Teflon Don has become Felon Don, but the US constitution has no objection to him holding the highest office

It was the moment America, or at least America’s politicians and media, had been waiting for. It was the day justice finally caught up with Donald Trump. The former president’s manipulation of the 2016 election, by hushing up a sex scandal that threatened his chances, and his attempts to discredit a criminal justice system intent on punishing him, was famously thwarted. It was an all-time presidential and judicial first, a historic result that transformed Teflon Don into Felon Don, thanks to a jury of 12 ordinary men and women and a brave prosecutor, Alvin Bragg.

Looked at another way, however, last week’s much anticipated dramatic denouement of the criminal trial of the New York playboy, billionaire and presumptive 2024 Republican presidential candidate may turn out to be less pivotal than anticipated. According to the US networks, most Americans tuned out weeks ago, not least because cameras were barred from the Manhattan courtroom. One not untypical public survey found that 67% of respondents said a conviction would make no difference to how they voted this autumn. The 34 guilty verdicts were an overnight sensation. But they may not significantly shift the political dial.

Whether he ends up in prison or the White House – or both – the former president and felon will remain a malign hero to populists everywhere

As Americans stared at their TV screens early on Thursday evening, listening to the 34 Donald Trump “guilty” court verdicts rolling out one by one amid the former president’s histrionic cries that the trial was “rigged”, the immediate thought was: what on earth happens now?

To which the only honest reply is: no one knows. Anyone pretending they do is just as big a liar as Trump, dramatically convicted by a jury of his New York peers for fiddling the books to help him win the 2016 election.

Israeli PM says his country’s conditions for ending conflict have not changed after US president presented ceasefire plan

Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated that Hamas must be completely destroyed before Israel will agree to end its war in Gaza, casting doubt on Joe Biden’s announcement of a new Israeli-led ceasefire proposal.

The Israeli prime minister made a rare statement on Saturday, during the Jewish Shabbat, in which he said: “Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.

It comes after Israeli PM’s comments appeared to contradict a ceasefire plan Joe Biden presented as Israeli-endorsed

• See all our Israel-Gaza war coverage here

At least 36,379 Palestinian people have been killed and 82,407 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

An estimated 95 Palestinians were killed and 350 injured in the past 24 hours alone, the ministry said.

Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.

Under the proposal, Israel will continue to insist these conditions are met before a permanent ceasefire is put in place. The notion that Israel will agree to a permanent ceasefire before these conditions are fulfilled is a non-starter.

US president outlines deal that would offer permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal for hostage release and rebuilding effort

Joe Biden has urged Hamas to accept a new peace deal he said Israel has put on the table, offering a permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in return for the release of all hostages and the long-term reconstruction of the shattered coastal strip.

“It’s time for this war to end … for the day after to begin,” Biden said, outlining the framework of a three-phase agreement, which he said had been put on the table by the Israeli government.

The prosecution and the guilty verdicts are unprecedented. But making history is not the same as shifting election outcomes

Guilty. The New York jury’s unanimous verdicts on 34 counts mean that Donald Trump is not only the first sitting or former US president to be prosecuted in a criminal trial, but the first to be convicted.

Trump was found to have falsified business records to hide $130,000 of hush money paid to cover up a sex scandal he feared might hinder his run in 2016. Before his entry into politics, it would have been taken for granted that such charges would kill a campaign. Yet Trump is running for the White House as a convicted criminal. If he is jailed when he is sentenced in July – which most experts think unlikely – it is assumed that he would continue. If anything, the prospect of such a sentence spurs him on.

In a presidential election where poll after poll shows voters favouring Trump over Biden, the president’s tone will be crucial

Twelve jurors in New York have presented their fellow Americans with a simple question: are you willing to elect a convicted criminal to the White House?

On Thursday, Donald Trump was convicted of all 34 counts of falsifying business records in his hush-money trial, a verdict making him the first former president to be found guilty of felony crimes in America’s near 250-year history.

Justices release opinions on three cases – banking regulations, a free speech claim and a death penalty case – but delay rulings on Trump and abortion

If a New York jury finds Trump guilty of business fraud charges, what impact would it have on the election? Reporting from two swing states, the Guardian’s Alice Herman and George Chidi looked for the answer:

For Josh Ellis, a refrigerator technician from southern Wisconsin, Donald Trump’s trial in New York is a sideshow. He’s not convinced of the prosecution’s narrative, or the former president’s – and the verdict will not likely affect his vote in November, anyway.

‘I think Kwame would be a great addition to the organization,’ Kepcher says to Trump, who winces while his head bobs around in reaction to what he is hearing and clearly resisting.

‘Why didn’t he just fire her?’ Trump asks, referring to Omarosa. It’s a reasonable question. Given that this the first time we’ve ever been in this situation, none of this is something we expected.

Politicians parroted untrue rumors that Hamas had beheaded Israeli babies. When the children are Palestinian, they shrug

Earlier this week, I sat down to write a piece about a campus safety officer at a public college in New York who told pro-Palestinian protesters that he supported genocide. “Yes I do, I support genocide,” the officer said, after a protester accused him of this at a graduation event at the College of Staten Island, part of the public City University of New York (Cuny) system, last Thursday. “I support killing all you guys, how about that?”

It’s possible that you didn’t hear about this incident: while it was covered by a few outlets, including the Associated Press, it didn’t get a huge amount of press. It certainly wasn’t splashed all over the front page of the New York Post the way it would have been if that guard had made the same comment about Israelis. The New York Times, which has written a lot about safety on college campuses – and published a piece on anti-Israel speeches at Cuny just a couple of days before this incident – didn’t seem to deem it newsworthy. And the White House didn’t chime in with a horrified statement about anti-Palestinian bias on campuses. After all, this wasn’t a big deal, right? It was just a security guard saying he supports genocide. Which, it should be clear now, is essentially the same position as the US government.

Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist

President and vice-president gear up for 2024 election with ‘Black Voters for Biden-Harris’ rally at majority Black Philadelphia school

Gearing up for the 2024 election, the Biden-Harris campaign launched its Black voters initiative on Wednesday at Philadelphia’s Girard College, a majority Black boarding school.

Around 2pm in an auditorium filled with hundreds of Black Philly residents, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris approached the podium to applause and an audience shouting “four more years”.

Only once Israel and Palestine recognize each other’s right to exist can they start thinking about what comes next

Israel reacted with predictable outrage to the move last week by three European countries to formally recognize the state of Palestine. The foreign minister accused Ireland, Norway and Spain of “being complicit in inciting genocide against Jews”, recalled Israel’s ambassadors from Dublin, Oslo and Madrid, and reprimanded their representatives in Tel Aviv.

Yet only a decade ago, Israel itself was insisting on recognition – from the Palestinians.

Biden campaign holds press conference with Oscar winner and two Capitol officers in first clear foray into ex-president’s legal troubles

It was a scenario that Donald Trump, in his pre-presidential celebrity days, might have relished; as he sat inside a Manhattan courtroom, Robert De Niro was waiting outside.

But this was politics and De Niro, the pugnacious star of myriad Hollywood gangster films, was there not to pay homage to the former president as a fellow VIP, but to diss him in terms that might have been in place in Goodfellas or Mean Streets.

Joe Biden should back a UN security council resolution to end the fighting in Gaza rather than shielding Israel from criticism

The Israeli strike that killed at least 45 displaced Palestinians, many of them women and children, at a tent camp in Rafah this weekend clearly crossed Joe Biden’s “red line” over the need to protect civilians in the Gaza conflict. France’s Emmanuel Macron did not doubt what should happen next. “These operations must stop,” he posted on X. “There are no safe areas in Rafah for Palestinian civilians. I call for full respect for international law and an immediate ceasefire.”

Those in Israel who believe that they still need to make an appearance of deference towards US sentiments pleaded that the whole episode was a “mishap” rather than a deliberate political insult. Mr Biden is inclined to give Israel’s forces the benefit of the doubt, and give himself wriggle room to say his line hadn’t been crossed. Despite the international outcry over Sunday’s deadly blast, Israel stepped up its military offensive on Tuesday, sending tanks into Rafah and leaving a score more civilians dead when it apparently struck a tented area.

Actor joined in New York by January 6 officers after Biden campaign said it was going to enlist police who fought Capitol attack mob in swing states

Up next was Harry Dunn, a former Capitol police officer.

He referenced his campaign for Congress representing a Maryland district, which ended last week when he lost the Democratic primary.

The president has weaponized the idea of Jewish safety to justify the atrocity in Gaza. I could no longer stand by

Until last week, President Biden was my boss.

Last week, I resigned from my post at the United States Department of the Interior, becoming the first Jewish politically appointed administration official to publicly resign in protest – and in mourning – of President Biden’s endorsement of genocide in Gaza, where more than 35,000 Palestinians have been murdered. This was an incredibly difficult decision, but one that was necessary – and one that felt even more urgent, as the president of the United States has persistently corrupted the idea of Jewish safety, weaponizing my community as a shield to dodge accountability for his role in this atrocity.

Lily Greenberg Call was a special assistant to the chief of staff at the US Department of the Interior

In divergent messages, president pays tribute to fallen heroes, while Trump fulminates on social media against opponents

Joe Biden and Donald Trump marked the Memorial Day national holiday honoring America’s war dead with jarringly divergent messages that promised to foretell the forthcoming US presidential election campaign as a contest of sharply contrasting characters.

In a ceremony at Arlington National Cemetery, Biden paid tribute to the fallen as heroes who sacrificed themselves in the service of American democracy and ideals. Meanwhile, Trump, taking to his Truth Social site, took a very different tack – bestowing holiday wishes on those he branded “human scum” and accused them of trying to destroy the country.

Presumptive Republican nominee calls demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza part of a ‘radical revolution’

Donald Trump has told a group of wealthy donors that he will crush pro-Palestinian protests on university campuses if he is returned to the White House.

The former president and presumptive Republican nominee called the demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza part of a “radical revolution” and promised the predominantly Jewish donors that he would set the movement back 25 or 30 years if they helped him beat Joe Biden in November’s presidential election.

Claim rests on a misquoted section of FBI policy in a legal motion, and moreover, Trump was not in Florida during search

Donald Trump’s campaign has issued another extraordinary fundraising request to supporters by doubling down on a false claim that rival Joe Biden was prepared to hurt or kill him by authorizing the use of deadly force during an FBI search for classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago compound in August 2022.

The claim has become a currency among some Trump supporters and is widely described by them as an “attempted assassination” – but rests on a misquoted section of FBI policy in a legal motion. Moreover, Trump was not even in Florida during the search.

President, Republican rival and RFK Jr eager to recruit big names whose reach is bigger than ever – will it be decisive?

Once heard, never forgotten, the voice is familiar to admirers of The Godfather Part II, Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Heat, The Irishman and countless others. “Trump wants revenge,” says Robert De Niro, “and he’ll stop at nothing to get it.”

This was an ad released on Friday by Joe Biden’s campaign to remind voters of Donald Trump’s dark and divisive presidency and warn that his return to power could be even worse. The use of De Niro – a fierce Trump critic – as narrator was no accident but a reminder of the power of celebrities at the ballot box in America.

Ukraine president urges Joe Biden and Xi Jinping to ‘show your leadership’ and send message to Moscow

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has released a desperate video plea calling on world leaders to attend a “peace summit” next month in Switzerland after a deadly Russian attack on a DIY hypermarket in Kharkiv on Saturday killed at least 16people and injured dozens more.

Zelenskiy appealed in particular to the US president, Joe Biden, and the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping, to attend the summit, which is due to start on 15 June. “Please, show your leadership in advancing the peace – the real peace and not just a pause between the strikes,” said Zelenskiy in English.

President entreats graduates at commencement to ‘hold fast’ to oath to US constitution in veiled reference to Trump’s threat to democracy

Joe Biden has called newly graduating US military officers the “guardians of American democracy” at a commencement speech in New York state, where the US president, without mentioning Donald Trump by name, gave strong warnings of unprecedented threats to US freedom.

Biden told the West Point military academy graduating class of 2024 that it is being called upon to tackle threats across the globe as well as preserve America’s ideals at home.

US and Britain condemn Hamas and Putin, yet balk at attempts to hold Israel’s leaders to account. But no one should be above the law

Indignant protests by Israeli and US leaders over last week’s decision by the prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC) to seek Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrest for alleged war crimes shone new light on an old reality: for those at the top who wield decisive political power, all people are equal – but some are more equal than others.

At the heart of objections to Karim Khan’s gutsy move is the unspoken implication that violence against Palestinians, a dispossessed, marginalised and largely voiceless people, is less wrong, or somehow more acceptable, than violence against Israelis, the privileged, protected citizens of an established nation state. To demur is to be accused, inanely yet inevitably, of antisemitism.

The international court of justice has ordered Israel to halt its attack on Rafah. The US has a last chance to stop this bloodshed

The international court of justice (ICJ) on Friday ordered Israel to halt its military assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah, where about half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have taken refuge in recent months. The ruling is the closest that the UN’s top court has come to ordering a ceasefire, and it further exposes Israel and its closest supporters, especially the US and the UK, for their disregard of international law and institutions.

For much of the world, Israel is now a pariah state that has repeatedly ignored pressure from international bodies to end its brutal war in Gaza, stop using starvation as a weapon of war, and allow more aid into the besieged territory. On Monday, the chief prosecutor of the international criminal court (ICC), a separate tribunalalso based in The Hague, announced he was seeking arrest warrants for senior Hamas and Israeli leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the 7 October attack by Hamas and the ensuing war in Gaza. The prosecutor is seeking warrants against the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, as well as three top Hamas leaders.

Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor at New York University

Spokesman says ‘there aren’t any contacts’ with former president regarding Evan Gershkovich’s release from Russia

Donald Trump boasted on Thursday he would quickly free the jailed US journalist Evan Gershkovich from Russia if he wins the presidential election, but Moscow denied discussing the case with the Republican candidate.

The former president, who has frequently voiced admiration for Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, and has voiced skepticism over US support for Ukraine, said the Moscow strongman “will do that for me, but not for anyone else”.

Senate budget and finance committee investigation to examine what happened at April dinner with oil firms

National Public Radio reports that attorney general Merrick Garland declined to comment on supreme court justice Samuel Alito’s display of rightwing flags:

So, too, did Joe Biden, when reporters shouted questions about the matter at him, as he welcomed Kenyan president William Ruto to the White House:

New Reuters/Ipsos poll found widespread worries that US could see a repeat of the unrest that followed Trump’s 2020 defeat

Two out of three Americans say they are concerned that political violence could follow the 5 November election rematch between Joe Biden and his Republican predecessor and challenger, Donald Trump, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll found.

The survey of 3,934 US adults found widespread worries that the US could see a repeat of the unrest that followed Trump’s 2020 election defeat, when the then president’s false claim that his loss was the result of fraud prompted thousands of followers to storm the US Capitol.

Jake Sullivan appears critical of decision by Spain, Ireland and Norway to formally recognise Palestinian state next week

The US is concerned about Israel’s growing diplomatic isolation among countries that have traditionally supported it, Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said on Wednesday.

Sullivan’s remarks, at a White House briefing, followed the announcement by Ireland, Spain and Norway that they will next week formally recognise a Palestinian state. They also came amid efforts by the Biden administration and Congress to coordinate a response to a decision by the international criminal court (ICC) to seek an arrest warrant for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over Israeli actions in Gaza.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump agree on tariffs against China. The world has lost its biggest cheerleader for globalisation

The biggest shift in American politics has nothing to do with Stormy Daniels or Michael Cohen, Fox News or golf courses. Indeed, its author is not Donald J Trump. Yet the implications stretch far beyond this year’s presidential elections, and affect countries across the world. The era of free trade is dying, and the man bringing down the guillotine represents the party that in the past three decades has been evangelically pro-globalisation: the Democrats.

Last week, Joe Biden imposed tariffs on a range of Chinese-made goods. Electric cars produced in China will now be hit with import tax of 100%, chips and solar cells 50% and lithium-ion batteries 25%. These and other tariffs on goods worth an estimated $18bn a year amount to a rounding error in the giant US economy. And in an election year, Mr Biden, who hails from Scranton, Pennsylvania, is fretting about support not only in his home state but across the country’s industrial heartland, gutted by decades of free trade.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Trump’s Truth Social account reposted a video about a second term showing a fake newspaper that referred to a ‘unified reich’

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Welcome back to the Stakes, our weekly US politics newsletter. I cover democracy issues, and I’m filling in for Adam Gabbatt this week as Donald Trump flirted with a third term in office (yes, that’s illegal) and posted a video promising a “unified reich” (yes, that’s Nazi-adjacent language). Weird how these anti-democratic “gaffes” keep happening! We’ll get into why that might be, after a look at what else is happening in US politics.

Trump rests, but doesn’t get any rest

On the 20th day of the hush-money trial in New York, Trump declined to take the stand and the defense rested. Trump had falsely claimed he wasn’t allowed to take the stand: he was, and he chose not to. Outside the courtroom, he said although the defense would rest quickly, he himself would not be resting. “I don’t rest. I’d like to rest sometimes, but I don’t get to rest.”

Biden’s Israel problem

The international criminal court’s prosecutor applied for arrest warrants for leaders of Israel and Hamas, and Joe Biden is not pleased. He called the warrant application “outrageous” and said: “We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.” His strong backing of Israel comes as the progressive left continues to pressure him to end US support for the Israel-Gaza war.

That’s not the way the flag goes

An upside-down US flag – a symbol of those who believed the 2020 election was stolen – flew outside the home of the supreme court justice Samuel Alito’s home shortly after the January 6 insurrection in 2021. Alito blamed his wife, saying she did it as part of a dispute with a neighbor, but many observers saw it as the latest example of the politicization of the high court.

Biden spokeswoman comments after Ireland, Norway and Spain announce they will formally recognize a Palestinian state on 28 May

Democrats are looking for an edge against Donald Trump, and are moving forward with plans to tie the ex-president and his Republican allies to efforts to cut off access to contraception.

Joe Biden’s campaign has seized on a vote by Louisiana’s Republican state lawmakers to reclassify two abortion drugs in a way that would make possessing them without a prescription a crime, calling it is a sign of policies to come if Trump is returned to the White House.

The economy is doing well – far better than under Trump – but Democrats must ask voters if they want a sociopathic infant with fascist tendencies

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The new Harris poll, conducted for the Guardian is troubling, not only because it shows Americans are still pessimistic about the economy but also because – with election day just five and a half months away – so many Americans believe the economy is bad when in fact it’s damn good.

In the Harris poll, 55% think the economy is shrinking and 56% believe the US is in a recession. In fact, the economy is growing.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com

Exclusive Harris poll for the Guardian shows 55% believe economy is shrinking, in troubling sign for president’s re-election bid

• Do you know how US economy is actually doing? Try our interactive quiz

Nearly three in five Americans wrongly believe the US is in an economic recession, and the majority blame the Biden administration, according to a Harris poll conducted exclusively for the Guardian. The survey found persistent pessimism about the economy as election day draws closer.

The poll highlighted many misconceptions people have about the economy, including:

55% believe the economy is shrinking, and 56% think the US is experiencing a recession, though the broadest measure of the economy, gross domestic product (GDP), has been growing.

49% believe the S&P 500 stock market index is down for the year, though the index went up about 24% in 2023 and is up more than 12% this year.

49% believe that unemployment is at a 50-year high, though the unemployment rate has been under 4%, a near 50-year low.

US president sides with Israeli PM as he calls Karim Khan’s pursuit of warrants for Netanyahu along with Hamas leaders ‘outrageous’

Joe Biden has attacked as “outrageous” an application by the international criminal court for warrants seeking the arrest of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, along with senior members of Hamas, for actions carried out in Gaza.

The US president sided unambiguously with Israel after the ICC’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, announced he was pursuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister. Khan is also pursuing the arrests of three leading Hamas figures, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri – better known as Mohammed Deif – and Ismail Haniyeh over Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October last year.

The high court decision to allow an appeal against extradition is good news. But a political resolution to this saga needs to be sought

Given the real possibility of his extradition within days to face espionage charges in the United States, Monday’s high court decision granting Julian Assange leave to appeal was a last-ditch victory for good sense. Mr Assange and his lawyers now have some months of breathing space, during which the search for a political resolution to his case can continue. Fourteen years into this protracted saga, that would be by far the most desirable outcome.

Handing Mr Assange a legal lifeline, the high court rightly judged US assurances that Mr Assange could “seek” to rely in court on first amendment protections to be less than a guarantee. Its decision, though related to Mr Assange’s status as a non-US national, underlined the broader risks of pursuing a trial on the basis of charges put together by Donald Trump’s justice department in 2019.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

US president says ‘whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas’

• ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants for Israeli PM and Hamas officials for war crimes

The Republican leaders of the US House of Representatives are reportedly weighing a legislative response to the decision by the international criminal court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, to seek arrest warrants for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Punchbowl News has reported that House Republican leadership, which is very supportive of the Israeli government and its war in Gaza, are considering a response, but what the measure looks like and whether they can pull it off before the upcoming Memorial Day holiday remains unclear.

Bim Afolami’s comments distance British government from protectionist moves by US

The UK cannot afford to give the “cold shoulder” to China, the City minister said on Monday, in comments that will distance the British government from the Biden administration’s protectionist crackdown.

Addressing financial services bosses at the City Week conference in London’s Guildhall, Bim Afolami said it was “crucial” to engage with strategic competitors such as Beijing, and that the UK risked losing control of its economic future if it failed to find common ground.

Biden will be remembered as a president who could have restrained Israel but instead made the US complicit in this war

With great fanfare, Joe Biden confirmed on 8 May that his administration had suspended one weapons shipment to Israel, delaying the delivery of 3,500 bombs that can cause devastating casualties when dropped on population centers. Biden said he warned Israeli leaders that he would also block artillery shells and other munitions if Israel went ahead with a ground invasion of Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, where 1.4 million Palestinians have taken shelter.

It seemed Biden had finally decided to use the most effective leverage he has over Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and his extremist government to force an end to Israel’s devastating war in Gaza. But less than a week later, it became clear that Biden had backtracked and he will continue sending Israel far more weapons than the one shipment he held back. Last Tuesday, the Biden administration notified Congress that it would move ahead with more than $1bn in new arms deals for Israel.

Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor at New York University

The US president Joe Biden asks at civil rights event: ‘what do you think he would have done … if Black Americans had stormed the Capitol?’

Joe Biden has launched one of his most scathing attacks yet on Donald Trump’s record of racism, suggesting that the former US president would have acted differently to the January 6 2021 insurrection if it was led by Black people.

The remarks, at a dinner hosted by a civil rights organisation in a critical swing state, pointed to an intensifying battle between Biden and Trump for African American voters ahead of November’s presidential election.

Speech warmly received at historically Black college despite backlash from students in weeks leading to address over war

Joe Biden told graduating students of Morehouse College that American democracy has failed the Black community, but vowed to continue fighting “the poison of white supremacy”, in a widely watched speech to a historically Black college during an election year.

Despite a backlash from some students and alumni in the weeks leading up to Biden’s commencement address, including over the Hamas-Israel war and concerns that Biden would use the speech as a campaign event, the president’s address to the all-male school was warmly received. He used his speech to reaffirm his commitment to democracy in the wake of the January 6 insurrection, and to reiterate his call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

As a slew of Republicans went to the hush-money trial to show their fealty to their boss, the president tried to rise above it

Donald Trump last week turned his New York fraud trial into a political circus and a platform for his election campaign while Joe Biden struggled to persuade voters that they’re wrong about the economy.

Trump engineered a parade of leading Republicans to demonstrate their allegiance outside the courthouse in downtown Manhattan even as his trial laid bare the swamp that is the former US president’s professional and personal life.

Politics is about achieving things and telling a compelling story. But neither the president – nor Starmer – can match Trump’s gift for narrative

The smile was the giveaway. Asked whether he was “just a copycat” of Tony Blair at the launch of his Blair-style pledge card on Thursday, Keir Starmer positively glowed. He was delighted with the comparison, which the entire exercise was surely designed to encourage. Blair “won three elections in a row”, Starmer said, beaming. Of course, he’s thrilled to be likened to a serial winner. And yet the more apt parallel is also a cautionary one. It’s not with Starmer’s long-ago predecessor, but with his would-be counterpart across the Atlantic: Joe Biden.

It’s natural that the sight of a Labour leader, a lawyer from north London, on course for Downing Street after a long era of Tory rule, would have people digging out the Oasis CDs and turning back the clock to 1997: Labour election victories are a rare enough commodity to prompt strong memories. But, as many veterans of that period are quick to point out, the circumstances of 2024 are very different. The UK economy was humming then and it’s parlous now. Optimism filled the air then, while too few believe genuine change is even possible now. And politics tended to be about material matters then, tax and public services, rather than dominated by polarising cultural wars as it is now.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

Trump will look to again cast Biden as greatly diminished while Biden will aim to remind voters why they rejected Trump in 2020

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It’s game on for a pair of presidential debates between two unpopular candidates most Americans wish weren’t running for the nation’s highest office.

In a ratatat social media exchange on Wednesday, Joe Biden and Donald Trump agreed to participate in two debates on 27 June, hosted by CNN, and on 10 September, hosted by ABC.