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      Bernie Sanders backs Biden and urges Democrats to ‘stop the bickering’

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      Bernie Sanders has offered his backing to Joe Biden, dismissing calls for the man he described as the “most effective president in the modern history of our country” to stand down in the upcoming US presidential election.Sanders, the totemic progressive US senator, used an opinion piece in the New York Times to endorse Biden, who has come under increasing fire from fellow Democrats over his ability to beat Donald Trump following a disastrous televised debate between the two.“Despite my disagreements with him on particular issues, he has been the most effective president in the modern history of our country and is the strongest candidate to defeat Donald Trump – a demagogue and pathological liar,” Sanders wrote.“It’s time to learn a lesson from the progressive and centrist forces in France who, despite profound political differences, came together this week to soundly defeat rightwing extremism.”Sanders joins Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, another key figure on the left of the Democratic party, in voicing support for Biden, even as upwards of 20 elected Democrats have called for him to step down, citing his apparent frailty during the debate and his tough re-election prospects against Trump.So far, the only Democratic senator to call for Biden to stand down is Peter Welch who, like Sanders, an independent who largely votes with the Democrats, represents Vermont.Democrats that have joined a “circular firing squad” need to “stop the bickering and nit-picking” over Biden’s performance, Sanders wrote, and start focusing on Trump’s far greater problems, such as the former president’s felony convictions, him being found liable in a sexual abuse case, his bankruptcies, and what Sanders called “thousands of documented lies and falsehoods”.“I know: Mr Biden is old, is prone to gaffes, walks stiffly and had a disastrous debate with Mr Trump,” Sanders wrote. “But this I also know: a presidential election is not an entertainment contest.“Enough! Mr Biden may not be the ideal candidate, but he will be the candidate and should be the candidate.”Biden has insisted he will not drop out of November’s presidential election, despite polls showing he is either trailing or level with Trump. Biden said he made a “stupid mistake” of being extremely busy prior to the debate, including tiring international trips.“Where’s Trump been?” the president said of his rival. “Riding around on his golf cart? Filling out his scorecard before he hits the ball?”The speculation over the future of the 81-year-old president’s future has prompted Trump, and his Republican allies, to turn their fire somewhat on Kamala Harris, the vice-president who is considered the most likely replacement for Biden. Trump unveiled a new, derisive nickname for the vice-president, “Laffin’ Kamala”, which he tested at a campaign rally in Florida this week. More

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      Films, fashion, law,d politics: George and Amal Clooney’s growing global reach

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      It took a famous TV doctor to diagnose the patient. After two weeks of turmoil in the US Democratic party over President Biden’s re-election bid, it was ER’s Doug Ross, AKA George Clooney, who wrote up a devastating evaluation of the incumbent president.The 63-year-old actor was not in theatrical mode when he wrote a more-in-sorrow letter published by the New York Times last week that called on Biden to withdraw from the presidential race that the White House reportedly begged him not to submit, coming three weeks after Clooney helped raise $30m for the Biden-Harris ticket at a lavish Hollywood fundraiser.But Clooney’s bedside manner was impeccable: “I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice-president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him,” he wrote. “But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can.”Clooney was speaking for ­himself – and for a large swathe of liberal-leaning Hollywood donors angry at what they see as White House deception over the apparent decline of Biden’s health. Clooney said the man at the fundraiser “was the same man we all witnessed” in his debate performance two weeks later.In the current spirit of panic and recrimination, with a White House press corps turning every Biden appearance into a test of competence, Democrat money bundlers, including co-chair of Biden’s re-election campaign and movie producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, are under suspicion of helping to cover up Biden’s apparent health issues.Clooney’s letter has put the Ocean’s Eleven actor out of political harm’s way. The Democratic party may not be so lucky. Democrats, says James Carville, the Clinton strategist who last week called for a blitz primary to select a new candidate, “are hellbent on a mission to force the American people to do something they don’t want to do – to vote for Joe Biden”.“George has come out, [former house speaker] Nancy Pelosi has come out – I don’t know what else people can do,” Carville told the Observer. “Other than a few people in Congress, everybody thinks this is a terrible idea [for Biden to run]. But you’re up against a guy who doesn’t want to leave, and that’s just where we are.”View image in fullscreenGeorge Clooney is not the only Clooney making waves on a global stage. Last month his wife Amal Clooney was revealed to have played an important role in making the case for arrest warrants to be issued by the international criminal court (ICC) to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, defence minister Yoav Gallant and three top Hamas leaders.Biden called the ICC move “outrageous” and said that whatever the ICC prosecutor might imply, “there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas”. According to the Washington Post, George Clooney called Steve Ricchetti, counsellor to the US president, to protest about the administration’s willingness to impose sanctions in which his wife could get caught.This week, the Biden-Harris campaign attempted to blame Clooney’s letter on “pre-existing tensions” – hinting at the ICC dust-up. A Hollywood producer familiar with the couple told the Observer that the White House’s explanation for the letter was “bullshit” and the lawyer had been smeared because her work is on human rights irrespective of political division.“George has power in Hollywood. Amal doesn’t, except as George’s wife,” they added. “Her power is in the UK, at the Hague and on the pages of Vogue.”The lawyer has not commented on her husband’s political intervention, which may have come with Barack Obama’s tacit approval. But after 10 years together, George and Amal Clooney are seen as one of the most stable couples in Hollywood.View image in fullscreenThey’d met at the actor’s home in Lake Como, Italy, when a mutual friend brought her by. Clooney’s agent had also got wind of the ­introduction, the actor later revealed. “My agent said: ‘I met this woman who is coming to your house, who you’re going to marry.’ It really worked out that way.”“It felt like the most natural thing in the world,” Amal said. “I always hoped there could be love that was overwhelming and didn’t require any weighing or decision-making.”A safari in Kenya to see giraffes sealed the deal. In 2014 he proposed, they married in Venice and now have twins.The political instinct which had surfaced in Clooney films including Good Night, and Good Luck (2005) and The Ides of March (2011), soon took flight. By 2016 the couple were meeting with then-German chancellor Angela Merkel to talk refugee policy; that year they were at a UN refugee summit and soon after established the Clooney Foundation for Justice, which focuses on legal rights for those targeted by oppressive governments, tracking the money of human rights abusers and those profiting from war crimes.“We’re both inspired by the young people out there challenging injustice in their communities, a new generation that won’t accept the status quo,” the actor said in an awards acceptance speech two years ago.But Clooney’s intervention comes with potential costs. The Bidens, like the Clintons and Obamas, may see themselves as benefiting from rubbing shoulders with celebrities, but the intersection of entertainment and politics, and the money and ideologies that underpin it, is repulsive to many outside political-entertainment enclaves. In an echo of Trump, Biden now says the rising chorus against him is coming from members of “the elites”, despite the bad timing of first lady Dr Jill Biden appearing on the cover of the August US Vogue.The tradition of celebrity-political endorsements goes back to Frank Sinatra, who organised his friends, the Rat Pack, to campaign for John F Kennedy. Two decades later, disagreements over Ronald Reagan forced celebrities to choose where they belonged.“That’s where we are still,” explains veteran Democrat strategist Hank Sheinkopf. “Celebrities see themselves as an important part of the Democratic fundraising and thought-based operation, which a lot of Americans would not agree with.”View image in fullscreenSheinkopf says that the fight over Biden’s future is as much about the future of the Democratic party as it is about Biden’s health – and Clooney’s intervention will make Maga Republicans fight harder for candidate Trump.“Democrats are the party of the elites despite the fact that they see themselves as the party of the non-elites,” he says. Regardless of who is writing the cheques – Hollywood celebrities or a rightwing Texas industrialist – “what all elites want is a party that does what they want because they think it’s right”.“But that’s not who Joe Biden is. He represents the old pro-union, almost colour-blind left, but that’s not who the operators behind the scenes are,” he adds.Peter Bart, previous editor of the Hollywood trade bible Variety, wrote in a Deadline column that he had “great respect for Clooney’s decision” but it was also one that “will cost him”.He recalled other Hollywood stars who had mixed politics with entertainment, including Jane Fonda, Charlton Heston and John Wayne. “Apart from potential career damage, Clooney must confront donors who have spent millions at his ­urging to support a ticket he now renounces,” Bart, 91, warned.He recalled a conversation he’d had with Ronald Reagan about Nixon. “I want people to like me, even voters who vote against me,” Reagan told him. “Nixon doesn’t seem to care, but I’m still an actor.”Still, Clooney’s intervention has set him up for criticism. The progressive left and African-American voters, both voting blocs Biden is courting to firm up his support, slammed the actor for taking a position afforded him by being famous, white and male.Others have implied that perspectives are different from the window seat of a Gulfstream jet flying between homes in Los Angeles, England, France and Italy. (Besides being a successful actor, known for pranking friends, Clooney and partner Rande Gerber, husband of Cindy Crawford, split up to $1bn from the sale of their tequila brand Casamigos.)Clooney has been criticised, too, from the other side. Trump weighed in, saying Clooney “turned on Crooked Joe like the rats they both are”, and some have questioned why Clooney, and Hollywood more broadly, waited until after the debate to disclose what they had witnessed at the fundraiser.Still, the New York Times letter establishes the Kentucky-born actor as a modern-day Warren Beatty, the actor who made his political beliefs part of his public image. Beatty never ran for office and quipped it would be “more like running for crucifixion”, nor has Clooney, allowing both to ride over the humdrum day-to-day of retail politics.“George’s op-ed was provocative, well done, but voters don’t want this anyway: 73% of the voting public say they want something different,” says Carville. “They’re not asking for anything difficult – just a different nominee. We’re in a crisis.” More

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      Republicans ramp up attacks on Kamala Harris amid swirl over Biden future

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      With the state of Joe Biden’s re-election campaign in turmoil, Donald Trump and his Republican allies are stepping up attacks on a familiar and, some say, possibly more threatening, political foe: his vice-president, Kamala Harris.In the weeks since Biden’s stumbling debate performance, Republicans have intensified what many call racist and misogynistic criticism. They have questioned Harris’s competency, mocked her demeanor, and accused her of concealing concerns about the president’s health. Trump unveiled a new, derisive nickname for the vice-president, “Laffin’ Kamala”, which he tested at a campaign rally in Florida this week.In the rambling, falsehood-filled speech, Trump dedicated several minutes to assailing Harris, whose shortcomings as vice-president, he said, were in effect an “insurance policy” for the embattled incumbent.“If Joe had picked someone even halfway competent, they would’ve bounced him from office years ago, but they can’t because she’s got to be their second choice,” he said.While the Trump team insists they are not intimidated by Harris, supporters say the pre-emptive strikes against the vice-president – the highest ranking woman in American politics and the first Black and Asian American vice-president – are a reflection of her strength at a moment when concerns about Biden’s fitness to serve have thrust her into the spotlight. In response, a group of Democratic strategists and donors are amplifying their defense of the vice-president, an effort they say is necessary to win in November.“We need to have a surround sound around Kamala that promotes the best of her strength – that she fights for our freedoms, that she works for a better life for all Americans, that she is ready to challenge Trump,” said Tory Gavito, the president and co-founder of Way to Win, a Democratic donor network.Though the group has not weighed in on whether Biden should remain the nominee, Gavito said Harris is a major asset to the party – whether as his running mate or his replacement. New battleground state polling released this week by her group found Harris running strong with the parts of the Democratic coalition Biden is struggling to energize: young people and Black and Latino voters.“She brings in factions of that coalition that, right now, are a little concerned,” Gavito said. “So it’s an important moment to lift up the full ticket.”For much of Biden’s presidency, Republicans have warned that a vote to re-elect the 81-year-old president was really a vote for Harris. Nikki Haley, in her unsuccessful run against Trump for the Republican nomination, once told voters that the possibility of a Harris presidency should “send a chill up every person’s spine”.In the presently unlikely scenario Harris becomes the Democratic nominee, Republicans say they have plenty of material ready to deploy against her from her years as a vice-president and her short-lived run for president against Biden in 2020. As the other half of the Biden-Harris administration, her record is tied to the president’s, Republicans argue, which means she is equally to blame for Americans’ frustration over the economy and the border.Republicans have sought to make Harris the face of the administration’s response to record migration at the US southern border, casting her as its absentee “border tsar”. But she was never charged with overseeing US border policy; rather, she was tasked, as was Biden during his vice-presidency, with a diplomatic mission to address the root causes of migration.In a preview of what Trump’s strategy against Harris might look like, his campaign released an online ad alleging a “Great Kamala Cover-Up”. The video overlays images of Biden looking lost and disorientated with comments from Harris defending his fitness for office. “Kamala lied to us for years about Biden,” it says. Trump’s campaign also referred to the vice-president as “Low IQ Kamala” this week.View image in fullscreen“No one has lied about Joe Biden’s cognitive decline and supported his disastrous policies over the past four years more than Cackling Co-pilot Kamala Harris,” Caroline Sunshine, deputy director of communications for the Trump campaign, said in a statement to the Guardian. She also assailed the Biden-Harris administration’s handling of the economy and immigration, among Biden’s most vulnerable issues with voters.Karen Finney, a Democratic strategist who was a spokesperson for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, said the attacks by Trump and his campaign were part of an old political “playbook” used to undermine women in positions of power.“It’s things like attacking her intelligence, attacking the tone of her voice, her laugh, the othering language,” Finney said. Those are pretty common tropes that we see used against women.”Several Democratically aligned women’s organizations, including UltraViolet and Emily’s List, have joined forces to combat what they described as the “racist and sexist disinformation campaigns” against the vice-president that are proliferating online and on the campaign trail, sometimes with the explicit endorsement of Republican officials.“There’s always legitimate reasons to critique any public figure, especially politicians,” said Jenna Sherman, campaign director at UltraViolet Action. But she said many of the rightwing attacks on Harris mix personal insults with myths and falsehoods about Democrats’ positions on issues such as abortion and immigration.“This is about misogyny,” she said. “This is about the society that we live in trying to normalize, essentially, the berating of women.”Since the presidential debate last month, some surveys have found Harris performing as well as or marginally than better than Biden in a hypothetical contest against Trump, which some suspect have prompted the new wave of attacks.“Vice-President Harris is proud to be President Biden’s running mate,” Brian Fallon, Harris’s campaign communications director said in a statement to the Guardian.“As a former district attorney and attorney general, she has stood up to fraudsters and felons like Donald Trump her entire career. Trump is lying about the vice-president because she has been prosecuting the case against him on the biggest issues in the race.”The former California attorney general, elected as a senator in 2017, had a rocky start to the vice-presidency, stumbling in media appearances and struggling to stand out as Republicans relentlessly attacked her performance. But since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, Harris has become the administration’s lead messenger on reproductive rights, by far Democrats’ strongest issue.On the anniversary of Roe’s fall last month, Harris declared Trump “guilty” in the “case of the stealing of reproductive freedom from the women of America”. She has also been at the forefront of democracy protection efforts, rushing to Tennessee last year to stand beside Black lawmakers expelled from the state legislature for protesting against gun violence.“She is qualified to be president,” Biden said at his Nato press conference on Thursday night. “That’s why I picked her.”He praised Harris as a “hell of a prosecutor” and a “first-rate person”, casting her as fighter for reproductive rights and an agile lieutenant who has effectively managed a wide portfolio. But even as Biden promoted Harris, he mistakenly referred to her as “Vice-President Trump”, the exact type of verbal gaffe that has unnerved Democrats in recent weeks. Trump immediately seized on the misstep.“By the way: yes, I know the difference,” the president’s campaign replied later on X. “One’s a prosecutor, and the other’s a felon.”Earlier on Thursday, Harris rallied supporters in North Carolina, delivering the kind of fiery denunciations of Trump that many Democrats long for in their nominee. Ticking through the Biden administration’s legislative and foreign policy achievements, Harris warned that a second Trump term would hurt the country’s standing in the world and make Americans less safe.“As Trump bows down to dictators, he makes America weak,” Harris said, a reference to the former president’s flattery of Vladimir Putin. “And that is disqualifying for someone who wants to be commander-in-chief.”Sharing a clip from her campaign stop in North Carolina, Representative Jared Huffman, a California Democrat, said on X: “VP Harris is on fire. She’s vetted, tested, and has been Democrats’ strongest messenger throughout this campaign. She’s next up if we need her, and we might.”Biden’s insistence that he is the candidate best positioned to defeat Trump has not quelled dissent within his party. A growing number of elected Democrats have called on the president to step aside, while speculation mounts over whether Harris could realistically replace him atop the ticket.Amid the uncertainty, the New York Times reported that the Biden campaign has commissioned a survey to measure how Harris would fare in a head-to-head matchup against Trump. It comes amid a series of media reports that advisers close to the president have lost confidence in his ability to beat Trump in November, which the White House and the president’s campaign have denied.In a memo outlining the “path ahead”, Biden’s re-election campaign chair, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, and his campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, said there was no indication that any other candidate would fare better than Biden against Trump. It noted that an alternative Democratic nominee would face an onslaught of negative media, which is already “baked in” to his candidacy.Yet a separate memo circulating among Democrats makes a counter-argument. Titled “The case for Kamala”, the document, written anonymously by Democratic strategists, argues that making Harris the party’s nominee is the “one realistic path out of this mess”.It argues that her weaknesses are “real but addressable” and that she enjoys structural advantages over other potential alternatives: she has already been vetted on the national stage, has the highest name recognition and would have immediate access to the re-election campaign’s war chest.With just little over a month left before Democrats meet in Chicago for their convention, Harris remains the most obvious and, for now, the most popular choice to replace Biden in the apparently unlikely event he ends his run for a second term.But regardless of what happens with the ticket, attention will remain fixed on Harris as the next-in-line to a president who has raised public concern about his ability to serve another four years. That is why Democrats such as Gavito of Way to Win say it is important to defend her aggressively across all media platforms.“The anti-Maga coalition is bigger than Maga,” she said, referring to Trump’s “Make America great again” movement. “We have proven that for the last three cycles. They have lost consistently. We can prove it again. But that requires a full-throated response on every platform available that shuts down people who are afraid of strong women.” More

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      Bitter tensions as reporters feel misled by White House over Biden health

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      It was the moment when long-simmering media resentment at a seemingly opaque White House broke through the surface with startling intensity.With Joe Biden’s candidacy teetering in the wake of last month’s alarming debate showing, journalists who had covered his presidency full-time for years suddenly asserted that it lacked that most basic political element: credibility.The trigger was the revelation – disclosed in several news outlets – that a specialist in Parkinson’s disease had visited the White House eight times in as many months. The press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, was forced in a live televised briefing on to the defensive over a supposed lack of transparency.“My first [question] to you is on the credibility of this White House when it comes to talking about the president’s health,” the Associated Press correspondent, Zeke Miller, asked Jean-Pierre, who, taken aback, responded by calling for “a little respect”.The exchange quickly devolved into an angry back-and-forth over whether Jean-Pierre had given an accurate picture about the president’s health and her continuing refusal to confirm the name of the visiting specialist, despite it already being in the public domain. The White House ultimately clarified matters in a subsequent news release that confirmed the specialist as Kevin Cannard and explained that he had visited the White House in January to carry out the neurological part of Biden’s annual medical check-up.Yet the flare-up went beyond one narrow episode.Many journalists increasingly feel they have been bamboozled by a White House culture of denial and non-disclosure. People who pride themselves in holding power to account in the world’s leading democracy have been asking how they could have been so blinded to Biden’s diminishing state before it burst into the open so vividly on the debate stage in Atlanta.At least some have reached the conclusion they have been misled by a campaign of obfuscation by White House staff – some of whom themselves privately complain of feeling deprived of access to the president that their seniority would normally have assured.Wider staff access, the argument runs, could have given more people a clearer picture of whether Biden was in decline – which, in turn, would have created a higher chance of the true state of his functioning coming to light.But Biden’s age-related decline was a media issue long before his disintegration at the debate, which the Biden campaign asked for partly in an effort to discredit such speculation. Little more than a week beforehand, widely circulating videos purporting to depict the president in varying states of confusion were reported in several respected outlets as tendentiously-edited “cheap fakes”.“The evidence was there for people to see, and it’s somewhat disingenuous in the press corps to say, well, you know, we were kept in the dark,” said W Joseph Campbell, professor emeritus of communication of American University in Washington.“Trump was ranting about Biden’s troubles and his gaffes in the 2020 campaign, so I think it depends on what outlets you were following. And to use a phrase the administration seems to be employing these days, this is a big-boy town and you find your news where you can – it doesn’t necessarily have to be ladled out to you by the White House press office.”Yet those who did report the matter quickly found themselves rounded on by an outraged White House. When the Wall Street Journal published a 3,000-word front-page article in early June carrying detailed anecdotes that questioned Biden’s cognitive faculties, an administration spokesman, Andrew Bates, dismissed the stories as “false claims” made by Republicans.The article – which has since been vindicated by reports in other US news sources, including the New York Times – was also attacked by the MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, a Biden supporter who later called on him to stand aside after the debate.In a social media post showing that disquiet over Biden’s cognitive faculties was neither secret nor new, James Rosen, White House correspondent of the hard-right Newsmax outlet, recalled being ostracised after asking Biden in a press conference two and a half years ago about polling showing public concern about his perceived decline.“When I asked Potus on January 19 2022, ‘with utmost respect for your life accomplishments and the high office you hold’, why the electorate harboured such profound concerns about his cognitive fitness, it was considered rude, and I was blackballed in briefings for eight months,” he wrote on X the day after the debate, accompanying his post with a transcript of the exchange.Just as the whisperings over the president’s age and health have escalated into a roar, so too have the long-running tensions between the administration and the New York Times, which this week published its second editorial in 10 days urging Biden to end his campaign.The calls have been in line with similar pleas from rival outlets but animus may have been sharpened by a lack of access to the president, keenly felt by an organisation that styles itself as America’s newspaper of record.“The newspaper carries its own singular obsession with the president, aggrieved over his refusal to give the paper a sit-down interview that Publisher AG Sulzberger and other top editors believe to be its birthright,” Politico reported earlier this year.Biden has given fewer press conferences and media interviews than any US president since Ronald Reagan, in what now looks like a deliberate strategy to conceal his deterioration. Trump – who has frequently denounced the media as “enemies of the people” – gave nearly three times more news conferences and interviews in office than Biden.With a rash of hastily organised interviews and a high-profile news conference at Thursday’s close of the Nato summit, the administration is now trying to rectify that – a panicked tactical change which, if it results in more verbal flubs, may only serve to justify the previous approach.It is an unintended irony that the White House has been shielding Biden from media accountability – a key component of the democratic process – and rubbishing questions over his age in an effort to maintain his credibility as a self-proclaimed defender of democracy and a bulwark against Trump’s authoritarian visions, which the administration insists is inimical to press freedom.That circle, says Campbell, cannot easily be squared.“It does seem to be in conflict with this greater goal as a protector or defender of democracy if you’re protecting the chief executive for an extended period of time, and then really criticising any attempts to pierce the veil.” More

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      Hakeem Jeffries reportedly did not offer Biden his endorsement in private meeting – live

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      CNN reports that Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries did not offer Joe Biden his endorsement when they met following the president’s press conference yesterday.Jeffries “bluntly” shared the views of his caucus in the meeting, though CNN notes it is unclear if Biden asked for his support.Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries announced that he had met with Joe Biden following his closely watched press conference yesterday, and conveyed “conclusions about the path forward” that he had heard from lawmakers. CNN later reported that Jeffries did not offer Biden his endorsement, though it was unclear if the president asked for it. Later in the day, Biden called in to a meeting with the Congressional Hispanic caucus, which reportedly did not go very well. Some lawmakers were not allowed to ask questions, while one who did told Biden he should step aside. Despite all that, his campaign says they remain on track, and that donations “exploded” during his press conference last night.Here’s what else happened today:

      James Clyburn, a House Democrat close to the president, reiterated his support for Biden, but noted that the party has until the start of their convention next month to make decisions about replacing him.

      A new poll may undercut arguments that Biden has lost significant public support following his debate, after it found him in a statistical tie with Donald Trump.

      Speaking of Trump, the former president wants congressional Republicans to insist on the passage of a law, opposed by the White House, to require people to present proof of citizenship when registering to vote, raising the possibility that a government spending fight could break out just weeks before the 5 November election.

      The former president also said that he would take a cognitive test if Biden took one, and that all future presidential candidates should follow suit.

      Melania Trump, who has generally been absent from the campaign trail, will reportedly make an appearance at the Republican national convention next week.
      In a briefing to reporters as Joe Biden flies to Michigan for a campaign event in Detroit, Biden-Harris campaign communications director Michael Tyler said they had seen a surge in donations during the president’s press conference last night.“Since last night, we’re seeing strong support across our coalition, but most importantly, we’re seeing it with our grassroots base. We have close to 40,000 donations last night alone. Donations exploded during the president’s press conference. In fact, we hit seven times our average during the press conference,” Tyler said.He also said the campaign believes polls are in his favor.“Polling continues to show the same race we’ve been seeing, right, one that is close and unaffected by the debate. President Biden has enduring strength with high propensity voters, while Donald Trump demonstrates a low ceiling, unable to expand his support,” Tyler said.Biden yesterday told reporters he remained confident in his ability to win, and spoke at length about foreign policy topics, but made a few blunders in the closing hours of the Nato summit, including by accidentally introducing “president Putin”, when he meant Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy.Tyler downplayed those moments, saying, “Joe Biden has been making gaffes for 40 years. He made a couple last night. He’ll probably continue to do so. Our opponent is somebody who, every single day out on the stump, is calling for a bloodbath if he loses, is pledging to rule as a dictator on day one, and is pledging to ban abortion nationwide, across the country,.”Here is a look back at press conference:Donald Trump has more harsh words for George Clooney, over the actor and director’s New York Times column in which he called for Joe Biden to stand aside as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, given concerns about the 81-year-old’s fitness for office.“I thought George Clooney was very disloyal,” Trump, 78 and the presumptive Republican nominee, told The Clay and Buck Sexton show on Friday.“Because whether you like Biden or not, you know, he’s been nice to Clooney. I thought it was very disloyal, backstabber, third-rate movie actor.“He was a television actor and never made really a good movie. So he’s sort of third-rate as a movie actor. Clark Gable, he’s not. I thought it was a great act of disloyalty.”The Times column was headlined “George Clooney: I Love Joe Biden. But We Need a New Nominee.”Clooney wrote: “It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”Biden’s disastrous debate against Trump in Atlanta last month fueled a crisis for Democrats, with members of Congress and reportedly donors calling for the president to quit.Trump had already attacked Clooney, writing on social media after the Times column: “He’s turned on Crooked Joe like the rats they both are. What does Clooney know about anything?“Clooney should get out of politics and go back to television.”Trump famously got out of television and went into politics, having made his name as a cartoon version of himself on The Apprentice for NBC.Clooney has not commented.As the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports, Trump and his aides are keen to see Biden stay in the race.A conference call between Joe Biden and lawmakers in the Congressional Hispanic caucus left many with a bad taste in their mouth, Notus reports, as the call’s organizers prevented some members from speaking and one congressman told the president that he should drop out.Only two members of the Democratic group were initially allowed to ask questions, but after Biden opened the floor to more questions, California’s Mike Levin told the president he thought he should make way for another candidate.Notus said the president responded to Levin, though they did not report what he said. Then, the call’s host, Representative Linda T Sánchez, ended the call, and Levin later went public with his belief that Democrats would be better with another candidate. Here’s what he had to say:
      Like so many of you, I was naturally concerned about President Biden’s performance in the recent debate.Since then, I’ve made my opinions known in the appropriate manner with House Democratic leadership and my colleagues. And I called upon all Americans to give the president a window to make an expeditious decision about his candidacy.
      In the two weeks since the debate, I’ve had a chance to connect with so many of you, our constituents and supporters. The response from literally several hundred of you has been overwhelming, and I’m very grateful for your candor.First, let me say that President Biden has been an outstanding leader, not only of our nation, but of the entire free world. Making this statement is not easy. I have deep respect for President Biden’s five-plus decades of public service and incredible appreciation for the work we’ve done together these last three and a half years. But I believe the time has come for President Biden to pass the torch.
      In a string of posts on Truth Social spent insulting Joe Biden over his debate performance, Donald Trump said that he will take a cognitive test if the president undergoes one, and that such exams should be mandatory for all presidential candidates:
      Joe should immediately take a Cognitive Test, and I will go with him, and take one also. For the first time we’ll be a team, and do it for the good of the Country….And from now on, all Presidential candidates should be mandated to take a Cognitive Test and Aptitude Test, regardless of their age!!!
      Nikki Haley, Trump’s former United Nations ambassador who made a quixotic bid for the Republican presidential nomination, had campaigned on making such tests mandatory for politicians over the age of 75. Both Trump and Biden would meet that criteria.Republican senator Lindsey Graham took up the call following the first debate, in which the president struggled to counter attacks from Trump, who attracted criticisms of his own for repeatedly lying:Melania Trump, the wife of former president Donald Trump, will make a rare appearance at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee next week, CNN first reported.Melania’s appearance at the RNC was confirmed by two sources familiar with the former first lady’s plans.Melania has been mostly absent from the Trump campaign trail. It is unclear if she will give remarks at the convention or participate in any significant way.As Biden works to rebuild trust among Democratic lawmakers and voters, the president will be speaking at the same high school in Michigan where he campaigned with high-ranking Democrats in 2020.According to CNN:
      Biden will speak at same site in Michigan where he promised to be a “bridge” to next generation in 2020, in their ‘live’ piece: The president is set to speak at the same high school in Detroit where he stood hand-in-hand with then-Sen. Kamala Harris, Sen. Cory Booker and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer as he cast himself as a link to the future.“Look, I view myself as a bridge, not as anything else,” Biden said on March 9, 2020 during the Democratic event. “There’s an entire generation of leaders you saw stand behind me. They are the future of this country.”
      Over the weekend, Biden also will be meeting with the Congressional Progressive Caucus in a virtual meeting, Punchbowl News reported.Biden has already received support from key progressive lawmakers following his widely criticized debate performance, including Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Bernie Sanders.Biden will also meet with the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC) on Friday as well, several outlets have reported.CNN and Punchbowl News have said that Biden will meet with CAPAC as he continues to assuage fears among lawmakers concerning his ability to be the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee.The meeting will take place virtually.Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries announced that he had met with Joe Biden following his closely watched press conference yesterday, and conveyed “conclusions about the path forward” he heard from lawmakers. CNN later reported that Jeffries did not offer Biden his endorsement, though it was unclear if the president asked for it. Later today, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, whose leaders say they support Biden, will reportedly meet with the president, while one more House Democrat has announced that they think Biden should “pass the torch”. We will see if any others join her, and are also keeping an eye on the president’s campaign visit to swing state Michigan this evening.Here’s what else has happened today so far:

      James Clyburn, a House Democrat close to the president, reiterated his support for Biden, but noted that the party has until the start of their convention next month to make decisions about replacing him.

      A new poll may undercut arguments that Biden has lost major support following his debate, after it found him in a statistical tie with Donald Trump.

      Speaking of Trump, the former president wants congressional Republicans to insist on the passage of a law, opposed by the White House, to require people present proof of citizenship when registering to vote, in a sign that a government spending fight could break out just weeks before the 5 November election.
      Teamsters president Sean O’Brien nearly threw hands with a Republican senator during a hearing on Capitol Hill last year, but that apparently has not discouraged the union leader from planning to address the Republican national convention. The Guardian’s Michael Sainato reports that is not sitting well with senior members of the union:The Teamsters International president, Sean O’Brien, has been accused by senior members of the union of disgracing it by agreeing to an unprecedented appearance at next week’s Republican national convention.O’Brien’s decision was branded “unconscionable” by John Palmer, vice-president at large at the Teamsters, who accused him of lending support to the “most anti-union party and president” in a generation.In a letter seen by the Guardian, Palmer urged members of the union to demand that O’Brien cancel his planned appearance. The Teamsters did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The Teamsters is one of the largest labor unions in the US, with 1.3 million members. While other large labor unions and the largest coalition of labor unions, the AFL-CIO, have already endorsed Joe Biden, the Teamsters has yet to make an endorsement in the 2024 presidential election.CNN reports that Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries did not offer Joe Biden his endorsement when they met following the president’s press conference yesterday.Jeffries “bluntly” shared the views of his caucus in the meeting, though CNN notes it is unclear if Biden asked for his support.Semafor reports that members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus plan to meet with the president today:Earlier this week, the all-Democratic caucus’s chair Nanette Barragán and deputy chair Adriano Espaillat reaffirmed their support for Joe Biden, saying in a joint statement:
      We stand with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. More

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      Biden heads to Michigan to shore up support as calls to quit persist

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      Joe Biden was headed for the battleground state of Michigan on Friday, to campaign both for re-election and for his survival as the Democratic presidential nominee.In Washington, calls for the 81-year-old president to quit continued, while the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives said he had discussed the issue with Biden on Thursday, after Biden’s press conference following the Nato summit.In a letter to colleagues, Hakeem Jeffries of New York said discussions about Biden’s age and fitness for office had been “candid, clear-eyed and comprehensive”.“On behalf of the House Democratic caucus,” he said, “I requested and was graciously granted a private meeting with President Joe Biden.“That meeting occurred yesterday evening … I directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward.”Biden’s response was not disclosed, nor details of Democratic “conclusions”. But as the letter was released, an 18th congressional Democrat said Biden should let someone else face Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, in November.The 19th Democrat to say Biden should go, Mike Levin of California, was reported by Politico to have told the president so to his face on Friday, during a virtual meeting with the Congressional Hispanic caucus. Levin then stated his position publicly.Politico also quoted a “pro-Biden Democrat who attended the meeting” as saying the president “sounded very lucid, sharp, engaged”.There was further worrying news for Democrats when the New York Times reported that so long as Biden remains the nominee, major donors will put on hold “roughly $90m in pledged donations”.The Sunrise Movement also called for Biden to quit. Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the youth-led climate-focused activist group, said she was “concerned Joe Biden isn’t in a position to mobilise young voters and win”.As Biden headed for Detroit, the capital remained abuzz. At the Nato summit on Thursday, Biden spoke assertively and showed his foreign policy experience but also made embarrassing slips, introducing Volodymyr Zelenskiy of Ukraine as “President Putin” and referring to Kamala Harris, his vice-president, as “Vice-President Trump”.Trump seized on that, posting on social media: “Crooked Joe begins his ‘Big Boy’ press conference with, ‘I wouldn’t have picked Vice-President Trump to be vice-president, though I think she was not qualified to be president.’ Great job, Joe!”Biden had appeared to say: “Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice-President Trump to be vice-president [if] I think she’s not qualified to be president.”Online, Biden fired back, posting: “By the way: Yes, I know the difference. One’s a prosecutor, and the other’s a felon.”Trump, 78 and facing questions about his own cognitive fitness, was convicted on 34 charges arising from hush-money payments to an adult film star. He faces 54 other criminal charges, concerning election subversion and retention of classified information, and was fined millions of dollars in civil cases over business fraud and defamation arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”.Harris came to prominence as a prosecutor in San Francisco before becoming attorney general of California, a US senator and Biden’s running mate.Michigan is a swing state, choosing Trump in 2016 and Biden in 2020, its Black voters a key part of Biden’s support. The Oscar-winning actor Octavia Spencer was set to appear with Biden in Detroit on Friday.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBiden’s campaign said he would target Project 2025, a policy plan led by the Heritage Foundation, a rightwing thinktank. Trump has tried to disavow the project, which Democrats say shows his extremist agenda.There was good news for Biden on Friday: a poll showing him improving since the disastrous debate against Trump in Atlanta that pitched Democrats into crisis.“Biden actually gained a point since last month’s survey, which was taken before the debate,” wrote Domenico Montanaro of NPR, which carried out the poll with PBS and Marist. “He leads Trump 50%-48% in a head-to-head matchup. But Biden slips when third-party options are introduced, with Trump [leading] 43%-42%.”But Politico noted telling dissonance in responses to Biden’s Nato performance. One unnamed Biden aide said the president exceeded expectations and had some great lines. A Democratic aide said Biden had “lowered the bar … until it’s on the floor”.Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, the dean of the Congressional Black caucus, told NBC Biden “sometimes mangles words and phrases but all of that is almost natural for people who grew up stuttering”.He added: “He has one of the best minds that I have ever been around … and so I would hope that we would focus on the substance of this man … and how he has run this country.“… The conversation should focus on the record of this administration, on the alternative in this election, and let Joe Biden make his own decisions about his future.“If he decides to change his mind later on then we will respond to that. We have until 19 August to open our convention” in Chicago.Asked “Is this the same Joe Biden that we saw four years ago?”, Clyburn said: “No!”“I’m not the same Jim Clyburn that I was four years ago and in 10 days I’ll be 84. But I’m a bit wiser than I was before … It’s biblical. When I became a man I put away childish things. Joe Biden has put away childish things because he has become a man. His opponent [Trump] is still a child.”Biden, Clyburn said, “knows what a democracy is all about.” More

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      Will Biden drop out? Key questions on his presidential campaign

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      As he addressed reporters at the conclusion of the Nato conference on Thursday, Joe Biden sent a defiant message to his critics: I’m not going anywhere. Despite demands from dozens of Democratic lawmakers that he withdraw from the presidential race following his disastrous debate performance, Biden argued he was the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump in November.“I think I’m the most qualified person to run for president. I beat him once, and I will beat him again,” Biden said. “There’s a long way to go in this campaign, and so I – I’m just going to keep moving.”That message did not assuage some skeptics in Biden’s party, as three more House Democrats called on the president to drop out in the hours after the press conference. Biden and his team have not yet quieted critics’ concerns, but the president’s detractors have few options beyond their public pressure campaign to get him to step aside.With just one month left before the Democrats convene in Chicago for their convention, the party has limited time to determine who will be on the top of the ticket in November.Here’s what you need to know about Biden’s path forward:How many Democratic lawmakers are calling on Biden to drop out of the race?At least 19 congressional Democrats – 18 House members and one senator – have publicly called on Biden to withdraw from the race as of Friday morning. Although those lawmakers represent a relatively small fraction of the more than 200 Democrats on Capitol Hill, their damning statements have intensified scrutiny of Biden and his ability to serve another four years as president.“I understand why President Biden wants to run,” Senator Peter Welch wrote in a Washington Post op-ed. “He saved us from Donald Trump once and wants to do it again. But he needs to reassess whether he is the best candidate to do so. In my view, he is not.”What do voters think about Biden’s candidacy?A clear majority of voters believe Biden should step aside, but Democrats specifically have more mixed views on the subject. According to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll released Thursday, 67% of Americans, including 56% of Democrats, say Biden should step aside and let someone else run for president.In comparison, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released last Tuesday showed 32% of Democrats saying Biden should withdraw from the race. If the proportion of Democrats calling on Biden to drop out continues to grow, the president’s already vulnerable position in the party could become untenable.That being said, the concerns about Biden’s fitness for office do not appear to have fundamentally reshaped the race for the presidency. The Post-ABC-Ipsos poll showed Biden and Trump each capturing 46% of the vote, a result that is essentially unchanged since April. A hypothetical match-up between Trump and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, also appears to be a virtual tie, with 49% of voters supporting Harris and 47% backing Trump.Has Biden given any indication that he plans to drop out?No. Biden has instead planned a campaign blitz across the coming days to demonstrate his ability to deliver a convincing pitch for re-election. On Monday, he will visit Austin, Texas, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, and he will also sit down for an interview with the NBC News anchor Lester Holt.“I’m determined on running, but I think it’s important that I allay fears by letting them see me out there,” Biden said on Thursday. “I’m going out in the areas where we think we can win, where we can persuade people to move our way.”Can Biden’s critics force him out of the race?They have few options to do so. Presidential primary voting has already concluded in all US states, so the delegates going to the Democratic convention are the only people who can nominate another candidate at this point. But of the roughly 4,000 delegates bound for Chicago, nearly 3,900 of them are pledged to Biden because of his strong performance in the primaries.Biden said on Thursday that the delegates pledged to him can “do whatever they want” at the convention, but it is a bit more complicated than that.Elaine Kamarck, a member of the Democratic national committee rules committee and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, notes that current party rules state: “Delegates elected to the national convention pledged to a presidential candidate shall in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.”Kamarck wrote on Thursday: “Few, if any, delegates to recent conventions have ever sought to test [the rule]. But if worries about President Biden’s ability to run and to serve continue to grow, along with fears of handing the presidency over to Donald Trump, some delegates may find themselves tempted to vote for someone else.”How long does Biden have to decide if he will stay in the race?The Democratic convention begins 19 August, but the party may formally nominate a candidate before then. Before Biden’s poor debate performance, the Democratic National Committee already planned to virtually nominate a candidate to meet an Ohio ballot deadline of 7 August, but no date has been officially announced for the roll call vote.Because of the Ohio deadline, Democrats have even less time than it might appear to determine who their nominee will be.What would happen if Biden did step aside?If Biden withdraws from the presidential race, the more than 4,000 Democratic delegates will need to nominate another candidate to run against Trump in November. The winning candidate will need to secure the support of a majority of delegates to capture the nomination.Harris would enter the nomination fight with an early advantage, as she has the largest national profile of any potential candidate and some Democrats have already named her as their preferred option. But Harris would not automatically become the nominee if Biden steps aside, as she would still need to win the necessary number of delegates. Other names floated as potential replacements for Biden include the California governor, Gavin Newsom, Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, and Illinois governor, JB Pritzker.Asked about Harris on Thursday, Biden said he had the utmost confidence in his vice-president, but he reminded reporters that any other Democratic candidate would enter the election with minimal time to introduce themselves and deliver a winning message to voters.“I believe I’m the best qualified to govern, and I think I’m the best qualified to win,” Biden said. “There are other people who could beat Trump, too, but it’s awful hard to start from scratch.” More

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      Joe Biden defiant despite gaffes at Nato press conference as he battles calls to stand aside

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      In a critical press conference meant to make or break his presidential campaign, Joe Biden spiritedly defended his foreign policy record even as he faced a barrage of questions on his mental fitness and, in another gaffe, mistakenly referred to Kamala Harris as “vice-president Trump”.Biden offered extensive remarks on thorny foreign policy issues including competition with China and the Israel-Hamas war, in which he said he had warned Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu away from an occupation of the Gaza Strip.He said he was directly in contact with Xi Jinping to warn him not to offer further support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, but not with Vladimir Putin, whom he said: “I have no reason to speak to him right now.”But Biden, who is running to be president until January 2029, fielded an equal number of questions during the press conference on his mental fitness, an issue that has loomed over his campaign since a faltering debate performance against Donald Trump that he called “that dumb mistake”.Ultimately, it was a performance that supporters will probably say shows he is capable of handling his responsibilities as commander-in-chief, but unlikely to convince those already in doubt about his mental fitness that he can serve another four years in office.Biden, 81, insisted he would stay in the race despite calls from some in his party to drop out and to allow another figure, including Harris, run in the November election.Shortly after he finished speaking, Connecticut congressman Jim Himes, the top ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, called on Biden to step down from the campaign, writing on X: “We must put forth the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat posed by Trump’s promised MAGA authoritarianism. I no longer believe that is Joe Biden.”Appearing later on CNN, Himes said: “Imagine that three months from now, we get another performance like there was in the debate, right before the election. Do you want to take that risk? I don’t.”Two more congressional Democrats also called on Biden to step aside, bringing the total to 17. Representative Scott Peters of California said, “The stakes are high, and we are on a losing course,” while Representative Eric Sorensen of Illinois said that Biden should “put country over party”.Wrapping up a summit of the 32-member bloc in Washington DC, Biden said: “I’ve not had any of my European allies come up and say, ‘Joe, don’t run’. What I’ve heard them say is, ‘You’ve got to win’.“If I slow down and can’t get the job done that’s a sign I shouldn’t be doing this,” he said. “But there’s no indication of that. None.”Biden said he wouldn’t leave the race unless polls showed him that he had no chance of winning against Trump, even if they showed that Harris’s chances in the election were better than his own.Nonetheless, he said Harris was qualified to be president as well, although he misnamed her in the endorsement. “I wouldn’t have picked vice-president Trump to be vice-president, if she’s not qualified to be president,” he said.That gaffe was compounded by the fact that he had introduced the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as “President Putin” just hours earlier, before correcting himself and saying “we’re going to beat Putin”.Biden initially used the final Nato summit press conference as something of a stump speech, brandishing his national security record in supporting Ukraine against Russian aggression and saying that the November vote was “much more than a political question … It’s a national security issue.”He then turned to his record on the economy, border security and his efforts to broker a peace in the Israel-Hamas war to bolster his case for his campaign in November.Biden spoke for 58 minutes, including 50 minutes of unscripted question-and-answer. He appeared most comfortable and cogent as he discussed thorny foreign policy questions.“Don’t make the same mistake America made after [Osama] bin Laden,” he said he told Netanyahu, as he sought to ward off a potential occupation of the Gaza Strip. “There’s no need to occupy anywhere. Go after the people who did the job.”He also indicated that European countries were prepared to cut their investments in China if Xi continued to “[supply] Russia, with information and capacity, along with working with North Korea and others, to help Russia in armament”.But at times he got lost in the weeds. Asked about reports that he had asked his schedule to be moved up, he said: “I’m not talking about, and if you’ve looked at my schedule since I, since I made that stupid mistake in the campaign, in the debate. I mean, my schedule has been full bore.”“Where’s Trump been?” he continued. “Riding around on his golf cart? Filling out his scorecard before he hits the ball?” More