The Mike Hosking Breakfast

Ahead of the first debate between President Donald Trump and his Democratic challenger Joe Biden, each campaign is promising a stark contrast in policy, personality and preparation.
Trump has decided to skip formal preparation, though he said Sunday that former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and his former 2016 primary rival, Chris Christie, are helping him.
“We had a little debate prep before we came here,” Trump told reporters as Giuliani and Christie looked on in the press briefing room at the White House.
And while Biden's team believes the significance of the debate may be exaggerated, the Democratic nominee has been aggressively preparing to take on the president.
Biden's campaign has been holding mock debate sessions featuring Bob Bauer, a senior Biden adviser and former White House general counsel, playing the role of Trump, according to a person with direct knowledge of the preparations who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy. Bauer has not actually donned a Trump costume in line with Trump stand-ins from previous years, but he is representing his style and expected strategy.
“I’m sure the president will throw everything he can at (Biden). My guess is that they’re preparing for that — bombarding him with insults and weird digressions,” said Jay Carney, a former aide to Biden and President Barack Obama.
Trump and Biden are scheduled to meet on the debate stage for the first time Tuesday night at Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. The 90-minute event, moderated by Fox News host Chris Wallace, is the first of three scheduled presidential debates. Vice President Mike Pence and California Sen. Kamala Harris, Biden's running mate, will debate in October.
For some, the debates represent the most important moments in the 2020 campaign's closing days, a rare opportunity for millions of voters to compare the candidates' policies and personalities side-by-side on prime-time television. Trump has been trailing Biden in the polls for the entire year, a reality that gives the president an urgent incentive to change the direction of the contest on national television if he can.
Others, including those close to Biden's campaign, do not expect the debates to fundamentally change the race no matter what happens, given the pandemic and the economy. They also point to high-profile debates in past elections that were thought to be game-changing moments at the time but that ultimately had little lasting effect.
Those with knowledge of Biden’s preparations suggest he will not take the fight to Trump if he can avoid it. But on Saturday, at least, he was on the attack when he discussed his strategy on MSNBC.
“I’m prepared to go out and make my case as to why I think he’s failed and why I think the answers I have to proceed will help the American people, the American economy and make us safer internationally,” Biden said, arguing that Trump won’t convince voters with broadsides because “the people know the president is a liar.”
He also compared Trump to Adolf Hitler's propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, saying, “He’s sort of like Goebbels. You say the lie long enough, keep repeating, repeating, repeating, it becomes common knowledge.”
While Biden has said he will try to be a fact checker of sorts on stage, the Democrat is being advised to avoid direct confrontations and instead redirect the conversation to more familiar campaign themes of unity and issues that matter most to voters: the economy, health care and the pandemic.
“Arguing over facts, litigating whether what he’s saying is accurate, that is not winning to Biden,” said Jen Psaki, a former Obama aide who is close to Biden’s team. “This is an opportunity to speak directly to the American people. His objective should be to speak directly to them, but not be pulled in by Trump. That is hard.”
Trump aides and allies, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to...

It's take two for big film projects in New Zealand.
Filming has resumed for Avatar 3, the Lord of the Rings TV series, and the Netflix adaptation of long-running Japanese anime Cowboy Bebop.
New Zealand Film Commission Chair Dame Kerry Prendergast told Mike Hosking film and television drive economic recovery faster than any other means.
"Spending benefits all areas such as construction, hospitality, real estate, fashion and beauty, music, power, safety training, health and medical."
Prendergast says border control isn't an issue - they're quarantining directors, producers, and actors first.
She says the Government understands the economic benefits, and has been granting the sector exemptions.
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It'll be at least a year before two people connected to the New Zealand First Foundation go through the courts.
The Serious Fraud Office has charged them with obtaining by deception.
No ministers or MPs from the New Zealand First Party have been charged.
Otago University law Professor Andrew Geddis told Mike Hosking it will be a year at least before there's any trial.
“Jami Lee Ross and others charged in connection with donations to the National Party won't go to court until next year, so we won’t see a trial until at least 2021.”
Geddis says the charges have been brought under the Crimes Act, rather than the Electoral Act.
He says it's a serious offence and the maximum penalty is seven years in prison.
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THE BEST BITS IN A SILLIER PACKAGE (from Wednesday's Mike Hosking Breakfast) We're Voting it Out/Bad Brochures/That Wraps it Up for Winston/The Tiwai Trick/Jet Mittens

With just 35 days until the election, President Donald Trump and Democratic challenger Joe Biden are barreling into their crucial first debate Tuesday night, the most pivotal moment so far in a race that has remained stubbornly unchanged in the face of historic tumult.
Both men huddled with aides in the final hours before the debate, which will offer the candidates their biggest national stage to outline starkly different visions for a country facing multiple crises. Americans are both fearful and impatient about the coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 Americans and cost millions of jobs, and many are concerned about racial justice, protest violence or both.
Each side hoped the debate would energize its own base of supporters even as the candidates compete over the slim slice of undecided voters that could decide the election.
Biden will step onto the Cleveland stage holding leads in the polls — significant in national surveys, close in some battleground states — and looking to expand his support among suburban voters, women and seniors. Surveys show the president has lost significant ground among those groups since 2016, but Biden faces his own questions encouraged by Trump’s withering attacks.
Trump will have arguably his best chance to try to reframe the campaign as a choice between candidates and not a referendum over his handling of the virus that has killed more people in America than any other nation. Americans, according to polling, have soured on his leadership in the crisis, and the president has struggled to land consistent attacks on Biden.
“This will be the first moment in four years that someone will walk on stage as co-equal to Trump and be able to hold him to account for the malfeasance he has shown leading the country,” said Steve Schmidt, senior campaign aide for John McCain’s 2008 Republican presidential bid and a frequent Trump critic. “If Biden is unable to indict Trump for all that he has done, (that) would be a profound failure. There is no spinning that away.”
Leaving the White House for Cleveland, Trump pumped his fist at supporters gathered on the White House lawn but did not address reporters. He spent the morning in informal debate preparations while a more formal session was set for the afternoon once he arrived in Ohio. Among those working with the president: former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, senior White House aide Jared Kushner and former White House counsellor Kellyanne Conway.
Though some aides involved in the preparations urged the president to adopt a measured tone while selling his own accomplishments, Trump has told advisers he is preparing an all-out assault on Biden, claiming that the former senator’s 47 years in Washington have left him out of touch and that his family, namely his son Hunter, has benefited from corruption.
Biden’s performances during the primary debates were uneven, and some Democrats have been nervous as to how he will fare in an unscripted setting. But his team views the night as a moment to illuminate Trump’s failings with the pandemic and economy, with the former vice president acting as a “fact checker on the floor” while bracing himself for the onslaught that is coming.
Both sides looked to one-up each other in the hours before the debate.
Biden released his 2019 tax returns just days after the blockbuster revelations about Trump’s long-hidden tax history, including that he paid only $750 a year in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017 and nothing in many other years. The Bidens paid nearly $300,000 in taxes in 2019.
Meanwhile, trying to hammer home a claim that Biden is not up to the job of president, Trump’s campaign pushed out a number of pre-debate accusations, including that the former vice president asked for numerous breaks during the 90-minute debate and had backed out of a search meant to rule out that either man was wearing an...

NZ First's efforts to gag the Serious Fraud Office until after the election was struck down because transparency outweighed the "inconvenience of the announcement" to the party.
Nor was there any evidence of the SFO following an improper process, according to Justice Matthew Palmer in the Auckland High Court, who struck down NZ First's judicial review.
"There is no evidence before me that the [SFO] director's decision to issue the public statement was influenced by political considerations, or that the timeframe she announced for the investigation's completion was set because of the election," Justice Palmer said.
He conceded there could be a negative impact on NZ First's electoral prospects.
"However, I consider there is a significant public interest in the New Zealand voting public being informed during an election campaign about criminal charges of serious fraud against people or organisations related to political parties.
"Ultimately, I consider the public interest in transparency outweighs the inconvenience of the announcement to NZ First."
Yesterday the SFO announced it had filed a charge a week ago of 'Obtaining by Deception' against two people following its probe into the NZ First Foundation.
The defendants have interim name suppression and cannot be identified at this time, but the SFO said they weren't a NZ First Minister, sitting MP, or candidate in the upcoming election, or a member of staff of a current party member.
NZ First leader Winston Peters told Mike Hosking on Newstalk ZB this morning that he didn't agree with Justice Palmer's decision and there appeared to be "one law for NZ First and there's different applications of law for everyone else".
He also clarified that they sought an injunction as they had been contacted by the SFO that a press statement was imminent but it didn't tell them what it was going to say.
"That's why we went for an injunction, we wanted to know how on earth are you going to properly do this without even telling us what you're going to say.
"And, what it said they were going to say was, we're going to lay these two charges and leave it up in the air for you to work out who it's going to be.
"We've proven our point, we took them to court and they were forced to change their press statement to exonerate the party and make it clear that every member of the party and MP and everybody in the establishment was exonerated."
When asked by Hosking if there was any recourse if the two people were found not guilty but NZ First had already lost the election, Peters said there wasn't.
"That's the problem, that's unfortunately how our laws differ to other country's laws ... I want New Zealanders to know before the election that it is just designed where malice is behind it and the difference in treatment between me and my party and the other parties."
It comes a day after NZ First polled at 1 per cent in the latest 1 News Colmar Brunton poll, well below the 5 per cent needed to return to Parliament without an electorate seat.
Peters lashed out at the timing of the announcement - one day before the start of overseas voting, four days before advanced voting, and less than three weeks until election day.
He compared it to Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign and James Comey, who reopened the FBI investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server two weeks before the presidential election.
"The timing of its decision to lay charges against the foundation constitutes a James Comey-level error of judgment," Peters said.
"It's an appalling intrusion in a period when the people begin to think seriously about the shape of their next government."
He called the SFO announcement an exoneration of the party, and would not be drawn on whether he knew the defendants or if they were former party members, saying the matter was now before the court.
He compared the treatment of his party with...

Alastair Campbell is a name synonymous with British politics.
He was Tony Blair's spin doctor and campaign director, and held much power during his time in Downing Street and in politics.
Even today, he's still an influential political thinker.
But during all of his years - he struggled with depression.
He's now told his story in his new book living better: How I learned to survive depression.
Alistair Campbell joined Mike Hosking for a chat.
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Hospitals in the Paris and Marseille regions are delaying some scheduled operations to free up space for COVID-19 patients as the French government tries to stem a rising tide of coronavirus infections, the health minister said Sunday.
As restaurants and bars in Marseille prepared to shut down Sunday night for a week as part of scattered new French virus restrictions, Health Minister Olivier Veran insisted that the country plans no new lockdowns.
Two Nobel Prize-winning economists proposed in Le Monde newspaper this weekend that France lock down its population for the first three weeks of December, to allow families to get together safely for the end-of-year holidays and "save Christmas."
In response, Veran said on LCI television that "we do not want to confine the country again. Several countries around us made other choices. We don't want this."
He urged the French to make an effort to slow the spread of the virus, after health authorities reported 14,000 new infections Saturday amid a mass testing effort. France has reported 31,700 virus-related deaths, the third-highest toll in Europe after Britain and Italy.
While at least 10% of French intensive care beds are now occupied with COVID patients, Veran said they're far from saturation.
Still, he said hospitals in the Paris and Marseille regions are delaying scheduled surgeries to free up space. Hospitals temporarily suspended such operations when the virus swept through France in March and April, creating backlogs that still persist six months later, adding to the strain on patients and medical staff.
Marseille restaurant and bar owners and local officials have protested the government's closure order, accusing the central government in Paris of singling out their rival Mediterranean city for punishment.
The government is imposing milder restrictions on Paris and several other cities, with gyms shut down, public gatherings of more than 10 people banned and bars ordered to close at 10 p.m. starting Monday night.
Meanwhile, the Dutch government introduced new nationwide restrictions Monday aimed at tackling the swift spread of coronavirus infections that is sweeping across the country, including banning supporters from professional sports matches and ordering bars and restaurants to close at 10 p.m. for the coming three weeks.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte also advised people to wear face masks when shopping in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, the three cities with the highest rates of infections, and said store owners can refuse entry to customers who aren't wearing a mask.
Health Minister Hugo de Jonge warned that the nation is failing to control the virus and could face tougher measures if the tide isn't turned soon.
"The bottom line is, we're doing our best, but the virus is doing better," De Jonge said in a nationally televised news conference with Rutte to announce the new restrictions. The package of new measures comes into force Tuesday evening.
The announcement comes less than two weeks after the government ordered bars and pubs in the most populous regions of the country to close earlier than usual at 1 a.m.
Infections have been soaring in the Netherlands in recent weeks. The country's coronavirus dashboard registered 2,921 new infections in the last 24 hours, down slightly from the 2,996 registered Sunday by the country's public health institute.
Ernst Kuipers, of the national acute care network, told reporters ahead of the news conference that there are now 660 COVID-19 patients in Dutch hospitals, including 142 in intensive care units and that the numbers are rising fast.
Rutte said that people should work from home, people should allow no more than three visitors into their homes, and that in other places no more than four people should go out together. A maximum of 30 people will be allowed at indoor venues like stores and bars and a maximum of 40 at outdoor locations.

A morale boost for camping grounds.
Holiday park guest nights were up by more than 11 per cent in August, compared to the previous year.
Holiday Parks New Zealand chief executive Fergus Brown told Mike Hosking it's been pretty rough, but the numbers are encouraging, especially for some regions, like Taupo, Nelson and Taranaki.
"The numbers show Kiwis are getting out there and choosing to take a bit of a break away, which is fantastic."
Brown says the numbers are great because there are no school holidays in August.
"It means all sorts of New Zealanders are making the most of the weekends, and we're seeing good numbers during the week as well."
Not surprisingly, hotel, motel, and backpacker guest nights are significantly down.
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As authorities sought to contain COVID-19 outbreaks at British universities, some students complained they were being “imprisoned” in their dormitories and politicians debated whether young people should be allowed to go home for Christmas.
Students at universities in Glasgow, Manchester and Edinburgh — who have returned to campus in the past few weeks — are being asked to self-isolate in their residence halls, with security guards at some schools preventing young people from leaving their buildings.
While students at Glasgow University greeted the lockdown with humor, posting signs asking passersby to “send beer," those in Manchester had a darker message, taping “HMP MMU” in their windows, suggesting the dormitory had become “Her Majesty's Prison Manchester Metropolitan University.”
Dominic Waddell, 21, a first-year filmmaking student at MMU, said some students didn't even receive emails informing them about the lockdown.
“There was a security guard that just arrived at the gate of our accommodation and he wasn’t letting anybody leave, not really explaining what was going on,” Waddell said. “They’re saying the safety and well-being of our students and staff and the local community is our top priority, but it doesn’t really seem like that if they haven’t allowed us time to prepare for this.”
The lockdowns come as more students headed back to campuses across the country, and some observers criticized the government's decision to reopen universities despite forecasts that this would lead to virus outbreaks. The government defended the decision, saying it had put clear guidelines in place to protect students and staff.
“Young people have paid a huge price in this crisis. I think it's only fair to try to get them back," Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden told the BBC's Andrew Marr program.
Meanwhile, Prince Charles, the heir to the throne, warned that up to 1 million young people may need “urgent help’’ to protect their futures from the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic. The social and economic crisis created by the coronavirus is reminiscent of the upheavals of the 1970s, when youth unemployment was one of the most pressing issues facing British society, he said.
“There has never been a time as uniquely challenging as the present, when the pandemic has left perhaps another million young people needing urgent help to protect their futures,’’ the Prince of Wales wrote in the Sunday Telegraph. “The task ahead is unquestionably vast, but it is not insurmountable.”
The controversy is the latest to embroil Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government as the spread of COVID-19 accelerates across the U.K. Johnson last week announced a 10 p.m. curfew on bars and restaurants throughout England, along with other restrictions on social interactions, but many health experts said the measures didn’t go far enough.
Lawmakers and scientists have criticized Johnson's Conservative government for problems with the national test-and-trace program that was supposed to help control the spread of the disease and reduce the need for limits on social interactions.
Young people have been particularly hard hit by the pandemic, even though they are less likely to become seriously ill. The closure of schools during the spring coronavirus lockdown canceled national achievement tests in Britain and threw university admissions into disarray. First-year students have had to forego social events seen as a rite of passage at the start of their college careers, and the job prospects for graduates look bleak as unemployment rises.
Now many university students are facing increased restrictions amid clusters of COVID-19 cases on campuses that have already reopened. With health experts saying the university outbreaks were entirely foreseeable, the debate has begun over whether students will be allowed to return home for Christmas.
The opposition Labour Party urged the government on Sunday to promise that...