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      Jamie Raskin on the climate crisis: ‘We’ve got to save democracy in order to save our species’

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      InterviewJamie Raskin on the climate crisis: ‘We’ve got to save democracy in order to save our species’Ankita Rao Progressive congressman from Maryland believes that no other crisis, even the existential threat of the changing climate, can be solved without first protecting the fabric of American democracyWhen it comes to fighting for democracy and climate change – two of Jamie Raskin’s top priorities – the whole thing feels a bit like a game of chicken and egg to the Democratic congressman.On the one hand there is the planet, heating up quickly past the limit that is safe and necessary for human survival, while Congress stalls on a $555bn climate package. On the other, a pernicious movement, spurred by Donald Trump and other rightwing conspiracy theorists, to upend voting rights protections and cast doubt on the current election system.But Raskin, a progressive congressman from Maryland, is clear about which comes first: he said America can’t fix the planet without fixing its government.“We’ve got to save the democracy in order to save the climate and save our species,” he said in an interview with the Guardian in collaboration with Reuters and Climate One public radio, as part of the Covering Climate Now media collaboration.Later Raskin added: “We’re never going to be able to successfully deal with climate change if we’re spending all our time fighting the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and Ku Klux Klan, and the Aryan nations and all of Steve Bannon’s alt-right nonsense.”In the past two years Raskin’s popularity has surged, picking up fuel after his closing remarks at Trump’s second impeachment trial in early 2021, which he led on behalf of House Democrats. “This trial is about who we are,” he said then, in video clips shared millions of times. His impassioned and meticulous rhetoric are a clear intersection of his past as a Harvard-trained constitutional law professor and son of a progressive activist.But it was an exceptional speech also because of the circumstances in which it was given, which both took place in the span of just a week. The first – the loss of Thomas (Tommy) Bloom Raskin, the congressman’s oldest son, who died by suicide at the tail end of 2020 after a long battle with depression. Just six days later Trump’s followers stormed the Capitol building in an attempt to decertify the election results.Raskin, who said Tommy “hated nothing more than fascism”, was moved to help lead the response to the insurrection through the House’s January 6 select committee.His fight to convict Trump is not only about holding the former president accountable. It’s about sending a message to the country that no other crisis, even the existential threat of the changing climate, can be solved without first protecting the fabric of American democracy.“I think for me the struggle to defend the truth is a precondition for defending our democracy, and the struggle to defend our democracy is a precondition for taking the effective action that needs to be taken in order to meet the climate crisis in a serious way and turn it around,” he said.This concept plays out clearly in the country’s uneven political representation. The majority of Americans think the government should be doing more to reduce the impacts of climate change, including taxing corporations based on their carbon emissions. But issues like partisan gerrymandering, where politicians manipulate voting district lines, often allow rightwing politicians to retain disproportionate power across state governments.“The key to understanding the collapse of civilizations is that you get a minority faction serving its own interests by dominating government,” he said, referencing Jared Diamond’s book Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. “And then everything collapses, usually through the exploitation of natural resources to a point where it’s unsustainable and untenable. That fits pretty perfectly the situation that we’re in with the GOP and climate change today.”Raskin was an early adopter of the Green New Deal, and during the pandemic he sought to block his fellow representatives from using Covid relief money to further fossil fuel interests. His commitment extends to his personal life, where – inspired again by Tommy – he is a devout vegetarian, convinced that new science and technology will render a meat-centric diet unnecessary.But the stakes for protecting the Democratic party’s climate agenda are especially high right now. The climate protections in Joe Biden’s ambitious “Build Back Better” framework have been drastically whittled down. With the midterm elections revving up, and Republicans expected to dominate in state and local races, Democrats face a small window of opportunity to advance their promise of new jobs and tax credits to incentivize a shift to cleaner energy.Those same midterm races are rife with candidates who are following Trump’s “big lie” – that the 2020 election was not legitimate – and continue to hack away at voting rights protections, such as mail-in voting and weekend voting hours.Raskin remained optimistic about Congress passing climate legislation, noting last year’s climate-friendly infrastructure bill, but said the party must always “be realistic” about what that means, even if it denotes considering alternative energy legislation via Joe Manchin, the moderate Democrat from West Virginia who has stood in the way of several progressive bills in the Senate. (Manchin was also a critical roadblock in Raskin’s wife Sarah Bloom Raskin’s nomination to the Federal Reserve Board.)“The democratic governments and democratic parties and movements of the world have got to confront this reality. Nobody else is going to do it,” Raskin said.There isn’t much leeway when it comes to enacting change. Storms are getting stronger, people are being displaced from their homes, and anti-science politicians are gaining more ground. But Raskin, armed with his father’s message to “be the hope” and his children’s sense of urgency around climate change, is confident his side is going to win.“We should cut the deals that need to be cut but from a position of power and strength by mobilizing the commanding majorities of people across America that believe in climate change and know that we need to act.”TopicsClimate crisisUS Capitol attackUS politicsDemocratsinterviewsReuse this content More

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      Up, up and away: will rising prices blow Democrats’ midterms hopes off course?

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      Up, up and away: will rising prices blow Democrats’ midterms hopes off course?Inflation hit 8.5% in March as a mix of post-pandemic demand, price gouging and the Ukraine war dragged down Biden’s ratings In the days leading up to the release of the US labor department’s latest inflation report, the White House tried to deflate expectations. White House officials said they expected the March inflation rate to be “extraordinarily elevated” because of rising gas prices, driven largely by war in Ukraine.Unfortunately for Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats, they were proven right. The inflation report, released on Tuesday, showed US prices increased by 8.5% between March 2021 and March 2022 – the highest level of US inflation since 1981.US inflation climbed to 8.5% in March, highest rate since 1981Read moreThe White House tried to downplay concerns last year by arguing price increases were caused by the coronavirus pandemic and would prove “transitory”. Now, more than a year after vaccines became widely available, Democrats are grappling with how to help families struggling under the weight of inflation. Centrists and progressives alike warn that unless Democrats come up with an effective plan, Republicans could be on the way to a historic victory this November.Democrats’ prospects in the midterm elections were already considered lackluster at best. The president’s party usually loses seats, particularly the House, in midterm years. Democrats have very little margin for error, given slim majorities. Biden’s approval rating, in the low 40s for months, is not helping matters.Republicans are clearly aware of the opportunity they have. On Tuesday, hours after the inflation report was released, the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said the “atmosphere for Republicans is better than it was in 1994” – when the party flipped eight Senate seats and gained a net of 54 House seats.“From an atmospheric point of view, it’s a perfect storm of problems for Democrats because it’s an entirely Democratic government,” McConnell said.Voters’ concerns over inflation are certainly contributing to Democrats’ electoral woes. A CNBC poll this month showed 48% of Americans chose inflation as the number one or two issue facing the country, making it the most common answer among respondents.“This issue is top-of-mind for voters,” said Kelly Dietrich, chief executive of the National Democratic Training Committee, which trains candidates. “I think it’s going to stay top of mind because it directly affects them every day. And successful candidates need to address it directly.”The White House has tried to deflect criticism over inflation by blaming high gas prices on Vladimir Putin and the war in Ukraine. Speaking in Menlo, Iowa, on Tuesday, Biden noted that more than half of the March inflation was caused by the rise in gas prices.“Even as we work with Congress, I’m not going to wait to take action to help American families,” Biden said. “I’m doing everything within my power, by executive orders, to bring down the prices and address the Putin price hike.”Biden has indeed taken steps to curb gas prices. He announced on Tuesday that his administration would approve an emergency waiver to expand use of biofuels, and he has pledged to release a million barrels a day from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, for the next six months.But the price increases the country has seen extend well beyond gasoline, and economists warn that inflation will probably remain elevated in the coming months.Austan Goolsbee, an economics professor at the University of Chicago who chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under Barack Obama, said: “There are two questions. One is, is this peak inflation? But even if it is peak inflation and the numbers are coming down, what are they going to come down to?”Goolsbee noted that so-called “core inflation”, which excludes the more volatile prices of gas and food, rose by just 0.3% last month. That increase was less than most economists expected, providing some hope of inflation cooling off in the near future.“That was a welcome surprise, but I don’t think anybody should kid themselves,” Goolsbee said. “There’s a long way to go before prices, inflation would be anywhere considered back to normal.”For Democrats, that likelihood means their approach has had to change. Instead of claiming price increases will prove temporary, Democrats are acknowledging the reality of tightened budgets and trying to make a case for how they can help.“The good news is the entire Democratic party is very focused on inflation,” said Gabe Horwitz, senior vice-president of the economic program at Third Way, a center-left thinktank. “We are well past this time last year, when there was a question over whether it was going to be transitory or not. It’s here, it’s real, it looks like it’s going to stay at least for a little while.”As Democrats look ahead to November, strategists are urging candidates to pitch an economic vision that will both improve working Americans’ finances and mobilize voters.“First and foremost, American families need help,” Dietrich said. “Secondly, to get them more help Democrats need more wins to improve our standing to continue these policies.”But enacting those policies has proven difficult. The Build Back Better Act, a $1.9tn package that included provisions to lower healthcare and childcare costs, stalled in the Senate due to opposition from Joe Manchin, a centrist Democrat.The West Virginia senator has been outspoken about his frustrations over high inflation, criticizing fellow Democrats who call for more spending as prices rise.“Here is the truth: we cannot spend our way to a balanced, healthy economy and continue adding to our $30tn national debt,” Manchin said on Tuesday, in response to the latest inflation report.Manchin’s stance has outraged progressives, who insist high inflation underscores the urgent need to pass Build Back Better and provide assistance to families.“Americans are being price-gouged. Inflation is hitting their bottom line, and the number one job of any politician is to raise the standard of living of their constituents,” said Joseph Geevarghese, executive director of the progressive group Our Revolution.Looking ahead to the midterms, Geevarghese added: “It’s already going to be very difficult to win, I think. And then you’ve got the obstructionists who are making it harder for the president and our party to prevail.”Horwitz said he remained optimistic that Democrats will be able to pass some version of Build Back Better that will lower costs for families. Manchin has indicated he would be open to a proposal if it did not add to the federal deficit. That would require Democrats to further trim spending but could give them a victory to sell to voters.“You can do both,” Horvitz said. “You can have a plan that raises a significant amount of money by changing the tax code, and you can use some of that money to pay down debt and deficits. And you can use some of that money for programs that alleviate inflation and help consumers.“It is not a slam dunk, but it is something that could happen. We’re going to know more in the next two months about how likely that is.”TopicsUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022InflationDemocratsJoe BidenJoe ManchinanalysisReuse this content More

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      Republicans are dusting off a tried and true election strategy: hatemongering | Moira Donegan

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      Republicans are dusting off a tried and true election strategy: hatemongeringMoira DoneganMale voters have been drifting right in record numbers – and Republicans are taking a viciously homophobic and sexist tack to appeal to them The 2022 midterm elections are shaping up to be among the most deeply gender-divided elections in American history. A new poll by NBC News, measuring voters’ preferences ahead of the November elections, shows that the gap in women and men’s voting patterns has deepened considerably over the past 12 years, with Republicans holding an 18-point advantage among men, and Democrats holding a 15-point advantage among women. That 33-point gender gap is up from a 16-point divide in the 2010 midterms.Despite the large degree of analytical attention that has focused on the voting habits of suburban white women, it seems that it’s men who are changing their voting habits most dramatically. The NBC News polling shows that men with college degrees have moved dramatically to the right, lurching towards Republicans by 26 points since just 2018. Men on the whole have moved towards Republicans by 20 points.The Republican party’s exploding support among men comes as the organs of rightwing media and many Republican politicians have embraced a vitriolic language of gender grievance. For months now, the conservative media has been hammering a message of gender and sexual disorder, seeking to stoke the fears, bigotry and resentment of its audience against the social and legal gains that have been made by women and LGBT groups over the past decades. This message has been enthusiastically taken up by Republican politicians, and issues of sexual anxiety have come to preoccupy every level of American government, from local school board meetings to the recent confirmation hearings of a new supreme court justice.It is hard to define the exact moment when men’s gender grievance came to preoccupy the Republican party. With Republicans’ long commitment to anti-choice and anti-trans bills over the past few years, the issue has had longstanding resonance among the base. But a shift seemed to occur last September, when Pete Buttigieg, the secretary of transportation, announced that he would be taking parental leave after he and his husband adopted a pair of newborn twins. Tucker Carlson, the Fox News broadcaster who serves as a weathervane for so much conservative grievance politics, attacked Buttigieg on his show. “Paternity leave, they call it. Trying to figure out how to breastfeed. No word on how that went.”Carlson’s comments were layered with bigotry – against gay men, against mothers, against trans people. But the message was clear: caring for children was feminine and unbecoming of someone who aspired to the masculine authority of a cabinet position. Buttigieg had failed the conservative gender test not once, but twice: first, he was too feminine by virtue of being a gay man. Then, he was too feminine by virtue of being an involved, caregiving parent. The dig was homophobic but also sexist: the only way Carlson could say that Buttigieg was too womanly for power is if women aren’t appropriate holders of power in the first place.Carlson’s attack marked a return to open, avowed homophobic hatred on the Republican right, a stance that had gone dramatically out of fashion, and implicitly out of social acceptability, since the supreme court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v Hodges, the case that recognized the right of same-sex couples to marry nationwide. Republicans had made a strategic retreat from open homophobia, reasoning that the cultural and generational tides were turning toward acceptance of gay couples. With the success of Carlson’s attack – the homophobic mockery of Buttigieg was enthusiastically embraced by Carlson’s viewers – it seems the tide had turned again. In the months since, homophobia has been unleashed as a reliable way for rightwing figures to rally their base. Gay bashing is back.Merging with the elaborate fictions of the QAnon conspiracy theory, which claims that the United States is run by a group of elite, secretive and possibly cannibalistic pedophiles, the renewed homophobic enthusiasm on the right has now manifested in a mass hysteria over so-called “groomers”. This all-purpose smear is now applied to any liberal (or insufficiently conservative) adult, from politicians to school principals, and alleges that any tolerance for gay rights, or indeed any belief in gender equality, is evidence of a pedophilic interest in children.The alarm over so-called “groomers” has led to restrictive, homophobic interventions in public schooling, from a slew of new book bans around the country, to Florida’s “don’t say gay” bill banning classroom discussion of homosexuality, to a Texas school district’s firing of an out lesbian teacher and banning of a high school Gay-Straight Alliance club.That there is no evidence for this hateful lie that liberals are pedophiles has not stopped ordinary conservatives from embracing it. In Connecticut, a rightwing online group posted the name and home address of a public school superintendent whom they labeled a “groomer” due to the alleged presence of a transgender student in one of the schools she oversaw. The forum called for the school official’s execution.Nor is there any level of ambition or pretended dignity that seems able to deter elected Republicans from indulging in the smear. At the recent supreme court confirmation hearings of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, Republican senators Josh Hawley, Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton and Ted Cruz all pressed Jackson on her sentencing history as a federal judge, suggesting she was soft on men convicted of possessing child abuse images. All four of the men are believed to have presidential ambitions. Apparently, they feel that stoking the sexual and gender anxieties of the American electorate is a smart move for their careers.The Republican party’s emphasis on gender grievance, and its attendant surge in male support, comes on the eve of the biggest setback for gender equality in half a century: the probable end of Roe v Wade. The supreme court is almost universally expected to overturn the abortion rights precedent this summer; many states, considering the decision already effectively nullified, have rushed to outlaw and criminalize abortion within their borders even before the verdict comes down. The bans that are swiftly moving through Republican-controlled state legislatures typically carry no exemption for rape and incest, and their cruelty is justified in viciously misogynistic terms. When Democrats in the Florida state senate tried to add an exception for rape victims to the 15-week ban that Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law on Thursday, their Republican colleagues shut them down.“I fear for the men who are going to be accused of a rape so that the woman could have an abortion,” Kelli Stargel, one of the bill’s sponsors, argued during floor debate. “A woman is going to say she was raped so she could have the abortion.”Her remark was a lie grounded in misogynist myths and, like the “groomer” smear, has no basis in reality. But it seems that Republicans, and their growing base of male voters, are ready to believe it.
      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
      TopicsUS politicsOpinionDemocratsRepublicansLGBT rightsAbortioncommentReuse this content More

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      ‘All these men’: Jill Biden resented Joe’s advisers who pushed White House run

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      ‘All these men’: Jill Biden resented Joe’s advisers who pushed White House runFirst lady tells authors of new biography she cut off push to recruit her husband to challenge George W Bush in 2004 Feeling “burned” by her husband’s first run for the presidency, Jill Biden resisted advisers including Ron Klain, now White House chief of staff, who pushed him to mount another campaign in 2004.Trump ‘very intent on bringing my brother down’, Joe Biden’s sister saysRead more“All these men – and they were mostly men – coming to our home,” she said. “You know, ‘You’ve got to run, you’ve got to run.’ I wanted no part of it.”The first lady was speaking to Julie Pace and Darlene Superville, co-authors of Jill: A Biography of the First Lady, which will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.“I didn’t even know whether I wanted Joe to ever do it again,” Jill Biden said. “I mean, I had been so burned.”Joe Biden first ran for president in 1987, withdrawing amid allegations that he plagiarised the leader of the British Labour party, Neil Kinnock, in campaign remarks.Jill Biden was describing a meeting at the Bidens’ house in Delaware more than 15 years later, when Joe Biden met Mark Gitenstein, a long-term adviser, and Klain joined on speakerphone.John Kerry, then a Massachusetts senator, was favourite for the Democratic nomination to challenge George W Bush. But, the authors write, “some party leaders thought Joe could go head-to-head with [the] president … in the general election”.“There were always so many people trying to get Joe to run,” Jill Biden said. “You’ve got to run again. You’ve got to try again. Always. It was constant.“He knew that I wasn’t in favour of his running.”The authors cite Jill Biden’s autobiography, Where the Light Enters, published in 2019, in which she describes “‘fuming’ out by the pool” while the meeting with Klain and Gitenstein went on.Jill Biden writes that she eventually cut the meeting off by drawing “NO” on her stomach with a Sharpie pen and “march[ing] through the room in my bikini.“Needless to say, they got the message.”“Joe and Gitenstein did, at any rate,” Pace and Superville write. “Klain, still eagerly engaged on speakerphone and unaware of what had just transpired in the room, kept brainstorming away.“‘I don’t understand it,’ a bewildered Klain said later when Gitenstein called to explain. ‘The conversation was going so great and all of a sudden, it just stopped.’”Joe Biden did mount a second run for the White House in 2008, with Jill’s support, but dropped out early, unable to compete with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.Neil Kinnock on Biden’s plagiarism ‘scandal’ and why he deserves to win: ‘Joe’s an honest guy’Read moreHe was Obama’s vice-president for eight years, spent four years in apparent retirement, then beat Donald Trump in 2020 to become, at 78, the oldest president inaugurated for the first time. Pace and Superville describe how Jill Biden supported her husband’s second and third White House runs.Klain was appointed to oversee the effort against Ebola in 2014 and remains one of Joe Biden’s closest and most powerful advisers. Last year, the New York Times reported that “Republicans have taken to calling him Prime Minister Klain”, a characterisation Klain has disputed.Gitenstein, a lawyer who worked for the Senate judiciary committee when Biden chaired it, was ambassador to Romania under Obama. He advised Biden in 2020 and is now US ambassador to the European Union.Jill Biden’s most senior male aide is Anthony Bernal. He has been described, by Politico, as both “an influential figure” and “one of the most polarising people” in the Biden White House.TopicsBooksPolitics booksJoe BidenUS politicsDemocratsUS elections 2004US elections 2020newsReuse this content More

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      Much ado about Doug: second gentleman takes spotlight at Shakespeare debate

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      Much ado about Doug: second gentleman takes spotlight at Shakespeare debate Doug Emhoff, Kamala Harris’s husband, argues in a mock trial hosted by the Shakespeare Theatre Company and presided over by Stephen Breyer“I haven’t been in court for a few years, so excuse me if I’m a bit rusty,” said Doug Emhoff. “You know, not too much has changed in my life – except for the Secret Service, Air Force Two, the selfies, the cameras following me everywhere, and oh: my wife is the vice-president of the United States.”Mood as light as spring air as Ketanji Brown Jackson delivers words to rememberRead moreThe theatre erupted in whoops and clapping. Kamala Harris, sitting in the fifth row with her sister Maya, blew kisses through a black face mask and applauded her husband.It was one of those only-in-Washington moments. On Monday, the Shakespeare Theatre Company hosted a “mock trial” inspired by William Shakespeare’s romantic comedy Much Ado About Nothing and presided over by retiring supreme court justice and good sport Stephen Breyer.Much Ado is best known for Beatrice and Benedick, two proud intellects who only fall in love after others play Cupid. That seemed fitting for Harris and Emhoff, who were set up on a blind date by a mutual friend and married just shy of their 50th birthdays.But the question before the not-so-serious court was: should Margaret be held liable for Don John’s defamation of Hero? Emhoff, who was a prominent entertainment lawyer for nearly 30 years, was lead advocate on Margaret’s behalf.The event, full of inside-the-Beltway topical gags, had been due to take place last month but was postponed after the second gentleman came down with coronavirus.“I thank your honours for granting my motion for a continuance due to plague,” began Emhoff, wearing a dark suit, blue shirt and blue tie, and standing at a lectern under bright stage lights. “The White House apothecary told me my symptoms would be wild but – whew!”The mock trial is a longstanding Shakespeare Theatre Company tradition but had gone virtual for the past couple of years, due to the pandemic. Monday marked a return to an in-person audience at the Sidney Harman Hall but it was also livestreamed.Emhoff, an amiable and slightly goofy presence, remarked: “My parents tonight are watching the livestream but I might have told them that I was arguing in front of the United States supreme court so, cameraperson, can you just keep a very tight shot … ?”The second gentleman faced quick-fire questioning from Breyer and four leading judges from the District of Columbia and Virginia.“How do you define woman?” asked one, a nod to the recent esoteric questioning of the supreme court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson by Republican senators.Tongue firmly in cheek, Judge Amy Berman Jackson said she was interested in Beatrice and Benedick.“He says he doesn’t want to marry anyone but I think it’s clear from the text that his real concern is that if he marries somebody who’s really pretty and is really smart and witty, she could turn out to be the one who is better known and more prominent than he is.”There was laughter from the audience. There was more when Emhoff responded dryly: “As I say, your honour, I used to be somebody.”The judges – relishing a chance to let their hair down – also made references to Will Smith’s slap of Chris Rock at the Oscars, Britney Spears’s conservatorship, Downton Abbey, Republicans Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck.Emhoff was careful not get too political. One judge asked: “So when Beatrice tore up her love letters, making them unavailable to investigators, was that a violation of the imperial records act? If so, is Merrick Garland going to get around to that?”The second gentleman demurred: “There’s certain things I’m not allowed to talk about.”Simon Godwin: how the British director is taking on US theatreRead moreBut he did take a deft swipe at Donald Trump’s oldest son, during his defence of Margaret.“She was just an unwitting pawn in the scheme of the real villain here, the self-described villain: Don Jr – I mean, Don John.”The case against Margaret was put by Debra Katz, a DC litigator and founding partner of Katz, Marshall & Banks. The judges and the theatre audience ruled in her favour, whereas the audience watching via livestream sided with Emhoff.Harris then took to the stage, gave Emhoff a hug, posed for photos and and spoke with those assembled including Britain’s Simon Godwin, artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company.Someone managed to get a selfie with Emhoff before the Secret Service trod the boards and encouraged Harris to exit, stage right.TopicsUS politicsThe US politics sketchKamala HarrisDemocratsWilliam ShakespeareTheatrenewsReuse this content More

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      Trump ‘very intent on bringing my brother down’, Joe Biden’s sister says

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      Trump ‘very intent on bringing my brother down’, Joe Biden’s sister saysValerie Biden Owens, who has worked on all her brother’s campaigns, also says ‘no there there’ on her nephew Hunter Donald Trump is “very intent on bringing my brother down”, Joe Biden’s sister said.The Republican judge blocking her party from rigging electoral districtsRead more“The only race I wasn’t enthusiastic about Joe getting involved in was the 2020 presidency,” Valerie Biden Owens told CBS News.“Because I expected, and was not disappointed, that it would be ugly and mean, and it would be an attack on my brother, Joe, personally and professionally, because the former president is very intent on bringing my brother down.”A year and a half into his presidency, Biden is battling crises at home including inflation and the coronavirus pandemic and abroad, over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.Trump dominates the Republican party, propagating the “big lie” about voter fraud in his defeat by Biden which fueled the January 6 attack on the US Capitol, continuing to attack Biden as incapable of the demands of office, flirting with a third White House run and dispensing endorsements to candidates in the midterm elections.On Sunday, the Republican House minority leader, Kevin McCarthy, claimed Republicans would not swiftly impeach Biden “for political purposes”, should as expected the party take the House in November.Biden Owens helped raise her brother’s children after his first wife and daughter were killed in a car crash and has worked on all his campaigns. She has written a book called Growing Up Biden: A Memoir.“I assumed from the beginning that the former president and his entourage would attack my brother by going and attacking my family,” she said.Trump has focused on Hunter Biden, the president’s son, who has written his own book about his struggle with addiction and whose business affairs are the subject of scrutiny.Hunter Biden was one subject of Trump’s attempt to withhold military aid from Ukraine in exchange for political dirt, an attempt that led to Trump’s first impeachment. To Republicans, Hunter Biden remains a tempting target. Federal investigators are known to be looking at his financial affairs.His aunt told CBS: “There hasn’t been a there, there since it was mentioned in 2019 or whenever it was.”‘TV is like a poll’: Trump endorses Dr Oz for Pennsylvania Senate nominationRead moreShe also said: “Hunter has written in exquisite detail about his struggle with addiction, his walk through hell, and I am so grateful he has been able to walk out of hell, but I don’t think there’s a family in this country who hasn’t tasted it.”Trump’s destructive power remains widely feared. Pundits and rivals are watching his endorsements closely, among them a choice to back Mehmet Oz, a TV doctor, for the Senate nomination in Pennsylvania, a pick many Republicans opposed.On Monday, a possible rival to Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination, Ron DeSantis, was offered a warning that might have sounded familiar to Valerie Biden Owens.Nikki Fried, a Democrat running to oppose DeSantis for governor in Florida, told Business Insider that if Trump runs again and gets back on Twitter – from which he has been banned since the Capitol attack – “I say one tweet created [DeSantis] and one tweet can destroy him”.TopicsJoe BidenDonald TrumpHunter BidenUS politicsUS elections 2024US elections 2020DemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      McConnell will ‘make Biden a moderate’ if Republicans retake Congress

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      McConnell will ‘make Biden a moderate’ if Republicans retake Congress Senate minority leader projects ‘pretty good beating’ for Biden administration in November midterms The Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, said on Sunday Republicans will force Joe Biden to govern as a “moderate” if the GOP retakes Congress in November.Liz Cheney disputes report January 6 panel split over Trump criminal referralRead moreSpeaking to Fox News Sunday, McConnell attacked Biden on subjects including reported crime increases in large US cities, the decision to extend a moratorium on repaying student loan debts, and the administration’s attempt to lift a Trump policy that allowed border patrol agents to turn away migrants at the southern border, ostensibly to prevent the spread of coronavirus.“This administration just can’t seem to get their act together,” McConnell said. “I think they’re headed toward a pretty good beating in the fall election.”If that beating were to materialize, giving Republicans control of the Senate and House, McConnell said his party would try to confine Biden to the center of an increasingly polarized political spectrum.“Let me put it this way – Biden ran as a moderate,” McConnell said. “If I’m the majority leader in the Senate, and [House minority leader] Kevin McCarthy is speaker of the House, we’ll make sure Joe Biden is a moderate.”Without delving into specifics, McConnell outlined a broad set of policy priorities, including reducing crime, overhauling education, pursuing cheaper gasoline prices and investing in defense following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.McConnell said Biden’s low poll numbers reflected dissatisfaction with his administration’s response to all those problems.“I like the president personally,” McConnell said. “It’s clear to me personality is not what is driving his unpopularity.”McConnell did not mention – and was not asked about – whether he would seek to block any further Biden nominations to the supreme court, which for now has a 6-3 conservative majority.In a recent interview with Axios, McConnell would not commit to hearings for any potential nominees if he led the Senate at any point before the 2024 presidential election, Republicans’ next opportunity to retake the White House. ‘TV is like a poll’: Trump endorses Dr Oz for Pennsylvania Senate nominationRead moreLast year, he said the GOP would block a Biden supreme court nominee if it controlled the Senate in 2024, an election year. McConnell blocked Barack Obama’s final nominee, Merrick Garland, from even receiving a hearing in 2016, citing that year’s presidential election. In 2020, he oversaw the confirmation of Donald Trump’s third nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, shortly before polling day.McConnell’s comments on Sunday echoed some of the remarks he made in the interview with Axios, when he predicted that Biden would “finally be the moderate he campaigned as” if the Democrats lost their congressional majority in November.The Democrats hold a 12-seat advantage in the House and generally hold a single-vote edge in the 50-50 Senate, where vice-president Kamala Harris can serve as tiebreaker.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022US politicsJoe BidenBiden administrationUS CongressUS SenateUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More