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      The Guardian view on Joe Biden’s re-election bid: democrats can’t go on like this | Editorial

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      Joe Biden says only “the Lord almighty” could make him quit his re-election bid. “I am not going anywhere,” he insisted in a surprise call to a morning talkshow on Monday, having warned party colleagues off further discussion in a letter. Anyone wanting him to step aside, he said, should “challenge me at the convention” in August. Perhaps he would better understand the problem if he had watched his disastrous debate appearance. But if the president is still in denial, far fewer lawmakers, donors and supporters believe that his candidacy is sustainable amid mounting concern about his capabilities.Resilience is a virtue. Mr Biden has shown it in spades, and it has served him and his country well. His grit and application helped to save the United States from a second Trump term, and to recover from the first. But knowing when to quit matters too. In 2020, Mr Biden described himself as the “bridge” to a new generation of leaders. Stepping aside now would be a belated act of dignity and wisdom. Clinging on as the Democrats head towards November in a doom‑spiral of division and recrimination, leading to Donald Trump’s return to the White House, would for ever tarnish his name.Mr Biden’s inner circle is clannish. As Congress reconvenes for the first time since the debate, he needs to listen to other sympathetic voices. It’s not only self-described “friendly pundits” who have urged him to give up his candidacy. It’s also donors and elected lawmakers, both publicly and (in the case of more influential figures) privately. Even a senior White House official reportedly agrees. Party elders have avoided ringing endorsements.Mr Biden, borrowing Mr Trump’s rhetoric, blames “elites” for hobbling him. While some grassroots supporters remain staunch, others want him to call a halt. There is no doubt that the discussion is damaging. But all those calling on him to step aside understand what is at stake. It is precisely because they dread defeat – not only from self-interest but for the sake of their country and its democracy – that they demand action. They believe Mr Biden cannot now beat Mr Trump. Another candidate might – no more than that. It is a gamble, but less so when the alternative looks like odds-on defeat.Every appearance will be pored over for signs of physical frailty and cognitive incapacity. Further suggestions of declining abilities will surface. One Democratic congressman is said to have told colleagues that the president “has trouble putting two sentences together”. Any doubt voiced by a Democrat will be replayed endlessly in attack ads. While Mr Biden has defied expectations before, electors know that physical and mental decline in older people can be cruel and swift. No number of “good days” will erase the bad.Many Democrats hope for a coronation for Kamala Harris, the vice-president. Even if Mr Biden stepped aside, a contested convention with candidates taking chunks out of each other might damage the eventual nominee. Others believe that a contest would generate excitement and dominate the media, denying airtime to Mr Trump. It would allow the party to test candidates and avoid committing to another one who proves not to be up to the task. Either way, the route ahead would be thorny. But it’s hard to see the party returning to the path of silent political loyalty. That’s how it ended up here. More

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      Biden’s health and threat of a second Trump term loom over Nato summit

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      As European leaders and top defense officials from 31 Nato countries descend on Washington next week, all eyes will be focused firmly on Joe Biden, whose faltering performance at last month’s debate has added to concerns about the country that some Europeans already described as their “unpredictable ally”.The US president has hoped that his leadership at the summit will rescue his campaign against Donald Trump amid concerns about his age and mental acuity. In a primetime interview on US television this week, he said: “And who’s gonna be able to hold Nato together like me?… We’re gonna have, I guess a good way to judge me, is you’re gonna have now the Nato conference here in the United States next week. Come listen. See what they say.”But in private conversations, some European officials and diplomats have expressed concerns about his “shaky” public appearances and worries about the high likelihood of a second Trump term. Several foreign officials questioned whether Biden would remain in the race through next week.“You can’t just put the genie back in the bottle,” said one European diplomat of the questions concerning Biden’s age. “It is one of the big issues [around the summit].”Officials who normally focused on security policy said they would pay close attention to Biden’s behaviour during his public appearances at the Nato summit, including a speech in the Mellon Auditorium on Tuesday and then meetings with the other member and partner countries on Wednesday. Some expressed confidence in his team, including Jake Sullivan, US national security adviser, to manage major crises, but said that the question of Biden’s political future had taken a toll.Several foreign officials said that Biden’s slump in the polls would compound problems from this year’s bruising fight in Congress over the $60.8bn in military aid to Ukraine and make it less likely for the administration to take bold action.“The issue with his age has become a major concern … a distraction from other real issues [for Nato],” said a European official. One administration official told the Washington Post that the summit has “gone from an orchestrated spectacle to one of the most anxious gatherings in modern times”.US officials have insisted that Biden is mentally acute, especially pointing at his handling of national security issues such as the Russian war on Ukraine.A long piece detailing concerns about Biden’s mental state in the New York Times included aides describing his forceful warnings to Benjamin Netanyahu not to launch a massive counterattack against Iran as an example of his good health.“Look, foreign leaders have seen Joe Biden up close and personal for the last three years,” said a senior administration official. “They know who they’re dealing with and, you know, they know how effective he’s been.”But that article also said that G7 leaders were concerned about Biden’s physical condition, quoted a European official who said Biden was sometimes “out of it”, and quoted two officials who struggled to say they would put Biden in the same room as Vladimir Putin.“I’ve heard multiple times [US officials] talking about how he’s very sharp,” a European official told the Guardian. “But he can’t be great just part of the time, he needs to be on his game all of the time.”Some have gone public with their concerns. “They certainly have a problem,” said Polish prime minister Donald Tusk after last week’s debate. “Yes, these reactions are unambiguous. I was afraid of that. I was afraid … in the sense: it was to be expected that in a direct confrontation, in a debate, it would not be easy for President Biden.”Especially following the debate, many European diplomats are bracing for a second Trump administration. The former president has openly flirted with the idea of pulling out of Nato and personally harangued members of the alliance who failed to reach a 2% spending benchmark. He has also indicated that he may withhold further aid to Ukraine.Since early in the campaign, European diplomats have sought to understand Trump’s policies, sending envoys to his campaign or conservative thinktanks like the Heritage Foundation who have produced voluminous briefings about what a second-term Trump administration’s foreign policy could look like.But Trump’s foreign policy vision remains unclear, they said, subject to his own whims, and will likely be decided at the last minute. (In a surprise on Friday, he disavowed the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, often touted as a 900-page road map for his administration’s agenda, saying he “had no idea who they are”.)skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“You meet a lot of people who will tell you that they know what Trump is thinking, but no one actually does,” said one European official.Ahead of the election, officials from Nato countries have sought to “Trump-proof” military aid by having the alliance take over coordination of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group from the US. European countries have also pushed for language in a final Nato communique that would proclaim the “irreversibility” of Ukraine’s accession to the alliance.“On managing the unpredictability of the US ally … again, it’s not new,” said a European official. “It’s clearly a sentiment which is shared among European allies, that we need to be prepared for the unpredictability of the US ally.”In a policy brief, Camille Grand, a former Nato assistant secretary general who is now at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that leaders should prepare to “defend Europe with less America”.“Even setting aside the outcome of the US presidential election this year and the need to Trump-proof Europe, there is a fundamental and deep trend in US security policy that suggests Europe will have to become less reliant on US support for its security,” he wrote.Planners want to avoid a repeat of last year’s summit in Lithuania, when Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy tweeted that the lack of a timetable for the country’s accession to Nato was “absurd” after learning of last-minute discussions between other leaders.“The US team has been making absolutely sure that there wouldn’t be too many or any open issues at the summit to avoid what happened in Vilnius,” Grand said in an interview.“It’s meant to be a smooth summit and a celebration and an opportunity for Biden to shine, then I guess what the European leaders will be watching in light of the debate is, how is Biden? Is he truly leading? So they will have an eye on him, but I think they will all, at least most of them … rather be in the mood to strengthen him than the opposite.” More

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      More House Democrats reportedly want Biden to quit race as he pledges to ‘unite America’ – live

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      Reports are coming through from the virtual meeting that House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries has been holding with fellow Democratic representatives, and it’s not looking good for Joe Biden.High-profile congressmen Jerry Nadler of New York and Jamie Raskin of Maryland are reportedly among a clutch of Democratic lawmakers who told Jeffries, the most senior Democrat in the House, that Biden should leave the presidential race, CBS’s Ed O’Keefe has posted on Twitter/X.He also includes congressmen Takano, Adam Smith, Morelle, Himes and Beyer.The Guardian has not independently verified this reporting.Hello again, US politics blog readers, we’re going to close this blog now after a lively day and we’ll be back on Monday morning, Washington DC time. All of today’s stories on Joe Biden are on this Guardian US page.Congress is back in session tomorrow and it will be another news-filled day at the start of what could be a make-or-break week for the US president’s re-election campaign, so do rejoin us then. This follows late developments this afternoon coming out of a virtual meeting between some House Democrats and their leader in that chamber, Hakeem Jeffries.Here’s where things stand:
      High-profile congressmen Jerry Nadler of New York and Jamie Raskin of Maryland are reportedly among a clutch of Democratic lawmakers who told Jeffries, the most senior Democrat in the House, that Biden should leave the presidential race.
      More Democratic representatives, including Mark Takano of California, Adam Smith of Washington state, Jim Himes of Connecticut, Joe Morelle of New York and Susan Wild of Pennsylvania also reportedly told Jeffries they want Biden to quit the race. Maxine Waters and Bobby Scott reportedly said they support him. Jeffries did not reveal his hand.
      Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden are now in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for the third stop on this campaign swing through the swing state.
      Republican US Senator Lindsey Graham believes both Joe Biden and Donald Trump should take a cognitive test. The South Carolina senator said that anyone standing for president and anyone in the line of succession should be subjected to a cognitive exam.
      Biden heard words of encouragement from Pennsylvania Democratic US senator John Fetterman on his trip to the state today. Fetterman won office two years ago despite his own struggles in a debate against his Republican opponent. “I know what it’s like to have a rough debate and I’m standing here as your senator. There is only one guy that has ever beaten Trump and he is going to do it twice and put him down for good,” the senator said.
      Biden told congregants at a church in Philadelphia this morning: “We must unite America again. That’s my goal. That’s what we’re going to do.” The supportive churchgoers chanted “Four more years!”
      We can now add Pennsylvania congresswoman Susan Wild to the list of lawmakers who reportedly told House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries in a virtual meeting today that Joe Biden should quick his re-election campaign, CNN reports.Representatives Maxine Waters and Bobby Scott reportedly told Jeffries they continue to support Biden as the presumptive nominee, as the caucus split, the outlet reported.Many apparently agree that Kamala Harris should become the nominee instead.Reports are coming through from the virtual meeting that House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries has been holding with fellow Democratic representatives, and it’s not looking good for Joe Biden.High-profile congressmen Jerry Nadler of New York and Jamie Raskin of Maryland are reportedly among a clutch of Democratic lawmakers who told Jeffries, the most senior Democrat in the House, that Biden should leave the presidential race, CBS’s Ed O’Keefe has posted on Twitter/X.He also includes congressmen Takano, Adam Smith, Morelle, Himes and Beyer.The Guardian has not independently verified this reporting.Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden are now in Harrisburg for another event.The city is the state capital of Pennsylvania, about 100 miles northwest of Philadelphia, where the US president addressed a church service this morning.In between he stopped at a campaign office, as hit the swing-state in an ongoing mini-blitz to persuade Democrats he is up to being their nominee for re-election this November.Republican US Senator Lindsey Graham believes both Joe Biden and Donald Trump should take a cognitive test.The South Carolina senator told CBS on Sunday that anyone standing for president and anyone in the line of succession should be subjected to a cognitive exam.After Biden’s flop in the first presidential debate of the 2024 election, against Trump late last month, Graham said earlier today: “This is a wake-up call for the country. We need to make sure that the people who are going to be in the line of succession are capable of being commanders in chief under dire circumstances.”He added: “I’m offended by the idea that he shouldn’t take a competency test, given all the evidence in front of us,” Graham said, adding that he thinks Biden is in denial and that’s dangerous.Graham said: “What I’d like to see is President Biden take a cognitive test.” Asked if Trump should, too, Graham said: “Yes, yes, I think both.”Meanwhile, there’s some big news breaking in France, where the hopes of the far right and their leader Marine Le Pen appear to have been dashed by resurgent support for leftwing parties in a snap election.We have a live blog covering the results as they come in, and you can follow it here:During his unscheduled stop at a Philadelphia campaign office, Joe Biden heard some words of encouragement from Democratic senator John Fetterman, who won office two years ago despite his own struggles in a debate against his Republican opponent.The senator’s performance in the debate against Mehmet Oz was hampered by the auditory processing disorder that afflicted him after suffering a stroke. Fetterman nonetheless defeated Oz in the 2022 midterm elections, and, as he appeared alongside the president today, compared his comeback to Biden’s current troubles following his tired performance at his first debate against Donald Trump.“I know what it’s like to have a rough debate and I’m standing here as your senator,” Fetterman said.“There is only one guy that has ever beaten Trump and he is going to do it twice and put him down for good.”Here’s a look back on Fetterman’s own struggles in his Senate campaign:Joe Biden has made an unscheduled stop at the Roxborough Democratic Coordinated campaign office in Philadelphia.He is joined there by Pennsylvania’s Democratic senator John Fetterman, and the city’s mayor Cherelle Parker.Here are some more images from inside the event at the church in north-western Philadelphia a little earlier.Addressing the congregation.Mingling:More:Here are some images related to Joe Biden’s appearance in Philadelphia on Sunday, to speak at a church.A handful of people outside held signs urging the president to drop out of his re-election campaign.And this:Biden meets voters. More

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      Biden insists he can reunite US as high-profile Democrats reportedly want him to quit race

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      Joe Biden insisted he was the person to reunite America in a second term in the White House as he hit the trail in the swing state of Pennsylvania on Sunday – but the number of high-profile Democrats doubting his position as the presumptive party nominee for re-election only grew amid a campaign in crisis.Pressure on the US president increased even further following his poor debate performance against Donald Trump last month and an underwhelming ABC interview last week, as a group of Democratic representatives met online with House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries on Sunday.Congressmen Jerry Nadler of New York and Jamie Raskin of Maryland were reportedly among a clutch of lawmakers who told Jeffries that Biden should leave the presidential race.Congress will be back on Monday from its latest recess and the focus among Democrats is whether Biden can continue to campaign for re-election. House Democrats are expected to meet in person with Jeffries on Tuesday to discuss the president.Biden’s fresh blitz on Sunday to rally voters, donors and campaign staff also came as prominent House Democrat Adam Schiff said Vice-President Kamala Harris could beat Trump and the president should “pass the torch” to someone else if he can’t win “overwhelmingly”.The US president made no mention of his health and fitness when he told a loudly supportive Philadelphia church congregation in the morning: “We must unite America again … that’s my goal. That’s what we’re going to do.”But Schiff, who is likely to become California’s next senator in the November election, said he thought Harris could decisively win the election against presumptive Republican party nominee Trump, if Biden drops out.He warned that the US president either “has to win overwhelmingly, or he has to pass the torch to someone who can”.Meanwhile, reports began emerging after the virtual meeting with Jeffries on Sunday, via CBS and CNN, that as well as Nadler and Raskin, representatives Mark Takano of California, Adam Smith of Washington state, Jim Himes of Connecticut, Joe Morelle of New York and Susan Wild of Pennsylvania told him they wanted Biden to quit as the race, the outlets said, citing unnamed sources. Many want Harris to take over as the nominee.Democrats Maxine Waters and Bobby Scott told Jeffries they support Biden to become the nominee and fight for re-election, while Jeffries did not reveal his hand, CNN reported.As the chaos continued, Biden was on a three-stop swing in Pennsylvania, first addressing the church service in a majority Black neighborhood in north-western Philadelphia before expecting to head to the state capital of Harrisburg about 100 miles away in the afternoon.He was introduced at the Mount Airy church of God in Christ in Philadelphia as “our honored guest” and senior pastor Louis Felton told the congregation that if they stand together “there is no election that we cannot win”, adding, “We love our president. We pray for our president.”One demonstrator outside the church underlined the conflicting views within the party and even normally loyal Democratic voters, carrying a sign that read: “Thank you Joe, but time to go.”View image in fullscreenBut Felton said: “God knew Biden needs some love.” He described Biden as a president of vision and integrity and said: “President Biden is coming back. He’s a comeback kid. He’s a fighter. He’s a champion.”He concluded: “Never count Joseph out,” as congregants chanted “four more years” when Biden finished speaking.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMeanwhile Mark Warner, another prominent Democrat and US senator for Virginia, reportedly is wrangling Senate Democrats to ask Biden at the White House on Monday to step down as the presumptive nominee.On Sunday morning, Schiff told NBC News’s Meet the Press show: “The interview didn’t put concerns to rest. No single interview is going to do that. And what I do think the president needs to decide is, can he put those concerns aside? Can he demonstrate the American people that what happened on the debate stage was an aberration?”Schiff then weighted Harris’s prospects if she became the party nominee not Biden, as her profile rises fast.“I think she very well could win overwhelmingly, but before we get into a decision about who else it should be, the president needs to make a decision about whether it’s him.”Bernie Sanders, the independent US senator from Vermont who caucuses with Democrats, signaled his continued support for Biden.He told CBS in a Sunday interview: “What we are talking about now is not a Grammy award contest for best singer. Biden is old. He’s not as articulate as he once was. I wish he could jump up the steps on Air Force One – he can’t,” Sanders admitted, while adding a challenge to the president to continue to run on policies that help working-class voters.“Whose policies will benefit the vast majority of the people in this country, who has the guts to take on corporate America?” Sanders asked, saying the Democratic nominee needed to fight for health insurance coverage, selectively higher taxes and benefits.“Those are the issues he’s talked about. He’s got to bring them up in the fallt,” Sanders said.Democratic US senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said “the clock is ticking” for the president to quell doubts about his fitness to continue to run for re-election and this was a critical week for him. More

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      Lindsey Graham calls for physical and cognitive tests for Biden and Trump

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      South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham added his voice on Sunday to a chorus calling for cognitive and physical evaluations for Joe Biden – but also called for the same for Donald Trump and others.The Republican lawmaker recommended such tests for all future presidential nominees as well as those who may take over from a president or a nominee.“All nominees for president going into future should have neurological exams as part of an overall physical exam … Let’s test Trump. Let’s test Biden. Let’s test the line of succession”, the 68-year-old Graham told CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday.“This is a wake-up call for the country,” he added. “We need to make sure that the people who are going to be in the line of succession are capable of being commander-in-chief under dire circumstances.”Graham’s call for cognitive tests came after California Democrat Adam Schiff said he’d be “happy” if both Biden and Trump took tests – and predicted: “frankly, a test would show Donald Trump has a serious illness of one kind or another”. Schiff also said Biden should “pass the torch” if he can’t win “overwhelmingly”.The issue of presidential cognitive testing comes as Biden, 81, the oldest US president in history, struggles to free himself from claims that his admittedly bad debate performance against Trump 10 days ago was not symptomatic of a broader mental decline – and that he was fit to remain the presumptive Democratic nominee for reelection this November.Graham added: “I’m offended by the idea that he [Biden] shouldn’t take a competency test, given all the evidence in front of us,” Graham said, adding that he thinks Biden is in denial and that’s dangerous.Asked if Trump, 78, should, too, Graham said: “Yes, yes, I think both.”With pressure mounting on the White House, Graham said: “Most of us are concerned with the national security implications of this debate about President Biden’s health”, adding: “I’m worried about Biden … Biden being the commander in chief for the next four months.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionGraham also predicted that Biden will “most likely will be replaced” as the Democratic nominee with the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, being the most obvious choice.“If she does become the nominee, this is a dramatically different race than it is right now, today. I hope people are thinking about that on our side”, he said. More

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      In search of a credible replacement for Joe Biden | Letters

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      Mehdi Hasan’s suggestion (Kamala Harris may be our only hope. Biden should step aside and endorse her, 3 July) addresses the perceived weaknesses of both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Let the man take a back seat and advise the Harris presidency. One term as president is what Biden is said to have promised anyway. Harris is young and fierce.Let’s remember the woman who made Brett Kavanaugh, Bill Barr and Amy Coney Barrett look like fools. We need her to fight the unabashedly partisan and anti-precedent supreme court. Let’s remember the Harris who called John Kelly to demand he stop the Muslim ban at our airports. Let’s bring back the Harris who championed the Daca immigration policy. Let this Harris return and bring back our democracy.Brian GarciaUniversity of California, Los Angeles Your article on the six alternatives to Joe Biden leaves out the most compelling candidate in my view – Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona (Who could replace Joe Biden as Democratic nominee? Here are six possibilities, 3 July). As a former astronaut with a sympathetic spouse in former representative Gabby Giffords, he could attract independent and democratic votes, and young people concerned about gun violence. He is also progressive enough to attract the progressive wing of the Democratic party without losing the never-Trumpers and the middle-of-the-road independents. Heather WishikWoodstock, Vermont, US In references to Joe Biden’s first presidential debate, your writers use terms such as “disastrous”, “catastrophic”, “dismal”, “stumbling”. If there were a prize for most pithy utterance of the year, I would award it to Biden’s response when asked about his performance: “It’s hard to debate a liar” (Report, 28 June). The six words packed the answers to two important questions: does Donald Trump have the moral character, and does Biden have the cognitive power, to be trusted as the head of government?Guy OttewellIsleworth, London More

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      Assured Kamala Harris cuts a transformed figure in New Orleans – and carefully avoids any mention of Biden’s fitness for office

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      The ideal understudy is talented but inconspicuous, prepared at all times to step into the top role and yet content to never do so.In New Orleans, at the 30th annual Essence Festival of Culture, gone was the Kamala Harris of the drab brown, chair-matching suit and the halting, technical commentary about American policy needs. That was the Harris who spoke here in 2019, then a Democratic presidential primary contender trailed by fewer than 10 reporters.Instead, on Saturday, Harris – dressed in a bright teal suit and tailed by a press contingent which had expanded to more than four times its previous size – spoke to a standing-room-only crowd in a room equipped to seat more than 500 people.In what was billed as an on-stage conversation with Essence CEO Caroline Wanga, Harris confidently offered a blend of standard campaign-season talk – a recitation of the Biden-Harris administration’s major policy accomplishments with dire warnings about the dangers posed by a possible second Trump term and the critical importance of the choice that voters will face in just 122 days – blended with the language of women’s empowerment.To say that Harris assiduously avoided any mention of recent questions about Biden’s fitness for office would be an overstatement, and Wanga did not ask or seemingly make room for the issue gripping much of Washington. In the past week, the fallout of the president’s shaky debate performance on 27 June has manifested in calls for him to drop out of the race, with a handful of Democratic lawmakers joining the chorus. Many of those same critics are now hoping Harris might be the new nominee in November.For those inclined to read tea leaves, there may well have been more there in New Orleans. Harris encouraged the audience to embrace ambition and the difficulty of cutting new, and even history-making, paths.“I beseech you, don’t you ever hear something can’t be done,’ Harris said. “People in your life will tell you, though, it’s not your time. It’s not your turn. Nobody like you has done it before. Don’t you ever listen to that.“I like to say, ‘I eat no for breakfast,’” she said.View image in fullscreenHarris had been introduced as a woman “doing the heavy lifting”, “smart”, “tough”, and a “proven fighter for the backbone of this country”. Then she entered and exited to the sound of a Beyoncé-Kendrick Lamar collaboration, Freedom, at the point where Beyonce sings, “Singin’, freedom, freedom, Where are you? … Hey! I’ma keep running.”While Biden has insisted he will remain in the race amid what he has described as a subset of Washington insiders and op-ed writers insisting he should step aside, Harris’s poll numbers have improved and her public speeches and commentary – once a much maligned element of her time on the national political stage – have become more assertive and assured.Harris has spent recent months crisscrossing the country speaking about threats to reproductive rights, maternal mortality, economic opportunity and inclusion. And in New Orleans, Harris described the election as more important than “any in your lifetime”, adding that democracy may not survive a second Trump term. Trump, she said, was a convicted felon whom the supreme court had just granted immunity from prosecution.Harris also spoke about an array of the administration’s efforts to resolve the problems that vex the lives of Americans, including many in the room: a cap on the price of insulin paid by those enrolled in Medicare; expanded access to public health insurance for low- to moderate-income women after giving birth, the period in which many fatal complications arise; and billions in student loan debt forgiven. When Harris called for those who had seen some of their student debt forgiven, hundreds of hands went up in the room.“You got that because you voted in 2020,” Harris told the audience.View image in fullscreenAnd, she said, there was work that remained such as reducing the cost of childcare for all Americans to no more than 7% of household income, and work on the cusp of being done. This included the administration’s efforts to remove medical debt from the calculus that generated credit scores and made it hard for some Americans to rent an apartment or purchase a car.Leshelle Henderson, a nurse practitioner from Cleveland providing family medicine and psychiatric care, said she was trying to serve her community and a country in the midst of a mental health crisis. And she was working double time to pay off hundreds of thousands in student loans, none of which had been forgiven. She came to Essence Fest for fun but wanted to hear the vice-president speak about student loan forgiveness and what a second Biden-Harris administration would do for the economic fortunes of Black men and women.That was before the event.“I liked what I heard,” Henderson said. “I did, but want to hear more. Honestly, I think what we heard tonight is the next president of the United States. Isn’t that something?” More

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      David Lammy faces a world in turmoil: five key concerns for foreign secretary

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      UkraineMore than two years after Russia invaded Ukraine, the conflict drags on. Ukrainian forces are depleted and they need foreign weapons. Support for Ukraine crosses most party lines in Europe, but if Donald Trump wins the US election and cuts or limits the flow of arms, Europe may struggle to fill the gap. Lammy will want to shore up public support, bolster European collaboration, and map out what resources the continent can collectively offer Ukraine if the US steps back.GazaLabour’s stance on Gaza cost it several seats, and Lammy will face scrutiny on issues including arms sales to Israel. Labour is committed to recognising Palestinian statehood “as a contribution to a renewed peace process which results in a two-state solution”, but has not given a timeline. Starmer is unlikely to want to risk alienating the Biden administration by making unilateral moves in the run-up to the election.US presidential electionView image in fullscreenOne of the UK’s main diplomatic roles has been as Washington’s ally in forums like the UN, and an interlocutor between the US and Europe. But US politics are in turmoil, with Joe Biden’s bid for a second term hanging in the balance. Lammy will have to prepare for the possibility of working with a Trump administration.EuropeStarmer say he wants to keep Brexit out of politics but his commitment to growth means forming an economic relationship with the UK’s biggest trading partner. Ties to Europe will be particularly important if Trump win. A meeting of the European Political Community, held at Blenheim Palace later this month, will be a key first step to building a shared vision for the continent.Climate changeDespite heavy criticism for watering down commitments to clean energy, Labour has laid out ambitious plans to lead global efforts on climate change, building on British diplomatic reach and technological expertise. The potential loss of progressive allies in France or the US could make a British role important globally. But as the impact of a warming world become increasingly evident, Labour may open itself up to charges of hypocrisy if domestic policies don’t measure up. More