President Joe Biden continues to face intense pressure to quit the race for the White House after more of his fellow Democrats added their voices to calls for him to step aside on Sunday – an unwelcome distraction as the president prepares to host a major Nato summit in Washington DC this week.
In behind-closed-door crisis talks convened by House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, several representatives including Jerry Nadler, Susan Wild, Adam Smith and Mark Takano suggested it was time for Biden, 81, to make way following his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump in Atlanta last month.
Five Democrats have now come forward publicly to say the same, with vice president Kamala Harris tipped to take over as the party’s 2024 nominee and praised by the influential Adam Schiff yesterday.
But the president insisted in an ABC interview on Friday that only “the Lord Almighty” could persuade him to go, saying he remains convinced he is the right man to challenge Trump.
Biden spent his weekend on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania, speaking at a church in Philadelphia yesterday before briefly meeting with campaign staff, union members and local Democrats, including senator John Fetterman.
Second Gentleman tests positive for Covid days after joining Biden for July 4 celebrations
Kamala Harris’s husband, Doug Emhoff, has tested positive for Covid-19 after experiencing mild symptoms, his office announced on Sunday, a diagnosis coming just days after he joined Biden for July 4 celebrations at the White House.
Emhoff spokesperson Liza Acevedo said in a statement that the second gentleman “is fully vaccinated and three times boosted” and that he is “currently asymptomatic, continuing to work remotely, and remaining away from others at home.”
Harris herself has tested negative and remains asymptomatic.
Acevedo said the veep was tested on Saturday “out of an abundance of caution” and the result was negative.
She is next scheduled to campaign in Las Vegas for Biden’s re-election on Tuesday.
Joe Sommerlad8 July 2024 14:00
Truth Social: Trump plays to his crowd with deluge of Biden memes
What’s Trump up to while Biden remains in a state of perma-crisis?
Flooding his social media echo chamber with favourable press clippings and polls claiming his recent felony conviction was rigged and otherwise engaging in meaningless trolling like the below.
He’s also heavily promoting his next rally in Florida tomorrow evening, which could swing the spotlight back his way.
Here’s Graig Graziosi with more on his latest taunts.
Joe Sommerlad8 July 2024 13:30
Biden’s woes worsen as Hunter plays adviser: ‘The s*** is going to hit the fan’
Here’s John Bowden on how the steady drip of Democratic dissent could be about to get a whole lot louder when Congress returns today, as the president’s troubled son continues to advise his old man to hang in there.
Joe Sommerlad8 July 2024 13:00
Biden’s doctor ‘met with Parkinson’s specialist at the White House’
Possibly a case of 2+2=5 here but The New York Post has reported that Dr Kevin O’Connor met with Dr Kevin Cannard, a leading specialist in Parkinson’s disease from the Walter Reed Medical Centre, at the White House on January 17 this year.
The Rupert Murdoch-owned tabloid found that out by examining White House visitor logs, which do not disclose the reason for a guest’s visit and it is therefore a bit of a leap to assume Dr Cannard was there to assess the commander-in-chief’s mental health, although it is not beyond the realms of possibility.
This is the Post’s impossibly tasteless current frontpage, incidentally, in case you were wondering where its allegiances lie.
It’s also worth saying again that the Biden camp has continued to deny that the president is suffering from cognitive decline or any other degenerative mental condition and has insisted that his “bad night” on the debate stage was simply the result of a cold.
Biden himself told George Stephanopoulos on Friday that he had no interest in receiving further testing, despite the likes of CNN chief medical correspondent Dr Sanjay Gupta urging him to do so.
Mike Bedigan brings us more on that.
Joe Sommerlad8 July 2024 12:30
Harris avoids all mention of Biden’s flubs at campaign stop
US vice president Kamala Harris barely mentioned her own running mate on Saturday as she spoke to Black voters and talked about the 2024 race at the annual Essence Festival in New Orleans.
Harris has been seen by many Democrats as the obvious choice to pick up the mantle of the party’s 2024 nomination should Biden step aside in the coming days – a proposition the president has firmly denied will take place.
But, in Louisiana, she appeared ready to take on that role regardless as she hammered Trump and sought to lay out the stakes of the election.
She spoke for just under 30 minutes and only mentioned Biden directly one time, making no mention of the growing movement within her party for the preisident to bow out of the 2024 race.
Instead, she reserved the majority of her words for Trump, whom allies of the incumbent president argue the press has not held to the same standard – despite the seemingly endless coverage of his criminal trials, convictions and innumerable scandals.
Here’s more John Bowden.
Joe Sommerlad8 July 2024 12:00
Joe Sommerlad8 July 2024 11:30
Biden prepares for Nato summit with eyes of the world upon him
The president will shift his focus from campaigning for re-election this week to hosting a major Nato summit. But that won’t quiet the increasingly urgent questions about his precarious political situation, which is now threatening to consume his own party at the worst possible moment.
European leaders gather in Washington DC on Tuesday to celebrating the North Atlantic military alliance’s 75th anniversary. Biden will attend a series of official events and hold a news conference.
Congress is also heading back into session, meaning there will be face-to-face meetings where Democratic lawmakers can discuss concerns about Biden’s ability to stay in the presidential race for its final four months — not to mention handle another term in the White House.
The Nato gathering should at least grant the American some respite and another opportunity to look presidential on the world stage, but it comes with another key test.
The summit will focus on Russia’s war with Ukraine, but likely overshadowing all of Biden’s other duties during it is a news conference set for Thursday.
His performance there will be as closely scrutinized as his ABC interview on Friday for further signs of frailty or mental struggles after his disastrous debate against Trump late last month.
Also, those gathering for the summit have discussed “Trump-proofing,” or safeguarding, Nato against a possible return of Trump to the White House — and those discussions could heat up because of the concerns about Biden’s political future.
The gathering unfolds the week before Republicans gather in Milwaukee to formally nominate Trump, who during the debate simply shrugged when Biden asked him if he would “stay in Nato or you’re going to pull out of Nato?”
Here’s a little background on the alliance and this week’s DC summit.
Joe Sommerlad8 July 2024 11:00
Schiff says Harris would be a ‘phenomenal’ president
Influential California representative Adam Schiff has said that US vice president Kamala Harris would make a “phenomenal” president and could “overwhelmingly” beat Trump in the 2024 race.
Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, the House Democrat expressed some anxiety about the incumbent remaining in this year’s presidential race, hinting that other options, such as Harris, could be a better option for their party.
However, he stopped short of calling Biden to step aside, saying that the decision is ultimately up to the president.
“I think the vice president would be a phenomenal president, I think she has the experience, the judgment, the leadership ability to be an extraordinary president,” Schiff said.
“But before we get into a decision about who else should be, the president needs to make a decision whether it’s him.”
Here’s more from Ariana Baio.
Joe Sommerlad8 July 2024 10:30
Fifth House Democrat calls for Biden to ‘step aside’ from 2024 race
Over the weekend, Minnesota congresswoman Angie Craig became the fifth Democrat to publicly call for the president to drop out of the 2024 race, warning that there is “simply too much at stake to risk a second Donald Trump presidency”.
Writing on X, she said: “I have great respect for President Biden’s decades of service to our nation and his steadfast commitment to making our country a better place.
“However, 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 the debate, I do not believe the president can effectively campaign and win against Donald Trump.”
Joe Sommerlad8 July 2024 10:00
More Democrats call for Biden to step aside in weekend ‘crisis talks’
President Joe Biden continues to face intense pressure to quit the race for the White House after more of his fellow Democrats added their voices to calls for him to step aside on Sunday – an unwelcome distraction as the president prepares to host a major Nato summit in Washington DC this week.
In behind-closed-door crisis talks convened by House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, several representatives including Jerry Nadler, Susan Wild, Adam Smith and Mark Takano suggested it was time for Biden, 81, to make way following his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump in Atlanta last month.
Here’s John Bowden’s report.
Joe Sommerlad8 July 2024 09:30