the times | Thursday November 25 2021 2GM 41
Wo rld
A rematch between Joe Biden and
Donald Trump appears more likely
after the White House confirmed that
the president intends to run in 2024 and
his predecessor planned his biggest
fundraising event.
Few Democrats, however, believe
that Biden, 79, will have the energy for
another campaign. Some Republicans
wonder if Trump, 75, is simply seeking
to maintain his influence over the party
for as long as possible.
Other presidential hopefuls have
been left in limbo, mostly professing
loyalty to their party leaders while
doing what they can to prepare for their
own campaigns in case the principal
I’m running, Biden tells warring party
United States
David Charter Washington
candidates stand aside. Asked whether
Biden planned to run again in 2024, Jen
Psaki, the White House press secretary,
said: “Yes, that’s his intention.”
Her answer was widely seen as the
latest attempt to quell speculation
among Democrats about the prospects
of a challenge for the next nomination
to Kamala Harris, the vice-president,
from Pete Buttigieg, the transportation
secretary.
The 39-year-old former mayor of
South Bend, Indiana, has become the
face of the infrastructure deal that will
bring improvements to every corner of
the country.
Harris, 57, is battling dire approval
polling. Buttigieg was given the highest
ratings of any member of the adminis-
tration with a net favourability ofplus 10 in a poll yesterday by Morning
Consult for Politico, with Biden on
minus six and Harris on minus 12.
Buttigieg tried to dampen talk of a
rivalry with Harris at the weekend,
saying: “She and I are part of a team that
is disciplined and doesn’t focus on
what’s obsessing the commentators.”
Although friends of Biden insist that
he plans to try for a second term, this is
seen as necessary to maintain his
authority. It could also be to give Harris
time to tackle voting rights reform and
stemming illegal migration from
Central America.
Pollsters for Trump have said that
their private research showed him
leading Biden in five swing states —
Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsyl-
vania and Wisconsin — that betweenthem effectively decided the last elect-
ion. Trump’s fundraising committee is
holding its biggest event for top Repub-
lican donors on December 2, at his
Mar-a-Lago club in Florida.
“As with his successor, if Trump
harbours any doubts about running
there’s no way he would voice them
now and instantly surrender his lever-
age,” Howard Kurtz, the Fox News host,
said. “With the Democratic Party in a
tizzy over whether Biden will run again,there’s at least as much uncertainty
about whether Trump will be on the
ballot. That’s a surreal situation, not
knowing whether the 2020 combatants
will stage a rematch.”
Kurtz was suspicious of the internal
Trump polling leaked to Politico, he
said, which purportedly put the former
president 12 points ahead in Michigan,
which was won by Biden by 2.8 points
last year. “Politico hasn’t actually seen
the survey, just a memo about it from
Trump’s pollster,” Kurtz said.
“By leaking the numbers, the Trump
team generates some press for the
notion that their guy is increasingly
strong. I wonder if the poll included any
questions about [the riot by Trump’s
supporters on] January 6, which just
might surface in a potential campaign.”President Biden,
79, may simply be
trying to maintain
his authorityDonald Trump has spoken of his meet-
ing with Kyle Rittenhouse after the
teenage gunman was acquitted of
murder for shooting dead two people
during riots in Wisconsin last year.
The former president said that Rit-
tenhouse, 18, was “a fan” who visited
him at his Mar-a-Lago resort. He said
that the teenager was accompanied by
his mother after being cleared by a
court in Kenosha, Wisconsin, last
Friday.
On Tuesday night he told Sean Han-
nity on Fox News: “[Rittenhouse] just
left Mar-a-Lago a little while ago and
he should never have been put through
that. That was prosecutorial miscon-Donald Trump said Kyle Rittenhouse was a fan of his after the teenager visited him at Mar-a-Lago with his motherMen who
shot black
jogger guilty
of murder
David Charter WashingtonThree white men were convicted of
murder for chasing and shooting a
black man jogging near their homes —
a crime that fuelled last year’s explosion
of racial justice protests in the US.
A jury of a black man, nine white
women and two white men in Georgia
passed guilty verdicts after asking to
rewatch video of Ahmaud Arbery, 25,
running along a quiet road, seeking to
avoid the men in their cars and being
killed at close range with a shotgun.
Travis McMichael, 35, who shot Arbery
in the chest, Gregory McMichael, 65,
his father, who joined the pursuit, and
William Bryan, 52, who followed
Arbery and filmed the killing, all face
life sentences.
The jury rejected Travis McMichael’s
testimony that he acted in self-defence
because he feared attack from Arbery,
who was unarmed, when he tried to
grab the shotgun. The three were
arrested two months later when the
video shot by Bryan emerged and pro-
tests began to grow.
“Let the word go out all over the
world that a jury of 11 whites and one
black in the Deep South stood up and
said that black lives matter,” the civil
rights activist Al Sharpton said outside
the courtroom in Brunswick.
Wanda Cooper-Jones, Arbery’s
mother, said: “It’s been a long fight, it’s
been a hard fight but God is good.
Thank you for those who marched,
thank you for those who prayed.”
Ben Crump, a lawyer for the Arbery
family, said: “The spirit of Ahmaud
defeated the lynch mob.”
The McMichaels claimed it was their
right to confront Arbery in February on
a hunch he was fleeing a crime after a
spate of break-ins. Bryan claimed that
his actions in joining the pursuit did not
contribute to the death. The jury heard
the 911 call made by Gregory McMich-
ael. He said: “There’s a black male run-
ning down the street.” When the dis-
patcher asked where, McMichael said:
“I don’t know... Stop. Dammit. Stop.
Travis!” Gunfire could be heard.
President Biden said: “Ahmaud
Arbery’s killing... is a devastating
reminder of how far we have to go in the
fight for racial justice... We must re-
commit ourselves to building a future of
unity and shared strength, where no
one fears violence because of the colour
of their skin.”DONALD TRUMP JR/TWITTERTrump stands by his Kenosha killer fan
Hugh TomlinsonThe entry in a small-time Massachu-
setts antique collector’s stock book
read: “#8907 Albert Durer Madonna
and Child drawing (?) $30.00.”
The anonymous man had picked up
the sketch of a mother and child at a
sale of the contents of a large house in
Concord, Massachusetts in 2016.
Now leading scholars have identified
it as a drawing by the 16th-century
German Renaissance artist Albrecht
Dürer. It could be worth $50 million.
Clifford Schorer, 53, an American
specialist in Old Masters and a senior
partner at the London dealer Agnews,
heard whispers about the drawing dur-
ing a visit to Boston in 2019. It had been
picked up at the home of the late archi-
tect Jean-Paul Carlhain, whose ances-
tors amassed an impressive art collec-
tion in 19th-century France.
“It was an incredible moment when I
$30 sketch
that could
draw $50m
at auction
Charlie Mitchell Ottawa
duct and it’s happening all over the
United States right now with the Dem-
ocrats. Really a nice young man. What
he went through — he should’ve... that
was prosecutorial misconduct.”
The meeting continues the adoption
of Rittenhouse as a hero by conserva-
tive politicians and far-right groups.
Several Republican politicians have
used their support for the teenager to
raise campaign funds, reigniting the
debate on police violence, racial justice
and gun rights.
A string of Republicans have offered
Rittenhouse a job or sought to be pho-
tographed with him.
He was 17 when he took an assault
rifle to riots that engulfed Kenosha in
August last year, days after police shot ablack man. He was chased by protesters
and shot dead two white men, Joseph
Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber. He
also wounded a third man.
Rittenhouse’s legal team has advised
him not to become a puppet of the polit-
ical right but to change his name and to
return to his studies after dropping out.
Mark Richards, his chief defence
lawyer, told Business Insider: “You have
all these Republican congressmen say-
ing, ‘Come work for me.’ They want to
trade on his celebrity... it’s disgusting.”
Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr posted
the photo of the pair on Twitter with the
caption “GOATS”, an acronym for
“greatest of all time”.
Rittenhouse shows madness of US gun
laws, David Aaronovitch, page 33The sketch
has been
verified by
experts as
the work
of Dürersaw the Dürer,” he told The Art News-
paper. “It was either the greatest for-
gery I have ever seen — or a master-
piece.”
Dürer experts identified two features
suggesting authenticity. First, the artist
inscribed “A.D.” with the ink used in the
drawing. Dürer signed his initials that
way on at least 20 works between 1501
and 1514. Second, the paper had a tri-
dent and ring watermark, as seen on
more than 200 sheets used by Dürer.
The clinching opinion, though, came
from Christof Metzger, a curator at
Vienna’s Dürer-filled Albertina
museum. “Fifteen seconds after look-
ing at it, he said, ‘This is absolutely right,
it’s magnificent,’” Schorer said last year.
Schorer has already negotiated a
confidential deal with the owners for
the drawing, newly titled The Virgin
and Child With a Flower on a Grassy
Bench (1503). It is on display at Agnews
Gallery in London, which will event-
ually sell the sketch, until December 12.