US Politics

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has slammed the west’s delivery of long-range weapons to Ukraine, warning Moscow could supply similar arms to other countries to attack western targets.“If someone thinks it is possible to supply such weapons to a war zone to attack our territory and create problems for us, why don’t we have the right to supply our weapons,” Putin told a press conference in St Petersburg.His comments came after a a US senator and a western official confirmed that Ukraine has recently used US weapons to strike inside Russia.The weapons were used under recently approved guidance from Joe Biden allowing American arms to be used to strike inside Russia for the limited purpose of defending Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city.The Republican senator Mike Rounds of South Dakota, a member of the Senate armed services committee, confirmed the strikes with US weapons, but did not say how he was briefed.Biden’s directive allows for US-supplied weapons to be used to strike Russian forces that are attacking or preparing to attack. It does not change US policy that directs Ukraine not to use American-provided army tactical missile systems (Atacms) or long-range missiles and other munitions to strike offensively inside Russia, US officials have said.Berlin also recently authorized Ukraine to hit some targets on Russian soil with German-supplied long-range weapons, a move Putin said would be a “dangerous step” that would ruin relations between Berlin and Moscow.Ukrainian officials had stepped up calls on the US and other allies to allow Kyiv’s forces to defend themselves against attacks originating from Russian territory. Kharkiv sits just 20km (12 miles) from the Russian border and has come under intensified Russian attack.According to a 3 June report from the Institute for the Study of War, Ukrainian forces struck a Russian S-300/400 air defense battery in the Belgorod region, probably with a high mobility artillery rocket system, or Himars, on 1 or 2 June. The air defense system was located roughly 60km (40 miles) from the current frontline in the northern Kharkiv region and more than 80km from the city of Kharkiv, which is within the range of Himars, the institute reported.Putin on Wednesday also said that the US administration was taking “energetic steps” to try to secure the release of a detained Wall Street Journal reporter but said such questions could only be resolved on the basis of reciprocity.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPutin added talks with US intelligence agencies on the subject were ongoing, but needed to be conducted in “silence”.Gershkovich, a 32-year-old reporter for the Wall Street Journal, has been held in the Lefortovo prison on the outskirts of Moscow since March last year on allegations by the Russian authorities of espionage while on a reporting trip in the city of Ekaterinburg. The state department has declared him wrongfully detained, and Gershkovich denies spying, and Joe Biden said his administration is working “every day” to get him released. More

As Donald Trump fights for Judge Juan Merchan to lift a gag order barring him from speaking publicly about key figures in his New York trial, prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office are urging the judge to keep the order in place.“The court has an obligation to protect the integrity of these proceedings and the fair administration of justice at least through the sentencing hearing and the resolution of any post-trial motions,” wrote the prosecutors in a letter on Wednesday.During the trial – over Trump’s efforts to bury a sex scandal before the 2016 election – Trump repeatedly inveighed on social media against figures connected to the case, including witnesses and the judge’s daughter, who has worked as a Democratic consultant.In response, Merchan issued a series of orders barring Trump from speaking publicly about jurors, witnesses and the family of the judge.The trial concluded on 30 May, with the jury finding Trump guilty on 34 felony counts for falsifying business records to hide hush-money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who says she had an affair with the former president.Prosecutors had said they wanted the gag order to “protect the integrity of this criminal proceeding and avoid prejudice to the jury”. In the order, Merchan noted prosecutors had sought the restrictions “for the duration of the trial”. He did not specify when they would be lifted.Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche told the Associated Press last Friday that it was his understanding the gag order would expire when the trial ended and that he would seek clarity from Merchan, which he did on Tuesday.“It’s a little bit of the theater of the absurd at this point, right? Michael Cohen is no longer a witness in this trial,” Blanche told the AP. “The trial is over. The same thing with all the other witnesses. So, we’ll see. I don’t mean that in any way as being disrespectful of the judge and the process. I just want to be careful and understand when it no longer applies.”In a letter on Tuesday, Blanche and Emil Bove asked Merchan to end the gag order, arguing there was nothing to justify “continued restrictions on the First Amendment rights of President Trump” now that the trial is over.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAmong other reasons, the lawyers said Trump was entitled to “unrestrained campaign advocacy” in light of President Joe Biden’s public comments about the verdict last Friday, and continued public criticism of him by Cohen and Daniels, both key prosecution witnesses.Trump’s lawyers also contend the gag order must go away so he is free to fully address the case and his conviction with the first presidential debate scheduled for 27 June.The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment.Trump has continued to operate under the belief that he is still muzzled, telling reporters on Friday at Trump Tower: “I’m under a gag order, nasty gag order.”Referring to Cohen, Trump said, “I’m not allowed to use his name because of the gag order” before slamming his former lawyer-turned-courtroom foe as “a sleazebag”.During the trial, Merchan held Trump in contempt of court, fined him $10,000 for multiple violations of the gag order and threatened to put him in jail if he did it again.Trump’s use of the term “sleazebag” to describe Cohen just before the trial rankled prosecutors, but was not considered a gag order violation by the judge. Merchan declined to sanction Trump for a 10 April social media post, which referred to Cohen and Daniels by that insult.The judge said at the time that Trump’s contention that he was responding to previous posts by Cohen that were critical of him “is sufficient to give” him pause on whether prosecutors met their burden in demonstrating that the post was out of bounds.Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on 11 July. More

Hello! Welcome back to our new US elections newsletter.I’m David Smith, Washington bureau chief, filling in for Adam Gabbatt this week.The fall from grace of Donald Trump, from commander-in-chief to convicted criminal, is still reverberating in Washington and beyond.Last week’s trial verdict drove yet another wedge between Republicans and Democrats. The former were fast and furious in denouncing it. The latter are less sure about how to proceed. And no one knows what impact it might have on the presidential election.First, some of the happenings in US politics.Here’s what you need to know …1. Biden’s border crackdownJoe Biden signed an executive order that will temporarily shut down the US-Mexico border to asylum seekers attempting to cross outside of lawful ports of entry, when a daily threshold of crossings is exceeded. The move is a dramatic reversal for a president and a party that spent years embracing the ideal of the US as a nation of immigrants.2. Garland stands his groundThe US attorney general, Merrick Garland, defended his stewardship of the justice department in a combative display on Capitol Hill that saw him accusing Republicans of attacking the rule of law while telling them he “will not be intimidated”. Testifying before the House judiciary committee, Garland accused Republican congressmen of engaging in conspiracy theories and peddling false narratives.3. Biden heads to France for D-day anniversaryJoe Biden is due to land in Paris, France, today ahead of the 80th anniversary of the D-day landings. France rescinded its decision to invite Russian representatives because of the Ukraine war. John Kirby, a spokesperson for the White House national security council, said: “Russia led by Vladimir Putin is literally trying to undermine the rules-based order that the Soviet Union actually had a role in world war two in helping create.”Joe Biden’s exquisite dilemmaView image in fullscreenIn the final line of the 1972 film The Candidate, Bill McKay, played by Robert Redford, having just won election to the US Senate, turns to his political consultant and asks: “What do we do now?”That is the question for Joe Biden and Democrats after the euphoria of seeing Donald Trump become the first former US president convicted of a crime.Elections can be won or lost by defining a candidate with a single memorable framing: soft-on-crime Michael Dukakis, wealthy Mitt Romney, elitist Hillary Clinton. Last week’s conviction of Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York is a permanent stain and would, in past times, have made such branding easy.But in the Maga “mirror world”, where January 6 rioters are perceived as “hostages” and Biden as the true threat to democracy, Democrats are proceeding with care. Trump has an unrivalled ability to turn his opponent’s own power against them. Think of it like tennis. The harder you whack the ball at Trump, the harder it tends to come back at you over the net.As the trial unfolded in New York, Biden, a devout institutionalist, took the reasonable view that less was more: the head of state ought to remain above the fray. And pragmatically, he was aware any perceived interventions would feed the baseless rightwing media narrative that he had loaded the legal system against his rival.But for his campaign team in Delaware, it became increasingly difficult to watch Biden’s speeches and their carefully crafted emails disappearing into the ether. Just as in the 2016 campaign, Trump was sucking up all political oxygen.On Tuesday of last week, the frustration came to a boil and they started to fight back, holding a press conference outside the court. The Biden campaign communications director, Michael Tyler, told reporters: “We’re not here today because of what’s going on over there. We’re here today because you all are here.”The campaign deployed Robert De Niro, a Hollywood actor famed for playing gangsters, to castigate Trump as the biggest mob boss of all. He also veered off script by becoming embroiled in a verbal brawl with Trump supporters.The episode prompted characteristic Democratic hand-wringing over whether De Niro, 80, was the right messenger with the right message, and Republican cries of hypocrisy. Jason Miller, Trump’s senior campaign adviser, said: “After months of saying politics had nothing to do with this trial, they showed up and made a campaign event out of a lower Manhattan trial day for President Trump.”A day later Biden and his vice-president, Kamala Harris, launched a Black voters initiative at Philadelphia’s Girard College, a majority Black boarding school. Wednesdays had typically been a safe bet to wrestle back the news cycle because it was the trial’s day off. But on that particular Wednesday the jury was deliberating its verdict.TJ Ducklo, a senior adviser for communications for the Biden-Harris campaign, peevishly posted on X: “The President just spoke to approx 1,000 mostly black voters in Philly about the massive stakes in this election. @MSNBC @CNN & others did not show it. Instead, more coverage about a trial that impacts one person: Trump. Then they’ll ask, why isn’t your message getting out?”Such complaints can themselves be counterproductive. Worthy as the Biden event was, would any news organisation worth its salt really not devote full coverage to the first conviction of a former president – and potential future president – in American history?A day after the verdict, the president had a brief, deliberate riff on the trial. “The American principle that no one is above the law was reaffirmed,” he said. “And it’s reckless, it’s dangerous and it’s irresponsible for anyone to say this was rigged just because they don’t like the verdict.”Biden then spoke about a Middle East peace plan. But as he walked away, reporters shouted questions about the Trump verdict. Biden said nothing but turned and beamed.That evening, the Biden-Harris campaign went further with a press release headlined 34 Lowlights from Convicted Felon Donald Trump’s Press Conference Speech, mocking Trump’s chaotic performance at Trump Tower earlier in the day. And at a campaign event on Monday, Biden referred to Trump as a “convicted felon”.But how long and how hard to press this case is a dilemma. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found that 10% of Republicans and 25% of independents say they are less likely to vote for Trump because of the verdict.Former Alabama senator Doug Jones told the Politico website: “I don’t think Democrats need to be shy about weighing in. I don’t think there’s anything to lose and a lot to gain, because I am convinced there’s a swath of people out there who are going to be very, very troubled by this at this point and haven’t really completely followed it, wondered about it – but now all of a sudden, this is a gamechanger.”Others, however, point to opinion polls suggesting that Trump’s criminal conviction will not shift many voters and could even backfire. The Trump campaign claims it raised $53m online in the 24 hours after the verdict. Republicans are keeping the topic alive at every opportunity, crying “sham” and “show trial” and vowing retribution.The more cautious Democrats also believe time and effort would be better spent promoting Biden’s record and drawing a contrast with Trump on policy: abortion rights, the economy, climate, racial justice, foreign affairs and defending democracy.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionVoters in crucial battleground states, the theory goes, are more exercised by the price of eggs or gas than the findings of a jury in Manhattan.Democrats have long been accused of pulling their punches, lacking the killer instinct that is part of Republicans’ DNA. In this case, Biden has to thread the needle with exquisite precision, offering a message that reminds independent voters why they should reject his opponent – while not firing up the Trump base or giving moderate Republicans a reason to return to the fold.Lock him up? It’s complicated.Lie of the weekView image in fullscreen“I didn’t say ‘Lock her up,’” the man who repeatedly both said and encouraged a frequent chant of “lock her up” claimed after he was convicted of 34 felonies.Former president Donald Trump told Fox News in an interview after his conviction in the New York hush-money trial that it was just his supporters who said “lock her up,” referring to Trump’s 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton.“The people would all say, ‘Lock her up, lock her up,’” Trump claimed. “Then we won. And I say – and I said pretty openly, I said, ‘All right, come on, just relax, let’s go, we’ve got to make our country great.’”He said he “could have done it” – locked her up – but decided it was for the good of the country to move ahead and that locking her up “would have been a terrible thing”.Trump very much said to lock up Clinton, or some version of the idea, at various times on the 2016 campaign trail. His supporters chanted it at rallies for years, with his encouragement. – Rachel Leingang, misinformation reporterWho had the worst week?View image in fullscreenThe Washington Post, the newspaper of Watergate and “Democracy dies in darkness” fame, is in some disarray. Publisher Will Lewis ousted Sally Buzbee, the newspaper’s executive editor, and hastily announced a restructuring plan.At a contentious staff meeting on Monday, Lewis reportedly told staff: “We are going to turn this thing around, but let’s not sugarcoat it. It needs turning around. We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can’t sugarcoat it any more.”Matt Murray, a former Wall Street Journal editor, has been named to temporarily replace Buzbee. After the elections in November, Robert Winnett, a longtime editor at the Telegraph in Britain, will take over the core reporting functions at the Post. Lewis is facing scrutiny over his commitment to gender and racial diversity.Like most media organisations, the Post boomed during Donald Trump’s presidency but has lost readers since. Its website had 101 million unique visitors a month in 2020, and had dropped to 50m at the end of 2023. The Post lost a reported $77m last year. A Politico website headline described the latest shake-up as “the Rupert Murdoch-ization of the Washington Post” – not a great sign five months before an impossibly high stakes election.Elsewhere in US politicsView image in fullscreenThe 2020 election reckoning continuesWisconsin’s attorney general, Josh Kaul, filed felony charges on Tuesday against three men who played a key role in the effort to appoint fake electors in the state as part of Donald Trump’s attempts to overturn the election. Kenneth Chesebro, Jim Troupis and Michael Roman were each charged with one felony count of forgery, according to court documents.Further strains on Biden-Bibi relationsJoe Biden has said that there is “every reason” to draw the conclusion that Benjamin Netanyahu is prolonging the war in Gaza for his own political self-preservation. Biden made the remarks about the Israeli prime minister in an interview with Time magazine published on Tuesday morning, drawing a sharp response from the Israeli government, which accused the US president of straying from diplomatic norms.Hunter on trialView image in fullscreenFederal prosecutors painted Joe Biden’s son Hunter as a drug addict whose dark habits ensnared loved ones and who knew what he was doing when he lied on federal forms to buy a gun in 2018 when he said he was not in the throes of addiction. The judge also reportedly declined requests from the defendant to prohibit jurors from being shown messages, videos and photos that show him with drugs or discussing them around the time that he bought the gun in question, including one image depicting him undressed from the chest up. More

Three allies of Donald Trump were charged in Wisconsin Tuesday for their roles in advancing the fake electors plan, but the 10 fake electors themselves have not yet been criminally charged.That might be because the Wisconsin fake electors, like other fake electors across the US, have said in media interviews they were misled to believe their documents could only be used if court challenges went for the former president. Others have said they were following lawyers’ advice when they signed on.Wisconsin attorney general Josh Kaul’s office has said it is still investigating and hasn’t ruled out charges against the individual electors, who have faced a civil suit they settled by agreeing not to serve as electors for Trump again.In April, 18 people were charged in Arizona in that state’s inquiry into the fake elector scheme. Defense attorneys representing some of those charged in Arizona have used similar justifications, saying they were following lawyers’ advice when they signed on.One told the Arizona Republic that his client, Jim Lamon, was relying on “lawyers from back east” who said the slates would only be used if the state’s results changed. Another told the paper that there wouldn’t be any evidence of their client’s intent to commit fraud or forgery because they got legal advice from Trump’s lawyers that led them to believe they weren’t doing anything wrong.These claims pop up frequently by fake electors and those involved in the scheme to overthrow the 2020 election results, as do other defenses relying on historical precedent and changing election law. Defenders of the fake electors cite a 1960 election in Hawaii and changes to congressional procedure to count electoral votes among their justifications..Some of the defenses have shown up in legal motions in Georgia, which is further along in its case against some fake electors there. But the justifications are largely happening online as the cases move more slowly than the internet, with rightwing influencers saying the scheme had a historical precedent and wasn’t illegal.Edward Foley, an election law expert at Ohio State University, has started to see the false electors in two tiers: those who were clearly in “cahoots with Trump” and intended to subvert the election’s outcome, and others who were duped. Andy Craig, director of election policy at the Joseph H Rainey Center, has come around to this idea as well, saying it depends heavily on the facts in each fake elector’s case, but some of them did seem misled.“I do think, to my mind, it’s fair to say that some of these fake electors are the victims of Trump’s fraud and [Rudy] Giuliani’s fraud,” Foley said. “They were relatively low-level political operatives who were trying to do something for the team and were doing it because the leader of their team was asking them to. That doesn’t justify what they did, but I’m not sure I would think criminal punishment would be appropriate for them because again, I think they’re the victims of the crime, not the perpetrators.”In Georgia, prosecutors granted many of the fake electors, nearly all of them little-known party loyalists, immunity from prosecution. Only three of the 16 have been charged criminally, all of whom appear to have a more hands-on role in the scheme.And in Pennsylvania and New Mexico, for example, the fake electoral certificates contained a caveat that they would only be considered valid if courts eventually ruled in Trump’s favor and deemed him the legitimate winner. Fake electors in those states have not faced prosecution in large part because of that language.As a reminder, the US doesn’t elect presidents via a popular vote. Instead, voters in each state turn out at the polls, which dictates a slate of electoral votes that get sent to Congress, called the electoral college. Whichever candidate wins the electoral vote wins the presidency, and this is sometimes different from who wins the popular vote. At issue in the fake electors scheme is that Trump supporters signed falsely that Trump had won their states’ votes, when in reality Biden had won.Other defensesLegal experts say the fake electors’ other defenses hold less water – the 2020 scheme is much different than the 1960 Hawaii election, and any changes in the Electoral Count Reform Act don’t affect the illegality of what the false electors did.The 1960 Hawaii election, which involved two slates of electors, is a long-running justification on the right for the fake electors. In 1960, Nixon narrowly led Kennedy initially in Hawaii, though the margin was so small it kicked off a recount. Before the recount could be completed, the state had to send its electoral votes to Congress for counting, so electors for both Kennedy and Nixon signed separate documents saying they were the state’s electors and sent them off.After the recount, the results showed Kennedy actually won the state, and so Kennedy’s electors met again to sign that he won. Nixon, who was presiding over the electoral count in Congress as vice-president, accepted this final submission. No one got in trouble for the previous slates, though it was also possibly illegal for the Democrats to have met and signed as though Kennedy won before the recount concluded. Hawaii’s votes didn’t affect who won the presidency, as Kennedy had already clinched the win.“Hawaii is a very odd situation because it ultimately ended with then vice-president Nixon, who was one of the candidates, being willing to accept the Kennedy slate, which didn’t matter one way or the other, wasn’t going to affect the outcome of the electoral college majority” Foley said. “It was sort of like a politician trying to be magnanimous.”Influencers like Charlie Kirk, the leader of rightwing youth organization Turning Point USA, brought up Hawaii after the Arizona charges. In a post on X, Kirk cited the “precedent created by Democrats” in Hawaii in 1960.“The Arizona Trump electors were doing what they thought was a legally necessary step as part of a wider political and electoral dispute,” Kirk wrote. “They acted in the belief that Donald Trump was the true winner of Arizona in the 2020 election.”The major difference: there was a legitimate, ongoing, good faith debate over who won in Hawaii, and a razor-thin margin of less than 200 votes that led to a full recount. By contrast, the margins in the seven states involved in the 2020 plan were much higher, and legal avenues to overturn results had largely run out.“All of these states were won by bigger margins, far beyond what any kind of recount or litigation was ever realistically going to overturn,” Craig said. “And so there was no good basis to believe that the results would legitimately flip in these states.”Another line of defense, used less frequently, revolves around changes to the electoral count process after the fake electors scheme in 2020.Rightwing commentator Mike Cernovich said after the Arizona changes that “multiple electors were LEGAL until the law was recently amended”, presumably a reference to the changes to the Electoral Count Act.The original Electoral Count Act stemmed from the contentious mess of the 1876 election, where there were multiple competing slates of electors and no consensus over who had won the election. It spelled out the process and deadlines for how states would send electoral votes and how Congress would count them.“What the Electoral Count Act did and still continues to do is to furnish Congress with a procedure to evaluate competing claims by competing slates of electors,” said Jim Gardner, an election law expert at the University at Buffalo School of Law. “And that’s all it does. So it is a piece of congressional self-regulation. It does not in any way regulate the behavior of other parties outside Congress.”The 2022 reform act makes clear that the vice-president, when presiding over the count, can’t use their role to get involved in disputes over electors – stemming from the effort to pressure then vice-president Mike Pence to throw out the Biden electors in key states.It also says that governors must certify the electors and send them to Congress. None of the Trump fake electors were certified by their states’ governments, a required part of the process for Congress to accept a slate.These changes, though, aren’t evidence that fake electors were allowed under the act before it was amended, legal experts say. Additionally, the charges these electors face in some states are violations of state-level laws against forging documents or committing fraud – not violations of a federal law to count electoral votes.“I don’t think it’s correct to say that somehow it’s an acknowledgement that any fake submission before this was not criminal,” Foley said.Sam Levine contributed reporting More

The 34 verdicts were all the same: guilty. Last week Donald Trump became the first former or serving US president to have been convicted of a crime. He was found to have falsified business records to hide ‘hush money’ paid to cover up a sex scandal he feared would hinder his run for office in 2016. Not long ago, it would have been a career-ending verdict. Instead, Trump has come out fighting, claiming the case was politically motivated. And, says David Smith, it has left Joe Biden in a quandary: if he focuses on the verdict he risks playing into Trump’s narrative that he was behind the prosecution. Alice Herman, who lives in the swing state of Wisconsin, has spoken to local voters about how the guilty verdict will affect their election decisions. The answers were not as decisive as Biden may have hoped. Many said they did not care about the outcome and that it had only confirmed their voting intentions for or against Trump. With a small number of voters enough to make a big difference, Michael Safi asks what Biden can do to shift the dial. More

The House passed legislation on Tuesday that would sanction the international criminal court after its chief prosecutor requested arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials.The 247-155 vote amounts to Congress’s first legislative rebuke of the war-crimes court since prosecutor Karim Khan’s decision last month to seek arrest warrants for the leaders of Israel and Hamas. The move was widely denounced in Washington, creating a rare moment of unity on Israel even as partisan divisions over the war with Hamas intensified.While the House bill was expected to pass Tuesday, it was not likely to attract significant Democratic support, dulling its chances in the Senate. The White House opposes the legislation, calling it overreach.Both the Republican and Democratic leaders of the House foreign affairs committee acknowledged the bill is unlikely to become law and left the door open to further negotiation with the White House. They said it would be better for Congress to be united against the Hague-based court.“We’re always strongest, particularly on this committee, when we speak with one voice as one nation, in this case to the ICC and to the judges,” GOP representative Mike McCaul, chair of the foreign affairs Committee, said during House debate. “A partisan messaging bill was not my intention here but that is where we are.”State department spokesperson Matt Miller reiterated the administration’s opposition to the sanctions bill.“We have made clear that while we oppose the decision taken by the prosecutor of the ICC, we don’t think it is appropriate, especially while there are ongoing investigations inside Israel looking at somebody’s very same questions, and we were willing to work with Congress on what a response might look like, but we don’t support sanctions,” Miller said.The House bill would apply sweeping economic sanctions and visa restrictions to individuals and judges associated with the ICC, including their family members. Democrats labeled the approach as “overly broad”, warning it could ensnare Americans and US companies that do important work with the court.“This bill would have a chilling effect on the ICC as an institution, which could hamper the court’s efforts to prosecute the dubious atrocities that have been perpetrated in many places around the world, from Ukraine to Uganda,” said representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the foreign affairs committee.The legislation reprimanding the ICC was just the latest show of support from House Republicans for Israel since Hamas killed around 1,200 people in an attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and abducted at least an additional 250 people. Republicans have held several votes related to Israel in recent months, highlighting divisions among Democrats over support for the US ally.Congressional leaders have invited Netanyahu to address a joint meeting of Congress this summer, which is likely to further inflame tensions over Israel’s handling of the war. Many Democrats are expected to boycott the speech.Both the ICC and the United Nations’ highest court, the International Court of Justice, have begun to investigate allegations that both Israel and Hamas have committed genocide during the seven-month war.Last month, prosecutor Khan accused Netanyahu; his defense minister, Yoav Gallant; and three Hamas leaders, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh of war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders condemned the ICC’s move as disgraceful and antisemitic. President Joe Biden and members of Congress also lambasted the prosecutor and supported Israel’s right to defend itself.“Failing to act here in the Congress would make us complicit with the ICC’s illegitimate actions and we must not stay silent,” McCaul said. “We must stand with our allies.”Last week, an investigation by the Guardian, the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call revealed a covert Israeli campaign to derail the ICC’s inquiry into war crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territories.The investigation detailed how, for close to a decade, Israel deployed its intelligence agencies to surveil and pressure senior ICC staff in an effort to thwart the court’s work, going so far as to deploy the head of the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, to allegedly threaten the court’s former chief prosecutor. More

Democratic congressman Andy Kim has won New Jersey’s Senate primary, putting him in strong position for the general election in the blue-leaning state, though the win comes a day after Democratic senator Bob Menendez filed to run as an independent amid his federal corruption trial.Menendez, who has denied allegations that he accepted bribes to promote the interests of the Egyptian government, has chosen not to seek the Democratic Senate nomination. Kim’s win comes after a bruising battle that led New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy to withdraw from the race in March.But Menendez has not opted out of the Senate race entirely, as he officially filed for re-election as an independent candidate on Monday, allowing him to continue raising money, which can be used to help cover his hefty legal bills, but his chances of victory in November appear non-existent. According to a poll conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University last month, Menendez is only attracting 6% or 7% of the vote in hypothetical general election match-ups.In the Republican Senate contest, hotelier Curtis Bashaw defeated Mendham Borough mayor Christine Serrano Glassner.Bashaw centered his campaign in part on ending “one-party monopoly” in New Jersey, where state government is led entirely by Democrats, and on sending a conservative to Washington. It’s unclear whether that message will resonate with general election voters, who have not elected a Republican to the Senate in more than five decades. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by about 1 million in New Jersey.Menendez’s legal troubles have also jeopardized the political future of his son, freshman congressman Rob Menendez. Hoboken’s mayor, Ravi Bhalla, has launched a primary challenge against Rob Menendez in New Jersey’s eighth congressional district, and the two candidates have nearly matched each other in fundraising hauls. Though Rob Menendez has not been implicated in his father’s alleged crimes, Bhalla has focused his campaign messaging on the need to crack down on corruption and to “return power to the people”. The winner of the primary is overwhelmingly favored to win the general election in November, as the Cook Political Report rates the district as solidly Democratic.New Jersey voters were also picking House candidates, with some of the most closely watched races having some tie to Menendez.In the eighth district, US representative Rob Menendez, the son of Senator Menendez, won his Democratic primary over Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla.Rob Menendez said Bhalla’s heavy focus on his father showed he was afraid to take on the representative directly.Menendez, an attorney and former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey commissioner, first won election in northern New Jersey’s eighth district in 2022, succeeding Albio Sires.He has been a lonely voice of support for his father amid his legal woes.The eighth district includes parts of Elizabeth, Jersey City and Newark.In the third district, Assemblyman Herb Conaway won the Democratic primary to succeed Kim.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBeyond New Jersey, four other states – Iowa, Montana, New Mexico and South Dakota – and Washington DC have primary elections on Tuesday. In Iowa, two House Republicans – Mariannette Miller-Meeks in the first district and Randy Feenstra in the fourth district – have drawn primary challenges. Feenstra’s district is viewed as safely Republican in the general election, but the Cook Political Report rates Miller-Meeks’ seat as likely Republican, creating a potential opportunity for Democrats in November.In Montana, the Republican governor, Greg Gianforte, faces a primary challenger, and the winner of that race will likely compete against first-time Democratic candidate Ryan Busse, a former firearms executive turned gun industry critic, in November. But Busse will face an uphill battle in the gubernatorial race, as Donald Trump won Montana by 16 points in 2020.Despite Montana’s Republican leanings, Democratic incumbent Jon Tester is keeping the Senate race close as he seeks a fourth term. In the general election, Tester will likely compete against Republican Tim Sheehy, a businessman and former Navy Seal who is widely expected to win his party’s Senate nomination on Tuesday.New Mexico’s incumbent Democratic senator, Martin Heinrich, is running unopposed in his primary, and he will go on to face off against Republican Nella Domenici, former chief financial officer of the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates. The Cook Political Report rates New Mexico’s Senate race as solidly Democratic, but one of the state’s House races is viewed as among the most competitive in the nation. Freshman Democratic congressman Gabe Vazquez will have a rematch against former Republican congresswoman Yvette Herrell in New Mexico’s second congressional district, after he defeated the then incumbent by less than one point in 2022. Both Vazquez and Herrell are running unopposed in their primaries, so they are already gearing up for the general election.While much attention will be paid to congressional primaries on Tuesday, all five voting states and Washington DC will simultaneously hold their presidential primaries as well. Biden and Trump have already secured enough delegates to lock up their parties’ nominations, but the results on Tuesday will offer some of the first insight into Republican primary voters’ views following the former president’s felony conviction in New York last week.Although former UN ambassador Nikki Haley dropped out of the Republican presidential primary in March, she has continued to win support in recent contests. In Maryland’s Republican presidential primary last month, Haley won nearly 23% of the vote. Leaders of both parties will be watching closely to see how Haley’s vote share might rise – or fall – after Trump’s conviction, and her performance could offer significant clues about the electorate heading into the general election.Associated Press contributed to this report More

The Republican-controlled Arizona legislature gave final approval Tuesday to a proposal asking voters to make it a state crime for non-citizens to enter the state through Mexico at any location other than a port of entry, sending the measure to the 5 November ballot.The vote came as Joe Biden unveiled plans Tuesday to restrict the number of people seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border, saying: “This action will help to gain control of our border, restore order to the process.”Arizona’s proposal, approved on a 31-29 vote by the state house, would allow state and local police to arrest people crossing the border without authorization. It would also give state judges the power to order people convicted of the offense to return to their countries of origin.The proposal bypasses the Democratic governor Katie Hobbs, who had vetoed a similar measure in early March and has denounced the effort to bring the issue to voters.House Republicans closed access to the upper gallery of the chamber before the session started Tuesday, citing concerns about security and possible disruptions. The move immediately drew the criticism of Democrats, who demanded that the gallery be reopened.“The public gallery should be open to the public. This is the people’s house,” said the state representative Analise Ortiz.House representatives voted along party lines, with all Republicans voting in favor of the proposal and all Democrats voting against it. Earlier, the Arizona senate also approved the proposal on a 16-13 party-line vote.Supporters of the bill said it was necessary to ensure security along the state’s southern border, and that Arizona voters should be given the opportunity to decide the issue themselves.“We need this bill and we must act on it,” said state representative John Gillette, a Republican.Opponents called the legislation unconstitutional and said it would lead to racial profiling, separating children from parents and creating several millions of dollars in additional policing costs that the state can ill afford.“It is not a solution. It is election-year politics,” said representative Mariana Sandoval, a Democrat.While federal law already prohibits the unauthorized entry of people into the US, proponents of the measure say it’s needed because the federal government hasn’t done enough to stop people from crossing illegally over Arizona’s vast, porous border with Mexico. They also said some people who enter Arizona without authorization commit identity theft and take advantage of public benefits.Opponents say the proposal will inevitably lead to racial profiling by police and saddle the state with new costs from law enforcement agencies that don’t have experience with immigration law, as well as hurt Arizona’s reputation in the business world.Supporters have waved off racial-profiling concerns, saying local officers would still have to develop probable cause to arrest people who enter Arizona between the ports of entry.Backers also say the measure focuses only on the state’s border region and – unlike Arizona’s landmark 2010 immigration law – doesn’t target people throughout the state. Opponents point out the proposal doesn’t contain any geographical limitations on where it can be enforced within the state.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe proposal is similar to a Texas law that has been put on hold by a federal appeals court while it’s being challenged. But the Arizona ballot proposal contains other provisions that aren’t included in the Texas measure and aren’t directly related to immigration. Those include making it a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison for selling fentanyl that leads to a person’s death, and a requirement that some government agencies use a federal database to verify a non-citizen’s eligibility for benefits.Warning about potential legal costs, opponents pointed to Arizona’s 2005 immigrant smuggling ban used by then Maricopa county Sheriff Joe Arpaio to carry out 20 large-scale traffic patrols that targeted immigrants. That led to a 2013 racial-profiling verdict as well as taxpayer-funded legal and compliance costs that now total $265m and are expected to reach $314m by July 2025.Under the current proposal, a first-time conviction of the border-crossing provision would be a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail. State judges could order people to return to their countries of origin after completing a term of incarceration, although the courts would have the power to dismiss cases if those arrested agree to return home.The measure would require the state corrections department to take into custody people who are charged or convicted under the measure if local or county law enforcement agencies don’t have enough space to house them.The proposal includes exceptions for people who have been granted lawful-presence status or asylum by the federal government.The provision allowing for the arrests of people crossing the border in between ports would not take effect until the Texas law or similar laws from other states have been in effect for 60 days.This isn’t the first time Republican lawmakers in Arizona have tried to criminalize people who aren’t authorized to be in the United States.When passing its 2010 immigration bill, the Arizona legislature considered expanding the state’s trespassing law to criminalize the presence of immigrants and impose criminal penalties. But the trespassing language was removed and replaced with a requirement that officers, while enforcing other laws, question people’s immigration status if they were believed to be in the country illegally.The questioning requirement was ultimately upheld by the US supreme court despite the racial-profiling concerns of critics, but courts barred enforcement of other sections of the law. More