Kamala harris

There’s been a vibe shift in Washington. After Thursday night’s debate debacle and a Biden family meeting at Camp David on Sunday in which it became clear the president was not interested in dropping his re-election bid, Democrats closed ranks around Biden. Excuses were workshopped to the press: the debate was a one-off, Biden was actually over prepared by his debate prep team, the president was tired from his overseas travel and Biden’s cognitive decline is nothing compared to Trump’s lies. Unfortunately for Biden, none of these landed well with the public and Democrats are now putting out smoke signals that it’s time to let it go. Representative Lloyd Doggett became the first Democratic elected official to call on Biden to step aside as the nominee.

President Joe Biden is up against a wall following his disastrous debate performance last week, and his family is pulling out all the stops to try and ward off any last-minute intra-party challengers. They’re relying on a famous photographer and top surrogates to convince the Democratic Party that last week’s debacle was a one-off and not how the leader of the free world normally functions.Biden’s family is lashing out at staff for poorly preparing him for the debate, according to reports, rolling out Vogue cover shoots with first lady Jill Biden and and showcasing unwavering endorsements from the Democratic Party’s prime leaders, like former president Barack Obama. For the most part, it’s working.

Donald Trump must have that Friday feeling. It’s the morning after the night before, when his Democratic opponent disintegrated live on camera before an audience of millions. The purpose of President Biden agreeing to a first presidential debate so early in the cycle was to head off concerns about his frailty and mental acuity. His energetic State of the Union address in March exceeded admittedly low expectations — but Thursday’s bumbling and feeble performance had the exact opposite effect.The entire op-ed page of the New York Times is begging the president to stand down. “I watched the Biden-Trump debate alone in a Lisbon hotel room, and it made me weep,” writes Thomas L. Friedman.

The Biden White House had a difficult weekend as pro-Palestinian protesters continue to be a thorn in the side of the administration and the Democratic Party. Thousands arrived outside of the White House on Saturday to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire and for Biden to stop sending weapons to Israel. Police erected additional fencing around the White House in anticipation of the protests and deployed pepper spray against at least one demonstrator, but no arrests were made. Instead, the pro-Palestinian activists left graffiti on statues in Lafayette Square and trash strewn around the perimeter of the White House complex.

The Biden administration is bracing for a second Trump term by rolling out a rule that would complicate Donald Trump’s pledge to fire tens of thousands of federal workers if he wins in November. The new rule is also a huge gift to the public-sector unions that Joe Biden needs firmly in his corner.The latest edict, issued by the US Office of Personnel Management, is an almost direct response to Trump’s stated plans to purge the bureaucracy. That’s not how the OPM is framing it, of course; instead, OPM deputy director Rob Shriver said it “is about making sure the American public can continue to count on federal workers to apply their skills and expertise in carrying out their jobs, no matter their personal political beliefs.

Political commentators and mainstream journalists are apoplectic over remarks former president Donald Trump made at a rally in Ohio over the weekend. Speaking to supporters on behalf of Ohio Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, Trump warned that if President Joe Biden is reelected in November the auto industry would face a “bloodbath.’”“We’re gonna put a 100 percent tariff on every single car that comes across the line, and you’re not gonna be able to sell those guys, if I get elected! Now, if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole — that’s going to be the least of it,” he said. “It’s going to be a bloodbath for the country.

When Donald Trump declared that Russia could do “whatever the hell it wants” to NATO countries, he was espousing his own lifelong credo. Trump has done whatever he pleases for most of his life. It was generous of him to extend the same carte blanche to the Kremlin, which is presumably pleased with his offer but has yet to comment on it publicly.  Once upon a time, conservatives used to raise an eyebrow over the notion over doing whatever the hell you want. They were in a more censorious mode, arguing that this amounted to moral relativism. Now it seems that anything goes.  The old certitudes are gone.