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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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      in US Politics

      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

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      in US Politics

      The Democrats who have called on Joe Biden to step down

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      After Joe Biden’s disastrous performance in his first debate against Donald Trump super-charged concerns about his age and fitness for office, the president faces growing calls to stand down as the Democratic nominee this November.Biden has pushed back hard, telling MSNBC “elites in the party” were behind calls for him to quit, claiming strong support from actual voters, and challenging doubters in his own party to “run against me. Go ahead. Announce for president – challenge me at the convention!”Nobody has gone that far yet but a growing number of elected Democratic officials have either publicly called for Biden to quit or reportedly done so in private. Here they are:Lloyd Doggett (Texas)The Texas veteran was first out of the gate, saying last week: “Recognising that, unlike [Donald] Trump, President Biden’s first commitment has always been to our country, not himself, I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. I respectfully call on him to do so.”Raúl Grijalva (Arizona)A senior progressive from a battleground state, Grijalva has sway in his party. Following Doggett, the 76-year-old told the New York Times: “What [Biden] needs to do is shoulder the responsibility for keeping that seat – and part of that responsibility is to get out of this race.” Grijalva also said Democrats “have to win this race, and we have to hold the House and hold the Senate”, because if not, the party’s achievements under Biden would “go down the sewer”.Seth Moulton (Massachusetts)The former US marine, who briefly challenged Biden for the nomination in 2020, told a Boston radio station: “President Biden has done enormous service to our country, but now is the time for him to follow in one of our founding father, George Washington’s, footsteps and step aside to let new leaders rise up.” Moulton has since doubled down, citing the “disaster” of the debate.Mike Quigley (Illinois)Speaking to MSNBC on Friday, Quigley said: “Mr. President, your legacy is set. We owe you the greatest debt of gratitude. The only thing that you can do now to cement that for all time and prevent utter catastrophe is to step down and let someone else do this.”Angie Craig (Minnesota)On Saturday, the congresswoman said: “Given what I saw and heard from the president during last week’s debate in Atlanta, coupled with the lack of a forceful response from the president himself following that debate, I do not believe that the president can effectively campaign and win against Donald Trump. That’s why I respectfully call on President Biden to step aside as the Democratic nominee for a second term as president and allow for a new generation of leaders to step forward.”Adam Smith (Washington)On Monday, the congressman said: “That candidate must be able to clearly, articulately, and strongly make his or her case to the American people. It is clear that President Biden is no longer able to meet this burden.” In an interview he also implored Biden. “I’m pleading with him − take a step back,’” he said on CNN. “Look at what’s best for the party, look at what’s best for the county.”Reported: Jerry Nadler (New York), Mark Takano (California), Joe Morelle (New York)According to multiple reports, on Sunday the three senior Democrats along with Smith had used a private call arranged by Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, to call for Biden to stand down. Others on the call reportedly expressed serious concerns but did not go so far as to say Biden should quit. More

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      in US Politics

      Official Kristi Noem social media accounts appear to have been deleted

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      Kristi Noem, the Republican governor of South Dakota who has been dogged by controversy since recounting how she chose to shoot dead a puppy and a goat, attracted new questions when it was noted that some of her official social media accounts appeared to have been deleted.On Monday, a link from Noem’s official website led to an error message on Facebook, which said: “This content isn’t available right now. When this happens, it’s usually because the owner only shared it with a small group of people, changed who can see it or it’s been deleted.”On Twitter/X, the governor’s site linked to Noem’s personal page. The official @GovKristiNoem page displayed the message “This account doesn’t exist”.A new X account, @GovNoemOffice, created this month, had 309 followers, far fewer than the roughly half-million of Noem’s old account.The new official account featured links to press releases.A small selection of followed accounts included Noem’s personal page, state government departments and Noem staffers including Mackenzie Decker, the director of policy who describes herself as “Living free in South Dakota with my husband and little girls. Fueled by Americanos, Cheezits and LaCroix Water. Mostly tweets about motherhood and the Jackrabbits”, the sports teams of South Dakota State University.Noem’s YouTube page was still active.Asked for comment, Noem’s spokesperson, Ian Fury, told the Guardian the new X page was the source for official updates. He did not say what happened to the old account or why it was deleted.Noem’s spokesperson, Ian Fury, told news outlets the new X page was the source for official updates but did not say what happened to the old account or why it was deleted. The Guardian contacted Fury for comment.Earlier this year, Noem was widely seen as a potential presidential running mate for Donald Trump.Such attention shone a spotlight on controversies including Noem using her personal X account to advertise a Texas cosmetic dentist and being banned from Native American reservations, over comments about tribal leaders and drug cartels.But then, in April, the Guardian obtained a copy of Noem’s book, No Going Back.The ensuing story revealed the governor’s startling account of the day she shot dead Cricket, a 14-month-old wirehaired pointer she deemed untrainable and dangerous, and an unnamed, uncastrated goat she said threatened her children.Asked why the book also included an apparent threat to kill one of Joe Biden’s dogs, Noem told CBS the animal, Commander, had “attacked 24 Secret Service people. So how many people is enough people to be attacked and dangerously hurt before you make a decision on a dog?”The book produced more damaging headlines when it was revealed that Noem claimed to have “stared down” the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, but no such meeting could be shown to have happened. More

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      in US Politics

      The Guardian view on Joe Biden’s re-election bid: democrats can’t go on like this | Editorial

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      Joe Biden says only “the Lord almighty” could make him quit his re-election bid. “I am not going anywhere,” he insisted in a surprise call to a morning talkshow on Monday, having warned party colleagues off further discussion in a letter. Anyone wanting him to step aside, he said, should “challenge me at the convention” in August. Perhaps he would better understand the problem if he had watched his disastrous debate appearance. But if the president is still in denial, far fewer lawmakers, donors and supporters believe that his candidacy is sustainable amid mounting concern about his capabilities.Resilience is a virtue. Mr Biden has shown it in spades, and it has served him and his country well. His grit and application helped to save the United States from a second Trump term, and to recover from the first. But knowing when to quit matters too. In 2020, Mr Biden described himself as the “bridge” to a new generation of leaders. Stepping aside now would be a belated act of dignity and wisdom. Clinging on as the Democrats head towards November in a doom‑spiral of division and recrimination, leading to Donald Trump’s return to the White House, would for ever tarnish his name.Mr Biden’s inner circle is clannish. As Congress reconvenes for the first time since the debate, he needs to listen to other sympathetic voices. It’s not only self-described “friendly pundits” who have urged him to give up his candidacy. It’s also donors and elected lawmakers, both publicly and (in the case of more influential figures) privately. Even a senior White House official reportedly agrees. Party elders have avoided ringing endorsements.Mr Biden, borrowing Mr Trump’s rhetoric, blames “elites” for hobbling him. While some grassroots supporters remain staunch, others want him to call a halt. There is no doubt that the discussion is damaging. But all those calling on him to step aside understand what is at stake. It is precisely because they dread defeat – not only from self-interest but for the sake of their country and its democracy – that they demand action. They believe Mr Biden cannot now beat Mr Trump. Another candidate might – no more than that. It is a gamble, but less so when the alternative looks like odds-on defeat.Every appearance will be pored over for signs of physical frailty and cognitive incapacity. Further suggestions of declining abilities will surface. One Democratic congressman is said to have told colleagues that the president “has trouble putting two sentences together”. Any doubt voiced by a Democrat will be replayed endlessly in attack ads. While Mr Biden has defied expectations before, electors know that physical and mental decline in older people can be cruel and swift. No number of “good days” will erase the bad.Many Democrats hope for a coronation for Kamala Harris, the vice-president. Even if Mr Biden stepped aside, a contested convention with candidates taking chunks out of each other might damage the eventual nominee. Others believe that a contest would generate excitement and dominate the media, denying airtime to Mr Trump. It would allow the party to test candidates and avoid committing to another one who proves not to be up to the task. Either way, the route ahead would be thorny. But it’s hard to see the party returning to the path of silent political loyalty. That’s how it ended up here. More

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      in US Politics

      Biden defends his campaign as swing-state Democrat calls for him to exit race – as it happened

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      Democrats are divided after Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance and subsequent gaffes that have thrown into question the viability of the campaign. Biden remained defiant, even as Democrats in Congress and donors joined a growing chorus calling for the president to step aside.
      Congressional Democrats are to hold an emergency Sunday meeting to discuss Joe Biden’s tottering presidential candidacy after a primetime television interview failed to dispel doubts triggered by last week’s debate fiasco. Hakeem Jeffries, the Democrats’ leader in the House of Representatives, scheduled the meeting for Sunday even as Biden struck a defiant posture in Friday’s interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
      Gavin Newsom, the California governor who has been widely discussed as a potential successor to Biden, is campaigning for the president today in Pennsylvania’s Bucks county, a key political battleground.The governor cast the election as one that is “about liberalism versus illiberalism”, highlighting the threats Trump poses to American democracy, and emphasizing Biden’s economic record.
      Representative Angie Craig, a Democrat of Minnesota, is among the latest to call on Biden to exit the presidential race. Craig represents a swing district in suburban Minneapolis-St Paul. Some Democrats are concerned that Biden’s flailing candidacy could drag down House and Senate candidates down-ballot.
      Donald Trump broke his silence on the doubts swirling around Joe Biden’s candidacy following last month’s debate debacle with a characteristically mocking social post urging Biden to stay in the race.
      Biden is now leading Trump in Michigan and Wisconsin, according to the latest Bloomberg/Morning Consult tracking poll of battleground states. In Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina, the president is within the poll’s statistical margin of error.
      What happens if Biden does decide to step away? Time is short to make a change.The Democratic National Committee announced weeks ago that it would hold a virtual roll call for a formal nomination before the party’s national convention, which begins on 19 August. Kamala Harris is emerging as the favourite to replace Biden if he were to withdraw, although governors Gavin Newsom of California and Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan remain viable alternatives.A messy, divisive convention – where protests over the war in Gaza are already expected – would only reinforce the suspicion that, with American democracy hanging by a thread, the Democratic party is failing to meet the moment.Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “American democracy and the force of the conservative movement that we’re seeing in the supreme court lacks a coherent, energetic counterpoint. The Democratic party is simply not up for the fight. The conservatives are marching ahead and the Democrats are flailing.”Jacobs added: “It’s reasonable to ask, why did it come to this with regards to Biden? Why weren’t party leaders intervening a year and a half ago to usher off Biden to bring in genuine competition? Instead, they leave it for a debate, which realistic leaders could anticipate how it was going to turn out.“The fact that Trump was lying and bullying was known going in and Biden seemed so incapable of responding and so surprised by it. It was a very powerful signal of his infirmity but also of the infirmity [of the] party in moving past him. Joe Biden almost certainly can’t win and the party seems incapable of processing that and taking action.”Before her public appearance in New Orleans tonight, the vice-president, Kamala Harris, has been drawing comparisons between the Republicans and the Democrats on reproductive health.Harris will be speaking at the Essence festival in New Orleans on Saturday evening and will be interviewed by Caroline Wanga, its chief executive and president.The festival says of the talk: “Black Women running things is our all-time favorite genre. You are cordially invited to witness a spirited conversation with Vice-President Kamala Harris.”In recent days, Harris has appeared to be much more on Trump’s mind, according to a leaked video clip that emerged earlier this week in which he talked about Biden being “broken down” and “quitting the race”.“He just quit, you know – he’s quitting the race,” Trump said in the clip obtained by the Daily Beast. “I got him out of the – and that means we have Kamala.”He went on to say Harris would be stronger than Biden, but that Harris was “also bad”. According to a report in Axios on Saturday citing unnamed Trump advisers, the ex-president would bombard Harris with attack ads if she looked to be becoming the nominee.It shows there is concern among Trump’s team, however, that a Harris emergence could get more attention than what looks like a coronation for Trump at the GOP convention in Milwaukee in mid-July, while the Democrats’ convention in Chicago is a month later with a likely bigger potential audience.The Guardian’s Sam Levin recently wrote about the Kamala Harris insiders rallying behind the vice-president to replace Biden if he were to bow out.With Project 2025, Donald Trump has promised to give rightwing evangelical Christians what they want – and more, writes Guardian opinions columnist and former labor secretary Robert Reich:
      Project 2025 is nothing short of a 900-page blueprint for guiding Donald Trump’s second term of office if he’s re-elected.
      After the Heritage Foundation unveiled Project 2025 in April last year, when Trump was seeking the Republican nomination, he had no problem with it.
      But now that the nation is turning its attention to the general election, Trump doesn’t want Project 2025 to draw attention. Its extremism is likely to turn off independents and moderates.
      So Trump is now claiming he has “no idea who is behind” Project 2025.
      This is another in a long line of Trump lies.
      The Project 2025 playbook was written by more than 20 officials who Trump himself appointed during his first term. If he has “no idea” who they are, he’s showing an alarming cognitive decline.
      One of the leaders of Project 2025 is Russ Vought. Vought was Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, a key position in the White House. Vought is also drafting Trump’s 2024 GOP platform.
      Another Project 2025 leader is John McEntee, another of Trump’s top White House aides. (McEntee recently went viral in a video in which he claimed he gives counterfeit money to homeless people to get them arrested.)
      Even the national press secretary for Trump’s campaign appears in the Project 2025 recruitment video.
      Trump says he “knows nothing” about Project 2025. And he says he “disagrees” with it.
      As the former chair of the Republican party Michael Steele put it: “Ok, let’s all play with Stupid for minute … so exactly how do you ‘disagree’ with something you ‘know nothing about’ or ‘have no idea’ who is behind, saying or doing the thing you disagree with?”
      America’s allies are worried that Joe Biden won’t be able to beat Donald Trump – and fear the consequences, Politico reports.These allies worry that a Trump victory would damage Nato and undermine the war effort in Ukraine. The magazine reports:
      POLITICO spoke with 20 people connected to NATO or the alliance’s upcoming summit over the past month and heard that many allies already had quiet reservations about putting their trust in Biden well before the debate. Now, Biden must convince his counterparts that he’s not only up for the fight but will overcome a political crisis to stay in it.
      “It doesn’t take a genius to see that the president is old,” said one official from a European NATO country. “We’re not sure that, even if he wins, he can survive four years more.”
      Others went further. “It was painful to watch, let’s be honest,” an EU official said of the debate. “We all want Biden to have a second term to avoid dealing with Trump again, but this isn’t really reassuring.”
      Speaking to POLITICO before the UK’s change of government on Thursday, a UK minister put it most bluntly: “Can the Democrat donors please get their act together and get Biden retired, so we have some chance of a candidate credible for voters?”
      The Biden campaign has dismissed Trump’s attempts to distance himself from Project 2025, the extreme second-term agenda developed by Trump’s close allies.“We can always rely on Donald Trump for one thing: to lie to the American people in pursuit of power. We saw that on the debate stage when he set a record. He lied about the economy, about his role in the January 6 insurrection, and about disrespecting our heroic servicemembers,” Biden said in a statement.“Donald Trump is lying again now. He’s trying to hide his connections to his allies’ extreme Project 2025 agenda. The only problem? It was written for him, by those closest to him. Project 2025 should scare every single American. It would give Trump limitless power over our daily lives and let him use the presidency to enact ‘revenge’ on his enemies, ban abortion nationwide and punish women who have an abortion, and gut the checks and balances that make America the greatest democracy in the world. It’s extreme and dangerous.”This evening, Kamala Harris is scheduled to speak in a moderated discussion at the Essence festival of culture in New Orleans.The vice-president has drawn extra attention in recent days amid calls for Joe Biden to step aside. Harris could be a natural successor to Biden should he drop out of the race.As my colleague, Guardian tech editor Blake Montgomery wrote, Harris’s base of supporters have been sharing memes about her with renewed enthusiasm:
      Supercuts of her set to RuPaul’s Call Me Mother. Threads of her “funniest Veep moments”. Collages of jokes about her over a green album cover a la Charli xcx’s Brat. Numerous riffs on a comment she made about a coconut tree. Previous progressive snark about Harris has cast her either as an incompetent sidekick a la HBO’s Veep or as an anti-progressive cop, a reference to her years as California’s top law enforcement official. But as rumors circle about discussions of Biden dropping out of the presidential race, social media commentary on the nation’s second-in-command has grown more positive – even if ironically so.
      Biden’s campaign has defended its choice to provide a radio host with questions for the president prior to an interview.“It’s not at all an uncommon practice for interviewees to share topics they would prefer,” Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt said in a statement. But campaign officials “do not condition interviews on acceptance of these questions”, she added.On Saturday morning, Andrea Lawful-Sanders, host of The Source on WURD in Philadelphia, told CNN she had received questions from the campaign for approval prior to her interview with the president. “I got several questions – eight of them,” she said. “And the four that were chosen were the ones that I approved.”Biden’s campaign has attracted heavy criticism in recent days for limiting and curating the president’s unscripted public appearances. Critics have said this has obscured Biden’s tendency to slip up.Joe Biden joined a biweekly meeting with the campaign’s co-chairs this morning, according to the White House, “to thank them and discuss their shared commitment to winning the 2024 race in the face of the dire threat Donald Trump poses”.Michigan governor Getchen Whitmer, whose name has been floated as a possible successor to Biden, as well as close Biden ally James Clyburn, a representative of South Carolina, and Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison were in attendance.Rebecca Solnit on Biden and Trump: The media is once again repeating the mistakes of 2016The Guardian opinions columnist writes:
      I am not usually one to offer diagnoses of people I’ve never met, but it does seem like the pundit class of the American media is suffering from severe memory loss. Because they’re doing exactly what they did in the 2016 presidential race – providing wildly asymmetrical and inflammatory coverage of the one candidate running against Donald J Trump.
      They have become a stampeding herd producing an avalanche of stories suggesting Biden is unfit, will lose, and should go away, at a point in the campaign in which replacing him would likely be somewhere between extremely difficult and utterly catastrophic. They do this while ignoring something every scholar and critic of journalism knows well and every journalist should. As Nikole Hannah-Jones put it: “As media we consistently proclaim that we are just reporting the news when in fact we are driving it. What we cover, how we cover it, determines often what Americans think is important and how they perceive these issues yet we keep pretending it’s not so.” They are not reporting that he is a loser; they are making him one.
      Joe Biden is now leading Trump in Michigan and Wisconsin, according to the latest Bloomberg/Morning Consult tracking poll of battleground states. In Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and North Carolina, the president is within the poll’s statistical margin of error.Overall, Biden is trailing Trump by just 2 percentage points in key swing states, despite voters’ misgivings about the president’s performance.The numbers paint a complicated picture and highlight Democrats’ difficult position after Biden’s poor performance at the presidential debate and swirling speculation about his stamina and fitness to serve another term. About a third of Democrats surveyed in the poll, which was conducted four days after the debate, said Biden should drop out of the race.But the poll also placed Biden in his strongest position yet, showing a narrowing gap between him and Trump and bolstering the case for his narrow path to victory.Donald Trump is trying to claim he has “nothing to do” with Project 2025, a political roadmap created by people close to him for his potential second term.The project, which is led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank, seeks to crack down on various issues including immigration, reproductive rights, environmental protections and LGBTQ+ rights. It also aims to replace federal employees with Trump loyalists across the government.Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social network: “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”The former president’s post came a day after the Heritage Foundation’s president, Kevin Roberts, said the US was in the midst of a “second American revolution” that can be bloodless “if the left allows it to be”. He made the comments on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, adding that Republicans are “in the process of taking this country back”.In response to Trump’s post, several critics were quick to point out that it appears unlikely that he is unaware of Project 2025, given that many individuals involved in the project are his closest allies.“Many people involved in Project 2025 are close to Trump world & have served in his previous admin,” CNN’s Alayna Treene said.Economist and Guardian columnist Robert Reich wrote: “Don’t be fooled. The playbook is written by more than 20 officials Trump appointed in his first term. It is the clearest vision we have of a 2nd Trump presidency.”Joe Biden’s doctor met with a leading Washington DC neurologist at the White House this year, it was reported on Saturday.The report came after Biden on Friday ruled out taking an independent cognitive test and releasing its findings publicly, in an interview with ABC News arranged following his disastrous performance in last week’s presidential TV debate with Donald Trump.According to White House visitor logs reviewed by the New York Post, Dr Kevin Cannard, a Parkinson’s disease expert at Walter Reed medical center, met with Dr Kevin O’Connor, a doctor of osteopathic medicine who has treated the president for years.The visit took place at the White House residence clinic on 17 January. Cannard has visited the White House eight times since August 2023. On seven of those visits, most recently in late March, he met with Megan Nasworthy, a liaison between Walter Reed and the White House.Biden has consistently rejected taking any cognitive test, including in August 2020 when he dismissed a reporter’s question with: “Why the hell would I take a test?” He has continued to dismiss the need for one and, according to aides, has not received one during his three annual physical exams during his term in the White House.The Washington Post on Saturday reported a White House aide saying that O’Connor, who has been Biden’s doctor since 2009, has never recommended that Biden take a cognitive test.Donald Trump has broken his silence on the doubts swirling around Joe Biden’s candidacy following last month’s debate debacle with a characteristically mocking social post urging him to stay in the race.“Crooked Joe Biden should ignore his many critics and move forward, with alacrity and strength, with his powerful and far reaching campaign,” Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, wrote on his Truth Social site nine days days after the calamitous Atlanta debate that has left the president’s re-election campaign mired in crisis.Mercilessly trolling the fears of worried Democrats, the post continued: “He should be sharp, precise, and energetic, just like he was in The Debate, in selling his policies of Open Borders (where millions of people, including record numbers of Terrorists, are allowed to enter our Country, from prisons and mental institutions, totally unchecked and unvetted!), to Ending Social Security, Men playing in Women’s sports, High Taxes, High Interest Rates, encouraging a Woke Military, Uncontrollable Inflation, Record Setting Crime, Only Electric Vehicles, Subservience to China and other Countries, Endless Wars, putting America Last, losing our Dollar Based Standard, and so much more.“Yes, Sleepy Joe should continue his campaign of American Destruction and, MAKE CHINA GREAT AGAIN!”The gleeful post was Trump’s first explicitly open comment on the saga that has thrown the Democrats into turmoil, with the exception of a video that emerged this week in which the former president appeared to predict Biden was about to withdraw in favour of Vice-President Kamala Harris, whom he disparaged in profane terms.It was unclear whether Trump’s sarcasm-laden post expressing joy at a rival’s misfortune would have the blessing of his campaign strategists amid post-debate polling evidence suggesting that Harris would fare better than Biden in a match-up against the Republican candidate, which in turn fuelled a belief that the GOP would prefer a contest against the sitting president.Fretting Democrats may see Trump’s mockery as further evidence of Biden’s comparative weakness and push harder for him to step aside.In a Truth Social post this week, Trump referred to the vice-president as “laffin’ Kamala Harris” – in reference to her supposed personal trait of loud public laughter – while in a separate campaign statement he referred to her as Biden’s “cackling copilot”. More

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      in US Politics

      We should all be terrified of Trump’s Project 2025 | Robert Reich

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      “Project 2025” is nothing short of a 900-page blueprint for guiding Donald Trump’s second term of office if he’s re-elected.After the Heritage Foundation unveiled Project 2025 in April last year, when Trump was seeking the Republican nomination, he had no problem with it.But now that the nation is turning its attention to the general election, Trump doesn’t want Project 2025 to draw attention. Its extremism is likely to turn off independents and moderates.So Trump is now claiming he has “no idea who is behind” Project 2025.This is another in a long line of Trump lies.The Project 2025 playbook was written by more than 20 officials whom Trump himself appointed during his first term. If he has “no idea” who they are, he’s showing an alarming cognitive decline.One of the leaders of Project 2025 is Russ Vought. Vought was Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, a key position in the White House. Vought is also drafting Trump’s 2024 GOP platform.Another Project 2025 leader is John McEntee, another of Trump’s top White House aides. (McEntee recently went viral in a video in which he claimed he gives counterfeit money to homeless people to get them arrested.)Even the national press secretary for Trump’s campaign appears in the Project 2025 recruitment video.Trump says he “knows nothing” about Project 2025. And he says he “disagrees” with it.As the former chairman of the Republican party Michael Steele put it: “OK, let’s all play with Stupid for minute … so exactly how do you ‘disagree’ with something you ‘know nothing about’ or ‘have no idea’ who is behind, saying or doing the thing you disagree with?”Trump may also be worried that the Heritage president, Kevin Roberts, could alarm independents and moderates. On Wednesday, Roberts raised the prospect of political violence. “We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be,” Roberts told the War Room podcast, founded by the Trump adviser Steve Bannon.But let’s be clear. The Trump campaign platform is basically Project 2025. Trump’s Make America Great Again Pac is running ads calling it “Trump’s Project 2025”.The Make America Great Again Pac also created the website TrumpProject2025.com. In case there’s any doubt that Trump and the Heritage Foundation are working in close partnership, Trump can be seen in this video praising the Heritage Foundation and saying he “needs” them to “achieve” his goals.The close relationship between Trump and the Heritage Foundation goes back years. In 2018, the Heritage Foundation bragged that Trump had implemented two-thirds of their policy recommendations in his first year – more than any other president had done for them.The goals of Project 2025 are the same goals Trump tried to achieve in his first term or has been advocating in this campaign.One key goal of Project 2025 is to purge all government agencies of anyone more loyal to the constitution than to Trump – a process Trump himself started in October 2020 when he thought he would remain in office.Trump has promised to give rightwing evangelical Christians what they want. Accordingly, Project 2025 calls for withdrawing the abortion pill mifepristone from the market, expelling trans service members from the military, banning life-saving gender affirming care for young people, ending all diversity programs, and using “school choice” to gut public education.Project 2025 also calls for eliminating “woke propaganda” from all laws and federal regulations – including the terms “sexual orientation”, “diversity, equity, and inclusion”, “gender equality”, and “reproductive rights”.Other items in the Project 2025 blueprint are precisely what Trump has called for on the campaign trail, including mass arrests and deportations of undocumented people in the United States, ending many worker protections, dropping prosecutions of far-right militias like the Proud Boys, and giving additional tax cuts to big corporations and the rich.Trump has repeatedly claimed that climate change is a “hoax”. Project 2025 calls for expanding oil drilling in the United States, shrinking the geographic footprint of national monuments, terminating clean energy incentives, and ending fossil fuel regulations.Trump has said he’d seek vengeance against those who have prosecuted him for his illegal acts. Project 2025 calls for the prosecution of district attorneys Trump doesn’t like, and the takeover of law enforcement in blue cities and states.Project 2025 is, in short, the plan to implement what Donald Trump has said he wants to do if he’s re-elected.Trump may want to distance himself from Project 2025 in order to come off less bonkers to independents and moderates, but he can’t escape it. The document embodies everything he stands for.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com More

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      Joe Biden: key takeaways from the high-stakes ABC TV interview

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      Joe Biden is pushing back against questions about whether he has the mental and physical stamina to serve another term is president, arguing, in a much-hyped Friday television interview, “I just had a bad night.”In a pre-taped sit-down interview that aired on Friday evening, the 81-year-old president told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos that he had been sick, exhausted, and had not prepared well for last week’s presidential debate with Donald Trump.Biden’s performance was so poor that some Democrats, including Democratic members of Congress, are calling him to drop out of the race. But so far he has vowed to stay in the race.Here are some key takeaways:1. Biden blamed his debate performance on sickness“I was sick, I was feeling terrible,” Biden said, saying a doctor had tested him for coronavirus, but that it appeared he only had a bad cold.“It was a bad episode,” Biden said. “No indication of any serious condition.”He also blamed his opponent, Trump, who spent most of the debate spewing misinformation. “I let it distract me. I realized I just wasn’t in control.”After a week of blame-trading among Washington insiders about who on Biden’s staff might be held responsible for preparing the president poorly for the debate, Biden was also quick to shield his staff.“The whole way I prepared, nobody’s fault, mine. Nobody’s fault but mine.”2. He declined to commit to an independent cognitive assessment“I get a full neurological test every day,” Biden said, saying that his job as president and on the campaign trail was essentially a cognitive test. “I’ve had a full physical.”But asked if he had taken specific cognitive tests or an examination by a neurologist, Biden said: “No, no one said I had to … They said I’m good.”“I have medical doctors trailing me everywhere I go. I have an ongoing assessment of what I’m doing. They don’t hesitate to tell me if something is wrong,” he said.Asked if he disputed whether he had had more lapses in recent months, Biden said: “Can I run the 110 flat? No. But I’m still in good shape.”Asking if he was becoming “more frail” at 81, Biden said: “No. Come keep my schedule.”3. He doubled down on staying in the raceBiden said he had spoke to leading Democrats, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, and Jim Clyburn, and that “they all said I should stay in the race.” He pushed back against hypothetical questions about what he would do in response to being asked to step down. “They’re not going to do that,” he said. “Yeah, I’m sure.”“Look, I mean, If the Lord almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get out of the race,’ I might get out of the race – the Lord almighty’s not coming down.”He refused to answer repeated questions about what might happen if more Democrats pressed him to drop out: “I’m not going to answer that question. It’s not going to happen,” Biden said. Four members of Congress have called for him to cede the nomination, and several others have shown concern.Asked if he thought winning the 2024 race was going to be more difficult than winning the 2020 race agains Trump, Biden said: “Not when you’re running against a pathological liar … All the pollsters I talk to tell me it’s a toss-up … I don’t think anyone is more qualified to be president and win this race than me.”Asked if he was being honest with himself about his ability to beat Trump, Biden said: “Yes. Yes, yes, yes.”4. Biden said internal polling does not match low approval numbersWhen Stephanopoulos told Biden, “I’ve never seen a president with 36% approval get re-elected,” the president responded: “That’s not what our polls show.”He also said he does not believe polling data is as accurate as it used to be.5. Interview did not totally resolve concerns over Biden’s candidacyThere were no major gaffes or stumbles, as there were in Biden’s calamitous debate performance. The president rambled and repeated himself in some of his responses, but did not lose his train of thought or appear confused.However, even on what was clearly a much better night for Biden, the 81-year-old president does look and sound like a man in his 80s, and how Biden’s Democratic allies, and his voters, perceive his level of frailty is still an open question. More