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      Biden to start election year with speech on third anniversary of Capitol attack

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      Joe Biden will on Friday mark the third anniversary of the deadly January 6 attack on Congress, delivering his first presidential election campaign speech of 2024 at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania – a site replete with historical meaning.A day before the anniversary, due to forecast bad weather, Biden will speak where George Washington’s army endured another dark moment: the bitter winter of 1777-78, an ordeal key to winning American independence from Britain.Biden will also speak about January 6 on Monday at the Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina, where in June 2015 a gunman shot dead nine Black people in an attempt to start a race war.Donald Trump’s nearest challenger for the Republican nomination, Nikki Haley, was governor of South Carolina at the time and subsequently oversaw the removal of the Confederate battle flag from statehouse grounds.Haley has since struggled to define her position on the flag and the interests it represented, last week in New Hampshire failing to say slavery caused the civil war.But the Biden campaign is focusing on Trump, who refused to accept his conclusive defeat in 2020, spreading the lie that he was denied by electoral fraud and ultimately encouraging supporters to attempt to stop certification of Biden’s win by Congress.The attack on the Capitol delayed certification but the process was completed in the early hours of 7 January. Biden was inaugurated two weeks later.On Thursday, the Biden campaign previewed his Valley Forge speech and released Cause, an ad one adviser said would “set the stakes” for this year’s election.“I’ve made the preservation of American democracy the central issue of my presidency,” Biden says in the ad, over footage of Americans voting.But, he adds, over shots of white supremacists marching in Virginia in 2017 and the attack on Congress, “There’s something dangerous happening in America. There’s an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy.”Wes Moore, the first Black governor of Maryland, widely seen as a possible Democratic presidential candidate in 2028 but now a Biden campaign adviser, told MSNBC: “The president is really setting the stakes and really hoping to set the platform for what people are going to hear.“From him, it is a vision for their future. From Donald Trump, they’re going to hear a vision about his future. That’s the difference.”Less than two weeks from the Iowa caucuses, Trump dominates Republican polling, regardless of 91 criminal charges – 17 concerning election subversion – in four cases, civil trials over his business affairs and a rape allegation and attempts to bar him from the ballot in Colorado and Maine under the 14th amendment, introduced after the civil war to stop insurrectionists running for office.Trump has called January 6 “a beautiful day” and supporters imprisoned because of it “great, great patriots” and “hostages”. At rallies he has played Justice for All, The Star-Spangled Banner sung by jailed rioters, interspersed with his own recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. On Saturday, he will stage a rally in Iowa, less than five days before caucuses in the midwestern state kick off the 2024 election.Republicans in Congress continue to range themselves behind Trump, the majority whip Tom Emmer’s endorsement this week completing the set of GOP House leaders. Among the rank and file, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right representative from Georgia who has touted herself as Trump’s running mate, was due to host a January 6 commemoration in Florida, until the venue canceled it.Many observers see winning the White House as Trump’s best hope of staying out of prison. Some polling suggests a criminal conviction (also possible over retention of classified information and hush-money payments) would reduce support but for now he is competitive with Biden or leads him in surveys regarding a notional general election.Furthermore, polling shows more Americans accepting Trump’s stolen election lie.This week, the Washington Post and the University of Maryland found that only 62% of respondents said Biden’s 2020 win was legitimate, down from 69% two years ago. On the question of blame for January 6, meanwhile, the same pollsters found that 25% of Americans (and 34% of Republicans) thought it was probably or definitely true that the FBI, not Trump, was responsible for inciting the riot.Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, referred to Trump’s “Make America Great Again” slogan when she said: “Led by Donald Trump, Maga Republicans are running on an extreme platform of undermining the will of the American people who vote in free and fair elections, weaponising the government against their political opponents, and parroting the rhetoric of dictators.”Biden’s new ad and January 6 speeches, Chavez Rodriguez said, would “serve as a very real reminder that this election could very well determine the very fate of American democracy”.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Civil war gaffes and robotic smiles: can anyone beat Trump? – podcast

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      Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie, Vivek Ramaswamy and Asa Hutchinson are all still putting on a brave face and trying to convince Republicans they would be a better president than Donald Trump.
      With the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary fast approaching, polling suggests the odds are against them, but does any campaign have a chance? This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Bill Kristol, editor-at-large at the Bulwark

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

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      Biden’s first 2024 campaign ad highlights threats to US democracy

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      Joe Biden’s first campaign ad of the year focuses on threats to US democracy, timed for release on the anniversary of the 6 January insurrection at the US Capitol.In the ad, Biden says that preserving American democracy has been the “central issue of his presidency”. As footage of political violence and rioting shows on screen, the president notes that “there’s an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs in our democracy”.“All of us are being asked right now, what will we do to maintain our democracy?” he says.Donald Trump is the overwhelming favorite to win the Republican nomination for November’s presidential election, despite his multitude of legal woes, which include charges linked to the Jan 6 attack.The former president has also struck a notably more extremist tone during his campaign, raising fears he aims to deliberately erode US democratic institutions. Polling has also shown Trump to be in a close race with Biden and leading in some surveys.The Biden attack ad will run nationally and in local markets in swing states such as Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as well as online.The spot highlights how Trump and his followers are continually working to undermine elections, the Biden-Harris campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, said in a news release.“Over the last three years, Maga Republicans haven’t shied away from the Big Lie – they’ve doubled down. This ad serves as a very real reminder that this election could very well determine the very fate of American democracy,” she said.A recent poll by the Washington Post and University of Maryland showed that support for Trump among Republicans has increased since the 6 January attacks.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTheir beliefs on the insurrection itself have softened, the poll showed, with Republicans now less likely to see the attack as violent or Trump as responsible for it. 36% of those polled did not believe Biden was legitimately elected. Still, among independents and Democrats especially, the insurrection is seen as an attack on democracy. More

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      Trump asks US supreme court to review Colorado ruling removing him from 2024 ballot

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      Donald Trump appealed to the US supreme court on Wednesday to undo the Colorado ruling that removed him from the ballot in the western state under the 14th amendment to the US constitution, for inciting an insurrection.“In our system of ‘government of the people, by the people, [and] for the people,’ Colorado’s ruling is not and cannot be correct,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in their Wednesday filing. They also said the Colorado supreme court’s ruling “if allowed to stand, will mark the first time in the history of the United States that the judiciary has prevented voters from casting ballots for the leading major-party presidential candidate”.They went on to lay out several reasons why the supreme court should restore him to the ballot. Only Congress, not the courts, had the authority to evaluate a dispute over the eligibility of a presidential candidate, they wrote. As president, his lawyers argued, Trump was not an “officer” of the United States – relevant language in the constitution bars anyone from serving if they have “engaged in insurrection” as an officer of the United States.They also argued that Trump’s conduct did not amount to an insurrection and argued that the Colorado supreme court’s decision ran afoul of a provision of the constitution that empowers state legislatures to decide how to appoint presidential electors.Trump’s appeal came after both the Colorado Republican party and the challengers who brought the case both asked the justices to take the case. They are widely expected to do so.A ruling either pausing or allowing the Colorado supreme court’s decision to stand could come fairly quickly, though the exact timeline is unclear. Colorado must begin mailing ballots to overseas voters for its 5 March primary on 20 January. Clerks must start mailing ballots to all other voters between 12 and 16 February.Jena Griswold, Colorado’s secretary of state, asked the court this week to resolve the issue “as expeditiously as possible in light of the upcoming election calendar”. The Colorado supreme court’s ruling said in its ruling last month that the decision was paused while an appeal in the US supreme court was ongoing.Promising to appeal “swiftly”, a spokesperson for Trump, Steven Cheung, said the former president turned clear Republican presidential frontrunner had “full confidence that the US supreme court will quickly rule in our favour”.After the Colorado ruling, Trump was also removed from the ballot in Maine, by its secretary of state, who also suspended the ruling pending appeals. Trump appealed that ban in state court on Tuesday.Separately, Trump faces 91 criminal charges, 17 for election subversion. In the federal election subversion case, the US supreme court is also due to consider Trump’s claim that he enjoys immunity from prosecution for any acts in office.The supreme court is dominated 6-3 by conservatives, in large part thanks to three appointments made when Trump was in office.The 14th amendment was adopted in 1868, soon after the civil war. Section three provided for barring from federal and state office anyone who fought for the Confederacy in that conflict.Notably, the provision has rarely been used. Many legal observers expect Trump to prevail in the Colorado case, one of numerous such challenges, others having failed in state courts.The supreme court does not have to take the Colorado case but in all likelihood will. Its handling of the case will be closely watched, not least by progressives angered by the court’s rightward shift and contentious rulings, including the removal of the federal right to abortion.In the aftermath of the Colorado ruling, Ty Cobb, once a White House lawyer for Trump, told CNN: “I think this case will be handled quickly. I think it could be 9-0 in the supreme court for Trump … because I think the law is clear.”According to Cobb – and other former Trump lawyers – the law is clear that the presidency and vice-presidency are not covered by section three, specifically its definition of a government office, because those positions are not mentioned.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn full, section three reads: “No person shall be a senator or representative in Congress, or elector of president and vice-president, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.”Last week, ABC News examined records of debate over the 14th amendment. In one exchange, Reverdy Johnson, a Maryland senator, asked why the text of section three did not mention the presidency or vice-presidency.Lot Morrill, from Maine, said: “Let me call the senator’s attention to the words ‘or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States.’”That, Steven Portnoy of ABC wrote, “end[ed] the discussion on that point”.J Michael Luttig, a conservative former judge who testified in front of the House January 6 committee, has repeatedly stressed that in his view, Trump should be removed from the ballot.Speaking to MSNBC in December, Luttig saluted a “historic [and] unassailable decision that the former president is disqualified from the presidency because he conducted, engaged in or aided or supported an insurrection or rebellion against the United States constitution”.Trump and other Republican presidential contenders have said barring Trump under the 14th amendment would be anti-democratic, and that only voters should choose who is fit for office. So have prominent Democrats.Luttig said: “What I would say to all Americans is that the constitution itself has determined that the disqualification of the former president is not what is anti-democratic.“Rather, the constitution tells us that it is the conduct that can give rise to disqualification under the 14th amendment that is anti-democratic.” More

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      US House majority whip Tom Emmer endorses Trump for president

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      Donald Trump secured the endorsement of Tom Emmer on Wednesday, completing a full House of Republican leaders backing the former US president even though Trump dynamited the majority whip’s own bid for speaker just two months ago.“Democrats have made clear they will use every tool in their arsenal to try and keep Joe Biden and his failed policies in power,” Emmer said.“We cannot let them. It’s time for Republicans to unite behind our party’s clear frontrunner, which is why I am proud to endorse Donald J Trump for president.”Despite facing 91 criminal charges, assorted civil threats and removal from the ballot in Colorado and Maine over his incitement of the deadly January 6 attack on Congress, Trump leads presidential rivals including the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley by vast polling margins.In general election polling, he is competitive or enjoys leads over Biden.Emmer, from Minnesota, followed the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, and majority leader, Steve Scalise (both from Louisiana) and Elise Stefanik of New York, the conference chair, in endorsing the man who sent supporters to the Capitol to try to stop certification of Biden’s 2020 win.Even after rioters attacked the House chamber, 139 House Republicans and eight senators objected to results in key states. But Emmer was not among them and last October, after the far right ejected Kevin McCarthy as speaker, the Minnesotan followed Scalise and Jim Jordan of Ohio in failing to secure the role.At the time, Trump said Emmer had called him and was his “biggest fan now” but also deemed him “totally out of touch with Republican voters”, lobbied Republicans to reject him and reportedly boasted: “He’s done. It’s over. I killed him.”Emmer’s endorsement of his tormentor was therefore widely noted.Rick Wilson, a former Republican operative turned co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, said: “Remember when you were on those anti-Trump calls in 2016, Tom?”Tim Miller, another former Republican strategist turned Trump critic, chose to be more blunt: “Was Tom Emmer – who was viciously savaged by Trump and his allies during the failed speaker attempt – wearing a ball gag or a gimp mask when he sent this statement? Need some behind-scenes colour.”Miller’s invective was matched by Trump’s campaign team, which said of Erin Perrine, a former Trump aide now working for DeSantis, “nothing can ever wash that foul stench of shit off her”. But regardless of such Republican infighting, endorsements for Trump kept coming in.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe three other House Republicans from Minnesota – Brad Finstad, Michelle Fischbach and Pete Stauber – joined Emmer in backing Trump.From the Senate, the Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, once seen as a possible Republican candidate, also gave Trump his backing.“When Donald Trump was president,” Cotton said, “America was safe, strong and prosperous.”He did not mention his own, infamous claim that regular troops needed to be used to quash protests for racial justice in 2020, when Trump was in the White House.Overlooking the economic devastation wrought that same year by Covid-19, Cotton continued: “The economy was booming, working-class wages were growing, our border was secure, and our enemies feared us.”“I endorse President Trump and I look forward to working with him to win back the White House and the Senate … it’s time to get our country back on track.” More

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      Biden to jump-start 2024 campaign by highlighting sharp contrast with Trump

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      Ailing in opinion polls, Joe Biden will aim to jump-start his re-election campaign in the coming week with events designed to symbolise the fight for democracy and racial justice against Donald Trump.The Biden-Harris campaign announced the plans in a conference call with reporters that mentioned Trump by name 28 times in just 24 minutes, a sign of its determination to draw a sharp contrast between the US president and his likely Republican challenger.On Saturday Biden will deliver a major address laying out the stakes of the election at Valley Forge, near Philadelphia, the site of a 1777-1778 winter encampment of the Continental Army led by George Washington during the American revolutionary war.It was at Valley Forge that a disorganised alliance of colonial militias was transformed into a cohesive coalition united in the battle for democracy, the Biden-Harris campaign told reporters, noting that Washington became president but then relinquished power.“There the president will make the case directly that democracy and freedom – two powerful ideas that united the 13 colonies and that generations throughout our nation’s history have fought and died for a stone’s throw from where he’ll be Saturday – remain central to the fight we’re in today,” said the principal deputy campaign manager, Quentin Fulks.Then, on Monday, Biden will speak at Mother Emanuel AME church in Charleston, South Carolina, where in 2015 nine African American worshippers were killed by a white supremacist while they were praying at the end of Bible study.Fulks described it as “a historic venue that embodies the stakes of our nation at this moment because whether it is white supremacists descending on the historic American city or Charlottesville, the assault on our nation’s capital on January 6 or white supremacists murdering churchgoers at Mother Emanuel nearly nine years ago, America is worried about the rise in political violence and determined to stand against it”.The vice-president, Kamala Harris, will also travel to South Carolina on Saturday to address the 7th Episcopal District AME church Women’s Missionary Society annual retreat and, later this month, launch a “reproductive freedoms tour” in Wisconsin, highlighting the “chaos and cruelty” unleashed by the overturning of the constitutional right to abortion.Speaking from the campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Delaware, Fulks told reporters: “You can expect the entirety of our campaign to be out in full force later this month on the anniversary of Roe v Wade, making crystal clear to every American to that the freedom for women to make their own healthcare decisions is on the ballot this November.”But the conference call made no mention of Biden’s leadership during the war in Ukraine, where Congress now threatens to cut off funding, nor the war in Gaza, which has been the most divisive foreign policy issue of his presidency. The campaign team also avoided the subject of Biden’s age – at 81 he is the oldest president in American history.The call did dwell on the January 6 insurrection, however, underlining how the Biden campaign is intent on making the election less a referendum on his presidency than a choice between the incumbent and Trump, who has been twice impeached and indicted in four separate cases and is facing 91 criminal counts.Julie Chávez Rodríguez, the campaign manager, said: “When Joe Biden ran for president four years ago, he said, ‘We are in the battle for the soul of America’ and as we look towards November 2024, we still are. The threat Donald Trump posed in 2020 to American democracy has only grown more dire in the years since.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut Biden enters the new year with the lowest approval rating of any modern-day president seeking re-election. Voters have expressed concerns over crime, immigration and inflation, which hit 40-year highs in 2022. Branding exercises such as “Bidenomics” appear to have fallen flat.Polls show the president losing support among voters of colour in particular. On Monday a USA Today and Suffolk University survey showed Trump on 39% support among Latino voters, ahead of Biden on 34%, a dramatic reversal from 2020 when Biden enjoyed 65% support from Latino voters.Fulks said voters of color have most at stake in the election and denied that there is cause for panic. “Our campaign has been putting in the work to do everything we need to do to communicate with communities of color next fall to make sure that they turn out,” he said, noting that the campaign has made the “biggest and earliest ever investment for a re-election campaign into constituency media”.He added: “We started by doing early organizing efforts targeting the voters that make up the Biden-Harris coalition and that sends a clear signal that we’re not going to wait and parachute into these communities at the last minute and ask them for their vote. We’re going to earn their vote.“We know that we have to communicate to these constituencies about what this administration has done; we have to communicate with these constituencies about the dangers that the other side poses; and we’re going to do both.” More

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      Trump to argue he is immune from January 6 charges as polls show him leading Republican field – US politics live

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      A new year has dawned, but the contours of the race for the Republican presidential nomination are much the same as they were throughout all of 2023. Donald Trump continues to lead in polls of the field, with the support of 62% of voters in a USA Today/Suffolk University poll released yesterday. Soon, we’ll have more than polls to go on when gauging the race for the nomination. The Iowa GOP caucuses are less than two weeks away on 15 January, and will give us an idea of whether Trump’s strong polling edge will translate to votes.Trump is as busy in court as he is on the campaign trail, dealing with the four criminal indictments that were issued against him last year. The matter closest to going to trial is his federal charges over trying to overturn the 2020 election, which is set for a 4 March start date in Washington DC. Trump is trying to convince judges at various levels that he is immune from the charges, and is expected to today file the final brief on the matter to a federal appeals court. We will see what he, or more accurately, his lawyers, have to say for themselves when it comes in.Here’s what is going on today:
      The House and Senate are both out, though lawmakers are still bargaining over government funding levels, military assistance to Ukraine and Israel and potential changes to US immigration policy.
      Joe Biden is returning to Washington DC from vacation in the US Virgin Islands.
      Two planes collided at Tokyo’s airport, leaving five people dead as Japan recovers from Monday’s earthquake. Follow our live blog for the latest on this developing story.
      Police have arrested a man who broke into the Colorado supreme court building and opened fire early this morning, CNN reports.The assailant took an unarmed security guard hostage after shooting out a window and entering the building in downtown Denver, but the Colorado state patrol said no injuries resulted from the incident. In late December, the court had in a 4-3 ruling disqualified Donald Trump from the state’s ballot for his involvement in the January 6 insurrection.Here’s more on the shooting, from CNN:
      Tuesday’s incident began unfolding around 1:15 a.m. and ended nearly two hours later, when the suspect surrendered to police, according to the news release.
      “There are no injuries to building occupants, the suspect, or police personnel,” the release said, adding there was “significant and extensive damage to the building.”
      The incident began with a two-vehicle crash at 13th Avenue and Lincoln Street in Denver, near the Ralph L. Carr Colorado Judicial Center, which houses the state supreme court.
      A person involved in that crash “reportedly pointed a handgun at the other driver,” the release said. That individual then shot out a window on the east side of the judicial center and entered the building.
      The individual encountered an unarmed security guard, held the guard at gunpoint and took the guard’s keys before going to other parts of the building, including the seventh floor, where he fired more shots, the release said.
      The suspect called 911 at 3 a.m. and surrendered to police, the release said.
      In addition to arguing in court, Donald Trump has taken to issuing personal attacks against the prosecutors who have brought charges against him in three states and the District of Columbia. As the Guardian’s Peter Stone reports, experts fear his campaign of insults could do real damage to America’s institutions:As Donald Trump faces 91 felony counts with four trials slated for 2024, including two tied to his drives to overturn his 2020 election loss, his attacks on prosecutors are increasingly conspiratorial and authoritarian in style and threaten the rule of law, say former justice department officials.The former US president’s vitriolic attacks on a special counsel and two state prosecutors as well as some judges claim in part that the charges against Trump amount to “election interference” since he’s seeking the presidency again, and that “presidential immunity” protects Trump for his multiple actions to subvert Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.But ex-officials and other experts say Trump’s campaign and social media bashing of the four sets of criminal charges – echoed in ways by his lawyers’ court briefs – are actually a hodgepodge of conspiracy theories and very tenuous legal claims, laced with Trump’s narcissism and authoritarian impulses aimed at delaying his trials or quashing the charges.Much of Trump’s animus is aimed at the special counsel Jack Smith, who has charged him with four felony counts for election subversion, and 40 felony counts for mishandling classified documents when his presidency ended.Just days ago, prosecutors on special counsel Jack Smith’s team argued that granting Donald Trump immunity from the charges he faces for trying to overturn the 2020 election would threaten US democracy, the Associated Press reports:Special counsel Jack Smith urged a federal appeals court Saturday to reject former president Donald Trump’s claims that he is immune from prosecution, saying the suggestion that he cannot be held to account for crimes committed in office “threatens the democratic and constitutional foundation” of the country.The filing from Smith’s team was submitted before arguments next month on the legally untested question of whether a former president can be prosecuted for acts made while in the White House.Though the matter is being considered by the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit, it’s likely to come again before the supreme court, which earlier this month rejected prosecutors’ request for a speedy ruling in their favor, holding that Trump can be forced to stand trial on charges that he plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election.The outcome of the dispute is critical for both sides especially since the case has been effectively paused while Trump advances his immunity claims in the appeals court.Prosecutors are hoping a swift judgment rejecting those arguments will restart the case and keep it on track for trial, currently scheduled for 4 March in federal court in Washington. But Trump’s lawyers stand to benefit from a protracted appeals process that could significantly delay the case and potentially push it beyond the November election.After Donald Trump’s lawyers file their last written arguments in the case over his immunity claim today, they will meet alongside prosecutors from special counsel Jack Smith’s office next Tuesday to make oral arguments before the Washington DC-based federal appeals court.It’s unclear when the three-judge panel deciding the matter will rule, but the issue could then make its way to the supreme court. Last month, Smith asked the nation’s highest judges to immediately take up Trump’s claim that his position as president makes him immune from charges related to attempting to overturn the 2020 election, but the court declined to do so, saying the issue needed to follow the normal appeals process before getting to them.A new year has dawned, but the contours of the race for the Republican presidential nomination are much the same as they were throughout all of 2023. Donald Trump continues to lead in polls of the field, with the support of 62% of voters in a USA Today/Suffolk University poll released yesterday. Soon, we’ll have more than polls to go on when gauging the race for the nomination. The Iowa GOP caucuses are less than two weeks away on 15 January, and will give us an idea of whether Trump’s strong polling edge will translate to votes.Trump is as busy in court as he is on the campaign trail, dealing with the four criminal indictments that were issued against him last year. The matter closest to going to trial is his federal charges over trying to overturn the 2020 election, which is set for a 4 March start date in Washington DC. Trump is trying to convince judges at various levels that he is immune from the charges, and is expected to today file the final brief on the matter to a federal appeals court. We will see what he, or more accurately, his lawyers, have to say for themselves when it comes in.Here’s what is going on today:
      The House and Senate are both out, though lawmakers are still bargaining over government funding levels, military assistance to Ukraine and Israel and potential changes to US immigration policy.
      Joe Biden is returning to Washington DC from vacation in the US Virgin Islands.
      Two planes collided at Tokyo’s airport, leaving five people dead as Japan recovers from Monday’s earthquake. Follow our live blog for the latest on this developing story. More

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      Biden offers optimistic new year’s message as Trump lashes out

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      The likely candidates in the 2024 presidential match-up issued two starkly different new year messages to voters, with Joe Biden striking a note of cheerful optimism as his almost certain challenger Donald Trump, and Trump lashing out in a social media post laden with lies and conspiracy theories.The president and first lady Jill Biden, vacationing in St Croix in the US Virgin Islands, offered a New Year’s message touting US job gains and the performance of the US economy during his administration – a message that voters have so far refused to accept.In an interview with American Idol host Ryan Seacrest about his hopes for 2024, Biden said “[the American people] understand that we’re in a better position than any country in the world to lead the world”.“We’re coming back, and it’s about time,” Biden said.Asked about his memories of the previous year, Biden – whom Republicans in Congress have derisively called “Beachfront Biden” – said “people are in a position to be able to making a living now, and they’ve created a lot of jobs for over 14 million”.In comments to reporters, Biden said his new year’s resolution was “to come back next year”.“That’s the biggest one right there,” he said.Trump, however, issued a simple: “Happy New Year. It will be a historic one. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!” on his Truth Social platform.Trump and former first lady Melania Trump welcomed 2024 with a concert by 90s rap star Vanilla Ice, and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle “rock-out”, featuring Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo, at his Mar-a-Lago home and private club, according to the Palm Beach Post.Trump, the outlet reported, could be seen in videos toward the back of the room away from the dance floor as people danced to Vanilla Ice, whose real name is Rob Van Winkle, as he played his hit Ice Ice Baby.A day earlier, Trump issued a more typically acidic message, predicting rival Joe Biden won’t “make it to the gate” in November. He repeated his unproven claims that the 2020 election was rigged and transposed the “crooked” moniker he used on Hillary Clinton to Biden.“As the New Year fast approaches, I would like to wish an early New Year’s salutation to crooked Joe Biden and his group of radical left misfits and thugs on their never-ending attempt to destroy our nation through lawfare, invasion and rigging elections,” Trump said in the post.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“They are now scrambling to sign up as many of those millions of people they are illegally allowing into sour [sic] country, in order that they will be ready to vote in the presidential election of 2024,” Trump added.The twin new year’s greeting arrived as the 2024 election shifts into high gear. Polling averages compiled by FiveThirtyEight show that 39% of Americans approve of Biden’s performance, with 55% disapproving – a gap that has doubled in 12 months.But that comes as Trump faces a series of criminal complaints that, if any are heard and concluded with convictions before the election, may damage his standing among voters. With the White House gambling that Trump is the Republican candidate it can beat, there are few opportunities for slip-ups.A survey released on Monday showed that Trump leads Biden among Hispanic and young voters – a key demographic that helped him win the presidency four years ago.The USA Today and Suffolk University survey, condensed by the Guardian, found that Biden had 34% support among Hispanic voters surveyed, down from 65% in 2020, compared to Trump’s 39%. Biden’s support among Black voters had also declined, from 87% to 63%.Among younger votes under 35, Trump leads Biden 37% to 33%, a spread that four years ago was 24 points in Biden’s favor. More