US Politics

One day after the largest climate march since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, hundreds of climate activists blockaded the Federal Reserve Bank in New York to call for an end to funding for coal, oil and gas, with police making scores of arrests.“Fossil fuel companies … wouldn’t be able to operate without money, and that money is coming primarily from Wall Street,” Alicé Nascimento, environmental campaigns director at New York Communities for Change, said hours before she was arrested.The action came as world leaders began arriving in New York for the United National general assembly (UNGA) gathering and followed Sunday’s 75,000-person March to End Fossil Fuels, which focused on pushing Biden to urgently phase out fossil fuels. Monday’s civil disobedience had a different but compatible goal, said Renata Pumarol, an organizer with the campaign group Climate Defenders.“Today we want to make sure people know banks, big banks, are responsible for climate change, too,” she said. “And while marches are important, we think civil disobedience is, too, because it shows we’re willing to do whatever it takes to end fossil fuels, including putting ourselves on the line.”Monday’s action was organized by a coalition of local organizations including New York Communities for Change and Extinction Rebellion NYC, alongside national groups such as Climate Organizing Hub and 350.org. Demonstrators first gathered in New York’s Zuccotti Park, in the financial district in lower Manhattan, which is partially owned by fossil fuel investor Goldman Sachs.The small concrete urban space was the base for the original Occupy Wall Street protests 12 years ago.On Monday, demonstrators then marched in the rain to the nearby New York Federal Reserve building, the largest of the network of 12 federal banks dotted around the country that make up the central bank of the United States.Protesters blockaded multiple entrances into the bank while singing, beating drums and holding up signs. Over 100 people were arrested, according to the New York City Office of the Deputy Commissioner for Public Information, with organizers estimating that roughly 150 arrests were made.“If you arrest one of us, one hundred more will come,” activists chanted.The protesters called attention to both public and private fossil fuel financing. Globally, government subsidies for coal, oil and gas reached a record high of $13m per minute in 2022 last year – equivalent to 7% of global GDP and almost double what the world spends on education – according to the International Monetary Fund.Last year, the US also ranked 16th among the G20 countries on a scorecard by the independent economic research group Green Central Banking, which the researchers say indicates US financial regulators are falling behind their international peers on climate risk mitigation.Meanwhile, since the signing of the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, major private banks have provided some $3.2tn to the fossil fuel industry to expand operations, far outstripping the amount that global north governments have collectively spent on international climate finance, an analysis from ActionAid, the Washington DC-based non-profit, found this month. Another recent analysis from the Sierra Club environmental group found that major global banks have announced climate pledges but nonetheless financed coal energy across the US.Monday’s action came after a slew of global protests last week, some of which targeted financial institutions. In New York, dozens rallied outside of the headquarters for asset manager BlackRock and Citibank on Wednesday and Thursday respectively, to call attention to both firms’ investments in fossil fuels. And on Friday, protesters targeted the Museum of Modern Art over its relationship to fossil fuel investor KKR.Another protest is planned for Tuesday at New York City’s Bank of America offices, with additional actions throughout the week as the United Nations hosts its Climate Ambition Summit as part of the UNGA. More

From 1h agoFive detained Americans and two of their family members have been allowed to leave Iran and are on their way back to the United States after the Biden administration reached a deal in which Washington freed five jailed Iranians and allowed Tehran to access $6b in oil revenue, but only for humanitarian purposes. The agreement comes as the United Nations general assembly kicks off in New York, but it’s too soon to say if the deal between the two archenemy nations will lead to further negotiations down the road.Here’s what else happened today:
Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi described the release of the Americans as “purely a humanitarian action”.
Joe Biden held what the White House described as “an emotional call” with the freed Americans as they traveled back to the United States.
Michael McCaul, the Republican leader of the House foreign affairs committee, worried the deal would incentivize “future hostage-taking” and “free up funds for Iran’s malign activities.”
Siamak Namazi, an Iranian-American businessman, credited “all of you who didn’t allow the world to forget me” for his release.
Hunter Biden sued the IRS, arguing that the tax authority broke the law by failing to protect his privacy when two agents went public with claims of political meddling in their investigation.
You can read our latest full report here:Our diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour has written about how this deal may signal new direction in western diplomacy:In a statement, Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House foreign affairs committee, welcomed the release of the five Americans from Iranian custody, but criticized the Biden administration for allowing Tehran to access $6b in oil revenue:
I am immensely relieved that five Americans held hostage by Iran are finally reunited with their families and on their way home. I wish them peace, strength, and health as they rebuild their lives in freedom.
I am very concerned that this $6 billion hostage deal incentivizes future hostage-taking. Even though the Administration claims these funds are limited to humanitarian transactions, we all know that transactions are difficult to monitor and that money is fungible. There is no question this deal will free up funds for Iran’s malign activities.
Republicans have generally called for harsh measures against Tehran, and during his presidency, Donald Trump went as far as to authorize a drone strike that killed top Iranian general Qassem Suleimani in 2020. Democrats, meanwhile, have tried to find common ground where they can with Iran, such as the 2015 deal Barack Obama reached to curb its nuclear weapons program – which Trump announced the US would withdraw from in 2018.In domestic political news, NBC News reports that the far-right Republican troublemaker Matt Gaetz is highly likely – in the estimation of one source, “100% in” – to run for governor in Florida in 2026.By then, the current hard-right Republican governor, the presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, will either be in the White House or at the end of his two-term time in state office.On Monday, NBC quoted one “longtime Florida Republican lobbyist” as saying that at a reception in Tallahassee on Sunday, “there was a lot of talk about it … and Gaetz was telling people to basically expect him to be in”.Another “Florida Republican operative” was quoted as saying: “He’s 100% in. I think Gaetz is an instant frontrunner and from what I hear he’s already won the Trump primary”, meaning Donald Trump’s endorsement.Gaetz, 41, told NBC: “Many did encourage me to consider running for governor one day.”He also aimed a dig at DeSantis, saying: “But we have an outstanding governor who will be in that position through 2026.”Gaetz’s “only political focus right now”, he added – other than opposing almost everything Kevin McCarthy does as US House speaker, including proposing ways to fund the federal government – “is Trump 2024”.Some further reading:The Iranian nationals who were released in a prisoner swap with the United States have landed in Tehran, state-run PressTV reports:Reuters reports that the two individuals arriving in Iran after transiting Qatar are Mehrdad Moin-Ansari and Reza Sarhangpour-Kafrani. Another two Iranians released by the United States will stay in the country, while a fifth will go to an undisclosed country to join his family.The White House announced that Joe Biden this morning “held an emotional call with the families of the seven American citizens who are returning home to the United States from Iran.”“Each family member who joined the call spoke with the president,” it added in a statement, which also confirmed the group had departed Doha, Qatar for the United States.The five Americans released by Iran today in a prisoner swap have departed Doha, Qatar for the United States, Reuters reports, citing a source familiar with the matter.Qatar helped broker the deal between the two archenemy nations, and the group of former detainees along with two American family members that had been prevented from leaving Iran were flown earlier today from Tehran to the Gulf nation.World leaders meeting at the United Nations in New York on Monday warned of the peril the world faces unless it acts with urgency to rescue a set of 2030 development goals to wipe out hunger and extreme poverty and to battle climate change, Reuters reports.The news agency further writes:
Their declaration, adopted by consensus at a summit before the annual U.N. General Assembly, embraces a 2015 “to-do” list of 17 Sustainable Development Goals that also include water, energy, reducing inequality and achieving gender equality.“The achievement of the SDGs is in peril,” the declaration reads. “We are alarmed that the progress on most of the SDGs is either moving much too slowly or has regressed below the 2015 baseline.”U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the summit of leaders that only 15% of the targets are on track and that many are going in reverse.Earlier this month, Guterres called on G20 leaders to ensure a stimulus of at least $500 billion per year towards meeting the goals. He called on countries to act now.The leaders are meeting in the shadow of geopolitical tensions – largely fueled by the war in Ukraine – as Russia and China vie with the United States and Europe to win over developing countries, where achieving the Sustainable Development Goals are key.“Instead of leaving no one behind, we risk leaving the SDGs behind … the SDGs need a global rescue plan,” Guterres told the summit.The U.N. said this month that there are 745 million more moderately to severely hungry people in the world today than in 2015, and the world is far off track in its efforts to meet the ambitious United Nations goal to end hunger by 2030.
The United Nations General Assembly is getting underway in New York with world leaders flying in and the biggest leaders getting ready to deliver their headline speeches tomorrow.Joe Biden has already traveled north and has a couple of Democratic fundraising events this evening in the Big Apple.Tomorrow, the US president will speak at the UN headquarters, following the major opening address by the UN secretary general António Guterres. Guterres will be followed by Brazil’s Lula and then Biden. We expect Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who appeared by video link last year but is attending in person this year, to make his speech around noon local time at a crucial time in the counteroffensive against Russia’s invasion 1.5 years ago.The Ukraine war will be the dominant topic, especially in the absence of Russia and China’s leaders.But Reuters adds:
With the world on track to break the record for the hottest year in history, world leaders, business leaders, celebrities and activists have converged on midtown Manhattan for Climate Week and the U.N.’s Climate Action Summit, again focusing the world’s attention on the climate crisis. The annual climate gathering coincides with the start of the United Nations General Assembly, bringing heads of state and top government officials together with private-sector leaders to focus on climate change in a year marked by a record number of billion-dollar disasters, including eight severe floods.The main event will take place Wednesday when Guterres will host his own Climate Action Summit, a high-profile event meant to reverse backsliding on Paris climate agreement goals and to encourage governments to adopt serious new actions to combat climate change.“There is lingering doubt that … we can meet our climate goals. There is too much backtracking; so we’re really hoping that this summit can be used as a moment to inspire people,” Selwin Hart, special adviser on climate to the secretary-general, said in an interview.
The five Americans freed from imprisonment in Iran are now on a flight bound for the US, Reuters reports.Citing an unnamed source, the news agency just reported that an aircraft has departed Doha, the capital of Qatar, where the Americans had been taken as an interim stage, en route for the States.Five detained Americans and two of their family members have been allowed to leave Iran, in a deal with the Biden administration that saw Washington release five jailed Iranians and $6b in oil proceeds, which Tehran can only spend on humanitarian supplies. The agreement comes as the United Nations general assembly kicks off in New York, but it’s too soon to say if the agreement between the two archenemy nations will lead to further negotiations down the road.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi described the release of the Americans as “purely a humanitarian action”.
Siamak Namazi, an Iranian-American businessman, credited “all of you who didn’t allow the world to forget me” for his release.
Hunter Biden sued the IRS, arguing that the tax authority broke the law by failing to protect his privacy when two agents went public with claims of political meddling in their investigation.
Businessman Siamak Namazi said in a statement released on his behalf, “I would not be free today, if it wasn’t for all of you who didn’t allow the world to forget me,” the Associated Press reports.Namazi was among the five Americans released by Iran today in exchange for the freeing of five Iranians detained in the United States and access to $6b in money from oil sales Tehran can spend only on humanitarian supplies.Namazi continued:
Thank you for being my voice when I could not speak for myself and for making sure I was heard when I mustered the strength to scream from behind the impenetrable walls of Evin Prison.”
A dual US-Iranian national, Namazi was detained in 2015 while visiting family in Tehran. Months later, his father, Baquer, was detained when he came to visit him in jail, before being released in 2022.Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the United Nations general assembly in New York, Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi cast Tehran’s release of five Americans as “a humanitarian action”, and hinted that similar deals could be possible, Reuters reports.“This was purely a humanitarian action … And it can certainly be a step based upon which in the future other humanitarian actions can be taken,” the Iranian leader, who was elected in 2021, told reporters.In his remarks to reporters, secretary of state Antony Blinken said seven, not five, Americans had been released by Iran.Blinken included in that number two Americans who had been prevented from leaving the country.“Just a few minutes ago, I had the great pleasure of speaking to seven Americans who are now free, free from their imprisonment or detention in Iran, out of Iran, out of prison, and now in Doha enroute back to the United States, to be reunited with their loved ones,” Blinken said.“Five of the seven, of course, had been unjustly detained, imprisoned in Iran, some for years. Two others had been prevented from leaving Iran.”In a briefing to reporters, secretary of state Antony Blinken said the $6bn in money from oil sales released to Iran can only be used to buy humanitarian supplies: More

Democratic congresswoman Jennifer Wexton said on Monday that she will finish out her term but not seek re-election for the northern Virginia-based seat that she has held since beating a Republican incumbent in 2018.Wexton, who was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease earlier this year, said in a statement that her doctor had “modified my diagnosis to supra-nuclear Palsy”. She described it as a “kind of ‘Parkinson’s on steroids’”.The congresswoman, who is 55, added that she was “heartbroken to have to give up something I have loved after so many years of serving my community”. But she said that taking her prognosis for the coming years into consideration had prompted her to decide “not to seek re-election once my term is complete”.Wexton was part of a new influx of Democrats to Congress that helped flip control of the body midway through Donald Trump’s presidency. Before being elected to Virginia’s 10th district, an area that includes the western Washington DC suburbs of Leesburg and Loudoun county through Fauquier county, Wexton was a member of the state’s senate, a judge and a prosecutor.In 2022, she won re-election by more than 6%.Wexton said that she had not been making as much progress as she had hoped with what was then believed to Parkinson’s. Her new diagnosis – progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) – is caused by damage to nerve cells in areas of the brain that control thinking and body movements.The National Institutes of Health report that most people with PSP develop eye problems as the condition progresses, and they tend to lean backwards as well as extend their necks. People with Parkinson’s tend to bend forward rather than backwards.The Washington Post reported that Weston had told her staff of her condition: “It’s not OK. It’s not OK at all … I’m going to die, which isn’t fair.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWexton’s statement said she wanted to spend her “valued time” with her family and friends. She said that until her term in office ends she is “confident and committed as ever to keep up the work that got me into this fight in the first place”. More

Donald Trump has long attacked Joe Biden, his likely opponent at the polls next year, as “Sleepy Joe”, portraying the 80-year-old president as too old and too mentally fogged to occupy the Oval Office. As recently as Friday, the former president attacked his successor for being unfit to deal with Russia and the threat of nuclear war.But Trump’s tactics rebounded when he said Biden threatened to lead the US into “world war two” – and suggested that he, Trump, thought he had beaten Barack Obama for the presidency back in 2016.There have been two world wars. The first ended in 1918, the second in 1945. The cold war, the nuclear stand-off between the US and the Soviet Union that often threatened a third world war, ended with the fall of the communist regime in Moscow in 1991.Obama was president, and Biden vice-president, from 2009 to 2017. In the 2016 election, Trump beat Hillary Clinton.Mockery of Trump’s stumbles was immediate and sustained. But it also pointed to an increasingly stark issue on both sides of the aisle: the advanced age of many American leaders, and polling that shows most voters want generational change.At 80, Biden is the oldest president ever. Should he win re-election and serve a full term, he will be 86 on leaving office. Polling has shown more than 75% of Americans think he is too old for a second term.Trump is 77 but polls show significantly fewer voters think he is too old to return to power. Whether gaffes like those he made in Washington move the needle remains, of course, to be seen.Addressing the Pray, Vote, Stand summit, a rightwing event, Trump said Biden was “cognitively impaired, in no condition to lead and … now in charge of dealing with Russia and possible nuclear war”.Under Biden, he added: “We would be in world war two.”On Monday, the MSNBC host Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman, laughed as he said: “It’s almost like it’s the summer of 1939 all over again. You know, [Trump’s] father’s going to a Nazi rally or something, or a Klan rally. I don’t know which rally he did or didn’t go to.”Trump’s father, Fred Trump, was arrested after a Klan riot in Queens, New York, in 1927. Donald Trump has reportedly expressed sympathy for Nazism and Adolf Hitler.“But yeah,” Scarborough said. “You think they may want to take out the ‘cognitively impaired’ part of his speeches from now on.”Jonathan Lemire, his fellow host, said: “That’s an attack line the Republicans and Trump love to use [against Biden] but, man, that does seem like he was looking in the mirror just there.“I mean … we see these polls that suggest that voters are more concerned about President Biden’s age than Donald Trump’s age. Trump is only three years younger and anyone watching Trump day in, day out says he’s changed too.”Biden says he is fit to serve. So does Trump, telling NBC in an interview broadcast on Sunday “there should be a competency” test for presidents, of the sort he “aced” while in the White House. That prompted memories of previous national mirth, when in summer 2020 Trump, then 74, bragged about successfully recognising “person, woman, man, camera, TV” in a cognitive exam.But, again, the issue remains a serious one.Democrats protest that disproportionate attention is paid to Biden’s age than that of Trump. Last week, Chuck Rocha, a Democratic strategist, told CBS News: “Joe Biden is getting older, we all know that. But the other guy he’s probably going to be running against is getting older, too. And in the focus groups that I’m doing, old and steady still beats old and crazy.”Nonetheless, on Sunday, a new poll from CBS and YouGov said only 34% of voters thought Biden would complete a second term if elected. Asked the same question about Trump, 55% said they thought he would complete a full four years.Asked if the two men had the necessary mental and cognitive health to be president, 26% said only Biden did, 44% said only Trump did and 23% said neither did.Ninety-one criminal charges and assorted civil lawsuits notwithstanding, Trump leads Republican polling by wide margins. His challengers have made age and cognitive ability an issue but such is Trump’s dominance, they have mostly directed their fire at Biden.Ron DeSantis, the hard-right Florida governor who is a distant second to Trump, said last week age was “absolutely a legitimate concern” when electing a president.“The presidency’s not a job for someone that’s 80 years old,” DeSantis told CBS.He did not say if he thought the same about someone who was 77, and who the former Republican party chair Michael Steele called a “dumbass”, over his Washington remarks.But DeSantis added: “Obviously, I’m the governor of Florida, I know a lot of people who are elderly, they’re great people, but you’re talking about a job where you need to give it 100%, we need an energetic president.”Concern about the age of many US party leaders has spread beyond the presidency, particularly given public health scares suffered by Mitch McConnell, the 81-year-old Republican leader in the Senate, and Dianne Feinstein, the 90-year-old Democratic senator from California.DeSantis said: “I think that if the founders could kind of look at this again, I do think they probably would’ve put an age limit on some of these offices.” More

Hunter Biden sued the US Internal Revenue Service on Monday, alleging the agency violated his privacy rights as it investigated his tax affairs.The business career of the US president’s son is at the centre of Republican attempts to impeach Joe Biden over unsubstantiated allegations of corruption.Hunter Biden faces criminal charges regarding his tax affairs and a purchase of a gun. In his lawsuit against the IRS, filed in US district court in Washington DC, he said “whistleblower” agents disclosed information that should have remained private.“IRS agents have targeted and sought to embarrass Mr Biden via public statements to the media in which they and their representatives disclosed confidential information about a private citizen’s tax matters,” the suit said.It also described an “assault on Mr Biden’s rights involv[ing] the public disclosure of his confidential tax information during more than 20 nationally televised and non-congressionally sanctioned interviews and numerous public statements”.The suit added: “No government agency or government agent has free rein to violate his rights simply because of who [Hunter Biden] is.”Biden is seeking $1,000 in damages “for each and every unauthorised disclosure of his tax return information”, as well as costs and attorney fees.In testimony before Congress, an IRS supervisory special agent, Greg Shapley, and a second agent, Joe Ziegler, claimed a pattern of “slow-walking investigative steps” into Hunter Biden. They alleged the prosecutor overseeing the investigation, the Delaware US attorney, David Weiss, did not have full authority to bring charges in other jurisdictions. Weiss and the US justice department have denied that.On Monday, Shapley’s lawyer called Hunter Biden’s lawsuit a “frivolous smear” that sought to “intimidate any current and future whistleblowers”, adding that Shapley did not release confidential tax information except through legal whistleblower disclosures.“Once Congress released that testimony, like every American citizen, he has a right to discuss that public information,” a statement said.Ziegler’s lawyer said he would “continue to speak out” about what he considers “special treatment” for Hunter Biden.The Republican-controlled House oversight committee called Shapley and Ziegler “good people who did everything right to obtain whistleblower protection with the best interest of our country in mind”.The IRS declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.Last week, Hunter Biden was indicted on charges relating to a gun purchase initially covered, with tax charges, by a plea deal which fell apart earlier this year. Biden is now reportedly set to face new tax charges from Weiss, who is now working as a special counsel, with a high degree of independence from justice department leadership.Also on Monday, in a letter to Jason Smith, the Republican chair of the House ways and means committee, reported by the Washington Post, the Biden lawyer Abbe Lowell said accountants now believed Biden was in fact owed a refund, for “overpayments of tax”.The Republican impeachment effort is doomed to fail, given Democratic control of the Senate – and given the paucity of evidence unearthed. Nonetheless, the White House is fiercely pushing back.On Monday, the White House impeachment war room pointed reporters to a Washington Post column by Ken Buck of Colorado, a conservative impeachment skeptic; a “comical Freudian slip” by Mike McCaul of Texas, the House foreign affairs chair who told Fox News “we don’t have the evidence now but we may find it later”; a New York Times report that said Republicans’ own witnesses “have undercut or pushed back against some of their major claims”; and a link between James Comer of Kentucky, the House oversight chair, and a promoter of the QAnon conspiracy theory.But the Post also pointed to the strength of the Republican drive to link the president with his son in the public eye, when it profiled Garrett Ziegler, a 27-year-old Trump White House staffer turned “scorched-earth activist trying to take down Hunter Biden”.Ziegler, the Post said, “is at the vanguard of a sprawling network of Biden antagonists, from rightwing media organisations to congressional leaders to [pro-Trump, Make America Great Again] activists, that is focused intensely on the president’s son.“They see Hunter Biden’s activities as his father’s biggest political vulnerability, a conclusion reflected in the House GOP’s recent decision to launch an impeachment inquiry.”The Associated Press contributed reporting More

In an ordinary time, under ordinary political conditions, the specter of another Trump presidency would be strictly the stuff of nightmares. The former president is facing 40 criminal charges for his mishandling of classified documents, and will have to interrupt his campaign next summer to defend himself in court. Those charges are apart from the 34 felony counts of falsifying business records he faces in New York. And then there’s the rape defamation lawsuit, which will begin in January, and which he will almost certainly lose.The American people, however, can be awfully forgiving. In current polling, Joe Biden and Donald Trump are tied nationally; no Republican nominee has emerged to challenge Trump. But, as we have been learning pretty much continuously since 2000, the will of the majority of the American people no longer matters all that much in who is running their country.The abstruse and elaborate mechanisms of the US constitution relating to elections, which used to be matters for historical curiosity, have become more and more relevant every year. In 2024, there is very much a way for Donald Trump to lose the popular vote, lose the electoral college, lose all his legal cases and still end up president of the United States in an entirely legal manner. It’s called a contingent election.A contingent election is the process put in place to deal with the eventuality in which no presidential candidate reaches the threshold of 270 votes in the electoral college. In the early days of the American republic, when the duopoly of the two-party system was neither desired nor expected, this process was essential.There have been two contingent elections in US history. The first was in 1825. The year before, Andrew Jackson, the man from the $20 bill, had won the plurality of votes and the plurality of electoral college votes as well, but after extensive, elaborate negotiations, John Quincy Adams took the presidency mostly by offering Henry Clay, who had come third in the election, secretary of state. Jackson, though shocked, conceded gracefully. He knew his time would come. His supporters used the taint of Adams’s “corrupt bargain” with Clay to ensure Jackson’s victory in 1828.Jackson was a patriot. He put the country’s interests ahead of his own, to preserve the young republic. The United States is older now, and the notion of leaders who would put the interests of the country ahead of themselves and their party is archaic. The 2022 midterms were unprecedented in terms of how many election deniers were appointed to serious office.“Many 2020 election deniers and skeptics ran for office in the 2022 midterm elections, with 229 candidates winning their elections,” a University of California report found. “A total of 40 states elected a 2020 election denier or skeptic to various positions, from governor to secretary of state to attorney general to congress.”The American people are already disinclined to believe in the legitimacy of any election that doesn’t conform to their own desired outcome any more, left or right. In 2016, at the inauguration of Donald Trump, the crowds chanted “not my president”. As of August, the percentage of Republicans who think that 2020 was stolen is near 70%.So the possibility of the electoral college releasing a confusing result, or being unable to certify a satisfying result by two months after the election, is quite real. The electoral college, even at its best, is an arcane system, unworthy of a 21st-century country. There have been, up to 2020, 165 faithless electors in American history – electors who didn’t vote for the candidate they had pledged to vote for.In 1836, Virginia faithless electors forced a contingent election for vice-president. If the 270 marker has not been reached by 6 January, the contingent election takes place automatically. And the contingent election isn’t decided by the popular votes or the number of electoral college votes. Each state delegation in the House of Representatives is given a single vote for president. Each state delegation in the Senate is given a single vote for vice-president.The basic unfairness of this process is obvious: California with its 52 representatives, and Texas with its 38 representatives, would have the same say in determining the presidency as Wyoming and Vermont, which have one apiece. State delegations in the House would favor Republicans as a matter of course. In the struggle for congressional delegates, Republicans would have 19 safe House delegations and the Democrats would have 14, as it stands, with more states leaning Republican than Democrat.All that would be required, from a technical, legal standpoint, is for enough electoral college votes to be uncounted or uncertified for the contingent election to take place, virtually guaranteeing a Republican victory and hence a Trump presidency. It would be entirely legal and constitutional. It just wouldn’t be recognizably democratic to anyone. Remember that autocracies have elections. It doesn’t matter who votes. It matters who counts.In 2021, I published a book about American political decline, The Next Civil War, which examined the structural crises underlying the collapse of the American political order, but I didn’t include a chapter on the electoral system because it seemed too far-fetched, the stuff of historical figments. Those deep structural crises are now, rapidly, overtaking the electoral system itself. A contingent election would be, in effect, the last election, which is the title of the new book I co-wrote with Andrew Yang about exactly that possibility. The rot is advancing faster than anybody could have imagined. Figments from history are now hints to the future.Polls aren’t worth much at the best of times but this year they are particularly meaningless. Democrats have taken comfort from a recent New York Times/Siena College poll that showed how the Republican advantage in the electoral college, which was 2.9% in 2016, rising to 3.8% in 2020, has diminished to less than a single percentage point, according to the most recent data. None of it matters.The real danger of 2024 isn’t even the possibility of a Trump presidency. It’s that the electoral system, in its arcane decrepitude, will produce an outcome that won’t be credible to anybody. The danger of 2024 is that it will be the last election.
Stephen Marche is a Canadian essayist and novelist. He is the author of The Next Civil War and How Shakespeare Changed Everything More

With a possible partial US government shutdown looming in two weeks, Kevin McCarthy on Sunday said he would bring a defense spending bill to a vote “win or lose” this week, despite resistance from hardline fellow Republicans.The House speaker is struggling to bring fiscal 2024 spending legislation to the floor, with Republicans fractured by conservative demands for spending to be cut to a 2022 level of $1.47tn – $120bn below the spending on which McCarthy agreed with Joe Biden in May.Late on Sunday, members of the hardline House Freedom Caucus and the more moderate Main Street Caucus announced a deal on a short-term stopgap bill to keep the government open until 31 October, but with a spending cut of more than 8% on agencies apart from the defense and veterans affairs departments.The measure, which is unlikely to become law, also includes conservative restrictions on immigration and the US border with Mexico.Republicans have said that such a deal could allow the House to move forward on the defense spending bill this week.But it was unclear whether the measure had sufficient Republican support to pass the chamber. The spending cuts were also likely to draw opposition from Democrats in the House and Senate, who reject the immigration provisions.Republicans hold a narrow 221-212 majority in the chamber as they bicker over spending and pursue a new impeachment drive against Joe Biden while the United States faces a possible fourth partial government shutdown in a decade.McCarthy has begun to face calls for floor action seeking his ouster from hardline conservatives and others who have accused him of failing to keep promises he made to become speaker in January after a revolt from some of the most conservative Republicans in the House.The Republican-controlled House and Democratic-led Senate have until 1 October to avoid a partial shutdown by enacting appropriations bills that Biden, a Democrat, can sign into law, or by passing a short-term stopgap spending measure to give lawmakers more time for debate.McCarthy signaled a tougher stand with hardliners, telling the Fox News Sunday Morning Futures program that he would bring the stalled defense bill to the floor this week. The House last week postponed a vote on beginning debate on the defense appropriations bill due to opposition from the hardliners.“We’ll bring it to the floor, win or lose, and show the American public who’s for the department of defense, who’s for our military,” McCarthy said.McCarthy also said he wants to make sure there is no shutdown on 1 October, saying: “A shutdown would only give strength to the Democrats.”McCarthy has held closed-door discussions over the weekend aimed at overcoming a roadblock by the conservative hardliners to spending legislation. They want assurances that legislation will include their deep spending cuts, as well as conservative policy priorities including provisions related to tighter border security that are unlikely to secure Democratic votes.“We made some good progress,” McCarthy said.Elise Stefanik, the number four House Republican, told the Fox News Sunday program that she was optimistic about moving forward on appropriations after closed-door discussions.But Republican representative Nancy Mace told ABC’s This Week that she expects a shutdown and did not rule out support for a vote to oust McCarthy’s ouster. Mace complained that the speaker has not made good on promises to her involving action on women’s issues and gun violence.“Everything’s on the table at this point for me,” Mace said.Mace played down the consequences of a shutdown, saying much of the government would remain in operation and that the hiatus would give government workers time off with back pay at a later date.Democratic former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said a shutdown would risk harming the most vulnerable members of society who depend on government assistance.“We’re talking about diminishing even something as simple and fundamental as feeding the children,” Pelosi told MSNBC. “We have to try to avoid it.“ More

The US and Iran are expected to pull off a controversial prisoner swap on Monday involving the unfreezing by the Biden administration of $6bn (£4.8bn) of Iranian oil money held in South Korea since 2018.Tehran and Washington are due to swap five prisoners each, including the conservationist Morad Tahbaz, a British-American citizen.In an elaborate and delicate diplomatic deal, months in the making, the five Americans are due to be flown from Tehran to Qatar before transferring to flights to Washington.Republicans and some former Iranian political detainees have accused Joe Biden of striking a deal with the world’s No 1 terrorist state that will only encourage Iran to keep hostage taking as a central part of its diplomatic arsenal. The state department says the money that is being released is Iranian-owned oil money frozen by the Trump administration in 2018 when the US left the Iran nuclear deal.Last week three European countries including the UK accused Iran of building stocks of highly enriched uranium that could have no possible civilian purpose.The US says the prisoner swap’s mediator, Qatar, will ensure that the unfrozen money is only spent on goods – primarily food, agricultural goods and medicine – that are not subject to sanctions. Critics say it will be impossible to police, and that the US threat to pull out if Iran breaks the agreement is bogus.The path to the swap reached a turning point when the state department agreed a waiver facilitating the release of the cash from South Korean banks to accounts in Switzerland and Doha.The five Americans have already been transferred out of Evin jail in Tehran to various hotels in the capital. They are due to be flown initially to Doha before flying to the US for a homecoming.Tahbaz was left in Iran when the British Iranian dual nationals Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori were released as part of a deal negotiated by the then UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss.The identities of five Iranians that are being granted clemency in the US have all been made public by Tehran. It is not clear that all of them want to return to Iran. Most of them were jailed for breaches of US sanctions.The deal is a coup for Qatar, which has acted as a mediator between two countries that deeply distrust one another. The Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, due to speak to the UN general assembly on Tuesday in New York, is likely to laud the deal as another sign of US weakness.Michael McCaul, the Republican chair of the House foreign affairs committee, has accused Biden of being naive and returning to the mistakes of the past .The Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis described Biden’s decision as outrageous, adding that it “has sent a signal to hostile regimes that if you take Americans, you could potentially profit … A rogue regime should know that if you touch the hair on the head of any American, you will have hell to pay.”Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, has criticised the timing of the release, so close to the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death in Iranian police custody.It is not clear if the deal will lead to a wider diplomatic breakthrough, or a new, less ambitious route to constrain Iran’s civil nuclear programme in which Tehran agrees to lower its stocks of highly enriched uranium.Iranian Americans, whose US citizenship is not recognised by Tehran, are often pawns between the two nations. In the last week there have been reports that three dual nationals were arrested in Iran and it was confirmed two weeks ago for the first time that Johan Floderus, an EU diplomat based in Iran, has been jailed since April 2022. More