Summary of the day
Donald Trump held his first public campaign rally since a shocking assassination attempt a week ago by appearing in a crucial rust belt battleground state alongside his new running mate, Ohio senator JD Vance.
Trump, reflecting on the 13 July shooting, said: “I shouldn’t be here right now” during the Grand Rapids, Michigan, campaign rally, where the white gauze on his injured ear had been replaced by a smaller, beige bandage.
Trump launched a full-throated attack on Democratic rivals and referred to leadership chaos within the Democratic party. “They have no idea who their candidate is, and neither do we,” Trump jibed. He called Biden a “feeble old guy”.
Trump had been struck by a bullet that passed “less than a quarter of an inch” from his head and left a “2 cm wide wound” on his right ear during last week’s assassination attempt, his former physician and Texas representative Ronny Jackson said.
Joe Biden continued to endure high-profile calls to end his re-election campaign after a week of astonishing party moves to unseat the president in favor of a candidate many hope will be more likely to beat Trump.
Representative Mark Takano of California, the top Democrat on the House veterans’ affairs committee, on Saturday added his name to the list of nearly three dozen Democrats in Congress who say it’s time for Biden to leave the race.
The former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton have privately been supportive of Biden’s decision to stay in the race and have been actively encouraging donors to stay with him, according to an NBC report.
Biden is planning potential trips to Georgia and Texas in the coming days even as he recovers from Covid and Democrats continue to call on him to drop out of the race. Biden’s symptoms “continue to improve steadily”, his physician Kevin C O’Connor said in a statement on Saturday.
The Trump campaign is preparing a major attack plan on Kamala Harris if Biden steps aside, including a wave of ads focusing on her record in her current office and in California, according to a New York Times report.
Biden called Sheila Jackson Lee a “great American” and “towering figure in our politics” in a statement issued after the Democratic representative from Texas died on Friday.
Donald Trump has finished speaking at his campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, alongside his new running mate, Ohio senator JD Vance, as he returned to the campaign trail a week after surviving an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
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Trump says he is going to “take over” Washington DC and “clean it up” if he returns to the White House.
He says he will rebuild American cities into “beacons of hope, safety and beauty”, and that he will have to work with Democratic governors and mayors to do it.
Trump says that if he is re-elected, he will on day one sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory or any “inappropriate racial, sexual or political content”.
He says he “will not give one penny” to any school that has a vaccine or mask mandate, that he will uphold the “very important but under siege” second amendment.
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Trump says he will “prevent world war three from happening” and that he will have the “horrible” war between Russia and Ukraine “settled” if he is re-elected.
“You’re very close to world war,” Trump says. He says the “Afghan disaster” would have never happened if he were president, and that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine, nor would the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel have happened if he had been in the White House.
I will restore a thing called peace through strength.
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Trump calls Sandy Pensler to the stage, who announces that he is dropping out of the Michigan senate race and endorsing Mike Rogers.
“President Trump endorsed Mike Rogers. Tonight, so am I,” Pensler says.
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Trump says he will begin the “largest deportation operation in the history of our country” as soon as he is sworn into office.
Trump promises to restore the “sacred and sovereign” borders of the country, says he will shut down “deadly” sanctuary cities and ship “massive” portions of federal law enforcement to immigration enforcement.
Trump repeats his baseless claim that the presidential election was rigged, blaming “radical-left Democrats”, and vows that “we’re not going to allow them to rig the presidential election in 2024. We’re not going to allow it.”
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Trump describes the Chinese and Russian presidents, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, as “smart, tough” leaders who “love their country”.
Trump says Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister, was right in saying that “we have to have somebody that can protect us”.
Trump on authoritarians: "They're all smart, tough. They love their country ... we have to have somebody that can protect us. And Orban was right: we have to have somebody that can protect us." pic.twitter.com/fmE9bPBPjm
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 20, 2024
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Trump says Xi Jinping is 'brilliant' because he 'controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist'
Trump says he got along very well with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, whom he says is a “brilliant” man who “controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist”.
Xi “makes guys like Biden look like babies”, Trump says.
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Donald Trump has been pictured on stage at his Grand Rapids, Michigan, rally with his previously conspicuous white bandage over his right ear replaced by a smaller bandage.
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Trump says his wife, Melania Trump, “looked great” at the Republican national convention this week.
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Trump is back with the electrocution v sharks story. “I will take electrocution all day long,” he tells his supporters. “Despite the environmentalists that say how wonderful sharks are.”
Trump asks, rhetorically, why he is once again talking about electricity and sharks. “It’s sort of a cute little story,” he says.
Do I take electrocution, or do I take death by a shark? I’ll always take electrocution.
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Trump becomes distracted from his speech when he spots a man in the crowd, and asks him to join him on stage at the campaign rally.
“Are you the same guy? The same muscles,” Trump says to the man, before reassuring his security that he “does not carry guns”. The audience member calls on supporters to “do our part” and vote for Trump.
“You look at the arms of him,” Trump says. “I may have height, but his arms are definitely more powerful, huh?”
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Trump conducts a “poll” among those attending the Grand Rapids rally and he asks who they most want him to run against: Kamala Harris or Joe Biden.
The crowd boos in response to both names, but much louder at Biden’s name.
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Trump: 'I love Elon Musk'
Trump says he will do great things for the people of Michigan, including that he will “rescue” the American auto industry “from obliteration”.
Trump criticizes Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers, whom he says “doesn’t know what he’s doing”. He says he loves Elon Musk:
Elon endorsed me recently, the other day. He’s great. He’s a brilliant guy.
He says he and Musk have always had a good relationship, and that Musk is a “very advanced” person.
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Trump says a Trump-Vance administration will rapidly reverse “every single Biden-Harris disaster”, starting from day one, if he is elected.
He says he will end the “inflation nightmare”, that he will “crush migrant crime”, that he will give people an additional tax cut and that energy prices will be brought down “very quickly”.
America’s enemies will fear us. The United States will again command the respect that it deserves.
He says “something beautiful” will happen, and that he will bring back the American dream, and that it will be “bigger, better and bolder than ever before”.
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Trump says he 'took a bullet for democracy'
Trump says Democrats have been trying to make him sound “like I’m an extremist” but says that he is actually a person “with great common sense”.
He says he doesn’t know anything about Project 2025. “I don’t know what the hell it is,” he says.
They keep saying [I’m] a threat to democracy. I’m saying: what the hell did I do for democracy? Last week, I took a bullet for democracy. What did I do against democracy?
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Trump says he will “never stop working to deliver a magnificent future for our people”, as he notes that the upcoming November election will be the “most important election in the history of our country”.
We will fight, fight, fight and we will win, win, win.
Trump says there are other things he could be doing that would be “a lot easier”, although he says he would rather be campaigning today than “sitting on some gorgeous beach watching boring waves”.
Trump then talks about the Republican national convention in Milwaukee, saying there has never been a convention with so much “unity and love”.
“There’s never been anything like it,” he says, noting that it was “really an amazing thing to see” with “so many great people”.
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Trump, still referring to the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, says it was an “incredible” time.
Nobody’s seen anything like it, and hopefully they never will again.
He thanks Texas representative Ronny Jackson, his former physician, who has been treating him since the attack. Trump calls him an “outstanding” doctor, saying: “I love that guy.”
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Donald Trump says he wants to thank Americans nationwide, including those attending today’s campaign rally, for their “extraordinary outpouring of love and support” in the wake of the “horrific” event last weekend.
He says the assassination attempt took place “exactly one week ago today, almost to the hour, even to the minute”. “What a day it was,” Trump says.
I stand before you only by the grace of almighty God. I shouldn’t be here. Maybe JD or somebody else would be here, but I shouldn’t be here right now.
Trump says he wants to thank everyone at Butler memorial hospital and the citizens of Butler, Pennsylvania.
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Donald Trump begins speaking at the campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he appears to no longer be wearing the large white bandage on his injured ear from last Saturday’s assassination attempt.
“This is like a Michigan football game over here,” Trump said, before thanking his running mate, JD Vance, whom he says will be a “fantastic” vice-president.
Trump says he chose Vance “because he’s for the worker”.
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Trump to speak in first rally post-assassination attempt
Ohio senator JD Vance is back on stage at the campaign rally at Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he makes a brief speech to supporters before introducing Donald Trump.
Vance says Trump was a great president who “knew instinctively what this country needed and how to put the interests of the citizens of this country first”.
“We had a hell of a four years with President Donald J Trump, didn’t we?” Vance says before Trump walks on to the stage.
Standing in line, Isaiah White, a 25-year old from Hudsonville, Michigan said he was “very excited” for another chance to see Donald Trump. The last time Trump came to Van Andel Arena, White got in line too late and had to watch on the jumbotron outside the venue.
Betsy Gatchell Goff, who came to Van Andel Arena from her home town of Benton Harbor, Michigan, said she thought Trump was “a unifying figure for our country.” Gatchell Goff hoped that with Trump back in office, “we’ll have a president who does more than sleep all day,” a disparaging reference to Joe Biden.
Joe Attard, a worker at a factory that makes sheds, made the drive from Southgate, Michigan, to Grand Rapids hoping to catch a glimpse of Donald Trump, who was appearing in the crucial battleground state after being formally anointed as the Republican presidential candidate and hitting the campaign trail with his new running mate, Ohio senator JD Vance. Attard said:
There’s a real feeling of community here, everybody in the same mind. It’s a great feeling.
Other than a lone man across the barricades holding a Deport Trump sign, Attard seemed to be right. There were few people around without some kind of Trump-branded apparel.
Perhaps in keeping with a party that has fully unified around Trump after the shocking attempt on his life, most people seemed excited to be at the rally.
A man in an army baseball cap pointed people towards the ADA-accessible line. People waved and cheered for the Secret Service officers and mounted police patrolling the street.
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Guardian reporter Ethan Meyers is in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Donald Trump supporters have gathered in anticipation of the former president’s remarks:
“He was spared by the hand of God!” a man wrapped in a flag started chanting as he walked past a line of people snaking outside the 12,000-seat Van Andel Arena in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan.
The display prompted a smattering of “USA! USA!,” but the general tone of the crowd who had gathered to see Donald Trump’s first rally since a would-be assassin opened fire on him at a campaign event in Pennsylvania a week ago was much more laid-back.
Indeed, despite the roiling impact of the shooting on US politics, it felt like back to business-as-usual for the Trump campaign road show.
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Here are some images from the newswires from the rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where Donald Trump is due to speak shortly in his first public campaign rally since he was injured in an assassination attempt.
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Axios’s Sophia Cai reports that supporters of Donald Trump had to go through one of eight metal detectors to enter the venue for today’s rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan:
📍Grand Rapids, Michigan
— Sophia Cai (@SophiaCai99) July 20, 2024
Attendees had to go through one of eight metal detectors to enter the venue for the Trump rally pic.twitter.com/EeXrzHayYu
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“Welcome to Michigan, Donald Trump and JD Vance,” the Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, said in an Instagram post on Saturday, before outlining “three things you should know about our great state” ahead of today’s joint rally.
Here, we protect reproductive freedom. We’re not interested in your national abortion ban. Two, we find ways to put money back in Michiganders pockets … and three, we’re a proud union state and UAW workers still remember when Donald Trump broke his promises to Michigan workers … and Michigan is going to reject your extreme Project 2025 agenda.
Whitmer’s caustic welcome comes amid polling indicating she would beat Trump by 1% in the key swing state if she were to become the Democratic presidential nominee, but trails the former president by almost 4% nationally in a hypothetical general election matchup.
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Donald Trump has arrived in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he is expected to speak in his first public campaign rally since last Saturday’s assassination attempt.
From Fox 17’s Lauren Kummer:
JUST IN: Former President Donald Trump has arrived to Grand Rapids.
— Lauren Kummer (@LaurenKummerTV) July 20, 2024
His motorcade passed me on I-96 just before 3:30 p.m. as he heads to Van Andel Arena for his first campaign rally since his assassination attempt. @FOX17 pic.twitter.com/5xLa0yaXNK
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Trump to hold first public campaign event since assassination attempt
Donald Trump is shortly expected to speak at his first public campaign rally since his assassination attempt a week ago by appearing in a crucial rust belt battleground state alongside his new running mate, Ohio senator JD Vance.
The return to the campaign trail by Trump comes after the attempted killing of the former president at a Pennsylvania rally last Saturday when a 20-year-old gunman opened fire, injuring Trump and others and killing one rally-goer.
The shooting roiled American politics, ratcheting up the tension in a race already fueled by fears over rising political violence and the prospect of civil unrest. It also dominated the past week’s Republican national convention in Milwaukee from which Trump emerged at the head of a remarkably unified and energized campaign.
Tonight’s joint rally with Vance is the first for the pair since they officially became the nominees.
Michigan is one of the crucial swing states expected to determine the outcome of the presidential election. Trump narrowly won the state by just more than 10,000 votes in 2016, but Democrat Joe Biden flipped it back in 2020, winning by a margin of 154,000 votes on his way to the presidency.
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JD Vance has been speaking at a campaign rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in his first rally appearance since he was announced as Donald Trump’s running mate.
From CNN’s Kate Sullivan:
JD Vance takes the stage at a Trump rally for the first time as his running mate: “I gotta be honest, it’s still a little bit weird to see my name on those signs.” pic.twitter.com/x3pCQtYhQ1
— Kate Sullivan (@KateSullivanDC) July 20, 2024
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Trump still experiencing 'intermittent bleeding' from '2cm wide' bullet wound, says physician
Donald Trump was struck by a bullet that passed “less than a quarter of an inch” from his head that left a “2 cm wide wound” in his right ear during last week’s assassination attempt, his former physician said.
In a statement shared by the former president, Texas congressman Ronny Jackson, Trump’s former doctor, said he has been evaluating and treating his wound daily.
Trump “is doing well”, Jackson said.
As reported and witnessed by the entire world, he sustained a gunshot wound to the right ear from a high-powered rifle used by the would be assassin. The bullet passed, coming less than a quarter of an inch from entering his head, and struck the top of his right ear. The bullet track produced a 2cm wide wound that extended down to the cartilaginous surface of the ear.
Jackson said there was initially “significant” bleeding, “followed by marked swelling of the entire upper ear” which has since resolved.
“Based on the highly vascular nature of the ear, there is still intermittent bleeding requiring a dressing to be in place,” he wrote, adding:
In summary, former president Trump is doing well, and he is recovering as expected from the gunshot wound sustained last Saturday afternoon. I am extremely thankful his life was spared. It is an absolute miracle he wasn’t killed.
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Trump campaign 'preparing major attack' on Harris in case Biden steps aside – report
Donald Trump’s campaign is preparing a major attack plan on Kamala Harris if Joe Biden steps aside, including a wave of ads focusing on her record in her current office and in California, according to a report.
The Trump team has already prepared opposition research books on Harris, including a recently concluded poll testing her vulnerabilities in a general election contest, the New York Times reports, citing sources. The report says:
The Trump team’s attention on Ms Harris is based on its assumption that if Democrats were to bypass the first Black woman to serve as vice president, it would drive even deeper divisions in the party and risk alienating their base of Black voters.
Trump allies have also begun examining the records of Democratic governors who are considered potential running mates for Harris, including Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro, according to the report.
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Members of the House homeland security committee have announced they plan to visit the site of the assassination attempt of Donald Trump on Monday.
The committee chair, Mark Green, will be joined by 10 members of the committee for the visit to Butler, Pennsylvania.
The visit comes as the House oversight committee prepares to hear from the Secret Service director, Kim Cheatle, in a public hearing on Monday morning.
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The multimillionaire and prominent election denier Patrick Byrne has been boosting his funding to the Maga-allied America Project and using it to steer six-figure checks to far-right groups that push voting conspiracies in Arizona, Michigan and elsewhere, according to tax records and voting experts.
Byrne, the former CEO of online retailer Overstock.com, said last fall that only $3m of the $30m the Florida-based project had raised at that point came from “the public”, with the rest coming from him. In 2022, the America Project almost doubled its revenues to $14.3m versus some $7.7m the prior year, according to tax records first disclosed by Issue One, a bipartisan political reform group.
The America Project was launched in April 2021 by Byrne and Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser to Donald Trump when he was president; both Byrne and Flynn have been vocal purveyors of falsehoods that Trump lost the 2020 election due to fraud. They were also both at a meeting with Trump and others in late 2020 to brainstorm ways to overturn his loss.
The America Project and Byrne have sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Arizona-based We the People AZ Alliance, and Michigan-based United States Election Investigation and Lawsuits Inc, triggering alarms by election watchdogs and some GOP veterans due to their incendiary election denialist stances and leaders.
Read the full story: Pro-Trump multimillionaire and election denier boosts funds to far-right voter-conspiracy groups
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CNN is reporting that Joe Biden has been briefed on “developments” in the Middle East after an Israeli airstrike in Yemen targeting Houthi rebels.
Airstrikes hit a refinery and electricity infrastructure, igniting a fiery blaze. A spokesperson for the White House national security council told CNN that the the US did not coordinate with Israel on the airstrikes but recognizes Israel’s “right to self-defense”.
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Department of Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas released a statement defending women in law enforcement after rightwing figures haves started to blame the presence of female agents and Kimberly Cheatle, the director of the Secret Service, for Donald Trump’s assassination attempt.
Matt Walsh, a prominent rightwing figure, said on Twitter that “there should not be any women in the secret service. These are supposed to be the very best, and none of the very best at this job are women.”
Mayorkas hit back on those claims, saying that the Department of Homeland Security “will, with great pride, focus and devotion to mission, continue to recruit, retain and elevate women in our law enforcement ranks”.
“These assertions are baseless and insulting,” Mayorkas said, in a statement released Saturday. “Women are serving in federal, state, local, tribal, territorial and campus law enforcement. They are highly trained and skilled professionals, who risk their lives on the front lines for the safety and security of others.”
Statement regarding recent comments questioning the presence of women in law enforcement: https://t.co/NaTdDM0R85 pic.twitter.com/dkCY7Yoalb
— Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (@SecMayorkas) July 20, 2024
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Joe Biden is planning potential trips to Georgia and Texas in the coming days even as he recovers from Covid and Democrats continue to call on him to drop out of the race.
Biden is currently recovering from Covid at his Delaware beach house. Senior Democrats have urged Biden to make a decision about his campaign this weekend, according to Axios. One anonymous Biden aide said that the “universal sentiment internally” is “that we have reached the end of the road”.
Meanwhile, Steve Ricchetti, one of Biden’s core advisers, traveled to Delaware on Friday to have face-to-face conversations with the president, presumably about his campaign. Though several seniors aides typically accompany Biden to his Delaware house on the weekends, only three were with him in his motorcade this time.
One anonymous senior Democratic official told Axios that things “feel stuck at the moment”.
“That’s not to say it isn’t going to stay stuck,” the official said.
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Biden's Covid symptoms continue to 'improve steadily', says physician
The White House just released an update on Joe Biden’s Covid infection, saying that the president is still experiencing mild symptoms, including a cough and hoarseness, “but his symptoms continue to improve steadily”. Biden took his sixth dose of Paxlovid Saturday morning.
“The president continues to tolerate treatment well and will continue Paxlovid as planned,” White House physician Kevin C O’Connor said in a statement. “He continues to perform all of his presidential duties.”
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The vice-president of the Teamsters, John Palmer, has announced he is mounting a challenge to the current president, Sean O’Brien, who has faced a backlash over his speech at the Republican national convention.
In a letter reported by the Hill, Palmer said he was officially announcing his candidacy for Teamsters national office in the 2026 election and invited all Teamsters to join him in forming an opposition slate to “send Sean O’Brien back to the truck”.
Palmer laid out several reasons why O’Brien has shown he is not fit for his leadership position, including fear of retaliation among members and failing to support members in contracts, adding:
This has all culminated in his presence at the anti-union, anti-worker Republican national convention, kissing the ring of a man that scabbed a picket line, failing to pay workers, discriminating against people of color as a landlord, falsely accusing five black men in New York of murder, orchestrating an insurrection against the United States, dodging the draft, and appointing Union busters from the Jones Day law firm to create the most anti-union Labor Board in history.
NEWS: Teamsters VP-at-Large, John Palmer, who has been extremely critical of current President O’Brien’s overtures towards the GOP, has just announced he’s forming an opposition slate and running for president in the 2026 Teamsters leadership election. “We are better than this.” pic.twitter.com/f8wOrojhp7
— Kim Kelly (@GrimKim) July 19, 2024
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The chair of the Biden-Harris campaign has urged staff to tune out news coverage that focuses on whether Joe Biden will withdraw his re-election bid, according to a report.
“Don’t watch cable news all the time,” Jen O’Malley Dillon told campaign staff and the Democratic National Committee during an a call on Friday, Axios reported. She was quoted as telling staff:
That is not the real world. The real world is the voters that are standing with us, the delegates that are with us, and we’re going to weather this because of this organization.
O’Malley Dillon reiterated to staff that Biden is “in this race” and “in it to win it”, the outlet said.
Biden “sounds like shit because he’s not feeling that well”, she said, noting his recent Covid-19 diagnosis.
But he is doing the work, and he is focused on what you guys are doing.
The outlet reported that O’Malley Dillon said “the people that the president is hearing from are saying: ‘Stay in this race and keep going and keep fighting, and we need you.’
Those voices will never be as loud as the people on TV, but remember that the people in our country are not watching cable news. They just aren’t.
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Clintons supportive of Biden's decision to stay in race - report
The former president Bill Clinton and former secretary of state Hillary Clinton have privately been supportive of Joe Biden’s decision to stay in the race and have been actively encouraging donors to stay with him, NBC is reporting, citing sources.
The Clintons’ position was described by the sources as “deferential” in relation to Biden’s commitment to continue his re-election campaign, the report says.
Behind the scenes, the Clintons have been in touch with the White House and have offered to help however they can, sources told the outlet.
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When Al Sharpton recently hung up the phone with Joe Biden, a man he has known for more than 30 years, first as a senator, then as vice-president and now as president, the message was clear: “He assured me he wasn’t going anywhere.”
In their conversation, Sharpton said, he never asked Biden to exit the 2024 presidential race.
“I said to him that I appreciated what he did and I want to see it continue,” the reverend told the Guardian in an interview. “And he said: ‘That’s why I’m running, Al.’”
That was Monday. By the week’s end, the 81-year-old president, cloistered at his beach house in Delaware with Covid and besieged on all sides by dismal polling, voter concerns and a rebellion against his candidacy from members of his own party, was confronting the most consequential decision of his half-century in public life.
“Let him make up his mind,” said Sharpton, the veteran civil rights leader.
If he decides to walk, let him walk with his dignity, and if he decides to stay in it, he’s earned that right.
Read the full interview: Al Sharpton on Joe Biden’s re-election bid: ‘Let him make up his mind’
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Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator from Massachusetts, has emphasized that Joe Biden is her party’s nominee but that the president has “a big decision to make”.
Warren, in an interview on MSNBC this morning, added:
What gives me a lot of hope right now is that if President Biden decides to step back, we have vice-president Kamala Harris, who is ready to step up to unite the party.
There's been discussion of Democrats' desire to eliminate the entire Biden-Harris ticket. Senator Elizabeth Warren says @POTUS has “a big decision to make” and “Vice President Harris is ready to serve” if needed. pic.twitter.com/ddeZcUgjij
— The Weekend on MSNBC (@TheWeekendMSNBC) July 20, 2024
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As we previously reported, California representative Mark Takano privately said that Joe Biden should end his re-election campaign weeks before today’s statement.
Takano was among four House Democrats who said they believed Biden should step aside during a call earlier this month with House Democratic leadership, according to multiple reports.
Alongside Jerry Nadler, Adam Smith and Joseph Morelle, Takano voiced support for having a change at the top of the Democratic presidential ticket in a private meeting with the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, top leaders in the House Democratic caucus and top Democrats on committees, according to reports.
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Mark Takano becomes latest Democrat to call on Biden to step aside
Mark Takano, a Democratic representative from California, has issued a statement calling for Joe Biden to drop his re-election bid, adding that it is “time to pass the torch” to Kamala Harris.
Takano, in a statement posted on X, said:
President Biden’s greatest accomplishment remains saving democracy in 2020. He can and must do so again in 2024—by passing the torch to Vice President Harris as the Democratic Party Presidential nominee.
It has become clear to me that the demands of a modern campaign are now best met by the Vice President, who can seamlessly transition into the role of our party’s standard bearer.
He added:
Joe, I love and respect you. But the stakes are too high to fail. It’s time to pass the torch to Kamala.
My statement on why I believe President Joe Biden should pass the torch to Vice President Kamala Harris. pic.twitter.com/RZUzVKCCcj
— Mark Takano (@MarkTakano) July 20, 2024
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Joe Biden has called Sheila Jackson Lee a “great American” and “towering figure in our politics” in a statement issued after the Democratic representative from Texas died on Friday.
Jackson Lee, a strong progressive voice in the Democratic party who was outspoken on African American and women’s rights, announced last month she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was undergoing treatment. She was 74 and had previously had breast cancer.
A statement from Biden released by the White House reads:
Sheila Jackson Lee was a great American.
I had the honor of working with her during her nearly 30 years in Congress. No matter the issue - from delivering racial justice to building an economy for working people - she was unrelenting in her leadership.
Always fearless, she spoke truth to power and represented the power of the people of her district in Houston with dignity and grace.
Those character traits established her as a towering figure in our politics. We saw it through her efforts to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, make Juneteenth a federal holiday, reintroduce the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, and so much more.
Her character revealed itself time and again, including in her battle against cancer. Her brilliant spirit was unbreakable.
Sheila Jackson Lee is part of a long line of patriots who delivered the promise of America to all Americans.
Jill and I send our love and condolences to her family, her constituents, and beloved colleagues of the Congressional Black Caucus.
May God bless our friend, Sheila Jackson Lee.
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Seth Moulton, a Democratic representative from Massachusetts, has said he decided to join calls for Joe Biden to exit the presidential race after, Moulton claimed, the 81-year-old appeared not to recognise him at a recent event.
Moulton was one of the first Democrats to call for Biden to drop out of the race shortly after his disastrous debate performance last month. On Friday, Moulton ramped up his efforts to oust the president from the 2024 ticket in a damning op-ed for the Boston Globe.
Moulton said he met Biden in a small group for the 80th anniversary of D-day in Normandy on 6 June. “For the first time, he didn’t seem to recognise me,” the Democrat wrote.
Of course, that can happen as anyone ages but, as I watched the disastrous debate a few weeks ago, I have to admit that what I saw in Normandy was part of a deeper problem.
It was a crushing realisation, and not because a person I care about had a rough night but because everything is riding on Biden’s ability to beat Donald Trump in November.
America needs him to win and, like most Americans, I’m no longer confident that he can. The president should bow out of the race.
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Biden 'looking forward' to getting back on campaign trail despite reports he is open to dropping out
Amid the public disavowals of support from Democratic lawmakers, an equally intense private lobbying campaign from top Democrats, party stalwarts and senior donors has been aimed at persuading Joe Biden that he cannot beat Donald Trump and that his political legacy is at risk unless he is replaced by a more dynamic candidate, most likely Kamala Harris.
That campaign has seemingly inched closer and closer to persuading Biden and his close inner circles of advisers and family members that the situation has become so serious that he needs to consider taking the extraordinary step of declaring himself a one-term president and backing someone else to fight Trump.
Biden’s position has reportedly wavered from one of absolute refusal to move to now being open to the idea of considering his position. Some media reports have even suggested that a decision could come in the next few days, including as early as this weekend.
However, on Friday, Biden’s campaign struck a notable tone of defiance, saying the president – who also has Covid and is isolating at his Delaware beach home – is anticipating getting back on the campaign trail. Biden said in a statement:
I look forward to getting back on the campaign trail next week to continue exposing the threat of Donald Trump’s Project 2025 agenda while making the case for my own record and the vision that I have for America: one where we save our democracy, protect our rights and freedoms, and create opportunity for everyone.
“The stakes are high, and the choice is clear,” Biden added. “Together, we will win.”
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JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, has called on Joe Biden to resign from office.
Vance, in a post on X, wrote:
Everyone calling on Joe Biden to *stop running* without also calling on him to resign the presidency engaged in an absurd level of cynicism.
If you can’t run, you can’t serve. He should resign now.
Everyone calling on Joe Biden to *stop running* without also calling on him to resign the presidency is engaged in an absurd level of cynicism.
— JD Vance (@JDVance1) July 20, 2024
If you can't run, you can't serve.
He should resign now.
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Who are the Democrats calling for Biden to step aside?
After Joe Biden’s disastrous performance in his first debate against Donald Trump supercharged concerns about his age and fitness for office, the president has faced calls from members of Congress to stand down as the Democratic nominee this November.
A growing number of elected Democratic officials have publicly called for him to quit. Here they are:
House of Representatives:
Earl Blumenauer (Oregon)
Ed Case (Hawaii)
Sean Casten (Illinois)
Kathy Castor (Florida)
Jim Costa (California)
Angie Craig (Minnesota)
Lloyd Doggett (Texas)
Chuy Garcia (Illinois)
Raúl Grijalva (Arizona)
Jim Himes (Connecticut)
Jared Huffman (California)
Greg Landsman (Ohio)
Mike Levin (California)
Zoe Lofgren (California)
Betty McCollum (Minnesota)
Morgan McGarvey (Kentucky)
Seth Moulton (Massachusetts)
Scott Peters (California)
Brittany Pettersen (Colorado)
Mark Pocan (Wisconsin)
Mike Quigley (Illinois)
Pat Ryan (New York)
Adam Schiff (California)
Brad Schneider (Illinois)
Hillary Scholten (Michigan)
Mikie Sherrill (New Jersey)
Adam Smith (Washington)
Eric Sorensen (Illinois)
Greg Stanton (Arizona)
Gabe Vasquez (New Mexico)
Marc Veasey (Texas)
Reported: Joe Morelle (New York), Jerry Nadler (New York), Mark Takano (California)
Senate:
Sherrod Brown (Ohio)
Martin Heinrich (New Mexico)
Jon Tester (Montana)
Peter Welch (Vermont)
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Sherrod Brown, who last night joined calls for Joe Biden to end his re-election bid, is one of the US Senate’s most vulnerable Democrats and the only Democrat holding a statewide position in Ohio.
Brown faces Republican Bernie Moreno in what is viewed as one of the most competitive Senate races of November.
Ohio has twice supported Donald Trump by large margins and Trump has the state’s junior senator, JD Vance, as his running mate.
Despite enjoying a long and close relationship with Biden, Brown has worked to distance himself from the president this election cycle.
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The latest high-profile name to join the chorus and call for Joe Biden to step aside was Sherrod Brown, when the embattled Ohio senator broke cover on Friday evening to call for an end to Biden’s re-election campaign.
“I’ve heard from Ohioans on important issues, such as how to continue to grow jobs in our state, give law enforcement the resources to crack down on fentanyl, protect social security and Medicare from cuts, and prevent the ongoing efforts to impose a national abortion ban,” Brown said in a statement.
At this critical time, our full attention must return to these important issues. I think the president should end his campaign.
Biden continues to self-isolate with Covid as he resists calls to step aside
Good morning, US politics readers. A growing number of Democrats are publicly calling on Joe Biden to step aside, with a dozen coming forward on Friday alone and more lawmakers expected to speak out in the coming days.
Democrats are caught in an apparent stalemate as a dug-in Biden, who is in Delaware self isolating after being diagnosed with Covid, continues to endure high-profile calls to end his re-election campaign after a week of astonishing party moves to unseat him. The Biden campaign has struck a notable tone of defiance, and insisted the president is ready to return to the campaign trail next week.
Meanwhile, after wrapping the Republican national convention in Milwaukee this week, Donald Trump will hold his first campaign rally today after his assassination attempt last Saturday in the battleground state of Michigan alongside his new running mate, Ohio senator JD Vance.
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