US Politics

Kamala Harris concedes White House ‘didn’t see’ Delta and Omicron comingVice-president’s candid admission on Covid variants came in wide-ranging interview with the Los Angeles Times Kamala Harris has conceded that the Biden administration was blind to the emergence of the Delta and Omicron variants of Covid-19, and said she fears “misinformation” over vaccines will prolong the pandemic well into a third year.Biden commemorates 49th anniversary of crash that killed his first wifeRead moreThe candid admission came in a wide-ranging interview with the Los Angeles Times, which followed reports that the vice-president was “struggling” to make a mark as Joe Biden’s No 2 and was keen for a more prominent role.Biden’s handling of the pandemic, alongside other woes such as spiking inflation and the supply chain crisis, has contributed to a steady decline in his popularity ratings.On Saturday, a White House official told NBC News the president would make a speech about Covid-19 on Tuesday, at which he would unveil new measures to combat the virus, including steps to “help communities in need of assistance”.Biden would also be “issuing a stark warning of what the winter will look like for Americans that choose to remain unvaccinated”, the official said.Harris, who has suffered the same sinking approval ratings as the 79-year-old president, was seen as shoo-in for the 2024 Democratic nomination until Biden said last month he would seek a second term. The White House said on Thursday Harris would be his running mate again.As well as speaking to the LA Times, Harris had a heated exchange on Friday with the radio host Charlamagne tha God.At the conclusion of a testy interview that Harris aides reportedly tried to cut short, Charlamagne tha God questioned if Biden or Joe Manchin, the centrist Democrat from West Virginia who wields outsized power in the 50-50 Senate, was the “real” president.“C’mon, Charlamagne,” Harris snapped. “It’s Joe Biden.“No, no, no, no. It’s Joe Biden, and don’t start talking like a Republican, about asking whether or not he’s president.”Harris’s comments about Covid, in which she also appeared to place blame on the medical community for a lack of foresight, would seem to confirm the administration’s view that the pandemic is its biggest obstacle to progress.“We didn’t see Delta coming. I think most scientists did not – upon whose advice and direction we have relied – didn’t see Delta coming,” Harris said.“We didn’t see Omicron coming. And that’s the nature of what this awful virus has been, which as it turns out, has mutations and variants.”Harris also said the public needed to be more trusting of Covid-19 vaccines, citing a slow take-up rate despite the White House and federal health officials’ efforts to urge vaccinations and boosters.“I would take that more seriously,” Harris said of disinformation promoted in Republican circles and swirling elsewhere, successfully dissuading people from getting a shot.“The biggest threat still to the American people is the threat to the unvaccinated. And most people who believe in the efficacy of the vaccine and the seriousness of the virus have been vaccinated. That troubles me deeply.”Harris’s claims are backed by data analysis showing that 91% of Democrats have received a first shot compared to only 60% of Republicans. Deaths from Covid-19 are occurring increasingly in areas that voted for Donald Trump in 2020, compared to areas that voted for Biden.The administration was handed a victory on Friday, as an appeals court said its vaccine mandate for large companies could go into effect. That contest is not over, however, as Republicans seek to take the matter all the way to the supreme court.“We have not been victorious over [Covid-19],” Harris told the LA Times, appearing to counter Biden’s claim in July that the virus “no longer controls our lives”.“I don’t think that in any regard anyone can claim victory when, you know, there are 800,000 people who are dead because of this virus.”Biden acknowledges his Build Back Better plan will miss Christmas deadlineRead moreOther subjects covered in the LA Times interview included Biden’s Build Back Better domestic spending plan, immigration and voting rights, all hot-button topics on which the administration has failed to make much headway.Harris said the failure to pass the $1.75tn economic and climate spending package, which Biden conceded on Friday would miss its Christmas deadline, was a frustration – but offered no alternative plan.Although she blamed Republican stonewalling, the measure is being held up in particular by Manchin.“We have to keep appealing to the American people that they should expect Congress and their elected representatives to act on the issue,” Harris said. “We can’t give up on it, that’s for sure.”TopicsKamala HarrisCoronavirusVaccines and immunisationUS politicsBiden administrationnewsReuse this content More

Rahm Emanuel leads confirmed Biden nominees in late-night logjam breakEx-Obama chief of staff will go to Japan after deal for vote on Russia pipeline sanctions ends Republican Senate resistance The former Obama White House chief of staff and Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel was among more than 30 ambassadors and other Biden nominees confirmed by the Senate early on Saturday. Trump condemned by Anti-Defamation League chief for antisemitic tropesRead moreThe Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, broke a Republican-stoked logjam by agreeing to schedule a vote on sanctions on the company behind the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that will deliver natural gas from Russia to Germany.With many senators anxious to go home for the holidays, Schumer threatened to keep the Senate in for as long as it took to break a logjam on a number of diplomatic and national security nominees.Emanuel was confirmed to serve as ambassador to Japan by a vote of 48-21. Nominees to be ambassadors to Spain, Vietnam and Somalia were among those confirmed by voice vote after an agreement was reached to vote on Nord Stream 2 sanctions before 14 January.The confirmation process has proved to be frustrating for new administrations regardless of party. While gridlock isn’t new, the struggle is getting worse.Democrats have voiced concerns about holds Republican senators placed on nominees in order to raise objections about foreign policy matters that had little to do with the nominees in question. Holds do not block confirmation but they do require the Senate to undertake hours of debate.Positions requiring confirmation can go unfilled for months even when the nominations are approved in committee with the support of both parties.Biden officials acknowledge the president will end his year with significantly more vacancies than recent predecessors and that the slowdown of ambassadorial and other national security picks has had an impact on relations overseas.Ted Cruz, of Texas, held up dozens of nominees at state and treasury, over objections to the waiving of sanctions targeting the Nord Stream AG firm overseeing the pipeline project. The administration said it opposed the project but viewed it is a fait accompli. It also said trying to stop it would harm relations with Germany.Critics on the both sides of the aisle have raised concerns that the pipeline will threaten European energy security by increasing reliance on Russian gas and allowing Russia to exert political pressure on vulnerable nations, particularly Ukraine.Earlier in the week, Schumer demanded that Cruz lift all of his holds on nominees at the two departments as well as the US Agency for International Development, as part of any agreement on a Nord Stream 2 sanctions. Cruz said he was willing to lift holds on 16. The two sides traded offers on Friday.“I think there ought to be a reasonable middle ground solution,” Cruz said.“Let’s face it. There is little to celebrate when it comes to nominations in the Senate,“ said Senator Bob Menendez, chairman of the foreign relations committee.The New Jersey Democrat blamed Republicans for “straining the system to the breaking point” and depriving Biden of a full national security team, “leaving our nation weakened”.“Something’s going to happen in one of these places and we will not be there to ultimately have someone to promote our interests and to protect ourselves,” he said.Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, said some of the gridlock stemmed back to four years ago when Democrats, under Schumer, tried to stop many of Donald Trump’s nominees being confirmed in a timely manner.“Senator Schumer doesn’t have anything close to clean hands here,” Blunt said.Emanuel, also a former member of the House, was backed for the post in Tokyo at a time when Washington is looking to Asian allies to help push back against China.Detractors said they would not back him because of the shooting when he was mayor of Chicago of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who died when a police officer, Jason Van Dyke, fired multiple times.Emanuel’s handling of the case was criticized, especially as video was not released for more than a year. Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder and jailed. Four officers were fired.Biden nominated Emanuel in August. At his confirmation hearing in October, Emanuel said he thought about McDonald every day and that, as mayor, he was responsible and accountable.Eight Republicans voted with a majority of Democrats to confirm Emanuel. Three Democrats voted no: Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, and Jeff Merkley of Oregon.TopicsBiden administrationUS foreign policyUS national securityRahm EmanuelUS politicsAsia PacificJapannewsReuse this content More

Trump condemned by Anti-Defamation League chief for antisemitic tropesJonathan Greenblatt says that ‘insinuating that Israel or the Jews control Congress or the media is antisemitic’ The chief executive of the Anti-Defamation League led condemnation of Donald Trump after the former president used antisemitic tropes in remarks about American Jews and Israel.Mark Meadows was at the center of the storm on 6 January. But only Trump could call it offRead more“Insinuating that Israel or the Jews control Congress or the media is antisemitic, plain and simple,” Jonathan Greenblatt said. “Unfortunately, this is not the first time he has made these offensive remarks.”Trump was speaking to the journalist Barak Ravid, author of a book on Trump and the Middle East. Parts of the interview aired on Friday on a podcast, Unholy: Two Jews on the News.“It’s a very dangerous thing that’s happening,” Trump said. “There’s people in this country that are Jewish and no longer love Israel. I’ll tell you, the evangelical Christians love Israel more than the Jews in this country.”Trump also used a line he has delivered before – to a Jewish audience in 2019 – about Israel and Congress.“It used to be that Israel had absolute power over Congress,” he said, “and today I think it’s the exact opposite. And I think Obama and Biden did that. And yet in the election, they still get a lot of votes from the Jewish people. Which tells you that the Jewish people, and I’ve said this for a long time, the Jewish people in the United States either don’t like Israel or don’t care about Israel.”Trump also said “they’re Jewish people that run the New York Times” and claimed the newspaper “hates Israel”.On Twitter, Greenblatt said: “Once again, former President Trump has linked his lack of strong support among most US Jews to their feelings about Israel and used classic antisemitic stereotypes about Israeli and Jewish control of Congress and the press to bolster his argument.“It’s sad that once again we have to restate this point, but the vast majority of American Jews support and have some type of connection to Israel, regardless of which political candidate they vote for.“Let me be clear: insinuating that Israel or the Jews control Congress or the media is antisemitic, plain and simple. Unfortunately, this is not the first time he has made these offensive remarks.”The American Jewish Committee said: “Why is Mr Trump once again fueling dangerous stereotypes about Jews? His past support for Israel doesn’t give him license to traffic in radioactive antisemitic tropes – or peddle unfounded conclusions about the unbreakable ties that bind American Jews to Israel. Enough!”Notably, Republicans who have condemned Democrats including the Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar for allegedly using antisemitic tropes did not rush to respond to Trump’s remarks.Amid widespread anger, the former Obama adviser Ben Rhodes said: “If Ilhan Omar said the same things Trump did it would dominate politics and media for a week, statements issued from every organisation, (bipartisan) resolutions in Congress, etc. What bullshit.”Bill Pascrell, a New Jersey Democrat, said: “There can be no question that the words by Donald Trump are vile, despicable antisemitism … This level of hate is not just tolerated but invited by the modern GOP.”Ilhan Omar and the weaponisation of antisemitism | Joshua LeiferRead moreQasim Rashid, a human rights lawyer and radio host, said: “While American Jews represent only 2% of Americans, FBI data shows Jews suffer more than 60% of religiously motivated hate crimes.“Donald Trump’s reckless antisemitism further endangers Jewish Americans, and the GOP proudly standing by him makes them complicit. Unacceptable.”Like many other authors, Ravid interviewed Trump at Mar-a-Lago after his defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 election and his attempts to overturn that result including stoking the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January.Ravid’s interview has already made news, after Trump reportedly said of the former Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a key ally when in power: “Fuck him.”According to Axios, Trump said: “The first person that congratulated [Biden] was Bibi Netanyahu, the man that I did more for than any other person I dealt with … Bibi could have stayed quiet. He has made a terrible mistake.”TopicsDonald TrumpAntisemitismUS politicsUS CongressRepublicansIsraelnewsReuse this content More

From Peril to Betrayal: the year in books about Trump and other political animals 2021 provided a glut of memoirs, deep dives and tell-alls about American politics in an age of Covid and attacks on democracy itself. Which were the best – and most alarming?If in recent years American politics books have been noted mainly for ephemera, in 2021 the winds of history began to blow open the doors – occasionally to devastating effect. The advent of a new administration loosened tongues and made documents more readily available as some sought redemption, justification or simply fame.March of the Trump memoirs: Mark Meadows and other Republican readsRead moreSuch books illustrate the truth that one cannot keep a thing hidden and generally share certain characteristics that convey the ring of truth. They report bitterly angry outbursts by Donald Trump, staff reeling from dysfunction, chaos and the pressures of a campaign in a pandemic. They frequently recount interviews with Trump himself. They contain sufficient profanity to make sailors blush.And, happily, this paper celebrated its bicentennial in part by scooping many of them, with real consequences in the case of Mark Meadows, who published The Chief’s Chief this month. Some – the former White House chief of staff in particular – may wish they had not written books. But some books are essential to understand the danger in which the country finds itself.The former FBI director James Comey opened the year with Saving Justice, a second book defending the rule of law. Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes followed with Lucky, a quick but full postmortem of the 2020 campaign, noting: “Luck, it has been said, is the residue of design. It was for Joe Biden, and for the republic.”The heart of the year was a series of blockbusters from prominent reporters, each containing significant new information on aspects of the chaos that was 2020. Michael Bender led off with Frankly, We Did Win This Election, in which Trump’s words, on the record, are unsurprising but nonetheless shocking.In Landslide, Michael Wolff completed his Trump trilogy with a focus on the campaign – including Chris Christie, in debate preparation (as a result of which he tested positive for Covid), earning Trump’s ire for asking hard but predictable questions on Covid response and family scandals – and on a post-election dominated by Trump’s anger as the levers of power, including the supreme court of which he chose three members, failed to overturn his defeat.Wolff is keenly analytic: as he writes, Trump “knew nothing of government, [his supporters] knew nothing about government, so the context of government itself became beside the point”. Instead, Trump was “the star – never forget that – and the base was his audience”. This self-referential and adulatory mode of governing failed in a divided country facing a pandemic and rising international challenges. Landslide is a fine book, though as new evidence from the 6 January committee emerges, Wolff’s conclusion limiting Trump’s own knowledge of and responsibility for the events of that day may come to seem premature.Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker followed with I Alone Can Fix It, in which Gen Mark Milley said the US was in a “Reichstag moment” on 2 January, four days before the insurrection, and referred to “the gospel of the Führer” poisoning American democracy. Trump’s anger at his pollster, Tony Fabrizio, for being the bearer of bad news on Covid and the electorate is telling too: “They’re tired? They’re fatigued?” Politics as empathy was not the campaign’s theme.Bob Woodward, writing with Robert Costa, likewise completed his Trump series with Peril, whose title sums up its conclusion. The book, notable for revealing Gen Milley’s attempts to reassure the Chinese military in the waning days of the presidency, quotes Trump’s apparent view that “real power [is] fear” and asks, “Were there any limits to what he and his supporters might do to put him back in power?”Adam Schiff’s Midnight in Washington brings a former prosecutor’s eye and perspective of a House intelligence committee chairman to issues surrounding Trump and Russia. His book is both history and warning.Among Trump loyalists, former trade czar Peter Navarro released In Trump Time, in which he criticized Meadows and anyone else he deemed insufficiently loyal. The book’s most memorable line calls Vice-President Mike Pence “Brutus” to Trump’s “American Caesar” – all without irony or, one hopes, knowledge of Roman history.Not all notable books were tell-alls. Some contained real policy insights. Josh Rogin’s Chaos Under Heaven looks at US-China relations from a strategic as well as pandemic perspective, noting US conflicts of both interest and policy as well as Trump’s inability to develop a workable strategy. Rival books on antitrust policy by two very different senators, Amy Klobuchar and Josh Hawley, illustrate Congress’ increased focus on large technology companies. Evan Osnos’ Wildland chronicles the lives and fortunes of billionaires and the growth of the Washington machine – and the effects, including rightward political shifts, on those at the bottom. On a related theme, in Misfire Tim Mak delivers a shocking history of the National Rifle Association and its former leaders.Several books will serve as first drafts of history. Madam Speaker, Susan Page’s biography of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, describes how she “took on the boys club and won” through mastery of legislation and her caucus. Justice, Justice Thou Shalt Pursue compiles the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s opinions, speeches and other documents, with Amanda Tyler as co-author.Uncontrolled Spread review: Trump’s first FDA chief on the Covid disasterRead moreUnsurprisingly in the second year of a pandemic, healthcare featured prominently. In The Ten-Year War, Jonathan Cohn recounts the 10-year history of Obamacare. Patrick Radden Keefe’s Empire of Pain tells the sad and painful story of the promotion of opioids in America. On the pandemic, Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta in Nightmare Scenario focus on the Trump administration’s response. Leaving responsibility mostly to the states had deleterious consequences, as did chaos, turf wars and giving priority to “the demands of Trump and his base” as he sought reelection rather than an effective response.Scott Gottlieb, a well-regarded former FDA commissioner, takes a broader, more philosophical view in Uncontrolled Spread. Absence of leadership and a “sizeable enterprise devoted to manufacturing skepticism” about the virus and public health solutions meant the US failed the bar of “delay[ing] its onset and reduc[ing] its scope and severity”. But the Operation Warp Speed vaccine effort “proved what government could accomplish when it functions well” and makes one keenly regret the absence of leadership elsewhere as confirmed US deaths, so many among the unvaccinated, surpass 800,000.The pandemic’s broader impact is equally profound. In Gottlieb’s words, “Covid normalized the breakdowns in a global order that it was presumed, perhaps naively, would protect us, just as Covid pierced our own perception of domestic resiliency, cooperation, and fortitude.” Vaccine hesitancy in the face of clear science is only one pandemic effect.‘Pence was disloyal at exactly the right time’: author Jonathan Karl on the Capitol attackRead moreWith honorable mentions for Wolff, Leonnig and Rucker, Woodward and Costa, and Gottlieb, ABC’s Jonathan Karl produced arguably the year’s most significant book in Betrayal, in which Trump cabinet members “paint a portrait of a wrath-filled president, untethered from reality, bent on revenge”. The attorney general, Bill Barr, decries election-related conspiracies; the acting defense secretary, Chris Miller, seeks to dissuade Trump from attacking Iran by taking (and faking) an extreme position in favour:
Oftentimes, with provocative people, if you get more provocative than them, they then have to dial it down.
Such was government in the Trump era.Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn wrote in his Nobel Lecture that “one word of truth shall outweigh the whole world”. The amount of newly uncovered truth is already outweighing a fair number of the more than 4,000 exoplanets Nasa has recorded.Yet the vital question remains: what will Americans, in particular Republican officials and independent voters, do with this information? As Karl wrote, “The continued survival of our republic may depend, in part, on the willingness of those who promoted Trump’s lies and those who remained silent to acknowledge they were wrong.”Is it to be Solzhenitsyn’s hope – or his fear that “when we are told again the old truth, we shall not even remember that we once possessed it”?TopicsBooksUS politicsDonald TrumpTrump administrationBiden administrationJoe BidenRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

Mark Meadows was at the center of the storm on 6 January. But only Trump could call it offTrump’s former White House chief of staff has become a character of supreme interest to the Capitol attack committee, with a treasure trove of documents divulging golden nuggets of information On the morning of 29 December, eight days before hundreds of Trump supporters and far-right extremists stormed the US Capitol in the worst domestic attack on American democracy arguably since the civil war, the White House chief of staff Mark Meadows fired off an email to the head of the justice department.It was a strange message for Donald Trump’s right-hand man to send to Jeffrey Rosen, acting US attorney general, given that the material in it was written entirely in Italian. It attached a letter addressed to Trump from an Italian named Carlo Goria who said he worked for a US aerospace company and then went on to regurgitate a conspiracy theory that was doing the rounds, known as “Italygate”.Three days later, Meadows sent Rosen another email containing a link to a 13-minute YouTube video titled “Brad Johnson: Rome, Satellites, Services, an Update”. In the video, Johnson, a retired CIA station chief, gave further details of Italygate, which he described as a secret plot to overturn the US presidential election and stop Trump from gaining a second term.In Johnson’s account, an Italian defense contractor, Leonardo, had joined forces with the CIA to carry out the dastardly scheme. Together, they had hacked into Italian military satellites, beaming them down on to US voting machines in battleground states and remotely switching votes from Trump to Joe Biden.Rosen politely replied to Meadows that he had received the video, then sent a copy of it to his deputy Richard Donoghue. Later that day, Donoghue told his boss what he thought of Johnson’s video.“Pure insanity”, he said.Meadows’ Italygate emails, highlighted in a 51-page report released this week by the House select committee investigation into the Capital insurrection, are some of the more memorable elements of his vast campaign to advance Trump’s big lie that the presidential election had been rigged.It’s not every day that the chief aide to the most powerful person on Earth bombards the top law enforcement official in the country with lurid tales of vote-switching military satellites, composed in Italian.But that is just the start of it.As the select committee descends ever deeper into the murky waters of Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election, Meadows is fast surfacing as a character of supreme interest.Between election day on 3 November and 6 January, when Trump’s exhortations to his supporters to scupper the certification of Biden’s victory climaxed in violent scenes that left five people dead and more than 140 law enforcement officers injured, Meadows was a whirlwind of activity.Not only was he frantically busy propagating Italygate and other conspiracy theories, not only did he try to influence the actions of the Department of Justice in flagrant violation of White House rules barring any such interference, but he was also in direct contact with the organisers of the 6 January rally that preceded the violence, and he was there too by his master’s side when the insurrection at the US Capitol kicked off.In short, Meadows is honing into view, in the Washington Post’s phrase, as the “chief enabler to a president who was desperate to hold on to power”.That role has now landed Meadows in a great deal of legal trouble. The hard-right Republican from North Carolina, who was one of Trump’s cheerleaders in Congress before being airlifted to the White House as his final chief of staff, initially defied a subpoena to appear before the select committee, then changed his mind after Steve Bannon, Trump’s former White House adviser, was indicted for similar lack of cooperation.A little over a week ago he did a U-turn on his U-turn, announcing he was no longer playing ball with the congressional investigators after all. Some reports have suggested that his second change of heart was motivated by Trump’s furious reaction to what he read in the Guardian.The Guardian revealed Meadows had disclosed in his new book, The Chief’s Chief, that Trump had tested positive for Covid before going on stage with Biden last September in the first presidential debate. That inconvenient truth had previously been kept secret, and conflicts with the official line peddled at the time.On Tuesday the full House of Representatives voted to hold Meadows in contempt of Congress after he failed to turn up for a deposition, referring the decision to the Department of Justice for possible prosecution. He faces a maximum sentence of a year in prison and a fine of up to $100,000 for every count with which he may be charged.Meadows’ renewed non-cooperation will make the select committee’s job harder, but he has already presented them with a treasure trove of documents that has supercharged their investigation. It includes no fewer than 9,000 pages of records, among them 2,000 text messages.Those texts are beginning to divulge golden nuggets of information that expose members of the Trump inner circle as having been intimately involved in pressing for the election to be overturned.One text from an as yet anonymous member of Congress sent to Meadows on 4 January advocated for the states of Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, all of which Biden had won, to send alternate slates of Trump electors to Congress “and have it go” to the US supreme court for a ruling.Jim Jordan, the former wrestler-turned-Ohio congressman who was a close ally of Meadows in the rightwing House Freedom Caucus which they co-founded, sent a text to his friend a day before the insurrection outlining a plot in which the vice-president Mike Pence could simply refuse to certify Biden’s victory, in blatant disregard for his constitutional duties.The 38-page PowerPoint that laid out in detail a blueprint for a Trump coup was also sent to Meadows, though he denies having acted on the document.As for the insurrection itself, the select committee said that Meadows was in touch with at least some of the main organisers of the “Stop the Steal” rally on the morning of 6 January at which Trump called on his supporters to “fight like hell”. Members of the committee were intrigued to know why the chief of staff chose to use his personal cell phone, as well as the encrypted mobile app Signal, to conduct these conversations.When the violence erupted, Meadows continued to act as a communications hub alongside the president. Text messages sent to him by Donald Trump Jr give a rare glimpse into Trump family dynamics that would be worthy of a Roy family subplot in Succession.As hundreds of Trump supporters were smashing their way into the Capitol building, attacking police officers as they went, Don Jr desperately wanted to get a message to his father. But he didn’t call dad, as might be expected.Instead, he texted Meadows. “We need an Oval address,” the presidential son exclaimed. “He has to lead now. It has gone too far and gotten out of hand.”Similar urgent missives were fired at Meadows by several Fox News stars. Laura Ingraham, the ultra-right host of the Ingraham Angle, told him: “Hey Mark, the president needs to tell people in the Capitol to go home. This is hurting all of us. He is destroying his legacy.”Sean Hannity added his own plaintiff appeal: “Can he make a statement? Ask people to leave the Capitol.”The plethora of texts to Meadows from Trump family members, Fox News hosts and top Republicans underline important aspects of Trump’s coterie in the hours before, during and after the insurrection. The Fox News hosts used language (“hey Mark”, “all of us”) suggesting they viewed themselves as one of the inner team, casting aside any pretense at journalistic integrity.They were also boldly hypocritical. Soon after sending Meadows her text about Trump “destroying his legacy”, Ingraham went on air and talked about “antifa sympathizers” having been “sprinkled throughout the crowd” at the Capitol.The most critical lesson to leap out of the Meadows documents is that behind the scenes, in their private correspondence, Trump’s inner circle had no doubts about the nature and significance of the Capitol insurrection. It was an eruption of violence inspired and instigated by one man alone – Donald Trump – and only he could call it off.Meadows himself presumably has some valuable insights on that point. But at least for now he doesn’t seem to want to share them.TopicsMark MeadowsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsanalysisReuse this content More

Seattle socialist Kshama Sawant keeps city council seat after recall electionThe result, in her favor by 310 votes, clarifies how much of a polarizing figure she has remained in her district Seattle socialist Kshama Sawant has narrowly avoided being ousted from her seat on the city council, following a widely watched recall election.By Friday afternoon, just over 41,000 ballots had been counted, with the no recall vote leading by 310. Though a recount request is possible, it is considered unlikely. “For us to have overcome that in this spectacular manner really speaks to not only the organizational strength of our campaign, of Socialist Alternative, of working people in general, but also the political ideas on which this victory has been based,” Sawant told the Guardian on Friday.Recall fever: Seattle socialist is one of hundreds targeted amid Covid rowsRead moreThe recall result for Sawant – who became the first socialist on the Seattle council in nearly a century after she beat out a Democrat and 16-year incumbent in 2013 – was viewed as a win for progressives and a rebuff of big business.The recall attempt was one of hundreds across the US this year in response to covid 19 and racial disputes. In September, California governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, defeated a recall bid.But with a significant subsection of residents in Sawant’s district voting to remove her, the result also clarified just how much of a polarizing figure she has remained.The recall effort was based on claims that she opened city hall to demonstrators during a protest, disregarding Covid-19 restrictions, used city resources for a “Tax Amazon” effort, and led a march to Seattle mayor Jenny Durkan’s home despite the address being protected under state confidentiality laws.The Kshama Solidarity Campaign has pushed back on the charges, and Sawant said the recall was rather an “attempt to have a do-over of the election result in 2019 which big business did not like”.She added: “In reality if the rightwing, if big business was allowed to win in this recall [then] they would only be emboldened to go after progressive movements both in Seattle and nationally.”The election drew widespread national attention and both sides have seen substantial financial contributions, some coming from states away.Two groups in support of the recall, Recall Sawant and A Better Seattle, raised just over $1m combined, while the Kshama Solidarity Campaign has raised almost $1m, according to the Seattle ethics and elections commission.Henry Bridger II, campaign manager and chairman of Recall Sawant, said in statement Friday: “While this election will not end with removing councilmember Sawant from office, her narrow escape sends a clear message: Seattle voters are yearning for constructive representation and will not tolerate slash-and-burn politicians who shirk accountability and divide the city. Sawant is supposed to represent all of us, not just those who agree with her, and we hope that this election leads her to see that.”On election night, 7 December, the recall had the lead, but as more votes were counted in the following days (Washington state runs a vote-by-mail system that means final results may take days to appear), the no recall side soon took a slight lead.Eva Metz, 29, who lives in Sawant’s district and works as a nursing assistant and restaurant host, said she was motivated to volunteer in support of the councilmember because of her work for renters’ rights. She said she spent virtually the entire weekend before the vote going door-to-door and speaking to voters from a table on the street.“The goal was to make it so that you couldn’t really walk around District 3 and miss the campaign,” she said. “So, I think we did that job pretty well.”Sawant, now in her third term, has helped to increase Seattle’s minimum wage to $15 an hour – a first for a major US city – and helped to secure more rights for renters, while pushing for the city’s police budget to be slashed.But after seven years in office, some of her constituents have grown increasingly tired of what they view as more talk than actual results.“It’s like she represents District 3, but we don’t see her, we don’t hear from her,” said Victoria Beach, 62, chair of the Seattle police department’s African American Community Advisory Council. “She has not done anything. I just don’t like the way she handles her job.”The recall effort was initiated by a Seattle resident within a year after Sawant clinched her latest re-election victory, in 2019, overtaking an opponent with unprecedented financial support from Amazon.TopicsSeattleUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

Biden acknowledges his Build Back Better plan will miss Christmas deadlineNegotiations for economic and climate package stall as the centrist senator Joe Manchin withholds support Joe Biden has acknowledged that his $1.75tn economic and climate legislative package will miss the Christmas deadline for Senate passage and will not pass Congress in the waning weeks of this year.Negotiations for the president’s Build Back Better bill, for which the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, set a Christmas deadline, have stalled as the centrist Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia has withheld his support for the bill in its current form, making him a key vote in the evenly split Senate.‘It’s an American issue’: can Georgia’s candidate for secretary of state save democracy?Read more“My team and I are having ongoing discussions with Senator Manchin; that work will continue next week,” Biden said in a statement on Thursday evening.“It takes time to finalize these agreements, prepare the legislative changes, and finish all the parliamentary and procedural steps needed to enable a Senate vote. We will advance this work together over the days and weeks ahead,” he added.Despite the slowed negotiations, Biden reiterated his confidence in the bill’s passing and said that Manchin has signaled in recent discussions his support for the proposal’s general outlines.“Senator Manchin has reiterated his support for Build Back Better funding at the level of the framework plan I announced in December,” Biden said.Manchin has expressed criticism of the proposal to continue the expanded child tax credit program through the Build Back Better Act.While Democrats want to continue the expanded program for one year through the $1.75tn spending package, Manchin has reportedly expressed concern over the cost of doing so. He believes the bill’s programs should be viewed on a 10-year basis when doing costing analysis, even though some of them expire after just a year or a few years.Should the expanded child tax credit program be extended through the next 10 years, it would require much more funding than the bill allocates.When asked about Biden and Manchin’s current relationship in a press conference on Friday, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, replied: “The president considers Senator Manchin a friend. He’s somebody who he has had many candid and direct conversations with. It doesn’t mean they always agree on everything but that is not the bad that the president sets for his friendships or relationships with members of Congress.”“He is committed to pressing forward through ups and downs and that’s where we are right now,” Psaki said.She also added that Biden later on Friday would make a “passionate case” for voting rights legislation that remains stalled in Congress as a result of Republican opposition.Psaki said of voter suppression attempts going on in several states that: “It’s a sinister combination of voter suppression and election subversion, which is un-American, un-Democratic but not unprecedented.”And later Friday morning, Biden did speak on the topic when he gave the commencement address at South Carolina State University, a historically Black institution.He was introduced by Congressman Jim Clyburn, who was instrumental to Biden clinching the Democratic nomination for president last year after he endorsed him when he was trailing in the primaries and swung support in the south and among Black voters.Biden told the graduating students: “We have to protect that sacred right to vote, for God’s sake,” Biden said. “I’ve never seen anything like the unrelenting assault on the right to vote.”The president’s comments come as Senate Democrats are discussing potential changes to the filibuster to push voting rights legislation through the evenly divided chamber.Senate Republicans have used the filibuster to block voting rights legislation, as Democrats do not have the 60 votes necessary to overcome a filibuster.“This battle is not over. We must pass the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act. We must,” Biden told the graduates of the historically Black university.“We’re going to keep up the fight until we get it done, and you’re going to keep up the fight, and we need your help badly.”TopicsUS politicsJoe BidenUS CongressDemocratsnewsReuse this content More