Biden campaign says Trump ‘directly to blame’ for Florida abortion ruling – as it happened

Democrats have condemned a Florida supreme court ruling that will allow a six-week abortion ban to go into effect, while seizing on a separate decision green lighting an initiative protecting access to the procedure to go before voters in November. The party has seen success in recent elections by campaigning against efforts to cut off access to abortion, and will try to replicate that in Florida, a state where Democratic candidates have struggled in recent years. To hammer the point home, top House lawmakers convened a hearing in the state, which Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries called “ground zero” in the fight for abortion access.

Here’s what else happened:

• The Biden campaign said Donald Trump was “directly to blame” for the Florida court ruling upholding the state’s abortion restrictions.

• Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse signaled he was open to at least some of what Republican House speaker Mike Johnson is considering to approve military aid to Israel and Ukraine.

• Tina Smith, a Democratic senator from Minnesota, wants to repeal a moribund 19th-century law that some fear could be used to stop abortions nationwide.

• Opponents of Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s invasion of Gaza are encouraging voters to choose “uninstructed” in Wisconsin’s primary today.

• Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, said he wants to fight “the isolationist movement” in his party.

Joe Biden plans to today hold a small meeting with Muslims at the White House, rather than the larger gathering it traditionally hosts during Ramadan, in the latest sign of his administration’s tensions with the community over Biden’s support for Israel’s invasion of Gaza, National Public Radio reports.

The Biden administration has repeatedly approved weapons transfers to Israel as it presses on with its invasion of Gaza, sparking protests from Muslims who have organized efforts to withhold their votes for Biden during the primaries. Here’s more on the White House meeting tonight, from NPR:

The gathering is in lieu of the traditional Ramadan iftar dinner or Eid celebrations the White House usually hosts with Muslim leaders, and it comes amid ongoing political tensions given the war in Gaza.

The goal, according to people familiar with the plans, is to allow guests to have a “substantive” conversation with the president about the situation in Gaza. Vice President Harris and national security adviser Jake Sullivan will also attend, the sources said. Biden last met with Muslim and Arab-American leaders at the White House in late October.

The sources said the White House had initially planned to host a small, solemn Ramadan dinner Tuesday evening, but plans changed after a number of Muslim invitees said they did not feel comfortable dining at the White House while scores of Palestinians are on the brink of starvation.

The White House still intends to host a small iftar dinner later Tuesday evening for a dozen or so Muslim staffers — a scaled-down version of the traditional celebration.

Some Democrats fear the rift between Biden and Arab and Muslim communities could cost him support crucial to winning the November election, particularly in swing state Michigan. Here’s more on that:

Another tentative and potential sign of movement has emerged on the long-stalled military aid package for Ukraine and Israel.

Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse weighed in on Republican House speaker Mike Johnson’s comments yesterday, where he floated some potential demands he may make to move the package through his chamber. Whitehouse seems alright with two of the three changes Johnson requested, but takes issue with the third:

Republicans and Democrats have been tussling over the aid proposal for months, and it’s unclear if Johnson’s mulled concessions will be palatable to Democrats, or enough for his fellow Republicans, many of whom are demanding new, strict border security policies to support the bill. Here’s more on where the House speaker says he now stands on the bill:

Donald Trump is making a swing through Michigan and Wisconsin today, two states he will almost certainly need to win if he is to return to the White House.

His stop in Michigan took him to Grand Rapids, an area where Democrats have lately made inroads in what was traditionally Republican territory. It’s also the site of a murder allegedly committed by an undocumented immigrant, and during his appearance in the city, Trump reiterated his vows to crack down on people in the country illegally:

Attacks on migrants have been a mainstay for Trump since his first run for the White House, and thus far, this campaign has been no different:

The first criminal trial Donald Trump faces begins 15 April in New York City, on charges related to making hush money payments ahead of the 2016 election. The former president has taken to insulting various people involved in the case, and as the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports, now faces a gag order:

The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s forthcoming criminal trial in New York expanded an existing gag order on Monday, preventing the former president from making inflammatory comments about the judge’s family members, after they became the target of Trump’s personal attacks.

The new protective order continues to allow Trump to rail against the judge and the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, who charged Trump last year with falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal before the 2016 election.

But Trump is now expressly prohibited from assailing the family members of any lawyers or court staff involved in the case, as well as family members of the judge and the district attorney, the New York supreme court justice Juan Merchan wrote in the revised order.

The order cited the recent attacks Trump had leveled at the judge’s daughter and rejected Trump’s contention that he should be free to criticize what he perceived to be conflicts of interest and other complaints because they amounted to “core political speech”.

“This pattern of attacking family members of presiding jurists and attorneys assigned to his cases serves no legitimate purpose,” Merchan wrote. “It merely injects fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings, that not only they, but their family members as well, are ‘fair game’.”

Elsewhere in Florida, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that the federal judge handling Donald Trump’s trial on charges related to hiding classified documents has yet to schedule a start date, despite the best efforts of prosecutors:

The prospects of Donald Trump going to trial in July on charges of retaining national security documents, as suggested by special counsel prosecutors, are rapidly diminishing, with the judge overseeing the case yet to issue a schedule weeks after she was presented with the potential options.

The US district judge Aileen Cannon received proposed trial start dates from Trump and the special counsel Jack Smith more than a month ago in advance of a hearing ostensibly to settle the matter in Fort Pierce, Florida, but she has still not decided when the proceeding will begin.

As a result, Trump has been able to avoid filing certain pre-trial motions that have to be completed before the case can proceed to trial, playing into his strategy of trying to delay the case as much as possible before the 2024 election in November.

Trump’s legal strategy for all of his criminal cases has been to delay, under the calculus that winning re-election would enable him to appoint a loyalist as attorney general who could direct prosecutors to drop the case, or pardon himself if he was convicted.

There are more than 13.4 million people registered to vote in Florida, according to its division of elections, and one of them very well may be Donald Trump.

Long associated with New York’s real estate scene, he changed his residence from the Empire State to the Sunshine State during his time in the White House. That means he can vote on Florida’s ballot initiative that will decide whether abortion rights are enshrined in the state constitution – and you can expect that reporters will try their darnedest over the coming months to get him to reveal which way he leans on the issue.

Floridians will have an opportunity to weigh in on the question of abortion access this November, when they vote on an initiative that would enshrine reproductive rights in the state constitution.

Speaking on the Biden campaign press call, Fentrice Driskell, the Democratic leader of the Florida house, argued that the state supreme court’s decision to uphold an abortion ban underscored the urgency of the November elections.

“We are seeing what Trump’s agenda looks like here in Florida: extremist politicians inserting themselves into women’s healthcare, threatening doctors with prison time and endangering women’s health and lives,” Driskell said.

“The only thing that can stop governmental interference into our lives and exam rooms is to stay in the fight and by exercising our right to vote. This November, Florida will draw a line in the sand and say enough.”

Democrats hope that the presence of the abortion initiative on the ballot might tip the scales in their party’s favor in Florida, but they acknowledge that the task will be difficult, given Republicans’ recent dominance in the purple state. Trump carried the state by 3 points in 2020, increasing his advantage from 2016 even as he lost the national election to Biden.

“We’re clear-eyed about how hard it will be to win Florida, but we also know that Trump does not have it in the bag,” said Julie Chávez Rodríguez, Biden’s campaign manager. “We definitely see Florida in play.”

Joe Biden’s campaign team said Donald Trump is “directly to blame” for the ruling upholding an abortion ban in Florida, given that the former president nominated three of the supreme court justices who helped overturn Roe v Wade in 2022.

“Because of Donald Trump, Maga [’Make America Great Again’] Republicans across this country are ripping away access to reproductive health care and inserting themselves into the most personal decisions women can make, from contraception to IVF,” Julie Chávez Rodríguez, Biden’s campaign manager, told reporters on a press call.

“And make no mistake: Donald Trump will do everything in his power to try and enact a national abortion ban if he’s reelected.”

Earlier today, the Biden campaign released a new ad, titled “Trust”, that highlights Trump’s past comments bragging about the reversal of Roe and also warns of the possibility of a federal ban. The ad will air across battleground states as part of the Biden campaign’s broader media blitz this spring.

“These are the stakes in November, and we’re going to continue to make sure that every single voter knows them,” Rodríguez said. “Here’s the bottom line: Trump and Maga Republicans are working to ban abortion nationwide, while President Biden and Vice-President Harris will never stop fighting to protect reproductive freedom.”

Democrats have condemned a Florida supreme court ruling that will allow a six-week abortion ban to go into effect, while seizing on a separate decision to allow an initiative protecting access to the procedure to go before voters in November. The party has seen success in recent elections by campaigning against efforts to cut off access to abortion, and will try to replicate that in Florida, a state where Democratic candidates have struggled in recent years. To hammer the point home, top House lawmakers convened a hearing in the state, which Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries called “ground zero” in the fight for abortion access.

Here’s what else has happened:

• Tina Smith, a Democratic senator from Minnesota, wants to repeal a moribund 19th-century law that some fear could be used to stop abortions nationwide.

• Opponents of Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s invasion of Gaza are encouraging voters to choose “uninstructed” in Wisconsin’s primary today.

• Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, said he wants to fight “the isolationist movement” in his party.

Congress has some unfinished business to deal with when it returns to Washington DC next week, in the form of a military aid package for Israel, Ukraine and other US allies. It’s been held up by Republicans in the House, some of whom are opposed to further aid to Kyiv, and the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports that the Senate’s top Republican has signaled he will make overcoming these holdouts a priority:

Mitch McConnell will spend the rest of his time in the US Senate “fighting” isolationists in his own Republican party, the longtime GOP leader said on Monday.

“I’m particularly involved in actually fighting back against the isolationist movement in my own party,” McConnell told WHAS, a radio station in his state, Kentucky.

“And some in the other as well. And the symbol of that lately is: are we going to help Ukraine or not? I’ve got this sort of on my mind for the next couple years as something I’m going to focus on.”

McConnell, 82, has led Republicans in the Senate for 17 years. In March, he said he would step down at the end of this year, after an election in which Republicans have a good chance of retaking the chamber.

McConnell assured his decision to step down was not related to recent health scares and said he would stay to the end of his term in 2027.

Isolationism has surged in the Republican party under Donald Trump, president between 2017 and 2021 and the presumptive nominee again for November’s election.

Israel’s allies, including the United States and Britain, are demanding it investigate the killing of seven aid workers in Gaza that were with the World Central Kitchen charity.

Follow our live blog for more on this developing story: