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New poll reveals what Democrats think of Harris as president

With President Biden’s future uncertain, a majority of Democrats say the country would be in good hands if his vice president were to take over the White House. 

A new poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about six in 10 Democrats believe that Vice President Kamala Harris would do a good job as president herself. About two in 10 Democrats don’t believe she would, and another two in 10 say they don’t know enough to say.

The survey comes as an increasing number of Democratic officials are publicly urging Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential election after his disastrous debate performance on June 27. Democratic officials are worried that voters don’t believe that the 81-year-old president is capable of performing his duties, and many have suggested that Harris or another candidate would fare better against the Republican nominee, former President Trump. 

Recent polls show Democratic voters have soured on Biden as well. A Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll of Massachusetts residents found that 64% of likely Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters want someone other than Biden to face off against Trump. The AP-NORC national survey likewise found that 65% of Democrats say Biden should drop out of the race. 

While Harris is the focus of several insider discussions for a plan B ticket, the vice president has maintained strong public support for Biden and defended him from slings and arrows thrown by panicked party officials speaking anonymously to the press.

But if Harris, 59, were to replace Biden atop the ticket, Democratic voters would mostly be happy with the younger candidate — a woman of color who could champion the party’s message on abortion rights, and a former state attorney general who could prosecute the Democratic Party’s case against voting for Trump.

Harris could also motivate key Democratic constituencies to show up on Election Day, including women and Black adults, who were more likely than Americans overall to say Harris would do well as president. 

Americans outside the Democratic Party were more skeptical of how Harris would perform in the Oval Office. Only about three in 10 Americans say Harris would be a good president. Nearly half said Harris would not do a good job, and two in 10 say they don’t know enough to have an opinion. 

Harris’ favorability rating is similar to Biden’s, but the share of Americans who have an unfavorable opinion of her is somewhat lower. The poll showed that about four in 10 U.S. adults have a favorable opinion of Harris, while about half have an unfavorable opinion. There are more Americans with a negative view of Biden: approximately six in 10. About one in 10 Americans say they don’t know enough to have an opinion of Harris, whereas nearly everyone has an opinion on Biden.

About three-quarters of Democrats have a positive view of Harris, which is in line with how Democrats view Biden. Seven in 10 have a favorable view of him.

Harris is also better-known among Democrats than other potential candidates, including California Gov. Gavin Newsom or Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. About one-third of Democrats say Newsom would make a good president, and half don’t know enough to say. About one-quarter of Democrats say Whitmer would do well, and about two-thirds don’t know enough to say.

The AP poll of 1,253 adults was conducted July 11-15, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS

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5 more House Democrats call on Biden to drop out, third US senator

Five more House Democrats on Friday joined the growing number of congressional lawmakers who have called on President Biden to drop out of the 2024 election. 

In a joint statement, Reps. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., Marc Veasey, D-Texas, Chuy Garcia, D-Illinois and Marc Pocan, D-Wisc., urged Biden to ‘pass the torch to a new generation of Democratic leaders.’ 

‘Mr. President, with great admiration for you personally, sincere respect for your decades of public service and patriotic leadership, and deep appreciation for everything we have accomplished together during your presidency, it is now time for you to pass the torch to a new generation of Democratic leaders,’ the lawmakers wrote. 

‘We must defeat Donald Trump to save our democracy, protect our alliances and the rules-based international order, and continue building on the strong foundation you have established over the past four years,’ they said.

‘At this point, however, we must face the reality that widespread public concerns about your age and fitness are jeopardizing what should be a winning campaign. These perceptions may not be fair, but they have hardened in the aftermath of last month’s debate and are now unlikely to change. We believe the most responsible and patriotic thing you can do in this moment is to step aside as our nominee while continuing to lead our party from the White House.’

Veasey is the first member of the Congressional Black Caucus, a group that has strongly backed Biden, to call for the president to step aside. 

A fifth House Democrat, Rep. Sean Casten of Illinois, separately urged Biden to drop out in an op-ed for the Chicago Tribune. 

‘It’s time for Joe Biden to pass the torch,’ Casten wrote.

‘[P]olitics, like life, isn’t fair. And as long as this election is instead litigated over which candidate is more likely to be held accountable for public gaffes and ‘senior moments,’ I believe that Biden is not only going to lose but is also uniquely incapable of shifting that conversation.’

Additionally, Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., on Friday called on Biden to suspend his presidential campaign. He is now the third Democratic senator to do so. 

‘While the decision to withdraw from the campaign is President Biden’s alone, I believe it is in the best interests of our country for him to step aside,’ Heinrich said in a statement. 

There are now 28 Congressional Democrats who have called on Biden to step aside. That number represents more than 10% of elected Democrats in Congress. 

Behind the scenes, more and more Democratic party officials, top donors and key Biden allies are reportedly urging the president to reconsider his decision to stay in the race. Should Biden drop out ahead of the Democratic National Committee convention in August, Vice President Kamala Harris is acknowledged to be in the best position to receive the party’s nomination — although some Democrats fear she would also lose to Trump and prefer that a candidate unaffiliated with the current administration be nominated in an open convention.

Biden has made no public indication that he intends to step aside, and his campaign has forcefully denied all suggestions to the contrary. 

‘Absolutely the president is in this race, you’ve heard him say that time and again,’ Biden Campaign Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said Friday on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe.’ 

‘I’m not here to say this hasn’t been a tough several weeks for the campaign, there’s no doubt that it has been, and we’ve definitely seen some slippage in support. But it has been a small movement.’

Fox News Digital’s Julia Johnson contributed to this report.

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JD Vance, others say Biden should resign presidency if he drops out of the race

Newly minted Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance wrote in an X post Friday that if Democrats believe President Biden doesn’t have the mental acuity to continue to run for re-election, it would be difficult to argue he should remain president until next January.

‘If Joe Biden doesn’t have the cognitive function to run for re-election, then he certainly doesn’t have the cognitive function to remain as Commander-In-Chief,’ Vance posted. ‘How can any Dem pushing him to drop out of the presidential race, argue in good faith that he should stay on as POTUS?’

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., echoed that sentiment to reporters at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee Thursday. 

‘The question is, if he’s not going to be their nominee because he’s not up to it, how can he be our president for the next six months?’ Rubio said, according to Politico. ‘If there’s something wrong with you that doesn’t allow you to run for president, how can you still be there as president? If they’re going to remove him as nominee, they’ve got to remove him as president, and that’s really bad for our country.’

Polling guru and FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver earlier this month wrote on X he also believes Biden should ‘transition the presidency to [Vice President Kamala] Harris within 30-60 days, but I’m there now. Something is clearly wrong here.’

Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash., has also called on Biden to step down. 

‘Americans deserve to feel their president is fit enough to do the job,’ she told KGW-TV. ‘The crisis of confidence in the president’s leadership needs to come to an end. The president should do what he knows is right for the country and put the national interest first.’

Increasing numbers of Democrats have called on Biden to exit the White House race after his disastrous debate performance late last month, fearing he would lose to Trump. 

Historian Alexis Coe wrote in a Rolling Stone op-ed Friday that Biden should resign to ‘preserve his legacy.’

Presidential historian Allan Lichtman, who has accurately predicted nine of the last 10 elections, has also said that if Biden were to drop out of the race, handing over the presidency to Harris as she replaces him on the ticket would be the Democrats’ best chance of keeping the White House in November. 

Biden and his campaign have said the president is ‘in it to win it,’ although reports have said he is reconsidering that amid increasing calls to drop out. 

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Ohio Democrat Sen. Sherrod Brown urges Biden to end campaign

Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, joined Democrats calling on President Biden to drop out of the 2024 race on Friday evening. 

‘At this critical time, our full attention must return to these important issues. I think the President should end his campaign,’ he said in a statement on X. 

According to Brown, ‘Over the last few weeks, I’ve heard from Ohioans on important issues, such as how to continue to grow jobs in our state, give law enforcement the resources to crack down on fentanyl, protect Social Security and Medicare from cuts, and prevent the ongoing efforts to impose a national abortion ban.’

‘I agree with the many Ohioans who have reached out to me,’ he added. 

Brown is the fourth Democratic senator to press Biden to step aside and the 34th Congressional Democrat to do so. 

The Ohio Democrat is in a particularly competitive race in November, where he will face Republican Senate candidate Bernie Moreno, who is endorsed by former President Trump. 

Non-partisan political handicapper the Cook Political Report rated the Ohio Senate race as a ‘Toss Up,’ placing it alongside races in Montana, Nevada, and Michigan. 

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Campaign chairs say Biden is both ‘more committed than ever’ to presidential race and ‘asking for input’

President Biden’s top campaign advisors both weighed in on Friday to comment on widespread speculation surrounding the 2024 presidential race.

The first clarification came from Campaign Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon, who left no room for question during an interview with MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe.’

‘The president’s in this race,’ O’Malley Dillon told the hosts. ‘You’ve heard him say that time and time again, and I think we saw on display last night exactly why, because Donald Trump is not going to offer anything new to the American people. He’s the same person he was in 2020. He’s the same person he was at the debate stage.’

O’Malley Dillon made clear there was no question that Biden is ‘more committed than ever to beat Donald Trump’ — pushing back yet again on weeks and weeks of leaks and speculation claiming the president was close to pulling out of the race.

‘We believe in this campaign we are built for the close election that we are in, and we see the path forward,’ O’Malley Dillon continued. ‘The president is the leader of our campaign and of the country, and he is clearly in our impression, and what we’ve built, and in our engagement with voters, he’s the best person to take on Donald Trump and prosecute that case and present his vision versus what we saw last night.’

This rock-solid statement of commitment was slightly complicated just hours later by Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del. — co-chair of Biden’s re-elections campaign — who said the president is ‘weighing what he should weigh.’

Coons told the press during a panel at the Aspen Institute’s Aspen Security Forum that Biden is considering ‘who is the best candidate to win in November and to carry forward the Democratic Party’s values and priorities in this campaign.’

He noted that Biden attended the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Washington, D.C., this month after a ‘very bad debate performance’ and that the president ‘Did a press conference. Did campaign events. Did campaign rallies.’

‘And there are folks still saying he is not strong enough or capable enough to be our next president,’ he continued. ‘I disagree.’

According to Coons, ‘There is a lot of concern and anxiety about this because the stakes are so significant. The consequences of this election are profound.’

Coons walked back this somewhat shaky comment just hours later with a post to social media professing total support for Biden’s re-election effort.

‘I fully support the President. He’s told me he’s in it to win it,’ Coons wrote on social media platform X. ‘I’m with him 100% because I know he can beat Trump just like he did last time.’

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Republicans divided on Russia’s security threat as Vance joins Trump presidential ticket

There is an increasing sense of division in the Republican Party when it comes to the U.S. posture abroad, particularly when it comes to countering Russia, as Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, joins Donald Trump as his running mate in the race for the White House.

The calls to stop military aid to Ukraine reflect a fundamental break in the party and a reversal to the long-held GOP neoconservative approach to foreign policy, which previously leaned heavily on an interventionist strategy.

Ronald Reagan famously held a ‘peace through strength’ approach, which relies on military power to preserve global stability, a policy that both the Bush administrations adhered to.

But the policies practiced by Republican Party leaders from the 1980s through the early 2000s have prompted a rise to a different approach in the GOP, a strategy not largely held since before World War II — isolationism. 

‘I do think that is a repudiation,’ Victoria Coates, a former deputy national security adviser to Trump, told Fox News Digital, pointing to the decades-long wars in the Middle East. ‘A rejection of the traditional establishment neoconservative stance, which favors military intervention to promote democracy.

‘I just don’t think that that’s been a winning formula,’ she said, noting many Republicans today agree, including Vance.

In a speech at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in May, Vance made clear there are stark divisions in the GOP when it comes to foreign policy. 

‘We really have to get past the tired old slogans,’ Vance said. ‘The way that American foreign policy has proceeded for the last 40 years — think about the wreckage and think about the actual results.

‘People are terrified of confronting new arguments, I believe, because they’re terrified of confronting their own failure over the last 40 years.’

In his speech, Vance specifically pointed to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who has been an ardent supporter of Ukraine and who became a senator the year Vance was born in 1984. 

‘Nearly every foreign policy position he’s held has actually been wrong,’ Vance claimed. 

The push by some in the Republican Party to back off aid to Ukraine stalled military supplies to the war-torn nation for six months and revealed the true extent to which Kyiv relies on the U.S. in its fight against Russia. 

While many in the GOP see Ukraine’s victory over Moscow as a vital security interest to the U.S., Vance and Trump believe it should also be Europe’s burden to shoulder. 

Unease among NATO allies over the threat of discontinued aid to Ukraine under a Trump presidency has prompted speculation that the security of Europe, and even the alliance, could be in jeopardy. 

Headlines this week reported ‘concern,’ ‘anxiety’ and a ‘nightmare’ scenario for Ukraine as Vance has unequivocally opposed continued aid to Kyiv and has instead pushed for a stronger stance when it comes to countering China. 

‘I think we should stop supporting the Ukrainian conflict,’ Vance said in May. ‘I do not think that it is in America’s interest to continue to fund an effectively never-ending war in Ukraine.

‘The second-biggest criticism I make about the war in Ukraine and our approach to it is that we are subsidizing the Europeans to do nothing.’

Trump first led the push in getting more NATO nations to meet their 2006 defense spending pledges, and the war in Ukraine has ensured that now 23 of the 32 nations are hitting the 2% GDP threshold. 

Some nations have not only hit their goals but have begun contributing well beyond their original pledge, including Poland, which contributes 4.12%. Estonia, the U.S., Latvia and Greece all give more than 3% and Lithuania contributes 2.85%.

Despite advances in international defense efforts, there is a fundamental divide in the GOP when it comes to the U.S. and its relationship with NATO. 

‘They’ve done a great job, and that’s terrific,’ Coates, vice president of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation, said. ‘Unfortunately, their scale is not enough to really move the needle. 

‘We need the big economies,’ she added, pointing to Canada, which still only contributes 1.37% of its GDP to defense spending despite being the world’s 10th largest economy. ‘That just can’t go on.’

Experts agree it is unlikely Trump would fully pull out of the NATO alliance. Though there is concern he could weaken the alliance by cutting aid to Ukraine or by pulling U.S. troops out of Europe.

But while Vance has argued ‘America can’t do everything’ and therefore should focus on the threat China poses, Hal Brands, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C., argued it is not that simple.

‘U.S.-China competition is not simply a regional competition. It’s a global competition,’ he said. ‘It involves things like control of advanced technologies, as well as things like the military balance of power.’

Brand, who is also the Henry A. Kissinger Distinguished Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, argued that the U.S. needs to maintain its European relations to leverage its influence ‘to choke off China’s access to advanced semiconductor manufacturing.’

‘Even if you think that China is the overriding priority in U.S. policy, you won’t be effective in dealing with China unless you have some degree of influence that the transatlantic relationship provides,’ he added.

There is growing concern among Republicans that adhere to a broad U.S. international presence that isolationism is on the rise, and there are security threats that that could pose. 

‘It has become all too easy to just assume that Europe would be fine after a U.S. departure. When history actually provides very little support for that idea,’ Brands said. ‘There’s long been this tendency to try to remain aloof from problems in other regions, and we saw that before World War II.’

It has long been argued that U.S. reluctance to involve itself in European affairs in the lead-up to World War II emboldened Adolf Hitler to execute his ambitions largely unchecked by the U.S. or its British and French allies, ultimately costing the Allies greatly. 

‘President Trump has said that the U.S. should not be involved in Ukraine because there’s an ocean between the U.S. and Europe. And that’s very reminiscent of American involvement you heard from the anti-interventionists in the 1930s.’

Vance has rejected the ‘isolationist’ label and said during his address at the Quincy Institute, ‘The fact that I oppose sending money that we don’t have to another country, or that borrowing money to send it is somehow, to me, that’s not isolationism.

‘That’s just fiscal conservatism.’ 

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Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee has passed away after battle with pancreatic cancer

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas, has died at the age of 74 following a battle with pancreatic cancer, her office announced Friday night.

‘Today, with deep grief for our loss yet deep gratitude for the life she shared with us, we announce the passing of United States Representative Sheila Jackson Lee of the 18th Congressional District of Texas,’ her office said in a statement.

Jackson Lee, who has been representing Texas’ 18th congressional district for 30 years, said last month she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.

‘A fierce champion of the people, she was affectionately and simply known as ‘Congresswoman’ by her constituents in recognition of her near-ubiquitous presence and service to their daily lives for more than 30 years,’ the statement continued.

She previously battled breast cancer, having been diagnosed in 2011, before announcing the following year she was cancer free.

‘A local, national, and international humanitarian, she was acknowledged worldwide for her courageous fights for racial justice, criminal justice, and human rights, with a special emphasis on women and children,’ her office said.

Prior to her time in Congress, Jackson Lee served as a judge before she was elected to an at-large Houston City Council seat in 1989.

Last year, she ran an unsuccessful campaign for Houston mayor, losing by a wide margin to then-state Sen. John Whitmire, also a Democrat, before announcing she would seek re-election in Congress.

‘Her legislative victories impacted millions, from establishing the Juneteenth Federal Holiday to reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act,’ her office stated.

‘However, she impacted us most as our beloved wife, sister, mother, and Bebe (grandmother),’ the statement continued. ‘She will be dearly missed, but her legacy will continue to inspire all who believe in freedom, justice, and democracy. God bless you Congresswoman and God bless the United States of America.’

Lawmakers mourned the congresswoman’s death after learning of her passing Friday night.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Jackson Lee was an ‘inimitable force for change and a warrior for justice over the course of her historic, trailblazing career.

‘Sheila Jackson Lee was an accomplished legislator, passionate public servant, loving mentor and wonderful friend to so many of us in the Congressional Black Caucus and House Democratic Caucus family,’ Jeffries said in a statement. ‘I am grateful for her fearless advocacy, fierce determination, formidable service and legacy of leadership. Rep. Jackson Lee will be deeply missed by so many in her district and throughout the nation. Our prayers are with her family and loved ones during this difficult time. May she forever rest in power.’

The Congressional Black Caucus said Jackson Lee was a ‘titan’ and ‘stalwart member of Congress.’ The congresswoman was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

‘Jackson Lee was a patriot and a fighter to the very end,’ the Congressional Black Caucus said in a statement. ‘Words cannot express the sense of loss our Caucus feels for our beloved friend. She will be deeply missed by all who knew her.’

She is survived by her husband, Elwyn Lee, and her two children, Jason and Erica.

The congresswoman’s funeral arrangements are pending.

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Meet CrowdStrike, the company at the heart of the global tech outage

A fault with an update issued by cybersecurity company CrowdStrike led to a cascading effect among global IT systems Friday, with industries ranging from banking to airlines facing outages.

Banks and health care providers saw their services disrupted and television broadcasters went offline as businesses worldwide grappled with the ongoing outage. Air travel has been hit hard, too, with planes grounded and services delayed.

At the heart of the issue is the Texas-based cybersecurity vendor CrowdStrike. On Friday, the cybersecurity firm experienced a major disruption following an issue with a software update.

So what happened, exactly? CNBC takes a look.

CrowdStrike is a cybersecurity vendor that develops software to help companies detect and block hacks. It is used by many of the world’s Fortune 500 companies, including major global banks, health care and energy companies.

CrowdStrike is what’s known as an “endpoint security” firm as it uses cloud technology to apply cyber protections to devices that are connected to the internet.

This differs from alternative approaches used by other cyber firms, which involve applying protection directly to backend server systems.

On Friday, people around the world began encountering an error screen known as the “blue screen of death.”

This issue — a common problem among PCs, for example if a machine overheats — was the result of an update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike concerning its Falcon product. 

Falcon is a platform developed by the company that’s designed to stop cyber breaches using cloud technology — it is at the heart of the firm’s focus on endpoints. CrowdStrike said Friday it is in the process of rolling back the update globally.

CrowdStrike’s software requires deep access to a computer’s operating system to scan for threats. In the case of Friday’s outage, machines running Microsoft’s Windows operating system crashed due to a fault in the way a software update issued by CrowdStrike interacted with Windows.

“We have been made aware of an issue impacting Virtual Machines running Windows Client and Windows Server, running the CrowdStrike Falcon agent, which may encounter a bug check (BSOD [blue screen of death]) and get stuck in a restarting state. We approximate impact started around 19:00 UTC on the 18th of July,” Microsoft said in an update at 5:40 a.m. ET.

“We can confirm the affected update has been pulled by CrowdStrike. Customers that are continuing to experience issues should reach out to CrowdStrike for additional assistance,” the company added.

Earlier, Microsoft said its cloud services had been restored after an outage that affected its Azure services and Microsoft 365 suite of apps in the central U.S. region. A company spokesperson said these are two different and non-related issues — one issue relates to Azure, the other is linked to CrowdStrike.

They added that they “anticipate a resolution is forthcoming,” in respect to the CrowdStrike problem.

CrowdStrike is “actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts,” CEO George Kurtz said Friday in a update on the social media platform X. He added that Mac and Linux hosts are not affected.

“This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed,” Kurtz said.

That fix could be hard to implement, though. Andy Grayland, chief information and security officer at threat intelligence firm Silobreaker, said that in order to implement a fix, engineers would have to go into each individual data center running windows.

They’d then have to log in, navigate to a certain CrowdStrike file, delete it, and then reboot the entire system, he said.

“Where machines are encrypted, complex encryption keys also need to be entered manually. Unless Microsoft and CrowdStrike (if they are involved) pull something miraculous out of the bag, this could be painful to recover from.”

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With corners of the media industry in upheaval, Netflix makes clear it’s staying out of the fray

Netflix’s second-quarter earnings report contained no bombshells, and that’s just fine for the company and its investors.

In recent weeks, Paramount Global has agreed to merge with Skydance Media. Warner Bros. Discovery is considering all options for its future and may lose broadcast rights to the NBA.

While the media and entertainment landscape around Netflix is in a state of change, the world’s largest streamer is fine with the status quo.

“If we execute well — better stories, easier discovery and more fandom — while also establishing ourselves in newer areas like live, games and advertising, we believe that we have a lot more room to grow,” Netflix said in its quarterly shareholder letter. “Because when we delight people with our entertainment, Netflix can drive higher engagement, revenue and profit than the competition. This in turn creates a more loved and valued entertainment company — for our members, creators and shareholders — that we can strengthen and grow over time.”

Netflix classified the streaming, pay TV, film, gaming and branded advertising market as a $600 billion industry in terms of total annual sales, noting the company accounts for about 6% of that revenue.

The streamer added more than 8 million subscribers in the quarter. It now has more than 277 million global customers, making it by far the largest subscription streaming service in the world. Netflix’s market valuation as of Thursday’s market close is $277 billion.

Nielsen statistics show Netflix as the second most-watched streaming service in the U.S., trailing only YouTube. But rather than worry about YouTube’s competition, Netflix is content to focus on the other 80% of the TV market, the company reiterated.

“Looking to the future, we believe our biggest opportunity is winning a larger share of the 80%+ of TV time (primarily linear and streaming) that neither Netflix nor YouTube has today,” the company said.

While Warner and Disney announced a new cross-company bundle in May that will give consumers the ability to buy Max with Disney’s suite of streaming services for a discount, Netflix made a point to say it feels no need to engage with the competition.

“We haven’t bundled Netflix solely with other streamers like Disney+ or Max because Netflix already operates as a go-to destination for entertainment thanks to the breadth and variety of our slate and superior product experience,” Netflix said. “This has driven industry leading penetration, engagement and retention for us, which limits the benefit to Netflix of bundling directly with other.”

Netflix’s focus remains building its advertising business and adding streaming subscribers on the back of its strength of content.

It’s not the most dramatic of narratives. It may not make for a great Netflix series.

But as an investment, shareholders will happily take it.

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Ticketmaster offers four tickets for $80 to selected shows amid summer concert slowdown

Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, are offering a promotion through the end of July that lets users buy four tickets for $80 to selected shows.

The offer is good for thousands of shows — but not all of them — and it is limited by geographic area.

And you need a code to unlock the deal, according to an FAQ page.

The 4-for-$80 deal was offered last year, too, and it has been available before that. But it comes against the backdrop of a slowdown in the live events space this summer as consumers show increasing signs of spending fatigue.

According to data TicketIQ shared with NBC News last month, the ‘get-in’ prices of tickets to major live festivals, including Coachella and Bonnaroo, were down year over year.

And some major acts, including Jennifer Lopez and The Black Keys, had either revised their summer tour plans or were canceling them outright.

However, the slowdown is not universal, as the Eagles, Creed, Olivia Rodrigo and other stars continue to sell out and/or add dates this year.

The list of participating events can be found at LiveNation.com/SummersLive.

Once an event is selected, choose “4 Tickets,” then look for the “Summer 4 Pack Offer” ticket type and click “Unlock.”

Users then must input codes they receive by email to unlock the offers and add them to their carts. The process will automatically add one four-pack of tickets to the cart. Proceed to checkout, where the price will automatically show up as $80 ($20 per ticket), and complete the purchase. 

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