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      Ex-NFL player Colin Allred launches challenge to Ted Cruz for Senate seat

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      The far-right Republican Texas senator Ted Cruz will be challenged for his seat next year by Colin Allred, a former NFL linebacker who launched his campaign on Wednesday with a video referencing the January 6 attack on Congress by Trump supporters Cruz called “peaceful protesters”.“I’ve taken down a lot tougher guys than Ted Cruz,” Allred said.Allred, 40, played college football for Baylor in Texas then played 32 games for the Tennessee Titans between 2007 and 2010. He entered Congress in 2019, a rare Democrat in red Texas. He has increased his majority since.Democrats control the Senate but face a tough elections map in 2024. A pick-up in Texas would be a shock but would boost activists who insist the state is turning towards progressives.On 6 January 2021, Trump supporters urged on by the then president and Republican allies including Cruz attacked Congress in an attempt to block certification of Joe Biden’s election win, which Trump baselessly claimed was the result of electoral fraud.In his announcement video, Allred took Cruz to task for being one of 147 Republicans who objected to election results even after the riot, which is now linked to nine deaths including law enforcement suicides, and for confessing to hiding in a closet during the attack.“When I left the NFL,” Allred said, walking on a football field, “I thought my days of putting people on the ground were over. Then, January 6 happened.“I remember hearing the glass breaking and the shouts coming closer. I texted my wife: ‘Whatever happens, I love you.’ Then I took off my jacket and got ready to take on anyone who came through that door.“And Ted Cruz? He cheered on the mob. Then hid in a supply closet when they stormed the Capitol. But that’s Ted for you. All hat, no cattle.”Allred also targeted Cruz for a famous flight to Cancun when Texas fell under a big freeze amid widespread power failures, and for perceived policy failings, before telling his own life story.On Twitter, Allred added: “I’ve taken down a lot tougher guys than Ted Cruz, but I can’t do this without your help.”Now 53, Cruz entered Congress in 2013. In 2016 he ran second to Trump in the Republican presidential primary. Initially a hold-out against the billionaire, who insulted his wife and father, like most of the rest of the party Cruz soon came onside. Paul Manafort, a former Trump aide, has said Trump gave Cruz a rare apology.In the usually collegial Senate, Cruz is famously unpopular. Al Franken, the former Democratic senator from Minnesota, once said: “I like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz. And I hate Ted Cruz.”In 2018, the last time Cruz ran for re-election, he faced a strong challenge from Beto O’Rourke, a former Democratic congressman. Cruz won by less than three points.Speaking to the Dallas Morning News, Allred said Texas “can’t afford six more years of Ted Cruz”.He added: “The political extremism that we are becoming increasingly known for is a real risk to our business community and our path forward. It’s making some folks say they don’t want to send their kids to school in our state. We can go in a different direction.” More

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      Republicans thwart Democrats’ push to stiffen supreme court ethics rules

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      Arguing that the US supreme court has “the lowest ethical standards” of a court in the country, Senate Democrats on Tuesday demanded tighter rules on the nine justices but ran into resistance from Republicans who accused them of being bitter over recent conservative rulings.Democrats had convened a hearing of the Senate judiciary committee after a series of media reports on entanglements between two of the court’s conservative justices and parties with interests in its cases. These includes Clarence Thomas’s acceptance of luxury travel and a real estate deal from Republican megadonor Harlan Crow, and Neil Gorsuch’s sale of a property to a law firm executive with business before the court. Both were interactions the two justices did not fully disclose.The committee’s Democratic chair Dick Durbin, a senator from Illinois, said: “We wouldn’t tolerate this from a city council member or an alderman. It falls short of the ethical standards we expect of any public servant in America. And yet the supreme court won’t even acknowledge it’s a problem.“Ethics cannot simply be left to the discretion of the nation’s highest court. The court should have a code of conduct with clear and enforceable rules so justices and the American people know when conduct crosses the line. The highest court in the land should not have the lowest ethical standards.”But to Republicans, the Democrats’ calls for Thomas to be investigated and for the court to accept more stringent ethics rules represent nothing more than sour grapes. Last year, the supreme court’s six conservative justices handed down decisions that upended American life by overturning the precedent established by Roe v Wade to allow states to ban abortion, expanding the ability for Americans to carry concealed weapons without a permit, and reducing the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate power plant emissions.Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the panel, alluded to these rulings to argue Democrats were simply trying to undermine the court’s conservative majority.“This assault on justice Thomas is well beyond ethics. It is about trying to delegitimize a conservative court that was appointed through the traditional process,” Graham, a senator from South Carolina, said.Durbin had invited supreme court chief justice John Roberts to the hearing, but he declined to attend, citing the need to keep the court separate and free from congressional interference, while sending along a “statement on ethics principles and practices” signed by all of the court’s nine justices. Federal law requires judges, including supreme court justices, recuse themselves from any matter “in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned”, but unlike other judges and federal employees, the court has no formal ethics code.Democrats say the nine highest judges in the country do not have ethics rules comparable to other judges or even many federal employees, and have introduced two pieces of legislation to impose a code of conduct and other requirements. Neither measure appears to have much of a chance in this Congress, where Republicans control the House of Representatives and could use the filibuster to block any legislation in the Senate.Before the hearing began, the Democrats’ push won an endorsement from J Michael Luttig, a former appeals court judge and noted conservative legal thinker who said Congress does have the authority to establish such standards.He wrote in a letter to the committee: “There should never come the day when the Congress of the United States is obligated to enact laws prescribing the ethical standards applicable to the non-judicial conduct and activities of the supreme court of the United States, even though it indisputably has the power under the constitution to do so, but paradoxically, does not have the power to require the court to prescribe such standards for itself.”Luttig was joined by progressive scholar Laurence Tribe, who wrote to the committee: “I regard legislation to impose ethical norms in a binding way on the justices as eminently sensible. Put simply, I see such legislation as a necessary though probably not sufficient response to the current situation.”Neither men opted to testify. Instead, Democrats heard from invited legal scholars who generally agreed that Congress had the power to implement a code of conduct on the supreme court, should they choose to do so. Experts invited by the Republican minority, meanwhile, said Congress did not have the power to impose a code of conduct on the supreme court, and downplayed the severity of the reports about the court’s ethics.Michael Mukasey, a former attorney general under George W Bush, said in the hearing, said: “It’s impossible to escape the conclusion that the public is being asked to hallucinate misconduct, so as to undermine the authority of justices who issue rulings with which the critics disagree, and thus to undermine the authority of the rulings themselves.” More

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      Bipartisan US debt ceiling talks restart as deadline moves closer – as it happened

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      That’s it for today’s live politics blog!Here’s what happened today:
      Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has said he will be in the 9 May meeting on the debt ceiling, but emphasized that Biden has to negotiate with House speaker Kevin McCarthy. “There is no solution in the Senate,” said McCarthy to reporters on Tuesday.
      A Florida woman faces two charges of battery – one a felony – after allegedly throwing a drink at the far-right Republican congressman Matt Gaetz.
      Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has said that Democrats will wait on a 9 May meeting between Biden and congressional leaders to decide if they will move forward on a clean debt ceiling push that would not include spending cuts, but added that Democrats will be pushing for a two-year full extension.
      Illinois senator Dick Durbin said that he wants to move on a bill imposing a code of ethics on supreme court justices, but wants to make sure he has the votes, as California senator Dianne Feinstein remains absent from the Senate following a bout of shingles.
      New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said late on Monday that Feinstein should resign, joining a bipartisan chorus calling for Feinstein to step down amid absences from the Senate.
      A new poll puts Donald Trump ahead of Florida governor Ron DeSantis among Republican primary voters in a hypothetical 2024 presidential primary election, as Trump continues to outperform DeSantis in several polls.
      Thank you for reading! Check in for more updates tomorrow!The White House’s economist warned against Republicans “playing games” with the US economy through the debt ceiling debate when interest rate increases are already having an averse impact on the economy, Reuters reports.“The economy remains, it’s been strong. You don’t want to be pushing it off of the course that it’s on,” said Heather Boushey in an interview with Reuters.Boushey added: “The Fed is raising interest rates in the hope of reducing inflation. That is having this negative effect on the banking sector. Why would we add to that?”Boushey noted that raising the debt ceiling could remove the risk of a debt default, one that could take affect on 1 June.A Florida woman was charged with allegedly throwing a drink at the Florida representative Matt Gaetz. The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports.
      A Florida woman faces two charges of battery – one a felony – after allegedly throwing a drink at the far-right Republican congressman Matt Gaetz.
      The Walton county sheriff reportedly said Gaetz insisted on pressing charges. Gaetz maintained he was justified in doing so, saying 41-year-old Selena Jo Chambers “cross[ed] the Rubicon beyond just words to throwing stuff”.
      A previous case of a drink being thrown at Gaetz resulted in a woman being sent to prison.
      In 2019, Amanda Kondrat’yev, then 35 and a former political opponent of Gaetz, received a 15-day prison sentence for throwing a slushie at her rival.
      That beverage-blitzing brouhaha happened at an “Open Gaetz” public event at restaurant in Pensacola appropriately named the Brew Ha Ha.
      Read the full story here.Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has said that Democrats will wait on a 9 May meeting between Biden and congressional leaders to decide if they will move forward on a clean debt ceiling push that would not include spending cuts. Schumer added that he wants a two-year extension of the debt ceiling versus a stopgap measures, the Washington Post reported.Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has said he will be in the 9 May meeting on the debt ceiling, but emphasized that Biden has to negotiate with House speaker Kevin McCarthy.“There is no solution in the Senate,” said McConnell to reporters on Tuesday.From CNN’s Manu Raju:Many expect McConnell to ultimately help negotiate a bipartisan debt ceiling agreement, as the Kentucky senator did in 2021.But McConnell has maintained that Biden must negotiate with McCarthy and House Republicans about the debt ceiling.Illinois senator Dick Durbin said that he wants to move on a bill imposing a code of ethics on supreme court justices, but wants to make sure he has the votes.CNN’s Manu Raju noted that with California senator Dianne Feinstein out, Durbin is unsure of when he could forward such legislation.“I’d like to make sure we have enough folks to pass it,” said Durbin.Feinstein is a member of the Senate judiciary committee, but has been out due a case of shingles. Durbin confirmed to Raju that he has “not personally” spoken with Feinstein about when she would return.The defense department and the Federal Aviation Administration have been tracking a balloon that was flying off the coast of Hawaii last week, but a defense official said today there’s no indication it is connected to China or any other adversary, and it presents no threats to aviation or national security, the Associated Press reports.The balloon was first detected by radar on Friday.
      Pacific Air Forces launched three F-22s to assess the situation and visually identified a spherical object. We monitored the transit of the object and assessed that it posed no threat,” US Indo-Pacific Command said.
      The defense official said the balloon was floating at about 36,000ft (11,000 meters), and it did not fly over any critical defense infrastructure or sensitive sites.After determining that the balloon presented no threat to people on the ground or to aviation over Hawaii, the military took no action to bring it down, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations.It’s not clear who owns the balloon, which has now passed out of Hawaii’s airspace, the official said.The latest balloon sighting comes about three months after the US military shot down what officials said was a Chinese spy balloon that crossed Alaska and part of Canada before returning to the US and triggering widespread interest as it flew across the country.It was shot down over the Atlantic off the South Carolina coast on 4 February. Large portions of the balloon were recovered by the US military.US officials said it was equipped to detect and collect intelligence signals as part of a huge, military-linked aerial surveillance program that targeted more than 40 countries. Beijing insisted the balloon was just an errant civilian airship used mainly for meteorological research that went off course due to winds and had only limited “self-steering” capabilities.The US military acknowledged there have been several other balloons that have been tracked over and near the US in recent years, but none lingered over America for as long as that one did. The incident further eroded relations between the US and China.At a press conference just now, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre elaborated on what Joe Biden will discuss with House majority leader Kevin McCarthy over the debt ceiling next week:“The president is going to make it clear to them that they have to avoid a default. It is their constitutional duty to do this. It is their constitutional duty to the American people for them to do their jobs. He will also say we will have a conversation about the budget and appropriations, and that is something that he will be very clear about. We can have a conversation about that, but it is important to not default.“The president is going to continue to make that clear. He is going to make that clear and have that conversation.”The Biden administration will temporarily send an additional 1,500 troops to the US-Mexico border as pandemic-related restrictions to migration are set to expire on 11 May.An unnamed US official told Reuters on Tuesday that the additional troops will be part of a supplementary preparation for an increase in illegal immigration as Title 42 comes to an end. Title 42 allowed the US to expel migrants amid the Covid-19 pandemic.The troops will not carry out any law enforcement operations and will assist US border patrol that is currently in the area, said the US official who asked to stay anonymous.The number of Americans listing guns and crime as a top issue for them has increased, according to a new Gallup poll.Of those polled for Gallup’s Most Important Problem list, seven percent said that guns and gun control were a priority issue for them, the Hill reported. Six percent listed crime and violence.In polling done months earlier, only 3% listed crime as their top issue and 1% listed crime.Both issues were listed below problems such as government and poor leadership, immigration and the economy.House Democrats have quietly started taking steps to introduce a rare legislative procedure that could force a debt limit increase and bypass Republican legislation for cuts.The New York Times just reported that Democrats are trying to set up a discharge petition that would allow Democrats to force a bill onto the floor if they get enough signatures – 218. This would mean all 213 house Democrats would need to sign the petition, and five Republican representatives would have to join.Though the House is in recess today, House Dems held a pro forma session and introduced an emergency rule that would give them two weeks, until 16 May, to collect the 218 signatures.Though Democrats see the bill as a gamble, Hakeem Jeffries, Democratic House minority leader, sent a letter to fellow Democrats today expressing a tone of defiance and saying that House Dems “are working to make sure we have all options at our disposal to avoid default”.Oklahoma is the latest state to pass legislation banning gender-affirming care for minors, as several states pass bills targeting the rights of transgender people.The Republican governor, Kevin Stitt, signed a bill on Monday making it a felony for healthcare practitioners to provide children with gender-affirming care, including puberty-blockers and hormones, the Associated Press reported.The bill comes as parents of transgender children, healthcare workers, and transgender people say that such care is essential.“Gender-affirming care is a critical part of helping transgender adolescents succeed, establish healthy relationships with their friends and family, live authentically as themselves, and dream about their futures,” said Lambda Legal and the ACLU in a joint statement, PBS Newshour reported.At least 15 other states have taken similar measures, with over 500 bills introduced in 2023 that target aspects of life for transgender people.A Montana lawmaker is suing the state, Montana’s house speaker, and the sergeant of arms of the state’s house after she was censured, asking to be fully reinstated to her position.House GOP voted to ban representative Zooey Zephyr on Wednesday from the state’s floor, gallery and anteroom after Zephyr, who is the state’s first openly transgender representative, criticized legislators for supporting a ban on gender-affirming care for minors.Zephyr is now suing to be allowed back onto the house floor as she is only allowed to vote virtually. The lawsuit, filed on Monday, argues that limiting her ability to vote violates “free speech and expression rights,” the Washington Post reported.“House leadership explicitly and directly targeted me and my district because I dared to give voice to the values and needs of transgender people like myself,” said Zephyr in a statement.“By doing so, they’ve denied me my own rights under the constitution and, more importantly, the rights of my constituents to just representation in their own government.”We’ve reached the midpoint for today’s politics live blog.Here’s what’s happened so far:
      New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said late on Monday that the California senator Dianne Feinstein should resign, joining a bipartisan chorus calling for Feinstein to step down amid absences from the Senate.
      Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said during a Tuesday speech on the Senate floor that Democrats will only pass a “clean” debt ceiling increase, as a 1 June debt default looms.
      A new poll puts Donald Trump ahead of Florida governor Ron DeSantis among Republican primary voters in a hypothetical 2024 presidential primary election, as Trump continues to outperform DeSantis in several polls.
      Debt ceiling talks have gained a second wind after a warning on Monday by the US treasury secretary Janet Yellen that the US could default on its debt as soon as 1 June, as Biden confers a 9 May meeting with top congressional leaders.
      Here is reporting on the Senate judiciary committee meeting from the Guardian’s Chris Stein, who is currently in the hearing room.Partisan splits were apparent in the Senate judiciary committee today as it kicked off a hearing on the supreme court’s ethics, with Democrats accusing the nation’s highest court of believing itself to be outside the law, and Republicans defending the justices from what they said were attacks motivated by bitterness over its recent rulings.“Ethics cannot simply be left to the discretion of the nation’s highest court,” the committee’s Democratic chair Richard Durbin said. “The Court should have a code of conduct with clear and enforceable rules so both Justices and the American people know when conduct crosses the line. The highest court in the land should not have the lowest ethical standards. That reality is driving a crisis in public confidence in the supreme court.”Durbin called the hearing after a series of reports about entanglements between the court’s justices, particularly its six conservatives, and lawyers and donors with interests in the court’s outcome. Chief justice John Roberts was invited to testify, but declined, instead sending a document signed by all of the court’s nine justices that outlined their approach to ethics.Lindsey Graham, the judiciary committee’s top Republican, said the Democrats were using the hearing to retaliate against justices who authored opinions they didn’t agree with. Last year, the court’s conservatives upended nearly a half-century of precedent by overturning Roe v Wade and allowing states to ban abortion entirely, cut into the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate power plant emissions and weakened laws on possession of concealed weapons.“This is not about making the court better,” Graham said. “This is about destroying a conservative court. It will not work.”The Senate judiciary committee is holding a meeting to discuss whether the US supreme court should bolster its ethics rules following a series of reported conflicts between supreme court justices and personal interests.The Tuesday meeting comes after several scandals that have called into question the ethics of the court and diminishing public confidence in the institution, the Washington Post reported.Most recently, supreme court justice Clarence Thomas has come under fire after media organization ProPublica publicized that the longest-serving justice accepted luxury travel and vacations over two decades from the real estate mogul and Republican donor Harlan Crow.Such gifts and a real estate deal between Thomas and Crow were undisclosed by Thomas.Ahead of today’s meeting, Chief Justice John Roberts declined an invitation to appear and testify about judicial ethics. The justice instead forwarded a three page “Statement on Ethics Principles and Practices”, which is signed by all nine justices. The non-binding memo is meant to “reaffirm and restate foundational ethics principles and practices to which they subscribe”.But Roberts himself is facing scrutiny after a whistleblower alleged that Roberts’s wife, Jane Roberts, made millions through recruiting for top law firms. More

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      Biden says banking system is ‘safe and sound’ despite First Republic collapse – as it happened

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      From 5h agoJoe Biden has been speaking at the White House about the collapse of First Republic Bank, insisting that the “safety and security” of the US banking system was paramount.JP Morgan stepped in quickly to snap up the “deposits and substantially all assets” of the California bank, the third US lender to fail this year.Biden praised the swiftness of the takeover by the nation’s largest bank:
      I’m pleased to say that regulators have taken action to facilitate the sale of First Republic bank, making sure that all depositors are protected, and the taxpayers are not on the hook.
      These actions are going to make sure that the banking system is safe and sound. And that includes protecting small businesses across the country who need to make payroll for workers and their small businesses.
      Touting the economic successes of his administration during an address for small business week, Biden used the crisis to pivot to an attack on so-called make America great again (Maga) Republicans he said were threatening the economy by presenting proposals over raising the national debt limit that were unacceptable:
      The most immediate thing we can do is ensure the continued reliance of our economy and the financial system. The most important thing we have to do in that regard is to make sure the threat by the speaker of the House to default on the national debt is off the table.
      For over 200 years, America has never, ever ever failed with a debt. America is not a deadbeat nation. We have never, ever failed to meet the debt.
      As a result, one of the most respected nations of the world, we pay our bills and we should do so without reckless hostage taking from some of the Maga Republicans in Congress.
      Read more:We’re closing the US politics blog now, thanks for joining us.It’s been an eventful day, with Joe Biden attempting to reassure the public the US banking system was “safe and sound” following the collapse of First Republic bank.The president praised regulators and JP Morgan bank, the nation’s largest, that stepped in to pick up First Republic’s deposits and assets, safeguarding money invested in the failed California institution.Here’s what else we followed:
      Kevin McCarthy launched a robust defense of his stance on Ukraine in a testy exchange with a Russian reporter in Jerusalem. The speaker, with a bipartisan delegation of lawmakers to celebrate Israel’s 75th anniversary, challenged the reporter’s assertion that Republican rightwingers weakened his position by calling for an end to US aid.
      The Democratic governor of Washington state, Jay Inslee, announced he would not seek a fourth term in elections next year.
      It followed an announcement by Democratic Maryland senator Ben Cardin that he was standing down after three terms in office, creating a primary battle for a seat crucial to his party’s hopes of retaining control of the chamber in the 2024 election.
      Ron DeSantis’s war on Disney escalated with a decision by his hand-picked board overseeing the theme park giant to sue the company. Disney sued the board last week saying the Republican Florida governor’s seizure of power over the company was a retaliatory move for opposing his “don’t say gay” law.
      Dominion Voting Systems executives insisted its $787.5m settlement with Fox News over the media company’s lies about the 2020 election did not include a requirement that rightwing TV celebrity Tucker Carlson be dismissed. Fox fired Carlson last week.
      Attorneys for Montana state representative Zooey Zephyr filed a lawsuit seeking her return to the House floor, a week after Republicans banished the transgender Democrat for her opposition to a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for trans children.
      Donald Trump will appear next week in a town hall debate hosted by CNN. The surprise announcement said the former president will participate in the 10 May event for Republican and undecided voters at St Anselm college, a liberal arts campus in Manchester, New Hampshire.
      Please join us again tomorrow for more live US politics.The US military is tracking a mysterious balloon that flew over American soil, NBC News is reporting. It is not clear what it is or who it belongs to, according to three US officials cited by the network.The object flew across portions of Hawaii but did not go over any sensitive areas, the officials said.NBC reported the military had been tracking the object since late last week and has not determined if posed a threat to aerial traffic or national security. It was not communicating signals, one official said.It is also not clear if it is a weather balloon or something else, the official said, adding that the US military could shoot it down if it nears land.It was revealed last month that a Chinese spy balloon that flew over parts of the US earlier this year, and was shot down in February, had sent sensitive intelligence from US military sites back to Beijing.Donald Trump will appear next week in a town hall debate hosted by CNN, the cable news channel he has frequently and loudly derided as “fake news”.The network made the surprise announcement on Monday afternoon, saying the former president will participate in the 10 May event for Republican and undecided voters at St Anselm college, a liberal arts campus in Manchester, New Hampshire.The event will be hosted by Kaitlan Collins, host of CNN This Morning.Trump attacked the network frequently during his single term in office, at one stage revoking the press credentials of White House correspondent Jim Acosta, a particular bête noire. Acosta was reinstated after a legal challenge.It is not yet known who else might be appearing at the event.Attorneys for Montana state representative Zooey Zephyr are asking a court to allow for her return to the House floor, a week after Republicans banished the transgender Democrat for her opposition to a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for trans children.A lawsuit was filed Monday in state district court in Helena on behalf of Zephyr and several constituents who say they are being denied their right to adequate representation, the Associated Press reported.Zephyr was removed from the chamber last week after telling Republicans they would have “blood on your hands” if they voted for the measure.The controlling party said her actions “violated decorum” and that she had incited protests at the statehouse.The legal challenge against House speaker Matt Regier and statehouse sergeant-at-arms Bradley Murfitt comes with just days left in the legislature’s biennial session. Neither has commented on the lawsuit.Another prominent Democrat, the governor of Washington state Jay Inslee, has announced he won’t be seeking re-election. It follows the declaration earlier Monday by Maryland senator Ben Cardin that he was standing down.Inslee won election to a third term in 2020, but said in a statement: “I’m ready to pass the torch”.He didn’t say what he intended to do after his retirement next year, but said: “Now is the time to intensely focus on all we can accomplish in the next year and a half”.Inslee, who ran for the Democratic party’s presidential nomination in 2020, added: “Serving the people as governor of Washington state has been my greatest honor”.Senior Democrat Jamie Raskin – the Maryland congressman – has paid tribute to his friend Ben Cardin, his state’s US senator who has announced he’s standing down after three terms in office:
      After 58 years of integrity-filled public service, where he showed his prodigious work ethic from Annapolis to Washington, senator Ben Cardin has assembled a remarkable record of advancing the needs and priorities of Maryland.
      I salute him and have congratulated him on a truly amazing and inspiring career devoted to service of our people and the old-fashioned public values of honesty and decency. I want to thank him, his beloved wife Myrna and their whole family for their outstanding and continuing contributions to our state.
      In his own statement saying he had given his “heart and soul” to the state, Cardin said he would remain in office until the 2024 election:
      There is still much work to be done. During the next two years, I will continue to travel around the state, listening to Marylanders and responding to their needs.
      My top priorities include continuing our progress for the Chesapeake Bay, helping the people of Baltimore city deal with the challenges they face, and permanently expanding opportunities for telehealth, mental and behavioral health.
      Kevin McCarthy had a testy exchange with a Russian reporter over the war in Ukraine after his speech to the Israeli Knesset this afternoon.Asked if Ukraine was losing the support of Republicans, following comments by rightwingers such as McCarthy ally Marjorie Taylor-Greene that the US “had done enough” to help the country against the Russian invasion, the speaker of the American House of Representatives was firm:
      I vote for aid for Ukraine. I support aid for Ukraine. I do not support what your country has done to Ukraine. I do not support your killing of the children either.
      And I think for one standpoint, you [Russia] should pull out and I don’t think it’s right, and we will continue to support because the rest of the world sees it just as it is.
      Joe Biden has been speaking at the White House about the collapse of California’s First Republic bank, the third US lender to fail this year. He said the swift action of regulators, and JP Morgan bank, the nation’s largest, to take on First Republic’s deposits and most assets, helped ensure the US banking system was “safe and secure”.Here’s what else we’ve been following:
      Kevin McCarthy, the first speaker to address the Knesset for 25 years, talked up US-Israel relations in Jerusalem, and pledged full financial support for the country’s security. He promised US support for ensuring Iran never obtains nuclear weapons.
      Ron DeSantis’s war on Disney stepped up a notch with a decision by his hand-picked board overseeing the theme park giant to file its own lawsuit against the company. Disney sued the board last week saying the Florida governor’s seizure of power over the company was a retaliatory move for its opposition to his “don’t say gay” law.
      Democratic Maryland senator Ben Cardin announced he was standing down after three terms in office, opening the prospect of a furious primary battle for a seat crucial to his party’s hopes of retaining control of the chamber in the 2024 election.
      Dominion Voting Systems executives have been insisting that its $787.5m settlement with Fox News over the media company’s lies about the 2020 election did not include a requirement that rightwing TV celebrity Tucker Carlson be dismissed. Fox fired Carlson last week.
      We’ve plenty more coming up this afternoon. Please stick with us.Joe Biden has been speaking at the White House about the collapse of First Republic Bank, insisting that the “safety and security” of the US banking system was paramount.JP Morgan stepped in quickly to snap up the “deposits and substantially all assets” of the California bank, the third US lender to fail this year.Biden praised the swiftness of the takeover by the nation’s largest bank:
      I’m pleased to say that regulators have taken action to facilitate the sale of First Republic bank, making sure that all depositors are protected, and the taxpayers are not on the hook.
      These actions are going to make sure that the banking system is safe and sound. And that includes protecting small businesses across the country who need to make payroll for workers and their small businesses.
      Touting the economic successes of his administration during an address for small business week, Biden used the crisis to pivot to an attack on so-called make America great again (Maga) Republicans he said were threatening the economy by presenting proposals over raising the national debt limit that were unacceptable:
      The most immediate thing we can do is ensure the continued reliance of our economy and the financial system. The most important thing we have to do in that regard is to make sure the threat by the speaker of the House to default on the national debt is off the table.
      For over 200 years, America has never, ever ever failed with a debt. America is not a deadbeat nation. We have never, ever failed to meet the debt.
      As a result, one of the most respected nations of the world, we pay our bills and we should do so without reckless hostage taking from some of the Maga Republicans in Congress.
      Read more:Long-serving Democratic senator Ben Cardin of Maryland is expected to announce his retirement Monday after serving three terms, opening a rare vacancy in the chamber ahead of the 2024 election, according to the Associated Press, citing his spokesperson.The 79-year-old plans to release a statement saying he will not seek reelection. His retirement is likely to create a highly competitive Democratic primary to replace him as the party faces a tough electoral map to maintain its slim majority next year.Cardin has served in the Senate since 2006, when he won a seat to replace retiring Democrat Paul Sarbanes. Before that, he was a congressman who represented a large part of Baltimore and several nearby suburbs, winning his first House race in 1986.During his tenure in the Senate, Cardin has been a leader on health care, retirement security, the environment and fiscal issues. The senator has been a leading advocate for clean water and the Chesapeake Bay, the nation’s largest estuary, which flows in his home state.No reason for his decision was given. More

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      The Democrats think centrism will re-elect Biden. That’s a dangerous assumption | David Sirota

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      The Democratic party’s political class has developed a rote formula over the last decade: ignore rather than channel discontent among the party’s rank-and-file voters, prevent competitive primaries where those voters can act on their dissatisfaction, and then hope to eke out general election victories on a wave of voter disgust with the Republican party’s outlandish nominees.This isn’t just a fleeting tactic. This is now The Formula of Democratic Politics™, one with mixed results. In 2016, the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, publicly bragged that the Formula would result in flipping enough moderate voters to secure a victory – just before the Formula’s epic failure handed Donald Trump the presidency.Four years later, though, the Formula seemed to work – Democrats united to quash the primary against the quasi-incumbent Joe Biden, and Trump’s horrific first term allowed Biden to eke out a win with a flaccid campaign based on a meaningless platitude about “the soul of America”.Now Democrats seem intent on using the Formula again – only this time, it’s even more risky because this is not a race against a sitting Republican president. In 2024, Biden is the incumbent playing defense, and data suggest that there’s not much enthusiasm for his re-election campaign, even among his own party.A stat from the Washington Post illustrates this larger problem: “Biden has less support for renomination among Democrats than Trump, Obama and Clinton had from their parties,” the newspaper reports, noting that surveys show just 38% of Democrats want Biden to be the party’s nominee in 2024. CNN’s polling shows that right now, just one-third of Americans believe Biden deserves to be re-elected – lower than where Trump was at around this stage of his first term.If there was a healthy, genuinely democratic culture among the Democratic party’s political class, the response to the prospect of depressed voter enthusiasm might be a serious primary challenge. There might be a traditional top-tier candidate – maybe a senator, a governor, or even a member of the House – who is both ambitious enough to run for president and worried enough about a Biden failure in a general election against Trump.Such a primary would serve the additional benefit of testing Biden’s own re-election viability, and making sure he can handle the rigors of a campaign before he’s already the nominee.But that hasn’t happened. The response has been the Formula.First, Biden and Democratic leaders have rejected the FDR strategy of winning elections by making a show of delivering for the working class. They have instead made a show of putting their boots in the eye of dissatisfied voters as a way to brandish their “centrist” (read: corporate) credentials.After a very good American Rescue Plan momentarily helped millions of people and boosted Biden’s standing among voters, Democrats cut off pandemic aid, jacked up taxes on the working class, stomped out a rail strike, expanded fossil fuel drilling amid the climate emergency, demagogued the crime issue, and reappointed Trump’s worker-crushing Federal Reserve chair – all while abandoning the minimum wage and healthcare promises they made in 2020. And then they spiked the football by bailing out Silicon Valley Bank tech moguls while the government moved to force up to 15 million people off Medicaid.With voters now understandably ticked off, here comes the Formula’s primary-crushing phase.There was the decision to move the first Democratic presidential primary to South Carolina – a state widely seen as a place where the party machine has the best chance to control the outcome against insurgent candidates.More recently, there’s the effort to shut down the discourse: though a Fox News survey shows 28% of Democrats already saying they will vote against Biden in a primary contest, the Washington Post reports: “The national Democratic party has said it will support Biden’s re-election, and it has no plans to sponsor primary debates.”So far, this phase of the Formula has been successful. Though Marianne Williamson and Robert F Kennedy Jr, are promising primary challenges, no elected official in the party seems willing to vigorously support even the concept of a primary, much less run in one.No doubt every Democratic officeholder is deterred by the cautionary tale of Senator Bernie Sanders, who was shamed for the crime of momentarily considering a primary challenge to Barack Obama while the incumbent was bailing out banks amid the foreclosure meltdown. For his part, Sanders provided an early Biden re-election endorsement, not even holding out for any policy concessions.So far, this part of the Formula has been successful in manufacturing a sense of inevitability and creating the illusion that there is no other path – even if voters might want one. As the Washington Post’s headline put it: “Democrats reluctant about Biden 2024, but they see no other choice”. Or as Sanders told MSNBC about his Biden endorsement: “I don’t think one has many alternatives here.”Assuming Biden is the nominee, the Formula’s final phase will probably be anchored in Schumer’s 2016 assumption. Democrats will presume that come general election time, disgust with the Republican nominee will cure all the discontent, demoralization and disillusionment sown by a feeble left-punching incumbent and by the party’s heavy-handed primary suppression tactics.Maybe that’s what ends up happening. Maybe voters will see the Republican nominee as so flagrantly grotesque that Biden will get four more years. But there’s mounting evidence that the opposite could happen, and that 2024 could be more like 2016 than 2020.That’s hardly surprising. As gross as Republican politicians are, Democrats’ formula may not be sustainable over the long haul. There may be only so long that a party can ignore and suppress mass discontent and then just hope the other party’s extremism generates revulsion.As FDR once warned: “The millions who are in want will not stand by silently forever while the things to satisfy their needs are within easy reach.”
      David Sirota is a Guardian US columnist and an award-winning investigative journalist. He is an editor-at-large at Jacobin, and the founder of The Lever. He served as Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign speechwriter More

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      Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ‘not planning’ to run for Senate seat in 2024

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      Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will not run for a seat in the US Senate next year, according to her office, clearing the way for incumbent New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, to run for re-election unopposed by the progressive congresswoman.“She is not planning to run for Senate in 2024. She is not planning to primary Gillibrand,” Lauren Hitt, Ocasio-Cortez’s spokesperson, told Politico.Gillibrand, who launched her re-election campaign in January for a third Senate term, was widely believed to be facing a number of potential challengers in the state primary, including Ocasio-Cortez.The announcement follows indications from other New York progressives, including Mondaire Jones and representatives Jamaal Bowman and Ritchie Torres, that they are not considering a challenge.New York Democrats were hit hard in the midterm elections last year and the loss of four seats to Republican candidates is widely blamed for the party losing control of Congress. Avoiding an acrimonious challenge from the progressive wing of the party, and concentrating on recovering the 2022 losses, is considered to be Democrats’ political priority.“I think it’s divisive. And unless you think you can win, it’s divisive unnecessarily,” Jay Jacobs, chair of the New York Democratic party, told Politico. “It’s using up resources we need to preserve for more coordinated work and the rest.”Camille Rivera, a New York-based progressive strategist, said that an intra-Democrat contest “could be pretty bruising and give a Republican a leg up”.Signs of a deal between Ocasio-Cortez and Gillibrand came after rumors of a Senate seat challenge began to circulate last year. Gillibrand has faced criticism for her part in forcing former senator Al Franken’s resignation, accepting donations from indicted crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried and ties to Wall Street.But Ocasio-Cortez’s staff’s choice of language – “not planning to run” is not the same as “not running”. Bronx representative Jamaal Bowman told the outlet he heard AOC’s name “weeks ago or months ago maybe” as a primary contender but hadn’t heard it since.Ocasio-Cortez’s indication comes as high-profile progressives have said they’ll support Joe Biden’s re-election bid, despite misgivings about parts of his agenda. Ocasio-Cortez has said she “unequivocally” supports the party’s nominees.Since Biden’s re-election soft launch on Tuesday, the sitting president has received endorsements from congressional progressive caucus leader Pramila Jayapal, representative Ro Khanna, and squad members Ilhan Omar, Greg Casar and Delia Ramirez.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe endorsements come despite disquiet about Biden’s recent push to the middle on crime, energy policy and immigration.“I think that people are looking at the incredible accomplishments, particularly the investments in climate change and equity, racial justice, and seeing that this is night and day from what anyone else has been able to do,” Jayapal told the Hill.Senator Elizabeth Warren has said she’s “delighted” about Biden’s decision. “I’m in all the way,” she told the outlet. Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who ran for the Democrat nomination against Biden in 2020, told CNN’s State of the Union Sunday: “If you believe in democracy, you want to see more people vote, not fewer people vote, I think the choice is pretty clear, and that choice is Biden.”But Sanders leaned on Biden to be stronger on working-class issues, and urged the president and the party “to make it clear that we believe in a government that represents all, not just the few; take on the greed of the insurance companies, the drug companies, Wall Street, all the big money interests; and start delivering for working-class people.”“You do that, I think Biden is going to win in a landslide,” Sanders added. More

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      Danger and deja vu: what 2011 can tell us about the US debt ceiling crisis

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      Angry at the size of the government debt, House Republicans have passed a bill that ties spending cuts to any lifting of the US’s debt limit. A tense fight is escalating, with Democrats refusing to budge and hard-line Republicans digging in. Without a solution, economists and others warn, the US could be plunged into an “economic catastrophe”.You can be forgiven a sense of déja vu. This has all happened before. Only this time, it could be worse.The federal government has a legal maximum on how much debt it can accumulate –often called the debt ceiling or the debt limit. Congress has to vote to raise that limit and has done 78 times since 1960 – often without fuss. But in recent years, the debt negotiations have become Washington’s most heated – and potentially dangerous – debate.This year’s fight looks like the most high-risk one since 2011, when Republicans used the debt limit debate as a bargaining chip for spending cuts. It was a fight to the bitter end. One former congressman told the New York Times that the battle drew “parallels and distinctions with other tumultuous times such as the civil war”.With stock markets reeling and 72 hours left before the US would have defaulted on its debts, a disaster that threatened to wreak havoc on the economy, Republicans and Democrats finally agreed on a bill that raised the debt ceiling by $900bn and cut spending by nearly the same amount.For Republicans, particularly the new rightwing Tea Party members who refused to budge even as default loomed, it was a political win.Politics are once again deeply embedded in this year’s debt ceiling debate and many see a mirroring of the debt ceiling crisis of 2011.The House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, is caught between his party’s moderate and far-right factions. Though McCarthy rallied his party behind a House bill, Democrats are so far refusing to negotiate.The US treasury is already running on fumes. In January, the treasury started using “extraordinary measures” to avoid defaulting on US debts while the debate over raising the limit started. Some estimate that the US government’s default date – the so-called “X date” when the government officially runs out of funds to pay its bills — will arrive in late July, giving the GOP and Democrats less than three months to find a solution.The US has never defaulted on its debt. Failure to find a solution would send stock markets reeling, recipients of federal benefits might not get their monthly checks, parts of government would grind to a halt and “long-term damage” would be inflicted on the US economy, according to the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell.Fights over the US debt ceiling are common and usually resolved after a session of bloviating. Wall Street has so far ignored this scrap, betting on a repeat. But, as in 2011, all that could change as the X date approaches. This time the Tea Party Republicans have been replaced by even more hardline politicians – the Freedom Caucus – who begrudgingly signed on to McCarthy’s plan but have sworn to hold out for cost cuts no matter the price.“What will damage the economy is what we’ve seen the last two years: record spending, record inflation, record debt. We already know that’s damaging the economy,” Representative Jim Jordan, a founding member of the Freedom Caucus, told Reuters.David Kamin, a New York University law professor who served as an economic adviser to the Obama and Biden administrations, including during the 2011 crisis, said: “Congress has negotiated [the debt ceiling] over the many decades that it’s been in its current form. But what is different about this episode, and the episode in 2011, is the very credible threat from the Republican side to not raise the debt limit, to demand a large set of policy in exchange for a vote.” He added: “That then sets up a dangerous negotiation where what’s at stake is severe repercussions for the economy.”A default would be catastrophic for the US and global economy, creating instability in financial markets and interrupting government services. But, as the 2011 crisis showed, even getting close to default comes with a price. Markets plummeted and the ratings agency S&P downgraded the US’s credit rating for the first time in history, making it more expensive for the country to borrow money. The cost to borrow went up $1.3bn the next year and continued to be more expensive years later, essentially offsetting some of the negotiation’s cost-cutting measures.To some economists, that was just the short-term impact. The spending cuts ushered in years of budget tightening whose impacts were felt for years.“We were still in a pretty depressed economy and in recovery from the great recession when those cuts were instituted. They just made the recovery last far longer than it should have,” said Josh Bivens, chief economist for the Economic Policy Institute, a leftwing thinktank. “Over the next six or seven years, really valuable public goods and services were not delivered because they were cut so sharply.”Government spending tends to rise after recessions but per-capita federal spending fell after the debt crisis. Bivens argues that if government spending had continued at its normal levels, the unemployment rate would have returned to its pre-recession level five or six years before 2017, when the job market finally recovered its losses.This time around the Republican bill, called the “Limit, Save and Grow Act”, would increase the debt ceiling by $1.5tn in exchange for $1.47tn in cuts during the next fiscal year and a 1% spending increase cap thereafter. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill would cut federal spending by $4.8tn over the next 10 years.The bill would mean cuts to things like defense, education and social services over time, though Republicans have outlined few specific cuts in the bill. House Republicans are proposing scrapping Joe Biden’s student relief program, making more stringent work requirements for government benefits, namely Medicaid, and rolling back several Inflation Reduction Act investments, particularly clean energy tax credits.The IRS would lose $71bn in funding under the new bill, a move that would lead to more lenient tax collection and ultimately cost the federal government $120bn over the next decade. Republicans have been targeting the IRS for budget cuts for over a decade, weakening the agency’s tax enforcement over corporations and the wealthy and allowing $18bn in lost government revenue, ProPublica estimated in 2018.While Republicans are using old tricks from 2011, Democrats appear to have learned some lessons from the Obama-era spat. After 2011, the Obama administration refused to negotiate over the debt ceiling. Biden and other Democratic leaders have continued the practice: the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, called the Republican bill “dead on arrival” when it got to the Senate.“President Biden will never force middle class and working families to bear the burden of tax cuts for the wealthiest, as this bill does,” the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said in a statement Wednesday. “Congressional Republicans must act immediately and without conditions to avoid default and ensure that the full faith and credit of the United States is not put at risk.”The question now is: what are the political costs for the Democrats and Republicans? As the crisis deepens, how long will they hold and who will fold?Despite Republicans preaching fiscal discipline, US debt actually rose by $7.8tn under the Trump administration. Spending cuts would also likely target GOP-friendly expenditures. The party has already had to make a tough compromise over ethanol tax credits, which were ultimately left untouched at the behest of “Corn Belt” Republican lawmakers. And McCarthy still lost four Republican votes, the most he can afford to lose with the Republicans’ slim House majority. He has little room to compromise even if he can get Biden to negotiate.Matt Gaetz, a Republican representative from Florida and another Freedom Caucus member, voted against McCarthy’s bill and said in a statement that it would “increase America’s debt by $16tn over the next ten years”.“Gaslighting nearly $50tn in debt to America is something my conscious [sic] cannot abide at this time,” Gaetz said.Kamin pointed out that Republicans only focus on the debt ceiling as a leverage point when there is a Democratic president – the debt ceiling was raised three times during Trump’s presidency – showing that their objective is less about actually reducing the deficit than it is about playing politics.“The Republican party – at least elements of the Republican party – have organized themselves using this as a litmus test for adherence to their beliefs and are really focused on it as a central element of their agenda,” Kamin said. But the fight is “not fundamentally about deficits and debt”, he said. It is a fight about politics.As in 2011, the two sides are locked in a game of chicken and waiting for the opposition to cave. If neither side blinks, the impact on the economy will be felt for years to come. More

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      ‘We need to read the room’: GOP divided on abortion as Democrats unite for 2024

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      Hours after Joe Biden announced his re-election campaign on Tuesday, his vice-president and 2024 running mate, Kamala Harris, delivered a fiery call to action for voters alarmed by the loss of constitutional protections for abortion.“This is a moment for us to stand and fight,” she said to a packed auditorium at Howard University, a historically Black college in Washington and her alma mater. To the “extremist so-called leaders” rolling back access to reproductive rights, Harris warned: “Don’t get in our way because if you do, we’re going to stand up, we’re going to organize and we’re going to speak up.”Across the Potomac, Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley appealed for a “national consensus” on abortion in a carefully worded speech delivered earlier that day from the Arlington headquarters of a leading anti-abortion group. Sidestepping the thorny policy debates already animating the Republican primary contest, she said her focus was on “humanizing, not demonizing” the conversation around abortion.“I believe in compassion, not anger,” she said. “I don’t judge someone who is pro-choice any more than I want them to judge me for being pro-life.”Nearly a year after the supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade, the battle over abortion rights is shaping the opening stages of the 2024 presidential contest.In dueling speeches this week, Harris and Haley previewed sharply contrasting approaches to an issue that is energizing Democrats and dividing Republicans. It’s a sign of just how dramatically abortion politics have shifted in the post-Roe era.Republicans, who for decades championed the anti-abortion agenda of the religious right, are now wavering on their positions, no longer sure of how to navigate an abiding principle of American conservatism in their quest to win control of the White House and Congress.Meanwhile, Democrats running for office at every level of government – from the presidential ticket on down – are placing abortion rights at the heart of their campaigns, presenting themselves as bulwarks against Republican extremism on the issue. It was a strategy the party used to surprising success in the 2022 midterm elections last year, when voters in red states, blue states and swing states resisted attempts to advance abortion restrictions.And it worked again earlier this month, when a liberal judge won a pivotal Wisconsin supreme court race after clearly telegraphing her support for abortion rights. Her victory likely guarantees the court’s new liberal majority will strike down the state’s 1849 abortion ban.“This is a defining issue for millions and millions of Americans,” said Cecile Richards, a former CEO of Planned Parenthood who is now a co-chair of Democratic Super Pac American Bridge 21st Century. Abortion rights, she predicted, would be “even more important” in 2024 than they were last year, as Americans grapple with the consequences of abortion bans and restricted access.“I think the harm to American people, to women, to families is going to continue to be on display and that you can lay directly at the feet of the Republican party,” Richards said.Democrats are almost universally aligned in their support for abortion rights, and largely unified in their messaging: Republicans, they warn, will not stop until abortion is outlawed in all 50 states.“Their ultimate goal is clear: a total ban on abortion nationwide,” the Democratic senator ​Dick Durbin​ of Illinois​ said this week, in remarks opening a committee hearing titled “The Assault on Reproductive Rights in a Post-Dobbs America”.The high court’s June decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health, he said, “paved the way for activist judges and Republican lawmakers to try to impose their anti-choice agenda on everyone else, even in states that have protected the right to abortion”.During the session, Democratic senators assailed a ruling earlier this month by a conservative judge in Texas to suspend the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of the abortion pill mifepristone. Republicans, meanwhile, were largely muted in their response to the decision.If allowed to stand, the Texas order would have far-reaching implications for access to one of the most common methods of terminating a pregnancy in the US, including in places where abortion remains legal. For now, the supreme court ordered the pill to remain widely available while the appeals process plays out.Republicans are divided over how to counter the attacks. Some Republicans have argued that abortion is a matter best left to the states, a position recently endorsed by Donald Trump. Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America (SBA), one of the most powerful anti-abortion groups, fired back with a warning to the party’s 2024 hopefuls: any candidate who does not endorse a national ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy will not receive their support.The rift between Trump and the movement leaders who once anointed him the “most pro-life” president in history for his role delivering the conservative supreme court majority that struck down Roe underscores the challenge for Republican candidates as they seek to appeal to their party’s socially conservative base in the primary without alienating independents and swing voters in a general election.Haley sought to strike that balance In her speech from SBA’s headquarters this week. Emphasizing her “pro-life” record both as the governor of South Carolina and Trump’s ambassador to the UN, she said there was a role for the federal government to play in regulating abortion, but largely avoided specific policy prescriptions.In a statement after the speech, SBA said Haley had made “clear” to the group that she was committed to “acting on the American consensus against late-term abortion by protecting unborn children by at least 15 weeks”. (A spokesman for the Haley campaign said she wanted to build “consensus to ban late-term abortion” but did not say whether she supported such a proposal. SBA did not respond to an email seeking clarity.)Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina waffled on his position in the days after launching a presidential exploratory committee, declining to say if he would support a national 15-week ban. He later backed a 20-week ban before saying in an interview that he would sign “the most conservative pro-life legislation you could bring to my desk”.Anti-abortion advocates applauded Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, seen as Trump’s most formidable challenger for the nomination, after he signed into law legislation banning abortions after six weeks, before many women realize they are pregnant. But the decision to do so has alarmed some Republicans, including a top party donor who cited abortion as one of the reason he was pausing plans to fund DeSantis’s yet-to-be announced presidential bid.Perhaps no potential Republican contender has taken a harder line on abortion than the former vice-president Mike Pence, a staunch social conservative. He has embraced a national ban and recently welcomed the Texas decision on medication abortion, calling it a “victory for life”.Disagreement among the party’s notional field of Republican presidential contenders all but guarantees a robust policy debate on the issue, forcing them to articulate a federal plan that details how early in a pregnancy to restrict abortion and when to allow exceptions.Americans almost universally agree that women should be able to terminate their pregnancy in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother, according to a new NBC poll. And a survey by the Pew Research Center recently found that Americans, by a margin of two to one, believe medication abortion should be legal.“As Republicans, we need to read the room on this issue because the vast majority of folks are not in the extremes,” the Republican congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina said in an appearance on ABC News’s This Week. Mace, who like most of her party describes herself as “pro-life”, is part of an increasingly vocal group of Republicans urging her party to avoid politically perilous positions that risk alienating the broader American public that supports legal abortion.“We’re going to lose huge if we continue down this path of extremities,” she said.Leaders of the anti-abortion movement say Republicans’ silence on the issue, not their policy positions, is to blame for the string of recent electoral setbacks. They point to DeSantis, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp and Ohio Governor Mike DeWine as examples of Republicans who sailed to re-election last year, after signing into law new restrictions on abortion. All are from right-leaning but still-contested states.Republican “strategists are advising Republican candidates to talk as little as possible about abortion. Meanwhile, Biden plastered ABORTION all over his new campaign video,” Kristan Hawkins, the president of the anti-abortion group Students for Life of America, wrote on Twitter. “They are talking about it, so we 100% should be too.”Speaking recently at the Reagan Library, Ronna McDaniel, the chair of the Republican National Committee, urged the party faithful not to impose “rigid, ideological purity tests” while pushing her candidates to lean into the debate over abortion rights.“We can win on abortion but that means putting Democrats on the defense and forcing them to own their own extreme positions,” she said, citing polling that showed support for a 15-week federal ban.But corralling her party behind a unified policy is no easy task. After a half-century of pushing to eliminate federal abortion protections, conservatives feel emboldened to push ever more restrictive laws in places where they hold power.This week, North Dakota became the latest state to dramatically limit abortion, banning the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, with no exceptions for rape or incest. And a new law in Idaho would criminalize those who help a minor obtain an abortion in another state without a parent’s permission.Meanwhile, in South Carolina and Nebraska, the state’s conservative-majority legislatures failed to pass new bills banning abortion, another sign of just how complicated the issue has become for Republicans.Molly Murphy, a Democratic pollster who has studied public attitudes on abortion, said voters are highly attuned to the fast-changing legal and political landscape. And repeatedly since Roe’s demise, she noted, they have made clear their opposition to further restrictions.“What voters want is for Republican politicians to stay out of their personal lives,” Murphy said. Until then, she said abortion rights would continue to be a powerful motivator for Democrats.“The energy has not waned,” she said. More