US Politics

“This is a very serious investigation,” James Comer, chairman of the US House of Representatives’ oversight committee, told the rightwing channel Newsmax recently. “The allegations and the things that we’re investigating make Watergate look like jaywalking.”The Watergate scandal needed a whistleblower, John Dean, to bring down President Richard Nixon half a century ago. Republican Comer claims that he, too, has a “highly credible” whistleblower who will provide evidence that Joe Biden has been compromised by a foreign power.Such a monumental allegation from such a senior politician would once have been front page news. Even if Republicans were assumed to have partisan motivations, many observers would have begun with the premise that there is no smoke without fire.However, Republicans’ embrace of former president Donald Trump and his bogus conspiracy theories has turned the default response in Washington to one of skepticism. With the identity of the whistleblower still shrouded in mystery, the burden of proof falls on Comer – and he is yet to deliver.Maria Cardona, a Democratic strategist, said: “We should always take the whistleblowers seriously but this committee, at least so far, is cheapening the use of whistleblowers because they keep saying that they have found all this evidence for a whistleblower, and I think they even mentioned they might have more, but where is it?”Comer has previously been rebuked by Democratic colleagues for exaggerating the number of whistleblowers that his investigation has. He took his latest claim to national television earlier this month.Appearing on Hannity on the rightwing Fox News network, he said a whistleblower had provided Congress information raising concerns that, during Biden’s vice- presidency under Barack Obama between 2009 and 2017, he was allegedly engaged in a bribery scheme with a foreign national.He said: “Senator [Chuck] Grassley and I have reviewed this whistleblower disclosure. We find it very credible. We have a lot of questions about whether the FBI even looked into this.”In a fundraising email to supporters, the House oversight committee chairman added: “It is with a heavy heart that I fear our Commander-in-Chief may be compromised by foreign actors, and I’m going to do everything in my power to deliver the whole truth to the American people.”In a letter that used the word “alleged” three times in the opening paragraph, Comer issued a subpoena to FBI director Christopher Wray for a document that, according to the whistleblower, “describes an alleged criminal scheme” involving Biden and a foreign national “relating to the exchange of money for policy decisions” when Biden was vice-president and includes “a precise description” about it.But the FBI this week declined to provide the document. Christopher Dunham, acting assistant director for the FBI’s office of congressional affairs, wrote in a letter to Comer: “The mere existence of such a document would establish little beyond the fact that a confidential human source provided information and the FBI recorded it.“Indeed, the FBI regularly receives information from sources with significant potential biases, motivations, and knowledge, including drug traffickers, members of organized crime, or even terrorists.”Comer has also said he obtained thousands of pages of financial records showing that at least nine members of the Biden family – including the president’s son, Hunter, and brother, James – allegedly exploited the Biden name in their business dealings by accepting money from foreign nationals in China and Romania.The oversight committee chairman followed up with an eagerly hyped press conference this week, stating in an interim report that some Biden family members, associates and their companies received more than $10m from foreign entities between 2015 and 2017.Hunter, a lawyer, received more than $1m from a company controlled by Romanian businessman Gabriel Popoviciu, who was the subject of a criminal investigation and prosecution for corruption in Romania.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBut the financial records showed no evidence that Biden himself acted improperly or took any official action because of his family’s business affairs. Nor, despite the claims of “influence peddling”, did they demonstrate actual wrongdoing by the Biden family. The press conference was widely ignored or panned.David Brock, president of Facts First USA, a non-profit watchdog, said afterwards: “The reality is we don’t even have a scandal here, much less Watergate.”Humiliatingly, Comer was even given a rough ride on Fox News. Host Steve Doocy told the Kentucky congressman: “You don’t actually have any facts to that point. You’ve got some circumstantial evidence. And the other thing is, of all those names, the one person who didn’t profit is that – there’s no evidence that Joe Biden did anything illegally.”Republicans are under pressure to deliver after winning the House majority last year and promising to use their subpoena power to investigate foreign entities that did business with the Biden family, with a specific focus on Hunter.The effort coincides with an imminent decision by federal prosecutors over whether to charge Hunter with tax crimes and lying about his drug use when he bought a handgun.Although Hunter never held a position in the White House, his membership on the board of a Ukrainian energy company and his efforts to strike deals in China have raised questions about whether he traded on his father’s public service, including reported references in his emails to the “big guy”. There are no indications that the federal investigation involves the president in any way.The White House has dismissed his investigation as “yet another political stunt”. Spokesperson Ian Sams said: “Congressman Comer has a history of playing fast and loose with the facts and spreading baseless innuendo while refusing to conduct his so-called ‘investigations’ with legitimacy.”Kyle Herrig, executive director of the Congressional Integrity Project, a watchdog monitoring the Republican investigations, suggests that Comer is abusing the term whistleblower.“If they have a whistleblower that’s what he the public would be interested in but, other than them talking about it, I haven’t seen anything materialise from that,” he said.Comer’s office did not respond to a request for comment or further details. More

After a New York jury found Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing advice columnist E Jean Carroll, sexual violence advocacy groups and experts are having mixed responses to the verdict, particularly in light of Trump’s public attacks against the decision and Carroll, and as top Republicans have rushed to his defense.Despite the verdict and the jury awarding about $5m in compensatory and punitive damages to Carroll, Trump and a handful of Republican lawmakers have remained defiant: a move which sexual violence experts have condemned as risking re-traumatizing survivors.But at the same time they have hailed Carroll’s victory as holding to account one of the most powerful men in the world. As Carroll launched her suit in the wake of the #MeToo movement, the trial has been seen as a validation – not just of her own quest for justice – but of a broader search for accountability for those who have been sexually abused.The symbolism of the jury’s decision was powerful and could be inspirational for others take take action.“This case highlights the importance of opening retrospective windows for survivors to come forward… It elevates how difficult it is to heal and attempt to pursue justice… Sexual violence is a deep trauma that takes time to heal and opening a retrospective window is reflective of that fact,” Tamika Payne, the acting director of the New York State Coalition Against Sexual Assault, told the Guardian.“These windows are just the first step in addressing a realistic timeframe for survivors to come forward,” she added, making a point to note that New York’s recent Adult Survivors Act, which opened a one-year window for survivors whose statute of limitations has expired to file a civil lawsuit, expires in November.Laura Palumbo, a spokesperson for the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, echoed similar sentiments.“We hope [this case] can bring hope to survivors that it is possible for the truth to be heard even years after the assault has happened… Common challenges that we see survivors have…[include]…the way that trauma impacts the brain and how it can affect the level of detail and information they are able to recall about the assault,” Palumbo explained.“It is really impactful to see that a survivor’s story and experience was heard and believed in this way,” she continued.Similarly, America’s largest nonprofit anti-sexual assault organization, the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network said: “We thank E Jean Carroll, who will inspire survivors to come forward to tell their stories and face perpetrators. This case demonstrates that all perpetrators, no matter how powerful, can and will be held accountable.”Anne Coughlin, a law professor at the University of Virginia specializing in criminal law, rape and feminist jurisprudence, hailed the verdict as a victory but also noted the chilling effect that Trump’s response may have on survivors.“One can construe the verdict as a triumph for the rule of law – after a public trial, a jury found one of the most powerful men in the world responsible for sexual assault – and as a vindication of the right of women to be free from forced sex. The verdict sends the message that, contrary to Trump’s remarks on the Access Hollywood tape, celebrity men cannot ‘do anything’ to women,” Coughlin told the Guardian.“But the run-up to the trial, the trial itself, and the aftermath are going to be chilling for survivors… [Carroll] is not the garden-variety survivor…in terms of the amount of support, clout and credibility that she was able to bring to the trial,” she said.“Trump’s intransigence after the verdict, his vile comments about Carroll at the CNN Town Hall, and his supporters’ gleeful rejection of the significance of the verdict – all of these things may send a message to survivors about how costly it is for them to speak up and seek justice,” added Coughlin.Following the verdict, Trump lashed out on his social media platform Truth Social, writing: “I have absolutely no idea who this woman is. This verdict is a disgrace – a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time!”Meanwhile, a handful of Republican lawmakers have thrown their support behind Trump.Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee condemned the verdict as the latest act in the “legal circus” surrounding Trump, telling Fox News: “I think we’ve seen president Trump under attack since before he became president… This has been going on for years. He’s been amazing in his ability to weather these sorts of attacks and the American public has been amazing in their support through it.”Florida senator Marco Rubio said: “That jury’s a joke, the whole case is a joke,” while Oklahoma senator Markwayne Mullin said that he believes it is “very difficult” for Trump to get a fair trial “in any of these liberal states”, Politico reports.Others appeared to dismiss the gravity of the case, with former vice-president Mike Pence saying:, “It’s just one more story focusing on my former running mate that I know is a great fascination to members of the national media, but I just don’t think it’s where the American people are focused.”Sexual advocacy groups have condemned Trump’s denials and his Republican defense, calling them dangerous and belittling to survivors.“To say sexual violence is a horrific crime and we need all these resources, but then for there not to be a similar outrage when the response is how it is, is gaslighting,” Payne told the Guardian.“Any form of sexual violence is the most intrusive, traumatizing violation that a person can experience and to politicize it diminishes the trauma that it is. And is one of the reasons that so many survivors choose not to report, not to seek civil remedies. Their response directly contributes to the stigma and silence that survivors endure,” she said.Similarly, Palumbo criticized the politicization of Carroll’s trial and explained the silencing effect it may have on others.“Even if there are a lot of focal supporters of them or a decision is in their favor, they can face a lot of public criticism, threats of harm…and that has such a silencing effect for other survivors.“When a survivor’s story and experience is politicized in this way, our society takes away their voice and their power,” said Palumbo.“It is very retraumatizing for survivors of sexual assault to hear other survivors be discredited… We as a society have to think about how we are responding to those survivors in public and private ways,” she said.On Thursday, Carroll’s lawyers said that she may sue Trump for a third time after his “disgusting, vile, foul” comments about her on CNN. Meanwhile, Trump’s lawyers have filed an appeal against the $5m judgment awarded to Carroll.With the legal battle between Carroll and Trump showing no signs of winding down anytime soon, Coughlin remains concerned about the efficacy of the law in protecting survivors.In response to a question about what further legal steps should be taken in the case, Coughlin told the Guardian:“This question assumes that law is the institution that can bring about the cultural changes necessary to protect women against sexual violence. Law cannot do that work alone, no way. To be sure, survivors must continue to report and bring cases, and, where appropriate, prosecutors must pursue criminal charges vigorously. But the whole point of the #MeToo movement is that the law has failed and is continuing to fail survivors. And the reactions to the verdict in the Carroll case show that we still have a ways to go.” More

Conservative justices on the US supreme court consciously broke with decades-old congressional rules and norms to shift laws governing religious freedom sharply to the right through a series of shadowy unsigned and unexplained emergency orders, a new book reveals.Five of the six conservatives who now command the majority on the US’s most powerful court have rammed through some of their most contentious and extreme partisan decisions using the so-called “shadow docket” – unsigned orders issued frequently late at night, in literal and metaphorical darkness. The orders do not reveal who voted for them or why, often providing one-line explanations of the legal thinking behind them.The switch from openly argued cases, aired in public, to the unaccountability of the shadow docket was made purposefully during the pandemic in cases dealing with religious liberty, concludes Stephen Vladeck, an authority on the federal courts at the University of Texas law school. He warns that the trend is merging with the current ethics scandals surrounding the conservative justice Clarence Thomas to damage the legitimacy of the court and threaten a full-blown constitutional crisis.Vladeck exposes the largely unnoticed shift towards furtive justice in his new book, The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic. He shows how rightwing justices have abused the court’s emergency powers to run roughshod over the longstanding norm that shadow docket orders should be used sparingly and with extreme caution.Rightwing justices are now deploying such orders dozens of times each term. Over three terms alone, from 2019 to 2022, the court granted emergency relief in more than 60 cases: effectively overturning the considered decisions of lower courts through rushed, unexplained rulings.Among those orders were decisions that have had profound and nationwide impact over some of the most hotly disputed areas of public life, from abortion to immigration, voting rights, the death penalty and religious practices. Many appear to align more closely with Republican political priorities than with legal principles.One such order alone, the decision on the shadow docket to block the Biden administration’s January 2022 requirement that large employers mandate Covid vaccinations for their workforce, affected more than 83 million Americans – about a quarter of the US population.“The rise of the shadow docket reflects a power grab by a court that has, for better or worse, been insulated from any kind of legislative response,” Vladeck writes.The author chronicles how the most disturbing use of the shadow docket came with the rewriting of constitutional protections for religious liberty. The dramatic shift followed the death of the liberal justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her replacement in 2020 with a devout Catholic rightwinger, Amy Coney Barrett.The switch gave the conservative majority sufficient votes to overcome all resistance to ramping up use of the shadow docket, including from the chief justice, John Roberts, who though conservative has expressed mounting unease about the practice.The change in tactics could be seen almost immediately. Within weeks of taking her seat, Barrett joined four other rightwingers – Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh – to drive through a major change in the constitutional understanding of religious liberty, blocking New York state Covid restrictions on the numbers of worshippers allowed to gather in churches.The order was unsigned and gave virtually no explanation for a decision that profoundly changed the law of the land, rolling back government regulations where they touched upon religious practices. It was issued at four minutes before midnight on the day before Thanksgiving – a moment that would guarantee minimal media attention.The ruling was all the more extraordinary as by then New York had scaled back its Covid restrictions and churches no longer had to limit congregation sizes. So the court’s change in the law was moot.The same five rightwing justices went on to impose their will on religious liberty laws with similar late-night one-sentence rulings knocking back state Covid restrictions in California, New Jersey and Colorado. In total, the majority issued emergency injunctions against state Covid rules on religious grounds six times in four months.The sudden spate of shadow docket orders that followed Barrett’s arrival on the court was not accidental, Vladeck says. The justices could have taken up several pending cases in full court that would have addressed the issue of religious freedoms in open hearings on the merits, yet they chose to go the obscure shadow docket route.“Here we have the court not just using emergency applications to change substantive legal principles, but doing so even as they are considering requests to make the same changes through merits decisions,” Vladeck told the Guardian.Vladeck links the rise of the shadow docket to the increasing isolation of the supreme court and its disconnection from public opinion. The growing use of the shadow docket also mirrors the polarisation and toxification of American politics.Vladeck warns that the growing trend towards jurisprudence produced in darkness is endangering the legitimacy of the nation’s most powerful court. Public confidence in the court is already at a historic low, compounded by the recent revelations that Thomas accepted lavish gifts from the Republican billionaire Harlan Crow.“The shadow docket is a symptom of a larger disease,” Vladeck said. “The disease is how unchecked and unaccountable the court is today, compared to any of its predecessors.” More

Crossings at the US border with Mexico have dropped 50% after Title 42 restrictions ended at the end of Thursday and the Biden White House implemented an arguably tougher immigration policy, American homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said on Sunday.Mayorkas’s remarks on Sunday were a defense of the policy which replaced the expired measure that allowed border officials to expel migrants 2.7m times to their home country or Mexico without hearing their asylum claims, ostensibly to limit the spread of Covid-19.Advocates have argued that the new Biden restrictions mimic two Donald Trump-era policies, but Mayorkas defiantly touted the updated measures, saying on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that the “US Border Patrol has experienced a 50% drop in the number of encounters versus what we were experiencing earlier in the week before Title 42 ended”.The rules now bar migrants from asylum if they don’t request refugee status in another country before entering the US. Mayorkas added that, on Friday, border patrol officers had detained 6,300 migrants and about 4,200 on Saturday, down from more than 10,000 “before the end of Title 42 earlier last week”.Mayorkas’s cited reduction in border crossings is what the administration expected when announcing the new asylum restriction. Mayorkas had previously said “the border is not open”, attempting to send a clear message to migrants on the Mexican side. He had also said that those who don’t pursue legal pathways to the US could face a “five-year ban on re-entry and potential criminal prosecution”.The numbers appeared to be an early projection of what could happen in the upcoming weeks and months amid the Biden administration’s new border policy. In some areas at the border such as Texas’s Rio Grande valley, agents apprehended 1,133 migrants, representing a 66% decrease as compared with the highest mark, 3,300, during the last fiscal year in the area, according to chief border patrol agent Gloria Chavez.Nonetheless, there were still signs of the border attracting prospective migrants. More than 1,500 miles (2,400km) west, near the San Ysidro port of entry in California, hundreds of people were sitting on cardboard boxes on a sloping hill between the two barriers that form the border walls.Those people – mostly women and children – were on US soil, just steps away from Tijuana, Mexico, having crossed the actual border between the two countries. But they were stuck in an area between two 30ft (10-meter) walls, waiting at the time to be processed by border patrol. “When we first came out here the first few days, there were maybe 100, 150 – then gradually, it started to increase to 200, 250,” said Robert Vivar, an immigration missioner with the San Diego Episcopal diocese. “On a daily basis, [border patrol agents] come in and go and take women and children for processing.”Friends of Friendship Park Committee members, such as Vivar and Pedro Rios, along with other activists and observers, called it an “open-air detention center”. There were few visible services: just one portable toilet for 400 to 800 people.Activists insisted they have seen an increase in the number of people showing up in the last week. The agency said it had nearly 25,000 migrants in custody on Thursday. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said they would increase the number of beds by several thousand.However, the scene between the border walls was orderly. Children smiled through the thick, rusted bollards at volunteers who handed out crayons and notepads just three days after Mexico celebrated Mother’s Day and one day before the US recognized the holiday.One young boy squeezed a new stuffed animal tightly.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionReligious groups and nonprofits in San Diego have organized an impromptu service site on the Mexican side of the wall that included a charging table for phones handed through the wall, and bins of donations – toilet paper, diapers, sanitary pads, first aid items, clothing and food.There were rows of water bottles lined up in the barrier. Volunteers kept arriving throughout the afternoon: families dropped off donations, high schoolers showed up to hand out food and a minister walked along a stretch of the wall to get individual requests from new arrivals. People who spoke Spanish, French, Arabic and English came to the wall to ask for jackets, warm pants and socks as the sun set and the California desert turned cold.A half mile to the west, border patrol agents monitored a men’s encampment on a windy hill. Volunteers loaded donations, mainly blankets and tarps, on to the agency’s trucks that offered to drive them up to the men’s group. Some of the attendees confirmed to the Guardian that the donations were delivered. Organizers are less certain about where people ended up when the border patrol took groups of 60 to 70 people for processing from either camp.A federal judge in Florida on Friday blocked a Biden policy of expediting the release of some migrants to prevent overcrowding in border patrol facilities. Consequently, the administration asked the judge, Kent Wetherell, to pause his ruling because it could force border patrol agents to decline arrests in order to mitigate the overcrowding conditions.Wetherell denied the Biden administration’s request, dismissing it as “borderline frivolous”. The Biden White House has said it plans to appeal the ruling. More

A Florida teacher under investigation because she showed her class the Disney animated movie Strange World which features a gay character has defended herself on social media, insisting the film related to the curriculum and warning that state investigators were traumatizing her 10- and 11-year-old students.Jenna Barbee, a teacher at Winding Waters school in Hernando county, Florida, released a six-minute TikTok video in which she gave her side of the story. She said she had been reported to the local school board by one of her students’ mother, who sits on the board and was on a “rampage to get rid of every form of representation out of our schools”, Barbee alleged.Barbee, who is in her first year as a teacher, said she was reported to Florida’s state education department for “indoctrination” before anyone had even spoken to her. She is now under official investigation for possible violations of the Parental Rights in Education Act, dubbed the “don’t say gay” law, which was introduced by Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis last year and which bans teaching about gender and sexual identity to school students at all ages.In her TikTok statement, Barbee said she had decided to show Strange World to her fifth grade class to give them a break after a morning of exams. She saw the film as directly relevant to the curriculum they were studying on earth science and ecosystems.She had signed permission slips from the parents of all pupils in the class, giving their approval for showing PG movies.Disney released Strange World last year. The fictional plot centers on a team of explorers searching for a rare plant that provides energy for their society.A central character in the animated film, Ethan Clade, who is played by the comic Jaboukie Young-White, is gay. He has a brief crush on another male character.Barbee said that the sexual orientation of the character had nothing to do with her choice of film: “I have a lot of fifth grade students who have come to me this year, long before showing this movie, talking about how they’re part of [the LGBTQ] community. It’s not a big deal to me. So I just said, OK, awesome, I’m not pushing anything, just being accepting. That’s what I do.”Barbee said that as part of the investigation by the state’s education department, her pupils were now being hauled out of class one by one to be interrogated by officials. Ironically, she added, no parental permission was required.“Do you know the trauma that is going to cause to some of my students?” Barbee said. “Some of them can barely come and have a conversation with me, and are just getting comfortable with me, and now an investigator is allowed to come and interrogate them. Are you kidding me? What is that showing them?”Barbee emphasized that she would never indoctrinate anyone to follow her beliefs. Her aim was to spread “the message of kindness, positivity and compassion for everyone”, she said. “That is the key to the safety of our children.”On Sunday, the Tallahassee Democrat named the parent and board member who had reported Barbee as Shannon Rodriguez. A member of the rightwing group Moms for Liberty, Rodriguez has been a leader of demands to have books she describes as “smut” and “porn” taken off library and school shelves.At a school board meeting last week, Rodriguez reportedly accused Barbee of breaking school policy. “It is not a teacher’s job to impose their beliefs upon a child,” she said. “Allowing movies such as this assist teachers in opening a door for conversations that have no place in our classroom.”Barbee’s predicament left her in the crosshairs of Florida’s culture wars. DeSantis, who is expected to run for the White House in 2024, has put teachers at the centre of his attack on “wokeness”.He has also made Disney a prime target after the entertainment giant opposed his “don’t say gay” legislation. He has tried to strip Disney of its self-governing status in Florida, while the company has countered with a federal lawsuit arguing that their first amendment right to free speech has been violated. More

Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina who is vying for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, has distanced herself from calls for a federal abortion ban, saying that to promise such a universal barrier to terminations would be to lie to the American people.In an interview with CBS News’s Face the Nation on Sunday, Haley declined to follow some of her other potential Republican rivals for the presidency by backing a nationwide ban through congressional legislation. Instead, she said she supported the right of each state to set its own abortion limits.“There are some states that have been pro-life – I welcome that,” she said. “There are some states that have erred on the side of abortion – I wish that wasn’t the case. We need to make sure that people’s voices are heard.”Haley, 51, is firmly in the anti-abortion wing of the Republican party and has the track record to prove it. As South Carolina governor, she signed into law a provision that bans abortions after 20 weeks, with no exceptions for rape or incest.That law went into effect after the decision by the US supreme court last June to overturn the nationwide right to an abortion.Despite her hardline position, the Republican presidential candidate is now attempting to soften that image by detaching herself from talk of a federal ban. The disappointing result of the party in last November’s midterm elections was widely attributed to Republican messaging on abortion, which stands starkly out of line with the broad pro-choice sentiments of American public opinion.On Sunday, Haley, who was ambassador to the UN during Donald Trump’s presidency, pointed to the filibuster in the US Senate as the reason for her hesitation on a federal ban. Under its terms, such a prohibition could only be secured with 60 votes in favour.Republicans are in the minority in the 100-member Senate by two seats.“We have to tell the American people the truth,” she said. “In order to do a national standard, you’d have to have a majority of the House, 60 Senate votes and a president. We haven’t had 60 pro-life senators in 100 years.”She added: “So the idea that a Republican president could ban all abortions is not being honest with the American people.”Haley’s double-edged posture – anti-abortion at state level, ambivalent at national level – will partly define the terms of her engagement with Republican competitors. She is one of four Republican candidates who have formally declared their candidacies for the presidency, with several others waiting in the wings.Haley launched her campaign in February, presenting herself as a president for a “new generation”. But she has so far struggled to find her footing, laboring from low public name recognition and only 4.2% in the Real Clear Politics rolling average of the polls.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionOther Republican hopefuls are also wrestling with the abortion issue. In his fractious CNN town hall this week, Trump repeatedly declined to answer whether he would support a federal abortion ban, offering only such bland statements as: “President Trump is going to make a determination what he thinks is great for the country and what’s fair for the country.”Haley continues to tread with extreme caution around Trump, who remains the clear Republican frontrunner. Asked by Face the Nation to comment on the fact that Trump was last week found liable for sexually abusing E Jean Carroll, she dissembled.“There’s a verdict and I think there’s been an appeal, and I think the American people need to make their decision based on that,” she said.Tim Scott, the Republican senator from South Carolina who is exploring the possibility of a presidential run, has backed a federal abortion ban at 20 weeks. Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida who spent the weekend in the critical early-voting state of Iowa in preparation for a potential presidential bid, has also aligned himself with anti-abortion hardliners.In April he signed into Forida law an extreme abortion ban that comes into effect at six weeks – before many women even know they are pregnant.Haley and DeSantis have been going at each other with increasing intensity in recent weeks, as both languish some distance behind Trump in the polls. Haley has trolled the Florida governor over his feud with Disney, calling him “thin-skinned” and inviting the entertainment giant to move Disney World to South Carolina. More

On Tuesday, a jury in New York found that the former US president Donald Trump sexually abused magazine writer E Jean Carroll in the 1990s and then defamed her by branding her a liar.
On Wednesday, Trump made the same baseless claims about Carroll that led to him losing the case – this time, live on CNN to millions of viewers.
This week, Jonathan Freedland talks to Guardian US columnist Margaret Sullivan about the fallout from the E Jean Carroll case. The pair discuss how the media should cover a 2024 presidential candidate who has been impeached twice, indicted by a federal court, and who is now legally defined as a sexual predator

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Mexicans “would be eating cat food out of a can and living in a tent behind an Outback” Steakhouse restaurant if it were not for their nation’s proximity to the US, and their country should be invaded because of the presence of drug cartels there, the US senator John Neely Kennedy said.The Louisiana Republican’s racist remarks drew a strong condemnation from Mexico’s foreign affairs secretary, Marcelo Ebrard, who called Kennedy “a profoundly ignorant man”. Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, meanwhile, urged the 37 million Americans of Mexican descent – along with other Latinos in the US – “not to vote for people with this very arrogant, very offensive and very foolish mentality” in the future.Kennedy’s rant came on Wednesday during a Senate appropriations subcommittee hearing that in part focused on the Drug Enforcement Administration’s budget. Kennedy told DEA administrator Anne Milgram that she and other members of the Biden White House should pressure López Obrador to let US military and law enforcement officials storm into his country “and stop the cartels”.“Make him a deal he can’t refuse,” Kennedy said, an apparent allusion to the famous line from the classic mobster film The Godfather. Kennedy also said: “Without the people of America, Mexico, figuratively speaking, would be eating cat food out of a can and living in a tent behind an Outback.”Kennedy’s comments about the US’s neighbor to the south built on prior Republican statements exalting the idea of using the American military to crack down on Mexican cartels. Mexican cartels press most illegal fentanyl into counterfeit pills which are designed to look like Xanax, oxycodone, Percocet and other prescription medications, or they mix it into other drugs, including cocaine and heroin.Many of the 70,000 overdose deaths registered in the US annually involve people who took fentanyl without knowing it.In a response on Thursday to Kennedy, Ebrard said numerous Mexican government officials and citizens have died in the name of stopping fentanyl from crossing into the US. “He doesn’t know that or pretends like he doesn’t,” Ebrard said.Ebrard added that Kennedy should contemplate why people in the US can obtain fentanyl simply by going out to certain streets or logging on to certain websites online. “It’s a fallacy to argue in favor of sending an armed force to Mexico when in the United States you have fentanyl circulating everywhere,” said Ebrard, who has previously noted that it is mostly Americans who are arrested for trafficking fentanyl in the US.Kennedy delivered his tirade against Mexico in a southern American accent that many of his detractors have likened to the voice of Looney Tunes character Foghorn Leghorn. As the Louisiana politics and culture news outlet Gambit reported, it is widely believed that Kennedy maintains the drawl to come off as folksy, despite his holding degrees from the University of Vanderbilt, the University of Virginia and Oxford University in the UK.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe is also one of the wealthiest members of the Senate, where Democrats and independents who caucus with them hold a two-seat majority after last year’s midterm elections. Open Secrets estimated that Kennedy’s net worth was more than $12m in 2016, when the former longtime treasurer of Louisiana’s state government first won his Senate seat.Kennedy began his political career as a Democrat before switching his party affiliation to Republican in 2007. More