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      Biden says he ‘screwed up’ but vows to continue as polls show six-point lead for Trump

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      Joe Biden has told a radio show he “screwed up” and made a “mistake” in last week’s debate against Donald Trump, but vowed to stay in the election race, even as a series of polls show him now trailing the ex-president by about six points.In two interviews conducted Wednesday and aired Thursday with local radio stations in the battleground states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where he will also hold events this weekend, the president urged voters to judge him on his time in the White House.“I had a bad night,” Biden told Milwaukee radio host Earl Ingram. “And the fact of the matter is that I screwed up. I made a mistake. That’s 90 minutes on stage – look at what I’ve done in three and a half years.”To Ingram’s largely Black audience, Biden pointed to achievements during his presidency that increased representation.“I picked a Black woman to be my vice-president. I’ve appointed the first Black woman to be a supreme court justice,” Biden said. “I’ve appointed more Black judges, more Black women judges, than every other president in American history combined.”Biden also attacked Trump for comments the former president made about Black workers during their TV debate a week ago, when Trump said migrant workers could be taking as many as 20m Black jobs.“He’s done terrible things in the community, and he has about as much interest and concern for Black, minority communities as the man on the moon does,” Biden said.The interviews are part of a blitz of public appearances over the next few days that the president himself reportedly told a key ally were critical for whether he could successfully make a case for his re-election to the public, following a debate performance in which he appeared at times to lose his train of thought or blank out entirely.Although he secured the continuing support of Democratic governors in a meeting on Wednesday evening, the New York Times also cited two people in that meeting who said Biden admitted to the governors he had been feeling the effects of fatigue, needed to work less and get more sleep, and was aiming to reduce his number of engagements after 8pm.As well as the Wisconsin and Pennsylvania rallies, Biden will also give an another interview on Friday to ABC News, then to Good Morning America over the weekend.Clips of the ABC interview were originally scheduled to be aired on Friday night in the news time slot, with the full interview in two parts on Sunday and Monday, but the network announced on Thursday that it would now run the interview in its entirety on Friday.On Thursday, the White House told CNN that Biden had been examined by his doctor after the debate, during which he reportedly had a cold. The statement appeared to contradict the press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s assertion a day earlier that Biden had had no medical exams since his February physical.The White House spokesman Andrew Bates told CNN “the president was seen to check on his cold and was recovering well”.A gathering number of opinion polls conducted after the debate appear to show that his worrying performance, including an inability to successfully argue against Trump’s stream of unchecked lies, has hurt Biden with voters.According to a Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday, on Trump has opened a six-point lead nationally, at 48% to 42%, with 80% of respondents saying the president is too old to run for a second term – an increase of seven points since February.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIt also found that Biden is viewed favorably by 34% of voters, and unfavorably by 63%. Less than 40% approved of his handling of the economy, immigration or his time in office overall.Another poll, from the New York Times/Siena, released on Wednesday also showed a six-point advantage to Trump, up from three a week earlier. Among registered voters, Trump led by eight points.According to the Journal poll, one-third of respondents, including 31% of independents – a key bloc of US voters on whom the election may turn – said the debate made them more likely to vote for Trump, while just 10% said Biden.A similar percentage of Democrats and Republicans – roughly three-quarters – said they considered Biden too old to run. Two-thirds of Democrats said they would replace Biden with another candidate.Meanwhile, a Fourth of July campaign message from the president also attacked the recent supreme court ruling that presidents are immune from criminal prosecution for an acts deemed “official”, saying it paved the way for the presidency to become a de facto monarchy.“Our nation waged a war based on the revolutionary idea that everyday people ought to govern themselves,” Biden said in the message, quoting the US constitutional principle “that we will swear fealty to no king” and that everyone is equal under the law – a founding principle that Biden said “conservatives on the court have decided presidents are free to break”.Speculation has been intensifying about whether more elected Democrats will call for Biden to step aside: only two congressmen have so far done so. Potential replacement candidates, including Kamala Harris, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and California governor Gavin Newsom, have strongly stated their support for Biden’s re-election.In a call to campaign workers on Wednesday, he is reported to have said: “I’m the nominee of the Democratic party. No one’s pushing me out. I’m not leaving.” In a fundraising email after the call, Biden said: “Let me say this as clearly and simply as I can: I’m running.”Trump had been running a roughly two-point lead in the polls earlier in the year, though his lead appeared to narrow and the candidates seemed to be running neck-and-neck before the debate. More

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      Trump calls Biden ‘broken-down’ and claims he quit 2024 race in leaked video

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      “A broken-down pile of crap” on the verge of “quitting the race” was Donald Trump’s summation of Joe Biden in a surreptitiously filmed video leaked on Wednesday.The clip, obtained by the Daily Beast, shows the 78-year-old former president sitting in a golf cart, holding a pile of cash, and with son Barron alongside, as he offers an analysis of the 2024 presidential campaign.Trump asked a group off-camera: “How did I do with the debate the other night?” before predicting that Biden would not seek re-election.“He just quit, you know – he’s quitting the race”, Trump said. “I got him out of the – and that means we have Kamala.”The White House and most Democrats maintain Biden will remain the party nominee, though voter polls suggest that he has slipped six points behind Trump and that the vice-president, Kamala Harris, could be a stronger Democrat candidate in November.“I think she’s gonna be better” as an opponent, Trump continued in the video, but added: “She’s so bad. She’s so pathetic” and appeared to say: “She’s so fucking bad.”Biden’s campaign has denied he is stepping down. “Absolutely not,” said the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, on Wednesday. Several Democratic governors repeated the phrase “in it to win it” after meeting with Biden.The Trump campaign has not commented directly on the video but on Wednesday predicted the “total collapse” of the Democratic party following Biden’s poor debate performance and mounting calls for him to step aside.The Biden-Harris campaign responded to the video in a statement: “The American people have already seen low after low from Donald Trump,” it said, described the video as a “new rock bottom” for him.The clip was leaked hours after the Trump campaign released its first attack ads against Harris, who is the most likely candidate to replace Biden if he decides to quit the race.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionLeaked video and audio clips have previously been a source of embarrassment for Trump, including in 2016 with the notorious Access Hollywood tape in which he described women in vulgar terms and bragged about sexually harassing them.In the latest video Trump expressed disdain for Biden’s ability to deal with foreign adversaries, including Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and China’s president, Xi Jinping.“Can you imagine that guy dealing with Putin?” Trump asked. “And the president of China – who’s a fierce person. He’s a fierce man, very tough guy. And they see him.” More

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      This Fourth of July, it’s hard to feel optimistic about the US. But I have hope | Margaret Sullivan

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      If you’ve been paying even the slightest bit of attention, you know that the American Experiment took some gut punches over the last week.Joe Biden – long considered the best hope for preventing another disastrous Donald Trump term – had a shockingly bad debate performance, looking and sounding every minute of his 81 years.The tainted supreme court then declared, in essence, that a president is above the law, at least when acting in an official capacity. And that came on top of other high court decisions that have blasted away at the foundations of democracy in the United States.And much of the mainstream news media continued their campaign of false equivalency – treating the president’s age as a worse problem than Trump’s criminality and authoritarian intentions.But on this Fourth of July, I haven’t given up hope that we will right ourselves. And I’m far from alone.There is encouraging news in every one of these troubled spheres – politics, justice and media.I asked one of my favorite thinkers, the author and scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert in how democracies can wither under authoritarian rule, for some help. I talked to others, too, especially those who are protecting the vote, fostering good journalism and working for justice.Here’s what Ben-Ghiat told me: “Part of the reason for so much aggression from the GOP and the courts to take away our rights, including the right to free and fair elections, is because America is becoming more progressive, and Republicans cannot win without lies, threats and election interference, including assistance in that area from foreign powers.”She sees the US participating in “the global renaissance of mass nonviolent protest against authoritarianism” and notes that, in 2017, we saw the biggest protest in the nation’s history – the Women’s March against Trump, which was then surpassed in 2020 by the Black Lives Matter protests, which involved more than 20 million people in multigenerational and multiracial demonstrations.“These mass protest movements had electoral consequences in the 2018 and 2022 midterm elections,” she added, as many women, non-white and LGBTQ+ people were elected to office.Ben-Ghiat is convinced that we are ripe for another round – and the stakes are higher than ever.On the justice front, I’m not suggesting that we somehow set aside the terrible and hugely consequential decision that gives a president – guess who in particular? – immunity for his official acts.But at the same time, the courts, including the jury system, are often functioning admirably, if not flawlessly. Just over a month ago, Trump became the first former US president convicted of felonies. Trump allies who wanted to charge that the courts have been weaponized found it harder to make that argument less than two weeks later when Hunter Biden, too, was convicted in a jury trial.Mainstream journalism, as noted, often disappoints. The moderators of the CNN debate clearly should have been empowered by their network bosses to challenge Trump’s barrage of lies in real time. The stunning New York Times editorial calling for Biden to set aside his campaign for the good of the nation may have been well-reasoned, but it struck me as another example of targeting the president and letting Trump off the hook. To my knowledge, only the scrappy Philadelphia Inquirer has written a similar editorial about Trump.Too much of the politics coverage is out of whack with reality. The media is baying for Biden’s head, but – with some exceptions – seems mostly bemused by Trump or at least habituated to how dangerous he is.But there’s good news in journalism, too. Consider ProPublica’s essential reporting on Justice Clarence Thomas’s rotten ethics. Or the way many news outlets have revealed the threats of Project 2025 – the alarming and detailed plan by Trump allies to dismantle democratic norms should their leader win a second term.I’m also heartened by young journalists who are making their way in a difficult career field.“No matter what problem we’re talking about, good journalism is part of the solution,” said Jelani Cobb, the dean of Columbia Journalism School (where I run a journalism ethics center). “The young journalists whom we have the privilege to work with here are some of the sharpest, most committed and talented that I’ve ever seen.”Their work “will be a ballast for democracy”, Cobb told me, “even amid the giant challenges in front of us right now”.Most of all, I’m moved by the valiant efforts of many ordinary citizens. One friend, active in voter protection efforts, praised “all of the grassroots volunteers working to preserve democracy who I am sure will continue in all the ways possible if Trump wins”. She mentioned the flood of small-dollar donations that followed Biden’s debate debacle, and credited “the courageous judges, court personnel, jurors et al who are working, despite the risks to themselves, to see that justice is served in the cases against Trump”.Will any of this matter when so much is going wrong and when the threats are so great? The screenwriter and former journalist David Simon offered a dour view this week: “Our American experiment is so over.”More aligned with Ruth Ben-Ghiat’s big-picture view and the others quoted here, I remain hopeful, if not optimistic about the future of the United States.On 4 July, at least, let’s remember that we’ve come a long way, and the journey isn’t yet complete.
      Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More

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      Who can we blame for Joe Biden’s gamble? Angry Democrats are starting to point the finger | Emma Brockes

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      In the wake of Joe Biden’s disastrous performance in the US presidential debate last week, the national tone shifted from shock and horror to fury. Biden himself, pityingly regarded, was spared the worst of the criticism. Instead, the two people who seem to have incurred the most anger have been his wife, Jill – suddenly thrust into the unhappy mould of the new Nancy Reagan – and, esoterically, the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Biden’s refusal to stand aside has thrown everyone back to RBG’s late-in-life vanity that ended in the overturning of Roe v Wade.Terrible as things are, there was, it has to be said, some relief in finally being able to say the quiet part out loud. With the energy of a cork leaving a bottle, a lot of people came forward this week with more evidence of the president’s “lapses”. In the New York Times, anonymous European officials who met Biden at the recent G7 summit in Italy belatedly registered their alarm; those who attended a recent event at the White House did the same. While big money donors joined the chorus of those freaking out, Biden’s aides pushed back with examples of how “probing and insightful” the president continues to be.That line of defence feels pointless now. “He’s inquisitive. Focused. He remembers. He’s sharp,” said Neera Tanden, the president’s domestic policy adviser– a remark that set the bar for the president so low it had the same chilling effect as Jill Biden’s kindergarten tone after the debate. “You answered all the questions, you knew all the facts,” she said on stage to her slack-jawed husband, whose improved performance at a campaign rally a day later couldn’t undo what 52 million Americans had just seen. You can flag the garbage that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth until the cows come home, but it doesn’t make Biden’s state any better.If none of this makes unseating the president for another Democratic candidate either likely or wise, it isn’t purely for reasons of strategy. No presidential candidate has been replaced this late in the race and, of course, throwing open the field at the Democratic convention next month risks making the Democrats look even more vacillating than they already do. There is a sense of frustration that what may, to some degree, be an issue of presentation – the idea that, like his dormant stammer, Biden’s impairment is much worse during stressful public events than behind the scenes – is not the whole picture.Ezra Klein, speaking to the New Yorker last week, pointed out there is no indication that Biden is “making bad decisions”. He remains up to the job in ways that, of course, Trump isn’t. But if he can’t inspire confidence or speak coherently in public, his competence elsewhere hardly matters.Which brings us to the question of Biden’s own hubris. This is where, down the line, the real anger will focus. If the president is protected, for now, by sympathy, it will evaporate in November if Trump wins. The risk Biden has taken by standing for re-election is greater than President Emmanuel Macron’s backfiring decision to call a snap election in France. Biden is widely believed to be a good man, but his selfishness in running for a second term when he must know he is slipping will be his only legacy, should Trump prevail.To his enablers, then, the question: why wasn’t this caught earlier? You have to wonder at Barack Obama, popping up on X to defend and endorse Biden immediately after the debate. Who knows what’s going on behind the scenes – perhaps the former president spent the last year trying to talk Biden into stepping aside. But Obama’s swift defence of his friend and former vice-president certainly felt like an action inspired partly by guilt. Obama has, of late, been so busy making not very good films in Hollywood that his rush to defend Biden seemed like a piece of self-justification in the face of lapsed oversight.And there are many more in Obama’s position, clearly feeling that it is simply too late to change horses – partly, perhaps, to defend their own inaction, and partly because there’s no obvious replacement. Harris, who as vice-president would be first in line to take over from Biden, is a terrible communicator for entirely different reasons. (If you’re still in doubt about this, watch her at the BET awards this week: it will make you hide your face in embarrassment.) According to recent polls, while Harris is marginally more popular than Biden, she is still behind Trump.It’s beside the point, but the thing I keep coming back to is this: can you imagine what it’s actually like being Joe Biden right now? What a singular and terrible stress dream that must be? Imagine having to be president when you can’t remember people’s names and keep zoning out? It’s a naive thought experiment, I know; one that separates those who want to be president of the United States from those of us content to cap out at being president of our own living rooms. Still, the question remains: who on earth, in Biden’s position, would want the job?
      Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist More

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      Biden in trouble as Supreme Court hands Trump another big win – podcast

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      As Americans celebrate Independence Day, Democrats are scrambling after a pretty disastrous week for the party – and arguably US-democracy.
      On Monday, the US supreme court handed Donald Trump a victory by ruling that former presidents are entitled to some degree of immunity from criminal prosecution. Stemming from this, the judge overseeing the former president’s criminal case in New York postponed his sentencing from next week to 18 September.
      This falls against the backdrop of Joe Biden trying to convince the public and members of his party that he is still fit to run for president. This week, Jonathan Freedland and Paul Begala, a former adviser to Bill Clinton, discuss how the Democrats can regroup

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

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      Governors admit worries but rally behind Biden after meeting: ‘We have his back’

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      A group of leading Democratic governors offered words of support for Joe Biden on Wednesday as pressure mounted on the president to leave the race.The governors, including Tim Walz of Minnesota, Wes Moore of Maryland, Gavin Newsom of California and Kathy Hochul of New York, held a closed-door meeting with Biden in Washington as he sought to reassure his party – and the public – that he is up to the job after a shaky debate performance.Biden met for more than an hour at the White House in person and virtually with more than 20 governors from his party. The governors told reporters afterward that the conversation was “candid” and said they expressed concerns about Biden’s debate performance last week. They reiterated that defeating Donald Trump in November was the priority, but said they were still standing behind Biden and did not join other Democrats who have been urging him to withdraw his candidacy.“We, like many Americans, are worried,” Walz of Minnesota said. “We are all looking for the path to win – all the governors agree with that. President Biden agrees with that. He has had our backs through Covid … the governors have his back. We’re working together just to make very, very clear that a path to victory in November is the No 1 priority and that’s the No 1 priority of the president … The feedback was good. The conversation was honest.”“The president is our nominee. The president is our party leader,” added Moore of Maryland. He said Biden “was very clear that he’s in this to win it”.“We were honest about the feedback we’re getting … and the concerns we’re hearing from people,” Moore said. “We’re going to have his back … the results we’ve been able to see under this administration have been undeniable.”The meeting capped a tumultuous day for Biden as members of his own party, and a major democratic donor, urged him to step aside amid questions over his fitness for office. Two Democratic lawmakers have called on Biden to exit the race, and a third Congressman said he had “grave concerns” about Biden’s ability to beat Trump. The White House, meanwhile, was forced to deny reports that Biden is weighing whether his candidacy is still viable.Biden, for his part, has forcefully insisted that he is staying in the race. “Let me say this as clearly as I possibly can, as simply and straightforward as I can: I am running … no one’s pushing me out,” Biden said on a call with staffers from his re-election campaign. “I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win.”Kamala Harris has also stood by his side, despite some insiders reportedly rallying around her as a possible replacement. “We will not back down. We will follow our president’s lead,” the vice-president reportedly told staffers on Wednesday.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMichigan governor Gretchen Whitmer also threw her support behind Biden. “He is in it to win it and I support him,” she said on Twitter/X after the meeting.Whitmer is one of several Democratic governors who have been cited as possible replacements if Biden were to withdraw his candidacy. Gavin Newsom, whose name has also been floated, flew in for the governors’ meeting on Wednesday, saying afterwards: “I heard three words from the president tonight – he’s all in. And so am I.”Newsom has been a top surrogate for Biden’s re-election campaign, but has also garnered increasing buzz as a potential replacement if Biden were to withdraw. He was swarmed by reporters after the debate ended last week, some asking him if he’d replace Biden.A Siena College/New York Times poll released Wednesday suggested Trump’s lead had increased since the debate, with him winning 49% of likely voters compared to 43% for Biden. Only 48% of Democrats in the poll said Biden should remain the nominee. A Reuters/Ipsos poll published Tuesday said that former first lady Michelle Obama is the only hypothetical candidate to definitively defeat Trump, but she has previously said she’s not running. That poll had Biden and Trump tied.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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      Netflix co-founder and Democratic megadonor calls for Biden to step aside

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      Reed Hastings, the co-founder of Netflix and a Democratic party megadonor, has called for Joe Biden to take himself out of the presidential race following his disastrous performance at last week’s debate against Donald Trump.Hastings told the New York Times on Wednesday that the president “needs to step aside to allow a vigorous Democratic leader to beat Trump and keep us safe and prosperous”.The statement makes Hastings one of the first major Democratic donors to speak out as pressure mounts on the president, 81, to step down over concerns he is not up to the job.The White House has denied reports that donors and allies with in the Democratic party are urging him to drop out of the presidential race.But by Wednesday, two House Democrats had publicly called for Biden to withdraw his candidacy and a third said he had “grave concerns” about Biden’s ability to beat Trump. Biden is facing escalating pressure as a post-debate poll found that one in three Democrats believes he should quit. At a campaign event earlier this week, Biden blamed his poor debate performance on his busy international travel leading up to the event, saying he “nearly fell asleep on stage”.Some Democratic party officials have privately suggested that vice-president Kamala Harris should take his place, according to several reports.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHastings, a billionaire entrepreneur credited with ushering in the streaming era, stepped down as Netflix CEO last year.Hastings and his wife, Patty Quillin, were prolific supporters of the Democratic party during the Trump administration and have donated more than $20m in recent years, including roughly $1.5m to Biden during his 2020 campaign, according to the New York Times. The couple donated $100,000 last year toward Biden’s re-election efforts.Hastings has also donated to historically Black colleges and universities and recently gave more than $1bn worth of his Netflix shares to a Silicon Valley charity.Reid Hoffman, another influential billionaire donor, continued to throw his weight behind Biden after the debate, telling his donor network in an email that he felt it was counterproductive to be “musing on Biden’s flaws” and that they should be “organizing around Trump’s flaws”.The Biden campaign said this week that it raised $38m after the debate. More

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      Kamala Harris: insiders rally behind VP to replace Biden if he bows out

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      As Joe Biden faces increasing pressure to withdraw his candidacy following last week’s poor debate performance, Kamala Harris has emerged as the frontrunner to replace him.The president forcefully rejected calls to end his campaign on Wednesday, telling his staffers: “No one is pushing me out … I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win.” His defiant remarks came after the New York Times reported that Biden had privately told allies he understood he might not be able to salvage his candidacy if he could not convince voters of his viability.As the White House has continued to deny reports that Biden was weighing the future of his campaign, talks of who would step up if he did withdraw have escalated.Senior sources at the Biden campaign, the White House and the Democratic National Committee told Reuters that the vice-president was the top alternative.Harris, a former senator from California, has stood by the president’s side as he weathers the debate fallout this week, and reportedly told campaign staffers on Wednesday: “We will not back down. We will follow our president’s lead.”But pundits advocating that Harris take over the ticket have pointed to polls suggesting that she could have advantages over Biden in a race against Donald Trump. A post-debate Reuters/Ipsos poll found that one in three Democrats think Biden should quit, and that 81% viewed Harris favorably, compared to 78% for Biden. Michelle Obama was the only hypothetical Democratic candidate to beat Trump in the poll, but the former first lady said in March she was not running. Biden and Trump were tied in that poll, and Harris performed similarly, earning 42% of votes compared with Trump’s 43%.A CNN poll published Tuesday also found Harris “within striking distance of Trump in a hypothetical matchup” – 47% supporting the former president, and 45% supporting Harris, a result within the margin of error. The Biden-Trump matchup in that poll had Trump earning 49% of votes and Biden earning 43%. Harris’s modest advantage was due partly to her having broader support from women and independents, CNN said.With two Democratic congressmen now publicly calling on Biden to step aside, other party leaders have privately suggested they favor Harris as his potential replacement, according to reports. Hakeem Jeffries, House minority leader, signaled to members that she would be the best option, the Washington Post reported.James Clyburn, a senior congressional Democrat, said publicly he’d support Harris if Biden were to withdraw his candidacy, urging Democrats to “do everything to bolster her, whether she’s in second place or at the top of the ticket”. Summer Lee, a House Democrat from Pennsylvania, also said Wednesday that Harris was the “obvious choice” to replace Biden, if he decided not to run.Some Harris supporters who are advocating she take over the campaign have argued that she would perform better than Biden with Black and Latino communities, and that she is a more powerful abortion-rights spokesperson than Biden.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSkeptics, however, have noted that Harris also remains fairly unpopular and have pointed to polls suggesting she has vulnerabilities in terms of voters’ trust in her ability to handle immigration, China relations and Israel’s war on Gaza.The other names that have been floated as possible replacements include California governor Gavin Newsom, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois governor J B Pritzker and Kentucky governor Andy Beshear. The Reuters poll, however, suggested they would all perform worse than Biden and Harris.If Harris became the presidential candidate, she could take over the funds raised by the campaign since the account is registered under Biden and Harris.On Wednesday, the White House also announced a series of “summer of engagement” events for Harris, including visits to New Orleans, Las Vegas, Dallas and Indianapolis. More