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      Republican Tim Scott falsely claims Biden policy resegregates public schools

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      Donald Trump’s inner circle is stepping up efforts to woo Black and other minority voters, with a leading candidate to be his vice-presidential running mate claiming falsely on Sunday TV that Joe Biden was resegregating US public schools.Tim Scott, the US senator from South Carolina who has been open about his desire to be on Trump’s ticket, made one of the most extreme claims yet. Speaking on CNN’s State of the Union show, he described President Biden as a supporter of educational segregation.“We need four more years of common sense under Donald Trump, and not four more years of segregation under Joe Biden,” Scott, who is African American, said.Asked by CNN host Dana Bash whether suggesting Biden was for segregation was going too far, Scott tried to justify the contention by saying that “the elimination of charter schools under Joe Biden resegregates schools in America”. He added that schools in the largest cities were being resegregated by “Joe Biden’s Department of Education which has halted the growth of charter schools that provide greater diversity”.In fact, charter schools, which are publicly funded but which operate outside state school systems, are backed by federal government grants through the Charter Schools Program to the tune of $440m a year – a level that has remained unchanged since 2019 under the Trump administration. Scott’s argument that charter schools create more diversity is also open to question.New research carried out by sociologists at Stanford University and the University of Southern California to mark 70 years of the landmark US supreme court ruling outlawing segregated schools, Brown v Board of Education, reveals that segregation has been creeping back up for the past 30 years. One of the main drivers of the revival, contrary to Scott’s claim, has been the rise of charter schools, the academics discovered.In recent weeks Trump has stepped up his attempt to prise Black voters away from their long-standing support for the Democratic party. On Thursday, he staged a rally in the South Bronx, one of the most diverse and staunchly Democratic parts of the country, where 95% of the population is Black or Hispanic.Trump made a brazen play for the support of Black voters at the rally, talking about “millions and millions of illegals coming into the country” who he said had a negative impact particularly on minority American communities. “African Americans are getting slaughtered. Hispanic Americans are being slaughtered,” he said.The Trump campaign push comes as recent opinion polls indicate that his support among these demographic populations is climbing. The Pew Research Center found in a recent survey that 18% of Black voters were leaning for Trump, compared with the 8% of Black voters who voted for him in 2020.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe Biden campaign has responded to the apparent shift towards Trump by targeting negative political adverts accusing Trump of a track record of racism. Last week it released a 30-second ad that invoked the case of the Central Park Five, Black men who were wrongly convicted of raping a jogger in 1989.Trump took out a full-page advert in local newspapers soon after the men were arrested, calling for New York to bring back the death penalty. More

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      Muscle memory and a fight to inspire: on the campaign trail with Biden

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      “The fact is that this election, a lot is at stake,” said Joe Biden, collar unbuttoned, mic in hand, watched by about 50 guests at tables dotted with small US flags at Mary Mac’s Tea Room in downtown Atlanta. “It’s not about me. It’s about the alternative as well.”The off-the-cuff remark was telling. After more than half a century in national politics, Joe Biden’s final campaign is defined not by his record but his opponent: Donald Trump. The outcome of November’s presidential election will decide whether he is remembered by history as the man who saved democracy twice – or as a mere interregnum in the onward march of Trumpism.The Guardian spent a weekend with Biden on the campaign trail, shuttling from swing state to swing state on Air Force One and in presidential motorcades, from small gatherings of supporters to flashy receptions for big-money donors. It observed a candidate struggling to articulate an inspiring vision for a second term and recapture the kind of enthusiasm that Barack Obama once generated, but galvanised by the dire threat that Trump poses to his legacy.Biden understands that his long and storied career could yet end in failure. Surveys suggest that he is less popular than other members of his own party. Last week a swing-state opinion poll from the New York Times and Siena College found a generic Democratic Senate candidate led a generic Republican by five points, where Biden trailed Trump by six points.Specifically, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Ruben Gallego of Arizona, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin were doing 14, 11, eight and seven points better than Biden in their respective states. Other polls have come up with similar findings that may tempt Democratic candidates to keep the president at arm’s length. Senator Jon Tester of Montana has already run an ad that says he “fought to stop President Biden from letting migrants stay in America instead of remain in Mexico”.A key reason for Biden’s weakness this time could be a lack of enthusiasm among African American voters, a demographic that powered Biden to the White House in 2020. A Pew Research report this week showed Biden leading Trump by 77% to 18% among Black voters – a shift from 2020 when Biden had 92% compared with Trump’s 8%. Among younger Black voters, Trump’s support crept up to 29%.Last weekend Biden flew on Air Force One to Georgia and Michigan, two critical battleground states, embracing a gruelling schedule that belied concerns about his 81 years. The first campaign stop was Mary Mac’s Tea Room in Atlanta, a historic Black-owned small business, where Biden-Harris campaign signs were plastered on a door.View image in fullscreenBiden’s entrance was greeted with applause and cheers that might be described as moderate rather than raucous. Some supporters and volunteers hugged him as he worked the room and music continued to boom from loudspeakers.He then took a handheld mic and spoke for five minutes without notes, like an ageing tennis player hitting shots from memory. “Look, here’s the deal,” he assured his audience. “You hear about how, you know, we’re behind in the polls. Well, so far, the polls haven’t been right once.”He said of Trump: “I think it’s fair to say – I won’t use the exact phrase that I’d use if I was still playing ball, but my opponent is not a good loser. But he is a loser.” The was an explosion of clapping and laughter. Biden himself chuckled. “Oh, I don’t want to get started. I’m going to get in trouble.”Turning serious, the president warned: “Everything you let me do, everything you helped me do, everything we’ve done, they want to undo … Our democracy is really on the line.”The speech was short on second-term promises but long on warnings about Trump, a familiar pattern. His next event was a significant shift up the wealth ladder: the Arthur M Blank Family office, home to a community-building foundation in a faux-Italian building with Roman-style mosaics.Biden delivered a speech in a room with an ornate ceiling – 15 illuminated recess panels and five chandeliers – and a floor of polished wood. Behind the lectern was a tapestry depicting birds in a bucolic setting. At either end of the room gold-framed mirrors hung above grand fireplaces. About a hundred well-heeled guests had gathered.When the president appeared, people stood, applauded, whooped and took photos. One woman shouted: “We love you, Joe!” This time he spoke for 18 minutes, beginning with relaxed humour: “Who’s that good-looking guy on the end there? How old are you?” The boy replied: “Thirteen, sir.” Biden said: “Thirteen. You got to remember me when you’re president, OK?”He again questioned the validity of polls while insisting that he was running strongest among likely voters and outperforming Trump in primary elections. Biden claimed that his team was building the strongest ground campaign in the history of the US, opening more than 150 field offices compared with Trump’s zero.The message of his campaign, he went on, was that the threat Trump poses is greater in a second term than it was in the first term. “When he lost in 2020, something snapped in Trump. I’m not being facetious; I’m being serious. He just can’t accept the fact he lost, and he lost it.” He accused his opponent of “running for revenge”.Biden listed some of his own accomplishments as president: 15m new jobs, an expansion of health insurance, lower prescription drug costs, climate action and investment in science and technology innovation. He promised that, if Democrats control Congress, he will restore the constitutional right to abortion. The room burst into applause. It seemed sure that dollars would follow.The president spent the night an upscale hotel in a tony neighbourhood then, the following morning, delivered a commencement address at Morehouse College, an all-male historically Black college. Democratic fears that he would be heckled and disrupted by protesters against the war in Gaza were not realised. But nor did Biden get the kind of adulatory reception that Obama might once have done.View image in fullscreenOn the college lawn, framed by redbrick buildings and trees, there was clapping and cheering from Morehouse alumni; less so from young graduates. Perhaps this was the worst fate of all: apathy. Jeremy Mensah, a 2024 graduate who voted for Biden in 2020 but is less sure this time, told the Politico website: “[Biden’s] speech didn’t move me at all. It was very much so a campaign speech. Like, ‘Oh I did this for the Black community.’ I didn’t feel connected to it.”Trump is leading Biden by 10 points in Georgia, according to last week’s New York Times/Siena College poll. Andra Gillespie, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta, said: “Black voters make up more than half of Democratic voters in Georgia and so if you have anemic turnout then it’s going to be difficult to stitch together a multi-racial coalition that is large enough to beat Republicans in the state.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“That’s the challenge. Biden can’t afford to lose any constituency. If Black women and Black men don’t turn out at rates that they could possibly turn out to vote in the election then that will cause him to lose.”The president then headed to Detroit, Michigan, where the sun was bright and hot despite the swing state’s proximity to Canada. His motorcade swept from the airport past the Uniroyal Giant Tire, the world’s biggest tire model at 80ft and 12 tons, and into Detroit’s east side, one of the oldest parts of the city, dotted with both fading paint and glimmers of urban renewal.Biden was greeted by the Crawford family, including the former professional basketball players Joe and Jordan Crawford, who opened Cred Cafe as a family business that doubles as a coffee shop by day and a speakeasy by night. The room had bare brick walls, exposed silver air ducts and a ceiling made of rough wooden panels. Audio cassettes, CDs, VHS videos, XBox games, a guitar and a dartboard adorned the walls.Music played as Biden worked the room, meeting and greeting about 50 guests. He took a handheld mic and ad-libbed for four minutes. “We got three reverends back there,” he said. “I saw them at the airport. In addition to asking them to pray like hell for me, I asked their advice on a bunch of things.”View image in fullscreenBiden nodded to the African American vote by talking about his childhood in racially segregated Delaware. “Dr King was one of my heroes, like many of my generation.” The audience listened in polite silence, punctuated by the wailing of a baby. Biden recounted how he left law school, got a job with “fancy law firm”, then quit and became a public defender. “And one thing led to another, here I am.”The final stop was a National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) dinner at the cavernous Huntington Place Convention Center in Detroit, with bad acoustics and an estimated 5,000 guests. Some chanted, “Four more years! Four more years!” as the president took the stage. He declared: “I don’t feel tired. I feel inspired.”Biden said the NAACP was the first organisation he ever joined and he got involved in civil rights when he 15. He reeled off a list of accomplishments: cheques that reduced Black child poverty, reconnecting Black neighbourhoods cut off by old highways; removing lead pipes; investing a record $16bn in historically Black colleges and universities. Biden said Black unemployment was at a historic low and Black small businesses were starting up at the fastest rate in 30 years.He also asserted that the racial wealth gap was its lowest level in 20 years. This claim is open to dispute. According to data from the Federal Reserve’s survey of consumer finances, the wealth disparity between Black and white families has persistently grown since 2010. It increased by $49,950 during the coronavirus pandemic, resulting in a difference of $240,120 between the median white household and the median Black one.View image in fullscreenHe accused Trump and his allies of trying to erase Black history. “Let me ask you, what do you think he would’ve done on January the 6th if Black Americans had stormed the Capitol?” The question struck a chord with this audience, prompting gasps and murmurs. “No, I’m serious. What do you think? I can only imagine.”But Biden’s speech was littered with unforced errors. He recalled that as vice-president he tried to fix Detroit during the “pandemic” when he meant recession; he said he was humbled to receive an “organisation” when he meant award; he said the Affordable Care Act saves families “$8,000” a year in premiums when he meant $800; he referred to January 6 “irrectionists” when he meant insurrectionists; he said Trump had predicted “bloodshed” if he loses in November when he meant “bloodbath”.Still, the audience applauded warmly and soon he was back on Air Force One to Philadelphia, then flying by helicopter to Delaware, where he finally reached home at 11pm. There would be more flying and campaigning in the week to come. Joe Biden is an old political warhorse making one last big push, desperate to avoid the fate of one-term presidents such as Jimmy Carter and George HW Bush, who found the magic gone and incumbency a burden.It might not be enough.Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “He’s the most opaque presidential candidate in years: you might go back to George HW Bush, who blended into the background. Biden just doesn’t have magnetism. He’s charisma-challenged. For voters, you need to energise and rally and mobilise.“Even the orchestrated events with Biden mixing it up with the ordinary person, it’s remarkable how blasé they are. Bill Clinton going into a bar; Trump stopping by the Cuban restaurant in Miami – these are exciting moments for the supporters of those candidates. But the speech that Biden gave at Morehouse, there’s just utter lack of excitement, engagement. There’s a real powerful disconnect between Biden and the voters that he needs to turn out.” More

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      State department announces $275m in new aid package for Ukraine – as it happened

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      Here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
      The state department has announced a new aid package for Ukraine worth $275m. It includes ammunition for Himars (high mobility artillery rocket systems), 155mm and 105mm artillery rounds, tube-launched wire-guided missiles and javelin anti-armor systems.
      The secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, will undergo a non-surgical procedure on Friday related to his prostate cancer, the Pentagon said. Austin will temporarily be unable to perform his duties due to the “minimally invasive procedure” and the deputy defense secretary, Kathleen Hicks, will assume his duties, the Pentagon said.
      Ahead of the fourth anniversary of George Floyd’s death, Joe Biden released a statement in which he called for Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. The act, which seeks to address racial profiling and the use of force in police encounters, has been stalled in Congress for the last few years. However, it was reintroduced to Congress by Sheila Jackson, a Democratic representative from Texas, on Thursday.
      Joe Biden’s re-election campaign has released a new ad called Snapped. The ad criticizes Donald Trump, saying that he “snapped” after losing the 2020 election. It’s voiced by one of the former president’s longtime political foes, actor Robert De Niro.
      Speaking after a rally in New York City last night, his first in the city since 2016, Donald Trump predicted that he can win his home state – which happens to also be a historically and fiercely Democratic-voting one.
      Donald Trump hinted at the possibility of Nikki Haley joining his administration after she pledged her support to him following a bitter campaign against him for the Republican nomination for this election. “I think she’s going to be on our team because we have a lot of the same ideas, the same thoughts,” Trump told News 12.
      The New York Democratic congressman and Bronx native Ritchie Torres hit back at Trump for his rally in the south Bronx yesterday, saying: “His presidency was a catastrophe for the Bronx. His mismanagement of Covid resulted in more deaths than Pearl Harbor and 9/11 combined. Donald Trump should apologize to the people of the Bronx rather than hold a rally.”
      Thousands of Trump supporters came out to Crotona Park in New York’s south Bronx on Thursday evening to support the former president as he rallied for nearly 90 minutes. In attempts to woo more Black and Hispanic voters in one of the country’s poorest and most diverse neighborhoods, Trump launched fiery tirades against immigrants and Biden’s immigration policies. He claimed migrants were “building an army” to attack America “from within”.
      That’s it as we wrap up the blog for today. Thank you for following along.Russian jamming technology has reportedly interfered with US-made satellite-guided ammunition in Ukraine.The Washington Post, which reviewed confidential internal Ukrainian assessments, reports:“Russia’s jamming of the guidance systems of modern Western weapons, including Excalibur GPS-guided artillery shells and the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, which can fire some U.S.-made rockets with a range of up to 50 miles, has eroded Ukraine’s ability to defend its territory and has left officials in Kyiv urgently seeking help from the Pentagon to obtain upgrades from arms manufacturers.Russia’s ability to combat the high-tech munitions has far-reaching implications for Ukraine and its Western supporters – potentially providing a blueprint for adversaries such as China and Iran – and it is a key reason Moscow’s forces have regained the initiative and are advancing on the battlefield.”The US secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, will undergo a non-surgical procedure on Friday related to his prostate cancer, the Pentagon said.Austin will undergo the procedure at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center later this evening.Austin will temporarily be unable to perform his duties due to the “minimally invasive procedure” and the deputy secretary of defense, Kathleen Hicks, will assume his duties, the Pentagon said.Ahead of the fourth anniversary of George Floyd’s death, Joe Biden released a statement in which he called for Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.Biden said:
      His murder shook the conscience of our nation and reminded us that our country has never fully lived up to its highest ideal of fair and impartial justice for all under the law.
      He went on to add:
      What we witnessed as a result was one of the largest modern civil rights movements in our nation’s history, with people from every background marching together against racism and systemic injustice.
      Two years ago, alongside George Floyd’s family, civil rights leaders and law enforcement officials, I signed an executive order to implement key aspects of the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act with respect to federal law enforcement, including: restricting chokeholds and no-knock warrants, and establishing a database for police misconduct – all measures to advance effective, transparent and accountable policing.My administration has made significant progress in implementing this executive order, and will continue our work to build public trust and strengthen public safety. But real and lasting change at the state and local level will only come when Congress acts. That’s why I will continue to urge Congress to send the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, which ensures law enforcement accountability, to my desk.
      The act, which seeks to address racial profiling and the use of force in police encounters, has been stalled in Congress for the last few years. However, it was reintroduced to Congress by Sheila Jackson, a Democratic representative from Texas, on Thursday.In response to the bill’s reintroduction, the American Civil Liberties Union said:
      The American Civil Liberties Union welcomes the reintroduction of this important legislation; however, the ACLU calls on Congress to strengthen and improve portions of the bill to provide the federal interventions necessary to address police misconduct and brutality.
      The state department has released the following statement on the latest aid package for Ukraine:
      The United States is announcing today a significant new drawdown of weapons and equipment for Ukraine to support the brave Ukrainian people as they defend their country against Russia’s aggression.
      This $275 million package … is part of our efforts to help Ukraine repel Russia’s assault near Kharkiv.”
      In addition to Himars ammunition, artillery rounds, missiles, javelins and anti-armor systems, the aid includes precision aerial munitions; small arms; tactical vehicles; body armor; chemical, biological, radiological anf nuclear protective equipment; and spare parts.With the latest package being the fifth aid package the Joe Biden administration has authorised since signing the national security supplemental, the state department said it plans to “move this new assistance as quickly as possible”.
      As President Biden has made clear, the United States and the international coalition we have assembled will continue to stand with Ukraine in its defense of its freedom.
      The state department has announced a new aid package for Ukraine that is worth $275m, Reuters reports.The aid package includes ammunition for Himars (high mobility artillery rocket systems), 155mm and 105mm artillery rounds, tube-launched wire-guided missiles and javelin anti-armor systems, according to the state department.Egypt and the United States agreed on Friday to temporarily send humanitarian aid to the United Nations in Gaza via Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing until legal mechanisms are established to reopen the Rafah border crossing from the Palestinian side, the Egyptian presidency said, Reuters reports.The agreement resulted from:
      The difficult humanitarian situation of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the lack of means of life in the Strip, and the lack of fuel needed for hospitals and bakeries,” said the statement.
      The agreement was reached in a phone call between the US president and Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the statement said.Egypt on Monday warned against Israel’s continued military operations in Rafah, which were preventing aid deliveries to the impoverished Strip.Much of the aid delivered into Gaza since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began in October has come through Egypt, entering through the southern Gaza city of Rafah or the nearby Kerem Shalom crossing on Israel’s border with the Palestinian territory.Since May 5, just before Israeli forces took control of the Rafah crossing from the Palestinian side, no trucks have crossed through Rafah and very few through Kerem Shalom, according to UN data. Sisi and Biden also agreed to intensify international efforts to being a ceasefire.The Guardian’s Middle East live blog is here.Hunter Biden is back in court today for the final hearing before he’s expected to stand trial on federal firearms charges in Delaware as his father’s re-election campaign unfolds, the Associated Press reports.Joe Biden’s son didn’t speak to reporters as he followed his lawyers into the Wilmington courthouse. He’s charged with lying about his drug use in October 2018 on a form to buy a gun that he kept for about 11 days in Delaware. He has acknowledged an addiction to crack cocaine during that period, but his lawyers have said he didn’t break the law and the case is politically motivated.The two sides have been arguing in court documents about evidence in the case, including contents from a laptop that he allegedly dropped off at a Delaware repair shop. Defense attorneys question the authenticity of the laptop’s data in court documents, but prosecutors say that there’s no evidence the data has been compromised.Prosecutors plan to show jurors portions of Hunter Biden’s 2021 memoir Beautiful Things in which he detailed his struggle with alcoholism and drug abuse following the 2015 death of his older brother, Beau, of brain cancer at age 46. Biden’s lawyers are objecting.US district judge Maryellen Noreika will preside over what’s expected to be the last hearing before the trial, which is expected to begin with jury selection on 3 June.Hunter Biden is also facing federal tax charges in Los Angeles and is set for trial in that case in September.Hello, politics live blog readers, as we approach what is a holiday weekend in the US, ahead of the Trump trial resuming in New York with closing arguments on Tuesday, there is still news coming out of Washington and elsewhere.We’ll bring it to you as it happens. For now, here’s where things stand:
      Joe Biden’s re-election campaign has released a new ad called Snapped, which criticizes Donald Trump, saying that he “snapped” after losing the 2020 election. It’s voiced by one of the former president’s longtime political foes, actor Robert De Niro.
      Speaking after a rally in New York City last night, his first in the city since 2016, Donald Trump predicted that he can win his home state – which happens to also be a historically and fiercely Democratic-voting one.
      Donald Trump hinted at the possibility of Nikki Haley joining his administration after she pledged her support to him following a bitter campaign against him for the Republican nomination for this election. “I think she’s going to be on our team because we have a lot of the same ideas, the same thoughts,” Trump told News 12.
      The New York Democratic congressman and Bronx native Ritchie Torres hit back at Trump for his rally in the south Bronx yesterday, saying: “His presidency was a catastrophe for the Bronx. His mismanagement of Covid resulted in more deaths than Pearl Harbor and 9/11 combined. Donald Trump should apologize to the people of the Bronx rather than hold a rally.”
      Thousands of Trump supporters came out to Crotona Park in New York’s south Bronx on Thursday evening to support the former president as he rallied for nearly 90 minutes. In attempts to woo more Black and Hispanic voters in one of the country’s poorest and most diverse neighborhoods, Trump launched fiery tirades against immigrants and Biden’s immigration policies. He claimed migrants were “building an army” to attack America “from within”.
      Ohio’s governor, Mike DeWine, has called for a special legislative session to include Joe Biden on the election ballot.Robert Tait reports for the Guardian:Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, has called an emergency legislative session to put Joe Biden’s name on the presidential ballot after what he called an “absurd” threat from the state’s top election officer to remove the president for missing its deadline.For weeks, Ohio’s secretary of state, Frank LaRose, has been at loggerheads with the Democrats over how to put Biden and his vice-president, Kamala Harris, on the ballot given that their official nomination comes after the expiry of the state’s deadline of 90 days before the November election.The Biden-Harris ticket is scheduled to be certified after its official coronation on the final day of the Democratic national convention on 22 August in Chicago, 15 days after Ohio’s 7 August cutoff date.For the full story, click here:Joe Biden’s campaign has released a new ad called Snapped, which criticizes Donald Trump, saying that he “snapped” after losing the 2020 election.Actor and fierce Trump critic Robert De Niro voices the 30-second ad, saying:
      From midnight tweets, to drinking bleach, to tear-gassing citizens and staging a photo op, we knew Trump was out of control when he was president, and then he lost the 2020 election and snapped.
      Desperately trying to hold on to power. Now he’s running again, this time threatening to be a dictator, to terminate the constitution.
      The ad features a clip of Trump saying that there will be a “bloodbath” if he does not win in 2024.“Trump wants revenge and he’ll stop at nothing to get it,” De Niro continues.Describing the ad, Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, said:
      This ad lays out the clear contrast voters will see a month from now when Trump stands on the debate stage next to Joe Biden: Trump is running to regain power for himself, Joe Biden is running to serve you, the American people.
      Kamala Harris has released the following statement regarding the second anniversary of the Uvalde, Texas, shooting in which 21 people, including 19 children, were shot and killed:
      Two years ago, 19 beautiful children and two selfless teachers were killed in their classrooms during a senseless mass shooting carried out with a weapon of war …
      In the months and years since these 21 Americans lost their lives and 17 others were injured, the families in Uvalde have powerfully channeled their anguish into advocacy – demanding action to change the unacceptable fact that gun violence is the leading cause of death for children in our nation.
      Congress and state legislators throughout America must have the courage to act by banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, passing red flag laws, and making background checks universal.
      Bernie Sanders, who spoke exclusively to the Guardian, has introduced a bill to improve dental care among Americans, particularly amid the prevalence of gum disease in the US and one in five US seniors having lost all their natural teeth.The Guardian’s Jessica Glenza reports:A bill introduced by the US senator Bernie Sanders would dramatically expand access to oral healthcare by adding dental benefits to Medicare and enhance them in Medicaid, public health insurance programs that together cover 115 million older and lower-income Americans.Despite Americans’ reputation for the flashy “Hollywood smile”, millions struggle to access basic dental care. One in five US seniors have lost all their natural teeth, almost half of adults have some kind of gum disease and painful cavities are one of the most common reasons children miss school.“Any objective look at the reality facing the American people recognizes there is a crisis in dental care in America,” Sanders told the Guardian in an exclusive interview. “Imagine that in the richest country in the world.”For the full story, click here:Speaking to Fox News during yesterday’s south Bronx rally, Donald Trump remained confident that he can win his home state, which happens to also be a historically and fiercely Democratic one.
      “I love the people … They’re entrepreneurial and they’re going to save New York … We’re gonna win New York. And if we win New York, the election’s over. We take over the country,.
      The Biden-Harris campaign has released a new statement on campaign priorities and talking points ahead of the debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in Atlanta, Georgia, on 27 June:
      In the month leading up to that first debate, the Biden-Harris campaign will zero in on Trump’s dangerous campaign promises and unhinged rhetoric. We will make sure that the voters who will decide this election are reminded of the chaos and harm Trump caused as president – and why they booted him out four years ago.
      Trump and his lagging campaign will be left to explain to voters why he embraces political violence, brags about abortion bans, threatens to repeal the Affordable Care Act and cut Social Security and Medicare, and puts greedy corporations and himself over American workers again and again.
      Team Biden-Harris will drive these key themes across the entire campaign in the lead-up to the debate, including through new paid media efforts, earned media opportunities, and on the ground organizing and battleground events to bring the stakes of this election to every voter who will decide it.
      The campaign also said it plans to organize around key moments including the anniversary of the 2022 Dobbs decision in which the supreme court stripped away federal abortion protections, as well as the anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, where 49 people were shot and killed in 2016.At his rally, Donald Trump hinted at the possibility of Nikki Haley joining his administration after she pledged her support to him following a bitter campaign against him.“I think she’s going to be on our team because we have a lot of the same ideas, the same thoughts,” Trump told News 12.“I appreciated what she said. You know, we had a nasty campaign, it was pretty nasty. But she’s a very capable person, and I’m sure she’s going to be on our team in some form, absolutely,” he added.During her campaign trail, the former South Carolina governor criticized Trump numerous times, accusing him of having “lost any sort of political viability” and showing “moral weakness”.Yet on Wednesday, Haley revealed she would be voting for Trump, saying: “Trump has not been perfect on these policies … But Biden has been a catastrophe. So I will be voting for Trump.”New York Democratic representative and Bronx native Ritchie Torres hit back at Donald Trump for his rally in the south Bronx yesterday.
      His presidency was a catastrophe for the Bronx. His mismanagement of Covid resulted in more deaths than Pearl Harbor and 9/11 combined.
      Donald Trump should apologize to the people of the Bronx rather than hold a rally.
      Donald Trump’s rally in New York’s south Bronx on Thursday evening drew a significantly more diverse crowd compared to his typical white-majority rallies in other parts of the country.The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington reports:Up to a quarter of the thousands of people who came to hear him (the New York City parks department said Trump’s campaign had a permit for up to 3,500 people) were Hispanic or Black. Some of the supporters wore their Make America Great Again politics proudly on their sleeves.“I’m a Black dyed-in-the-wool Republican,” read one T-shirt. A group of three Hispanic women waiting for the secret service to screen them at the start of the evening chanted “Trumpito!” “Trumpito!” as they danced to the official theme song of Trump Latinos.Theo Diakite, 29, an African American who lives close to the park, said he was drawn to the rally out of curiosity. He has never voted in his life, but this year is feeling tempted to back Trump.He has noticed that other people in his neighborhood share that curiosity. “There are a lot of people who were firm against him in 2020, but are now not so sure.”For the full story, click here:Thousands of Donald Trump supporters came out to Crotona Park in New York’s south Bronx on Thursday evening to support the former president as he rallied for nearly 90 minutes.In attempts to woo Black and Hispanic voters in one of the country’s poorest and most diverse neighborhoods, Trump launched fiery tirades against immigrants and Joe Biden’s immigration policies.“African Americans are getting slaughtered. Hispanic Americans are getting slaughtered,” Trump said, adding that the flow of migrants into New York is hurting “our Black population and our Hispanic population, who are losing their jobs, losing their housing, losing everything they can lose”. At one point, Trump even accused migrants of wanting “to get us from within”, saying: “I think they’re building an army.”In response to Trump, the crowd whooped and cheered, with many at one point breaking into chants of “Build the wall!” and “Send them back!”Trump also responded to former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, who said earlier this week that she would vote for him in November. “I think she’s going to be on our team,” Trump said, adding: “I appreciated what she said.”Despite Trump’s legal woes and Biden’s handling of the border crisis, it appears that inflation is the biggest concern among voters. “The cost of living defines this election,” writes Amy Walter and David Wasserman in the Cook Political Report. A new poll by the Guardian and Harris released this week found nearly three in five Americans wrongly believe the country is in an economic recession, with the majority blaming Biden.Here are other developments in US politics: More

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      Arizona secretary of state calls threats to election officials ‘domestic terrorism’

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      The rising threats against US elections officials are a form of domestic terrorism, the secretary of state in the presidential campaign battleground state of Arizona has said.“Terrorism is defined as a threat of violence for a political outcome,” Adrian Fontes said in remarks recorded for an NBC Meet the Press episode airing on Sunday morning. “That’s what this is, and … we do have to address it for what it is.”Fontes’s comments came as he formed part of a Meet the Press panel of top elections officials from states whose voters could decide in November whether Joe Biden serves a second term in the White House or Donald Trump returns to the presidency.The Guardian has reported how Arizona’s most populous county, Maricopa, has taken extraordinary measures to protect its staff and the counting of ballots. Election workers there endure a daily torrent of hateful and menacing messages over email and social media as Trump and his Republican supporters continue to lie that Biden and his Democratic allies fraudulently stole the 2020 presidential race from him.Fontes, a Democrat and retired US marine, told Meet the Press that such abuse was not enough to get him “off of his post” personally. But, he added: “I will say … it has [affected] not just us but our families as well.“You know, when you have to tell your neighbors, ‘Hey, pay attention, if something happens, the kids might have to come over,’ or to have go-bags ready, or to any number of these things so many people across the country have had to suffer through – that’s a problem,” Fontes said. “One of the ways that I have been looking at this and addressing this is telling the really hard truth. And that is this: threats against elections officials in the United States of America is domestic terrorism.”The label of domestic terrorism is one that both the political left and right in the US constantly argue over.For instance, federal prosecutors have avoided seeking domestic terrorism sentences for Trump supporters convicted of carrying out the deadly attack on the US Capitol after his defeat to Biden. But agencies laid the groundwork to level domestic terrorism charges against mainly liberal activists protesting against a proposed police training center in Atlanta known as Cop City.Fontes said he was optimistic that the justice department was “really ramping up and starting to prosecute” threats aimed at election officials. Notably, in March, a Massachusetts man who had threatened to blow up Fontes’s office in 2021 was handed three and a half years in prison, marking one of the most severe federal punishments yet handed down for the wave of violent threats against ballot workers driven by Trump’s stolen election lies.Trump’s attempts to subvert the legitimacy of Biden’s victory in 2020 has been at the center of several of the more than 80 state and federal criminal charges pending against him across a total of four indictments in various jurisdictions.“We’re working with law enforcement across the country to really start to address these things,” Fontes said of election-worker security. “It’s not too little, too late – but we do have to address it for what it is.” More

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      Biden campaign releases De Niro-voiced video ad warning Trump has ‘snapped’

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      Joe Biden’s re-election campaign has released a high-profile new video ad they are calling Snapped, which attacks Donald Trump as a candidate who will stop at nothing to grab power again.The aggressive, 30-second spot is voiced by an old Hollywood foe of the former president, the actor Robert De Niro, and will be distributed nationally.Against a backdrop of dramatic orchestral music and news images from Trump’s presidency, the De Niro voiceover begins: “From midnight tweets, to drinking bleach, to teargassing citizens and staging a photo-op, we knew Trump was out of control when he was president, and then he lost the 2020 election and snapped.”In relevant photographs, Trump is shown on his phone on Air Force One and at the podium in the White House briefing room in a notorious press conference in 2020 when he suggested that being treated internally with bleach might combat Covid-19. Then he is shown posing with a Bible outside what’s known as the Church of the Presidents, near the White House, after nearby demonstrations against racial injustice and police brutality, following the murder of George Floyd in May, 2020, had been violently cleared by the authorities.Then it goes on to show the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, when extremist supporters of Trump, encouraged by the then president, broke into US congressional chambers to try, ultimately in vain, to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election victory over him.De Niro continues that Trump was “desperately trying to hold on to power”. Then adds: “Now he’s running again, this time threatening to be a dictator, to terminate the constitution.”Footage of Trump shows him warning there will be a “bloodbath” if he does not win in 2024, and additional images showing a mob carrying pro-Trump and election-denying flags clashing with police.“Trump wants revenge and he’ll stop at nothing to get it,” the voice of De Niro continues.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe US president then says in his voiceover: “I’m Joe Biden and I approve this message”. The closing image is Biden walking towards a doorway and saluting the troops that guard him. More

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      Ohio governor calls special legislative session to include Biden on election ballot

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      Ohio’s Republican governor, Mike DeWine, has called an emergency legislative session to put Joe Biden’s name on the presidential ballot after what he called an “absurd” threat from the state’s top election officer to remove the president for missing its deadline.For weeks, Ohio’s secretary of state, Frank LaRose, has been at loggerheads with the Democrats over how to put Biden and his vice-president, Kamala Harris, on the ballot given that their official nomination comes after the expiry of the state’s deadline of 90 days before the November election.The Biden-Harris ticket is scheduled to be certified after its official coronation on the final day of the Democratic national convention on 22 August in Chicago, 15 days after Ohio’s 7 August cutoff date.LaRose, also a Republican, warned this week that current rules would force him to exclude Biden’s name from ballot papers, denying voters in the state a full choice of presidential candidates.He wrote to the chair of the Ohio Democratic party, Elizabeth Walters, saying the onus was on the party to change its nominating arrangements because the state legislature had ruled out amending Ohio law to accommodate Biden.In a news conference, DeWine overrode that decision, calling the situation “simply unacceptable”.“Ohio is running out of time to get Joe Biden, the sitting president of the United States, on the ballot this fall,” he said. “Failing to do so is simply not acceptable. This is a ridiculous – this is an absurd situation.”Posting on X, LaRose – who first raised the issue last month – had earlier said he was “duty bound to follow the law as Ohio’s chief elections officer”.“As it stands today, the Democratic Party’s nomination will not be on the Ohio election ballot,” he wrote. “That is not my choice. It’s due to a conflict in the law created by the party, and the party has so far offered no legally acceptable remedy.”The Democrats had earlier suggested resolving the problem by offering a “provisional nomination” of Biden and Harris, a solution LaRose said fell short of the state’s legal standard. Democrats countered that this view was contradicted by the experience of the 2020 election when, they argued, several other states accepted a similar resolution to incompatible deadlines for both parties.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDeWine’s decision potentially saves the Democratic party from filing a lawsuit to force Biden’s name on to the ballot.A similar possible deadlock situation arose in Alabama, but state legislators resolved it by pushing back the certification date, with the governor quickly signing it into law.The imbroglio has come against a backdrop of mistrust between Democrats and Republicans over elections, fuelled by Donald Trump’s relentless peddling of a lie that Biden’s 2020 presidential victory was “stolen”.Ohio was once viewed as a swing state but has recently trended solidly Republican, with Trump triumphing over Biden by eight percentage points four years ago, and beating Hillary Clinton by a similar margin in 2016. More

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      ‘Thrilled to be back’: Trump swaps courtroom for Bronx in play for Hispanic and Black voters

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      Even for a man known for his bombast, Donald Trump’s foray into one of the poorest, most diverse and staunchly Democratic parts of America, New York city’s South Bronx, on Thursday night was an offensive move of breathtaking audacity.His rally in the crucible of hiphop, where 95% of the population is Black or Hispanic and where 35% live below the poverty line, was like voluntarily stepping into the lion’s den. Being Trump, he declared it a historic victory.“When I woke up this morning I wondered whether it will be hostile or will it be friendly. It was a lovefest!” he said towards the end of his 90-minute speech.Just a few blocks away from Crotona Park – the location of Trump’s first campaign rally in New York state since 2016 – is the congressional district of his nemesis, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Trump notoriously told AOC to “go back” to the country where she came from – a bold line to take with a woman born in the Bronx.Yet despite arriving in a New York borough that is home to some of his fiercest critics in the Democratic party, Trump strode onto the platform on a balmy evening as though he were returning to his own personal playground. “Right here in the Bronx, I’m thrilled to be back in the city I grew up in, the city I spent my life in,” he said.What he pointedly didn’t say was that he wasn’t just turning up in New York after a long absence. He has of course spent the best part of the past six weeks holed up in a frigid courtroom just 10 miles south of Thursday’s rally site, his eyes often closed, while a jury considers whether to convict him of falsifying business records to cover up an alleged affair with Stormy Daniels.In five days’ time he will be back in the Manhattan criminal courthouse for closing arguments, after which the jury will be sent out to decide his fate.View image in fullscreenAOC goaded Trump remorselessly over his ongoing legal afflictions. In comments made before the rally, she said that the only reason the event was happening at all was because he was trapped in the city for the duration of the trial.“The man practically has the legal version of an ankle bracelet round him,” she said.By all accounts, the experience of enduring 20 court days of People v Donald J Trump has been excruciating for Trump. He has been forced into a world where he has no control, where people do not fawn over him, where he looks “haggard and rumpled”, as the New York Times’s Maggie Haberman memorably portrayed him.On Thursday night that shriveled Trump was gone, to be replaced by a more familiar figure: Trump as the architect of the best economy on Earth; the most successful businessman and deal-maker ever … and the “hottest”, to boot (his description).In epic meanderings that have become increasingly common at Trump rallies, he took several trips down memory lane, as though nostalgia has become his balm for legal agony. He listed at length his triumphs as a real estate developer in New York, so much so that at times it seemed the city’s legendary skyline was built by his own fair hands.He swung between lavishly praising New York city, and denigrating it as a metropolis in decline. It was both the greatest city in the world that had spawned heroes like Teddy Roosevelt, Frank Sinatra and Babe Ruth; and a Third World catastrophe littered with discarded needles, drugged-out homeless people, buckling sidewalks and lunatics pushing innocent bystanders onto the subway tracks.The Trump campaign had billed the Bronx rally as an opportunity to display to the world how well the former president is doing with Hispanic and Black voters. A ripple of recent polls have indicated that his fortunes with these two heavily Democratic-leaning voting groups may be starting to improve.“Who said we are not going to win New York? We are going to win New York City!” he prophesied, before going on to make a naked play for the majority-minority vote of the South Bronx. He claimed to have lifted 6.6 million people out of poverty when he was in the White House, comparing that with the “disaster” of Biden’s economy in which African American earnings had slumped almost 6%.“African Americans are getting slaughtered. Hispanic Americans are being slaughtered. The biggest negative impact of the millions and millions of illegals coming into this country is against our Black population and our Hispanic population who are losing their jobs, housing, losing everything.”View image in fullscreenTrump’s prediction that he will win New York is fanciful, political observers have no doubt. The last time a Republican president won in the Bronx was Calvin Coolidge in 1924. Trump lost to Joe Biden here in 2020 by a thumping 84% to 16%.Which is not to say that something is not happening. The crowd at Crotona Park was unquestionably more diverse than your typical, almost exclusively white, Trump rally.Up to a quarter of the thousands of people who came to hear him (the New York City Parks Department said Trump’s campaign had a permit for up to 3,500 people) were Hispanic or Black. Some of the supporters wore their Make America Great Again politics proudly on their sleeves.“I’m a Black dyed-in-the-wool Republican,” read one T-shirt. A group of three Hispanic women waiting for the secret service to screen them at the start of the evening chanted “Trumpito!” “Trumpito!” as they danced to the official theme song of Trump Latinos.Theo Diakite, 29, an African American who lives close to the park, said he was drawn to the rally out of curiosity. He has never voted in his life, but this year is feeling tempted to back Trump.He has noticed that other people in his neighborhood share that curiosity. “There are a lot of people who were firm against him in 2020, but are now not so sure.”When Diakite told his dad, a lifelong Democrat, that he was going to the Trump rally he expected a tongue-lashing. To his surprise, his father replied: “Yeah man, I’ve been very disappointed about what’s been going on these past two years.”Anson Paul, 30, a Black personal fitness trainer from the South Bronx who voted twice for Barack Obama, was wearing a red Maga hat backwards. That was a sign of the times, he said.“In 2020 I wouldn’t have worn a Maga hat – it was too crazy, people could have assaulted me.” Now, he said, things were changing.“We’re still in the minority, but people in the Bronx are waking up to Donald Trump.”Tiana Diaz, 43, was born and raised in the South Bronx in a family of Puerto Rican descent. She said she was proud to sport a pink Make America Great Again hat, having voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020.For Diaz, Trump’s legal troubles in the courtroom merely strengthened her adulation for him. It reminds her, she said, of why she turned to him in the first place – the sense that everybody in the “system” was out to get him.“I have a BS radar, and I knew it was all bullshit,” she said. “That trial is just plain BS.”Democratic organisers and union leaders staged their own counter-rally at a separate corner of Crotona Park. It was a small gathering of only about 200 people, according to reports, but it carried a punchy title: “Trump isn’t welcome in the Bronx”. More

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      Who does RFK Jr pose the bigger threat to: Joe Biden or Donald Trump? – podcast

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      Last week it was announced that Donald Trump and Joe Biden would finally hit the debate stage for a rematch. While voters contemplate which of the pair stands to lose more by going head to head, another candidate is working hard to try to join them – Robert F Kennedy Jr. The controversial independent candidate doesn’t even have the backing of his famous political family, but he’s polling nationally stronger than any third-party candidate has in decades.
      This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to political analyst David Corn about which of the two frontrunners should be more worried by RFK Jr’s presidential campaign

      How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More