Biden tells ally he is weighing whether to withdraw from 2024 race: Live updates

Can a president order a rival’s assassination and get away with it?

It was an absurd hypothetical raised by an appeals court judge to point out the literally unbelievable and dangerous consequences of the legal argument from Donald Trump’s attorneys.

There has never been any legal precedent that would give a president such authority. But according to legal scholars, attorneys and the Supreme Court’s liberal justices, the decision has seemingly opened the door to question whether the commander in chief can commit legal murder.

The Times reported on Wednesday that Biden has told an ally that he may end his re-election campaign if he cannot convince voters over the next few days that he’s up to the job.

Campaign staffers are preparing to shift their focus to elevating, then electing, Vice President Kamala Harris, sources have told The Independent, even as Joe Biden vehemently denies any intention to stand aside from the 2024 election race.

A steady stream of Democrats have begun calling for Biden to withdraw his candidacy after he spent the 90-minute face-off against former President Donald Trump delivering a number of rambling, nonsensical answers and appearing to lose his train of thought on multiple occasions, leaving supporters aghast at his condition.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre spent much of Wednesday’s press briefing telling reporters that it is Biden’s intention to stay in, and he reportedly told campaign staff on a conference call earlier in the day that he intends to remain on the ballot in this year’s election. A Biden campaign spokesperson, Seth Schuster, told The Independent that Biden is “absolutely not dropping out.”

Barack Obama has privately raised concerns about Joe Biden’s path to re-election after his shaky debate performance, a sharp deviation from his public comments.

The former president has told allies that he is worried about Democrats’ ability to defeat Donald Trump in November and has warned Biden in recent months about the challenges ahead, according toThe Washington Post.

Before the first presidential debate last week, Obama reminded his friend and former vice president about the stakes of the campaign. This echoes his long-held concerns about Trump’s political strength going into the 2024 election, the report says.

One member of the Democratic National Committee has proposed a method to replace President Joe Biden, should he decide to not seek re-election.

One clear sign emerged on Wednesday that Biden is at least weighing the idea of stepping aside: he and Vice President Kamala Harris lunched and Harris received the President’s Daily Brief, which she only receives occasionally alongside the president.

Not long after that, Democratic insiders told The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg that they believe it’s a case of when, not if Harris goes to the top of the ticket, saying they think there’s “no question” it will happen.

Rudy Giuliani‘s creditors, including two former Georgia election workers who won a $148 million defamation judgment against him, are opposing his attempt to convert his bankruptcy into a liquidation, saying they’ll likely ask that the case be thrown out instead because of what they call his flouting of bankruptcy laws.

The comments came Wednesday during a status hearing on Zoom before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane in White Plains, New York.

The former New York mayor and Donald Trump adviser filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in December, days after the former election workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, won their defamation case. They said Giuliani’s targeting of them because of Trump’s lies about the 2020 election being stolen led to death threats that made them fear for their lives.