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Tag: joe biden

  • Kamala Harris Just Called Out Joe Biden’s ‘Ego’ & ‘Self-Serving’ Behavior—It Was ‘Recklessness’

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    Kamala Harris is finally opening up about Joe Biden‘s bid for re-election in her new memoir. The book titled 107 Days
     features the former Vice President’s unfiltered thoughts about the former President’s decision.

    Harris wrote that the Biden administration had undermined her bid for the presidency in the wake of the 2024 election. The former California Attorney General had thought about recommending to Biden that he should not seek reelection, but it put her in a tough position to be his recommended successor. She called the decision, “incredibly self-serving.” “He would see it as naked ambition, perhaps as poisonous disloyalty, even if my only message was: Don’t let the other guy win,” she said.

    “‘It’s Joe and Jill’s decision.’ We all said that, like a mantra, as if we’d all been hypnotized,” Harris wrote in an excerpt published by The Atlantic. “Was it grace, or was it recklessness? In retrospect, I think it was recklessness. The stakes were simply too high. This wasn’t a choice that should have been left to an individual’s ego, an individual’s ambition. It should have been more than a personal decision.”

    Related: Obama & Harris’ Relationship Takes Perplexing Turn After Report Barack ‘Did Not Want Her’ as a Presidential Nominee

    107 Days by Kamala Harris

    However, Harris did not see Biden, who was 81 at the time of re-election, as unfit to serve the country. The vice president blamed traveling for his May debate stumble. “At 81, Joe got tired. That’s when his age showed in physical and verbal stumbles,” she wrote. “I don’t think it’s any surprise that the debate debacle happened right after two back-to-back trips to Europe and a flight to the West Coast for a Hollywood fundraiser.”

    Harris also revealed that Biden’s team didn’t take salacious press stories seriously. “When the stories were unfair or inaccurate, the president’s inner circle seemed fine with it,” she wrote. “Indeed, it seemed as if they decided I should be knocked down a little bit more.” She learned that Biden’s staff was “adding fuel to negative narratives that sprang up” about her.

    107 Days chronicles Kamala Harris’ journey as the Democratic presidential candidate following Biden’s dropout all the way up to President Donald Trump’s victory in the November election. The book will be released on Sept. 23.

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    Lea Veloso

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  • From Bernie Sanders to Theo Von: These Democratic Kingmakers Will Anoint the Next Obama

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    In some particularly tortured living rooms across America, people are playing a parlor game called Who Is the Next Democratic Leader? Its central premise is that someone will save Democrats specifically and democracy more generally. Maybe that’s true, maybe another Obama will spring from the head of Zeus fully formed and serving in the Senate, or maybe it will be a big messy primary à la 2016 or 2020.

    But before asking who the next leader of the party is or will be, it helps to ask who are today’s Democratic kingmakers who can anoint an upstart with legitimacy, who can help shepherd a chaotic Democratic Party apparatus behind a rising star. Some of the faces are familiar, some are newcomers wielding tremendous power.

    When I asked Dan Pfeiffer, my favorite of the Pod Save America guys, he essentially rejected the premise of my question. “Given how most Democrats feel about the party these days, endorsements from establishment leaders are likely to be net negatives, and people will be clamoring for the support of party outsiders.”

    I heard something similar from Bradley Tusk, a venture capitalist who previously served as a deputy governor of Illinois and as a campaign manager for Mike Bloomberg’s 2009 mayoral campaign. “I feel like that world doesn’t exist anymore. Party machines are mainly dead,” Tusk wrote to me. “Endorsements typically don’t matter much because people have so little faith in institutions. The candidate with the most money doesn’t necessarily win so having rich donors isn’t enough. I think now it’s a cult of personality rather than being blessed by a kingmaker.”

    These responses capture the wider frustration with the Democratic Party, but I don’t necessarily agree that this sentiment negates the influence that powerful figures could potentially wield.

    I got much more fulsome responses when I granted sources anonymity. “I think Nancy Pelosi still plays a big role,” one young congressional staffer told me. “Mike Bloomberg and Bill and Melinda Gates. Donors: George Soros, Laurene Powell Jobs, and Future Forward PAC. Rachel Maddow.” She added that Obama is still very much a kingmaker in the party, and that his endorsement was helpful to Kamala Harris’s campaign. Similarly, a famous writer told me that “despite being old and tired, you gotta say that [Chuck] Schumer and [Hakeem] Jeffries are still kingmakers—helps to have their support.”

    It also seems inevitable that the next Obama will almost certainly need the support of a broad podcast coalition. In the 2024 election, Kamala Harris’s campaign didn’t end up doing Joe Rogan’s show. “There was a backlash with some of our progressive staff that didn’t want her to be on it, and how there would be a backlash,” campaign adviser Jennifer Palmieri said, according to the reporting by the Financial Times. But next time, the young congressional staffer told me, things will be different. “In an upcoming election, a Joe Rogan endorsement could mean almost as much as an Obama endorsement.”

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    Molly Jong-Fast

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  • Michigan judge tosses case against 15 accused fake electors for President Trump in 2020

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    A Michigan judge dismissed criminal charges Tuesday against a group of people who were accused of attempting to falsely certify President Donald Trump as the winner of the 2020 election in the battleground state, a major blow to prosecutors as similar cases in four other states have been muddied with setbacks.

    District Court Judge Kristen D. Simmons said in a court hearing that the 15 Republicans accused will not face trial. The case has dragged through the courts since Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, announced the charges over two years ago.

    Each member of the group, which included a few high-profile members of the Republican Party in Michigan, faced eight charges of forgery and conspiracy to commit election forgery. The top felony charges carried a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.

    Investigators said the group met at the Michigan GOP headquarters in December of 2020 and signed a document falsely stating they were the state’s “duly elected and qualified electors.” President Joe Biden won Michigan by nearly 155,000 votes, a result confirmed by a GOP-led state Senate investigation in 2021.

    Electors are part of the 538-member Electoral College that officially elects the president of the United States. In 48 states, electors vote for the candidate who won the popular vote. In Nebraska and Maine, elector votes are awarded based on congressional district and statewide results.

    One man accused in the Michigan case had the charges against him dropped after he agreed to cooperate with the state attorney general’s office in October 2023. The other 15 defendants pleaded not guilty and have maintained that their actions were not illegal.

    Judge Simmons took nearly a year to say whether there was sufficient evidence to bring the cases to trial following a series of lengthy preliminary hearings.

    Prosecutors in Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin and Arizona have also filed criminal charges related to the fake electors scheme. None of the cases have neared the trial stage and many have been bogged down by procedural and appellate delays.

    In Nevada, the state attorney general revived a case against a group of allegedly fake electors last year, while a judge in Arizona ordered a similar case back to a grand jury in May. In Wisconsin last month, a judge declined to dismiss felony charges against three Trump allies connected to a plan to falsely cast electoral ballots for Trump even though Biden won the state in 2020.

    The Georgia prosecution is essentially on hold while Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis in Atlanta, who brought the charges against President Trump and others appeals her removal from the case. Technically, Trump is still a defendant in the case, but as the sitting president, it is highly unlikely that any prosecution against him could proceed while he’s in office.

    The effort to secure fake electors was central to the federal indictment against Trump that was abandoned earlier this year shortly before Trump took office for his second term.

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  • Biden launches fundraising push to build his presidential library

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    Former President Joe Biden has decided to build his presidential library in Delaware, an aide confirmed to CBS News on Saturday. The 82-year-old former president has tapped a group of former aides, friends and political allies to begin the heavy lift of fundraising and finding a site for the museum and archive.

    The Joe and Jill Biden Foundation, this past week, approved a 13-person governance board that is charged with steering the project that includes former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, longtime adviser Steve Ricchetti, prolific Democratic fundraiser Rufus Gifford, a list provided to CBS News shows. Gifford will serve as the board’s chair.

    Biden’s library team faces the daunting task of raising money for the 46th president’s legacy project at a moment when his party is divided about the way forward and many major Democratic donors have ceased writing checks.

    It also remains to be seen whether corporations and institutional donors that have historically donated to presidential library projects — regardless of the party of the former president — will be more hesitant to contribute, with President Trump maligning Biden on a daily basis and savaging groups he deems left-leaning.

    The political climate has changed

    “There’s certainly folks — folks who may have been not thinking about those kinds of issues who are starting to think about them,” Gifford, who was named chairman of the library board, told The Associated Press. “That being said … we’re not going to create a budget, we’re not going to set a goal for ourselves that we don’t believe we can hit.”

    The cost of presidential libraries has soared over the decades.

    The George H.W. Bush library’s construction cost came in at about $43 million when it opened in 1997. Bill Clinton’s cost about $165 million. George W. Bush’s team met its $500 million fundraising goal before the library was dedicated.

    The Obama Foundation has set a whopping $1.6 billion fundraising goal for construction, sustaining global programming and seeding an endowment for the Chicago presidential center that is slated to open next year.

    Former President Joe Biden

    Nam Y. Huh / AP


    Biden’s library team is still in the early stages of planning, but Gifford predicted that the cost of the project would probably “end up somewhere in the middle” of the Obama Presidential Center and the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum.

    Biden advisers have met with officials operating 12 of the 13 presidential libraries with a bricks-and-mortar presence that the National Archives and Records Administration manages. (They skipped the Herbert Hoover library in Iowa, which is closed for renovations.) They’ve also met Obama library officials to discuss programming and location considerations and have begun talks with Delaware leaders to assess potential partnerships.

    Private money builds libraries

    Construction and support for programming for the libraries are paid for with private funds donated to the nonprofit organizations established by the former president.

    The initial vision is for the Biden library to include an immersive museum detailing Biden’s four years in office.

    The Bidens also want it to be a hub for leadership, service and civic engagement that will include educational and event space to host policy gatherings.

    Biden, who ended his bid for a second White House term 107 days before last year’s election, has been relatively slow to move on presidential library planning compared with most of his recent predecessors.

    Clinton announced Little Rock, Arkansas, would host his library weeks into his second term.  Barack Obama selected Jackson Park on Chicago’s South Side as the site for his presidential center before he left office, and George W. Bush selected Southern Methodist University in Dallas before finishing his second term.

    One-termer George H.W. Bush announced in 1991, more than a year before he would lose his reelection bid, that he would establish his presidential library at Texas A&M University after he left office.

    Trump taps legal settlements for his

    Mr. Trump was mostly quiet about plans for a presidential library after losing to Biden in 2020 and has remained so since his return to the White House this year. But the Republican has won millions of dollars in lawsuits against Paramount Global, ABC News, Meta and X, in which parts of those settlements are directed for a future Trump library.

    Mr. Trump has also accepted a free Air Force One replacement from the Qatar government. He says the $400 million plane would be donated to his future presidential library, similar to how the Boeing 707 used by President Ronald Reagan was decommissioned and put on display as a museum piece, once he leaves office.

    Others named to Biden’s library board are former senior White House aides Elizabeth Alexander, Julissa Reynoso Pantaleón and Cedric Richmond; David Cohen, a former ambassador to Canada and telecom executive; Tatiana Brandt Copeland, a Delaware philanthropist; Jeff Peck, Biden Foundation treasurer and former Senate aide; Fred C. Sears II, Biden’s longtime friend; former Labor Secretary Marty Walsh; former Office of Management and Budget director Shalanda Young; and former Delaware Gov. Jack Markell.

    Biden has deep ties to Pennsylvania but ultimately settled on Delaware, the state that was the launching pad for his political career. He was first elected to the New Castle County Council in 1970 and spent 36 years representing Delaware in the Senate before serving as Obama’s vice president.

    The president was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where he lived until age 10. He left when his father, struggling to make ends meet, moved the family to Delaware after landing a job there selling cars.

    Working-class Scranton became a touchstone in Biden’s political narrative during his long political career. He also served as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania after his vice presidency, leading a center on diplomacy and global engagement at the school named after him.

    Gifford said ultimately the Bidens felt that Delaware was where the library should be because the state has “propelled his entire political career.”

    Elected officials in Delaware are cheering Biden’s move.

    “To Delaware, he will always be our favorite son,” Gov. Matt Meyer said. “The new presidential library here in Delaware will give future generations the chance to see his story of resilience, family, and never forgetting your roots.”

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  • Joe Biden undergoes surgery to remove skin cancer on forehead

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    Joe Biden recently underwent surgery to remove skin cancer lesions, a spokesperson said Thursday, the latest health challenge for the former president.

    His spokesperson Kelly Scully confirmed the surgery after Inside Edition published video of Biden leaving church in Delaware with a fresh scar on his forehead.

    She said Biden received Mohs surgery, a procedure used to cut away skin until no evidence of cancer remains.

    Two years ago, while Biden was in office, he had a lesion removed from his chest. The lesion was basal cell carcinoma, a common form of skin cancer.

    Former President Joe Biden has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer, his office confirmed Sunday.

    In March, Biden’s office announced that he had been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer that had spread to his bones.

    “Cancer touches us all,” Biden wrote on social media at the time. “Like so many of you, Jill and I have learned that we are strongest in the broken places.”

    The Biden family has faced cancer repeatedly over the years. Biden’s son Beau died of a brain tumor, and his wife, Jill, had two cancerous lesions removed.

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    Chris Megerian | The Associated Press

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  • Navy reverses demotion of Rep. Ronny Jackson, former White House doctor under Trump and Obama

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    Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas, a former White House physician, announced Wednesday that the Navy has restored his retired rank of rear admiral, overturning a 2022 demotion that followed a scathing investigation into his behavior during his time at the White House. 

    Jackson posted a June 13 letter from Navy Secretary John Phelan saying he had reinstated Jackson to the retired rank of a one-star admiral following a “review of all applicable reports and references.” 

    The Navy confirmed the move to CBS News. A spokesperson for Phelan said he “greatly appreciates Congressman Jackson’s decades of distinguished naval service, and values his continued support to the United States Naval Academy as a member of the Board of Visitors.”

    Following his 2019 retirement from the Navy, Jackson was retroactively demoted after a yearslong investigation into his behavior. A report by the Pentagon’s inspector general found that he made “sexual and denigrating” comments about a female subordinate, violated the policy on drinking alcohol on a presidential trip, and took prescription-strength sleeping medication that prompted worries from his colleagues about his ability to provide proper medical care. Jackson has denied the allegations and claimed he was subject to a “political hit job.”

    Jackson served in the White House Medical Unit during the Bush, Obama and first Trump administrations. While he served as White House physician to both Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, Jackson garnered the most public attention for his statements about Mr. Trump’s health during his first term. In one 2018 press briefing following Mr. Trump’s physical, Jackson said the president “has incredibly good genes.”

    “I told the president that if he had a healthier diet over the last 20 years, he might live to be 200 years old,” he said at the time.

    Mr. Trump later nominated Jackson to serve as secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs, but he withdrew from the process and later worked as Mr. Trump’s chief medical adviser. Jackson was elected to Congress in 2020.

    On Wednesday, Jackson posted to X: “I was, and still am, a retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral, and Joe Biden is a retired old FOOL.”

    The decision to restore Jackson’s rank comes as the Pentagon is becoming increasingly transparent in offering benefits and consideration to Mr. Trump’s supporters.

    Last week, military officials revealed that Ashli Babbitt, the rioter who was killed by an officer in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, would be offered military funeral honors. A U.S. Air Force veteran from California, Babbitt was shot and killed wearing a Trump campaign flag wrapped around her shoulders while trying to climb through the broken window of a barricaded door leading to the Speaker’s Lobby inside the Capitol.

    Meanwhile, the Pentagon has considered expediting the process to reinstate former service members who were discharged for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine, sources told CBS News last week.

    At the same time, those who are seen as disloyal have been punished. Two weeks ago, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse, who oversaw the intelligence agency that produced an initial intelligence assessment of U.S. damage to Iranian nuclear sites that angered Trump.

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  • Why Donald Trump Death Rumors and Health Conspiracies Will Keep Going Viral

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    Donald Trump appeared live from the Oval Office on Tuesday, standing in front of a podium and, though having emerged nearly an hour later than scheduled, looking entirely normal. Flanked by members of his administration and select Republican members of Congress, Trump announced that US Space Command would be moving from Colorado to Huntsville, Alabama. It was a seemingly mundane announcement, but the live appearance had deeper significance for the chronically online: proof of life after a weekend of rampant speculation about his health.

    Presidential vitality has long been a reliable font for conspiracies, but the speed and breadth of the most recent round of speculation—spurred largely by a lack of scheduled public appearances, some slightly inopportune asides from Vice President JD Vance, and a news aggregator powered by the online betting site Polymarket—served as a reminder of how singular a figure Trump is in such matters. His tendency to engage with rumor and speculation himself and the rabidity of feeling he inspires in admirers and detractors alike both seem to play a large role.

    “Trump’s death has been the subject of a lot of online content for years now, but especially over the past year, since he took office,” Taylor Lorenz, an internet-culture journalist and the author of Extremely Online, tells Vanity Fair. As morbid as it might be, she adds, “there’s this pent-up anticipation and excitement for it to happen.”

    When people notice a confluence of any activity relating to Trump’s health, it becomes an opportunity to post jokes about the possibility of his passing, which fuels further speculation.

    “It sort of just feeds itself,” Lorenz says.

    “It feels cathartic for these people that feel like Trump has done enormous harm over the past two terms,” Lorenz explains, noting that that’s why you see Spotify playlists titled with some variation of “When It Happens,” made in preparation to celebrate Trump’s eventual demise.

    Adam Cochran, a tech and crypto investor, as well as an academic who conducts what he considers to be independent investigative journalism, contributed extensively to the discourse, posting a 31-part thread proposing that the White House was partaking in a cover-up. With Cochran’s follower count of more than 200,000 on X, plus the additional boost that the platform’s verification system provides, the first post in his Sunday-afternoon thread has been viewed 11.3 million times, amassing 71,000 likes as of Wednesday afternoon. He argues that while some people, himself included, would celebrate Trump’s no longer being in office, “that is markedly different than wishing him ill.” Cochran tells VF that, in most cases, the crass jokes about Trump’s demise stem from “people’s frustrations rather than actual wishes of harm.”

    During his Tuesday press briefing in the Oval Office, Trump was asked about the theories, dismissing them as “fake news.” Trump claimed that he was “very active, actually, over the weekend,” referencing his exhaustive Truth Social posting and visits to his Virginia golf club. He also pointed to appearances last week, including an interview he did with The Daily Caller.

    A detailed view of the hand Donald Trump, September 2, 2025 in Washington, DC.by Alex Wong/Getty Images.

    Concern over Trump’s transparency on the matter of his personal health is not entirely unwarranted. At the end of his term, Trump will be the oldest serving president ever, and his second term follows Joe Biden’s tumultuous presidency, which was often overshadowed by intense speculation over the now former president’s mental acuity.

    “Trump has never been forthcoming about his health,” New York Times reporter and Trump chronicler Maggie Haberman told me in a June interview. She recalled October 2020, when Trump—who, she said, “views sickness as weakness”—was diagnosed with COVID and reportedly turned out to have been far more ill than he and the administration let on. Some officials believed, per Haberman, that Trump could have died had he not been given a Regeneron treatment involving monoclonal antibodies. “That’s scary, how perilous that moment was, and how little real-time information the public had,” Haberman said.

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    Natalie Korach

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  • How Former Biden Officials Defend Their Gaza Policy

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    During the war in Gaza, there have been two major stages of aid delivery to Palestinians: the original effort led largely by the United Nations, which involved hundreds of facilities, and the current system run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an American nonprofit set up with Israeli backing. Last March, after Israel ended a ceasefire with Hamas, Benjamin Netanyahu’s government imposed a near-total aid cutoff to the territory until well into May, at which point the G.H.F. took over. The U.N.’s food deliveries had not been able to meet the overwhelming need in Gaza, but at least they had taken place all over the territory. The G.H.F. opened only four sites. Hundreds of Palestinians have been shot amid the chaos there. Since July 1st, two hundred and four people have died of malnutrition. (The total Palestinian death toll for the war is now more than sixty-two thousand.) Even President Donald Trump acknowledged the starvation. In response, Netanyahu allowed more aid into the territory, and Mike Huckabee, Trump’s Ambassador to Israel, announced that the G.H.F. would create more aid-distribution sites. But Gazans continue to starve, and Netanyahu has said that he plans to expand the war and occupy Gaza City. In Israel, this has spurred protests against his government, and families of the remaining hostages held by Hamas—there are believed to be about twenty still alive—argue that he is continuing the war for political reasons.

    In a recent piece in Foreign Affairs, titled “How to Stop a Humanitarian Catastrophe,” the former Biden Administration officials Jacob J. Lew and David Satterfield explain why they believe that the Trump Administration is failing where theirs succeeded. Lew became Ambassador to Israel less than a month after October 7th, and Satterfield was Biden’s special envoy for humanitarian issues in the region. In the piece, they write, “Although the results of our work never satisfied us, much less our critics, in reality the efforts we led in the Biden administration to keep Gaza open for humanitarian relief prevented famine. The fact remains that through the first year and a half of relentless war, Gazans did not face mass starvation because humanitarian assistance was reaching them.”

    I recently spoke by phone with Lew, who served in the second Obama Administration as Treasury Secretary, and is currently a professor of international public affairs at Columbia University, about the piece, as well as the broader American-Israeli relationship. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we also discussed whether the Biden Administration was trying to keep Netanyahu in power, how much it shaped Israeli conduct, and what Lew learned on late-night phone calls with Israeli officials.

    You write in the piece that the Biden Administration prevented mass starvation in Gaza while it remained in office. What did you do to prevent mass starvation?

    From the very beginning of the war, President Biden was unequivocal in saying he had Israel’s back, and he would continue to support Israel and its legitimate effort to defeat Hamas. But there had to be a very serious effort to deal with the civilian issues of a war in Gaza. So we engaged literally every day and night on the questions of how you have an effective strategy of providing aid in a war zone. And we worked very hard to bring the attention of Israeli leaders to the urgency of opening aid crossings. So it was not a one-day event. Literally the entire time I was there, it was a very substantial part of the work that we were doing.

    During your tenure, humanitarian groups, the United Nations, and even people in the Biden Administration were constantly saying that there was not enough aid getting into Gaza. The death toll climbed to more than forty-six thousand before you left office. I know you’re not saying that the aid-delivery system was sufficient, but how would you characterize it?

    At every point, we said more needed to be done. I’m not saying that we achieved the goal of getting enough food in to meet all needs. But that’s a very, very different reality than mass malnutrition and famine. And every time there were reports of famine that were not accurate, it made it harder to do the job of getting more aid in. We were trying to make the critique in a balanced way to keep pressure on Hamas—and to not abandon Israel’s just effort to defeat an enemy that attacked it on October 7th, killing twelve hundred people—while still saying that you have an obligation every day, even if it’s at some risk, to keep the aid crossings open to Gaza. It was arduous work.

    The risk of strengthening Hamas, if Hamas got hold of the fuel or the food, was a serious question. It wasn’t a made-up concern. We never saw it going directly from what the United States was providing. So I want to be clear on that. But they undoubtedly were trying to control the administration of aid because it was a way of holding on to governance.

    But I just want to be clear: people were starving to death in 2024. I know mass starvation did not happen, but people were dying, correct?

    I can tell you that we did not see evidence of mass starvation leading to death. We did see children, and some of them were children with diseases who are particularly susceptible, and it’s tragic. Any civilian, any child dying of malnutrition is tragic. So I’m in no way saying there weren’t problems. Until March of 2025, it wasn’t great, but people were surviving. And it was not an accident. It took constant engagement to keep that flow. I would never say there was no problem. I think the reports of famine were premature and exaggerated. Even in my last month, there was a report that I found extremely troubling where it said there was a serious risk of famine in the north, literally as we were working day and night to open the routes for food to get in to the people who were still in that very northern part of Gaza.

    It seems that part of what was going on with what you said were “premature” warnings of famine was that humanitarian groups would warn of famine and then once things got bad enough, Israel would increase the amount of aid coming in. Doesn’t what you are saying suggest that, too? You are saying you would pressure the Israelis and therefore they would open the tap a little bit more and things would get a little bit better. And that’s not happening as much in the Trump Administration, so the starvation has gotten worse.

    Well, look, when I got to Israel in November of 2023, the country was shell-shocked. It was in a state of trauma from October 7th that any of us in New York on September 11th would understand in a very visceral way. So people were not making decisions based on long-term thinking. I would say that once we got into November, we had engagement with senior policymakers who understood that there was a need to address humanitarian concerns. The challenge was that it was a country that didn’t understand exactly the scope of the humanitarian needs, and there was a right-wing element of Netanyahu’s coalition government that was opposed and had other views that were threatening to bring down the coalition. How did you get decisions to be taken without causing the government to collapse? Now, people have asked, why did we care about that? Because you work with the government that you have. We don’t vote in the elections in other countries. We don’t choose the leaders.

    But supporting the government in power is a little different than saying we’re going to help this government try to survive.

    We didn’t do that, Isaac. We never took a position one way or another on what the government should be. There were people in the government who thought we wanted it to fall. There were people outside of the government who thought we weren’t doing enough. We work to make policy with the government that’s in place.

    In the essay, you write, “Given the tensions within the government, it took active and consistent U.S. engagement to manage the internal Israeli political dynamics and maintain the adequate flow of assistance. The message to our interlocutors in the Israeli government was in essence, ‘If the politics are hard, blame the United States.’ Allowing Netanyahu to cite a need to satisfy U.S. demands was crucial then—and remains crucial today.” That makes it seem like you were trying to help the current government stay in power.

    No, I think you’re missing the point. The point I’m making is if your goal is to keep humanitarian aid flowing and you see obstacles that have to be overcome, you have to be realistic about what it takes to achieve the goal that you have. Our goal was to get the aid in. We wanted Israel to prevail in the war. What we’re saying in the essay is realistically there were limitations on how decisions would be taken and the coalition was concerned about not falling. It was their concern, not ours. I take issue with the characterization of our position being that we were trying to defend the coalition when we were trying to solve the immediate, urgent issue, which was getting humanitarian assistance in.

    So when you say that, “Allowing Netanyahu to cite a need to satisfy U.S. demands was crucial then—and remains crucial today,” what do you mean? Netanyahu doesn’t want to piss off the super far-right ministers in his government by having it seem that Israel is delivering aid. So you’re saying that allowing Netanyahu to cite the need to satisfy U.S. demands is crucial to him remaining in power, correct?

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    Isaac Chotiner

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  • Trump Sees Whitewashed U.S. Past and Dystopian Present

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    Photo: Eric Lee/Bloomberg/Getty Images

    There’s something increasingly strange about Donald Trump’s ongoing — indeed, intensifying — campaign to demand the sunniest possible view of American history from any institution he can influence or control. He made this an official priority in a March 27 executive order.

    “It is the policy of my Administration to restore Federal sites dedicated to history, including parks and museums, to solemn and uplifting public monuments that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing,” the order read.

    Trump went on to say Washington, D.C., museumgoers must not be “subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history.” The order threatened to withhold Smithsonian Institution funding if it did not restore itself into a “symbol of inspiration and American greatness — igniting the imagination of young minds, honoring the richness of American history and innovation, and instilling pride in the hearts of all Americans.”

    And he demanded that the Department of the Interior ensure that all public monuments under its jurisdiction “do not contain descriptions, depictions, or other content that inappropriately disparage Americans past or living (including persons living in colonial times), and instead focus on the greatness of the achievements and progress of the American people or, with respect to natural features, the beauty, abundance, and grandeur of the American landscape.”

    While he was at it, Trump ordered the reversal of steps to remove monuments during the Biden administration in a transparent effort to restore Confederate and neo-Confederate propaganda displays.

    This wasn’t a passing fancy. Trump keeps coming back to the dire need to whitewash American history, as in this recent Truth Social tirade:

    What makes this hostility to any evidence that America, over two and a half centuries, has lacked even a scintilla of Greatness so very strange is that no one has said more nasty and disparaging things about our country than Donald J. Trump during the most recent Democratic administrations.

    Trump’s first Inaugural Address is remembered as the “American Carnage” speech because of its relentless picture of a desolate nation betrayed by its leaders. He said:

    For many decades, we’ve enriched foreign industry at the expense of American industry;

    Subsidized the armies of other countries while allowing for the very sad depletion of our military;

    We’ve defended other nation’s borders while refusing to defend our own;

    And spent trillions of dollars overseas while America’s infrastructure has fallen into disrepair and decay.

    We’ve made other countries rich while the wealth, strength, and confidence of our country has disappeared over the horizon.

    One by one, the factories shuttered and left our shores, with not even a thought about the millions upon millions of American workers left behind.

    The wealth of our middle class has been ripped from their homes and then redistributed across the entire world.

    Where’s the “Success” and “Brightness” in that portrait of America?

    But that speech is indeed downright sunny compared to the depiction of America as a violent hellhole — indeed, as a failed state — presented by Trump every single day during his 2024 comeback campaign. According to his stump speech, the country was in the grip of vast immigrant gangs brought in to bankrupt the federal government, vote illegally (by the millions!), and “destroy democracy.” Worse yet, one of the country’s two major political parties was totally led and mostly supported by people who “hate America” and were fully in on the conspiracy to convert it into a magnet for the “worst people in the world” who poured out of prisons and mental institutions to take over our communities.

    Even today, the president is still talking about this country as a vast dystopia. Again and again, he is claiming emergency conditions to justify his dramatic demands for unlimited executive powers. He speaks of our cities as ravaged by out-of-control crime so severe that a military response is necessary, hand-in-glove with a mass-deportation effort he constantly boasts of as unlike anything the country has seen before.

    So as he nobly struggles to restore this hell on Earth, Trump is equally concerned with ensuring that the 232 years of American history leading up to the Obama and Biden eras are remembered with a gauzy glow inspiring gratitude, pride, and optimism.

    No wonder his followers want to find veterans of those despicable administrations and lock them up. It was a perfect nation until 2008. And soon our museums will say so.


    See All



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    Ed Kilgore

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  • GOP senators push Kamala Harris testimony as House Oversight eyes subpoena

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    NEWYou can now listen to Fox News articles!

    As the 11th member of former President Joe Biden’s administration appeared before the House Oversight Committee this week, Fox News Digital asked senators on Capitol Hill if former Vice President Kamala Harris should testify next. 

    “I think they should take her behind closed doors and figure out what she knows and what she’s willing to talk about,” Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., said. 

    House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer, R-Ky., is leading the investigation into the alleged cover-up of Biden’s cognitive decline and use of the autopen during his tenure as president. 

    Comer said on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” last month that the “odds” of Harris getting a subpoena to appear before the House Oversight Committee are “very high.” 

    INSIDE THE BIDEN COVER-UP PROBE: 8 AIDES QUESTIONED, MORE ON THE WAY

    The House Oversight Committee could issue a subpoena for former Vice President Kamala Harris to testify about the alleged cover-up of former President Joe Biden’s mental decline.  (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

    While Marshall told Fox News Digital that Harris should testify, he admitted, “I don’t think you need her testimony to show Americans what I knew as a physician a long time ago, that Joe Biden had a neurodegenerative disease of some sort.”

    HOUSE REPUBLICANS FLOAT GRILLING JOE, JILL BIDEN AS FORMER AIDES STONEWALL COVER-UP PROBE

    Marshall has a medical degree from the University of Kansas and practiced medicine for more than 25 years before running for public office. 

    “All you had to do is look at his very fixed, flat face,” Marshall explained. “Look at his gait, the way he walked. He had a shuffled walk. He didn’t move his arms, hardly at all. When he talked, it was very monotone, a very soft voice. He had malingering thought processes. I don’t think it took much to figure that out.”

    Sen. Roger Marshall speaks to media

    Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan. speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on March 4, 2021. (Ting Shen/Bloomberg via Getty Images )

    After listing the former president’s symptoms, the Kansas senator lamented that Biden “turned weakness into war,” creating a national security threat. 

    During Biden’s presidency, the United States’ withdrawal from Afghanistan resulted in the death of 13 U.S. soldiers, Russia invaded Ukraine and Hamas attacked Israel, triggering the ongoing war in Gaza.

    But as Republicans demand transparency, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., told Fox News Digital that he is far more worried about the “challenges we face right now,” particularly on the economy, inflation and the impact of Trump’s tariff policies. 

    joe biden ahead of debate in georgia

    Joe Biden reacts to a light display at his debate watch party at Hyatt Regency Atlanta on June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (Derek White/Getty Images for DNC)

    Meanwhile, Sen. John Hoeven R-N.D., defended the accountability argument, telling Fox News Digital that Americans “always want more information and more transparency.”

    “If you’re involved in an administration, you [should] always be willing to come in and say what you did and why you did it, and you know what it’s all about. I mean, that’s how it works, and that’s what the American people want,” he said. 

    CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

    Fox News Digital reached out to Biden and Harris for comment but did not immediately receive a response. 

    Fox News Digital’s Elizabeth Elkind contributed to this report. 

    Deirdre Heavey is a politics writer for Fox News Digital. 

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  • Trump thinks owning a piece of Intel would be a good deal for the US. Here’s what to know

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    SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — President Donald Trump wants the U.S. government to own a piece of Intel, less than two weeks after demanding the Silicon Valley pioneer dump the CEO that was hired to turn around the slumping chipmaker. If the goal is realized, the investment would deepen the Trump administration’s involvement in the computer industry as the president ramps up the pressure for more U.S. companies to manufacture products domestically instead of relying on overseas suppliers.

    What’s happening?

    The Trump administration is in talks to secure a 10% stake in Intel in exchange for converting government grants that were pledged to Intel under President Joe Biden. If the deal is completed, the U.S. government would become one of Intel’s largest shareholders and blur the traditional lines separating the public sector and private sector in a country that remains the world’s largest economy.

    Why would Trump do this?

    In his second term, Trump has been leveraging his power to reprogram the operations of major computer chip companies. The administration is requiring Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices, two companies whose chips are helping to power the craze around artificial intelligence, to pay a 15% commission on their sales of chips in China in exchange for export licenses.

    Trump’s interest in Intel is also being driven by his desire to boost chip production in the U.S., which has been a focal point of the trade war that he has been waging throughout the world. By lessening the country’s dependence on chips manufactured overseas, the president believes the U.S. will be better positioned to maintain its technological lead on China in the race to create artificial intelligence.

    Didn’t Trump want Intel’s CEO to quit?

    That’s what the president said August 7 in an unequivocal post calling for Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan to resign less than five months after the Santa Clara, California, company hired him. The demand was triggered by reports raising national security concerns about Tan’s past investments in Chinese tech companies while he was a venture capitalist. But Trump backed off after Tan professed his allegiance to the U.S. in a public letter to Intel employees and went to the White House to meet with the president, who applauded the Intel CEO for having an “amazing story.”

    Why would Intel do a deal?

    The company isn’t commenting about the possibility of the U.S. government becoming a major shareholder, but Intel may have little choice because it is currently dealing from a position of weakness. After enjoying decades of growth while its processors powered the personal computer boom, the company fell into a slump after missing the shift to the mobile computing era unleashed by the iPhone’s 2007 debut.

    Intel has fallen even farther behind in recent years during an artificial intelligence craze that has been a boon for Nvidia and AMD. The company lost nearly $19 billion last year and another $3.7 billion in the first six months of this year, prompting Tan to undertake a cost-cutting spree. By the end of this year, Tan expects Intel to have about 75,000 workers, a 25% reduction from the end of last year.

    Would this deal be unusual?

    Although rare, it’s not unprecedented for the U.S. government to become a significant shareholder in a prominent company. One of the most notable instances occurred during the Great Recession in 2008 when the government injected nearly $50 billion into General Motors in return for a roughly 60% stake in the automaker at a time it was on the verge of bankruptcy. The government ended up with a roughly $10 billion loss after it sold its stock in GM.

    Would the government run Intel?

    U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CNBC during a Tuesday interview that the government has no intention of meddling in Intel’s business, and will have its hands tied by holding non-voting shares in the company. But some analysts wonder if the Trump administration’s financial ties to Intel might prod more companies looking to curry favor with the president to increase their orders for the company’s chips.

    What government grants does Intel receive?

    Intel was among the biggest beneficiaries of the Biden administration’s CHIPS and Science Act, but it hasn’t been able to revive its fortunes while falling behind on construction projects spawned by the program.

    The company has received about $2.2 billion of the $7.8 billion pledged under the incentives program — money that Lutnick derided as a “giveaway” that would better serve U.S. taxpayers if it’s turned into Intel stock. “We think America should get the benefit of the bargain,” Lutnick told CNBC. “It’s obvious that it’s the right move to make.”

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  • Q&A: Can Trump hold a census in the middle of a decade and exclude immigrants in the US illegally?

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    President Donald Trump on Thursday instructed the Commerce Department to have the Census Bureau start work on a new census that would exclude immigrants who are in the United States illegally from the head count which determines political power and federal spending.

    The census will be based on “modern day facts and figures and, importantly, using the results and information gained from the Presidential Election of 2024,” the Republican president said on his social media platform.

    Experts said it was unclear what exactly Trump was calling for, whether it was changes to the 2030 census or a mid-decade census, and, if so, whether it would be used for a mid-decade apportionment, which is the process of divvying up congressional seats among the states based on the population count.

    Here’s some answers to questions Thursday’s post raises:

    Can Trump do this?

    It would be extremely difficult to conduct a mid-decade census, if not impossible, according to experts.

    Any changes in conducting a U.S. census would require alterations to the Census Act and approval from Congress, which has oversight responsibilities, and there likely would be a fierce fight.

    The federal law governing the census permits a mid-decade head count for things like distributing federal funding, but it can’t be used for apportionment or redistricting and must be done in a year ending in 5. Additionally, the 14th Amendment says that “the whole number of persons in each state” are to be counted for the numbers used for apportionment, and the Census Bureau has interpreted that to mean anybody residing in the United States regardless of legal status. Federal courts have repeatedly supported that interpretation, though the Supreme Court has blocked recent efforts to change that on procedural rather than legal grounds.

    “He cannot unilaterally order a new census. The census is governed by law, not to mention the Constitution,” said Terri Ann Lowenthal, a former congressional staffer who consults on census issues.

    Then there is the question of logistics. The once-a-decade census is the biggest non-military undertaking by the federal government, utilizing a temporary workforce of hundreds of thousands of census takers. It can take as much as 10 years of planning.

    “This isn’t something that you can do overnight,” said New York Law professor Jeffrey Wice, a census and redistricting expert. “To get all the pieces put together, it would be such a tremendous challenge, if not impossible.”

    Has this ever been done before?

    A mid-decade census has never been conducted before.

    In the 1970s, there was interest in developing data from the middle of the decade for more accurate and continuous information about American life, and a mid-decade census was considered. But the funding from Congress never came through, said Margo Anderson, a professor emerita at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who has written extensively on the history of the census.

    Decades later, those wishes for continuous data would develop into the American Community Survey, the annual survey of American life based on responses from 3.5 million households.

    In his first term, President Donald Trump, a Republican, unsuccessfully tried to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census form and signed orders which would have excluded people in the U.S. illegally from the apportionment figures and mandate the collection of citizenship data through administrative records.

    The attempt was blocked by the Supreme Court, and both orders were rescinded when Democratic President Joe Biden arrived at the White House in January 2021, before the 2020 census figures were released by Census Bureau.

    Any attempt at a repeat would guarantee legal challenges.

    “The census isn’t just a head count. It is meant to reflect America as it is – not as some would prefer it to be — and determines how critical resources are allocated,” ACLU Voting Rights project director Sophia Lin Lakin said in a statement. “Nobody should be erased from it. We won’t hesitate to go back to court to protect representation for all communities.”

    What is a census used for?

    Besides being used to divvy up congressional seats among the states and redraw political districts, the numbers derived from the once-a-decade census are used to guide the distribution of $2.8 trillion in annual government spending.

    The federal funding is distributed to state and local governments, nonprofits, businesses and households, paying for health care, education, school lunch programs, child care, food assistance programs and highway construction, among other things.

    Why is Trump doing this?

    A Republican redistricting expert had written that using citizen voting-age population instead of the total population for the purpose of redrawing congressional and legislative districts could be advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.

    Critics believe the writings of Republican redistricting expert Tom Hofeller inspired the first Trump administration’s attempt at restricting the apportionment count and guided legislation introduced this year by Republican lawmakers to add a citizenship question to the 2030 census questionnaire. Trump has been open about his intent to increase the number of Republican seats in Congress and maintain the GOP majority in next year’s midterm elections.

    Even though redistricting typically occurs once every 10 years following the census, Trump is pressuring Republicans in Texas to redistrict again, claiming they are “entitled” to five additional Republican seats. Trump’s team is also engaged in similar redistricting discussions in other GOP-controlled states, including Missouri and Indiana.

    Some critics see the effort as part of Trump’s wider effort to control the federal statistical system, which has been considered the world’s gold standard.

    Last Friday, Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer, after standard revisions to the monthly jobs report showed that employers added 258,000 fewer jobs than previously reported in May and June. The revisions suggested that hiring has severely weakened under Trump, undermining his claims of an economic boom.

    “Trump is basically destroying the federal statistical system,” Anderson said. “He wants numbers that support his political accomplishments, such as he sees them.”

    ___

    Follow Mike Schneider on the social platform Bluesky: @mikeysid.bsky.social

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  • Newsmax to pay $67M to Denver’s Dominion Voting Systems to settle defamation case over 2020 election claims

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    The conservative network Newsmax will pay $67 million to settle a lawsuit accusing it of defaming a Denver-based voting equipment company by spreading lies about President Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, according to documents filed Monday.

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    Nicholas Riccardi

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  • Travelers no longer have to remove their shoes during security screenings at US airports

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    Travelers racing to catch a flight at U.S. airports no longer are required to remove their shoes during security screenings, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Tuesday.

    Noem said the end of the ritual put in place almost 20 years ago was immediately effective nationwide. She said a pilot program showed the Transportation Security Administration had the equipment needed to keep airports and aircraft safe while allowing people to keep their shoes on.

    In this Aug. 3, 2011 photo, an experienced airline passenger holds his shoes and has an unloosened belt while waiting to go through the Transportation Security Administration security checkpoint at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Erik S. Lesser, File)

    “I think most Americans will be very excited to see they will be able to keep their shoes on, and it will be a much more streamlined process,” Noem said.

    While shoe removal no longer is standard procedure at airport security checkpoints, some travelers still may be asked to take off their footwear “if we think additional layers of screening are necessary,” she added.

    The travel newsletter Gate Access first reported that the TSA planned to make the security screening change soon.

    Security screening sans shoes became a requirement in 2006, several years after “shoe bomber” Richard Reid’s failed attempt to take down a flight from Paris to Miami in late 2001.

    In this Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2007, file photo, a belt and shoes sit in a trays with advertising that is being used in the safety screening of travelers done by the Transportation Security Administration, at the Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ann Johansson, File)

    In this Wednesday, Jan. 10, 2007, file photo, a belt and shoes sit in a trays with advertising that is being used in the safety screening of travelers done by the Transportation Security Administration, at the Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Ann Johansson, File)

    All passengers between the ages of 12 and 75 were required to remove their shoes, which were scanned along with carry-on bags and other separated items such as outerwear.

    Travelers previously were able to skirt the requirement if they participated in the TSA PreCheck program, which costs around $80 for five years. The program allows airline passengers to get through the screening process without taking off their shoes, belts or light jackets, and without having to take their laptops and bagged toiletries out.

    PreCheck will remain the easier option for the time being since people going through regular screening stations still will have to put items besides shoes on a conveyor belt for scanning, Noem said.

    TSA plans to review other rules and procedures to see how airport screenings can be simplified and expedited, she said. The agency is testing separate lanes for military personnel and families with young children, and expects to pilot other changes in the next six to eight months, Noem said.

    In recent years, federal authorities have explored facial recognition technology and implemented Real ID requirements as a way to verify the identities of passengers.

    A Transportation Security Administration agent signals for the next airline passenger in line at a security checkpoint in Chicago's O'Hare International Airport Friday, May 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, File)

    A Transportation Security Administration agent signals for the next airline passenger in line at a security checkpoint in Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport Friday, May 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast, File)

    The Transportation Security Administration began in 2001 when President George W. Bush signed legislation for its creation two months after the 9/11 attacks. TSA hired federal employees as agents to replace the workers for private companies that airlines had used to handle security.

    Although regular air travelers are familiar with the intricacies of going through airport security, long lines during busy times and bags getting pulled aside for infractions such as forgotten water bottles can make the process fraught.

    President Donald Trump’s transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, asked the public in an April social media post what would make travel more seamless. The following day, Duffy posted on X that, “It’s clear that TSA is the #1 travel complaint. That falls under the Department of Homeland Security. I’ll discuss this with @Sec_Noem.”

    Trump fired TSA Administrator David Pekoske in January in the middle of a second five-year term. Trump had appointed Pekoske during his first term in the White House, and President Joe Biden reappointed him.

    No reason was given for Pekoske’s departure. The administrator position remains vacant, according to the TSA website.

    ___

    Lisa Leff contributed from Sonoma, California.

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  • First concert set for Detroit’s restored historic bandshell

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    For the first time in nearly two decades, music is returning to Detroit’s former Michigan State Fairgrounds bandshell.

    The inaugural concert has been announced for what is now called the Palmer Park bandshell.

    First opened in 1938, the historic stage was saved from demolition and relocated across Woodward Avenue thanks to funding by President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act.

    It celebrates its grand reopening with a jazz concert starting at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 23. The show is part of saxophonist Marcus Elliot’s “Sounds From The Park,” which features compositions inspired by and performed in Detroit’s parks.

    Elliot will be joined by Marion Hayden and Jaribu Shahid on bass, Gayelynn McKinney and Sean Dobbins on drums, and Roger Jones on piano. The theme of the concert is “Legacy & Mentorship.”

    “Marcus Elliot’s curated performances honor Detroit’s parks and their stewards by showcasing themes that uniquely reflect each park’s heritage and neighborhood,” the Detroit Parks Coalition wrote in an Instagram post announcing the concert. “Composed specifically for each location, the music celebrates the parks as vital spaces for rest, recreation, and community connection. Through these site-specific works, Elliot highlights the distinct character and spirit of every park while acknowledging their shared role in Detroit’s cultural landscape.”

    The Michigan State Fairgrounds bandshell saw numerous acts grace its stage over the decades, ranging from Benny Goodman to the Stooges to Aretha Franklin. After the Michigan State Fair was held there for the last time in 2009 due to budget cuts, the site sat vacant until retail giant Amazon purchased a portion of it in 2020 to build a $400 million distribution center.

    An essay published by Metro Times that year by blogger David Gifford urged Amazon to save the historic bandshell, sparking a show of public support. In his 2021 State of the City address, Mayor Mike Duggan announced the bandshell would be saved.

    “There’s a lot of emotion,” Duggan said. “I saw concerts at this bandshell. A lot of folks remember this, and they said, ‘Can’t we do something about the history of the Fairgrounds?’”

    The restoration and relocation of the bandshell was completed this June, incorporating elements of the original structure. The city also installed bathrooms and a parking lot to accommodate guests.

    The bandshell is now located in the Northwest section of Palmer Park off of Seven Mile Road. Information on booking at the bandshell is available at tinyurl.com/thebandshell.

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    Lee DeVito

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  • Column: Kamala Harris won’t cure what ails the Democratic Party

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    William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the United States, was the last commander in chief born a British subject and the first member of the Whig Party to win the White House. He delivered the longest inaugural address in history, nearly two hours, and had the shortest presidency, being the first sitting president to die in office, just 31 days into his term.

    Oh, there is one more bit of trivia about the man who gave us the slogan “Tippecanoe and Tyler Too.” Harrison was the last politician to lose his first presidential election and then win the next one (Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson managed that before him). Richard Nixon lost only to win way down the road. (Grover Cleveland and Trump are the only two to win, lose and then win again.)

    Everyone else since Harrison’s era who lost on the first try and ran again in the next election lost again. Democrat Adlai Stevenson and Republican Thomas Dewey ran twice and lost twice. Henry Clay and William Jennings Bryan each ran three times in a row and lost (Clay ran on three different party tickets). Voters, it seems, don’t like losers.

    These are not encouraging results for Kamala Harris, who announced last week she will not be running for governor in California, sparking speculation that she wants another go at the White House.

    But history isn’t what she should worry about. It’s the here and now. The Democratic Party is wildly unpopular. It’s net favorability ( 30 points) is nearly triple the GOP’s (11 points). The Democratic Party is more unpopular than any time in the last 35 years. When Donald Trump’s unpopularity with Democrats should be having the opposite effect, 63% of Americans have an unfavorable view of the party.

    Why? Because Democrats are mad at their own party — both for losing to Trump and for failing to provide much of an obstacle to him now that he’s in office. As my Dispatch colleague Nick Cattogio puts it, “Even Democrats have learned to hate Democrats.”

    It’s not all Harris’ fault. Indeed, the lion’s share of the blame goes to Joe Biden and the coterie of enablers who encouraged him to run again.

    Harris’ dilemma is that she symbolizes Democratic discontent with the party. That discontent isn’t monolithic. For progressives, the objection is that Democrats aren’t fighting hard enough. For the more centrist wing of the party, the problem is the Democrats are fighting for the wrong things, having lurched too far left on culture war and identity politics. Uniting both factions is visceral desire to win. That’s awkward for a politician best known for losing.

    Almost the only reason Harris was positioned to be the nominee in 2024 was that she was a diversity pick. Biden was explicit that he would pick a woman and, later, an African American running mate. And the same dynamic made it impossible to sideline her when Biden withdrew.

    Of course, most Democrats don’t see her race and gender as a problem, and in the abstract they shouldn’t. Indeed, every VP pick is a diversity pick, including the white guys. Running mates are chosen to appeal to some part of a coalition.

    So Harris’ problem isn’t her race or sex; it’s her inability to appeal to voters in a way that expands the Democratic coalition. For Democrats to win, they need someone who can flip Trump voters. She didn’t lose because of low Democratic turnout, she lost because she’s uncompelling to a changing electorate.

    Her gauzy, often gaseous, rhetoric made her sound like a dean of students at a small liberal arts college. With the exception of reproductive rights, her convictions sounded like they were crafted by focus groups, at a time when voters craved authenticity. Worse, Harris acquiesced to Biden’s insistence she not distance herself from him.

    Such clubby deference to the establishment combined with boilerplate pandering to progressive constituencies — learned from years of San Francisco and California politics — makes her the perfect solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

    Her choice to appear on Stephen Colbert’s “The Late Show” for her first interview since leaving office was telling. CBS recently announced it was terminating both Colbert and the show, insisting it was purely a business decision. But the reason for the broadcast network’s decision stemmed in part from the fact that Colbert narrow-casts his expensive show to a very small, very anti-Trump slice of the electorate.

    “I don’t want to go back into the system. I think it’s broken,” Harris lamented to Colbert, decrying the “naïve” and “feckless” lack of “leadership” and the “capitulation” of those who “consider themselves to be guardians of our system and our democracy.”

    That’s all catnip to Colbert’s ideologically committed audience. But that’s not the audience Democrats need to win. And that’s why, if Democrats nominate her again, she’ll probably go down in history as an answer to a trivia question. And it won’t be “Who was the 48th president of the United States?”

    @JonahDispatch

    Insights

    L.A. Times Insights delivers AI-generated analysis on Voices content to offer all points of view. Insights does not appear on any news articles.

    Perspectives

    The following AI-generated content is powered by Perplexity. The Los Angeles Times editorial staff does not create or edit the content.

    Ideas expressed in the piece

    • The Democratic Party faces historic unpopularity, with a net favorability 30 points lower than Republicans, driven by widespread dissatisfaction among its own base over losses to Trump and perceived ineffectiveness in opposing his policies[1].
    • Kamala Harris’ political challenges stem from internal Democratic factions: progressives blame her for insufficient fight while centrists view her as emblematic of leftward shifts on cultural issues, both detractors united by a desire to win[1].
    • Harris’s VP selection was viewed as a diversity-driven symbolic gesture by Biden, limiting her ability to build broader appeal beyond traditional Democratic coalitions, as seen in her 2024 loss[1].
    • Her communication style is criticized as overly generic and focus-group-driven, lacking authenticity required to attract Trump voters, while her ties to Biden and reluctance to distance herself from his leadership are seen as electoral liabilities[1].
    • Historical precedents suggest candidates who lose once rarely regain viability in subsequent elections, with Harris’ potential 2028 bid viewed skeptically in light of this pattern[1].
    • Democratic messaging under Harris risks pandering to niche progressive audiences (e.g., her Colbert interview appeal) rather than expanding outreach to swing voters, exacerbating perceptions of elitism[1].

    Different views on the topic

    • Harris remains a strong potential front-runner in the 2026 California governor’s race, with analysts noting her viability despite a crowded field and lingering questions about Biden’s health influencing her decision-making[1].
    • The Democratic Party is actively reassessing its strategy post-2024, focusing on reconnecting with working-class voters and addressing core issues like affordability and homelessness, suggesting a shift toward pragmatic problem-solving[1].
    • Harris’ announcement to forgo the governor’s race has been interpreted as positioning for a 2028 presidential bid, reflecting her ability to navigate political calculations with long-term ambition[2].
    • Internal criticisms, such as Antonio Villaraigosa’s demand for transparency on Biden’s health, reflect broader party debates about leadership accountability rather than a rejection of Harris’ Senate or VP legacy[1].
    • Other rising Democratic voices, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Gov. Tim Walz, embody alternatives to Harris’ messaging, indicating the party’s capacity to diversify leadership beyond established figures[2].

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    Jonah Goldberg

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  • Judge declares Biden immigration program for spouses of U.S. citizens illegal

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    A federal judge on Thursday struck down a Biden administration program that would allow unauthorized immigrants married to American citizens to get legal status and a streamlined path to U.S. citizenship, declaring the policy illegal.

    U.S. District Court Judge J. Campbell Barker, an appointee of President-elect Donald Trump, found the program violates U.S. immigration law, agreeing with a lawsuit filed by Texas and more than a dozen other Republican-led states.

    The ruling is a major defeat for the outgoing Biden administration, which argued the policy, known as Keeping Families Together, promoted family unity among mixed-status households. When it was announced earlier this year, officials said roughly half-a-million undocumented immigrants were likely eligible for the program.

    The Justice Department can appeal Thursday’s ruling, but the Keeping Families Together program is likely to be in the crosshairs of the incoming administration of Trump, who has vowed to dismantle President Biden’s immigration policies. Trump has separately vowed to seal and militarize the U.S.-Mexico border and oversee the largest mass deportation in American history.

    Representatives for the White House and Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    The Keeping Families Together initiative was announced by Mr. Biden in June, just weeks after he took a different executive action to sharply limit asylum along the U.S.-Mexico border.

    The program would give work permits and deportation protections to undocumented immigrants who are married to American citizens and have lived in the U.S. for at least 10 years without committing serious crimes.

    Most importantly, the policy would also allow these immigrants to apply for permanent residency, also known as a green card. After three years, green card holders married to U.S. citizens can apply for citizenship.

    Immigrants who marry U.S. citizens are already eligible for a green card on paper. American immigration law, however, requires those who entered the U.S. illegally to leave the country and re-enter legally to be eligible for a green card. But leaving the U.S. after living in the country unlawfully for some time can trigger a 3 or 10-year exile, prompting many families to refrain from pursuing that option.

    The Biden administration’s program would allow eligible immigrants to apply for a green card without having to leave the country by granting them an immigration benefit known as parole, which effectively cancels out their illegal entry.

    In his ruling, Campbell Barker said the Biden administration did not have the legal authority to grant parole to unauthorized immigrants who are already in the U.S.

    Camilo Montoya-Galvez


    camilo-montoya-galvez-bio-2.jpg

    Camilo Montoya-Galvez is the immigration reporter at CBS News. Based in Washington, he covers immigration policy and politics.

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  • Why AP called Georgia for Trump

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    WASHINGTON (AP) — The story of how Donald Trump won the emerging swing state of Georgia is one of margins.

    Four years ago, he lost the state by just under 12,000 votes. He reclaimed it by notching microscopic but difference-making improvements in his vote totals in dozens of deeply red counties, many of them small and rural. It was still enough to put him over the top with 50.8% of the vote when The Associated Press called the state for him at 12:58 a.m. Wednesday.

    Though the race is likely to narrow as more ballots are counted, there were not enough votes to be tabulated in Democratic-leaning areas for Vice President Kamala Harris to overtake Trump’s lead, which would have required her to get 56.1% of the remaining vote. She also narrowly underperformed Joe Biden in some population-dense counties in the Atlanta metro area. For example, in Fulton County Biden got 72.59% of the vote in 2020. This year Harris got 71.89% when the race was called.

    Those small differences were enough to secure Georgia’s 16 electoral votes for Trump. But they are also another salient data point that suggests Georgia will be a fiercely contested battleground for years to come.

    CANDIDATES: President: Harris (D) vs. Trump (R) vs. Chase Oliver (Libertarian) vs. Jill Stein (Green).

    WINNER: Trump

    POLL CLOSING TIME: 7 p.m. ET.

    ABOUT THE RACE:

    Georgia was long considered a Republican stronghold. But in 2020, Biden’s squeaker victory made him the first Democratic presidential contender since Bill Clinton in 1992 to carry the state, an emerging political battleground made more competitive by changing demographics and the booming Atlanta metro area.

    Still, there was little guarantee 2024 would be a repeat.

    Harris aggressively campaigned in the state, but Georgia had appeared to be a bit more of a reach for her than other battlegrounds.

    Still, Georgia’s political dynamics are volatile. And the state was still up for grabs going into Election Day because the Republican party’s grip loosened as older, white GOP voters died. They have often been replaced by a younger, more racially diverse cast .

    But just because many moving to the booming Atlanta area brought their politics with them didn’t mean the fundamentals dramatically changed. Biden beat Trump by only 11,779 votes in 2020. Trump got all of the state’s 16 electoral votes.

    WHY AP CALLED THE RACE: At the time the race was called, Trump was leading by 125,000 votes. Almost all advance votes in Georgia had been reported. His lead was larger than what Harris could be expected to make up from the remaining votes in Democratic strongholds. Trump was slightly ahead of his 2020 performance in enough counties to erase the deficit of less than 12,000 votes by which he lost Georgia four years ago.

    ___

    Learn more about how and why the AP declares winners in U.S. elections at Explaining Election 2024, a series from The Associated Press aimed at helping make sense of the American democracy. The AP receives support from several private foundations to enhance its explanatory coverage of elections and democracy. See more about AP’s democracy initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Donald Trump wins US presidency, GOP reclaims Senate majority

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    Republican Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States on Wednesday, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who refused to accept defeat four years ago, sparked a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency.

    Republicans reclaimed control of the Senate, picking up seats in West Virginia and Ohio. Top House races are focused in New York and California, where Democrats are trying to claw back some of the 10 or so seats where Republicans have made surprising gains in recent years.

    Follow the AP’s Election 2024 coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.

    Here’s the latest:

    Slovakia’s prime minister congratulates Trump on his victory

    “We respect the choice of American people,” Prime Minister Robert Fico said at a news conference on Wednesday.

    Fico, who is known for pro-Russian views, said the result of the election is “certainly a defeat of liberal and progressivist ideas because the new American President is a conservative. We think he’ll focus on the economy issues in the United States.”

    Fico said what’s of importance is that “everybody is waiting for the first steps in regards of the war in Ukraine.”

    Fico added that Trump might reduce or halt the military aid for Ukraine or propose an immediate cease-fire to open the way for negotiations between Ukraine and Russia.

    Fico ended his state’s military aid for Ukraine.

    How are markets responding to the election results?

    Futures markets in the U.S. surged early Wednesday, with the Dow climbing 2.85% and the S&P 500 rising nearly 2%.

    Bitcoin, which many see as a winner under a Trump presidency, hit all-time highs above $75,000.

    Tesla, the company run by Trump surrogate Elon Musk, spiked 12% before the opening bell while other electric vehicle makers slumped.

    Banking stocks also moved solidly higher, with expectations of a pullback by regulators overseeing markets under Trump.

    US humanitarian group urges Trump, Congress to ‘reject policies that demonize immigrants and asylum seekers’

    The International Rescue Committee, a large humanitarian aid organization, urged the Trump administration to “continue America’s traditions of humanitarian leadership and care of the most vulnerable.”

    The New York-based nonprofit also urged the new administration and Congress to “reject policies that demonize immigrants and asylum seekers,” and noted that the U.S. program to resettle refugees has saved lives and strengthened the fabric of the United States.

    IRC is led by Britain’s former top diplomat, David Miliband, and says it provides relief services to people affected by crises in more than 40 countries.

    Barriers broken and history made in several congressional races

    With their victories, several candidates are set to be firsts.

    New Jersey Rep. Andy Kim, a Democrat, won his race to become the first Korean American elected to the Senate.

    Delaware State Rep. Sarah McBride, a Democrat, won her race to become the first openly transgender person elected to Congress. The former Obama administration official was elected to the Delaware General Assembly in 2021.

    Democrat Angela Alsobrooks won her race and is set to become Maryland’s first Black senator. Alsobrooks is currently the county executive for Maryland’s Prince George’s County, one of the most prosperous Black-majority counties in the nation.

    Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, a Democrat from Delaware, broke barriers again, becoming the first woman and first Black person elected to the Senate from the state. Seven years ago, when she was elected to the House, she was the first woman and first Black person to represent Delaware in the House. It will be the first time that two Black women will serve simultaneously in the Senate.

    North Dakota elected its first woman to Congress. Republican Julie Fedorchak, running for the House of Representatives, won her race handily in the deep red state. She’s currently a member of the state’s public service commission.

    Bernie Moreno, a Republican from Ohio,defeated incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown to be the first Latino from the state elected to the Senate.

    Bitcoin hits new high as investors bet Trump’s victory will benefit cryptocurrencies

    Bitcoin jumped nearly 8% to a record $75,345.00 in early trading on Wednesday, before falling back and was recently trading at around $73,700.00.

    Trump was previously a crypto skeptic but changed his mind and embraced cryptocurrencies ahead of the election.

    He pledged to make America “the crypto capital of the planet” and create a “strategic reserve” of bitcoin. His campaign accepted donations in cryptocurrency and he courted crypto fans at a bitcoin conference in July.

    He also launched World Liberty Financial, a new venture with family members to trade cryptocurrencies.

    Abortion proposals win in 7 states

    Despite major losses for Democrats in the Senate and White House, the party’s central campaign issue surrounding protecting reproductive rights fared much better across the country as abortion rights advocates won on measures in seven states.

    The last state to pass such a measure by early Wednesday was Montana, where abortion rights advocates pushed to enshrine abortion rights until fetal viability into the state constitution as a safeguard against future rollbacks. Though there’s no defined time frame, doctors say viability is sometime after 21 weeks.

    In three others — Florida, Nebraska and South Dakota — voters rejected measures that would have created a constitutional right to abortion.

    Montana enshrines abortion rights

    Montana voters chose to protect the right to an abortion in their state constitution.

    The ballot initiative sought to enshrine a 1999 Montana Supreme Court ruling that said the constitutional right to privacy protects the right to a pre-viability abortion by a provider of the patient’s choice. Though there’s no defined time frame, doctors say viability is sometime after 21 weeks.

    The Associated Press declared the amendment was approved at 6:01 a.m. EST Wednesday.

    Republican Ryan Zinke wins reelection to U.S. House in Montana’s 1st Congressional District

    Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing Montana on Wednesday.

    Zinke will serve a second term in the western Montana district, which was drawn after the state received an additional congressional seat from the 2020 census. Zinke faced a rematch against Democrat Monica Tranel, who fell a few points short of winning the seat in 2022. Zinke was U.S. interior secretary in the Trump administration for nearly two years before resigning while facing several ethics investigations. Zinke served as Montana’s lone U.S. House member from 2015 through early 2017, when he resigned to become interior secretary. The Associated Press declared Zinke the winner at 6:28 a.m. EST.

    Republican Tim Sheehy wins election to U.S. Senate from Montana, beating incumbent Jon Tester

    Republican Tim Sheehy won the U.S. Senate seat in Montana on Wednesday, defeating three-term incumbent Jon Tester and flipping a closely watched Senate seat.

    Tester was the only Democrat holding statewide office in Montana, which has voted for the Republican candidate in every presidential contest since 1992. Sheehy, a former U.S. Navy SEAL, ran as a Trump-supporting conservative in a state where the president-elect is immensely popular. The Associated Press declared Sheehy the winner at 6:26 a.m. EST.

    In Kamala Harris’ ancestral village, disappointment

    There was a sense of disappointment in Thulasendrapuram, a tiny village in southern India, where Kamala Harris’ mother’s family has ancestral ties and where people were rooting for the Democratic nominee for president.

    Residents in this village, who were keenly following the election results on their smartphones, were left silent as initial enthusiasm faded, even before the presidential race call, but many said they were proud that she put up a good fight. The villagers were hoping for a Harris victory and had Tuesday held special Hindu prayers for her at a local temple where Harris’ name is engraved in a list of donors. Some were also planning to blast off fireworks and distribute sweets had she won.

    “We are sad about it. But what can we do? It was in the hands of the voters of that country. They made Trump win. We can only wish Trump well for his victory,” said J. Sudhakar.

    As results became clearer, a gaggle of reporters that was stationed outside the village temple also quickly scattered away. The village — site of a brief media spectacle and euphoria since Tuesday — became almost deserted.

    FIFA’s president congratulates Trump

    “We will have a great FIFA World Cup and a great FIFA Club World Cup in the United States of America! Football Unites the World” FIFA president Gianni Infantino wrote on his Instagram account in a message of congratulations to Trump.

    Infantino had tried to build close ties to the first Trump administration, making at least two visits to the White House and joining then-President Trump at a dinner event in Davos, Switzerland during the World Economic Forum in January 2020.

    The United States will host most of the games at the 2026 World Cup in men’s soccer.

    Investors react to Trump’s victory in US election by buying on the German stock market

    The Dax rose significantly by 1.5% to 19,544 points in early Xetra trading, German news agency dpa agency reported.

    Robert Halver, Head of Capital Market Analysis at Baader Bank said that “since Donald Trump stands for the economy, it can be assumed that stock markets around the world will go up. With one exception: China, because he (Donald Trump) will definitely impose tariffs at least on China. That will certainly make life difficult for the Chinese.”

    “The nice thing is that European stocks, German stocks and export stocks can also benefit. Because we are still so well positioned in the industrial sector that we are helping America to become big again in the industrial sector, so to speak,” he added.

    No info on whether Putin will congratulate Trump, Kremlin says

    Ahead of the presidential race call, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said he had no information on whether Russian President Vladimir Putin plans to congratulate Donald Trump but emphasized that Moscow views the U.S. as an “unfriendly” country.

    Peskov reaffirmed the Kremlin’s claim that the U.S. support for Ukraine amounted to its involvement in the conflict, telling reporters: “Let’s not forget that we are talking about the unfriendly country that is both directly and indirectly involved in a war against our state.”

    Asked if Putin’s failure to congratulate Trump could hurt ties, Peskov responded that Russia-U.S. relations already are at the “lowest point in history,” adding that it will be up to the new U.S. leadership to change the situation. He noted Putin’s statements about Moscow’s readiness for a “constructive dialogue based on justice, equality and readiness to take mutual concerns into account.”

    Peskov noted Trump’s campaign statements about his intention to end wars, saying that “those were important statements, but now after the victory, while getting ready to enter the Oval Office or entering the Oval Office, statements could sometimes change.”

    Control of the US House is still up for grabs

    Republicans have taken the White House and Senate, but the House is still very much in play.

    With nearly 60 House elections still undecided, either party could gain control of the chamber. For Democrats, a House majority is the last hope of gaining a toehold in Washington and putting a check on Donald Trump’s power. Yet if Republicans win a House majority, they’ll be able to implement Trump’s agenda with more ease, including extending tax cuts, funding hardline border measures and dismantling parts of the federal government.

    Still, it might take some time before House control is decided. Neither party so far has a convincing advantage in the tally of key House races. There are tight races all over the country, including many in slow-counting California.

    Trump is elected the 47th president

    Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States on Wednesday, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who refused to accept defeat four years ago, sparked a violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts.

    With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency.

    The victory validates his bare-knuckle approach to politics. He attacked his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, in deeply personal — often misogynistic and racist — terms as he pushed an apocalyptic picture of a country overrun by violent migrants.

    The coarse rhetoric, paired with an image of hypermasculinity, resonated with angry voters — particularly men — in a deeply polarized nation. As president, he’s vowed to pursue an agenda centered on dramatically reshaping the federal government and retribution against his perceived enemies.

    Republican Mike Lawler wins reelection to U.S. House in New York’s 17th Congressional District

    Republican Rep. Mike Lawler won reelection to a U.S. House seat representing New York on Wednesday.

    Lawler is one of several Republicans who flipped traditionally Democratic New York districts in 2022. The 17th District contains the northern part of wealthy Westchester County and extends north and west to include suburban Rockland County and the Hudson Valley’s Putnam County. He defeated former Democratic Rep. Mondaire Jones, who lost his seat after redistricting in 2022. The Associated Press declared Lawler the winner at 5:30 a.m. EST.

    Race to control the House intensifies with Michigan flip

    Republicans have flipped a House seat that was previously held by Democrats, giving them a valuable pickup in a frenzied race for House control.

    At this point, practically every seat matters when it comes to building a House majority. In Michigan’s 7th district, Republican Tom Barrett picked up a seat that Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin vacated to run for U.S. Senate. Barrett, a former state senator, defeated another former state lawmaker, Democrat Curtis Hertel.

    On the campaign trail, Barrett didn’t back away from his record of supporting abortion restrictions in the statehouse, but he also described abortion access as a settled issue in Michigan.

    Zelenskyy says he appreciates Trump’s ‘peace through strength’ mentality

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he appreciates Trump’s commitment to “peace through strength” as the Republican presidential nominee closes in on the electoral votes needed to win the White House.

    “I recall our great meeting with President Trump back in September, when we discussed in detail the Ukraine-U.S. strategic partnership, the Victory Plan, and ways to put an end to Russian aggression against Ukraine,” said Zelenskyy on X. Zelenskyy said that Ukraine is interested “in developing mutually beneficial political and economic cooperation that will benefit both of our nations.”

    “We look forward to an era of a strong United States of America under President Trump’s decisive leadership,” said Zelenskyy.

    “I appreciate President Trump’s commitment to the ‘peace through strength’ approach in global affairs. This is exactly the principle that can practically bring just peace in Ukraine closer. I am hopeful that we will put it into action together,” he said.

    European Commission president says she’s looking forward to working with Trump

    The European Union’s top official says she’s looking forward to working with Trump again as the former president is on the cusp of victory in the U.S. presidential race.

    European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the E.U. and U.S. “are more than just allies. We are bound by a true partnership between our people, uniting 800 million citizens.”

    “Let us work together on a transatlantic partnership that continues to deliver for our citizens. Millions of jobs and billions in trade and investment on each side of the Atlantic depend on the dynamism and stability of our economic relationship,” she said in a statement.

    The tariffs that Trump slapped on steel and aluminum exports during his last term roiled the bloc’s economy.

    NATO leader looks forward to working with Trump

    NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte says he looks forward to working with Trump “to advance peace through strength” as the former president closes in on the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House.

    “We face a growing number of challenges globally, from a more aggressive Russia, to terrorism, to strategic competition with China, as well the increasing alignment of China, Russia, North Korea and Iran,” Rutte said.

    “Working together through NATO helps to deter aggression, protect our collective security and support our economies,” he added.

    Rutte also praised Trump for his work during his first term to persuade U.S. allies in NATO to ramp up defense spending.

    He noted that around two-thirds of the 32 NATO allies are due to meet the organization’s main defense spending target this year.

    World leaders offer their congratulations to Trump

    The AP’s current count has Trump three electoral votes shy of winning the White House, though he is leading in key battleground states.

    “Congratulations on history’s greatest comeback!” wrote Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on X. “Your historic return to the White House offers a new beginning for America and a powerful recommitment to the great alliance between Israel and America.”

    French President Emmanuel Macron posted on X: “Ready to work together as we were able to do during four years. With your convictions and mine. In respect and ambition. For more peace and prosperity.”

    Trump, a longtime source of division, calls on country to unite in election night speech

    Trump, someone whose political career has been defined by division and acrimony, told the audience at his election night party early on Wednesday that it was “time to unite” as a country.

    “It’s time to put the divisions of the past four years behind us,” Trump said. “It’s time to unite.”

    “We have to put our country first for at least a period of time,” he added. “We have to fix it.”

    Trump speaks at election party flanked by family, friends and top political supporters

    Most of the important people in Trump’s personal and political life have joined him on stage in West Palm Beach, Florida.

    Former first lady Melania Trump stood near her husband and was joined by Barron, the former president’s youngest son. Trump’s older children, Don Jr., Eric, Ivanka and Tiffany, all joined their father on stage, too.

    Trump’s top political minds, including top campaign advisers Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, joined Trump on stage. And his political allies were on stage, too, including House Speaker Mike Johnson.

    Trump also celebrated a few celebrities in the audience and on stage. Dana White, the CEO of UFC, was on stage with Trump, and the former president called golfer Bryson DeChambeau on stage. Trump also shouted out Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, who has become one of his most high-profile supporters. “We have a new star. A star is born: Elon,” Trump said.

    Trump hails GOP’s congressional wins

    Donald Trump made sure to recognize GOP wins in down ballot races in his speech in the early morning Wednesday.

    “The number of victories in the senate was absolutely incredible,” Trump said.

    Republicans have so far won 51 seats, giving them a majority. But Montana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada have not been called, and it’s possible Republicans could pick up more seats.

    Trump also said he expected Republicans to hold the House and complimented House Speaker Mike Johnson. The House, however, is still up for grabs.

    There are over 70 House races across the country that have not been called, and neither party has a convincing edge in the tally of House races.

    Trump vows in his election night speech to fight ‘for your family and your future’

    He promised that he would “not rest until we have delivered the strong safe and prosperous America.”

    “Every single day,” Trump said, “I will be fighting for you with every breath in my body.”

    Donald Trump has taken the stage

    The AP’s current count has him at 267 of the 270 electoral votes he needs to win the White House. He is leading in key races left to be called, including Michigan and Wisconsin.

    Pennsylvania puts Trump three electoral votes short of the presidential threshold

    Trump’s victory in Pennsylvania has put him three electoral votes short of winning the presidency. He could win the White House by capturing Alaska or any remaining swing state.

    Hugs, calls and celebration at Trump’s watch party

    Trump supporters gathered at his election night watch party were hugging one another, making calls, jumping up and down, and throwing their MAGA hats in the air every chance they got to celebrate as results continued to trickle in.

    Guests are still arriving at the convention center in West Palm Beach.

    Democrats flip another House seat in New York

    The pickups for House Democrats have mostly come from New York so far as the party flipped its second seat in the state.

    Democrat Josh Riley defeated Republican Rep. Mark Molinaro in a district that spans across the center of the state. Democrats earlier flipped a seat held by Rep. Brandon Williams.

    While a House majority is still up for grabs, the victories will buoy Democrats’ hopes, especially in House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ home state.

    Nevada polls close nearly 3 hours later

    Polls closed in Nevada nearly three hours late after voters waited in long lines to cast ballots, the state’s top election official said, and initial election results began to be posted just before 10 p.m. PST.

    Polls had been scheduled to close at 7 p.m., but state law allows anyone in line at that time to cast a ballot.

    Secretary of State Cisco Aguilar acknowledged Nevada’s position as an electoral battleground and promised to keep updating results as the counties receive “and cure” additional ballots.

    Mailed ballots are accepted and counted until Saturday, and thousands of voters whose ballots were set aside to allow for signature verification, or “curing,” have until 5 p.m. Nov. 12 to validate their vote with election officials.

    Aguilar, a Democrat, called Nevada’s elections “safe, secure and transparent” and said he was proud of reports of high voter turnout.

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. joins Trump watch party

    The former presidential candidate has arrived at the Palm Beach Convention Center, entering and walking briskly as he made his way near the stage among crowds of supporters.

    Trump has said he will play a role when it comes to health policy but has not specified what that would be. Kennedy, who launched his own presidential bid as an independent before dropping out of the race and endorsing Trump, joined him at several rallies in the last stretch of the campaign.

    Republicans celebrate early turnout among Black and Hispanic voters

    As the election stretched into the early hours of Wednesday, Republicans — seeing a map trending positively for their party — began to point to a shift in demographic support among key voting groups who often lean Democrat.

    Preliminary AP VoteCast data suggested a shift among Black and Latino voters, who appeared slightly less likely to support Harris than they were to back Biden four years ago. About 8 in 10 Black voters backed Harris, down from the roughly 9 in 10 who backed Biden. More than half of Hispanic voters supported Harris, but that was down slightly from the roughly 6 in 10 who backed Biden in 2020. Trump’s support among those groups appeared to rise slightly compared to 2020.

    Republican Sen. Marco Rubio told AP at Trump’s election watch party in West Palm Beach, Florida, that he’s excited for the exit polling in states like Pennsylvania and Georgia, where Republicans are already seeing overperformance compared to this time in the election in 2020.

    “I’m just really excited not just because I think it’s going to be a victory but about how we won,” the Florida lawmaker said.

    There are serious 2016 echoes in Harris’ 2024 election night

    Forgive Democrats if they are having a bit of déjà vu.

    There are noticeable similarities between then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton’s election night in 2016 and the one that Harris had planned for tonight at Howard University.

    Neither Clinton nor Harris, appeared at their election night party, despite both heading into Election Day believing they were about to defeat Donald Trump.

    Both sent top aides to inform the demoralized audience that the woman would not speak. And there were noticeable similarities between what each man said.

    “We still have votes to count. We still have states that have not been called yet. We will continue overnight to fight to make sure that every vote is counted,” Cedric Richmond, Harris’ campaign co-chair, told the audience Tuesday. “So you won’t hear from the vice president tonight, but you will hear from her tomorrow.”

    “We’re still counting votes,” John Podesta, Clinton’s campaign chairman, said in 2016. “And every vote should count. Several states are too close to call. So we’re not going to have anything more to say tonight.”

    Even the mood of the events — and the trajectory they took over the course of the night — was similar. The vibe at Clinton’s event at Javits Center started jubilantly, with people dancing, smiling and eager to make history — the campaign had even planned to launch reflective confetti in the air when Clinton won to resemble a glass ceiling shattering. The same was true for Harris, with the event resembling a dance party on the campus of the Democrat’s alma mater.

    By the time Podesta and Richmond had taken the stage, the party had stopped, people had left, and those who remained looked forlorn.

    Harris’ path to the White House is growing less forgiving

    Harris still has a path to the White House through the Northern battleground states, but the map is getting less forgiving.

    Harris’ campaign has long said her surest way to 270 electoral votes was through Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, states Trump won in 2016 and Biden captured narrowly in 2020.

    Harris cannot lose Pennsylvania and reach 270 electoral votes. However, she can lose pieces of the blue wall — so named for its longtime reputation as a Democratic firewall — and still reach 270.

    If she loses Michigan, she can make it up by winning Arizona and Nevada. She can lose Wisconsin and make up for it with Arizona.

    But the map has surely shrunk for Harris, who cannot lose more than one in the three-state northern arc.

    Trump campaign comments on Harris’ watch party mood

    A Trump campaign spokesperson is weighing in as the mood has shifted over at Harris’ watch party.

    “Sounds like the joy has left the building,” posted Karoline Leavitt, a campaign spokeswoman on X.

    The Harris campaign turned off its projected CNN broadcasts at its election night watch party at Howard University as midnight approached. And some Harris supporters began leaving the event.

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  • Trump makes false claims about federal response as he campaigns in area ravaged by Hurricane Helene

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    VALDOSTA, Ga. (AP) — Donald Trump repeatedly spread falsehoods Monday about the federal response to Hurricane Helene despite claiming not to be politicizing the disaster as he toured hard-hit areas in south Georgia.

    The former president and Republican nominee claimed upon landing in Valdosta that President Joe Biden was “sleeping” and not responding to Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who he said was “calling the president and hasn’t been able to get him.” He repeated the claim at an event with reporters after being told Kemp said he had spoken to Biden.

    “He’s lying, and the governor told him he was lying,” Biden said Monday.

    The White House previously announced that Biden spoke by phone Sunday night with Kemp and North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, as well as Scott Matheson, mayor of Valdosta, Georgia, and Florida Emergency Management Director John Louk. Kemp confirmed Monday morning that he spoke to Biden the night before.

    “The president just called me yesterday afternoon and I missed him and called him right back and he just said ‘Hey, what do you need?’ And I told him, you know, we’ve got what we need, we’ll work through the federal process,” Kemp said. “He offered if there are other things we need just to call him directly, which I appreciate that.”

    In addition to being humanitarian crises, natural disasters can create political tests for elected officials, particularly in the closing weeks of a presidential campaign in which among the hardest-hit states were North Carolina and Georgia, two battlegrounds. Trump over the last several days has used the damage wrought by Helene to attack Harris, the Democratic nominee, and suggest she and Biden are playing politics with the storm — something he was accused of doing when president.

    Biden is defiant about spending time at his beach house

    While the White House highlighted Biden’s call to Kemp and others, the president faced questions about his decision to spend the weekend at his beach house in Delaware, rather than the White House, to monitor the storm.

    “I was commanding it,” Biden told reporters after delivering remarks at the White House on the federal government’s response. “I was on the phone for at least two hours yesterday and the day before as well. I commanded it. It’s called a telephone.”

    AP Washington correspondent Sagar Meghani reports Donald Trump is touring Hurricane Helene’s damage in Georgia, while blasting the Biden administration’s response to the deadly storm.

    Biden received frequent updates on the storm, the White House said, as did Harris aboard Air Force Two as she made a West Coast campaign swing. The vice president cut short her campaign trip Monday to return to Washington for a briefing from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

    Trump, writing on his social media platform Monday, also claimed without evidence that the federal government and North Carolina’s Democratic governor were “going out of their way to not help people in Republican areas.” Asheville, which was devastated by the storm, is solidly Democratic, as is much of Buncombe County, which surrounds it.

    The death toll from Helene has surpassed 100 people, with some of the worst damage caused by inland flooding in North Carolina.

    Biden said he will travel to North Carolina on Wednesday to get a first-hand look at the devastation, but will limit his footprint so as not to distract from the ongoing recovery efforts.

    During remarks Monday at FEMA headquarters, Harris said she has received regular briefings on the disaster response, including from FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell, and has spoken with Kemp and Cooper in the last 24 hours.

    What to know about the 2024 election:

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    “I have shared with them that we will do everything in our power to help communities respond and recover,” she said. “And I’ve shared with them that I plan to be on the ground as soon as possible without disrupting any emergency response operations.”

    When asked if her visit was politicizing the storm, she frowned and shook her head but did not reply.

    Trump partnered with a Christian charity to bring supplies

    The Trump campaign partnered with the Christian humanitarian aid organization Samaritan’s Purse to bring trucks of fuel, food, water and other critical supplies to Georgia, said Karoline Leavitt, the Trump campaign’s national press secretary.

    Leavitt did not immediately respond to questions about how much had been donated and from which entity. Samaritan’s Purse also declined to address the matter in a statement.

    Trump also launched a GoFundMe campaign for supporters to send financial aid to people impacted by the storm. It quickly passed its $1 million goal Monday night.

    “Our hearts are with you and we are going to be with you as long as you need it,” Trump said, flanked by a group of elected officials and Republican supporters.

    “We’re not talking about politics now,” Trump added.

    Trump said he wanted to stop in North Carolina but was holding off because access and communication is limited in hard-hit communities.

    When asked by The Associated Press on Monday if he was concerned that his visit to Georgia was taking away law enforcement resources that could be used for disaster response, Trump said, “No.” He said his campaign instead “brought many wagons of resources.”

    Katie Watson, who owns with her husband the home design store Trump visited, said she was told the former president picked that location because he saw shots of the business destroyed with the rubble and said, “Find that place and find those people.”

    “He didn’t come here for me. He came here to recognize that this town has been destroyed. It’s a big setback,” she said.

    “He recognizes that we are hurting and he wants us to know that,” she added. “It was a lifetime opportunity to meet the president. This is not exactly the way I wanted to do it.”

    Trump campaign officials have long pointed to his visit to East Palestine, Ohio, the site of a toxic trail derailment, as a turning point in the early days of the presidential race when he was struggling to establish his footing as a candidate. They believed his warm welcome by residents frustrated by the federal government’s response helped remind voters why they had been drawn to him years earlier.

    Trump fought with Puerto Rico and meteorologists while president

    During Trump’s term as president, he visited numerous disaster zones, including the aftermaths of hurricanes, tornadoes and shootings. But the trips sometimes elicited controversy such as when he tossed paper towels to cheering residents in Puerto Rico in 2017 in the wake of Hurricane Maria.

    It also took until weeks before the presidential election in 2020 for Trump’s administration to release $13 billion in assistance for the territory. A federal government watchdog found that officials hampered an investigation into delays in aid delivery.

    In another 2019 incident, Trump administration officials admonished some meteorologists for tweeting that Alabama was not threatened by Hurricane Dorian, contradicting the then-president. Trump would famously display a map altered with a black Sharpie pen to indicate Alabama could be in the path of the storm.

    ___

    Fernando reported from Chicago, and Amy reported from Atlanta. Associated Press writers Jill Colvin in New York, Chris Megerian and Aamer Madhani in Washington, and Will Weissert in Las Vegas contributed to this report.

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