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      Murder victim’s sister says Trump didn’t speak to family despite his claim he did

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      Donald Trump used a campaign stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to describe meeting the family of a woman killed by an immigrant in order to spin a narrative about what he calls “Biden’s border bloodbath” – except Ruby Garcia’s family now say he never did.Garcia, 25, was found shot to death on highway US-131 on 22 March of this year. Court records later showed that her boyfriend confessed to killing her and dumping her body.The man, Brandon Ortiz-Vite, had come to the US as a child and was allowed to stay as a so-called “Dreamer”. He was deported in 2020 before re-entering again without documents.Many have read Garcia’s murder not as an illegal immigration issue but one of domestic violence, given authorities said Garcia and Ortiz-Vite were dating.Trump tells the story differently. “She lit up that room, and I’ve heard that from so many people,” Trump said about Garcia. “I spoke to some of her family.”But according to her sister, Mavi Garcia, who is acting as a family spokesperson, neither Trump nor his campaign had reached out to her or her relatives.She said Trump’s comments were intended merely to blame immigrants for crime in order to justify a border crackdown.“It’s always been about illegal immigrants,” Garcia told the local news station Target 8. “Nobody really speaks about when Americans do heinous crimes, and it’s kind of shocking why he would just bring up illegals. What about Americans who do heinous crimes like that?”The Trump campaign has yet to comment on the former president’s claim, but the Washington Post reported he did not mention Garcia again at a stop in Wisconsin later on Tuesday.On Monday Trump had called into a Michigan radio show before heading to Michigan and Wisconsin, two crucial battleground states, to highlight the immigration theme, which he has called the top issue in the 2024 election.“This is a horrible incident with Ruby,” Trump told the conservative host Justin Barclay. “Let Ruby’s relatives and everybody know that we’d love to say hello to them.”Last month, Trump did meet with family and friends of Laken Riley, a nursing student who became a potent symbol for the border issue after an undocumented person from Venezuela was charged with her murder.But Mavi Garcia told Target 8 that Trump was misleading people.“He did not speak with any of us, so it was kind of shocking seeing that he had said that he had spoke with us, and misinforming people on live TV,” Mavi Garcia said. More

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      Trump rails against ‘migrant crime’ and ‘rigged’ 2020 election at Wisconsin rally

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      On Wisconsin’s presidential primary election day, Donald Trump made his first campaign stop in the state, where he railed against so-called “migrant crime” and doubled down on false election claims.“We won in 2016 – we did much better in 2020, hate to say it, we did a hell of a lot better,” the former president told the roaring crowd, nodding to the disproven and unfounded “rigging” numerous times during his speech.“We will throw out the sick political class that hates us,” he continued later. “We will route the fake news media, we will drain the swamp and we will liberate our country from these tyrants and villains once and for all.”Hours earlier, the rainy weather in Green Bay had turned sludgy, icy and painful as gusts of wind blew the precipitation sideways. It did not stop thousands of Trump supporters from thronging there for hours, forming a parade that snaked up and away from the venue and over the bridge crossing the Fox River two blocks away.Trump is, according to most polling, fighting for his life in Wisconsin, a state he lost to Joe Biden four years ago. But one would never know that in the KI Convention Center, where his red and white and sequined supporters gathered to him speak for the first time this campaign season.“I personally like that he’s unashamed,” said Ethan Nielsen, an 18-year-old who attended the rally with his father as he waited in line. “He believes what he believes and he doesn’t go back on what he says.”Committed attendees, who had waited for hours in hypothermic weather, packed into rows of seats. The rest of the crowd milled around patiently, the lull punctuated a few times by MyPillow founder and elections conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, who engaged the audience from his perch at the heart of the television news gaggle.Before Trump’s speech, senator Ron Johnson, a loyal ally of Trump and a vocal promoter of the elections and vaccine misinformation that animates his base, gave brief but impassioned remarks. It was up to Wisconsin, he said, to help deliver Trump a big red wave in November.View image in fullscreenTo do that, Republicans would need to embrace absentee voting.“Today is the perfect example why,” said Johnson, to muted applause. “We can’t afford to have a miserable election day in November and not have our vote already banked – so embrace early voting, we have to do that.”His plea reflects a contradiction within the Republican party, whose star has spent the last four years inveighing against absentee voting and falsely claiming the method facilitated widespread fraud during the 2020 election. Trump’s claims about voter fraud have even propelled a movement at the fringes of the GOP to do away with ballot tabulators entirely and revert to hand-counting – an unreliable method that would be nearly impossible to carry out in large municipalities.In Wisconsin, where a small local campaign to do away with voting machines has taken hold, absentee ballots are at the center of election conspiracy theories.That’s just one of many fractures that have torn the GOP since Trump left office, spilling out publicly in the House of Representatives, engulfing the Michigan Republican party in chaos and taking hold in Wisconsin, where Trump’s most fervent grassroots supporters have launched an apparently endless campaign to take down the Republican state speaker of the assembly, Robin Vos.Even the idea of another Trump candidacy has sparked controversy.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The party is fairly solid on immigration, and where we stand in the world,” Andy Williams, an attorney and prominent party activist from Brown county, told me as he waited outside the convention center before the rally. “The thing that kind of drives them apart, [is] whether or not Trump should be the candidate or somebody else.”Republicans gave a show of unity at Trump’s Green Bay appearance where he took a moment to endorse Senate candidate Eric Hovde, who is running to unseat Democratic senator Tammy Baldwin, before continuing his tirade.View image in fullscreenIn his speech, Trump focused on his favored bogeyman – undocumented immigrants. He peppered the crowd with anecdotal examples of crimes committed by migrants, eliciting jeers from his audience.“This is an invasion of our country,” said Trump. Earlier on Tuesday, the Republican National Committee, which Trump’s team has overhauled and staffed with loyalists, created a new website dedicated to, in their words, “Biden’s border bloodbath”, attempting to twist Trump’s violent rhetoric around.As his speech drew to a close, Trump turned back to the topic of elections, remembering that he would still need people to vote for him.“So if you want to save America, then get everyone you know registered as Republican, as soon as possible, volunteer for our campaign and get out and vote in record numbers,” said Trump. “We want record numbers – even tonight, it’s important to get out.”Outside, the streets were slick with slushy rain that had turned to snow as attendees left the rally. There were still two more hours left to vote. More

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      Biden and Trump sweep four primaries including battleground state Wisconsin

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      Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump won primary elections in four states, including the crucial battleground state of Wisconsin.Hundreds of delegates were up for grabs in Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York and Wisconsin on Tuesday, and Biden and Trump have already amassed enough delegates to win their respective nominations. But the turnout could provide more clues about the general election in November.Voters also had a chance to register their discontent with the nominees. Connecticut and Rhode Island gave voters the opportunity to vote “uncommitted” in the primary, while Wisconsin offered a similar option of “uninstructed delegation”. Wisconsin Democrats will be closely watching the turnout for “uninstructed delegation” after progressive activists launched a campaign encouraging voters to withhold support from the US president to protest his handling of the war in Gaza.The Listen to Wisconsin campaign, based on similar efforts in states like Michigan and Minnesota, has attracted support from some rank-and-file union members as well as an influential group of low-wage and immigrant workers in the state.Those voters represent key constituencies whose support Biden will need to win in November, and even a small erosion in support could spell trouble for him in Wisconsin, where he defeated Trump by just 0.6 points in 2020. In 2016, the former president defeated Hillary Clinton by roughly 0.8 points in Wisconsin, and he hopes to repeat that performance this fall.Polls closed at 8pm ET in Connecticut and Rhode Island and at 9pm ET in New York and Wisconsin, with results coming in shortly afterwards, and Biden will soon have a better sense of his standing in the battleground state.With the presidential nominees already decided, Wisconsin Republicans are more closely focused on two ballot measures related to election management in the state. The first measure raises the question of abolishing the use of private funds in election administration, and the second asks whether “only election officials designated by law may perform tasks in the conduct of primaries, elections, and referendums”.Republicans have encouraged supporters to vote “yes” on both measures, after their legislative efforts to change election rules were repeatedly blocked by Wisconsin’s Democratic governor, Tony Evers. Republican leaders have expressed pointed criticism of the grant money that Wisconsin election officials received from the nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life in 2020 to address the challenges of navigating the coronavirus pandemic.Those leaders have derided the grant money as “Zuckerbucks”, a reference to the $350m that Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, gave to the non-profit to help election offices across the country in 2020.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRepublicans argue that such funding must be abolished to ensure voters’ trust in election results, but Democrats warn that the approval of such a measure could drain resources from government offices already stretched too thin from budget cuts. On the second ballot question, Democrats have criticized its wording as vague and accused Republicans of attempting to intimidate nonpartisan voting rights groups from their usual registration and turnout efforts in the state.“Rather than work to make sure our clerks have the resources they need to run elections, Republicans are pushing a nonsense amendment to satisfy Donald Trump,” Ben Wickler, chair of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, said in a statement last month.“Thanks to long-standing Wisconsin law and the dedicated service of thousands of elections officials in municipalities across the state, our elections are safe and secure. Donald Trump’s lies about his 2020 loss shouldn’t dictate what’s written in our state constitution.” More

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      Wisconsin, New York, Rhode Island and Connecticut primaries: follow live results

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      View image in fullscreenVoters in Connecticut, New York, Rhode Island and Wisconsin cast ballots in the presidential primaries on Tuesday. Much attention will be paid to Wisconsin, where voters will signal strength and weaknesses in the critical swing state for Joe Biden and Donald Trump.There are also options in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Wisconsin for voters to choose “uncommitted” in a show of protest against Biden’s support for Israel in the war in Gaza.Here are the results.Republican delegatesDemocratic delegatesRepublican resultsDemocratic resultsWho’s runningView image in fullscreenDonald TrumpThe former US president’s campaign to retake the White House and once again grab his party’s nomination got off to a slow start that was widely mocked. But after decisive wins in Iowa and New Hampshire, his campaign has steadily moved into a position of dominance.Trump declined to attend any of the Republican debates, has used his court appearances and many legal woes as a rallying cry to mobilize his base, and has run a surprisingly well-organized campaign. His extremist rhetoric, especially around his plans for a second term and the targeting of his political enemies, has sparked widespread fears over the threat to American democracy that his candidacy represents.His political style during the campaign has not shifted from his previous runs in 2016 and 2020 and, if anything, has become more extreme. Many see this as a result of his political and legal fates becoming entwined, with a return to the Oval Office seen as Trump’s best chance of nixing his legal problems.View image in fullscreenJoe BidenBiden is the likely Democratic nominee for the 2024 presidential election. He announced his campaign for re-election on 25 April 2023, exactly four years after he announced his previous, successful presidential campaign. While approval for the president remains low, hovering just above 40%, political experts say he is the most likely candidate to defeat Trump. Biden has served in politics for more than five decades and is running on a platform that includes abortion rights, gun reform and healthcare. At 81, he is the oldest president in US history.View image in fullscreenMarianne WilliamsonThe failed 2020 presidential candidate Marianne Williamson dropped out of the race in February before then resurrecting her long-shot campaign after the Michigan primary. Williamson, an author of self-help books, launched her bid with campaign promises to address the climate crisis and student loan debt. She previously worked as “spiritual leader” of a Michigan Unity church.View image in fullscreenJason PalmerJason Palmer is a Democratic candidate who was only on the ballot in American Samoa and some other US territories. He won the primary in America Samoa after donating $500,000 to his own campaign. Palmer is a Baltimore resident who has worked for various businesses and non-profits, often on issues involving technology and education. More

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      Biden campaign says Trump ‘directly to blame’ for Florida abortion ruling – as it happened

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      Joe Biden’s campaign team said Donald Trump is “directly to blame” for the ruling upholding an abortion ban in Florida, given that the former president nominated three of the supreme court justices who helped overturn Roe v Wade in 2022.“Because of Donald Trump, Maga [’Make America Great Again’] Republicans across this country are ripping away access to reproductive health care and inserting themselves into the most personal decisions women can make, from contraception to IVF,” Julie Chávez Rodríguez, Biden’s campaign manager, told reporters on a press call.“And make no mistake: Donald Trump will do everything in his power to try and enact a national abortion ban if he’s reelected.”Earlier today, the Biden campaign released a new ad, titled “Trust”, that highlights Trump’s past comments bragging about the reversal of Roe and also warns of the possibility of a federal ban. The ad will air across battleground states as part of the Biden campaign’s broader media blitz this spring.“These are the stakes in November, and we’re going to continue to make sure that every single voter knows them,” Rodríguez said. “Here’s the bottom line: Trump and Maga Republicans are working to ban abortion nationwide, while President Biden and Vice-President Harris will never stop fighting to protect reproductive freedom.”Democrats have condemned a Florida supreme court ruling that will allow a six-week abortion ban to go into effect, while seizing on a separate decision green lighting an initiative protecting access to the procedure to go before voters in November. The party has seen success in recent elections by campaigning against efforts to cut off access to abortion, and will try to replicate that in Florida, a state where Democratic candidates have struggled in recent years. To hammer the point home, top House lawmakers convened a hearing in the state, which Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries called “ground zero” in the fight for abortion access.Here’s what else happened:
      The Biden campaign said Donald Trump was “directly to blame” for the Florida court ruling upholding the state’s abortion restrictions.
      Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse signaled he was open to at least some of what Republican House speaker Mike Johnson is considering to approve military aid to Israel and Ukraine.
      Tina Smith, a Democratic senator from Minnesota, wants to repeal a moribund 19th-century law that some fear could be used to stop abortions nationwide.
      Opponents of Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s invasion of Gaza are encouraging voters to choose “uninstructed” in Wisconsin’s primary today.
      Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, said he wants to fight “the isolationist movement” in his party.
      Joe Biden plans to today hold a small meeting with Muslims at the White House, rather than the larger gathering it traditionally hosts during Ramadan, in the latest sign of his administration’s tensions with the community over Biden’s support for Israel’s invasion of Gaza, National Public Radio reports.The Biden administration has repeatedly approved weapons transfers to Israel as it presses on with its invasion of Gaza, sparking protests from Muslims who have organized efforts to withhold their votes for Biden during the primaries. Here’s more on the White House meeting tonight, from NPR:
      The gathering is in lieu of the traditional Ramadan iftar dinner or Eid celebrations the White House usually hosts with Muslim leaders, and it comes amid ongoing political tensions given the war in Gaza.
      The goal, according to people familiar with the plans, is to allow guests to have a “substantive” conversation with the president about the situation in Gaza. Vice President Harris and national security adviser Jake Sullivan will also attend, the sources said. Biden last met with Muslim and Arab-American leaders at the White House in late October.The sources said the White House had initially planned to host a small, solemn Ramadan dinner Tuesday evening, but plans changed after a number of Muslim invitees said they did not feel comfortable dining at the White House while scores of Palestinians are on the brink of starvation.
      The White House still intends to host a small iftar dinner later Tuesday evening for a dozen or so Muslim staffers — a scaled-down version of the traditional celebration.
      Some Democrats fear the rift between Biden and Arab and Muslim communities could cost him support crucial to winning the November election, particularly in swing state Michigan. Here’s more on that:Another tentative and potential sign of movement has emerged on the long-stalled military aid package for Ukraine and Israel.Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse weighed in on Republican House speaker Mike Johnson’s comments yesterday, where he floated some potential demands he may make to move the package through his chamber. Whitehouse seems alright with two of the three changes Johnson requested, but takes issue with the third:Republicans and Democrats have been tussling over the aid proposal for months, and it’s unclear if Johnson’s mulled concessions will be palatable to Democrats, or enough for his fellow Republicans, many of whom are demanding new, strict border security policies to support the bill. Here’s more on where the House speaker says he now stands on the bill:Donald Trump is making a swing through Michigan and Wisconsin today, two states he will almost certainly need to win if he is to return to the White House.His stop in Michigan took him to Grand Rapids, an area where Democrats have lately made inroads in what was traditionally Republican territory. It’s also the site of a murder allegedly committed by an undocumented immigrant, and during his appearance in the city, Trump reiterated his vows to crack down on people in the country illegally:Attacks on migrants have been a mainstay for Trump since his first run for the White House, and thus far, this campaign has been no different:The first criminal trial Donald Trump faces begins 15 April in New York City, on charges related to making hush money payments ahead of the 2016 election. The former president has taken to insulting various people involved in the case, and as the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports, now faces a gag order:The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s forthcoming criminal trial in New York expanded an existing gag order on Monday, preventing the former president from making inflammatory comments about the judge’s family members, after they became the target of Trump’s personal attacks.The new protective order continues to allow Trump to rail against the judge and the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, who charged Trump last year with falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal before the 2016 election.But Trump is now expressly prohibited from assailing the family members of any lawyers or court staff involved in the case, as well as family members of the judge and the district attorney, the New York supreme court justice Juan Merchan wrote in the revised order.The order cited the recent attacks Trump had leveled at the judge’s daughter and rejected Trump’s contention that he should be free to criticize what he perceived to be conflicts of interest and other complaints because they amounted to “core political speech”.“This pattern of attacking family members of presiding jurists and attorneys assigned to his cases serves no legitimate purpose,” Merchan wrote. “It merely injects fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings, that not only they, but their family members as well, are ‘fair game’.”Elsewhere in Florida, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that the federal judge handling Donald Trump’s trial on charges related to hiding classified documents has yet to schedule a start date, despite the best efforts of prosecutors:The prospects of Donald Trump going to trial in July on charges of retaining national security documents, as suggested by special counsel prosecutors, are rapidly diminishing, with the judge overseeing the case yet to issue a schedule weeks after she was presented with the potential options.The US district judge Aileen Cannon received proposed trial start dates from Trump and the special counsel Jack Smith more than a month ago in advance of a hearing ostensibly to settle the matter in Fort Pierce, Florida, but she has still not decided when the proceeding will begin.As a result, Trump has been able to avoid filing certain pre-trial motions that have to be completed before the case can proceed to trial, playing into his strategy of trying to delay the case as much as possible before the 2024 election in November.Trump’s legal strategy for all of his criminal cases has been to delay, under the calculus that winning re-election would enable him to appoint a loyalist as attorney general who could direct prosecutors to drop the case, or pardon himself if he was convicted.There are more than 13.4 million people registered to vote in Florida, according to its division of elections, and one of them very well may be Donald Trump.Long associated with New York’s real estate scene, he changed his residence from the Empire State to the Sunshine State during his time in the White House. That means he can vote on Florida’s ballot initiative that will decide whether abortion rights are enshrined in the state constitution – and you can expect that reporters will try their darnedest over the coming months to get him to reveal which way he leans on the issue.Floridians will have an opportunity to weigh in on the question of abortion access this November, when they vote on an initiative that would enshrine reproductive rights in the state constitution.Speaking on the Biden campaign press call, Fentrice Driskell, the Democratic leader of the Florida house, argued that the state supreme court’s decision to uphold an abortion ban underscored the urgency of the November elections.“We are seeing what Trump’s agenda looks like here in Florida: extremist politicians inserting themselves into women’s healthcare, threatening doctors with prison time and endangering women’s health and lives,” Driskell said.“The only thing that can stop governmental interference into our lives and exam rooms is to stay in the fight and by exercising our right to vote. This November, Florida will draw a line in the sand and say enough.”Democrats hope that the presence of the abortion initiative on the ballot might tip the scales in their party’s favor in Florida, but they acknowledge that the task will be difficult, given Republicans’ recent dominance in the purple state. Trump carried the state by 3 points in 2020, increasing his advantage from 2016 even as he lost the national election to Biden.“We’re clear-eyed about how hard it will be to win Florida, but we also know that Trump does not have it in the bag,” said Julie Chávez Rodríguez, Biden’s campaign manager. “We definitely see Florida in play.”Joe Biden’s campaign team said Donald Trump is “directly to blame” for the ruling upholding an abortion ban in Florida, given that the former president nominated three of the supreme court justices who helped overturn Roe v Wade in 2022.“Because of Donald Trump, Maga [’Make America Great Again’] Republicans across this country are ripping away access to reproductive health care and inserting themselves into the most personal decisions women can make, from contraception to IVF,” Julie Chávez Rodríguez, Biden’s campaign manager, told reporters on a press call.“And make no mistake: Donald Trump will do everything in his power to try and enact a national abortion ban if he’s reelected.”Earlier today, the Biden campaign released a new ad, titled “Trust”, that highlights Trump’s past comments bragging about the reversal of Roe and also warns of the possibility of a federal ban. The ad will air across battleground states as part of the Biden campaign’s broader media blitz this spring.“These are the stakes in November, and we’re going to continue to make sure that every single voter knows them,” Rodríguez said. “Here’s the bottom line: Trump and Maga Republicans are working to ban abortion nationwide, while President Biden and Vice-President Harris will never stop fighting to protect reproductive freedom.”Democrats have condemned a Florida supreme court ruling that will allow a six-week abortion ban to go into effect, while seizing on a separate decision to allow an initiative protecting access to the procedure to go before voters in November. The party has seen success in recent elections by campaigning against efforts to cut off access to abortion, and will try to replicate that in Florida, a state where Democratic candidates have struggled in recent years. To hammer the point home, top House lawmakers convened a hearing in the state, which Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries called “ground zero” in the fight for abortion access.Here’s what else has happened:
      Tina Smith, a Democratic senator from Minnesota, wants to repeal a moribund 19th-century law that some fear could be used to stop abortions nationwide.
      Opponents of Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s invasion of Gaza are encouraging voters to choose “uninstructed” in Wisconsin’s primary today.
      Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, said he wants to fight “the isolationist movement” in his party.
      Congress has some unfinished business to deal with when it returns to Washington DC next week, in the form of a military aid package for Israel, Ukraine and other US allies. It’s been held up by Republicans in the House, some of whom are opposed to further aid to Kyiv, and the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports that the Senate’s top Republican has signaled he will make overcoming these holdouts a priority:Mitch McConnell will spend the rest of his time in the US Senate “fighting” isolationists in his own Republican party, the longtime GOP leader said on Monday.“I’m particularly involved in actually fighting back against the isolationist movement in my own party,” McConnell told WHAS, a radio station in his state, Kentucky.“And some in the other as well. And the symbol of that lately is: are we going to help Ukraine or not? I’ve got this sort of on my mind for the next couple years as something I’m going to focus on.”McConnell, 82, has led Republicans in the Senate for 17 years. In March, he said he would step down at the end of this year, after an election in which Republicans have a good chance of retaking the chamber.McConnell assured his decision to step down was not related to recent health scares and said he would stay to the end of his term in 2027.Isolationism has surged in the Republican party under Donald Trump, president between 2017 and 2021 and the presumptive nominee again for November’s election.Israel’s allies, including the United States and Britain, are demanding it investigate the killing of seven aid workers in Gaza that were with the World Central Kitchen charity.Follow our live blog for more on this developing story: More

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      Robert F Kennedy Jr calls Biden ‘much worse threat to democracy’ than Trump

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      After Donald Trump said that he loved how Robert F Kennedy Jr was running for president, the independent candidate called Joe Biden “a much worse threat to democracy” than Trump, citing the Biden White House’s involvement in a US supreme court case focused on social media.A noted anti-vaxxer who has peddled conspiracy theories, Kennedy currently faces an uphill task to get on enough state ballots, though on Monday his campaign said his name would appear on the ballot in the crucial state of North Carolina.Both the Republican and Democratic parties have increasingly seen Kennedy as a threat in the November election over fears that he could siphon off enough votes to swing the election. It remains unclear whose support base Kennedy might tap into. Historically a Democrat with a strong environmental record, Kennedy has drifted rightwards on various issues and his anti-vaccine views could attract Trump supporters.Kennedy’s remarks in an interview on CNN on Monday centered on the pending supreme court case Murthy v Missouri, which tests the limits of how much the government can pressure social media companies to remove content.The case comes out of efforts by the Biden administration to push social media platforms to take down false posts about the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2020 presidential election that Biden won and which Trump has consistently lied was stolen from him.In oral arguments before the court last month, justices appeared skeptical of arguments in favor of limiting contacts between government officials and social media companies, a practice known as “jawboning” that some argue is tantamount to censorship.Kennedy told CNN that Biden “has used the federal agencies to censor political speech”.“I can make the argument that President Biden is the much worse threat to democracy, and the reason for that is President Biden is the first candidate in history, the first president in history, that has used the federal agencies to censor political speech … to censor his opponent,” Kennedy told the outlet.He did not address the more than 80 criminal charges pending against Trump for trying to forcibly overturn the outcome of his defeat to Biden, improperly retaining classified government materials after the Republican left the White House and hush-money payments to an adult film actor who has claimed to have engaged in extramarital sex with him.Kennedy also did not address the multimillion-dollar civil penalties Trump is facing for business practices deemed fraudulent or a rape claim that a judge has determined to be substantially true.Kennedy is averaging close to 10% in polling from the Hill/Decision Desk HQ. That makes him the highest polling third-party candidate in a presidential race since the businessman Ross Perot in 1992, according to the Hill, citing a RealClearPolitics national average analysis.The Democratic national committee on Monday excoriated Kennedy for his remarks about the Democratic incumbent.“With a straight face Robert F Kennedy Jr said that Joe Biden is a bigger threat to democracy than Donald Trump because he was barred from pushing conspiracy theories online,” Mary Beth Cahill, a Democratic national committee senior adviser, said in a statement.Cahill accused Kennedy of merely seeking to be a “spoiler candidate” and – referring to Trump’s Make America great again slogan – said he pushed “his Maga talking points in prime time”.Cahill said there was “no comparison” between Biden and Trump, whose supporters mounted the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol in early 2021. She also alluded to how Trump has promised to be dictator on “day one” if returned to the presidency.Notably, as NBC pointed out, Cahill previously served as chief of staff for Kennedy’s uncle, the late US senator Ted Kennedy.Her remarks criticizing Kennedy came after other members of his family had visited the White House to celebrate St Patrick’s Day without him.His interview on CNN came a few days after Trump – in a rare show of political equilibrium – joined Democrats in attacking Kennedy’s nascent candidacy, casting him as a liberal in disguise who was more “radical left” than Biden.But Trump also made it a point to say he supported Kennedy’s campaign because he was likely to divert more votes from Biden than from him.“It’s great for Maga,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. “I love that he is running!” More

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      Biden faces test in Wisconsin as Gaza supporters call for ‘uninstructed’ vote

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      Voters in Wisconsin cast their ballots today in an election that will test voter enthusiasm for Joe Biden and Donald Trump – and potentially enshrine two amendments in the state constitution affecting election administration across the state.The president and former president are already the presumptive nominees and will almost certainly face off in the general election in November, and it seems that the threat of prosecution, general unpopularity and advanced age can’t stop them.But while the primary will not offer alternative candidates, a group of activists in Wisconsin see it as an opportunity to push Biden on his policy toward Israel’s war on Gaza. The organizers, inspired by Michigan’s “uncommitted” campaign, which garnered more than 100,000 votes there, are calling on voters to choose “uninstructed” instead of Biden.“The margins of our elections are so incredibly close – less than 1% in the last two presidential election cycles – so I think it would behoove the administration to pay attention,” said Reema Ahmad, the lead organizer of the Listen to Wisconsin campaign.Organizers with the campaign aim to turn out as many voters for “uninstructed” as Biden’s margin of victory in 2020 to demonstrate their critical role in November, Ahmad said. The campaign has relied on the support of a broad network of progressive organizations, including the state’s largest network of Latino voters, Voces de la Frontera Action and Black Leaders Organizing Communities (Bloc), groups that helped propel Biden to his narrow 2020 victory.Connecticut, Rhode Island and New York also hold presidential primaries today, and voters in Arkansas and Mississippi will participate in primary runoffs. Voters in Rhode Island and Connecticut will also have an “uncommitted” option on the ballot, and in New York, pro-Palestine activists are encouraging voters to leave their presidential primary options blank in protest.The Trump campaign faces no similar challenge within the party, making Republican discontent with him harder to gauge. On 6 March, the former US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, whose campaign gave anti-Trump Republicans a means to show their frustration with him, dropped out, and Trump snapped up enough delegates to secure the GOP nomination less than a week later. Haley and four other Republicans will still appear on the Wisconsin ballot alongside Trump.Brandon Scholz, a retired Wisconsin GOP strategist, said primary turnout could lend some insight into how both candidates will fare in November. In 2020, Biden clawed back parts of the country that Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in 2016 – especially in the suburbs, and especially suburban women. Biden also benefited from strong support from Black and Latino voters – groups that recent polls show could be slipping away from him.“You want to do what you can to turn your base – your hardcore Dems and your hardcore Republicans, you want to be able to get them to the polls, because the last thing you want to do is come out looking like you didn’t do anything,” Scholz said.Whether or not the Trump campaign will mobilize voters outside the Maga movement is another question.“Observers will look to see what sort of participation traditional Republicans will have in this primary,” said Scholz. “And then finally, for both campaigns what are the ‘double haters’ going to do?”Also on the ballot in Wisconsin are two constitutional amendments that voting rights and government watchdog groups warn could have a negative impact on elections administration in the state.The first proposed amendment, which would ban elections offices from accepting private grant money to fund their operations, comes amid GOP anxieties – and election-denying conspiracy theories – about the role of funding from Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan’s Center for Tech and Civic Life. During the 2020 election, the Facebook co-founder and his wife used funding from their organization to help mitigate the spread of Covid-19 in polling places and send voters information during the 2020 election.The donations from Center for Tech and Civic Life became a key focus of Republicans, many of them activists who questioned the results of the 2020 election. “Zuckerbucks”, they argue, unfairly benefited Democratic strongholds – although there is no evidence that the grants, which reached small and large municipalities across the state, played a role in Biden’s victory.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe second proposed amendment would enshrine in the state constitution a provision that already exists in Wisconsin statute, mandating that “only election officials designated by law may perform tasks in the conduct of primaries, elections, and referendums”.Both proposals were passed by the GOP-controlled state legislature, which sent them to voters after the Democratic governor, Tony Evers, vetoed them. And both, worries Debra Cronmiller, the executive director of Wisconsin’s League of Women Voters, could hurt voters.“There’s no guarantee that the election will be funded fully in the absence of outside money,” said Cronmiller, of the proposal to ban elections offices from accessing private grants. Without sufficient funding – and the state legislature has not proposed additional resources to elections offices – she argued towns and counties are forced to hire fewer poll workers and host fewer polling locations, causing longer lines and a slower tally of the votes and disproportionately impacting poorer and smaller towns.“They might not have the opportunities that a bigger municipality, that has deeper pockets, might have in order to serve their citizens,” she said.The second proposed amendment, Cronmiller and other elections experts and voter advocates say, could prevent non-profits and other third-party groups from assisting voters in critical ways during elections. Groups that assist in driving voters to the polls, provide residents with information about voter registration, or help in the recruitment of poll workers, for example, could find themselves facing legal challenges for their work.“We’re all scratching our heads and wondering: is this allowed? If this passes, and if we don’t do those things, how do voters get to the polls?” said Cronmiller.“Is this a way to suppress the vote?” More

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      in US Politics

      Robert F Kennedy Jr claims he qualifies for ballot in swing state North Carolina

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      Robert F Kennedy Jr, the independent candidate for the US presidency, said on Monday he has qualified for the ballot in North Carolina – which will be a key state in the November election battle between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.“We have the field teams, volunteers, legal teams, paid circulators, supporters and strategists ready to get the job done,” said Kennedy’s campaign press secretary, Stefanie Spear.Kennedy, 70, is an environmental lawyer turned vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist who has campaigned with reference to his famous family – his father was the US attorney general and New York senator Robert F Kennedy and his uncle was John F Kennedy, the 35th president.Kennedy Jr now says he has enough signatures to qualify for the ballot in five states, the others being Utah, New Hampshire, Hawaii and Nevada.Only Utah has confirmed his place on its ballot. Nevada is also a battleground state, but Kennedy’s ballot access may be in question there, as he secured it before naming his running mate.That announcement last week saw Nicole Shanahan, a 38-year-old tech lawyer, join the Kennedy ticket.Polling generally shows Biden and Trump closely matched and Kennedy clear of other candidates outside the major parties, enjoying double-digit support, with the potential to act as a spoiler.Debate continues about whether Biden or Trump stands to lose most votes to Kennedy. Democrats have historical reason to be fearful, given recent election results.In 2000, Ralph Nader took votes from Al Gore as the former vice-president was beaten by George W Bush in a contentious, knife-edge election that came down to a legally contested result in Florida. In 2016, Jill Stein showed strongly as Hillary Clinton lost narrowly to Trump in a number of battleground states.The Biden campaign has created a team dedicated to countering Kennedy. In that vein, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee recently claimed Republicans were “working to prop up third-party candidates like Robert Kennedy Jr to make them stalking horses for Donald Trump”, adding: “We’re going to make sure voters are educated and we’re going to make sure all candidates are playing by the rules.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBiden’s campaign has also trumpeted endorsements from Kennedy family members.On Monday, Kennedy’s sister, Rory Kennedy, told MSNBC: “I love my brother, and it pains me to come out against him, but I am very concerned with the stakes in this election, and I’m very concerned from the polls I’m seeing that he takes many more votes from Biden than he does from Trump.“And I think this election is going to come down to a handful of votes in a handful of states, and I’m concerned that his campaign and running for office as an independent is going to lead to Trump’s election.“And I feel that that will be catastrophic, honestly, for not just our country, but for the world. So, I feel that the stakes couldn’t be higher, frankly. So, you know, I would love more than anything to sit out on the sidelines on this one and not be in this position, but I don’t feel like I can do that.” More