joebiden – The Past 24 Hours Or So

The Past 24 Hours or So – Protests/Race Relations, Trump Administration, and Presidential Campaign News

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Protests/Race Relations

Gov. Gary Herbert of Utah declared a state of emergency Thursday in response to protests in Salt Lake City that erupted after the authorities said the fatal police shooting of a 22-year-old man in May was justified.

Protesters smashed windows and splashed red paint on the district attorney’s office in Salt Lake City after prosecutors cleared police in the fatal shooting.

The Salt Lake County district attorney, Sim Gill, announced that there would be no criminal charges against the two Salt Lake City Police Department officers who shot the man, Bernardo Palacios-Carbajal, on May 23.

State troopers folded the Mississippi flag at the Capitol for the last time last week, a turnabout that was powered by a coalition of seemingly unlikely allies, including business-minded conservatives, Baptist ministers and the Black Lives Matter activists.

The wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was among those who emailed to criticize a Virginia town’s “Black Lives Matter” banner, telling city officials that protesters responding to the death of Black Americans in police custody “hate America.”

“BLM is a bit of a dangerous Trojan Horse and they are catching well-meaning people into dangerous posturing that can invite mob rule and property looting,” Thomas, who is white, reportedly wrote in a signed email that was shared with The Washington Post.

Police in St. Petersburg, Fla., said they will start fining protesters who block traffic during demonstrations this week following tense and dangerous standoffs between activists and drivers around the country.

Officers will be enforcing laws already on the books – and the St. Petersburg Police Department said Wednesday it would first begin a public awareness campaign by issuing warnings and handing out flyers.

After a few days, the department will begin issuing fines of $62.50.

Twitter suspended over 50 accounts operated by white nationalists Friday amid criticism over its handling of inflammatory posts on its platform.

Republican Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst says she supports renaming military bases that are named after Confederate figures even though she’s “been getting heck” from her own party over her stance.

Two suspended Buffalo Police officers are now back on the city payroll despite being charged with felony assault.

Officers Aaron Torgalski and Robert McCabe were suspended last month after shoving 75-year-old protester Martin Gugino to the ground, leading to serious injuries for the protester.

Administration News

The president of Goya Foods went on Fox News on Friday to defend comments he made a day earlier praising President Trump during a visit to the White House. The company has since become the target of a boycott and considerable backlash.

President Trump told reporters Friday that he is “looking at” pardoning Roger Stone, as he continued to build suspense over whether he will intervene on behalf of his former aide and longtime confidant before he is scheduled to report to prison next week.

“Well, I’ll be looking at it,” Trump said. “I think Roger Stone was very unfairly untreated, as were many people.”

The House Appropriations Committee voted to block a controversial Trump Administration transparency rule that the Environmental Protection Agency’s own independent board of science advisers criticized. Scientists have decried the 2018 rule, which the administration sought to broaden in March, as an effort to block the EPA from being able to use significant amounts of research in its rulemaking.

“This rule would place new crippling limits on what studies can be utilized when EPA crafts new regulation,” said the amendment’s sponsor, Rep. David Price (D-N.C.).

A former top Department of Veterans Affairs official in the Trump administration improperly steered a $5 million contract to personal friends, according to a report released Thursday by the department’s Office of Inspector General. The OIG report found that the actions of Peter Shelby, who was then the VA’s assistant secretary for human resources and administration at the time, were not only unethical but resulted in the complete waste of government funds.

President Trump says he intends to sign an executive order on immigration within the next month that he said will include a “road to citizenship” for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.

The president Tweeted: “Too many Universities and School Systems are about Radical Left Indoctrination, not Education. Therefore, I am telling the Treasury Department to re-examine their Tax-Exempt Status…and/or Funding, which will be taken away if this Propaganda or Act Against Public Policy continues. Our children must be Educated, not Indoctrinated!”

President Trump commuted the sentence of his longtime friend Roger J. Stone Jr. on seven felony crimes on Friday, using the power of his office to help a former campaign adviser days before Mr. Stone was to report to a federal prison to serve a 40-month term.

President Trump confirmed for the first time on Friday that the U.S. launched a cyberattack on the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) in 2018.

The cyberattack, first reported by The Washington Post in 2019 but not confirmed publicly by the Trump administration, involved U.S. Cyber Command disrupting internet access for the building in St. Petersburg that houses the IRA on the night of the U.S. 2018 midterm elections, halting efforts to spread disinformation as Americans went to the polls.

Presidential Campaign

President Donald Trump on Friday accused former Vice President Joe Biden of plagiarizing his economic policies, a day after the presumptive Democratic nominee unveiled a plan to promote American manufacturing and goods.

But despite some similarities in messaging between Biden’s “Buy American” and Trump’s “America First” rhetoric, the two candidates’ policy plans significantly diverge.

“He plagiarized from me, but he could never pull it off,” Trump told reporters at the White House when asked about Biden’s plan for the economy. “He likes plagiarizing. It’s a plan that is very radical left. But he said the right things because he’s copying what I’ve done, but the difference is he can’t do it.”

Trump did not specify what parts of Biden’s economic plans were plagiarized.

Amid ongoing concerns of small crowds, the Trump campaign canceled a rally planned for Saturday in New Hampshire, citing safety concerns about an incoming tropical storm.

Former Vice President Joe Biden tore into President Trump as he prepared to visit a coronavirus-stricken Florida on Friday, blaming the president’s response to the pandemic for a sharp rise in cases and virus-related hospitalizations in the country’s largest battleground state.

“With over 232,000 cases in the state and over 4,000 deaths in Florida, it is clear that Trump’s response — ignore, blame others, and distract — has come at the expense of Florida families.”

Sources: ABC News, The Atlantic, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, NBC News, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, NJ.com, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

The Past 24 Hours or So – Presidential Campaign News

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President Trump will hold an outdoor rally in New Hampshire this weekend.

The president’s next “Make America Great Again” rally will gather supporters at Portsmouth International Airport on Saturday, July 11.

Sens. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) are getting most of the buzz, but former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice is also getting a lot of attention in Joe Biden’s campaign as he considers who to pick as his running mate, sources say.

Rice, who also served as former President Obama’s national security adviser, has seen her stock rise amid a series of crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I know she’s very much in the mix,” a source close to the Biden campaign said.

The Supreme Court says states can punish Electoral College members who break a pledge to vote for a state’s presidential popular vote winner.

GOP Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker has signed a bill that allows all residents to have a vote-by-mail option for the 2020 primary and general elections, a move that comes as President Trump rails against the voting method and claims without evidence it will lead to fraud.

Joe Biden Tweeted: “Americans are safer when America is engaged in strengthening global health. On my first day as President, I will rejoin the @WHO and restore our leadership on the world stage.”

With the number of Americans voting by mail on Nov. 3 expected to nearly double due to COVID-19, election experts see little reason to expect an increase in ballot fraud, despite President Donald Trump’s repeated claims.

The liberal super PAC American Bridge is launching a new round of television, radio and digital ads across three battleground states aimed at weakening President Trump among key groups that supported his 2016 White House bid.

The Trump campaign is considering displaying statues at future rallies.

The idea has been discussed by White House and Trump campaign aides, but no final decision has been made, sources familiar with the planning told ABC News.

A task force set up by Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, and former presidential contender Sen. Bernie Sanders released a sweeping set of platform recommendations on Wednesday that lays out a progressive roadmap for Democrats, though one that falls short of Sanders’s push for radical change.

Biden and Sanders focused heavily on police reforms and reducing incarceration following the death of George Floyd while in police custody, which has sparked nationwide protests. The health care platform focuses on expanding ObamaCare, rather than moving toward Sanders’s “Medicare for All.” The commission also called for environmental reforms, including carbon-free electricity generation by 2035.

Joe Biden promised on Thursday to spend $700 billion on American-made products and industrial research, which he said would give at least 5 million more people a paycheck during a job-killing pandemic.

President Trump is planning to hold a fundraising event in Odessa, Texas later this month, even as Texas experiences a surge in coronavirus infections that caused the governor to pause its reopening and require face masks in public.

In The Know About Joe

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Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams says she has not heard from Joe Biden’s presidential campaign as it starts its vetting process to pick a nominee for vice president: “I have said many times that if called I will answer, but I have not received any calls.”

Joe Biden’s search for a running mate has advanced to the next phase as his campaign conducts more extensive reviews of some prospects, including at least several African American women, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

Among the candidates who have progressed to the point of more comprehensive vetting are: Sen. Kamala D. Harris, Rep. Val Demings, former national security adviser Susan E. Rice and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, all of whom are black. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who is white, is also in that group, as is New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, who is Latina.

Ukrainian officials on Saturday said they were offered $5 million in bribes to end a probe into energy company Burisma’s founder, but said there was no connection to former board member Hunter Biden whose father is running for the U.S. presidency.

Artem Sytnyk, head of Ukraine’s national anti-corruption bureau, said three people had been detained, including one current and former tax official, over the bribe offer.

Former President Obama will join Joe Biden for the first time in a virtual fundraiser on June 23, the former vice president announced Monday.

The campaign’s event plans to target tens of thousands of small-dollar donors.

About 50 liberal groups have signed on to a letter warning presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden that he could lose the November election to President Trump if he doesn’t adopt more progressive policing policies.

The letter urges Biden to adopt a 21-page policy proposal released by The Movement for Black Lives to promote reducing incarceration and scaling back police forces across the country.

The groups are also asking Biden to drop his recent proposal to add $300 million in funding for the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program, which would hire and train additional police officers to patrol within the communities where they live.

Joe Biden is making a big play for Florida, putting President Trump on defense in his own backyard in a must-win state for the White House.

Trump won the perennial swing state in 2016 over Democrat Hillary Clinton by a little more than 100,000 votes, but Biden’s campaign believes he can put it back in the Democratic column given the Obama-Biden ticket’s victories in 2008 and 2012.

Republican operatives are reportedly launching a super PAC to help encourage GOP voters to head for the ballot box in support of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, Joe Biden.

Axios reported Wednesday that Right Side PAC will include former officials from the Trump and George W. Bush administrations, including Anthony Scaramucci, who briefly served as President Trump’s communications director.

Former President Obama called on voters to elect his former Vice President Joe Biden in his celebration of the Supreme Court decision preserving the DACA program, which protects immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children from deportation and allows them to work and travel within the country legally, saying Biden will work hard to defend so-called “Dreamers.”

“We have to move forward and elect Joe Biden and a Democratic Congress that does its job, protects DREAMers, and finally creates a system that’s truly worthy of this nation of immigrants once and for all.”

Sen. Klobuchar announces she is withdrawing from consideration to be Joe Biden’s vice presidential choice: “I think this is a moment to put a woman of color on that ticket.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign announced Thursday its first television ad buy of the general election, a $15 million, five-week blitz that will target six key battleground states that President Trump won in 2016: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, North Carolina, Florida, and Arizona.

Sources: ABC News, Axios, Bloomberg, CBS News, CNN, Financial Times, Fox News,The Hill, NBC News, NPR, NY Times, Politico, Reuters, Salon, Slate, Vanity Fair, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post

In The Know About Joe

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In a jab at Donald Trump, Biden said, “You know, Barack and I never went down to the bunker. They tell me it had cobwebs from lack of use during our 8 years. Never actually seen the bunker. I called up Barack, he said he’s never seen it either.”

Joe Biden says there’s “no more excuses” and if lawmakers have the time to confirm President Trump’s court nominees, they have time to immediately pass legislation to address police brutality, outlaw chokeholds, limit the transfer of “weapons of war” to police departments, and create a new oversight and accountability model for police, adding of Trump: “I just wished he’d open [the bible] once in a while instead of brandishing it.”

Joe Biden does not support some calls to “defund the police,” the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s campaign said Monday.

Biden backs advocates’ calls to increase spending on social programs separate from local police budgets, but he also wants more funding for police reforms such as body cameras and training on community policing approaches, campaign spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement.

“Vice President Biden does not believe that police should be defunded,” Bates said. “He hears and shares the deep grief and frustration of those calling out for change, and is driven to ensure that justice is done and that we put a stop to this terrible pain.”

The campaign’s comment came as President Donald Trump and his campaign sought to tie Biden to calls to “defund the police,” which have emerged in recent days at protests over police brutality and the killing of George Floyd

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s campaign launched a get out the vote initiative geared toward LGBTQ voters on Monday, an initiative that was announced as Pride Month is under way.

The campaign said the program, known as Out for Biden, is being led by a steering committee that includes Human Rights Campaign president Alphonso David, Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.), along with Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), the first openly gay member of the Senate.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (D) is among the women under consideration to be former Vice President Biden’s running mate, according to a new report.

Politico reported on Monday that Bottoms, along with Florida Rep. Val Demings (D), are under consideration for the Democratic ticket.

Joe Biden’s presidential campaign raised $3.5 million in a fundraiser co-hosted with Sen. Kamala Harris, a top contender to be the former vice president’s running mate this November.

Former Vice President Joe Biden said systemic racism exists “across the board,” including in policing, in an interview with CBS’s Norah O’Donnell.

“Absolutely,” Biden said, asked whether there is systemic racism within law enforcement.

“It’s not just in law enforcement, it’s across the board. It’s in housing, it’s in education, and it’s in everything we do. It’s real. It’s genuine. It’s serious,”

Biden wrote in an op-ed: “I’m proposing an additional $300 million to reinvigorate community policing in our country. Every single police department should have the money they need to institute real reforms”

Also, in the op-ed, Biden said, “Donald Trump’s hate-filled, conspiracy-laden rhetoric is inflaming the racial divides in our country—but just fixing the way the president talks won’t cut it. We need to root out systemic racism and ensure Black Americans have a real shot to get ahead.”

Joe Biden on Wednesday night had a blunt warning about President Trump and the lengths he would take to limit access to ballots in November, sharply escalating his rhetoric about his Republican rival five months before voters head to the polls.

“This president is going to try to steal this election,” Biden said in an interview on “The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.” Biden said of ensuring that the voting process is fair: “It’s my greatest concern, my single greatest concern.”

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden on Friday called for action to combat gun violence while marking the fourth anniversary of the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida: “Our places of worship have been attacked, Hispanics have been targeted in places like El Paso, the death toll from mass shootings continues to mount, and LGBTQ+ people, particularly transgender women of color, are disproportionately targeted by violence.”

In The Know About Joe

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Joe Biden, Trump’s presumptive challenger in the presidential election in November, spoke to the family of George Floyd and issued a video address in which he called for calm.

“I asked Vice-President Biden – I never had to beg a man before – but I asked him, could he please, please get justice for my brother,” Philonise Floyd said.

“I need it. I do not want to see him on a shirt just like the other guys. Nobody deserved that. Black folk don’t deserve that. We’re all dying.

Former Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday visited a site in Wilmington, Del., that has seen protests over the George Floyd killing.

“We are a nation in pain, but we must not allow this pain to destroy us. We are a nation enraged, but we cannot allow our rage to consume us. We are a nation exhausted, but we will not allow our exhaustion to defeat us,” Biden wrote Sunday on social media posts across Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.

His posts showed a picture of him wearing a mask and kneeling across from a black man and a child. Videos on his Instagram story show the presumptive Democratic nominee taking photos and chatting with other masked men.

Stan Greenberg, who served as President Clinton’s lead pollster, called progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren the “obvious solution” to be presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s running mate.

“The biggest threat to Democrats in 2020 is the lack of support and disengagement of millennials and the fragmentation of non-Biden primary voters.”

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden promised black community leaders in Delaware on Monday he would earn their support amid nationwide police brutality protests, saying he would create a police oversight board within his first 100 days in the White House.

Biden, who met with more than a dozen black leaders in a church in Wilmington, also said he would soon unveil an economic plan to deal with the disproportionate toll on the black and Latino communities from the coronavirus outbreak.

Joe Biden’s campaign is launching a digital ad in key swing states that features the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee’s speech on civil unrest and protests in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

The minute-long ad, titled “Build The Future,” overlays footage of Biden’s speech with video and pictures from protests across the country. It also includes clips from the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., that left one counter protester dead.

Former Vice President Joe Biden clinched the Democratic presidential nomination on Friday, officially setting the stage for a contentious general election fight with President Trump this November.

The former vice president hit the delegate threshold Friday, most recently winning a series of primaries Tuesday night across the country.

Speaking during a virtual town hall with young Americans, Biden discussed the importance of a president setting an example for the country.

Biden accused President Trump of dividing the nation, saying “The words a president says matter, so when a president stands up and divides people all the time, you’re going to get the worst of us to come out.”

“Do we really think this is as good as we can be as a nation? I don’t think the vast majority of people think that,” the former vice president added. “There are probably anywhere from 10 to 15 percent of the people out there that are just not very good people, but that’s not who we are. The vast majority of the people are decent, and we have to appeal to that and we have to unite people — bring them together. Bring them together.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden tore into President Trump for saying economic gains reported Friday marked a “great day for equality” and a “great day” for George Floyd, an unarmed black man who was killed in police custody in Minneapolis.

“George Floyd’s last words — ‘I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe’ — have echoed across our nation,” Biden said in a speech Friday, referring to bystander video that went viral showing Floyd being pinned down by his neck before he died. “For the president to try to put any other words in the mouth of George Floyd — is frankly despicable.

“And, the fact that he did so on a day when black unemployment rose and black youth unemployment skyrocketed — tells you everything you need to know about who this man is and what he cares about.”

In The Know About Joe

Read Time: 3 Minutes

5/29

Former Vice President Joe Biden, wearing a black face mask, marked Memorial Day by participating in a wreath-laying ceremony at a local veteran’s memorial near his Delaware home, in what was his first time in public after weeks of self-isolation amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Former Vice President Joe Biden ripped President Trump as the president drew criticism for spending part of his Memorial Day weekend tweeting and golfing while the U.S. death toll from the coronavirus approaches 100,000.

“The presidency is about a lot more than tweeting from your golf cart. It requires taking on the ultimate responsibility for the biggest decisions in the world. Donald Trump simply wasn’t prepared for that. I promise you I will be,” he wrote.

The AFL-CIO has endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden for president. The labor group announced on Tuesday it will mobilize its members to defeat President Trump in November. It joins a long list of labor unions that have endorsed Biden.

The presidential campaign of former Vice President Joe Biden has hired a national director for voter protection as expanding access to the ballot box emerges as a chief concern for Democrats, particularly amid the coronavirus pandemic.

The campaign announced Tuesday that it has tapped Rachana Desai Martin to join its legal team and serve as senior counsel.

Former Vice President Joe Biden called for a “thorough” FBI investigation into the killing of George Floyd, a black man who died shortly after his arrest by the Minneapolis Police Department.

The local police chief announced earlier Tuesday that the FBI would lead the investigation into Floyd’s death. Four police officers were also fired after video of the incident emerged.

Joe Biden on Wednesday called on the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division to investigate the death of George Floyd, the unarmed black man who was killed during an encounter with Minneapolis police officers.

We have to ensure that the Floyd family receives the justice they’re entitled to, and as a nation … we have to work relentlessly to eradicate these systemic failures that inflict so much damage on not just one family, one community, but on the people of color all across this nation.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden says he hopes to decide on a running mate by Aug. 1, about two weeks before the Democratic nominating convention in Milwaukee.

Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto said Thursday she does not want to be presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s vice presidential pick.

“It is an honor to be considered as a potential running mate, but I have decided to withdraw my name from consideration,” she said in a statement. “Nevada’s economy is one of the hardest hit by the current crisis and I will continue to focus on getting Nevadans the support they need to get back on their feet.”

One of the Democratic Party’s top pollsters gave a presentation to senior members of former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign earlier this month making the case that Sen. Elizabeth Warren would provide the most upside as Biden’s running mate. The presentation warned that the biggest threat the Democrats face in 2020 is the “lack of support and disengagement of millennials and the fragmentation of non-Biden primary voters.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden accused President Trump of calling for violence against Americans after the president threatened to deploy the military to Minneapolis amid protests over George Floyd’s death, with Trump tweeting “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”

“I will not lift the President’s tweet. I will not give him that amplification. But he is calling for violence against American citizens during a moment of pain for so many. I’m furious, and you should be too.”

Say It Ain’t Joe

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said Friday he would pledge to recognize the Armenian genocide if elected president. President Trump and past U.S. presidents have chosen to sidestep the issue.

“If elected, I pledge to support a resolution recognizing the Armenian Genocide and will make universal human rights a top priority,” Biden said on Twitter.

Joe Biden’s allies are concerned that the former vice president’s campaign will not be able to compete with President Trump’s fundraising juggernaut, particularly as the COVID-19 pandemic wreaks havoc on the economy.

“It’s our biggest problem right now in the general election,” one aide acknowledged.

A New York Time analysis found that the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee have a $187 million advantage over the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee.

Presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden is mostly watching from the sidelines as fellow Democrats in Congress and at the state level clash with President Trump over the federal government’s response to the coronavirus.

With the election just a little more than six months away, the Democrats making headlines almost every day are Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.), Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and governors such as Andrew Cuomo of New York.

In past presidential campaigns, the presumptive nominee — whether Democrat or Republican — has quickly become the party’s standard-bearer, taking the lead in staking out policy positions.

But Biden has taken a different approach during the pandemic.

“For the most part, he’s been silent,” said Steve Jarding, a Democratic strategist. “The burden has fallen on the Speaker and Leader Schumer.”

“My guess is the Biden folks are thinking that if he says anything it’s political and he doesn’t want to politicize the pandemic.”

Justice Democrats and the Sunrise Movement are calling on former Vice President Joe Biden to remove Larry Summers from his panel of economic advisers. The move marks the first big demand the progressive groups have made of the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

The two groups were part of a slate of organizations who sent Biden a list of demands they want to see him adopt ahead of the general election. The organizations claim that Summers is unfit to carry out progressive issues.

A former neighbor of Joe Biden’s accuser Tara Reade has come forward to corroborate her sexual assault account, saying Reade discussed the allegations in detail in the mid-1990s. Biden has not addressed the accusations, but a campaign spokesperson says they are false. In addition to the denial from Biden’s campaign, other former Senate staffers have emerged to cast doubt on Reade’s accusations.

Progressive Caucus co-chairwoman Rep. Pramila Jayapal on Monday endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden for president, showing further unification of the Democratic Party ahead of the general election.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden’s White House bid, becoming the latest prominent Democrat to officially lend her support to the party’s presumptive nominee.

Hillary Clinton endorsed Joe Biden’s bid for the White House on Tuesday, making her the latest party leader to throw her support behind the presumptive Democratic nominee.

The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee and former secretary of State announced her support for the former vice president during a virtual town hall event focusing on the impact of the coronavirus outbreak on women.

Former senior aides to Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) presidential campaign are launching a new super PAC aimed at rallying progressives behind former Vice President Joe Biden in his battle against President Trump in November.

The group, which will be called Future to Believe In, will be led by Jeff Weaver, a senior adviser to the Sanders 2020 campaign.

Former Vice President Joe Biden said Monday he would return to Obama-era policies of engagement with Cuba and reverse the Trump administration’s sanctions if he wins the White House race in November.

“In large part, I would go back,” Biden said in an interview with a CBS affiliate in Miami. “I’d still insist they keep the commitments they said they would make when we, in fact, set the policy in place.”

Former Vice President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that he hopes to have potential running mates vetted by July, a sign that a final selection may not come until later in the summer

Former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign has reached a deal with Sen. Bernie Sanders that will allow the progressive former White House hopeful to keep hundreds of delegates to the Democratic National Convention this summer to increase party unity and give his supporters a say at the nominating convention.

Top Democrats are defending former Vice President Joe Biden against allegations made by Tara Reade, a former aide who says the then-senator sexually assaulted her in 1993.

Two powerful Democratic women — Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), a former rival to Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination, and Stacey Abrams, a top candidate to be Biden’s running mate — have come to Biden’s defense, saying that women have the right to be heard but that they do not believe Reade’s allegations against Biden.

“I know Joe Biden, and I think he’s telling the truth and this did not happen,” Abrams said on CNN.

The Biden campaign has denied the allegations, although Biden has not addressed the matter himself.

Joe Biden’s campaign is discussing how to get the former vice president out of the basement where he’s been holed up since March because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden’s team is taking a baby-steps approach so far, according to sources familiar with the discussions.

But the need to change things up is growing more urgent, especially now that President Trump is signaling he intends to return to the road months ahead of the fall presidential campaign.

Joe Biden denied sexual assault allegations made by a former staffer. “This is an open book. There’s nothing for me to hide, nothing at all,” the US Democratic presidential candidate said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. The allegations were made by his former staffer Tara Reade. During the appearance, he called for the release of any potential records related to the allegations.