Welcome to the online edition of From the Politics Desk, an evening email that provides you with the most recent coverage and commentary from the campaign trail, Capitol Hill, and the White House by the NBC News Politics team.
Our reporters discuss President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son in today’s program, as well as the aspect that is particularly upsetting to other Democrats. Mark Murray, senior political editor, also examines three significant polling trends that shaped 2024.
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Some Democrats bristle at Biden’s pardon justification
By Carol E. Lee, Sarah Fitzpatrick, Gary Grumbach and Dareh Gregorian
President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter is not the only thing that happened. Some Democrats are furious with him because of the way he did it.
According to a White House statement released Sunday evening, the president granted Hunter Biden a complete and unconditional pardon for whatever crimes he may have committed or participated in between January 1, 2014, until December 1, 2024.
The pardon follows Biden’s repeated declarations that he would not commute his son’s sentence or utilize his administrative authority to pardon him. Additionally, Biden stated in his statement that he was issuing the pardon because his son had been unfairly and selectively prosecuted.
That goes against years of fundamental Democratic Party policy stances and the way President-elect Donald Trump and his supporters have characterized his investigations and prosecutions, Democratic Representative Greg Stanton of Arizona told NBC News Meet the Press Now on Monday.
I’m pretty upset because it will be crucial for political leaders of both parties to defend the Department of Justice’s independence and to resist accusations that the FBI or the Department of Justice have become politicized and should be dismantled, Stanton stated. (See Stanton’s additional work below.)
When Trump was working to reverse the 2020 election results, he brought up the matter of the defendants and those convicted of violence at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in response to Biden’s conduct.
Are the J-6 Hostages, who have been in prison for years, included in Joe’s pardon of Hunter? What a travesty of justice and abuse! Trump posted a message on Truth Social.
On Monday, the office of special counsel David Weiss seemed to refute Biden’s assertion that its prosecutions of Hunter Biden were driven by political motivations, describing the accusations as unfounded. Weiss pointed out that several judges had already ignored the younger Biden’s accusations of vengeful prosecution in a court brief contesting his plea to have his California tax and fraud indictment dismissed in light of his father’s pardon.
A few members of Congress have already voiced their opinions regarding the pardon, but one significant group has remained silent: Democrats who are thought to be early contenders for the presidency in 2028. Keep an eye on this area moving forward.
Three big takeaways from the 2024 polls
By Mark Murray
In addition to indicating that the 2024 presidential election will be unpredictable and competitive, the polls accurately captured the political climate that influenced the race and may continue to influence politics in the future. These are a few of the most important things we discovered.
In general, the polls correctly reflected a majority of voters who believed that the country was moving in the wrong way and that Joe Biden, the incumbent president, was in risk of losing the presidency because his approval rating was stuck in the low 40s.
According to the NBC News Exit Poll, only 40% of respondents approved of Biden’s job performance, while 73% of voters expressed anger or dissatisfaction with the direction the country was taking.
Many of the major demographic variables that ultimately shaped the 2024 election were also predicted by the polls, such as Trump’s increases among Latino voters.
CNBC/Telemundo/TheNBC News Long before the election, studies indicating Trump’s rise included Latino polls. When compared to previous recent elections, many polls also noticed early on Biden’s and Democrats’ greater difficulties with young voters, especially some men.
But when it came to Trump’s support among men and Harris’s support among women, the polls—including the one conducted by NBC News—made a mistake by exaggerating the gender disparity.
Trump won males by 13 points and Harris by 8 points, a 21-point gender margin that was in line with recent presidential elections, according to the exit poll. That was less than the gender gap that had been observed in the NBC News poll, which was more than 30 points.
When considering the gender gap, it’s important to consider how and where it’s growing by combining it with factors like ethnicity and education. The difference between the two groups was a staggering 56 points: Trump defeated white men without college degrees by 40 points, while Harris defeated white women with college degrees by 16 points.
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Today s top stories
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Pardon blowback:
GOP lawmakers have been publicly fuming after Biden pardoned his son Hunter, calling it an effort to avoid accountability and casting the president as a hypocrite.Read more
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Pardon blowback, cont.:
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended Biden s decision to pardon his son, despite telling the press multiple times that the president had no such plans.Read more
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Court watch:
The Supreme Court will hear a dispute over the Food and Drug Administration s refusal to approve flavored e-cigarettes over public health concerns, putting the FDA s role in green-lighting new tobacco products to the test.Read more
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Preparing for Trump 2.0:
Two Democratic senators are urging the Biden administration to issue a policy directive that could temporarily limit Trump s ability to deploy U.S. military troops domestically after he takes office.Read more
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Preparing for Trump 2.0, cont.:
Consumer advocates say they re bracing for sweeping changes at one of Washington s newest financial watchdogs under Trump, whose allies have promised broad deregulation of companies that handle Americans money.Read more
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Air Force One to Angola:
Biden became the first American head of state to visit the southern African nation of Angola, where he will showcase U.S.-backed infrastructure projects designed to link Angola, Zambia and Congo.Read more
For now, that’s all from the Politics Desk. For comments, likes, or dislikes, send an email to [email protected].
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