US Politics

Rudy Giuliani informed he is target of criminal investigation in GeorgiaThe former New York mayor has been identified as a key figure in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the result of the 2020 election Donald Trump’s former attorney Rudy Giuliani is a target of the criminal investigation in Georgia that has been examining efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election in that state by the former president and his allies, a source briefed on the matter confirmed on Monday.Georgia grand jury subpoenas Trump lawyers over effort to overturn electionRead moreThe move to designate Giuliani, 78, as a target – as opposed to a subject – raises the legal stakes for the ex-New York mayor, identified as a key figure in the attempt to reverse the former president’s electoral defeat to Joe Biden in the state.The office of Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney prosecuting the case, told Giuliani he was a target of the criminal investigation into that attempt.Willis has already told about a dozen others they are targets, including two state senators and the head of the state Republican party.The disclosure, earlier reported by the New York Times, presents Giuliani with difficult choices, including whether to invoke his fifth amendment right against self-incrimination in a deposition or cooperate in the hope of earning leniency at sentencing.Giuliani is scheduled to testify before the special grand jury on Monday in Atlanta. The news of his target designation comes days after a Fulton county judge told prosecutors to indicate to Giuliani whether he was a target or a subject of the criminal investigation.The Fulton county judge said informing Giuliani about his status would give some clarity on “what impact that has on the extent of his time in front of the grand jury”, given he is scheduled to appear after having taken a long road trip from New York, where he lives.TopicsRudy GiulianiDonald TrumpUS politicsUS elections 2020GeorgianewsReuse this content More

Mitch McConnell greatly damaged US democracy with quiet, chess-like movesGary GerstleWhile Trump’s coup attempt may have failed, McConnell’s own machinations have proven highly effective The January 6 committee has now revealed how far Donald Trump was willing to go to prevent the peaceful and lawful transfer of power from his presidency to that of Joe Biden. Yet, his deadly serious attempt to upend American democracy also had a slapdash quality to it, reflecting Trump’s own impulsive nature and his reliance on a group of schemers – Rudy Giuliani, Mike Flynn, Sidney Powell, Roger Stone and John Eastman among them – of limited ability. It is not entirely surprising that Trump’s coup failed.Another brazen GOP action, however, has succeeded – this one engineered by the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, whose chess-like skills of political strategizing put to shame Trump’s powerful but limited game of bluster and bullying. The act to which I refer is McConnell’s theft of Barack Obama’s 2016 appointment to the supreme court, a radical deed that has dimmed somewhat in public consciousness even as it proved crucial to fashioning a rightwing supreme court willing to overturn Roe v Wade and to destabilize American politics and American democracy in the process.This summer may be one of the most consequential in US democracy | Thomas ZimmerRead moreMcConnell is widely considered to be a cynic about politics, more interested in maintaining and holding power than in advancing a particular agenda. This is true up to a point. But it is equally true that McConnell has believed, for decades, that the federal government had grown too large and too strong, that power had to be returned to private enterprise on the one hand and the individual states on the other, and that the legislative process in Washington could not be trusted to accomplish those aims. Hence the critical role of the federal courts: the federal judiciary, if sufficiently populated by conservative jurists, could constrain and dismantle the power of the federal government in ways in which Congress never would. It was fine, in McConnell’s eyes, for Congress to be paralyzed and ineffectual on most domestic issues, as long as the GOP, when in power, stacked the federal judiciary and the supreme court with conservative judges and justices. Thus, across Trump’s presidency, McConnell pushed 175 district court appointments and 54 court of appeals appointments through the congressional confirmation process, far exceeding in numbers what Obama had managed during the second term of his presidency.The supreme court, of course, was the biggest prize of all. The GOP had failed for 30 years to fashion a court to its liking, largely, it believed, because too many of its appointees – Sandra Day O’Connor, David Souter, Anthony Kennedy, and even John Roberts – had gone “rogue” on key issues: gay rights, gay marriage, affirmative action, Obamacare and, most of all, abortion. McConnell was worried that the GOP would fail again, this time under his watch as majority leader. Hence his willingness to steal an appointment that by historical practice and precedent belonged to Obama.The tale of McConnell’s steal begins in February 2016, when Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, the lion of the judicial right, suddenly and unexpectedly died. Obama had just begun the last year of his presidency, and McConnell was entering his second year as Senate majority leader. McConnell immediately declared that he would hold no hearings on a new supreme court justice, regardless of whom Obama nominated. McConnell’s ostensible justification: it was inappropriate, he declared, for a president on his way out of office to exercise so profound an influence on America’s political future. Let the next president, to be elected in November 2016, decide who the nominee should be. That way forward would, McConnell argued, be a way of letting “the people”, through their choice of president, shape the supreme court’s future.Obama nominated a centrist (and distinguished) jurist, Merrick Garland, in the hopes that it might soften McConnell’s and the GOP’s opposition. McConnell would not budge. He behaved as though no nominee had been put forward, allowing both Garland and Obama to twist in the wind across eight long months. We know the rest of the story: Trump won in November and nominated Neil Gorsuch to fill Scalia’s seat. Gorsuch was an arch-conservative jurist vetted by the Federalist Society. Knowing that he would be unable to secure the 60 votes necessary to bring closure to debate on the nominee, McConnell blew up the filibuster requirement for supreme court justices. Gorsuch was then confirmed (54-45) on the Senate floor.Technically, McConnell had violated no laws. The Senate, by simple majority vote, has the authority to remove the filibuster from virtually any issue at any time. With regard to supreme court nominations, the constitution simply states that the president has the power to nominate justices and that the Senate’s advice and consent are required for confirmation. Still, McConnell’s refusal to authorize any action on Garland broke with 150 years of senatorial precedent and practice. The Senate had rejected nominees in the past, but only after debate and a vote. Some who were told they had little chance of winning such a vote had voluntarily withdrawn their names. A few had seen their cases deferred for a few months. But the last time a nominee was made to suffer Garland’s fate – consigned indefinitely to purgatory – was 1866. And that ancient case had a plausible justification that the Garland case did not: the nomination had come from a president – Andrew Johnson – on his way to impeachment and possible removal from office.McConnell’s action was a calculated gamble. In early 2016, he did not know who or how strong the Republican nominee would be. But he regarded Hillary Clinton, the likely Democratic nominee, as vulnerable and beatable. And he expected his defiance of Obama on a supreme court nomination to fire up the GOP base. The stakes of the battle made the substantial risk worthwhile. McConnell distrusted Chief Justice Roberts because of the latter’s critical role in preserving Obama’s Affordable Care Act – another example, in the majority leader’s eyes, of a GOP-nominated justice going “rogue”. A Garland appointment might well have strengthened the centrism of the court, which is where Roberts wanted the power of his court to lie. McConnell wanted a court that would resist that drift, even if it meant breaking with a time-honored senatorial precedent. The end – a “truly” conservative court – justified the means.Imagine, for a moment, that McConnell in 2016 had followed precedent and held hearings for and a vote on Garland. The moderate Garland might well have been approved and become Scalia’s replacement. Let’s presume, for the sake of argument, that the next two appointments went as they did: Brett Kavanaugh replacing the retiring Anthony Kennedy in 2019 and Amy Coney Barrett replacing Ruth Bader Ginsburg when the latter died in 2020. Had this scenario prevailed, the court would have entered its 2021-2022 term with three progressives (Stephen Breyer, Elena Kagan, and Sonia Sotomayor), one moderate (Garland), and five conservatives (Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Roberts, Kavanaugh and Barrett).This hypothetical court may well have declined to overturn Roe v Wade. Two of the votes that Samuel Alito needed to assemble his majority in the 2022 case repudiating Roe (Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization) were weak ones: Roberts and Kavanaugh. Roberts astonishingly admitted in his concurrent opinion that he thought it wrong to use Dobbs to overturn Roe, even as he was voting to do so. Kavanaugh, meanwhile, laced his own concurrent opinion with the anguish of someone deeply troubled by the affirmative vote for a Roe reversal that he, too, was casting.What if Garland was sitting on this court rather than Gorsuch? Roberts, still in command of this court, may well have cobbled together a coalition to preserve Roe. He might have pulled a conflicted Kavanaugh to his side, and he might have worked out a deal with the court’s progressives (and probably Garland as well) similar in spirit to the one that Sandra Day O’Connor had engineered in Planned Parenthood v Casey (1992): jurisprudentially messy but workable as a compromise between America’s warring tribes. Were Garland sitting on this court, in other words, women in America today would still have a constitutionally protected right to reproductive freedom.McConnell could not have foreseen in 2016 the particular way in which a majority of justices would coalesce in 2022 to overturn Roe. But his actions then were designed to lay the foundation for this sort of outcome. He resolved long ago that he would allow no principle to stand in the way of his pursuit of a rightwing court. Thus, in October 2020, he did not hesitate to abandon the arguments he made in the Garland case to jam through the Senate Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation, even though Trump was much closer to the end of his presidential term than Obama had been to his in 2016. The ends – a rightwing court –justified the means.McConnell’s machinations broke no laws. His 2016 supreme court steal, however, upended a century and a half of accepted senatorial practice. The price for the country has been high: damage to the court’s legitimacy, deepening cynicism about Washington politics, and a growing conviction that America’s ailing democratic system can’t be fixed.
Gary Gerstle is Mellon professor of American history emeritus at Cambridge and a Guardian US columnist. His new book, The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order: America and the World in the Free Market Era, will be published in April
TopicsUS newsOpinionUS politicsUS supreme courtMerrick GarlandRuth Bader GinsburgAmy Coney BarrettBrett KavanaughcommentReuse this content More

GOP governors rebuke party members’ ‘outrageous rhetoric’ over Trump search Larry Hogan describes comparisons of the FBI to Nazi Germany’s secret police, made by Florida senator Rick Scott, as dangerous A handful of Republican governors have criticized the “outrageous rhetoric” of their party colleagues in the US Congress, who have accused federal law enforcement officers of a politicized attack on former president Donald Trump after executing a court-approved search warrant on his Florida home this week.Maryland governor Larry Hogan, a Republican moderate, described attacks by party members as both “absurd” and “dangerous”, after a week in which certain Republicans have compared the FBI to the Gestapo and fundraised off the slogan: “Defund the FBI”.Speaking to ABC News on Sunday, Hogan described the comparisons of the FBI to Nazi Germany’s secret police, made by Florida senator Rick Scott, as “very concerning to me, it’s outrageous rhetoric”.He added: “It’s absurd and, you know, it’s dangerous,” especially after an armed man enraged by the raid was killed in Ohio when he tried to invade an FBI office. “There are threats all over the place and losing faith in our federal law enforcement officers and our justice system is a really serious problem for the country.”On Monday, FBI agents executed a search warrant at the former president’s private members club and residence in south Florida with an unsealed warrant later revealing Trump is under investigation for potential violation of the Espionage Act and obstruction of justice over his alleged mishandling of classified documents.The episode inflamed conservative commentators and politicians still deeply loyal to the former president, and was followed by the attack on the FBI field office in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Thursday, which led to a six-hour armed standoff that left the lone gunman shot dead.Hogan, who is rumored to be considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, argued that many of his colleagues in Washington had been “jumping to conclusions without any information, which I think was wrong”.He added that revelations in the unsealed warrant were a “serious concern” but argued investigators should provide further details on the contents of the seized documents.Hogan’s comments were followed by remarks from Arkansas’s Republican governor Asa Hutchinson, who appeared on CNN on Sunday and partially mirrored his Maryland counterpart.“If the GOP is going to be the party of supporting law enforcement, law enforcement includes the FBI,” Hutchinson, a former US prosecutor and private practice attorney, said.He added: “We need to pull back on casting judgment on them. … No doubt that higher ups in the FBI have made mistakes, they do it, I’ve defended cases as well, and I’ve seen wrong actions. But we cannot say that whenever they [FBI officers] went in and did that search that they were not doing their job as law enforcement officers.”The comments marked a growing split on the extremist rhetoric from certain Republican party members following the execution of the search warrant. Many senior senate Republicans have remained largely quiet in the wake of the unprecedented law enforcement action, while others have appeared on conservative news channels supporting baseless accusations that the FBI planted evidence during the search.The Republican congresswoman from Wyoming Liz Cheney, a ranking member on the House committee investigating the January 6th attack on the US capitol, has condemned her colleagues’ rhetoric as “sickening”.“I have been ashamed to hear members of my party attacking the integrity of the FBI agents involved with the recent Mar-a-Lago search,” Cheney wrote on Thursday. “These are sickening comments that put the lives of patriotic public servants at risk.”Her stance is slowly being mirrored by other House Republicans after the warrant was made public on Friday.Dan Crenshaw, a Republican congressman from Texas told Axios on Saturday that sloganeering against the FBI “makes you look unserious”. And ranking homeland security committee member John Katko told the website: “This is not something you rush to judgment on. … It’s incumbent upon everybody to take a deep breath.”Meanwhile on Sunday, the White House continued refraining from commenting on the search warrant. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre repeatedly declined to answer questions on the matter during an interview with ABC News, citing the US justice department’s independence on law enforcement matters.When shown video of comments made by House Republican Elise Stefanik, a staunch Trump loyalist, who described the search as “complete abuse and overreach” by the FBI, Jean-Pierre broadly fired back.She said: “The Department of Justice, when it comes to law enforcement, is independent. This is what we believe, and this is what the president has said. This is not about politicizing anything. That is not true at all.”Jean-Pierre added a reminder that US attorney general Merrick Garland was confirmed by the US Senate in bipartisan vote, and that Trump nominated FBI director Christopher Wray to his position in 2017.TopicsDonald TrumpFBIUS politicsRepublicansFloridanewsReuse this content More

The Guardian view on Biden’s green deal: leadership after Trump’s denialismEditorialThe first major climate law passed in the US comes not a moment too soon for a burning planet When the House of Representatives passed landmark climate legislation on Friday, Joe Biden chalked up one of the surprise successes of his presidency. Only last month his ambitious agenda appeared sunk after a conservative Democrat and coal baron, Joe Manchin, refused to back it. His vote is crucial in an evenly divided Senate. However, the climate proposals were largely resurrected in the form of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), co-authored by Mr Manchin, which Congress approved.The first major US climate law comes not a moment too soon. It is the country’s best and last opportunity to meet its goal of halving greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and, with it, a world where net zero by mid-century is possible. After Donald Trump, Mr Biden can reclaim the mantle of global climate leadership for the US. But the act reveals the limits of his power.The Democrats’ initial $3.5tn plan was to expand education, fight poverty, lower healthcare costs and tackle climate change. That was whittled down to a $1.75tn bill that the House passed last year. But it got nowhere in the Senate. Mr Manchin refused to back the social security programmes and his centrist colleague Kyrsten Sinema refused to back the tax rises. What was left was $490bn in climate and healthcare investments.This deserves a small cheer from progressives. Mr Biden is pursuing a muscular policy of state intervention in the economy. The act for the first time gives the federal government the power to negotiate lower drug prices. Significantly for the climate, it represents a new US industrial policy that subsidises zero-carbon power production via tax credits. It also recognises that the US is falling behind China in green technology – spending $152bn less on renewable investments last year – and focuses on ways to encourage clean-energy manufacturing.Politics in the US is unfortunately far too influenced by the power of vested interests. The US remains addicted to fossil fuels, which generate 61% of its electricity. Its shale gas industry is looking to replace Russia as the major energy supplier to Europe. The upshot was that fossil fuel lobbyists won concessions in the climate legislation. The compromise means linking renewable development to new oil and gas extraction for which many communities will bear the disproportionate cost.Nevertheless, for every one tonne of emissions caused by the act’s fossil fuel provisions, the non-partisan Energy Innovation thinktank says 24 tonnes of emissions are avoided by its green provisions. This ought to help energise Mr Biden’s base ahead of the midterm elections. Despite Republican antagonism, climate action enjoys broad support in the US. A Pew Research Center poll suggests that 58% of voters think the federal government is doing too little to “reduce the effects of global climate change, compared with just 18% who say it is doing too much”.To be a truly transformative president, Mr Biden will need to remake society. What the act demonstrates is that he does not have the votes – yet – in his own party for such a programme. Mr Biden’s climate plans may fall short because he is relying on the carrot of spending rather than the stick of taxes to underpin an energy transition. Yet the wasteful consumption of the wealthy will have to be reduced with progressive taxation to make resources available for socially-useful spending. Ultimately the climate emergency needs a fundamental economic restructuring. Mr Biden’s new environmental law is a good start, but there’s a very long way to go.TopicsClimate crisisOpinionUS politicsJoe BidenNancy PelosiDemocratsRepublicanseditorialsReuse this content More

US congressional delegation visits Taiwan on heels of Pelosi tripFive-member group including a senator will meet president and attend banquet hosted by foreign minister A US congressional delegation has arrived in Taiwan, days after China held military drills around the island in retaliation for the House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit.The five-member delegation, led by Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts, will meet President Tsai Ing-wen and attend a banquet hosted by the foreign minister, Joseph Wu, during the visit, according to Taiwan’s foreign ministry.The American Institute in Taiwan said the US politicians would discuss “US-Taiwan relations, regional security, trade and investment, global supply chains, climate change, and other significant issues of mutual interest”.Quick GuideChina-Taiwan relations ShowA brief historyThe Chinese government claims Taiwan as a province of China and has not ruled out taking it by force.At the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, the losing Kuomintang government fled to the island of Taiwan, establishing the Republic of China (ROC) government in exile. On the mainland the Chinese Communist party (CCP) established the People’s Republic of China. From the 1970s onwards many nations began switching their formal ties from the ROC to Beijing, and today fewer than 15 world governments recognise the ROC (Taiwan) as a country.The CCP has never ruled over Taiwan and since the end of the civil war Taiwan has enjoyed de facto independence. Since its decades-long period of martial law ended in the 1980s, Taiwan has also grown to become a vibrant democracy with free elections and media.But unification is a key goal of the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping. The island’s president, Tsai Ing-wen, has said Taiwan is already a sovereign country with no need to declare independence, but Beijing regards Taiwan’s democratically elected government as separatists.Under Xi’s rule, aggression towards Taiwan has increased and analysts believe the threat of invasion is at its highest in decades. In recent years the People’s Liberation Army has sent hundreds of war planes into Taiwan’s air defence identification zone, as part of greatly increased “grey zone” activities, which are combat-adjacent but do not meet the threshold of war. Taiwan is working to modernise its military and is buying large numbers of military assets and weapons from the US in the hope it can deter Xi and the CCP from making a move. Helen Davidson Photograph: Tingshu Wang/X06979Taiwan hailed the delegation’s visit as another sign of warm ties between Taipei and Washington. “The ministry of foreign affairs expresses its sincere welcome [to the delegation],” the ministry said in a statement. “As China is continuing to escalate tensions in the region, the US Congress has again organised a heavyweight delegation to visit Taiwan, showing a friendship that is not afraid of China’s threats and intimidation, and highlighting the US’s strong support towards Taiwan.”The other members of the delegation are the Democratic members John Garamendi and Alan Lowenthal of California and Don Beyer of Virginia, and the Republican representative Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen from American Samoa, according to the institute.China’s embassy in Washington said on Sunday that “members of the US Congress should act in consistence with the US government’s one-China policy” and argued the latest congressional visit “once again proves that the US does not want to see stability across the Taiwan strait and has spared no effort to stir up confrontation between the two sides and interfere in China’s internal affairs”.China views Taiwan as its own territory to be taken one day, by force if necessary. For a week after Pelosi’s visit this month it sent warships, missiles and jets into the waters and skies around the island. Pelosi was the highest-ranking elected American official to visit Taiwan in decades.Taiwan has accused China of using her visit as an excuse to kickstart drills that would allow it to rehearse for an invasion. It held its own exercises simulating defence against a Chinese invasion of its main island. China drew down its drills but said it would continue to patrol the Taiwan strait.In its daily update, Taiwan’s defence ministry said on Sunday that it had detected 22 Chinese planes and six ships operating around the strait. Of those, 11 planes crossed the median line, an unofficial demarcation between Taiwan and China that Beijing does not recognise.Sign up to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every weekday morning at 7am BSTTaiwan’s presidential office said the group would meet Tsai on Monday morning. “Especially at a time when China is raising tensions in the Taiwan strait and the region with military exercises, Markey leading a delegation to visit Taiwan once again demonstrates the United States Congress’ firm support for Taiwan,” it said.Markey’s office said the lawmakers in Taiwan “will reaffirm the United States’ support for Taiwan as guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, US-China joint communiques, and six assurances, and will encourage stability and peace across the Taiwan strait.”The group would meet “with elected leaders and members of the private sector to discuss shared interests including reducing tensions in the Taiwan strait and expanding economic cooperation, including investments in semiconductors,” Markey’s office said.Taiwan’s foreign ministry published pictures of four lawmakers being met at Taipei’s downtown Songshan airport, having arrived on a US air force transport jet, while Markey arrived at the Taoyuan international airport.Last week China vowed zero tolerance for “separatist activities” in Taiwan and reaffirmed its threat that it would take control of the self-ruled island by force if provoked.“We are ready to create vast space for peaceful reunification, but we will leave no room for separatist activities in any form,” China’s Taiwan affairs office said in a white paper on Wednesday.It said China would “not renounce the use of force, and we reserve the option of taking all necessary measures”. It added, however: “We will only be forced to take drastic measures to respond to the provocation of separatist elements or external forces should they ever cross our red lines.”China last issued a white paper on Taiwan in 2000.AFP and Reuters contributed to this reportTopicsTaiwanUS CongressUS foreign policyChinaAsia PacificUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Alaska election tests weight of Sarah Palin’s celebrity – and Trump’s sway More than a decade ago, Palin ascended to international fame as a vice-presidential candidate – but now she faces an uncertain political futureThe billboards around town may say “Sarah for Alaska” – but as far as resident David Gober can tell, Sarah Palin “is all for Palin”.At a coffee shop not far from Palin’s campaign headquarters in Anchorage, Gober, his wife Zelda Marie and a few friends meet up regularly to affably dissect their politics and golf games. The group – like many Alaskans – is skeptical about their former governor’s congressional bid.Best of frenemies: Ron DeSantis stalks Trump with Republican primary tourRead moreMore than a decade ago, she ascended to international fame as a vice-presidential candidate in the 2008 election, with her self-described “rightwinging, bitter-clinging” persona. Since then, she has starred in several reality TV specials and in The Masked Singer, dressed as a fuzzy pink bear.But on Tuesday she is seeking elected office again, running for an open congressional seat with dozens of candidates. Voters across the 49th state will have to rank her against the tech millionaire Nick Begich III, a Republican, and the former state legislator Mary Peltola, a Democrat. The world’s best-known Alaskan politician faces an uncertain political future.“Palin gets people excited … She’s charismatic,” said Zelda Marie Gober, 67. “Do I want her in my politics? Not really.”The election will not only test the weight of Palin’s celebrity, but also that of Donald Trump – in a remote state that fiercely values independent thought.Polling can be difficult across the vast state, and further complicating predictions is the state’s new voting system. On Tuesday, voters will rank their preferred candidates to fill the congressional seat through the end of the year. They’ll also vote in “pick one” primaries for the House term that begins in January, the Senate race, the governor’s and lieutenant governor’s races, and 59 state legislative races. “This is a big election for us,” said Jenny-Marie Stryker, political director of the progressive Alaska Center. The special election will fill a seat held by the late Don Young, a Republican who was first elected to Congress 1973 and was the longest-serving member of the House. “It’s a rare opportunity for change. It’s really exciting – and uncertain.” Across political divides and 665,000 sq miles of mountains, glaciers and tundra, the largest US state is navigating an election unlike any before.In Palin’s hometown of Wasilla, a city of about 10,000 in the valley of the misty, snow-laced Chugach and Talkeetna Mountains, many voters are unsure of what to make of the world’s renewed interest in their community as their hometown hero launches her political comeback bid.“Ever since she was picked as a vice-presidential candidate, I’ve gotten jokes from family out of state about whether we ride moose to school,” said Heather Kruse, 31, who works at the local medical supply store. “It’s pretty cool to be recognized, I guess,” said Krause, who remembers Palin as warm and engaged when she met her in 2006. “And we can take a joke over here.”Still, Palin’s star has faded a bit over the past decade.At Chimo guns, the local gun and outdoor supply store where Palin and her family used to shop, the proprietor isn’t sure what happened to the photo of Palin that used to hang behind the counter. He does know that when Palin, now 58, went from mayor of Wasilla to governor and then vice-presidential candidate and TV celebrity, Wasilla changed. “This used to be a quiet little community,” said Craig, the shop’s towering owner who said did not want his last name printed in the news. In 2008, the media descended on the town, he said. “And we just kind of lost our innocence. It’s never been the same since.”Nearly a decade and a half ago, when Palin first thundered into the governor’s seat – a fiery young newcomer, unseating a powerful political incumbent – her approval rating topped off at just over 90% according to Ivan Moore – an Anchorage-based pollster. She was the fresh new face of Alaskan politics, a staunch conservative who was nonetheless willing to take on corruption within her own party, a pragmatist who was open to working with Democrats.Before she denied the climate crisis and declared “global warming my gluteus maximus” in a 2013 Facebook post, she created the Alaska Climate Change Sub-Cabinet. Before she turned “drill, baby, drill’ into a national slogan, she sought to raise taxes on the oil and gas industry.“For a short period of time, she was a tremendously open, fair and progressive leader in Alaska,” Moore said. “And then of course, it all went horribly wrong.”The Sarah Palin who rose to national prominence as John McCain’s running mate in the 2008 elections, the “mama grizzly” who spouted rabid run-on rambles, was initially unrecognisable to many Alaskans. “Her ideological flips were pretty stunning,” said Diane Hirshberg, director of the University of Alaska Institute of Social and Economic Research.On the national scene, Palin was a loose-lipped loose cannon – one who lobbed base, racist attacks against Barack Obama, embraced radical rightwing ideologies and denigrated the “lying” news media rather than answer basic policy questions. In many ways, she blazed a trail for Donald Trump – captivating the country as a renegade far-right celebrity.It follows, then, Palin’s biggest appearance so far was in July, alongside Trump and far-right senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka at an Anchorage rally. While her challengers addressed voters at a candidate forum in Kenai this month, Palin was fundraising in Minneapolis, alongside fervent Trump ally and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.“Sarah didn’t even show up to the July 4 parade in Wasilla,” said Lisa Stewart, 62 – who attended a local meet-and-greet session with Begich ahead of election day. “That blew my mind, that she couldn’t make time for her home town.”Stewart, a retired teacher, said she had taught a couple of Palin’s children, and she’s been a longtime friend of Palin’s parents. “I think she’s a different person now than the Sarah I knew.”A big point of contention for many supporters was that she quit the governorship in 2009, amid ethics scandals, not long after losing her vice-presidential bid. And until recently, many former supporters said she’s been absent.Even Trump’s support doesn’t hold much sway here. Stewart, like many Begich supporters, voted for Trump, and are backing his candidate Tshibaka for Senate over incumbent Lisa Murkowski. “But even Trump picks some duds,” laughed Mike Coons, 69. “And anyway, where is Sarah? I don’t see her around here.”Indeed, Palin has always branded herself as a maverick, political outsider – but this time around she has rarely campaigned inside Alaska. She has avoided media interviews, and her campaign did not respond to multiple queries from the Guardian, including requests to share her campaign schedule.In Wasilla and the broader Matanuska-Susitna valley that encompasses the city, a deeply conservative stronghold that any republican candidate needs to win a statewide race, Begich has seized upon her absence. The day before the election, he’s holding an event at Palin’s former in-laws house in Wasilla.“They came to me, and they know a lot of people in this community,” he shrugs. At a meet-and-greet event Wasilla, held at another local couple’s stately home overlooking the sprawling Chugach mountain rage Begich chats with with supporters who know Palin personally, her neighbors and family friends.“You know, Palin doesn’t have a sole claim to Wasilla,” he said. “These are my people too.”Begich 44, has a famous name as well. He’s grandson to Nick Begich Sr, who represented Alaska in the House, and the nephew of Mark Begich, a former mayor of Anchorage and US senator representing the state. Begich’s other uncle, Tom Begich, is a state senator. The catch? All of the other politicians in the candidate’s family are Democrats.“I think that’s going to be a big struggle for him,” said Ron Johnson, a representative of the Alaska Republican party, which has endorsed Begich. “I know him to be a true conservative. He’s just really got to keep getting that message out there.”Palin does still retain a good amount of support. She finished the state’s special primary election ahead of a pack of 48 candidates. “I think she’s amazing,” said Kari James, 47, a landscaper who was pleasantly surprised to learn that she’d be tending to the garden boxes outside of Palin’s Anchorage headquarters last week. She‘s the sort of person who could blaze into Washington “and put all those progressives in their place”, she said.The blue-shingled building was quiet, and the parking lot mostly empty – with a sole campaign worker inside to greet anyone who wandered in looking for a lawn sign. “It’s true she’s not as accessible,” James said. “But she is just more famous than the others.”For better or worse, several voters across Anchorage and Wasilla told the Guardian that Palin was still the candidate they knew best. “I just don’t know anything about Begich or Peltola,” said Nate Kile, 46 – who knew for sure he didn’t want to vote for Palin, but said that campaign outreach from her opponents had rarely filtered through to him. “I’m just totally lost,” said Heather Hile, 43 – who was on a date with Kile at a colorful used bookstore and café in Anchorage’s Spenard neighbourhood – an especially progressive enclave within blue-leaning Anchorage.Peltola, 48, a former state legislator who is running a grassroots campaign focused on infrastructure, environmental conservation and economic issues, has a natural base in many parts of the city – but also comes to the race with less funding and resources than her millionaire opponents. In an interview with the Guardian at the Writer’s Block café and bookstore in Anchorage, she says she’s aiming to fit in as many one-on-one meetings with voters across the vast state as she can ahead of the election. Her message is that she’s willing to work with both conservatives and progressives to advance Alaskan interests in congress. If she wins, Peltola, who is Yup’ik, would be the first Native Alaskan to represent the state in the House.“If we’re really going to start solving our problems and getting to solutions, we have to show up not angry and not bitter, and not blaming other people,” Peltola said. “We have to show up open-minded.” Though she differentiates herself from Palin and Begich on policies, she won’t respond to Palin’s fervency with any negativity. “She and I overlapped in the state capitol, and we were both pregnant at the same time,” she said. “I respect her and her supporters.” And if they’re ranking her first, Peltola would kindly ask that they consider listing her as a second choice.For Shirley Mae Springer Staten, 76, who was listening to the live music being performed at Anchorage’s Wild Salmon Festival, Peltola’s openness evoked the sort of politics that the late congressman Don Young practised. Young was far more prickly, and Jackson didn’t necessarily agree with all his policies. “But at the end of the day, he was working for Alaska,” she said. “We need someone in Congress who’s just focused on doing the work. Not stirring up this toxic anger.” TopicsSarah PalinUS midterm elections 2022US politicsAlaskafeaturesReuse this content More

How a wild week in Washington changed the game for Biden and Trump As the midterms approach, Biden’s climate success and Trump’s legal troubles could offer Democrats unexpected hopeDeparting his small, unshowy home state of Delaware, Joe Biden roared into the sky aboard Air Force One, borne aloft by jet fuel and a dramatic uplift in his political fortunes.A thousand miles away, some unexpected guests had just arrived at the opulent Florida estate of the US president’s predecessor, Donald Trump, but not for its champagne, sumptuous buffet or two pound lobsters.At about 9am on Monday, FBI agents – said to number between 30 and 40, some wearing suits, most in T-shirts, casual trousers, masks and gloves – began a search of Mar-a-Lago for government secrets that should not have left the White House.It was a tale of two presidents: Biden at his zenith, gaining praise for a “hot streak” and earning comparisons with the master legislator Lyndon Johnson; Trump at his nadir, under criminal investigation for potential violations of the Espionage Act and earning comparisons with the 1920s gangster Al Capone.And yet, such is the upside down nature of American politics in 2022, determining who won and who lost the week was less clear cut. For Biden, to be sure, it was a much needed boost after months of Washington gridlock, miserable poll ratings and speculation that he could face a challenger from his own Democratic party in the 2024 presidential election.But Trump, perversely, also appeared to end the week stronger within his party than he began it. He had faced growing dissent over damaging revelations from the congressional committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. Yet his claim that his home had been “raided” by law enforcement prompted Republicans to unite behind him with renewed zeal.The upshot was that Biden, 79, and 76-year-old Trump had each received a political blood transfusion when they needed it most. If recent events proved anything, it was that they are still the most likely contenders for the White House in 2024. America’s gerontocracy is not done yet.For a president long called a carnival barker and reality TV star reveling in spectacle, the FBI search on Monday began innocuously enough, with neither Trump nor cameras present (his son, Eric, told Fox News that he had been the first to learn of it and informed his father).Democrats’ midterm prospects perk up as Biden finally hits his strideRead moreThe FBI agents had a search warrant as part of a justice department investigation into the discovery of classified White House records recovered from Mar-a-Lago earlier this year. They wore plain clothes and were given access by the Secret Service without drama.The agents reportedly seized 11 sets of classified information, some of which was marked “top secret”, along with binders, handwritten notes and information about the “President of France”. Trump denied a Washington Post article that said the search was for possible classified materials related to nuclear weapons.It ended at about 6.30pm on Monday and word broke on social media a few minutes later, quickly followed by confirmation from Trump himself. In a characteristically hyperbolic statement, he fumed that Mar-a-Lago was “currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents. Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before… They even broke into my safe!”Trump claimed the search was politically motivated and attempted to draw a contrast with his old foe Hillary Clinton, but perhaps the most important sentence asserted: “It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024.”Like a herd of wildebeest, Republicans stampeded thunderously as one. “Weaponization”, “banana republic” and “dictatorship” were the go-to words of the week along with a blitz of fundraising emails. Some in the party of law and order, which had castigated Democrats over the “defund the police” slogan, were now calling for the FBI to be defunded.Senator Rick Scott of Florida, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, claimed that the government has gone the way of “the Gestapo”, the secret police in Nazi Germany. Congressman Paul Gosar of Arizona tweeted: “We must destroy the FBI. We must save America. I stand with Donald J Trump.”Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, warned the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, to “preserve your documents and clear your calendar” because, if Republicans take control of the House in November’s midterm elections, they will hold oversight investigations into the justice department.So far, so Maga. Perhaps more tellingly, even Republicans who had previously distanced themselves from Trump felt compelled to toe the line. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell demanded a “thorough and immediate explanation” of what led to the search.The former vice-president Mike Pence, who fell out with the former president over January 6, said “the appearance of continued partisanship by the justice department must be addressed”. Other potential contenders for the Republican nomination in 2024, including Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, joined the chorus.Opinion polls confirmed that the FBI search had given Trump at least a modest boost among Republicans. A survey by Morning Consult found that 57% of Republican voters and Republican-leaning independents would vote for Trump if the 2024 primary were being held today, up from 53% in mid-July. DeSantis fell from 23% to 17% over the same period.This followed a run of victories for Trump-backed candidates in congressional primary elections. In the spring and early summer, his record had been uneven with notable setbacks in states such as Georgia. But this month, his slate of election-deniers beat establishment-backed candidates in Arizona.The businessman Tim Michels won the Republican primary for governor of Wisconsin with Trump’s backing. Most of the 10 Republican members of Congress who voted to impeach Trump have either retired or lost. Liz Cheney, the vice-chair of the January 6 committee, will be on the Wyoming ballot on Tuesday and is widely expected to lose her seat.A the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Texas, 69% of attendees said they wanted Trump as the Republican nominee in 2024, well ahead of DeSantis on 24%. Jim McLaughlin, who conducted the straw poll, said: “He’s more popular than ever.”Yet even as Trump tightens his grip on the Republican base, his new status as the first former US president to suffer the indignity of having his home searched by the FBI offers another reason why moderate and independent voters could slip through his fingers.Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said: “There are two contrary effects. With Republicans, or at least the Republican base, this has caused them to rally around not the flag but Donald Trump. It has strengthened him within the party and discouraged people like DeSantis, whether he admits it or not, and the others aren’t even on the radar screen at this point.“But the contrary effect for not just Democrats but also independents is it makes Trump less electable in 2024. People look at him and even if they like him they say his time has passed and he’s too controversial, I’ve heard this a million times and I don’t think it’s exceptional.”Wendy Schiller, a political science professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, agrees that Republicans’ fast and furious defense of Trump should not necessarily be taken at face value as the midterms approach.An anxious American west sizes up historic climate bill: ‘We need every tool’Read moreShe said: “They’re squeezing all of this enthusiasm out of his base, promising them all sorts of things, just to make sure that they get out and vote on 8 November.”Schiller added: “They’re using Donald Trump to get to the promised land in November but, as soon as they get there, it’s not clear to me that they stay loyal to him particularly. They don’t have to. Once they get the Congress, particularly if they get the Senate, and if Ron DeSantis wins big in Florida for re-election, he doesn’t need Donald Trump to get the nomination or the presidency.”Whatever their motivations, Republicans’ rush of incendiary and reckless rhetoric also came with a dark and dangerous side. Pro-Trump online chatrooms filled with calls for violence and phrases such as “lock and load” while “civil war” trended on Twitter.On Thursday an armed man wearing body armor tried to breach a security screening area at an FBI field office in Ohio, then fled and was later killed after a standoff with law enforcement. The man is believed to have been in Washington in the days before the assault on the US Capitol and may have been there on the day it took place.Trump’s legal perils – federal and state, civil and criminal – continue to mount. In a separate case, he sat for a deposition on Wednesday as the New York attorney general, Letitia James, wraps up a civil investigation into allegations that his company misled lenders and tax authorities about asset values.Even as Trump invoked his fifth-amendment protection against self-incrimination more than 400 times, Biden was at the White House celebrating another victory. He signed bipartisan legislation to pour billions of dollars into care for military veterans exposed to toxic burn pits.It was one of several victories for a president who just last month was being written off as a likely one-term president with an approval rating below 40% – worse even than Trump’s – because of inflation, a stalled agenda and a desire for generational change. The Axios website started a list of Democratic officials’ positions on whether they want Biden to run again in 2024, noting that two gave firm “no”s and 19 dodged the question.But the narrative has shifted quickly in just a few weeks even as Biden battled a coronavirus infection and lingering cough. Congress, where Democrats have wafer-thin majorities, sent bipartisan bills addressing gun violence and boosting the nation’s high-tech manufacturing sector to his desk.On Friday, the president secured what he called the “final piece” of his economic agenda with passage of a $740bn climate and prescription drug deal once thought dead. In addition, petrol prices dipped below $4 a gallon for the first time since March, inflation appears to be stabilising and the economy added 528,000 jobs in July, bringing the unemployment rate to 3.5%, the lowest in half a century.And Biden successfully ordered the killing of al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri in a US drone strike in Afghanistan, the most significant blow to the terrorist network since the death of Osama Bin Laden. Democrats and the White House hope the run of victories will revive their their political fortunes in time for the midterms.Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist, said: “When you combine what’s happened in the last month legislatively with the supreme court decision overturning Roe v Wade [the constitutional right to abortion], you may have a very different situation for Democrats going into the midterms and for Biden in the second half of his term and a possible re-election.”Shrum, director of the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California Dornsife, does not buy the notion that Trump has been strengthened by his latest crisis. “He’s still the dominant force in the Republican party but he’s not as dominant as he was a year ago. He might be able to win a plurality nomination, but I actually think he’d be a very weak Republican nominee. He literally could get into a position where running would be a part time occupation and defending himself in court would be the full time occupation.”The 2024 election is an age away. Most commentators agree that, despite all the unknowables facing both men, including those related to being older than any other American presidents in history, a Biden v Trump rematch remains the most likely scenario.Michael Steele, a Trump critic and former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said: “Let’s settle this once and for all. Let’s stomp Trump’s ass into the ground one more time. He lost by 8m votes last time; he’ll lose by 16m next time. You want to play? Let’s play. Democrats, with all their navel gazing, whining and bellyaching about Joe Biden’s age and this and that, shut the hell up!”Steele added: “The most likely outcome going into 2024 is that it will be a repeat of the 2020 election. All stakes remain the same, if not higher, and the American people are going to have to decide once and for all: are we down with autocracy or are we up with democracy?”TopicsUS politicsJoe BidenDonald TrumpDemocratsRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

Breaking History review: Jared Kushner’s dispiriting Trump book The former president’s son-in-law has written a predictably self-serving and selective memoir of his time in the White HouseThe House January 6 committee hearings depict Donald Trump as eager to storm the Capitol. He knew the rally held in his name included armed individuals. When rioters chanted “Hang Mike Pence”, Jared Kushner’s father-in-law remarked: “He deserves it.”The Big Lie review: Jonathan Lemire laments what Trump hath wroughtRead moreIn response to a plea from Kevin McCarthy, the 45th president questioned the House Republican leader’s devotion. The mob invaded Congress. Trump sat back and watched.Kushner has not fared well either. In testimony to the panel, he has derided Pat Cipollone as a “whiner” and described deigning to exit the shower to take a call from a panicked McCarthy. On the screen, Kushner drips hauteur, empathy nonexistent. It’s not a good look.Then comes Breaking History, Kushner’s White House memoir. Its sits at the intersection of spin, absolution and self-aggrandizement.“What is clear to me is that no one at the White House expected violence that day,” Kushner writes of January 6. Cassidy Hutchinson says otherwise.Kushner adds: “I’m confident that if my colleagues or the president had anticipated violence, they would have prevented it from happening.” DC police tell a different story.Kushner rebuffed early entreaties from Marc Short, the vice-president’s chief of staff, to end Trump’s attempt to stop certification of Joe Biden’s win.“You know, I’m really focused on the Middle East right now,” Kushner replied. “I haven’t really been involved in the election stuff since Rudy Giuliani came in.”In the aftermath of January 6, White House morale was at a nadir, according to Kushner. A second impeachment loomed. Kushner told staff to stay the course.“You took an oath to the country,” he recalls. “This is a moment when we have to do what’s right, not what’s popular. If the country is better off with you here, then stay. If it doesn’t matter, then do what you want.”That sales pitch sounds canned. Those who had served in the military found the spiel stale and grating.In Kushner, Inc, the author Vicky Ward described Kushner’s earlier efforts to persuade Mark Corallo to join the White House staff. Corallo was once in the army and did a stint at the Department of Justice too.After he said no, Kushner asked: “Don’t you want to serve your country?”Corallo replied: “Young man, my three years at the butt end of an M-16 checked that box.”Trump dodged the draft for Vietnam. When his brother, Fred Jr, accepted a commission in the air national guard, he met with his family’s scorn. In contrast, Mike Pence’s son, the Biden boys, Steve Bannon: all wore a uniform.In Breaking History, Kushner selectively parcels out dirt. He seeks to absolve his father for recruiting a sex worker to film her tryst with William Schulder, Charlie Kushner’s brother-in-law. At the time, Schulder, his wife, Esther, (Charlie’s sister), and Charlie were locked in battle over control of the family real estate business.Kushner explains: “Billy’s infidelity was an open secret around the office, and to show his sister Esther what kind of man she had married, my father hired a prostitute who seduced Billy.”Schulder and Esther were also talking to the feds.The names of two Trump paramours, Stormy Daniels, the adult film star, and Karen McDougal, the Playboy model, do not appear in Kushner’s book. Then again, as Trump once said, “When you’re a star … you can do anything.” For Trump and Kushner, rules are meant for others.Breaking History comes with conflicting creation stories. In June, the New York Times reported that Kushner took an online MasterClass from the thriller writer James Patterson, then “batted out” 40,000 words of his own.The Guardian reported that Kushner received assistance from Ken Kurson, a former editor of the New York Observer who was pardoned by Trump on cyberstalking charges but then pleaded guilty after being charged with spying on his wife. Avi Berkowitz, a Kushner deputy who worked on the Abraham Accords, and Cassidy Luna, an aide married to Nick Luna, Trump’s White House “body man”, were also on board.Breaking History says nothing about Patterson but gives shout-outs to Kurson, Luna and Berkowitz: “From the inception of this endeavor, Ken’s brutally honest feedback and inventive suggestions have made this a better book.”Kushner rightly takes pride in the Abraham Accords, normalization agreements between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco. In the process, he provides backstory for Trump’s frustration with Benjamin Netanyahu.Israel’s then-prime minister’s earned a “fuck him” after he hesitatingly embraced Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, seeking to extract maximum concession without grace or reciprocity. What Netanyahu craved but never received was American approval of Israeli annexation of the West Bank. Here, Breaking History adds color to Trump’s Peace by Barak Ravid.According to Ravid, David Friedman, the US ambassador to Israel, was close to Netanyahu. He sat in on Israeli government meetings until he was tossed out by cabinet members. Ravid also calls Friedman “flesh of the settlers’ flesh”.Trump’s Peace review: dysfunction and accord in US Israel policyRead moreEnter Kushner. “Friedman had assured Bibi that he would get the White House to support annexation more immediately,” he says. “He had not conveyed this to me or anyone on my team.”Things grew heated. “You haven’t spoken to a single person from a country outside of Israel,” Kushner said. “You don’t have to deal with the Brits, you don’t have to deal with the Moroccans, and you don’t have to deal with the Saudis or the Emiratis, who are all trusting my word and putting out statements. I have to deal with the fallout of this. You don’t.”One Trump veteran described Breaking History to the Guardian as “just 493 pages of pure boredom”. Not exactly. Kushner delivers a mixture of news and cringe. He does not extract Trump from his present morass. On Wednesday, Kushner’s father-in-law invoked the fifth amendment. Only Charlie Kushner got the pardon. A devoted child takes care of dad.
Breaking History: A White House Memoir is published in the US by HarperCollins
TopicsBooksJared KushnerTrump administrationDonald TrumpUS politicsPolitics booksRepublicansreviewsReuse this content More