Welcome to DailyMail.com’s U.S. politics blog with two days until the highly-anticipated first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
Biden has been holed up at Camp David preparing while Trump has called for his rival to take a drug test before their primetime showdown on CNN at 9pm on Thursday.
A new poll in Georgia, where the debate is being held, has good news for Trump.
And ex-President Barack Obama‘s half-sister Auma Obama told CNN she was tear-gassed at a tax protest in Kenya.
Follow all the updates from our reporters in Washington D.C. and around the country.
Obama’s half-sister shockingly discloses she was tear-gassed during tax protest in Nairobi: ‘I can’t even see anymore’
Ex-President Barack Obama’s half-sister Auma Obama told CNN that she was tear-gassed at a tax protest in Kenya.
She said despite ‘young Kenyans’ protesting peacefully holding just ‘flags and banners’ she was tear-gassed as part of the crowd and ‘can’t even see anymore.’
Auma was coughing in the video, exclaiming: ‘They’re being tear-gassed, they’re being tear-gassed!’
The protests are in opposition to a finance bill that is currently being debated in the General Assembly, according to reports.
‘How can you tear gas your own people?’ she stated. ‘Listen to these children, they are the future.’
Auma Obama grew up in the remote village of Nyang’oma Kogelo, Kenya, and first met her half-brother Barack Obama when they were in their 20s.
What will Trump and Biden do after the debate?
After Thursday’ night’s debate in Atlanta, Joe Biden will not be hanging around.
The president will head straight to a campaign event in Raleigh, North Carolina.
On Friday, he will go on to New York for another campaign event.
He will then hold events in New York and New Jersey on Saturday, before heading for the presidential retreat at Camp David.
Trump plans to hold a rally in Virginia on Friday following a rise it he polls in that state.
A reminder of ‘Squad’ congressman Jamaal Bowman’s expletive-ridden speech at the weekend
Julian Assange’s flight cost of $500,000 covered by crowd funding
The Wikileaks founder’s chartered flight from the U.K. to Australia is reportedly costing $500,000.
His wife Stella said the fee for the private plane will be covered by a crowd funding effort.
She asked supporters to follow along with Assange’s flight on Flight Aware ‘in case something goes wrong.’
Julian Assange’s plane takes off from Bangkok
A plane with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange departed Bangkok after refueling Tuesday.
Assange is now on the way to Saipan to enter a plea deal with the U.S. government that will free him and resolve the legal case over the publication of a trove of classified documents.
He is expected to plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defense information, the U.S. Justice Department said in a letter filed in court.
Assange is expected to return to Australia if a judge accepts the plea agreement.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese cautiously welcomed the development. He said:
Regardless of the views that people have about Mr. Assange’s activities, the case has dragged on for too long.
Pressure grows on Justin Trudeau after Canada’s Liberals suffer major upset in Toronto
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party has suffered a major upset in a special election for a Toronto district it has held for three decades.
It raising further doubts about Trudeau’s leadership ahead of next year’s general election.
Elections Canada reported Tuesday that opposition Conservative candidate Don Stewart narrowly won the Toronto-St. Paul’s district, one of 338 seats in Canada’s House of Commons.
The Liberals had held Toronto-St. Paul’s since 1993.
Canadian historian Robert Bothwell said:
Justin’s position is seriously weakened inside the party.
Iranian Ayatollah rails against America
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei railed against America as he lambasted Masoud Pezeshkian, the sole reformist candidate in the country’s upcoming presidential election.
In a speech Khamenei said:
Some politicians in our country believe they must kowtow to this power or that power, and it’s impossible to progress without sticking to famous countries and powers.
Some think like that. Or they think that all ways to progress pass through America.
Khamenei’s comments in his hour-long speech drew repeated cries of ‘Death to America, death to Israel’ from the crowd.
Biden accused by GOP hardliners of ‘desperate gambit to get votes’ by freeing Julian Assange
Ilhan Omar calls Jamaal Bowman the ‘people’s champion’
Ilhan Omar has urged voters in New York to support fellow progressive ‘Squad’ member of Congress Jamaal Bowman.
Bowman launched an expletiive-ridden tirade at a weekend rally against the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
Kamala Harris reveals ‘how she does it’ at event with actress Francia Raisa in Arizona
Vice President Kamala Harris continues on her tour to promote abortion rights ahead of the 2024 election where she held an event in Arizona last night with actress Francia Raisa.
Raisa marveled at Harris’ busy schedule, asking her how she managed it all.
‘I work out in the morning, I think it’s important to eat breakfast,’ Harris said laughing.
The vice president repeated her advice for young people, reminding them that she eats the word ‘no’ for breakfast.
‘I eat no for breakfast. I don’t hear no. Don’t you hear it. Don’t you hear no,’ she said.
Harris remains primarily focused on the issue of abortion rights, kicking off a campaign push on the issue on the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe V. Wade.
Harris shared her ‘notes from the field’ on the issue on abortion.
‘There is a movement afoot and we are all part of that movement,’ she said. ‘The people who were the leaders of this movement that got Roe to be the law of the land for 50 years, they have passed the baton to us, and the question is now while we are carrying the baton, what are we doing with it and I know we are taking our role and responsibility seriously’
She encouraged supporters to rally in support of the Biden/Harris ticket.
‘We are going to win. We are going to win. We are going to win,’ she repeated. ‘It won’t be easy but we are going to win.’
No donations to Trump from Fortune 100 CEOs
Not a single CEO of a Fortune 100 company has so far donated to Donald Trump, Axios reported.
Trump did not receive a donation from any of them in 2016 either, but did pick up a few in 2020.
Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, president of the Yale Chief Executive Leadership Institute, who gathered the data, wrote in the New York Times:
The top corporate leaders working today, like many Americans, aren’t entirely comfortable with either Mr. Trump or President Biden.
Trump group rolls out ‘No Tax on Tips stickers’ as it steps up effort to woo working class voters
Allies of former President Donald Trump on Tuesday are launching ‘No Tax on Tips’ stickers to turn every restaurant receipt into a campaign billboard.
Trump unveiled his campaign pledge earlier this month during a rally in Las Vegas as he tries to woo workers in service industries, promising that tipped workers would no long pay taxes on gratuities if he wins reelection in November.
The idea has caught hold among supporters who have been writing ‘no tax on tips’ on their receipts.
Now MAGA Inc.—the primary Super PAC supporting Trump’s 2024 campaign—is offering to make it easier with stickers
Taylor Budowich, the group’s chief executive, said: ‘It’s simple: President Trump wants hardworking American to keep more money in their pocket, Joe Biden wants to take it to give to illegal immigrants.
Hillary Clinton claims Donald Trump will unleash ‘blizzard of lies’ on debate stage
Hillary Clinton has offered her advice to Joe Biden on debating Donald Trump, which she did in 2016.
Writing in the New York Times Clinton said it is ‘nearly impossible to focus on substance’ debating Trump. She said:
In our three debates in 2016, he unleashed a blizzard of interruptions, insults and lies that overwhelmed the moderators and did a disservice to the voters…
It is a waste of time to try to refute Mr. Trump’s arguments like in a normal debate. It’s nearly impossible to identify what his arguments even are. He starts with nonsense and then digresses into blather. This has gotten only worse in the years since we debated
…expectations for him are so low that if he doesn’t literally light himself on fire on Thursday evening, some will say he was downright presidential.
How racy Republican Lauren Boebert could win her Colorado primary despite messy divorce, son’s legal drama, groping and vaping on a date and other antics
In a new district and swamped in controversy, Rep. Lauren Boebert faces off in a crowded primary on Tuesday.
The fiery Colorado Republican switched from the 3rd to the 4th congressional district to run in former Rep. Ken Buck’s more reliably Republican seat in the upcoming election after barely prevailing over her Democratic opponent Adam Frisch in the last election.
On Tuesday she will face off against state Reps. Mike Lynch and Richard Holtorf, conservative activist and talk radio host Deborah Flora, Logan County Commissioner and former state Senate President Pro Tempore Jerry Sonnenberg and banking executive Peter Yu.
The Colorado residents who haven’t made their choice – and may pay more attention to the controversies surrounding her – could be crucial to Boebert’s survival in Congress.
Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan suffers huge blow
Two federal judges in Kansas and Missouri on Monday sided with several Republican-led states and stopped the Democrat from moving forward with a key student debt relief initiative.
In total, the Administration has already approved almost $160 billion in relief for nearly 4.6 million borrowers.
U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree in Wichita, Kansas, blocked the U.S. Department of Education from proceeding with parts of a plan set to take effect July 1 designed to lower monthly payments and speed up loan forgiveness for millions of Americans.
Trump claims he was ‘tortured’ in Fulton County Jail
A fundraising email from Donald Trump‘s election campaign claims the former president was ‘tortured’ when he turned himself into a Georgia jail last August.
They splashed his glowering image across campaign merchandise including t-shirts, mugs, beer koozies and more.
Ahead of Trump’s first debate with Biden and in the wake of his convictions in Manhattan, they’re using it again in a campaign mailer sent out Monday.
The email writes: ‘I want you to remember what they did to me. They tortured me in the Fulton County Jail, and TOOK MY MUGSHOT. So guess what?’
Squad member Jamaal Bowman faces disaster in New York
Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman is fighting for his political survival as voters head to the polls in New York for the Democratic primary.
The far-left Squad member is locked in a contentious primary against George Latimer, and polls show he is hanging on by a thread.
The primary will test whether his support for Palestinians, his furious criticism of Israel and his progressive policies will lead to his downfall in his Bronx and Westchester district.
Bowman is seeking a third term in a primary that has seen historic levels of spending. The powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has poured $15million into the campaign against him.
‘We are going to show f***ing AIPAC, the power of the motherf***ing South Bronx!’ Bowman yelled Saturday at a rally with fellow progressive ‘Squad’ member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
Donald Trump leads Joe by Biden by five points in Georgia ahead of debate
Donald Trump leads Joe Biden by five points in Georgia two days ahead of the pivotal first presidential debate, which is being held in the state
It comes as the two candidates make final preparation for what could be one of the most consequential showdowns ever in presidential politics. CNN is hotsing the debate in Atlanta on Thursday night.
The poll is a setback for Biden who became the first Democrat in nearly 30 years to win the Peach State in 2020 on his way to the White House.
Biden’s support has plummeted among young voters in Georgia with only 12 percent supporting him.
Overall, 70 percent said the country is on the ‘wrong track,’ according to the poll.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. got 9 percent in the poll, and 8 percent were undecided.