US Politics

Joe Biden had to choose a side in the United Auto Workers’ contract fight with the “big three” American automakers, and he did. This week, he became the first US president to walk a picket line while in office when he joined strikers in Belleville, Michigan, offering enthusiastic support for their demands. Biden should be thanking the UAW for handing him a golden opportunity: to prove that the green jobs his administration is creating will be good, union jobs, too, and that climate policy will bear dividends for the working class.Republicans cosplaying solidarity have tried to exploit the strike to score cheap political points. As Republican presidential hopefuls debated this week, Donald Trump told a rally at a non-union plant in Michigan that the strike wouldn’t “make a damn bit of difference” because the car industry was “being assassinated” by “EV mandates”. (Whether there were any union members or even autoworkers in the room isn’t clear.) Ohio senator JD Vance has similarly blamed autoworkers’ plight on “the premature transition to electric vehicles” and “Biden’s war on American cars”.These are cynical, false talking points from politicians who couldn’t care less about autoworkers – but they aren’t going away. (Although similar lines are old hat in the US, they’re finding new purchase in places like 10 Downing Street: Rishi Sunak, the British prime minister, has recently taken a “U-turn” on climate goals, citing “unacceptable costs” for “hard-working British people”.) Optimistically, the UAW strike could be a chance to dismantle the rightwing myth that reducing emissions hurts working people – not by pointing to the jobs that will trickle down from the bosses of the energy transition, but by standing with the unions fighting to make those jobs better.Being willing to go on offense against automakers’ bad behavior is a great start and a big shift. The Biden administration has routinely praised car manufacturers as climate heroes poised to decarbonize the country and create millions of middle-class jobs along the way, turning the industry into a sort of mascot for its climate agenda. “You changed the whole story, Mary,” Biden told General Motors’ chief executive, Mary Barra, a frequent White House guest, in 2021. “You electrified the entire automobile industry. I’m serious.”White House climate policy will be good for Barra and her colleagues at the top. The business-side tax credits and government-backed loans furnished by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) are already helping the big three retool factories to produce EVs and their component parts. The IRA’s consumer-side subsidies for American-made electric cars – worth up to $7,500 – will boost demand.Yet no one should confuse companies taking advantage of tax breaks with a commitment to the climate fight. The big three lag well behind their competition in the US and abroad; federal incentives are helping them play catch-up. They’ve lobbied to undermine fuel efficiency and clean car standards, including through front groups like the Automotive Alliance. Like oil and gas companies, GM and Ford knew for decades that their products fueled climate change, and proceeded to double down on gas-guzzling models and political attacks on laws and regulations that might hem in their emissions. They still bankroll the campaigns of Republicans dead-set on stopping climate policy.Neither is it a given that EV subsidies benefiting companies will benefit workers there, too. Automakers are already using electrification as an excuse to supercharge attempts to ship jobs to less union-friendly states, and split workers off from their master agreement with the big three.Biden’s decision to join the strike would be remarkable on its own. Beyond the obvious symbolism, his presence there lends tangible material support to workers’ demands, handing the union leverage over companies that might otherwise reasonably assume he’d have their backs.It could also usher in a broader shift in the way he and other Democrats talk about climate policy. Impressive as the IRA is, its most direct benefits accrue largely to companies and consumers with enough cash on hand to afford up-front payments for big-ticket items like solar panels and heat pumps. Like Bidenomics more generally, its goal isn’t to reduce emissions so much as to build out domestic supply chains for clean energy goods, making US companies less reliant on and more competitive against Chinese firms in sectors that will be increasingly important over the coming decades.Targeting climate policy at corporations and affluent consumers doesn’t make a great counterargument to Republicans eager to frame it all as elitist virtue signaling, and win elections accordingly. What the Republican party can be reliably expected to do, though, is side with the bosses. That’s where even self-professed “car guy” Joe Biden might be able to set himself apart – by being willing to offend the automakers so that the rewards of America’s green industrial policy aren’t hoarded at the top.Standing alongside Biden in Belleville this week, the UAW president, Shawn Fain, offered as good a framing for that approach as any. “This industry is of our making,” he said. “When we withhold our labor, we can unmake it. And as we’re going to continue to show: when we win this fight with the big three, we’re going to remake it.”
Kate Aronoff is a staff writer at the New Republic and the author of Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet – And How We Fight Back More

Joe Biden has dramatically raised the ante in the forthcoming US presidential election campaign with an impassioned warning that US democracy is being imperilled by a vengeful Donald Trump, his likely opponent next year. ‘There is something dangerous happening in America,’ he told an audience in Phoenix, Arizona, on Thursday. ‘There is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy: the Maga movement.’ He said he did not think all Republicans ascribed to the Maga agenda, but added: ‘There is no question that today’s Republican party is driven and intimidated by Maga Republican extremists’ More

During the two months I spent in the US this summer, I kept asking every journalist, academic and analyst I met one simple question: “Who will be the next president of the United States?” The response was usually the same. First there was a distinct hesitation, then they said “Well, probably Joe Biden, but …”What followed the “but” was a long list of concerns, partly about deeper trends but mainly about how old and frail the 80-year-old president looks. Often, the conversation ended with my interlocutor saying it would be better if Biden stood aside, to let a younger candidate turn the age card against the 77-year-old Donald Trump.Biden has been a good president of the United States. Although the retreat from Afghanistan was chaotic, he dealt with the Covid pandemic well and is handling the war in Ukraine fairly well. He is presiding over a remarkably vibrant economy, with New Deal-style public spending accelerating a green transition and creating jobs. But if he stumbles – physically, mentally or politically – during the gruelling marathon that is a US presidential campaign, and lets Trump back in, that’s the only thing Biden will be remembered for.In a recent NBC poll, Trump and Biden were neck-and-neck, scoring 46% each. Any one of a number of factors unrelated to the characters and performances of the two candidates might swing such a close election. In the country’s hyperpolarised media environment, many Republican voters simply don’t see that the economy is doing well. AI will add to the already high possibility of misinformation, with Vladimir Putin certainly eager to tip the scales in favour of Trump. Third candidate initiatives, such as the well-intentioned centrist initiative No Labels and the intellectual activist Cornel West’s progressive-environmentalist campaign, are likely to take more votes from the Democrats than from the Republicans.Most worryingly for the Democrats, there’s a trend of Black, Hispanic and other non-white voters shifting from Democrat to Republican, and especially from Biden to Trump. There are sociological and historical explanations for this, as well as the strange appeal of Trump himself, but there’s little doubt that Biden’s age and frailty play a role.In a recent poll, three out of every four Americans said Biden was too old for a second term – at the end of which he would be 86. Only half those asked expressed the same concern about Trump. I spoke to four individuals who had seen Biden at close quarters in recent months. They said he was mentally fine, but physically showing his age. One commented on the way his voice sometimes faded to almost inaudible at the end of a sentence.All this will be ruthlessly exposed in the 24/7 media coverage of a presidential election campaign. A single fall from an election rally stage by the Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole played a part in his defeat in 1996. And Dole was a mere spring chicken of 73, in a more sedate media environment.Biden comes with one other liability. Because of his age, unusual attention will be focused on his running mate, who may have to step into the hot seat. But the vice-president, Kamala Harris, is not a great electoral asset, and hardly convinces as a possible “leader of the free world”. Despite the initial excitement, she has seemed marginal to the presidency, has an approval rating lower even than Biden’s and has made almost no impact on the world stage.Of course, Trump has huge liabilities too – above all, the multiple lawsuits that are taking much of his time and campaign funding. If Jack Smith, the prosecutor in the central case concerning possible fraud in the 2020 presidential election, is as effective as some think he is, Trump might even be in prison when Americans vote next November. Yet, astonishingly to an outsider, there’s little evidence that these prosecutions have so far seriously damaged his election prospects.Obviously, there are also risks associated with Biden stepping aside at this late stage. Some observers expressed a concern that the fragile rainbow coalition of the Democratic party could tear itself apart if set to find a new candidate. A former congressman disagreed, pointing to the disciplining effect of the threat of Trump. Certainly, there are credible contenders of a younger generation, such as the Pennsylvania governor, Josh Shapiro (who would then be the first Jewish president), the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer (who would then be the first female president), or California’s governor, Gavin Newsom.Not only would they turn the age card against Trump; they would also rejuvenate the image of the US in the world. At the moment, outsiders contemplate with astonishment what looks to us like a Brezhnevite gerontocracy in Washington. Biden, 80 going on 81. Trump, 77. The Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, 81, freezing for half a minute like an old desktop with a bad internet connection. The former house speaker Nancy Pelosi, running again at the age of 83. The Californian Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein refusing to retire at 90. Really? Give us a break.One thing, however, is clear: the only person who can make this decision is Biden, with his wife, Jill. If it’s to happen, it would be best it happens fast, so younger candidates can declare themselves, raise sufficient funds and organise national campaigns, and then one of them can be selected and choose a credible running mate. “It must be before Thanksgiving,” one longtime observer of US politics exclaimed. That’s less than two months away.At this point, some American readers might be huffing, “Who’s this Brit telling us what we ought to do?” All I would say in reply is: sorry, but it’s not only your future that this contest will decide.There’s a bunch of interesting elections coming up on our side of the Atlantic: a crucial Polish election next month, which may determine the future of a fragile democracy; European parliament elections next June, which may see a sharp turn to the populist right; a British general election, which may see the post-Brexit UK returning to something vaguely resembling sanity; perhaps even a Ukrainian presidential election. None of these European elections will be as consequential for Europe as this American one.A second Trump presidency would be a disaster for the US. It would also be a catastrophe for Ukraine, an emergency for Europe and a crisis of the west. If Biden steps aside now, democrats everywhere will honour him, while the US Democrats can choose a younger candidate to see off Trump – and perhaps even inspire the world again with a sense of American dynamism.
Timothy Garton Ash is a Guardian columnist

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Wednesday was debate night for almost all the Republican candidates for the White House, but once again, the man who chose not to turn up was stealing the headlines for yet another legal issue that went against him.
Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley and the others had ample opportunity to bring up the fact that a judge in New York ruled that Donald Trump had committed fraud for years while building a real estate empire. But they didn’t focus on that or any of the other court cases set to interrupt his campaign next year. So what did they all have to say? Did they manage to steal any of the limelight?
This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to Bill Kristol, the former chief of staff to the vice-president Dan Quayle and top conservative commentator, to get his take on the Republican field

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Joe Biden dramatically raised the ante in the forthcoming US presidential election campaign on Thursday with a stark and impassioned warning that American democracy is imperiled by a vengeful Donald Trump, his likely opponent next year.Faced by stagnant approval ratings and worries about his advanced age, the US president attempted to stir his dormant supporters and animate the undecided by spelling out the dangers he insisted a second Trump presidency would pose to the US’s status as the world’s leading beacon of democratic government.Declaring US history at “an inflexion point”, Biden, 80, said the country’s character and future was threatened by the authoritarian values of Trump’s self-styled Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.“There is something dangerous happening in America,” he told an audience in Phoenix, Arizona. “There is an extremist movement that does not share the basic beliefs of our democracy: the MAGA movement … History has brought us to a new time of testing.“All of us are being asked right now: What will we do to maintain our democracy?”His voice at times falling to little more than a whisper to stress his message, Biden invoked the late John McCain, a former Republican senator with whom he had a close relationship, to emphasize what he said were the selfless virtues of democracy.He was forced to pause early in his speech when a heckler interrupted to demand why he had not declared a climate emergency, according to reporters in the auditorium.“If you shush up, I will meet with you immediately after this, OK?” the president responded. He then added pointedly: “Democracy never is easy – as you just demonstrated.”Referring to Trump by name just once in his half-hour speech, Biden nevertheless set out to contrast democratic norms and traditions with conduct that appeared to characterize his predecessor.Democracy, he said, “means rule of the people, not rule of the monarchy, not rule of money, not rule of the mighty.“Regardless of party, that means free and fair elections, respecting the outcome, win or lose. It means you cannot love your country only when you win.“Democracy means rejecting and repudiating political violence. Regardless of party, such violence is never, never, never acceptable in America. It’s undemocratic and it must never be normalized to gain political power.”The last comments were an apparent reference to the attack on Capitol Hill on January 6 when a Trump-inspired mob tried to stop the ratification of Biden’s presidential election victory by the US congress.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDespite Trump’s failure to overturn the 2020 election result, Biden warned that the danger had not passed. “Today, democracy is still at risk. This is not hyperbole. It’s a simple truth,” he said.The threat of violence continued unabated, he said, most recently aimed at general Mark Milley, the chair of the US armed forces joint chiefs of staff, whom Trump recently said in a social media post was guilty of “treason”.“Frankly, these MAGA extremists have no idea what the hell they’re talking about,” Biden said.The pro-democracy speech was delivered at an event honoring the memory of McCain, one of Biden’s political adversaries and twice a GOP presidential candidate, who frequently criticized Trump before his death in 2018.Biden depicted his relationship with McCain as a fitting paean to American democracy because the two men frequently engaged in across-the-aisle bipartisan cooperation when they were US senators despite being from different parties, a feature the president said the character of today’s Republican party has all but precluded.“There is no doubt that today’s Republican party is driven and intimidated by MAGA extremists,” he said. “Their extreme agenda, if carried out, would fundamentally alter the institutions of American democracy as we know it.”Biden has reportedly been regularly portraying Trump as a threat to democracy to donors at events to raise funds for next year’s election. Thursday’s speech was the first time he had done so publicly since before last year’s congressional mid-term elections and indicated that he intended to make the theme a central presidential campaign issue. More

There was a commonsense question at the heart of Thursday’s congressional hearing on whether to launch a formal impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden that Republicans are counting on Americans to ask themselves. Would any foreign business hire the president’s son, Hunter, if it were not for his father?Out of that, Republicans on the House of Representatives oversight committee spun a vision of Biden Sr sitting atop a sprawling crime family that would be the envy of the mafia. But, as so often in modern American politics, the spectre of Donald Trump was lurking in the shadows.This was not an impeachment hearing. It was a hearing to decide if there is enough evidence to merit an impeachment inquiry into the president.But it was clear from the moment the Republican committee chair, James Comer, banged his gavel to launch more than six hours of accusation, distraction, attacks on witnesses and grandstanding that, for his party at least, the matter was already settled.Comer promised “a mountain of evidence, revealing how Joe Biden abused his public office for his family’s financial gain”. If so, it wasn’t immediately evident amid the endless flashing of documents and emails on to the committee’s screens, and the convoluted attempts to make connections through supposition and suspicion.At the heart of the Republican case is that foreign business interests in Ukraine, China and beyond only hired Hunter Biden, described by one congressman as a man “addicted to drugs who frequented prostitutes”, because he offered the reward of “influence peddling” with his father going back years to when he was vice-president.Comer then made the leap to claim that, therefore, Joe Biden must have been on the take.“For years, President Biden has lied to the American people about his knowledge of and participation in his family’s corrupt business schemes. The door was wide open to those who purchased what a business associate described as the Biden brand,” he told the hearing.“These business targets include foreign oligarchs who sent millions of dollars to his family. It also includes a Chinese national who wired a quarter of a million dollars to his son.”A YouGov poll last month found that nearly three-quarters of Americans do think Hunter used his father’s position to make money. A little more than half of Democrats agreed, although the findings were blunted by the fact that the poll also said a majority of Americans think the children of all US presidents profit from their parents.But most Americans did not agree that meant Joe Biden was being paid off, although the fact that 43% do and 28% are not sure should worry the White House as evidence that the Republican accusations have some traction.There’s little doubt that Hunter made millions from foreign business deals. In June, he agreed a plea deal admitting that he failed to pay taxes on millions in 2017 and 2018, although that agreement fell apart after a judge blocked it. In August, the attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed a special counsel to investigate Hunter’s finances.But even the Republicans’ own witnesses would only go so far as to say that, while there was enough evidence for an investigation, it was not enough to establish the president’s guilt.The Republicans called on law professor and Fox News legal analyst, Jonathan Turley, to explain why an impeachment inquiry could not be avoided. He stated as fact that Hunter Biden was corrupt and said the country needed to know if the president was in on it.“The question is, did the president know? Did he encourage this type of corruption? And the key here once again … you have to begin with a recognition that what Hunter Biden and his associates were doing was corrupt. That’s what influence peddling is,” said Turley.Asked if, in that case, Congress was “obligated to have this inquiry”, Turley agreed.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I believe it’s your duty to determine if the president is involved in what is a known form of corruption,” he said.Still Turley acknowledged that, as things stand, the evidence is not there.“I do not believe that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment. That is something that an inquiry has to establish, but I also do believe that the House has passed the threshold for an impeachment inquiry into the conduct of President Biden,” he said.That would make any impeachment inquiry a fishing expedition. Or at least a distraction from what the Democrats say is really going on.The lone witness for the Democrats, Michael Gerhardt, a professor of jurisprudence at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, told the committee that the evidence did not show that the president was, in effect, in the pay of his son.“There have been lots of assumptions, lots of accusations. But the dots have not been connected,” he said.The Democratic congresswoman Melanie Ann Stansbury connected other dots. She said the hearing wasn’t really about Biden at all but a “chilling” attempt to make the dozens of pending criminal charges against Trump seem “like they’re not serious crimes”.“What is this hearing actually about? It’s a campaign strategy. It’s a misuse of official resources. It is this committee and loyalists of Donald Trump doing his bidding to bolster his chances of winning back the White House and securing their majority in the next election,” she said.“I think it’s obvious who the grand puppet master is here.” More

From 4h agoThe House oversight committee’s impeachment hearing is now taking a short break, so let’s tune into the Senate, which just voted to begin debate on a measure that would fund the federal government till 17 November, and prevent the shutdown that will otherwise begin on Sunday:However, House speaker Kevin McCarthy said yesterday he would not consider the legislation, assuming the Senate approves it, instead opting to move ahead with passing longer-term funding measures. The problem with McCarthy’s strategy is it does not appear to be sufficient to stop the government from shutting down, and the bills will likely take time to be approved by both chambers of Congress.The House oversight committee held its first hearing in the impeachment inquiry of Joe Biden, the latest step in a months-long effort investigating the president and his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings that has yet to produce substantial evidence of wrongdoing.Here’s some analysis from our colleague Sam Levine:
Despite investigating Biden for months, Republicans on Thursday largely focused on the financial dealings by Hunter Biden, using innuendos and the suggestion of potential criminal activity to recommend that further investigation was necessary. The strategy appeared to be to lay the groundwork to justify a longer fishing expedition.
Meanwhile, a shutdown loomed even closer, with Democrats and Republicans nowhere closer to an agreement on how to keep the government funded. As the Senate moved forward with a stopgap measure to avert a shutdown, far-right members of the House kept on with their plan to pass a series of appropriation bills that wouldn’t actually stop a shutdown. House leaders are hoping that moving forward with these appropriations bills will cajole the hard-right and convince them to back a House-crafted continuing resolution to temporarily fund the government.Finally, the various legal cases against Donald Trump moved forward.
A New York appeals court has denied Trump’s bid to delay a fraud trial set for Monday. This will allow the case to proceed two days after a judge ruled that Trump and his company routinely and repeatedly deceived banks, insurers and others by massively overvaluing assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork. The civil lawsuit is brought by Letitia James, New York’s attorney general.
The federal judge presiding in Donald Trump’s criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results rejected his request that she recuse herself on Wednesday.US district judge Tanya Chutkan ruled that the former president failed to show her previous comments about his role in the January 6 Capitol attack meant she could not be impartial.
– Guardian staffHere’s another sign that the Senate’s efforts to pass a short term measure averting shutdown may not get far …Twenty-seven House Republicans, including the chair of the Freedom Caucus are asking speaker Kevin McCarthy to confirm that he plans to pass 12 individual appropriations bills that hard-right members are pushing before even considering the short term measure.A New York appeals court has denied Donald Trump’s bid to delay a fraud trial set for Monday.This will allow the case to proceed two days after a judge ruled that Trump and his company routinely and repeatedly deceived banks, insurers and others by massively overvaluing assets and exaggerating his net worth on paperwork. The civil lawsuit is brought by Letitia James, New York’s attorney general.James is seeking at least $250m in penalties and a ban on Trump doing business in New York.Speaking to his Democratic Senate colleagues in a private meeting, New Jersey’s Bob Menendez again refused to resign despite his indictment on corruption-related charges last week, CNN reports:Prosecutors have alleged Menendez accepted bribes in the form of cash and gold bars from people connected to the Egyptian government, and more than a dozen Democratic senators have called for him to step down, including New Jersey’s Cory Booker.The decision by Menendez, who pleaded not guilty to the charges on Wednesday, is unlikely to affect the balance of power in the Senate. New Jersey leans Democratic, and while the Democrats control the chamber by a mere two seats, it is unlikely that Menendez would be replaced by a Republican.Republicans keep coming to Jonathan Turley, hoping the George Washington University law professor will offer his opinion on if Joe Biden should be impeached.But while he has said he believes Hunter Biden tried to sell access to his father, he has refused to offer his thoughts on if the president acted improperly.The latest Republican to try was Jim Jordan, who asked, “I want you to elaborate on something you said earlier … you said ‘confirmed corrupt influence peddling operation’. Can you elaborate on what you what you think that entails?”“It’s now in my view, at least largely unassailable, even people that have long been critical of some of the investigations have acknowledged recently, particularly after the Archer interview, that this was an influence peddling effort,” Turley said, referring to an interview with Biden’s former business partner Devon Archer.But Turley declined to go further than that:
Whether it was an illusion or not is part of the task for the inquiry. But it seems to be abundantly clear from these emails and statements, and now sworn testimony, that Hunter Biden, his associates, were selling access to Joe Biden, and the question is whether any of that effort resulted in decisions and changes being made by Joe Biden and also the degree to which he knew of it, directed it, encouraged it. That’s all the subject of an inquiry that has to be determined. It can be disproven or proven, but that’s what lays ahead of you.
“As a former director of emergency management, I know a disaster when I see one,” Democratic congressman Jared Moskowitz said, as he kicked off remarks in which he condemned the impeachment hearing.It’s what you would expect from a Joe Biden ally, but the more worrying aspect for Republicans is that many in their party feel the same way, as Punchbowl News reports:Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the most extreme rightwing House lawmakers, took the hearing deep into conspiracy land by claiming Hunter Biden was engaged in sex trafficking.She then displayed a placard that appeared to show naked bodies, drawing a protest from Democrats.“Our colleague from Georgia has introduced before pornographic exhibits and displayed things that are really not suitable for children who might be watching,” Democratic ranking member Jamie Raskin said. “I would like the member to be instructed to not introduce any pornography today.”“A bathing suit is not pornography,” Greene shot back.“You are submitting a naked woman’s body,” Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said.Greene again insisted she was showing a picture of someone wearing a bathing suit, then asked Ocasi-Cortez, “Glasses, do you wear them or not?”“I have contacts,” the Democrat replied. “Congratulations,” was Greene’s response.Democrat Jasmine Crockett took issue with Republicans’ propensity for using the word “if”.Arguing that the GOP and their three witnesses had spent the hearing dabbling in hypotheticals, she asked Democratic witness Michael J. Gerhardt how many times they’d said “if”.Gerhardt replied that he’d been keeping a tally, and the GOP has used the word 35 times.“Thank you so much for that because, honestly, if they would continue to say if or Hunter and we were playing a drinking game, I would be drunk by now,” Crockett said.After a lengthy speech in which he referred to the impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden as a “disgrace,” Democrat Greg Casar declared, “It is my firm belief that Hunter and Trump should both face trial and, if guilty, be held accountable for the crimes they’ve been accused of.”Then he asked committee members to raise their hands if they agree. “Please raise your hand if you believe both Hunter and Trump should be held accountable for any of the indictments against them, if convicted by a jury of their peers,” Casar said.Democrats held their hands high, but few, if any, Republicans did the same.“I think it is worse than embarrassing that Republicans won’t raise their hands. They refuse to say that equal justice under the law should apply to everyone,” Casar said.“This double standard insults the institutions of Congress that people fought and died to build. This impeachment hearing clearly is not about justice. We cannot say equal justice under the law for everyone, except for the guy who holds the leash.”Throughout the House oversight committee’s impeachment hearing, which just resumed, the White House has repeatedly sent reporters this statement.So far, the Guardian has received the statement nine times, and each message has been essentially the same, with one exception: the time to the government’s funding expiring keeps counting down.In the most recent message, we are 57 hours and 55 minutes away.The House oversight committee’s impeachment hearing is now taking a short break, so let’s tune into the Senate, which just voted to begin debate on a measure that would fund the federal government till 17 November, and prevent the shutdown that will otherwise begin on Sunday:However, House speaker Kevin McCarthy said yesterday he would not consider the legislation, assuming the Senate approves it, instead opting to move ahead with passing longer-term funding measures. The problem with McCarthy’s strategy is it does not appear to be sufficient to stop the government from shutting down, and the bills will likely take time to be approved by both chambers of Congress.Reports are emerging that Republicans are not happy with how the first hearing of Joe Biden’s impeachment inquiry has gone today. The party’s operatives are dissatisfied with their three witnesses, who refused to definitively say the president broke the law, as well as oversight committee chair James Comer’s management of the session.Here’s more, from CNN and the Messenger: More

Questioning witnesses in the first impeachment hearing staged by House Republicans, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez prompted each to say they were not presenting “firsthand witness accounts” of crimes committed by Joe Biden.The New York Democrat also accused Republicans of fabricating supposed evidence of corruption involving the president and his surviving son, Hunter Biden.Republicans on the House oversight committee called three witnesses, Democrats one.Ocasio-Cortez questioned the Republican witnesses first.Turning to Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University and well-known conservative commentator, she said: “In your testimony today, are you presenting any firsthand witness account of crimes committed by the president of the United States?”“No, I’m not,” said Turley, who had already made headlines by saying he did “not believe that the current evidence would support articles of impeachment”.Ocasio-Cortez asked the same question of Eileen O’Connor, a former assistant attorney general in the justice department tax division who worked for Donald Trump’s transition team and is a member of the rightwing Federalist Society.“No, I’m not,” said O’Connor, who was also called out during the hearing for omitting the word “Hunter” when referring to the title of a piece she wrote for the Wall Street Journal in July, namely: “You’d go to prison for what Hunter Biden did.”Ocasio-Cortez asked the same question of Bruce Dubinsky, a forensic accountant:“As the third and final Republican witness in this hearing, have you in your testimony presented any firsthand witness account of crimes committed by the president of the United States?”“I have not,” he said.Ocasio-Cortez said she would “assume the same” of the sole witness called by Democrats, Michael J Gerhardt, a University of North Carolina law professor.He said: “I’m not a fact witness. Correct.”Widely known as AOC, the congresswoman has a passionate following among progressives and an equally passionate legion of haters among conservatives. Her questioning duly made a splash on social media.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTurning to an item of actual evidence presented by Republicans, she accused them of making it up.Referring to Byron Donalds, she said: “Earlier today, one of our colleagues, the gentleman from Florida, presented up on the screen something that … appeared to be a screenshot of a text message containing or insinuating an explosive allegation.“That screenshot of what appeared to be a text message was a fabricated image.”Donalds showed text messages he claimed indicated that Hunter Biden engaged in fraud and money laundering, to the benefit of his father.“I don’t know where it came from,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “I don’t know if it was the staff of the committee, but it was not the actual direct screenshot from that phone.”She added: “What was brought out from that fabricated image excluded critical context that changed the underlying meaning and allegation that was presented up on that screen, by this committee and by members of this committee.”Ocasio-Cortez also noted that only the witnesses in the hearing were under oath and therefore bound to tell the truth. In contrast, members of Congress could say whatever they wanted. More