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    White House denies Biden weighing candidacy as cracks appear in support

    The White House insisted on Wednesday that Joe Biden is staying in the election as the presumptive Democratic nominee, while the US president reportedly told his campaign team “I’m in this race to the end” amid mounting pressure for him to step down over concerns he is not up to the job, at 81.Karine Jean-Pierre, the press secretary, told reporters “the president is not dropping out”, even while he “owns” his dire performance in the first debate of the campaign against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump last week.She repeatedly blamed him having a cold, brought on by overly-arduous foreign travel, despite incredulous scoffs and skeptical questions from some reporters at the daily briefing.Biden separately told staffers on a call, according to multiple reports: “No one is pushing me out” and “I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win.”He was joined on the call by his vice-president, Kamala Harris, reiterating to staffers that they are in this fight for re-election “together”, according to an Associated Press report. She is seen as a likely substitute if Biden drops out, although several Democratic governors are considered serious rivals in that scenario.The White House earlier denied a report that Biden is weighing whether his candidacy is still viable, ahead of a key meeting with Democratic governors on Wednesday evening, radio interviews due to air on the Fourth of July holiday and a TV interview with ABC airing in parts on Friday evening and over the weekend as he tries to bolster plummeting confidence.An ally of the president earlier told the New York Times that the president remained fully committed to his re-election effort, but that he knew his upcoming public appearances would have to be successful ones in order for his candidacy to remain viable.“He knows if he has two more events like that, we’re in a different place,” the source said, referring to Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump last week.The article was published under the headline “Biden told ally that he is weighing whether to continue in the race”.The senior deputy press secretary and deputy assistant to the president, Andrew Bates, posted that: “That claim is absolutely false.”The latest Siena College / NYT poll shows Trump has widened his lead on Biden since the TV debate, opening up a 6-point advantage, 49-43%, over Biden among likely voters. Only 49% of Democrats say Biden should remain the nominee.Later on Wednesday Biden made his first public appearance of the day at a White House ceremony to award posthumous Medals of Honor to two Union soldiers for acts of bravery in the civil war. The president spoke mainly clearly, aided by a teleprompter.Cracks in support among Democratic leaders had multiplied late Tuesday into Wednesday.Barack Obama reportedly expressed concerns about Biden’s path to re-election andHouse Democrat Jim Clyburn, known as a kingmaker of sorts within the Democratic party, told CNN that the party should hold a “mini-primary” if Biden steps aside, despite supporting his candidacy.Almost all elected Democrats continue to back Biden in public.On Tuesday congressman Lloyd Doggett of Texas became the first House Democrat to publicly urge the president to step aside. A second one joined on Wednesday afternoon when Raúl Grijalva of Arizona told the New York Times: “If he’s the candidate, I’m going to support him but I think that this is an opportunity to look elsewhere … What he really needs to do is shoulder the responsibility for keeping that seat – and part of that responsibility is to get out of this race.”At a Virginia campaign event on Tuesday evening, Biden blamed the debate debacle on his prior international trips, saying: “I wasn’t very smart. I decided to travel around the world a couple times, going through around 100 time zones … before … the debate. Didn’t listen to my staff and came back and nearly fell asleep on stage. That’s no excuse but it is an explanation.”Obama, who served two terms with Biden as his vice president, has reportedly shared in private with Democratic allies who sought his counsel that Biden was already on a tough road to re-election and that road was now more rocky after the debate, the Washington Post reported late on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the former president’s remarks, despite his public support for Biden’s candidacy.And dozens of House Democrats are considering signing a letter calling for Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, Bloomberg reported, citing an unnamed ‘senior party official’.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionA post-debate survey commissioned by Puck news showed that 40% of voters who backed Biden in 2020 now believe he should withdraw. It also showed him now under threat from Trump in states previously considered safe by Democrats, including Virginia, New Mexico and New Hampshire.A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday also found that one in three Democrats said Biden should end his re-election campaign.The former first lady, Michelle Obama, who has never held elected office, also led Trump 50% to 39% in a poll about a hypothetical match-up, Reuters reported.Also, California congresswoman and former House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, told MSNBC of Biden’s debate performance – and Trump’s: “I think it’s a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or is this a condition? When people ask that question, it’s completely legitimate – of both candidates.”Harris is the top alternative to replace Biden if he quits, according to seven senior sources at the Biden campaign, the White House and the Democratic National Committee with knowledge of current discussions on the topic, Reuters reported.In the Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Tuesday, Harris trailed Trump by one percentage point, a showing as strong as Biden’s, within polling margins.Democrats have been privately scathing both about the White House’s lack of transparency about the president’s apparent recent decline, and about his failure to rebound fully from the debate. All eyes will now be on the ABC interview.Two House Democrats, Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, have predicted publicly since the debate that they believed Trump would win November’s election.Anger has also been voiced at the White House and campaign aides for shielding Biden from public and covering up evidence of his supposedly fading powers amid reports that this has been visible for months.The presidential physician, Kevin O’Connor, has previously said that Biden is in excellent condition.Sam Levin and Reuters contributed reporting More

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    The week that changed the US election: Trump’s immunity as Biden falls flat on his face

    Hello there.Well, that was interesting, wasn’t it? The election was trundling along pretty normally, then we get a momentous week that changed the shape of the race and the stakes involved.First, Joe Biden squandered his a chance to prove he has the vitality, vigor and suitability for a second term in the White House, with a debate performance which only underlined concerns that he is too old for the job.Just as people were processing the debate debacle, the supreme court announced that presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for almost anything they do in office. It threw Trump’s recent conviction, and his other court cases, into jeopardy – and could embolden Trump to act without restraint should he win a second term.We’ll take a look at all that (gulp), but first here’s what else has been going on in the election.Here’s what you need to know1. Trump sentencing delayedThe former president was set to be sentenced on 11 July, after he was found guilty on 34 charges of falsifying business records to hide hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels. But after that supreme court decision, his sentencing has been pushed back to 18 September, as the judge in the case decides whether Trump has immunity that could abort the conviction.2. Trump rises with younger votersTrump has opened up a lead over Biden among young voters, according to an AtlasIntel poll. The ex-president leads the current president by 15 points among 18-to-29-year-olds, according to the survey conducted by one of the most accurate pollsters in the 2020 election. It was conducted between 26 and 28 June, so some people were polled after the debate. A smattering of other polls paint a mixed picture – some show support for Biden falling since the debate, others show him more or less holding steady.3. The money pours inThe Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee raised $264m in the second quarter of 2024, including $127m in June, which should buoy up the president somewhat. Trump, however, raked in $331m – about 72% of the $454m he owes, and cannot pay, for a civil fraud case earlier this year.Could Biden have just crowned Trump king?View image in fullscreenOn Monday the supreme court dropped a verdict that horrified many Americans: it ruled that US presidents are entitled to broad immunity from prosecution related to acts they commit in office.The 6-3 ruling by the majority conservative court, three of whom were nominated by Trump, means that some of the charges relating to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election likely cannot be prosecuted.The ruling that presidents have “absolute immunity” for actions that fall within the scope of the office’s “core constitutional powers” has some worrying about what Trump, who has said he would persecute political opponents if re-elected, might get up to in a second term.Much of the reaction to the decision has been scathing, with Sonia Sotomayor, one of the liberal supreme court justices who opposed the ruling, saying the decision will make a president a “king above the law”.While Trump, who has been obsessed with the royal family for decades (apparently he attempted to woo Princess Diana, who subsequently told a friend that the then future president gave her “the creeps”) will be pretty pleased with that characterization, the timing wasn’t pretty for any Trump critics.The decision made clear the significance of Biden’s lackluster debate performance, in which the president spent much of his 90 minutes on stage staring into the middle distance, mouth agape, like a drunk reading the menu board in a kebab shop. When Biden did speak, his voice was shaky, and he appeared to lose his train of thought at times.A series of polls in recent days has hinted at how Biden’s performance was perceived, though a really comprehensive gold-standard national poll has yet to be released. A Yahoo News/YouGov survey found that 60% of Americans believe he is not “fit to serve another term as president”, while among Democratic voters, 41% said Biden should be not be the presidential nominee in November, according to a poll by USA Today/Suffolk University.The urgency has only stepped up after that supreme court decision. On Tuesday, Reuters reported that there are 25 Democratic members of the House of Representatives ready to call for Biden to step down if he continues to look shaky, and two Democratic Congress members – both in swing districts – have said they believe Biden will lose to Trump in November. Prominent news organizations, including the New York Times, have called for Biden to be replaced, as have numerous pundits. Biden has said nothing to indicate he will step down, and plans to meet with Democratic governors today to shore up support.Much of this is because of what that supreme court decision could mean for a Trump presidency. Trump has repeatedly told us what he will do in a second term: he has said he will subject Liz Cheney, one of the few Republicans who is critical of him, to a “televised military tribunal” on uncertain charges, and has said he will act as a dictator on “day one” of his presidency.In June, Trump said that if elected he “has every right to go after” Joe Biden and his family – and the supreme court essentially gave him the green light to do that, and more.Justice Sotomayer, writing in a dissent to the court’s decision, said that the ruling means when a president “uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution”.“Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival?” Sotomayer wrote.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Immune.”It’s serious, in other words. Democrats find themselves in the biggest crisis of this election, just as the stakes have raised immeasurably.Lie of the weekView image in fullscreenIn last week’s debate, Donald Trump falsely claimed Democrats “will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month and even after birth”, specifically calling out the former governor of Virginia for comments on later abortions.Ralph Northam, then the Democratic governor of Virginia, gave an answer in a 2019 interview that Trump and other Republicans have seized on, about what would happen when a baby is born with severe deformities. At no point did Northam say a baby would be killed after birth, and a Virginia news outlet, 13NewsNow, debunked Trump’s debate claims about Northam’s comments.To be clear: after a child is born, if they are killed, that is murder, or infanticide. This is illegal in all US states (and the world over). Democrats are not pushing policies to kill babies after they are born.Later abortions, often referred to as “late-term” abortions by Republicans though the term is unspecific and confusing, are rare. Less than 1% of abortions in the US are performed at or past 21 weeks of pregnancy, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) data shows. This is often because of fetal abnormalities that aren’t discovered until later in gestation.– Rachel Leingang, misinformation reporterMilwaukee braces for an influx of RepublicansIn less than two weeks, Milwaukee will temporarily become the center of the American political universe, when Republicans open their national convention at the Fiserv Forum downtown.View image in fullscreenThe GOP did well to choose Wisconsin’s largest city as the venue for its first proper political convention since 2016 – the state has acted as the tipping point in multiple presidential elections, including Joe Biden’s victory in 2020, and Trump’s triumph four years prior.The Fiserv Forum, which is best known as the home of the Milwaukee Bucks NBA team, is now wrapped in a banner welcoming delegates to the convention. Barriers are lined up nearby, waiting to be deployed to close roads. Residents are paying close attention to the contours of the security zone, which threatens to snarl traffic and disrupt life for people in and around it.Milwaukee is a Democratic stronghold in a purple state, and is likely to vote for Biden once again. With Wisconsin’s countryside tilting towards Trump, the real question is how the state’s suburban communities will lean. Democrats have put up good numbers there in recent elections – but all signs point to this being an election like few before it.- Chris Stein is the US politics live blogger for Guardian USWorst weekView image in fullscreenThis guy just can’t catch a break. Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s erstwhile lawyer, hair-dye fan and all-round weird guy, lost his license to practice law in New York on Tuesday. It comes after he was suspended by WABC, a New York radio station, in May, after he used his show to spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. It also comes after Giuliani declared bankruptcy in December, after a court ordered him to pay nearly $150m to two election workers he defamed. Phew! More

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    The Guardian view on Trump and presidential immunity: the return of the king | Editorial

    The supreme court’s ruling on presidential immunity combines a tectonic constitutional shift and immediate political repercussions to devastating effect. It allows one man to stand above the law. It slows and appears to gut the 2020 election-subversion case against Donald Trump, though it does not necessarily end it. No one believes a trial can be held before November’s election, although court hearings could still offer a detailed airing of the evidence this autumn.There could hardly have been a better week for Mr Trump, who saw his rival stumble so badly in last Thursday’s debate that Joe Biden faces growing calls to quit four months from election day. Anyone who doubts how consequential a second Trump administration term would be for the United States and the world need only look to the supreme court, now ruled by a conservative supermajority thanks to three Trump-appointed justices.Monday’s majority ruling, penned by Chief Justice John Roberts, is a disingenuous, bloodless discussion which pompously warns that “we cannot afford to fixate exclusively, or even primarily, on present exigencies”. The minority opinion, written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, is screaming to the people to wake up: the city on a hill is on fire. A twice-impeached convicted felon who attempted to overturn the people’s verdict, reveres authoritarians and pledges to be a dictator (only “on day one”) could soon be re-elected. This is not about exigencies; this is an emergency.Justice Sotomayor outlined the new limits for a president: “Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organises a military coup to hold on to power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune … In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law.”The court’s ruling grants complete immunity from criminal prosecution to core presidential powers. But it also grants presumptive immunity to other “official acts” – and these are extraordinarily widely drawn. Pressuring Mike Pence not to certify the 2020 election results would probably enjoy immunity, Chief Justice Roberts writes, because if the president and vice-president are discussing official duties, this is official conduct; and presiding over the results is a constitutional responsibility of the vice-president.The bar for overturning presumption looks sky-high, as Justice Sotomayor notes – doing so must pose no danger of intrusion whatsoever on presidential authority. The president’s motives cannot be examined. Nor can official acts be used in criminal cases relating to unofficial acts. The resulting scope is so great that any politician or official would surely balk at granting it to the other side – unless they were certain they could hold on to power indefinitely.This ruling will almost certainly, as it should, further lower declining support for a court now mired in scandal, thanks to the Republican-appointed Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Other majority rulings in recent days have delivered a major blow to the regulatory powers of federal agencies and, extraordinarily, said that officials can accept cash or gifts from people they have assisted: they only count as bribes if given before the favour. This is a court for the rich and powerful, and it is making them more so. The founders intended the supreme court to be part of the solution to the tyranny of European kings. Mr Trump, and the court’s conservative justices, have made it part of the problem. More

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    Arizona proposal to protect abortion rights in state constitution advances

    A proposal to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution of Arizona, a key battleground state in the upcoming US elections, has inched closer to becoming an official ballot measure.On Wednesday, Arizona for Abortion Access, the coalition behind the measure, announced that it had turned in more than 800,000 signatures – more than double the needed amount to get the measure on the ballot come November.That’s more signatures than have ever been submitted for a citizen-led ballot measure in Arizona, according to Chris Love, a spokesperson for Arizona for Abortion Access.“It represents one in five Arizona voters,” Love said. “It’s an amazing feat for us. I think it’s a demonstration of the strength of our campaign and the excitement of Arizona voters to really settle the issue of abortion rights on the ballot in November.”Arizona currently bans most abortions past 15 weeks of pregnancy, but the state came close to outlawing almost all abortions earlier this spring. In April, the Arizona supreme court ruled to uphold a law that paved the way for a 1864 near-total abortion ban – passed before Arizona even became a state – to take effect. That controversial decision kicked off a weeks-long battle in the Arizona state legislature, where Republicans hold a one-seat majority in both the state house and senate, as Democratic lawmakers tried to pass a repeal of the 1864 ban. They ultimately succeeded after a handful of Republican legislators broke ranks and voted for the repeal.“Our message has always been the same: pregnant patients deserve the freedom to make their individual and personal health care decisions, and especially decisions about abortions, with their families and their health care providers,” Love said. “The back and forth that just happened with respect to the 1864 ban is a clear demonstration of why we need politicians out of the calculus.”If voters pass the ballot measure, which is officially titled the Arizona Abortion Access Act, it would eliminate the state’s 15-week ban and instead protect the right to an abortion until fetal viability, a benchmark that typically occurs around 24 weeks of pregnancy. It would also allow abortions to take place after fetal viability if a health care professional believes the procedure is necessary to protect a pregnant person’s life or physical or mental health.Roughly a dozen states, including Arizona and fellow swing state Nevada, are expected to hold ballot measures over abortion rights in the November elections. Activists in Nebraska and Arkansas are also set to turn in signatures supporting abortion rights ballot measures this week.Since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade two years ago, several states – including traditional Republican strongholds like Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio – have successfully passed ballot measures to preserve or strengthen abortion rights. Democrats are now hoping that enthusiasm for abortion rights will boost voter turnout and translate to support for their own candidates, particularly as Joe Biden continues to trail Donald Trump in the polls and has faced calls to step down in the wake of a devastating debate performance last week.Arizona county election officials now have until 22 August to officially verify the signatures. Part of the reason for turning in so many signatures, Love said, was to counter any efforts to legally challenge the signatures’ legitimacy. More

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    The supreme court’s presidential immunity ruling mocks the rule of law | Corey Brettschneider

    The US supreme court found this week that former presidents have presumptive immunity from prosecution for “official acts”. This ruling doesn’t just place Donald Trump above the law. The true danger of the opinion is that it could protect precisely the kind of official acts that might destroy the American republic itself.The origin of the idea that the official acts of a president are immune from prosecution is found in a case about a fired whistleblower. In 1970, President Richard Nixon fired A Ernest Fitzgerald, an air force management analyst, in retaliation for his publicizing information about cost overruns. Fitzgerald brought a civil suit against Nixon, seeking damages for his dismissal. The supreme court sided with Nixon, granting the president absolute immunity from “damages liability predicated on his official acts”.The court of that time defined “official acts” as those associated with the president’s duties under article II of the constitution, including the duty to “take care that the laws are faithfully executed”. It asserted immunity even for presidential acts within the “outer perimeter” of this duty. However, in this case the court was focused on insulating a president from worries about his financial liability so that he could more easily make decisions about everyday matters of governance, such as hiring and firing.The supreme court did not then define these official acts to include criminal acts by a president. In fact, its narrow decision precluded only the “particular private remedy” of a civil suit against a former president and even included a pledge to not “place a president above the law”.This week’s ruling grossly misconstrued the Fitzgerald decision, disregarding this pledge. Instead, it extended an opinion about immunity from civil damages suits to encompass criminal immunity for acts antithetical to the president’s duty to “take care”. The danger of immunity for criminal “official” action is that it protects the enormous power of the president when it is used for the most nefarious political ends, threatening the very existence of democracy.Consider Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s warning in her thunderous dissent that the decision could protect a president attempting to use the military to illegally retain power after losing an election, what political scientists call a “self-coup”. No courts should incentivize actions that could threaten the very stability of the republic.Yet that is precisely the kind of act the court has potentially protected – not just during a presidency but after it. While the court left open what counts as an “official act” – and returned the case to a trial court to determine whether the crimes Trump is charged with from January 6 fit this description – the door is now open to impunity for these crimes.Indeed, the events of January 6 are rightly understood as an attempted self-coup – acts from which the court has now largely shielded Trump from criminal liability. Even if the trial court tasked with hearing the case now decides that Trump’s actions were not “official”, the supreme court’s delay means the process would almost certainly extend past the election. If Trump were to retake power, he would then receive immunity while in office, effectively ensuring he never faces criminal responsibility for these events.View image in fullscreenThat risk of a presidential self-coup goes beyond Trump. Indeed, it has long been at the heart of the controversy over immunity. As I describe in my new book, The Presidents and the People, released this week, that risk played an unknown but crucial role in the most pivotal moment of the Nixon crisis.In the midst of Watergate, a grand jury of citizens voted in a straw poll to indict Nixon for associated crimes, but the special prosecutor Leon Jaworski sought to dissuade them from moving forward while Nixon was still in office. As he saw it, presidential immunity was needed to maintain national stability. He argued to the grand jurors that an indictment of Nixon might even prompt a self-coup.According to the deputy jury foreman, Harold Evans, “Mr Jaworski gave us some very strong arguments why he shouldn’t be indicted, and he gave us the trauma of the country and he’s the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and what happens if he surrounds his White House with his armed forces?”Jaworski’s rhetorical questions made clear the reasons why it would be dangerous to indict a sitting president. Yet even Jaworski clarified to the grand jury that they were free to indict Nixon after he left office. Only President Gerald Ford’s pardon prevented this. Jaworski’s logic supporting immunity for sitting presidents reinforces why immunity for former presidents is so dangerous. A president who not only committed crimes in office but attempted to cling to power in a self-coup might never face criminal prosecution.Indeed, this week’s opinion incentivizes behavior like a self-coup by ruling that a president can never be punished for such behavior as long as a court construes it as an official act. Such a president could claim the self-coup was official because it was an attempt to protect the country in an emergency. Trump himself has already falsely claimed his actions on January 6 were an attempt to fight voter fraud, an argument that his lawyers will frame as an official action.The irony of this week’s opinion is that it allows prosecution for former presidents only in the areas where their power is much less dangerous. In 1872, when President Ulysses Grant was allegedly stopped for a traffic violation, he is said to have paid the fine, though there is historical debate around the incident. Under this week’s ruling, Grant would receive no immunity for such an act, assuming he was speeding on his way to a private function.While the court was right to deny immunity to private actions like these, private acts are not why the question of immunity matters. The most dangerous acts of a president are those that are official – and those that now potentially receive immunity. At the country’s founding, Patrick Henry warned of a president who would realize that no legal checks limited the presidency. Realizing this, Henry claimed an ambitious president would not hesitate to crown himself a “monarch”.Before this week, that fear might have appeared hyperbolic. Today, however, Henry’s warning feels prescient. He is describing the kind of self-coup that the court could now potentially protect on the grounds that it was pursuant to the president’s duty to an official duty to defend the nation from instability.Given the danger of this opinion, it is imperative that we respond. Citizens must make this election about rescuing our democracy from authoritarianism. That means, first, defeating Trump and preventing him from shutting down this case. More broadly, it means demanding that our next president restore the basic checks of the rule of law on the presidency. We cannot allow a system that immunizes a criminal president from dangerous official actions.The next president must pledge to support legislation that prevents criminal official acts from presidential immunity or at least narrows the scope of immunized presidential behavior significantly. Given that the supreme court might strike down such a law, it is even more crucial to appoint justices who would uphold such a law and, more importantly, reverse the court’s disastrous decision this week.Our country has recovered before from a president’s authoritarian acts by electing leaders who would repudiate them. It is time we did so again.
    Corey Brettschneider is professor of political science at Brown University and the author of The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It More

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    Who could replace Joe Biden as Democratic nominee? Here are six possibilities

    Joe Biden’s catastrophic showing at the debate with Donald Trump has sparked waves of speculation about whether he could be replaced as the Democratic nominee for president – and, if so, who would run against Trump instead.Biden won the Democratic primaries earlier this year but would not officially become the party’s candidate for president until endorsed at the 2024 Democratic national convention in Chicago, which takes place from 19-22 August.There is no formal mechanism to replace him as the presumptive nominee, and such a move would be the first time a US political party has attempted to do so in modern times.In effect, Biden would have to agree to step aside and allow the delegates he won in the primaries – who vote to nominate a candidate at the Chicago convention – to choose someone else.There is no legal requirement for delegates to vote for the person who won in the primaries, but they are asked to vote in a way that “in all good conscience reflects the sentiments of those who elected them”.Were Biden to step aside, he may try to name someone – most likely his vice-president, Kamala Harris – as his preferred candidate, which would carry some weight with delegates but would not be binding.The most drastic course of action open to Biden – resigning the presidency – would make Harris president. But that would not automatically make her the Democratic nominee for 2024.If a candidate were to be chosen at the Chicago convention that would make what is conventionally a highly choreographed event, where a party presents its nominee to the public over several days, into a much more volatile open, or contested, convention – a rarity in modern US politics. About 700 party insiders, who may not be united, would have the choice of picking a new candidate. They would then have only three months to unite behind and campaign for them before the November election.There is no clear frontrunner, but here are some possible options:Kamala HarrisView image in fullscreenThe most obvious pick would be Biden’s vice-president. She has been widely criticised for not carving out her own role in the Biden administration and has poor polling approval ratings, suggesting she would struggle against Donald Trump in the glare of an election campaign. The 59-year-old was backing Biden after the debate, but may be the easiest for the party to install as a replacement. Moreover, if Biden should choose to resign now, Harris would automatically become president.Gavin NewsomView image in fullscreenThe 56-year-old California governor was in the spin room on Thursday night talking down any alternatives to Biden as nominee, saying it was “nonsensical speculation”. He had a primetime debate last year with the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, which could be a presidential match-up of the future, and has made a point of supporting Democrats in elections away from his home state, which looked, at times, like a shadow White House campaign.J B PritzkerView image in fullscreenThe 59-year-old governor of Illinois would be one of the wealthiest of possible picks. He can flourish his credentials of having codified the right to abortion in Illinois and declaring it a “sanctuary state” for women seeking abortions. He has also been strong on gun control, and legalised recreational marijuana.Gretchen WhitmerView image in fullscreenThe Michigan governor, 52, was on the shortlist for VP pick for Biden in 2020, and a strong showing in the midterms for the Democratic party was in part attributed to her governership. She has been in favour of stricter gun laws, repealing abortion bans and backing universal preschool.Sherrod BrownView image in fullscreenThe 71-year-old would be the oldest of the alternate picks, but is still seven years younger than Trump. It was considered a surprise when he did not have a tilt for the Democratic nomination for 2020, at the time saying remaining as Ohio’s senator was “the best place for me to make that fight” on behalf of working people. A strong voice on labour rights and protections, he has also spoken defending IVF and abortion.Dean PhillipsView image in fullscreenA candidate during the Democratic primaries earlier this year, he picked some backers but failed to appeal to the broader party, winning no contests, and so is unlikely to be a factor if Biden steps down. More

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    Kamala Harris may be our only hope. Biden should step aside and endorse her | Mehdi Hasan

    I have never been a fan of Kamala Harris.I was an outspoken critic of her candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, earning the ire both of her then spokesperson and also the notorious “KHive” of terminally online Harris fans.Nor did I shed any tears when her campaign turned out to be a disaster and she ended up withdrawing from the race before a single vote had been cast in the primaries.So it is with some surprise, reluctance and even trepidation that I am now writing these words: Joe Biden should stand aside and endorse Kamala Harris as the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee.Yes, it is time for those of us who have been loud critics of Harris to make an even louder case for the vice-president. To lock arms with the dreaded KHive and put aside our longstanding doubts about the vice-president’s political skills.Because the future of our republic may depend upon us doing so.First, some facts about Joe Biden. The president was trailing Donald Trump in the polls before last week’s debate – and he is still trailing Donald Trump after the debate. The president was old before the debate – and he is even older after the debate. He, of course, continues to get older with every passing day.On Sunday, a CBS News poll found a whopping 72% of voters say Biden does not have the “mental and cognitive health” to serve as president. Almost half of Democrats say they want the Democratic presidential nominee to step aside.So I won’t waste time making the case for why Biden shouldn’t be running for re-election. Those of us 51 million people who tuned into the CNN debate last week “can’t unsee what we saw”, to quote a recent Slate headline.Nor will I bother to make the case for a Gretchen Whitmer or a Gavin Newsom. Would they be preferable to Harris? Yes. Do I believe the Democratic party establishment is willing to take a punt on an “open convention” in Chicago next month? Nope. Therefore, the only viable alternative to Biden right now is Harris – especially as she was elected alongside him by 81 million Americans and is also the only potential nominee who can access the $91m in his campaign bank account right now.So, with apologies to my 2020 self, let me make a (reluctant) case for why the vice-president should take over from her boss.First, her numbers. For as long as I can remember, the argument from Team Biden has been that if Joe steps aside, then only Kamala becomes the candidate, and she has even less chance of beating Donald than Joe does. The vice-president polls worse than the president, they constantly whisper to reporters (off the record).Now, that may have once been true. But it simply isn’t the case any more. Even before last week’s debate, a Politico poll showed Harris outperforming Biden in Black and Hispanic communities, where Trump has been making inroads, while a Bloomberg News poll revealed a vice-president “increasingly endearing herself to swing-state voters”.On Friday, the day after the debate, Data for Progress published a poll showing Harris performing “the same as Biden in a head-to-head matchup against Trump”. By Tuesday, a CNN poll was showing Harris, unlike Biden, “within striking distance” of Trump, thanks in part to “broader support from women (50% of female voters back Harris over Trump v 44% for Biden against Trump) and independents (43% Harris v 34% Biden)”.You might not want to believe it, and lazy pundits may say otherwise, but the polling is pretty clear these days: Harris actually has a better chance than Biden of beating Trump. And, unlike the president, the veep’s numbers have – and you’ll be hearing this phrase a great deal in the coming days – room to grow.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSecond, there’s her record. With the exception of Biden himself, Harris has served in elected office – as a district attorney, state attorney general, senator and vice-president – longer than any Democrat elected to the White House in my lifetime. As a former prosecutor, she is ideally positioned to make the case against Trump, a convicted felon.Who do you want standing on stage at the second debate in September, rebutting Trump’s lies, bigotry and nonsense? The woman who went viral when she grilled Bill Barr and Brett Kavanaugh at the Senate judiciary committee, or the man who went viral for saying he’d “beat Medicare”? Who is more likely to highlight Trump’s deeply unpopular stance on abortion? A female candidate who has spent months hammering Trump on abortion and made a historic visit to a Planned Parenthood clinic, or a male candidate who couldn’t answer a simple question on abortion rights without going off on a weird and incoherent tangent about a migrant murderer? Who is going to bring more energy to the Democratic presidential campaign – a vice-president who recently urged an audience of young voters to “kick that fucking door down”, or a president who is only “dependably engaged” between 10am and 4pm?Third, there’s the Gaza-shaped elephant in the room. Prior to last week’s debate, it wasn’t Biden’s age that I considered to be his biggest electoral liability. It was his horrific stance on Gaza, from his non-stop supply of arms to Israel to his nonexistent “red line” on Rafah. Support for Biden among not just Muslim-American and Arab-American voters, but young and Black voters, has been plummeting since 7 October 2023. More than half a million “uncommitted” Democratic voters, who could affect the results in multiple swing states, have urged the president to end his unconditional support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.Given Biden refuses to budge on this issue, a Harris candidacy might offer a fresh start for Democrats on Gaza. Remember the headline in Politico from December? “Kamala Harris pushes White House to be more sympathetic toward Palestinians.” Or the NBC News reporting from March on how Biden’s national security council “toned down parts of her speech” calling for a ceasefire, because the original draft “was harsher on Israel”?“She is definitely better on Gaza than he is,” a well-connected member of the administration told me a few weeks ago.To be clear: I’m not saying Joe Biden can’t win or that Kamala Harris won’t lose. I’m simply saying that there is a younger, more popular, more effective campaigner ready and willing to go, who could turn the page on Gaza while giving Trump the rhetorical drubbing he so deserves.I’m reminding Democrats that they still have time to choose between trying to elect the oldest president in American history, whose age has become a weight around his neck, or trying to elect the first female president, the first Asian American president and the second Black president, which could energize their demoralized base.American democracy, as Democrats themselves repeatedly tell us, is on the line. And if we all have to join the KHive in order to try to save that democracy … then so be it.
    Mehdi Hasan is the CEO and editor-in-chief of Zeteo More