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Hanging over next year’s election is the legacy of the 2020 vote, which Donald Trump and his allies attempted to cast, without evidence, as fraudulent. Last week, Dominion Voting Systems settled its defamation lawsuit against Fox News over the network’s alleged propagation of these lies, forestalling a trial that could have revealed more about the election disinformation campaign. The Guardian’s Kira Lerner looks at whether Dominion’s decision to settle was a missed opportunity to safeguard America’s elections:
Election officials across the US have faced an unprecedented amount of threats and harassment since the 2020 election. Now they say that Dominion Voting Systems’ decision to settle its landmark defamation lawsuit with Fox for $787.5m last week may not do enough to stop conspiracy theories about the company’s machines leading into the 2024 election.
While election officials in states and localities that use Dominion machines agree the settlement is a win for the integrity of elections, they lamented that election misinformation will continue, especially given that Fox News personalities and executives didn’t have to testify about whether they knowingly spread false claims about the voting machines, or offer a public apology.
The Maricopa county recorder, Stephen Richer, who was asked by Dominion to sit for testimony in the litigation in September, said he expects the misinformation about Dominion machines, which is one of the most prevalent types he hears about regularly, to continue.
“This is not a panacea, especially at the grassroots level,” he said about the settlement. “I don’t think that a bunch of people are going to now say, ‘Oh it seems that tabulation equipment was actually OK.’”
Biden to continue hammering GOP in re-election campaign
Besides making his re-election campaign official with a video address scheduled for sometime this week, Joe Biden’s big announcement won’t change much, the Associated Press reports.
Aides to the president say Biden “has essentially been campaigning since Republicans took control of the House last year”, according to the AP. His agenda since Democrats lost control of Congress’s lower chamber has focused on reminding Americans of his legislative accomplishments – which include a major bill to tackle climate change and another intended to revamp America’s outdated infrastructure – while casting the GOP as too extreme to be trusted.
Here’s more on that, from the AP:
While advisers say Biden’s activities and message in coming months will be largely indistinguishable from what he’s been doing over the last six months, the frame of reference will inevitably shift as voters increasingly tune in to 2024 political dynamics.
“President Biden is delivering and making the strong case for reelection before, during and after any formal campaign announcement,” said Democratic consultant and former Biden spokesman Scott Mulhauser. “Rather than throwing darts at calendars, let’s focus on the President doing his job and doing it well, from an investing in America tour, an economy humming and unemployment at historic lows to a home run of a State of the Union, an expertly pulled-off Ukraine trip and more.”
He added: “These wins on economic and political fronts onward are what success looks like, how incumbents win and matter far more than a campaign kick-off event.”
Aides are planning for Biden’s launch video to be released Tuesday, the four-year anniversary of his first successful campaign launch, but said the timing was still fluid. It was not immediately clear whether the president, who was spending the weekend at Camp David, had as yet taped it. He was expected to select Julie Rodriguez, a senior White House adviser, to manage his reelection campaign, according to two people familiar with deliberations.
Biden has taken his time in making official his candidacy for reelection not because he’s wavered in his commitment to run, a half-dozen aides and advisers said, but because there was little incentive to do it sooner.
Biden expected make 2024 run official with video announcement this week
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Today may be the last day the worst-kept secret in Washington is actually a secret. Joe Biden has been expected to announce his re-election campaign for months, and is reportedly going to make the bid public in a video to be released this week, perhaps as soon as tomorrow. There’s a lot to say about this decision, and plenty of time to say it – the election takes place on 5 November, 2024. But here’s one thing that can be said right now: Biden currently has no serious primary challengers, while Donald Trump is at this point the far and away favorite among Republicans. Next year’s elections could look a lot like the 2020 campaign – but with some key differences that we’ll get to on the blog later on.
Here’s what else is happening today:
Biden will at 3.15pm eastern time welcome to the White House the “Tennessee Three” – the trio of Democratic Tennessee state lawmakers who protested noisily for gun control on the chamber floor, two of whom were (unsuccessfully) expelled for it.
Congress will be dominated this week by the House GOP bill to increase the debt limit while also slashing government spending and implementing a number of conservative priorities. Democrats hate it, but the debt ceiling needs to be increased at some point in the next few weeks, no matter what.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will brief reporters at 1.15pm.
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