High off his performance during Thursday's debate in Atlanta where Donald Trump challenged a visibly weary President Joe Biden, Trump struggled early on to recap the event.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee misstated the word "moderators" in CNN's Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.
"He got the network that he wanted with the moderates he wanted," he said to a crowd assembled on Friday in Chesapeake, Virginia.
The former president took a shot at Biden who had been holed up at Camp David for days prepping for their rematch.
"He studied so hard he didn't know what he was doing," Trump said to roaring laughter.
And the 45th president also appeared to be preparing the ticker tape parades come Nov. 5, by warning foreign countries about his return to the White House before a vote has been cast.
He stated that countries like Russia, North Korea, and China better "not mess with us" during "five month transition period," adding, '"I want the enemies to know: don't play around with us. Don't play around!'"
The crowd erupted in applause.
The general election is just over four months away.
The shaky effort has thrown the Democratic Party into full-blown panic mode with many seeking for him to bow out of the race.
Before an audience in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Friday, Biden admitted: "I don't debate as well as I used to."
"I don't walk as easy as I used to," he said. "I don't speak as well as I used to. I don't debate as well as I used to, but I know what I do well: I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong and I know how to do this job. And I know how to get things done."
It took minutes for former President Donald Trump to hurl a widely derided insult at his Friday afternoon campaign rally in Virginia, and the remark led to immediate backlash, with some calling the MAGA leader "the anti-christ."
Trump wasted little time in calling Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who is Jewish, "a Palestinian."
In trying to slam Democrats, Trump asked a crowd of red-hat supporters to "look at a guy like Sen. Schumer."
I've always known him — I've known him a long time. I come from New York. I knew Schumer. He's become a Palestinian. He's a Palestinian now. Congratulations. He was very loyal to Israel and the Jewish people. He's Jewish. But he's become a Palestinian because they have a couple of more votes or something. Nobody's quite figured it out."
"Using 'Palestinian' as a slur is yet another in a long list of new lows to which Trump sinks daily," wrote @OccupyArkham.
This isn't the first time Trump has attacked Schumer. Last year, Trump put a target on a New York law court clerk with a conspiracy theory suggesting Schumer was dating her and rigging Trump's civil fraud case against him.
Four years ago, Trump retweeted a meme that depicted then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Schumer as Muslims.
Republican Rep. Nancy Mace (SC) found herself in a tense exchange with CNN host Brianna Keilar on Friday during discussions over Joe Biden's cognitive ability, her support of former President Donald Trump, and "post-birth" abortions.
Mace hit out at a Biden, saying there's "no way" people in the center will support the current president in his bid for re-election. She also levied an accusation that Biden isn't actually running the country.
When Keilar asked Mace to explain her reasoning, Mace pointed to Biden's "cognitive decline."
"Last night," she said, referring to Biden's widely criticized debate performance, "For me, it was kind of heartbreaking — I had aging parents, I'm a mom, to see what they put him through, I thought was abusive. He should not have been on that stage. He should not have been in that debate. He is definitely not running the country."
Keilar acknowledged Biden should answer questions raised about his debate performance, but pushed back on Mace again, firing back: 'What evidence do you have?"
Mace pointed to the 90 minutes of Biden on stage.
"He needed an interpreter. You couldn't even understand what he was saying when he was answering the questions.," Mace said. "Something is not right. Something cognitively — he's clearly in a massive decline."
She blasted Democrats in the White House for "covering up" for Biden and slammed the media for "aiding" them. When Mace pointed to the debunked "cheap fake" video of Biden at the G7 Summit in Italy, Keilar pushed back yet again.
"He was greeting someone, just to be clear," she shot back, later acknowledging Mace was "raising some valid points."
"We all watched this debate last night, but I do just want to be specifically clear about all the videos that we've seen," she said.
Undeterred, Mace hit back.
"The mainstream media were calling these real videos, 'cheap fakes,' I mean we've all seen him dazed out, frozen, confused ...," said Mace.
But she was cut off by Keilar, who responded the media wasn't owning that statement.
"I think it was the White House press secretary who was calling it that," she said.
When the discussion pivoted to policy issues, Keilar played a clip of Trump's remarks that many abortions happen in the eighth, ninth or even "after birth." Keilar hit back at the former president's comments as "not even in the zip code of reality" and asked Mace her thoughts.
But Mace defended the former president's remarks, pointing to a case several years ago in which legislation filed in Virginia about "post-birth abortion."
Keilar again cut her own guest off.
"That's not accurately — you're not accurately representing that," she tried to interject.
"I am," said Mace, "adding emphatically: "And Roe v. Wade would allow by law abortion up to the ninth of a pregnancy. So those are just facts."
"Letting a baby die is a crime," Keilar retorted. "Just to be clear."
The pair then went toe-to-toe over what Mace called Democratic-led efforts to legalize post-birth abortion.
"You're not accurately ...," Keilar began, again cutting off Mace. "That's not what this is."
She later added: "When you talk about it like that, that is not an honest conversation. As you are aware, or I hope you are aware, abortions that occur later account for about 1 percent, right? We're talking after the 20-some-odd week mark. The sort of post-viability mark. The vast majority occur so much earlier."
She noted the ones that occur later have to deal with the health of the mother. When Mace tried to say she also cares about mothers who face life-threatening situations, Keilar steamrolled her.
"These tend to be — these tend to be wanted pregnancies, and these tend to be decisions that are done with so much emotion, questions of morality as well — they are not done lightly. The people who have actually been in that situation look at this characterization, and it's incredibly insensitive to them."
Mace accused Keilar of "mischaracterizing" what she said, and added she's always supported abortion when it involves the health of the mother. She's pushed back against far-right extreme positions on the issue coming out of states like Texas, she said, and has tried to find "middle ground."
When Mace tried to say she's seen enough of Biden after four years, Keilar interjected yet again.
"So you can overlook that? The fact that he will not commit to accepting the outcome of a free and fair election?"
Mace again said she's seen four years of Joe Biden, and again was cut off by the CNN host: "Why not answer the question?" And when Mace pointed to undocumented immigrants crossing the border, Keilar refused to let her dodge the question.
"Why not answer the question?"
Keilar tried to nail Mace down when the congresswoman said she felt Trump would win outright, noting it's key to her support.
"There is, of course, a possibility that he doesn't, and so the answer to that question is important," she said.
Alas, she didn't get Mace to answer.
"Unfortunately we're out of time," Keilar said, thanking her guest.
Sitting down with conservative Bryan Lanza, Acosta confronted him with Trump making claims about Jan. 6 and abortion that were flat-out untrue only to have Lanza complain that the press is covering for Biden's poor debate performance.
"Why does Trump keep saying that Democrats want to execute babies after birth?" Acosta pressed. "That's a lie. That's not true."
"I think what you have to have the conversation with the campaign to see whether it's a lie," Lanza parried. "I think the most important thing that I walked away from the abortion conversation last night was that President Trump was proud of nominating Supreme Court justices who did overturn Roe v Wade and returned it to the states, which is where the American public has wanted it for a significant amount of time."
"Now, sure CNN can sort of cover —and MSNBC can try to sort of focus on the lies..." he continued only to have Acosta to cut him off with, "Don't go after, don't talk about the press, come on. He lied over and over again."
As Lanza attempted to talk over the CNN anchor, Acosta continued, "No. Bryan, he said the January 6 defendants are quote 'so innocent.' Correct? These are people who are criminals."
"They stormed the Capitol. They broke the law that would've never happened had Donald Trump just accepted the results of the 2020 election. And you know that." Acosta lectured him.
"Sure, but what have the voters decided on that?" Lanza replied without answering the question. "The voters decided that is not their priority when they vote in this election."
"He's winning independent voters and he's winning the general election in swing states so all voters at this particular point made the decision that January 6 is not relevant to their lives," he attempted.
Lower courts have relied on this doctrine over 18,000 times to determine environmental regulations that stopped multinational corporations from polluting. The High Court has deferred to the doctrine 70 times, agreeing that they should defer to a government agency’s reasonable interpretation of an ambiguous statute.
The decision seriously limits the power of the executive branch and gives it to the courts.
In her sharply worded dissent on the case, Justice Elena Kagan contends that "given Chevron's persuasiveness, the decision" to overrule the doctrine "is likely to produce large-scale disruption. All that backs today's decision is the majority's belief that Chevron was wrong--that it gave agencies too much power and courts not enough. But shifting views about the worth of regulatory actors and their work do not justify overhauling a cornerstone of administrative law. In that sense, too, today's majority has lost sight of its proper role."
Many legal experts and assorted observers were similarly aghast by the ruling.
Speaking to MSNBC after the ruling, former solicitor general Neal Katyal noted that it's a little-known case to everyday Americans, but “this is going to change government as we know it."
"It is impossible to overstate how damaging to governance--and to protections for air, water, food and drug safety, worker rights & so much more--the SCOTUS' overturning of (Justice Antonin Scalia's) Chevron Doctrine is. This is a landmark decision if only Americans understood how bad it is," wrote a national columnist for the Los Angeles Times, Jackie Calmes.
Policy analyst Ashley Tjhung said that the move was "just like the Koch brothers asked." It refers to the large company, Koch Industries, run by a right-wing family that fights to eliminate regulations.
"This is a key plank of the MAGA attack on the 'administrative state' and will reverberate through the entire federal government," explained democracy lawyer Marc Elias.
Christine Pelosi, daughter of Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), said, "Supreme Court wipes out another 40 years of precedent — this time, overruling the Chevron Doctrine that tells courts to defer to agencies’ reasonable interpretations of statutes they administer. Radical judicial activists strike again!"
The U.S. Supreme Courtvoted 6-3 to allow an Oregon city to target homeless people for sleeping on public property.
The ruling handed down Friday overturns a 2022 decision by 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, with the court's conservatives finding that the measures enacted by Grants Pass city officials do not violate the Constitution's Eighth Amendment banning cruel and unusual punishment, reported NBC News.
The ordinances prohibit sleeping or camping on publicly owned property and impose fines of up to several hundred dollars and exclusion orders banning individuals from public property.
The appeals court had ruled 2-1 that the city cannot “enforce its anti-camping ordinances against homeless persons for the mere act of sleeping outside with rudimentary protection from the elements, or for sleeping in their car at night, when there is no other place in the city for them to go.”
That ruling had applied to all nine states in the 9th Circuit's jurisdiction, some of which have large populations of homeless people, including California.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor read from her dissent from the bench, saying "sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime."
"For some people, sleeping outside is their only option," Sotomayor said. "The City of Grants Pass jails and fines those people for sleeping anywhere in public at any time, including in their cars, if they use as little as a blanket to keep warm or a rolled-up shirt as a pillow. For people with no access to shelter, that punishes them for being homeless. That is unconscionable and unconstitutional."
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on Friday took a shot at CNN for not doing more to counter the slew of falsehoods spouted by former President Donald Trump in real time.
During an interview with CNN's John Berman, Shapiro was asked repeatedly if he still had confidence in President Joe Biden after his widely criticized debate performance on Thursday night.
Shapiro acknowledged that Biden debated poorly but then expressed sympathy for Biden in debating a rival who lies so shamelessly and easily.
"Understand, it ain't easy debating a pathological liar, which is what Joe Biden had to do last night," Shapiro said. "Donald Trump lied about everything, from his record to the direction he wants to take people in this country. Hell, John, he even lied about saying Democrats want to kill babies after they're born. I mean, come on! It's nonsense!"
Taking a break from talking about President Joe Biden's poor debate performance on Thursday night, the "Morning Joe" crew on MSNBC pressed former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance on what is happening in Judge Aileen Cannon's courtroom and why the Donald Trump trial has yet to begin.
According to the former prosecutor, Cannon is engaged in needless stalling likely because she doesn't want to have her conduct scrutinized by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
"She's got motions that have been fully briefed and argued in front of her. One of them is the prosecution's motion to change Donald Trump's conditions of pretrial release, so that he can't continue to spread this lie that he's been perpetuating, saying the FBI was trying to assassinate him when they executed the search warrant at Mar-a-Lago," Vance began. "Even Trump's own lawyer was forced to concede in court this week that that simply wasn't the case."
"Look, the judge has plenty of information in front of her," she later added. "The job that every federal judge has and every state court judge has is to make a decision; she seems to be incapable of doing that, perhaps because, at least in this matter, as soon as she does, the party that loses will take her decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for appellate review."
"She seems to be very shy about letting any more of her decisions go there," Vance suggested. "She's had two very bad outings in front of that court."
MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski challenged Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro to defend president Joe Biden's debate performance in a contentious morning-after interview.
The Democratic governor, who's been floated as a future presidential candidate himself, appeared Friday on "Morning Joe" to praise Biden's accomplishments as president and express support for his re-election, but Brzezinski pressed him to say the 81-year-old president was the best option to take on Donald Trump's threat to democracy.
"I understand the stakes," Brzezinski said, "but people are talking right now about Joe Biden, and whether or not he's okay, and they're asking the question, is he okay? Can he do this? Can he run this race? They are asking this question in a big way. Some are saying he needs to resign from the race. Does he need to prove that he's okay, and if he's not should he resign, and someone else take over?"
Shapiro said his official duties had put him in close contact with both candidates, and he expressed confidence in Biden's abilities.
"I can tell you Joe Biden is up to the job," he said. "I worked with the former president, and most of the work I had with him was when I was in court suing him because he was trying to rip away our fundamental freedoms. The good news is we won, and we defeated him, and when it comes to Joe Biden, I've acknowledged at the top, he had a bad debate night, but it doesn't change the accomplishments, and it doesn't change the fact that there is a clear contrast between where these two people want to take us in the future of this country. I'm scared of what will happen if Donald Trump is given the keys to the White House again, and so forgive me, but sitting here and hand-wringing, sitting here and fretting is not the answer. What we got to do is work."
Brzezinski bristled at his remarks, saying she remained confident in the president but was concerned about his performance.
"I'm not hand-wringing," she said. "I'm the one person on the show today that believes in Joe Biden. I agree with you, I think he had a bad night."
"I mean you no disrespect," Shapiro offered.
"Please, no – let's get at it," Brzezinski continued. "I want to get into this, but I need to ask you though, because everyone is talking about what was going on with him. He couldn't finish a thought, he couldn't land an answer and his closing thoughts were even botched. I mean, come on. There are people going, what the hell is going on? It's a fair question given that it's not just a bad night. It's one of the most important nights of this election cycle, and he was terrible. How do people move forward and get a sense that he's going to be okay, that it was just a bad night? What needs to happen?"
Shapiro said those concerns could apply to either candidate.
"It's hard for me to know if you're talking about Joe Biden or Donald Trump," Shapiro said. "I mean, Donald Trump had a terrible night. The guy's a pathological – he's a pathological liar. He was talking about how proud he is that he overturned Roe v. Wade and making up some nonsense about killing babies after they were born. I think anybody that looked at that, looked at Donald Trump and saw that he couldn't commit himself, again, to accepting the results of the election, anybody who looked at that realized that what he was spouting through the lies was really, really dangerous for our nation."
"I acknowledged now multiple times, Joe Biden had a bad debate night and he's got a burden on him to show people that he is still able to move forward in these debates and then make prosecuting the case against Donald Trump," the governor added. "I believe he can do that. I also believe that we all have a responsibility to help him do that. That's why I'm here talking to you this morning and why I'll continue to talk to the good people of Pennsylvania and this nation about the things that we have been able to accomplish with Joe Biden together, the historic investments in infrastructure, the historic ways we have been able to address the challenges that people are facing all across this nation. We've got a lot of work to do, and that's what I intend to do."
Democrats are "freaking out" at the highest levels about president Joe Biden's debate performance, according to MSNBC's John Heilemann, and may have engaged in some difficult discussions about how to move forward without him as the party's nominee.
Voters have expressed concern about the 81-year-old president's age, and numerous Democrats expressed alarm at Biden's notable lack of vigor and inability to challenge Donald Trump's steady stream of falsehoods and low blows, and Heilemann revealed that party leadership are considering their options.
"I'll just start by saying that, without having an opinion, opinionizing about this," Heilemann told "Morning Joe." "As a matter of fact, having covered presidential debates since 1992, having seen a fair number of bad nights for candidates on first debates, bad nights for incumbents, some bad nights for challengers. In terms of measuring the degree of alarm of a presidential candidate's party about their performance, I have never seen anything like this by an order of magnitude."
"This is a reporting matter," he added. "Sitting congressmen, sitting senators, sitting governors, millionaires, billionaires, across the spectrum, people who have been supportive and loyal to Joe Biden since Day One, and continue in some respects to be supportive and loyal to Joe Biden, freaking out last night. I can't – as a reportorial matter, I can't overstate the degree of freakout about what they were seeing. I don't know what is going to happen now, but I will tell you, by the time you got to the first commercial break, you had the highest levels of the Democratic Party – senators, governors, congress people, biggest bundlers, biggest donors, there were conversations about, what do we do know? We have to figure out how that works."
The Daily Mailreported last week on an alleged "secret Democratic plot" to replace Biden if he stumbled in Thursday's debate, and while Heilemann cast doubt on their sourcing, he said it wasn't far off from what he's been hearing behind the scenes.
"There was a story the other day in the totally non-credible, in many respects, Daily Mail, on Monday that said that the Clintons, the Obamas, [Senate majority leader Chuck] Schumer and [former House speaker Nancy] Pelosi were going to watch this debate, and if it did not go well for Joe Biden, they'd try to have the talk with him about stepping back," Heilemann said. "Many laughed at that – it was not a credible report. The Daily Mail, British tabloid, whatever. I had six good sources after that who said, that's not totally false."
"The interesting part of that was the Schumer and Pelosi piece," he added. "No one thinks Joe Biden would listen to the Obamas, the Clintons on this subject, but because he cares so much about Democrats in the House and Senate, there was some discussion about whether Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer privately were taking soundings on this question. I don't know what will happen now going forward, but I will say, these are the kinds of conversations that people are having now in the Democratic Party as we speak – what to do. The level of panic, for me, in my time covering politics, I've never seen a level of panic on this scale."
Drag queens unite! Drag PAC is looking to challenge anti-trans laws and drag bans around the country.
It was founded by a number of
RuPaul's Drag Race alums, including Willam Belli, Jinkx Monsoon, Miss Peppermint, Monét X Change and BenDeLaCreme, as well as Dylan Bulkeley-Krane, according to The Hill and KFOX-TV. Bulkeley-Krane previously co-founded Disability Action for America, a PAC dedicated to disability rights.
Drag PAC announced its existence Wednesday in a new YouTube video, where the queens involved spoke about why they were driven to found it.
“I think everyone is a little disheartened with a lot of our elected leadership, and frankly, our community is being assaulted, and it’s escalating to violence,” Jinkx Monsoon says in the clip.
"Our diversity is what drives democracy," BenDeLaCreme adds.
The queens say that Drag PAC is the first PAC to be led by drag performers. The goal is to "motivate the LGBTQ+ voter base to create a community of empowered and informed citizens that participate in the democratic process, amplifying the values and issues that affect them as unique but equal American citizens," according to the PAC's YouTube page.
Right now, the PAC's
website is sparse, with the YouTube video, plus links to register to vote and to donate. The PAC has so far raised $15,000 from individuals, according to Open Secrets.
Anti-LGBTQ legislation is on the rise. Across the United States, there are at least 527 anti-LGBTQ bills currently pending,
according to the ACLU, even in blue states like Washington and Oregon.
Two states, Montana and Tennessee, explicitly ban drag performances, and four other states, including Texas and Florida, have laws that could be read as banning drag. Though some of these laws have been struck down as unconstitutional, it doesn't seem to stop anti-LGBTQ politicians from trying.
“A lot of this political rhetoric does have real life effects and consequences on people of multiple marginalized identities,” said Peppermint told the Hill. “Each time people who are attacking the queer community come back to the table it’s sharper, and stronger, and more impactful, and it hurts more each time.”
We’re in the middle of something historic,” Monet X Change told KFOX-TV. “This is the most important election cycle for queer people’s rights and freedoms in our lifetime.”
Reflecting on Thursday night's presidential debate between President Joe Biden and Donald Trump, MSNBC "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough suggested the president may "not be up to the job" after his halting performance.
On Friday morning, a grim-faced "Morning Joe" panel uniformly expressed dismay at Biden's performance, with Scarborough pronouncing it "tragic."
Addressing the panel, Scarborough began, "Well, I think I should start by saying, without any apologies, that I love Joe Biden and Jill, and I will gladly debate anybody anytime, anyplace, anywhere, over the issue of whether Joe Biden has been the most effective president, passing bipartisan legislation, expanding NATO, in responding to the rising threat coming from China, by flexing America's strength around China, by having the strongest economy in the world, bar none, the strongest economy, actually, relative to the rest of the world in 50, 60, 70 years, the strongest dollar in half a century, the strongest military relative to the rest of the world. I would argue, and many others would argue, since 1945."
Having said that, he later added, "We talked about the Goldwater, Barry Goldwater, to walk over and tell Richard Nixon it was over... Now, the question is, do Democrats need to do the same thing of Joe Biden? I mean, these are hard questions, but the fact is, friends, failure is just not an option. In 2024, failure is not an option."
"I think what surprised me, and what surprised a lot of people very close to Joe Biden, is the fact that this man always rises to the occasion," he continued. "Last night was, sadly for him, and I believe for Democrats and this country, and, again, if you believe what's at stake in this election is what we believe is at stake, I'll even use the word tragically, he tragically did not rise to the occasion last night."
CNN anchor and broadcast journalist Chris Wallace pulled no punches Thursday night, calling President Joe Biden's debate performance a "car accident in slow motion."
To many Democrats and never-Trumpers on the internet, the statement was hardly hyperbolic. But an already stunned panel nearly fell out of the chairs when they saw a Biden boasting at the after-party, "We're going to beat this guy," as the crowd cheered, "we need you!"
The celebration represented a stark contrast from sentiment felt online, in group chats and on every major news channel, as the world watched what some suggested was the demise of the Biden campaign.
"He needed to change the narrative and he did change the narrative," said Wallace as Jill Biden fist-pumped to the crowd. "He sunk his campaign tonight."
Fellow anchor and CNN host Kaitlan Collins, talking over the befuddling Biden celebration in the so-called "spin room," said Democrats faced an "immense challenge" in spinning the result.
Later, fellow host Erin Burnett asked what most of America wanted to know as Biden appeared to boast to the crowd of supporters.
"In this moment, he's at a watch party, they're cheering, 'four more years!' He's speaking," she said. What I'm curious about, is does he know how bad this was? At this moment. He walked out to his aides — does he know?"
A visibly flustered Wallace replied, "If he doesn't know, that's more alarming than anything."
The panel watched as a newly energized Biden told the crowd, "I want to go home with you!"
Collins called out Biden's new-found well of energy.
"He wasn't a third that vibrant or vigorous inside the debate," she said.
Another CNN anchor said that while Americans saw a familiar Donald Trump — "his mannerisms, his quickness in his response" not to mention his "lies" and "incorrect" information — they saw a Joe Biden they "don't recognize."
"This is not the person who was quick on his feet, or fast to parry, or to respond quickly to misinformation," she said.
A cross-armed Wallace echoed her statement: "He hasn't been that Joe Biden in a long time. This was the culmination of a process."
"Perhaps, but it also was stark," she said, noting Biden failed to "mitigate the idea he was infirm."
