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”.
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Legal proceedings can be dull, sometimes so dull they put you to sleep – even if you happen to be a former president.
On the first day of his trial in New York, Donald Trump appeared to shut his eyes for an extended period of time. That was a couple of weeks ago now, but he just got around to denying doing so, in a post on Truth Social:
Contrary to the FAKE NEWS MEDIA, I don’t fall asleep during the Crooked D.A.’s Witch Hunt, especially not today. I simply close my beautiful blue eyes, sometimes, listen intensely, and take it ALL in!!!
Here’s more on the alleged nap:
Yesterday, Donald Trump was appearing before crowds in Michigan and Wisconsin – two swing states that will put him well on his way to the White House, if he wins them in November.
Today, he’s back at the defense table in a Manhattan courtroom, where his lawyers are cross-examining Keith Davidson, a former attorney for Stormy Daniels, the adult film actor at the center of the case against him for allegedly falsifying business records.
Follow our live blog for the latest from the trial:
Fun fact about Joe Biden: the 2020 election was the first one in which he faced a sustained campaign of negative television advertising, the New York Times reports.
And it goes without saying that 2024 will be his second. In a look back at his lengthy political career, the Times recounts what it was like for the Republicans who attempted to oust Biden from his Senate seat in Delaware, over the 36 years he represented the state.
Biden was something of juggernaut, his ex-opponents recount, both personally, and in the campaign infrastructure he wielded:
In Delaware, Mr. Biden was so well known and, in his early years in office, had such a wellspring of sympathy from voters after the tragic crash that killed his first wife and daughter, that no rival ever mounted a sustained case that he should not be re-elected. For years, bumper stickers promoting his re-election just said ‘Joe,’ while opponents lost with an array of long-forgotten slogans.
‘I don’t think he ever broke a sweat once he was an incumbent,’ said Jane Brady, a Republican who lost to Mr. Biden by 27 points in 1990.
The only negative ad run against Mr. Biden between 1978 and 2008, according to the University of Oklahoma’s archive, is one that his campaign would most likely embrace today. That 30-second spot reminded viewers that President Ronald Reagan endorsed John Burris, Mr. Biden’s Republican challenger in 1984, while Mr. Biden backed the unpopular Democratic presidential nominee, Walter Mondale.
The Biden of today often makes gaffes, to the chagrin of his supporters, and the delight of his enemies. Here’s an example of a recent one, which was seized on by the conservative media:
Just last week, Mr. Biden prompted the crowd at an endorsement event to chant, ‘Four more years!’ and then added ‘pause’ as it appeared to have been written into his teleprompter, an episode that drew much mocking in conservative news media and quiet forehead-slapping among Democrats.
Back in the day, the Times reports such things did not happen:
Mr. Biden’s opponent in 1996 and 2002 was Ray Clatworthy, an entrepreneur who owned restaurants and local Christian radio stations. During a 1996 televised debate, Mr. Clatworthy accused Mr. Biden of raising taxes while voting to increase his own salary and accused him of ‘attempting to portray himself as a conservative’ in an election year.
Mr. Biden spoke quickly and precisely, without entering the verbal cul-de-sacs endemic to many of his presidential speeches 28 years later.
Mr. Biden sought to pin down Mr. Clatworthy on his anti-abortion stance and then delivered a clear statement of his own views on the issue after Mr. Clatworthy accused him of flip-flopping to endorse abortion rights in his 1988 presidential campaign.
‘My position has been consistent from the very beginning,’ Mr. Biden said of his abortion stance. ‘I believe government should stay out – no constitutional amendment, no public funding.’
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Joe Biden is now in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he is meeting with the families of four law enforcement officers killed and four others who were wounded while serving a warrant last week.
The shooting was the deadliest attack against police in the United States since 2016. Here’s more about what happened:
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As Donald Trump rallied elsewhere in Wisconsin, demonstrators convened outside the venue that will host the Republican National Convention this summer to decry his vow to bring back hardline immigration policies if elected, the Guardian’s Alice Herman reports:
Led by a mariachi band, hundreds of demonstrators on Wednesday morning marched across Milwaukee to the Fiserv Forum – the home of the Milwaukee Bucks and, in July, the venue of the Republican National Convention.
The rally, organized by the immigrant and workers’ rights group Voces de la Frontera, is an annual event, but in 2024 it holds particular weight. The focus of the rally extended beyond immigration, to fear of authoritarianism under Republican candidate Donald Trump and critique of Joe Biden’s handling of the US role in Israel and Gaza.
This year, May Day also fell on the same day as a Trump campaign event in Waukesha, which organizers seized on to denounce Trump’s immigration policy and call on Biden to use his executive authority to adopt protections for undocumented workers.
“We reject [Trump’s] political platform, which promises dictatorship, deportations and separation of families,” Voces de la Frontera executive director Christine Neumann-Ortiz told the crowd on Wednesday, to applause.
Updated
While Donald Trump kept mum about abortion in a visit to to the swing state of Wisconsin, he was far more open in a pair of interviews with Time in which he described in depth what he would like to do if returned to the White House. The Guardian’s Ed Pilkington has more:
Donald Trump has warned that Joe Biden and his family could face multiple criminal prosecutions once he leaves office unless the US supreme court awards Trump immunity in his own legal battles with the criminal justice system.
In a sweeping interview with Time magazine, Trump painted a startling picture of his second term, from how he would wield the justice department to hinting he may let states monitor pregnant women to enforce abortion laws.
Trump made the threat against the Biden family in an interview with Eric Cortellessa of Time, in which he shared the outlines of what the magazine called “an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world”.
Trump made a direct connection between his threat to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the Bidens should he win re-election in November with the case currently before the supreme court over his own presidential immunity.
Asked whether he intends to “go after” the Bidens should he gain a second term in the White House, Trump replied: “It depends what happens with the supreme court.”
Updated
A potentially landmark lawsuit by youth activists against the federal government over its role in fueling the climate crisis was struck down by an appeals court, on the request of the Biden administration, the Guardian’s Dharna Noor reports:
A federal appeals court on Wednesday evening granted the Biden administration’s request to strike down a landmark federal youth climate case, outraging climate advocates.
“This is a tragic and unjust ruling,” said Julia Olson, attorney and founder of Our Children’s Trust, the non-profit law firm that brought the suit.
The lawsuit, Juliana v United States, was filed by 21 young people from Oregon who alleged the federal government’s role in fueling the climate crisis violates their constitutional rights.
The Wednesday order from a panel of three Trump-appointed judges on the ninth circuit court of appeals will require a US district court judge to dismiss the case for lack of standing, with no opening to amend the complaint.
The decision affirmed an emergency petition filed by the justice department in February arguing that “the government will be irreparably harmed” if it is forced to spend time and resources litigating the Juliana case. It’s a measure the justice department should never have taken, said Olson.
“The Biden administration was wrong to use an emergency measure to stop youth plaintiffs from having their day in court,” she said in a statement. “The real emergency is the climate emergency.”
The day so far
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. He also repeated his debunked claim that the 2020 election was marred by fraud.
Here’s what else has happened today so far:
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.
Updated
Biden campaign condemns Trump's refusal to commit to honoring November election results
Joe Biden’s re-election campaign has come out swinging against Donald Trump’s refusal in an interview yesterday to commit to accepting the results of the presidential election in November.
From spokesman James Singer:
President Biden has said, ‘You can’t love your country only when you win.’ But for Donald Trump, his campaign for revenge and retribution reigns supreme.
In his own words, he is promising to rule as a dictator on ‘day one’, use the military against the American people, punish those who stand against him, condone violence done on his behalf and put his own quest for power ahead of what is best for America.
Bottom line: Trump is a danger to the constitution and a threat to our democracy. The American people are going to give him another electoral defeat this November because they continue to reject his extremism, his affection for violence and his thirst for revenge.
Updated
Joe Biden is already facing heat from some Democratic voters for his support of Israel as it invades Gaza following the 7 October attack. As the Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt reported earlier this week, the unrest on college campuses targeted at America’s closest Middle East ally could present the latest complication to his campaign for another four years in the White House:
The policies of Joe Biden and Democrats towards Israel, which have prompted thousands of students across the country to protest, could affect the youth vote for Biden and hurt his re-election chances, experts have warned, in what is already expected to be a tight election.
Thousands of students at universities across the US have joined with pro-Palestine rallies and, most recently, encampments, as Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 34,000 people.
Some of the protests began as a call to encourage universities to ditch investments in companies that provide weapons and equipment to the Israeli military. But as the Biden administration has continued to largely support Israel, the president has increasingly become a focus of criticism from young people. Polling shows that young Americans’ support for Biden has been chipped away since 2020.
With Biden narrowly trailing Trump in several key swing states, it’s a voting bloc the president can ill afford to lose.
“The real threat to Biden is that younger voters, especially college-educated voters, won’t turn out for him in the election,” said Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of history of education at the University of Pennsylvania.
“I wouldn’t expect that the protesters on campuses today are going to vote for Trump, almost none of them will. That’s not the danger here. The danger is much simpler: that they simply won’t vote.”
Joe Biden spoke about the nationwide protests against Israel at college campuses after police arrested more than 100 people at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Follow our live blog for more on the ongoing demonstration wave:
In his brief speech on the pro-Palestine protests on college campuses, Joe Biden cast himself as a defender of free speech rights, but said the demonstrations should not disrupt students’ learning.
“Dissent is essential to democracy, but dissent must never lead to disorder or to denying the rights of others, so students can finish the semester and their college education. Look, it’s basically a matter of fairness. It’s a matter of what’s right. There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos. People have the right to get an education, right to get a degree, right to walk across campus safely without fear of being attacked,” the president said.
He later added:
There should be no place on any campus, no place in America for antisemitism, or threats of violence against Jewish students. There is no place for hate speech, or violence of any kind, whether it’s antisemitism, Islamophobia, or discrimination against Arab Americans or Palestinian Americans. It’s simply wrong. There’s no place for racism in America. It’s all wrong. It’s not American.
Biden concluded with:
As president, I will always defend free speech. And I will always be just as strong in standing up for the rule of law. That’s my responsibility to you, the American people, my obligation to the constitution.
Updated
Biden says no plans to change Middle East policies, call in national guard in response to protests
Joe Biden spoke for just three minutes before wrapping up.
Just after he finished, a reporter asked if the protests would make him reconsider any of his Middle East policies.
“No,” the president replied.
Another asked if he planned to send the national guard to universities hit by the demonstrations, as some Republican lawmakers have called for.
“No” was Biden’s answer.
Updated
Biden says 'violent protest is not protected, peaceful protest is' in response to college demonstrations
Joe Biden attempted to draw a fine line between peaceful protests, which he says are protected by the law, and violent demonstrations, in his White House remarks amid widespread pro-Palestine protests at college campuses.
“In America, violent protest is not protected. Peaceful protest is,” the president said.
“It’s against the law when violence occurs. Destroying property is not a peaceful protest. It’s against the law. Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations. None of this is a peaceful protest. Threatening people, intimidating people, instilling fear in people is not peaceful protest. It’s against the law.”
Updated
Joe Biden has begun his speech, which he says will address the recent anti-Israel protests on college campuses.
We’ll let you know what he says.
Joe Biden is often late to begin his speeches.
This one, scheduled to start at 10.30am, appears to be no different.
Biden to address campus protests in unscheduled speech - report
NBC News reports that the topic of Joe Biden’s surprise address from the White House will be the protests against Israel that have occurred on college campuses nationwide:
New: President Biden is expected to address growing protests on college campuses nationwide when he speaks from the Roosevelt Room shortly in previously unscheduled remarks, multiple sources tell @mikememoli & me
— Monica Alba (@albamonica) May 2, 2024
The White House announced at 10.29am that Joe Biden would make an unscheduled speech at 10.30am – a one-minute warning.
But the president is now 10 minutes late.
The speech is already unusual for its short notice, and the White House’s lack of detail about what the president is addressing.
Updated
Biden to make unscheduled speech from White House
The White House just announced that Joe Biden will imminently deliver remarks, but the topic was not specified.
The speech was not previously scheduled. We will let you know what the president has to say.
Donald Trump’s rally in Wisconsin yesterday was part of a brief campaign trip through two swing states that will be crucial to deciding the November elections. The Guardian’s David Smith documented the former president’s appearance in Michigan farm country:
At a remote rural airport in Michigan, an outsized plane touched down as music from Tom Cruise’s film Top Gun boomed from loudspeakers. Late afternoon sunshine gleamed off five giant golden letters on the plane’s side – “TRUMP” – and its Rolls-Royce engines. A crowd bedecked in red roared as the plane rolled to a standstill behind a blue “TRUMP” lectern.
A door opened and men in dark glasses and dark suits from what Donald Trump would call “central casting” made their way down the stairs. “Trump! Trump!” the audience chanted, raising hundreds of camera phones in eager anticipation. Great Balls of Fire, Macho Man and YMCA blared. Finally, the former and would-be future president emerged, clapping and fist-pumping to the sound of whoops and cheers and Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA.
How different the warm embrace from Trump’s recent experience as a defendant on criminal trial in a chilly, dingy courtroom in New York. On those days, threatened with prison, he looks old, vulnerable and small. Back on the election campaign trail, it is all about hypermasculine energy and bigness – big plane, big crowds, big promises and big lies.
Trump had spent Tuesday in the now grimly familiar routine of the courtroom, where he is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush-money payment to the adult film performer Stormy Daniels. But the the court does not sit on Wednesday, freeing him to get a fresh shot of adulation from his fan base.
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Trump declines to address Wisconsin abortion ban in swing state appearance
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel asked Donald Trump for his thoughts on Wisconsin’s abortion ban, which is being challenged before the state supreme court, where liberal justices recently gained a majority.
The former president declined to comment, and generally avoided the issue in his rally in Waukesha, instead repeating that he thought it should be up to states to regulate the procedure, the Journal Sentinel reports.
Trump had a major role in the supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022, which paved the way for states to outlaw the procedure entirely, but has since fueled a string of Democratic victories in state and federal elections. He appointed three of the conservative judges who signed on to that ruling, but has since tried to avoid campaigning forcefully on the issue of abortion.
Yesterday, Kamala Harris traveled to Florida to decry a strict abortion ban that went into effect there, and warned voters not to believe Trump’s insistence that he was not interested in passing a federal law cutting off access to the procedure. Here’s a recap of her speech:
Trump refuses to commit to accepting election loss and repeats 2020 lies in swing state Wisconsin rally
Yesterday, Donald Trump had the day off from his trial in New York City on charges related to falsifying business records, and held a rally in Wisconsin, a swing state crucial to his presidential election chances. After a speech spent attacking Joe Biden over his handling of border security and inflation, Trump gave an interview to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, in which he falsely insisted that he won Wisconsin in 2020 (he did not) and “other locations”, and refused to commit to accepting the results of this year’s vote.
“If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results. I don’t change on that. If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country,” the former president said.
The comments were yet another indication that Americans should be prepared for a rocky election aftermath, should Trump lose in November to Biden. After the Democrat defeated him in 2020, Trump spent weeks attempting various plots to prevent Biden from taking power, culminating in the attack on the Capitol on January 6. Of course, there’s the chance that Trump could indeed win election again, as he did in 2016 – polls currently show a tight race with Biden, including in Wisconsin.
Here’s what else is happening today:
Trump is back in Manhattan as his trial resumes with testimony from Keith Davidson, a lawyer for adult film actor Stormy Daniels, who is at the heart of the allegations against the former president. We have a live blog covering everything that goes on in the courtroom.
Police moved in against protesters at the University of California, Los Angeles as colleges nationwide grapple with anti-Israel demonstrations. Follow our live blog for more on this developing story.
Biden is heading to North Carolina to pay his respects to the four law enforcement officers killed while serving a warrant earlier this week, then will speak about his economic policies in the city of Wilmington at 4.30pm ET.
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