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Why Biden's protest problem has reached deep-blue California and why it matters

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Why Biden's protest problem has reached deep-blue California and why it matters

As former President Trump’s motorcade coursed through Beverly Hills, Newport Beach and San Francisco last week, packs of MAGA hat-wearing, flag-waving fans lined the posh streets and coastal highways and cheered.

Yet when Vice President Kamala Harris, who was raised among community activists in Berkeley, headed to a San Francisco fundraiser the same week, a throng of more than 100 pro-Palestinian demonstrators chanted, “Shame on you!”

The disparate treatment — at least via street protests — has been building for months, amid a spring dominated by college campus protests. But the snapshot of love for Trump and anger with Harris and President Biden has grown more striking as the protests move to the campaign trail, especially in deep-blue California, where large majorities of voters agree with Harris and Biden that Trump represents a threat to democracy.

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Activists and political leaders in California and around the country point to a range of reasons for protesting against Biden, their would-be ally, more than Trump, whom they see as a wannabe dictator.

Biden is bearing the burden of incumbency that he didn’t face four years ago, facing a tough-love approach from some left-leaning activists who believe they can still push him further left. And while some protesters favor neither candidate, most have rejected Trump, whom they see as irredeemable.

Support for the president in California remains high — Biden has a 20-point lead over Trump in the state, according to polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight. But Democrats at the national level are concerned that the optics of anti-Biden protests could hurt the president, as many polls show him either locked in a tie or losing to Trump.

“The thing that we’re all worried about, of course, is when it comes time for politics, can people reconcile that while the Middle East policy choices may not have been exactly right by Biden, is he still the best political choice?” said Faiz Shakir, chief political advisor for Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, a progressive independent. “And the jury is still out on that.”

Protests do not equal votes, of course. But anti-Trump fervor in California has been a powerful and persistent force on the left since 2016, sparking clashes with counterprotesters that turned violent at times, drawing police presence, massive crowds and headlines. Anti-Trump sentiment carried into Trump’s presidency, and the 2020 election, even amid pandemic-era social distancing rules, helping fuel a coalition that defeated him.

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“Donald Trump is being rejected by large swaths of his own party … They are rejecting his failed leadership, his divisive rhetoric, and his threats of political violence against demonstrators or anyone who dares to disagree with Dictator Trump,” said Biden campaign spokesperson Sarafina Chitika in a statement to The Times. “President Biden, meanwhile, is able to bring people together even when they don’t always agree.”

Some activists say privately that the violence at those events has deterred some activists from going out into the streets. And though many protesters on the left say they fear a return to office for Trump, many do not see themselves as aligned with the Democratic Party. Their main goal is changing policy, not electing a president.

Even so, many say a Trump presidency could put all of their goals at extreme risk, starting with the right to protest.

The Biden administration’s stance on the war between Israel and Hamas, which is fueling much of the anger among activists, is much closer to the protesters’ than Trump’s, who has endorsed Israeli control of contested lands and urged Israel to “get the job done” in Gaza.

“At some point, you have this bubbling up. I don’t believe the protesters are saying, ‘We are protesting Biden because we want Trump.’ They already know what Trump is,” said the Rev. William Barber II, one of the nation’s leading civil rights and anti-poverty activists who directs the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale University.

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When Trump arrived in Newport Beach on June 8, Orange County Democrats were too busy getting out the vote for down-ballot races to worry about the top of the ticket, said Ada Briceño, chair of the county party. Volunteers were knocking on doors, touting Dave Min for Congress and attending an ice cream social for Tammy Kim’s mayoral campaign in Irvine.

Susan Hildreth, president of the Democrats of Rossmoor in the Bay Area, said her volunteers have also kept busy writing postcards and door-knocking for Central Valley congressional candidates such as Rudy Salas. Her group is mostly composed of people over 55 who are less inclined to participate in protests, she said.

“We’re ardently, ardently anti-Trump,” said Hildreth, 72. The lack of Trump critics taking to the streets “may have more to do with the general age of this group than anything else. It doesn’t mean that we don’t care!”

Still, the California Democrats hadn’t entirely neglected Trump. A couple of antagonists made their way into the Newport Beach MAGA crowd along the motorcade, crying “Happy Pride!” and eliciting some heckles. An “Orange County votes Biden/Harris 2024” banner trailed behind an airplane.

In San Francisco, an inflatable Trump-like chicken decked in black-and-white prison stripes was ferried around the bay on a boat labeled “Alcatraz Prison Transport.”

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Armand Domalewski, a 34-year-old data analyst, pulled together a group of about 50 people to stand across a San Francisco street from hordes of Trump supporters, who he said occasionally crossed over to taunt his side.

“There’s just an odd asymmetry between the parties,” Domalewski said, noting that Democrats, as well as Republicans, have been protesting against Democrats. That reality “makes it really hard, because that’s both sides protesting us.”

Though he’s attended many protests, last week was the first time Domalewski had coordinated one himself — because no one else did, he said. The Trump supporters were evidently more organized. Vocal too. Some, anticipating Trump’s birthday, sang “Happy Birthday.” (He turned 78 Friday.)

Even in 2020, Biden was never a movement candidate like Sanders or Trump, who held big inspirational rallies and raised small-dollar donations from die-hard fans; Biden also did some campaigning virtually to protect against COVID-19. And unlike Trump, who regularly employs violent language and rousing images at his rallies, Biden has campaigned as a calming unifier.

“We have not seen a fighting Joe Biden,” Shakir said.

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Though Biden has governed as a progressive, “he isn’t a populist by nature who gives you the sort of emotional satisfaction of a cause and a movement and a mission,” Shakir said. His argument is competence and good judgment, he added, which doesn’t play as well in an arena.

Trump has been the galvanizing force in politics to both his supporters and his detractors. One of the biggest protests against him occurred in 2017, the day after his inauguration, when thousands of women gathered in Washington and across the country to denounce him and stand up for gender equality.

But the political group that formed in the wake of that protest, the Women’s March, has so far endorsed candidates only in local and state races and is rethinking its approach to confronting Trump. Street protests may not be the best strategy.

Trump “vowed to be a dictator on day one, so we know that he would not take protests seriously. He would not take global human rights concerns seriously,” said Tamika Middleton, the group’s managing director.

But Women’s March may keep its focus on reproductive rights and women’s equality to avoid giving Trump a platform, noting that he has raised money and won attention in adverse situations, including his 34 felony convictions.

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Trump “sort of revels in the kind of attention of a women’s march going head to head,” she said.

Biden is set to return to California for a posh downtown Los Angeles fundraiser Saturday, featuring Hollywood elites such as George Clooney and Julia Roberts, as well as former President Obama.

Already, Jewish Voice for Peace has announced it will greet his arrival with a protest.

Bierman reported from Washington and Pinho from Los Angeles.

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Biden donors put up $10 million in effort to compete with Trump campaign’s viral videos: report

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Biden donors put up $10 million in effort to compete with Trump campaign’s viral videos: report

President Biden’s allies have donated at least $10 million in an effort to compete against the Trump campaign’s prolific use of social media, according to a new report.

Leaders at Biden’s top re-election super PAC, Future Forward USA Action, fear that the current president is losing the viral video war to Trump and his allies, Reuters reported. Trump and his fellow Republicans have bombarded social media with videos of Biden freezing or otherwise appearing old at public events for weeks.

The Democratic super PAC boasts supporters like Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and LinkedIn founder Reed Hoffman. The effort aims to help Biden’s campaign understand how social media algorithms work, in addition to collaborating with pro-Biden influencers.

“Future Forward is around to help solve problems, and TikTok is a problem and the group is reasonably trying to solve that problem,” one Democrat source told Reuters.

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President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event at the Martin Luther King Recreation Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, on Thursday, April 18, 2024. (Hannah Beier/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Since February, when the Biden campaign officially joined the TikTok platform, it has posted more than 200 times and garnered just over 380,000 followers. Trump joined TikTok barely two weeks ago but has already accumulated 6.4 million followers.

Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee has been leaning into Biden’s age issues by sharing footage of him freezing up or appearing confused at public events. 

The White House has condemned the clips as “cheap fakes,” but there is little evidence to suggest the clips have been altered in a deceptive way.

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Since February, when the Biden campaign officially joined the TikTok platform, it has posted more than 200 times and garnered just over 380,000 followers. Trump joined TikTok barely two weeks ago but has already accumulated 6.4 million followers. (Felipe Ramales for Fox News Digital)

The “cheap fakes” line has proven to be the White House’s primary defense against embarrassing videos of Biden in recent weeks.

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The term was used in some news articles as early as 2019, but there were significantly more this week following the videos on social media of Biden.

Not everyone is buying the explanation, however. This is all part of “election slogans and buzzwords,” according to Heritage Foundation tech researcher Jake Denton.

Biden gives gun safety remarks

The “cheap fakes” line has proven to be with White House’s primary defense against embarrassing videos of Biden in recent weeks. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

“It’s very clear what’s going on here,” Denton told Fox News Digital. “They’re trying to push a new term underneath the school of misinformation to try and pressure social media companies to take action on videos of this nature.”

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“This kind of requires a ramp-up stage where you allege that something is a ‘cheap fake,’ or that it’s malicious in some way related to misinformation, and then you have essentially the evidence, the fact pattern, whatever, to go and push the social media companies with takedown requests, because it’s misinformation regarding an election. So to me, that’s kind of the seed that’s being planted here.”

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Opinion: Can the kowtowing to Trump get any worse?

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Opinion: Can the kowtowing to Trump get any worse?

It was so predictable. Speaker “MAGA Mike” Johnson belatedly did the right thing in April by allowing the House to approve aid to Ukraine over most Republicans’ opposition. Even former Speaker Nancy Pelosi called him “courageous.” Yet ever since, he’s been truckling to his fellow House right-wingers, and to Donald Trump, to make up for his perceived heresy.

Two of Johnson’s recent actions show just how low he’ll go to kowtow to the disgraced former president and his MAGA disciples in the House, and how hypocritical they all are.

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Jackie Calmes

Jackie Calmes brings a critical eye to the national political scene. She has decades of experience covering the White House and Congress.

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On Friday, Johnson announced that the House would go to federal court to press charges against Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland for contempt of Congress. Two days earlier, the House had voted along party lines to seek the Justice Department’s prosecution of its boss. The department declined and within hours Johnson said the House would proceed on its own.

At issue is Garland’s refusal to give Republicans an audio recording they subpoenaed of President Biden’s interview last fall in the investigation of his past handling of classified documents, which didn’t result in criminal charges. Garland did provide other materials the House sought, including a transcript of the interview, but Biden asserted executive privilege over the audio.

For all the Republicans’ highfalutin posturing about respect for Congress, you know their real reason for demanding the recording: They figure the audio must include parts they can exploit to embarrass Biden. They’ve coveted it ever since the Republican special counsel who interviewed the president unnecessarily alluded in his report to Biden’s advanced age, poor memory and “diminished faculties.”

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Johnson, on message, condemned the refusal to prosecute Garland as “another example of the two-tiered system of justice brought to us by the Biden Administration.”

Only a shameless Trump toady would keep spouting that “two tiers” nonsense after the Justice Department’s successful prosecution of Biden’s son, with a second federal trial ahead in September. And House Republicans layered on another preposterous lie: Hunter Biden’s conviction was a feint to distract us from the real crimes of the father, the ones that House Republicans haven’t been able to identify despite more than a year of investigations.

The actual double standard is Republicans’: They want Garland prosecuted for only partially complying with a congressional subpoena, yet their ranks include members who utterly scorned subpoenas from the House Jan. 6 committee to testify about their efforts to help Trump overturn the 2020 election. They even turned their defiance into fundraising pitches: “I’VE BEEN SUBPOENAED” was the Trumpian headline atop one email.

That boast came from Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, now chair of the Judiciary Committee that recommended Garland be held in contempt. Prominent among the others who flouted subpoenas was Rep. Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, who begged Trump post-election to name an acting attorney general who would declare the election fraudulent. Perry’s phone, seized by FBI agents, was rich with incriminating calls and messages (“11 days to 1/6 . . . We gotta get going!” he texted the White House at one point). And no less than the highest-ranking official within the building that was attacked, then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy of Bakersfield (“My Kevin” to Trump), also ignored his subpoena to tell what he knew.

The Jan. 6 committee, in its report, justified its extraordinary subpoenas of House members by describing “the centrality of their efforts” to help Trump illegally stay in power. For example, in December 2020, Trump named Jordan and Perry when he urged resistant Justice Department officials to “just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.”

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The contempt for Congress is all theirs, not Garland’s.

Perry also figures in Johnson’s other recent Trump-toadying gambit. At the former president’s urging, the speaker quietly named Perry nd Rep. Ronny Jackson of Texas to the House Intelligence Committee, one of Congress’ most sensitive and least partisan panels, privy to classified information that most other lawmakers don’t see. It’s a posting that neither Perry nor Jackson deserve, which is why their appointments reportedly incensed the committee chair, Michael R. Turner of Ohio, among other more moderate House Republicans. Turner told CBS’ “Face the Nation” on Sunday that the speaker promised to intervene in the event of “improper” behavior by the two.

Why the concern? As former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney’s fellow Republican profile in courage on the Jan. 6 committee, put it in a recent podcast, Perry had been the House member the committee most wanted to force to testify, because he was considered “basically the driving force behind Jan. 6” among those in Congress.

As for Jackson, he so flattered Trump when he was the White House doctor that Trump picked him to be Veterans Affairs secretary, a nomination that imploded amid allegations that Jackson drank, abused staff and improperly dispensed drugs (nickname: “Candy Man”). Demoted to captain after a Pentagon investigation, he still called himself a rear admiral on his congressional website until the Washington Post revealed his deceit in March.

A former counsel to the Intelligence Committee — a Republican — said that Perry and Jackson “couldn’t get a security clearance if they’d come through any other door.” But Johnson has put them in position to know the nation’s deepest secrets just to please Trump, who is charged himself with taking and sharing classified documents.

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That makes sense only if your motivation isn’t the country’s interests but instead those of the once and perhaps future president. Which pretty much describes the House speaker.

@jackiekcalmes

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Biden campaign manager dodges question on whether immigration executive order will get president more votes

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Biden campaign manager dodges question on whether immigration executive order will get president more votes

President Biden’s campaign manager on Wednesday appeared to dodge questions about whether the president’s new executive order giving illegal immigrants a pathway to citizenship was a political move aimed at shoring up more votes before Election Day on Nov. 5. 

Julie Chavez Rodriguez appeared on CBS News’ “America Decides” for an interview with Fin Gomez that aired Wednesday evening. 

Gomez asked Rodriguez why the president’s new policy was implemented now “four and a half months out from the Nov. 5 election.”

President Biden speaks during an event marking the 12th anniversary of the Deferred Action of Childhood Arrivals program at the White House. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Rodriguez said immigration reform has been a major priority of the Biden administration since day 1. She also bashed former President Trump for encouraging Republicans to vote against a bipartisan immigration bill earlier this year.

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Gomez asked whether Rodriguez believed Biden’s new policy would encourage “mixed-status families” who benefit from this to vote for the president.

Rodriguez said families who are eligible for Biden’s executive order “will be able to sleep better tonight knowing that they have an opportunity to help ensure that they are not separated by cruel policies.”

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“They will be able to hug each other a little bit tighter knowing that they can remain together as a whole family in this country as a result of this executive order. Those are the things that matter most,” Rodriguez said.

Gomez noted that many Latino voters are turning away from President Biden and asked Rodriguez to respond to critics who say the executive order is a “political move to maintain support among Latino voters.”

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Biden DACA event

President Biden is announcing new changes to keep families together who have DACA Dreamer spouses seeking to change their immigration status. (Andrew Leyden/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Rodriguez again invoked the president’s track record on immigration since taking office, including expanding the Affordable Care Act for recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. 

At no point was the issue of border security brought up in the interview. Fox News Digital has reached out to Biden’s campaign team and the White House for additional comment.

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Biden announced Tuesday that his administration will allow U.S. citizens’ spouses without legal status to apply for permanent residency and eventually citizenship without having to first depart the country for up to 10 years. About 500,000 immigrants may benefit, according to senior administration officials.

To qualify, an immigrant must have lived in the U.S. for 10 years and be married to a U.S. citizen, both as of Monday. 

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Immigration rights activists take part in a rally in front of the Supreme Court in 2019. (Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images)

The Obama-era DACA program, which has shielded from deportation hundreds of thousands of people who came to the United States as young children, required applicants to be in the U.S. on June 15, 2012, and continuously for the previous five years.

More than 1 million illegal immigrants living in the U.S. are married to American citizens, according to advocacy group FWD.us, meaning hundreds of thousands won’t qualify because they were in the U.S. for fewer than 10 years.

About 50,000 noncitizen children with parents who are married to a U.S. citizen could also potentially qualify, according to senior administration officials who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity. 

Biden also announced new regulations that will allow some DACA beneficiaries and other young immigrants to more easily qualify for long-established work visas.

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The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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