US Politics

‘Truth, courage, resilience’: Biden hails Salman Rushdie after attackPresident says author stands for ‘essential, universal ideals’ and ‘the ability to share ideas without fear’ A day after Salman Rushdie’s stabbing in western New York, Joe Biden on Saturday issued a statement hailing the author as standing “for essential, universal ideals”.“Truth. Courage. Resilience. The ability to share ideas without fear,” the president’s statement added about Rushdie, who spent years in hiding after a former leader of Iran put out a call for the writer’s death over one of his novels. “These are the building blocks of any free and open society. And today, we reaffirm our commitment to those deeply American values in solidarity with Rushdie and all those who stand for freedom of expression.”Biden also said he and Jill Biden offered prayers to Rushdie, and he thanked those who came to the writer’s aid after the stabbing, which left Biden “shocked and saddened”.Rushdie, 75, was at a literary festival hosted by the Chautauqua Institution to speak about how important it was for the US to give asylum to exiled writers when he was stabbed.Authorities allege Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey, rushed on stage and knifed Rushdie repeatedly before being tackled by spectators, institution staffers and police providing security.Rushdie suffered three stabs wounds to the right front of his neck, another four to his stomach, one each to his right eye and chest, and a cut to his right thigh, the local district attorney, Jason Schmidt, said Saturday.A helicopter crew flew Rushdie to a hospital in nearby Erie, Pennsylvania. He remained hospitalized on Saturday, with his liver damaged, nerves in his arm severed and at the risk of losing an eye, according to his literary agent.New York officials have charged Matar with attempted murder as well as assault on a man who was sharing the stage with Rushdie and suffered a relatively small facial wound during the stabbing. Matar has pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail.Investigators haven’t said why they believe Matar may have wanted to kill Rushdie. But at a preliminary court hearing on Saturday, the local district attorney alluded to the fatwa – or decree – calling for his life that late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini put out in 1989.The fatwa – well before Matar was born – was in retribution for Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses. Many Muslims interpreted the Indian-born author’s book as blasphemous because it included a character they found insulting to the prophet Muhammad, the founder of their faith.Iran’s government has since tried to distance itself from the fatwa, but with the help of religious extremists, an accompanying bounty was increased in recent years to more than $3m.Matar’s social media activity reportedly reflects an admiration of Iran’s government as well as Islamic extremism.Rushdie lived in hiding and under police protection for years after the fatwa. But more recently he had been living openly in New York, which Biden’s statement hailed as “a refusal to be intimidated or silenced”.Biden – whose administration is trying to re-enter a nuclear deal with Iran – also said Rushdie had demonstrated “insight into humanity with his unmatched sense for story”.TopicsUS newsSalman RushdieJoe BidenUS politicsIranReuse this content More

The Republican party has reason to fear the midtermsLloyd GreenThis fall, Trump will be on the ballot even if his name does not appear. There are growing signs the Republican party is in trouble Donald Trump’s week from hell has turned red hot. On Friday, reports emerged that he was under suspicion of having violated the Espionage Act, removing or destroying records and obstructing an investigation. Separate inventory receipts reflect that FBI agents hauled-off a trove of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Palm Beach domicile and club. Specifically, agents found four sets of “top secret documents”, three sets of “secret documents” and three sets of “confidential documents”. Whether any of this pertains to US nuclear capabilities remains a mystery. On Thursday night, the Washington Post had reported that the FBI searched for “nuclear documents and other items, sources say even worse.” For his part, Trump denied the search related to nuclear weapons, and branded those allegations a “hoax”.Earlier on Thursday, Merrick Garland, the attorney general, told reporters that the buck stopped with him. At the same time, the Department of Justice also moved to unseal the search warrant and inventory list. “Absent objection” by Trump, the justice department asked the court to make public both the search warrant and the inventory. Late Thursday, the former president acceded to the department’s gambit. “Release the documents now!”, Trump announced on Truth Social. Armed FBI attacker shot dead by police believed to be enraged Trump supporterRead moreNukes and the pungent whiff of espionage possibly committed by the ex-president now waft through the air. Jay Bratt signed the Department of Justice filing. He heads the department’s counterintelligence and export control office. Once upon a time, Trump contemplated pardoning Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. Both men were charged under the Espionage Act. In his book on the Trump presidency, Rage, Bob Woodward quoted Trump as saying: “We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about. We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before. There’s nobody – what we have is incredible.” As an act of deflection, Trump also attacked the 44th president: “I continue to ask, what happened to the 33mn pages of documents taken to Chicago by President Obama.” Earlier in the week, Trump declared that the FBI had defiled his safe-space. On cue, members of his family, the Republican party and right-wing media trashed the feds and the Biden administration. On Thursday night, they went momentarily silent. Until then, they did their best to paint the former guy as a victim. Senator Rand Paul raised the specter of planted evidence. Rudy Giuliani vowed that if Trump were re-elected, the feds would swoop down on the Bidens. One Trump-fundraising blast read: “Remember, they were never after President Trump. They have always been after YOU.” This is the same crowd that continued to demand – six years after the 2016 election –that Hillary Clinton be locked-up. Said differently, “law and order” means whatever they choose it to mean, like Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland. “Neither more nor less”. On that score, the FBI field office in Cincinnati came under attack by Ricky Walter Shiffer just before Garland’s announcement. Law enforcement later confirmed that they had killed him. Shiffer was at the Capitol on January 6. In death, he had finally caught up with Ashli Babbitt. For the record, Shiffer and Babbitt were veterans.The blow-up over Mar-a-Lago has helped Trump regain his sway over the Republican party. With the notable exception of Sen Tim Scott of South Carolina, senior Republicans have again prostrated themselves: Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Mitch McConnell, Ron DeSantis, Kevin McCarthy, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio. The band is back. Yet all this comes at a steep-cost to their ambitions. The anticipated red-wave in the upcoming midterms may have crested. The Republican party underperformed in Minnesota’s recent special congressional election. Now, the party stands to lose its natural advantage on national security issues. Beyond that, the latest Fox News poll reports that the Democrats have tied the Republican party on the generic House ballot, at 41% all. Just months ago, the Republicans held a seven-point lead. Meanwhile, the public disapproves of the supreme court overturning Roe v Wade by a greater than a three-two margin.White women without four-year degrees disapprove even more strongly (60-35) than those who are college graduates (54-44). Suburban women give the end of Roe a deep thumbs-down, 65-33. The raging culture war and Trump’s antics may even enable Nancy Pelosi to continue wielding the speaker’s gavel in January 2023. This fall Trump will be on the ballot even if his name does not appear. Whether he will be under indictment is the open question.
Lloyd Green served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
TopicsUS politicsOpinionUS midterm elections 2022RepublicansDemocratsDonald TrumpcommentReuse this content More

‘Time for us to stand up’: a California county’s fight to secede from the stateDisgruntled with the state’s lack of support, the board of supervisors moved to put the measure on the ballot Come November, San Bernardino county residents will vote to elect school board members, water officials and state representatives – and whether they want the county to look at breaking away from California.The expansive county east of Los Angeles, home to 2 million people and some of the state’s beloved Joshua trees, isn’t getting the resources it needs to support its residents, county officials argue. This week the board of supervisors moved to add a measure on the November ballot asking residents if they want the county “to study all options to obtain its fair share of state and federal resources, up to and including secession”.‘Nowhere is safe’: California highway shootings double in two years, data revealsRead more“People pay high taxes and they do not believe their taxes are coming back to their neighborhoods to address the issues they care about,” Supervisor Janice Rutherford said in a meeting earlier this month. “And there is nothing crazy about being angry about those things.”With its ballot measure, San Bernardino county joins a long tradition in California politics in which local grievances and discontent turn to talk of leaving the state entirely. Such sentiments are often associated with the other end of the state – far northern California has for decades been home to a thriving breakaway movement advocating for secession from the Golden State’s liberal government.“Proposals like this have a long history in California, going back to the State of Jefferson idea in the 1940s, and the 1859 attempt to request congressional approval to divide the state in two,” said David A Carrillo, the executive director of Berkeley Law’s California Constitution Center.Leaving California and forming a new state would require approval from the state legislature and Congress, a virtually impossible effort, experts such as Carrillo warn.Still, officials and secession supporters have vowed to forge ahead with the measure, characterizing it as an opportunity for the county to “stand up” to the state.“I don’t care if people think we can secede or not. That was never the point of this,” Jeff Burum, the local real estate developer who proposed the idea to officials earlier this summer, told the San Bernardino Sun. “It’s time for us to stand up and get our fair share.”Both the county sheriff and the district attorney have voiced support for the measure, and told the supervisors at a meeting this week that the state isn’t pulling its weight and has failed its responsibility to invest in the prisons, state hospitals and courthouses they say are necessary to keep up with one of America’s fastest-growing metro areas.“The issue isn’t resources have been neglected, it’s how long they’ve been neglected,” said Jason Anderson, the county DA. “Counties don’t build courthouses. States build courthouses.”San Bernardino county is larger than nine states and has an $8.4bn budget, a speaker pointed out at a board of supervisors meeting. But the county ranks 36th out of 56 counties for per-capita revenue received from the state and federal governments, according to a data analysis from local officials.The region is entitled to more resources to accommodate its growing population, Acquanetta Warren, the mayor of Fontana, told the board of supervisors this week.“We need our state legislators to look at the return they are supposed to deliver to the people they serve,” she said. “We are one of the fastest-growing regions and it’s time to pay attention to that … We don’t have beaches, we don’t have all the skyscrapers but what we have is a family. We are a family-oriented county.”The move has drawn criticism from state lawmakers, who deemed it a waste of taxpayer dollars and say they have brought millions of dollars to the region. “Public resources, including staff time being paid for with taxpayer dollars, are being used to not only draft this item but to put it on the ballot in November,” legislators wrote in a letter, according to the Sun, adding that such an effort is unlikely.Political experts echo that assessment, arguing that talk of secession comes up often in California politics and receives widespread media coverage but has almost no chance of moving forward.“There’s no real path for this. California’s legislature would need to ask Congress for permission to make San Bernardino a new state, and the new State of San Bernardino needs a federal constitutional amendment to leave the union. None of that is happening,” Carrillo said.Such efforts have occurred since shortly after California joined the union, Carrillo pointed out.“Although the details change, every time proposals to subdivide California come up the motivation and intention sound the same: local political dissatisfaction leads a group to threaten to go their own way. But these stunts are less about succeeding and more about grabbing headlines.”In San Bernardino, the local officials behind the measure argue that it’s not about secession, but instead gathering data so the county can effectively fight for its fair share of resources. “The secession last-resort is an expression of our resolve, an illustration of the seriousness of the matter, and an acknowledgment of the deep concern of our residents and the community leaders who have spoken out,” Supervisor Curt Hagman said, according to the Sun.The Associated Press contributed to this reportTopicsCaliforniaUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More

InterviewBernie Sanders: ‘extremely modest’ spending bill fails to meet the momentLauren Gambino in WashingtonLeftwing senator says party squandered chance to be bold, and takes aim at ‘corporate Democrats’ Sinema and Manchin As Democrats celebrate the long-sought passage of Joe Biden’s sweeping health, climate and economic package, Bernie Sanders is not ready to declare victory. Instead, the Vermont senator is sounding the alarm that Congress has failed to meet the moment, with potentially grave consequences for American democracy.FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home for classified nuclear weapons documents – reportRead more“We are living in enormously difficult times,” he said in an interview with the Guardian. “And I worry very much … that people are giving up on democracy because they do not believe that their government is working for them.”The legislation, which Biden is expected to sign into law next week, is but a sliver of the ambitious domestic policy initiative that Sanders, as chair of the Senate Budget Committee, helped draft last year. The original proposal was, in his view, already a compromise. But he believes it would have gone a long way in addressing the widespread economic distress that is undermining Americans’ faith in their government.With control of Congress at stake this fall, Sanders believes Democrats squandered a major opportunity, probably their last before the midterm elections, to show voters what they could deliver with even larger majorities in Congress.“It seems to me that what we should have done is gone forward with a bold agenda, to show the American people, ordinary people, that we understand what’s going on in their lives,” he said. “And if we cannot succeed because we don’t have the 50 votes, at least let the American people understand that we are fighting for them, and that we had to make a compromise to do far, far, far less than what is necessary.”Sanders supported the resulting compromise, finalized after a year of strained negotiations and setbacks, because he concluded that “the pluses outweighed the negatives”.A core pillar of the bill is nearly $400bn in climate and energy proposals, a historic sum that scientists estimate will help the US cut emissions by about 40% by the end of the decade, compared with 2005 levels. It also enables Medicare to negotiate the price of some prescription drugs, caps the annual out-of-pocket costs of the program’s beneficiaries at $2,000 and extends pandemic-era health insurance subsidies. To pay for it, the bill establishes a new 15% minimum tax on the nation’s biggest corporations.But perhaps most notable, Sanders said, is what was left out.Initially envisioned as a wholesale rebuilding of the American social safety net, weakened by decades of disinvestment, widening income inequality and stagnating wealth, the plan was slashed and trimmed and slashed again in an effort to appeal to two Democratic holdouts in the Senate, where the chamber’s even split left no margin for error.Abandoned in the process were proposals to lower the cost of childcare, establish universal pre-K, guarantee parental leave, expand care for elderly and disabled people, and make community college tuition-free for two years. These policies, he argued, are the best way to begin easing the economic hardship facing so many American families.To underscore his point, the senator listed a series of worrying indicators – elderly Americans unable to afford home care, families struggling to pay for childcare and young people burdened by student-loan debt, all of it made worse by soaring costs of necessities such as food, fuel and rent.“A lot of people are hurting and they’re looking to the United States Congress, asking, ‘Do you understand what’s going on in my life right now?’” he said. “And I think their conclusion is no, they don’t.”Sanders registered his dismay in a series of sharp floor speeches before the Senate vote last weekend, during which he decried Democrats’ plan as an “extremely modest bill that does virtually nothing to address the enormous crises facing the working families of our country”.Another tradeoff that especially infuriated Sanders, and many climate activists, was the inclusion of fossil fuel and drilling provisions, which were added to win the support of Manchin, whose conservative state is heavily dependent on the coal and gas industries.As heatwaves, floods and wildfires wreak havoc across the country, Sanders said: “Does anybody in their right mind think this is sensible, when you’re talking about climate?”Yet he was optimistic that there had been a “change in consciousness” among lawmakers on the issue, partly because the effects were undeniable but also because of the actions of activists and young people.“The activists should be proud,” he said, crediting their persistence for pushing Congress to make its largest ever investment in strategies to slow global warming.During the Senate’s marathon, overnight debate – known as a “vote-a-rama” – Sanders offered a number of amendments that sought to restore some of the policies dropped from the original bill in an effort to win support from Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. They included proposals to extend the child tax credit, expand Medicare coverage, cap the cost of prescription drugs and establish a civilian climate corps.All were defeated, overwhelmingly: 1-99, 1-98, 1-97, with Sanders offering, he later quipped, the “resounding one” vote.The votes frustrated some of his colleagues, who determined that Sanders’ approach risked upsetting their fragile coalition.“Come on, Bernie,” Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio was overheard saying, after explaining that most Democrats supported the policies but were acting to preserve the broader deal.Republicans, meanwhile, have derided the measure as reckless spending that would worsen not improve inflation. Sanders’ criticism of the bill as the “so-called Inflation Reduction Act” provided fodder for Republicans. “This won’t reduce inflation,” Republican senator Lindsey Graham, vice-chair of the Senate Budget Committee, said recently. “Just ask Bernie Sanders.”Vice-President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate on Sunday afternoon, and the House gave final passage the measure on Friday.Acknowledging the political reality of Democrats thin majorities, Sanders argued that his Senate colleagues could have sent a strong message to voters by supporting his amendments, even if they were destined to fail.“At this particular moment, we cannot leave it to conservative Democrats to define the direction in which Congress and the Democratic party is going,” Sanders said – an apparent reference to Manchin and Sinema.Progressives in the House voiced similar reservations as Sanders, but ultimately saw the measure as the best chance to achieve some of their economic policy goals while Democrats control Congress. Ahead of the House vote on Friday, congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, a progressive from Washington, said there was much more to do but urged her colleagues to “celebrate this massive investment for the people”.Biden declared the legislation a significant victory over “special interests”. “It required many compromises,” he said after the bill’s passage. “Doing important things almost always does.”Sanders said the measure amounted to a “slight defeat” for Big Pharma – an industry, he noted, that counts as many as three lobbyists per member of Congress. But the senator said the prescription drug reforms were far too limited in scope, as the changes leave out most Americans, only apply to 10 drugs initially, and won’t take effect until 2026.Senate Republicans rejected an amendment that would have capped insulin prices at $35 for Americans not on Medicare, a move Sanders said, “exposes the fraud for anyone who thinks the Republican party cares a damn about working people”.Now as Democrats fan out across the country for the summer recess, many are testing a new pitch: touting their legislative success while asking voters to deliver them another, bigger congressional majority next year to accomplish what they could not this year.With two more senators, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, said in a recent interview, “We would get childcare. We would get paid family leave. We would get help for the elderly, home care. We would get the kind of things that Joe Manchin was against.”In the weeks ahead, Sanders said he plans to hit the trail for Democrats, with a blunter version of that message: “Give us two or three more seats so we don’t have to make compromises with corporate Democrats.”TopicsBernie SandersUS politicsDemocratsinterviewsReuse this content More

Best of frenemies: Ron DeSantis stalks Trump with Republican primary tour The Florida governor has been dubbed a ‘mini-Trump’ and was once boosted by the ex-president but a potential rivalry in 2024 has turned relations sourAs Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, packs his suitcase for a five-day trip to campaign for Trump-endorsed candidates, he might afford himself a dastardly chuckle.The trek, taking in Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio and Pennsylvania is nominally aimed at boosting Republicans’ chances ahead of November’s crucial primaries. For DeSantis, however, there is surely a grander design. Each of the rising Republican star’s destinations is a swing state, key to winning the 2024 presidential election.As Trump’s star wanes, another rises: could Ron DeSantis be the new Maga bearer?Read moreThe Florida governor – who must walk the tightrope of being both ally and rival of Trump – is hotly tipped to run for president, and this outwardly benevolent campaigning trip will further swell his profile.There is a downside, however. DeSantis’s sojourn will put him on a collision course with the Republican party’s most sensitive, volatile and powerful figure: Donald Trump. With this tour, DeSantis’s tightrope is getting more and more rocky.Trump was key to getting DeSantis, who has been dubbed a “mini-Trump”, elected governor in 2018, but bad blood between the pair – particularly from Trump’s side – has been brewing for some time.As DeSantis has become a new darling of the right, fueled by his introduction of anti-gay and anti-trans laws in Florida and a populist crusade against coronavirus lockdowns and masking, Trump, muzzled by his Twitter ban and besieged by lawsuits and congressional investigations, has found himself under siege.The rise of DeSantis has not always gone down well with the twice-impeached former president who, according to one report, now “hates” his former protege.The apparent feud is a far cry from 2018, when Trump swooped into the Florida gubernatorial primary, endorsed DeSantis, and propelled the then relatively obscure congressman to the Florida governorship.DeSantis had been struggling in the 2018 governor primary. Most of the polls through 2017 and early 2018 had Adam Putnam, then the Florida agriculture commissioner, leading DeSantis. The few polls that didn’t have Putnam ahead showed the pair in an effective tie.Until late June, that is, when Trump endorsed DeSantis in a tweet that hailed the gubernatorial hopeful as “strong on Borders, tough on Crime & big on Cutting Taxes”. In the next poll following that endorsement DeSantis was 20 points ahead. Trump held a rally for DeSantis in Tampa in July 2018, and the Floridian won the Republican nomination and beat Andrew Gillum, his Democratic opponent, by about 32,000 votes in the election proper. A star was born.“I’d like to thank our president,” DeSantis said in his victory speech, to cheers from the crowd, “for standing by me when it wasn’t necessarily the smart thing to do.”But even during that campaign there had been warning signs that the DeSantis-Trump relationship might not be entirely harmonious.In September 2018 Trump questioned, without evidence, the number of people who died when Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico a year earlier. A study commissioned by the Puerto Rican government found that almost 3,000 people died as a result of the category 4 hurricane.There was outrage from many. From DeSantis, there was a more tepid, but still meaningful, disagreement.“He doesn’t believe any loss of life has been inflated,” DeSantis’s campaign said in a statement.That rebuttal, the New York Times reported, was enough to leave Trump “absolutely livid”.Vanity Fair reported in July 2021 that Trump and DeSantis were on a “collision course”. That June, DeSantis beat Trump in a conservative poll of candidates’ approval ratings, albeit by less than 3%. DeSantis’s popularity was soaring, and his one-time benefactor was upset.“Trump fucking hates DeSantis. He just resents his popularity,” a Trump confidant told Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman.At 43 years old, Ronald Dion DeSantis is more than three decades younger than Trump, who will be 78 on election day in 2024.Born in Jacksonville, Florida, DeSantis studied at Yale and at Harvard law school before becoming a prosecutor in the navy, where he received decorations for prosecuting cases involving fraud related to military medals, according to a Freedom of information request submitted by the Florida Phoenix. DeSantis was deployed to Iraq in 2007, where he served as a legal adviser, and was honorably discharged in 2010.In 2012 DeSantis ran for the US House of Representatives and won, and went on to co-found the House Freedom Caucus, a particularly rightwing group of congressmen, many of whom had emerged from the early Obama-era Tea Party.After a pretty unremarkable spell in Congress – the Miami Herald reported that none of the bills DeSantis introduced as the original sponsor became law – DeSantis found himself as governor of Florida, a position which propelled him into the national spotlight.He would become a regular contributor to Fox News, the conservative movement tastemaker, and in the year following the 2020 presidential election was asked to appear on the channel more than 110 times, according to the New Yorker, agreeing at least 34 times.So far in 2022, the trend has continued. DeSantis has been among the most interviewed Republicans on Fox News, while Trump, as of mid-August, had not been interviewed on the network for more than 115 days.DeSantis is seen by some conservatives as a more palatable, more electable, version of the original: still outspoken against the media or perceived foes when he wants to be, but less prone to explosions of temper, and with a less turbulent past. DeSantis has also not been impeached twice, and is not being investigated for inciting an insurrection, which could help win over wavering voters.But DeSantis is just as extreme – perhaps more extreme – than Trump. As governor he has targeted minority groups, introducing legislation that seems designed to thrill the rightwing Republican base.In March of this year DeSantis signed into law a “don’t say gay” bill, which prohibits discussion of sexuality and gender identity in schools, a move that advocates say could harm the mental health of LGBTQ+ youth. The governor’s administration has also moved to ban gender-affirming medical treatment for trans youths, an effort described as “transparently political” by the Human Rights Campaign.DeSantis suspended a Florida state prosecutor in early August after the latter said he would not enforce a 15-week abortion ban, while the state has also banned certain math textbooks, alleging references to critical race theory.That resentment continued to fester. In January 2022 a spate of stories emerged in the political press that Trump had become increasingly unhappy with DeSantis.Axios reported that behind the scenes, Trump would frequently criticize his former charge.“He says DeSantis has no personal charisma and has a dull personality,” a source told Axios. The news site reported that Trump’s irritation stemmed from the fact that DeSantis has not ruled himself out of the running for the 2024 presidential election, should Trump himself run.Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who also ran for president in 2016, Rick Scott, Florida’s former governor and current senator, and the rising antagonist congressman Josh Hawley have all done so, to varying degrees.Trump still dominates the Republican party. A slew of Trump-endorsed candidates – including the ones DeSantis will campaign for – won their primaries, and could be elected in November, cementing Trump’s reputation as a GOP kingmaker.But with Trump’s travails ongoing, there is an opening for others. A July poll, conducted as the congressional hearings into the January 6 insurrection drew to a close, found that one-third of Republicans think Trump should not run for president again in 2024.All this leaves DeSantis in a prime position to sweep up Republican voters, ahead of a 2024 primary.That process will start when the governor will be the main attraction at a rally in Phoenix for Blake Masters, a Senate candidate endorsed by Trump.The rightwing media are expected to cover the event closely. Also watching, no doubt, will be Donald Trump.TopicsRon DeSantisRepublicansUS politicsDonald TrumpUS midterm elections 2022featuresReuse this content More

Political Prisoner review: Paul Manafort stays loyal to Trump – but still spills a few beans Aide jailed in Russia investigation and pardoned has written a memoir that is mostly – if not completely – forgettablePaul Manafort’s name appeared in reports issued by the special counsel and the Senate intelligence committee. A convicted felon pardoned by the 45th president, he is a free man haunted by the past.The Big Lie review: Jonathan Lemire laments what Trump hath wroughtRead moreHis memoir, Political Prisoner, is primarily an exercise in score-settling, pointing an accusatory finger at federal prosecutors and lashing out at enemies. With a pardon from Trump, Manafort is unencumbered by fear from further prosecution.In a recent interview with Business Insider, he admits he directed the Trump campaign to provide polling data and information to Konstantin Kilimnik, a Soviet-born political consultant with a Russian passport.On the page, Manafort denies that Kilimnik spied for Russia. In 2021, however, the US imposed sanctions against him, and accused him of being a “known Russian Intelligence Services agent implementing influence operations on their behalf”.As expected, Manafort also sings Donald Trump’s praises, an approach much in common with other forgettable Trump alumni narratives. Manafort saw plenty as Trump’s second campaign manager but he directs the spotlight elsewhere. One measure of which team he’s on comes early: talking about Trump’s racist attacks on Barack Obama, he puts the words “birther allegations” in scare-quotes.Manafort could have written a much more interesting book. He is a veteran Republican operative with a knack for the delegate selection process. He owned an apartment in Trump Tower and was closely aligned with Viktor Yanukovych, a former prime minister of Ukraine with powerful backing from the Kremlin. That factoid, of course, stood at the heart of Manafort’s problems.Manafort spent six months on Trump’s winning presidential campaign. In May 2016, he rose to campaign manager. Three months later, Trump sacked him.In summer 2018, in a case arising from the initial investigation of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow, a federal jury convicted Manafort on a potpourri of conspiracy and tax charges. He reached a plea agreement that would be voided by his alleged lack of candor. Two federal judges sentenced him to a combined 90 months in prison.His bitterness is understandable. He denies wrongdoing in his links with Ukraine and Russians. Released from prison because of Covid, Manafort was relegated to life in a condominium, wearing an ankle bracelet. Right before Christmas 2020, he received a pardon. In his book he reproduces the document, a token of gratitude and pride.Political Prisoner glosses over key events. Manafort acknowledges his departure from the campaign but doesn’t mention the arrival of Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway. Instead, he describes a pre-firing breakfast with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law.“We embraced and went our separate ways,” Manafort writes.Manafort faces the daunting task of fluffing Trump’s ego while placing himself in proximity to the action. He boasts that he emerged as a Sunday talk show surrogate, presenting an inside view of the campaign.“I would be talking about how [Trump] was going to win and why,” he writes. “He thought that was good idea and told me to do it.”Things didn’t work out as planned. Trump captured the nomination but Manafort’s gig lasted only a short time longer. There can only be one star in the Trump show. As throughout the book, Manafort omits crucial details. TV did him no favors.The Devil’s Bargain, a 2017 page-turner by Joshua Green of Bloomberg News, fills in some of the void. Green recalls a profanity-laced verbal beatdown Trump administered to Manafort, right before his dismissal.Distraught over a New York Times piece that portrayed the campaign as lost at sea, Trump humiliated Manafort in front of senior advisers. It was a tableau, Green writes, straight out of Goodfellas.Trump tore into Manafort, shouting: “You think you gotta go on TV to talk to me … You treat me like a baby! Am I like a baby to you … Am I a fucking baby, Paul?”Joe Pesci as commander-in-chief.These days, the Department of Justice has placed Trump under its microscope again. The FBI executed a search warrant on Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida home. White House lawyers face grand jury subpoenas. Bannon awaits sentencing on a contempt conviction. Alex Jones’ text messages are in the hands of the January 6 committee. Roger Stone, a former Manafort partner and Trump confidant, may be in legal jeopardy.Trumpworld is a cross between an island of broken toys and Lord of the Flies.Manafort does drop a few choice nuggets. The Trump campaign was actually being spied on, in the author’s telling, by Michael Cohen. Cohen administered the campaign server, in a bid to maintain relevance. “He had access to everybody’s communications,” Manafort writes. “He had knowledge, and he would be sitting in his office, gaining knowledge by virtue of spying on the campaign.” Cohen denies it.Ted Cruz comes across badly. In Manafort’s eyes the Texas senator is an ingrate, a liar or both. The categories are porous.Trump claimed Cruz’s father was complicit the assassination of JFK and implied Cruz’s wife was ugly. According to Manafort, Trump offered Cruz an apology, only to be rebuffed.“On his own initiative, Trump did apologise for saying some of the things he said about Cruz, which was unusual for Trump,” Manafort observes.Cruz’s version differs. In September 2016, he said: “Neither [Trump] nor his campaign has ever taken back a word they said about my wife and my family.”Trump’s campaign nickname for Cruz? “Lyin’ Ted”.Manafort recalls Trump declaring “This is bullshit” as the senator avoided endorsing the nominee in his speech to the 2016 convention. In the end, though, Cruz slithered back to the fold. Trump reportedly asked Cruz if he would argue his 2020 election challenge before the supreme court. Cruz voted against certifying results.Manafort predicts Trump will run in 2024, and win. Don’t bet against it. Both Trump and Manafort have been there before.
Political Prisoner: Persecuted, Prosecuted, But Not Silenced is published in the US by Skyhorse Publishing
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Liz Cheney fights for her House seat as Trumpists vow to ‘send her packing’Her leadership role on the January 6 panel makes her a martyr for democracy to some – and an apostate to others Darin Smith says he remembers January 6 very differently from Liz Cheney and her congressional colleagues investigating the US Capitol riot.“People were singing patriotic songs, the national anthem, hymns,” insists Smith, who was outside the Capitol that day to protest about Donald Trump’s election defeat. “There was a group of grey-haired ladies – the average age had to have been mid-70s – that were praying.”Nineteen months later, Smith is sitting in a cafe in his home city of Cheyenne in the western state of Wyoming. He condemns the violence that took place inside the Capitol but, despite a mountain of evidence, scoffs at the idea that Trump was responsible. And he is adamant that Cheney, his representative in Congress, should pay a price for her anti-Trump crusade.The three-term congresswoman may lose her seat in Tuesday’s Republican primary election in Wyoming, the most watched congressional primary of the year. Opinion polls show Cheney trailing Harriet Hageman, conservative lawyer and vehicle of Trump’s vengeance, and defeat for the clarion voice of the January 6 panel will, in many eyes, make her a martyr for American democracy.It will also signal a tectonic shift in Wyoming, the least populated state in America and one of the most devoutly Republican. Its most consequential political figure is Dick Cheney, vice-president under George W Bush and father of Liz. Last week, in cowboy hat, fleece and gruff tones, he recorded a campaign video for her, excoriating Trump as a “coward” and saying there has never been anyone who is a “greater threat to our republic”.Victory for Hageman would therefore be widely interpreted as a repudiation of Wyoming’s most venerable political dynasty, evidence that the state Republican party no longer belongs to the Cheneys but to Trump. That would reflect a final national pivot away from the Bush era establishment to the “Make America Great Again” movement – from old school conservatism to far-right populism.Smith, wearing a blue T-shirt that said “1776 Forever Free”, grey shorts and black flip-flops, is in no doubt which camp he belongs to. Last year he was a candidate in the Republican primary for Cheney’s House seat, raised $400,000 and made a pilgrimage to Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, to seek the former president’s all-important endorsement.“It was like speed dating, my wife said,” the 48-year-old lawyer recalls. “I said, ‘I have a poll right here, sir, that shows that I could win today. Actually the polling that we took says that I could beat anybody in the state except for you, sir.’ He said, ‘Let me see that poll!’”The pitch was unsuccessful and Trump gave Hageman the nod instead; Smith abandoned his campaign within a day and insists that he is not bitter. He is “100% behind Harriet Hageman” and shares her doubts – repeatedly debunked – about the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election. “Liz Cheney, in our minds, betrayed the constitution, betrayed the nation, and we’re going to send her packing.”Smith argues that Cheney – one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump for inciting an insurrection – is bitter about Trump’s criticism of her father as the mastermind of a neoconservatism that led to the torturing of suspects, opening of a prison at Guantánamo Bay and waging of an illegal war on Iraq.“It was a vendetta. She’s mad at Trump because Trump pointed out the truth of the Cheney foreign policy. Her dad is responsible for millions of deaths worldwide and trillions of dollars in spending from the US government. She’s pissed about it and she’s a narcissist and she saw her opportunity to go for Trump’s throat and she did.“But it’s bigger than that. She wants to be the first woman president. We all know that. We’re not stupid. She’s going to ‘educate’ us in the constitution and how ‘we’re wrong and she’s right.’ Well, she’s got news and she’s got something coming for her on Tuesday of next week. She’s gonna find out if she educated us or not.”The accusation that Cheney, 56, is driven by personal ambition in Washington, rather than by the needs of her constituents in Wyoming, is common among her critics here.They complain that she has devoted more time to the televised hearings of the January 6 committee, where she serves as vice-chair, than to retail politics in her home state. Her campaign ads emphasise her role on the national stage as a defender of the constitution.James King, a political science professor at the University of Wyoming, said Cheney’s opponent has seized on the theme that “she is too much Washington and not enough Wyoming”.He added: “Certainly her participation in the committee and its public hearings have done nothing to change that view; if anything, it would be reinforcing it. It’s not just a support or not support Trump; it’s also, they will argue, too much the national and not enough the state: ‘She’s not of Wyoming any longer.’ It’s easy to say this is about Donald Trump but from the state angle it’s: ‘You’re not paying attention to us.’”Indeed, Cheney has raised more than $13m largely thanks to donations from outside Wyoming, a vast sum for a congressional primary and far ahead of Hageman, who has travelled the state extensively to court voters. This, too, is seen as evidence that the incumbent is beholden to outside interests.In Cheyenne, the state capital, Dianna Burchett, 62, a nurse who has voted for Cheney in the past, said: “She was put in office to do what the people of Wyoming wanted her to do and she went against the people of the state. She needs to keep her views to herself but she’s on a witch-hunt or blood hunt. It’s inexcusable.”Laura Harnish, 53, an administrator who used to sit on an election committee for Dick Cheney, added: “I wouldn’t vote for Liz Cheney if she was the last person on the ballot. The January 6 committee was very badly done. She wasn’t representing Wyoming at that point. I vote for you. That’s who you represent: Wyoming. If you’re not going to do that then you don’t need to be in office. You need to find something else to do.”In Wyoming, home to just 581,348 people, voters expect a certain level of intimacy with politicians. Mike Sullivan, the state’s former governor, described it as “a small town with unusually long streets”, and locals say that anyone who suffers a flat tyre never has to wait long for a helping hand.In Cheyenne, the “Magic City of the Plains”, members of the public can wander freely about the state capitol building with a lack of security restrictions that evokes an earlier time. The house of representatives chamber nods to the state’s origins with paintings representing “cattlemen”, “homesteaders”, “stage coach” and “trappers”.Wyoming has long had a way-out-west independent streak: in 1869 it became the first territory or state to grant women the right to vote and, in 1925, elected America’s first female governor, Nellie Tayloe Ross. Known as both the “Equality State” and “Cowboy State”, in the 1990s it welcomed visitors with signs that proclaimed: “Like no place on earth.”Even today it can feel remote from national trends. It has no major professional sports team and, since 1983, no scheduled passenger rail service. The state museum in Cheyenne notes that “for centuries, Wyoming was a place to journey through rather than a destination … the ‘Highway of the West’.”But in 2020 this was the state where Trump scored his biggest margin of victory, 43 percentage points. In downtown Cheyenne, the Republican party office window displays a prominent sign: “Election integrity”. Inside, in uneasy coexistence, the wall features portraits of former presidents Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan and Trump as well as a commemorative photo of Bush and Cheney’s inauguration in 2001.Loyalty to the Cheneys still runs deep in some quarters. On Tuesday afternoon, Richard Gage, 67, a lawyer, was hosing bushes outside his office. The lifelong Republican reflected: “She’s done a great job and she’s one of the few people with the courage to stand up to Donald Trump. He’s trying to destroy my democracy. He’s trying to overturn an election that he lost and that’s a direct threat to democracy itself.”Gage has a Cheney sign displayed prominently and said it has resulted in rubbish being thrown on his lawn, a glimpse of how this campaign has taken on a menacing tone. Cheney herself has faced death threats and been forced to abandon traditional campaign stops and public rallies in favour of small-scale private events.Joseph McGinley, a Republican county state committeeman who praises Cheney for “leadership in action” and believes she “would make a great president”, said: “There have been people that are supporting Hageman that have been stealing Cheney signs and vandalising Cheney signs.“I was away for the weekend and came back and half the Cheney signs were gone, even in our neighbourhood, not in a very public area. The stealing of Cheney signs is a real thing and that’s unfortunate. It shows the people that are supporting Hageman are willing to do anything and they’re afraid Cheney is going to win.”McGinley, 47, a doctor and entrepreneur based in Casper, said the battle for the soul of the state party can be traced back to the conservative Tea Party movement during the Barack Obama era. “They truly put in a ground game and it was many years and, if you were in the party, you could actually see it occurring.”This made for a party shifting under the Cheneys’ feet. Dick is deep in retirement but Liz has effectively been excommunicated by the state party, which voted last year to censure her before deciding to stop recognising her as a Republican altogether. Local party offices offer yard signs for Hageman and many other Republicans on the ballot but not Cheney.The congresswoman has therefore turned to an unlikely group for help: Democrats. Her campaign website features a link to a form allowing voters to change their party affiliation to Republican to take part in the Republican primary. This unusual move is based on an appeal to pragmatism in what is effectively a one-party state; Wyoming has voted Republican in every presidential election since 1968.It appears to be working. In January, according to the secretary of state’s office, there were 196,179 registered Republicans in the state and 45,822 registered Democrats. As of 1 August, this had shifted to 207,674 registered Republicans and 39,753 registered Democrats.David Martin, communications director of the Wyoming Democratic party, said: “I know a few people personally who have already switched over. I don’t think I’ll ever forget what one of them told me and she put it bluntly: ‘I’m voting to keep the crazies out.’”No “crossover” voter is more prominent than Sullivan, the former governor, who after six decades as a registered Democrat recently switched to Republican so he could vote for Cheney. The 82-year-old retired lawyer explained by phone from Casper: “There are times when politics takes a backseat. Her work has been extraordinary and it’s reflective of both her intellect and her leadership.”Sullivan, who served as governor from 1987 to 1995, said he was aware of Cheney yard signs being defaced or torn down in his neighborhood. “The nature of Liz’s opposition is more mean-spirited than when I was in office. You can attribute that to a lot of things but certainly President Trump opened the door to make that more mainstream than it has otherwise been.”Cheney has not ruled out a 2024 presidential run as a Republican or an independent. Asked if he would consider supporting her, Sullivan replied: “I’d have to make that decision at the time. Now, whether I can picture her running for president under the circumstances in which she finds herself, I don’t know. I’m convinced she’s going to come out with a very powerful legacy: the profile in courage sort of legacy that is going to put her in good stead.”Like her father, who under President Gerald Ford was the youngest chief of staff in White House history, Cheney plays a decades-long game. At one of the January 6 hearings, she reminded fellow Republicans that there will come a day when Trump is gone. Defeat on Tuesday might be the end of one career but the launchpad for another with even greater ambitions.Not all Democrats, however, are ready to embrace a conservative who used to appear regularly on Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and, according to the FiveThirtyEight website, voted in line with Trump’s position 93% of the time during his presidency.Ted Hanlon, 63, running a long-shot campaign for the state senate, said: “I’ve been in Wyoming all my life. I knew her and I knew her dad and I have no evidence yet that a Cheney did something that was not self-serving.“I’m glad she’s doing the January 6 hearings. If any other Republicans had been on the January 6 committee it would not have gone as well as it has and would not have come as close to the truth as it has. So I’m grateful that she’s there. It does not cause me to admire her in any way though.”TopicsWyomingUS politicsRepublicansJanuary 6 hearingsfeaturesReuse this content More

US House passes Democrats’ landmark healthcare and climate billBiden is expected to quickly sign the legislation, which delivers a much-needed political victory for the party ahead of the midterms The House passed Democrats’ healthcare and climate spending package on Friday, sending the landmark piece of legislation to Joe Biden’s desk and delivering a much-needed political victory for the party ahead of the midterm elections this November.The bill passed the House in a party-line vote of 220 to 207, and Democratic members broke into raucous applause as the proposal crossed the finish line.“Today is really a glorious day for us. We send to the president’s desk a monumental bill that will be truly for the people,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said before the final vote. “If you are sitting at your kitchen table and wonder how you’re going to pay the bills – your healthcare bills, your prescription drug bills – this bill is for you.”Joe Biden is expected to quickly sign the legislation, which he has celebrated as a significant step toward combatting the climate crisis and reducing Americans’ healthcare costs.The final House vote capped off a lively debate among members in the chamber, as Republicans attacked the bill as a reckless spending spree that would fail to address Americans’ financial needs. A number of Republicans sharply criticized the bill’s provision to increase funding for the Internal Revenue Service, which far-right congresswoman Lauren Boebert compared to “armed robbery on the taxpayers”.That comment prompted a rebuke from John Yarmuth, the Democratic chairman of the House budget committee. “I would implore my Republican colleagues to cut out the scare tactics, quit making things up and debate the substance of this bill,” Yarmuth said.The House’s passage of the bill came five days after the Senate approved the package in a vote of 51 to 50, following a marathon session that lasted overnight and stretched into Sunday afternoon.The bill, formally known as the Inflation Reduction Act, is the culmination of more than a year of negotiations among Democratic lawmakers. The proposal was negotiated behind closed doors by the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and centrist Democratic senator Joe Manchin, who single-handedly quashed the bill’s predecessor, the Build Back Better Act, last year.House progressives complained that the new bill is much narrower in scope than the Build Back Better Act, but they ultimately supported the spending package, largely because of its climate provisions. The legislation includes $369bn in funds aimed at expanding renewable energy sources and lowering planet-heating emissions. Experts have estimated the bill could reduce America’s emissions by about 40% by 2030, compared with 2005 levels.“This landmark legislation marks the largest ever federal investment in climate action,” Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said on Friday. She added: “We think we crafted the best bill in the world with Build Back Better … So as soon as we get a couple more Democrats, we’ve made the case for the rest of the bill.”The bill also fell short of expectations for some of the centrist members of the House Democratic caucus. Lawmakers from high-tax states like New Jersey and California had pushed for changes to the limit on federal deductions for state and local taxes (Salt), but they failed to get that policy added to the spending package.Instead, the bill includes a number of tax changes to cover the cost of the rest of the proposal. Those policies, including a new corporate minimum tax and a 1% excise tax on stock buybacks, are expected to bring in more than $700bn in revenue for the government.Despite their reservations, centrist Democrats supported the bill, while emphasizing that they would continue their efforts to reform the Salt deduction.“I will also remain steadfast in my commitment to ensuring that any discussion of reforms to the 2017 tax law begins with addressing Salt,” Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat of New Jersey, said on Sunday. “Because this legislation does not raise taxes on families in my district, but in fact significantly lowers their costs, I will be voting for it.”The bill previously attracted criticism from the progressive senator Bernie Sanders, who said the spending package did little to help working Americans who are struggling under the weight of record-high inflation. Sanders attempted to expand the healthcare and financial assistance provisions in the bill during the Senate’s 16-hour vote-a-rama session last weekend, but those efforts were unsuccessful.Sanders has taken particular issue with the bill’s provisions aimed at lowering the cost of prescription drugs, which he has said are too limited. The bill will allow Medicare to start negotiating the price of certain expensive drugs and will cap Medicare recipients’ out-of-pocket prescription drug costs at $2,000 a year, but key provisions meant to help Americans who receive health insurance coverage through the private market were stripped out of the legislation.“It’s a very modest step forward,” Sanders told MSNBC on Sunday. “Bottom line is, I’m going to support the bill because given the crisis of climate change, the environmental community says this is a step forward. It doesn’t go anywhere near as far as it should. It is a step forward.”Democratic leaders have downplayed criticism of the bill, instead championing the legislation as America’s most significant effort yet to address the climate crisis.“As I say to members, you cannot judge a bill for what it does not do. You respect it for what it does do. And what this bill does do is quite remarkable,” Pelosi told MSNBC on Tuesday. “Do we want more? Of course. Will we continue to work for more? Of course.”Democrats hope the passage of the bill could help the party’s prospects in the midterm elections, which have appeared grim so far. Republicans are heavily favored to regain control of the House of Representatives, although Democrats have inched ahead in polling since the supreme court’s reversal of Roe v Wade, which ended the federal right to abortion access. Party leaders have voiced optimism that the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act will show the country how Democrats are delivering for their constituents and convince voters to support them in November.“Yes, I do. It’s going to immediately help,” Biden said on Monday when asked whether he believed the bill will bolster Democrats’ midterm prospects. “It changes people’s lives.”TopicsHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsUS CongressJoe BidenDemocratsRepublicansUS SenatenewsReuse this content More