US Politics

Joe Biden is under pressure from fellow Democrats to refreeze $6bn of Iranian oil revenues released last month as part of a prisoner exchange deal amid accusations that Iran played a key role in last weekend’s deadly attack on Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas.Five Democratic senators up for re-election next year have joined Republican calls for the US president to effectively renege on the agreement that led to the release of five Americans held captive by Iran unless it is proved that the country’s theocratic regime was not involved in Saturday’s assault, which killed more than 1,000 Israelis.The clamor comes even as US intelligence sources have sought to dampen speculation of close Iranian involvement.Although the White House has accused Tehran of being “broadly complicit” due to its long-term financial and logistical support for Hamas, US officials have said multiple pieces of intelligence indicate that Iran’s leadership had no prior knowledge of the devastating onslaught launched from Gaza, and that it may have caught them by surprise.That has failed to reassure some Democrats gearing up for tough challenges from Republicans in 2024.“Until I have full confidence that Iran did not play a role in these barbaric terrorist attacks on the Israeli people, the United States should freeze the $6bn dollars in Iranian assets,” wrote Tammy Baldwin, a senator for Wisconsin, on X, the platform formerly called Twitter.Four other Democrats in the Senate so far have echoed the call. They are Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Jon Tester of Montana, Jacky Rosen of Nevada and Bob Casey, the senator from Pennsylvania.“I wasn’t supportive of the initial $6bn transfer,” Manchin, a known moderate with a track record of mirroring Republican positions, told reporters. “We should absolutely freeze these Iranian assets while we also consider additional sanctions.”Last month’s unfreezing of revenues from oil sold by Iran to South Korea – originally frozen by the Trump administration in 2019 due to sanctions imposed under its “maximum pressure” policy towards Tehran – had already been fiercely criticized by Republicans, who claimed it projected weakness and said the funds could be diverted to finance terrorism.After Saturday’s attack, Donald Trump, the former president and 2024 Republican frontrunner, intensified that criticism by falsely portraying the money freed in exchange for releasing the five prisoners as “US taxpayers’ dollars”, which he said had helped fund the Hamas assault.The White House dismissed the claim as “total lies” and “disinformation”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAdministration officials say the funds, which were released to a bank account in Qatar, have not been touched since they were unfrozen. They were released on condition that they were used only for humanitarian purposes, such as buying medicines and medical equipment.Janet Yellen, the US treasury secretary, speaking at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in the Moroccan city of Marrakesh, said the administration could reverse the decision to unfreeze the money if evidence of Iran’s involvement emerged.Republicans have voiced skepticism over the intelligence notes of caution about an Iranian hand, even though they have been echoed in some Israeli quarters.Don Bacon, a Republican senator for Nebraska, accused the Biden administration of being “in denial” about Iran’s role, while the South Carolina senator Tim Scott, a candidate for the Republican presidential nominee, said Biden had “blood on his hands”. More

From 3h agoJim Jordan, defeated in the Republican vote to decide a nominee for House speaker, plans to vote for the man who beat him, Steve Scalise, when the question comes to the House floor and is encouraging his colleagues to do the same, a source with direct knowledge tells the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell.Scalise will only be able to lose four Republican votes if he is to be confirmed as speaker, presuming all Democrats in the closely divided chamber vote no.Matt Gaetz, the Florida hardliner who orchestrated the brutal ejection of the last speaker, Kevin McCarthy, has said today he will vote for Scalise. But other Republicans – the familiar contraversialists Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert among them – have said they will not back Scalise.The Washington Post points to the biggest problem facing House Republican leaders, causing them to recess the chamber without a vote: too many members of the caucus are currently set to vote for McCarthy.“I think Jim Jordan is the fighter we need,” said Marjorie Taylor Greene following House Republican’s vote to nominate Steve Scalise as the next House speaker.“The speaker of the House is the hardest job in Congress, one of the hardest jobs in the country, it is extremely demanding and it’s very personal to me and I say this with the most compassion.My father died in April of 2021 with cancer and I like Steve Scalise…so much that I want to see him put all his time and energy into defeating cancer,” she added.Steve Scalise is short of the 217 votes required to win the speaker election, several Republican sources told CNN.According to one of the sources, there is broad skepticism towards Scalise as a result of an overall lack of trust throughout the GOP leadership.Scalise is reported to be meeting individually with Republicans in attempts to convince them to support him on the House floor.Bernie Sanders has issued a statement on the ongoing violence in Israel and Gaza, calling on the international community to focus on reducing the humanitarian suffering as a result of the war. “The United States has rightly offered solidarity and support to Israel in responding to Hamas’ attack. But we must also insist on restraint from Israeli forces attacking Gaza and work to secure UN humanitarian access,” he said.He went on to add:
“Israel’s blanket denial of food, water, and other necessities to Gaza is a serious violation of international law and will do nothing but harm innocent cvilians…
Let us not forget that half of the two million people in Gaza are children. Children and innocent people do not deserve to be punished for the acts of Hamas.”
A Tennessee mayoral candidate has been accused by members the Franklin city council of refusing to condemn “actual, literal Nazis”.The Guardian’s Erum Salam reports:Gabrielle Hanson was at a candidates’ forum on 2 October when she received a visit by members of the Tennessee Active Club, a hate group known for promoting white nationalism. Members of the council, referred to as aldermen in Franklin, rebuked Hanson for enabling such hate groups, according to local news station WTVF.“I’m not going to denounce anybody their right to be whatever it is they want to be – whether I agree with what they do in their personal life or not,” Hanson said in response to her critics.Hanson told her colleagues “you reap what you sow”, in reference to the divisions within the community. She also noted that these were “spiritual repercussions”.On social media, Hanson emphasized that she did not invite the group to the debate and is “categorically” not a Nazi, nor does she support nazism.For the full story, click here:Maryland’s Democratic representative Jamie Raskin asked on Wednesday whether the next House speaker will take a House vote to revive former House speaker Kevin McCarthy’s impeachment inquiry into president Joe Biden.Last month, McCarthy announced that he was directing the House to launch an impeachment inquiry into Biden over unproven allegations surrounding his family’s business dealings.“House Republicans have uncovered serious and credible allegations into president Biden’s conduct. Taken together, these allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption,” McCarthy said at the time.Michigan’s Democratic representative Rashida Tlaib said that she does not support “targeting and killing of civilians, whether in Israel or Palestine.”Speaking to Michigan Adance, Tlaib, who is of Palestinian descent, said, “Fact that some have suggested otherwise is offensive and rooted in bigoted assumptions about my faith and ethnicity.”Earlier this week, Tlaib released a statement saying that the “path to that future must include lifting the [Gaza] blockade, ending the occupation, and dismantling the apartheid system that creates the suffocating, dehumanizing conditions that can lead to resistance.”She went on to denounce the Israeli government and the US’s continued support for it, saying, “As long as our country provides billions in unconditional funding to support the apartheid government, this heartbreaking cycle of violence will continue.”Tennessee Republican representative Tim Burchett, one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust former House speaker Kevin McCarthy from his seat, said he will vote for Steve Scalise.“Absolutely,” Burchett said in response to a question from a CBS reporter on whether he would vote for Scalise on the House floor.Meanwhile, the curious case of George Santos, the Republican congressman, fabulist and 23-times charged alleged fraudster from New York, continues.In response to a move to expel him from Congress, mounted by his fellow New York Republicans, Santos has issued a long-winded statement.Republicans, he says, seemingly reaching for statesmanlike prose, “must remain steadfast in our commitment to upholding due process and respecting the constitution … the cornerstone of our democracy and the guiding light that ensures justice and fairness for all”.Santos adds:
An expulsion of myself as a member of Congress before being found guilty from a criminal investigation will set a dangerous precedent. This will do nothing other than erase the voices of the electorate. Let us not succumb to the distractions and let the political games take precedence over the people’s welfare. We must stay focused on the task at hand, working diligently to address the pressing issues that affect the lives of our constituents.
“Stay strong my fellow Americans, and trust that the process will unfold as it should.”
In a much briefer statement, the leader of the move to expel Santos, Anthony D’Esposito, said his fellow Republican’s “many deceptions coupled with the ever-expanding legal case against him further strengthen my long-held belief that he is unfit to serve in Congress”.More:Jim Jordan, defeated in the Republican vote to decide a nominee for House speaker, plans to vote for the man who beat him, Steve Scalise, when the question comes to the House floor and is encouraging his colleagues to do the same, a source with direct knowledge tells the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell.Scalise will only be able to lose four Republican votes if he is to be confirmed as speaker, presuming all Democrats in the closely divided chamber vote no.Matt Gaetz, the Florida hardliner who orchestrated the brutal ejection of the last speaker, Kevin McCarthy, has said today he will vote for Scalise. But other Republicans – the familiar contraversialists Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert among them – have said they will not back Scalise.The Washington Post points to the biggest problem facing House Republican leaders, causing them to recess the chamber without a vote: too many members of the caucus are currently set to vote for McCarthy.Some choice selections from the limpid prose of Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, newly announced candidate for the position of House majority leader, in his letter to Republican colleagues:
When my dear friend Steve [Scalise] is sworn in as speaker … we need a majority leader who will work alongside our speaker to help move this conference past the events of the last 10 days.
I believe that my experience outside of Congress makes me uniquely qualified to lead our majority. We need leaders who listen twice as much as they speak, who are conservative because they’ve seen the impact of Democrat [sic] policies firsthand, and who aren’t afraid to change the way things have been done around here.
… I spent 35 years in leadership outside of Washington DC, working with Americans across every aisle and background. The nameplate on my desk said “Head Excuse Eliminator” because I learned through years in business that empowering the people on my team to do their jobs was the most effective way to lead.
… My whole life, I’ve been told I couldn’t be successful, couldn’t go to college, couldn’t become an engineer. I learned at an early age that the harder you work, the luckier you are. I paid my way through college, became an engineer, and got my dream job in aerospace. No one believed in me, but I proved them wrong.
Key fact: Hern made his millions through an empire of McDonald’s franchises, thereby becoming the “McCongressman”, a nickname, Roll Call points out, he has eagerly embraced.Georgia’s Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has announced that she will not vote for Steve Scalise on the House floor, citing her concerns about his cancer.In a tweet on Wednesday, Greene said that she voted for Jim Jordan as House speaker on a private ballot and will continue to vote for Jordan on the House floor.“I like Steve Scalise, and I like him so much that I want to see him defeat cancer more than sacrifice his health in the most difficult position in Congress. I lost my father to cancer and it’s a very serious battle,” said Greene.“We need a speaker who is able to put their full efforts into defeating the communist democrats and save America,” she added.Jim Jordan has offered to give Steve Scalise a nominating speech on his behalf, per a person with direct knowledge. Additionally, the House will not vote on electing a speaker today, CNN reports.“I hope that the House Republicans get their affairs in order so they can stop the chaos and select the speaker of their choosing so that we can move forward and do the people’s business,” the White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.“We’re not part of the process, we’re not going to comment on the process … but we want to see the chaos be done with,” she added.Speaking to reporters, national security council spokesman John Kirby said on Wednesday that the “sooner there is a speaker of the House, the more comfortable we’ll all be in terms of being able to support Israel and Ukraine right now”.
That position is critical in terms of bringing legislation to the floor and moving things forward … Because of existing appropriations and existing authorities, we’ve been OK but that’s not going to last forever.
In the immediate term right now, we can continue to support, with the authorities and appropriations we have, Israel and Ukraine, but we’re certainly running out of runway. More

New York Republicans in the US House on Wednesday moved to expel one of their own: George Santos, the serial fabulist and accused fraudster who faces new charges under a superseding federal indictment.“Today, I’ll be introducing an expulsion resolution to rid the People’s House of fraudster George Santos,” the GOP congressman Anthony D’Esposito said in a post on social media.In response, Santos said he was going nowhere, asking his “fellow Americans” to “stay strong … and trust that the process will unfold as it should”.D’Esposito said the resolution was co-sponsored by Nick LaLota, Mike Lawler, Marc Molinaro, Nick Langworthy and Brandon Williams – all House Republicans from New York.Santos won his own New York seat last year, in midterm elections that saw the House swing to Republican control in no small part due to success in the Empire state.Santos’s résumé swiftly unraveled, as news outlets reported allegations of wrongdoing beyond the mere “embellishment” to which he admitted, even bringing into question his actual name.Santos remained defiant and party leaders, beholden to a narrow majority, chose not to act against him.That stance endured even after Santos pleaded not guilty in New York in May to multiple charges of fraud, money laundering, theft of public funds and making false statements.Last week, Santos’s former campaign treasurer pleaded guilty to fraud. Then, on Tuesday, a superseding indictment introduced 10 new charges against Santos relating to allegedly stealing donors’ identities and charging thousands of dollars to their credit cards.Santos now faces 23 criminal charges. As reported by CNN, on Wednesday he told reporters: “I’m pretty much denying every last bit of charges.” He also said he would not resign and still intended to run for re-election.The same morning, Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, a watchdog group, said Santos was the only member of the current Congress who has not yet filed a mandatory personal financial disclosure. Consequences can include fines and civil or criminal penalties.Expulsions, however, are rare: only five House members have ever been expelled: three for fighting for the Confederacy in the civil war and two after being convicted of crimes including fraud and bribery.Kevin McCarthy, the speaker ejected by hard-liners last week, had resisted attempts to add Santos to that list, instead referring him to the House ethics committee.On Wednesday, as Republicans voted to make Steve Scalise of Louisiana their nominee to succeed McCarthy, Lawler told CNN: “It takes two-thirds [of the House] to expel a member from Congress. There were not two-thirds votes back in May when the initial expulsion resolution was brought, which is why it was referred to the ethics committee.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Myself and my New York colleagues wanted to allow the time for the investigation to be handled. But with the guilty plea of [Santos’s] treasurer, admitting to the very scheme he has been now twice indicted on, with 23 felony counts, he cannot serve.“I’ve said repeatedly since December he needed to resign. I believe that in the absence of his resignation, the time to act is now … it’s clear with his treasurer’s guilty plea what occurred, and as far as I’m concerned he should not be a member of Congress.”Santos issued a statement.Republicans, he said, “must remain steadfast in our commitment to upholding due process and respecting the constitution”, which he called “the cornerstone of our democracy and the guiding light that ensures justice and fairness for all”.Santos added: “An expulsion of myself as a member of Congress before being found guilty from a criminal investigation will set a dangerous precedent. This will do nothing other than erase the voices of the electorate. Let us not succumb to the distractions and let the political games take precedence over the people’s welfare. We must stay focused on the task at hand, working diligently to address the pressing issues that affect the lives of our constituents.D’Esposito said in a statement that Santos’s “many deceptions coupled with the ever-expanding legal case against him further strengthen my long-held belief that he is unfit to serve in Congress”. More

House Republicans nominated Steve Scalise to be the next speaker on Wednesday, a week after the unprecedented ouster of Kevin McCarthy. But a handful of objections to Scalise’s nomination left House Republicans unable to move to a final floor vote, making it unclear when a new speaker might be elected.By a vote of 113 to 99, Scalise, currently the second-ranking House Republican, defeated a challenge from congressman Jim Jordan of Ohio, the chairman of the judiciary committee and a far-right firebrand.Still, the result fell well below the 217-vote threshold needed to be elected speaker on the House floor, where Republicans chaos and division triggered 15 rounds of balloting before the caucus united behind McCarthy earlier this year. The timing of a potential floor vote to elect Scalise remained uncertain on Wednesday afternoon, when the House held a brief pro forma session and then went into recess.If all 433 current House members participate in the vote, Scalise can only afford four defections within the Republican conference and still win the speakership. As of Wednesday, at least 10 House Republicans said they were not prepared to back Scalise, with several more still undecided.“Obviously we still have work to do,” Scalise said after winning the nomination. “We need to make sure we’re sending a message to people all throughout the world that the House is open and doing the people’s business.”Emerging from their conference meeting on Wednesday afternoon, a couple of Jordan’s allies, including Congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado, indicated they would still support Jordan in the floor vote.“We had a chance to unify the party behind closed doors, but the Swamp and K Street lobbyists prevented that,” Boebert said on X, formerly known as Twitter. “The American people deserve a real change in leadership, not a continuation of the status quo.”Even as his allies rallied around him, Jordan appeared ready to support Scalise on the floor. According to a source with direct knowledge of the situation, Jordan plans to vote for Scalise and has encouraged his colleagues to do the same. Jordan also offered to deliver the nominating speech on Scalise’s behalf, the source said.That encouragement has not yet swayed some of Scalise’s detractors. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a hard-right Republican from Georgia, said she would not support Scalise because of concerns over his health, as the congressman is undergoing chemotherapy treatment for blood cancer.“I will be voting for Jim Jordan on the House floor,” Greene said on X. “I like Steve Scalise, and I like him so much that I want to see him defeat cancer more than sacrifice his health in the most difficult position in Congress.”Some members on Tuesday had suggested they would prefer an alternative – or McCarthy. But McCarthy, who recently suggested he would be open to reclaiming the gavel, said on Tuesday that he asked his caucus not to re-nominate him for the job.Leaving a meeting with Scalise on Wednesday, McCarthy reiterated his plans to support his former deputy. Of the Republican holdouts, McCarthy said: “Steve’s going to have to talk to them all, see what the concerns are. But I’m supporting Steve.”Republicans’ tenuous grasp on power was on full display last week, when McCarthy became the first House speaker in US history to be ejected from office. Eight Republicans, led by the hard-right congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida, joined with House Democrats to remove McCarthy as speaker.But Gaetz said Wednesday that he was “excited” to support Scalise on the floor, telling reporters, “Long live Speaker Scalise!”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionUntil a new leader is chosen, the Republican congressman Patrick McHenry of North Carolina will continue serving as the acting speaker while the House remains unable to conduct other business.Republicans hope they can choose a speaker by the end of the week and avoid the spectacle that unfolded in January. A quick election would allow Republicans to turn their full attention to the situation in Israel, following this weekend’s attacks staged by Hamas.On Tuesday, the Republican chair of the House foreign affairs committee, Michael McCaul of Texas, and the panel’s top Democrat, Gregory Meeks of New York, introduced a bipartisan resolution expressing support for Israel. As he entered the conference meeting on Wednesday, Scalise said the resolution would be his top priority if he ascends to the speakership.“The first order of business under Speaker Steve Scalise is going to be bringing a strong resolution expressing support for Israel. We’ve got a very bipartisan bill, the McCaul-Meeks resolution, ready to go right away to express our support for Israel,” Scalise told reporters.Meanwhile, Democrats once again unanimously nominated their leader, congressman Hakeem Jeffries of New York, during a closed-door caucus meeting on Wednesday.Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, California congressman Pete Aguilar, the Democratic caucus chair, said Republicans’ “self-inflicted chaos” spoke volumes about their governing priorities.“Israel, policy, friendship, alliance, strength, national security: that is what the Democratic caucus talked about this morning,” Aguilar said. “What the Republican conference is talking about are rule-changes and who’s in charge, so a dramatic difference.” More

Conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who is a close ally of Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, hosted a social media debate in which one participant argued that conservatives should cooperate with a hypothetical white nationalist dictator “in order to destroy the power of the left”.Rufo, a Manhattan Institute fellow who has been a hugely influential figure in DeSantis’ culture war policies in Florida, did not disagree with the participant’s sentiments. Instead he commended speakers for their “thoughtful points” and presenting the discussion as a model for engagement with “the dissident right”.Rufo is a high-profile conservative activist who in books, columns, media appearances and a Substack newsletter has encouraged conservatives to oppose “wokeness”. He has been credited with mobilizing conservatives against communities of color, first with a distorted version of critical race theory; then by linking LGBTQ-inclusive education practices to pedophilic “grooming”.Rufo has exercised a particular influence on DeSantis. Rufo reportedly consulted on the drafting of DeSantis’s “Stop Woke Act”, which bans schools and workplaces from teaching that anyone is inherently privileged due to race or sex, and was invited by DeSantis to witness the bill’s signing in April 2022.Later, DeSantis appointed Rufo to the board of trustees of Florida’s New College in January. New College was a traditionally liberal college, but under Rufo is now transforming into a more conservative institution – a move that many say heralds DeSantis’ view of the future of academia in Florida and the US.Rufo hosted the debate on X, the social media network formerly known as Twitter.Participating in the debate was Charles Haywood, a former shampoo magnate who the Guardian previously reported is a would-be “warlord” who founded a secretive, men-only fraternal society, the Society for American Civic Renewal (SACR).The debate concerned Haywood’s promotion of a strategy he calls “no enemies to the right”, which urges people on the right to avoid any public criticism of others in their camp, including extremists.Early in the Rufo-hosted discussion last Tuesday, Haywood raised the hypothetical possibility early in the discussion: “Let’s say a real white nationalist arose who had real political power … and therefore [could] be of assistance against the left.”Responding to the hypothetical, Haywood said: “I think that the answer is that you should cooperate with that person in order to destroy the power of the left.”Later in the broadcast, Haywood responded to concerns about rightwing authoritarianism by saying: “When we’re talking about people like Franco or Pinochet or even Salazar … they did kill people. They killed people justly, they killed people unjustly, and that’s just a historical fact.”“But,” Haywood added, “they saved a lot more people than they killed.”Augusto Pinochet was military dictator of Chile from 1971 to 1990, and after coming to power in a coup he tortured, exiled or killed tens of thousands of his regime’s opponents.Francisco Franco was dictator of Spain from 1936 until his death in 1975, and his regime killed 100,000 to 200,000 people during the so-called “white terror”. António de Oliveira Salazar was the head of Portugal’s authoritarian, one-party state from 1932 until 1968; his regime repressed domestic opposition and oversaw brutal colonial policies in Africa that permitted forced labor and other abuses.In closing the discussion, Rufo credited speakers with raising “some provocative points on all sides, some thoughtful points on all sides”, and told listeners: “I think there is a room for engaging the dissident right and the establishment right. I think we need to have a bridge between the two and engage in thoughtful dialogue.”The Guardian emailed Christopher Rufo and the DeSantis campaign detailed requests for comment prior to publication, but received no response.After publication, Rufo said in a statement to the Guardian that he was “against rightwing racialism and against an unrestricted policy of no enemies to the right”. He said that in announcing the debate he had said, in reference to some on the far right, “some elements on the fringes of any political movement are moral non-starters – they should be given no deference, much less support”.During the debate, Rufo also criticized the US white nationalist Richard Spencer, calling him “wrong morally, politically, practically”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHeidi Beirich, an extremism expert who co-founded the Global Project on Hate and Extremism, called the discussion and its framing “a disaster” in an email.“By engaging true extremists – white supremacists and authoritarians – Haywood’s vision of ‘no enemies to the right’ will sanction and empower those movements,” Beirich wrote.Beirich also wrote: “Conservative cowardice on white supremacy is the road to losing a democracy and possibly much worse in terms of hate-driven political violence and autocracy.”She compared the “no enemies to the right” doctrine to the situation in “Germany in the 1930s when conservatives worked with Hitler, seeing him as less of a problem than communists”.Hannah Gais, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence project, said: “There’s sizable segments of the right that want the best of both worlds, namely the energy and the vigor of reactionary far-right movements but without any of the baggage.”Gais added: “The idea that the ‘dissident right’ – a sort of umbrella term used within the movement to refer to white nationalists and others on that political spectrum – could make some kind of viable political partner seems to be an extension of this line of thought.“What disturbs me the most about these comments is it makes clear that some on the right are more than comfortable with the fact that the guardrails are off.”In July Mark Granza, Italian-born editor of far-right online magazine IM-1776, hosted a Twitter space to celebrate the launch of Rufo’s latest book, America’s Cultural Revolution. Haywood was an invited speaker at that recording, and he said he was “extremely impressed” by Rufo’s book, calling it “exquisitely written”, and praising its “explicit call for a counter-revolution” and its “aggressive approach”.Following the Guardian’s reporting on Haywood’s involvement in founding the Society for American Civic Renewal, conservative broadcaster Glenn Beck condemned him and his ideas on air.The Guardian emailed Haywood for comment on his appearance on Rufo’s space but received no response.The Guardian also previously reported that Haywood is a featured speaker at a “natalist” conference planned for December in Austin, Texas, where he is scheduled to appear alongside other far-right figures and advocates of eugenics.
This article was updated on 11 October 2023 to include a response from Christopher Rufo. More

If Hamas intended to remind the world that the Palestinians are still there after years of marginalisation and international indifference to occupation and deepening oppression, then its bloody assault on Israel certainly achieved that.At the same time, the attack that Joe Biden called “pure unadulterated evil” might represent a huge setback for the Palestinian cause in the US just as the political debate and public opinion was gradually shifting away from decades of often lockstep support for Israel in Washington.Pictures of slaughtered children among the 1,000 dead, and traumatised Israeli survivors filling US television screens begging for the return of abducted relatives, prompted an outpouring of revulsion across the US political spectrum and among ordinary Americans.Yet, Palestinian and more dovish pro-Israel groups who have worked for years to push a more open debate about the Israel-Palestinian conflict said there were signs of it paying off in the reaction to the Hamas attack.Hadar Susskind, president of Americans for Peace Now, sister organisation of the Israeli peace movement, said that where once there would have been only unequivocal denunciations, some politicians and others wanted to give a more nuanced take that took account of the Palestinian reality.“Right now, it’s very difficult. Over the last years we are having better, more reasonable conversations in our political sphere. Not perfect by any means but we’ve been moving in the right direction. This is a very, very difficult moment. Everybody who’s talking about it needs to deal with this. But I think we are dealing with it from a different baseline,” he said.“I spoke to a number of members of Congress and congressional staff and others this week who were trying to figure out how to say things that are hopefully helpful and positive but also true and not simply trying to score points for your side.”Several politicians strongly denounced the “horrific acts” by Hamas but said the attack did not happen in a vacuum and that the way to end such violence was to “end Israeli military occupation and apartheid”.Before the Hamas attack, Americans for Peace now and likeminded groups had been hoping to build on shifts in US public opinion seen in a Gallup poll earlier this year that found for the first time more Democrats were sympathetic to the Palestinians than the Israelis by a margin of 11%, a significant shift from a decade ago.Two years ago, a Jewish Electorate Institute poll found that 58% of American Jewish voters support restrictions on US military aid to prevent Israel using it to expand West Bank settlements. One-third agreed that “Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is similar to racism in the United States” and one-quarter said that “Israel is an apartheid state”, numbers that shocked some Jewish community leaders.Once unswerving US political support for Israeli governments has also eroded as they move ever further to the right. In August Chris Van Hollen, a Democratic senator, called on Biden to “get more personally engaged” in stopping “racists” in the Israeli government from a land grab in the occupied territories and committing “gross violations” of Palestinian rights or risk damage to the US’s credibility.Yousef Munayyer, former executive director of the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, said it is too early to predict the lasting impact but that the attack has forced the Palestinian issue back onto the agenda.“Moments of this scale tend to have longer developing impacts on everybody. I would emphasise that it’s hard to walk away from this moment over time and continue to ignore this issue. People around the world, including here in the United States, have dropped the issue of Palestine and peace. The urgency of addressing this issue and resolving it should be clear to everyone,” he said.For years, Israel has worked to marginalise the Palestinians abroad as well as at home, and to curb even non-violent means of protest and action, including pushing laws in the US to punish boycotts as antisemitic.The Biden administration paid lip-service to a two state solution that appeared to amount to little more than cover for inaction and an unwillingness to confront the reality of the Israeli prime minster Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeated statements that he would never permit a Palestinian state.Susskind said that the recent attack forces the Palestinians back onto the agenda “in a bloody, murderous, horrific way”.“The world is paying attention to the Palestinians, and specifically to Hamas, which is not accidental. That’s a fact. There are many moments in history and people in different countries forcing attention by committing horrible acts,” he said.“Obviously the Biden administration is being forced to pay attention right now. Nobody in this moment is talking about what I would call the positive agenda, how to make things better, a peace process kind of agenda. When this immediate fighting comes to an end, we’ll see what happens. I think there is going to be an Israeli reckoning for Netanyahu and his government, and then we’ll see what comes out of that.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe direction of that debate in the US is also likely to be influenced by Israel’s military response over the coming days and weeks. While the focus for now is on the Israeli casualties, the rising toll among Palestinian civilians in Gaza who cannot flee the enclave is likely to demand growing attention.Munayyer is concerned that Israeli rhetoric is being turned into action.“Now we are likely to see mass atrocities being committed as the Israeli military is out for vengeance in the words of the Israeli prime minister. So a lot of people’s reactions to understanding all of this are going to be impacted by what is still to come in the days ahead of us,” he said.Large-scale Israeli military assaults on Gaza in 2008 and 2014 were instrumental in shifting public opinion in the US, especially on university campuses.The response to the Hamas attack has also divided the US Jewish community which is largely united in its condemnation, but has differences over whether to acknowledge the occupation and Israeli government actions as a cause of continuing conflict.Susskind said Americans for Peace Now declined to sign a statement by the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations denouncing the assault by “Iran-backed Hamas terrorists”.“We didn’t sign it because although I agree with most of what it said, it also called the Hamas attacks unprovoked and that’s not true. The Hamas attacks were horrific. They are war crimes. They are inexcusable. I condemn them, unequivocally 100 times over. But unprovoked is not true,” he said.“This attack does demand a military response. I am not a pacifist. But there is a difference between the military response and some of the language that you’ve seen from Israeli political leaders and others who are calling for war crimes in return. The response to that, is not to go in and indiscriminately kill Palestinian people. That’s not an acceptable answer. War crimes are never okay, by anyone.”The “pro-Israel, pro-peace” group J-Street was strident in its denunciation of Hamas and support for military action to defeat it.But Debra Shushan, J-Street’s policy director, said the attack obliges US politicians to recognise that things cannot go on as before. She said it is right, for now, for Washington to focus on Israel’s “legitimate right of self-defence in accordance with international law” and securing the release of Israelis abducted to Gaza.“In the longer term, there are many questions that must be asked about flawed policies and narratives. I expect fertile ground for a recognition that a return to the status quo ante of “managing the conflict” is unacceptable. The vision for a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a negotiated end to the occupation of Palestinian Territory, and a future of genuine security, self-determination and equality for Israelis and Palestinians must prevail.” More

This week the eyes of the world have been fixed on the horrific panorama of violence in the Middle East. Once all of the dead are counted, it is likely that nearly as many Israelis will have died in a single day as in the entire second intifada, which lasted from 2000 to 2005. The death toll is also growing in Gaza, with no telling how high it may reach. The United States has dispatched naval forces to the region amid fears that the conflict may spiral to include Hezbollah or even Iran, an eventuality which could see the US join the fighting directly. The region is a tinderbox – and one wrong move could set it ablaze.In the US, steady and sober leadership is needed. Americans may be among those held hostage in Gaza, and the risk of a wider war is ever present. Now is not the time for partisan point-scoring. Unity shouldn’t mean a stifling consensus – there’s plenty of room for discussion about what the best American response to the situation should be – but it should mean agreement around basic norms of constructive debate and decision-making. This should also be a time in which everyone can agree that it’s important that the US government is able to perform its basic functions smoothly, both to ensure good decisions are made and that lives are protected.Unfortunately, Republicans seem incapable of rising to the occasion. From the first hours in which the world began to learn of the horrific events unfolding in southern Israel, prominent Republican figures have seemed just as interested in blaming Joe Biden as they have Hamas.One of the party’s first reactions came from Republican National Committee chair Ronna McDaniel, who greeted news of the greatest atrocity in Israeli history by calling it a “great opportunity” for Republican presidential candidates to criticize Democrats. The candidates themselves seemed to agree, with many leaping into the fray to pin the blame for the attack on Biden’s supposed “weakness”.Perhaps most disgusting and divisive has been the spectacle of Republicans telling outright lies in order to claim that the Biden administration is directly “complicit” in the attack, as Senator Tim Scott has claimed. Donald Trump and others say that the Biden administration helped finance the attack with a recent deal in which $6bn in Iranian oil revenue was unfrozen in exchange for the release of five American hostages. But this money – not a cent of which has yet been spent – is controlled by Qatar and can only be used by Tehran to purchase humanitarian supplies. Meanwhile, it’s clear that this attack has been in the work for months – far before the deal was even struck.Cheap and partisan attacks not only make it difficult to have a serious discussion about American foreign policy – they also allow Republicans to avoid talking about the ways in which their own actions have made the US less prepared for a serious international crisis. The Republican senator Tommy Tuberville is single-handedly blocking 300 routine military appointments, including many top posts in the Middle East, in protest of the Pentagon’s abortion policy. And he’s signaled he has no intention of changing his mind.Senators Rand Paul and JD Vance have also placed blanket holds on confirming nominees to the state department – in one case because Vance wanted them to fill in a “wokeness questionnaire” first. Among the positions that remain unfilled with a permanent appointments are the state department coordinator for counter-terrorism and ambassadors to both Israel and Egypt. Meanwhile, thanks to Republican dysfunction, there is currently no speaker of the House, making it unclear how additional US aid might be made available to Israel or Palestinian civilians if it is needed.In order to avoid the sort of partisan point-scoring that Republicans are engaging in, it should be made clear that these facts almost certainly had nothing to do with the decision by Hamas to launch its attack. The attack is not in any way the fault of the Republican party. But what is the fault of the Republican party is the fact that the US government is lacking crucial personnel at a time of grave international crisis.Hamstringing the ability of the Biden administration to act might even be a feature rather than a bug of the Republican response. If the party recognizes the unfolding horror primarily as a “great opportunity” to hammer the Democrats, then that opportunity can be maximized by making it as difficult as possible for the Biden administration to respond effectively. This is a grave charge, not to be made lightly. But how else to explain a party which refuses, in a time of possible war, to let the military appoint the officers it wants to their posts in the war zone?It is a perilous sign that Republicans would rather engage in partisan criticism rather than a constructive discussion over the best and most humane policies for the US to adopt. The party no longer believes in the basic idea of a functioning, competent government, even in the face of a regional war. As the Biden administration makes tough decisions about how to save American lives and stop the war from spreading, it can expect little help from across the aisle.Republicans have made the choice to put their own narrow interests over those of the nation. They could at least have the decency to stop pretending otherwise.
Andrew Gawthorpe is a historian of the United States and the creator of America Explained, a podcast and newsletter More

When South Carolina Republicans set out to redraw the state’s seven congressional districts after the 2020 census, they had a clear goal in mind: make the state’s first congressional district more friendly for Republicans.In 2018, Democrat Joe Cunningham won the seat in an upset. In 2020, Republican Nancy Mace barely won it back. Now, Republicans wanted to redraw the district, which includes Charleston and stretches along the south-eastern part of the state, to be much safer. There was an easy way to do this – change the lines to add reliably Republican areas in three different counties to the district.But there was a problem. The old district was about 17.8% Black and the new additions would make it 20% Black, enough to make it politically competitive. So the mapmaker Republicans tasked with coming up with a new plan began removing Black voters in Charleston from the first district, placing them in the neighboring sixth district, which is represented by Democrat Jim Clyburn. Ultimately, he removed more than 30,000 Black voters – 62% of Charleston’s Black population in the district – out of it. Mace comfortably won re-election in 2022.Whether or not that removal was constitutional is at the center of a case the supreme court is set to hear on Wednesday called Alexander v South Carolina State Conference of the NAACP.A three-judge panel ruled in January that Republicans had undertaken an “effective bleaching” of the district, deliberately sorting Black voters based on their race. That kind of racial sorting violates the US constitution’s 14th amendment, which guarantees equal protection under the law. It was “more than a coincidence” that the new, more-Republican configuration of the first district had the exact same percentage as Black voters as the old one. The court said Republicans had adopted a racial target of a 17% Black district and drawn the lines to meet it.Any decision striking down the lines is likely to make the first congressional district more competitive for Democrats, who are seeking to cut in to the razor-thin majority Republicans hold in the US House next fall.But South Carolina Republicans say their decision to move voters was based on partisan motivations, not racial ones. The mapmaker, Republicans say, didn’t even consider racial data when he was drawing the plans. The map South Carolina Republicans enacted is the only plan offered that increases the Republican vote share while all the ones proposed by the plaintiffs turned it into a majority-Democratic district, lawyers for the state wrote in their briefing to the supreme court.“If left uncorrected, the decision below will serve as a roadmap to invalidate commonplace districts designed with a political goal,” lawyers for the state wrote in their briefing to the supreme court.While the US supreme court has long prohibited racial gerrymandering – sorting voters into districts based on their race with no legitimate purpose – it said in 2019 that there is nothing the federal courts can do to stop gerrymandering for partisan aims.The South Carolina case is being closely watched because a ruling approving of the state’s redistricting approach could give lawmakers much more leeway to use partisanship as a pretext for unconstitutionally moving voters based on their race. That could be a boon to lawmakers in the US south, where voting is often racially polarized.While the current conservative court has been extremely hostile to voting rights in recent years, litigants have had some success in similar racial gerrymandering cases. In a 2017 case, for example, the court struck down two North Carolina congressional districts because Republicans in the state had relied too much on race with no legitimate purpose.“The sorting of voters on the grounds of their race remains suspect even if race is meant to function as a proxy for other (including political) characteristics,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote in a footnote in the majority opinion.“This case stands for the proposition that you cannot use partisanship as a guise to harm Black communities,” said Antonio Ingram II, a lawyer with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF), which is representing the challengers in the case. “You cannot use political goals or interests in order to harm Black voters. Black voters cannot be collateral damage to craft partisan gerrymanders.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTo bolster their argument, the challengers retained a statistical expert, Harvard professor Kosuke Imai, who produced 10,000 simulated maps that did not take race into account. None of those 10,000 simulations produced a Black voting age population in the first congressional district than the plan Republicans adopted.Another expert witness for the plaintiffs analyzed the areas that were moved from the first congressional district to the sixth to see if there was any correlation between race or partisanship and the likelihood it would be moved. The analysis found that the racial makeup of an area was a better predictor of whether it would be moved than its partisan composition.There are also allegations that Clyburn, one of the most powerful Democrats in Washington, condoned adding Black voters to his district and assisted the legislature in coming up with a plan to do so. Clyburn has strongly disputed those allegations and filed a friend of the court brief urging the supreme court to uphold the lower court’s finding and strike down the first congressional district.The justice department also filed a brief urging the court to uphold the lower court’s ruling and strike down congressional district 1. “The court permissibly found that race predominated in the drawing of CD1 because mapmakers relied on race to achieve their partisan goals,” Elizabeth Prelogar, the solicitor general, wrote in a brief.Ingram, the LDF attorney, said that the map South Carolina Republicans had implemented would ultimately make it harder for Black voters along the coast of the state to get someone to advocate for them on issues like climate change. He noted that voters in Charleston, near the coast of South Carolina, who were being attached to CD-6, were being annexed into a largely inland district.“This is about Black voters not having champions in their own communities that are responsive to their needs that are influenced by their electoral power to really advocate for federal allocation of resources without things that will improve their quality of life.” More