Biden in Israel as poll shows support for re-election bid at new low – as it happened

President Joe Biden is in Israel, where he reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to one of its top allies. Meanwhile, back home, another month of sky-high inflation data rocked the Democratic leadership and caused a key senator to warn he may not be on board for big spending bills as long as prices keep increasing.

Here’s what else happened today:

• Biden saw support for his re-election plummet in a poll that said a mere 18 percent of respondents would back him in 2024.
• A suspect was arrested in the case of a girl who had to travel from Ohio to Indiana for an abortion after being raped, refuting the doubts of Ohio’s Republican attorney general.
• The main Senate candidates in Georgia brought in boatloads of money last quarter, though Democrat Raphael Warnock raised the most.
• Michigan’s Democratic governor moved to stop other states from trying to arrest people who travel there for abortions.
• The chair of the January 6 committee dropped more hints of its cooperation with the department of justice, which could potentially charge former president Donald Trump with a crime.

Shortly after the supreme court overturned Roe v. Wade last month, the story of a 10-year-old girl who was forced to travel from Ohio to neighboring Indiana for an abortion after being raped went viral.

Ohio was one of the states whose law greatly restricting access to abortions took effect after the court ruling, and news of the girl’s ordeal sparked outrage over its consequences. However, the story had its doubters, chief among them the state’s Republican attorney general Dave Yost, whom the Columbus Dispatch reports gave interviews questioning whether the story happened at all.

It did indeed, the Dispatch reported today, with police arresting a 27-year-old man who confessed to twice raping the child. From their story:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Gershon Fuentes, 27, whose last known address was an apartment on Columbus’ Northwest Side, was arrested Tuesday after police say he confessed to raping the child on at least two occasions. He’s since been charged with rape, a felony of the first degree in Ohio.

Columbus police were made aware of the girl’s pregnancy through a referral by Franklin County Children Services that was made by her mother on June 22, Det. Jeffrey Huhn testified Wednesday morning at Fuentes’ arraignment. On June 30, the girl underwent a medical abortion in Indianapolis, Huhn said.

While Yost had plenty to say when the story first broke, the Dispatch reported he kept his comments following the arrest brief:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost questioned the validity of the account during an appearance on Fox News this week.

Yost, a Republican, told Fox News host Jesse Watters that his office had not heard “a whisper” of a report being filed for the 10-year-old victim.

“We have regular contact with prosecutors and local police and sheriffs — not a whisper anywhere,” Yost said on the show.

Yost doubled down on that in an interview with the USA TODAY Network Ohio bureau on Tuesday, saying that the more time passed before confirmation made it “more likely that this is a fabrication.”

“I know the cops and prosecutors in this state,” Yost said. “There’s not one of them that wouldn’t be turning over every rock, looking for this guy and they would have charged him. They wouldn’t leave him loose on the streets … I’m not saying it could not have happened. What I’m saying to you is there is not a damn scintilla of evidence.”

On Wednesday, once news of the arraignment of the Columbus man accused in the child’s rape came, Yost issued a single sentence statement:

“We rejoice anytime a child rapist is taken off the streets.”

The Associated Press reports a third arrest has been made related to allegations officials mishandled election equipment in a Colorado county after the 2020 election.

The case centers around Tina Peters, the clerk of Mesa county who last month lost her bid to be the Republican nominee for the position of top election official in Colorado. The AP reports that her election manager turned herself in earlier this week.

Here’s more from the report:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Sandra Brown, who worked for Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, turned herself in Monday in response to a warrant issued for her arrest on suspicion of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation and attempting to influence a public servant, said Lt. Henry Stoffel of the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office. The arrest was first reported by The Daily Sentinel newspaper.

Peters and her chief deputy, Belinda Knisley, are being prosecuted for allegedly allowing a copy of a hard drive to be made during an update of election equipment in May 2021. State election officials first became aware of a security breach last summer when a photo and video of confidential voting system passwords were posted on social media and a conservative website.

Peters, who has become a hero to election conspiracy theorists, following the lead of former President Donald Trump, lost her bid to become the GOP candidate for Colorado secretary of state last month.

Peters is charged with three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, criminal impersonation, two counts of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, one count of identity theft, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failing to comply with the secretary of state.

The Guardian’s Sam Levine has previously covered the saga around Peters:

Jill Biden’s questionable phrasing during a speech earlier this week has resulted in an apology from the first lady, Erum Salam reports:

Jill Biden has apologized for remarks in a speech to the civil rights and advocacy organization UnidosUS in which she likened the diversity of Latino Americans to breakfast tacos.

Speaking in Texas on Monday, the first lady said: “The diversity of this community – as distinct as the bodegas of the Bronx, as beautiful as the blossoms of Miami and as unique as the breakfast tacos here in San Antonio, is your strength.”

Amid condemnation of the statement, the National Association of Hispanic Journalists said: “We are not tacos. Our heritage as Latinos is shaped by various diasporas, cultures and food traditions. Do not reduce us to stereotypes.”

Biden’s press secretary, Michael LaRosa, responded: “The first lady apologizes that her words conveyed anything but pure admiration and love for the Latino community.”

Republicans, however, were quick to seize on the remarks.

The Texas governor, Greg Abbott, tweeted: “Breakfast tacos? This is why Texas Hispanics are turning away from the Democratic party.”

The Guardian’s David Smith has the latest on whether the January 6 committee’s hearings will lead to Trump facing a criminal prosecution:

Donald Trump is facing growing legal peril as the House January 6 committee lays out a case that appears increasingly geared to making a criminal prosecution all but inevitable.

The panel’s seventh hearing on Tuesday argued that Trump instigated an attack on the US Capitol that was premeditated rather than spontaneous and that he cannot hide behind a defence of being “willfully blind”.

The committee also sought to show an explosive convergence between Trump’s interests and those of far-right extremist groups, although critics said the case fell short of direct collusion.

Even so, the late revelation that Trump had tried to contact a person talking to the committee about potential testimony – raising the prospect of witness tampering – was only likely to compound pressure on the Department of Justice to investigate the former president.

Chair of the January 6 committee Bennie Thompson has revealed a bit more about the body’s interactions with the justice department as it turns up more and more evidence of potentially criminal misconduct by Donald Trump around the time of the 2020 election.

At yesterday’s hearing, the House committee revealed that Trump had contacted a former witness who was working with the panel. Here’s what Thompson had to say about that:

He also talked about what of the committee’s evidence the justice department was most interested in:

President Joe Biden is in Israel right now but in an interview with the country’s Channel 12 broadcaster filed at the White House before his departure, he weighed in on the issues facing one of Washington’s top allies in the Middle East.

The president kept the door open to using military force to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, but said that would only be done as a “last resort”:

He also drew a line between himself and fellow Democrats who criticize aid to Israel and claim it’s an apartheid state:

Biden will on Friday travel to Saudi Arabia, but he made clear he does not expect that country to normalize relations with Israel anytime soon:

Steve Bannon, a former top advisor to Donald Trump, has tried again and again to delay his trial on contempt of Congress charges for ignoring a subpoena from the January 6 committee.

The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that his latest bid has failed:

A brief look at Bannon’s attempts to stay out of the courtroom:

Congress held two hearings today on the impact of last month’s landmark supreme court decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion, in which advocates for and against the procedure made their case to House and Senate lawmakers.

Here are some highlights:

A Missouri lawmaker worried the state’s regulations would mean doctors and women alike would face jail for seeking out the procedure:

And a Georgia state representative said the burden of abortion bans would hit Black women and racial minorities the hardest:

Anti-abortion lawyer Erin Hawley, wife of Republican senator Josh Hawley, batted away pro-abortion talking points:

As did Roger Marshall, Kansas’s Republican Senator:

More bad news for Joe Biden on the polling front, where a mere 18% of respondents to a new Yahoo News/YouGov poll said he should run for re-election in 2024 and 64% said he should step back in favour of another Democratic candidate.

Among Democrats, 41% said Biden should not run again, against 35% who still wanted him as president.

The result was worse than the same poll in May, when 25% of respondents said Biden should run for a second term. Among Democrats then, the figure was 49%.

Biden’s favourability rating remains stuck in the mid- to upper-30s – not good by any measure.

The Yahoo/YouGove poll also contained bad news for Biden’s vice-president, Kamala Harris, who was supported by just 19% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents to run in Biden’s stead – behind doubty campaigners “someone else” (20%) and “not sure” (30%).

Biden has said he will run again but he is already the oldest president ever inaugurated and will turn 82 shortly after the 2024 election.

He has also faced his fair share of crises in his short time in office, from the economic and physical effects of the coronavirus pandemic to the threat to democracy posed by his Republican opponents, and from the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its effects on gas prices, food supplies and more.

Such a roster of challenges would, it seems fair to say, challenge most non-Biden candidates the Democrats might be able to find.

Here’s Ross Barkan with more:

Joe Biden has said the US is committed to Israel’s security, on arriving in Tel Aviv for the first leg of a three-day visit to the Middle East, a trip focused on deepening the majority Jewish state’s ties with the Arab world as the region faces a common foe in Iran.

The president was greeted by the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, and caretaker prime minister, Yair Lapid, on Air Force One’s arrival at Ben Gurion airport on Wednesday afternoon, fist-bumping rather than shaking hands with Israeli officials on the tarmac over what the White House said was concern over rising Covid cases.

Ahead of Biden’s trip, senior Israeli officials briefed reporters that the two countries will issue a broad-ranging communique titled the “Jerusalem Declaration”, which will take a tough stance on Iran’s nuclear programme, and reaffirm Israel’s right to defend itself.

In his opening remarks, Biden recalled that his first visit to the country had been as a young senator in 1973, just a few weeks before the Yom Kippur war with Egypt and Syria broke out. At that time, Israel and imperial Iran were still allies, and Egypt and Jordan were still hostile to the majority Jewish state.

“We’ll continue to advance Israel’s integration into the region and the relationship between the US and Israel is deeper and stronger in my view than it’s ever been,” the president said.

Air Force One will make a first direct flight from Israel to Saudi Arabia amid efforts to build a relationship between the Jewish state and the conservative Gulf kingdom, which does not officially recognise Israel’s existence.

Full story:

Another sentence has been handed down against a January 6 rioter, in this case a Maryland man who pled guilty to charges related to striking a police officer with a lacrosse stick that had a Confederate battle flag attached.

He was ordered to serve five months in prison, according to the AP:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper also sentenced David Alan Blair, to 18 months of supervised release after his prison term and ordered him to pay $2,000 in restitution, said William Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s office for the District of Columbia.

Federal prosecutors recommended sentencing Blair to eight months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.

Blair’s attorney, Terrell Roberts III, asked for a sentence of probation.

Blair, 27, left his home in Clarksburg, Maryland, and started driving to Washington, D.C., after the riot erupted at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Shortly before 6 p.m., Blair encountered a line of Metropolitan Police Department officers on the Capitol’s West Lawn and refused to heed their commands to leave the area, prosecutors said.

A police officer’s body camera captured Blair walking in front of the police line and yelling, “Hell naw. Quit backing up. Don’t be scared. We’re Americans.”

Blair was arrested after he pushed his lacrosse stick against an officer’s chest.

The officer responded to the push by striking Blair three times in the head with a baton, drawing blood and giving him a concussion, according to Blair’s attorney.

The race for the Senate seat in Georgia currently occupied by Democrat Raphael Warnock is among those considered pivotal to deciding who controls the chamber following November’s midterm elections, and the incumbent seems to be prevailing, at least when it comes to money.

As the Associated Press reports, Warnock raised $17.2 million in the second quarter running from April through June, much more than the $6.2 million Republican Herschel Walker brought in.

From the AP’s report:

.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The dueling Senate campaign numbers underlined two truths. Georgia is again going to be one of the most expensive races to run for office in 2022, and Democrats are building a strong fundraising advantage.

Like Warnock, Democrat Stacey Abrams heavily outraised incumbent Republican Brian Kemp in the race for governor, collecting almost $50 million compared to the $31 million Kemp has brought in over a longer period. Abrams and Warnock plan to run closely linked campaigns, echoing many of the same themes.

Warnock is one of several Democratic Senate incumbents in swing states who is trying to cling to their seat amid President Joe Biden’s deep unpopularity. Republicans had long dominated statewide races until Georgia helped elect Biden to the presidency and enabled Democrats to control the Senate by electing Warnock and fellow Democrat Jon Ossoff in a January 2021 runoff.