Joe Biden

Subterms

    More stories

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Michigan primary a test for Biden as key voters turn away over Gaza war

      by

      Polls began to close in Michigan on Tuesday, in a presidential primary that tested how much Joe Biden and Donald Trump should be worried about winning key groups of voters in the general election in the critical swing state.Though both were on track to win their races, Biden and Trump faced challenges within their respective parties. After underperforming in the polls and struggling with suburban and college-educated Republican voters in earlier primaries, Trump’s campaign in Michigan is dealing with a state Republican party whose local leaders have been embroiled in an ugly factional dispute, while Biden faces a campaign by anti-war activists to abandon him over the president’s continued support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.In an interview with the Guardian, Layla Elabed, sister of the congresswoman Rashida Tlaib and campaign director for Listen to Michigan, said organizers were hoping for a showing of between 10,000 and 15,000 “uncommitted” votes, a mirror of the margin by which Hillary Clinton lost the state to Donald Trump in 2016. They passed 14,000 “uncommitted” votes by 8.30pm, according to an Associated Press count, which could be a significant rebuke of Biden.As the sun began to set on Tuesday evening, a steady stream of voters made their way to polling stations in Dearborn, where the “uncommitted” campaign has concentrated much of its resources on election day.Volunteers sat at intersections and outside the doors of the McDonald elementary school handing out campaign literature, but many of those arriving to vote had already decided to cast an uncommitted ballot.“This is to send a message to the president,” said 41-year-old Khalifah Mahdi, a local business owner who said he was voting for the first time in a primary election. “He has lost a lot of strength and respect in this first term and he needs to win that back.”Maria Ibarra, a volunteer with the Listen to Michigan campaign, said that one Dearborn precinct ran out of voter-registration applications around 7pm Eastern standard time. The voters waiting in line, Ibarra said, “want to make sure that there’s a clear message, that they want a permanent ceasefire”. By 8pm the precinct had obtained more applications.The push by Democratic voters to vote “uncommitted” in today’s primary picked up steam since organizers launched it in early February, with dozens of local elected officials in greater Detroit publicly endorsing the push.That effort has the support of the Dearborn mayor, Abdullah Hammoud, whose Detroit suburb has the largest percentage of Arab Americans of any city in the US. He wrote in a February op-ed in the New York Times that his constituents were “haunted by the images, videos and stories streaming out of Gaza” and felt “a visceral sense of betrayal” by Biden’s support for Israel.The campaign also has support from the representative Tlaib, a Palestinian American who represents Dearborn in Congress. In a video posted on social media today, Tlaib announced that she “was proud today” to vote “uncommitted” in the Democratic primary. “President Biden is not hearing us,” she said, citing a recent poll that showed about 74% of Democrats in Michigan support a ceasefire in Gaza. “This is the way we can use our democracy to say ‘listen – listen to Michigan.’”The campaign also earned the backing of the former congressman Andy Levin, who is Jewish and close to organized labor in the state, and the former 2020 presidential candidate and representative Beto O’Rourke of Texas.“We can use uncommitted to send a clear and powerful message to Joe Biden if we get enough uncommitted votes for a margin of victory,” Elabed, who voted for Biden in 2020, said. “If we’re able to replicate those numbers we can really send a message that he’s at risk of losing Michigan in the general election come November.” The Listen to Michigan campaign on Tuesday evening said they believed they would win at least one delegate at the Democratic national convention. Delegates can be awarded to candidates who earn at least 15% of the vote in a congressional district.Recent history offers some points of comparison for the ongoing “uncommitted” push in Michigan.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn 2008, when voters in Michigan, frustrated at Barack Obama’s absence from the Democratic primary ballot, launched a similar campaign, nearly 40% who cast their ballot did so for the “uncommitted” option. When Obama ran in 2012 – the last time a Democrat entered the Michigan primary as an incumbent – more than 10% of voters in the primary chose “uncommitted”.On the Republican side, Trump was expected to win comfortably against the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley – but weaknesses in his coalition that emerged in earlier primaries in South Carolina and New Hampshire could show up again in the key swing state.If Trump struggles in Kent county in western Michigan, a former Republican bastion that includes Grand Rapids and which flipped to Biden in 2020, and in Oakland county, a more upscale area in suburban Detroit where voters have also shifted away from Trump, that could be particularly telling. Haley made campaign stops in both places in the days ahead of the primary, where she argued that Trump, who won the South Carolina primary by 60% to Haley’s 40%, would struggle to pick up support from those voters.“He’s not gonna get the 40% if he’s going and calling out my supporters and saying they’re barred permanently from Maga,” Haley told a Michigan audience this weekend. “And why should the 40% have to cave to him?”But Tuesday’s vote won’t be the end of things.The Michigan GOP, to comply with national party rules on the timing of the primary, will only award 30% of its delegates to the national convention based on Tuesday’s vote. The rest will be awarded at a Saturday convention. The convention itself has been caught up in a chaotic power struggle over who the real Michigan GOP chair is – but the delegates are expected to be heavily pro-Trump. More

    • 175 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      McConnell upbeat on avoiding government shutdown after White House talks – as it happened

      by

      In remarks at the Capitol, the Senate’s Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell signaled he was ready to work with Democrats to avoid a government shutdown.While he noted that the government would probably get close to hitting its shutdown deadline, he expected lawmakers would be able to find an agreement on keeping the government open beyond Friday:Joe Biden met with Congress’s leaders in the Oval Office to find a way to avoid a government shutdown that is set to start on Saturday and would “damage the economy significantly”, in the president’s words. The Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the negotiations were “making good progress”, and noted that the group pressed Republican House speaker Mike Johnson to allow a vote on Ukraine aid, leading to “intense” discussions. Johnson was noncommittal after the meeting on if or when he’d do that.Here’s what else happened today:
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre criticized Johnson’s demands for tougher border security, saying, “I don’t even think he knows what he wants.”
      Senate Democrats will tomorrow try to pass a bill to protect IVF care, following the Alabama supreme court’s ruling against the procedure.
      Rightwing House Republicans accused Johnson and his deputies of having “NO PLAN TO FIGHT” the Democrats over government spending.
      Florida’s Republican-dominated legislature has pulled a “fetal personhood” bill after the Alabama ruling on IVF.
      Rashida Tlaib, a progressive Democratic congresswoman from Michigan, said she was voting “uncommitted” in her state’s primary tonight in protest of Biden’s policy towards Israel.
      Republican House speaker Mike Johnson has long pressed the Biden administration to take actions to crack down on undocumented migrants crossing the southern border. Yet he also helped kill a bipartisan compromise that would have tightened border security while also approving aid to Ukraine and Israel.Nonetheless, Johnson reiterated his demand that Biden get tougher on immigration today after meeting at the White House with the president. At her press briefing later in the day, Biden’s spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre was asked what exactly Johnson wants.“I appreciate the question. I don’t even think he knows what he wants,” Jean-Pierre replied.The press secretary continued:
      You had a bipartisan group of senators coming out of the Senate, working for four months with the White House to put forward a bipartisan piece of legislation that dealt with a … important challenge that we see at the border in immigration. And then so we did that, we’ve moved that forward, we presented it. And we were told no no, we don’t want the border security, we want just the national security supplemental without border security.
      Then, the Senate goes back and they pass the national security supplemental without border security, 70-29 … and the speaker refuses to put that to the floor. So what is it that he really wants here? If you look at the border security deal, that proposal, it has components of what the speaker has been talking about for years. So the question is really for him.
      The Senate’s top Republican Mitch McConnell also told reporters he supports holding a trial for Alejandro Mayorkas, the homeland security secretary who House Republicans impeached earlier this month.Convicting Mayorkas requires approval by a two-thirds majority of senators, which is probably impossible, since Democrats, who have a majority, have rejected the charges against him. They also have not said if they will even bother holding a trial of Mayorkas, or find a way to dismiss the charges without considering them.McConnell was asked for his thoughts on the matter, and here’s what he had to say:In remarks at the Capitol, the Senate’s Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell signaled he was ready to work with Democrats to avoid a government shutdown.While he noted that the government would probably get close to hitting its shutdown deadline, he expected lawmakers would be able to find an agreement on keeping the government open beyond Friday:Americans consider immigration to be the most important issue facing the US, according to a new Gallup poll.The survey found that 28% of respondents cited immigration as the top issue facing the country, up from 20% who said the same a month ago.It marks the first time immigration has been the most cited problem since 2019, and come as Joe Biden and Donald Trump are set to make separate visits to the US-Mexico border on Thursday.A separate question in the survey found that a record-high 55% of respondents said that “large numbers of immigrants entering the United States illegally” is a critical threat to US vital interests, up eight points from last year.Here’s a clip of Republican House speaker Mike Johnson speaking to reporters after meeting with Joe Biden and top congressional leaders at the White House.Johnson called the talks “frank and honest” and said his primary concern is addressing migration along the US-Mexico border.A top Republican in Virginia has apologized for misgendering a state senate Democrat in a row that caused legislative activity in the chamber to be temporarily suspended.“We are all equal under the law. And so I apologize, I apologize, I apologize, and I would hope that everyone would understand there is no intent to offend but that we would also give each other the ability to forgive each other,” the lieutenant governor, Winsome Earle-Sears, said in an address to the state senate on Monday.It all started when Danica Roem, 39, a state senator from Prince William county and the US’s first openly transgender person to serve in any state legislature, had asked Earle-Sears, 59, how many votes were needed to pass a bill on prescription drug prices with an emergency clause.“Madame President, how many votes would it take to pass this bill with the emergency clause?” Roem asked Earle-Sears, who was presiding over a legislative session at the time.Earle-Sears responded: “Yes, sir, that would be 32.”Roem walked out of the room after being misgendered. Earle-Sears initially refused to apologize for the mistake but finally did so after two separate recesses.Congressman Rashida Tlaib, a progressive Democrat of Michigan, said she was “proud” to cast a ballot for “uncommitted” in her state’s Democratic primary today.Progressive Democrats in Michigan have urged supporters to vote “uncommitted” as a means of protesting against the war in Gaza, calling on Joe Biden to do more to bring about a ceasefire.“We must protect our democracy. We must make sure that our government is about us, about the people,” Tlaib said in a video shared to social media.Tlaib noted that a recent poll showed 74% of self-identified Democrats in Michigan support a ceasefire in Gaza, and she accused Biden of “not hearing us”.“This is the way we can use our democracy to say: listen. Listen to Michigan. Listen to the families right now that have been directly impacted, but also listen to the majority of Americans who are saying enough. No more wars, no more using our dollars to fund a genocide. No more,” Tlaib said.“So please, take your family members. Use our democratic process to speak up about your core values [and] where you want to see our country go.”Joe Biden met with Congress’s leaders in the Oval Office to find a way to avoid a government shutdown that is set to start on Saturday and would “damage the economy significantly”, in the president’s words. The Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said the negotiations were “making good progress”, and noted that the group pressed Republican House speaker Mike Johnson to allow a vote on Ukraine aid, leading to “intense” discussions. Johnson was reportedly noncommittal after the meeting on whether he’d do that.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Senate Democrats will tomorrow try to pass a bill to protect IVF care, following the Alabama supreme court’s ruling against the procedure.
      Rightwing House Republicans accused Johnson and his deputies of having “NO PLAN TO FIGHT” the Democrats over government spending.
      Florida’s Republican-dominated legislature has pulled a “fetal personhood” bill after the Alabama ruling on IVF care.
      CNN reports that Republican House speaker Mike Johnson gave a similar recounting of his meeting with Joe Biden, Congress’s top Democrats and the Senate’s Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell.The biggest question, which Johnson still has not answered, is if and when he will allow a vote on new aid for Ukraine, and what House Republicans might want in return. Here’s more, from CNN:The congressional leaders who met with Joe Biden at the White House made “good progress” on avoiding a government shutdown, the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said after the meeting.The group, which also included Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, also pressed the House speaker, Republican Mike Johnson, to support further aid to Ukraine, a discussion Schumer noted was particularly “intense”.“We’re making good progress and we’re hopeful we can get this done quickly,” Schumer said, adding that Johnson “said unequivocally he wants to avoid a government shutdown”.McConnell along with Biden and Congress’s top Democrats are all supporters of aid to Ukraine, but Johnson has waffled, even turning down a package of hardline immigration policy changes Democrats had agreed to in order to win Republican support for Kyiv.“The meeting on Ukraine was one of the most intense I’ve ever encountered in my many meetings in the Oval Office,” Schumer said. “We said to the speaker, ‘get it done.’”While the Republican House speaker Mike Johnson is at the White House to negotiate with Joe Biden, a member of his party is trying to get Joe Biden declared too old to serve, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:A Colorado Republican introduced a congressional resolution calling for Kamala Harris to invoke the 25th amendment to the US constitution and remove Joe Biden because he is too old.The resolution from the US House member Ken Buck has little chance of success.John Dean, who was White House counsel under Richard Nixon, the president who resigned under pressure from his own party, said: “Just when you think there may be a few normal Republicans, you discover they are all crazy.“This man [Buck] is leaving public office. He is the person with the cognitive problem not Joe Biden.”Section four of the 25th amendment provides for the replacement, by the vice-president, of a president deemed incapable. It has never been used. Calls for its use intensified in 2021, after the deadly January 6 attack on Congress, which Donald Trump incited in an attempt to stay in the Oval Office. More

    • 150 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden and Harris meet congressional leaders to try to avert government shutdown

      by

      Joe Biden and Kamala Harris met congressional leaders on Tuesday in hopes of striking a deal to try to avert a government shutdown.“We’re making good progress, and we’re hopeful we can get this done quickly,” the top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said after the meeting, adding that the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, “said unequivocally he wants to avoid a government shutdown”.While the debacle over the government shutdown has been brewing for months, the 1 March deadline is different from the many similar instances that came before, in that it would herald only a partial government shutdown, with the legislation funding departments including agriculture, transportation and veteran affairs expiring on Friday. The rest of the shutdown is scheduled for 8 March.The meeting was scheduled for late morning with Johnson, the Democratic House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, Schumer and the Republican Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell.At the top of the meeting, Biden warned that a government shutdown would “significantly” damage the nation’s economy, which saw strong growth last year despite tenacious inflation and high interest rates.The group pressed Johnson to support further aid to Ukraine, a discussion Schumer noted was particularly “intense”.McConnell along with Biden and Congress’s top Democrats are all supporters of aid to Ukraine, but Johnson has waffled, even turning down a package of hardline immigration policy changes Democrats had agreed to in order to win Republican support for Kyiv.“The meeting on Ukraine was one of the most intense I’ve ever encountered in my many meetings in the Oval Office,” Schumer said. “We said to the speaker, ‘Get it done.’”Johnson, meanwhile, told CNN the meeting was “frank and honest” and focused on the need for an immigration and border plan. This comes after House Republicans tanked bipartisan legislation that included border funding, alongside Ukraine and Israel aid – a move that has been attributed to Donald Trump’s pressure to not allow Democrats any wins in an election year.The House reconvenes on Wednesday. More

    • 200 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Stop fantasizing and deal with reality: it’s going to be Biden against Trump | Margaret Sullivan

      by

      Get Margaret Sullivan’s latest columns delivered straight to your inbox.It can be diverting – even fun – to fantasize about who might become the next president of the United States.Wouldn’t it be cool if, say, the dynamic, 52-year-old Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer were to be elected, with perhaps a forward-thinking congressman such as Jamie Raskin of Maryland or Hakeem Jeffries of New York as her vice-president?Wouldn’t it be quite an improvement over our previous disastrous president if, for example, former congresswoman Liz Cheney – or someone else who hews to facts and conscience – were the Republican nominee?It’s easy to understand this kind of speculation. Pundits must fill airtime and column inches, and regular people need something to talk about in the wake of football season. Also, next fall’s election is a compelling subject because it’s extremely consequential; it matters even more than Taylor Swift’s romance with Travis Kelce.But the fantasy window – if not slammed and locked – has closed. The passage of time, the raising of campaign funds, and the results of the primaries have made that clear.On the Republican side, former governor Nikki Haley’s loss in her home state of South Carolina was predictable but nonetheless dealt her campaign a death blow. That the only Trump challenger left standing hasn’t dropped out doesn’t change a thing.On the Democratic side, there’s no reason to think Biden won’t be the nominee. For one thing, his campaign has a whopping $56m in cash. (Trump, by contrast, according to the Washington Post, has less than $31m.) Nor has Biden been substantially challenged in the primary season, which is what the primaries are for.Weird things do happen in American politics, but unless something very weird happens, we are looking at this reality: there will be a Joe Biden v Donald Trump rematch in November.Some members of the commentariat aren’t ready for that. Ezra Klein set off another round of chatter earlier this month when he published a long New York Times essay suggesting a brokered convention in Chicago to replace Biden as the Democratic nominee.This notion was taken seriously on MSNBC’s Morning Joe and in other places where left-leaners meet to chew the fat, but that doesn’t make it any more likely.So this is an excellent moment to take a deep breath, acknowledge the obvious and act accordingly. That goes for the media and for citizens alike.Journalists should focus on our non-partisan, public-service mission. It’s not to elect a particular candidate or support anybody’s campaign, but to do our core job of informing citizens of the stakes of this election.An example of not doing that came from NBC News this week with its credulous, six-byline story headlined: “Fewer grievances, more policy: Trump aides and allies push for a post-South Carolina ‘pivot’.”Talk about fantasy! As the NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen posted: “Any reason to think [Trump] is capable of – or newly interested in – a reduction in personal invective?” If yes, where does the reporting say that? If not, “why are six NBC journalists helping to broadcast the pained wishes of his campaign staff?”No, what’s needed is relentless, well-sourced, realistic reporting on the actual candidates, their actual records and their actual plans. The aim should be that no one in America who pays attention should be in doubt about what is at stake.That should not include obsessing about Joe Biden’s advanced age, which everyone is well aware of. It’s already priced in.As Joan Walsh argued this week, Biden supporters are not immune to concerns about his age or about Kamala Harris’s unpopularity. Rather, she wrote in the Nation, they “have added up the various risks and benefits of Biden-Harris 2024 and concluded that it’s less risky to run the incumbent”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDonald Trump is also old. He’s also a would-be authoritarian. He’s the target of 91 indictments in multiple states and his allies are ready to spring into anti-democratic action on inauguration day 2025. Do most Americans understand that as well as they understand that Biden is old? I doubt it.As for citizens, there are (at least) three jobs. First, be well informed about the consequences of this election. Think about what kind of country you want to live in.Second, be actively engaged in the democratic process. For example, get people in your community – including friends and family – registered to vote. Or donate to a candidate you support. Or volunteer to be a poll worker.And finally, most importantly, vote. Don’t plan to stay home because perfection is not on the ballot, or because you disagree on a specific issue, or because you think you’re somehow registering a moral protest.The real world isn’t as pretty or as pure as the fantasy world. But it’s what we’ve got.
      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More

    • 238 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      If Trump wins, he’ll be a vessel for the most regressive figures in US politics | Katrina vanden Heuvel

      by

      Fifty years ago, then governor Ronald Reagan headlined the inaugural Conservative Political Action Conference. He spoke of the US as a city on a hill, an example of human virtue and excellence, a divinely inspired nation whose best days were ahead.The speakers at last week’s conference were decidedly less inspiring. A lineup of extremists, insurrectionists and conspiracy theorists gathered for panels like “Cat Fight? Michelle v Kamala” and “Putting Our Heads in the Gas Stove”. At CPAC, you can drink “Woke Tears Water”, buy rhinestone-studded firearms and play a January 6-themed pinball machine.But it would be wrong to dismiss CPAC as a crackpot convention. It is also a harbinger of what a second Donald Trump presidency would bring, influenced by a consortium of self-proclaimed Christian nationalists and reactionary dark money groups like the Heritage Foundation who see Trump as their return ticket to relevancy.The Heritage Foundation has poured $22m into Project 2025, their plan to gut the “deep state” and radically reshape the government with a souped-up version of the unitary executive theory, which contends that the president should be allowed to enact his agenda without pesky checks and balances. To paraphrase one speaker at CPAC: “Welcome to the end of democracy.”The Heritage Foundation’s policy agenda is disturbingly radical, even by the standards of the modern Republican party. They want to dismantle the administrative state, ban abortion completely at the state and federal level, and, as always, cut taxes for the rich. They would put religious liberties over civil ones, and Christian rights over the rights of women, people of color, LGBTQ+ people and really anyone who does not look and think exactly like they do.As Trump himself said in an alarmingly theocratic speech last week: “No one will be touching the cross of Christ under the Trump administration, I swear to you.” And we have no reason to doubt him. Russell Vought, a radical involved with Project 2025 who speaks with Trump at least twice a month, is a candidate to be the next White House chief of staff.Vought works closely with the Christian nationalist William Wolfe, a former Trump administration official who has advocated for ending surrogacy, no-fault divorce, sex education in schools and policies that “subsidize single motherhood”. The Heritage Foundation has even called for “ending recreational sex”.Media coverage of Trump tends to focus on his mounting legal woes (nearly half a billion in damages and counting) and increasingly bizarre rants (magnets don’t work underwater). But such an approach misses the point. We can’t risk focusing on spectacle at the expense of strategy, and he has made his strategy perfectly clear.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe has said he will be a dictator on “day one” and “go after” and indict those who challenge him. He’s running on a 10-point “Plan to Protect Children from Leftwing Gender Insanity”. He’s promised to send federal troops into Democratic-run “crime dens”, by which he means New York City and Chicago.He will have advantages in the courts this time around, too. Groups such as the Article III Project – an advocacy group for “constitutionalist” judges – are making sure of it. A3P is led by Mike Davis, a Trump loyalist lawyer who has been floated for attorney general. (You know, the role that Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr weren’t extreme enough for?) He has promised: “President Trump’s next generation of judges will be even more bold and tough.” And in the meantime, his organization has taken out TV ads attacking the judges and prosecutors in Trump’s criminal trials as “activists” who have “destroyed the rule of law”.If the Article III Project gets what they want, judges hearing challenges to Trump’s proposals will be judges he appointed. Not only will his policies be more dangerous and dogmatic, they’ll be better designed to withstand judicial scrutiny, especially in a friendly court.Look no further than the Alabama supreme court, which ruled last week that frozen embryos are children, imperiling the legality of IVF and foreshadowing far worse. Trump, clearly panicking, has distanced himself from this decision, but as long as he continues to nominate radical activist judges – and he will – it is nothing more than posturing.As was the case during his first term, Trump will serve as a vessel for some of the most regressive figures in American politics. And unlike last time – when he was incentivized to get re-elected legitimately – he will be unencumbered by any notion that he should abide by democratic norms or heed moderating voices. January 6 was a purity test, and he’s since cleared his ranks of people who’ve even whispered disapprovingly.Despite all of this, Trump is leading Biden in many polls. Most projections put the race at 50/50 at best. If Trump and his extremist cronies prevail in 2024, Project 2025 will be under way this time next year, stripping millions of Americans of our freedoms. The end of democracy, indeed.
      Katrina vanden Heuvel is editor and publisher of the Nation and serves on the Council on Foreign Relations More

    • 125 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Taylor Swift endorsement ‘classified’, jokes Joe Biden on Seth Meyers

      by

      Joe Biden joked that a potential 2024 endorsement by Taylor Swift is “classified” as he made a rare media appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers.Biden’s arrival was apparently a surprise to the audience. He stepped on stage after the announced guest – the comedian and actor Amy Poehler – noted that Biden when vice-president had been a guest on Meyers’s first show. Poehler said she could get him to return, prompting Biden to enter.“It’s good to be back,” Biden told Meyers. “Why haven’t you invited me earlier?”Going into this year’s presidential election, Biden is seeking additional ways to reach out to voters, having largely avoided White House press conferences and on-the-record sit-down interviews. Biden also skipped the traditional pre-Super Bowl presidential interview.Biden has faced criticism as the most media shy president of modern times. Since taking office he has done 86 interviews, compared with 300 by Trump and 422 by Barack Obama at the same point in their presidencies, according to data collected by the nonpartisan White House Transition Project.During the interview, Meyers quizzed Biden about a conspiracy theory spread among some conservatives that Swift and Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs player Travis Kelce are part of an elaborate plot to help Democrats win the November election.“Can you confirm or deny that there is an active conspiracy between you and Miss Swift?” Meyers asked.“Where are you getting this information, it’s classified,” Biden replied, adding that Swift endorsed him for president in 2020. Meyers followed up to ask if she would endorse Biden again, prompting the president to laughingly add: “I told you it’s classified.”Biden, who at 81 is the oldest-ever US president, also addressed concerns about his age, saying: “You got to take a look at the other guy, he’s about as old as I am, but he can’t remember his wife’s name.”It was an apparent reference to Donald Trump’s appearance at the Conservative Political Action Conference last weekend, in which the former president praised his wife, Melania, and also referenced “Mercedes” – Mercedes Schlapp, his former aide who helps run the group and was in the audience. Some on social media, as well as Meyers in his monologue, suggested that Trump had used the wrong name for his wife.Biden added that what truly matters is “how old your ideas are” and proceeded to blast Trump and Republicans for supporting rolling back abortion access and other policies that have been “solid American positions” for decades.The president also criticised Trump for praising those who participated in the Capitol insurrection on 6 January 2021, and for pledging to pardon those who assaulted police officers and tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election.“That’s what happens in eastern European countries,” Biden said. “That’s not what happens in America.”Meyers has taken frequent jabs at Trump, and devoted much of his show before Biden’s appearance to criticising the former president and Republicans over a court ruling that upended in vitro fertilisation treatment in Alabama.He also criticised some Democrats who have tried to inoculate Biden from any criticism, playing a clip of senator John Fetterman who said those doing so might as well be supporting Trump.“Criticising or mocking our leaders is a healthy thing in a democracy,” Meyers said. “I mean, Joe Biden seems to be able to take a joke. We here at Late Night make jokes about him all the time.” More

    • 163 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Manhattan prosecutors seek gag order on Trump in hush money case – live

      by

      Manhattan prosecutors have asked the judge overseeing the criminal case against Donald Trump involving hush money payments to impose a gag order on the former president.Trump is already under a limited gag order in his federal election interference case in Washington, and prosecutors in Manhattan sought a similarly “narrowly tailored order restricting certain prejudicial extrajudicial statements by defendant.”In their motion, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said Trump had a “long history of making public and inflammatory remarks about the participants in various judicial proceedings against him, including jurors, witnesses, lawyers, and court staff,” adding:
      Those remarks, as well as the inevitable reactions they incite from defendant’s followers and allies, pose a significant and imminent threat to the orderly administration of this criminal proceeding and a substantial likelihood of causing material prejudice.
      If approved, the gag order would bar Trump from “making or directing others to make” statements about witnesses concerning their role in the case.Trump has been charged with 34 counts related to the alleged falsification of business records as part of a purported scheme to cover up extramarital affairs. Jury selection is set to begin on 25 March, making it the first of four criminal cases against Trump to go before a jury.
      Manhattan prosecutors have asked the judge overseeing the criminal case against Donald Trump involving hush-money payments to impose a gag order on the former president.
      Trump has appealed his $454m New York civil fraud judgment, challenging a judge’s ruling that he manipulated the value of his properties to obtain advantageous loan and insurance rates as he grew his real estate empire.
      Alexander Smirnov, the former FBI informant charged with fabricating a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving Joe Biden’s family must remain behind bars while he awaits trial, a judge ruled, reversing an earlier order releasing the man.
      Hunter Biden said, in a rare interview, that his battle to stay sober was unique because failure would be used as a political cudgel as his father, Joe Biden, seeks a second term as US president.
      Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP), the conservative Super Pac backed by billionaire Charles Koch, announced it has paused its financial support of former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
      Joe Biden is planning to meet with congressional leaders in Washington tomorrow as he once again tries to head off the looming prospect of a partial government shutdown at midnight on Friday.
      Joe Biden is set to make a rare visit the US-Mexico border on Thursday to meet with US border patrol agents, law enforcement and local leaders – on the same day that Donald Trump has already reportedly scheduled a border trip.
      Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) plans to stand down beginning next week, paving the way for a slate of Donald Trump loyalists to lead the party in the run-up to the November general elections.
      Kenneth Chesebro, the former Trump attorney who allegedly devised the “fake electors” plan, concealed dozens of damning posts on a secret Twitter account and failed to share them with Michigan prosecutors, according to a report.
      US authorities are investigating organizations that coordinate organ donations over allegations that the non-profits are potentially defrauding the federal government.The federal investigation, first reported by the Washington Post, is looking at several organ procurement organizations (OPOs) that secure organs for transplants within the United States.A focus of the inquiry is investigating whether the organizations knowingly overbilled the Department of Veteran Affairs as well as Medicare, two agencies that reimburse OPOs for the procurement of organs.The investigation is also looking into whether OPOs arranged kickbacks between organizations, the Post reported, citing one person with knowledge of the investigation.The latest investigation, led by the Department of Health and Human Services as well as inspector general Michael Missal with the Department of Veterans Affairs, could lead to a mass overhaul of the organ transplant industry, the Post reported.At least six people with knowledge of the investigation told the Post that the inquiry has been taking place for several months. But it recently intensified as investigators visited the offices and homes of at least 10 chief executives at different OPOs.Kenneth Chesebro, the former Trump attorney who allegedly devised the “fake electors” plan, concealed dozens of damning posts on a secret Twitter account and failed to share them with Michigan prosecutors, according to a report.Chesebro told investigators he did not use Twitter, now known as X, or have any “alternate IDs” on social media, but a CNN report has found he had a private Twitter account where he promoted a “far more aggressive election subversion strategy” than he later told investigators.The anonymous account “BadgerPundit” included a post just days after the 2020 presidential election which said:
      You don’t get the big picture. Trump doesn’t have to get courts to declare him the winner of the vote. He just needs to convince Republican legislatures that the election was systematically rigged, but it’s impossible to run it again, so they should appoint electors instead.
      But in his interview with Michigan investigators, Chesebro said the very opposite, claiming that the entire electors plan was contingent on the courts.An internal review has blamed the Pentagon’s failure to notify government officials and the public about Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s hospitalization on privacy restrictions and said no one should be held responsible.The review, which was done by Austin’s subordinates, largely absolves anyone of wrongdoing for the secrecy surrounding his hospitalization last month, which included several days in the intensive care unit, Associated Press reported.There was “no indication of ill intent or an attempt to obfuscate”, according to an unclassified summary of the review released by the Pentagon today. Rather it in part blames the lack of information sharing on the “unprecedented situation” and says that Austin’s staff was trying to respect his medical privacy.Austin has been called to Capitol Hill on Thursday for a House hearing on the matter and is expected to face sharp criticism.Austin’s health became a focus of attention in January when he underwent prostate cancer surgery and was readmitted to hospital for several days because of complications – without the apparent knowledge of the White House.Top advisers to the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, and Donald Trump have held discussions that included efforts to secure an endorsement of the former president by McConnell, according to reports.The conversations, first reported by the New York Times, have been held between Trump’s campaign manager, Chris LaCivita, and longtime McConnell adviser, Josh Holmes. The NYT report writes:
      Donald J. Trump and Mitch McConnell haven’t said a word to each other since December 2020. But people close to both men are working behind the scenes to make bygones of the enmity between them and to pave the way for a critical endorsement of the former president by the one Republican congressional leader who has yet to offer one.
      An endorsement from McConnell would be the culmination of a relationship that was frosty even before it collapsed over the January 6 Capitol attack. The longtime Senate GOP leader blamed Trump for being “practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of the day.”Manhattan prosecutors have asked the judge overseeing the criminal case against Donald Trump involving hush money payments to impose a gag order on the former president.Trump is already under a limited gag order in his federal election interference case in Washington, and prosecutors in Manhattan sought a similarly “narrowly tailored order restricting certain prejudicial extrajudicial statements by defendant.”In their motion, the Manhattan district attorney’s office said Trump had a “long history of making public and inflammatory remarks about the participants in various judicial proceedings against him, including jurors, witnesses, lawyers, and court staff,” adding:
      Those remarks, as well as the inevitable reactions they incite from defendant’s followers and allies, pose a significant and imminent threat to the orderly administration of this criminal proceeding and a substantial likelihood of causing material prejudice.
      If approved, the gag order would bar Trump from “making or directing others to make” statements about witnesses concerning their role in the case.Trump has been charged with 34 counts related to the alleged falsification of business records as part of a purported scheme to cover up extramarital affairs. Jury selection is set to begin on 25 March, making it the first of four criminal cases against Trump to go before a jury.A longtime Democratic political operative has admitted he commissioned a robocall which featured an AI-created imitation of Joe Biden discouraging voters from participating in the New Hampshire presidential primary.In a statement, Steve Kramer said he resorted to “easy-to-use online technology” to mimic the president’s voice and send out the infamous automated call to 5,000 Democrats who were most likely to vote in the 23 January primary.The robocall remains the subject of a law enforcement investigation. The US government has since outlawed automated calls using AI-generated voices, saying they are a threat to democracy.“With a mere $500 investment, anyone could replicate my intentional call,” Kramer’s statement – provided to NBC News on Sunday and the Guardian on Monday – also said. “Immediate action is needed across all regulatory bodies and platforms.”Kramer’s statement stopped short of saying that he had permission from his client at the time of the robocall: the long-shot Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips. The Minnesota congressman’s campaign has accused Kramer of commissioning the robocall without permission, and has said it would not work with the operative again after paying him nearly $260,000 in December and January.Additionally, Kramer’s statement avoided addressing a version of events relayed by a magician and hypnotist from New Orleans who says he was paid $150 to create the audio used in the robocall.Hello US politics blog readers, it’s been a lively morning and there’s more news to come. We’ll bring you the developments as they happen.Here’s where things stand:
      Alexander Smirnov, the former FBI informant charged with fabricating a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving Joe Biden’s family must remain behind bars while he awaits trial, a judge ruled, reversing an earlier order releasing the man.
      Hunter Biden said, in a rare interview, that his battle to stay sober is unique because failure would be used as a political cudgel as his father, Joe Biden, seeks a second term as US president.
      Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP), the conservative Super Pac backed by billionaire Charles Koch, announced it has paused its financial support of former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
      Joe Biden is planning to meet with congressional leaders in Washington tomorrow as he once again tries to head off the looming prospect of a partial government shutdown at midnight on Friday.
      Joe Biden is set to make a rare visit the US-Mexico border on Thursday to meet with US border patrol agents, law enforcement and local leaders – on the same day that Donald Trump has already reportedly scheduled a border trip.
      Donald Trump has appealed his $454m New York civil fraud judgment, challenging a judge’s ruling that he manipulated the value of his properties to obtain advantageous loan and insurance rates as he grew his real estate empire.
      Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC) plans to stand down beginning next week, paving the way for a slate of Donald Trump loyalists to lead the party in the run-up to the November general elections.
      Former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov was re-arrested last Thursday morning while meeting with his lawyers at their offices in downtown Las Vegas, the Associated Press reports.In an emergency petition with the 9th US circuit court of appeals, Smirnov’s lawyers said US district judge Otis Wright II in Los Angeles did not have the authority to order Smirnov to be taken back into custody.The defense also criticized what it described as “biased and prejudicial statements” from Wright insinuating that Smirnov’s lawyers were acting improperly by advocating for his release.Smirnov had been an informant for more than a decade when he made the explosive allegations about the Bidens in June 2020, after “expressing bias” about Joe Biden as a presidential candidate, prosecutors said.Smirnov had only routine business dealings with Ukrainian energy company Burisma, starting in 2017, according to court documents. No evidence has emerged that Joe Biden acted corruptly or accepted bribes in his current role or previous office as vice president.While his identity wasn’t publicly known before the indictment, Smirnov’s claims have played a major part in the Republican effort in Congress to investigate the president and his family, and helped spark what is now a House impeachment inquiry into Biden.Prosecutors previously said that during an interview before his arrest last week, Smirnov admitted that “officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a story” about Hunter.Prosecutors in the FBI informant case revealed that Alexander Smirnov has reported to the FBI having extensive contact with officials associated with Russian intelligence, and claimed that such officials were involved in passing a story to him about Hunter Biden, the Associated Press reports.Prosecutors said Smirnov, who holds dual Israeli-US citizenship, had been planning to travel overseas to multiple countries days after his February 14 arrest where he said he was meeting with foreign intelligence contacts.Smirnov has not entered a plea to the charges, related to fabricating a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving Joe Biden’s family, but his lawyers have said they look forward to defending him at trial.Defense attorneys have said in pushing for his release that he has no criminal history and has strong ties to the United States, including a longtime significant other who lives in Las Vegas.In his ruling last week releasing Smirnov on GPS monitoring, US magistrate judge Daniel Albregts in Las Vegas said he was concerned about his access to what prosecutors estimate is $6 million in funds, but noted that federal guidelines required him to fashion “the least restrictive conditions” ahead of his trial.A former FBI informant charged with fabricating a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme involving Joe Biden’s family must remain behind bars while he awaits trial, a judge has just ruled, reversing an earlier order releasing the man, the Associated Press reports.US district judge Otis Wright II in Los Angeles ordered Alexander Smirnov’s detention after prosecutors raised concerns that the man who claims to have ties to Russian intelligence could flee the country.A different judge had released Smirnov from jail on electronic GPS monitoring after his February 14 arrest, but Wright ordered him to be taken back into custody last week after prosecutors asked to reconsider Smirnov’s detention.Wright said in a written order unsealed Friday that Smirnov’s lawyers’ efforts to free him were “likely to facilitate his absconding from the United States.”Smirnov is charged with falsely telling his FBI handler that executives from the Ukrainian energy company Burisma had paid Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, $5m each around 2015. The claim became central to the Republican impeachment inquiry of President Biden in Congress.A majority of Americans support building a wall along the US-Mexico border, according to a new poll, the first time since Donald Trump popularized the idea during his 2016 presidential bid.The Monmouth University poll, which found that 53% of respondents back a border wall, comes as both Joe Biden and Donald Trump are expected to make separate trips to the US-Mexico border in Texas on Thursday.The poll found that public concern about illegal immigration is growing, with more than eight in 10 Americans seeing it as a serious or very serious problem. Some 91% of Republicans said it is a serious problem, up from 66% in 2015.Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University polling institute, said in a statement:
      Illegal immigration has taken center stage as a defining issue this presidential election year. Other Monmouth polling found this to be Biden’s weakest policy area, including among his fellow Democrats.
      On Wednesday, Hunter Biden is due to sit for a closed-door interview with the House oversight and judiciary committees.The same panels last week interviewed James Biden, the president’s younger brother. Coupled with charges and revelations concerning Alexander Smirnov, the FBI informant behind allegations against the Bidens trumpeted by senior Republicans, the James Biden interview was widely held not to have advanced the GOP’s case.Joe Biden’s surviving son, after the death of the former Delaware attorney general Beau Biden in 2015, Hunter Biden has previously publicly discussed his struggles with grief and addiction, not least in Beautiful Things, a memoir published in 2021.Facing tax- and gun-related felony charges, Hunter Biden has sworn in federal court that he has not used alcohol or drugs since 1 June 2019. Axios said a representative said Biden continued to test negative for alcohol or drugs.Biden said he felt “a responsibility to everyone struggling through their own recovery to succeed” with his attempt to stay sober.
      I don’t care whether you’re 10 years sober, two years sober, two months sober or 200 years sober – your brain at some level is always telling you there’s still one answer.
      Embrace the state in which you came into recovery, which is that feeling of hopelessness which forces you into a choice. And then understand that what is required is that you basically have to change everything.
      In a rare interview, Hunter Biden said his battle to stay sober is unique because failure would be used as a political cudgel as his father seeks a second term as US president.“Most importantly, you have to believe that you’re worth the work, or you’ll never be able to get sober,” Joe Biden’s son told Axios on Monday. “But I often do think of the profound consequences of failure here.
      Maybe it’s the ultimate test for a recovering addict – I don’t know. I have always been in awe of people who have stayed clean and sober through tragedies and obstacles few people ever face. They are my heroes, my inspiration.
      I have something much bigger than even myself at stake. We are in the middle of a fight for the future of democracy.
      Biden, 54, became embroiled in the 2020 election between his father and Donald Trump amid Republican attempts to capitalize on his personal struggles and tangled business affairs, particularly in relation to Burisma, an energy company in Ukraine.As the 2024 election approaches, Republicans are still using Hunter Biden and Burisma as political weapons, alleging corruption as they seek to impeach the president, notwithstanding the indictment for lying of a key source also linked to Russian intelligence.That effort is in large part motivated by a desire for revenge for Democrats’ first impeachment of Donald Trump, which focused on attempts to extract dirt on the Bidens from the Ukrainian government.Following Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel’s announcement that she would step down, her co-chair Drew McKissick has also announced his resignation.McKissick, who serves as the chair of the South Carolina Republican party, is also expected to stand down on 8 March. In a statement, he said:
      I’m honored to have had the privilege to serve as RNC Co-Chair for this past year, as well as to have worked with so many grassroots leaders to help make our party successful. It’s what drives me.
      He added that he was looking forward to working with the RNC and Donald Trump’s campaign “to make sure that we WIN this November by taking back the White House, the Senate and maintaining our majority in the House of Representatives.”Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP), the conservative Super Pac backed by billionaire Charles Koch, announced it has paused its financial support of former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination.AFP Action said it “wholeheartedly” supports Haley’s plan to keep campaigning but that its backing would only come in the form of words. The announcement on Sunday came a day after Haley lost her home state’s GOP primary to Donald Trump. The statement said:
      Given the challenges in the primary states ahead, we don’t believe any outside group can make a material difference to widen her path to victory. And so while we will continue to endorse her, we will focus our resources where we can make the difference. And that’s the US Senate and House.
      Haley’s campaign described the group as a “great organization and ally in the fight for freedom and conservative government” and insisted it has “plenty of fuel to keep going”.The US Congress is lurching into a new week of political chaos.Lawmakers are not only trying to avoid a partial government shutdown but also deal with hard right House Republicans’ push for an election-year impeachment trial of the Biden administration’s top official dealing with the US-Mexico border, homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Reuters reports.The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is also grasping for a way forward on vital US aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and plans to hear closed-door testimony from Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, in an impeachment probe that has failed so far to turn up evidence of wrongdoing by the president.Congress has been characterized by Republican brinkmanship and muddled priorities over the past year, more so since Donald Trump undermined a bipartisan border deal in the Senate and now wants aid to US allies extended as loans.Almost two months have passed since Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer agreed on a $1.59 trillion discretionary spending level for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1, without the needed legislation to follow.
      It’s becoming more chaotic. The longer Congress is dysfunctional, the further they fall behind on very time-sensitive, high-priority legislation,” said Brian Riedl, senior fellow at the right-leaning Manhattan Institute.
      Some hardliners are threatening to oust Johnson as speaker, if the Christian conservative allows a vote on the $95bn foreign aid bill that passed the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support.Joe Biden plans to meet with Schumer, Johnson and other congressional leaders on Tuesday. More

    • 125 Shares149 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden and Trump to visit US-Mexico border on same day

      by

      Joe Biden and Donald Trump will both travel to the US border with Mexico on Thursday, dueling visits by the president and his probable opponent for re-election underlining the importance of immigration as an issue in the coming campaign.Biden will visit Brownsville, Texas, in the Rio Grande valley, while his presidential predecessor will head for Eagle Pass, about 325 miles distant.Conditions at the southern border are widely held to represent a growing problem for the White House, both practically in terms of coping with record numbers of undocumented migrants arriving via Central America and politically in terms of defending against Republican attacks.Biden and other Democrats have attacked Trump and Republicans in Congress for sinking a bipartisan border and immigration deal in the Senate.Demanding a border bill regardless of such machinations by their party, House Republicans also managed, at the second attempt, to impeach Biden’s secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas.Despite the widely held view that the articles of impeachment against Mayorkas do not come close to meeting the standard for conviction and removal from office, the process now moves to the Senate.Alarming leading progressives, Biden is reportedly weighing using executive orders to impose policy changes including restricting access to the US for migrants claiming asylum.On the campaign trail, Trump has upped his far-right, anti-migrant rhetoric, regularly claiming migrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country.A new poll from Monmouth University on Monday said more than 80% of Americans now see undocumented migration as either a very serious problem (61%) or a somewhat serious problem (23%).A majority, 53%, said they supported building a wall on the border with Mexico. A promise to do so – and to have Mexico pay for it – was a main plank of Trump’s shock victory in the 2016 election. Failure to do so, and debate over the effectiveness and environmental impact of such barriers as were built or maintained, was a constant theme of his presidency.More than 60% of respondents to the Monmouth poll said they supported applicants for asylum having to remain in Mexico.On another central Trump campaign issue, crime, the pollsters said “about one in three (32%) think that illegal immigrants are more likely than other Americans to commit violent crimes like rape or murder”.The poll noted that 65% of Republicans – but only 12% of Democrats – held that belief.“Illegal immigration has taken center stage as a defining issue this presidential election year,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. “Other Monmouth polling found this to be Biden’s weakest policy area, including among his fellow Democrats.”In Brownsville on Thursday, Biden will meet border patrol agents, law enforcement officers and local political leaders.“He wants to make sure he puts his message out there to the American people,” the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said as the president traveled from Washington to New York for a campaign event.Trump will reportedly deliver remarks in Eagle Pass.On Monday, the former president used his Truth Social platform to say: “When I am your president, we will immediately seal the border, stop the invasion, and on day one, we will begin the largest deportation operation of illegal criminals in American history!”A Trump spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, accused Biden of making “a last-minute, insincere attempt to chase President Trump to the border”, which she said would not “cut it” with voters.The Guardian contacted the Biden campaign for comment.In a video released on Sunday by the president’s campaign, Biden was seen watching footage of Trump discussing why he leant on Senate Republicans to sink their own border deal.“It made it much better for the opposing side,” Trump told Fox News.“He just admitted it,” Biden said. “He sabotaged our bipartisan deal to secure the border … you know who the opposing side is? In this case, it’s America. Donald Trump roots against America every chance he gets.” More