“Can Joe Biden even live another 4 years, let alone be president?”
Even some Democrats expressed shock as Biden appeared old and confused during the CNN debate, frequently losing his train of thought and speaking with a raspy and weak voice.
J.D. Vance (R-OH), a favorite for Trump’s vice president pick, wrote, “Trump has so much more energy and clarity than Biden, it’s just an insane contrast."
Before the debate even ended on Thursday night, President Joe Biden's team seemed to be in damage control.
Kelly O'Donnell, senior White House correspondent for NBCNews, tweeted that two sources familiar with the "situation" offered a possible explanation: “President Biden has a cold.”
"Biden has dementia, not a cold," tweeted @pepesgrandma.
"Are you sure he doesn’t have a coma?" chortled @BurtMaclin_FBI.
"Longest cold I’ve ever seen," wrote @GoPackGo541.
Within the first hour, Intelligencer political columnist Jonathan Chait asked what many Democrats across the country were thinking: "Time to panic?"
"Joe Biden has started this debate looking wan," he wrote. "His voice is soft, he has looked down, and he lost his train of thought during one answer, ending on the garbled note 'we beat Medicare.' He meant they beat Pharma by winning a provision to allow Medicare to negotiation prescription drugs, but it did not track in real time."
If Biden does not turn around his performance over the course of this, I think Democrats will reach full-blown panic."
President Joe Biden's debate performance could send Democrats into a tailspin.
That's the analysis from Intelligencer political columnist Jonathan Chait, who live-reacted to the debate Thursday night between former President Donald Trump and President Biden.
Within the first hour, Chait asked what Democrats across the country were thinking: "Time to panic?"
"Joe Biden has started this debate looking wan," he wrote. "His voice is soft, he has looked down, and he lost his train of thought during one answer, ending on the garbled note 'we beat Medicare.' He meant they beat Pharma by winning a provision to allow Medicare to negotiation prescription drugs, but it did not track in real time."
The Biden campaign saw its "best fundraising hour of the entire campaign," from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday ahead of the much-anticipated first debate of the 2024 election season, a Biden campaign official told NBC News.
Trump's trial and eventual conviction on dozens of felony counts in his hush money case didn't hamstring the former president's fundraising efforts, but rather provided a boon for him and the party, shrinking Biden's fundraising lead.
Trump’s presidential campaign, the Republican National Committee, and an allied super PAC raised over $170 million in May. That includes a massive haul following Trump’s felony conviction May 30 — the Trump campaign said it hauled in $53 million online in the 24 hours following his guilty verdict.
Convicted criminal and political adviser Steve Bannon urged former President Donald Trump to turn Thursday's debate into a "cage match" by refusing to shake hands with his opponent.
Just hours before the debate was set to begin, Bannon spoke to Real America's Voice correspondent Brian Glenn — Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's (R-GA) boyfriend — about strategy for the event.
"I don't want to see the two shake hands," Glenn said. "You don't shake hands with someone who's trying to lock you up and lock your family up for life."
"I agree," Bannon replied. "There's nothing to shake hands about... President Trump, let's remember this. He didn't go to the inauguration."
"The reason he didn't go to the inauguration is that the 2020 election was stolen," he continued. "Joe Biden is not the legitimate President of the United States. You should only shake hands with the legitimate President of the United States. He's not it."
Bannon also said that the two men should not have opening statements.
"Let's just get on it," he opined. "Let's have a cage match. UFC comes to presidential debates."
"I just think President Trump ought to be his own true self."
MAGA Republican and accused carpetbagger Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert on Thursday asked the tough question everyone wants to know — why should the commander-in-chief be able to refuse a debate drug-test when U.S. troops cannot?
Boebert's question echoes a familiar right-wing talking point that's made the rounds in recent days in what appears to be an effort to pre-shield former President Donald Trump ahead of the debate Thursday night on CNN.
Trump and his fellow conservatives have floated the idea for days that Biden will use performance-enhancing drugs as they go toe-to-toe. Political analysts have suggested Trump fears his attacks on Biden have lowered the bar the president must clear to win — and is trying to prepare his base for his own defeat.
"There is no evidence that Biden has used or plans to use performance-enhancing drugs," writes Washington Post political reporter Hannah Knowles. "But Trump and his supporters have spread the baseless claim widely."
Before Boebert, Rep. Nancy Mace expressed similar sentiments.
"How much Adderall are they gonna give him?" Mace asked. "How many vitamins is he gonna be on?"
Not one to avoid the GOP playbook, Boebert did her part to cast doubt on the upcoming intellectual exchange of ideas.
"Members of our military cannot just refuse a drug test because they don’t want to take one," she wrote on X. "Why is the Commander in Chief any different?"
And when Boebert spoke, the internet laughed.
"This is such a deeply stupid analogy," wrote conservative Army Iraq War Veteran Peter Henlein. "There is no good debate drug. If there was, I am sure both candidates would be taking it."
"Members of the military can’t be convicted felons," retorted @jeffreymlevy. "Why is the republican nominee for President and Commander in Chief any different?"
"Everyone has the right to be stupid and ignorant, but you just abuse that privilege," said @ChidiNwatu.
Boebert was among four of just 18 Republican party-endorsed candidates to win their primary on Tuesday night. She moved to the reliably Republican Fourth Congressional District, where Republican Rep. Ken Buck resigned in March, after facing a near-inevitable loss in her existing district.
A new ad released Thursday morning — hours ahead of the much-anticipated debate between the current and former president — left the internet in awe as viewers raved over its terrifying, poignant portrayal of a possible dystopian, GOP-led America with shades of "The Handmaid's Tale."
The ad, paid for and released on X by the progressive political group "Way to Win," begins with two people in the front of a car kissing. The man steps out of the car, heads into a convenience store and tries to buy a pack of condoms.
Not so fast — under this possible Republican leadership, you can't just buy condoms.
"ID please," the clerk said.
The surprised man replies: "You need an ID to buy condoms now?"
"It's a new legislation passed by Republicans in Congress after they voted against the Right to Contraception Act," she said. "I don't make the rules."
In this new world, an ID isn't enough. She breaks out a clipboard, pen and checklist of invasive questions, such as will the condoms be used with a spouse? Is the buyer in a "committed, monogamous relationship," and "is this heterosexual copulation?"
"Do you like Taylor Swift?" the clerk asks. When the prospective buyer says he likes her "Eras Tour," the clerk frowns. "Mmmm. Sorry. You're not eligible to buy the condoms."
Befuddled, the man walks away. Text overlays a black box: "OK, so they haven't come for condoms...YET. But REPUBLICANS in Congress JUST BLOCKED the RIGHT TO CONTRACEPTION ACT."
The block allows states to threaten access to contraceptives, including condoms, IUDs and birth control pills.
The ad reverberated through X, with shaken users applauding the shocking picture.
"Brilliant dystopian video on what life under a Christofascist Trump administration will be," wrote @bskyresistance. "It should be shared far and wide."
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) complained Thursday that Republicans have been accused of discriminating based on race while she argued white people were facing bigotry in the workplace.
At a House Oversight Committee hearing on "ending illegal racial discrimination," Greene said she was upset by racial claims made against Republicans.
"I'm listening today to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle charging Republicans with racism, hate, saying that we discriminate against people from the LGBTQ community, or based on race, has been appalling today, and I'm sorry for the witnesses that have had to hear that," Greene said.
The lawmaker then focused on several companies that she suggested were discriminating against white people.
"For the people watching at home today, we're talking about Title VII of the Civil Rights Act," she said. "Yet today, and it was reported by CBS, it says that major U.S. companies gave 94% of new jobs to people of color in 2021. White workers accounted for 20,524 jobs, just 6 percent."
She also noted that financial services company BlackRock had a program to promote "students who self-identify as Black or African-American, Hispanic or Latino, Native American, LGBTQ or disabled."
"This is talking about race, gender, LGBTQ, definitely leaves off white," she asserted. "White is not on this list, so that would be based on race. That seems to be a violation to me."
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson dressed down her conservative colleagues Thursday despite a decision that will allow for emergency abortions in Idaho for now.
In a ruling leaked the day before, the high court dismissed an appeal by Idaho officials and allowed a stay ordered by a lower court to remain in place. The Supreme Court's decision effectively left the question about emergency abortions in Idaho undecided.
Jackson said there was "no good reason" that the court could not immediately decide the case.
Although Jackson voted with the majority, she blasted the court for the way the case was handled.
"We cannot simply wind back the clock to how things were before the Court injected itself into this matter," Jackson wrote in her partial dissent. "We permitted Idaho's law to go into effect by staying the District Court's injunction in the first place, then allowed this matter to sit on our merits docket for five months while we considered the question presented."
"It is too little, too late for the Court to take a mulligan and just tell the lower courts to carry on as if none of this has happened," she added. "As the old adage goes: The Court has made this bed so now it must lie in it—by proceeding to decide the merits of the critical pre-emption issue this case presents."
The decision comes two years after the court struck down Roe v. Wade and federal abortion rights.
Retired Lt. General Michael Flynn, who briefly served as national security adviser under former President Donald Trump, signaled he’s not in contention to be Trump’s running-mate in the 2024 presidential election.
“Hope not, I’m spending time with my grandchildren,” Flynn posted Thursday morning on X, in a reply to a Raw Story post.
Flynn’s response was prompted by a Raw Story article about a filing with the Federal Election Commission — confirmed to be fictitious — that indicated Donald Trump has selected Flynn as his vice presidential running mate. Trump campaign treasurer Bradley Crate told Raw Story the filing was a “fraud.”
Flynn is not generally believed to be among the people under serious consideration to serve as Trump’s running mate and vice president.
That list includes Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson.
But among some of the more extreme elements of Trump’s MAGA base, Flynn’s loyalty to Trump and military background — coupled with his experience as a target of federal prosecution — make him an appealing potential running mate for Trump, who is himself mired in multiple criminal and civil legal proceedings.
Patrick Byrne, the former Overstock.com CEO who has been working alongside Flynn since the 2020 election, wrote on X earlier this month: “The only way Trump wins is if he makes Flynn his VP candidate. Flynn knows how to spring Trump from prison.”
Byrne said he respected half of those thought to be under serious consideration for the role, but added, “Trump’s going to be sitting in jail. The world is at war and we need a General.”
Trump and Flynn have remained in touch since Trump left the White House on Jan. 20, 2021, particularly when Trump has faced some of his most serious legal peril.
Flynn was on a “Pastors for Trump National Prayer Call” in March 2023, shortly before Trump was indicted in Manhattan for falsifying business records related to the Stormy Daniels hush-money affair.
Earlier this year, a jury found Trump guilty of all 34 charges in the case, and he is scheduled for sentencing on July 11 — four days before the start of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Also in March 2023, Trump called into a ReAwaken America Tour stop at the Trump National Doral resort in Miami and told Flynn: “You have to stay healthy because we’re bringing you back.”
Search returns describe the gun-rights behemoth in various ways.
“Gun rights advocacy group,” Wikipedia reads.
“An American nonprofit organization which advocates for gun rights,” writes the Library of Congress.
“The largest and most powerful gun rights organization in the United States” that “lobbies against gun control legislation and financially backs lawmakers who have historically not supported increased regulations,” USA Today reports.
None of them refer to the NRA as a “human rights” organization.
There, prominently placed in the upper right corner of the search page, is a “knowledge panel” — a Google-generated box containing descriptive and statistical information about the NRA.
"Human rights group” is listed immediately below the NRA’s name and next to the organization’s logo.
Google describes the National Rifle Association as a "human rights group" in a "knowledge panel" is displays for the pro-gun organization. Source: Google
Google spokesperson Colette Garcia declined to answer specific questions, including why Google lists the NRA as a "human rights group” and whether Google, institutionally, considers the NRA to be a "human rights group.” She also did not say whether Google has a corporate position on whether gun rights, in general, are human rights.
Instead, she emailed links to two Google primers on “knowledge panels,” including a 2020 blog item that explains how Google’s “knowledge graph” — a system that “understands facts and information about entities from materials shared across the web, as well as from open source and licensed databases” — populates knowledge panels on notable groups such as the NRA.
Google’s blog item notes that “inaccuracies in the knowledge graph can occasionally happen” and invites feedback from users who may consider something amiss.
“We analyze feedback like this to understand how any actual inaccuracies got past our systems, so that we can make improvements generally across the knowledge graph overall,” Google’s blog item reads. “We also remove inaccurate facts that come to our attention for violating our policies, especially prioritizing issues relating to public interest topics such as civic, medical, scientific, and historical issues or where there’s a risk of serious and immediate harm.”
Informed by Raw Story about Google’s knowledge panel for the NRA, representatives for two gun control organizations expressed dismay.
“In no world should the NRA be listed here as a human rights group. In fact, I’d argue they are in direct competition with the work actual human rights organizations are doing to protect the lives of our children and communities,” said Kris Brown, president of Brady, a nonprofit group that advocates against gun violence. “Given the NRA is directly responsible for so many unnecessary deaths, one option might be to list them as a ‘Mass Shooter Defense Fund’ or perhaps, ‘Pro-death advocates.’”
Protesters gather on Dec. 14, 2017, outside of the National Rifle Association headquarters in Fairfax, Va., for a vigil in remembrance of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn. Nicole Glass Photography / Shutterstock
Max Steele, a spokesperson for Everytown for Gun Safety, another anti-gun violence organization, accused the NRA of playing “a leading role in building an America where gun violence kills tens of thousands of people a year and is the number one cause of death for children and teens.
Calling the NRA a “human rights” group “is enough to make North Korean propagandists blush,” Steele added.
The NRA, which says it has about 5 million members, did not respond to messages seeking comment.
The NRA self-identifies in variety of ways: “America's longest-standing civil rights organization,” “foremost defender of Second Amendment rights,” “premier firearms education organization,” “major political force,” winner of “big battles for your gun rights.”
While the NRA occasionally has argued that “self-defense is a basic human right,” such as in a statement from 2008, it does not overtly advertise itself as a human rights group.
The NRA remains a force in American politics. In May, it endorsed former President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election, and Trump personally accepted the nomination.
“Gun owners must vote,” Trump told NRA members at the organization's annual convention in Dallas. “We want a landslide.”
U.S. Surgeon General Vivak Murthy on Tuesday declared gun violence a public health emergency. He advocated for a suite of new gun laws and restrictions directly opposed to the NRA’s pro-gun agenda, including a ban on automatic rifles, universal background checks for people seeking to buy guns and tighter regulations for the gun manufacturing industry.
In the United States, deaths by firearms have risen sharply during the past decade, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data compiled by nonpartisan research organization USA Facts.
Children are among those most adversely affected, with gun deaths rising 50 percent between 2019 and 2021, the Pew Research Center reported.
Notorious MAGA-spewer Marjorie Taylor Greene left mouths agape by stating the obvious: "A person who abuses her position in government to meddle in democratic elections should be nowhere near public office."
This is the same Marjorie Taylor Greene who is a devout supporter of former President Donald Trump — who faces criminal charges of trying to overturn his Democratically elected opponent's win — and whom herself was once suspended from Twitter for 12 hours for peddling election misinformation.
Greene has repeatedly called the 2020 presidential election “stolen” and repeatedly called some of President Joe Biden’s electoral votes as “fraudulent.” She has said Biden outright “lost” the election and that Trump “won,” and in her own state, 18 defendants were accused of trying to overthrow the election results. That includes Trump.
Greene has said her own state's elections chief allowed the election to be "stolen" because, in her words, "you idiots at the SOS mailed out millions of absentee ballots to any one and everyone while GA was an open state."
And she has said that state leaders in Georgia "refused to listen to Georgia tax payers."
"They refused to change anything after allowing @realDonaldTrump’s election to be stolen. And they refused to #StopTheSteaI with our two senate seats," she wrote.
The internet, as they say, never forgets. And they let her have it Wednesday.
A former elections supervisor in Georgia who was charged as part of a broader investigation with trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia has had her case paused.
A Georgia appeals court Wednesday granted Misty Hampton's request that her case be suspended pending the outcome of an appeal that seeks to eject Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis from prosecuting Trump and others. Hampton faces multiple charges, including violating the Georgia RICO Act, conspiracy to commit election fraud, and conspiracy to commit computer-related crimes.
Hampton was the elections director of the rural county on Jan. 7, 2021. She’s accused of helping a computer forensics team hired by former President Donald Trump's allies to access election equipment without authorization. The data and software copied was later posted on a server and accessed by an unknown number of people.
Surveillance cameras recorded the security breach.
Hampton was one of 18 people charged along with Trump in August. Attorneys Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro and Jenna Ellis, as well as bail bondsman and Trump supporter Scott Hall all pleaded guilty in their cases in deals with prosecutors and agreed to testify.
Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee planned to move forward with pre-trial motions from six defendants not involved in efforts to force out Willis, prompting Hampton's request for the appeals court to intervene.
Cases against nine defendants who submitted appeals, including Trump, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and former Georgia Republican Party chair David Shafer were previously paused.
CNN's national security and justice reporter Zachary Cohen called the appeals court ruling a "pretty clear signal" to the remaining defendants who didn't join the original appeal that the trial court proceedings against them "will also likely be paused if they ask."
"If similarly granted, would officially put entire GA elex case on ice pending DQ ruling," Cohen said.
Google describes the National Rifle Association as a "human rights group" in a "knowledge panel" is displays for the pro-gun organization. Source: Google
Protesters gather on Dec. 14, 2017, outside of the National Rifle Association headquarters in Fairfax, Va., for a vigil in remembrance of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Conn. Nicole Glass Photography / Shutterstock