US Politics

Trump is no kingmaker in the Republican party. That is increasingly clearBen DavisThis week’s primaries showed that voters value delivering on priorities above endorsements The most eye-catching result of Tuesday’s suite of midterm primaries is Georgia’s incumbent governor, Brian Kemp, demolishing former senator David Perdue in his re-election primary. Former president Donald Trump has spent the better part of the last two years publicly savaging Kemp for the latter’s refusal to unilaterally overturn President Joe Biden’s Georgia win in the 2020 election. Despite Trump’s public support and universal name recognition, Perdue is losing by landslide margins in every corner of the state. Trump also targeted the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and attorney general, Chris Carr, who are both up over Trump’s endorsees by large margins.Trump still won’t shut up. He’s doing Democrats running for office a huge favor | Robert ReichRead moreThis is a continuation of a trend we have seen in Republican primaries thus far this cycle. Many Trump-endorsed candidates have lost, including Representative Madison Cawthorn, or been held to fairly low percentages, such as the Senate candidates Mehmet Oz and JD Vance. It’s clear that the 2020 election and personal loyalty to Trump have diminishing returns with Republican primary voters.While any Republican would certainly love to have Trump’s endorsement, he’s far from a kingmaker in the party. Fundamentally, most Republican voters vote Republican for the same reasons they always did: lower taxes and imposing conservative culture war policies on others. Elected officials whom Republican voters perceive as governing well and delivering results will be rewarded regardless of whether they tried to “stop the steal”. In the end, Trump’s single-minded fixation on the election, which most voters even in his own party consider a distraction, could do real damage to his prospects in 2024.On the Democratic side, both sides of the party’s civil war seem to have been drawn into a stalemate. The party’s centrist wing has landed on a potent strategy after being punched in the mouth by superior progressive organization and small-dollar fundraising in the last two cycles. Centrists used the OH-11 special election between Nina Turner and Shontel Brown to pioneer waiting until late in the race and then dropping enormous amounts of outside money through pro-Israel Pacs like Democratic Majority for Israel and Aipac to overwhelm progressives and leave them unable to counter. This strategy was used again to rapidly close an enormous lead in PA-12, but progressives were just able to pull out a win for candidate Summer Lee. As of this writing, the TX-28 race between progressive Jessica Cisneros and the conservative incumbent Henry Cuellar remains too close to call.The commonality across Democratic primaries is that voters value loyalty. DMFI and Aipac’s ads do not ever mention Israel. They savage progressive candidates for alleged disloyalty to the party and its agenda (ironically given Aipac’s endorsement of more than 100 Republican lawmakers who supported overturning the 2020 election). Progressive wins, however, have used the same attack. Despite unitary control of government, the Democratic party has no legislative accomplishments of note. Democratic voters understand that this is due primarily to the intransigence of specific lawmakers. The Pennsylvania Senate nominee John Fetterman hammered opponent Conor Lamb on ending the filibuster and his votes against the party’s agenda. The No Labels “unbreakable nine” who stymied Biden’s Build Back Better agenda have been bleeding out, with Kurt Schrader and Carolyn Bourdeaux losing by large margins and Henry Cuellar in serious danger. Democratic voters want more than anything a functional governing majority that is able to deliver clear results.Across both parties, it’s clear that voters value candidates they believe will govern and deliver on their priorities, far more than endorsements. Democrats who have endorsements from Joe Biden or Nancy Pelosi but spent the past two years stymying their agenda will be punished, while Republicans that deliver wins will be rewarded even if they anger Donald Trump.
Ben Davis works in political data in Washington DC. He worked on the data team for the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign and is an active member of the Democratic Socialists of America
TopicsUS midterm elections 2022OpinionUS politicsRepublicansDemocratscommentReuse this content More

How the US student loan debt crisis started — and how it could end The $1.8tn debt has become a hot political issues as midterm elections approachAmerica’s students have a debt problem. A big one. More than 45 million Americans – more than the population of California – now owe a collective $1.7tn in student debt.What to do about that debt has become a hot political issues as midterm elections approach.The vast majority of the money is owed to the federal government, which has been backing or directly offering student loans for higher education since 1958. While student loans are not new in the United States, the amount of student debt has more than tripled over the last 16 years.The Biden administration has recently hinted that some form of student debt forgiveness could be announced soon – specifically, canceling at least $10,000 in student debt for Americans earning less than $125,000 a year. With that threshold, most student loan borrowers will qualify for some debt forgiveness.If the executive action is undertaken, it will be the first large debt cancellation by the federal government to address the student debt crisis. Understanding the impact of such a dramatic policy requires unpacking the student debt crisis, beginning with its origins.How the student debt crisis startedIn 1957 the Soviet Union successfully launching the first earth-orbiting satellite, Sputnik. With the cold war raging the federal government feared the US education system was failing to produce enough scientists and engineers to compete with the Soviets and, in 1958, started handing out student loans through the National Defense Education Act.Nearly a decade later, the Higher Education Act of 1965 allowed more people to take out loans as the federal government promised to pay back banks for any loans that were not repaid.“It all started from this choice, which I think was a terrible choice, to decide that as a policy matter we should support higher education … by giving [students] an opportunity to get a loan,” said Dalié Jimenez, professor of law and director of the Student Loan Law Initiative at the University of California at Irvine. “It was just a terrible mistake.”Starting in 2010, the federal government started directly lending money to student borrowers. In the wake of the Great Recession, the amount of student debt began to increase rapidly. Colleges were seeing increased enrollment as people left the workforce to go back to school. States slashed their higher education budgets, leading to higher tuition. More students were turning to for-profit colleges, which tend to be more expensive than public colleges.Over the last few years, the amount of grant aid, which does not need to be paid back, has risen. Yet despite this appearance of more financial support for students to attend college, the cost of attendance has remained the same.Two line charts comparing the gap between the listed price and what it actually costs to attend public and non-profit private institutions.The cost of attending public college has actually increased at a higher rate than the cost to attend a private college. The net cost of attendance for four-year public colleges, which takes into account any grants students receive, went from $17,500 in 2006 to $20,210 in 2016, according to data from College Board.Line chart of the costs of public and private non-profit increasing and then slightly decreasing from 2006-07 to 2020-21 school years.“That era 10 years ago was a really formative moment for producing a lot of debt that’s still out there,” said Kevin Miller, associate director for higher education at the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Economic Policy Project. “The cost of college attendance has gone up a lot while household incomes in the United States haven’t … there’s a real sense that if grant, state or institutional aid isn’t filling the gap, that just leaves debt as the only option.”What student debt looks like todayFor the 2021-2022 school year, the average cost of tuition and fees for a four-year public college is $10,740. The cost is nearly quadrupled for private institutions, at an average of $38,070. Even with grant aid, the cost of attendance is an average of $19,230 for public institutions and $32,720 at private schools.Estimates put the average debt of those in the class of 2019 who took out student loans at $28,950. The number is close to the maximum $31,000 that students who are dependents of parents or guardians can borrow from the federal government to fund undergraduate education.Area chart of student debt increasing from Q1 2006 to Q1 2022.Continuing racial wealth disparities are reflected in who has to take out loans to fund college. About half of Black college students take out student loans, compared with 40% of white students. Black Americans owe an average of $25,000 more in debt than their white counterparts and are more likely to be behind on their payments.Despite the amount of debt many students need to take on to attend college, nearly 20 million Americans still enroll in college every year. While earnings can depend on a person’s industry, those with a bachelor’s degrees earn 75% more in their lifetime than those with just a high school diploma.“The message is you have to get a college degree. It’s not just a rhetorical message, it’s an actual truth that if you don’t have a college degree, particularly if you are Black or brown … you will not be able to get a job that is better than your parents’,” Jimenez said.Those with graduate and professional degrees earn even more, but the price for an advanced degree is even higher. A good chunk of student debt – about 40% – is held by those who took out loans to pay for graduate school.What the government has done to address student debtThe most substantial policy addressing student debt was first implemented by the Trump administration, which paused student loan payments and interest accrual at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic. Both Trump and Biden extended the pause over the last two years, and it is now set to expire on 31 August.Since the beginning of this year, Biden has announced a slate of additional policies alongside the pause extension. Those who have defaulted or are delinquent on their federal student loans will be returned to good standing. Biden forgave $415m in student debt for borrowers who attended predatory for-profit schools.His administration also announced changes to the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program, which forgives the student loans of borrowers who are non-profit and government employees after 10 years of debt or after 120 payments are made. Over 113,000 borrowers with a cumulative $6.8bn in debt are now eligible for forgiveness. Over the years, the program has been under much criticism, as relief through the program was rare and borrowers were often deemed not qualified for logistical reasons.The debate over debt forgivenessEven as it seems Biden is prepared to cancel some debt, the idea has gotten some criticism over the last few months.Republicans have been using student debt as a talking point against Biden as the midterm elections start rolling.Senator Mitt Romney suggested that Democrats canceling student loans is a way of bribing voters. “Other bribe suggestions: Forgive auto loans? Forgive credit card debt? Forgive mortgages?” he wrote on Twitter. JD Vance (who went to Yale Law School) told the Washington Post that “Biden essentially wants blue-collar workers like truck drivers – who didn’t have the luxury of going to college to get drunk for four years – to bail out a bunch of upper-middle-class kids.”The reality is that the student loans of those in the highest income quartile – people making more than $97,000 – do make up a third of all outstanding student debt. But many low-income Americans also have student debt, though the amount of debt they have is smaller. Those making below $27,000 a year make up 17% of all borrowers, but their loans comprise 12% of all the outstanding debt.An income threshold could be a way for the government to target forgiveness to those who need it most. But some have pointed out that an income ceiling does not take into consideration a person’s wealth.“You’re looking at a snapshot of what your income was this year or last year, that tells you very little,” Jimenez said. “If your family has no wealth, you’re very differently situated from someone who has family wealth or personal wealth from previous careers.”Those who have been advocating for student debt cancellation say that $10,000 in forgiveness will not be enough to address the breadth of the crisis. Democratic lawmakers, including Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have called on Biden to cancel up to $50,000.“I don’t believe in a cutoff, especially for so many of the frontline workers who are drowning in debt and would likely be excluded from relief,” Ocasio-Cortez told the Washington Post. “Canceling $50,000 in debt is where you really make a dent in inequality and the racial gap. $10,000 isn’t.”Ending the student debt crisis for goodEven if Biden forgives some student debt, future college students will continue to take out loans – and at higher interest rates. Tackling the price tag of college will come with its own complications, but advocates say it will be necessary to ensure student debt does not get worse.While Biden’s plan for free community college was killed along with the rest of the social and climate spending bill that was making its way through Congress, some efforts for better college funding are happening at the local level.In March, the governor of New Mexico signed a bill that would use $75m in state funds to cover tuition and fees for undergraduate students at two- and four-year colleges. Drives for similar government support have been seen in Pennsylvania, California and Maine.“The cost of college is too high for a lot of students to manage without debt. Making it so that students can go without debt or take less debt in the first place is the thing that we really need to be focusing on,” Miller said. “What about the next generation or the one after that?”
This article was amended on 26 May 2022. An earlier version stated that student debt had doubled over 16 years. In fact, it has more than tripled.
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Outrage as NRA to gather in Houston just days after Texas school massacreCounter-protests expected as about 55,000 NRA members to attend event, including Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott Just days after the deadliest mass school shooting in Texas history, the National Rifle Association (NRA) – America’s leading gun lobbyist group – will meet a few hours away in Houston on Friday.Ashton P Woods says they are not welcome in his hometown.“These people are coming into our community. The city of Houston needs to kick them out,” said Woods, an activist and founder of Black Lives Matter Houston. “We have to be just as tough about these things as they are.”Woods is helping organize one of several protests planned just outside the George R Brown Convention Center, where NRA members will browse through exhibits of firearms and gun paraphernalia and hear speeches from key Republican leaders.The goal of the Black Lives Matter protest, Woods said, is to “get loud” outside while powerful speakers – including Texas governor Greg Abbott, Texas senator Ted Cruz and former US president Donald Trump – take the podium inside. Woods said the issue of firearms is particularly important to the civil rights group that primarily tackles issues of police brutality in America.“Whether it be death by suicide, death by cop, death by mass shooter, we need to control the access people have to deadly weapons,” Woods said. “These things are interconnected.”The NRA is a powerful lobbying organization in American politics, spending nearly $5m in 2021 to pressure lawmakers to oppose measures like universal background checks for gun sales and bans on powerful assault weapons.About 55,000 NRA members are expected to attend the event in Houston. The annual meeting is often a draw for activists and counter-protests as members inside discuss firearms policy – often the need for expanding access to guns.Outside the convention center, multiple counter-demonstrations are expected in Houston – especially in light of a mass shooting that killed 19 children and two adults at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.Houston police are also expecting crowds at the convention center. Jodi Silva, a police spokeswoman, said the department does not share details of its policing strategies, but that there would be a visible presence of officers.“We always are aware of the demonstrations and-or counter-demonstrations and staff accordingly,” Silva said. “We staff accordingly to make sure that everyone can participate and be safe.”Megan Hansen and the Rev Teresa Kim Pecinovsky watched the news updates from Uvalde on Tuesday in shock. When they found out the NRA would be in Houston Friday, they decided they also needed to take action.“We live in a state full of people who love their guns more than they love the lives of the children in their community,” Pecinovsky said. “I had to do something with that amount of rage and lament.”Hansen and Pecinovsky have organized an interfaith gathering that will include a silent march and a moment of reflection when organizers will read the names of those who died in Uvalde.While Texas’s politics are staunchly conservative, the Houston area has become a bastion of progressivism. Harris county, which includes Houston, voted for President Joe Biden by 56% in 2020. Hansen said she wants others to know that the NRA’s message does not reflect that community.“Houston is the most diverse city in the United States and we have people from all over the world who do not agree with the rhetoric of the NRA,” Hansen said. “We want to just say, remember the people who we lost and how can we take this feeling and turn it into action?”That action – specifically legislative measures to restrict access to high-powered firearms – is unlikely to come from Republican lawmakers in the state. Yet activists in Houston want the shooting in Uvalde and protests this weekend to spark more pressure on political leaders to prevent the next tragedy.“I’m hopeful this will not just be something people attend and then leave,” Pecinovsky said. “It needs to be a catalyst for real and tangible change.”TopicsNRAUS politicsTexasTexas school shootingnewsReuse this content More

Texas governor Greg Abbott said at a press conference moments ago that the shooter posted on Facebook three times before his attack.In the first, posted 30 minutes before going to the school, he said he would shoot his grandmother. The second said, “I shot my grandmother.” And the third, posted about 15 minutes before the attack, said: “I’m going to shoot an elementary school.” Abbott also said the shooter’s grandmother had called the police before he shot her. Texas Gov Abbott says the Uvalde shooter posted 3 times on Facebook ~30 minutes before going to the school. The first was, “I’m going to shoot my grandmother.” Second was, “I shot my grandmother.” The third–roughly 15 min before–was, “I’m going to shoot an elementary school.”— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) May 25, 2022
The retired police officer who was shot and killed while trying to stop the gunman in the racist attack at a Buffalo supermarket on May 14 was awarded the department’s medal of honor at his funeral on Wednesday, as the country processed another massacre at Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 children and two adults, the Associated Press reports.Buffalo police commissioner Joseph Gramaglia also posthumously promoted Aaron Salter to lieutenant, saying his actions — firing multiple times at the shooter, striking his body armor — bought precious time that allowed others in the store to escape..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} “Aaron bravely fought evil that day,” Gramaglia said at The Chapel in Getzville, where law enforcement officers from US and Canadian departments Buffalo being on the US northern border] filled a dozen rows.Services were also held for Pearl Young, a 77-year-old grandmother, great-grandmother and substitute teacher who was devoted to her church.Salter and Young were among the 10 Black people killed when a white gunman wearing body armor and a helmet-mounted camera targeted shoppers and workers at Tops Friendly Market, in a predominantly Black neighborhood, on a Saturday afternoon. Three others were injured in the attack, which federal authorities are investigating as a hate crime.The 18-year-old suspect has been charged with murder and is being held without bail. The gunman in Uvalde, Texas, was also 18 and was shot dead by law enforcement.Salter, 55, of Lockport, was working as a security guard at the store in his retirement, a natural move for the community-minded officer with a loud laugh that “would shock your senses” and who chewed bubble gum just as loudly, said retired deputy police commissioner Kimberly Beaty, who worked with Salter..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Aaron didn’t come to work to be entertainment, he came to do his job, but we enjoyed watching him do it.”Salter retired from the department in 2018 after nearly 30 years. At least one of his bullets struck the suspect’s armor-plated vest but didn’t pierce it, police said.The Buffalo shooting killed 10 Black people from the neighborhood.‘I’m not afraid’: after Buffalo racist attack, Black residents remain unbowed by terrorRead moreHow far government can go in controlling access to firearms has been one of the most divisive issues in the United States, Reuters writes.It pits those who say restricting the availability of guns will save lives against those who maintain that guns themselves are not the root cause of mass shootings and that the right to bear arms is protected by the US Constitution.US president Joe Biden urged the US Senate to quickly confirm Steven Dettelbach, his nominee to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), whose mission includes enforcing US gun laws.”Where’s the backbone? Where’s the courage to stand up to a very powerful lobby?”— President Biden hits at the gun lobby and urges the Senate to confirm his ATF nominee Steve Dettelbach. pic.twitter.com/KW9TlkobY1— The Recount (@therecount) May 25, 2022
Dettelbach appeared at his Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday.During testimony earlier today Biden’s pick for @ATFHQ Steven Dettelbach told lawmakers “violent crime is increasing. Firearms violence and mass shootings are increasing. Hate crimes and religious violence are increasing as is violent extremism.” pic.twitter.com/z83poe69A0— Beatrice-Elizabeth Peterson (@MissBeaE) May 25, 2022
Joe Biden sought to reform federal and local policing with a broad executive order on Wednesday, the second anniversary of the death of George Floyd, while goading a seemingly immovable Congress to act on police and gun reform, Reuters writes.The order directs all federal agencies to revise their use-of-force policies, creates a national registry of officers fired for misconduct and will use grants to encourage state and local police to restrict the use of chokeholds and neck restraints..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}It’s a measure of what we can do together to heal the very soul of this nation, to address the profound fear trauma, exhaustion particularly Black Americans have experienced for generations,” the US president said. He had not signed it earlier, he said, because he was hoping Congress would pass a police reform law named after Floyd. The bill collapsed in the US Senate last September under Republican opposition.The White House police order restricts the use of no-knock entries to a limited set of circumstances, such as when an announced entry would pose an imminent threat of physical violence.Joe Biden is speaking at the White House about gun safety, around 24 hours after the appalling shooting at the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.The US president noted that since he spoke at the White House last night, shortly after he arrived back from his trip to Asia, the death toll in the shooting had risen – now standing at 19 children and two teachers.“I’m sick and tired of what is going on,” Biden said of the latest mass murder, just nine days after another 18-year-old opened fire on members of the public in the Tops supermarket in Buffalo, New York, in a racist attack that killed 10 Black people.Biden visited Buffalo after the shooting there and announced moments ago that he and first lady Jill Biden would travel to Uvalde “in the coming days” to offer what comfort they can to “a community in shock and grief and trauma.”“As a nation I think we all must be there for them, everyone,” he said. “And we must ask, when in God’s name will we do what needs to be done to, not completely stop, but fundamentally change the amount of carnage that goes on in this country. To state the obvious, I’m sick and tired, I’m just sick and tired of what is going on, what continues to go on,” he added.Biden said he had spent his career, as chairman of the judiciary committee when he was in the US Senate “and as vice president working for common sense gun reforms.”He said certain such reforms would have a significant impact on the number of deaths across the US but would “have no negative impact on the second amendment”, the long and fiercely-debated US constitutional right to “bear arms”.“The second amendment is not absolute, when it was passed you [1789] couldn’t own a cannon, you couldn’t own certain types weapons, there have always been limitations. These actions we have taken before have saved lives and they can do it again.“The idea that an 18-year-old can walk into a store and buy weapons of war designed and marketed to kill is just wrong,” he said.Why can’t America do anything to stop mass shootings?Read moreThe alleged shooters in both the Buffalo and Uvalde killings were 18-year-olds who used US military-style assault rifles, readily available in gun stores. The suspect in the Buffalo killings is in custody, charged with murder. The suspect in Uvalde was shot dead by law enforcement inside the classroom of the elementary school where he was firing at children and their teachers.“It just violates common sense, even the manufacture of them, of that weapon,” he said.“You know, where is the backbone? Where is your courage to stand up to a very powerful lobby,” he said.Presumably, the president is referring to the US Congress, where Republicans repeatedly block legislation mandating greater gun controls (and many bills that Biden wants to advance in other areas have been held up by the fact that he has no more than a wafer-thin majority in that chamber, not enough to overcome the filibuster that requires 60 votes to pass most legislation_.Republicans offer thoughts and prayers – but not gun control to stop the killingsRead moreJoe Biden and Kamala Harris are holding an event at the White House to talk about policing, on the second anniversary of the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white police officer. But of course the school mass shooting is very present and vice-president Kamala Harris is talking first before she introduces the president. She echoed Biden’s remarks last night, saying: “We must have the courage to pass reasonable gun safety laws.”“We must work together to create an America where everyone feels safe in their communituy, where children feel safe in their schools,” Harris said.Now she has turned to the issue of police killings, addressing herself to the public but also the families of not just George Floyd who are at the White House today, but also Breonna Taylor, who was killed by police gunfire in Louisville, Kentucky, on 13 May 2020, just days before Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis.Lawmakers are floating the idea of introducing red flag laws as a means of bolstering gun control. House majority leader Steny Hoyer said that he is planning to bring a bill, initially bought forth by Lucy McBath, a representative from Georgia whose 17-year-old son was killed by gun violence, that would establish a national red flag law. Congress must do more to #EndGunViolence. During the first week of the June work period, I will bring @RepLucyMcBath’s bill to the Floor to establish a national “Red Flag” law to prevent those who pose a threat to themselves or others from being able to legally possess a firearm.— Steny Hoyer (@LeaderHoyer) May 25, 2022
Under red flag laws, courts will have the right to take away guns from people who are deemed a threat to themselves or others. Some Republicans seem to be open to the idea of a red flag law. In 2019, Lindsey Graham and Richard Blumenthal introduced a red flag measure that failed to get the necessary votes. Susan Collins, a Republican senator for Maine, said that she discussed potential legislation with Democrat Chris Murphy, according to Axios. Republicans offer thoughts and prayers – but not gun control to stop the killingsAs the cycle of American gun violence took its latest turn on Tuesday, with at least 19 children and two teachers brutally murdered at an elementary school in the small town of Uvalde, Texas, the response from the Republican right came from an all too familiar playbook.Thoughts and prayers, obfuscation and inaction.Shortly after the shooting, Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, who for well over a decade has led his party in vehemently blocking a raft of federal gun control measures, decried the “disgusting violence” in Uvalde and said: “The entire country is praying for the children, families, teachers, and staff and the first responders on the scene.”But prayers aside, there remains little to no hope of commonsense gun control measures making their way into federal law, despite support from the majority of American voters.Within hours of the bloodshed on Tuesday, many of the national Republican Party’s most outspoken voices on gun ownership recited talking points now rote in the aftermath of mass shootings.Texas senator Ted Cruz, who also sent prayers to the community in Uvalde, castigated Democrats and members of the media during a brief interview with CNN. “Inevitably when there’s a murder of this kind you see politicians try to politicize it,” he said. “You see Democrats and a lot of folks in the media whose immediate solution is to try to restrict the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. That doesn’t work. It’s not effective. It doesn’t prevent crime.”His remarks were almost identical in the aftermath of the Parkland school shooting in Florida back in 2018, which claimed the lives of 17 students and teachers. Despite a grassroots protest movement, in which hundreds of thousands of school children descended on Washington in a March for Our Lives, no federal legislation was passed. Jury selection in the death penalty trial of the Parkland shooter continues this week, a further marker of the trauma these mass shootings leave behind.Meanwhile, Cruz is set to speak at the National Rifle Association leadership summit on Friday, in Houston, just 280 miles from Uvalde, alongside Donald Trump and Texas governor Greg Abbott.Other senior Texas Republicans, who have presided over a series of measures aimed at loosening restrictions on firearm ownership in the state, reiterated calls to arm teachers, despite the fact the shooter engaged a number of armed officers as he successfully stormed the school building.“We can’t stop bad people from doing bad things,” Texas attorney general Ken Paxton told Fox News on Tuesday. “We can potentially arm and prepare and train teachers and other administrators to respond quickly. That, in my opinion, is the best answer.”Republicans offer thoughts and prayers – but not gun control to stop the killingsRead moreSatirical news site the Onion has made all headlines on its front page read: “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens”. The website first used the headline when writing about the mass shooting at an outdoor concert in Las Vegas in 2017, where 61 people were killed. .@TheOnion homepage right now consists entirely of their “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens” stories they’ve published countless times pic.twitter.com/l1fAIemies— Marina Fang (@marinafang) May 25, 2022
The NRA just released a statement on its conference this weekend that confirms it will still be held this weekend in Houston.“We recognize this was the act of a lone, deranged criminal. As we gather in Houston, we will reflect on these events, pray for the victims, recognize our patriotic members and pledge to redouble our commitment to make our schools secure,” the statement reads. Statement from the @NRA regarding this week’s annual meeting in Houston. As of now, Greg Abbott and Ted Cruz are still scheduled to attend the event. @HoustonPubMedia pic.twitter.com/dMYFz8mIrD— Lucio Vasquez (@luciov120) May 25, 2022
Lawmakers are responding to the Uvalde shooting on Capitol Hill today. Joe Manchin told reporters that the Senate should pass a bipartisan gun control bill, but said that passing gun legislation would not be an impetus for getting rid of the filibuster. With the filibuster, Democrats would need at least 60 votes to pass legislation. On getting rid of the filibuster, Manchin said it amounts to “throwing out the one tool that we have that gets us, that keeps us working — at least talking together. Without that we have nothing. You get no checks and balance.”— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 25, 2022
Meanwhile Republican Marco Rubio of Florida is digging into his argument that background checks for gun purchases are ineffective. “The truth of the matter is these people are going to commit these horrifying crimes, whether they have to use another weapon to do it, they’re going to figure out a way to do it,” he told CNN. Asked Rubio why not ban AR-15s, and he said: “The truth of the matter is these people are going to commit these horrifying crimes, whether they have to use another weapon to do it, they’re going to figure out a way to do it.” Also contends more background checks won’t fix problem pic.twitter.com/crfprWZSyQ— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 25, 2022
The Uvalde shooting was the 27th school shooting this year, according to a tracker maintained by news organization Education Week. The tracker reports 67 people killed or injured in a school shooting, including 27 people who were killed. The shootings took place in states across the country, ranging from Washington state to Massachusetts.At his press conference this afternoon, Greg Abbott said he is “living moment to moment right now” in response to whether he would cancel his appearance at NRA’s conference in Houston this weekend. Gov. Abbott won’t say if he will still speak at NRA meeting in Houston Friday. “I’m living moment to moment right now.”— Rick Klein (@rickklein) May 25, 2022
Twenty minutes into Greg Abbott’s press conference addressing the Uvalde shooting, Beto O’Rourke, went up to the stage and told Abbott “you are doing nothing”. O’Rourke could be heard telling Abbott that the shooting was “predictable” because of his inaction and mentioned the 2019 shooting in El Paso where 23 people were killed in a Walmart store. “This is on you until you choose to do something,” O’Rourke said. “Sir, you are out of line,” Uvalde mayor Don McLaughlin can be heard shouting at O’Rourke trying to get him to leave the auditorium.”This is on you until you choose to do something”: Beto O’Rourke confronts Gov. Abbott at briefing on Texas elementary school shooting. https://t.co/RdYLvfum24 pic.twitter.com/bqbQXTPm6O— MSNBC (@MSNBC) May 25, 2022
O’Rourke is running against Abbott in November for the gubernatorial seat. He was most recently a House representative before his brief run for president in 2020.Texas governor Greg Abbott said at a press conference moments ago that the shooter posted on Facebook three times before his attack.In the first, posted 30 minutes before going to the school, he said he would shoot his grandmother. The second said, “I shot my grandmother.” And the third, posted about 15 minutes before the attack, said: “I’m going to shoot an elementary school.” Abbott also said the shooter’s grandmother had called the police before he shot her. Texas Gov Abbott says the Uvalde shooter posted 3 times on Facebook ~30 minutes before going to the school. The first was, “I’m going to shoot my grandmother.” Second was, “I shot my grandmother.” The third–roughly 15 min before–was, “I’m going to shoot an elementary school.”— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) May 25, 2022
On Monday, the day before the shooting, Uvdale carried out its annual tradition of having its graduating high school seniors greet the elementary school students, including those who were killed on Tuesday. Here’s a clip of the celebration:Seniors visit Robb Elementary ⁦@Uvalde_CISD⁩ pic.twitter.com/EVI0IyLanx— rharris (@UHSProud) May 23, 2022 More

It was supposed to be the moment of Donald Trump’s triumphant revenge over Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp and the other RINOs (Republicans in name only) he excoriated for rebuffing his big lie of a stolen presidential election.But as his chosen candidates fell one by one in Tuesday’s primary elections, a new reality was dawning over the former president: the total control the self-appointed kingmaker believed he still wielded over the Republican party is no longer intact.Reaction to last night’s events was coming in on Wednesday, although, notably, nothing yet from the former president himself, who put his reputation and – for once his money – behind former senator David Perdue’s doomed attempt to unseat Kemp.But others had plenty to say.Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who was among a number of senior Republicans, including ex-vice president Mike Pence, to back Kemp, celebrated the demise of Trump’s “vendetta tour” in a tweet.Enormous win tonight for @BrianKempGA. I am so proud of and happy for my friend—and just as importantly for the Georgia GOP and the people of Georgia. They were not going to kick out a great Governor or be willing participants in the DJT Vendetta Tour.— Chris Christie (@GovChristie) May 25, 2022
Kemp goes on to face Democrat Stacy Abrams – who won her party’s primary Tuesday unopposed in November in a rematch of their 2018 battle, which Kemp won narrowly.Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, who memorably denied Trump’s request that he “find” votes in 2020, secured the Republican nomination for re-election against the Trump-backed congressman Jody Hice.The state’s Republican party was quick to celebrate:Congratulations Brad Raffensperger, Republican nominee for Secretary of State#LeadRight #gapol #GeorgiaOnTheLine pic.twitter.com/12BrILSlvm— GAGOP (@GaRepublicans) May 25, 2022
And Georgia’s Republican attorney general Chris Carr beat back a challenge from John Gordon, who made Trump’s stolen election myth a central plank of his campaign.Not all Trump-aligned candidates in Georgia fell: his pick for Senate, former NFL star Herschel Walker, cruised home. And congresswoman Marjory Taylor Greene won her race at a canter.But Republican leaders will worry that Walker, who has a history of domestic violence, is the wrong candidate to be taking on Democratic senator Raphael Warnock in the fall. And that Greene’s extremism will turn off independent voters.My colleague Lauren Gambino has this look at how Trump’s chosen candidates went down, and how Kemp’s victory marks a “resounding setback” for the former president’s quest to punish those who dared to cross him:Resounding setback for Trump as Kemp wins Republican primary in GeorgiaRead moreThanks for following the US politics blog today. We’re closing down here, but you can keep up with developments in our live blog covering the Texas elementary school massacre here.Donald Trump’s grip on the Republican party loosened with defeat for his “big lie” candidates in several key Georgia primary races. But the former president was more focused on his weekend appearance at the national rifle association’s weekend convention in Houston.Meanwhile, Pennsylvania’s Republican Senate primary from last week might not be settled until next month after the state’s elections chief said the deadlocked race between Trump’s pick, celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz, and David McCormick, was headed for a recount.Here’s what else we followed:
Joe Biden’s hopes of taming inflation before November’s midterm elections were dashed by an economic outlook released by the congressional budget office on Wednesday afternoon that says the crisis will persist into next year.
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said Democrats would not immediately bring gun legislation to a vote because of Republican opposition.
Public approval of the supreme court dropped sharply to 44% following the leak of a draft opinion that would overturn the Roe v Wade decision guaranteeing abortion rights nationwide, according to a Marquette Law School poll.
Liz Cheney, the Republican vice chair of the January 6 House panel investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection, has Covid-19.
Joe Biden’s hopes of taming inflation before November’s midterm elections look to have been dashed by an economic outlook released by the congressional budget office on Wednesday afternoon that says the crisis will persist into next year.High prices and the soaring cost of gas threaten to derail Democrats’ hopes of retaining control of Congress in the fall, and Biden last week promised tackling them was his “top domestic priority”.Wednesday’s report from the non-partisan agency predicts the consumer price index will rise 6.1% this year and 3.1% in 2023, the Associated Press said. This forecast suggests that inflation will slow from current annual levels of 8.3%, yet would still be dramatically above a long-term baseline of 2.3%.The CBO cautions its numbers “are subject to considerable uncertainty, in part because of the ongoing pandemic and other world events,” including Russia’s war in Ukraine.Maya MacGuineas, president of the committee for a responsible federal budget, told the AP ahead of the report’s release that the pandemic, war in Ukraine and other factors point to the importance of reducing the annual deficit.“Unfortunately, the underlying story here is one of fiscally unsustainable positions and on top of that, we have this added challenge of inflation and a reminder that external shocks continue to come at us,” she said. CBO Director Phillip Swagel highlights the main findings of “The Budget and Economic Outlook: 2022 to 2032,” which was released today. https://t.co/AanxPE9ctK— U.S. CBO (@USCBO) May 25, 2022
Joe Biden is about to sign an executive order increasing accountability in law enforcement and creating a national database of police misconduct.In a statement from the White House, the president says the steps are needed following the killing two years ago of George Floyd in Minneapolis by a white police officer, who knelt on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Two years ago, the murder of George Floyd exposed for many what Black and Brown communities have long known and experienced – that we must do more to ensure that our nation lives up to its founding promise of fair and impartial justice for all.
The incident sparked one of the largest social movements this country has ever seen, with calls from all corners to acknowledge the legacy of systemic racism in our criminal justice system and in our institutions more broadly. As well as creating the database, Biden’s order bans the use of chokeholds and carotid restraints unless deadly force is authorized, and restricts the use of no-knock entries, such as the one used by police in Kentucky who killed an unarmed Black woman, Breonna Taylor, at her home in March 2020. It also requires new standards that limit the use of force and require de-escalation for all federal agencies, among other measures.I’ve called on Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, but Senate Republicans have stood in the way of progress. That’s why this afternoon, I’m taking action and signing an Executive Order that delivers the most significant police reform in decades.— President Biden (@POTUS) May 25, 2022
The Biden administration blames Republicans in the senate for blocking the George Floyd justice in policing act, forcing the president to take executive action.Read more:Biden to sign police reform executive order on George Floyd anniversaryRead morePennsylvania’s top election official said Wednesday that last week’s Republican Senate primary is heading for a recount, with no winner likely until June.Celebrity TV doctor Mehmet Oz is virtually deadlocked with former treasure official David McCormick in the hotly contested race to take on Democratic nominee John Fetterman in November’s election.Leigh Chapman, Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of state, said in a statement that the vote totals for the top two finishers fell well within the 0.5% margin for an automatic recount after the deadline for counties to report unofficial totals.Oz, who is endorsed by Donald Trump, led McCormick by 902 votes, or 0.07% of 1,343,643 ballots reported by the state by Wednesday, the Associated Press reported.The agency said it would not declare a winner until the recount is complete, possibly as late as 8 June.Counties continued counting hundreds of ballots on Wednesday, including provisional, military and overseas absentee ballots.He might have lost the endorsement of Donald Trump, but Republican Alabama congressman Mo Brooks’s challenge for a US Senate seat is very much alive, and heading for a June runoff.Some analysts expected the loss of Trump’s backing, a revenge act for Brooks’s comments that he believed voters should look forward instead of dwelling on the 2020 election that the former president lost, would be fatal.But Brooks, formerly a staunch Trump ally and mouthpiece, earned enough if the vote on Tuesday to secure a runoff with Katie Britt, former chief of staff to Senator Richard Shelby, whose retirement opened up the Alabama seat.Trump initially endorsed Brooks, but pulled his backing in March.“Mo Brooks of Alabama made a horrible mistake recently when he went ‘woke’ and stated, referring to the 2020 Presidential Election Scam, ‘Put that behind you, put that behind you,’ despite the fact that the Election was rife with fraud and irregularities,” Trump said in a statement. In response, Brooks, a six-term congressman, issued an angry statement claiming Trump had asked him to “rescind” the 2020 election and remove Joe Biden from the White House.Brooks was a prominent figure at the “Save America” rally at the Ellipse in Washington DC on 6 January 2021 that preceded the storming of the Capitol building by Trump supporters. “Today is the day American patriots start taking down names and kicking ass,” Brooks told the crowd before the riot.It’s been a lively morning so far in US political news and there is more to come, so do stay tuned, Here’s where things stand:
Texas Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar was still locked in a tight primary runoff race with progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros on Wednesday, but has already faced criticism from the party’s progressive wing in Congress due to his anti-abortion and pro-gun views.
Senate Democrats declined on Wednesday to bring gun safety legislation to a vote right now, with leader Chuck Schumer saying that he knows that the bills will not pass due to Republican opposition.
Public approval of the US Supreme Court has dropped sharply following the leak of a draft opinion that would overturn Roe v Wade.
Liz Cheney, the Republican vice chair of the January 6 House panel investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection, has Covid-19.
The former president faced a resounding setback as Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp won the state’s Republican primary, defeating former senator David Perdue, a Trump ally who embraced the myth of a stolen election.
Donald Trump released a statement on his social media platform, Truth Social, saying that he still plans on attending the NRA convention in Houston this weekend.“America needs real solutions and real leadership in this moment, not politicians and partisanship,” the former president wrote. “That’s why I will keep my longtime commitment to speak in Texas at the NRA Convention and deliver an important address to America.”In his statement, Trump made a peculiar stylistic choice and put the word massacre in quotes.Trump is not cancelling his appearance at the NRA convention this week in Houston, he says on Truth Social pic.twitter.com/BF4WZO6M10— Meridith McGraw (@meridithmcgraw) May 25, 2022
Anyway, an interesting twist of irony is that people won’t be able to carry firearms when attending Trump’s speech. It seems this rule is one made by the Secret Service, which told NPR that it has the “authority to preclude firearms from entering sites visited by our protectees, including those located in open-carry states”.For all the live news on the school shooting in Texas, do head over to our other live blog currently running, here.Texas Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar was still locked in a tight primary runoff race with progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros on Wednesday, but “the Squad” is already angry, regardless of the result.New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, among the most prominent of the party’s progressive wing in Congress, called out its leaders for backing the anti-abortion, pro-gun Cuellar over Cisneros.“On the day of a mass shooting and weeks after news of Roe, Democratic Party leadership rallied for a pro-NRA, anti-choice incumbent under investigation in a close primary,” the politician known as AOC tweeted.“Robocalls, fundraisers, all of it. Accountability isn’t partisan. This was an utter failure of leadership”.On the day of a mass shooting and weeks after news of Roe, Democratic Party leadership rallied for a pro-NRA, anti-choice incumbent under investigation in a close primary. Robocalls, fundraisers, all of it.Accountability isn’t partisan. This was an utter failure of leadership.— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) May 25, 2022
Senior Democrats including Nancy Pelosi campaigned for Cuellar, a nine-term congressman, as he sought to fend off the challenge from Cisneros, a 28-year-old immigration attorney.Cuellar has already declared victory, but according to the Associated Press on Wednesday, the race is still too close to call. Cuellar led Cisneros by 175 votes, or 0.38% of the 45,209 ballots counted by 2am.The winner will face Cassy Garcia, who won the Republican runoff for the seat, in November’s midterm elections.Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said on the chamber floor Wednesday morning that he will not be bringing any gun legislation to a vote in the immediate future, saying he knows that the bills will not pass due to Republican opposition.Speaking after Tuesday’s massacre of 19 children and two teachers by a gunman at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Schumer said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I believe that accountability votes are important, but sadly this isn’t a case of the American people not knowing where their senators stand. Americans can cast their vote in November.The Associated Press reported that Schumer swiftly set in motion a pair of firearms background-check bills in response to the school massacre, but acknowledged the unyielding rejection by Congress of previous legislation to curb the national epidemic of gun violence..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}If the slaughter of schoolchildren can’t convince Republicans to buck the NRA [national rifle association], what can we do? But he said he would continue to work on advancing bipartisan legislation.Follow our live blog on the Texas school shooting here.From my colleagues Maanvi Singh and Joan E Greve, these are the Guardian’s main takeaways from primary night, which was understandably overshadowed by the massacre of elementary school children in Texas:
Blow to Donald Trump as a political kingmaker
Key race for Georgia secretary of state signals defeat for ‘big lie’ candidate
But Trump acolytes performed better in Arkansas and Texas
Elementary school shooting casts pall over the night
Democratic races also hold interest
Read the full story here for their observations:Five key takeaways: the US midterm electionsRead morePeople who take part in insurrections against the US government can be barred from office, an appeals court said on Tuesday, reversing a ruling in favor of Madison Cawthorn, an extremist Republican politician from North Carolina. Hailing a “major victory”, Free Speech For People, the group which brought the case, said: “This ruling cements the growing judicial consensus that the 1872 Amnesty Act does not shield the insurrectionists of 6 January 2021 – including Donald Trump – from the consequences of their actions.”Cawthorn lost a primary this month and will not return to Congress in November. But Free Speech For People pursued an appeal.It also brought cases against Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, two Arizona Republicans, Paul Gosar and Andy Biggs, and an Arizona state representative, Mark Finchem. All have been unsuccessful.The challenges cited the the 14th amendment to the US constitution, passed after the civil war.It says: “No person shall … hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath … to support the constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”Cawthorn and the other Republicans were closely tied to events around the deadly January 6 attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters seeking to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election victory. They have denied knowledge of plans for violence.Read the full story:Blow to Madison Cawthorn as appeals court reverses ‘insurrectionist’ rulingRead morePublic approval of the supreme court has dropped sharply following the leak of a draft opinion that would overturn the Roe v Wade decision guaranteeing abortion rights nationwide, according to a new poll.Disapproval of the nation’s highest court was especially pronounced among the roughly two-thirds of US adults who oppose overturning Roe, the Associated Press says, while support for the court was high among those in favor, according to the Marquette Law School poll, which also found increased partisan polarization in approval.Approval fell to 44%, with 55% disapproving of how the court is handling its job, the sample of more than 1,000 adults between 9 and 19 May found.In March, 54% approved and 45% disapproved, itself a massive drop from the 66% approval the panel enjoyed in September 2020, the month that long-serving justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died.Approval was fairly steady among Republicans from March to May this year, but fell sharply among Democrats and slightly among independents.New Marquette Law School national poll finds overall approval of US Supreme Court has dropped 10 percentage points since March, from 54% to 44%, and disapproval has gone up from 45% to 55%. #mulawpoll— MULawPoll (@MULawPoll) May 25, 2022
Donald Trump’s big lie lost bigly in Georgia on Tuesday night. Some might take this as proof that his spell over the Republican party has finally been broken, but that is what the Republican party wants people to believe. The former president had been waging a personal vendetta against Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp and secretary of state Brad Raffensperger for failing to overturn the 2020 presidential election in his favor.Trump handpicked former senator David Perdue and congressman Jody Hice to challenge Kemp and Raffensperger in the Republican primaries. Both parroted the big lie and both were soundly beaten. It was a tangible sign that even many Trump voters are now weary of “stop the steal” and eager to look forward. It was also a blow to Trump in a primary season where his scattergun endorsements have come up with a decidedly mixed win-loss record.But studying Trump’s recent record as kingmaker misses the point. In fact, it actively helps Republicans create the illusion that they have moved on from “Make America great again” (Maga) even as they continue to push its radical rightwing agenda.It all began with Glenn Youngkin, who last year won election as governor of Virginia as a Trump-lite Republican. He never campaigned alongside the ex-president but also took pains to avoid criticizing him and alienating his base. “Don’t insult Donald Trump but do everything to keep him away,” was how columnist Peggy Noonan put it in the Wall Street Journal.Youngkin projected the image of a safe, sane, old school Republican who could win back suburban and independent voters. But he went Maga by pushing hot button issues such as coronavirus mask mandates, transgender bathrooms and “critical race theory” and portraying his opponent as a “woke” liberal. He flirted with, but did not embrace, Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.The formula has been emulated in various ways by candidates facing extreme Trump-backed challengers. It worked for Brad Little, the governor of Idaho, and now for Kemp in Georgia. Neither should be mistaken for “NeverTrumpers” in the mould of Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger or Larry Hogan. Read the full story:Trump-backed nominees lost in Georgia, but can Republicans escape the specter of Maga?Read moreLiz Cheney, the Republican vice chair of the 6 January House panel investigating Donald Trump’s insurrection, has Covid-19.The Wyoming congresswoman and Republican party pariah made the announcement in a tweet that said she was fully vaccinated and boosted, and following federal guidelines.She said she received a positive test this morning, and was “experiencing mild symptoms”. pic.twitter.com/lEoQGk3Ru4— Rep. Liz Cheney (@RepLizCheney) May 25, 2022
If Brian Kemp’s obliteration of David Perdue’s challenge wasn’t bad enough for Donald Trump, the failure of the former president’s pick Jody Hice to topple Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger might have stung even more.Raffensperger was, of course, the recipient of Trump’s infamous call following the 2020 election asking him to “find” the votes he needed to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state, which is now the subject of a criminal probe.The refusal of Georgia’s Republican officials to bend to Trump’s will resulted in his furious campaign of vengeance, which fell flat on Tuesday when voters soundly rejected the “big lie” candidates he wanted to install.Raffensperger’s victory wasn’t as sizeable as Kemp’s, but he still achieved more than 50% of the vote, enough to avoid a run-off and win him the Republican nomination outright. Brad Raffensperger found the votes.— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) May 25, 2022
My colleague Sam Levine has taken a look at Raffensperger’s victory and how it was, arguably, the biggest blow yet to Trump’s efforts to install compliant officials in positions of authority:Brad Raffensperger defeats Trump bid to oust him as Georgia’s top election officialRead moreIt was supposed to be the moment of Donald Trump’s triumphant revenge over Georgia’s governor Brian Kemp and the other RINOs (Republicans in name only) he excoriated for rebuffing his big lie of a stolen presidential election.But as his chosen candidates fell one by one in Tuesday’s primary elections, a new reality was dawning over the former president: the total control the self-appointed kingmaker believed he still wielded over the Republican party is no longer intact.Reaction to last night’s events was coming in on Wednesday, although, notably, nothing yet from the former president himself, who put his reputation and – for once his money – behind former senator David Perdue’s doomed attempt to unseat Kemp.But others had plenty to say.Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who was among a number of senior Republicans, including ex-vice president Mike Pence, to back Kemp, celebrated the demise of Trump’s “vendetta tour” in a tweet.Enormous win tonight for @BrianKempGA. I am so proud of and happy for my friend—and just as importantly for the Georgia GOP and the people of Georgia. They were not going to kick out a great Governor or be willing participants in the DJT Vendetta Tour.— Chris Christie (@GovChristie) May 25, 2022
Kemp goes on to face Democrat Stacy Abrams – who won her party’s primary Tuesday unopposed in November in a rematch of their 2018 battle, which Kemp won narrowly.Georgia’s secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, who memorably denied Trump’s request that he “find” votes in 2020, secured the Republican nomination for re-election against the Trump-backed congressman Jody Hice.The state’s Republican party was quick to celebrate:Congratulations Brad Raffensperger, Republican nominee for Secretary of State#LeadRight #gapol #GeorgiaOnTheLine pic.twitter.com/12BrILSlvm— GAGOP (@GaRepublicans) May 25, 2022
And Georgia’s Republican attorney general Chris Carr beat back a challenge from John Gordon, who made Trump’s stolen election myth a central plank of his campaign.Not all Trump-aligned candidates in Georgia fell: his pick for Senate, former NFL star Herschel Walker, cruised home. And congresswoman Marjory Taylor Greene won her race at a canter.But Republican leaders will worry that Walker, who has a history of domestic violence, is the wrong candidate to be taking on Democratic senator Raphael Warnock in the fall. And that Greene’s extremism will turn off independent voters.My colleague Lauren Gambino has this look at how Trump’s chosen candidates went down, and how Kemp’s victory marks a “resounding setback” for the former president’s quest to punish those who dared to cross him:Resounding setback for Trump as Kemp wins Republican primary in GeorgiaRead moreGood morning and welcome to the midweek edition of the US politics blog.Donald Trump is facing a cold new reality this morning: the total power he thought he still held over the Republican party is no longer a thing. Resounding defeats for his “big lie” candidates David Perdue, Jody Hice and John Gordon in Tuesday’s primaries in Georgia were a stunning rebuke for what critics have called Trump’s “vendetta tour” – his plan to take out the state’s top officials who rebuffed his efforts to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden.Former senator Perdue was trounced by incumbent governor Brian Kemp, Hice failed to topple secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, and Gordon fell to attorney general Chris Carr.It wasn’t a total blowout for Trump-aligned candidates in Georgia: his pick for Senate, former NFL star Herschel Walker, cruised home. And congresswoman Marjory Taylor Greene won her race at a canter. But that in itself is alarming Republican leaders, who worry that Walker, who has a history of domestic violence, is the wrong candidate to be taking on Democratic senator Raphael Warnock in the fall, and that Greene’s extremism will turn off independent voters.
In Alabama, Republican congressman Mo Brooks lost Trump’s endorsement, but won enough votes to reach a run-off to hold on to his seat.
In Texas, attorney general Ken Paxton, who spoke at Trump’s 6 January Washington rally that preceded the Capitol insurrection, saw off a challenge from George P Bush, grandson of former president George HW Bush.
And the only anti-abortion Democrat in the House, Henry Cuellar, has declared victory over progressive challenger Jessica Cisneros in their Texas district.
We’ll have lots more reaction coming up to the primary elections in Georgia and other states that voted Tuesday, so please stay with us. More

Donald Trump said maybe mob was right to chant ‘Hang Mike Pence’ – reportNew York Times reports witnesses told Capitol attack committee about ex-president’s comment, made on day of January 6 riot Donald Trump reportedly reacted to chants about hanging his vice-president, Mike Pence, during the US Capitol attack by saying maybe the mob was right.Capitol attack panel to hold six public hearings as it aims to show how Trump broke lawRead moreThe New York Times reported the bombshell White House comment on Tuesday.Two witnesses, the paper said, have confirmed to the House committee investigating the events of 6 January 2021 that Mark Meadows, then Trump’s chief of staff, described Trump “saying something to the effect of, maybe Mr Pence should be hung”.The Times said it was not clear if Trump was serious.Pence was at the Capitol to preside over certification of Joe Biden’s victory, the process the mob tried to stop after being told to “fight like hell” by Trump.A makeshift gallows was set up outside. Rioters inside were heard to chant “Hang Mike Pence”. Multiple accounts have said aides pleaded with Trump to call off the mob but he delayed for hours.Despite Trump advisers’ attempts to persuade him otherwise, Pence concluded he did not have the authority to reject electoral college results.Trump has defended the chants about hanging Pence before, telling the author Jon Karl, “Well, the people were very angry,” and adding that it was just “common sense” to be so because Pence was not attempting to block electoral college results.News of Trump’s contemporaneous remark about Pence and hanging comes at a time of tension between the two men, as both eye a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.Trump continues to broadcast his lie about electoral fraud in 2020, which fueled the Capitol attack, and to endorse Republicans who repeat it.Pence has backed candidates opposed to the Trump lie including Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia who scored a landslide victory over a Trump-backed challenger in a primary contest on Tuesday.A Trump spokesman, Taylor Budowich, told the Times: “This partisan committee’s vague ‘leaks’, anonymous testimony and willingness to alter evidence proves it’s just an extension of the Democrat smear campaign that has been exposed time and time again for being fabricated and dishonest.”But, as the paper put it: “Mr Budowich did not address the substance of the information provided to the committee.”Meadows did not comment. He cooperated with the House committee then withdrew. It referred him to the Department of Justice for a charge of criminal contempt of Congress, like that to which the Trump ally Steve Bannon has pleaded not guilty. Contempt of Congress can bring prison time but in Meadows’ case no charge has been forthcoming.The Times also cited unnamed sources as saying witnesses have told the January 6 committee Meadows “used the fireplace in his office to burn documents”.The Guardian reported this week that the House committee is preparing to hold six public hearings in June, the first and last in prime time.TopicsDonald TrumpMike PenceUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Tuesday’s Republican primaries did not go as Trump had hopedLloyd GreenSome of the Trump-endorsed candidates won. But for the most part it seems like his sway in 2022 may have peaked On Tuesday, Georgia’s Republicans delivered a beat-down to Donald Trump. Across the board, they rejected his picks for state office. Governor Brian Kemp and attorney general Chris Carr, both incumbents, each grabbed more than 73% of the primary vote. Meanwhile, Brad Raffensperger, Trump’s bete noire and Georgia’s secretary of state, escaped a runoff as he cleared the crucial 50% mark.In the aftermath of the 2020 election, the trio collectively refused to “find” 11,780 votes for Trump. Instead, they defended the verdict of Georgia’s voters, accepted Joe Biden’s win and earned Trump’s wrath. Now, less than two years later, they reminded Trump that he was merely an influential bystander to comings and goings in the Peach state.Their collective humiliation of the 45th president was now complete. Adding insult to injury, a Georgia grand jury continues to weigh whether to indict Trump for his ham-handed alleged effort to influence the election. Meanwhile, betting pools place the chances of Florida’s Ron DeSantis winning the 2024 Republican presidential nominee on par with the former guy.For the record, Tuesday was not a total wipeout for Trump. He could point to wins among a motley crew he could call his very own.Herschel Walker captured the Republican nod for Georgia’s senator. A legendary University of Georgia football star, Walker also possesses a record of alleged domestic violence and abuse.His friendship with Trump spans decades. Walker played football for the New Jersey Generals, Trump’s team in the short-lived USFL. On the campaign trail, Walker claimed he had never heard Trump denounce the 2020 election as stolen.Likewise, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, the hyper-performative high-priestess of Maga-hood, sailed to renomination in north-west Georgia. Whatever consternation she may cause nationally, it was not discernible in her home district. She notched nearly 70% of the vote.Over in Texas, Ken Paxton defeated George P Bush in a runoff for attorney general. Paxton, the incumbent attorney general, cruised to a runoff victory over the grandson of one president and the nephew of a second.Of all Republican state attorney generals, Paxton was the most slavishly loyal to Trump. In December 2020, Paxton filed a lawsuit in the US supreme court against Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. He accused the four electoral battlegrounds of having “destroyed” the public’s trust and “compromised the security and integrity of the 2020 election”.Some things never change. After Tuesday’s Texas school massacre, Paxton suggested arming teachers as a solution. Gun control was not an option. Trump, Texas governor Greg Abbott, and Senator Ted Cruz are set to speak at a National Rifle Association meeting scheduled for later this week in Houston.But the evening’s dominant messages to Trump in contests for state office were clear. Competence and performance still counted, and incumbent officeholders possess a political arsenal of their very own.Earlier this year, Jay Walker, a Kemp adviser, repeatedly told deep-pocketed donors that the governor stood ready to gut his challenger, David Perdue, Trump’s pick and a defeated former US senator.“We’re going to go fucking scorched-earth,” Walker supposedly said. “When you got your foot on someone’s neck, you don’t take it off until the race is over, or they’ve run out of oxygen.”Unlike congressmen and senators, voters expect governors to get things done; Kemp did just that. The Associated Press called his race just 90 minutes after the polls closed.Then again, Perdue offered Republicans little reason to vote for him. He had lost his 2021 insurrection eve runoff to Jon Ossoff, a candidate once graphically derided by the late and toxic Rush Limbaugh.Practically speaking, Perdue should have just stamped a giant “L” on his own forehead. He was damaged goods from the start.On the campaign trail, Perdue repeated the big lie that the 2020 elections were stolen. But as a member of one of Georgia’s pre-eminent political families, his shtick reeked of pandering.His heart wasn’t in it. Beyond that, he had marinated his closing message in unalloyed racial resentment, with remarks widely interpreted as lashing out at Stacey Abrams, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee, for simply being Black.Significantly, Trump’s defeats in Georgia follow his recent losses in the Idaho and Nebraska gubernatorial Republican primaries. In other words, Kemp’s win fits an emerging pattern.In Idaho, Janice McGeachin, the state’s Trump-endorsed lieutenant governor and a favorite of the far right, failed to dislodge the already very conservative governor, Brad Little. Unlike Little, McGeachin delivered a video address to the America First Political Action Conference, an event organized by Nick Fuentes, a prominent white nationalist.Over in Nebraska, Charles Herbster, the Trump-endorsed candidate, went down in defeat after several women accused him of sexual misconduct. Apparently, Trump’s own “luck” on that score was personal, and not readily transferable to Herbster. Instead, Nebraska Republicans went with Jim Pillen, a University of Nebraska regent, who was endorsed by the state’s Republican establishment.To be sure, the spirit of Maga remains very much alive. Marjorie Taylor Greene will return to Congress. Herschel Walker is holding his own in hypothetical match-ups against Senator Raphael Warnock. Even Kemp is no never-Trump. Yet Trump’s endorsement can no longer be reflexively equated with a primary victory.Ask Mehmet Oz; he can tell you. Right now, Pennsylvania continues its count of primary ballots. A recount looms. Whether Dr Oz, a Trump endorsee, holds on remains to be seen. Regardless, Trump’s sway in 2022 may have peaked.
Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York. He was opposition research counsel to George HW Bush’s 1988 campaign and served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
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The Guardian view on US gun violence: another desperate dayEditorialFirearm sales and deaths have soared in the last two years. All killings – not just mass shootings – must be addressed To see the smiling faces of the children murdered at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, is unbearable. The killing of at least 19 pupils and two teachers is not, as it should be, unthinkable. It comes a decade after 20 children and six staff members were shot dead at Sandy Hook elementary school in Connecticut, and only 10 days after the racist murder of 10 mostly black shoppers at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.Gun sales have risen sharply since the pandemic began, although the US already had more guns than citizens, far ahead of any other country. The murder rate has soared by nearly 30%. Firearms are the leading cause of death for America’s children, claiming the lives of more than 1,500 under-18s last year. Mass shootings account for at most 3% of gun violence deaths; many occur in ones or twos, and largely in disadvantaged neighbourhoods of colour. Unlike Tuesday’s tragedy, these victims go mostly unremarked, even when they are school age. Yet they, too, are irreplaceable to those who loved them.Attempts to curb mass shootings, for example through banning assault weapons, are therefore both necessary and wholly inadequate. Yet lawmakers have struggled to enact and defend even these. Many believed that Sandy Hook had to prove a turning point. The passionate efforts of bereaved parents, vilified and attacked as they grieved, have led to a gunmaker being found liable for a mass shooting in the US for the first time. But the most wide-reaching change resulting from school shootings has been that millions of children now go through drills – traumatising those who will, thankfully, never encounter a shooter.On Tuesday, Joe Biden asked – as so many have – why the US is “willing to live with this carnage”. Support for tighter gun controls has dropped in recent years, though most still want them, and backing usually rises after mass shootings. Texan Republican leaders have prided themselves on expanding gun rights. Governor Greg Abbott, along with state senator Ted Cruz and Donald Trump, is due to speak at the NRA’s meeting in Houston this weekend. The Republican grip on the country’s institutions, skewing the executive, the legislature and the judiciary rightward, is another problem. A conservative, pro-gun supreme court will rule shortly on a New York law restricting who can carry guns in public, potentially imperilling restrictions elsewhere.Local gun violence prevention programmes work: the Biden administration is right to have dramatically increased funding, but more must be done. It is also essential that misogyny is addressed: most mass shooters have a history of expressing hatred of women and attacking female family members, and most women shot by their partners have previously been abused by them.It is hard to feel any optimism when persistent campaigning by survivors and bereaved families has failed to shift the nation. The question is not merely what might save children like those at Uvalde, but whether anything will be done to save Americans more broadly if even these deaths do not force the US to address gun violence seriously. These deaths were not unthinkable. Inaction, in the face of them, must be.TopicsTexas school shootingOpinionUS gun controlUS domestic policyUS economyUS politicsTexaseditorialsReuse this content More