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      Name-calling and hyperbole: Trump continues fear-mongering fest at Georgia rally

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      Donald Trump addressed a fully-packed venue in downtown Atlanta on Saturday, with thousands of people waiting in the Georgia heat outside to enter, or to protest his appearance in a city he has condemned repeatedly.His remarks were consistent with the tenor and comportment of restraint and probity Atlantans are used to hearing at this point.“She happens to be a really low IQ individual. We don’t need a low IQ individual,” Trump said of the vice-president Kamala Harris. “They love dealing with low IQ individuals … She’s Bernie Sanders but not as smart.”Trump highlighted a handful of recent murders in the city, saying “Atlanta is like a killing field, and your governor should get off his ass and do something about it.”Trump rattled off a set of crime statistics in Atlanta that bear no resemblance to the actual change in crime over the last two years. Crime spiked in Atlanta in the last year of Trump’s term and peaked in 2022. It has subsequently fallen back to 2019 levels.But crime – and particularly crime involving immigrants – has been central to his appeal to Republican voters. Trump invoked the murder of Laken Riley, a college student murdered on the campus of the University of Georgia. Police have charged an undocumented immigrant with her murder.“Laken’s blood is on Kamala Harris’s hands,” Trump said, “as though she was standing there watching it herself.” Trump is trying to tie this to Harris’s role as “border czar” early in the Biden administration. “Harris should not be asking for your votes. She should be begging Laken Riley’s family for forgiveness.”Trump made a point of highlighting the work of three Republican appointees to Georgia’s board of elections, who have been entertaining changes to election rules that critics say are setting the stage for a legal contest in case of a Trump loss in November.Of President Joe Biden and the debate that led to his withdrawal from the race, Trump said “He was choking like a dog! He was choking. And that was the end of him … they did a coup, but he doesn’t know it.”Trump said, without any evidence, that “40 or 50 million illegal aliens” will enter the United States if Harris wins, he said, claiming that suburbs will be overrun with “savage foreign gangs”. He also claimed, falsely, that Harris wants to replace all gas cars with electric cars, to ban meat, to increase taxes by 70 to 80% and more claims that can only be taken as hyperbole because they are so far divorced from fact. He also reiterated claims that the 2020 election was stolen.Trump repeatedly called Harris a “lunatic”.Trump’s appearance in Atlanta is at the same venue Harris filled on Tuesday in her first Georgia rally since Biden’s dramatic withdrawal from the race and her ascension as the presumptive Democratic nominee.The contrast between Trump and Harris in the space was stark. Harris’s multiracial crowd Tuesday was peppered with the pink and green of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority sisters. Red Maga hats and Trump mug shots – or the now-iconic shot of his fist in the air after the assassination attempt – dominated the mostly white sea of support for Trump.Trump opened up his appearance in Atlanta lying about the Harris event in the same place, falsely claiming that people left the event early and that there were empty seats. Both events packed the room.Notably, the upper stands began to empty out about an hour into Trump’s comments.The refrain, repeated by speaker after speaker at the rally, was that Trump took a bullet for Republican voters, and they should return the favor with powerful turnout in Georgia.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“He took a bullet for you, and in that moment, we found out who Donald Trump is,” said Marjorie Taylor Greene, a representative, in a speech before 10,000 Trump supporters at the Georgia State Convocation Center. “He stood up, put his fist in the air and said ‘Fight! Fight! Fight!’ And that’s what we will do.”JD Vance, Republican vice-presidential nominee, took note of the emerging Democratic labeling of Republicans as “weird” as he warmed up the crowd.Weird is how “Kamala Harris comes to Atlanta and speaks with a fake southern accent even though she grew up in Canada”, Vance said. “Go watch the clips; she sounds like a southern belle.”Vance also linked the people who tried to “bankrupt” and “impeach” Trump to the attempted assassination.“America is never going to elect a San Francisco liberal who is so far out of the mainstream,” Vance said.Despite this assertion, polls increasingly suggest that Harris may be ahead of Trump today, with the Democratic national convention coming in two weeks. Before Biden’s withdrawal, Trump had been consistently ahead of Biden, so much so that political discussion here had been about whether the Biden campaign would capitulate in Georgia in order to focus its resources on Rust Belt races.Too few polls measuring Harris and Trump in Georgia have been conducted to read the race here, but both campaigns have begun treating Georgia as a battleground state once again.“The road to the White House runs through Georgia,” Greene said, almost word for word what Rev Raphael Warnock, a Georgia senator, told Harris supporters five days earlier.In long, rambling comments, Trump lambasted Brian Kemp, the governor, and Brad Raffensperger, the secretary of state, for disloyalty: “In my opinion, they want us to lose. If we lose Georgia, we lose the whole thing and our country goes to hell.” More

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      Atlanta rally: Harris tells Trump to ‘say it to my face’ and challenges him to debate

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      Three weeks ago, the political commentariat was writing off Georgia and talking of narrow pathways for Joe Biden to hold the White House. Georgia was a desert. Tuesday evening, an Atlanta crowd greeted Kamala Harris like she backed up a truck full of sweet tea to that desert.It’s probably too early – nine days since the president’s withdrawal and the vice-president’s ascension – to know if sentiment in Georgia had shifted enough to justify jubilation. But the crowd in Atlanta treated the new presumptive presidential nominee as a reason to celebrate after months of her quieter campaigning in the city as the vice-presidential nominee.“As many of you know, before I was elected vice-president … I was an elected attorney general and an elected district attorney,” Harris said after taking the stand. “Hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type, and I have been dealing with people like him my entire career.”This elicited chants of: “Lock him up!”Harris addressed a crowd of 10,000 who filled the Georgia State Convocation Center, with people waiting outside for a seat. She touted her prosecution record and referenced Trump’s criminal convictions and the findings of fraud in his businesses.“As an attorney general, I held big Wall Street banks accountable for fraud. Donald Trump was found guilty of fraud,” Harris said. “In this campaign, I will proudly put my record against his any day, including on the issue of immigration.”Harris spoke of walking underground tunnels at the California border and prosecuting traffickers, and pledged to bring back the border security bill that was tanked in Congress by Republicans to preserve the issue in the campaign.Referencing a Migos song – popular as an Atlanta group – she said: “He does not walk it as he talks it.”Ahead of Harris’s appearance on Tuesday, several Atlanta voices made the case for her. Mayor Andre Dickens noted that this was the vice-president’s 15th time visiting the state since 2021. Harris has been in Atlanta so often that she may as well have rented a condo in Buckhead to save money.Harris is expected back in the state next week, and will debut her running mate on a seven-stop swing state tour, according to details confirmed by her campaign. Politico reported Harris will hold the first rally in Philadelphia on Tuesday. Harris said she as of today has not yet picked the candidate yet.For the last two years, Harris has been Joe Biden’s chief campaign surrogate in Georgia, making deliberate connections with campaign organizers and Black community leaders, a weapon in the Democratic arsenal that Republicans have not been able to match.“Georgia is on everybody’s mind,” said Raphael Warnock, the senator and reverend, to a boisterous crowd. “And there’s a reason. Because of what you did in 2020, 2021, everybody knows that the road to the White House goes through Georgia.”View image in fullscreenDonald Trump has been on his heels in recent polls, which show ground captured in the rust belt. The former president announced that he would refrain from committing to a debate against Harris until after the Democratic national convention, which the senator Jon Ossoff characterized as cowardice.“I know about having an opponent who’s too scared to debate,” Ossoff said, harkening back to his winning 2020 campaign against then senator David Perdue, in which he spent 90 minutes debating an empty chair. “The candidate who is dodging debates is the candidate who is losing.”Stacey Abrams took the stage at 5.33pm to thunderous chants of “Stacey!”, which Abrams immediately turned around into a chant for “Kamala!”“We are the ones who put our boots on the ground,” said the former gubernatorial candidate and voting rights advocate. She preached the virtues of a progressive presidency on infrastructure development in the Black community, on job creation and on the climate. She pointedly noted that Georgia’s governor, Brian Kemp, who defeated her two years ago, took credit for new investment in solar panel manufacturing in Georgia even as the federal government has been spurring those investments.View image in fullscreen“They started with Kamala Harris and Joe Biden believing in the environment,” she said.Now that Harris has replaced Biden as the presumptive nominee, the question is whether there is time to capitalize on the administration’s connections in a state that may still be difficult to win for Democrats.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“When we get deep into those communities, when we are hitting apartment complexes in the hood, when we’re places we don’t usually go, I’ll know its real,” said state representative Imani Barnes, a Democrat representing a sprawling suburban district in DeKalb county near Atlanta.Barnes’ constituents range from CDC scientists to some of the poorest immigrant communities in the state, and she can see how campaigns have to change the language on flyers to reach some voters. “That’s how we know a campaign is making a difference.”Previous appearances in Georgia by Biden and Harris have been closely vetted campaign events filled with a curated selection of activists, advocates and party leaders. Though the guest speakers on Tuesday were a selection of federal officials and local leaders – with Geoff Duncan, the former Republican lieutenant governor, stalking the edges of the press pit – that selectivity was less evident.“Georgia saved the whole nation,” Warnock said. “I have a feeling that Georgia is going to save the nation one more time.”In her speech, Harris sought not only to attack her opponent but to refocus on top voter issues in Georgia, such as the economy.“Building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency,” she said. “When our middle class is strong, America is strong. To keep our middle class strong, families need relief from the high cost of living so that they have a chance not to get by but to get ahead.”She said she would go after price gouging and hidden fees by banks and other companies, and take on corporate landlords to cap unfair rent increases, and to cap prescription drug costs.“There are signs Donald Trump is feeling” the competition, she says.“You may have noticed he pulled out of the debate.”She repeated the assertion made by her campaign in recent days that Trump is “just plain weird”.“I do hope Trump will agree to meet me on the debate stage, because as the saying goes – if you got something to say, say it to my face,” she said as the crowd exploded.The convocation center at Georgia State University is a state-owned building. Election law requires the facility to offer its use on the same terms to the Trump campaign. Hence, Trump will appear here Saturday, offering a mark to compare their relative fortunes even as he refuses to accept debate. More

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      Black swing voters in Georgia aren’t swayed by the ‘Trump okey-doke’ – and then there’s Biden

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      Inside a barbershop in Atlanta’s affluent Buckhead neighborhood, eight Black men gathered to talk politics on the day before the presidential debate. Most were business owners around town, social media stars and notable conservatives.All but one.Mark Boyd, whose personal politics might best be described as insubordinate, somehow found himself next to two Republican representatives taking a phone call from Donald Trump.“When I came in and saw the doggone sign ‘Blacks for Trump’ or whatever, I’m like: ‘Well, that’s the okey-doke. But I’m going to get their ass,” Boyd said.In the race between Herschel Walker and the Rev Raphael Warnock for a Georgia senate seat two years ago, Boyd cast a blank ballot. He expects to do the same thing in the presidential race this year.The former presidentcalled in to the barbershop the day before the debate, talking about ending taxes on tips and rolling back regulations. Boyd got to ask him a question.“In the Black community, it’s been made a big deal about how you have been kind of railroaded here, as far as your court cases go,” Boyd asked Trump. “If you can acknowledge that you’re getting support from Black people because of this, then we can kind of acknowledge that we have been getting railroaded. So, my question is … what can we do about those Fani Willises and Alvin Braggs that are right now sending some poor Black person to jail for a crime?”It’s an interesting, nuanced question – better, perhaps, than many of the questions put to Trump by debate moderators a day later. Does Trump’s legal ordeal change the way he looks at how the criminal justice system treats common Black defendants?Trump dodged the question. “It’s weaponization, and it comes out of the White House,” Trump said, “even when it’s city and state, it comes out of the White House in order to attack a political opponent. But since that happened, the Black support I think, my representatives will tell you this, the Black support has gone through the roof. And I guess they equated to problems that they’ve had.”He then went on to talk about how his mugshot was more popular than Frank Sinatra’s or Elvis Presley’s.‘If these were white girls, it would be different’Boyd, a Marine Corps veteran who built airplanes for Lockheed, is a second amendment partisan who rejects any candidate advocating for gun control. But he’s also deeply concerned about racial justice, and can’t make common cause with politicians who aren’t. Boyd founded Helping Empower Youth to address a cultural phenomenon in Atlanta and one of the city’s most contentious problems: Black teens risking their safety by hawking water on street corners and at events. His question to Trump goes to the heart of his work, he said.“He pulled that Trump okey-doke on me,” Boyd said. “I learned about the Trump okey-doke firsthand.”Boyd’s work with kids focuses on training, professionalism and ultimately harnessing their entrepreneurial energy into a legitimate business. It’s a fundamentally conservative answer to a Black social problem, and one that conservatives would do well to listen to, Boyd said. “They’re always telling us we need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps,” Boyd said. “I believe in that basic idea of capitalism.”The sight of Black boys risking conflict on the street, arrest or their very bodies just to make a buck has caused Atlanta’s predominantly liberal, Black political class to call the city’s moral and economic priorities into question. But conservatives – particularly white conservatives – have been unwilling to acknowledge that race and gender are central to the problems of Black empowerment, Boyd said. Young Black men don’t tend to have equal access to opportunity, and those with arrest records are nigh unemployable in traditional jobs.“If these were little blue-eyed blond white girls with lemonade stands, it would be seen as something totally different,” Boyd said.Even as Boyd was talking through this in the barbershop, two teenagers in 100-degree heat were selling water to drivers across the street. One of the cops working the event wandered over to shoo them away. The kids weren’t happy.They were expecting a $150 day. On a good day, they’ll clear $400 or $500, they said. “I would rather not have to ask my momma for nothing. I’d rather give her money,” one 17-year-old said. He’s been locked up a couple of times in the process of selling water, but there are no better options, he said: “I’ll make more money out here than a real job.”#BlackJob goes viralDebate moderator Dana Bash asked Joe Biden and Trump about their approach to Black economic issues during the debate Thursday.The president said he doesn’t blame Black voters for being disappointed, noting the effects of inflation. But he cited low unemployment figures for Black workers and a reduction in costs for childcare, and he touched on a topic that has been roiling Atlanta and other cities: the encroachment of corporate landlords on single-family neighborhoods and increasing consolidation in the housing market. “The fact of the matter is more small Black businesses have been started in any time in history,” Biden answered.Despite what even Biden has acknowledged was a poor debate performance, Trump’s response struck a chord with Black voters for all the wrong reasons.“As sure as you’re sitting there, the fact is that his big kill on the Black people is the millions of people that he’s allowed to come in through the border,” Trump said. “They’re taking Black jobs now and it could be 18, it could be 19 and even 20 million people. They’re taking Black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs and you haven’t seen it yet, but you’re going to see something that’s going to be the worst in our history.”The term #BlackJob began to go viral on Twitter even before the debate ended, as incredulous watchers derided the idea of a racially coded job and considered what Trump must think of Black workers if they can easily be replaced by an undocumented laborer.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The ‘Black job’ has actually not been defined in America, which is why DEI initiatives which are now being rolled back were put into place to begin with,” said Bem Joiner, an Atlanta cultural critic and creative consultant who expected the debate to generate memes. “#BlackJobs is the cultural moment that came from the debate.”Losing GeorgiaMuch has been made of the purported gains Trump has made with Black voters in polls. Those polls are questionable: a collapse in response rates has been coupled with tiny sample sizes and statistically illiterate reporting to present the impression of a meaningful shift.But small gains will matter in a state like Georgia, where about 30% of the electorate is Black. Black men have long been more likely to vote for Republican candidates than Black women are. They are also far less likely to vote, noted Stephanie Jackson Ali, policy director for the New Georgia Project.In Georgia, 584,228 Black men who are currently registered voted in the 2020 presidential election, Ali said. For Black women, the figure is 931,232. Nationally, Biden overall won 48% of men and 55% of women, according to data from the Pew Research Center. Biden won 87% of Black men and 95% of Black women.Conservatives tend to overperform that mark a bit in Georgia, because the Black electorate here is somewhat more conservative than it is nationwide. But all else being equal, if Trump were to win one in five Black men in Georgia instead of one in six – even if figures for Black women remained in the same low single digits of support – that would represent a gain of about 25,000 votes, more than twice the margin of his 2020 defeat.Losing Georgia because Black voters underperform is a nightmare scenario for progressives here. The New Georgia Project’s political action committee hosted a debate watch party Thursday at the Prime Cigar bar on Peachtree Street in Atlanta as part of a campaign of deliberate outreach to Black men. The room filled with smoke, political candidates and party officials, mostly Democrats, mostly there to cheer for tBiden.Then Biden began to speak, and bit by bit people started to pay less attention to the giant screen above the bar and more to what they were drinking.“I don’t think [Trump] did anything special. He kind of showed up,” said Domonic Brown, a progressive voter who watched the debate at the bar. “Joe Biden, in my opinion, made it easier for him. … I think that’s one of the scarier things about Joe Biden or Donald Trump as our only options. I definitely see why the Democratic party is in kind of disarray right now. But it’s kind of like, how could you guys just not see this coming?”Javarius Gay is the swing voter both Biden and Trump wanted to reach Thursday night. Gay owns Prime Cigar and several other bars in town – a Black business owner in a city that presents itself as a land of opportunity for Black entrepreneurs.Since the night of the debate, Rocky Jones, owner of Rocky’s Barbershop where Trump called in, says he was misled into hosting the event, which he thought would be a forum for Black businesses.“I thought it was going to be something real private,” Jones said to the local news station 11Alive. “I’m thinking about Black businesses in Atlanta, small Black businesses in Atlanta. And I’m like: ‘OK, so when are we gonna start talking about this?’”Jones has seen backlash from angry members of the community, and customers to his shop have dwindled. But he hopes the controversy will pass, emphasizing that the barbershop is not a place for politics.“I have no involvement in politics. We don’t even talk politics in my barbershop. It’s all sports. The World Cup, soccer, baseball, basketball – politics is not what I do. I commend everybody to vote, but that’s your business. You know, I don’t tell you what to do,” Jones added.Though Gay’s cigar bar hosted a debate watch party for a progressive political action committee that night, Gay himself was undecided.“I’m open. I didn’t have my mind already made up,” he said a few minutes after the debate ended. Gay generally votes for Democrats. But after the debate, he’s still thinking about it. Gay was looking for substance on issues close to his interests: support for Black businesses, small business in general and homelessness.“I was looking for Biden to be more natural with his arguments and his key points. He was all over the place a few times,” Gay said. “I don’t feel like his team prepared enough to fully win this debate. I honestly think he should have waited, should have never taken the stage, and come back later.” More

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      ‘You’re the sucker, you’re the loser’: 90 miserable minutes of Biden v Trump

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      That sickening thud you heard was jaws hitting the floor. That queasy sound you heard was hearts sinking into boots. That raspy noise you heard was a US president embodying what felt like the last gasp of the ailing republic.Say it ain’t so, Joe.The first US presidential debate in Atlanta on Thursday was the night that Democrats went from “Don’t panic!” to “OK, time to panic!” After months of preparation and expectation, they got to the altar and suddenly realised they were marrying the wrong man.In 90 miserable minutes, Joe Biden achieved two things that had seemed impossible. He lived down to expectations that were already rock bottom. And he managed to make Donald Trump sound almost coherent. Trump did not win the debate but Biden certainly lost it.There was a suitably funereal silence as the president, wearing blue tie and flag pin, and Trump, wearing red tie and flag pin, entered CNN’s red, white and blue studio. This was the first presidential debate without an audience since John F Kennedy v Richard Nixon in 1960 (those two candidates had a combined age of 90; this time they had a combined age of 159).Journalists in Atlanta were forced to watch on TV like everyone else. But the mutual animosity and contempt between the men exuded through the screen. It was clear neither was even thinking about shaking the other’s hand.Democrats had been lulled into a false sense of security by Biden’s high energy performance at the State of the Union address. They expected Superman again. Instead they got Clark Kent in his dotage.The crisis was clear almost as soon soon as Biden opened his mouth. His voice was hoarse and hard to hear. Clear your throat, man! His team later claimed that he had a cold. Or had he over-prepared?Early on, he bumbled: “We have 1,000 trillionaires in America – I mean billionaires in America.” Then: “ … making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the – with – with – with the Covid. Excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with … ”His voice trailed away. “Look, if – we finally beat Medicare.”Trump pounced: “Well, he’s right. He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death.”Trump is only three years younger, but is a creature of television. When Biden spoke, the former president, hair hovering above his head like a shiny cloud, could be seen frowning, pursing his lips or revving up for a reply. But when Trump spoke, the white-haired Biden stared into the middle distance, his mouth open, looking as feeble and frail as the democracy that now rests on his shoulders.It was a Greek tragedy because the Biden campaign pushed for this debate, the earliest in history, to “drag Trump into Americans’ living rooms” and wake them up to the threat. They set rules, including muted microphones and no studio audience, that seemed to backfire and work to his opponent’s advantage.The restrictions helped Trump stay relatively controlled and disciplined, at least by his own epically low standards. He did not constantly interrupt as he did in the first debate in 2020. He did not play to a crowd and get carried away with unhinged stories about sharks.Not that Trump should be let off the hook. This was an unwatchable debate between an old man who could not finish a sentence and an old man who could not tell the truth. It was Rip Van Winkle versus Pinocchio.Biden failed to push back on Trump’s lies. But so did CNN’s moderators, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. This gave the impression of Trump’s falsehoods carrying just as much weight as Biden’s facts, especially to viewers who are just tuning in to the election. Expect Democrats to use this argument to deflect attention from their own man’s failings.More than an hour after the debate, when most people had turned off and gone to bed, CNN factchecker Daniel Dale came on air and said Biden made nine false claims while Trump made 30. Trump’s included some Democratic states wanting people to execute babies after birth; the US currently having the biggest budget deficit ever; Biden getting a lot of money from China; no terrorist attacks during Trump’s presidency; Biden wanting to quadruple taxes; the US providing way more aid to Ukraine than Europe; Nancy Pelosi turning down Trump’s offer of 10,000 national guard troops on January 6; “ridiculous fraud” in the 2020 election; Nato going out of business before he became president; Biden indicting him; his tax cut being the biggest in history.First impressions – and viral clips – are everything, so voters will forget that, as the debate wore on, Biden gradually became stronger on style and substance. He went for Trump’s character: “The only person on this stage who is a convicted felon is this man I’m looking at right now.”Angry and glowering, Biden insisted: “My son was not a loser, was not a sucker. You’re the sucker, you’re the loser.”And again: “How many billions of dollars do you owe in civil penalties for molesting a woman in public, for doing a whole range of things, of having sex with a porn star on the night – and while your wife was pregnant? I mean, what are you talking about? You have the morals of an alley cat.”Trump shot back: “I didn’t have sex with a porn star, number one.” An immortal line, never before uttered in a presidential debate. Carve it in marble!Biden and Trump debated which of them is the worst president in history. And which is the better golfer. Trump boasted: “I just won two club championships, not even senior, two regular club championships. To do that, you have to be quite smart and you have to be able to hit the ball a long way. And I do it. He doesn’t do it. He can’t hit a ball 50 yards. He challenged me to a golf match. He can’t hit a ball 50 years.”Biden retorted: “Look, I’d be happy to have a driving contest with him. I got my handicap, which, when I was vice-president, down to a six. And by the way, I told you before I’m happy to play golf if you carry your own bag. Think you can do it?”Trump: “That’s the biggest lie that he’s a six handicap, of all.”Biden: “I was eight handicap.”Trump: “Yeah.”Biden: “Eight, but I have – you know how many … ”Trump: “I’ve seen your swing, I know your swing.””As Bash tried to interject, Trump said: “Let’s not act like children.” Biden shot back: “You are a child.”Tellingly, once the horror show was over, it was Trump’s surrogates who flooded the “spin zone” at the media centre. Standing on a bright red carpet on what is normally a basketball court, former housing secretary Ben Carson said of Biden: “I really felt sorry for him. He struggled to come up with answers. He was trying to remember the things that they’d told him.”Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said: “I think President Trump was strong and coherent and I think President Biden was weak and confused most most of the time. What started out as a policy debate is turned into a capability debate … It’s pretty hard to believe that President Biden can continue in this job.”After a while, Biden’s surrogates emerged, including California governor Gavin Newsom and his beaming smile. It is still highly, highly unlikely he will be the Democratic nominee in November. But a little less unlikely than it used to be. More

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      Atlanta center of US political universe once again with Biden-Trump debate

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      Joe Biden will debate Donald Trump on Thursday night in an unnerving repeat of the 2020 election cycle, and once again Atlanta is the center of the political universe.The question is whether the two candidates can influence Atlanta, or if Atlanta, which influences everything in American politics, is beyond their influence.Elections in Georgia have been in a state of trench warfare since 2018, the rise of Stacey Abrams and election outcomes predicated more on supercharged turnout than convincing anyone of anything they didn’t already believe. Georgia’s 2020 election was decided by a figurative hair – the infamous 11,780 votes Trump asked the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, to find in a “perfect phone call” that led to his indictment here.Within the state, Atlanta has extra significance this year. The Biden administration has sent Kamala Harris to the city repeatedly this year, a sign of Democratic anxiety about losing Black voters in a historically Black city. Biden himself came last month to give the commencement speech at Morehouse College, a historically Black college, to a generally positive reception.Trump also has a relationship with Atlanta, of course. It is markedly less positive.Whether Trump is returning to the scene of the crime is a matter to be decided, eventually, by a Fulton county jury. Trump had his notorious – and lucrative – mug shot taken at the Fulton county jail about two miles north-west of the empty studio he and Biden will debate in, across the street from Centennial Olympic Park downtown.“All I can see coming out of this is memes,” said Bem Joiner, an Atlanta cultural critic and creative consultant. Joiner doesn’t want to diminish the importance of a presidential debate, and knows there are issues for which the public craves substantive argument, but people have already picked a side, he said.“I think it is what it is with this race,” Joiner said. “I cannot see questions being answered in a way that changes the mind of anyone at this point, with these two people. You can only, maybe, do something to fuck it up more for you.”View image in fullscreenFor all the symbolism of a debate in the heart of Atlanta, the format is made largely for the national stage. The two men will be standing in an otherwise-empty room, interrogated by two CNN anchors – Jake Tapper and Dana Bash – who neither live nor work in the city.Perhaps the spare environment will limit casualties from collateral fire. In the 2016 debates, Trump lied repeatedly and floridly about his performance on the pandemic, race relations and the economy, while interrupting the moderators and Biden. We remember Trump telling Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” and Biden, exasperated by yet another interruption, asking Trump to just shut up for once.The vitriolic chaos effectively ended the Presidential Commission on Debates as a mechanism for administering the events. This time, Biden is the one defending a presidential record. Trump wants to focus on that record, looking for a wedge to separate Biden from what pliable voters remain in America. Biden is likely to be comfortable explaining the accomplishments of his administration, but will try to use the debate to remind America of the reasons they got rid of Trump in the first place.CNN’s studios in downtown Atlanta are mostly empty today. The network has been forsaking the CNN Center bit by bit for a decade, accelerating their shift to DC and New York after AT&T sold the building to developers in 2021. The halls are filled with echoes of Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer, abandoned set signs in the walkways and ghosts in the studios. The markers of life, such as the Cartoon Network store in the moribund food court, are gone.Workers carted away the CNN sign in March. They just call it “the Center” now.Atlanta itself is thriving, generally, despite the protestations of conservatives like Trump, who has repeatedly attacked its elected leaders and its people over the years. Atlanta also has a flair for expressing its displeasure at such things.Trump even unloaded on the Atlanta civil rights leader and congressman John Lewis in 2017 after the congressman skipped Trump’s lightly-attended inauguration. “Congressman John Lewis should finally focus on the burning and crime infested inner-cities of the US. I can use all the help I can get,” he tweeted.Atlanta responded with a barrage of snark under the hashtag #defendthefifth, posting idyllic pictures of children playing in parks or strolling along the BeltLine. Those hashtags were still being used by people standing in line to vote in Atlanta in 2020.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump also showed up to the college football championship at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in 2018. But the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America projected the words “Fuck Trump” on to the side of the stadium while he was there, and not one soul did a thing to stop them.Perhaps it is unsurprising, then, that Trump had to cart in Black supporters for a publicity stunt presented as authentic community support for his campaign two months ago at a Chick-fil-A up the street from the stadium. Even so, Trump claims he’s winning Black voters in record numbers, which – if it were true – might represent the margin of victory in Georgia.“What is absolutely true is the Republicans cannot win the White House without Georgia,” said Stephanie Jackson Ali, policy director for the New Georgia Project, a voter outreach organization. “Either way, Georgia is going to be critical this year for any side to perform well in.”“Georgia is also unique in being such a southern state with a large Black population, but also a growing Latino population and API [Asian/Pacific Islands] population. This perfect storm of reasons makes Georgia such a great place to come to, because you can talk to so many people from so many backgrounds, all in one place.”The New Georgia Project’s political action fund is hosting a watch party, “Vibe and Vote”, at a cigar bar on Peachtree Street on debate night, focusing on Black men and voter turnout. Trump’s reported gains with Black men have prompted a wave of outreach from progressive groups.Harris, meanwhile, may as well put down a deposit on a Buckhead condo considering all the time she spends in town. She has made a point of discussing the administration’s investments in the Black community generally and Atlanta specifically, like a $158m plan to use infrastructure dollars on a project to build a cap over Atlanta’s most traveled highway, the Downtown Connector.She again visited Atlanta on Tuesday – her fifth visit to Georgia this year – for a talk with Migos rapper Quavo to discuss gun violence.Biden and Trump are competing for a vanishingly small portion of the electorate – people who haven’t made up their mind about two people who have been in the public eye for much of the last two decades of American life. Neither is popular. But many people have simply tuned out politics, even here in the center of the political storm.The first debate is a warning bell for them, that election season is upon us more than ever and it is time to pay attention. More

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      Muted mics, no props: CNN details rules for Biden and Trump debate

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      The first US presidential debate between incumbent Joe Biden and Republican rival Donald Trump on 27 June will include two commercial breaks, no props and muted microphones except when recognized to speak, CNN said Saturday.The rules, agreed outside the Commission on Presidential Debates, are designed to reduce fractious interruptions and cross-talk that have often marred TV encounters in recent presidential election cycles.CNN, a division of Warner Bros Discovery, said debate moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash “will use all tools at their disposal to enforce timing and ensure a civilized discussion” during the 90-minute broadcast from Atlanta.Another Biden-Trump face-off will be hosted by ABC anchors David Muir and Linsey Davis in September. The traditional October debate will not take place as part of the agreement between the two campaigns and television networks that cut out the commission following years of complaints and perceived slights.CNN said both candidates will appear at a uniform podium during the 90-minute debate, podium positions will be determined by a coin flip and candidates will be given a pen, a pad of paper and a bottle of water but cannot use props.“Microphones will be muted throughout the debate except for the candidate whose turn it is to speak,” CNN said.The network also said that during the two commercial breaks, campaign staff will not be permitted to interact with their candidate, and unlike previous debates there will be no studio audience.Biden and Trump, the two oldest candidates ever to run for US president, will be seeking the support of an uncommonly large swathe of undecided voters who may only begin to pay close attention to the contest closer to the 5 November election day.But with polls already narrowing in crucial swing states, the debates come with risks for both candidates with markedly different styles of governance – on a seasoned senator who relies on an extensive staff for policy positions, and a New York developer-turned-reality TV star who shoots from the hip.According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll earlier this month, Biden is losing support among voters without college degrees, a large group that includes Black people, Hispanic women, young voters and suburban women.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe essence of the argument – Biden accuses his predecessor of being unhinged and a danger to democracy, while Trump accuses Biden of being senile and corrupt – has so far left many voters cool to the prospect of a 2024 rematch between two political candidates who, at 81 and 78, are twice the US median age.According to a campaign memo viewed by Reuters, Biden has three preferred debate topics: abortion rights, the state of democracy and the economy. Trump’s team has indicated that immigration, public safety and inflation are his key issues.The hosting networks will be keen to ensure that the twin debates will run more smoothly than in 2020, when the discussion focused on Trump’s pandemic response and moderator Chris Wallace had to step in to remind the candidates he was asking the questions.The second scheduled debate set for October did not take place due to Trump’s Covid-19 diagnosis and his refusal to appear remotely rather than in person. In this election cycle, both candidates have refused to refused to debate rivals for their party’s nomination.CNN said that candidates eligible to participate must appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to reach the 270 electoral vote threshold needed to win and receive at least 15% in four separate national polls.It said it was “not impossible” that independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr, could still qualify, saying he has received at least 15% in three qualifying polls to date and has qualified for the ballot in six states, making him eligible for 89 electoral college votes.The Kennedy campaign said Saturday that its polling showed he was now in second place alongside Biden in Utah, but behind Trump, and that he outpaces Biden and Trump among independents nationally.Reuters contributed to this story More

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      in Elections

      Georgia elections board member denies plans to help Trump subvert election

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      A new appointee to the Georgia state board of elections has elicited questions about whether she may be part of preparations to subvert the election on behalf of Donald Trump and others who are hoping to cast doubt on results that don’t go his way.Those fears are unfounded, she said.The Georgia speaker of the house appointed Janelle King, a Black conservative podcast host and Republican party hand, to a critical fifth seat on the board of elections in May. The state GOP applauded the replacement of a more moderate Republican with King, seeing her as a vote for “election integrity” ahead of a critical presidential election.But King flatly denies that she intends to interfere in the state’s elections as a board member or that she has had contact with the Trump campaign or its surrogates with regard to her appointment.“I’ve heard several rumors about what I’m going to do or not going to do,” King said. “And the way I see it is that this is what people expect of me and what they perceive. But I’ve never been one to do anything based off of what other people want. I like being fair, I like getting good sleep at night.”The elections board promulgates election rules, conducts voter education, investigates questions of election misconduct or fraud, and makes recommendations to the state attorney general or Georgia’s general assembly regarding elections. The five-member board has one appointee from the Democratic and Republican party and one each from the governor, state senate and state house, which now looks like a 4-1 Republican majority, although governor Brian Kemp sits outside of the increasingly radical Trump wing of the Republican party.“The state elections board has a massive role to play in how Georgia’s elections are run and certified, especially this year in a swing state that decided the last presidential election,” said Stephanie Jackson Ali, policy director for the New Georgia Project Action Fund. “The members of the SEB could, quite literally, determine who wins in November.”“With this appointment, I’m increasingly concerned about the future politicization of a board that should be focused on running our elections smoothly and accessibly for Georgia voters, not on moving forward an agenda for partisan gain,” Jackson Ali added.King is a former deputy director of the state party. She has also worked on bipartisan outreach with the League of Women’s Voters. Her husband Kelvin King is co-chair of Let’s Win For America Action, a conservative political action committee that focuses on minority outreach for Republicans. Kelvin King ran for US Senate in 2022, losing the Republican primary to Trump’s preferred candidate Herschel Walker.Janelle King hasn’t been an active participant in the swirling drama of Georgia’s election integrity politics in the wake of the 2020 election. Relative to other appointees to the board, she’s also light on experience with elections. Asked if she believed that the 2020 election was fairly administered in Georgia, she said she didn’t know.“I believe that there were some things that are questionable,” King said. “And I believe that those things have caused a disruption in whether or not people believe in our process.”The role will “allow me to be able to see evidence and – or the lack thereof, whatever it presents”, she added. “There were some things that were questionable. But we respect that the decision has been made, right? I mean, Trump’s not in the White House. So, President Biden is our president. And that’s where we stand.”King joins the board at a sensitive moment in Georgia’s election cycle. Conservatives are raising questions about the competence of the Fulton county registration and elections board in Georgia’s most populous county, which includes most of Atlanta.The state elections board voted last month to admonish Fulton county and require outside oversight through the rest of the 2024 election cycle, as a censure after discovering county elections workers violated state law while conducting a recount of the 2020 presidential election by double-counting 3,075 ballots.The secretary of state’s office determined that the infraction did not impact election results. The results of the 2020 election in both Fulton county and the state have repeatedly been validated in recounts and in court findings.Democratic party activists suggest that the state elections board’s focus on Fulton county is table setting for further denialism if Trump loses Georgia in November.The speaker of the house in Georgia, Jon Burns, appointed King to succeed Edward Lindsey, a former state representative whose lobbying practice for county government and votes on the board rankled Republicans in the Trump wing of the party. Lindsey was the tie-breaking vote earlier this year against recommending restrictions to absentee ballot voting.Rightwing organizations like the Texas Public Policy Foundation had been calling for Lindsey’s ouster, even as Lindsey’s term expired in March. The house failed to appoint his replacement before adjourning for the year, leaving the decision to Burns.Burns’ appointment of King was greeted by Georgia GOP chairman Josh McKoon as “very good news” at a fundraising dinner in Columbus, where he described it as giving the board “a three-person working majority, three people that agree with us on the importance of election integrity”.“I believe when we look back on November 5th, 2024, we’re going to say getting to that 3-2 election integrity-minded majority on the state election board made sure that we had the level playing field to win this election,” McKoon added.The board does not certify elections in Georgia; that role belongs to county elections board and ultimately the secretary of state’s office.“I’m only one vote,” King said. “I can’t block anything myself if I wanted to at all. And I don’t plan to interfere in elections. What I plan to do is make sure that what comes before us if there’s wrong that’s being done, then we need to address it.”The Georgia speaker’s office denied that Burns has been contacted by Trump, a member of his staff or someone else working on behalf of his campaign with regard to replacing Lindsey on the board with someone amenable to Trump’s interest.“Janelle King’s appointment to the state elections board was not impacted by any outside influence,” said Kayla Robertson, a spokesperson for Burns. “Janelle will be a tremendous asset as an independent thinker and impartial arbiter who will put principle above politics and ensure transparency and accountability in our elections.” More

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      Kamala Harris visits Atlanta to tout investments in minority communities

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      Kamala Harris once again visited Atlanta to tout investments made by the Biden administration in minority and underserved communities, highlighting $158m in infrastructure spending on a project to build a cap over Atlanta’s most traveled highway, the Downtown Connector.The vice-president’s appearance is the continuation of a full court press in Georgia to solidify support among Democrats – and specifically Black Democrats – for the administration.Harris has visited Atlanta repeatedly since winning office, acting as one of the administration’s primary surrogates to the Black community, keenly aware that Georgia remains in play and that perceptions of flagging support among African American voters could be the difference between a win and a loss.Harris kicked off a nationwide tour discussing economic opportunities for minority voters with this visit, she said.The Atlanta project, which local planners call the Stitch, would build parkland and mixed-use buildings including affordable housing and is meant to address the intentional destruction of Black communities by highway construction in the 60s, Harris said.“There was this whole policy push called urban renewal,” Harris said. “It was supposed to be about making life easier for people … but essentially it was about making it easier for folks who had wealth and means to move to the suburbs and still have access to downtown. It ended up decimating these communities for years.” Harris said the Stitch project would create an estimated 13,000 jobs and help reconnect a community bifurcated by the highway.Harris spoke on Monday at the Georgia International convention center near Atlanta’s airport in a conversation moderated by Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings, hosts of the financial podcast Earn Your Leisure. She emphasized the work the Biden administration has been doing to expand access to capital for communities of color.Black entrepreneurs do not have access to the capital needed to launch capital-intensive companies, Bilal said. “Especially when we look at the next generation of unicorn companies – billion-dollar companies – they’re tech companies,” Bilal said.That access is often about relationships that Black business owners often do not have. But federal spending can provide a base from which a business can grow and ultimately build those relationships, Harris said. Home ownership is also critical for building intergenerational wealth and entrepreneurial opportunities, as a source of equity for startups.“To achieve true equality, we must have an economic agenda,” Harris said. “That agenda must mean speaking to people’s economic ambitions.”Harris’s message sharply contrasts with increasing rhetoric from Republicans decrying diversity, equity and inclusion programs. “In spite of those who want to attack DEI, you can’t truly invest in the strength of our nation if you don’t pay attention to diversity, equity and inclusion.”Among other programs and spending made by the federal government since 2021, Harris presented the Stitch as an example of what the Biden administration has accomplished.After federal courts struck down zoning laws that segregated housing, federal legislators responded with the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. Massive highway projects like Atlanta’s Downtown Connector were deliberately driven through Black neighborhoods in the name of “urban renewal”. In Atlanta’s case, the connector – which brings I-75 and I-85 together – displaced residents and businesses around Auburn Avenue, which was the heart of Atlanta’s Black middle class.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMartin Luther King Jr grew up a five-minute walk from where the connector splits the city today, a massive highway with more than 300,000 cars passing through every day. Similarly, the construction of I-20 decimated the Summerhill neighborhood, once home to many of Atlanta’s Black doctors. Summerhill has only recently recovered its economic vibrancy. But even as much of the rest of Atlanta experiences gentrification, the area around Auburn Avenue is poor.The representative Nikema Williams and the senators Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff addressed attendees briefly before the main event, each extolling the virtues of infrastructure investments in Georgia from the infrastructure bill. The Stitch received outsized attention by all three in their remarks.Williams is in her sophomore term as a congresswoman representing much of Atlanta, and sits on the House transportation committee. She and Warnock worked closely together to draw funding on the Stitch project, which eight years ago was little more than a twinkle in the eye of AJ Robinson, president of Central Atlanta Progress, a non-profit civic group for downtown businesses which is leading the design process on the Stitch.“We are truly a model for the world,” Williams said, describing the investments by the Biden administration in the Black community as “unprecedented”.Warnock has a particularly high political stake in the Stitch. The cap stands to transform the area around Auburn Avenue, famed home of Martin Luther King Jr and Ebenezer Baptist church, where Warnock is now senior pastor. The church is two blocks east of the Connector, which decimated the once-vibrant street after its construction about 60 years ago.“Let’s be very clear, today is a day of celebration,” Warnock said. “Because at last, we start repairing and revitalizing and reconnecting neighborhoods in the heart of the Black neighborhoods that have been historically torn apart by highway construction … This happens in every community in America.” More