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      Biden’s selfless decision to drop out sets stage for an entirely different election

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      Legend has it that when King George III heard that George Washington, the first US president, had decided to retire after his second term, he remarked: “If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world.”Joe Biden, 81, holed up at a Delaware beach house with a bad cough after a Covid-19 diagnosis, ended his presidential re-election campaign on Sunday. It was a selfless decision that put the country’s interests before his own – an act of grace that many see as vividly contrasting with the narcissism of his opponent Donald Trump.It also sets the stage for a completely different sort of election in November as top Democrats rapidly rushed to endorse Kamala Harris, which the president himself did. Now the Republicans will have to deal with issues of mental competence and an ageing candidate.Although many fellow Democrats had lost faith in Biden’s mental acuity and capacity to beat Trump, they had no mechanism to oust Biden, who won a mandate in the party primary and continued to enjoy the support of Black and progressive voters. Although he had spent decades striving for the crown, and sincerely believed he could finished the job, Biden ultimately realised that it was not about him and never had been.Opinion polls strongly suggest that he would have lost in November to Trump, a twice-impeached felon and instigator of the January 6 insurrection. To cling on and go down in flames, returning the White House keys to Trump, would have destroyed his legacy. He would have been remembered as the man who saved democracy in 2020 only to sacrifice it at the altar of his own ambition in 2024.Instead, whatever happens now, the 46th president will be remembered for steering America’s recovery from the Trump presidency and the coronavirus pandemic, delivering legislative achievements that will long outlast him – and giving his party a fighting chance to beat Trump again.His withdrawal was “one of the most stunning acts of patriotism of my lifetime”, Norm Eisen, a former diplomat, wrote on Twitter/X. David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Barack Obama, added: “History will honor him for his many extraordinary accomplishments as president AND for the terribly difficult and selfless decision he made today.” Comedian Jon Stewart tweeted simply: “Legend.”Biden’s announcement, via social media, was the latest drama in a month that has shaken US politics: his hapless debate performance on 27 June, a supreme court decision to grant broad presidential immunity on 1 July, an attempted assassination of Trump on 13 July, the collapse of the classified documents case against Trump selection of JD Vance as Trump’s running mate on 15 July.Future historians will surely look back at the first of those, the debate, as one of the most spectacular own goals in campaign history. For months Biden’s decline had been mostly concealed from the public as he stuck to teleprompter speeches and conducted fewer interviews or press conferences than his predecessors.If this was a conspiracy, it was an inept one: it was Biden’s own campaign that sought a presidential debate much earlier than usual to awaken the nation to the danger of Trump. Instead the incumbent’s halting, doddering showing had the opposite effect, shining a harsh light on his own flaws. From that moment, the writing was on the wall.By Sunday 36 congressional Democrats had publicly called on Biden to drop out of the race. Party heavyweights such as a Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer and even his old boss, Obama, had sent powerful signals. Yet Senator Bernie Sanders, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others continued to rally around him. The final excruciating decision was Biden’s alone.It immediately scrambled the race for the White House and potentially threw Trump on the back foot. Suddenly he, at 78, find himself the oldest major party nominee for president that the US has ever seen – his gaffes and name mix-ups will be in the spotlight.The lesson of elections in Britain and around the world this year is that anti-incumbent sentiment is high. If the US is also on course for a change election, Trump is no longer the change candidate. A man who has spent his media and political entire career as a limelight-hogging disrupter will now have to respond to disruption on the other side.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBiden immediately threw his weight behind Harris, for the nomination. It is surely her race to lose. Some will back her with enthusiasm, pointing to the historic nature of her candidacy and how, since the fall of Roe v Wade, she has found her voice on the issue of abortion rights.Tim Miller, who was communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, told the MSNBC network: “If you want to sum up a contrast, a prosecutor versus a convicted criminal, a woman who wants to protect your freedoms versus an old man that wants to take them away.”Others will make a pragmatic case that to bypass the first woman, and first Black woman, to serve as vice-president would be disrespectful, offensive and self-defeating.Cornell Belcher, a Democratic pollster and strategist, said on MSBNC: “If the Democrats want to give the White House back to Donald Trump, let them go into an open nomination process and disrespect and step over the first Black woman vice-president of this country and they will be committing absolute suicide. That is a surefire way for Donald Trump to become president again.”The events of the past month, and the past eight years, have taught us to expect the unexpected – an open nominating process and Democratic melee is still impossible. But Bill and Hillary Clinton were quick to endorse Harris and there will be more to come. Having witnessed last week’s Republican national convention in Milwaukee, Democrats understand the value of unity.They are also aware that Trump’s entire political career has been built on divisiveness over race and sex, starting with the lie that Obama might have been born outside the US and gendered attacks on Hillary Clinton in 2016. As Biden, Prospero-like, drowns his book, the election of Harris, a Black woman, would provide this era’s last word in poetic justice. More

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      Joe Biden withdraws from presidential race after weeks of pressure to quit

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      Joe Biden has withdrawn from his presidential re-election race and endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris to take his place at the top of their party’s ticket, an extraordinary decision upending American politics that plunges the Democratic nomination into uncertainty just months before the November election against Donald Trump – a candidate Biden has warned is an existential threat to US democracy.“While it has been my intention to seek re-election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term,” Biden said in a letter announcing his decision.Biden thanked Harris in his letter and later endorsed her as the Democratic nominee for president in a tweet. He said he planned to speak to the nation in more detail later this week.“My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as president for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my vice-president. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made,” he said.“Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats – it’s time to come together and beat Trump. Let’s do this.”Harris thanked Biden in a statement “for his extraordinary leadership as president”. She also said “with this selfless and patriotic act, President Biden is doing what he has done throughout his life of service: putting the American people and our country above everything else.“I am honored to have the president’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination,” she said. “I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic party – and unite our nation – to defeat Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda.“We have 107 days until Election Day. Together, we will fight. And together, we will win.”The president made the stunning announcement after a weeks-long pressure campaign by Democratic leaders, organizers and donors who increasingly saw no path to victory so long as the embattled incumbent remained on the ticket. More than 30 Democratic members of Congress had called on Biden to step aside. As recently as Friday, his campaign had insisted he was staying in the race. An ABC News/Ipsos poll released on Sunday found that 60% of Democrats believed he should end his run. The same poll found that nearly 76% of Democrats would be satisfied with Harris as the nominee.Biden’s decision to withdraw appears to have been abrupt. The president told his senior staff on Sunday afternoon that he had changed his mind about staying in the race, and campaign officials were still reportedly on the phone with delegates asking if they could count on their support.In a post on Truth Social, Trump said Biden “was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve – And never was!”Biden “only attained the position of President by lies, Fake News, and not leaving his Basement”, Trump said. “All those around him, including his Doctor and the Media, knew that he wasn’t capable of being President, and he wasn’t.”Trump went on to list a series of falsehoods about immigration, concluding: “We will suffer greatly because of his presidency, but we will remedy the damage he has done very quickly. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”Minutes after Sunday’s announcement, Trump told CNN that he believed it would be easier to defeat Harris than it would have been to beat Biden.It is unclear if any other Democrats will try to challenge Harris for the nomination. And it is still not clear whether she is better positioned to beat Trump. An NBC News poll from earlier this month showed Trump leading Biden and Harris by 2 points, which was within the survey’s margin of error.Barack Obama, the former president who selected Biden as his vice-president for both of his terms, released a lengthy statement on Sunday praising Biden’s decision. There had been reporting in recent days that there was tension between the two men over Biden feeling like Obama and other Democrats were trying to push him out.“Joe Biden has been one of America’s most consequential presidents, as well as a dear friend and partner to me,” said Obama, who won the presidency in 2008. “Today, we’ve also been reminded  –  again – that he’s a patriot of the highest order.“I also know Joe has never backed down from a fight. For him to look at the political landscape and decide that he should pass the torch to a new nominee is surely one of the toughest in his life. But I know he wouldn’t make this decision unless he believed it was right for America. It’s a testament to Joe Biden’s love of the country – and a historic example of a genuine public servant once again putting the interests of the American people ahead of his own – that future generations of leaders will do well to follow.”Obama, who stopped short of endorsing Harris, said Democrats would be navigating “uncharted waters in the days ahead”. He added: “But I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges.”Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, who in recent days had become a major figure signaling concerns among Democrats Biden would be able to win the race, spoke glowingly of his decision on Sunday.“President Joe Biden is a patriotic American who has always put our country first. His legacy of vision, values and leadership make him one of the most consequential presidents in American history,” she wrote.Bill and Hillary Clinton endorsed Harris in a joint statement. “We are honored to join the president in endorsing Vice-President Harris and will do whatever we can to support her,” the former president and secretary of state said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHarris’s nomination is not automatic, and there are other Democrats – including the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, the California governor, Gavin Newsom, and the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker – who could seek the nomination. If any of those candidates were nominated in Chicago next month, they would face the monumental task of introducing themselves to voters, crafting a campaign message and defeating Trump – all in two and a half months.Citing sources, CBS News on Sunday reported that neither Whitmer nor Newsom intended to pursue the Democratic nomination. The network added: “There’s no one at this moment preparing behind the scenes to challenge Vice-President Harris.”Whitmer said in a Sunday tweet: “President Biden is a great public servant who knows better than anyone what it takes to defeat Donald Trump. My job in this election will remain the same: doing everything I can to elect Democrats and stop Donald Trump, a convicted felon whose agenda of raising families’ costs, banning abortion nationwide, and abusing the power of the White House to settle his own scores is completely wrong for Michigan.”The chair of the Democratic National Committee, Jaime Harrison, said the party would “undertake a transparent and orderly process to move forward” to choose a candidate to defeat Trump in November.A disastrous debate performance last month, and his uneven public appearances since, have only exacerbated longstanding voter concerns that the 81-year-old president was simply too old to serve another four years.Democrats immediately praised Biden’s decision, including Chuck Schumer, the majority leader in the US Senate, and one of several Democrats who had been pressuring Biden to step aside.“Joe Biden has not only been a great president and a great legislative leader but he is a truly amazing human being. His decision of course was not easy, but he once again put his country, his party, and our future first,” Schumer said in a statement.The US House speaker, Mike Johnson, suggested during appearances on Sunday talkshows that Republicans would bring legal challenges to attempt to block efforts to change the Democratic ticket. Experts are skeptical those efforts will succeed.Johnson was also one of several top Republicans who called on Biden to resign the presidency – something Biden is almost certain not to do.“If Joe Biden is not fit to run for president, he is not fit to serve as president. He must resign the office immediately,” Johnson said, adding that election day on 5 November “cannot arrive soon enough”.The Ohio senator JD Vance, Trump’s running mate, made similar comments on Sunday.Biden’s decision to step aside, though remain as president, caps a singular few weeks in American politics, the latest stunning episode in an unusually tumultuous election season.Trump, the former president and Republican nominee, narrowly survived an attempt on his life during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania that bloodied his ear and left one spectator dead. Biden, after appealing for calm in the wake of attack, had returned to the campaign trail last week determined to salvage his candidacy and once again prove his doubters wrong.In media appearances, the president was defiant, insisting that he would remain the party’s standard-bearer in November. On Wednesday, before delivering remarks at a conference in Nevada, he tested positive for Covid.The president’s withdrawal pushes the Democratic party into largely uncharted waters, with its national convention scheduled to begin on 19 August in Chicago. The nominee will also have a tight window to choose a running mate to take on Trump and Vance. It is not clear how Democrats will choose a new ticket.After serving as Biden’s vice-president, Harris, 59, has the largest national profile of any Democratic candidate, and delegates may view her as the safest option. Campaign finance experts also say that Harris would have the most straightforward legal argument to keep the Biden campaign’s fundraising haul, while another nominee might have to forfeit that money. As of late May, the Biden campaign had $91.6m in cash on hand. More

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      The tragedy and resilience of Joe Biden: a look back at a life in politics

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      Joe Biden’s historic decision on Sunday to step down as the Democratic nominee for president signals an imminent end to one of the most consequential American political careers.At 81, the oldest president ever sworn in has finally yielded to time – and his own party. Someone else, possibly the vice-president, Kamala Harris, will face Donald Trump in November.Biden, who endorsed Harris on Sunday, will remain in the White House until January. But Democrats and Republicans will soon survey something new: a political landscape without Biden at its centre.Born in Pennsylvania in 1942, Biden attended the University of Delaware and Syracuse law school, became a public defender, then entered politics. A natural campaigner, in 1972, at just 29, he ran for US Senate, scoring a huge upset over J Caleb Boggs, a two-term Republican more than twice his age.View image in fullscreenThe same year, voters gave Richard Nixon a landslide win. Nixon was the 37th president. In 2021, Biden would become the 46th. In that 49-year span, as eight presidents came and went, Biden was a senator for 36 years, vice-president for eight.View image in fullscreenAs a junior senator, Biden suffered his first, but not last, tragedy when a car crash killed his wife, Neilia Biden, and one-year-old daughter, Naomi, at Christmas in 1972. Biden became known for riding the rails, from Delaware to Washington DC and back, to care for his sons, Beau and Hunter, who survived the accident.He married his second wife, Jill Jacobs, in 1977, and their daughter, Ashley, was born four years later.For 17 years, Biden was a ranking member or chair of the Senate judiciary committee. He led five supreme court confirmations. In 1991 the nominee, Clarence Thomas, was accused of sexual harassment and Biden was widely seen to have mishandled the hearings. In 2019, he said Thomas’s accuser, Anita Hill, “did not get treated well. I take responsibility for that.”Biden’s record on crime would also haunt him, particularly his support for a 1994 bill many say contributed to problems of mass incarceration and racial injustice. Another 1994 bill, banning assault weapons, remained a source of pride.View image in fullscreenFor 11 years, Biden was chair or ranking member of the foreign relations committee. In 1991, he voted against the Gulf war. In 2002, after 9/11, he voted for the invasion of Iraq. He later said that vote was wrong.In 1987, Biden first ran for president. At 45, he sought comparison with John F Kennedy but as reported by Richard Ben Cramer in the campaign classic What It Takes, youth, ambition and drive were not enough to prevent embarrassing failure.Biden took to quoting Neil Kinnock, then Labour leader in Britain, about being the first member of his family to go to college. Unfortunately, Biden stopped saying he was quoting.View image in fullscreenKinnock didn’t mind but the US press did. Biden’s freewheeling speaking style (and accompanying evocations of his Irish ancestry) often left him open to error. But he was undoubtedly an effective communicator, all the more remarkably so given he stammered as a child.Months after abandoning his presidential campaign, Biden suffered a brain aneurysm so severe a priest was called to administer last rites. Months later, he suffered another.He was nothing if not resilient. Twenty years later, he ran for president again. A great debate stage line, about a Republican rival, went down in history: “Rudy Giuliani, there’s only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun, a verb and 9/11.” But Biden soon dropped out.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBarack Obama won the nomination. When the Illinois senator, 47, picked Biden, 66, as his running mate, the New York Times said Obama had acquired “a longtime Washington hand” who could “reassure voters” rather than “deliver a state or reinforce [a] message of change”.View image in fullscreenBiden spent eight years as vice-president, his working relationship with Obama, reporting suggested, not quite so close as it was often portrayed. Biden played key roles in successes including advancing LGBTQ+ rights, legislating to prevent violence against women and securing healthcare reform. A push for gun reform failed.Biden eyed a third presidential run but in 2015 the death of his son Beau from brain cancer took a terrible toll. Furthermore, Obama backed Hillary Clinton.Amid the chaos of the Trump years, Biden decided to run again. Significant support from Black voters propelled a primary win. In the year of Covid, campaign travel was limited. For a 77-year-old candidate, that wasn’t much of a problem. Come the election, Biden won by more than 7m votes and with electoral college ease.The first major book on 2020 was called Lucky: How Joe Biden Barely Won the Presidency. Regardless, his campaign message about a “battle for the soul of America” fueled two productive years. With congressional Democrats, Biden secured major legislation, boosting the economy after Covid, securing infrastructure investment and funding the climate crisis fight.Trump had incited an attack on Congress, but Trumpism would not die. Republicans took back the House. Biden oversaw foreign policy disaster – the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan – and success, marshalling support for Ukraine against Russia.The dam could not hold. Questions about Biden’s age and fitness ran at a hum before the disastrous debate in Atlanta in June saw Democratic dissent burst through.At first, Biden displayed characteristic fire, blaming “elites” to which he never felt he belonged, vowing to fight on. But then Trump survived an assassination attempt and emerged seemingly stronger than ever.Democratic calls for Biden to quit grew louder. Eventually, he heard them. More

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      Which Home Alone child star should everyone blame if Trump is re-elected? | Stewart Lee

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      The assassination attempt on Donald Trump last weekend is a tragedy; a tragedy for democracy, a tragedy for America and, above all, a tragedy for the whole world, because it means Donald Trump will be re-elected. And it is a tragedy for Donald Trump, who, whatever one thinks of his politics or his personality, is still a living creature, and as such, like Eamonn Holmes, is capable of suffering.Last week, I had a standup special, Basic Lee, on Sky Comedy, which even came as a surprise to me. I wish someone had shot me last weekend. The resulting publicity might have driven some traffic towards my work. Here’s hoping I’m at least wounded by a gunman while it’s still available to view on the Now streaming service. (Did you see what I did there?)When the free world’s last line of defence against a Trump MacTatorship ™ ® is Joe Biden, we are already doomed. I’m quitting quitting drinking. Stubborn Biden is too selfish to become the focus of a popularity elevating tragedy, preferring instead to let the world burn while he clings to his candidacy, a limpet in linen trousers, sitting there smiling, like something futile made of felt you’d win at a travelling fair.The now inevitable re-election of demagogue Donald, and the implementation of the puritanical Project 2025 agenda by Oliver Dowden’s Heritage Foundation friends, makes a Handmaid’s Tale-style Christian fascist America a certainty, ending not only the shared enlightenment values of the postwar western world, but also the Fifty Shades of Grey women’s erotica franchise. And Trump’s fandom for fossil fuels will hasten the inevitable extinction of all life on Earth, the only positive being that he may yet see his Scottish golf courses reclaimed by rising seas.American liberals and intellectuals with means and money, like Kacey Musgraves and the singer from Tool, must already be considering escape options as the nation begins its descent into the hell of an evangelical religious dictatorship. Trump’s presidency will, however, strengthen ties between Trump and the Clacton constituency of his right-hand man Nigel Farage, which is poised to be bulldozed and made into a private golf course-cum-leisure facility-cum-seaside stolen document storage unit.I’m joking, of course. But the attempted assassination of Trump and its butterfly flap consequences are no joke. Last Saturday, a piece of Trump’s ear was shot away by a gunman. Trump, with a presence of mind Biden might have benefited from when trying to remember the name of the president of Ukraine, struggled to his feet and, in a spirit of peace and reconciliation, shouted: “Fight! Fight! Fight!”, energising supporters who three years ago forced entry to the Capitol aiming to lynch Mike Pence, the Hartlepool monkey of American politics.But what if it had been Trump himself who had been shot away, and only Trump’s ear fragment had been saved by security? Could Trump’s meat ear rim itself have been persuaded to run for the presidency? Could Trump’s ear flesh fragment have beaten Biden in a democratic election? Almost certainly. And would an America governed by a small severed slice of Trump’s ear have offered the world a more secure future than an America governed by Trump, or an America governed by Biden? Again, the answer, sadly, is a resounding yes.The American Christian right believes that Trump, despite his obvious moral corruption, is a massive tool of a God bent on shaping America into their own twisted theocracy. Evangelical Christian America believes their selectively myopic deity actually intervened to save Trump from the gunman, while leaving a heroic volunteer firefighter to take the bullet. Blessed are the firefighters. But how much more useful to this morally equivocating God is a simple severed ear, unencumbered by accusations that it tried to overturn an election, or paid an adult film star hush money, or stole classified documents, or sexually assaulted a woman in a department store. The ear would be innocent and pure and good, like Jesus, or the unborn child.And if an ear had, as Trump did, repeatedly socialised with the unsavoury sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and his young friends, it is unlikely it would have been able to do anything inappropriate, due to its being an ear. And should the ear be found to have lost the public trust, it could, due to its inability to defend itself or argue its case, be easily dispensed with by the Republicans without too much fuss. Ear today, gone tomorrow.Imagining different ways the Trump shooting might have played out raises deep ethical questions. Philosophers call this concept “killing baby Hitler”. Would it be ethical for someone to travel back from the future and kill Hitler in his cot in order to prevent the second world war? And would it be ethical to travel back in time and carry out an attack on Trump that ensured future government by Trump’s ear alone? Of course not. And the idea of replacing Trump himself with Trump’s own ear is, at this stage, neither ear nor there.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRather than risking the future on the policymaking of Trump’s unpredictable ear, the precise political leanings of which remain ill-defined at best, would it be better to go further back in time and stop the rise of Trump sooner? Perhaps, when he encountered Trump in Home Alone 2, Macaulay Culkin could have comforted the troubled billionaire with the same innocent friendship he gave to the sad dancer Michael Jackson, on the proviso that Trump abandon political ambition. But Macaulay Culkin didn’t do that. And now we all suffer for his selfishness. Macaulay Culkin has blood on his astonished infant face. Stewart Lee’s Basic Lee is on the streaming service Now. He is previewing 40 minutes of new material in Stewart Lee Introduces Legends of Indie at the Lexington, London, in August with Connie Planque (12), Swansea Sound (13) and David Lance Callahan (14)

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      Trump and Vance speak in Michigan at first rally post-assassination attempt – live updates

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      Trump says a Trump-Vance administration will rapidly reverse “every single Biden-Harris disaster”, starting from day one, if he is elected.He says he will end the “inflation nightmare”, that he will “crush migrant crime”, that he will give people an additional tax cut and that energy prices will be brought down “very quickly”.
      America’s enemies will fear us. The United States will again command the respect that it deserves.
      He says “something beautiful” will happen, and that he will bring back the American dream, and that it will be “bigger, better and bolder than ever before”.Trump says Democrats have been trying to make him sound “like I’m an extremist” but says that he is actually a person “with great common sense”.He says he doesn’t know anything about Project 2025. “I don’t know what the hell it is,” he says.
      They keep saying [I’m] a threat to democracy. I’m saying: what the hell did I do for democracy? Last week, I took a bullet for democracy. What did I do against democracy?
      Trump says he will “never stop working to deliver a magnificent future for our people”, as he notes that the upcoming November election will be the “most important election in the history of our country”.
      We will fight, fight, fight and we will win, win, win.
      Trump says there are other things he could be doing that would be “a lot easier”, although he says he would rather be campaigning today than “sitting on some gorgeous beach watching boring waves”.Trump then talks about the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, saying there has never been a convention with so much “unity and love”.“There’s never been anything like it,” he says, noting that it was “really an amazing thing to see” with “so many great people”.Trump, still referring to the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, says it was an “incredible” time.
      Nobody’s seen anything like it, and hopefully they never will again.
      He thanks Texas representative Ronny Jackson, his former physician, who has been treating him since the attack. Trump calls him an “outstanding” doctor, saying: “I love that guy.”Donald Trump says he wants to thank Americans nationwide, including those attending today’s campaign rally, for their “extraordinary outpouring of love and support” in the wake of the “horrific” event last weekend.He says the assassination attempt took place “exactly one week ago today, almost to the hour, even to the minute”. “What a day it was,” Trump says.
      I stand before you only by the grace of almighty God. I shouldn’t be here. Maybe JD or somebody else would be here, but I shouldn’t be here right now.
      Trump says he wants to thank everyone at Butler memorial hospital and the citizens of Butler, Pennsylvania.Donald Trump begins speaking at the campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he appears to no longer be wearing the large white bandage on his injured ear from last Saturday’s assassination attempt.“This is like a Michigan football game over here,” Trump said, before thanking his running mate, JD Vance, whom he says will be a “fantastic” vice-president.Trump says he chose Vance “because he’s for the worker”.Ohio senator JD Vance is back on stage at the campaign rally at Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he makes a brief speech to supporters before introducing Donald Trump.Vance says Trump was a great president who “knew instinctively what this country needed and how to put the interests of the citizens of this country first”.“We had a hell of a four years with President Donald J Trump, didn’t we?” Vance says before Trump walks on to the stage.Standing in line, Isaiah White, a 25-year old from Hudsonville, Michigan said he was “very excited” for another chance to see Donald Trump. The last time Trump came to Van Andel Arena, White got in line too late and had to watch on the jumbotron outside the venue.Betsy Gatchell Goff, who came to Van Andel Arena from her home town of Benton Harbor, Michigan, said she thought Trump was “a unifying figure for our country.” Gatchell Goff hoped that with Trump back in office, “we’ll have a president who does more than sleep all day,” a disparaging reference to Joe Biden.Joe Attard, a worker at a factory that makes sheds, made the drive from Southgate, Michigan, to Grand Rapids hoping to catch a glimpse of Donald Trump, who was appearing in the crucial battleground state after being formally anointed as the Republican presidential candidate and hitting the campaign trail with his new running mate, Ohio senator JD Vance. Attard said:
      There’s a real feeling of community here, everybody in the same mind. It’s a great feeling.
      Other than a lone man across the barricades holding a Deport Trump sign, Attard seemed to be right. There were few people around without some kind of Trump-branded apparel.Perhaps in keeping with a party that has fully unified around Trump after the shocking attempt on his life, most people seemed excited to be at the rally.A man in an army baseball cap pointed people towards the ADA-accessible line. People waved and cheered for the Secret Service officers and mounted police patrolling the street. More

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      Biden continues to resist Democratic calls to end re-election campaign

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      Democrats were caught in an apparent stalemate on Saturday as a dug-in Joe Biden continued to endure high-profile calls to end his re-election campaign after a week of astonishing party moves to unseat the president in favor of a candidate many hope will be more likely to beat Donald Trump.In the weeks since his disastrous debate performance against Trump, the 81-year-old Biden has attempted to fight off calls for him to step down from the top of the ticket amid concerns that his age and mental acuity are no longer up to the job. But a series of interviews, a press conference and speeches have done little to quell party nerves.“Everyone’s waiting for Joe,” quoted the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd of one top Democrat. “And he’s sitting at home, stewing and saying, ‘What if? What if? What if?’ We’re doing things the Democratic way. We’re botching it.”Frustration within the Democratic party establishment at what they see as Biden’s intransigence comes as the outlet also reported on Saturday that the president in private is complaining that former aides to presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton would be lecturing him on election strategy after Democratic 1994 and 2010 midterm election losses that he had avoided in 2022.Those pressuring Biden – who also has Covid – to abandon his re-election bid, the Times reported, “risk getting his back up and prompting him to remain after all”.Some advisers are said to believe that Biden is holding out at least until the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visits Washington on Wednesday. But some donors say that this is the ideal moment for Biden to step aside now that Republicans have had their convention, and Democrats have a month until their own convention in Chicago to tell a new story about a new candidate.The vivid picture of a Covid-sick, abandoned and resentful veteran politician, sitting out the pressure in a Delaware beach house, comes as most senior Democrats, including the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and the current minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, are calling for Biden – at a minimum – to reconsider his position.“We have to cauterize this wound right now and the sooner we can do it the better,” Virginia representative Gerald E Connolly, a Democrat, told the Times. Connolly, who has not publicly called for Biden to step aside, said the ongoing drama “shows the cold calculus of politics”.According to the Washington Post on Saturday, the tight-knit Biden family has not called an emergency meeting to discuss the spiraling crisis, but is instead exchanging usual daily phone calls and text messages.Rising anger within the family, which has enjoyed nearly half a century of Joe Biden’s power in Delaware, both as a senator, vice-president and president, is fueled by the belief that his dismal debate performance could still be overcome by a determined fight back and a display of loyalty. “It’s like they don’t know he’s Irish,” the Post quoted a person close to the family.The past week has seen waves of Democratic elected officials make public statements of their appreciation of Biden’s record in office but dire warnings that the US will see a second Trump presidency should he remain the party’s candidate for November’s presidential election.The latest high-profile name to join the chorus was Sherrod Brown, when the embattled Ohio senator broke cover on Friday evening to call for an end to Biden’s re-election campaign.“I’ve heard from Ohioans on important issues, such as how to continue to grow jobs in our state, give law enforcement the resources to crack down on fentanyl, protect social security and Medicare from cuts, and prevent the ongoing efforts to impose a national abortion ban,” Brown said in a statement.He added: “At this critical time, our full attention must return to these important issues. I think the president should end his campaign.”Those public disavowals of support have been mirrored by an equally intense private lobbying campaign from top Democrats, party stalwarts and senior donors that is aimed at persuading Biden that he cannot beat Trump and that his political legacy is at risk unless he is replaced by a more dynamic candidate, most likely his vice-president, Kamala Harris.On Saturday, Representative Mark Takano of California, the top Democrat on the House veterans’ affairs committee, added his name to the list of nearly three dozen Democrats in Congress who say it’s time for Biden to leave the race. The Californian called on Biden to “pass the torch” to Harris.“It has become clear to me that the demands of a modern campaign are now best met by the vice-president, who can seamlessly transition into the role of our party’s standard bearer,” Takano said.That campaign has seemingly inched closer and closer to persuading Biden and his close inner circles of advisers and family members that the situation has become so serious that he needs to consider taking the extraordinary step of declaring himself a one-term president and backing someone else to fight Trump.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBiden’s position has reportedly wavered from one of absolute refusal to move to now being open to the idea of considering his position. Some media reports have even suggested that a decision could come in the next few days, including as early as this weekend.However, on Friday Biden’s campaign struck a notable tone of defiance, saying the president is anticipating getting back on the campaign trail.“I look forward to getting back on the campaign trail next week to continue exposing the threat of Donald Trump’s Project 2025 agenda while making the case for my own record and the vision that I have for America: one where we save our democracy, protect our rights and freedoms, and create opportunity for everyone,” Biden said in a statement.“The stakes are high, and the choice is clear,” Biden added. “Together, we will win.”Biden does have prominent allies still at the heights of the party. Leftist representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders have come out in favor of Biden remaining at the top of the ticket in the past days.“If you 10,000% are super-convinced that the candidate, our president, cannot beat Donald Trump, then do what you think is in your good conscience. But I have not seen an alternative scenario that, I feel, does not set us up for enormous peril,” Ocasio-Cortez said.In polling over the past week, Biden has trailed Trump, especially in the crucial battleground states where the election will be won or lost. Republican campaigners have even boasted that their electoral map is broadening as previously safe Democratic states – such as Virginia or New Hampshire – might come into play.But Ocasio-Cortez warned of potential intra-party chaos if Biden is pushed off the re-election ticket.“If you think that is going to be an easy transition, I’m here to tell you that a huge amount of the donor class and these elites who are pushing for the president not to be the nominee also do not want to see the VP [Harris] be the nominee,” Ocasio-Cortez said.She warned that Democratic “elites” don’t want Harris to run in Biden’s place, but a brokered convention in Chicago in which state delegates currently committed to Biden would be free to pledge support to another candidate
      could lead to chaos.Racial, ethnic and class divisions within the Democratic party had been exposed by the Biden crisis, she indicated, and she said her community “does not have the luxury of accepting loss in July of an election year. My people are the first ones deported. They’re the first ones put in Rikers. They’re the first ones whose families are killed by war.” More

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      Pity US voters their choice of leaders. Surely democracy is better than this? | Simon Tisdall

      by

      What a shambles! What a shame! With less than four months to go, America’s presidential race, global democracy’s showpiece event, has boiled down to a choice between a crook, a codger, a cheerleader and a charlatan. Four folks who, for varying reasons, are barely fit.Voters deserve better. Or perhaps, by applauding and rewarding bad behaviour, they really don’t. Friends and allies look on aghast. Chinese and Russian online election trolls sneer with delight. No worries, guys. The US is busy screwing itself.First, the psychopath mansplaining atop the Republican ticket. The word, by definition, denotes a personality characterised by impaired empathy and remorse, narcissism, superficial charm, manipulativeness, dishonesty and an outward appearance of normality. Sound about right? Yup. Except it’s worse than ever. At 78, his chronic condition is deteriorating rapidly.Sanctimonious, sentimental, self-pitying, vicious, ignorant – addressing the Republican convention, Donald Trump showed he hasn’t changed a bit. Yet now, unbelievably, this sleazy liar, convicted felon and wannabe dictator, this serial sexual abuser, faux-Christian and closet racist reckons he holds the moral high ground. And all because some poor fool took a shot, elevating him to martyr status.The Pennsylvania assassination attempt was the perfect advertisement for Trump’s favourite role of victim-saviour. He is persecuted. He suffers for you. Now he’s born again. Trump likened his recent New York court tribulations to Jesus in the wilderness. And he claimed God helped him dodge the killer bullet. Joe Biden’s earlier, inept appeal to place “a bull’s eye” on Trump’s back inadvertently fortified the fable.Trump’s disciples raised their arms in salute. “The devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle. But an American lion got back on his feet and he roared!” proclaimed lackey senator Tim Scott, mangling metaphors. Divine intervention had saved Trump – in order that he save America.Trump’s unprepossessing son, Donald Jr, claims the near-death experience has fundamentally altered his pa. Baloney. American lions don’t change their spots, as Scott might say.Trump, sensing electoral advantage in a new, insincere guise of national unifier, will exploit the notion ruthlessly. Yet, if re-elected, all bets are off. Revenge and score-settling will be prioritised as before, alongside the hard-right, democracy-shattering Project 2025 agenda.Trump is sick. But so too, sadly, is America’s other main presidential contender, in different ways. Biden has an illness to which those exercising great power often succumb: a delusional belief in his own indispensability. Only he can beat Trump, he insists. It’s nonsense, of course. Biden may be the only Democrat who can’t beat him. Reports suggest the old stager may be finally recognising that reality.Hubris, vanity, pride and a first lady living life vicariously: all influenced Biden’s stubborn hanging on. Now he has Covid again. Of all these ills, old age is the most unforgiving. There’s no fighting the clock. And politically, at 81, Biden’s game is up. Latest polling suggests two-thirds of Democrats think he should quit. About 70% of all voters doubt his mental capacity to lead for another four years. Time to go, Joe.Panicky squawking in the Democratic henhouse is barely contained at this point. There is no agreed party mechanism to remove an incumbent, nor for replacing one. Former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have mostly kept their heads down, muttering off-mike. They never really rated Biden. Yet he turned out a better president than either. Do they secretly hope he crashes and burns? Like age and pride, envy and legacy also poison the well.The unfitness of Trump and Biden throws a sharper spotlight on their understudies. So who’s next in line? Kamala Harris, vice-president since 2021, is on Democratic pole. But familiarity has not translated into popularity. Her favourability rating averages minus 15 points. While she notionally fares better than Biden against Trump in some swing states, her claim to the crown is unpersuasive.Harris, 59, is unfairly criticised, perhaps because she is the first female vice-president – a California liberal with black and Asian American roots. She’s led on issues such as abortion, climate, education and voting rights. But opponents dismiss her as a lightweight White House cheerleader who failed in her main task of repelling border illegals.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAttacks on Harris notably increased at the Republican convention – a pre-emptive strike strategy, hedging against a Biden departure. But it’s unclear who among more than half a dozen potential Democratic candidates might get the nod. Names like California’s Gavin Newsom, Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer and former transport secretary Pete Buttigieg are tossed around like racecourse betting tickets. If the call comes, Harris will need to toughen up and wise up fast – or risk being shouldered aside.Intriguingly, the same fate could befall Trump one day, given his telling choice of the unpleasantly hard-right, white nationalist-populist senator JD Vance as running mate. Despite his privileged background and wealth, Trump portrays himself, against all evidence, as a champion of the working man. Vance, in contrast, is arguably the real thing, warts and all – a self-styled hillbilly throwback with a chip on his shoulder the size of Ohio.Vance, 39, is the least-known member of 2024’s electoral quadrumvirate. A shameless opportunist, his fiercely stated loyalty to Trump, whom he once compared to Hitler, looks confected and expedient. He’s already casting himself as the Maga heir apparent. How long before he usurps the throne? No one knows what he truly believes, except perhaps his wife, Usha, the brains behind the drone.Vance’s extremist, intolerant views on abortion, immigration, isolationism and protectionism, plus his inflammatory, divisive rhetoric, typify America’s hugely self-destructive 2024 election. The choice on offer ranges from the sick and dangerous to the crudely rabid or banal. Democracy is better than this. Four months remain to rescue America – or else it ends in tears. Simon Tisdall is the Observer’s Foreign Affairs CommentatorDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk More