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      Progressive Jamaal Bowman loses New York House Democratic primary

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      Jamaal Bowman, the progressive Democratic congressman whose criticism of Israel’s war on Gaza made him a target for pro-Israel lobbying groups, lost his primary race on Tuesday night.The Democratic primary in New York’s 16th district became the most expensive House primary in history after Bowman was challenged by George Latimer, a pro-Israel centrist.The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) and an affiliated group spent almost $15m to defeat Bowman, a former middle school principal, who has been one of the few Democrats to consistently criticize Israel since it began a military campaign on Gaza that has killed a reported 37,000 Palestinians.Latimer, a vocal advocate of Israel who has been involved in local politics for more than three decades, is likely to win the congressional election in November, given the heavily Democratic make-up of the district.Our Revolution said the primary outcome “puts the glaring hypocrisy of Democratic party elites on full display”. Joseph Geevarghese, the executive director of the organization founded by Bernie Sanders, said: “Hillary Clinton and other establishment Democrats who supported Bowman’s challenger like to parade around as champions of democracy … [but] lack the backbone to call out the broken system that allows Democratic primaries to be sold to the highest bidder.”Bowman had appeared with Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at a rally on Sunday, as progressive Democrats launched a last-ditch attempt to drive people to the polls.“Are you ready to fight? Are you ready to take this borough back? Are you ready to win this country back? Are you ready to fight for peace on earth and ceasefire in Gaza?” Ocasio-Cortez said as she introduced Bowman, hinting at what has become the key issue in the race between him and Latimer.Bowman has accused Israel of committing genocide and has called for the Biden White House to “stop all funding” to Israel.That prompted Aipac to wade into the race: since the start of the primary, the United Democracy Project, a Super Pac connected with Aipac, has spent almost $15m to defeat Bowman, who is facing a primary challenge from Latimer, a pro-Israel Democrat. DMFI Pac, another pro-Israel group, has spent more than $1m to support Latimer and unseat Bowman, helping to turn the race into an unprecedentedly expensive contest.While the Israel issue has been a driver for Aipac, Bowman was also seen as vulnerable due to issues within his control. In September, he was criticized after pulling a fire alarm before a crucial House vote; Bowman pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour and agreed to pay a $1,000 fine, the maximum applicable under Washington DC law. Early this year, the Daily Beast reported that Bowman had touted 9/11 conspiracy theories on a since-deleted blogpost.In New York City, TV ads attacking Bowman have been ever-present in recent weeks, although Bowman raised plenty of cash of his own. Since the start of his campaign, Bowman raised $4.3m and had support on the ground from progressive groups, including Justice Democrats, a progressive organization that backed his campaign in 2020 and spent $1.3m to support Bowman this election cycle.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe race became contentious in recent weeks. Bowman suggested Latimer’s campaign darkened his skin in campaign literature and accused Latimer of pushing the “angry Black man” stereotype.In the final debate between the pair on Tuesday, Bowman accused Latimer of dragging his feet on desegregation as Westchester county executive. Latimer, who has claimed Bowman has an “ethnic benefit”, said Bowman has “cornered the market on lies”.With Bowman being a high-profile progressive who is popular with young people and the left, the race took on wider implications.“We believe that the squad [a group of progressive politicians who include Ocasio-Cortez] is just the start of our voice being truly represented in the halls of Congress,” said Ella Weber, an activist with Protect Our Power, an organization that seeks to keep progressive Democrats in Congress and that spent time campaigning in Bowman’s district.“The threat of them not winning is gen Z as a whole continues to lose faith in our political process. That’s definitely not what we want, and I don’t think that’s what the Democratic party wants.” More

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      Lauren Boebert, hard-right Republican, wins Colorado primary after moving districts

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      Despite a series of personal scandals, Lauren Boebert, a hard-right Colorado Republican who narrowly avoided defeat in 2022, won out over a crowded field of other Republican primary candidates in the fourth congressional district – previously led by Ken Buck – which leans more heavily Republican.Boebert’s primary win is one of the most closely watched results of Colorado’s primary elections, which chose the winners in several bitter intra-party fights among the state’s Republicans, including in two competitive House districts that could help determine control of Congress in November.Boebert had moved from one politically divided congressional district in Colorado to a more safely Republican district, which will allow her to avoid a rematch with the Democratic opponent who nearly defeated her last election cycle.In Boebert’s former district, Jeff Hurd, who is seen as a more old-school and mainstream Republican, won the GOP primary and will face Adam Frisch, the Democrat who came within 546 votes of defeating her in 2022, is likely to face a tighter race against the winner of the Republican primary there. Voters in the district supported Trump with 53% of the vote in 2016 and 2020.Colorado’s most competitive US House race this fall will probably be in the eighth congressional district, where first-term congresswoman Yadira Caraveo is running unopposed in the Democratic primary. Her Republican opponent will be either state representative Gabe Evans, an army veteran and former police officer, or former state representative Janak Joshi, a retired physician who has the state party’s endorsement.Colorado’s primary landscape was reshaped by the sudden resignation this March of Buck, a former Republican congressman and staunch conservative. Buck cited his frustration with his own party in his resignation, telling CNN: “Instead of having decorum – instead of acting in a professional manner – this place has really devolved into this bickering and nonsense.”The fierce Republican infighting through the primary election has prompted accusations that the state GOP chair, Dave Williams, is running an “inquisition” and “has decided he must purify and purge the Republican party”, as former GOP chair Dick Wadhams said at an event hosted by Axios in Denver.Williams has faced allegations that he has improperly used the state party’s email list to announce his campaign for Congress and that he spent party money to buy mailers that included an attack on political consultant and talk radio host Jeff Crank, his Republican primary opponent.The GOP chairman also faced criticisms for asking party candidates to fill out a policy questionnaire that was also an explicit loyalty test, with questions such as “​​Do you support President Trump’s populist, America-first agenda?”Williams is “cannibalizing the Republican party so he can go to Congress”, Kelly Maher, a veteran GOP operative who filed a complaint against Williams with the Federal Elections Commission, told the Associated Press.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBuck, the former Republican member of Congress who resigned from his seat in March, triggered a special election for a candidate who will serve out the remaining six months of his term. The race appears on the ballot alongside the regularly scheduled primaries on Tuesday.Former Parker mayor Greg Lopez is seen as likely to win in this race, but he is seen as a placeholder who plans to step down after the general election winner is sworn into office in January.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Judge partially lifts Trump gag order in hush-money case – as it happened

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      The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal case has modified a gag order, freeing the former president to comment publicly about witnesses and jurors in the trial until his sentencing date next month, Reuters reports.Judge Juan Merchan’s ruling allows Trump to go on the attack against his former fixer and lawyer, Michael Cohen, the adult star Stormy Daniels, and other witnesses.But Merchan ruled that Trump is still bound by the order’s restrictions on speaking about lawyers and staff for the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the court, if those statements could interfere with the case.Voters in three states are casting ballots in primaries that could prove crucial to determining the party control, and the ideological bent, of the next Congress. In New York, progressive Democrat Jamaal Bowman is fighting for his seat against challenger George Latimer, amid a race where Bowman’s criticism of Israel has become a major issue. Over in Colorado, far-right congresswoman Lauren Boebert is looking to overcome personal scandals and secure her place in the House by winning the GOP primary in a district that is even more friendly to Republicans than the one she presently represents. And in Utah, Republicans are deciding whether their next senator will be a moderate like the retiring senator Mitt Romney, or someone who vows to do what Donald Trump wants.Here’s what else happened today:
      Judge Juan Merchan modified the gag order imposed on Trump in his New York hush-money case and allowed him to attack jurors and witnesses.
      Joe Biden’s approval ticked up slightly in June, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found, but Trump maintained the edge when it came to handling of the economy.
      Aileen Cannon, the Florida judge handling Trump’s classified documents case, is on her third day of hearing arguments on motions that could decide the trajectory of the closely watched case.
      Last week’s primary in Virginia between Republican congressman Bob Good and challenger John McGuire remains too close to call, but Trump knows who he wants to win.
      Who will Trump pick as his running mate? We take a look at what clues have emerged.
      Federal prosecutors have released new photos of the classified documents they discovered two years ago at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, in a filing that rejects an attempt by the former president’s lawyers to get the case against him thrown out.The photos reveal that top secret documents were mixed in with keepsakes like copies of the New York Times, Maga hats and cases of Diet Coke:Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell, on the latest revelations from prosecutors working for special counsel Jack Smith in the long-running case:Hillary Clinton has, interestingly enough, debated both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, though it is of course her general election loss to the former for which she is best remembered. Ahead of the Trump-Biden debate scheduled for Thursday, she offered some thoughts on what debating the ex-president is like, the Guardian’s Edward Helmore reports:Hillary Clinton has said it would be a “waste of time” for Joe Biden to attempt to refute Donald Trump’s contentions in Thursday’s presidential debate because “it’s nearly impossible to identify what his arguments even are”.The former secretary of state wrote in a New York Times opinion piece that Trump “starts with nonsense and then digresses into blather”.“This has gotten only worse in the years since we debated,” she said.Clinton debated Trump while unsuccessfully running for the White House against him in 2016 – and she had also debated Biden during a presidential primary eight years earlier.Trump was later accused of speaking over Clinton and looming over her in a way that she later described as “really weird”.Clinton predicted in her op-ed that Trump’s strategies would “fall flat” if Biden “is as direct and forceful as he was” during his State of the Union address in March.Referring to Trump, she added: “Expectations for him are so low that if he doesn’t literally light himself on fire on Thursday evening, some will say he was downright presidential.”Reuters and Ipsos just dropped a new poll ahead of Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s Thursday’s debate face-off, which shows the former president has the edge among voters when it comes to concerns about the economy, while the current White House occupant is more trusted to preserve America’s democracy.It also found a slight bump in Biden’s approval rating, from a not-great 36% in May to a still-not-great 37% this month.The survey does not tell us much we do not know, since previous polls have shown Trump with the edge on economic matters, though it does underscore the validity of the Biden campaign’s strategy of characterizing Trump as a threat to democracy.The survey found Trump was viewed as the better choice for the economy, the top concern of voters, by 43% of respondents, against Biden’s 37%. He was also the preferred pick of respondents when it came to handling foreign policy and terrorism, with 40% support against Biden’s 35%.The second-biggest concern for respondents was the state of the country’s democracy, and when it came to that, Biden was the pick of 39% of those polled, while Trump picked up 33% support.Speaking of attacks, a CNN presenter’s interview with Donald Trump’s spokesperson went awry yesterday, when she began criticizing the moderators of the ex-president’s upcoming debate against Joe Biden, the Guardian’s Robert Tait reports:CNN abruptly terminated a live interview with Donald Trump’s spokesperson on Monday after she criticised the two journalists whom the network chose to moderate the much anticipated upcoming debate between the former president and Joe Biden.Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign national press secretary, became embroiled in a heated exchange with Kasie Hunt, the presenter of CNN This Morning, after saying Trump would be entering a “hostile environment on this very network” when he debates the incumbent president in Atlanta on Thursday.Asked what strategy Trump would pursue on the debate stage, she said he would be contending “with debate moderators who have made their opinions about him very well known … and their biased coverage of him”.Leavitt’s comments were aimed, without initially naming them, at the moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper. They triggered an immediate reaction from Hunt, who defended her colleagues.“So I’ll just say, my colleagues, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, have acquitted themselves as professionals as they have covered campaigns and interviewed candidates from all sides of the aisle,” Hunt said. Citing analysts of previous debates, she added: “If you’re attacking the moderators, you’re usually losing.”Donald Trump’s former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen, who appeared as a witness for the prosecution in the criminal trial that resulted in the former president’s conviction in New York City on charges related to hush-money payments, told CNN he won’t be intimidated by Trump’s attacks.His comment came after Judge Juan Merchan modified the gag order on Trump, and allowed him to make statements about witnesses in the case – such as Cohen.Here’s what he told CNN:And now we wait to see if Donald Trump unleashes a new volley of insults against those involved in his criminal conviction last month in New York City.The place to watch is his Truth Social account, which the former president has used in place of his account on X (formerly Twitter) to comment on a variety of subjects, his criminal trials included. He has left his account on X dormant since owner Elon Musk allowed him back on to the site two years ago, with the sole exception of tweeting out the mug shot taken in Georgia, when charges were brought against him in the election subversion case.Before its modification, Judge Juan Merchan fined Trump for repeatedly violating the gag order imposed against him in his hush money case. Here’s more on that:The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal case has modified a gag order, freeing the former president to comment publicly about witnesses and jurors in the trial until his sentencing date next month, Reuters reports.Judge Juan Merchan’s ruling allows Trump to go on the attack against his former fixer and lawyer, Michael Cohen, the adult star Stormy Daniels, and other witnesses.But Merchan ruled that Trump is still bound by the order’s restrictions on speaking about lawyers and staff for the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the court, if those statements could interfere with the case.More than a dozen Nobel prize-winning economists have warned that inflation will soar once again if Donald Trump takes back the White House in November.In a letter obtained by Axios, 16 Nobel laureates wrote that the presumptive Republican nominee’s plans would reignite inflation and cause lasting harm to the global economy.
      While each of us has different views on the particulars of various economic policies, we all agree that Joe Biden’s economic agenda is vastly superior to Donald Trump.
      They go on to write that a second Trump term would have “a negative impact on the US’s economic standing in the world, and a destabilizing effect on the US’s domestic economy.”
      Many Americans are concerned about inflation, which has come down remarkably fast. There is rightly a worry that Donald Trump will reignite this inflation, with his fiscally irresponsible budgets.
      Hunter Biden’s license to practice law in Washington DC has been suspended after he was convicted earlier this month of three federal gun charges.The filing on Tuesday by the DC court of appeals states that Hunter Biden, the president’s eldest living son, is “suspended immediately” from practicing law in the city.The appeals court also directs the DC board on professional responsibility to to hold additional proceedings to “determine the nature of the offense and whether it involves moral turpitude.”Hunter Biden was found guilty earlier this month on three felony counts related to a handgun purchase while he was a user of crack cocaine.US senator Rand Paul celebrated Julian Assange’s freedom, but criticized the US plea deal as harmful.In a post to X, Paul said that he was “relieved” Assange was being reunited with his family, but argued that Assange’s plea deal was dangerous for first amendment rights and criminalizing to journalism.
      I’m relieved Assange is finally free and reuniting with his family after years of wrongful persecution. Yet, this plea deal sets a dangerous precedent, criminalizing journalism and damaging our First Amendment rights. The “Land of the Free” can and must do better.
      Follow the Guardian’s coverage of Julian Assange’s plea deal here.Voters in three states are casting ballots in primaries that could prove crucial to determining the party control, and the ideological bent, of the next Congress. In New York, progressive Democrat Jamaal Bowman is fighting for his seat against challenger George Latimer, in a race where Bowman’s criticism of Israel has become a major issue. Over in Colorado, far-right congresswoman Lauren Boebert is looking to overcome personal scandals and secure her place in the House by winning the GOP primary in a district that is even more friendly to Republicans than the one she presently represents. And in Utah, Republicans are deciding whether their next senator will be a moderate like the retiring senator Mitt Romney, or someone who vows to do what Donald Trump wants.Here’s what else has been happening today:
      Aileen Cannon, the Florida judge handling Trump’s classified documents case, is on her third day of hearing arguments on motions that could decide the trajectory of the closely watched case.
      Last week’s primary in Virginia between Republican congressman Bob Good and challenger John McGuire remains too close to call, but Trump knows who he wants to win.
      Who will Trump pick as his running mate? We take a look at what clues have emerged.
      Voting is ongoing in New York, where progressive congressman Jamaal Bowman is facing a tough challenge in the Democratic primary from George Latimer, the executive of Westchester county.On X, Bowman posted a video encouraging volunteers to come to his district and knock on doors to rally voter support, or to work phone banks:Latimer has meanwhile been calling attention to his endorsements. Here’s Ken Jenkins, the deputy executive of Westchester county, in New York City’s suburbs: More

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      Hillary Clinton: waste of Biden’s debate time to rebut Trump ‘nonsense’

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      Hillary Clinton has said it would be a “waste of time” for Joe Biden to attempt to refute Donald Trump’s contentions in Thursday’s presidential debate because “it’s nearly impossible to identify what his arguments even are”.The former secretary of state wrote in a New York Times opinion piece that Trump “starts with nonsense and then digresses into blather”.“This has gotten only worse in the years since we debated,” she said.Clinton debated Trump while unsuccessfully running for the White House against him in 2016 – and she had also debated Biden during a presidential primary eight years earlier.Trump was later accused of speaking over Clinton and looming over her in a way that she later described as “really weird”.Clinton predicted in her op-ed that Trump’s strategies would “fall flat” if Biden “is as direct and forceful as he was” during his State of the Union address in March.Referring to Trump, she added: “Expectations for him are so low that if he doesn’t literally light himself on fire on Thursday evening, some will say he was downright presidential.”Clinton advised debate-watchers to focus on three things: how each candidate talks about people, whether they “focus on the fundamentals”, and on the choice between “chaos and competence”.Referring to Trump’s recent conviction in the New York criminal prosecution involving hush money paid to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels, Clinton said the choice between “a convicted criminal out for revenge and a president who delivers results” was “easy” regardless of the debate’s outcome.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionClinton’s comments come as both main political parties are attempting to talk down expectations of a decisive political clash. They also arrived on the same day that she announced a new memoir – Something Lost, Something Gained – set to be published seven weeks ahead of November’s vote.Clinton said she will offer a “warning to all American voters”, along with “her unvarnished views on politics, democracy, the threats we face, and the future within our reach”.Subjects the 76-year-old former US secretary of state is said to address include her reflections on marriage, friendships with other former first ladies, and, according to the publisher Simon & Schuster’s editor-in-chief, Priscilla Painton, moving “past her dream of being president”. More

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      Kamala Harris says Trump ‘guilty’ of ‘stealing’ abortion rights at rally – as it happened

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      Harris emphasized the importance of turning out to vote in November to protect abortion access so that places like Maryland remain havens for reproductive healthcare.Pointing to the statistic that one-in-three American women live in a state with abortion restrictions, she said: “Today our daughters know fewer rights than their grandmothers. This is a healthcare crisis, and we all know who to blame: Donald Trump.”Making her case that Trump was “guilty” of stripping abortion access, which was previewed by the campaign before her appearance, Harris said Trump appointed three supreme court justices with the intention of overturning Roe v Wade.“It was premeditated,” Harris said from a stage, where a sign that said “Trust Women” hung behind her.“Trump has not denied, much less shown remorse, for his actions,” she added.Later this afternoon, Harris will go to battleground state Arizona for a second event marking the Dobbs anniversary.Democrats went on the attack as they marked the second anniversary of the Dobbs decision, in which the supreme court’s conservative justices overturned the constitutional protections on abortion guaranteed by Roe v Wade. At a speech near Washington DC, Kamala Harris said Donald Trump was “guilty” of “stealing” reproductive rights from American women with his appointment of three of the justices who supported doing away with the precedent. Joe Biden, who is days away from his Thursday presidential debate with Trump, called his predecessor the “sole person responsible for this nightmare”. Meanwhile, neither Trump nor any top Republicans in Congress said anything about the anniversary of the court’s decision.Here’s what else happened today:
      Trump plans to rally in Chesapeake, Virginia, the day after his debate with Biden. His campaign believes the state is winnable in November, even though it voted overwhelmingly for Biden in 2020.
      The supreme court will hear a challenge brought by the Biden administration against state-level bans on gender-affirming care for minors …
      … but first it will release decisions on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, almost certainly on at least some of the high-profile cases the justices have yet to decide.
      The fall of Roe upended life for aspiring doctors who hoped to provide abortions.
      A top White House official signaled that Biden supports an effort by Senate Democrats to repeal the Comstock Act, a 19th-century law that a second Trump administration might use to ban abortion nationwide.
      Meanwhile, in Florida, the judge handling Donald Trump’s stalled prosecution over the classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago resort is in the midst of a major hearing that could determing the case’s trajectory. Here’s the latest on what the two sides are arguing, from the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell: The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s prosecution for retaining classified documents is expected on Monday to consider modifying his conditions of release to include a prohibition on making statements that could endanger the safety of FBI agents involved in the case.The request to the US district judge, Aileen Cannon – the first time prosecutors have sought to limit Trump’ public remarks in this case – raises the stakes for Trump. Unlike in his other cases, where prosecutors sought gag orders, a violation of release conditions carries a risk of jail.The latest dispute over Trump’s inflammatory statements stems from his blatantly false characterization of the FBI’s use-of-deadly force policy when they executed a search warrant at the Mar-a-Lago club in August 2022 and retrieved more than 100 classified documents.The order, which limits FBI agents to use deadly force only if they face extreme danger and became public after the FBI’s operational plan for the search was unsealed, used standard language that is routinely used in hundreds of warrants executed across the country.But Trump and some allies twisted the limiting language to claim the FBI was authorized by the Biden administration to shoot him when they searched Mar-a-Lago, even though Trump was not there during the search and the language is standard US justice department policy.The supreme court has indicated that the justices may release more decisions on Thursday and Friday, as several politically weighty cases await rulings.The justices were already expected to issue decisions on Wednesday, thus bringing to three the number of days this week that we can expect to hear from the court. The conservative-dominated body has a bunch of matters outstanding, which touch on everything from Donald Trump’s legal fate, to the scope of government regulation. Here are a few:
      Trump’s petition for immunity from the federal charges brought against him by special prosecutor Jack Smith for attempting to overturn the 2020 election.
      Where the Biden administration can require federally funded hospitals to perform emergency abortions, even in states like Idaho, which the case centers on, that have strict abortion bans.
      A challenge to a longstanding doctrine underpinning many federal regulatory decisions.
      Whether municipalities can make it illegal for people to sleep outside, even when there is insufficient shelter space, in a case that could upend homeless policies nationwide.
      Decisions on some, all, or theoretically none of these cases could come before the end of the week.Donald Trump and Joe Biden will hold the first of two debates they have scheduled on Thursday.The day after, the former president is scheduled to hold a rally in Chesapeake, Virginia, a state that Biden won overwhelmingly in 2020, but which Trump’s campaign argues is within his grasp this year.Trump will “speak with the people of Virginia about how he will reverse the devastating effects of Joe Biden’s failed presidency,” his campaign announced.“President Trump will ease the financial pressures placed on households and re-establish law and order in this country! We can Make America Great Again by tackling lawlessness head-on, ceasing the endless flow of illegal immigrants across our southern border, and reversing the detrimental effects of inflation by restoring people’s wealth.”Polls have lately showed a close, perhaps tied, race between Trump and Biden in Virginia, though there have been none released so far showing the former president with the advantage.Democrats are continuing to press their message against Republicans over their support for the Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v Wade, and allowed states to ban abortions.“Two years ago, the extreme right-wing Supreme Court majority issued one of the most egregious rulings in our nation’s history,” the Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said.Here’s more:
      The Dobbs decision undermined reproductive freedom for women all across America as part of the extreme MAGA Republican plan to criminalize reproductive health care, outlaw contraception and march us toward a nationwide abortion ban. The decision by the out of control Supreme Court majority to take away the long-held right to an abortion represents an assault on freedom, the Constitution and the values shared by a majority of Americans. House Democrats will continue to fight until reproductive freedom is the law of the land and the extreme MAGA Republican effort to impose a nationwide abortion ban is crushed.
      Still not a peep from Donald Trump and most leading Republicans on the second anniversary of Roe v Wade’s overturning, but that’s not stopping the Biden campaign.Their official account has spent the day tweeting out past instances where Trump has taken credit for orchestrating the downfall of the precedent, which prevented the sorts of abortion restrictions now commonplace in Republican-controlled states.From his town hall in Iowa earlier this year:And what appears to be one of the many videos Trump has posted on his Truth Social account:Former Maryland governor Larry Hogan, the GOP nominee for a Senate seat in the state, was one of the few Republicans to mark the second anniversary of the US supreme court ruling that overturned Roe v Wade.Hogan, in a statement shared by the Washington Post, said that if elected, he would work on bipartisan legislation to “codify Roe v. Wade as the law of the land.”He noted that as governor, he “reaffirmed my commitment to uphold Maryland law protecting access to abortion,” adding that he was “proud to make Maryland the first state in America to provide over-the-counter birth control covered by insurance.”Hogan, who last week tried to reject Donald Trump’s endorsement in his Senate race, also promised to protect women’s reproductive rights.“A woman’s health care decisions are her own,” he said.
      Whether it be the decision to start a family with the help of IVF, or exercise her reproductive rights, nothing and no one — especially partisan politics — should come between a woman and her doctor.
      Planned Parenthood will spend $40m ahead of November’s elections to bolster Joe Biden and leading congressional Democrats.The group will initially target eight states: Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, where Biden is seeking to defend 2020 victories, as well as North Carolina, which the Biden campaign to flip, and Montana, New Hampshire and New York, which have races that could help determine control of the Senate and House, it told Associated Press.Jenny Lawson, executive director of Planned Parenthood Votes, said:
      Abortion will be the message of this election, and it will be how we energize voters. It will be what enables us to win.
      A six-week abortion ban in Texas was linked to a 13% increase in the number of infants who died in their first year of life, a new study published Monday in JAMA Pediatrics suggests.The study, published two years to the day since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade and permitted more than a dozen states across the country to outlaw almost all abortions, is one of the first glimpses into how strict abortion bans impact babies’ health.The study also estimated that the ban may have led the number of infants in Texas who died within their first month of life to rise more than 10%.Because Texas enacted its six-week abortion ban in September 2021, months before Roe’s demise, scholars have studied what has happened in Texas for clues about how post-Roe abortion bans are now affecting the rest of the nation. Some of the researchers involved in the Monday study have previously concluded that the Texas ban also led to 10,000 additional births.The study found a 23% jump in infant deaths due to congenital anomalies – the kind of conditions that are often identified in utero and lead to abortions in states where the procedure is legal, since they can be incompatible with life. But that choice is no longer available to pregnant Texans.Two hundred and sixteen more infant deaths occurred due to the Texas six-week abortion ban, the researchers estimated.Kamala Harris has warned that abortion bans in states across the country are cutting women off from essential reproductive care and causing a “health care crisis”,In an interview with MSNBC aired today alongside reproductive rights advocate Hadley Duvall, Harris reflected on her experience visiting a reproductive care clinic in Minnesota in March.
      In those clinics that are trusted in the community, there is — you can get a Pap [smear] … breast cancer screening, HIV screening, the things that where people want to be able to walk into a health care facility and be treated with dignity and without judgment so they can address their health care concerns.
      She continued:
      That’s what these clinics do. And in states where they have passed these Trump abortion bans, these clinics are closing, which means that there is a reduction of very essential health care across the board for a lot of people.
      Democrats are on the attack as they mark the second anniversary of the Dobbs decision, in which the supreme court’s conservative justices overturned the constitutional protections on abortion guaranteed by Roe v Wade. At a speech outside Washington DC, Kamala Harris said Donald Trump was “guilty” of “stealing” reproductive rights from American women with his appointment of three of the justices who supported doing away with the precedent. Joe Biden, who is three days away from his Thursday presidential debate with Trump, called his predecessor the “sole person responsible for this nightmare”. Meanwhile, neither Trump nor any top Republicans in Congress have said anything about the anniversary of the court’s decision.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      The supreme court will hear a challenge brought by the Biden administration against state-level bans on gender-affirming care for minors.
      The fall of Roe upended life for aspiring doctors who hoped to provide abortions.
      A top White House official signaled that Biden supports an effort by Senate Democrats to repeal the Comstock Act, a 19th-century law that a second Trump administration might use to ban abortion nationwide.
      Kate Cox, the Texas mother who was denied an abortion under the state’s near-total ban last year, introduced Kamala Harris at her speech in Maryland.“Every minute that I stayed pregnant, the risk to my health and to a future pregnancy were growing,” Cox said.“My state chose to drive me out of my home, my community, away from my children and my doctors, rather than to let me access care,” she said, adding: “I never imagined having to fight for something so basic as a procedure to save my health.”As a young student and mother “just trying to stay afloat,” Cox said she didn’t always make time to vote.“I will never again miss an opportunity to vote. I will cast my ballot in every election like my life depends on it,” Cox said.Growing emotional, Cox then shared that she is pregnant again, expecting a child in January. The crowd erupted in applause, as many stood to cheer for her.“And I hope that by then, when we welcome our baby into the world, we will have a world led by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris,” she said.She then welcomed Harris on to the stage as a “champion of the cause” for reproductive freedom.“You are a hero of this movement,” Harris told Cox.Harris emphasized the importance of turning out to vote in November to protect abortion access so that places like Maryland remain havens for reproductive healthcare.Pointing to the statistic that one-in-three American women live in a state with abortion restrictions, she said: “Today our daughters know fewer rights than their grandmothers. This is a healthcare crisis, and we all know who to blame: Donald Trump.”Making her case that Trump was “guilty” of stripping abortion access, which was previewed by the campaign before her appearance, Harris said Trump appointed three supreme court justices with the intention of overturning Roe v Wade.“It was premeditated,” Harris said from a stage, where a sign that said “Trust Women” hung behind her.“Trump has not denied, much less shown remorse, for his actions,” she added.Later this afternoon, Harris will go to battleground state Arizona for a second event marking the Dobbs anniversary.Harris took the stage to chants of “four more years.”She then said Trump was “guilty” in “the case of the stealing of reproductive freedom from the women of America”, and went on to lay out what she said are the stakes for abortion access if Trump is re-elected.“Understand as much harm as he has already caused, a second Trump term will be even worse,” she said. “His friends in the United States Congress are trying to pass a national ban that would outlaw abortion in every single state in states like New York and California, and even right here in Maryland.”She called Republicans who have passed state-level bans Trump’s “accomplices”, and said voters shouldn’t be fooled by Trump’s wavering on abortion, but should focus on what he has said. And she warned that he would go even further, curtailing access to contraception and IVF.“If there were a second Trump term, he has admitted that he is ‘looking at restrictions on contraception,’” she said. “And pay close attention to how his friends in the United States Senate obstructed a bill to protect the right to contraception, not once, not twice, but three times.” More

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      Trump freewheels towards debate as Biden rehearses at Camp David

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      Presidential political surrogates fanned out across the Sunday talkshows to prepare the ground for next week’s televised debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, which could help the Democratic incumbent and his Republican predecessor focus the minds of undecided or unengaged voters on November’s election.But the candidates themselves are taking strikingly different approaches. Biden is hunkered down at Camp David in debate preparation, reportedly with his personal attorney Bob Bauer standing in for Trump in mock exchanges.Bauer told Politico last week that his job was “to approximate as closely as you possibly can how it is that that individual, the opponent, is going to debate”.Trump, however, is not known to have a debate surrogate – or been in any debate practice. Instead, he has been out on the campaign trail. In Philadelphia on Saturday, he continued his rhetoric on immigration, at one point saying he would suggest to Dana White, president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, that the organization pit a league of fighters who are immigrants against the “regular” league fighters with the champion of each then squaring off.That left the talkshows to mull the impending clash with campaign surrogates talking up – or talking down – mounting expectations for a decisive exchange. However, there are also concerns that without a live TV audience to provide voter interaction, it could also fall flat.“I expect President Biden to do an excellent job just like he did the last few debates,” Biden’s campaign co-chairperson Mitch Landrieu told NBC’s Meet the Press.Referring in part to Trump’s conviction in the criminal prosecution involving hush-money paid to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels, Landrieu said: “It really doesn’t matter how Donald Trump shows up, if he comes in unhinged, like he has most of the time, or he sits there and is quiet, people are going to know that he’s a twice-impeached convicted felon who has been found to have defamed somebody, sexually abused somebody and going bankrupt six times.”Landrieu said that Biden was “really anxious to tell his story to the American people”, adding: “This race is going to be tight. Everybody knows that.”Trump, Landrieu said, “wakes up every day pretty much thinking about himself, thinking about his rich friends … really thinking about ways to hurt people with the power that he would have if he were the president of the United States again”.Biden, Landrieu added, “wants to be really clear about the difference between those two that everybody will see again on Thursday”.Also for the Democrats was the US senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a member of the national advisory board for Biden’s re-election campaign. With the second anniversary of the elimination of federal abortion rights previously granted by Roe v Wade falling on Monday, Warren sought to bring reproductive rights to the forefront of the looming presidential race, a posture that let Democrats retain control of the Senate and blunted the Republican House majority in 2022.Warren said that if Biden is re-elected and Democrats are given a majority in Congress, her party would be able to defend and restore access to abortion, contraception and in vitro fertilization.“We’re going to make Roe v Wade [the] law of the land again,” Warren said. “Understand this. I want to say this as clearly as I can. If Donald Trump is elected to the presidency, he and the extremist Republicans are coming after abortion, contraception, and IVF in every single state in this country. Not just the [conservative] states.”Trump has said his VP pick will be in the audience in Atlanta on Thursday – a contest that is reported to have narrowed to the North Dakota governor, Doug Burgum, Florida senator Marco Rubio, and Ohio senator JD Vance.Trump told reporters on Saturday he had made a determination but has not let them know. “In my mind, yeah”, Trump told reporters at a cheesesteak restaurant in Philadelphia.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMeanwhile, Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor who was once considered a strong contender to be Trump’s running mate, on Sunday continued trying to bounce back from a disastrous passage in her recently published book in which she recounted shooting a dog to death that she claimed had become dangerous to her family.Noem’s admission came after Biden’s German shepherd, Commander, was merely banished from the White House after biting three dozen Secret Service agents during an 18-month reign of terror.Noem said she thought Thursday’s clash would be “an important debate” and “a great opportunity for President Trump to talk about his policies and how his policies when he served as president of this country were good”.Nonetheless, Noem confirmed that she had not received paperwork from Trump relating to his vice-president pick that others reportedly had. “I’ve had conversations with the president, and I know that he is the only one who will be making the decisions on who will be his vice-president,” she said diplomatically.A strong contender for the role, Burgum told CNN’s State of the Union that Biden’s team had made a real effort to lower expectations. He challenged the network, which is the debate host, to ask tough questions, including over Biden’s assertion when he last debated Trump in 2020 that the furore around Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation”.Though many claims about its contents have not been confirmed, the laptop was admitted as evidence in the recent trial which led to Hunter Biden’s conviction on three federal gun charges.“If he’s that good at lying about that four years ago, the question is what might he do this time,” Burgum added. More

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      Accusations fly as pro-Israel groups spend big to oust progressive House Democrat

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      It was one of the hottest days of the year in New York City on Saturday – but as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to the stage in the Bronx, you wouldn’t know it.At a rally to support Jamaal Bowman, the progressive Democrat facing a primary campaign that has seen pro-Israel lobbying groups pump more than $15m into the race, Ocasio-Cortez was amped up.Bowman’s fellow progressive member of Congress – one of America’s most recognizable politicians – sprinted on to the stage and jumped around to a Cardi B track, drawing cheers and applause from the crowd.“Let’s go, Bronx!” she shouted.“Are you ready to fight? Are you ready to take this borough back? Are you ready to win this country back? Are you ready to fight for peace on earth and ceasefire in Gaza?”The reception from the crowd of more than 1,000 people suggested that the crowd was very ready.Voters go to the polls in New York’s 16th district on Tuesday, in what has become the most expensive House primary in US history. The race between Bowman and his challenger, George Latimer, has been ugly: beset by accusations of antisemitism and racism. Of the almost $23m that has been spent on ads so far, more than $15m has come from pro-Israel groups, in a bid to oust the Democratic incumbent, Jamaal Bowman.Bowman has represented the district in the House of Representatives since 2020, one of a wave of progressive Democrats who have won victories in recent years. Popular among young Democrats and left-leaning voters, the 48-year-old became a high profile member of the Squad – a group of progressive politicians who include Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib – after he arrived in DC.But with greater attention comes greater vulnerability. Bowman has been one of the few Democrats to consistently criticize Israel since it began its war in Gaza, accusing the country of committing genocide and calling for the Joe Biden White House to “stop all funding” to Israel. That has attracted the attention of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac, a formidable force in US politics not afraid to spend millions to unseat candidates it deems insufficiently supportive of Israel.Bowman, dressed in a bright yellow T-shirt, acknowledged the challenge at the rally, held at St Mary’s Park in the south Bronx.Introduced by Ocasio-Cortez, he rapped along to the Wu-Tang Clan track Triumph to roars of appreciation.“This is the birthplace of hip-hop. I am the hip-hop congressman,” he announced.View image in fullscreenIt was clear that this was a rally designed to rouse the faithful, with Bowman urging supporters to canvas and win votes ahead of Tuesday’s vote, before turning to Aipac.“We are gonna show fucking Aipac the power of the motherfucking south Bronx,” Bowman said.“People ask me why I got a foul mouth. What am I supposed to do? You coming after me, you coming after my family, you coming after my children, I’m not supposed to fight back?“We’re gonna show them who the fuck we are.”Since the start of the primary, the United Democracy Project (UDP), a Super Pac connected with Aipac, has spent almost $15m to defeat Bowman, who is facing a primary challenge from Latimer, a pro-Israel Democrat. DMFI Pac, another pro-Israel group, has spent more than $1m to support Latimer and unseat Bowman, helping to turn the race into an unprecedentedly expensive contest.Bowman, a former school principal in the Bronx, unseated the incumbent Democrat Eliot Engel in 2020, in what was seen as a big win for the progressive wing of the party.But in Latimer, he faces an opponent with more than three decades of experience in New York politics.At 70, and with a list of endorsements from centrist Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, Latimer is far from the exciting prospect Bowman was four years ago. He is, however, a vocal advocate for Israel – in the final debate between the pair he declined to criticize Israel, something Biden has previously done – who visited the country before launching his campaign against Bowman in December. He has won the support of Aipac, and was endorsed by the Jewish Democratic Council of America in March.Ironically, given Aipac’s campaign, Bowman angered some on the left during his first year in office by voting in favor of the US giving $1bn to Israel for the country to fund its Iron Dome defense system. But after Hamas militants killed almost 1,200 people on 7 October, to which Israel responded with a military campaign in Gaza that has killed more than 37,000 Palestinians and led to charges of genocide in the international court of justice, Bowman has found himself under fire.View image in fullscreenIn the weeks following the attack Bowman was denounced by some Jewish leaders in his district for condemning the Hamas attack and Israel’s response. He drew further ire in late October, when he was one of only 10 members of the House to vote against a resolution to codify support for Israel while stating that the House “condemns Hamas’s brutal war against Israel”.Other “no” votes included Tlaib, the Palestinian American congresswoman from Michigan, and Ilhan Omar, who was elected in Minnesota in 2018. Tlaib and Omar have been more outspoken in their criticism of Israel than Bowman – last year Tlaib was censured by the House after she defended the use of the phrase “from the river to the sea”, which is seen by some as antisemitic. Aipac has spent some money opposing both women, but it is NY-16 where the pro-Israel organization has really gone all out, breaking all its previous records.Aipac has said it will spend $100m this year on ousting politicians it deems to be anti-Israel. The American electoral system allows Super Pacs to dump as much cash as they want into any election with a few restrictions, and in NY-16, spending has been prodigious.The result has been visible for anyone with a television in the district, which covers part of the Bronx in New York City and half of Westchester county, just to the north.Much of the money has been spent on attacking Bowman. The UDP has invested $14.5m in the race – $9.8m of which has gone towards knocking Bowman, and just $4.8m on promoting Latimer.An ad from late May featured the son of Elie Wiesel, the Holocaust survivor, Nobel winner and staunch Israel supporter, who died in 2016.“My father taught me that antisemitism begins with lies and conspiracy theories, and it ends with violence that consumes any society that tolerates it,” Elisha Wiesel says in the ad. “Will you make your voice heard? Will you confront Jamaal Bowman’s lies and conspiracy theories, or will you sit by silently?”The ad did not reference any specific conspiracy theory, but may have reminded some viewers of Bowman’s comments in November, when he said reports of Hamas committing rapes during the October 7 attack were “propaganda”. Bowman has since apologized.Aipac has been around since the 1950s, and spent decades as a fairly typical lobbying firm, chipping away at politicians behind the scenes, trying to win favorable policies and deals for Israel.But in 2021 Aipac announced that it had formed a political action committee, known as Aipac Pac, and a Super Pac, the UDP. Super Pacs can receive limitless money in donations, and spend it on any political races they like, as long as they do so without coordinating with campaigns. Since a contentious supreme court decision legalized Super Pacs in 2010, they have become extremely powerful – across 2023 and 2024, Super Pacs in the US raised nearly $1.5bn in donations, according to Open Secrets.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIt is the UDP that has been doing most of the heavy lifting as Aipac attempts to defeat Bowman, spending nearly $15m in this district of 756,711 people. With Bowman’s district considered a safe Democratic seat, it would be a lucrative prize for Latimer, and for pro-Israel advocates.With a diverse population including large numbers of Black, Hispanic and Jewish voters, allegations of racism and antisemitism have been to the fore.Bowman has suggested Latimer’s campaign has darkened his skin in campaign literature, and has accused Latimer of pushing the “angry black man” stereotype. In the final debate between the pair on Tuesday, Bowman accused Latimer of dragging his feet on desegregation as Westchester county executive. Latimer, who has claimed Bowman has an “ethnic benefit”, said Bowman has “cornered the market on lies”.Latimer was also accused by Bowman of relying on Republican money, pointing to donors who have contributed to Latimer and the Republican candidate who ran to replace the shamed fantasist George Santos in Long Island, New York.Latimer, with $5.8m in fundraising, may have the big money from Aipac, and those Republican donors, but Bowman has raised plenty of cash of his own. Since the start of his campaign, Bowman has raised $4.3m and has support on the ground from progressive groups, including Justice Democrats, a progressive organization which backed his campaign in 2020 and has spent $1.3m to support Bowman this election cycle.Local polling is notoriously unreliable, but one recent survey found Bowman trailing Latimer by 17 points among likely Democratic primary voters – although 21% of respondents were undecided.If Bowman is defeated, there is a potential impact beyond just politics in the Middle East. Some younger, progressive Democrats feel that the primary campaigns against Bowman and other Squad members could drive young voters away from the Democratic party.“We believe that the Squad is just the start of our voice being truly represented in the halls of Congress,” said Ella Webber, an activist with Protect our Power, an organization which seeks to keep progressive Democrats in Congress and has spent time campaigning in Bowman’s district.“The threat of them not winning is gen Z as a whole continues to lose faith in our political process. That’s definitely not what we want, and I don’t think that’s what the Democratic party wants.”At the rally on Saturday, others were also worried about what the loss of a progressive Democrat could mean.“I’m a transgender woman, and I’m really existentially terrified about the rise of the far right in America,” said Genevieve Rand, 27.“And Jamal Bowman’s race is the frontlines of that fight in this country right now. And so it’s really, really important to me that he wins so that the far right can’t buy an election and kick out somebody who stands for peace and for life.”While Latimer would baulk at the suggestion that he is far right, Rand argued that the Republican party “is captured by the far right”.“That’s who controls the Republican party and whoever is taking their donations is complicit with that,” she said.Pro-Israel spending has come to define the race, but there have been unforced errors from Bowman. In September he was criticized after pulling a fire alarm before a crucial House vote; Bowman pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour and agreed to pay a $1,000 fine, the maximum applicable under Washington DC law. Early this year the Daily Beast reported that Bowman had touted 9/11 conspiracy theories on a since-deleted blogpost.View image in fullscreenIn a poem posted in 2011, Bowman wrote about world events and the controversial Florida recount in the 2000 presidential election, before riffing on 9/11.“2001/Planes used as missiles/Target: The Twin Towers,” Bowman wrote.“Later in the day/Building 7/Also Collaspsed [sic]/Hmm…/Multiple explosions/Heard before/And during the collapse/Hmm…”The passage makes reference to the debunked conspiracy theory that Building 7 at the site of the World Trade Center was downed in a controlled demolition, rather than collapsing as a result of the plane crashes into the Twin Towers.Bowman apologized, sort of, after the Daily Beast unearthed the post, saying he had merely “processed my thoughts in a personal blog that few people ever read”.“Having since learned how misinformation spreads, I regret posting anything about any of these people,” Bowman said in a statement.There was only support for the congressman on Saturday, however – aside from a small group of pro-Palestine protesters outside the rally. The protesters – somewhat ironically given Aipac’s campaign – accused Bowman, Ocasio-Cortez and the progressive US senator Bernie Sanders, who appeared with Bowman on stage, of being soft on Israel.Some attendees clustered under trees to avoid the heat that was blasting New York City. Others braved the scorching temperatures in the park’s concrete amphitheater. Some waved “Re-elect Bowman” banners, others held placards that said “For the many, not the money”, while one group waved signs that said “Jews for Jamaal” as Bowman launched an attack on Aipac, which suggested he will not soften his stance on Israel’s war in Gaza any time soon.“Aipac is scared to death. That is why they are spending records amounts of money in this race – because they are afraid. They have already lost because the district, the American people and the world are with us,” Bowman said.“They are in this race because we called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, and we are going to keep calling for a permanent ceasefire.“We are not going to stand silent while US tax dollars kills babies, and women, and children. My opponent supports genocide. My opponent and Aipac are the ones destroying our democracy, and it is on all of us to save our democracy.”Additional reporting by Will Craft 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