Inside the ‘doom loop’ of Joe Biden’s campaign
CNN
Multiple leading Democrats tell CNN they feel caught in what one described as a “doom loop,” with every move to keep President Joe Biden in or push him out further destroying their chances against Donald Trump.
Multiple leading Democrats tell CNN they feel caught in what one described as a “doom loop,” with every move to keep President Joe Biden in or push him out further destroying their chances against Donald Trump. It’s breaking the resolve of even staunch allies. It’s feeding bad polls. It’s turning off more donors. It’s sustaining a media atmosphere where no matter what Biden does, he comes off looking like a failure. And for those who were hoping Biden would quit, the public and private pressure, several top Democrats worry, has been backfiring. “His last act will not be getting knocked down,” said one longtime Biden 2020 campaign aide of the family and the inner circle. “They won’t allow it.” Even several Democrats who want Biden to go acknowledge they’ve created a situation where he will never able to satisfy the “tests” skeptics have said he must pass to stay their nominee. They are buckling down harder, especially when the critiques are more based on vibes, like when Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin suggested in a session between top aides and Senate Democrats last week to “put him in a muscle shirt, like Reagan chopping wood,” according to one person briefed on the discussion. CNN’s conversations with two dozen Democratic officials, aides in the White House and the campaign reelection headquarters and supportive groups demonstrate just how dark and confused the situation has become even with Trump’s rambling and combative convention speech on Thursday night giving the Biden campaign glimmers of hope for the first time in weeks.
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.