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      Israel and Hamas closer than ever to ceasefire deal, White House says

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      White House officials said Israel and Hamas were “closer now than we’ve been before” to reaching a ceasefire deal as Benjamin Netanyahu met Joe Biden on Thursday to discuss an end to the nine-month conflict in Gaza.The talks at the White House came amid unprecedented political turmoil in the US and domestic pressure on the Israeli prime minster to rescue the dozens of hostages still being held captive after Hamas’s 7 October attack. Netanyahu was also expected to meet the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, who is likely to replace Biden as the Democratic candidate for November’s election.“We’ve got a lot to talk about,” Biden said when he welcomed Netanyahu to the Oval Office. “From a proud Jewish Zionist to a proud Irish-American Zionist, I want to thank you for 50 years of public service and 50 years of support for the state of Israel,” Netanyahu told Biden at the start of their meeting.The president thanked Netanyahu and noted that his first meeting with an Israeli prime minister, Golda Meir, was in 1973, soon after he was elected to the Senate.Biden was expected to put pressure on Netanyahu to commit to at least the first stage of a three-part deal that would see some hostages released in exchange for a temporary ceasefire. A senior administration official said that a framework for the deal had been agreed upon but that “serious implementation issues … still had to be resolved.“I don’t expect the meeting to be a yes or no,” the official said. “It’s a kind of like, ‘How do we close these final gaps?’”At a press conference while the two leaders were meeting, the White House national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said gaps in the ceasefire deal could be overcome. “We need to get there soon,” he said. “We are closer now than we’ve been before. Both sides have to make compromises.”The State Department spokesperson, Matt Miller, said: “I think the message from the American side in that meeting will be that we need to get this deal over the line.”More than 39,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed in the conflict, and the international criminal court has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for war crimes and crimes against humanity. The US does not recognise the court’s jurisdiction.Harris was expected to meet Netanyahu separately as she began her late campaign to challenge Donald Trump in November’s presidential vote. The vice-president must prove her mettle as a negotiator in one of the world’s most intractable conflicts.She has spoken forcefully about the need for a ceasefire and about the plight of Palestinian civilians in the conflict, and there is a possibility that she could win back some Democratic voters who believe that the Biden administration has done too little to end the conflict or limit sales of arms to Israel.Harris – the presiding officer of the Senate – did not attend Netanyahu’s address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday but released a careful statement saying that her absence should not be interpreted as a boycott of the event.A senior administration official told the Associated Press there was “no daylight between the president and vice-president” on Israel.On Thursday, Harris issued a statement forcefully condemning pro-Palestine protesters who had demonstrated against Netanyahu’s speech in Washington.She said: “Yesterday, at Union Station in Washington DC we saw despicable acts by unpatriotic protesters and dangerous hate-fuelled rhetoric.“I condemn any individuals associating with the brutal terrorist organisation Hamas, which has vowed to annihilate the state of Israel and kill Jews. Pro-Hamas graffiti and rhetoric is abhorrent and we must not tolerate it in our nation.”The vice-president added: “I condemn the burning of the American flag. That flag is a symbol of our highest ideals as a nation and represents the promise of America. It should never be desecrated in that way.“I support the right to peacefully protest, but let’s be clear: antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation.”Netanyahu is also scheduled to meet Trump on Friday at his residence in Mar-a-Lago. The two men have had a strained relationship since Netanyahu congratulated Biden on his victory in the 2020 elections, a vote that, Trump has claimed without evidence, was manipulated.Netanyahu promised “total victory” in the Gaza war in a raucous speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday, saying that there were “intensive” efforts to bring the hostages home but giving little detail about how that would be achieved.About 40 Democratic lawmakers – including the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi – boycotted the speech, and only half of congressional Democrats attended.“Benjamin Netanyahu’s presentation in the House Chamber today was by far the worst presentation of any foreign dignitary invited and honored with the privilege of addressing the Congress of the United States,” Pelosi wrote on X.Thousands protested on the streets of the capital, with both pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli groups saying Netanyahu was using the conflict as cover for his own political problems at home.He did not mention the word “ceasefire” or the negotiations with Hamas once during the speech, instead he called for expedited deliveries of US arms to “help us finish the job faster”.“I will not rest until all their loved ones are home,” said Netanyahu during the speech. “All of them. As we speak, we’re actively engaged in intensive efforts to secure their release, and I’m confident that these efforts can succeed. Some of them are taking place right now. I want to thank President Biden for his tireless efforts on behalf of the hostages and for his efforts to the hostage families as well.”It is unclear whether Biden’s recent decision to end his presidential campaign will allow him to use greater leverage to convince Netanyahu to sign on to a deal.“The framework of the deal is basically there,” said a senior administration official. “There are some very serious implementation issues that still have to be resolved, and I don’t want to discount the difficulty of those … There are some things we need from Hamas, and there are some things we need from the Israeli side, and I think you’ll see that play out here over the course of the coming week.” More

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      Democratic delegates on Biden’s exit – and Harris’s rise: ‘We’re awestruck’

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      Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the presidential race and the emergence of Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee seems to have been absorbed by Democratic delegates faster than a spill in a napkin commercial.Delegates to the Democratic national convention seem to have been poised for a pivot. In conversations since Biden’s decision, many say they’ve moved from fear to relief to a kind of euphoria almost instantly.“People are excited,” said Michael Kapp, a Democratic National Committee member and delegate from California. “We’re awestruck with the decision that President Biden made. It was entirely selfless. He put country above self. And I think it makes an incredible contrast with what we see out of Donald Trump and Maga Republicans.”Within hours of Biden’s withdrawal and the president’s endorsement of Harris, Kapp began circulating a group letter calling on delegates to back the vice-president as nominee. Over the course of the next day, he found no actual resistance to the idea among the hundreds of delegates he spoke with, he said. The only challenge was getting people on the phone.“I think this was one of those situations where long-term donors and grassroots Democrats were entirely aligned,” Kapp said. “We’ve all seen the polling, certainly in the last three-and-a-half weeks … It was clear that voters were looking for something else.”Any competing candidate would have to overcome a fundamental financial challenge, said Brenda López Romero, a former state representative and current delegate in Georgia. Harris “would be the only one that could access the funds that were raised by the Biden-Harris campaign. There is no way that I can see anyone else mounting some multimillion-dollar – close to a billion dollars in funds – needed overnight to be able to successfully run an election in the remaining 100 days.”Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, had been talking up Biden’s candidacy at a statewide party meeting in south Georgia only the day before Biden’s announcement, Romero said. “I definitely think that at the ground level, there wasn’t this chatter about any suggestions of not continuing with Biden,” she said.The next day, the pivot to Harris was on. “What’s been happening in the political world these last two weeks is like a year has gone by,” Romero said. “But the reality is that for me personally, there is now more clarity, with Biden making the decision.”Democrats have repeatedly told voters this year that democracy is on the ballot, citing Trump’s pledge to be a “dictator” on the first day of his term if elected, the threats to electoral norms posed by the conservative Project 2025 plan and a recent supreme court ruling largely immunizing ex-presidents from criminal accountability.Delegates juxtapose those concerns against the small-D democratic matter of Harris’s accession to potential leadership without facing a competitive primary.“We did have 15 million voters casting a ballot,” said Chuck Enderlin, a pilot from Newnan, Georgia, and Democratic convention delegate, referring to the 2024 primaries. Voters chose Biden and Harris then, he said. “We knew that Vice-President Harris was there to step in for President Biden in official duties in official capacity. We didn’t necessarily expect this scenario, obviously. But having her there, she was chosen by the voters already to be the vice-president. And that’s why I think the process is going so smoothly right now and why everybody is pulling right behind her. We already made our choice.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIncumbents generally defeat challengers, and strong challenges to a sitting president are rare. Biden had two primary challengers: the representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota and the writer Marianne Williamson. (Neither appears to have won any delegate support since Biden’s withdrawal.) But for the most part, Biden sailed through the primaries uncontested.“If someone’s mad that they don’t get to run right now, well, they should have filed to run a long time ago,” Enderlin said.His wife, Jenny Enderlin, is also a Democratic delegate and a state senate candidate running against a Republican who was implicated in the election interference case in Georgia. The two were on the phone when the news broke, she said.“Everywhere, texts and phone calls were flying back and forth,” she said. “Everybody’s guessing who’s going to be the VP. That’s the number one thing on everybody’s mind. But what was never a question was who’s going to be the top pick. That has been Harris, because we voted for her.”The president’s decision to withdraw from the race was like flipping a light switch. The Pennsylvania state representative Arvind Venkat, a Democratic delegate from suburban Pittsburgh, was knocking on doors in his district when the news broke, he said. His neighbors weren’t exactly stunned, he said. They were engrossed by the news, instantly shifting from anxiety to curiosity.“I’m glad that that’s what’s happening, moving forward,” he said. “I think there’s energy that is going on around this change because we are going to get back to an election conversation that is going to debate ideas and what is the vision for the United States.” More

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      Kamala Harris memes are all over the internet. Will tweets and TikToks turn into votes?

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      In a series of events over 24 hours that would have been unimaginable a week ago, Kamala Harris ascended to the top of the Democratic ticket, secured the backing of Joe Biden and key leaders, brought in a record-breaking $81m, and became the face of brat summer.“kamala IS brat,” pop star Charli xcx declared on Sunday, a reference to her new album released last month that has launched countless memes declaring it the season of the brat. A brat, in the British singer’s own words, is “that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes, who feels herself, but then also maybe has a breakdown, but kind of parties through it”.Brat was having a moment, Kamala was having hers, and the two came together in cultural union via a tidal wave of posts – largely from younger Americans – like videos with the pop star’s music over clips of the vice-president’s frequently shared coconut tree remarks.Harris’s campaign quickly embraced the memes, adopting a lime green Twitter/X background in the same aesthetic of the Brat album. The internet went wild.Now the question is what it might mean for Harris’s chances come November. Will tweets and TikToks turn into votes?While this year’s election drew plenty of memes and online engagement, there was little excitement about the rematch of Joe Biden, 81, and Donald Trump, 78, and instead a pervasive sense of cynicism.Young people had reported feeling disengaged and apathetic about the upcoming elections, and US politics in general. In a US News-Generation Lab poll of voters 18-34 from early July, 61% of respondents agreed that the upcoming election would be among the most important in history, but nearly a third said they would probably not or definitely not vote.Of those who said would not or were unlikely to vote, 40% said it was because they didn’t like any of the candidates, and 15% said they were turned off by politics.After Biden’s widely criticized debate performance, and amid growing calls for him to bow out of the election, there was a flurry of Harris-related memes. The KHive, as Harris fans have been called, seemed rejuvenated by the renewed interest around her.The memes and posts surged after Biden announced that he would step aside, and that he was endorsing Harris, including videos of her with music from Chappell Roan and Kendrick Lamar, and along the way the tone of the content shifted from oftentimes just ironic and silly to something more earnest.“It went from being just shitposting to shitposting into reality and as it became more and more real people also understood what power this could actually hold and what this could actually mean,” said Annie Wu Henry, a digital and political strategist who has worked with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive congresswoman from New York, and Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman.She views the furor around Harris among younger voters as both about Harris but also something larger. “It’s about the potential for something new, it’s about a political party that can be agile and make adjustments based on what they are hearing from the people.”“I think it is really exciting and bringing a lot of energy and hope to folks that haven’t felt this way in some time and for young people that maybe haven’t had a moment of hope like this in politics before.”The buzz online is bringing results, said Marianna Pecora, the communications director for Voters of Tomorrow. The gen-Z led liberal advocacy organization had its best fundraising day in history, Pecora said, and saw more apply to join a chapter or start a chapter in two days than in the last month combined.Priorities USA, one of the largest liberal Super Pacs, told the Guardian on Tuesday that after Biden endorsed Harris, it saw a notable increase in the share of young people who said they plan to vote in the upcoming election.It’s also brought a sense of joy and excitement not often seen in politics, Pecora said, particularly for a generation that came of age during one of the most difficult periods in recent history from growing political turmoil and the rise of far-right extremism in the US to Covid-19.“We’ve had this history as young people not seeing a system that really works for us and not having too many figureheads that are really fighting for us,” said Pecora, who was 13 when Donald Trump was elected.While polls show that Harris – like Biden and Trump – has struggled with favorability ratings, she has helped elevate issues that are important to younger voters, including abortion rights and Israel’s war on Gaza.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHarris, a biracial woman who is set to be the first Asian American and black woman to lead a major party’s presidential ticket, is an appealing candidate to gen Z voters, who are among the most diverse generation in US history, said Yalda T Uhls with the Center for Scholars & Storytellers at the University of California, Los Angeles.This year 41 million members of gen Z will be eligible to vote, and nearly half of them are people of color.A report from the center published last year that surveyed people from ages 10 to 24 found that adolescents are most interested in hopeful uplifting content of people beating the odds. “I feel like that’s the Kamala story,” Uhls said. That same study also found that in their entertainment, older teens were most interested in seeing a Black woman as the hero of a story.“Maybe young people have been waiting for this. They have been waiting for a candidate they feel is representative of them,” said Uhls, who co-authored the report and also grew up with Harris.But while Harris’s entry into the race has energized young voters, they also want to see real policy proposals that align with the issues most important to them, experts say.“Whether this translates to a large surge in youth voter turnout in November may come down to whether the new Democratic nominee also can convince young voters of a credible plan to address the existential threats they see in their everyday lives,” said Sarah Swanbeck, the executive director of the Berkeley Institute for Young Americans, pointing to the climate crisis, protections for democratic institutions, and economic policy that will improve social mobility.The events of this week have marked a special moment for young women, said Pecora. Young women for decades have been the arbiters of culture, she said, and this moment is tying the culture of young women to the vice-president.“We know we’re the margin of victory and that is translating into how this is happening online. It’s no coincidence to me that young women who have become the base of the Democratic party, who are fighting for reproductive freedom, their culture is the culture that is becoming mainstream with this movement,” she said. (Conservatives have frequently railed against the growing number of unmarried women supporting Democrats.)“It’s showing that we have power and sway in this world where young women are typically told wait your turn or let a man do it.”Uhls, the UCLA scholar who has studied gen Z, said she predicts the enthusiasm of the last few days will make a difference in November.“I think it’s going to translate to votes,” Uhls said. “Young people get most of their news and political information from social media. Some of them have written about this but they are thrilled that someone is actually marketing to them.”Still, Harris’s path to the White House is tough. The latest poll from PBS News/NPR/Marist found that if the election were today, 46% of voters would support Trump and 45% would vote for Harris, a close race though within the margin of error. The outcome of November’s election is expected to be decided by a few thousand voters in a handful of swing states – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.But, Pecora said, the discourse about the election that is unfolding online is also happening elsewhere between friends and family at dinner tables and in classrooms, Pecora said.“That engagement is taking itself into people’s conversations, into their homes, into their communities. That’s where voters are turned out,” she said. “The energy that’s happening online is not siloed to the internet. It translated to dollars, and those dollars are translating to real organizing capacity and an ability to turn out young voters in November.”And so, Democrats say, there’s hope. More

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      Republican attacks on Kamala Harris to get ‘as ugly and bigoted as they can’

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      For Barack Obama there was “birtherism” and a name they said sounded like a specific Middle East terrorist. For Hillary Clinton there was “Lock her up” and merchandise that said, “Trump that bitch”, “Hillary sucks but not like Monica” and “Life’s a bitch: don’t vote for one.”Rightwing playbooks deployed in past election campaigns are being dusted off for an all-out assault against Vice-President Kamala Harris, the de facto Democratic nominee aiming to become the first Black woman and first person of south Asian descent to be US president.“It’s obvious that the Republicans are going to play the race and gender card, which we’ve seen already in some of the attacks on social media,” said Tara Setmayer, a Black woman who is co-founder and chief executive of the Seneca Project, a women-led super political action committee. “It may be catnip for their Maga base but it will be a turnoff for the moderate voters in the battleground states that will determine this election.”Harris’s sudden ascent after 81-year-old Joe Biden’s decision not to seek re-election has upended the race for the White House, giving Democrats a much-needed jolt of energy and instantly turned the tables on Republicans on the question of age: Donald Trump, 78, is now the oldest presidential nominee in history.Having built a campaign against Biden, Republicans are hastily recalibrating and racing to define Harris, 59, before she can define herself. They intend to tie her to Biden’s immigration policy, which they say is to blame for a sharp increase last year in the number of people crossing the southern border with Mexico illegally.The Trump campaign has been quick to brand her Kamala “Border Czar” Harris because, in March 2021, she was put in charge of the administration’s diplomatic campaign to address the “root causes” of migration from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.Trump also regularly blames migrants who are in the US illegally for fuelling violent crime, even though studies show that immigrants are not more likely to engage in criminality. His oft-repeated phrase “Biden Migrant Crime” is now defunct.A second line of attack will revolve around the economy. Public opinion polls consistently show Americans are unhappy with high food and fuel costs as well as interest rates that have made buying a home less affordable.Make America Great Again, a Super Pac backing Trump, has run an ad accusing Harris of hiding Biden’s infirmity from the public, and it seeks to pin the administration’s record solely on her. “Kamala knew Joe couldn’t do the job, so she did it. Look what she got done: a border invasion, runaway inflation, the American Dream dead,” the narrator says.Whit Ayres, a Republican political consultant and pollster, said: “It’s difficult to identify a state that Kamala Harris will carry that Joe Biden wouldn’t. She inherits many of the negative attitudes about the Biden-Harris administration from criticisms of their handling of the economy and inflation to her primary responsibility: illegal immigration.”Harris had one of the most liberal voting records during her time in the Senate and ran to the left of Biden on some issues in the 2020 Democratic primary election. She also hails from California, a state constantly demonised as elitist and “woke” in Republican rhetoric. This opens her to criticism to which Biden, a moderate from Delaware with a history of bipartisanship, was immune.In a phone call with reporters on Tuesday, Trump said: “She’s the same as Biden but much more radical. She’s a radical left person and this country doesn’t want a radical left person to destroy it. She’s far more radical than he is. She wants open borders. She wants things that nobody wants. You take a look at the electric car mandate – everything.”The former president added: “If she becomes president, Kamala Harris will make the invasion exponentially worse, and just like she did with San Francisco, just like she did with the border, our whole country will be permanently destroyed.”Trump is willing to go lower. Known for using offensive language to attack his opponents, he gave supporters at a rally in Michigan on Saturday a taste of the insults he is likely to fling at Harris in the coming days. “I call her Laffin’ Kamala,” he said. “You ever watch her laugh? She’s crazy. You can tell a lot by a laugh. She’s crazy. She’s nuts.”View image in fullscreenAmerica has been here before. Obama faced hostile scrutiny over his origins and name. The conspiracy theory that he was born in Kenya, and therefore ineligible for the US presidency, was promoted by Trump as he began his foray into national politics. In 2020 Trump claimed that he had “heard” that Harris – born in Oakland, California to an Indian mother and Jamaican father – “doesn’t qualify” to serve as vice-president.This week, the spectre of birtherism has returned. Tom Fitton, president of the rightwing activist group Judicial Watch, asked his 2.6 million followers on the X social media platform: “Is Kamala Harris eligible to be president under the US Constitution’s ‘Citizenship Clause?’” He was far from alone in pushing such arguments.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHarris’s racial identity is already being questioned. Erick Erickson, an influential conservative radio host in Atlanta, Georgia, tweeted: “Kamala Harris is the daughter of Indian and Jamaican immigrants who married a Jewish man. Her experience is the American dream and melting pot, but not really the black experience, particularly that in southern swing states like Georgia and North Carolina.”When Clinton ran for president in 2016, she received sexist comments “on a constant basis”, her former aide Huma Abedin later recalled. Trump himself remarked: “I just don’t think she has a presidential look. And you need a presidential look. You have to get the job done.”Republicans’ focus on Harris is proving no less personal, from mispronouncing her name and mocking her laugh (“Cackling Kamala”) to invoking diversity, equity and inclusion programmes by suggesting that she would be the “first DEI president”. At a campaign rally Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, compared his service in the Marine Corps and small business ownership to Harris “collecting a government paycheque for the last 20 years”.And Megyn Kelly, a rightwing podcaster, tweeted without evidence: “She actually did sleep her way into and upwards in California politics and most women (and men) may learn that and see it for what it is: evidence of an unqualified political aspirant getting ahead based on smthg other than merit.”Kelly was referring to the claim that Harris got a career boost by having an affair with a married man, the California politician Willie Brown. In fact Brown was separated from his wife during the relationship, which was not a secret. He wrote an article in the San Francisco Chronicle newspaper in 2020 under the headline: “Sure, I dated Kamala Harris. So what?”David Brock, founder and chairman of Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog, said attacks “emerging right out of the box are that she is unqualified, that she was a diversity hire pick in the first place and the only reason the party is sticking with her is because of her race and gender. That’s a way of trying to undermine her and her qualifications for the office.“The second thing is the idea that she was actually the power behind the throne and part of an effort to cover up Biden’s actual condition and was pulling the strings all along, which is obviously not the case and is a sexist trope too.”Brock, a former conservative journalist turned Democratic operative, predicted: “The sex attacks will probably be more insidious because they have a racial subtext to them. The same playbook that we saw in 16 we’ll see again and probably even more eagerly because the right wing has gotten more Maga, more extreme in the years since Hillary ran.”Blatant misogyny and racism could alienate the very swing state voters that Trump needs for victory. But even if he is advised to tone down such rhetoric, an entire army of influencers and pundits are ready to flood the zone on his behalf.Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman and Tea Party activist turned Trump critic, said: “Trump himself is going to have a hard time running against her because he doesn’t know how to deal with someone like her. But Trump’s cheerleaders in the media know exactly what to do and they’ll go down this ugly, sexist, racist road.“They’ll make up stuff about how Kamala Harris rose in her career. Their key to winning – and I know this because I used to do some of this – is to get as ugly and bigoted as they can to implicitly and explicitly get people pissed off about who she is.” More

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      Biden’s address was a moving piece of political theatre and a rebuke of Trump

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      There was 6 January 2021, and a violent coup attempt by a president desperately trying to cling to power. Then there was 24 July 2024, and a president explaining why he was giving up the most powerful job in the world.Joe Biden’s address on Wednesday night was a moving piece of political theatre, the start of a farewell tour by “a kid with a stutter from modest beginnings” who entered politics in 1972 and made it all the way to the Oval Office. For diehard Democrats it was a case of: if you have tears, prepare to shed them now.The speech was also a rebuke of his predecessor Donald Trump’s authoritarian impulses in both word and deed. Although he never mentioned his predecessor by name, Biden laid out two radically different visions of the US presidency set to clash again in November.Last Sunday the 46th president bowed to a chorus of fellow Democrats questioning his age and mental acuity and announced that he would drop out of the presidential election. On Wednesday, recovered from the coronavirus, the 81-year-old made his first public remarks to explain why.Speaking against the backdrop of window, two flags, gold curtains and family photos including his late son Beau, Biden began by citing the Oval Office portraits of former presidents Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt.“I revere this office but I love my country more,” he said. “It’s been the honour of my life to serve as your president. But in the defence of democracy, which is at stake, I think it’s more important than any title.”It was a definitive rebuke of Trump, a man who has slapped his name on countless buildings and for whom the title is everything. Backed by the conservative Heritage Foundation thinktank, the Republican nominee is intent on an expansion of presidential power. But by giving power away – in what Hillary Clinton described “as pure an act of patriotism as I have seen in my lifetime” – Biden demonstrated he will always be the bigger man.Indeed, despite having months to prepare for this contingency, the Trump campaign has been struggling to find a strategy to take on the new Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris. Perhaps they were not quite able to believe that Biden would step aside because they know Trump never would.Biden wore a dark blue suit, white shirt, blue tie and US flag pin. There were no major gaffes but there were slight stumbles over certain words. Sitting off-camera to his left were his son Hunter and other family members. According to a pool reporter in the Oval Office, at one point Biden’s daughter Ashley reached for the hand of her mother, Jill Biden, who was sitting next to her.(Trump, who claims he recently “took a bullet for democracy”, watched the address on his plane after a characteristically mendacious and narcissistic campaign rally in North Carolina.)Biden is the first incumbent to announce he would not seek re-election since Lyndon Johnson in 1968, although some historians argue that Johnson secretly hoped for a breakthrough in the Vietnam war and for his party to come begging for him to make a comeback.Still, some of the parallels are irresistible. For Johnson, coming after the younger, more glamorous John F Kennedy, remarkable legislative achievements at home were clouded by the war in Vietnam. For Biden, coming after the younger, more glamorous Barack Obama, remarkable legislative achievements at home have been clouded by the war on Gaza. Just as in 1968, expect protests at next month’s Democratic national convention in Chicago.But whereas Johnson announced that he would not seek re-election at the end of a long and winding 40-minute speech, Biden, recovering from Covid-19, first did so via Twitter/X. And he quickly anointed a successor in Harris.Biden reportedly has mixed feelings about being pushed aside by some of those same Democrats now singing his praises. The presidency had been his lifelong ambition – he first ran in 1988 – and his victory in 2020 was a vindication of everyman strivers everywhere. On top of that, he did the job rather well. Yet now they were telling him enough. In his Oval Office address, he buried those resentments deep in his soul, though he could not resist a pointed comment about his qualifications.“I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future, all merited a second term,” he said. “But nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition.”He made a call for generational change in a country facing its first presidential election without a Bush, Clinton or Biden on the ticket since 1976. “I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation.“It’s the best way to unite our nation. I know there was a time and a place for long years of experience in public life. There’s also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices, yes, younger voices. And that time and place is now.”That may seem to leave Biden a lame duck for his final six months. But he vowed to continue to pursue his agenda and slipped in an important line about calling for reform of the supreme court – a court that became embroiled in ethics scandals, overturned the constitutional right to abortion and declared presidents immune from prosecution for official acts.“The great thing about America is, here kings and dictators do not rule – the people do,” Biden concluded. “History is in your hands. The power’s in your hands. The idea of America lies in your hands. You just have to keep faith – keep the faith – and remember who we are.”In 2020, the year of a global pandemic, Black Lives Matter protests and Trump trauma, Biden’s signature empathy born of personal tragedies made him the right man at the right time to heal hearts and defend democracy. In 2024, his time has passed. That he came to recognise it reluctantly, and decided to pass the baton, taught a lesson about the presidency that Trump will never learn. More

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      Read a transcript of Biden’s speech on dropping out of the presidential race

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      Joe Biden has explained his decision to drop out of the presidential race, saying it was the “best way to unite our nation”.The US president’s remarks were broadcast from the Oval Office, his first televised appearance since announcing he would end his bid for re-election, and conveyed a reflective and hopeful message.The following is a transcript of his speech.
      My fellow Americans, I’m speaking to you tonight from behind the resolute desk in the Oval Office. In this sacred space, I’m surrounded by portraits of extraordinary American presidents.
      Thomas Jefferson wrote the immortal words that guide this nation. George Washington showed us presidents are not kings. Abraham Lincoln, who implored us to reject malice. Franklin Roosevelt, who inspired us to reject fear.
      I revere this office, but I love my country more.
      It’s been the honor of my life to serve as your president, but the defense of democracy, which is at stake, I think is more important than any title.
      I draw strength and I find joy in working for the American people, but this sacred task of perfecting our union is not about me. It’s about you, your families, your futures. It’s about We the People. We can never forget that, and I never have.
      I’ve made it clear that I believe America is at an inflection point, one of those rare moments in history when the decisions we make now determine our fate of our nation and the world for decades to come. America is going to have to choose between moving forward or backward, between hope and hate, between unity and division.
      We have to decide, do we still believe in honesty, decency, respect, freedom, justice and democracy? In this moment, we can see those we disagree with not as enemies but as fellow Americans. Can we do that? Does character and public life still matter? I believe I know the answer to these questions, because I know you, the American people, and I know this: we are a great nation because we are good people.
      When you elected me to this office, I promised to always level with you, to tell you the truth. And the truth, the sacred cause of this country is larger than any one of us. Those of us who cherish that cause, cherish it so much. The cause of American democracy itself. We must unite to protect it.
      You know, in recent weeks, it’s become clear to me that I need to unite my party in this critical endeavor. I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future, all merited a second term, but nothing, nothing can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition.
      So I’ve decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. That’s the best way to unite our nation. You know, there is a time and a place for long years of experience in public life. There’s also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices, yes, younger voices, and that time and place is now.
      Over the next six months, I’ll be focused on doing my job as president. That means I’ll continue to lower costs for hardworking families, grow our economy. I’ll keep defending our personal freedoms and our civil rights, from the right to vote to the right to choose. I’ll keep calling out hate and extremism. Make it clear there is no place, no place in America, for political violence or any violence, ever, period. I’m going to keep speaking out to protect our kids from gun violence, our planet from climate crisis as an existential threat, and I will keep fighting for my Cancer Moonshot, so we can end cancer as we know it, because we can do it. I’m going to call for supreme court reform, because this is critical to our democracy, supreme court reform.
      You know, I will keep working to ensure America remains strong, secure and the leader of the free world. I’m the first president of this century to report to the American people that the United States is not at war anywhere in the world. We’ll keep rallying a coalition of proud nations to stop Putin from taking over Ukraine, doing more damage. We’ll keep Nato stronger, and I’ll make it more powerful and more united than any time in all of our history. I’ll keep doing the same for allies in the Pacific.
      You know, when I came to office, the conventional wisdom was that China would inevitably, would inevitably pass, surpass the United States. That’s not the case anymore, and I’m going to keep working to end the war in Gaza, bring home all the hostages and bring peace and security to the Middle East and end this war. We’re also working around the clock to bring home Americans being unjustly detained all around the world.
      You know, we’ve come so far since my inauguration. On that day I told you, as I stood in that winter, we stood in a winter of peril and a winter of possibilities, parallel possibilities. We were in the grip of the worst pandemic in the century, the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War. We came together as Americans. We got through it, we emerged stronger, more prosperous and more secure.
      Today, we have the strongest economy in the world, creating nearly 16m new jobs – a record. Wages are up. Inflation continues to come down. The racial wealth gap is the lowest it’s been in 20 years. We’re literally rebuilding our entire nation, urban, suburban, rural, tribal communities. Manufacturing has come back to America. We’re leading the world again in chips and science and innovation. We finally beat Big Pharma, after all these years, to lower the cost of prescription drugs for seniors. And I’m going to keep fighting to make sure we lower the cost for everyone, not just seniors. More people have healthcare today in America than ever before. I signed one of those significant laws, helping millions of veterans and their families, who are exposed to toxic materials.
      You know, the most significant climate law ever, ever in the history of the world, the first major gun safety law in 30 years. Today, violent crime rate is at a 50-year low. We’re also securing our border. Border crossings are lower today than when the previous administration left office.
      I’ve kept my commitment to appoint the first Black woman to the supreme court of the United States of America. I also kept my commitment to have an administration that looks like America and be a president for all Americans. That’s what I’ve done.
      I ran for president four years ago because I believed, and still do, that the soul of America was at stake. The very nature of who we are was a stake, and that’s still the case.
      America is an idea. An idea is stronger than any army, bigger than any ocean, more powerful than any dictator or tyrant.
      It’s the most powerful idea in the history of the world. That idea is that we hold these truths to be self-evident. We’re all created equal, endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.
      We’ve never fully lived up to it, to this sacred idea, but we’ve never walked away from it either, and I do not believe the American people will walk away from it now.
      In just a few months, the American people choose the course of America’s future.
      I made my choice. I made my views known. I would like to thank our great vice-president, Kamala Harris. She’s experienced. She’s tough, she’s capable. She’s been an incredible partner to me and the leader for our country.
      Now the choice is up to you, the American people. When you make that choice, remember the words of Benjamin Franklin, hanging on my wall here in the Oval Office, alongside the bust of Dr King and Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez.
      When Ben Franklin was asked, as he emerged from the convention going on, whether the founders have given America a monarchy or republic, Franklin’s response was: ‘A republic, if you can keep it.’ A republic, if you can keep it.
      Whether we keep our republic, is now in your hands.
      My fellow Americans, it has been the privilege of my life to serve this nation for over 50 years. Nowhere else on earth could a kid with a stutter from modest beginnings in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Claymont, Delaware, one day sit behind the resolute desk in the Oval Office as president of the United States. Here I am.
      That’s what’s so special about America. We are a nation of promise and possibilities, of dreamers and doers, of ordinary Americans doing extraordinary things. I gave my heart and my soul to our nation, like so many others.
      I’ve been blessed a million times in return with the love and support of the American people. I hope you have some idea how grateful I am to all of you.
      The great thing about America is here, kings and dictators do not rule. The people do.
      History is in your hands. The power is in your hands. The idea of America lies in your hands. You just have to keep faith. Keep the faith and remember who we are. We’re the United States of America. And there is simply nothing, nothing beyond our capacity when we do it together.
      So let’s act together, preserve our democracy. God bless you all. And may God protect our troops. Thank you. More

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      in US Politics

      Netanyahu says Israel aiming for ‘total victory’ in Gaza as number of protesters arrested in Congress – live

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      Benjamin Netanyahu says that Israel will achieve “total victory” and that it will settle for “nothing less”.Total victory, he says, means that Israel will fight until it destroys Hamas’s military capability, end its rule in Gaza and bring all the hostages home.The Israeli prime minister moves on to talk about a post-war Gaza, and says that “a new Gaza could emerge” the day after Hamas is defeated.He says that his vision for a post-war Gaza is of a “demilitarized and de-radicalized Gaza”, adding:
      Israel does not seek to settle Gaza. But for the foreseeable future, we must retain overriding security control there to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel.
      Netanyahu says that Gaza should have a civilian administration “run by Palestinians who do not seek to destroy Israel” and that a new generation of Palestinians “must no longer be taught to hate Jews”.He notes that the terms “demilitarization” and “deradicalization” were applied to Germany and Japan after the second world war, and that applied to Gaza “can also lead to a future of security, prosperity and peace”. “That’s my vision for Gaza,” Netanyahu says.Connecticut senator Chris Murphy reacted to Netanyahu’s speech before Congress, asserting that it’s out of bounds to suggest that anyone who objects to the war in Gaza is a “Hamas sympathizer.”“That speech was, as I expected, a setback for both the U.S.-Israel relationship and the fight against Hamas” Murphy said on X.During his address, Netanyahu likened that the thousands of protestors demonstrating at capitol hill as Hamas sympathizers. “Many anti-Israel protesters choose to stand with evil,” he said. “Many stand with Hamas.As Netanyahu address Congress today, demonstrators marched in Washington DC, calling on the US to end arms sales to Israel and to implement an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.Our video editors have this report of Netanyahu’s visit to DC:Here are images from around Capitol Hill today, where thousands gathered to protest Israel’s bombardment of Gaza ahead of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s address to the US Congress.The Democratic party has announced the rules for the nomination of its presidential candidate, setting the stage for Kamala Harris to be officially chosen as the party’s standard bearer in early August before the party’s convention in Chicago begins later that month.According to rules adopted today by the convention’s rules committee, candidates will declare their intention to stand by 27 July, and then voting can begin virtually by 1 August at the earliest. Delegates will convene in Chicago beginning 19 August “to approve the Democratic Party platform, have ceremonial and celebratory votes on the nominees, and host historic acceptance speeches from the new Democratic ticket and voices throughout the Party”, the Democrats said in a statement.Harris, who announced her candidacy on Sunday, has said she has enough delegates to win the party’s presidential nomination, and no other major candidate has come forward to challenge her.Democratic representative Rashida Tlaib, the sole Palestinian American in Congress, held up a sign accusing Benjamin Netanyahu of genocide during his speech today.She had this to say about it:Separately, Axios reports that about half of the Democrats elected to the House and Senate opted to skip the Israeli prime minister’s speech:Jean-Pierre also elaborated on Joe Biden’s timeline for revealing his decision to end his bid for a second term.The president, who had been recovering from Covid-19 at his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, announced the decision with a post made on X, without warning, on Sunday afternoon. Jean-Pierre shed a little bit more light on the lead-up to that:
      He met with a small group of advisers on Saturday evening and with his family, and was thinking through how to move forward. Sunday afternoon, he made that decision. It was in a very short period of time, as you can imagine. And then at 1.45 [pm], he got on the phone with some of his assistants, assistant to the president, some advisers. He let them know, and then minutes later, a letter went out.
      So, it was in a very short period of time that the president was able to think about this and make a decision.
      Over at the White House, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is holding the first briefing with reporters since Joe Biden announced he would end his bid for a second term.Besides a letter he released on social media, the president has not elaborated on his decision, but plans to do so when he addresses the nation from the Oval Office at 8pm ET, Jean-Pierre said.“The decision that he made on Sunday was about putting country first, was about his party and was about the American people,” Jean-Pierre said.“He’s going to be on camera later today, obviously, to address the American people from the Oval Office, because of this moment and how big this moment is. He wants to do that. He wants to make sure that Americans hear directly from him.”Benjamin Netanyahu asserted that every man, woman and child in Gaza is receiving more than enough food.“The prosecutor of the international criminal court has shamefully accused Israel of deliberately starving the people of Gaza: This is utter, complete nonsense. It’s a complete fabrication. Israel has enabled more than 40,000 aid trucks to enter Gaza. That’s half a million tons of food!” he said, wagging his finger.According to data released by the United Nations, a total of 25,183 trucks entered Gaza before Israeli forces stormed the Rafah crossing in May, which affected both crossing points in the southern part of the enclave. The same UN data says a total of just 2,835 have entered Gaza through Kerem Shalom and Erez in the north in the months since, a fraction of the need.In total, per UN data, 28,018 aid trucks have entered Gaza since the war began. A little more relief entered via the US-built pier, but this has not been seen as a successful effort to boost the supply of aid.The US pier was also intended to overcome what the relief organisation Oxfam called, in a report earlier this year, Israel’s deliberate blocking of aid.Sally Abi Khalil, the organisation’s Middle East and north Africa director, added: “Israeli authorities are not only failing to facilitate the international aid effort but are actively hindering it.”Earlier this year, the world’s leading authority on famine, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, warned that Gaza was on the brink of famine if no action were taken.In a report in June, the organisation’s famine review committee said that as there had been some increase in goods allowed into northern Gaza, that “the available evidence does not indicate that famine is currently occurring”.However, they added that the risk of famine remains. They added: “The situation in Gaza remains catastrophic and there is a high and sustained risk of Famine across the whole Gaza Strip. It is important to note that the probable improvement in nutrition status noted in April and May should not allow room for complacency about the risk of Famine in the coming weeks and months. The prolonged nature of the crisis means that this risk remains at least as high as at any time during the past few months.”The US Capitol Police now say six people were arrested for disrupting Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech in the House chamber:The US Capitol Police said five people who disrupted Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech from a gallery in the House chamber were arrested, while officers deployed pepper spray on protesters outside the Capitol:Photographers on the scene caught images of Capitol police deploying pepper spay:Benjamin Netanyahu also uses his address to praise Donald Trump, and says he wants to thank the former president “for his leadership in brokering the historic Abraham accords”.He thanks Trump for “recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights”, for “confronting Iran’s aggression” and for “recognizing Jerusalem as our capital and moving the American embassy there”.The status of both Jerusalem and the Golan Heights are disputed under international law.Israelis were “relieved” when Trump “emerged safe and sound from the dastardly” assassination attempt on him, Netanyahu says.Benjamin Netanyahu says that he is “confident” that the US and Israel will “vanquish the tyrants and terrorists” that threaten both countries.He says that as Israel’s prime minister, he vows that Israel “will not relent” or bend, no matter “how difficult the road ahead”.He says that Israel will continue to work with the US and its Arab partners on the “noble mission” to “transform a troubled region” full of “repression, poverty and war” into an “oasis of dignity, prosperity and peace”.Israel will always remain the US’s “indispensable” ally, “loyal friend” and “steadfast partner” through thick and thin, Netanyahu says.
      Thank you America. Thank you for your support and solidarity. Thank you for standing with Israel in our hour of need. Together, we shall defend our common civilization together, we shall secure a brilliant future for both our nations. More