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      Dark Brandon popping off: is Joe Biden’s ‘cringe’ TikTok helping or hurting him?

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      In Joe Biden’s TikTok debut, timed to the Super Bowl in February, the president answered rapid-fire questions like “Chiefs or Niners?” (neither, he picked the Eagles because his wife’s a “Philly girl”) and flashed the Dark Brandon meme. He got more than 10m views, so by pure metrics, the video was no flop. But to use one of TikTok’s favorite disses, for many gen Z viewers it felt “cringe” – even pandering. Worse still, the TikTok, captioned “lol hey guys”, made the rounds after Israel struck Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza strip. Biden’s jokes infuriated users who flooded the post with the comment “WHAT ABOUT RAFAH?”“I don’t want my president to be a TikTok influencer,” read the headline of one USA Today editorial. One (actual) influencer told CNN the president’s attempt at meme-ing felt “performative”. A warm welcome to the app, it was not. But Biden’s team kept posting.Biden’s TikTok account, Biden-Harris HQ, has put out more than 150 videos since February, notching over 3.9m likes and 313,000 followers. That’s more than Maxwell Frost (570,000 likes, 96,000 followers), who became the first gen Z member of Congress in 2023, but a fraction of Bernie Sanders’ 11.4m likes or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s 987,000 followers on the app. Congressman Jeff Jackson, a Republican from North Carolina with 2.2 million TikTok followers, is one of the most visible politicians on the app. His posts almost always hit more than a million views – only 11 of Biden’s videos have hit more than a million views.View image in fullscreenIf the idea of a president trying to go viral on TikTok seems frivolous, consider what’s at stake for Biden, who’s running a tight election race against Donald Trump. Gen Z was crucial in staving off a predicted “red wave” during the 2022 midterms, and Biden hasn’t exactly locked down the demographic for 2024: a Harvard poll from April found that Biden leads Trump by eight percentage points among 18- to 28-year olds, down from the 23-point lead Biden had at the same point in the 2020 election. The president’s continued support for Israel in the war on Gaza, which has killed more than 34,000 people, is eroding youth support – especially as pro-Palestinian protests spread across US college campuses.TikTok is the most downloaded app among 18- to 24-year olds, and many young people count it as their main source of news. Is Biden winning over young voters by meeting them where they are?Dunking on TrumpHardly any Biden-Harris HQ TikToks show Biden awkwardly interacting with pop culture – not after what happened with his Super Bowl post. Instead, the account has hit its stride focusing on policy issues and dunking on conservatives.More than half of Biden’s TikTok content reminds viewers of Trump’s worst gaffes, such as the times Trump suggested that Americans inject bleach to ward off the coronavirus, or when he stared directly at the 2017 eclipse. The fight to protect abortion rights also features prominently. One post pulls a quote from a recent press conference, during which the former president bragged about ending Roe v Wade. Another reminds viewers that a Trump-endorsed candidate for Michigan state senate seat, Jacky Eubanks, called for banning birth control and gay marriage.“It’s very clear to me that Biden’s primary goals on TikTok are in line with his digital goals overall: to highlight and remind folks how dangerous Trump is, and to highlight the accomplishments that Biden has made that no one knows about,” said Josh Klemons, a Democratic digital strategist.View image in fullscreenNoting that many of TikTok’s younger users “didn’t live through Trump’s first presidency as an adult”, Klemons stressed that it was important Biden use his TikTok to zero in on the former president’s catastrophic track record. TikTok is a largely progressive platform, where anti-Trump content does well, and anti-Trump posts are among Biden’s most-watched TikToks. (They’re also an invitation to trolls: top comments on the bleach post, including “Biden sucks” and “Ban Joe Biden”, are all from pro-Trump accounts.)Many Biden TikToks have hundreds of thousands of views, with videos going moderately viral by TikTok standards. That’s not bad reach, but it could be better.A genuinely moving Biden TikTok, seemingly pulled from a campaign ad, shows a man named Bob approaching the president in a restaurant and shaking his hand in thanks for lowering the cost of insulin. It showcases Biden’s well-honed ability to connect one-on-one with voters … but it has only 224k views. Compare that with someone like Jackson, whose most recent TikTok on the war in Ukraine earned more than 1m views.One of Biden-Harris HQ’s highest-performing videos of late pulls a clip from an interview the president did with Howard Stern, in which he described Trump’s response to the January 6 riot. “When they were storming the Capitol … he was sitting in that dining area off the Oval Office for three hours… He said nothing … It was almost criminal.” The clip has 233,000 views – not a flop, but not a rousing success either.In another TikTok, the Biden campaign reposted a video of Steve Bannon talking about Project 2025, an extensive collection of proposals intended to reshape the federal government in support of a Republican agenda if Trump wins the election. Bannon says a second Trump administration would put his opponents in prison “on the evening after we’ve won”. The Biden campaign captioned the clip: “Project 2025 deserves more attention.”It’s a good caption – and Project 2025 does get attention on TikTok, usually in posts that do better than Biden’s. A recent TikTok from the voting advocacy group NowThis Impact, which has 3.3 million followers, also shared information about Project 2025. That video got more than 3.6m views. Biden’s received 43,000, while another Project 2025-themed TikTok from Biden, featuring Lara Trump, received just under half a million viewers.Bringing in backupThough Biden appears in some of his account’s TikToks – usually dragging Trump – the account isn’t all about him. (Perhaps a lesson learned from Hillary Clinton, who used social media during the 2016 race as if she were typing the tweets herself.) Instead, it often taps surrogates to help make Biden’s case. In one TikTok, Sanders speaks about supporting Biden despite not agreeing with him on every issue – a line the campaign no doubt hopes will land with gen Z voters who are against the war in Gaza. AOC touts Biden’s recent record on the climate crisis, and members of the Kennedy family filmed a video saying they support Biden, a swipe against the third-party candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr.View image in fullscreenBiden also posted a clip of Frost, the token gen Z politician, reminding his peers in Congress that Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene had spoken at an event held by white supremacists in 2022. “Someone like Maxwell Frost is going to hit differently [to that audience],” Klemons said. He also pulls in young viewers who might not realize they’re watching what is effectively a Biden campaign ad.Other Biden TikToks smartly mimic influencer content, with what appear to be younger campaign staffers speaking directly to camera about a abortion, immigration or, again, Trump gaffes. “You’ll never believe what Trump is doing in the courtroom,” one such host says in an intro that cuts to a screenshot of a New York Times report on the former president “struggling to stay awake” during his New York trial.“I like how they use younger people from their campaign to be some of the messengers,” said Ashley Aylward, a research manager at the gen Z-focused, DC-based consulting group Hit Strategies. “I think they should lean into that more, and just kind of let [the young people] take it all over. They could make ‘a day in the life working for the Biden campaign’, or a video that humanizes these people and shows that voting for this administration isn’t just voting for Biden, but it’s a group of diverse voices.”Aylward also recommended the account post fewer videos of Biden stumping – recent TikToks that feature Biden himself were filmed during campaign appearances.“If someone isn’t interested in politics, that’s not going to end up on their For You page, and if it does, they’ll scroll by it as soon as they see a podium,” she said. “But if they see a younger person doing a day in the life, or talking through a current event, it’s a smart way to reel people in without them even knowing they’re watching a campaign video.”And though it’s not quite a proxy, Biden’s TikTok has leaned into his so-called Dark Brandon persona, a laser-eyed character that riffs upon a pro-Trump meme. When Biden makes a joke at Trump’s expense during a speech, that’s supposedly Dark Brandon “popping off” or “dragging Trump”, as recent TikToks put it.“I actually do love the humor and using Dark Brandon to show that he can make jokes about himself,” Aylward said. “The account uses young people language in the TikTok caption, like ‘Biden cooks Trump,’ but they aren’t having Biden use the language himself. They’re showing this all from a young person’s point of view, engaging in the language they use.”Whether the effect is cringey or not, it seems, depends on one’s taste.Silence on Gaza and a possible TikTok banBiden’s TikTok account has faced more serious criticisms than cringey-ness. One of young people’s biggest concerns is the mass killing of Palestinians in Gaza. In the comment section of his videos, users frequently ask Biden to engage with the topic or to order a ceasefire, but the account has remained silent on the issue.“Biden’s TikTok is clearly a one-way form of communication,” said Yini Zhang, an assistant professor at the University at Buffalo who studies social media and politics. “They’re sticking to some clearly thought-out talking points. They have issues they want to avoid, like Gaza, and the TikTok page is not as interactive as we often think it might be.”Another issue is the irony of Biden’s team putting resources toward TikTok when just last week, Biden signed a measure that could see the app banned in the US. (TikTok remains blocked on most government devices, per a 2022 law.)“It’s a funny position for him to be in,” Klemons said. “I can’t think of a situation that’s similar, where somebody is actively using a platform that they’re actively trying to get rid of. But they need to be where the people are.”It would take at least nine months for the app to disappear if it does at all, so Biden can milk the platform for the entire election cycle. Trump, who does not have a TikTok account, is currently opposed to a TikTok ban. (He’s posting furiously on Truth Social, where, funnily enough, Biden-Harris HQ also runs an account.) In fact, many politicians don’t even touch TikTok due to security concerns.TikTok’s allure has always been its supposed authenticity, with the most popular personas on the app appearing real, raw, unfiltered – even if many of their videos are highly scripted. “They want to project this persona of being authentic in a way that maximizes their appeal, but they also have to be careful in what they say,” Zhang said.Biden is no different. His TikTok follows the trends of the platform. His memes aren’t groundbreaking, but they’re not totally embarrassing either. His stats are middling, and he avoids engaging directly with young people on tough issues. Viewers are constantly reminded of his greatest hits, a persona he’s cultivated through decades in the public eye, but ultimately, the account is just another campaign mouthpiece. A TikTok alone will not clinch an election. More

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      Biden was silenced by criticism from families of troops killed in Kabul, book says. ‘Sir, are you still there?’

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      Joe Biden was stunned into silence when he was told families of US service members killed in Kabul in August 2021 said that when the bodies were returned and the president met grieving relatives, he spent too much time talking about the death of his own son, Beau.“I paused for the president to respond,” Jen Psaki, then White House press secretary, writes in a new book.“The silence that followed was a bit too long. I worried for a moment that our connection had been lost.“‘Sir, are you still there?’ I asked.”Psaki left the White House in 2022, joining MSNBC. Her book, Say More: Lessons from Work, the White House and the World, will be published in the US next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.Biden ordered the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, after nearly 20 years of war, in April 2021. On 26 August, amid chaos in Kabul, 13 US service members and 170 Afghans were killed when a suicide bomber attacked an airport gate.On 29 August, the bodies of the Americans arrived at Dover air force base in Delaware, Biden’s home state. The president and the first lady, Jill Biden, attended.“Of all the president’s duties,” Psaki writes, “this is high on the list of most heartbreaking. For President Biden in particular, it stirred feelings of his own despair about the death of his son Joseph Biden III, aka Beau.”Beau Biden, a former attorney general of Delaware, went to Iraq with the national guard. He died of brain cancer in 2015, aged just 46.Biden has questioned whether “burn pits” at US bases in Iraq might have caused his son’s cancer, championing legislation to help affected veterans. In her book, Psaki cites World Health Organization research which says burn pit emissions contain substances “known to be carcinogenic to humans”.Psaki also notes how Biden endured the deaths in 1972 of his first wife, Neilia Biden, and their one-year-old daughter, Naomi, in a car crash in which Beau and his brother Hunter were critically injured. The president “often refers to these unique and disparate, but nevertheless unbearable, experiences of grief and loss as a way to connect with others”, Psaki writes.But Biden’s visit with the grieving families at Dover stirred up significant controversy, and political attacks.Psaki describes and dismisses as “misinformation” the claim, boosted by rightwing media, that Biden looked at his watch as the transfer of the bodies went on. Citing media fact checks, the former press secretary says footage shows Biden did so only after the remains had left the airport tarmac.Complaints that Biden spoke too much about his own son were tougher to deal with, Psaki writes, particularly when the New York Times “pounced” on the story.As it was part of her job to warn Biden about “unflattering” and “negative” stories, Psaki called him, though this instance was tougher than usual because “Beau was rarely, if ever, the focus of a negative story”.“It was one thing to tell the president the media was planning to criticise his Covid response,” Psaki writes, “and quite another to say the media was planning to criticise the way he speaks about his son, who passed away tragically young.”Still, she writes, Jill Biden had previously told her: “We’ve been through a lot. And we ask that you always be honest with us. Always tell us what’s coming.”Psaki called Biden and warned him about the Times story, which would say he “referenced Beau’s death repeatedly while meeting with families of the soldiers who were killed in Afghanistan last week” and “quote a number of family members making critical comments”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhen the president finally answered her, Psaki says, he did so “in a softer voice than usual.“I thought I was helping them. Hearing about how other people went through loss always helps me,” Biden said.Psaki says Biden paused again, then said: “Thanks for telling me. Anything else?”The Times story duly appeared – as did others like it.One bereaved father, Mark Schmitz, told the Times he showed the president a picture of his son, L/Cpl Jared Schmitz, who was 20, and said: “Don’t forget his name.”“But Mr Schmitz was confused by what happened next,” the Times wrote. “The president turned the conversation to his oldest son, Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015 … for Mr Schmitz, another father consumed by his grief, it was ‘too much’ to bear.”“I respect anybody that lost somebody,” Schmitz said, “but it wasn’t an appropriate time.”Psaki also describes how she herself dealt with the controversy.In the White House briefing room, she told reporters: “While [Biden’s] son did not lose his life directly in combat as [those killed in Kabul did] – or directly at the hands of a terrorist, as these families did … he knows firsthand there’s nothing you can say, nothing you can convey, to ease the pain and to ease what these families are going through.”Psaki also said Biden was “deeply impacted by these family members who he met … talk[ing] about them frequently in meetings and [the] incredible service and sacrifice of their sons and daughters. That is not going to change their suffering, but I wanted to convey that still.” More

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      Biden calls Japan and India ‘xenophobic’: ‘They don’t want immigrants’

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      Joe Biden has called Japan and India “xenophobic” countries that do not welcome immigrants, lumping the two with adversaries China and Russia as he tried to explain their economic circumstances and contrasted the four with the US on immigration.The remarks, at a campaign fundraising event Wednesday evening, came just three weeks after the White House hosted Fumio Kishida, the Japanese prime minister, for a lavish official visit, during which the two leaders celebrated what Biden called an “unbreakable alliance,” particularly on global security matters.The White House welcomed Indian PM Narenda Modi for a state visit last summer.Japan is a critical US ally. And India, one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, is a vital partner in the Indo-Pacific.At a hotel fundraiser where the donor audience was largely Asian American, Biden said the upcoming US election was about “freedom, America and democracy” and that the nation’s economy was thriving “because of you and many others”.“Why? Because we welcome immigrants,” Biden said. “Look, think about it. Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they’re xenophobic. They don’t want immigrants.”The president added: “Immigrants are what makes us strong. Not a joke. That’s not hyperbole, because we have an influx of workers who want to be here and want to contribute.”There was no immediate reaction from either the Japanese or Indian governments. White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Biden was making a broader point about the US posture on immigration.“Our allies and partners know well in tangible ways how President Biden values them, their friendship, their cooperation and the capabilities that they bring across the spectrum on a range of issues, not just security related,” Kirby said Thursday morning when asked about Biden’s “xenophobic” remarks. “They understand how much he completely and utterly values the idea of alliances and partnerships.”Biden’s comments came at the start of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and he was introduced at the fundraiser by Senator Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat, one of two senators of Asian American descent. She is a national co-chair for his reelection campaign.Japan has acknowledged issues with its shrinking population, and the number of babies born in the country in 2023 fell for the eighth straight year, according to data released in February. Kishida has called the low birth rate in Japan “the biggest crisis Japan faces” and the country has long been known for a more closed-door stance on immigration, although Kishida’s government has, in recent years, shifted its policies to make it easier for foreign workers to come to Japan.Meanwhile, India’s population has swelled to become the world’s largest, with the United Nations saying it was on track to reach 1.425 billion. Its population also skews younger.Earlier this year, India enacted a new citizenship law that fast-tracks naturalization for Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains and Christians who have come to India from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.But it excludes Muslims, who are a majority in all three nations.It’s the first time that India has set religious criteria for citizenship. More

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      Biden campaign condemns Trump’s refusal to commit to honoring November election results – as it happened

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      Joe Biden’s re-election campaign has come out swinging against Donald Trump’s refusal in an interview yesterday to commit to accepting the results of the presidential election in November.From spokesman James Singer:
      President Biden has said, ‘You can’t love your country only when you win.’ But for Donald Trump, his campaign for revenge and retribution reigns supreme.
      In his own words, he is promising to rule as a dictator on ‘day one’, use the military against the American people, punish those who stand against him, condone violence done on his behalf and put his own quest for power ahead of what is best for America.
      Bottom line: Trump is a danger to the constitution and a threat to our democracy. The American people are going to give him another electoral defeat this November because they continue to reject his extremism, his affection for violence and his thirst for revenge.
      In a surprise address from the White House, Joe Biden condemned violence on university campuses where pro-Palestine demonstrations are taking place, while saying the unrest would not spur him to change his policies in the Middle East. Meanwhile, his campaign hit out at Donald Trump, who yesterday held a rally in swing state Wisconsin and refused to commit to accepting the results of the November presidential election. Trump also repeated his debunked claim that the 2020 election was marred by fraud.Here’s what else happened today:
      Biden met with the families of four law enforcement officers killed while serving a warrant in North Carolina last week, as well as those wounded in the shooting.
      Trump stayed away from the issue of abortion in his Wisconsin appearance, which Democrats have used to direct voter anger against Republicans in recent elections there and in other states.
      In addition to Wisconsin, Trump also visited fellow Great Lakes swing state Michigan, where his fans offered a reprieve from the dreary New York courthouse in which he has lately been spending a lot of time.
      The campus protests are the latest complication to Biden’s re-election chances, after he sparked the ire of key Democratic voting groups by backing Israel’s invasion of Gaza.
      Napping in court? Not me, Trump said, despite reports to the contrary.
      Perhaps you have heard that South Dakota’s Republican governor Kristi Noem killed a dog (the Guardian broke the story, after all!). Noem now says she had no choice, but blamed “fake news” (must be referring to us) for pushing the story that may have sunk her chances of becoming Donald Trump’s running mate, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota whose chance of being Donald Trump’s presidential running mate was widely deemed over after she published a description of shooting dead a dog and a goat, claimed reports of the story were “fake news” but also that the dog in question, Cricket, a 14-month-old wirehaired pointer, was “extremely dangerous” and deserved her fate.“You know how the fake news works,” Noem told Fox News. “They leave out some or most of the facts of a story, they put the worst spin on it. And that’s what’s happened in this case.“I hope people really do buy this book and they find out the truth of the story because the truth of the story is that this was a working dog and it was not a puppy. It was a dog that was extremely dangerous.”The Guardian first reported Noem’s story of killing Cricket the dog and an unnamed, un-castrated male goat. The story is contained in Noem’s book, No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong With Politics and How We Move America Forward, which will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.In the book, Noem says her description of killing a dog and a goat illustrates her willingness to do anything “difficult, messy and ugly” in politics as well as on her South Dakota farm – a defence she repeated before her Fox News interview.Noem says Cricket ruined a pheasant hunt and then killed a neighbour’s chickens, all the while presenting “the picture of pure joy”.Legal proceedings can be dull, sometimes so dull they put you to sleep – even if you happen to be a former president.On the first day of his trial in New York, Donald Trump appeared to shut his eyes for an extended period of time. That was a couple of weeks ago now, but he just got around to denying doing so, in a post on Truth Social:
      Contrary to the FAKE NEWS MEDIA, I don’t fall asleep during the Crooked D.A.’s Witch Hunt, especially not today. I simply close my beautiful blue eyes, sometimes, listen intensely, and take it ALL in!!!
      Here’s more on the alleged nap:Yesterday, Donald Trump was appearing before crowds in Michigan and Wisconsin – two swing states that will put him well on his way to the White House, if he wins them in November.Today, he’s back at the defense table in a Manhattan courtroom, where his lawyers are cross-examining Keith Davidson, a former attorney for Stormy Daniels, the adult film actor at the center of the case against him for allegedly falsifying business records.Follow our live blog for the latest from the trial:Fun fact about Joe Biden: the 2020 election was the first one in which he faced a sustained campaign of negative television advertising, the New York Times reports.And it goes without saying that 2024 will be his second. In a look back at his lengthy political career, the Times recounts what it was like for the Republicans who attempted to oust Biden from his Senate seat in Delaware, over the 36 years he represented the state.Biden was something of juggernaut, his ex-opponents recount, both personally, and in the campaign infrastructure he wielded:
      In Delaware, Mr. Biden was so well known and, in his early years in office, had such a wellspring of sympathy from voters after the tragic crash that killed his first wife and daughter, that no rival ever mounted a sustained case that he should not be re-elected. For years, bumper stickers promoting his re-election just said ‘Joe,’ while opponents lost with an array of long-forgotten slogans.
      ‘I don’t think he ever broke a sweat once he was an incumbent,’ said Jane Brady, a Republican who lost to Mr. Biden by 27 points in 1990.
      The only negative ad run against Mr. Biden between 1978 and 2008, according to the University of Oklahoma’s archive, is one that his campaign would most likely embrace today. That 30-second spot reminded viewers that President Ronald Reagan endorsed John Burris, Mr. Biden’s Republican challenger in 1984, while Mr. Biden backed the unpopular Democratic presidential nominee, Walter Mondale.
      The Biden of today often makes gaffes, to the chagrin of his supporters, and the delight of his enemies. Here’s an example of a recent one, which was seized on by the conservative media:
      Just last week, Mr. Biden prompted the crowd at an endorsement event to chant, ‘Four more years!’ and then added ‘pause’ as it appeared to have been written into his teleprompter, an episode that drew much mocking in conservative news media and quiet forehead-slapping among Democrats.
      Back in the day, the Times reports such things did not happen:
      Mr. Biden’s opponent in 1996 and 2002 was Ray Clatworthy, an entrepreneur who owned restaurants and local Christian radio stations. During a 1996 televised debate, Mr. Clatworthy accused Mr. Biden of raising taxes while voting to increase his own salary and accused him of ‘attempting to portray himself as a conservative’ in an election year.
      Mr. Biden spoke quickly and precisely, without entering the verbal cul-de-sacs endemic to many of his presidential speeches 28 years later.
      Mr. Biden sought to pin down Mr. Clatworthy on his anti-abortion stance and then delivered a clear statement of his own views on the issue after Mr. Clatworthy accused him of flip-flopping to endorse abortion rights in his 1988 presidential campaign.
      ‘My position has been consistent from the very beginning,’ Mr. Biden said of his abortion stance. ‘I believe government should stay out – no constitutional amendment, no public funding.’
      Joe Biden is now in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he is meeting with the families of four law enforcement officers killed and four others who were wounded while serving a warrant last week.The shooting was the deadliest attack against police in the United States since 2016. Here’s more about what happened:As Donald Trump rallied elsewhere in Wisconsin, demonstrators convened outside the venue that will host the Republican National Convention this summer to decry his vow to bring back hardline immigration policies if elected, the Guardian’s Alice Herman reports:Led by a mariachi band, hundreds of demonstrators on Wednesday morning marched across Milwaukee to the Fiserv Forum – the home of the Milwaukee Bucks and, in July, the venue of the Republican National Convention.The rally, organized by the immigrant and workers’ rights group Voces de la Frontera, is an annual event, but in 2024 it holds particular weight. The focus of the rally extended beyond immigration, to fear of authoritarianism under Republican candidate Donald Trump and critique of Joe Biden’s handling of the US role in Israel and Gaza.This year, May Day also fell on the same day as a Trump campaign event in Waukesha, which organizers seized on to denounce Trump’s immigration policy and call on Biden to use his executive authority to adopt protections for undocumented workers.“We reject [Trump’s] political platform, which promises dictatorship, deportations and separation of families,” Voces de la Frontera executive director Christine Neumann-Ortiz told the crowd on Wednesday, to applause.While Donald Trump kept mum about abortion in a visit to to the swing state of Wisconsin, he was far more open in a pair of interviews with Time in which he described in depth what he would like to do if returned to the White House. The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington has more:Donald Trump has warned that Joe Biden and his family could face multiple criminal prosecutions once he leaves office unless the US supreme court awards Trump immunity in his own legal battles with the criminal justice system.In a sweeping interview with Time magazine, Trump painted a startling picture of his second term, from how he would wield the justice department to hinting he may let states monitor pregnant women to enforce abortion laws.Trump made the threat against the Biden family in an interview with Eric Cortellessa of Time, in which he shared the outlines of what the magazine called “an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world”.Trump made a direct connection between his threat to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Bidens should he win re-election in November with the case currently before the supreme court over his own presidential immunity.Asked whether he intends to “go after” the Bidens should he gain a second term in the White House, Trump replied: “It depends what happens with the supreme court.”A potentially landmark lawsuit by youth activists against the federal government over its role in fueling the climate crisis was struck down by an appeals court, on the request of the Biden administration, the Guardian’s Dharna Noor reports:A federal appeals court on Wednesday evening granted the Biden administration’s request to strike down a landmark federal youth climate case, outraging climate advocates.“This is a tragic and unjust ruling,” said Julia Olson, attorney and founder of Our Children’s Trust, the non-profit law firm that brought the suit.The lawsuit, Juliana v United States, was filed by 21 young people from Oregon who alleged the federal government’s role in fueling the climate crisis violates their constitutional rights.The Wednesday order from a panel of three Trump-appointed judges on the ninth circuit court of appeals will require a US district court judge to dismiss the case for lack of standing, with no opening to amend the complaint.The decision affirmed an emergency petition filed by the justice department in February arguing that “the government will be irreparably harmed” if it is forced to spend time and resources litigating the Juliana case. It’s a measure the justice department should never have taken, said Olson.“The Biden administration was wrong to use an emergency measure to stop youth plaintiffs from having their day in court,” she said in a statement. “The real emergency is the climate emergency.”In a surprise address from the White House, Joe Biden condemned violence on university campuses where pro-Palestine demonstrations are taking place, while saying the unrest would not spur him to change his policies in the Middle East. Meanwhile, his campaign hit out at Donald Trump, who yesterday held a rally in swing state Wisconsin and refused to commit to accepting the results of the November presidential election. He also repeated his debunked claim that the 2020 election was marred by fraud.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Trump stayed away from the issue of abortion in his Wisconsin appearance, which Democrats have used to direct voter anger against Republicans in recent elections there and in other states.
      In addition to Wisconsin, Trump also visited fellow Great Lakes swing state Michigan, where his fans offered a reprieve from the dreary New York courthouse in which he has lately been spending a lot of time.
      The campus protests are the latest complication to Biden’s re-election chances, after he sparked the ire of key Democratic voting groups by backing Israel’s invasion of Gaza.
      Joe Biden’s re-election campaign has come out swinging against Donald Trump’s refusal in an interview yesterday to commit to accepting the results of the presidential election in November.From spokesman James Singer:
      President Biden has said, ‘You can’t love your country only when you win.’ But for Donald Trump, his campaign for revenge and retribution reigns supreme.
      In his own words, he is promising to rule as a dictator on ‘day one’, use the military against the American people, punish those who stand against him, condone violence done on his behalf and put his own quest for power ahead of what is best for America.
      Bottom line: Trump is a danger to the constitution and a threat to our democracy. The American people are going to give him another electoral defeat this November because they continue to reject his extremism, his affection for violence and his thirst for revenge.
      Joe Biden is already facing heat from some Democratic voters for his support of Israel as it invades Gaza following the 7 October attack. As the Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt reported earlier this week, the unrest on college campuses targeted at America’s closest Middle East ally could present the latest complication to his campaign for another four years in the White House:The policies of Joe Biden and Democrats towards Israel, which have prompted thousands of students across the country to protest, could affect the youth vote for Biden and hurt his re-election chances, experts have warned, in what is already expected to be a tight election.Thousands of students at universities across the US have joined with pro-Palestine rallies and, most recently, encampments, as Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 34,000 people.Some of the protests began as a call to encourage universities to ditch investments in companies that provide weapons and equipment to the Israeli military. But as the Biden administration has continued to largely support Israel, the president has increasingly become a focus of criticism from young people. Polling shows that young Americans’ support for Biden has been chipped away since 2020.With Biden narrowly trailing Trump in several key swing states, it’s a voting bloc the president can ill afford to lose.“The real threat to Biden is that younger voters, especially college-educated voters, won’t turn out for him in the election,” said Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history of education at the University of Pennsylvania.“I wouldn’t expect that the protesters on campuses today are going to vote for Trump, almost none of them will. That’s not the danger here. The danger is much simpler: that they simply won’t vote.”Joe Biden spoke about the nationwide protests against Israel at college campuses after police arrested more than 100 people at the University of California, Los Angeles.Follow our live blog for more on the ongoing demonstration wave:In his brief speech on the pro-Palestine protests on college campuses, Joe Biden cast himself as a defender of free speech rights, but said the demonstrations should not disrupt students’ learning.“Dissent is essential to democracy, but dissent must never lead to disorder or to denying the rights of others, so students can finish the semester and their college education. Look, it’s basically a matter of fairness. It’s a matter of what’s right. There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos. People have the right to get an education, right to get a degree, right to walk across campus safely without fear of being attacked,” the president said.He later added:
      There should be no place on any campus, no place in America for antisemitism, or threats of violence against Jewish students. There is no place for hate speech, or violence of any kind, whether it’s antisemitism, Islamophobia, or discrimination against Arab Americans or Palestinian Americans. It’s simply wrong. There’s no place for racism in America. It’s all wrong. It’s not American.
      Biden concluded with:
      As president, I will always defend free speech. And I will always be just as strong in standing up for the rule of law. That’s my responsibility to you, the American people, my obligation to the constitution. More

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      Biden defends right to protest but says ‘order must prevail’ amid college unrest

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      Joe Biden on Thursday defended the right to protest but insisted that “order must prevail” as college campuses across the US continued to face unrest amid pro-Palestine demonstrations against the war in Gaza and universities’ investments in companies that support Israel’s government.The US president has stayed mostly quiet about the current phase of intensified protests at dozens of colleges coast to coast, from the Ivy League to small public institutions in the last two weeks, which has prompted the use of outside police on some campuses in controversial crackdowns.“Dissent is essential for democracy,” Biden said at the White House. “But dissent must never lead to disorder.”Biden said he did not support calls to send in national guard troops, which prominent Republican lawmakers have demanded he do.He also said that the protests had not prompted him to reconsider his approach to the Israeli military offensive in Gaza aimed that followed the attack led by Hamas on southern Israel last 7 October but, since, has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians, the vast majority of them civilians. The Democratic president has occasionally criticized Israel’s conduct but continued to supply it with weapons.Biden admonished protesters using what he termed “violent” methods, which included a broad sweep.“Violent protests are not protected. Peaceful protest is,” he said, adding: “There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos.”And he said: “Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campus, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduation … none of this is a peaceful protest.”He added, however, that the right to free speech must be protected in the US.“We are not an authoritarian nation where we silence people and squash dissent … but neither are we a lawless country,” he said.Biden’s previous public comment on the protests came more than a week ago, when he condemned “antisemitic protests” and “those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians”. Some dismayed at America’s vigorous support for Israel have warned they may not vote for Biden and experts also warned that many younger voters could sour on the Democrats, a little more than six months out from the presidential election.On 19 May Biden is scheduled to deliver the commencement address at Morehouse University in Atlanta, a historically Black college where the president’s imminent visit is causing controversy.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Activists march for immigrant rights in Wisconsin: ‘We’re making this country strong’

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      Led by a mariachi band, hundreds of demonstrators on Wednesday morning marched across Milwaukee to the Fiserv Forum – the home of the Milwaukee Bucks and, in July, the venue of the Republican national convention.The rally, organized by the immigrant and workers’ rights group Voces de la Frontera, is an annual event, but in 2024 it holds particular weight. The focus of the rally extended beyond immigration, to fear of authoritarianism under Republican candidate Donald Trump and critique of Joe Biden’s handling of the US role in Israel and Gaza.This year, May Day also fell on the same day as a Trump campaign event in Waukesha, which organizers seized on to denounce Trump’s immigration policy and call on Biden to use his executive authority to adopt protections for undocumented workers.“We reject [Trump’s] political platform, which promises dictatorship, deportations and separation of families,” Voces de la Frontera executive director Christine Neumann-Ortiz told the crowd Wednesday, to applause.As the 2024 presidential campaign season ramps up, Trump has increasingly stoked anti-immigrant sentiment, railing on anecdotal examples of what he calls “migrant crime” and casting the Biden administration’s border policy as insufficiently harsh. In an interview with Time magazine published 30 April, Trump proposed mass deportations, facilitated in part by the US military, during his possible second term in office and claimed that undocumented immigrants are not civilians.For Omar Flores, the co-chair of the Coalition to March on the RNC, the Wednesday rally was an occasion to draw attention to the RNC on 15 July.“A sense that people are getting in Milwaukee is that they’re a little afraid of the RNC coming here,” said Flores, who grew up in Kenosha and said he worries about political repression and rightwing vigilante violence under a second Trump term. “I know it’s scary, but we still have to march.”The Republican party has pushed for the Secret Service to move protesters away from the arena in July, and Flores said the Coalition to March on the RNC is working with the American Civil Liberties Union to ensure access.As the Republican party seizes on immigration and the border to rally support before the 2024 elections, Biden has also shifted to the right on the issue, endorsing a measure to restrict asylum-seeking and referring to an immigrant as the pejorative “illegal” during his State of the Union address. Speakers at the event offered different perspectives on how to respond to Biden’s posture on immigration and Israel’s offensive in Gaza, which Voces de la Frontera has repeatedly denounced as a “genocide”.Dr Roa Qato, a Palestinian-American OB-GYN with a practice in Milwaukee and a featured speaker at the rally said she would rather vote third party than for Biden. “It sends the message that if you don’t listen to us, we’re following through – we’re not voting for you, your empty promises are not going to work,” she said.Neumann-Ortiz said Voces de la Frontera’s political arm, which endorsed the “uninstructed” protest vote in Wisconsin’s presidential primary and forms the largest Latino voter network in the swing state, will nonetheless support Biden.“[Trump] is someone who tried to legally and through violent action undermine a democratic election, and this is someone who will follow through with their threats on mass military deportation,” said Neumann-Ortiz.“I think we’re just being very clear with President Biden and his advisers, that we can do what we can do, but if you are not listening, and you don’t take seriously the opposition that is coming from the Palestinian rights movement, from the immigrant rights movement … you’re gonna lose.”For other attendees, the May Day rally offered an opportunity to remind politicians and the broader Wisconsin community about the contributions of immigrants to their home state – documented or not.Sonia Torres, a machine operator at a furniture manufacturing company in De Pere, said that with the help of Voces de la Frontera organizers, she was able to receive temporary protected status amid a workplace dispute.“I want people to realize that we have rights,” said Torres in Spanish. “Companies only view us as a part of the budget, as a means of making money – but we need to realize we have rights.”In recent months, commentators and politicians on the right have seized on the town of Whitewater, Wisconsin, which has seen a recent influx of immigrants, to stoke anxieties about immigration. Whitewater officials have asked for federal resources to accommodate the influx of an estimated 800-1,000 new residents in the last two years but have rejected politicization of their shifting population.“Señor Donald Trump, listen, this message is just for you,” Jorge Islas-Martinez, an interpreter and bilingual educator from Whitewater told the crowd.“We are not the people that you think that we are. We are here to work and we’re changing and making this [country] strong.” More

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      Arizona senate passes bill to repeal 1864 abortion ban; Harris says Trump’s insistence he doesn’t back national ban is ‘gaslighting’ – as it happened

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      Donald Trump may say that he does not plan to push for a national abortion ban, but Kamala Harris told voters in Florida that they should not believe him.“As much harm as he has already caused, a second Trump term would be even worse,” the vice-president said.“Donald Trump’s friends in the United States Congress are trying to pass a national ban and, understand, a national ban would outlaw abortion in every single state, even in states like New York and California. And now Trump wants us to believe he will not sign a national ban. Well, I say enough with the gaslighting.”Here’s more on just what Trump has said about a national ban:A showdown is set to take place next week between Republican House speaker Mike Johnson and far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is leading a charge to remove Johnson as the chamber’s leader over his collaboration with Democrats. But, unlike the last time something like this happened, Democratic leaders say they will oppose Greene’s motion to vacate, and there are already signs that rank-and-file lawmakers will follow along. As for Greene, she only has two other Republicans on board with her ouster attempt – not exactly resounding numbers. We’ll see if anything changes in the days to come. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris traveled to Florida to tell voters in a state Joe Biden is hoping to win in November that Donald Trump is to blame for the strict abortion ban that went into effect today. And in swing state Arizona, the state senate finally approved a repeal of its stringent law against abortion that dates back to the 19th century. The Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, is expected to sign the bill.Here’s what else went on today:
      Florida Democrats have had a tough go of it in recent years, but they hope a measure to expand abortion access that will be on the ballot in November will turn their fortunes around.
      Johnson issued a brief response to Greene’s push to remove him as speaker, warning that it was “wrong for the country”.
      The aftershocks from a violent night on college campuses continue to reverberate, with the University of California, Los Angeles, canceling classes following an attack by counter-protesters on a pro-Palestinian encampment. Follow our live blog for more.
      Louisiana might not get another majority-Black congressional district after all, further complicating Democrats’ hopes of retaking the House majority in November.
      Biden ordered the cancellation of billions of dollars in debt accrued by students who attended a private college system accused of fraud.
      The Associated Press notes that voting in the senate on the bill to repeal Arizona’s strict abortion restrictions is ongoing, but the legislation has the votes to pass, with the requisite two Republicans supporting it alongside 14 Democrats.However, Arizona for Abortion Access, a coalition of reproductive rights groups, warns that the fight to keep the procedure available is far from over:Here’s more on the abortion battle in the south-west swing state that could prove crucial to Joe Biden’s or Donald Trump’s chances of winning the White House:Arizona’s state senate has passed legislation to repeal a ban on almost all abortions in the state that dates back to 1864, the Associated Press reports.The measure, which the house approved last week, now goes to Democratic governor Katie Hobbs, who said she will sign it.Despite their struggles in Florida in recent years, Democrats hope the presence on the November ballot of a measure to broaden access to abortion could sway voters they will need to win the state for Joe Biden. Last month, the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe took a close look at their plans:Democrats in Florida are teaming up with operatives from Joe Biden’s re-election campaign in an all-out assault on Republicans’ extremist positions on abortion, believing it will bring victory in presidential and US Senate races in November.They fired an opening salvo on Tuesday, tearing into Donald Trump’s “boasting” about overturning federal abortion protections a day earlier, and assailing the incumbent Republican senator Rick Scott for supporting Florida’s six-week ban that takes effect next month.Ron DeSantis, the Republican Florida governor and former candidate for the party’s presidential nomination who signed the ban into law, also found himself under fire.“The word is accountability,” Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic party, told an online launch meeting attended by Jasmine Burney-Clark, state director of the Biden-Harris campaign, and Democratic state representative Anna Eskamani, a former regional senior director of Planned Parenthood.“We are here because Donald Trump bragged about overturning Roe v Wade. Then we got here in Florida because we had an individual who wanted to run for president and wanted to take our state into extremism, the Republican legislature who voted for it, and Rick Scott … who said on the national stage he will push for a national abortion ban.“It’s incumbent on all of us, the party, the candidates, the campaigns, to make sure that we are making that very distinct link.”Here’s the moment when Kamala Harris warned Florida voters against believing Donald Trump’s insistence that he would not support federal limits on abortion:As she closed out her speech, Harris compared and contrasted a second Donald Trump term with four more years of Joe Biden, and repeated the president’s promise to sign legislation restoring the protections in Roe v Wade, should Congress approve it.“The great Maya Angelou once said, ‘When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time.’ And Donald Trump has told us who he is. So here’s what a second Trump term looks like: more bans, more suffering, less freedom,” Harris said.“But we are not going to let that happen because you see, we trust women. We trust women to know what is in their own best interest. And women trust all of us to fight to protect their most fundamental freedom.”No Democratic president has won Florida’s electoral votes since Barack Obama in 2012, and at the state level, the GOP controls the governor’s mansion and the legislature. The state’s Democrats have generally struggled in recent years, though there have been some signs of a comeback.“This November, up and down the ballot, reproductive freedom is on the ballot. And you, the leaders, you the people, have the power to protect it with your vote. Donald Trump may think he can take Florida for granted. It is your power that will send Joe Biden and me back to the White House,” Harris said.“And when Congress passes the law that restores the reproductive freedoms of Roe, our president, Joe Biden, will sign it.”Donald Trump may say that he does not plan to push for a national abortion ban, but Kamala Harris told voters in Florida that they should not believe him.“As much harm as he has already caused, a second Trump term would be even worse,” the vice-president said.“Donald Trump’s friends in the United States Congress are trying to pass a national ban and, understand, a national ban would outlaw abortion in every single state, even in states like New York and California. And now Trump wants us to believe he will not sign a national ban. Well, I say enough with the gaslighting.”Here’s more on just what Trump has said about a national ban:Donald Trump recently said abortion policy should be left to the states, and declined to endorse a national ban on the procedure that some Republicans have called for.Harris took him to task: “Trump says he wants to leave abortion up to the states, he says, up to the states. All right. So here’s how that works out. Today, one in three women of reproductive age live in a state with a Trump abortion ban – many with no exception for rape or incest.”She then explained why she cared so much about this issue, relating a story from when she was growing up:
      As many of you know, I started my career as a prosecutor specializing in crimes against women and children. What many of you may not know is why? So, when I was in high school I learned that my best friend was being molested by her stepfather. And I said to her, well, you’ve got to come and live with us. I call my mother. And my mother said of course she does. And so she did.
      So, the idea that someone who survives a crime of violence to their body of violation of their body would not have the authority to make a decision about what happens to their body next. That’s immoral. That’s immoral.
      And one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to do.
      Harris then pivoted to the meat of her argument to Florida voters: that Donald Trump was to blame for the abortion ban that just went into effect in the state, as well as others like it nationwide.“Across our nation, we witnessed a full on assault, state by state, on reproductive freedom, and understand who is to blame: former president Donald Trump did this,” Harris said.“Donald Trump hand-picked three members of the United States supreme court because he intended for them to overturn Roe, and as he intended, they did.”Harris harkened back to her grilling, as a senator on the judiciary committee, of two of Trump’s supreme court nominees, saying it was clear after their confirmation that the days of nationwide abortion access were numbered:
      And it happened just as Donald Trump intended. Now, present day because of Donald Trump, more than 20 states have abortion bans, more than 20 Trump abortion bans. And today, this very day at the stroke of midnight, another Trump abortion ban went into effect here in Florida. As of this morning, four million women in this state woke up with fewer reproductive freedoms than they had last night. This is the new reality under a Trump abortion ban.
      Kamala Harris has taken the stage in Jacksonville, Florida, where she likened abortion access to a “fundamental freedom”.“This is a fight for freedom, the fundamental freedom to make decisions about one’s own body and not have their government tell them what they’re supposed to do,” the vice-president said.“As we know, almost two years ago, the highest court in our land, the court of Thurgood and RBG, took a constitutional right that had been recognized from the people of America, from the women of America. And now, in states across our nation, extremists have proposed and passed laws that criminalize doctors, punish women – laws that threatened doctors and nurses with prison time, even for life, simply for providing reproductive care.”Florida’s six-week abortion ban doesn’t just mark the end of most patients’ access to the procedure in the state, but also in the rest of the south-eastern United States. The Guardian’s Carter Sherman reported from a clinic trying to squeeze in appointments before it went into effect about how reproductive health access in Florida was about to change:A six-week abortion ban went into effect on Wednesday in Florida, cutting off access to the procedure before many people know they are pregnant and leveling the south-eastern United States’ last stronghold for abortion rights.The ban went into force weeks after Florida’s state supreme court issued a decision clearing the way for it to take effect. Strict bans now blanket all of the American deep south, increasing the strain on the country’s remaining clinics. The closest clinic for most Floridians past six weeks of pregnancy is now several states away in North Carolina, which outlaws abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy.Last year, Florida abortion providers performed more than 84,000 abortions, state data found – including more than 9,000 for out-of-state patients, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion restrictions. Roughly 60 % of Florida abortions occur after six weeks of pregnancy.On Tuesday, the last day before the ban took effect, an abortion clinic in Gainesville, Florida, was trying to squeeze in as many patients as possible. The clinic had added hours throughout April, but the rush was compounded by the fact that, in addition to the impending ban, Florida requires people to have an in-person consultation at an abortion clinic at least 24 hours before they get the procedure or take abortion pills. A patient could have arrived on Tuesday exactly six weeks into her pregnancy, but have been too late to get an abortion given that the ban came into effect on Wednesday.Georgia’s Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is doubling down on her attempts to oust House speaker Mike Johnson.In an address today, Greene said:
      We have to have a Republican majority in January and under Mike Johnson’s leadership, we’re not going to have one …
      Hakeem Jeffries has endorsed Mike Johnson because he knows Mike Johnson’s leadership is going to hand the House majority to Democrats in January. It will make our voters not vote for him …
      Joe Biden has announced the approval of $6.1bn in student debt cancellation for 317,000 borrowers who attended the Art Institutes, a private college system that was closed last year amid fraud claims.In a statement released on Wednesday, Biden said:
      This institution falsified data, knowingly misled students, and cheated borrowers into taking on mountains of debt without leading to promising career prospects at the end of their studies …
      While my predecessor looked the other way when colleges defrauded students and borrowers, I promised to take this on directly to provide borrowers with the relief they need and deserve … And in total, we have approved debt cancellation for nearly 4.6 million Americans through various actions.
      Today’s announcement builds on all we’ve done to fix broken student loan programs and bring higher education more in reach.
      Arizona Democrats are expected to make a final push to repeal the state’s near-total abortion ban, which dates back to 1864.The Guardian and agencies report:Fourteen Democrats in the state senate are hoping to pick up at least two Republican votes to win final approval for a bill repealing the ban, which narrowly cleared the Arizona house last week and is expected to be signed by the Democratic governor.The near-total ban, which predates Arizona’s statehood, permits abortions only to save the patient’s life – and provides no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest. The law had been on the books since 1864, but had been blocked since the US supreme court’s 1973 Roe v Wade decision guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion nationwide.In a ruling last month, however, the Arizona supreme court suggested that following the US supreme court’s decision last year to overturn Roe v Wade, doctors could be prosecuted under the civil war-era law. Under the law, anyone who assists in an abortion can be sentenced to two to five years in prison.Read the full story here:A showdown is set to take place next week between Republican House speaker Mike Johnson and far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is leading a charge to remove him as the chamber’s leader over his collaboration with Democrats. But, unlike the last time something like this happened, Democratic leaders say they will oppose Greene’s motion to vacate, and there are already signs that rank-and-file lawmakers will follow along. As for Greene, she only has two others on board with her ouster attempt – not exactly resounding numbers. We’ll see if anything changes in the days to come. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris is set to speak at 2.45pm in Jacksonville, Florida, and blame Donald Trump for the state’s strict abortion ban, which went into effect today. We plan to cover that live.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Johnson issued a brief response to Greene’s push to remove him as speaker, warning that it was “wrong for the country”.
      The aftershocks from a violent night on college campuses continue to reverberate, with the University of California, Los Angeles, canceling classes following an attack by counter-protesters on a pro-Palestinian encampment. Follow our live blog for more.
      Louisiana might not get another majority-Black congressional district after all, further complicating Democrats’ hopes of retaking the House majority in November.
      Earlier this morning, Joe Biden hammered Donald Trump as Florida’s strict abortion ban went into effect, saying the former president “ripped away the rights and freedom of women in America”.“There is one person responsible for this nightmare: Donald Trump. Trump brags about overturning Roe v Wade, making extreme bans like Florida’s possible, saying his plan is working ‘brilliantly’. He thinks it’s brilliant that more than 4 million women in Florida, and more than one in three women in America, can’t get access to the care they need,” the president said in a statement released through his re-election campaign.“Trump is worried the voters will hold him accountable for the cruelty and chaos he created. He’s right. Trump ripped away the rights and freedom of women in America. This November, voters are going to teach him a valuable lesson: don’t mess with the women of America.” More

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      What do the US campus protests mean for Joe Biden in November?

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      The policies of Joe Biden and Democrats towards Israel, which have prompted thousands of students across the country to protest, could affect the youth vote for Biden and hurt his re-election chances, experts have warned, in what is already expected to be a tight election.Thousands of students at universities across the US have joined with pro-Palestine rallies and, most recently, encampments, as Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 34,000 people.Some of the protests began as a call to encourage universities to ditch investments in companies that provide weapons and equipment to the Israeli military. But as the Biden administration has continued to largely support Israel, the president has increasingly become a focus of criticism from young people. Polling shows that young Americans’ support for Biden has been chipped away since 2020.With Biden narrowly trailing Trump in several key swing states, it’s a voting bloc the president can ill afford to lose.“The real threat to Biden is that younger voters, especially college-educated voters, won’t turn out for him in the election,” said Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history of education at the University of Pennsylvania.“I wouldn’t expect that the protesters on campuses today are going to vote for Trump, almost none of them will. That’s not the danger here. The danger is much simpler: that they simply won’t vote.”Turnout could be key to Biden winning November’s election, given the devotion of Trump’s base, and there are signs that Biden’s handling of the situation in Gaza is already costing him support.In Wisconsin, which Biden won by just 21,000 votes in 2020, more than 47,000 people voted “uninstructed” in the state’s Democratic primary, as a protest against the government’s support for Israel. It came after more than 100,000 voters in Michigan’s Democratic primary cast ballots for “uncommitted”: Biden won the state by just 154,000 votes four years ago.Biden triumphed in Pennsylvania by a similarly small margin, and average polling shows him currently trailing Trump in the state, albeit by less than two points. Protests at campuses at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Pittsburgh probably have Biden’s campaign worried.“In states like Pennsylvania, the margins are going to be so small, that it’s at least possible that a couple thousand people not turning out, or voting for one of the third-party candidates, could swing the election one way or the other,” Zimmerman said.In April, a Harvard poll found that Biden leads Trump by eight percentage points among 18- to 29-year-olds, down from a 23-point lead Biden had at the same point in 2020. In the same survey, 51% of young Americans said they support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, while just 10% said they were opposed.Just as worrying for the voting figures was the sentiments Harvard unearthed. Nearly 60% of 18-to 29-year-olds said the country is “off on the wrong track”. Only 9% believe things are “generally headed in the right direction”.On Tuesday, even the College Democrats of America – a centrist, Biden-supporting organization – criticized their own party.“Each day that Democrats fail to stand united for a permanent ceasefire, two-state solution, and recognition of a Palestinian state, more and more youth find themselves disillusioned with the party,” the group said in a statement.The White House said that Biden had “reiterated his clear” opposition to Israel invading the Gaza city of Rafah, where about 1.4 million Palestinians are sheltering, in a call with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, over the weekend.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe administration said Biden had also “reaffirmed his ironclad commitment to Israel’s security”. That came after Biden said he condemned “the antisemitic protests”, although the president added: “I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians.”Zimmerman said “the most obvious” precedent for student protests influencing an election was in 1968, when Lyndon B Johnson dropped his re-election campaign in the face of anti-Vietnam war protests. Those protests, which had begun in 1965, weren’t the only reason for Johnson’s dropping out of the Democratic primary, Zimmerman said, but played a major role.The Vietnam-era movement grew to something much larger in scale than the current demonstrations, although with hundreds of students arrested so far, there is evidence the movement is growing, and according to National Students for Justice in Palestine, an advocacy group, there are more than 50 encampments at universities around the US.“A heavy-handed response to protests is basically not going to put them down. It’s just going to increase the protests and strengthen them, because then it becomes a question of free speech,” said Ralph Young, a history professor at Temple University whose work has focused on protest movements in the US.If the protests against Israel’s conduct – and against Biden’s ability or willingness to reel Israel in – continue, it will not be an issue for Trump. In a Gallup poll in March, 71% of Republicans said they approved of “the military action Israel has taken in Gaza”, compared with just 36% of Democrats.“The main negativity on this is for the Democrats. What Biden needs in order to win is a very heavy turnout of Democrats. If he loses even 10% of the Democratic vote and even if that does not go to Trump, I think the chances are slim for Biden to get re-elected,” Young said.“If there is a ceasefire, or if things ease up, then maybe cooler heads will prevail and things will settle down. Maybe then the protests will not have as much of an impact on the election. But the longer they go on, the more impact they will have.”Biden v Trump: What’s in store for the US and the world?On Thursday 2 May, 3-4.15pm ET, join Tania Branigan, David Smith, Mehdi Hasan and Tara Setmayer for the inside track on the people, the ideas and the events that might shape the US election campaign. Book tickets here or at theguardian.live More