Evelyn Reynolds

Donald Trump has had an encouraging day or two on the money front.On Monday, a New York appeals panel lowered – to a mere $175m – the amount the former president needs to cough up as he challenges the huge judgment against him in his civil fraud case. It’s not clear whether Trump can obtain such a bond – he has another week or so to try. He couldn’t raise an earlier, much higher sum, but this seems much more likely.That means it’s possible that he can avoid having liens put on his buildings (his “babies”, as he called them). Welcome news in Trump World.Then, on Tuesday, his media startup had a wildly successful stock market debut as a public company. Since Trump owns 60% of Trump Media & Technology (which owns Truth Social), his stake is now worth more than $5bn, the Washington Post reported.That development gave him a big status boost: Bloomberg put him, for the first time, on to its list of the 500 richest people. Still, there’s a hitch; he can’t sell his shares for six months. So the windfall doesn’t help with his immediate challenges.Meanwhile, Trump keeps singing the blues. He even indirectly compared his troubles to someone else with a large following, praising as “beautiful” this message from a fan: “It’s ironic that Christ walked through His greatest persecution the very week they are trying to steal your property from you.”I don’t feel concerned for Trump who, after all, is responsible for his thorny situation, despite his claims of victimhood.But I do worry about America’s national security amid Trump’s financial ups and downs, because they make way for influence-peddling and mischief.One reason is that major shareholders in Trump Media won’t be forced to publicly and immediately disclose their stakes. That’s potential trouble since we know that Trump’s businesses got millions from foreign governments and officials while he was president.As Noah Bookbinder, who heads the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told the Post, it’s been obvious for years that he’s open to such influence.“This seems like an opportunity that is tailor-made for that,” Bookbinder said.In other words, Trump is – as always – on the make. And his sheer heft of his legal and financial baggage makes that propensity much more dangerous.Trump’s situation creates “an unprecedented opportunity to buy influence with a leading presidential candidate and a sitting president should he be re-elected”, the non-profit organization wrote in an analysis last month.Without suggesting any malfeasance, I’ll note one example of overlapping interests: a Republican mega-donor, the billionaire Jeff Yass, was the biggest institutional shareholder of the shell company that merged with Trump’s social media company, according to the New York Times.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionYass’s firm is also a major investor in the parent company of TikTok; the House of Representatives just passed a bill that would force that Chinese parent company either to sell its popular video app or see it banned in the US.Despite Trump’s reprieves in recent days, there’s no end in sight for his financial or legal woes. And that’s problematic, not just for him but for the nation.One reason he is so desperate to be elected again is that he sees the presidency as a marvelous opportunity to line his pockets. Or – if absolutely necessary – to pay his debts, though that’s never his first choice.Meanwhile, his chatter gets more unhinged every day.Referring to one all-caps rant that began with “CROOKED POLS!!!” and ended with “WITCH HUNT!”, his former rival Hillary Clinton posed a simple question: “Does this sound like a man who should have access to nuclear codes again?”As the former secretary of state knows all too well, the answer is clear.
Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture More

On 5 March, former baseball star Steve Garvey made it into the runoff for the US Senate seat from California vacated by the late Dianne Feinstein. Garvey, a conservative Republican, will face Democrat congressman Adam Schiff in the November general election.Garvey faces an uphill battle in deep-blue California. During debates and public appearances, he’s revealed little knowledge of the issues. He’s relying on his 19 years (1969-87) in the major leagues with the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres to propel his campaign. “It’s time to get off the bench. It’s time to put the uniform on. It’s time to get back in the game,” he said in October when he announced his campaign.Garvey is one of several hundred former major league ballplayers who have run for public office since the late 1800s. More than 100 of them have been elected to a variety of positions, from city councilman to state legislator. A few former players have even become congressmen, US senators, and governors.From the late 1800s through the late-1900s, baseball was America’s most popular sport. Then, as now, ballplayers’ celebrity was a real asset for aspiring politicians.Some excelled in both realms. The best known is Jim Bunning. During his major league career (1955-71) he won 224 games, pitched two no-hitters (including a perfect game), and was a seven-time All-Star. He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1996. As a player, Bunning was a leader of the Major League Baseball Players Association. He helped recruit Marvin Miller, the MLBPA’s canny executive director, who transformed it into one of the nation’s most powerful unions.After retiring from baseball, Bunning, a Republican who had led Athletes for Nixon in 1968, returned to his native Kentucky, was elected to the Fort Thomas city council, served in the US House of Representatives from 1987-99, and then was elected to the US Senate in 1998, where he served two terms.Despite his union activities as a player, in Congress Bunning was an ardent foe of organized labor, earning a meager 12 (out of 100) lifetime score from the AFL-CIO for his votes on workers’ rights issues. He also backed gun owners’ rights, tax cuts, and the Iraq war, and opposed abortion and same-sex marriage. The National Journal often ranked Bunning as one of the three most conservative senators.Bunning wasn’t the only Hall of Fame player to run for office, but all of the others – Cap Anson, Honus Wagner, Nap Lajoie, Roger Bresnahan, Mordecai “Three Finger” Brown, Walter Johnson, and Ernie Banks – struck out as politicians.Anson, the Chicago White Stockings’ first baseman and manager from 1876 to 1897, was a superstar of his era. But off the field history does not remember him as fondly. Anson led the successful effort to exclude African Americans from big league baseball, which lasted until Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. Judge Edward Fitzsimmons Dunne, the Democrats’ candidate for Chicago mayor in 1905, put Anson on his ticket as a candidate for city clerk to garner votes from local baseball fans. They both won, but the following year, Anson lost his campaign for sheriff, finishing last among four candidates. That ended his political career.Wagner, the great Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop (1897–1917), lost his race for Pennsylvania’s Allegheny County sheriff in 1928. Lajoie, a star infielder from 1896 to 1916, lost his campaign for Ohio’s Cuyahoga County sheriff in 1924. Bresnahan, one of baseball’s best catchers in the early 1900s, failed in his bids for Lucas County (Ohio) sheriff in 1932 and county commissioner in 1944.Johnson, the extraordinary Washington Senators pitcher (1907-27) and manager (1929-32), was a lifelong Republican. After he retired, he lived on his farm in Germantown, Maryland. In 1936, he was elected Montgomery County commissioner. Two years later, Rep Joseph Martin recruited him to run for Congress. Johnson told voters he would “study up on them issues” if he got elected, but he lost. As Martin later explained, “I got some of my boys to write two master speeches for him – one for the farmers of his district and the other for the industrial areas. Alas, he got the two confused. He addressed the farmers on industrial problems, and the businessmen on farm problems.”View image in fullscreenBanks, the Chicago Cubs’ first Black player, was so popular that fans called him “Mr Cub.” But that didn’t give Banks the boost he need when he ran for the board of aldermen in 1963. A Republican in an overwhelmingly Democrat city, Banks failed to unseat the incumbent in the city’s south side. He came in third, winning only 12% of the vote. He told a reporter: “Politics is a strange business. They try to strike you out before you ever get a turn at bat.”Pirates infielder Bill Mazeroski hit the game-winning home run in Game 7 against the Yankees to win the 1960 World Series. But he couldn’t get to first base in politics, failing to win the Democratic nomination for county commissioner in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania in 1987.Many players emphasized their baseball backgrounds when running for office. The headline in the Muncie (Indiana) Morning Star in April 1936 read, “Vic Aldridge, Ex-Pirate Hurler, Seeks State Senate Nomination.” Aldridge, a Democrat, won the seat and won subsequent reelection bids. In 1944, Republican Mordecai Brown, another Indiana native, and a far superior pitcher, failed to defeat Aldridge. Five years later, however, Brown won another election – to the Baseball Hall Fame.In 1976, when Pat Jarvis, a former Atlanta Braves pitcher, ran for DeKalb County sheriff in Georgia, he promised to be a “team player” with other law enforcement agencies. Concerned about overcrowding, in 1989 he persuaded voters to pass a bond to build a new county jail. Jarvis served as sheriff until 1995. Four years later he was charged with using his office for financial gain, including $200,000 in kickbacks. He pleaded guilty and served 15 months in federal prison.After pitching for Brooklyn from 1907 to 1916, Nap Rucker returned home to Roswell, Georgia, and launched a successful business career. He owned a bank, a plantation, a wheat mill, and cotton farms. During the Depression, in 1935 and 1936, Rucker, a Democrat, served as Roswell’s mayor and judge of the police court, all for $100 a year. He brought running water, paved the sidewalks, opened new schools and playgrounds, and created the town’s sewage system, then later served as the town’s water commissioner. He later said, “There is more skullduggery in the average baseball league then there is in small town politics.”Most of the ex-ballplayers who won public office were hometown heroes, not big stars. New Hampshire native Fred Brown played local semi-pro baseball before playing in the major leagues from 1901-02. A graduate of Dartmouth College and Boston University law school, he was elected mayor of Somersworth from 1914 until 1922, then served as New Hampshire governor from 1923-25. A Democrat, he failed to get his proposals for a progressive tax, abolishing the women’s poll tax, and a 48-hour work week through the Republican legislature. From 1932-39 he represented his conservative state as a pro-New Deal Democrat in the US Senate.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionJohn Tener played in the majors from 1885-90, worked as a banker, was elected to Congress in 1908, then served as Pennsylvania’s governor from 1911 until 1915. One of his claims to fame is having organized the first congressional baseball game in 1909 – now an annual competition that raises money for charity.A major league pitcher from 1952-62, Wilmer “Vinegar Bend” Mizell became a broadcaster for Winston-Salem’s minor league team and worked in public relations for Pepsi-Cola. He was elected chair of the Davidson County Board of Commissions, then served three terms as a Republican congressman from North Carolina. Presidents Ford, Reagan, and Bush appointed him to jobs in their administrations, including executive director of the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.A so-so major league player (.212 batting average) from 1977-1982, Randy Bass was a big star (.337 batting average) in Japan from 1983-88, one of the few foreign players elected to Japan’s Baseball Hall of Fame. When his baseball days were over, he returned to Lawton, Oklahoma, was elected to the city council in 2001, and then to the state senate from 2005 to 2019. A liberal Democrat in a conservative Republican state, in 2018 Bass was the lone vote (out of 43 senators) to oppose the Self-Defense Act, allowing people to bring guns into houses of worship.Some players who never went beyond the minor leagues in baseball hit the big leagues in politics.Frank Lausche played 58 games in the minors in 1916 and 1917, compiling a .218 batting average. He served in the first world war, then quit baseball to attend law school in Cleveland, his hometown. After practicing law, he was elected Cleveland’s mayor (1942-44), Ohio’s governor (1945-47 and 1949-57) and US senator (1957-69). In 1951, baseball’s owners talked to Lausch about becoming baseball commissioner, which paid $65,000 a year, far more than his $13,000 salary as governor. Lausche turned them down.In 1952, a Pittsburgh Pirates scout, impressed with a young outfielder playing for St John’s University, reported that Mario Cuomo was a great prospect who could “go all the way.” He described Cuomo as “aggressive and intelligent” and “very well-liked by those who succeed in penetrating the exterior shell,” but he “will run over you if you get in his way.” Cuomo dropped out of college to play for the Pirates’ minor league team in Brunswick, Georgia. He was batting .244 after 81 games when he was hit in the head by an errant pitch at a time before players used batting helmets, ending his baseball career. He returned to St John’s, earning undergraduate and law degrees. A liberal Democrat, he was elected New York’s lieutenant governor in 1978 and governor in 1982, serving three four-year terms.In 1954, Pete Domenici went 0-1 in three relief appearances for the Albuquerque Dukes in the West Texas-New Mexico League. After earning a law degree and practicing law, he was elected to the Albuquerque city commission in 1966, served three years as the city’s mayor, and was elected as a Republican to the US Senate from New Mexico, serving from 1973 to 2009.George Hurley played in the minors for one year (1927) when he lost sight in his left eye after he was struck by a fastball. Instead, he went into politics and was an outspoken progressive in the Washington State House of Representatives from 1942-46. During the second world war, he introduced a bill to fund nursery schools for children of defense workers and sponsored another bill to prohibit racial discrimination in hotels and other businesses. His left-wing views, including his support for nuclear disarmament during the cold war, got him labeled as a communist sympathizer and thwarted his reelection bid in 1946. In 1948 he broke away from the Democrats by supporting the Progressive Party’s candidate for president, former vice-president Henry Wallace. He lost five more elections between 1950 and 1963, but in 1974, he was elected to represent Seattle in the legislature and served two more terms as a champion of equal pay for women, a strong opponent of the Vietnam war, and an advocate for unions, protecting state forests, rent control, and government-sponsored health care.Roger Williams, a Texas Republican, is the only former pro ballplayer currently in Congress, although he never got beyond the low minors. The Atlanta Braves drafted Williams in 1971 after his junior year at Texas Christian University. After three years with Braves’ farm teams, he left to coach the TCU baseball team and take over the family’s car dealership from his father. In 2012 he won a race for Congress and has been reelected five times. Williams is the coach of the Republican team for the annual congressional baseball game.
Peter Dreier is professor of politics at Occidental College and author of Baseball Rebels: The Players, People, and Social Movements That Shook Up the Game and Changed America, published in 2022.
Isabella Flad and Sarah Jageler provided research assistance for this article. More

Robert F Kennedy Jr selected Nicole Shanahan, a tech attorney and wealthy philanthropist, as his running mate in an independent campaign that could upset the 2024 race for the White House.Kennedy, an environmental attorney who gained notoriety as a vaccine sceptic and conspiracy theorist, announced his pick at a campaign event on Tuesday in Oakland, California, where Shanahan was born.In a nearly hour-long, winding speech, Kennedy cited Shanahan’s career in technology as an asset for the campaign, Kennedy said she had “deep inside knowledge of how big tech uses AI to manipulate” voters.Shanahan was the founder and CEO of the Palo Alto legal tech firm ClearAccessIP before selling the company in 2020. She was also a fellow at Stanford Law School’s center for legal informatics.“I managed to put a technologist at the forefront,” Kennedy said. “I found a vice-president who shares my indignation about the participation of big tech as a partner in the censorship, surveillance, and the information warfare that our government is currently waging against the American people.”Kennedy, 70, a scion of the US political dynasty that includes former president John F Kennedy, also presented Shanahan, 38, as a fresh and youthful voice in a presidential contest between 81-year-old Joe Biden and 77-year-old Donald Trump.“There’s a growing number of millennials and gen Z Americans who have lost faith in their future and lost their pride in our country,” he said.The announcement event took place in the Henry J Kaiser Center for the Arts, a historic building in Oakland that has been in disrepair for decades but is on the path to being reopened. Speaking at the event, rightwing author Angela Stanton-King said the venue had been opened to the campaign despite being partially under construction, and was chosen due to the historical events it had hosted – including a speech by Martin Luther King Jr in 1962.The event featured an introduction from the local Muwekma Ohlone tribe, whose battle for federal recognition has been supported by Kennedy, and musical renditions of This Land Is Your Land and America the Beautiful. Speakers included the Stanford professor and Covid-lockdown skeptic Jay Battacharya as well as Kelly Ryerson, a public health advocate who focuses on chronic illnesses she says are caused by toxins in our food supplies.More than two hours into the lengthy announcement event, after most cable news channels had cut away from the stream, the ex-NBA player Metta Sandiford-Artest, formerly known as Metta World Peace, welcomed Shanahan to the stage. The vice-presidential hopeful explained her political mission, citing her strong anti-war beliefs as aligning with Kennedy’s. She soon launched into an anti-pharmaceuticals screed, attributing her passion for “children’s health” to her child’s experience with autism.Democrats are especially concerned that Kennedy could pull votes away from Biden, spoiling the election. Recent polling from Quinnipiac projected Kennedy could receive as much as 15% of the vote in a race involving Biden and Trump, amid limited enthusiasm for the candidates from the two major parties.One such defector was Marilyn Chin, a volunteer for Kennedy’s campaign recruiting voters outside the event. Chin, who is 71, said she voted Democratic for most of her life but was now supporting Kennedy.“Get out of the duopoly,” she said. “Don’t vote Republican, don’t vote Democrat, start looking for something else.”Kennedy will face an expensive, and uphill battle to get on the ballot in all 50 states, which will involve gathering hundreds of thousands of signatures. He has made it on to the ballot in only one state so far, Utah. Still, the Democratic National Committee has called Kennedy a “stalking horse” and said third-party candidates may have tipped the 2016 election to Trump.In a statement following Kennedy’s announcement, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign called him a “radical leftist” and an “environmental whack job” before stating his campaign would not get very far. The Democratic National Committee called Kennedy’s run a “spoiler campaign” and said it was dangerous for Republican donors to be propping up Kennedy during such a high-stakes election.Earlier this year, the DNC filed a federal election complaint accusing Kennedy and a political action committee backing his third-party bid of illegally colluding to qualify for the ballot in swing states crucial to Biden’s re-election. Kennedy’s campaign has denied breaching financial barriers between candidates and outside groups, which is prohibited by federal campaign law.The Democrats have also said that a major donor to American Values 2024, the Super Pac backing Kennedy, is Tim Mellon, a businessman who has also backed Trump.Shanahan told the New York Times she has contributed $4m to American Values 2024.The Bay Area entrepreneur is known in tech circles as the founder of ClearAccessIP, a startup that uses software to help companies manage and distribute patents and patent rights. But she gained notoriety after her 2018 marriage to Google co-founder Sergey Brin, one of the wealthiest people in the world. The couple’s divorce in 2022 drew extra scrutiny following a Wall Street Journal report that Shanahan had conducted an affair with the Tesla and X chief, Elon Musk. She has denied the allegations.In February, she helped finance a $5m campaign advertisement for Kennedy during the Super Bowl, which alluded to his uncle John F Kennedy’s successful 1960 White House run. The ad was denounced by Kennedy’s family, who have disavowed his campaign and his baseless theories on vaccines and the Covid pandemic, among other issues.Shanahan told the New York Times that she was not an anti-vaxxer, but has shared Kennedy’s discredited claims about the safety of vaccinations. At Tuesday’s event, she formally renounced any affiliation with the Democratic party, saying it had “lost its way”.“The Democratic party is supposed to be the party of compassion and peace, it is supposed to be the party of diplomacy and science,” she said. “While I know those ideals still abide within many Democrats, I want to point out that the party has lost its way. In its leadership, in its institutions, it has become interested in elitism, celebrity and winning at all costs, even if that means turning a blind eye on issues they all know to be true.”Kennedy’s anti-vaccination views drew protesters at Tuesday’s announcement, including Wendy Bloom, a registered nurse who has worked in pediatric cancer units for 37 years, who stood outside the Oakland convention center with pro-Biden and pro-vaccine signs.“Besides being anti-vaccines, he’s not pro-science, and anti-research,” she said. She also dismissed the choice of Shanahan as a running mate.“His choice of VP tells us everything we need to know,” Bloom said. “She has no experience. She’s just a wealthy individual who can help raise money. Voters deserve someone with experience.” More

The firm behind Donald Trump’s Truth Social went public on Tuesday at a price that values the minnow social network at close to $8bn.Shares in Digital World Acquisition, the shell company with which Trump’s social media business has merged, have been surging since the turn of the year.They launched a volatile rally as it combined with Trump Media & Technology on Tuesday, closing up 15% after their first day of trading.The firm is trading under the ticker symbol “DJT”, using Trump’s initials.Trump Media’s arrival on the market has netted the former president a paper fortune of some $4.6bn . After the deal closed on Monday, Bloomberg said that Trump had joined the ranks of the world’s 500 wealthiest people for the first time.But trading in Trump Media was so volatile after Tuesday’s opening bell, it was briefly halted. At one point on Tuesday, shares in the group had soared by more than 50%.Trump, who is currently unable to offload his stake, will need the stock to continue to trade at the levels to which it has surged in recent months if he is to raise billions of dollars from a sale.“I LOVE TRUTH SOCIAL,” he wrote on the platform shortly after Trump Media landed on New York’s Nasdaq stock exchange. Investors finally backed a merger between Trump Media and Digital World last week, setting the stage for the deal to close.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIt comes as Trump, who is vying to regain the presidency from Joe Biden in November’s election, grapples with hefty legal costs. He is on the hook for $454m after a civil fraud case, although the former president was thrown a lifeline on Monday when a panel of appellate court judges provided him with 10 days to secure a far smaller $175m bond.Trump Media has struggled since Truth Social’s lackluster launch, generating sales of only about $5m since 2021. But Digital World has increasingly been seen as a so-called meme stock, boosted by internet memes – posted, in its case, on platforms including Truth Social – urging retail investors to buy into it.Special purpose acquisition companies, or Spacs, such as Digital World raise money from investors through initial public offerings, before typically searching for a company to take public.Once a Spac finds and agrees terms with a target, it absorbs the business and draws it on to the stock market, enabling investors in both companies to take a slide. Should the Spac’s original investors not like the deal, however, they can withdraw their cash.Devin Nunes, the former Republican congressman who now serves as CEO of Trump Media, said: “As a public company, we will passionately pursue our vision to build a movement to reclaim the internet from big tech censors.” More

A trial court in Arizona has ruled that the Mexican government may proceed in its trailblazing lawsuit against five US gun dealers, who stand accused of facilitating gun trafficking across the border into Mexico.Mexico argues that the companies’ marketing campaigns and distribution practices mean that they are legally responsible for the bloodshed that their guns contribute to.This is the second such case that the Mexican government has brought in US courts this year, having also accused US gun manufacturers of facilitating the cross-border arms traffic in a case in Massachusetts.“[The Mexican lawsuits] emphasize the responsibility of companies regarding how they produce and sell their weapons,” said Carlos Pérez-Ricart, a political scientist in Mexico.Gun sales are highly restricted in Mexico itself, where there is just one gun store, run by the state.Yet the Mexican government estimates that 200,000 firearms are smuggled over the border from the US every year.This fuels a level of insecurity and violence that is extraordinary in peacetime: for the past six years, Mexico has seen more than 30,000 homicides a year.Some 70% of the guns used in homicides in Mexico have serial numbers that can be traced back to US gun shops.Between the two cases, Mexico is seeking $25bn in damages. But it also seeks to shine a light on industry practices and force change, thereby reducing the flow of weapons into Mexico and the gun violence they add to.In both cases, the gun companies sought protection under the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which prevents them from being held liable when crimes have been committed with their products.The trial court in Massachusetts initially dismissed Mexico’s case on those grounds, but Mexico appealed, and the decision was reversed in January.The gun manufacturers have said they will ask the supreme court to take the case on. But the supreme court only takes a fraction of cases where review is sought by defendants.By contrast, the trial court in Arizona accepted Mexico’s case against gun dealers. This means the “discovery” phase can begin right away, in which Mexico is entitled to ask for documents from defendants, and company executives may be questioned under oath.“We’re off to the races in the Arizona case,” said Jonathan Lowy, president of Global Action on Gun Violence, which is co-counsel in both cases.To win, Mexico will need to convince the juries that the companies’ design choices, marketing campaigns and distribution practices are sufficiently connected to gun violence in Mexico for them to be considered responsible.The lawsuits could provide a template for future legal actions to change the way the gun industry operates, for example forcing manufacturers to produce firearms in a way that makes it harder to convert for greater lethality.“This could lead to a massive reduction in the sale of crime guns supplying both cartels in Mexico and also criminals in the US, because the same industry practices supply both,” said Lowy. “It would save a great deal of lives – on both sides of the border.”Even if Mexico doesn’t win the lawsuits, it has put the issue of smuggled firearms as a catalyst of violence squarely into the public debate for the first time.“For many years the conversation was dominated by drugs going from Mexico to the US, and nobody mentioned firearms,” said Pérez-Ricart. “It’s crucial that we talk about firearms as a matter of greatest importance in foreign policy.” More

The supreme court on Tuesday seemed skeptical of arguments made by anti-abortion doctors asking it to roll back the availability of mifepristone, a drug typically used in US medication abortion. The arguments were part of the first major abortion case to reach the justices since a 6-3 majority ruled in 2022 to overturn Roe v Wade and end the national right to abortion.The rightwing groups that brought the case argued that the justices should roll back measures taken since 2016 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to expand the drug’s availability. A decision in the anti-abortion doctors’ favor would apply nationwide, including in states that protect abortion access, and would probably make the drug more difficult to acquire.Medication abortion now accounts for almost two-thirds of abortions performed in the US.Much of Tuesday’s arguments focused on whether the anti-abortion doctors who sued the FDA, a coalition known as the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, have standing, or the right to bring the case in the first place. The doctors claim they will suffer harm if they have to treat women who experience complications from mifepristone, an argument the Biden administration, which appealed the case to the court, has rejected as too speculative.The US solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, who defended the FDA, argued that the doctors do not come within “100 miles” of having the legal right to bring the case, arguing that their case rests on a “long chain of remote contingencies”. Under their argument, Prelogar said, a woman would have to face complications from a medication abortion that were so serious that she needed emergency care at a hospital – an unlikely scenario, given mifepristone’s proven safety record – and then end up in the care of an anti-abortion doctor who was somehow forced into taking care of her in such a way it violated the doctor’s conscience.A number of the justices – even the ones who ruled to overturn Roe two years ago – seemed skeptical that the doctors met the threshold required to establish standing. Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh seemed to seek assurances that the doctors represented by the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine were already covered by laws that protect doctors from having to undertake cases that violated their consciences.Justice Neil Gorsuch seemed to express concern over the sweeping implications of the doctors’ request of the court. “This case seems like a prime example of turning what could be a small lawsuit into a nationwide legislative assembly on an FDA rule or any other federal government rule,” he said.The supreme court has historically rejected standing arguments based on such potential harm. However, Justice Clarence Thomas raised the possibility that perhaps the court’s own threshold for standing was too strict.His fellow conservative Samuel Alito also seemed incredulous of Prelogar’s argument. “Is there anybody who can sue and get a judicial ruling on whether what FDA did was lawful?” he asked. “Shouldn’t somebody be able to challenge that in court?”Since the fall of Roe in June 2022, more than a dozen states have banned abortion. The result has been legal and medical chaos. Dozens of women have come forward to say that they were denied medically necessary abortions. Abortion clinics in states that still allow abortion are overwhelmed by the flood of patients fleeing states with bans. More than 1m abortions were performed in the US in 2023, a record high.The availability of medication abortions, which are usually performed using mifepristone as well as another drug called misoprostol, has helped soften the impact of the bans. Telehealth medication abortions, permitted by the FDA since the pandemic, helped ease some of the burden on abortion clinics; shield laws, passed in a handful of states, even allowed providers to offer telehealth abortions to people living in states with abortion bans.But the accessibility of medication abortion also made it the next target of the anti-abortion movement after Roe was overturned. In 2022 the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine challenged the FDA’s 2000 approval of mifepristone. The group, which includes anti-abortion doctors and is being defended by the Christian powerhouse legal firm the Alliance Defending Freedom, argued that the FDA overstepped its authority and that mifepristone is unsafe. (More than 100 studies have concluded that mifepristone can be safely used to terminate a pregnancy.)A federal judge ruled in favor of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, a move that could have yanked mifepristone off the market entirely. But an appeals court narrowed that ruling, deciding that it was too late to challenge mifepristone’s original 2000 approval.Instead, the appeals court ruled to rewind later measures taken by the FDA that expanded access to mifepristone, including by removing requirements that abortion providers dispense mifepristone in person. A recent analysis found 16% of all US abortions are facilitated through telehealth.Mifepristone’s availability has remained unchanged as litigation has progressed.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDuring oral arguments, Thomas and Alito also raised the specter of the Comstock Act, a 19th-century anti-vice law that bans the mailing of abortion-related materials. Long regarded as a relic, the Comstock Act has now seen a resurgence of post-Roe support among anti-abortion activists who believe it is the key to a de facto nationwide abortion ban.“How do you respond to an argument that mailing your product and advertising it would violate the Comstock Act?” Thomas asked Jessica Ellsworth, a lawyer for Danco Laboratories, a manufacturer of mifepristone.After some back and forth, Ellsworth told Thomas: “That statute has not been forced for nearly 100 years and I don’t believe that this case presents an opportunity for the court to opine on the reach of the statute.”Regardless of what the supreme court decides, Americans will still be able to order mifepristone online from suppliers who help people “self-manage” their own abortions. A study released on Monday found self-managed abortions had soared since Roe fell.Outrage over the overturning of Roe has turned abortion into a key election issue, since most Americans support at least some degree of abortion access. Voters in multiple states, including conservative strongholds, have voted in ballot initiatives in favor of abortion rights; roughly a dozen states are now expected to put abortion-related ballot measures to voters come November. Democrats are hoping that the issue will bolster turnout for their candidates, including Joe Biden.The supreme court is expected to issue a ruling in the mifepristone case by the summer, just months ahead of the 2024 elections.The case’s consequences could stretch far beyond abortion. If the justices greenlight attempts by ideologically driven groups to second-guess the authority of the FDA, the agency’s regulation of all manner of drugs – such as contraception and vaccines – could be challenged in court.Ellsworth, the Danco attorney, argued that the doctors’ argument in the case “is so inflexible it would upend not just mifepristone, but virtually every drug approval”. More

The judge in Donald Trump’s hush money criminal case has imposed a gag order that forbids him to attack witnesses, prosecutors or jurors involved in the criminal trial that’s due to begin next month, the New York Times has just reported.The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, asked the judge, Juan Merchan, to impose the order.The trial in New York is scheduled to begin on 15 April.More details soon.The supreme court heard arguments in a case brought by a conservative group that sought to restrict access to abortion medication mifepristone. The justices seemed skeptical of claims that the drug should be restricted due to its health risks and the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory decisions, after an attorney representing the drug’s manufacturer warned that a court ruling against it could have ripple effects across the entire pharmaceutical industry. Meanwhile, an attorney for the Biden administration said cutting off access would “inflict grave harm on women across the nation”. By the hearing’s end, only conservative justice Samuel Alito sounded open to the challenge, and a ruling in the case is expected this summer.Here’s what else happened today:
Donald Trump is reportedly prohibited from attacking witnesses, prosecutors or jurors in his trial on hush money-related charges under a gag order handed down by judge Juan Merchan.
Robert F Kennedy Jr announced attorney and philanthropist Nicole Shanahan as his running mate in an event in Oakland, California.
Joe Biden said the federal government will “move heaven and earth” to reopen the port of Baltimore and rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed early this morning after being struck by a container ship.
Ken Paxton, Texas’s attorney general and a force in the conservative legal world, reached a deal with prosecutors to resolve securities fraud charges.
A federal appeals judge who ruled against mifepristone last year has ties to one of the groups trying to keep it off the market.
Donald Trump-supporting Super Pac Make America Great Again Inc unleashed an attack on Robert F Kennedy Jr, after he announces Nicole Shanahan as his running mate.“Robert F Kennedy Jr is a far-left radical that supports reparations, backs the Green New Deal, and wants to ban fracking. It’s no surprise he would pick a Biden donor leftist as his running mate,” said spokesperson Alex Pfeiffer.Third party candidates with dedicated followings can add an element of unpredictability to tight presidential races – just ask Al Gore. But despite Team Trump’s vitriol, polls have shown Kennedy may sap support from Biden in states where he’s on the ballot.The Democratic National Committee has gone on the attack against Kennedy’s campaign, including by filing a complaint accusing him of improperly coordinating with a political action committee:Independent presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr has announced attorney and wealthy philanthropist Nicole Shanahan as his running mate.He made the announcement in Oakland, California, at an event attended by hundreds of supporters, as well as protesters outraged by his opposition to vaccines.Wendy Bloom, a registered nurse who has worked in pediatric cancer units for 37 years, said she disagrees with many of Kennedy’s ideas, and was particularly enraged by his opposition to vaccines.“Besides being anti-vaccines, he’s not pro-science, and anti-research,” she said. She also dismissed the choice of Shanahan as a running mate.“His choice of VP tells us everything we need to know,” Bloom said. “She has no experience. She’s just a wealthy individual can help raise money. Voters deserve someone with experience.”Kennedy supporter Marilyn Chin, 71, said she voted Democrat for most of her life, but is now supporting Kennedy.“Get out of the duopoly,” she said. “Don’t vote Republican, don’t vote Democrat, start looking for something else.”In seeking a gag order against Donald Trump, Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office argued the former president had a “longstanding history of attacking witnesses, investigators, prosecutors, judges, and others involved in legal proceedings against him”, the New York Times reports.Judge Juan Merchan agreed, writing in the order that, “his statements were threatening, inflammatory, denigrating.”The Times notes that earlier today, Trump called his former fixer Michael Cohen “death”, in a post on Truth Social – just the sort of statement that Merchan’s gag order is meant to prohibit.The supreme court heard arguments in a case that sought to restrict access to abortion medication mifepristone, and seemed skeptical of claims that the drug should be restricted due to its risks and the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory decisions. An attorney representing the drug’s manufacturer warned that a court ruling against the drug could have ripple effects across the entire pharmaceutical industry, while an attorney for the Biden administration said cutting off access would “inflict grave harm on women across the nation”. By the hearing’s end, only conservative justice Samuel Alito sounded open to the challenge, and a ruling in the case is expected this summer.Here’s what else happened today:
Joe Biden said the federal government will “move heaven and earth” to reopen the port of Baltimore and rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed early this morning after being struck by a container ship.
Ken Paxton, Texas’s attorney general and a force in the conservative legal world, reached a deal with prosecutors to resolve securities fraud charges.
A federal appeals judge who ruled against mifepristone last year has ties to one of the groups trying to keep it off the market.
The judge in Donald Trump’s hush money criminal case has imposed a gag order that forbids him to attack witnesses, prosecutors or jurors involved in the criminal trial that’s due to begin next month, the New York Times has just reported.The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, asked the judge, Juan Merchan, to impose the order.The trial in New York is scheduled to begin on 15 April.More details soon.Liz Cheney, the Donald Trump foe who ended up being forced out of Congress due to her opposition to the former president, also described NBC’s elevation of McDaniel as a danger, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:The Republican National Committee chair turned NBC politics analyst Ronna McDaniel “enabled criminality and depravity” in her support for Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, the former congresswoman Liz Cheney said as controversy swirled over McDaniel’s media role.“Ronna facilitated Trump’s corrupt fake elector plot and his effort to pressure Michigan officials not to certify the legitimate election outcome,” Cheney, a Republican who was vice-chair of the House January 6 committee, wrote on social media.“She spread his lies and called January 6 ‘legitimate political discourse’. That’s not ‘taking one for the team’. It’s enabling criminality and depravity.”McDaniel rose in Republican politics as a member of the powerful Romney family before reportedly dropping the name at Trump’s behest and becoming RNC chair in 2017.In February 2022, the RNC said Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, the other anti-Trump Republican on the committee that investigated the deadly attack on Congress on 6 January 2021, were engaged in the “persecution of ordinary citizens engaged in legitimate political discourse”.Cheney lost her seat in Congress that year. Kinzinger chose to retire. McDaniel was eased out of the RNC last month, to be replaced in part by Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law.The White House said that meetings over the last two days between the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, and Israel’s defense minister, Yoav Gallant, have been “productive”.The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, yesterday canceled a high-level delegation from Israel to the White House to discuss Rafah, with the visit meant to take place today. He withdrew his agreement for talks after the US abstained from – rather than vetoed – a UN security council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the release of hostages held by Hamas.Gallant was already in Washington for longer-planned talks at a lower level. Meanwhile, in the Middle East earlier today, Israel recalled its negotiators from Doha, in Qatar, after deeming mediated talks on a Gaza truce “at a dead end” due to demands by Hamas, Reuters reported earlier, citing an Israeli official.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said to reporters board Air Force One moments ago: “We are committed to supporting Israel in its fight against Hamas … We cannot expect Israel to live under active threat.” She added that it was critical for Israel to do “whatever is possible” to protect civilians in Rafah.There, about 1.7 million Palestinians are trapped under Israeli siege and suffering bombardment and food deprivation as international talks about a ceasefire and access for more aid founder.Aid agencies and international bodies including United Nations officials have said that people stranded further north in Gaza are on the brink of famine.The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, has just been speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One, on the way to Raleigh, North Carolina.Joe Biden and the vice-president, Kamala Harris, are holding a joint event there to talk about healthcare.Reporters were firing off their questions, in a short gaggle on a short flight. Jean-Pierre is confirming the US president’s position is he will “move heaven and earth” to reopen the port and rebuild the bridge.She’s being asked about the state of US infrastructure but emphasizes that although the government pledges to work with Congress for funding to rebuild the bridge, the search and rescue effort that’s still under way in Baltimore is the main focus.Here’s what Yale University historian Timothy Snyder had to say about the danger of NBC News hiring former RNC chair Ronna McDaniel, as told by the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly:The former Republican National Committee chair turned NBC politics analyst Ronna McDaniel “tried to disassemble our democracy” by supporting Donald Trump’s electoral fraud lies and should not be given such a media role, a leading historian said amid uproar over the appointment.“What NBC has done is they’ve invited into what should be a normal framework someone who doesn’t believe that framework should exist at all,” Timothy Snyder, a Yale professor and author of On Tyranny, told MSNBC, part of the network now employing McDaniel.“What NBC has done of its own volition is bring into a very important conversation about democracy, one which is going to take place for the next seven months or so, someone who … tried to disassemble our democracy. Who personally took part in an attempt to undo the American system.”NBC announced the hire on Friday. Carrie Budoff Brown, the senior vice-president for politics, said McDaniel would contribute analysis “across all NBC News platforms”.On Sunday, McDaniel told Meet the Press Joe Biden won the 2020 election “fair and square”, adding that she did “not think violence should be in our political discourse”.NBC News will drop former Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel after an outcry from its top talent over her promotion of Donald Trump’s false claims of fraud in the 2020 election, Puck reports:McDaniel’s hiring by the network attracted criticism from former lawmakers and historians, who argued they were elevating a voice who had helped Trump attack US democracy. On Sunday, McDaniel acknowledged that the 2020 election had not been stolen, though maintained it was acceptable to say there were “problems” with the vote:Joe Biden did not say when he expected the Francis Scott Key Bridge to be rebuilt or, more crucially for the nation’s economy, the port of Baltimore to be able to resume operations.The president also gave no update on the six people still missing from the collapse, but said the search and rescue operation to find them is a “top priority”.For the latest on this developing story, follow our live blog:Joe Biden says he has instructed the federal government to “move heaven and earth” to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore and reopen its economically vital port.The government will also cover the cost of the reconstruction, the president added in a speech from the White House.“I’m directing my team to move heaven and earth to reopen the port and rebuild the bridge as soon as humanly possible,” Biden said.“We’re going to work with our partners in Congress to make sure the state gets the support it needs. It’s my intention that federal government will pay for the entire cost of reconstructing that bridge, and I expect the Congress to support my effort. It’s gonna take some time, and people of Baltimore can count on us so to stick with them at every step of the way till the port is reopened and the bridge is rebuilt.”The port is currently closed due to the span’s collapse, which occurred early this morning after the cargo ship Dali collided with it. The president noted that 15,000 workers rely on the its operations, and “we’re gonna do everything we can to protect those jobs and help those workers”.As we wait for Joe Biden to begin his speech on the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, here are some scenes from earlier today in Baltimore: More

The extent of the Biden administration’s shift at the United Nations security council on Monday should not be underestimated. The US is not only by far Israel’s most important ally and supplier of aid, but has provided it with stalwart diplomatic support. That it abstained instead of vetoing a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire – as it had previously done – was a major departure and leaves Israel looking extremely isolated, as Benjamin Netanyahu’s angry reaction showed.Yet the US has since done its best to talk down its decision, with officials insisting that there has been no change in policy and describing the resolution as non-binding. That is not the view of other security council members or the UN itself. António Guterres, the UN secretary general, wrote that it would be “unforgivable” to fail to implement the resolution, which also called for the unconditional release of hostages. But Israeli airstrikes have continued.The Biden administration is well aware that this war is ravaging its international standing: it is judged both complicit in the suffering in Gaza and ineffectual in its ability to restrain Israel’s conduct of the war. At home, it is costing the president vital Democratic support in an election year. But more Americans believe that Israel’s conduct of the war is acceptable than unacceptable, although there is a clear – and generational – divide.Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives, has already said that he will invite Mr Netanyahu to speak before Congress. Though many in Israel fully understand the long-term damage the Israeli prime minister has done to his country’s interests as he fights for his own, there is no sign that US exasperation will speed his departure or moderate the conduct of this war.While the Biden administration treads gingerly, the humanitarian catastrophe gallops ahead in Gaza. The UN resolution stipulates a ceasefire for Ramadan – already half passed. More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to Gaza’s health authorities. Disease and starvation are claiming more lives as the most intense famine since the second world war takes hold – a famine entirely human-made by the destruction of so much of Gaza and the reduction of aid to a trickle. Unrwa, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees central to relief efforts, has said that Israel has banned it from making aid deliveries in northern Gaza.Mr Biden has described the placing of conditions on US military aid as a “worthwhile thought”, but it does not appear to be one that he intends to translate into reality, though past administrations have threatened or imposed them. Recipients of arms must now give assurances that they abide by international law, but the US says it has “no evidence” that Israel is not in compliance. Many Democrats disagree.Canada has already announced that it is suspending further sales. The UK shifted from abstaining to supporting the ceasefire resolution on Monday, and David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary, has urged the Foreign Office to publish its formal legal advice on whether Israel is breaching international law in Gaza. The reality is, however, that 99% of Israel’s arms imports come from the US and Germany. Hand-wringing over humanitarian suffering is pointless when you continue to supply the weapons creating the disaster. Monday’s abstention was an important symbolic moment, but it appears that little will alter unless the US makes a substantive change.Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. More