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      Trump calls Biden ‘broken-down’ and claims he quit 2024 race in leaked video

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      “A broken-down pile of crap” on the verge of “quitting the race” was Donald Trump’s summation of Joe Biden in a surreptitiously filmed video leaked on Wednesday.The clip, obtained by the Daily Beast, shows the 78-year-old former president sitting in a golf cart, holding a pile of cash, and with son Barron alongside, as he offers an analysis of the 2024 presidential campaign.Trump asked a group off-camera: “How did I do with the debate the other night?” before predicting that Biden would not seek re-election.“He just quit, you know – he’s quitting the race”, Trump said. “I got him out of the – and that means we have Kamala.”The White House and most Democrats maintain Biden will remain the party nominee, though voter polls suggest that he has slipped six points behind Trump and that the vice-president, Kamala Harris, could be a stronger Democrat candidate in November.“I think she’s gonna be better” as an opponent, Trump continued in the video, but added: “She’s so bad. She’s so pathetic” and appeared to say: “She’s so fucking bad.”Biden’s campaign has denied he is stepping down. “Absolutely not,” said the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, on Wednesday. Several Democratic governors repeated the phrase “in it to win it” after meeting with Biden.The Trump campaign has not commented directly on the video but on Wednesday predicted the “total collapse” of the Democratic party following Biden’s poor debate performance and mounting calls for him to step aside.The Biden-Harris campaign responded to the video in a statement: “The American people have already seen low after low from Donald Trump,” it said, described the video as a “new rock bottom” for him.The clip was leaked hours after the Trump campaign released its first attack ads against Harris, who is the most likely candidate to replace Biden if he decides to quit the race.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLeaked video and audio clips have previously been a source of embarrassment for Trump, including in 2016 with the notorious Access Hollywood tape in which he described women in vulgar terms and bragged about sexually harassing them.In the latest video Trump expressed disdain for Biden’s ability to deal with foreign adversaries, including Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and China’s president, Xi Jinping.“Can you imagine that guy dealing with Putin?” Trump asked. “And the president of China – who’s a fierce person. He’s a fierce man, very tough guy. And they see him.” More

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      This Fourth of July, it’s hard to feel optimistic about the US. But I have hope | Margaret Sullivan

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      If you’ve been paying even the slightest bit of attention, you know that the American Experiment took some gut punches over the last week.Joe Biden – long considered the best hope for preventing another disastrous Donald Trump term – had a shockingly bad debate performance, looking and sounding every minute of his 81 years.The tainted supreme court then declared, in essence, that a president is above the law, at least when acting in an official capacity. And that came on top of other high court decisions that have blasted away at the foundations of democracy in the United States.And much of the mainstream news media continued their campaign of false equivalency – treating the president’s age as a worse problem than Trump’s criminality and authoritarian intentions.But on this Fourth of July, I haven’t given up hope that we will right ourselves. And I’m far from alone.There is encouraging news in every one of these troubled spheres – politics, justice and media.I asked one of my favorite thinkers, the author and scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert in how democracies can wither under authoritarian rule, for some help. I talked to others, too, especially those who are protecting the vote, fostering good journalism and working for justice.Here’s what Ben-Ghiat told me: “Part of the reason for so much aggression from the GOP and the courts to take away our rights, including the right to free and fair elections, is because America is becoming more progressive, and Republicans cannot win without lies, threats and election interference, including assistance in that area from foreign powers.”She sees the US participating in “the global renaissance of mass nonviolent protest against authoritarianism” and notes that, in 2017, we saw the biggest protest in the nation’s history – the Women’s March against Trump, which was then surpassed in 2020 by the Black Lives Matter protests, which involved more than 20 million people in multigenerational and multiracial demonstrations.“These mass protest movements had electoral consequences in the 2018 and 2022 midterm elections,” she added, as many women, non-white and LGBTQ+ people were elected to office.Ben-Ghiat is convinced that we are ripe for another round – and the stakes are higher than ever.On the justice front, I’m not suggesting that we somehow set aside the terrible and hugely consequential decision that gives a president – guess who in particular? – immunity for his official acts.But at the same time, the courts, including the jury system, are often functioning admirably, if not flawlessly. Just over a month ago, Trump became the first former US president convicted of felonies. Trump allies who wanted to charge that the courts have been weaponized found it harder to make that argument less than two weeks later when Hunter Biden, too, was convicted in a jury trial.Mainstream journalism, as noted, often disappoints. The moderators of the CNN debate clearly should have been empowered by their network bosses to challenge Trump’s barrage of lies in real time. The stunning New York Times editorial calling for Biden to set aside his campaign for the good of the nation may have been well-reasoned, but it struck me as another example of targeting the president and letting Trump off the hook. To my knowledge, only the scrappy Philadelphia Inquirer has written a similar editorial about Trump.Too much of the politics coverage is out of whack with reality. The media is baying for Biden’s head, but – with some exceptions – seems mostly bemused by Trump or at least habituated to how dangerous he is.But there’s good news in journalism, too. Consider ProPublica’s essential reporting on Justice Clarence Thomas’s rotten ethics. Or the way many news outlets have revealed the threats of Project 2025 – the alarming and detailed plan by Trump allies to dismantle democratic norms should their leader win a second term.I’m also heartened by young journalists who are making their way in a difficult career field.“No matter what problem we’re talking about, good journalism is part of the solution,” said Jelani Cobb, the dean of Columbia Journalism School (where I run a journalism ethics center). “The young journalists whom we have the privilege to work with here are some of the sharpest, most committed and talented that I’ve ever seen.”Their work “will be a ballast for democracy”, Cobb told me, “even amid the giant challenges in front of us right now”.Most of all, I’m moved by the valiant efforts of many ordinary citizens. One friend, active in voter protection efforts, praised “all of the grassroots volunteers working to preserve democracy who I am sure will continue in all the ways possible if Trump wins”. She mentioned the flood of small-dollar donations that followed Biden’s debate debacle, and credited “the courageous judges, court personnel, jurors et al who are working, despite the risks to themselves, to see that justice is served in the cases against Trump”.Will any of this matter when so much is going wrong and when the threats are so great? The screenwriter and former journalist David Simon offered a dour view this week: “Our American experiment is so over.”More aligned with Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s big-picture view and the others quoted here, I remain hopeful, if not optimistic about the future of the United States.On 4 July, at least, let’s remember that we’ve come a long way, and the journey isn’t yet complete.
      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More

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      Who can we blame for Joe Biden’s gamble? Angry Democrats are starting to point the finger | Emma Brockes

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      In the wake of Joe Biden’s disastrous performance in the US presidential debate last week, the national tone shifted from shock and horror to fury. Biden himself, pityingly regarded, was spared the worst of the criticism. Instead, the two people who seem to have incurred the most anger have been his wife, Jill – suddenly thrust into the unhappy mould of the new Nancy Reagan – and, esoterically, the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Biden’s refusal to stand aside has thrown everyone back to RBG’s late-in-life vanity that ended in the overturning of Roe v Wade.Terrible as things are, there was, it has to be said, some relief in finally being able to say the quiet part out loud. With the energy of a cork leaving a bottle, a lot of people came forward this week with more evidence of the president’s “lapses”. In the New York Times, anonymous European officials who met Biden at the recent G7 summit in Italy belatedly registered their alarm; those who attended a recent event at the White House did the same. While big money donors joined the chorus of those freaking out, Biden’s aides pushed back with examples of how “probing and insightful” the president continues to be.That line of defence feels pointless now. “He’s inquisitive. Focused. He remembers. He’s sharp,” said Neera Tanden, the president’s domestic policy adviser– a remark that set the bar for the president so low it had the same chilling effect as Jill Biden’s kindergarten tone after the debate. “You answered all the questions, you knew all the facts,” she said on stage to her slack-jawed husband, whose improved performance at a campaign rally a day later couldn’t undo what 52 million Americans had just seen. You can flag the garbage that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth until the cows come home, but it doesn’t make Biden’s state any better.If none of this makes unseating the president for another Democratic candidate either likely or wise, it isn’t purely for reasons of strategy. No presidential candidate has been replaced this late in the race and, of course, throwing open the field at the Democratic convention next month risks making the Democrats look even more vacillating than they already do. There is a sense of frustration that what may, to some degree, be an issue of presentation – the idea that, like his dormant stammer, Biden’s impairment is much worse during stressful public events than behind the scenes – is not the whole picture.Ezra Klein, speaking to the New Yorker last week, pointed out there is no indication that Biden is “making bad decisions”. He remains up to the job in ways that, of course, Trump isn’t. But if he can’t inspire confidence or speak coherently in public, his competence elsewhere hardly matters.Which brings us to the question of Biden’s own hubris. This is where, down the line, the real anger will focus. If the president is protected, for now, by sympathy, it will evaporate in November if Trump wins. The risk Biden has taken by standing for re-election is greater than President Emmanuel Macron’s backfiring decision to call a snap election in France. Biden is widely believed to be a good man, but his selfishness in running for a second term when he must know he is slipping will be his only legacy, should Trump prevail.To his enablers, then, the question: why wasn’t this caught earlier? You have to wonder at Barack Obama, popping up on X to defend and endorse Biden immediately after the debate. Who knows what’s going on behind the scenes – perhaps the former president spent the last year trying to talk Biden into stepping aside. But Obama’s swift defence of his friend and former vice-president certainly felt like an action inspired partly by guilt. Obama has, of late, been so busy making not very good films in Hollywood that his rush to defend Biden seemed like a piece of self-justification in the face of lapsed oversight.And there are many more in Obama’s position, clearly feeling that it is simply too late to change horses – partly, perhaps, to defend their own inaction, and partly because there’s no obvious replacement. Harris, who as vice-president would be first in line to take over from Biden, is a terrible communicator for entirely different reasons. (If you’re still in doubt about this, watch her at the BET awards this week: it will make you hide your face in embarrassment.) According to recent polls, while Harris is marginally more popular than Biden, she is still behind Trump.It’s beside the point, but the thing I keep coming back to is this: can you imagine what it’s actually like being Joe Biden right now? What a singular and terrible stress dream that must be? Imagine having to be president when you can’t remember people’s names and keep zoning out? It’s a naive thought experiment, I know; one that separates those who want to be president of the United States from those of us content to cap out at being president of our own living rooms. Still, the question remains: who on earth, in Biden’s position, would want the job?
      Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist More

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      Biden in trouble as Supreme Court hands Trump another big win – podcast

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      As Americans celebrate Independence Day, Democrats are scrambling after a pretty disastrous week for the party – and arguably US-democracy.
      On Monday, the US supreme court handed Donald Trump a victory by ruling that former presidents are entitled to some degree of immunity from criminal prosecution. Stemming from this, the judge overseeing the former president’s criminal case in New York postponed his sentencing from next week to 18 September.
      This falls against the backdrop of Joe Biden trying to convince the public and members of his party that he is still fit to run for president. This week, Jonathan Freedland and Paul Begala, a former adviser to Bill Clinton, discuss how the Democrats can regroup

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

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      Kamala Harris: insiders rally behind VP to replace Biden if he bows out

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      As Joe Biden faces increasing pressure to withdraw his candidacy following last week’s poor debate performance, Kamala Harris has emerged as the frontrunner to replace him.The president forcefully rejected calls to end his campaign on Wednesday, telling his staffers: “No one is pushing me out … I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win.” His defiant remarks came after the New York Times reported that Biden had privately told allies he understood he might not be able to salvage his candidacy if he could not convince voters of his viability.As the White House has continued to deny reports that Biden was weighing the future of his campaign, talks of who would step up if he did withdraw have escalated.Senior sources at the Biden campaign, the White House and the Democratic National Committee told Reuters that the vice-president was the top alternative.Harris, a former senator from California, has stood by the president’s side as he weathers the debate fallout this week, and reportedly told campaign staffers on Wednesday: “We will not back down. We will follow our president’s lead.”But pundits advocating that Harris take over the ticket have pointed to polls suggesting that she could have advantages over Biden in a race against Donald Trump. A post-debate Reuters/Ipsos poll found that one in three Democrats think Biden should quit, and that 81% viewed Harris favorably, compared to 78% for Biden. Michelle Obama was the only hypothetical Democratic candidate to beat Trump in the poll, but the former first lady said in March she was not running. Biden and Trump were tied in that poll, and Harris performed similarly, earning 42% of votes compared with Trump’s 43%.A CNN poll published Tuesday also found Harris “within striking distance of Trump in a hypothetical matchup” – 47% supporting the former president, and 45% supporting Harris, a result within the margin of error. The Biden-Trump matchup in that poll had Trump earning 49% of votes and Biden earning 43%. Harris’s modest advantage was due partly to her having broader support from women and independents, CNN said.With two Democratic congressmen now publicly calling on Biden to step aside, other party leaders have privately suggested they favor Harris as his potential replacement, according to reports. Hakeem Jeffries, House minority leader, signaled to members that she would be the best option, the Washington Post reported.James Clyburn, a senior congressional Democrat, said publicly he’d support Harris if Biden were to withdraw his candidacy, urging Democrats to “do everything to bolster her, whether she’s in second place or at the top of the ticket”. Summer Lee, a House Democrat from Pennsylvania, also said Wednesday that Harris was the “obvious choice” to replace Biden, if he decided not to run.Some Harris supporters who are advocating she take over the campaign have argued that she would perform better than Biden with Black and Latino communities, and that she is a more powerful abortion-rights spokesperson than Biden.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSkeptics, however, have noted that Harris also remains fairly unpopular and have pointed to polls suggesting she has vulnerabilities in terms of voters’ trust in her ability to handle immigration, China relations and Israel’s war on Gaza.The other names that have been floated as possible replacements include California governor Gavin Newsom, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois governor J B Pritzker and Kentucky governor Andy Beshear. The Reuters poll, however, suggested they would all perform worse than Biden and Harris.If Harris became the presidential candidate, she could take over the funds raised by the campaign since the account is registered under Biden and Harris.On Wednesday, the White House also announced a series of “summer of engagement” events for Harris, including visits to New Orleans, Las Vegas, Dallas and Indianapolis. More

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      Biden tells campaign staff: ‘No one is pushing me out … I’m not leaving’; second House Democrat urges him to quit race – live

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      Joe Biden vowed to stay in the presidential race and continue his re-election bid, telling his staffers: “No one is pushing me out,” according to multiple reports.In a call on Wednesday following his lackluster performance during last week’s presidential debate and amid growing panic from Democratic donors and lawmakers, Biden said:
      Let me say this as clearly as possibly can, as simply and straightforward as I can: I am running.
      Biden went on to add:
      No one is pushing me out … I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win.
      In the same call, vice-president Kamala Harris – whose name has been increasingly floated around as Biden’s replacement – continued to voice her support for Biden, with reports of her saying:
      We will not back down. We will follow our president’s lead. We will fight and we will win. Joe Biden has devoted his life to fighting for the people of our country. In this moment, I know all of us are ready to fight for him.
      Amid the political crisis surrounding the Democratic party, Joe Biden hosted a Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House today during which he posthumously honoured two Union soldiers.The soldiers, private George Wilson and private Philip Shadrach fought in a “military operation 200 miles deep into Confederate territory in April 1862”, Biden said, recognising them for their “gallantry and intrepidity”.The next platform of the Republican National Committee (RNC) is going to be closed off from the public, Semafor reports.Unlike previous years, next week’s party platform proceedings will not be aired via C-Span. Instead, it will be held privately and away from the public and members of the media.According to RNC emails reviewed by Semafor, committee meetings “are only open to members of that particular committee”.Speaking to Semafor, Oscar Brock, an RNC committee member from Tennessee, said:
      The lack of transparency is unwelcome … When people operate behind closed doors, you always have to wonder what the outcome is going to be.”
      Donald Trump’s campaign has released a statement on what it called the “total collapse of the Democrat party”.On Wednesday, Trump’s campaign said:
      Every Democrat who is calling on Crooked Joe Biden to quit was once a supporter of Biden and his failed policies that lead to extreme inflation, an open border, and chaos at home and abroad.
      Make no mistake that Democrats, the main stream media, and the swamp colluded to hide the truth from the American public – Joe Biden is weak, failed, dishonest, and not fit for the White House.
      Every one of them has lied about Joe Biden’s cognitive state and supported his disastrous policies over the past four years, especially Cackling Copilot Kamala Harris.
      The statement comes after last week’s presidential debate which saw an energized Trump with starkly more coherent delivery – despite being packed with lies and misinformation – compared with Biden who struggled to articulate his policies throughout the 90 minutes.House Democrat Raúl Grijalva of Arizona has joined his fellow House Democrat Lloyd Doggett of Texas in calls for Joe Biden to withdraw his re-election bid.In an interview with the New York Times, Grijalva said:
      If he’s the candidate, I’m going to support him but I think that this is an opportunity to look elsewhere … What he really needs to do is shoulder the responsibility for keeping that seat – and part of that responsibility is to get out of this race.
      As Joe Biden’s campaign team rushes to soothe concerns among Democrats amid the fallout following the president’s poor performance during last week’s presidential debate, the team posted a new job listing: Kamala Harris’s social media platforms strategist.In its listing, the team described the position as:
      The VP Social Media Platforms Strategist will report to the VP Digital Director and be expected to write within an established organizational identity for multiple social media platforms and channels, while strategizing how to further develop and expand the vice-president’s and Biden-Harris campaign’s voice online.
      Its duties include:
      Write daily content and manage scheduling for Twitter/X, Threads, Facebook and Instagram accounts, including drafting, conceptualizing graphics, videos, brainstorming calls to action, and copywriting
      Strategize and execute innovative social media projects to help grow and engage our audience
      Project manage publishing assets across multiple social media platforms
      Ensure materials are sufficiently accessible for users, including captioning and alternative text
      Help the VP digital director report on audience growth, content performance and engagement that can adapt to and meet the needs of stakeholders across the DNC and manage daily outbound report
      Michelle Obama is the only Democrat who ranks higher than Biden in a new poll on who is most likely to beat Trump.According to a new poll on Tuesday conducted by Reuters and Ipsos, the former first lady is the only Democrat that is able to attain victory over Trump in November in a hypothetical match, leading with 50% support compared to his 39%.In its findings, Ipsos wrote:
      All other hypothetical Democratic candidates either perform similarly to or worse than Biden against Trump.
      Vice-president Kamala Harris hypothetically wins 42% of registered voters to Trump’s 43%. California Governor Gavin Newsom hypothetically wins 39% of registered voters to Trump’s 42%.
      All other hypothetical Democratic candidates earn between 34% to 39% of potential votes among registered voters.
      Despite Michelle Obama’s popularity and calls for her to run for president, her office in March said that “she will not be running for president.”“Mrs Obama supports president Joe Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris’s re-election campaign,” her office added.The editorial board of the Boston Globe has called on Joe Biden to end his re-election bid, following in the footsteps of the New York Times which called on Biden last week to drop out of the race.In an op-ed published on Wednesday, the editorial board wrote:
      … while the party is demoralized, panicked, and angry, there is a ray of hope. A bevy of potential candidates – from vice-president Kamala Harris to the governors of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and California, to name only a partial list – are waiting in the wings to take on Trump.
      All that they need is for Biden to graciously bow out of the race and free his delegates to cast their votes for someone else at the Democratic National Convention.
      For the good of the country, his party, and his legacy, Biden must do this. And soon.
      It went on to add:
      The real obstacle to any of this happening is Biden himself. He must walk away from the race on his own, something he seems disinclined to do. His wife and children are said to oppose the idea as well. But with the nation’s future at stake, this is not a decision that should be made by one family alone.
      This is a moment when the Democratic party itself, never particularly good at behaving like a party, must step into the fray.
      Joe Biden vowed to stay in the presidential race and continue his re-election bid, telling his staffers: “No one is pushing me out,” according to multiple reports.In a call on Wednesday following his lackluster performance during last week’s presidential debate and amid growing panic from Democratic donors and lawmakers, Biden said:
      Let me say this as clearly as possibly can, as simply and straightforward as I can: I am running.
      Biden went on to add:
      No one is pushing me out … I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win.
      In the same call, vice-president Kamala Harris – whose name has been increasingly floated around as Biden’s replacement – continued to voice her support for Biden, with reports of her saying:
      We will not back down. We will follow our president’s lead. We will fight and we will win. Joe Biden has devoted his life to fighting for the people of our country. In this moment, I know all of us are ready to fight for him.
      Joe Biden is cleared-eyed and “staying in the race” for re-election, the White House insists.“The president is not dropping out,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre just said at the media briefing in Washington DC.She is finding different ways, in response to reporters’ questions, to reiterate the insistence of the Biden team that he is not about to succumb to pressure to drop out after his terribly halting performance when he debated Donald Trump last week.“There was the travel. And the travel led to a cold. We have all been there, it’s not unusual. And you push through,” she said.Jean-Pierre added later that such things affect people, whether they are 20 or 80. She said he spoke about how his age had affected his performance and was being upfront.The White House is working painfully hard to extricate the president from his position between a rock and a hard place.Karine Jean-Pierre claimed that Joe Biden “powered through” having a cold when he debated poorly against Donald Trump last week, as is normal for busy professionals.It was not reassuring, as the White House continues on the defensive amid the crisis over Biden insisting he continue as the Democratic presumptive nominee for re-election, despite performing increasingly unreliably as an 81-year-old president of the United States.And Jean-Pierre said that the president was jet-lagged and pushing through that, too, last Thursday, even though he had around 12 days back in the US between a spate of grueling overseas trips and the debate.She said that people “push through” jet lag, trying to convince reporters decades younger than Biden that it would be unsurprising that a cold and jet lag would affect his debate performance.Some reporters in the West Wing briefing room scoffed openly, mentioning that, yes, they have had colds and, even now, according to one, have jet lag – and yet they continue to perform their jobs much more vigorously than Biden did at the debate.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has just been asked point blank if Joe Biden is considering stepping away from being the presumptive nominee for re-election to the White House in this November’s election.“Absolutely not,” she said. Asked if there was anything that would change his mind, she said she can’t speak to that but says he has been “very clear” that he’s busy doing his job and will continue doing that.“I’m not going to speak to [about] unnamed sources out there,” she said.The White House press briefing has begun in the West Wing, with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at the podium.Questions are already beginning about Biden’s performance.He has owned that he had a bad night at the debate, the press secretary said.“He also had a cold during the debate,” she said.That, and the foreign travel that Biden blamed last night, are why he didn’t do well and wishes he could have done better, Jean-Pierre said.“We certainly don’t want to explain this away,” she added.She explained that he has “made outreach” to the leading Democrats in Congress, including the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer.Joe Biden and his vice-president, Kamala Harris, made a surprise appearance earlier today on a Democratic National Committee call, reiterating to staffers that they are in this fight for re-election together, according to three people familiar with the matter who were given anonymity to discuss the private conversation.The people said it was a pep talk, stressing the stakes of the election and returning to Biden’s previous post-debates comments that when he gets knocked down he gets back up and still plans to win the election, the Associated Press reports.Democrats have raised increasingly urgent questions about the US president’s ability to remain in the race, much less win in November, after his shaky debate performance last week.Here’s a look at where the day stands:
      The White House pushed back against a new New York Times report that Joe Biden allegedly told a key ally that he is weighing whether to stay in the presidential race. On Wednesday, the New York Times reported an anonymous source saying of Biden, “He knows if he has two more events like that, we’re in a different place,” referring to last week’s presidential debate in which Biden did poorly. In response, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates took to X, posting publicly: “That claim is absolutely false.”
      House Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington said that Joe Biden “is going to lose to Trump” following the president’s poor debate performance last week. In a new interview with KATU News, Gluesenkamp Perez said: “About 50 million Americans tuned in and watched that debate. I was one of them for about five very painful minutes. We all saw what we saw, you can’t undo that, and the truth, I think, is that Biden is going to lose to Trump.”
      Dozens of House Democrats are considering signing a letter to call for Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, Bloomberg reports, citing a “senior party official”. According to the source, Democrats currently running for re-election in “traditionally safe Democratic districts are circulating the letter”.
      Joe Biden has privately acknowledged how critical the next few days are to his presidential re-election bid, CNN reports. According to the outlet citing an anonymous source, Biden “sees the moment, he’s clear-eyed”. “The polls are plummeting, the fundraising is drying up, and the interviews are going badly. He’s not oblivious,” the source said, adding that Biden allegedly said in a private conversation on Tuesday: “I have done way too much foreign policy.”
      The majority of people surveyed in a new poll said that they did not think Biden was fit to be president for another term following his debate performance last week. The latest survey by YahooNews/YouGov found that 60% of people surveyed felt Biden was “not fit” to serve another term as president, the Hill reported. Only 24% of respondents felt that Biden was fit, while 16% said they were unsure.
      Another Democratic legislator has suggested that Kamala Harris could replace Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee amid growing discontent following Biden’s poor debate performance. House Democrat Summer Lee of Pennsylvania said Harris was the “obvious choice” in a scenario where Biden decides not to run, CBS News reported.
      Uncommitted voters across the US have taken on increased influence as debates surrounding Joe Biden’s future swirl.The Guardian’s Rachel Leingang reports:After Joe Biden’s poor debate performance and calls by some prominent Democrats to replace him, the hundreds of thousands of anti-war voters and the delegates who represent them have taken on new significance in the US presidential race.More than 700,000 voters cast ballots in the Democratic primaries for “uncommitted” options after a movement started in Michigan to pressure Biden to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and stop US funding and arms to the Israeli government.These voters won 29 uncommitted delegates to the Democratic national convention, a small but vocal group that will use their position at the nominating convention to call for an end to the war. The uncommitted vote consists of likely Democratic voters who have consistently said they are anti-Trump and who used the primary process to send a message to Biden.Their message has not changed, though uncommitted delegates said they have been hearing from more people about the role they could play in the convention since last week’s debate. Their sole platform remains a permanent ceasefire and an arms embargo, and their focus is still on Biden – who is still the president.For the full story, click here: More

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      The week that changed the US election: Trump’s immunity as Biden falls flat on his face

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      Hello there.Well, that was interesting, wasn’t it? The election was trundling along pretty normally, then we get a momentous week that changed the shape of the race and the stakes involved.First, Joe Biden squandered his a chance to prove he has the vitality, vigor and suitability for a second term in the White House, with a debate performance which only underlined concerns that he is too old for the job.Just as people were processing the debate debacle, the supreme court announced that presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for almost anything they do in office. It threw Trump’s recent conviction, and his other court cases, into jeopardy – and could embolden Trump to act without restraint should he win a second term.We’ll take a look at all that (gulp), but first here’s what else has been going on in the election.Here’s what you need to know1. Trump sentencing delayedThe former president was set to be sentenced on 11 July, after he was found guilty on 34 charges of falsifying business records to hide hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels. But after that supreme court decision, his sentencing has been pushed back to 18 September, as the judge in the case decides whether Trump has immunity that could abort the conviction.2. Trump rises with younger votersTrump has opened up a lead over Biden among young voters, according to an AtlasIntel poll. The ex-president leads the current president by 15 points among 18-to-29-year-olds, according to the survey conducted by one of the most accurate pollsters in the 2020 election. It was conducted between 26 and 28 June, so some people were polled after the debate. A smattering of other polls paint a mixed picture – some show support for Biden falling since the debate, others show him more or less holding steady.3. The money pours inThe Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee raised $264m in the second quarter of 2024, including $127m in June, which should buoy up the president somewhat. Trump, however, raked in $331m – about 72% of the $454m he owes, and cannot pay, for a civil fraud case earlier this year.Could Biden have just crowned Trump king?View image in fullscreenOn Monday the supreme court dropped a verdict that horrified many Americans: it ruled that US presidents are entitled to broad immunity from prosecution related to acts they commit in office.The 6-3 ruling by the majority conservative court, three of whom were nominated by Trump, means that some of the charges relating to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election likely cannot be prosecuted.The ruling that presidents have “absolute immunity” for actions that fall within the scope of the office’s “core constitutional powers” has some worrying about what Trump, who has said he would persecute political opponents if re-elected, might get up to in a second term.Much of the reaction to the decision has been scathing, with Sonia Sotomayor, one of the liberal supreme court justices who opposed the ruling, saying the decision will make a president a “king above the law”.While Trump, who has been obsessed with the royal family for decades (apparently he attempted to woo Princess Diana, who subsequently told a friend that the then future president gave her “the creeps”) will be pretty pleased with that characterization, the timing wasn’t pretty for any Trump critics.The decision made clear the significance of Biden’s lackluster debate performance, in which the president spent much of his 90 minutes on stage staring into the middle distance, mouth agape, like a drunk reading the menu board in a kebab shop. When Biden did speak, his voice was shaky, and he appeared to lose his train of thought at times.A series of polls in recent days has hinted at how Biden’s performance was perceived, though a really comprehensive gold-standard national poll has yet to be released. A Yahoo News/YouGov survey found that 60% of Americans believe he is not “fit to serve another term as president”, while among Democratic voters, 41% said Biden should be not be the presidential nominee in November, according to a poll by USA Today/Suffolk University.The urgency has only stepped up after that supreme court decision. On Tuesday, Reuters reported that there are 25 Democratic members of the House of Representatives ready to call for Biden to step down if he continues to look shaky, and two Democratic Congress members – both in swing districts – have said they believe Biden will lose to Trump in November. Prominent news organizations, including the New York Times, have called for Biden to be replaced, as have numerous pundits. Biden has said nothing to indicate he will step down, and plans to meet with Democratic governors today to shore up support.Much of this is because of what that supreme court decision could mean for a Trump presidency. Trump has repeatedly told us what he will do in a second term: he has said he will subject Liz Cheney, one of the few Republicans who is critical of him, to a “televised military tribunal” on uncertain charges, and has said he will act as a dictator on “day one” of his presidency.In June, Trump said that if elected he “has every right to go after” Joe Biden and his family – and the supreme court essentially gave him the green light to do that, and more.Justice Sotomayer, writing in a dissent to the court’s decision, said that the ruling means when a president “uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution”.“Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival?” Sotomayer wrote.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Immune.”It’s serious, in other words. Democrats find themselves in the biggest crisis of this election, just as the stakes have raised immeasurably.Lie of the weekView image in fullscreenIn last week’s debate, Donald Trump falsely claimed Democrats “will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month and even after birth”, specifically calling out the former governor of Virginia for comments on later abortions.Ralph Northam, then the Democratic governor of Virginia, gave an answer in a 2019 interview that Trump and other Republicans have seized on, about what would happen when a baby is born with severe deformities. At no point did Northam say a baby would be killed after birth, and a Virginia news outlet, 13NewsNow, debunked Trump’s debate claims about Northam’s comments.To be clear: after a child is born, if they are killed, that is murder, or infanticide. This is illegal in all US states (and the world over). Democrats are not pushing policies to kill babies after they are born.Later abortions, often referred to as “late-term” abortions by Republicans though the term is unspecific and confusing, are rare. Less than 1% of abortions in the US are performed at or past 21 weeks of pregnancy, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) data shows. This is often because of fetal abnormalities that aren’t discovered until later in gestation.– Rachel Leingang, misinformation reporterMilwaukee braces for an influx of RepublicansIn less than two weeks, Milwaukee will temporarily become the center of the American political universe, when Republicans open their national convention at the Fiserv Forum downtown.View image in fullscreenThe GOP did well to choose Wisconsin’s largest city as the venue for its first proper political convention since 2016 – the state has acted as the tipping point in multiple presidential elections, including Joe Biden’s victory in 2020, and Trump’s triumph four years prior.The Fiserv Forum, which is best known as the home of the Milwaukee Bucks NBA team, is now wrapped in a banner welcoming delegates to the convention. Barriers are lined up nearby, waiting to be deployed to close roads. Residents are paying close attention to the contours of the security zone, which threatens to snarl traffic and disrupt life for people in and around it.Milwaukee is a Democratic stronghold in a purple state, and is likely to vote for Biden once again. With Wisconsin’s countryside tilting towards Trump, the real question is how the state’s suburban communities will lean. Democrats have put up good numbers there in recent elections – but all signs point to this being an election like few before it.- Chris Stein is the US politics live blogger for Guardian USWorst weekView image in fullscreenThis guy just can’t catch a break. Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s erstwhile lawyer, hair-dye fan and all-round weird guy, lost his license to practice law in New York on Tuesday. It comes after he was suspended by WABC, a New York radio station, in May, after he used his show to spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. It also comes after Giuliani declared bankruptcy in December, after a court ordered him to pay nearly $150m to two election workers he defamed. Phew! More

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      The Guardian view on Trump and presidential immunity: the return of the king | Editorial

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      The supreme court’s ruling on presidential immunity combines a tectonic constitutional shift and immediate political repercussions to devastating effect. It allows one man to stand above the law. It slows and appears to gut the 2020 election-subversion case against Donald Trump, though it does not necessarily end it. No one believes a trial can be held before November’s election, although court hearings could still offer a detailed airing of the evidence this autumn.There could hardly have been a better week for Mr Trump, who saw his rival stumble so badly in last Thursday’s debate that Joe Biden faces growing calls to quit four months from election day. Anyone who doubts how consequential a second Trump administration term would be for the United States and the world need only look to the supreme court, now ruled by a conservative supermajority thanks to three Trump-appointed justices.Monday’s majority ruling, penned by Chief Justice John Roberts, is a disingenuous, bloodless discussion which pompously warns that “we cannot afford to fixate exclusively, or even primarily, on present exigencies”. The minority opinion, written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, is screaming to the people to wake up: the city on a hill is on fire. A twice-impeached convicted felon who attempted to overturn the people’s verdict, reveres authoritarians and pledges to be a dictator (only “on day one”) could soon be re-elected. This is not about exigencies; this is an emergency.Justice Sotomayor outlined the new limits for a president: “Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organises a military coup to hold on to power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune … In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law.”The court’s ruling grants complete immunity from criminal prosecution to core presidential powers. But it also grants presumptive immunity to other “official acts” – and these are extraordinarily widely drawn. Pressuring Mike Pence not to certify the 2020 election results would probably enjoy immunity, Chief Justice Roberts writes, because if the president and vice-president are discussing official duties, this is official conduct; and presiding over the results is a constitutional responsibility of the vice-president.The bar for overturning presumption looks sky-high, as Justice Sotomayor notes – doing so must pose no danger of intrusion whatsoever on presidential authority. The president’s motives cannot be examined. Nor can official acts be used in criminal cases relating to unofficial acts. The resulting scope is so great that any politician or official would surely balk at granting it to the other side – unless they were certain they could hold on to power indefinitely.This ruling will almost certainly, as it should, further lower declining support for a court now mired in scandal, thanks to the Republican-appointed Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Other majority rulings in recent days have delivered a major blow to the regulatory powers of federal agencies and, extraordinarily, said that officials can accept cash or gifts from people they have assisted: they only count as bribes if given before the favour. This is a court for the rich and powerful, and it is making them more so. The founders intended the supreme court to be part of the solution to the tyranny of European kings. Mr Trump, and the court’s conservative justices, have made it part of the problem. More