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      Gretchen Whitmer wants to meet far-right plotters who tried to kill her, book reveals

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      Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan widely spoken of as a possible Democratic candidate for president should Joe Biden cede to growing pressure and leave the race, wants to meet members of a far-right militia who plotted to kidnap and kill her.“I asked whether I could meet with one of the handful of plotters who’d pleaded guilty and taken responsibility for their actions, just to talk,” Whitmer writes in a new book, of the plot motivated by resistance to Covid public health measures and revealed with 13 arrests in late 2020.The attorney general of Michigan, Dana Nessel, said it might be possible to talk to the plotters, Whitmer writes, though it has not happened, due to “all the various trials and appeals.“But I do look forward to being able to sit and talk, face-to-face. To ask the questions and really hear the answers. And hopefully to take some small step toward understanding.”As described by Nessel’s office, the affair of the “Wolverine Watchmen” resulted in “20 state felonies against eight individuals alleged to have engaged in the planning and training for an operation to attack the state Capitol and kidnap government officials.” Five men were convicted.Federal charges were filed against six more men, four of whom were convicted. Two pled guilty to conspiracy charges and co-operated with prosecutors.Whitmer describes the plot, and how she coped with it and other threats from the armed pro-Trump far right, in True Gretch: What I’ve Learned About Life, Leadership, and Everything in Between. The book will be published in the US next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.Given Whitmer’s presence in the ranks of proposed replacements for Biden after the president’s disastrous debate against Donald Trump escalated Democratic panic last week, the governor’s book will be eagerly read.Whitmer has said she does not want to replace Biden but that has not stopped speculation. On Wednesday, she was due to be among Democratic governors meeting Biden at the White House.Though True Gretch is a standard campaign-oriented biography – perhaps intended as a marker for a run in 2028 – Whitmer does not shy from describing the violent plot against her.Describing plotters’ threats such as “Grab the fuckin’ governor, just grab the bitch” and “Just cap her”, she considers the toll taken on her husband and daughters as well as on herself.She describes how her husband was forced by threats to close his dental practice; how her two daughters have refused to go back to a family cottage the plotters were revealed to have “scoped out”; and her own disappointment when two men were acquitted.Despite it all, showing willingness to bridge the sort of jagged partisan divide that affects the battleground state of Michigan, and the US as a whole, Whitmer insists she wants to talk to those who wanted to kill her.Elsewhere in the book, the governor does shy away from one thing: open discussion of any ambitions for national office.In fairness, True Gretch was written before Biden’s hold on the presidency began to be seriously questioned by Democratic politicians, pundits and strategists, concerned that at 81 the former senator and vice-president is proving himself too old to beat Trump and serve a second term.Whitmer’s readers, however, may spot allusions to higher ambitions now thrown into sharp relief.Chapter four, describing Whitmer’s first steps as governor of Michigan and the challenge of dealing with extreme cold weather, is titled “Surround Yourself with Great People – and Don’t Be Afraid To Ask For Help”.In Chapter 10, Whitmer describes how she prepares for campaign debates, the sort of challenge Biden failed so starkly.Whitmer’s chapter title is “Be a Happy Warrior” – a label defined by dictionary.com as “a person … undiscouraged by difficulties or opposition” and in US politics perennially linked to Alfred E Smith, Hubert Humphrey, Ronald Reagan and others who ran for president with a determinedly optimistic message.In her epilogue, Whitmer moves from Reagan to another Republican: Theodore Roosevelt. In “every campaign, and during every term I serve”, she writes, she shares the 26th president’s “Man in the Arena” speech.In that speech, given in Paris in April 1910, Roosevelt said: “It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”Whitmer’s use of the quote may strike a chord with Democrats panicked by Biden and now looking the governor’s way. So might what Whitmer writes next.“Though these words were written more than a hundred years ago, they’re just as true today – except for two things. The “man” may be a woman. And she may just be wearing fuchsia.” More

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      Biden tells campaign staff: ‘No one is pushing me out … I’m not leaving’; second House Democrat urges him to quit race – live

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      Joe Biden vowed to stay in the presidential race and continue his re-election bid, telling his staffers: “No one is pushing me out,” according to multiple reports.In a call on Wednesday following his lackluster performance during last week’s presidential debate and amid growing panic from Democratic donors and lawmakers, Biden said:
      Let me say this as clearly as possibly can, as simply and straightforward as I can: I am running.
      Biden went on to add:
      No one is pushing me out … I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win.
      In the same call, vice-president Kamala Harris – whose name has been increasingly floated around as Biden’s replacement – continued to voice her support for Biden, with reports of her saying:
      We will not back down. We will follow our president’s lead. We will fight and we will win. Joe Biden has devoted his life to fighting for the people of our country. In this moment, I know all of us are ready to fight for him.
      Amid the political crisis surrounding the Democratic party, Joe Biden hosted a Medal of Honor ceremony at the White House today during which he posthumously honoured two Union soldiers.The soldiers, private George Wilson and private Philip Shadrach fought in a “military operation 200 miles deep into Confederate territory in April 1862”, Biden said, recognising them for their “gallantry and intrepidity”.The next platform of the Republican National Committee (RNC) is going to be closed off from the public, Semafor reports.Unlike previous years, next week’s party platform proceedings will not be aired via C-Span. Instead, it will be held privately and away from the public and members of the media.According to RNC emails reviewed by Semafor, committee meetings “are only open to members of that particular committee”.Speaking to Semafor, Oscar Brock, an RNC committee member from Tennessee, said:
      The lack of transparency is unwelcome … When people operate behind closed doors, you always have to wonder what the outcome is going to be.”
      Donald Trump’s campaign has released a statement on what it called the “total collapse of the Democrat party”.On Wednesday, Trump’s campaign said:
      Every Democrat who is calling on Crooked Joe Biden to quit was once a supporter of Biden and his failed policies that lead to extreme inflation, an open border, and chaos at home and abroad.
      Make no mistake that Democrats, the main stream media, and the swamp colluded to hide the truth from the American public – Joe Biden is weak, failed, dishonest, and not fit for the White House.
      Every one of them has lied about Joe Biden’s cognitive state and supported his disastrous policies over the past four years, especially Cackling Copilot Kamala Harris.
      The statement comes after last week’s presidential debate which saw an energized Trump with starkly more coherent delivery – despite being packed with lies and misinformation – compared with Biden who struggled to articulate his policies throughout the 90 minutes.House Democrat Raúl Grijalva of Arizona has joined his fellow House Democrat Lloyd Doggett of Texas in calls for Joe Biden to withdraw his re-election bid.In an interview with the New York Times, Grijalva said:
      If he’s the candidate, I’m going to support him but I think that this is an opportunity to look elsewhere … What he really needs to do is shoulder the responsibility for keeping that seat – and part of that responsibility is to get out of this race.
      As Joe Biden’s campaign team rushes to soothe concerns among Democrats amid the fallout following the president’s poor performance during last week’s presidential debate, the team posted a new job listing: Kamala Harris’s social media platforms strategist.In its listing, the team described the position as:
      The VP Social Media Platforms Strategist will report to the VP Digital Director and be expected to write within an established organizational identity for multiple social media platforms and channels, while strategizing how to further develop and expand the vice-president’s and Biden-Harris campaign’s voice online.
      Its duties include:
      Write daily content and manage scheduling for Twitter/X, Threads, Facebook and Instagram accounts, including drafting, conceptualizing graphics, videos, brainstorming calls to action, and copywriting
      Strategize and execute innovative social media projects to help grow and engage our audience
      Project manage publishing assets across multiple social media platforms
      Ensure materials are sufficiently accessible for users, including captioning and alternative text
      Help the VP digital director report on audience growth, content performance and engagement that can adapt to and meet the needs of stakeholders across the DNC and manage daily outbound report
      Michelle Obama is the only Democrat who ranks higher than Biden in a new poll on who is most likely to beat Trump.According to a new poll on Tuesday conducted by Reuters and Ipsos, the former first lady is the only Democrat that is able to attain victory over Trump in November in a hypothetical match, leading with 50% support compared to his 39%.In its findings, Ipsos wrote:
      All other hypothetical Democratic candidates either perform similarly to or worse than Biden against Trump.
      Vice-president Kamala Harris hypothetically wins 42% of registered voters to Trump’s 43%. California Governor Gavin Newsom hypothetically wins 39% of registered voters to Trump’s 42%.
      All other hypothetical Democratic candidates earn between 34% to 39% of potential votes among registered voters.
      Despite Michelle Obama’s popularity and calls for her to run for president, her office in March said that “she will not be running for president.”“Mrs Obama supports president Joe Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris’s re-election campaign,” her office added.The editorial board of the Boston Globe has called on Joe Biden to end his re-election bid, following in the footsteps of the New York Times which called on Biden last week to drop out of the race.In an op-ed published on Wednesday, the editorial board wrote:
      … while the party is demoralized, panicked, and angry, there is a ray of hope. A bevy of potential candidates – from vice-president Kamala Harris to the governors of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and California, to name only a partial list – are waiting in the wings to take on Trump.
      All that they need is for Biden to graciously bow out of the race and free his delegates to cast their votes for someone else at the Democratic National Convention.
      For the good of the country, his party, and his legacy, Biden must do this. And soon.
      It went on to add:
      The real obstacle to any of this happening is Biden himself. He must walk away from the race on his own, something he seems disinclined to do. His wife and children are said to oppose the idea as well. But with the nation’s future at stake, this is not a decision that should be made by one family alone.
      This is a moment when the Democratic party itself, never particularly good at behaving like a party, must step into the fray.
      Joe Biden vowed to stay in the presidential race and continue his re-election bid, telling his staffers: “No one is pushing me out,” according to multiple reports.In a call on Wednesday following his lackluster performance during last week’s presidential debate and amid growing panic from Democratic donors and lawmakers, Biden said:
      Let me say this as clearly as possibly can, as simply and straightforward as I can: I am running.
      Biden went on to add:
      No one is pushing me out … I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win.
      In the same call, vice-president Kamala Harris – whose name has been increasingly floated around as Biden’s replacement – continued to voice her support for Biden, with reports of her saying:
      We will not back down. We will follow our president’s lead. We will fight and we will win. Joe Biden has devoted his life to fighting for the people of our country. In this moment, I know all of us are ready to fight for him.
      Joe Biden is cleared-eyed and “staying in the race” for re-election, the White House insists.“The president is not dropping out,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre just said at the media briefing in Washington DC.She is finding different ways, in response to reporters’ questions, to reiterate the insistence of the Biden team that he is not about to succumb to pressure to drop out after his terribly halting performance when he debated Donald Trump last week.“There was the travel. And the travel led to a cold. We have all been there, it’s not unusual. And you push through,” she said.Jean-Pierre added later that such things affect people, whether they are 20 or 80. She said he spoke about how his age had affected his performance and was being upfront.The White House is working painfully hard to extricate the president from his position between a rock and a hard place.Karine Jean-Pierre claimed that Joe Biden “powered through” having a cold when he debated poorly against Donald Trump last week, as is normal for busy professionals.It was not reassuring, as the White House continues on the defensive amid the crisis over Biden insisting he continue as the Democratic presumptive nominee for re-election, despite performing increasingly unreliably as an 81-year-old president of the United States.And Jean-Pierre said that the president was jet-lagged and pushing through that, too, last Thursday, even though he had around 12 days back in the US between a spate of grueling overseas trips and the debate.She said that people “push through” jet lag, trying to convince reporters decades younger than Biden that it would be unsurprising that a cold and jet lag would affect his debate performance.Some reporters in the West Wing briefing room scoffed openly, mentioning that, yes, they have had colds and, even now, according to one, have jet lag – and yet they continue to perform their jobs much more vigorously than Biden did at the debate.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has just been asked point blank if Joe Biden is considering stepping away from being the presumptive nominee for re-election to the White House in this November’s election.“Absolutely not,” she said. Asked if there was anything that would change his mind, she said she can’t speak to that but says he has been “very clear” that he’s busy doing his job and will continue doing that.“I’m not going to speak to [about] unnamed sources out there,” she said.The White House press briefing has begun in the West Wing, with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre at the podium.Questions are already beginning about Biden’s performance.He has owned that he had a bad night at the debate, the press secretary said.“He also had a cold during the debate,” she said.That, and the foreign travel that Biden blamed last night, are why he didn’t do well and wishes he could have done better, Jean-Pierre said.“We certainly don’t want to explain this away,” she added.She explained that he has “made outreach” to the leading Democrats in Congress, including the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer.Joe Biden and his vice-president, Kamala Harris, made a surprise appearance earlier today on a Democratic National Committee call, reiterating to staffers that they are in this fight for re-election together, according to three people familiar with the matter who were given anonymity to discuss the private conversation.The people said it was a pep talk, stressing the stakes of the election and returning to Biden’s previous post-debates comments that when he gets knocked down he gets back up and still plans to win the election, the Associated Press reports.Democrats have raised increasingly urgent questions about the US president’s ability to remain in the race, much less win in November, after his shaky debate performance last week.Here’s a look at where the day stands:
      The White House pushed back against a new New York Times report that Joe Biden allegedly told a key ally that he is weighing whether to stay in the presidential race. On Wednesday, the New York Times reported an anonymous source saying of Biden, “He knows if he has two more events like that, we’re in a different place,” referring to last week’s presidential debate in which Biden did poorly. In response, White House spokesperson Andrew Bates took to X, posting publicly: “That claim is absolutely false.”
      House Democrat Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington said that Joe Biden “is going to lose to Trump” following the president’s poor debate performance last week. In a new interview with KATU News, Gluesenkamp Perez said: “About 50 million Americans tuned in and watched that debate. I was one of them for about five very painful minutes. We all saw what we saw, you can’t undo that, and the truth, I think, is that Biden is going to lose to Trump.”
      Dozens of House Democrats are considering signing a letter to call for Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, Bloomberg reports, citing a “senior party official”. According to the source, Democrats currently running for re-election in “traditionally safe Democratic districts are circulating the letter”.
      Joe Biden has privately acknowledged how critical the next few days are to his presidential re-election bid, CNN reports. According to the outlet citing an anonymous source, Biden “sees the moment, he’s clear-eyed”. “The polls are plummeting, the fundraising is drying up, and the interviews are going badly. He’s not oblivious,” the source said, adding that Biden allegedly said in a private conversation on Tuesday: “I have done way too much foreign policy.”
      The majority of people surveyed in a new poll said that they did not think Biden was fit to be president for another term following his debate performance last week. The latest survey by YahooNews/YouGov found that 60% of people surveyed felt Biden was “not fit” to serve another term as president, the Hill reported. Only 24% of respondents felt that Biden was fit, while 16% said they were unsure.
      Another Democratic legislator has suggested that Kamala Harris could replace Biden as the Democratic presidential nominee amid growing discontent following Biden’s poor debate performance. House Democrat Summer Lee of Pennsylvania said Harris was the “obvious choice” in a scenario where Biden decides not to run, CBS News reported.
      Uncommitted voters across the US have taken on increased influence as debates surrounding Joe Biden’s future swirl.The Guardian’s Rachel Leingang reports:After Joe Biden’s poor debate performance and calls by some prominent Democrats to replace him, the hundreds of thousands of anti-war voters and the delegates who represent them have taken on new significance in the US presidential race.More than 700,000 voters cast ballots in the Democratic primaries for “uncommitted” options after a movement started in Michigan to pressure Biden to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and stop US funding and arms to the Israeli government.These voters won 29 uncommitted delegates to the Democratic national convention, a small but vocal group that will use their position at the nominating convention to call for an end to the war. The uncommitted vote consists of likely Democratic voters who have consistently said they are anti-Trump and who used the primary process to send a message to Biden.Their message has not changed, though uncommitted delegates said they have been hearing from more people about the role they could play in the convention since last week’s debate. Their sole platform remains a permanent ceasefire and an arms embargo, and their focus is still on Biden – who is still the president.For the full story, click here: More

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      White House denies Biden weighing candidacy as cracks appear in support

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      The White House insisted on Wednesday that Joe Biden is staying in the election as the presumptive Democratic nominee, while the US president reportedly told his campaign team “I’m in this race to the end” amid mounting pressure for him to step down over concerns he is not up to the job, at 81.Karine Jean-Pierre, the press secretary, told reporters “the president is not dropping out”, even while he “owns” his dire performance in the first debate of the campaign against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump last week.She repeatedly blamed him having a cold, brought on by overly-arduous foreign travel, despite incredulous scoffs and skeptical questions from some reporters at the daily briefing.Biden separately told staffers on a call, according to multiple reports: “No one is pushing me out” and “I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win.”He was joined on the call by his vice-president, Kamala Harris, reiterating to staffers that they are in this fight for re-election “together”, according to an Associated Press report. She is seen as a likely substitute if Biden drops out, although several Democratic governors are considered serious rivals in that scenario.The White House earlier denied a report that Biden is weighing whether his candidacy is still viable, ahead of a key meeting with Democratic governors on Wednesday evening, radio interviews due to air on the Fourth of July holiday and a TV interview with ABC airing in parts on Friday evening and over the weekend as he tries to bolster plummeting confidence.An ally of the president earlier told the New York Times that the president remained fully committed to his re-election effort, but that he knew his upcoming public appearances would have to be successful ones in order for his candidacy to remain viable.“He knows if he has two more events like that, we’re in a different place,” the source said, referring to Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump last week.The article was published under the headline “Biden told ally that he is weighing whether to continue in the race”.The senior deputy press secretary and deputy assistant to the president, Andrew Bates, posted that: “That claim is absolutely false.”The latest Siena College / NYT poll shows Trump has widened his lead on Biden since the TV debate, opening up a 6-point advantage, 49-43%, over Biden among likely voters. Only 49% of Democrats say Biden should remain the nominee.Later on Wednesday Biden made his first public appearance of the day at a White House ceremony to award posthumous Medals of Honor to two Union soldiers for acts of bravery in the civil war. The president spoke mainly clearly, aided by a teleprompter.Cracks in support among Democratic leaders had multiplied late Tuesday into Wednesday.Barack Obama reportedly expressed concerns about Biden’s path to re-election andHouse Democrat Jim Clyburn, known as a kingmaker of sorts within the Democratic party, told CNN that the party should hold a “mini-primary” if Biden steps aside, despite supporting his candidacy.Almost all elected Democrats continue to back Biden in public.On Tuesday congressman Lloyd Doggett of Texas became the first House Democrat to publicly urge the president to step aside. A second one joined on Wednesday afternoon when Raúl Grijalva of Arizona told the New York Times: “If he’s the candidate, I’m going to support him but I think that this is an opportunity to look elsewhere … What he really needs to do is shoulder the responsibility for keeping that seat – and part of that responsibility is to get out of this race.”At a Virginia campaign event on Tuesday evening, Biden blamed the debate debacle on his prior international trips, saying: “I wasn’t very smart. I decided to travel around the world a couple times, going through around 100 time zones … before … the debate. Didn’t listen to my staff and came back and nearly fell asleep on stage. That’s no excuse but it is an explanation.”Obama, who served two terms with Biden as his vice president, has reportedly shared in private with Democratic allies who sought his counsel that Biden was already on a tough road to re-election and that road was now more rocky after the debate, the Washington Post reported late on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the former president’s remarks, despite his public support for Biden’s candidacy.And dozens of House Democrats are considering signing a letter calling for Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, Bloomberg reported, citing an unnamed ‘senior party official’.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionA post-debate survey commissioned by Puck news showed that 40% of voters who backed Biden in 2020 now believe he should withdraw. It also showed him now under threat from Trump in states previously considered safe by Democrats, including Virginia, New Mexico and New Hampshire.A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday also found that one in three Democrats said Biden should end his re-election campaign.The former first lady, Michelle Obama, who has never held elected office, also led Trump 50% to 39% in a poll about a hypothetical match-up, Reuters reported.Also, California congresswoman and former House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, told MSNBC of Biden’s debate performance – and Trump’s: “I think it’s a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or is this a condition? When people ask that question, it’s completely legitimate – of both candidates.”Harris is the top alternative to replace Biden if he quits, according to seven senior sources at the Biden campaign, the White House and the Democratic National Committee with knowledge of current discussions on the topic, Reuters reported.In the Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Tuesday, Harris trailed Trump by one percentage point, a showing as strong as Biden’s, within polling margins.Democrats have been privately scathing both about the White House’s lack of transparency about the president’s apparent recent decline, and about his failure to rebound fully from the debate. All eyes will now be on the ABC interview.Two House Democrats, Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, have predicted publicly since the debate that they believed Trump would win November’s election.Anger has also been voiced at the White House and campaign aides for shielding Biden from public and covering up evidence of his supposedly fading powers amid reports that this has been visible for months.The presidential physician, Kevin O’Connor, has previously said that Biden is in excellent condition.Sam Levin and Reuters contributed reporting More

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      The week that changed the US election: Trump’s immunity as Biden falls flat on his face

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      Hello there.Well, that was interesting, wasn’t it? The election was trundling along pretty normally, then we get a momentous week that changed the shape of the race and the stakes involved.First, Joe Biden squandered his a chance to prove he has the vitality, vigor and suitability for a second term in the White House, with a debate performance which only underlined concerns that he is too old for the job.Just as people were processing the debate debacle, the supreme court announced that presidents have broad immunity from criminal prosecution for almost anything they do in office. It threw Trump’s recent conviction, and his other court cases, into jeopardy – and could embolden Trump to act without restraint should he win a second term.We’ll take a look at all that (gulp), but first here’s what else has been going on in the election.Here’s what you need to know1. Trump sentencing delayedThe former president was set to be sentenced on 11 July, after he was found guilty on 34 charges of falsifying business records to hide hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels. But after that supreme court decision, his sentencing has been pushed back to 18 September, as the judge in the case decides whether Trump has immunity that could abort the conviction.2. Trump rises with younger votersTrump has opened up a lead over Biden among young voters, according to an AtlasIntel poll. The ex-president leads the current president by 15 points among 18-to-29-year-olds, according to the survey conducted by one of the most accurate pollsters in the 2020 election. It was conducted between 26 and 28 June, so some people were polled after the debate. A smattering of other polls paint a mixed picture – some show support for Biden falling since the debate, others show him more or less holding steady.3. The money pours inThe Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee raised $264m in the second quarter of 2024, including $127m in June, which should buoy up the president somewhat. Trump, however, raked in $331m – about 72% of the $454m he owes, and cannot pay, for a civil fraud case earlier this year.Could Biden have just crowned Trump king?View image in fullscreenOn Monday the supreme court dropped a verdict that horrified many Americans: it ruled that US presidents are entitled to broad immunity from prosecution related to acts they commit in office.The 6-3 ruling by the majority conservative court, three of whom were nominated by Trump, means that some of the charges relating to Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election likely cannot be prosecuted.The ruling that presidents have “absolute immunity” for actions that fall within the scope of the office’s “core constitutional powers” has some worrying about what Trump, who has said he would persecute political opponents if re-elected, might get up to in a second term.Much of the reaction to the decision has been scathing, with Sonia Sotomayor, one of the liberal supreme court justices who opposed the ruling, saying the decision will make a president a “king above the law”.While Trump, who has been obsessed with the royal family for decades (apparently he attempted to woo Princess Diana, who subsequently told a friend that the then future president gave her “the creeps”) will be pretty pleased with that characterization, the timing wasn’t pretty for any Trump critics.The decision made clear the significance of Biden’s lackluster debate performance, in which the president spent much of his 90 minutes on stage staring into the middle distance, mouth agape, like a drunk reading the menu board in a kebab shop. When Biden did speak, his voice was shaky, and he appeared to lose his train of thought at times.A series of polls in recent days has hinted at how Biden’s performance was perceived, though a really comprehensive gold-standard national poll has yet to be released. A Yahoo News/YouGov survey found that 60% of Americans believe he is not “fit to serve another term as president”, while among Democratic voters, 41% said Biden should be not be the presidential nominee in November, according to a poll by USA Today/Suffolk University.The urgency has only stepped up after that supreme court decision. On Tuesday, Reuters reported that there are 25 Democratic members of the House of Representatives ready to call for Biden to step down if he continues to look shaky, and two Democratic Congress members – both in swing districts – have said they believe Biden will lose to Trump in November. Prominent news organizations, including the New York Times, have called for Biden to be replaced, as have numerous pundits. Biden has said nothing to indicate he will step down, and plans to meet with Democratic governors today to shore up support.Much of this is because of what that supreme court decision could mean for a Trump presidency. Trump has repeatedly told us what he will do in a second term: he has said he will subject Liz Cheney, one of the few Republicans who is critical of him, to a “televised military tribunal” on uncertain charges, and has said he will act as a dictator on “day one” of his presidency.In June, Trump said that if elected he “has every right to go after” Joe Biden and his family – and the supreme court essentially gave him the green light to do that, and more.Justice Sotomayer, writing in a dissent to the court’s decision, said that the ruling means when a president “uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution”.“Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival?” Sotomayer wrote.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Immune.”It’s serious, in other words. Democrats find themselves in the biggest crisis of this election, just as the stakes have raised immeasurably.Lie of the weekView image in fullscreenIn last week’s debate, Donald Trump falsely claimed Democrats “will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month and even after birth”, specifically calling out the former governor of Virginia for comments on later abortions.Ralph Northam, then the Democratic governor of Virginia, gave an answer in a 2019 interview that Trump and other Republicans have seized on, about what would happen when a baby is born with severe deformities. At no point did Northam say a baby would be killed after birth, and a Virginia news outlet, 13NewsNow, debunked Trump’s debate claims about Northam’s comments.To be clear: after a child is born, if they are killed, that is murder, or infanticide. This is illegal in all US states (and the world over). Democrats are not pushing policies to kill babies after they are born.Later abortions, often referred to as “late-term” abortions by Republicans though the term is unspecific and confusing, are rare. Less than 1% of abortions in the US are performed at or past 21 weeks of pregnancy, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) data shows. This is often because of fetal abnormalities that aren’t discovered until later in gestation.– Rachel Leingang, misinformation reporterMilwaukee braces for an influx of RepublicansIn less than two weeks, Milwaukee will temporarily become the center of the American political universe, when Republicans open their national convention at the Fiserv Forum downtown.View image in fullscreenThe GOP did well to choose Wisconsin’s largest city as the venue for its first proper political convention since 2016 – the state has acted as the tipping point in multiple presidential elections, including Joe Biden’s victory in 2020, and Trump’s triumph four years prior.The Fiserv Forum, which is best known as the home of the Milwaukee Bucks NBA team, is now wrapped in a banner welcoming delegates to the convention. Barriers are lined up nearby, waiting to be deployed to close roads. Residents are paying close attention to the contours of the security zone, which threatens to snarl traffic and disrupt life for people in and around it.Milwaukee is a Democratic stronghold in a purple state, and is likely to vote for Biden once again. With Wisconsin’s countryside tilting towards Trump, the real question is how the state’s suburban communities will lean. Democrats have put up good numbers there in recent elections – but all signs point to this being an election like few before it.- Chris Stein is the US politics live blogger for Guardian USWorst weekView image in fullscreenThis guy just can’t catch a break. Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s erstwhile lawyer, hair-dye fan and all-round weird guy, lost his license to practice law in New York on Tuesday. It comes after he was suspended by WABC, a New York radio station, in May, after he used his show to spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. It also comes after Giuliani declared bankruptcy in December, after a court ordered him to pay nearly $150m to two election workers he defamed. Phew! More

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      The Guardian view on Trump and presidential immunity: the return of the king | Editorial

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      The supreme court’s ruling on presidential immunity combines a tectonic constitutional shift and immediate political repercussions to devastating effect. It allows one man to stand above the law. It slows and appears to gut the 2020 election-subversion case against Donald Trump, though it does not necessarily end it. No one believes a trial can be held before November’s election, although court hearings could still offer a detailed airing of the evidence this autumn.There could hardly have been a better week for Mr Trump, who saw his rival stumble so badly in last Thursday’s debate that Joe Biden faces growing calls to quit four months from election day. Anyone who doubts how consequential a second Trump administration term would be for the United States and the world need only look to the supreme court, now ruled by a conservative supermajority thanks to three Trump-appointed justices.Monday’s majority ruling, penned by Chief Justice John Roberts, is a disingenuous, bloodless discussion which pompously warns that “we cannot afford to fixate exclusively, or even primarily, on present exigencies”. The minority opinion, written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, is screaming to the people to wake up: the city on a hill is on fire. A twice-impeached convicted felon who attempted to overturn the people’s verdict, reveres authoritarians and pledges to be a dictator (only “on day one”) could soon be re-elected. This is not about exigencies; this is an emergency.Justice Sotomayor outlined the new limits for a president: “Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organises a military coup to hold on to power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune … In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law.”The court’s ruling grants complete immunity from criminal prosecution to core presidential powers. But it also grants presumptive immunity to other “official acts” – and these are extraordinarily widely drawn. Pressuring Mike Pence not to certify the 2020 election results would probably enjoy immunity, Chief Justice Roberts writes, because if the president and vice-president are discussing official duties, this is official conduct; and presiding over the results is a constitutional responsibility of the vice-president.The bar for overturning presumption looks sky-high, as Justice Sotomayor notes – doing so must pose no danger of intrusion whatsoever on presidential authority. The president’s motives cannot be examined. Nor can official acts be used in criminal cases relating to unofficial acts. The resulting scope is so great that any politician or official would surely balk at granting it to the other side – unless they were certain they could hold on to power indefinitely.This ruling will almost certainly, as it should, further lower declining support for a court now mired in scandal, thanks to the Republican-appointed Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Other majority rulings in recent days have delivered a major blow to the regulatory powers of federal agencies and, extraordinarily, said that officials can accept cash or gifts from people they have assisted: they only count as bribes if given before the favour. This is a court for the rich and powerful, and it is making them more so. The founders intended the supreme court to be part of the solution to the tyranny of European kings. Mr Trump, and the court’s conservative justices, have made it part of the problem. More

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      in US Politics

      Arizona proposal to protect abortion rights in state constitution advances

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      A proposal to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution of Arizona, a key battleground state in the upcoming US elections, has inched closer to becoming an official ballot measure.On Wednesday, Arizona for Abortion Access, the coalition behind the measure, announced that it had turned in more than 800,000 signatures – more than double the needed amount to get the measure on the ballot come November.That’s more signatures than have ever been submitted for a citizen-led ballot measure in Arizona, according to Chris Love, a spokesperson for Arizona for Abortion Access.“It represents one in five Arizona voters,” Love said. “It’s an amazing feat for us. I think it’s a demonstration of the strength of our campaign and the excitement of Arizona voters to really settle the issue of abortion rights on the ballot in November.”Arizona currently bans most abortions past 15 weeks of pregnancy, but the state came close to outlawing almost all abortions earlier this spring. In April, the Arizona supreme court ruled to uphold a law that paved the way for a 1864 near-total abortion ban – passed before Arizona even became a state – to take effect. That controversial decision kicked off a weeks-long battle in the Arizona state legislature, where Republicans hold a one-seat majority in both the state house and senate, as Democratic lawmakers tried to pass a repeal of the 1864 ban. They ultimately succeeded after a handful of Republican legislators broke ranks and voted for the repeal.“Our message has always been the same: pregnant patients deserve the freedom to make their individual and personal health care decisions, and especially decisions about abortions, with their families and their health care providers,” Love said. “The back and forth that just happened with respect to the 1864 ban is a clear demonstration of why we need politicians out of the calculus.”If voters pass the ballot measure, which is officially titled the Arizona Abortion Access Act, it would eliminate the state’s 15-week ban and instead protect the right to an abortion until fetal viability, a benchmark that typically occurs around 24 weeks of pregnancy. It would also allow abortions to take place after fetal viability if a health care professional believes the procedure is necessary to protect a pregnant person’s life or physical or mental health.Roughly a dozen states, including Arizona and fellow swing state Nevada, are expected to hold ballot measures over abortion rights in the November elections. Activists in Nebraska and Arkansas are also set to turn in signatures supporting abortion rights ballot measures this week.Since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade two years ago, several states – including traditional Republican strongholds like Kansas, Kentucky and Ohio – have successfully passed ballot measures to preserve or strengthen abortion rights. Democrats are now hoping that enthusiasm for abortion rights will boost voter turnout and translate to support for their own candidates, particularly as Joe Biden continues to trail Donald Trump in the polls and has faced calls to step down in the wake of a devastating debate performance last week.Arizona county election officials now have until 22 August to officially verify the signatures. Part of the reason for turning in so many signatures, Love said, was to counter any efforts to legally challenge the signatures’ legitimacy. More

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      The supreme court’s presidential immunity ruling mocks the rule of law | Corey Brettschneider

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      The US supreme court found this week that former presidents have presumptive immunity from prosecution for “official acts”. This ruling doesn’t just place Donald Trump above the law. The true danger of the opinion is that it could protect precisely the kind of official acts that might destroy the American republic itself.The origin of the idea that the official acts of a president are immune from prosecution is found in a case about a fired whistleblower. In 1970, President Richard Nixon fired A Ernest Fitzgerald, an air force management analyst, in retaliation for his publicizing information about cost overruns. Fitzgerald brought a civil suit against Nixon, seeking damages for his dismissal. The supreme court sided with Nixon, granting the president absolute immunity from “damages liability predicated on his official acts”.The court of that time defined “official acts” as those associated with the president’s duties under article II of the constitution, including the duty to “take care that the laws are faithfully executed”. It asserted immunity even for presidential acts within the “outer perimeter” of this duty. However, in this case the court was focused on insulating a president from worries about his financial liability so that he could more easily make decisions about everyday matters of governance, such as hiring and firing.The supreme court did not then define these official acts to include criminal acts by a president. In fact, its narrow decision precluded only the “particular private remedy” of a civil suit against a former president and even included a pledge to not “place a president above the law”.This week’s ruling grossly misconstrued the Fitzgerald decision, disregarding this pledge. Instead, it extended an opinion about immunity from civil damages suits to encompass criminal immunity for acts antithetical to the president’s duty to “take care”. The danger of immunity for criminal “official” action is that it protects the enormous power of the president when it is used for the most nefarious political ends, threatening the very existence of democracy.Consider Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s warning in her thunderous dissent that the decision could protect a president attempting to use the military to illegally retain power after losing an election, what political scientists call a “self-coup”. No courts should incentivize actions that could threaten the very stability of the republic.Yet that is precisely the kind of act the court has potentially protected – not just during a presidency but after it. While the court left open what counts as an “official act” – and returned the case to a trial court to determine whether the crimes Trump is charged with from January 6 fit this description – the door is now open to impunity for these crimes.Indeed, the events of January 6 are rightly understood as an attempted self-coup – acts from which the court has now largely shielded Trump from criminal liability. Even if the trial court tasked with hearing the case now decides that Trump’s actions were not “official”, the supreme court’s delay means the process would almost certainly extend past the election. If Trump were to retake power, he would then receive immunity while in office, effectively ensuring he never faces criminal responsibility for these events.View image in fullscreenThat risk of a presidential self-coup goes beyond Trump. Indeed, it has long been at the heart of the controversy over immunity. As I describe in my new book, The Presidents and the People, released this week, that risk played an unknown but crucial role in the most pivotal moment of the Nixon crisis.In the midst of Watergate, a grand jury of citizens voted in a straw poll to indict Nixon for associated crimes, but the special prosecutor Leon Jaworski sought to dissuade them from moving forward while Nixon was still in office. As he saw it, presidential immunity was needed to maintain national stability. He argued to the grand jurors that an indictment of Nixon might even prompt a self-coup.According to the deputy jury foreman, Harold Evans, “Mr Jaworski gave us some very strong arguments why he shouldn’t be indicted, and he gave us the trauma of the country and he’s the commander-in-chief of the armed forces and what happens if he surrounds his White House with his armed forces?”Jaworski’s rhetorical questions made clear the reasons why it would be dangerous to indict a sitting president. Yet even Jaworski clarified to the grand jury that they were free to indict Nixon after he left office. Only President Gerald Ford’s pardon prevented this. Jaworski’s logic supporting immunity for sitting presidents reinforces why immunity for former presidents is so dangerous. A president who not only committed crimes in office but attempted to cling to power in a self-coup might never face criminal prosecution.Indeed, this week’s opinion incentivizes behavior like a self-coup by ruling that a president can never be punished for such behavior as long as a court construes it as an official act. Such a president could claim the self-coup was official because it was an attempt to protect the country in an emergency. Trump himself has already falsely claimed his actions on January 6 were an attempt to fight voter fraud, an argument that his lawyers will frame as an official action.The irony of this week’s opinion is that it allows prosecution for former presidents only in the areas where their power is much less dangerous. In 1872, when President Ulysses Grant was allegedly stopped for a traffic violation, he is said to have paid the fine, though there is historical debate around the incident. Under this week’s ruling, Grant would receive no immunity for such an act, assuming he was speeding on his way to a private function.While the court was right to deny immunity to private actions like these, private acts are not why the question of immunity matters. The most dangerous acts of a president are those that are official – and those that now potentially receive immunity. At the country’s founding, Patrick Henry warned of a president who would realize that no legal checks limited the presidency. Realizing this, Henry claimed an ambitious president would not hesitate to crown himself a “monarch”.Before this week, that fear might have appeared hyperbolic. Today, however, Henry’s warning feels prescient. He is describing the kind of self-coup that the court could now potentially protect on the grounds that it was pursuant to the president’s duty to an official duty to defend the nation from instability.Given the danger of this opinion, it is imperative that we respond. Citizens must make this election about rescuing our democracy from authoritarianism. That means, first, defeating Trump and preventing him from shutting down this case. More broadly, it means demanding that our next president restore the basic checks of the rule of law on the presidency. We cannot allow a system that immunizes a criminal president from dangerous official actions.The next president must pledge to support legislation that prevents criminal official acts from presidential immunity or at least narrows the scope of immunized presidential behavior significantly. Given that the supreme court might strike down such a law, it is even more crucial to appoint justices who would uphold such a law and, more importantly, reverse the court’s disastrous decision this week.Our country has recovered before from a president’s authoritarian acts by electing leaders who would repudiate them. It is time we did so again.
      Corey Brettschneider is professor of political science at Brown University and the author of The Presidents and the People: Five Leaders Who Threatened Democracy and the Citizens Who Fought to Defend It More