Ella Johnson

While Donald Trump’s outlandish behavior usually garners free publicity for him in the news, this time, there is a lot on the line. Trump’s Wednesday comments at the National Association for Black Journalists convention have been branded “audacious lie[s],” “outrageous insults,” “overtly racist,” “repulsive” and “insulting.” “She was always of Indian heritage and she was only promoting Indian heritage,” Trump said, in one of the more widely circulated quotes. “I didn’t know she was black until a number of years ago until she happened to turn black, and now she wants to be known as black.” Race is the last thing GOP political strategists want Trump to mention when it comes to Kamala’s campaign.

The pressure is building for Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race. Donald Trump leads Biden nationally in seven swing states, according to a recent poll from Emerson College. The New York Times ran a piece yesterday entitled: “Biden called ‘more receptive’ to hearing pleas to step aside.” Several top Democrats privately told Axios that the rising pressure will persuade president Biden to drop out of the race as soon as this weekend. Former president Barack Obama told “allies” that Biden should reconsider the viability of his candidacy, reports the Washington Post. Meanwhile, Biden tested positive for Covid — for the third time. He is currently isolated in his beach house in Delaware, and will not be attending in-person meetings for the next few days.

If you were expecting a Benjamin Button-style de-aging of President Joe Biden at tonight's NATO press conference after he recovered from the cold and jet lag he claims led to his disastrous debate performance, well... Biden is still Biden. His voice still sounds old and whispery. That being said, when he finally did step onto the press conference stage, he had an air of confidence that was not present during the debate two weeks ago. There were quite a few complications leading up to actually starting the press conference. The White House originally scheduled it for 5:30, but bumped it back to 6:30. The streaming started then, but the conference didn’t actually begin until almost an entire hour after 6:30.

When it comes to President Joe Biden’s decline, some Democrats are in denial, or are at least pretending to be. A few representatives, however, have acknowledged the problem with Biden’s age, with some are even calling for him to step down after the disastrous debate. The Democratic Party is currently a mess, and the general reaction from some senior White House staff has reportedly been, “What the hell is happening?” CNN host Jake Tapper tweeted that Democratic governors held a call yesterday afternoon, organized by Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota, with no staff and no one from the Biden, though it is unclear what, if any, decisions were made. Here’s a breakdown of the Democratic lawmakers who have publicly suggested Biden is unfit to run.

Donald Trump spoke at the Faith and Freedom Coalition on Saturday, with a few speakers deeming him “the anointed one.” Trump spoke for approximately one hour and twenty-five minutes. The coalition slotted multiple hype-men right before he appeared, including Republican governor Kristi Noem. The former president hit all his usual talking points — the economy, the border and immigration, Joe Biden, Ukraine, Israel, his cute "tic-tac" trick — and made sure to mention the Ten Commandments, and said, “We answer to God in heaven,” not to political leaders. There were at least two impressive instances in which Trump expertly responded to the inclinations of the crowd.

President Joe Biden spoke in Normandy on the eightieth anniversary of D-Day Thursday — and only slightly made a fool of himself. As he entered the event, it looked as if he entirely missed where he was supposed to sit, but played it off with a nice salute to a veteran. In the middle of a rousing speech, he talked about how many Russians died in Ukraine... for mysterious reasons. He did a bit of a squat in an invisible chair as the speaker Lloyd J. Austin III was introduced. The debacle ended with Dr. Jill Biden leading Joe away as the president of France, Emmanuel Macron, nimbly ran to greet D-Day veterans. And we can’t forget Biden’s subtle double fist pump after the jets flew over the ceremony.

Ideally, responsible citizens would think big when deciding on a presidential candidate. But the election outcome may just be determined by one factor: gas prices.  In a CNN article this week, economist Mark Zandi asserted that gas prices were likely to determine election results. On Tuesday, Biden announced his release of a million barrels of reserve gasoline. Even with the many factors that affect oil prices, it may be possible to predict where prices will be come November and if that can tell us who will win the presidency. Zandi and his colleagues from Moody’s Analytics (Brendan Lacerda and Justin Begley) published a nineteen-page econometric analysis in January.