‘They have reached a historic agreement’: Biden hails UAW settlement with big three carmakers – as it happened

A judge in Denver has started hearing arguments in a case brought by liberal group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington aiming at removing Donald Trump from the ballot for inciting the January 6 insurrection. A lawyer for the former president argued the plaintiffs do not understand the meaning of the word “insurrection,” while the case could ultimately end up decided by the conservative-dominated US supreme court. Hearings in the Colorado case are expected to continue throughout the week, while a judge in Minnesota will begin considering a similar lawsuit on Thursday.

Here’s what else happened today:

• Joe Biden hailed agreements reached between the United Auto Workers and the Detroit automakers as “historic” in a speech at the White House.

• Artificial intelligence developers face new rules under an executive order Biden signed today.

• Trump remains at the top of the polls in Iowa, which isn’t really news. The most interesting tidbits of the survey may be Ron DeSantis’s remarkable favorability despite his overall floundering campaign, and Nikki Haley’s measurable jump in support.

• Never Trumper Asa Hutchinson’s campaign may be falling apart after his manager and confidante resigned, CBS News reports. Hutchinson is polling at 1% support in Iowa.

• New York House Republicans are optimistic they have votes to boot congressman George Santos, who has admitted to fabricating his resume and faces federal charges, out of office.

• Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, urged Congress to approve aid to both Ukraine and Israel. House Republicans seem on board with the latter, but are growing increasingly wary of the former.

Joe Biden’s comments on the apparent conclusion of the United Auto Workers’ strike came at the start of an event where he signed an executive order that imposes rules on artificial intelligence development.

Here’s more from the Associated Press on his administration’s new policy:

Before signing the order, Biden said AI is driving change at “warp speed” and carries tremendous potential as well as perils.

“AI is all around us,” Biden said. “To realize the promise of AI and avoid the risk, we need to govern this technology.”

The order is an initial step that is meant to ensure that AI is trustworthy and helpful, rather than deceitful and destructive. The order – which will likely need to be augmented by congressional action – seeks to steer how AI is developed so that companies can profit without putting public safety in jeopardy.

Using the Defense Production Act, the order requires leading AI developers to share safety test results and other information with the government. The National Institute of Standards and Technology is to create standards to ensure AI tools are safe and secure before public release.

The commerce department is to issue guidance to label and watermark AI-generated content to help differentiate between authentic interactions and those generated by software. The extensive order touches on matters of privacy, civil rights, consumer protections, scientific research and worker rights.

Here’s a clip of a Biden laugh line from his event this afternoon announcing the order:

Here’s video of Joe Biden cheering the UAW’s new agreements with the Big Three automakers:

Biden had gotten closer to the UAW’s strike than any president who came before him, by traveling to Michigan to address a picket line of striking workers.

Speaking at the White House, Joe Biden hailed the deals reached between the United Auto Workers and the three major Detroit automakers that are set to end a six-week strike at their factories.

“They have reached a historic agreement,” the president said of automakers Ford, General Motors and Stellantis as well as the UAW, who president Shawn Fain he spoke to earlier today.

“These record agreements reward auto workers who gave up much to keep the industry working and going during the financial crisis more than a decade ago. These agreements ensure the iconic Big Three can still lead the world in quality and innovation.”

The UAW reached a tentative agreement with GM earlier today, the last of the three companies targeted in the strike.

The agreements need to be ratified by union members, but Biden said the automakers and the UAW have agreed that workers can return to assembly lines before that happens.

“I applaud the UAW and the leaders of the automobile companies for agreeing that all the workers on strike and all those who were walking the picket lines on behalf of the UAW brothers and sisters can go back to work immediately, even before the vote is taken.”

From the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly, here’s more on what we learned from the presidential poll of Iowa Republicans released this morning, which appeared to be very good for Donald Trump:

Donald Trump maintained his huge lead in the crucial early voting state of Iowa in a major new poll by NBC News and the Des Moines Register but Nikki Haley is now emerging as his closest challenger.

The former US president has a 27-point lead in Iowa three months before the first vote of the Republican primary as he attracted 43% support. But Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador, climbed 10 points to 16%, sharing second place with Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor whose campaign has long been seen to be stalling.

No other candidate scored significantly, even after second choices of supporters of Mike Pence, the former vice-president who suspended his campaign, were reapportioned.

J Ann Selzer, the Iowa pollster who conducted the survey, said: “This is a good poll for Donald Trump. For all the things that happened between the last poll and now, he’s still the dominant player in the field and his standing has, in fact, improved from August.”

Here’s the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe with more on the start of the legal effort today to keep Donald Trump off presidential ballots for his involvement in the January 6 insurrection:

A multi-pronged effort to keep Donald Trump off the 2024 presidential ballot as an insurrectionist resumes in earnest, beginning with a court case in Colorado on Monday, the first of two states that will hear legal arguments this week.

Those seeking to have the former president ruled ineligible are relying on a civil war-era provision of the 14th amendment to the US constitution that states no person can hold public office if they “have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof”.

They argue that Trump’s incitement of the deadly 6 January attack on the US Capitol, in which his supporters attempted to block Congress certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, perfectly encapsulates the clause that has yet to be seriously tested in a courtroom.

New York House Republicans believe they are close to securing the two-thirds majority required to expel their fellow Republican George Santos who has pled not guilty to over a dozen fraud-related counts.

“I think we’re getting two-thirds. There seems to be a good sentiment out there that enough is enough,” CNN reports Nick LaLota, who represents New York’s first district, saying.

“People have seen over the last ten months what a fraud he is,” Anthony D’Espositio, who represents New York’s fourth district, said, echoing similar sentiments.

Marcus Molinaro, the state’s representative of its 13th district, said, “I think at this time, it is absolutely inapropriate for him to serve… I think there’s significant support, certainly on both ends of the aisle. I understand hesitance but this is a clear case of an individual who used every lie and misdeed in order to obtain the very office he holds.”

Here is more from the lawyer in Colorado arguing against the lawsuits attempting to prevent Donald Trump from appearing on the 2024 presidential ballot:

Refering to Trump’s actions on January 6, 2021, he said:

“There’s substantial historical evidence that ‘engage’ does not mean mere incitement through words. It doesn’t mean that. And frankly, president Trump didn’t engage.

He didn’t carry a pitchfork to Capitol grounds. He didn’t lead a charge. He didn’t get into a fistfight with legislators. He didn’t goad president Biden into going out back and having a fight.

He gave a speech in which he asked people to peacefully and patriotically go to the Capitol to protest.”

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell is urging the Senate to pass a supplemental foreign aid package to Ukraine and Israel.

Speaking on Monday, McConnell said:

“Right now, our efforts are making a difference, both in Ukraine and here at home. But the Biden administration’s hesitation along the way has really in my view prolonged the bloodshed.

This is a moment for swift and decisive action to prevent further loss of life, and to impose real consequences on the tyrants who have terrorized the people of Ukraine and of Israel.

And right now, the Senate has a chance to produce supplemental assistance that will help us do exactly that.

A judge in Denver has started hearing arguments in a case brought by liberal group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington aiming at removing Donald Trump from the ballot for inciting the January 6 insurrection. A lawyer for the former president argued the plaintiffs do not understand the meaning of the word “insurrection,” while the case could ultimately end up decided by the conservative-dominated supreme court. Hearings in the Colorado case are expected to continue through the week, while a judge in Minnesota will begin considering a similar lawsuit on Thursday.

Here’s what else has happened today:

• Joe Biden said an agreement to end the United Auto Workers’s strike against General Motors – and the six-week walkout against the Detroit automakers – was “great”.

• Trump remains at the top of the polls in Iowa, which isn’t really news. The most interesting tidbits of the survey may be Ron DeSantis’s remarkable favorability despite his overall floundering campaign, and Nikki Haley’s measurable jump in support.

• Never Trumper Asa Hutchinson’s campaign may be falling apart after his manager and confidante resigned, CBS News reports. Hutchinson is polling at 1% support in Iowa.

All the way back in July, the Guardian’s David Smith took a look at the prospects of the few Never Trumpers competing for the GOP’s presidential nomination, and concluded they were not good. Here’s more on the forces that derailed Mike Pence’s campaign and are hurting Asa Hutchinson’s:

For Asa Hutchinson, former governor of Arkansas, there were boos and chants of “Trump! Trump!”. For Francis Suarez, mayor of Miami, there were jeers and cries of “Traitor!” And perhaps most tellingly, there was no Florida governor Ron DeSantis at all.

The recent Turning Point USA conference brought thousands of young conservatives to Florida and there was no doubting the main attraction: former president Donald Trump, who made a glitzy entrance accompanied by giant stage sparklers. In a less than rigorous poll, 86% of attendees gave Trump as their first choice for president; DeSantis, who polled 19% last year, was down to 4%.

Events and numbers like this are cause for sleepless nights among those Republican leaders and donors desperate to believe it would be different this time. The Never Trump forces bet heavily on DeSantis as the coming man and the premise that Trump’s campaign would collapse under the weight of myriad legal problems.

But six months away from the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses, none of it seems to be working. DeSantis’s campaign is flailing and leaving some with buyers’ remorse. Hutchinson and Chris Christie, outspoken Trump critics, are polling in single digits, sowing doubts about voters’ appetite for change. Never Trumpers have reason to fear that his march to the Republican nomination may already be unstoppable.

“They’re experiencing a brutal wake-up call that the party is not interested in hearing critiques of Trump,” said Tim Miller, who was communications director for Jeb Bush’s 2016 campaign. “The Trump challengers’ candidacies have been astonishingly poor and learned nothing from 2016. When the leading candidate gets indicted and all of his opponents besides Chris Christie and Asa Hutchinson just echo his fake persecution complex talking points, it’s going to be hard to beat him.”

Former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson is among the few Republican presidential candidates who have openly attacked Donald Trump, and his campaign now appears to be collapsing.

CBS News reports Hutchinson’s campaign manager and longtime confidante has resigned:

Republicans who have gone against the former president have gotten nowhere in this presidential election cycle. Hutchinson polled at 1% in the NBC News survey released this morning, and over the weekend, Mike Pence, who was Trump’s vice-president and fell out with him over his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, suspended his presidential campaign.

Over the weekend, a federal judge reinstated a limited gag order on Donald Trump, intended to prevent him from making statements maligning those involved in his prosecution for trying to overturn the 2020 election, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports:

Donald Trump was once again bound by the gag order in the federal criminal case charging him with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results, after a judge on Sunday reinstated restrictions prohibiting him from attacking prosecutors, court staff and potential trial witnesses.

The US district judge Tanya Chutkan also denied the former US president’s request to suspend the gag order indefinitely while his lawyers appealed.

Trump had been granted a reprieve when the judge temporarily lifted the gag order while she considered that request. Prosecutors argued last week that the order should be reimposed after Trump took advantage and posted a slew of inflammatory statements.

The statements included Trump’s repeated attacks on the special counsel Jack Smith, whom he called “deranged”, and Trump’s comments about the testimony that his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows had provided to the grand jury during the criminal investigation.

Prosecutors argued that each of Trump’s statements were exactly the sort of comments that the order was designed to prevent, including intimidating or influencing witnesses who could wind up testifying against him at trial, and weighing on the substance of their testimony.

“The defendant has capitalized on the court’s administrative stay to, among other prejudicial conduct, send an unmistakable and threatening message to a foreseeable witness in this case,” prosecutors said in their brief. “Unless the court lifts the administrative stay, the defendant will not stop.”