Actor brings force of Hollywood to trumpet Biden’s legislative record in briefing that both delighted and bemused journalists

“You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.” But enough about Washington. The Star Wars actor Mark Hamill, who once saw off gangsters at a fictional spaceport, came to the US capital on Friday for a meeting with Joe Biden.

Quite why he was in the Oval Office, and what was talked about, remained something of a mystery. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Biden was riding high in the opinion polls but now, perhaps, he is in need of added star power.

His youth support declining, the president needs ‘to be where the people are’. His account regularly mocks Trump – but remains silent on Gaza

In Joe Biden’s TikTok debut, timed to the Super Bowl in February, the president answered rapid-fire questions like “Chiefs or Niners?” (neither, he picked the Eagles because his wife’s a “Philly girl”) and flashed the Dark Brandon meme. He got more than 10m views, so by pure metrics, the video was no flop. But to use one of TikTok’s favorite disses, for many gen Z viewers it felt “cringe” – even pandering. Worse still, the TikTok, captioned “lol hey guys”, made the rounds after Israel struck Rafah, a city in the southern Gaza strip. Biden’s jokes infuriated users who flooded the post with the comment “WHAT ABOUT RAFAH?”

“I don’t want my president to be a TikTok influencer,” read the headline of one USA Today editorial. One (actual) influencer told CNN the president’s attempt at meme-ing felt “performative”. A warm welcome to the app, it was not. But Biden’s team kept posting.

Ex-White House press secretary Jen Psaki describes telling president of anger that he spoke so much of his own dead son, Beau

Joe Biden was stunned into silence when he was told families of US service members killed in Kabul in August 2021 said that when the bodies were returned and the president met grieving relatives, he spent too much time talking about the death of his own son, Beau.

“I paused for the president to respond,” Jen Psaki, then White House press secretary, writes in a new book.

US president says ‘immigrants are what makes us strong’ and criticizes countries, plus China and Russia, over migration policy

Joe Biden has called Japan and India “xenophobic” countries that do not welcome immigrants, lumping the two with adversaries China and Russia as he tried to explain their economic circumstances and contrasted the four with the US on immigration.

The remarks, at a campaign fundraising event on Wednesday evening, came just three weeks after the White House hosted Fumio Kishida, the Japanese prime minister, for a lavish official visit, during which the two leaders celebrated what Biden called an “unbreakable alliance”, particularly on global security matters.

President also says he will not send in the national guard to deal with encampments across US universities

• Campus protests – live updates

Joe Biden spoke for just three minutes before wrapping up.

Just after he finished, a reporter asked if the protests would make him reconsider any of his Middle East policies.

Former president repeats lies about 2020 election loss in interview after Wisconsin rally

Good morning, US politics blog readers. Yesterday, Donald Trump had the day off from his trial in New York City on charges related to falsifying business records, and held a rally in Wisconsin, a swing state crucial to his presidential election chances. After a speech spent attacking Joe Biden over his handling of border security and inflation, Trump gave an interview to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, in which he falsely insisted that he won Wisconsin in 2020 (he did not) and “other locations”, and refused to commit to accepting the results of this year’s vote. “If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results. I don’t change on that. If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country,” the former president said. The comments were yet another indication that Americans should be prepared for a rocky election aftermath, should Trump lose in November to Biden. After the Democrat defeated him in 2020, Trump spent weeks attempting various plots to prevent Biden from taking power, culminating in the attack on the Capitol on January 6. Of course, there’s the chance that Trump could indeed win election again, as he did in 2016 – polls currently show a tight race with Biden, including in Wisconsin.

Here’s what else is happening today:

Trump is back in Manhattan as his trial resumes with testimony from Keith Davidson, a lawyer for adult film actor Stormy Daniels, who is at the heart of the allegations against the former president. We have a live blog covering everything that goes on in the courtroom.

Police moved in against protesters at the University of California, Los Angeles as colleges nationwide grapple with anti-Israel demonstrations. Follow our live blog for more on this developing story.

Biden is heading to North Carolina to pay his respects to the four law enforcement officers killed while serving a warrant earlier this week, then will speak about his economic policies in the city of Wilmington at 4.30pm ET.

Sometimes, the best evidence of corporate wrongdoing involves a company insider. Our experience shows that individuals who are involved in criminal conduct and are willing to accept responsibility and cooperate with us are critical sources of information. [...] Under this pilot program, individuals with criminal exposure—not including CEOs, CFOs, high-level foreign officials, domestic officials at any level, or individuals who organized or led the criminal scheme—who come forward and report misconduct that was otherwise unknown to the department will be eligible to receive a non-prosecution agreement (NPA) if they meet certain criteria. NPAs have been a part of the federal criminal system for decades, and prosecutors have long exercised discretion to offer NPAs as an essential tool to get culpable individuals in the door. Our new individual self-disclosure pilot program, which provides clear guidelines and threshold criteria, builds on the department's longstanding practice to advance our fight against complex corporate crime. At bottom, making NPAs available to individuals who come forward to report corporate crime and cooperate allows us to prosecute more culpable individuals and to hold companies to account. Under the new program, culpable individuals will receive an NPA if they (1) voluntarily, (2) truthfully, and (3) completely self-disclose original information regarding misconduct that was unknown to the department in certain high-priority enforcement areas, (4) fully cooperate and are able to provide substantial assistance against those equally or more culpable, and (5) forfeit any ill-gotten gains and compensate victims. The pilot program is designed to provide predictability and certainty by offering a pathway for culpable individuals to receive an NPA for truthful and complete self-disclosure to the department.

Focus of rally went beyond immigration, to fear of authoritarianism, as Trump held campaign event nearby

Led by a mariachi band, hundreds of demonstrators on Wednesday morning marched across Milwaukee to the Fiserv Forum – the home of the Milwaukee Bucks and, in July, the venue of the Republican national convention.

The rally, organized by the immigrant and workers’ rights group Voces de la Frontera, is an annual event, but in 2024 it holds particular weight. The focus of the rally extended beyond immigration, to fear of authoritarianism under Republican candidate Donald Trump and critique of Joe Biden’s handling of the US role in Israel and Gaza.

Lawmakers have enough votes to repeal ban on almost all abortions; cice-president calls abortion access a ‘fundamental freedom’ in Florida as state’s six-week ban takes effect

• Florida’s six-week abortion ban takes effect
• Arizona Democrats to make final push to repeal near-total abortion ban

Greene wrapped up the press conference by demanding, essentially, that Mike Johnson resign or be fired:

What I’m calling on is, like my colleague here said, Mike Johnson … can pray about it, think about it all weekend, do the right thing and resign, giving our conference time to elect a new leader, a new speaker of the house. He should reject the endorsement of Hakeem Jeffries and the entire Democrat leadership team. That is not an endorsement that any Republican speaker should ever want or embrace. And this vote will be called next week, and I would just want to urge all our colleagues to prepare for it. It’s the right thing to do for America. It’s time to clean house and get our conference in order and get ready to support President Trump’s agenda. God willing, he wins in November and we take back full power here in Washington in January.

I fight for his agenda every single day, and that’s why I’m fighting here against my own Republican conference, to fight harder against the Democrats.

Thousands of students have rallied for Palestine, after hundreds of thousands of Democrats declined to vote for Biden in the primary

• Sign up for The Stakes: a free newsletter on the 2024 US presidential election

The policies of Joe Biden and Democrats towards Israel, which have prompted thousands of students across the country to protest, could affect the youth vote for Biden and hurt his re-election chances, experts have warned, in what is already expected to be a tight election.

Thousands of students at universities across the US have joined with pro-Palestine rallies and, most recently, encampments, as Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 34,000 people.

Riyadh seeks more modest agreement with Washington in absence of Gaza ceasefire and Netanyahu resistance to Palestinian state

The US and Saudi Arabia have drafted a set of agreements on security and technology-sharing which were intended to be linked to a broader Middle East settlement involving Israel and the Palestinians.

However, in the absence of a ceasefire in Gaza and in the face of adamant resistance from Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government to the creation of a Palestinian state – and its apparent determination to launch an offensive on Rafah – the Saudis are pushing for a more modest plan B, which excludes the Israelis.

Time magazine called the ex-president’s plans ‘an imperial presidency that would reshape America and its role in the world’

Donald Trump has warned that Joe Biden and his family could face multiple criminal prosecutions once he leaves office unless the US supreme court awards Trump immunity in his own legal battles with the criminal justice system.

In a sweeping interview with Time magazine, Trump painted a startling picture of his second term, from how he would wield the justice department to hinting he may let states monitor pregnant women to enforce abortion laws.

The top House Democrats, including minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, say they will oppose any attempt from far-right Republican to vacate Mike Johnson as speaker

In response to House Democratic leaders’ vow to oppose her effort to remove Mike Johnson as speaker, far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene hinted she may force a vote on the matter.

“What slimy back room deal did Johnson make for the Democrats’ support?” the Georgia lawmaker asked. She continued:

If the Democrats want to elect him Speaker (and some Republicans want to support the Democrats’ chosen Speaker), I’ll give them the chance to do it. I’m a big believer in recorded votes because putting Congress on record allows every American to see the truth and provides transparency to our votes.

Nothing screams ‘covering up war crimes’ like insisting that there should absolutely not be an independent investigation

Did you know that the Palestinians are the very first people in the world to ethnically cleanse and mass murder themselves? I know it sounds weird, but – as American and Israeli politicians keep reminding us – these are “savages” that we are talking about here. Normal rules don’t apply, you’ve got to follow the Palestine Rules.

The Palestine Rules dictate you do the following: ignore every international agency if that agency says anything remotely critical about Israel. Certainly don’t listen to international aid agencies like Oxfam when they argue that the government of Israel is “deliberately blocking and/or undermining the international humanitarian response in the Gaza Strip”. Nope, the fact that babies in Gaza are dying of malnutrition is all their fault. The fact that children in Gaza are starving at the fastest rate the world has ever known is nothing to do with Israel, it’s the fault of those pesky Palestinians.

Enlarge (credit: Benj Edwards | Getty Images)

On Friday, the US Department of Homeland Security announced the formation of an Artificial Intelligence Safety and Security Board that consists of 22 members pulled from the tech industry, government, academia, and civil rights organizations. But given the nebulous nature of the term "AI," which can apply to a broad spectrum of computer technology, it's unclear if this group will even be able to agree on what exactly they are safeguarding us from.

President Biden directed DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to establish the board, which will meet for the first time in early May and subsequently on a quarterly basis.

The fundamental assumption posed by the board's existence, and reflected in Biden's AI executive order from October, is that AI is an inherently risky technology and that American citizens and businesses need to be protected from its misuse. Along those lines, the goal of the group is to help guard against foreign adversaries using AI to disrupt US infrastructure; develop recommendations to ensure the safe adoption of AI tech into transportation, energy, and Internet services; foster cross-sector collaboration between government and businesses; and create a forum where AI leaders to share information on AI security risks with the DHS.

Read 13 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries sends letter to speaker Mike Johnson requesting consideration of a bipartisan bill to counter antisemitism

Last week, Joe Biden vowed to take another stab at convincing Congress to pass legislation that would allow him to tighten immigration policy and deter new migrants from entering the United States.

But Politico reports that nothing significant appears to be in the works – a consequences of the opposition from Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress that would likely kill any compromise reached on the highly divisive issue:

Talks around resuscitating the bipartisan border compromise that senators struck in February have been nonexistent in Washington. And despite the president’s proclamation, administration officials and immigration policy experts both say it’s highly unlikely any legislative momentum for border security materializes between now and November.

“They pulled a rabbit out of a hat on Ukraine, but there’s no chance they’re getting anything out of Mike Johnson’s House on border security,” said an immigration advocate familiar with the White House’s thinking, granted anonymity to discuss private conversations with administration officials. “They’ve known that since December, when they realized they had to count votes in the House. There’s no chance of legislation on this, and they know that. It’s rhetorical posturing.”

In the short term, the two leaders ordered their national security teams to work together to immediately implement concrete measures to significantly reduce irregular border crossings while protecting human rights. President Biden and President López Obrador also pledged to advance initiatives to address the root causes of migration throughout the Western Hemisphere, noting that increasing shared prosperity and security will be of critical importance in effectively addressing the migration challenge over the longer term.

US president and Israeli PM talk as Israel vows to invade southern Gaza city despite global concern for 1 million Palestinians sheltering there

• See all our Middle East crisis coverage

Joe Biden “reiterated his clear” opposition to an invasion of Rafah in a conversation with Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday, as pressure builds on Israel and Hamas to reach a deal that would free some Israeli hostages and bring a ceasefire to the nearly seven-month-long war in Gaza.

In the face of global concern for the more than 1 million Palestinians sheltering in the southern city, the White House said Biden told the Israeli prime minister that the US would oppose the offensive unless adequate provisions were made to move and care for the more than a million Palestinians sheltering there.

US president made fun of Republican frontrunner’s legal woes while critics of his handling of Gaza war protested outside

Joe Biden has shown no mercy to Donald Trump with a series of barbed jokes about his election rival, telling a gathering of Washington’s political and media elites: “I’m a grown man running against a six-year-old.”

The White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner on Saturday night provided the ideal platform for Biden to continue a recent run of taking the fight to Trump with more aggressive rhetoric, cutting humour and personal insults.

End of secretary of state Antony Blinken’s three-day visit marks upsurge in military activity after period of relative calm

Taiwan has reported that a dozen Chinese warplanes flew sorties close to the island on Saturday, in a sudden surge of military activity just hours after the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, left Beijing following talks with President Xi Jinping and top Chinese officials.

Before Blinken’s three-day visit to China, US officials had pointed to a period of relative calm in the Taiwan strait over the past few months, after years of aggressive Chinese military manoeuvres and threats, as a factor in improving US-Chinese relations since Joe Biden held a summit meeting with Xi in November.

The professor on his famous 13 ‘keys’ to the White House, a method for predicting election results that’s been right nine times out of 10

• Sign up for The Stakes: a free newsletter on the 2024 US presidential election

He has been called the Nostradamus of US presidential elections. Allan Lichtman has correctly predicted the result of nine of the past 10 (and even the one that got away, in 2000, he insists was stolen from Al Gore). But now he is gearing up for perhaps his greatest challenge: Joe Biden v Donald Trump II.

Lichtman is a man of parts. The history professor has been teaching at American University in Washington for half a century. He is a former North American 3,000m steeplechase champion and, at 77 – the same age as Trump – aiming to compete in the next Senior Olympics. In 1981 he appeared on the TV quizshow Tic-Tac-Dough and won $110,000 in cash and prizes.

The annual White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner returns this Saturday for a night of comedy ‘roasting’ – where the great and the good are ruthlessly mocked in celebration of the freedom of the press.

In recent years, however, the night has taken on a different tone, with the atmosphere of warm self-deprecation and bipartisan bonhomie replaced by something more scathing and serious.

This week Jonathan Freedland is joined by Jeff Nussbaum, a former senior speech writer to Joe Biden, to discuss the art of writing gags for presidents and whether there is still space for humour in US politics.