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    Biden and Trump shift to new phase of urgent fundraising in 2024 US election

    Joe Biden and Donald Trump are entering a new phase of a heavyweight election fundraising smackdown after the US president raised a record $26m at a glitzy event with Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, while Trump’s Republican campaign tried to steal Biden’s thunder by claiming it would outdo him next week with a $33m event.Biden and his Democratic predecessor headlined a star-studded fundraiser with Clinton at the Radio City Music Hall event in New York, hosted by Mindy Kaling and featuring Lizzo and Queen Latifah, while the TV satirist Stephen Colbert interviewed the three men on stage in front of an audience that paid up to $500,000 for a ticket.Obama and Biden flew from Washington to New York on Air Force One together on Thursday in a show of unity and Democratic campaign heft as the 2024 election enters an important phase between the main primary season and the summer nominating conventions, which are expected to anoint Biden and Trump as their parties’ candidates for the November vote.The glittering Democratic fundraiser was punctuated by protests inside the sold-out auditorium, as attendees rose at several different moments to shout over the discussion, referencing Biden’s backing of Israel’s war in Gaza.“Shame on you, Joe Biden,” one yelled, according to Reuters.Obama said Biden had “moral clarity” on the Israel issue and was willing to listen to all sides in this debate and find common ground.When a protester inside the theater interrupted Obama, the former president said: “You can’t just talk and not listen … That’s what the other side does.”The protests drew a pledge from Biden to keep working to stop civilian deaths, particularly of children. But he added, “Israel’s existence is at stake.” Hundreds more protested outside in the drizzling rain, many demanding a ceasefire and waving Palestinian flags.On the money raised during the event, which had been estimated at $25m and then came in at a record-breaking $26m for a single campaign event, Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Hollywood mogul turned Biden campaign co-chair, said: “This historic raise is a show of strong enthusiasm for President Biden and Vice-President [Kamala] Harris and a testament to the unprecedented fundraising machine we’ve built.”But on Friday, it was reported that Trump believes he can out raise the Biden event with a billionaires’ power party at his Mar-a-Lago residence and resort club in Palm Beach, south Florida, on 6 April, where tickets will run from $250,000 to more than $800,000, the Financial Times first reported and Politico later detailed.The Trump campaign’s goal is at least $33m, with featured super-rich American business leaders such as the casino and hotel developer Steve Wynn, the hedge funder John Paulson and Robert Bigelow, a property and aerospace billionaire with an offbeat obsession with the paranormal and UFOs.Trump has been struggling for money and owes hundreds of millions in fines in civil cases he has lost, on top of sky-high legal bills, for which he is paying with funds from donors. Biden’s campaign had $71m in available cash at the end of last month, more than twice as much as Trump, with the Democratic National Committee also swilling with more than double what is in the Republican National Committee’s coffers, the Hill reported.On Thursday, a Trump campaign adviser said the candidate would not be able to match Biden’s totals, blaming the disparity on the Democrat’s “billionaire” supporters and painting a picture of a Trump campaign as being fueled by grassroots, working-class supporters. However, the Trump campaign is suffering from both large and small donor fatigue, CNBC has reported.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionAt a wake on Thursday for a police officer shot dead on duty in New York, Trump called for a focus on “law and order” even though he stands to be the first former US president to be a defendant in a criminal trial and is facing a total of 88 charges across four cases, relating to campaign finance impropriety, election interference and hiding classified documents after leaving office.At the Democratic fundraiser, the presidents toggled between humor and campaign talk. Biden lit into Trump, recalling how he pleaded with the then occupant of the White House on 6 January 2021, to “call these people off” when his supporters invaded the US Capitol in an insurrection to try, in vain, to stop the certification of Biden’s victory over him in the 2020 election.“He sat there in the dining room off the Oval Office for several hours and watched [the attack on TV], didn’t do a damn thing,” Biden said.He pointed out how Trump was proud to have tilted the supreme court so that it ruled to take away the national right to abortion, with the overturning of Roe v Wade in 2022, while Democrats defend reproductive choice, with the vice-president, Kamala Harris, taking a lead on the issue on the campaign trail.Biden also challenged Trump to golf, but only if his rival carried his own bag.Biden, Obama and Clinton ended the night donning Biden’s trademark aviator-style sunglasses.The Associated Press contributed reporting More

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    Biden campaign raises $25m ‘money bomb’ at event with Obama and Clinton

    Joe Biden and his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, headlined a star-studded fundraiser with Bill Clinton on Thursday that organizers said raised more than $25m for the US president’s re-election campaign.Such a haul, which Politico called an “NYC money bomb”, will widen Biden’s lead over Donald Trump in fundraising for the November election.Amid improving polling for Biden, the two presidential campaigns recently posted February fundraising figures. Federal filings showed Biden nearly $40m up in cash raised, leading the president’s campaign to taunt their rival as “Broke Don”.On Thursday, a Trump campaign adviser said the candidate won’t be able to match Biden’s totals, blaming the disparity on the Democrat’s “billionaire” supporters and painting a picture of a Trump campaign as being fueled by grassroots, working-class supporters.Obama hitched a ride from Washington to New York aboard Air Force One with Biden. They waved as they descended the plane’s steps at John F Kennedy International airport and got into the motorcade for the ride into midtown Manhattan.The marquee at Radio City Music Hall in midtown Manhattan was lit up and read: “An Evening with Joe Biden Barack Obama Bill Clinton”. NYPD officers lined surrounding streets as part of a heavy security presence for the event.Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer was up first to warm up the sold-out crowd of about 5,000 supporters. Entertainers, too, had their time on stage. Lizzo belted out her hit About Damn Time and emcee Mindy Kaling joked that it was nice to be in a room with “so many rich people”, adding that she loved that they were supporting a president who “openly” promises to “raise your taxes”.The hours-long fundraiser had different tiers of access depending on a donor’s generosity. The centerpiece was an onstage conversation with the three presidents, moderated by late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert. Other celebrities included Queen Latifah, Ben Platt, Cynthia Erivo and Lea Michele. Tickets sold for as low as $225.The fundraiser was punctuated by protests inside the auditorium, as attendees rose at several different moments to shout over the discussion, referencing Biden’s backing of Israel’s war in Gaza.“Shame on you, Joe Biden” one yelled, according to Reuters.Obama said Biden has “moral clarity” on the Israel issue and is willing to listen to all sides in this debate and find common ground.When a protester inside the theater interrupted Obama, the former president snapped back: “You can’t just talk and not listen …That’s what the other side does”On the money raised during the event, Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Hollywood mogul turned Biden campaign co-chair, said: “This historic raise is a show of strong enthusiasm for President Biden and vice-president [Kamala] Harris and a testament to the unprecedented fundraising machine we’ve built.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Unlike our opponent, every dollar we’re raising is going to reach the voters who will decide this election – communicating the president’s historic record, his vision for the future and laying plain the stakes of this election. The numbers don’t lie: today’s event is a massive show of force and a true reflection of the momentum to re-elect the Biden-Harris ticket.”Katzenberg’s reference to fundraising meant to “reach the voters” was a barb aimed at Trump. The Republican’s unprecedented legal jeopardy – he faces 88 criminal charges and multimillion-dollar civil penalties – has contributed to controversy over whether campaign donations should be used to pay his legal bills.Trump has appealed to supporters for help. His political operation has been shown to be paying lawyers’ bills. Amid Trump’s takeover of the Republican National Committee, achieved by installing his daughter-in-law Lara Trump as co-chair, attempts have been made to stop it contributing to his legal costs.Trump has been widely criticised for failing to mount many campaign events. On Thursday, seeking to boost his hardline law-and-order message, he will attend a wake for a New York police officer killed in the line of duty.Announcing its event with Obama and Clinton, the Biden campaign sought to emphasise the contrast between the president’s strong fundraising and Trump’s struggles.“In contrast to Trump’s cash-strapped campaign,” a statement said, “tonight alone Team Biden-Harris will raise $5m more than the Trump campaign raised in all of February; nearly double what the Trump campaign raised in all of January; more than what the Trump campaign raised in December and January combined; more than double what the RNC has cash on hand – and more than the RNC has raised all year; nearly 60% of what the Trump campaign has cash on hand.” More

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    Jimmy Carter, Biden and Clintons pay tribute at Rosalynn Carter memorial

    A tribute service for Rosalynn Carter took place on Tuesday, as politicians and public figures gathered to celebrate the former first lady’s life following her death last Sunday.Former president Jimmy Carter, 99, attended the tribute for his late wife of 77 years, traveling from his hospice care at home to the Glenn Memorial church in Atlanta. His attendance marks a rare public appearance for the former president, who has been in home hospice care for 10 months.A funeral motorcade left for Glenn Memorial around noon, with the tribute beginning shortly after 1.30pm ET and ending after 3pm.Military guards transported Rosalynn’s casket from the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum, where the former first lady was in repose, to make the trip to Glenn Memorial church.Tributes to Rosalynn were delivered by the journalist Judy Woodruff, longtime aide and friend Kathryn Cade and Rosalynn’s children and grandchildren.Jason, Rosalynn’s grandson, spoke about his grandmother’s commitment to advocating for better mental health care.“Her advocacy for mental health was a 50-year climb that is as remarkable as any other and has been mentioned already,” Jason said during the tribute, adding that Rosalynn “decided in 1970 to tackle the anxious and stigma associated with mental illness”.“That effort changed lives and it saved lives, including in my own family,” Jason added, referring to Rosalynn’s advocacy.Rosalynn’s children, Amy and James, also spoke at the tribute. James, who goes by “Chip”, called Rosalynn the glue that held the Carter family together through turbulent times.Chip added that his mother was influential in him into rehab treatment for a substance use disorder.“She saved my life,” Chip said at the tribute.Amy spoke about the enduring relationship between Jimmy and Rosalynn, sharing a love letter he had written to Rosalynn while he was serving in the navy.“My darling, every time I have ever been away from you, I had been thrilled when I returned to discover just how wonderful you are,”he wrote in the letter, recited by Amy.“Their partnership and love story was a defining feature of her life. Because he is unable to speak to you today, I’m going to share some of his words about loving and missing,” Amy said.Rosalynn’s other grandchildren and great-grandchildren read selections of the Bible during the tribute.Every living former first lady attended Tuesday’s invitation-only service. Joe Biden, Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris and the second gentleman, Douglas Emhoff, also attended, but did not give remarks.Other guests included the Georgia governor, Brian Kemp, the Atlanta mayor, Andre Dickens, and other Georgia politicians.Donald Trump, Barack Obama and George W Bush were invited to Tuesday’s tribute, the Associated Press reported, but did not attend.Public tributes for Rosalynn began on Monday, as her family planned three memorials to honor the former first lady.Hundreds of supporters paid their respects on Monday at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum .Besides Tuesday’s tribute, there will be a funeral on Wednesday for family and invited friends in Plains, Georgia, where the Carters lived.The former first lady died last week at 96 at her Georgia home. She was diagnosed with dementia in May and died shortly after entering hospice care alongside her husband.“Rosalynn was my equal partner in everything I ever accomplished,” Jimmy Carter said in a statement released last week by the Carter Center. “She gave me wise guidance and encouragement when I needed it. As long as Rosalynn was in the world, I always knew somebody loved and supported me.”Rosalynn is widely regarded for her commitment to public service and her work as an advocate for mental health.During her tenure as first lady, Rosalynn addressed the World Health Organization, arguing that mental health was a component of physical health and that health, more broadly, was a human right.Rosalynn and her husband also supported several humanitarian causes, including Habitat for Humanity. More

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    ‘Trump’s not a good sport’: Chris Cillizza on presidents at play

    From The Big Lebowski to Alice on The Brady Bunch, depictions of bowling abound in American pop culture. The sport’s real-life adherents included Richard Nixon, who installed bowling lanes in the White House and was known to play between seven to 12 games late at night. Characteristically, he played alone. This is one of many athletic accounts from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in a new book, Power Players: Sports, Politics, and the American Presidency, by the longtime political journalist Chris Cillizza.Bowling solo personified “Nixon the loner”, Cillizza says. “He didn’t play tennis or golf with friends. He did enjoy bowling by himself. It’s a powerful image, a telling image.”Tricky Dick’s love of bowling also helped with a crucial voting bloc: “Nixon viewed it as the sport of the Silent Majority – white, blue-collar men who sort of made up his base. He was very aware of this.”A Washington journalist for four decades, most recently for CNN, Cillizza pitched the book as about “the sports presidents play, love, spectate, and what it tells us about who they are and how they govern. That was the germ of the idea, the seed going in.”Power Players surveys 13 presidents of the modern era, from Dwight Eisenhower to Joe Biden. Some of its narratives are well-known – think Ike’s extensive golf-playing, John F Kennedy’s touch football games or Barack Obama’s pickup basketball on the campaign trail. The book explores less-remembered sides of these stories, including a scary moment on the links for Eisenhower.While golfing in Colorado in 1955, he fielded multiple stressful phone calls from his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles. After eating a hamburger with onions and getting yet another call from Dulles, Ike felt too angry to keep playing. Chest pains followed that night. The White House initially claimed indigestion but an electrocardiogram found something more serious – a heart attack. At the time, there was no 25th amendment specifying the chain of command if a president became incapacitated. Fortunately, Ike never lost consciousness during the episode.Golf was a popular sport for many presidents, as reflected in a previous book about White House athletics, First Off the Tee by Don Van Natta Jr, whom Cillizza interviewed. Yet the list of presidential pastimes is long and diverse, from Nixon’s bowling to Jimmy Carter’s fly fishing to George HW Bush’s horseshoes. Yes, horseshoes. In addition to Bush’s well-known prowess on the Yale University baseball team, he was a pretty good horseshoes player who established his own league in the White House, with a commissioner and tournaments. The White House permanent staff fielded teams; Queen Elizabeth II even gifted Bush a quartet of silver horseshoes.In the greatest-presidential-athlete discussion, Cillizza lands in Gerald Ford’s corner.“No debate, he’s the best athlete ever, I think, with [George HW] Bush a distant second, among modern presidents.”Ford sometimes lived up to the bumbling stereotypes made famous by Chevy Chase and Bob Hope – including when he accidentally hit people with golf balls. Yet he was an All-American center on the national-champion University of Michigan football team and received contract offers from two NFL squads, the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers.In addition to the sports presidents play, Cillizza’s book examines how presidents use sports to connect to the public.Calling sports “a common language that lots and lots and lots of Americans speak”, Cillizza says: “I think politicians are forever trying to identify with the average person … I think sports is a way into that world for a lot of presidents.”There’s the practice of inviting championship teams to the White House, which Cillizza traces to Ronald Reagan, although instances date back decades. While not much of a sports fan, Reagan came from a sports radio background, played the legendary Gipper in the film Knute Rockne, All American and understood the importance of proximity to winners, Cillizza says.There’s also the tradition of presidential first pitches at baseball games, arguably the most iconic thrown by George W Bush at Yankee Stadium during the 2001 World Series, in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks. Cillizza notes Dubya’s baseball pedigree as president of the Texas Rangers, and that he reportedly contemplated becoming commissioner of Major League Baseball.Of the presidents surveyed, Cillizza says George HW Bush had the most sportsmanship, thanks to early lessons about fair play from his mother, Dorothy Walker Bush, a strong tennis player herself. The least sportsmanlike, according to the author? Lyndon Johnson and Donald Trump. Cillizza cites an account of Trump’s time on the Fordham University squash team. After a loss to the Naval Academy, he drove to a department store and bought golf equipment. He and his teammates vented their frustration by hitting golf balls off a bluff into the Chesapeake Bay, then drove away, sans clubs.“That’s Trump, in a lot of ways,” Cillizza says. “He’s not a good sport who’s going to be genteel.”The author notes similar behavior throughout Trump’s career, including bombastic performances in World Wrestling Entertainment storylines and a whole recent book about his alleged cheating at golf, as well as a recent news item about the former president going to Ireland to visit one of his courses.“He hit a drive, and said Joe Biden could never do this,” Cillizza recalls. “It went 280ft right down the middle of the fairway. He talks about his virility, his health, through the lens of sports.”Not too long ago, two ex-presidents from rival parties teamed up as part of a golf foursome. George HW Bush joined the man who beat him in 1992 – Bill Clinton – en route to an unlikely friendship. Rounding out the foursome were the broadcasting legend Jim Nantz and NFL superstar Tom Brady.“It’s remarkable what sports can do to bring presidents together,” Cillizza says. “This day and age, it’s hard to consider … I don’t think Donald Trump and Joe Biden will be playing golf together anytime soon.”
    Power Players is published in the US by Twelve More

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    ‘Market rules should benefit the majority of the citizenry’: historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik M Conway

    For the last decade, historians Naomi Oreskes and Erik M Conway have been digging into the history of the idea that freedom only thrives if businesses are left unbothered by governments. It’s a philosophy that has touched every corner of American life, they argue, even though it has long been proven deeply flawed.In their new book – The Big Myth – How American Business Taught Us to Loathe Government and Love the Free Market – Oreskes and Conway document the rise of what’s more politely called “market fundamentalism” over the last century, from corporate propaganda and fringe academic theory to mainstream ideology.The book is both a sequel and a prequel to their groundbreaking book Merchants of Doubt, which is about a handful of prominent scientists who obfuscated clear scientific findings to oppose climate regulation. At the heart of their beliefs, Oreskes and Conway argue, was the big myth.The Guardian spoke to Oreskes and Conway about The Big Myth and how it came to dominate how Americans think about government regulation. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.The Guardian: How do you define “the big myth”?Oreskes: In a way, the myth isn’t just one thing; it’s a set of interconnected concepts that together support this larger ideology of market fundamentalism.The first part of the myth is the notion of the free market, the idea that you could even meaningfully talk about “the free market” as a thing that exists. In reality, people make markets. Markets are human institutions.So that leads to the second part of the myth, which is the idea that markets have wisdom, that the invisible hand guides us and that if we all do our own thing, our own self-interest will somehow lead to this productive, efficient and happy outcome. And therefore, we should just trust markets, that the government distorts markets and interferes with the wisdom of the marketplace.Then the third part of the myth is, in a way, the most damaging – it’s the piece that really informed Merchants of Doubt. It’s this idea of the inextricable link between capitalism and economic freedom as a bulwark against totalitarianism.What are the origins of the big myth?Conway: We pick up the story with business leaders fighting against the regulation of child labor and workplace safety. We’ve all forgotten that there was a crisis of workplace accidents in the United States in the late-19th and early-20th century that killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of peopleBusiness leaders in the United States were absolutely dead-set against doing anything about these twin crises.Oreskes: It’s pretty hard to come up with a good argument to defend the employment of children as young as two in textile mills, which we know happened. How do you defend something that’s clearly, on the surface, really quite appalling? Come up with some kind of argument that appeals to something that we do care about, that we value: freedom.We saw this in Merchants of Doubt, when we talked about the tobacco industry and how it mobilized this whole argument about the freedom to smoke, that you don’t want the government telling you what to do. We actually thought the tobacco industry invented that strategy. But they didn’t. What we show in this new book is that it goes back much further.In the 20th century, one of the things the market fundamentalists did was rewrite US history to invent a story about how free enterprise was embedded into the very foundations of American society, economy and culture.They do this in the 1930s through a metaphor they came up with called the “Tripod of Freedom.” This was pushed by the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), which at the time was the largest trade organization in the United States. They claimed that the United States was founded on three essential principles that were like a tripod – if any were to be compromised, the whole structure would fall. The three pillars were representative democracy, the Bill of Rights and free enterprise. The third part was a complete invention because, actually, free enterprise appears nowhere in the Constitution or in the Bill of Rights. Nowhere in the Declaration of Independence.The book covers the extensive propaganda campaign from NAM and companies like General Electric to sway the American public against government regulation of businesses. Why were these campaigns so effective?Conway: They disguised propaganda as entertainment, it was not obviously partisan or political. That was the whole idea. Propagandists need a kernel of truth in order to be successful. The best lies are ones that are built on something people already believe.They basically doubled down after the second world war when corporations could control their own advertising again. They keep doing it for decades. If you’re hammered through every outlet with the same message over and over again, eventually you start to believe it. Even if, once upon a time, you realized it was garbage.You have a whole chapter on Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s best-selling books that became a hit TV show. I imagine many people didn’t know it was largely written with the help of her daughter, Rose Lane Wilder, a staunch libertarian. Though the books are supposed to be about Ingalls Wilder’s true childhood, Lane Wilder fictionalized much of it to expound on the ideals of individualism.Oreskes: There are people out there who are mad at us for bursting that bubble. My defense? Actually, we didn’t burst the bubble. Other historians, Caroline Fraser and Christine Woodside burst that bubble, and we’re drawing from their work.In the first chunk of the book, market fundamentalism is fighting an uphill battle. At what point did market fundamentalism start taking hold and becoming mainstream?Oreskes: A key figure in this story, obviously, is Ronald Reagan. Most Americans know that Reagan was an actor before he became a politician, but what they don’t know is how he affected that transition.Reagan’s career was not doing all that well, but he was still a Democrat. He was the president of the Screen Actor’s Guild. But then he gets this job with GE, and the job has two parts: hosting General Electric Theater and promoting General Electric ideology through speeches. It’s pretty clear that during this period, his political outlook shifts to be very, very aligned with GE. So he comes out of GE with this new political ideology, quite different than what he had before he went in. Also critically, he comes out with a set of wealthy corporate backers who then finance his run for governor of California.But you make the point that it wasn’t just Reagan.Conway: When Jimmy Carter becomes president, he brings into office a new generation of economists, many of whom have now been educated with the ideas of free markets that have been pushed into academia by the Chicago School of Economics. They begin shifting the way the government manages the economy. They are the regulators Carter brings into office, the first people we now associate with Reagan and ending with Bill Clinton, who finishes the job of deregulating banks in the late 1990s.Orenskes: We see how this language, rhetoric and ideology gets taken across the board politically so that when Bill Cinton gives his State of the Union address in 1995, he says: “The era of big government is over.” And that’s a Democrat, right?So how does that happen? Milton Friedman said one of the jobs of intellectuals is to be standing ready with ideas. And you just work on your ideas and you get laughed at for a long time. But one day, the world is ready and then you’re there. So when the crisis, the postwar 1970s stagflation develops, nobody really has an explanation for why this has happened. There are probably multiple factors – but the right wing is now standing ready saying: “Oh, the problem is too much government. The problem is big government. The problem is overregulation.” That gains traction, in part because it’s a simpler explanation to a complex problem.Does it seem like market fundamentalism’s grasp is loosening? Are the tides changing?Oreskes: After the Silicon Valley Bank failure, there’s this big conversation taking place right now about how much of that was allowed to happen by weakened regulation, particularly because there were specific regulations that were weakened during the Trump administration.I think most people still see regulation as a necessary evil – even liberals and progressives. So they’re sort of apologetic about it. “Yeah, I know it’s bad. But you know, we have to do it.” I would like to try to change that conversation, to make people think much more in terms of regulations as the rules of how markets operate.At the end of the book, we make a point about biological regulation. Without biological regulation, all life would cease to exist because an organism cannot operate unless it can regulate its internal chemistry. Biological regulation makes life possible. I think that’s true of society as a whole. The right set of rules and regulations supports a vibrant economy where people can “live well and prosper” (you know, Star Trek).Conway: The question is, who are the rules set up to benefit the most? Business leaders want the rules of the road to benefit them, and we’re arguing that no, the rules of the market should benefit the majority of the citizenry, not just the business leaders. More

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    The man who connected Bill Clinton and Gerry Adams: Politics Weekly America podcast

    Next week, Joe Biden and Bill Clinton will arrive in Northern Ireland to join commemorations of the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement. Clinton is now celebrated as one of the key players behind the agreement, but he didn’t do it alone. It took years of background efforts – of secret meetings, discreet lobbying and high-risk shadow diplomacy, by people whose names we’ve never known – to convince the United States to get involved.
    This week, Jonathan Freedland speaks to one of those people, Niall O’Dowd, who tells the extraordinary story of how he built a secret channel between Clinton and the Irish republican movement

    How to listen to podcasts: everything you need to know More

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    Michael Cohen’s lawyer compares Trump to Clinton-Lewinsky case

    A lawyer representing a key witness in the investigation into Donald Trump over hush money payments has drawn comparisons between the case and the sex scandal that embroiled Bill Clinton, as it became clear there would be no indictment in the Trump investigation until next week at the earliest.Lanny Davis, who represents Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer, hypothesized about what might have happened if Clinton had handled his affair with Monica Lewinsky differently.Clinton was impeached in his second term after lying about his relationship with Lewinsky while he was president. Davis, who served as a special adviser to Clinton, speculated about how the Democrat might have been perceived if a representative had paid money to Lewinsky.Cohen, who was Trump’s lawyer and fixer for more than a decade before he turned on his former boss, paid $130,000 to Stormy Daniels to prevent her from going public with allegations that she and Trump slept together a decade before he won the White House.“I won’t mention the name of the former president I worked for,” Davis told Politico in an interview.“But can you imagine if … he had written personal checks as part of that controversy?“Can you imagine if I had personal checks out of a checking account of a sitting president that reimburses a hush money scheme, and then I used a legal argument to say why he should get off: because New York state law doesn’t apply to federal law? Good luck!”Cohen, who was sentenced to three years in prison for ​​tax evasion and campaign-finance violations related to the Daniels payment, has been a key witness in the investigation into Trump.The now-disbarred lawyer paid Daniels through a shell company, and was then reimbursed through Trump, whose company logged the reimbursements as legal expenses. The Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, is leading the investigation into potential wrongdoing by Trump.Davis, a lawyer and longtime political operative, claimed in the Politico interview that he himself had triggered that investigation by speaking to Cyrus Vance, Bragg’s predecessor.“Cyrus Vance Sr was the secretary of state under Jimmy Carter – I’m showing my age now […] I was in my 20s when President Carter was elected,” Davis told Politico.“And I got to know Mr Vance. So his son, being the DA of [Manhattan], I called after Michael was sent to prison.”Davis said he believed “the evidence of financial fraud was on the record in the [congressional] hearings and that Vance’s office should interview Michael”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“They came to Otisville [the prison where Cohen served some of his sentence] … They did manage to get a visit, and then two and then three separate visits at the beginning,” Davis said.“And that’s how it began.”Davis’s interview came as the investigation into Trump rolled on in New York. Reports had suggested Trump would be indicted this week – Trump himself claimed, wrongly, last weekend that he would be arrested on Tuesday – but the grand jury hearing the case is not due to meet again until Monday.In the meantime Trump, who is the subject of multiple other legal inquiries, warned on Friday of “potential death and destruction” should he be charged in the case.In a rambling, idiosyncratically punctuated message posted on Truth Social, a niche rightwing social media network that he owns, at 1am, Trump wrote:“What kind of person can charge another person, in this case a former President of the United States, who got more votes than any sitting President in history, and leading candidate (by far!) for the Republican Party nomination, with a Crime, when it is known by all that NO Crime has been committed, & also known that potential death & destruction in such a false charge could be catastrophic for our Country? Why & who would do such a thing? Only a degenerate psychopath that truely [sic] hates the USA!” More

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    Leo Varadkar meets Biden after apparent Clinton-Lewinsky joke

    Ireland’s taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has apologised for making an apparent joke about Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky, during an event in Washington on the eve of St Patrick’s Day celebrations.Varadkar’s comment on Thursday risked overshadowing his meeting with Joe Biden at the White House on Friday for the traditional handing over of a bowl of shamrock to the US president, the most important day in the Irish-American political calendar.The taoiseach departed from a prepared script on Thursday when speaking to people involved in the Washington Ireland programme, which teaches career skills to young people. Reminiscing about his stint as a US House of Representatives intern in 2000, the last year of Clinton’s presidency, Varadkar said it was a time “when some parents would have had cause for concern about what would happen to interns in Washington”.The comment was widely viewed as a reference to Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky while she was a White House intern in the mid-1990s. Hours earlier, Varadkar had shared a stage with Hillary Clinton at a separate event.A spokesperson for Varadkar apologised on his behalf.“He made an ill-judged, off-the-cuff remark which he regrets. He apologises for any offence caused to anyone concerned,” they said.The taoiseach is to meet and share platforms with the Clintons when the couple visit Ireland next month to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement. Biden also plans to visit.Senior Democrats this week urged Democratic Unionist party (DUP) figures visiting Washington to restore power-sharing in Northern Ireland in the wake of the Windsor framework, saying it had addressed the party’s concerns over post-Brexit trading arrangements.Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, expressed hope that the Stormont institutions would be swiftly revived. Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, said the DUP should “get to the people’s business, the business of power-sharing and self-governing”.The DUP leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, rebuked Schumer, telling Sky: “I would urge the senator to read some history books. Maybe he’d learn a little bit more about what really happens and the reality of the situation.”Hillary Clinton increased the pressure on the DUP when she urged assembly members who opposed the Windsor framework to resign and allow others to revive Stormont.On Friday, Varadkar met Biden’s vice-president, Kamala Harris, at her residence in Washington. Varadkar’s apparent gaffe over Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky was not mentioned but the Windsor framework was.The agreement, the taoiseach said, “has the potential to restore very good relations between Ireland and the UK and to restore the relations and institutions of the Good Friday agreement” while opening a new chapter in EU-UK relations.“We’re not quite there yet,” Varadkar said. “But I think with good faith on all sides, we’ll have that and the help of our … friends here in America.”Varadkar also thanked Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff, for hosting him and his partner, Matthew Barrett. They had been “inspired”, he said, both as doctors and members of the LGBTQ+ community, by Harris’s advocacy for marriage equality as a California prosecutor and senator, and now as vice-president.Varadkar said: “From Stonewall [the riots in New York in 1969 that sparked the modern gay rights movement] to Sacramento to San Francisco, America has led the way when it comes to LGBTQ+ equality. I don’t think I would be here today were it not for what America did.”From there, the taoiseach went to the White House to meet Biden.Before the Oval Office meeting, the president sent out a St Patrick’s Day tweet in which he proudly introduced himself as “the great-great-grandson of the Blewitts of County Mayo and the Finnegans of County Louth who boarded a coffin ship to cross the Atlantic more than 165 years ago” and as “the proud son of Catherine Eugenia Finnegan Biden”.Coffin ships were vessels that took Irish immigrants to America during the Great Famine of the 1840s, so called, in the words of the writer Philip Hoare, “because so many of their human cargo died of disease or malnutrition en route, or shortly after arrival”.In front of the press on Friday, Biden referred to a recent meeting in San Diego with Rishi Sunak, the British prime minister, saying: “I very much, very strongly supported the Windsor framework, which I know you do too.”Varadkar thanked Biden “for your help and support and understanding for our position on Brexit in recent years”, which he said “really made a difference.“And we’ve got to a good place now, I think, with the Windsor framework where we can have an agreement that lasts, which is important for Northern Ireland, and also important for British-Irish and European relations.” More