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      A Rematch of Biden v. Trump, Two Years Early

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      Dispensing with his unity message, President Biden reached into the 2020 file cabinet and vowed to win “a battle for the soul of this nation,” the cornerstone of his successful election.WASHINGTON — By this point in his term, President Biden figured things would be different. His predecessor would have faded from the scene and the country would have restored at least some semblance of normalcy. But as he said on Thursday night, “too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal.”And so the president who declared when he took office that “democracy has prevailed” declared in a prime-time televised speech that in fact democracy 19 months later remained “under assault.” Former President Donald J. Trump “and the MAGA Republicans,” as Mr. Biden termed his predecessor’s allies, still represent a clear and present danger to America.If it sounded like a repeat of the 2020 campaign cycle, in some ways it is, although the incumbent and likely challenger have changed places. A country torn apart by ideology, culture, economics, race, religion, party and grievance remains as polarized as ever. Mr. Biden has scored some bipartisan legislative successes, but he has been singularly unable to heal the broader societal rift that he inherited. It may be that no president could have.With an opposition party that has largely embraced the lie that the last election was stolen and remains in thrall to a twice-impeached and defeated former president who encouraged a mob that attacked the Capitol to stop the transfer of power, Mr. Biden’s appeals to national unity have found little traction. Some Republicans have argued that his efforts to build consensus were fainthearted at best, while some Democrats complain they were excessive.Either way, they have made little difference in the national conversation. And so with the midterm congressional campaign getting underway in earnest, Mr. Biden has dispensed with the unity message, at least for now, reaching into the 2020 file cabinet and bringing out the call to win “a battle for the soul of this nation” that was the cornerstone of his successful election.The immediate strategy is self-evident. Rather than a referendum on his own presidency, which has been hurt by high inflation and low public morale, Mr. Biden wants to make the election a choice between “normal” and an “extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic,” as he put it on Thursday.If he has his way, it would be a rerun of Biden vs. Trump without either man actually listed on the ballot. If Americans are asked whether they support Mr. Biden, they may say no. If they are asked whether they support him over Mr. Trump, they may say yes. At least, that is the theory in the White House.It is a view borne out by recent opinion surveys. In the wake of a string of legislative and policy victories, Mr. Biden’s anemic approval ratings have ticked upward, though they remain in the 40s. But when pitted against Mr. Trump in a new Wall Street Journal poll, Mr. Biden came out on top in a theoretical 2024 rematch, 50 percent to 44 percent.Mr. Trump has arguably helped Mr. Biden set the stage for such a political showdown with his highly visible efforts to maintain his grip on the Republican Party. But it means that Mr. Biden will take on a more confrontational posture for the next two months, undermining his desire to be a conciliator.That left him in the odd position of being accused on Thursday night of being divisive by allies of the most divisive president in modern times. Trump Republicans argued that Mr. Biden was the one tearing the country apart and threatening democracy, not the other way around. He had insulted, in their contention, the 74 million Americans who voted for Mr. Trump. More

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      Takeaways From Biden’s Speech in Philadelphia

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      Just before the traditional Labor Day launch of the political season, President Biden inserted himself into the midterm elections on Thursday with a fierce speech castigating former President Donald J. Trump and his followers but ending with optimism for the nation’s democratic future.Here are four takeaways from the prime-time address from Independence Hall in Philadelphia:It’s still about Trump.Sure, Mr. Biden rattled off the accomplishments of his first year and a half in office — infrastructure, gun safety, prescription drug price controls and “the most important climate initiative ever.” But in his address to the nation, Mr. Biden tacitly acknowledged that his predecessor still looms over the politics of the moment, like it or not. And he took it to Mr. Trump directly, calling him out by name and seeking to differentiate between “the MAGA Republicans” loyal to Mr. Trump and what he deemed reasonable Republicans who still stand by the American democratic experiment.“There’s no question that the Republican Party today is dominated, driven and intimidated by Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans,” he said. “And that is a threat to this country.”Midterm elections are usually a referendum on the party of the president in power, especially when that party also controls Congress. But Mr. Biden and the Democrats are betting that if they can make this November a choice between Democratic and Republican control, they can win, or at least keep their losses to a minimum. Mr. Biden’s speech was all about making the choice this Election Day between what he called “the light of truth” and “the shadow of lies.”Approval ratings be damned.Mr. Biden’s approval ratings have risen of late, buoyed by legislative successes as well as falling gas prices. Still, with a composite disapproval rate of 53 percent, and job approval still in the low 40s, the president is no one’s idea of Mr. Popularity.More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsAn Upset in Alaska: Mary Peltola, a Democrat, beat Sarah Palin in a special House election, adding to a series of recent wins for the party. Ms. Peltola will become the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress.Evidence Against a Red Wave: Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, it’s hard to see the once-clear signs of a Republican advantage. A strong Democratic showing in a New York special election is one of the latest examples.G.O.P.’s Dimming Hopes: Republicans are still favored in the fall House races, but former President Donald J. Trump and abortion are scrambling the picture in ways that distress party insiders.Digital Pivot: At least 10 G.O.P. candidates in competitive races have updated their websites to minimize their ties to Mr. Trump or to adjust their uncompromising stances on abortion.But on Thursday, the White House rolled the dice, apparently assuming that lying low would not help matters and hoping that a big, televised speech might remind voters why they chose Mr. Biden in 2020. Republicans have caricatured the president as a doddering old man, unable to assemble a string of coherent sentences. Rather than let such aspersions go unchallenged, the White House moved to dispel them with a forceful speech that would, if nothing else, rally the Democratic base, which was already energized by the Supreme Court’s decision to end the nearly 50-year-old right to an abortion.The president’s emphasis on the historic nature of the largest climate change measure ever enacted was aimed at young Democratic voters who are among the most disenchanted with him personally. But above all, Mr. Biden appealed to the fears that have gripped some of the most reliable Democratic voting groups — L.G.B.T.Q. voters, young voters and women — when he suggested the overturning of Roe v. Wade was just the beginning: “MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards, backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.”The two Americas, divided and suspicious.During the Trump administration, much was made of the former president’s willingness to castigate his political enemies on the left, to the delight of his supporters. He tried to roll back transgender rights across the government, attacked the rights of lesbian and gay Americans, told the women of color in the House Democrats’ “Squad” to “go back” to where they came from, and gleefully attacked cities like Chicago, San Francisco and Baltimore.In his speech, Mr. Biden took pains to say, “Not every Republican, not even a majority of Republicans, are MAGA Republicans; not every Republican embraces their extreme ideology.” But a Republican Party still dominated by Mr. Trump’s Make America Great Again ideology was not going to accept that distinction, not when the tribe of “Never Trump” Republicans has shriveled to a tiny cohort.On Thursday, it was the Republicans’ turn to denounce the divisiveness of a president who was scorning them. The Republican National Committee cast Mr. Biden as “the divider-in-chief” who “epitomizes the current state of the Democrat Party: one of divisiveness, disgust, and hostility towards half the country.”But at times, the Republican response felt like an extended taunt of “I know you are, but what am I?” Before Mr. Biden’s speech, the man who hopes to be House speaker next year, Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, also spoke in Pennsylvania, trying to pre-empt a presidential address previewed as an appeal for the soul of the nation by — with little factual basis — turning Mr. Biden’s themes against him.“In the past two years, Joe Biden has launched an assault on the soul of America,” Mr. McCarthy, the House minority leader, said, “on its people, on its laws, on its most sacred values. He has launched an assault on our democracy.”It’s not the economy: a possibly stupid position.The entreaty from Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, “It’s the economy, stupid,” has become a truism in American politics, in good times and in bad. Today, a majority of Americans still rate the economy as their No. 1 concern, and large numbers believe the nation is in a recession.Not Mr. Biden, who declared, “today, America’s economy is faster, stronger, than any other advanced nation in the world.” The word “inflation” did not pass his lips.In the 2010 campaign season, after President Barack Obama and his vice president, Mr. Biden, labored to bring the nation out of the global financial crisis, Mr. Obama barnstormed the country, insisting that Democrats had lifted the nation’s economy out of the ditch that the Republicans had driven it into. Voters delivered what Mr. Obama called a “shellacking” — huge losses in Congress that Democrats would not overcome for eight years.Mr. Biden, learning from that mistake, had been trying to show voters he understood their pain and anxiety over rising prices and lingering uncertainty. On Thursday night, he seemed to set that aside to make the election about an entirely different issue: the fate of democratic pluralism.“America is still the beacon to the world, an ideal to be realized, a promise to be kept,” he concluded. “There’s nothing more important, nothing more sacred, nothing more American. That’s our soul.” More

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      Ahead of Biden Speech, McCarthy Embraces Trump After Mar-a-Lago Search

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      Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader, on Thursday aligned himself with former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to undercut federal law enforcement over the search of Mar-a-Lago, condemning the court-ordered seizure of classified documents from the former president’s home as an “assault on democracy.”In a half-hour speech delivered from Scranton, Pa., Mr. McCarthy sought to take the themes that President Biden was hitting in a prime-time address and turn them on their head against Democrats, in a remarkable attempt at political jujitsu aimed at muddying the waters about Mr. Trump’s conduct and his handling of sensitive government material.Mr. McCarthy’s remarks, delivered from a competitive congressional district that Republicans hope to wrest from Democrats in November’s midterm congressional elections, were largely a point-by-point condemnation of Mr. Biden’s policies.The top House Republican, who has seen his party’s chances of sweeping into the majority dim in recent weeks, painted the November elections as a referendum on Mr. Biden’s presidency and said that it was the current president who had “launched an assault on our democracy” with policies that had “severely wounded America’s soul.”“Joe Biden is right: Democracy is on the ballot in November,” Mr. McCarthy said. “And Joe Biden and the radical left in Washington are dismantling Americans’ democracy before our very eyes.”More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsAn Upset in Alaska: Mary Peltola, a Democrat, beat Sarah Palin in a special House election, adding to a series of recent wins for the party. Ms. Peltola will become the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress.Evidence Against a Red Wave: Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, it’s hard to see the once-clear signs of a Republican advantage. A strong Democratic showing in a New York special election is one of the latest examples.G.O.P.’s Dimming Hopes: Republicans are still favored in the fall House races, but former President Donald J. Trump and abortion are scrambling the picture in ways that distress party insiders.Digital Pivot: At least 10 G.O.P. candidates in competitive races have updated their websites to minimize their ties to Mr. Trump or to adjust their uncompromising stances on abortion.Using one of Mr. Trump’s favorite tactics, Mr. McCarthy falsely equated Mr. Biden’s conduct with actions that Mr. Trump himself has taken.“Joe Biden and a politicized Department of Justice launched a raid on the home of his top political rival, Donald Trump,” Mr. McCarthy said. “That is an assault on democracy.”In fact, the F.B.I. search at Mar-a-Lago came after a year and a half of failed efforts by government officials to recover presidential documents, including classified material, from Mr. Trump. Those efforts included a subpoena that was not fully complied with and a signed letter from one of the former president’s lawyers that turned out to be false.It was Mr. Trump who was impeached in 2019 for using the powers of his office to try to get the president of Ukraine to investigate Mr. Biden. Mr. Trump also sought to use the Justice Department to help him overturn the 2020 election. And it was his lies of a stolen election that inspired the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, perhaps the most literal assault on democracy in recent American history.Still, Mr. McCarthy said Mr. Biden was at fault. He demanded that the president “apologize for slandering tens of millions of Americans as fascists,” a reference to comments that Mr. Biden made at a recent fund-raiser in Maryland denouncing “extreme MAGA philosophy” as akin to “semi-fascism.”“I respect conservative Republicans,” Mr. Biden said. “I don’t respect these MAGA Republicans.”Mr. McCarthy’s speech reflected the needle he is trying to thread as he attempts to win back control of the House and secure the speakership. He has labored to stick to issues that Republicans believe resonate with voters across the ideological spectrum — chiefly the economy, public safety and border security — while also showing fealty to Mr. Trump and courting the hard-right voters and candidates whose support he will need to propel him to power.“We will fight to lower the cost of gas,” Mr. McCarthy said. “We will stop taxpayer dollars from being wasted on failed programs.” He added, “We will conduct vigorous oversight, check abuses of power and hold all wrongdoers accountable, including our Department of Justice.” More

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      Biden to Address Threats to Democracy in Philadelphia Speech

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      The prime-time speech comes amid deep national divisions. According to a recent poll, nearly three-quarters of Americans believe the nation is heading in the wrong direction.WASHINGTON — When President Biden travels to Philadelphia on Thursday, he will turn his attention to the threat to American democracy, the very issue he said drove him to run for the presidency in the first place.More than a year and a half after Mr. Biden pledged during his inauguration to “restore the soul and to secure the future of America,” he still believes democracy is in peril.White House officials said Mr. Biden is expected to use the prime-time speech to take direct aim at the Republican Party as Democrats fight to retain their hold on Congress in the midterm elections in November.In recent days, Mr. Biden has replaced his usual calls for unity with sharp condemnations of “MAGA extremists,” saying Republicans have embraced “semi-fascism” by staying loyal to former President Donald J. Trump.“The MAGA Republicans are the most energized part of the Republican Party,” said Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary. She said they present “an extreme threat to our democracy, to our freedom, to our rights. They just don’t respect the rule of law.”More Coverage of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsAn Upset in Alaska: Mary Peltola, a Democrat, beat Sarah Palin in a special House election, adding to a series of recent wins for the party. Ms. Peltola will become the first Alaska Native to serve in Congress.Evidence Against a Red Wave: Since the fall of Roe v. Wade, it’s hard to see the once-clear signs of a Republican advantage. A strong Democratic showing in a New York special election is one of the latest examples.G.O.P.’s Dimming Hopes: Republicans are still favored in the fall House races, but former President Donald J. Trump and abortion are scrambling the picture in ways that distress party insiders.Digital Pivot: At least 10 G.O.P. candidates in competitive races have updated their websites to minimize their ties to Mr. Trump or to adjust their uncompromising stances on abortion.Republicans have cited Mr. Biden’s rhetoric as evidence that he has fallen short of his promise to bring the nation together.“Biden has pitted neighbors against each other, labeled half of Americans as fascist, and tarnished any idea of his promise of ‘unity,’” Emma Vaughn, a Republican National Committee spokeswoman, said in a statement.Thursday will be Mr. Biden’s second visit to Pennsylvania in three days, and he is expected to make a third on Labor Day. Pennsylvania, a swing state, will hold crucial races for the House and Senate as well as a closely watched governor’s race.During Mr. Biden’s first year in office, he promised to bring a sense of normalcy to the White House and he largely ignored former President Donald J. Trump. But Mr. Trump is once again at the fore, with investigations into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and an F.B.I. search of his Florida home for classified documents, and Mr. Biden is trying to frame a vote for Republicans as a vote for extremism.The speech comes at a time of deep national divisions.According to an NBC News poll released last month, nearly three-quarters of Americans believe the nation is heading in the wrong direction. The F.B.I. and Department of Homeland Security have issued multiple warnings about false claims about election fraud motivating extremists attacks.“We are in a crisis in this country. There’s no doubt about it. Not just in terms of the sanctity of the vote or trusting our votes will be counted,” said Allida Black, a University of Virginia historian who had a private meeting with Mr. Biden to discuss the state of democracy last month. “We seem to attack rather than embrace responsibility and accountability.”It is not the first time Mr. Biden has delivered a speech that is not about policies or campaigns but rather the morality of the nation. He said he was inspired to run for office when white supremacists marched through Charlottesville, Va., in 2017. He had a “soul of the nation” bus tour during the presidential campaign and committed to unifying the nation during his inauguration.Ms. Jean-Pierre said on Wednesday that Mr. Biden was working with senior advisers on drafts of his speech for Thursday.“He sees the challenges increasing. He sees the threats increasing,” Ms. Black said, adding that the speech was a way for Mr. Biden to convey “I’m not backing down.” More

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      Biden’s Message Shifts From Compromise to Combat Ahead of Midterms

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      President Biden is spending less time hailing the virtues of unity and more time calling out Republicans and dangers to democracy.WASHINGTON — President Biden likes to say there is nothing America cannot do if the country is united and its rival parties are willing to work together.But with just two months until the midterm elections, Mr. Biden is purposely spending less time hailing the virtues of compromise and more time calling out dangers to democracy — using some of the sharpest and most combative language of his presidency.He has accused Republicans of embracing “semi-fascism” by paying fealty to former President Donald J. Trump. He has blasted the party for being “full of anger, violence, hate and division.” And he has warned that the danger from Republicans loyal to Mr. Trump went far beyond differences in policy.“They’re a threat to our very democracy,” he said of a party that he has spent a half-century working with to find common ground. “They refuse to accept the will of the people. They embrace political violence.”After weeks of internal White House strategy sessions, the president and his aides have devised a confrontational election-season approach that focuses on Mr. Biden’s accomplishments coupled with an aggressive political assault on the G.O.P., including the poll-tested phrase he began using this spring: “ultra-MAGA Republicans.”Now, with Mr. Trump once again at the center of a criminal investigation, this time over his handling of classified documents, Mr. Biden has seized the moment to press a case that voters cannot risk a return to a party in the thrall of the former president.As the campaign season become more intense, Mr. Biden plans to deliver a prime-time speech on Thursday in Philadelphia in which aides say he will argue that Americans are in the grips of a “battle for the soul of the nation,” returning to a theme he has often used to describe his motivation for becoming a presidential candidate. Recent events have made the speech more urgent for the president, but a Democratic official said Mr. Biden had been thinking of delivering the address since early summer.“After a successful past couple of months, the president and Democrats have effectively turned this midterm into a choice, when it’s typically a referendum on the party in the White House,” said Stephanie Cutter, a veteran Democratic strategist. “The president now is articulating that choice, pretty damned well and at just the right time.”She added, “The choice couldn’t be clearer — a reminder of what people rejected just two years ago.”The speech will also be an opportunity for Mr. Biden to focus on falling gas prices, a booming job market and legislative victories on climate change, drug prices, infrastructure improvements and veterans’ health care.The Biden PresidencyWith midterm elections looming, here’s where President Biden stands.On the Campaign Trail: Fresh off a series of legislative victories, President Biden is back campaigning. But his low approval ratings could complicate his efforts to help Democrats in the midterm elections.‘Dark Brandon’ Rises: White House officials recently began to embrace this repackaged internet meme. Here is the story behind it and what it tells us about the administration.Questions About 2024: Mr. Biden has said he plans to run for a second term, but at 79, his age has become an uncomfortable issue.A Familiar Foreign Policy: So far, Mr. Biden’s approach to foreign policy is surprisingly consistent with the Trump administration, analysts say.But Mr. Biden is leaning into more political attacks, aides and allies said, in part because of what he sees as a growing embrace of violent political speech by Republicans and a threat to the democratic process of governing. The aides said he was dismayed by the number of Trump-backed election deniers who have won Republican primaries for governor or secretary of state across the country.Mr. Biden, whose own approval ratings have begun to improve slightly since lows earlier this summer, is hoping that his party can maintain control of Congress and deliver a forceful rebuke to Mr. Trump and his followers.It is a moment, one adviser said, to make sure people understand what is at stake.“Given everything that is happening right now, I have to imagine that this is weighing on him very heavily,” said Symone D. Sanders, who served as the chief spokeswoman for Vice President Kamala Harris and now hosts a new MSNBC show. “He feels as though he needs to ring the alarm, sound the alarm as he did throughout all of 2019, throughout all of 2020 in the lead-up to the election.” More

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      There Are Now F.E.C. Complaints Against Biden and Trump

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      A conservative group has filed a complaint against President Biden accusing him of violating federal election law by not officially informing the Federal Election Commission that he plans to run again in 2024.The complaint is unlikely to succeed or be resolved quickly — not only because the commission has been hobbled for years by partisan infighting, but also because of the high burden of proof required to show that Mr. Biden has in fact decided to pursue re-election.It nonetheless highlights the political bind the White House has found itself in while facing grumbling about the president from his fellow Democrats, as well as the gridlock that has crippled the nation’s top election agency and has led it to be mocked on late-night talk shows.The complaint was filed more than five months after a Democratic super PAC filed a similar complaint against former President Donald J. Trump, who has openly flirted with another White House bid.Complaint About Biden From Americans for Public Trust to the Federal Election CommissionA conservative group filed a complaint against President Biden that accuses him of violating federal election law by not officially informing the F.E.C. that he plans to run again in 2024.Read Document 6 pagesAmericans for Public Trust filed the complaint against Mr. Biden on Tuesday. The group is led by Caitlin Sutherland, a former research director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of House Republicans.“It is very clear that President Biden meets the requirements of a candidate who needs to file with the F.E.C.,” Ms. Sutherland said in an interview.Her group is asking the commission to investigate whether Mr. Biden is running what she described as a “shadow campaign,” using taxpayer money to conduct what in essence are political activities under the guise of official travel to swing states like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. A potential punishment could include a hefty fine, as the F.E.C. has levied in the past.The complaint claims that Mr. Biden’s official campaign committee, Biden for President, has spent more than $5 million since Jan. 20, 2021. Most of that money has gone toward expenses related to the 2020 presidential election, but the complaint notes that Biden for President has reported spending $1 million on outreach to voters over email and text messages.Those messages, which are reviewed by Mr. Biden’s campaign lawyers for compliance with the law, promote his policy accomplishments, such as the signing of the Inflation Reduction Act, and direct recipients to donate money to the Democratic National Committee.The Biden PresidencyWith midterm elections looming, here’s where President Biden stands.On the Campaign Trail: Fresh off a series of legislative victories, President Biden is back campaigning. But his low approval ratings could complicate his efforts to help Democrats in the midterm elections.‘Dark Brandon’ Rises: White House officials recently began to embrace this repackaged internet meme. Here is the story behind it and what it tells us about the administration.Questions About 2024: Mr. Biden has said he plans to run for a second term, but at 79, his age has become an uncomfortable issue.A Familiar Foreign Policy: So far, Mr. Biden’s approach to foreign policy is surprisingly consistent with the Trump administration, analysts say.But they also serve a tried-and-true function in political campaigns: keeping a valuable contact list warm in case Mr. Biden needs it for a future run.The complaint also details a litany of public statements made by White House officials, including Vice President Kamala Harris, indicating that Mr. Biden plans to seek re-election.In late June, for instance, Ms. Harris told Dana Bash of CNN, “Joe Biden is running for re-election and I will be his ticketmate. Full stop.”She quickly walked back those comments, however, as aides apparently realized the legal implications of prematurely declaring Mr. Biden’s candidacy before he has officially decided to run again.Similarly, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, said on June 13 that Mr. Biden was “running for re-election.” She later tweeted that the president “intends to run in 2024,” only to clarify later that Mr. Biden had not yet decided.Those comments came in response to public reports, including in The New York Times, suggesting that many Democrats were not eager to see Mr. Biden become their party’s nominee again in 2024 given his advanced age and his relative unpopularity.White House officials and other surrogates for Mr. Biden leaned in hard against the emerging narrative, and, according to some accounts noted in the complaint, told reporters anonymously that they recognized that those comments had risked running afoul of legal restrictions on fund-raising.“Biden cannot hide behind the word ‘intend’, and it’s not the shield he thinks it is,” Ms. Sutherland said.The White House declined to comment, as did the Democratic National Committee. Mr. Biden himself has been coy about whether he has indeed decided to seek the Oval Office again, often couching his answers with a caveat: that he intends to do so if he remains in good health, but will not make that determination until sometime after the November midterms.In February, when a reporter asked if he was satisfied with Ms. Harris’s working on voting rights and whether she would be his running mate in 2024 “provided that you run again,” Mr. Biden replied, “yes and yes.”The complaint omits the reporter’s conditional phrase.Some campaign lawyers affiliated with the Democratic Party, who asked for anonymity to speak candidly, argued that the White House press secretary and even the vice president could not speak for Biden for President, the campaign committee — and therefore the commission was likely to dismiss the complaint quickly.That would be unusual: The F.E.C. is notoriously lax about meeting its own statutory deadline of 120 days. A different election-law-related complaint filed by the same group, Americans for Public Trust, about the pre-candidacy activities of Jeb Bush, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, has been languishing for years.Complaint About Trump From American Bridge to the Federal Election CommissionA Democratic super PAC filed a complaint in March against former President Donald J. Trump that accused him of violating federal election law by not officially informing the F.E.C. that he planned to run again in 2024.Read Document 10 pagesAnn Ravel, a Democratic former commissioner at the F.E.C., said she found the complaint about Mr. Biden’s putative candidacy “persuasive.”Ms. Ravel, who has long been an outspoken critic of the commission, which consists of three members appointed by each of the two major political parties, added that “of all the government agencies, the F.E.C. is probably the most dysfunctional of all.”By law, a candidate is required to notify the commission within 15 days of deciding to run for federal office.Despite the F.E.C.’s dysfunction, the convention among presidents has been to obey the letter of the law while countermanding its spirit.Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden’s predecessor, exploded that convention through moves like holding his nominating convention on the White House grounds and failing to police violations of the Hatch Act, a law that governs political activities by presidential aides.In March, American Bridge, a group aligned with Democrats, lodged an F.E.C. complaint against Mr. Trump, accusing him of violating campaign finance law by spending political funds on a 2024 presidential bid without formally declaring himself a candidate. The group later sued the F.E.C. over the matter, claiming that the agency’s inaction gave Mr. Trump a competitive advantage.In a July interview with New York magazine, Mr. Trump said that “in my own mind, I’ve already made that decision, so nothing factors in anymore.” More

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      Read the FEC Complaint a Conservative Group Filed Against Biden

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      STATEMENT OF FACTS

      9. President Joseph R. Biden, Jr. was elected as President of the United States in 2020 and was sworn in on January 20, 2021.²

      10. Since January 20, 2021, President Biden’s principal campaign committee, Biden for President, has spent more than $5 million dollars, including $1 million on “text message/email

      outreach” and almost $250,000 on a “database subscription” – thereby exceeding the $5,000 threshold to be declared a candidate.³

      11. In addition to significant campaign expenditures, President Biden’s White House staff, spokespersons, Vice President, and surrogates have made numerous on-the-record statements indicating that he has commenced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election.

      12. Beginning in November of 2021, in response to a reporter’s question, “[t]here were reports that President Biden was telling allies that he is going to run for re-election in 2024. Can you confirm, is he going to run in 2024? Is he telling staff that?,” then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki stated, “[h]e is, that’s his intention.”4

      13. President Biden’s current Press Secretary – Karine Jean-Pierre – conclusively stated on June 13, 2022, “[y]es, he’s running for reelection. I’m I can’t say more than that.” Later that day, she doubled down and tweeted that, “[t]o be clear, as the President has said repeatedly, he plans to run in 2024,” and a month later again tweeted that, “[t]he president has been very clear about this. He intends to run in 2024.”5

      –

      14. U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has also gone on-the-record to discuss President Biden’s campaign for reelection, stating, “I’m looking forward to supporting the president’s reelection. Ah, that is as much as I can say about these things while I’m here on an official…capacity”

      15. President Biden himself has gone so far as to confirm that Vice President Kamala Harris will be his running mate in 2024: “Yes’ and ‘yes,’ Biden responded during his first news conference of the year [2022] when a reporter asked whether Harris would be on his ticket and whether he thought she was doing a good job on voting rights policies.”

      16. Vice President Kamala Harris emphatically told CNN’s Dana Bash – when asked about the president’s campaign for reelection in 2024 – that, “Joe Biden is running for reelection and I will be his ticket mate…Full stop. That’s it.”

      998

      17. Public reporting has stated that, “[i]n public and private, Biden himself has emphasized that he is running, effectively shutting down any discussion of the topic between the president and

      2 Toluse Olorunnipa and Annie Linskey, Joe Biden is Sworn In as the 46th President, Pleads for Unity in Inaugural Address to a Divided Nation, The Washington Post (Jan. 20, 2021).

      3 Federal Election Commission, Statement of Organization, Biden for President (Apr. 25, 2019). Federal Election Commission, Disbursements (search for spender “Biden for President” and Disbursement Type “Made By Presidential Committees: Operating Expenditures,” time period “1/20/21 to date”); Federal Election Commission, Disbursements (search for spender “Biden for President” and Disbursement Detail “text message/email outreach,” reporting time period “2021-2022”); Federal Election Commission, Disbursements (search for spender “Biden for President” and Disbursement Detail “database subscription,” reporting time period “2021-2022”); 11 C.F.R. § 100.3.

      4 Steve Nelson, Psaki Says Biden Still Intends to Run in 2024 Despite Poor Polls, Old Age, New York Post (Nov. 22, 2021).

      5 The White House, Press Briefing by Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre (June 13, 2022); Karine Jean-Pierre (@PressSec), Twitter (June 13, 2022); CBS News (@CBSNews), Twitter (July 28, 2022).

      6 CNBC, Squawk Box, Squawk Newsmaker: Prices at the Pump: Transportation Secretary Weighs In, Clip begins at 0:54 (Aug. 4, 2022).

      7 Claire Rafford, Biden Commits to Harris as His Running Mate for 2024, Politico (Jan. 19, 2022).

      8 Dana Bash (@DanaBashCNN), Twitter (June 27, 2022).

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      in Elections

      Biden to Focus on ‘Battle for the Soul of the Nation’ in Prime-Time Speech

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      The president is set to return to his campaign theme of democracy in peril as his party fights to retain its hold on Congress in the midterm elections.WASHINGTON — President Biden will travel to Pennsylvania on Thursday to deliver a rare prime-time speech on what the White House called the “battle for the soul of the nation,” returning to the theme of democracy in peril that he used in the 2020 presidential campaign as his party fights to hold onto control of Congress in the looming midterm elections.Mr. Biden’s speech outside Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia will describe how democracy itself in America is at stake while most likely taking aim at a Republican Party he has increasingly criticized in recent weeks, according to a White House official. It is also expected to emphasize the reputation of the United States on the global stage.The speech will come as Mr. Biden has struck a more aggressive tone after spending most of the first year of his presidency preferring to emphasize unity in a divided nation over attacking Republicans, at times frustrating members of his own party. Just last week, the president condemned “ultra-MAGA Republicans” for a philosophy he described as “semifascism.”It also comes as former President Donald J. Trump and his norm-busting presidency have returned to the fore, amid investigations into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and an F.B.I. search of his Florida home that retrieved highly sensitive documents he took with him from the White House. As Republicans have rallied to his defense, many have defended his efforts to overturn the election or attacked basic institutions of government including the F.B.I. and the Justice Department.The timing of Mr. Biden’s speech on Thursday, less than three months before the November elections, is also another sign that the administration is leaning into a strategy outlined in a memo written by Jen O’Malley Dillon, a deputy White House chief of staff, and Anita Dunn, a top communications adviser. Mr. Biden is expected to trumpet legislative victories that “beat the special interests” and attack the extremism embraced by Mr. Trump and his allies, both strategies emphasized in the memo. More