Biden holds campaign rally in Wisconsin before highly-anticipated ABC News interview

Live10 updates

• Fri, July 5, 2024 at 11:37 AM PDT

  Yahoo News answers reader questions about Biden and the 2024 election

  

  This week, we asked readers to send in their questions about Biden’s future and the 2024 election. We received hundreds of responses and will continue to print them in installments. Here’s the first, which includes a question from Robert of Oaks Bluff, Ma.

  Will the ABC News interview [with Biden] be edited?

  Biden’s high-stakes interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos will be aired unedited, in its entirety, the network says. This week, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said “it is essential” for Biden to sit for “interviews with serious journalists” in order to reassure voters disturbed by his faltering debate performance. Yahoo News will live blog Friday’s interview.

  Read the full article here.

• 

  Fri, July 5, 2024 at 11:27 AM PDT

  Can a new presidential candidate still get on state ballots?

  When it comes to the Democratic and Republican parties, their summer conventions provide an opportunity to select a candidate who will be set to automatically make it onto the ballot i n all 50 states, USA Today reports:

  According to the National Association of Secretaries of State, a presidential candidate nominated by a political party that reaches certain criteria, usually based on the number of votes cast at a recent election, is placed on the general election ballot. The Democratic and Republican Parties easily reached the criteria in each state earlier this year.

  This means that if Biden or Trump are nominated by their respective parties, their names will appear on the general election ballot in each state.

  But if one of them were to drop out and/or a different candidate was nominated at the convention, that person instead would be placed on the general election ballot.

  Click here to read the full article.

• 

  Fri, July 5, 2024 at 11:17 AM PDT

  New Yahoo News/YouGov poll: 60% of Americans say Biden is not fit for another term as president

  A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll confirmed what most viewers sensed after last Thursday’s presidential debate: that it was a disastrous night for the 81-year-old Biden, who looked unsteady, sounded sick, stumbled over his words and, at one point, lost his train of thought entirely.

  A full 60% of Americans now say Biden is not “fit to serve another term as president.” Just 24% say he is fit. The president’s fitness rating has been that low only once before, in November 2023, and it has never been worse.

  Yet the survey of 1,754 U.S. adults, which was conducted from June 28 to July 1, also shows that Biden (43%) remains statistically tied with Trump (45%), in a head-to-head matchup among registered voters — even after a performance that seemed to substantiate long-standing concerns about the president’s age and competence going forward.

• 

  Fri, July 5, 2024 at 11:00 AM PDT

  Biden’s ABC interview may be ‘watershed moment’

  The Associated Press reports on how much of Biden’s reelection campaign may be resting on his performance during Friday’s ABC News interview:

  It could be a watershed moment for Biden, who is under pressure to bow out of the campaign after his disastrous debate performance against Republican Donald Trump ignited concern that the 81-year-old Democrat is not up for the job for another four years.

  The interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, being taped after a campaign rally in Madison, Wisconsin, is expected to be intensive and probing, and two people familiar with the president’s efforts said he had been preparing aggressively. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal planning.

  There was broad agreement that Biden cannot afford to have another “bad day,” which is how he wrote off his debate flop. It was not clear that even a so-so performance would be enough to satisfy concerns about his fitness to serve.

  Click here to read the full article.

• 

  Fri, July 5, 2024 at 10:50 AM PDT

  Biden contradicts earlier White House claim on seeing doctor after debate

  NBC News reported on the White House’s evolving statement as to whether Biden saw a doctor after last week’s debate:

  President Joe Biden told Democratic governors Wednesday that he’d been cleared by a doctor after last week’s debate, contradicting earlier statements from the White House about his medical care.

  …

  Asked whether he’d received medical care after the debate, he told the assembled governors he was checked out by a doctor and that everything was fine, according to two sources familiar with the exchange. A few hours earlier, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stated that Biden hadn’t undergone any medical exams since February when he last received a thorough physical and took several tests.

  Click here to read the full article.

• 

  Fri, July 5, 2024 at 10:24 AM PDT

  Biden campaign drops $50 million July ad buy

  The Biden campaign is rolling out a July campaign schedule and advertising blitz in an attempt to show it is still very much in the race and committed to battling Donald Trump. Politico has more:

  The president’s team announced on Friday that it would be layering more spending on top of the $50 million it has already spent on ads in June. The campaign also rolled out more details on its canvassing program, as they plan to knock on 3 million doors over the next two months. They also said Biden will headline NAACP and UnidosUS conferences in Las Vegas, which will serve as his counter-programming during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in mid-July.

  …

  The memo, released on Friday morning, pledged that Biden is “expected to engage in frequent off-the-cuff moments over the course of the month, as he has consistently throughout this campaign.” These unscripted moments have taken on even more importance, since the president often relies heavily on teleprompters during his events, both public and private.

  Click here to read the full article.

• 

  Fri, July 5, 2024 at 10:04 AM PDT

  What is an open convention?

  USA Today answers several questions about how a so-called open convention would play out at the upcoming Democratic National Convention.

  An open convention happens when there is no pre-determined nominee to award the title, and the nominating process to find one would take place at the convention where delegates, once bound to Biden, would be able to cast their votes for whichever new candidate that emerged they wanted.

  The Democratic party hasn’t had an open convention since 1968 during disputes over the Vietnam War.

  Click here to read the full article.

• Fri, July 5, 2024 at 9:50 AM PDT

  If Biden steps aside, who could replace him?

  Pressure is mounting on Biden following his disastrous performance in last week’s debate as questions swirl over his viability as a candidate in the 2024 presidential race.

  The president, for his part, has shown no outward signs that he plans to step aside. He reportedly assured staffers on a campaign call Wednesday that “I am running,” adding, “no one’s pushing me out. I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end, and we’re going to win.”

  Here’s the not-so-short shortlist of hypothetical Biden replacements. click here to read more about who they are and how they rank among voters in a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll conducted after the debate.

  • Kamala Harris, vice president of the United States

  • Gavin Newsom, governor of California

  • Pete Buttigieg, U.S. secretary of transportation

  • Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan

  • Josh Shapiro, governor of Pennsylvania

  • J.B. Pritzker, governor of Illinois

  • Wes Moore, governor of Maryland

  • Andy Beshear, governor of Kentucky

  • Raphael Warnock, senator from Georgia

  • Michelle Obama, former first lady

  Click here to read the full article from Yahoo News.

• 

  Fri, July 5, 2024 at 9:36 AM PDT

  Biden departs for Wisconsin

  

  Biden departed Joint Base Andrews for Madison, Wis., just before 12:30 p.m. ET.

  When asked by a reporter if he could still beat Trump in the 2024 race, Biden replied “yes” before walking up the steps to board his plane.

• 

  Fri, July 5, 2024 at 9:30 AM PDT

  ‘Polite but probing’ Stephanopoulos to interview Biden

  Agence France-Presse profiled George Stephanopoulos, the former Bill Clinton adviser turned ABC News host who will be conducting President Biden’s high-stakes Friday interview.

  Known for his polite but probing style, Stephanopoulos, 63, has interviewed many heads of state including Barack Obama, Russian President Vladimir Putin and former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

  The focus of the interview will undoubtedly be Biden’s health after the president’s debate against Donald Trump, in which Biden lost his train of thought several times, stumbled over words and syntax and spoke incoherently.

  Born to a Greek family in Massachusetts, Stephanopoulos grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, where both of his parents worked in the American Greek Orthodox Church.

  After graduating near the top of his class with a degree in political science from Columbia University in New York, Stephanopoulos moved to Washington to work as a congressional aide.

  Click here to read the full article.