Trump campaign promised to ‘fan the flame’ of 2020 election lie, audio reveals – as it happened

That’s it for the US politics live blog! Here is a summary of what happened today:

• Joe Biden and Kamala Harris traveled to Philadelphia today and announced $500m that will be used to upgrade water pipes in the region. “Water ought to be something that’s just guaranteed,” said Biden, noting that the US is the richest country in the world.

• The Indiana Republican Victoria Spartz said today she will not run for an open Senate seat in 2024 and will also retire from her seat in the US House.

• Biden boasted about the better-than-expected latest jobs figures. “Today, I am happy to report that the state of our union and the state of our economy is strong,” said Biden, referring to the over 500,000 jobs that were created in January.

• Secretary of State Antony Blinken will postpone a scheduled trip to China after yesterday’s discovery of what is believed to be a Chinese spy balloon over the US, sailing above the US and within peering distance of a nuclear weapons installation.

• A senior member of Donald Trump’s Wisconsin 2020 election campaign said their team should “fan the flame” of denial about Trump’s key loss in Wisconsin to Biden and and spread the false claim that Democrats were “trying to steal this election”, according to a leaked November 5, 2020 audio clip.

Thank you for reading; have a great weekend!

The Democratic National Convention will vote on a committee recommendation to alter the presidential primary calendar in 2024 during their upcoming Saturday meeting, reported the Hill.

Biden previously ordered Democrats to change the primary calendar to better support non-white voters.

Here’s more information on Biden’s request from the Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt:

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Democrats are poised to shake up the way in which they nominate presidential candidates, after Joe Biden said the primary process should better represent the party’s non-white voters.

Biden has reportedly told Democrats that Iowa, the state that has led off the Democratic voting calendar since 1976, should be moved down the calendar, with South Carolina instead going first.

The move would see New Hampshire, which has technically held the nation’s first primary since 1920 (Iowa uses a slightly different system of caucuses, or in-person voting), shunted down the calendar.

Both Iowa and New Hampshire are predominantly white states. Clamor has been growing inside and outside the Democratic party for a different state, with a population more representative of the US as a whole, to be given the first go.

Read the full article here.

During his remarks, Biden noted the importance of ensuring that all Americans have access to clean water.

“Water ought to be something that’s just guaranteed,” said Biden, noting that the US is the richest country in the world.

Biden said that the problem of older pipes leading to lead exposure and poisoning is an issue across America.

“It’s especially bad in older cities, in the midwest and the northeast,” said Biden.

“No amount of lead in water is safe. None,” Biden added.

Before beginning his remarks, Biden joked about having to support the Philadelphia Eagles before their Super Bowl appearance next Sunday as his wife, Jill Biden, is from the city.

From Philadelphia Inquirer reporter Jonathan Tamari:

Harris is currently speaking in Philadelphia in joint remarks with Joe Biden about infrastructure investment that will upgrade clean water systems.

Harris is speaking about the importance of clean drinking water, as Harris and Biden announce $500m that Philadelphia will use to address lead pipes throughout the city.

“No child in America should ever have to endure that kind of experience. No parent in America should ever have that experience,” said Harris, recalling a 2 year-old child who was hospitalized for lead poisoning after drinking water out of the tap.

Just three days after disgraced New York representative George Santos withdrew from House committee assignments, House Republicans have encouraged Twitter users to follow him on social media.

The House Republican tagged George Santos’ official account with the hashtag “FollowFriday”, encouraging users to follow the congressman’s account.

From the House Republicans Twitter account:

The New York Republican congressman remains under investigation for several lies he listed on his résumé and current campaign finance filings.

A former Manhattan prosecutor wrote in a new book that he almost pursued a racketeering charge against Donald Trump, reports the New York Times.

Mark F Pomerantz resigned in protest from the Manhattan district attorney’s office last year after the office’s newly elected DA, Alvin Bragg, declined to pursue an indictment against Trump.

In a forthcoming book entitled “People vs. Donald Trump”, Pomerantz says that the Manhattan district attorney’s office mapped out charges to bring against Trump under the state’s racketeering law.

More from the Times:

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Mr. Pomerantz and his colleagues cast a wide net, examining a host of Trump enterprises — including Trump University, his for-profit real estate education venture, and his family charitable foundation.

“He demanded absolute loyalty and would go after anyone who crossed him. He seemed always to stay one step ahead of the law,” Mr. Pomerantz, a prominent litigator who has prosecuted and defended organized crime cases, writes of Mr. Trump. “In my career as a lawyer, I had encountered only one other person who touched all of these bases: John Gotti, the head of the Gambino organized crime family.”

A lawyer for Mr. Trump recently sent Mr. Pomerantz a letter threatening that, “If you publish such a book and continue making defamatory statements against my clients, my office will aggressively pursue all legal remedies.”

Read the full article here (paywall).

Our columnist Moustafa Bayoumi has filed on the Republican move to expel Ilhan Omar from the foreign affairs committee, ostensibly over her allegedly antisemitic remarks about Israel, and what it says about the GOP’s own problems with antisemitism…

Who remembers how, in 2018 and just days before the deadliest attack on Jewish people in US history, a prominent US politician tweeted: “We cannot allow Soros, Steyer, and Bloomberg to BUY this election!”?

The tweet was widely – and correctly – understood as dangerously antisemitic, particularly heinous in a period of rising anti-Jewish hatred. And whose tweet was this? If you thought the answer was Minnesota’s Democratic representative Ilhan Omar then, well, you’d be wrong. The author was none other than the House majority leader at the time, Republican Kevin McCarthy.

And who can forget when Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has tweeted that “Joe Biden is Hitler”, speculated that the wildfires in California were caused by a beam from “space solar generators” linked to “Rothschild, Inc.”, a clear wink to bizarre antisemitic conspiracy theories. Incidentally, Greene, who has a long record of antisemitic and anti-Muslim statements, has been recently appointed, by the same Kevin McCarthy, now speaker of the House, to the homeland security committee.

Then there’s former president Donald Trump, who dines with Holocaust deniers like Nick Fuentes and antisemites like Ye. In stereotypically anti-Jewish moves, Trump has repeatedly called the loyalty of Jewish Americans into question. Just this past October, he wrote that “US Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel – Before it is too late!”

In case it’s not obvious, let me state it plainly. Today’s Republican party has a serious antisemitism problem. The easy acceptance and amplification of all sorts of anti-Jewish hate that party leaders engage in emboldens all the worst bigots, raving racists, and far-right extremists across the globe, all the while threatening Jewish people here and everywhere.

So it is more than a little rich that House Republicans voted on Thursday to remove Omar from the foreign affairs committee, where she’s served since 2019, because, they say, of her antisemitic views.

Read on:

After less than seven minutes, Jean-Pierre’s gaggle has come to an end as the press secretary told reporters that passengers were being instructed to sit down due to turbulence.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is currently in a gaggle aboard Air Force 1, on route to Philadelphia where Harris and Biden will give remarks on the city’s upgraded water systems.

Jean-Pierre answered several questions on the status of the Chinese spy balloon that was reported above the US.

“The president was briefed on this on Tuesday,” adding that Biden has continued to receive updates on the spy balloon.

The recommendation from US military officials was not to take “kinetic action” due to safety risks for people on the ground.

Jean-Pierre did not answer questions on if the US will attempt to capture the balloon, but added that the Pentagon is “keeping a close eye on it” and will continue to monitor it.

The Indiana Republican Victoria Spartz said today she will not run for an open Senate seat in 2024 and will also retire from her seat in the US House.

The decision ends speculation which mounted when the 44-year-old refused to back Kevin McCarthy during last month’s 15-vote marathon for House speaker, voting “present” instead of backing any of the rightwing figures put up against McCarthy by a group of far-right rebels.

She told reporters: “My concern is that … we didn’t come together yet. So, we have to go back … as a group of people, and figure it out.”

Some observers, however, suggested that Spartz might be hedging her bets ahead of a Senate run.

Seems not. In a statement on Friday, the Ukraine-born Spartz said: “It’s been my honor representing Hoosiers in the Indiana state senate and US Congress and I appreciate the strong support on the ground. 2024 will mark seven years of holding elected office and over a decade in Republican politics.

“I won a lot of tough battles for the people and will work hard to win a few more in the next two years. However, being a working mom is tough and I need to spend more time with my two high-school girls back home, so I will not run for any office in 2024.”

Jim Banks, a prominent hardliner in the US House, is the favourite to win the Republican primary to replace the retiring Mike Braun in the US Senate. Donald Trump has endorsed Banks.

Texts sent by Alex Jones show the rightwing media figure repeatedly texted with members of the Proud Boys in 2020.

Jones conversed with Gavin McInnes, the founder of Proud Boys, and Jason Biggs, who is on trial for seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol attack of 6 January 2021, an attempt to keep Donald Trump in office despite his election loss to Joe Biden.

Some 22,000 of Jones’ texts, spanning August 2019 to 15 May 2020, were reviewed by the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch reporting team.

Jones also frequently texted with Roger Stone, the rightwing political fixer sentenced to 40 months in prison in 2020 over his attempts to sabotage a congressional investigation that posed a political threat to Trump. Jones was pardoned by Trump in December 2020.

Hatewatch found that despite Jones using his Infowars broadcaststo rail against pornography as a plot to “end the family”, he repeatedly texted links to pornographic videos.

The messages also offer a glimpse into Jones’ state of mind as he was being sued by multiple parents of victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting, after he repeatedly said the shooting was a hoax.

In one message, Jones told his wife “I am in hell”. A message to his father described his situation as like “a black hole”.

Hatewatch obtained the messages from Mark Bankston, an attorney who represented Neil Heslin and Scarlett Lewis, the parents of Jesse Lewis, who was killed in the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. Heslin and Lewis sued Jones for defamation, and were awarded $49m.

Bankston received the messages from Jones’ lawyers, after they mistakenly sent their legal opponent 22,000 of Jones’ texts.

Hello again, live blog readers, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are heading to Philadelphia this afternoon to talk about the economy and we’ll have that news for you as it happens, so do stick around.

It’s been a morning of mixed politics developments, here’s where things stand so far:

• Biden and Harris are due to speak in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at 3.15pm ET, with remarks on the economy. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will “gaggle” with accompanying reporters aboard Air Force One en route to the city, available on audio via the White House Live link, expected around 1.40pm ET.

• The US president tooted his horn over the better-than-expected latest jobs figures. “Today, I am happy to report that the state of our union and the state of our economy is strong,” said Biden, referring to the over 500,000 jobs that were created in January.

• Secretary of State Antony Blinken will postpone a scheduled trip to China after yesterday’s discovery of what is believed to be a Chinese spy balloon over the US, sailing above Montana within peering distance of a nuclear weapons installation.

• A senior member of Donald Trump’s Wisconsin 2020 election campaign said their team should “fan the flame” of denial about Trump’s key loss there to Biden and and spread the false claim that Democrats were “trying to steal this election” in a leaked November 5, 2020 audio clip. The guy on tape is still a senior RNC figure.

Indiana representative Victoria Spartz announced in a statement today that she will not be seeking reelection or running for the US Senate.

“I will not run for any office in 2024,” said Spartz, who is Republican, in a statement.

The announcement comes as rumors circulated around a potential Senate run from Spartz given an open seat.

Spartz received wide attention for voting ‘present’ during House speaker elections, where House Speaker Kevin McCarthy required 15 votes to secure the position.