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      Robert F Kennedy Jr lists foreclosed New York home as voting address

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      Robert F Kennedy Jr has listed a home in foreclosure for non-payment as his voting address, though he does not own the property and is not listed in public searches as one of its residents, according to online records.In a statement late Sunday to the New York Post, which first reported on the home in question and how neighbors have never seen him there, the independent candidate’s presidential campaign insisted that the property was his “official address”.“He receives mail there,” said the statement provided to the publication, which noted how the candidate’s father, Robert F Kennedy Sr, served as a US senator for New York before his assassination in 1968. “His driver’s license is registered there. His automobile is registered there. His voting registration is from there. His hunting, fishing, falconry and wildlife rehabilitation licenses are from there. He pays rent to the owner.”Kennedy went on the defensive about his ties to the luxury home on Croton Lake Road in the Westchester county community of Katonah as both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have perceived him as a threat to their prospects in November’s race for the White House.Both the the Democratic incumbent and the former Republican president fear that the conspiracy theorist and anti-vaccine activist – who is averaging about 10% in national polls – could siphon off enough votes to swing the race.Voting records first reviewed by the New York Post show Kennedy used the Croton Lake Road address in eight primary or general elections between 2008 and 2020.Property records show the home’s owner is Barbara Moss, an interior and landscape designer who is married to Timothy Haydock – a doctor, Kennedy’s longtime friend and the father of the candidate’s goddaughter.Moss received notice in late April that the US Bank Trust company in March had filed to foreclose on the Croton Lake Road home, saying she owed more than $46,000 plus interest on the property. A conference to settle the matter was scheduled for 7 June.The Post said it interviewed neighbors of Moss – and even local authorities – who described themselves as “shocked” that the home was linked to Kennedy, also known for being the nephew of both John F Kennedy and Ted Kennedy.One police officer told the Post, “No … he doesn’t live here.” And publicly accessible property search records show Kennedy’s most recent addresses are in Los Angeles as well as Foxborough, Massachusetts.But in an interview that he granted to the Post, Kennedy’s brother, Doug, said Robert lived or at least stayed with Moss and Haydock “for a number of years”.The statement added that Kennedy moved to Croton Lake Road long term – at Haydock’s invitation – after his declaration as a presidential candidate in the spring of 2023 prompted the landlord at his old place in nearby Bedford, New York, to ask him to relocate over fears about “becoming embroiled in political controversy”.Kennedy had not been seen on Croton Lake Road since running for the presidency required him to constantly travel to other states, according to his campaign’s statement to the Post.Among other things, the campaign also claimed that Kennedy has always planned to resettle in New York permanently after his wife, the actor and comedian Cheryl Hines, retires from her film and television career.Kennedy, 70, grappled with Sunday’s revelations less than two weeks after the New York Times published a story about a 2012 deposition in which he said he had endured a previous neurological problem because a worm got in his brain, “ate a portion of it and then died”.He later boasted that he could “eat five more brain worms and still beat” both Biden, 81, and Trump, 77, in a staged debate. More

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      Biden: what would Trump have done if the Capitol riots had been led by Black Americans?

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      Joe Biden has launched one of his most scathing attacks yet on Donald Trump’s record of racism, suggesting that the former US president would have acted differently to the January 6 2021 insurrection if it was led by Black people.The remarks, at a dinner hosted by a civil rights organisation in a critical swing state, pointed to an intensifying battle between Biden and Trump for African American voters ahead of November’s presidential election.“Let me ask you,” Biden said during an address to an NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) dinner in Detroit. “What do you think he would have done on January 6 if Black Americans had stormed the Capitol?”There was a collective gasp and murmur in the cavernous convention centre, where an estimated 5,000 guests had gathered. The president insisted: “No, I’m serious. What do you think? I can only imagine.”The great majority of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6 in an attempt to overturn his election defeat were white. One was pictured carrying the flag of the Confederacy, which fought the 1861-65 civil war to in a failed effort to preserve slavery in the south.But as a congressional panel investigating the attack chronicled, Trump remained at the White House and took no action for hours, even as the mob threatened to hang his vice-president, Mike Pence. He eventually released a video calling for the rioters to stand down and go home.More than 1,265 defendants have been charged and hundreds imprisoned for their role in January 6. But Trump has described them as “patriots” and “hostages” and, as Biden noted in his remarks, suggested that he will pardon them if reelected.Biden was speaking during a campaign swing through Georgia and Michigan, two battlegrounds where the Black vote will be crucial. Opinion polls suggest that a small but significant percentage are turning from Biden to Trump.The president told the audience in Detroit: “You’re the reason Donald Trump was defeated for president. You’re the reason Donald Trump is going to be a loser again.”Biden touted his own record but kept returning to Trump and the threat he poses to democracy. He highlighted his own appointment of the first Black female supreme court justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson.“Let me ask you, who do you think he’ll put on the supreme court?” he asked. “Do you think he’ll pick anybody who has a brain?”Biden also accused Republicans of banning books and undermining African American history. “Extremists close the doors of opportunity, strike down affirmative action, attack the values of diversity, equality and inclusion,” he said.“They don’t see you in the future of America, but they’re wrong. We know Black history is American history.”The president also warned: “The threat that Trump poses in a second term is greater than the first.” He said “something snapped in Trump” after his 2020 election defeat and “he’s clearly unhinged”.The president received one of the biggest cheers of the night when he proclaimed himself a “union guy”, adding: “I walked the picket line with union workers here in Michigan. At the same time, Trump went to a non-union stop to show his disrespect for union workers.”Other speakers included Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, tipped as a potential presidential candidate in 2028. More

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      Dignity, joy, a raised fist: Biden renews pitch to Black voters at Morehouse commencement

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      It was, in the end, an artful compromise.Joe Biden got to speak uninterrupted and renew his pitch to Black voters. Protesters got to make their point by wearing keffiyehs or raising a fist. Even the skies were merciful, hinting at but never quite unleashing rain.And through it all, Sunday’s 140th commencement at Morehouse College, a historically black men’s college in Atlanta, preserved not only its dignity but a sense of joy. Music played, parents wept and graduates who had weathered a global pandemic could savour their big day without being upstaged.“Thank you God for this ‘woke’ class of 2024 that is in tune with the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times,” the Rev Claybon Lea Jr said during a prayer at the start of the commencement, held on a lawn on the college’s century campus, surrounded by trees and red brick academic buildings.The urgency of the daily news agenda – will the US president be heckled over Gaza? – collided here with storied traditions dating back a century and half. Accompanied by organ music, the 2024 graduating class processed in black mortar boards with gold or black sashes. Most wore Kente stoles with the Morehouse seal.Morehouse alumni followed, many wearing maroon jackets and straw hats with maroon bands. Some went all the way back to 1954. The alumni seemed more enthusiastic about standing to applaud Biden than the fresh wave of graduates.They took their seats and looked at a stage that had been erected with a black awning with a maroon backdrop that said “Morehouse”’ in giant letters. Two big screens were showing the event, including close-ups of graduates who smiled, waved or made goofy faces.The programme began with the solemn ringing of a bell, an evocation and the Army Color Guard Corps performing the presentation of colours. The Morehouse College Glee Club performed the The Star Spangled Banner and Lift Every Voice and Sing – the swelling chorus resonant, resilient and transcending concerns of the moment.The emotion of the day was evident in David Thomas, president of Morehouse College, who choked up a few times. He paid tribute to students who got through the pandemic with perseverance: “You have demonstrated unparalleled fortitude in the face of adversity.”When Biden took the stage, wearing a maroon gown with three black stripes on the arms and maroon tie, there was polite applause, though it could hardly be described as fierce.There had been much hype around his Morehouse commencement address and whether, in light of unrest on other campuses around the country, it would be disrupted by protests over his handling of the war in Gaza. Some staff and students had called for Biden’s invitation to be rescinded over his support for Israel and their discomfort with an address during election campaign season.But not for the first time, Biden benefited from low expectations and will count the relatively modest dissent as a win. Outside the college, a lone protester brandished a handwritten “Genocide Joe” sign, watched closely by a police officer.Inside, a small number of graduates wore keffiyehs – the black-and-white head scarf which has become an emblem of solidarity with the Palestinian cause – around their shoulders on top of their black graduation robes. In his evocation, Lea cited a “Palestinian Jew named Jesus”, and said all children matter, from Israelis to Palestinians and beyond.DeAngelo Jeremiah Fletcher, the class valedictorian, wore a small Palestinian flag pin and decorated his mortarboard with another Palestinian emblem. First he spoke movingly of the dehumanisation that African Americans have long endured and said Morehouse has instilled pride “in our combined identities as Black and human”.He turned to global politics and referenced Morehouse graduate Martin Luther King, whose civil rights activism overlapped with opposition to the Vietnam war.Fletcher said: “From the comfort of our homes, we watch an unprecedented number of civilians mourn the loss of men, women and children, while calling for the release of all hostages.”Biden was staring ahead. Fletcher added: “It is my stance as a Morehouse man, nay as a human being, to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.”Biden joined the applause and shook Fletcher’s hand. When it was Biden’s turn to speak, some students turned their chairs around to turn their backs to him and one graduate appeared to briefly hold aloft a Palestinian flag.A lone graduate at the back, wearing a mortar and blue gown, remained still with his back turned to Biden and his right fist raised throughout the entire address. It was perhaps a more powerful statement than any number of disruptions or sign waving.Biden, who has lavished attention on historically Black colleges and universities, sought to assure his audience: “I support peaceful nonviolent protests. Your voices should be heard, and I promise you I hear them.”He described the war in Gaza as “heartbreaking” and acknowledged: “Innocent Palestinians are caught in the middle of this … It’s a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. That’s why I’ve called for an immediate ceasefire. I know it angers and frustrates many of you, including my family.”Opinion polls suggest that some African American men in Georgia, a crucial swing state, are tilting away from Biden towards his election opponent Donald Trump. But it was hard to imagine the former president coming to speak here, getting the same kind of reception or speaking out against “extremist forces”, as Biden went on to do.An honorary doctorate was bestowed on Biden, who wore a mischievous expression, then smiled and laughed and pointed at someone in the audience. He joked: “I’m not going home!”And for the first time that morning, the audience began chanting. Not “Genocide Joe” but “Four more years!” More

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      Biden vows to fight ‘poison of white supremacy’ at Morehouse speech

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      Joe Biden told graduating students of Morehouse College that American democracy has failed the Black community, but vowed to continue fighting “the poison of white supremacy”, in a widely watched speech to a historically Black college during an election year.Despite a backlash from some students and alumni in the weeks leading up to Biden’s commencement address, including over the Hamas-Israel war and concerns that Biden would use the speech as a campaign event, the president’s address to the all-male school was warmly received. He used his speech to reaffirm his commitment to democracy in the wake of the January 6 insurrection, and to reiterate his call for a ceasefire in Gaza.Biden’s appearance at Morehouse comes as part of his campaign efforts in Georgia, a key swing state in the 2020 election, and as polls suggest his support from young voters and voters of color – who were integral to the coalition that helped him beat Donald Trump in 2020 – appears to be flagging slightly.Despite criticism over Biden’s visit, the mood at Morehouse seemed upbeat and when a speaker asked attendees to welcome Biden they responded with applause and cheers.“Black men are being killed in the street. What is democracy? A trail of broken promises still leaving Black communities behind,” Biden said. “What is democracy? – You have to be 10 times better than others to get a fair shot.”“What does it mean,” Biden continued, “to be a Black Man who loves his country even if it doesn’t love him back in equal measure?”“My commitment to you [is] to show you democracy, democracy, democracy is still the way,” he said.Biden also warned about the powerful tide of extremism. “Insurrectionists storming the Capitol with Confederate flags are called patriots by some – not in my house,” Biden said to applause. “We all bleed the same color. In America, we’re all created equal.”Biden also reaffirmed his commitment to an end to the Gaza conflict. “I support peaceful nonviolent protests,” he said. “Your voices should be heard and I promise you: I hear you.”Biden said the war in Gaza was “heartbreaking”, discussed the horror of Hamas’s 7 October attack and of the plight of Palestinians. “Innocent Palestinians are caught in the middle of this,” he said. “It’s a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. That’s why I’ve called for an immediate ceasefire.”Despite concerns over disruptions, nobody interrupted Biden’s address, though one lone graduate stood with his back turned to Biden with his right fist raised.The valedictorian, DeAngelo Jeremiah Fletcher, also addressed the Gaza conflict in his speech.“The Israel-Gaza conflict has plagued the people of its region for generations. It is important to recognize that both sides have suffered heavy casualties in the wake of October 7,” Fletcher said. “From the comfort of our homes, we watched an unprecedented number of civilians mourn the loss of men, women and children.“It is my stance as a Morehouse man, and as a human being, to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.”Fletcher was met with applause, including from Biden.Biden also received an honorary doctorate of laws from Morehouse, which counts Dr Martin Luther King among its many renowned alumni.Morehouse invited Biden to serve as graduation speaker in September, prior to Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israeli civilians that left some 1,200 dead. In April, it announced he would also be the recipient of the honorary degree. The Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine–Georgia condemned his appearance.“More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed, mostly women and children,” the group said in a statement. “More than 77,000 have been injured. Every hospital and university in Gaza has been destroyed. None of this would have been possible without the support and sponsorship of the Biden Administration. Any college or university that gives its commencement stage to President Biden in this moment is endorsing genocide.”Steve Benjamin, head of the White House Office of Public Engagement, met with Morehouse students and faculty for several hours ahead of Biden’s appearance, to listen to their concerns that Biden would treat his commencement address as a stump speech.After the Morehouse speech Biden is expected to travel to Detroit, where he will give an address at the NAACP Freedom Fund dinner and highlight how his administration’s policies have helped Black Americans. Earlier this week Biden met with litigants in the watershed Brown v Board of education case, and sat down with the leadership of a group of historically Black fraternities and sororities called the Divine Nine. More

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      in US Politics

      Beware the Biden factor, Keir Starmer: you can govern well and still risk losing the country | Jonathan Freedland

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      The smile was the giveaway. Asked whether he was “just a copycat” of Tony Blair at the launch of his Blair-style pledge card on Thursday, Keir Starmer positively glowed. He was delighted with the comparison, which the entire exercise was surely designed to encourage. Blair “won three elections in a row”, Starmer said, beaming. Of course, he’s thrilled to be likened to a serial winner. And yet the more apt parallel is also a cautionary one. It’s not with Starmer’s long-ago predecessor, but with his would-be counterpart across the Atlantic: Joe Biden.It’s natural that the sight of a Labour leader, a lawyer from north London, on course for Downing Street after a long era of Tory rule, would have people digging out the Oasis CDs and turning back the clock to 1997: Labour election victories are a rare enough commodity to prompt strong memories. But, as many veterans of that period are quick to point out, the circumstances of 2024 are very different. The UK economy was humming then and it’s parlous now. Optimism filled the air then, while too few believe genuine change is even possible now. And politics tended to be about material matters then, tax and public services, rather than dominated by polarising cultural wars as it is now.All of which partly explains why it’s a comparison to the US president that Starmer should be thinking about – even if it’s not nearly so encouraging.Start with those aspects of the Biden story that can give Starmer heart. The veteran Democrat showed it is possible to win office thanks less to a wave of popular enthusiasm than a hunger for change after years of chaos. He proved that you can make a virtue of a lack of swash and buckle, offering steady solidity as a respite after frantic drama. In 2020, Biden demonstrated that dependable and capable can be enough to win when voters have had enough of charismatic and crazy. It worked for him after the era of Donald Trump, just as it’s working for Starmer after an era that, for all Rishi Sunak’s efforts, is defined by Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.In other words, in 2020, Biden showed that playing a hand much like the one dealt to Starmer can be enough to win. The trouble is, in 2024 he’s showing why that might not be enough to win twice.Take a look at the New York Times poll published this week. The headline findings are bad enough, with Biden trailing in five of the six battleground states where the election will be decided. Behind in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Michigan, he’s ahead in Wisconsin alone. The underlying numbers are worse still with, improbable as it may seem, Trump gaining among Black, Latino and young voters especially. Most alarming for Biden is the finding that 70% think the US political and economic systems need major change – or should be torn down altogether. It makes the 2024 contest a change election in the US, just as it is in the UK – and for an incumbent such as Biden, that is dangerously bad news.Put another way, the US appetite for change is so great that it is causing the unravelling of key parts of the Obama coalition – minorities and the young – and its reassembly behind Trump. Barack Obama offered himself as the change candidate in 2008, an outsider who would challenge the establishment, and Trump, even though he is a self-described billionaire and a former president less than four years out of office, is successfully making the same rebel pitch.What’s more, those Americans itching for something new are prepared to use as their agent of change a man who incited a violent insurrection against the US government, sought to overturn a democratic election, has made no secret of his dictatorial ambitions for a second term, has been found liable for sexual abuse and is now standing trial on criminal charges in New York. When so many Americans are willing to flock to that person as the alternative, it tells you how much they dislike what they have now.There is a warning here for Starmer. Not for his prospects in the coming election – Biden’s success in 2020 tells him he can be confident – but for the election after that. The former Conservative cabinet minister David Gauke thinks Priti Patel is a decent bet as the next Tory leader, perhaps offering to keep the seat warm for the return of Boris Johnson. If Trump makes the comeback to end all comebacks in November, do not think Johnson will not be tempted to repeat the trick.How is it that a second Trump presidency is even conceivable; how is it that Biden can be lagging behind such a flawed, widely loathed rival? The US economy is improving; the stock market is roaring; inflation is falling. The US is set to grow at double the rate of its fellow G7 nations this year. More to the point, through a series of landmark legislative achievements – a record that outstrips Obama’s – Biden has spread the jobs and investment around, even to those parts of the US left derelict by decades of post-industrial decline. Take his gargantuan infrastructure package, the poorly named Inflation Reduction Act: more than 80% of its green investment dollars have gone to counties with below-average wages. This is levelling up made real.And yet, Biden is struggling, even in those places he has helped most. It’s a reminder of a core fact that is so often forgotten. That politics is an emotions business, one that turns not on what people think but what they feel. All the economic data in the world won’t help you if voters feel squeezed and reckon the country is on the wrong track.As the US commentator Joe Klein puts it, politics often comes down to “the art of competitive storytelling”. The successful politician tells a story that goes beyond the practical matters of pay and public services, speaking instead to voters about the way they see their own lives and the future, for themselves, their families and the country. In that competition, Trump beats Biden. His story is dark and vengeful, pitting his people against a menacing other, but it is compelling. Biden has a narrative, too – he will protect democracy and abortion rights from the Trump threat – but it is defensive.This is the gap Starmer needs to plug – and you can see how he might do it. One Labour luminary says that too many Britons “don’t just feel a loss of income, but a deficit of dignity” and that politicians have to address that. Starmer gets close when he speaks of “dignity at work”, of the human need for respect. It sounds authentic, as if it might even be his animating purpose, when he recalls the way his father, a toolmaker who worked in a factory, “always felt … that he was looked down on. Disrespected.”Whatever the story is, he needs to tell it. Right now, what Keir Starmer offers will almost certainly be enough to get him into No 10. But the lesson of Joe Biden is that, if he wants to stay there, it will take much more.
      Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist More

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      in US Politics

      Biden and Trump are betting on debates to help magnify the other’s weaknesses

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      It’s game on for a pair of presidential debates between two unpopular candidates most Americans wish weren’t running for the nation’s highest office.In a ratatat social media exchange on Wednesday, Joe Biden and Donald Trump agreed to participate in two debates on 27 June, hosted by CNN, and on 10 September, hosted by ABC.“Make my day, pal,” Biden said in a video, challenging his predecessor and rival to a high-stakes showdown. Trump, who had been insisting for months he would debate Biden “anytime, anyplace”, quickly accepted the offer: “Let’s get ready to Rumble!!!”The arrangement jolted a general election campaign that had begun to feel stagnant. And if their plans hold, Americans will be treated to a presidential matchup far earlier than usual – before either candidate will have formally accepted his party’s nomination.“The candidates realize the value of the debates, especially given their ages,” said Aaron Kall, director of debate at the University of Michigan. “They need to show that they have the stamina to debate for 90 minutes or two hours to reassure the country.”The decision to square off at least twice before the November election reflects a careful calculation by both candidates who believe televised confrontations will help magnify the other’s weaknesses.Trump has repeatedly cast the 81-year-old president as greatly diminished. At his rallies, Trump, just four years the president’s junior, often mocks Biden as confused in an exaggerated impersonation that draws laughter and applause.But Democrats argue that Biden can more easily draw a contrast with Trump and remind voters why they rejected his Republican rival in 2020.“We need voters to see Trump 2024 with their own eyes,” the Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg wrote on Thursday, “a candidate who is far more extreme and dangerous; whose performance is far more erratic, wild, impulsive and disturbing.”Biden is clearly eager for an opportunity to change the trajectory of the race, which has remained largely unchanged despite the start of Trump’s criminal trial in New York, a brightening economic outlook and tens of millions of dollars in advertising touting the president’s record and blaming Trump for the wave of unpopular abortion bans.While both campaigns are bracing for an extremely close contest in November, a series of recent New York Times/Siena College surveys found Biden trailing Trump in five of six critical battleground states.Widespread discontent over his handling of the economy, immigration and Israel’s war in Gaza have hurt the president’s standing with key Democratic constituencies, particularly young people.Even in a polarized media environment, presidential debates remain the “SuperBowl” of politics, Kall said, offering candidates what is likely to be the most prominent platform of the election cycle. For both Biden and Trump, the events are high-risk, but also potentially high-reward.“Everyone is expecting the election to be decided by half a dozen states. Those states will be decided by thousands or tens of thousands of votes,” he said. “So a debate that 70 or 80 million people watch could certainly change enough votes to matter.”In 2020, Biden and Trump’s first face-off drew 73 million viewers, according to Nielsen ratings, while Trump’s debate against the Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016 captured 84 million viewers.Many more Americans will not watch the events live but will pay attention to reactions on social media.“A lot of people who don’t tune into the actual debate will likely know what the breakout moments of the debate are,” said Yanna Krupnikov, professor of communication and media at University of Michigan. “What happens afterward is going to be really, hugely important.”Americans are arguably more familiar with Biden and Trump than any pair of presidential challengers in American history. Voters may still tune in to hear what the president and former president have to say about major issues, such as the Israel-Hamas war. But Emily Van Duyn, an associate professor of communication at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, who specializes in political communication, expects most will be watching for how the candidates perform.“For the most part, it’s going to be an assessment of: can these dudes hold up?” Van Duyn said.Democrats say Biden must deliver an energetic performance that reassures voters unsure whether the oldest president in American history is up for a second term.“The debate is the hurdle he has to cross,” David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Barack Obama, said on CNN. “He needs to dispel that notion in that debate.”Voters tend to express fewer concerns about the 77-year-old former president’s age, but Democrats believe a debate could highlight Trump’s tendency toward verbal slips and gaffes.He is also likely to be pressed on his criminal cases. By then, the Manhattan hush-money case should be finished. Polls suggest a sizable share of Republican and independent voters would be uncomfortable voting for a candidate convicted of a felony.The format poses different challenges for each candidate.Trump feeds off the energy of a crowd. CNN has said its debate at the network’s Atlanta studios will take place without an audience, which was a prerequisite for the Biden campaign.Trump turned off voters in 2020, when he repeatedly hectored and interrupted Biden during their first debate. “He needs to play to the voters that may like his policies but not his temperament,” Kall said.Biden, meanwhile, has built a political brand around defying expectations, as he did earlier this year with a rousing State of the Union speech and in the 2020 debates.. “People will say he can’t do it, it’s too late at night,” Kall said. “Then as long as he doesn’t fall down or forget something, people will say he did OK.”The terms of the campaigns’ agreement, which bypasses the non-partisan commission that has hosted presidential debates for more than three decades, was designed to ensure a head-to-head between Biden and Trump.In a tweet, Robert Kennedy Jr, the independent candidate for president who is unlikely to qualify for the CNN debate, accused the frontrunners of “colluding” to exclude him. “Keeping viable candidates off the debate stage undermines democracy,” he said.While jumpstarting the debate season creates an opportunity for an early reset, it also makes the events less “existential” for the campaigns, said Tommy Vietor, a co-host of Pod Save America, discussing the development on his podcast with the former White House press secretary Jen Psaki.After the September debate, there are still weeks to recover from a potentially subpar performance or embarrassing gaffe. Though momentum from a strong showing could fade before election day, early voting ​m​eans millions of Americans will have already cast their ballots.Psaki said the back-and-forth between Biden and Trump this week was part of a new approach. Whereas four years ago, Biden led with sophisticated appeals to democracy and civility, he’s now playing humor as a way to tweak his famously thin-skinned opponent.“It’s figuring out how to land the best needles,” Psaki said.In a sign of Biden’s more pugnacious approach, the president opened public negotiations over the general election debate on Wednesday, the one day a week Trump is not confined to a New York courtroom. “I hear you’re free on Wednesdays,” Biden said in the video, suggesting a date for their face-off. His campaign is now selling merchandise that read: “Free on Wednesdays.”On Thursday, Biden’s re-election campaign also announced that it had accepted an offer from CBS News to participate in a vice-presidential debate and proposed two dates for that fall after the Republican national convention in July. Trump has yet to choose his running mate, but a carousel of Republican hopefuls have been openly auditioning for the role.With just weeks before the first debate, both candidates have an abbreviated timeline to prepare.Neither has participated in a debate since their final showdown in 2020. This year, Trump declined to take part in the Republican primary debates and Biden as the incumbent faced only nominal challenges.In an MSNBC interview this week, Mitt Romney, the Utah senator and 2012 Republican presidential nominee, insisted that the debates still mattered to voters and predicted a “huge audience” would tune in for the spectacle.As far as what they would see, Romney quipped: “the image that comes to mind is those two old guys on the Muppets”. More

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      Biden asserts executive privilege to block release of special counsel interviews

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      Joe Biden asserted executive privilege to stop House Republicans obtaining recordings of his interviews with Robert Hur, the special counsel who investigated Biden’s retention of classified information after his time as a senator and as vice-president to Barack Obama.In a letter reported by the New York Times and other outlets on Thursday, the White House counsel, Edward Siskel, told the Republican chairs of the House judiciary and oversight committees: “The absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings lays bare your likely goal – to chop them up, distort them and use them for partisan political purposes.“Demanding such sensitive and constitutionally protected law enforcement materials from the executive branch because you want to manipulate them for potential political gain is inappropriate.”The two chairs, Jim Jordan of Ohio (judiciary) and James Comer of Kentucky (oversight), both close allies of Donald Trump, have led Republican efforts to ensnare Biden in damaging investigations including a sputtering impeachment.Biden’s retention of classified information was discovered as Trump, Biden’s opponent in this year’s election, came to face 40 criminal charges on the same issue.Unlike Trump – who faces 48 other criminal charges and has been hit with multimillion-dollar civil penalties – Biden cooperated with the special counsel appointed to investigate the matter.Hur, who was appointed as a US attorney by Trump, cleared Biden of wrongdoing. But Hur caused uproar when in his report he made repeated reference to the 81-year-old president’s age, including saying if he had brought charges, jurors would have seen Biden as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.Hur has defended his work. Republicans have clamoured for access to recordings of Hur’s interviews with Biden, particularly after Biden’s own angry claims about what was said were contradicted by transcripts.News organisations have sued to obtain the recordings.In Congress, Republicans threatened to hold the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, in contempt after he rejected subpoenas for the recordings and other materials.In a letter to Biden, reported by the Times, Garland said handing over Hur’s interviews “would raise an unacceptable risk” of undermining “similar high-profile criminal investigations – in particular, investigations where the voluntary cooperation of White House officials is exceedingly important”.The Department of Justice said the decision to withhold the interviews was not made for partisan reasons.Carlos Uriarte, assistant attorney general for legislative affairs, told Jordan and Comer: “It is the longstanding position of the executive branch held by administrations of both parties that an official who asserts the president’s claim of executive privilege cannot be prosecuted for criminal contempt of Congress.”In response, House Republicans cited comments in February in which a Biden spokesperson said the president had “nothing to hide”, and asked: “Why is Biden hiding behind executive privilege now?”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionComer said: “It’s a five-alarm fire at the White House … Today’s Hail Mary from the White House changes nothing for our committee.”Jordan told reporters transcripts already handed over were not “sufficient evidence of the state of the president’s memory” and said: “This last-minute invocation does not change the fact that the attorney general has not complied with our subpoena.”Jordan’s House judiciary committee later voted to advance contempt proceedings against Garland. The oversight committee was due to take up the issue.Trump’s campaign spokesperson, Steven Cheung, said Biden “and his feeble administration have irretrievably politicised the key constitutional tenet of executive privilege, denying it to their political opponents while aggressively trying to use it to run political cover for Crooked Joe”.But Glenn Ivey, a Maryland Democrat who sits on the House judiciary committee, told the Times Republicans’ demands were “purely political”.“The only reason they want the recording is to try to use clips for campaign ads, or something along those lines, which obviously doesn’t meet the legislative purpose standard that the supreme court set for congressional oversight.” More