Joe Biden

Subterms

    More stories

    • 125 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘These people are diehard’: Iowa Trump supporters shrug off indictments

      by

      From his corner of rural Iowa, Neil Shaffer did more than his fair share to put Donald Trump in the White House and to try to keep him there.Shaffer oversaw the biggest swing of any county in the US from Barack Obama to Trump in 2016, and increased the then president’s share of the vote four years later. But the chair of the Howard county Republican party is not enthusiastic at the prospect of yet another Trump presidential campaign, and he blames the Democrats for driving it.“Honestly, the Democrats are shooting themselves in the foot with these prosecutions,” he said. “Why is Trump doing so well? Because people feel like they are piling on him. If this is the Democrats’ effort to make him look bad, it hasn’t. It’s probably going to make him the [Republican] nominee and, honestly, he may win the general election again. And then whose fault would it be?”After pleading not guilty on Thursday to federal charges over his attempts to steal the 2020 presidential election, Trump denounced the indictment as “a persecution of a political opponent”.“If you can’t beat him, you persecute him or you prosecute him,” he said.There are plenty who buy that line in Iowa and the rest of Trump-sympathetic America.With Trump likely to spend a good part of the next year in one courtroom or another, after being indicted in New York, Florida and Washington on an array of charges and with more expected in Georgia before long, his supporters are more than willing to believe it is a plot to keep their man out of the White House.One of them is Tom Schatz, a Howard county farmer on Iowa’s border with Minnesota.“They’re bringing the charges against Trump so he can’t run against Biden. Biden is so damn crooked. We’ve never had this kind of shit in this United States, ever,” he said. “Democrats are gonna keep riding [Trump’s] ass and bringing shit up against him. They don’t quit. They just don’t like him because he’s draining the swamp, and they don’t like that.”Schatz, like many Trump supporters, sees the prosecutions as part of a pattern of establishment attacks, from Congress twice impeaching the then president to the FBI’s investigation into alleged ties between Russia and his 2016 campaign. The same message is hammered home on rightwing talk radio stations that are often the background to the working day in rural America.On the day of Trump’s arraignment, Buck Sexton, a former CIA analyst on AM 600 WMT in Iowa, was energetically telling his listeners, without irony, that the prosecutions undermined confidence in the electoral system.“We are up against something we have never dealt with before,” he said. “They don’t care how reckless this is, the Democrats. It doesn’t bother them the disruption that they are doing to faith in the judicial system, faith in our elections, something that he’s talked about all the time. How can you have a fair election when one candidate has soon to be four criminal trials against him? Specifically timed to happen during the election.”Shaffer, who works for the state as a river conservationist as well as running a family farm, has watched Trump’s support rise, fall and then bounce back.Some support drained away to the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, after several prominent candidates backed by the former president lost in the midterm elections last November. For a while, polls put DeSantis ahead of Trump in a primary matchup. Shaffer said his county party was split, although at the time he still thought Trump would win because his supporters had more energy and commitment.“Now I think it’s even more so. When I speak up for DeSantis at our Republican monthly meeting, these people wearing their Trump hats don’t want to hear it. It’s such a foregone conclusion. Trump is going to get the nomination easily, whether he’s in a jail cell or in the courtroom. These people are that diehard,” he said.Shaffer sensed the renewed vigor in Trump’s campaign when he met the former president days before the latest indictment, at the Iowa Republican party’s annual fundraising Lincoln Dinner. Trump was among 13 candidates there to argue their case before meeting party activists one on one. So was his former vice-president, Mike Pence.“I feel bad for Pence because there were 500 people in line to see Trump and there were literally five people in the room for Pence,” said Shaffer. “Trump has that connection. Most of our group was there just to meet him.”Shaffer said the line to see DeSantis was longer than for Pence but nothing like the one for Trump, which he took as further evidence that the rightwing Florida governor’s moment had passed and that the the prosecutions helped revive Trump’s candidacy.“I think DeSantis is awesome. I think he’ll make a great president someday. But as long as Trump is running, there’s no way he’s gonna get the nomination,” he said.The polls back Shaffer’s view. But among some Howard county voters, support for Trump is more ambivalent.Tom Schatz’s son, Aaron, was a reluctant Trump voter in 2016. He voted for Obama but didn’t like Hillary Clinton. He was much more enthusiastic about Trump four years later but has cooled on him since.For all that, Schatz believes the former president is the victim of a political conspiracy.The dairy and corn farmer said he was more concerned about inflation, rising interest rates and falling prices for his milk than the details of the 45-page indictment laying out Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. He preferred to see the charges as evidence of a double standard in which the Washington establishment failed to properly investigate Hillary Clinton or Hunter Biden for alleged crimes.Asked about Trump’s part in the January 6 storming of the Capitol, Schatz brushed it off as a bad thing but not very different from what he said were Democratic politicians encouraging the protests and riots that followed the killing of George Floyd three years ago.“They burned down Minneapolis. Were they prosecuted for that?“ he asked. “Trump acted poorly when he lost, I’ll give them that. But they’re just out to get anything they can on him. Part of me thinks that all they’re going to do is unite the Trump followers. I think they’re doing more harm than good.”Shaffer, too, is not persuaded by the detail of the indictment.“I still don’t like a lot of what Trump was doing, a lot of what he was saying. People know he didn’t handle himself very well from election day through January 6. But does it rise to the level where he should go to jail because he said something in a phone call? I think we’re more adult than that,” he said.Suspicions about the barrage of indictments even extends to the chair of Howard county’s Democratic party, Laura Hubka, a US navy veteran and ultrasound technologist at the city’s hospital who has no like of Trump.“I think that they’re going after him because he’s running,” she said. “Did he break laws and is he a bad guy? Yeah. But I think if he just went into the sunset, and blathered on Truth Social, maybe they would just have left him alone. But once he ran again, people thought he’s popular enough to win again and we need to do something to stop him. They had to do something, I guess.”The impact of Trump’s coming trials, and the evidence they lay bare, remains to be seen. But it might be expected that while diehard supporters will remain loyal through it all, those who voted for him once but then swung to Biden four years later have little reason to switch back.Trump was defeated by 7m popular votes and 74 electoral college ballots in 2020, and some Democrats are calculating that he will struggle to overcome that deficit with the additional baggage of indictments, trials and possibly even prison time.Yet the polls show the US’s two most recent presidents tied, including in key swing states such as Michigan.“Every time they indict him, he goes up in the polls,” said Shaffer. “I think the Democrats are so arrogant. Some of the liberals believe that, just like they did in 2016, he’ll never be elected, he’ll never get in again. Don’t be too sure about that.”For her part, Hubka cannot believe that the polls are that close even if the election is more than a year away.“I feel like he could be running from prison and it’ll still be a tight race with Joe Biden. That’s what scares me,” she said.Which raises a question about why the Democrats are not doing better in a former stronghold like Howard county.Shaffer says Howard county is doing well in many ways, and thanks to Biden. He said the presidents’s Inflation Reduction Act has pumped money into the county, paying to renew infrastructure, including bridges and roads. Shaffer’s conservation work for the state is well funded thanks to the federal government, and that brings financial benefits to farmers. In addition, the push for green energy has resulted in a proliferation of very profitable windmills.“We’ve got a lot of windmills around here and it’s a huge benefit. Each one of those is valued at a million dollars and we’re able to tax them and it puts money in our budget so we can build bridges and roads and have money for the schools,” said Shaffer.“I’ve got one of my farmers has four windmills and all the roads and lines. He gets $185,000 a year from it. He built a new home. He’s got new tractors. The whole northwest part of the county used to be a more depressed area. The windmills pumped in a lot of money “Shaffer is surprised that, with so many Republicans denouncing renewable energy, the Democratic party isn’t making more of an effort to claim credit for the benefits in Howard county.Hubka blames the Democratic national leadership, which has been accused of overly focusing on parts of the country where a majority of the residents have a college education, unlike rural Iowa.“They need to get some balls, be more bold. I also feel like they just are writing off the rural counties,” she said.But Hubka is still there, campaigning and waiting to see what happens if Trump goes to prison. She bought a gun before the last election because of so many threats from Trump supporters.“I was really very scared that I was going to get shot or hurt. It’s calmed down a bit in that sense. But who knows what happens if he gets thrown in jail,” she said.Around the corner from her hospital, a flag hanging outside a house might be read as a warning: “Trump 2024. The rules have changed.” More

    • 100 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Dark Brandon’ meme boosts Biden’s campaign merchandise sales

      by

      Joe Biden’s re-election team has apparently discovered a fundraising boon by subverting a foul-mouthed rightwing chant.Axios reported that “Dark Brandon” items, including mugs and T-shirts, are responsible for more than half of the Biden campaign’s merchandising sales.The Dark Brandon meme, which typically shows the president with red, laserlike eyes, emerged as a reaction to the Republican term: “Let’s go Brandon” – a phrase which is widely interpreted as code for “Fuck Joe Biden”.The image of Biden, which first gained ground in 2022, has “been fashioned into a boast, depicting Biden playing five-dimensional chess, a master of the political dark arts”, Politico reported.Biden’s campaign has seized upon the Dark Brandon concept, and the image of a smiling, crimson-eyed Biden has been slapped on all manner of campaign merchandise.Visitors to the Biden-Harris official store can purchase Dark Brandon baseball caps, tote bags, and other paraphernalia, and according to Axios the “Dark” items are responsible for 54% of the store’s revenue.The surge in revenue comes at a good time for the Biden campaign, which has been struggling to raise money from small donors, defined as people who donate $200 or less.The New York Times reported that the Biden campaign and the Biden Victory Fund, a joint committee of the campaign, raised $10.2m from small donors across April-May, less than half the amount Barack Obama raised during the same period in 2011.Let’s Go Brandon entered common parlance in 2021, following an incident at a Nascar race in Alabama.After the race, some members of the crowd chanted “Fuck Joe Biden” while Brandon Brown, a driver, was being interviewed. The interviewer suggested the crowd were actually chanting “Let’s go Brandon”, and the subverted version became popular among Republicans, including some members of Congress. More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      The Guardian view on Donald Trump’s new indictment: America needs this trial | Editorial

      by

      The indictment served on Donald Trump on Monday marks the beginning of a legal reckoning that is desperately required, if American democracy is to properly free itself from his malign, insidious influence. Mr Trump already faces multiple criminal charges relating to the retention of classified national security documents and the payment of hush money to a porn star. But the gravity of the four counts outlined by the special counsel, Jack Smith, is of a different order of magnitude.Mr Trump stands accused of conspiring, in office, to overturn the result of the 2020 presidential election. Following Joe Biden’s victory, the indictment states, Mr Trump “knowingly” used false claims of electoral fraud in an attempt “to subvert the legitimate election results”. A bipartisan congressional committee report last year came to similar conclusions and provides much of the basis for the charges. But this represents the first major legal attempt to hold Mr Trump accountable for events leading up to and including the storming of the Capitol by a violent mob on 6 January 2021.The stakes could hardly be set higher. Democratic elections and the peaceful transfer of power are the cornerstones of the American republic. The testimony given to Congress indicates that Mr Trump used his authority to try to bully federal and state officials into supporting his claims that the election had been “stolen” from him. Repeatedly told that his assertions were baseless, he then mobilised a hostile crowd on 6 January to intimidate lawmakers charged with ratifying Mr Biden’s victory.It is inconceivable that Mr Trump should not be made to answer for actions that imperilled the constitutional and democratic functioning of the United States. The prosecutors’ case will hinge on their ability to prove that he knew his claims of a stolen election were bogus. But beyond the trial itself, it would be foolish to underestimate Mr Trump’s ability to turn even this situation to his own political advantage.The legal fronts on which Mr Trump is now engaged will drain his financial resources. But a narrative of victimhood and persecution has become, and will remain, the galvanising theme of his campaign. Two previous criminal indictments saw his poll ratings lift, helping him to establish a huge lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination for 2024. Whatever the evidence to the contrary, a sizable proportion of American voters will continue to back Mr Trump’s self-serving version of reality.One of the most dangerously polarising elections in US history thus looms as, over the next 15 months, Mr Trump uses political cunning to evade the legal net that is closing around him. Through his lawyers, he will do all he can to delay matters, hoping eventually to dictate the course of events from the White House. For his part, Mr Smith said on Monday that the justice department will seek “a speedy trial”.It is in the interests of American democracy, to which Mr Trump represents a clear and present danger, that the justice department gets its wish. A healthy body politic cannot allow its founding values and core principles to be trashed with apparent impunity. Prosecutors will need to proceed with care and be alert to the complex political dynamics. But this climactic reckoning in court needs to take place before Mr Trump gets the chance to besmirch the country’s highest office all over again. More

    • 125 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Obama reportedly warns Biden over strength of Trump 2024 challenge

      by

      Barack Obama has reportedly warned Joe Biden about how strong a challenge Donald Trump will be in their second election battle in 2024, should Trump win the Republican nomination next year as expected.Polling now shows Trump and Biden closely matched for a second presidential contest.At a private White House lunch with Biden in June, Obama also “promised to do all he could to help the president get re-elected”, the Washington Post reported. Citing two sources familiar with the meeting, the Post said Biden welcomed the offer of help from the man under whom he was vice-president between 2009 and 2017.Biden, the newspaper said, “is eager to lock down promises of help from top Democrats, among whom Obama is easily the biggest star, for what is likely to be a hard-fought re-election race”.Trump faces unprecedented legal jeopardy including 78 criminal charges, over hush-money payments, retention of classified information and his attempt to overturn Biden’s election victory in 2020.He is expected also to face election subversion charges in Georgia but his grip on the Republican primary has only tightened with each legal reverse. In Republican polling, Trump enjoys leads of more than 30 points over his nearest rival, the hard-right governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis.In 2020, Biden beat Trump by more than 7m ballots and conclusively in the electoral college, a result Trump refused to accept, stoking chaos culminating in the deadly US Capitol attack.Biden and Obama’s relationship has been the subject of widespread reporting and speculation, not least over whether Obama thought Biden should mount a third run for the Democratic nomination in 2020.As a US senator from Delaware, Biden crashed and burned in the primaries of 1988 and 2008, the latter won by Obama, 19 years Biden’s junior. The two men then formed an effective partnership through eight years in power.In 2020, as Biden sought to become the oldest ever president via a campaign based on the need to save “the soul of the nation” from Trump, Obama withheld his memoirs, potentially awkward for his vice-president, until the race was run. But he also long withheld his endorsement.After Biden overcame a rocky start to surge to the nomination, in large part with the support of African American voters, Obama helped drive home his success.Tensions have reportedly remained. For one striking example, the authors Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns described, in their book This Will Not Pass, how Biden, now 80, told one adviser: “I am confident that Barack is not happy with the coverage of this administration as more transformative than his.”Among major challenges, Biden has faced the Covid pandemic, strong economic headwinds, a US body politic under attack from Trump’s extremist Republican party, and the need to marshal global support for Ukraine in its war with Russia. Despite widely acknowledged successes, his popularity ratings remain stubbornly low.Eric Schultz, an Obama adviser, did not comment to the Post about the June lunch.“We place a huge emphasis on finding creative ways to reach new audiences, especially tools that can be directly tied to voter mobilization or volunteer activations,” Schultz told the paper. “We are deliberate in picking our moments because our objective is to move the needle.”A Biden campaign spokesperson, TJ Ducklo, said: “President Biden is grateful for [Obama’s] unwavering support, and looks forward to once again campaigning side-by-side … to win in 2024 and finish the job for the American people.” More

    • 200 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Bidenomics’ is working – which means Biden and the Democrats may win too | Robert Reich

      by

      Until recently, I assumed that Joe Biden would get a second term despite worries about his age because most Americans find Trump so loathsome.But I’ve underestimated Bidenomics. It’s turning out to be the most successful set of economic policies the United States has witnessed in a half-century.It may not only give Joe another term but also give Democrats control over both houses of Congress. It may even put the nation on the path to widely shared prosperity for a generation.New economic data last week showed that inflation cooled to 3% in June, down from over 9% last year, and close to the Fed’s goal of 2%.And as inflation has subsided, real wages – that is, what paychecks will buy – have finally risen.Meanwhile, economic growth has accelerated. Consumer spending is solid. Consumers expect the economy to continue to do well.Inflation is coming down without a crash landing, in large part because the Fed’s rate increases – designed to slow the economy, stop wage growth and cause higher unemployment – are being offset by Bidenomics’ massive public investments in infrastructure, semiconductors, wind and solar energy, and manufacturing.This isn’t all. The Biden administration has added three other critical ingredients: the threat (and, in some cases, reality) of tough antitrust enforcement, a pro-labor National Labor Relations Board, and strict limits on Chinese imports.Taken together, these policies are beginning to alter the structure of the American economy in favor of the bottom 90%.In recent decades, the Fed has been in charge of evening out the business cycle, but no one has taken charge of altering the structure of the economy so that the poor and working middle class get a larger share of the gains.This restructuring has been difficult to achieve for the simple reason that the monied interests don’t want it.In Republican circles, the monied interests have preached the snake oil of supply-side economics, which legitimized giant tax cuts going mostly to the rich and large corporations.Those tax cuts – under Reagan, George W Bush and Trump – exploded the federal debt, fueled giant profits in the biggest firms and financial institutions, and stoked a surge in billionaire wealth but did literally nothing for average working people. Nothing trickled down.In Democratic circles, the monied interests have used neoliberalism – which has called for deregulation, privatization, free trade and the domination of finance over the economy.This orthodoxy pervaded the Clinton and Obama administrations. (I won’t bore you with my war stories, but trust me.)The result was similar to that of supply-side economics: wealth surged to the top, but average working people remained stuck in the mud.In contrast to both supply-side economics and neoliberalism, the Biden administration is focused on altering the structure of the economy.Over the past year, manufacturing construction in hi-tech electronics, which the administration has subsidized through Chips and the Inflation Reduction Act, has quadrupled.Tens of billions in infrastructure spending has been funneled to the states for road, water system and internet upgrades.More clean-energy manufacturing facilities have been announced in the last year than in the previous seven combined.Biden understands that these investments must translate into high-paying jobs, which often require unions.“When I think climate, I think jobs … union workers are the best workers in the world,” he said in a recent speech on what he has called Bidenomics.The monied interests don’t want unions, of course. The narrow congressional majority that got these bills passed rolled back some of the labor conditions that originally accompanied the tax credits and grants.Moreover, much of the funding is pouring into so-called “right-to-work” states that make it exceedingly difficult to unionize.But a buoyant economy strengthens the hand of workers, making it easier to unionize – which helps explain the ubiquitous labor action this summer.Voters may not yet understand Bidenomics, but it’s probably not necessary that they do in order for Biden and the Democrats to benefit.If Bidenomics continues to alter the structure of the economy in ways that help the vast majority, voters will give Biden another term and reward Democrats with both houses of Congress.And if Bidenomics is successful, it will make the American economy both stronger and fairer in years to come.I’m betting on it.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Federal jury reconvenes to consider charging Trump over January 6 insurrection – live

      by

      From 2h agoDonald Trump’s multiplying legal troubles are taking a toll on his campaign finances as he spends more and more on lawyers, the New York Times reports.Trump’s Pac, Save America, has less than $4m in its account, down from the $105m it began last year with, the Times reports, citing federal records. So bad have its finances become that it has requested back $60m that it sent to a pro-Trump Super Pac, Make America Great Again Inc, which was supposed to spend the money on television ads.Since the start of the year, Trump has been indicted by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg on state charges of falsifying business records, and by special counsel Jack Smith for breaking federal law by allegedly keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort, and by conspiring to keep them out of the hands of government archivists.Trump has been told Smith may bring new charges against him related to his involvement in the January 6 insurrection, while, in Georgia, Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis said she will announce indictments in her investigation of Trump and his allies’ attempt to overturn the 2020 election sometime before September. The stage is set for Trump to continue paying huge legal fees for months, but he has one good thing going for him: his massive lead among Republican presidential candidates, which potentially could alleviate some of the damage done if he has to pullback on campaign spending.Here’s more on his dire finances, from the Times:
      The super PAC, which is called Make America Great Again Inc., has already sent back $12.25 million to the group paying Mr. Trump’s legal bills, according to federal records — a sum nearly as large as the $13.1 million the super PAC raised from donors in the first half of 2023. Those donations included $1 million from the father of his son-in-law, Charles Kushner, whom Mr. Trump pardoned for federal crimes in his final days as president, and $100,000 from a candidate seeking Mr. Trump’s endorsement.
      The extraordinary shift of money from the super PAC to Mr. Trump’s political committee, described in federal campaign filings as a refund, is believed to be larger than any other refund on record in the history of federal campaigns.
      It comes as Mr. Trump’s political and legal fate appear increasingly intertwined. The return of money from the super PAC, which Mr. Trump does not control, to his political action committee, which he does, demonstrates how his operation is balancing dueling priorities: paying lawyers and supporting his political candidacy through television ads.
      Save America, Mr. Trump’s political action committee, is prohibited by law from directly spending money on his candidacy. When Save America donated $60 million last year to Mr. Trump’s super PAC — which is permitted to spend on his campaign — it effectively evaded that prohibition.
      It is not clear from the filing exactly when the refund was requested, but the super PAC did not return the money all at once. It gave back $1 million on May 1; $5 million more on May 9; another $5 million on June 1; and $1.25 million on June 30. These returns followed Mr. Trump’s two indictments this year: one in Manhattan in March, and one last month in federal court.
      The White House is currently a much quieter place than usual, since Joe Biden is on vacation in Delaware. But someone is manning its Twitter account, and has opted this morning to troll Republican senator Tommy Tuberville.You may remember him for his ongoing blockade of military promotions over the Pentagon’s moves to assist service members in obtaining abortions. Yesterday, he insisted his campaign was not hurting military readiness:To which the White House has responded:The 2024 election will also decide control of the Senate, where Republicans are currently viewed as having a good shot at retaking the majority.Joe Biden’s allies can afford to lose only one seat in the chamber, but three Democrats representing red states will be up for re-election: Joe Manchin of West Virginia (who has not said if he will run again), Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio (both of whom say they will run again). All face tough roads to keeping their seats.Then there’s the possibility that the GOP could oust a Democrat representing a swing state, such as Wisconsin. Democratic senator Tammy Baldwin is up for re-election there, but in something of a setback for Republicans, Tom Tiffany announced today that he has decided to run for re-election in the House of Representatives rather than challenge Baldwin, as some in the GOP hoped he would do:Joe Biden and Donald Trump are tied in a New York Times/Siena College poll released today, while the president has consolidated his support among Democrats.A caveat before we get into the numbers: the November 2024 election is more than a year away, and will likely be decided by a handful of swing states, particularly Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Arizona. So for all the headlines this poll might generate, keep in mind that things can change dramatically between then and now.Back to the Times/Siena data, it finds Biden and Trump tied with 43% support if the presidential election were held today. But it also indicates many Democrats have gotten over their hesitancy towards Biden. Last year, two-thirds wanted a different candidate, but now, that number has dropped to about half.Here’s more on the numbers, from the Times:
      Still, warning signs abound for the president: Despite his improved standing and a friendlier national environment, Mr. Biden remains broadly unpopular among a voting public that is pessimistic about the country’s future, and his approval rating is a mere 39 percent.
      Perhaps most worryingly for Democrats, the poll found Mr. Biden in a neck-and-neck race with former President Donald J. Trump, who held a commanding lead among likely Republican primary voters even as he faces two criminal indictments and more potential charges on the horizon. Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump were tied at 43 percent apiece in a hypothetical rematch in 2024, according to the poll.
      Mr. Biden has been buoyed by voters’ feelings of fear and distaste toward Mr. Trump. Well over a year before the election, 16 percent of those polled had unfavorable views of both Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, a segment with which Mr. Biden had a narrow lead.
      “Donald Trump is not a Republican, he’s a criminal,” said John Wittman, 42, a heating and air conditioning contractor from Phoenix. A Republican, he said that even though he believed Mr. Biden’s economic stewardship had hurt the country, “I will vote for anyone on the planet that seems halfway capable of doing the job, including Joe Biden, over Donald Trump.”
      To borrow an old political cliché, the poll shows that Mr. Biden’s support among Democrats is a mile wide and an inch deep. About 30 percent of voters who said they planned to vote for Mr. Biden in November 2024 said they hoped Democrats would nominate someone else. Just 20 percent of Democrats said they would be enthusiastic if Mr. Biden were the party’s 2024 presidential nominee; another 51 percent said they would be satisfied but not enthusiastic.
      A higher share of Democrats, 26 percent, expressed enthusiasm for the notion of Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee in 2024.
      Joe Biden is taking a summer vacation after several months in which things seemed to increasingly come together for the American president. Over the weekend, the Guardian’s David Smith looked at this administration’s recent hot streak – as well as the challenges he faces in the year to come:It was the word that the far right of the Republican party most wanted to hear. Kevin McCarthy, speaker of the House of Representatives, said this week his colleagues’ investigations of Joe Biden are rising to the level of an “impeachment” inquiry.Republicans in Congress admit that they do not yet have any direct evidence of wrongdoing by the US president. But, critics say, there is a simple explanation why they would float the ultimate sanction: they need to put Biden’s character on trial because their case against his policies is falling apart.Heading into next year’s presidential election, Republicans have been readying a three-pronged attack: crime soaring in cities, chaos raging at the southern border and prices spiralling out of control everywhere. But each of these narratives is being disrupted by facts on the ground: crime is falling in most parts of the country, there is relative calm at the border and inflation is at a two-year low.Donald Trump’s legal problems may be formidable, but as the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports, so, too, is his popularity among Republicans:Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton county, Georgia, is “ready to go” with indictments in her investigation of Donald Trump’s election subversion. In Washington, the special counsel Jack Smith is expected to add charges regarding election subversion to 40 counts already filed over the former president’s retention of classified records.Trump already faces 34 criminal charges in New York over hush-money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels. Referring to Trump being ordered to pay $5m after being found liable for sexual abuse and defamation against the writer E Jean Carroll, a judge recently said Carroll proved Trump raped her. Lawsuits over Trump’s business affairs continue.Yet a month out from the first debate of the Republican presidential primary, Trump’s domination of the field increases with each poll.Donald Trump’s multiplying legal troubles are taking a toll on his campaign finances as he spends more and more on lawyers, the New York Times reports.Trump’s Pac, Save America, has less than $4m in its account, down from the $105m it began last year with, the Times reports, citing federal records. So bad have its finances become that it has requested back $60m that it sent to a pro-Trump Super Pac, Make America Great Again Inc, which was supposed to spend the money on television ads.Since the start of the year, Trump has been indicted by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg on state charges of falsifying business records, and by special counsel Jack Smith for breaking federal law by allegedly keeping classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort, and by conspiring to keep them out of the hands of government archivists.Trump has been told Smith may bring new charges against him related to his involvement in the January 6 insurrection, while, in Georgia, Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis said she will announce indictments in her investigation of Trump and his allies’ attempt to overturn the 2020 election sometime before September. The stage is set for Trump to continue paying huge legal fees for months, but he has one good thing going for him: his massive lead among Republican presidential candidates, which potentially could alleviate some of the damage done if he has to pullback on campaign spending.Here’s more on his dire finances, from the Times:
      The super PAC, which is called Make America Great Again Inc., has already sent back $12.25 million to the group paying Mr. Trump’s legal bills, according to federal records — a sum nearly as large as the $13.1 million the super PAC raised from donors in the first half of 2023. Those donations included $1 million from the father of his son-in-law, Charles Kushner, whom Mr. Trump pardoned for federal crimes in his final days as president, and $100,000 from a candidate seeking Mr. Trump’s endorsement.
      The extraordinary shift of money from the super PAC to Mr. Trump’s political committee, described in federal campaign filings as a refund, is believed to be larger than any other refund on record in the history of federal campaigns.
      It comes as Mr. Trump’s political and legal fate appear increasingly intertwined. The return of money from the super PAC, which Mr. Trump does not control, to his political action committee, which he does, demonstrates how his operation is balancing dueling priorities: paying lawyers and supporting his political candidacy through television ads.
      Save America, Mr. Trump’s political action committee, is prohibited by law from directly spending money on his candidacy. When Save America donated $60 million last year to Mr. Trump’s super PAC — which is permitted to spend on his campaign — it effectively evaded that prohibition.
      It is not clear from the filing exactly when the refund was requested, but the super PAC did not return the money all at once. It gave back $1 million on May 1; $5 million more on May 9; another $5 million on June 1; and $1.25 million on June 30. These returns followed Mr. Trump’s two indictments this year: one in Manhattan in March, and one last month in federal court.
      Good morning, US politics blog readers. The wait continues to find out whether special counsel Jack Smith will indict Donald Trump over his involvement in the January 6 insurrection, and there are signs this morning a decision could come soon. CNN spotted grand jurors arriving at a federal courthouse in Washington DC where they’re considering evidence in the case, but there’s no telling when a decision could come.Signs that Trump could be charged have been mounting. Last week, the former president said he had received a target letter from Smith, a step typically taken before someone is indicted. And yesterday, Trump said he expected charges to be filed “any day now”. But the winding legal saga has yet to dent his standing in the GOP, or even in the presidential race at large. New polling from the New York Times shows him crushing every other Republican candidate in the presidential nomination race, and tied with Joe Biden in the general election.Here’s what else is happening today:
      Kamala Harris is heading to Orlando to address the 20th Women’s Missionary Society of the African Methodist Episcopal Church Quadrennial Convention at 2.15pm eastern time. We’ll keep an eye open if she reiterates her criticism of Florida’s new Ron DeSantis-backed school curriculum, which implies that slavery wasn’t so bad.
      Biden, meanwhile, continues his beach vacation in Delaware. He has no public events scheduled.
      Alabama lawmakers are raging over Biden’s decision to cancel US Space Command’s planned move to the state, Punchbowl News reports. The decision came amid Republican senator Tommy Tuberville’s ongoing blockade of military promotions in protest of the Pentagon’s abortion policy. More

    • 125 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      Biden overturns Trump decision on US space command headquarters location

      by

      Joe Biden has decided to keep US space command headquarters in Colorado, overturning a last-ditch decision by the administration of his presidential predecessor Donald Trump to move it to Alabama while also ending months of politically fueled debate, according to senior federal officials.The officials said Biden was convinced by the head of space command, Gen James Dickinson, who argued that moving his headquarters now would jeopardize military readiness. Dickinson’s view, however, was in contrast to air force leadership, who studied the issue at length and determined that relocating to Huntsville, Alabama, was the right move.The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the decision ahead of the announcement.The president, they said, believes that keeping the command in Colorado Springs would avoid a disruption in readiness that the move would cause, particularly as the US races to compete with China in space. And they said Biden firmly believes that maintaining stability will help the military be better able to respond in space over the next decade. Those factors, they said, outweighed what the president believed would be any minor benefits of moving to Alabama.Biden’s decision is sure to enrage Alabama lawmakers and fuel accusations that abortion politics played a role in the choice. The location debate has become entangled in the ongoing battle between the US senator Tommy Tuberville and the defense department over the move to provide travel for troops seeking reproductive healthcare.Tuberville, an Alabama Republican, opposed the policy and has blocked hundreds of military promotions in protest.The US officials said the abortion issue had no effect at all on Biden’s decision. And they said the president fully expected there would be different views on the matter within the defense department.Formally created in August 2019, the command was temporarily based in Colorado. And air force and space force leaders initially recommended it stay there. But in the final days of his presidency, Donald Trump decided it should be based in Huntsville.The change triggered a number of reviews.Proponents of keeping the command in Colorado have argued that moving it to Huntsville and creating a new headquarters would set back its progress at a time it needs to move quickly to be positioned to match China’s military space rise. And Colorado Springs is also home to the air force academy, which now graduates space force guardians, and more than 24 military space missions, including three space force bases.Officials also argued that any new headquarters in Alabama would not be completed until sometime after 2030, forcing a lengthy transition.Huntsville, however, scored higher than Colorado Springs in a federal government accountability office assessment of potential locations and has long been a home to some of the earliest missiles used in the nation’s space programs, including the Saturn V rocket. It is home to the army’s space and missile defense command.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAccording to officials, the air force secretary, Frank Kendall, who ordered his own review of the matter, leaned toward Huntsville, while Dickinson was staunchly in favor of staying put. The officials said the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, presented both options to Biden.The decision was good news for Colorado lawmakers.“For two and a half years we’ve known any objective analysis of this basing decision would reach the same conclusion we did, that Peterson space force base is the best home for space command,” Colorado’s Democratic US senator John Hickenlooper said in a statement. “Most importantly, this decision firmly rejects the idea that politics – instead of national security – should determine basing decisions central to our national security.”Colorado’s other Democratic US senator, Michael Bennet, said the decision “restores integrity to the Pentagon’s basing process and sends a strong message that national security and the readiness of our armed forces drive our military decisions”. More

    • 238 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      The surest sign that Donald Trump is back? Ivanka is being seen in public with him | Arwa Mahdawi

      by

      There’s a decent chance that, come January 2025, Donald Trump will either be in the White House or in a prison cell. Last November, my money was on the prison cell. The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, was the Republicans’ golden boy and Trump was experiencing a major slump; for one thing, he had a mindboggling number of legal problems to deal with.He seemed to have lost his last crumbs of credibility: an embarrassing number of candidates he’d backed were defeated in the midterms, making the former president look like a loser and causing his allies to turn on him. “TRUMPTY DUMPTY” crowed the once-loyal New York Post on its front page. “Trump has no political skills left,” a Trump campaign insider said in messages seen by the Guardian. “His team is a joke. The ship is sinking.”First offboard that sinking ship? Ivanka Trump. The entrepreneur and women’s empowerment champion has always excelled in putting her own interests first. As soon as it seemed as if her dad had gone from a powerbroker to a liability, she fled to Miami with her family and kept a low profile. When Trump officially announced that he would be running for the 2024 nomination, Ivanka made sure that everyone knew she was staying out of it. “I do not plan to be involved in politics,” she said in a statement. She also skipped the official announcement at Mar-a-Lago.Several months on, the political landscape looks drastically different. DeSantis has gone from being feted as the future of the Republican party to being the butt of many jokes. His far-right policies may play to some voters’ fascist fantasies, but his creepy demeanour and Disney villain laugh have rendered him unelectable. There has been report after report about his odd behaviours – like consuming chocolate pudding cups with his fingers and eating “like a starving animal who has never eaten before”. DeSantis is off-putting, even to extremists.Trump, meanwhile, is back on top of the polls. A New York Times/Siena College poll published this week found that 71% of Republican voters still stand with the former president amid the multiple investigations he’s facing. That’s partly because many of them don’t seem to believe his many legal troubles are a big deal: 91% of people who have Fox News as their main source of information don’t think the former president committed serious crimes, the poll revealed. In any case, Trump is trouncing his competition and has a 37% lead over DeSantis. He’s the clear favourite for the Republican nomination.The biggest sign that Trump’s fortunes may be reversing, however? Ivanka and Jared Kushner, the most fair-weather of family, are now being seen in public with Trump again. “They’ve been spotted more frequently this summer,” one top campaign strategist told Vanity Fair. “They’ve made it clear they’re supportive. They pop into meetings to say hi.” The pair also set tongues wagging after they showed up at a recent screening of the child-trafficking movie Sound of Freedom that Trump hosted at his Bedminster golf club.Vanity Fair’s sources didn’t mince their words about why they reckon the power couple are suddenly so family-oriented. “Now that the president is 40 points ahead, of course Jared is pretending he’s involved,” a former Trump administration official told the outlet. “If he’s president again, Jared needs to protect his turf, especially in the Middle East.” We can’t have anyone else claiming the Middle East now, can we?One imagines that Ivanka also wants to protect her turf and finish what she started in 2017. The former first daughter had big dreams, after all. She was going to be the first female president! She was going to run the World Bank! She was going to empower every woman in the world, starting with herself! And then democracy got in the way.Unfortunately for Trump, democracy is still in the way. He may be the Republican favourite, but he still has to battle his way through numerous lawsuits and face off against Joe Biden (the presumptive Democratic nominee) to regain his place on the world stage. I won’t even begin to speculate about whether he might be able to pull that off, but I can tell you this: if you want to know how close Trump is to regaining power don’t look at the polls, look at Ivanka. If she’s keeping her distance, he’s in trouble. But if she’s cosying up to her dad? Then we’re all in a lot of trouble. More