WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden on Thursday opened a critical stretch in his effort to salvage his imperiled reelection campaign, facing a growing sense that he may have just days to make a persuasive case that he is fit for office before Democratic support for him completely evaporates.
In the aftermath of Biden’s disastrous debate performance last week against Republican Donald Trump, some financial backers were holding off or canceling upcoming fundraisers, according to a person familiar with the plans who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to talk about private discussions.
Biden himself, in a Wednesday night meeting with Democratic governors, acknowledged that he needs to get more sleep and limit evening events so he can turn in earlier to be rested for the job, according to three people familiar with the meeting, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. One person said the president joked that his health was fine, it was his brain that had challenges.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was in the meeting, was asked about the idea that Biden wants to limit events after 8 p.m. and responded: “He did that with a smile on his face. It was more of a rhetorical framework of just being fit and rested.”
Newsom, who was campaigning for Biden in western Michigan, added, “I like when a president acknowledges they’re human.”
In an interview with a Wisconsin radio station that aired Thursday, Biden argued that much more than his own political future was in jeopardy, saying: “The stakes are really high. I know you know this. For democracy, for freedom ... our economy, they’re all on the line.”
The interview on the Earl Ingram Show on the Civic Media Radio Network, taped Wednesday, was the part of a media and public events blitz that the Democratic president and his staff have acknowledged as a make-or-break moment.
After hosting a July Fourth evening barbecue at the White House for military families, Biden is scheduled to campaign in Wisconsin on Friday and sit for an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that will air as a prime-time special that night.
He plans to be in Philadelphia on Sunday and hold a full news conference during the NATO summit in Washington next week.
It is not a given that his campaign will survive even that long if he does not deliver a strong showing on ABC. Discussions that were once a whisper around who should step into his place should he bow out are growing louder.
For now, Biden is not ready to walk away and he has communicated that in conversations with Democratic governors, close allies and staffers from his campaign.
But time is short for a possible change. The Democratic National Committee announced weeks ago that it would hold a virtual roll call for a formal nomination before the party’s national convention, which begins Aug. 19.
“I’m proud to be running for reelection as a president who’s made his promises and I’ve kept them,” Biden said in the radio interview.
“I had a bad night. A bad night. I screwed up,” he said of the debate, where he gave halting and convoluted answers.
“But 90 minutes on stage does not erase what I’ve done for 3 1/2 years,” he said in a different interview, with Philadelphia-area WURD Radio.
In his private conversations, Biden has focused on how to reverse the trajectory from his rocky debate and has emphasized the critical nature of this year’s presidential election.
During one call, when asked what would happen if his efforts to course correct do not work, Biden stressed that he understood how important the race is and that he would put the country first, according to a person who spoke directly with the president. The person was granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Biden’s meeting Wednesday night with the Democratic governors lasted for more than hour and drew more than 20 of them, some in person and some participating virtually. Afterward they described the conversation as “candid” and said they were standing behind Biden despite being concerned about a Trump victory in November. Details about Biden’s comments on getting more sleep were first reported by The New York Times.
During that meeting, Biden told leaders he had been checked out by his doctor following his debate performance, according to two people familiar with the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the private conversation. A few hours earlier, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had said Biden had not been examined by the doctor.
The White House has blamed Biden’s debate performance, where he appeared pale and his raspy voice trailed off at times, on a cold. Biden also said he had jet lag following back-to-back foreign trips that ended 12 days earlier.
Biden’s staff has resisted repeated calls to release more robust medical records for the 81-year-old president. After his last full physical in February, his doctor declared him fit for duty.
Two Democratic lawmakers have publicly called for Biden to drop out of the race. Most Democratic lawmakers, though, are taking a wait-and-see approach, holding out for a better idea of how the situation plays out through new polling and the TV interview. That’s according to Democratic lawmakers who requested anonymity to speak bluntly about the president.
Some have suggested Vice President Kamala Harris is emerging as the favorite to replace Biden if he were to withdraw. Those involved in private discussions acknowledge that California’s Newsom and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan remain viable alternatives. But for some insiders, Harris is viewed as the best prospect to quickly unify the party and avoid a messy and divisive convention fight.
Newsom was asked directly whether, if Biden dropped out, he would he support Harris. He said, “I don’t even like playing in the hypotheticals.”
Trump was seen on video declaring that Harris would be his new rival, saying, “she’s so pathetic.” It was unclear when he made the comments, which were posted on his social media account.
Even as other Democratic allies have remained quiet since the debate, there is a growing private frustration about the Biden campaign’s response at a crucial moment in the campaign — particularly in Biden waiting several days to do direct damage control with senior members of his own party.
Biden heads into a make-or-break stretch for his imperiled presidential campaign
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Biden heads into a make-or-break stretch for his imperiled presidential campaign
India’s leader Modi touted all was well in Kashmir. A massacre of tourists shattered that claim
- The attack outraged people in Kashmir and India, where it led to calls of swift action against Pakistan
SRINAGAR, India: Hundreds of Indian tourists, families and honeymooners, drawn by the breathtaking Himalayan beauty, were enjoying a picture-perfect meadow in Kashmir. They didn’t know gunmen in army fatigues were lurking in the woods.
When the attackers got their chance, they shot mostly Indian Hindu men, many of them at close-range, leaving behind bodies strewn across the Baisaran meadow and survivors screaming for help.
The gunmen quickly vanished into thick forests. By the time Indian authorities arrived, 26 people were dead and 17 others were wounded.
India has described the April 22 massacre as a terror attack and blamed Pakistan for backing it, an accusation denied by Islamabad. India swiftly announced diplomatic actions against its archrival Pakistan, which responded with its own tit-for-tat measures.
The assailants are still on the run, as calls in India for military action against Pakistan are growing.
World leaders have been scrambling to de-escalate the tensions between two nuclear-armed neighbors, which have historically relied on third countries for conflict management.
But the massacre has also touched a raw nerve.
Early on Wednesday, India fired missiles that struck at least three locations inside Pakistani-controlled territory, according to Pakistani security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. India said it was striking infrastructure used by militants.
India admits security lapse
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration has governed Kashmir with an iron fist in recent years, claiming militancy in the region was in check and a tourism influx was a sign of normalcy returning.
Those claims now lie shattered.
Security experts and former intelligence and senior military officers who have served in the region say Modi’s government — riding on a nationalistic fervor over Kashmir to please its supporters — missed warning signs.
The government acknowledged that in a rare admission.
Two days after the attack, Kiren Rijiju, India’s parliamentary affairs minister, said that a crucial all-party meeting discussed “where the lapses occurred.”
“We totally missed ... the intentions of our hostile neighbor,” said Avinash Mohananey, a former Indian intelligence officer who has operated in Kashmir and Pakistan.
The meadow, near the resort town of Pahalgam, can be reached by trekking or pony rides, and visitors cross at least three security camps and a police station to reach there. According to Indian media, there was no security presence for more than 1,000 tourists that day.
Pahalgam serves as a base for an annual Hindu pilgrimage that draws hundreds of thousands of people from across India. The area is ringed by thick woods that connect with forest ranges in the Jammu area, where Indian troops have faced attacks by rebels in recent years after fighting ebbed in the Kashmir Valley, the heart of an anti-India rebellion.
The massacre brought Modi’s administration almost back to where it started when a suicide car bombing in the region in 2019 prompted his government to strip Kashmir of its semi-autonomy and bring it under direct federal rule. Tensions have simmered ever since, but the region has also drawn millions of visitors amid a strange calm enforced by an intensified security crackdown.
“We probably started buying our own narrative that things were normal in Kashmir,” Mohananey said.
In the past, insurgents have carried out brazen attacks and targeted Hindu pilgrims, Indian Hindu as well as Muslim immigrant workers, and local Hindus and Sikhs. However, this time a large number of tourists were attacked, making it one of the worst massacres involving civilians in recent years.
The attack outraged people in Kashmir and India, where it led to calls of swift action against Pakistan.
Indian television news channels amplified these demands and panelists argued that India should invade Pakistan. Modi and his senior ministers vowed to hunt down the attackers and their backers.
Experts say much of the public pressure on the Indian government to act militarily against Pakistan falls within the pattern of long, simmering animosity between both countries.
“All the talk of military options against Pakistan mainly happens in echo chambers and feeds a nationalist narrative,” in India, New Delhi-based counterterrorism expert Ajai Sahni said.
“It doesn’t matter what will be done. We will be told it was done and was a success,” he said. “And it will be celebrated nonetheless.”
Modi’s optimism misplaced, experts say
Experts also say that the Modi government’s optimism was also largely misplaced and that its continuous boasting of rising tourism in the region was a fragile barometer of normalcy. Last year, Omar Abdullah, Kashmir’s top elected official, cautioned against such optimism.
“By this attack, Pakistan wants to convey that there is no normalcy in Kashmir and that tourism is no indicator for it. They want to internationalize the issue,” said D.S. Hooda, former military commander for northern India between 2014 to 2016.
Hooda said the “choice of targets and the manner in which the attack was carried out indicates that it was well-planned.”
“If there would have been a good security cover, maybe this incident would not have happened,” he said.
India sees Pakistan connection to the attack
Indian security experts believe the attack could be a retaliation for a passenger train hijacking in Pakistan in March by Baloch insurgents. Islamabad accused New Delhi of orchestrating the attack in which 25 people were killed. India denies it.
Mohananey said that Indian authorities should have taken the accusations seriously and beefed-up security in Kashmir, while arguing there was a striking similarity in both attacks since only men were targeted.
“It was unusual that women and children were spared” in both cases, Mohananey said.
Two senior police officers, who have years of counterinsurgency experience in Kashmir, said after the train attack in Pakistan that they were anticipating some kind of reaction in the region by militants.
The officers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that security officials perceived the threat of an imminent attack, and Modi’s inauguration of a strategic rail line in the region was canceled. A large-scale attack on tourists, however, wasn’t anticipated, because there was no such precedence, the officers said.
Hooda, who commanded what New Delhi called “surgical strikes” against militants in the Pakistan-controlled part of Kashmir in 2016, said that the attack has deepened thinking that it was time to tackle the Pakistani state, not just militants.
Such calculus could be a marked shift. In 2016 and 2019, India said that its army struck militant infrastructure inside Pakistan after two major militant attacks against its soldiers.
“After this attack,” Hooda said, India wants to stop Pakistan “from using terrorism as an instrument of state policy.”
“We need to tighten our security and plug lapses, but the fountainhead of terrorism needs to be tackled,” Hooda said. “The fountainhead is Pakistan.”
Trump says only 21 hostages held by Hamas in Gaza now believed to be alive
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump said Tuesday that three hostages held by Hamas in Gaza have died, leaving only 21 believed to be still living.
“As of today, it’s 21, three have died,” Trump said of the hostages being held by Hamas, noting until recently it had been 24 people believed to be living. He did not elaborate on the identities of those now believed to be dead, nor how he had come to learn of their deaths. “There’s 21, plus a lot of dead bodies,” Trump said.
One American, Edan Alexander, had been among the 24 hostages believed to be alive, with the bodies of several other Americans also held by Hamas after its Oct. 7, 2023 assault on Israel.
The president’s comments came as Israel approved plans on Monday to seize the Gaza Strip and to stay in the Palestinian territory for an unspecified amount of time, in a bid to recover the hostages and try to fulfill its war aims of destroying Hamas. If implemented, the move would vastly expand Israel’s operations there and likely draw fierce international opposition.
Columbia University lays off nearly 180 after Trump pulled $400M over his antisemitism concerns
- Pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up an encampment and seized a campus building in April, leading to dozens of arrests and inspiring a wave of similar protests nationally
NEW YORK: Columbia University said Tuesday that it will be laying off nearly 180 staffers in response to President Donald Trump’s decision to cancel $400 million in funding over the Manhattan college’s handling of student protests against the war in Gaza.
Those receiving non-renewal or termination notices Tuesday represent about 20 percent of the employees funded in some manner by the terminated federal grants, the university said in a statement Tuesday.
“We have had to make deliberate, considered decisions about the allocation of our financial resources,” the university said. “Those decisions also impact our greatest resource, our people. We understand this news will be hard.”
Officials are working with the Trump administration in the hopes of getting the funding restored, they said, but the university will still pull back spending because of uncertainty and strain on its budget.
Officials said the university will be scaling back research, with some departments winding down activities and others maintaining some level of research while pursuing alternate funding.
In March, the Trump administration pulled the funding over what it described as the Ivy League school’s failure to squelch antisemitism on campus during the Israel-Hamas war that began in October 2023.
Within weeks, Columbia capitulated to a series of demands laid out by the Republican administration as a starting point for restoring the funding.
Among the requirements was overhauling the university’s student disciplinary process, banning campus protesters from wearing masks, barring demonstrations from academic buildings, adopting a new definition of antisemitism and putting the Middle Eastern studies program under the supervision of a vice provost who would have a say over curriculum and hiring.
After Columbia announced the changes, US Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the university was ” on the right track,” but declined to say when or if Columbia’s funding would be restored. Spokespersons for the federal education department didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment Tuesday.
Columbia was at the forefront of US campus protests over the war last spring. Pro-Palestinian demonstrators set up an encampment and seized a campus building in April, leading to dozens of arrests and inspiring a wave of similar protests nationally.
Trump, when he retook the White House in January, moved swiftly to cut federal money to colleges and universities he viewed as too tolerant of antisemitism.
Trump hopes India-Pakistan clashes end ‘very quickly’
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump said Tuesday he hoped clashes between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan end “very quickly,” after New Delhi’s forces launched strikes and Islamabad vowed retaliation.
“It’s a shame, we just heard about it,” Trump said at the White House, after the Indian government said it had hit “terrorist camps” on its western neighbor’s territory following a deadly attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir.
“I guess people knew something was going to happen based on the past. They’ve been fighting for many, many decades and centuries, actually, if you really think about it,” he added.
India and Pakistan have fought three full-scale wars since gaining independence from the British in 1947. Both claim Kashmir in full but administer separate portions of the disputed region.
“I just hope it ends very quickly,” said Trump.
India had been widely expected to respond militarily since gunmen shot dead 26 people in Indian-administered Kashmir, mostly Hindus.
New Delhi has blamed militants that it has said were from Pakistan-based group Lashkar-e-Taiba, a UN-designated terrorist organization.
Pakistan’s army said the Indian strikes targeted three sites in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and two in Punjab province, the country’s most populous.
Islamabad said that three civilians, including a child, had been killed in Indian strikes.
The Indian strikes came just hours after the US State Department issued a fresh call for calm.
“We continue to urge Pakistan and India to work toward a responsible resolution that maintains long-term peace and regional stability in South Asia,” State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce told reporters.
Her statement came after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned of stopping water from flowing across borders following the Kashmir attack.
‘World cannot afford’ India-Pakistan confrontation: UN
UNITED NATIONS: UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “very concerned” about Indian military strikes on Pakistan, his spokesperson said on Tuesday, hours after India said it hit nine sites in Pakistani territory.
“The Secretary-General is very concerned about the Indian military operations across the Line of Control and international border. He calls for maximum military restraint from both countries. The world cannot afford a military confrontation between India and Pakistan,” said Stephane Dujarric, the spokesperson.
