Donald Trump

Subterms

    More stories

    • 163 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Even factchecking Trump’s constant lies probably wouldn’t have rescued Biden | Margaret Sullivan

      by

      From the moment the candidates walked out on to the stage in Atlanta, it was obvious that this debate was a big mistake for Joe Biden. By the end, it was a train wreck for his campaign.The incumbent president, who desperately needed to show vitality, looked from the start like an old man. His gait was stiff and his voice tentative. His energy was markedly different from his triumphant State of the Union address just a few months ago.Donald Trump had a thuggish look, but he seemed vigorous and energetic. He seemed … the same.Then the barrage of lies started, as they always do with Trump.Among them: Democrats favor post-birth executions. The former president never slept with a porn star. The 2020 election was riddled with fraud. Trump never called prisoners of war losers and suckers. Biden would quadruple people’s taxes.On and on and on, in nearly every Trump sentence. Biden had occasional moments, too, of exaggeration or misstatement. But there is no comparison.No comparison – and no fact-checking by the moderators.That was the policy going in. CNN’s political director, David Chalian, made that clear a few days ago when he said that debate moderators shouldn’t make themselves into participants but remain mere facilitators. There would be no live factchecks during the debate.And so, Trump rolled over Biden, landing punch after punch. Not with logic. And certainly not with truth. But with force of personality, and sheer chutzpah.The damage was obvious to everyone, even Biden loyalists who started off upset and ended up in a panic.Biden “had a test to meet tonight … and he failed to do that”, said CNN’s Van Jones, a former Obama administration adviser, after sadly attesting that he loves Biden and thinks he’s a great person.How much of it was a result of the lack of factchecks and early questions that seemed to play to Trump’s strengths?Plenty, but not everything.“You don’t let a proven propagandist on stage without stopping him when he lies. Instant refutation is key,” observed Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who studies authoritarian “strongmen” and their techniques to gain power.Biden, for the most part, tried to counter with facts. But he often delivered them tepidly or hesitantly. At times, he seemed to lose his train of thought.When he did get fired up, some of his lines came off like rehearsed insults. True as it might be, Biden’s diss that Trump has “the morals of an alleycat” was not dreamed up spontaneously.I can’t imagine that most people lasted more than about 30 minutes in front of their screens. (Thirty minutes, by the way, in which there was little mention of Trump’s 34 felony convictions or of Trump trying to overturn the 2020 election.)It was that painful.One progressive friend texted me early on that she couldn’t take the punishment any more, and would need to turn off the TV to protect her wellbeing. “I’m out. My body was making it painfully clear, in every sense, that I can’t handle this.”Before the debate started, the news outlet Axios – which specializes in brevity – summed up what needed to happen for each candidate to win this debate.Biden would need to “cast his [Republican] rival as a fundamental threat to the nation, who as president would bring instability and chaos”. Trump would need to argue that “the country has gotten more expensive and dangerous under Biden”.But the more fundamental test was this: would Biden seem vigorous enough to lead for four more years? Would Trump seem truly unhinged?Biden did not seem vigorous enough. And Trump? He seemed in control of himself, not deranged as he sometimes appears in his rallies. There were no flights of fancy about sharks and electrocution.I thought this debate might go badly for Biden. I didn’t think I’d be hearing immediate calls for him to step aside – even coming from those who have been stalwartly supporting him.Would Biden have benefited if CNN moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash had been encouraged to challenge and refute Trump’s lies, and did so immediately?Yes, but it’s hard to say how much. It might have slowed Trump’s juggernaut. I don’t think it would have made Biden look any more potent.As for where the Democrats go from here, it’s hard to say. If Biden truly wants to continue his campaign, and it seems he does, they’ll just stumble on.If so, it’s going to take many weeks – and maybe a miracle – to recover from this disastrous night.
      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More

    • 175 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump v Biden in the first 2024 presidential debate: our panelists’ verdict | Panelists

      by

      Moustafa Bayoumi: ‘The Democrats must select someone other than Biden as their candidate’What a catastrophe. From the moment the debate started, Joe Biden was meandering, confused and charmless. It never improved. Donald Trump, however, was relatively restrained, at least for Trump. Of course, he resorted to lies, insults and exaggerations throughout the 90 minutes. By citing things called “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs” and by calling Biden a “bad Palestinian”, Trump managed to hit all his usual racist notes.Yet the whole thing was simply painful to watch, mostly because it was useless on any practical level. This much ballyhooed confrontation between two political foes for the most important office in the world turned out to be featherlight on substance, policy, interest, intellect, imagination, vision, energy, ideas, humor and hope. It was heavy on one thing (besides cringe), though: ego.The presidency should not simply be a vanity project, but that’s exactly what it has become. Biden’s performance was so far below acceptable that the Democratic party should be ashamed of itself for allowing him to stand for re-election. With tonight’s performance as evidence, the Democrats will almost certainly lose. Trump’s narcissism is notorious, and it too has destroyed the Republican party from within. The stakes are much too high to allow the inflated egos of these two men to determine the fates of millions of people here and around the world. If the Democrats truly believe that democracy is on the line during this election, they must select someone other than Biden as their candidate. There’s still time.
      Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist
      Jill Filipovic: ‘Neither man came off looking good’Well, that was a disaster.The debate was an unmitigated calamity, especially for Biden. The president was often hard to follow and at times incoherent; he struggled to answer questions that should have been easy gimmes on issues favorable to Democrats. It would be nice if substance mattered more than style, because the substance of Biden’s remarks were important, and promised a more prosperous, secure and free future for Americans than Trump’s. But his delivery made it extremely difficult for even the most plugged-in politics addicts to follow, let alone your average viewer at home.For Trump’s part, what he didn’t say was more telling than what he did. He was unwilling or unable to answer questions on how he would help families with childcare, the costs of which are a drag not only on family budgets, but on the US economy. He was unwilling or unable to answer questions about opioids and the US’s addiction crisis. And, perhaps most importantly, he refused to clearly answer a thrice-asked question about whether he would accept the results of the election – saying only that he would do so if such an election were fair, and then claimed the 2020 one wasn’t. In other words, Trump will accept the results of the election only if he wins – and contest it if he doesn’t.That’s remarkably dangerous. And his wholesale lack of interest in the issues that matter most to American families is remarkably negligent. But unfortunately, his would-be foil – Biden – proved simply unable to take on even a truly terrible opponent. Neither man came off looking good. But if Americans are counting on Biden to save us, we might want to start making a Plan B.
      Jill Filipovic is the author of the The H-Spot: The Feminist Pursuit of Happiness
      Lloyd Green: ‘Biden looked lost’Joe Biden’s age and acuity took center stage. He looked lost, and the Democrats are almost certainly panicking. At times, the president could barely stitch two coherent sentences together. Donald Trump won the evening, and it wasn’t even close.Trump took command from the outset. He appeared energized and engaged. What Trump said mattered less than how he said it; he forcefully responded to whatever question was posed. He repeatedly mocked, taunted and bludgeoned Biden. If this were a boxing match, the referee would have stopped the match in the third round.Despite Biden’s efforts to nail Trump on his own record as president, Trump was mostly unbowed. He seemingly stood by his picks to the supreme court and the end of Roe v Wade. At one point Trump seemingly mouthed the words “let’s not act like children,” which may be the evening’s most memorable line. He also got away with calling Biden “the Manchurian candidate”.Trump lied aplenty. He acted as if he never had said there were “good people” on both sides in Charlottesville, and pretended that he hadn’t dissed America’s war dead. But little of that may matter come November. Americans want a president who exudes vigor. And Biden isn’t that.The debate will supply Trump with a wealth of material for campaign ads. It may be time for an open convention. August could be interesting.
      Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
      Arwa Mahdawi: ‘This was not a debate so much as a farce’My expectations for this debate weren’t just low, they were dungeon-in-hell levels of low. I still wasn’t prepared for how shocking it would actually be. Trump lied unashamedly, Biden waffled incoherently, and the moderators just said “thank you” a lot and moved on. This was not a “debate” so much as a farce.If Biden’s team thought this debate would assuage worries about the president’s age and competence, their plans spectacularly backfired. For the first half of the debate, Biden looked dazed and could barely get his words out. He noticeably improved towards the end; still, this was not a man who instills confidence. Trump blustered and lied and dog-whistled his way through the night, but if you were going on optics alone the convicted felon had the upper hand.For those of us distraught by Gaza, tonight was a gut-wrenching reminder that neither candidate gives a damn about Palestinian lives. Trump used “Palestinian” as a slur and Biden, meanwhile, reiterated his support for Israel no matter how many Palestinian kids are killed. Neither candidate answered the question of whether they support a Palestinian state and the moderators didn’t press them on it.Responses to questions about abortion were also bleak. Trump advanced inflammatory misinformation about late-term abortion and Biden didn’t seem interested in talking about abortion in detail – he didn’t even mention it in his closing statements. He seemed a lot more interested in talking about golf. Indeed, the only part of the night when both men seemed to really come alive was when they got into a fight about their golf handicaps.
      Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist and the author of Strong Female Lead
      Osita Nwanevu: ‘Democracy is at stake. Biden failed to make that point’Half an hour into the worst presidential debate of all time, Jake Tapper finally put a question to the candidates about “the issue of democracy”. As president, Tapper said, Trump had sworn an oath to the constitution that many voters believe he violated by instigating the riot on January 6. What would he say to those voters?“Well, I don’t think too many believe that,” Trump sniffed. “And let me tell you about January 6th. On January 6th, we had a great border. Nobody coming through. Very few. On January 6th, we were energy independent. On January 6th, we had the lowest taxes ever. We had the lowest regulations ever … We were respected all over the world.” He was asked again and babbled about Nancy Pelosi’s daughter instead.This was Biden’s golden opportunity. Because as stubbornly pessimistic as Americans might be about the economy or Biden’s age, Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election illustrate that democracy itself is at stake. It’s a simple, clear and potent message. Biden failed to deliver it effectively. “He talked about these people being great patriots of America,” Biden rasped. “In fact, he says he’ll now forgive them for what they’ve done. He’ll … and they’ve been convicted. He says he wants to commute their sentences … and say that … that no, he went to every single court in the nation, I don’t know how many cases, scores of cases, including the supreme court. And they said, they said: ‘No, no, this guy, this guy is responsible for doing what is being that was done.’”It is generally the case that the substance of the issues discussed in presidential debates matter far less than a few one-liners and soundbites that might travel well. That will be especially true of this debacle ⁠– a joust between an inveterate liar and a man who couldn’t manage to deliver more than garbled responses even on what his campaign would like journalists to believe is his best topic.Unfortunately, it’s doubtful that Biden’s capacities will improve by November. Although he does sometimes have a command of facts and figures, Biden has lost his ability to communicate effectively ⁠– not something one wants in a political candidate or, for that matter, a president.
      Osita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnist More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump-Biden debate likely amplified Americans’ dismay about the election

      by

      Joe Biden and Donald Trump both walked into the presidential debate on Thursday hoping to sway the so-called “double haters”, those voters who disapprove of both candidates and could play a decisive role in the outcome of the election.In the end, those voters probably walked away from the debate with a more visceral understanding of why they hate their options.Trump spent the night spouting lies about immigration, abortion and foreign policy while deflecting moderators’ questions on the climate crisis and election denialism. But Biden largely failed to capitalize on Trump’s vulnerabilities and struggled to offer concise and coherent answers.Biden’s gravelly voice became such a distraction that the White House had to clarify that he was suffering from a cold. When asked early in the debate about tackling the national debt, Biden offered a rambling answer in which he stumbled through his words before concluding, “Look: we finally beat Medicare.”The bizarre slip of the tongue caught the attention of Trump, who retorted: “He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death, and he’s destroying Medicare.”Trump then pivoted to the subject of immigration, a tactic that he deployed repeatedly throughout the night. Trump’s successful rebuttal may have obscured the fact that his claim about Biden “destroying Medicare” is false; the president has actually taken steps to expand Medicare benefits, including lowering enrollees’ prescription drug costs.That dynamic played out over and over again on Thursday. Biden’s attempts to call out Trump’s endless stream of lies often missed the mark because of his uneven delivery, while CNN moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash stuck to the network’s previously stated plan of not fact-checking the candidates in real time.Biden may have been at his strongest when he was discussing foreign policy, as he defended his robust support for Ukraine and mocked Trump’s claims that he would have the war resolved before his inauguration.“[Vladimir Putin] wants all of Ukraine. That’s what he wants,” Biden said. “And then you think he’ll stop there? You think you’ll stop when he takes Ukraine? What do you think happens to Poland?”But perhaps Trump’s greatest vulnerability – his recent felony conviction in New York – went unmentioned for the first half of the debate. Trump tried to deflect attention from his legal battles and ]threats of political retribution by referencing Hunter Biden’s recent conviction, and he oddly suggested that Biden “could be a convicted felon as soon as he gets out of office”.Biden replied by listing off some of the many criminal charges and civil penalties that Trump faces, including damages for his sexual abuse and defamation of E Jean Carroll. Referencing Trump’s alleged extramarital affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels, Biden delivered the zinger: “You have the morals of an alleycat.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn a historic first for a presidential debate, Trump then uttered the words: “I didn’t have sex with a porn star, number one.”The comment was one of several that stirred up memories of Trump’s chaotic first term, along with his reference to the “peaceful and patriotic” Americans who attacked the US Capitol on January 6. When pressed by Bash on whether he would accept the results of this election regardless of the outcome, Trump offered a halfhearted response : “If it’s a fair and legal and good election, absolutely.”The debate culminated in Biden and Trump bickering over their golf skills, an appropriate end to a disappointing spectacle that probably amplified many Americans’ dismay about the election.According to a Gallup poll conducted this month, less than half of Americans view either Biden or Trump favorably. The poll found that 59% of voters believe Biden, 81, is too old to be president while just 18% said the same of Trump, 78. Although Americans express fewer concerns about Trump’s age, an NBC News poll conducted in April showed that his criminal and civil trials could be his largest liability heading into November.Many Americans went into tonight’s debate believing that Biden was too old for a second term and that Trump was too chaotic to return to the presidency. It seems unlikely that their performances on Thursday will do anything to dispel those fears. More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      This debate was a disastrous opening performance for Biden | Moira Donegan

      by

      The Biden campaign is probably hoping that you did not watch the first presidential debate. Over the course of 90 minutes in Atlanta, the president was only sometimes coherent, delivering meandering statements that were often inaudible, frequently veering off topic, and often running out of his allotted time mid-sentence, so that his message remained unclear or outright incomprehensible to viewers.It was a disastrous opening performance for a president whose greatest electoral vulnerability is his age and perceptions about his fitness for the demands of his office. Biden’s showing at the first presidential debate has placed his campaign’s least favorite issue – the president’s stamina and acuity – back at the center of the electoral contest.In one of his more energetic and clear moments, Biden responded to a question about his age by pointing out that Donald Trump is only three years younger than he is, “and a lot less competent”. That may be true, but Trump – the convicted felon who has been found liable for sexual assault, was impeached twice, and attempted to overturn the last election when he lost – was forceful, alert, and on message, even as he repeatedly lied.In contrast, when the cameras cut to Biden, he was often slack-jawed, his eyes unfocused, seeming to stare into the middle distance with a look of vacant horror. The contrast was stark. Many of the liberal-leaning voters watching no doubt despaired at Biden’s performance, which they feared would permanently cement the popular opinion that he is simply too old for the job.He may well be. Even in response to what should have been easy questions, Biden fumbled. He frequently failed to remember words; he often seemed to lose his trail of thought, his voice quieting into silence. When asked about abortion rights – the issue that polls show is his most favorable contrast to Trump and his best chance to win in November – Biden described his preferred abortion rights regime as one in which “you go to see a doctor and have him decide if you need help or not” – a scene that relegates women to supplicants, begging for relief from male authorities, rather than citizens endowed with an entitlement to control their bodies and lives in their own right.Later, when Trump characterized Biden as a criminal, Biden defended his own actions, instead of simply pointing out that it is Donald Trump who is a convicted felon and emphasizing the simple, persuasive core argument for his own re-election: that Trump is a mendacious criminal who will ban abortion and destroy the democratic system of government in pursuit of his own interests.Instead, Biden attempted to do what the CNN moderators, to their shame, had decided not to do: factcheck Trump’s lies. This meant both that the president was repeatedly sidetracked from talking about his own agenda and also that he was fighting only on Trump’s territory. And he is not equipped to fight well. On social media, some pundits renewed calls for him to drop out of the race so that a younger and more capable candidate could replace him.There is genuine cause for alarm, because in-between the Democratic panic about Biden’s performance, Trump made the stakes of his re-election clear to everyone. In response to questions about abortion policy, Trump again took credit for the repeal of Roe v Wade, and claimed, falsely, that women in Democratically-controlled states can murder their infants with impunity. His surrogates and allies have put forward multiple proposals to enact a nationwide abortion ban upon his return to office.In fact, when asked questions about abortion, January 6, climate change, social security, inflation and racial justice, Trump repeatedly declined to answer, instead delivering ominous, hysterical rants about immigrants. He repeated his lie that the 2020 election was stolen. He was asked whether he would accept the results of the 2024 election three times, and three times he refused to answer with a simple “yes” – suggesting that Americans can expect more lies, more attempts to subvert election results, and possibly more political violence come November.If Trump wins this election, the consequences for our country – for our civil liberties, for our economy, for our democratic mode of government, for our international standing, for our aspiration to be a nation of free and equal citizens – will be dire. It is vital to the American project that Democrats beat him. On Thursday night, Biden did not look like someone who can.
      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

    • 150 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden’s poor performance and Trump’s lies: four key takeaways from the debate

      by

      The reality of the 2024 presidential contest is setting in now that the first debate of the election cycle showcased the two main options voters have in November.Joe Biden, apparently sick with a cold, mumbled through the debate, failing to land otherwise well-crafted lines. Donald Trump, a prolific purveyor of falsehoods, repeatedly told lies and avoided answering tough questions.The prevailing reaction to the debate was one of resignation and disbelief that these two candidates were their parties’ choices to lead the country at one of its most critical moments.Whether the debacle will sway undecided voters toward one candidate or the other remains to be seen.1. Biden performs poorlyThe president joked about the rightwing conspiracies that he would take some kind of performance-enhancing drugs before the debate, posting a link to a can of water for sale on his campaign website called “Dark Brandon’s Secret Sauce”.But his low-energy, muted and garbled performance didn’t live up to expectations. And keep in mind: Biden challenged the former president to the debate, which looks like a strategic error in retrospect.Voters regularly say they are concerned about Biden’s age and fitness for office. This debate will not assuage their fears.If someone were reading a transcript of Biden’s remarks, some of his lines would sound smart and aggressive. But the delivery failed – and for a visual medium like TV, that’s critical. He failed to sell his signature accomplishments, like his infrastructure plan.From the start, Biden’s voice was muffled. He trailed off. In one gaffe, attacking Trump on his tax cuts and the national debt, he confusingly ended his remarks with: “We finally beat Medicare.”Trump jumped on the moment: “He did beat Medicare. He beat it to death, and he’s destroying Medicare.”On an abortion question, which should be one of Biden’s strongest assets for voters concerned about rolling back reproductive rights, Biden brought up girls killed by migrants – pivoting, for some reason, to one of his weakest areas.He became more lively over the course of the evening, but not enough to change the narrative of how the debate went down optically. The evening will undoubtedly lead Democrats to debate whether Biden should somehow be replaced at the convention.2. Trump lies endlesslyAs expected for a politician so consistently factchecked, Trump repeatedly tried to sell falsehoods and half-truths to voters.When questions were posed that would require tough answers, like one about the January 6 insurrection, he deflected and talked about something he could attack Biden on.CNN’s moderators did not factcheck statements live. At times, when he avoided the question, they would reiterate it – sometimes successfully getting Trump to answer.He falsely claimed Democrats want abortions up until and after birth. He said without evidence that Nancy Pelosi refused his offer for national guard troops on 6 January 2021 to respond to an insurrection he encouraged. He said his administration had the “best environmental numbers”, whatever that means.And his promise that retribution would mark a second term in office surfaced too, in what seemed to be a veiled threat of prosecution: “He could be a convicted felon as soon as he gets out of office. Joe could be a convicted felon with all of the things that he’s done. He’s done horrible things.”3. Different visions were starkly on displayThe two men showed the distinctions of the two Americas in which they live.Trump repeatedly talked about how the US had failed, how Biden was the worst president in the country’s history and how the world views the country dismally now.“Joe, our country is being destroyed. As you and I sit up here and waste a lot of time on this debate. This shouldn’t be a debate. He is the worst president, he just said about me because I said it. But look, he’s the worst president in the history of our country. He’s destroyed our country.”Biden disagreed, offering an optimistic view of the US on the world stage.“We’re the most admired country in the world. We’re the United States of America. There’s nothing beyond our capacity. We have the finest military in the history of the world, the finest in the history of the world. No one thinks we’re weak. No one wants to screw around with us, nobody.”4. The adult film actor momentTrump’s convictions and varied court cases didn’t come up in the debate until it was well underway, a missed opportunity from Biden to hammer on one of Trump’s key liabilities.When the issue finally surfaced, Biden hit at Trump for having sex with an adult film actor while his wife was pregnant, referring to Stormy Daniels and the hush-money trial that concluded in 34 felonies for Trump.“You have the morals of an alley cat,” Biden quipped at Trump.Trump responded with a line that surely has not been uttered at presidential debates in decades past: “I didn’t have sex with a porn star.” More

    • 200 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden and Trump arrive in Atlanta to face off in first 2024 election debate – live

      by

      A private plane carrying Donald Trump has touched down in Atlanta ahead of tonight’s debate.The former president’s plane was greeted by a group of his supporters on the tarmac.It could be the moment when a rematch that few seem to want finally comes to life: like two ageing prizefighters, Joe Biden and Donald Trump will enter the arena of political bloodsport on Thursday evening to resume a verbal sparring bout that will revive memories of the ugly exchanges when the two debated face to face four years ago.A CNN studio in Atlanta will host the first presidential debate of the campaign between the same two candidates who contested the last election, which Biden won.With more than four months to go until polling day in November, it is the earliest in any US presidential campaign that a debate between the two main candidates has ever been staged.While some see the timing as premature, it could provide a chance to open up a contest that has become overshadowed by, among other things, Trump’s recent felony conviction, as well as assorted other legal travails that see him facing 54 criminal charges for trying to overturn the last election and for retaining classified documents.Both candidates are deeply unpopular: Trump because his opponents see him as an aspiring dictator who threatens democracy, Biden because, at 81 (although just three years older than his Republican opponent), he is viewed – even among many Democrats – as too old for another term as president.Knife-edge polls indicate a race essentially tied, with a national polling average for May and June showing the candidates at 46% each.Polls in seven key battleground states – Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina – give Trump a narrow advantage, though usually within the margin of error.NBC News’ Sahil Kapur writes that the debate hall is right next to the Kappa Sigma fraternity house at Georgia Tech, which is currently hosting a party under a sign that reads “Make America DRUNK Again”.A private plane carrying Donald Trump has touched down in Atlanta ahead of tonight’s debate.The former president’s plane was greeted by a group of his supporters on the tarmac.It is not clear if Melania Trump, the former first lady, will join her husband at tonight’s debate.Melania Trump’s office did not return a request for comment about whether she would be in Atlanta during the presidential debate, according the New York Times.The former first lady has largely been absent from the campaign trail this year, and she notably did not attend Trump’s criminal hush money trial in New York.Donald Trump Jr, Trump’s eldest child, will not attend the debate due to a family commitment involving his oldest daughter, according to NBC News, citing a source.Trump’s second son, Eric Trump, is not expected to be in Atlanta for the debate, but Eric’s wife, Lara Trump, will attend in her official capacity as Republican National Committee (RNC) chair, NBC reports.Jill Biden, the first lady, will be in Atlanta for tonight’s debate, according to the Biden campaign.Jill Biden is expected to be the only Biden family member in attendance, according to the New York Times.She is expected to watch the debate from a separate hold room on the debate campus.After the debate, Biden and his wife are scheduled to stop by a nearby Democratic watch party, before flying to Raleigh overnight.Candidates traditionally bring along their family members for support during a debate. Less common: bringing a member of your opponent’s family for support.On Thursday night, Donald Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, will be in the post-debate spin room making the case for Joe Biden.Mary Trump, one of the former president’s harshest critics, has warned that her uncle is a threat to democracy and should not be re-elected.She did not hold back. In a statement, she said:
      I’m in Atlanta tonight to remind everyone who Donald is as a person and how he would rule as a president because the stakes are far too high for us to get this wrong: We cannot afford to allow Donald Trump anywhere near the levers of power again. Donald cannot be trusted and we must recognize that his last administration was simply a warm-up for much worse to come just as January 6th was a dress rehearsal for a man who will stop at nothing to ascend, once again, to this country’s highest office. He is desperate for power and has shown himself both unworthy of wielding it and obsessed with regaining it purely for his own benefit. He must be stopped.
      Joining Mary Trump in the spin-room – a chaotic room where campaign staff and surrogates try to persuade reporters that their candidate won the debate – will be:
      Keisha Lance-Bottoms, former Atlanta mayor and a senior advisor on the Biden-Harris campaign
      Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett
      California governor Gavin Newsom
      California congressman Robert Garcia
      Former Louisiana congressman Cedric Richmond
      Georgia senator Raphael Warnock
      Joe Biden and Donald Trump will debate on Thursday for the first time this election cycle and it holds the potential for some history-making moments.Debates can inform voters on both the issues and temperaments of the candidates, potentially swaying an undecided voter toward one candidate’s direction. They can also make for good TV, creating soundbites that resonate for decades to come.From the candidates’ physical appearances to gaffes to planned attacks to off-the-cuff retorts, here are some memorable moments from US presidential debate history.The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) has released a statement complaining that CNN rejected its request to include a pool reporter inside the studio during tonight’s presidential debate.The WHCA “is deeply concerned that CNN has rejected our repeated requests to include the White House travel pool inside the studio”, a statement by WHCA president and NBC correspondent Kelly O’Donnell reads.The debate, which is being held on a closed set, will not feature an audience. Print pool photographers will be present for the entirety of the debate, while one print pool reporter will be permitted to enter during commercial breaks, according to CNN.The letter says:
      That is not sufficient in our view and diminishes a core principle of presidential coverage. The White House pool has a duty to document, report and witness the president’s events and his movements on behalf of the American people.
      Donald Trump is on his way to Atlanta, where he is scheduled to land in about an hour.Trump aide Margo Martin, in a post to X, shared a video of the former president boarding his plane.Joe Biden has arrived in Atlanta ahead of tonight’s presidential debate, where he was greeted by a crowd of supporters who chanted “four more years” and “let’s go Joe”, according to a pool report.While on Air Force One en route to Georgia, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House’s press secretary was asked how the president feels about “standing toe to toe with his main adversary tonight”.According to the Washington Post, replied:
      He likes to fight. He likes to fight for the American people.
      US district judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over Donald Trump’s classified documents case, has granted a request from the former president’s defense team to hold a hearing to challenge some of the evidence gathered against him.Cannon said she would schedule a hearing to consider whether prosecutors had improperly obtained the cooperation of Trump’s lawyers through an exception to attorney-client privilege.From my colleague Hugo Lowell:But Judge Cannon also denied a defense request for a hearing on a separate claim that FBI officials had submitted false or misleading information to obtain a warrant to search Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate for classified documents.The supreme court’s ruling earlier today to allow Idaho hospitals to provide emergency abortions – for now – has left key questions unanswered and could mean a final decision is delayed to beyond the November elections.A draft decision in the case was briefly posted on the court’s website yesterday and abruptly removed. The final version of the decision published today appeared to closely resemble the draft.Responding to the order, Joe Biden said the ruling ensures that Idaho women can get the care they need while the case continues to play out, adding:
      Doctors should be able to practice medicine. Patients should be able to get the care they need.
      The White House’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said:
      No woman should be denied care or wait until she’s near death or forced to flee her home state just to receive the healthcare she needs.
      Merrick Garland, the attorney general, said the justice department will continue pressing its case and using “every available tool to ensure that women in every state have access to that care”. His statement reads:
      Today’s order means that, while we continue to litigate our case, women in Idaho will once again have access to the emergency care guaranteed to them under federal law.
      Donald Trump has appeared to share his talking points for tonight’s debate on his Truth Social platform.The post shows what appears to be a set of recommendations from Andrew Wheeler, Trump’s former Environmental Protection Agency chief.Wheeler, in the post, advises Trump to pledge to reduce carbon emissions and to point out that Joe Biden rejoined the Paris climate accord, and “all that does is send American dollars overseas”.Ammar Moussa, a Biden campaign spokesperson, shared Trump’s talking points on Twitter/X, writing:
      Donald Trump is just posting his debate talking points. Thanks I guess.
      Robert F Kennedy Jr’s angerand frustration at what he describes as his exclusion from the debate despite six qualifying polls and confirmed ballot access in five states – with Democratic legal challenges to his inclusion in five more, including one in New Jersey under the state’s “sore loser law” – comes as Democrats accuse him of being a political stooge for Republicans.Biden supporters worry Kennedy’s famous name and his history of environmental advocacy could sway voters from the left.His family members are largely against his candidacy, which they have made clear in public statements and by visiting the Biden White House en masse on St Patrick’s Day in March.But Republicans also have not welcomed his quixotic intervention in a tight race that could serve to siphon off vital votes from both candidates.Donald Trump has described him as “far more LIBERAL than anyone running as a Democrat, including West and Stein”, referring to third-party candidates Cornel West and Jill Stein.Robert F Kennedy Jr, the independent US presidential candidate polling at about 8%, won’t be at tonight’s Biden-Trump TV smackdown in Atlanta.But he’s not taking the diss quietly, and has accused debate host CNN of colluding with the major party campaigns to exclude him.In an email statement on Wednesday, the Kennedy campaign claimed that 71% of Americans want to see him on the debate stage, and in an act of counter-programming he plans an alternative “real” debate on Elon’s Musk’s Twitter/X platform at the same time.“The American people want leaders who trust them to make up their own minds,” Kennedy said.
      Instead, our last two presidents are restricting voters from choosing anyone other than themselves. Presidents Biden and Trump have sucked trillions of dollars from the pockets of working people and Americans deserve to hear from the one candidate who can hold them to account. More

    • 163 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Judge grants defense hearing on breached client privilege for Trump classified documents case

      by

      The federal judge presiding over the classified documents case of former president Donald Trump granted a defense request for a hearing on whether prosecutors improperly breached attorney-client privilege when they obtained crucial evidence from one of Trump’s ex-lawyers.But US district judge Aileen Cannon also denied a request for a hearing on a separate Trump team claim that the Justice Department had submitted false or misleading information in an application for a warrant to search the Republican ex-president’s Florida estate for classified records two years ago.The order amounts to a mixed result for both sides and ensures further delays in a criminal case that has already been snarled by significant postponements, resulting in the indefinite postponement of a trial that had been set to begin on 20 May in Fort Pierce, Florida.In a bid to suppress as evidence the classified documents seized by the FBI during the 8 August 2022 Mar-a-Lago search, defense lawyers have said the US justice department omitted or misrepresented certain facts in its application to a magistrate judge to obtain a warrant. They argued, for instance, that the application should have noted that a senior Federal Bureau of Investigation official proposed seeking the consent of Trump’s lawyers for a search rather than obtaining a court-authorized search warrant.But Cannon sided with special counsel Jack Smith’s team in finding that neither that nor any other of the alleged omissions raised by the defense had any bearing on whether or not prosecutors had sufficient probable cause to search the property.“Even accepting those statements by the high-level FBI official, the Motion offers an insufficient basis to believe that inclusion in the affidavit of that official’s perspective (or of the dissenting views of other FBI agents as referenced generally in his testimony) would have altered the evidentiary calculus in support of probable cause for the alleged offenses,” Cannon wrote.But her order was not a complete win for the government, as she said she would schedule a separate hearing to consider the question of whether prosecutors had improperly obtained the cooperation of Trump’s lawyers through an exception to attorney-client privilege.Defense lawyers are ordinarily shielded from being forced to testify about their confidential conversations with their client but can be compelled to do so if prosecutors can show that their legal services were used in furtherance of a crime – a doctrine known as the crime-fraud exception.Beryl Howell, then chief federal judge in the District of Columbia, agreed with Smith’s team that the exception applied and ordered grand jury testimony from two of Trump’s lawyers. She also directed one of his lawyers, M Evan Corcoran, to turn over audio recordings that documented his impressions of conversations he had had with Trump about returning the documents. Those conversations are repeatedly cited in the indictment and held up by prosecutors as incriminating evidence.“It is the obligation of this Court to make factual findings afresh on the crime-fraud issue,” Cannon wrote. “And a standard means by which to make such findings – as is customary in criminal suppression litigation – is following an evidentiary hearing at which both sides can present evidence (documentary and testimonial, as applicable).” More

    • 100 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      US presidential debates: the 10 most memorable moments

      by

      Joe Biden and Donald Trump will debate on Thursday for the first time this election cycle, and it holds the potential for some history-making moments.Debates can inform voters on both the issues and temperaments of the candidates, potentially swaying an undecided voter toward one candidate’s direction. They can also make for good TV, creating soundbites that resonate for decades to come.From the candidates’ physical appearances to gaffes to planned attacks to off-the-cuff retorts, here are some memorable moments from US presidential debate history.View image in fullscreen1960: The first and possibly still the most famous televised American presidential debate pitted the telegenic Democrat John F Kennedy against Republican vice-president Richard Nixon, creating defining moments for both presidential debates and television itself. The clammy Nixon was recovering from illness and had a five o’clock shadow but refused makeup. TV viewers are said to have judged Kennedy the winner, whereas radio listeners gave it to Nixon or called it a draw. Kennedy won a narrow election. He was assassinated three years later.View image in fullscreen1976: Republican president Gerald Ford, who succeeded Nixon after the Watergate scandal, had been closing the gap on Democrat Jimmy Carter but then remarked: “There is no Soviet domination of eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration.” It was seen as a critical gaffe in the context of the cold war and Carter went on to win the election.View image in fullscreen1980: Carter accused Republican Ronald Reagan of planning to cut Medicare healthcare funding for the elderly. Reagan, who had complained that Carter was misrepresenting his positions on numerous issues, said with a chuckle: “There you go again.” The audience erupted. The duel attracted 80.6 million viewers, the most ever for a presidential debate at that time, according to Nielsen.View image in fullscreen1984: Reagan, at 73 the oldest president in US history at the time, took the sting out of the issue of his age during the second debate with the Democratic candidate Walter Mondale, 56, with this line: “I want you to know that, also, I will not make age an issue of this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s youth and inexperience.” Reagan was re-elected.View image in fullscreen1988: Democrat Michael Dukakis, taking on the Republican vice-president George HW Bush, was asked whether he would support the death penalty for someone who raped and murdered his wife. “No, I don’t, Bernard,” the Massachusetts governor replied. “And I think you know that I’ve opposed the death penalty during all of my life.” He was criticised as cold and unemotional and lost the election.View image in fullscreen1988: In the vice-presidential debate, Bush’s running mate Dan Quayle compared himself with John F Kennedy. The Democratic senator Lloyd Bentsen shot back: “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.” It is probably the most famous line ever uttered in a vice-presidential debate and has been much parodied since.View image in fullscreen1992: In a three-way contest with Democrat Bill Clinton and businessman Ross Perot, President George HW Bush made the fatal mistake of looking at his watch. It gave the impression of a haughty, aloof incumbent who did not want to be there and took too much for granted. Bush later admitted what had been on his mind: “Only 10 more minutes of this crap.” He lost to Clinton.View image in fullscreen2000: Democratic vice-president Al Gore went into the debate leading in the polls but sighed loudly when his rival, Republican George W Bush, spoke. In another incident, he was criticised for invading Bush’s personal space when Bush strolled forward and Gore rose and moved towards his rival, as if looking for a fight. Bush dismissed him with a nod and won a close and bitterly disputed election.View image in fullscreen2012: President Barack Obama was widely felt to have “phoned in” his first lackluster debate performance against Republican Mitt Romney, who performed above expectations. But in the second debate, Romney, responding to a question about gender pay equality, said he had “binders full of women” as candidates for cabinet posts. The phrase became a meme on social media and Romney lost in November.US elections 2024: a guide to the first presidential debate
      What to know about the Biden-Trump debate
      Debate could open up the race for the White House
      An election rarity: two ex-presidents in an contest
      RFK Jr fails to qualify for the first debate and blames CNN
      View image in fullscreen2016: With no incumbent in the mix, Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton debated like an outsider and a seasoned public servant, respectively. In perhaps the most enduring soundbite, Clinton hit at Trump’s failure to pay income taxes in the few tax returns that were public at the time. “That makes me smart,” Trump retorted. He also called people coming into the US “bad hombres”, botching the pronunciation of the word. And in one eerie moment, Trump stood close behind Clinton as she answered an audience question, which Clinton later wrote made her skin crawl. Trump also refused to say whether he’would accept the results of the election – which he would go on to win in 2016.View image in fullscreen2020: Trump, now the incumbent, debated Joe Biden in his characteristically testy way, replete with interruptions. At one point, an exasperated Biden pleaded, “Will you shut up, man?”. That memorable line came as the debate schedule was affected by a new virus, Covid-19, spreading through the country. Trump tested positive for the virus, leading to the cancellation of the second debate. His former chief of staff claimed Trump tested positive before the first debate but didn’t disclose it, a claim that Trump called “fake news”. Biden went on to win the election.
      An earlier version of this article was published in 2016 More