Closing summary
In a surprise address from the White House, Joe Biden condemned violence on university campuses where pro-Palestine demonstrations are taking place, while saying the unrest would not spur him to change his policies in the Middle East. Meanwhile, his campaign hit out at Donald Trump, who yesterday held a rally in swing state Wisconsin and refused to commit to accepting the results of the November presidential election. Trump also repeated his debunked claim that the 2020 election was marred by fraud.
Here’s what else happened today:
Biden met with the families of four law enforcement officers killed while serving a warrant in North Carolina last week, as well as those wounded in the shooting.
Trump stayed away from the issue of abortion in his Wisconsin appearance, which Democrats have used to direct voter anger against Republicans in recent elections there and in other states.
In addition to Wisconsin, Trump also visited fellow Great Lakes swing state Michigan, where his fans offered a reprieve from the dreary New York courthouse in which he has lately been spending a lot of time.
The campus protests are the latest complication to Biden’s re-election chances, after he sparked the ire of key Democratic voting groups by backing Israel’s invasion of Gaza.
Napping in court? Not me, Trump said, despite reports to the contrary.
Updated
Perhaps you have heard that South Dakota’s Republican governor Kristi Noem killed a dog (the Guardian broke the story, after all!). Noem now says she had no choice, but blamed “fake news” (must be referring to us) for pushing the story that may have sunk her chances of becoming Donald Trump’s running mate, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:
Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota whose chance of being Donald Trump’s presidential running mate was widely deemed over after she published a description of shooting dead a dog and a goat, claimed reports of the story were “fake news” but also that the dog in question, Cricket, a 14-month-old wirehaired pointer, was “extremely dangerous” and deserved her fate.
“You know how the fake news works,” Noem told Fox News. “They leave out some or most of the facts of a story, they put the worst spin on it. And that’s what’s happened in this case.
“I hope people really do buy this book and they find out the truth of the story because the truth of the story is that this was a working dog and it was not a puppy. It was a dog that was extremely dangerous.”
The Guardian first reported Noem’s story of killing Cricket the dog and an unnamed, un-castrated male goat. The story is contained in Noem’s book, No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong With Politics and How We Move America Forward, which will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.
In the book, Noem says her description of killing a dog and a goat illustrates her willingness to do anything “difficult, messy and ugly” in politics as well as on her South Dakota farm – a defence she repeated before her Fox News interview.
Noem says Cricket ruined a pheasant hunt and then killed a neighbour’s chickens, all the while presenting “the picture of pure joy”.
Updated
