More stories

  • in

    Biden continues to resist Democratic calls to end re-election campaign

    Democrats were caught in an apparent stalemate on Saturday as a dug-in Joe Biden continued to endure high-profile calls to end his re-election campaign after a week of astonishing party moves to unseat the president in favor of a candidate many hope will be more likely to beat Donald Trump.In the weeks since his disastrous debate performance against Trump, the 81-year-old Biden has attempted to fight off calls for him to step down from the top of the ticket amid concerns that his age and mental acuity are no longer up to the job. But a series of interviews, a press conference and speeches have done little to quell party nerves.“Everyone’s waiting for Joe,” quoted the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd of one top Democrat. “And he’s sitting at home, stewing and saying, ‘What if? What if? What if?’ We’re doing things the Democratic way. We’re botching it.”Frustration within the Democratic party establishment at what they see as Biden’s intransigence comes as the outlet also reported on Saturday that the president in private is complaining that former aides to presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton would be lecturing him on election strategy after Democratic 1994 and 2010 midterm election losses that he had avoided in 2022.Those pressuring Biden – who also has Covid – to abandon his re-election bid, the Times reported, “risk getting his back up and prompting him to remain after all”.Some advisers are said to believe that Biden is holding out at least until the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visits Washington on Wednesday. But some donors say that this is the ideal moment for Biden to step aside now that Republicans have had their convention, and Democrats have a month until their own convention in Chicago to tell a new story about a new candidate.The vivid picture of a Covid-sick, abandoned and resentful veteran politician, sitting out the pressure in a Delaware beach house, comes as most senior Democrats, including the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi and the current minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, are calling for Biden – at a minimum – to reconsider his position.“We have to cauterize this wound right now and the sooner we can do it the better,” Virginia representative Gerald E Connolly, a Democrat, told the Times. Connolly, who has not publicly called for Biden to step aside, said the ongoing drama “shows the cold calculus of politics”.According to the Washington Post on Saturday, the tight-knit Biden family has not called an emergency meeting to discuss the spiraling crisis, but is instead exchanging usual daily phone calls and text messages.Rising anger within the family, which has enjoyed nearly half a century of Joe Biden’s power in Delaware, both as a senator, vice-president and president, is fueled by the belief that his dismal debate performance could still be overcome by a determined fight back and a display of loyalty. “It’s like they don’t know he’s Irish,” the Post quoted a person close to the family.The past week has seen waves of Democratic elected officials make public statements of their appreciation of Biden’s record in office but dire warnings that the US will see a second Trump presidency should he remain the party’s candidate for November’s presidential election.The latest high-profile name to join the chorus was Sherrod Brown, when the embattled Ohio senator broke cover on Friday evening to call for an end to Biden’s re-election campaign.“I’ve heard from Ohioans on important issues, such as how to continue to grow jobs in our state, give law enforcement the resources to crack down on fentanyl, protect social security and Medicare from cuts, and prevent the ongoing efforts to impose a national abortion ban,” Brown said in a statement.He added: “At this critical time, our full attention must return to these important issues. I think the president should end his campaign.”Those public disavowals of support have been mirrored by an equally intense private lobbying campaign from top Democrats, party stalwarts and senior donors that is aimed at persuading Biden that he cannot beat Trump and that his political legacy is at risk unless he is replaced by a more dynamic candidate, most likely his vice-president, Kamala Harris.On Saturday, Representative Mark Takano of California, the top Democrat on the House veterans’ affairs committee, added his name to the list of nearly three dozen Democrats in Congress who say it’s time for Biden to leave the race. The Californian called on Biden to “pass the torch” to Harris.“It has become clear to me that the demands of a modern campaign are now best met by the vice-president, who can seamlessly transition into the role of our party’s standard bearer,” Takano said.That campaign has seemingly inched closer and closer to persuading Biden and his close inner circles of advisers and family members that the situation has become so serious that he needs to consider taking the extraordinary step of declaring himself a one-term president and backing someone else to fight Trump.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBiden’s position has reportedly wavered from one of absolute refusal to move to now being open to the idea of considering his position. Some media reports have even suggested that a decision could come in the next few days, including as early as this weekend.However, on Friday Biden’s campaign struck a notable tone of defiance, saying the president is anticipating getting back on the campaign trail.“I look forward to getting back on the campaign trail next week to continue exposing the threat of Donald Trump’s Project 2025 agenda while making the case for my own record and the vision that I have for America: one where we save our democracy, protect our rights and freedoms, and create opportunity for everyone,” Biden said in a statement.“The stakes are high, and the choice is clear,” Biden added. “Together, we will win.”Biden does have prominent allies still at the heights of the party. Leftist representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders have come out in favor of Biden remaining at the top of the ticket in the past days.“If you 10,000% are super-convinced that the candidate, our president, cannot beat Donald Trump, then do what you think is in your good conscience. But I have not seen an alternative scenario that, I feel, does not set us up for enormous peril,” Ocasio-Cortez said.In polling over the past week, Biden has trailed Trump, especially in the crucial battleground states where the election will be won or lost. Republican campaigners have even boasted that their electoral map is broadening as previously safe Democratic states – such as Virginia or New Hampshire – might come into play.But Ocasio-Cortez warned of potential intra-party chaos if Biden is pushed off the re-election ticket.“If you think that is going to be an easy transition, I’m here to tell you that a huge amount of the donor class and these elites who are pushing for the president not to be the nominee also do not want to see the VP [Harris] be the nominee,” Ocasio-Cortez said.She warned that Democratic “elites” don’t want Harris to run in Biden’s place, but a brokered convention in Chicago in which state delegates currently committed to Biden would be free to pledge support to another candidate
    could lead to chaos.Racial, ethnic and class divisions within the Democratic party had been exposed by the Biden crisis, she indicated, and she said her community “does not have the luxury of accepting loss in July of an election year. My people are the first ones deported. They’re the first ones put in Rikers. They’re the first ones whose families are killed by war.” More

  • in

    Pity US voters their choice of leaders. Surely democracy is better than this? | Simon Tisdall

    What a shambles! What a shame! With less than four months to go, America’s presidential race, global democracy’s showpiece event, has boiled down to a choice between a crook, a codger, a cheerleader and a charlatan. Four folks who, for varying reasons, are barely fit.Voters deserve better. Or perhaps, by applauding and rewarding bad behaviour, they really don’t. Friends and allies look on aghast. Chinese and Russian online election trolls sneer with delight. No worries, guys. The US is busy screwing itself.First, the psychopath mansplaining atop the Republican ticket. The word, by definition, denotes a personality characterised by impaired empathy and remorse, narcissism, superficial charm, manipulativeness, dishonesty and an outward appearance of normality. Sound about right? Yup. Except it’s worse than ever. At 78, his chronic condition is deteriorating rapidly.Sanctimonious, sentimental, self-pitying, vicious, ignorant – addressing the Republican convention, Donald Trump showed he hasn’t changed a bit. Yet now, unbelievably, this sleazy liar, convicted felon and wannabe dictator, this serial sexual abuser, faux-Christian and closet racist reckons he holds the moral high ground. And all because some poor fool took a shot, elevating him to martyr status.The Pennsylvania assassination attempt was the perfect advertisement for Trump’s favourite role of victim-saviour. He is persecuted. He suffers for you. Now he’s born again. Trump likened his recent New York court tribulations to Jesus in the wilderness. And he claimed God helped him dodge the killer bullet. Joe Biden’s earlier, inept appeal to place “a bull’s eye” on Trump’s back inadvertently fortified the fable.Trump’s disciples raised their arms in salute. “The devil came to Pennsylvania holding a rifle. But an American lion got back on his feet and he roared!” proclaimed lackey senator Tim Scott, mangling metaphors. Divine intervention had saved Trump – in order that he save America.Trump’s unprepossessing son, Donald Jr, claims the near-death experience has fundamentally altered his pa. Baloney. American lions don’t change their spots, as Scott might say.Trump, sensing electoral advantage in a new, insincere guise of national unifier, will exploit the notion ruthlessly. Yet, if re-elected, all bets are off. Revenge and score-settling will be prioritised as before, alongside the hard-right, democracy-shattering Project 2025 agenda.Trump is sick. But so too, sadly, is America’s other main presidential contender, in different ways. Biden has an illness to which those exercising great power often succumb: a delusional belief in his own indispensability. Only he can beat Trump, he insists. It’s nonsense, of course. Biden may be the only Democrat who can’t beat him. Reports suggest the old stager may be finally recognising that reality.Hubris, vanity, pride and a first lady living life vicariously: all influenced Biden’s stubborn hanging on. Now he has Covid again. Of all these ills, old age is the most unforgiving. There’s no fighting the clock. And politically, at 81, Biden’s game is up. Latest polling suggests two-thirds of Democrats think he should quit. About 70% of all voters doubt his mental capacity to lead for another four years. Time to go, Joe.Panicky squawking in the Democratic henhouse is barely contained at this point. There is no agreed party mechanism to remove an incumbent, nor for replacing one. Former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have mostly kept their heads down, muttering off-mike. They never really rated Biden. Yet he turned out a better president than either. Do they secretly hope he crashes and burns? Like age and pride, envy and legacy also poison the well.The unfitness of Trump and Biden throws a sharper spotlight on their understudies. So who’s next in line? Kamala Harris, vice-president since 2021, is on Democratic pole. But familiarity has not translated into popularity. Her favourability rating averages minus 15 points. While she notionally fares better than Biden against Trump in some swing states, her claim to the crown is unpersuasive.Harris, 59, is unfairly criticised, perhaps because she is the first female vice-president – a California liberal with black and Asian American roots. She’s led on issues such as abortion, climate, education and voting rights. But opponents dismiss her as a lightweight White House cheerleader who failed in her main task of repelling border illegals.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAttacks on Harris notably increased at the Republican convention – a pre-emptive strike strategy, hedging against a Biden departure. But it’s unclear who among more than half a dozen potential Democratic candidates might get the nod. Names like California’s Gavin Newsom, Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer and former transport secretary Pete Buttigieg are tossed around like racecourse betting tickets. If the call comes, Harris will need to toughen up and wise up fast – or risk being shouldered aside.Intriguingly, the same fate could befall Trump one day, given his telling choice of the unpleasantly hard-right, white nationalist-populist senator JD Vance as running mate. Despite his privileged background and wealth, Trump portrays himself, against all evidence, as a champion of the working man. Vance, in contrast, is arguably the real thing, warts and all – a self-styled hillbilly throwback with a chip on his shoulder the size of Ohio.Vance, 39, is the least-known member of 2024’s electoral quadrumvirate. A shameless opportunist, his fiercely stated loyalty to Trump, whom he once compared to Hitler, looks confected and expedient. He’s already casting himself as the Maga heir apparent. How long before he usurps the throne? No one knows what he truly believes, except perhaps his wife, Usha, the brains behind the drone.Vance’s extremist, intolerant views on abortion, immigration, isolationism and protectionism, plus his inflammatory, divisive rhetoric, typify America’s hugely self-destructive 2024 election. The choice on offer ranges from the sick and dangerous to the crudely rabid or banal. Democracy is better than this. Four months remain to rescue America – or else it ends in tears. Simon Tisdall is the Observer’s Foreign Affairs CommentatorDo you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at observer.letters@observer.co.uk More

  • in

    A wild three weeks in US presidential politics: a timeline

    They may go down as the wildest three weeks in the history of the US presidency, when the prospects of Joe Biden’s candidacy surviving until polling day seemed to change from day to day – sometimes even from hour to hour.Here is a summary of the milestone events as Biden’s re-election effort went through a maelstrom of uncertainty.27 JuneBiden and Donald Trump face off in the earliest debate ever staged between two main candidates in a presidential election, largely in response to demands by a White House team eager to allay doubts over the president’s advanced age (81) and suspicions that his cognitive powers are fading. Instead, Biden puts in a perplexing performance that intensifies the concerns. Over 90 minutes, he appears at times confused, mangles his sentences, repeatedly loses his train of thought and fails to combat a rush of lies from a bullishly confident Trump, who cannot conceal his glee over his rival’s discomfiture. Democratic operatives exchange frantic messages calling for Biden to abandon his campaign even while the debate unfolds.28 JuneThe president, realising his campaign is suddenly in deep trouble, tries to launch a counteroffensive, telling a rally of supporters in North Carolina that he is staying in the race. “I know I’m not a young man,” he shouts – reading his remarks from an teleprompter. “I don’t debate as well as I used to, but I know what I do know … When you get knocked down, you get back up!”Few are convinced. Within hours, the New York Times, the most influential newspaper in the US, publishes as searing editorial telling Biden to step aside, calling his candidacy a “reckless gamble” that risks a second Trump presidency.3 JulyAs pressure mounts and with a Democratic member of Congress, Lloyd Doggett of Texas, already having called for him to withdraw, Biden meets virtually with state governors in an effort to set minds at rest. But although he wins statements of support, doubts persist after it is reported that he tells them that he is trying to refrain from holding events after 8pm to conserve energy. There is unease at his response when one governor, Josh Green of Hawaii – a medical doctor – inquires about his health, eliciting the puzzling response: “It’s just my brain.”5 JulyBiden gives his first mainstream interview since the debate, an eagerly awaited 22-minute affair with George Stephanopoulos of ABC in a school library in Wisconsin. It is an improvement on the disastrous debate showing but hardly reassuring. The president declares that only the “Lord almighty” could persuade him to step aside from the race. Many Democrats also express deep misgiving about his response to being asked how he would feel if he ran against Trump in November only to lose. “I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did as good a job as I know I can do – that’s what this is about,” he replies. Some condemn the statement as out of touch, given the Democratic fears of a second Trump presidency.7 JulyHakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, holds crisis talks with senior party House members, at least four of whom say the president should step aside as candidate.8 JulyBiden strikes back in anger. As members of Congress return to Washington DC after a recess, the president sends a letter to the entire Democratic congressional contingent telling them he is unequivocally committed to staying in the race and reaffirming his belief that he can beat Trump. He follows up with an unscheduled live telephone interview to MSNBC’s Morning Joe programme in which he throws down the gauntlet to his critics by telling them to “challenge me at the [Democratic] convention”, due to take place in Chicago in August. Jeffries meets with a full complement of House Democrats on Capitol Hill, some of whom tearfully voice fears about the effect Biden’s plunging popularity in the polls might have on their own election prospects. Yet many Democrats appear resigned to Biden staying on the ticket10 JulyWith the mutiny apparently fizzling out, the New York Times gives it renewed impetus by publishing an opinion article from George Clooney, one of the Democrats’ biggest fundraisers, urging Biden to stand down. Proclaiming his love and admiration for the president, Clooney cites his personal experience of a fundraising event in Hollywood last month attended by Biden, who he says cut the same disturbingly diminished figure that millions saw on the debate stage in Atlanta on 27 June.11 JulyWith the pressure on and mounting numbers of Democrats calling for his withdrawal, Biden holds a rare news conference marking the close of Nato’s 75th anniversary conference in Washington DC. Facing massed ranks of international journalists and speaking for an hour without the aid of a teleprompter, the president gives an admirable – yet still flawed – performance. He expounds on intricate details of foreign and economic policy. At the same time, he commits embarrassing gaffes, referring to his vice-president, Kamala Harris, as “Vice-President Trump” without correcting himself, having earlier mistakenly introduced the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy as “President Putin”. The performance seems enough to buy him time.13 JulyDonald Trump survives an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler county, Pennsylvania, a stunning development that puts the discussions on Biden’s candidacy on hold just as the president has been holding talks on his future with leading party figures, including Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader.14 JulyBiden’s staff temporarily suspends all campaign events and political advertising in a display of solidarity over the attempt on Trump’s life. The president gives a prime-time televised speech from the White House urging that both parties rhetorically “lower the temperature” to stave off a rise in political violence.15 JulyWith no Democrats having called for Biden’s withdrawal since the assassination attempt on Trump, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) tries to lock in the presidential nomination for him by unveiling plans for an early electronic roll call of delegates – meaning that the president would effectively have secured his candidacy weeks before the party’s convention starts on 19 August. The plan triggers an immediate backlash among Democrats who still believe Biden must step aside.Meanwhile, Biden gives an arresting answer to NBC’s Lester Holt in another prime-time interview when asked who he listens to on whether he should remain or drop out of the race. “Me,” he replies. “I’ve been doing this a long time.”17 JulyWhile campaigning in Nevada, the president tests positive for Covid and immediately returns to his home in Delaware to isolate. The announcement seems to mark an end to the brief respite in the efforts to persuade him to end his candidacy. The DNC, reportedly following an intervention by Schumer, announces it is postponing the planned electronic roll call by at least a week – giving Biden’s critics more time to muster.18 JulyWith Trump preparing to accept the Republican nomination in at the GOP convention in Milwaukee, reports emerge that Biden is at least listening to arguments that he should withdraw and asking if Harris would fare better. It is also reported that Barack Obama has told associates that he believes the president’s path to winning the election has greatly diminished and that he should reconsider the viability of his campaign19 JulyTen congressional Democrats – nine House members and one senator – call for Biden to stand aside as the candidate, bringing the total who have done so publicly to 32. The president insist he will continue as the nominee and is ready to resume campaigning after isolating from Covid, seemingly confounding speculation that he could be preparing a withdrawal announcement. More

  • in

    Al Sharpton on Joe Biden’s re-election bid: ‘Let him make up his mind’

    When Al Sharpton recently hung up the phone with Joe Biden, a man he has known for more than 30 years, first as a senator, then as vice-president and now as president, the message was clear: “He assured me he wasn’t going anywhere.”In their conversation, Sharpton said he never asked Biden to exit the 2024 presidential race.“I said to him that I appreciated what he did and I want to see it continue,” the reverend told the Guardian in an interview. “And he said: ‘That’s why I’m running, Al.’”That was Monday. By the week’s end, the 81-year-old president, cloistered at his beach house in Delaware with Covid and besieged on all sides by dismal polling, voter concerns and a rebellion against his candidacy from members of his own party, was confronting the most consequential decision of his half-century in public life.A growing number of Democrats weren’t waiting for an answer. More than three dozen congressional Democrats as well as activist groups and donors have urged the president to end his re-election bid. A group called Pass the Torch, Joe was holding a rally at the White House on Saturday.The path Biden chooses could carry enormous consequences for his legacy, his party and his country as Americans approach the November election with a united Republican party determined to give Donald Trump a second term.“Let him make up his mind,” said Sharpton, the veteran civil rights leader. “If he decides to walk, let him walk with his dignity, and if he decides to stay in it, he’s earned that right.”In the weeks since Biden’s disastrous debate performance exacerbated longstanding concerns about his age, the president has appeared immune to his critics. And for a fleeting moment at the start of the week, after a would-be assassin opened fire on Donald Trump during a rally in Pennsylvania last weekend, the prospect of Biden once again defying the political odds seemed, if not wholly probable, at least possible.In an Oval Office address on Sunday, the president launched into the familiar role of consoler-in-chief, demonstrating his compassion and empathy at a time of national trauma – the very traits that helped elevate him to the White House during the depths of the coronavirus pandemic four years ago.As Republicans greeted Trump with a hero’s welcome at their convention in Milwaukee this week, Biden returned to the campaign trail in pursuit of a political comeback. Sharpton spoke to the president on Monday, as Biden headed west, to Nevada, to appeal to the people who had salvaged his candidacy before: Black voters and leaders, including the South Carolina representative Jim Clyburn.“He was as lucid as I’ve ever heard,” Sharpton recalled. “And I’ve known him for more than 30 years.”The following day, Biden was greeted with a standing ovation at the NAACP’s annual convention in Las Vegas. Online, the president’s every verbal miscue was clipped and shared. But in the room, his fiery speech was met with chants of “Four more years!” After the address, Biden held an event with Representative Steven Horsford, chair of the Congressional Black caucus, which has remained a pillar of support on Capitol Hill.View image in fullscreen“He was very energetic,” Sharpton said of the Las Vegas appearances. Biden had played his cards right, but it had done little to quell the rising tide of dissent still simmering in Washington.The shocking attempt on Trump’s life briefly froze the public debate over the president’s fitness for office. But Democrats privately traded calamitous polling data that showed Biden trailing in the battleground states and at risk of dragging his party down with him, and it soon broke into public view again.On Wednesday, Representative Adam Schiff, a prominent California Democrat who is running for Senate, shattered the silence with a statement calling on Biden to step aside. Behind Schiff’s announcement, some saw the hand of the former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, an ally known as her party’s most shrewd tactician who has reportedly grown pessimistic about Biden’s chances of defeating Trump in November.The news came amid the publication of a poll that found nearly two-thirds of Democrats said Biden should bow out, according to the AP-Norc Center for Public Affairs Research, a figure that sharply disputed the president’s claim that the campaign against his candidacy was being driven by a few “big names” and party “elites”.That afternoon, before Biden was scheduled to take the stage at the UnidosUS conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday, he tested positive for Covid, forcing him from the campaign trail into self-isolation.Then came a rat-a-tat succession of leaks to the press that appeared coordinated to force his hand.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn separate meetings with the president, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, reportedly warned Biden that his continued candidacy threatened the party’s chances of controlling either chamber of Congress. Pelosi had provided a similarly dire assessment to the president, it emerged.By the day’s end, Biden was said to be “more receptive” to the case against his re-election campaign.By Thursday, reality was reportedly “setting in” as allies predicted Biden would “exit” the race, possibly as soon as this weekend. Barack Obama, meanwhile, had reportedly conveyed to allies that his former vice-president’s path to victory had all but evaporated. By Friday, Biden’s family – a close-knit clan that includes his wife, Jill, his son Hunter and his sister, Valerie – was reportedly discussing an exit strategy.Sharpton counts himself among the many Black leaders around the country, including some in Congress, uncomfortable with the rush to push out a president who he said had accomplished so much during his time in office.“On many of the things that we challenged him on, he has delivered on,” Sharpton said. “Doesn’t that count for something?”His hesitancy was an endorsement of Biden’s record, which includes landmark climate legislation, an infrastructure package, a pandemic relief package and a gun-reform bill, as well as his elevation of Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the supreme court, and Kamala Harris, the first woman and first Black and south Asian American to serve as vice-president.Of course, Sharpton has concerns.Like Biden, and most Democrats, Sharpton views the specter of a second Trump term as a serious threat to democracy and to the civil rights causes he has spent his career trying to advance. Moreover, he noted that the 78-year-old Trump had just delivered a rambling 92-minute acceptance speech at the party’s convention, and yet “not one Republican has asked him to step aside”.“We’re talking about two men three years apart. So what’s the standard?” Sharpton said. “Are we setting a precedent that could come back to haunt us?Sharpton was especially miffed by Democrats calling for an unprecedented overhaul of the party’s presidential ticket without providing a plan for what comes next.“What you’ve heard all of them say is: ‘Joe Biden ought to step out.’ They’ve not said: ‘And therefore I would support this route to continue to work,’” Sharpton said.On his call with the president, Sharpton did not raise the subject of a potential successor, but his preference was clear.“I’m not asking him to step aside, let me emphasize that,” Sharpton said. “But, if he did, the reason you choose a vice-presidential candidate is that that’s who is supposed to be able to step in in case of an emergency. I don’t even know why it would be a debate.” More

  • in

    Past assassination attempts led to US gun reform. But not this time

    In the aftermath of the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963, the calls for stricter gun regulation came quickly. Senator Thomas Dodd proposed new legislation five days after the president’s death.Almost two decades later, the 1981 shooting of Ronald Reagan prompted swift demands for action, including restrictions on handguns.And though in both instances it would take years for lawmakers to move forward, both tragedies led to meaningful reform: bans on mail-order gun sales, restrictions on who can purchase weapons and federal background checks for all gun purchases.Political violence has long shaped the US gun control movement, but it appears little will change from this week.After the attempt on Donald Trump’s life over the weekend, outcry over the easy access to guns in US has been relatively muted. There are no Republicans calling for tougher laws. There’s no national conversation about the toll of gun violence on American life.The biggest movements for gun control in US history can be traced to specific assassinations, said Andrew McKevitt, a history professor at Louisiana Tech University and the author of Gun Country, which looks at America’s relationship with firearms.“The calls for those things came in the immediate aftermath,” McKevitt said. “These are both kind of foundational moments for gun control in the United States and yet we haven’t seen anything in that regard in the last week.”View image in fullscreenAfter Kennedy’s death, Dodd urged action. It would take five years, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert Kennedy, but in 1968 lawmakers passed the Gun Control Act, banning mail-order gun sales and restricting who can purchase weapons.In 1981, Ronald Reagan was seriously injured in an assassination attempt alongside his press secretary, James Brady, who was shot in the head, as well as a Secret Service agent and police officer. In the following years, Brady and his wife, Sarah, became advocates for gun violence prevention and joined a non-profit that was eventually renamed in honor of the couple.They pulled in the likes of Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton to champion gun safety legislation, said Christian Heyne, the chief officer of policy and programs at Brady, the organization. The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, which passed under Bill Clinton in 1993, was named for James.“It wasn’t quick. It wasn’t overnight. They had a series of votes over a series of years and not all of them were successful, but they were persistent,” Heyne said.In more recent years, as the US became plagued by increasingly horrifying mass shootings, the gun violence prevention movement has grown significantly, but progress at the federal level has been stymied. After the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school, efforts by Democrats to pass new gun legislation, including a renewal of the assault weapons ban, were blocked by Republicans.The school shooting in Parkland, Florida, sparked a major youth movement and massive demonstrations across the US and renewed hope that Congress would take meaningful action. It did not, and instead, the National Rifle Association (NRA) said schools should improve safety and that teachers should be armed.The cultural and legal landscape has changed dramatically in the decades since the attacks on Kennedy and Reagan, McKevitt said, pointing to the 2004 expiration of a federal ban on assault weapons, which opened the floodgates for a market for the firearms and occurred as TV news showed American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan carrying similar weapons.US gun culture underwent rapid militarization, he said, and the industry aggressively marketed the expensive AR-15 and swiftly expanded. The “gasoline on the fire” was the election of Barack Obama, who the right portrayed as “coming for your guns”, McKevitt added.At the heart of the movement is the NRA, the powerful lobbying group that spent $31m to elect Trump in 2016. The NRA developed into what was for years a virtually unstoppable political force that could make or break the careers of Republican politicians.The group made guns a core of US culture wars and successfully pushed the narrative that “it takes a good guy with a gun” to “stop a bad guy with a gun”.The gun rights movement was able to achieve major legal victories, McKevitt said, including “stand your ground” laws and open carry legislation.Meanwhile, during the pandemic, Americans bought guns at record rates.“We’re living in an era where the gun rights movement won. The gun rights movement has had tremendous, dramatic, triumphant success over the last 40 years,” McKevitt said. “These legal triumphs, these political triumphs, have remade the landscape of guns in America.“And here we came mere inches from America’s rifle taking the life of the president who is the sort of great icon of the gun industry,” McKevitt said.McKevitt said Republicans were likely to remain resistant of any talk of gun safety laws, no matter the victim. And that Democrats were unlikely to want to push such a proposal in an election year.Heyne, whose mother died in a shooting, said he hoped the shooting in Pennsylvania would inspire some action.“President Trump now is a survivor of gun violence and I hope part of the process of what comes next is a real sincere thought about what it is that can prevent other people from experiencing what he’s experienced.”Still, he is frustrated by the lack of a national conversation around gun violence.“There is a dangerous normalization of gun violence in this country. We’re not having robust calls to action so we can prevent the next national tragedy like this. Until we’re willing to do something it almost certainly will happen again,” he said.“This assassination attempt was enabled by easy access to a military-style rifle and it was used precisely as it was designed,” he said. More

  • in

    Pro-Trump multimillionaire and election denier boosts funds to far-right voter-conspiracy groups

    The multimillionaire and prominent election denier Patrick Byrne has been boosting his funding to the Maga-allied America Project and using it to steer six-figure checks to far-right groups that push voting conspiracies in Arizona, Michigan and elsewhere, according to tax records and voting experts.Byrne, the former CEO of online retailer Overstock.com, said last fall that only $3m of the $30m the Florida-based project had raised at that point came from “the public”, with the rest coming from him.In 2022, the America Project almost doubled its revenues to $14.3m versus some $7.7m the prior year, according to tax records first disclosed by Issue One, a bipartisan political reform group.The America Project was launched in April 2021 by Byrne and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser to Donald Trump when he was president; both Byrne and Flynn have been vocal purveyors of falsehoods that Trump lost the 2020 election due to fraud. They were also both at a meeting with Trump and others in late 2020 to brainstorm ways to overturn his loss.The project’s website features bogus claims about election fraud stemming from early and mail voting, and styles itself as “an America First non-profit organization defending rights and freedoms, election victory, and border security to save America”.The project also boasts that its goal is “to be a symphony conductor of the pro-freedom, pro-constitutional movement, synchronizing and magnifying the efforts of those who wish to ally with us through connecting, training, funding, and working together to save America”.In practice, the America Project and Byrne have sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Arizona-based We the People AZ Alliance, and Michigan-based United States Election Investigation and Lawsuits Inc, triggering alarms by election watchdogs and some GOP veterans due to their incendiary election denialist stances and leaders.The Arizona alliance was co-founded by Shelby Busch, a vice-chair of the Maricopa county Republican party, who in late June was caught on video threatening to kill the top county election official, Stephen Richer, the Maricopa county recorder.Busch opined she would accept only “a good, Christian man that believes what we believe”.Richer, who is Jewish, said in a tweet: “This isn’t healthy. And it’s not responsible. And we shouldn’t want it as part of the Republican party” – noting Busch’s key role as a conservative activist.The Anti-Defamation League and some religious groups have condemned Busch, who is also the state chair to the Republican National Committee, for her remarks. Busch did not return calls seeking comment.Busch, who has been an adviser to Arizona Republican Senate candidate and major election denier Kari Lake, told Politico in a statement in June that “everyone knows I don’t like Richer” but said her comments were just a “joke” and “she would never condone violence”.The Arizona-based Republican consultant Tyler Montague told the Guardian “it takes a lot to make Maga world wince, but it happened when Shelby Busch said she would lynch Stephen Richer, and dog-whistled to Christian nationalists about needing someone with Christian values because Richer is Jewish”.“She was at the heart of promoting election fraud conspiracies, and is connected to Patrick Byrne, who funds the big lie and her Arizona group,” he said.Busch’s group has hauled in close to $400,000 from Byrne personally and the America project since the start of 2023, according to state campaign finance records. Of that total, Byrne has chipped in $280,000, while the America Project has given $120,000.Joe Flynn, Mike Flynn’s brother, who was president of the group for most of 2022, told the Guardian that the project tapped Busch as its Arizona “coordinator” for its 2022 poll-watching training, canvassing and “election integrity” program, dubbed Operation Eagles Wings.Unveiled in early 2022, Operation Eagles Wings was touted as an effort to “expose shenanigans at the ballot box” and to ensure “there are no repeats of the errors that happened in the 2020 election”. Byrne indicated early on that he was backing the operation with $3m.Campaign finance watchdogs raised red flags about Byrne’s and the project’s hefty funding of Busch’s operation.“This group has been bankrolled by deep-pocketed donors who are obsessed with fringe theories about election administration,” said Michael Beckel, Issue One’s research director.Citing Byrne and the MyPillow chief Mike Lindell as key funders of Busch’s group, Beckel added: “At a time when people across the political spectrum should be standing up to defend the integrity of our safe and secure elections, election deniers have used the We the People AZ Alliance to further erode trust in elections.”Neither Flynn is affiliated with the America Project any longer. Byrne did not return a phone call seeking comment.Elsewhere, Byrne and the America Project have donated more than $1.1m to a law firm and a group tied to the election conspiracist and attorney Stefanie Lambert. Lambert has notably defended Byrne in a $1.6bn lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems, who charged him with defamation for his claim the company helped rig the 2020 election.The America Project’s largest single donation in 2022, $700,000, went to the Michigan-based United States Election Investigation and Lawsuits Inc, a group that Lambert co-founded, as Detroit News first reported. Another $430,000 went to Lambert’s Michigan law firm, according to 2022 tax records.Lambert was a central figure in the post-2020 election scramble by Trump allies to find non-existent fraud. Last August, she was indicted in Michigan for her alleged role in a scheme in 2021 to illegally access and tamper with voting machines.In a timing twist, Lambert was arrested in March on the Michigan charges after she appeared in court to defend Byrne against the Dominion charges.Other America Project largesse has gone to various groups and individuals who have track records for pushing voting conspiracies. In 2022 and 2021, for instance, the project paid $200,000 to 423 Catkins Maize LLC, which is tied to Jovan Pulitzer, known for his election denialist claims.Likewise in 2022 and 2021 together, the project doled out about $330,000 to Pennsylvania-based OGC Law LLC, which employs lawyer Gregory Teufel – who has tried without success to overturn a state law that permitted all residents to ask for no-excuse mail-in ballots.On a different Maga front, the America Project also gave $150,000 in 2022 to Brian Della Rocca, a Maryland-based lawyer who has done legal work for the owner of a Delaware computer repair shop at the center of the controversy about Hunter Biden’s laptop.To expand the project’s mission and muscle, Byrne in 2023 tapped Trump’s acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Tom Homan, to be its CEO; a hardliner on border policies Trump has said Homan will have a key post if he wins againAt the Republican convention in Milwaukee, Homan on Wednesday gave a fiery talk blasting Biden border and immigration policies, charging darkly that “this isn’t mismanagement, this isn’t incompetence, this is by design – it is a choice”.Besides his big checks to the America Project and allied groups, Byrne has tried to flex his muscles in other Maga efforts with election deniers.In a tweet last month, for instance, Byrne touted that Michael Flynn, who now leads the Maga-allied America’s Future, should be Trump’s vice-president – and painted a conspiratorial scenario.“FLYNN knows how to spring Trump from prison. The world is at war and we need a general,” Byrne tweeted.Flynn’s ties to Byrne were cemented at a rowdy White House meeting with Trump and other key election deniers on 18 December 2020, where Flynn and Byrne floated the idea of using the national guard to seize voting machines to help overturn Trump’s loss.When Byrne and Flynn, who Trump pardoned after he pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about contacts he had with the Russian ambassador in 2016, launched the America Project, an early priority was seeking ways to block Joe Biden’s win in Arizona by promoting falsehoods about fraud.To that end, Byrne provided about $3.25m of $5.7m in funding raised by Cyber Ninjas, an obscure Florida firm with no experience in election audits that was tapped by Arizona’s Republican-led senate to review the Maricopa county election results. The firm’s final report found Biden actually got 99 more votes and Trump 261 fewer than originally counted. More

  • in

    Republicans coalesce as Democrats flail: week that upended US presidential race

    They browsed Trump bobbleheads, Trump mugs (“Make coffee great again!”) and Trump T-shirts, including a new line celebrating his defiance of an assassin’s bullet. They lined up at food stalls for beef sticks, gourmet popcorn, Puerto Rican roasted chicken and the local speciality, fried cheese curds. Beer was flowing, the sun was shining and Republicans were experiencing something they had not felt for a long time: joy.This year’s Republican national convention in Milwaukee had the swagger of a party that believes it is on a glide path to the White House. Entirely in thrall to Donald Trump, it was more united than it has been in decades. The former US president might offer a notoriously dark and divisive vision but his supporters exuded optimism in what one journalist dubbed “the happiest place on Earth”.That was based not only on 78-year-old Trump’s strength but the weakness of his opponent. Joe Biden, 81, reeling from a calamitous debate performance and now suffering from the coronavirus, was facing growing calls from his party to quit the race. In contrast with Republicans’ harmony, Democrats are locked in a circular firing squad and painful struggle over the best way forward.With just over a hundred days until the election, Republicans have the momentum. An Emerson College poll published on Thursday found 46% of registered voters said they support Trump, compared with 42% for Biden and 12% undecided. Crucially, Trump was ahead in all seven battleground states that will decide the all-important electoral college.“It’s very clear the path to the electoral college for Trump has widened and for Biden it’s narrowed,” Amy Walter, publisher and editor-in-chief of the Cook Political Report, said in an interview on the sidelines of the Milwaukee convention. “Even before the debate, before the assassination attempt, Biden was trailing.View image in fullscreen“The fundamental challenge for Biden and his campaign is they’ve been on their heels for months. The debate was the opportunity to get back on offence; obviously, it’s not. You feel it while you’re here that Trump is ahead and it’s his race to lose and Biden is behind with a divided party and without an obvious path forward.”This week’s Republican convention set out to consolidate the lead by appealing to moderate voters. It proved to be a disciplined operation, mostly avoiding topics such as abortion rights and the January 6 insurrection while toning down attacks on the media. There was no repeat of the “Lock her up!” chants aimed at Hillary Clinton that filled the low-morale convention hall in 2016.Walter added: “In 2016, because the party was so divided, what was unifying Republicans was their disdain for Hillary Clinton – all of the chants of ‘Lock her up’, all of the signs and T-shirts to ‘put Hillary in jail’. There’s not a whole lot of anti-Biden or anti-Harris stuff here that I’ve seen. It’s all pro-Trump, we’re united, we believe we can do this and don’t give Democrats, don’t give Biden, don’t give Harris any opportunity to get back in this game.”Trump himself may have given Democrats at least a half-chance with a Thursday night speech that rambled for more than an hour and a half – the longest televised convention speech in history – and regressed into his characteristic divisive themes and lies.But whereas the 2016 convention was marred by boos and infighting as Trump seized control, this one was defined by overwhelming displays of solidarity and a full embrace of his Maga agenda. Delegates brandished signs that included “Make America great again”, “Trump = success, Biden = failure”, “Trump America First. Biden America Last”, “American oil from American soil” and “Mass deportation now!”View image in fullscreenThe cult of personality extended to a Trump bust made of Indiana limestone, a book of Trump poetry fashioned from his tweets and Trump’s shoe in an exhibition of presidential footwear.Danny Willis, 25, chair of Delaware Young Republicans, said: “Now we have people taking shots at him – attempted assassination. We’re all here even more engaged, more inspired, more proud to vote here and make sure we get Donald Trump back in the White House.”That the ex-president’s life had been spared by a quarter of an inch was widely seen as divine intervention, elevating him to the status of a martyr. Some delegates wore ear bandages on the convention floor to express their support. Trump’s erstwhile primary election foes, Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, showed up with full-throated endorsements.Even Asa Hutchinson, a Trump critic who also contested the primary, acknowledged: “Confidence is the right word. I’ve been to six Republican conventions and I’ve never seen a higher level of confidence as they go into the fall election.”Hutchinson, a former governor of Arkansas, advised Democrats to replace Biden before it is too late: “You got to switch. You got to roll the dice. Take a chance on somebody else. It’s strength versus weakness. Strength wins every time.”Self-isolating at his Delaware beach house, after testing positive for Covid-19, Biden now faces the biggest decision of his political career. But the walls are closing in on the embattled Democrat.A stream of dismal polling has deepened Democrats’ pessimism about the president’s chances of winning re-election. A survey this week by AP-Norc Center for Public Affairs Research found that among his own supporters, two-thirds of Democrats now say Biden should not be the nominee.His latest bout of Covid-19 was terribly timed – interrupting a trip to battleground Nevada, a multi-day trip designed to confront a host of compounding weaknesses: the president’s poor standing on immigration and the economy as well as his sliding support among Latinos and Black voters.View image in fullscreenA fiery speech at the NAACP annual convention in Las Vegas, during which the president touted his accomplishments on behalf of “Black America” and declared that Kamala Harris, the 59-year-old vice-president, “could be president of the United States”, did little to quell widening dissent within the party. Online clips of his flubbed lines circulated, ensuring that even one of his most vigorous appearances since the debate came up short.Daniella Ballou-Aares, the chief executive of a coalition of business leaders called Leadership Now Project, which has urged the president to “pass the torch” to protect American democracy, acknowledged: “Every scenario is risky right now. There’s no risk-free scenario.“But there’s a very strong bench in the Democratic party so the feasibility of getting a good ticket is certainly there,” she added. “Of course it’s going to be a hard run to win, but that risk seems like a better bet than the current path that we’re on.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAs of Friday, more than 30 congressional Democrats, including three US senators, had called on the president to step aside, while the party’s top leaders, including Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader; Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader; and Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, all reportedly telling the president in private that his path to victory is all but extinguished.In their pleas to the president, they praise his half-century of public service and his accomplishments in the White House, which included the passage of landmark climate legislation, an infrastructure package, a gun control measure and billions in dollars in aid to Ukraine. But they also appeal to his patriotism, saying he helped to “save” the country from Trump in 2020, but now risks handing the former president a second term.Some high-profile Democrats are rising to Biden’s defense, notably two progressive powerhouses, Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York representative. In a 50-minute Instagram live stream, Ocasio-Cortez blamed Democratic “elites” for belatedly coming forward with their concerns about the president’s age without considering the amount of chaos replacing him would inject into the race.Biden ally Rev Al Sharpton, who spoke to the president on Monday before his NAACP speech, also cautioned against pressuring Biden to resign.“Let him make up his mind,” he said. “If he decides to walk, let him walk with his dignity, and if he decides to stay in it, he’s earned the right.”Sharpton was skeptical of certain members’ motivations for calling on Biden to drop out and said he was dismayed by the degree of “disrespect” being extended to a president with a lengthy record of legislative accomplishments. He said some of the calls appeared to be playing to a “centrist kind of voting base”as many progressive, Black and Hispanic leaders stand by the president.“If you want to talk about contrast, look at how incoherent Donald Trump was last night. He was all over the place,” Sharpton said, noting that “not one Republican has asked him to step aside, so what’s the standard?”Publicly, Biden has dug in. In recent media appearances, he’s said he was “1,000%” certain he would continue as the party’s nominee, unless he was “hit by a train” or diagnosed with a “medical condition”. But his campaign is struggling to break through, with every attempt to turn the attention back on Trump and his anti-democratic agenda swamped by questions about the president’s mental acuity and fitness for office.View image in fullscreen“They don’t know how to turn this around,” Frank Luntz, a pollster and consultant, said recently, warning that Biden risked suffering a “death of a thousands cuts”.An overwhelming majority of Democratic delegates are pledged to Biden, who was expected to be formally nominated as the party’s standard-bearer at the party’s convention in Chicago next month. But amid the turmoil, the thousands of delegates elected to decide the party’s nominee are suddenly unsure how to proceed and say they are being given little direction from the party.They are wrestling with technical questions – what would an open convention look like, how should they vote – but also how do they, as the rules state, “reflect the sentiments” of those who elected them if the candidate ends his campaign?Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a member of the Democratic national convention’s rules committee, said: “We’ve never had a situation quite like this where the primaries were over, very clearcut winner, and yet something was discovered, unclosed, whatever you want to call it, after the end of the primaries that caused people to severely doubt whether or not their nominee should proceed. We’ve never faced this.”Speaking on a briefing call organized by Delegates Are Democracy, a newly launched initiative intended to help educate delegates about the nomination process, Kamarck said Harris was the most likely replacement for Biden at this late stage in the election cycle – not because she is necessarily the best candidate but because she has major advantages, including that she has already been vetted at the national level and is privy to daily security briefings.“With every day, with every minute,” she said, “we’re running out of time.”Yet if the past month has proved anything, it is that there are more twists, turns and unknowns to come. John Zogby, an author and pollster, said: “The editor of my book said to me yesterday: ‘Is it over?’ I said: ‘Absolutely not!’ Not only barring the unforeseen – we’ve already had the unforeseen a few times already.“Imagine what could happen over the next four months.” More

  • in

    Democratic congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee dies aged 74, family says

    US representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a strong progressive voice in the Democratic party who was outspoken on African American and women’s rights, has died, her family posted on X late on Friday.Jackson Lee, of Texas, announced last month she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was undergoing treatment. She was 74 and had also previously had breast cancer.“A fierce champion of the people, she was affectionately and simply known as ‘Congresswoman’ by her constituents in recognition of her near-ubiquitous presence and service to their daily lives for more than 30 years,” her family said in the statement.Bishop James Dixon, a longtime friend in Houston who visited Jackson Lee earlier this week, said he would remember her as a fighter.“She was just a rare, rare jewel of a person who relentlessly gave everything she had to make sure others had what they needed. That was Sheila,” he said.Jackson Lee had just been elected to the Houston district once represented by Barbara Jordan, the first Black woman elected to Congress from a southern state since Reconstruction, when she was immediately placed on the high-profile House judiciary committee in 1995.“They just saw me, I guess through my profile, through Barbara Jordan’s work,” Jackson Lee told the Houston Chronicle in 2022. “I thought it was an honor because they assumed I was going to be the person they needed.”Jackson Lee quickly established herself as a fierce advocate for women and minorities, and a leader for House Democrats on many social justice issues, from policing reform to reparations for descendants of enslaved people.She led the first rewrite of the Violence Against Women Act in nearly a decade, which included protections for Native American, transgender and immigrant women.Jackson Lee was also among the lead lawmakers behind the effort in 2021 to have Juneteenth recognized as the first new federal holiday since Martin Luther King Jr Day was established in 1986.The holiday marks the day in 1865 that the last enslaved African Americans in Galveston, Texas, finally learned of their freedom.A native of Queens, New York, Jackson Lee graduated from Yale and earned her law degree at the University of Virginia.She was a judge in Houston before she was elected to Houston city council in 1989, then ran for Congress in 1994. She was an advocate for gay rights and an early opponent of the Iraq war in 2003.Top congressional Democrats reacted quickly to the news on Friday night, praising her commitment and work ethic.Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina called her “a tenacious advocate for civil rights and a tireless fighter, improving the lives of her constituents”.Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland said he had never known a harder-working lawmaker than Jackson Lee, saying she “studied every bill and every amendment with exactitude and then told Texas and America exactly where she stood”.Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi of California cited Jackson Lee’s “relentless determination” in getting Juneteenth declared a national holiday.“As a powerful voice in the Congress for our constitution and human rights, she fought tirelessly to advance fairness, equity and justice for all,” Pelosi said.Republican Texas governor Greg Abbott said he and his wife, Cecilia, would always remember Jackson Lee, calling her a “tireless advocate for the people of Houston”.“Her legacy of public service and dedication to Texas will live on,” he said.Jackson Lee routinely won re-election to Congress with ease. The few times she faced a challenger, she never carried less than two-thirds of the vote.Jackson Lee considered leaving Congress in 2023 in a bid to become Houston’s first female Black mayor but was defeated in a runoff. She then easily won the Democratic nomination for this year’s general election.During the mayoral campaign, Jackson Lee expressed regret and said “everyone deserves to be treated with dignity and respect” after the release of an unverified audio recording purported to be of the lawmaker berating staff members.In 2019, Jackson Lee stepped down from two leadership positions on the House judiciary committee and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, the fundraising arm of the Congressional Black Caucus, after a lawsuit from a former employee who said her sexual assault complaint had been mishandled.Jackson Lee was one of a handful of congressional Black Caucus members who were arrested in Washington DC in the summer of 2021 while protesting against delays in passing legislation to protect voting rights.She was demonstrating outside the Hart Senate office building alongside other protesters at the time of her arrest.“Any action that is a peaceful action of civil disobedience is worthy and more – to push all of us to do better,” Jackson Lee, whose state is one of the hardest places to vote in the US, said at the time.Jackson Lee’s family said in their statement that she had been a beloved wife, sister, mother and grandmother known as Bebe.“She will be dearly missed, but her legacy will continue to inspire all who believe in freedom, justice and democracy,” the statement said. “God bless you Congresswoman and God bless the United States of America.”Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report More