White House calls Tucker Carlson ‘shameful’ for misrepresenting January 6 footage – as it happened

This blog is wrapping up for the day but will be back with all the US politics news tomorrow, covering developments as they happen.

Here’s how the day went:

• Top US intelligence official Avril Haines said that American intelligence does not believe Russia can make “major territorial gains” in Ukraine this year because of heavy casualties and the Kremlin’s inability to replenish weapons and ammunition.

• White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has just slammed Fox News show host Tucker Carlson, calling the right-wing television star “shameful” for the way he is misrepresenting the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol as extremist supporters of Donald Trump tried to overturn his defeat in the presidential election.

• House Republicans convened their first hearing on what the committee chairman called the Biden’s administration’s “disastrous” withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.

• Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the Department of Justice (DoJ) will conduct a federal review of the Memphis police department after the killing of Tyre Nichols earlier this year and also look into the use of specialized police units nationwide.

• The Department of Justice has issued its review, concluding that it found racist and unlawful conduct by police officers in Louisville, Kentucky, following their investigation into the city’s law enforcement after the killing of Breonna Taylor during a botched police raid in 2020.

• Fox News has been broadsided by the latest court motions revealing that people from top executives down to reporters knew that Donald Trump’s claims that victory in the 2020 election had been stolen from him because of fraud were bogus – but star commentary hosts boosted those claims anyway.

The top intelligence official in the US said earlier today that American intelligence does not believe Russia can make “major territorial gains” in Ukraine this year because of heavy casualties and the Kremlin’s inability to replenish weapons and ammunition.

Speaking to a Senate committee, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines also cited other constraints on the Russian military, including dysfunction in leadership and declining troop morale, the Associated Press reports.

Meanwhile, despite recent sharp criticism of the US by Chinese president Xi Jinping, Haines said: “We assess that Beijing still believes it benefits most by preventing a spiraling of tensions and by preserving stability in its relationship with the United States.”

China is challenging the US around the world economically, technologically, politically and militarily around the world and “remains our unparalleled priority,” Haines said and NBC reported.

Georgia extremist congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene took the gavel today as the temporary speaker of the House of Representatives.

For a long time, the hard-right Republican prone to conspiracy theories could be kept at arm’s length as a fringe character but her influence has grown since she shimmied up to Kevin McCarthy as a crucial ally during his extraordinary multi-round effort to finally get voted into the speakership in January, after the GOP scraped into control of the House during the 2022 midterm elections.

She’s very pleased about it.

Others less so.

As my colleague Adam Gabbatt reminds us, Greene has suggested Jewish space lasers are responsible for wildfires, speculated whether 9/11 was a hoax and supported the QAnon conspiracy theory, was part of a new wave of Trumpian Republicans and was mocked, ridiculed and reviled in equal measure – including by some in her own party.

The Atlantic’s “Why is Marjorie Taylor Greene like this?” is also an illuminating read, describing how prosperous but aimless suburbanites can fall down the rabbit hole.

Last month, Greene again proposed a “national divorce” so that states can secede along political lines, something that is unequivocally unconstitutional in the United States.

The testimony in today’s House hearing on the Afghanistan withdrawal has brought witnesses, lawmakers and audience members to tears.

In another gripping account, Tyler Vargas-Andrews, a US Marines sergeant grievously injured in a suicide bombing at the Kabul airport, was asked to tell the panel about the girl he saved during the evacuation.

Stationed at the airport, Vargas-Andrews said he was helping to push back the crowds outside of the airport, he noticed a little girl, roughly about 7 or 8 years old, who had managed to squeeze past, holding the hand of her younger brother and a baby in her arms.

“In this chaos, I had tunnel-vision and saw her and I was like, I need to help them,” Vargas-Andrews said, recalling that their faces were “dirty and bruised” and streaked with tears.

When he reached the children, he noticed that the baby’s face was blue and didn’t appear to be breathing. He took the youngest children in his arms and together they fought their way through the crush of people. Not knowing if the baby was alive, they searched frantically for a medic who could perform CPR on the baby.

They found one, administered aid, and the baby’s face “flushed pink” and the infant began to breathe, as the little girl sobbed. She tugged on his uniform and begged for abba, father.

He climbed onto an SUV overlooking the razor wire fence erected around the airport and hoisted the girl into the air to survey the scene below. After a few minutes, amid the hundreds of people desperately waving documents and flinging luggage, she pointed to a man with his hands on his head staring back at her, tears streaming down his face.

“I was like that is her dad,” Vargas-Andrews said. He quickly reunited the family and together they were able to leave the country.

“For me, that was a moment that my personal injury was worth it,” said Vargas-Andrews, who has since undergone 44 surgeries for the extensive injuries he suffered during the bombing. “I know those three little kids will have a life of freedom and opportunity now because of that.”

The former Maryland governor Larry Hogan has ruled out a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 – but not ruled out a third-party tilt.

Hogan told ABC on Tuesday: “I haven’t ruled that out. But it’s not something I’m really working toward or thinking about” even though “the question keeps popping up more and more”.

Hogan flirted with a run for the nomination as a moderate but pulled back on Sunday, saying: “To once again be a successful governing party, we must move on from Donald Trump.

“There are several competent Republican leaders who have the potential to step up and lead. But the stakes are too high for me to risk being part of another multi-car pile-up that could potentially help Mr Trump recapture the nomination.”

Polling has shown the potential for opponents to Trump (including the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley and most likely the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis) to divide the vote and give him the nomination without needing a majority, as happened in 2016.

Polling has also shown vanishingly small interest in Hogan among voters in a party dominated by Trump and DeSantis.

Hogan told ABC: “Trump has to stumble, which is hard. And he’s been diminishing. But still, he’s the 800lb gorilla. And then if he doesn’t make it, it goes to DeSantis, and then DeSantis has to stumble. And then you have to consolidate everyone else and overcome that.”

He said No Labels, a centrist group of which he is an honorary co-chair, had “raised about $50m to get [ballot] access in all 50 states as kind of an insurance policy” for an “in case of emergency break glass” scenario.

“They’re not trying to start a third party,” he said. “They’re not committed to doing that. But in case the country is burning down, you may have to have an alternative.”

Hogan said a Biden-Trump matchup would be such a scenario.

“I think that would be the trigger. I think that’s what they’re talking about. I’m not sure we’re gonna get to that point … Frankly, I’m hopeful that Donald Trump is not going to be the Republican nominee. And I’m going to work toward that goal. And I’m assuming Joe Biden may be the nominee, but who knows? I mean, he’s 80 years old. And we got a long ways to go.”

Biden, who would be 86 a the end of a second term, has not confirmed a run for re-election. All signs, however, suggest he will soon take the plunge.

Hogan said he was “not sure if it’s feasible” he could be a No Labels candidate.

“And it’s also just not something I’m working toward. But, I mean, look, if you got to an election when the nominees were Biden and Trump and 70% of America didn’t want that, you wouldn’t rule it out, right?”

The White House chimed in on the Department of Justice finding racist, unlawful conduct by the Memphis Police Department as a result of its investigation following the police killing of Breonna Taylor, a Black woman shot dead almost three years ago during a botched raid.

First noting that the DoJ is independent from the White House, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre added that: “The president has said repeatedly that a key part of building trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve is ensuring there is accountability when we see an officer violate the law.”

Jean-Pierre noted Joe Biden’s executive order last spring that sought to rein in police excesses and improve safety and trust, and once again lamented that Congress has failed to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.

“The president has said himself, Breonna Taylor’s death was a tragedy, a blow to her family, to her community and also to America more broadly.”

She added that Biden notes that “Black women experience a disproportionate share of violence in this country and he will continue to fight for legislation that advances police reform and makes sure that we keep the Black community safe.”

KJP, who is the first Black woman to be White House press secretary, was wearing white in a nod to the battle for women’s suffrage, pointing out to the assembled journalists that it is International Women’s Day. She is also the first openly gay White House press sec.

She also spent quality minutes at the briefing today excoriating Tucker Carlson.

In his forthcoming budget proposal, Joe Biden will propose to cut the US deficit by nearly $3tn, the Associated Press reports.

The AP adds:

.css-cumn2r{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}That deficit reduction goal is significantly higher than the $2tn Biden had promised in his State of the Union address last month. It also is a sharp contrast with House Republicans, who have called for a path to a balanced budget but have yet to offer a blueprint.

White House officials have been briefing on the proposal, which Biden is due to discuss in Philadelphia tomorrow, Thursday.

A proposal it will almost certainly remain, of course, given Congress has the power of the purse, and given that control of Congress is shared between Democrats who hold the Senate and Republicans who hold the House.

It’s been a lively day in US politics so far and there is much more to come. The White House has just called Fox’s Tucker Carlson shameful and the Department of Justice is looking into special police divisions across the country, especially in the wake of high-profile killings of Black Americans amid accusations of racial bias in incidents of brutality and misconduct.

Here where things stand:

• White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has just slammed Fox News show host Tucker Carlson, calling the right-wing television star “shameful” for the way he is misrepresenting the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol as extremist supporters of Donald Trump tried to overturn his defeat in the presidential election.

• House Republicans convened their first hearing on what the committee chairman called the Biden’s administration’s “disastrous” withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.

• Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that the Department of Justice (DoJ) will conduct a federal review of the Memphis police department after the killing of Tyre Nichols earlier this year and also look into the use of specialized police units nationwide.

• The Department of Justice has issued its review, concluding that it found racist and unlawful conduct by police officers in Louisville, Kentucky, following their investigation into the city’s law enforcement after the killing of Breonna Taylor during a botched police raid in 2020.

• Fox News has been broadsided by the latest court motions revealing that people from top executives down to reporters knew that Donald Trump’s claims that victory in the 2020 election had been stolen from him because of fraud were bogus – but star commentary hosts boosted those claims anyway.

The White House has just slammed Fox News show host Tucker Carlson, calling the right-wing television star “shameful” for the way he is misrepresenting the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol as extremist supporters of Donald Trump tried to overturn his defeat in the presidential election.

The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, criticized the security footage of the riot at the Capitol that Carlson has played on his show for the last two nights heavily edited so that it gives the impression of depicting what he described as “peaceful chaos”.

Many hours of footage was handed over to him by the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy.

“To have said what he said when we saw police officers lose their lives is just shameful,” Jean-Pierre just said at the daily briefing in the west wing, when asked about Carlson’s latest actions.

She said that the White House agrees with the chief of the Capitol police, Tom Manger (who said in an internal memo Carlson’s broadcast was “filled with offensive and misleading conclusions) and the “rage of bipartisan lawmakers”.

“We have condemned this false depiction of the unprecedented, violent attack on our constitution and the rule of law, which cost police officers their lives…on a very dark day in our democracy,” Jean-Pierre said.

She added that in various legal battles, the White House agrees with Fox’s own attorneys and executives who “have repeatedly stressed in courts of law that Tucker Carlson is not credible when it comes to this issue in particular”.

She cited this September 2020 piece from National Public Radio (NPR) on which the headline was: “You literally can’t believe the facts Tucker Carlson tells you. So say Fox’s lawyers.”

In emotional testimony to the House foreign affairs committee this morning, two US service members recounted harrowing scenes at the Kabul airport, where they were stationed when a suicide bomber attacked on 26 August 2021.

“It was complete chaos,” said Aidan Gunderson, a former army specialist who left active duty in July.

Tyler Vargas-Andrews, a US Marines sergeant who lost an organ and two limbs in the attack, offered some of the most startling testimony of the morning, recalling mothers desperately handing over children while some Afghans chose to take their own lives rather than face the brutality of the Taliban.

Speaking under oath, Vargas-Andrews told the panel he identified the suicide bomber among the crush trying to enter the airport but was not given approval to shoot the suspect dead.

The attack killed 13 US service members and injured at least 20.

“My body was catastrophically wounded with 100 to 150 ball bearings,” Vargas-Andrews said, pausing to fight tears. “Almost immediately we started taking fire from the neighborhood and I saw how injured I was with my right arm completely shredded and unusable. I saw my lower abdomen soaked in blood.”

“The withdrawal was a catastrophe in my opinion and there was an inexcusable lack of accountability and negligence,” said Vargas-Andrews, who has undergone 44 surgeries.

Vargas-Andrews stated that he was appearing in his personal capacity. His account, detailed in the Washington Post, disputes aspects of the Pentagon’s account of the incident.

“This is not the story of a Biden failure or a Trump failure. This is the story of an American failure and the effect it has had and continues to have on Afghans who served alongside myself and so many others,” Peter Lucier, a veteran of the Afghanistan war who helped evacuate allied Afghans with Team America Relief, told the panel.

“The failures that led to this point are owned and shared by four administrations, by Congress and by 320,000,000 Americans. This was our war.”