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      Democratic unity strikes contrast to Republican chaos as McCarthy exits

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      “Democrats in disarray” has been an oft-repeated joke in Washington in recent years, a tongue-in-cheek reference to the tensions that repeatedly flared up between the progressives and the centrists of Joe Biden’s party. But on Tuesday, House Democrats presented a united front as their Republican counterparts turned against each other and ultimately ousted one of their own in a historic defeat.The entire House Democratic caucus voted unanimously to remove the Republican Kevin McCarthy as speaker on Tuesday, joining eight mostly hard-right lawmakers in supporting a motion to vacate the chair. Refusing to intervene in a mess of Republicans’ own making, Democrats looked on as McCarthy was unseated, making him the first House speaker in US history to be removed from office.Under the oversight of their new leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, House Democrats have marched in lockstep to challenge Republicans’ policy agenda, offering a stark contrast to the fractious conference that McCarthy tried and failed to unify. As they look to take back the House next year, Democrats hope to use the instability displayed this week to make a broader argument about the extremism that they say has come to define the modern Republican party.Heading into the Tuesday vote, speculation abounded over whether McCarthy might offer Democrats some kind of deal to help save his speakership. But McCarthy chose not to, telling CNBC on Tuesday: “They haven’t asked for anything, and I’m not going to provide anything.”Instead, McCarthy tried to appeal to members’ faith in the integrity of the House to keep his gavel, arguing that a removal of a speaker would represent an irreversible black mark on the institution.But that argument struck many Democrats as hypocritical coming from McCarthy, particularly given the speaker’s stunning flip-flop regarding the deadly insurrection at the Capitol on 6 January 2021. In the days after the attack, McCarthy said Donald Trump “bears responsibility” for the violence carried out by a group of the former president’s supporters. But just two weeks later, McCarthy flew to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to make amends, and he later denounced the work of the House select committee investigating the insurrection.McCarthy “went to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring and voted not to impeach Donald Trump for inciting a violent insurrection against the 2020 presidential election and our government”, Jamie Raskin, a Democratic member of the select committee, said Tuesday. “This is a somber day for America as the chickens come home to roost for Kevin McCarthy.”The final self-inflicted nail in McCarthy’s coffin came on Sunday, the day after the House passed a continuing resolution to extend government funding through 17 November and avert a federal shutdown. House Democrats overwhelmingly supported the stopgap funding bill, with just one member voting against it, but 90 House Republicans opposed the legislation.And yet, when McCarthy appeared on CBS News’ Face the Nation on Sunday, he attempted to blame Democrats for the last-minute scramble.“I wasn’t sure it was going to pass. You want to know why? Because the Democrats tried to do everything they can not to let it pass,” McCarthy said. “They did not want the bill. They were willing to let government shut down, for our military not to be paid.”House Democratic leaders played a clip of McCarthy’s interview during their Tuesday morning caucus meeting, just hours before the chamber’s vote on removing the speaker. McCarthy’s comments outraged Democrats, fortifying the caucus’s resolve to support the motion to vacate.“It goes in political 101 textbooks going forward as maybe one of the most … stupid things somebody could do on the eve of your survival vote,” Gerry Connolly, a Democratic Virginia congressman, told NBC News.In the end, every present House Democrat voted to oust McCarthy, ensuring the end of his speakership. Democrats commended Jeffries on keeping his members unified on Tuesday, mirroring the caucus’s unanimous support for Jeffries through 15 rounds of voting during the speakership election in January.“Yesterday was a pure demonstration of the type of leadership and continuity that [Jeffries] brings to the table and how inclusive he is,” said Antjuan Seawright, a Democratic strategist. “He has, I think, been extra intentional about keeping all four corners of the House Democratic caucus square together and living out what diversity and inclusion means when it comes to House Democrats.”Jeffries has now called on more centrist members of the House Republican conference to join Democrats in forming a “bipartisan governing coalition”.“At this point, we simply need Republican partners willing to break with Maga extremism, reform the highly partisan House rules that were adopted at the beginning of this Congress and join us in finding common ground for the people,” he wrote in a Washington Post op-ed published on Friday.So far, Republican partners have been difficult to find. Some of McCarthy’s allies blamed House Democrats for the speaker’s removal, accusing them of prioritizing their political goals over the good of the country. Democrats have scoffed at that argument, asserting that McCarthy brought about his own downfall by trying to appease the hard-right members who ultimately ousted him. McCarthy only won the speakership in January by making concessions to hard-right lawmakers, including a rule allowing any single member to introduce a motion to vacate the chair. That decision came back to haunt McCarthy this week.“The same rightwing extremism that gave McCarthy the speakership was the same rightwing extremism that took away his speakership,” Seawright said. “House Democrats should continue to draw the contrast with extremism that has hijacked and pretty much taken over the Republican conference with the comparison and the contrast of what was able to be done” when the Democrats had the House majority.Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, suggested the speakership debacle could be a launchpad for Democrats to engage in a fuller discussion about rightwing extremism. With government funding due to run out in just a month, Green said it was urgent for Democrats to make a policy-based pitch against Republicans’ legislative agenda.“Extremism doesn’t just mean they can’t rally their caucus on the House floor. Extremism means they would actually cut social security benefits for millions of current and future seniors,” Green said. “The extremists within an already extreme Republican party that are in charge are the same ones who would be most likely to use their leverage to cut programs like social security.”As the House prepares for another speakership election, much of the conversation in Washington has focused on who might replace McCarthy. But for Green, the more important conversation involves how the new Republican speaker will govern with a newly emboldened hard-right faction in his conference. Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan, two speaker candidates, have also backed drastic government funding cuts, voting in favor of McCarthy’s recent failed proposal to temporarily reduce most government agencies’ budgets by up to 30%.“I think it’s important to connect the dots between the chaos and extremism we’ve seen playing out in this leadership fight and what those same forces will attempt to do in the upcoming government funding fight,” Green said. “It’s very possible that members of the public perceive these as two very different stories, as opposed to two chapters in the same story.” More

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      Biden pledges to work with next House speaker as Jim Jordan welcomes Trump endorsement – as it happened

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      From 4h agoIn remarks at the White House, Joe Biden declined to comment on conservative stalwart Jim Jordan’s bid for speaker of the House, but said he would try to find ways to cooperate with whoever is chosen.“Whomever the House speaker is, I’m going to try to work with,” Biden said. “They control … half the Congress and I’m going to try to work with them. Some people, I imagine, it could be easier to work with than others, but whoever the speaker is I’ll try to work with.”Donald Trump has endorsed Jim Jordan, a prominent House conservative, to serve as the chamber’s next speaker. He made the decision public on social media, but only after a congressman’s indiscretion reportedly torpedoed a plan to do so in a far more public fashion. Trump is certainly influential, but the race is far from decided, and at the White House, Joe Biden said he would try to “work with” whoever sits in the speaker’s chair next.Here’s what else is happening today:
      Kevin McCarthy is considering resigning from Congress once the House elects a new speaker, Politico scoops.
      Top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries called on Republicans to work with his party to reform Congress’s lower chamber, but any such efforts’ prospects are unlikely.
      The US economy added far more jobs than expected last month, a sign that the labor market remains robust.
      Hunter Biden’s attorney has filed to dismiss the charges against the president’s son, arguing a plea deal that collapsed over the summer remains in effect.
      Two far-right Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy also reportedly believe the impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden is not worth doing.
      Politico reports that Kevin McCarthy told House Republicans he may resign after they elect a new speaker.“I’m going to spend time with my family,” he told GOP lawmakers in a closed-door meeting, according to people familiar with what took place. “I might have been given a bad break, but I’m still the luckiest man alive.”However, later, KGET-TV reporter Eytan Wallace said on X – formerly Twitter – that he spoke directly to McCarthy and the congressman denied having any intentions of resigning. In fact, Wallace said McCarthy expressed an intention to run for re-election.McCarthy represents a California district centered on the city of Bakersfield and extending into the southern Sierra Nevada mountains and out into the Central Valley, where oil and gas and agriculture are major industries. He has been in office since 2007, representing a district considered the most-Republican leaning in the state.The Washington Post took a close look at the prospect of some kind of bipartisan coalition filling the power vacuum caused by Kevin McCarthy’s ouster.Their conclusion: not going to happen.While there’s only a four-seat difference in the chamber between Democratic and Republican control, existing ill will between the two parties doomed attempts by moderate GOP lawmakers to convince their counterparts on the other side of the aisle to save McCarthy. With many Republicans now furious at Democrats for their role in his ouster and the party’s right wing on the ascent, moderates have few incentives to attempt to build the sort of coalition that could get one of their own into the speaker’s chair, or carry out the sorts of reforms Jeffries envisioned in his op-ed.Here’s more, from the Post:
      As GOP lawmakers ducked in and out of meetings this week, making pitches to one another in initial bids to garner support for the top job, rank-and-file members ruled out the imminent possibility of a bipartisan effort to save them from their latest state of chaos.
      “I think the Republican conference will be stronger when we first work with ourselves,” Rep. August Pfluger (R-Tex.) said Wednesday on his way to a lunch with the Texas delegation where prospective speakers sounded out potential allies.
      Compromise, even among pragmatic members in swing districts, is a tall order in this political environment. Moderate Democrats and Republicans face the constant threat of primaries, and many live in fear of being targeted by powerful conservative media. Even members who represent swing districts fret about being punished by extreme voters in primary elections, a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus said.
      House rules adopted in a compromise that allowed McCarthy to win the job in January — after days of strife and 15 ballots — have also empowered individual members with outsize influence over the House GOP conference, exacerbating the party’s partisan polarization. A motion to vacate, for example, is a congressional procedure to remove a presiding officer from a position that can be triggered by just one House member. Once initiated, it takes priority on the House floor ahead of all other business. This week, the motion was moved by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), a Trump ally.
      In a column published in the Washington Post, the Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries called on the GOP to work with his party to reform the rules of the House and encourage more bipartisanship:
      House Republicans have lashed out at historic public servants and tried to shift blame for the failed Republican strategy of appeasement. But what if they pursued a different path and confronted the extremism that has spread unchecked on the Republican side of the aisle? When that step has been taken in good faith, we can proceed together to reform the rules of the House in a manner that permits us to govern in a pragmatic fashion.
      The details would be subject to negotiation, though the principles are no secret: The House should be restructured to promote governance by consensus and facilitate up-or-down votes on bills that have strong bipartisan support. Under the current procedural landscape, a small handful of extreme members on the Rules Committee or in the House Republican conference can prevent common-sense legislation from ever seeing the light of day. That must change — perhaps in a manner consistent with bipartisan recommendations from the House Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress.
      In short, the rules of the House should reflect the inescapable reality that Republicans are reliant on Democratic support to do the basic work of governing. A small band of extremists should not be capable of obstructing that cooperation.
      By all indications, leading House Republicans are furious at Democrats who voted to remove Kevin McCarthy, even though his overthrow was orchestrated by a small number of far-right GOP lawmakers. The acting speaker, Patrick McHenry, ordered Democratic veterans Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer out of their Capitol building offices hours after taking his post, while the two leading contenders to replace McCarthy are majority leader Steve Scalise and judiciary committee chair Jim Jordan, both deeply conservative.If the GOP is to take Jeffries up on his suggestions, it would probably happen at the behest of the party’s moderates – but unlike the party’s right wing, they have yet to show signs of uniting and making demands of the leadership.Democrats have scored a win in New Mexico, where a state judge turned down a challenge from Republicans to its congressional map, the Associated Press reports.The map is friendly to Democrats and will likely allow them to win all of the state’s three districts, as the Cook Political Report makes clear:Republicans had, in particular, taken issue with Democratic state lawmakers’ decision to split up an oil-producing region that skews conservative, according to the AP.Earlier in the day, Joe Biden provided more details on why his administration decided to begin building new border wall.His predecessor Donald Trump had made fortifying the frontier with Mexico a top priority, but Biden repudiated that in his first days in office. Yesterday, it was revealed his administration was building new barriers on the southern border, angering environmentalist, Indigenous rights and other activist groups who characterized the decision as a betrayal.Biden had previously said federal law obliged him to start the construction and, in response to a request for more details from a reporter today, elaborated on how that happened:United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain is scheduled to say soon whether recent intensified bargaining with the Detroit Three automakers has produced enough progress to forestall more walkouts, Reuters writes.A video address by Fain is scheduled for 2pm ET and will cover substantive bargaining updates, people familiar with the UAW’s plans said earlier.’That timing is a departure from the previous two Fridays in which Fain addressed union members at about 10am and ordered walkouts at additional factories to start at noon.Fain kept automakers Ford, GM and Stellantis, the maker of Chrysler and Jeep, guessing on Thursday.People familiar with the bargaining said talks have heated up this week after days of little movement.Ford, GM and Stellantis have made new proposals in an effort to end the escalating cycle of walkouts that threaten to undercut profits and cripple smaller suppliers already strained from months of production cuts forced by semiconductor shortages.The pressure is rising on the three automakers as EV market leader Tesla cut US prices of its Model 3 sedan and Model Y SUV, ratcheting up its price war and further pressuring profits on all EV models that are forced to match CEO Elon Musk’s aggression.Deutsche Bank estimated in a research note on Friday that the hit to operating earnings at GM, Ford and Stellantis from lost production has been $408 million, $250 million and $230 million, respectively.Meanwhile, Republican freshman Senator JD Vance swung by an Ohio picket line, only to get a dry burn from Toledo congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, who’s served the district for 40 years.Why is Joe Biden campaigning for Donald Trump? The US president is helping to build Trump’s border wall. What is he thinking?The question sounds ludicrous, but how else would you characterize Biden’s latest pronouncement to build 20 new miles of Trump’s border wall along the southern border? This is like throwing red meat to Trump’s base, who will chomp and salivate over what they will portray as an admission of defeat by the Democrats on securing the border.And why wouldn’t they? Back when he was campaigning for president, Joe Biden promised “not another foot” of Trump’s border wall would be built. He halted construction of the wall on his first day in office with a proclamation stating that “building a massive wall that spans the entire southern border is not a serious policy solution. It is a waste of money that diverts attention from genuine threats to our homeland security.”Now, the government is poised to spend nearly $200m on 20 miles of border wall in the Rio Grande Valley. The administration says it has been forced into this situation because Congress appropriated $1.375bn for such border barriers in 2019, and the funds that remain must be disbursed by the end of the fiscal year. But Democrats had control over Congress for the first two years of the Biden administration. They could have reallocated those funds. Instead, this Democratic administration is now sounding very Trump-like. “There is presently an acute and immediate need to construct physical barriers and roads in the vicinity of the border of the United States in order to prevent unlawful entries,” reads the notice in the Federal Register.This is a political failure by the Democrats on one of the most important issues of the looming 2024 election. And it’s a massive policy failure as well.The full op-ed will be published by Guardian US shortly.Donald Trump has endorsed Jim Jordan, a prominent House conservative, to serve as the chamber’s next speaker. He made the decision public on social media, but only after a congressman’s indiscretion reportedly torpedoed a plan to do so in a far more public fashion. Trump is certainly influential, but the race is far from decided, and at the White House, Joe Biden said he would try to “work with” whoever sits in the speaker’s chair next.Here’s what else is happening today:
      The US economy added far more jobs than expected last month, a sign that the labor market remains robust.
      Hunter Biden’s attorney has filed to dismiss the charges against the president’s son, arguing a plea deal that collapsed over the summer remains in effect.
      Two far-right Republicans who voted to oust Kevin McCarthy also reportedly believe the impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden is not worth doing.
      In remarks at the White House, Joe Biden declined to comment on conservative stalwart Jim Jordan’s bid for speaker of the House, but said he would try to find ways to cooperate with whoever is chosen.“Whomever the House speaker is, I’m going to try to work with,” Biden said. “They control … half the Congress and I’m going to try to work with them. Some people, I imagine, it could be easier to work with than others, but whoever the speaker is I’ll try to work with.”Donald Trump’s plan to endorse Jim Jordan as speaker of the House was supposed to be done in a far more dramatic fashion, but a congressman’s announcement of the ex-president’s intentions torpedoed that plan, the Messenger reports.Trump was considering traveling to the Capitol where he would engage in something of a stunt intended to unite the fractious Republican conference around Jordan. That plan is now off, the Messenger reports:
      When House Republicans ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy earlier this week, Donald Trump began toying with the idea of heading to Washington, D.C. in a high-profile visit, briefly standing as a candidate for the post before dramatically delivering his support and his votes to an ally, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan.
      Trump outlined the spotlight-grabbing plan in calls to Republicans on Wednesday night, four sources familiar with the discussions tell The Messenger, which first reported Trump’s initial interest in visiting the paralyzed U.S. House.
      But Trump had one ask: “Keep this quiet.”
      Texas Congressman Troy Nehls either didn’t heed or didn’t hear that Trump request, blabbing about the once-private call on the social media platform X at 9:32 p.m.
      “Just had a great conversation with President Trump about the Speaker’s race. He is endorsing Jim Jordan, and I believe Congress should listen to the leader of our party. I fully support Jim Jordan for Speaker of the House,” Nehls wrote.
      The Nehls post appeared just as a Trump adviser was discussing the effort with a Messenger reporter about Trump’s idea of flirting with the speakership and then elevating Jordan instead.
      “Nehls just totally f—-d this up,” the adviser said, hanging up the phone. The four sources who described Trump’s thinking for this story all spoke with The Messenger on condition of anonymity over the past three days to describe private conversations.
      Less than three hours later, at 12:13 a.m., Trump publicly endorsed Jordan on his Truth Social media platform, saying the Ohio Republican, who is the chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee, would be “a great speaker of the House and has my complete and total endorsement.”
      Now Trump’s congressional travel plans are in doubt.
      Trump’s allies are discussing the utility of going at all because, for Trump, the plan revolved around secrecy. He wanted to stoke the coals of speculation about what he would do, thereby heightening the drama and attention, advisers said. His appearance and speech would have made a splash on Capitol Hill and sucked up all the media attention in the presidential primary, where he’s already leading by a forbidding margin.
      No travel decision has been made, advisers say, noting it’s up to Trump, who can change his mind on a whim – along with the flight plans for his Trump-branded 757 private aircraft.
      But everyone in his orbit agrees about one aspect of Trump’s mind.
      “Trump is pretty annoyed at Nehls,” said another Trump adviser.
      Mike Pence, the former vice-president who spent more than a decade representing an Indiana district in the House, again condemned the far-right revolt that remove Kevin McCarthy: More

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      The McCarthy debacle barely scrapes the surface of how dysfunctional Congress is | Osita Nwanevu

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      While those who follow politics closely are busy parsing what the ouster of Kevin McCarthy as House speaker might mean for Congress, those who don’t ⁠– meaning the bulk of the American people ⁠– could be forgiven for tuning much of the drama of the last few weeks out. Ordinary Americans have little faith in Congress as it stands: as substantively or strategically consequential as they might be, the battles between members of our most reviled class, politicians, seem to most like juvenile squabbles.Here’s a detail that might incense them further. For generations, members of the US Senate have carved and scrawled their names into their desks. This rite, the stuff of summer camp and grade school, is, to the peculiar mind of a US senator, something more profound ⁠– yet another tradition, as though they needed another, signifying their membership in an august and noble fraternity.The same can be said of the Senate’s dress code, which was unanimously rescued and formalized this past week after Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer relaxed the chamber’s rules, seemingly to accommodate the defiantly casual Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman. Men will be asked to wear full business attire from now on ⁠– a requirement that has its practical advantages. As Robert Menendez, the New Jersey senator, may allegedly know, a suit jacket is a fine place to stow wads of cash in a pinch and useful, in the abstract, for another reason ⁠– disguising, through costumes of respectability, how grubby, venal and unremarkable many of our politicians are.A group letter written in the defense of the dress code described the Senate as “a place of honor and tradition”. “The world watches us on that floor,” it reads, “and we must protect the sanctity of that place at all costs.” Of course, the world usually has better things to do than keep up with congressional proceedings on C-SPAN, but there are embarrassing exceptions, the latest dramas among Republicans in the House among them, though the fact that they’re taking place in the opposite chamber shouldn’t flatter the Senate and its defenders ⁠– “the world’s greatest deliberative body” is nothing more than the geriatric wing of one of the world’s most unserious legislatures.And while much due attention is given to the problem of money in politics and more and more conversations are being had about Congress’s structural defects ⁠– once the late Dianne Feinstein is replaced and California regains its full complement of senators, each of the state’s voters will still have just over one-sixtieth the representation in the chamber of a voter in Wyoming ⁠– we ought to have a conversation, too, about the culture of the place.The inescapable fact uniting so much that grates about Congress right now ⁠– Republican shenanigans in the House, the Democratic party’s sluggishness in handling an obviously corrupt, compromised and distracted Menendez, gerontocracy within both parties ⁠– is that we ask very little of our representatives. Being a member of Congress simply isn’t substantively demanding enough.The irony of all the talk about how elderly our leaders are, and the reality that, in fact, has allowed obviously infirm politicians like Feinstein and Mitch McConnell to retain their positions even as they go catatonic in public view, is that the halls and offices of the Capitol are absolutely teeming with unelected and invisible young staffers ⁠– many of whom are in their 20s and 30s, some of whom are constitutionally incapable of occupying the offices they serve ⁠– who do much of the actual work Americans believe our elected officials do themselves.Policy research, drafting and reviewing legislative language, authoring speeches, drawing up the questions senators and congressmen ask at hearings, writing tweets and statements that go out under their bosses’ names, preparing talking points for media appearances, relaying directives from party leaders about how to vote and why ⁠– as a practical matter, the average politician in Washington today needn’t be more than a warm body with a pulse ready to cast a given vote.Of course, the late Senator Feinstein did her level best to test even that. But the fact that she, as one New York Times headline put it, “[Relied] Heavily on Staff to Function” was only partially a function of her age ⁠– the same is true of all but a relatively small and wonky contingent of unusually hard-working legislators.That’s not to say the rest don’t have concrete and vital responsibilities of their own ⁠– in 2013, the Huffington Post obtained documents from Democratic congressional campaign committee recommending that freshmen members of the caucus spend at least four hours every day calling donors for campaign contributions, more than the total amount of time recommended for visits with constituents and working in committees or voting on the House floor combined, a figure probably comparable to the number of hours spent dialing for dollars on the other side of the aisle.“After votes in the House, a stream of congressmen and women can be seen filing out of the Capitol and, rather than returning to their offices, heading to rowhouses nearby on First Street for call time, or directly to the parties’ headquarters,” Ryan Grim and Sabrina Siddiqui wrote. “The rowhouses […] are typically owned by lobbyists, fundraisers or members themselves, and are used for call time because it’s illegal to solicit campaign cash from the official congressional office.”Once call time is done, we might find our representatives making canned speeches prepared by dutiful staffers before a mostly empty chamber, some of which might find their way into campaign ads and materials later.It can’t really be a surprise, given this, that Congress attracts so many who have little fundamental interest in doing the work of governing themselves ⁠– or that it sustains the careers of even those who do well after they’re personally capable of doing it. In either case, the legislator is little more than a cog in a vast machine influenced variously by donors, interest groups, major leaders and figures in both parties, the media, primary voters, and, yes, somewhere in the mix voters in the general electorate, though it should be said that most legislators don’t have to sweat much for their approval come election time.In the 2022 midterms, 84% of House seats were either uncontested or decided in races where the victor won by more than 10 points, with the average margin of victory in all races working out to about 28 points. Nearly 95% of incumbents won reelection. On the Senate side, Cook Political Reports rated nine of the 35 races as potentially competitive; ultimately, all incumbents won their seats back.Congress, all told, isn’t a place most are ultimately forced to leave either by elections or as a matter of their age. Term limits and age limits have been floated as solutions to all this, but another complementary remedy, if we dare to dream, might be party leaders taking it upon themselves to work our representatives harder.The tasks of legislating are now well beyond the capacities of individual legislators alone, yes, but setting the expectation that they should shoulder more of the burdens now foisted upon their staffers would discourage older legislators and incumbents from sticking around too long ⁠– Feinstein might have retired long ago if she’d actually had to do more of her job herself ⁠– and help dissuade layabouts and grifters from seeking office.We’ll never be fully rid of them, of course, and we’d scarcely recognize Congress without them. But making the work of politics feel like work seems worth a try.
      Osita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Trump files motion to dismiss 2020 election subversion case – as it happened

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      From 3h agoDonald Trump has filed a new motion to dismiss the special counsel’s 2020 election subversion case.In a new filing on Thursday, Trump’s lawyers argue that he has “absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions performed within the ‘outer perimeter’ of his official responsibility.”The motion states:
      “Breaking 234 years of precedent, the incumbent administration has charged President Trump for acts that lie not just within the ‘outer perimeter,’ but at the heart of his official responsibilities as President.
      In doing so, the prosecution does not, and cannot, argue that President Trump’s efforts to ensure election integrity, and to advocate for the same, were outside the scope of his duties.
      Instead, the prosecution falsely claimsthat President Trump’s motives were impure— that he purportedly “knew” that the widespread reports of fraud and election irregularities were untrue but sought to address them anyway.
      The full motion can be found here. As Republicans scramble to find a new House speaker, Donald Trump is mulling visiting the Capitol to weigh in on what the party should do next. Meanwhile, Kevin McCarthy’s staffers are reportedly working to secure support for judiciary chair Jim Jordan to replace him. It’s unclear why, but it could have something to do with another report saying majority leader Steve Scalise began his campaign for the speakership before McCarthy had even been formally ousted.Here’s what else happened today:
      Environmentalists are outraged after the Biden administration began constructing new border fencing. Joe Biden says he doesn’t think it will be effective, but federal law required him to do so. Meanwhile, his administration reportedly will resume deportation flights to Venezuela, a major source of migrants.
      Trump for speaker of the House? It could theoretically happen, and one Republican wants it to, but it would probably be a bad idea for the GOP.
      A Georgia judge rejected former Trump attorney Sidney Powell’s attempt to get charges against her related to trying to overturn the state’s 2020 election result dismissed.
      George Santos’s former campaign treasurer pleaded guilty to an unspecified felony. It’s unclear what his means for the congressman and admitted fabulist, who is under federal indictment.
      Alabama will get a second majority Black congressional district, despite the best efforts of state Republicans. A Democrat will likely represent it, bolstering their margins in the House.
      Sidney Powell, a former lawyer for Donald Trump, is facing criminal charges over her involvement in a scheme to breach election systems in a rural Georgia county. Her case is on course to continue after a judge today turned down an attempt to dismiss the charges.Brian Rafferty, Powell’s attorney, argued in a 213 page motion filed last week that the case should be thrown out because prosecutors had presented misleading evidence to the grand jury that indicted Powell, and failed to turn over exculpatory evidence. The central thrust of Powell’s defense in the case is that she was not involved in the voting machine breach. Will Wooten, a prosecutor in the Fulton county district attorney’s office, strongly disputed those claims during a brief hearing on Thursday, saying they were “absurd and unsupported.”Scott McAfee, the judge overseeing the case, said that he had not heard anything meriting dismissal ahead of a jury trial scheduled to begin later this month. “Just purely on procedural grounds, I don’t believe that this motion to dismiss for misconduct … I don’t see that as clearing just the procedural bar of being something under the court’s authority,” he said. “It’s the jury’s role to decide contested issues.”McAfee also pressed Rafferty to give a concrete list of items he wanted prosecutors to ensure they wanted to turn over. Wooten said all relevant evidence had been turned over to Powell’s team, but agreed to have his office again review special grand jury transcripts and other materials to double check.Powell, who was one of Trump’s key lawyers as he sought to overturn the 2020 election, faces seven criminal charges in Georgia, including racketeering, conspiracy to commit election fraud, conspiracy to commit computer theft, and conspiracy to commit computer trespass. She is alleged to have helped facilitate a scheme in which a team gained access to Coffee county’s election equipment and copied sensitive information.Powell and Ken Chesebro, another Trump attorney who was the architect of the fake elector scheme, successfully severed their trial from Trump and the 17 other defendants, and will have the first trial of the group.The Biden administration will restart deportations to Venezuela, as it faces rising pressure to curb surging migrant flows on the southern border, CBS News reports:Deportations to the South American country have been paused for years due to Washington’s strained relations with Caracas, but CBS News reports Venezuelans who have entered the US illegally and lack a valid basis to stay will now be sent home.Last month, the homeland security department extended temporary permission for about 472,000 Venezuelans to live and work in the US:The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that a judge has rejected Sidney Powell’s attempt to dismiss the charges filed against her by district attorney Fani Willis related to trying to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election.Powell acted as a lawyer for Donald Trump, during the period when he and his allies attempted to disrupt Joe Biden’s election victory in the swing state. She was indicted alongside the ex-president in August, and has pleaded not guilty to the charges:And in a taste of what the trials for the 19 defendants Willis charged will be like, an attorney for Powell’s co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro said he has been told nearly 180 witnesses who could potentially be called:Punchbowl News has obtained House Democratic whip Katherine Clark’s instructions to the party’s lawmakers ahead of the expected speakership election next week.There’s not much surprising here, and her instructions underscore that Democrats will do what they did in January, when Kevin McCarthy was elected as House speaker after a painful 15 ballots: repeatedly vote for minority leader Hakeem Jeffries:The big question thus remains: who will the GOP vote for?Should Donald Trump become the next speaker of the House? At least one Republican thinks so.Far-right fixture Marjorie Taylor Greene says she wants the ex-president and current frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination to take the chamber’s top post:Legally, it’s possible – the House speaker does not have to be an elected member of the chamber.But as Punchbowl News’s John Bresnahan – a veteran chronicler of Congress – observes, appointing Trump would … well, maybe you should just hear it from him:There’s no saying how a judge will rule on Donald Trump’s motion to dismiss the charges against him for trying to overturn the 2020 election, but the case has been slowly grinding towards trial. Here’s Hugo Lowell’s report from last week, when special counsel prosecutors asked the judge to issue a gag order against Trump:Special counsel prosecutors reiterated Friday to the federal judge overseeing the 2020 election interference prosecution against Donald Trump the need to impose a limited gag order against the former president to curtail his ability to attack them and potentially intimidate trial witnesses.The sharply worded, 22-page filing, submitted before a hearing scheduled for 16 October in federal district court in Washington, accused Trump of continuing to make prejudicial public statements even after they first made the request three weeks ago.“He demands special treatment, asserting that because he is a political candidate, he should have free rein to publicly intimidate witnesses and malign the court, citizens of this district, and prosecutors. But in this case, Donald J Trump is a criminal defendant like any other,” prosecutors wrote.The prosecutors said the need for a limited gag order had only increased in urgency since their initial request, filed under seal to the US district judge Tanya Chutkan on 5 September, as they cited several threatening statements from Trump that could affect their case and potential jurors.In particular, the filing highlighted Trump’s posts on his Truth Social platform that attacked his former vice-president, Mike Pence, saying without evidence that he had “made up stories about me” and had gone over to the “dark side” after he testified to prosecutors about Trump’s conduct.The filing also raised Trump’s post about Gen Mark Milley, the retiring chair of the joint chiefs of staff and another likely trial witness after he was cited in the indictment, that baselessly accused him of committing treason and suggested that he be executed.“No other criminal defendant would be permitted to issue public statements insinuating that a known witness in his case should be executed,” the assistant special counsel Molly Gaston wrote. “This defendant should not be, either.”Donald Trump has filed a new motion to dismiss the special counsel’s 2020 election subversion case.In a new filing on Thursday, Trump’s lawyers argue that he has “absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions performed within the ‘outer perimeter’ of his official responsibility.”The motion states:
      “Breaking 234 years of precedent, the incumbent administration has charged President Trump for acts that lie not just within the ‘outer perimeter,’ but at the heart of his official responsibilities as President.
      In doing so, the prosecution does not, and cannot, argue that President Trump’s efforts to ensure election integrity, and to advocate for the same, were outside the scope of his duties.
      Instead, the prosecution falsely claimsthat President Trump’s motives were impure— that he purportedly “knew” that the widespread reports of fraud and election irregularities were untrue but sought to address them anyway.
      The full motion can be found here. Following federal judges setting a new congressional voting map in Alabama that could help Democrats achieve a majority in the US House next year, here is the Guardian’s Jewel Wicker and Sam Levine’s report on the story:The map was chosen from three proposals presented by the court-appointed Special Master Richard Allen. The new map adds a second congressional district to the state, allowing Black voters to choose their preferred candidate.Following the 2020 census, Republican lawmakers had enacted a congressional map that provided Black Alabamans with one majority district out of seven in the state. The three-judge panel found it violated section two of the Voting Rights Act, which bans race-based discrimination in voting procedures, and ordered lawmakers to create a map where Black Alabamans made up the majority of voters in two districts.For the full story, click here:Far-right Republican representative and staunch Donald Trump ally Marjorie Taylor Greene has said that if Trump assumed the House’s vacant Speaker position, the “House chamber will be like a Trump rally everyday.”She added, “It would be the House of MAGA!!!”Earlier this week, following the ouster of former House speaker Kevin McCarthy, Greene announced that the only candidate she will support is Trump.“We can make him Speaker and then elect him President,” Greene tweeted. Here is video of president Biden’s full comments on Thursday in which he explains reasons why the Texas border wall construction has started after his administration waived 26 federal laws to allow for the construction.
      “The border wall money was appropriated for the border wall. I tried to get them to reappropriate it, to redirect that money. They didn’t, they wouldn’t.
      In the meantime, there’s nothing under the law other than they have to use the money for what it was appropriated for. I can’t stop that,” said Biden.
      As Republicans scramble to find a new House speaker, Donald Trump is mulling visiting the Capitol to weigh in on what the party should do next. Meanwhile, Kevin McCarthy’s staffers are reportedly working to secure support for judiciary chair Jim Jordan to replace him. It’s unclear why, but it could have something to do with another report saying majority leader Steve Scalise began his campaign for the speakership before McCarthy had even been formally ousted.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Environmentalists are outraged after the Biden administration began constructing new border fencing. Joe Biden says he doesn’t think it will be effective, but federal law required him to do so.
      George Santos’s former campaign treasurer pleaded guilty to an unspecified felony. It’s unclear what his means for the congressman and admitted fabulist, who is under federal indictment.
      Alabama will get a second majority Black congressional district, despite the best efforts of state Republicans. A Democrat will likely represent it, bolstering their margins in the House.
      Former Democratic presidential candidate and independent New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg said Democrats should have done more to stop Kevin McCarthy from being removed from office.He characterizes McCarthy as a conservative who had at least some interest in actually governing, but is now set to be replaced with a hardliner who will be even more difficult to work with. Writing in the Washington Post, Bloomberg says:
      McCarthy’s failure to reach out to Democrats was inexcusable, of course. But so too was Jeffries’ failure to extend an olive branch. Not only has it empowered the Republicans’ extreme right wing, but it also squandered an opportunity for Democrats to increase their influence.
      Jeffries had a chance to use the crisis to push for a more bipartisan governing model in the House, one that would have given Democrats more involvement in crafting legislation and conducting oversight. It could have been a transformative moment for Congress and the country. But if any informal Democratic overture occurred, it was too little, too late.
      It’s true that McCarthy gave no indication he would have had the good sense to accept a serious peace offering by Jeffries. But even if he had rejected it, Democrats could have shown voters that at least one party in Washington is serious about finding common ground. Their failure to make a peace offering falls heaviest on the party’s moderates, who speak of bipartisanship but, when push comes to shove, don’t practice it.
      Now, with the House paralyzed, not only is Congress failing to do the people’s business, but aid to Ukraine has been indefinitely paused, helping Russia’s war effort and costing people their lives.
      “There has to be an adult in the room,” McCarthy said over the weekend, after keeping the government from shutting down with the help of Democrats. He was right. Sadly, in the end, neither he nor Jeffries could do the adult thing, by reaching across the aisle to prevent Congress from sinking even deeper into dysfunction.
      Joe Biden explained that his administration was moving forward with building a wall on the US border with Mexico because federal law required it – even though he does not believe it will work.Here are comments he made to the press from the Oval Office:Environmental advocates are furious with Biden for waiving federal laws in order to move forward with the construction, even though his own administration said in its early days in office that such a barrier would not be effective. Here’s the latest on this story:For a sense of how the GOP is trying to spin this week’s theatrics in the House, take a look at this tweet from the National Republican Congressional Committee, which is tasked with winning seats in the chamber:All the Democrats you see there represent swing or red districts, and many won re-election only narrowly last year, when Joe Biden’s allies overperformed expectations thanks to factors like the downfall of Roe v Wade and successful warnings about GOP extremism.The Democratic caucus was unanimous in voting to oust Kevin McCarthy, arguing that they were merely keeping with the common practice of the minority party in the House refusing to support the majority’s choice for speaker.Donald Trump is considering meeting with House Republicans at the Capitol next week, a source familiar with the former president’s plans tells the Guardian, as his party works to elect a new speaker following Kevin McCarthy’s overthrow.Trump is the frontrunner for the GOP’s presidential nomination, and has been endorsed by several House lawmakers. He has denied involvement in congressman Matt Gaetz’s successful effort to remove McCarthy from power, and both lawmakers call themselves Trump allies.More hints of the dynamics of the speaker’s race within the House Republican Conference are emerging.The latest report is from the Messenger, which, citing unnamed sources, reports that Steve Scalise began campaigning to replace Kevin McCarthy even before he had been officially ousted.Scalise, the majority leader, is one of two major candidates who have declared their candidacy, along with judiciary chair Jim Jordan. Both are staunch conservatives, and the Messenger’s report may explain why McCarthy’s aides are reportedly encouraging lawmakers to support Jordan:
      Kevin McCarthy had just been ousted as speaker of the House. Republicans — and the entire Congress — were stunned. Yet McCarthy’s deputy, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., wasted no time, as he quietly launched a bid to become the next speaker, multiple sources tell The Messenger.
      Four Republican sources say Scalise started his campaign for speaker on Tuesday evening, moments after the House approved a far-right motion to vacate McCarthy from the speakership, before any other member had formally declared a candidacy.
      One House Republican who was lobbied by Scalise early Wednesday morning said the Louisiana Republican’s outreach was “was too early.”
      “The body wasn’t even cold,” the lawmaker, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the speaker’s race, told The Messenger. “It was bullsh–.”
      The race to replace McCarthy has just two declared candidates so far: Scalise, and Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the chairman of the powerful House Judiciary Committee. There is also Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., who has fielded support from members but has not yet formally announced a bid.
      Another thing that could prove pivotal to determining control of the House next year: the revolt that ousted Kevin McCarthy from office.His ouster was unprecedented, and the GOP is still digesting its implications for their broader campaign to hold onto the House, and regain the senate and White House next year. One lawmaker, Ohio’s Max Miller, told CNN it set the party back: More

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      Biden admits he is worried Republican infighting could hurt Ukraine aid – video

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      Facing a likely roadblock from House Republicans, US president Joe Biden says he is worried their infighting in Congress could hurt Ukraine aid but said there was a ‘majority of members of the House and Senate in both parties’ that support the need for it. The president promised to deliver a speech soon to outline why the US needs to continue to support Ukraine in its war with Russia, and suggested there were ‘other means’ by which he could find funding but gave no further details More

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      Biden calls to ‘change the poisonous atmosphere in Washington’; Trump denies involvement in McCarthy removal – as it happened

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      From 3h agoIn a speech at the White House, Joe Biden said that despite Kevin McCarthy’s removal as speaker of the House, Democrats were willing to work with the GOP to pass spending bills and avoid a government shutdown that will otherwise occur in November.“We cannot and should not again be faced with 11th-hour decision of brinksmanship that threatens to shut down the government,” Biden said.“More than anything, we need to change the poisonous atmosphere in Washington,” he added. “You know, we have strong disagreements, but we need to stop seeing each other as enemies, need to talk to one another, listen to one another, work with one another.”Biden said he and the House’s top Democrat, Hakeem Jeffries, believe “our Republican colleagues remain committed to working in a bipartisan fashion. We were prepared to do it as well, for the good of the American people”.Republicans in the House were reeling after far-right insurgents yesterday orchestrated the removal of Kevin McCarthy as speaker. The majority leader Steve Scalise and the judiciary committee chair Jim Jordan have both announced they will run to replace him, while Donald Trump said he had nothing to do with McCarthy’s overthrow. At the White House, Joe Biden reiterated that House Democrats are willing to work with their GOP colleagues to prevent a still-looming government shutdown, while calling “to change the poisonous atmosphere in Washington”.Here’s what else happened today:
      The top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer warned the breakdown in the House threatens national security.
      At least one GOP congressman wants the architect of McCarthy’s overthrow, Matt Gaetz, to be kicked out of the conference.
      Will McCarthy’s downfall tip the scales of US politics ahead of next year’s elections? One analyst doesn’t think so, but warned it could nonetheless have unpredictable effects.
      Republicans are so angry Democrats helped remove McCarthy that they are kicking veteran lawmakers Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer out of their Capitol offices.
      Mitch McConnell says the next speaker of the House should change the rules so that what happened to McCarthy does not happen to them.
      In New York City, Donald Trump returned for a third day of trial.Judge Arthur Engoron is determining how much in damages Trump and his family must pay after finding they fraudulently inflated their assets for years. Yesterday, the judge imposed a gag order on the notoriously loquacious former president after he attacked Engoron’s clerk on social media.Here’s the Guardian’s Dominic Rushe with the latest on the trial:Donald Trump returned to his New York civil fraud trial on Wednesday a day after running afoul of the judge by denigrating a key court staffer in a social media post.The former US president and Republican frontrunner in the 2024 presidential race is voluntarily taking time out from the campaign trail to attend the trial. New York attorney general Letitia James’s lawsuit accuses Trump and his business of deceiving banks, insurers and others by providing financial statements that greatly exaggerated his wealth.Judge Arthur Engoron already has ruled that Trump committed fraud by inflating the values of prized assets including his Trump Tower penthouse. The ruling could, if upheld on appeal, cost Trump control of his signature skyscraper and some other properties.Trump denies any wrongdoing. With familiar rhetoric, on his way into court Wednesday, he called James “incompetent”, portrayed her as part of a broader Democratic effort to weaken his 2024 prospects and termed the trial “a disgrace”.Trump has frequently vented in the courthouse hallway and on social media about the trial, James and Judge Engoron, also a Democrat.But after he assailed Engoron’s principal law clerk on social media on Tuesday, the judge imposed a limited gag order, commanding all participants in the trial not to hurl personal attacks at court staffers. The judge told Trump to delete the “disparaging, untrue and personally identifying post”, and the former president took it down.Here’s a story to watch.Politico reports that one House Republican, Mike Lawler, thinks Matt Gaetz should be expelled from the party’s conference for engineering Kevin McCarthy’s overthrow:As Punchbowl News points out, Gaetz’s foes may be able to clear that bar:In the Senate, minority leader Mitch McConnell advised the next speaker of the House to “get rid of the motion to vacate”.As part of the deal he struck with far-right holdouts to end their blockade that prevented him being elected to the speaker’s post in January, Kevin McCarthy agreed to lower the threshold for any House lawmaker to make the motion to one. Matt Gaetz, one of those who objected to McCarthy’s initial election, took it upon himself to on Monday make a motion to vacate, leading to McCarthy’s ouster the next day.Here’s more from McConnell, who also indicated his party was ready to work with Senate Democrats on passing bills to fund the government over the fiscal year:A Texas Republican congressman said that he would nominate ex-president Donald Trump to assume the position of the next speaker of the House following Republicans’ ouster of Kevin McCarthy. The Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:Troy Nehls said: “This week, when the US House of Representatives reconvenes, my first order of business will be to nominate Donald J Trump for speaker of the US House of Representatives.
      “President Trump, the greatest president of my lifetime, has a proven record of putting America first and will make the House great again.”
      The speaker does not have to be a member of Congress, though no speaker has ever assumed the role without holding a seat.Trump’s name has been floated before, including during the 15-vote marathon rightwingers put McCarthy through in January before allowing him to take up the gavel.On Tuesday, Nehls was not among the rightwingers who voted to remove McCarthy. Another congressman, Greg Steube of Florida, also said he would back Trump for speaker.For the full story, click here:Ohio’s far-right congressman Jim Jordan, who confirmed his run for House speaker, tweeted the following on Wednesday:“Secure the border. Get spending under control. Fix the institution. Unify the party,” he wrote.Jordan’s tweet follows his public plea for support for the House speaker position that he issued earlier today:
      We are at a critical crossroad in our nation’s history. Now is the time for our Republican conference to come together to keep our promises to Americans. The problems we face are challenging, but they are not insurmountable. We can focus on the changes that improve the country and unite us in offering real solutions. But no matter what we do, we must do it together as a conference. I respectfully ask for your support for Speaker of the House of Representatives.
      Jim Jordan, the Ohio congressman who has confirmed a run for House speaker, is a celebrity on the far right of US politics – and a magnet for controversy whom a former speaker from his own party once called a “political terrorist”.The full extent of Jordan’s involvement in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, leading up to the deadly attack on Congress, remains unknown.In the last Congress, when Democrats controlled the gavel, Jordan refused to cooperate with the House January 6 committee, despite being served with a subpoena.Joe Biden was asked what his advice would be for the next House speaker, to which he laughed before replying:
      That’s above my pay grade.
      Here’s House majority leader Steve Scalise’s full letter to colleagues announcing his decision to run to succeed Kevin McCarthy as speaker.Republicans in the House are reeling after far-right insurgents yesterday orchestrated the removal of Kevin McCarthy as speaker. The majority leader Steve Scalise and the judiciary committee chair Jim Jordan have both announced they will run to replace him, while Donald Trump said he had nothing to do with McCarthy’s overthrow. At the White House, Joe Biden reiterated that House Democrats are willing to work with their GOP colleagues to prevent a still-looming government shutdown, while calling “to change the poisonous atmosphere in Washington”.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      The top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer warned the breakdown in the House threatens national security.
      Will McCarthy’s downfall tip the scales of American politics ahead of next year’s elections? One analyst doesn’t think so, but warned it could nonetheless have unpredictable effects.
      Republicans are so mad Democrats helped remove McCarthy that they are kicking veteran lawmakers Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer out of their Capitol offices.
      The House majority leader, Steve Scalise, has officially announced that he will run to succeed Kevin McCarthy as speaker.The Louisiana congressman currently occupies the No 2 role among the chamber’s Republicans, and in a letter to colleagues, he cast himself as a leader who would rededicate the GOP to the work its lawmakers were elected to do.“We all came here to save this country from being taken down a dangerous path of destruction. We don’t sacrifice time with our families to come to Washington to fight over the small things – we are here because we care about our children’s futures and the kind of country they will grow up in. Under the failed leadership of President Biden, our country is being pushed to the brink,” his letter began.Scalise is a survivor of a 2017 mass shooting at a baseball game practice in Virginia, a fact he mentioned in his pitch to Republicans:
      God already gave me another chance at life. I believe we were all put here for a purpose. This next chapter won’t be easy, but I know what it takes to fight and I am prepared for the battles that lie ahead. I humbly ask you for your support on this mission to be your Speaker of the House.
      In a speech at the White House, Joe Biden said that despite Kevin McCarthy’s removal as speaker of the House, Democrats were willing to work with the GOP to pass spending bills and avoid a government shutdown that will otherwise occur in November.“We cannot and should not again be faced with 11th-hour decision of brinksmanship that threatens to shut down the government,” Biden said.“More than anything, we need to change the poisonous atmosphere in Washington,” he added. “You know, we have strong disagreements, but we need to stop seeing each other as enemies, need to talk to one another, listen to one another, work with one another.”Biden said he and the House’s top Democrat, Hakeem Jeffries, believe “our Republican colleagues remain committed to working in a bipartisan fashion. We were prepared to do it as well, for the good of the American people”.Larry Sabato, a prominent University of Virginia political analyst, has weighed in with some thoughts about the wider ramifications of Kevin McCarthy’s ouster.As dramatic as yesterday’s events may have been, Congress’s inner workings are not exactly the sort of thing most Americans pay daily attention to. When they cast ballots in November 2024 to decide whether Joe Biden gets a second term, and which party controls Congress, issues like the state of the economy and perceptions of crime and candidates’ fitness to serve are instead expected to be among the many things voters weigh.Thus, in Sabato’s crystal ball newsletter, he concludes that McCarthy’s removal won’t necessarily tip the political scales by itself, but could spark chains of events that affect the fortunes of both parties:
      We doubt there is much actual political fallout here, but one thing to monitor going forward is how much more dysfunctional the House becomes. The chances of a shutdown, which McCarthy narrowly avoided thanks to Democratic votes over the weekend, just shot up, as we are going to be doing the shutdown dance again in November and the new GOP speaker (assuming there is one) may need to take a harder line in an attempt to satiate his most insatiable members. It may be that this speaker gets a reprieve from some of the hardliners simply because he or she is not McCarthy. Democrats, meanwhile, declined to throw McCarthy a lifeline during the motion to vacate, opting en masse to vote with the Republican rebels. The Democrats seemed legitimately angry at McCarthy for offering them less than nothing for their support, which he clearly needed (or he just needed some Democrats to vote present on the motion to vacate, allowing loyal Republicans to deliver a majority of those voting).
      Democrats also will likely relish the continued turbulence on the Republican side. That said, there are risks to them, too. Yes, it would probably be easy to blame Republicans for a future shutdown, but an extended one that has an impact on the economy could have repercussions for the president, too, as Washington Monthly’s Bill Scher argued when he suggested that Democrats bail out McCarthy. The Democrats voting for the motion to vacate is somewhat reminiscent of how their campaign arms, and their associated PACs, backed weak MAGA candidates in GOP primaries last year — perfectly defensible politically but also not the sort of thing that is likely to elevate the more reasonable Republicans that Democrats often claim to want. That said, the readily apparent lack of discipline on the Republican side is not the fault of Democrats, and it’s natural for any political party to want to exacerbate the other side’s fissures and problems.
      One final point: Despite his rocky rise to the top and short tenure as Speaker, McCarthy had been a prodigious fundraiser for House Republicans. Over the last several cycles, Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC he was aligned with, emerged as one of the most formidable outside spending groups in House races. With McCarthy out, there may be some negative effects on GOP fundraising.
      A couple of other GOP old hands got into it over whether Democrats bore any responsibility for the downfall of Kevin McCarthy.It began when Ari Fleischer, the former White House press secretary under George W Bush, accused Democrats of collaborating with Matt Gaetz to remove the speaker:That prompted a riposte from Michael Steele, the former chair of the Republican National Committee, who is an outspoken Donald Trump foe. Steele noted that McCarthy’s problems became apparent at the start of the year when lawmakers from his own party blocked his election as speaker for days, and only relented when McCarthy made the concessions that led to his downfall:Here’s a view from within the GOP on what just happened yesterday.This CNN guest is Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster and consultant who has been involved for decades in Washington politics. He’s clearly not pleased with Kevin McCarthy’s removal from the speaker’s chair, and raises the prospect that the effort’s architect, Matt Gaetz, could soon be revealed to have committed serious ethical infractions.McCarthy and his allies referenced the ongoing ethics investigation against Gaetz yesterday, about which few details are known, but the lawmaker denied it had anything to do with his campaign to remove the speaker.Here’s Luntz’s interview, on CNN:Donald Trump said he was not involved in rightwing congressman Matt Gaetz’s motion that led to Kevin McCarthy’s ejection as House speaker yesterday.Here’s what the former president had to say as he departed the courtroom in New York where a judge is considering what damages he and his family must pay after being found civilly liable for fraud:Trump is broadly popular among House Republicans, many of whom have endorsed his attempt to return to the White House in next year’s presidential election. Gaetz is among the many lawmakers who have made names for themselves defending Trump, while McCarthy is also seen as an ally. As House minority leader in 2020, he signed on to a baseless effort to get the supreme court to block Trump’s election loss to Joe Biden.Also speaking from the Senate floor, the chamber’s top Republican Mitch McConnell gave something of a eulogy for Kevin McCarthy’s speakership: More

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      US presidents are a sum of their actions, not their years | Letters

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      Timothy Garton Ash’s plea for Joe Biden to step aside reveals the hollowness at the core of much of centrist ideology (Unless Joe Biden stands aside, the world must prepare for President Trump 2.0, 29 September).Garton Ash is wholly correct in pointing out that concerns about Biden’s age and fitness have played a meaningful role in his dismal approval ratings heading into next year’s presidential election. However, his emphasis on youth, absent anything of actual substance, betrays the centrist obsession with narratives and optics that artificially inflated the failed presidential primary campaigns of figures such as Beto O’Rourke and Pete Buttigieg.The three contenders that Garton Ash puts forward as potential replacements for Biden – governors Josh Shapiro, Gretchen Whitmer and Gavin Newsom – are united only by their youth relative to Biden. While age certainly appears to be an issue to US voters, it is hard to see how simply having a younger Democratic candidate for president would have the impact that Garton Ash imagines. How would Shapiro, Whitmer or Newsom “rejuvenate the image of the US in the world”? Garton Ash doesn’t say. Public opinion of the US, especially in the global south, is based largely on what the country does, not the identity of the person occupying the Oval Office.Biden stepping down would probably be in the best interests of the Democratic party and the country. As a Canadian, I know all too well the global implications of who the US president is, but a candidate with little to offer beyond being younger than Biden is not the answer that the US or the world needs. David BeamishBonn, Germany Like Timothy Garton Ash, I spent two months this summer in the US, and sadly can echo most of what he writes about President Biden. I would add two points, however.First, Donald Trump’s support in the states I visited – Iowa, Nebraska, the Dakotas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas – is visceral and implacably opposed to liberal outreach. They will not be persuaded by better arguments. They cannot be swayed by a buoyant economy. They will vote for Trump and they must therefore be defeated. This reality has to be recognised if the Democratic candidate is to win in November 2024.Second, the possible Democratic candidates that Garton Ash mentions – Shapiro, Whitmer and Newsom – cannot defeat the Trump campaign: they have no national profile, they have no political base outside their states, and they show no stomach for the vicious fight that awaits them. No liberal does.There is a Democrat who can win, if she can be persuaded to run again: Hillary Clinton. She commands nationwide support, retains international recognition and won’t be cowed by Trump. But, most of all, Clinton will fight relentlessly. Consensus building can wait for 2028. Only political conflict will save us from Trump 2.0 in 2024.Dr Gareth JonesHong Kong Unusually, Timothy Garton Ash has gotten this completely wrong. Joe Biden stepping aside would start a frenzied fight within the party for the nomination for an election only a year away, generating hard feelings and attack lines for Republicans to use in the election. Taking Mr Garton Ash’s advice is the surest way for Donald Trump to win.Lee HartmannAnn Arbor, Michigan, US More

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      Kevin McCarthy’s historic ouster as US House speaker was a tragedy foretold

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      “In the past, those who foolishly sought power by riding the back of the tiger ended up inside.” These words, delivered at the US Capitol by president John F Kennedy in his 1961 inaugural address, seemed particularly apt on Tuesday.Kevin McCarthy’s ousting as speaker of the House of Representatives was a personal tragedy foretold. The first seeds of destruction had been planted when, days after declaring Donald Trump responsible for the January 6 insurrection, McCarthy went grovelling at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida and made his pact with the devil.Then came last year’s midterm elections when, thanks to Trump’s assault on democracy and his rightwing supreme court’s assault on abortion rights, Republicans underperformed and squeezed out only a narrow majority, handing extremists a huge influence.The power-hungry McCarthy was elected speaker after an epic 15 rounds of voting and, minutes later, publicly paid tribute to Trump for working the phones to help him secure victory. But he had cut a deal with the far right that would come back to bite him, including rules that made it easier to challenge his leadership.McCarthy then spent nine months trying to govern an ungovernable party, described by former Barack Obama strategist David Axelrod as the “Lord of the Flies caucus”. As the Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries has noted, the House Republican caucus is in a state of civil war.It is further proof that the political consultant Rick Wilson was on to something when he wrote a book titled Everything Trump Touches Dies. After sneaking a win in the electoral college in 2016 while losing the national popular vote, Trump has repeatedly been a grim reaper for his party’s fortunes in 2018, 2020 and 2022.The toadies who have shown extreme loyalty to Trump have usually regretted it. His fixer Michael Cohen went to prison. His vice-president, Mike Pence, could have been hanged on January 6 and is now condemned to the purgatory of explaining to half-empty rooms why he should be president. Rudy Giuliani, Mark Meadows and other January 6 co-conspirators face possible jail time.Now McCarthy, who purported to be restraining Trump’s worst impulses, has become the first speaker of the US House in history to be forced out of the job. Trump did nothing to spare him the humiliation. McCarthy destroyed any hope of being rescued by Democrats by announcing a baseless impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden and blaming them for trying to shut down the government.Maxwell Frost, a Democratic congressman from Florida, wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter: “The Speaker did this to himself by lying to both Democrats AND Republicans. Speaker McCarthy will go down in history as the weakest Speaker in the history of our country.”No one who has been following US politics in the self-destructive, nihilistic, eat-one’s-own age of Trump will be surprised by Tuesday’s events. Words such as “historic” or “unprecedented” will have to be retired. There is no obvious heir apparent.The Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, summed it up: “The Republican party of Trump cannot govern at any level; The Maga parasite is eating them alive. There will be a reckoning for the GOP as the next Speaker will be even more of a Maga apologist because that’s what the party demands. No one is coming to the rescue who has the courage to tell the truth, only cowards who hide behind the chaos and pretend to look busy.”It is a recipe for more days or perhaps weeks of inertia in Congress, which instead of tackling social inequality or supporting Ukraine will be consumed with factional infighting. America’s long march of democratic decay continues. More