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      Official Kristi Noem social media accounts appear to have been deleted

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      Kristi Noem, the Republican governor of South Dakota who has been dogged by controversy since recounting how she chose to shoot dead a puppy and a goat, attracted new questions when it was noted that some of her official social media accounts appeared to have been deleted.On Monday, a link from Noem’s official website led to an error message on Facebook, which said: “This content isn’t available right now. When this happens, it’s usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it’s been deleted.”On Twitter/X, the governor’s site linked to Noem’s personal page. The official @GovKristiNoem page displayed the message “This account doesn’t exist”.A new X account, @GovNoemOffice, created this month, had 309 followers, far fewer than the roughly half-million of Noem’s old account.The new official account featured links to press releases.A small selection of followed accounts included Noem’s personal page, state government departments and Noem staffers including Mackenzie Decker, the director of policy who describes herself as “Living free in South Dakota with my husband and little girls. Fueled by Americanos, Cheezits and LaCroix Water. Mostly tweets about motherhood and the Jackrabbits”, the sports teams of South Dakota State University.Noem’s YouTube page was still active.Asked for comment, Noem’s spokesperson, Ian Fury, told the Guardian the new X page was the source for official updates. He did not say what happened to the old account or why it was deleted.Noem’s spokesperson, Ian Fury, told news outlets the new X page was the source for official updates but did not say what happened to the old account or why it was deleted. The Guardian contacted Fury for comment.Earlier this year, Noem was widely seen as a potential presidential running mate for Donald Trump.Such attention shone a spotlight on controversies including Noem using her personal X account to advertise a Texas cosmetic dentist and being banned from Native American reservations, over comments about tribal leaders and drug cartels.But then, in April, the Guardian obtained a copy of Noem’s book, No Going Back.The ensuing story revealed the governor’s startling account of the day she shot dead Cricket, a 14-month-old wirehaired pointer she deemed untrainable and dangerous, and an unnamed, uncastrated goat she said threatened her children.Asked why the book also included an apparent threat to kill one of Joe Biden’s dogs, Noem told CBS the animal, Commander, had “attacked 24 Secret Service people. So how many people is enough people to be attacked and dangerously hurt before you make a decision on a dog?”The book produced more damaging headlines when it was revealed that Noem claimed to have “stared down” the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, but no such meeting could be shown to have happened. 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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      ‘Stealing with both hands’: veteran reporter Joe Conason details the right wing’s graft

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      “Trump is the apotheosis of this moral degeneration of conservatism because he’s out there stealing with both hands and it’s right in your face.”So said Joe Conason, veteran reporter and author of a lacerating new book, The Longest Con: How Grifters, Swindlers, and Frauds Hijacked American Conservatism.He spoke on Monday, the same day the US supreme court ruled that presidents are immune from prosecution for official acts – even as Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee, faces 44 federal and 10 state criminal charges to go with 34 guilty verdicts handed down in New York.“Nixon said, ‘I am not a crook.’ Could Trump really say ‘I’m not a crook’ and have anyone believe him? Nobody would believe that, including his own followers. They know that he’s out to scam money for himself, and they don’t seem to mind.“Take the grifting around ‘stop the steal’, post-election, 2020-21. Led by Trump’s son in law [Jared Kushner], they knew they were going to do it before the election was even over. ‘We’re going to keep our fundraising operation intact.’ And they booked a quarter of a billion dollars in a couple of months. It was amazing. One of the biggest rip-offs ever.”On the page, Conason charts 75 years of rightwing rip-off merchants attacking liberals and making money. Beginning with the supposedly anti-communist crusade of the lawyer Roy Cohn in the mid-1950s, proceeding through the rise of the Moral Majority, the attempt to bring down Bill Clinton and the brief age of the Tea Party, he ends with Cohn’s protege, Trump, poised to retake power.To Conason, the key to the story is not how much money such grifters raise but where that money comes from: those grifters’ own supporters.As Conason spoke, a prominent rightwing figure was reporting to a Connecticut prison.“The media will tell you over and over again, ‘Steve Bannon is going to jail,’ or he’s fighting to stay out of jail. And it has to do with the fact he defied a subpoena from Congress [over the January 6 Capitol attack].“But he’s also facing state charges. And the state charges are very similar to the charges for which he was pardoned by President Trump. And what the media don’t tell you, and they should be telling you, is that three other people have gone to prison for those same charges already.“Bannon’s three co-conspirators in the We Build the Wall scam” – keeping donations supposed to support Trump’s border policies – “two of them pleaded guilty and apologized to the court and begged the court for mercy, because they admitted they ripped off millions of dollars.“Not from liberals. They didn’t own the liberals. They owned the conservatives. They stole this money from their own constituency. And Bannon, having promised that he would not take any money, did the same thing. [He has pleaded not guilty.] The only reason he didn’t go to prison when the other three did was because Trump pardoned him.“It signifies the level of impunity that has developed. It’s not just that their movement is riddled with this kind of scam and cynicism. It’s that you can get away with it.”It’s fair to say Conason’s seventh book seems well timed. With a laugh, he said: “People who haven’t called me for years from MSNBC are clamoring to have me on their shows.”Now 70, he has been a leading liberal voice since his years at the Village Voice, long before MSNBC was born. Asked to name prominent conservatives unstained by grift and swindle, he points to the Never Trumpers, “a bunch who I was once very critical of and vice versa.“Bill Kristol is one. Stuart Stevens’ book, It Was All A Lie, is a brilliant distillation of what went wrong with the Republican party, in certain ways a good companion to my book.“And obviously there’s Liz Cheney, somebody who I did not agree with about pretty much anything, and there’s Adam Kinzinger, someone I admire very much.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBoth Republicans lost their seats in Congress.Conason said: “You know they’re good people because they’ve made really big sacrifices to take a stand against this dishonesty and this threat to constitutional order. They’ve lost friends, they’ve lost family. And they stand under threat …“There’s plenty of time to go back and have whatever recriminations or debates or disputes you want. But right now, we need everybody. And the other thing is, I find a lot of them quite likable. Like, Conway is a funny story.”George Conway, a lawyer turned Never Trump pundit, was until recently married to Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager in 2016 and White House aide.Conason “exposed Conway on the front page of the [New York] Observer when he was acting as a secret lawyer for [Clinton accuser] Paula Jones in 1998. And I believe I embarrassed him because he was a lawyer at a Democratic law firm in New York but they didn’t know he was secretly working to take down Bill Clinton.“And I put a story about that on the front page of the Observer, and it ended up becoming a story in the New York Times. And I pursued him, and finally got him to call me back, and he did so very forcefully, he was angry.“And then, flash forward 25 years and I’ve finished The Longest Con. And I’m thinking, ‘Well, I need a foreword and the best thing would be a Never Trump conservative,’ because the book rarely quotes liberals or Democrats. Mostly, I’m trying to get conservatives to talk about what’s wrong with conservatism.“And my wife said, ‘Well, why don’t you get George Conway? He’s so funny.’ And I said, ‘Don’t you remember? He hates me.’ So anyway, I finally got him to come and have a drink. And we got along famously, and … he’s been a great supporter of this project. It’s really been fun.”The Longest Con is published in the US by St Martin’s Press More

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      We should all be terrified of Trump’s Project 2025 | Robert Reich

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      “Project 2025” is nothing short of a 900-page blueprint for guiding Donald Trump’s second term of office if he’s re-elected.After the Heritage Foundation unveiled Project 2025 in April last year, when Trump was seeking the Republican nomination, he had no problem with it.But now that the nation is turning its attention to the general election, Trump doesn’t want Project 2025 to draw attention. Its extremism is likely to turn off independents and moderates.So Trump is now claiming he has “no idea who is behind” Project 2025.This is another in a long line of Trump lies.The Project 2025 playbook was written by more than 20 officials whom Trump himself appointed during his first term. If he has “no idea” who they are, he’s showing an alarming cognitive decline.One of the leaders of Project 2025 is Russ Vought. Vought was Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, a key position in the White House. Vought is also drafting Trump’s 2024 GOP platform.Another Project 2025 leader is John McEntee, another of Trump’s top White House aides. (McEntee recently went viral in a video in which he claimed he gives counterfeit money to homeless people to get them arrested.)Even the national press secretary for Trump’s campaign appears in the Project 2025 recruitment video.Trump says he “knows nothing” about Project 2025. And he says he “disagrees” with it.As the former chairman of the Republican party Michael Steele put it: “OK, let’s all play with Stupid for minute … so exactly how do you ‘disagree’ with something you ‘know nothing about’ or ‘have no idea’ who is behind, saying or doing the thing you disagree with?”Trump may also be worried that the Heritage president, Kevin Roberts, could alarm independents and moderates. On Wednesday, Roberts raised the prospect of political violence. “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” Roberts told the War Room podcast, founded by the Trump adviser Steve Bannon.But let’s be clear. The Trump campaign platform is basically Project 2025. Trump’s Make America Great Again Pac is running ads calling it “Trump’s Project 2025”.The Make America Great Again Pac also created the website TrumpProject2025.com. In case there’s any doubt that Trump and the Heritage Foundation are working in close partnership, Trump can be seen in this video praising the Heritage Foundation and saying he “needs” them to “achieve” his goals.The close relationship between Trump and the Heritage Foundation goes back years. In 2018, the Heritage Foundation bragged that Trump had implemented two-thirds of their policy recommendations in his first year – more than any other president had done for them.The goals of Project 2025 are the same goals Trump tried to achieve in his first term or has been advocating in this campaign.One key goal of Project 2025 is to purge all government agencies of anyone more loyal to the constitution than to Trump – a process Trump himself started in October 2020 when he thought he would remain in office.Trump has promised to give rightwing evangelical Christians what they want. Accordingly, Project 2025 calls for withdrawing the abortion pill mifepristone from the market, expelling trans service members from the military, banning life-saving gender affirming care for young people, ending all diversity programs, and using “school choice” to gut public education.Project 2025 also calls for eliminating “woke propaganda” from all laws and federal regulations – including the terms “sexual orientation”, “diversity, equity, and inclusion”, “gender equality”, and “reproductive rights”.Other items in the Project 2025 blueprint are precisely what Trump has called for on the campaign trail, including mass arrests and deportations of undocumented people in the United States, ending many worker protections, dropping prosecutions of far-right militias like the Proud Boys, and giving additional tax cuts to big corporations and the rich.Trump has repeatedly claimed that climate change is a “hoax”. Project 2025 calls for expanding oil drilling in the United States, shrinking the geographic footprint of national monuments, terminating clean energy incentives, and ending fossil fuel regulations.Trump has said he’d seek vengeance against those who have prosecuted him for his illegal acts. Project 2025 calls for the prosecution of district attorneys Trump doesn’t like, and the takeover of law enforcement in blue cities and states.Project 2025 is, in short, the plan to implement what Donald Trump has said he wants to do if he’s re-elected.Trump may want to distance himself from Project 2025 in order to come off less bonkers to independents and moderates, but he can’t escape it. The document embodies everything he stands for.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

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      Joe Biden tells rally ‘I am going to beat’ Trump amid reports of new effort to get president to quit race – live

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      Addressing a crowd of whooping supporters, Joe Biden delivered an energetic rally speech in Madison, Wisconsin – a major swing state.Biden opened up his remarks by taking a jab at a Fourth of July comment made by Donald Trump in 2019 when Trump said that revolutionary war troops “took over the airports” from the British.“He’s a stable genius,” Biden said mockingly.He went on to vow to beat Trump but not before accidentally slipping up with his words.“I’m staying in the race … I will beat him again in 2020,” said Biden, before correcting himself a few seconds later by saying: “And by the way, we’re going to do it again in 2024.”Biden went on to address criticisms about his age, with the 81-year old president saying: “I keep seeing all those stories about being too old … You think I’m too old to restore Roe v Wade as the law of the land? Too old to ban assault weapons again? To protect social security and Medicare? … Too old to beat Donald Trump?”He then cited Trump’s criminal record, calling him a convicted felon with the “morals of an alley cat” and pointing to Trump’s involvement in the January 6 riots in 2021.“You can’t be pro-insurrectionist and pro-American at the same time,” he said, adding: “This is so damn serious. You can’t love your country only when you win.”Biden’s demeanor throughout his nearly 20-minute address on Friday was energetic and forceful, marking a stark shift away from his performance during last week’s debate, which saw him struggle to articulate his thoughts.With one campaign event out of the way, Biden has several more tests facing him amid these make-or-break days, with a crucial ABC News interview with George Stephanopoulos set to air tonight at 8pm.Another Democrat in Congress has expressed doubts about Joe Biden’s viability: Brad Sherman, from California, posted that he was looking forward to the president’s upcoming interview on ABC, but also said it was “important” that Biden conduct an “extended LIVE interview” as soon as possible.His statement further suggested that party rules do not mandate that Biden remain on the ticket:
      Counter to popular belief, the rules of the Democratic Party do NOT require that pledged delegates vote for Biden at the convention. Party rules require delegates’ votes, “reflect the sentiments of those who elected them,” at the time the delegates cast their ballots.
      Democratic Congressmembers Raúl Grijalva and Lloyd Doggett have publicly called on Biden to withdraw his candidacy. In another defiant speech, Biden told supporters in Wisconsin earlier today that he would not be quitting the race.The Biden campaign has responded to Donald Trump’s attempt to distance himself from Project 2025, a rightwing effort to aggressively roll back civil rights and other liberal policies. After Trump on Friday claimed, “I know nothing about Project 2025,” and “I disagree with some of the things they’re saying,” the Biden campaign pointed out the former president’s many connections to the initiative:The Make America Great Again Super Pac supporting Trump has run ads promoting the effort and calling it, “Trump’s Project 2025.” John McEntee, who served as director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office under Trump, was brought on last year as a senior adviser for Project 2025 via the Heritage Foundation, an influential rightwing conservative thinktank that has drafted the plans to dismantle and reorganize US government.Led by the Heritage Foundation, Project 2025 is a manifesto that calls for a crackdown on immigration, the reversal of LGBTQ+ rights, further erosion of reproductive rights, the undoing of environmental protections and the implementation of other rightwing policy goals. Trump allies and former appointees have been involved in the effort.The Trump campaign previously said Project 2025 was not its own initiative, but that it was “appreciative” of suggestions from other groups. Trump has also directly praised the Heritage Foundation and said “we need the help” from the group, as Biden’s campaign pointed out. And the Heritage Foundation has also previously claimed credit for Trump administration policies.More here from our past coverage of Project 2025:Joe Biden will reportedly hold a solo press conference next Thursday, according to journalist Jacob Gardenswartz, citing senior administration officials on a call with reporters.Officials have not publicly confirmed the event, but news of a potential media conference led by Biden comes as the president has faced increasing pressure to speak with reporters and do interviews in the wake of his poor debate performance.Biden has done fewer press conferences and media interviews than any of his past seven predecessors at this point in his term, according to a report this week in Axios. His first post-debate interview will air this evening on ABC.Some key events and links from the day so far, as we prepare for Joe Biden’s major ABC interview to air this evening:
      Biden delivered an energetic campaign speech in Madison, Wisconsin, saying: “I am running and going to win again.”
      The Massachusetts governor, Maura Healey, broke from other Democratic governors supporting Biden’s campaign and issued a statement urging him to “listen to the American people and carefully evaluate whether he remains our best hope to defeat Donald Trump”.
      The White House said Biden was seen by his doctor after the debate and that the physician found he was fine and “recovering well” after reports he was suffering from a cold.
      Donald Trump attempted to distance himself from Project 2025, an agenda of rightwing activists to erode civil rights and other progressive policies under a second Trump term. But key figures involved in Project 2025 are closely linked to Trump.
      Several powerful Democratic backers have said they will pause donations until Biden steps aside.
      Robert F Kennedy Jr made a startling pledge to not “take sides” with respect to the September 11 terrorist attacks if his long-shot presidential campaign vaults him to the White House.
      Mark Warner, a Democratic senator from Virginia, is organizing a group of senators to urge Joe Biden to exit the race, according to a new report in the Washington Post, based on accounts of “two people with direct knowledge of the effort”.The Post reports:
      Warner is telling Democratic senators that President Biden can no longer remain in the election in the wake of his faltering debate performance, according to the people familiar with private conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely. The Virginia senator has told others that he is deeply concerned Biden is not able to run a campaign that could beat former president Donald Trump.
      The senator’s spokesperson did not confirm or deny the report to the Post, saying in a statement: “Like many other people in Washington and across the country, Senator Warner believes these are critical days for the president’s campaign, and he has made that clear to the White House.”The report was published as Biden delivered an energetic campaign speech in Wisconsin reiterating that he was not ending his campaign. But he continues to face pressure and scrutiny. The Massachusetts governor, Maura Healey, who has been a Biden campaign surrogate, issued a statement earlier today urging the president to “listen to the American people and carefully evaluate whether he remains our best hope to defeat Donald Trump”.Addressing a crowd of whooping supporters, Joe Biden delivered an energetic rally speech in Madison, Wisconsin – a major swing state.Biden opened up his remarks by taking a jab at a Fourth of July comment made by Donald Trump in 2019 when Trump said that revolutionary war troops “took over the airports” from the British.“He’s a stable genius,” Biden said mockingly.He went on to vow to beat Trump but not before accidentally slipping up with his words.“I’m staying in the race … I will beat him again in 2020,” said Biden, before correcting himself a few seconds later by saying: “And by the way, we’re going to do it again in 2024.”Biden went on to address criticisms about his age, with the 81-year old president saying: “I keep seeing all those stories about being too old … You think I’m too old to restore Roe v Wade as the law of the land? Too old to ban assault weapons again? To protect social security and Medicare? … Too old to beat Donald Trump?”He then cited Trump’s criminal record, calling him a convicted felon with the “morals of an alley cat” and pointing to Trump’s involvement in the January 6 riots in 2021.“You can’t be pro-insurrectionist and pro-American at the same time,” he said, adding: “This is so damn serious. You can’t love your country only when you win.”Biden’s demeanor throughout his nearly 20-minute address on Friday was energetic and forceful, marking a stark shift away from his performance during last week’s debate, which saw him struggle to articulate his thoughts.With one campaign event out of the way, Biden has several more tests facing him amid these make-or-break days, with a crucial ABC News interview with George Stephanopoulos set to air tonight at 8pm.In his closing remarks, Joe Biden said:“I have never been more optimistic about America’s future because the American people are decent, good, honorable. Just remember who in God’s name we are. We’re the United States of America …“So let’s stand together, win this election and exile Donald Trump.”“You can’t be pro-insurrectionist and pro-American at the same time,” Joe Biden said.“This is so damn serious. You can’t love your country only when you win,” he added.“Ultimately, the American presidency is about character … It’s about the president’s decency, integrity. Do they respect people or do they incite violence and hate? … And what’s worse, the supreme court has just ruled … for virtually no limits on the power of the presidency …“We just celebrated the Fourth of July saying we will not be ruled by a king.”“Trump’s biggest lie of all is he had nothing to do with the insurrection of January 6,” said Joe Biden.He went on to say:“We all saw with our own eyes. We saw he sent thousands to attack the Capitol. We saw police being attacked, the Capitol being ransacked, mob hunting for Nancy Pelosi, gallows set up to hang Mike Pence.“Let me ask you something, after what Trump did on January 6, why would anyone ever let him be near the Oval Office again?”Joe Biden repeated his popular line from last week’s debate, saying that Donald Trump “has the morals of an alley cat”.The crowd whooped in response as Biden went on to forcefully say: “Trump is a convicted felon … Donald Trump isn’t just a convicted criminal – he’s a one-man crime wave.” More

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      Trump asks judge to gut classified documents case after immunity ruling

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      Donald Trump moved on Friday to capitalize on the US supreme court’s decision to confer broad immunity to former presidents, asking the federal judge overseeing his criminal case for retaining classified documents to take a scalpel to any charges that were “official” acts that could not be prosecuted.The supreme court this week held that former presidents enjoyed some immunity from criminal prosecution for certain conduct they undertook in office, which also meant evidence of immune acts could not be introduced as evidence at any trial even if they did not form part of the charges.The framework of criminal accountability for former presidents, as laid out by the ruling, has three categories: core presidential functions that carry absolute immunity, official acts of the presidency that carry presumptive immunity, and unofficial acts that carry no immunity.The request from Trump’s lawyers did not say which parts of the indictment they considered to be official conduct that was immune. But if the US district judge Aileen Cannon agrees to go through the charges, it would almost certainly further delay the case by months.The filing not only showed the far-reaching ramifications of the immunity decision, which is now affecting Trump’s documents case in Florida even though the ruling originated from a pre-trial appeal in the former president’s 2020 election subversion case in Washington; it also demonstrated Trump’s intent to use it to destroy the substance of the cases.The 10-page filing from Trump’s lawyers asked Cannon for permission to file new briefs, arguing the immunity decision gutted prosecutors’ position that he had no immunity and “further demonstrates the politically-motivated nature of their contention that the motion is ‘frivolous’”.But Trump’s filing was doubly notable as it asked Cannon to pause all other proceedings in the case until she decided whether the special counsel, Jack Smith, and his prosecution team were authorized to bring the case in the first place.In a recent motion to dismiss the case, Trump’s lawyers argued that Smith had been improperly appointed since he was not named to the role by the president or approved by the Senate like other federal officers are – and that the attorney general, Merrick Garland, had no legal power to do so by himself.The motion appeared destined for denial after a recent hearing in federal district court in Fort Pierce, Florida, when prosecutors countered that Garland – under the appointments clause of the US constitution – had authority to name “inferior officers” like special counsels to act as subordinates.But as part of the supreme court’s decision, Justice Clarence Thomas gave the notion new momentum. “If this unprecedented prosecution is to proceed, the lower courts should thus answer these essential questions concerning the special counsel’s appointment,” Thomas wrote, albeit with respect to the 2020 election case. More

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      Who can we blame for Joe Biden’s gamble? Angry Democrats are starting to point the finger | Emma Brockes

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      In the wake of Joe Biden’s disastrous performance in the US presidential debate last week, the national tone shifted from shock and horror to fury. Biden himself, pityingly regarded, was spared the worst of the criticism. Instead, the two people who seem to have incurred the most anger have been his wife, Jill – suddenly thrust into the unhappy mould of the new Nancy Reagan – and, esoterically, the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Biden’s refusal to stand aside has thrown everyone back to RBG’s late-in-life vanity that ended in the overturning of Roe v Wade.Terrible as things are, there was, it has to be said, some relief in finally being able to say the quiet part out loud. With the energy of a cork leaving a bottle, a lot of people came forward this week with more evidence of the president’s “lapses”. In the New York Times, anonymous European officials who met Biden at the recent G7 summit in Italy belatedly registered their alarm; those who attended a recent event at the White House did the same. While big money donors joined the chorus of those freaking out, Biden’s aides pushed back with examples of how “probing and insightful” the president continues to be.That line of defence feels pointless now. “He’s inquisitive. Focused. He remembers. He’s sharp,” said Neera Tanden, the president’s domestic policy adviser– a remark that set the bar for the president so low it had the same chilling effect as Jill Biden’s kindergarten tone after the debate. “You answered all the questions, you knew all the facts,” she said on stage to her slack-jawed husband, whose improved performance at a campaign rally a day later couldn’t undo what 52 million Americans had just seen. You can flag the garbage that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth until the cows come home, but it doesn’t make Biden’s state any better.If none of this makes unseating the president for another Democratic candidate either likely or wise, it isn’t purely for reasons of strategy. No presidential candidate has been replaced this late in the race and, of course, throwing open the field at the Democratic convention next month risks making the Democrats look even more vacillating than they already do. There is a sense of frustration that what may, to some degree, be an issue of presentation – the idea that, like his dormant stammer, Biden’s impairment is much worse during stressful public events than behind the scenes – is not the whole picture.Ezra Klein, speaking to the New Yorker last week, pointed out there is no indication that Biden is “making bad decisions”. He remains up to the job in ways that, of course, Trump isn’t. But if he can’t inspire confidence or speak coherently in public, his competence elsewhere hardly matters.Which brings us to the question of Biden’s own hubris. This is where, down the line, the real anger will focus. If the president is protected, for now, by sympathy, it will evaporate in November if Trump wins. The risk Biden has taken by standing for re-election is greater than President Emmanuel Macron’s backfiring decision to call a snap election in France. Biden is widely believed to be a good man, but his selfishness in running for a second term when he must know he is slipping will be his only legacy, should Trump prevail.To his enablers, then, the question: why wasn’t this caught earlier? You have to wonder at Barack Obama, popping up on X to defend and endorse Biden immediately after the debate. Who knows what’s going on behind the scenes – perhaps the former president spent the last year trying to talk Biden into stepping aside. But Obama’s swift defence of his friend and former vice-president certainly felt like an action inspired partly by guilt. Obama has, of late, been so busy making not very good films in Hollywood that his rush to defend Biden seemed like a piece of self-justification in the face of lapsed oversight.And there are many more in Obama’s position, clearly feeling that it is simply too late to change horses – partly, perhaps, to defend their own inaction, and partly because there’s no obvious replacement. Harris, who as vice-president would be first in line to take over from Biden, is a terrible communicator for entirely different reasons. (If you’re still in doubt about this, watch her at the BET awards this week: it will make you hide your face in embarrassment.) According to recent polls, while Harris is marginally more popular than Biden, she is still behind Trump.It’s beside the point, but the thing I keep coming back to is this: can you imagine what it’s actually like being Joe Biden right now? What a singular and terrible stress dream that must be? Imagine having to be president when you can’t remember people’s names and keep zoning out? It’s a naive thought experiment, I know; one that separates those who want to be president of the United States from those of us content to cap out at being president of our own living rooms. Still, the question remains: who on earth, in Biden’s position, would want the job?
      Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist 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