Donald Trump presidential election 2024

News, Analysis and Opinion from POLITICO

  1. Health Care

    Trump campaign blocks pair of anti-abortion activists from RNC platform committee

    The shakeup, which has not been previously reported, comes as anti-abortion groups petition Trump, his campaign advisers and members of the RNC not to make significant changes to the party’s platform on abortion.

    Two hardline anti-abortion delegates to next week’s GOP platform committee have been stripped of their positions, according to several members of the Republican National Committee, underscoring a broader fear among evangelicals and other social conservatives that the party is poised to moderate its stance on abortion at the direction of former President Donald Trump.

    The Trump campaign’s efforts to block the two South Carolina delegates from the platform committee and replace them with loyalists is described in several affidavits as “interference from paid RNC staff … to circumvent the will of the delegation.”

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  2. 2024 Elections

    Biden campaign goes on digital blitz after shaky debate

    The president’s operation sought to quell small-dollar donor concerns about his debate performance — and raised a lot of money.

    Joe Biden’s campaign started firing on all digital cylinders after Thursday’s grim debate performance.

    His campaign sent nearly twice as many fundraising emails as typical, many of them focused on the debate and what former President Donald Trump said on stage. And Biden’s leading small-dollar fundraising operation spent 10 times as much on Facebook and Instagram ads the day after the debate compared to an average day over the past few months.

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  3. 2024 Elections

    Biden camp touts fundraising uptick after debate bomb

    The president’s campaign is using a $127 million June haul and static internal polling to convince donors and party leaders that his candidacy is still viable.

    Joe Biden raised $127 million last month, his campaign said, as the 81-year-old president works to dispel fears about his candidacy.

    The haul, a nearly 50 percent increase compared to the previous month, helps the incumbent president end the second quarter on a financial high note after he was outraised by former President Donald Trump in April and May, when the presumptive GOP nominee got a significant financial boost during his criminal trial and conviction.

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  4. White House

    Biden says public must block Trump if Supreme Court will not

    Biden called the court's immunity decision a “terrible disservice” to the nation.

    In a strikingly political speech from the White House, President Joe Biden blasted the Supreme Court ruling that granted broad presidential immunity, condemned Donald Trump for the Jan. 6 riot and urged voters to reject him.

    Biden, making his first remarks from the White House since his faltering debate with Trump last week, called the Supreme Court decision a “terrible disservice” to the country that would make it extremely unlikely that the former president would go on trial for his role in the riot before the November election.

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  5. Legal

    Trump world is giddy over the Supreme Court immunity decision

    It is now highly unlikely the former president will be tried in court before the election.

    Within minutes of the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity, Donald Trump and his allies declared victory.

    The Supreme Court’s highly anticipated ruling — which stated that the former president’s official acts are immune from prosecution, leaving the door open for lower courts to decide what constitutes an official or unofficial act — represented a major political and legal win for the former president.

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  6. Legal

    Trump’s election subversion case heads back to Judge Chutkan. But it may never reach a jury.

    How the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling could make it “impossible” to reach a verdict before Election Day.

    Donald Trump may never see the inside of a criminal courtroom again.

    The Supreme Court’s sweeping ruling that Trump — and all presidents — are immune from prosecution for their “official” actions immediately gutted some of the central allegations that special counsel Jack Smith leveled against Trump a year ago, when he charged the former president with conspiring to subvert the 2020 election. And it may eventually sink the rest of them, too.

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  7. 2024 Elections

    12 Experts on What Biden Needs to Do After His Debate Debacle

    Should Biden drop out, or is there a path back to a win?

    On Thursday, President Joe Biden’s debate performance sent Democrats straight into crisis mode: Nothing about his demeanor, from his shaky voice, to his pallid skin, to his meandering answers and head-scratching non sequiturs, served to reassure voters worried that his age meant he wasn’t up for another four years on the job.

    On Friday, at a rally in Raleigh, there was a dramatically different Biden on display, energetic and forceful, as he tried to quell the tsunami of panic emanating from his party compatriots — many of whom are wondering if he needs to step down.

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  8. Legal

    The Trump immunity decision is about to drop. Here’s how it might go.

    Will Trump have to stand trial in the federal election case? The Supreme Court may be about to tell us.

    The Supreme Court saved its biggest decision for last.

    The justices will finally decide on Monday, the final day before their annual summer recess, whether Donald Trump has immunity from the most serious criminal charges against him: the federal indictment for trying to subvert the 2020 election and stay in power.

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  9. Members of Joe Biden’s family privately trashed his top campaign advisers at Camp David this weekend, blaming them for the president’s flop in Thursday’s debate and urging Biden to fire or demote people in his political high command.

    There is no immediate expectation that Biden will follow through on that advice, according to three people briefed on the family conversations but not directly involved. The three people were granted anonymity to discuss the matter.

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  10. 2024 Elections

    Clyburn blames Biden’s debate performance on ‘preparation overload’

    He also criticized CNN for not fact-checking Donald Trump during the debate.

    Rep. Jim Clyburn, who helped President Joe Biden secure the nomination four years ago, said Sunday the president’s poor debate performance Thursday was due to “preparation overload.”

    “It was a bad performance. I've been around these things. I've been a part of debate preparation before, and I know when I see what I call preparation overload,” the South Carolina Democrat said to host Dana Bash in an interview with CNN’s "State of the Union." “And that's exactly what was going on the other night.”

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  11. 2024 Elections

    Ex-DNC vice chair: Biden must be pushed to drop out

    "If we lose this election because they didn’t have the guts to do what they know needs to be done, holy hell and history will come down on them like an anvil," R.T. Rybak wrote.

    Updated

    A former Democratic National Committee vice chair wrote Sunday that leading Democrats must be pushed to urge President Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race or history will judge them harshly.

    "Our elected officials," wrote former Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak on Facebook, "are staying shockingly silent in public, especially considering how many of them acknowledge privately that this has to happen."

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  12. 2024 Elections

    Biden the ‘only’ Dem who can beat Trump, Chris Coons says

    The Delaware Democrat staunchly defended Biden and his candidacy.

    Despite conceding it was a "weak debate performance" by President Joe Biden, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) said Sunday that Biden is the "only" Democrat who can defeat former President Donald Trump in November.

    Speaking to host Jonathan Karl on ABC's "This Week," Coons said, "The stakes of this race couldn’t be higher. And the only Democrat who’s ever beaten Donald Trump is Joe Biden."

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  13. 2024 Elections

    Democratic-leaning voters less likely to choose Biden after debate, survey finds

    But they’re not necessarily flocking to Trump, either.

    “Confused.” “Frail.” “Dementia.”

    Those were a few of the words used to describe Biden’s lackluster performance and appearance at Thursday’s presidential debate by Democratic-leaning voters, who were less likely to say they'd vote for him after it was over, according to a new survey and virtual focus group.

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  14. 2024 Elections

    Trump’s debate references to ‘Black jobs’ and ‘Hispanic jobs’ stir Democratic anger

    The phrase “Black jobs” was widely condemned by Democrats and Black leaders as vague and insulting.

    Donald Trump warned during his debate with Joe Biden and again at a Friday rally that migrants were taking “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs” from Americans, angering critics who called it a racist and insulting attempt to expand his appeal beyond his white conservative base.

    While President Joe Biden’s halting debate performance on Thursday night stirred widespread concerns among fellow Democrats about his readiness, Trump also repeatedly made false claims and repeated conspiracy theories that he’s long promoted during his campaign.

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  15. Column | Altitude

    The Media Establishment Lays on the Horn: Joe Must Go

    Calls for President Biden to step aside after a poor debate give new life to old resentments.

    One of the enduring themes of President Joseph Biden’s public life has been intense ambivalence about the elite institutions of American life and the well-credentialed, well-spoken, well-paid careerists who occupy them.

    There is resentment, from the so-so student with a stutter who grew up in Scranton and small-town Delaware and didn’t have the economic and educational advantages of many of the people he soon would encounter in national politics.

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  16. Energy

    Trump would withdraw US from Paris climate treaty again, campaign says

    The statement comes after years of conservatives laying the groundwork for Trump to withdraw from the global agreement intended to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases causing climate change.

    Donald Trump would yank the United States out of the Paris climate accord for the second time if he wins the presidency again in November, a campaign spokesperson told POLITICO Friday.

    The statement comes after years of conservatives laying the groundwork for Trump to withdraw from the global agreement intended to reduce emissions of the greenhouse gases causing climate change. Their efforts include drafting executive orders for Trump to quickly sign if he regains the White House, a lawyer familiar with the process told POLITICO.

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  17. 2024 Elections

    Trump has sowed doubt in elections for more than a decade. The debate was the latest.

    2012 was a "total sham." He really won the popular vote in 2016. And then there's 2020.

    It took three tries from debate moderator Dana Bash to get Donald Trump to answer the question: Will he accept the results of the 2024 election, regardless of who wins?

    “If it’s a fair and legal and good election — absolutely,” he responded, refusing to commit outright. He then alluded to a persistent lie he has told his whole career — that American elections are overrun with fraud: “I would have much rather accepted these — but the fraud and everything else was ridiculous.”

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  18. 2024 Presidential Debates

    Trump takes a debate night victory lap at Virginia rally

    Trump piled insults onto a weakened President Joe Biden.

    Donald Trump celebrated his debate night thrashing of President Joe Biden with a campaign rally Friday in Democratic-leaning Virginia, relishing his performance the night before as a sign of increasingly bright prospects for reclaiming the White House.

    Clad in his signature red Make America Great Again cap, Trump piled insults onto a weakened President Joe Biden, calling him “grossly incompetent,” and a “train wreck,” while framing the election as a “choice between strength and weakness, and competence and incompetence.”

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