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      Biden and Trump look to debate to open up race currently in a dead heat

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      It could be the moment when a rematch that few seem to want finally comes to life: like two ageing prizefighters, Joe Biden and Donald Trump will enter the arena of political bloodsport on Thursday evening to resume a verbal sparring bout that will revive memories of the ugly exchanges when the two debated face to face four years ago.A CNN studio in Atlanta will host the first presidential debate of the campaign between the same two candidates who contested the last election, which Biden won.With more than four months to go until polling day in November, it is the earliest in any US presidential campaign that a debate between the two main candidates has ever been staged.While some see the timing as premature, it could provide a chance to open up a contest that has become overshadowed by, among other things, Trump’s recent felony conviction, as well as assorted other legal travails that see him facing 54 criminal charges for trying to overturn the last election and for retaining classified documents.Knife-edge polls indicate a race essentially tied, with a national polling average for May and June showing the candidates at 46% each. Polls in seven key battleground states – Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina – give Trump a narrow advantage, though usually within the margin of error.For non-Trump supporters, it is a troubling scenario given he incited a violent insurrection against the US Capitol to stop Congress certifying the results of the 2020 election that he refused to accept that he lost, despite Biden winning by more than 7m votes.Both candidates are deeply unpopular: Trump because his opponents see him as an aspiring dictator who threatens democracy, Biden because, at 81 (although just three years older than his Republican opponent), he is viewed – even among many Democrats – as too old for another term as president.Both will attempt to change their respective narratives in the debate. Trump, openly hostile towards immigrants, will probably attack Biden over an uptick of migrants at the border, despite Biden’s recent moves to tighten it. But Trump advisers know he needs at least some moderate voters to win, and will be hoping he can tone down his most virulent rhetoric, such as saying immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country”.Biden, for his part, will be aiming to dilute criticism of his age with an energetic performance along the lines of his State of the Union address earlier this year. He could be prepared to go on the offensive regarding Trump’s criminal record, and for how Trump takes credit for stacking the supreme court with conservatives in order to overturn the right to abortion.The stakes for both could not be higher. “We have a majority of voters who are unhappy with the incumbent, but they don’t have great recollection of what the prior officeholder did either,” said Patrick Murray, head of the Polling Institute at Monmouth University. “That sets us up for a very tight race where people just don’t know when they want to go.“Very rarely do you have anything like 18, 19, 20% of an electorate who say [as they do now] ‘I don’t like the fact that I could vote for either one of these.’ We’ve only seen this phenomenon one other time in living memory, which was eight years ago, with the Clinton-Trump race.”The two men will meet in transformed circumstances from 2020, when the world was still grappling with the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic and associated lockdown rules limited political campaigning.Since then, Russia has invaded Ukraine and Israel has become embroiled in a long and devastating war in Gaza, developments requiring US military aid and diplomatic commitment.The lingering effects of inflation, fuelled by Covid-era public spending, is partly dousing the otherwise rosy economic situation, pulling down Biden’s approval ratings even as the US outgrows other developed economies and unemployment sees historic lows. Meanwhile, Biden – contrary to his pre-election promises – has embraced some of Trump’s fiercely anti-immigrant policies by temporarily shutting the southern US border to a tide of asylum seekers should a number of daily crossings be exceeded.Many of these changes have rebounded to Trump’s advantage, with polls showing a majority favouring him on the economy over Biden, a trend Murray attributed to “rosy retrospection”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“You think you’re not happy with the way things are right now and you automatically remember the past as having been better. We’re seeing that now with Donald Trump,” he said. “When we ask [voters] looking back to Donald Trump’s presidency, to approve or disapprove of the job he did, he gets 48% approval. He never got a 48% approval rating when he was president.”Trump’s achilles heel – and the possible key to Biden’s salvation – may lie in arguably the most startling domestic change to have happened since the last election, the US supreme court ruling in 2022 overturning the landmark Roe v Wade decision that guaranteed women’s right to abortion.“It’s a good issue for Democrats in an election where they’re hunting for issues that are good for them,” said Kyle Kondik, of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “Pretty clearly the public opinion is closer to them on abortion rights than it is to the Republican position.”That advantage was illustrated in a campaign video Biden released on Monday that blamed Trump personally for the court’s abortion ruling, pointing out that the decision had depended on the votes of three conservative justices appointed by him when he was president.The video followed an equally personalised attack in another television advert released and widely circulated in swing states the week before. Titled Character Matters, it targeted Trump’s criminal status arising from his felony conviction in a New York court last month of falsifying documents to cover up hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, an adult film actor who testified that the pair had sex.According to Murray, the president’s only route to victory is to intensify and broaden such attacks to woo a bloc of an estimated 6-7 million anti-Trump voters who backed Biden last time but have cooled on him and are inclined to sit out the forthcoming election.“Those are the voters I’d be going after, if I was Biden,” he said. “There’s a host of issues – Roe v Wade, January 6, book banning – but the real issue is that Donald Trump represents a change in how the government deals with your personal freedoms.“That’s the kind of thing that can move this, this group of voters sitting on the fence. This group was for Biden; if he can win them back, he moves the needle four points in his direction and we’re talking about an entirely different ballgame.” More

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      The surprising psychology behind extremism, and how politics is driving it – podcast

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      Psychologists usually expect ambivalence to be a driver of political apathy. But a new study appears to show a link between ambivalence in our views and the likelihood that we’ll support extremist actions. Madeleine Finlay speaks to the study’s co-author Richard Petty, professor of psychology at Ohio State University, to find out what pushes people to take extreme actions, how politics could be driving this behaviour and how it could be combated

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

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      Jamaal Bowman’s primary defeat leaves progressives angry at role of Aipac

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      Progressive groups reacted with disappointment and anger over Jamaal Bowman’s decisive primary loss to a moderate Democrat in New York’s 16th district, calling for the party to cut ties with pro-Israel lobbying groups they blame for the result.In a letter to the House Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, more than a dozen progressive organizations said they had “dire concerns” over the party’s continued association with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), “the future of the Democratic Party, the future of our multiracial democracy, and the future of our planet”.Aipac and its affiliates plan to spend $100m across the election cycle, and Bowman’s defeat marks their most significant victory to date. Looking ahead, they have already set their sights set on the Missouri congresswoman Cori Bush, who will face Wesley Bell in her August primary. United Democracy Project, a Super Pac affiliated with Aipac, has already spent nearly $1.9m promoting Bell’s candidacy.The signatories of the letter included the Center for Popular Democracy Action, Jewish Voice for Peace Action, New York Communities for Change and New York City Democratic Socialists of America.In the letter, they said that in the run-up to the vote, UDP had flooded the Westchester county–northern Bronx district with nearly $20m in mailers and ads “funded largely by Republican billionaires, to drown out Jamaal Bowman’s message of humanity, dignity, and a thriving future for all”.The result, they said, had been to unseat a a candidate that Jeffries had personally endorsed, who retains “a deep well of support among the Black and brown communities in the district”, and to replace him with “a conservative politician with a history of racist remarks and governance”.Bowman, a Black former middle school principal who has been an outspoken critic of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, lost to challenger George Latimer by a wide margin of 58% to 42% of the vote. The race was called within an hour of polls closing.Bowman had been supported on the campaign trail by heavyweight party progressives, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who called the race “one of the most important in the modern history of America”.Sanders said in a statement after Bowman’s loss that it was “an outrage and an insult to democracy that we maintain a corrupt campaign finance system which allows billionaire-funded Super Pacs to buy elections.”“Aipac and other Super Pacs spent over $23 million to defeat Bowman. He spent $3 million. That is a spending gap which is virtually impossible to overcome,” he said, adding: “It is not a coincidence that with our corrupt campaign finance system we also have a rigged economy that allows the very rich to get much richer while many working people are falling further behind. Big Money buys politicians who will do their bidding, and the results are clear.”Progressives, like Sanders, attempted to characterize the race as an example of big-money influence in politics after pro-Israel groups and a number of wealthy residents of the New York suburban parts of the district weighed in with their checkbooks.Bush underscored that Latimer’s victory represented a clear threat to the progressive movement, saying in a statement: “These same extremists are coming to St Louis. They are bankrolling a faux-progressive, former Republican campaign operative to buy our deep blue Democratic seat. But let me be clear: St Louis will not be silenced or sold out.”The progressive groups said that Aipac had “turned the NY16 race into the most expensive Democratic primary in history, waging an unacceptable assault on our democracy, our communities, and our shared future” and called on Jeffries to take action against “destructive actions in your own backyard”.Jeffries, along with most of the House Democratic leadership team, has received Aipac’s endorsement, and the progressive groups demanded that he reject the pro-Israel lobby group’s financial support to protest against Bowman’s defeat.Protect Our Power said in a statement that Bowman’s defeat was a “loss for young people and anyone who cares about our continued movement toward justice, peace, and building a multiracial democracy”.The progressive group blamed “Aipac and the Maga billionaires who recruited and paid for George Latimer’s campaign from start to finish” for the defeat, and vowed “to tell Aipac they have no business creating division in our democracy”.In a separate letter of protest, Jewish Voice for Peace Action said it was “saddened” by the results that had unseated a congressman who “has been one of the few members of Congress committed to defending Palestinian human rights”.“Today is a sad day for American democracy,” said JVP’s political director, Beth Miller. “To protect progressive candidates moving forward it is essential that Democrats reject Aipac,” she added.Bob Herbst, a member of the group and a constituent of NY-16, called Aipac’s multimillion-dollar spend in the district “a dangerous interference in our democracy”.The race had been viewed as a crucial test of Democratic party unity over an issue that threatens to separate traditionally Democratic-voting Jewish Americans from the party in the aftermath of Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel that killed nearly 1,200 people, and a nine-month Israeli counter-offensive that has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians and driven hundreds of thousands more to the point of starvation.Bowman claimed that the results would show “fucking Aipac the power of the motherfucking South Bronx”, though the Aipac campaign focused primarily on Bowman’s weaknesses overall and not specifically or solely his stance on Israel. One UDP attack ad against Bowman specifically called out his votes against the bipartisan infrastructure bill and the debt ceiling agreement, accusing the representative of failing his constituents.“Jamaal Bowman has his own agenda and refuses to compromise, even with President Biden,” the ad’s narrator says. “Jamaal Bowman has his own agenda, and it’s hurting New York.”Nonetheless, Aipac is using Latimer’s victory to claim that Bowman’s stance on Israel is why he lost.“This race presented a clear choice – between George Latimer, who reflects the views of the Democratic mainstream in his congressional district and across the country, and his opponent, who aligns with the extremist, anti-Israel fringe,” an Aipac spokesperson, Marshall Wittmann, told Axios.Bowman was no stranger to scandals while in office. In December 2023, he became the 27th House member in history to be censured after pulling a fire alarm on his way to vote on a stopgap spending bill. He was also linked to problematic blogposts that pushed unfounded conspiracy theories about the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The posts, which Bowman said were from more than a decade ago, were unearthed by the Daily Beast earlier this year and the former representative has since said he regrets them.Bowman’s opponent, Latimer, offered a more measured approach in a district with a large number of Jewish voters.After Latimer accepted his win on Tuesday night, he told supporters: “We have to fight to make sure that we do not vilify each other, that we remember that we’re all Americans, and that our common future is bound together.”Joanie Greve contributed reporting More

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      Supreme court says Idaho abortion ruling ‘inadvertently’ published online – as it happened

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      The supreme court has acknowledged to Bloomberg Law that the ruling in a case over whether hospitals in Idaho can be required to carry out abortions in emergencies was published by accident.The court’s public information officer Patricia McCabe told the outlet: “The Court’s Publications Unit inadvertently and briefly uploaded a document to the Court’s website. The Court’s opinion in Moyle v. United States and Idaho v. United States will be issued in due course.”Bloomberg Law goes on to report that the ruling is 6-3 in favor of the Biden administration, with conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Samuel Alito dissenting. However, the ruling is structured to allow litigation over the issue to continue, and not resolve the broader question of whether the federal government can require emergency abortions be performed in states where the procedure is banned:
      The high court decision “will prevent Idaho from enforcing its abortion ban when the termination of a pregnancy is needed to prevent serious harms to a woman’s health,” Justice Elena Kagan said in a concurring opinion.
      Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote separately to say that she wouldn’t have dismissed the case, according to the copy that was briefly online.
      “Today’s decision is not a victory for pregnant patients in Idaho. It is delay,” she wrote. “While this court dawdles and the country waits, pregnant people experiencing emergency medical conditions remain in a precarious position, as their doctors are kept in the dark about what the law requires.”
      The posted decision indicates the court won’t resolve broader questions about the intersection of state abortion bans and a federal law designed to ensure hospitals treat patients who arrive in need of emergency care.
      The case is the supreme court’s first look at a state abortion ban since the conservative majority overturned Roe v Wade in 2022. The court on 13 June preserved full access to the widely used abortion pill mifepristone, saying anti-abortion doctors and organizations lacked legal standing to press a lawsuit.
      The supreme court turned down an attempt by Republican-led states to block the Biden administration’s coordination with social media companies on fighting disinformation, one of only two decisions the conservative-dominated panel released today. They still have yet to rule on cases concerning Donald Trump’s prosecution for trying to overturn the 2020 election and the scope of federal government regulations, but will issue more opinions on Thursday and Friday. But perhaps an even bigger story than what the court actually decided is what it inadvertently decided. Bloomberg Law noticed that the court had accidentally posted its opinion in a closely watched case pitting Idaho against the Biden administration, and a 6-3 majority was going to require the Republican-led state to allow emergency abortions – at least for now.Here’s what else happened today:
      House Republicans convened a little-known congressional body to intervene on behalf of top Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s attempts to stay out of jail.
      The supreme court once again overturned the ultra-conservative fifth circuit court of appeals, in its ruling over social media disinformation. Here’s why that’s significant.
      Trump claims he can get detained US journalist Evan Gershkovich out of jail in Russia, if he wins the November election. The Wall Street Journal reporter’s trial began behind closed doors today.
      Encounters at the southern border dropped by 40% after Joe Biden imposed restrictions that will temporarily restrict access to asylum seekers, the homeland security department said.
      Progressives are not pleased after congressman Jamaal Bowman lost his Democratic primary yesterday, and are training their ire on the influence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac).
      A group of Black campaign surrogates for Donald Trump met at a barbershop in Atlanta’s Buckhead neighborhood Wednesday, ahead of the head-to-head between Trump and Joe Biden here tomorrow.Trump made a phone appearance to tout his accomplishments for the Black community while in office and his proposal to end taxation on tips.“Let the people earn what they earn,” Trump said, adding that he was aware he was talking to people in a barbershop who do tipped service work. “And it has been so popular beyond anything.”Both Trump and Biden are blitzing metro Atlanta with events leading up to the debate. Rocky’s Barber Shop, a Black-owned business in Atlanta’s more affluent neighborhood, hosted conservative Black leaders from metro Atlanta. Shelley Winter, a conservative talk show host here, asked Trump if he thought that CNN debate moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash would treat him fairly.“Well, I think it would be good for them if they did,” Trump replied. “I think probably not,” he added, expressing lingering ire about Tapper cutting off his televised victory speech after winning the primaries.
      So they cover the whole primary, but they don’t cover my victory speech. So am I going to get it fair? Probably not, but it would be very good for CNN. They’re having a lot of ratings problems.
      Two potential choices for vice president who did not need a haircut found themselves at the shop anyway Wednesday: congressman Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) and former housing and urban development secretary Dr. Ben Carson.“I just want to encourage you to continue to speak out because the attacks on you have been absolutely ridiculous,” Carson said. “We’re praying that God will give you the strength to bear it because you’re standing in there for all of us.”Donalds said we would see if he was Trump’s vice presidential pick. Does he want to be vice president? “Of course!” he replied.Trump said on Saturday that he had already made up his mind about who he would choose to be vice president, and that his choice would be present in Atlanta for the debate.The number of encounters at the south-west border was down 40% in the three weeks since Joe Biden announced new rules restricting asylum, the Department of Homeland Security announced on Wednesday.According to a DHS fact sheet, the average daily arrests over a seven-day period has fallen to under 2,400 encounters per day, the lowest level of encounters since January 2021. It is still not low enough to lift the order. Asylum processing resumes when encounters fall to an average of 1,500 encounters across a seven-day period.“It’s a remarkable feat that our personnel have accomplished in just such a short period of time,” DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in an interview on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Wednesday. “Congress failed to act. The president has acted.”But he said congressional action was needed to send more resources to border patrol and that without legislation the order could be lifted or reversed by the courts or a future administration.Last week, CBP said encounters fell by 25%, meaning illegal border crossings dropped significantly since then.Encounters were already on a downward trend before Biden’s asylum order, due in part to a crackdown on northward migration by Mexican officials. Seasonal patterns also affect crossings.Opponents have sued the administration to block the order.Cori Bush, the Democratic congresswoman of Missouri and another prominent member of the progressive “Squad”, has issued a statement calling Jamaal Bowman her “brother-in-service” and attacking Aipac’s role in his primary defeat last night.Bowman is the “true representation of transformational leadership and brings … the power of everyday people from our communities to Congress each and every day,” Bush wrote.
      AIPAC and their allies—backed by far-right Donald Trump megadonors—poured a tidal wave of cash into this primary race showing us just how desperate these billionaire extremists are in their attempts to buy our democracy, promote their own gain, and silence the voices of progress and justice. There should be no question about the need to get Big Money out of politics.
      A recent poll shows Bush at risk of losing in her own primary contest for Missouri’s 1st congressional district, one point behind challenger Wesley Bell. The pollster, The Mellman Group, said:
      Bush is still seen favorably, but assessments of her and her performance are moving in a negative direction, while Bell’s image is improving, leaving him with an underlying image advantage. With some six weeks to go and 11% [of voters surveyed] still undecided, this race can go either way, but Bell has achieved a slight advantage.
      Jamaal Bowman’s primary defeat on Tuesday was a “loss for young people and anyone who cares about our continued movement toward justice, peace, and building a multiracial democracy,” Protect Our Power said in a statement.The progressive group blamed “Aipac and the Maga billionaires who recruited and paid for George Latimer’s campaign from start to finish” for the defeat, and vowed “to tell Aipac they have no business creating division in our democracy”.In a separate letter of protest, Jewish Voice for Peace Action (JVP) said it was “saddened” by the results that had unseated a congressman who “has been one of the few members of Congress committed to defending Palestinian human rights”.“Today is a sad day for American democracy,” said JVP’s political director, Beth Miller. She added:
      To protect progressive candidates moving forward it is essential that Democrats reject Aipac.
      Progressive groups are calling on House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries to reject the endorsement and donations from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) in the wake of congressman Jamaal Bowman‘s primary loss in New York.The United Democracy Project, a super Pac affiliated with Aipac, dumped nearly $15m into Bowman’s district as part of its successful effort to elevate George Latimer to the Democratic nomination.A coalition of progressive groups, outraged over Aipac’s involvement in the race, sent a letter to Jeffries today demanding that he reconsider his association with the group and denounce its tactics.“AIPAC turned the NY16 race into the most expensive Democratic primary in history, waging anunacceptable assault on our democracy, our communities, and our shared future. We call on you to take action to address this threat,” the letter reads.
      AIPAC’s interference in Democratic politics poses a grave danger to the vision our organizations fight for every day: a future in which everyone can access a high quality education, comprehensive healthcare, a liveable climate, affordable housing, good jobs for good pay, humane immigration policies, human rights centered foreign policy — and more.
      Latimer defeated Bowman by 17 points yesterday, and he is now heavily favored to win the seat in November, as the Cook Political Report rates the district as solid Democrat.The abortion rights group Reproductive Freedom for All has said it agrees with Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson’s reported reservations in the copy of the opinion briefly posted on the supreme court’s website.“This is not a victory but a delay,” the group said in a statement responding to the court’s reported decision to permit abortions in medical emergencies in Idaho.
      The abortion bans that are putting people’s lives on the line in the first place will continue to remain on the books. We’re grateful that the Biden administration is fighting to preserve the shreds of access possible in states where anti-abortion extremists are doing everything in their power to block people from the care they need, even under the most dire of circumstances.
      The group said it will not forget that Donald Trump and the Maga Republicans are responsible for those bans, adding:
      Our rights are on the line, and we must send President Biden back to the White House to restore the federal right to abortion and end these bans once and for all.
      The copy of the opinion suggesting that the supreme court may rule to permit abortions in medical emergencies in Idaho may not be final and could be changed.According to the copy obtained by Bloomberg, a majority of justices will reportedly dismiss the case as “improvidently granted”, meaning the supreme court should not have accepted the case.The ruling would reinstate a lower court’s order that had allowed Idaho hospitals to perform abortions in cases where a woman’s health may be endangered, according to the outlet.Currently, the state’s law only allows abortions when a woman’s “life” is in danger. Idaho has sought to have abortion exempted from the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (Emtala), a precedent critics said would endanger pregnant people in any state that has abortion restrictions.Although many states allow doctors to perform an emergency abortion when a woman’s life or health is at risk, effectively mirroring Emtala, Idaho only allowed doctors to intervene when a woman was on the brink of death, a much higher bar for intervention. The Biden administration sued Idaho to enforce the law.The Emtala law, signed by abortion opponent Ronald Reagan, sought to protect pregnant women in active labor in particular. Until its passage, hospitals often transferred or “dumped” women who could not pay when they suffered an emergency on public hospitals, even when in advanced stages of labor.Emtala had endured a series of attacks, including by some hospital administrators who viewed it as an “unfunded mandate”. Although the federal government required hospitals to treat sick patients, it never provided money to care for indigent patients.Bernie Sanders has joined those blaming the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) for congressman Jamaal Bowman’s primary loss in New York last night.Bowman, whose criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza made him a target for pro-Israel lobbying groups, was defeated by George Latimer, a pro-Israel centrist, after Aipac and an affiliated group spent almost $15m to defeat him.Sanders, in a statement today, said it was an “outrage and an insult to democracy that we maintain a corrupt campaign finance system which allows billionaire-funded super PACs to buy elections.” He added:
      AIPAC and other super PACs spent over $23 million to defeat Bowman. He spent $3 million. That is a spending gap which is virtually impossible to overcome.
      It is not a coincidence that with our corrupt campaign finance system we also have a rigged economy that allows the very rich to get much richer while many working people are falling further behind. Big Money buys politicians who will do their bidding, and the results are clear.
      The Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus has responded to the news that the supreme court may be poised to allow abortions in medical emergencies in Idaho.“We are all watching,” the caucus posted to X, adding:
      With lives hanging in the balance, we hope this indicates a step forward for patients’ access to emergency abortion care.
      Now, it is up to #SCOTUS to confirm that this is true and they will indeed protect that right and uphold federal law.
      Alexis McGill Johnson, the head of Planned Parenthood, the country’s largest abortion provider, writes that any decision that falls short of guaranteeing patients’ access to abortion care in emergencies would be “catastrophic”. More

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      Trump rehashes baseless claims about Biden in barrage of pre-debate bluster

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      Donald Trump has unleashed a fusillade of baseless accusations against Joe Biden and CNN moderators ahead of Thursday’s first US presidential debate in an apparent “pre-bunking” exercise designed to have his excuses ready-made if he is declared the loser.In a familiar rehash of tactics used in previous campaigns, the presumptive Republican nominee has intensified demands that Biden should take a drug test and accused him of being “higher than a kite” in last January’s State of the Union address, when the president won praise for an energetic performance.“DRUG TEST FOR CROOKED JOE BIDEN??? I WOULD, ALSO, IMMEDIATELY AGREE TO ONE!!!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform this week.The post came after Trump repeatedly told audiences that Biden would come to the debate “jacked up” after being given “a shot in the ass”.One Trump adviser graphically illustrated the imagery of Biden needing an injection by sharing a picture of a syringe.Even Ronny Jackson, a former White House physician under Trump and Barack Obama who is now a Republican congressman for Texas, got in on the act by writing a letter to Biden calling on him to take a drug test.Trump has also taken aim at Jake Tapper, one of the CNN moderators in Thursday’s debate in Atlanta, repeatedly calling him “fake Tapper” in speeches and interviews.The barbs were reinforced by the Trump campaign’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, on Monday when she twice attacked Tapper in an interview on the network, prompting the presenter Kasie Hunt to abruptly terminate the exchange.Trump’s son Eric has also joined in the chorus, reinforcing the view that the attacks are part of a coordinated strategy to minimise the debate’s importance.“Understand that he’s not just going to be debating Joe Biden, he’s going to be debating CNN,” Eric Trump told Fox News on Sunday, adding that the network planned to give Biden “a free pass”.Conservative supporters of Trump have also questioned the impartiality of Dana Bash, Tapper’s co-moderator, partly by falsely stating she is married to Jeremy Bash, a former CIA chief of staff, who has been critical of the former president. In fact, the pair have not been married for 17 years.Both lines of attack reprise well-worn Trump tactics.The unfounded allegations of drug use by Biden appears designed to forestall a stronger-than-expected debate from the president following months in which Trump’s campaign have denigrated the president’s supposedly failing mental powers.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIt echoes similar specious claims Trump made against Biden in 2020 and also against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 campaign, when he accused her of being suspiciously “pumped up” at a presidential debate and demanded that she take a drug test before the next one.The complaints against the moderators are also familiar. In 2020, Trump repeatedly branded Kristen Welker, the moderator of the second debate screened by NBC as a “dyed-in-the-wool, radical-left Democrat”.“It’s called pre-bunking. He’s preparing his audience to dismiss the entire event,” Joan Donovan, a media studies professor at Boston University told the Washington Post. “It’s a communication strategy that is part of his playbook.”Even sources sympathetic to Trump have acknowledged that the accusations may either be false or part of a planned strategy.Maria Bartiromo, a Fox news anchor, responded sceptically to the earlier accusations by Trump supporters that Biden was taking performance-boosting drugs. “These are very serious charges. We don’t know that, we’re not doctors. We have no idea,” she told Byron Donalds, the Republican congressman for Florida, when he accused the president of being ‘jacked up”.Referring to Trump’s criticism of Tapper, one unnamed Republican source close to the former president told the Washington Post that it was “Trump being Trump”, adding: “There’s nothing unusual about any of this stuff in terms of how it’s playing out.” More

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      Anti-Trump Republican Adam Kinzinger endorses Biden for president

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      The former Republican representative Adam Kinzinger has endorsed Joe Biden for president, as the Biden campaign attempts to win over anti-Trump voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election.In a video released on Wednesday, Kinzinger said he was a “proud conservative” who had put “democracy and our constitution above all else.“And it’s because of my unwavering support for democracy that today, as a proud conservative, I’m endorsing Joe Biden for re-election,” Kinzinger said.Kinzinger warned that former president Donald Trump poses a “direct threat to every fundamental American value.“He doesn’t care about our country. He doesn’t care about you. He only cares about himself,” Kinzinger added.Biden acknowledged Kinzinger’s endorsement in a reply on X.“This is what putting your country before your party looks like. I’m grateful for your endorsement, Adam,” Biden said.Kinzinger’s announcement has received predictable flak from far-right Republicans.In a reply to the endorsement, Representative Majorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said: “Oh look, Kinzinger finally came out of the closet. As usual, we knew all along, so not a surprise and none of us care.”Kinzinger has remained one of the most staunch Republican critics of Trump.Following the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, Kinzinger publicly denounced Trump for inciting “an angry mob” with false claims of stolen election results. Kinzinger was also among 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump.Later, Kinzinger and Republican representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming were the only two Republicans who joined a committee to investigate the Capitol insurrection.Kinzinger later announced he would not seek re-election in 2021 after facing a potential primary challenge from a pro-Trump candidate due to changes in district mapping.In a February interview with the Guardian, the former congressman warned that a second Trump term would be “devastating for the world order”.“The best-case scenario is a completely inept, ineffective government,” Kinzinger said.“The worst-case scenario is look, in his four-year term, he did not understand what he was doing. He was just trying to survive and he actually listened to people around him until the end. Now he’s going to put people around him that share his views, that will only reaffirm his views and, frankly, some of these people are pretty smart and they know how to work around the constitution or around the law to bring these authoritarian measures in.”Kinzinger’s announcement comes weeks after the Biden-Harris campaign announced that Kinzinger’s former chief of staff Austin Weatherford would be running the Biden campaign’s outreach to Republican voters. More

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      The Aipac-funded candidate defeated Jamaal Bowman. But at what cost? | Ben Davis

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      The Democratic primary in the congressional race in New York’s 16th congressional district between the incumbent congressman Jamaal Bowman and the Westchester county executive, George Latimer, was a victory for Latimer, and one of the first successful primaries by the right wing of the Democratic party against the left. The contest was by far the most expensive congressional primary in history, and came to be viewed as a battle for the soul of the Democratic party, and specifically a fight around the Israel-Palestine issue, with Latimer and his advocates in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee spending over $20m to elect him, and to rebuke Bowman’s criticism of Israel and support for a ceasefire.Bowman’s defeat represents a victory for Aipac and a defeat for the progressive and pro-Palestine movements. But it is a pyrrhic victory. The first election overtly fought on the Israel-Palestine conflict has resulted in a victory for pro-Israel forces, and the movement for Palestinian rights has been dealt a severe blow at the ballot box. Elected officials will be far less willing to take a stand in the near term. But the result of this election masks a considerable shift in the balance of power within American politics away from unconditional support for Israel as an unquestioned political consensus.Sometimes, a major electoral victory is a sign of a movement in retreat and a crumbling consensus. Take California’s gay marriage ban in 2008, at the time seen as a major defeat for gay rights advocates. But the victory of Prop 8 hid the underlying shift: the very fact that gay rights, unthinkable even a few years prior, was a polarized electoral issue showed that anti-gay rights forces were losing in the long term. The same is true here and now, about Israel and Palestine.The fundamentals of this race were poor for the left. New York’s suburban 16th congressional district would never be a progressive target in a vacuum, containing some of the nation’s wealthiest communities. Redistricting cleaved many of the working-class communities of color that powered Bowman’s 2020 primary win, and even that was in large part due to incumbent Eliot Engel’s chronic absenteeism from the district. Beyond that, Bowman had several compounding low-level mistakes and scandals that could easily be hammered home to voters, like pulling the fire alarm at the Capitol or his controversial hip-hop lyrics. Beyond that, Latimer is a popular politician who has represented most of the district’s voters for years. Add in more money than any group has ever spent on a congressional primary by an enormous margin, and you have the conditions for a win. But the fact that this win, and this amount of spending, was even necessary should give advocates of Israel serious pause. The election represents Aipac’s attempt to rebuild a dam that has already broken. The water is out.The linchpin of their strategy for decades was to make support for Israel a third rail. By successfully building up universal support for Israel beyond the divides of partisan politics, Aipac and Israel’s other supporters in the US were able to successfully create a political culture with hard boundaries on the limits of acceptable speech. In the halls of Congress, discourse around Israel fell within these limits, represented by liberal groups like J Street, where a degree of sympathy for Palestinian people and criticism of rightwing figures of the Israeli state were acceptable for progressive Democrats, but questioning the basic logic undergirding the status quo was outside the bounds of permissible speech, and met with moral opprobrium.This universal consensus undergirded Aipac’s strategy in the US for decades. That is no longer the case. Before 2018, zero members of Congress could plausibly be considered actively pro-Palestine, and that didn’t seem like it would change. But the dam burst, and starting with the elections of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and, in particular, Rashida Tlaib, there were for the first time critics of Israel that brought a perspective outside of the established consensus, and to the left of J Street. While once a fringe position, support for Palestine and criticism of Israel is now mainstream among the American public. It will continue to exist in Congress, no matter how much money is spent. There are now millions of Americans who have heard this perspective and agree with it. The era of complete Aipac consensus is over for good.While Aipac and their allies, or any political group with $20m to spend on a single congressional primary, can eliminate nearly any adversary, this is not a sustainable strategy. While this level of financial power may deter many politicians from challenging them in the near future, Israel is now a polarizing, partisan issue. The collapse of previous bipartisan consensus and discursive limits is a catastrophe for Israel’s position in the US in the long term. Aipac did not spend directly on elections until 2021. They didn’t need to. Transitioning from an untouchable position to a fiercely polarized one that necessitates massive, unprecedented spending should be a cause for concern for Aipac. Israel and Palestine are now, for the first time, a live issue in American politics.Make no mistake, Latimer’s win is big for Aipac and the conservative wing of the Democratic party and harmful for efforts at a ceasefire in Gaza. But the very fact that Aipac has to spend $100m on Democratic primaries in a vain attempt to silence their critics is a sea change from the last few decades of American politics. Most of their hitlist is still around. This win was, ultimately, a successful rearguard action for the Israel lobby. Having prominent advocates for Palestine and pro-Palestine speech move toward public acceptability in the US is a crisis for Israel, which is why their partisans are spending so much money to stop it. There will be many more battles to come.
      Ben Davis works in political data in Washington DC More

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      Populism can degrade democracy but is on the rise − here’s what causes this political movement and how it can be weakened

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      There’s a widespread view that populism is on the rise, from the United States and Turkey to India and Hungary.

      What is fueling this movement?

      Populism is a political ideology that positions “the people” as a morally just, good group in society, in contrast with other people who are elitist and out of touch with society. Politicians such as former President Donald Trump have used this general approach to help propel their rise to power – and maintain their popularity among their supporters.

      Trump, for example, described his political campaign in June 2024 as an “epic struggle to liberate our nations from all of the sinister forces who want to destroy them.” These “sinister forces” typically include everything from the media and international organizations to mainstream science and immigrants.

      And Viktor Orbán, the populist prime minister of Hungary since 2010, often blames international groups such as foreign nonprofits for interfering in Hungarian politics and acting against the country’s interests.

      The European Parliament determined in 2022 that Hungary could no longer be considered a democracy.

      In its most radical, authoritarian form, populism poses a threat to democracy. It polarizes societies and erodes trust in experts.

      But populist leaders still hold appeal, as they promise to return power to the people.

      Yet they often deliver something very different from what they promise. They tend to worsen problems such as gender and ethnic inequality, without addressing the gap between the rich and the poor.

      I have dedicated much of my career to analyzing populist movements, both as a politician serving in the Hungarian Parliament in opposition to Orbán’s regime and now as a scholar.

      This unique experience has taught me one thing: Protecting democracy from populism requires first understanding its root causes.

      Supporters of presidential candidate Donald Trump listen to him speak during a rally in Vandalia, Ohio, in March 2024.
      Scott Olson/Getty Images

      What’s behind populism

      Many journalists and political scientists view populism as a “cultural backlash” of conservative white men who fear the loss of their privilege in a diversifying world.

      Immigration, race and religion are three issues that are often central to many populists’ politics. There are also economic factors such as a poor economy, international trade, industrial robots and artificial intelligence that some experts think also contribute to the rise of populism.

      This is because the growth of artificial intelligence, for example, has led to the reduction of stable jobs in sectors such as manufacturing, which once gave working-class people a pathway to social mobility.

      Many pundits and scholars still question whether the economy plays a significant role in populism. This argument takes various forms, but it typically boils down to statements like this one, made by a prominent political scientist about the 2016 U.S. presidential election: “Status threat, not economic hardship, explains the 2016 presidential vote.”

      In other words, the 2016 presidential vote was influenced by white voters’ fears about losing their dominant status in society rather than because of their financial struggles – at least according to this argument.

      It’s the economy

      My recent research shows a different source of anxiety behind growing support for populism: people’s concerns about economic insecurity are a crucial factor driving populism in Europe, North America and Latin America.

      For example, Americans who lost their jobs in the manufacturing industry in the 2010s were especially likely to abandon the Democratic Party and vote for Trumpin 2016.

      There is evidence that people’s anti-immigration attitudes are also fueled by their anxiety about their own jobs.

      Research also shows that Europeans who lost their jobs or whose earnings were reduced because of competition with low-wage immigrant workers, for example, were more likely to feel threatened by globalization. They were also especially likely to embrace nationalism and vote for populist right-wing candidates throughout Western Europe.

      Populist voters in the US

      Still, research shows that not all populist voters can be lumped under the same umbrella. Populist voters are a diverse group with various motivations and concerns.

      For example, artificial intelligence threatens jobs more in the U.S. and in Western Europe than in Eastern Europe, making Americans and Western Europeans more concerned about this issue than Eastern Europeans.

      Race is another factor. Some white voters facing financial hardship may feel as if immigrants and people of color are responsible for taking the available jobs – and are to blame for their economic woes.

      Populism is not just about conservative white men, however, despite the popular support Trump holds among many in this group. For example, Democratic politicians in the U.S. have increasingly struggled to win the support of working-class voters without a college degree, including a growing number of Black voters.

      Black voters still generally vote for Democrats. But the Democratic Party has seen about a 28 percentage point decrease in Black voters between 2020 and 2024. Most of them switched to become Republicans.

      This voter realignment has been occurring since 2008. When Trump was elected in 2016, he not only increased his party’s support among the white working class by four percentage points from GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s 2012 defeat, he also increased support among Black working-class voters by the same amount. This shift suggests that the Democrats have a working-class problem and not a white working-class problem. Economic factors, rather than just racial identity, are a major factor driving voters away from the Democratic Party.

      Not all populist voters are extremists

      Many media outlets tend to focus on core populist voters, who are masters of causing outrage with what one populism scholar calls “bad manners.” In this context, that means using inflammatory language or making politically incorrect statements, among other tactics, to draw attention to their cause.

      The most successful populist political movements in places such as Italy and Poland, however, have grown by appealing to voters concerned with bread-and-butter issues. They combine the core group of populist voters, who are motivated by culture and racism, and an outer group of voters who are not primarily motivated by these issues.

      Finally, voters’ support for populist leaders also depends on how nonpopulist, mainstream politicians appeal to them. Inclusive socioeconomic policies, such as expanding unemployment insurance, for example, can help stave off a populist surge.

      Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban speaks to supporters in Budapest in June 2024.
      Arpad Kurucz/Anadolu via Getty Image

      The way ahead

      There is no one-size-fits-all answer to the challenge of populism. For example, job guarantee programs help provide stable work, reducing the economic insecurity that often fuels populist sentiment.

      In an economy characterized by gig work and people frequently moving from one job to another, portable benefits that workers carry from job to job – giving them continuous access to health care, retirement savings and other benefits – may help alleviate the anxieties that drive people to populism.

      Boosting affordable housing and controlling rents can also promote more stable living conditions.

      I think countering right-wing populism demands a concerted effort to tackle the economic insecurity that fuels this global phenomenon. The path forward may be challenging, but the alternative, a world where democracy is eroded and societies are polarized, is even more frightening. More