WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden’s imperiled re-election campaign hit new trouble Wednesday as House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi said merely “it’s up to the president to decide” if he should stay in the race, celebrity donor George Clooney said he should not run and Democratic senators and lawmakers expressed fresh fear about his ability to beat Republican Donald Trump.
The sudden flurry of grave pronouncements despite Biden’s determined insistence he is not leaving the 2024 race put on public display just how unsettled the question remains among prominent Democrats. On Capitol Hill, an eighth House Democrat, Rep. Pat Ryan of New York, and later a ninth, Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, publicly asked Biden to step aside.
“I want him to do whatever he decides to do,” Pelosi said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” rather than declaring Biden should stay in. While Biden has said repeatedly that he’s made his decision, she said, “We’re all encouraging him to make that decision, because time is running short.”
It’s a crucial moment for the president and his party, as Democrats consider what was once unthinkable — having the incumbent Biden step aside, just weeks before the Democratic National Convention that is on track to nominate him as their candidate for reelection.
Biden is hosting world leaders in Washington for the NATO summit this week with a crowded schedule of formal meetings, sideline chats and long diplomatic dinners showcasing his skills. His party at a crossroads, Biden faces the next national public test Thursday at a scheduled news conference that many Democrats in Congress will be watching for signs of his abilities.
To be sure, Biden maintains strong support from key corners of his coalition, particularly the Congressional Black Caucus on Capitol Hill, whose leadership was instrumental in ushering the president to victory in 2020 and is standing by him as the country’s best choice to defeat Trump again in 2024.
“At this moment, the stakes are too high and we have to focus,” Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota told The Associated Press on Tuesday, saying Democrats are “losing ground” the longer they fight over Biden’s candidacy. “Democracy is on the line. Everything we value as Democrats, as a country, is on the line, and we have to stop being distracted.”
Pelosi has been widely watched for signals of how top Democrats are thinking about Biden’s wounded candidacy, her comments viewed as important for the party’s direction as members weigh possible alternatives in the campaign against Trump.
Because of her powerful position as the former House speaker and proximity to Biden as a trusted longtime ally of his generation, Pelosi is seen as one of the few Democratic leaders who could influence the president’s thinking.
The lack of a full statement from Pelosi backing Biden’s continued campaign is what lawmakers are likely to hear most clearly, even as she told ABC later she believes he can win. Her remarks came as actor Clooney, who had just hosted a glitzy Hollywood fundraiser for the president last month, said in a New York Times op-ed that the Biden he saw three weeks ago wasn’t the Joe Biden of 2020. “He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”
Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado, spoke forcefully late Tuesday about the danger of a second Trump presidency and said it’s for the president “to consider” the options.
Stopping just short of calling for Biden to drop out, Bennet said on CNN what he told his colleagues in private – that he believes Trump “is on track to win this election — and maybe win it by a landslide and take with him the Senate and the House.”
Bennet said, “It’s not a question about politics. It’s a moral question about the future of our country.”
Another Democrat, Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, said Wednesday he was “deeply concerned” about Biden winning the election, which he called existential for the country.
“We have to reach a conclusion as soon as possible,” Blumenthal said on CNN.
And Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia told reporters, “I have complete confidence that Joe Biden will do the patriotic thing for the country. And he’s going to make that decision.”
Democrats have been reeling over whether to continue backing Biden after his poor showing in the June 27 presidential debate with Trump and his campaign’s lackluster response to their pleas that Biden, at 81, show voters he is up for another four-year term.
Biden and his campaign are working more intently now to shore up support, and the president met with labor leaders Wednesday, relying on the unions to help make the case that his record in office matters more than his age.
With the executive council of the AFL-CIO, America’s largest federation of trade unions, Biden told the crowd that even Wall Street was acknowledging the power of unions, as he once again articulated his vision for an economy built “from the bottom up and middle out.”
“I said I’m going to be the most pro-union president in American history,” Biden told the cheering crowd. “Well guess what? I am.”
While more House Democrats have publicly called on Biden to end his candidacy, no Senate Democrats have gone that far. Bennet was among three Democratic senators, including Jon Tester of Montana and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who spoke up during a private lunch Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the meeting and granted anonymity to discuss it.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer invited Biden’s campaign to address senators’ concerns. The president’s team is sending senior Biden advisers Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti, and Campaign Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon to meet with Democratic senators privately Thursday for a caucus lunch, according to both a Senate leadership aide and the Biden campaign.
There were some concerns, however, that it could backfire. One Democratic senator who requested anonymity to speak about the closed-door meeting said it could be a waste of time if Biden would not make the case to senators himself.
Pelosi of California said Biden “has been a great president” who is beloved and respected by House Democrats.
The Californian said she watched as he delivered a forceful speech at the NATO summit on Tuesday, and recounted his many accomplishments.
While foreign leaders are in Washington this week and Biden is on the world stage hosting the event at a critical time in foreign affairs, Pelosi encouraged Democrats to “let’s just hold off” with any announcements about his campaign.
“Whatever you’re thinking, either tell somebody privately but you don’t have to put that out on the table until we see,” she said, how it goes “this week.”
Biden’s candidacy faces new peril as more Democratic lawmakers and campaign supporters weigh in
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Biden’s candidacy faces new peril as more Democratic lawmakers and campaign supporters weigh in
- The sudden flurry of grave pronouncements despite Biden’s determined insistence he is not leaving the 2024 race put on public display just how unsettled the question remains among prominent Democrats
- Democrats have been reeling over whether to continue backing Biden after his poor showing in the June 27 presidential debate with Trump
Pope to bring in a ton of humanitarian aid to remote Papua New Guinea as he celebrates periphery
- n estimated 35,000 people filled the stadium in the capital Port Moresby for the morning Mass
- On Saturday, Francis heard first-hand about how women are often falsely accused of witchcraft, then shunned by their families
- He urged the church leaders to be particularly close to these people on the margins who had been wounded by “prejudice and superstition”
PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea: Pope Francis honored the Catholic Church of the peripheries on Sunday as he celebrated Mass in Papua New Guinea before heading to a remote part of the South Pacific nation with a ton of humanitarian aid to deliver to the missionaries and faithful who live there.
An estimated 35,000 people filled the stadium in the capital Port Moresby for the morning Mass. It began with dancers in grass skirts and feathered headdresses performing to traditional drum beats as priests in green vestments processed up onto the altar.
In his homily, Francis told the crowd that they may well feel themselves distant from both their faith and the institutional church, but that God was near to them.
“You who live on this large island in the Pacific Ocean may sometimes have thought of yourselves as a far away and distant land, situated at the edge of the world,” Francis said. “Yet … today the Lord wants to draw near to you, to break down distances, to let you know that you are at the center of his heart and that each one of you is important to him.”
Francis was himself traveling to a distant land on Sunday, flying into remote Vanimo, on Papua New Guinea’s northwest coast, to meet with the small Catholic community there served by missionaries from his native Argentina.
Francis was being transported by an Australian military aircraft and was bringing with him one ton of humanitarian aid, including medicine, clothes and toys for children, according to Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni.
Eight suitcases of medicine and other necessities had been prepared by one of the Argentine missionaries, the Rev. Alejandro Diaz, during a recent trip to Rome and left with the Vatican to bring in on the cargo plane, the ANSA news agency reported.
Francis has long prioritized the church on the “peripheries,” saying it is actually more important than the center of the institutional church. In keeping with that philosophy, Francis has largely shunned foreign trips to European capitals, preferring instead far-flung communities where Catholics are often a minority.
Vanimo, population 11,000, certainly fits the bill. Located near Papua New Guinea’s border with Indonesia, the coastal city is perhaps best known as a surfing destination.
Francis, history’s first Latin American pope, has also had a special affinity for the work of Catholic missionaries. As a young Argentine Jesuit, he had hoped to serve as a missionary in Japan, but was prevented from going because of his poor health.
Now as pope, he has often held up missionaries as models for the church, especially those who have sacrificed to bring the faith to far-away places.
There are about 2.5 million Catholics in Papua New Guinea, according to Vatican statistics, out of a population in the Commonwealth nation believed to be around 10 million. The Catholics practice the faith along with traditional Indigenous beliefs, including animizm and sorcery.
On Saturday, Francis heard first-hand about how women are often falsely accused of witchcraft, then shunned by their families. In remarks to priests, bishops and nuns, Francis urged the church leaders in Papua New Guinea to be particularly close to these people on the margins who had been wounded by “prejudice and superstition.”
“I think too of the marginalized and wounded, both morally and physically, by prejudice and superstition sometimes to the point of having to risk their lives,” Francis said. He urged the church to be particularly close to such people on the peripheries, with “closeness, compassion and tenderness.”
Francis’ visit to Vanimo was the highlight of his visit to Papua New Guinea, the second leg of his four-nation tour of Southeast Asia and Oceania. After first stopping in Indonesia, Francis heads on Monday to East Timor and then wraps up his visit in Singapore later in the week.
Multiple people reported hit in latest case of mass shooting in the US
- The incident comes just days after a mass shooting at a Winder, Georgia high school that saw 4 killed and nine others wounded
LONDON, Kentucky: Multiple people were shot Saturday along Interstate 75 in a rural area of southeastern Kentucky, authorities said.
The Laurel County Sheriff’s Office said in a post on Facebook that it was an “active shooter situation” and “numerous persons” were shot near the highway.
In a video statement, London Mayor Randall Weddle said was told seven people were hurt, but not all of those were wounded by gunfire. Some of the victims were injured in a vehicle accident, he said.
“There are no deceased at this time. No one was killed from this, thankfully, but we ask that you continue to pray,” Weddle said.
Hospital officials at Saint Joseph London said in a statement that the facility was treating multiple patients, LEX 18 reported. The hospital added that the ones it received had minor injuries.
The sheriff’s office also announced that a “Person of Interest” has been identified in connection with the shooting, saying he should be considered armed and dangerous and people should not approach him. The man’s name was given as Joseph A. Couch, a 32-year-old white male, and anyone with information about his location was urged to call the county 911 center.
State lawmakers from Laurel County urged residents in the area to stay home as police continued to search for the shooter. “Without a doubt, this is an act of senseless violence that does not reflect the values of this community, our Commonwealth, or its people,” they said in a statement.
A “heavy presence of police and fire personnel” was on the scene and “working diligently to address the situation,” the Mount Vernon Fire Department said in a statement. It advised motorists to avoid I-75 and US 25.
The interstate was closed 9 miles (14 kilometers) north of London but later reopened, according to the sheriff’s office.
“I am receiving initial reports from the Kentucky State Police and our Office of Homeland Security — together we are actively monitoring the situation and offering support in any way possible,” Gov. Andy Beshear said in a post on the social platform X. “Please pray for everyone involved.”
“We will provide more details once they are available,” Beshear said.
London is a a small city with a population of about 8,000 located about 75 miles (120 kilometers) south of Lexington.
Trump threatens to jail adversaries in escalating rhetoric ahead of pivotal debate
- Trump’s message represents his latest threat to use the office of the presidency to exact retribution if he wins a second term
- Trump has repeatedly defended those who have been jailed for crimes including violent attacks on law enforcement
- Trump also warned, as he has in previous rallies, that the 2024 election could be the nation’s last
MOSINEE, Wisconsin: With just days to go before his first — and likely only — debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Donald Trump posted a warning on his social media site threatening to jail those “involved in unscrupulous behavior” this election, which he said would be under intense scrutiny.
“WHEN I WIN, those people that CHEATED will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the Law, which will include long term prison sentences so that this Depravity of Justice does not happen again,” Trump wrote, again sowing doubt about the integrity of the election, even though cheating is incredibly rare.
“Please beware,” he went on, “that this legal exposure extends to Lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials. Those involved in unscrupulous behavior will be sought out, caught, and prosecuted at levels, unfortunately, never seen before in our Country.”
Trump’s message represents his latest threat to use the office of the presidency to exact retribution if he wins a second term. There is no evidence of the kind of fraud he continues to insist marred the 2020 election; in fact, dozens of courts, Republican state officials and his own administration have said he lost fairly.
Just days ago, Trump himself acknowledged in a podcast interview that he had indeed “lost by a whisker.”
While Trump’s campaign aides and allies have urged him to keep his focus on Harris and make the election a referendum on issues like inflation and border security, Trump in recent days has veered far off course.
On Friday, he delivered a stunning statement to news cameras in which he brought up a string of past allegations of sexual misconduct, describing several in graphic detail, even as he denied his accusers’ allegations. Earlier, he had voluntarily appeared in court for a hearing on the appeal of a decision that found him liable for sexual abuse, turning focus to his legal woes in the campaign’s final stretch.
Earlier Saturday, Trump had leaned into familiar grievances about everything from his indictments to Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election as he campaigned in one of the most deeply Republican swaths of battleground Wisconsin.
“The Harris-Biden DOJ is trying to throw me in jail — they want me in jail — for the crime of exposing their corruption,” Trump claimed at an outdoor rally at Central Wisconsin Airport, where he spoke behind a wall of bullet-proof glass due to new security protocols following his July assassination attempt.
There’s no evidence that President Joe Biden or Harris have had any influence over decisions by the Justice Department or state prosecutors to indict the former president.
Trump has eschewed traditional debate preparation, choosing to holding rallies and events while Harris has been cloistered in a historic hotel in downtown Pittsburgh, working with aides since Thursday.
Harris has agreed so far to a single debate, which will be hosted by ABC.
At the rally, Trump outlined his plans to “Drain the swamp” — a throwback to his winning 2016 campaign message as he ran as an outsider challenging the status quo. Though Trump spent four years in the Oval Office, he vowed anew to “cast out the corrupt political class” if he wins again and to “cut the fat out of our government for the first time, meaningfully, in 60 years.”
As part of that effort, he repeated his plan, announced Thursday, to create a new “Government Efficiency Commission” headed by Elon Musk that will be charged with conducting “a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government” to root out waste.
After again maligning the Congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the nation’s capitol by his supporters after his election loss in 2020, Trump told the crowd of thousands that he would “rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner unjustly victimized by the Harris regime” and sign their pardons on his first day back in office.
Trump has repeatedly defended those who have been jailed for crimes including violent attacks on law enforcement.
And he said he would “completely overhaul” what he labeled “Kamala’s corrupt Department of Injustice.”
“Instead of persecuting Republicans, they will focus on taking down bloodthirsty cartels, transnational gangs, and radical Islamic terrorists,” he said.
Harris honored by support from disgruntled Republicans
Harris campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika responded to his comments with a statement warning that, if Trump is reelected, he will “use his unchecked power to prosecute his enemies and pardon insurrectionists who violently attacked our Capitol on January 6.”
Both Harris and Trump have been frequent visitors to Wisconsin this year, a state where four of the past six presidential elections have been decided by less than a percentage point. Several polls of Wisconsin voters conducted after Biden withdrew showed Harris and Trump in a close race.
Democrats consider Wisconsin to be one of the must-win “blue wall” states. Biden, who was in Wisconsin on Thursday, won the state in 2020 by just under 21,000 votes. Trump carried it by a slightly larger margin, nearly 23,000 votes, in 2016.
As Trump was campaigning, Harris took a short break from debate prep to visit Penzeys Spices in Pittsburgh’s Strip District, where she bought several seasoning mixes. One customer saw the Democratic nominee and began openly weeping as Harris hugged her and said, “We’re going to be fine. We’re all in this together.”
Harris said she was honored to have endorsements from two major Republicans: former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming congresswoman.
“People are exhausted, about the division and the attempts to kind of divide us as Americans,” she said, adding that her main message at the debate would be that the country wants to be united.
“It’s time to turn the page on the divisiveness,” she said. “It’s time to bring our country together, to chart a new way forward.”
Trump held his rally in the central Wisconsin city of Mosinee, with a population of about 4,500 people. It is within Wisconsin’s mostly rural 7th Congressional District, a reliably Republican area in a purple state.
Senseless ramblings
During his speech, he railed against Harris in dark and ominous language, claiming that if the woman he calls “Comrade Kamala Harris gets four more years, you will be living (in) a full-blown Banana Republic” ruled by “anarchy” and “tyranny.”
Trump also railed against the administration’s border policies, calling the Democrats’ approach “suicidal” and accusing them of having “imported murderers, child predators and serial rapists from all over the planet.”
Many studies have found immigrants, including those in the country illegally, commit fewer violent crimes than native-born citizens. Violent crime in the US dropped again last year, continuing a downward trend after a pandemic-era spike.
He dismissed warnings from US officials about ongoing Russian attempts to spread disinformation ahead of November’s election, including an indictment this past week that alleged a media company linked to six conservative influencers was secretly funded by Russian state media employees.
“The Justice Department said Russia may be involved in our elections again,” Trump told the crowd. “And, you know, the whole world laughed at it this time.”
Among those in the crowd was Dale Osuldsen, who was celebrating his 68th birthday Saturday at his first ever Trump rally. He hopes a second Trump administration will take on “cancel culture” and bring the country back to its “foundational past.
“We’ve had past administrations say they want to fundamentally change America,” Osulden said. “Fundamentally changing America is a bad thing.”
Many supporters embarked on hours-long drives from across Wisconsin to see Trump speak. Some came from even further.
Sean Moon, a Tennessee musician who releases MAGA-themed rap music under the stage name, “King Bullethead,” blasted his songs from a truck in the event parking lot. As a musician, he said Trump rallies approximate the experience of a raucous concert.
“Trump is a rockstar,” Moon said. “He’s incredible. People see he represents them and the deep state trying to kill him and take him out. But he’s standing strong, and he stands for the normal person.”
Democrats have relied on massive turnout in the state’s two largest cities, Milwaukee and Madison, to counter Republican strength in rural areas like Mosinee and the Milwaukee suburbs. Trump must win the votes in places like Mosinee to have any chance of cutting into the Democrats’ advantage in urban areas.
Republicans held their national convention in Milwaukee in July and Trump has made four previous stops to the state, most recently just last week in the western Wisconsin city of La Crosse.
Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, last month filled the same Milwaukee arena where Republicans held their national convention for a rally that coincided with the Democratic National Convention just 90 miles away in Chicago. Walz returned Monday to Milwaukee, where he spoke at a Labor Day rally organized by unions.
Blinken to head to UK for talks on Ukraine, Mideast
- Britain and the US have cooperated in lockstep on most global issues, but PM Starmer has taken a harder line on Israel since taking office
- Starmer has also dropped his predecessor’s plans to challenge the ICC's moves to seek the arrest of Israeli PM Netanyahu over war crimes raps
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will head to London next week to discuss the Middle East and Ukraine, the State Department announced Saturday, ahead of a US visit by Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Blinken’s visit to London on Monday and Tuesday will be the senior-most by a US official since Starmer’s Labour Party won July elections, ending 14 years of Conservative rule.
Blinken will take part in a strategic dialogue “reaffirming our special relationship,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said.
He will discuss Asia as well as the Middle East and “our collective efforts to support Ukraine,” Miller said in a statement.
The White House earlier announced that Starmer will visit next Friday, his second trip to Washington since his election.
He met President Joe Biden at the White House on July 10, days after taking office, as Starmer attended a NATO summit in Washington.
Britain and the United States have cooperated in lockstep on most global issues, and Biden’s Democrats historically have been seen as closer to the Labour Party than the Conservatives.
Starmer, however, has taken a harder line on Israel since taking office, with his government announcing a suspension of some arms shipments, citing the risk that they could be used to violate humanitarian law.
The Labour government has also dropped its Conservative predecessor’s plans to challenge the right of the International Criminal Court to seek the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The United States is not a member of the International Criminal Court and has opposed the bid to target Netanyahu, arguing that Israel has its own systems for accountability.
But the United States, Israel’s primary weapons supplier, did not criticize the arms decision, saying that Britain had its own process to make assessments.
Iran’s secret service accused of plots to kill Jews in Europe
- The group intended to attack a Paris-based former employee at an Israeli security firm and three of his colleagues residing in the Paris suburbs
PARIS: A Paris court in May detained and charged a couple on accusations that they were involved in Iranian plots to kill Jews in Germany and France, police sources told AFP.
Authorities charged Abdelkrim S., 34, and his partner Sabrina B., 33, on May 4 with conspiring with a criminal terrorist organization and placed them in pre-trial detention.
The case, known as “Marco Polo” and revealed Thursday by French news website Mediapart, signals a revival in Iranian state-sponsored terrorism in Europe, according to a report by France’s General Directorate for Internal Security (DGSI) consulted by AFP.
“Since 2015, the Iranian (secret) services have resumed a targeted killing policy,” the French security agency wrote, adding that “the threat has worsened again in the context of the Israel-Hamas war.”
The alleged objective for Iranian intelligence was to target civilians and sow fear in Europe among the country’s political opposition as well as among Jews and Israelis.
Iran is accused of recruiting criminals, including drug lords, to conduct such operations.
Abdelkrim S. was previously sentenced to 10 years behind bars over a killing in Marseille and released on probation in July 2023.
He is accused of being the main France-based operative for an Iran-sponsored terrorist cell that planned acts of violence in France and Germany.
A former fellow inmate is believed to have connected the suspect with the cell’s coordinator, a major drug trafficker from the Lyon area who likely visited Iran in May, according to the DGSI.
The group intended to attack a Paris-based former employee at an Israeli security firm and three of his colleagues residing in the Paris suburbs.
Three Israeli-German citizens in Munich and Berlin were also among the targets.
Investigators believe that Abdelkrim S. despite his probation made multiple trips to Germany for scouting purposes, including travels to Berlin with his wife.
He denied the accusations and said he simply had purchases to make.
French authorities are also crediting the cell with plots to set fire to four Israeli-owned companies in the south of France between late December 2023 and early January 2024, said a police source.
Abdelkrim S. while in detention rejected the claims, the source added, saying he had acted as a go-between on Telegram for the mastermind and other individuals involved in a planned insurance scam.
