After assassination attempt on Trump, Biden’s political challenge changes in an instant
CNN
President Joe Biden was bracing for a week of political onslaught.
President Joe Biden was bracing for a week of political onslaught. More Democratic lawmakers were expected to publicly call on him to drop out of the 2024 race, a grueling campaign schedule would put his stamina on display and a high-stakes TV interview was sure to once again spotlight questions about his age, health and fitness to serve a second term. When gunshots rang out at a Donald Trump political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Saturday evening, much of that appeared to change. At least for a brief moment, politics largely came to a halt. As bipartisan calls condemning the horrific attack on Trump poured in from all corners of the country, the Biden campaign immediately paused TV ads and political communications, and the White House would also postpone the president’s trip to Monday to Texas, where he had planned to attend a fundraiser. He also addressed the nation from the Oval Office, calling for a lowering of the political temperature. Something else largely came to a halt: The calls from within Biden’s own party for him to abandon his campaign for a second term. Until that moment, those calls had been growing by the day since his disastrous debate performance against Trump last month. Even as the Biden campaign is working to delicately navigate a moment of national trauma and shock, some allies of the president are privately hopeful that the assassination attempt on Trump may ultimately end up quelling the Democratic dissent as the party recognizes the importance of standing as a united front. Biden returns to the campaign trail this week when he visits Nevada, a critical swing state. The trip will mark his first public test of campaigning against his predecessor in front of the backdrop of a country reeling from the shocking images of Saturday. Before he leaves for Las Vegas, Biden will sit down with NBC’s Lester Holt at the White House – an interview that now holds a difference kind of significance in the aftermath of the fatal Trump rally.
FBI says it has disrupted major Chinese hacking operation that threatened US critical infrastructure
The FBI has used a court order to seize control of a network of hundreds of thousands of hacked internet routers and other devices that Chinese government-linked hackers were using to threaten critical infrastructure in the US and overseas, FBI Director Christopher Wray said Wednesday.
The Federal Reserve is preparing to cut interest rates for the first time in the Biden era after the White House spent the last three years grappling with Americans’ dissatisfaction with the cost of living, raising new questions about the health of the economy and the impact on voters at the ballot box.
Israeli officials notified the US that the country was going to carry out an operation in Lebanon on Tuesday but did not give any details about what they were planning, according to three sources familiar with the matter, including in a call between Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant early Tuesday morning.