Yes, Biden had a bad debate – but so did Trump. The media is once again repeating the mistakes of 2016

I am not usually one to offer diagnoses of people I’ve never met, but it does seem like the pundit class of the American media is suffering from severe memory loss. Because they’re doing exactly what they did in the 2016 presidential race – providing wildly asymmetrical and inflammatory coverage of the one running against Donald J Trump.

They have become a stampeding herd producing an avalanche of stories suggesting Biden is unfit, will lose, and should go away, at a point in the campaign in which replacing him would likely be somewhere between extremely difficult and utterly catastrophic. They do this while ignoring something every scholar and critic of journalism knows well and every journalist should. As Nikole Hannah-Jones put it: “As media we consistently proclaim that we are just reporting the news when in fact we are driving it. What we cover, how we cover it, determines often what Americans think is important and how they perceive these issues yet we keep pretending it’s not so.” They are not reporting that he is a loser; they are making him one.

With democracy at a moment of maximum peril, millions were pinning their hopes on the Democratic party as a last wall of defence – but the debate changed that

“With fear for our democracy, I dissent.” So wrote supreme court justice Sonia Sotomayor in a minority opinion this week. She was far from alone in the view that, with Donald Trump threatening an “ imperial presidency ”, American democracy is at a moment of maximum peril.

Millions are pinning their hopes on the Democratic party as the last wall of defence. Surely, they believed, Democrats would field their best and brightest led by a dynamic presidential candidate and demagogue slayer. Instead the party is offering 81-year-old Joe Biden and an internal civil war.

The presumptive Republican nominee has promised to give rightwing evangelical Christians what they want – and more

“Project 2025” is nothing short of a 900-page blueprint for guiding Donald Trump’s second term of office if he’s re-elected.

After the Heritage Foundation unveiled Project 2025 in April last year, when Trump was seeking the Republican nomination, he had no problem with it.

Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good . His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It , is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com

Daniels says Trump supporters have inundated her with threats to rape and murder her daughter and other family

Stormy Daniels ’ supporters have raised more than $900,000 meant to help her move to a safe house and repay legal fees after testifying in the criminal trial that led to Donald Trump’s conviction on 34 felonies.

The money comes from an online GoFundMe campaign started by a friend and former manager of the adult film actor, who recently appeared on MSNBC and described how supporters of Trump have bombarded her with social media harassment as he seeks a second presidency, including threats to rape and murder her daughter and other family.

Critics point out political roadmap for a potential second term created by ‘more than 20 officials Trump appointed’

Donald Trump is trying to claim he has “nothing to do” with Project 2025 , a political roadmap created by people close to him for his potential second term.

The project, which is led by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative thinktank, seeks to crack down on various issues including immigration, reproductive rights, environmental protections and LGBTQ+ rights. It also aims to replace federal employees with Trump loyalists across the government.

Filing asks Aileen Cannon to take scalpel to any charges considered ‘official’ acts that could not be prosecuted

Donald Trump moved on Friday to capitalize on the US supreme court’s decision to confer broad immunity to former presidents, asking the federal judge overseeing his criminal case for retaining classified documents to take a scalpel to any charges that were “official” acts that could not be prosecuted.

The supreme court this week held that former presidents enjoyed some immunity from criminal prosecution for certain conduct they undertook in office, which also meant evidence of immune acts could not be introduced as evidence at any trial even if they did not form part of the charges.

Donald Trump refused to concede and incited riots, but Rishi Sunak conducted himself with civility and respect

• UK general election: live news

“Today power will change hands in a peaceful and orderly manner, with goodwill on all sides,” a gracious Rishi Sunak declared in the small hours of Friday morning as he acknowledged his resounding defeat to Labour’s Keir Starmer.

That may have sounded like a statement of the obvious, given the transition from one British prime minister to the next was certain once the early results had come in, but it stands in sharp contrast to the last US election.

US president expected to sit for first TV interview since debate debacle, followed by an ‘aggressive travel schedule’ spanning multiple swing states

Joe Biden has had another slip-up in which he accidentally said that he is the “first Black woman” to serve as vice-president “with a Black president ”.

During an interview on Thursday with Philadelphia’s WURD radio station, Biden defended his competency following his poor debate performance last week.

Hospitality union Unite Here hopes to do the same again in 2024 election – and this time the stakes may be even higher

America’s hospitality workers had it tough in 2020. Covid triggered mass layoffs and many wondered when – and even if – the industry would recover. But the turmoil didn’t stop the industry’s largest union from pulling off one of the most successful voter drives of the election.

As the 2024 election cycle gets into full swing, Unite Here is hoping to do the same again, and this time the stakes may be even higher.