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      Hakeem Jeffries reportedly did not offer Biden his endorsement in private meeting – live

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      CNN reports that Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries did not offer Joe Biden his endorsement when they met following the president’s press conference yesterday.Jeffries “bluntly” shared the views of his caucus in the meeting, though CNN notes it is unclear if Biden asked for his support.Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries announced that he had met with Joe Biden following his closely watched press conference yesterday, and conveyed “conclusions about the path forward” that he had heard from lawmakers. CNN later reported that Jeffries did not offer Biden his endorsement, though it was unclear if the president asked for it. Later in the day, Biden called in to a meeting with the Congressional Hispanic caucus, which reportedly did not go very well. Some lawmakers were not allowed to ask questions, while one who did told Biden he should step aside. Despite all that, his campaign says they remain on track, and that donations “exploded” during his press conference last night.Here’s what else happened today:

      James Clyburn, a House Democrat close to the president, reiterated his support for Biden, but noted that the party has until the start of their convention next month to make decisions about replacing him.

      A new poll may undercut arguments that Biden has lost significant public support following his debate, after it found him in a statistical tie with Donald Trump.

      Speaking of Trump, the former president wants congressional Republicans to insist on the passage of a law, opposed by the White House, to require people to present proof of citizenship when registering to vote, raising the possibility that a government spending fight could break out just weeks before the 5 November election.

      The former president also said that he would take a cognitive test if Biden took one, and that all future presidential candidates should follow suit.

      Melania Trump, who has generally been absent from the campaign trail, will reportedly make an appearance at the Republican national convention next week.
      In a briefing to reporters as Joe Biden flies to Michigan for a campaign event in Detroit, Biden-Harris campaign communications director Michael Tyler said they had seen a surge in donations during the president’s press conference last night.“Since last night, we’re seeing strong support across our coalition, but most importantly, we’re seeing it with our grassroots base. We have close to 40,000 donations last night alone. Donations exploded during the president’s press conference. In fact, we hit seven times our average during the press conference,” Tyler said.He also said the campaign believes polls are in his favor.“Polling continues to show the same race we’ve been seeing, right, one that is close and unaffected by the debate. President Biden has enduring strength with high propensity voters, while Donald Trump demonstrates a low ceiling, unable to expand his support,” Tyler said.Biden yesterday told reporters he remained confident in his ability to win, and spoke at length about foreign policy topics, but made a few blunders in the closing hours of the Nato summit, including by accidentally introducing “president Putin”, when he meant Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy.Tyler downplayed those moments, saying, “Joe Biden has been making gaffes for 40 years. He made a couple last night. He’ll probably continue to do so. Our opponent is somebody who, every single day out on the stump, is calling for a bloodbath if he loses, is pledging to rule as a dictator on day one, and is pledging to ban abortion nationwide, across the country,.”Here is a look back at press conference:Donald Trump has more harsh words for George Clooney, over the actor and director’s New York Times column in which he called for Joe Biden to stand aside as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, given concerns about the 81-year-old’s fitness for office.“I thought George Clooney was very disloyal,” Trump, 78 and the presumptive Republican nominee, told The Clay and Buck Sexton show on Friday.“Because whether you like Biden or not, you know, he’s been nice to Clooney. I thought it was very disloyal, backstabber, third-rate movie actor.“He was a television actor and never made really a good movie. So he’s sort of third-rate as a movie actor. Clark Gable, he’s not. I thought it was a great act of disloyalty.”The Times column was headlined “George Clooney: I Love Joe Biden. But We Need a New Nominee.”Clooney wrote: “It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”Biden’s disastrous debate against Trump in Atlanta last month fueled a crisis for Democrats, with members of Congress and reportedly donors calling for the president to quit.Trump had already attacked Clooney, writing on social media after the Times column: “He’s turned on Crooked Joe like the rats they both are. What does Clooney know about anything?“Clooney should get out of politics and go back to television.”Trump famously got out of television and went into politics, having made his name as a cartoon version of himself on The Apprentice for NBC.Clooney has not commented.As the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports, Trump and his aides are keen to see Biden stay in the race.A conference call between Joe Biden and lawmakers in the Congressional Hispanic caucus left many with a bad taste in their mouth, Notus reports, as the call’s organizers prevented some members from speaking and one congressman told the president that he should drop out.Only two members of the Democratic group were initially allowed to ask questions, but after Biden opened the floor to more questions, California’s Mike Levin told the president he thought he should make way for another candidate.Notus said the president responded to Levin, though they did not report what he said. Then, the call’s host, Representative Linda T Sánchez, ended the call, and Levin later went public with his belief that Democrats would be better with another candidate. Here’s what he had to say:
      Like so many of you, I was naturally concerned about President Biden’s performance in the recent debate.Since then, I’ve made my opinions known in the appropriate manner with House Democratic leadership and my colleagues. And I called upon all Americans to give the president a window to make an expeditious decision about his candidacy.
      In the two weeks since the debate, I’ve had a chance to connect with so many of you, our constituents and supporters. The response from literally several hundred of you has been overwhelming, and I’m very grateful for your candor.First, let me say that President Biden has been an outstanding leader, not only of our nation, but of the entire free world. Making this statement is not easy. I have deep respect for President Biden’s five-plus decades of public service and incredible appreciation for the work we’ve done together these last three and a half years. But I believe the time has come for President Biden to pass the torch.
      In a string of posts on Truth Social spent insulting Joe Biden over his debate performance, Donald Trump said that he will take a cognitive test if the president undergoes one, and that such exams should be mandatory for all presidential candidates:
      Joe should immediately take a Cognitive Test, and I will go with him, and take one also. For the first time we’ll be a team, and do it for the good of the Country….And from now on, all Presidential candidates should be mandated to take a Cognitive Test and Aptitude Test, regardless of their age!!!
      Nikki Haley, Trump’s former United Nations ambassador who made a quixotic bid for the Republican presidential nomination, had campaigned on making such tests mandatory for politicians over the age of 75. Both Trump and Biden would meet that criteria.Republican senator Lindsey Graham took up the call following the first debate, in which the president struggled to counter attacks from Trump, who attracted criticisms of his own for repeatedly lying:Melania Trump, the wife of former president Donald Trump, will make a rare appearance at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee next week, CNN first reported.Melania’s appearance at the RNC was confirmed by two sources familiar with the former first lady’s plans.Melania has been mostly absent from the Trump campaign trail. It is unclear if she will give remarks at the convention or participate in any significant way.As Biden works to rebuild trust among Democratic lawmakers and voters, the president will be speaking at the same high school in Michigan where he campaigned with high-ranking Democrats in 2020.According to CNN:
      Biden will speak at same site in Michigan where he promised to be a “bridge” to next generation in 2020, in their ‘live’ piece: The president is set to speak at the same high school in Detroit where he stood hand-in-hand with then-Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Cory Booker and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as he cast himself as a link to the future.“Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else,” Biden said on March 9, 2020 during the Democratic event. “There’s an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country.”
      Over the weekend, Biden also will be meeting with the Congressional Progressive Caucus in a virtual meeting, Punchbowl News reported.Biden has already received support from key progressive lawmakers following his widely criticized debate performance, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders.Biden will also meet with the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) on Friday as well, several outlets have reported.CNN and Punchbowl News have said that Biden will meet with CAPAC as he continues to assuage fears among lawmakers concerning his ability to be the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee.The meeting will take place virtually.Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries announced that he had met with Joe Biden following his closely watched press conference yesterday, and conveyed “conclusions about the path forward” he heard from lawmakers. CNN later reported that Jeffries did not offer Biden his endorsement, though it was unclear if the president asked for it. Later today, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, whose leaders say they support Biden, will reportedly meet with the president, while one more House Democrat has announced that they think Biden should “pass the torch”. We will see if any others join her, and are also keeping an eye on the president’s campaign visit to swing state Michigan this evening.Here’s what else has happened today so far:

      James Clyburn, a House Democrat close to the president, reiterated his support for Biden, but noted that the party has until the start of their convention next month to make decisions about replacing him.

      A new poll may undercut arguments that Biden has lost major support following his debate, after it found him in a statistical tie with Donald Trump.

      Speaking of Trump, the former president wants congressional Republicans to insist on the passage of a law, opposed by the White House, to require people present proof of citizenship when registering to vote, in a sign that a government spending fight could break out just weeks before the 5 November election.
      Teamsters president Sean O’Brien nearly threw hands with a Republican senator during a hearing on Capitol Hill last year, but that apparently has not discouraged the union leader from planning to address the Republican national convention. The Guardian’s Michael Sainato reports that is not sitting well with senior members of the union:The Teamsters International president, Sean O’Brien, has been accused by senior members of the union of disgracing it by agreeing to an unprecedented appearance at next week’s Republican national convention.O’Brien’s decision was branded “unconscionable” by John Palmer, vice-president at large at the Teamsters, who accused him of lending support to the “most anti-union party and president” in a generation.In a letter seen by the Guardian, Palmer urged members of the union to demand that O’Brien cancel his planned appearance. The Teamsters did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The Teamsters is one of the largest labor unions in the US, with 1.3 million members. While other large labor unions and the largest coalition of labor unions, the AFL-CIO, have already endorsed Joe Biden, the Teamsters has yet to make an endorsement in the 2024 presidential election.CNN reports that Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries did not offer Joe Biden his endorsement when they met following the president’s press conference yesterday.Jeffries “bluntly” shared the views of his caucus in the meeting, though CNN notes it is unclear if Biden asked for his support.Semafor reports that members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus plan to meet with the president today:Earlier this week, the all-Democratic caucus’s chair Nanette Barragán and deputy chair Adriano Espaillat reaffirmed their support for Joe Biden, saying in a joint statement:
      We stand with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. More

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      Biden heads to Michigan to shore up support as calls to quit persist

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      Joe Biden was headed for the battleground state of Michigan on Friday, to campaign both for re-election and for his survival as the Democratic presidential nominee.In Washington, calls for the 81-year-old president to quit continued, while the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives said he had discussed the issue with Biden on Thursday, after Biden’s press conference following the Nato summit.In a letter to colleagues, Hakeem Jeffries of New York said discussions about Biden’s age and fitness for office had been “candid, clear-eyed and comprehensive”.“On behalf of the House Democratic caucus,” he said, “I requested and was graciously granted a private meeting with President Joe Biden.“That meeting occurred yesterday evening … I directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward.”Biden’s response was not disclosed, nor details of Democratic “conclusions”. But as the letter was released, an 18th congressional Democrat said Biden should let someone else face Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, in November.The 19th Democrat to say Biden should go, Mike Levin of California, was reported by Politico to have told the president so to his face on Friday, during a virtual meeting with the Congressional Hispanic caucus. Levin then stated his position publicly.Politico also quoted a “pro-Biden Democrat who attended the meeting” as saying the president “sounded very lucid, sharp, engaged”.There was further worrying news for Democrats when the New York Times reported that so long as Biden remains the nominee, major donors will put on hold “roughly $90m in pledged donations”.The Sunrise Movement also called for Biden to quit. Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the youth-led climate-focused activist group, said she was “concerned Joe Biden isn’t in a position to mobilise young voters and win”.As Biden headed for Detroit, the capital remained abuzz. At the Nato summit on Thursday, Biden spoke assertively and showed his foreign policy experience but also made embarrassing slips, introducing Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine as “President Putin” and referring to Kamala Harris, his vice-president, as “Vice-President Trump”.Trump seized on that, posting on social media: “Crooked Joe begins his ‘Big Boy’ press conference with, ‘I wouldn’t have picked Vice-President Trump to be vice-president, though I think she was not qualified to be president.’ Great job, Joe!”Biden had appeared to say: “Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice-President Trump to be vice-president [if] I think she’s not qualified to be president.”Online, Biden fired back, posting: “By the way: Yes, I know the difference. One’s a prosecutor, and the other’s a felon.”Trump, 78 and facing questions about his own cognitive fitness, was convicted on 34 charges arising from hush-money payments to an adult film star. He faces 54 other criminal charges, concerning election subversion and retention of classified information, and was fined millions of dollars in civil cases over business fraud and defamation arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”.Harris came to prominence as a prosecutor in San Francisco before becoming attorney general of California, a US senator and Biden’s running mate.Michigan is a swing state, choosing Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020, its Black voters a key part of Biden’s support. The Oscar-winning actor Octavia Spencer was set to appear with Biden in Detroit on Friday.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBiden’s campaign said he would target Project 2025, a policy plan led by the Heritage Foundation, a rightwing thinktank. Trump has tried to disavow the project, which Democrats say shows his extremist agenda.There was good news for Biden on Friday: a poll showing him improving since the disastrous debate against Trump in Atlanta that pitched Democrats into crisis.“Biden actually gained a point since last month’s survey, which was taken before the debate,” wrote Domenico Montanaro of NPR, which carried out the poll with PBS and Marist. “He leads Trump 50%-48% in a head-to-head matchup. But Biden slips when third-party options are introduced, with Trump [leading] 43%-42%.”But Politico noted telling dissonance in responses to Biden’s Nato performance. One unnamed Biden aide said the president exceeded expectations and had some great lines. A Democratic aide said Biden had “lowered the bar … until it’s on the floor”.Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the dean of the Congressional Black caucus, told NBC Biden “sometimes mangles words and phrases but all of that is almost natural for people who grew up stuttering”.He added: “He has one of the best minds that I have ever been around … and so I would hope that we would focus on the substance of this man … and how he has run this country.“… The conversation should focus on the record of this administration, on the alternative in this election, and let Joe Biden make his own decisions about his future.“If he decides to change his mind later on then we will respond to that. We have until 19 August to open our convention” in Chicago.Asked “Is this the same Joe Biden that we saw four years ago?”, Clyburn said: “No!”“I’m not the same Jim Clyburn that I was four years ago and in 10 days I’ll be 84. But I’m a bit wiser than I was before … It’s biblical. When I became a man I put away childish things. Joe Biden has put away childish things because he has become a man. His opponent [Trump] is still a child.”Biden, Clyburn said, “knows what a democracy is all about.” More

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      Will Biden drop out? Key questions on his presidential campaign

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      As he addressed reporters at the conclusion of the Nato conference on Thursday, Joe Biden sent a defiant message to his critics: I’m not going anywhere. Despite demands from dozens of Democratic lawmakers that he withdraw from the presidential race following his disastrous debate performance, Biden argued he was the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump in November.“I think I’m the most qualified person to run for president. I beat him once, and I will beat him again,” Biden said. “There’s a long way to go in this campaign, and so I – I’m just going to keep moving.”That message did not assuage some skeptics in Biden’s party, as three more House Democrats called on the president to drop out in the hours after the press conference. Biden and his team have not yet quieted critics’ concerns, but the president’s detractors have few options beyond their public pressure campaign to get him to step aside.With just one month left before the Democrats convene in Chicago for their convention, the party has limited time to determine who will be on the top of the ticket in November.Here’s what you need to know about Biden’s path forward:How many Democratic lawmakers are calling on Biden to drop out of the race?At least 19 congressional Democrats – 18 House members and one senator – have publicly called on Biden to withdraw from the race as of Friday morning. Although those lawmakers represent a relatively small fraction of the more than 200 Democrats on Capitol Hill, their damning statements have intensified scrutiny of Biden and his ability to serve another four years as president.“I understand why President Biden wants to run,” Senator Peter Welch wrote in a Washington Post op-ed. “He saved us from Donald Trump once and wants to do it again. But he needs to reassess whether he is the best candidate to do so. In my view, he is not.”What do voters think about Biden’s candidacy?A clear majority of voters believe Biden should step aside, but Democrats specifically have more mixed views on the subject. According to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll released Thursday, 67% of Americans, including 56% of Democrats, say Biden should step aside and let someone else run for president.In comparison, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released last Tuesday showed 32% of Democrats saying Biden should withdraw from the race. If the proportion of Democrats calling on Biden to drop out continues to grow, the president’s already vulnerable position in the party could become untenable.That being said, the concerns about Biden’s fitness for office do not appear to have fundamentally reshaped the race for the presidency. The Post-ABC-Ipsos poll showed Biden and Trump each capturing 46% of the vote, a result that is essentially unchanged since April. A hypothetical match-up between Trump and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, also appears to be a virtual tie, with 49% of voters supporting Harris and 47% backing Trump.Has Biden given any indication that he plans to drop out?No. Biden has instead planned a campaign blitz across the coming days to demonstrate his ability to deliver a convincing pitch for re-election. On Monday, he will visit Austin, Texas, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, and he will also sit down for an interview with the NBC News anchor Lester Holt.“I’m determined on running, but I think it’s important that I allay fears by letting them see me out there,” Biden said on Thursday. “I’m going out in the areas where we think we can win, where we can persuade people to move our way.”Can Biden’s critics force him out of the race?They have few options to do so. Presidential primary voting has already concluded in all US states, so the delegates going to the Democratic convention are the only people who can nominate another candidate at this point. But of the roughly 4,000 delegates bound for Chicago, nearly 3,900 of them are pledged to Biden because of his strong performance in the primaries.Biden said on Thursday that the delegates pledged to him can “do whatever they want” at the convention, but it is a bit more complicated than that.Elaine Kamarck, a member of the Democratic national committee rules committee and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, notes that current party rules state: “Delegates elected to the national convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.”Kamarck wrote on Thursday: “Few, if any, delegates to recent conventions have ever sought to test [the rule]. But if worries about President Biden’s ability to run and to serve continue to grow, along with fears of handing the presidency over to Donald Trump, some delegates may find themselves tempted to vote for someone else.”How long does Biden have to decide if he will stay in the race?The Democratic convention begins 19 August, but the party may formally nominate a candidate before then. Before Biden’s poor debate performance, the Democratic National Committee already planned to virtually nominate a candidate to meet an Ohio ballot deadline of 7 August, but no date has been officially announced for the roll call vote.Because of the Ohio deadline, Democrats have even less time than it might appear to determine who their nominee will be.What would happen if Biden did step aside?If Biden withdraws from the presidential race, the more than 4,000 Democratic delegates will need to nominate another candidate to run against Trump in November. The winning candidate will need to secure the support of a majority of delegates to capture the nomination.Harris would enter the nomination fight with an early advantage, as she has the largest national profile of any potential candidate and some Democrats have already named her as their preferred option. But Harris would not automatically become the nominee if Biden steps aside, as she would still need to win the necessary number of delegates. Other names floated as potential replacements for Biden include the California governor, Gavin Newsom, Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, and Illinois governor, JB Pritzker.Asked about Harris on Thursday, Biden said he had the utmost confidence in his vice-president, but he reminded reporters that any other Democratic candidate would enter the election with minimal time to introduce themselves and deliver a winning message to voters.“I believe I’m the best qualified to govern, and I think I’m the best qualified to win,” Biden said. “There are other people who could beat Trump, too, but it’s awful hard to start from scratch.” More

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      Rightwing claim of ‘0% chance’ of fair US election previews effort to undo 2024 result

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      A major conservative thinktank previewed rightwing efforts to overturn the 2024 election on Thursday, with a top official saying there was a “0% chance of a free and fair election”.Mike Howell, executive director of the Oversight Project at the Heritage Foundation, made the comments at an event in Washington sharing the results of a hypothetical exercise mapping out several implausible scenarios that could take place after the election. The outlandish scenarios involved Barbara Streisand being kidnapped by Hamas, antifa-BLM protesters taking over a detention facility and the FBI arresting Donald Trump after winning the election.The effort was designed to muddy the waters over the threat to the 2024 election posed by Donald Trump, who has repeatedly refused to commit to accepting the election results and tried to overturn the 2020 vote. Instead, the Heritage Foundation, which is also behind the extreme Project 2025, wanted to suggest that it was Joe Biden who could try to overturn the result of the election, echoing the ex-president’s repeated claims that it is actually Biden who is the threat to democracy.“President Biden is very well-positioned to hold the White House by force in the case of an unfavorable electoral outcome,” the report summarizing the exercise says. “The lawlessness of the Biden administration – at the border, in staffing considerations, and in routine defiance of court rulings – makes clear that the current president and his administration not only possesses the means, but perhaps also the intent, to circumvent constitutional limits and disregard the will of the voters should they demand a new president.”Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, has said Biden will accept the election results. “There’s no place for putting yourself above your entire country,” she said earlier this year. “That is a commitment from the president.”But at the Heritage event, that reality was ignored.“I’m formally accusing the Biden administration of creating the conditions that most reasonable policymakers and officials cannot in good conscience certify an election,” Howell said.Howell’s comments are notable because Republican officials are increasingly putting pressure on the certification process in several states, an alarming development experts say could be a major part of an effort to overturn election results this fall. For example, Republican commissioners in Washoe county, the second most populous county in Nevada, recently refused to certify a primary without any evidence of wrongdoing. Republicans in Georgia are also seeking to give county election board members more discretion to slow down the certification of the election.The report identifies four main “threats” to the 2024 election. One is that the Department of Justice identifies enough civil and voting rights violations to interfere in the certification of election results. The second is that law enforcement officials will “arrest opponents of the regime” (Trump has actually pledged to prosecute his enemies). The third is that there will be organized violence to intimidate state and local election officials (officials throughout the county have reported being harassed by those who believe Trump won). The fourth is that the media will suppress information.The misleading document comes as the Heritage Foundation has come under scrutiny for Project 2025, a 900-plus page blueprint that lays out radical plans to reshape the US government if Trump wins.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionJames Singer, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, said the report was an obvious effort to support an attempt to steal the election.“The architects of Trump’s Project 2025, who less than a week ago threatened violence and still push lies about the 2020 election Donald Trump lost, are laying the groundwork to try and steal another election. This document is nothing more than an attempt to justify their efforts to suppress the vote, undermine the election, and ultimately another January 6,” he said in a statement. More

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      Wisconsin progressives take battle to Trump – but warn Biden must do more

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      Four years ago, progressives in the crucial battleground state of Wisconsin were energized about the presidential race, feeling ready and eager to elect Joe Biden and end four years of Donald Trump’s chaotic leadership.This year, the nominees for president remain the same, but much has changed. Before Biden’s damaging debate performance, leaders of progressive groups were already combating disillusionment and disengagement among many of their supporters, who sharply criticized the president’s response to the war in Gaza. Now, with days left before Republicans arrive in Milwaukee to nominate Trump for the third time, the groups’ leaders are confronting a fractured Democratic party wrestling with the question of whether to replace their presumptive nominee.Despite the immense challenges ahead, progressive organizers are determined to convince voters of the dire stakes of this election and turn out a winning coalition in November. They believe Trump’s re-election poses an existential threat to American democracy, while recognizing that Biden needs to do a better job of showing voters how he will use his second term to improve their lives.Wisconsin progressives have planned counter-programming to the Republican convention, with a number of groups participating in a march on the convention scheduled for Monday. But they have also been working for months to prepare for all of the November elections, not limited to the presidential race.They have little margin for error. In 2020, Biden won Wisconsin by just 0.6 points, or roughly 20,000 votes out of the 3.3m cast, and he appears to be in a much more perilous position today. An AARP poll conducted in the days after the debate showed Biden trailing Trump by six points in Wisconsin.“We’re in a very tough predicament,” said William Walter, executive director of the progressive group Our Wisconsin Revolution. “The progressive left recognizes that stopping Donald Trump at all costs is imperative. But we want the Democratic party to help us in in our goals because they are aligned.”Early warning signsWhen the state held its presidential primaries in April, prominent progressive leaders encouraged primary voters to cast a ballot for “uninstructed” as a means of protesting Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza, an effort inspired by the similar Listen to Michigan campaign. Although Biden won the Wisconsin Democratic primary with 89% of the vote, nearly 50,000 voters – more than twice the president’s margin of victory in 2020 – voted uninstructed.The political arm of Voces de la Frontera, an immigrant and workers’ rights group, was among those that endorsed the uninstructed campaign. Christine Neumann-Ortiz, executive director of Voces de la Frontera, described the campaign as an effective mechanism to send a message to the White House.“We were simply a conduit to that message that people who were key to defeating Trump in 2020, this is how they’re feeling,” Neumann-Ortiz said. “They want to see something done.”The protest vote in Wisconsin – as well as other states like Michigan and Minnesota – was one of the early warning signs of Biden’s struggles to unite and energize his party. Those vulnerabilities have now taken center stage in the aftermath of the debate.“In 2020, with frankly the horrors of the Trump presidency still fresh in people’s minds, I think people were fired up,” said Emily Park, co-executive director of the climate advocacy group 350 Wisconsin Action. “Climate activism, racial justice activism, all sorts of progressive causes had been sort of newly reinvigorated. So I think that brought a huge sense of energy to the 2020 election. And this year, I think people are just not inspired.”Angela Lang, executive director of the Milwaukee-based group Black Leaders Organizing for Communities (Bloc), noted that many of voters’ top concerns remain unchanged since 2020. But regarding the cost of living, voters’ concerns have only intensified, as US prices have increased by roughly 20% since 2019. The rate of inflation has slowed significantly in recent months, as the 12-month consumer price index now stands at 3%, but many are not yet feeling the difference.“Things are expensive. People are still struggling despite the job numbers and things like that. They don’t see themselves reflected in those numbers,” Lang said. “When folks are often told this is the most important election of your lifetime over and over and over, and they’re not necessarily seeing the tangible changes in their lifetime, people start to get a little bit frustrated by that and start to wonder, ‘Do I continue to show up?’”That disillusionment could have ramifications far beyond the presidential race. Wisconsin is home to one of the most competitive Senate elections this year, as incumbent Democrat Tammy Baldwin fights to hold on to her seat, and the Republican representative Derrick Van Orden faces a competitive race in the third congressional district. Wisconsinites will also have the opportunity to elect state legislators with a new set of maps that give Democrats their first real opportunity in more than a decade to take control of a chamber.“If people are so disillusioned that they’re just not going to show up to the polls in November at all, then we lose our chance to make serious progress in our state legislature, which could mean critical things for the state of Wisconsin on all sorts of issues,” Park said. “It’s not just about the White House.”Democracy and bodily autonomy on the ballotDespite voters’ apparent lack of enthusiasm, their thoughts and fears about a second Trump term have grown more specific since 2020. As he has knocked on voters’ doors this year, Walter, who served as a delegate for Bernie Sanders in 2020, has heard more people express concern about the continuation of democracy if Trump wins the election.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe pointed to recent comments from Kevin Roberts, president of the rightwing Heritage Foundation, to underscore the threat. Roberts told a radio host last week: “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”Walter said: “They’re making it abundantly clear what their goals are for a second administration, and it’s terrifying. And a lot of people, I think, really are starting to recognize that.”Abortion access has also moved to the top of many voters’ priority lists. The race between Biden and Trump represents the first presidential election since Roe v Wade was overturned in 2022, and Democrats predict that Republicans will enact a national abortion ban if they have the opportunity.“That’s one thing that I hear quite often is, quite literally, democracy and bodily autonomy are on the ballot,” Walter said.Those high stakes have only increased the pressure on Biden since his poor debate performance, and progressive leaders in Wisconsin are conflicted about how to move forward. Some prominent progressive lawmakers, including representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar, have said Democrats need to stick with Biden and focus on beating Trump, but doubts linger.Progressive leaders in Wisconsin emphasized that Biden has notched some important legislative wins, including the bipartisan infrastructure law and the Inflation Reduction Act, but they expressed varying opinions on whether the president should continue his campaign.“My feeling is that that conversation is only going to stop at the [Democratic] convention. And it is true that we do have primary elections, and people voted for Biden as the candidate,” Neumann-Ortiz said. “Ultimately, in this election, the conversation needs to be about, how can we build a strong, diverse, united front against the threat of a candidate that is promising dictatorship on day one?”Even as Democrats continue to squabble over Biden’s future, Wisconsin groups like Voces de la Frontera and Bloc remain focused on communicating the danger of Trump’s potential return to voters.“I think at the end of the day, our community, we know what’s at stake,” Lang said. “Folks end up coming around [in] September, October, and that’s usually when they start to get plugged in and engaged. I will caution, though, that if we’re still having the same questions and the same conversations around that time, I think it’s a little bit more of a red flag.”Walter warned that, if Biden chooses to continue on and loses to Trump in November, his defeat will become legacy-defining.“We won’t be able to talk about the Inflation Reduction Act. We won’t be able to talk about his massive labor wins,” Walter said.“Instead, the narrative in every history book will be on the last six months before the election – how we saw that he wasn’t as sharp as he may have been five years ago, that he didn’t have what it takes to beat Donald Trump. And because of that, we lost the American experiment.” More

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      Why did Delta Air Lines tweet that the Palestinian flag is ‘terrifying’? | Arwa Mahdawi

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      There’s been a huge increase in scary airline incidents recently. Last week, there was yet another one when passengers on a Delta flight from Boston to West Palm Beach experienced extreme turbulence. No, this wasn’t a Boeing-related safety glitch; it was far more serious than that. A flight attendant was wearing a tiny Palestine flag pin on his uniform.Terrifying, right? Just unbelievable that, nine months into Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza, someone might feel the urge to publicly express solidarity with a group of people who are being bombed into oblivion. Absolutely mind-boggling that someone might feel moved by the fact that, according to United Nations rights experts, Israel has carried out a “targeted starvation campaign” in Gaza and babies are dying of malnutrition. Really chilling that an American felt upset by their taxpayer money being used to fund an assault which is killing civilians at a scale and pace many experts have called “unprecedented”.Luckily there was a brave passenger on the plane to call this foolishness out. Someone snapped a photo of the flight attendant and posted it on social media. Various anti-Palestinian accounts quickly mobilized to uncover the man’s identity and pressure Delta to get him fired. A Twitter account called iliketeslas then found another picture of a Delta employee wearing a Palestine flag and tweeted: “imagine getting into a @Delta flight and seeing workers with Hamas badges in the air. What do you do?”Well, personally, the first thing I’d do is explain to the person complaining that the Palestinian flag is not a “Hamas badge”. But I’m not the person manning Delta’s official Twitter/X account. Instead, that person replied from Delta’s official X account: “I hear you and I’d be terrified as well, personally. Our employees reflect our culture and we do not take it lightly when our policy is not being followed.”Let me just spell that out. Someone on Delta’s communication team thinks the Palestinian flag is terrifying and had no problem tweeting that out from the company’s official @Delta account.And this, by the way, isn’t the first time that Delta has been in the news for cracking down on pro-Palestinian messages. This week the non-profit news organization Truthout published a piece alleging that an anti-Zionist Jewish American man called Louie Siegel was told to remove a pro-ceasefire T-shirt during a recent Delta Air Lines flight from São Paulo to Chicago. The T-shirt said “Not in Our Name” on the front side and “Jews Say Ceasefire Now” on the back. Real extremist stuff, eh? Siegel had to cover it up to stay on the plane and was warned he would be put on a no-fly list if he didn’t comply.Delta’s tweet about the terrifying Palestinian flag, by the way, was quickly deleted. But a proper apology from the airline hasn’t been forthcoming. “Delta removed a mistakenly posted comment on X Tuesday because it was not in line with our values and our mission to connect the world,” a Delta spokesperson told me via email on Thursday. “The team member responsible for the post has been counseled and no longer supports Delta’s social channels. We apologize for this error.”Delta’s spokesperson also clarified that neither flight attendant was fired for wearing the pins and said they’d been offered support. They added: “However, as of [Thursday], Delta is shifting its pin allowance policy effective July 15. Beginning then, only US flags will be permitted to be worn on uniforms. Previously, pins representing countries/nationalities of the world had been permitted.”While it’s encouraging that Delta’s flight attendants haven’t been terminated for the crime of wearing a Palestinian flag pin, minimizing this incident as an “error” is insulting. Writing an important email that says “I hope you like tit!” instead of “I hope you like it!” (which is something I have unfortunately done) is what you call an error. Using an official corporate social media account to call the Palestinian flag terrifying, on the other hand, is a hell of a lot more than that.Rather, it’s yet another example of just how widespread and normalized anti-Palestinian bigotry has become in the US. Indeed, racism towards Palestinians is so acceptable that when Donald Trump used “Palestinian” as a slur against Joe Biden in the recent debate, there was barely any outrage. Biden certainly didn’t call Trump out on his racism.Gaza is hell on earth at the moment. Perhaps there will be a ceasefire at one point, but Gaza will never be the same. According to a recent piece by the Israeli paper Haaretz, “The IDF has taken control of 26% of the Gaza Strip … [and] the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Gazans to the southern part of the Strip is becoming permanent. This, an IDF soldier told Haaretz, is ‘an effort at prolonged occupation’.”Meanwhile Israel is loudly and proudly annexing the occupied West Bank, recently approving the largest seizure of land in more than three decades, according to a report by an Israeli anti-settlement watchdog.We are witnessing ethnic cleansing and mass murder in real time and yet speaking out about these horrors – doing something as little as wearing a Palestinian pin in public – puts you at risk of being smeared, harassed and fired from your job. It’s become difficult to even speak about the death toll in Gaza now. The House recently passed an amendment preventing the state department from citing the Gaza health ministry’s death toll statistics for the war. That is the only official entity tracking death data in Gaza; banning these figures effectively halts any conversation about the death toll.“They want to erase the Palestinians who are living,” said Representative Rashida Tlaib in response to the amendment, “and now they are trying to erase the Palestinians who are dead.” As Tlaib says, there is a widespread effort to “dehumanize Palestinians and erase Palestinians from existence”. It’s this that should terrify you. Not a tiny Palestinian flag.

      Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

      Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. More

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      Anne Applebaum on autocracies and signs of America’s move to join them – podcast

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      Back in December Donald Trump said the quiet bit out loud when he announced he wanted to be a dictator – if only on day one. Looking around the world in the 21st century, autocracy is getting a new lease of life – authoritarian regimes are working together, and the danger to democracies like the United States is getting closer to home.
      This week, Jonathan Freedland is joined by the political commentator and author Anne Applebaum to look at what the US should be doing to tackle the growing threat of autocracy

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      Joe Biden defiant despite gaffes at Nato press conference as he battles calls to stand aside

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      In a critical press conference meant to make or break his presidential campaign, Joe Biden spiritedly defended his foreign policy record even as he faced a barrage of questions on his mental fitness and, in another gaffe, mistakenly referred to Kamala Harris as “vice-president Trump”.Biden offered extensive remarks on thorny foreign policy issues including competition with China and the Israel-Hamas war, in which he said he had warned Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu away from an occupation of the Gaza Strip.He said he was directly in contact with Xi Jinping to warn him not to offer further support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, but not with Vladimir Putin, whom he said: “I have no reason to speak to him right now.”But Biden, who is running to be president until January 2029, fielded an equal number of questions during the press conference on his mental fitness, an issue that has loomed over his campaign since a faltering debate performance against Donald Trump that he called “that dumb mistake”.Ultimately, it was a performance that supporters will probably say shows he is capable of handling his responsibilities as commander-in-chief, but unlikely to convince those already in doubt about his mental fitness that he can serve another four years in office.Biden, 81, insisted he would stay in the race despite calls from some in his party to drop out and to allow another figure, including Harris, run in the November election.Shortly after he finished speaking, Connecticut congressman Jim Himes, the top ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, called on Biden to step down from the campaign, writing on X: “We must put forth the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat posed by Trump’s promised MAGA authoritarianism. I no longer believe that is Joe Biden.”Appearing later on CNN, Himes said: “Imagine that three months from now, we get another performance like there was in the debate, right before the election. Do you want to take that risk? I don’t.”Two more congressional Democrats also called on Biden to step aside, bringing the total to 17. Representative Scott Peters of California said, “The stakes are high, and we are on a losing course,” while Representative Eric Sorensen of Illinois said that Biden should “put country over party”.Wrapping up a summit of the 32-member bloc in Washington DC, Biden said: “I’ve not had any of my European allies come up and say, ‘Joe, don’t run’. What I’ve heard them say is, ‘You’ve got to win’.“If I slow down and can’t get the job done that’s a sign I shouldn’t be doing this,” he said. “But there’s no indication of that. None.”Biden said he wouldn’t leave the race unless polls showed him that he had no chance of winning against Trump, even if they showed that Harris’s chances in the election were better than his own.Nonetheless, he said Harris was qualified to be president as well, although he misnamed her in the endorsement. “I wouldn’t have picked vice-president Trump to be vice-president, if she’s not qualified to be president,” he said.That gaffe was compounded by the fact that he had introduced the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as “President Putin” just hours earlier, before correcting himself and saying “we’re going to beat Putin”.Biden initially used the final Nato summit press conference as something of a stump speech, brandishing his national security record in supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression and saying that the November vote was “much more than a political question … It’s a national security issue.”He then turned to his record on the economy, border security and his efforts to broker a peace in the Israel-Hamas war to bolster his case for his campaign in November.Biden spoke for 58 minutes, including 50 minutes of unscripted question-and-answer. He appeared most comfortable and cogent as he discussed thorny foreign policy questions.“Don’t make the same mistake America made after [Osama] bin Laden,” he said he told Netanyahu, as he sought to ward off a potential occupation of the Gaza Strip. “There’s no need to occupy anywhere. Go after the people who did the job.”He also indicated that European countries were prepared to cut their investments in China if Xi continued to “[supply] Russia, with information and capacity, along with working with North Korea and others, to help Russia in armament”.But at times he got lost in the weeds. Asked about reports that he had asked his schedule to be moved up, he said: “I’m not talking about, and if you’ve looked at my schedule since I, since I made that stupid mistake in the campaign, in the debate. I mean, my schedule has been full bore.”“Where’s Trump been?” he continued. “Riding around on his golf cart? Filling out his scorecard before he hits the ball?” More