Joe Biden posted photos of him meeting with “incredible” supporters in Atlanta ahead of tonight’s debate. “It’s good to be back,” he wrote.
Atlanta, it’s good to be back!
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) June 27, 2024
I met some incredible supporters who are fired up ahead of tonight’s debate. Let’s finish the job. pic.twitter.com/hGDGtuvnC8
Gavin Newsom, the governor of California and a lead Biden surrogate, stopped to talk to reporters at the McCamish Pavilion, a sports arena in Atlanta that has been turned into a media centre and post-debate spin room.
I asked Newsom what difference muted microphones and lack of studio audience might make.
“I have a little bias because I did a debate here in Georgia without an audience and it’s just better for the American people because now you’re not playing to the audience, you’re not just playing to a crowd in the room,” he said.
You’ve got to create a framework of engagement that speaks to a much larger audience so that’s a very healthy thing. It’s a very good thing for the Biden campaign. We’ll see how it plays out and same thing with the mic and talking over each other, which is part and parcel of Trump the bully, so that’s a helpful and healthy thing too.
From my perspective, in many ways Biden’s already won this debate. First of all, it’s on his calendar, it’s on his timeline, he asserted himself and Trump blinked in every single category as it relates to this effort. I’ve been really impressed and inspired by the Biden strategy so far.
I wondered if Biden might miss the energy of the audience that fired him up at the State of the Union address. But Newsom insisted:
Biden’s a good debater. He’s done a lot of these debates over many, many decades so one should not underestimate them. It was indicative of the Trump campaign completely flipping the last 72 hours, realising that they’ve set such a low bar of expectation that if he even shows up at the podium that he’s somehow confident he’s going to win this campaign.
So they start to panic a little bit in that respect, hedge bets, which is indicative of a little broader consciousness that Biden is very effective in these formats. I honestly have tremendous confidence in the outcome tonight - the message, obviously, the record and, more importantly, the vision. I hope we get to that.
What you need to know about tonight's debate
Joe Biden and Donald Trump will hold the first of two scheduled US presidential debates on Thursday, a high-stakes rematch between two well-defined political foes.
The earlier-than-usual confrontation will give both men a chance to make their case for a second-term to what could be one of the largest television – and internet – audiences of the election cycle.
Thursday’s show down also carries the risk that Americans already dissatisfied with their options will come away even more dismayed. Polls show an extremely tight race between the 81-year-old incumbent and the 78-year-old former US president – and both candidates remain broadly unpopular.
The 90-minute debate is scheduled to kick off at 9pm ET inside a CNN studio in Atlanta.
Donald Trump was pictured stepping off his plane after it touched down at Hartsfield-Jackson international airport in Atlanta.
Also seen exiting Trump’s private plane were his campaign advisers Steven Cheung, Jason Miller, Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, as well as his former campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski and the Florida congressman Matt Gaetz.
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It could be the moment when a rematch that few seem to want finally comes to life: like two ageing prizefighters, Joe Biden and Donald Trump will enter the arena of political bloodsport on Thursday evening to resume a verbal sparring bout that will revive memories of the ugly exchanges when the two debated face to face four years ago.
A CNN studio in Atlanta will host the first presidential debate of the campaign between the same two candidates who contested the last election, which Biden won.
With more than four months to go until polling day in November, it is the earliest in any US presidential campaign that a debate between the two main candidates has ever been staged.
While some see the timing as premature, it could provide a chance to open up a contest that has become overshadowed by, among other things, Trump’s recent felony conviction, as well as assorted other legal travails that see him facing 54 criminal charges for trying to overturn the last election and for retaining classified documents.
Both candidates are deeply unpopular: Trump because his opponents see him as an aspiring dictator who threatens democracy, Biden because, at 81 (although just three years older than his Republican opponent), he is viewed – even among many Democrats – as too old for another term as president.
Knife-edge polls indicate a race essentially tied, with a national polling average for May and June showing the candidates at 46% each.
Polls in seven key battleground states – Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina – give Trump a narrow advantage, though usually within the margin of error.
NBC News’ Sahil Kapur writes that the debate hall is right next to the Kappa Sigma fraternity house at Georgia Tech, which is currently hosting a party under a sign that reads “Make America DRUNK Again”.
ATLANTA — The Biden-Trump debate hall is next to a frat house, where they are currently partying under a sign that reads “Make America DRUNK Again.” #MADA #DebateNight pic.twitter.com/noTNPTo3Rr
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) June 27, 2024
Trump lands in Atlanta
A private plane carrying Donald Trump has touched down in Atlanta ahead of tonight’s debate.
The former president’s plane was greeted by a group of his supporters on the tarmac.
It is not clear if Melania Trump, the former first lady, will join her husband at tonight’s debate.
Melania Trump’s office did not return a request for comment about whether she would be in Atlanta during the presidential debate, according the New York Times.
The former first lady has largely been absent from the campaign trail this year, and she notably did not attend Trump’s criminal hush money trial in New York.
Donald Trump Jr, Trump’s eldest child, will not attend the debate due to a family commitment involving his oldest daughter, according to NBC News, citing a source.
Trump’s second son, Eric Trump, is not expected to be in Atlanta for the debate, but Eric’s wife, Lara Trump, will attend in her official capacity as Republican National Committee (RNC) chair, NBC reports.
Jill Biden, the first lady, will be in Atlanta for tonight’s debate, according to the Biden campaign.
Jill Biden is expected to be the only Biden family member in attendance, according to the New York Times.
She is expected to watch the debate from a separate hold room on the debate campus.
After the debate, Biden and his wife are scheduled to stop by a nearby Democratic watch party, before flying to Raleigh overnight.
'He must be stopped': Trump's niece to join Biden campaign in debate spin room
Candidates traditionally bring along their family members for support during a debate. Less common: bringing a member of your opponent’s family for support.
On Thursday night, Donald Trump’s niece, Mary Trump, will be in the post-debate spin room making the case for Joe Biden.
Mary Trump, one of the former president’s harshest critics, has warned that her uncle is a threat to democracy and should not be re-elected.
She did not hold back. In a statement, she said:
I’m in Atlanta tonight to remind everyone who Donald is as a person and how he would rule as a president because the stakes are far too high for us to get this wrong: We cannot afford to allow Donald Trump anywhere near the levers of power again.
Donald cannot be trusted and we must recognize that his last administration was simply a warm-up for much worse to come just as January 6th was a dress rehearsal for a man who will stop at nothing to ascend, once again, to this country’s highest office. He is desperate for power and has shown himself both unworthy of wielding it and obsessed with regaining it purely for his own benefit. He must be stopped.
Joining Mary Trump in the spin-room – a chaotic room where campaign staff and surrogates try to persuade reporters that their candidate won the debate – will be:
Keisha Lance-Bottoms, former Atlanta mayor and a senior advisor on the Biden-Harris campaign
Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett
California governor Gavin Newsom
California congressman Robert Garcia
Former Louisiana congressman Cedric Richmond
Georgia senator Raphael Warnock
Joe Biden and Donald Trump will debate on Thursday for the first time this election cycle and it holds the potential for some history-making moments.
Debates can inform voters on both the issues and temperaments of the candidates, potentially swaying an undecided voter toward one candidate’s direction. They can also make for good TV, creating soundbites that resonate for decades to come.
From the candidates’ physical appearances to gaffes to planned attacks to off-the-cuff retorts, here are some memorable moments from US presidential debate history.
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The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) has released a statement complaining that CNN rejected its request to include a pool reporter inside the studio during tonight’s presidential debate.
The WHCA “is deeply concerned that CNN has rejected our repeated requests to include the White House travel pool inside the studio”, a statement by WHCA president and NBC correspondent Kelly O’Donnell reads.
The debate, which is being held on a closed set, will not feature an audience. Print pool photographers will be present for the entirety of the debate, while one print pool reporter will be permitted to enter during commercial breaks, according to CNN.
The letter says:
That is not sufficient in our view and diminishes a core principle of presidential coverage. The White House pool has a duty to document, report and witness the president’s events and his movements on behalf of the American people.
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Donald Trump is on his way to Atlanta, where he is scheduled to land in about an hour.
Trump aide Margo Martin, in a post to X, shared a video of the former president boarding his plane.
President @realDonaldTrump departs for DEBATE NIGHT! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/8aE35SizPI
— Margo Martin (@margommartin) June 27, 2024
Biden arrives in Atlanta ahead of debate
Joe Biden has arrived in Atlanta ahead of tonight’s presidential debate, where he was greeted by a crowd of supporters who chanted “four more years” and “let’s go Joe”, according to a pool report.
While on Air Force One en route to Georgia, Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House’s press secretary was asked how the president feels about “standing toe to toe with his main adversary tonight”.
According to the Washington Post, replied:
He likes to fight. He likes to fight for the American people.
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US district judge Aileen Cannon, who is presiding over Donald Trump’s classified documents case, has granted a request from the former president’s defense team to hold a hearing to challenge some of the evidence gathered against him.
Cannon said she would schedule a hearing to consider whether prosecutors had improperly obtained the cooperation of Trump’s lawyers through an exception to attorney-client privilege.
From my colleague Hugo Lowell:
NEW: Judge Cannon will grant TRUMP an evidentiary hearing to potentially suppress key obstruction evidence in the classified docs case
— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) June 27, 2024
Cannon will decide AFRESH the extent the crime-fraud exception applies to ex-Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran's notes https://t.co/mhRdScSvli
But Judge Cannon also denied a defense request for a hearing on a separate claim that FBI officials had submitted false or misleading information to obtain a warrant to search Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate for classified documents.
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The supreme court’s ruling earlier today to allow Idaho hospitals to provide emergency abortions – for now – has left key questions unanswered and could mean a final decision is delayed to beyond the November elections.
A draft decision in the case was briefly posted on the court’s website yesterday and abruptly removed. The final version of the decision published today appeared to closely resemble the draft.
Responding to the order, Joe Biden said the ruling ensures that Idaho women can get the care they need while the case continues to play out, adding:
Doctors should be able to practice medicine. Patients should be able to get the care they need.
No woman should be denied care, made to wait until she’s near death, or forced to flee her home to receive the health care she needs.
— President Biden (@POTUS) June 27, 2024
Today’s Supreme Court order ensures women in Idaho can access the emergency medical care they need for now.
But @VP and I will continue to fight… pic.twitter.com/cfeuZVbLjg
The White House’s press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said:
No woman should be denied care or wait until she’s near death or forced to flee her home state just to receive the healthcare she needs.
Merrick Garland, the attorney general, said the justice department will continue pressing its case and using “every available tool to ensure that women in every state have access to that care”. His statement reads:
Today’s order means that, while we continue to litigate our case, women in Idaho will once again have access to the emergency care guaranteed to them under federal law.
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Donald Trump has appeared to share his talking points for tonight’s debate on his Truth Social platform.
The post shows what appears to be a set of recommendations from Andrew Wheeler, Trump’s former Environmental Protection Agency chief.
Wheeler, in the post, advises Trump to pledge to reduce carbon emissions and to point out that Joe Biden rejoined the Paris climate accord, and “all that does is send American dollars overseas”.
Ammar Moussa, a Biden campaign spokesperson, shared Trump’s talking points on Twitter/X, writing:
Donald Trump is just posting his debate talking points. Thanks I guess.
Donald Trump is just posting his debate talking points.
— Ammar Moussa (@ammarmufasa) June 27, 2024
Thanks I guess. pic.twitter.com/OfOCTmckIT
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Robert F Kennedy Jr’s anger and frustration at what he describes as his exclusion from the debate despite six qualifying polls and confirmed ballot access in five states – with Democratic legal challenges to his inclusion in five more, including one in New Jersey under the state’s “sore loser law” – comes as Democrats accuse him of being a political stooge for Republicans.
Biden supporters worry Kennedy’s famous name and his history of environmental advocacy could sway voters from the left.
His family members are largely against his candidacy, which they have made clear in public statements and by visiting the Biden White House en masse on St Patrick’s Day in March.
But Republicans also have not welcomed his quixotic intervention in a tight race that could serve to siphon off vital votes from both candidates.
Donald Trump has described him as “far more LIBERAL than anyone running as a Democrat, including West and Stein”, referring to third-party candidates Cornel West and Jill Stein.
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Robert F Kennedy Jr, the independent US presidential candidate polling at about 8%, won’t be at tonight’s Biden-Trump TV smackdown in Atlanta.
But he’s not taking the diss quietly, and has accused debate host CNN of colluding with the major party campaigns to exclude him.
In an email statement on Wednesday, the Kennedy campaign claimed that 71% of Americans want to see him on the debate stage, and in an act of counter-programming he plans an alternative “real” debate on Elon’s Musk’s Twitter/X platform at the same time.
“The American people want leaders who trust them to make up their own minds,” Kennedy said.
Instead, our last two presidents are restricting voters from choosing anyone other than themselves. Presidents Biden and Trump have sucked trillions of dollars from the pockets of working people and Americans deserve to hear from the one candidate who can hold them to account.
Young voters were key to Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. And they helped forestall a Republican “red wave” in 2022.
But recent polling suggests the 81-year-old president may have a problem with the youth of America.
One theory for the shift is that young people don’t have strong memories of Trump’s presidency. Some who will vote for the first time this year were just 10 when the reality-TV star was first elected. They have only ever known polarization and politics in the age of Trump.
One gen Z-led group is working to remind their peers of what the Trump presidency was like. Ahead of the debate, the group is warning viewers not to believe what the former president is telling them.
“Donald Trump – a criminally convicted liar – will undoubtedly lie about his destructive record and alarming agenda tonight,” said Santiago Mayer, the 22-year-old founder and executive director of Voters of Tomorrow.
Trump will try to distract us from the fact that his presidency was the worst thing to happen to gen Z in our lifetime.
The group has launched, ironically, GenZforTrump.org, as a resource for young people to fact-check the former president, whose relationship with the truth has always been … casual.
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Responding to the Harrington v Purdue Pharma decision, several state attorneys general issued statements praising the court’s ruling.
Josh Stein, the attorney general of North Carolina, said in a statement reported by Reuters:
Purdue and the Sacklers must pay so we can save lives and help people live free of addiction. If they won’t pay up, I’ll see them in court.
William Tong, the attorney general of Connecticut, whose office first sued and eventually agreed to the deal, said:
The US supreme court got it right – billionaire wrongdoers should not be allowed to shield blood money in bankruptcy court … We will be front and center again in any new negotiations.
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Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic senator for Massachusetts, said the supreme court’s ruling blocking Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement plan was a “first step towards accountability for the Sackler family”.
The Sacklers “made a fortune from hooking people to opioids that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, and then tried to use the bankruptcy system to keep their money,” Warren said in a statement posted to social media.
The Supreme Court closed this bankruptcy loophole, but that doesn’t make things right for the millions of people who have lost loved ones to opioid overdoses.
“It’s time for the Sacklers to pay up.”
Opponents of the Purdue Pharma settlement praised the court’s decision, while some called on the justice department to seek criminal charges against members of the Sackler family.
Mike Quinn, who represents Ellen Isaacs, whose son Ryan died after becoming dependent on Oxycontin and who filed a brief in support of the plaintiffs in the supreme court case, said:
This is a victory for all Americans – a victory for everybody that wealthy wrong-doers don’t have the right to receive liability and write the law, that anybody can stand up against them and protect their rights under the constitution.
Ed Bisch, whose son Eddie died from an overdose after taking OxyContin, said he would have accepted the deal if he thought it would have made a dent in the opioid crisis. A statement to AP read:
This is a step toward justice. It was outrageous what they were trying to get away with. They have made a mockery of the justice system and then they tried to make a mockery of the bankruptcy system.”
Purdue Pharma calls supreme court decision ‘heart crushing’
In a statement following the supreme court’s Harrington v Purdue Pharma decision, the company described the ruling as “heart-crushing”.
Members of the Sackler family branches who own Purdue suggested they plan return to negotiations. A statement to AP reads:
While we are confident that we would prevail in any future litigation given the profound misrepresentations about our families and the opioid crisis, we continue to believe that a swift negotiated agreement to provide billions of dollars for people and communities in need is the best way forward.
Edward Neiger, a lawyer representing more than 60,000 overdose victims, said the court’s decision was a major setback.
“The Purdue plan was a victim-centered plan that would provide billions of dollars to the states to be used exclusively to abate the opioid crisis and $750m for victims of the crisis, so that they could begin to rebuild their lives,” Neiger said in a statement.
As a result of the senseless three-year crusade by the government against the plan, thousands of people died of overdose, and today’s decision will lead to more needless overdose deaths.
Updated
The supreme court, in its decision to reject Purdue Pharma’s bankruptcy settlement plan earlier today, blocked a controversial deal that would have protected the Sackler family from further liability over the US opioid epidemic, in exchange for providing funds for compensation and rehabilitation treatment.
The 5-4 decision, written by Justice Neil M Gorsuch, was voted on non-ideological lines. It was backed by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A Alito Jr, Amy Coney Barrett and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Brett M Kavanaugh, Chief Justice John G Roberts Jr and Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented.
The deal was constructed to allow Purdue, the Connecticut company behind the prescription opioid OxyContin, to restructure and also shield the relevant Sackler billionaires without them having to declare personal bankruptcy.
As part of the deal, the Sackler family had agreed to contribute $6bn to the settlement from the vast fortune they made from OxyContin and give up ownership.
Court filings showed that 95% of creditors in the Purdue bankruptcy case had agreed to sign on to the plan, although many reluctantly, partly seeing it as the only way to finally get some recompense. But several states, Canadian municipalities and Indigenous tribes, and more than 2,600 individuals, including high-profile activists, were opposed.
Today’s ruling now leaves matters between the company and plaintiffs unresolved. The case is seen as having consequences for other corporate bankruptcies where company owners or officials want immunity from liability.
Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer left the door open to a presidential run in 2028 when Katie Couric asked her about her plans for the political future during a session this morning at the Aspen Ideas festival.
Whitmer is often mentioned as one of the top Democratic contenders to be the next president.
Noting she had a tough job for the next two and a half years, Whitmer said:
I’m making no plans right now and then I’ll see what happens next.
She added:
Maybe there’s someone I’m gonna be excited about. Maybe another scenario. That’s as far as I am down that path.
She also weighed in on whether Joe Biden could face trouble in Michigan, a key battleground state, from its large concentration of Arab-American voters. More than 100,000 people voted uncommitted in the Democratic primary in the state amid concerns over how Biden handled the war in Gaza.
While Whitmer said the Biden campaign was “not thrilled” about that result, she said she actually thought it was a positive thing because “people were able to register their discontent and it opened up a line of communication.”
Whitmer also acknowledged that she thought “we can do more” to make American voters understand that Biden gets their concerns about the economy.
Pressure grows on Congress to rescind invitation to Netanyahu
Congress is facing increasing pressure to withdraw its invitation to Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who is set to speak on Capitol Hill next month.
Robert Tait reports for the Guardian:
A group of prominent Israelis – including a former prime minister and an ex-head of Mossad, the foreign intelligence service – have added their voices to the growing domestic calls in the US for Congress to withdraw its invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu to address it next month, calling the move “a terrible mistake”.
The plea, in an op-ed article in the New York Times, argues that the invitation rewards Netanyahu, Israel’s current prime minister, for “scandalous and destructive conduct”, including intelligence failures that led to last October’s deadly Hamas attack and the ensuing bloody war in Gaza which shows no sign of ending.
“Congress has made a terrible mistake. Mr Netanyahu’s appearance in Washington will not represent the State of Israel and its citizens, and it will reward his scandalous and destructive conduct toward our country,” the article’s six authors argue in a blistering critique that also accuses the Israeli prime minister of failing to secure the release of scores of hostages taken in last year’s attack and still held captive.
For the full story, click here:
Updated
Pro-democracy groups gathered at the Wisconsin state capitol Thursday morning to call on the resignation of Robert Spindell, a Republican who served as a pro-Trump false elector in 2020, from the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
Spindell has also bragged about GOP voter suppression efforts in Milwaukee.
In an email first reported in January 2023, Spindell wrote that Republicans could be “especially proud of the City of Milwaukee (80.2% Dem Vote) casting 37,000 less votes than cast in the 2018 election with the major reduction happening in the overwhelming Black and Hispanic areas.”
During public comments before the Wisconsin Elections Commission, speakers decried Spindell’s participation in the false elector scheme and his comments about voters of color.
“You wanna know what’s exhausting? Living in a country where people get to live above the law,” said Nick Ramos, director of the watchdog group Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
In response to comments calling on his resignation, Spindell made repeated reference to “Milwaukee’s white Democrats,” who he blamed for voter suppression in Milwaukee.
Individuals who served as false electors in Arizona and Michigan are facing prosecution over their role in Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election.
Earlier this month, Wisconsin attorney general Josh Kaul filed felony charges against two attorneys involved in the false elector scheme; the ten Wisconsin false electors, including Spindell, have not yet been charged.
I’m sitting in a packed auditorium here at the Aspen Ideas Festival where attendees are packed in to hear from Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, who is speaking with journalist Katie Couric.
Talking about her childhood, Couric brought up how Whitmer was a troublemaking teenager and even once threw up on her high school principal from drinking. “Not my best day,” Whitmer said to laughs.
She then paused and took a shot at Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor who has come under fire for sharing a story about killing her pets.
“I’ve never executed any dogs or goats,” Whitmer said, prompting more laughter.
I couldn’t make it out exactly, but one woman in front of me whispered to her friend, “she’s got my vote.”
Updated
In run-up to debate, Biden camp leans into message: Trump is a threat to democracy
Joe Biden and his allies are leaning heavily into their message that Donald Trump represents a threat to democracy in the final hours leading up to tonight’s debate.
The Democratic National Committee plans to run a mobile billboard around the debate venue in Atlanta, with the featured ad highlighting Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election and the reversal of Roe v Wade.
The DNC has also placed ads on five billboards near the debate venue to spotlight Trump’s policy proposals and his recent felony conviction in New York.
“As Donald Trump prepares to lie for 90 straight minutes on the debate stage this evening, the DNC is already on the ground in Atlanta to remind voters of how he tried to undermine Georgia’s democracy, threatens to leave working families behind again, and is hellbent on ripping away reproductive freedoms,” DNC spokesperson Abhi Rahman said.
“Tonight, voters across the country will see the clear choice in front of them, and they will make Trump a loser once again in November.”
Updated
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee has issued a similar statement following the supreme court’s Idaho abortion case decision, saying:
“Today’s SCOTUS ruling reiterates that state legislatures remain the arbiters of abortion access. The best defense against Republicans’ assault on reproductive freedoms is to elect Democrats to state legislatures who will champion reproductive care and counter GOP extremism.
The balance of power in the states is especially important given the supreme court remains hostile to reproductive freedoms and has demonstrated a repeated willingness to catapult extreme GOP state laws to the national stage to become law of the land – as they did with Dobbs.”
Reproductive Freedom for All has issued a response to the supreme court’s decision on Idaho’s emergency abortion case, saying:
“The court could have upheld this basic right, but they refused to. Instead, the conservative majority kicked the case back to a lower court, punting so that they didn’t need to weigh in before an election where attacks on abortion access are already top of mind for voters.
While the Biden administration is fighting tooth and nail to ensure people can get the emergency abortion care they need, anti-abortion extremists will continue to do whatever they can to stop them. Let this serve as a reminder of what’s at stake this November.”
Supreme court issues three major decisions surrounding Purdue Pharma, the EPA and abortion
The supreme court on Thursday issued three major decisions on cases involving OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma, an air pollution rule by the Environmental Protection Agency and abortion access in Idaho.
In a 5-4 decision, the conservative-majority court rejected Purdue Pharma’s multi-billion dollar settlement that would have shielded the wealthy Sackler family from future lawsuits over the country’s deadly opioid epidemic, but would have also provided compensation and rehabilitation funds to victims.
In his opinion, conservative justice Neil Gorsuch wrote:
“The Sacklers seek greater relief than a bankruptcy discharge normally affords, for they hope to extinguish even claims for wrongful death and fraud, and they seek to do so without putting anything close to all their assets on the table.”
In a separate 5-4 decision, the court put on hold an attempt by the EPA to reduce air pollution from power plants in “upwind” states that would affect air quality in “downwind” states. Along with industry allies, Ohio, West Virginia and Indiana have been challenging the EPA’s rule.
Conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett, who joined the court’s three liberal justices, in dissent, wrote that the court “justifies this decision based on an alleged procedural error that likely had no impact on the plan.”
Meanwhile, in a victory for reproductive rights activists, the court dismissed a case over whether emergency room doctors can perform abortions to save a pregnant woman’s life.
The court’s 6-3 decision marks a win for the Joe Biden administration, for now, as the case is returned to a lower court and potentially delays a final decision until after the election. Idaho had tried to have the procedure exempted from the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.
Updated
Supreme court dismisses case blocking emergency abortions in Idaho
The supreme court has dismissed a case that sought to block emergency abortions in Idaho, a state with a near-total abortion ban.
The court’s decision marks a win for the Joe Biden administration, for now, as the case is returned to a lower court and potentially delays a final decision until after the election.
Idaho had tried to have the procedure exempted from the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act.
The court’s 6-3 decision, which came after a version of the ruling was prematurely posted on to its website yesterday, reinstates a lower court’s decision that EMTALA takes precedence over Idaho’s abortion ban.
Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas were in the minority opinion.
Supreme court blocks Purdue Pharma's multi-billion dollar bankruptcy settlement
In its second decision of the morning, the supreme court has blocked Purdue Pharma’s multi-billion dollar bankruptcy settlement.
The settlement would have excused and shielded the wealthy Sackler family and their company Purdue Pharma, maker of the highly addictive opioid OxyContin, from lawsuits surrounding the country’s opioid epidemic.
The decision came at 5-4, with Brett Kavanaugh, John Roberts, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissenting.
“Today’s decision is wrong on the law and devastating for more than 100,000 opioid victims and their families,” Kavanaugh wrote.
Supreme court issues hold on EPA's enforcement of pollution rule
In its first decision of the morning, the supreme court has issued a ruling that puts on hold the Environmental Protection Agency’s enforcement of an air pollution rule.
With a 5-4 decision with Amy Coney Barrett, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissenting, the decision grants states the application to put the EPA’s rule on hold as the case moves to the lower courts.
The EPA’s “good neighbor” rule seeks to restrict air pollution from power plants in “upwind” states that would affect air quality in “downwind” states.
Updated
Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign has launched a new website landing page in attempts to underscore the threat of Donald Trump’s Project 2025.
The launch comes in response to Trump’s blueprint of policy proposals that could dismantle and disrupt the US government while replacing career staff with political loyalists.
“Project 2025 is the plan by Donald Trump’s Maga Republican allies to give Trump more power over your daily life, gut democratic checks and balances, and consolidate power in the Oval Office if he wins.
Trump’s campaign advisors and close allies wrote it – and are doing everything they can to elect him so he can execute their playbook immediately,” the page reads.
It goes on to break down the various ways Trump “is planning to reach into your daily life and how his extreme Maga allies are planning to consolidate power.”
The website’s new landing page launch comes ahead of the first presidential debate tonight between Trump and Biden where the current president is expected to highlight the various threats surrounding Project 2025.
Recent major decisions by the supreme court
Here is a look at some of the major decisions the supreme court has issued so far this term:
On Wednesday, the court struck down a lower court ruling, in turn allowing the federal government to request the removal of misinformation from social media platforms.
Earlier this month, the court upheld access to the common abortion pill mifepristone, marking a major victory for reproductive rights activists since the court overturned Roe v Wade two years ago.
The court, in a 8-1 ruling - with conservative justice Clarence Thomas dissenting - also upheld a federal ban that prevents domestic violence abusers from possessing guns.
In a setback for gun control activists, the court struck down a federal ban on “bump stock” accessories for guns, which allow semiautomatic firearms to fire as quickly as machine guns.
Updated
Supreme court to issue decisions with blockbuster rulings outstanding
Good morning,
The supreme court is set to issue another set of opinions today at 10am which may include major decisions on Donald Trump’s presidential immunity case and whether states are allowed to carry out emergency abortions.
So far, the conservative-majority court this term has upheld access to the common abortion pill mifepristone, upheld a federal ban that prevents domestic abusers from possessing guns, struck down a federal ban on “bump stock” accessories for guns, as well as a struck down a lower court ruling to allow the federal government to request misinformation removal from social media.
The decisions for major cases that have yet to be released include Trump’s immunity petition from the federal charges he faces over the 2020 presidential election interference, as well as whether hospitals in states with abortion bans are required to perform emergency abortions – a case fought between the Joe Biden administration and the state of Idaho. According to a report from Bloomberg, the court’s alleged opinion on the Idaho abortion case – which would allow for emergency abortions in the state – was briefly posted on the court’s website on Wednesday.
Here are other developments in US politics:
The first presidential debate between Biden and Trump is set to take place this evening in Atlanta, Georgia.
Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg is set to testify before the House’s transportation and infrastructure committee.
Renowned polling expert Nate Silver has predicted a 66% chance of Trump winning the 2024 presidential election.
