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      Secret Service chief berated in House hearing after Trump rally shooting

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      Lawmakers grilled the director of the US Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, during a contentious House hearing on Monday, where members of both parties called for her resignation in the wake of the assassination attempt against Donald Trump earlier this month.In her opening statement, Cheatle acknowledged the Secret Service had “failed” on 13 July, when a 20-year-old gunman was able to take a clear shot at the former president from a rooftop near Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.Trump survived but sustained an injury to his ear, and one rally attendee, former fire chief Corey Comperatore, was killed in the attack. Two others were injured.“As the director of the United States Secret Service, I take full responsibility for any security lapse of our agency,” Cheatle told the House oversight committee. “We are fully cooperating with ongoing investigations. We must learn what happened, and I will move heaven and earth to ensure that an incident like July 13th does not happen again.”In a particularly damning moment, Cheatle acknowledged that Secret Service agents were informed of a suspicious individual at the Trump rally “somewhere between two and five times” before the gunman opened fire.The Republican chair of the committee, James Comer, mourned the assassination attempt as “a horrifying moment in American history” and demanded that Cheatle offer her resignation.“While we give overwhelming thanks to the individual Secret Service agents who did their jobs under immense pressure, this tragedy was preventable,” Comer said. “It is my firm belief, Director Cheatle, that you should resign.”Lawmakers repeatedly pressed Cheatle on how such a galling security lapse could have occurred, but the director dodged many of their questions, reminding members that the investigation of the shooting was still in its earliest stages. When Cheatle again told Comer that she could not specify how many Secret Service agents were assigned to Trump on the day of the shooting, the congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene interjected: “Why are you here?”Cheatle did deny allegations that the Secret Service rejected the Trump campaign’s demands for additional security on 13 July, telling lawmakers: “The assets that were requested for that day were given.”But Cheatle became more vague when the Republican congressman Jim Jordan pressed her on whether the Secret Service had denied past requests for additional security at Trump campaign events.“It looks like you won’t answer some pretty basic questions,” Jordan said. “And you cut corners when it came to protecting one of the most important individuals, one of the most well-known individuals on the planet.”Some Republicans representatives grew openly combative as they questioned Cheatle, with Nancy Mace telling the director: “You’re full of shit today.”Democratic members joined in on the criticism, and at least two of them, Jamie Raskin and Ro Khanna, echoed Republicans’ calls for Cheatle’s resignation. Khanna compared the situation to the fallout after an assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan in 1981.The then Secret Service director, Stuart Knight. stepped down in the months after the Reagan shooting.“Do you really believe that the majority of this country has confidence in you right now?” Khanna asked.Cheatle replied: “I believe that the country deserves answers, and I am committed to finding those answers and providing those answers.”Asked when more answers might be available, Cheatle said the agency hoped to conclude its internal investigation in 60 days, a timeline that sparked censure from committee members.“The notion of a report coming out in 60 days when the threat environment is so high in the United States, irrespective of party, is not acceptable,” said the progressive congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “This is not theater. This is not about jockeying. This is about the safety of some of the most highly targeted and valued targets – internationally and domestically – in the United States of America.”Raskin, the Democratic ranking member of the oversight committee, agreed with calls for accountability at the Secret Service while adding that lawmakers must reckon with the broader problem of gun violence in the US. He noted that the Trump campaign rally attack was not even the deadliest shooting on 13 July, as four people were killed later that day after a gunman opened fire at an Alabama night club.“What happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, was a double failure: the failure by the Secret Service to properly protect Donald Trump and the failure of Congress to properly protect our people from criminal gun violence,” Raskin said. “We must, therefore, also ask hard questions about whether our laws are making it too easy for potential assassins and criminals to obtain firearms generally and AR-15 assault weapons specifically.”With Republicans in control of the House, it seems unlikely that a gun safety bill will pass Congress anytime soon. And after Cheatle’s performance on Monday, it seems even less likely that she will be able to hold on to her job for much longer. More

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      If Kamala Harris wins the nomination, who could be her running mate?

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      A Democratic party ticket led by Kamala Harris seems increasingly likely as scores of high-profile elected Democrats line up to endorse her for president in the wake of Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race.In Biden’s announcement that he would no longer pursue a second term, he thanked Harris “for being an extraordinary partner in all this work”, and later, in endorsing her, called his choice to run with her in 2020 “the best decision I’ve made”.In short order, a series of powerful endorsements rolled in, including from Democrats formerly viewed as possible presidential candidates themselves, some of whom are now being floated as potential vice-presidential candidates on a Harris ticket.If Harris takes up the mantle for the Democratic party, one of her first major decisions as a candidate will be choosing a running mate. Harris has not indicated who she would consider, but here are some of the names Democrats are floating, so far, as possible vice-presidential candidates.Andy BeshearBeshear’s unlikely position as the Democratic governor of Kentucky – a state that voted for Trump by a margin of 25 points in 2020 – makes him a compelling vice-presidential candidate for the Democratic ticket. In office, Beshear has vetoed Republican bills banning abortions and gender-affirming care for transgender minors, although the GOP-controlled state legislature was able to override his vetoes in both cases. Beshear would also offer a contrast to Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, the Ohio senator who in his popular 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy claimed Appalachian culture was to blame for the region’s impoverishment. On MSNBC’s Morning Joe show Monday, Beshear endorsed Harris and knocked Vance. “JD Vance ain’t from here,” Beshear said, nodding to Vance’s depictions of Kentuckians as lazy.Mark KellyArizona senator Mark Kelly would offer swing-state credibility and could be a favored choice among party elites, given his role as a moderate in the Democratic party. His record as a combat veteran and former astronaut could also be a draw for independent voters. Kelly has been an advocate for gun reform after a shooting left his wife – former US representative Gabby Giffords – partly paralyzed. “I couldn’t be more confident that Vice-President Kamala Harris is the right person to defeat Donald Trump and lead our country into the future,” Kelly wrote on X on Sunday.Josh ShapiroShapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, has been a strong supporter of Biden and a faithful surrogate for his campaign. Shapiro has a track record of winning races in the swing state, serving as Pennsylvania’s attorney general for six years before he was elected governor in 2022. An outspoken opponent of Trump for years, Shapiro has nonetheless built bipartisan support within Pennsylvania; a May Philadelphia Inquirer/New York Times/Siena College poll showed he enjoyed 42% approval from Republicans in the state – a rare showing of support in an age of hyper-partisanship. Shapiro endorsed Harris Sunday, saying she had “served the country honorably” and describing her as a unifying figure. Roy CooperThe 67-year-old governor of North Carolina touts a long record in the state as a representative, attorney general and governor. Cooper is approaching the end of his time in the office (North Carolina governors are term-limited), where he has fought for the passage of bipartisan legislation despite the Republican party controlling the state legislature. In 2023, Cooper signed into law Medicaid expansion, which some red states have declined despite the measure being guaranteed under the Affordable Care Act. Cooper also quickly endorsed Harris’s presidential campaign. “I appreciate people talking about me, but I think the focus right now needs to be on her this week,” he said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe show on Monday.  Wes MooreMaryland governor Wes Moore has also been floated by some Democrats as a running mate alongside Harris. Moore, who is the only sitting Black governor in the US, is widely considered to be a rising star in the Democratic party. Sworn into office in January 2023, Moore’s record in office is short. He has said that he would not want to be tapped as a vice presidential candidate, saying: “I want to stay as the Governor of Maryland, I love the momentum we are seeing right now in the state of Maryland.”Gretchen WhitmerMichigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democratic star who some hoped would run for president this year, has been floated as a potential running mate, even if it’s highly unlikely that Harris would pick another woman. Whitmer endorsed Harris Monday morning – but quickly dispelled the notion that she would be joining Harris on the ticket. “I’m not leaving Michigan,” Whitmer said at a media event. “I’m proud to be the governor of Michigan.” Whitmer, who enjoys broad popularity within the Democratic party for helping to flip the swing state blue, emphatically backed Biden before he dropped out of the race.Pete ButtigiegUS transportation secretary and former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Buttigieg rocketed into political stardom during his 2020 presidential bid, which gained surprising momentum given his sparse political record. Buttigieg, who is a navy veteran, has spoken powerfully about coming out in 2015 and later marrying his husband, Chasten Glezman Buttigieg. Buttigieg has served during a tumultuous time for US transportation systems – from the devastating and high-profile derailment of a train in East Palestine, Ohio, to airline meltdowns, to the Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore. More

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      RFK Jr reportedly held Trump talks about endorsement and possible job

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      The independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr reportedly held recent talks with Donald Trump about endorsing his campaign for a second presidency and – if successful – taking a job in his administration.The talks, first reported Monday by the Washington Post, come days after Kennedy publicly apologized for a video posted online that showed part of a private phone call between him and Trump. The clip included Trump sharing his thoughts about childhood vaccines and being in broad agreement with Kennedy, a noted vaccine sceptic. In the video, Trump seemingly invited Kennedy to endorse his campaign.But the Post reported that it was Kennedy – a Democratic candidate who became independent in October last year – who later sought a post overseeing health and medical issues under any new Trump administration in exchange for his support.At a meeting in Milwaukee early last week, the outlet said, discussions between the two included possible jobs that Kennedy could be given at the cabinet level – or posts that do not require Senate confirmation. The talks also explored the possibility of Kennedy dropping out and endorsing the former president.Trump advisers were reportedly concerned that such an agreement could be problematic – but they did not rule out the idea.The idea surfaced after Kennedy, with about 9% voter approval in the presidential race and both major parties fearing he could win vital independent votes, was denied the opportunity to debate Joe Biden and Trump in June.That encounter between Trump and the president – who performed poorly – set the stage for the latter man to announce Sunday that he would not seek re-election.Kennedy told the Post on Monday that Trump campaign had been more open to him than the Democratic party apparatus. His uncle, President John F Kennedy Jr, was assassinated in 1963 and his and father, Senator Robert F Kennedy, was assassinated in 1968.“I am willing to talk to anybody from either political party who wants to talk about children’s health and how to end the chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy Jr said, adding that he had “a lot of respect for president Trump for reaching out”.Kennedy added: “Nobody from the DNC, high or low, has ever reached out to me in 18 months. Instead, they have allocated millions to try to disrupt my campaign.”The reported exchange comes despite Trump’s comments in April when he said Kennedy is “far more LIBERAL than anyone running as a Democrat”. Trump also said Kennedy had been pushed out of the Democratic party “because he was taking primary votes away” from Biden, among other things.Kennedy, in turn, called Trump’s vice-presidential pick JD Vance – a US senator and retired marine – “a salute to the CIA, to the intelligence community and to the military industrial complex”. Kennedy said on CNN in April that “there are many things President Trump has done that are appalling” – and that the former president had overseen “the greatest restriction on individual liberties this country has ever known”.Trump campaign spokeswoman Danielle Alvarez told the Post: “President Trump met with RFK and they had a conversation about the issues just as he does regularly with important figures in business and politics because they all recognize he will be the next president of the United States.” More

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      Biggest US abortion rights groups back Kamala Harris as effective messenger

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      The biggest abortion rights groups in US politics are lining up behind Kamala Harris’s bid for president, a show of faith in a politician who has already become the face of the White House’s fight over abortion rights – which is not only one of the election’s biggest issues but one of the few where Democrats have the advantage.Within hours of Joe Biden’s stunning announcement on Sunday that he would drop out of the presidential race and endorse the vice-president, Emilys List, which champions Democratic women who support abortion rights, and Reproductive Freedom for All, which advocates for abortion access and was previously known as Naral Pro-Choice America, officially endorsed Harris. Emilys List plans to pour at least $20m into the race in support of Harris.Planned Parenthood Action Fund, whose endorsement must be ratified by local chapters, has not officially weighed in. However, its CEO and president, Alexis McGill Johnson, warmly commended Harris for keeping “the needs and experiences of patients and providers front and center”.Harris has spent much of this year on a tour of the country in support of abortion rights, where she has proven to be a far more effective messenger on the issue than Biden. The president was infamously reluctant to even say the word “abortion” and fumbled answers to questions about it in the June debate that ultimately cost him his candidacy.“Just right off the bat, she’s primed to run with the message around abortion rights,” said Jean Sinzdak, associate director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers. “Her messaging around abortion and being out there forcefully on the issue is going to be a net positive for her.”Harris, the first sitting vice-president or president to visit an abortion clinic, has described the 2022 overturning of Roe v Wade and the abortion bans that now blanket the US south as “a healthcare crisis” and frames abortion rights as an issue of personal freedom.“One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to do with her body,” she told a crowd in Savannah, Georgia, in February.Democrats hope that outrage over Roe’s downfall, which hobbled Republicans in the 2022 midterms and led GOP strongholds such as Ohio and Kansas to pass ballot measures protecting abortion rights, will boost turnout among their base – especially in battleground states like Nevada and Arizona. Both states are set to hold abortion–related ballot measures this year.Donald Trump, his running mate, JD Vance, and other Republicans have attempted to neutralize the importance of abortion rights in the 2024 election by downplaying the issue as well as their party’s role in Roe’s demise. During last week’s Republican national convention, the issue was conspicuously missing onstage. Neither Trump, who appointed three of the supreme court justices who overturned Roe, nor Vance, who has previously supported a national abortion ban, mentioned abortion.“Trump and Vance can downplay the abortion message all they want, but the political reality speaks for itself,” said Melissa Deckman, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute.Deckman suspects that a Harris candidacy will invigorate young women, young women of color and suburban women.“We see in our polling that young women in particular are the most staunchly supportive of abortion rights,” Deckman said. “I think it’s gonna be an extremely close election. But I think the benefit for the Democrats is now they have a new narrative. There’s some enthusiasm happening, where there wasn’t with the Biden campaign.”Before Roe fell, anti-abortion Republicans were far more likely than pro-abortion rights Democrats to identify as single-issue abortion voters.That picture has changed somewhat. One in eight voters say abortion is the “most important issue” to their vote, while more than half say that it is “very important issue but not the most important”, according to polling from KFF conducted before Biden’s departure from the race. Two-thirds of the voters who describe abortion as their most important issue say it should be legal in all or most cases. The voters who think it should be legal in all cases tend to be Democratic, Black, female or between the ages of 18 and 29.But voters are also deeply concerned with the economy and immigration – issues where, polls indicate, Trump is seen as the stronger candidate. Although six in 10 Democrats think Harris would make a good president, only about three in 10 overall adults feel the same, according to polling released by the Associated Press on Friday.As vice-president, Harris has backed Biden’s promise to codify abortion rights into law.“Here’s what a second Trump term looks like: more bans, more suffering, less freedom,” Harris said in a May speech. “But we are not going to let that happen.”While abortion rights groups are backing Harris, anti-abortion activists are already mobilizing against her. SBA Pro-Life America, which plans to spend $92m across eight states this election cycle, has started calling Harris “the “abortion czar”. More

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      The Democrats must back Kamala Harris. An ‘open convention’ would be a fiasco | Ben Davis

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      Joe Biden’s resignation has left the party with two clear options. The first and easiest is for the convention to be a rally for Kamala Harris as the nominee, as nearly all party conventions have been for the last 40 years. The second is to have a floor fight at the convention, with multiple candidates fighting to win over a majority of delegates.The second option is attractive for a few reasons. It creates a process for candidates to win over support from major constituencies in the party, it allows them to make their cases to the broader public much like a regular primary, and it could draw in a large audience. It is the preferred solution of many of the party’s major donors and even, according to some reporting, some of its most astute political leaders.A big open primary and contested convention, however, is still a bad idea. The party institutions and leadership should consolidate behind the vice-president and take the fight directly to Trump as soon as possible.An open nomination fight would be distracting and potentially confusing to voters when there is almost no time to spare. The first ballots will be sent out in less than two months. The Republican national convention has already happened. The minute hand is rapidly ticking.After a bruising traditional primary, parties usually have months to consolidate, mend fences and build enthusiasm. This will not be the case here. The party has already spent the last three weeks paralyzed and unable to campaign while the pressure mounted for Biden to drop out. Biden dropping out has resulted in a groundswell of enthusiasm, including a record-breaking small-dollar donation haul, and Democrats can’t waste any time capitalizing on that enthusiasm and turning it into resilient support for November.Harris is also less known by the public than most nominees would be at this stage. The convention offers an opportunity for her to define her image and make her case to the public. A winning convention would involve dozens of speakers who know her and are able to speak convincingly to her record. A floor fight would prevent that.A floor fight would also cause some structural problems. Though Harris would still be a heavy favorite, someone else winning would not be able to access the campaign’s finances, more than $100m on hand, or infrastructure, more than 1,000 staff members, and a team that has been embedded in swing states organizing and building connections for months. There is very little time to start from scratch.There is also the problem of who is pushing the primary idea of the blitz and why. Progressives in the party have noted that the main drivers behind the blitz primary are megadonors and more conservative party members who see it as a chance to install a more business-friendly candidate and clean house from the Biden administration’s more progressive economic policies and regulators. A primary entirely aimed at winning over a base of moderate party officials, they reason, could turn back the clock to a Democratic party with a more straightforwardly neoliberal policy agenda, and jettison pro-worker actors within the administration like Biden’s NLRB appointees or FTC chair Lina Khan.This would be disastrous for the party and for working class Americans. This sort of primary would not be more democratic, as proponents claim, but instead a return to the days of the smoke-filled room. Harris, at least, has a mandate from voters as the vice-president.The proponents of this blitz primary idea also don’t seem to have a real plan for how it would work, and how it could result in a strong campaign heading into November. The ideas on the table range from confused to ludicrous, like a candidate forum to attract youth voters hosted by Mr Beast, or the revealing idea for a national security forum hosted by neoconservative grandees like Condoleezza Rice. This is not a serious plan.This is not to say that the convention should be a pure coronation. With this change, there is still policy to figure out, and leaders should use their leverage. Progressives should demand action and real policy change from Harris on Palestine, and commitments on the promises Biden made in his waning days. Uncommitted delegates should agree on a single candidate to nominate, and push to gain speaking time for that candidate to represent the millions who are rightfully alienated from the administration over the issue of Gaza.That is quite different, however, from an open convention where many candidates are sincerely attempting to win from the floor, and more in line with how recent nominating conventions have worked.To win the election, Democratic leaders need to ditch the idea of a blitz primary and focus on consolidating for the general. The summer has already been too chaotic for them to add to it, and the Democratic party should reject calls from billionaire donors hoping to install their own candidate and eschew a chaotic and confusing fight. While everyone has the right to court delegates, the party should consolidate rather than forcing through some set of debates and forums between candidates with no mandate from voters.A smart party would begin moving immediately to keep momentum and project confidence and unity, rather than continuing the turmoil and chaos. The stakes are high, and there’s no time to lose.

      Ben Davis works in political data in Washington DC More

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      Kamala Harris must be chosen through an ‘open convention’. It is the democratic way | David Sirota

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      Joe Biden has never been the greatest orator or had the strongest political backbone, but he has always displayed one important skill throughout his decades in office: representing the center of the Democratic party, wherever that center may be at any given time.It explains why he followed his party’s ideological journey and went from liberal Democrat in the 1980s to conservative austerian in the 1990s to Iraq war proponent in the 2000s to mildly progressive economic populist in this era. It also explains his announcement on Sunday that he is withdrawing from the 2024 presidential race.Biden knew rank-and-file Democrats wanted him to step down (for good reason), and he made the belated but responsible decision to respect that demand – and potentially save the country from Donald Trump.Biden will be lauded as making a courageous choice. But while it is obviously the right one, the president is hardly a hero in this history-making moment. He and his political machine created this political crisis. They waged a war on Democratic dissent. They brushed off those raising questions about the president’s electoral viability, punished dissenters, killed off any possibility of a contested presidential primary, covered up Biden’s health condition, and then tried to cling to power when everyone in the country saw his decline with their own eyes at the first presidential debate.In the process, they delayed the possibility of a unified front, allowing Trump and the Republican party to pretend their corporate agenda is populist, while Democrats increasingly looked like sad reality-denying, norm-defending losers aping trite cliches from Aaron Sorkin scripts. Biden and his apparatchiks also damaged the credibility of Democratic politicians who publicly insisted everything was fine, when the entire country could see that it wasn’t.But the damage is not necessarily permanent. To cite an overused phrase, Democrats can still be unburdened by what has been – but only if they don’t repeat their past mistakes.Election-wise, Biden’s decision is a godsend for those who don’t want to see another Trump term. Polls have shown many potential Democratic candidates in a stronger position against Trump than Biden had been. That includes Vice-President Kamala Harris, who Biden has endorsed.Assuming a new Democratic ticket includes a popular figure from a winnable swing states who can bring some pugilism to the ticket (perhaps someone like this guy), the party seems in a strong position to win – and Maga almost certainly knows that.“The Trump campaign, from day one, has been built not to run against a generic Democrat – it’s been built to run a very specific race against a very specific opponent in Joe Biden,” the Atlantic’s Tim Alberta recently said in a recent interview about his reporting on Republicans’ campaign.“Everything that they were engineering inside of this campaign, going back months and months and months, it was all very specific to defeating Biden. And so once you’ve done that work … the only thing that could ruin your best-laid plans is if that guy who you’ve been preparing to run against suddenly isn’t on the ballot any more.”But exactly how Democrats select the ballot replacement is potentially pivotal.Though a coronation could produce a winning candidate, it is a risky gambit. Donors, power brokers, and politicians reprising history in a smoke-filled backroom in Chicago to install a nominee could not only undercut Democrats’ claim to be campaigning to “protect democracy” – they could also rob the nominee of needed legitimacy and enthusiasm.Though an open convention isn’t a perfect form of democracy, it is at least a democratic process. Requiring Harris and any other potential candidates to actually compete for the support of delegates elected from every community in the country is a way to battle test the eventual nominee. It will force them to solicit support and make a case for their prospective candidacies.As important: it will force potential nominees to contend with inconvenient questions about their records before they are irreversibly locked in as the general election nominee against Trump, who will inevitably raise those questions on his own.Biden should have faced such battle testing in a competitive presidential primary, so that the party could have seen his weaknesses and found someone else before now. But the Democratic machine used its power to prevent such a competition, which ultimately created this moment of peril.Party bosses now shutting down any kind of competitive process in an open convention could be a dangerous repeat of that same mistake just a few months before the November election.As Biden has faced growing pressure to withdraw, some have worried that this was a stealth coup by the donor class that saw Biden’s cognitive decline as a political opportunity to dethrone an administration whose policies challenge the power of billionaires and corporations. Biden’s allies tried to fan the flames of these concerns, at one point casting the push for Biden to withdraw as an “elite” plot.There’s definitely reason for concern. Biden is no hero of the left, and some of his policies (see: Israel-Gaza) have been downright abhorrent. But he has also pushed some of the best and most populist economic policies of any president in 50 years.His American Rescue Plan laudably discarded Obama-era austerity and was the largest investment in the working class in generations. By historical standards, his Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Labor have been bolder regulators than any in a half century. And while he refused to fight for something better, his climate legislation included some groundbreaking investments that were desperately needed.All of this – plus Biden’s push to raise taxes on the wealthy – are indeed anathema to America’s oligarchy, and there is no doubt they would prefer that the next Democratic president return to the neoliberal agenda of the Clinton-Obama eras.But just because donors were among the many voices calling for Biden to withdraw, that doesn’t mean their policy preferences will automatically become the new Democratic platform – as Biden himself proved.Let’s remember: Biden was never a conviction politician like a Bernie Sanders or a Paul Wellstone, ideologically committed to an economic vision. He was a conservative, corporate-friendly Democrat for much of his career because he was a thumb-in-the-wind politician and corporate forces had done the organizing, lobbying, and narrative-shaping to make such odious politics mainstream inside the Reagan- and Bush-era Democratic party.Biden as a 2020 candidate and as president broke from that past because the Sanders and Elizabeth Warren presidential candidacies as well as labor unions, environmental organizations, antitrust advocates and progressive groups had successfully shifted the center of the Democratic party to make neoliberal politics more problematic for party leaders to embrace, even if their donors demanded it.The current policy challenge, then, is keeping that new center moored where it now is – and building from it.Part of that effort has to do with the short-term work of making sure the specific replacement nominee isn’t some retrograde neoliberal throwback who triangulates against the Democratic base and discards the very policy agenda that has kept the party competitive, even amid Biden’s demise. There are surely powerful corporate-aligned factions in the Democratic coalition that would like to see that surrender happen.The longer-term work is about making sure any future Democratic administration feels compelled to continuously champion as many or more forward-thinking policies as Biden has been forced to embrace.That’s the real opportunity of this moment – and the work begins now.

      David Sirota is a Guardian US columnist and an award-winning investigative journalist. He is an editor at large at Jacobin, and the founder of The Lever. He served as Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign speechwriter More

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      The Guardian view on Joe Biden quitting the race: a fresh start for Democrats | Editorial

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      Joe Biden’s announcement on Sunday marked the beginning of the end of an American political life filled with second acts. None was more remarkable than his defeat of Donald Trump in 2020. His acceptance that he could not do so again will burnish what his vice-president on Monday described as an “unmatched” legacy. Elected to relief rather than elation, as the man saving the US from a second Trump term, he became the president who helped it recover from the pandemic, pushed through a landmark green infrastructure package and sought to shape a fairer economy.He could now be a lame duck, beset by Republican attacks on his capacity to continue as commander-in-chief. But he could cement his record, emboldened by the certainty of departure from office. His decision to quit his re-election bid was belated, yet in sharp contrast to Mr Trump’s delusional egotism.Kamala Harris now appears as queen of the comeback. She floundered in the race for the 2020 nomination and was seen to struggle as vice-president, though few shine in that role. Yet Mr Biden has endorsed her as his successor, as have other top Democrats, including potential challengers. Not much more than 100 days before the election – and with early voting beginning in just two months – few want to snub her and take chances on a little-known alternative, especially if it complicates campaign finances.Ms Harris would not only be the first woman of colour to win a presidential nomination. She would be a 59-year-old running against an often incoherent 78-year-old; a voice of warmth against a vindictive demagogue; a former prosecutor running against a convicted criminal. A woman who has staunchly advocated abortion rights would take on the man who ensured Roe v Wade was overturned – and whose running mate has extreme views on abortion, pushing for police to have access to reproductive health records. She has been somewhat more critical of Israel over the war in Gaza than Mr Biden, perhaps shoring up progressive support. And people have regretted underestimating her: she had Mr Biden on the ropes over his attitude to segregationist senators and opposition to school integration policies in a 2019 debate, and skewered William Barr, Mr Trump’s attorney-general, in a Senate hearing.There is nonetheless a strong case for an open convention – reportedly the preference of Barack Obama and some donors. Some fear that the party is repeating the mistake it has just made with Mr Biden: ignoring qualms because it assumes it has no choice. Ms Harris is familiar to voters, unlike potential rivals, but unpopular. Polls suggest she outperforms Mr Biden in a contest with Mr Trump, but doesn’t erase the latter’s small lead – and does more poorly in battleground states. Republicans are already turning her thankless task of overseeing border issues against her, and accuse her of covering up her boss’s frailty.A contest for the nomination carries some risks – Democrats don’t want to see their nominee damaged by a bruising process – but it could generate excitement, push Mr Trump out of the limelight and produce a strong running mate. If delegates rallied behind Ms Harris, that would strengthen her bid. If another candidate proved even stronger, all the better.Democrats rightly believe that this election could prove existential for American democracy. But that hasn’t proved sufficiently persuasive for voters. Polls suggest that they want change, and were uninspired by Mr Biden’s request to let him “finish the job”. The Democratic nominee must grasp the opportunity born of his debate disaster and create the sense of a fresh start, not only for the party’s campaign, but for the US itself. More

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      Kamala Harris – and Democrats – face an unprecedented task with 100 days to election

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      When Joe Biden addressed the NAACP convention in Las Vegas last week, one of his biggest applause lines – a line that set off chants of “Four more years!” – was when he praised Kamala Harris as “not only a great vice-president” but someone who “could be president of the United States”.Now she has that chance.On Sunday, when the president made the extraordinary decision to end his re-election campaign, he made an equally momentous choice: to offer his “full support and endorsement” of Harris to be the Democratic nominee and take on Donald Trump in November.“It’s time to come together and beat Trump,” the 81-year-old president said. “Let’s do this.”The announcement, just weeks before the Democrats are set to formally choose their nominee at the convention in Chicago, has plunged an already tumultuous contest deeper into unchartered waters – while thrusting his would-be successor into the spotlight.“I am honored to have the president’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” Harris said. “I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic party – and unite our nation – to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda.”With just over 100 days until the November election, the task before her is monumental and unprecedented. An assassination attempt on Trump has united Republicans behind him, and appears to have strengthened his hand as Democrats dissolved into a rancorous debate over Biden’s fitness to serve.The question of who would replace Biden has consumed Democrats and party strategists, allowing for an intense public discussion over whether Harris would be the strongest candidate to defeat Trump in November.The US-born daughter of immigrants, Harris spent much of her career as a prosecutor, before becoming California’s attorney general, overseeing the nation’s second largest justice system. In 2016, she was elected to the US Senate, becoming the first south Asian American and only the second Black woman to serve in the chamber, where she distinguished herself for asking tough questions of Trump-era political nominees.Many of Harris’s supporters say she is the obvious heir apparent to Biden. She is also the administration’s strongest messenger on abortion rights, a top issue for many voters, especially women.But her skeptics point to her failed 2019 bid for the Democratic nomination, which lacked cohesion and vision, and her shaky start to the vice-presidency, which opened her to withering Republican criticism. Some Democrats are not necessarily opposed to Harris, but believe she would benefit from an open competition – rather than a “coronation” – to prove to party skeptics, donors and voters she is the best candidate for the job.They say a fast primary campaign would showcase to the American people that Harris is best person for the job, and give would-be contenders a chance to compete – or at least debut as potential running mates.By anointing Harris, Biden has greatly tipped the scale in her favor. But it does not automatically make her the nominee.Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, called the situation “unprecedented” but said the party was committed to carrying out a “transparent and orderly process”.In a remarkable change of course after weeks of infighting, Democrats rushed to throw their support behind Harris, including a wide swath of members of Congress; Hillary Clinton, the first major female presidential nominee; and some would-be opponents like Gavin Newsom, the governor of California; Pete Buttigieg, the secretary of transportation; and Gretchen Whitmer, the Michigan governor. On Monday, Joe Manchin, the one-time Democratic senator turned independent, said he had no plans to vie for the party’s presidential nomination.Harris has a handful of advantages over other potential challengers. She has been vetted at the national level and has good name recognition. As Biden’s running mate, she would also likely inherit key parts of his campaign, which includes a large war chest of donor funding and massive field operation.On Sunday, Biden’s campaign fund was renamed “Harris for President”, a filing with the Federal Elections Commission showed. As of Saturday, the campaign had nearly $96m cash on hand, according to the FEC. And donors who abandoned Biden in an effort to push him from the race could restart their contributions to a presidential campaign led by a younger candidate.Harris may also benefit from Democrats’ desperate desire to unite quickly and turn the focus back on Trump, whom they view as an existential threat to American democracy.Trump has repeatedly mocked Harris, assailing her intelligence and her laugh, while mispronouncing her first name. On Sunday, Trump called Harris “as much of a joke” as Biden, and said she had been “complicit” in covering up the president’s decline.View image in fullscreen“Harris has been the enabler-in-chief for Crooked Joe this entire time. They own each other’s records, and there is no distance between the two,” he said.The former president has a history of amplifying racist and sexist conspiracies about Harris, including a birther lie that suggested, falsely, she might be ineligible to serve as president.The independent candidate Robert F Kennedy also attacked Harris as a “war hawk” on Ukraine and China, and accused her of holding one of the “worst civil rights records of any public official”.Republicans have said they were prepared for a torrent of opposition research on Harris, stemming from her failed 2020 campaign and her years as vice-president.If the attacks ramp up, they could play on Harris’s vulnerabilities. Recent polling that considered a hypothetical matchup between Harris and Trump found her running close to or stronger than Biden nationally and in the battleground states.Like Biden, Harris is unpopular, though her approval rating has ticked up slightly in the weeks since the party began pressuring Biden to withdraw, following his disastrous debate.“She’s the most unpopular vice-president since Dan Quayle – and Dan Quayle is the most unpopular-vice president since Aaron Burr,” Frank Luntz, a pollster and consultant, said recently. Burr, remembered as the vice-president who mortally wounded Alexander Hamilton, served under Thomas Jefferson at the turn of the 19th century.Harris’s supporters say her historic nomination could help inspire and mobilize Democrats who had so far been disillusioned by their options.Santiago Mayer, executive director of the Democratic-aligned Voters of Tomorrow, said Harris’s tour of US college campuses was “incredibly well-received” and helped her understand the unique needs of young people, who polls show are disillusioned with the entire political system.“We saw the ‘Kamalove’ that gen Z feels for her and we’re incredibly excited to have a younger, more diverse face representing the incredibly successful and pro youth Biden Harris agenda,” he said, pointing to the “coconut tree” memes spreading online in an ironic but earnest show of support.At nearly every stage of her career, Harris has broken barriers, and should she win the nomination, “the nation will watch a multiracial woman compete in a presidential general election for the first time in history,” said Debbie Walsh, director of Center for American Women and Politics. “This transformative moment will forever alter how Americans view leadership in politics.”Biden’s decision to withdraw, and Harris’s commitment to seeking the presidential nomination, means the Democratic ticket is also in need of a vice-presidential candidate. Should Harris be the nominee, several names have been floated including the Arizona senator Mark Kelly, who endorsed the vice-president on Sunday, as well as the governors of Kentucky, Andy Beshear; Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, who also endorsed Harris; and North Carolina, Roy Cooper.Democratic groups had already organized an effort to boost Harris’s image and defend her against the Trump attacks that would have come regardless of her position on the ticket. Among them is Way to Win, a Democratic donor network that endorsed Harris.Tory Gavito, the organization’s president and co-founder, said the vice-president performed especially well with young people and voters of color, key constituencies that Democrats have struggled to excite.With Biden’s decision to pass the torch to Harris, she likened the Democratic party to an Olympic sprinter crouching at the starting line.“All this wait period has just given us that sort of kinetic energy to now run,” she said. “And I think it’s going to just un-tap a bunch of enthusiasm that gets us ready for November.”Read more about Joe Biden dropping out of the 2024 election:

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