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      How a wild week in Washington changed the game for Biden and Trump

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      How a wild week in Washington changed the game for Biden and Trump As the midterms approach, Biden’s climate success and Trump’s legal troubles could offer Democrats unexpected hopeDeparting his small, unshowy home state of Delaware, Joe Biden roared into the sky aboard Air Force One, borne aloft by jet fuel and a dramatic uplift in his political fortunes.A thousand miles away, some unexpected guests had just arrived at the opulent Florida estate of the US president’s predecessor, Donald Trump, but not for its champagne, sumptuous buffet or two pound lobsters.At about 9am on Monday, FBI agents – said to number between 30 and 40, some wearing suits, most in T-shirts, casual trousers, masks and gloves – began a search of Mar-a-Lago for government secrets that should not have left the White House.It was a tale of two presidents: Biden at his zenith, gaining praise for a “hot streak” and earning comparisons with the master legislator Lyndon Johnson; Trump at his nadir, under criminal investigation for potential violations of the Espionage Act and earning comparisons with the 1920s gangster Al Capone.And yet, such is the upside down nature of American politics in 2022, determining who won and who lost the week was less clear cut. For Biden, to be sure, it was a much needed boost after months of Washington gridlock, miserable poll ratings and speculation that he could face a challenger from his own Democratic party in the 2024 presidential election.But Trump, perversely, also appeared to end the week stronger within his party than he began it. He had faced growing dissent over damaging revelations from the congressional committee investigating the January 6 insurrection. Yet his claim that his home had been “raided” by law enforcement prompted Republicans to unite behind him with renewed zeal.The upshot was that Biden, 79, and 76-year-old Trump had each received a political blood transfusion when they needed it most. If recent events proved anything, it was that they are still the most likely contenders for the White House in 2024. America’s gerontocracy is not done yet.For a president long called a carnival barker and reality TV star reveling in spectacle, the FBI search on Monday began innocuously enough, with neither Trump nor cameras present (his son, Eric, told Fox News that he had been the first to learn of it and informed his father).Democrats’ midterm prospects perk up as Biden finally hits his strideRead moreThe FBI agents had a search warrant as part of a justice department investigation into the discovery of classified White House records recovered from Mar-a-Lago earlier this year. They wore plain clothes and were given access by the Secret Service without drama.The agents reportedly seized 11 sets of classified information, some of which was marked “top secret”, along with binders, handwritten notes and information about the “President of France”. Trump denied a Washington Post article that said the search was for possible classified materials related to nuclear weapons.It ended at about 6.30pm on Monday and word broke on social media a few minutes later, quickly followed by confirmation from Trump himself. In a characteristically hyperbolic statement, he fumed that Mar-a-Lago was “currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents. Nothing like this has ever happened to a President of the United States before… They even broke into my safe!”Trump claimed the search was politically motivated and attempted to draw a contrast with his old foe Hillary Clinton, but perhaps the most important sentence asserted: “It is prosecutorial misconduct, the weaponization of the Justice System, and an attack by Radical Left Democrats who desperately don’t want me to run for President in 2024.”Like a herd of wildebeest, Republicans stampeded thunderously as one. “Weaponization”, “banana republic” and “dictatorship” were the go-to words of the week along with a blitz of fundraising emails. Some in the party of law and order, which had castigated Democrats over the “defund the police” slogan, were now calling for the FBI to be defunded.Senator Rick Scott of Florida, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, claimed that the government has gone the way of “the Gestapo”, the secret police in Nazi Germany. Congressman Paul Gosar of Arizona tweeted: “We must destroy the FBI. We must save America. I stand with Donald J Trump.”Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, warned the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, to “preserve your documents and clear your calendar” because, if Republicans take control of the House in November’s midterm elections, they will hold oversight investigations into the justice department.So far, so Maga. Perhaps more tellingly, even Republicans who had previously distanced themselves from Trump felt compelled to toe the line. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell demanded a “thorough and immediate explanation” of what led to the search.The former vice-president Mike Pence, who fell out with the former president over January 6, said “the appearance of continued partisanship by the justice department must be addressed”. Other potential contenders for the Republican nomination in 2024, including Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, joined the chorus.Opinion polls confirmed that the FBI search had given Trump at least a modest boost among Republicans. A survey by Morning Consult found that 57% of Republican voters and Republican-leaning independents would vote for Trump if the 2024 primary were being held today, up from 53% in mid-July. DeSantis fell from 23% to 17% over the same period.This followed a run of victories for Trump-backed candidates in congressional primary elections. In the spring and early summer, his record had been uneven with notable setbacks in states such as Georgia. But this month, his slate of election-deniers beat establishment-backed candidates in Arizona.The businessman Tim Michels won the Republican primary for governor of Wisconsin with Trump’s backing. Most of the 10 Republican members of Congress who voted to impeach Trump have either retired or lost. Liz Cheney, the vice-chair of the January 6 committee, will be on the Wyoming ballot on Tuesday and is widely expected to lose her seat.A the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Texas, 69% of attendees said they wanted Trump as the Republican nominee in 2024, well ahead of DeSantis on 24%. Jim McLaughlin, who conducted the straw poll, said: “He’s more popular than ever.”Yet even as Trump tightens his grip on the Republican base, his new status as the first former US president to suffer the indignity of having his home searched by the FBI offers another reason why moderate and independent voters could slip through his fingers.Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, said: “There are two contrary effects. With Republicans, or at least the Republican base, this has caused them to rally around not the flag but Donald Trump. It has strengthened him within the party and discouraged people like DeSantis, whether he admits it or not, and the others aren’t even on the radar screen at this point.“But the contrary effect for not just Democrats but also independents is it makes Trump less electable in 2024. People look at him and even if they like him they say his time has passed and he’s too controversial, I’ve heard this a million times and I don’t think it’s exceptional.”Wendy Schiller, a political science professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, agrees that Republicans’ fast and furious defense of Trump should not necessarily be taken at face value as the midterms approach.An anxious American west sizes up historic climate bill: ‘We need every tool’Read moreShe said: “They’re squeezing all of this enthusiasm out of his base, promising them all sorts of things, just to make sure that they get out and vote on 8 November.”Schiller added: “They’re using Donald Trump to get to the promised land in November but, as soon as they get there, it’s not clear to me that they stay loyal to him particularly. They don’t have to. Once they get the Congress, particularly if they get the Senate, and if Ron DeSantis wins big in Florida for re-election, he doesn’t need Donald Trump to get the nomination or the presidency.”Whatever their motivations, Republicans’ rush of incendiary and reckless rhetoric also came with a dark and dangerous side. Pro-Trump online chatrooms filled with calls for violence and phrases such as “lock and load” while “civil war” trended on Twitter.On Thursday an armed man wearing body armor tried to breach a security screening area at an FBI field office in Ohio, then fled and was later killed after a standoff with law enforcement. The man is believed to have been in Washington in the days before the assault on the US Capitol and may have been there on the day it took place.Trump’s legal perils – federal and state, civil and criminal – continue to mount. In a separate case, he sat for a deposition on Wednesday as the New York attorney general, Letitia James, wraps up a civil investigation into allegations that his company misled lenders and tax authorities about asset values.Even as Trump invoked his fifth-amendment protection against self-incrimination more than 400 times, Biden was at the White House celebrating another victory. He signed bipartisan legislation to pour billions of dollars into care for military veterans exposed to toxic burn pits.It was one of several victories for a president who just last month was being written off as a likely one-term president with an approval rating below 40% – worse even than Trump’s – because of inflation, a stalled agenda and a desire for generational change. The Axios website started a list of Democratic officials’ positions on whether they want Biden to run again in 2024, noting that two gave firm “no”s and 19 dodged the question.But the narrative has shifted quickly in just a few weeks even as Biden battled a coronavirus infection and lingering cough. Congress, where Democrats have wafer-thin majorities, sent bipartisan bills addressing gun violence and boosting the nation’s high-tech manufacturing sector to his desk.On Friday, the president secured what he called the “final piece” of his economic agenda with passage of a $740bn climate and prescription drug deal once thought dead. In addition, petrol prices dipped below $4 a gallon for the first time since March, inflation appears to be stabilising and the economy added 528,000 jobs in July, bringing the unemployment rate to 3.5%, the lowest in half a century.And Biden successfully ordered the killing of al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri in a US drone strike in Afghanistan, the most significant blow to the terrorist network since the death of Osama Bin Laden. Democrats and the White House hope the run of victories will revive their their political fortunes in time for the midterms.Bob Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist, said: “When you combine what’s happened in the last month legislatively with the supreme court decision overturning Roe v Wade [the constitutional right to abortion], you may have a very different situation for Democrats going into the midterms and for Biden in the second half of his term and a possible re-election.”Shrum, director of the Center for the Political Future at the University of Southern California Dornsife, does not buy the notion that Trump has been strengthened by his latest crisis. “He’s still the dominant force in the Republican party but he’s not as dominant as he was a year ago. He might be able to win a plurality nomination, but I actually think he’d be a very weak Republican nominee. He literally could get into a position where running would be a part time occupation and defending himself in court would be the full time occupation.”The 2024 election is an age away. Most commentators agree that, despite all the unknowables facing both men, including those related to being older than any other American presidents in history, a Biden v Trump rematch remains the most likely scenario.Michael Steele, a Trump critic and former chairman of the Republican National Committee, said: “Let’s settle this once and for all. Let’s stomp Trump’s ass into the ground one more time. He lost by 8m votes last time; he’ll lose by 16m next time. You want to play? Let’s play. Democrats, with all their navel gazing, whining and bellyaching about Joe Biden’s age and this and that, shut the hell up!”Steele added: “The most likely outcome going into 2024 is that it will be a repeat of the 2020 election. All stakes remain the same, if not higher, and the American people are going to have to decide once and for all: are we down with autocracy or are we up with democracy?”TopicsUS politicsJoe BidenDonald TrumpDemocratsRepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More

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      The Republican party has reason to fear the midterms | Lloyd Green

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      The Republican party has reason to fear the midtermsLloyd GreenThis fall, Trump will be on the ballot even if his name does not appear. There are growing signs the Republican party is in trouble Donald Trump’s week from hell has turned red hot. On Friday, reports emerged that he was under suspicion of having violated the Espionage Act, removing or destroying records and obstructing an investigation. Separate inventory receipts reflect that FBI agents hauled-off a trove of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Palm Beach domicile and club. Specifically, agents found four sets of “top secret documents”, three sets of “secret documents” and three sets of “confidential documents”. Whether any of this pertains to US nuclear capabilities remains a mystery. On Thursday night, the Washington Post had reported that the FBI searched for “nuclear documents and other items, sources say even worse.” For his part, Trump denied the search related to nuclear weapons, and branded those allegations a “hoax”.Earlier on Thursday, Merrick Garland, the attorney general, told reporters that the buck stopped with him. At the same time, the Department of Justice also moved to unseal the search warrant and inventory list. “Absent objection” by Trump, the justice department asked the court to make public both the search warrant and the inventory. Late Thursday, the former president acceded to the department’s gambit. “Release the documents now!”, Trump announced on Truth Social. Armed FBI attacker shot dead by police believed to be enraged Trump supporterRead moreNukes and the pungent whiff of espionage possibly committed by the ex-president now waft through the air. Jay Bratt signed the Department of Justice filing. He heads the department’s counterintelligence and export control office. Once upon a time, Trump contemplated pardoning Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. Both men were charged under the Espionage Act. In his book on the Trump presidency, Rage, Bob Woodward quoted Trump as saying: “We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about. We have stuff that Putin and Xi have never heard about before. There’s nobody – what we have is incredible.” As an act of deflection, Trump also attacked the 44th president: “I continue to ask, what happened to the 33mn pages of documents taken to Chicago by President Obama.” Earlier in the week, Trump declared that the FBI had defiled his safe-space. On cue, members of his family, the Republican party and right-wing media trashed the feds and the Biden administration. On Thursday night, they went momentarily silent. Until then, they did their best to paint the former guy as a victim. Senator Rand Paul raised the specter of planted evidence. Rudy Giuliani vowed that if Trump were re-elected, the feds would swoop down on the Bidens. One Trump-fundraising blast read: “Remember, they were never after President Trump. They have always been after YOU.” This is the same crowd that continued to demand – six years after the 2016 election –that Hillary Clinton be locked-up. Said differently, “law and order” means whatever they choose it to mean, like Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland. “Neither more nor less”. On that score, the FBI field office in Cincinnati came under attack by Ricky Walter Shiffer just before Garland’s announcement. Law enforcement later confirmed that they had killed him. Shiffer was at the Capitol on January 6. In death, he had finally caught up with Ashli Babbitt. For the record, Shiffer and Babbitt were veterans.The blow-up over Mar-a-Lago has helped Trump regain his sway over the Republican party. With the notable exception of Sen Tim Scott of South Carolina, senior Republicans have again prostrated themselves: Mike Pence, Mike Pompeo, Mitch McConnell, Ron DeSantis, Kevin McCarthy, Lindsey Graham, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio. The band is back. Yet all this comes at a steep-cost to their ambitions. The anticipated red-wave in the upcoming midterms may have crested. The Republican party underperformed in Minnesota’s recent special congressional election. Now, the party stands to lose its natural advantage on national security issues. Beyond that, the latest Fox News poll reports that the Democrats have tied the Republican party on the generic House ballot, at 41% all. Just months ago, the Republicans held a seven-point lead. Meanwhile, the public disapproves of the supreme court overturning Roe v Wade by a greater than a three-two margin.White women without four-year degrees disapprove even more strongly (60-35) than those who are college graduates (54-44). Suburban women give the end of Roe a deep thumbs-down, 65-33. The raging culture war and Trump’s antics may even enable Nancy Pelosi to continue wielding the speaker’s gavel in January 2023. This fall Trump will be on the ballot even if his name does not appear. Whether he will be under indictment is the open question.
      Lloyd Green served in the Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionUS midterm elections 2022RepublicansDemocratsDonald TrumpcommentReuse this content More

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      Bernie Sanders: ‘extremely modest’ spending bill fails to meet the moment

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      InterviewBernie Sanders: ‘extremely modest’ spending bill fails to meet the momentLauren Gambino in WashingtonLeftwing senator says party squandered chance to be bold, and takes aim at ‘corporate Democrats’ Sinema and Manchin As Democrats celebrate the long-sought passage of Joe Biden’s sweeping health, climate and economic package, Bernie Sanders is not ready to declare victory. Instead, the Vermont senator is sounding the alarm that Congress has failed to meet the moment, with potentially grave consequences for American democracy.FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home for classified nuclear weapons documents – reportRead more“We are living in enormously difficult times,” he said in an interview with the Guardian. “And I worry very much … that people are giving up on democracy because they do not believe that their government is working for them.”The legislation, which Biden is expected to sign into law next week, is but a sliver of the ambitious domestic policy initiative that Sanders, as chair of the Senate Budget Committee, helped draft last year. The original proposal was, in his view, already a compromise. But he believes it would have gone a long way in addressing the widespread economic distress that is undermining Americans’ faith in their government.With control of Congress at stake this fall, Sanders believes Democrats squandered a major opportunity, probably their last before the midterm elections, to show voters what they could deliver with even larger majorities in Congress.“It seems to me that what we should have done is gone forward with a bold agenda, to show the American people, ordinary people, that we understand what’s going on in their lives,” he said. “And if we cannot succeed because we don’t have the 50 votes, at least let the American people understand that we are fighting for them, and that we had to make a compromise to do far, far, far less than what is necessary.”Sanders supported the resulting compromise, finalized after a year of strained negotiations and setbacks, because he concluded that “the pluses outweighed the negatives”.A core pillar of the bill is nearly $400bn in climate and energy proposals, a historic sum that scientists estimate will help the US cut emissions by about 40% by the end of the decade, compared with 2005 levels. It also enables Medicare to negotiate the price of some prescription drugs, caps the annual out-of-pocket costs of the program’s beneficiaries at $2,000 and extends pandemic-era health insurance subsidies. To pay for it, the bill establishes a new 15% minimum tax on the nation’s biggest corporations.But perhaps most notable, Sanders said, is what was left out.Initially envisioned as a wholesale rebuilding of the American social safety net, weakened by decades of disinvestment, widening income inequality and stagnating wealth, the plan was slashed and trimmed and slashed again in an effort to appeal to two Democratic holdouts in the Senate, where the chamber’s even split left no margin for error.Abandoned in the process were proposals to lower the cost of childcare, establish universal pre-K, guarantee parental leave, expand care for elderly and disabled people, and make community college tuition-free for two years. These policies, he argued, are the best way to begin easing the economic hardship facing so many American families.To underscore his point, the senator listed a series of worrying indicators – elderly Americans unable to afford home care, families struggling to pay for childcare and young people burdened by student-loan debt, all of it made worse by soaring costs of necessities such as food, fuel and rent.“A lot of people are hurting and they’re looking to the United States Congress, asking, ‘Do you understand what’s going on in my life right now?’” he said. “And I think their conclusion is no, they don’t.”Sanders registered his dismay in a series of sharp floor speeches before the Senate vote last weekend, during which he decried Democrats’ plan as an “extremely modest bill that does virtually nothing to address the enormous crises facing the working families of our country”.Another tradeoff that especially infuriated Sanders, and many climate activists, was the inclusion of fossil fuel and drilling provisions, which were added to win the support of Manchin, whose conservative state is heavily dependent on the coal and gas industries.As heatwaves, floods and wildfires wreak havoc across the country, Sanders said: “Does anybody in their right mind think this is sensible, when you’re talking about climate?”Yet he was optimistic that there had been a “change in consciousness” among lawmakers on the issue, partly because the effects were undeniable but also because of the actions of activists and young people.“The activists should be proud,” he said, crediting their persistence for pushing Congress to make its largest ever investment in strategies to slow global warming.During the Senate’s marathon, overnight debate – known as a “vote-a-rama” – Sanders offered a number of amendments that sought to restore some of the policies dropped from the original bill in an effort to win support from Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona. They included proposals to extend the child tax credit, expand Medicare coverage, cap the cost of prescription drugs and establish a civilian climate corps.All were defeated, overwhelmingly: 1-99, 1-98, 1-97, with Sanders offering, he later quipped, the “resounding one” vote.The votes frustrated some of his colleagues, who determined that Sanders’ approach risked upsetting their fragile coalition.“Come on, Bernie,” Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio was overheard saying, after explaining that most Democrats supported the policies but were acting to preserve the broader deal.Republicans, meanwhile, have derided the measure as reckless spending that would worsen not improve inflation. Sanders’ criticism of the bill as the “so-called Inflation Reduction Act” provided fodder for Republicans. “This won’t reduce inflation,” Republican senator Lindsey Graham, vice-chair of the Senate Budget Committee, said recently. “Just ask Bernie Sanders.”Vice-President Kamala Harris cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate on Sunday afternoon, and the House gave final passage the measure on Friday.Acknowledging the political reality of Democrats thin majorities, Sanders argued that his Senate colleagues could have sent a strong message to voters by supporting his amendments, even if they were destined to fail.“At this particular moment, we cannot leave it to conservative Democrats to define the direction in which Congress and the Democratic party is going,” Sanders said – an apparent reference to Manchin and Sinema.Progressives in the House voiced similar reservations as Sanders, but ultimately saw the measure as the best chance to achieve some of their economic policy goals while Democrats control Congress. Ahead of the House vote on Friday, congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, a progressive from Washington, said there was much more to do but urged her colleagues to “celebrate this massive investment for the people”.Biden declared the legislation a significant victory over “special interests”. “It required many compromises,” he said after the bill’s passage. “Doing important things almost always does.”Sanders said the measure amounted to a “slight defeat” for Big Pharma – an industry, he noted, that counts as many as three lobbyists per member of Congress. But the senator said the prescription drug reforms were far too limited in scope, as the changes leave out most Americans, only apply to 10 drugs initially, and won’t take effect until 2026.Senate Republicans rejected an amendment that would have capped insulin prices at $35 for Americans not on Medicare, a move Sanders said, “exposes the fraud for anyone who thinks the Republican party cares a damn about working people”.Now as Democrats fan out across the country for the summer recess, many are testing a new pitch: touting their legislative success while asking voters to deliver them another, bigger congressional majority next year to accomplish what they could not this year.With two more senators, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, said in a recent interview, “We would get childcare. We would get paid family leave. We would get help for the elderly, home care. We would get the kind of things that Joe Manchin was against.”In the weeks ahead, Sanders said he plans to hit the trail for Democrats, with a blunter version of that message: “Give us two or three more seats so we don’t have to make compromises with corporate Democrats.”TopicsBernie SandersUS politicsDemocratsinterviewsReuse this content More

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      US House passes Democrats’ landmark healthcare and climate bill

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      US House passes Democrats’ landmark healthcare and climate billBiden is expected to quickly sign the legislation, which delivers a much-needed political victory for the party ahead of the midterms The House passed Democrats’ healthcare and climate spending package on Friday, sending the landmark piece of legislation to Joe Biden’s desk and delivering a much-needed political victory for the party ahead of the midterm elections this November.The bill passed the House in a party-line vote of 220 to 207, and Democratic members broke into raucous applause as the proposal crossed the finish line.“Today is really a glorious day for us. We send to the president’s desk a monumental bill that will be truly for the people,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said before the final vote. “If you are sitting at your kitchen table and wonder how you’re going to pay the bills – your healthcare bills, your prescription drug bills – this bill is for you.”Joe Biden is expected to quickly sign the legislation, which he has celebrated as a significant step toward combatting the climate crisis and reducing Americans’ healthcare costs.The final House vote capped off a lively debate among members in the chamber, as Republicans attacked the bill as a reckless spending spree that would fail to address Americans’ financial needs. A number of Republicans sharply criticized the bill’s provision to increase funding for the Internal Revenue Service, which far-right congresswoman Lauren Boebert compared to “armed robbery on the taxpayers”.That comment prompted a rebuke from John Yarmuth, the Democratic chairman of the House budget committee. “I would implore my Republican colleagues to cut out the scare tactics, quit making things up and debate the substance of this bill,” Yarmuth said.The House’s passage of the bill came five days after the Senate approved the package in a vote of 51 to 50, following a marathon session that lasted overnight and stretched into Sunday afternoon.The bill, formally known as the Inflation Reduction Act, is the culmination of more than a year of negotiations among Democratic lawmakers. The proposal was negotiated behind closed doors by the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, and centrist Democratic senator Joe Manchin, who single-handedly quashed the bill’s predecessor, the Build Back Better Act, last year.House progressives complained that the new bill is much narrower in scope than the Build Back Better Act, but they ultimately supported the spending package, largely because of its climate provisions. The legislation includes $369bn in funds aimed at expanding renewable energy sources and lowering planet-heating emissions. Experts have estimated the bill could reduce America’s emissions by about 40% by 2030, compared with 2005 levels.“This landmark legislation marks the largest ever federal investment in climate action,” Pramila Jayapal, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said on Friday. She added: “We think we crafted the best bill in the world with Build Back Better … So as soon as we get a couple more Democrats, we’ve made the case for the rest of the bill.”The bill also fell short of expectations for some of the centrist members of the House Democratic caucus. Lawmakers from high-tax states like New Jersey and California had pushed for changes to the limit on federal deductions for state and local taxes (Salt), but they failed to get that policy added to the spending package.Instead, the bill includes a number of tax changes to cover the cost of the rest of the proposal. Those policies, including a new corporate minimum tax and a 1% excise tax on stock buybacks, are expected to bring in more than $700bn in revenue for the government.Despite their reservations, centrist Democrats supported the bill, while emphasizing that they would continue their efforts to reform the Salt deduction.“I will also remain steadfast in my commitment to ensuring that any discussion of reforms to the 2017 tax law begins with addressing Salt,” Mikie Sherrill, a Democrat of New Jersey, said on Sunday. “Because this legislation does not raise taxes on families in my district, but in fact significantly lowers their costs, I will be voting for it.”The bill previously attracted criticism from the progressive senator Bernie Sanders, who said the spending package did little to help working Americans who are struggling under the weight of record-high inflation. Sanders attempted to expand the healthcare and financial assistance provisions in the bill during the Senate’s 16-hour vote-a-rama session last weekend, but those efforts were unsuccessful.Sanders has taken particular issue with the bill’s provisions aimed at lowering the cost of prescription drugs, which he has said are too limited. The bill will allow Medicare to start negotiating the price of certain expensive drugs and will cap Medicare recipients’ out-of-pocket prescription drug costs at $2,000 a year, but key provisions meant to help Americans who receive health insurance coverage through the private market were stripped out of the legislation.“It’s a very modest step forward,” Sanders told MSNBC on Sunday. “Bottom line is, I’m going to support the bill because given the crisis of climate change, the environmental community says this is a step forward. It doesn’t go anywhere near as far as it should. It is a step forward.”Democratic leaders have downplayed criticism of the bill, instead championing the legislation as America’s most significant effort yet to address the climate crisis.“As I say to members, you cannot judge a bill for what it does not do. You respect it for what it does do. And what this bill does do is quite remarkable,” Pelosi told MSNBC on Tuesday. “Do we want more? Of course. Will we continue to work for more? Of course.”Democrats hope the passage of the bill could help the party’s prospects in the midterm elections, which have appeared grim so far. Republicans are heavily favored to regain control of the House of Representatives, although Democrats have inched ahead in polling since the supreme court’s reversal of Roe v Wade, which ended the federal right to abortion access. Party leaders have voiced optimism that the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act will show the country how Democrats are delivering for their constituents and convince voters to support them in November.“Yes, I do. It’s going to immediately help,” Biden said on Monday when asked whether he believed the bill will bolster Democrats’ midterm prospects. “It changes people’s lives.”TopicsHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsUS CongressJoe BidenDemocratsRepublicansUS SenatenewsReuse this content More

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      Trump under criminal investigation for potential violations of Espionage Act – as it happened

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      The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell has the latest about the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago, and the federal laws investigators believe Donald Trump may have broken:Donald Trump is under criminal investigation for potential violations of the Espionage Act and additional statutes relating to obstruction of justice and destroying federal government records, according to the search warrant executed by FBI agents at the former president’s home on Monday.The explosive search warrant – the contents of which were confirmed by the Guardian – shows the FBI was seeking evidence about whether the mishandling of classified documents by Trump, including some marked top secret, amounted to a violation of three criminal statutes.Most notably, the search warrant granted by US magistrate judge Bruce Reinhart and approved by Attorney General Merrick Garland authorized FBI agents to seize materials that could form evidence that Trump violated the Espionage Act under 18 USC 793, and Obstruction, under 18 USC 1519. Trump under investigation for potential violations of Espionage Act, warrant revealsRead moreThe FBI cited potential violations of the espionage act and two other federal statutes when it searched Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, according to the warrant released today. They also turned up classified and top secret documents. Meanwhile, the House of Representatives was still debating the Biden administration’s marquee plan to fight climate change and lower health care costs, dubbed the Inflation Reduction Act.Here’s what else happened today:
      House Republicans hope to undercut the spending bill by challenging its passage using proxy votes – which a top deputy to Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi condemned as “pointless theatrics”.
      Pelosi meanwhile accused Republicans of “instigating assaults on law enforcement” amid the uproar from the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago.
      China’s president Xi Jinping is considering a face-to-face visit with Biden amid soaring tensions over Taiwan, The Wall Street Journal reports.
      Biden is potentially considering an early announcement of his 2024 re-election campaign to build on recent positive developments in his presidency, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, there are more signs that his approval rating is on the upswing.
      Wisconsin Republicans have fired a special counsel they hired to probe the 2020 election results, concluding a messy and widely-criticized probe that ended in bitter sniping.Robin Vos, the speaker of the Wisconsin assembly, said Friday he had fired Michael Gableman, a former supreme court justice hired to review the election. The announcement came days after Gableman endorsed Vos’ opponent in an unsuccessful primary bid, and Vos said Gableman was an “embarrassment” to the state.“After having many members of our caucus reach out to me over the past several days, it is beyond clear to me that we only have one choice in this matter, and that’s to close the Office of Special Counsel,” Vos said in a statement to the Associated Press, which first reported the firing.Gableman was hired last year by Vos as the speaker faced pressure from Donald Trump to review the election. The probe wound up costing taxpayers over $1 million and failed to turn up any evidence that the results of the presidential election in Wisconsin, where Joe Biden defeated Trump, were not accurate.Gableman nonetheless urged lawmakers to consider “decertifying” the election, which is not legally possible. He also threatened to jail other elected officials in the state, screamed at lawmakers, and earned a rebuke from a judge for misogynistic comments during a court hearing. A Dane county judge also fined Gableman for failing to comply with the state’s open records laws and referred him to the state’s office of lawyer regulation.Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff, Drew Hammill, has no time for the Republican plan, reported by Axios, to challenge the Inflation Reduction Act in court over the use of proxy voting in its passage.Federal courts, including the Supreme Court, have clearly ruled that the House resolution establishing proxy voting is a legislative act that is covered by Constitution’s Speech or Debate Clause. (1/2) https://t.co/2oAQPnRBFx— Drew Hammill (@Drew_Hammill) August 12, 2022
      This is utterly pointless theatrics from a party caught in a toxic MAGA echo chamber and struggling to explain its defense of wealthy tax cheats and Big Pharma profits to the public. (2/2)— Drew Hammill (@Drew_Hammill) August 12, 2022
      The issue of proxy voting may be more important than it initially appeared. Though House lawmakers from both parties take advantage of the unique rule to head out of town or to other engagements during votes, Axios reports that Republicans hope to use it to mount a legal challenge to the Inflation Reduction Act.Republicans’ hope is that a company affected by tax changes brought about by the bill will sue, arguing that the legislation wasn’t properly passed in the House because not enough congress members were there to create a quorum, according to the report, which cites Republican aides.The supreme court is dominated by conservative justices, but earlier this year, they declined to hear a challenge to the House’s proxy voting rules brought about by the House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy. However, Republicans view this issue as unique from the previous case, and hope they can get the justices to reconsider.The House of Representatives is continuing to debate the Inflation Reduction Act, a top Biden administration priority. You may be picturing a packed legislative chamber filled with deliberations over the measure, which Democrats hope will lower healthcare costs and fight climate change.You would be (somewhat) wrong. There are plenty of Congress members in the chamber, but about a third of the House has taken advantage of its unique rules allowing proxy voting, and is off doing other things. Here’s a rundown from congressional reporter Jamie Dupree:For all of the GOP complaints about proxy voting, it remains popular with Republicans. I counted 143 House members voting remotely earlier today. My breakdown was 81 D, 62 R.You can check the list for one of today’s votes at https://t.co/iHGXjhW3ih pic.twitter.com/rizETzJ4qp— Jamie Dupree (@jamiedupree) August 12, 2022
      Among those who have skipped town is Republican representative Brad Wenstrup, who was in the Capitol this morning for a press conference on the search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort, CNN reports:9:30am: Rep. Brad Wenstrup was in the Capitol for a news conference with House Republican Intel committee members. Right now: At Dulles airport and casting his votes by proxy, signing a letter saying he can’t vote in person because of the pandemic. pic.twitter.com/2h6564syyY— Kristin Wilson (@kristin__wilson) August 12, 2022
      Republican former House speaker Newt Gingrich, an opponent of the proposal, has weighed in on the absences:Some 143 house members have asked to vote by proxy friday on a bill that would add 87,000 IRS agents more than doubling the government’s anti-citizen police force. This is a very dangerous and destructive way to undermine a free society as the elected officials decide not to work— Newt Gingrich (@newtgingrich) August 11, 2022
      The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell has the latest about the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago, and the federal laws investigators believe Donald Trump may have broken:Donald Trump is under criminal investigation for potential violations of the Espionage Act and additional statutes relating to obstruction of justice and destroying federal government records, according to the search warrant executed by FBI agents at the former president’s home on Monday.The explosive search warrant – the contents of which were confirmed by the Guardian – shows the FBI was seeking evidence about whether the mishandling of classified documents by Trump, including some marked top secret, amounted to a violation of three criminal statutes.Most notably, the search warrant granted by US magistrate judge Bruce Reinhart and approved by Attorney General Merrick Garland authorized FBI agents to seize materials that could form evidence that Trump violated the Espionage Act under 18 USC 793, and Obstruction, under 18 USC 1519. Trump under investigation for potential violations of Espionage Act, warrant revealsRead moreA federal magistrate has granted the justice department’s request to release the warrant and redacted property inventory from the FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this week, according to a court filing.Attorney general Merrick Garland announced yesterday that he would ask for the documents to be unsealed. Trump later said he would not object, and the Associated Press reports his lawyers made no attempt to stop the motion:WASHINGTON (AP) — Justice Dept. says ex-President Donald Trump’s lawyers will not object to release of Mar-a-Lago search warrant.— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) August 12, 2022
      Details of the warrant have already been released by news organizations, and show investigators cited potential violations of three federal statutes to search his Florida resort, including the Espionage Act.One important clarification to the statutes cited in the search warrant for Mar-a-Lago, from The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell:18 USC 793 is the Espionage Act— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) August 12, 2022
      The Espionage Act is seldom used but fearsome. Former president Barack Obama used it to prosecute government employees for leaking information, and Donald Trump used it against Reality Winner, a National Security Agency contractor who leaked documents about Russian interference in the 2016 elections.NSA contractor faces 10-year sentence in first Espionage Act charge under TrumpRead moreHouse intelligence committee chairman Adam Schiff has released a statement regarding the revelations about classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago.“If reports are accurate and contained among these documents are some of the most highly classified information our government holds — information classified as Top Secret/Secure Compartmented Information — then it would explain a great deal about why the Department and the FBI took the step of obtaining a warrant to recover the documents,” Schiff said.“It appears that the FBI sought to remove those documents to a safe location previously, but Trump did not fully cooperate. Every day that information of such a classification sits in an unsecure location is a risk to our national security. If any other individual had information of that nature in their possession, the FBI would work quickly to mitigate the risks of disclosure.”The committee the California Democrat chairs oversees the FBI as well as other federal law enforcement agencies. He noted he had confidence in the justice department, while adding, “The protection of classified information, and particularly the protection of sources and methods, is an issue of the highest priority for the Intelligence Committee, and as we learn more, we will responsibly discharge our oversight responsibilities.”While the word “Trump” is never used, the National Archives has released a statement earlier today regarding former president Barack Obama’s own records.Trump this afternoon put out a press release disputing that the FBI found classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, and asking “what are they going to do with the 33 million pages of documents, many of which are classified, that President Obama took to Chicago?” The archives’ statement would appear to be their attempt to clear the matter up.“The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) assumed exclusive legal and physical custody of Obama Presidential records when President Barack Obama left office in 2017, in accordance with the Presidential Records Act (PRA),” according to the statement from its public and media communications office. “NARA moved approximately 30 million pages of unclassified records to a NARA facility in the Chicago area, where they are maintained exclusively by NARA. Additionally, NARA maintains the classified Obama Presidential records in a NARA facility in the Washington, DC, area. As required by the PRA, former President Obama has no control over where and how NARA stores the Presidential records of his Administration.”Rightwing Breitbart News has obtained the warrant used by the FBI to search Mar-a-Lago, which contains details of the laws cited to justify the application.“What it does is list three criminal statutes under which items are to be searched and seized,” according to Breitbart’s report. “They are: 18 U.S.C. section 793, which deals with defense information; 18 U.S.C. section 1519, which deals with destroying federal documents; and 18 U.S.C. section 2071, which deals with concealing, removing, or damaging federal documents. The first statute is the one that has likely provoked media speculation about so-called ‘nuclear’ documents: it applies to a broad range of defense ‘information,’ from code books to ordinary photographs.”Donald Trump has put out yet another statement about the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago.“Number one, it was all declassified. Number two, they didn’t need to ‘seize’ anything”, it begins, in apparent reference to reports that classified and top secret documents were found among his possessions.The statement continues:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}They could have had it anytime they wanted without playing politics and breaking into Mar-a-Lago. It was in secured storage, with an additional lock put on as per their request. They could have had it anytime they wanted—and that includes LONG ago. ALL THEY HAD TO DO WAS ASK. The bigger problem is, what are they going to do with the 33 million pages of documents, many of which are classified, that President Obama took to Chicago?Yesterday, top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer asked voters to keep his party in control of the upper chamber of Congress next year, and in return, they’ll pass bills to lower costs for elder and child care.Those were priorities of party leaders and president Joe Biden, but they couldn’t find the support in Congress to enact them. Today, a House Democrat made a similar, although perhaps more controversial, plea. According to Bloomberg News, Richard Neal, the Democratic chairman of the House Ways and Means committee, would resurrect the party’s attempts to raise taxes on businesses and individuals:TAXES: @RepRichardNeal says if Dems keep the House will look to raise corp and individual tax rates next year— Erik Wasson (@elwasson) August 12, 2022
      The National Republican Congressional Committee quickly pounced on his comments:Vote. Them. Out. https://t.co/NxQ16UzEfw— NRCC (@NRCC) August 12, 2022
      Slate writer Jordan Weissman highlighted the opposition such proposals might get from other Democrats, such as Arizona senator Kyrsten Sinema, who resisted several tax proposals over the past year. He tweeted the well-known moment when she nixed raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour with a thumbs down.https://t.co/RiGKKe5QBj pic.twitter.com/iaEtXjLFHS— Jordan Weissmann (@JHWeissmann) August 12, 2022
      Back in the House of Representatives, Democrats are likely hours away from passing the Inflation Reduction Act, which would be a major win for the Biden administration.They have a slim but workable majority in the chamber, and their members are believed to be ready to approve the bill. That doesn’t mean Republicans aren’t objecting vociferously to it. Indeed, rightwing congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado got her microphone turned off as she railed against the legislation, which is intended to lower health care costs and help cut into America’s carbon emissions:she then got yielded more time. but rare to get your mic cut like this. https://t.co/R1GgcuRpc0— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) August 12, 2022
      Federal investigators found sensitive government documents in Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club during their search there earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reports, including some marked top secret.The article based on the search warrant obtained by the FBI and a list of property seized appears to confirm that the former president possessed documents in his private residence that normally require special handling and a formal government process before they can be declassified.The FBI took about 20 boxes of items during the search on Monday, according to the Journal, including documents that were marked as top secret, secret and classified. They also found information about the “President of France” and Trump’s grant of clemency for Roger Stone, one of his allies.Attorney general Merrick Garland said yesterday the justice department would move to release the documents allowing the search, which Trump’s attorneys must respond to by 3pm eastern time today. Trump has said he does not plan to object to the department’s motion.Washington awaits more details on the FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, while Democrats in the House of Representatives are on the verge of passing Joe Biden’s landmark climate change and healthcare plan. Meanwhile, author Salman Rushdie was attacked in upstate New York, and his condition at this time is unknown.Here is a rundown of what has happened so far today:
      House Republicans showed no signs of backing down in their support of Trump, holding a press conference where they accused the Biden administration of politicizing the FBI.
      Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi meanwhile accused Republicans of “instigating assaults on law enforcement”.
      China’s president Xi Jinping is considering a face-to-face visit with Biden amid soaring tensions over Taiwan, The Wall Street Journal reports.
      Biden is potentially considering an early announcement of his 2024 re-election campaign to build on recent positive developments in his presidency, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, there are more signs that his approval rating is on the upswing.
      China’s president Xi Jinping is making plans to potentially meet with Joe Biden in November, in what would be the first face-to-face encounter between the leaders since Biden took office last year, The Wall Street Journal reports.Tensions between the United States and China have risen since House speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan earlier this month, sparking the ire of Beijing, which considers the island a breakaway province.While Biden has traveled regularly since taking office, Xi has not left China since January 2020 after the country adopted some of the strictest measures of any major economy to stop the spread of Covid-19. According to the Journal, his meeting with Biden could take either in Bangkok, Thailand or the Indonesian island of Bali, likely on the sidelines of one of two major summits being held in those locations. The White House declined to comment, according to the report, but an official said the two leaders did discuss an in-person meeting during a recent phone call.Author Salman Rushdie has been attacked at an event in upstate New York, the Associated Press reports. Rushdie has been the subject of death threats from Iran since the 1980s.The Guardian has started a live blog covering the attack, which you can read below.Salman Rushdie attacked at book event in New York state – latest updatesRead more More

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      DoJ moves for Trump Mar-a-Lago search warrant to be unsealed – as it happened

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      Attorney general Merrick Garland said the justice department will ask a court to unseal the search warrant allowing it to search Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this week.“The department filed the motion to make public the warrant and receipt in light of the former president’s public confirmation of the search, the surrounding circumstances, and the substantial public interest in this matter,” Garland said in a press conference at justice department headquarters.Attorney general Merrick Garland made the unusual step of appearing in Washington to take responsibility for the FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, and saying the department would ask a judge to unseal the warrant and property receipt from the search. Now, the ball is in Trump’s court to object to the documents’ release – should he so choose.Here’s what else happened today:
      A gunman opened fire at the FBI’s office in Cincinnati as the agency faces increased threats following its search of Mar-a-Lago.
      More good economic data bolstered the case that inflation was set to meaningfully decline in the months to come, which the White House looked to capitalize on.
      Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer asked voters to elect more Democrats and give them the chance to pass bills further improving social services.
      A poll showed Liz Cheney deep underwater with Wyoming Republicans in the upcoming primary, bolstering the case that she will be booted from Congress due to her opposition to Trump.
      Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, weighed in on the justice department’s announcement that it will move to release the warrant from the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago.“The primary reason the attorney general and FBI are being pushed to disclose why the search was necessary is because of the deep mistrust of the FBI and DOJ when it comes to all things Trump”, Graham said, referring to other investigations involving the former president, such as Robert Mueller’s probe into his campaign’s ties to Russia.“What I am looking for is the predicate for the search. Was the information provided to the judge sufficient and necessary to authorize a raid on the former president’s home within ninety days of the midterm election? I am urging, actually insisting, the DOJ and the FBI lay their cards on the table as to why this course of action was necessary. Until that is done the suspicion will continue to mount,” the senator said.“Half the country believes that when it comes to President Trump there are no rules. They have lost faith in the system. The only way to address that problem is full disclosure of the facts and circumstances which led to this unprecedented action.”The justice department’s motion to unseal the warrant and property receipt from the Mar-a-Lago search have been posted publicly, and offers details of the legal reasoning behind the request.The motion recounts that the search was carried out quietly with little public attention, until “later that same day, former President Trump issued a public statement acknowledging the execution of the warrant. In the days since, the search warrant and related materials have been the subject of significant interest and attention from news media organizations and other entities.”“The public’s clear and powerful interest in understanding what occurred under these circumstances weighs heavily in favor of unsealing”, said the motion, which was signed by Juan Antonio Gonzalez, the US attorney for the southern district of Florida, and Jay I. Bratt, chief of the justice department’s counterintelligence and export control section.It asks for the documents to be released “given the intense public interest presented by a search of a residence of a former president… absent objection from the former president.” Merrick Garland has finished his speech, and declined to take questions from the press.The meat of his address was that the justice department will ask a judge to release the warrant allowing the FBI to search “a premises located in Florida” as Garland put it, which we all know is Mar-a-Lago. It will also ask for the release of the property receipt from the search. Garland said copies of both were left with a lawyer for the ex-president after agents came to the house.Garland noted that he personally approved the search and “the department does not take such a decision lightly”. He also condemned attacks on the FBI and federal law enforcement, saying “I will not stand by silently when their integrity is unfairly attacked”. Garland declined to comment further, saying, “More information will be made available in the appropriate way and have the appropriate time.”Attorney general Merrick Garland said the justice department will ask a court to unseal the search warrant allowing it to search Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this week.“The department filed the motion to make public the warrant and receipt in light of the former president’s public confirmation of the search, the surrounding circumstances, and the substantial public interest in this matter,” Garland said in a press conference at justice department headquarters.In his speech, attorney general Merrick Garland will address the FBI’s search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this week, CNN confirms:This will be about the Mar-a-Lago search, @evanperez reports.— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) August 11, 2022
      The White House was given no advance notice of Garland’s speech, NBC News reports:As we await AG Merrick Garland and his statement, a senior WH official tells me the Biden WH was not informed this was happening:”We have had no notice that he was giving remarks and no briefing on the content of them.”— Kelly O’Donnell (@KellyO) August 11, 2022
      Attorney general Merrick Garland will soon make a public statement, days after the FBI searched former president Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. According to reports, agents were acting on a tip that Trump had classified documents at the site.FBI search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home followed tip classified records were there – reportRead moreSpeaking of foes of Donald Trump, John Bolton, who served as his national security adviser before falling out with the then-president, said that his Secret Service detail was recalled after he left the White House.“It’s normal for Donald Trump”, is how he described the situation to NBC News:Former NSA John Bolton says Trump pulled his Secret Service detail “within hours” of resigning.@mitchellreports: “Is that normal?”Bolton: “No, it’s not normal. Well, it’s normal for Donald Trump.”(Biden later renewed Bolton’s protection due to Iran’s assassination plot.) pic.twitter.com/at17ESQnGY— The Recount (@therecount) August 11, 2022
      Bolton’s comments came after the justice department yesterday charged a member of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards with plotting to kill him.US charges Iranian man over alleged plot to kill ex-Trump aide John BoltonRead moreLiz Cheney’s days in Congress are numbered.That’s the conclusion reached by a University of Wyoming survey that finds Cheney, the state’s congresswoman who is vice-chairing the January 6 committee and has become an outspoken opponent of Donald Trump, almost 30 percentage points behind her challenger Harriet Hageman in next week’s primary.Republicans dominate the rural state and thus the primary is almost certain to decide who will win Wyoming’s lone seat in the House of Representatives. Cheney is politically conservative, but so is Hageman, who has embraced Trump’s conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election.‘Truth matters’: Liz Cheney lambasts Trump-backed rival in Wyoming debateRead moreNews just in: attorney general Merrick Garland will make a statement at 2.30pm ET. No details on the subject matter yet. But certainly the FBI raid will be on journalists’ minds.The New York Times has an interesting read, revealing the existence of a subpoena for Donald Trump, issued before the Mar-a-Lago raid by the FBI.The Times reports:Former President Donald J. Trump received a subpoena this spring in search of documents that federal investigators believed he had failed to turn over earlier in the year, when he returned boxes of material he had improperly taken with him upon moving out of the White House, three people familiar with the matter said.The existence of the subpoena helps to flesh out the sequence of events that led to the search of Mr. Trump’s Florida home on Monday by F.B.I. agents seeking classified material they believed might still be there, even after efforts by the National Archives and the Justice Department to ensure that it had been returned.The subpoena suggests that the Justice Department tried methods short of a search warrant to account for the material before taking the politically explosive step of sending F.B.I. agents unannounced to Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s home and members-only club.But the most interesting snippet might be lower down the piece. It concerns the nature of the documents Trump possessed and why the FBI needed to take such firm action. The paper says:Two people briefed on the classified documents that investigators believe remained at Mar-a-Lago indicated that they were so sensitive in nature, and related to national security, that the Justice Department had to act.Interesting – more is surely yet to be revealed on this story.Some Republicans hesitant over backing Trump vs FBISince the FBI raided Donald Trump’s Florida home looking for missing, sensitive documents from his time in the White House, the cacophony of support and condemnation from Republicans has felt unanimous.But not entirely.In a sign that blindly pleasing and following Trump is not seen as an automatic vote-winner in some marginal races, a handful of Republicans have been more reticent in their reactions, according to Politico. The top of the piece lists a few.While several Senate GOP nominees jumped to blast the FBI and federal justice officials, Republican candidates in the swing states of Pennsylvania and North Carolina held off. The next morning, as pressure mounted from vocal right-wing activists, celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, who is running for the Senate in Pennsylvania, took to Twitter with a message that did not mention Trump by name but merely lamented the country’s divisions and asserted that Americans had “every right” to demand answers about the search and seizure of documents.Rep. Ted Budd, who is seeking a Senate seat in North Carolina, likewise eventually tweeted from his official Congress account after his office was bombarded with calls asking about his response. His statement said Americans deserved a “full explanation” of what happened.Those calls for transparency from Oz and Budd differ markedly from the more fiery rebukes from other Republicans who painted America as a lawless banana republic — and reflect that some GOP candidates in battleground states are erring on the side of caution in discussing a Trump investigation that could influence critical independent and suburban voters.Read the rest of the story here. The Inflation Reduction Act doesn’t just fight climate change and address health care costs. It also would give the IRS tax authority more resources, after years in which the agency complained of being so underfunded it could barely do its job.Republicans have used the infusion of funds to warn voters that the bill’s Democratic sponsors want to increase audits of the middle class. Treasury secretary Janet Yellen has responded to those attacks by sending a letter to commissioner Charles P. Rettig in which she says the agency should not use the money to increase audits for Americans making less than $400,000 a year.“I direct that any additional resources — including any new personnel or auditors that are hired — shall not be used to increase the share of small business or households below the $400,000 threshold that are audited relative to historical levels,” Yellen wrote. “This means that, contrary to the misinformation from opponents of this legislation, small business or households earning $400,000 per year or less will not see an increase in the chances that they are audited.”It’s been a quiet one in Washington, but that doesn’t mean the chess pieces aren’t moving. Democrats are gearing up for the House of Representatives to meet tomorrow and pass a major plan to fight climate change and lower health care costs, while Republicans are looking ahead to November, when voters seem poised to return them to control of at least one chamber of Congress.Here’s a rundown of what has happened in the day so far:
      A gunman has attacked a FBI office in Ohio, and reportedly engaged in a shootout with police. The Guardian will update this blog when more details of the incident become available.
      The White House seized on yet another sign of inflation declining to make the case that better days are ahead for the economy.
      A Republican lawmaker who will likely become the party’s top investigator if it takes control of the House told Politico to expect investigations of Covid-19’s origins and Hunter Biden.
      The top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer told voters that if they give him more senators, he’ll pass more bills to lower costs for child and elder care, which the party failed to agree on in the current Congress.
      An armed person who opened fire with a nail gun at a FBI office in Cincinnati has been chased into a field and is exchanging fire with police, according to federal investigators and media reports.The agency has faced a number of threats since its search of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this week, prompting director Christopher Wray to declare, “Violence against law enforcement is not the answer, no matter who you’re upset with,” according to the Associated Press.The FBI confirms the attack began this morning at their office in the city in southern Ohio:At approximately 9 AM this morning an armed subject attempted to breach the Visitor Screening Facility at #FBI Cincinnati. After an alarm and a response by FBI special agents, the subject fled north onto Interstate 71. pic.twitter.com/vFZHnpbM9L— FBI Cincinnati (@FBICincinnati) August 11, 2022
      The #FBI, Ohio State Highway Patrol, and local law enforcement partners are on scene near Wilmington, OH trying to resolve this critical incident. https://t.co/SWDZTkrnhL— FBI Cincinnati (@FBICincinnati) August 11, 2022
      NBC News reports the assailant fired a nail gun at people in the office, and appeared to have an assault rifle:.@KenDilanianNBC: “Two law enforcement sources briefed on the matter tell NBC News a man entered an FBI field office today in Cincinnati, Ohio and fired a nail gun at law enforcement personnel. The male then held up an AR-15 style rifle before fleeing in a vehicle.”— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) August 11, 2022
      According to Fox News, police pursued the person to a field outside the city and engaged in a gun battle:An armed gunman attacked an FBI office in Cincinnati this morning.The suspect fled the scene and is reportedly engaged in a shootout with law enforcement in a corn field outside the city. pic.twitter.com/SrjPaO7Vkw— The Recount (@therecount) August 11, 2022
      Another trend in the economy is unionization drives in industries and businesses not accustomed to it – such as Starbucks. As Michael Sainato reports, workers at the coffee chain have staged dozens of strikes as the company tries to frustrate their efforts to organize:Workers at Starbucks have held over 55 different strikes in at least 17 states in the US in recent months over the company’s aggressive opposition to a wave of unionization.According to an estimate by Starbucks Workers United, the strikes have cost Starbucks over $375,000 in lost revenue. The union created a $1m strike fund in June 2022 to support Starbucks workers through their strikes and several relief funds have been established for strikes and to support workers who have lost their jobs.Starbucks employees have alleged over 75 workers have been fired in retaliation for union organizing this year, and hundreds of allegations of misconduct by Starbucks related to the union campaign are currently under review at the National Labor Relations Board, including claims of shutting down stores to bust unions, firing workers and intimidating and threatening workers from unionizing. Starbucks has denied all allegations.Starbucks workers hold strikes in at least 17 states amid union driveRead moreThe White House is trying to keep the good economic vibes going, a day after data showed inflation potentially beginning to decline across the United States.The chair of the Council of Economic Advisers Cecilia Rouse has released a statement on “encouraging economic news”, pointing to the inflation numbers, the decline in gas prices and new data released today showing wholesale prices declining against expectations in July.“We are continuing to see encouraging economic developments, including strong job growth and lower energy prices,” Rouse said. She called on Congress to pass the Biden administration’s marquee spending plan to address climate change and lower health care costs.“While the news from this week is encouraging, we have more work to do to bring inflation down, without giving up the substantial economic and labor market gains of the past year. Congress should pass the Inflation Reduction Act as soon as possible, which will help our economy address some of its most important near-term and long-term challenges.” More

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      When it comes to the midterms, things are starting to tilt in the Democrats’ favor | Robert Reich

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      When it comes to the midterms, things are starting to tilt in the Democrats’ favorRobert ReichPressure is mounting on Republican candidates, while Democrats finally appear to be hitting their stride Republican candidates for Senate, House and governorships in the upcoming midterms have been filling the airwaves with baseless assertions that the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago reveals the politicization of the justice department and undermines the rule of law.After the fall of Roe, Republican pursuit of abortion bans appears to falterRead moreRepublicans ranging from third-ranking House Republican Elise Stefanik to House minority leader Kevin McCarthy are brimming with outrage and accusation.Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to “defund the FBI!” Joe Kent, a Trump-endorsed House candidate in Washington state, declares: “We’re at war.”As usual, Trump is fanning the flames, howling Monday that his “beautiful home, Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, is currently under siege, raided, and occupied by a large group of FBI agents.”That evening, the RNC sent out a fundraising text: “THIS IS NOT A DRILL: UNPRECEDENTED move Biden’s FBI RAIDS Pres. Trump’s home. Time to take back Congress.”Rubbish. There’s no evidence that the FBI search was motivated by anything other than suspicions (underscored by a federal judge’s finding of probable cause) that Trump made off with documents rightfully belonging to the United States.That’s a criminal offense. If anyone has been undermining the rule of law, it’s Trump.Recall that Trump himself appointed the current director of the FBI, Christopher Wray, after firing former director James Comey for investigating the ties of Trump’s 2016 campaign to Russia.But any allegation of Trump wrongdoing is automatically treated by Trump’s base as a loyalty test – triggering demands that Republican lawmakers and Republican hopefuls vigorously defend Trump and attack Democrats for going after him.This doesn’t pose a problem for Democratic candidates in the upcoming midterm elections, whom Trump Republicans won’t vote for anyway.But it is posing a large and growing problem for Republican candidates.As Biden and the Democrats take victory laps for legislation they’ve been passing – the Chips and Science Act, which President Biden Wednesday signed into law, and, very soon, the Inflation Reduction Act – the Republican party continues to wallow in Trumpist grievance and accusation.Typically, after primary contests, Republican candidates try to move as far from the extreme right as they dare, to pick up more moderate and independent voters for the general elections.Most Republican candidates know that their best chance of prevailing in November depends on distancing themselves from Trump and focusing on Republican hot-button issues like inflation, crime and immigration.But the Trump base’s response to the FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search shows how difficult it will be to gain any distance from Trump at all.That search is likely to be a prelude to more fireworks in September and October, when Republican candidates will have no choice but to repeatedly go to the mat for Trump.Consider:The January 6 committee will resume its hearings in early September. Those hearings will almost certainly provide more evidence of Trump’s attempted coup of 2020.The DoJ investigation into Trump’s role in pushing fake electors and in removing documents from the White House appears to be heating up.The DC court of appeals has just cleared the way for the House ways and means committee to obtain Trump’s long-hidden tax returns.Prosecutors in Georgia continue their investigation into Trump’s demand that Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger “find” the votes Trump needed to win an election that three separate courts confirmed he lost. Rudy Giuliani has just been ordered to testify before the grand jury in that case.Oh, and Trump himself will probably declare his candidacy for president in September or October.All of which will put Republican candidates under growing pressure from Trump’s base to defend Trump, to rage against his accusers, and to re-litigate the 2020 election – tasks that will be increasingly difficult as further evidence emerges of Trump’s criminality.Meanwhile, Democrats will be able to boast about what they’ve done for the American people: reduce drug prices, cut the costs of healthcare, clean the environment, maintain America’s competitive edge, and modernize the nation’s roads, bridges, and water and sewage systems.As Biden put it Tuesday when he signed into law the Chips and Science Act, America has met the moment: “a moment when we bet on ourselves, believed in ourselves and recaptured the story, the spirit and the soul of this nation.”Which will be the more attractive message to the moderate and independent voters who will largely determine the outcome of the midterms: defending Trump from mounting accusations of his criminality and his ever more outlandish claims of being persecuted, or “recapturing the can-do spirit” of America?I’m betting on the latter.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
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      Progressive Ilhan Omar wins closer-than-expected House primary in Minnesota

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      Progressive Ilhan Omar wins closer-than-expected House primary in MinnesotaDemocrats select progressive Becca Balint for Vermont House seat while Trump-backed candidate nominated for Wisconsin governor Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a member of the select progressive group in the House of Representative dubbed the Squad, eked out a closer-than-expected Democratic primary victory on Tuesday night against a centrist challenger who questioned the incumbent’s support for the “defund the police” movement.Pro-Israel groups denounced after pouring funds into primary raceRead moreThe evening went far smoother for another progressive, Becca Balint, who won the Democratic House primary in Vermont – positioning her to become the first woman representing the state in Congress.But Tim Michels, backed by Donald Trump, was projected to win the Republican nomination for governor of Wisconsin, a day after the FBI searched the former US president’s home in Florida reportedly seeking classified documents.Michels defeated rival and former lieutenant governor Rebecca Kleefisch, who had been endorsed by Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence.Kleefisch served with right-wing former governor Scott Walker and she conceded to Michels on Tuesday night.Michels has falsely asserted that Trump, rather than Democratic US president, Joe Biden, won the vital swing state in the 2020 presidential election, echoing the former president’s claims.Michels has also vowed to enforce a 19th-century abortion ban that went into effect in Wisconsin after the US supreme court in June eliminated the nationwide right to the procedure with its overturning of the landmark Roe v Wade ruling.He will face the incumbent Wisconsin governor and Democrat, Tony Evers, in November’s election.With a Republican-majority legislature, Michels could push through new abortion restrictions if elected. Evers and his administration have filed litigation challenging the 1849 law while promising not to prosecute doctors who violate it.Other Trump-backed candidates also prevailed.In Connecticut, Leora Levy surprised observers by winning the Republican primary race for the US Senate after being supported by Trump, upending moderate Themis Klarides who had a lot of party support in the state, the Hartford Courant reported.Levy faces the high-profile incumbent Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal.In her Minneapolis district, Omar, who is one of the left’s leading voices in Congress, has defended calls to redirect public safety funding more into community-based programs.She squared off with former city council member Don Samuels, whose north Minneapolis base suffers from more violent crime than other parts of the city.Samuels argued that Omar is divisive and helped defeat a ballot question last year that sought to replace the city police department with a new public safety unit.He and others also successfully sued the city to force it to meet minimum police staffing levels called for in Minneapolis’s charter.But Omar narrowly prevailed on the night, seeking her third term in the House. She crushed a similar primary challenge two years ago from a well-funded but lesser-known opponent.“She’s had a lot of adversity already and pushback. I don’t think her work is done,” said Kathy Ward, a 62-year-old property caretaker for an apartment building in Minneapolis who voted for Omar. “We’ve got to give her a chance.”Two other members of the Squad – Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Cori Bush of Missouri – won their Democratic primaries last week.Meanwhile, Republicans see a pickup opportunity in Wisconsin’s third congressional district, the seat being vacated by the retiring Democratic incumbent Ron Kind.The district covers a swath of counties along Wisconsin’s western border with Minnesota and includes La Crosse and Eau Claire.Republican Derrick Van Orden was unopposed in his primary on Tuesday and has Trump’s endorsement.Van Orden narrowly lost to Kind in the 2020 general election. He attended Trump’s rally near the White House on 6 January 2021, where the then president urged his supporters to “fight like hell” to overturn his election defeat by Joe Biden, but has said he never set foot on the grounds of the Capitol during the insurrection that followed.State senator Brad Pfaff topped three other Democrats to secure the party’s nomination and will face Van Orden in the fall. Pfaff, a one-time state agriculture secretary, had previously worked for Kind and received his endorsement.Vermont is the last state in the country yet to add a female member to its congressional delegation. Balint, who immediately becomes the favorite in November’s general election, would also be the first openly gay member of Congress from Vermont.She was endorsed by some of the nation’s leading leftwing figures, including the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.“Vermont has chosen a bold, progressive vision for the future, and I will be proud to represent us in Congress,” Balint said in a statement.Balint is vying to fill the state’s lone House seat, which is being vacated by Peter Welch who is running for Senate and easily secured the Democratic nomination on Tuesday.Welch is trying to succeed retiring senator Patrick Leahy, the US Senate’s longest-serving member.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022Ilhan OmarUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansMinnesotaVermontnewsReuse this content More