US elections 2024

Subterms

    More stories

    • 100 Shares139 Views

      in US Politics

      Anti-Trump Republican Adam Kinzinger endorses Biden for president

      by

      The former Republican representative Adam Kinzinger has endorsed Joe Biden for president, as the Biden campaign attempts to win over anti-Trump voters ahead of the 2024 presidential election.In a video released on Wednesday, Kinzinger said he was a “proud conservative” who had put “democracy and our constitution above all else.“And it’s because of my unwavering support for democracy that today, as a proud conservative, I’m endorsing Joe Biden for re-election,” Kinzinger said.Kinzinger warned that former president Donald Trump poses a “direct threat to every fundamental American value.“He doesn’t care about our country. He doesn’t care about you. He only cares about himself,” Kinzinger added.Biden acknowledged Kinzinger’s endorsement in a reply on X.“This is what putting your country before your party looks like. I’m grateful for your endorsement, Adam,” Biden said.Kinzinger’s announcement has received predictable flak from far-right Republicans.In a reply to the endorsement, Representative Majorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said: “Oh look, Kinzinger finally came out of the closet. As usual, we knew all along, so not a surprise and none of us care.”Kinzinger has remained one of the most staunch Republican critics of Trump.Following the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, Kinzinger publicly denounced Trump for inciting “an angry mob” with false claims of stolen election results. Kinzinger was also among 10 Republicans who voted to impeach Trump.Later, Kinzinger and Republican representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming were the only two Republicans who joined a committee to investigate the Capitol insurrection.Kinzinger later announced he would not seek re-election in 2021 after facing a potential primary challenge from a pro-Trump candidate due to changes in district mapping.In a February interview with the Guardian, the former congressman warned that a second Trump term would be “devastating for the world order”.“The best-case scenario is a completely inept, ineffective government,” Kinzinger said.“The worst-case scenario is look, in his four-year term, he did not understand what he was doing. He was just trying to survive and he actually listened to people around him until the end. Now he’s going to put people around him that share his views, that will only reaffirm his views and, frankly, some of these people are pretty smart and they know how to work around the constitution or around the law to bring these authoritarian measures in.”Kinzinger’s announcement comes weeks after the Biden-Harris campaign announced that Kinzinger’s former chief of staff Austin Weatherford would be running the Biden campaign’s outreach to Republican voters. More

    • 163 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      The Aipac-funded candidate defeated Jamaal Bowman. But at what cost? | Ben Davis

      by

      The Democratic primary in the congressional race in New York’s 16th congressional district between the incumbent congressman Jamaal Bowman and the Westchester county executive, George Latimer, was a victory for Latimer, and one of the first successful primaries by the right wing of the Democratic party against the left. The contest was by far the most expensive congressional primary in history, and came to be viewed as a battle for the soul of the Democratic party, and specifically a fight around the Israel-Palestine issue, with Latimer and his advocates in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee spending over $20m to elect him, and to rebuke Bowman’s criticism of Israel and support for a ceasefire.Bowman’s defeat represents a victory for Aipac and a defeat for the progressive and pro-Palestine movements. But it is a pyrrhic victory. The first election overtly fought on the Israel-Palestine conflict has resulted in a victory for pro-Israel forces, and the movement for Palestinian rights has been dealt a severe blow at the ballot box. Elected officials will be far less willing to take a stand in the near term. But the result of this election masks a considerable shift in the balance of power within American politics away from unconditional support for Israel as an unquestioned political consensus.Sometimes, a major electoral victory is a sign of a movement in retreat and a crumbling consensus. Take California’s gay marriage ban in 2008, at the time seen as a major defeat for gay rights advocates. But the victory of Prop 8 hid the underlying shift: the very fact that gay rights, unthinkable even a few years prior, was a polarized electoral issue showed that anti-gay rights forces were losing in the long term. The same is true here and now, about Israel and Palestine.The fundamentals of this race were poor for the left. New York’s suburban 16th congressional district would never be a progressive target in a vacuum, containing some of the nation’s wealthiest communities. Redistricting cleaved many of the working-class communities of color that powered Bowman’s 2020 primary win, and even that was in large part due to incumbent Eliot Engel’s chronic absenteeism from the district. Beyond that, Bowman had several compounding low-level mistakes and scandals that could easily be hammered home to voters, like pulling the fire alarm at the Capitol or his controversial hip-hop lyrics. Beyond that, Latimer is a popular politician who has represented most of the district’s voters for years. Add in more money than any group has ever spent on a congressional primary by an enormous margin, and you have the conditions for a win. But the fact that this win, and this amount of spending, was even necessary should give advocates of Israel serious pause. The election represents Aipac’s attempt to rebuild a dam that has already broken. The water is out.The linchpin of their strategy for decades was to make support for Israel a third rail. By successfully building up universal support for Israel beyond the divides of partisan politics, Aipac and Israel’s other supporters in the US were able to successfully create a political culture with hard boundaries on the limits of acceptable speech. In the halls of Congress, discourse around Israel fell within these limits, represented by liberal groups like J Street, where a degree of sympathy for Palestinian people and criticism of rightwing figures of the Israeli state were acceptable for progressive Democrats, but questioning the basic logic undergirding the status quo was outside the bounds of permissible speech, and met with moral opprobrium.This universal consensus undergirded Aipac’s strategy in the US for decades. That is no longer the case. Before 2018, zero members of Congress could plausibly be considered actively pro-Palestine, and that didn’t seem like it would change. But the dam burst, and starting with the elections of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and, in particular, Rashida Tlaib, there were for the first time critics of Israel that brought a perspective outside of the established consensus, and to the left of J Street. While once a fringe position, support for Palestine and criticism of Israel is now mainstream among the American public. It will continue to exist in Congress, no matter how much money is spent. There are now millions of Americans who have heard this perspective and agree with it. The era of complete Aipac consensus is over for good.While Aipac and their allies, or any political group with $20m to spend on a single congressional primary, can eliminate nearly any adversary, this is not a sustainable strategy. While this level of financial power may deter many politicians from challenging them in the near future, Israel is now a polarizing, partisan issue. The collapse of previous bipartisan consensus and discursive limits is a catastrophe for Israel’s position in the US in the long term. Aipac did not spend directly on elections until 2021. They didn’t need to. Transitioning from an untouchable position to a fiercely polarized one that necessitates massive, unprecedented spending should be a cause for concern for Aipac. Israel and Palestine are now, for the first time, a live issue in American politics.Make no mistake, Latimer’s win is big for Aipac and the conservative wing of the Democratic party and harmful for efforts at a ceasefire in Gaza. But the very fact that Aipac has to spend $100m on Democratic primaries in a vain attempt to silence their critics is a sea change from the last few decades of American politics. Most of their hitlist is still around. This win was, ultimately, a successful rearguard action for the Israel lobby. Having prominent advocates for Palestine and pro-Palestine speech move toward public acceptability in the US is a crisis for Israel, which is why their partisans are spending so much money to stop it. There will be many more battles to come.
      Ben Davis works in political data in Washington DC More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Will you shut up, man?’: memorable moments from Biden’s past debates

      by

      According to Donald Trump, Joe Biden is either a very accomplished or utterly incompetent debater.When details of the presidential debate, which takes place in Atlanta on Thursday, were announced last month, Trump mocked Biden as “the WORST debater I have ever faced”, adding: “He can’t put two sentences together.” And yet, while speaking to the All-In podcast last week, Trump commended Biden’s showing in the 2012 vice-presidential debate.“He destroyed Paul Ryan,” Trump said. “So I’m not underestimating him.”The flip-flop could be Trump’s belated effort to temper expectations of how he will perform against an incumbent president with extensive debating experience. With four presidential campaigns and two terms as vice-president on his résumé, Biden is no stranger to the debate stage, and he has shown a sharp ability to deliver pointed attacks on his opponents.But as a sitting president who has reckoned with historically high inflation and multiple wars abroad since he took office, Biden goes into his next debate with a unique set of challenges that he must overcome to sell voters on re-electing him. Although Biden, 81, is only a few years older than Trump, 78, voters have expressed more concern about the president’s age than his opponent’s, and he will be looking to address those fears at the debate.These five memorable moments from Biden’s past debate performances offer some insight into the president’s strengths – and vulnerabilities:A lasting dig at GiulianiIn 2024, Biden is the president of the United States while Rudy Giuliani is Trump’s disgraced former lawyer. But in 2007, both men were presidential candidates. As the former mayor of New York who led the city through the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, Giuliani was widely viewed as a frontrunner in the 2008 Republican primary race.During a Democratic primary debate, Biden mocked Giuliani as “the most under-qualified man since George Bush to seek the presidency”, arguing he was incapable of making a coherent pitch for his candidacy.“There’s only three things he mentions in a sentence: a noun and a verb and 9/11. There’s nothing else,” Biden said.The debate audience greeted the quip with laughter and applause, and the remark became one of the most enduring criticisms of Giuliani, whose presidential campaign eventually failed in spectacular fashion, giving way to an even more disgraceful downfall. Biden will be looking to deliver similarly memorable attack lines against Trump on Thursday.A sorrowful moment during the Sarah Palin debateBefore the 2008 vice-presidential debate, Sarah Palin had already made headlines for her disastrous interview with Katie Couric and Tina Fey’s devastating impersonation of the self-proclaimed “hockey mom” from Alaska.Biden’s debate strategy rested on amplifying his credentials without descending into condescension against Palin, who invoked the importance of “Joe Six-pack” Americans in an apparent effort to paint her opponent as out of touch. Biden confronted the criticism head-on by referencing his family background and the death of his first wife and daughter in a 1972 car crash, demonstrating how he had known hardship in his life.“I understand what it’s like to be a single parent,” Biden said. “I understand what it’s like to sit around the kitchen table with a father who says: ‘I’ve got to leave, champ, because there’s no jobs here … ’“The notion that, somehow, because I’m a man, I don’t know what it’s like to raise two kids alone, I don’t know what it’s like to have a child you’re not sure is going to make it – I understand. I understand as well, with all due respect to the governor or anybody else, what it’s like for those people sitting around that kitchen table. And guess what? They’re looking for help.”The exchange marked one of the most humanizing moments of the debate for Biden, who has now developed a reputation as the consoler-in-chief. Biden’s ability to connect his personal story with voters’ lives could give him an advantage over Trump, who has struggled to do the same.A challenge to Paul Ryan’s expertiseWhile Biden may have pursued a more careful debate strategy in 2008, he came out swinging in 2012 against Paul Ryan, who was then Mitt Romney’s running mate.As Ryan explained his plan to cut taxes by 20% while still preserving benefits for middle-class workers, Biden slammed the proposal as “not mathematically possible”. Any time Ryan attempted to justify the policy, Biden was quick to cut in with criticism.Ryan then said: “Jack Kennedy lowered tax rates and increased growth.”Biden replied: “Oh, now you’re Jack Kennedy?”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe comment alluded to Democrat Lloyd Bentsen’s infamous mockery of Republican Dan Quayle at the 1988 vice-presidential debate, and it appeared to successfully deflate some of Ryan’s grandiose vision for a new tax system.If Biden pursues a similar approach on Thursday, it may serve two aims of undercutting Trump and mitigating concerns about the president’s mental sharpness.A rebuke to Trump’s constant interruptionsThe first debate between Biden and Trump in 2020 was defined by chaos. Trump repeatedly talked over Biden, while even moderator Chris Wallace struggled to get a word in edgewise. At one point, Biden attempted to answer a question about the supreme court, but he kept getting derailed by Trump’s comments about the “radical left” and efforts to “pack the court”.Then, Biden reached his breaking point. “Will you shut up, man?” he said to Trump. “This is so unpresidential.”The comment could have come off as petulant, but instead, it seemed to resonate with viewers as an attempt to inject order into a debate badly in need of it. Looking ahead to Thursday, CNN’s decision to mute the candidates’ mics when it is not their turn to speak may prevent similar interruptions, but Biden’s willingness to stand up to Trump could still play to his advantage.An unforgettable instruction to the Proud BoysPerhaps the most memorable moment from Biden and Trump’s first debate came when Wallace asked Trump to specifically condemn white supremacist and militia groups. Despite the simplicity of the request, Trump tried and failed to brush off the question.“Almost everything I see is from the left wing, not from the right wing,” Trump said. Pressed by Wallace, he added: “I’m willing to do anything. I want to see peace.”Biden replied: “Say it. Do it. Say it.”Trump then asked: “What do you want to call them? Give me a name.”Biden supplied the name of the Proud Boys, a far-right and neo-fascist group, and Trump then issued this infamous instruction: “Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.”The comment bolstered Democrats’ warnings about Trump empowering the far-right faction of his party, which appeared prescient after the January 6 attack on the Capitol. (The former national chair of the Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, was later sentenced to 22 years in prison for his role in orchestrating the attack.)As he prepares for his next debate, Biden will be looking to again put Trump on the record about his relationship with far-right groups and the violence they have caused. More

    • 150 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      I’m worried about Biden’s debate with Trump this week | Robert Reich

      by

      I just turned 78, and frankly I’m scared about what might come down on Thursday evening when the oldest candidates ever to compete in a presidential race debate each other.I’m less worried that Joe Biden will suffer a mental lapse or physically stumble than I am that Biden will look weak and Donald Trump appear strong.One of Trump’s most successful ploys has been to frame the upcoming election as a contest between strength and weakness, and to convince many Americans that stridency and pugnacity are signs of strength while truth and humility signal weakness.In 1960, when I watched John F Kennedy square off against Richard Nixon, character and temperament were the most important variables.According to the legend, most people who listened to the first debate on the radio called it a draw or thought Nixon had won, but Kennedy won handily among television viewers.Television hurt Nixon, and not just because of his paler complexion. Kennedy stared directly into the camera when he answered each question. But Nixon looked off to the side to address the various reporters who asked questions, which came across as shifting his gaze to avoid eye contact with the public – a move that seemed to show evasiveness, the character flaw that had earned Nixon the moniker “Tricky Dick”.I last watched a tape of the Kennedy-Nixon television debate in 1992, when sitting beside Bill Clinton, who used it to prepare for his debate with George HW Bush and Ross Perot. Clinton wanted to emulate Kennedy’s character – his confidence, humor and optimism.Perot’s whiny indignation turned viewers off. George HW seemed over the hill. Clinton was effusive and charming, and connected with viewers.Which brings me back to character. Over 78 years, I’ve met or observed a small number of people in American public life whom I’d characterize as vile. Senator Joseph McCarthy, Governor George Wallace and Speaker Newt Gingrich come immediately to mind, along with Rush Limbaugh and Roger Ailes.What made them vile to me was their cynical opportunism – the eagerness with which they exploited people’s fears to gain power or notoriety, or both. All had the character of barnyard bullies.Donald Trump is the vilest by far.Trump’s loathsomeness extends to every aspect of his being – his continuous stream of lies, the eagerness with which he seeks to turn Americans against each other, his scapegoating of immigrants, his demeaning of women and the disabled.And Trump’s utter disrespect for the office of the presidency – for the laws of the land, for the United States constitution, for the senators and members of Congress and staff and police whose lives he intentionally endangered on 6 January 2021, and for hundreds of thousands of election workers whose lives he directly or indirectly threatened with his baseless claims of election fraud.Character will not be debated on Thursday night, but I hope Americans who have not yet made up their minds or who are wavering in their support of Joe Biden will pay attention to it. Character is – must be – on the 2024 ballot.I remember debating Arizona’s former Republican governor Jan Brewer before the 2016 election. I asked her whether she thought Trump had the character and temperament to be president. When Brewer temporized, I asked again. Finally she said yes. Her answer may have been the most dishonest thing anyone said during that election season – other than Trump’s own rapacious lies.A few days ago, I was talking with a young conservative who admitted that Trump was an “odious thug”, in his words, but argued that the US and the world had become such a mess that we need an odious thug as president.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Think of Putin, Xi, Kim, Ali Khamenei, Netanyahu – they’re all odious thugs,” he said. “We need our own odious thug to stand up to them.”I demurred, saying that direct confrontation could lead to more bloodshed, even nuclear war.He continued: “We need an odious thug to shake up Washington, stir up all the ossified bureaucracies now destroying America, do all the things no one has had the balls to do.”When I looked skeptical, he charged: “We need someone to take control!”As soon as he uttered those last words, he and I both knew the conversation was over. He had spilled the beans. He was impatient with the messiness and slowness of democracy. He wanted a dictator.I’m not sure how many Americans attracted to Trump feel this way. It’s consistent with the strength-versus-weakness framework Trump is deploying.Trump may be loathsome, they tell themselves, but at least he’s strong, and we need strength over weakness.I was born 78 years ago. At that time, the world had just experienced what can occur when a loathsome person who exudes “strength” takes over a major nation and threatens the world. A number of my distant relatives died fighting Nazis or perished in Nazi concentration camps.I can’t help but wonder if the young conservative I spoke with would feel differently were he 78.
      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

    • 125 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Lauren Boebert, hard-right Republican, wins Colorado primary after moving districts

      by

      Despite a series of personal scandals, Lauren Boebert, a hard-right Colorado Republican who narrowly avoided defeat in 2022, won out over a crowded field of other Republican primary candidates in the fourth congressional district – previously led by Ken Buck – which leans more heavily Republican.Boebert’s primary win is one of the most closely watched results of Colorado’s primary elections, which chose the winners in several bitter intra-party fights among the state’s Republicans, including in two competitive House districts that could help determine control of Congress in November.Boebert had moved from one politically divided congressional district in Colorado to a more safely Republican district, which will allow her to avoid a rematch with the Democratic opponent who nearly defeated her last election cycle.In Boebert’s former district, Jeff Hurd, who is seen as a more old-school and mainstream Republican, won the GOP primary and will face Adam Frisch, the Democrat who came within 546 votes of defeating her in 2022, is likely to face a tighter race against the winner of the Republican primary there. Voters in the district supported Trump with 53% of the vote in 2016 and 2020.Colorado’s most competitive US House race this fall will probably be in the eighth congressional district, where first-term congresswoman Yadira Caraveo is running unopposed in the Democratic primary. Her Republican opponent will be either state representative Gabe Evans, an army veteran and former police officer, or former state representative Janak Joshi, a retired physician who has the state party’s endorsement.Colorado’s primary landscape was reshaped by the sudden resignation this March of Buck, a former Republican congressman and staunch conservative. Buck cited his frustration with his own party in his resignation, telling CNN: “Instead of having decorum – instead of acting in a professional manner – this place has really devolved into this bickering and nonsense.”The fierce Republican infighting through the primary election has prompted accusations that the state GOP chair, Dave Williams, is running an “inquisition” and “has decided he must purify and purge the Republican party”, as former GOP chair Dick Wadhams said at an event hosted by Axios in Denver.Williams has faced allegations that he has improperly used the state party’s email list to announce his campaign for Congress and that he spent party money to buy mailers that included an attack on political consultant and talk radio host Jeff Crank, his Republican primary opponent.The GOP chairman also faced criticisms for asking party candidates to fill out a policy questionnaire that was also an explicit loyalty test, with questions such as “​​Do you support President Trump’s populist, America-first agenda?”Williams is “cannibalizing the Republican party so he can go to Congress”, Kelly Maher, a veteran GOP operative who filed a complaint against Williams with the Federal Elections Commission, told the Associated Press.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBuck, the former Republican member of Congress who resigned from his seat in March, triggered a special election for a candidate who will serve out the remaining six months of his term. The race appears on the ballot alongside the regularly scheduled primaries on Tuesday.Former Parker mayor Greg Lopez is seen as likely to win in this race, but he is seen as a placeholder who plans to step down after the general election winner is sworn into office in January.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      New York judge partially lifts Trump’s gag order in hush-money case

      by

      The New York judge who presided over Donald Trump’s hush-money trial has partially lifted a gag order that has been hanging over the former president since he was convicted of the accounting fraud charges last month.Under the revised order by Judge Juan Merchan, Trump is now free to criticize trial witnesses, which includes Stormy Daniels and his former lawyer Michael Cohen, but must maintain restrictions on his comments about individual prosecutors and others involved in the case.Trump’s lawyers argued in court motions that the broad gag order stifled his campaign speech, and could limit his ability to respond to Joe Biden when the two meet in the first presidential debate of 2024 on Thursday.They also argued Trump’s political opponents were using the restrictions as a “political sword” and that Trump was unable to respond to public attacks from Cohen and Daniels.The office of Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, said limits imposed on Trump’s speech about witnesses were no longer needed, but they had urged Merchan to keep restrictions on Trump’s comments about jurors, court staff and individual prosecutors “at least through the sentencing hearing and the resolution of any post-trial motions”.The gag order, in its totality, will be terminated after “the imposition of sentence”.Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesperson, said in a statement on Tuesday that the order “leaves in place portions of the unconstitutional Gag Order, preventing President Trump from speaking freely about Merchan’s disqualifying conflicts and the overwhelming evidence exposing this whole Crooked Joe Biden–directed Witch Hunt,” according to NBC News.Cheung added it was “another unlawful decision by a highly conflicted judge, which is blatantly un-American as it gags President Trump” and vowed to appeal it.Merchan issued Trump’s gag order on 26 March, a few weeks before the start of the trial and later expanded it to prevent comments about his own family, including his daughter, who Trump had identified as a “part of the Democrat machine”.After his conviction, Trump continued to test the judge’s ruling, saying he was under a “nasty gag order” and indirectly calling Cohen, his former fixer, “a sleaze-bag”.Trump plans to appeal is conviction and denies having an alleged 2006 sexual encounter with Daniels. Sentencing is scheduled for 11 July, days before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on 15 July to formalize his nomination as the party’s presidential candidate.Last week, an appeals court in New York declined to hear Trump’s appeal against the gag order in the case, asserting that “no substantial constitutional question is directly involved”.Trump’s lawyers had argued that the gag order restricted Trump’s “core political speech on matters of central importance at the height of his presidential campaign … and thus it violates the fundamental right of every American voter to hear from … [a] candidate for president on matters of enormous public importance”.New York prosecutors opposed the appeal, urging the court to dismiss it, and cited Trump’s “well-documented history of leveling threatening, inflammatory and denigrating remarks against trial participants”.Merchan imposed the gag order before the trial began in April, finding that Trump’s history of threatening statements posed a threat to the proceedings. Trump was later fined $10,000 for 10 violations of the order and threatened with incarceration if he continued. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Judge partially lifts Trump gag order in hush-money case – as it happened

      by

      The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal case has modified a gag order, freeing the former president to comment publicly about witnesses and jurors in the trial until his sentencing date next month, Reuters reports.Judge Juan Merchan’s ruling allows Trump to go on the attack against his former fixer and lawyer, Michael Cohen, the adult star Stormy Daniels, and other witnesses.But Merchan ruled that Trump is still bound by the order’s restrictions on speaking about lawyers and staff for the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the court, if those statements could interfere with the case.Voters in three states are casting ballots in primaries that could prove crucial to determining the party control, and the ideological bent, of the next Congress. In New York, progressive Democrat Jamaal Bowman is fighting for his seat against challenger George Latimer, amid a race where Bowman’s criticism of Israel has become a major issue. Over in Colorado, far-right congresswoman Lauren Boebert is looking to overcome personal scandals and secure her place in the House by winning the GOP primary in a district that is even more friendly to Republicans than the one she presently represents. And in Utah, Republicans are deciding whether their next senator will be a moderate like the retiring senator Mitt Romney, or someone who vows to do what Donald Trump wants.Here’s what else happened today:
      Judge Juan Merchan modified the gag order imposed on Trump in his New York hush-money case and allowed him to attack jurors and witnesses.
      Joe Biden’s approval ticked up slightly in June, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found, but Trump maintained the edge when it came to handling of the economy.
      Aileen Cannon, the Florida judge handling Trump’s classified documents case, is on her third day of hearing arguments on motions that could decide the trajectory of the closely watched case.
      Last week’s primary in Virginia between Republican congressman Bob Good and challenger John McGuire remains too close to call, but Trump knows who he wants to win.
      Who will Trump pick as his running mate? We take a look at what clues have emerged.
      Federal prosecutors have released new photos of the classified documents they discovered two years ago at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, in a filing that rejects an attempt by the former president’s lawyers to get the case against him thrown out.The photos reveal that top secret documents were mixed in with keepsakes like copies of the New York Times, Maga hats and cases of Diet Coke:Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell, on the latest revelations from prosecutors working for special counsel Jack Smith in the long-running case:Hillary Clinton has, interestingly enough, debated both Donald Trump and Joe Biden, though it is of course her general election loss to the former for which she is best remembered. Ahead of the Trump-Biden debate scheduled for Thursday, she offered some thoughts on what debating the ex-president is like, the Guardian’s Edward Helmore reports:Hillary Clinton has said it would be a “waste of time” for Joe Biden to attempt to refute Donald Trump’s contentions in Thursday’s presidential debate because “it’s nearly impossible to identify what his arguments even are”.The former secretary of state wrote in a New York Times opinion piece that Trump “starts with nonsense and then digresses into blather”.“This has gotten only worse in the years since we debated,” she said.Clinton debated Trump while unsuccessfully running for the White House against him in 2016 – and she had also debated Biden during a presidential primary eight years earlier.Trump was later accused of speaking over Clinton and looming over her in a way that she later described as “really weird”.Clinton predicted in her op-ed that Trump’s strategies would “fall flat” if Biden “is as direct and forceful as he was” during his State of the Union address in March.Referring to Trump, she added: “Expectations for him are so low that if he doesn’t literally light himself on fire on Thursday evening, some will say he was downright presidential.”Reuters and Ipsos just dropped a new poll ahead of Donald Trump and Joe Biden’s Thursday’s debate face-off, which shows the former president has the edge among voters when it comes to concerns about the economy, while the current White House occupant is more trusted to preserve America’s democracy.It also found a slight bump in Biden’s approval rating, from a not-great 36% in May to a still-not-great 37% this month.The survey does not tell us much we do not know, since previous polls have shown Trump with the edge on economic matters, though it does underscore the validity of the Biden campaign’s strategy of characterizing Trump as a threat to democracy.The survey found Trump was viewed as the better choice for the economy, the top concern of voters, by 43% of respondents, against Biden’s 37%. He was also the preferred pick of respondents when it came to handling foreign policy and terrorism, with 40% support against Biden’s 35%.The second-biggest concern for respondents was the state of the country’s democracy, and when it came to that, Biden was the pick of 39% of those polled, while Trump picked up 33% support.Speaking of attacks, a CNN presenter’s interview with Donald Trump’s spokesperson went awry yesterday, when she began criticizing the moderators of the ex-president’s upcoming debate against Joe Biden, the Guardian’s Robert Tait reports:CNN abruptly terminated a live interview with Donald Trump’s spokesperson on Monday after she criticised the two journalists whom the network chose to moderate the much anticipated upcoming debate between the former president and Joe Biden.Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign national press secretary, became embroiled in a heated exchange with Kasie Hunt, the presenter of CNN This Morning, after saying Trump would be entering a “hostile environment on this very network” when he debates the incumbent president in Atlanta on Thursday.Asked what strategy Trump would pursue on the debate stage, she said he would be contending “with debate moderators who have made their opinions about him very well known … and their biased coverage of him”.Leavitt’s comments were aimed, without initially naming them, at the moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper. They triggered an immediate reaction from Hunt, who defended her colleagues.“So I’ll just say, my colleagues, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, have acquitted themselves as professionals as they have covered campaigns and interviewed candidates from all sides of the aisle,” Hunt said. Citing analysts of previous debates, she added: “If you’re attacking the moderators, you’re usually losing.”Donald Trump’s former attorney and fixer Michael Cohen, who appeared as a witness for the prosecution in the criminal trial that resulted in the former president’s conviction in New York City on charges related to hush-money payments, told CNN he won’t be intimidated by Trump’s attacks.His comment came after Judge Juan Merchan modified the gag order on Trump, and allowed him to make statements about witnesses in the case – such as Cohen.Here’s what he told CNN:And now we wait to see if Donald Trump unleashes a new volley of insults against those involved in his criminal conviction last month in New York City.The place to watch is his Truth Social account, which the former president has used in place of his account on X (formerly Twitter) to comment on a variety of subjects, his criminal trials included. He has left his account on X dormant since owner Elon Musk allowed him back on to the site two years ago, with the sole exception of tweeting out the mug shot taken in Georgia, when charges were brought against him in the election subversion case.Before its modification, Judge Juan Merchan fined Trump for repeatedly violating the gag order imposed against him in his hush money case. Here’s more on that:The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal case has modified a gag order, freeing the former president to comment publicly about witnesses and jurors in the trial until his sentencing date next month, Reuters reports.Judge Juan Merchan’s ruling allows Trump to go on the attack against his former fixer and lawyer, Michael Cohen, the adult star Stormy Daniels, and other witnesses.But Merchan ruled that Trump is still bound by the order’s restrictions on speaking about lawyers and staff for the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the court, if those statements could interfere with the case.More than a dozen Nobel prize-winning economists have warned that inflation will soar once again if Donald Trump takes back the White House in November.In a letter obtained by Axios, 16 Nobel laureates wrote that the presumptive Republican nominee’s plans would reignite inflation and cause lasting harm to the global economy.
      While each of us has different views on the particulars of various economic policies, we all agree that Joe Biden’s economic agenda is vastly superior to Donald Trump.
      They go on to write that a second Trump term would have “a negative impact on the US’s economic standing in the world, and a destabilizing effect on the US’s domestic economy.”
      Many Americans are concerned about inflation, which has come down remarkably fast. There is rightly a worry that Donald Trump will reignite this inflation, with his fiscally irresponsible budgets.
      Hunter Biden’s license to practice law in Washington DC has been suspended after he was convicted earlier this month of three federal gun charges.The filing on Tuesday by the DC court of appeals states that Hunter Biden, the president’s eldest living son, is “suspended immediately” from practicing law in the city.The appeals court also directs the DC board on professional responsibility to to hold additional proceedings to “determine the nature of the offense and whether it involves moral turpitude.”Hunter Biden was found guilty earlier this month on three felony counts related to a handgun purchase while he was a user of crack cocaine.US senator Rand Paul celebrated Julian Assange’s freedom, but criticized the US plea deal as harmful.In a post to X, Paul said that he was “relieved” Assange was being reunited with his family, but argued that Assange’s plea deal was dangerous for first amendment rights and criminalizing to journalism.
      I’m relieved Assange is finally free and reuniting with his family after years of wrongful persecution. Yet, this plea deal sets a dangerous precedent, criminalizing journalism and damaging our First Amendment rights. The “Land of the Free” can and must do better.
      Follow the Guardian’s coverage of Julian Assange’s plea deal here.Voters in three states are casting ballots in primaries that could prove crucial to determining the party control, and the ideological bent, of the next Congress. In New York, progressive Democrat Jamaal Bowman is fighting for his seat against challenger George Latimer, in a race where Bowman’s criticism of Israel has become a major issue. Over in Colorado, far-right congresswoman Lauren Boebert is looking to overcome personal scandals and secure her place in the House by winning the GOP primary in a district that is even more friendly to Republicans than the one she presently represents. And in Utah, Republicans are deciding whether their next senator will be a moderate like the retiring senator Mitt Romney, or someone who vows to do what Donald Trump wants.Here’s what else has been happening today:
      Aileen Cannon, the Florida judge handling Trump’s classified documents case, is on her third day of hearing arguments on motions that could decide the trajectory of the closely watched case.
      Last week’s primary in Virginia between Republican congressman Bob Good and challenger John McGuire remains too close to call, but Trump knows who he wants to win.
      Who will Trump pick as his running mate? We take a look at what clues have emerged.
      Voting is ongoing in New York, where progressive congressman Jamaal Bowman is facing a tough challenge in the Democratic primary from George Latimer, the executive of Westchester county.On X, Bowman posted a video encouraging volunteers to come to his district and knock on doors to rally voter support, or to work phone banks:Latimer has meanwhile been calling attention to his endorsements. Here’s Ken Jenkins, the deputy executive of Westchester county, in New York City’s suburbs: More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Hillary Clinton: waste of Biden’s debate time to rebut Trump ‘nonsense’

      by

      Hillary Clinton has said it would be a “waste of time” for Joe Biden to attempt to refute Donald Trump’s contentions in Thursday’s presidential debate because “it’s nearly impossible to identify what his arguments even are”.The former secretary of state wrote in a New York Times opinion piece that Trump “starts with nonsense and then digresses into blather”.“This has gotten only worse in the years since we debated,” she said.Clinton debated Trump while unsuccessfully running for the White House against him in 2016 – and she had also debated Biden during a presidential primary eight years earlier.Trump was later accused of speaking over Clinton and looming over her in a way that she later described as “really weird”.Clinton predicted in her op-ed that Trump’s strategies would “fall flat” if Biden “is as direct and forceful as he was” during his State of the Union address in March.Referring to Trump, she added: “Expectations for him are so low that if he doesn’t literally light himself on fire on Thursday evening, some will say he was downright presidential.”Clinton advised debate-watchers to focus on three things: how each candidate talks about people, whether they “focus on the fundamentals”, and on the choice between “chaos and competence”.Referring to Trump’s recent conviction in the New York criminal prosecution involving hush money paid to the adult film actor Stormy Daniels, Clinton said the choice between “a convicted criminal out for revenge and a president who delivers results” was “easy” regardless of the debate’s outcome.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionClinton’s comments come as both main political parties are attempting to talk down expectations of a decisive political clash. They also arrived on the same day that she announced a new memoir – Something Lost, Something Gained – set to be published seven weeks ahead of November’s vote.Clinton said she will offer a “warning to all American voters”, along with “her unvarnished views on politics, democracy, the threats we face, and the future within our reach”.Subjects the 76-year-old former US secretary of state is said to address include her reflections on marriage, friendships with other former first ladies, and, according to the publisher Simon & Schuster’s editor-in-chief, Priscilla Painton, moving “past her dream of being president”. More