US elections live: Trump faces backlash after telling supporters they ‘won’t have to vote again’ if he wins | US elections 2024

Adam Gabbatt

Joe Biden, in an op-ed this morning, said supreme court justices should be limited to a maximum of 18 years’ service rather than the current lifetime appointment, under a system where a new justice would be appointed to the court by the serving president every two years.

The president also called for stricter, enforceable rules on conduct which would require justices to disclose gifts, refrain from political activity, and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial interest.

Last week Justice Elena Kagan called for the court to strengthen the ethics code it introduced in 2023 by adding a way to enforce it.

That code was introduced after a spate of scandals involving rightwing justices on the court: Clarence Thomas was found to have accepted vacations and travel from a Republican mega-donor, while Samuel Alito flew on a private jet owned by an influential billionaire on the way to a fishing trip.

Joe Biden has called for a series of reforms to to the supreme court, including the introduction of 18-year term limits and a binding code of conduct for justices.

Biden, in an op-ed for the Washington Post, also called for a constitutional amendment to remove immunity for crimes committed by a president while in office.

The proposed amendment, titled the “No One Is Above the Law Amendment”, comes after the supreme court’s ruling earlier this month that Donald Trump is immune from criminal prosecution for “official acts” he committed as president.

In the op-ed published today, Biden wrote:

This nation was founded on a simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law. Not the president of the United States. Not a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States. No one.

The Harris campaign responded by saying that Donald Trump’s remarks to Christian supporters were a “promise to end democracy”.

A statement from the Harris campaign read:

When Vice President Harris says this election is about freedom she means it. Our democracy is under assault by criminal Donald Trump.

Trump “has promised violence if he loses, the end of our elections if he wins, and the termination of the Constitution to empower him to be a dictator to enact his dangerous Project 2025 agenda on America”, the campaign warns.

Donald Trump wants to take America backward, to a politics of hate, chaos, and fear – this November America will unite around Vice President Kamala Harris to stop him.

Asked to clarify Donald Trump’s remarks, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said the former Republican president “was talking about uniting this country”.

Chris Sununu, the governor of New Hampshire, dismissed Trump’s comments in an interview with ABC.

“I think it was a classic Trumpism if you will,” Sununu said, adding:

Obviously we want everybody to vote in all elections, but I think he was just trying to make a hyperbolic point that it can be fixed as long as he gets back into office and all that.

Tom Cotton, a senator from Arkansas, said Trump was “obviously making a joke”. Cotton told CNN:

I think he’s obviously making a joke about how bad things have been under Joe Biden and how good they will be if we send President Trump back to the White House, so we can turn the country around again.

Lindsey Graham, a senator for South Carolina, told CBS that Trump was telling supporters that “the nightmare that we’re experiencing will soon be over. Give me four more years, and I’m gonna right this ship called America and pass it on to the next generation.” Graham added:

We will have democracy, God willing, for a very long time in this country. But what President Trump is trying to tell people – ‘I did it once, I can do it again.

Donald Trump’s remarks that supporters won’t “have to vote again” if he is re-elected in November were immediately met with consternation in some political quarters.

The constitutional and civil rights attorney Andrew Seidel, for instance, replied to video of Trump’s comments circulating on X by writing:

This is not subtle Christian nationalism. He’s talking about ending our democracy and installing a Christian nation.

The actor Morgan Fairchild added in a separate X post:

But … what if I want to vote again?? I was always raised that we get to vote again! That is America.

And the NBC legal commentator Katie Phang said:

In other words, Trump won’t ever leave the White House if he gets re-elected.

Democratic lawmakers and Kamala Harris’s campaign joined a chorus of critics sounding the alarm over recent remarks by Donald Trump telling a crowd of supporters they won’t “have to vote again” if they return him to the presidency in November’s election.

Trump, at a Friday night rally hosted in Florida by a far-right Christian advocacy group, said:

Christians, get out and vote! Just this time – you won’t have to do it any more … You gotta get out and vote. In four years, you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not gonna have to vote.

Trump’s remarks were immediately met with consternation in some political quarters, with some arguing that the Republican presidential nominee had implied that that he would end elections in the country if he returns to the White House.

The Harris campaign called Trump’s remarks “a vow to end democracy”, while the Democratic California congressman Adam Schiff, posted to X:

This year democracy is on the ballot, and if we are to save it, we must vote against authoritarianism.

Here’s what else we’re watching:

• The Senate is in this week. The House is out.

• Joe Biden will head to Austin, Texas, to mark the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. He will then travel to Houston to pay his respects to Sheila Jackson Lee, the Democratic Texas congresswoman who died from pancreatic cancer last week.