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Biden hasn’t done enough to ease age concerns, former top Obama adviser says – live
David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, warns that Joe Biden has not done enough to relieve voters’ concern about his age since last month’s hapless debate performance.“I’ve felt for a long time, and I’ve said for a long time, it’s not in any way a commentary on his record, which I think will be honoured more by history than it is by voters right now,” Axelrod told the Guardian in Milwaukee on Wednesday.“But it’s a very hard case to make that anyone should be elected president in the United States at the age of 82, not for political reasons but for actuarial reasons. This is the hardest job on the planet. It takes a lot out of you. It’s a legitimate concern that people have and that concern has been intensified by what happened at the debate. I don’t think anything that’s happened has relieved that concern.”Axelrod, chief strategist for the 2008 and 2012 Obama presidential campaigns, was speaking after an event organised by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and the Cook Political Report on the sidelines of the Republican national convention.Asked whether he thinks Biden can survive, Axelrod replied: “That’s entirely in his hands and that’s been the case. This whole race has been in his hands, his decision to run and now his decision to stay.“There’s a lot to think about because I know he’s laid out the stakes in this election. The question he has to answer is, what are the odds of his winning? Would the odds be better with another candidate? I’m sure there’s a lot of discussion about that.”The president’s re-election campaign has ended the pause on advertising it imposed following the Saturday assassination attempt against Donald Trump, a Biden-Harris campaign official told the Guardian’s US politics live blog.The first new ad features abortion-rights activist Hadley Duvall, and in addition to attacking Trump singles out JD Vance, Trump’s newly announced running mate. See it here:Jack Smith, the justice department special counsel, has filed an appeal of judge Aileen Cannon’s ruling earlier this week dismissing Donald Trump’s indictment on charges of illegally possessing classified documents.Here’s the latest on this long-running legal saga:The Trump campaign has announced that it will not yet schedule a debate between JD Vance and Kamala Harris, citing uncertainty over who will be the Democratic nominee for vice-president.The decision is a reference to continued tension among Democrats over whether Joe Biden should seek re-election, after his poor showing at his first debate with Donald Trump. The president insists he has no plans to step aside, but if he did, the new nominee would have to find their own running mate.“We don’t know who the Democrat nominee for vice-president is going to be, so we can’t lock in a date before their convention. To do so would be unfair to Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker, Gretchen Whitmer, or whoever Kamala Harris picks as her running mate,” Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes said in a statement.The Biden-Harris campaign had previously proposed three possible dates for the vice-presidential debate, all before the beginning of the Democratic convention on 19 August, where the party will formalize the presidential ticket.Donald Trump’s campaign has encouraged speakers at the Republican national convention to stay away from extreme rhetoric, and in some cases directly edited their speeches, NBC News reports.At the convention thus far, there have been few to no mentions of topics liked the January 6 insurrection, or Trump’s baseless claims that he lost the 2020 election unfairly. That’s a deliberate strategy his campaign shifted to following the assassination attempt on Saturday, as it now looks to project an image of unity.Here’s more on that, from NBC:
Trump said that he had rewritten his own speech accepting the Republican presidential nomination ahead of Thursday night after surviving an assassination attempt. The Trump campaign has said that now he intends to home in on the theme of unifying America.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga, said Wednesday before delivering his convention address, ‘Frankly, they sent the same message to those of us giving speeches.’
‘We always planned to be a reflection of our party’s unity and remind the American people of the difference between President Trump’s success and Crooked Joe Biden’s failure,’ Brian Hughes, a senior Trump campaign adviser, said in a statement. ‘The convention messages from everyday Americans and policymakers have met that goal. This convention is one of the greatest ever held and will launch us forward to victory in November.’
While convention speakers this week have served up plenty of red meat to the thousands of delegates in attendance, particularly on the issues of immigration and crime, they have steered away from some of the party’s more divisive topics and talk of seeking retribution.
Through the convention’s first two nights, speakers have not mentioned the following issues: unfounded claims of stolen elections; the Jan 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol; investigating Trump’s political opponents, including Biden; and investigating the prosecutors who have sought indictments against him, like Special Counsel Jack Smith, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg or Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
A video where Trump mentions the unsubstantiated threat of Democrats ‘cheating’ in the upcoming election was played during the first two nights of the convention.
Asked if the toned-down theme would continue through the week, Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa., said, ‘I do.’
‘I mean, it starts with Trump,’ he continued. ‘Hopefully, JD [Vance] picks that up. And others. Trump said he didn’t want people to change their speeches, but I think that they will.’
Anyone attending the Republican national convention could be forgiven for thinking they have stepped into a mirror world where Donald Trump is a saint, not a twice-impeached former president convicted of 34 felonies.On Wednesday, Brenna Bird, the attorney general of Iowa, was asked why she travelled to New York to support the former US president during his hush-money trial.“I was glad to go out to New York to support him during that trial because I’m a prosecutor and I have prosecuted many criminal defendants, but I’ve never seen anything like that,” Bird told international reporters at a Foreign Press Centers briefing.“It’s a travesty. It’s not how the legal process is supposed to work. As a prosecutor, I’ve never taken someone’s politics into account when deciding whether to charge a crime. That is just wrong and, if it’s allowed to happen, it breaks down the rule of law and the constitutional order.”Bird added: “I went there specifically as a prosecutor to support President Trump because what was happening was an injustice and I wanted to be there and stand up for what was right and support President Trump. I think we saw his character during that trial. He doesn’t give up and he keeps on moving forward and that’s exactly what our country needs right now.”In May, Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records alleging he was involved in a scheme that sought to cover up extramarital affairs in advance of the 2016 presidential election. The New York state prosecution had no connection to Biden and there was no evidence of jury bias against Trump.Here’s where the day stands:Joe Biden said he would consider dropping out of the presidential race if a “medical condition” emerged, the New York Times reports, citing an excerpt released from Biden’s interview with Ed Gordon of BET News. According to the Times, Biden was asked if there was any reason that would make him reconsider staying in the presidential race. In response, Biden said: “If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.”
John Hinckley, the man who shot and wounded president Ronald Reagan in 1981, has released his own statement following Donald Trump’s assassination attempt on Saturday. In a tweet on Wednesday, Hinckley, who was released in 2022 after spending 41 years under federal oversight, wrote: “Violence is not the way to go. Give peace a chance.”
Kamala Harris has accepted a third possible date to hold a CBS-hosted vice-presidential debate against Trump’s newly announced running mate, Ohio senator JD Vance. The Biden-Harris campaign said it was open to a showdown with Vance on Monday, 12 August, as well. Harris had previously agreed to participate in the debate on either Tuesday, 23 July, or Tuesday, 13 August.
The high-profile California Democrat Adam Schiff has called on Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race. Schiff, in a statement to the Los Angeles Times, said that Biden “has been one of the most consequential presidents in our nation’s history, and his lifetime of service as a Senator, a vice president, and now as president has made our country better” adding: “But our nation is at a crossroads.”
Joe Biden lashed out at a “tense” meeting with dozens of House Democrats who bluntly questioned his viability as their party’s presidential nominee, according to reports. During the Saturday Zoom call, Colorado representative Jason Crow told Biden that voters are concerned about his vigor and strength, and noted the importance of national security in the November election, the reports say.
Lloyd Doggett, the Texas representative who became the first House Democrat to publicly call on Joe Biden to step aside, has doubled down and urged the president to withdraw from the ticket in the face of “the reality of steadily, worsening poll numbers”. “My call for President Biden to step aside remains even more urgent,” Doggett said in a statement on Wednesday.
During the Democratic press conference in Milwaukee, the Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, was pressed on the party’s plans to nominate Joe Biden via a roll call vote in the coming days. Walz, who co-chairs the Democratic national convention’s rules committee, confirmed that delegates would not begin voting before 1 August, and the governor’s spokesperson confirmed that the process should wrap up by 7 August.
Donald Trump does not have stitches but has a “nice flesh wound”, his son Eric Trump said following his father’s assassination attempt. In an interview with CBS, Eric said: “You know, he was millimeters away from having his life expunged … I’m sure the ear doesn’t feel well.”
Nearly two-thirds of Democrats want Joe Biden to withdraw his re-election bid, a new AP-NORC poll has found. According to the poll, which was mostly conducted before Donald Trump’s assassination attempt on Saturday, 65% of Democrats say that Biden should withdraw. Overall, seven in 10 American adults say that Biden should drop out of the race.
The Democratic National Committee said that its virtual roll call to officially nominate Joe Biden as its party’s presidential nominee will happen in August, CBS reports. In a letter obtained and reported by CBS on Wednesday, the chairs of the Democratic national convention’s rules committee, Leah Daughtry and Tim Walz, wrote: “We have confirmed with the Democratic National Committee and the Democratic National Convention that no virtual voting will begin before August 1 … .”
David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama, warns that Joe Biden has not done enough to relieve voters’ concern about his age since last month’s hapless debate performance.“I’ve felt for a long time, and I’ve said for a long time, it’s not in any way a commentary on his record, which I think will be honoured more by history than it is by voters right now,” Axelrod told the Guardian in Milwaukee on Wednesday.“But it’s a very hard case to make that anyone should be elected president in the United States at the age of 82, not for political reasons but for actuarial reasons. This is the hardest job on the planet. It takes a lot out of you. It’s a legitimate concern that people have and that concern has been intensified by what happened at the debate. I don’t think anything that’s happened has relieved that concern.”Axelrod, chief strategist for the 2008 and 2012 Obama presidential campaigns, was speaking after an event organised by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and the Cook Political Report on the sidelines of the Republican national convention.Asked whether he thinks Biden can survive, Axelrod replied: “That’s entirely in his hands and that’s been the case. This whole race has been in his hands, his decision to run and now his decision to stay.“There’s a lot to think about because I know he’s laid out the stakes in this election. The question he has to answer is, what are the odds of his winning? Would the odds be better with another candidate? I’m sure there’s a lot of discussion about that.”Following Rudy Giuliani’s fall at the Republican national convention in Milwaukee on Tuesday, the 80-year-old disbarred lawyer’s spokesperson Ted Goodman released the following statement on Wednesday:
Mayor Rudy Giuliani appreciates everyone’s concern after tripping over a dip in the walkway on the convention floor of the convention.
The mayor and I were both filming footage for his social media and livestream programs on the floor of the convention, when he turned to set some equipment on a chair and tripped over a dip between the walkway and chairs.
Those falsely suggesting anything else are misleading the public for their own agendas.
The rift among Democrats is deepening over Joe Biden’s presidential candidacy despite party leaders saying Biden is the nominee.Joan E Greve and Martin Pengelly report for the Guardian:Demands for Joe Biden to step aside as the Democrats’ presidential pick to face Donald Trump have slowed since the Republican survived an assassination attempt last weekend, to the extent that on Wednesday one “prominent strategist” was moved to say of the rebellion: “It’s over.”The strategist spoke anonymously to the Hill – and before the influential California congressman Adam Schiff said publicly that Biden should quit.Nonetheless, in Milwaukee, at a press conference during the Republican national convention, Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor and a party grandee, said Biden would be confirmed as the Democratic nominee by virtual vote between 1 and 7 August, before the Chicago convention.For the full story, click here:Joe Biden’s campaign team released a new ad on Wednesday featuring Hadley Duvall, a 22-year-old abortion-rights activist from Owensboro, Kentucky.In the ad, Duvall, who was in an emotional ad last year during governor Andy Beshear’s re-election campaign, describes her experience of being impregnated by her stepfather, who raped her when she was 12 years old.She said:
I’m from Kentucky where, because of Donald Trump, an extreme abortion ban is now in place, with no exceptions for rape or incest. During the overturn [of Roe v Wade], I went back to the time I was 12 years old and I was holding my first pregnancy test in my hand …
Trump brags about overturning Roe v Wade. He is ‘proudly responsible’ for each and every abortion ban across the country. And he calls them a ‘beautiful thing to watch.’ What is so beautiful about telling a 12-year-old girl that she must have the baby of her stepfather who raped her? The stakes of this election could not be higher for our choices. More - in US Politics
Former Obama adviser says Biden has not quelled voters’ age concerns
David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Barack Obama, has warned that Joe Biden has not done enough to relieve voters’ concern about his age since last month’s disastrous debate.Axelrod spoke to the Guardian in Milwaukee as US representative Adam Schiff became the highest-profile Democrat to call for the president to drop his re-election bid.“I’ve felt for a long time, and I’ve said for a long time, it’s not in any way a commentary on his record, which I think will be honoured more by history than it is by voters right now,” Axelrod said.“But it’s a very hard case to make that anyone should be elected president in the United States at the age of 82, not for political reasons but for actuarial reasons. This is the hardest job on the planet. It takes a lot out of you. It’s a legitimate concern that people have and that concern has been intensified by what happened at the debate. I don’t think anything that’s happened has relieved that concern.”Biden has embarked on a blitz of speeches, rallies and TV interviews – along with a rare press conference – since his hapless debate performance in Atlanta. But nearly two in three Democrats say he should step aside and let his party nominate a different candidate, according to an AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released on Wednesday.Yet the party is pushing ahead with plans to hold a virtual vote to formally make Biden its nominee in the first week of August before its convention opens in person two weeks later.Axelrod, chief strategist for the 2008 and 2012 Obama presidential campaigns, was speaking after an event organised by the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and the Cook Political Report on the sidelines of the Republican national convention.One of the panelists at the event, the Republican pollster and strategist Tony Fabrizio, told the audience that Democrats had formed a “perfect circular firing squad”, giving his party the “run of the field”.Asked whether he thought Biden could survive as the nominee, Axelrod said: “That’s entirely in his hands and that’s been the case. This whole race has been in his hands, his decision to run and now his decision to stay.“There’s a lot to think about because I know he’s laid out the stakes in this election. The question he has to answer is, what are the odds of his winning? Would the odds be better with another candidate? I’m sure there’s a lot of discussion about that.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAxelrod denied that Saturday’s attempted assassination of Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania had blunted the moment of Democrats pushing for a change at the top of the ticket.“I know that’s been a conventional thought, but I’m not sure,” he said. “Honestly there is a dynamic that’s described this race, fair or unfair, from the beginning – and the Trump campaign has been very effective at promoting – which is the world’s out of control, Biden is not a man, he’s weak, Trump is strong, vote for Trump. That’s their whole campaign.“The events of the last few weeks have hardened that and underscored that contrast to the disadvantage of the president. The only thing that may dampen the discussion is the president’s own refusal to consider it, but I don’t think anyone’s concerns have been diminished by anything that’s happened.” More
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China suspends nuclear talks with US over arms sales to Taiwan
China has suspended talks over arms control and nuclear proliferation with the US in protest against arms sales to Taiwan, the democratically governed island aligned with Washington that China claims as its own territory.The decision, announced by China’s foreign ministry on Wednesday, halts the early nuclear-arms talks in a period of growing tensions between China and the US, with both US presidential candidates calling for increased trade restrictions and efforts to contain Chinese influence in east Asia.The US is Taiwan’s main international partner and largest arms supplier. The House of Representatives in June approved $500m in foreign military financing for Taiwan to strengthen military deterrence against China, along with $2bn in loans and loan guarantees. The US also approved $300m in spare and repair parts for Taiwan’s F-16 fighter jets.China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said that the US had continued to sell arms to Taiwan despite “strong Chinese opposition and repeated negotiations”.He added: “Consequently, the Chinese side has decided to hold off discussion with the US on a new round of consultations on arms control and nonproliferation. The responsibility fully lies with the US.”Lin said China was willing to maintain communication on international arms control, but that the US “must respect China’s core interests and create necessary conditions for dialogue and exchange”.In response, the US state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, accused China of “following Russia’s lead” by holding arms control negotiations hostage to other conflicts in the bilateral relationship.“We think this approach undermines strategic stability, it increases the risk of arms-race dynamics,” Miller told reporters.“Unfortunately, by suspending these consultations, China has chosen not to pursue efforts that would manage strategic risks and prevent costly arms races, but we, the United States, will remain open to developing and implementing concrete risk-reduction measures with China.”China is estimated to have 500 nuclear warheads, but the US department of defence expects Beijing to produce more than 1,000 by 2030. The US and China held arms talks in November for the first time in five years and discussed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty and other nuclear security issues, as well as compliance with the Biological Weapons Convention and the Chemical Weapons Convention, and outer space security and regular arms control, according to the Chinese foreign ministry.Donald Trump has signalled that US support for Taiwan may come with a higher price tag in the future, and has dodged questions on whether the US would defend Taiwan in the case of an invasion by China.“Taiwan should pay us for defence,” Trump said in an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek. “You know we’re no different than an insurance company.”The Republican vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, has signalled strong support for Taiwan, saying that US backing of Ukraine has diverted Washington’s attention from providing arms to Taiwan in case of a conflict. More
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We need to do all we can to lower the anger pervading American politics | Robert Reich
My first thought on hearing about the attempted shooting of Donald Trump at a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday was “I hope to God he’s OK”.I thought this for the usual reasons we human beings hope that other humans are safe from harm.But I had another reason in the case of Donald Trump.Trump has shaped his campaign around his own paranoid martyrdom. I didn’t want anything to add fuel to his dangerous message.It would be unseemly to speak ill of a man who could have lost his life today, but let me remind you of the constant undercurrent of violence in Trump’s messages to his followers during this election. He talks of an America divided between Trump supporters and “enemies within” the nation who are seeking to destroy both him and his followers.On 24 June 2023, after his second indictment, he told his followers:
“They’re not after me. They’re after you. And I just happen to be standing in their way.”
The first rally of Trump’s 2024 election campaign on 25 March in Waco, Texas, opened with a choir of men imprisoned for their role in the January 6 insurrection singing Justice for All, intercut with the national anthem and with Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance with his hand on his heart. Behind, on big screens, was footage from the Capitol riot.Trump then repeated his bogus claim that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged”. He then declared:
“Our enemies are desperate to stop us and our opponents have done everything they can to crush our spirit and to break our will. But they failed. They’ve only made us stronger. And 2024 is the final battle, it’s going to be the big one. You put me back in the White House, their reign will be over and America will be a free nation once again.”
He has conjured up a conspiracy against him, and therefore against his followers.
“In 2016, I declared: I am your voice. Today, I add I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”
After Saturday’s attempt on his life, expect more of the same paranoid martyrdom from Trump.Today is no time to dwell on the direct and alarming connection between Trump’s political rise and the increase in political violence and threats of such violence in America.Let me just say that in 2016, the Capitol police recorded fewer than 900 threats against members of Congress. In 2017, after Trump took office, that figure more than quadrupled, according to the Capitol police. The numbers continued to rise every year of the Trump presidency, peaking at 9,700 in 2021. In 2022, the first full year of Biden’s term, the numbers declined to a still-high 7,500. (The 2023 data is not yet available.)Much more to say about all this. For now, though, please join me in doing everything possible to lower the hostility and anger now pervading American politics.And let us pray that Trump, Biden and everyone running for political office and every American engaged in politics remains safe from harm.Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More
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US supreme court grabbing ‘ultimate power’, Biden reform adviser says
Laurence Tribe, a constitutional law scholar who has advised Joe Biden as the president prepares to back dramatic reforms to the US supreme court, has criticized the court’s ultraconservative justices for acting as a “center of self-aggrandizement” threatening the checks and balances on which the US has historically depended.In comments to the Guardian a day after news broke of Biden’s plans to endorse major changes to the country’s most powerful court, the Harvard Law School professor said the justices were out of step with basic constitutional premises. The court had “reached the point of assuming ultimate power over our entire legal and political system”.He accused the supermajority of “essentially destroying the framework of checks and balances” that had maintained an uneasy equilibrium “over the course of our history”.On Monday the Washington Post revealed Biden’s intention to support major plans to restrain the supreme court. The ideas reportedly being considered include term limits for justices, an ethics code armed with real teeth, as well as a possible constitutional amendment to overturn the justices’ highly controversial decision to grant Donald Trump broad presidential immunity from criminal prosecution.The Post reported that in preparation for an announcement, expected within weeks, Biden had turned to Tribe as an authority on constitutional law. They discussed Tribe’s blueprint for supreme court reform set out in a Guardian opinion article earlier this month, the newspaper said.Tribe declined on Tuesday to talk about their conversations. But he shared with the Guardian his personal thoughts about what must be done to correct some of the court’s most flagrant abuses.He gave a withering assessment of the hard-right supermajority that controls the court following Trump’s three appointments. The six conservative justices had discarded the judicial self-constraint that the framers of the constitution had intended for the “least dangerous” branch of government.The court had overturned “decades of precedent for no better reason than that it now has the votes to do so”.Tribe blamed the supreme court for systematically rolling back the past half-century of progress on voting and human rights. He listed advances that had been laid waste in recent years, including: “Reproductive liberty, gender equality, sexual autonomy, racial justice, police abuse and government accountability.”He warned there could be no quick fix for the court’s “outlandish excesses”. But he sketched reforms that, over time, could put the court back on the rails.One of Tribe’s most favored changes appears to fall outside Biden’s plans: enlarging the nine-person court with four extra seats to offset Trump’s “stacking of the court”. Tribe embraced enlarging the court in his role as a member of the commission formed by Biden in 2021 looking into supreme court reform.But he told the Guardian that, speaking only for himself, he would be “loth to urge the president at this point to reverse his deep-rooted opposition to court expansion”.The Harvard professor said that there was growing consensus behind term limits for justices. Presidents should make two appointments to the supreme court in each four-year White House term.New appointments would then serve for 18 years as active justices, followed by lifetime service as a retired judge who could fill in for a recused colleague when required. Such a two-tier system has thrived in lower courts for more than a century.Tribe said the shift to a term-limited system – which would be prospective only, not affecting the current nine justices – could be legislated by Congress.“No other apex court in the world entrusts remotely so much power to so few individuals for so long – essentially for life,” he said.Biden also appears minded to endorse an enforceable ethics code, to replace the voluntary guidelines which the court adopted last November amid mounting criticism of Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Tribe said he believed such a reform was now urgently needed, as a way to save the court “from its own worst tendencies”.The law professor called the present system untenable. With no outside mechanism for enforcing ethical rules, such as disclosure of gifts from rich patrons, the court was in effect “expected to police itself”.That remained the case even when justices appeared “prone to get away with as much exploitation of their prestigious positions as they can”.Like term limits, an enforceable ethics code would require congressional legislation. Both would be a tough proposition given the present partisan divide and the need for 60 Senate votes under the filibuster.Such reforms would look easy compared with the other major reform being considered by Biden relating to presidential immunity. This would require a constitutional amendment that would have to negotiate the convoluted rules for changing the US constitution (two-thirds support in both chambers of Congress, or two-thirds of the states in a convention, followed by ratification by three-quarters of state legislatures).What was now needed, Tribe said, was a “No Person Is Above the Law” amendment which would insert language into the constitution making clear that nobody – including the president – could claim immunity from criminal prosecution by virtue of their office.Tribe said that he also wanted to see an amendment constraining a president’s pardon power so that a lawless incumbent of the Oval Office could not pardon themselves or anyone else whom they encouraged to commit crimes on their behalf.Taken together, these changes would return to the supreme court the public respect it had lost, Tribe said. They would correct the court’s partisan majority which now acts as though it were “all-knowing and essentially infallible, paying virtually no heed to the opinions of its predecessors or of the American people”. More
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Democratic rift over Biden candidacy deepens even as party says he will be nominee
Pressure for Joe Biden to step aside as the Democrats’ presidential pick to face Donald Trump had eased since the Republican survived an assassination attempt last weekend, but began to rise again on Wednesday.The influential California congressman, Adam Schiff, said publicly that Biden should quit, becoming the most well-known representative so far to do so openly.And later on Wednesday afternoon, David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to Barack Obama as president, increased his persistent pressure campaign on Biden as he warned that the sitting president had not done enough to relieve voters’ concern about his age since last month’s hapless debate performance.“I’ve said for a long time, it’s not in any way a commentary on his record, which I think will be honoured more by history than it is by voters right now, but it’s a very hard case to make that anyone should be elected president in the United States at the age of 82, not for political reasons but for actuarial reasons,” Axelrod told the Guardian in Milwaukee.Having already riled Biden with criticism of his re-election bid, Axelrod continued the attack at an event on the sidelines of the Republican national convention, where Trump is expected to receive the official party nomination on Thursday.Axelrod, chief strategist for the 2008 and 2012 Obama presidential campaigns, asked if he thinks Biden can survive as the Democrats’ presumptive nominee, replied: “That’s entirely in his hands.”His and Schiff’s comments followed one “prominent strategist” who was moved to say of the internal rebellion against Biden’s candidacy for re-election: “It’s over,” in a sign of how sharply divided the party stands. The strategist spoke anonymously to the Hill.At a press conference in Milwaukee, Tim Walz, the Minnesota governor and a party grandee, said Biden would be confirmed as the Democratic nominee by virtual vote between 1 and 7 August, before the Chicago convention.Walz told reporters: “We need to get these things done. We need to get the roll call done. But it won’t happen before 1 August.”The debate over Biden’s age and cognitive fitness is likely to stoke more nasty public splits.On Wednesday morning, as a new ABC-Norc poll found nearly two-thirds of Democrats saying Biden should withdraw, the blogger and podcaster Nate Silver linked to video of moments in a speech in Las Vegas the night before, in which the 81-year-old president seemed to struggle.Silver said: “It’s just so weird living through this real-life Emperor Has No Clothes Moment. He obviously shouldn’t be president for four more years. Everyone knows this.”Schiff followed reports that he predicted heavy Democratic losses under Biden by going public on the matter.Biden “has been one of the most consequential presidents in our nation’s history” but it was time “to pass the torch”, Schiff, now the Democratic candidate for US Senate, told the Los Angeles Times.“A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy, and I have serious concerns about whether the president can defeat Donald Trump in November.”Biden insists he is up to the job, telling one interviewer he will be the nominee “unless I get hit by a train”.Silver also said it was “incredibly revealing which people are willing to lie” about Biden’s age and the problem facing his party.That was a reference to Silver’s public argument on Tuesday with Jaime Harrison, the Democratic National Committee chair, over plans to confirm Biden’s nomination before the convention, officially related to uncertainty over elections law in Ohio and the deadline for ballot inclusion.Harrison wrote: “Love y’all but when it comes to election law and ballot access, I put my trust in our legal team who make a living understanding these laws and processes and not in the pollster who promised us the red wave. #ClassDismissed.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe was referring to predictions that the 2022 midterms would see Republicans retake the Senate and strengthen their hold on the House, which did not transpire.Silver answered: “Jaime, I’m not a pollster and I didn’t promise a red wave. The data is here. Actual experts have weighed in and said you’re spreading misinformation. You should probably stop lying.“You and the White House have run the whole campaign on the premise that you could bullshit your way through things. It’s early enough so as not to be unsalvageable, but you’ve put Democrats in an incredibly difficult position. Enough with the BS.”Silver also accused Harrison and the DNC of “blatantly lying” about a need to confirm Biden before the convention, adding: “The good news is that there very much will be consequences if they force Biden’s nomination [through] and he loses.”Harrison said: “Nate … you can call me a lot of things but a liar is definitely not one of them. I know you THINK you know every thing but class is now truly in session. Pull up a chair.”He then offered an explanation of the plan for an early confirmation, in light of events in Ohio. Silver said he was “trying to gaslight people based on a technicality”.Elsewhere, the Ohio secretary of state said the elections law issue was “resolved”, adding that Democrats “know that and should stop trying to scapegoat Ohio for their own party disfunction”.Amid it all, Ron Klain entered the chat.The former White House chief of staff, who remains close to Biden and his campaign, posted a FiveThirtyEight prediction of a Biden electoral college victory and said: “But I thought he had ‘no path’ according to donors and the electeds following the donors?”Klain added: “Based on working in two campaigns against Trump I am unchanged in my view that Joe Biden is uniquely capable of defeating him – that’s my gut view based on experience.”Silver said: “You’d say that whether you really believed it or not. But come on the podcast Ron and we’ll see how many mental gymnastics you’re willing to do to defend this position.”Klain, Silver added, was “the one person on the campaign who might be smart enough to know he’s full of shit and will write a memoir in five years saying Biden’s inner circle was incorrigible and he had to provide the most help he could to Biden under the circumstances”.Also on social media, Simon Rosenberg, a pollster and strategist who correctly said there would be no “red wave” in 2022, made an appeal for sanity, posting on X, in part: “Fellow Dems, every moment you attack other [Democrats] you are helping Trump win. Stop it.”Harrison reposted the message. More
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Adam Schiff says Biden should ‘pass the torch’ and bow out of 2024 US election
Adam Schiff, the high-profile California Democrat and US Senate candidate, on Wednesday called on Joe Biden to end his presidential campaign, stating he had “serious concerns” about the president’s ability to beat Donald Trump in November.In a statement to the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles-area congressman joined almost 20 other congressional Democrats in asking the president to step aside. Biden “has been one of the most consequential presidents in our nation’s history”, Schiff said, but it was time “to pass the torch”.“A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy, and I have serious concerns about whether the president can defeat Donald Trump in November,” Schiff told the newspaper.The development comes as an increasing number of Democrats express doubts about whether Biden can win in November and concerns over his age and cognitive abilities following his debate performance against Trump.A new survey published this week found that nearly two-thirds of Democrats want Biden to withdraw. Only about three in 10 Democrats are extremely or very confident that Biden has the mental capability to serve effectively, the AP-Norc Center for Public Affairs Research survey also found.Some of Biden’s top donors have said that he should bow out, and have paused donations until he does so. It was reported on Tuesday that Schiff had told donors he believed Democrats would lose the presidency, and probably the House and Senate as well, if Biden remained on the ticket. “I think if he is our nominee, I think we lose,” the New York Times reported Schiff told donors in New York.With Democrats in turmoil, the party backtracked on Wednesday on plans to expedite a virtual roll call to officially select Biden as its presidential nominee before August after facing opposition from several House members. The members had planned to send a letter to the DNC calling a proposal to fast-track Biden’s nomination a “terrible idea”.“We’re glad to see that the pressure has worked and the DNC will not rush this virtual process through in July,” said a spokesperson for the congressman Jared Huffman, a California Democrat.The Minnesota governor, Tim Walz, who heads the DNC’s rules committee, confirmed during a press conference in Milwaukee on Wednesday morning that the roll call vote will not be conducted this month. The governor’s spokesperson later confirmed that the process should wrap up by 7 August.The extended deadline buys Democrats more time for continued internal debate over whether Biden should remain the party’s nominee.For his part, Schiff said on Wednesday he would support whoever is the Democratic nominee, including Biden, and will do anything to help the ticket succeed.“There is only one singular goal: defeating Donald Trump. The stakes are just too high,” he told the LA Times. More
