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    Hakeem Jeffries Plans to Discuss Biden’s Candidacy With Top House Democrats

    Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, has scheduled a virtual meeting on Sunday with senior House Democrats to discuss President Biden’s candidacy and the path forward, according to a senior official familiar with the plan.The session, which is to include the ranking members of congressional committees who make up the top echelons of the party in the House, comes at a time of profound worry among Democrats on Capitol Hill about Mr. Biden’s poor performance at last week’s presidential debate. House Democrats have not met as a group since, even as concerns have mounted about Mr. Biden’s viability as a candidate and the impact he could have on his party’s ability to win back control of the chamber and hold the Senate should he remain in the race. Mr. Jeffries has been in listening mode all week, refraining from pressuring Democrats to rally around the president but also encouraging them not to be rash in their public pronouncements as Mr. Biden and his team determine the best path forward.But Democrats have begun to splinter. Four in the House — Representatives Lloyd Doggett of Texas, Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, Seth Moulton of Massachusetts and Mike Quigley of Illinois — have called for the president to withdraw, while others have made public their serious concerns about his ability to prevail in the race.On Friday, Mr. Quigley said he had had a “hard time” getting to the point of urging the president to get out of the race.But, he told MSNBC, “clearly, the alternative now is a very bleak scenario with, I would say, almost no hope of succeeding — and it doesn’t just affect the White House. It affects all of Congress and our future.”Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, has been working to organize a meeting of Democrats in his chamber to discuss their concerns about Mr. Biden’s candidacy and what should be done, according to multiple people with direct knowledge of the effort who spoke about it on the condition of anonymity. More

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    Biden Stumbles Over His Words as He Tries to Steady Re-Election Campaign

    President Biden sought to steady his re-election campaign by talking with two Black radio hosts for interviews broadcast on Thursday, but he spoke haltingly at points during one interview and struggled to find the right phrase in the other, saying that he was proud to have been “the first Black woman to serve with a Black president.”He also stumbled over his words during a four-minute Fourth of July speech to military families at the White House, beginning a story about former President Donald J. Trump, calling him “one of our colleagues, the former president” and then adding, “probably shouldn’t say, at any rate” before abruptly ending the story and moving on.Mr. Biden made the mistake on WURD radio, based in Philadelphia, as he tried to deliver a line that he has repeated before about having pride in serving as vice president for President Barack Obama. Earlier in the interview, he boasted about appointing the first Black woman to the Supreme Court and picking the first Black woman to be vice president.The president also made a mistake earlier in the interview when he asserted that he had been the first president elected statewide in Delaware. He appeared to mean that he was the first Catholic in the state to be elected statewide, going on to speak admiringly of John F. Kennedy, a Catholic.Mr. Biden and his top aides have said the president’s activities in the coming days are part of a series of campaign efforts designed to prove to voters, donors and activists that the president’s debate debacle was nothing more than what he has called “a bad night.”Ammar Moussa, a spokesman for Mr. Biden’s campaign, criticized the news media for making note of the president’s stumbles.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Biden les dijo a sus aliados que los próximos días serán cruciales para salvar su candidatura

    Los comentarios del presidente son el primer indicio de que está considerando seriamente si puede recuperarse de su actuación en el debate. La Casa Blanca dijo que el reporte era falso.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]El presidente Joe Biden les ha dicho a algunos aliados clave que sabe que los próximos días son cruciales y que entiende que quizá no pueda salvar su candidatura si no logra convencer a los votantes de que está a la altura del cargo tras su desastrosa actuación en el debate de la semana pasada.Según dos aliados que han hablado con el mandatario, Biden ha enfatizado que sigue profundamente comprometido con los esfuerzos por su reelección, pero entiende que su viabilidad como candidato está en juego.El presidente trató de proyectar confianza el miércoles en una llamada con su equipo de campaña, incluso cuando funcionarios de la Casa Blanca trataban de calmar los nervios en las filas del gobierno de Biden.“Nadie me está echando”, dijo Biden en la llamada. “No me voy”.La vicepresidenta Kamala Harris también estaba en la conversación telefónica.“No retrocederemos. Seguiremos el ejemplo de nuestro presidente”, afirmó Harris. “Lucharemos y venceremos”.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Business Leaders Call on Biden to Step Aside

    A group of business leaders is calling on President Biden to step aside and make way for a replacement atop the Democratic Party’s presidential ticket.Leadership Now Project, a coalition of 400 politically active current and retired executives who mostly but not entirely lean left, issued a statement on Wednesday urging Mr. Biden to “pass the torch of this year’s presidential nomination to the next generation of highly capable Democrats.”The statement is unsigned, but Daniella Ballou-Aares, the group’s founder and chief executive, said that it was supported by an overwhelming majority of the members of Leadership Now Project.The membership includes Jeni Britton Bauer, the founder of Jeni’s Famous Ice Cream; Thomas W. Florsheim Jr., the chief executive of the footwear maker Weyco Group; Eddie Fishman, the managing director of the investment firm D.E. Shaw & Company; John Pepper, the former chief executive of Procter & Gamble; and Paul Tagliabue, the former commissioner of the National Football League.The statement comes as major Democratic donors are increasingly concluding that the party would stand a better chance of holding the White House with a different nominee in the wake of Mr. Biden’s weak performance in last week’s presidential debate with Donald J. Trump. But most donors and big money groups on the left have refrained from going public out of concern about generating a backlash.In its statement, Leadership Now Project called the prospect of a second Trump term “an existential threat to American democracy” and said that at the debate Mr. Biden “failed to effectively make the case against Trump, and we now fear the risk of a devastating loss in November.”The statement added that “we have heard from many individuals who share our deep concerns about the present course but fear speaking out” and concluded by imploring others “to join us in making this urgent call.”In an interview, Ms. Ballou-Aares, a business executive who was a senior State Department adviser during the Obama administration, said she had been disturbed by the messaging from the White House and other Biden supporters in recent days.“This sense that this is a small group family decision is not good for democracy,” she said, calling it “really inconsistent with where people were after watching the debate.”Her group, which consists of nonprofit arms and a political action committee, has endorsed candidates from both parties, and recently hosted at its annual meeting former Representative Adam Kinzinger, an anti-Trump Republican, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a Democrat mentioned as a possible replacement for Mr. Biden. More

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    ¿Qué sigue para Trump tras el fallo de la Corte Suprema sobre la inmunidad presidencial?

    Analistas y observadores ya preveían, a grandes rasgos, la decisión que establece que los presidentes merecen protección considerable por sus actos oficiales. Trump lo proclamó como una victoria.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]Un sistema jurídico que le ha propinado golpes dolorosos a Donald Trump en los últimos seis meses le acaba de dar una de las mejores noticias que ha recibido desde que empezó su campaña.El lunes, la Corte Suprema de Estados Unidos, cuya mayoría calificada conservadora se consolidó con los magistrados nominados por Trump, le concedió al expresidente inmunidad parcial ante procedimientos judiciales ahora que intenta eludir una acusación formal del fiscal especial Jack Smith en relación con sus esfuerzos para impedir la transferencia de poder tras las elecciones de 2020.Desde hace meses, tanto analistas políticos como observadores de la corte ya esperaban, a grandes rasgos, este fallo: que los presidentes tienen derecho a una protección considerable por sus actos oficiales. Sin embargo, Trump lo proclamó como una victoria.“Este es un gran triunfo para nuestra Constitución y democracia. ¡Estoy orgulloso de ser estadounidense!”, escribió Trump en puras mayúsculas en su plataforma Truth Social.La decisión implica que es casi una certeza que un juicio sobre el caso se postergue hasta después de las elecciones de noviembre, y si Trump gana, es casi seguro que el Departamento de Justicia descarte el caso, según personas cercanas al exmandatario.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Special Counsel Is Said to Be Planning to Pursue Trump Cases Past the Election

    Jack Smith plans to continue two criminal cases against Donald J. Trump until Inauguration Day if the former president wins, according to a person familiar with his thinking.The special counsel Jack Smith plans to pursue his two criminal cases against former President Donald J. Trump through the election and even up until Inauguration Day if Mr. Trump wins the presidential race, according to a person familiar with Mr. Smith’s thinking.Mr. Smith believes that under Justice Department regulations, his mandate as special counsel and his authority to keep the cases going do not depend on a change of administration and extend until he is formally removed from his post, the person said.As a practical matter, that means that the special counsel’s office is prepared to push forward for as long as possible on the two indictments it has filed against Mr. Trump. One of those, brought in Washington, has accused the former president of plotting to subvert the 2020 election. The other, filed in Florida, has charged Mr. Trump with holding on to a trove of highly sensitive classified documents after he left office and then obstructing the government’s repeated efforts to retrieve them.Mr. Smith’s decision to keep the cases going, reported earlier by The Washington Post, comes as a landmark Supreme Court ruling on executive immunity this week has effectively postponed the election interference case until after voters go to the polls in November.At the same time, Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who is overseeing the classified documents case in Florida, has declined to set a trial date as she grapples with an ever-expanding constellation of legal issues and court hearings.A spokesman for Mr. Smith declined to comment about his plans for the two cases.It is not unusual that a special counsel like Mr. Smith would seek to continue prosecuting cases under his command even after a change of presidential administrations. The Justice Department regulations governing special counsels give prosecutors like him day-to-day independence from the attorneys general who appointed them.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Iran’s Runoff Election: What to Know

    Two candidates from opposite camps will compete for the presidency after no one garnered the number of votes needed last week to win.Two candidates, a reformist and an ultraconservative, will face off in Iran’s runoff presidential election on Friday, amid record-low voter turnout and overarching apathy that meaningful change could happen through the ballot box.The runoff election follows a special vote held after President Ebrahim Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash in May.What happened in Iran’s first-round vote?About 40 percent of voters, a record low, went to the polls last Friday, and none of the four candidates on the ballot garnered the 50 percent of votes needed to win the election.The reformist candidate, Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian, a former health minister, and Saeed Jalili, an ultra-hard-liner and former nuclear negotiator, received the most votes, sending the election into a runoff round on Friday.Dr. Pezeshkian advanced because the conservative vote was split between two candidates, with one receiving fewer than 1 percent.The runoff may have a slightly larger turnout. Some Iranians said on social media that they feared Mr. Jalili’s hard-line policies and would vote for Dr. Pezeshkian. Polls show that about half of the votes for Mr. Jalili’s conservative rival in the first round, Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, have been redirected to Dr. Pezeshkian.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Biden Says He ‘Fell Asleep on the Stage’ During Debate With Trump

    President Biden acknowledged on Tuesday that he “fell asleep on the stage” during his disastrous debate last week, blaming his performance on the fact that he had traveled “around the world a couple times” in the two weeks before the face-off with former President Donald J. Trump.“I wasn’t very smart,” Mr. Biden, 81, told donors at a fund-raiser in Virginia. “I decided to travel around the world a couple times, I don’t know how many time zones.”“It’s not an excuse but an explanation,” he said.White House officials have blamed Mr. Biden’s having a cold at the time for his disjointed debate performance. Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, repeated that explanation at a briefing for reporters on Tuesday afternoon.But Mr. Biden offered a different reason to the donors on Tuesday night. He referred to his decision to travel to France for several days two weeks before the debate and return to the United States before heading back to Europe for the Group of 7 summit in Italy.He decided to make that cross-Atlantic trip back and forth, Mr. Biden said, blaming himself for not having “listened to my staff,” which he implied had told him not to do that. He said the decision caused him to be tired during the debate.Mr. Biden’s comments came as the White House struggled to respond to a chorus of anxiety within the Democratic Party about whether the president is capable of mounting a winning campaign against Mr. Trump in November.For more than a year, Mr. Biden and his aides have repeatedly denied that the president’s age has affected his ability to perform his duties. They have repeatedly criticized journalists who raised the issue that large majorities of voters say they believe Mr. Biden is too old to be president.But the debate, which was watched by about 51 million people, raised serious doubts among voters and many Democratic activists. Lawmakers in the party also expressed concerns, with Representative Lloyd Doggett of Texas on Tuesday becoming the first Democrat in Congress to call on Mr. Biden to drop out of the race.The president and his campaign have refused to even consider doing that. They say Mr. Biden remains determined to stay in the race and to defeat Mr. Trump, who he says is a threat to democracy in America. More