Burgum seeks to raise Biden debate expectations ahead of showdown with Trump
CNN
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a top contender to be Donald Trump’s running mate, sought to raise expectations of President Joe Biden’s debate abilities ahead of CNN’s presidential debate on Thursday.
North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a top contender to be Donald Trump’s running mate, sought to raise expectations of President Joe Biden’s debate abilities ahead of CNN’s presidential debate on Thursday. “When he needs to, he can step up,” the Republican governor told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on “State of the Union” Sunday, pushing back on what he called “a real effort on the Biden team to try to lower expectations.” Citing Biden’s long political experience, Burgum said: “This guy has got the ability – and we’ve seen it, we’ve seen him in debate four years ago. We’ve seen him in the State of the Union this year – that when he needs to, he can step up.” Burgum joins Trump and other Republican allies who have sought to forecast a formidable debate showing from the president ahead of the June 27 debate. Despite questioning Biden’s mental fitness on the campaign trail, Trump said last week that he thought Biden would be a “worthy debater,” pointing to his 2012 vice presidential debate with Paul Ryan. “I watched him with Paul Ryan, and he destroyed Paul Ryan,” Trump said. “I’m not underestimating him.” This week’s one-on-one showdown will be the first presidential debate between an incumbent and a former president. It will also be the first debate since 2020 featuring either Biden, who did not face a serious challenge for the Democratic nomination, or Trump, who skipped those held during the Republican primary race.
A California woman told police that Trump Cabinet pick Pete Hegseth physically blocked her from leaving a hotel room, took her phone, and then sexually assaulted her even though she “remembered saying ‘no’ a lot,” a police report obtained by CNN shows.
For more than a decade, Chinese students have flocked to the United States, drawn by the prestige of an overseas education and the glamor of the American Dream. But that’s changing now – and recent statistics suggest the allure may be wearing off.
After rarely being seen in public in the two weeks since he delivered a brief, 46-second victory speech on election night, JD Vance reemerged this week to play one of the most important roles he will be expected to fill as Donald Trump’s No. 2: His point person on Capitol Hill.
A Florida man was arrested Wednesday and charged in a plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange this week, according to the FBI.
The Senate on Wednesday voted down an effort led by Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders to block a series of planned US weapons sales to Israel.
Republicans on the House Ethics Committee fell in line behind GOP leaders and voted not to release the results of their investigation into Donald Trump’s attorney general pick, Matt Gaetz, despite growing calls from the Senate GOP to make the findings public ahead of his confirmation hearing.
Senate Democrats have confirmed some of President Joe Biden’s picks for the federal bench this week in the face of President-elect Donald Trump’s calls for a total GOP blockade of judicial nominations – in part because several Republicans involved with the Trump transition process have been missing votes.
A former University of Virginia student pleaded guilty Wednesday to fatally shooting three football players and wounding two other students on the Charlottesville campus in 2022.
Donald Trump is considering a right-wing media personality and people who have served on his US Secret Service detail to run the agency that has been plagued by its failure to preempt two alleged assassination attempts on Trump this summer, sources familiar with the president-elect’s thinking tell CNN.
The United States has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that called for an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, on the grounds it would not have secured the release of hostages.
A Democratic election official in Pennsylvania offered an impassioned apology Wednesday for claiming “precedent by a court doesn’t matter anymore in this country” to justify counting about 600 faulty ballots in defiance of state Supreme Court rulings.