US Politics

Asked to sum up 2023 in New York City, the mayor, Eric Adams, chose to give New Yorkers a bizarre warning that they could “wake up” to another 9/11 terrorist attack on any given day.Asked by the WPIX-TV host Dan Mannarino to sum up a “very eventful” year in one word, Adams offered two: “New York”.Then he said: “This is a place where every day you wake up you could experience everything from a plane crashing into our trade center through a person who’s celebrating a new business that’s about to open.“This is a very, very complicated city, and that’s why it’s the greatest city on the globe.”On 11 September 2001, Islamist terrorists crashed two hijacked airliners into the towers of the World Trade Center in downtown Manhattan. The death toll was 2,977. Thousands were injured and thousands have since died of illnesses related to crash site toxicity.Hijacked planes also crashed into the Pentagon in Virginia and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The attacks fueled 20 years of war, including US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.Adams was not pressed on his bizarre remark to WPIX, though he was later asked what he needed to improve in 2024.“Probably communications,” he said.The Democrat, a former police officer, became the second Black mayor of New York when he took office last year. This month, beset by scandal, he recorded the lowest approval rating ever recorded for a New York mayor by Quinnipiac University polling.Just 28% of respondents said they approved of Adams’s performance.“There’s no good news for Mayor Adams in this poll,” said Mary Snow, assistant director of the Quinnipiac poll. “Not only are voters giving him poor grades on the job he’s doing at city hall, their views on his character have dimmed.“As the city faces across-the-board budget cuts while dealing with a migrant crisis, headlines about a federal investigation into the mayor’s 2021 campaign and an accusation of sexual assault leveled against him from 30 years ago are taking a toll.” More

Ministers have given up on signing a trade agreement with the US before the next election, after the Biden administration signalled it had no interest in agreeing one.British officials had been hoping to agree a “foundational trade partnership” before both countries head to the polls in the next 12 months, having already decided not to pursue a full-blown free trade agreement.However, sources briefed on the talks say they are no longer taking place, thanks to reluctance among senior Democrats to open US markets to more foreign-made goods. The story was first revealed by Politico.A British government spokesperson said: “The UK and US are rapidly expanding cooperation on a range of vital economic and trade issues building on the Atlantic declaration announced earlier this year.” Multiple sources, however, confirmed the foundational trade partnership was no longer on the table.Vote Leave campaigners said giving the UK the freedom to sign bilateral trade agreements with other countries would be one of the biggest benefits of Brexit, with a US trade deal often held up as the biggest prize of all.Talks over a free trade agreement stalled early on, however, thanks in part to resistance from Democratic members of Congress and concerns in the UK about opening up UK markets to chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-injected beef.Earlier this year, the Guardian saw documents outlining how Washington and London could instead coordinate over a partnership covering digital trade, labour protections and agriculture. The deal would not have included lower barriers for service companies, meaning it fell short of a fully fledged free trade deal, but could have paved the way for one in the future.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSources say the deal was always likely to prove difficult to finalise, in part because the US still wanted greater access for their agricultural products. The prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said at a food security summit earlier this year that he would not allow either chlorine-washed chicken or hormone-injected beef into the UK.It also became clear in recent weeks that the Biden administration had no interest in signing any kind of a deal before the election, given how Donald Trump had weaponised international trade agreements during his first run for president.A spokesperson for Ron Wyden, the Democratic chair of the Senate finance committee, told Politico: “It is Senator Wyden’s view that the United States and United Kingdom should not make announcements until a deal that benefits Americans is achievable.” More

Clarence Thomas told a Republican congressman that US supreme court justices should get a pay raise or “one or more” would quit, prompting “a flurry of activity” among rightwingers because his “importance as a conservative was paramount”, ProPublica said in its latest hard-hitting report on questionable ethics at the high court.Cliff Stearns, the Florida Republican Thomas spoke to in 2000, told the non-profit newsroom: “We wanted to make sure he felt comfortable in his job and he was being paid properly.”At the time, a Democratic president, Bill Clinton, would have nominated a replacement if any justice had resigned. Republicans held the Senate, which would have conducted the confirmation.ProPublica said Thomas spoke to Stearns on a flight after giving a speech at Awakening, a “‘conservative thought weekend’ featuring golf, shooting lessons and aromatherapy along with panel discussions with businessmen and elected officials”, held in Sea Island, Georgia, in January 2000.Thomas’s trip was paid for by event organisers, ProPublica said, adding that the justice’s reported 11 free trips on his annual disclosure form that year but not the trip to Awakening, “an apparent violation of federal disclosure law”.Thomas’s finances have come under the spotlight this year, with ProPublica publishing a series of in-depth reports, stirring an ethics scandal.He took and largely failed to declare gifts from Republican donors including luxury travel and resort stays, school fees and a property purchase.An arch-conservative on a panel dominated 6-3 by the right, Thomas has been in place since a 1991 confirmation dominated by allegations of sexual harassment.Responding to reports by ProPublica and other outlets, he has denied wrongdoing and pledged to conform to disclosure rules. Progressives have called for him to resign or be impeached and removed – vanishingly unlikely outcomes with the court in conservative hands and Republicans holding the House and contesting the Senate.ProPublica said the justice was struggling financially at the time of his conversation with Stearns. The site published a letter dated 11 January 2000 in which the congressman told the justice: “Just a note to let you know how much I enjoyed visiting with you on the flight back from Jacksonville to Dulles.“I intend to look into a bill to raise the salaries of members of the supreme court. As we agreed, it is worth a lot to Americans to have the constitution properly interpreted. We must have the proper incentives here, too.”Stearns quoted the philosopher Immanuel Kant, telling Thomas to “have patience awhile; slanders are not long-lived”.On Monday, responses to the ProPublica story included the former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann calling Thomas a “loyal judicial prostitute”.Stearns sought help from a lobbying firm and spoke in the House. Thomas’s suggestion that resignations might be imminent reached judicial administrators. The then chief justice, William Rehnquist, said in his annual report: “The most pressing issue facing the judiciary: the need to increase judicial salaries”.Mitch McConnell, a Republican senator from Kentucky (now minority leader), proposed removing a ban on paid speeches by justices. That effort failed, and supreme court salaries have not changed, bar keeping up with inflation.But ProPublica also reported that “during his second decade on the court, Thomas’ financial situation appears to have markedly improved.” The justice received a $1.5m advance for his memoir and gifts from rich individuals.In a public appearance in June 2019, Thomas was asked about court salaries.“Oh goodness, I think it’s plenty,” Thomas said. “My wife [the rightwing activist Ginni Thomas] and I are doing fine. We don’t live extravagantly, but we are fine.”ProPublica said: “A few weeks later, Thomas boarded [the mega-donor Harlan] Crow’s private jet to head to Indonesia. He and his wife were off on vacation, an island cruise on Crow’s 162ft yacht.”In a statement, Caroline Ciccone, president of the watchdog Accountable.US, said the ProPublica report showed again how Thomas “has long seen his position on our nation’s highest court as a way to upgrade his own lifestyle”.Ciccone said: “When the court itself wasn’t providing him with the luxury perks he wanted, his billionaire benefactor social circle stepped in to make it happen.“Justice Thomas, Harlan Crow, Leonard Leo [of the Federalist Society, a key figure in rightwing activism around the US judiciary] and other key players in this corruption crisis may believe they exist above the law – but they don’t. With public trust at record lows, it’s far past time to restore credibility and integrity to our high court.” More

Morehouse College, a 156-year-old Black men’s liberal arts college in Atlanta, Georgia, has produced graduates such as Martin Luther King and Spike Lee. It has been an essential campaign stop for Democratic politicians such as Barack Obama, John Lewis and, last September, Kamala Harris.But as another presidential election looms, Joe Biden can take nothing for granted here. “A resounding no,” was 28-year-old Ade Abney’s verdict on whether the US president has delivered on his promises to Black voters. “I voted for Biden in 2020 but next year I don’t know who I’m going to vote for. It probably will not be him.”Georgia is among half a dozen swing states that will decide the all-important electoral college next November. Despite its history as a bastion of conservatism in the south, Democrats have scored notable wins in presidential and Senate elections in recent years. African American voters have been fundamental to that success, with Biden securing 88% of the Black vote in 2020.But opinion polls suggest an erosion of support for the president. An October survey by the New York Times and Siena College found that, while 76% of Black voters in Georgia favour Biden, 19% prefer his likely rival Donald Trump – an unprecedented share for a Republican in modern times. It was enough to give Trump a six-point lead in the state overall.The current shift is particularly acute among Black men for reasons that include a perception that Trump would cut taxes and offer better economic opportunities. Abney, a Morehouse graduate who now works at the college, said: “I was in a barbershop and the barbershop conversation was how they like Trump.“The reason was at least when he was in office they felt as though they were able to make more money. A lot of people attribute that specifically to him. A lot of that conversation was pretty clear in terms of OK, well, I had more money when he was in office so I want him back.”Standing beside Abney at the tree-lined college entrance, Dejaun Wright, 23, offered even sharper criticism of Biden. “There’s a lot of broken promises, a lot of a lack of integrity,” the philosophy student said. “He campaigned on promises such as student loan forgiveness and every instance where he’s shown interest in that, he’s always applied a caveat: oh, well, I said student loan forgiveness, but I only forgive $10,000.“A lot of the things that he promised he’s offered either with a caveat or he just hasn’t offered at all. It’s a slap in the face. If you are going to build a campaign and then build a presidency off of lies, or at least not keeping your promises, then I don’t know if I can trust you again.”At liberal colleges such as Morehouse, there is also rising discontent over 81-year-old Biden’s staunch support for Israel, even as it unleashes an aerial and ground blitz against Hamas that is causing thousands of civilian deaths and a humanitarian disaster in Gaza.Wright added: “I’m not appreciative of how vocal he’s been in his blind support of Israel. No sense of criticism there whatsoever. He’s actively been ignoring all of us. We’ve all been saying we don’t support this war in Israel. We don’t like our tax money funding a genocide like this, especially considering the amount of debt we have.”Black men do still vote overwhelmingly Democrat, and it’s only a small segment who might be turning away. In 2020 87% of Black men supported Joe Biden, which although down slightly from the 95% who voted for Barack Obama in his first campaign was better than the 82% who supported Hillary Clinton in 2016. (Black women support Democrats even more strongly: in 2016 and 2020, 94% and 95% voted for Biden.) Only 12% of Black men voted for Trump in 2020 and no Democrat has attracted less than 80% of Black voters since the civil rights era.Small numbers could nevertheless make a big difference. Like Florida in 2000 or Ohio in 2004, Georgia has become a closely fought battleground that could decide the presidency. In 2020 Biden won the state by a margin of just 11,779 votes, or 0.24%, becoming the first Democrat to carry the state in 28 years. Trump’s false claims and efforts to overturn the result led to criminal charges and a potential trial next year.Democrats’ gains continued two months later, when Raphael Warnock became the first African American from Georgia elected to the Senate and Jon Ossoff became the state’s first Jewish senator. Last year, Warnock won re-election in a runoff against the Republican Herschel Walker, an African American former football star who failed to make significant gains among Black voters.But Stacey Abrams, bidding to become America’s first Black female governor, was defeated by the Republican incumbent, Brian Kemp. In the House of Representatives, the far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene cruised to re-election. The state remains so finely balanced that even a fraction of Black voters switching to Trump, voting third party or simply staying at home on election day could make all the difference.Cliff Albright, a co-founder and executive director of the Black Lives Matter Fund, does not believe there is more of an enthusiasm gap now than at the same stage in 2019, when Black voters were unexcited about Biden. “People confuse electability for enthusiasm,” he said. “We weren’t that enthusiastic and we’re still not that enthusiastic. But that’s not news.“It’s just showing up differently because we’re a year out from the election. My prediction is that as we get closer, that pragmatism will set back in and people will start to realise more that this is not a referendum about Biden. This is a choice between this person and the one that we know is anti-us or somebody else who’s equally as bad.”Albright does not believe polls that say Trump will improve on his share of the Black vote next time. But he acknowledges that Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza could hurt him among young Black voters, especially with independent candidates such as Cornel West offering a clear alternative by demanding a ceasefire.“A lot of Black folks see ourselves in the Palestinian struggle,” he said. “A lot of us view that as a David and Goliath situation, a colonial situation. We see ourselves in what’s happening. When we see armed military using teargas and rockets and all that, we also see the George Floyd protests and ourselves going up against tanks and police forces.“There’s some very strong feelings about what many have called a genocide that is taking place in front of our eyes. Not only are you supporting the Israeli government’s ability to carry out this war but you are literally transferring more and more money so that they can do so. It’s not just political cover. It is actual financial and military support.He continued: “You get the Black folks, especially younger Black folks, that are like, ‘you keep saying you don’t have money for us but you’ve got money to go over here to kill some other folks that actually look like us.’ People can say, ‘oh, Trump would be worse,’ but that doesn’t change that what these folks are seeing right now is not Trump doing it. They’re seeing President Biden do it and so that is going to impact.“And many of these young folks, once they turn you off, you’re done. He could come back next month and increase the student debt cancellation. He could come up with some new gun legislation. He could go even further on some of the climate change issues. But many of these folks that right now are furious about what’s going on in Gaza, none of that would change their minds. They’re that mad.”Israel is not the only foreign policy issue weighing on Black voters. While his unwavering support for Ukraine’s war against Russian aggression – Congress has already allocated $111bn in assistance – has earned global plaudits, it appears to be playing differently in some African American communities.Kendra Cotton, chief executive of the New Georgia Project (NGP), a non-partisan organisation that works to empower voters of colour, said she didn’t think much of Ukraine until she “saw all of the African immigrants getting kicked off those trains. Then my eyes glassed over and I was like, this ain’t my problem and I didn’t want anything to do with it.“While I empathise with what’s going on in Ukraine, what I know is, if my Black behind was over there, they’d have kicked me off the trains too, so good luck to you.”She added: “We have people under these overpasses right here living in tents … People are trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents.“So, when you’re talking about billions in aid leaving the country, people don’t know how to qualify that in their minds: OK, but what are you doing domestically? Because when you talk about domestic issues, all you hear is we ain’t got it, there’s no money for that.”The NGP has registered almost 50,000 voters this year as it continues to fight voter purges in the state. In a September survey it found approval of Biden’s job performance down to just 61% among Black Georgia voters, and only 45% of Black 18 to 24-year-olds. Keron Blair, chief of field and organising for the NGP, argues that the White House has less of a policy problem than a communication one.He said: “I talk to people who’ve had thousands of dollars in student loans forgiven. We hear from people who got money directly into their pockets because of IRA [Inflation Reduction Act]. We hear from communities that have received resources for infrastructure. We see the broadband initiative.“That has not been communicated in a serious and strategic way to voters and so people are always going to ask, I voted last time, what happened? If they don’t know the things they are seeing and experienced are the result of choices made by the administration, they’re going to feel like not much has shifted.”Indeed, the gap between positive economic data and a sense of malaise on the ground is evident among Black voters. Gregory Williams, 37, a health coach, said: “The economy doesn’t feel like it’s strong. Everything feels out of whack. Inflation is crazy. Cities that are far out are expensive. Everything is just up right now. It’s hard to even get a loan for a house. Atlanta has the most evictions it’s ever had in its history.”Williams does not rule out voting for Trump. “It depends if he makes sense. He might not be saying what people want him to say but there’s a lot of things that he does and it seems like it helps. It gets a visual effect. People see things happening.”Jasper Preston, 35, a programme director at a homelessness non-profit, added: “Biden’s presidency has been an absolute nightmare for me personally. All the progress I made becoming more financially secure has been completely undone. I find myself worse off than during the Obama years and that has caused quite a setback. I have four children so it’s been very unpleasant trying to make ends meet.”Preston is a longtime Trump supporter who was ridiculed for it by his siblings living on the South Side of Chicago. But not any more, he said. “One privately gave me a call to very secretly admit that she is no longer a Democrat and will be voting for Trump in this upcoming election. She can’t tell anybody around South Side Chicago because, well, it’s South Side Chicago.“The same for my other siblings in Chicago as well as in here in Georgia. People are realising, ‘Oh, my wallet has definitely been drastically affected by this new administration, and all the promises they made based on skin colour turned out to be lies, and apparently promises about skin colour don’t make for a good president.’”In his victory speech after winning the 2020 election, Biden acknowledged that when his campaign was at its lowest ebb, African American voters stood up for him. “You’ve always had my back, and I’ll have yours,” he promised. In his inaugural address two months later, he named racial justice as one of four national crises that would take priority during his administration.While Biden has poured money into historically Black colleges and universities and appointed record numbers of people of colour as judges, efforts at police reform or to protect voting rights have stalled in Congress. When the president travelled to Atlanta last year to make his most aggressive case yet for reform of the Senate filibuster rule, some campaigners boycotted the event.Shelley Wynter, a conservative radio host and member of the Georgia Black Republican Council, said: “A Biden partisan person will tell you all these things that he’s done, but none of it was specifically for Black people. If Ukraine gets attacked and you can find billions and billions of dollars to send to Ukraine, you could have sent money into inner-city urban areas to say, ‘Hey, let’s do this.’”He continued: “If I vote for you and I’ve continuously voted for you and I’m the strongest, most loyal base of voters that you have, and you’ve still got nothing specifically for this group yet you can do stuff for other people, that’s why people are shifting, particularly Black men.“I equate what’s going on to what happens in a Black church. If you go to an average Black church, you’re going to see 90% women, a sprinkling of men. Most of those men are going to be older guys. Men are raised in a church and they see the ministers driving a Rolls-Royce while they are still in a hooptie struggling, and they start to get turned off and they stop going.“But their wives continue to go. That’s what the Democratic party is becoming: a party of Black women and a sprinkling of Black men, because Black men are going to Trump, they’re not going to the Republican party – and it’s a big difference.”Wynter argues that many have come view to Trump’s racism as a myth, empathise with his legal troubles and dismiss dire warnings that he would behave like a dictator in a second term. “It’s like, ‘I’m already living in a dictatorship, I’m already oppressed as a Black man, so all those things that they’re saying about Trump don’t resonate because I’m already there.“‘So now let me pay attention to the things that I really care about, which is my money, and this guy allows me to keep my money in my pocket. Tax cuts, less regulations for the entrepreneurial-spirited guy.’ That’s what they see. It’s a real tangible thing. ‘In 2019, I had X amount of money after I got paid every two weeks. Now I have less. It’s very tangible. I can see it, I can feel it. You telling me he’s evil? I can’t see or feel that. But I can see more money in my pocket.’”Democrats acknowledge the work that must be done to rebuild Biden’s 2020 coalition. Earlier this month his election campaign released a new ad, “List”, making the case that the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act are helping people in African American communities. Despite worrying polls and signs of donor fatigue, the party is on a winning streak in recent elections and ballot measures on issues such as abortion rights.Back at Morehouse, there are still plenty of students keeping faith with the president. Damarion King, 18, studying political science, said: “I believe Joe Biden is doing a fantastic job, passing so many bipartisan bills. I don’t think his age is a factor in this election, at least for me. He’s doing the job. He’s doing his work for the people of America and I strongly support him.”King is sceptical that Black men who voted for Biden in 2020 will defect to Trump next year, not least because of the former president’s 91 criminal charges. “Anybody in the Black working class who’s saying that Trump is a better businessman is wrong. He’s gone bankrupt multiple times. He can’t be that great of a businessman.” More

The Republican party of Florida suspended chairman Christian Ziegler and demanded his resignation during an emergency meeting Sunday, adding to calls by governor Ron DeSantis and other top officials for him to step down as police investigate a rape accusation against him.Ziegler is accused of raping a woman with whom he and his wife, Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler, had a prior consensual sexual relationship, according to police records.“Christian Ziegler has engaged in conduct that renders him unfit for the office,” the party’s motion to censure Ziegler said, according to a document posted on the social media platform Twitter/X by Lee county GOP chairman Michael Thomason.Ziegler tried to defend himself during the closed-door meeting, but the party board quickly took the action against him, Thompson said.“Ziegler on soap box trying to defend himself, not working,” Thompson posted before confirming the votes.The party’s executive committee will hold another vote in the future on whether to remove Ziegler.The Sarasota police department is investigating the woman’s accusation that Ziegler raped her at her apartment in October. Police documents say the Zieglers and the woman had planned a sexual threesome that day, but Bridget Ziegler was unable to make it. The accuser says Christian Ziegler arrived anyway and assaulted her.Christian Ziegler has not been charged with a crime and says he is innocent, contending the encounter was consensual.The accusation also has caused turmoil for Bridget Ziegler, an elected member of the Sarasota school board, though she is not accused of any crime. On Tuesday the board voted to ask her to resign. She refused.The couple have been outspoken opponents of LGBTQ+ rights, and their relationship with another woman has sparked criticism and accusations of hypocrisy.In addition to DeSantis, Republican senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, US representative Matt Gaetz and Florida’s Republican House and senate leaders have all called for Christian Ziegler’s resignation. More

Florida governor Ron DeSantis political woes have deepened further in the wake of the surprise resignation of a chief strategist at a leading campaign fund dealing yet another blow to the right-winger’s rapidly waning 2024 presidential hopes.Jeff Roe, the chief strategist for the DeSantis-backing Super Pac Never Back Down, said he was stepping down from the massive, $269m fund that was billed as a novel application of campaign finance laws that prevent the integration of a Pac and its spending with a candidate’s campaign.Roe stepped down weeks before DeSantis’s first big test in Iowa in the Republican presidential nomination race, where he is currently battling former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley for a second place spot behind overwhelming front runner Donald Trump.DeSantis’s approval has dropped from 18% to 17% between November and December while Haley grew from 12% to 15% as likely Iowa caucus-goers’ first pick, according to the latest Iowa State University/Civiqs poll. Fifty-four percent of Iowa Republicans polled said Trump is their first pick.“I can’t believe it ended this way,” Roe said in a statement posted on X. He said he was “so proud to have worked alongside these men and women at NBD 24/7 the past nine months to save the country. Good luck the next 28 days and a wake up. I’m so sorry I can’t be there with you.”Roe is only the latest and perhaps most significant departure from Never Back Down, which has run a massive door-knocking and get-out-the-vote operation as well as coordinating spending on political advertising. It was seeded with more than $80m from DeSantis’s political accounts this year.The departure came hours after the Washington Post pointed to disputes between the fund and the Tallahassee-based campaign, including accusations of “mismanagement and conduct issues, including numerous unauthorized leaks containing false information”.“The team in Tallahassee could not understand how NBD’s staff could not forfeit their own brand and desire for control,” a person said to be familiar with the campaign’s thinking told the Post. “It was like men are from Mars, women are from Venus during the first months of the campaign.”Roe, who previously ran Texas senator Ted Cruz’s 2016 presidential campaign and worked as an adviser on Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin’s election operation, said the description in the story were false but he “cannot in good conscience stay affiliated with Never Back Down given the statements”.Over recent weeks, senior members of the fund have been fired or resigned, including the group’s chairman and its communications director. DeSantis’s Florida allies have created a new super Pac, Fight Right, which had earned the public blessing of the DeSantis campaign.Never Back Down has been hit with accusations that contacts between DeSantis’s campaign and a network of outside groups were blurring the lines of what’s legally permissible.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSeveral people cited as familiar with DeSantis’s political network said that the governor and his wife had expressed concern about Never Back Down’s messaging as his Iowa poll numbers stagnated. Those concerns were reportedly transmitted to members of Never Back Down’s board.DeSantis’s campaign has denied any wrongdoing.DeSantis began the 2024 race with a high profile and a widespread expectation he would pose a dangerous threat to Trump who is hampered by multiple legal woes. But his campaign stuttered early on and has so far failed to break through, either nationally or in key early-voting states.
The Associated Press contributed to this report More

Donald Trump is facing a backlash for repeating a remark at a political rally on Saturday where he said undocumented immigrants to the United States are “poisoning the blood of our country”.The former US president’s comments were the latest example of his campaign rhetoric that seemed to go beyond the lies and exaggerations that are a trademark of his stump speeches and instead go into territory of outright extremism or racism. In November he was widely condemned for calling his opponents “vermin”, language that echoed that used historically by dictators and authoritarians.Trump, who is the overwhelming favorite to be the Republican nominee for the 2024 race for the White House, made the comments at a rally in Durham, New Hampshire, attended by several thousand supporters. He added that immigrants were coming to the US from Asia and Africa in addition to South America. “All over the world they are pouring into our country,” he said.The White House hit back, saying that Joe Biden believes “our leaders have a responsibility to bring the country together around our shared values.”“Echoing the grotesque rhetoric of fascists and violent white supremacists and threatening to oppress those who disagree with the government are dangerous attacks on the dignity and rights of all Americans, on our democracy, and on public safety,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement.Trump’s comments come days after he warned that if he is re-elected next year he would act on immigration like a “dictator” – but only on the first day of his term. He has since floated the idea of sending potentially “hundreds of thousands” of US troops to secure the US-Mexico border, build a network of immigrant detention camps, and “begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history”.“He’s disgusting,” former New Jersey governor and Republican presidential contender Chris Christie told CNN Sunday. “He’s dog-whistling to Americans who feel under stress and strain from the economy and conflicts around the world,” Christie said. “He’s dog-whistling to blame it on people from areas that don’t look like us.”Christie, who has emerged as Trump’s most outspoken counter-puncher on the Republican side, accused Republican politicians of being “robot true-believers” to Trump’s messaging, describing him as a “poison on our political system” who, predicted, would be convicted of crimes “worthy of jail this spring and that’s why he’s getting crazier every day”.On CNN Christie accused leading Republican nomination rival Nikki Haley of “enabling” Trump by saying he is fit to be president. “She’s part of the problem because she’s enabling him, but I’m saying it’s not okay to be saying these things.”Former Republican speaker of the house Paul Ryan called Trump an “authoritarian narcissist”.Denunciation of Trump’s comments come as the Biden administration attempts to secure increased military aid for Ukraine and Israel – packages that are now hooked to a political compromise on immigration controls. Progressives have warned that they will not support additional aid packages if the issues are linked.Trump’s comments also come as he is expected to easily win in Iowa’s vital first in the nation caucus next month, according to NBC News. But the latest CBS polls suggests he may face stronger opposition in New Hampshire in February, where he is running at 44% to Haley’s 29% among Republican voters.In a slew of recent polls Trump has also been ahead of Joe Biden nationally and in many key battleground states. That has led to widespread concern that Trump could return to the Oval Office and speculation that he would deeply erode or dismantle US democracy.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAgainst the backdrop of Trump’s “poison” comments, the White House issued a statement Sunday on the 80th anniversary of the repeal of the 1882 Chinese Eexclusion Act which had imposed a 10-year immigration ban on Chinese laborers.That law, Biden said, had “weaponized our immigration system to discriminate against an entire ethnic group” and had been followed by further discrimination against Europeans and Asian groups.Biden noted that despite progress, “hate never goes away. It only hides”, adding pointedly: “Today, there are those who still demonize immigrants and fan the flames of intolerance. It’s wrong.”Asked for comment by Reuters on Saturday, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung, did not directly address the candidate’s inflammatory rhetoric which had not reportedly been included in Trump’s scripted remarks.Cheung, who has previously dismissed criticism of Trump’s language as “nonsensical”, turned instead to the controversy over how US colleges are managing campus protests, and accused the media and academia had given “safe haven for dangerous antisemitic and pro-Hamas rhetoric that is both dangerous and alarming”. More

About halfway down the main hallway in the federal courthouse in Washington DC are the names of every judge who has sat on the bench since the early 1800s. Printed in gold lettering, the names include Ruth Bader Ginsburg, John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Antonin Scalia and Ketanji Brown Jackson, all of whom have gone on to the highest levels of public service.But this week, four floors above that hallway, in courtroom 26A, two little-known public servants mourned the moment they lost their own names.In harrowing detail, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea ArShaye Moss testified about how Rudy Giuliani and Donald Trump falsely accused them of election fraud and ruined their lives shortly after the 2020 election as part of a scheme to contest and overturn the results. They told eight Washington DC jurors how they received a flood of racist messages and death threats. And how they’ve fled their homes outside Atlanta, Georgia, isolated themselves from their community and started protecting their identities. “I don’t have a name no more,” Freeman said on Wednesday. “Sometimes I don’t know who I am.”As millions of Americans have heard by now, Giuliani, the former New York mayor, repeatedly lied about the two women, who are Black. He claimed that they wheeled suitcases of illegal ballots out from under tables after counting had concluded at State Farm Arena, that they were passing around USB drives and that they created a fake water main break.The case was one of several significant efforts to hold Giuliani, Trump and other allies accountable for the lies they spread about the 2020 election – an election Trump continues to insist that he won.The jury awarded Moss and Freeman $148.1m in cumulative damages.The Giuliani case was about more than defamation. It was about power.At issue in the case wasn’t really the fact that Giuliani lied, but whom he lied about. It was a case about the way powerful people can use their influence to destroy the reputations of the average person.Moss spoke about this during her testimony on Tuesday when she described a nightmare she continues to have. In it, she opens her front door, she said, and finds powerful people with nooses ready to kill her.“They could do that because of who they are,” Moss said. “I’m a nobody.”Giuliani showed little emotion or remorse as lawyers for Freeman and Moss played horrific messages they received, including voicemails filled with racial slurs and letters sent to their homes with graphic death threats.In the first moments of the case, Von DuBose, one of the attorneys for Freeman and Moss, asked the jurors to consider the power of a name. “What’s in a name? Power, purpose, pride,” he said. “Your name is the most important thing you know.”He went on to say that the case was about how the names of Freeman and Moss have been transformed by Giuliani’s defamatory lies. Unspoken, too, were those of two men who have built their careers around their names: Giuliani and Trump. Two men who have continued to benefit as Moss and Freeman suffered.Though they never intended it, Moss and Freeman have become symbols of the human cost of the cost of election denialism because of that imbalance of power.They have largely stayed out of public since 2020, but their presence in a Washington DC courtroom served as a stand-in for the droves of election workers who have faced lies and harassment from people who believe the election was stolen. Many of them have left the profession.That sentiment was driven home in a gut-wrenching moment when Moss testified about the initial weeks in December 2020 when she went back to work, even while receiving harassment, to prepared for Georgia’s January 2021 runoff election. “I literally felt like someone was going to come and attempt to hang me and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.”“Amidst all of this my goal was to get ready for the next election,” she said. “It’s hurtful … That’s the way people feel when I’m breaking my back to make sure their vote counts.”Usually in high-profile cases, it is the wealthy, famous person who is surrounded by a phalanx of lawyers in the courtroom. But in 26A this week, Giuliani sat alone at the defense table, flicking through his tablet, with a single lawyer, Joseph Sibley.Sibley did his best, with scattershot arguments to the jury to try to persuade them that Giuliani was not responsible for serious harm against the plaintiffs. He pointed to other actors, such as the far-right platform Gateway Pundit, that he said were really to blame for Freeman and Moss’s suffering because of how they disseminated the lies and videos. It would not really cost tens of millions of dollars to repair the reputation of the two women, he argued at another point.At the end, he made a simpler appeal: judge Giuliani by his good reputation.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Rudy Giuliani is a good man. I know that some of you may not think that. He hasn’t exactly helped himself with some of the things that have happened in the last few days,” he said. “The idea of him being a racist, or him encouraging racist activity, that’s really a low blow. That’s not who he is.”At the plaintiffs’ table, about 10ft away, it was Moss and Freeman who sat quietly surrounded by a dozen attorneys. It was the first time the two women had come face to face with the man who has tormented them for years.“After everything they went through, they stood up and they said no more. They opened themselves up to you and the public, and unlike some other people, they testified here under oath,” Michael Gottlieb, one of their attorneys, said in closing arguments, needling Giuliani’s last-minute decision not to testify.He urged the jurors to “send a message” with their damages award.“Send it to Mr Giuliani,” the lawyer said in his closing argument. “Send it to any other powerful figure with a platform and an audience who is considering whether they will take the chance to seek profit and fame by assassinating the moral character of ordinary people.”The verdict came, and it sent a message. But it didn’t yet bring closure.It’s not clear when Moss and Freeman can expect to see a cent of the money they’ve been awarded. Giuliani is widely reported to have financial troubles and he is likely to use an appeal and every other legal maneuver to try to delay paying. And it’s not clear whether the case will even stop Giuliani from defaming them again.“I don’t regret a damn thing,” he said outside the federal courthouse on Friday.Giuliani had been far from repentant throughout the week. And since August, when Judge Beryl Howell entered a default judgment against Giuliani for defamation per se, intentional infliction of emotional distress and civil conspiracy, Giuliani has made at least 20 defamatory statements against Freeman and Moss, their attorneys said this week.The dynamic underscores the limits of defamation law to police misinformation. While it can force people to pay for their lies, it cannot force them to stop lying or persuade people not to believe the lies.RonNell Andersen Jones, a first amendment scholar at the University of Utah, said observers are concerned about instances in which defamers brush aside damages. In cases involving large media outlets, she said, it may simply be seen as the cost of doing business. And in others, like that of Giuliani, people may simply “be judgment-proof, bankrupt, or otherwise unwilling or unable to pay”, she said.“In both situations, we’re testing the outer boundaries of libel law’s ability to remedy the harm done by falsehoods and to deter defamers from telling future lies. We are also, more fundamentally, testing the rule of law,” she added.“If the incentive to lie to audiences eager to receive those lies is stronger than the power of any court proceeding, and if defamers have decided that they simply will not participate in cases brought against them and will avoid paying damages when they are issued, this raises far deeper concerns.”Even with the money, it won’t be able to undo the damage that the two women suffered to their reputations. Moss loved her job as a Fulton county election official and thought her interim position as the permanent absentee ballot supervisor would be made permanent.Instead, she was moved to a back office role under the impression she would never touch a ballot again.“I want people to understand this: money will never solve all of my problems. I can never move back to the house I called home. I will always have to be careful about where I go, and who I choose to share my name with,” Freeman said outside the federal courthouse in Washington DC after the verdict on Friday.“I miss my home, I miss my neighbors, and I miss my name.” More