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      Manchin announces deal with Democrats on major tax and climate bill

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      Manchin announces deal with Democrats on major tax and climate billNews of agreement breaks deadlock two weeks after conservative Democrat had appeared to kill off Biden’s climate agenda Democrat Joe Manchin announced on Wednesday afternoon that he has reached a deal with the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, on a domestic policy bill that would pay down national debt, cut energy costs and lower the cost of health insurance and prescription drugs, while supporting a “realistic” climate policy.The development came almost two weeks after the West Virginia conservative senator had appeared essentially to kill off flagship climate action legislation when he came out against raising taxes on wealth Americans and refused to support more funding for climate action.Manchin has repeatedly thwarted his own party while making millions in the coal industry and his opposition to a massive reconciliation bill that included policies to boost green power generation and electric cars infuriated the White House as well as climate action advocates.The White House tells me they have a deal with Manchin. This is real. Build Back Manchin is back. Reconciliation has expanded. More details soon. https://t.co/IG9EeX7AjU— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) July 27, 2022
      Biden and Democrats had hoped to include environmental measures in a $1tn version of the $2tn Build Back Better spending bill that Manchin killed last year in dramatic fashion, and negotiations had been under way for months before Manchin appeared ready to kill the deal, citing runaway inflation.But on Wednesday afternoon, Manchin suddenly announced a new agreement, with details and reactions from his colleagues still to emerge.More to come …TopicsJoe ManchinDemocratsUS CongressUS SenateUS politicsUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More

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      Trump speaks in Washington DC for first visit since leaving office – live

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      Donald Trump is set to take the stage shortly in Washington DC to address the conservative America First Agenda Summit, his first return to the capital since leaving office last year.Conference organisers at the America First Policy Institute say the former president, who is mulling a third run at the White House in 2024, will focus on the Republican party’s plans to combat inflation and improve the US immigration system.But it remains to be seen if Trump can resist recirculating his lies about the 2020 election, especially following an appearance by his former vice-president, Mike Pence, at a conference of conservative students this morning.Pence took thinly-veiled shots at his old boss, and his obsession with his defeat to Joe Biden, telling his audience: “Some people may choose to focus on the past. But elections are about the future.”It is unlikely the notoriously thin-skinned ex-president will be able avoid the temptation to fire back.Stay with us, and we’ll bring you Trump’s comments as they happen. While we wait, take a read of my colleague Joan E Greve’s preview of his return to the capital:He’s back: Trump returns to Washington for first time since leaving officeRead moreWe’re closing the blog now, after a reasonably busy day in US politics. Merrick Garland’s big NBC News interview is due at 6.30pm ET – here’s our story, which will develop, for those who want to carry on reading about whether Donald Trump will face criminal charges over January 6 and his attempt to overturn US democracy itself.Otherwise, today saw:
      Trump return to Washington to deliver a 90-minute speech at the America First Agenda summit. He didn’t get so far as to announce a new White House run. See Richard’s blogging below and David Smith’s report on the speech to come.
      The New York Times reported more details of part of Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, the fake electors scheme.
      Mike Pence also gave a speech in Washington, in some mild sense dueling with his old boss and in some very mild sense rebuking him for fixating on the past.
      CNN reported that John Roberts, the chief justice, tried to persuade Brett Kavanaugh to help him stop the other conservatives on the supreme court overturning the right to an abortion – but it didn’t work.
      Nancy Pelosi’s mooted trip to Taiwan continued to cause all sorts of bother and headaches – and to attract Republican support.
      The blog will be back tomorrow. Good night.Donald Trump on Tuesday dropped more hints that he will imminently announce a third run at the White House.In a largely subdued, and scripted, 90-minute speech to the America First Agenda summit in Washington DC, his first visit to the capital since leaving office last year, Trump said it would be his “very great honor” to run again, and that if he didn’t “our nation is doomed”.But he stopped short of outright declaring his candidacy, the former president mindful he is mired in legal and political jeopardy amid numerous investigations into the insurrection and attempt to stay in office following his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden.Trump said he could not just sit at home while the “persecution” continued:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I can’t do that because I love our country. And I can’t do that because I love the people of our country. So I can’t do that. I wouldn’t do it, and people don’t want me to do it.
      I’m not doing this for me because I had a very luxurious life. I had a very simple life. People say you sure you want to do this? But you know, there’s an expression. The best day of your life is the day before you run for president. And I laughed at it. I said that may be true, actually. Trump’s speech was intended to be a laying out of Republican policy agenda for the November midterms and beyond, but it pivoted into a succession of familiar old Trump grievances, including attacks on Democrats over crime, immigration and the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.After an assault on the House panel investigating his illegal attempts to stay in office, Trump concluded:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}If I don’t [run] our nation is doomed to become another Venezuela or become another Soviet Union.Please look in later for my colleague David Smith’s account of Trump’s speech.And there it is, finally: Donald Trump’s lie that he really won the 2020 election.The former president waited an hour into his speech at the America First Agenda summit in Washington DC, just as he was winding down, before turning to the falsehood that his defeat by Joe Biden was corrupt:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I ran for president, I won, and I won a second time, but much better the second time, a lot better.
      I always say I ran the first time and I won. We actually did it twice. Toward the end of the speech, Trump riffed freely about Mexico, and immigration, telling a succession of “sir stories” and claiming his administration built hundreds of miles of southern border wall before his plans were thwarted by the “catastrophe” of the 2020 election:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We had it almost finished, it was a catastrophe, that election, a disgrace to our country.
      They [Democrats] didn’t want to build the wall. That’s when I started to think that maybe they really do want to have these borders open so everybody can invade our country.A speech that was billed as a setting out of Republican policies pivoted quickly into an airing of Trump’s old grievances, including the “hoax” of the Mueller inquiry into his administration’s links with Russia, the “China virus” – his derogatory term for the Covid-19 pandemic – and an attack on Dr Anthony Fauci, the government’s top adviser on infectious diseases:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I used to listen to Fauci and whatever he said I did the opposite. I came out very good.As if realizing he’d reach the hour mark, and it was time to wind down, Trump indicated his speech was over. “I look forward to laying out many more details in the weeks and months to come,” he said.Then came extra time, and the free-wheeling Trump of old stepped forward, with an assault on the “unfair January 6 unselect committee of political action thugs” investigating the insurrection.“Where does it stop?” Trump wondered. “It probably doesn’t stop because despite great outside dangers this country remains sick, sinister, and evil people within.“They want to damage me so I can no longer go back to work for you. But I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he said, another tease that he might soon declare another White House run.In NBC’s interview with Merrick Garland, Lester Holt also asked if the Department of Justice (DoJ) would welcome a criminal referral from the House January 6 committee. The panel has made referrals for Trump aides. Steve Bannon has been convicted of criminal contempt of Congress and faces jail time. Peter Navarro has been charged. Dan Scavino and Mark Meadows were referred, the DoJ then deciding not to act.Garland told NBC: “So I think that’s totally up to the committee.“We will have the evidence that the committee has presented and whatever evidence it gives us. I don’t think that the nature of how they style, the manner in which information is provided, is of particular significance from any legal point of view.“That’s not to downgrade it or to or disparage it. It’s just that that’s not … the issue here. We have our own investigation, pursuing through the principles of prosecution.”“We should not allow men to play in women’s sports. It’s so crazy,” Donald Trump says, before going off script to allege he was advised not to bring up transgender issues. “‘Sir, don’t say that, it’s very controversial,’” he claims he was told, launching into a bizarre tale of a transgender swimmer he says gave “wind burns” to a fellow competitor as she sped by. Then a story about a transgender weight lifter:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This guy comes along, he’s named Alice … world record, world record. We could have put another couple hundred pounds on. It’s so unfair.Now Trump says he would be the “world’s greatest women’s basketball coach” and that he doesn’t like LeBron James, with whom he has clashed previously.NBC has released a clip of its eagerly awaited interview with Merrick Garland, in which Joe Biden’s attorney general is asked about the political sensitivities around potential criminal charges for Donald Trump concerning the attack on the US Capitol, arising from the work of the House January 6 committee.The interviewer, Lester Holt, said: “You said in no uncertain terms the other day that no one is above the law. That said, the indictment of a former president, of perhaps a candidate for president, would arguably tear the country apart. Is that your concern as you make your decision down the road here? Do you have to think about things like that?”Garland said: “We pursue justice without fear or favour. We intend to hold everyone, anyone who was criminally responsible for events surrounding January 6, or any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another, accountable. That’s what we do. We don’t pay any attention to other issues with respect to that.”The Department of Justice is investigating Trump’s election subversion efforts on a number of fronts. The January 6 committee could make a criminal referral to the DoJ. Whether it should, or will, and whether it has presented sufficient evidence to do so if it chooses, is a matter of debate around the US and on the committee itself.Holt said: “So if Donald Trump were to become a candidate for president again, that would not change your schedule or how you move forward or don’t move forward?”Garland said: “I’ll say again, that we will hold accountable anyone who was criminally responsible for attempting to interfere with the transfer legitimate lawful transfer of power from one administration to the next.”So that’s that.It’s certainly a very subdued speech by Donald Trump so far, his monotone delivery lacking the energy of his campaign rallies. He’s more than a half-hour in, and still talking about crime, which he’s now blaming on Democratic governors – and the homeless.He’s lamenting what’s happened in “our beautiful cities”, San Francisco, Chicago … where he says people don’t have time to stop and admire the beauty, “they just want to make it to their offices”..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Let the liberals invite the homeless to camp in their backyards, soil their properties, attack their families and use drugs where their children are trying to play.
      For the good of everyone involved, the homeless need to go to shelters, the long-term mentally ill need to go to institutions, and the unhoused drug addicts need to go to rehab, or if necessary and appropriate, jail.On his first return to Washington DC since leaving the presidency, Trump says, he doesn’t recognize the place. He seems to be calling for a war on litter:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The main roads had more bottles and cigarettes and everything you can imagine. Then you see the tents and the homeless and you ask ‘what’s happened to this great bastion’?There’s very little applause, just the occasional trickle.Crime, and support for law enforcement, has become the central theme in Donald Trump’s comments so far, although he hasn’t mentioned the officers beaten in the violent January 6 attack by his supporters during the deadly Capitol riot.Trump is sticking strictly to the script, and reading diligently from his teleprompter:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In the Make America Great Again, movement, we believe that every citizen of every background should be able to walk anywhere in this nation at any hour of the day, without even a thought of being victimized by violent crime. If we don’t have safety we don’t have freedom.
      First, we have to give our police back their authority, resources, power and prestige. We have to leave our police alone every time they do something. They’re afraid they’re going to be destroyed, their pensions going to be taken away, they’ll be fired, they’ll be put in jail. Without irony, or any acknowledgement of the police officers who were injured by the Trump-inspired mob defending politicians at the Capitol building, he continued:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Let them do their job. Give them back the respect that they deserve.Donald Trump has begun his remarks at the America First Agenda summit by tearing into the Biden administration’s policies he says have “brought our country to its knees”.“We made America great again,” Trump said, referring to what he considered was the state of the country, and economy, he left to Joe Biden, his successor..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Inflation is the highest in 49 years … gas prices have reached the highest in our country. We’ve become a beggar nation, grovelling to others for energy.He’s following up with attacks on Democratic immigration policy and levels of crime, and a drugs crisis, which he sees as happening only in “Democrat-run cities”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Our country is now a cesspool of crime … because of the Democratic party’s efforts to destroy and dismantle law enforcement throughout America.There is, however, no evidence that Democrats have defunded law enforcement anywhere, and Biden has made a specific point of saying it is not his party’s policy.So far, at least, there have been no references to the 2020 election, which Trump maintains was stolen from him …Donald Trump was due to take the stage at 3pm but, just like at countless rallies before, during and subsequent to his single term in office, he is running late.Currently Newt Gingrich, a Republican former House speaker, and Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader who would like the job himself, are engaged in a roundtable discussion extolling Trump’s policies and looking ahead to the midterm elections, which McCarthy says will be a “one in 50-year election.”“We can lock in a conservative majority for the decade,” he says.Meanwhile, it appears a group of anti-Trump protesters have reached the hotel before the former president, and are making some noise:Protestors in the hotel at the America First Policy Initiative event chanting “no trump no kkk no fascist USA” pic.twitter.com/c37IVacDDP— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) July 26, 2022
      A number of Florida families and coalition of equality activist groups have filed a lawsuit over Republican governor Ron DeSantis’s “don’t say gay” law that bans discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms.The bill signed by DeSantis in March is “based on undefined standards of appropriateness [and] effectively silences and erases LGBTQ+ students and families,” the lawsuit, filed against four separate Florida school districts claims.Good morning. My lawsuit against #DontSayGay has been filed. Children deserve to be loved and respected no matter how they identify. Read more about it here:https://t.co/2YWEtftpMa pic.twitter.com/RaTJEl90we— Jen 🏳️‍🌈 SAY GAY 🏳️‍⚧️ Cousins (@slytherbitch6) July 26, 2022
      “This law will prevent our two youngest children, rising first and third graders, from discussing their older non-binary sibling in the classroom for fear of their teacher or their school getting in trouble,” said plaintiffs Jennifer and Matthew Cousins, according to a press release announcing the legal action. “The law also robs them of the opportunity of discussing their family like other non-LGBTQ+ children. It’s heartbreaking to know that my children may be bullied because this law paints our family as shameful.”DeSantis insists that the law, officially called the Parental Rights in Education act, is designed to stop “wokeism” in Florida’s schools and empowers families by giving them choice over their children’s educational activities.DeSantis’s taxpayer-funded press secretary Christina Pushaw has previously called opponents of the bill “groomers”.Greetings from the ballroom of a swanky Washington hotel that has been turned into an indoor Donald Trump rally as the former US president makes his return to the nation’s capital.Just like a Trump rally, music from Elton John and Frank Sinatra boomed from loudspeakers, then warm-up acts came out to lavish praise on Trump.Brooke Rollins, president and chief executive of the American First Policy Institute (AFPI), a thinktank created by Trump alumni which is hosting the speech, described him as “one of the greatest Americans of all time”. Televangelist Paula White added: “He wears a bigger mantle than I think many of us even recognise.”Less than a mile from the White House, it’s Trump’s first visit to Washington since he snubbed Joe Biden’s inauguration and took flight to Florida. Numerous Trump White House officials have been giving speeches or wandering the corridors during the AFPI summit, where face masks or mentions of January 6 are almost non-existent. I just overheard someone ask Kellyanne Conway: “Can I have a selfie?” Donald Trump is set to take the stage shortly in Washington DC to address the conservative America First Agenda Summit, his first return to the capital since leaving office last year.Conference organisers at the America First Policy Institute say the former president, who is mulling a third run at the White House in 2024, will focus on the Republican party’s plans to combat inflation and improve the US immigration system.But it remains to be seen if Trump can resist recirculating his lies about the 2020 election, especially following an appearance by his former vice-president, Mike Pence, at a conference of conservative students this morning.Pence took thinly-veiled shots at his old boss, and his obsession with his defeat to Joe Biden, telling his audience: “Some people may choose to focus on the past. But elections are about the future.”It is unlikely the notoriously thin-skinned ex-president will be able avoid the temptation to fire back.Stay with us, and we’ll bring you Trump’s comments as they happen. While we wait, take a read of my colleague Joan E Greve’s preview of his return to the capital:He’s back: Trump returns to Washington for first time since leaving officeRead moreThe New York Times has published details of “previously undisclosed” emails between associates of former president Donald Trump, including some from lawyers in which they purportedly acknowledge a scheme to keep him office was likely illegal.Some of the messages refer to “fake” electors who were in place in certain key states to falsely declare Trump the winner of the 2020 election, and prevent Joe Biden from reaching the White House.The Times said they showed “a particular focus on assembling lists of people who would claim – with no basis – to be electoral college electors on his behalf in battleground states that he had lost.”One lawyer used the word “fake” to refer to the so-called electors, the Times said, while “lawyers working on the proposal made clear they knew that the pro-Trump electors they were putting forward might not hold up to legal scrutiny”.SCOOP: @lukebroadwater and I reviewed dozens of emails between Trump campaign officials and lawyers, including one in which a lawyer described the slates of electors they were putting together as “fake” https://t.co/P36lgMtFuA— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) July 26, 2022
      The “fake electors” scheme was a central plank of Trump’s strategy to remain in power, and has become a focus of the House panel investigating his insurrection. In declaring Trump the rightful winner, the committee asserts, the fake electors’ goal was persuading the then vice-president, Mike Pence, as Senate president, to refuse to certify Biden’s victory.The panel has already examined previously-known communications about it between Trump allies.The Times quotes, among others, an email reportedly sent by Jack Wilenchik, a Phoenix-based lawyer who helped organize the pro-Trump electors in Arizona, to a Trump adviser in the White House. “We would just be sending in ‘fake’ electoral votes to Pence so that ‘someone’ in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes, and start arguing that the ‘fake’ votes should be counted,” he wrote.Wilenchik wrote in a later email, adding a smiley face emoji, that “‘alternative’ votes would probably a better term than ‘fake’ votes”.Joe Biden has said that his presidential predecessor Donald Trump “lacked the courage to act” as a mob of his supporters tried to halt the congressional certification of his defeat in the 2020 election by mounting the January 6 attack on the Capitol.In virtual remarks Monday to the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, Biden – who was recovering from Covid-19 – said police officers defending the Capitol were “speared, sprayed, stomped on, brutalized” for hours by white nationalists and other Trump sycophants who bought his false claims that he’d been robbed of victory by electoral fraudsters.Brave women and men in uniform across America should never forget that the defeated former president of the United States watched January 6th happen and didn’t have the spine to act.In my remarks today to @noblenatl, I made that clear: https://t.co/pQ8E4IcZR1 pic.twitter.com/uO60QO0Wrz— President Biden (@POTUS) July 25, 2022
      “The defeated former president of the United States watched it all happen as he sat in the comfort of the private dining room next to the Oval Office,” Biden said, alluding to evidence and testimony staged by the congressional committee investigating the assault during a series of public hearings throughout the summer. “While he was doing that, brave law enforcement officers are subjected to the medieval hell for three hours … dripping in blood, surrounded by carnage, face to face with a crazed mob that believed the lies of the defeated president.“The police were heroes that day. Donald Trump lacked the courage to act.”Read the full story:Biden says Trump ‘lacked the courage to act’ during January 6 attackRead moreLet’s take stock of where we are on a lively Tuesday in US politics:
      Mike Pence took shots at Donald Trump during a speech to young conservatives in Washington DC, the ex-vice-president telling them “elections are about the future”. The former president, obsessed by his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden, addresses the rightwing America First Agenda summit a little later this afternoon.
      Biden’s recovery from his Covid-19 infection has allowed him to resume exercising, physician Kevin O’Connor said in a morning update. But the president’s health will not have been improved by polling news from New Hampshire, where only one-fifth of residents want him to seek a second term, according to Politico.
      January 6 rioter Mark Ponder, who attacked police officers with poles during the deadly attack on the Capitol, was sentenced to at least five years in prison, one of the lengthiest terms so far handed out to those convicted. Ponder, 56, from Washington DC, said he “got caught up” in the chaos and “didn’t mean for any of this to happen”.
      Senators voted 64-32 to move forward on the Chips Act, which seeks to provide about $52bn for US companies manufacturing computer chips, plus tax credits and other incentives. Biden says the money is essential to reverse a shortage of semiconductors in the US, and keep the country at the cutting edge of defense, healthcare and the burgeoning electric vehicle market.
      Chief Justice John Roberts made ultimately fruitless efforts to persuade fellow supreme court conservatives to preserve abortion rights, CNN said. The network published an analysis of events leading up to the court’s overturning of almost half a century of federal abortion protections last month, including a claim that Roberts pressed Brett Kavanaugh – one of three Donald Trump-appointed justices – in particular to change his vote.
      Stick with us, there’s plenty more to come this afternoon, including Trump’s return to the capital for the first time since he left office last year.Poll shows Biden’s deep unpopularity in New HampshireIt is just one poll and just it is just one state, but a new survey of voters in New Hampshire makes grim reading for the White House.In the state which holds the crucial first primary in the presidential nomination process, Joe Biden’s numbers are cratering.Politico has the details and you’ll find their quick top line rundown below: Only one-fifth of New Hampshire residents want Biden to seek a second term in 2024, according to the poll.The president is statistically tied with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in 2024 presidential support, survey results show. He also trails a handful of potential 2024 candidates in favorability, including Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Cory Booker.The percentage of Democrats who want Biden to run again has tanked since this time last year, from 74 percent to 31 percent, according to this year’s poll.And among New Hampshire members of both parties, the poll also shows concern for Biden’s age: 78 percent of respondents overall said they were at least somewhat concerned, including 75 percent of Democrats.January 6 rioter Mark Ponder gets at least five years in jailThe Associated Press has news on a lengthy sentence for a January 6 rioter. The story follows: A man who attacked police officers with poles during the riot at the U.S. Capitol was sentenced on Tuesday to more than five years in prison, matching the longest term of imprisonment so far among hundreds of Capitol riot prosecutions.Mark Ponder, a 56-year-old resident of Washington, D.C., said he “got caught up” in the chaos that erupted on Jan. 6, 2021, and “didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”“I wasn’t thinking that day,” Ponder told U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, asking her for mercy before she sentenced him to five years and three months in prison.That was three months longer than the prison sentence requested by prosecutors. And it’s the same sentence that Chutkan gave Robert Palmer, a Florida man who also pleaded guilty to assaulting police at the Capitol.More than 200 other Capitol riot defendants have been sentenced so far. None received a longer prison sentence than Ponder or Palmer.Chutkan said Ponder was “leading the charge” against police officers trying to hold off the mob that disrupted Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.“This is not ‘caught up,’ Mr. Ponder,” she said. “He was intent on attacking and injuring police officers. This was not a protest.” More

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      ‘Nancy, I’ll go with you’: Trump allies back Pelosi’s proposed Taiwan visit

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      ‘Nancy, I’ll go with you’: Trump allies back Pelosi’s proposed Taiwan visitMike Pompeo and Mark Esper support visit to ‘freedom-loving Taiwan’ but Biden concerned any trip would antagonise Beijing Plans for Nancy Pelosi, the US House speaker, to visit Taiwan have prompted opposition from China and the American military but support from Republicans in Washington, including former members of the Trump administration.Trump’s second secretary of defense, Mark Esper, told CNN: “I think if the speaker wants to go, she should go.”Japan sees increasing threat to Taiwan amid Russia’s invasion of UkraineRead moreMike Pompeo, Trump’s second secretary of state, tweeted: “Nancy, I’ll go with you. I’m banned in China, but not freedom-loving Taiwan. See you there!”No date has been set for a Pelosi visit to Taiwan, a self-governing democracy that Beijing claims is a breakaway province. Many observers expect some form of military action by China some time soon, particularly in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.China has said a Pelosi visit would “severely undermine” its “sovereignty and territorial integrity, gravely impact the foundation of China-US relations, and send a seriously wrong signal to Taiwan independence forces”.Joe Biden said last week: “I think that the military thinks it’s not a good idea right now. But I don’t know what the status of it is.”The White House has not weighed in officially. On Monday, Biden’s press secretary, Karin Jean-Pierre, said: “The administration routinely provides members of Congress with information and context for potential travel, including geopolitical and security considerations.“Members of Congress will make their own decisions.”The state department spokesperson, Ned Price, said: “I will just restate our policy, and that is that we remain committed to maintaining cross-strait peace and stability and our ‘One China’ policy” – a reference to the US position that recognises Beijing as the government of China but allows for informal relations and defense ties with Taiwan.That was a policy Trump initially seemed to jeopardise, telling Fox News in December 2016, after he won the election: “I don’t know why we have to be bound by a ‘One China’ policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade.”In office, Trump agreed to follow the policy. But his administration was vociferous in its support of Taiwan and antagonism toward Beijing, with some observers suggesting officials wanted to force the Biden administration, which followed Trump’s, into confrontation with China.Pelosi has said it is “important for us to show support for Taiwan”. She also said she believed that when Biden referred to US military concerns, he meant “maybe the military was afraid our plane would get shot down or something like that by the Chinese”.Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican from Nebraska, said: “Speaker Pelosi should go to Taiwan, and President Biden should make it abundantly clear to Chairman Xi [Jinping] that there’s not a damn thing the Chinese Communist party can do about it.“No more feebleness and self-deterrence. This is very simple: Taiwan is an ally and the speaker of the House of Representatives should meet with the Taiwanese men and women who stare down the threat of Communist China.”Also on Monday, the New York Times reported that the Biden administration “has grown increasingly anxious … about China’s statements and actions regarding Taiwan, with some officials fearing that Chinese leaders might try to move against [it] … over the next year and a half – perhaps by trying to cut off access to all or part of the Taiwan Strait, through which US naval ships regularly pass”.The Democratic senator Chris Coons of Delaware, who is close to Biden, told the Times: “One school of thought is that the lesson is ‘go early and go strong’ before there is time to strengthen Taiwan’s defenses. And we may be heading to an earlier confrontation – more a squeeze than an invasion – than we thought.”The Times also said the White House was “quietly work[ing] to try to dissuade” Pelosi staging the first visit by a speaker to Taiwan since 1997.The Republican speaker who made that trip, Newt Gingrich, said: “What is the Pentagon thinking when it publicly warns against Speaker Pelosi going to Taiwan?“Timidity is dangerous.”TopicsUS foreign policyUS politicsNancy PelosiChinaTaiwanAsia PacificJoe BidennewsReuse this content More

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      Do the Democrats have a Biden problem? – podcast

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      The approval ratings of the US president are at a record low. Washington DC bureau chief David Smith considers whether Joe Biden will stand for re-election in 2024

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      After the chaos of Donald Trump, Joe Biden’s appointment as US president was supposed to bring a return to normal: a safe, competent politician who knows how to get things done. But more than two years since he came to office, the US is moving from one crisis to the next. With decades-high inflation, near-weekly mass shootings and failure to make progress on the climate crisis, Biden has reached record levels of unpopularity with voters. And some Democrats are now questioning whether he’s the best candidate to lead their party. The Guardian’s Washington DC bureau chief, David Smith, tells Michael Safi that November’s midterm elections may be pivotal in deciding the president’s future. More

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      If Biden isn’t willing to really fight the climate crisis, he shouldn’t run in 2024 | Daniel Sherrell

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      If Biden isn’t willing to really fight the climate crisis, he shouldn’t run in 2024Daniel SherrellHis latest climate defeat has affirmed what we’ve long feared: that he just isn’t the man for the moment On Friday, 15 July, Joe Biden acknowledged the death of his signature climate bill, conceding defeat in a war he never truly seemed willing to wage. He did it from a hastily prepared briefing room in Jeddah, where he had spent the previous day shilling for increased Saudi oil production.It was painful to watch. The fossil fuel oligarchs had him right where they wanted him: his climate ambitions foiled, his rhetoric defanged, his hat in his hand. For their part, they had never been under any illusions that they were waging a war. Over the course of his presidency, they had deployed every weapon at their disposal to protect their profit margins from the public’s desire for a dignified life on a habitable planet.Their final blow was delivered on Thursday by US senator Joe Manchin, puppet to the plutocrats, a man capable of patting his grandchildren on the head while selling their future to the highest bidder. With a fickleness bordering on sadism, Manchin killed our last chance at federal climate action for years, effectively completing the corporate capture of our nation’s climate policy.Biden’s failure to prevent this capture has confirmed, with almost eerie precision, the worries that dogged him on the campaign trail. That he was too milquetoast, too norm-bound, too nostalgic for the 1970s. Young people have waited in vain for the administration to evince a fiery, existential urgency around climate, a willingness to start twisting arms and cracking skulls. But Biden has shown himself either unwilling or unable to don the same brass knuckles as his opponents. His latest defeat has affirmed what we’ve long feared: that he just isn’t the man for the moment.There are still ways that he could flip this script. He could declare a climate emergency and leverage the Defense Production Act and the Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act to circumvent a Congress corrupted by corporate polluters. He could wage rhetorical and political war on Manchin, stripping him of his committee chairmanship, and parading his naked corruption in front of the American people. He could appeal privately to Mitt Romney, perhaps the last Senate Republican with any integrity, who just last month bemoaned our nation’s lack of progress on climate. He could say the truth out loud, at the top of his lungs: that the fossil fuel industry has declared war on the American people. That we are fighting for the soul of our democracy and the future of our planet.If he’s unwilling to do even that, he shouldn’t run for president in 2024. What young voter in their right mind would nominate him again? Why would we trust him to succeed without a congressional majority when he’s failed so abjectly with one? His entire theory of governance will have been disproved: his “decades of experience”, his purported “knowledge of the Senate”, his reputation as a “deal maker” – if he couldn’t land a climate bill, what good were they?Surrounded by a suffocating gauze of Beltway consultants, he made mistake after mistake. He failed to use his bully pulpit to rally the public around the dangers of climate change. He almost never named – let alone declaimed – that those dangers were the direct result of burning oil, coal and natural gas. He held up executive climate regulations and approved fossil fuel projects, miscalculating that it was carrots and not sticks that would win Manchin’s approval. Over the remonstrations of the Squad, he decoupled his own climate agenda from Manchin’s beloved infrastructure package, promising everyone that he could get Manchin’s vote on the former.Was that a lie, or just deeply naive? I’ll still be agonizing over this question in 2024, when I pull the lever for his primary opponent.I want to emphasize that Biden is not the villain here. It is Republicans – and Joe Manchin – who are making the sociopathic choice to further enrich the already-super-rich at the expense of all life on earth. I have no doubt that Biden wants sincerely to address the climate crisis. But presidents are not judged on their intentions. They are judged on their results. And on climate especially, the results of the Biden administration – of the entire, gerontocratic leadership of the Democratic party – have fallen dangerously short of what’s needed.With summer heatwaves intensifying and federal climate legislation wilting, young people are rightfully desperate. There are only so many losses we will accept before taking our chances on a different formula: the charismatic fire of an AOC, the crossover appeal of a John Fetterman, the judicious futurism of a Ro Khanna.Joe Biden may be a “decent man”, as his defenders constantly contend. But what does my generation care about decency, when the planet’s going up in flames? If he really wants a second term in office, he should show us why he deserves one. He needs to realize he’s at war with the oligarchs. And then he needs to start winning.
      Daniel Sherrell is the author of Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World (Penguin Books) and a climate activist
      TopicsJoe BidenOpinionUS politicsClimate crisisDemocratscommentReuse this content More

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      How a Trump-backed ‘QAnon whack job’ won with Democratic ‘collusion’

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      How a Trump-backed ‘QAnon whack job’ won with Democratic ‘collusion’Dan Cox won the Republican nomination for Maryland governor, but the current governor, Larry Hogan, says that was thanks to Democrats promoting extremist opponents they think will be easier prey Dan Cox, an extremist pro-Trump Republican, won his party’s nomination for governor in Maryland last week thanks to “collusion between Trump and the national Democrats”, the current Republican governor said.‘US democracy will not survive for long’: how January 6 hearings plot a roadmap to autocracyRead more“I don’t think there’s any chance that [Cox] can win,” Larry Hogan added, speaking to CNN’s State of the Union.Hogan previously called Cox “a QAnon whack job”.“Collusion” is a loaded word in US politics, in the long aftermath of the Russia investigation, in which the special counsel Robert Mueller scrutinised election interference by Moscow and links between Trump aides and Russia.The battle to succeed Hogan as governor of Maryland might seem small beer in comparison. But the race attracted national attention.Cox, endorsed by Donald Trump, surged past Kelly Schulz, a member of Hogan’s cabinet, to win the Republican nomination.In the Democratic race, Wes Moore, a bestselling author, beat candidates including Tom Perez, a former Democratic national committee chair and US labor secretary.In a midterm election year, Democrats have sought to boost pro-Trump Republicans in competitive states, placing the risky bet that as the January 6 committee remains in the headlines, extremists who support the former president’s lie about electoral fraud in his 2020 defeat will prove unpalatable to voters.Hogan said: “There’s no question this was a big win for the Democratic Governors Association that I think spent over $3m trying to promote this guy [Cox]. And it was basically collusion between Trump and the national Democrats, who propped this guy up and got him elected.“But he really is not a serious candidate.”The New York Times reported the sum spent by the DGA on pro-Cox TV ads at “more than $1.16m”.Hogan’s host, Jake Tapper, pointed out that 142,000 Republicans voted for Cox, a state legislator, “So it’s really Republican voters that did this.”Hogan said: “Yes, well, some of them. I mean, we only have a little over 20% of the people in Maryland are Republican, and only 20% of them showed up at the polls. So it’s about 2% of the people of our state that voted for the guy. And in the general election, I think it’s going to be a different situation.”Hogan has sought to establish himself as a figurehead for anti-Trump Republicans. Asked if he would vote for Moore, he said he would “have to make a decision about that between now and November. But I’m certainly not going to support this guy [Cox]. I said I wouldn’t. He’s not qualified to be governor.”Cox tried to impeach Hogan over his handling of the Maryland Covid response. He has used QAnon-adjacent language and attended a QAnon-linked convention.QAnon is an antisemitic conspiracy theory which among other beliefs holds that the US is run by a cabal of child-molesting cannibals which Trump will defeat.Hogan has said he is considering a run for the Republican presidential nomination. He was not drawn further on the matter on Sunday. He did tell ABC’s This Week he thought a Trump 2024 announcement before November, which seems likely, would cost Republicans in the midterms.“We had discussions about that at the Republican Governors Association last week,” he said, “and I think most people are very concerned about the damage it does to the party if he announces now.“And, you know, it may help in very red states or very red districts. But in competitive places and purple battlefields, it’s going to cost us seats if he were to do that.” Hogan said he thought Trump’s “ego probably can’t take another loss – after all he lost to Joe Biden, which is hard to do – but he likes to be the center of attention”.Collusion: How Russia Helped Trump Win the White House by Luke Harding – reviewRead moreOn CNN, Tapper cited Liz Cheney, another anti-Trump Republican and possible presidential hopeful who seems set to lose her US House seat in Wyoming, and asked if Hogan felt Trump was winning the battle for the soul of his party.“There’s no question that we lost a battle and we’re losing a few battles,” Hogan said. “But the fight is long. It’s long from being over.“I mean, we have another couple of years before the next [presidential] election. In November of ’20, I gave a speech at the Reagan Institute saying, ‘There’s going to be a long battle for the heart and soul of the Republican party and this is just the beginning.’“I think, in November, we’re going to have a different story, when a lot of these fringe candidates lose. And then we’re going to have to start thinking about, between November’s election and the election two years later, what kind of a party are we going to be? And can we get back to a more Reaganesque big tent party that appeals to more people?“Or are we going to double down on failure?”TopicsUS midterm elections 2022MarylandRepublicansDemocratsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Biden ‘doing just fine’ after testing positive for Covid, White House says

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      Biden ‘doing just fine’ after testing positive for Covid, White House saysAshish Jha, coronavirus response coordinator, and physician Kevin O’Connor say president contracted BA.5 variant Joe Biden is “feeling well” and “doing just fine” after testing positive for Covid, the White House coronavirus response coordinator said.Joe Biden’s mild Covid symptoms are improving, doctor saysRead moreAppearing on CBS’s Face the Nation, Ashish Jha said: “So it is the BA.5 variant, which is about 80% of infections. But thank goodness, our vaccines and therapeutics work well against it, which is why I think the president’s doing well.“I checked in with his team late last night. He was feeling well. He had a good day yesterday. He’s got a viral syndrome, an upper respiratory infection … and he’s doing just fine.”The White House later released a letter in which Biden’s physician, Kevin O’Connor, said the president’s “predominant symptom now is a sore throat”.O’Connor also said Biden had completed a third full day of treatment with Paxlovid, which would continue and was “experiencing no shortness of breath at all”.Biden’s positive test was announced on Thursday. At 79, the president is the oldest ever inaugurated. He is also, as he said, double-vaccinated and double-boosted and has access to the best possible care.On Sunday the transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, told CNN’s State of the Union he knew Biden was still working “because on Thursday I got a call from the White House about something on transportation that he had asked me to follow up on”.Buttigieg also wished Biden “a speedy path back to 100%”.Jha was asked if the White House “will continue to make disclosures if [Biden] has long-term symptoms from this infection”.“Absolutely,” he said. “You know, we think it’s really important for the American people to know how well the president’s doing, which is why we have been so transparent, giving updates several times a day, having people hear from me directly, hear directly from his physician.“And obviously if he has persistent symptoms, if any of them interfere with his ability to carry out his duties, we will disclose that early and often.“But I suspect this is going to be a course of Covid that we’ve seen in many Americans who have been fully vaccinated, double-boosted, getting treated with those tools in hand. You know, the president has been doing well, and we’re gonna expect that he’s going to continue to do so.”Jha also suggested cities seeing high case rates, including New York, Phoenix and Miami, might consider re-instituting indoor mask mandates.“Masks work, right? They clearly slow down transmission. So in areas of high transmission, I think it’s very prudent for people to be wearing masks indoors, especially if they’re in crowded, poorly ventilated spaces. That’s what the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] recommends. And I think that’s a very important and effective way of reducing transmission, protecting yourself as well.“You know, in terms of mandates, that’s something that we’ve always felt strongly should be done by local officials, mayors, governors, local health officials, and we’re seeing different officials take different tactics. And I think that’s actually appropriate given that we have a very diverse country with different transmission patterns and and willingness to kind of engage in-in wearing masks.”Jha was also asked about monkeypox, which on Saturday the World Health Organization declared a “public health emergency of international concern”. Would the Biden administration declare a pandemic?“Pandemics are declared by the World Health Organization,” Jha said, “and I actually applaud the World Health Organization for declaring that public health emergency of international concern. We are seeing outbreaks that are out of control in many, many parts of the world. It’s very important that we get our arms around this thing.“In the US right now, we’re looking at public health emergency as something that [the health department] might … invoke but it really depends on what does that allow us to do. Right now we have over 2,000 cases, but we have ramped up vaccinations, ramped up treatments, ramped up testing, and we’re going to continue to look at all sort of policy options. Right now, we think we can get our arms around this thing but obviously if we need further tools we will invoke them as we need them.”Jha said he thought monkeypox could be contained.Monkeypox declared global health emergency by WHO as cases surgeRead more“The way we contain monkeypox is we have a very simple, straightforward strategy on this, which is: make testing widely available. We have done that. And now testing is far more frequent and common.Answering the charge that the US was caught flat-footed by monkeypox, Jha said: “What I would acknowledge is that when we started two months ago, we had a limited supply of vaccines. We have obtained more than any other country, probably more than every other country combined. We have acted swiftly.”Asked if people should be concerned about another infectious disease, polio, which has been detected in New York, Jha said: “There is a lot of surveillance that we do for polio, there’s wastewater surveillance that goes on, we are not seeing outbreaks of polio elsewhere.“This one case has heightened everybody’s surveillance. But … CDC and the Department of Health of New York are doing an investigation to try to understand more, but I do not expect polio to become more widespread in the country, again, because so many Americans are vaccinated against this.”TopicsJoe BidenUS politicsOmicron variantCoronavirusBiden administrationDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      ‘US democracy will not survive for long’: how January 6 hearings plot a roadmap to autocracy

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      ‘US democracy will not survive for long’: how January 6 hearings plot a roadmap to autocracyTrump’s efforts to subvert the elections laid bare the system’s weaknesses, exposing it to greater exploitation They promised the January 6 hearings would “blow the roof off the house”, presenting America with the truth about Donald Trump’s attack on democracy culminating in the US Capitol insurrection. In the end, the roof of the House, where the summer season of hearings reached their finale on Thursday night, remained intact, though mightily shaken.January 6 panel: shining a light on American democracy’s nose diveRead moreIt will take time for historians to assess whether the eight public sessions were comparable to the 1973 Watergate hearings, as Jamie Raskin, a Democratic member of the January 6 committee, predicted. Yet it’s already clear that after 19 hours and 11 minutes of testimony, filmed depositions, documentary evidence and raw footage of the Capitol attack the hearings have generated a mountain of words and images that will linger long in the collective memory.We know now that on the day that the United States suffered the worst assault on the Capitol since the British ravaged it in 1814, Trump tried to grab the steering wheel from a secret service agent to turn his presidential SUV in the direction of the violent mob so he could join them. We know that when he exhorted his followers to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell” he was aware that many of them were armed with guns and wearing body armor.We know from Thursday night that when his close aides pleaded with him to call off the attack, he refused, spending 187 minutes watching events unfold on TV in the White House dining room while swatting away increasingly desperate pleas for him to act until it was clear that his hopes of violently overthrowing the election had faded.To those who track anti-democratic movements there is a chilling familiarity to this rich evocation of a president descending into an abyss of fantasy, fury and possible illegality. “The picture that the hearings depict is of a coup leader,” said the Harvard political scientist Steven Levitsky. “This is a guy who was unwilling to accept defeat and was prepared to use virtually any means to try to stay illegally in power.”Levitsky is co-author of the influential book How Democracies Die which traces the collapse of once-proud democratic nations – in some cases through wrenching upheavals, but more often in modern times through a tip-toeing into authoritarianism. Levitsky is also an authority on Latin America, a region from which he draws a compelling parallel.Levitsky told the Guardian that the Trump who emerges from the hearings was a coup leader, “but not a very sophisticated one. Not a very experienced one. A petty autocrat. A type of leader more familiar to someone like me, a student of Latin American politics.”If Trump’s Latin American-style authoritarianism rang out from the hearings for scholars like Levitsky, a more vexed question is whether it similarly pierced the consciences of the wider American people. It is in their hands that the fate of the January 6 committee’s prime objective now rests: ensuring that a head-on assault on US democracy never happens again.The committee, led by its Democratic chair Bennie Thompson and rebel Republican vice-chair Liz Cheney, went to great lengths to make the hearings as digestible as possible for the TV, streaming and social media era. They employed the British journalist and former president of ABC News, James Goldston, to produce the events as tightly as a Netflix cliffhanger, which seems broadly, like a success.The opening primetime hearing on 9 June attracted at least 20m viewers, equivalent to the TV audience for a large sporting event. The following daytime sessions dipped to around 10m people, though ratings shot back up to almost 14m on 28 June when the former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson gave explosive testimony.It is one thing to preach to the millions of Americans who are already horrified by Trump’s efforts to subvert democracy, but what about those who went along with it and internalized his lies about the stolen election?Here the evidence is less comforting. When you enter the right-wing media bubble, the vision of a South American coup leader suddenly vanishes.Over on Fox News, the opening hearing was passed over in favor of the channel’s controversial star Tucker Carlson who used his show to ridicule the proceedings as “deranged propaganda” and to shrink the insurrection into “a forgettably minor outbreak”. On Thursday night, Carlson again supplanted live coverage of the closing hearing, going on a rant instead about Biden and Covid.The further into the right-wing media jungle you venture, the more the narrative becomes distorted. NewsGuard, a non-partisan firm that monitors misinformation, reviewed output during the period of the hearings from Newsmax, the hard-right TV channel that is still carried by most major cable and satellite providers.The monitors found Newsmax aired at least 40 false and misleading claims about the 2020 election and 6 January. Several of the falsehoods were pumped out even as the live hearings were proceeding.“If you were watching only Newsmax to get information about the January 6 hearings, you would likely be living in an entirely alternate universe,” said Jack Brewster, NewsGuard’s senior analyst.The media bubble is not the only barrier standing between the January 6 committee and a major repair of the country’s damaged democratic infrastructure. While the hearings focused heavily on the figure of Trump, Levitsky argues that an arguably even greater threat is now posed by the Republican party which enabled him.“In a two-party system, if one political party is not committed to democratic rules of the game, democracy is not likely to survive for very long,” Levitsky said. “The party has revealed itself, from top to bottom, to be a majority anti-democratic party.”Levitsky cites an analysis by the Republican Accountability Project, a group of anti-Trump conservatives, of the public statements made by all 261 Republicans in the US House and Senate in the wake of the 2020 election. It found that 224 of them – a staggering 86% of all Republicans in Congress – cast doubt on the legitimacy of Biden’s win in what amounted to a mass “attack on a cornerstone of our democracy”.Levitsky warns that the hearings have illuminated two great dangers for America, both relating to Republicans. The first is that the party’s strategists have acquired through Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, a roadmap to the vulnerabilities of the electoral system.“They discovered that there is a plethora of opportunities for subverting an election, from blocking certification to sending alternate slates of electors to Congress. Armed with that knowledge, they may well do it much better next time.”The second lesson for Levitsky relates to accountability, or the lack of it. The Republicans who played with fire, openly backing the anti-democratic movement, found that they were largely immune to the consequences.“They learned that if you try to overturn the election you will not be punished by Republican voters, activists or donors. For the most part, you’ll be rewarded for it. And to me, that is terrifying.”Even now, at national level, the Republican leadership continues to stoke the flames. The minority leader of the House, Kevin McCarthy, and his top team have relentlessly striven to hinder and belittle the January 6 committee.But it is at state and local levels that the rot is most advanced. The watchdog States United Democracy Center calculates that at least 33 states are considering 229 bills that would give state legislatures the power to politicize, criminalize or otherwise tamper with elections. The group also notes that disciples of Trump’s stolen election lie are bidding for secretary of state positions in November in 17 states, which would give them, were they to win, control over election administration in a large swathe of the country.Several have already prevailed in Republican primaries, putting them one step away from being able to wreak havoc over the machinery of democracy. They include Jim Marchant in Nevada and Mark Finchem in Arizona, while in Pennsylvania a Stop the Steal peddler, Doug Mastriano, is vying to become governor which would similarly put him in the electoral driving seat.Then there is Kristina Karamo from the battleground state of Michigan who won the Republican nomination for secretary of state in April. Karamo has flirted with the baseless conspiracy theory QAnon and has accused singers Ariana Grande and Billie Eilish of putting children “under a satanic delusion”. She continues to be a fervent critic of Biden as an illegitimate president.Michigan’s current Democratic secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, who nursed the state through the traumatic contested count in 2020, is up for re-election and will go head-to-head with Karamo in the mid-terms. Benson told the Guardian that she sees the race as a test of the future for America, “between those who want to protect and defend democracy and those openly willing to deny it”.Benson’s plea is all the more urgent given signs that the willingness to embrace violence displayed on January 6 is also worming its way into the political fabric. A mega poll from UC Davis this week found that one in five adults in the US – which extrapolates to about 50 million people – believe that it can be justified to achieve your political aims through violence.Extremist groups have also stepped up their activities since the insurrection. Last month, the national chairman of the far-right Proud Boys, Enrique Tarrio, and several other top leaders were charged with seditious conspiracy. Yet the indictments do not appear to have discouraged the group from audaciously moving to infiltrate the Republicans – more than 10 current or former Proud Boys, for instance, now sit on the Republican party’s executive committee in Miami-Dade, Florida.So what does accountability look like in the wake of the hearings? How do you shore up democracy when even prosecutions appear to wield little power of persuasion?There was a lot of talk about accountability on Thursday night at the final hearing of this summer season. In his opening remarks Bennie Thompson, speaking by video link from Covid quarantine, said there had to be “stiff consequences for those responsible”.It required scant translation to see that as a direct invitation to Merrick Garland, the country’s top law enforcement official, to prosecute Trump. To pile pressure on the Department of Justice, Thompson announced that the committee was still receiving new intelligence and that there will be further public hearings in September.“There’s no doubt that the justice department has followed the hearings really closely,” said Daniel Zelenko, a partner at Crowell & Moring and a former federal prosecutor. “There’s going to be a lot of scrutiny and debate about a prosecution. But if you were ever going to indict a former president, it’s hard to imagine a more compelling fact pattern.”There is also the accountability of the ballot box. Cheney picked up that theme.“Donald Trump made a purposeful choice to violate his oath of office,” she said in her closing remarks on Thursday. “Every American must consider this: can a president who is willing to make the choices Donald Trump made during the violence of January 6 ever be trusted with any position of authority in our great nation again?”TopicsJanuary 6 hearingsUS Capitol attackDemocratsRepublicansDonald TrumpUS politicsanalysisReuse this content More