Category Archives: Joe Biden

Trump on whether US will strike Iran: ‘You will soon find out’ – live

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President says ‘stay tuned for next week’ when asked if he will authorize strike against Tehran in retaliation for attack on US drone

Alabama Republican Roy Moore, whose unsuccessful 2017 campaign for US Senate was marred by allegations he sexually assaulted or pursued teenage girls while in his 30s, is going to try again.

The Democratic candidate, Doug Jones, a former federal prosecutor, defeated Moore by a narrow margin in a special election in December 2017 to fill the seat vacated by Republican Jeff Sessions when he became US attorney general. Jones was the first Democrat in a quarter-century to be elected to the US Senate in Alabama.

AP is reporting that Roy Moore will jump into the Alabama Senate race https://t.co/gsALWyjY5v

Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders hold narrow leads in a theoretical showdown with President Trump in North Carolina ahead of the 2020 presidential race, according to a new Public Policy Polling survey released Thursday.

From The Hill:

Forty-nine percent of registered voters surveyed said they would back Biden in a match-up against Trump, while 46 percent said they would support the president. Five percent, meanwhile, said they are unsure who they’d back.

In a match-up against Sanders, 48 percent of North Carolina voters said they’d back the Vermont senator, compared with 47 percent who said they would vote for Trump; 5 percent said they were unsure of their pick.

No other candidate leads Trump in the poll.

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Biden clashes with 2020 rivals over his work with segregationist senators

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Former vice-president defies calls for apology after highlighting his relationships with lawmakers known for racist views

The Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden responded with defiance after a day of sharp criticism from fellow Democrats, after he named two southern segregationist senators as people he had managed to work with during his career.

In comments at a Wall Street fundraising event on Monday, Biden said that, despite major disagreements, he had worked with the senators with “some civility”. When reporters asked Biden late on Wednesday if he would apologize for his comments, the former vice-president responded, dismissively: “Apologize for what?”

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Trump announces departure of acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan – live

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WaPo’s Josh Rogin tweets:

Officials confirm to me Patrick Shanahan is not only withdrawing from consideration, he is resigning his current Pentagon post. Last day unclear. https://t.co/zufBzZ9nmz

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Biden, Sanders and Harris to face off as Democratic debate lineups set – live

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Trio drawn together for split NBC debate on 26-27 June, while Cory Booker, Elizabeth Warren and Beto O’Rourke to meet in other group

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting read about how after launching an atypical presidential election bid, Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign team is taking a more traditional path:

The campaign aims to build a political infrastructure that can operate regardless of what Mr. Trump says on stage or on social media. Mr. Trump’s Twitter feed is spoken of as his own brand, separate from the campaign.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders has only a few weeks left of her tenure as White House press secretary and the rumor mill is churning with possible replacements.

Four possible replacements, according to Reuters, are: Stephanie Grisham, Melania Trump’s communications director; Heather Nauert, the former State Department spokeswoman; Tony Sayegh, the outgoing Treasury department spokesman and Hogan Gidley, deputy White House secretary.

Once, after watching Gidley on his screen in the residence, the President walked over to the communications office to tell the staff he thought they were handling the shutdown well.

In the days afterward, Trump confused several officials when he directed them to, “Get me Tidley.”

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Biden in 2006 video: ‘I do not view abortion as a choice and a right’

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CNN unearths clip highlighting Democratic presidential candidate’s inconsistent record on the issue

A 2006 video of Joe Biden unearthed by CNN on Thursday shows the then senator saying he does not see abortion as “a choice and a right”.

“I do not view abortion as a choice and a right,” the 2020 Democratic presidential candidate said in a videotaped interview with Texas Monthly. “I think it’s always a tragedy. I think it should be rare and safe,” he added. “I think we should be focusing on how to limit the number of abortions.”

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Joe Biden in Iowa: Trump an ‘existential threat’ to America – live

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Biden and Trump to hold duelling rallies in key battleground state, while big tech under scrutiny at congressional hearing in Washington

Well, Donald Trump is tweeting again ... (not that he ever stopped).

The president took to his favorite social media platform on Tuesday to refer to the Russia investigation as “the Greatest Witch Hunt of all time” and once again suggest, falsely, that he had been exonerated by special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

“Mueller has spoken. He found No Collusion between the Trump Campaign and the Russians. The bottom line is what the Democrat House is doing is trying to destroy the Trump Presidency (which has been a tremendous success), and I can assure you that we’re done with the Mueller......

....investigation in the Senate. They can talk to John Dean until the cows come home, we’re not doing anything in the Senate regarding the Mueller Report. We are going to harden our Infrastructure against 2020!” @LindseyGrahamSC

Vice president Mike Pence has defended the Trump administration’s move to bar US embassies from flying the rainbow pride flag during LBGTQ pride month as “the right decision”.

“We’re proud to be able to serve every American,” Pence said in an interview with NBC News late Monday. “But when it comes to the American flagpole, and American embassies, and capitals around the world, one American flag flies.”

At least four US embassies – in Israel, Germany, Brazil and Latvia – were denied permission to fly the pride flag. Richard Grenell, the US ambassador to Germany, is spearheading an American campaign to decriminalize homosexuality around the world and said he would be “proud” to fly the rainbow flag.

But Mike Pompeo, the US secretary of state, believes that embassy flagpoles should be reserved for the American flag only, according to a spokeswoman.

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‘Leader of the resistance’: Democratic 2020 candidates converge on California

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Fourteen hopefuls flock to party convention in anti-Trump state with newly pivotal role in primaries

On a recent visit to California, Joe Biden polished off a plate of tacos with the Los Angeles mayor, Eric Garcetti. Pete Buttigieg was feted by Gwyneth Paltrow at a star-studded fundraising event in Los Angeles. Beto O’Rourke trekked to Yosemite national park to unveil his $5tn plan to combat climate change. And Kamala Harris, California’s native daughter, has flexed her home state credentials with a long list of local endorsements.

Competition is already well under way in California, but the race for the Golden State’s more than 400 delegates will heat up this weekend as more than half of the two dozen candidates auditioning for the chance to unseat Donald Trump arrive in San Francisco for the state party’s annual convention.

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Mueller: if Trump clearly had not committed a crime ‘we would have said so’ – live

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Special counsel gave public statement for first time about the investigation, prompting a response from Donald Trump: ‘The case is closed’

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tiptoed around calls for impeachment in a new statement responding to Mueller’s remarks. In her comments, she praised Mueller for his work and vowed to continue investigating the Trump administration.

“The Congress holds sacred its constitutional responsibility to investigate and hold the President accountable for his abuse of power,” she said. “The Congress will continue to investigate and legislate to protect our elections and secure our democracy. The American people must have the truth.”

Former South Carolina Democratic party chair Jamie Harrison on Wednesday launched his campaign for the Senate seat held by Lindsey Graham.

Here’s his launch video:

I may not be a superhero, but I am a proud South Carolinian, and I'm ready to fight for a better future for our state and our country. I hope you are, too. Find out how you can #JoinJaime and get involved: https://t.co/2jIqtqbKAB pic.twitter.com/zTjktJ1RpA

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she’d be ‘hard pressed’ to back Biden in primary

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Bernie Sanders appears to be the favorite to secure Ocasio-Cortez’s prized endorsement in the Democratic presidential primary

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive US congresswoman and social media sensation, has said she would be “hard pressed” to endorse the frontrunner, Joe Biden, in the Democratic presidential primary.

The statement is the latest sign of the left’s apathy towards the former vice-president, who has surged ahead of the Senator Bernie Sanders and other rivals in recent polls.

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Joe Biden says most important thing is to beat Donald Trump – video

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Formally launching his third presidential campaign, Joe Biden appealed for party and national unity while accusing Donald Trump of leading the US with ‘a clenched fist, a closed hand and a hard heart’. But, he said, ‘we are the United States of America and there is not a single thing we cannot do if we are together’. Biden was a senator representing Delaware for 36 years and vice-president to Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017. He was a relatively late entrant to the sprawling field seeking the Democratic nomination in 2020, with 23 candidates now in the running

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Biden rejects Trump’s ‘clenched fist’ in appeal for Democratic and US unity

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Formally launching his third presidential campaign, Joe Biden appealed for party and national unity while accusing Donald Trump of leading America with “a clenched fist, a closed hand and a hard heart”.

Related: Could climate change submerge Joe Biden's presidential bid?

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Trump praises Hungary’s far-right leader Orbán: ‘He’s a respected man’ – as it happened

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Trump welcomes Viktor Orbán to White House as Pompeo heads to meeting of EU nations in apparent attempt to soothe relations over Iran deal

Oh, the places you’ll go indeed, Rod Rosenstein.

After giving a commencement address and quoting Robert Mueller - you know, the man whose investigation he oversaw - Rosenstein went on to speak at the annual meeting of the Greater Baltimore Committee, where he continued to make waves.

Ex-Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein in a speech in Baltimore tonight is defending his handling of the Mueller probe and taking aim at ex-FBI director James Comey.

Rosenstein also says: “Based on what I knew in May 2017, the investigation of Russian election interference was justified.”

In his prepared remarks, Rosenstein said Trump, “did not tell me what reasons to put in my memo,” but noted what the special counsel report had said. He said he did not include what Trump wanted because it was not relevant, and he did not have personal knowledge of what Comey had told Trump.

Rosenstein said he “did not dislike” Comey but that Comey took steps that were “not within the range of reasonable decisions” during the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server. Rosenstein suggested that if he — rather than Trump — had been in charge, “the removal would have been handled very differently, with far more respect and far less drama.”

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Could climate change submerge Joe Biden’s presidential bid?

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The former vice-president has yet to put forward a plan to address global warming, which polls suggest is the single most important issue for Democrats

Climate change is transforming life by redrawing coastlines, turning vast areas of forest into infernos, stirring enormous storms and spreading exotic diseases. An indirect casualty of this upheaval could be Joe Biden’s hopes of becoming US president.

Biden, frontrunner in the polls to secure the Democratic nomination, has not laid out a plan to address the crisis.

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Who will win Iowa’s support in 2020? That depends on who’s really listening to us

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Joe Biden and 20 other Democrats are crawling over the state. But folks here would like to know: who’s in it for us?

Former vice-president Joe Biden returned to familiar turf in Cedar Rapids and Dubuque, Iowa, last week, fresh off his presidential announcement in Pittsburgh and enjoying a nice bump in some national polls.

He scored 35-40% support of Democrats just after jumping in, up 10 points from March. Bernie Sanders is maybe 10-15 points behind him. Truth be told, in Iowa half the likely caucus-goers eight months hence remain undecided. Many of Biden’s supporters in Iowa remain persuadable. The Des Moines Register’s Iowa Poll hasn’t weighed in since March.

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Anita Hill says she is not satisfied with Biden’s regret over 1991 hearings – live

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Hill said ‘I will be satisfied when I know there is real change’ after former vice-president’s campaign said he spoke to her

Charlottesville was a main focus in Joe Biden’s video announcing his run for president. It’s the first word he utters on camera, and the video features footage from the right-wing marches that took place in Charlottesville in 2017.

The core values of this nation… our standing in the world… our very democracy...everything that has made America -- America --is at stake. That’s why today I’m announcing my candidacy for President of the United States. #Joe2020 https://t.co/jzaQbyTEz3

“But I wasn’t surprised,” Bro, co-founder of the Heather Heyer Foundation set up in her daughter’s memory, told The Daily Beast. “Most people do that sort of thing. They capitalize on whatever situation is handy. He didn’t reach out to me, and didn’t mention her by name specifically, and he probably knew we don’t endorse candidates.”

In yet another instance of men telephoning women in performative but ultimately empty gestures, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey reportedly called Congresswoman Ilhan Omar regarding a tweet that President Trump broadcasted to his millions of followers that sparked a spike in death threats to the freshman lawmaker.

The Washington Post is reporting that in the phone call, Dorsey “stood by the company’s decision”:

Omar pressed Dorsey to explain why Twitter didn’t remove Trump’s tweet outright, according to a person familiar with the conversation who spoke on condition of anonymity because the call was private. Dorsey said that the president’s tweet didn’t violate the company’s rules, a second person from Twitter confirmed.

Dorsey also pointed to the fact that the tweet and video already had been viewed and shared far beyond the site, one of the sources said. But the Twitter executive did tell Omar that the tech giant needed to do a better job generally in removing hate and harassment from the site, according to the two people familiar with the call.

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Joe Biden: Anita Hill not satisfied with former vice-president’s apology

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Biden, who handled her testimony before the Senate in 1991, contacted Hill to express ‘regret for what she endured’

Former vice-president Joe Biden, who launched his third campaign for president on Thursday, told Anita Hill he regretted the way he handled her testimony against Clarence Thomas at the 1991 supreme court hearings but she was not “satisfied” by the conversation.

Biden contacted her earlier this month to express his “regret for what she endured” during the hearing, an attempt to reckon with a defining moment from his past that looms over his present bid for the White House.

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Joe Biden 2020: what you need to know – video profile

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Barack Obama's former vice-president has entered the race for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. It is his third presidential campaign – after two unsuccessful attempts at earning the nomination in 1988 and 2008. He joins a crowded and diverse field. If successful, the 76-year-old would become the oldest person to be elected president in US history

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Joe Biden jokes about having child’s permission to touch him – video

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The former vice-president joked that a child gave him 'permission to touch him' in his first public appearance since allegations last week by at least seven women that his physical behavior made them uncomfortable. Biden, who is widely expected to enter the 2020 presidential race, was speaking at a gathering of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Washington 

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‘He gave me permission’: Joe Biden jokes about touching complaints

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Former vice-president’s comments came during first public appearance since allegations from at least seven women surfaced

Joe Biden on Friday twice made joking references to complaints from women that his physical behavior made them uncomfortable.

The former vice-president’s comments came during his first public appearance since the allegations began to surface last week.

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Joe Biden issues statement on misconduct allegations – video

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The former vice-president and potential 2020 presidential candidate says it is his ‘responsibility’ to be more careful after several women said his touching made them uncomfortable. Biden used the video to say 'social norms have begun to change. They have shifted, and the boundaries of protecting personal space have been reset, and I get it' 

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