A new Biden challenger enters!

Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota has thrown his hat into the 2024 presidential election ring, challenging President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination.  

Phillips’s candidacy is being heralded by many outlets — and acknowledged by Phillips himself — as a “long shot,” with the New York Times noting Biden’s “significant financial advantages.”  

Still, Biden isn’t exactly the obvious choice to represent his party in 2024: Axios reported last month that a CNN poll showed “two-thirds of Democrat-leaning voters say the party should not nominate President Biden for a second term. 

“When those respondents were asked who the party’s 2024 nominee should be,” Axios further reported, “…82 percentsaid they want ‘just someone besides Joe Biden.’” 

So Phillips has that going for him. He’s not Joe Biden. But what else does the third-term congressman bring to the table? 

The Times labels Phillips a “moderate Democrat.” Politico notes he is also “a millionaire businessperson,” “gelato tycoon” and “heir to one of America’s largest liquor dynasties.” The Washington Examiner notes Phillips has a major age advantage: he’s fifty-four, and at the end of his next term, Biden would be eighty-six. Two other reasons the Examiner declares “Phillips is bad news for Biden” include the congressman’s willingness to talk about the border and crime.   

In his own words, Phillips said he thinks Biden “has done a spectacular job for our country, but… I will not sit still, I will not be quiet in the face of numbers that are so clearly saying that we’re going to be facing an emergency next November.”  

Though Phillips’s campaign may, indeed, be a long shot (Politico reports some of his colleagues think his aspirations amount to a “vanity project” or “md-life crisis”) it’s set to be an entertaining one, at least. Lincoln Project founder Steve Schmidt, whom Rolling Stone reminds us “brought you Sarah Palin,” is the strategist behind Phillips’s run.  

–Teresa Mull

On our radar

BOWMAN BUSTED Representative Jamaal Bowman’s previous excuse for pulling a fire alarm in a House office building is challenged by new video evidence that shows him ripping down “emergency exit” signs before brazenly pulling the alarm and walking away from the scene of the crime. 

GOLDEN’S GUN FLIP Maine representative Jared Golden is backing down on his support for the Second Amendment after Wednesday’s mass shooting in his state. Golden now says he will support a so-called “assault weapons ban” if brought to a vote in Congress. 

IVANKA TO TESTIFY A New York judge ruled Friday that Ivanka Trump, Donald Trump’s daughter, will be compelled to testify in a civil fraud case against the former president. 

Later, Larry!

Larry Elder, the conservative talk show host who challenged California governor Gavin Newsom in the 2021 recall election, has ended his presidential campaign, endorsing former president Donald Trump.

Elder released a statement Thursday where he said that after “careful consideration and consultation,” he reached the “difficult decision” of suspending his bid. Trump’s leadership, he adds, was “instrumental in advancing conservative America-first principles and policies that have benefited our great nation.” Hence, he suggests that now is the time to unite behind Trump.

Additionally, Elder concluded with a promise to continue to fight for the issues that matter to him and the MAGA movement, starting with the “crisis of fatherlessness.”

–Juan P. Villasmil

Guilty in Georgia

For months, John Fetterman has taken up a solitary post in the Russell Senate Office Building’s courtyard, where he makes the diner in Edward Hopper’s “Nighthawks” look like a raver at E11EVEN MIAMI.

Multiple Senate staff in different offices have spotted him camped out throughout the year while the Senate is in session — a luxury that their bosses simply do not have the time to afford. Fetterman’s quiet times are an open secret to those who work on Capitol Hill, yet, quelle surprise, they have gone completely unmentioned by the press corps.

It’s not just that Fetterman sits alone, however. He doesn’t seem to want to even do his job. Plenty of ink has been spilled about his dress code, or lack thereof, but Cockburn has noticed that on the days that he does show up to actually vote, he just yells “yay” or “nay” from the cloakroom and dips out, opting against schmoozing with his fellow senators of either political party…

-Cockburn

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