US Politics

Two years ago, Georgia was the state that decided control of the Senate in Democrats’ favor. This year, its importance will be slightly diminished – but that doesn’t mean the results of Tuesday’s run-off election between Democratic senator Raphael Warnock and Republican Herschel Walker won’t be closely watched.Democrats won enough seats in last month’s midterm elections to control Congress’s upper chamber for another two years, but only by a margin so slim they’ll need vice-president Kamala Harris to cast tie-breaking votes on legislation Republicans don’t support. But if Warnock wins, the Democrats will control the chamber outright, and the influence of senators like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who repeatedly acted as spoilers for some of Joe Biden’s policy proposals over the past two years, will be lessened.A victory by Walker will put Republicans one seat away from retaking control of the chamber, and perhaps mark the unofficial start of the campaign to do so in 2024. In that election, Democrats will be defending Senate seats in a number of states that typically vote Republican, such as Montana, Ohio and West Virginia. They would only need to lose one for the GOP to return to the majority.Democratic senator Raphael Warnock and his Republican challenger Herschel Walker are in the home stretch of campaigning ahead of Tuesday’s run-off election for Georgia’s Senate seat. Polls indicate Warnock has the edge, while the weather may undercut Walker’s hopes that Republican voters will turn out massively for him tomorrow. Meanwhile, in New York, jurors are deliberating in the tax fraud trial of Donald Trump’s business.Here’s what else happened today:
Former vice-president Mike Pence and Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski are among the few Republicans to condemn Trump’s call for the “termination” of the constitution.
Kamala Harris will swear in Los Angeles’s new mayor Karen Bass next week. Bass will be the first Black woman to lead the city.
Democrats have vastly outspent Republicans in the contest for Georgia’s Senate seat.
The supreme court’s conservative majority appeared ready to side with a Christian graphic designer who refused to make a website for a same-sex couple in a case over Colorado’s anti-discrimination law. The arguments also featured some eyebrow-raising comments from conservative justice Samuel Alito.
Manhattan’s district attorney has added a former justice department official with extensive Trump experience as he continues an inquiry into an alleged hush-money payment by the former president.
Anyone who’s flown through an American airport recently has probably seen signs encouraging them to make sure their drivers license or identification card is compliant with the REAL ID Act.Passed in 2005 on the recommendation of the 9/11 commission, the law’s implementation has repeatedly been delayed, and the homeland security department today announced its effective date has been pushed back again, from 3 May, 2023 to 7 May, 2025 :NEWS: DHS announces extension of REAL ID full enforcement deadline. Learn more at: https://t.co/98wN1dMV4z pic.twitter.com/z7QwmXGpao— TSA (@TSA) December 5, 2022
The department cited the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic as the latest hold up. States typically require applicants to present more stringent proofs of identity such as passports in order to obtain a REAL ID-compliant drivers license or identification card. Once the 2025 deadline passes, such documentation will be necessary to get through Transportation Security Administration checkpoints at airports, as well as to access other federal agencies, the homeland security department says.It appears the supreme court’s conservative majority is siding with a Christian graphic artist in a dispute over Colorado’s anti-discrimination law, the Associated Press reports.The justices are weighing whether the artist broke Colorado’s law by refusing to design a wedding website for a same-sex couple. While the court’s arguments are notoriously opaque, the balance of power is currently 6-3 in favor of the conservatives, and the AP says comments by Republican-appointed justices indicate they’re in favor of the artist.Here’s more from their story:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Justice Neil Gorsuch, one of three high court appointees of former President Donald Trump, described Lorie Smith, the website designer in the case, as “an individual who says she will sell and does sell to everyone, all manner of websites, (but) that she won’t sell a website that requires her to express a view about marriage that she finds offensive.”
Where to draw the line for what a business might do without violating state anti-discrimination laws was a big question in Monday’s arguments at the high court.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asked whether a photography store in a shopping mall could refuse to take pictures of Black people on Santa’s lap.
“Their policy is that only white children can be photographed with Santa in this way, because that’s how they view the scenes with Santa that they’re trying to depict,” Jackson said.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor repeatedly pressed Kristen Waggoner, the lawyer for Smith, over other categories. “How about people who don’t believe in interracial marriage? Or about people who don’t believe that disabled people should get married? Where’s the line?” Sotomayor asked.
But Justice Samuel Alito, who seemed to favor Smith, asked whether it’s “fair to equate opposition to same-sex marriage to opposition to interracial marriage?”Things got a little awkward today during the supreme court’s arguments in a case pitting a Christian graphic artist against Colorado’s anti-discrimination law.The justices are considering whether the graphic designer has the right to turn down designing a website for a same-sex couple, or whether the state’s law compels her to do so. As justices heard both sides in the case, they pondered how the law would handle hypothetical situations, and conservative justice Samuel Alito generated a few chuckles in the courtroom – and many raised eyebrows outside of it – with a quip about Black children and the Ku Klux Klan:Justice Alito jokes with Justice Kagan that, “You do see a lot of Black children in Ku Klux Klan outfits all the time,” during oral arguments in a free speech case. pic.twitter.com/QoCfDVhuEQ— The Recount (@therecount) December 5, 2022
Alito, who was the author of this summer’s decision overturning Roe v Wade, also seemed to imply liberal justice Elana Kagan would know something about AshleyMadison.com – a dating site specializing in infidelity:Justice Alito: “[Jdate is] a dating service, I gather, for Jewish people.”Justice Kagan: “It is.”Alito: “Maybe Justice Kagan will also be familiar with the next website I’m gonna mention … https://t.co/1pzGIJ8Yqf” pic.twitter.com/lcQvBV38RG— The Recount (@therecount) December 5, 2022
Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg is conducting one of the many investigations into Donald Trump’s conduct, and the New York Times reports he’s brought on to his team an attorney with a history of tangling with the former president.Matthew Colangelo will join Bragg’s team as a senior counsel, after serving as the number-three official in the justice department and, before that, a top lawyer for New York’s attorney general. The Manhattan prosecutor has long been investigating Trump’s business practices, and while at one point it looked like the inquiry was foundering, the Times reports it has recently shifted its focus towards a payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, who said she had an affair with Trump.As the Times reports, Colangelo challenged the Trump administration repeatedly during his time in the New York attorney general’s office:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Mr. Bragg and Mr. Colangelo overlapped while working at the New York attorney general’s office, where Mr. Bragg rose to become chief deputy attorney general and Mr. Colangelo was chief counsel for federal initiatives. In that role, Mr. Colangelo led dozens of lawsuits against the Trump administration, including a successful challenge to the inclusion of a question about citizenship to the census in 2020. He also oversaw an investigation into Mr. Trump’s charity, the Trump Foundation, that caused the organization to dissolve, and led that office’s civil inquiry into Mr. Trump’s financial practices.
That inquiry led to a September lawsuit from the attorney general, Letitia James, that accused the president of overvaluing his assets by billions of dollars.
By then, Mr. Colangelo was working at the Department of Justice, having been appointed as acting associate attorney general when President Biden took office. In that job, the third highest-ranking at the department, Mr. Colangelo helped oversee the Civil, Civil Rights, Antitrust and Tax divisions, among others.Donald Trump has reemerged on his Truth social network to refute that he ever called for the “termination” of the constitution – even though he definitely did.“The Fake News is actually trying to convince the American People that I said I wanted to ‘terminate’ the Constitution. This is simply more DISINFORMATION & LIES, just like RUSSIA, RUSSIA, RUSSIA, and all of their other HOAXES & SCAMS”, the ex-president wrote.But scroll a little further down his profile, and the “termination” comment sure doesn’t seem like disinformation or lies. Here’s what he wrote on Saturday, in the post that kicked off the latest firestorm: “So, with the revelation of MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION in working closely with Big Tech Companies, the DNC, & the Democrat Party, do you throw the Presidential Election Results of 2020 OUT and declare the RIGHTFUL WINNER, or do you have a NEW ELECTION? A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”In today’s posts, he doubles down on his insistence that the 2020 election was stolen, even though there’s been no proof of that, despite repeated attempts by Trump’s lawyers to convince judges nationwide otherwise. “What I said was that when there is ‘MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION,’ as has been irrefutably proven in the 2020 Presidential Election, steps must be immediately taken to RIGHT THE WRONG”, Trump wrote. He followed that up with a second post: “SIMPLY PUT, IF AN ELECTION IS IRREFUTABLY FRAUDULENT, IT SHOULD GO TO THE RIGHTFUL WINNER OR, AT A MINIMUM, BE REDONE. WHERE OPEN AND BLATANT FRAUD IS INVOLVED, THERE SHOULD BE NO TIME LIMIT FOR CHANGE!”Democratic senator Raphael Warnock and his Republican challenger Herschel Walker are in the home stretch of campaigning ahead of Tuesday’s run-off election for Georgia’s Senate seat. Polls indicate Warnock has the edge, while the weather may undercut Walker’s hopes that Republican voters will turn out massively for him tomorrow. Meanwhile, in New York, jurors are deliberating in the tax fraud trial of Donald Trump’s business.Here’s what else has happened so far today:
Former vice-president Mike Pence and Alaska senator Lisa Murkowski are among the few Republicans to condemn Trump’s call for the “termination” of the constitution.
Kamala Harris will swear in Los Angeles’s new mayor Karen Bass next week. Bass will be the first Black woman to lead the city.
Democrats have vastly outspent Republicans in the contest for Georgia’s Senate seat.
Meanwhile, Democrats have settled on a new leader in the House of Representatives: Hakeem Jeffries, who is set to steer the party through two years in the minority beginning in 2023. The Guardian’s Edwin Rios has more about Jeffries, who could one day become the next House speaker:Democratic congressman Hakeem Jeffries first emerged in the mid-2000s as a former corporate lawyer homegrown from central Brooklyn. With his focus on criminal justice reform and housing affordability, he was seen as a progressive of the moment who took on the existing Democratic machine in New York.Now, as the newly-elected successor to House speaker Nancy Pelosi, Jeffries has graduated from state politics to the national stage with the opportunity to make an impression on American politics for years to come.Last week Jeffries, 52, became the first Black leader of either party in Congress. Under the incoming Congress, Jeffries will be House minority leader, making him the most powerful Democrat in the House. His ascension, paired with the departures of longtime and elderly Democratic leaders like Pelosi, Steny Hoyer and Jim Clyburn, signals a shift for Democrats toward a younger, more diverse generation of leaders that will undoubtedly face tension with a new Republican House majority on the horizon.Will the ‘cool, calm, collected’ Hakeem Jeffries change when in power?Read moreGeorgia’s Democratic senator Raphael Warnock continues to lead his challenger Herschel Walker ahead of tomorrow’s run-off election, a new poll has found.The University of Massachusetts Lowell’s Center for Public Opinion reports Warnock has 51% support among likely voters in the state against Walker’s 46%. The data was collected from 1,300 people from 18 through 28 November.Another conclusion of the poll: 54% disapprove of Joe Biden’s performance as president but would vote for him over Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.Fresh off her re-election victory over a Trump-backed challenger, Alaska’s Republican senator Lisa Murkowski also condemned the former president’s call for the “termination” of the constitution:Suggesting the termination of the Constitution is not only a betrayal of our Oath of Office, it’s an affront to our Republic.— Sen. Lisa Murkowski (@lisamurkowski) December 5, 2022 More

In Georgia, if no candidate receives 50% of the general election vote for a statewide or congressional district race, there’s a runoff between the top two vote-getters. In recent decades, the Peach State has had four high-profile runoff elections, all for the U.S. Senate.

The last was on Jan. 5, 2021, when, in a pair of runoffs, the state made history by electing Raphael Warnock, the first African American U.S. senator elected in the state and in the Deep South since 1878, and Jon Ossoff, the first Southern Jewish U.S. senator elected since 1974.

Enthusiasm is strong for the Dec. 6, 2022, runoff election between Warnock, the Democratic incumbent, and former University of Georgia football star Herschel Walker, the Republican candidate.

But beyond the hype, there’s a cost. Runoff elections in the state are expensive. Turnout is also typically lower in runoffs than in general elections, meaning not as many people’s voices are ultimately involved in the final decision.

Four runoff elections, no clear trend

Republicans and Democrats split the four runoff elections, which were in 1992 between incumbent Wyche Fowler, a Democrat, and Republican challenger Paul Coverdell; in 2008 between incumbent Republican Saxby Chambliss and Democratic challenger Jim Martin; and two in 2020 – one between Ossoff and incumbent Republican David Perdue, and the other between Warnock and incumbent Republican Kelly Loeffler.

In two cases, the person who finished ahead in the original election lost the runoff. Three of four incumbents lost the runoff, but Loeffler had held that office for barely a year, and had never held another elective office – so she may not have had a full incumbent’s advantage.

The only consistent trend is that the runoff elections drew fewer voters than the general elections that preceded them. In 2021, the runoffs between Ossoff and Perdue and Warnock and Loeffler drew national media interest and a surge of political donations, because the balance of power in the Senate was at stake. Even then, those elections had lower vote totals – though only slightly – than the November 2020 general election that had preceded the runoffs.

In 1992 and 2008, the drop in turnout was much more pronounced, declining by more than 20 percentage points.

A costly endeavor

Runoff elections are expensive for the Peach State.

Kennesaw State University professors Kerwin Swint and J. Benjamin Taylor teamed up with their student Ayla McGinnis to analyze electoral and financial data from 59 of Georgia’s 159 counties. They estimated the 2020 Senate runoffs cost $75 million statewide to determine who would sit in the Senate.

There is a less expensive way. “You can accomplish the same thing with instant runoff voting as with a general election runoff without conducting a whole separate election,” Swint has said. “It’s quick, it’s cheap, it does the same thing, so it’s something Georgia should take a look at.”

In instant-runoff voting, also sometimes called ranked-choice voting, voters indicate the order in which they prefer candidates. If no majority winner emerges immediately, the lowest vote-getter is dropped, and the votes that had been for that person are reassigned to those voters’ next-best choices. The process continues until one candidate gets more than half of the votes.

There may be an even simpler solution.

“The other thing Georgia could take a look at is just eliminating runoffs altogether and moving to a plurality vote,” in which the person who gets more votes than any other wins, Swint said.

So far, early voting for this year’s Georgia runoff has broken records. But it has cost a lot, and the number of votes cast still may not match the first-round totals. Perhaps that’s why instant-runoff voting is already being proposed for future Georgia elections. More

Jurors in Trump Organization tax fraud trial set to begin deliberationsProsecutors say former president knew of and sanctioned alleged scheme that enriched executives with off-the-books benefits Jurors in New York were on Monday set to deliberate their verdict in the trial of the Trump Organization, accused of running a criminal tax fraud scheme enriching executives with off-the-books benefits including property and luxury vehicles.While Donald Trump himself is not on trial, prosecutors have said the former president knew of – and sanctioned almost every aspect of – the fraud, as head of the eponymous company handling his real estate and other dealings.“This whole narrative that Donald Trump was blissfully ignorant is just not real,” Manhattan assistant district attorney Joshua Steinglass told the jury during Friday’s closing arguments. But he added it did not really matter if they believed he was aware or not, because it was the company that was on trial in New York state court.Prosecutors described a 15-year scheme in which the Trump Organization reduced its tax liability in various ways, including by reducing payroll and giving executives other perks to make up the difference in their salaries.The jury in New York’s state court heard that Trump signed a document in which one executive, Matthew Calamari, asked for a salary reduction equivalent to his untaxed compensations.Defense lawyers have attempted to paint the company’s longtime chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, who was a key prosecution witness, as a “greedy” and rogue employee determined to blame his own fraud on others.Weisselberg, 75, pleaded guilty to tax fraud and other charges under a plea agreement earlier this year, and he is expected to be sentenced to five months in jail. He was emotional on the witness stand as he admitted greed had motivated him to falsify records, cheat on taxes and betray the Trump family’s trust.The company was charged in July last year after investigators looked into why some salaried Trump Organization executives were also receiving benefits as if they were independent contractors. The trial began in October.The company has pleaded not guilty to nine counts of criminal fraud and faces up to $1.6m in fines if convicted.TopicsDonald TrumpUS politicsNew YorknewsReuse this content More

Former girlfriend of Herschel Walker tells of violent apartment encounterCheryl Parsa, 61, tells NBC News that Walker threw punch that missed and put hand on her throat and chest in Dallas in 2005 A former long-term girlfriend of Herschel Walker has spoken of the violence and abuse she says he subjected her to, a potentially devastating television interview airing just before the Republican candidate’s Senate runoff in Georgia on Tuesday.Cheryl Parsa, 61, told NBC News on Sunday night how the former football star, who has been accused by several girlfriends and his ex-wife of mistreating them, grabbed her throat and threw a punch at her when she found him with another woman at his apartment in Dallas.“He had his hand on my throat, my chest, and then he leaned back to throw a punch,” Parsa said of the 2005 encounter.“And luckily, I was able to avoid that. And the punch landed on the wall instead of me.”The Guardian has contacted Walker’s representatives for comment.‘Hatred has a great grip on the heart’: election denialism lives on in US battlegroundRead moreParsa’s claims, first reported by the Daily Beast last week, are the latest to roil the troubled campaign of Walker, who narrowly trails Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock ahead of Tuesday’s crucial Georgia election.A victory for Warnock would give his party a 51-49 majority in the Senate. The Democrats would control the chamber even if Warnock lost because vice-president Kamala Harris can cast tie-breaking votes.Walker – who is backed by former president Donald Trump and forced the runoff when neither he nor Warnock won 50% of the vote in last month’s midterms – has been accused of paying for abortions and abusing a number of women. Some observers say he could be the worst candidate Republicans have ever run.Yet he remains competitive in the Georgia race, leading Democrats to bring out big guns including Barack Obama as cheerleaders in order to help secure the Senate seat and full control of the chamber.Parsa claims the episode in Dallas was one of several during her five-year relationship with Walker, 61, who admits to having had mental illness, and who in 2013 said in an interview he had been a “messed-up” person with multiple personalities.In the NBC interview, she cast doubt on his assurances that his issues were behind him, given in his October debate with Warnock when he said: “I don’t need any help. I’m doing well.”Parsa said: “I believe the deception now is on the American people, and I have to say what I know. I have to tell the Herschel I know.”She then described the alleged episode in the Dallas condo, during which she said Walker grabbed her by the neck and held her head up against a wall, and was so close to her she could feel spittle on her face as he spoke.“He told me, ‘You want to see a man? I’ll show you a man’,” she said.“He was pressing his forehead against mine. My head was against the wall. He was speaking with such force his saliva was all over my face.”NBC said it had spoken with three women who confirmed Parsa had told them about Walker had allegedly done before he declared his Senate candidacy.Despite at least two allegations to the contrary, Walker has insisted he has never asked a woman to have an abortion nor paid for one.But he has admitted a turbulent past. In footage used in a political ad against Walker, his ex-wife Cindy Grossman recalled how in 2008 he allegedly held a gun to her temple and said: “I’m going to blow your effing brains out.”She made the claim after his autobiography, Breaking Free, was published the same year, in which Walker asserted he had dissociative identity disorder with several, distinct personalities.Publicity for the book by publishers Simon & Schuster said: “Herschel realized that his life, at times, was simply out of control. He often felt angry, self-destructive, and unable to connect meaningfully with friends and family.”In October, Walker’s son Christian called his father a violent liar and hypocrite, who left his wife and children on several occasions for other women.“How dare you lie and act as though you’re some moral, Christian, upright man. You’ve lived a life of destroying other people’s lives,” he wrote on Twitter.TopicsRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Sam Bankman-Fried says he wants to testify before Congress on FTX collapseCryptocurrency exchange founder pledges to testify ‘once I have finished learning and reviewing what happened’ The disgraced billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried has said he wants to testify before Congress about what caused the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange he founded – but first he wants to fully understand the chain of events and isn’t sure how long that might take.Bankman-Fried’s pledge, made Sunday on Twitter, came after the US House financial services committee scheduled a 13 December hearing about the failure of FTX and invited him to participate.“Once I have finished learning and reviewing what happened, I would feel like it was my duty to appear before the committee and explain,” Bankman-Fried tweeted. “I’m not sure that will happen by the 13th. But when it does, I will testify.”Rep. Waters, and the House Committee on Financial Services:Once I have finished learning and reviewing what happened, I would feel like it was my duty to appear before the committee and explain.I’m not sure that will happen by the 13th. But when it does, I will testify. https://t.co/c0P8yKlyQt— SBF (@SBF_FTX) December 4, 2022
Bankman-Fried’s case is of particular interest on Capitol Hill in part because he has acknowledged that he donated money in equally large amounts to both the Democratic and Republican parties.FTX filed for bankruptcy protection in November after the failure of a possible merger with rival crypto exchange Binance. The move left investors and creditors facing billions of dollars in losses, and Bankman-Fried resigned as FTX’s chief executive officer.He has since denied allegations of potential fraud in a series of media appearances as law enforcement authorities and regulators scrutinize him and FTX’s wreckage.He told an audience at the New York Times DealBook summit on 30 November that he “screwed up”, “didn’t ever try to commit fraud” and was as “shocked” as the rest of the public by FTX’s collapse.During that appearance, Bankman-Fried addressed questions about whether FTX customer funds were misappropriated and given to the hedge fund he founded, Alameda Research. Bankman-Fried – who had reportedly been in a relationship with the hedge fund’s CEO, Caroline Ellison – said he “didn’t knowingly commingle funds” with Alameda and was surprised by “the size of their position”.He told ABC News in a separate interview that he also had been spending barely any time “trying to manage risk on FTX” and had “stopped working as hard for a bit” before the firm imploded.“What matters here is all the customers and stakeholders [who] got hurt and to help them out,” Bankman-Fried said. “What happens to me is not the important part.”For many observers, explanations given by Bankman-Fried over FTX’s collapse and its $8bn (£6bn) shortfall in assets haven’t been easy to make sense of. At one point he mused that “poor internal labeling” of accounts at FTX could have precipitated his company’s downfall.His repeated public statements about FTX likely buck the legal advice he is receiving. The leading US law firm Paul, Weiss recently dropped Bankman-Fried as a client after attorneys for FTX accused him of interfering with the bankruptcy reorganization by his “incessant and disruptive tweeting”. Bankman-Fried acknowledged at the DealBook summit that his lawyers didn’t want him to speak at the conference.Reuters contributed reportingTopicsCryptocurrenciesUS CongressUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

‘Hatred has a great grip on the heart’: election denialism lives on in US battleground Arizona voters rejected key election deniers, but false conspiracy theories have maintained their powerThe lead-up to Arizona’s midterms saw tactics designed to disrupt the American democratic process in a battleground state where election denialism ran rampant. Though voters broadly rejected election deniers, the grip of their ideas remains strong among large portions of the right in the state, which is now at the forefront of the fight over democracy in the US.“Voters in swing states sent a message that they were not receptive to election denialism. They didn’t send that message everywhere,” said Daniel I Weiner, director of the Brennan Center’s elections and government program.Weiner added: “There is going to continue to have to be built a greater consensus amongst Americans across the ideological spectrum that this is out of bounds. This election was reassuring. It certainly doesn’t mean the election denialism has gone away, though.”As soon as voters started dropping off their ballots, people in tactical gear with guns started monitoring them. One rural Arizona county kicked off, then backed away from, plans to hand count all ballots. Arizona’s Republican gubernatorial candidate, Kari Lake, said she wouldn’t concede if she lost.After election day brought printer problems in Maricopa county, the state’s largest by population, the bluster and election denialism grew. The county has said those problems did not prevent voters from casting a ballot and that they will be investigated, but still some Republicans want a “re-vote,” a new election, and some statewide candidates who lost have refused to concede their races.Rural Arizona county certifies midterm results after judge orders voteRead moreOthers are filing or preparing to file lawsuits, as legal letters fly from the state attorney general’s office and the Republican party. One county refused to certify its results, only doing so under court order. Maricopa county supervisors faced a vengeful crowd, some part of a traveling group in a “QAnon-themed Scooby Doo van” that invoked God and country to condemn this year’s election.“I never could have imagined in county government that we’d see this kind of vitriol towards us, but I think that these people have been sold a story, a narrative, and they believe that very strongly,” said Bill Gates, the Republican chairman of the Maricopa county board of supervisors. “And that narrative is that we are traitors, that we have violated the law, that we’re Rinos [Republicans In Name Only]. They didn’t come up with it on their own.”In this closely watched, tightly divided state that will help decide the 2024 election, skepticism of election results has found an audience with some Republican leaders, as the state has shifted away from Republicans in the past decade.While other states have embraced election conspiracy theories as well, Republicans in the Arizona senate encouraged such claims when the chamber initiated a so-called audit of the 2020 election in Maricopa county by a group called the Cyber Ninjas. Their practices and results were widely criticized by elections experts and actual auditors, but they set Arizona at the forefront of a growing anti-democratic movement.Some of the movement’s biggest names receive extensive fundraising hauls and social media attention by casting doubt on elections. The Arizona Republican party, led by Kelli Ward, has embraced Trumpism and election lies, casting out moderate Republicans like those who typically win statewide elections and setting the tone for an adversarial relationship between the state party and some elected Republicans who have defended elections.“It has nothing to do with patriotism. It’s a machine, a money-making effort,” said Rusty Bowers, the Arizona House speaker who was voted out in his Republican primary. “They found how to do it. The formula works … It would seem obvious to somebody with rational thinking that I am being played for my wallet.”While Republicans lost key positions statewide, they still hold one-vote majorities in both chambers of the Arizona legislature, and many moderate Republican votes were driven out of the legislature during their primaries. State government will be divided, with a Democratic governor and Republican-led legislature, so extreme election laws are unlikely to become law – but the forthcoming session should see lots of election-related fireworks.Already, one incoming Republican lawmaker has vowed not to vote for anything until the state redoes the 2022 election. The elections committee in the Arizona senate will be chaired by Wendy Rogers, one of the most vehement election deniers in the state, who is fundraising on the idea of redoing the election.Election deniers faced consequencesThe fever hasn’t yet broken, but the signs of slowing have started to appear. Certainly, losing big offices – Democrats won the races for governor, US Senate, secretary of state and attorney general in Arizona, and generally outperformed midterm expectations nationwide – show that there are consequences for alienating moderate voters who swing elections here. Such consequences, elections experts say, are critical for hindering the spread of election denialism.Ousted Republican reflects on Trump, democracy and America: ‘The place has lost its mind’ Read more“The only way out of this situation, this morass that we seem to find ourselves in, is if there’s accountability for those who are undermining our elections and who are attacking the legitimacy and the integrity of the process,” said Tammy Patrick, a former Maricopa county elections officer.The courts can also send a message that refusing to follow election law – as in Cochise county, which initially refused to certify its votes – will not be tolerated.A federal judge sent such a message on 1 December, in response to a lawsuit filed by Lake, the GOP governor candidate, and the Republican secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem, which sought to prevent the use of machines to tabulate votes. The US district court judge John Tuchi approved sanctions against Lake and Finchem’s attorneys, sought by Maricopa county, calling the lawsuit “baseless” and “frivolous”.Some, including former prosecutors in Arizona, want to see criminal charges against the Cochise supervisors for abdicating their duty as elected officials.“I’m not a big fan of criminalizing a bunch of stuff,” said Alex Gulotta, the Arizona director for the voting rights group All Voting is Local. “On the other hand, if people are willing to break the law and break the law and break the law and continue to break the law when they’re told they’re breaking the law and break the law again, then at some point, you have to hold those people accountable.”Will it get better or worse?Those grappling with threats to democracy since 2020 see some signs that the movement is petering out, though they acknowledge 2024 could see more activity given the high stakes of the presidential election.The protests leading up to election certification in Arizona were small – one traveling protester, David Clements, said he was heading back to New Mexico after several days of protests because “it doesn’t seem like the people of Arizona cared”.The courts stepped in and made it clear, in multiple instances, that election shenanigans wouldn’t be tolerated.The Arizona Republican party is seeing efforts from some moderates, including the former Republican gubernatorial candidate Karrin Taylor Robson, who lost in the primary, to realign the party under a broader tent that could start to win elections again. Taylor Robson called on Ward to resign, saying Ward and Lake were the “megaphones” of the false election narratives that sunk the party in 2022.The state party, though, is full of Republican foot soldiers who are closely aligned with Ward. It has often run farther to the right than the state itself and censured moderate Republicans, including the current governor, Doug Ducey. Getting the party’s activists to choose a mainstream, moderate Republican to run the party is a tall order. Ward is not expected to run again, though her Maga allies are sure to seek the leadership position.Gates, the Maricopa supervisors chairman, said he didn’t know for sure if the noise would die down. Candidates and outside parties still could and would file lawsuits, as was their right, he said. If, after that, people continued to question the results, then he would know the narrative continued.‘Extremists didn’t make it’: why Republicans flopped in once-red ArizonaRead more“If the thought is to re-create a so-called audit on the lines of what happened in 2021, I think that’s not in the best interest of the state and could lead to even more election denialism in 2024,” Gates said.Bowers, the outgoing Arizona House speaker and one of the few vocal Republican defenders of elections inthe state, said he didn’t know how to break through the propaganda his party members have been fed. They seem to have “surrendered rationality”. He said many friends had been driven to vote Democratic for the first time. He himself didn’t vote for any election deniers and instead “wrote in some good people”.The party, though, seems stuck on the 2020 election, and he thinks it will only get worse. People had found success, at least in growing their social media followings and raising money, by leaning into fear and blaming others for their losses, he said.“Hatred has a great grip on the heart. And when you feed it, it gets tighter and tighter,” Bowers said.TopicsUS politicsThe fight for democracyUS midterm elections 2022RepublicansArizonafeaturesReuse this content More

Borat targets Trump, Ye and antisemitism at Kennedy Center HonorsSacha Baron Cohen skit receives mixed response at ceremony for lifetime achievements in the arts The British actor Sacha Baron Cohen reprised his character Borat and stole the show at America’s prestigious Kennedy Center Honors on Sunday night, targeting the former president Donald Trump, the rapper Kanye West, now known as Ye, and antisemitism.President Joe Biden smiled broadly and his wife, Jill, was in fits of laughter as Cohen told risque jokes in the comical accent of Kazakh television journalist Borat Sagdiyev.“I know the president of US and A is here,” Borat said to an audience including politicians and celebrities during a segment celebrating the Irish rock group U2. “Where are you, Mr Trump?”As the audience howled, Borat went on: “You don’t look so good. Where has your glorious big belly gone? And your pretty orange skin has become pale.” He then asked if the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, and the nerve agent novichok were responsible.Borat, the star of two hit satirical films, added: ‘But I see you have a new wife. Wawawoooah! She is very erotic. I must look away before I get a Bono.”The comedian, who is Jewish, then turned his attention to antisemitism in the wake of Trump having dined at his Mar-a-Lago home with the Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and Ye, who subsequently praised Adolf Hitler and was banned from Twitter for posting an image of a swastika.Borat said: “Before I proceed, I will say I am very upset about the antisemitism in US and A. It not fair. Kazakhstan is No 1 Jew-crushing nation. Stop stealing our hobby. Stop the steal! Stop the steal!” Some guests burst into laughter while others sat in uncomfortable silence.He continued: “Your Kanye, he tried to move to Kazakhstan and even changed his name to Kazakhstanye West. But we said: no, he too antisemitic, even for us.”Borat proceeded to sing a short parody of U2’s song With or Without You with the lyrics changed to “With or without Jews”. He broke off and asked: “What’s the problem? They loved this at Mar-a-Lago. They chose Without Jews.”The Bidens appeared to enjoy Baron Cohen’s routine but it also came as a shock in typically staid and buttoned up Washington. Asked by the Guardian what she thought of it, Biden’s sister Valerie Biden Owens said diplomatically: “I think I like U2”, while Roy Blunt, a Republican senator for Missouri, said: “Not much”.Glenn Youngkin, the governor of Virginia, said: “I was surprised to see him,” and sped away without elaborating.Along with U2, the actor George Clooney, the singer-songwriter Amy Grant, the singer Gladys Knight and the composer Tania León were celebrated at the 45th Kennedy Center Honors, the most prestigious honours for lifetime achievements in the arts. There was also an appearance from Sesame Street’s Big Bird.One audience member from the political world also received a standing ovation. Paul Pelosi, the husband of the House of Representatives speaker, Nancy Pelosi, used the weekend’s honors-related events to make his first public appearance since being attacked in October in their San Francisco home.The Pelosis sat next to the vice-president, Kamala Harris, and her husband, Doug Emhoff, in a balcony. Paul Pelosi wore a black hat and a glove on his left hand.The show highlighted the five artists’ work, and represented a return to pre-coronavirus norms. There was no requirement for testing to attend and few guests wore masks. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical adviser to the president, was among the guests.Clooney, a double Oscar winner, was also praised for his engagement in political causes and spoke to reporters after attending a White House reception.Asked how he thought Biden’s presidency was going, Clooney replied: “Beautifully. I love him. He’s a kind man with great intentions and he has some incredible legislation which kind of gets overlooked and they’re not very good at bragging about right now. He’s done a really good job and I’m very proud to be a supporter.”A follow-up question about whether Clooney, 61, would consider a career in politics prompted his wife, the barrister Amal Clooney, to smile and shake her head. The actor said in agreement: “Listen, we have a really nice life.”In a celebration at the state department on Saturday, Clooney told guests: “I’ve been lucky enough to meet millions of people, every country, literally 125 countries, and they all, without exception, agree and they’ll come up to me and say specifically that, ‘You sucked as Batman’. It’s unified. We could solve world problems if we just all could agree on more than just that I suck as Batman.”At Sunday’s main event at the Kennedy Center, Julia Roberts, who has co-starred in several films with Clooney, wore a floor-length gown with framed images of him on it and called him a “Renaissance man”. The actors Don Cheadle, Matt Damon and Richard Kind also paid tribute, with Damon recalling how Clooney once stole the then-President Bill Clinton’s stationery and wrote notes to fellow actors on it.But the one who moved Clooney to tears was his 88-year-old father, Nick, a journalist and TV anchorman. He recalled that he was hosting a TV show in 1968 when Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis. His family came into the green room. “Seven-year-old George had a large paper bag in his hand. I asked him what in the world was in the bag.“Well, he went to the coffee table, he turned the bag upside down. Out poured all of his toy guns landing with a clack. He said: ‘Pop, I don’t want these any more. None of them. Never.’ Well, I tore up my speech. Nothing I would’ve written would have been nearly as eloquent as what George had just done and said.”Nick Clooney said he was often asked what he wanted people to know about his son. “Well, here it is: George’s best and most important work is still ahead of him.”Knight, who has won seven Grammy awards, is famous for hit songs including I Heard It Through the Grapevine and Midnight Train to Georgia as the lead singer of The Pips, which became Gladys Knight and The Pips in 1962. Singers including Garth Brooks and Patti LaBelle performed some of Knight’s songs.Grant rose to prominence as a contemporary Christian music singer who later crossed over to pop stardom, winning six Grammys. The singers Sheryl Crow, Brandi Carlile, CeCe Winans and BeBe Winans were among the artists who honored her.Cuban-born León is a conductor as well as a composer, whose orchestral piece Stride won the 2021 Pulitzer prize in Music. The jazz pianist Jason Moran, the singer Alicia Hall Moran and the cellist Sterling Elliott played one of her creations, Oh Yemanja.The final tribute of the evening was to U2, which, with members Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen Jr, has won 22 Grammys. Eddie Vedder performed Elevation and One, while the Ukrainian singer Jamala joined Carlile and others to perform Walk On. The actor Sean Penn described U2 as “four scrappy Dublin punks” who were also “great musical poets of the ages”.Other guests at the event included the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, the senators Amy Klobuchar, Patrick Leahy, Joe Manchin and Mitt Romney, and representatives James Clyburn and Steny Hoyer, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, and the British ambassador, Dame Karen Pierce.Deborah Rutter, the president of the Kennedy Center, said: “This is probably the largest number of the administration and of Congress that we’ve ever had so that feels really great. People are ready to be back together fully and they want to see a good show.”TopicsBoratSacha Baron CohenDonald TrumpKanye WestAntisemitismU2George ClooneynewsReuse this content More

Republican moderate refuses to disown Trump over constitution threatDave Joyce of Ohio, chair of the Republican Governance Group, says he will vote for Trump if he is nominee in 2024 A leader of moderate Republicans in the US House repeatedly refused to condemn Donald Trump on Sunday, even after the former president, running for re-election in 2024, said the US constitution should be “terminated” to allow him to return to power.DeSantis and Pence lead Republican wave – of presidential campaign booksRead more“Whoever the Republicans end up picking, I’ll fall in behind” them, Dave Joyce of Ohio told ABC’s This Week, adding that he thought Americans did not want to look back to the 2020 election, the subject of Trump’s lies about electoral fraud and demand for extra-constitutional action.Joyce’s host, George Stephanopoulos, said: “I don’t see how you can move forward if your candidate is for suspending the constitution but thank you for your time.”Trump maintains the lie that the 2020 election, which Joe Biden won by more than 7m votes and a clear margin in the electoral college, was subject to widespread voter fraud. In messages on his Truth Social account on Saturday, Trump said the constitution should therefore be “terminated”.The former president was condemned by Biden, Democrats and political commentators. On CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday another Ohio Republican, Mike Turner, said he “absolutely” did so too.“There is a political process that has to go forward before anybody is a frontrunner or anybody is even the candidate for the party,” Turner said. “I believe people certainly are going to take into consideration a statement like this as they evaluate a candidate.”Like Turner, Joyce was not among the 147 Republicans who objected to results in key states in the 2020 election, even after Trump supporters mounted their deadly attack on the Capitol, seeking to stop certification. But Stephanopoulos could not persuade Joyce to say he would not vote for Trump four years later.Joyce said: “Well, you know, when President Trump was in office, I didn’t make a habit of speaking out on his tweet du jour.“I don’t know what came out on … whatever his new social platform is. But, you know, people were not interested in looking backwards. The people who gave us the majority [in the midterm elections last month] … they gave us an opportunity, and we need to perform.”Ohioans, Joyce said, were more concerned about household budgets in a time of steep inflation.Stephanopoulos said: “But Donald Trump was your nominee in 2016 and 2020. You voted for him in 2016 and 2020. Now he’s talking about suspending the constitution. Can you support a candidate in 2024 who’s for suspending the constitution?”Joyce said: “Well, again, it’s early. I think there’s going to be a lot of people in the primary. I think, at the end of the day, whoever the Republicans end up picking, I’ll fall in behind because that’s – ”Stephanopoulos said: “Even if it’s Donald Trump and he’s called for suspending the constitution?”Joyce said: “Well, again, I think it’s going to be a big field. I don’t think Donald Trump’s going to clear out the field like he did in ’16.”Stephanopoulos said: “That’s not what I’m asking. I’m asking you, ‘If he’s the nominee, will you support him?’”Joyce said: “I will support whoever the Republican nominee is. And I just don’t think that at this point [Trump] will be able to get there because I think there’s a lot of other good quality candidates out there.”To the host, that was “a remarkable statement. You’d support a candidate who’s come out for suspending the constitution?”Joyce said: “Well, you know, [Trump] says a lot of things. You have to take him in context. And right now I have to worry about making sure the Republican Governance Group and the Republican majority make things work for the American people. And I can’t be really chasing every one of these crazy statements that come out … from any of these candidates.”‘It’s on the tape’: Bob Woodward on Donald Trump’s ‘criminal behavior’Read moreStephanopoulos said: “But that’s an extraordinary statement. You can’t come out against someone who’s for suspending the constitution?”Joyce said: “Well, first off, he has no ability to suspend the constitution. Secondly, I don’t –”Stephanapolous pointed out that Trump said he wanted to take that step.Joyce said: “Well, you know, he says a lot of things but that doesn’t mean that it’s ever going to happen. So you’ve got to accept exact fact from fantasy. And fantasy is that we’re going to suspend the constitution and go backwards. We’re moving forward and we’re going to continue to move forward as a Republican majority and as a Republican conference.”With that, Stephanopoulos closed the interview.“Thank you for having me,” Joyce said.TopicsDonald TrumpUS elections 2024RepublicansUS CongressUS constitution and civil libertiesUS politicsnewsReuse this content More