Election 2024 latest news: Biden campaign keeps focus on abortion with new Arizona ad buy

Continuing to lean into the abortion issue, President Biden’s campaign launched a seven-figure ad buy Thursday in Arizona attempting to tie former president Donald Trump to the state Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a near-total ban on the procedure dating to 1864. Trump, who said this week that abortion policy decisions should be left to states, criticized Arizona on Wednesday, saying the action went too far.

Here’s what to know

• Biden hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for a state dinner at the White House on Wednesday. On Thursday, Biden is meeting with Kishida and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of the Philippines.
• The Biden administration is touting new regulations Thursday that aim to close the “gun show loophole,” which makes gun show sellers and online vendors subject to much looser federal regulations than vendors who sell at bricks-and-mortar stores.
• Trump is scheduled to return to the campaign trail Saturday with a rally in the battleground state of Pennsylvania.
• Sign up for our elections newsletter, The Campaign Moment, by Aaron Blake.

12:46 PM: Analysis: Arizona and Florida will fix abortion bans, Trump predicts. Not so fast.

Election 2024 latest news: Biden campaign keeps focus on abortion with new Arizona ad buy

Donald Trump and his allies have made it abundantly clear they would rather wash their hands of the harsh abortion bans in Florida and especially Arizona that threaten the GOP politically.

“So Florida’s probably going to change, Arizona’s going to definitely change,” Trump said Wednesday, while continuing to punt on saying what specifically should be done about the bans. “Everybody wants that to happen.”

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By: Aaron Blake

12:22 PM: Analysis: Trump’s first — and maybe only — trial is still viewed with skepticism

Donald Trump sits in a courtroom in New York on March 25 at a hearing in his criminal case on charges stemming from hush money paid to a porn star.

Next week, a former president of the United States is for the first time scheduled to go on trial for criminal charges. Donald Trump has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records by a Manhattan grand jury — a case that is complicated and (probably relatedly) viewed with skepticism by a lot of Americans.

It also may end up being the only indictment Trump faces that goes to trial.

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By: Philip Bump

12:00 PM: Before Trump, here’s how some other countries prosecuted their ex-leaders

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump at the signing ceremony for the Abraham Accords at the White House on Sept. 15, 2020.

When President Gerald Ford pardoned his predecessor in 1974, averting a potential trial for Richard M. Nixon, he cited a desire to keep the country calm. Prosecuting Nixon, Ford said in a public address, would inevitably plunge the nation into a bitter, polarized divide.

In the half-century since that pardon, other nations have charted a different path, prosecuting former presidents or prime minsters in France, Brazil, South Korea, Israel and elsewhere for numerous crimes, among them embezzlement, corruption, election interference and bribery.

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By: Mark Berman and David Nakamura

11:45 AM: RFK Jr. campaign fires staffer who said goal was to prevent Biden victory

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign turned down an invitation from Jill Stein’s campaign to debate.

The campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fired a staffer who reportedly told Republican voters that the candidate’s No. 1 goal is preventing President Biden from winning in November.

The staffer, Rita Palma, worked as a ballot-access consultant for the campaign in New York. In a video viewed by CNN, Palma introduced herself as the Kennedy campaign’s state director in New York during a meeting with Republicans in the state and said that putting Kennedy on the ballot there would help Trump win the historically blue Empire State by getting “rid of Biden.” That, she said, was her “number one priority.”

The only way Trump can have a “remote possibility of taking New York is if Bobby is on the ballot,” Palma said on the video, according to CNN. “If it’s Trump vs. Biden, Biden wins. Biden wins six days, seven days a week. With Bobby in the mix, anything can happen.”

In a series of posts shared on X on Thursday, Kennedy’s campaign manager and daughter-in-law Amaryllis Fox said Palma had been fired not for her comments on impacting Biden’s performance in New York but for misrepresenting herself.

“We terminated her contract for misrepresentation immediately upon seeing the longer video in which she gave an inaccurate job title and described a conversation that did not happen,” Fox said.

In another post, Fox said Palma is not the Kennedy campaign’s New York director but rather a staffer hired on a month-to-month contract to organize volunteer shifts in the signature collection effort.

In another post, Fox said the video of Palma was not taken at a campaign event and that the staffer “was speaking as a private citizen and her statements in no way reflect campaign strategy, the sole aim of which is to win the White House with votes from former Trump and Biden supporters alike.”

“Our campaign champions freedom of speech for all our supporters, volunteers, contractors and staff, as long as they do not claim to speak on our behalf,” Fox said.

She added in a separate X post: “We intend to defeat both Trump and Biden in November, so the question of which side contributed more votes will be purely academic.”

By: Mariana Alfaro

11:24 AM: Analysis: The farcical saga of an impeachment trial no one wants to convene

Senate Republicans were apoplectic in early January 2020. House Democrats had impeached Donald Trump and declared him a threat to democracy — but then refused to actually send the matter to the Senate.

Democrats naively thought they could withhold the articles of impeachment to leverage more favorable rules for the Senate trial, which Republicans had no intention of implementing.

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By: Paul Kane

11:05 AM: Wisconsin Supreme Court justice won’t seek reelection, shaking up the race

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Ann Walsh Bradley is seen during a public hearing on Sept. 7, 2023, in Madison, Wis.

MADISON, Wis. — The longest-serving member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s 4-3 liberal majority announced Thursday she would not run for reelection next year, shaking up a consequential race in a swing state and giving conservatives their last hope of regaining control of the court before 2028.

Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, who has served on the court since 1995, told The Washington Post ahead of her announcement that she is confident someone who shares her judicial perspective can replace her after she completes her term.

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By: Patrick Marley

10:55 AM: Analysis: Biden turns to countering China’s influence

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and President Biden shake hands before a meeting at the White House on Wednesday.

President Biden’s efforts to reorient U.S. foreign policy toward Asia have been interrupted repeatedly as his administration has mobilized to respond first to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and more recently to Hamas’s attack on Israel and the ensuing war in Gaza.

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s visit to Washington this week returns the spotlight to one of Biden’s top foreign policy priorities: building alliances in Asia to help counter China’s influence.

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By: Theodoric Meyer and Leigh Ann Caldwell

10:36 AM: Analysis: Where 2024 voters moved since 2020 — and how they registered

Terri Straka’s moving van sits in the Rosewood neighborhood in Myrtle Beach, S.C., as she prepares to leave her home of 30 years on Sept. 19, 2022. (Madeline Gray for The Washington Post)

Between any two presidential elections, there is an enormous amount of churn in the electorate, both nationally and at the state level. A lot of this is obvious: People die, young people turn 18 and register to vote (and then often don’t vote again for a decade or two), people lose or gain interest in candidates or issues.

There’s another factor, too, that often goes underrecognized. Over the course of four years, a lot of people simply pull up stakes and move. And that, at least in theory, can affect the outcome of an election.

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By: Philip Bump

9:58 AM: Analysis: Trump’s telling comment on punishing doctors who provide abortions

Former president Donald Trump speaks to reporters after landing in Georgia for a campaign fundraiser on Wednesday.

In 2022, when it looked as if the Supreme Court would soon overturn Roe v. Wade, Senate Republicans’ campaign arm sent out a memo encouraging GOP candidates to get their messaging right.

“Republicans DO NOT want to throw doctors and women in jail,” the memo maintained. It cast the statement as a rebuttal to Democrats’ “lies” about the GOP’s abortion positions.

Donald Trump did not get the memo.

The former president on Wednesday responded to the Arizona Supreme Court’s reviving a harsh 1864 abortion ban — which indeed threatens abortion providers with two to five years in prison — by punting on this basic issue.

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By: Aaron Blake

9:36 AM: Julian Assange supporters hopeful as Biden considers request to drop charges

Supporters of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange protest outside the Australian High Commission in central London on April 10, 2024.

LONDON — Julian Assange’s supporters appeared energized Thursday by President Biden’s comment that the United States is “considering” a request to drop its push to prosecute the WikiLeaks founder.

Stella Assange, Julian Assange’s wife, told the BBC on Thursday that she thought Biden’s comments were a “good sign” and that it “looks like things could be moving in the right direction.”

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By: Karla Adam

9:16 AM: Analysis: Browbeating Jewish voters hasn’t yet worked for Trump

Speaking to reporters at an airport in Georgia on Wednesday, former president Donald Trump reiterated one of his more unusual political appeals: browbeating Jewish Americans for not voting exclusively for Republicans.

Trump was asked whether he thought the United States was showing sufficient support for Israel, triggering the comments.

President Biden “has totally lost control of the Israel situation,” Trump insisted. “He has abandoned Israel. He has totally abandoned Israel. And, frankly — you know, he’s a low-IQ individual. He has no idea where he is and who he’s supporting. He doesn’t know if he’s supporting the Palestinians. But he knows one thing: He is not supporting Israel. He has abandoned Israel.”

This is familiar terrain, the wild, hyperbolic and inconsistent attacks on a political opponent. (How does Biden both not know who he’s supporting and know who he isn’t supporting?) So was Trump’s pivot, from a discussion about Israel to his complaint about Jewish Americans.

“Any Jewish person that votes for a Democrat or votes for Biden,” Trump continued, “should have their head examined.”

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By: Philip Bump

9:00 AM: Analysis from Anne Branigin, Reporter, Style

The after-dinner entertainment at Wednesday night’s state dinner at the White House was singer Paul Simon, a favorite of both Jill Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. His first song was “Graceland.”

8:37 AM: Biden campaign launching Arizona ad blitz to tie Trump to state’s abortion ban

President Biden’s reelection campaign is launching a seven-figure ad campaign in Arizona days after the state’s Supreme Court upheld a near-total abortion ban dating back to 1864.

In one 30-second ad included in the campaign, Biden continues to pin the fallout from the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade squarely on Donald Trump.

“Because of Donald Trump, millions of women lost the fundamental freedom to control their own bodies, and now women’s lives are in danger because of that,” Biden narrates in the clip. “The question is: If Donald Trump gets back in power, what freedom will you lose next?”

The ad campaign will also include “Willow’s Box,” a 30-second clip that features a Texas woman who nearly died twice after she was denied standard medical care for a miscarriage because of the state’s abortion ban.

The Biden campaign’s major ad buy in Arizona will include placements on popular sports programming and prime-time television shows — including “Abbott Elementary,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and “American Idol” — as well as on YouTube and social media platforms.

“Arizonans deserve to know that it’s Donald Trump bragging about taking them back to a time before women could vote, for putting their lives in danger, and for promising to go even further to strip women’s rights if he’s reelected,” Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said in a statement. “There is only one candidate who will fight like hell to restore women’s fundamental freedoms, and that’s President Joe Biden.”

Arizona is a battleground state that will be critical in the 2024 election cycle. In 2020, Biden won Arizona by only 0.3 percentage points, becoming the first Democratic presidential candidate to win there since 1996.

By: Amy B Wang

8:20 AM: Trump’s the likely GOP nominee. He can serve even if convicted of a crime.

Former president Donald Trump attends a hearing in his New York hush money case March 25.

Donald Trump is facing felony charges in four separate criminal indictments in three states and Washington, D.C., with a guilty verdict in any of the cases possibly meaning a prison sentence.

The circumstances have raised an often-asked question: Could Trump, or anyone else, be convicted of a felony and serve as commander in chief, possibly from prison?

The short answer, legal experts said, is yes — because the U.S. Constitution does not forbid it.

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By: David Nakamura

7:56 AM: Analysis from Anne Branigin, Reporter, Style

At Wednesday night’s state dinner, President Biden told a story of receiving a large, shiny envelope of letters a few days after his inauguration in 2021. Inside were notes of appreciation from Japanese students who stuttered, just like the president had in his youth. We’re the same, the letters conveyed.

7:40 AM: Poll finds Biden, Trump in tight race in North Carolina

Vice President Harris speaks at a campaign event on April 4 in Charlotte

A poll shows President Biden and former president Donald Trump are locked in a tight race in North Carolina, a state Biden is working to flip this November.

The survey from Quinnipiac University, released Wednesday, found Trump with 48 percent support among registered voters, while Biden had 46 percent. In a five-way matchup including independent and Green Party candidates, Trump received 41 percent and Biden 38 percent.

Both of Trump’s leads were within the margin of error.

North Carolina is a pivotal state in the election. Trump won it by fewer than 75,000 votes in 2020, and the Biden campaign has been targeting it as a pickup opportunity, dispatching Vice President Harris to Charlotte last week to help open a campaign office.

The Quinnipiac poll also looked at North Carolina’s race for governor, finding Democrat Josh Stein leading Republican Mark Robinson 52 percent to 44 percent. Robinson, the state’s lieutenant governor, has attracted scrutiny for years of offensive comments about social issues. Stein is the state’s attorney general.

Quinnipiac conducted the poll from Thursday to Monday and surveyed 1,401 self-identified registered voters in North Carolina. The margin of error was plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.

By: Patrick Svitek

7:17 AM: Biden administration finalizes rules to close ‘gun show loophole’

Handguns for sale at the Des Moines Fairgrounds Gun Show at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines in March 2023.

In a move that officials touted as the most significant increase in American gun regulation in decades, the Justice Department has finalized rules to close a loophole that allowed people to sell firearms online, at gun shows and at other informal venues without conducting background checks on those who purchase them.

Vice President Harris and Attorney General Merrick Garland celebrated the rules and said they would keep firearms out of the hands of potentially violent people who are not legally allowed to own guns.

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By: Perry Stein

7:00 AM: Analysis from Theodoric Meyer, National political reporter and co-author of the Early 202 newsletter

President Biden will meet Thursday afternoon with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. of the Philippines.

Biden, Marcos and Kishida are expected to announce initiatives including new military cooperation at a time when Marcos is facing pressure from China, according to a senior administration official. But the meeting itself will signal to China that the administration is committed to strengthening its alliances with countries in Asia and the Pacific, according to former diplomats with experience in the region.

6:45 AM: Arizona abortion ruling shows pitfalls of Trump’s states’ rights strategy

Two days after he said states should make their own decisions about regulating abortion, former president Donald Trump criticized Arizona for reinstating an abortion law he said goes too far.

“That will be straightened out,” Trump said when asked by a reporter Wednesday about the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to reinstate a near-total ban on abortion in the state.

Trump’s statement shows abortion will continue to pose political challenges for Republicans — even if they continue to take a states’ rights stance on the issue.

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By: Marianne LeVine and Maegan Vazquez

6:30 AM: At state dinner for Japan, blossoms and bonhomie on the menu

President Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida raise a toast during a state dinner at the White House on Wednesday.

The first state dinner for Japan in nearly a decade was festooned with cherry blossoms. Lots and lots of cherry blossoms.

In the East Room of the White House on Wednesday evening, President Biden reminded the dinner guests — including actor Robert De Niro, former figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi, and Bill and Hillary Clinton — that cherry blossoms signified possibility. He began his four-minute toast, alongside Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, by saying that the blossoms “remind us that we can begin anew every year. That tomorrow can be a better day than today.”

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By: Anne Branigin and Roxanne Roberts

6:15 AM: Trump fails to delay N.Y. criminal trial for third time this week

Donald Trump, center, visits a Chick-fil-A eatery, Wednesday, April 10, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jason Allen)

NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s lawyers failed Wednesday to persuade an appeals court judge to delay the former president’s New York criminal trial scheduled to begin next week by saying the presiding judge was not qualified to oversee the proceedings and that a postponement was necessary.

Appeals court Judge Ellen Gesmer denied Trump’s request shortly after it was filed. It was the Trump lawyers’ third attempt this week to delay his trial for allegedly falsifying business documents to help cover up an affair before the 2016 election. Trump, the first ex-president to face criminal prosecution, has been indicted on various charges in three other jurisdictions and has pleaded not guilty to all counts.

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By: Shayna Jacobs