Trump claims ‘exoneration’ after Supreme Court grants immunity as Biden blames exhaustion for debate disaster: Live updates

The president’s polling numbers have begun to fall in key swing states following his dismal debate performance last week.

That’s according to a confidential polling memo obtained by Puck News.

It reveals that states where Biden was clearly ahead, such as New Mexico, Virginia, and New Hampshire, may now be winnable for Trump.

Biden is now behind other possible candidates in the polls looking at possible matchups with Trump, including Vice President Kamala Harris and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, the memo from OpenLabs shows.

Gustaf Kilander has more.

A group of Democratic governors has demanded a meeting at the White House to get reassurances from Biden and advisers in the wake of that disastrous first debate.

The group, which contains some of the president’s most ardent supporters and some potential successors, has been startled by their lack of contact with the president following the debacle, according to The New York Times.

Biden’s press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said yesterday her boss does not have Alzheimer’s, a form of dementia or any another degenerative illness that would explain his rambling, meandering performance during last week’s presidential debate against Trump.

Jean-Pierre was asked directly by The Independent’s Andrew Feinberg if the president’s reported lapses in memory and struggles during public events was the result of such an illness during the daily White House press briefing, the first since Biden turned in a shockingly dismal performance in his first face-to-face meeting with Trump since they last debated during the 2020 election.

The president, 81, is continuing to struggle to convince the Democratic Party that he is in good health and remains the right man to lead his side into November’s election following his disastrous debate performance last week, blaming his lacklustre showing on jet lag and exhaustion yesterday.

“I decided to travel around the world a couple of times… shortly before the debate… I didn’t listen to my staff… and then I almost fell asleep on stage,” he said on Tuesday.

Mike Bedigan reports on a not-exactly-reassuring remark.

The judge presiding over Trump’s hush money trial is postponing the former president’s sentencing to September 18 after Manhattan prosecutors said they would not oppose the convicted felon’s request to delay in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision granting him “absolute” immunity from criminal prosecution for “official” acts.

In a letter to Justice Juan Merchan on Tuesday, prosecutors with the office of Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg said Trump’s arguments are “without merit” but they do not oppose his request to push back the sentencing date as he files his legal arguments.

Trump was initially scheduled to be sentenced on July 11.

Alex Woodward has the details.

Just as he did with the Mueller report, Trump is crowing that the conservative-majority Supreme Court’s partial immunity ruling in his favour this week counts as a “total exoneration” of his crooked conduct.

Now, as then, it very much doesn’t.

Meanwhile, he’s been flooding his social media feed with favourable polling numbers and mocking Biden over, get this, spray tan.

This is the picture he posted of the president from Monday, alleging he’s been hitting the bronzer since looking pale and ill on the CNN debate stage in Atlanta last Thursday.

You sure you want to go there Don?

Gustaf Kilander has the story.

Comedian Bill Maher has urged Joe Biden to step aside as the Democratic candidate for president amid his disastrous debate performance last week.

He added that following the debate, he and others can no longer “ignore the obvious” about Biden’s age.

Martha McHardy has the story.

The new poll, from Saint Anselm College, found that 44 percent of voters in the Granite State would vote for Trump over Biden if the election were held today.