Democratic leaders show how to lose with grace—unlike, well, you know

Democratic leaders are taking the high road in the wake of Vice President Kamala Harris’ defeat at the polls, but reminding Americans that the fight is far from over. 

President Joe Biden addressed a grieving nation from the White House Rose Garden on Thursday, and stayed true to America’s democratic values. 

“I’ll fulfill my oath. I will honor the Constitution. On Jan. 20th, we’ll have a peaceful transfer of power here in America”, Biden said

This is the first presidential election since the Jan. 6th insurrection that then-President Donald Trump encouraged as he tried to overturn the results of the 2020 election while claiming voter fraud. Millions of Americans are once again mourning the possibility of America’s first woman president—along with the daunting reality of Trump’s second term in the White House. 

“You’re hurting. I hear you, and I see you,” Biden said. 

But he had a pep talk for the disillusioned.

“Setbacks are unavoidable, but giving up is unforgivable,” he said. “We all get knocked down. But the measure of our character, as my dad would say, is how quickly we get back up. Remember, defeat does not mean we are defeated. We lost this battle. The America of your dreams is calling for you to get back up.”

During her 12-minute concession speech at Howard University on Wednesday, Harris also encouraged a peaceful transfer of power in the wake of her loss to Trump.

“We must accept the results of this election,” she said.

She also had a message of resilience.

“Don’t you ever listen when anyone tells you something is impossible because it has never been done before,” said Harris, the first woman of color to ascend as a nominee for president. “You have the capacity to do extraordinary good in the world. And so to everyone who is watching, do not despair. This is not a time to throw up our hands. This is a time to roll up our sleeves.”

Former President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama posted a joint statement on X on Wednesday that exuded grace. 

"This is obviously not the outcome we had hoped for, given our profound disagreements with the Republican ticket on a whole host of issues," they wrote. "But living in a democracy is about recognizing that our point of view won't always win out, and being willing to accept the peaceful transfer of power." 

They praised Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, as “two extraordinary public servants who ran a remarkable campaign.”

Here's our statement on the results of the 2024 presidential election: pic.twitter.com/lDkNVQDvMn

— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November 6, 2024

Former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, also released a joint statement on X Wednesday. 

“We wish them well and hope they will govern for all of us,” they said about Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance. “We must remember that America is bigger than the results of any one election, and what we as citizens do now will make the difference between a nation that moves forward and one that falls back.”

Our statement on the result of the 2024 election. pic.twitter.com/1YYdGElPMP

— Bill Clinton (@BillClinton) November 6, 2024

“The Daily Show” host Jon Stewart gave a hopeful, rousing speech to his audience on election night when it became clear that Trump was going to win. 

“We have to continue to fight and continue to work, day in and day out, to create the better society for our children, for this world, for this country, that we know is possible,” Stewart said. “It's possible.”

As painful as this election was for many, this moment calls not for despair, but determination. And while leaders called for strength and patience, some Democratic voters felt compelled to express their understandable anger and frustration.

“Americans chose a known, obvious fascist and now America will get whatever this wannabe dictator wants to enact from here on in,” The White Stripes musician Jack White posted on Instagram. “We all know what he is capable of: Project 2025, deportations, nationwide abortion ban, ending his own 2 term limit, backing Putin and his war, shutting down the Board of Education, adding to climate change, limiting LGBTQ rights, controlling the DOJ, keeping the minimum wage down, etc. etc. etc.”

Singer-songwriter Ethel Cain sounded an equally furious note on her Tumblr page.

“If you voted for Trump, I hope that peace never finds you,” she wrote. “Instead, I hope clarity strikes you someday like a clap of lightning and you have to live the rest of your life with the knowledge and guilt of what you’ve done and who you are as a person.”

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Hunter Biden enters surprise guilty plea to avoid federal tax trial

LOS ANGELES — Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to federal tax charges Thursday in a surprise move that spares President Joe Biden and his family another likely embarrassing and painful criminal trial of the president’s son.

Hunter Biden’s stunning decision to guilty plea to misdemeanor and felony charges without the benefits of a deal with prosecutors came hours after jury selection was supposed to begin in the case accusing him of failing to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes.

The president’s son was already facing potential prison time after his June conviction on felony gun charges in a trial that aired unflattering and salacious details about his struggles with a crack cocaine addiction. The tax trial was expected to showcase more potentially lurid evidence as well as details about Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, which Republicans have seized on to try to paint the Biden family as corrupt.

Although President Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 presidential election muted the potential political implications of the tax case, the trial was expected to carry a heavy emotional toll for the president in the final months of his five-decade political career.

“Enough is enough,” defense attorney Abbe Lowell told the judge before Hunter Biden entered his plea. “Mr. Biden is prepared, because of the public and private interest, to proceed today and finish this.”

Hunter Biden quickly responded “guilty” as the judge read out each of the nine counts. The charges carry up to 17 years behind bars, but federal sentencing guidelines are likely to call for a much shorter sentence. Sentencing is set for Dec. 16.

More than 100 potential jurors had been brought to the courthouse in Los Angeles on Thursday to begin the process of picking the panel to hear the case alleging a four-year scheme to avoid paying taxes while spending wildly on things like strippers, luxury hotels and exotic cars.

Prosecutors were caught off guard when Hunter Biden’s lawyer told the judge Thursday morning that Hunter wanted to enter what’s known as an Alford plea, under which a defendant maintains their innocence but acknowledges prosecutors have enough evidence to secure a conviction.

Prosecutors said they objected to such a plea, telling the judge that Hunter Biden “is not entitled to plead guilty on special terms that apply only to him.”

“Hunter Biden is not innocent. Hunter Biden is guilty,” prosecutor Leo Wise said.

Hunter Biden held hands with his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, as he entered the courtroom on Sept. 5.

Hunter Biden walked into the courtroom holding hands with his wife, Melissa Cohen Biden, and flanked by Secret Service agents. Initially, he pleaded not guilty to the charges related to his 2016 through 2019 taxes and his attorneys had indicated they would argue he didn’t act “willfully,” or with the intention to break the law, in part because of his well-documented struggles with alcohol and drug addiction.

Hunter Biden had agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax offenses last year in a deal with the Justice Department that would allow him to avoid prosecution in the gun case if he stayed out of trouble. But the agreement imploded after a judge questioned unusual aspects of it, and he was subsequently indicted in the two cases.

His decision to change his plea Thursday came after the judge issued some unfavorable pre-trial rulings for the defense, including rejecting a proposed defense expert lined up to testify about addiction.

Scarsi, who was appointed to the bench by former President Donald Trump, also placed some restrictions on what jurors would be allowed to hear about the traumatic events that Hunter Biden's family, friends and attorneys say led to his drug addiction.

The judge barred attorneys from connecting his substance abuse struggles to the 2015 death of his brother Beau Biden from cancer or the car accident that killed his mother and sister when he was a toddler.

The indictment alleged that Hunter Biden lived lavishly while flouting the tax law, spending his cash on things like strippers and luxury hotels — “in short, everything but his taxes.”

Hunter Biden’s attorneys had asked Scarsi to also limit prosecutors from highlighting details of his expenses that they say amount to a “character assassination,” including payments made to strippers or pornographic websites. The judge has said in court papers that he will maintain “strict control” over the presentation of potentially salacious evidence.

Prosecutors had said they want to introduce evidence about Hunter Biden’s overseas dealings, which have been at the center of Republican investigations into the Biden family often seeking — without evidence— to tie the president to an alleged influence peddling scheme.

The special counsel’s team had planned to have a business associate of Hunter Biden's testify about their work for a Romanian businessman, who prosecutors say sought to “influence U.S. government policy” while Joe Biden was vice president.

Sentencing in Hunter Biden's Delaware conviction is set for Nov. 13. He could face up to 25 years in prison in that case, though he is likely to get far less time or avoid prison entirely.

Harris could defy history. Just 1 sitting VP has won the presidency since 1836

As Vice President Kamala Harris begins her fall campaign for the White House, she can look to history and hope for better luck than others in her position who have tried the same.

Since 1836, only one sitting vice president, George H.W. Bush in 1988, has been elected to the White House. Among those who tried and failed were Richard Nixon in 1960, Hubert Humphrey in 1968 and Al Gore in 2000. All three lost in narrow elections shaped by issues ranging from war and scandal to crime and the subtleties of televised debates. But two other factors proved crucial for each vice president: whether the incumbent president was well-liked and whether the president and vice president enjoyed a productive relationship.

“You really do want those elements to come together,” says Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. “If the person the vice president is working for is popular, that means people like what he’s doing and you can gain from that. And you need to have the two principals working together.”

In 1988, Bush easily defeated Democrat Michael Dukakis, the Massachusetts governor whom Republicans labeled as ineffectual and out of touch. Bush was otherwise helped by a solid economy, the easing of Cold War tensions and some rare luck for a vice president. President Ronald Reagan's approval ratings rose through much of the year after falling sharply in the wake of the 1986-87 Iran-Contra scandal, and Reagan and Bush worked well together during the campaign. Reagan openly backed his vice president, who had run against him in the 1980 primaries. He praised Bush at the Republican convention as an engaged and invaluable partner, appeared with him at a California rally and spoke at gatherings in Michigan, New Jersey and Missouri.

President George H.W. Bush

“Reagan was not a man to hold grudges,” said historian-journalist Jonathan Darman. “And Bush did a good job of navigating the complexity of their relationship while he was vice president.”

Past vice presidents who ran

When Gore ran in 2000, his advantages were similar to those enjoyed by George H.W. Bush. The economy was strong, the country was at peace and the president, Bill Clinton, had high approval ratings despite his recent impeachment over his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.

Gore had worked closely with Clinton over the previous eight years, but the scandal led to enduring tensions between them. He minimized the president’s presence during the campaign and pronounced himself “my own man” during his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. Commentators would cite his distance from Clinton as a setback in a historically close race, decided by a margin of fewer than 1,000 votes in Florida.

“Instead of finding a way to embrace the accomplishments of the Clinton administration, Gore ran away from Clinton as fast as his legs could carry him,” Slate's Jacob Weisberg wrote soon after the election.

Like Gore, Nixon could not — or would not — capitalize on the incumbent Dwight Eisenhower's popularity. In 1960, Eisenhower was still so admired as he neared the end of his second term that Nixon's opponent, Democrat John F. Kennedy, feared the president's active support would prove critical. But Eisenhower and Nixon had a complicated relationship dating back to when Eisenhower ran eight years earlier. He had chosen Nixon as his running mate, but nearly dropped him because of the so-called Checkers scandal, in which Nixon was accused of misusing funds donated by political backers.

Nixon was more than 20 years younger than Eisenhower, the victorious World War II commander who often looked upon his vice president as a junior officer, according to Nixon biographer John A. Farrell. At the end of a summer press conference in 1960, Eisenhower was asked if he could cite Nixon's influence on any important decision. He answered, “If you give me a week, I might think of one." Meanwhile, Nixon was reluctant to have Eisenhower campaign, out of a desire to forge his own path, and, allegedly, out of concern for the 70-year-old president.

“Nixon very much wanted to be his own man,” says Farrell, whose prize-winning “Richard Nixon" was published in 2017. “He always said he was worried about Eisenhower's health, but there are also anecdotes that Eisenhower was chafing at the bit. Both could be true.”

Nixon's luck changed when he ran eight years later against Lyndon B. Johnson's vice president. No vice president was more entrapped by his predecessor than Hubert Humphrey, whose candidacy was only possible because Johnson decided not to seek reelection.

Humphrey faced challenges within the party from the anti-war candidates Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy (who was assassinated in June 1968 after winning the California primary) and was tied to Johnson's divisive, hawkish stance.

Humphrey privately advocated a less hardline approach to the war, but Johnson intimidated him into silence and he trailed Nixon badly in many polls. Only in the fall did Humphrey diverge and call for a bombing halt with North Vietnam. The vice president rallied, but ended up losing the popular vote by less than a percentage point while falling short more decisively in the Electoral College.

“Johnson did catastrophic damage to Humphrey, in my opinion,” says Boston Globe columnist Michael Cohen, author of a book on the 1968 election, “American Carnage.”

How does Harris fare?

Like Johnson, President Joe Biden declared he wouldn’t seek a new term less than a year before Election Day, though he waited much longer in the cycle than Johnson did. Unlike Humphrey, Harris quickly consolidated Democratic support and accepted her party’s nomination at an uplifting convention that concluded without significant damage from protests, unlike the violence-marred 1968 event in the same city, Chicago.

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris

In an AP-NORC survey conducted in July, after Biden dropped out of the race, about 4 in 10 Americans approved of his performance as president, roughly where his approval numbers have stood since the summer of 2021 and comparable to those of the Republican nominee, Donald Trump. Eisenhower, Reagan and Clinton frequently held higher approval ratings than Biden, although all served in less polarized eras.

Harris wants to succeed a president who himself served as vice president and ran for president, four years later. President Barack Obama discouraged Biden from seeking election in 2016 and waited to endorse Biden in 2020 until the crowded Democratic primary field was clear.

“Obama became an enthusiastic backer, which helped unify the party at a time when Biden’s record on race in the 1990s, including his support for the crime bill, was fueling doubts among young progressive voters,” Biden biographer Evan Osnos says. “Obama’s endorsement of Biden was about more than his candidacy; it was about his character, and that proved to be important.”

As president, Biden has worked to include Harris on his major policy calls and conversations with foreign leaders. He’s pledged to be Harris’ top campaign volunteer and to do whatever she asks of him for her election, though aides are still determining where the still-unpopular president would best be utilized. On Labor Day, Biden and Harris will appear together in Pittsburgh for a campaign event in a key swing state, Pennsylvania.

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Democrats dare fractured House Republicans to impeach Biden

House Republicans released their bogus impeachment report on President Joe Biden on Aug. 19, hoping to distract from the display of joy and unity on the first day of the Democratic National Convention. GOP leaders—and plenty of Republicans in vulnerable House seats—wanted that to be the end of it, but the extremists in the conference don’t agree and could try to force a vote. That’s got Democrats popping their popcorn, ready for the show.

When the report was released, House Speaker Mike Johnson simply stated that he hoped everyone would read it and thanked the committees for their work. He didn't say anything about what would happen next, suggesting he just wants the partisan and sloppy attempt to nail the Biden “crime family” to go away. That way, Republicans won’t have to take an embarrassing vote to impeach Biden that would surely fail.

But Johnson immediately heard back from the peanut gallery. The House hard-liners are getting ready to raise hell, and the rest of the GOP is starting to freak out over the possibility that one of the troublemakers is going to try to force the vote when the House reconvenes in September.

It takes just one member to force a vote via a privileged resolution, a procedure that has been vexing leadership since Republicans took control of the House. The likeliest suspects to force a vote, Axios hears from its sources, are ultra-right Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Andy Biggs of Arizona, and Anna Paulina Luna of Florida.

The rest of the GOP accepts reality: Forcing a vote would be a distraction at best, and would more likely piss off voters. It could very well motivate progressive voters to turn out for downballot Democrats running against vulnerable Republicans, and would make MAGA voters mad at any GOP representatives who vote against it. It is absolutely a lose-lose scenario for Republicans, and Democrats are totally here for it.

"The whole investigation has been a debacle for them, they have egg all over their face," Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland told Axios. Have the vote, he says, and “either prove that all of them are invested in this nonsense, or that they can’t even ... get all the Republicans in the House to vote for it.”

“If they actually take it to a vote, then individual [Republican] members are going to be politically punished,” he added.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida has one message for the House hard-liners: Bring it on.

"Call the vote. They should do that. That vote is a paved road to the minority," Moskowitz said, noting that there are plenty of Republicans who "have never wanted to do the vote." But if GOP House members do vote for impeachment, he continued, Senate Democrats should “call their bluff” and have a trial. “We should make them own it, every day on TV.”

"If they want to show that their top issue is impeaching Joe Biden, a lame-duck president, then we should make them own it. We're not going to go on the defense, we're going to go on the offense," Moskowitz said.

That’s just one more headache for Johnson. He’s already facing rebellious opposition from his own members to the one task Congress must complete in three short September weeks: funding the government. Having to vote on impeachment—and further roiling up his fractured conference—will only make his job harder. 

September is shaping up to be a nightmare for Johnson, which is just what he deserves. 

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House GOP tries to rain on DNC parade with absurd impeachment report

With all eyes on Vice President Kamala Harris’ surging campaign and this week’s Democratic National Convention, Republicans are trying to grab headlines Monday by releasing the report of their baseless, purely political impeachment inquiry of President Joe Biden.

To be sure, they’re getting those headlines. For example, in The New York Times: House G.O.P. Makes Impeachment Case Against Biden Without Proof of Crime.

And from there, it only gets worse for them.

With President Joe Biden leaving office in January, House Republicans’ inquiry is very unlikely to move forward, and as further proof that it was all politics all along, the Oversight, Judiciary, and Ways and Means committees released all 291 pages of this bullshit report on the first day of the Democratic National Convention. 

It’s been clear for months that the inquiry’s main drivers—Oversight Chair James Comer and Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan—had nothing. In fact, in the report, Comer and Jordan basically admit as much while saying it feels like there should be something.

“An abuse of power may also be present even if, as some claim, the Biden family was only selling the ‘illusion’ of influence and access,” the report says, and adds, “It is not necessary for the House of Representatives to show that the dealings involved a quid pro quo to rise to the level of an impeachable offense.”

In other words, House Republicans have no evidence, but they don’t need no stinking evidence.

Except, of course, they do. They have to convince a majority of the House to impeach Biden and a majority of the Senate to convict him. And it’s been clear for months that they haven’t even been able to convince a majority of House Republicans to do it.

House Speaker Mike Johnson seems to know the votes aren’t there, and that the few weeks that Congress will be in session before the election will be all about passing a short-term government funding bill, which is going to be a big fight. House Republicans could come back after the election and try it, but that would really put the “lame” in “lame-duck session.”

On Monday, the White House gave the report the ridicule it deserves.

“After wasting nearly two years and millions of taxpayer dollars, House Republicans have finally given up on their wild goose chase,” said Sharon Yang, a White House spokesperson. “This failed stunt will only be remembered for how it became an embarrassment that their own members distanced themselves from as they only managed to turn up evidence that refuted their false and baseless conspiracy theories.”

“The American people deserve more from House Republicans, and perhaps now they will finally join President Biden in focusing on the real issues that American families actually care about,” Yang added.

Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland joined in, saying, "Their compulsive flailing about has not only proven, once more, that President Biden committed no wrongdoing, much less an impeachable crime, but has paradoxically vindicated Biden’s essential honor and decency."

Thus it appears that the ridiculous, monthslong probe into the supposed “Biden crime family” limps to a close. Not to worry, Comer has already found his next goose chases: going after Harris over the border and her running mate, Tim Walz, “a longstanding and cozy relationship with China.” 

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DNC planners work to pull off a dramatic Biden-Harris role reversal

After nearly a near year of careful planning, organizers of the Democratic National Convention are in a mad dash to accommodate a new nominee, a re-crafted program, and a highly compressed deadline to pull everything off as though this was the plan all along.

With President Joe Biden now out of the race and Vice President Kamala Harris pursuing the party's nomination, a dramatic role reversal for the two is likely to play out before a nationally televised audience when around 5,000 delegates, 12,000 volunteers, and 15,000 media members gather for four days in Chicago starting Aug. 19.

Harris is banking on introducing her vice presidential pick to the country and standing at center stage to accept her party's nomination. Biden—who until mere days ago thought he'd be the one getting the nod—will have a more peripheral and ceremonial role akin to the treatment of second-term presidents set to leave office.

He will still give a speech and have his achievements feted, but the whole thing will require a delicate political balance between the president and his No. 2.

“If it’s a Biden-Harris reelection convention, it’s all about doubling down on the great accomplishment. The challenge, obviously, will be how to sort of bank that, but also talk about the future," said William M. Daley, a former Obama White House chief of staff whose father and brother were Chicago mayors.
There have occasionally been tensions, or at least struggles with political messaging and tone, as vice presidents campaign to succeed a president—like in 2000, when Bill Clinton was in office and Al Gore was seeking the White House. Clinton left the convention after offering a triumphant review of his accomplishments on the first day, but prominent party leaders urged him to more definitively cede the spotlight to his vice president going forward, citing the Monica Lewinsky scandal that prompted the president's impeachment.

Then-Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, who would be the Democratic nominee himself four years later, said of Clinton: “We may need to get the Jaws of Life to pry him free from the thing -- but we’ve got to pry him free."

As for Biden's situation this year, “there are people in the party that would have rather seen something different happen. The question is can this be subsumed to an overarching unity message," said Julia Azari, a political science professor at Marquette University who is co-authoring a book on the vice presidency and political parties.

A convention helmed by Harris would nonetheless make history as Democrats become the first major party to nominate a woman of color for president.

“It lights a fire under national Democrats. It’s an added level of history,” said Christian Perry, political director for Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. He added that Harris would break more barriers in a city that produced a series of history-making Black Democrats, from the Rev. Jesse Jackson to former President Barack Obama.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at a Wisconsin rally—her first as the presidential nominee—on Tuesday.

The vice president isn’t her party’s nominee yet, but an Associated Press survey of delegates to the convention has revealed that the vice president has the support of well more than the 1,976 delegates she’ll need to win on a first ballot.

“I think it’ll be a celebratory mood," said Bruce Thompson, a member of the convention rules committee. “There’s been way too much gallows humor in the Democratic Party over the last month. And now we have this confidence and this energy.”

Like Biden, Harris could be expected to use the convention to promote the administration’s policy accomplishments, while decrying Republican President Donald Trump as a threat to democracy.

But other aspects of the campaign are shifting profoundly—from fundraising and travel schedules to how Harris targets key states and the personal advisers closest to her. The vice president's “Harris for President” logo in blue and red does feature lettering similar to the original Biden-Harris reelection insignia, at least.

The convention's background music could also reflect a fresher vibe.

In the first appearances of her nascent 2024 presidential campaign, Harris' soundtrack has featured Beyoncé’s hit “Freedom." Biden's events leaned more toward working-class-themed ballads by the likes of Bruce Springsteen.

The Chicago convention will have different themes each night, such as economic growth or national diversity. In addition to Biden, there will be addresses from White House alums Barack and Michelle Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Before Biden bowed out of the race, he and his family gathered at Camp David to pose for famed photographer Annie Leibovitz for photos to be used at the convention. They'll still be used—but likely in a more retrospective way.

For all the upheaval to the presidential race, organizers say actual convention logistics won't change all that much—highlighting how the quadrennial gatherings are as much about a party partying as they are about fortifying candidates.

“Our mission remains the same,” said convention chair Minyon Moore.

Party staff began occupying the United Center, normally home to the NBA’s Bulls and the NHL’s Blackhawks, on June 25. Construction to remake the arena to better meet the convention's needs has been underway for more than a month, with nearly as long still to go. The convention logo still reads “CHICAGO” over the city’s signature four-star insignia and “DNC 2024." The slogan remains: “Our future is created here.”

“There’s not a lot in the actual hall that has to move around because you’re taking one out and putting the other in. It’s all somewhat neutral,” Daley said. “The stage and all that, is all set, if it’s Biden or it's Harris or who walks out.”

Also unaltered are plans for widespread demonstrations protesting the Biden administration's strong support for Israel in its war with Hamas.

Azari said Democrats may be hoping to re-create the last time the Democrats held a Chicago convention in 1996, when there were no significant protests, the party was mostly unified behind Clinton and the lasting image was of Hillary Clinton and others dancing the Macarena.

“The ‘96 convention is what they’re aiming for," Azair said, "where the biggest story is gonna be people dancing badly."

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No, Harris is not Biden’s ‘border czar’

Republicans have lit on what they think will be their most effective policy issue against Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign and—surprise, surprise—it’s immigration. Specifically, Republicans are falsely saying that the vice president has been in charge of President Joe Biden’s immigration policy, that she’s his “border czar.” And it’s a lie designed to benefit Donald Trump’s favorite topic: fear-mongering about immigration.

The lie is coming from the top, of course. On Tuesday, Trump told reporters, "Harris was appointed 'border czar' in March of 2021, and since that time, millions and millions of illegal aliens have invaded our country and countless Americans have been killed by migrant crime because of her willful demolition of American borders and laws.”

It was a regular theme of last week’s Republican National Convention, even before Biden ended his reelection campaign on Sunday and endorsed Harris. At least seven speakers at the convention, including failed GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas, and Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida attacked Harris as being in charge of Biden’s border policy. 

And on Tuesday, the odious Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York introduced a resolution “condemning Kamala Harris’ role as Joe Biden’s ‘Border czar’ which has led to the most catastrophic open border crisis in history.” In the real world, however, border crossings today are at their lowest point since Biden’s first full month in office.

The House GOP is so committed to this lie about Harris, they scrapped passing a government funding bill and are spending Thursday—their last day in session until after Labor Dayvoting on this nonbinding ridiculousness. 

Let’s set the record straight: In a meeting with Harris in March 2021, Biden tapped her to lead U.S. diplomatic efforts with officials in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras to stem migration to the U.S. In that meeting, Biden said that when he was vice president, he "got a similar assignment" and that the Obama administration secured $700 million to help countries in Central America.

"One of the ways we learned is that if you deal with the problems in country, it benefits everyone. It benefits us, it benefits the people, and it grows the economies there," Biden said in that meeting. 

Harris was tasked with working diplomatically with Central America leaders to work on the region’s root causes of mass migration—corruption, crime, hunger, poverty—all the stuff the GOP, and in particular Trump, is incapable of understanding, much less addressing. If there were such a thing as a border czar under Biden—and there isn’t—it would be Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. ( House Republicans have also attacked him over the border, but that’s a different story.)

In fact, Harris has had successes engaging in the region. As America’s Voice’s Gabe Ortiz points out, Harris “led the ‘In Her Hands’ economic empowerment initiative in collaboration with Partnership for Central America, which aims to support and provide opportunities for millions of women across Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras by 2030.” 

She also led the Root Causes Strategy, which has mobilized more than $5 billion in private-sector investments in Central America, investments that have helped to create over 250,000 jobs in the region and “provided funding for small businesses, and supported the economic inclusion of women,” according to Immigration Hub, an organization that pushes for immigration reform. 

Answering the larger and tougher challenges of migration is what Harris and the Democrats have been trying to accomplish. The job is going to get only more complicated as climate change drives more migration

The GOP’s reductive response to the entire issue is solely about the politics of fear and never about policy. They don’t want to solve the crisis; they want to keep running on it.

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Shocker: House GOP gives up on Biden impeachment dreams

If there was any question that the House GOP’s investigations into President Joe Biden and his “crime family” were purely political, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer just put that doubt to rest. Now that Biden’s not running for reelection, Comer doesn’t care what happens with the impeachment inquiry.

“I feel like we’ve done our job. … Our part of the report has been finished for a long time. They can publish it or not — I guess things change if he’s not running again,” Comer told Politico.

That capitulation comes after countless hours—and taxpayer dollars— wasted, and plenty of embarrassment for Comer and his fellow impeachment hound, Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan. House Republicans introduced 11 separate impeachment resolutions against Biden.

Extremist Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado filed one of those resolutions, and she’s ready to move on, too. 

“I think Republicans’ best strategy is introducing Kamala Harris to the world,” she said, ready to bail on the pointless quest for revenge that most defined the Republican majority this session. At least their legacy of chaos lives on!

But there are still a few holdouts who aren’t quite ready to let go.

Reps. Chip Roy of Texas and Nancy Mace of South Carolina have each introduced resolutions calling on Vice President Kamala Harris to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Biden from office on the grounds that he is incapacitated. They’re not getting a lot of takers: Roy has three co-sponsors, while Mace has zero.

Rep. Andy Ogles of Tennessee still has the impeachment bug—but his target has shifted. He has introduced two separate resolutions to impeach Harris for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” with a grand total of two co-sponsors. 

Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota is one of the House Republicans who is over all of this. When asked about the possibility of pivoting to impeaching or investigating Harris, he told Politico, “we’ve got appropriations we need to take care of.”

That’s a nice excuse, but that’s not happening either. The House was supposed to pass four of the 12 necessary government funding bills for 2025 by the end of July. Instead, GOP leaders have canceled votes and are now preparing to start their August recess early after a quick Thursday morning session.

House members will be away from D.C. until Sept. 9, and then they’ll have to focus entirely on making sure the government doesn’t shut down on Oct. 1, when the 2025 fiscal year starts. All of the GOP’s hopes and dreams for revenge against the Democrats are circling down the toilet.

Let’s exact some revenge of our own. Contribute now to help flip the House back to Democrats!