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      Joe Biden delivers feisty State of the Union address with vision for his second term

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      Joe Biden confirmed a new US mission to deliver aid to Gaza and repeatedly took aim at Donald Trump in his State of the Union address on Thursday, offering a pointed preview of the general election in November.Biden’s most significant announcement came toward the end of his roughly hour-long speech, when he confirmed that the US military would establish a “temporary pier in the Mediterranean on the coast of Gaza” capable of receiving large shipments of water, food and medicine. Biden pledged the mission will not involve deploying American troops on the ground and would facilitate a significant infusion of supplies into Gaza.While reiterating his belief in Israel’s right to defend itself against Hamas, Biden condemned the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where more than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes.“To Israel, I say this: humanitarian assistance cannot be a secondary consideration or a bargaining chip. Protecting and saving innocent lives has to be priority,” Biden said. “As we look to the future, the only real solution to the situation is a two-state solution over time.”The overall tone of Biden’s speech, which marked his last State of the Union address before November, was strikingly combative, while hopeful. Biden repeatedly invoked Trump by derisively referring to “my predecessor” as he criticized the former president’s views on everything from foreign policy to immigration reform.Opening his remarks with a robust defense of US allies abroad, Biden called on Congress to approve more funding for Ukraine amid its war against Russia and condemned Trump’s recent comments about Nato.Biden compared this moment to 1941, when the US stood on the precipice of entering the second world war, and he repeatedly reminded Americans that “history is watching” how the nation will react to the crises unfolding around the world. As he reflected on the deadly violence seen at the Capitol on January 6, Biden warned that democracy faces a fundamental threat.“Not since President Lincoln and the civil war have our freedom and democracy been under assault at home as they are today,” Biden said. “What makes our moment rare is freedom and democracy are under attack both at home and overseas at the very same time.”Biden then accused Trump of “bowing down” to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, after the former president said he would allow Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to Nato nations that fail to make sufficient financial contributions to the alliance.“It’s dangerous and it’s unacceptable,” Biden said. “My message to President Putin, who I’ve known for a long time, is simple. We will not walk away. We will not bow down. I will not bow down.”Republican members of Congress, who were seated in the House chamber as Biden delivered his remarks, occasionally lashed out against the criticism of Trump. Early in his speech, Biden said: “My predecessor failed the most basic presidential duty that he owes to the American people: the duty to care. I think that’s unforgivable.”One unidentified member of Congress responded to the remark by yelling: “Lies!”Biden later directly engaged with Republican members on the issue of immigration, attacking them over blocking the bipartisan border and national security deal that stalled in the Senate last month. As Biden blamed Trump for impeding the bill’s passage by instructing members to oppose it, Republicans began yelling at him.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn a tense moment, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a hard-right Republican of Georgia, implored Biden to say the name of Laken Riley, a Georgia college student who was murdered by an undocumented immigrant.Greene had handed Biden a button bearing Riley’s name as he walked into the chamber, and the president held the button up as he said her name, although he appeared to mispronounce her first name. Biden then expressed his condolences to Riley’s parents and emphasized the need to “change the dynamic at the border”, saying: “I would respectfully suggest my Republican friends owe it to the American people [to] get this bill done. We need to act now.”Even as he clashed with Republicans, Biden made a point to paint a vision of his potential second term. He noted that one of first lady Jill Biden’s guests at the State of the Union address was Kate Cox, a Texas woman who was forced to flee her home state after courts rejected her pleas to access abortion care.“If you, the American people, send me a Congress that supports the right to choose, I promise you: I will restore Roe v Wade as the law of the land again,” Biden said to loud applause from Democratic lawmakers in the chamber.Biden went on to outline other campaign promises – including protecting social security and Medicare, banning assault weapons and capping the cost of prescription drugs. Faced with an underwater approval rating and widespread concerns over his age of 81, Biden did not waste the opportunity to contrast his vision for the country with that of Trump.“I may not look like it, but I’ve been around a while,” Biden said, prompting laughter from the audience. “My fellow Americans – the issue facing our nation isn’t how old we are, it’s how old are our ideas? Hate, anger, revenge, retribution are the oldest of ideas. But you can’t lead America with ancient ideas that only take us back. To lead America, the land of possibilities, you need a vision for the future and what can and should be done. Tonight you’ve heard mine.”As America braces for a long general election season that is expected to be bitterly fought and closely contested, Biden has eight months to sell voters on that vision. More

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      Haley finally bows out as Trump and Biden prepare for rematch – podcast

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      Pundits saw it as one of the least exciting Super Tuesdays in American history. Nevertheless, it gave us some answers. Nikki Haley, who surprised everyone by beating Trump in the Vermont primary election decided it wasn’t enough to keep her in the race, and on Wednesday, she dropped out.
      Despite President Biden and Donald Trump winning easily in most states so far, there is a growing trend that neither camp can ignore – they’re both incredibly unpopular.
      So who should Americans who are dismayed at the choice they’ve been left turn to now? How will both Biden and Trump learn from their first contest four years ago? And what else did we learn from the other primary contests that created headlines on Tuesday?
      Jonathan Freedland speaks to conservative columnist Charlie Sykes about who Americans should turn to now that it’s likely Biden v Trump in November

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

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      State of the Union address as it happened: Biden spars with Republicans and announces aid pier for Gaza

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      In his third, and potentially last, State of the Union address, Joe Biden eschewed tradition and delivered a barrage of attacks on Donald Trump – who he only referred to as “my predecessor”. It was a sign of how Biden believes Trump’s potential return to the White House poses an existential risk to American democracy, and perhaps also his awareness that he has a lot of support to rebuild to win a second term in November. While Democrats leapt to their feet for Biden’s promises to protect social security, cut child poverty and overhaul the country’s infrastructure, some found the president’s use of the word “illegal” objectionable. Meanwhile, Alabama’s Republican senator Katie Britt delivered the party’s rebuttal, asking: “Are you better off now than you were three years ago?”Here are the highlights:
      The 81-year-old president directly addressed his age, saying “I’ve been told I’m too old” while arguing he is still up for the job.
      Marjorie Taylor Greene, a rightwing nemesis, got unusually close to Biden, then heckled him during the speech over the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley.
      Six supreme court justices were present at the speech, only for Biden to criticize them directly for overturning Roe v Wade.
      Protesters upset over Biden’s support for Israel’s invasion of Gaza blocked a road leading to the Capitol ahead of the speech.
      George Santos was in the House chamber for the speech, reportedly to hang out with the people who removed him from office.
      Several Democratic House lawmakers have criticized Joe Biden for describing the undocumented migrant suspected of murdering Georgia nursing student Laken Riley as an “illegal”.Biden made the remark during his State of the Union address, while being heckled by rightwing lawmaker Marjorie Taylor Greene, who blamed the president’s border security policies for Riley’s murder. Biden held up a pin with Riley’s name on it, and called her “an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal”.Democrats took issue with that terminology, including Illinois’s Chuy Garcia:Ilhan Omar of Minnesota:And Delia Ramirez of Illinois:“Just ask yourself, are you better off now than you were three years ago?” Katie Britt asks in the Republican rebuttal to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.Expect that to be a theme of GOP campaigns nationwide, including Donald Trump’s.More, from Britt:
      Look, we all recall when presidents faced national security threats with strength and resolve. That seems like ancient history right now. Our commander-in-chief is not in command. The free world deserves better than a doddering and diminished leader. America deserves leaders who recognize that secure borders, stable prices, safe streets and a strong defense are actually the cornerstones of a great nation.
      Alabama senator Katie Britt is delivering the Republican rebuttal to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, and responded to his comments on Laken Riley.“Tonight, President Biden finally said her name, but he refused to take responsibility for his own actions,” said Britt.“Mr President, enough is enough. Innocent Americans are dying and you only have yourself to blame. Fulfill your oath of office, reverse your policies, end this crisis and stop the suffering.”One of the most striking moments of the night happened when Joe Biden addressed the topic of immigration – which polls show is a major weakness of his going into the November contest against Donald Trump.As he spoke, the president was heckled by Marjorie Taylor Greene, a rightwing antagonist. Greene demanded he say the name of Laken Riley, who is suspected to have been murdered by an undocumented migrant.Biden, who usually wants nothing to do with Greene, took her up on the offer. Here’s what happened:During Joe Biden’s speech, there were several rowdy heckles from Marjorie Taylor Greene and others. Then came an unexpected yell from the public balcony, directly opposite from where I am sitting in the press gallery.A man wearing dark suit, blue shirt and yellow tie cupped his hands and shouted: “Remember Abbey Gate! United States Marines.” Abbey Gate, outside Kabul’s airport, is where 13 US service members were killed during the withdrawal from Afghanistan two years ago.His point made, the man voluntarily left before security yanked him out. Biden did not seem thrown off by the interruption as he carried on speaking. But the episode was a reminder that his approval rating has never quite recovered from the chaos in Kabul.Joe Biden rarely discusses his age, but did so directly as he closed his State of the Union address.“I’ve been told I’m too old,” he said, continuing:
      Whether young or old … I’ve always known what endures. I’ve known our north star, the very idea of Americans, that we’re all created equal, deserve to be treated equally throughout our lives. We’ve never fully lived up to that idea. We’ve never walked away from it either. And I won’t walk away from it now.
      “I know it may not look like it, but I’ve been around a while,” said the 81-year-old president, the oldest to ever hold the job.“You get to be my age, certain things become clearer than ever,” Biden continued. “I know the American story. Again and again, I’ve seen the contrast between competing forces in the battle for the soul of our nation, between those who want to pull America back to the past and those who want to move America into the future.”Biden appears to be wrapping up, in high spirits.“Let me close with this,” he said, to sardonic applause.“I know you don’t want to hear any more, Lindsey. But I gotta say a few more things,” Biden said. He was presumably talking to South Carolina Republican senator Lindsey Graham.As Joe Biden discussed the war in Gaza, two progressive House Democrats sitting in the audience staged a minor protest.Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush remained sitting and held up signs that read: “Lasting ceasefire now.” More

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      State of the Union guest list shows reproductive rights in spotlight after Alabama IVF bill signed into law – live

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      Becerra’s comments come ahead of Joe Biden addressing the nation in the State of the Union on Thursday night. Although the White House has not released the speech, a large number of Democratic guests suggest reproductive rights may feature heavily.Among the guests of high-ranking Democrats are Elizabeth Carr, the first person in the US to be born via IVF; Amanda Zurawski, a Texas woman who nearly died of septic shock when she was denied a medically necessary abortion; and Kate Cox, who had to flee Texas for an abortion after she learned her fetus had a fatal chromosomal condition.More guests include reproductive endocrinologists, an Indiana doctor who provided an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim, and leaders of reproductive rights groups.Becerra’s comments emphasizing the importance of reproductive rights, Democrats’ guest list for the State of the Union and a recent administration officials’ trips to states with abortion restrictions are the most recent evidence of Democrat’s election bet: that when Republicans married the motivated minority of voters who support the anti-abortion movement, they also divorced themselves from the broader American public, broad margins of whom support IVF, contraception and legal abortion.My colleague Chris Stein will be covering Joe Biden’s State of the Union address this evening on our dedicated live blog. In the meantime, here’s a recap of today’s developments:
      LaTorya Beasley, an Alabama mother who saw a second round of IVF canceled after the state supreme court ruled that embryos were children, and Kate Cox, the Texas mother forced to travel outside her state for an abortion, are among those set to attend Joe Biden’s State of the Union address tonight, as guests of the first lady, Jill Biden.
      Joe Biden will announce in the State of the Union speech that US forces will build a temporary port on the Gaza shoreline in the next few weeks to allow delivery of humanitarian aid on a large scale.
      Biden welcomed Sweden into Nato in a statement after the country officially became the 32nd member of the western military alliance. The Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, will be attending the State of the Union address tonight.
      Katie Boyd Britt, a first-term 42-year-old Republican senator from Alabama, will deliver the GOP’s official response to Biden’s State of the Union address tonight – a move likely designed to highlight the big age gap between the two.
      Byron Donalds, a Republican Florida congressman being floated as a possible vice presidential pick for Donald Trump, suggested he would be willing to decline to certify the 2028 election results if he was vice president.
      No Labels, the third-party presidential movement, will reportedly to announce on Friday that it will move forward with a presidential bid in the November election.
      Joe Biden’s re-election campaign described a new ad from a pro-Trump Super Pac questioning whether Biden can “even survive til 2029” as “a sick and deranged stunt”.
      Larry Hogan, the Republican former governor of Maryland who is running for Senate, has said he would not vote for Donald Trump in the November election.
      Daniel Rodimer, a former pro wrestler who won a prominent endorsement from Donald Trump while unsuccessfully running for Congress in Nevada, surrendered to authorities on Wednesday on an arrest warrant for murder.
      Republican Florida congressman Byron Donalds became the latest vice-presidential contender to refuse to commit to certifying election results.Donalds, at an Axios event, suggested he would be willing to decline to certify the 2028 election results if he was vice president. He also did not clarify if he would have certified the 2020 election results.Donalds is one of the names being floated as a possible vice presidential pick for Donald Trump. When asked if he would certify the 2028 results as vice president, he replied:
      If you have state officials who are violating the election law in their states … then no, I would not.
      Asked if he agreed with former vice-president Mike Pence’s move to certify the results, Donalds said: “You can only ask that question of Mike Pence.”Republicans have chosen Katie Boyd Britt, a first-term senator from Alabama, to deliver the party’s official response to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address tonight – a move likely designed to highlight the big age gap between the two.Britt, 42, is one of nine women in the Senate Republican conference and the youngest female Republican elected to the Senate.In a statement announcing her speech, she said it was time for the next generation of American politicians “to step up”. She added:
      The Republican Party is the party of hardworking parents and families, and I’m looking forward to putting this critical perspective front and center.
      Senate Republicans say she will offer a split screen of sorts when she delivers the party’s rebuttal to the State of the Union address by Biden, 81.“She’s young, female and full of energy – opposite of everything Joe Biden is,” senator Markwayne Mullin told the Hill. “The contrast between the two, it’s so different.”The third-party presidential movement No Labels is expected to announce it will move forward with a presidential bid in the November election, according to multiple reports.About 800 No Labels delegates are expected to meet virtually in a private meeting and vote on Friday in favor of launching a presidential campaign for this fall’s election, sources told AP and Reuters.The group will not name its presidential and vice presidential picks on Friday, but instead it is expected to roll out a formal selection process late next week for potential candidates who would be selected in the coming weeks, the people said.The House passed a bill that would require federal authorities to detain any migrant charged with theft or burglary, named after a Georgia nursing student police have said was killed by a man who entered the US illegally.The measure, called the Laken Riley Act, requires immigrations and customs enforcement to detain undocumented immigrants accused by local authorities of theft, burglary, larceny or shoplifting.The bill would also allow states and individuals to sue the federal government for crimes committed by immigrants who enter the country illegally.The bill was named after 22-year-old Laken Riley, who was killed on the campus of the University of Georgia while on a morning run last month. Riley’s death has become a rallying point for Donald Trump, after authorities arrested a Venezuelan man who entered the US illegally and was allowed to stay to pursue his immigration case.The House approved the legislation hours before Joe Biden is set to deliver his State of the Union address. Republicans have seized on Riley’s death to hammer the Biden administration’s border policies.“Republicans will not stand for the release of dangerous criminals into our communities, and that’s exactly what the Biden administration has done,” Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News.
      Laken is just one of the tragic examples of innocent American citizens who have lost their lives, been brutally and violently attacked by illegal criminals who are roaming our streets.
      Joe Biden’s re-election campaign has responded to a new ad from a pro-Trump Super Pac questioning Biden’s ability to serve a second term in a new TV ad and whether the president can “even survive til 2029.”The ad, by Make America Great Again Inc, shows a clip from Biden’s press conference after the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.During the briefing, Biden spoke about comments by Donald Trump about letting Russia “do whatever the hell they want” to Nato allies. Pausing for dramatic effect, Biden then says he should clear his mind “and not say what I’m really thinking.”In the Maga Inc ad, a narrator says: “We can all see Joe Biden’s weakness. If Biden wins, can he even survive to 2029. The real question is, can we?”Biden campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa told NBC News that the ad is “a sick and deranged stunt from a broke and struggling campaign”, adding:
      Trump tried this strategy four years ago and got his ass kicked by Joe Biden – he should tune in tonight alongside tens of millions of Americans to see why President Biden will beat him again this November.
      A former congressional candidate backed by Donald Trump has been arrested for murder. The Guardian’s Ramon Antonio Vargas reports:A former pro wrestler who won a prominent endorsement from Donald Trump while unsuccessfully running for Congress in Nevada surrendered to authorities on Wednesday on an arrest warrant for murder.Daniel Rodimer, 45, was booked in connection with the slaying of 47-year-old Christopher Tapp, who was reportedly beaten to death in Resorts World Las Vegas on 29 October.Rodimer met Tapp – who was once charged with murder himself – “through the classic car and racing circuit”, according to the local television news station KLAS, which reviewed police documents.Investigators allege that Rodimer fatally attacked Tapp after he offered Rodimer’s stepdaughter cocaine during a hotel room party.Initially, authorities believed Tapp’s death stemmed from a drug overdose and a fall, after an autopsy found evidence of blunt trauma and cocaine use. But detectives later determined Tapp had been in a fight inside the hotel room where he was found injured. He died later at a hospital.For the full story, click here:Here is a video of Maryland’s former Republican governor Larry Hogan – who we reported about earlier – saying that he will not vote for either Joe Biden or Donald Trump:Hogan, who recently stepped down from his third-party movement No Labels, said: “I think we’ll hopefully have some ability to vote for someone that these people actually want to vote for rather than just voting against.”In a tweet on Thursday, Joe Biden urged Americans to tune into his State of the Union address in which he plans to address “how far we’ve come in building the economy from the middle out and the bottom up …”He went on to add that he plans to address “the work we have left to lower costs and protect our freedoms against MAGA attacks”.An Alabama mother who saw a second round of IVF canceled after the state supreme court ruled that embryos were children will attend Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday, as guests of the first lady, Jill Biden.LaTorya Beasley of Birmingham, Alabama, is among the first lady’s 20 invited guests who “personify issues or themes to be addressed by the president in his speech,” the White House said in a statement.Beasley and her husband had their first child, via IVF, in 2022. They were trying to have another child through IVF but Beasley’s embryo transfer was suddenly canceled because of the Alabama court decision.Also on the guest list is Kate Cox, the Texas mother forced to travel outside her state for an abortion. The White House said the cases of Beasley and Cox, showed “how the overturning of Roe v Wade has disrupted access to reproductive healthcare for women and families across the country”. In a statement, the White House said:
      Stories like Kate’s and LaTorya’s should never happen in America. But Republican elected officials want to impose this reality on women nationwide.
      Joe Biden has welcomed Sweden into Nato in a statement after the country officially became the 32nd member of the western military alliance.Stockholm’s ratification process was finally completed in Washington on Thursday, as Sweden and Hungary – the last country to ratify Sweden’s membership – submitted the necessary documents after a drawn-out process that has taken nearly two years.The ratification marked the end of a 20-month-long wait that started in May 2022 when it submitted its application to join alongside Finland, prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February that year.In a statement, Biden said he was “honored” to welcome Sweden as Nato’s newest ally, and that the alliance was “stronger than ever” with its addition. He added:
      Today, we once more reaffirm that our shared democratic values – and our willingness to stand up for them – is what makes Nato the greatest military alliance in the history of the world. It is what draws nations to our cause. It is what underpins our unity. And together with our newest Ally Sweden – NATO will continue to stand for freedom and democracy for generations to come.
      The Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, will be attending Joe Biden’s State of the Union address as a guest of the first lady, the White House has confirmed.Larry Hogan, the Republican former governor of Maryland who is running for Senate, has said he would not vote for Donald Trump in the November election.Hogan, at an Axios event, said he will vote for neither Trump nor Joe Biden and would instead seek out a third-party candidate. He said:
      I’m like 70% of the rest of people in America who do not want Joe Biden or Donald Trump to be president, and I’m hoping that there potentially is another alternative.
      He added that he didn’t know yet who that candidate will be. Hogan, one of the most outspoken and only Trump critics in the Republican party, last year said he would support the party’s nominee for president, but at the time said he did not think Trump would be that candidate.Joe Biden will announce in the State of the Union speech that US forces will build a temporary port on the Gaza shoreline in the next few weeks to allow delivery of humanitarian aid on a large scale.“We are not waiting on the Israelis. This is a moment for American leadership,” a senior US official said on Thursday, reflecting growing frustration of what is seen in Washington as Israeli obstruction of road deliveries on a substantial scale.The port will be built by US military engineers operating from ships off the Gaza coast, who will not need to step ashore, US officials said. The aid deliveries will be shipped from the port of Larnaca in Cyprus, which will become the main relief hub. The official said:
      Tonight, the president will announce in his State of the Union address that he has directed the US military to undertake an emergency mission to establish a port in Gaza, working in partnership with like minded countries and humanitarian partners. This port, the main feature of which is a temporary pier, will provide the capacity for hundreds of additional truckloads of assistance each day.
      Biden will also announce the opening of a new land crossing into the occupied and devastated coastal strip. Biden has been fiercely criticised within his own party for the failure to open up Gaza to humanitarian aid, with a famine looming and 30,000 Palestinians dead already since the start of war on 7 October.Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, said Joe Biden’s State of the Union address tonight will highlight Democratic successes and show the chaos in the House Republican party in stark relief.During his floor remarks reported by CNN, Schumer said Biden will make it clear that “after so much adversity, America’s economy is growing, inflation is slowing, and Democrats’ agenda is delivering.” He said:
      The difference between the parties will be as clear as night and day. Democrats are focused on lowering costs, creating jobs, putting money in people’s pockets. But the hard right, which too often runs the Republican party in the House and now increasingly in the Senate, is consumed by chaos, bullying, and attacking things like women’s freedom of choice.
      Meanwhile, the Republican front-runner for president, Donald Trump, has “made it abundantly clear that he’s not running to make people’s lives better, but rather on airing his personal political grievances,” Schumer added.Joe Biden will deliver the final State of the Union address of his presidential term this evening, giving him an opportunity to tout his accomplishments and pitch his re-election campaign as he prepares for a rematch against Donald Trump in November.Previewing Biden’s State of the Union speech, his press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said his remarks would focus on the president’s vision for the nation’s future and his legislative accomplishments.“You’re going to hear the president address how democracy is under attack, how freedoms are certainly under attack,” including women’s reproductive rights and voting rights, Jean-Pierre told MSNBC.Biden’s speech will also highlight his agenda for a potential second term, the White House chief of staff Jeff Zients told NPR. Those include “lowering costs, continuing to make people’s lives better by investing in childcare, eldercare, paid family and medical leave, continued progress on student debt”, he said, adding:
      The president is also going to call for restoring Roe v. Wade and giving women freedom over their healthcare. And he’ll talk about protecting, not taking away, freedoms in other areas, as well as voting rights.
      Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, reportedly pleaded with his party to show “decorum” on Thursday, when Joe Biden comes to the chamber to deliver his State of the Union address.“Decorum is the order of the day,” Johnson said, according to an unnamed Republican who attended a closed-door event on Capitol Hill on Wednesday and was quoted by the Hill.The same site said another unnamed member of Congress said Johnson asked his party to “carry ourselves with good decorum”. A third Republican was quoted as saying:
      He said, ‘Let’s have the appropriate decorum. We don’t need to be shrill, you know, we got to avoid that. We need to base things upon policy, upon facts, upon reality of situations.
      Last year’s State of the Union saw outbursts from Republicans and responses from Biden that made headlines, most awarding the president the win. Kevin McCarthy, then speaker, also asked his Republican members not to breach decorum. But in a sign of his limited authority, months before he became the first speaker ejected by his own party, such pleas fell on deaf ears. More

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      Who is Katie Britt? Alabama senator to deliver rebuttal to Biden’s State of the Union

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      Republicans have chosen first-term Alabama senator Katie Britt, the youngest Republican woman ever to serve in the Senate, to deliver the rebuttal to the State of the Union address tonight.At 42, Britt is also the third-youngest senator serving today, presenting a counterpoint to the oldest sitting president.Her rebuttal will come on the heels of a high-stakes political showdown over women’s access to in vitro fertilization in her home state.After Alabama’s supreme court ruled that frozen embryos preserved for IVF “are children” under state law, Britt told reporters that “defending life and ensuring continued access to IVF services for loving parents are not mutually exclusive,” pushing for changes to state and federal law to protect the procedure.Alabama’s legislature subsequently wrote new legislation intended to do so, which Governor Kay Ivey signed into law on Wednesday.Britt was elected to the Senate in 2022. Her political fortunes can be attributed in part to her astute balancing act navigating relationships with Alabama’s business elite as a consummate political insider, while connecting herself to president Donald Trump and Trumpist populism as a candidate.She also got lucky. Her opponent in the race, Mo Brooks, had Trump’s endorsement to succeed the retiring senator Richard Shelby, but squandered an early polling lead. Trump withdrew his endorsement mid-race, and the business-backed Britt swept into place.Britt has two school-age children with her husband, former San Diego Chargers offensive tackle Wesley Britt.Her political resume began in high school, when she was elected in 1999 by the delegates of Alabama Girls State program to be their governor . The high school valedictorian graduated from the University of Alabama as student body president in 2004. After a stint serving as former Shelby’s communications chief, she earned a law degree there in 2013. More

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      Biden’s State of the Union guests include mother whose IVF was canceled and Kate Cox

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      An Alabama mother who saw a second round of IVF canceled after the state supreme court ruled that embryos were children and a Texas mother forced to travel outside her state for a doctor-recommended abortion were due to attend Joe Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday, as guests of the first lady, Jill Biden.The White House said the cases of LaTorya Beasley of Birmingham, Alabama, and Kate Cox, from Dallas, Texas, showed “how the overturning of Roe v Wade has disrupted access to reproductive healthcare for women and families across the country”.Roe v Wade, the US supreme court ruling that guaranteed federal abortion rights, was overturned by the rightwing-dominated court in June 2022.Last month, the Alabama IVF decision caused national uproar. As Democrats seized on a rightwing threat to reproductive rights of the kind that has fueled a string of successful election campaigns, Republicans scrambled to say they supported IVF. On Wednesday the Republican Alabama governor, Kay Ivey, signed a law protecting IVF providers.In a statement, the White House said: “Stories like Kate’s and LaTorya’s should never happen in America. But Republican elected officials want to impose this reality on women nationwide.”Amanda Zurawski, a Texas woman who nearly died of septic shock when she was denied a medically necessary abortion, is also due to attend.Republicans are on the defensive. At an event hosted by Axios in Washington on Thursday, Byron Donalds, a far-right Florida congressman touted as a vice-presidential pick for Donald Trump, parried repeated questions about whether federal protection was needed but said: “IVF is a procedure many couples use throughout our country.” Donalds also said he supported six-week abortion bans.The head of Donalds’ caucus, Mike Johnson, the US House speaker, also used his State of the Union guest list to highlight reproductive rights as an political issue, inviting Janet Durig, executive director of the Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center in Washington DC, described as “one of the hundreds of pro-life centers or churches targeted and vandalised” after the fall of Roe v Wade.State of the Union guest lists are political by definition. Johnson’s list reflected the Republican agenda, highlighting crime (which is down nationwide), the fallout from the withdrawal from Afghanistan, and support for Israel in its war with Hamas.Among Johnson’s guests were two parents of US service members killed in the evacuation of Kabul in 2021; the mother and son of a US-Israeli soldier held hostage by Hamas; and a French-Israeli hostage released by Hamas.Johnson also invited the parents of Evan Gershkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter held in Russia; two New York police officers “attacked in January by a mob of illegal immigrants in Times Square”; parents of people killed by a person who is undocumented and by fentanyl poisoning; the widow of Mike Gill, a former Trump administration official killed by a carjacker in Washington; campaigners against trans participation in women’s sports; the Turkish basketball star and campaigner Enes Freedom; and the pastor of Johnson’s Louisiana church.Announcing its own list, the White House said guests were picked “because they personify issues or themes to be addressed by the president in his speech, or they embody the Biden-Harris administration’s policies at work for the American people”.Other guests set to sit with Jill Biden and Doug Emhoff, husband of the vice-president, Kamala Harris, included an oncology nurse and a cancer patient; a gun control advocate from Uvalde, Texas, the scene of an elementary school massacre; the president of the United Auto Workers and a member of that union; and a veteran of Bloody Sunday, the historic civil rights march in Selma, Alabama, in 1965.The governor of the Gilar River Indian Community in Arizona, a naval commander back from protecting Red Sea shipping against attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen, the women’s health advocate Maria Shriver, and a military spouse were also set to attend.Ulf Kristersson, the prime minister of Sweden, a new Nato ally, accepted an invitation. But two other high-profile international figures turned the Bidens down: Yulia Navalnya, widow of the deceased Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, and Olena Zelenska, first lady of Ukraine.Thanks to opposition from Johnson (and Trump), Congress is gridlocked on new aid for Ukraine in its war with Russia. The Washington Post also reported that Zelenska did not want to be associated with Navalnya because her husband once said Crimea was part of Russia, which annexed it from Ukraine in 2014. More

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      Johnson pleads for decorum from Republicans at Biden State of the Union

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      Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the US House, reportedly pleaded with his party to show “decorum” on Thursday, when Joe Biden comes to the chamber to deliver his State of the Union address.“Decorum is the order of the day,” Johnson said, according to an unnamed Republican who attended a closed-door event on Capitol Hill on Wednesday and was quoted by the Hill.The same site said another unnamed member of Congress said Johnson asked his party to “carry ourselves with good decorum”.A third Republican was quoted as saying, “He said, ‘Let’s have the appropriate decorum. We don’t need to be shrill, you know, we got to avoid that. We need to base things upon policy, upon facts, upon reality of situations.”Last year’s State of the Union saw outbursts from Republicans and responses from Biden that made headlines, most awarding the president the win.Kevin McCarthy, then speaker, also asked his Republican members not to breach decorum. But in a sign of his limited authority, months before he became the first speaker ejected by his own party, such pleas fell on deaf ears.When Biden said Republicans wanted to cut social security and Medicare, many Republicans shouted: “No!”Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia – apparently dressed as a Chinese spy balloon – yelled: “You lie! You lie! Liar!”Responding to widespread applause, Biden said: “As we all apparently agree, social security and Medicare are apparently off the books now … We’ve got unanimity!”Greene has form. In March 2022, she and Lauren Boebert, a fellow extremist from Colorado, repeatedly interrupted Biden’s first State of the Union.The two congresswomen tried to start a chant of “Build the wall”, referring to the southern border. Boebert shouted about the deaths of 13 US service members in Afghanistan. She was booed in return.Biden will give his third State of the Union at a key point in an election year, his rematch with Donald Trump all but confirmed, polling showing Trump in the lead.The third Republican who spoke to the Hill said Republicans attending Biden’s speech should let Democrats “do the gaslighting, let them do the blaming. I think the American people know who is responsible for the many worldwide crises that we have.”But a named Republican, Tim Burchett of Tennessee, said decorum would most likely not be maintained.“Will they do it?” Burchett said, of likely boos and catcalls at Biden. “Somebody asked me that earlier and I said, ‘Does the Baptist church got a bus?’ Of course they will because he’s gonna say some very offensive things, he’s gonna attack us.“I think we just need to try to be a little classy. Consider where we’re at, let the other side do that. You know, they did it to Trump, and nobody said boo, but when we do it we’re gonna get made an example of it.”Democrats did boo Trump. The most memorable State of the Union moment from his presidency, though, came in 2020, another election year, and was expressed in actions rather than words.After Trump finished speaking, Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the House, stood behind him and theatrically ripped up his speech. More

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      It’s Trump v Biden again. Why were there no better options for voters? | Moira Donegan

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      You would hardly know from the 2024 cycle that primaries are supposed to be political contests. Each party’s primaries, if they can be called that, were long exercises in foregone conclusions. And so the primary process, which for nearly 60 years has been a popular contest in which each party’s internal factions jockeyed for position, worked to shape the party identity, and ultimately made their case to voters did not come to pass this year. Functionally, there were two incumbents. And functionally, neither party’s primary offered a meaningful opportunity for the expression of internal dissent.This did not change on Super Tuesday. Biden and Trump racked up delegates; the votes that were cast in the presidential contest were cast mostly in full awareness of their futility, the result already decided. There is one option labeled “R”, and one option labeled “D”. More than once throughout the campaign, I’ve imagined America’s political party leaders as cruel lunch ladies, slopping greyish gruel on to trays for an unappetized America. “You’ll eat it and you’ll like it.”Except nobody does like it. Poll after poll showed that voters did not want a rematch between Donald Trump and Joe Biden. In a healthier political system, this discontent with the two incumbents would be an opportunity for other ideas to emerge, for other candidates to make a case to the public. In ours, this dissatisfaction did nothing to affect the slow march to the inevitable. In leaks to the press, representatives from both campaigns have long been speaking of a pivot to the general, and of waiting for voters to let it sink in that the general election would in fact be between Trump and Biden. Like doctors giving a patient a bad prognosis, they seemed eager to skip over the formality of having to deal with how little they had satisfied their constituents, ready to get back to the part where they accrued more power for themselves.But the fact that both parties are sclerotic, slow-moving, captured by cynical necessity and immune from dissent should not suggest that there is any symmetry between them. Functionally, ours is now a unipolar national politics: Trump is the sole author of its controversies and the sole definer of its terms. The Republican party has remade itself in his image, and the Democratic party has struggled to represent all of those who reject him. Neither party was especially strong before Trump’s emergence, and perhaps in another world, the primary system would have collapsed this way even in his absence. But in this world, the force of Trump is what broke the primaries, making every contest, on each side, little more than a referendum on him.On the Republican side, the farcical and juvenile little primary contest, which was never a real competition anyway, dwindled steadily and inevitably down to just two candidates: Donald Trump and the person whose futile candidacy was meant to stand in for all the aspirations of a non-Trump alternative, Nikki Haley. Once the other alternatives were gone, Haley garnered perhaps more support than was expected –showing that a small but sizable contingent of Republican voters are dissatisfied with Trump. But on Tuesday, she lost consistently by wide margins; her unhappy minority was always a small minority; there was not one day when the Republican primary was a real contest. It seems almost ridiculous now, remembering how at the beginning of 2023, some people thought that Ron DeSantis might actually have a chance. The ensuing months proved what we now know: there will never be another meaningfully competitive Republican primary for as long as Trump is alive. So long as he cares to run, it will always be his.The whole Republican party is his. It’s not just that Trump has no real Republican challengers for the presidency: it is that he seems to wield more or less sole authority over policy for all Republican federal elected officials. It was a nod from Trump that killed the draconian border and immigration bill that Democrats had assented to earlier this year – not because Trump did not like the policies, which were a litany of violent Republican priorities, but because he wanted to be able to continue to use immigration as a cudgel in an election year. And so the Republican party dropped one of its most longstanding goals – increasing cruelty to migrants – for the sake of Donald Trump’s personal political convenience. The Democrats, of course, took this as a win: they wanted to be able to say to the American people that they tried to hand all power and policy over to the Republicans, but that the Republicans are too incompetent and internally corrupt to let them.This incident, and the Democrats’ response to it, serves as a decent metaphor for the status of the party: a frantic and committed compliance. Since Donald Trump’s rise, and particularly since the cruelty, disfunction and anti-democratic potential of his tenure became clear during his first term, the Democratic party has become the receptacle for all the hopes of a resurgent left, from the Women’s March to Black Lives Matter. It was these voters, and their anger at Trump, that allowed Democrats to retake the House in 2018; it was these voters, and their anger at Dobbs, that allowed the party an unprecedented victory in the 2022 midterms. But the party has responded to these newly energized liberal voters with all the enthusiasm of someone finding something writhing and slimy under a rock. The party would rather chase centrist and conservative voters who are permanently in thrall to Trump than service this base. They remain a center-right party, contrasting themselves to a far-right opposition. This, they say, is the only way they can win.And this is more or less the only option that their voters have. For all the rancor of the 2020 Democratic primary, that contest was never very competitive, either: Joe Biden was always the presumed frontrunner, and he solidified the nomination when he handily won South Carolina, a victory that showed support from Black voters, particularly older ones.But in 2024, that support seems to be dwindling. In part, it is dwindling because Biden has been so condescending and hostile to the resurgent left. He has repeatedly voiced his distaste for abortion, the issue that his campaign will hinge on; his administration has severely bungled its response to Arab American and pro-Palestinian voters who are angry at Biden’s support for Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.Ordinarily, this would be a moment for a leftwing challenger to emerge, to raise the salience of progressive issues and exert influence over the party, even if such a challenge could not capture the ticket. But the necessity of defeating Donald Trump has made such a contest seem unacceptably risky: aside from Dean Phillips, a centrist footnote of a presidential candidate, Biden has had no primary challenge. Concerns about his candidacy have taken on a pretext of being about his age, his energy. But what is really at stake is the fragility of the anti-Trump coalition. Real political struggle, both within the Democratic party and in the nation as a whole, has been largely suspended for the sake of defeating Donald Trump and his threat to constitutional democracy. But Donald Trump keeps on not being defeated.
      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More