US could default on debt in July unless Congress raises ceiling, CBO warns – as it happened

Nikki Haley officially kicked off her presidential campaign with a South Carolina speech in which she quipped about imposing “mental competency tests” for elderly politicians (think Donald Trump and Joe Biden) and won a few interesting endorsements. Kamala Harris was meanwhile heading to Germany for a meeting with some of Washington’s top allies, while downplaying the impact of the spy balloon saga on the relationship with China. In the afternoon, Congress’s budget analysts were out with sober new reports that estimated when the US government will run out of cash, and warning that the country is on track to hit a level of debt never seen before.

Here’s what else happened today:

• The justice department will not charge rightwing congressman Matt Gaetz following his investigation over sex-trafficking allegations.

• Biden is considering a national address about the three still-mysterious UFOs shot down over North America in recent days, and the Chinese spy balloon.

• Democrats were doing all they can to make sure the public doesn’t forget Haley’s ties to Trump, whom she served as United Nations ambassador.

• Despite all the lies, George Santos may run for re-election in 2024.

• House Republicans have issued a new wave of subpoenas, this time targeting America’s biggest tech companies.

California is hoping to enshrine the right to same-sex marriage in its constitution by repealing a proposition voters approved in 2008 that banned such unions, the Associated Press reports.

If the legislature repeals Proposition 8 with the required two-thirds majority vote, the issue will then go to voters, according to the AP. The effort is a response by the state’s Democrats, who dominate control the legislature and governor’s mansion, to conservative US supreme court justice Clarence Thomas’s suggestion last year that its decision allowing same-sex marriage nationwide should be revisited.

Thomas’s comment spurred Congress to in December approve the Respect for Marriage act, which protected same-sex and interracial marriage rights nationwide. The legislation doesn’t require states to allow same-sex unions, but instead prevents them from rejecting marriage licenses issued in other states. California’s lawmakers fear that if the supreme court decision is overturned while Proposition 8 remains part of its constitution, same-sex marriage could end up banned in the state.

Governor Gavin Newsom supports the effort, as does at least one Republican lawmaker, the AP reports.

In the latest move in its investigation campaign against the Biden administration, the House judiciary committee has subpoenaed the leaders of five of America’s biggest tech companies for “documents and communications relating to the federal government’s reported collusion with Big Tech to suppress free speech,” according to a statement.

“Congress has an important role in protecting and advancing fundamental free speech principles, including by examining how private actors coordinate with the government to … suppress First Amendment-protected speech. These subpoenas are the first step in holding Big Tech accountable,” said the statement from the committee’s Republican chair Jim Jordan.

Jordan noted that his office had attempted to get information from the tech firms last December, before he officially took over as the committee leader, but received no response. In his letters to the CEOs of Meta, Amazon, Google, Alphabet and Microsoft, Jordan wrote, “Big Tech is out to get conservatives, and is increasingly willing to undermine First Amendment values by complying with the Biden Administration’s directives that suppress freedom of speech online.”

“This approach undermines fundamental American principles and allows powerful government actors to silence political opponents and stifle opposing viewpoints. Publicly available information suggests that your companies’ treatment of certain speakers and content may stem from government directives or guidance designed to suppress dissenting views.”

Those who watched last week’s State of the Union address will remember an unusual moment when Joe Biden engaged with Republican hecklers, and came out with what looked like a promise not to cut Social Security or Medicare in exchange for their votes to raise the debt ceiling.

He referred back to that interaction today in his speech before Maryland union members as he accused Republicans of pursuing policies that would drive the national debt higher.

Republican say they want “to reduce the deficit, but their plans are going to increase the deficit by $3tn, based on what they introduced so far,” the president said. “So where are they going to cut? They’re gonna cut Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act, they’re going to cut Social Security or Medicare, veterans benefits, aid to farmers. At the State of the Union they seemed to say they’re not going to cut Social Security and Medicare. OK, great. I hope that’s true. But how are they going to make these numbers add up?”

Then came a pledge familiar to anyone who has heard Biden speak in the past: “If Republicans try to take away people’s healthcare, increase costs for middle class families or push Americans into poverty, I’m going to stop them.”

Joe Biden hasn’t made any news yet in his speech before union members, but the Guardian’s Lauren Aratani reported earlier today that his administration is teaming up with Tesla on a step that could help more Americans drive electric cars:

The White House is partnering with Tesla to expand electric vehicle charging infrastructure in the US, with the company opening at least 7,500 of its chargers to all electric vehicles (EVs) by the end of 2024, the White House announced Wednesday.

Tesla charging stations currently use a certain power connector that require non-Tesla EV to use an adapter. The White House said that Tesla will work to include at least 3,500 new and existing 250 kW superchargers along highways and level 2 destination chargers at locations like hotels and restaurants across the country. Tesla is also planning to double its network of Superchargers.

The Biden administration in 2021 set goals of having 50% of new vehicle sales in the country to be EVs and 500,000 EV chargers along highways by 2030. The US currently has around 3m electric vehicles on the road and about 60,000 charging stations across the country.

The administration’s goals “have spurred network operators to accelerate the buildout of coast-to-coast EV charging networks”, the White House said in a statement. “Public dollars will supplement private investment by filling gaps, serving rural and hard to reach locations and building capacity in communities.”

Joe Biden has just kicked off his speech about the economy at a union hall in Maryland, where he could touch on the new debt limit and economic growth forecasts from the Congressional Budget Office.

The White House has said Biden will use the speech to accuse Republicans of wanting to drive the US national debt higher. This blog will keep an eye on the address for any news the president might make.

Congress’s budget analysts estimate the United States will exhaust its bank accounts and could default on its obligations for the first time in history sometime between July and September, unless lawmakers agree to increase the debt limit.

In a just-released report, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) notes that “the projected exhaustion date is uncertain because the timing and amount of revenue collections and outlays over the intervening months could differ from CBO’s projection.” They point to the amount of tax revenue brought in by the April filing deadline as particularly important in determining when the US government will exhaust its cash on hand.

The United States is one of the few countries with a legal limit on how much debt the government can accrue, and that ceiling was hit last month. The Treasury then began taking “extraordinary measures” to allow the government to pay its bills without issuing new debt. The CBO report warns that if tax revenue ends up being less than expected, “the extraordinary measures could be exhausted sooner, and the Treasury could run out of funds before July.”

“If the debt limit is not raised or suspended before the extraordinary measures are exhausted, the government would be unable to pay its obligations fully. As a result, the government would have to delay making payments for some activities, default on its debt obligations, or both,” the CBO wrote.

The estimate is further out than one given by the Treasury last month, when it announced the debt limit had been reached and the government’s cash could be exhausted in June.

In separate forecasts released today, the CBO estimates that economic growth will weaken this year but rebound beginning in 2024, hitting a peak of 2.7% in 2025 before averaging 1.8% from 2028 to 2033. However it warns America is on a trajectory for the national debt to hit more than $46.4tn by 2033, equivalent to 118 percent of GDP and the highest level ever recorded.

The Guardian’s Lauren Aratani reports on news out of the White House today that the Biden administration is partnering with Tesla to expand electric vehicle charging infrastructure nationwide, Elon Musk’s company agreeing to open at least 7,500 of its chargers to all electric vehicles by the end of next year…

Tesla charging stations currently use a certain power connector that require non-Tesla EV to use an adapter. The White House said that Tesla will work to include at least 3,500 new and existing 250 kW superchargers along highways and level 2 destination chargers at locations like hotels and restaurants across the country. Tesla is also planning to double its network of Superchargers.

The Biden administration in 2021 set goals of having 50% of new vehicle sales in the country to be EVs and 500,000 EV chargers along highways by 2030. The US currently has around 3m electric vehicles on the road and about 60,000 charging stations across the country.

The administration’s goals “have spurred network operators to accelerate the buildout of coast-to-coast EV charging networks”, the White House said in a statement. “Public dollars will supplement private investment by filling gaps, serving rural and hard to reach locations and building capacity in communities.”

Along with its partnership with Tesla, the White House is working with other companies, including car manufacturers like General Motors, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo, to build out more chargers. The rental car company Hertz is working with BP to bring chargers to locations in major cities. Hertz is planning to make a quarter of its fleet electric by 2024.

Funding for the EV charging network expansion comes largely from the bipartisan infrastructure bill passed in 2021.

The bill allocates $7.5bn for charging infrastructure, including a $2.5bn community grant program. In September, the White House said all 50 states have plans to build chargers using funding from the bill.

Full story:

A setback for Donald Trump in New York, where a judge today rejected a gambit that might have delayed the looming trial over the writer E Jean Carroll’s claim the former president raped her in the city in the mid-1990s. The Associated Press has the following report:

Donald Trump missed his chance to use his DNA to try to prove he did not rape the writer E Jean Carroll, a federal judge said on Wednesday, clearing a potential roadblock to an April trial.

The judge, Lewis A Kaplan, rejected the 11th-hour offer by Trump’s legal team to provide a DNA sample to rebut claims Carroll first made publicly in a 2019 book.

Kaplan said lawyers for Trump and Carroll had more than three years to make DNA an issue in the case and both chose not to do so.

He said it would almost surely delay the trial scheduled to start on 25 April to reopen the DNA issue four months after the deadline passed to litigate concerns over trial evidence and weeks before trial.

Trump’s lawyers did not immediately comment. Carroll’s attorney, Roberta Kaplan, declined to comment.

Carroll’s lawyers have sought Trump’s DNA for three years to compare it with stains found on the dress Carroll wore the day she says Trump raped her in a department store dressing room in late 1995 or early 1996. Analysis of DNA on the dress concluded it did contain traces of an unknown man’s DNA.

Trump has denied knowing Carroll, saying repeatedly he never raped her and accusing her of making the claim to stoke sales of her book. She has sued him for defamation and under a New York law which allows alleged victims of sexual assault to sue over alleged crimes outside the usual statute of limitations.

Full story:

Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the House oversight committee, has sent a letter to Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law who was Trump’s chief White House adviser, renewing a request for documents related to a $2bn deal with Saudi Arabia Kushner secured shortly after the end of the Trump administration.

The benefits to Kushner and Trump of their closeness to Saudi Arabia while in power have been the subject of extensive reporting and speculation, not least given Kushner’s closeness to Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince who US intelligence said was behind the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident resident in the US who wrote for the Washington Post.

Raskin writes: “Your efforts to protect the crown prince may have allowed him to maintain his position at the top of the Saudi government and, thus, his ability to deliver significant financial benefits to you and your father-in-law after the end of the Trump administration.

“Abdullah Alaoudh, the director for the Gulf at Democracy for the Arab World Now, has stated that ‘[w]ithout the absolute protection of Trump and Kushner, MBS would definitely have fallen’.

“President Trump expressed an explicit awareness of the crown prince’s debt: when Secretary [of state Mike] Pompeo embarked on a state visit to the Middle East to visit the crown prince, he wrote that President Trump told him, ‘My Mike, go and have a good time. Tell him he owes us.’”

Here’s more about Pompeo’s view of the Khashoggi affair … and the Post’s condemnation of it.

Raskin goes on to say Kushner and his investment firm, A Fin Management, LLC (Affinity), have “failed to cooperate with the Committee Democrats’ investigation”, which was launched last summer, when Democrats held the House.

What’s Raskin after? “Documents, including communications between Mr Kushner and Saudi government officials, and documents sufficient to show the identity of all foreign investors in Affinity”.

When does he want it? “By 1 March 2023.”

Will he get it? Seems unlikely.

Raskin also noted that though the new Republican oversight chairman, James Comer of Kentucky, had “acknowledg[ed] the unresolved conflicts-of-interests crisis left by the Trump administration”, he had declined to sign the letter to Kushner.

The scandal-blasted New York Republican congressman George Santos is reportedly contemplating running for re-election in 2024, despite being at the centre of an extraordinary rolling political controversy since his election last November.

CNN reported the change in Santos’s thinking today.

Yesterday, Santos tweeted his defiance, writing: “Let me be very clear, I’m not leaving, I’m not hiding and I am NOT backing down. I will continue to work for New York’s third district and no amount of Twitter trolling will stop me. I’m looking forward to getting what needs to be done, DONE!”

Santos’s résumé has been shown to be largely made up, his claims about family heritage debunked, his past scoured for alleged criminal behaviour and his campaign finances investigated amid questions over missing money and the source of his personal wealth.

Santos’s very identity has been questioned, given past activities under a different name, Anthony Devolder.

Republicans have joined Democrats in calling for Santos to resign but though he has admitted embellishing his résumé he denies wrongdoing.

Republican leaders have stuck by him. Santos supported the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, through 15 rounds of voting for the position. McCarthy must now work with a very slim majority, making Santos’s seat all the more valuable.

Santos has raised sufficient funds to have to announce whether he will run again by a deadline in mid-March. Two other New York Republican freshmen told CNN Santos would lose a primary if he chose to contest it.

“George Santos will not be on any ticket in 2024,” said Marc Molinaro, adding that he would support a resolution to expel Santos from Congress if it made it to a vote.

Democrats have introduced such a resolution but only five members of the House have ever been expelled – three for fighting for the Confederacy in the civil war.

Anthony D’Esposito, who represents a neighbouring district, told CNN: “I am confident that George Santos will not be on any ticket come 2024. I am confident that we’ll do everything in our power to make sure we have the right candidate, the honest candidate, the truthful candidate, and the one who was honest about his entire being.”

Two anonymous but senior Republicans, meanwhile, pointed to hard political realities.

One, asked about House ethics investigations said: “I think he’ll be indicted before we get to him.”

Another, described as a “senior GOP member”, pointed to the party’s need to avoid a new election in a district Joe Biden won with ease.

“We don’t want a special,” he said.

Nikki Haley officially kicked off her presidential campaign with a South Carolina speech in which she quipped about imposing “mental competency tests” for elderly politicians (think Donald Trump and Joe Biden) and won a few interesting endorsements. Kamala Harris was meanwhile heading to Germany for a meeting with some of Washington’s top allies, while downplaying the impact of the spy balloon saga on the relationship with China. Later this afternoon, Biden will launch a counterattack against the GOP and their demands for spending cuts with a speech intended to convince voters that Republicans are the real money wasters.

Here’s what else has happened today so far:

• The justice department will not charge rightwing congressman Matt Gaetz following his investigation over sex-trafficking allegations.

• Biden is considering a national address about the three still-mysterious UFOs shot down over North America in recent days, and the Chinese spy balloon.

• Democrats were doing all they can to make sure the public doesn’t forget Haley’s ties to Trump, whom she served as United Nations ambassador.

The justice department will not charge rightwing congressman Matt Gaetz after investigating him on sex trafficking allegations, CNN reports:

Federal agents had been looking into whether the Republican representing part of northwestern Florida in the House of Representatives paid a 17-year-old girl for sex. In December, an ex-tax collector and friend of Gaetz whose arrest sparked the investigation of the congressman was sentenced to 11 years in jail for offenses including the sex trafficking of a minor.

As the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino reports, Nikki Haley would like to see “mental competency tests” implemented for politicians of a certain age:

Who could she be referring to? Likely Joe Biden, who is 80, but perhaps also Donald Trump, who is 76.

At her presidential campaign launch event in South Carolina, Nikki Haley has received the endorsement of Cindy Warmbier, whose son Otto died after his release from a North Korean prison, the Washington Post reports:

Donald Trump succeeded in getting Otto Warmbier returned to the United States in 2017. The then president later implied that he didn’t think North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un knew about Warmbier’s torture while in custody – a comment that his family rebuked.