Biden announces US and allies to provide Ukraine with air defense system in Nato summit speech – as it happened

9 Jul 202414.15 EDT

Lauren Gambino

Hello from the Ohio clock corridor in the Senate, where we are waiting for Senate Democrats to emerge from their weekly lunch meeting. It’s the first time they’ve all been together in Washington since the president’s disastrous debate performance last month.

No Senate Democrats have publicly called on Biden to step down, but given the president’s decades of service in the chamber, their opinion and support is seen as crucial and influential as the president attempts to defuse concerns about his political viability.

It comes as new polling suggests Biden may be a drag on vulnerable Democrats. Many Senate Democrats are on the defensive this cycle, defending seats in states Trump won, like Ohio and Montana. With so much at stake, dozens of reporters are gathered outside the room waiting for the lawmakers to emerge. The leaders will speak to reporters afterward.

A US navy sailor tried three times, but ultimately was not able, to get access to Joe Biden’s medical records from a military database, CBS News reported today.

The attempts occurred in February, and the navy investigated and disciplined the sailor, described as a “junior enlisted sailor serving in the Navy’s hospital corps” based in Fort Belvoir, Virginia, for the attempted breach. The navy said the president’s records were not accessed at any point in the attempts. One official said the sailor “did not pull up the right Joe Biden” and that the sailor was looking for the records “out of curiosity”.

After the 27 June debate, Donald Trump had kept his commentary on social media. Tonight, he will address an in-person crowd at a Florida rally. We’ll be watching closely for Trump to announce a 2024 running mate, which he needs to do before the Republican national convention next week. Richard Luscombe reports on Trump and the GOP strategy of keeping quiet and letting Democrats fight after the debate:

Donald Trump will host a rally in the Miami suburb of Doral on Tuesday night and break a relative – and uncharacteristic – silence over the turbulent aftermath of June’s presidential debate that raised questions about Joe Biden’s candidacy.

A Trump campaign source and some political opponents say the former president’s strategy has been to sit back and let Democrats tear into each other following Biden’s dismal debate performance, intensifying calls for him to drop out of November’s general election.

“We’re trying something new and shutting up,” an anonymous campaign insider told ABC News last week, a position effectively confirmed by Trump’s decision to largely avoid public appearances since a prearranged rally in Virginia the day after the 27 June debate – and to limit his posts on his Truth Social platform.

The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, will meet with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, tomorrow, per a media advisory from Johnson’s office.

Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who unsuccessfully challenged Donald Trump in the Republican primary, will release the 97 delegates she won and encourage them to vote for Trump at the Republican National Convention, Politico Playbook reports this afternoon.

Haley cast the move as a push for unity among Republicans as they seek to defeat Joe Biden in November. Haley wasn’t invited to attend the RNC, her spokesperson told Playbook, “and she’s fine with that”.

Another House Democrat has expressed concern about Biden’s ability to win in November, joining a relatively small list of lawmakers who have spoken out against the president’s candidacy.

The Massachusetts representative Lori Trahan said in a statement issued today that, though she believes Biden and House Democrats have delivered “unprecedented progress” for Americans, she has been hearing from fellow Biden voters in her district who have “real concerns” over whether Biden can beat Trump. “I share those concerns,” Trahan said.

“While President Biden has made clear he feels he is the best candidate to win this election, nothing that has happened over the past 12 days suggests that voters see things the same way,” she said, adding that she will do everything she can to ensure Democrats win the House and beat Trump.

US officials announced today that they stopped a Russian “bot farm” that created fake social media accounts to promote pro-Russian ideals and pro-Kremlin stances on the war with Ukraine. The operation used artificial intelligence to help spread the messages, the US government said in a press release today that includes screenshots of the kind of messages the bots were posting, like videos of Vladimir Putin.

Fears over foreign and domestic disinformation campaigns, especially those supercharged by AI, have floated over the US presidential election for months.

More from Reuters:

The alleged operation, according to prosecutors, was organized through a private intelligence organization based in Russia staffed by Russian intelligence officers and a senior employee of the Moscow-based, government-funded news outlet Russia Today, or RT.

This private organization had designed a custom, AI-powered platform to create, control and manage hundreds of fake social accounts, which were made to look like real Americans, according to court documents.

In total, it created roughly 1,000 accounts on social media platform X. Those profiles have since been banned.

For prominent Democrats, public appearances lately involve a barrage of questions on Joe Biden’s fitness for office.

The California governor, Gavin Newsom, one of Biden’s most vocal surrogates, answered some of these questions while eating doughnuts at a New Hampshire rest stop, the New York Times reported today.

After a TV newsperson asked whether Biden should drop out, “Mr. Newsom chewed for a moment, reiterated the next-levelness of the doughnut, then turned to the microphone. ‘The answer is no,’” the Times reported.

After a meeting of Democrats at Democratic National Committee headquarters in DC today, most left without saying much. Despite some calls for Biden to step aside, there has not been a groundswell of opposition – Biden got some key support from the Congressional Black Caucus and progressive “Squad” representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

But there doesn’t seem to be much enthusiasm for Biden right now, either, and little unity in the party behind him. Not only is the party not on the same page about Biden, but they are “not even in the same book”, the representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee told reporters after the morning meeting.

From the Associated Press:

Former Sen. Jim Inhofe, a conservative firebrand known for his strong support of defense spending and his denial that human activity is responsible for the bulk of climate change, has died. He was 89.

Inhofe, a powerful fixture in Oklahoma politics for over six decades, died Tuesday morning after he had a stroke over the July Fourth holiday, his family said in a statement.

Inhofe, who was elected to a fifth Senate term in 2020, stepped down in early 2023.

Inhofe frequently criticized the mainstream science that human activity contributed to changes in the Earth’s climate, once calling it “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”

Democrats in the House of Representatives were tight-lipped as they left their caucus-wide meeting at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in DC this morning. Those who spoke to the press expressed support for the president. Others noted that Democrats present at the meeting had aired a range of views on whether or not Joe Biden should continue on as the Democratic party’s presidential nominee.

• Representative Jim Clyburn told reporters after leaving that he is still “riding with Biden”.

• Progressive squad member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez indicated she had spoken in Biden’s support during the meeting.