Category Archives: US Politics

Cracks showing in Democratic support as Biden says he ‘nearly fell asleep on stage’

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Polls show Kamala Harris would be only a point behind Trump if she were to replace Biden in presidential contest

Cracks in support among Democratic leaders for Joe Biden’s campaign continued to widen on Wednesday ahead of his evening meeting with Democratic governors, as Barack Obama reportedly privately shared that he believed Biden’s path to re-election had become even tougher.

Biden will be talking with state governors and Capitol Hill leaders all week, officials indicated on Tuesday, in attempts to reassure them of his competence after last week’s calamitous debate performance against Donald Trump. The White House said Biden will also sit for an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Friday, to be aired over the weekend.

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Texas congressman becomes first House Democrat to call on Biden to withdraw

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Lloyd Doggett breaks ranks and says Biden should not continue presidential run after Trump debate calamity

The first congressional Democrat has broken ranks and called on Joe Biden to withdraw his presidential candidacy following last week’s calamitous debate performance against Donald Trump.

Lloyd Doggett, a House member for Texas, became the first Democrat in the House of Representative to urge the president to stop aside amid continuing signs of underlying alarm in the wider party over his electability triggered by his faltering display in Atlanta.

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US-Mexico border crossings fall to three-year low after Biden’s executive order

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About 84,000 people crossed into the US in June, the lowest monthly total since Biden assumed office in January 2021

Undocumented crossings at the US’s southern border have fallen to a three-year low, marking the lowest in Joe Biden’s presidency just a short time after he signed a controversial executive order limiting immigration there in June.

The latest data from the federal Customs and Border Patrol obtained by CBS News is the most recent since Biden signed his executive order – and comes as the president is accused of failing to address concerns about the amount of people crossing into the US without permission.

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Sotomayor says immunity ruling makes a president ‘king above the law’

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Stark dissent from liberal supreme court justice says decision will let presidents commit crimes with impunity

In a stark dissent from the conservative-majority US supreme court’s opinion granting Donald Trump some immunity from criminal prosecution, the liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor said the decision was a “mockery” that makes a president a “king above the law”.

The court ruled Monday that Trump cannot be prosecuted for “official acts” he took while president, setting up tests for which of the federal criminal charges over his attempt to subvert the 2020 election are considered official and sending the case back to a lower court to decide.

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Anxious donors plot next moves after Biden debate calamity

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Campaign announces record fundraising in wake of Trump debate but wealthy Democrats undecided on path forward

A silver lining of Joe Biden’s pernicious debate performance was, according to a succession of upbeat emails from the president’s re-election campaign, a record fundraising haul.

By Sunday night, only three days after he stumbled through 90 painful minutes in the company of presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, more than $33m had dropped into Biden campaign coffers. Debate day itself was “our best grassroots fundraising day ever”, officials announced.

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Biden’s family reportedly tell him to stay in presidential race as blame shifts to advisers

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The US president met with his family at Camp David, after a disastrous debate performance last week led to calls for him to drop out of the election

Joe Biden’s family have urged him stay in the race after a disastrous debate performance last week, according to reports in the US media, as senior democrats and donors have expressed exasperation at how his staff prepared him for the event.

The president gathered with his family at Camp David on Sunday, where discussions were reported to include questions over his political future. It came after days of mounting pressure on Biden, after a debate in which his halting performance highlighted his vulnerabilities and invited calls from pundits, media and voters for him to step aside.

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Lindsey Graham warns ‘accountability coming to Biden’ if Trump wins

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Republican senator warns of retribution: ‘Pandora’s box opened by the Democrats is going to be applied’

South Carolina’s Republican senator Lindsey Graham warned of retribution against Democrats amid Donald Trump’s ongoing criminal cases.

In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on Sunday, Graham, a staunch Trump ally, said without evidence, “The Democrats keep calling president Trump a felon. Well, be careful what you wish for. I expect there will be an investigation of Biden’s criminality at the border.”

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Biden meets with his family amid pressures to step down after debate

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Officials dismiss reports family would discuss president quitting race and say summit was scheduled before debate

Joe Biden was meeting with his family on Sunday, a discussion believed to include talk about his political future even though it was already scheduled to take place before his calamitous presidential debate on Thursday with Donald Trump.

The meeting at Camp David came as pressures mounted on Biden following the vast fallout of the debate, in which his halting performance highlighted his vulnerabilities in a close election and invited calls from pundits, media and voters for him to step aside.

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Most voters want Biden to step down, but don’t agree on suitable alternative – poll

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60% of respondents, Republicans and Democrats, say president should be replaced, while 11% were unsure

A majority of voters want Joe Biden to stand down following his dismal debate performance, yet aren’t convinced there is a suitable alternative Democratic candidate, new polls have found.

In a Morning Consult poll, 60% of respondents, Republicans and Democrats, said the president should be replaced by his party for November’s election, while another 11% were unsure.

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Trump loyalists plan to name and shame ‘blacklist’ of federal workers

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AAF to publish dossiers of employees they consider hostile to ex-president, with goal of ultimately replacing them

Armed with rhetoric about the “deep state”, a conservative-backed group is planning to publicly name and shame career government employees that they consider hostile to Donald Trump.

This “blacklist” of civil servants, which will be published online, is intended to advance Trump’s broader goals, which, if elected, include weeding out government employees and replacing them with loyalists.

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Black swing voters in Georgia aren’t swayed by the ‘Trump okey-doke’ – and then there’s Biden

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From a barbershop and a cigar bar in Atlanta, many Black voters say they remain undecided after an underwhelming debate

Inside a barbershop in Atlanta’s affluent Buckhead neighborhood, eight Black men gathered to talk politics on the day before the presidential debate. Most were business owners around town, social media stars and notable conservatives.

All but one.

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Could Kamala Harris be a winner for the Democrats if Biden steps aside?

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The vice-president would be a logical choice if Biden does opt out, but some are already looking to other contenders

Joe Biden’s stumbling debate performance left Democrats so panicked some are searching for an alternative to replace the 81-year-old president as the party’s standard-bearer.

Biden has given no indication that he intends to exit the race, and his campaign has flatly dismissed the suggestion. But that has done little to silence critics who are openly questioning whether Biden is the right person to take on Donald Trump, a figure the president – and his party – view as a grave threat to American democracy.

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Trump claims ‘big victory’ over Biden despite lying in debate

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Former president claims ‘no amount of rest or rigging could help’ Biden during victory lap at Virginia rally

Donald Trump wasted no time bringing up Thursday’s debate at a rally in Virginia on Friday.

“Hello, Virginia,” he opened to a crowd in Chesapeake. “Did anybody last night watch a thing called the debate?”

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Biden comes out swinging in first speech after presidential debate with Trump

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Attendees note ‘night and day’ difference between campaign stop in North Carolina and ‘lackluster’ debate showing

In what several supporters described as a “night and day” difference from his performance in last night’s debate, President Joe Biden on Friday vowed to keep fighting against what he framed as an existential threat to America.

In his first campaign stop following the debate, Biden showed off a louder and more dynamic voice at the North Carolina state fairgrounds in Raleigh.

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US supreme court rejects Steve Bannon attempt to avoid prison

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Trump ally, convicted of contempt of Congress, fails in bid for emergency delay and must report to prison by Monday

The supreme court has rejected Steve Bannon’s attempt to avoid prison time following his contempt of Congress convictions.

In a brief ruling issued on Friday, the supreme court ordered Donald Trump’s former adviser, who has been challenging convictions over his defiance of subpoenas surrounding the House’s January 6 insurrection investigation, to report to prison by Monday.

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‘Biden can’t do it’: European politicians shocked by US president’s debate flop

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Some call for rethink by Democrats and say continent must step up preparations for another Trump term

European politicians, already drowning in multiple crises of their own, were left shell-shocked and aghast at Joe Biden’s meandering performance in Thursday’s presidential debate, aware that a second Trump term had drawn that much nearer – with all that this implies for the rise of populism in the continent, the future of Nato, and for Ukraine and the Middle East.

The voices of despair came from across the mainstream political spectrum, interspersed with the odd call for Europe to prepare even more intensively for a Trump second coming.

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‘10 minutes to destroy a presidency’: how US and global media reviewed the Biden-Trump debate

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Headlines echoed Democrats’ anxiety that Biden is too cognitively weak and physically frail for another term

US voters woke up to post-debate reviews of the first Biden-Trump debate with headlines that echoed Democrats’ anxiety that the incumbent president is too cognitively weak and physically frail to sustain another five months of political campaigning or another term in office.

Those anxieties, multiple outlets reported, were being reflected in pressure from Democratic donors and former Democratic officials who are now openly talking about replacing Biden with an alternative presidential candidate at the party’s convention in Chicago in August.

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RFK Jr claims Republicans, Democrats and CNN conspired to exclude him from debate

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Independent candidate is polling at about 8%, but could be a spoiler in November contest between Trump and Biden

Robert F Kennedy Jr, the independent US presidential candidate polling at about 8%, won’t be at tonight’s Biden-Trump TV smackdown in Atlanta. But he’s not taking the diss quietly, and has accused debate host CNN of colluding with the major party campaigns to exclude him.

In an email statement on Wednesday, the Kennedy campaign claimed that 71% of Americans want to see him on the debate stage, and in an act of counter-programming he plans an alternative “real” debate on Elon’s Musk’s Twitter/X platform at the same time.

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Black Alabama mayor reinstated after nearly four-year battle

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A secret election by white town council blocked Newbern mayor Patrick Braxton from serving for four years: ‘we can put this behind us’

Patrick Braxton, the first Black mayor of an Alabama town that has not held elections in several decades, has spent the last four years fighting to be recognized. Finally, after an extensive legal battle, he and the town officials who refused to acknowledge him as mayor have reached a settlement, according to federal court documents.

Per the settlement agreement, Braxton will be officially be seated as the mayor of Newbern, Alabama, and be able to fully serve in this capacity for the first time in nearly four years, pending approval by by Judge Kristi K. DuBose of the Southern District of Alabama.

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US Congress faces growing calls to withdraw Netanyahu invitation: ‘a terrible mistake’

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Notable Israelis add their voices to oppose invite extended by Mike Johnson, which Democrats plan to boycott

A group of prominent Israelis – including a former prime minister and an ex-head of Mossad, the foreign intelligence service – have added their voices to the growing domestic calls in the US for Congress to withdraw its invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu to address it next month, calling the move “a terrible mistake”.

The plea, in an op-ed article in the New York Times, argues that the invitation rewards Netanyahu, Israel’s current prime minister, for “scandalous and destructive conduct”, including intelligence failures that led to last October’s deadly Hamas attack and the ensuing bloody war in Gaza which shows no sign of ending.

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