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      Family members join condemnation of Robert Kennedy Jr’s Covid remarks

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      Family members of Democratic presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy Jr joined the White House on Monday in condemning his “deplorable” claim that Covid-19 was engineered to target some ethnic groups and spare others.The former attorney and nephew of John F Kennedy made the extraordinary assertion during a recent dinner in New York city, saying the virus was “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people”.His remarks, also alleging development by China of viruses as a bioweapon, were captured on video, and published by the New York Post on Saturday, drawing accusations of racism and antisemitism.“There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. Covid-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” he said. “The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese”.At the media briefing Monday afternoon, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre denounced the remarks.“The claims made on that tape is false. It is vile,” she said. “They put our fellow Americans in danger if you think about the racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories that come out of saying those types of things. It’s an attack on our fellow citizens, our fellow Americans. So it’s important that we speak out.”Kennedy’s relatives took to social media on Monday to join in the condemnation.“I STRONGLY condemn my brother’s deplorable and untruthful remarks last week about Covid being engineered for ethnic targeting,” his sister Kerry Kennedy, chair of the Robert F Kennedy human rights advocacy group named for their father, wrote.“His statements do not represent what I believe or what Robert F Kennedy Human Rights stands for, with our 50+ year track record of protecting rights and standing against racism and all forms of discrimination.”Her rebuke was echoed by Democratic former Massachusetts congressman Joe Kennedy III, nephew of the businessman who is challenging Joe Biden for next year’s Democratic presidential nomination.“My uncle’s comments were hurtful and wrong. I unequivocally condemn what he said,” the younger Kennedy, US special envoy to Northern Ireland, wrote in a tweet.Close Kennedy family members weighing in reflects the growing outrage at Kennedy’s words, which he tried to disavow on Monday in a statement sent to the Guardian by his campaign staff.“The New York Post story is mistaken. I have never, ever suggested that the Covid-19 virus was engineered to ‘spare Jews,’ and I unequivocally reject this disgusting and outlandish conspiracy theory,” he said.“New York Post reporter Jon Levine exploited this off-the-record conversation to smear me as an antisemite. This cynical maneuver is consistent with the mainstream media playbook to discredit me as a crank – and by association, to discredit revelations of genuine corruption and collusion.”Separate messages sent to the Guardian purportedly from Kennedy’s personal email address cite Wikipedia links to press articles about the plausibility of ethnically-targeted bioweapons.“The study is solid, and not at all controversial,” one of the messages says of a research paper by the British Medical Association, reported by the Guardian in 2004, that “rogue scientists” could develop bioweapons designed to target certain ethnic groups based on their genetic differences.Kennedy, a conspiracy theorist and vaccine skeptic who in June announced, then later retracted, a claim that he had “conversations with dead people” every day, also came under fire on Monday from House Democrats.“These are deeply troubling comments and I want to make clear that they do not represent the views of the Democratic party,” Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said in a tweet.Meanwhile Kyle Herrig, executive director of the congressional integrity project, wrote to Ohio Republican Jim Jordan, chair of the House subcommittee on the weaponization of federal government, asking him to disinvite Kennedy from a hearing scheduled for Thursday. More

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      Progressive US congresswoman apologises for calling Israel ‘racist state’

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      The chair of the US Congressional Progressive Caucus apologised for calling Israel a “racist state”.“I offer my apologies to those who I have hurt with my words,” Pramila Jayapal of Washington state said in a statement on Sunday.The day before, at Netroots Nation, a progressive event in Chicago, Jayapal addressed a group of pro-Palestinian protesters.She said: “As somebody that’s been in the streets and has participated in a lot of demonstrations, I think I want you to know that we have been fighting to make it clear that Israel is a racist state.”Jayapal also said “the Palestinian people deserve self-determination and autonomy” and that “the dream of a two-state solution is slipping away from us”.Republican and pro-Israel groups seized on the comments. Ahead of a week in which the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, will address Congress, Democratic House leaders also rebuked Jayapal.“Israel is not a racist state,” a statement from the leaders said, noting the “uniquely special relationship” between the US and Israel.Democratic leaders also said they “strongly support[ed] Israel’s right to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people” while remaining “firmly committed to a robust two-state solution where Israel and the Palestinian people can live side-by-side in peace and prosperity”.In her own statement, Jayapal prefaced her apology by saying she had been attempting “to defuse a tense situation … where fellow members of Congress were being protested”.“Words do matter and so it is important that I clarify my statement,” she said. “I do not believe the idea of Israel as a nation is racist.“I do, however, believe that [Benjamin] Netanyahu’s extreme rightwing government [in Israel] has engaged in discriminatory and outright racist policies and that there are extreme racists driving that policy within the leadership of the current government.”Far-right members of the Israeli government include Bezalel Smotrich, who has described himself as a “fascist homophobe” and is now finance minister, and Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of the Jewish Power party and minister for national security.Earlier this month, the UN condemned Israel for using excessive force in military raids on Jenin, in the West Bank.Jayapal said: “I believe it is incumbent on all of us who are striving to make our world a more just and equitable place to call out and condemn these policies and this current Netanyahu government’s role in furthering them.”Punchbowl News obtained a draft statement from a group of House Democrats who voiced “deep concern” about Jayapal’s Chicago remarks but said they appreciated her retraction.Jayapal retweeted thanks for her retraction from J Street, a pro-Israel Democratic group.It said: “Netanyahu’s far-right coalition is deepening the occupation and doing untold harm to Israel’s democracy. To truly support a secure, just, peaceful future for Israelis and Palestinians, the US needs to push back against discriminatory and destructive policies.” More

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      Progressives denounce FBI attacks by right wing but push for agency reforms

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      Christopher Wray appeared stupefied. As the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation testified on Wednesday before the House judiciary committee, Republicans on the panel painted him as a liberal stooge abusing his power to punish Joe Biden’s political enemies.The accusations stunned Wray, a registered Republican who was appointed by Donald Trump and previously served in George W Bush’s administration.“The idea that I’m biased against conservatives seems somewhat insane to me, given my own personal background,” Wray told the committee.Some progressives share Wray’s disbelief. The two indictments of Donald Trump, as well as Hunter Biden’s plea deal with federal prosecutors and conspiracy theories about the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, have fueled Republicans’ accusations that the FBI and the justice department are unjustly targeting rightwing groups.Those allegations have somewhat complicated progressives’ longstanding criticism of the FBI over the bureau’s documented surveillance of liberal activists. Even as progressives denounce rightwing conspiracy theories about the FBI, they continue to push for an overhaul of the bureau’s surveillance and data collection methods.“If Republicans really care about FBI overreach of civil liberties, then they will get serious about the real reforms,” Representative Cori Bush, a Democrat from Missouri, said. “But that’s not really what they’re pushing right now. Instead, they’re still amplifying those conspiracy theories and trying to distract the public, to gaslight the country and distract us from Trump’s criminality.”Progressives’ skepticism of the FBI long predates Trump’s presidency. In 1956, the FBI launched its domestic counterintelligence program (Cointelpro) to infiltrate and discredit political organizations that the bureau considered suspicious. The program, which shuttered in 1971, resulted in the surveillance of many leaders in the anti-Vietnam war and civil rights movements, including Dr Martin Luther King Jr.Progressive activists’ concerns about FBI surveillance stretch into the present day. According to a 2022 memo declassified by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in May, the FBI violated its own guidelines in running so-called “batch queries” related to 133 people “arrested in connection with civil unrest and protests” after the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. The memo found that the FBI conducted similarly inappropriate inquiries of more than a dozen people suspected of participating in the January 6 Capitol attack.“The FBI for many decades – almost a century – has been sort of the chief secret police entity against the left and progressives,” said Vince Warren, executive director of the progressive Center for Constitutional Rights. “During that time, the right wing and Republicans have been the biggest cheerleaders of this illegal activity when aimed at communists, civil rights advocates, anti-war advocates, all the way up to [Black Lives Matter] protesters. That seemed to change in 2016, when they backed a lawless president who didn’t like that his illegal activities were being investigated.”Republicans’ sentiments toward the FBI have indeed shifted as Trump has come under increasing legal scrutiny, marking a notable sea change for a party that long claimed the mantle of law and order. When Trump was indicted on 37 federal charges last month for his alleged mishandling of classified documents, the former president’s congressional allies jumped to his defense, accusing the FBI and the justice department of exploiting its powers to target Republicans.Opening the hearing with Wray on Wednesday, Representative Jim Jordan, the Republican chair of the judiciary committee, bemoaned the “weaponization of the government against the American people” and “this double standard that exists now in our justice system”.Jordan repeatedly suggested that Republicans and Democrats could work together on reforming the FBI’s data collection methods, specifically in the form of overhauling the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa). That law, which is currently set to expire at the end of the year, has long been a source of outrage on the left. One particularly controversial provision of Fisa, section 702, allows the FBI to carry out warrantless surveillance of targeted foreigners overseas, and the personal data of many Americans – including Black Lives Matter protesters – have been swept up in the expansive searches made possible by the law.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhen Representative Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, questioned Wray on Wednesday, she focused her queries on the FBI’s data collection methods and warned that Fisa would face “a very difficult reauthorization process”.During a press call on Wednesday, Jayapal expressed dissatisfaction with “the vagueness of the director’s answers” and suggested Democrats and Republicans could indeed work together to ensure a significant overhaul of Fisa.“I think that this is actually a bipartisan area of concern,” Jayapal said. “We have an opportunity here to ensure that any [Fisa] reauthorization that we pass contains some significant reforms that protect the privacy and the personal information of people across the country.”On the possibility of bipartisan Fisa reform efforts, Bush said she was “open to working with anyone who cares about real people and bringing about real change”, although she remained skeptical of Republicans’ commitment to the cause.“If that’s what they actually want to see, then yes, I’m open to working with them,” she said.Warren was even more dubious about bipartisan efforts to overhaul the FBI’s surveillance methods. Given Republicans’ decades-long history of endorsing the FBI despite its controversial tactics, he considered it unlikely that the party’s leaders would now embrace reform.“While the right and left may both see a problem with the FBI, I don’t see them agreeing on a reform solution,” Warren said. “The foundational challenge with federal law enforcement is that it broadly criminalizes communities of color and activists, and I think that, so long as those activists are environmental or [Black Lives Matter] ones, the right wing will be perfectly happy with the way things are going.” More

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      Progressives press Chicago mayor over pledge to end controversial policing tool

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      Progressives have vowed to hold the new Chicago mayor, Brandon Johnson, to his campaign pledge that as part of crime-control efforts in the city he will break with the controversial gunshot detection contractor ShotSpotter.Johnson gave the keynote speech this week at Netroots, the largest annual gathering of progressives in the country, taking place in Chicago, and amplified his campaign talk about a wider approach to safer streets.“Many people will make you believe that the only way in which you can have safe communities is by simply engaging in politics of old, by believing that the only answer to public safety is policing. That’s a failed strategy,” he told the gathering.However the progressive Democrat did not repeat his campaign trail commitments to pull the plug on ShotSpotter when the city’s current contract is up next year. For more than a decade, Chicago has used the company’s nearly 30-year-old gunshot detection system, deployed in high-crime areas and designed to direct police to shootings, but that in recent years has faced intense criticism for its methodology and the impact of its technology on communities of color.“He’s a rising star in progressive politics and we’re going to hold him accountable,” Granate Kim, campaign director at MPower Change, a Chicago-based Muslim digital advocacy organization, told a panel held at Netroots.Kim added that if Johnson did not break with ShotSpotter: “We would be very upset and take him to task nationally.”Johnson emerged as the unlikely winner from the left in the mayoral race in April, defeating former Chicago public schools CEO Paul Vallas, who had received an endorsement from the right-leaning police union. The two men had faced off after mayor Lori Lightfoot lost her bid for re-election.Johnson had said on his campaign website: “Chicago spends $9m a year on ShotSpotter despite clear evidence it is unreliable and overly susceptible to human error. This expensive technology played a pivotal role in the police killing of 13-year-old Adam Toledo.”Toledo, 13, was shot dead by police in 2021 after a chase and confrontation in which bodycam footage showed the boy with his hands in the air. The killing prompted protests in Chicago, and no charges were brought against the police.Amid criticism of the city’s procurement process as opaque, last fall, Lightfoot quietly extended the company’s contract to February 2024. Then in June, Johnson approved a $10m payment for ShotSpotter. A senior adviser in the mayor’s office blamed the authorization on an automated signature – but also did not commit to ending the contract next year.If Johnson continues the contract, the backlash from fellow progressives is likely to be swift.“We need Mayor Brandon Johnson to stand on his campaign promise of getting the contract canceled. It does not have to be that hard,” said Alyxandra Goodwin, a community organizer with Black Youth Project 100 in Chicago. Goodwin noted that the city’s upcoming budget season provided another opportunity to push the mayor and his allies to end the contract.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“We need the mayor to propose a budget that does not have money for gunshot detection. And now we need city council to approve the budget that doesn’t have money for gunshot detection,” Goodwin added.Shotspotter has been deployed in more than 120 cities including Boston, New York and Denver, according to the company, which recently rebranded as SoundThinking. Research from the University of Michigan and Chicago’s own office of inspector general have raised questions over its accuracy and efficiency.A recent investigation by the Guardian, the Lucy Parsons Labs and the Oregon Justice Research Center, shed light on how ShotSpotter circumvented the public procurement process in Portland.While the city mulls the renewal, it’s also facing a federal lawsuit from the MacArthur Justice Center at Northwestern University’s law school over Chicago police’s use of ShotSpotter. Lucy Parsons Labs, one of the plaintiffs in the class action suit, alleged that the deployment of ShotSpotter in predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods infringes on civil liberties and breaks the fourth amendment, said Alejandro Ruizesparza, co-director for Lucy Parsons Labs.“We are using that racial justice lens in our litigation to look at how cities that have contracts with private entities use this technology in a way that is particularly harmful to people of color and also poor people,” Ruizesparza said. “Maybe these companies should be paying reparations every time they hurt Black and brown people. That would really hurt their profit margin.” More

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      Donald Trump’s legal team urges Georgia court to block 2020 election investigation – as it happened

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      From 3h agoLawyers for former US president Donald Trump are asking Georgia’s highest court to prevent the district attorney who has been investigating his actions in the wake of the 2020 election from prosecuting him and to throw out a special grand jury report that is part of the inquiry, the Associated Press reports.AP writes:
      Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been investigating since early 2021 whether Trump and his allies broke any laws as they tried to overturn his narrow election loss in Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden. She has suggested that she is likely to seek charges in the case from a grand jury next month.
      Trump’s Georgia legal team on Friday filed similar petitions in the Georgia Supreme Court and Fulton County Superior Court naming Willis and Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who oversaw the special grand jury, as respondents. A spokesperson for Willis declined to comment. McBurney did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
      Trump’s legal team — Drew Findling, Jennifer Little and Marissa Goldberg — acknowledged that the filings are unusual but necessary given the tight time frame. Willis has indicated she will use the special grand jury report to seek an indictment “within weeks, if not days.” Two new regular grand juries were seated this week, and one is likely to hear the case.
      “Even in an extraordinarily novel case of national significance, one would expect matters to take their normal procedural course within a reasonable time,” the filings say. “But nothing about these processes have been normal or reasonable. And the all-but-unavoidable conclusion is that the anomalies below are because Petitioner is President Donald J. Trump.”
      Republicans and Democrats in Congress are on a collision course after rightwing lawmakers inserted provisions targeting Pentagon policies on abortion access, transgender care and diversity into a must-pass defense spending bill that cleared the House this morning. Democrats are outraged that the GOP used the measure, which usually attracts bipartisan support, to push culture war goals, but there’s no word yet on what will become of the legislation when it arrives in the Senate, where Joe Biden’s allies rule the roost and are unlikely to support attempts to prevent service members from accessing abortions services or gender-affirming care. Expect to hear lots more about this in the days to come.Here’s what else happened today:
      Tucker Carlson might be unemployed, but that apparently has not changed his views on US support to Ukraine, as he made clear in an exchange with GOP presidential contender and senator Tim Scott.
      Mike Pence tried to explain to a rightwing crowd in Iowa why he did not go along with Donald Trump’s wishes on January 6. It did not go well.
      Speaking of Trump, his lawyers are trying to stop Atlanta-area prosecutor Fani Willis’s investigation of his campaign to overturn the 2020 election result in Georgia.
      A federal appeals court panel blocked a judge’s ruling that prevented some Biden administration officials from holding talks with social media companies intended to fight misinformation.
      Four House Democrats from swing districts crossed party lines to support the defense funding bill, while four conservative Republicans opposed it, with one saying it was too expensive.
      Former US vice president Mike Pence earlier at the Tucker Carlson-anchored event in Iowa, reiterated his disapproval of Donald Trump’s encouragement on January 6, 2021, of protesters to seek the overturning of the 2020 election results.Having already defended his refusal to block the certification by the US Congress of Joe Biden’s victory, Pence gladly repeated for the highly-pro-Trump crowd his assertions that he’s made before that Trump’s exhortations (and tweets) on January 6 exhorting the crowd to take action to keep him in office were reckless.“Trump’s words that day were reckless…whatever his intentions in that moment, it endangered me, my family and everyone else in the Capitol,” Pence said.He added, as the audience remained eerily quiet: “The law will hold him accountable.”He later added, perhaps in a desperate attempt to win more warmth from the crowd: “And Kamala Harris will have no right to overturn the election when we beat them in 2024.”The now-stayed federal judge’s ruling restricting how some Biden administration officials may interact with social media companies was evidence of a “weaponization of the court” that benefits pedalers of misinformation, an expert on combating such lies told the Guardian’s Ed Pilkington earlier this month:Restricting the ability of the Biden administration to work with social media companies in countering online conspiracy theories is a “weaponisation of the court system” that could devastate the fight against misinformation ahead of the 2024 presidential election, a leading expert has warned.Nina Jankowicz, a specialist in disinformation campaigns, told the Guardian that an injunction imposed by a federal judge on Tuesday against key federal agencies and officials blocking their communication with tech platforms could unleash false information in critical areas of public life. She said that election denialism and anti-vaccine propaganda could be the beneficiaries.“This is a weaponisation of the court system. It is an intentional and purposeful move to disrupt the work that needs to be done ahead of the 2024 election, and it’s really chilling,” she said.A federal appeals court has stayed a judge’s ruling from earlier this month that put limits on how certain White House officials could interact with social media companies, Reuters reports.The lower court’s ruling in response to a lawsuit from Republican attorneys general in Louisiana and Missouri complicated efforts by the Biden administration to work with platforms like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to address misinformation around elections and the Covid-19 pandemic.Here’s Reuters reporting from when the lower court’s ruling was first handed down on what it means for the fight against conspiracy theories:
      The ruling said US government agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services and the FBI could not talk to social media companies for “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech” under the free speech clause of the first amendment to the US constitution.
      A White House official said the US justice department was reviewing the order and will evaluate its options.
      The order also mentioned by name officials, including the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, and Jen Easterly, who heads the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, in its restrictions.
      Judge Terry Doughty, in an order filed with the US district court for the western district of Louisiana, made some exceptions for communications between government officials and the companies, including to warn about risks to national security and about criminal activity.
      The injunction was first reported by the Washington Post.
      Tuesday’s order marks a win for Republicans who had sued the Biden administration, saying it was using the coronavirus health crisis and the threat of misinformation as an excuse to curb views that disagreed with the government.
      US officials have said they were aiming to tamp down misinformation about Covid vaccines to curb preventable deaths.
      Democratic and Republican lawmakers have plenty to say about the defense spending bill that just passed the House, with one GOP congressman saying his party wanted to use the legislation to align the military’s policies with “traditional America”.Here are Tim Burchett’s comments to CNN:Then there’s the ever-puzzling Nancy Mace, a Republican congresswoman from South Carolina who does not seemed pleased with the bill’s provisions barring the Pentagon from paying for service members to travel for abortions, but voted for it anyway:Donald Trump’s attorneys are attempting to disrupt Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’s investigation into the campaign to overturn the 2020 election result in Georgia days after she impaneled two grand juries specifically tasked with deciding who should face charges in her inquiry. Here’s coverage from the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly of that development, from Tuesday:A grand jury selected in Georgia on Tuesday is expected to say whether Donald Trump and associates should face criminal charges over their attempt to overturn the former president’s defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 election.The district attorney of Fulton county, Fani Willis, has indicated she expects to obtain indictments between the end of July and the middle of August. Trump also faces possible federal charges over his election subversion, culminating in his incitement of the deadly January 6 attack on Congress.Trump already faces trials on 71 criminal charges: 34 in New York over hush money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels and 37 in Florida, from federal prosecutors and regarding his retention of classified documents after leaving office.Lawyers for former US president Donald Trump are asking Georgia’s highest court to prevent the district attorney who has been investigating his actions in the wake of the 2020 election from prosecuting him and to throw out a special grand jury report that is part of the inquiry, the Associated Press reports.AP writes:
      Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has been investigating since early 2021 whether Trump and his allies broke any laws as they tried to overturn his narrow election loss in Georgia to Democrat Joe Biden. She has suggested that she is likely to seek charges in the case from a grand jury next month.
      Trump’s Georgia legal team on Friday filed similar petitions in the Georgia Supreme Court and Fulton County Superior Court naming Willis and Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney, who oversaw the special grand jury, as respondents. A spokesperson for Willis declined to comment. McBurney did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
      Trump’s legal team — Drew Findling, Jennifer Little and Marissa Goldberg — acknowledged that the filings are unusual but necessary given the tight time frame. Willis has indicated she will use the special grand jury report to seek an indictment “within weeks, if not days.” Two new regular grand juries were seated this week, and one is likely to hear the case.
      “Even in an extraordinarily novel case of national significance, one would expect matters to take their normal procedural course within a reasonable time,” the filings say. “But nothing about these processes have been normal or reasonable. And the all-but-unavoidable conclusion is that the anomalies below are because Petitioner is President Donald J. Trump.”
      The sound of silence. Or, to be fair, the whisper of sporadic applause. That’s what just greeted Mike Pence when he again defended his refusal on January 6, 2021, to refuse to block the certification by Congress of Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump.The presidential candidate did not impress the right-wing crowd at Tucker Carlson’s event when he said: “I did my duty” and upheld the US constitution, after thousands of extreme Trump supporters had invaded the US Capitol in a deadly insurrection as they tried to overturn Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election.A few hands clap. This is hardly surprising, but very interesting to hear live.“It’s important that we hold those accountable that perpetrated acts of violence in our nation’s Capitol,” he said, to almost total silence in the hall. He quickly added that there needed to be more vigor in prosecuting people who ended up rioting during the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020. That drew cheers.Carlson asked Pence: “Do you think the last election was fair?”In short, Pence indicated he did. He noted that there were some irregularities and that changes made by states to voting procedures as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic undermined public confidence in the system. But he noted that there were recounts and lawsuits and in the end, in terms of the votes “states certified and courts upheld and ultimately we were able to establish that” nothing “would change the outcome of the election in any way,” adding: “I knew I had to do my duty that day” when he endorsed the certification of Biden’s victory, in the early hours of January 7, 2021.Former US vice president Mike Pence has taken the stage at the event in Iowa hosted by Tucker Carlson, as he eyes a comeback after being fired from Fox News, a forum together with Blaze Media feature Republican presidential candidates Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy and Asa Hutchinson.Pence begins by slamming Biden economic policy, Biden policies at the US-Mexico border and celebrating the Iowa legislature passing a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, when many people don’t even know they’re pregnant.Pence noted the bill will be signed into law later today by Iowa governor Kim Reynolds.Now Pence is talking about the insurrection by extremist supporters of Donald Trump at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021. More in a moment.Hello again, US politics live blog readers, it’s been a lively morning and there is more action to come, on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.Here’s where things stand:
      Tucker Carlson has been one of the most prominent public skeptics of America’s support for Ukraine’s defense against the Russian invasion, and he’s carrying on in this bent at the event he’s hosting today. “Why not force a peace?” he asked GOP presidential candidate Tim Scott today.
      The House approved the annual defense bill that rightwing Republicans packed with culture war amendments, including provisions blocking the Pentagon’s policies on abortion, gender-affirming care and diversity.
      The White House today announced it had forgiven $39bn in student loan debt held by 804,000 borrowers after making fixes to a program intended to provide relief for certain people who had been paying for 20 years or more.
      House Democrats accused GOP of ‘extreme and reckless legislative joyride’ in defense bill. In a joint statement, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, whip Katherine Clark and caucus chair Pete Aguilar encouraged their members to vote against the NDAA, saying “extreme MAGA Republicans have chosen to hijack” legislation that is typically passed with bipartisan support.
      After House conservatives packed it with culture war amendments, this year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passed by a party line vote – with a few exceptions.Democrats generally opposed the legislation, while Republicans approved it, except for the following crossover votes, as compiled by CNN:The four Democrats who voted for it all hail from swing districts, while the four Republicans who opposed it are generally seen as belonging to the party’s right wing.Among the Republican opponents was Colorado’s Ken Buck, who in a statement cited the legislation’s price tag as the reason he voted against it: More

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      Donald Trump: Arizona attorney general investigating attempts to overturn 2020 vote, reports say – as it happened

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      From 3h agoArizona’s Democratic attorney general Kris Mayes is moving forward with an investigation into efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in the crucial swing state, the Washington Post reports.Mayes’s inquiry is the second known attempt by a state to hold the former president accountable for the effort to disrupt Biden’s win. Fani Willis, a Democratic prosecutor in Fulton county, Georgia, is reportedly close to obtaining indictments in her investigation of Trump’s campaign to overturn Biden’s win in that state. Separately, justice department special counsel Jack Smith is still investigating the former president over the January 6 insurrection, and the broader campaign to prevent Biden from entering the White House.Here’s more from the Post’s report:
      Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) assigned a team of prosecutors to the case in May, and investigators have contacted many of the pro-Trump electors and their lawyers, according to the two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly describe the probe. Investigators have requested records and other information from local officials who administered the 2020 election, the two people said, and a prosecutor has inquired about evidence collected by the Justice Department and an Atlanta-area prosecutor for similar probes.
      It is unclear if the investigation will broaden into other attempts to undermine President Biden’s victory in the state, including a pressure campaign by Trump and his allies to thwart the will of voters and remain in office.
      Dan Barr, Mayes’s chief deputy, said the investigation is in the “fact-gathering” phase. He declined to say whether subpoenas have been issued and which state statutes the team thinks might have been broken.
      “This is something we’re not going to go into thinking, ‘Maybe we’ll get a conviction,’ or ‘Maybe we have a pretty good chance,’” he said. “This has to be ironclad shut.”
      The Secret Service announced it closed the investigation into the cocaine discovered at the White House earlier this month without naming any suspects, but Republicans seem to want to keep the matter alive. Several lawmakers, including House speaker Kevin McCarthy, expressed skepticism at the agency’s conclusion, part of a pattern of attacks on federal law enforcement by the GOP’s right wing. Meanwhile, the Democratic leader of the Senate judiciary committee Dick Durbin outlined plans to continue pressing the supreme court to tighten its ethics, after a series of reports found questionable ties between the justices and parties with interests in its decisions.Here’s what else happened today:
      Arizona’s attorney general is moving forward with an investigation of Donald Trump and his attempt to overturn Joe Biden’s election victory in the state three years ago, the Washington Post reported.
      Florida governor Ron DeSantis remains far below Trump in support among Republicans, but NBC News obtained a memo outlining his campaign’s strategy for success in the presidential primaries.
      Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s top Republican, accused Democrats of seeking to retaliate against conservative supreme court justices.
      Durbin left open the possibility of his committee investigating liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor after a report emerged of her staff asking institutions to buy her book.
      Far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene was among lawmakers who raised their eyebrows at the Secret Service’s decision to close the investigation into the White House cocaine.
      A spat has broken out between Republican former president Mike Pence and a prominent progressive Democrat over Israeli president Isaac Herzog’s plans to address Congress next week during his visit to Washington DC.Ilhan Omar, a progressive Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota, announced she would not attend Herzog’s speech, citing a 2019 episode in which Israel said fellow progressive Democrat Rashida Tlaib, who is of Palestinian origin, could visit family in the West Bank, but only if she avoided promoting the boycott campaign against the country:This afternoon, Pence, who is seeking the GOP’s nomination for president, took direct aim at Omar, one of only three Muslims currently serving in Congress and the only Somali-American:Back at the Capitol, Republicans continue to complain about the Secret Service’s conclusion that it can’t identify who left cocaine at the White House.Here’s Tennessee congressman Tim Burchett’s take, as captured by CNN:Ron DeSantis may be considered frontrunner Donald Trump’s biggest challenger for the Republican presidential nomination, but polls have consistently shown that it’s not a particularly close race.Take this one from Morning Consult released on Tuesday. It shows Trump with 56% support among potential GOP primary voters, and DeSantis in second with a measly 17%. If there’s any news there, it’s that entrepreneur and first-time candidate Vivek Ramaswamy is in third place with 8%, ahead of more experienced Republicans like former vice-president Mike Pence and senator Tim Scott.NBC News has obtained a confidential memo from the DeSantis campaign laying out their strategy in the GOP’s primary process. The Florida governor plans to aim for success in the first states that vote, particularly New Hampshire, and focus less on “Super Tuesday”, when 14 states will hold primaries on 5 March.Here’s more from their story:
      Ron DeSantis is trying to reassure donors and activists that his campaign only looks stalled.
      A confidential campaign memo obtained by NBC News lays out what the Florida governor’s presidential campaign sees as its path forward: focusing on the early states, refusing to give up on New Hampshire, not yet investing in “Super Tuesday” battlegrounds, zeroing in on DeSantis’ biography and sowing doubts about his competitors — particularly Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C.
      “While Super Tuesday is critically important, we will not dedicate resources to Super Tuesday that slow our momentum in New Hampshire,” the memo states. “We expect to revisit this investment in the Fall.”
      The document, dated July 6, is labeled a “confidential friends and family update” and makes clear that it’s “not for distribution.” Its details about the campaign’s strategy are far more in-depth than what has been shared publicly.
      As DeSantis’ ability to surpass Donald Trump as leader of the Republican Party is now an open question among the GOP faithful, the memo is an effort by the governor’s top aides to reach out to donors to provide more clarity on their path forward.
      Across the DeSantis political universe there is a heightened awareness of the importance of the early states and the reality that DeSantis will burn out without strong performances there. It means that even as the group has a plan in place now, the strategy is subject to change.
      “From my understanding, if we don’t see a bump in the polls, we are basically going to shut down the idea of a national operation,” a DeSantis-aligned operative told NBC News.
      Donald Trump’s top opponent for the Republican presidential nomination is governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, which used to be considered a swing state, but lately has trended towards the GOP. The Guardian’s Sam Levine and Andrew Witherspoon report that the DeSantis administration is carrying out a crackdown against groups that are trying to encourage people to vote:Florida Republicans have hit dozens of voter registration groups with thousands of dollars of fines, the latest salvo in an alarming crackdown on voting in the state led by Governor Ron DeSantis.At least 26 groups have cumulatively racked up more than $100,000 in fines since September of last year, according to a list that was provided by Florida officials to the Guardian. The groups include both for-profit and nonprofit organizations as well as political parties, including the statewide Republican and Democratic parties of Florida.The fines, which range from $50 to tens of thousands of dollars, were levied by the state’s office of election crimes and security, a first-of-its-kind agency created at the behest of DeSantis in 2022 to investigate voter fraud. Voter fraud is extremely rare, and the office has already come under scrutiny for bringing criminal charges against people who appeared to be confused about their voting eligibility.Donald Trump’s legal trouble is both criminal, and civil. As the Associated Press reports, the former president yesterday suffered a setback in his attempt to defend himself against a potent defamation lawsuit:Donald Trump lashed out on social media against the US justice department on Wednesday after it stopped supporting his claim that the presidency shields him from liability against a defamation lawsuit brought by a woman who says he sexually attacked her in the mid-1990s.The former president said in a post on his social media platform that the department’s reversal a day earlier in the lawsuit brought by advice columnist E. Jean Carroll was part of the “political Witch Hunt” he faces while campaigning for the presidency as a Republican.The justice department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Arizona’s Democratic attorney general Kris Mayes is moving forward with an investigation into efforts by Donald Trump and his allies to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in the crucial swing state, the Washington Post reports.Mayes’s inquiry is the second known attempt by a state to hold the former president accountable for the effort to disrupt Biden’s win. Fani Willis, a Democratic prosecutor in Fulton county, Georgia, is reportedly close to obtaining indictments in her investigation of Trump’s campaign to overturn Biden’s win in that state. Separately, justice department special counsel Jack Smith is still investigating the former president over the January 6 insurrection, and the broader campaign to prevent Biden from entering the White House.Here’s more from the Post’s report:
      Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes (D) assigned a team of prosecutors to the case in May, and investigators have contacted many of the pro-Trump electors and their lawyers, according to the two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly describe the probe. Investigators have requested records and other information from local officials who administered the 2020 election, the two people said, and a prosecutor has inquired about evidence collected by the Justice Department and an Atlanta-area prosecutor for similar probes.
      It is unclear if the investigation will broaden into other attempts to undermine President Biden’s victory in the state, including a pressure campaign by Trump and his allies to thwart the will of voters and remain in office.
      Dan Barr, Mayes’s chief deputy, said the investigation is in the “fact-gathering” phase. He declined to say whether subpoenas have been issued and which state statutes the team thinks might have been broken.
      “This is something we’re not going to go into thinking, ‘Maybe we’ll get a conviction,’ or ‘Maybe we have a pretty good chance,’” he said. “This has to be ironclad shut.”
      Joe Biden will meet the president of Israel, Isaac Herzog, at the White House next week, his spokeswoman has confirmed.Herzog will be in Washington on 18 and 19 July and will deliver a joint address to Congress.The Israeli president’s US visit comes amid protests in Israel at a government push to advance legislation that would weaken the supreme court’s independence.Israel’s parliament recently voted for a bill that would scrap a “reasonableness” standard that allows the supreme court to overrule government decisions.Biden and Herzog are due to discuss deepening Israel’s regional integration, a more peaceful Middle East and Russia’s relationship with Iran.The White House statement on the visit said:
      President Biden will stress the importance of our shared democratic values, and discuss ways to advance equal measures of freedom, prosperity, and security for Palestinians and Israelis.”
      The Secret Service announced it had closed its investigation of the cocaine discovered at the White House earlier this month without naming any suspects, but Republicans seem to want to keep the matter alive. Several lawmakers, including House speaker Kevin McCarthy, expressed skepticism at the agency’s conclusion, part of a pattern of attacks on federal law enforcement by the GOP’s right wing. Meanwhile, the Democratic leader of the Senate judiciary committee Dick Durbin outlined plans to continue pressing the supreme court to tighten its ethics, after a series of reports found questionable ties between the justices and parties with interests in its decisions.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s top Republican, accused Democrats of seeking to retaliate against conservative justices.
      Durbin left open the possibility of his committee investigating liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor after a report emerged of her staff asking institutions to buy her book.
      Far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene was among lawmakers who raised their eyebrows at the Secret Service’s decision to close the investigation into the White House cocaine.
      In the latest indication that this is not the last we have heard about the White House cocaine saga, Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy is calling on the Secret Service to continue searching for whomever left the powder at the executive mansion, Fox News reports:Here’s more from the Guardian’s Jenna Amatulli on the cocaine found at the White House, and apparent failure of the Secret Service to discover who brought it there:The investigation into the bag of cocaine found at the White House has concluded, with no suspects identified.In a statement from the Secret Service, the organization emphasized that it implemented safety closures after discovering the cocaine and that it then “field tested and preliminarily determined” the drug “to not be a hazardous compound”.They said the US Department of Homeland Security’s National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center later analyzed the cocaine for any biothreats and those tests came back negative.On how the item came to be inside the White House, the Secret Service said it conducted a “methodical review of security systems and protocols” that spanned “several days prior to the discovery of the substance”. They “developed an index of several hundred individuals who may have accessed the area where the substance was found” before ultimately concluding there was “insufficient DNA was present for investigative comparisons”. More

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      in Elections

      Trump documents trial judge sets first hearing; Georgia grand jury set to weigh 2020 election charges – live

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      From 1h agoThe first hearing before US District Judge Aileen Cannon in the federal criminal case against Donald Trump will be on 18 July, according to a court order.As California considers implementing large-scale reparations for Black residents affected by the legacy of slavery, the state has also become the focus of the nation’s divisive reparations conversation, drawing the backlash of conservatives criticizing the priorities of a “liberal” state.“Reparations for Slavery? California’s Bad Idea Catches On,” commentator Jason L Riley wrote in the Wall Street Journal, as New York approved a commission to study the idea. In the Washington Post, conservative columnist George F Will said the state’s debate around reparations adds to a “plague of solemn silliness”.Roughly two-thirds of Americans oppose the idea of reparations, according to 2021 polling from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and 2022 polling from the Pew Research Center. Both found that more than 80% Black respondents support some kind of compensation for the descendants of slaves, while a similar majority of white respondents opposed. Pew found that roughly two-thirds of Hispanics and Asian Americans opposed, as well.But in California, there’s greater support. Both the state’s Reparations Task Force – which released its 1,100-page final report and recommendations to the public on 29 June – and a University of California, Los Angeles study found that roughly two-thirds of Californians are in favor of some form of reparations, though residents are divided on what they should be.When delving into the reasons why people resist, Tatishe Nteta, who directed the UMass poll, expected feasibility or the challenges of implementing large programs to top the list, but this wasn’t the case.“When we ask people why they oppose, it’s not about the cost. It’s not about logistics. It’s not about the impossibility to place a monetary value on the impact of slavery,” said Nteta, provost professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
      It is consistently this notion that the descendants of slaves do not deserve these types of reparations.
      Read the full story here.More than 1,5000 amendments were filed to the FY2024 defense authorization bill, which is projected to hit the House floor this week. At issue is whether the House will take up the hard-right amendments, with the weight falling once again on Speaker Kevin McCarthy.Some of the most closely watched amendments relate to abortion, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) funding, and transgender troops, according to Politico’s Playbook.McCarthy will need to navigate between the demands of his most conservative members – three of whom serve on the House rules committee – and the need for Democratic votes in order to get a bill ultimately signed into law, Playbook writes. It continues:
      In the past, House leaders typically have told the hard right to pound sand, knowing they weren’t going to vote for the final bill anyway. But after pissing off conservatives during the debt limit standoff, McCarthy looks poised to make a different calculation this time.
      Facing heavy criticism from the House Freedom Caucus and other conservatives, McCarthy is under pressure to give on a number of high-profile issues touching defense policy, Punchbowl News writes. It says:
      Every ‘culture war’ provision from the Freedom Caucus that’s added to the base legislation will cost Democratic votes. It will also make GOP moderates unhappy.
      The House rules committee is scheduled to mark up the FY2024 defense authorization bill, the annual bill setting Pentagon priorities and policies, today.The bill, which is expected to hit the floor later this week, has been signed into law 60 years straight. But this year, Speaker Kevin McCarthy and GOP leaders are confronting a legislative landmine as the far-right House Freedom Caucus push for dozens of proposed changes to the legislation.Adam Smith, the head Democrat on the House armed services committee, said he was worried about a flurry of “extreme right-wing amendments” attached to the bill and that he wasn’t “remotely” confident the bill will pass this week.Smith told the Washington Post he was concerned about GOP measures on “abortion, guns, the border, and social policy and equity issues”. Without the controversial amendments, Smith predicted that well over 300 House members would vote for the bill. With them, “you lose most, if not all, Democrats,” he told Politico’s Playbook.Iowa’s state legislature is holding a special session on Tuesday as it plans to vote on a bill that would ban most abortions at around six weeks of pregnancy, when most people don’t yet know they are pregnant.The state is the latest in the country to vote on legislation restricting reproductive rights after the overturning of Roe v Wade last year, which ended the nationwide constitutional right to abortion.Iowa’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, called for the special session last week, vowing to “continue to fight against the inhumanity of abortion” and calling the “pro-life” movement against reproductive rights “the most important human rights cause of our time”.Lawmakers in the GOP-controlled legislature will debate House Study Bill 255, which was released on Friday and seeks to prohibit abortions at the first sign of cardiac activity except in certain cases such as rape or incest.Iowa’s house, senate and governor’s office are all Republican-controlled, and the bill faces few hurdles from being passed.Read the full story here.The first hearing before US District Judge Aileen Cannon in the federal criminal case against Donald Trump will be on 18 July, according to a court order.Trump was charged with retention of national defense information, including US nuclear secrets and plans for US retaliation in the event of an attack, which means his case will be tried under the rules laid out in the Classified Information Procedures Act, or Cipa.Cipa provides a mechanism for the government to charge cases involving classified documents without risking the “graymail” problem, where the defense threatens to reveal classified information at trial, but the steps that have to be followed mean it takes longer to get to trial.The process includes the government turning over all of the classified information they want to use to the defense in discovery, like any other criminal case, in addition to the non-classified discovery that is done in a separate process.Trump’s lawyers argued the amount of discovery – the government is making the material available in batches because there is so much evidence and it has not finished processing everything that came from search warrants – meant that they could not know how long the process would take.Trump’s lawyers wrote:
      From a practical manner, the volume of discovery and the Cipa logistics alone make plain that the government’s requested schedule is unrealistic.
      Donald Trump asked the federal judge overseeing the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case to indefinitely postpone setting a trial date in court filings on Monday and suggested, at a minimum, that any scheduled trial should not take place until after the 2024 presidential election.The papers submitted by Trump’s lawyers in response to the US justice department’s motion to hold the trial this December made clear the former president’s aim to delay proceedings as their guiding strategy – the case may be dropped if Trump wins the election.The filing said:
      The court should, respectfully, before establishing any trial date, allow time for development of further clarity as to the full nature and scope of the motions that will be filed.
      Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis launched the investigation in early 2021, after Donald Trump tried to overturn his election defeat in Georgia by calling Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, and suggesting the state’s top elections official could help him “find 11,780 votes”, just enough needed to beat Joe Biden.The investigation expanded to include an examination of a slate of Republican fake electors, phone calls by Trump and others to Georgia officials in the weeks after the 2020 election and unfounded allegations of widespread election fraud made to state lawmakers, according to AP.About a year into her investigation, Willis asked for a special grand jury. At the time, she said she needed the panel’s subpoena power to compel testimony from witnesses who had refused to cooperate without a subpoena. In a January 2022 letter to Fulton county superior court chief judge, Christopher Brasher, Willis wrote that Raffensperger, who she called an “essential witness”, had “indicated that he will not participate in an interview or otherwise offer evidence until he is presented with a subpoena by my office”.That special grand jury was seated in May 2022, and released in January after completing its work. The panel issued subpoenas and heard testimony from 75 witnesses, ranging from some of Trump’s most prominent allies to local election workers, before drafting a final report with recommendations for Willis.Portions of that report that were released in February said jurors believed that “one or more witnesses” committed perjury and urged local prosecutors to bring charges. The panel’s foreperson said in media interviews later that they recommended indicting numerous people, but she declined to name names.Here’s a bit more on the grand jury being seated today in Atlanta, Georgia, that will probably consider charges against Donald Trump and his Republican allies for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election.The new grand jury term begins today in Fulton county, and two panels will be selected at the downtown Atlanta courthouse, each made up of 16 to 23 people and up to three alternates. One of these panels is expected to handle the Trump investigation.Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney will preside over today’s court proceedings, CNN reported. McBurney oversaw the special grand jury that previously collected evidence in the Trump investigation, and he is also expected to oversee the grand jury tasked with making charging decisions in the case.Good morning, US politics blog readers. A grand jury being seated today in Atlanta is expected to consider charges against former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis launched the investigation in early 2021, shortly after Trump tried to overturn his loss by calling Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and suggested the state’s top elections official could help him “find 11,780 votes”.A special grand jury previously issued subpoenas and heard testimony from about 75 witnesses, which included Trump advisers, his former attorneys, White House aides, and Georgia officials. That panel drafted a final report with recommendations for Willis.The new grand jury term begins today in Fulton county, which includes most of Atlanta and some suburbs. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney will swear-in two grand juries, one of which is expected to hear evidence in the Georgia elections case.Willis, an elected Democrat, is expected to present her case before one of two new grand juries being seated. The panel won’t be deciding guilt, only if Willis has enough evidence to move her case forward and who should face indictment. Willis has previously indicated that final decisions could come next month.Here’s what else we’re watching today:
      Joe Biden is meeting with other Nato leaders in Vilnius, Lithuania, where Russia’s war in Ukraine will top the agenda.
      The House rules committee is scheduled to mark up the FY2024 defense authorization bill today. The legislation is set to hit the floor later this week, with final passage currently envisioned for Friday.
      The House will meet at noon and at 2pm will take up multiple bills, with last votes expected at 6.30pm
      The Senate will meet at 10am and vote on several nominations throughout the day. There will be classified all-senators briefing with defense and intelligence officials on how AI is used for national security purposes. More

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      in US Politics

      Republican fabulist George Santos compares himself to Rosa Parks

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      George Santos, the Republican congressman whose résumé has been shown to be largely fabricated and who has pleaded not guilty to 13 counts of fraud, money laundering and theft of public funds, stoked outrage by comparing himself to the great civil rights campaigner Rosa Parks.“Rosa Parks didn’t sit in the back, and neither am I gonna sit in the back,” Santos told Mike Crispi Unafraid, a rightwing podcast.Santos also said he will run for re-election in his New York seat, which covers parts of Long Island and Queens.A prospective opponent, the Democratic former state senator Anna M Kaplan, said: “George Santos is an absolute disgrace who continues to embarrass New Yorkers.”Now honoured by a statue in the US Capitol, Parks was a seamstress and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People secretary who carved her place in history when on a bus in Alabama in 1955 she refused to move to make way for a white passenger and was arrested and jailed.According to the Architect of the Capitol, Parks “remained an icon of the civil rights movement to the end of her life. In 1999, the United States Congress honored her with a Congressional Gold Medal. Following her death on 24 October 2005, she was accorded the rare tribute of having her remains lie in honor in the Rotunda of the US Capitol in recognition of her contribution to advancing civil and human rights.”The Parks statue is the first full-length representation of an African American person in the US Capitol. Made of bronze and granite, it is close to 9ft tall and, according to its official description, “suggests inner strength, dignity, resolve and determination, all characteristic of her long-time commitment to working for civil rights”.Santos, 34, compared himself to Parks while sitting in what appeared to be a parked car, wearing a powder blue zip-up hoodie.Since being elected last year, he has consistently attracted controversy over reports of behavior ranging from the bizarre to the picaresque and allegedly criminal. Charged in New York, his bail was guaranteed by relatives. No trial date has been set.Republican House leaders, governing with a small majority, have not seriously moved against him. A motion to expel, and make Santos only the sixth House member ever ejected, failed after Republicans refused to back it.Speaking to Crispi, a former Republican congressional candidate in New Jersey, Santos said of critics in his own party: “They come for me, I go right back for them … So, you know, it’s not gonna stay that way any more. I’m gonna call them out. You want to call me a liar? I’ll call you a sellout.”In February, at Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, Santos was confronted by Mitt Romney, the Utah senator and former Republican presidential nominee.Romney called Santos a “sick puppy”. Among Santos’s many controversies is a dropped charge of theft in Pennsylvania in 2017, over a purchase of puppies.Santos told Crispi: “The man goes to the State of the Union of the United States wearing the Ukraine lapel pin and tells me, a Latino gay man, that I shouldn’t sit in the front, that I should be in the back. Well, guess what, Rosa Parks but didn’t sit in the back and neither am I gonna sit in the back.“That’s just the reality of our work. Mitt Romney lives in a very different world. And he needs to buckle up because it’s gonna be a bumpy ride for him.” More