Top Georgia official to meet special counsel investigators over Trump’s 2020 election plot – live

That Joe Biden makes gaffes and misstatements when speaking in public is nothing new. But as he stands for a second term in office, Republicans are seizing on every mistake to press their case that the 80-year-old president is in no position to serve another four years.

GOP-aligned Twitter accounts were quick to jump on Biden this morning after he incorrectly said Iraq when referring to Ukraine in remarks to reporters. So, too, were some Republican lawmakers, like Missouri’s senator Josh Hawley:

Bloomberg News reports this isn’t the first time he’s made that particular mistake:

As he left the White House for Chicago, Joe Biden shared his views on how the weekend rebellion against President Vladimir Putin in Russia has affected his grip on the country – and also made yet another gaffe:

So just what is “Bidenomics”?

According to the White House, “It’s an economic vision centered around three key pillars”, specifically “Making smart public investments in America, empowering and educating workers to grow the middle class [and] promoting competition to lower costs and help entrepreneurs and small businesses thrive.”

“While our work isn’t finished, Bidenomics is already delivering for the American people. Our economy has added more than 13 million jobs – including nearly 800,000 manufacturing jobs – and we’ve unleashed a manufacturing and clean energy boom,” the White House said in a fact sheet distributed today, also noting the drop in inflation and rise in small business activity.

The president is scheduled to make a speech outlining these accomplishments at 1pm Eastern Time in Chicago, setting the stage for them to be a key part of his re-election campaign.

Despite all that, Biden struck a curious tone when taking questions from reporters at the White House this morning when asked about the term – which isn’t all that different from the “Reaganomics” moniker used to refer to former Republican president Ronald Reagan’s policies.

Here’s the exchange, as captured by the Hill:

Joe Biden may be planning to campaign on his economic record, but polls indicate that argument may not work for many Americans.

Biden’s approval rating has been underwater for almost two years, but Americans are particularly distrustful of his handling of the economy. Consider this survey from the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research released last month.

Its data shows the president’s approval at a typically low 40% – but when it comes to his handling of the economy, it’s even worse, with only 33% of American adults approving of what he’s done so far.

Joe Biden is on his way to Chicago right now from Washington DC to make what his administration is billing as a major speech on his economic accomplishments, but as he left the White House, the president took time to call out a conservative Republican senator.

The target was Alabama’s Tommy Tuberville, who tweeted this morning about how happy he was that his state would receive money to expand broadband access from a $42bn federal government program:

But that program is paid for by the national infrastructure overhaul Congress approved with a bipartisan vote in 2021 – which Tuberville did not vote for.

That fact clearly did not escape Biden’s social media team, who invited the lawmaker to attend a public event with the president:

While Donald Trump could still face charges over the January 6 attack, Reuters reported yesterday on a newly released report that shows US security agencies failed to see the insurrection coming:

A new report detailing intelligence failures leading up to the January 6 attack on the US Capitol said government agencies responsible for anticipating trouble downplayed the threat even as the building was being stormed, in an attempt to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election victory.

The 105-page report, issued by Democrats on the Senate homeland security committee, said intelligence personnel at the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and other agencies ignored warnings of violence in December 2020.

Such officials then blamed each other for failing to prevent the attack that ensued, which left more than 140 police officers injured and led to several deaths.

Donald Trump has now been indicted twice, first by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg for allegedly falsifying business documents, and the second time by special prosecutor Jack Smith over the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. While the former president has said he will not relent from his latest campaign for the White House even if convicted, a guilty verdict on any of those charges would nonetheless be a huge development.

Yet it’s possible neither trial is resolved before the November 2024 general election, where Trump could appear on ballots nationwide, assuming he wins the Republican nominating contest.

The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that his trial in federal court over the Mar-a-Lago documents may be delayed until next spring:

Federal prosecutors in the classified documents case against Donald Trump have asked for a tentative trial date in December, but the complex nature of the US government’s own rules for using such secrets in court, and expected legal challenges, could delay the trial until at least the spring of 2024.

Trump was charged with retaining national defense information, including US nuclear secrets and plans for US retaliation in the event of an attack, which means his case will be tried under the rules laid out in the Classified Information Procedures Act, or Cipa.

The statute was passed in the 1980s to protect the government against the “graymail” problem in national security cases, a tactic where the defense threatens to reveal classified information at trial, betting that the government would prefer to drop the charges rather than risk disclosure.

Good morning, US politics blog readers. Special counsel Jack Smith has already brought federal charges against Donald Trump over his involvement in hiding documents at Mar-a-Lago, but his investigation of the former president is far from over. Smith was tasked by attorney general Merrick Garland to also look into Trump’s involvement in the January 6 insurrection and the wider effort to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, and new details have emerged of the direction of those inquiries.

Smith’s investigators will be interviewing Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger today in Atlanta, the Washington Post reports, while Rudy Giuliani has already spoken to them, according to the Associated Press. The two men played starkly different roles in the legal maneuvers Trump attempted in the weeks after his election loss, with Raffensperger resisting entreaties from the president to stop the certification of Biden’s victory in Georgia, and Giuliani acting as a proxy for the president in his pressure campaign. We’ll be keeping our eyes open to see if more details of the investigation emerged today.

Here’s what else is going on:

• Biden is heading to Chicago for a speech at 1pm Eastern Time on “Bidenomics” – the accomplishments in employment and wages he intends to campaign on as he seeks another term in the White House.

• A judge appeared disinclined to move to federal court the case brought against Trump by the Manhattan district attorney for allegedly falsifying business records, denying the former president another opportunity to have the charges dismissed.

• White House spokeswoman Olivia Dalton will take questions from reporters sometime after 9.30am.