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

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

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      Biden asserts executive privilege to block release of special counsel interviews

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

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      Gaetz invokes Trump’s call to far-right Proud Boys at hush-money trial

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      Matt Gaetz echoed Donald Trump’s infamous remarks about the far-right Proud Boys on Thursday, as the Florida Republican congressman and other rightwing supporters of the former US presidentattended his criminal trial in Manhattan.“Standing back, and standing by, Mr President,” Gaetz wrote on social media, with a photo of his group of supporters standing behind Trump outside the court where Trump is on trial on election subversion charges arising from hush-money payments to an adult film star during the 2016 campaign.The Proud Boys, a “western chauvinist” group, were involved in street violence during Trump’s years in power, clashing with leftwing protesters.Identifiable by their black and yellow colors, they participated in the attack on Congress of 6 January 2021, when Trump told supporters to “fight like hell” to block certification of his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden, in service of Trump’s voter fraud lie.Proud Boys leaders convicted of crimes including seditious conspiracy are among hundreds of rioters jailed over the attack.Trump faces jail himself if convicted in New York, where he faces 34 charges, or in three other cases containing 54 more criminal counts, concerning election subversion and retention of classified information.Gaetz offered a form of a famous Trump utterance. In a debate with Biden in September 2020, the then president was asked if he would condemn white supremacist and militia groups who clashed with social justice protesters that summer, following the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police.Trump said: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by. But I’ll tell you what, somebody’s got to do something about antifa [anti-fascist groups] and the left.”Amid uproar about an apparent endorsement of violent extremists, Trump said “I don’t know who the Proud Boys are” and: “Whoever they are, they have to stand down. Let law enforcement do their work.”But Proud Boys celebrated. Membership “tripled, probably”, one member, Jeremy Joseph Bertino, told the House January 6 committee. Bertino pleaded guilty to plotting with other Proud Boys to violently stop the transfer of power.View image in fullscreenIn the current campaign, Proud Boys have shown up at Trump rallies. At some rallies, Trump has played a chorus of January 6 prisoners singing the national anthem. Vowing to pardon January 6 rioters, he has called such prisoners “hostages”.Gaetz, of Florida, was part of the latest contingent of rightwing lawmakers to show up in Manhattan in Trump’s support.Asked if Gaetz intentionally used verbiage adopted by the Proud Boys, a spokesman, Joel Valdez, told the Associated Press: “The tweet speaks for itself.”Outside court, Gaetz told reporters: “We are here of our own volition, because there are things we can say that President Trump is unjustly not allowed to say.”That was a reference to a gag order which Trump repeatedly violated, paying $1,000 fines until the judge threatened incarceration.On Tuesday, one court reporter said Trump appeared to be editing comments for surrogates to make in his stead.Gaetz followed Trump supporters including the House speaker, Mike Johnson, in standing outside court to deride the charges against Trump.Alluding to a famous children’s toy, Gaetz said prosecutors had made up “the Mr Potato Head of crimes” to bring Trump to trial.Another pop culture reference surfaced when Lauren Boebert tried to speak.The Colorado extremist was subjected to cries of “Beetlejuice!” – a reference by hecklers to her ejection from a Denver theatre in September, over lewd and disruptive behaviour during a performance of a musical based on a Hollywood movie.Posting footage of the heckling, Boebert said: “I’ll never stop standing up for President Trump, even if I’m the last one standing.”Republicans control the US House by a narrow margin, 217 seats to 213. The House was open for business on Thursday but nonetheless six more GOP members were seen at the courthouse in Manhattan.The others were Andy Biggs and Eli Crane of Arizona, Mike Waltz of Florida, Andy Ogles of Tennessee, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, Bob Good of Virginia and Ralph Norman of South Carolina. More

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      Republican ‘veepstakes’ heats up as contenders court Trump at court

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      Two senators, JD Vance of Ohio and Tim Scott of South Carolina, have shot to the front of the US media’s beloved “veepstakes”, the reporting, betting and outright speculation about who Donald Trump will pick as his running mate against Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the presidential election in November.But one report from Capitol Hill quoted a source as saying that Marco Rubio, the Florida Republican senator who ran against Trump in 2016, was still an “ace in the hole” for one adviser particularly close to Trump, “if Scott gets taken out on the runway”.That might have been a pointed choice of words, given reports that Trump’s plane clipped another at a Florida airport last Sunday.Vance, meanwhile, might have stolen a march on Scott by flying to New York to attend Trump’s hush-money trial on Monday.Emerging from court in Manhattan, Vance slammed the case against Trump, which frames payments to the adult film star Stormy Daniels around the 2016 campaign as a form of election subversion, and concerns 34 of the 88 criminal charges Trump must face as he attempts to return to power.Vance was not the first Trump-supporting Republican to show up in New York but he did grab headlines by doing so.The next day, the House speaker, Mike Johnson, grabbed more when he and three VP hopefuls – North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, Florida congressman Byron Donalds and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy – followed Vance to the court. All four attacked prosecutors and the judge in virulent terms Trump cannot employ, given a gag order.One reporter said Trump may have been editing surrogates’ remarks in court.Other observers commented on Burgum, Donalds and Ramaswamy’s decision to wear blue suits and red ties, thereby following Trump’s favourite dress code and earning, from the conservative professor Jack Pitney, a Tarantino-esque nickname: “Reservoir Lapdogs”.View image in fullscreenVance wore the uniform for court on Tuesday. Scott has worn it on the campaign trail, where he challenged Trump for the Republican nomination but dropped out early, telling the ex-president: “I just love you.”According to a detailed report by the Daily Beast, Scott has now acquired a “powerful ally” when it comes to securing the VP slot: Kellyanne Conway, the longtime Republican strategist who managed Trump’s winning campaign in 2016 and was a senior White House aide.Citing three sources, the Beast said Conway was “game” to push Scott with Trump, causing Scott to “place his hopes in Conway’s hands”. The two were recently seen dining in Washington, the Beast said, and were working on a fundraising event.Citing “multiple Trumpworld sources”, the Beast said Conway had “privately encouraged Trump to partner with Scott, believing the two-term senator” – the only Black Senate Republican – “is the best of the options in front of the former president”.The Beast also pointed to a New York Times column from February, in which Conway said Trump should pick a running mate of colour – but included Rubio in that bracket.Rubio and Trump both live in Florida, raising questions about whether they are allowed, under the constitution, to run on the same ticket.But the Beast quoted another anonymous Trump source as saying: “Here’s the thing about Kellyanne: people dismiss her for a variety of reasons; she’s not particularly smart and doesn’t really come up with a lot of good ideas, she’s always chasing money and that’s what guides her decision making.“But she does have Trump figured out like no one else. If anyone can convince him to make a mistake – and later assign blame to someone else – it’s Kellyanne.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionConway said: “President Trump seeks the counsel of many men and women on the VP pick, but he and he alone will decide.”Scott did not comment. Nor did the Trump campaign.On Tuesday, according to NBC News, Trump commented on another possible VP pick once seen as a strong contender but deemed to have slipped in the running.“What a week!” Trump reportedly told an audience including Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, at a Manhattan fundraiser also attended by Scott, Rubio and Burgum.“The dog, the dog!” Trump said.Last month, the Guardian first reported Noem’s decision to include in a memoir her story of using a shotgun to kill both Cricket, a 14-month-old wirehaired pointer she deemed “untrainable”, and an unnamed male goat.Noem has defended the story, which she said took place 20 years ago, as evidence of her willingness to do unpleasant things in life as well as politics. She has also endorsed her apparent threat, also in her book, to kill Joe Biden’s dog, which has a history of biting.But enduring shock and revulsion – and controversy over Noem’s claim to have met and “stared down” the North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, a story revealed to be untrue – are widely seen to have killed her chances of being Trump’s VP.“I’m really curious about the dog,” Trump reportedly said in New York, before “riffing on Cricket’s story” in a “bemused” rather than critical manner.Of Noem, Trump said: “She’s been there for us for a long time. She’s loyal, she’s great.” More

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      Alleged ‘deal’ offer from Trump to big oil could save industry $110bn, study finds

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      A “deal” allegedly offered by Donald Trump to big-oil executives as he sought $1bn in campaign donations could save the industry $110bn in tax breaks if he returns to the White House, an analysis suggests.The fundraising dinner held last month at Mar-a-Lago with more than 20 executives, including from Chevron, Exxon and Occidental Petroleum, reportedly involved Trump asking for large campaign contributions and promising, if elected, to remove barriers to drilling, scrap a pause on gas exports, and reverse new rules aimed at cutting car pollution.Congressional Democrats have launched an investigation into the “ethical, campaign finance and legal issues” raised by what one Democratic senator called an “offer of a blatant quid pro quo”, while a prominent watchdog group is exploring whether the meeting warrants legal action.But the analysis shared with the Guardian shows that the biggest motivation for oil and gas companies to back Trump appears to be in the tax system, with about $110bn in tax breaks for the industry at stake should Joe Biden be re-elected in November’s election.Biden wants to eliminate the tax breaks, which include long-standing incentives to help drill for oil and gas, with a recent White House budget proposal targeting $35bn in domestic subsidies and $75bn in overseas fossil fuel income.“Big oil executivess are sweating in their seats at the thought of losing $110bn in special tax loopholes under Biden in 2025,” said Lukas Ross, a campaigner at Friends of the Earth Action, which conducted the analysis.Ross said the tax breaks are worth nearly 11,000% more than the amount Trump allegedly asked the executives for in donations. “If Trump promises to protect polluter handouts during tax negotiations, then his $1bn shakedown is a cheap insurance policy for the industry,” he said.View image in fullscreenSome of the tax breaks have been around for decades, and are a global issue, but the US oil and gas industry benefited disproportionately from tax cuts passed by Trump when he was president in 2017.Next year, regardless of who is president, a raft of individual tax cuts included in that bill will expire, prompting a round of Washington deal-making over which industries, if any, will help fund an extension.Lobbying records show that Chevron, Exxon, ConocoPhillips, Occidental, Cheniere and the American Petroleum Institute (API) have all met lawmakers this year to discuss this tax situation, likely encouraging them to ignore Biden’s plan to target the fossil fuel industry’s own carve-outs.Chevron and ConocoPhillips, the analysis shows, lobbied on a deduction for intangible drilling costs, the largest federal subsidy for US oil and gas companies, which is worth $10bn, according to federal figures.View image in fullscreenOther lobbying centered on more generalized tax breaks that the oil and gas industry has taken advantage of. ExxonMobil lobbied for a little-known bill that would restore a bonus depreciation deduction to its full value, which, according to Moody’s, would allow big oil to avoid Biden’s newly established corporate minimum tax.“Unlike previous administrations, I don’t think the federal government should give handouts to big oil,” Biden said following his inauguration in 2021. But Congress and the president will have to agree to any new tax arrangements next year, and the fossil-fuel industry continues to have staunch support from Republicans and some Democrats.The API insisted its industry gets no favorable treatment in the tax system. “America’s energy industry proudly invests in communities, pays local, state and federal taxes and receives no special tax treatment from the federal government,” an API spokesperson said.“This nonsense report is another attempt to distract from the importance of all energy sources – including oil and natural gas – to meet America’s growing energy needs.”Who was at Mar-a-Lago?The high stakes for the fossil-fuel industry, as well as for the climate crisis, have placed scrutiny upon those who attended Trump’s dinner at Mar-a-Lago. Although representatives of large oil companies were present, the majority of known attendees were executives of smaller firms focused on specific subsections of the fossil-fuel industry, such as fracking or gas exporting.Those companies are not often held to account in international forums such as the UN climate talks or the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative, which means they are less likely to make buzzy climate pledges. They may also be more threatened by regulations on individual parts of the US fossil fuel economy, such as auto-emissions standards aiming to quell gas-car usage.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The oil majors … see their future in plastic [production]. That doesn’t apply to the smaller companies who don’t work across the industry,” said Kert Davies, director of special investigations at the Center for Climate Integrity. “They’ve got nothing to shift to.”Among other reported attendees were the head of the company Venture Global, which rivals Qatar as one of the world’s leading liquefied natural gas exporters. This year, the company came under fire after it was revealed to have been using millions of gallons of water to construct a Louisiana LNG terminal while a nearby community faced extreme shortages. The firm was also accused late last year of reneging on its contracts by Shell and BP.Another attendee: Nick Dell’Osso, CEO of Chesapeake Energy, which after years of court fights had to pay $5.3m to Pennsylvania landowners who say they were cheated out of gas royalties. The company’s earlier CEO, John McClendon, was indicted in 2016 on charges of conspiring to rig bids on oil and gas leases in Oklahoma.Billionaire oil tycoon Harold Hamm, who founded fossil fuel exploration company Continental Resources, was also present. He helped raise money for Trump’s 2016 presidential run and was under consideration to be Trump’s energy secretary, and was reportedly one of the seven top donors who had special seats at Trump’s inauguration. Though he eschewed the former president after his 2020 loss, he donated to his primary campaign in August.View image in fullscreenAsked about the meeting, API spokesperson Andrea Woods said the organization “meets with policymakers and candidates from across the political spectrum on topics important to our industry”. She said the premise of Democrats’ investigation into the meeting is “patently false and an attempt to distract from a needed debate about America’s future – one that requires more energy, including more oil and natural gas”.Amid the scrutiny of last month’s Mar-a-Lago dinner, Trump is continuing to court oil-tied funders. On Tuesday evening, he held a Manhattan fundraising dinner that cost a minimum of $100,000 to attend.Among the event’s hosts, advocacy group Climate Power noted, was John Catsimatidis, the chief executive of the much-scrutinized gas refiner United Refining Company and owner of two grocery chains, a radio station and holding company Red Apple Group.Between 2017 and 2023, United Refining Company’s small refinery in western Pennsylvania was the most dangerous refinery in the country, with federal data showing it reported 10 times the average number of injuries for a refinery – 63% higher than the next-most dangerous facility.The company also reportedly sought to dodge environmental regulations using a process championed by Trump’s EPA administrator Scott Pruitt.Catsimatidis has also been criticized for neglecting vacant gas-station properties and for blaming gas prices on “open” borders, corporate taxes and worker benefits. The Pennsylvania town home to United Refining pays some of the highest gas prices in the state, despite the presence of the refinery, raising suspicions among some residents about the company’s practices.Trump this week also held a fundraiser hosted by the US senator JD Vance, who is one of the largest recipients of big-oil funding in Congress, and another with Joe Craft, a major Trump donor who owns massive coal producer Alliance Resource Partners. In 2016, Craft reportedly gifted Pruitt courtside basketball tickets after the agency crafted pro-coal regulations. More

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      Louisiana must use House map with second mostly Black district, US supreme court rules

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      The US supreme court on Wednesday ordered Louisiana to hold congressional elections in 2024 using a House map with a second mostly Black district, despite a lower-court ruling that called the map an illegal racial gerrymander.The order allows the use of a map that has majority Black populations in two of the state’s six congressional districts, potentially boosting Democrats’ chances of gaining control of the closely divided House of Representatives in the 2024 elections.The justices acted on emergency appeals filed by the state’s top Republican elected officials and Black voters who said they needed the high court’s intervention to avoid confusion as the elections approach. About a third of Louisiana is Black.Like much of the south, voting is racially polarized in Alabama so any majority-Black district is likely to favor Democrats. Republicans narrowly control the US House and are fighting for an advantage in every seat.It is the latest development in a long and twisted legal saga over Louisiana’s congressional districts.Louisiana lawmakers were forced to add a second majority-Black district last year after a federal judge said the map they drew violated the Voting Rights Act. The state approved a map, but then non-white voters challenged it in court, saying lawmakers relied too much on race when drawing it. Lower federal courts agreed the map should be struck down, and the state said it should not be required to use the map for this year’s elections.The supreme court’s order on Wednesday halts that argument and means the map with a second majority-Black district will be used for this year’s election. What happens after that is unclear.The supreme court has previously put court decisions handed down near elections on hold, invoking the need to give enough time to voters and elections officials to ensure orderly balloting. “When an election is close at hand, the rules of the road must be clear and settled,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote two years ago in a similar case from Alabama. The court has never set a firm deadline for how close is too close.The court’s three liberal justices, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, all said they would not have granted the request to intervene. Only Jackson explained her reasoning.“There is little risk of voter confusion from a new map being imposed this far out from the November election,” she wrote in a brief dissent. “We have often denied stays of redistricting orders issued as close or closer to an election.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionJackson was objecting to what has come to be known as the Purcell principle – a novel idea adopted by the supreme court that they should not intervene in an election dispute when election day is near. The liberal justices and other critics have accused the court of using the principle to benefit Republicans.Louisiana has had two congressional maps blocked by federal courts in the past two years in a swirl of lawsuits that included a previous intervention by the supreme court. More

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      Joe Biden and Donald Trump agree to two US presidential debates

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      Shortly after the Biden-Harris re-election campaign proposed two TV debates between Joe Biden and Donald Trump ahead of November’s presidential vote, both men have agreed upon two debate dates: 27 June and 10 September.CNN confirmed that it would host the first debate of 2024 on that date at 9pm ET from the crucial battleground state of Georgia.ABC later confirmed they’d host a second debate on 10 September during prime time.A third date, 2 October, has been proposed by Trump in a Truth Social post on Wednesday afternoon: “Let this TRUTH serve to represent that I hereby accept debating Crooked Joe Biden on FoxNews. The date will be Wednesday, October 2nd. The Hosts will be Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. Thank you, DJT!”Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles, with the Trump campaign, told ABC News of the upcoming and pending debate dates: “We propose a debate in June, a debate in July, a debate in August, and a debate in September, in addition to the Vice Presidential debate. Additional dates will allow voters to have maximum exposure to the records and future visions of each candidate.”On Wednesday morning, Biden said in a video shared on social media: “Donald Trump lost two debates to me in 2020, and since then he hasn’t shown up for a debate. Now he’s acting like he wants to debate me again. Well, make my day, pal. I’ll even do it twice.”He then jabbed: “So let’s pick dates, Donald. I hear you’re free on Wednesdays,” referring to the free day in Trump’s current campaign finance violations trial in New York.In a post on Twitter/X, independent candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr accused Biden and Trump of “colluding to lock America into a head-to-head match-up that 70% say they do not want. They are trying to exclude me from their debate because they are afraid I would win. Keeping viable candidates off the debate stage undermines democracy.”Biden’s proposal bucked a tradition of three debates, typically held in the fall, that are organized by the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates. Democratic party officials said in a release on Wednesday that moving the timing up, reducing the number of debates and ending them sooner reflected changes in the “structure of our elections and the interests of voters”.The Democrats’ proposal also noted that debates in previous elections cycles had not concluded until after early voting started and the commission’s debates were “structured like an entertainment spectacle and not a serious exchange of ideas that reflect the enormous stakes of the election”.The commission “has consistently demonstrated an inability to enforce their own rules” in the debates and called for a firm time limit on answers, and alternate turns to speak “so that the time is evenly divided and we have an exchange of views, not a spectacle of mutual interruption”.Later on Wednesday morning, Trump accepted Biden’s offer to debate him in June and September, telling Fox News Digital that “it is time for a debate to take place – even if it has to be held through the offices of the Commission on Presidential Debates, which are totally controlled by Democrats and who, as people remember, got caught cheating with me with debate sound levels”.He added on Truth Social: “Crooked Joe Biden is the worst debater I have ever faced – he can’t put two sentences together.”That missive concluded with Trump saying: “I would strongly recommend more than two debates and, for excitement purposes, a very large venue, although Biden is supposedly afraid of crowds – That’s only because he doesn’t get them. Just tell me when, I’ll be there. Let’s get ready to Rumble!!!”Biden volleyed back with a message on X shortly after Trump’s various remarks, saying he was up “for a debate on June 27th. Over to you, Donald. As you said: anywhere, any time, any place.”Arranging the presidential debates has become increasingly vexed, with both parties seeking a competitive advantage. But they are considered highly important in gaining the attention of crucial swing voters who may only then be tuning in to the choice of candidates.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhile not mandated in any constitutional sense, they are now considered an intrinsic part of the election process. But even the Democrats’ proposal on Wednesday was designed for point-scoring.“As Donald Trump has said he will debate ‘anytime, anywhere’, we hope both campaigns can quickly accept broadcast media debate invitations on the parameters above,” the Biden campaign chair, Jen O’Malley Dillon, wrote in a letter to the commission before Trump’s acceptance of the challenge. “Americans need a debate on the issues – not a tedious debate about debates.”The Biden campaign had said it would work directly with news organizations to set up the debates, sidelining the debating commission which has overseen them since 1988. In CNN’s press release announcing the 27 June debate, the news organization noted it would take place “in CNN’s Atlanta studios” and “no audience will be present”.Until now, there has been uncertainty about whether Biden would agree to debate Trump at all. Trump skipped every Republican primary debate, pointing to his polling lead in that selection process, and Biden refused to debate his Democratic challengers.Trump, who has polling leads in five of six crucial swing states, has goaded Biden often, saying last month he was willing to debate his rival “anytime, anywhere, any place”, starting “now”.The Trump campaign called for presidential debates to be held earlier and more frequently so voters “have a full chance” to see the candidates in action and argued that by the time of the first scheduled debate, on 16 September, more than 1 million Americans will probably have already voted, with more than 8.7 million voting by the third debate, penciled in for 9 October.Last month, 12 US news organizations issued pleas to the campaigns to agree to TV debate schedule.“If there is one thing Americans can agree on during this polarized time, it is that the stakes of this election are exceptionally high,” the organizations including ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox News, PBS, NBC, NPR and the Associated Press said in a statement.“Amidst that backdrop, there is simply no substitute for the candidates debating with each other, and before the American people, their visions for the future of our nation,” they added.In 2020, Biden and Trump debated twice, with a third debate canceled after Trump tested positive for Covid-19. 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      Top House Democrat demands answers on Trump dinner with oil executives – as it happened

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      The top Democrat on the House oversight committee is demanding answers after a report emerged that Donald Trump promised oil executives he would repeal regulations intended to lower climate emissions if they each contributed $1bn to his campaign.In a letter to the executives of nine major petroleum companies, including ExxonMobil and Chevron, Jamie Raskin cited a Washington Post article from last week that said Trump promised to rescind a Biden administration moratorium on permits for liquified natural gas exports and allow more drillings in the Alaskan Arctic and Gulf of Mexico, among other policies.In response, Raskin wrote in letters to nine oil industry executives:
      I write to request any information you may have about quid pro quo financial agreements related to US energy policy that were reportedly proposed at a recent campaign fundraising dinner with ex-president Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago Club that you appear to have attended. Media reports raise significant potential ethical, campaign finance, and legal issues that would flow from the effective sale of American energy and regulatory policy to commercial interests in return for large campaign contributions.
      House speaker Mike Johnson traveled to New York to appear alongside Donald Trump at his ongoing business fraud trial, which Johnson called a “disgrace” in a press conference outside the courthouse. An array of other Republican politicians were also on the scene, all of whom have one thing in common: they are said to be potential running mates for Trump or, as the Democrats have dubbed them, “emotional support”. Back in Washington DC, the Republican-led House oversight committee released a report saying that attorney general Merrick Garland should be held in contempt for not handing over recordings of interviews with Joe Biden and his ghostwriter conducted by a special counsel. The committee’s top Democrat, Jamie Raskin, was also busy, demanding answers from petroleum industry executives over Trump’s reported promise to roll back all sorts of environmental regulations if they each raise $1bn for his campaign.Here’s what else happened today:
      Johnson’s appearance in New York comes as the House GOP plans to shift into “campaign mode” before the 5 November election.
      Federal prosecutors asked a judge to send far-right strategist Steve Bannon to jail after an appeals court rejected overturning his conviction for contempt of Congress. Bannon has until Thursday to respond.
      Biden announced new tariffs against China, and took shots at Trump’s trade policies.
      Maryland is traditionally a Democratic stronghold, but this year’s Senate race is shaping up to be surprisingly competitive. The state’s voters are choosing their candidates in today’s primary.
      Why are Biden’s approval ratings so stubbornly low? Here’s what White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had to say, when asked at her briefing today.
      At her daily briefing today, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about Joe Biden’s low approval ratings, and why they have not moved much for years.The question from a Fox News reporter came a day after the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena College released polling showing the president trailing Donald Trump in five of six key swing states. Here’s what Jean-Pierre had to say:The reporter who posed the question, Peter Doocy, is the conservative network’s main man in the White House, and something of a thorn in its side. Two years ago, Biden appeared to insult Doocy by name, then later reportedly called him to “clear the air”:Earlier today, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson condemned the prosecution of Donald Trump outside the New York courthouse where Trump’s business fraud trial is taking place.That drew a strong rebuke from Democratic representative and Trump foe Jamie Raskin, who aired his grievances in a statement to the Daily Beast:Federal judge Carl J Nichols has given far-right strategist Steve Bannon until Thursday to respond to a request by justice department prosecutors that he report to jail to serve his four-month sentence after being convicted of contempt of Congress.Nichols’ order came after an appeals court rejected Bannon’s appeal of his July 2022 conviction for ignoring a subpoena and an order to appear for a deposition from the January 6 committee. Here’s more on that:The traditionally blue state of Maryland suddenly finds itself in an unfamiliar role: political battleground.Whoever wins the race for its open Senate seat, vacated by retiring Democrat Ben Cardin, could decide control of the chamber. On the Democratic side, representative David Trone is locked in a competitive primary with Prince George’s County executive Angela Alsobrooks. Whoever wins the primary will almost certainly face Larry Hogan, the former Republican governor whose high-profile clashes with Donald Trump made him a household name.The Democratic primary contest to succeed Trone features as many as a dozen candidates. The field is led by former Biden official April McClain Delaney and state delegate Joe Vogel.The Guardian caught up with Vogel shortly after he cast his ballot in Gaithersburg on Tuesday morning. At 27, Vogel is among a handful of gen Z candidates running for federal office this year.Vogel said he is appealing to voters of all ages by channeling his generation’s urgency to address the most pressing problems of our time.“The experience that I have is not only the experience as a legislator, but the lived experience of sitting in a classroom with the doors locked and the windows down in the dark in a school-shooting drill. I have the experience of fearing what the climate crisis is going to hold for our generation,” he said.“What we need are people with the lived experiences to bring urgency to all of these issues.”The sixth district, a seat that spans the diverse suburbs of Montgomery county to conservative western Maryland, is expected to remain in Democratic hands but is still the most competitive open House seat in the state.If elected, Vogel, born in Uruguay, would be the first Latino and first openly LGBTQ+ member of Congress from Maryland.An election to watch is taking place today in Maryland, where Democratic voters will select a candidate to face off against Republican former governor Larry Hogan for its open Senate seat. The Guardian’s Joan E Greve reports on how the race in the heavily Democratic state has become surprisingly competitive:Republicans have a rare opportunity to flip a Senate seat in Maryland in November, and the outcome of that race could determine control of the upper chamber. The high stakes of the Maryland Senate election have put intense scrutiny on the state’s primaries this Tuesday.Maryland primary voters will cast ballots in the presidential race as well as congressional elections, and leaders of both parties will be closely watching the results of the Senate contests. The retirement of Senator Ben Cardin has created an opening for Republicans to potentially capture a seat in a reliably Democratic state, thanks to former governor Larry Hogan’s late entry into the race. A Hogan victory would mark the first time that a Republican has won a Maryland Senate election since 1980, and it could erase Democrats’ narrow majority in the chamber.Ten Democrats will compete for the party’s Senate nomination, but two candidates have become the clear frontrunners: Congressman Dave Trone and the Prince George’s county executive Angela Alsobrooks. The race has historic implications, as Alsobrooks would become the first Black person elected to represent Maryland in the Senate and just the third Black woman to ever serve in the chamber.The battery of tariff increases on China Joe Biden announced is a symbolic move intended to head off the possibility that Beijing one day steps up its exports of vehicles and other technologies to stimulate its economy. The policy is also not quite as different from that of the Trump administration as the White House would have you think, the Guardian’s Larry Elliott reports:The US president, Joe Biden, has announced a 100% tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles as part of a package of measures designed to protect US manufacturers from cheap imports.In a move that is likely to inflame trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies, the White House said it was imposing more stringent curbs on Chinese goods worth $18bn.Sources said the move followed a four-year review and was a preventive measure designed to stop cheap, subsidised Chinese goods flooding the US market and stifling the growth of the American green-technology sector.As well as a tariff increase from 25% to 100% on EVs, levies will rise from 7.5% to 25% on lithium batteries, from zero to 25% on critical minerals, from 25% to 50% on solar cells, and from 25% to 50% on semiconductors.Tariffs on steel, aluminium and personal protective equipment – which range from zero to 7.5% – will rise to 25%.Despite the risks of retaliation from Beijing, Biden said the increased levies were a proportionate response to China’s overcapacity in the EV sector. Sources said China was producing 30m EVs a year but could sell only 22m-23m domestically.Biden’s car tariffs are largely symbolic because Chinese EVs were virtually locked out of the US by tariffs imposed by Donald Trump during his presidency. However, lobby groups have suggested there is a future threat as Beijing seeks to use exports to compensate for the weakness of its domestic economy.Top Republicans traveled to New York to appear alongside Donald Trump at his ongoing business fraud trial, which House speaker Mike Johnson called a “disgrace”. Also on the scene were an array of politicians who share one thing in common: they are all said to be potential running mates for Trump, or, as the Democrats dubbed them “emotional support”. Back in Washington DC, the Republican-led House oversight committee released a report saying that attorney general Merrick Garland should be held in contempt for not handing over recordings of interviews conducted by a special counsel and Joe Biden. The committee’s top Democrat Jamie Raskin was also busy, demanding answers from petroleum industry executives over Trump’s reported promise to roll back all sorts of environmental regulations if they each raise $1bn for his campaign.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Johnson’s appearance in New York comes as the House GOP plans to shift into “campaign mode” as the 5 November election draws ever nearer.
      Federal prosecutors asked a judge to send far-right strategist Steve Bannon to jail after an appeals court rejected the appeal of his conviction for contempt of Congress.
      Biden announced new tariffs against China, and took shots at Trump’s own trade policies.
      The top Democrat on the House oversight committee is demanding answers after a report emerged that Donald Trump promised oil executives he would repeal regulations intended to lower climate emissions if they each contributed $1bn to his campaign.In a letter to the executives of nine major petroleum companies, including ExxonMobil and Chevron, Jamie Raskin cited a Washington Post article from last week that said Trump promised to rescind a Biden administration moratorium on permits for liquified natural gas exports and allow more drillings in the Alaskan Arctic and Gulf of Mexico, among other policies.In response, Raskin wrote in letters to nine oil industry executives:
      I write to request any information you may have about quid pro quo financial agreements related to US energy policy that were reportedly proposed at a recent campaign fundraising dinner with ex-president Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago Club that you appear to have attended. Media reports raise significant potential ethical, campaign finance, and legal issues that would flow from the effective sale of American energy and regulatory policy to commercial interests in return for large campaign contributions.
      In a White House address where he announced his administration’s moves to counter Chinese industries, including by imposing a 100% tariff on electric car imports, Joe Biden took a number of shots at Donald Trump and his policies.“My administration is combining investments in America with tariffs that are strategic and targeted,” Biden said. “Compare that to what the prior administration did. My predecessor promised to increase American exports and boost manufacturing. But he did neither, he failed. He signed a trade deal with China. They’re supposed to buy $200bn more in American goods. Instead, China imports from America barely budged.”He also said that Trump has proposed “across-the-board tariffs on all imports from all countries if re-elected”, and accused the former president of wanting to drive up prices. “He simply doesn’t get it,” Biden said.Asked later by a reporter about Trump’s comments that China has been eating America’s lunch, Biden responded, “He’s been feeding them a long time.” More