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      Democrats warn of ‘dangerous precedent’ set by Trump ruling; Republican House speaker calls decision ‘common sense’ – as it happened

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      Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House minority leader, has warned that the supreme court’s immunity decision “sets a dangerous precedent for the future of our nation”.
      No one, including the twice-impeached former president, should be above the law. The constitution is sacredly obligatory upon all. That’s what makes America special.
      The supreme court ruled on Monday that former presidents are entitled to some degree of immunity from criminal prosecution, a major victory for Donald Trump that guts the 2020 election subversion case against him and any prospect of a trial before November.Here’s a recap of what happened today:
      In a 6-3 decision, the court found that presidents were protected from prosecution for official actions that extended to the “outer perimeter” of his office, but could face charges for unofficial conduct.
      Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, said a former president is entitled to “absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority”.
      Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in a dissenting opinion, warned that a consequence of the ruling is that “the President is now a king above the law”. The decision “makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of government, that no man is above the law”, she added.
      Trump celebrated the ruling as a “big win for our constitution and democracy” – a view echoed by the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, and many Republicans.
      But Democratic leaders expressed outrage over a ruling that legal experts warn could undermine the foundations of US democracy. “This is a sad day for America and a sad day for our democracy,” said Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader. New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the decision was “an assault on American democracy”, while Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, warned that the supreme court’s immunity decision “sets a dangerous precedent for the future of our nation”.
      Trump’s longtime rightwing ally Steve Bannon turned himself in to start a prison term. Bannon arrived at a federal prison in Connecticut to serve a four-month sentence for defying multiple subpoenas surrounding the House’s January 6 insurrection investigation.
      The supreme court’s decision to confer broad immunity to former presidents is likely to eviscerate numerous parts of the criminal prosecution against Donald Trump over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.The court remanded the case back to the presiding US district judge, Tanya Chutkan, to apply a three-part test to decide which actions were protected – but Chief Justice John Roberts pre-emptively made clear that some were definitively out.On some of the closer calls, Roberts also gave suggestions on behalf of the majority conservative opinion, which could bear on Chutkan when she eventually weighs each allegation line by line and decides whether it can be introduced in any future trial.Most crucially for special counsel Jack Smith, his prosecutors will not be able to introduce as evidence any acts deemed to be official and struck from the case, even as contextual information for jurors to show Trump’s intent.Trump is accused of overseeing a sprawling effort to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election, including two counts of conspiring to obstruct the certification of the election results, conspiring to defraud the government and conspiring to disenfranchise voters.The alleged illegal conduct came in five categories: Trump pressuring US justice department officials to open sham investigations into election fraud, Trump pressing his vice-president to return him to the White House, Trump trying to obstruct Congress from certifying the election, Trump giving a speech that led rioters to storm the US Capitol building, and Trump’s plot to recruit fake electors .Roberts undercut at least three of the five alleged categories in the opinion.Mary Trump, Donald Trump’s niece, was also inspired by Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion in today’s immunity ruling.“With fear for our democracy, I dissent,” Mary Trump posted to X, quoting Sotomayor, accompanied by a link selling T-shirts inspired by the justice’s dissent.The supreme court has wrapped up its 2023-2024 term, issuing a string of blockbuster decisions with enormous implications for American democracy, individual and civil rights, and the basic functioning of the federal government.Once again, the conservative supermajority, with half its justices appointed by Donald Trump, was in the driver’s seat – strengthening the power of the presidency in its immunity ruling for Trump, and overturning precedent in a dramatic blow to the administrative state.There were crumbs of comfort for liberals, including a gun rights ruling related to domestic violence and a unanimous decision upholding access to a key abortion pill, but what the US public increasingly sees as an activist court majority continues in full swing.Read our full report on the supreme court’s biggest cases this term.Hillary Clinton, responding to the supreme court’s immunity ruling, said it will be up to the American people to hold Donald Trump accountable in the November election.Posting to X, Clinton said she agreed with Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissenting opinion, in which she said that she had “fear for our democracy”.Former attorney general Eric Holder was also highly critical of the supreme court ruling, warning that American democracy has been “gravely wounded” as a result.Posting to X, Holder described the decision as “absurd and dangerous”.New York congressman Jerrold Nadler, a ranking member of the House judiciary committee, has described the supreme court’s immunity decision as “revolutionary”.The ruling is “far cry from the democracy envisioned by our founding fathers”, Nadler said in a statement.
      Once again, Donald Trump’s extremist rightwing court has come to his rescue, dramatically expanding the power of the presidency and removing any fear of prosecution for criminal acts committed using official power. If elected to a second term, this decision has set the stage for an unchecked dictatorship by the former president, who has already made clear his intentions to weaponize the presidency to seek revenge on his political opponents.
      Dick Durbin, the Senate majority whip, said it was “disgraceful” that justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito “brazenly” refused to recuse themselves from the Trump immunity case.The supreme court’s decision “threatens the rule of law”, Durbin wrote in a series of posts on X responding to the ruling.In May, Alito declined to recuse himself from cases related to Donald Trump and his 2020 election defeat following reports that flags used to support the “Stop the Steal” movement had been displayed at his homes.Calls for Thomas to recuse himself from the immunity case were also ignored, after critics cited past efforts by the justice’s wife, Ginni Thomas, to reverse the 2020 presidential election in Trump’s favor.Nancy Pelosi said the supreme court has “gone rogue” with today’s immunity ruling, saying it was “violating the foundational American principle that no one is above the law”.Posting to X, the former House speaker said:
      The former president’s claim of total presidential immunity is an insult to the vision of our founders, who declared independence from a King.
      House Republicans on Monday filed a lawsuit against the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, for the audio recording of Joe Biden’s interview with a special counsel in his classified documents case, asking the courts to enforce their subpoena and reject the White House’s effort to withhold the materials from Congress, the Associated Press reports.The lawsuit filed by the House judiciary committee marks Republicans’ latest broadside against the justice department as partisan conflict over the rule of law animates the 2024 presidential campaign. The legal action comes weeks after the White House blocked Garland from releasing the audio recording to Congress by asserting executive privilege.Republicans in the House responded by voting to make Garland the third attorney general in US history to be held in contempt of Congress. But the justice department refused to take up the contempt referral, citing the agency’s “longstanding position and uniform practice” to not prosecute officials who don’t comply with subpoenas because of a president’s claim of executive privilege.The lawsuit states that House speaker Mike Johnson made a “last-ditch effort” last week to Garland to resolve the issue without taking legal action but the attorney general referred the Republicans to the White House, which rebuffed the “effort to find a solution to this impasse”.Garland has defended the justice department, saying officials have gone to extraordinary lengths to provide information to the committees about special counsel Robert Hur’s classified documents investigation, including a transcript of Biden’s interview with him.Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of late Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, said on Monday she would use a new role as chair of the US-based Human Rights Foundation (HRF) to step up her husband’s struggle against Russian president Vladimir Putin, Reuters reports.The New York-based HRF said in a statement on Monday it had appointed Navalnaya to succeed former world chess champion and Kremlin critic Garry Kasparov as chair of the non-profit rights group, which provides humanitarian aid to Ukraine and runs campaigns against authoritarian leaders around the world.Navalnaya, who is located outside Russia and had two children with Navalny, accused Putin of having her husband murdered. The Kremlin denied the allegation.Navalnaya said after her husband’s death that she wanted to continue his work and has since met world leaders and suggested sanctions she believes would hasten the end of the current political system in Russia.Navalnaya, 47, said in the HRF statement:
      As someone who has personally witnessed the threat dictatorships pose to our loved ones and the world at large, I am deeply honored to take on the role of chair of the Human Rights Foundation.
      Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden sued conservative news outlet Fox News on Monday for publishing nude photos and videos of him in a fictionalized “mock trial” show focused on his foreign business dealings, Reuters reports.Hunter Biden alleges Fox violated New York state’s so-called revenge porn law, which makes it illegal to publish intimate images of a person without their consent. He is also suing for unjust enrichment and intentional infliction of emotional distress.Fox aired The Trial of Hunter Biden: A Mock Trial for the American People on its Fox Nation streaming platform in October 2022 but later took it down under threat of a lawsuit by Biden’s attorneys.Fox News said in a statement:
      This entirely politically motivated lawsuit is devoid of merit.
      It only removed the program out of an abundance of caution, it said.Biden’s lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The series depicted a fictional trial of Hunter Biden on illegal foreign lobbying and bribery charges, crimes he has never been indicted for.Americans are digesting the monumental supreme court decision this morning that’s dominating the news. And Trump sidekick Steve Bannon has reported to a prison in Connecticut to serve a four-month term for contempt of Congress. There’s no shortage of US politics happenings, so stay tuned.Here’s where things stand:
      Some prominent Democrats in the House have blasted the US supreme court ruling that US presidents have absolute immunity from prosecution for “official” acts taken while in office. Progressive caucus chair and Washington congresswoman Pramila Jayapal called it “another horrible ruling from the MAGA Supreme Court” while New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said the decision is “an assault on American democracy”.
      And Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House minority leader, warned that the supreme court’s immunity decision “sets a dangerous precedent for the future of our nation”, adding that “the framers of the constitution … did not intend for our nation to be ruled by a king or monarch who could act with absolute impunity”.
      But Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, welcomed the immunity decision. He said it was a victory for Donald Trump “and all future presidents” and, on the principle, added that the court “clearly stated that presidents are entitled to immunity for their official acts. This decision is based on the obviously unique power and position of the presidency, and comports with the constitution and common sense.”
      Donald Trump’s longtime rightwing ally Steve Bannon turned himself in to start a prison term. Bannon arrived at a federal prison in Connecticut to serve a four-month sentence for defying multiple subpoenas surrounding the House’s January 6 insurrection investigation.
      The three liberal justices on the US supreme court, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, all dissented from the majority opinion granting US presidents immunity for “official acts” while in office. Sotomayor wrote the dissent, saying: “The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law.”
      Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social platform shortly after the court issued its decision on his immunity case, writing: “Big win for our constitution and democracy. Proud to be an American.”
      The US supreme court ruled that US presidents are entitled to “absolute immunity” from prosecution for “official acts”. The court held that a former president – in this case Donald Trump – has absolute immunity for his core constitutional powers. The decision fell along party lines, with six conservative justices ruling against three liberal ones. But the court also ruled that former presidents are not entitled to immunity from prosecution for actions taken in a private capacity. It’s now down to interpretation which acts are which.
      Pramila Jayapal, the Democratic representative for Washington, has described the supreme court’s immunity ruling as a “bad decision”.Posting on X, she wrote:
      This is another horrible ruling from the MAGA Supreme Court that strips protections for people and empowers conservative special interests. More

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      Joe Biden was a winner, once. It’s a huge risk to assume he can win again | Zoe Williams

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      I remember when people thought the free world was in peril because its self-appointed leader didn’t have a big enough vocabulary. There were also rumblings that, at 56, he was past his prime. This was George W Bush.There was detailed analysis of his favourite words (“folk”, “folksy”), the span and structure of his sentences and what grade it would put him in at school. A lot of this information was passed by word of mouth, one person in 100 being online and telling everyone else, and none of us in the UK were sure what US grades meant, but we knew it didn’t put him in one of the high ones. Did he have the intelligence of a nine-year-old? A 14-year-old?It didn’t sound good, but it also wasn’t true; there was nothing wrong with Bush’s IQ. It was just an early iteration of the rightwing manoeuvre where they pretend to be thick, to make liberals sneer at them, then turn to the voters they want, who they have assumed are stupid (well, why aren’t they rich?), and say: “Look, this is what liberals think of you.” It was bold and it broke with the conventional wisdom that leaders acted like smart people you could look up to (Ronald Reagan notwithstanding).You could lose a lot of time wondering if Donald Trump is simply rebooting this provocative stupidity play, with extra panache and some sharks, or whether he really is as unintelligent as he sounds. But it doesn’t matter, because he’s never been anything but clear about what he wants: all that matters is whether or not he wins.Ironically, that was the rationale for Joe Biden running again. His age didn’t matter, nor his qualities; even his polling numbers didn’t count. He was the only person who could beat Trump because he was the only person who had ever beaten Trump and therefore he was the only person anyone could imagine beating Trump.Win-at-all-costs logic isn’t great for politics at the best of times. It strips everyone’s enthusiasm down to the bone as they jettison what matters to them for some hand-me-down formula of what it takes to win. They lumber towards the finish, thinking: well, it must be working for some people; let’s hope there are enough of them. And, fair play, sometimes there are. There were in the US in 2000.But what we are looking at is win-at-all-costs logic spliced with “the only thing I can imagine is a thing that has already happened”, to give the elemental principle: only a winner can win. You can throw any suggestion you like into this mix – a new perspective, new blood, someone younger, someone from a different social demographic or a different wing of the party – and you will always be referred back to the people who know how to win. What do they think? Thank you for your interest, but they would prefer a winner on this occasion. Where no winner is available, perhaps you would consider a winner’s wife?Maybe it seems presumptuous to worry about US politics, particularly now, when the UK has its own show to open, and so much sooner. Does it seem too soon, too nosy, to worry about France? Can we not just mind our own business, this of all weeks? Loth as I am to learn from anything, least of all history, this pattern of a deliberately, flamboyantly coarse and stupid right wing, petrifying its opposition into a stance so defensive that the only thing it knows how to fight is itself, is eerily familiar.The creed of winning is irritating because it’s circular and unaccountable: those who preach it often don’t win and they seldom reflect on whether they might not know how to win, instead blaming the people who didn’t want victory enough. But it’s dangerous, because it’s risk averse. And watching that risk aversion play out in Biden versus Trump makes you realise it’s incredibly risky. Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist More

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      Biden’s family reportedly tell him to stay in presidential race as blame shifts to advisers

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      Joe Biden’s family have urged him stay in the race after a disastrous debate performance last week, according to reports in the US media, as senior democrats and donors have expressed exasperation at how his staff prepared him for the event.The president gathered with his family at Camp David on Sunday, where discussions were reported to include questions over his political future. It came after days of mounting pressure on Biden, after a debate in which his halting performance highlighted his vulnerabilities and invited calls from pundits, media and voters for him to step aside.During the meeting at Camp David – which included the president’s wife, children and grandchildren – Biden’s family told him he could still show Americans that he is capable of serving another four years, according to the New York Times.While his family was reportedly aware of how poorly he performed, they also continue to think he’s the best person to beat Donald Trump.The Associated Press reported that the strongest voices imploring Biden to resist pressure to drop out were his wife, Jill, and his son Hunter, who last month became the first child of a sitting president to be convicted of a felony after a jury found him guilty of lying about illegal drug use when he bought a handgun in 2018.The Camp David trip had been previously scheduled, in order to accommodate a photoshoot with Annie Leibovitz for the upcoming Democratic National Convention.The president’s relatives were also said to be critical of the way his closest advisers had prepared him for the debate.During the debate, a hoarse-sounding Biden delivered a shaky, halting performance in which he stumbled over his words on several occasions and at times was unable to finish sentences. His opponent, Donald Trump, made a series of falsehoods, including claims that he actually won the 2020 election, which Biden failed to refute.On Sunday, a narrative blaming the rigorous debate prep calendar which saw Biden sequestered at Camp David for six days, began to build.View image in fullscreen“It is my belief that he was over-coached, over-practiced,” said John Morgan, a Florida-based attorney and major Biden fundraiser.Critics of Biden’s performance also said that the preparation should have focused on the bigger vision he needs to sell to the country.“My only request was make sure he’s rested before the debate, but he was exhausted. He was unwell,” one person who said they appealed to Biden’s top aides in the days before, told the Reuters news agency. “What a bad decision to send him out looking sick and exhausted.”The drumbeat of calls for Biden to step have grown louder since a post-debate CBS poll showed a 10-point jump in the number of Democrats who believe Biden should not be running for president, to 46% from 36% in February.Biden’s approval rating has been weakening since he took office and concerns about his age and handling of crises both at home and abroad after Thursday are under more scrutiny than ever.On Sunday, prominent Democrats blanketed the talkshows, conceding that the president’s performance had been subpar, but continued to throw their support behind him.House of Representatives Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries, acknowledged that Biden had suffered a setback, but said this was “nothing more than a setup for a comeback.”Senator Raphael Warnock, a Georgia democrat and Baptist minister, said there had been “more than a few Sundays when I wish I had preached a better sermon,” relating the experience to Biden’s debate performance.“But after the sermon was over it was my job to embody the message, to show up for the people that I serve. And that’s what Joe Biden has been doing his entire life,” Warnock said.Not all Democrats appeared to be in agreement however. Asked on Sunday whether the party was discussing a new 2024 candidate, Maryland congressman Jamie Raskin told MSNBC: “There are very honest and serious and rigorous conversations taking place at every level of our party, because it is a political party and we have differences in point of view.”“Whether he’s the candidate or someone else is the candidate, he’s going to be the keynote speaker at our convention. He will be the figure that we rally around to move forward,” Raskin said.Reuters and the Associated Press contributed to this report More

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      The Guardian view on Joe Biden: Democrats must seize the wheel, not drift to disaster | Editorial

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      The Democrats have no good options. The question now is which is the least dangerous of the bad ones. Democratic voters did not want Joe Biden to run again. Almost 70% judged him too old to serve another term as president when polled last year. Privately, many senior Democrats and donors shared their qualms. But with Mr Biden determined to stand, the consensus was to rally round. Now, after last Thursday’s catastrophic debate, the party is panicking. Only four months from the election, there is frenzied discussion of potential replacements.That would almost certainly require Mr Biden’s agreement. His wife, Jill, seen as key to his decision, seems to be urging him on. He is said to believe that only he is capable of beating Mr Trump again. Few agree. The lack of a formal mechanism to remove him does not preclude the effects of political gravity. Slumping polls, drying up funds and private, or even public, demands for his departure from senior Democratic figures could yet change his mind. A growing chorus of previously supportive media figures is urging him to quit.Mr Biden has achieved far more than even many sympathisers expected, despite merited internal criticism over his handling of Israel’s war in Gaza, and immigration. It is true that he has not received sufficient credit. It is also true that his debate performance was far worse than even pessimists had anticipated. It went beyond fumbling words, looking frail and sounding feeble. On abortion rights, his answer was incomprehensible. No confident rally appearances will erase this disaster.Though Mr Trump’s own rally addresses have been increasingly rambling, incoherent and vengeful, he was – by his standards – disciplined in delivery on Thursday. But what he delivered was a stream of lies. His first term, culminating in his attempt to overturn the will of the people in the 2020 election and his supporters’ storming of the Capitol, was profoundly damaging to the US. Far from any hint of repentance, his own words show that a second term would be far more destructive, and this time he has a cohesive and determined team to effect his plans. His rhetoric has become increasingly fascistic. The world is demonstrably less safe than before his tenure: look to North Korea, Iran, or any one of its emboldened autocrats from Vladimir Putin onwards. He would pull out of the Paris climate accord again. None of this lowers the bar for the Democratic candidate. It raises it, because it is essential that Mr Trump is defeated.Replacing Mr Biden at this late stage would be risky. There is no obvious candidate for a coronation, even if contenders could be persuaded to put personal ambition and political differences aside. Kamala Harris, the vice-president, has similarly dismal poll ratings. Though August’s convention would offer a stage for contenders, the party would be going to the nation with a relatively unknown and largely untested candidate.Yet Mr Biden is known and disliked. He was tested again on Thursday, and failed. He saved his country by standing in 2020. But the debate has forced many to conclude that the best way for him to save it in 2024 is to stand aside. Those closest to him must advise not in his interests, but the country’s. The Democrats are caught between Scylla and Charybdis. Whatever their choice, they must grasp the wheel before it is too late. If the vessel founders, it is not merely the party that is in danger, but American democracy itself. More

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      Biden meets with his family amid pressures to step down after debate

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      Joe Biden was meeting with his family on Sunday, a discussion believed to include talk about his political future even though it was already scheduled to take place before his calamitous presidential debate on Thursday with Donald Trump.The meeting at Camp David came as pressures mounted on Biden following the vast fallout of the debate, in which his halting performance highlighted his vulnerabilities in a close election and invited calls from pundits, media and voters for him to step aside.Insiders told NBC News that it would ultimately be the president and first lady Jill Biden making any pivotal decisions about his candidacy for a second term of office, although the couple’s children and grandchildren were present at the weekend retreat.“Any discussion about the campaign is expected to be informal or an afterthought,” a source told the network, seeking to dampen speculation over the purpose of the gathering.Similarly, an administration official also sought to dismiss reports that the Biden family summit was set to discuss him potentially standing down.“The premise of the [NBC] story is not accurate,” the official told a media huddle at New Jersey’s McGuire air force base.The Camp David meeting, he said, “was public in our guidance before the debate. It’s been on the schedule for weeks. There is nothing more to it.”The official, however, did not deny the subject would come up. NBC, meanwhile, reported that Biden’s mood in private was “humiliated” and “devoid of confidence” following the debate, and that he was leaning heavily on his family for support.So far, at rallies and events following the Thursday debate, the Bidens have shown no sign of changing course, painting the debate as a one-off bad day and doubling down on 2020 election success against Trump.“I don’t walk as easily as I used to, I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to, I don’t debate as well as I used to,” Biden said at a more energetic North Carolina rally on Friday, addressing the widespread criticism of his Thursday performance. “But I know what I do know. I know how to tell the truth.” He highlighted Trump’s long litany of lies and misinformation during the debate.His campaign has similarly brushed off criticism of Biden’s debate performance as a media frenzy.“It’s a familiar story: Following Thursday night’s debate, the beltway class is counting Joe Biden out,” Jen O’Malley Dillon, chair of the Biden campaign, said in a memo. “The data in the battleground states, though, tells a different story.”The Associated Press reported a fraught call among Democratic National Committee members and his campaign staff.“I was hoping for more of a substantive conversation instead of, ‘Hey, let’s go out there and just be cheerleaders,’ without actually addressing a very serious issue that unfolded on American television for millions of people to see,” said Joe Salazar, an elected DNC member from Colorado, who was on the call.“There were a number of things that could have been said in addressing the situation. But we didn’t get that. We were being gaslit.”While some Democratic lawmakers have privately expressed concerns and hope Biden will drop out of the race during the convention, they have largely remained steadfast in public support for Biden’s campaign.A number of senior party allies spread across Sunday’s political talk shows to defend him, including former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, Congressman Jim Clyburn, and New York governor Kathy Hochul.“You can have a rough night, you can have a bad night, but the morning after defines you. And what I saw less than 24 hours after the performance the night before was Joe Biden himself at his best, energetic, fully alert,” Hochul told MSNBC’s The Weekend, referring to Friday’s North Carolina rally.Pelosi, also speaking on MSNBC, turned her criticism on Trump, while conceding that “it was not a good night” for Biden.“How can you have a legitimate debate when somebody is totally lying? You have to completely dispel their falsehoods,” she said.“Why do we talk all about Joe Biden? [Trump] is old, he doesn’t have a stream of thought that is logical, and nobody says anything about that. You saw on one side of the screen integrity, concern for people. On the other side, you saw dishonesty and self-serving lies.”In other events over the weekend, Vice-President Kamala Harris also sought to reiterate support for Biden, and nix rumors that she would be seeking to replace him.“In the Oval Office, negotiating bipartisan deals, I see him in the situation room keeping our country safe,” she said during a speech in Las Vegas on Friday. And at a fundraiser in California on Saturday she sought to assuage donors, who have reportedly been shaky in their support of the president since Thursday.“Because we’ve been in this fight before, I say with full confidence, we will win,” Harris said. “We will know what we stand for, so we know what to fight for.”And Biden himself appealed to his donors this weekend in an array of events in New York and New Jersey. “I promise you we’re going to win this election,” he said.Meanwhile, in flash polls conducted after the debate on Thursday voters have continued to show low confidence in the president and his future. Biden’s approval rating has been weakening since he took office and concerns about his age and handling of crises both at home and abroad after Thursday are under more scrutiny than ever.The path forward for Democrats is riddled with uncertainty. None of Biden’s possible replacements have proven to have more support than the president himself, and the threat of a Trump presidency and its impact on key issues of domestic and foreign policy leaves little room for error.Sunday’s internal meeting comes on the back of calls with Biden’s senior leadership team. But the conversation he has with Jill Biden and his children and grandchildren could hold more insight on the future of this election year. More

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      Most voters want Biden to step down, but don’t agree on suitable alternative – poll

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      A majority of voters want Joe Biden to stand down following his dismal debate performance, yet aren’t convinced there is a suitable alternative Democratic candidate, new polls have found.In a Morning Consult poll, 60% of respondents, Republicans and Democrats, said the president should be replaced by his party for November’s election, while another 11% were unsure.But the same poll also found that Biden’s popularity, initially at least, appeared to be unaffected by his stumbles and gaffes during Thursday night’s debate with Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump.He retained a one-point advantage, 45-44% over Trump, the same margin as Morning Consult found the day after the former president was convicted in May on 34 charges of falsifying business records to try to influence the 2016 election.Another apparent glimmer of hope for the incumbent came in a separate Data for Progress post-debate poll that found no indication any other Democrat would perform better against Trump in November.While Biden trails Trump 48-45 among respondents, all other leading Democratic figures would perform the same or worse in a head-to-head match-up. Prominent names that voters were asked about included vice-president Kamala Harris (45-48), transport secretary Pere Buttigieg (44-47), California governor Gavin Newsom (44-47) and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer (44-46).A YouGov poll, meanwhile, found respondents overwhelmingly thought Trump won the debate, and that 30% of Democrats believed somebody other than Biden would give the party the best chance of winning in November.The figure rises to 49% among all US voters, including Republicans and independents. Conversely, only 13% of Republicans believe their party’s best chance of victory would come by nominating somebody other than Trump.One of the most devastating polls for Biden, however, was a Democracy Corps survey of Democratic-leaning voters, who used words such as “confused”, “frail”, and “dementia” to describe the president’s debate performance, Politico reported.Voters were surveyed before and after the debate. While 65% said they would vote for Biden before the debate, only 54% said he won the debate once it ended, according to the survey.Harris, 59, is the obvious choice to replace Biden, if he stands down, and has been the subject of increasing speculation in the days since the debate.But Biden allies have insisted the president is standing firm and will contest and win the election, despite anguished calls from senior party officials and media heavyweights, including the New York Times, for him to step aside.According to the Data for Progress poll, most voters consider Biden, who will be 82 at the start of a second term, too old to run again. 53% said they were concerned about his age, and physical and mental health, while 42% said they were more concerned by Trump’s criminal conviction, other upcoming trials and threats to democracy.A CBS poll released Sunday, recorded in the two days following the debate, appears to echo the findings of the other surveys. It found 72% of registered voters did not believe Biden possessed the mental or cognitive health necessary to be able to fulfil the obligations of office, up from 65% at the beginning of the month.A breakdown of the Morning Consult poll, meanwhile, shows that almost half of Democrats, 47%, want Biden out of the race, compared to 59% of independents, and 74% of Republicans. The figure among Democrats rises to 50% when limited to those who actually watched the debate.That poll also suggests there is no clear replacement for Biden. Harris leads the field, but with only 30% support of Democratic voters, with Newsom the only other potential candidate in double figures, at 20%.Others listed include Buttigieg at 9% and Whitmer at 5%, with a string of other Democratic state governors, Andy Beshear, Roy Cooper, JB Pritzker and Wes Moore at 3% or below.Since the debate, Newsom has forcefully defended Biden and insisted he will not challenge the president. Harris has also expressed confidence in Biden, stating after the debate that the November presidential election “will not be decided by one night in June”. More

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      Black swing voters in Georgia aren’t swayed by the ‘Trump okey-doke’ – and then there’s Biden

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      Inside a barbershop in Atlanta’s affluent Buckhead neighborhood, eight Black men gathered to talk politics on the day before the presidential debate. Most were business owners around town, social media stars and notable conservatives.All but one.Mark Boyd, whose personal politics might best be described as insubordinate, somehow found himself next to two Republican representatives taking a phone call from Donald Trump.“When I came in and saw the doggone sign ‘Blacks for Trump’ or whatever, I’m like: ‘Well, that’s the okey-doke. But I’m going to get their ass,” Boyd said.In the race between Herschel Walker and the Rev Raphael Warnock for a Georgia senate seat two years ago, Boyd cast a blank ballot. He expects to do the same thing in the presidential race this year.The former presidentcalled in to the barbershop the day before the debate, talking about ending taxes on tips and rolling back regulations. Boyd got to ask him a question.“In the Black community, it’s been made a big deal about how you have been kind of railroaded here, as far as your court cases go,” Boyd asked Trump. “If you can acknowledge that you’re getting support from Black people because of this, then we can kind of acknowledge that we have been getting railroaded. So, my question is … what can we do about those Fani Willises and Alvin Braggs that are right now sending some poor Black person to jail for a crime?”It’s an interesting, nuanced question – better, perhaps, than many of the questions put to Trump by debate moderators a day later. Does Trump’s legal ordeal change the way he looks at how the criminal justice system treats common Black defendants?Trump dodged the question. “It’s weaponization, and it comes out of the White House,” Trump said, “even when it’s city and state, it comes out of the White House in order to attack a political opponent. But since that happened, the Black support I think, my representatives will tell you this, the Black support has gone through the roof. And I guess they equated to problems that they’ve had.”He then went on to talk about how his mugshot was more popular than Frank Sinatra’s or Elvis Presley’s.‘If these were white girls, it would be different’Boyd, a Marine Corps veteran who built airplanes for Lockheed, is a second amendment partisan who rejects any candidate advocating for gun control. But he’s also deeply concerned about racial justice, and can’t make common cause with politicians who aren’t. Boyd founded Helping Empower Youth to address a cultural phenomenon in Atlanta and one of the city’s most contentious problems: Black teens risking their safety by hawking water on street corners and at events. His question to Trump goes to the heart of his work, he said.“He pulled that Trump okey-doke on me,” Boyd said. “I learned about the Trump okey-doke firsthand.”Boyd’s work with kids focuses on training, professionalism and ultimately harnessing their entrepreneurial energy into a legitimate business. It’s a fundamentally conservative answer to a Black social problem, and one that conservatives would do well to listen to, Boyd said. “They’re always telling us we need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps,” Boyd said. “I believe in that basic idea of capitalism.”The sight of Black boys risking conflict on the street, arrest or their very bodies just to make a buck has caused Atlanta’s predominantly liberal, Black political class to call the city’s moral and economic priorities into question. But conservatives – particularly white conservatives – have been unwilling to acknowledge that race and gender are central to the problems of Black empowerment, Boyd said. Young Black men don’t tend to have equal access to opportunity, and those with arrest records are nigh unemployable in traditional jobs.“If these were little blue-eyed blond white girls with lemonade stands, it would be seen as something totally different,” Boyd said.Even as Boyd was talking through this in the barbershop, two teenagers in 100-degree heat were selling water to drivers across the street. One of the cops working the event wandered over to shoo them away. The kids weren’t happy.They were expecting a $150 day. On a good day, they’ll clear $400 or $500, they said. “I would rather not have to ask my momma for nothing. I’d rather give her money,” one 17-year-old said. He’s been locked up a couple of times in the process of selling water, but there are no better options, he said: “I’ll make more money out here than a real job.”#BlackJob goes viralDebate moderator Dana Bash asked Joe Biden and Trump about their approach to Black economic issues during the debate Thursday.The president said he doesn’t blame Black voters for being disappointed, noting the effects of inflation. But he cited low unemployment figures for Black workers and a reduction in costs for childcare, and he touched on a topic that has been roiling Atlanta and other cities: the encroachment of corporate landlords on single-family neighborhoods and increasing consolidation in the housing market. “The fact of the matter is more small Black businesses have been started in any time in history,” Biden answered.Despite what even Biden has acknowledged was a poor debate performance, Trump’s response struck a chord with Black voters for all the wrong reasons.“As sure as you’re sitting there, the fact is that his big kill on the Black people is the millions of people that he’s allowed to come in through the border,” Trump said. “They’re taking Black jobs now and it could be 18, it could be 19 and even 20 million people. They’re taking Black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs and you haven’t seen it yet, but you’re going to see something that’s going to be the worst in our history.”The term #BlackJob began to go viral on Twitter even before the debate ended, as incredulous watchers derided the idea of a racially coded job and considered what Trump must think of Black workers if they can easily be replaced by an undocumented laborer.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The ‘Black job’ has actually not been defined in America, which is why DEI initiatives which are now being rolled back were put into place to begin with,” said Bem Joiner, an Atlanta cultural critic and creative consultant who expected the debate to generate memes. “#BlackJobs is the cultural moment that came from the debate.”Losing GeorgiaMuch has been made of the purported gains Trump has made with Black voters in polls. Those polls are questionable: a collapse in response rates has been coupled with tiny sample sizes and statistically illiterate reporting to present the impression of a meaningful shift.But small gains will matter in a state like Georgia, where about 30% of the electorate is Black. Black men have long been more likely to vote for Republican candidates than Black women are. They are also far less likely to vote, noted Stephanie Jackson Ali, policy director for the New Georgia Project.In Georgia, 584,228 Black men who are currently registered voted in the 2020 presidential election, Ali said. For Black women, the figure is 931,232. Nationally, Biden overall won 48% of men and 55% of women, according to data from the Pew Research Center. Biden won 87% of Black men and 95% of Black women.Conservatives tend to overperform that mark a bit in Georgia, because the Black electorate here is somewhat more conservative than it is nationwide. But all else being equal, if Trump were to win one in five Black men in Georgia instead of one in six – even if figures for Black women remained in the same low single digits of support – that would represent a gain of about 25,000 votes, more than twice the margin of his 2020 defeat.Losing Georgia because Black voters underperform is a nightmare scenario for progressives here. The New Georgia Project’s political action committee hosted a debate watch party Thursday at the Prime Cigar bar on Peachtree Street in Atlanta as part of a campaign of deliberate outreach to Black men. The room filled with smoke, political candidates and party officials, mostly Democrats, mostly there to cheer for tBiden.Then Biden began to speak, and bit by bit people started to pay less attention to the giant screen above the bar and more to what they were drinking.“I don’t think [Trump] did anything special. He kind of showed up,” said Domonic Brown, a progressive voter who watched the debate at the bar. “Joe Biden, in my opinion, made it easier for him. … I think that’s one of the scarier things about Joe Biden or Donald Trump as our only options. I definitely see why the Democratic party is in kind of disarray right now. But it’s kind of like, how could you guys just not see this coming?”Javarius Gay is the swing voter both Biden and Trump wanted to reach Thursday night. Gay owns Prime Cigar and several other bars in town – a Black business owner in a city that presents itself as a land of opportunity for Black entrepreneurs.Since the night of the debate, Rocky Jones, owner of Rocky’s Barbershop where Trump called in, says he was misled into hosting the event, which he thought would be a forum for Black businesses.“I thought it was going to be something real private,” Jones said to the local news station 11Alive. “I’m thinking about Black businesses in Atlanta, small Black businesses in Atlanta. And I’m like: ‘OK, so when are we gonna start talking about this?’”Jones has seen backlash from angry members of the community, and customers to his shop have dwindled. But he hopes the controversy will pass, emphasizing that the barbershop is not a place for politics.“I have no involvement in politics. We don’t even talk politics in my barbershop. It’s all sports. The World Cup, soccer, baseball, basketball – politics is not what I do. I commend everybody to vote, but that’s your business. You know, I don’t tell you what to do,” Jones added.Though Gay’s cigar bar hosted a debate watch party for a progressive political action committee that night, Gay himself was undecided.“I’m open. I didn’t have my mind already made up,” he said a few minutes after the debate ended. Gay generally votes for Democrats. But after the debate, he’s still thinking about it. Gay was looking for substance on issues close to his interests: support for Black businesses, small business in general and homelessness.“I was looking for Biden to be more natural with his arguments and his key points. He was all over the place a few times,” Gay said. “I don’t feel like his team prepared enough to fully win this debate. I honestly think he should have waited, should have never taken the stage, and come back later.” More

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      Should Democrats stay the course or replace Biden? | Robert Reich

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      If anyone were to doubt the menace of Donald Trump, they had only to watch his performance in Thursday night’s debate.His bullying lies were not just lies – they were frightening opposites of the truth, uttered with the vigor and certainty of someone who has now mastered the dark art of demagoguery.Joe Biden had good and often detailed answers to the questions put to him, but the debate was never going to be about the president’s answers. It was always going to be about his age.Sadly, Biden’s stiff, halting, withered delivery, coupled with his slack-jawed expression and frozen stare when not trying to form sentences, made him seem not just old but on the decline.In the wake of Biden’s performance, many Democrats are in a panic. Some believe it’s urgently necessary to replace Biden with another candidate.But there are many problems with trying to replace Biden at this point.For one, Biden would have to willingly give up the nomination in order to release delegates already pledged to him.I have a hard time seeing how this could happen, unless Jill Biden, along with others of his closest and most trusted advisors, and Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi and Hakeem Jeffries, all teamed up and told him he must exit the race.A second problem is the public doesn’t know any other Democrat nearly as well as they know Biden, and it would be difficult to introduce someone to the public at this late date without them being defined by Donald Trump, the Republicans and Fox News in the worst possible ways.The only people I can think of as possible nominees are Kamala Harris, Gretchen Whitmer, Josh Shapiro, Wes Moore, Gavin Newsom and (my personal favorite) Sherrod Brown.Out of all of them, Harris is obviously best known because she’s vice-president, but if the criterion is who can beat the former president, it’s far from clear she’s the best choice. Yet, if it’s not Biden, a failure to nominate Harris might upset lots of Black people, women and younger voters.The Democratic national convention is only seven weeks away. An open convention, in which potential candidates duke it out, would be a chaotic mess (anyone remember 1968?), particularly in comparison to what’s expected to be Trump’s seamless and worshipful inauguration by the Republicans.There are also not-so-pesky details about money and organization. All of the money now lodged in Super PACs dedicated to Biden would have to be redirected. All of the national, state and local party machinery, advertising, and internet capacity now designed to get out the vote for Biden would have to be totally redesigned.I’m not saying it’s impossible to replace Biden at this juncture, only that it would require extraordinary deftness and collaboration on the part of the leaders of the Democratic party, who are not always known for their deftness and collaboration.I give it ten days. By then, we’ll know whether Biden will be replaced.In the meantime, you can bet that his campaign, his advisors and Jill Biden are doing whatever damage control they can – which centers on showing Biden to be vigorous, energetic and on top of his game.On Friday, at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, surrounded by cheering supporters, Biden nearly shouted:
      I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious. I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. And I know, like millions of Americans know, when you get knocked down you get back up.
      Watch the clip, if you can. In it, Biden shows the kind of energy and vitality he lacked in the debate. These are not the words or actions of a candidate contemplating an emergency exit from the race.But nor does Biden’s behavior in Raleigh explain what the hell happened in the debate. And frankly that’s what troubles me more than almost anything else.Biden is smart. He can show energy and vitality, as he did in Raleigh and at the State of the Union.But he can also reveal something else, as he did at the debate – a man who in many respects seems older than 81 years, who has trouble walking and speaking, and who, at least in those times and moments, doesn’t seem to stand much chance of being re-elected president of the United States – even when his opponent is a twice-impeached convicted felon, pathological liar and dangerous sociopath.
      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