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      In search of a credible replacement for Joe Biden | Letters

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      Mehdi Hasan’s suggestion (Kamala Harris may be our only hope. Biden should step aside and endorse her, 3 July) addresses the perceived weaknesses of both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Let the man take a back seat and advise the Harris presidency. One term as president is what Biden is said to have promised anyway. Harris is young and fierce.Let’s remember the woman who made Brett Kavanaugh, Bill Barr and Amy Coney Barrett look like fools. We need her to fight the unabashedly partisan and anti-precedent supreme court. Let’s remember the Harris who called John Kelly to demand he stop the Muslim ban at our airports. Let’s bring back the Harris who championed the Daca immigration policy. Let this Harris return and bring back our democracy.Brian GarciaUniversity of California, Los Angeles Your article on the six alternatives to Joe Biden leaves out the most compelling candidate in my view – Senator Mark Kelly of Arizona (Who could replace Joe Biden as Democratic nominee? Here are six possibilities, 3 July). As a former astronaut with a sympathetic spouse in former representative Gabby Giffords, he could attract independent and democratic votes, and young people concerned about gun violence. He is also progressive enough to attract the progressive wing of the Democratic party without losing the never-Trumpers and the middle-of-the-road independents. Heather WishikWoodstock, Vermont, US In references to Joe Biden’s first presidential debate, your writers use terms such as “disastrous”, “catastrophic”, “dismal”, “stumbling”. If there were a prize for most pithy utterance of the year, I would award it to Biden’s response when asked about his performance: “It’s hard to debate a liar” (Report, 28 June). The six words packed the answers to two important questions: does Donald Trump have the moral character, and does Biden have the cognitive power, to be trusted as the head of government?Guy OttewellIsleworth, London More

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      Assured Kamala Harris cuts a transformed figure in New Orleans – and carefully avoids any mention of Biden’s fitness for office

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      The ideal understudy is talented but inconspicuous, prepared at all times to step into the top role and yet content to never do so.In New Orleans, at the 30th annual Essence Festival of Culture, gone was the Kamala Harris of the drab brown, chair-matching suit and the halting, technical commentary about American policy needs. That was the Harris who spoke here in 2019, then a Democratic presidential primary contender trailed by fewer than 10 reporters.Instead, on Saturday, Harris – dressed in a bright teal suit and tailed by a press contingent which had expanded to more than four times its previous size – spoke to a standing-room-only crowd in a room equipped to seat more than 500 people.In what was billed as an on-stage conversation with Essence CEO Caroline Wanga, Harris confidently offered a blend of standard campaign-season talk – a recitation of the Biden-Harris administration’s major policy accomplishments with dire warnings about the dangers posed by a possible second Trump term and the critical importance of the choice that voters will face in just 122 days – blended with the language of women’s empowerment.To say that Harris assiduously avoided any mention of recent questions about Biden’s fitness for office would be an overstatement, and Wanga did not ask or seemingly make room for the issue gripping much of Washington. In the past week, the fallout of the president’s shaky debate performance on 27 June has manifested in calls for him to drop out of the race, with a handful of Democratic lawmakers joining the chorus. Many of those same critics are now hoping Harris might be the new nominee in November.For those inclined to read tea leaves, there may well have been more there in New Orleans. Harris encouraged the audience to embrace ambition and the difficulty of cutting new, and even history-making, paths.“I beseech you, don’t you ever hear something can’t be done,’ Harris said. “People in your life will tell you, though, it’s not your time. It’s not your turn. Nobody like you has done it before. Don’t you ever listen to that.“I like to say, ‘I eat no for breakfast,’” she said.View image in fullscreenHarris had been introduced as a woman “doing the heavy lifting”, “smart”, “tough”, and a “proven fighter for the backbone of this country”. Then she entered and exited to the sound of a Beyoncé-Kendrick Lamar collaboration, Freedom, at the point where Beyonce sings, “Singin’, freedom, freedom, Where are you? … Hey! I’ma keep running.”While Biden has insisted he will remain in the race amid what he has described as a subset of Washington insiders and op-ed writers insisting he should step aside, Harris’s poll numbers have improved and her public speeches and commentary – once a much maligned element of her time on the national political stage – have become more assertive and assured.Harris has spent recent months crisscrossing the country speaking about threats to reproductive rights, maternal mortality, economic opportunity and inclusion. And in New Orleans, Harris described the election as more important than “any in your lifetime”, adding that democracy may not survive a second Trump term. Trump, she said, was a convicted felon whom the supreme court had just granted immunity from prosecution.Harris also spoke about an array of the administration’s efforts to resolve the problems that vex the lives of Americans, including many in the room: a cap on the price of insulin paid by those enrolled in Medicare; expanded access to public health insurance for low- to moderate-income women after giving birth, the period in which many fatal complications arise; and billions in student loan debt forgiven. When Harris called for those who had seen some of their student debt forgiven, hundreds of hands went up in the room.“You got that because you voted in 2020,” Harris told the audience.View image in fullscreenAnd, she said, there was work that remained such as reducing the cost of childcare for all Americans to no more than 7% of household income, and work on the cusp of being done. This included the administration’s efforts to remove medical debt from the calculus that generated credit scores and made it hard for some Americans to rent an apartment or purchase a car.Leshelle Henderson, a nurse practitioner from Cleveland providing family medicine and psychiatric care, said she was trying to serve her community and a country in the midst of a mental health crisis. And she was working double time to pay off hundreds of thousands in student loans, none of which had been forgiven. She came to Essence Fest for fun but wanted to hear the vice-president speak about student loan forgiveness and what a second Biden-Harris administration would do for the economic fortunes of Black men and women.That was before the event.“I liked what I heard,” Henderson said. “I did, but want to hear more. Honestly, I think what we heard tonight is the next president of the United States. Isn’t that something?” More

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      #KHive: Kamala Harris memes abound after Joe Biden’s debate disaster

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      In the aftermath of Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance, left-leaning Americans can’t stop talking about the vice-president online. Memes about Kamala Harris are spreading with a speed and enthusiasm previously unseen on X and Instagram.Supercuts of her set to RuPaul’s Call Me Mother. Threads of her “funniest Veep moments”. Collages of jokes about her over a green album cover a la Charli xcx’s Brat. Numerous riffs on a comment she made about a coconut tree. Previous progressive snark about Harris has cast her either as an incompetent sidekick a la HBO’s Veep or as an anti-progressive cop, a reference to her years as California’s top law enforcement official. But as rumors circle about discussions of Biden dropping out of the presidential race, social media commentary on the nation’s second-in-command has grown more positive – even if ironically so.The Veep clips describing Harris now show Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) becoming president despite her years of ineptitude. The cop jokes come with side-by-sides of the vice-president and Donald Trump’s mugshot. Witness the rise of the “KHive”, a term coined by MSNBC’s Joy Reid for fans of the vice-president in the style of Beyonce’s Beyhive. And as the memes take a turn, so too have the polls. Recent numbers indicate Harris is having a “surprise resurgence”, polling more positively against Trump than Biden and all other rumored Democratic candidates, including Gavin Newsom and Pete Buttigieg.The bleak wake of the debate is not the first time the vice-president has inspired jokes on social media, though it is the loudest. A video of Harris informing Joe Biden the two had won the 2020 election – most of all her “we did it, Joe” remark – has been a popular meme since the start of the administration.Conservatives have also made jokes at the vice-president’s expense for years now. In a January 2022 interview about the administration’s Covid policies, she gave the tautological answer: “It’s time for us to do what we have been doing, and that time is every day.” Fox News said she had been “crushed for non-answer”. The Daily Wire said she “incoherently babbles”. Ben Shapiro said on TikTok: “Every day, there is a new all-time Kamala Harris clip.”The recent meme cycle, whether joking or authentic, celebrates these kinds of verbal gymnastics, which are characteristic of Harris’s speeches – sometimes profound, sometimes nonsensical. Her most popular quip involves her mother and a coconut tree. In May 2023, she said, “My mother used to – she would give us a hard time sometimes, and she would say to us, ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?’ You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.” The story was part of a speech on educational economic opportunity for Latino Americans; you can read the full transcript on the White House’s website.A simple coconut emoji has become shorthand for the vice president. Mashups of her coconut tree anecdote have become punchlines in videos, images, and text on X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, and TikTok, racking up tens of thousands of likes and retweets. Several of her other trademark remarks have enjoyed a similar resurgence.The Biden-Harris campaign seems to have taken notice and intends to ride the virtual wave of support, even if it did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The president and vice-president posted a job ad on 3 July in search of a social media strategist for Harris specifically. The aide will write posts for Harris every day in an effort to “expand the vice-president’s voice online”, per Politico.The explosion of Harris content mirrors how Donald Trump’s speeches and tweets spread as memes. His bizarre, idiosyncratic way of talking and tweeting makes for funny reference points on both right and left, insertable into unrelated jokes for the pastiche effect of the best absurd online humor. Outlandish rhetoric that stands out for its flourishes – whether putatively weighty like Harris or unapologetically pugnacious like Trump – makes for good punchlines.Another of Harris’ aphorisms appears with almost comic frequency and has made its way into the online frenzy over her: “What can be, unburdened by what has been.” A supercut of her making the remark in dozens of different public appearances, nearly four minutes of the same phrase repeated over and over again, has been retweeted nearly 9,000 times.A video of her dancing alongside a drum line has also resurfaced, remixed to showcase her ascendancy as Biden’s star fades. As one tweet of the video reads: “Kamala seeing the CNN polls this morning.” Her distinctive laugh, which makes an appearance in the coconut tree tale before her demeanor and tone turn inexplicably somber, has long inspired posts remarking on her willingness to display emotion in public. Biden, by contrast, spoke in a feeble monotone during the debate. Against Trump’s gesticulation and rancor, Biden appeared gray and weak. Observers online wonder: could Kamala stand up to Trump, as she once did to Biden himself?Why the enthusiasm for Harris now? Perhaps despair over the other two options. One tweet crystalizes the reason for the quick shift in the vibes online: “Who cares if she’s weird? At least she’s not a felon or 80.”And is the turn to Harris genuine or just a nihilistic joke in the face of an uninspiring election? The same tweet winks with absurd maximalism of internet speech: “We need a Gemini Rising woman President from California who is on pills+wine, is campy, and didn’t get married until she was middle aged because she was too busy being a 365 party girlboss.”Parts of the tweet are true – Harris’ ascendant astrological sign is indeed Gemini – but “365 party girlboss” is a reference to Charli xcx’s album Brat, another meme of the moment. There’s also no evidence she’s on pills.With the Democratic machine in disarray as rumors of Biden’s resignation swirl, it’s not clear what comes next for the vice-president – or the US. As one tweet blending multiple Harris quips stated, in an attitude of throwing exasperated hands to the sky: “God grant me the serenity to be unburdened by what has been, the courage to see what can be, and the wisdom to live in the context.” More

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      Governors admit worries but rally behind Biden after meeting: ‘We have his back’

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      A group of leading Democratic governors offered words of support for Joe Biden on Wednesday as pressure mounted on the president to leave the race.The governors, including Tim Walz of Minnesota, Wes Moore of Maryland, Gavin Newsom of California and Kathy Hochul of New York, held a closed-door meeting with Biden in Washington as he sought to reassure his party – and the public – that he is up to the job after a shaky debate performance.Biden met for more than an hour at the White House in person and virtually with more than 20 governors from his party. The governors told reporters afterward that the conversation was “candid” and said they expressed concerns about Biden’s debate performance last week. They reiterated that defeating Donald Trump in November was the priority, but said they were still standing behind Biden and did not join other Democrats who have been urging him to withdraw his candidacy.“We, like many Americans, are worried,” Walz of Minnesota said. “We are all looking for the path to win – all the governors agree with that. President Biden agrees with that. He has had our backs through Covid … the governors have his back. We’re working together just to make very, very clear that a path to victory in November is the No 1 priority and that’s the No 1 priority of the president … The feedback was good. The conversation was honest.”“The president is our nominee. The president is our party leader,” added Moore of Maryland. He said Biden “was very clear that he’s in this to win it”.“We were honest about the feedback we’re getting … and the concerns we’re hearing from people,” Moore said. “We’re going to have his back … the results we’ve been able to see under this administration have been undeniable.”The meeting capped a tumultuous day for Biden as members of his own party, and a major democratic donor, urged him to step aside amid questions over his fitness for office. Two Democratic lawmakers have called on Biden to exit the race, and a third Congressman said he had “grave concerns” about Biden’s ability to beat Trump. The White House, meanwhile, was forced to deny reports that Biden is weighing whether his candidacy is still viable.Biden, for his part, has forcefully insisted that he is staying in the race. “Let me say this as clearly as I possibly can, as simply and straightforward as I can: I am running … no one’s pushing me out,” Biden said on a call with staffers from his re-election campaign. “I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win.”Kamala Harris has also stood by his side, despite some insiders reportedly rallying around her as a possible replacement. “We will not back down. We will follow our president’s lead,” the vice-president reportedly told staffers on Wednesday.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMichigan governor Gretchen Whitmer also threw her support behind Biden. “He is in it to win it and I support him,” she said on Twitter/X after the meeting.Whitmer is one of several Democratic governors who have been cited as possible replacements if Biden were to withdraw his candidacy. Gavin Newsom, whose name has also been floated, flew in for the governors’ meeting on Wednesday, saying afterwards: “I heard three words from the president tonight – he’s all in. And so am I.”Newsom has been a top surrogate for Biden’s re-election campaign, but has also garnered increasing buzz as a potential replacement if Biden were to withdraw. He was swarmed by reporters after the debate ended last week, some asking him if he’d replace Biden.A Siena College/New York Times poll released Wednesday suggested Trump’s lead had increased since the debate, with him winning 49% of likely voters compared to 43% for Biden. Only 48% of Democrats in the poll said Biden should remain the nominee. A Reuters/Ipsos poll published Tuesday said that former first lady Michelle Obama is the only hypothetical candidate to definitively defeat Trump, but she has previously said she’s not running. That poll had Biden and Trump tied.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Kamala Harris: insiders rally behind VP to replace Biden if he bows out

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      As Joe Biden faces increasing pressure to withdraw his candidacy following last week’s poor debate performance, Kamala Harris has emerged as the frontrunner to replace him.The president forcefully rejected calls to end his campaign on Wednesday, telling his staffers: “No one is pushing me out … I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win.” His defiant remarks came after the New York Times reported that Biden had privately told allies he understood he might not be able to salvage his candidacy if he could not convince voters of his viability.As the White House has continued to deny reports that Biden was weighing the future of his campaign, talks of who would step up if he did withdraw have escalated.Senior sources at the Biden campaign, the White House and the Democratic National Committee told Reuters that the vice-president was the top alternative.Harris, a former senator from California, has stood by the president’s side as he weathers the debate fallout this week, and reportedly told campaign staffers on Wednesday: “We will not back down. We will follow our president’s lead.”But pundits advocating that Harris take over the ticket have pointed to polls suggesting that she could have advantages over Biden in a race against Donald Trump. A post-debate Reuters/Ipsos poll found that one in three Democrats think Biden should quit, and that 81% viewed Harris favorably, compared to 78% for Biden. Michelle Obama was the only hypothetical Democratic candidate to beat Trump in the poll, but the former first lady said in March she was not running. Biden and Trump were tied in that poll, and Harris performed similarly, earning 42% of votes compared with Trump’s 43%.A CNN poll published Tuesday also found Harris “within striking distance of Trump in a hypothetical matchup” – 47% supporting the former president, and 45% supporting Harris, a result within the margin of error. The Biden-Trump matchup in that poll had Trump earning 49% of votes and Biden earning 43%. Harris’s modest advantage was due partly to her having broader support from women and independents, CNN said.With two Democratic congressmen now publicly calling on Biden to step aside, other party leaders have privately suggested they favor Harris as his potential replacement, according to reports. Hakeem Jeffries, House minority leader, signaled to members that she would be the best option, the Washington Post reported.James Clyburn, a senior congressional Democrat, said publicly he’d support Harris if Biden were to withdraw his candidacy, urging Democrats to “do everything to bolster her, whether she’s in second place or at the top of the ticket”. Summer Lee, a House Democrat from Pennsylvania, also said Wednesday that Harris was the “obvious choice” to replace Biden, if he decided not to run.Some Harris supporters who are advocating she take over the campaign have argued that she would perform better than Biden with Black and Latino communities, and that she is a more powerful abortion-rights spokesperson than Biden.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSkeptics, however, have noted that Harris also remains fairly unpopular and have pointed to polls suggesting she has vulnerabilities in terms of voters’ trust in her ability to handle immigration, China relations and Israel’s war on Gaza.The other names that have been floated as possible replacements include California governor Gavin Newsom, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois governor J B Pritzker and Kentucky governor Andy Beshear. The Reuters poll, however, suggested they would all perform worse than Biden and Harris.If Harris became the presidential candidate, she could take over the funds raised by the campaign since the account is registered under Biden and Harris.On Wednesday, the White House also announced a series of “summer of engagement” events for Harris, including visits to New Orleans, Las Vegas, Dallas and Indianapolis. More

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      Biden tells campaign staff: ‘No one is pushing me out … I’m not leaving’; second House Democrat urges him to quit race – live

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      Joe Biden vowed to stay in the presidential race and continue his re-election bid, telling his staffers: “No one is pushing me out,” according to multiple reports.In a call on Wednesday following his lackluster performance during last week’s presidential debate and amid growing panic from Democratic donors and lawmakers, Biden said:
      Let me say this as clearly as possibly can, as simply and straightforward as I can: I am running.
      Biden went on to add:
      No one is pushing me out … I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win.
      In the same call, vice-president Kamala Harris – whose name has been increasingly floated around as Biden’s replacement – continued to voice her support for Biden, with reports of her saying:
      We will not back down. We will follow our president’s lead. We will fight and we will win. Joe Biden has devoted his life to fighting for the people of our country. In this moment, I know all of us are ready to fight for him.
      Amid the political crisis surrounding the Democratic party, Joe Biden hosted a Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House today during which he posthumously honoured two Union soldiers.The soldiers, private George Wilson and private Philip Shadrach fought in a “military operation 200 miles deep into Confederate territory in April 1862”, Biden said, recognising them for their “gallantry and intrepidity”.The next platform of the Republican National Committee (RNC) is going to be closed off from the public, Semafor reports.Unlike previous years, next week’s party platform proceedings will not be aired via C-Span. Instead, it will be held privately and away from the public and members of the media.According to RNC emails reviewed by Semafor, committee meetings “are only open to members of that particular committee”.Speaking to Semafor, Oscar Brock, an RNC committee member from Tennessee, said:
      The lack of transparency is unwelcome … When people operate behind closed doors, you always have to wonder what the outcome is going to be.”
      Donald Trump’s campaign has released a statement on what it called the “total collapse of the Democrat party”.On Wednesday, Trump’s campaign said:
      Every Democrat who is calling on Crooked Joe Biden to quit was once a supporter of Biden and his failed policies that lead to extreme inflation, an open border, and chaos at home and abroad.
      Make no mistake that Democrats, the main stream media, and the swamp colluded to hide the truth from the American public – Joe Biden is weak, failed, dishonest, and not fit for the White House.
      Every one of them has lied about Joe Biden’s cognitive state and supported his disastrous policies over the past four years, especially Cackling Copilot Kamala Harris.
      The statement comes after last week’s presidential debate which saw an energized Trump with starkly more coherent delivery – despite being packed with lies and misinformation – compared with Biden who struggled to articulate his policies throughout the 90 minutes.House Democrat Raúl Grijalva of Arizona has joined his fellow House Democrat Lloyd Doggett of Texas in calls for Joe Biden to withdraw his re-election bid.In an interview with the New York Times, Grijalva said:
      If he’s the candidate, I’m going to support him but I think that this is an opportunity to look elsewhere … What he really needs to do is shoulder the responsibility for keeping that seat – and part of that responsibility is to get out of this race.
      As Joe Biden’s campaign team rushes to soothe concerns among Democrats amid the fallout following the president’s poor performance during last week’s presidential debate, the team posted a new job listing: Kamala Harris’s social media platforms strategist.In its listing, the team described the position as:
      The VP Social Media Platforms Strategist will report to the VP Digital Director and be expected to write within an established organizational identity for multiple social media platforms and channels, while strategizing how to further develop and expand the vice-president’s and Biden-Harris campaign’s voice online.
      Its duties include:
      Write daily content and manage scheduling for Twitter/X, Threads, Facebook and Instagram accounts, including drafting, conceptualizing graphics, videos, brainstorming calls to action, and copywriting
      Strategize and execute innovative social media projects to help grow and engage our audience
      Project manage publishing assets across multiple social media platforms
      Ensure materials are sufficiently accessible for users, including captioning and alternative text
      Help the VP digital director report on audience growth, content performance and engagement that can adapt to and meet the needs of stakeholders across the DNC and manage daily outbound report
      Michelle Obama is the only Democrat who ranks higher than Biden in a new poll on who is most likely to beat Trump.According to a new poll on Tuesday conducted by Reuters and Ipsos, the former first lady is the only Democrat that is able to attain victory over Trump in November in a hypothetical match, leading with 50% support compared to his 39%.In its findings, Ipsos wrote:
      All other hypothetical Democratic candidates either perform similarly to or worse than Biden against Trump.
      Vice-president Kamala Harris hypothetically wins 42% of registered voters to Trump’s 43%. California Governor Gavin Newsom hypothetically wins 39% of registered voters to Trump’s 42%.
      All other hypothetical Democratic candidates earn between 34% to 39% of potential votes among registered voters.
      Despite Michelle Obama’s popularity and calls for her to run for president, her office in March said that “she will not be running for president.”“Mrs Obama supports president Joe Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris’s re-election campaign,” her office added.The editorial board of the Boston Globe has called on Joe Biden to end his re-election bid, following in the footsteps of the New York Times which called on Biden last week to drop out of the race.In an op-ed published on Wednesday, the editorial board wrote:
      … while the party is demoralized, panicked, and angry, there is a ray of hope. A bevy of potential candidates – from vice-president Kamala Harris to the governors of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and California, to name only a partial list – are waiting in the wings to take on Trump.
      All that they need is for Biden to graciously bow out of the race and free his delegates to cast their votes for someone else at the Democratic National Convention.
      For the good of the country, his party, and his legacy, Biden must do this. And soon.
      It went on to add:
      The real obstacle to any of this happening is Biden himself. He must walk away from the race on his own, something he seems disinclined to do. His wife and children are said to oppose the idea as well. But with the nation’s future at stake, this is not a decision that should be made by one family alone.
      This is a moment when the Democratic party itself, never particularly good at behaving like a party, must step into the fray.
      Joe Biden vowed to stay in the presidential race and continue his re-election bid, telling his staffers: “No one is pushing me out,” according to multiple reports.In a call on Wednesday following his lackluster performance during last week’s presidential debate and amid growing panic from Democratic donors and lawmakers, Biden said:
      Let me say this as clearly as possibly can, as simply and straightforward as I can: I am running.
      Biden went on to add:
      No one is pushing me out … I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win.
      In the same call, vice-president Kamala Harris – whose name has been increasingly floated around as Biden’s replacement – continued to voice her support for Biden, with reports of her saying:
      We will not back down. We will follow our president’s lead. We will fight and we will win. Joe Biden has devoted his life to fighting for the people of our country. In this moment, I know all of us are ready to fight for him.
      Joe Biden is cleared-eyed and “staying in the race” for re-election, the White House insists.“The president is not dropping out,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre just said at the media briefing in Washington DC.She is finding different ways, in response to reporters’ questions, to reiterate the insistence of the Biden team that he is not about to succumb to pressure to drop out after his terribly halting performance when he debated Donald Trump last week.“There was the travel. And the travel led to a cold. We have all been there, it’s not unusual. And you push through,” she said.Jean-Pierre added later that such things affect people, whether they are 20 or 80. She said he spoke about how his age had affected his performance and was being upfront.The White House is working painfully hard to extricate the president from his position between a rock and a hard place.Karine Jean-Pierre claimed that Joe Biden “powered through” having a cold when he debated poorly against Donald Trump last week, as is normal for busy professionals.It was not reassuring, as the White House continues on the defensive amid the crisis over Biden insisting he continue as the Democratic presumptive nominee for re-election, despite performing increasingly unreliably as an 81-year-old president of the United States.And Jean-Pierre said that the president was jet-lagged and pushing through that, too, last Thursday, even though he had around 12 days back in the US between a spate of grueling overseas trips and the debate.She said that people “push through” jet lag, trying to convince reporters decades younger than Biden that it would be unsurprising that a cold and jet lag would affect his debate performance.Some reporters in the West Wing briefing room scoffed openly, mentioning that, yes, they have had colds and, even now, according to one, have jet lag – and yet they continue to perform their jobs much more vigorously than Biden did at the debate.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has just been asked point blank if Joe Biden is considering stepping away from being the presumptive nominee for re-election to the White House in this November’s election.“Absolutely not,” she said. Asked if there was anything that would change his mind, she said she can’t speak to that but says he has been “very clear” that he’s busy doing his job and will continue doing that.“I’m not going to speak to [about] unnamed sources out there,” she said.The White House press briefing has begun in the West Wing, with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at the podium.Questions are already beginning about Biden’s performance.He has owned that he had a bad night at the debate, the press secretary said.“He also had a cold during the debate,” she said.That, and the foreign travel that Biden blamed last night, are why he didn’t do well and wishes he could have done better, Jean-Pierre said.“We certainly don’t want to explain this away,” she added.She explained that he has “made outreach” to the leading Democrats in Congress, including the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer.Joe Biden and his vice-president, Kamala Harris, made a surprise appearance earlier today on a Democratic National Committee call, reiterating to staffers that they are in this fight for re-election together, according to three people familiar with the matter who were given anonymity to discuss the private conversation.The people said it was a pep talk, stressing the stakes of the election and returning to Biden’s previous post-debates comments that when he gets knocked down he gets back up and still plans to win the election, the Associated Press reports.Democrats have raised increasingly urgent questions about the US president’s ability to remain in the race, much less win in November, after his shaky debate performance last week.Here’s a look at where the day stands:
      The White House pushed back against a new New York Times report that Joe Biden allegedly told a key ally that he is weighing whether to stay in the presidential race. On Wednesday, the New York Times reported an anonymous source saying of Biden, “He knows if he has two more events like that, we’re in a different place,” referring to last week’s presidential debate in which Biden did poorly. In response, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates took to X, posting publicly: “That claim is absolutely false.”
      House Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington said that Joe Biden “is going to lose to Trump” following the president’s poor debate performance last week. In a new interview with KATU News, Gluesenkamp Perez said: “About 50 million Americans tuned in and watched that debate. I was one of them for about five very painful minutes. We all saw what we saw, you can’t undo that, and the truth, I think, is that Biden is going to lose to Trump.”
      Dozens of House Democrats are considering signing a letter to call for Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, Bloomberg reports, citing a “senior party official”. According to the source, Democrats currently running for re-election in “traditionally safe Democratic districts are circulating the letter”.
      Joe Biden has privately acknowledged how critical the next few days are to his presidential re-election bid, CNN reports. According to the outlet citing an anonymous source, Biden “sees the moment, he’s clear-eyed”. “The polls are plummeting, the fundraising is drying up, and the interviews are going badly. He’s not oblivious,” the source said, adding that Biden allegedly said in a private conversation on Tuesday: “I have done way too much foreign policy.”
      The majority of people surveyed in a new poll said that they did not think Biden was fit to be president for another term following his debate performance last week. The latest survey by YahooNews/YouGov found that 60% of people surveyed felt Biden was “not fit” to serve another term as president, the Hill reported. Only 24% of respondents felt that Biden was fit, while 16% said they were unsure.
      Another Democratic legislator has suggested that Kamala Harris could replace Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee amid growing discontent following Biden’s poor debate performance. House Democrat Summer Lee of Pennsylvania said Harris was the “obvious choice” in a scenario where Biden decides not to run, CBS News reported.
      Uncommitted voters across the US have taken on increased influence as debates surrounding Joe Biden’s future swirl.The Guardian’s Rachel Leingang reports:After Joe Biden’s poor debate performance and calls by some prominent Democrats to replace him, the hundreds of thousands of anti-war voters and the delegates who represent them have taken on new significance in the US presidential race.More than 700,000 voters cast ballots in the Democratic primaries for “uncommitted” options after a movement started in Michigan to pressure Biden to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and stop US funding and arms to the Israeli government.These voters won 29 uncommitted delegates to the Democratic national convention, a small but vocal group that will use their position at the nominating convention to call for an end to the war. The uncommitted vote consists of likely Democratic voters who have consistently said they are anti-Trump and who used the primary process to send a message to Biden.Their message has not changed, though uncommitted delegates said they have been hearing from more people about the role they could play in the convention since last week’s debate. Their sole platform remains a permanent ceasefire and an arms embargo, and their focus is still on Biden – who is still the president.For the full story, click here: More

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      Kamala Harris may be our only hope. Biden should step aside and endorse her | Mehdi Hasan

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      I have never been a fan of Kamala Harris.I was an outspoken critic of her candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2020, earning the ire both of her then spokesperson and also the notorious “KHive” of terminally online Harris fans.Nor did I shed any tears when her campaign turned out to be a disaster and she ended up withdrawing from the race before a single vote had been cast in the primaries.So it is with some surprise, reluctance and even trepidation that I am now writing these words: Joe Biden should stand aside and endorse Kamala Harris as the 2024 Democratic presidential nominee.Yes, it is time for those of us who have been loud critics of Harris to make an even louder case for the vice-president. To lock arms with the dreaded KHive and put aside our longstanding doubts about the vice-president’s political skills.Because the future of our republic may depend upon us doing so.First, some facts about Joe Biden. The president was trailing Donald Trump in the polls before last week’s debate – and he is still trailing Donald Trump after the debate. The president was old before the debate – and he is even older after the debate. He, of course, continues to get older with every passing day.On Sunday, a CBS News poll found a whopping 72% of voters say Biden does not have the “mental and cognitive health” to serve as president. Almost half of Democrats say they want the Democratic presidential nominee to step aside.So I won’t waste time making the case for why Biden shouldn’t be running for re-election. Those of us 51 million people who tuned into the CNN debate last week “can’t unsee what we saw”, to quote a recent Slate headline.Nor will I bother to make the case for a Gretchen Whitmer or a Gavin Newsom. Would they be preferable to Harris? Yes. Do I believe the Democratic party establishment is willing to take a punt on an “open convention” in Chicago next month? Nope. Therefore, the only viable alternative to Biden right now is Harris – especially as she was elected alongside him by 81 million Americans and is also the only potential nominee who can access the $91m in his campaign bank account right now.So, with apologies to my 2020 self, let me make a (reluctant) case for why the vice-president should take over from her boss.First, her numbers. For as long as I can remember, the argument from Team Biden has been that if Joe steps aside, then only Kamala becomes the candidate, and she has even less chance of beating Donald than Joe does. The vice-president polls worse than the president, they constantly whisper to reporters (off the record).Now, that may have once been true. But it simply isn’t the case any more. Even before last week’s debate, a Politico poll showed Harris outperforming Biden in Black and Hispanic communities, where Trump has been making inroads, while a Bloomberg News poll revealed a vice-president “increasingly endearing herself to swing-state voters”.On Friday, the day after the debate, Data for Progress published a poll showing Harris performing “the same as Biden in a head-to-head matchup against Trump”. By Tuesday, a CNN poll was showing Harris, unlike Biden, “within striking distance” of Trump, thanks in part to “broader support from women (50% of female voters back Harris over Trump v 44% for Biden against Trump) and independents (43% Harris v 34% Biden)”.You might not want to believe it, and lazy pundits may say otherwise, but the polling is pretty clear these days: Harris actually has a better chance than Biden of beating Trump. And, unlike the president, the veep’s numbers have – and you’ll be hearing this phrase a great deal in the coming days – room to grow.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSecond, there’s her record. With the exception of Biden himself, Harris has served in elected office – as a district attorney, state attorney general, senator and vice-president – longer than any Democrat elected to the White House in my lifetime. As a former prosecutor, she is ideally positioned to make the case against Trump, a convicted felon.Who do you want standing on stage at the second debate in September, rebutting Trump’s lies, bigotry and nonsense? The woman who went viral when she grilled Bill Barr and Brett Kavanaugh at the Senate judiciary committee, or the man who went viral for saying he’d “beat Medicare”? Who is more likely to highlight Trump’s deeply unpopular stance on abortion? A female candidate who has spent months hammering Trump on abortion and made a historic visit to a Planned Parenthood clinic, or a male candidate who couldn’t answer a simple question on abortion rights without going off on a weird and incoherent tangent about a migrant murderer? Who is going to bring more energy to the Democratic presidential campaign – a vice-president who recently urged an audience of young voters to “kick that fucking door down”, or a president who is only “dependably engaged” between 10am and 4pm?Third, there’s the Gaza-shaped elephant in the room. Prior to last week’s debate, it wasn’t Biden’s age that I considered to be his biggest electoral liability. It was his horrific stance on Gaza, from his non-stop supply of arms to Israel to his nonexistent “red line” on Rafah. Support for Biden among not just Muslim-American and Arab-American voters, but young and Black voters, has been plummeting since 7 October 2023. More than half a million “uncommitted” Democratic voters, who could affect the results in multiple swing states, have urged the president to end his unconditional support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.Given Biden refuses to budge on this issue, a Harris candidacy might offer a fresh start for Democrats on Gaza. Remember the headline in Politico from December? “Kamala Harris pushes White House to be more sympathetic toward Palestinians.” Or the NBC News reporting from March on how Biden’s national security council “toned down parts of her speech” calling for a ceasefire, because the original draft “was harsher on Israel”?“She is definitely better on Gaza than he is,” a well-connected member of the administration told me a few weeks ago.To be clear: I’m not saying Joe Biden can’t win or that Kamala Harris won’t lose. I’m simply saying that there is a younger, more popular, more effective campaigner ready and willing to go, who could turn the page on Gaza while giving Trump the rhetorical drubbing he so deserves.I’m reminding Democrats that they still have time to choose between trying to elect the oldest president in American history, whose age has become a weight around his neck, or trying to elect the first female president, the first Asian American president and the second Black president, which could energize their demoralized base.American democracy, as Democrats themselves repeatedly tell us, is on the line. And if we all have to join the KHive in order to try to save that democracy … then so be it.
      Mehdi Hasan is the CEO and editor-in-chief of Zeteo More

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      Could Kamala Harris be a winner for the Democrats if Biden steps aside?

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      Joe Biden’s stumbling debate performance left Democrats so panicked some are searching for an alternative to replace the 81-year-old president as the party’s standard-bearer.Biden has given no indication that he intends to exit the race, and his campaign has flatly dismissed the suggestion. But that has done little to silence critics who are openly questioning whether Biden is the right person to take on Donald Trump, a figure the president – and his party – view as a grave threat to American democracy.In the unlikely scenario Biden decides not to run, the most obvious choice to replace him would be his 59-year-old vice president and running mate, Kamala Harris. But it would not be automatic – and other candidates would likely challenge Harris, who has suffered her own low approval ratings, for the nomination.Already some Democrats are looking past the vice-president at other possible contenders – Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois governor JB Pritzker, California governor Gavin Newsom and Maryland governor Wes Moore.It’s a sign that Democrats have yet to fully embrace Harris as Biden’s heir apparent.“To even discuss Biden stepping down while COMPLETELY IGNORING THE VP … is a serious look into how we see the importance, capacity and seriousness of women of color,” writer Tanzina Vega, said on X.Harris, the daughter of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, is the highest-ranking female elected official in US history and the first Black and first Asian American to serve as vice president.Democrats, traumatized by Hillary Clinton’s loss to Trump in 2016, rallied behind Biden in 2020 over a younger, more diverse and progressive field of candidates that included Harris. As a candidate, Biden promised to be a “bridge” to the next generation of Democratic leaders, which many interpreted as commitment to serve one-term and before passing the baton to Harris.But when the time came to make a decision, Biden argued that he was still the Democrat best-positioned to beat Trump.For the past three and a half years, Harris’s barrier-breaking vice-presidency has divided Democrats. Negative press, some of it self-inflicted, compounded by sexist and racist attacks, and a challenging policy portfolio weighed on public perception of the former California senator. Nearly 50% of voters have an unfavorable view of Harris, according to 538’s polling average, compared with the roughly 40% who view her favorably, figures that are comparable with Biden’s.Despite a rocky start to her tenure, Harris has eased into the role, especially since becoming the administration’s leading voice on abortion rights. On Monday, Harris marked two years since the second anniversary of the US supreme court decision that overturned Roe v Wade with a fiery warning that Trump would not hesitate to further restrict women’s reproductive rights in a second-term.Nodding to her background as a prosecutor, the vice president declared: “In the case of the stealing of reproductive freedom from the women of America, Donald Trump is guilty.”Harris’s clear defense of abortion rights, by far Democrats’ strongest issue, stands in stark contrast to Biden. During Thursday’s debate, Biden fumbled an attack on Trump over Republican bans on the procedure, pivoting bizarrely to immigration and raising the case of a young woman murdered in Georgia.Moments after Biden finished the debate, it was Harris who came to his defense first in a pair of interviews. On CNN and MSNBC, Harris spun his performance, saying voters must look at the last three-and-a-half years of accomplishments and not just at the 90-minute debate. Harris conceded that Biden had a “slow start” but insisted he finished “strong.”“I’m talking about the choice for November,” she said on CNN. “I’m talking about one of the most important elections in our collective lifetime.”In a sharp back-and-forth, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper pressed Harris about calls for Biden to step aside.“I’m not going to spend all night with you talking about the last 90 minutes when I’ve been watching the last three-and-a-half years of performance,” she said, emphasizing his legislative and executive achievements he’s pulled in his first-term.At a rally in Las Vegas the following day, Harris doubled down on her support.“In the Oval Office, negotiating bipartisan deals, I see him in the situation room keeping our country safe,” she said, adding that the election would not be decided by “one night in June”.The Atlanta debate was the first of the election cycle, with a second scheduled in September. The Biden campaign has agreed to a vice-presidential debate between Harris and Trump’s eventual running mate, but the terms have not yet been to confirmed.In a hypothetical matchup against Trump, Harris performed roughly on par with Biden, trailing the former president by six points in a February Times/Siena poll. Biden trailed Trump by five points in the same poll. Meanwhile, the poll found Harris ran stronger than Biden with Black voters, though worse with Hispanic voters and men.Biden’s age has long been an electoral challenge. But his shaky debate performance shocked even his staunchest supporters. At a rally on Friday, Biden acknowledged his stumbles, but insisted he was still the best candidate to defeat Trump.“I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious,” he said at a post-debate rally in North Carolina. “I know I don’t walk as easy as I used to, I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to, I don’t debate as well as I used to, but I know what I do know. I know how to tell the truth.”But mounting concerns about Biden’s mental acuity have drawn even greater scrutiny of Harris, particularly from the right. Republicans have sought to make Harris a boogyman, with Nikki Haley warning during the GOP primary a vote for Biden was a vote for “a President Harris”.With the convention scheduled for mid-August in Chicago, and the formal nomination process to take place virtually at some point before that to meet an Ohio ballot deadline, many Democrats have said there is not enough time to replace Biden at the top of the ticket.Former South Carolina lawmaker and Democratic commentator Bakari Sellers, who endorsed Harris in the 2020 primary, said wishing for an alternative to emerge at this stage was futile.“You’re not nominating Gretch or Gavin or Wes over Kamala. Stop it,” he wrote on X, adding: “Choice is Trump, Biden or couch. I choose Joe.” More