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Replacing Biden with anyone but Harris would be a real headache for Democrats
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Democrats would have a practical and political nightmare on their hands if President Joe Biden drops out and they decide to push Vice President Kamala Harris to the sidelines instead of the top of the ticket.
On Wednesday, Biden and Harris jointly proclaimed to campaign aides that they would press on in the face of growing criticism following Biden’s disastrous debate, according to the Associated Press.
“I am running. I am the leader of the Democratic Party. No one is pushing me out,” he said, according to the AP.
No one, least of all Biden’s running mate, can be seen publicly pressuring Biden to give up now.
Harris gets the money — probably.
In the event that Biden does call it quits, the focus will quickly turn to Harris. She is by far the best-positioned of Biden’s potential successors to take over. Most importantly, according to campaign finance experts, she would have the easiest path to accessing the Biden campaign’s $240 million war chest.
While nobody is quite sure what would happen to the millions should Biden step aside, Harris would probably control the cash — but only if she became the nominee.
“If Harris succeeded Biden as the presidential nominee, she would maintain access to all the funds in the campaign committee and could use them to advance her presidential candidacy,” Saurav Ghosh, the director for federal campaign finance reform at the Campaign Legal Center, told Business Insider in an email.
That’s because she shares a campaign committee with Biden, Ghosh said. Given her initial involvement with the Biden money — and the presence of her name on FEC filings related to his candidacy — she is likely the only one who could use the money without much issue.
Yet the same rules wouldn’t apply if Harris remained the vice presidential candidate or dropped off the ticket altogether.
According to Ghosh, federal contribution limits stipulate that candidate-to-candidate transfers don’t exceed $2,000 per election. While the Biden camp could convert the money into a political action committee if someone else was the nominee, there’s a catch — PACs can only donate a maximum of $3,300 per election to a different candidate.
“So in either case, there’s no legal way for Biden to transfer to a new candidate the $90 million dollars that his campaign currently has on hand,” Ghosh told Business Insider.
In a massive return-to-sender effort, the Biden campaign could also refund donations and donors could redirect their money toward the new candidate, campaign finance experts told NBC. Or, in yet another version of the future, the Biden campaign could transfer the funds to the national party.
All things considered, Harris soaring to the top of the ticket if Biden steps aside seems like the simplest solution with regards to the cold hard cash.
But money, of course, is not the only question — though many heads are turning in Harris’ direction, longstanding questions about her viability as a candidate remain.
Harris has major support among the Democratic Party’s core.
Pushing Harris aside could risk a firestorm. The vice president has repeatedly declared that she’s standing behind Biden, but already, influential voices in the party are lining up behind her. Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, whose backing helped Biden win the state’s 2020 primary, has said he would want Harris if Biden drops out.
“We should do everything we can to bolster her, whether it’s in second place or the top of the ticket,” Clyburn said on MSNBC on Tuesday.
In Washington, where the optics are never far out of sight, it would be impossible to ignore passing over the first female vice president for a man, or the first Black vice president for a white candidate.
Black voters remain the core of the modern Democratic Party. No single group is a monolith, but none of the major Biden challengers come close to Harris’ support in the Black community. According to a recent Economist-YouGov poll, 66% of Black voters view Harris favorably. In comparison, only 47% of Black voters view California Gov. Gavin Newsom favorably; slightly fewer view Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in the same light.
The same survey found that voters still don’t know enough about Whitmer to have an opinion about her, underlining another potential headache. Harris is one of the most-known politicians in the country. Any potential replacement will likely need to introduce themselves to the American people and on the national stage.
This doesn’t mean Harris has every advantage. Her notoriety comes with the White House’s baggage. Republicans would likely tag her with the same attacks on the economy and immigration that they’ve used against Biden. Unlike a potential replacement outside the beltway, Harris would struggle to show any major daylight with the president.
Already, Republicans are preparing for a potential Harris bid should she get the nomination and, with it, the campaign money. On Wednesday, the Republican National Committee released a digital ad calling her the “enabler in chief” and blaming her for chaos at the border.
Against ominous music, the ad asks, “Is this who we want to be president?” It seems the Democratic Party, and its donors, have to answer that question, too.
The United States government has identified a Nigerian national among several individuals and organisations accused of facilitating financial operations for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), as part of a broader crackdown on the group’s global funding network.
In a statement issued by the U.S. Department of State, officials said the action targeted three individuals and six entities operating across Europe, the Middle East, and West Africa, who are allegedly involved in moving funds used to support ISIS activities.
According to the department, the measures are aimed at disrupting the terrorist group’s ability to finance attacks and sustain its international operations.
“Under the leadership of President Trump, the United States is dismantling ISIS’s ability to finance terrorism around the world. We are cutting off the financial lifelines from around the world that enable ISIS to fund attacks, support its regional affiliates, and threaten civilians, including religious minorities,” spokesperson Thomas Pigott said.
The statement noted that the network spans France, Syria, Türkiye, and Nigeria, and is believed to have facilitated the cross-border movement of funds linked to the extremist group.
Officials alleged that the designated individuals include a France-based facilitator connected to explosives-related information shared with ISIS supporters, a Syria-based operator who reportedly used cryptocurrency to transfer funds internationally, and a Nigeria-based facilitator whose money exchange businesses were allegedly used as channels for ISIS financing.
The U.S. government said the designations are part of ongoing efforts to dismantle financial pipelines supporting terrorist organisations and to restrict their global operations.
Britain will have its seventh prime minister in 10 years after Labour leader Keir Starmer was ousted on Monday by his own party.
The party’s self-inflicted wound was a trend set by the Conservatives when they were in office.
Starmer announced his resignation on Monday following months of nose-diving poll ratings and manoeuvring by his own MPs.
Veteran Labour politician Andy Burnham has confirmed he will seek to replace him.
The main opposition Tories went through five prime ministers between 2016 and July 2024 when Starmer swept to power in a landslide general election victory.
The rapid turnover at the top prompted Starmer — before he became prime minister — to call for an end to the “chaos” of chopping and changing leaders.
After less than two years, Starmer has now met a similar fate himself.
Here’s what happened to his predecessors:
David Cameron (May 2010 to July 2016)
Britain’s decision to leave the European Union ended Cameron’s second term as prime minister.
After the country voted to leave in a June 2016 referendum, Cameron, who had campaigned to remain in the bloc, resigned.
Theresa May (July 2016 to July 2019)
Tolga AKMEN / AFP
May took over amid the fallout from the Brexit referendum after a long tenure in the notoriously difficult post of interior minister.
She called a snap election the following year to strengthen her hand in Brexit negotiations, but the move backfired when her party emerged as the biggest in parliament but without a majority.
Unable to get her Brexit deal through parliament, the Conservatives suffered a drubbing in European Parliament elections in May 2019, leading to her resignation.
Boris Johnson (July 2019 to September 2022)
Johnson, a maverick politician famed for making a career out of breaking the rules, had to navigate the coronavirus pandemic and Britain’s departure from the European Union.
He led the Conservatives to victory in the December 2019 snap general election.
But weakened by scandals, he was eventually forced to step down following a cascade of resignations by ministers and aides.
Liz Truss (September 2022 to October 2022)
Truss was prime minister for just 49 days, the shortest on record, before being ousted over her disastrous tax-cutting mini-budget.
Her economic agenda spooked the markets and took the UK to the brink of financial meltdown, losing her the support of her own party.
Rishi Sunak (October 2022 to July 2024)
Sunak was at the helm for 20 months before losing the 2024 general election to Starmer, bringing to an end 14 years of Conservative rule.
He brought some stability following the Truss debacle but failed to stop bitter Tory infighting.
The privately wealthy former financier ultimately failed to connect with regular voters struggling with a cost-of-living crisis.
AFP
The US government says it will stop funding programmes in South Africa intended to tackle the spread of HIV and Aids.
More than eight million South Africans are living with HIV – the highest number of any country in the world.
The US State Department appeared to link the decision to South Africa’s alleged failure to protect the white-minority Afrikaner community – an allegation the South African government has repeatedly rejected.
South Africa’s health ministry responded by saying that though it had not been informed of this decision, it had “long been working on a self-reliance plan”.
Until 2025, the US was supporting South Africa’s efforts to deal with the virus with an estimated $400m (£300m) a year through the President’s Emergency Fund for Aids Relief (PEPFAR).
But since the inauguration of President Donald Trump, relations between the two countries have increasingly soured.
Shortly after he came into office, Trump issued an executive order alleging that “countless” South African policies dismantled equal opportunities and fuelled violence “against racially disfavored landowners”.
This is disputed by the South African government, which says its Black Economic Empowerment policy is needed to correct economic inequality dating from the apartheid era.
The executive order also highlighted South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice and its links to Iran.
The White House said that given these “unjust and immoral practices”, further aid to South Africa would not be provided.
Trump has also falsely alleged that there is a “white genocide” taking place in South Africa, which has led to the administration setting up a refugee programme for Afrikaners – descendants of Western Europeans who settled in southern Africa in the 17th Century.
They are now just about the only refugees being allowed into the US.
The genocide claim has been widely discredited.
Pepfar funding, which had been providing about a fifth of South Africa’s total spending on HIV programmes, got a reprieve last October with what was called a “bridge plan”.
But a US State Department official has confirmed that a “phased drawdown” of Pepfar funding would now start.
This was because of “South Africa’s failure to make demonstrable progress on policy requests by the administration”, the official said.
The US government intended to “foster self-reliance” and reduce dependency on American funding, they added, pointing out that “South Africa is a middle-income country and is more than capable of supporting its own health programs”.
South Africa’s health ministry has said that while Pepfar contributed to the country’s HIV programme, the provision of life-saving antiretroviral drugs was funded entirely separately, with most coming from the government.
Attempts to mend US-South Africa relations have floundered. These include a high-profile White House meeting between Trump and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa just over a year ago, when the US president confronted his counterpart with his claims of white persecution.
The US also boycotted the G20 meeting, a gathering of the world’s major economies, hosted by South Africa last November.
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