Biden vows to fight ‘poison of white supremacy’ at Morehouse speech

Speech warmly received at historically Black college despite backlash from students in weeks leading to address over war

Joe Biden told graduating students of Morehouse College that American democracy has failed the Black community, but vowed to continue fighting “the poison of white supremacy”, in a widely watched speech to a historically Black college during an election year.

Despite a backlash from some students and alumni in the weeks leading up to Biden’s commencement address, including over the Hamas-Israel war and concerns that Biden would use the speech as a campaign event, the president’s address to the all-male school was warmly received. He used his speech to reaffirm his commitment to democracy in the wake of the January 6 insurrection, and to reiterate his call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Continue reading...

Biden and Trump are betting on debates to help magnify the other’s weaknesses

Trump will look to again cast Biden as greatly diminished while Biden will aim to remind voters why they rejected Trump in 2020

It’s game on for a pair of presidential debates between two unpopular candidates most Americans wish weren’t running for the nation’s highest office.

In a ratatat social media exchange on Wednesday, Joe Biden and Donald Trump agreed to participate in two debates on 27 June, hosted by CNN, and on 10 September, hosted by ABC.

Continue reading...

Morehouse College faculty votes to give Biden honorary doctorate in split vote

Vote to confer was a 50-38 decision as students and alumni protest at Biden being commencement speaker over handling of Gaza war

Morehouse College faculty voted on Thursday to confer an honorary doctorate on Joe Biden during its upcoming graduation ceremony on Sunday, for which he plans to deliver the commencement address.

The vote to confer the honorary doctorate was a 50-38 decision, with about a dozen faculty members abstaining ahead of the planned visit, which has prompted protests from some students, faculty and alumni over the president’s handling of the war between Israel and Hamas.

Continue reading...

Biden asserts executive privilege to block release of special counsel interviews

House Republicans seek recordings of classified documents case interviews, in what Democrats call a ‘purely political’ move

Joe Biden asserted executive privilege to stop House Republicans obtaining recordings of his interviews with Robert Hur, the special counsel who investigated Biden’s retention of classified information after his time as a senator and as vice-president to Barack Obama.

In a letter reported by the New York Times and other outlets on Thursday, the White House counsel, Edward Siskel, told the Republican chairs of the House judiciary and oversight committees: “The absence of a legitimate need for the audio recordings lays bare your likely goal – to chop them up, distort them and use them for partisan political purposes.

Continue reading...

Biden should have pardoned Trump on federal charges, Mitt Romney says

Republican senator tells MSNBC that ‘frankly, the country doesn’t want to have to go through prosecuting a former president’

Joe Biden should have pardoned Donald Trump on all federal criminal charges the moment they were announced, the Utah senator and former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said.

“Had I been President Biden,” Romney said, “when the justice department brought out indictments, I would have immediately pardoned him. I’d have pardoned President Trump.”

Continue reading...

US interior department staffer is first Jewish Biden appointee to resign over war in Gaza

Lily Greenberg Call, special assistant to chief of staff, accused the president of using Jewish people to justify US policy in the conflict

An interior department staffer on Wednesday became the first Jewish political appointee to publicly resign in protest of US support for Israel’s war in Gaza.

Lily Greenberg Call, a special assistant to the chief of staff in the interior department, accused Joe Biden of using Jewish people to justify US policy in the conflict.

Continue reading...

Biden campaign accuses Trump of ‘playing games with debates’ – as it happened

This live blog is now closed. You can read more on the US presidential debates here:

In a letter to Joe Biden’s re-election campaign, top Donald Trump advisers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said the former president had accepted their invitation to participate in two debates, while demanding further face offs between the two candidates.

“Today is a good day for America’s voters, now that Joe Biden has FINALLY accepted President Trump’s debate challenge. President Trump and our campaign have been requesting this for months with a consistent message: ANY TIME! ANYWHERE! ANY PLACE!” Wiles and LaCivita write.

We believe there should be more than just two opportunities for the American people to hear more from the candidates themselves. With the soaring inflation of Bidenomics costing America’s hardworking families at the grocery store and at the gas pump, with our border being totally overrun, with chaos at home, chaos across the world, chaos on our college campuses, we should have one debate per month.

Therefore, we propose a debate in June, a debate in July, a debate in August, and a debate in September, in addition to the Vice Presidential debate. Additional dates will allow voters to have maximum exposure to the records and future visions of each candidate.

Crooked Joe Biden is the WORST debater I have ever faced - He can’t put two sentences together! Crooked is also the WORST President in the history of the United States, by far. It’s time for a debate so that he can explain to the American People his highly destructive Open Border Policy, new and ridiculous EV Mandates, the allowance of Crushing Inflation, High Taxes, and his really WEAK Foreign Policy, which is allowing the World to “Catch on Fire.” I am Ready and Willing to Debate Crooked Joe at the two proposed times in June and September. I would strongly recommend more than two debates and, for excitement purposes, a very large venue, although Biden is supposedly afraid of crowds - That’s only because he doesn’t get them. Just tell me when, I’ll be there. “Let’s get ready to Rumble!!!”

Continue reading...

Joe Biden and Donald Trump agree to two US presidential debates

Both candidates agreed upon two dates for debates: 27 June and 10 September, and Trump also posted about a third date in October

Shortly after the Biden-Harris re-election campaign proposed two TV debates between Joe Biden and Donald Trump ahead of November’s presidential vote, both men have agreed upon two debate dates: 27 June and 10 September.

CNN confirmed that it would host the first debate of 2024 on that date at 9pm ET from the crucial battleground state of Georgia.

Continue reading...

Don’t panic about presidential polls – yet

Trump’s criminal hush-money trial continues in New York, while both Trump and Biden fight for voters in swing states

Hello! Welcome back to our new US elections newsletter.

Non-Trump supporters have been all jittery this week, after a poll appeared to show Joe Biden getting royally stuffed by Trump in the election.

Continue reading...

US advances $1bn Israel weapons package amid Rafah tensions

Package in congressional review process after Biden delayed shipment of bombs over fears they would be used to attack Rafah

The US state department has moved a $1bn package of weapons aid for Israel into the congressional review process, two US officials said on Tuesday.

The latest weapons package includes tank rounds, mortars and armored tactical vehicles, one of the officials told Reuters.

Continue reading...

Biden announces 100% tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles

White House levy to protect US makers from cheap imports likely to inflame trade tensions

The US president, Joe Biden, has announced a 100% tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles as part of a package of measures designed to protect US manufacturers from cheap imports.

In a move that is likely to inflame trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies, the White House said it was imposing more stringent curbs on Chinese goods worth $18bn.

Continue reading...

Middle East crisis live: Israeli tanks push deeper into Rafah as Qatar PM warns ceasefire talks at stalemate

Israeli operation means truce negotiations cannot progress, says Sheikh Mohammed, as estimated 500,000 flee after evacuation order

Talks over a ceasefire in Gaza have reached a stalemate because of Israel’s operation in Rafah, Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, has said at an economic forum in Doha.

Sheikh Mohammed, whose country has mediated heavily between Hamas and Israel in trying to bring about a truce, said Qatar will continue its role. We will hopefully be able to bring you some quotes from the Qatari prime minister shortly.

Continue reading...

Biden signs bipartisan bill banning imports of Russian uranium

Ban, to begin in about 90 days, is White House’s latest effort to apply pressure on Vladimir Putin over his invasion of Ukraine

Joe Biden has signed into law a bipartisan bill that bans the import of enriched uranium from Russia, in the latest effort by Washington to apply further pressure on Vladimir Putin over his invasion of Ukraine.

The ban on imports of the fuel for nuclear power plants begins in about 90 days, although it allows the Department of Energy (DOE) to issue waivers in case of supply concerns, up until 2028.

Continue reading...

‘Strategic and moral mistakes’: US politicians step up condemnation of Israel

Democrat warns Hamas could become stronger if Israel wages all-out Rafah assault, while Blinken offers more measured comments

Politicians in the US on Sunday stepped up their denunciation of Israel over its conduct in Gaza, with a leading Democratic senator accusing the key American ally of “strategic and moral mistakes” – and secretary of state, Antony Blinken, saying it was testing the boundaries of international law.

In an interview on CNN’s State of the Union, the Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy, a member of the Senate foreign relations committee, warned that Hamas was likely to become stronger if Israel waged an all-out assault in Rafah.

Continue reading...

Trump praises fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter during rally speech

Ex-president calls Hopkins’ cannibalistic Lecter ‘late, great’ while condemning ‘people who are being released into our country’

Donald Trump on Saturday praised fictional serial killer Hannibal Lecter “as a wonderful man” before segueing into comments disparaging people who have immigrated into the US without permission.

The former president’s remarks to political rally-goers in Wildwood, New Jersey, as he challenges Joe Biden’s re-election in November were a not-so-subtle rhetorical bridge exalting Anthony Hopkins’ cannibalistic Lecter in Silence of the Lambs as “late [and] great” while simultaneously condemning “people who are being released into our country that we don’t want”.

Continue reading...

Could new US sanctions threaten future of West Bank settlements? | Emma Graham-Harrison and Quique Kierszenbaum

Joe Biden’s latest executive order gives scope to target the finances of Israeli politicians and businesses linked to extremists

Escalating US sanctions on violent settlers, initially taken as a mostly political rebuke to extremists, are now seen by some inside Israel as a potential threat to the financial viability of all Israeli settlements and companies in the occupied West Bank.

The Biden administration’s new controls on a handful of men and organisations linked to attacks on Palestinian civilians, first announced in February then expanded twice in March and April, have generally been treated in Israel and beyond more as a humiliating public censure of a close ally than as a major political shift.

Continue reading...

Terrified families flee Rafah as Israel set to open all-out assault

Leaflet instructs Palestinians to leave southern Gaza city as Benjamin Netanyahu shuns pressure from Joe Biden

More than a hundred thousand Palestinians fled Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, on Saturday, after Israeli warnings to evacuate before an imminent military assault that will open a bloody new phase of the seven-month-long conflict.

Roads leading out of Rafah were choked with long columns of young and old, sick and healthy, riding in overloaded pick-up trucks and battered cars, in pony carts and on hand-pulled trolleys. Many walked, carrying their belongings, under a searing summer sun. Some were pushed in wheelchairs or even carried.

Continue reading...

Court upholds Steve Bannon’s conviction for defying Jan 6 committee subpoena – as it happened

This live blog is now closed. For the latest on Bannon’s case, you can read our full report:

Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaigns are a study in contrasts.

While Biden spends his Friday fundraising on the west coast, making campaign stops in California and Washington, Trump sits through another day of his New York trial over Trump’s alleged falsification of business records in connection with hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

Continue reading...

Biden White House to expand tariffs on Chinese trade

President likely to add sectors such as electric vehicles, batteries and solar cells to range of levies set up under Donald Trump

Joe Biden is expected as early as next week to announce fresh tariffs on Chinese trade, with levies focused on strategic sectors including electric vehicles, in a review of measures first put into place under Donald Trump.

An announcement planned for Tuesday will keep the blanket tax rises introduced by the president’s predecessor but supplement them with targeted levies on industries connected to EVs, including batteries and solar cells, according to reports.

Continue reading...

Vulnerable Biden tries to straddle both sides with new asylum rules

The president is under pressure from Republicans and progressives as humanitarian crisis builds and immigration remains a key voter issue

The Biden administration has said its proposed changes to asylum standards, unveiled on Thursday, that would fast-track some deportation will enhance security and speed up a backlog of cases amid record numbers of arrivals at the US-Mexico border.

The changes will also, by Biden’s own admission, be limited in scope and only affect a “small” number of people who have been convicted of serious crimes or may pose a national security risk.

Continue reading...