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      Lots of cash. First in the polls. California’s Senate race is Adam Schiff’s to lose

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      Adam Schiff looked like a front-runner when he first announced he was running for the US Senate more than a year ago, and he hasn’t stopped looking like one since.The California congressman from Los Angeles, best known for his withering critiques of Donald Trump and the threat the former president poses to US democracy, hasn’t always been able to match the charisma of his two leading Democratic rivals, Katie Porter and Barbara Lee. His continuing support for Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, broadly in line with the Biden administration’s, has created divisions among his constituents and opened up one of the few significant policy differences in the race.But as the clock ticks down to the 5 March primary, that has yet to make an appreciable difference in the race to fill Dianne Feinstein’s seat. Schiff has out-raised his opponents by significant margins, allowing him to bombard the airwaves with campaign ads. He has raked in the lion’s share of endorsements from fellow party members, labor unions, newspapers and others.Opinion polls long had him leading, narrowly, but now suggest he may be breaking away from the rest of the pack. The most recent surveys show Schiff at least five points ahead of his competitors. Porter and Republican Steve Garvey are neck-and-neck for second place – though it’s highly unlikely the former baseball star would prevail in the general election in November given Democrats’ dominance in the state. Lee lags behind.In an election year when many voters say they fear for the future of the republic, a contest in a reliably blue state featuring three generally well-regarded Democratic members of Congress (plus one near-unelectable Republican neophyte) can seem a bit of a luxury.But the pressure cooker dynamics of national politics have arguably played into Schiff’s hands. As the leading voice on the first of Trump’s two impeachments and as a congressional investigator into the January 6 insurrection at the Capitol, Schiff has won widespread admiration and near-heroic status within his own party.As the Los Angeles Times wrote in endorsing Schiff over what it called his “smart, experienced, savvy” Democratic opponents: “Given the increasingly authoritarian statements from Donald Trump, the possibility he could return to the White House and the Republican Party’s lockstep loyalty to him, the Senate needs Schiff.”Schiff himself has played up his anti-Trump credentials, calling the ex-president “the gravest threat to our democracy” in a recent debate in response to a question about what made him different from his fellow Democrats. And he has only been helped by the obvious loathing he inspires, as Trump and his Republican partisans routinely call him “shifty”, a “lowlife”, and, without evidence, a “stone-cold liar”.View image in fullscreenWhen the Republican-led House of Representatives voted to censure Schiff last June – on the partisan-driven grounds that he had threatened national security and was “undermining our duly elected president” – it proved to be a fundraising boon for Schiff’s Senate campaign that cemented the significant financial advantage he was already enjoying over his rivals.Rick Wilson, a former Republican political operative now working for the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, said Schiff had a singular ability to drive Trump Republicans to distraction because of his skill, much of it learned from his pre-congressional experience as a prosecutor, to marshal facts, zero in on what matters and lay out the stakes in clear, persuasive language.“Adam Schiff is one of the people who understood where the bodies were buried,” Wilson said. “He presented a combination of intelligence and wit that gave the Trump people a tremendous amount of heartache … I don’t mean this to be facetious, but they hate smart people. I say, tell me who you hate and I’ll show you who you fear.”Still, the race is about more than Trump, and Schiff has talked a lot about other issues close to the heart of California voters, including homelessness, affordable housing, health care costs and the environment.Since the election has played out largely as a contest among Democrats – with Garvey providing a sideshow more than a serious threat – it also presents voters with questions about the direction they want to set for the party, both in the Golden state and across the country.Feinstein, who died in office last September, was an old-school centrist, and whoever replaces her will hew significantly to her left. Still, in an age of deep partisan polarization, do voters want a pragmatist, as Schiff styles himself, or a firebrand? Someone who falls somewhere in the political middle of his party, like Schiff, or the most progressive voice possible?View image in fullscreenMany voters will remember that, for close to 30 years, California had two female senators – first Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, who overlapped from 1993 to 2017, then Feinstein and Kamala Harris, who overlapped until Harris became vice-president in 2021. Are they ready to revert to two male ones – Alex Padilla and, potentially, Schiff?Democratic voters in California are also consistent in saying that diversity matters, which explains why Gavin Newsom, the state governor, made a point of naming a Black woman, the veteran labor organizer and voting rights activist Laphonza Butler, to complete Feinstein’s term after her death. Butler is not competing to hold on to the seat. Does it matter, then, that Schiff is not only a man, but a white man?“A majority … of Democratic party voters participating in the primary are women and a majority are people of color. So, yeah, these things are on our minds,” said Aimee Allison, a California-based political activist whose group She the People champions progressive Black and Latina women running for office. “This is not just about the politics of representation. For Californians under 35, in particular, it’s about representation, plus life experience, plus the policies a candidate is advocating – all three things.”Allison is supporting Lee, and in her mind the race might look very different if it weren’t for the money and the establishment support that Schiff has been able to rake in.“White guys get more money in politics,” she said. “That doesn’t make Adam Schiff special. It’s just the bias of the system, the bias in the minds of people with money … One of the reasons women of color are defeated in primaries is because existing elected officials weigh in against them, both publicly and behind the scenes. When someone like Nancy Pelosi puts her support behind Schiff, it has huge downstream effects.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSchiff’s financial advantage has certainly been significant. As of 31 December, he had outspent all his opponents and still had $35m in cash on hand, more than all the other candidates put together. That financial edge is now playing out on the airwaves, especially in expensive media markets like Los Angeles and San Francisco, where Schiff’s recent campaign ads present Garvey, not Porter or Lee, as his competition. “Two leading candidates for Senate,” the ad begins. “Two very different visions for California.”Since Garvey does not have enough money for his own television ad campaign, this has been widely interpreted as an attempt by the Schiff team to boost the Republican’s candidacy in the hope that he will come in second on 5 March and thus qualify for the general election under California’s top-two primary system.“It’s disappointing that Adam Schiff is playing cynical, anti-democratic political games to avoid a competitive election in November,” an incensed Porter wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Voters deserve better.”This, though, is how politics in California is often played. When Newsom first ran for governor in 2018, his camp ran an ad similarly designed to boost the leading Republican over his closest Democratic rival and attracted similar complaints. With Porter restricted in the number of ads of her own she can afford to run – some of which have boosted a different Republican candidate in an apparent attempt to dilute Garvey’s support – it arguably does not damage Schiff so much as boost the perception that this is his race to lose.View image in fullscreenIndeed, Schiff has run more like an incumbent than a challenger for an open seat, pointing to his record over 23 years in the House and calling himself “an effective leader who can get things done and deliver for California”.While Porter has leaned heavily into her reputation as a populist crusader against corrupt corporate leaders, and Lee has often shown up to debates with cheering fans from her grassroots and union support base, Schiff has sought to make a virtue of his careful manner and calm demeanor by embracing the idea that he is a trusted establishment candidate.At a candidates’ forum last fall, Schiff pointed to his temperament as its own political asset, recounting how a Republican colleague in the House often complained how difficult it was to argue against his progressive positions because “you sound so damn reasonable”.One issue where Schiff has taken criticism is his refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza – a position in line with the Biden administration’s, but one decried by many young progressives who have staged demonstrations at party and campaign events and warned the candidates they will be punished at the polls if they do not denounce Israel’s military campaign.Lee argues forcefully that the deaths of more than 29,000 Palestinians have done nothing to enhance Israeli security or to achieve the US policy goal of a two-state solution. Schiff, though, has been unapologetic in his support for Israel. “I don’t see how there could be a lasting peace as long as a terrorist organization is governing Gaza and threatening to attack them over and over and over again,” he said in a debate last week, “nor do I see how there can be a permanent ceasefire while that is true.” In an earlier statement he went further, pinning blame for the high civilian death toll in Gaza on “Hamas’ actions”, and calling on Congress to approve emergency assistance to the Netanyahu government.Polling since 7 October suggests the issue has yet to hurt Schiff or provide any boost to Lee, despite indications that it has alienated many non-white Democratic voters across the country and split the party along generational lines. More than 1 million Jews live in California, and that may help Schiff, who is himself Jewish, gain as much support as he has lost elsewhere.As the primary looms, Schiff is focusing much of his campaigning energy on partisan politics. In a flurry of tweets and television appearances over the past few weeks he has blasted the Republicans for blowing up the bipartisan deal on border security, denounced the GOP’s willingness to flirt with Russian intelligence operatives and ridiculed them for their impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas, the Homeland Security secretary.His message to voters after the final primary debate on Monday was not about the candidates he’d just sparred with, but about another, more prominent candidate for national office whom he has taken on again and again. “Trump has made me his public enemy No 1,” he declared flatly. “And I wear that as a badge of honor.” More

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      John Avlon targets New York Republicans in US House campaign: ‘They’re scared’

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      To John Avlon’s knowledge, “the National Republican Congressional Committee didn’t feel compelled to weigh in when any of the other candidates in the Democratic primary got in the race. But they did for me. And I think that’s because they’re scared.”The race is in New York’s first congressional district, a US House seat represented by a Republican, Nick LaLota, in an area that trended towards Joe Biden in 2020 and is thus one of many Democratic targets in the state this year. Avlon announced his run on Wednesday.“I think they thought they were going to have a relatively easy race, maybe facing the candidate who had been defeated before. But I think when they saw me getting in the race, they recognised that changes the calculus.”Avlon, 51, is no unknown quantity: he has written four books on politics and history, was for five years editor-in-chief of the Daily Beast and, until this month, was a contributor and anchor at CNN.The primary comes first. Nancy Goroff contested the seat on the eastern end of Long Island in 2020 and is in again. So is James Gaughran, a former state senator. There’s plenty of time for things to get testy but Gaughran welcomed Avlon to the race, telling Politico: “I’ve watched him a lot on CNN, and I’ve actually become a big fan. His advocacy – particularly pointing to the issues we have in this country of trying to save this country from Donald Trump, is spot on.”Avlon laughs. “That was very kind of Jimmy. And by the way … don’t we want to see more of that? Don’t we want to see more, ‘Let’s have a civil conversation, disagree where we disagree, find the areas where we agree, and be civil and constructive and not tear each other down in primaries, because it distracts the focus from the real work to be done, which is winning a general election.’”Republicans have not been quite so welcoming to Avlon. The NRCC said it looked forward “to litigating this smug, liberal hack’s past so voters can see just how left he and the rest of the modern Democrat [sic] party have become”.A LaLota spokesperson piled in, calling Avlon “a Manhattan elitist without any attachments to Long Island other than his summer home in the Hamptons” and claiming NY-1 “has a history of rejecting out-of-state and Manhattan elitists, from both sides of the aisle, who parachute into the district”.Avlon has homes in Sag Harbor and Manhattan. LaLota, a graduate of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, lives in Amityville – outside his district.Avlon says: “I don’t think it’s remotely credible to attack me as radical far left. That’s the kind of cut-and-paste political attack that people realise is just fundamentally false. And I think the reality is that Nick LaLota has been a Donald Trump flunky, doing whatever he says rather than solving problems on behalf of people in Suffolk county. You know, he’s far too far right for this swing district.”Twice, Avlon mentions as a model the centrist Tom Suozzi’s Democratic win this month in NY-3, the seat formerly held by the notorious George Santos, the sixth House member ever expelled. Twice, Avlon cites as motivation farcical scenes in Washington DC in which Senate Republicans sank their own border and immigration deal, Trump having made clear he wants to campaign for president against the backdrop of a “border crisis”, real or confected.House Republicans have since refused to consider a foreign aid package without attendant border reform.Avlon says: “When LaLota attacked Senator James Lankford [of Oklahoma, the Republican negotiator] for trying to solve the border crisis with a bipartisan solution, he just revealed himself as part of the problem, not part of the solution of our politics. I want to be part of the solution.”To some Democrats, “centrist” has become a dirty word. Not to Avlon. He has distanced himself from No Labels, the group he co-founded in 2010, left a decade ago and now accuses of a “reckless gamble with democracy” in its flirtation with a presidential campaign. But the political centre is still where he wants to be, “particularly in swing districts [like NY-01] as a matter of practicality but I think also on principle.“If the larger goal is to win elections, we still need to find a way to reunite America. That’s a lofty goal. I’m not saying that’s why I’m running. But once we break this fever, we need to find a way to come together again. I do believe in the power of unifying leaders in divided times and the best American politics is that which focuses on what unites us, not what divides us.”Avlon’s third book, from 2017, was Washington’s Farewell: The Founding Father’s Warning to Future Generations. The historian Richard Norton Smith called it “a stake through the heart of political extremism”, a subject Avlon knows well, also having written Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America (2010) and presented Reality Check with John Avlon: Extremist Beat for CNN.“There’s a fundamental importance in building broader community and building a big tent,” he says. “The Democratic party is the last big tent party. The Democratic party, unfortunately, is the only functioning political party in America, because the other party is set to re-nominate a guy who tried to destroy our democracy, and is using election lies as a litmus test for loyalty. I don’t think you can underscore that enough.“But in the larger sense, democracy depends upon reasoning together. That requires common facts and identifying common ground and focusing on how you solve common problems. And that’s about putting country over party.”Avlon’s own marriage is bipartisan. His wife, Margaret Hoover, is a TV host and political commentator whose great-grandfather, Herbert Hoover, was the unlucky president hit by the Great Depression.Avlon is “proud of her and her family and the work she does to defend and extend his legacy. When Margaret and I are on air together or doing something onstage together, I hope it serves as a reminder that people can disagree agreeably – again, that partisan politics shouldn’t define every aspect of our lives, especially our personal lives. We can have honest disagreements, as long as it’s accompanied by an assumption of goodwill.”Avlon also started out working for a Republican: Rudy Giuliani, when he was mayor of New York City, long before he became Trump’s attack dog. As speechwriter and policy director, Avlon was there on 11 September 2001, when the towers fell.“September 11 is one of the defining moments in my life,” he says. “And I don’t think that’s unusual. I think New Yorkers understand how it defined our collective character. And I think some folks have slipped into a certain 9/11 amnesia. And I’ve warned against the wisdom of that, in a lot of segments, on air and written.“I’ll always be proud of the work we did in those days. My team and I were responsible for writing the eulogies for 343 firefighters, for police officers and Port Authority workers. And I think that memory, and the example they set by running into the fire, and the way we were briefly able to unite as a nation, in the aftermath, those are all core parts of my character and my experience.“And I think folks in Suffolk county will understand that, because they’ve experienced it themselves or they’ve been touched by it themselves. You don’t have to be retired police officer or firefighter to understand the importance of that day and its aftermath to our communities. It’s just part of who I am.” More

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      Wisconsin’s extreme gerrymandering era ends as new maps come into force

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      For more than a decade, an anti-democratic reality has loomed over Wisconsin: elections for the state legislature don’t matter.Since 2012, no matter how voters throughout one of America’s most competitive states cast their ballots, Republicans have been guaranteed to hold control of the state legislature. That’s because for more than a decade Republicans drew districts lines that are so distorted in their favor, they cemented their control. The dominance was underscored in 2022 when Tony Evers, a Democrat, won re-election with 51.2% of the vote. Republicans still held 65% of the seats in the 99-person state assembly.As of 19 February, that era is over.In a 4-3 decision in December, the Wisconsin supreme court struck down the state legislative maps, ruling that the many non-contiguous districts in the plan violated a state constitutional requirement for contiguity. It invited the legislature, governor and various other parties to submit proposals for a new map and warned it would draw its own if lawmakers and the governor could not agree on a plan.Last week, after a lot of wrangling, the Republican-led legislature passed new maps that were drawn by Evers. The new plan dramatically reshapes politics in Wisconsin, giving Democrats a chance to win control of the assembly this year. They could also possibly win control of the state senate in 2026, giving them complete control of state government. (State senate districts in Wisconsin are composed of three assembly districts).“In its simplest form it means we don’t know which party is gonna control the state assembly after the November election. That hasn’t been true for over a decade,” said John Johnson, a research fellow at Marquette law school in Milwaukee, who has closely studied the maps.The new assembly map undoes the severe gerrymandering of the last decade in a few ways. Republicans had cracked concentrations of Democratic votes in places such as Sheboygan into multiple districts, diluting their vote. The new map undoes that cracking, keeping all of Sheboygan in one district.Republicans took a similar approach in Green Bay. They attached Democratic-leaning areas on the outskirts of the city to more conservative areas, creating two solidly Republican districts. The new lines create two highly competitive districts there.The new map also dramatically reconfigures the south-central portion of the state, adding five additional safe Democratic districts. “It’s just to me a pretty remarkable change,” Johnson said.Democrats were skeptical when Republicans chose to enact the maps drawn by Evers at the last minute, with some wondering why lawmakers who had used every maneuever possible to stay in power would suddenly agree to adopt Democratic maps. But in choosing Evers’ maps, Republicans may have chosen the best of the available options for them. It pairs fewer incumbents in districts than did other proposals, Johnson noted. And unlike some of the other plans, it allows Republicans to keep a majority in the state senate this year, giving them the ability to hold on to control of a chamber until the end of Evers’ second term in 2026.The map is also still biased towards Republicans. In a hypothetical, perfectly tied election in the state assembly, Republicans would still be expected to gain 6% extra seats, according to Planscore, a website that uses mathematical metrics to evaluate electoral maps. Under the previous plan, Republicans would have received a 15% extra seat boost in a hypothetically tied election.And while the map puts control of the assembly up for grabs, it doesn’t create more individually competitive districts, Johnson noted.“It raises the Democratic floor, and lowers the Republican ceiling, but it’s not a map that was drawn to maximize the number of closely contested seats around the state,” Johnson said. “Now those competitive districts are far more consequential than they were under the old maps.“You can tell this is a map drawn by Democrats,” he added. More

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      New Orleans magician says he made AI Biden robocall for aide to challenger

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      A magician in New Orleans says he was the person who used artificial intelligence to create an audio recording of Joe Biden used in an infamous robocall and that he was paid by a consultant for the president’s primary challenger, Dean Phillips.NBC News reported Paul David Carpenter, who holds multiple world records and also works as a hypnotist, provided it with text messages, call logs and payment documentation to back up his claims.Carpenter claimed he was hired by Steve Kramer, a consultant for Phillips’s campaign, to use AI to mimic Biden’s voice discouraging people from voting in New Hampshire’s 23 January primary.“I created the audio used in the robocall [but] I did not distribute it,” Carpenter reportedly told NBC. “I was in a situation where someone offered me some money to do something and I did it.“There was no malicious intent. I didn’t know how it was going to be distributed.”The audio recording is currently under investigation by law enforcement officials, and prompted the US government to outlaw robocalls using AI-generated voices.Carpenter told NBC it was “so scary” how easy it was for him to produce the fake audio, saying it took less than 20 minutes and cost him $1. In return, he was paid $150, as documented in Venmo payments from Kramer and his father, Bruce Kramer, that Carpenter reportedly supplied to NBC.He also shared what he described as the original robocall audio file, which he manufactured with software from ElevenLabs, an AI firm that touts its ability to create a voice clone from existing speech samples.NBC said Kramer, a veteran political operative, did not comment on Carpenter’s version of events and would soon publish an opinion piece that would “explain all”.In a statement, Phillips’ campaign said it was “disgusted to learn that Mr Kramer is allegedly behind this call”.“If it is true that Mr Kramer had any involvement in the creation of deepfake robocalls, he did so of his own volition, which had nothing to do with our campaign,” said the campaign’s press secretary, Katie Dolan.“The fundamental notion of our campaign is the importance of competition, choice and democracy,” she added. “If the allegations are true, we absolutely denounce his actions.”Federal Election Commission records show that in December and January, the Phillips campaign paid nearly $260,000 to Kramer, who once worked on the 2020 presidential campaign for Ye, formerly known as Kanye West.NBC said it found no evidence to suggest the Minnesota congressman’s campaign had instructed Kramer to produce the audio or disseminate the robocall.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionCarpenter describes himself as a “digital nomad artist”, and perhaps his biggest previous claim to fame was setting the world records for fastest straitjacket escape and most fork bends in under a minute.“The only thing missing from the political circus is a magician, and here I am,” Carpenter joked.Carpenter has no fixed address but lists himself as a resident of New Orleans. Videos and images online show him in the streets of the city’s famed French Quarter neighborhood.New Hampshire authorities by 6 February issued cease-and-desist orders and subpoenas to two Texas companies believed to be linked to the robocall – Life Corporation, which investigators alleged was the robocall’s source, and Lingo Telecom, which they said transmitted it.After news of the robocall became known, the Federal Communications Commission ruled unanimously to either fine companies using AI voices in their calls or block any service providers that carry them.Phillips’ campaign has done little to affect Biden’s status as the presumptive Democratic nominee for November’s presidential election. On Thursday, the congressman floated the idea of running for the White House on a “unity ticket” with Nikki Haley, who was on track to lose the Republican primary to Biden’s presidential predecessor Donald Trump.Edward Helmore contributed reporting More

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      Progressives lambast Biden over potential move to restrict asylum

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      Progressive lawmakers and advocates on Thursday pushed back strongly against Joe Biden amid reports that the White House is weighing unilateral action to sharply restrict access to claim asylum at the US-Mexico border – comparing the move to the hardline strategies of Donald Trump when he was president.The leading progressive congressional representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Pramila Jayapal criticized the US president for considering such executive action, while legislative efforts are stalled on Capitol Hill amid Republican resistance, after CNN first reported that Biden was considering the unilateral move.“Doing Trump impressions isn’t how we beat Trump,” Ocasio-Cortez said of Biden’s potential action, in a post to X, formerly known as Twitter.The White House is reportedly considering actions aside from congressional legislation to restrict migrants’ access to the right to ask for asylum in the US if they cross the border from Mexico between official ports of entry, usually without the right papers or an appointment with US authorities.“Seeking asylum is a legal right of all people. In the face of authoritarian threat, we should not buckle on our principles – we should commit to them. The mere suggestion is outrageous and the President should refuse to sign it,” Ocasio-Cortez, who represents a New York district, added.Jayapal, who is chair of Congressional Progressive Caucus and represents a district in Washington state, said that Biden would be making a “mistake” if he took such unilateral action to restrict asylum seekers.“This would be an extremely disappointing mistake,” Jayapal said on X of Biden’s potential executive action.“Democrats cannot continue to take pages out of Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s playbook – we need to lead with dignity and humanity,” she added.A representative of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) told CBS News that Biden’s potential executive action could probably face legal challenges from the ACLU and other immigration rights groups.“An executive order denying asylum based on where one enters the country would just be another attempt at the exact policy Trump unsuccessfully tried and will undoubtedly end up in litigation,” ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt told CBS.Amid more partisan takes, the South Carolina representative Jim Clyburn told CNN that he had concerns about Republicans “politicizing” the issue of immigration.Clyburn did not comment on Biden’s potential executive action during an interview with CNN on Thursday morning. But Clyburn said that House Republicans had caused a bipartisan immigration bill to fail earlier this month.“Why did they need this immigration issue as a political issue, rather than trying to solve the problem?” he added.Several officials familiar with the White House discussions said to CNN and the Associated Press that no final decisions had been made.In comments to CNN, a White House spokesperson did not address the potential executive action, but said that the White House was calling on Republicans to pass legislation that would address issues at the border.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“No executive action, no matter how aggressive, can deliver the significant policy reforms and additional resources Congress can provide and that Republicans rejected. We continue to call on Speaker Johnson and House Republicans to pass the bipartisan deal to secure the border,” White House spokesperson Angelo Fernández said in a statement.The latest news comes as the Biden administration failed to pass the negotiated border bill , after Senate Republicans rejected the legislation.Republicans complained that the bill did not go far enough to address undocumented migration at the border, which many want effectively shut down.The Biden administration has received criticism from both political parties and negative feedback from voters responding to opinion polls on its handling of immigration issues, especially at the southern border.Meanwhile, progressives have criticized the Biden administration for not fulfilling campaign promises from the 2020 presidential election to implement a more humane and streamlined immigration system.Many municipal leaders, including Democrats, have also demanded help from the Biden administration to address an increase of arriving migrants as US cities struggle to accommodate them.Immigration remains a central issue ahead of the 2024 presidential election, in which Biden and Trump are expected to be the nominees for their political parties.A poll from earlier this month by Associated Press-NORC found that Republican and Democratic voters are increasingly concerned about immigration, the Associated Press reported. More

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      Biden calls ‘disregard’ for reproductive rights in conservative push ‘outrageous’ – as it happened

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      Joe Biden has issued a statement sharply criticizing the Alabama state supreme court’s decision declaring embryos kept for IVF as “children”, and saying that this and other restrictions from the right on reproductive choice are “a direct result of the overturning of Roe v Wade”.In a first-of-its-kind decision, the Alabama supreme court ruled last Friday that frozen embryos are “children”, allowing two wrongful death suits against a Mobile fertility clinic to proceed. The decision has sweeping implications for people seeking in vitro fertilization (IVF) or other assisted reproductive technology treatments and could increase criminalization of expectant people, my colleague Adria Walker reported earlier this week.The US president issued a statement from the White House on Thursday afternoon saying: “A court in Alabama put access to some fertility treatments at risk for families who are desperately trying to get pregnant. The disregard for women’s ability to make these decisions for themselves and their families is outrageous and unacceptable.”Biden added: “Make no mistake: this is a direct result of the overturning of Roe v Wade.” The supreme court, as stacked to the right during Donald Trump’s presidency, in 2022 tossed out the national right to an abortion in the US, almost 50 years after the landmark federal right was granted by a previous court bench.There’s more, see next post.Democrats channeled their outrage over an Alabama supreme court ruling that has curbed IVF care in the state, with Joe Biden’s re-election campaign saying Donald Trump is to blame. Republican strategists are reportedly nervous about the decision targeting the procedure many people rely on to start families, and warn it could blow back on the party ahead of the November elections. Biden has meanwhile found himself in hot water with progressives after reports emerged that he is considering implementing policies to stop migrants from crossing the border with Mexico. The president spent the day in San Francisco, where he met with the wife and daughter of Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, and pledged new sanctions against Russian president Vladimir Putin.Here’s what else happened:
      A second Alabama IVF provider paused their treatments after the state supreme court ruling.
      Washington also plans to sanction Iran for selling weapons to Russia, which it has used in its invasion of Ukraine.
      Brian Kemp, Georgia’s Republican governor, said he has no problem with IVF.
      Byron Donalds, a rightwing Florida congressman, threatened to shut down the government if tougher immigration laws weren’t passed.
      Moscow received a warning from the US government amid reports that it is planning to launch a nuclear-armed anti-satellite weapon.
      Joe Biden spoke briefly to reporters in San Francisco about his meeting with Alexei Navalny’s family, and said the sanctions he will announce tomorrow will target Vladimir Putin.Biden noted that he blamed the Russian leader for Navalny’s death. Here’s more:Vladimir Putin was none too pleased with comments Joe Biden made about him while in San Francisco, the Guardian’s Pjotr Sauer reports:Vladimir Putin has described as “rude” Joe Biden’s comments in which the American president called the Russian leader a “crazy SOB”.Biden was talking about the climate crisis on Wednesday when he said: “We have a crazy SOB like Putin and others, and we always have to worry about nuclear conflict, but the existential threat to humanity is climate.”On Thursday, after a flight onboard a strategic bomber that is capable of carrying nuclear warheads, Putin responded “yes, rude” to a reporter who said Biden had made a rude remark about him.Referring to earlier remarks in which the Russian leader said Biden was a preferable president for Russia than Donald Trump, Putin joked: “It’s not like he can say to me, ‘Volodya, thank you, well done, you’ve helped me a lot’.”He added with a smile: “You asked me which is better for us. I said it then that, and I still think I can repeat it: Biden.”The Kremlin earlier in the day said Biden’s comments were a “disgrace” for the US.“The use of such language against the head of another state by the president of the United States is unlikely to infringe on our president, President Putin,” the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said. “But it debases those who use such vocabulary.” The remarks were “probably some kind of attempt to look like a Hollywood cowboy”, Peskov added.The Daily Mail reports that protesters demanding Joe Biden support a ceasefire in Israel’s invasion of Gaza have entered the hotel where the president is in San Francisco:Biden has repeatedly had his speeches and events interrupted by protesters upset over his administration’s policies towards Israel in the wake of Hamas’s 7 October attack:Joe Biden has released photos of his meeting with Alexei Navalny’s wife and daughter in San Francisco:Joe Biden offered his condolences to the wife and daughter of Russian opposition figure Aleksey Navalny in a meeting today, and pledged stricter sanctions on Vladimir Putin’s government in Moscow, the White House announced:
      President Biden met with Yulia and Dasha Navalnaya today in San Francisco to express his heartfelt condolences for their terrible loss following the death of Aleksey Navalny in a Russian prison. The President expressed his admiration for Aleksey Navalny’s extraordinary courage and his legacy of fighting against corruption and for a free and democratic Russia in which the rule of law applies equally to everyone. The President emphasized that Aleksey’s legacy will carry on through people across Russia and around the world mourning his loss and fighting for freedom, democracy, and human rights. He affirmed that his Administration will announce major new sanctions against Russia tomorrow in response to Aleksey’s death, Russia’s repression and aggression, and its brutal and illegal war in Ukraine.
      The White House is promising to unveil new sanctions on Iran in the coming days in retaliation for its arms sales that have bolstered Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and threatening a “swift” and “severe” response if Tehran moves forward with selling ballistic missiles to Moscow, the Associated Press reports.National security council spokesman John Kirby said Thursday that the US will be “imposing additional sanctions on Iran in the coming days” for its efforts to supply Russia with drones and other technology for the war against Ukraine.And he issued a new warning to Iran that providing ballistic missiles to Russia for use against Kyiv would be met with even more sanctions and actions at the United Nations.The US has been warning for months of Russia’s efforts to acquire ballistic missiles from Iran in return for providing Tehran with enhanced military cooperation.
      We have not seen any confirmation that missiles have actually moved from Iran to Russia … [but] we have no reason to believe that they will not follow through.”
      He said that if Iran moves forward:
      I can assure you that the response from the international community will be swift and it will be severe.”

      He said the US would take the matter to the UN security council, where Russia has a veto.We will implement additional sanctions against Iran and we will coordinate further response options with our allies and partners in Europe and elsewhere. We have demonstrated our ability to take action in response to the military partnership between Russia and Iran in the past. We will do so in the future. In response to Iran’s ongoing support for Russia’s brutal war. We will be imposing additional sanctions on Iran in the coming days. And we are prepared to go further if Iran sells ballistic missiles to Russia.”
      The US is set to announce a new set of sanctions Friday against Russia.The United States has directly warned Russia against launching a new nuclear armed anti-satellite weapon, a US official said on Thursday, speaking on condition of anonymity, Reuters reported.The US official’s comments came two days after a source familiar with the matter told Reuters that the United States believes Russia is developing such a weapon.The detonation of a weapon of this kind, the source said, could disrupt everything from military communications to phone-based ride services.The US official said that Washington had cautioned Russia against launching such a weapon.The Wall Street Journal first reported the warning, saying that the United States told Russia that such a weapon would violate the Outer Space Treaty and jeopardize U.S. national security interests.Earlier, the Biden-Harris re-election campaign issued a statement slamming the Alabama court decision over frozen embryos for IVF. Now there’s more from Joe Biden as he weighs in directly from the White House.Here is the full statement from the US president moments ago:
      Today, in 2024 in America, women are being turned away from emergency rooms and forced to travel hundreds of miles for health care, while doctors fear prosecution for providing an abortion. And now, a court in Alabama put access to some fertility treatments at risk for families who are desperately trying to get pregnant. The disregard for women’s ability to make these decisions for themselves and their families is outrageous and unacceptable.Make no mistake: this is a direct result of the overturning of Roe v Wade.I know that folks are worried about what they’re seeing happening to women all across America. I am too. I hear about it everywhere I go. My message is: The Vice President and I are fighting for your rights. We’re fighting for the freedom of women, for families, and for doctors who care for these women. And we won’t stop until we restore the protections of Roe v. Wade in federal law for all women in every state.”
      Vice-president Kamala Harris is campaigning heavily for reproductive rights and against Republicans’ determined crusade against those right. Harris is visiting Grand Rapids, Michigan, today, where the White House said she will continue her nationwide “Fight for Reproductive Freedoms” tour by convening a roundtable conversation with medical providers, patients, reproductive rights advocates, and state and local leaders. Expect remarks later.Joe Biden has issued a statement sharply criticizing the Alabama state supreme court’s decision declaring embryos kept for IVF as “children”, and saying that this and other restrictions from the right on reproductive choice are “a direct result of the overturning of Roe v Wade”.In a first-of-its-kind decision, the Alabama supreme court ruled last Friday that frozen embryos are “children”, allowing two wrongful death suits against a Mobile fertility clinic to proceed. The decision has sweeping implications for people seeking in vitro fertilization (IVF) or other assisted reproductive technology treatments and could increase criminalization of expectant people, my colleague Adria Walker reported earlier this week.The US president issued a statement from the White House on Thursday afternoon saying: “A court in Alabama put access to some fertility treatments at risk for families who are desperately trying to get pregnant. The disregard for women’s ability to make these decisions for themselves and their families is outrageous and unacceptable.”Biden added: “Make no mistake: this is a direct result of the overturning of Roe v Wade.” The supreme court, as stacked to the right during Donald Trump’s presidency, in 2022 tossed out the national right to an abortion in the US, almost 50 years after the landmark federal right was granted by a previous court bench.There’s more, see next post.Democrats are channeling their outrage over an Alabama supreme court ruling that has curbed IVF care in the state, with Joe Biden’s re-election campaign saying Donald Trump is to blame. Indeed, Republican strategists are nervous about the decision against the procedure many people have used to start families, and warn it could blow back on the party ahead of the November elections. Biden has meanwhile found himself in hot water with progressives after reports emerged that he is considering implementing policies to stop migrants from crossing the border with Mexico. Republican House speaker Mike Johnson, who has repeatedly demanded tougher immigration policies, called Biden’s proposals “election year gimmicks”.Here’s what else is going on:
      A second Alabama IVF provider paused their treatments after the state supreme court ruling.
      Brian Kemp, Georgia’s Republican governor, said he has no problem with IVF.
      Byron Donalds, a rightwing Florida congressman, threatened to shut down the government if tougher immigration laws weren’t passed.
      Republican House speaker Mike Johnson is none too impressed by reports that Joe Biden is considering using his powers under existing law to curb migrants crossing into the United States from Mexico.In a statement, Johnson demanded Biden take tougher actions, such as forcing asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while their claims are processed. He also said the reports that the president is wiling to act unilaterally prove that there’s no need for Congress to pass new laws to curb undocumented migrants:
      Americans have lost faith in this President and won’t be fooled by election year gimmicks that don’t actually secure the border. Nor will they forget that the President created this catastrophe and, until now, has refused to use his executive power to fix it.
      These reports also underscore just how brazenly and intentionally President Biden misled the public when he claimed he had done everything in his power to secure the border. Specifically, the President’s alleged desire to invoke Section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which the White House dismissed using for months, is particularly telling.
      If these reports are true and the President intends to take action, he can show he’s serious by changing more than asylum policy. He should begin by reinstituting the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy and ending his administration’s abuse of the parole system, along with other critical reforms.
      Earlier this month, Johnson and his fellow House Republicans torpedoed a bipartisan Senate deal that would have authorized another round of military assistance to Ukraine as well as Israel, while also imposing hardline immigration policies. Among Johnson’s objections were his belief that Biden didn’t need any new legislation to stop people from entering from Mexico – but Donald Trump also encouraged him to reject the deal, reportedly so he can use frustration with migrants in his campaign.Republican strategists are growing worried the Alabama supreme court’s decision that greatly complicates access to IVF care in the state could harm the party’s candidates nationwide, Politico reports.“It certainly intersects, badly, with general election politics for Republicans,” said Stan Barnes, a former Republican state senator from Arizona who is now a political consultant.“When a state, any state, takes an aggressive action on this particular topic, people are once again made aware of it and many think: ‘Maybe I can’t support a Republican in the general election.’”Former Donald Trump White House official Kellyanne Conway in December shared polling with congressional Republicans that found IVF care to be widely popular, including with evangelicals, a group that is traditionally anti-abortion.“Candidates for Congress – and certainly those already serving there – can bank significant political currency by advocating for increased access to and availability of contraception and fertility treatments,” Conway’s team told lawmakers.According to Politico, “The survey found that 86 percent of all respondents supported access to IVF, with 78 percent support among self-identified ‘pro-life advocates’ and 83 percent among Evangelical Christians.”While he refrained from commenting on the Alabama ruling, Georgia’s Republican governor, Brian Kemp, said he supported IVF, noting many people “wouldn’t have children if it weren’t for that”.From an interview with Politico:Besides Joe Biden, other Democrats are piling on Alabama’s supreme court for its decision that curbed IVF care by finding embryos are “extrauterine children”.Here’s Illinois senator Tammy Duckworth:And her colleague from Virginia, Tim Kaine:Democrats have campaigned on restoring nationwide abortion access ever since Roe v Wade was overturned two years ago, and voters appear receptive. The party has performed well in special elections and in state legislative races, and limited its losses in Congress in the 2022 midterm elections. More

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      Russia-linked Biden accuser charged with lying? Who cares, Republicans say

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      Congress should publicly investigate the case of Alexander Smirnov, the FBI informant charged with lying about corruption involving Joe Biden and linked to Russian intelligence, a leading lawyer said, adding that senior Republicans who pushed Smirnov’s claims should be forced to testify.“The Senate should open an immediate investigation into the Alexander Smirnov scandal – with public hearings,“ said Tristan Snell, formerly a prosecutor on the Trump University fraud case, now author of Taking Down Trump, a book on the former president’s many legal challenges.“Bring Smirnov in to testify,” Snell added. “And then bring Jim Jordan, James Comer and Elise Stefanik in right behind him. This is a national security breach of the highest order.”Stefanik, from New York, is the Republican House conference chair and a prominent supporter of Donald Trump, the probable presidential nominee whose desire for revenge for his own impeachments is widely held to motivate Republican attempts to impeach Joe Biden in return.Jordan, from Ohio, is the House judiciary chair. On Wednesday, his committee and the oversight panel, chaired by Comer of Kentucky, interviewed James Biden about his business affairs and links to his older brother, the president. Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, is due to be interviewed next week.The bombshell news of Smirnov’s ties to Russian intelligence exploded the night before, in filings related to his arrest in Nevada. After James Biden’s interview, Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the oversight committee, told Republicans it was time to bring to an end the “circus” of attempts to impeach the president.Republicans were not listening. Charges against Smirnov and news of his links with Russian intelligence did not “change the fundamental facts” of the case, Jordan told reporters, rehashing claims about Hunter Biden’s work for a Ukrainian energy company and the supposed involvement of his father.One reporter, Manu Raju of CNN, pushed back, referring to an FBI document containing claims Smirnov is now charged with making up, possibly in connection with Russian intelligence, a document senior Republicans used eagerly as they pushed their claims.“You said the 1023 is the most corroborating piece of information you have,” Raju said to Jordan. “But it’s not true!”Comer, the leader of the impeachment effort, also showed little sign of concern with the truth. Reaching for Trump-like language, he told the rightwing Newsmax network Democrats were “going to play the Russia card again”, a reference to investigations of Russian election interference and links between Trump and Moscow which dogged Trump’s term in office.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“That’s what Dan Goldman’s done, that’s what Jamie Raskin’s done,” Comer said, referring to prominent Democratic voices calling for impeachment efforts to end.Goldman, from New York, told CNN: “Wittingly or unwittingly, House Republicans have been acting as an agent or an asset of Russian intelligence.”Raskin said Republicans “just say, ‘Russia hoax Russia hoax.’ What part of it is the hoax? Is it the war in Ukraine? Is it the death of [Alexander] Navalny? What is hoax-like about it?“The hoax is that there’s a Russian hoax. There’s not a Russian hoax. There has been a series of efforts by Vladimir Putin to destabilize and undermine American political democracy.” More

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      James Biden reportedly says his brother was never involved in his business ventures – as it hapened

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      In his opening statement to the House lawmakers leading the impeachment charge against Joe Biden, his brother James Biden said the president has never been involved in his business dealings, the Washington Post reports.The testimony rebuts Republican claims that Joe Biden has used his official positions to assist his relatives and profit corruptly from their business dealings.“I have had a 50-year career in a variety of business ventures,” James Biden told the House oversight committee at his behind-closed-doors deposition today. “Joe Biden has never had any involvement or any direct or indirect financial interest in those activities. None.”Here’s more, from the Washington Post:House Republicans’ long-running effort to impeach Joe Biden was rocked by news of the arrest of a former FBI informant whose claims about Hunter Biden’s business with a Ukrainian gas firm were a key part of the GOP’s case against the president. Alexander Smirnov is accused of lying to the government, and yesterday, prosecutors revealed that he said he received information from Russian intelligence. Republican investigators are pressing on, and today interviewed the president’s brother James Biden, who denied that Joe Biden had ever been involved in his business. Jamie Raskin, a top House Democrat, called on Republicans to end the impeachment amid the Smirnov affair.Here’s a rundown of what happened:
      The US supreme court released two opinions, neither of which dealt with the challenges to Donald Trump’s ballot eligibility, or whether he is immune from prosecution for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
      Nikki Haley said she supports an Alabama supreme court decision that could curb access to IVF care.
      David Weiss, the special counsel prosecuting Hunter Biden, reportedly asked a judge to detain Smirnov, a day after a different judge allowed him to be released as he awaited trial.
      John Avlon, a former CNN anchor and Daily Beast editor, is running as a Democrat for a congressional seat in New York.
      House Democrats called on the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, to bring the chamber back into session to vote on Ukraine aid.
      As for Joe Biden, he’s in Los Angeles, and just popped into the Mexican restaurant CJ’s Cafe along with the city’s Democratic mayor, Karen Bass.According to the reporters accompanying him on the jaunt, the president was taking a picture with a customer, and switched their phone to selfie mode. The person was surprised Biden knew how to do that, to which the president responded: “After the last guy, the bar’s on the floor.”The last guy, and potentially the next guy.Besides the House oversight and judiciary committees’ interview with James Biden, Congress hasn’t been up to much today.That’s because the House and Senate are both out of session. But a group of House Democrats, including Ohio’s Marcy Kaptur, want the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, to call lawmakers back into session to vote on legislation that will send military aid to Ukraine:Lawmakers departed the Capitol last week after failing to agree on new aid for Kyiv as well as Israel and Taiwan, despite weeks of negotiating over a proposal that would have paired that aid with hardline immigration policies.It’s unclear whether, and how, the aid package will now be approved. The Senate returns next Monday, and the House on Wednesday.Here’s video from NBC News’s interview with Nikki Haley, in which the former South Carolina governor says she supports the Alabama supreme court ruling that could complicate access to IVF care:Notice it’s being shared on X by Joe Biden’s re-election campaign. Ever since the US supreme court’s conservative majority overturned Roe v Wade in 2022, the president has promised to protect abortion access, and now seems set to make the same vow for IVF.The Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley announced her support for an Alabama supreme court ruling that could complicate access to in vitro fertilization procedures, telling NBC News in an interview: “Embryos, to me, are babies.“When you talk about an embryo, you are talking about, to me, that’s a life. And so I do see where that’s coming from when they talk about that,” said the former South Carolina governor, who is the last major challenger to Donald Trump for the GOP’s presidential nomination.The Alabama supreme court last week ruled that frozen embryos are “children” and allowed two wrongful death suits to proceed against a fertility clinic where several embryos were destroyed in 2021, a decision that could complicate access to IVF treatment more widely.Here’s more from NBC on what Haley’s comments mean:
      Classifying embryos as children under state law raises significant questions about whether the practice, used by families having trouble conceiving, could continue in states like Alabama. Unused embryos are often destroyed, which could open families or clinics up to wrongful death lawsuits under this policy. Storing frozen embryos, meanwhile, is expensive.
      Asked if legislation and rulings like the one in Alabama could have a chilling effect on families using IVF to become parents, Haley said, “This is one where we need to be incredibly respectful and sensitive about it.”
      “I know that when my doctor came in, we knew what was possible and what wasn’t,” Haley continued, adding: “Every woman needs to know, with her partner, what she’s looking at. And then when you look at that, then you make the decision that’s best for your family.”
      Haley has sought to find a rhetorical middle ground on reproductive health policy as a 2024 presidential candidate. She has repeatedly calling for national “consensus” on abortion in debates instead of the bans and restrictions favored by some of her primary opponents.
      After the state supreme court’s decision, Alabama’s largest healthcare provider paused IVF treatments:The governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, has announced that he is proposing the elimination of medical debt across the state.In a statement on Wednesday, Pritzker, a Democrat, said that he proposes that the state eliminate $4m of medical debt for more than 1 million Illinoisans over the next four years.He also said that he intends to “break down bureaucratic barriers in state government” by increasing coordination across agencies to improve reproductive healthcare services.Pritzker added that the Illinois department of human services will invest $1m in a pilot program to ensure new moms and babies have clean diapers, as well as an additional $5m into home visiting for the state’s most vulnerable families.Donald Trump has compared the $350m fine he received in his New York financial fraud case to “a form of Navalny”.Speaking at a Fox News town hall on Tuesday night, Trump hit back at the New York judge Arthur Engoron’s ruling. He also compared his case to that of the Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny whose death last week at a Russian penal colony has been largely blamed on the Kremlin.The ex president said:
      “It is a form of Navalny. It is a form of communism or fascism. The guy [Arthur Engoron] is a nut job, I’ve known this for a long time and I’ve said it openly.”
      Also on Tuesday evening, the New York attorney general, Letitia James, said that she will seize Trump’s assets if he does not pay the fine.
      If he does not have funds to pay off the judgment, then we will seek judgment enforcement mechanisms in court, and we will ask the judge to seize his assets,” James said.
      In the political reproductive rights war, with its real life repercussions, another new and consequential twist.Less than a week after the unprecedented decision from the Alabama supreme court that frozen embryos are “children”, a key medical school in the state has paused in vitro fertilization procedures.The court decision has been widely seen as one that would have serious implications for people seeking in vitro fertilization (IVF) or other assisted reproductive technology treatments.On Wednesday, AL.com reported, a spokesperson, Hannah Echols, said on behalf of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, a research university and academic medical center that is also the largest healthcare provider in the state, that the institution is “saddened” for patients who hope to have babies through IVF.“We must evaluate the potential that our patients and our physicians could be prosecuted criminally or face punitive damages for following the standard of care for IVF treatments,” Echols wrote in the email, obtained by AL.com.In the decision released on Friday, two wrongful death suits were allowed to proceed against a Mobile fertility clinic, effectively ruling that fertilized eggs and embryos are “children”.The University of Alabama at Birmingham health system suspended in vitro fertilization procedures because of the risk of criminal prosecution and lawsuits, a spokeswoman told AL.com.House Republicans’ long-running effort to impeach Joe Biden has been rocked by news of the arrest of a former FBI informant whose claims about Hunter Biden’s business with a Ukrainian gas firm were a key part of the GOP’s case against the president. Alexander Smirnov is accused of lying to the government, and yesterday, prosecutors revealed that he said he received information from Russian intelligence. Republican investigators are pressing on, and today interviewed the president’s brother James Biden, who denied that Joe Biden had ever been involved in his business. Jamie Raskin, a top House Democrat, called on Republicans to end the impeachment amid the Smirnov affair.Here’s what else happened today:
      The US supreme court released two opinions, neither of which dealt with the challenges to Donald Trump’s ballot eligibility, or whether he is immune from prosecution for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election.
      David Weiss, the special counsel prosecuting Hunter Biden, reportedly asked a judge to detain Smirnov, a day after a different judge allowed him to be released as he awaited trial.
      John Avlon, a former CNN anchor and Daily Beast editor, is running as a Democrat for a congressional seat in New York.
      Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, which is leading the push to impeach Joe Biden, called on Republicans to drop their investigation after prosecutors accused a former FBI informant of lying about Hunter Biden’s ties to a Ukrainian energy company.“I’m restating to chairman Comer, to speaker Johnson, to fold up the tent to this circus show. It’s really over at this point,” Raskin said, referring to the oversight committee chair, James Comer, and the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, both Republicans:Raskin’s demand came after Alexander Smirnov was arrested last week and accused of lying to the government about the president’s son’s work with Ukrainian firm Burisma, which has formed the basis for the GOP’s unproven allegations that Joe Biden is corrupt. Yesterday, prosecutors revealed that Smirnov told investigators that Russian intelligence had passed him “a story” about Hunter Biden, but it’s unclear what that was.Republicans have fixated on financial records showing Joe Biden received money from his relatives, including a payment of $200,000 from his brother James Biden.In his behind-closed-doors testimony today, James Biden said he would occasionally borrow money from his brother when necessary to pay the bills, and then repay him, the Washington Post reports.Here’s more: More