Britain’s landslide election and holiday weekend heatwave to break records: Morning Rundown

Britain wakes to a political earthquake. Some Democrats say Biden’s halting debate performance wasn’t an anomaly. And an ”extremely dangerous” heatwave takes hold.

Here’s what to know today.

Keir Starmer and his Labour Party win U.K. election in a landslide

Rishi Sunak is out as prime minister after suffering one of the most brutal defeats in British political history. Replacing him is Labour leader Keir Starmer, who will enter No. 10 Downing St. alongside his family in the coming hours after meeting King Charles to formally form a government.

The result was widely predicted by every opinion poll beforehand. But that did not make the record-breaking results, and high-profile Conservative losses, any less shocking. London-based NBC News senior reporter Alexander Smith shares key takeaways: 

The Conservatives’ worst election: The current count shows the party could win as few as 125 parliamentary seats, the lowest total since its founding in the 1830s. This is a humbling nadir for a group that often calls itself “the natural party of government.”

A historic landslide: This will be the Labour Party’s first general election victory since the days of Tony Blair in 2005, giving it a towering majority to make policy for the next five years. The challenges facing Starmer, from the stagnant economy to debates over high levels of immigration, are nonetheless daunting.

A punishment vote that benefits a Trump ally: Polls show that rather than any love for the Labour Party, many voters were motivated by a desire to punish the Conservatives for 14 years of scandals and legislative missteps. Many former Conservative voters switched to the right-wing populist party Reform UK led by Trump ally Nigel Farage, a smaller electoral force that could nonetheless become a more serious challenger in future ballots.

British politics has become very volatile: At the last election in 2019, Labour’s defeat was so comprehensive that pundits predicted it could take years if not decades to recover. The wild swing in its favor this time around shows that tribal alliances are being torn up, with voters prepared to chop and change far more freely based on the mood of the day.

Read more about the election results and follow live as Britain forms a new government. 

Some Democrats say Biden’s debate performance wasn’t an anomaly as key donors pull support

President Joe Biden and his team have been working hard to impress on voters the notion that last week’s poor showing at the debate was an anomaly. However, that doesn’t jibe with the impressions of some Democratic lawmakers who’ve come away from interactions with the president doubting his capacity to hold office. “The country saw [at the debate] what those of us who have had personal interactions with him have all known for the last 2½ years,” a senator said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss Biden’s fitness. A large, well-funded team of aides surrounds Biden and has worked to shield him from the embarrassments that might befall a president of advanced age.

The debate stripped away the protective cloak. Now, Biden faces a crisis in which he needs to demonstrate — quickly — that he can function at the level the presidency demands as he faces an uprising from some within his own party.

As he tries to tamp down the fallout, his support has begun to hemorrhage among key donors, including an heiress to the Disney family fortune. Abigail Disney said yesterday that she plans to withhold donations to the party she has funded for years until Biden drops out. In a statement to CNBC, she said “If Biden does not step down the Democrats will lose. Of that I am absolutely certain.” 

Another wealthy donor echoed that sentiment, saying “virtually every major donor I’ve talked to believes that we need a new candidate in order to defeat Donald Trump.”

Read more:

• President Biden will sit today for his first televised interview since the debate, one that could be crucial in determining whether he can salvage his embattled candidacy.
• Biden says he saw a doctor after the debate and acknowledges that he “screwed up.” The statement contradicts earlier White House claims about the president’s medical care.  He also suggested to Democratic governors that he might limit evening events after 8 p.m. so he can get more sleep.

Record-breaking heat wave takes hold across much of U.S.

An “extremely dangerous” heat wave is set to break daily temperature records across Western and Southern states through the holiday weekend, the National Weather Service warned. Birmingham, Alabama, was 94 degrees, but the heat index hit around 102. California’s Death Valley was 122 degrees. In the more populated parts of the Golden State, Sacramento sweltered at 99 degrees and Bakersfield was 108 degrees. Weather records have already been broken: Livermore, on the eastern edge of California’s Bay Area, reached 110 degrees, while San Rafael in Marin County, California, reached 100.

It’s expected to get hotter and more dangerous in the West, with temperatures of 110 to 115 degrees forecast in inland California today through to Saturday. The weather service advised people to stay hydrated and out of direct sunlight and in air-conditioned buildings when possible. 

And Hurricane Beryl restrengthened to a Category 3 storm as it approached the Yucatan Peninsula and Mexico, bringing damaging winds and a storm surge of up to 5 feet.  

U.S. sees promising ‘breakthrough’ in Israel-Hamas cease-fire talks, officials say

A “breakthrough” has been made in efforts to negotiate a framework agreement for a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas that might end months of fighting in Gaza and lead to the release of hostages, according to a senior Biden administration official.

“We’ve had a breakthrough on a critical impasse,” the official said on a media briefing call, attributing the development to a shift in Hamas’ stance on a framework deal, which the official said was now “fully consistent” with the U.S.-drafted agreement passed by the United Nations Security Council last month.

If a deal is reached, it would bring an end to nearly nine months of fighting in Gaza, where local health officials say more than 38,000 people have been killed. It would also mean hostages taken captive during Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks would be released.

Jobs report expected to show a cooldown but not a crash

The jobs report released this morning is expected to show that employers added about 200,000 nonfarm jobs in the month of June. The figure from the Bureau of Labor Statistics would be fewer than the 270,000 jobs added the month before — a trend that one economist called a “modulated cooldown.” Business activity is also slowing down, and as a result, inflation is cooling, too. 

But other labor market indicators point to steadily slowing growth after red-hot hiring boosted workers’ job prospects and pay during the recovery from the pandemic. On Wednesday, the Labor Department reported initial claims for unemployment continued to trend higher, while ongoing unemployment claims hit their highest level since November 2021. 

Anthony Nesty’s role as U.S. Olympic men’s swimming head coach is a ‘vision’ fulfilled

USA Swimming tapped Olympian Anthony Nesty last fall as the head coach for the men’s Olympic team for the 2024 Games in Paris, making him the first Black person to hold a U.S. Olympic swimming head coach position. 

The butterfly became his specialty, earning him a gold medal for Suriname in the stroke’s 100-meter race at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. That made him the first Black male swimmer to win individual gold. 

His ascension into the USA Swimming head coach role is particularly significant given the complicated history of Black people and swimming in the U.S. and the stereotype that they cannot swim. Access to swimming spaces directly correlates to whether Black people swim, Nesty and experts say.

Politics in Brief

Supreme Court: Liberal justices were unified in their dissent and took turns to write strongly worded opinions as the conservative majority decided three cases last week that delivered blows to federal agencies. 

Election 2024: Republicans say Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey’s friends and family benefited from his political career, but his allies point to his commitment to ethics reform. 

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Staff Pick: Some women aren’t looking for a ‘man in finance’ despite the viral song

If you’re even a little bit online, you’ve probably heard the song that goes: “I’m looking for a man in finance / with a trust fund / 6’5 / blue eyes.” The song became so popular that its creator earned a remix by David Guetta and a record deal. But are women really looking for a man in finance? I reported from New York City’s Financial District, arguably the nation’s finance bro capital, and found that, in fact, no they’re not. But they do want a man that picks up the bill, and then some. The catchy tune is igniting deeper conversations about current dating culture, and why it’s changing.

— Sakshi Venkatraman, reporter

— Sakshi Venkatraman, reporter

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