden donald trump vote that will come out november 3? well, i don't think it is any more of a hidden trump vote then there is a hidden biden vote. i know from my own experiences, there are people who have talked with in the recent weeks who are very much for biden but they don't want anybody to know it.

they interact with people who are for donald trump for whatever reason, and they want to be secretive about it. so i think there are some secretive trumpet voters but i also know that there are some secretive biden voters and those things pretty much cancel themselves out and i don't know if anyone who voted for hillary clinton is going to vote for donald trump but i know that many people who voted for donald trump against hillary clinton will now be voting forjoe biden. you are a very experienced campaigner and won your seat back in 1992, if i am not wrong. you know all about what makes campaigns work. and one of the key factors is energy. i look at the pictures coming overfrom the us of donald trump rallies and a look at biden‘s events and let's be honest, there is no question there is more energy on the donald trump side

in this campaign, does it worry you? i beg to differ. there's far greater public energy. as we are communicating at the moment, this kind of communication is taking place in the biden campaign all over this country. i will be doing several of these today and i did several yesterday. and i have been doing it for weeks, so i do believe that the energy is in the biden campaign, it isjust not on public display simply becausejoe biden has decided to demonstrate with his action the kind of president he will be, and that is to say we are going to have a national plan to combat this virus. we are not going to violate the protocol about having these

public events where people are not masked and not social distancing, and he is going to do by example. what he wants people to join the country. that is why he is not having these public events. that is why i am not having these public events. i am trying to demonstrate. my dad used to tell me all the time growing up, "son, if you're going to be a leader, you lead by precept and example. don't ask anyone to do that which you will not do." that is why the public display is there for trump but the energy is still in the campaign. it's just like floating a boat. the energy that is created is underwater but it moves the boat. i understand the point you are making, congressman clyburn, but nonetheless, joe biden has made public appearances, not least in the debate

and he still does attend some rallies and questions have been raised about his mental acuity, if i can put it that way, and democrats over many months have made a point of claiming that donald trump in different ways is unfit for office. are you entirely sure that joe biden, well to his mid— 70s, later 70s in fact, argue sure he is fit for office? let me tell you this, unfit for office and i'm older than joe biden. by —— i'm fit for office. i don't think age dictates what a person will do. i think he is morally mentally and socially more fit than donald trump and donald trump is younger then joe biden. the question remains, what determines fitness for office? it certainly is not insulting everybody you come in contact with, demonising, especially african—american women. that, to me, is what makes him unfit. if you deal

with everything else. it doesn't look good though whenjoe biden seems to forget the name of the man he is running against in the middle of a rally. look, joe biden has had a problem with stuttering since his childhood. i told him ten years ago, to come public and be public about the stuttering, and it kept that under wraps pretty much until this campaign. and he has been public with it and that is why you don't hear people dealing with that. that's not forgetting the name when you are stuttering, that they disability that a lot of people have and it has nothing to do with his mental capacity and we know it. the bigger question is,

who really isjoe biden what sort of president would he make? because he's given mixed messages. early in the election cycle, he reassured his wing of the democratic party that "nothing would fundamentally change if he were to be president". more recently he has been saying that we need some revolutionary institutional changes in the united states. so what is he? the pragmatist of the status quo or the guy he wants radical change? he is a guy who faces challenges when they come out and when we wrote thejohn r lewis voting rights act, we thought we had a really good bill but i've told everybody my caucus in the last couple of weeks, what has come out during this campaign tells me is that we don't have a good enough piece of legislation. we'll find out in campaigns that there are certain things he makes assumptions about and find out that maybe we need to make some corrections about.

i know exactly what he's talking about. he would be an idiot if you saw things developing and not do anything about it. who would believe that we had a president of the united states who refuses to commit to a peaceful transfer of power? that means we need to do something. who would believe that we would have a president of the united states who would deny science? we need to do something! voter suppression. we need to do something. but let's get detailed about this stuff because it's not clear whatjoe biden would do, for example, his running mate, kamala harris, he deliberately appointed her, claiming she would make the ticket perfect for the united states. she is described by the trump campaign as one of the most liberal members of the entire us senate and a record shows that she supports a very radical green new deal, she supports medicare for all, she even supports of the legalisation

nationwide of marijuana. is that what we should take now as the policy stand ofjoe biden that he and kamala harris will be out and out progressive, left democrats? i have never in my life seen the number two person on the ticket dictate policies of the ticket. we had ronald reagan take on george h w bush as his running mate when h w bush referred to ronald reagan's economic policy as "voodoo economics." they were able to reconcile those differences and made a pretty good team. yes, when people are running against each other, as these two people did, you draw lines in the sand and you layout some proposals but when you come to number two, that's exactly what you are, number two. number one sets the rules. but americans have the right

to know wherejoe biden stands on key policy issues like how much for example he is going to tax. how much is going to spend. how committed he is to a green new deal which would revolutionise the american economy. i'm telling you again, if you look at the words for example of some of the other democrats, they say that their agenda will be pushed forward by a biden presidency so are you telling americans that should look to a left, progressive, biden white house? i'm telling them to listen tojoe biden. if you don't listen tojoe biden, listen tojim clyburn. i'm not for a green new deal, so listen to me or listen to somebody else? that is the point, jim clyburn, america doesn't know who is listening to because the flip—flops.

to one specific example when it comes to the green agenda and fossil fuels in the united states, he has over a year also completely flip—flopped on the issue of fracking. in 2019, he said fracking would be eliminated. in 2020, he said he opposed new fracking and yet quite recently he went to pennsylvania, home of a lot of gas deposits and said that he is not banning fracking. let me made again. i'm not banning fracking. joe biden has become the flip—flopper. that is not a flip—flop. he said he is against fracking on public land. he said we should transition away from fossil fuels, i believe that. he said he was not against fracking now simply

because we need to transition. the same people who are now big oil companies should become energy companies. they should not be an oil company. should be an energy company and they should develop energy as it is appropriate and what would be good to maintain credibility with the environment in which we live. so, exxonmobil should be exxon energy! that is what i've can that's what i'm advising him and that's what he thinks and that's why he called himself a transition president because he wants to see asked transition away from fossil fuel to clean energy. to be honest, he seems to think different things at different times. i don't see it that way. managing the economy is about taxing and spending so you tell me very simply our taxes going to rise underjoe biden? corporate tax will go up to 28% underjoe biden,

he has made that very clear. what about america's workers, both those medium incomes and those who earn a lock, will they pay more tax? no. they will not pay more tax. he has medically he will not raise taxes of middle income people ? that he has made that clear. and i'm telling you i am the house majority whip and i will not whip legislation on that. sorry to interrupt you, i'm looking at thejoe biden spending plans and they amount to over $4 trillion on expanding healthca re across america and another $2.5 trillion, we are talking massive, massive spending plans which will take america's national debt skyhigh but will also require serious amounts of taxation. unless you're going to ruin the public finances? if you want to look at one side of the equation, that is fine. if we're going to have a massive infrastructure programme, yes, it will cost money but it would generate money as well, it would generate income, it will put

people back to work and we will have water and sewer programmes and the way we should have it. we would have job creation like you've never had before and many experts have looked at his plan and said it would create significant numbers of jobs. we have got a corporate tax rate that is now down to 21%. no corporation asked for it to be that low. they welcomed it going back up to 28%. that's what we thought we were doing. we woke up one day and it was 21%. i don't know why trump did that but i know it was wrong and it has destroyed affordable housing in this country because it's no longer viable for these developers to do affordable housing

because of that tax bill. we're going to take a look at all of that and see how the balance looks. it is out of balance and joe biden will put balance back into our tax laws. well, balance is an interesting concept. i'm just going to tell you what the independent committee for a responsible federal budget have calculate about a biden presidency based on his own spending promises. they reckon it will add $5.6 trillion to the us national debt over the next 10 years and that would take debt as a proportion to gdp national income to around 128%. is that acceptable to you? i'm not an expert in all of that but i tell you what is unacceptable to me, it is unacceptable for the wealthy people in this country to get the kind of tax breaks they got off that trillion point two... tax plan that trump put in place and he put taxes on churches, on charities. he started taxing people that have never been taxed before. and he gave this big tax break

to all of these wealthy people. and experts said that over the last several years since that went in place, the wealthy people have made $400 billion. while low income people have gotten poorer, while the wealth gap has gotten wide. that is what we are going to balance, we're going to put balance back into it. let me ask you about something that is less about specific policy and more about tone and political style. joe biden, in all of his video and all of his personal appearances, he tells america he's a decent guy whose ambition is to draw americans together again, to heal the wounds and unite the country, to get over this period of polarisation and division.

how is he going to do that when you — well, i don't know about you personally, but you in the party have vilified donald trump as a racist for month upon month upon month? people in their tens of millions will vote for donald trump. are you telling them they are racist too? no. i'm not telling them anything. i have my feelings about donald trump. donald trump looked into a camera and referred to a black woman as a dog. i am the father of three black women. i am the son of a black woman. i don't respect anybody who denigrates black women and he does it day in and day out. you can decide whether or not he is racist but i will take him at his word. he referred to kamala harris, the first woman of colour to be on a major party ticket, as a monster. so you can be whatever you want to be.

if you want to vote for him fine, but i want to see the black man or woman, anybody born of a black woman, can abide this man looking at the camera and refferring to a black woman as a dog. that is where i draw the line there. you can call it anything you want to call it. my point is that you know better than i, whatever the result next week and let's assume hypothetically biden wins, many tens of millions of americans will have voted for donald trump and i'm asking you, how are you going to bring them into this broad tent that job biden claims he's going to build, because hillary clinton talked about " baskets of deplorables". she said people who voted for trump were "racist, sexist, homophobic and xenophobic." many americans, trump voters, probably believe that if you pick away beneath the surface, the democratic party still sees trump voters in that same vein.

well, that's not true. the democratic party doesn't see trump voters in that vein. many of us see trump in that vein. a lot of people vote for trump out of loyalty to the party, a lot of people vote for him out of loyalty to other things but they are not necessarily racist, but there are some racists who do support him and they have made it very clear. david duke, is a big racist and he says he views trump as one of them. so the racists are supporting him but there are a lot of people who are voting for him who are far from being a racist. they've got other reasons for voting for him and they may have the capacity to overlook his shortcomings. i don't have that capacity. two quick questions about what might happen after a biden victory if he achieves such a thing. number one, there are democratic congressmen who sit in the house alongside you. i am thinking of eric swalwell

for one from california, calling for a creation of presidential crimes commission made up of independent prosecutors looking exactly at what donald trump did and who aided and abetted him. do you think that would be good for america? it may be, i have no idea what would be incorporated in that. i've think we have found in this campaign that a lot of things we consider to be untoward or being done by this president. and we need find out whether or not who he owes $400 billion to. sorry, $400 million. will that be the healing and the bringing together america that biden promised? it very well could be. we had racial reconciliation in south africa and we had a commission to do that as a way of bringing people together. you've got to cleanse the soul and bring people together around a unified front. you can't let these things

continue to fester out there and think it will bring people together when there is suspicion. let's do what is necessary to clear the air, so to speak, cleanse the process and then build upon that. and a second specific challenge after the election which will exercise many in the democratic party. what to do about the supreme court? thanks to the confirmation of amy coney barrett, there is now a clear six — three conservative majority built into the supreme court. there are democrats, i am thinking of the senator ed markey who say, quote, we must now expand the supreme court. there are going to be calls forjob biden to lead on that. do you think that would be wise for the healing in america? it could very well be. the supreme court wasn't always nine. how did we get to nine and when did we get to nine and why did we get there? the question is, do we need to go to 11, 12, 13?

i think a baker's dozen might be a good number, i don't know. let's have some studies. so you're ready to pack the supreme court to overcome what is the current political tone of that court? you're prepared to pack it and then tell america that you still want to end the division and the polarisation? to the contrary, sir. i am prepared to unpack the court. it has already been packed for the last seven years. that's why barack 0bama did not get his appointment because mitch mcconnell was trying to pack the court. i want to unpack the court. just a final thought, we watch this election unfold, many people worry that after november three, there will be chaos. we know that there are indeed some militias, some armed groups who are threatening chaos if they do not get the results they want. how worried are you that there will not be order, stability

and calm after this us election? i have no idea what there will be after this election. i remember the election of 1960. i remember going into that election, i remember the democratic convention of 1960. and so, we have had these kinds of activities in our history. the question is, whether or not we can have the kind of leadership that can get us through that. i don't think donald trump can do that because he is the cause of it. much of it. and i thinkjoe biden could get through it because he has the capacity, the compassion, the empathy. all these things that are required of leaders to get people through trying situations, none of which are in the dna of donald trump.

congressman jim clyburn, i thank you very much indeed forjoining me on hardtalk. well, thank you. hello. if the phrase it's raining again has been used rather too much this month, it will be used again before the month is done. even into the first part of november, more rain on the way. strong winds, looking quite stormy on saturday. so, a chance of further flooding and disruption as a result. and now this is friday's big picture. this weather front producing some more rain, particularly into wales to start the day. scotland and northern ireland, though, behind it

will see some sunshine. a mild start to the day for many of us. for scotland and northern ireland, a few showers around to begin with. they will tend to clear. we'll get more in the way of sunshine arriving here. just a few showers towards north west scotland into the afternoon. northern england brightening up as well, and the early heavy rain in wales gradually easing. but for south east wales, the midlands, east anglia, southern england, it will stay cloudy. there will be further outbreaks of rain at times, although actually here is where we get to see the higher temperatures. still quite windy. not as windy as it was on thursday. but overnight and into saturday, this is where the winds start to pick up once again. and we'll see more rain pushing north across the uk. ahead of its arrival in scotland, it will be quite chilly. and it does look quite stormy, then, as the weekend begins. a deep area of low pressure to the north—west of the uk, so winds picking up across all areas. gales or severe gales are possible. and another band of rain sweeping east across the uk. some of this rain will be heavy,

perhaps including some torrential bursts as well and really quite squally winds as it moves on through. behind it, though, you get to see the sunshine and a few showers. strong southerly winds, a few gusts here, but widely towards the north and west of the uk, 60 mph. maybe a bit more, elsewhere 50 mph. again, maybe a bit more, particularly when the heavy rain moves on through. it will be a mild start to the weekend, for what it's worth. it's still looking windy on sunday, particularly across the north—west of scotland. an early spell of rain clearing east, then brightening up to a few showers. then with uncertain timing, the arrival of some more rain pushing in from the west later in the day, especially into sunday night. there are some met office weather warnings out. do get across those online for what that means for where you are. and after a windy and at times wet start to next week and of course early november, after that, something quieter, drier and calmer.

this is bbc news with the latest headlines for viewers in the uk and around the world. i'm david eades. europe under siege from the coronavirus as the president of the european commission says it's essential to prepare for a mass—vaccination programme now. the member states will get vaccines at the same time in the same conditions based on their share of the eu population. french troops are deployed to protect religious buildings and schools — after a tunisian man kills three people in a church in nice. the us election campaign enters its final four days over 80 million americans have already cast their ballot