As expected, Le Pen’s conservative (or in the world’s of the liberal media, “Far Right”) National Rally (RN) party won the first round of France’s parliamentary election on Sunday, exit polls showed, but the final result will depend on several days of horsetrading before next week’s run-off.

The RN was seen winning around 34% of the vote, exit polls from Ipsos, Ifop, OpinionWay and Elabe showed. That was ahead of both far-left and centrist rivals, including President Emmanuel Macron’s Together alliance, whose bloc was seen winning a paltry 20.5%-23%, a far cry from his crushing victory several years ago. The New Popular Front (NFP), a hastily assembled left-wing coalition, was projected to win around 29% of the vote, the exit polls showed.

The exit polls were in line with opinion polls ahead of the election, but provided little clarity on whether the anti-immigrant, eurosceptic RN will be able to form a government to “cohabit” with the pro-EU Macron after next Sunday’s run-off.

The RN’s chances of winning power next week will depend on the political dealmaking made by its rivals over the coming days. In the past, centre-right and centre-left parties have teamed up to keep the RN from power, but that dynamic, known as the “republican front,” is less certain than ever.

If no candidate reaches 50% in the first round, the top two contenders automatically qualify for the second round, as well as all those with 12.5% of registered voters. In the run-off, whoever wins the most votes take the constituency.

According to Reuters, the high turnout on Sunday suggests France is heading for a record number of three-way run-offs. These generally benefit the RN much more than two-way contests, experts say.

Sure enough, the horsetrading began almost immediately on Sunday night. In a written statement to the press, Macron called on voters to rally behind candidates who are “clearly republican and democratic”, which, based on his recent declarations, would exclude candidates from the RN and from the hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) party.

The problem, of course, is that Macron’s party was crushed in the recent European parliamentary elections precisely because the people have had enough with “clearly republican and democratic” puppets of the World Economic Forum and want actual change.

LFI leader Jean-Luc Melenchon said the second-placed NFP alliance will withdraw all its candidates who came third in the first round.”Our guideline is simple and clear: not a single more vote for the National Rally,” he said. It is, however, unlikely that many will care what the French socialists want: after all, last week the French socialist leftist alliance said it would raise the top marginal income tax rate to 90% if it were to take over the government.

Meanwhile, Jordan Bardella, the 28-year-old RN party president, said he was ready to be prime minister – if his party wins an absolute majority. That’s right, a 28 year old kid may soon be a prime minister of the 2nd largest European economy. He has ruled out trying to form a minority government and neither Macron nor the NFP will form an alliance with him.

“I will be a “cohabitation” Prime Minister, respectful of the constitution and of the office of President of the Republic, but uncompromising about the policies we will implement,” he said.

While the RN is seen winning the most seats in the National Assembly, only one of the pollsters – Elabe – had the party winning an absolute majority of 289 seats in the run-off. Experts say that seat projections after first-round votes can be highly inaccurate, and especially so in this election.

Voter participation was high compared with previous parliamentary elections, illustrating the political fervour Macron aroused with his stunning decision to call a parliamentary vote after the RN trounced his party in European Parliament elections earlier this month.

His decision plunged France into political uncertainty, sent shockwaves around Europe and prompted a sell-off of French assets on financial markets.

A longtime pariah, the RN is now closer to power than it has ever been. Le Pen has sought to clean up the image of a party known for racism and antisemitism, a tactic that has worked amid voter anger at Macron, the high cost of living and growing concerns over immigration.

At 1500 GMT, turnout was nearly 60%, compared with 39.42% two years ago – the highest comparable turnout figures since the 1986 legislative vote, Ipsos France’s research director Mathieu Gallard said.

In short, the people have had enough and they finally want to be heard.

President Biden’s family is urging him to stay in the race and keep fighting despite last week’s disastrous debate performance, even as some members of his clan privately expressed exasperation at how he was prepared for the event by his staff, people close to the situation said on Sunday, NYT reported.

Mr. Biden huddled with his wife, children and grandchildren at Camp David while he tried to figure out how to tamp down Democratic anxiety. While his relatives are acutely aware of how poorly he did against former President Donald J. Trump, they argued that he could still show the country that he is capable of serving for another four years.

Mr. Biden has also been soliciting ideas from advisers about how to proceed, and his staff has been discussing whether he should hold a news conference or sit for interviews to defend himself to change the narrative, but nothing has been decided yet.

One of the strongest voices imploring Mr. Biden to resist pressure to drop out was his son Hunter Biden, whom the president has long leaned on for advice, said one of the people informed about the discussions, who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to share internal deliberations. Hunter Biden wants Americans to see the version of his father that he knows — scrappy and in command of the facts — rather than the stumbling, aging president Americans saw on Thursday night.

Other family members were trying to figure out how they could be helpful. At least one of the president’s grandchildren has expressed interest in getting more involved with the campaign, perhaps by talking with influencers on social media, according to the informed person.

The anger among Democrats was made evident on Sunday when John Morgan, a top Democratic donor, publicly blamed the advisers who managed the president’s debate preparations, citing by name Ron Klain, Anita Dunn and Bob Bauer.

“Biden has for too long been fooled by the value of Anita Dunn and her husband,” Mr. Morgan wrote on social media. “They need to go … TODAY. The grifting is gross. It was political malpractice.”

He elaborated in a subsequent interview. “It would be like if you took a prizefighter who was going to have a title fight and put him in a sauna for 15 hours then said, ‘Go fight,’” he said. “I believe that the debate is solely on Ron Klain, Bob Bauer and Anita Dunn.”

Members of Mr. Biden’s family were likewise said to be focused on the president’s staff, including Ms. Dunn, a White House senior adviser, and her husband, Mr. Bauer, the president’s personal attorney, who played Mr. Trump during debate rehearsals.

They were asking why Mr. Klain, the former White House chief of staff who ran the preparations, would in their view allow him to be overloaded with
statistics, and they were angry that Mr. Biden, who arrived for the debate in Atlanta with a summer tan, was made up to look pale and pallid, said one of the people, who has been in touch with several members of the family.

But the person said that the president himself was not among those who were upset and that he still trusted Mr. Klain, Ms. Dunn, Mr. Bauer and the others. Other Democrats said it was unfair to blame the staff for the president’s own failings, dismissing what they called typical second-guessing and scapegoating. A couple of Democrats pointed out that family members did not attend the preparation sessions.

After Joe Biden’s horrendous debate performance, current and former aides are saying the quiet part out loud and revealing what the President is like behind the scenes.

The White House and campaign blame a ‘cold’ for Biden’s low and, at times, hard-to-understand speaking voice. Others say this is what the President is like on a day-to-day basis now.

Former White House deputy director of photography Chandler West wrote in an Instagram story: ‘It’s time for Joe to go.’

‘I know many of these people and how the White House operates,’ West added. ‘They will say he has a ‘cold’ or just experienced a ‘bad night,’ but for weeks and months, in private, they have all said what we saw last night — Joe is not as strong as he was just a couple of years ago.’

Biden’s campaign tried to brush-off the issue and claimed the car crash performance was merely a ‘slow start.’

Vice President Kamala Harris was pressed in a tense post-debate interview on what Biden is like every day.

‘The person we saw tonight, the president we saw tonight on that stage: Is that how he is every day?’ CNN host Anderson Cooper asked Harris.

‘The Joe Biden that I work with every day is someone who, as I have said, has performed in a way that has been about bringing people into the Oval Office, Republicans and Democrats, to compromise in a way that is extraordinary these days, because it just doesn’t happen, but Joe Biden can make it happen,’ she replied, completely avoiding the essence of the question.

West, who was in his position at the White House from January 2021 to May 2022, told Axios: ‘The debate was not the first bad day, and it’s not gonna be the last.’

Reporters have complained for years about access to the president and claim wranglers are working to keep him with as little off-script time with the press as possible.

Speculation is swirling that those closest to the President, mainly First Lady Jill Biden, were shielding him since he took office – especially after his limitations were on full display at the debate on Thursday night.

A former White House residence official told Axios Jill was ‘so protective of the president’ and the first lady’s top aide Anthony Bernal ‘just protects her, and they often wouldn’t let us do anything for them.’

‘The separation between the family and the residence staff was so big, so divided,’ the former official added. ‘It’s not supposed to be and usually isn’t, even in the Trump White House.’

Since the first few months in office, residence staff felt that Biden’s closest allies were trying to keep anything about his health on the down low.

For example, during a very hot independence day celebration on the South Lawn on July 4, 2021, Biden went back into the White House where the door was abruptly shut behind him so butlers and other residence staff were blocked from aiding the President.

Aides suggested Biden was overheated, but it raised suspicion among staff and a consensus that they were creating a barrier around health-related issues.

A poll released Sunday reveals 72 percent of voters don’t think Biden has the cognitive faculties for another term in office. This is a seven percent increase from the same poll taken earlier in June before the debate.

Former White House physician Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) has repeatedly brought Biden’s cognitive and physical health into question.

He suggested that debate prep for seven days at Camp David was a way to get the drug cocktail just right before the showdown with Trump.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defended President Biden on Sunday during an interview on CNN after the presidential debate, and suggested former President Trump has “dementia.”

CNN host Dana Bash asked Pelosi if there was any part of her that believed Biden should step aside.

“My people are very much Biden-Kamala Harris and this is an opportunity for Joe Biden to go out there and show he has the stamina,” she responded. “And by the way, while the press and for some reason they don‘t – there are health care professionals who think that Trump has dementia, that his connection, his thoughts do not go together. Not only that he just lies, he doesn‘t even know the truth, so if we‘re just talking about mental acuity, let’s be fair about it.”

Pelosi said lawmakers see Biden “up close,” and insisted he was well aware of the issues facing Americans.

“We know how attuned he is to the issues, we know how informed he is. I debate with him about the issues, not debate, but discuss it with him. He‘s right there. So, in any case, it was a bad night. Let’s not sugarcoat that. It was a bad night. It was a great presidency. And that’s what the American people have to choose,” Pelosi continued.

After Pelosi praised Biden and listed several of his accomplishments, Bash told the Democratic lawmaker she made “the argument for Joe Biden‘s reelection in a way that he did not.”

Bash asked if there was a mechanism that would work if Biden wanted to step aside.

“There’s nothing as well, as just as Joe Biden getting up and taking the ball over the finish line. Something else could be chaotic,” Pelosi responded.

“I don‘t say that to say that could never happen because it might, I don’t mean now. I mean, in history it could. But understand this, this is really important for people to understand. Joe Biden has won the nomination. He has won the nomination,” Pelosi said.

Bash pushed back and said he didn’t officially have the nomination yet.

“The roll-call has been happening around the country, because of the timing of the election. It’s a very different year,” Pelosi countered.

Tom Friedman, a columnist for The New York Times and a friend to Biden, called on the former president to drop out, saying the debate made him “weep.”

“If he insists on running, and he loses to Trump, Biden and his family — and his staff and party members who enabled him — will not be able to show their faces,” he wrote.

U.S. military bases in Europe were put on a heightened state of alert over the weekend as installations urged vigilance among their members.

At U.S. European Command headquarters in Stuttgart, the Army garrison on Sunday issued a communitywide alert that the force protection threat level was elevated to condition “Charlie” until further notice.

Similar directives were sent to other bases in Germany, including the Army’s Rheinland-Pfalz and Ramstein Air Base, which together form the largest U.S. military community overseas. The Rheinland-Pfalz garrison alert includes Baumholder and outlying installations in Romania and Bulgaria.

Aviano Air Base in Italy also rose its condition level to Charlie, and other installations in Italy introduced enhanced security measures.

The Charlie threat level “applies when an incident occurs or intelligence is received indicating some form of terrorist action or targeting against personnel or facilities is likely,” according to the Army’s website.

Service members and others should anticipate significant delays at gate entry points because of increased security, according to the alerts.

U.S. Army garrison in Stuttgart referred questions about the change in force protection to EUCOM.

EUCOM said in a statement Sunday that it is “constantly assessing a variety of factors that play into the safety of the U.S. military community abroad. As part of that effort, we often times take additional steps to ensure the safety of our service members.”

Military community members should report any suspicious activity, monitor State Department travel advisories and take precautions to minimize personal risk, the statement added.

Typically, military commands decline to get into specifics about changes in force protection measures for security reasons.

On Saturday, Spangdahlem Air Base, an installation in rural western Germany, issued its own alert that said 52nd Fighter Wing airmen were prohibited from wearing their uniforms off base as a precaution, and must commute in civilian clothing.

Spangdahlem officials on Saturday said that measures are in place to protect the community but that for “operational security reasons,” the base could not provide more details.

In years past, commands have taken similar action on uniform wearing over concerns about terrorism threats. In 2010, EUCOM issued a directive that temporarily prohibited troops from wearing uniforms off post.

In 2014, EUCOM limited uniform wearing off base to commuting, a restriction that the command began to relax in 2022.

The military sets force protection levels at either Normal, Alpha, Bravo, Charlie or Delta, the highest state of alert. Bravo became common on bases for many years following the 9/11 attacks.

Charlie sets in motion “curtailment plans for nonessential personnel,” according to the Army.

Garrison officials in Stuttgart said that a variety of services would not be available because of the increased threat level. From Sunday until further notice, some of those reduced services included access to some eateries and on-post barber shops.

“Many other services will have significant numbers of employees teleworking or offices will be opened with reduced staff. Customers should maintain flexibility and allow for longer-than-normal service times,” the garrison said in a statement.

In recent weeks, U.S. officials have been sounding the alarm on increased terrorism threats, stemming from the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the ongoing war in Gaza.

“We’ve seen the threat from foreign terrorists rise to a whole ‘nother level after October 7,” FBI director Christopher Wray said in June 4 written testimony before the Senate.

Seven people, including four children — all of whom are believed to be Hispanic — were shot by a Nebraska man who had previously told them to “go back to where they came from” and to “speak English,” cops say.

Billy Booth, 74, fired shots at his neighbors from inside his Crete home just before 7 p.m. Friday before fatally turning the gun on himself, Nebraska State Patrol said.

There were about 15 people inside and outside the home, though most of the victims were outside when they were shot. Three of the victims were adults between the ages of 22 and 43 while four were children ranging in age from 3 to 10, police told KETV and NBC News.

Some of the victims have been treated and released. One is receiving treatment in Lincoln, while two are being cared for at Children’s Nebraska in Omaha. None of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries.

All of the victims are believed to be Hispanic, police told NBC.

When police arrived, they found victims suffering from gunshot wounds outside the residence as well as the suspect inside his own home. A shotgun was recovered nearby.

Police said they did not believe there was a dispute in the moments leading up to the shooting but that Booth and the family had a prior history, including disputes over parking and other nuisances — as well as a report from someone who said the suspect “told them to go back to where they came from and to speak English.”

The Crete Police have responded to “several complaints” in the neighborhood since 2021, most of which came from Booth regarding “driving behavior” in the neighborhood, Crete Police Chief Gary Young Jr. said during a Saturday news briefing.

“Not necessarily associated with the victims’ house, but cars driving too fast in the neighborhood, improper parking, nuisance properties, quality-of-life type issues,” Young said. “There was a single report from the victims that the suspect had flipped them off, told them to, ‘Go home’ or ‘back to where they came from,’ to ‘speak English.’”

Police said the family decided not to take the matter further at the time, and the situation had been resolved.

One of the victims’ friends, Joshua Morales, told the KETV he knew of the previous incidents involving the neighbor — and that he believed the shooting was racially motivated.

“[Booth] was supposedly telling [the friend’s] parents to go back to their country, and they got into problems. And I guess until now the dude just shot the house up. I guess it was just a racist thing that happened,” Morales said. “So, I guess the dude that shot them was just racist ’cause he shot a Hispanic family and he told a Hispanic family to go back to their country.”

Morales said, the shooter shot his friend and his friend’s mom, who took four bullets to the back.

A motive for the shooting remains under investigation, police said.

Anti-Israel demonstrators busted through barricades at New York City’s NYC Pride parade Sunday, threw fake blood at a Human Rights Campaign float and temporarily blocked the march, videos show.

The disrupters — including some in masks — included about a dozen people who ended up cuffed by cops.

Red paint could be seen splattered all over Christopher Street in Greenwich Village as the group sat cross-legged blocking the roadway at the intersection of Waverly Place.

“Queers for Palestine” agitators have blocked the NYC Pride Parade.pic.twitter.com/cXaUNJwLRe

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) June 30, 2024

Writers Against the War on Gaza agitators spray red paint at NYC Pride Parade floats.

Footage: @wawog_now via Instagram pic.twitter.com/h2pjXGosxZ

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) June 30, 2024

Some of the protesters also wore keffiyehs and carried a large banner reading, “No queer liberation without Palestinian liberation” and displayed a large Palestinian flag while chanting, “Shut it down!”

The demonstration unfolded near the end of the parade route, not far from the historic Stonewall Inn, considered the birthplace of the gay rights movement.

After several minutes, a group of about 20 NYPD officers and NYPD Special Operations officers approached the protesters and placed them in zip-tie cuffs one by one.

Some people in the crowd shouted, “Shame!” and hurled epithets at the cops.

Writers Against the War on Gaza members chant “shame” as police arrest agitators at the NYC Pride Parade.

Footage: @wawog_now via Instagram pic.twitter.com/PszOzXbWua

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) June 30, 2024

The demonstrators did not appear to resist. It was not immediately known what if any charges they are facing.

Before the disruption, tens of thousands braved sweltering humidity and gloomy skies lined the parade route to celebrate the Pride event.

Big smiles were plastered across the faces of marchers and attendees of the annual parade, where rainbow banners and flags were displayed as far as the eye could see as participants danced in the streets, with bubbles and confetti floating up from the jubilant crowd.

The parade, now in its 54th year, kicked off at noon on the corner of 25th Street and Fifth Avenue near Madison Square Park in Manhattan, led by the LGBTQ motor club and followed close behind by a lively marching band and color guard. It was about the size of previous years, observers said.

The theme for this year’s parade, “Reflect. Empower. Unite,” was selected by organizer NYC Pride to encourage advocates and their allies to reflect on challenges the community has faced in the past while empowering them to shape their future.

“The NYC Pride March is how we combat all the negativity; this is the celebration that brings people from every borough in the city and all parts of the world together, in joy, to share the accomplishments, talents and resilience of our community,” NYC Pride Executive Director Sandra Pérez said in statement.

This year also marks the anniversary of the Stonewall Uprising, a series of violent, multi-day demonstrations and clashes between the NYPD and patrons of the inn in June 1969 that is credited with starting the gay-rights movement.

Aside from the small protest, the parade’s reflective theme, along with the sticky weather, seemed to make for a somewhat calmer-than-usual crowd. But the marching bands still had no trouble whipping attendees into a frenzy for a boisterous rendition of Britney Spears’ and Will.i.am‘s “Scream and Shout.”

Mayor Eric Adams was in attendance, wearing a blue ball cap with a rainbow embroidered on it while waving a Pride flag. He was flanked by state Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar of Queens at the front of the group.

“We need a new mayor!” a handful of hecklers yelled out at the sight of Hizzoner.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) was spotted wearing a pair of whistles around his neck and carrying a bullhorn as he marched down Fifth Avenue, triumphantly raising his fist as he passed by the crowd.

Gov. Kathy Hochul and state Attorney General Letitia James were also spotted along Fifth Avenue during the parade.

A group of a few hundred marchers showed their support for Israel, waving flags that combined the Star of David and the Pride rainbow. They flashed peace signs as they walked, some wearing shirts that said “Jewish queer pride!”

A flatbed truck bearing large “FREE PALESTINE” banners on either side also carried a group of about a dozen anti-Israel marchers wearing keffiyehs and waving Palestinian flags.

BREAKING: Pride Parade in NYC brought to a halt as Pro-palestine protesters BLOCKED it pic.twitter.com/xvDG9k8DnO

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) June 30, 2024

The group on the truck cheered and shouted slogans, but the parade crowd seemed indifferent to their presence.

The streets along the parade route became a labyrinth of barricades, which were difficult to navigate but helped disperse people from the crowded sidewalks. The roadways were flooded with entrepreneurs hawking brightly colored Pride merch, as well as plenty of spiked juice drinks and ice cream for the overheated crowd.

One enterprising peddler was Andre Mason, who had a feeding frenzy on his hands at his merchandise stand where customers lined up to buy Pride-themed paper fans at $22 a pop emblazoned with words such as “Vogue” and “YASSS!” among some more off-color designs.

“I’m here to sell my merchandise but also to engage with the community,” said Mason, who told The Post he didn’t get to see much of the parade because business has been booming.

“People gotta work — it’s New York!” he said.

Employees of stores along the parade route had the best seat in the house, with many of them seen crowding their shop’s windows to sneak a peak at the march.

The parade made its way down Fifth Avenue before turning west onto Eighth Street and continuing onto the Village’s Christopher Street, passing the Stonewall National Monument.

President Biden was joined by Gov. Hochul and superstar gay singer Elton John on Friday to mark the grand opening of the monument’s new $3.2 million visitor center.

Thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jewish men poured into the streets of Jerusalem on Sunday night to protest against mandatory military conscription, part of a rekindled debate roiling the country after Israel’s top court ruled that the military must start drafting religious students.

Many black-clad demonstrators gathered outside a yeshiva, or religious school, to hear rabbis exhorting the community over loudspeakers in Yiddish, rather than Hebrew, to stand strong against outside pressures to enlist. Some carried banners and stuck posters with anti-draft slogans on street lamps and bus stops.

“We all declare to the court: we’ll die, we won’t enlist,” read one poster. A bike was plastered with dozens of stickers declaring “To jail and not to the army.”

One young Haredi, what the ultraorthodox call themselves, threw an armful of fliers into the air with a message: Call a hotline number if you witness “any attempted kidnapping of a Haredi boy into the army.”

The Supreme Court’s ruling last week that there was no legal basis for exempting ultra-Orthodox religious scholars struck at a core issue for the community, which has long argued that they contribute to the state by preserving Jewish traditions and providing the state with divine protection through prayer.

The decision raises the political stakes for the two ultra-Orthodox political parties upon which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s thin parliamentary coalition rests. Carving out military-service exemptions and protecting full-time, lifelong Torah study is one of their key political goals. Without that their religious leaders say they have no reason to be in the government, experts say. But the parties also know they are vulnerable if they leave the government and open the door to new elections.

They would prefer to pass fresh legislation to establish broad-based military exemptions for religious study, but the effort is being hampered by pushback from within Netanyahu’s own Likud party. Many secular politicians are less willing to swallow a political compromise that they feel unequally distributes the burden of military service during Israel’s continuing war effort in Gaza and a growing threat from Lebanon.

The court ruling also threatened the financial backbone of the ultra-Orthodox community by blocking government funding for religious students without a valid military exemption. The decision could affect tens of thousands of current religious students and tens of millions of dollars in funding, putting further pressure on Netanyahu’s coalition.

Ultra-Orthodox young people have been exempt from a broad-based mandatory national draft since the state’s 1948 founding. The controversial policy has long been a point of contention, but Israel’s war against Hamas has renewed the controversy as hundreds of thousands of reservists are called up for multiple tours of duty. Many mainstream Israelis feel like they are shouldering unequal burdens and risks that the ultra-Orthodox community escapes.

Experts said that the chief concern among the ultra-Orthodox community is that the army will be a slippery slope leading its men to join secular society.

Israel’s military has a longstanding social role alongside its national defense mission. It absorbs new immigrants, Israelis on the fringe and others and teaches them Hebrew and mainstream liberal Israeli culture.

“The army today is a melting pot for Western culture,” whereas Haredi communities maintain themselves through strict isolation, said Israel Cohen, a political commentator for the ultra-Orthodox radio station Kol Barama. “This is the big fear.”

Many protesters said they planned to devote their lives to studying the Torah, which they say contributes to protecting the Jewish people.

“The Torah is the beginning,” said Neria Revivo, 28, a full-time student who planned to study for the rest of his life. He said he was unsure whether he would ever take a paid job.

The protesters were all male, ranging from toddlers to the elderly. A few women stood on the edge of the crowd. Two young boys walked along clutching a dozen banners on wooden sticks, before tossing the pile onto the ground. One read: “Israel’s Army is a Zionist brainwashing cult,” referring to secular Jewish culture.

The Haredi groups organizing Sunday’s protest and various others since last week’s ruling are among the community’s most extreme. Many in the groups refuse to vote or participate in formal politics.

Mainstream ultra-Orthodox communities are committed to preserving military exemptions for Torah scholars, community insiders said, but might be open to sending some men who aren’t serious religious scholars to the military.

One official with United Torah Judaism, one of Israel’s two ultra-Orthodox parties, said “there’s a quiet understanding” that men who aren’t actively studying might have to join the military.

However, the military still hasn’t come up with a feasible plan on how to accommodate the religious requirements for ultra-Orthodox men, said Shlomit Ravitsky Tur-Paz, an expert on ultraorthodox issues for the Israel Democracy Institute.

Expected changes would enable Haredi men to maintain their gender-segregated, strictly kosher and Sabbath- and prayer-friendly lifestyles, and to emerge from service without mainstreaming into Israel’s secular culture. Without such an infrastructure, the community has been able to postpone grappling with whether to support a limited form of enlistment, experts say.

Israel’s Attorney General’s Office, however, is pushing the issue, advising the military to prepare to draft some 3,000 new Haredi soldiers starting in July. Fewer than 2,000 Haredi soldiers currently serve in the military, Ravitsky Tur-Paz said, most of whom are no longer adhering to an ultraorthodox lifestyle.

“I’m not against the army,” said protester Sagi Samuelov, 30, whose non-Haredi brothers served while he studied in yeshiva. But “the army has to respect the Haredim.”

A few years ago Klaus Schwab, the octogenarian founder of the World Economic Forum, decided the organization needed a youthful makeover.

So he singled out a group of employees over 50 years old and instructed his human-resources chief to get rid of them all, according to people familiar with the matter. This, he explained, would lower the average age of the workforce. The HR chief, a seasoned former World Bank executive named Paolo Gallo, declined, pointing out that there has to be a reasonable explanation for firing somebody, such as poor performance. Not long after, Schwab fired Gallo.

It wasn’t the only example of Schwab engaging in behavior that would violate standard workplace policies of the Forum’s leading corporate partners. One episode still making the rounds among staffers is the time in 2017 he tapped a young woman to lead an initiative for startups. She had discovered she was pregnant, and during her first few days on the job went into Schwab’s office in Geneva to tell him.

Schwab grew upset that she wouldn’t be able to continue working at the same pace, people familiar with the incident said, and told her she wasn’t suited for her new leadership role. She was pushed out after what the Forum said was a brief trial period.

The World Economic Forum, the organization behind the annual Davos gathering of world leaders and chief executives, says its mission is no less than to improve the state of the world.

But under Schwab’s decadeslong oversight, the Forum has allowed to fester an atmosphere hostile to women and Black people in its own workplace, according to internal complaints, email exchanges and interviews with dozens of current and former Forum employees and other people familiar with the Forum’s practices.

At least six female staffers were pushed out or otherwise saw their careers suffer when they were pregnant or returning from maternity leave. Another half dozen described sexual harassment they experienced at the hands of senior managers, some of whom remain at the Forum. Two said they were sexually harassed years ago by VIPs at Forum gatherings, including at Davos, where female staff were expected to be at the delegates’ beck and call.

In two more recent incidents, employees registered internal complaints after white Forum managers used the N-word around Black employees. Black employees also raised formal complaints to Forum leaders about being passed over for promotions or left out of Davos.

The Forum declined to make Schwab available for an interview. Forum spokesman Yann Zopf said in a statement that this article would “mischaracterize our organization, culture and colleagues, including our founder.”

In written responses to the Journal, the Forum said it holds itself and its employees to a high set of values, with confidential reporting channels and a thorough investigation process. It said Schwab never created an age limit for employees and that he collaborated with the HR chief to make it possible for people to work beyond the normal retirement age.

It disputed the Journal’s characterization of events and said the organization has zero tolerance for harassment or discrimination and has responded appropriately to any complaints received. It said there have been three reported allegations of racial discrimination since 2020 and that each has been thoroughly investigated and appropriate action was taken.

The Forum added that many of the episodes described by the Journal, including those alleging pregnancy discrimination, involved former employees who had been dismissed for performance reasons or as part of restructurings. A Forum spokesman said women don’t face a higher rate of turnover after parental leave and that at least 150 employees returned from leave to the same or a better job during an eight-year span.

In a memo to staff on May 21, Schwab announced that he planned to step aside as executive chairman, which he indicated was part of a long-planned transition. He said he will stay on as nonexecutive chairman of the board of trustees. The announcement came after Schwab sent a letter to the Journal’s publisher and editor in chief to share concerns about the reporting for this article.

The Forum’s workplace culture is particularly distressing to many employees because of the organization’s public stances promoting gender equality. It publishes an annual “Global Gender Gap Report” that details various countries’ progress toward gender parity. Some of the allegations of mistreatment came from former members of the very team that put it together.

“That was the most disappointing thing, to see the distance between what the Forum aspires to and what happens behind the scenes,” said Cheryl Martin, a former U.S. Energy Department official who served as a top Forum executive.

The Journal interviewed more than 80 current and former employees ranging in tenure from as far back as the 1980s through the present day. Some of them have bonded over what they describe as shared trauma in a WhatsApp group called “WEFugees” that has hundreds of former employees.

“It was distressing to witness colleagues visibly withdraw from themselves with the onslaught of harassment at the hands of high-level staff, going from social and cheerful to self-isolating, avoiding eye contact, sharing nightmares for years after,” said Farid Ben Amor, a former U.S. media executive who worked at the Forum for more than a year before resigning in 2019. “It’s particularly distressing when contrasted with the eagerness and earnestness with which many of us joined the Forum.”

A majority of voters who watched the debate felt Donald Trump could beat several potential Democratic candidates should Joe Biden be replaced on the ticket.

The assertion comes from a series of polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight, a company that uses statistical analysis to show the lay of the land in various elections.

One group of polls conducted by the Data for Progress showed Trump beating out a host of big name ‘replacements’ for Biden, which included California Governor Gavin Newsom and Vice President Kamala Harris.

In the poll, Trump topped Newsom 47 percent to 44, and beat Harris 48 to 45.

Even more grim news for Democrats was the poll’s prediction that Trump would beat Biden as well, as the president’s campaign continues to spiral following Thursday’s disastrous debate.

In addition to Newsom and Harris, the Data for Progress research, using the responses of more than 1,000 people, had Trump beating Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg 47 to 44 if the election were held today.

Also losing in a hypothetical election against Trump was Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker who only garnered 43 percent to the Republican nominee’s 46.

Other candidates like Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and New Jersey Senator Cory Booker fared only slightly better – both garnered 44 percent to Trump’s 46 – in the same sample set used by Data for Progress.

Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania also lost by a margin of three percent when pitted against Trump.

The latter two have previously been pegged as potential presidential candidates for the Democratic Party in the past, but both have maintained they are devoted to Biden.

The last poll conducted by Data for Progress Friday found Trump beating Biden by a comfortable three percent, while a poll of 841 registered voters sponsored by the New York Post had Biden falling short by seven percent.

The results come amid an air of uncertainty as to the Democratic Party’s top choice, as Biden’s halting debate performance continues to come into question.

A replacement would be possible but unlikely, experts have said – as the process would be complicated and open the door to the loss of a united front ahead of the slated vote for nominees at their convention in August.

The Democratic National Committee’s official procedures for the convention, adopted in 2022, give the committee the authority to choose a new candidate if either member of the ticket dies or withdraws.

Biden also has the power to bow out of the race himself – by releasing all the pledged delegates he has accumulated.

That’s 3,894 of 3,937 so far, according to a tally by The Associated Press.

In the event of such a choice, those delegates would be free to vote for whomever they chose – with the above half-dozen candidates surfacing as replacements.

The move would lead to an open convention, something unseen in today’s state of politics.

If Biden elects to drop out, he’d also like endorse an intended successor.

The obvious choice would be Vice President Harris, who reportedly has been referred to as a ‘work in progress’ by her president.

A report earlier this year further claimed Harris was still struggling to penetrate what she called the ‘bubble’ of Biden campaign thinking – as Whitmer of Michigan and and Newsom have also often mentioned.

In the event of an open convention, the nominee with majority support from the party’s delegates would receive the endorsement, even if Biden did not peg them as his successor.

As of writing, the president has aired no plans to bow out of the race.

When asked Friday about such a prospect while campaigning in North Carolina, he said: ‘I know I’m not a young man, – I don’t walk as easy as I used to, I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to, I don’t debate as well as I used to.

‘But I know what I do know,’ he continued, before receiving a round of uproarious applause. ‘I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done.’

‘I know, like many of Americans know, when you get knocked down, you get back up,’ he concluded.

A sense of concern is growing inside the top ranks of the Democratic Party that leaders of Joe Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee are not taking seriously enough the impact of the president’s troubling debate performance earlier in the week.

DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison and Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez held a Saturday afternoon call with dozens of committee members across the country, a group of some of the most influential members of the party. They largely ignored Biden’s weak showing Thursday night or the avalanche of criticism that followed.

Multiple committee members on the call, most granted anonymity to talk about the private discussion, described feeling like they were being gaslighted — that they were being asked to ignore the dire nature of the party’s predicament. The call, they said, may have worsened a widespread sense of panic among elected officials, donors and other stakeholders.

Instead, the people said, Harrison offered what they described as a rosy assessment of Biden’s path forward. The chat function was disabled and there were no questions allowed.

“I was hoping for more of a substantive conversation instead of, ‘Hey, let’s go out there and just be cheerleaders,’ without actually addressing a very serious issue that unfolded on American television for millions of people to see,” said Joe Salazar, an elected DNC member from Colorado, who was on the call. “There were a number of things that could have been said in addressing the situation. But we didn’t get that. We were being gaslit.”

Many donors, party strategists and rank-and-file DNC members are publicly and privately saying they want the 81-year-old Biden to step aside to allow the party to select a younger replacement at the Democratic National Convention in August. As of now, though, Biden’s closest allies insist he remains well-positioned to compete against Republican Donald Trump and have given no indication they will push him to end his campaign.

Those best positioned to replace him — Vice President Kamala Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer among them — reiterated their support for Biden after the debate.

Many are anxiously awaiting the first major round of post-debate public polling to determine their next steps.

Polls from CNN and 538/Ipsos conducted soon after the debate found that most debate-watchers thought Trump outperformed Biden. But the two men’s favorability ratings remained largely unchanged, just as they did in the aftermath of Trump’s conviction on charges in New York that he illegally participated in a hush money scheme to influence the 2016 election.

In a subsequent appearance on MSNBC, Harrison downplayed the significance of the conference call, which he said was part of a regularly scheduled communication “to talk about the state of the race” and the upcoming national convention with the DNC’s many elected members across the country.

Biden and his campaign have sought to project confidence in the days since Thursday’s debate in which the president, who already faced serious concerns about his physical and mental stamina, offered a performance punctuated by repeated stumbles, uncomfortable pauses, and a quiet speaking style that was often difficult to understand.

Just after Saturday’s DNC call, the Biden campaign released a memo from senior adviser Jen O’Malley Dillon insisting that the debate had no tangible impact on the election.

“On every metric that matters, data shows it did nothing to change the American people’s perception, our supporters are more fired up than ever, and Donald Trump only reminded voters of why they fired him four years ago and failed to expand his appeal beyond his MAGA base,” O’Malley Dillon wrote.

She added, “If we do see changes in polling in the coming weeks, it will not be the first time that overblown media narratives have driven temporary dips in the polls.”

Meanwhile, Biden spent much of Saturday courting wealthy donors in New York’s famed wealthy enclave of the Hamptons.

“I didn’t have a great night, but neither did Trump,” Biden said of the debate at one gathering in East Hampton.

Of Trump, Biden said, “The big takeaway was his lies.”

Harrison reinforced the president’s message on the DNC call, which spanned roughly an hour. Hannah Muldavin, a DNC spokesperson, said the discussion was a regularly scheduled quarterly conference call with the committee’s membership.

The topics included Biden’s energetic North Carolina appearance the day after the debate and a fundraising surge that produced more than $27 million for the campaign between debate day through Friday evening, Muldavin said.

Harrison did not ignore the debate altogether in his remarks, she said.

He briefly referenced Biden’s comments from his North Carolina speech that he doesn’t debate as well as he used to, but that he knows how to get up when he gets knocked down.

Salazar noted that Harrison also suggested that party leaders always knew the 2024 presidential contest would be close, a regular Democratic talking point that irks Salazar.

“This should not be a close race,” Salazar said, pointing to Trump’s criminal record and long history of falsehoods. “They’re the ones who should be looking for a new nominee, not us. And unfortunately for us, because of our president’s performance on Thursday night, that is now an open discussion.”

Democrat donors and insiders are growing furious that First Lady Jill Biden won’t advise her husband to drop out of the race.

In recent days after President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance, it seems the person pushing most for him to continue running is his wife.

A chorus of Democrats are openly calling for the presumed Democratic nominee to be replace after stumbling over his words and losing his train of thought multiple times during his Thurday’s night debate with Donald Trump.

But Jill, 73, is insistent that President Biden, 81, continue running for reelection, according to hedge fund manager and market expert Dougie Kass.

And Biden is set to discuss the future of his re-election campaign on Sunday with his family at Camp David, NBC News first reported Saturday night.

A person familiar with the matter told the network Biden will only listen to his wife of almost 50 years.

‘The only person who has ultimate influence with him is the first lady,’ they said. ‘If she decides there should be a change of course, there will be a change of course.’

His return to the presidential retreat comes after Biden already spent seven days before the debate at Camp David with advisers in debate prep sessions.

On Friday, Jill was mocked for saying at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina that her husband did extremely well at the debate and ‘answered all the questions.’

Some Republicans are going as far to accuse Jill of ‘elder abuse.’

Rep. Harriet Hageman (R-Wy.) slammed the first lady for ‘rolling President Biden out on stage to engage in a battle of wits while unarmed.’

In private, according to The New York Times, the school teacher believes that Biden’s debate performance was just a ‘bad night.’

After the debate and calls for him to step down, NYT columnist Maureen Dowd predicted that Jill and White House staff ‘will build their protective wall ever higher and shoo away reporters.’

Biden also already had crisis talks with former President Barack Obama and his former White House Chief of Staff after the debate.

But top Democratic Party leaders, including Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi, are still offering public support for Biden despite reports of a different tune behind the scenes.

Some donors skipped Biden’s $250,000-per-head Hamptons fundraiser at hedge fund manager Barry Rosenstein’s 18-acre beach estate this weekend after his car-crash debate performance.

‘Lots of people are blaming his wife… for not telling him [to step aside],’ one told the New York Post.

While Biden’s trip to Camp David was planned ahead of Thursday’s shocking performance, the getaway will serve as a break in the campaign trail with his children and grandchildren.

His retreat at the 125-acre country cabin in the hills of Maryland comes as his team keeps insisting that the idea of him dropping out of the race would only ‘lead to weeks of chaos,’ calling the concern of several Democrats the work of ‘bedwetting brigade.’

‘Any discussion about the campaign is expected to be informal or an afterthought, a source told NBC. ‘No one is sitting down for a formal or determinative discussion.’

‘That is the best possible way for Donald Trump to win and us to lose,’ Biden’s deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty argued in an email after the president’s Hamptons visit, which saw the president being faced with people holding signs bearing the same message: drop out.

‘First of all: Joe Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee, period. End of story. Voters voted. He won overwhelmingly,’ Flaherty went on.

‘And if he were to drop out, it would lead to weeks of chaos, internal foodfighting, and a bunch of candidates who limp into a brutal floor fight at the convention, all while Donald Trump has time to speak to American voters uncontested.

At the Hampton’s event, the first couple were rubbing shoulders with a slew of moneyed donors – as the Times reported several ‘megadonors’ in Silicon Valley were trying to reach the first lady to sway her to convince Biden to bow out in favor of a younger candidate.

According to Anthony Scaramucci, who attended the fundraiser, Biden used a teleprompter when speaking to donors in the living room of the beach house.

On Friday, Biden continued to defend his cognizance his debate performance the day before, speaking out at a rally in North Carolina. There, he told onlookers that he was still the party’s best bet at beating Trump, despite what millions saw on TV.

‘I know I’m not a young man, I don’t walk as easy as I used to, I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to, I don’t debate as well as I used to.

‘But I know what I do know,’ he continued, before receiving a round of uproarious applause.

‘I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done.’

‘I know, like many of Americans know, when you get knocked down, you get back up,’ he concluded.

One Democratic House member who spoke to NBC News for its Saturday night piece about how the president will use the visit to reassess his reelection bid said they too believe Biden should drop out, but has yet to call for that publicly.

They said three colleagues expressed the same sentiment during votes on the House floor on Friday, as Biden continued to defend himself in North Carolina.

Members of the House have also not wavered publicly, and their aides have also rejected the idea they are having second-thoughts behind closed doors.

That said, the Democrats could be giving the president space as he mulls his next steps, with Camp David appearing to be a critical juncture in this decision making process as insiders say First Lady Jill holds the most influence out of her husband’s inner circle.

‘The decision-makers are two people — it’s the president and his wife,’ one of the sources familiar with the discussions told NBC of this already known dynamic.

They added: ‘Anyone who doesn’t understand how deeply personal and familial this decision will be isn’t knowledgeable about the situation.’

The statements echoed those from insiders aired earlier in the day, after The New York Times reported that in private, she viewed Biden’s bumbling faceoff with his old rival as merely ‘a bad night.’

In the interim, Biden’s top aides have told his staff to stay strong in meetings, airing the mission statement, ‘We’ll weather the storm, just like we always have,’ according to one senior administration official.

The Democratic National Committee’s official procedures for the convention, adopted in 2022, give the committee the authority to choose a new candidate if either member of the ticket dies or withdraws.

Biden also has the power to bow out of the race himself – by releasing all the pledged delegates he has accumulated.

That’s 3,894 of 3,937 so far, according to a tally by The Associated Press.

Voters across mainland France have begun casting ballots Sunday in the first round of exceptional parliamentary elections that could put France’s government in the hands of nationalist parties.

As reported previously, the outcome of the two-round elections, which will wrap up on July 7, could impact European financial markets, Western support for Ukraine, and how France’s nuclear arsenal and global military force are managed.

As Epoch Times notes, many French voters are frustrated about inflation and economic concerns, as well as President Emmanuel Macron’s leadership, which they see as arrogant and out-of-touch with their lives. Marine Le Pen’s nationalist National Rally party has dominated all pre-election opinion polls.

A new coalition on the left, the New Popular Front, is also posing a challenge to Mr. Macron and his centrist alliance Together for the Republic.

There are 49.5 million registered voters who will choose 577 members of the National Assembly, France’s influential lower house of parliament, during the two-round voting.

Polls opened at 0600 GMT and will close at 1600 GMT in small towns and cities, with an 1800 GMT finish in the bigger cities, when the first exit polls for the night and seat projections for the decisive second round a week later are expected.

The participation is already running high, underlining how France’s rumbling political crisis has energized the electorate. By midday, turnout was at 25.9%, compared with 18.43% two years ago – the highest comparable turnout figures since the 1981 legislative vote, Ipsos France’s research director Mathieu Gallard said.

Macron voted at a polling station in Le Touquet, a small seaside town in northern France, along with his wife, Brigitte Macron. Earlier, Ms. Le Pen cast her ballot in her party’s stronghold in northern France.

The vote takes place during the traditional first week of summer vacation in France, and absentee ballot requests were at least five times higher than in the 2022 elections.

After a blitz campaign, voting began early in France’s overseas territories, and polling stations opened in mainland France at 8 a.m. (0600 GMT) Sunday. The first polling projections are expected at 8 p.m. (1800 GMT), when the final polling stations close, and early official results are expected later Sunday night.

Voters who turned out in person at a Paris polling station said issues from immigration to inflation and the rising cost of living were on their minds.

“People don’t like what has been happening,” said Cynthia Justine, a 44-year-old voter. “People feel they’ve lost a lot in recent years. People are angry. I am angry.”

Mr. Macron called the early elections after his party was trounced in the European Parliament election earlier in June by the National Rally.

Pre-election polls suggested that the National Rally party is gaining support and has a chance at winning a parliamentary majority. In that scenario, Mr. Macron would be expected to name 28-year-old National Rally President Jordan Bardella as prime minister in a power-sharing system known as “cohabitation.”

While Macron has said he won’t step down before his presidential term expires in 2027, cohabitation would weaken him at home and on the world stage.

The results of the first round will give a picture of overall voter sentiment, but not necessarily of the overall makeup of the next National Assembly. Predictions are extremely difficult because of the complicated voting system, and because parties will work between the two rounds to make alliances in some constituencies or pull out of others.

The party has also questioned the right to citizenship for people born in France and wants to curtail the rights of French citizens with dual nationality.

In the restive French Pacific territory of New Caledonia, polls closed at 5 p.m. local time due to an 8 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew that authorities on the archipelago have extended until July 8.

Violence there flared on May 13, leaving nine people dead after two weeks of unrest, due to attempts by Mr. Macron’s government to amend the French Constitution and change voting lists in New Caledonia, which the Indigenous Kanaks feared would further marginalize them. They have long sought to break free from France, which first took the Pacific territory in 1853.

Voters in France’s other overseas territories from Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, Saint-Barthélemy, Saint-Martin, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyana, French Polynesia, and those voting in offices opened by embassies and consular posts across the Americas cast their ballots on Saturday.

In his preview of what to expected, Goldman trader Alex Stott writes that voting booths in large cities will close at 8pm and results will trickle in during the evening. Some candidates may already secure their seat after the first round if they win more than 50% of expressed votes which total at least 25% of registered voters. We only saw 5 of such cases in 2022, out of 577 seats. In the vast majority of cases, two or more candidates will advance to the second round on July 7. The rule is that the two candidates with the most votes and any candidate totalling at least 12.5% of registered voters qualify to the second round.

Polls point to a significant increase in turnout (from 46% in 2022 to around 65%) which would place the threshold for qualifying at 19% of expressed votes.

All three main political groups currently poll at-or-above this threshold—the RN at 36%, the NFP (left coalition) at 28%, and Ensemble (Macron allies) at 20%—which will likely give rise to many more three-way races.

Pollster Odoxa is predicting 120 to 170 three-way races, compared to 8 in 2022.

Aside of the results, the focus will be on voting instructions from political leaders and unsuccessful candidates. Most parties will likely support each other in a matchup with the RN, except between LFI and Ensemble/LR which will likely adopt a neutral stance. It is also likely that this support pattern extends to candidates dropping out in three-way races. This will make the RN-Ensemble/LR-LFI set-up particularly salient and difficult to read.

The deadline for dropping out is Monday, 1st July at 6pm Paris time. A simple benchmark for performance is the first round vote share, which polls tend to accurately predict.

It is likely that Ensemble would need to finish first or second in at least 80-100 constituencies to retain a chance of meeting current seat projections of 70-120.

Barring a large surprise, calling an absolute majority for the RN is likely to remain difficult even with first round results and voting instructions in hand.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) editorial board called on President Biden to end his reelection bid after “his alarming performance” at Thursday night’s debate.

In a piece published online Saturday evening, the board said the incumbent Democrat should step aside “for the good of the nation he has served so admirably for half a century.”

“Biden’s candidacy was grounded in his incumbency and the belief of Democratic leaders and pollsters that he stood the best chance of defeating Trump in November. That is no longer the case,” the board wrote. “That reality may be difficult to accept for a man whose personal and political lives have been defined by resiliency, but it is the truth.”

The board touted the “courage and dignity that have defined Biden’s political career,” but added, “Biden deserves a better exit from public life than the one he endured when he shuffled off the stage Thursday night.”

The editorial comes amid heightened concerns among some in the Democratic Party about leaving Biden on the ticket after his shaky performance during the first presidential debate against former President Trump on Thursday.

During the debate, Biden’s voice was raspy, and sources close to Biden said he had a cold. He stumbled through some of his answers and, at one point, appeared to lose his train of thought mid-sentence.

Biden and close allies have sought to assuage public concerns following the debate, saying Biden had a bad night but that one debate performance does not define a person’s term in office, but the AJC editorial board said, “These responses are insulting to the American people.”

“This wasn’t a bad night; it was confirmation of the worst fears of some of Biden’s most ardent supporters — that after 36 years in the U.S. Senate, eight more as vice president and a term in the White House, age has finally caught up to him,” the board wrote.

The AJC editorial board warned of what it characterizes as the imminent threat Trump poses to the republic. The board chastised Trump for lying throughout the debate – more than 30 times, according to a CNN fact check – but stressed the evermore importance of having a strong candidate atop the Democratic ticket.

“Trump’s performance Thursday night should have prompted leaders in his party to repudiate his falsehoods. But it didn’t.

“Biden has pledged to do all he can to prevent Trump from returning to the White House. The election is still four months away,” the board wrote. “If he truly hopes to defeat Trump, he must pass the torch to the next generation of Democratic leaders and urge the party to nominate another candidate at its convention in Chicago in August.”

Nikki Haley, the runner-up to Donald Trump in this year’s GOP nomination race, said Democrats need to dump President Biden as their presumptive nominee following his halting debate performance as she reiterated her calls for cognitive testing of all federal candidates.

But the former South Carolina governor, in a Wall Street Journal interview, said Republicans shouldn’t assume replacing Biden would inherently help Trump.

“They are going to be smart about it: they’re going to bring somebody younger, they’re going to bring somebody vibrant, they’re going to bring somebody tested,” she said. “This is a time for Republicans to prepare and get ready for what’s to come because there is no way that there will be a surviving Democratic Party if they allow Joe Biden to continue to be the candidate.”

Haley also said she spoke about a week ago with Trump—the former president and presumptive Republican nominee—for the first time since she left the race in early March.

The two had a highly combative relationship during the first two months of the year, but Haley said she reached out to Trump to personally offer her support after stating during a public appearance in late May that she would vote for him.

She described it as a “good conversation,” but said there was no discussion of a campaign role for her or participation in next month’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. It was the first time the two had spoken since she dropped out of the race. She had urged Trump to be more welcoming to the millions of people who voted for her.

Haley, who served as Trump’s first United Nations ambassador, said Biden’s presence in the White House presents risk for the nation following his debate appearance because his performance projected weakness. “Our enemies just saw that they have between now and Jan. 20 to do whatever it is they want to do,” she said in a reference to next year’s Inauguration Day.

Biden’s campaign didn’t directly respond to Haley’s comments, but issued a statement seeking to embrace her supporters.

“To the millions of Nikki Haley supporters who are tired of Donald Trump and his MAGA allies constantly attacking them, running moderates and independents out of the party, and repeatedly refusing to commit to accepting the 2024 election results, you have a home in President Biden’s coalition,” said a campaign spokesman, Ammar Moussa.

When Haley announced her presidential bid in February 2023, she called for congressional term limits and “mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 years old.” It was a topic she brought up at virtually every campaign stop for more than a year.

Such tests are typically only administered for people concerned that they or a loved one might be experiencing dementia or other cognitive decline. The questions are designed to evaluate short-term memory, executive functions, language, orientation and other considerations.

In the interview, Haley said the tests could be administered by most doctors and should be voluntarily shared by candidates for federal office. She compared it to the same sort of basic financial disclosure required of candidates.

Washington is “full of older people,” and voters need to know “who is up to the challenge and who is not,” she said.

Haley, 52 years old, said she watched the debate at her South Carolina home with her husband and some friends and quickly realized Biden was in deep political trouble.

“It was shocking, I think, for a lot of people,” she said. “What we saw was that Trump was strong, but I don’t even think that mattered because Biden was so amazingly unfit. The way he lost his train of thought, the way he couldn’t grasp topics of what he needed to talk about.”

Trump made a string of false or misleading statements during the debate, but he largely stuck to the advice of his aides and took a less combative approach.

In the past, Haley has questioned Trump’s mental vitality. In January, while campaigning in New Hampshire, she suggested he has experienced mental “decline,” highlighting how he had mixed her up with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Trump, 78, has taken a cognitive test in the past. He has also called for Biden, 81, to release results from such testing. Polls show Biden has experienced more wariness about his age and mental sharpness among voters than Trump.

Haley alleged that Biden’s aides have hid his mental aging from voters. “What we have seen is so many people around Joe Biden and in his administration kept telling the American people, ‘He’s OK behind closed doors. He’s great behind closed doors,’ even though we were seeing signs that he wasn’t,” she said.

Predicting congressional losses if Democrats stick with Biden, she said they need to make a change. “If they continue down this path and they have Biden as their nominee, they are committing to hurting America,” she said, adding that replacing him on the ticket would be “for the good of the country.”

Hurricane Beryl is forecast to strengthen into a powerful Category 4 storm as it approaches the southeast Caribbean, which began shutting down Sunday amid urgent pleas from government officials for people to take shelter.

Hurricane warnings were in effect for Barbados, St. Lucia, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Beryl’s center is expected to pass about 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of Barbados on Monday morning, said Sabu Best, director of Barbados’ meteorological service.

“This is a very serious situation developing for the Windward Islands,” warned the National Hurricane Center in Miami, which said that Beryl was “forecast to bring life-threatening winds and storm surge.”

Beryl strengthened into a Category 3 hurricane on Sunday morning, becoming the first major hurricane east of the Lesser Antilles on record for June, according to Philip Klotzbach, Colorado State University hurricane researcher.

Beryl is now only the third Category 3 hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic in June, following Audrey in 1957 and Alma in 1966, said hurricane specialist and storm surge expert Michael Lowry.

“Beryl is an extremely dangerous and rare hurricane for this time of year in this area,” he said in a phone interview. “Unusual is an understatement. Beryl is already a historic hurricane and it hasn’t struck yet.”

Hurricane Ivan in 2004 was the last strongest hurricane to hit the southeast Caribbean, causing catastrophic damage in Grenada as a Category 3 storm.

“So this is a serious threat, a very serious threat,” Lowry said of Beryl.

Beryl was located about 420 miles (675 kilometers) east-southeast of Barbados. It was a Category 3 storm with maximum sustained winds of 115 mph (185 kph) and was moving west at 21 mph (33 kph). It was expected to pass just south of Barbados early Monday and then head into the Caribbean Sea as a major hurricane on a path toward Jamaica. It is expected to weaken by midweek but still remain a hurricane as it heads toward Mexico.

Forecasters warned of life-threatening storm surge of up to 9 feet (3 meters) in areas where Beryl will make landfall, with up to 6 inches (15 centimeters) of rain for Barbados and nearby islands.

Long lines formed at gas stations and grocery stores in Barbados and other islands as people rushed to prepare for a storm that has broken records and rapidly intensified from a tropical storm with 35 mph winds on Friday to a Category 1 hurricane on Saturday.

Warm waters were fueling Beryl, with ocean heat content in the deep Atlantic the highest on record for this time of year, according to Brian McNoldy, University of Miami tropical meteorology researcher. Lowry said the waters are now warmer than they would be at the peak of hurricane season in September.

Beryl marks the farthest east that a hurricane has formed in the tropical Atlantic in June, breaking a record set in 1933, according to Philip Klotzbach, Colorado State University hurricane researcher. If Beryl’s winds reach 125 mph, it would be the second earliest such storm in the Atlantic on record, surpassing Audrey in 1957, he said.

“We have to remain vigilant,” Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley said in a public address late Saturday. “We do not want to put anybody’s life at risk.”

Thousands of people were in Barbados for Saturday’s Twenty20 World Cup final, cricket’s biggest event, with Mottley noting that not all fans were able to leave Sunday despite many rushing to change their flights.

“Some of them have never gone through a storm before,” she said. “We have plans to take care of them.”

Mottley said all businesses should close by Sunday evening and warned the airport would close by nighttime.

Kemar Saffrey, president of a Barbadian group that aims to end homelessness, said in a video posted on social media Saturday night that those without homes tend to think they can ride out storms because they’ve done it before.

“I don’t want that to be the approach that they take,” he said, warning that Beryl is a dangerous storm and urging Barbadians to direct homeless people to a shelter.

Echoing his comments was Wilfred Abrahams, minister of home affairs and information.

“I need Barbadians at this point to be their brother’s keeper,” he said. “Some people are vulnerable.”

Meanwhile, St. Lucia Prime Minister Philip J. Pierre announced a national shutdown for Sunday evening and said schools and businesses would remain closed on Monday.

“Preservation and protection of life is a priority,” he said.

Caribbean leaders were preparing not only for Beryl, but for a cluster of thunderstorms trailing the hurricane that have a 70% chance of becoming a tropical depression.

“Do not let your guard down,” Mottley said.

Beryl is the second named storm in what is forecast to be an above-average hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30 in the Atlantic. Earlier this month, Tropical Storm Alberto came ashore in northeastern Mexico with heavy rains that resulted in four deaths.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicts the 2024 hurricane season is likely to be well above average, with between 17 and 25 named storms. The forecast calls for as many as 13 hurricanes and four major hurricanes.

An average Atlantic hurricane season produces 14 named storms, seven of them hurricanes and three major hurricanes.

President Joe Biden is expected to discuss the future of his re-election campaign with family at Camp David on Sunday, following a nationally televised debate Thursday that left many fellow Democrats worried about his ability to beat former President Donald Trump in November, according to five people familiar with the matter, NBC News reported.

Biden’s trip was planned before Thursday’s debate. He and first lady Jill Biden are scheduled to join their children and grandchildren there late Saturday.

So far, the party’s top leaders have offered public support for Biden, including in tweets posted by former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Senior congressional Democrats, including Reps. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and Nancy Pelosi of California, have privately expressed concerns about his viability, said two sources apprised of those discussions, even as they all publicly back the president.

One Democratic House member who believes Biden should drop out of the race — but has yet to call for that publicly — told NBC News that three colleagues expressed the same sentiment to him during votes on the House floor Friday.

House leaders have not wavered publicly, and their aides denied that they are expressing doubts behind closed doors.

“Speaker Pelosi has full confidence in President Biden and looks forward to attending his inauguration on January 20, 2025,” Ian Krager, a spokesman for the former House speaker said. “Any suggestion that she has engaged in a different course of action is simply not true.”

Christie Stephenson, a spokeswoman for Jeffries, the House minority leader, said her boss has “repeatedly made clear publicly and privately that he supports President Joe Biden and the Democratic ticket from top to bottom.”

Brianna Frias said that Clyburn, who is traveling to Wisconsin this weekend to campaign for the president, “has total confidence in President Joe Biden and the Biden-Harris ticket.

“Any reports alleging that the Congressman has expressed anything other than firm support of President Biden are completely untrue,” Frias said.

At the same time, there is an understanding among top Democrats that Biden should be given space to determine next steps. They believe only the president, in consultation with his family, can decide whether to move forward or to end his campaign early — and that he won’t respond well to being pushed.

“The decision-makers are two people — it’s the president and his wife,” one of the sources familiar with the discussions said, adding: “Anyone who doesn’t understand how deeply personal and familial this decision will be isn’t knowledgeable about the situation.”

This account of a president and his party in crisis just a little more than four months before an election they say will determine the fate of democracy is drawn from interviews with more than a dozen Democratic officials, operatives, aides and donors. All of them spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to describe matters as sensitive as whether a sitting president might give up his re-election bid and how he could be replaced on the ballot.

Despite delivering a rousing speech at a rally in North Carolina on Friday that calmed some of his allies, Biden was described by one person familiar with his mood as humiliated, devoid of confidence and painfully aware that the physical images of him at the debate — eyes staring into the distance, mouth agape — will live beyond his presidency, along with a performance that at times was meandering, incoherent and difficult to hear.

“It’s a mess,” this person said.

Another person familiar with the dynamics said Biden will ultimately listen to only one adviser.

“The only person who has ultimate influence with him is the first lady,” this person said. “If she decides there should be a change of course, there will be a change of course.”

After publication of this report, a source familiar reached out to stress that the Camp David gathering was not a formal family meeting.

“Any discussion about the campaign is expected to be informal or an afterthought,” the source said. “No one is sitting down for a formal or determinative discussion.”

Anita Dunn, one of Biden’s handful of closest advisers, said on MSNBC’s “The Weekend” Saturday that Biden has not discussed dropping out of the race with aides and that internal talks have focused on moving forward.

“We had a bad debate,” Dunn said. “What do we do next? You know, the president, above all, is focused on what do we do next? What do I need to go do?”

These private discussions among Biden, his family members and his top advisers are being held against the backdrop of a reckoning for Democrats who were shocked both by Biden’s appearance and the frequency with which his train of thought appeared to veer off track.

His campaign held a conference call Saturday with members of the Democratic National Committee, which a Biden campaign official described as an effort to reassure party officials and demonstrate that his team is communicating with its allies.

“We’re driving this,” the official said.

Biden’s top aides and advisers have told his staff to stay the course in meetings and discussions. Their message, according to one senior administration official: “We’ll weather the storm, just like we always have.”

Sources have described three buckets of Democrats: those who will defend Biden under any circumstances, those who are ready to dump him, and those who are waiting to see what he does — and what his poll numbers look like in the coming days and weeks — before passing judgment. It’s the third bucket that Democratic insiders are monitoring closely.

“Democrats need to take a big breath and look at that polling, look at swing voters,” said one state Democratic Party chair. “Until I see something differently, he’s the person that’s put this coalition together, he’s the person that has the record, he’s the person that beat Donald Trump. Until I see something differently, he’s still the best person to beat Donald Trump.”

The Biden campaign declined to comment for this piece, instead pointing to a memo Saturday from campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon that made the case that Biden can still win, pointing to the more than $27 million they raised between debate day and Friday evening.

Notably, however, O’Malley Dillon nodded to the possibility that there might be some tough polling ahead — but said the blame will rest with the media: “If we do see changes in polling in the coming weeks, it will not be the first time that overblown media narratives have driven temporary dips in the polls.”

The discussions among some Democrats include weighing what the party’s best path to defeating Trump might be — sticking with an 81-year-old incumbent who could have another moment like Thursday night at any time between now and Election Day, or going with a different candidate whose path to nomination at the party’s convention next month could be a messy process.

Biden insisted Friday that he will remain the party’s standard-bearer in November, telling a crowd at his rally in North Carolina: “I would not be running again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul I can do this job.”

The president has spent much of the past 48 hours attending fundraising events with some of the very Democrats most concerned about the impact of his debate performance.

He addressed it head-on at one event Saturday.

“I understand the concern about the debate — I get it,” he added. “I didn’t have a great night.”

Party elites will urge him to exit the race only if they determine that he is “not viable and negatively impacting the House and Senate races,” said one big-time donor who is close to both Obama and Biden.

Inherent in the wait-and-see approach is an acknowledgment that there is no clear replacement for Biden and that his departure could touch off a bloody eleventh-hour intraparty battle that might allow Trump to cruise to victory.

There’s also no feasible way to force him from his perch. All but a handful of the delegates to the Democratic convention were elected on their pledge to nominate him at the party’s convention in August. If he chooses to stand for that nomination, party insiders say, he will get it.

Moreover, according to a senior Democratic official, the party leadership would have much more control over choosing a replacement if Biden were to drop out after receiving the nomination than if he did so beforehand. Once a candidate is officially nominated, there is a process for the Democratic National Committee members to choose a successor. Biden is the dominant force at the DNC, and his preference for a successor would surely carry sway.

If Biden were to exit before that, his delegates might do what he asked of them — but they wouldn’t be bound in the same way they are now. In that scenario, the delegates could nominate anyone, and there could be a political brawl at the convention.

“We need to have as much discipline as emotion,” the senior Democratic official said. “It’s not politically smart for Biden to step down.”

Octogenarian President Biden has difficulty functioning outside a six-hour window of daylight, according to an alarming new report.

The 81-year-old commander in chief is prone to absent-minded gaffes and fatigue outside of the hours of 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. or while traveling abroad, White House aides told Axios in a bizarre attempt to spin his disastrous debate performance.

The public split screen isn’t new to many inside the White House, where top aides have meticulously stage-managed minutiae such as Biden’s sleep schedule, his orthopedic shoes, his walks to Marine One and his climb aboard Air Force One to try to blunt concerns about his age.

During the 90-minute trainwreck of a presidential debate — which kicked off five hours after the president’s peak performance window, at 9 p.m. — Biden often appeared vacant or slack-jawed, and on several occasions froze mid-thought, misspoke, or struggled to form coherent sentences.

The shocking late-night performance escalated fears about whether Biden is capable of serving another four years. He would be aged 86 by the end of his second term.

Biden attempted to quell voters’ concerns about his mental acuity with a much more energetic speech at a rally Friday in Raleigh, N.C. — during his more preferred time frame in the early afternoon.

“I don’t walk as easy as I used to, I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to, I don’t debate as well as I used to,” he said to a cheering crowd in the battleground state just after 1 p.m.

“But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job, I know how to get things done.”

Despite his better daytime showing Friday, Biden has faced a slew of calls from donors and pundits to drop out of the race.

Biden, however, has refused to step aside, suggesting the party leaders will maintain their support for him as well.

Former Democrat Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have also publicly expressed their continued support.

Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon on Saturday continued to defend the actions that resulted in his prison sentence.

In an interview with NBC News, Bannon continued to assert that the Jan. 6 committee’s subpoenas “don’t mean anything” and reiterated arguments about executive privilege that have been rejected in courts.

The vocal ally of former President Donald Trump is set to report to prison by Monday to serve a four-month sentence for defying subpoenas to appear before Congress during the investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Though Bannon was convicted in 2022, his sentence was put on hold while he sought to appeal the convictions. A last-ditch effort to appeal to the Supreme Court was rejected earlier this week, meaning Bannon has to report to prison by July 1.

When asked what his endgame is, Bannon told NBC News it was “victory or death of this republic.”

“If we don’t win the — first of all, they shred the Constitution. It is the death of the constitutional American republic we know,” he continued.

It’s a claim he made earlier this month during his speech at the conservative Turning Point USA conference.

“Ladies and gentleman, it’s very simple: victory or death!” Bannon said during his speech as the audience cheered.

Bannon’s prison sentence stems from being held in contempt of Congress after defying the Jan. 6 committee’s request for testimony and documents. White House records had shown that Bannon had multiple conversations with Trump on or immediately before Jan. 6.

He continued to reject a question from NBC News about the content of those conversations, calling them “personal and private” and pointing to executive privilege claims, which the Jan. 6 committee said would not prevent him from having to testify.

Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro has remained behind bars since March on a four-month prison sentence. Navarro was convicted of the same charges as Bannon.

Amid all of the Democratic panic-texting prompted by President Joe Biden’s shaky debate performance Thursday, one name was curiously absent from many of those conversations: Vice President Kamala Harris.

Names including California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer trended online as potential replacements for Biden on the Democratic ticket, while Harris — by several measures the most obvious and best-positioned candidate — was left to publicly defend Biden at the single worst moment of their four-year-old political partnership.

That was to the chagrin of some Harris allies, who are privately expressing frustration that her name is not being mentioned in the same company as other ambitious Democrats. But they can do little about it: Harris is laboring under a de facto mandate to defend him.

“There’s nothing that she could do externally that would be wise,” Democratic strategist Michael Trujillo said. “Her best strategy is to internally just be an amazing VP.”

She had to perform the role of good soldier almost immediately after the debate, with postmortem interviews having been pre-scheduled with CNN and MSNBC.

As Harris watched Biden’s face-plant, she and her team realized her response would be even more closely scrutinized, according to three aides granted anonymity to describe private discussions — and she quickly made clear to her staff that they shouldn’t try to sugarcoat how badly her running mate had performed.

Harris told her advisers her role was simple, the aides said: project confidence as quickly and clearly as possible as a leader of the party, while preserving credibility by recognizing how weak the debate had been.

“She wanted to have an acknowledgment of what everybody was seeing,” one senior Harris aide said.

Harris’ other two objectives were to zero in on attacking Trump, the aide said, and, perhaps more importantly, move the conversation away from the debate and toward Biden’s record.

“The president said himself that it was not his best performance,” Harris said at a campaign rally on Friday afternoon, before ripping former President Donald Trump for lies he told during the debate.

Harris went on to offer a familiar defense of Biden, one heard from many Democrats who have interacted with him closely.

“I see Joe Biden when the cameras are on and the cameras are off, in the Oval Office negotiating bipartisan deals,” Harris said. “I see him in the Situation Room keeping our country safe, [and] on the world stage meeting with world leaders who often ask for his advice.”

Some allies of the first Black and South Asian woman to be vice president fumed Friday about the lack of attention Harris drew as a possible replacement — not a surrogate — for Biden, passed over in the Beltway chatter for the likes of Newsom, Whitmer and even Govs. JB Pritzker of Illinois and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania.

“The fact that people keep coming back to this is so offensive to so many of us,” one veteran Democrat and Harris ally said. “They still don’t get that the message you’re saying to people, to this Democratic Party, is, we prefer a white person.”

Another added, “If they think they are going to get through South Carolina bashing an effective and qualified Black woman vice president — their instincts are as bad as I thought they were.”

Their frustration is unlikely to translate into an aggressive push for a change atop the ticket, as they are painfully aware that even acknowledging the possibility Biden might step away would spark a potential feeding frenzy. In other words, amid all the wishcasting surrounding other ambitious Democrats, Harris world can’t make her case without making things worse for Biden.

“Her doing anything externally is going to just hand reporters stories,” Trujillo said. “If she gets any text messages saying something critical, my best advice would be to not reply.”

Her biggest asset, in any case, isn’t a marketing machine — it’s political reality. Were Biden to leave the presidential race, hopping over Harris to any other potential candidate would present significant practical challenges. Only Harris, for instance, would have access to the coffers of the campaign she’s already a part of. Any other candidate would be faced with the tall task of building an infrastructure in a matter of months.

“It’s very hard to go from the minors to the Super Bowl, and compared to running for president, everything else is semi-pro,” said Jamal Simmons, a veteran Democratic operative and former Harris communications director.

There’s also the fact that Harris, despite a rocky couple of years in the polls, still has the highest name ID of any plausible Biden replacement. A recent POLITICO poll found that 41 percent of Democratic voters chose Harris as a hypothetical 2028 nominee. The next closest was Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, with 15 percent, and Newsom, with 14 percent.

Harris’ allies and aides believe that the VP has strengthened her profile in recent months, becoming more adept and confident after months of official and campaign travel. They’re also not shy about pointing out the optics of substituting any other candidate (likely White, possibly male) for Harris — a move that they suggest would upset not only Black delegates at the convention but also Black voters with whom the Biden campaign is already on shaky ground.

Still, she faces skepticism from the Democratic rank-and-file, who have been repelled by Harris’ weak polling numbers and see any of the more-popular-if-lesser-known governors as preferable.

“We actually have to win this election,” said one House Democrat who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about a party leader. “We should put someone up who would not only be a good president, but be a good candidate.”

There are no plans for Harris to go on a Biden defense tour, aides said. She is instead focused on fundraising in the coming days, where she will be in contact with now-jittery donors who are expected to bankroll Biden’s reelection. It will be an opportunity for her to both defend Biden and also make an impression, if only implicit, about her suitability as a replacement.

That is a delicate balancing act she might need to perform for weeks — perhaps until the late-August convention — as the ramifications of Thursday’s debate play out in the polls and on the hustings.

“If she didn’t, imagine what people would say: ‘Well, hold up, even the VP is not defending him.’ But it’s also important that people see and hear from a number of different voices and faces and the people who are in the conversation,” one Democrat close to the White House and campaign said.