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      Trump to sue judge in effort to avert hush-money trial – as it happened

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      Donald Trump will sue the judge overseeing his hush money trial, which is over allegations that Trump forged financial records in an attempt to cover up a sex scandal, the New York Times first reported.The latest lawsuit from Trump is a last-minute attempt to delay the trial, which is set to begin 15 April in New York City.According to the Times, Trump’s legal team has now filed an action against Judge Juan Merchan, though the lawsuit itself is not public.Two sources with knowledge on the suit told the Times on Monday that Trump’s attorneys are asking an appeals court to delay the trial and also attacking a gag order that Merchan placed on Trump.Merchan previously denied Trump’s request to delay the trial until the US supreme court reviews his claims around presidential immunity involving a separate criminal case.That concludes today’s US politics live blog.Here’s what happened today:
      Biden announced several student loan forgiveness proposals during remarks in Madison, Wisconsin. One of his biggest proposals will cancel debt for those with more than $20,000 in interest or anyone who started paying off student loans more than two decades ago.
      Former vice-president Mike Pence criticized Trump’s stance on abortion, calling it a “slap in the face” to the anti-abortion movement. In a lengthy post to Twitter/X, Pence said that Trump had previously sent Roe v Wade “to the ash heap” by securing supreme court judges who were anti-abortion, but criticized his “retreat” from “pro-life Americans” with his latest decision.
      Jake Sullivan will host a meeting at the White House on Monday for families of US hostages held in Gaza, Punchbowl News reported. The latest meeting comes amid ongoing attempts to bring hostages home.
      Trump indicated that he will sue the judge overseeing his hush money trial in New York City, the New York Times first reported. Trump is accused of forging financial records to cover up a sex scandal. The trial is set to begin 15 April.
      Senator Lindsey Graham denounced Trump’s position on abortion and vowed to continue advocating for a 15-week abortion ban. In a statement Monday, Graham said he “respectfully [disagrees]” on Trump’s stance that abortion is an issue of states’ rights.
      Thank you for following along.Vice-president Kamala Harris said that Trump would sign off on a national abortion ban, when asked about Trump’s statement that abortion access should be left up to the states.While talking with reporters before boarding Air Force 2, Harris said:
      Let’s all be very clear – if he were to be put back in a position where he could sign off on a law, he would sign off on a national abortion ban. Let’s be very clear about that.
      From CBS News:Americans – and the rest of the world – are keeping an eye on the state of the US presidential race. Almost every day multiple new polls emerge and they nearly all agree – this race is close. Two more polls came on Monday, one (from I&I/TIPP) had Joe Biden up by three points, while the other (from Emerson) had Trump winning by one.Go back a little further and over the last nine polls Biden has been winning in five of them, three of them had Trump ahead and one was a tie. The overall average still has Trump slightly ahead by just 0.3 points. That seems to represent a pattern of the last few weeks – Biden is ticking very slowly up. Of course, the vagaries of the US election system and its electoral college mean the polls are no straight predictor of a winner. Trump has (recently) been stronger in core battleground states.Pence blasts Trump’s abortion positionFormer vice-president Mike Pence has blasted his old boss’s position on abortion, saying that it is a “a slap in the face” of many anti-abortion campaigners.The Hill reports that Pence tweeted in the wake of Trump saying the issue should be decided by individual states – a blow to those who hoped he might back some form of more national ban.“President Trump’s retreat on the Right to Life is a slap in the face to the millions of pro-life Americans who voted for him in 2016 and 2020,” Pence wrote in his post, before praising the steps their administration took to further the anti-abortion effort.Pence tweeted: “By nominating and standing by the confirmation of conservative justices, the Trump-Pence Administration helped send Roe v. Wade to the ash heap of history where it belongs and gave the pro-life movement the opportunity to compassionately support women and unborn children.”Biden commented on attempts from Republican lawmakers and the US supreme court to end his loan forgiveness program.“But then some of my Republican friends and elected officials [in] special interest sued us. And the supreme court blocked us,” Biden said, as the crowd booed.“But that didn’t stop us,” Biden added.Read about the supreme court’s actions against student loan forgiveness here:Biden’s student loan forgiveness proposals have already gotten a nod of endorsement from top Democrats.Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont called the proposals a “big deal”, emphasizing that millions of Americans face “outrageous [levels] of student debt”.Biden announced several major actions with regards to student loans during his speech.Biden said his administration will propose a new rule to cancel up to $20,000 in interest for people who owe more than when they began paying their off loan.Biden will also cancel student debt for those who started paying their student loans more than two decades ago.“This relief can be life-changing,” Biden said.Biden has begun his remarks on student loan forgiveness, discussing the impact that it has on millions of Americans.“A lot can’t repay for even decades after being [out of] school,” Biden said.“Too many people feel the strain and stress … because even if they get by, they still have this crushing, crushing debt,” he addedBiden added that student debt also negatively impacts the local economy, as many people are unable to afford homes.Biden’s remarks on student loan forgiveness are set to begin shortly in Madison, Wisconsin.Stay tuned for updates!More Democrats have warned that Trump will sign a national abortion ban if elected president in 2024.Elizabeth Warren said Trump bragged he’s “proudly the person responsible” for overturning Roe.“He’d sign a national abortion ban as president, & his allies plan to get it done even without Congress,” the Massachusetts senator added.Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, noted that Trump’s stance on abortion has frequently changed, alluding that it could become more hard line.The White House has not been briefed on the date of Israel’s invasion of Rafah, Reuters reports.State department spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Monday that the White House has not received a date for the military operation after Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu said that a day has been chosen.Miller emphasized that the US does not support an invasion of Rafah, where many people in Gaza are currently displaced amid the ongoing genocide in the territory.Jake Sullivan will host a meeting at the White House on Monday for families of US hostages held in Gaza, Punchbowl News reported.The national security adviser will also meet with Israeli opposition Yair Lipid, who is visiting Washington this week.Earlier today, White House spokesperson John Kirby said that Hamas is currently considering a deal that could release more hostages and lead to a six-week ceasefire.Trump’s position on abortion sparked a myriad of reactions from both sides of the political aisle. On Monday, Trump said that abortion is an issue of states’ rights, refusing to back a 15-week abortion ban that is popular amid Republicans.Democrats have warned that Trump will sign a national abortion ban, further limiting reproductive rigts. Meanwhile, anti-abortion advocates and GOP members have publicly criticized Trump for refusing to support an national limit.Biden squarely blamed Trump “for creating the cruelty and the chaos that has enveloped America since the Dobbs decision”.Here’s what else has happened today:
      Biden is on route to Madison Wisconsin, where he will deliver remarks on his latest student loan forgiveness plan. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that Biden will continue “fighting on behalf of borrowers” despite pushback from “Republican officials”.
      Trump has indicated that he will sue the judge overseeing his hush money trial in New York City, the New York Times first reported. Trump is accused of forging financial records to cover up a sex scandal.
      The White House announced that Hamas is reviewing a proposal that could lead to the release of hostages and a six-week ceasefire amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
      Ahead of Biden’s speech on student loans, Jean-Pierre said that Biden will continue to pursue student loan forgiveness despite pushback from “Republican officials”.“While we can’t prevent them from filing lawsuits against this plan, the president will never stop fighting on behalf of borrowers,” Jean-Pierre said.Republican states have previously tried to fight Biden’s attempts to wipe student loan debt, even falsely claiming that they would be financially impacted by the loan forgiveness scheme.Jean-Pierre had choice words for Trump and Senate Republicans about abortion following Trump clarifying his position.Jean-Pierre blamed Republicans for “extreme abortion bans” happening in GOP-led states, during Monday’s gaggle.“The only reason that extreme abortion bans are now in effect all over the country is because of the judges the previous president and Senate republicans put in the court,” Jean-Pierre said.“The only reason that women are being [denied] life saving and even unrelated procedures and turned away from emergency rooms…is because of the judges the previous president and Senate republicans put in the court,” she added.Jean-Pierre added that bans on IVF, a consequence of the Alabama state supreme court ruling, are because of judges selected by Trump.“We need to be clear eyed here,” Jean-Pierre added, regarding the potential impact on reproductive rights if Trump is elected.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is hosting a gaggle aboard Air Force One, as Biden travels to Wisconsin to give remarks on student loan forgiveness.Stay tuned for further updates.Donald Trump will sue the judge overseeing his hush money trial, which is over allegations that Trump forged financial records in an attempt to cover up a sex scandal, the New York Times first reported.The latest lawsuit from Trump is a last-minute attempt to delay the trial, which is set to begin 15 April in New York City.According to the Times, Trump’s legal team has now filed an action against Judge Juan Merchan, though the lawsuit itself is not public.Two sources with knowledge on the suit told the Times on Monday that Trump’s attorneys are asking an appeals court to delay the trial and also attacking a gag order that Merchan placed on Trump.Merchan previously denied Trump’s request to delay the trial until the US supreme court reviews his claims around presidential immunity involving a separate criminal case. More

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      Trump to seek federal investigations of Biden if re-elected, report says

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      Donald Trump will seek to mount federal investigations and prosecutions of Joe Biden and his family if Trump wins re-election this year, the news site Axios reported.“Everything you have seen from the Biden Department of Justice you can expect to see from the Trump DoJ,” a source “close to the Trump campaign” was quoted as saying.Another “Trump ally” said current federal charges against Trump were all the precedent Trump would need to prosecute Biden in turn.Trump is virtually certain to be the Republican nominee in November and regularly bests Biden in head-to-head polling. Trump is also performing strongly in key swing states.Trump also faces 44 federal criminal charges: 40 over his retention of classified information and four over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. His other 44 criminal charges are at the state level: 10 over election subversion in Georgia and 34 over hush-money payments in New York.Should Trump be re-elected, he could dismiss the federal charges or pardon himself. He could not rid himself of the state charges.New York, Trump’s home state until he moved to Florida after leaving the White House, is also the source of multimillion-dollar penalties in two civil cases – one over tax fraud and one concerning defamation arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”.Despite such unprecedented legal jeopardy – which has generated a trial schedule due to begin next Monday, in the New York hush-money case – Trump strolled to the Republican nomination to face Biden again in November.Biden was investigated for retaining classified information from his time as vice-president to Barack Obama. Unlike Trump, he co-operated with authorities. Unlike Trump, Biden was not charged.As president, Trump was impeached twice: first for blackmailing Ukraine for dirt on opponents including Biden and second for inciting the January 6 attack on Congress.House Republicans have attempted to impeach Biden over alleged corruption involving his son, Hunter Biden, but have seen such efforts descend into farce in a series of chaotic hearings.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionNonetheless, Mike Davis, a former legal aide to Chuck Grassley – an Iowa senator among Republicans embarrassed when a key source of allegations against the Bidens was jailed and linked to Russian intelligence – told Axios the Bidens were guilty of “illegal foreign corruption”.“The Biden justice department will not do anything about it, so the Trump 47 justice department should,” Davis said, referring to Trump’s status as the 47th president, as well as the 45th, should he win re-election.Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House oversight committee who was a manager in Trump’s second impeachment, told Axios: “In saying that they are going to enable Donald Trump’s criminal vengeance campaign, [Republicans] are taking this from a farce to tragedy.” More

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      Trump one week, Biden the next: what do presidential polls teach us?

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      In recent months, polling has generally showed President Joe Biden running behind his Republican challenger, Donald Trump, by a small margin, particularly in swing states like Georgia and Arizona. But election polling began to fluctuate after Biden’s State of the Union speech last month.The question is how much meaning observers should ascribe to polls in April, seven months ahead of the election.“We’re pretty well beyond the point where it starts becoming meaningful,” said Dave Wasserman, editor at the election-analysis newsletter the Cook Political Report. “We’re seeing a lot of variation in polls, which is not new.”Most political partisans have long made up their minds about their preferred candidate. But large numbers of voters aren’t really paying attention to the election campaigns yet.“The polling has a lot of noise because of polarization,” said Rachel Bitecofer, a political scientist, campaign strategist and author of Hit ’Em Where It Hurts. “The polling is measuring latent partisanship. … But, you know, at the end of the day, it is going to be a 50-50 race coming into election day. I don’t know why folks are having a hard time accepting that.”The discipline of political polling comes under perennial challenge every election cycle, occasionally metastasizing into cancerous error like “unskewed polls”. Pollsters try to focus on building a demographic model of the electorate that’s accurate, to weight the results of a poll correctly. If a pollster under- or overestimates the proportion of, say, Latino voters or college-educated voters or young voters on election day, a poll will reflect that error.But pollsters also treat their formulae for weighting polls like a trade secret akin to the recipe for Coca-Cola, said Louis Perron, a political strategist and author of Beat the Incumbent: Proven Strategies and Tactics to Win Elections. That lack of transparency contributes to polling error, he said.“Polls have been considerably off for many cycles. Now, after every election cycle, pollsters claim to have learned their lesson, just to be wrong again,” Perron said.“Now, in their defense, primary polling seems to be OK. Let’s wait for the general election. I mean, Trump has been seriously underestimated in many polls, as have Trump voters. So, maybe the simple reason why he’s now ahead is because he’s no longer underestimated. Maybe they have adapted the polling, and that’s why he’s now doing better than ever.”Even the most precise polling leaves room for questions. If the margin of error on a poll is 3%, that means the poll has a 95% chance to be within three points of the population surveyed. The margin of error in a poll varies inversely by the square root of the sample size. A poll of 100 voters may vary by as much as 10% from the views of a group. Polls of 1,000 people have an error rate closer to 3%.Several polls in recent months have suggested Trump is winning as much as 20% of Black voters. Most of those estimates are based on samples within larger polls that are too small to be accurate, said BlackPAC executive director Adrianne Shropshire.“It’s not reflected in our own polling,” she said. Her group polls between 600 and 1,000 Black voters at a time. “There’s nothing close to a historic shift in Black voters’ intentions.”Consider news reports about a New York Times/Siena poll last month showing Trump with 23% support among Black voters: only 119 of the respondents were Black. An Economist/YouGov poll suggested about 12% of Black voters support Trump; there, only 168 respondents were Black. A Marquette University poll cited by the Washington Post showing “at least 20 percent” Black support for Trump surveyed only 92 Black voters.A substantial decline in voters’ responsiveness to the phone calls and internet entreaties of pollsters is adding to polling challenges, Wasserman said. Fewer than 1% of pollsters’ attempts to contact voters for a poll are now successful. Those who do pick up a phone might have stronger political views than those who ignore the call.“It’s a fraction of what it used to be because respondents can screen their calls. They are getting far more spam than they used to,” he said. “Response rates are really, really low, and that creates the bigger possibility for a systemic polling error of the kind that we saw in 2016 or 2020.”But despite the gaps, polls historically trend in the right direction. Polling was fairly accurate in 2018 and 2022 – years without presidential contests, Wasserman noted.“The question is: in ’24, is there a similar hidden Trump vote? Or are polls roughly on the mark? Or is there a hidden Biden vote because Democrats are less enthusiastic about Biden than Republicans are about Trump?”Polls especially have a place in understanding where the electorate is at a point in time.“What the polls tell us is that voters aren’t necessarily enamored with Republicans. But they’re very down about Biden’s management of foreign policy, the economy, immigration – and not by small margins, by very large margins. And that’s contributing to his status as an underdog in this race.”For now, many voters are tuned out of presidential politics, particularly the “double haters” – those who dislike both Biden and Trump. And those are the voters likely to decide the election in close states.“In terms of the general public, they’re both deeply flawed general-election candidates,” Perron said. “Double haters will decide the election. Those who actually have a negative opinion about both candidates will ultimately decide the election by choosing what appears to them to be the lesser evil.” More

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      Biden could be left off general election ballot in Ohio, Republican official warns

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      The Ohio secretary of state has sent a letter to the Ohio Democratic party warning that Joe Biden could be left off the November election ballot in 2024 unless the Democratic National Convention meets earlier or statutory requirements in the state are changed or exempted.According to a letter sent from the Ohio secretary of state, Frank LaRose, a Republican, to Ohio Democratic party chair Liz Walters, the Democratic National Convention scheduled for 19 August where the party officially nominates its candidate for president is past the 7 August deadline to certify presidential candidates on the Ohio ballot.“I am left to conclude that the Democratic National Committee must either move up its nominating convention or the Ohio General Assembly must act by May 9, 2024 (90 days prior to a new law’s effective date) to create an exception to this statutory requirement,” the legal counsel for Ohio secretary of state Paul Disantis wrote in the letter, according to ABC News. The Ohio Democratic party has said they received the letter and are currently reviewing it. The Biden campaign expressed confidence that the president would be on the ballot for November in Ohio.The Ohio general assembly could pass an exemption waiver before 9 May, or the convention would have to be moved earlier which is unlikely given logistics and scheduling issues.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn 2020, the Republican and Democratic parties held their conventions after Ohio’s deadline and state lawmakers reduced the requirement of 90 days to 60 days before the election to be named on the ballot. More

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      Christian nationalists embrace Trump as their savior – will they be his?

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      A thrice-married man who refers to the Eucharist as a “little cracker”, was apparently unable to name a single Bible verse and says he has never asked God for forgiveness was always an unlikely hero for the most conservative Christians in the US.But in both 2016 and 2020, Donald Trump resoundingly won the vote of white evangelicals. Now, with Trump having almost certainly secured the Republican nomination for 2024 and eyeing a return to the White House, his campaign is doubling down on religious imagery, securing the evangelical base and signaling sympathies with Christian nationalism.Indeed, the former US president’s relationship with the religious right has deepened so much that Trump is now comfortable with comparing himself to their messiah.“And on June 14, 1946, God looked down on his planned paradise, and said: ‘I need a caretaker,’” booms a video that Trump shared on his Truth Social account, and that has been played at some of his rallies.“So God gave us Trump.”The video, made by Dilley Meme Team, a group of Trump supporters, continues:“God said: ‘I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, fix this country, work all day, fight the Marxists, eat supper, then go to the Oval Office and stay up past midnight at a meeting of the heads of state.’ So God made Trump.”To some, it is a baffling pairing. Evangelicals, who typically adhere to a literal reading of the Bible and, theoretically, follow a strict code that opposes infidelity, immorality and abortion and is critical of same-sex relationships, seem an odd match-up with a man like Trump.But the pairing has had benefits for both parties: Trump got elected in 2016, and evangelicals got a conservative supreme court that has already overturned the Roe v Wade ruling, which enshrined a constitutional right to abortion.Now, Trump is believing the hype he’s received from some on the religious right: that he has been chosen, or anointed, by God himself.He has increasingly begun to lean into the rightwing social conservatism that white evangelicals – who make up 14% of Americans – favor. That was clear in February, when Trump spoke at the National Religious Broadcasters convention (NRBC), a gathering of the kind of conservative Christians who lead mega-churches, host televangelist shows and claim to receive prophecies from God.Trump said in that address that there was an “anti-Christian bias” in the US, and promised that he would create a taskforce to investigate “discrimination, harassment and persecution against Christians in America”.While Trump easily won the white evangelical vote in his previous two presidential elections, Kristin Du Mez, a professor of history and gender studies at Calvin University whose research focuses on the intersection of gender, religion and politics, said this election cycle sees him leaning even further into this appeal.Du Mez said his speech at the NRBC was “a new level we haven’t often seen”.“He was promising [the evangelical audience] power, but in much more explicit terms,” she said. “And he was really leaning into this language of culture wars, of religious wars: that he was going to protect their interests and protect their power against the enemies – against fellow Americans, against liberals, against the enemies who were trying to persecute Christians, who were persecuting Christians.”The “God made Trump” video is not the only example of Trump seeing himself as a deity. On 25 March, Trump said on his Truth Social account that he had received the following message from a supporter:“It’s ironic that Christ walked through His greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you.”It follows Trump sharing a fake court sketch in late 2023, published during Trump’s fraud trial in New York, which shows him seated beside Jesus Christ.About 85% of white evangelical Protestant voters who frequently attend religious services voted for Trump in 2020, Pew Research found, as did 81% of those who attend less frequently.Securing, and adding to, that vote could be key to a Trump victory. Du Mez pointed to research by the Public Religion Research Institute that shows how crucial the evangelical vote is in swing states. Evangelicals make up about a quarter of residents in Georgia and North Carolina, 16% of the population in Pennsylvania and about 12% of voters in Wisconsin.Biden beat Trump in all but North Carolina in 2020. Given the lack of enthusiasm for both candidates, both men are desperate to win every possible vote in what is expected to be a tight election.It helps Trump that evangelicals feel under attack. Since 2015, he has told his supporters that they are looked down on by liberal elites, and that their rights are threatened. That same message resonates with some religious voters, Du Mez said, who could also resent the mockery of Trump’s imagining himself as Jesus Christ.“It only reinforces the scripts that they’ve been handed, which is that the left is out to get you and they are mocking and they have no respect for your faith,” Du Mez said.While Trump has long enjoyed popularity among evangelicals, and has been courted by leaders including televangelists and pastors at mega-churches, this is the first election cycle in which he has been confident enough to compare himself to Jesus Christ. So, what’s changed?Trump “has been getting this message from these folks for years now”, said Matthew D Taylor, author of The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement That Is Threatening Our Democracy, recalling the sight of evangelical leaders praying over Trump during his time in office.The thirst for Trump as a biblical figure can be traced to the unique way he ascended to become an evangelical favorite, Taylor said: when he launched his campaign in June 2015, few in “respectable evangelical circles” wanted anything to do with the brash, twice-divorced, self-proclaimed billionaire.It made sense. This was a man who, during his first presidential campaign, memorably misnamed the body of Christ, and while at church put cash in a plate that is meant to hold the communion. During his early forays into religious outreach, Trump was asked to name his favorite verse in the Bible, and couldn’t name one – asked again three weeks later, he named one that doesn’t exist.He enlisted Paula White as his spiritual adviser, and charged her with bringing the evangelical elites onboard. The problem was that White, herself a thrice-married multimillionaire who preaches the idea that God will bestow wealth on his followers, didn’t move in those circles.Taylor noted that White’s allies were among fellow prosperity gospel preachers and “new apostolic reformation leaders” – a movement that seeks to inject Christianity into politics, the judiciary, the media and business.“These folks were really on the margins not only of American Christianity, but of American evangelicals. They were seen as kind of lowbrow and prosperity gospel types and televangelists. They were seen as kind of a laughable sector of evangelicalism in respectable evangelical circles,” Taylor said.As Trump won primary elections in state after state, the respectable evangelicals were able to overcome their moral objections to him being the Republican candidate.But by this point, Trump’s main advisers were cemented as the type of religious leaders once scoffed at by the religious elites. Trump continued to rely on the Paula Whites of this world, and the more far-out religious leaders won influence – and are set to have even more if he wins in 2024.“Those are the type of people I think Trump would be bringing in to help shape policy, help shape identity,” Taylor said.“These aren’t the kind of people who are policy wonks, but there are Christian nationalists who have very clear agenda items, especially on topics like abortion, on topics like support for Israel, on topics like religious freedom, on topics such as LGBTQ +rights.“Trump has surrounded himself and has brought into his White House advisers echelons some very, very extreme Christian voices. And he seems to be at the very least playing footsie with them, if not overtly endorsing some of their ideas.”This bodes poorly for a Trump second term, when abortion rights, the rights of LGBTQ+ people and even the right to access IVF treatment could come under attack.There are also warning signs, Taylor said, should Trump again refuse to concede the election – and if his supporters once more interpret his rhetoric as a call to attack the home of US democracy.Trump’s religious supporters were among those at the Capitol during the January 6 insurrection. Taylor said he was seeing “more and more of this cross-pollination between far-right and even overtly racist elements and these spiritual warriors”.“When you are mixing white nationalism and neo-Nazi ideas with very heavy religious fervor and processes, that is a very, very dangerous mix,” Taylor said.“Because it’s encouraging more and more people to do extraordinary things, if they feel like their country is slipping away from them.” More

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      Presidents assemble: Obama can reach parts of Democratic base Biden can’t

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      For once showbusiness royalty – Queen Latifah, Lizzo, Ben Platt, Cynthia Erivo, Lea Michele and Mindy Kaling – was not the main attraction. Instead it was a trio of US presidents that enticed people to pay up to half a million dollars for New York’s hottest ticket.Last month Joe Biden was joined onstage by Bill Clinton and Barack Obama at a sold-out Radio City Music Hall. At more than $26m, it was the most successful political fundraising event in history. It was also an “Avengers assemble” moment for Democrats seeking to bury their differences ahead of November’s presidential election.“Last night showed our sceptics, as well as our supporters – it showed the press; it showed everyone – that we are united. We’re a united party,” Biden said later, hinting at the contrast with his opponent, former president Donald Trump, who is shunned by his only living Republican predecessor, George W Bush, and even his own vice-president, Mike Pence.But the spectacle of three living Democratic presidents (the fourth, Jimmy Carter, is 99 and in hospice care) joining forces masked some complex personal dynamics in a White House race where 81-year-old Biden is likely to need all the help that he can get.Obama, 62, remains the Democratic party’s biggest star with books, media appearances, civil society work, plans for a presidential library and campaign speeches each electoral cycle. Clinton, 77, by contrast, saw his stock plummet when Democrats moved left on policy and embraced the #MeToo movement’s reckoning over sexual misconduct.But analysts believe that both men could prove powerful surrogates for Biden as he seeks to emulate them by winning a second term. Tara Setmayer, a senior adviser to the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, said: “We’re going to see a lot more of President Obama during this election. He’s the best surrogate for President Biden for the constituencies that he needs to shore up: Black voters, young voters, the Democratic coalition.“Bill Clinton still has an appeal in a certain constituency within the Democratic establishment, so they will use him where they think he’s best suited. If they didn’t think he had value, he would not have been on that stage.”It is a team of former rivals. The three men were on a collision course during the Democratic presidential primary election in 2008. Biden and Obama sought the nomination, as did Clinton’s wife, Hillary. Obama came out on top then chose Biden as vice-president and Hillary Clinton as secretary of state.View image in fullscreenAs Obama’s two terms were ending and the 2016 election was approaching, he nudged Hillary Clinton to the forefront as his preferred successor and dissuaded Biden from running after Biden’s elder son died of cancer. Clinton lost to Trump, who lost to Biden in 2020. Obama privately helped clear a path for Biden to the Democratic nomination that year.There have been notable splits between the presidents on key issues. Biden was unsuccessful in persuading Obama not to send more troops to Afghanistan in 2009. US forces remained in the country until 2021, when Biden withdrew them during his first year in office.But at last month’s fundraiser, moderated by the late-night TV host Stephen Colbert, the pair were in lockstep. After Biden had painted a dire picture of the threat posed by Trump, it was Obama who highlighted the current president’s achievements, from record-breaking job growth to lower healthcare costs, from expanding college access to a historic investment in clean energy.“It’s not just the negative case against the presumptive nominee on the other side,” Obama said. “It’s the positive case for somebody who’s done an outstanding job in the presidency.”Pro-Palestinian protesters heckled the presidents’ conversation, underlining how the war in Gaza has become one of Biden’s biggest electoral vulnerabilities. When Obama was interrupted, he pushed back in a way that might have been awkward for the current president: “Here’s the thing: you can’t just talk and not listen because that’s part of democracy. Part of democracy is not just talking; it’s listening. That’s what the other side does.”Obama’s exalted status among Democrats could give him a central role in get-out-the-vote efforts in the final weeks of the campaign. David Litt, one of his speechwriters at the White House, said: “President Obama has kind of become a cultural figure in a way that most presidents are not and so he has an ability to reach audiences and a credibility with audiences that might be sceptical of Biden right now, especially younger groups of people.”He added: “To be able to have Barack Obama say Joe Biden has done a great job is just inherently more credible than Joe Biden saying Joe Biden’s done a great job. In the same way that if I tell you that I’m really good-looking, that’s not very convincing.”Obama’s presence on the campaign trail will be a useful reminder of his signature healthcare law, known as Obamacare, which Trump narrowly failed to repeal and has vowed to attack again. His charisma and eloquence could have a downside, however, if he consistently overshadows Biden and throws his age into sharp relief.View image in fullscreenHenry Olsen, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center thinktank in Washington, said: “I don’t think they should share a stage. You want to have Obama as a surrogate; as a former president, he can draw attention on his own. You do not want to have the contrast of a young, fluidly moving, fluidly speaking Obama with the rather rigid-in-all-respects president of the United States.”Like Carter before him, Clinton has spent years in a political wilderness of sorts. A crime bill he signed as president is widely blamed for fuelling a mass incarceration crisis, while his “third way” economic centrism and welfare reform are out of step with today’s progressive movement. A New York Times newspaper report on the 2018 midterm elections was headlined: “No One Wants to Campaign With Bill Clinton Anymore.”His 1998 affair with Monica Lewinsky, then a 22-year-old White House intern, and other allegations of sexual misconduct have come under renewed scrutiny. Comments last month by Clinton’s campaign strategist James Carville – blaming “too many preachy females” in the Democratic party – reinforced the view that the Clinton era belongs firmly in the 20th century.But the 42nd president, who once styled himself as “the comeback kid”, has no intention of leaving the arena. On Sunday Clinton will lead the US presidential delegation to Rwanda to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the genocide. In November, just after the election, Clinton will publish a memoir about his post-presidential life.And at last month’s fundraiser in New York, he relished the opportunity to praise Biden – “That’s the kind of president I want. Stay with what works” – and take a swipe at Trump’s economic record. “President Trump – let’s be honest – had a pretty good couple of years because he stole them from Barack Obama.”Joshua Kendall, a presidential historian, was surprised by Clinton’s presence there. “The MeToo allegations are pretty serious because it’s not just Monica Lewinsky but Juanita Broaddrick,” he said, referring to a woman who accused of Clinton of rape (Clinton has consistently denied all accusations of harassment and assault).“There are also a couple of other allegations that are serious but it seems that people are a little bit sick of #MeToo and so Clinton has been recycled. The Democrats are just so focused on Trump that they feel like they can’t afford any sort of internal squabbles. That’s why Clinton is there. They just feel like they have to do everything they can to work together because polls are frightening.”Biden, Clinton and Obama closed out the New York fundraiser by donning Biden’s trademark sunglasses as the president quipped, “Dark Brandon is real,” a nod to a meme featuring Biden with lasers for eyes. They are likely to mount another show of unity at the Democratic national convention in Chicago this summer.John Zogby, an author and pollster, said: “Obama can fire up a crowd and Clinton does have a charisma factor, so it’s not bad having him on your team – as long as Hillary is not there and as long as Bill Clinton is the third man as opposed to the lead.” More

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      White Rural Rage review: Clinton’s ‘deplorables’ jibe at book length

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      Don’t expect White Rural Rage to win too many hearts or minds. Under the subtitle The Threat to American Democracy, it’s more likely the book will offend. Thomas Schaller and Paul Waldman profess “not to denigrate or mock our fellow Americans who live in rural areas”, but at times appear to do so.Their first chapter title is Essential Minority, Existential Threat. Chapter six, Conditional Patriots. Pro-tip: nobody likes being branded irredeemably deplorable.Schaller is a political science professor at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Waldman a former op-ed writer at the Washington Post. They seek to cover a lot of ground but often come up short.For starters, the authors refuse to grapple with the age-old concept of “blood and soil” as a driver of politics. Brexit in the UK, the rise of Viktor Orbán in Hungary and the persistence of the far-right Le Pens in France are labeled as mere byproducts of globalization and inequality. When it comes to the US, this means neglecting arguments posited more than two centuries ago by John Jay, the first supreme court chief justice, in Federalist No 2.“I have as often taken notice,” Jay wrote, “that Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people – a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion.”Native Americans might have something to say about that but a lot of white Americans in rural areas do trace their roots back a long way and do not like being told what to do – or even the appearance of it – by urban elites. Fear of immigration, whatever the immigrant roots of such communities, is also a simple fact of politics.Schaller and Waldman also ignore the role of resentments stoked by the Iraq war in cementing the bond between rural America and Donald Trump. The fact is, residents of Republican-run states are more than 20% more likely to join the military and after Iraq and the great recession, the disconnect between white rural America and coastal and cognitive elites swiftly became a chasm.In 2016, parts of the US that felt the effects of the 9/11 wars more as reality than abstract moved to the Republican column. According to Douglas Kriner of Boston University and Francis Shen of the University of Minnesota, “Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan could very well have been winners for [Hillary] Clinton if their war casualties were lower.”Wisconsin is the 20th-most rural state. A quarter of Michigan is rural. Pennsylvania has been characterized as Philadelphia in the east, Pittsburgh in the west and Alabama in the middle. As Trump prepares for his rematch with Joe Biden, all three states are toss-ups.Schaller and Waldman also downplay the impact in rural areas of Democratic messaging on hot-button issues such as crime. It’s no longer just “the economy, stupid”. Culture wars pack an outsized punch. Outside New England, white rural Democrats are a relative rarity.Inexplicably, Schaller and Waldman do not examine the case of Jon Tester, the three-term Democratic senator from deep-red, highly rural Montana who faces a stern fight to keep his seat this year. In 2020, in the aftermath of widespread protests for racial justice after the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white Minneapolis officer, but also rioting and looting, Tester criticized his party.“I think the whole idea about defunding police is not just bad messaging but just insane,” Tester told the New York Times. “We didn’t come out with strong advertisements saying, ‘Rioting, burglary is not demonstration and it’s not acceptable.’”Personalities matter too. “You cannot have Chuck Schumer talking rural issues to rural people,” Tester said, about the Brooklyn-born New Yorker who leads the Senate. “It ain’t gonna sell.”A century and a half ago, northern rural Protestants formed the backbone of the union army that won the civil war and helped vanquish slavery. Things have very definitely changed.“One can even argue that rural areas around the country have lost their distinctiveness,” Schaller and Waldman write. “One can find Confederate flags flying in rural areas in every corner of the country, all the way to the Canadian border.” In rural New York in 2018, for example, a sign beneath one such flag read: “Heritage not Hate.”Apparently, “live free and die” really is an ethos. Schaller and Waldman catalogue white rural shortcomings such as high rates of gun deaths, lower life expectancies, high out-of-wedlock birth rates. In 2021, vaccine hesitancy put Oklahoma, Alabama, West Virginia, Mississippi and Wyoming – heavily rural, reliably Republican – at the top of the Covid-fatality list. Vermont, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire and Washington – all Democratic – were at the other end.Elsewhere, Schaller and Waldman criticize Chip Roy, a conservative firebrand congressman from Texas, for failing to push for rural-focused government programs. They acknowledge that Roy is principled in his stance against big government – but fail to mention that unlike 139 of his fellow House Republicans, and eight senators, he voted to certify Biden as the winner of the 2020 election.White Rural Rage is strongest when it points to systemic features that enable rural US states to punch above their weight politically, most obviously the Senate, where each state gets two votes regardless of size.“By 2040, 70% of Americans will reside in the 15 most populous states and choose 30 of the 100 US senators,” Schaller and Waldman write. “Concentrated in smaller and more rural states, the remaining 30% of the population will elect 70 senators. No matter how distorted these population ratios become, each state is guaranteed its two senators – past, present, and forever.”It’s a cold, hard fact. If white rural Americans are angry, they are also powerful. Democrats can either keep on cursing the darkness and losing elections – or deign to light a match.
      White Rural Rage is published in the US by Penguin Random House More

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      ‘He can help Trump win’: US groups take on RFK Jr after No Labels stands down

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      Celebrating the demise of No Labels as a third-party presidential election threat, two advocacy groups who mobilised against it have said they would now turn their sights on Robert F Kennedy Jr’s independent run for the White House.Though it is hard to make solid predictions, a high-profile third-party run in 2024 unnerves both Republicans and Democrats who fear it might siphon off their votes. But the nervousness is especially pronounced among supporters of Joe Biden, who worry such a campaign could split the center and left and allow Donald Trump and his highly motivated rightwing base to win a return to the Oval Office.“Just as we organised against No Labels we’re going to organise against Robert Kennedy Jr,” Rahna Epting, executive director of MoveOn, told reporters a day after No Labels said it would not field a candidate against Biden and Trump in November.Kennedy – an environmental attorney, conspiracy theorist and member of a famous political family – is running as an independent, gaining ballot access and polling in double figures.“We’re going to let folks know he can’t win,” Epting said, “but he can help Trump win” by taking votes from Biden.“We’re going to let folks know that he said he supported abortion bans. We’re going to let folks know that his vice-presidential pick [Nicole Shanahan, an attorney] calls IVF ‘one of the biggest lies’ and we’re going to let folks know that his dark money Super Pac is being funded by Trump donors.“There’s a lot we’re gonna let folks know. This victory against No Labels is just the start. There is a lot of work that we have to do.”No Labels said on Thursday it had not been able to find a candidate to run against Biden and Trump.On Friday Matthew Bennett, of Third Way, said No Labels was helped on its way out by a coalition put together by his centre-left group and MoveOn, an effort “from the left all the way to the centre-right and the Never Trump movement”.But, Bennett said, “The challenges ahead of us are in some ways even tougher.“Kennedy cannot be talked out of this race. He is going to have a lot of money and he’s not subject to reason. So we’re going to have to make clear that voters understand who this guy is, and that is not his father.”Kennedy is the son of the former US attorney general and New York senator Robert F Kennedy and the nephew of the 35th president, John F Kennedy.But, Bennett said, the current Kennedy “is not a safe place to park your vote if you’re dissatisfied with something that [Biden] is doing. This guy’s dangerous and voting for him is tantamount to voting for Trump. It’s also true of the other third-party candidates, Jill Stein [the Green nominee] and anybody else who runs.”Bennett said No Labels had posed a danger by planning to attack Biden from the political centre, even though Biden, as a Washington dealmaker of 50 years standing, was “kind of the platonic ideal of a No Labels candidate”.Kennedy, Bennett said, “is coming from some kind of weirdo fringe … and so it is harder to understand who his coalition is. However, our view is that anyone who divides the anti-Trump coalition is dangerous.”The Biden campaign has set up a team to combat Kennedy. But, Epting said, “It is incredibly important that we get to work in campaigning against Robert Kennedy … and ensure that the choices in November are clear to voters. It is that whether we like it or not … we live in a two-party system and there’s only two candidates that can win this presidential election. Donald Trump or Joe Biden.“Our job is to make that very clear to voters and in terms of resources … to ensure that we re-elect President Biden and an usher in a Democratic House and Senate. We have a $32m program to do that and we will be driving … We’ve got a great team that we assigned to this No Labels work. We’re going to reassign them to our Robert Kennedy work.”Epting and Bennett were asked what they would do to woo “the Kennedy curious”, voters who might be won back, perhaps by less brusque tactics than those employed by Hillary Clinton, who said this week anyone dissatisfied with a Biden-Trump rematch should “get over yourself”.“We’re not going to shame people into voting for Joe Biden,” Epting said. “That is not the pathway to get us out of this quagmire.“Really, it’s making a strategic case to voters, [saying], ‘We understand your grievances, we hear them and yet we live in a two-party presidential system.’ So the impact of your vote … will result in one of two possible worlds. A world in which Donald Trump is president, and he is dismantling our democracy even further. He is instituting a national abortion ban. He is setting up migrant camps, etc.“Or a world in which Joe Biden continues to be in the Oval Office and we’re able to continue to campaign, to push him to enact all the policies that we have dreamed up to strengthen our democracy: to go further around gun violence prevention reform, to protect abortion rights, to continue to create green new jobs and invest in our economy, to continue to tax the rich.”Epting promised to ask “tough questions” of Kennedy on subjects such as abortion, on which he supported a 15-week ban before quickly reversing.“We need to get [his responses] on camera and we need to share what we get … with all the voters that we can, especially in battleground states and districts,” Epting said.Asked about previous Democratic defeats involving third-party candidates, Bennett said that as “a veteran of the [Al] Gore campaign” of 2000, “losing two elections in my professional life to third-party candidates is incredibly galling, and I have made it my mission that we won’t lose three.”That was also a reference to 2016, when Jill Stein took votes from Clinton as Trump won.Bennett said: “I think everybody in Democratic politics … ignored Jill Stein in 2016 because we did not think that she posed a threat, just as the Gore campaign didn’t think Ralph Nader posed a threat in 2000.“We’re simply not going to make that mistake again.” More