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      Why did Delta Air Lines tweet that the Palestinian flag is ‘terrifying’? | Arwa Mahdawi

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      There’s been a huge increase in scary airline incidents recently. Last week, there was yet another one when passengers on a Delta flight from Boston to West Palm Beach experienced extreme turbulence. No, this wasn’t a Boeing-related safety glitch; it was far more serious than that. A flight attendant was wearing a tiny Palestine flag pin on his uniform.Terrifying, right? Just unbelievable that, nine months into Israel’s relentless bombardment of Gaza, someone might feel the urge to publicly express solidarity with a group of people who are being bombed into oblivion. Absolutely mind-boggling that someone might feel moved by the fact that, according to United Nations rights experts, Israel has carried out a “targeted starvation campaign” in Gaza and babies are dying of malnutrition. Really chilling that an American felt upset by their taxpayer money being used to fund an assault which is killing civilians at a scale and pace many experts have called “unprecedented”.Luckily there was a brave passenger on the plane to call this foolishness out. Someone snapped a photo of the flight attendant and posted it on social media. Various anti-Palestinian accounts quickly mobilized to uncover the man’s identity and pressure Delta to get him fired. A Twitter account called iliketeslas then found another picture of a Delta employee wearing a Palestine flag and tweeted: “imagine getting into a @Delta flight and seeing workers with Hamas badges in the air. What do you do?”Well, personally, the first thing I’d do is explain to the person complaining that the Palestinian flag is not a “Hamas badge”. But I’m not the person manning Delta’s official Twitter/X account. Instead, that person replied from Delta’s official X account: “I hear you and I’d be terrified as well, personally. Our employees reflect our culture and we do not take it lightly when our policy is not being followed.”Let me just spell that out. Someone on Delta’s communication team thinks the Palestinian flag is terrifying and had no problem tweeting that out from the company’s official @Delta account.And this, by the way, isn’t the first time that Delta has been in the news for cracking down on pro-Palestinian messages. This week the non-profit news organization Truthout published a piece alleging that an anti-Zionist Jewish American man called Louie Siegel was told to remove a pro-ceasefire T-shirt during a recent Delta Air Lines flight from São Paulo to Chicago. The T-shirt said “Not in Our Name” on the front side and “Jews Say Ceasefire Now” on the back. Real extremist stuff, eh? Siegel had to cover it up to stay on the plane and was warned he would be put on a no-fly list if he didn’t comply.Delta’s tweet about the terrifying Palestinian flag, by the way, was quickly deleted. But a proper apology from the airline hasn’t been forthcoming. “Delta removed a mistakenly posted comment on X Tuesday because it was not in line with our values and our mission to connect the world,” a Delta spokesperson told me via email on Thursday. “The team member responsible for the post has been counseled and no longer supports Delta’s social channels. We apologize for this error.”Delta’s spokesperson also clarified that neither flight attendant was fired for wearing the pins and said they’d been offered support. They added: “However, as of [Thursday], Delta is shifting its pin allowance policy effective July 15. Beginning then, only US flags will be permitted to be worn on uniforms. Previously, pins representing countries/nationalities of the world had been permitted.”While it’s encouraging that Delta’s flight attendants haven’t been terminated for the crime of wearing a Palestinian flag pin, minimizing this incident as an “error” is insulting. Writing an important email that says “I hope you like tit!” instead of “I hope you like it!” (which is something I have unfortunately done) is what you call an error. Using an official corporate social media account to call the Palestinian flag terrifying, on the other hand, is a hell of a lot more than that.Rather, it’s yet another example of just how widespread and normalized anti-Palestinian bigotry has become in the US. Indeed, racism towards Palestinians is so acceptable that when Donald Trump used “Palestinian” as a slur against Joe Biden in the recent debate, there was barely any outrage. Biden certainly didn’t call Trump out on his racism.Gaza is hell on earth at the moment. Perhaps there will be a ceasefire at one point, but Gaza will never be the same. According to a recent piece by the Israeli paper Haaretz, “The IDF has taken control of 26% of the Gaza Strip … [and] the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Gazans to the southern part of the Strip is becoming permanent. This, an IDF soldier told Haaretz, is ‘an effort at prolonged occupation’.”Meanwhile Israel is loudly and proudly annexing the occupied West Bank, recently approving the largest seizure of land in more than three decades, according to a report by an Israeli anti-settlement watchdog.We are witnessing ethnic cleansing and mass murder in real time and yet speaking out about these horrors – doing something as little as wearing a Palestinian pin in public – puts you at risk of being smeared, harassed and fired from your job. It’s become difficult to even speak about the death toll in Gaza now. The House recently passed an amendment preventing the state department from citing the Gaza health ministry’s death toll statistics for the war. That is the only official entity tracking death data in Gaza; banning these figures effectively halts any conversation about the death toll.“They want to erase the Palestinians who are living,” said Representative Rashida Tlaib in response to the amendment, “and now they are trying to erase the Palestinians who are dead.” As Tlaib says, there is a widespread effort to “dehumanize Palestinians and erase Palestinians from existence”. It’s this that should terrify you. Not a tiny Palestinian flag.

      Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

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      in US Politics

      Joe Biden: key takeaways from his Nato press conference

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      During Joe Biden’s press conference at the Nato summit, which many described as a test for the future of his re-election bid, he demonstrated clarity and conviction on foreign policy. But much was overshadowed by a couple of awkward gaffes and a shaky voice, at a time when the US is hyper-focused on his fitness to lead.After roughly eight minutes of prepared remarks, Biden answered reporters’ questions on Nato, Ukraine, China and Israel, and just as many on his cognitive health and his vow to stay in the race.“I’m determined on running, but I think it’s important that I allay fears,” Biden said at one point.The press conference is not likely to be the decisive moment that some hoped would push a critical mass of elected Democrats to call for him to end his campaign – or decide that he can’t be replaced.Here are the key takeaways:1. Biden showed fluency on foreign policy and hailed the Nato summit as a successBiden answered numerous questions about Ukraine, telling those who thought that Nato’s time had passed that Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was a “rude awakening” and resulted in “some of the oldest and deepest fears in Europe” roaring back to life.On China, he said the country has to understand that its people are not going to “benefit economically” if Beijing supplies Russia with information and capacity, and if it works with North Korea to help Russia’s armaments.On Israel and Gaza, he said he put together a process for a two-state solution, because “the question has been from the beginning – what’s the day after in Gaza?”He also said he knows it sounds “too self-serving” but that other Nato leaders have been thanking him and telling him that he is “the reason we’re together”.2. He gave a ringing endorsement of Kamala Harris, his vice-president Speaking about Kamala Harris, he said: “I wouldn’t have picked her unless I thought she was qualified to be president. From the very beginning, I made no bones about that. She is qualified to be president. That’s why I picked her.”Harris has handled the issue of the freedom of women’s bodies, he said, and was “a hell of a prosecutor”. But he also made clear that he would not step aside just because of strong polling that favored Harris, if that’s what his campaign found. Instead, he said he would only drop out if he knew he couldn’t win against Trump.3. But Biden made some significant errorsBefore the press conference began, Biden introduced the Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelenskiy as “President Putin”, though he quickly caught his mistake and corrected himself.Then, during the press conference, he made a similar flub. When asked if he has concerns about Harris’s ability to beat Trump if she were at the top of the ticket, Biden said he “wouldn’t have picked Vice-President Trump to be vice-president if I didn’t think she was qualified to be president”. He did not correct this mistake.A reporter asked about the gaffe at the end of the press conference, mentioning that Trump is already capitalizing on it to point out Biden’s age and unfitness for the presidency. “Listen to him,” Biden said, before walking off the stage.4. He denied reports that he said he needs to go to bed earlierBiden dismissed reports that he asked his staff to end events earlier so he could get more sleep, saying he never made that request. But he did say it would be “smarter for me to pace myself a little more”.“Instead of my every day starting at seven and ending at midnight, it would be smart for me to pace myself a bit better,” he said.He called the debate performance against Trump “a mistake” and said his schedule since then has been “full-bore”.Biden also took the opportunity to attack his opponent, saying that while he has held numerous events and rallies since the debate, Trump has “done virtually nothing” – and spent his time “riding around [on] his golf cart, filling out his scorecard”.5. Biden said other people could beat Trump – but they’re at a disadvantageToward the end of the press conference, Biden addressed the continuation of his candidacy, despite the fact that he called himself a bridge candidate in 2020 who would usher in a younger generation of Democrats.“Other people could win, but they have to start from scratch right now,” he said.He also said he still thinks he is “the most qualified person to run for president”. He says he beat Trump once, “and I will beat him again”. More

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      in US Politics

      Political rifts have left the US haunted by fear of civil war. Here’s how France can do better | Alexander Hurst

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      In 2016, it was the “Anglo-American” world that seemed in lockstep, the US electing Donald Trump hot on the heels of Britain’s own goal of Brexit. A few weeks ago, it seemed as if France would take the UK’s place as the US’s partner in implosion. But even though fireworks and cheers filled Paris’s Place de la République on Sunday night following the success of a hasty marriage of convenience between leftwing parties and centrist coalitions to keep the far right out of power, they only temporarily drowned out reality. France’s social and political fractures are not going away any more than a four-year respite from Trump means that Trumpism has gone away.France and the US have seen their neuroses about social fracture leading to civil conflict seep into politics, as well as playing out in film and TV dramas. The US’s fractures are so deep that full-blown civil war is already the subject of fiction. Alex Garland’s Civil War film skips over the reasons that the country is divided and jumps straight to the middle of the fighting, suggesting a politically improbable alliance of Texas and California to overthrow a president turned autocrat.During the recent election campaign in France, historians, analysts and politicians evoked the spectre of conflict that could arise in the case of a far-right victory. Emmanuel Macron said that should the extreme right win it would “divide and push” the country towards “civil war”.Of course, there is one big difference between the US and France: guns. “There have to be guns for there to be a civil war; it’s the bare minimum,” says Marie Kinsky (Ana Girardot) in the 2024 French TV series La Fièvre. The co-protagonist and far-right activist sets about to turn France into the US (even seeking assistance from the National Rifle Association) as the basis for provoking an identitarian implosion. Far-fetched? Hopefully – though a shocking 91% of French people share the sentiment that “society is violent”.La Fièvre, directed by Eric Benzekri, opens with an altercation between a football player and his coach, which both far right and far left attempt to inflate into a race and identity crisis to exploit for their own purposes. In the aftermath, Sam Berger (Nina Meurisse), a political communications consultant, and an anxiety-ridden depiction of the centre left, feverishly tries to stop Kinsky from pushing French society to the brink. The two play a nationwide game of chess that takes in disinformation, social media astroturfing, a citizens’ assembly and – in a direct foreshadowing of how Kylian Mbappé and other French footballers took public stances against “the extremes” – the use of a Paris football club as a force for moderation.View image in fullscreenWhile Civil War can seem almost apolitical, La Fièvre never stops theorising, pulling from Stefan Zweig’s The World of Yesterday, the Overton window and the research institute Destin Commun’s La france en qûete. The show lays bare the way that modern democracy is being hollowed out by what it terms “conflict entrepreneurs”, those in politics and the private sector who gain from exploiting and aggravating social fracture.One of the truths Benzekri conveys is that the far right isn’t the only threat. Ideological rigidity can come from the far left too, and often blocks progress while contributing to a society where conversation – and thus, democracy – becomes unworkable. But what seems to worry Benzekri most is the phenomenon of politics as spectacle, and the degree to which populism is contagious.In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Benzekri worked with Jean-Luc Mélenchon – the radical-left leader of France Unbowed (LFI), the largest party in the New Popular Front (NFP), the shock winner in the recent French parliamentary elections. But the director has drifted towards the more mainstream centre left, and now seems to see some of his former allies as conflict entrepreneurs who also bear responsibility for the deteriorating state of French politics.I’ve watched as the US has experienced the polarisation of almost all aspects of life along political lines. It’s a phenomenon I desperately would love France to avoid. But how?During the 2021-22, and 2022-23 academic years, I taught a first-year seminar to students at Sciences Po Paris that I titled, “In search of respect: US democracy confronting race and inequality.” I pulled the title from a book written by a French anthropologist, Philippe Bourgeois, who studied crack gangs in Harlem in the 1990s. A desire to be “respected”, it seemed to me, was at the root of so much of the emotion and anger that Trump was able to channel and direct.Populism pits different segments of society against each other, often around competing notions of respect. A far-right populist tells supporters that they are right to feel disrespected, because “someone else” has come and intruded upon something fundamental about who they are. A far-left populist tells supporters that the institutions of the state itself are racist. And now each side’s desire for justice and to be respected validates the other side’s deepest fears about what kind of society they are going to live in.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOne solution is to change the game rather than play by the new rules the populists have set out for us. In La Fièvre, football is a socially unifying factor. Offscreen, Destin Commun has for many years promoted ecology as a common project with the potential to create social cohesion: an argument that it has found to be one of the most effective in countering the far right.Outside parliament, perhaps there is another way to change the rules of the game and create something new. According to Mathieu Lefèvre at Destin Commun, when it runs a focus group it often finds that participants request to come back the next day for nothing because they are so relieved to have had the chance to listen to, and be listened to by, other people in their communities. What if focus groups weren’t just run for campaign purposes, but in every one of France’s 36,000 communes? What better way to feel respected than listening and being listened to?Even though the NFP is now the largest group in the national assembly, it lacks anything close to a majority and is divided between different wings. Unless moderates succeed in coalition-building, a legislature split between three rough political families – the far right, Macron’s centrist coalition and the NFP – is a recipe for ungovernability that would serve “conflict entrepreneurs”, but certainly not the country.In the final scene of La Fièvre, the president asks: “Can we make it through?” In real-life France, we are going to find out.
      Alexander Hurst is a Guardian columnist More

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      in US Politics

      European leaders use Nato summit to sell military alliance to US voters

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      European leaders at the Nato summit in Washington are focused on explaining to ordinary American taxpayers that the military alliance is worth the money, as the issue of burden-sharing has become a political football for both parties in the US – and threatens to become a serious stumbling block for the alliance should a second Trump administration come to power.“There is a debate in the United States that the US are doing a lot to support Ukraine and Europe is not doing enough. If you look at figures, it’s actually a different picture. Europe is doing more than the United States: the financial support, military support we all have provided so far has been enormous … We are taking the security and defense seriously,” said Edgars Rinkēvičs, the president of Latvia, during a speech on Tuesday alongside former CIA director Leon Panetta and the Estonian defense minister, Hanno Pevkur. “It’s also very important to explain to the American public.”In background briefings, European officials have said they have been concerned with political turmoil in the US and Europe. The US was among countries that pushed back against a multi-year financial pledge for military aid to Ukraine – in part because of the bitter fight in Congress over the Ukraine supplemental bill.“We think that this is essential to signal that Europeans are taking a greater burden of their own security,” said another European official ahead of the summit. “And it’s an important message to Ukraine, to Russia – but also for domestic audience. Here in DC, we are aware of the sensitivity of that topic, and I think you can expect a lot of strategic communication on that next week.”European officials are balancing concerns over the growing Russian threat in Ukraine and the political sensitivities that could further divide the alliance.“We also understand that the ordinary people, in Latvia or the United States or somewhere else, sometimes do care more about economy, social issues, internal security, and we should take those concerns seriously and address them in the same manner that we are addressing the high geopolitical issues,” said Rinkēvičs.Polling has shown that views on Nato are subject to a partisan divide in the US, and that the alliance has become steadily less popular among Republicans in the past year. According to the Pew Research Centre, just 43% of Republicans have a positive view of the alliance, down from 49% who said the same in 2023.European leaders have taken different tacks, with some talking points seemingly tailored toward the Republican candidate as well. “Nato is a club, and when you have a club rules, then you respect the rules, and you expect that everybody will also respect the rules,” Pefkur, the Estonian defense minister said on Tuesday. “So Trump is a golfer, so when you pay your fee, in the golf club, you can play. Doesn’t matter how big is your wallet. So when you pay that fee, you can go to the golf course and play.”In a speech at the Hudson Institute on Tuesday, the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, said that he supported Nato but that he would press European leaders on fulfilling a pledge to spend 2% of GDP on defense. He also tied national security to US border security, once again reinforcing how Nato policies have become subsumed to domestic US politics.“Nato needs to be doing more,” he said. “Not all Nato members have reached their current commitment. It may even need to be closer at a level during the cold war. But if we’re all going to enjoy a future of peace and prosperity, we all need to have skin in the game.”Critics have said that the US is going through a period of isolationism. “On a tectonic level, our allies should understand that there is a usually isolationist instinct in this country,” said Representative Jim Himes, a senior Democrat on the House intelligence committee. “And it emerges from time to time, when economic conditions here are not good,” or after moments of disenchantment like the Iraq war. “We are in that isolationist moment and it’s not just Donald Trump.”Others describe it as restraint. Trump is not the only one calling for the US to withdraw forces and resources from Europe, leaving Europeans to take on the burden of defending themselves. Several liberal foreign policy analysts have been calling for years for a switch to American restraint when it comes to US military projection, especially in Europe.“It is in the interest of a transatlantic alliance to shift the burden toward Europe and transition over, a decent period, maybe about a decade, toward European leadership of European defense with the United States moving to a supporting role,” Stephen Wertheim a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and a leading advocate for restraint.Wertheim was one of dozens of foreign policy experts who wrote an open letter published in the Guardian urging Nato leaders not to invite Ukraine to become a member.“It could also be counterproductive insofar as Russia believes that Ukraine is advancing down this bridge to Nato membership, Russia gains an incentive to prolong the war so that that moment never arrives, so that Ukraine never crosses that bridge on the other side.” More

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      in Elections

      Trump plans to block hearings in January 6 case before 2024 election

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      Donald Trump is expected to launch a new legal battle to suppress any damaging evidence from his 2020 election-subversion case from becoming public before the 2024 election, preparing to shut down the potency of any “mini-trials” where high-profile officials could testify against him.The plans come after the US supreme court last week in its ruling that broadly conferred immunity on former presidents opened the door for the US district judge Tanya Chutkan to hold evidentiary hearings – potentially with witnesses – to determine what acts in the indictment can survive.In the coming months, Trump’s lawyers are expected to argue that the judge can decide whether the conduct is immune based on legal arguments alone, negating the need for witnesses or multiple evidentiary hearings, the people said.If prosecutors with the special counsel Jack Smith press for witnesses such as former vice-president Mike Pence or White House officials to testify, Trump’s lawyers are expected to launch a flurry of executive privilege and other measures to block their appearances, the people said.The plans, which have not been previously reported, are aimed at having the triple effect of burying damaging testimony, making it harder for prosecutors to overcome the presumptive immunity for official acts, and injecting new delay into the case through protracted legal fights.Trump has already been enormously successful in delaying his criminal cases, including by succeeding in having the supreme court from taking the immunity appeal in the 2020 election subversion case in Washington, which was frozen while the court considered the matter.The delay strategy thus far has been aimed at pushing the cases until after the November election, in the hope that Trump would be re-elected and then appoint as attorney general a loyalist who would drop the charges.But now, even if Trump loses, his lawyers have coalesced on a legal strategy that could take months to resolve depending on how prosecutors choose to approach evidentiary hearings, adding to additional months of anticipated appeals over what Chutkan determines are official acts.A Trump spokesperson declined to comment on the legal strategy but claimed in a statement: “The entire January 6th case has always been just a desperate, un-constitutional attempt by the Biden Crime Family and their weaponized Department of Justice to interfere with the 2024 Presidential Election. The only thing imploding faster than the Biden campaign is Deranged Jack Smith’s partisan hoaxes.”View image in fullscreenTrump’s lawyers are not expected to make any moves until the start of August, the people said, when the case is finally returned to the jurisdiction of Chutkan after the conclusion of the supreme court’s 25-day waiting period and a further week for the judgement to formally be sent down.Once Chutkan regains control of the case, lawyers for Trump and for the special counsel have suggested privately that they think she will quickly rule on a number of motions that were briefed before the case was frozen when Trump filed his immunity appeal with the supreme court.That could include Trump’s pending motion to compel more discovery materials from prosecutors. If Chutkan grants the motion, Trump’s lawyers would insist on time to review the new materials before they started sorting through what acts in the indictment were immune, the people said.In the supreme court’s ruling on immunity, the justices laid out three categories for protection: core presidential functions that carry absolute immunity, official acts of the presidency that carry presumptive immunity, and unofficial acts that carry no immunity.Trump’s lawyers are expected to argue the maximalist position that they considered all of the charged conduct was Trump acting in his official capacity as president and therefore presumptively immune – and incumbent on prosecutors to prove otherwise, the people said.And Trump’s lawyers are expected to suggest that even though the supreme court contemplated evidentiary hearings to sort through the conduct, they are not necessary, and any disputes can be resolved purely on legal arguments, the people said.In doing so, Trump will try to foreclose witness testimony that could be politically damaging because it would cause evidence about his efforts to subvert the 2020 election that has polled poorly to be suppressed, and legally damaging because it could cause Chutkan to rule against Trump.Trump’s lawyers have privately suggested they expect at least some evidentiary hearings to take place, but they are also intent on challenging testimony from people like former vice president Mike Pence and other high-profile White House officials.For instance, if prosecutors try to call Pence or his chief of staff Marc Short to testify about meetings where Trump discussed stopping the January 6 certification, Trump would try to block that testimony by asserting executive privilege, and having Pence assert the speech or debate clause protection.Trump’s lawyers would argue to Chutkan that any privilege rulings during the investigation that forced them to testify to the grand jury were not binding and the factual record needed to be decided afresh.Meanwhile, witnesses such as former Trump lawyer John Eastman or former Trump campaign official Mike Roman would almost certainly be precluded from testifying because they have valid fifth amendment concerns of self-incrimination, as they have been separately charged with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results in Fulton county, Georgia. More

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      in Elections

      Bob’s Burgers actor Jay Johnston pleads guilty over role in Capitol attack

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      Jay Johnston, an actor best known for his role on the animated comedy show Bob’s Burgers, has pleaded guilty to charges related to his role in the storming of the US Capitol in January 2021.Johnston, 54, faces a maximum of five years in prison and pleaded guilty to a felony count of civil disorder. He was released on a $25,000 bond in June 2023 after an initial court appearance in California.Johnston was also charged with felony obstruction of officers during civil disorder, unlawful entry on restricted buildings or grounds, and impeding passage through Capitol grounds.Documents filed in court allege Johnston joined a mob of protesters attacking police. A video from the incident showed the actor take a shield from an officer and use it to push back law enforcement officers defending the Capitol.Johnston “was close to the entrance to the tunnel, turned back and signaled for other rioters to come towards the entrance”, the charging documents stated. He also acknowledged his role in the Capitol riot, sending a text message that stated it “wasn’t” an attack but that it “kind of turned into that”.“It was a mess,” another message said.Three current or former associates of Johnston identified him as a suspect from photos the FBI published online, according to the agent. The FBI said one of those associates provided investigators with the text message in which Johnston acknowledged being at the Capitol on January 6.Airline records also proved Johnston booked a round-trip flight from Los Angeles to Washington DC, leaving on 4 January 2021 and returning on 7 January, according to FBI filings.In addition to Bob’s Burgers, Johnston has appeared on HBO’s Mr Show with Bob and David and held smaller roles on the Fox sitcom Arrested Development. US district judge Carl Nichols is set to sentence Johnston on 7 October.Also on Monday, a Texas woman pleaded guilty to assaulting a Metropolitan police department officer during the Capitol attack. Video captured Dana Jean Bell cursing at officers inside the Capitol and grabbing an officer’s baton, according to an FBI agent’s affidavit.Bell, 65, of Princeton, Texas, also was shown on video assaulting a local television journalist outside the Capitol that day. The FBI affidavit says Bell appeared to reach out and try to push or grab the journalist, who worked for the Fox affiliate in Washington DC.Bell faces a maximum sentence of eight years in prison. US district judge Timothy Kelly is scheduled to sentence her on 17 October. Her estimated sentencing guidelines recommend a term of imprisonment of between two and two and a half years.Approximately 1,000 people have been convicted of or pleaded guilty to federal crimes related to the Capitol riot, according to the Associated Press, with more than half of those sentenced getting terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 18 years. More

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      Leading House Democrat Adam Smith calls on Biden to end presidential bid

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      Joe Biden’s position among congressional Democrats eroded further on Monday when an influential House committee member lent his voice to calls for him to end his presidential campaign following last month’s spectacular debate failure.Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the armed services committee in the House of Representatives, issued the plea just hours after the president emphatically rejected calls for him to step aside in a letter to the party’s congressional contingent.Biden had also expressed determination to continue in an unscheduled phone interview with the MSNBC politics show Morning Joe.But in a clear sign such messaging may be falling on deaf ears, Smith suggested that sentiments of voters that he was too old to be an effective candidate and then president for the next four years was clear from opinion polls.“The president’s performance in the debate was alarming to watch and the American people have made it clear they no longer see him as a credible candidate to serve four more years as president,” Smith, a congressman from Washington state, said in a statement.“Since the debate, the president has not seriously addressed these concerns.”He said the president should stand aside “as soon as possible”, though he qualified it by saying he would support him “unreservedly” if he insisted on remaining as the nominee.But his statement’s effect was driven home in a later interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, one of the two moderators in the 27 June debate with Donald Trump in which Biden’s hoarse-voiced and frequently confused performance and demeanour plunged his re-election campaign into existential crisis.“Personally, I think Kamala Harris [the vice-president] would be a much better, stronger candidate,” Smith told Tapper, adding that Biden was “not the best person to carry the Democratic message”.He implicitly criticised Democratic colleagues – and Biden campaign staff – who were calling for the party to put the debate behind them as “one bad night”.“A lot of Democrats are saying: ‘Well let’s move on, let’s stop talking about it’,” said Smith. “We are not the ones who are bringing it up. The country is bringing it up. And the campaign strategy of ‘be quiet and fall in line and let’s ignore it’ simply isn’t working.”Smith joins the ranks of five Democratic members of Congress who publicly demanded Biden’s withdrawal last week. He was among at least four others who spoke in favour of it privately in a virtual meeting on Sunday with Hakeem Jeffries, the party’s leader in the House.Having the ranking member of the armed services committee join the siren voices urging his withdrawal may be particularly damaging to Biden’s cause in a week when he is to host a summit of Nato leaders in Washington.The alliance’s heads of government and state will gather in the US capital on Tuesday for an event that is likely to increase the international spotlight on Biden, who is due to give a rare press conference on its final day on Thursday, an occasion likely to be scrutinised for further misstatements and evidence of declining cognitive faculties. Unscripted appearances have been rare in Biden’s three-and-a-half-year tenure.In an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos last Friday, Biden stressed his role in expanding Nato’s membership and leading its military aid programme to help Ukraine fend off Russia’s invasion as a key element of his qualification to continue as his party’s nominee and be re-elected as president.In the surprise interview with Morning Joe on Monday, Biden put the blame for his current predicament on Democratic elites, an undefined designation which he may now expand to include Smith. More