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    Mike Pence officially enters 2024 US presidential race, pitting himself against former boss Donald Trump – as it happened

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    From 5h agoFormer vice-president Mike Pence has officially entered the 2024 presidential race, pitting him against his former boss Donald Trump and a host of other candidates including Florida governor Ron DeSantis for the Republican party’s nomination.The Federal Election Commission’s website shows Pence and his campaign committee, Mike Pence for President located in Carmel, Indiana, officially registering today. The former vice-president will publicly announce the bid on Wednesday in Des Moines, Iowa.Mike Pence filed the paperwork necessary to run for president, though he will wait till Wednesday to make his campaign official with a speech in Iowa. Meanwhile in Washington, attorneys for Donald Trump stopped by the justice department, where special counsel Jack Smith is reportedly nearing a decision on whether to recommend charges over the classified documents federal agents discovered last year at Mar-a-Lago.Here’s what else happened today:
    New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu declined to jump into the race for the GOP’s presidential nomination, instead saying he will work to defeat Trump.
    But the 2024 campaign did get another entrant: philosopher, author, critic, actor and civil rights activist Cornel West.
    Military jets attempted to establish contact with a plane that overflew restricted airspace in Washington, DC on Sunday and later crashed, killing all onboard, but the pilot appeared slumped over and never responded.
    Nikki Haley participated in a CNN-moderated town hall last night, but even they couldn’t get her to make her stance on abortion access clear.
    Pence’s edge over other Republicans: he actually rides motorcycles.
    CNN has inserted itself prominently in the American political conversation in recent weeks by hosting town halls with Donald Trump, Nikki Haley and, on Wednesday, Mike Pence. But the network was also heavily criticized for how it handled the event with Trump, and to make matters worse, the Atlantic last week published a damning portrait of the network’s chief executive Chris Licht and his decision making. It’s a major story in American media, and here’s the Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt with the latest:The embattled CNN chief executive, Chris Licht, apologized to his employees on Monday after an Atlantic magazine profile revealed he had been aware of the “extra-Trumpy” make-up of the crowd at a widely criticized town hall with the former president last month.According to the Atlantic, Licht had also been critical of CNN’s performance under his predecessor, telling employees they had alienated potential viewers through hostility to Donald Trump.In an editorial call Monday morning, Licht – who had committed to a number of interviews for the Atlantic profile – apologized for his involvement in the piece.The Washington, DC area was yesterday rattled by a sonic boom caused by military jets sent to pursue a wayward plane that later crashed into a remote part of Virginia.The Washington Post reports that military F-16s and air traffic controllers received no response from the Cessna Citation despite repeated attempts to establish contact, but one aviator saw the pilot slumped over. That may be an indication that the cabin had lost pressure, rendering all onboard unconscious and leaving the aircraft to fly on until it lost fuel and crashed, killing all four people onboard.At today’s White House press briefing, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby gave reporters a full account of how the military responded to the plane’s overflight of the city, which saw it traverse airspace restricted since the 9/11 attacks:These sorts of rants from Donald Trump are one reason why he’s earned the ire of a segment of the Republican party.Count New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu among them. Today, the moderate Republican told CNN he would not stand for president in 2024, and in a column for the Washington Post elaborated on his reasons why.“Since 2017, the national Republican Party has lost up and down the ballot, in red states and in blue states, and in elections spanning the House, Senate and presidency. That will happen again unless we Republicans undergo a course correction,” he wrote.The governor continued:
    Current polls indicate Trump is the leading Republican candidate in 2024. He did not deliver on his promises to drain the swamp, secure the border and instill fiscal responsibility while in office — and added $8 trillion to our national debt — yet now he wants four more years.
    If he is the nominee, Republicans will lose again. Just as we did in 2018, 2020 and 2022. This is indisputable, and I am not willing to let it happen without a fight.
    By choosing not to seek the nomination, I can be more effective for the Republican Party in ways few other leaders can. The microphone afforded to the governor of New Hampshire plays a critical role in an early nominating state. I plan to endorse, campaign and support the candidate I believe has the best chance of winning in November 2024.
    We’ll see how big of a threat Sununu’s opposition poses to Trump’s campaign for another four years in the White House. But here are a few other considerations that may have kept Sununu out of the race: his comparatively loose stance on abortion rights, unwillingness to adopt an aggressive gerrymander of the state’s district maps in favor of the GOP, and other centrist policies. He may have figured he wouldn’t have had a chance of winning over the party’s powerful conservative base.Donald Trump made liberal use of the caps lock key in crafting this Truth social post from a few hours ago, on the day his attorneys paid a visit to the justice department:The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that the lawyers for Donald Trump who turned up today at the justice department were meeting with senior officials, but not attorney general Merrick Garland, as they had requested:Such meetings are typical when justice department investigations near their conclusion, as special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago appears to be.Smith is also looking into Trump’s involvement in the January 6 insurrection, and the broader plot to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 election win. Those inquiries appear to be ongoing.Should Ron DeSantis’s new feud with California governor Gavin Newsom head to the courts, it would be just the latest instance in which the Florida governor and presidential aspirant’s policies have cost his state money, the Guardian’s Maya Yang reports:Since Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, took office in 2019 and embarked on his culture wars, lawsuits from various communities whose rights have been violated have been stacking up against the far-right Republican.As DeSantis fights the lawsuits with what critics have described as a blank check from the state’s supermajority Republican legislature, the mounting legal costs have come heavily at the expense of Florida’s taxpayers.In recent years, DeSantis’s ultra-conservative legislative agenda has drawn ire from a slew of marginalized communities as well as major corporations including Disney. The so-called “don’t say gay” bill, abortion bans and prohibition of African American studies are just a few of DeSantis’s many extremist policies that have been met with costly lawsuits in a state where residents are already struggling with costs of living.The California governor, Gavin Newsom, has weighed into the row between his state and Florida over the case of a group of 16 migrants who were left outside a Sacramento church.A rights group said the group had been “lied to” and deceived after being transported from Texas to California. The circumstances are similar to a stunt orchestrated by Florida’s rightwing Republican governor last year in Martha’s Vineyard.Now Newsom has mentioned kidnapping charges in relation to the incident. Here’s his tweet, criticising Ron DeSantis after California authorities pointed the finger at the Florida governor over the incident:Cornel West, the philosopher, author, critic, actor and civil rights activist, has announced he is running for president.West launched his campaign for the People’s Party with a Twitter video on Monday.He said:
    “I care about you. I care about the quality of your life, I care about whether you have access to a job with a living wage, decent housing, women having control over their bodies, healthcare for all, the escalating destruction of the planet, the destruction of American democracy.”
    Watch his whole campaign launch video here:The world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, Binance, is being sued by the SEC over allegations of mishandling customer funds and lying to regulators and investors.Binance has hit back at the claims and my colleague Lauren Aratani is reporting all the latest on the lawsuit in our dedicated blog. You can follow latest updates here:Mike Pence has filed the paperwork necessary to run for president, though he will wait till Wednesday to make the campaign official with a speech in Iowa. Meanwhile in Washington, attorneys for Donald Trump have stopped by the justice department, where special counsel Jack Smith is reportedly nearing a decision on whether to recommend charges over the classified documents federal agents discovered last year at Mar-a-Lago. It’s unclear who the lawyers met with, but when we find out, we’ll let you know.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
    New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu has declined to jump into the race for the GOP’s presidential nomination.
    Nikki Haley participated in a CNN-moderated town hall last night, but even they couldn’t get her to make her stance on abortion access clear.
    Pence’s edge over other Republicans: he actually rides motorcycles.
    Republican voters pining to send a governor to the White House needn’t worry Chris Sununu’s decision to forgo a run.North Dakota governor Doug Burgum – who is little known outside his home state – is expected to also on Wednesday declare his candidacy for president, the same day Mike Pence kicks off his campaign in Iowa. Here’s a teaser video Burgum just posted:Other governor options for Republican voters: Ron DeSantis, who is a distant second place to Donald Trump in the latest polls.In an interview with CNN, New Hampshire’s Republican governor Chris Sununu said he will not run for the party’s presidential nomination next year.“We’ve taken the last six months to really kind of look at things where everything is and I’ve made the decision not to run for president on the Republican ticket in 2024,” said Sununu, who was re-elected to a fourth two-year term as governor last year.Sununu has maintained his popularity in what’s considering a blue-leaning swing state, and also attempted to distance himself from Trump, telling CNN last year that he thinks that “clearly moving on” from the former president.You know who else was at the “Roast and Ride” in Iowa this weekend? The Guardian’s David Smith! He has the full story on what he aptly calls “a slice of pure Americana”:There were hay bales and Harley-Davidsons. There was sliced pork and campaign paraphernalia. There were earnest speeches about defeating Democrats winning back the White House. But at the centre of it all was a Donald Trump-shaped hole.The Republican presidential primary for 2024 got under way in earnest on Saturday when eight contenders – minus Trump – took part in Iowa senator Joni Ernst’s “Roast and Ride”, a combination of barbecue-rally and motorcycle ride.The annual event is a slice of pure Americana. When a young pastor offered a prayer from the back of a pickup truck outside a big yellow barn owned by Harley-Davidson, bikers removed their caps, placed them over their hearts and bowed their heads. The convoy rode in staggered formation past churches, suburban houses with clipped lawns, shopping malls and rolling farmland to the Iowa state fairgrounds.Mike Pence, set to make his entry into the primary official next week, was the only White House hopeful to actually take part in the charity parade. The former vice-president, who turns 64 next week, rode a cobalt blue bike and wore jeans, boots, a white helmet and a black leather vest with patches that said “Indiana”, “Pence”, “rolling thunder” and messages supportive of the military.Pence was among the Republican aspirants who, speaking in front of bales of hay and an outline of the Iowa map, delivered speeches of about 10 minutes each inside a wooden-roofed building where about a thousand voters ate lunch on green table cloths. But none mentioned Trump by name, giving the impression of a party in denial.Say what you will about Mike Pence, but the former president was the only candidate to actually get on a motorcycle this past weekend, when several GOP presidential contenders went to the “Roast and Ride” in Iowa.The event, organized by the state’s GOP senator Joni Ernst, was attended by Florida governor Ron DeSantis, senator Tim Scott and Nikki Haley, all official contenders. Pence hadn’t made his campaign official yet at the time of the rally, but distinguished himself by not just roasting, but also riding:The Democrats have welcomed Mike Pence to the presidential race with a big smile and open arms.Just kidding — they hate him. Pence may have broken with Donald Trump on January 6 and ended up running from a mob of his infuriated supporters, but the Democratic National Committee does not want voters to forget about the policies he supported as vice-president, Indiana’s governor, and a member of the House of Representatives.Here’s what DNC chair Jaime Harrison had to say about Pence, now that he’s officially on the campaign trail:
    In Mike Pence’s own words, he was a member of the extreme Tea Party ‘before it was cool,’ and he hasn’t slowed down since. Pence pushed an extreme agenda in Congress and the Indiana statehouse before becoming Donald Trump’s MAGA wingman for four years and then campaigning for election deniers last year. Now, he’s promising to take the Trump-Pence agenda even further, leading the charge for a national abortion ban, cutting Medicare, and ending Social Security as we know it. Pence’s entrance will no doubt drag an increasingly MAGA 2024 GOP field even further to the extremes.
    Former vice-president Mike Pence has officially entered the 2024 presidential race, pitting him against his former boss Donald Trump and a host of other candidates including Florida governor Ron DeSantis for the Republican party’s nomination.The Federal Election Commission’s website shows Pence and his campaign committee, Mike Pence for President located in Carmel, Indiana, officially registering today. The former vice-president will publicly announce the bid on Wednesday in Des Moines, Iowa. More

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      Trump lawyers meet with DoJ to stave off indictment in Mar-a-Lago case

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      Lawyers for Donald Trump met with top US justice department officials on Thursday to complain about perceived misconduct in the criminal investigation into the former US president’s handling of national security materials and obstruction, according to two people familiar with the matter.The meeting involved Trump lawyers Jim Trusty, John Rowley and Lindsay Halligan speaking with the special counsel Jack Smith, who is leading the investigation, and a senior career official to the deputy attorney general, one person said. CBS News first reported the meeting.Trump’s lawyers made a general case as to why Trump should not be charged in the Mar-a-Lago documents case and suggested that some prosecutors working under special counsel Jack Smith engaged in what they considered prosecutorial misconduct, the people said.The exact allegations are not clear but Trump’s lawyers for weeks have complained privately that Jay Bratt, the chief of the counterintelligence and espionage section at the justice department, once sought to induce a witness into confirming something they declined to, one of the people said.Complaints of that nature result in an internal note to the special counsel and are unlikely to delay the criminal investigation.The meeting comes weeks after Trump’s lawyers asked the justice department for a meeting with the attorney general, Merrick Garland, to raise grievances about what they considered as unfair treatment of Trump over his handling of classified documents compared to other former presidents.“No president of the United States has ever, in the history of our country, been baselessly investigated in such an outrageous and unlawful fashion,” said the letter written by Trusty and Rowley.While it is not unusual for lawyers to seek a meeting with prosecutors near the end of an investigation, it typically is not with the attorney general. That is especially the case in special counsel investigations, where charging decisions can only be overruled if department rules were not followed.The development comes as prosecutors have recently asked witnesses before the grand jury hearing evidence in the case in Washington whether Trump showed off national security materials, including a document concerning military action against Iran, people close to the case said.Prosecutors have seemingly been trying to identify whether that Iran document was the same document Trump referenced on an audio recording in which he said he could not discuss it because he did not declassify it while in office – though he should have, the Guardian previously reported.The investigation has also examined whether the failure by Trump to fully comply with a subpoena last year demanding the return of any classified documents was a deliberate act of obstruction, the people said.Last June, the since-recused Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran found 38 classified documents in the storage room at Mar-a-Lago and told the justice department that no further materials remained at the property – which came into question when the FBI seized 101 additional classified documents months later.The Guardian has reported that Corcoran later told associates he felt misled in the subpoena response because he had asked whether he should search elsewhere at Mar-a-Lago, like Trump’s office, but was waved off. Corcoran’s notes also showed he told Trump he had to return all classified documents in his possession. More

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      Republican 2024 candidates criticize Trump for praising Kim Jong-un

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      A number of Republican presidential candidates, including Ron DeSantis, have criticized Donald Trump after the former president again praised the dictatorial leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un.The intervention from Trump’s rivals, who have largely avoided attacking the influential frontrunner, comes as a rare moment of dissension during the campaign.Trump posted a message of support for Kim to his Truth Social site on Saturday, after North Korea was appointed to the board of the World Health Organization.“Congratulations to Kim Jung [sic] Un!” Trump wrote. He posted a link to an article about the appointment to the WHO, which is an agency of the UN.Trump’s praise of Kim has prompted controversy before.In 2018, at a rally in Virginia, the former president spoke about how he and Kim “fell in love” as they got to know each other as world leaders – and how Kim had written him “beautiful” and “great letters”. Those letters later turned up among classified documents Trump retained after he lost the presidency to Joe Biden in 2020, becoming a focus of an investigation by the special counsel appointed by the US attorney general, Merrick Garland.The latest round of positivity which Trump directed at Kim again kicked up a political firestorm.Over the weekend DeSantis, who announced his campaign for president in May, and Nikki Haley condemned the move.“Kim Jong-un is a thug and a tyrant, and he has tested ballistic missiles against our allies,” Haley told NBC News.“He’s threatened us. There’s nothing to congratulate him about. I mean, he’s been terrible to his people. He’s been terrible to America, and we need to stop being nice to countries that hate America.”Haley, a former governor of South Carolina who served as an ambassador to the UN during the Trump administration, is running a long-shot bid for the presidency.DeSantis, who is expected to be Trump’s closest rival for the GOP nomination, said he was “surprised” Trump had praised a “murderous dictator”, USA Today reported.Mike Pence, Trump’s former vice-president who is expected to launch a presidential campaign this week, was similarly critical.“Whether it’s my former running mate or anyone else, nobody should be praising the dictator in North Korea or praising the leader in Russia, who has launched an unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine,” Pence said in an interview with Fox News.“This is a time when we ought to make it clear to the world that we stand for freedom and we stand with those who stand for freedom.”Asa Hutchinson, a former Arkansas governor whose presidential campaign is yet to make much of a dint on the national stage, tweeted on Saturday:“Kim Jong-un, the tyrant dictator in North Korea should not be praised by Donald Trump for a leadership role in the World Health Organization. We sanction leaders who oppress their people. We do not elevate them on the world stage.”North Korea was added to the WHO executive board on 25 May in a move that human rights advocates condemned.“North Korea, a regime that starves its own people, was just elected to the @WHO Executive Board,” Hillel Neuer, the executive director of the Geneva-based human rights organization UN Watch, wrote on Twitter.“What this means is that one of the world’s most horrific regimes is now a part of a group that sets and enforces the standards and norms for the global governance of health care. It is an absurd episode for a key UN agency that is in much need of self-reflection and reform.”Trump’s praise for Kim and North Korea’s ascension to the WHO was surprising given his contempt for the organization while in office. The then-president suspended US funding to the WHO in 2020, accusing it, without evidence, of withholding information, and of being too close to China.Trump later withdrew the US from the WHO; Joe Biden rejoined the organization in one of his first acts in office. More

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      Trump critics warn of ‘deep decline of rule of law’ if he wins second term

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      As Donald Trump begins another campaign for the presidency, his extremist rhetoric and lies about the 2020 election signal that in a second term, Trump would attempt to thwart the rule of law at the justice department and other agencies in an effort to expand his power and attack critics.Former DoJ officials, some Republicans and academics say that if Trump becomes the Republican nominee and is elected again in 2024, he would most likely appoint officials who would reflexively do his bidding, target dissenters he deems part of the “deep state” and mount zealous drives to rein in independent agencies.Donald Ayer, a former deputy attorney general during the George HW Bush administration, told the Guardian: “Of all the many reasons Donald Trump’s candidacy should be rejected out of hand, none is more important than his utter disdain for the rule of law – the idea that we are a society governed by rules and not by the will of one person.”Ayer said: “It’s hard to imagine what would become of our legal system if Trump became president again.“In his first term, aided by attorney general William Barr, who made a pretense of believing in even-handed justice, Trump was still able to grossly misuse the Department of Justice as a political campaign tool, to do favors for his friends, and to seriously undermine the separation of powers.“There would be no arguable adults in the room in a second Trump DoJ. Beyond pardons for the January 6 criminals and politically motivated prosecutions, one can expect a broader pattern of abuses aimed at securing his autocratic power.”Trump has given plenty of hints about what he would do in a second term, many of which suggest he would become more extreme than during his previous four years in office.In the wake of his loss to Joe Biden in 2020, Trump falsely claimed the election was rigged and, with help from key allies, he tried to overturn the results in several states Biden won. Separately, after leaving office Trump retained classified documents. These Trump moves have sparked federal and state criminal investigations, which could result in charges against him and others in coming months. Trump has vehemently denied any wrongdoing in all these matters.At campaign stops in Texas, New Hampshire and elsewhere, Trump has demonized critics, including the prosecutors leading these criminal inquiries, and spoken of the inquiries in conspiratorial terms.During a March rally in Waco, Texas, Trump lashed out at the “thugs and criminals who are corrupting our justice system” before denouncing prosecutors and investigators. Ominously, he warned the crowd: “When they go after me, they’re going after you.”He said: “Together, we are taking on some of the most menacing forces and vicious opponents our people have ever seen, some of them from within.”As part of his dark Waco messaging, Trump added: “Either the deep state destroys America, or we destroy the deep state.” One of the targets of Trump’s ire has been the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, who charged him earlier this year with 34 counts of falsifying business records to conceal hush money payments he allegedly made to the porn star Stormy Daniels. Daniels claims she had an affair with Trump in 2016.Similarly, at the CNN town hall in New Hampshire in early May, Trump doubled down on his claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him. He also seemed to glorify the mob of loyalists who attacked the Capitol on 6 January 2021, which led to the deaths of nine police officers and others.In an appeal to his base, Trump said that if he gets re-elected, he will be “inclined” to pardon “many” of the protesters involved in the insurrection during Joe Biden’s certification by Congress. He even called January 6 “a beautiful day”.Given these comments on the campaign trail and his past performance in office, Trump’s critics say a second term would mean few, if any, checks on Trump’s impulsive behavior, and that he would surround himself with pliant allies.“Donald Trump has no regard for our institutions,” the ex-DoJ inspector general Michael Bromwich told the Guardian. “There is no better proof of this general truth than his attitude towards the Department of Justice. He believes it should be the political tool of the White House, which should target his enemies and go easy on his friends.”Bromwich noted that Trump’s choices of Barr and Jeff Sessions as attorneys general ultimately disappointed him, “because there came a point for both of them that they couldn’t go as far as Trump needed”.“If Trump were re-elected, we can look forward to a swift and deep decline in the rule of law,” Bromwich said. “Top levels of the DoJ would be staffed with election deniers; there would be a wholesale exodus of talented career personnel from every division of DoJ; and large numbers of January 6 insurrectionists would be pardoned. After four more years, the Department of Justice as we know it would be in tatters.”Bromwich stressed too that “Trump doesn’t believe in any type of oversight, whether conducted by Congress or inspectors general”, and that voters “should expect total resistance to any congressional oversight and the firing of IGs who dared to do their jobs of ferreting out waste, fraud, abuse and misconduct”.Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard and the co-author of How Democracies Die, said Trump was an even more extreme candidate now than he was in his previous campaign.“It’s pretty clear that Trump will come in as a more dangerous figure than in 2016. He had no inclination then to respect the rule of law. He saw the state as subordinate to his own will, much like a tinpot dictator. He came in as an authoritarian figure but with no plan,” Levitsky said.“Trump filled his government mostly with conservatives who cared about not breaking the law. They provided some resistance. Civil servants and people he appointed put the brakes on his wildest instincts. Now, he’s angrier and bent on revenge. Trump’s got people he wants to go after, as well as the so-called deep state. He’s going to be much more careful in the people who he appoints. Trump has a much more authoritarian plan.”The prospect of a more authoritarian President Trump is one that scares other critics who say his conduct in his first term was, at least in part, checked by conservative figures such as his ex-chief of staff John Kelly, and former secretary of state Rex Tillerson. Notably, both have voiced their opposition to Trump since they left their posts.Kelly told the Washington Post that Trump’s pardon pledges for the January 6 rioters were not surprising: “All those people who tried to overturn the election, that’s exactly what he wanted them to do. He can’t be turning his back on the people who tried to save him in the election,” he said.Trump has displayed other troubling signs, including allying himself with some of the most extremist Republican figures. One such person is Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general who tried to help Trump reverse his loss to Biden. In late May, Trump used his media platform Truth Social to attack the GOP-controlled Texas House for impeaching Paxton over bribery and other alleged misconduct. The ex-president labeled Paxton’s impeachment the work of “radical left Democrats” and “Rinos” [Republicans in name only].In another radical Truth Social post shared in late May, Trump pledged that on his first day in office he would issue an executive order to overturn birthright US citizenship – a right guaranteed in the 14th amendment.Former GOP House member Charlie Dent told the Guardian he believed that “Trump would engage in more conduct through” executive orders upon re-election, and would “use his powers to do executive actions and ignore congressional powers and prerogatives”.Dent predicted that in a second term, “Trump would load up his administration with sycophants, unlike in the first term”, adding that the kinds of conservatives who Trump tapped before, such as the defense secretary James Mattis and Kelly, “will be gone”.“Trump will surround himself with people who would be disinclined to offer any restraints on his worst impulses,” he said.The conservative lawyer George Conway also issued dire warnings about a second Trump presidency.“He’s going to manipulate the levers of government to help himself personally and to go after his enemies,” Conway said. “He’s going to turn our government into a third world government.” More

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      Joe Biden to address nation but delays debt ceiling bill signing; White House press secretary addresses president’s fall – live

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      From 3h agoWhite House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Joe Biden won’t be signing the debt ceiling bill that passed Congress until tomorrow at the earliest.“It won’t be today. The House and the Senate have to do their business, so we’re going to work very quickly to get this done to make sure we can sign it hopefully as soon as tomorrow,” Jean-Pierre said. Treasury secretary Janet Yellen said that the debt ceiling must be raised by 5 June, which means that Biden must sign the bill by the weekend to avoid default. Jean-Pierre said the White House is confident they can get the bill signed before June 5.Jean-Pierre did not specify what Congress needs to do before getting it on Biden’s desk. Biden is planning to address the deal in a speech tonight at 7pm. Jean-Pierre said that he will focus on the bipartisan nature of the deal and how it benefits Americans.“When you think about what could have happened here, to our seniors, to our veterans, to American families,” Jean-Pierre said. “That is something the president believes he has an opportunity to talk directly to the American people [about]. This could’ve been, as we’ve said over and over again, devastating.”“He believes this is a good moment to lay that out and how we were able to come together to avert this crisis.”An appeals court ruling has revived an anti-discrimination lawsuit accusing an Albuquerque teacher of cutting off one Native American girl’s hair and asking another if she was dressed as a “bloody Indian” during class on Halloween.Associated Press reports:Outrage over the girls’ treatment propelled legislation in New Mexico and beyond that prohibits discrimination based upon hairstyle and religious head garments.The American Civil Liberties Union’s lawsuit accused Albuquerque Public Schools and a teacher of discrimination and fostering a hostile learning environment. ACLU of New Mexico Deputy Director Leon Howard said the ruling affirms that public schools are subject to antidiscrimination protections in the New Mexico Human Rights Act.The appellate ruling validates that all “students must feel safe at school and confident that their culture, history, and personal dignity are valued and respected by the public schools they attend,” Howard said in a statement.A lower court had determined that a public high school does not qualify as a “public accommodation” under the state’s civil rights law. The appellate ruling returns the lawsuit to state district court for a hearing on its merits.“If a public secondary school official in their official capacity were to refuse services to an individual based on the individual’s race, religion, or sexual orientation, then the New Mexico Human Right Act would surely apply,” Appeals Court Judge J. Miles Hanissee wrote.Lawmakers in Connecticut voted on Friday to prohibit anyone under 18-years old from being issued a marriage license.The legislation got passed in the Senate unanimously after a 98-45 bipartisan vote in the House of Representatives in May.Currently, in the state, a 16 or 17-year old can obtain a marriage license of their local probate court judge approves a petition that gets filed on the minor’s behalf by a parent or guardian, the Associated Press reports.According to a spokesperson from Democratic governor Ned Lamont office, the governor is planning sign the legislation into law.During the vote, senator Herron Gaston told his colleagues that his sister was married to a 50-year old man while she was 17-years old.
      “I’ve seen the devastating impact it has had on her physically, how it deprived her of her innocence and of her childhood,” he said.
      “She bore five children from this marriage and eventually had to flee from the island of Saint Lucia and down to Florida in order to get away from her abuser,” the Associated Press reports.
      A US air force colonel “misspoke” when he said at a Royal Aeronautical Society conference last month that a drone killed its operator in a simulated test because the pilot was attempting to override its mission, according to the society.Guardian staff and agencies report:The confusion had started with the circulation of a blogpost from the society, in which it described a presentation by Col Tucker “Cinco” Hamilton, the chief of AI test and operations with the US air force and an experimental fighter test pilot, at the Future Combat Air and Space Capabilities Summit in London in May.According to the blogpost, Hamilton had told the crowd that in a simulation to test a drone powered by artificial intelligence and trained and incentivized to kill its targets, an operator instructed the drone in some cases not to kill its targets and the drone had responded by killing the operator.The comments sparked deep concern over the use of AI in weaponry and extensive conversations online. But the US air force on Thursday evening denied the test was conducted. The Royal Aeronautical Society responded in a statement on Friday that Hamilton had retracted his comments and had clarified that the “rogue AI drone simulation” was a hypothetical “thought experiment”.“We’ve never run that experiment, nor would we need to in order to realise that this is a plausible outcome,” Hamilton said.For more details, click here:A federal judge who was presiding over Disney’s lawsuit against Florida governor Ron DeSantis has disqualified himself, citing a third-degree relative who has stock in the company “which could be substantially affected by the outcome of this case”, according to CNN.Walker had denied a motion from DeSantis’ lawyers to disqualify him from the case, saying that questions in previous cases raised “substantial doubts” about his impartiality.The judge criticized DeSantis’ lawyers, who “cherry-pick language from these cases to support their position without acknowledging the wholly distinguishable context underlying each decision”.Disney filed a lawsuit against DeSantis in April saying that the governor violated the company’s right to free speech after it spoke out against the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law that banned instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. DeSantis took over the special district that Disney ran at its massive theme park in Florida near Orlando.Here’s quick summary of what’s happened today:
      Though the debt ceiling bill has passed Congress, the bill won’t be signed by the White House by Saturday at the earliest. The White House said that it is waiting for lawmakers to wrap up the bill and send it to Joe Biden’s desk for signing.
      Meanwhile, credit agency Fitch said that it could still downgrade the US government’s credit rating even though a deal has been passed. The agency said that the standoff over the limit “lowers confidence” in the ability of the government to pay its bill.
      The Republican National Committee set its requirements for qualifying for its first presidential debate in August. Candidates will need at least 40,000 individual campaign donors and poll at 1% across multiple national polls.
      The Department of Justice closed its investigation into Mike Pence for his having classified documents in his Indiana home. Pence faces no charges. The closing of the investigation comes as Pence is gearing up to announce a run in the 2024 election.
      Joe Biden is set to sign the debt ceiling bill that passed the Senate last night. He will deliver remarks tonight on the bill at 7 pm.
      Stay tuned for more live updates.Youtube announced today that it will no longer remove videos that make false claims about the 2020 election, saying in a blog post that continuing to remove these videos could “have the unintended effect of curtailing political speech without meaningfully reducing the risk of violence or other real-world harm”.The video platform said that it has removed “tens of thousands” of videos since it implemented its policy against election misinformation in December 2020.“The ability to openly debate political ideas, even those that are controversial or based on disproven assumptions, is core to a functioning democratic society – especially in the midst of election season,” the company said.The company said it will continue to remove content that discourages people from voting or contains misinformation about how to vote.Credit rating agency Fitch said on Friday that a downgrading of the US government credit rating is still possible, despite Congress passing a bipartisan bil to raise the debt ceiling . Fitch has put the US on a negative credit watch and said that while the passing of the bill is a “positive consideration”, “repeated political standoffs” over the debt limit “lowers confidence in governance on fiscal and debt matters”.The country’s credit rating has only been downgraded once in history. Credit rating agency S&P downgraded the country’s credit for the first time in 2011 after an impasse between Republicans in Congress and then-president Barack Obama. The downgrade occurred after the deal was made, as it was settled too close to the default date.A downgrading of the country’s credit rating will be costly for the country as it will make it more expensive for the country to borrow money, along with lowering confidence in the American dollar.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Joe Biden won’t be signing the debt ceiling bill that passed Congress until tomorrow at the earliest.“It won’t be today. The House and the Senate have to do their business, so we’re going to work very quickly to get this done to make sure we can sign it hopefully as soon as tomorrow,” Jean-Pierre said. Treasury secretary Janet Yellen said that the debt ceiling must be raised by 5 June, which means that Biden must sign the bill by the weekend to avoid default. Jean-Pierre said the White House is confident they can get the bill signed before June 5.Jean-Pierre did not specify what Congress needs to do before getting it on Biden’s desk. Biden is planning to address the deal in a speech tonight at 7pm. Jean-Pierre said that he will focus on the bipartisan nature of the deal and how it benefits Americans.“When you think about what could have happened here, to our seniors, to our veterans, to American families,” Jean-Pierre said. “That is something the president believes he has an opportunity to talk directly to the American people [about]. This could’ve been, as we’ve said over and over again, devastating.”“He believes this is a good moment to lay that out and how we were able to come together to avert this crisis.”White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre is holding the daily press briefing right now and addressed a question on Joe Biden’s fall last night. Biden was in Colorado Springs at the graduation ceremony of the US Air Force Academy. Biden tripped on a sandbag onstage, caught himself with his hands and was helped up by three people.“He tripped over a sandbag on the stage, briefly he tripped and got up, and continued what he was there to do,” Jean-Pierre said. “There was no need for the doctor to see him.”Biden addressed reporters upon returning to Washington Thursday night, joking that “I got sandbagged”.The Republican National Committee is tightening the requirements candidates will have to meet in order to get on the debate stage in August. There are nine Republican 2024 presidential candidates so far, and a handful more are expected to announce their runs in the coming weeks.Candidates will have to get at least 40,000 individual campaign donors and receive at least 1% of voters in multiple national polls, according to the Washington Post. The first debate will be held in Milwaukee and hosted by Fox News.Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis are currently the clear frontrunners, according to polls, with Trump ahead of the Florida governor by at least 30 points. Other candidates, like Nikki Haley and Tim Scott, have been polling well under 10%.Donald Trump’s attorneys have been unable to find a classified document the former president said he had in a recording that was ultimately given to prosecutors, according to CNN.The recording, taken in July 2021 at a Trump golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, has the former president saying that he retained a document on a potential attack on Iran.Prosecutors have subpoenaed Trump for all classified materials and have recovered classified documents throughout 2022. Trump attorneys turned over more documents in March, but it did not include the document on Iran.A Florida man who stormed the US Capitol on January 6 was sentenced on Friday to three years in prison, the latest in a string of prison sentences for those who participated in the January 6 insurrection.45-year-old David Moerschel, a neurophysiologist from Punta Gorda, Florida, was convicted in January with three other members of the Oath Keepers, reported the Associated Press.Several members of the antigovernment extremist group have been charged for their roles in a plot led by several far-right groups to stop Joe Biden from becoming president after the 2020 election results.In total, nine people associated with the Oath Keepers have been tried with seditious conspiracy, AP reported, including Moerschel.Six have been convicted on the charge.House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has invited Indian prime minister Narendra Modi to speak to Congress during his visit to Washington DC on June 22. Modi will also meet with Joe Biden for a state dinner that night.In a letter to Modi, McCarthy said that Modi in his address “will have the opportunity to share your vision for India’s future and speak to the global challenges our countries both face”. More

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      Pence will not face charges over classified files found at Indiana home

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      The US Department of Justice has closed its investigation into former vice-president Mike Pence without filing any charges related to classified documents found in his Indiana home, a department official said on Friday.The department notified Pence through a letter, the official added.Representatives for Pence, who served under Donald Trump, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, although the Guardian confirmed the development via a source familiar with the investigation, and a Pence spokesperson told the Washington Post Pence is “pleased but not surprised” the investigation has come to an end.Pence is expected next week to jump into the increasingly crowded Republican field for president in the 2024 election, as is former New Jersey governor Chris Christie. Trump and Florida governor Ron DeSantis are currently the frontrunners for the nomination, despite Trump still being the subject of multiple criminal investigations and civil legal action.Though Pence was Trump’s vice-president during his single term, Pence has since turned against Trump in significant ways, testifying against him in front of a federal grand jury in April on the former president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Meanwhile, Trump has said that Pence did “something wrong” by not standing by his lies that the election was rigged and he defeated Joe Biden.After revelations of classified material found at Trump’s Florida residence last year after he left office, the National Archives called on former presidents and vice-presidents to make checks for any material that should be in the government’s possession.A lawyer for Pence had notified authorities about the discovery of records with classified markings, prompting an FBI search for records at his Indianapolis residence this year.A justice department special counsel, Jack Smith, is investigating Trump’s handling of classified materials since leaving office in January 2021.A separate special counsel was appointed to conduct an investigation after Biden reported finding some classified material in his possession. More

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      Don’t be fooled – Trump’s presidential run is gaining more and more momentum | Lloyd Green

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      The Republican field swells but the 45th president’s commanding lead holds. Like Jeb Bush – another Florida governor and defeated Trump rival – Ron DeSantis has demonstrated himself inadequate to the task. By the numbers, DeSantis trails Trump nationally and in the Sunshine state. DeSantis was born there. Trump only recently moved there. To be the man you gotta beat the man, and right now DeSantis is going nowhere fast.Ill-at-ease and plagued by a pronounced charisma deficit, DeSantis can’t even decide how to pronounce his own surname. He is 44 years old. That’s plenty of time to nail down this personal detail.Following his botched campaign rollout on Twitter, a perpetual scowl creases DeSantis’s face. He does not relish the task at hand. Presidential races are marathons, and he does not appear built for endurance.Trump administration alums fare no better. Both Mike Pence, the hapless former vice-president, and Nikki Haley, the forgettable UN ambassador, have generated little enthusiasm. They are stalled in the doldrums of single digits despite years in the public eye. Both come with the word “sell” stamped atop their foreheads.Pence’s near martyrdom on January 6 has earned few plaudits from the Republican base – a passel of enmity is more like it. His religious devotion elicits yawns and his unalloyed social conservatism in the face of modernity hurts more than it helps.On that note, Trump packed the supreme court with three justices who helped overturn Roe v Wade. He proved his point, takes credit, but is cagey about what may follow. Pence, by contrast, announces that “ending abortion is more important than politics”.That’s a losing strategy. In reliably conservative Kansas and Kentucky, voters scotched attempts to strip abortion of constitutional protections. In poker and politics, you have to know when to say “enough”.As for Haley, a former South Carolina governor, she trails Trump and DeSantis in her home state – never a good sign. Back when he was running for president, Mike Pompeo, Trump’s second secretary of state, derided her tenure at the UN as inconsequential. Plenty of Republicans seemingly concur.If any South Carolina Republican has a chance of making it on to a national ticket, it is Tim Scott, the state’s junior senator and one of three African Americans in the upper chamber. Unlike Haley, he does not evoke mockery. He projects unstudied calm; his eyes don’t glow from ambition overload.Like most Republican wannabes, however, he opposed the deal over the debt ceiling. On Thursday night, he cast his lot with the likes of socialist Bernie Sanders and progressive Elizabeth Warren and voted against raising the ceiling.Regardless, for Scott’s poise to matter, Trump would need to badly stumble. The former guy is already under felony indictment in Manhattan and stands adjudicated of sexually abusing E Jean Carroll, none of which has dented his intra-party standing.Indeed, the pending criminal charges look like a gift. Trump’s rivals fell into line. DeSantis and Pence reflexively attacked Alvin Bragg, Manhattan’s district attorney. The base wouldn’t have it any other way.Whether Jack Smith, the special counsel, indicts Trump is the looming unanswered question. Still if past is prelude, the ever-growing Republican field stands to effectively boost Trump if and when he comes under increased legal fire.Going back to 2016, no allegation or bombshell proved powerful enough to sink him. In the end, all rallied around the flag. Beyond that, a bloated field stands to dilute opposition to Trump.Chris Christie is set to announce his candidacy next week. The former New Jersey governor brings backing from Wall Street in the person of Steve Cohen, owner of the New York Mets. By itself, that won’t be enough to win hearts and minds. According to a recent Monmouth poll, Christie is underwater among Republicans, 21% favorable to 47% unfavorable. He is the only challenger with unfavorable ratings.But that is not the end of the story. An ex-prosecutor, Christie is also a skilled debater. In his last run, he eviscerated Senator Marco Rubio even as he demolished his own campaign in the process.Whether Trump agrees to appear on the same debate stage later this summer is unclear. Between his huge lead and a shifting legal landscape, he could well balk on the advice of counsel.The Democrats should not mistake Trump’s legal woes as a glide path to their re-election. Joe Biden is singularly unpopular, questions about his physical and mental acuity abound, and inflation’s scars remain ever-present. His on-stage fall on Thursday at the Air Force Academy will raise further doubts.At the same time, Hunter Biden, his surviving son, is getting plenty of unwanted attention. Like Trump, he too could be indicted.Against this backdrop, the president possesses little room to maneuver. His margin for error is close to nil.
      Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 More

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      Donald Trump and Fox News play it safe in town hall as network faces lawsuit

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      Donald Trump and Fox News played it safe on Thursday with a town-hall event in Iowa that swerved past the former US president’s election lies and liability for sexual abuse.The uncharacteristic omissions were a striking contrast to Trump’s recent town hall on rival network CNN and likely a source of relief for both his own lawyers and those of Fox News.In April, the beleaguered network agreed to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787m to avert a trial in the company’s lawsuit over its promotion of Trump’s debunked claims about the 2020 election.The case had already embarrassed Fox News over several months and raised the possibility that its founder, Rupert Murdoch, and stars such as Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity would have to testify publicly. Fox News still faces a defamation lawsuit from another voting technology company, Smartmatic.But Thursday night’s town hall with Trump in the Des Moines suburb of Clive was pre-taped, giving Fox News the option of editing out egregious lies about the 2020 election in general, or Dominion and Smartmatic in particular, before it was broadcast.The choice might have been informed by CNN’s fateful decision last month to go live with a Trump town hall from New Hampshire. The ex-president repeated a fusillade of bogus election claims and insulted writer E Jean Carroll a day after being found liable for sexual abuse and defamation against her; Carroll now intends to go back to court to seek additional damages.Fox News’s version, hosted by Hannity before a partisan pro-Trump crowd, managed to avoid references to either the stolen election conspiracy theory or the Carroll case. Instead, via soft questions and rambling answers, it took aim at Joe Biden and Republican primary election rivals such as Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor.Hannity began: “Unlike fake news CNN, it’s not my job to sit here and debate the candidate. We are going to ask him about the issues of the day that matter to the people – the voters who will also have their questions as well.”Despite this promise, Hannity launched the event by showing film of 80-year-old Biden suffering a fall at a US Air Force Academy graduation ceremony earlier on Thursday. Republicans and Fox News have long sought to make the president’s age an election issue.After Trump had entered to whoops, cheers and chants of “USA! USA!”, Hannity asked him to comment on the incident. “Not so good,” said Trump, 76, wearing his usual dark suit, white shirt and long red tie, perched on a tall chair opposite a tieless Hannity. “It’s sad, it’s sad. They’re representing – we are all representing the country when you become president – and you’re sort of not allowed to do that.“But it’s happened. It’s happened and it’s happened pretty badly. We won’t go into it, but we all know the ones and they count those acts, you know, they never forget. But that was a bad fall.”Hannity went on to suggest that Biden is “cognitively not there”. Trump replied that he had urged Hannity not to joke about the matter, for example by referring to Biden needing a “sippy cup”. He added “This is the most dangerous time in the history of our country because of the power of the weaponry and we have somebody that doesn’t understand what’s happening.”Later Trump also went on the offensive against his Republican primary rivals, whose names elicited boos from the crowd. He dismissed DeSantis’s claim to be a better candidate because he can theoretically serve two terms. “I heard ‘DeSanctis’ say, ‘Oh, I get eight years, he gets four.’ You don’t need four and you don’t need eight. You need six months.”The former president mocked Chris Christie’s approval rating in his native New Jersey, branded Asa Hutchinson as “Ada” Hutchinson and suggested that DeSantis will soon no longer be his main challenger: “I really go after the one who second and I think the one who second is going down so much and so rapidly that I don’t think he’s going to be second that much longer. I think he’s going to be third or fourth. He had a very bad day today. He got very angry at the press.”As the audience chuckled, Trump added: “At the fake news, he got angry.”Just as in the CNN town hall, Trump stressed his role in appointing supreme court justices who helped overturn Roe v Wade, the supreme court precedent that enshrined the constitutional right to abortion, but warned against alienating voters by taking an extreme position on the issue. DeSantis recently signed a six-week abortion ban in Florida.Trump said: “I did something that nobody thought was possible. I got rid of Roe v Wade and by doing that, it put pro-lifers in a very strong negotiating position. Now they’re negotiating different things and I happen to be of the Ronald Reagan school in terms of exemptions, where you have the life of the mother, rape and incest. For me, that’s something that works very well and for probably 80, 85%, because don’t forget, we do have to win elections.”The issue had energised Democrats in last year’s midterm elections, he noted. “When you didn’t have the exceptions, they went after the people viciously – the ads – and those people generally speaking didn’t do very well in terms of election.”The former president also railed against multiple criminal investigations into his conduct (“If my poll numbers went down, it would all end”), insisting that everything he did in handling classified documents was “right” and making false assertions about the quantity of documents found in Biden’s possession. He made racist comments about Washington’s Chinatown district and claimed that he could settle the war between Russia and Ukraine “in 24 hours”.Ammar Moussa, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, said: “In what was mostly an incoherent, rambling appearance full of recycled lies on Fox News, Donald Trump told the truth at least once in his safe space – no one did more to pave the way for abortion bans across the country than him.“Whenever Trump is given a platform, he reminds America not only how much of a failure his presidency was, but just how extreme and dangerous he is. While President Biden focuses on continuing to deliver historic results for working families and protecting Americans’ hard-won freedoms, all Trump does is remind the American people why they rejected him and his failed presidency.”DeSantis, aiming to recover from a glitchy campaign launch, was touring New Hampshire on Thursday. In Laconia, he took a dig at former reality TV star Trump by remarking that “leadership is not about entertainment”. Former vice-president Mike Pence and former New Jersey governor Christie are expected to join the race next week. More

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      Trump repeats his usual lies in Fox News town hall – but the big lie is missing

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      Fox News hosted a town hall event in Iowa with Donald Trump on Thursday night, allowing the president to repeat his well-worn grievances and lies. But remarkably, the pre-taped hour-long prime-time special hosted by Sean Hannity excluded any mention of Trump’s conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen from him.The first installment of the broadcast came just two weeks after CNN broadcast a chaotic, lie-laden town hall with the former president that has been harshly criticised by journalists within and outside the network.Here are our main takeaways from the night.Fox News pre-taped the event, allowing the network to edit out lies that could provoke further lawsuits. And notably the hour-long special didn’t include a single reference to Trump’s election conspiracy theories.Fox has good reason to tread carefully. The network recently agreed to a $780m settlement with Dominion Voting Systems over its broadcasting of Trump’s election lies, and it is still facing a defamation lawsuit from another voting technology company, Smartmatic.The network plans to air more footage from the town hall Friday evening, but Thrusday’s broadcast steered Trump away from the 2020 election, instead directing him to discuss Joe Biden’s mental acuity, the border wall, and a host of other topics that reliably rile up Fox views and Trump’s base.The night stood in stark contrast to the CNN event, during which Trump repeatedly, baselessly claimed that the 2020 election was rigged against him, and that “millions” of votes were stolen from him. On that night, Trump also disparaged author E Jean Carroll, prompting her to seek “very substantial” additional damages soon after he was found liable in a civil case for sexually abusing her.On Thursday, Trump’s very strong tendency to compound his own legal troubles by repeating lies and conspiracy theories that have already landed him in trouble were tamped by Hannity’s gentle questioning and redirection – and perhaps some strategic editing.The night showed just how much Fox News and Trump still depend on each other.Fox helped launch the former president’s political career, readily backing and promoting his most extreme views. For years, Trump would call in to the rightwing news channel seemingly whenever he wanted to. But the relationship appears to have frayed over the past year. The network began to host Trump less often, while the former president disparaged hosts who proffered even mild critiques.Then the Dominion lawsuit aired out Fox executives’ and hosts’ private disdain and mockery of Trump and his allies, even as the network continued to air interviews with them.Still, with Trump still leading among Republican candidates, Fox has continued to offer him more coverage than any other major network, even as some hosts hedge their bets on his rival, Florida governor Ron DeSantis. Trump, meanwhile, needs Fox – the only network that is likely to offer him largely unchecked access to a nationwide audience of supporters. Smaller rightwing networks like Newsmax still have nowhere close to as much reach.As Michael Steele, former chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), said earlier this year: “It’s a toxic relationship” – but evidently, or necessarily, a committed one.Though Fox may have edited out any defamation, they left in several lies and exaggeration.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionTrump town halls have overwhelmed and exhausted factcheckers for years. Thursday night’s carefully stuctured and edited broadcast wasn’t an exception – Trump certainly embellished personal grievances and accomplishments.The former president repeated outlandish claims about abortions, including the allegation that doctors want to continue “killing” babies after they are born and lamented that the military wasn’t learning to fight because of “wokeness”. Some of the lies were a bit b-side – he deflected discussion of the investigation into his handling of national security materials and obstruction of justice approaches with niche allegations that Biden stored documents in Washington DC’s Chinatown.Still, the pace of Trump’s falsifications, and his tendency to run away with a conspiracy theory had largely been tamed by the event’s produces and editors.Hannity reprised his role as Trump’s promoter.The Fox News host was one of Trump’s first and strongest champions and advisers – but his relationship with the former president was tested after he testified under oath that he never believed Trump’s 2020 election falsehoods.At the town hall in Clive, Iowa, Hannity served Trump a series of softball questions, gently directing him to speak to his strengths. The event began with Hannity asking about Joe Biden’s mental and physical fitness to serve, and replaying footage of the president taking a tumble at an event earlier in the day. When Trump referred to his own stumble down a ramp, Hannity helpfully chirped: “You were coming down a ramp didn’t have a rail. You had dress shoes on like you have now, which are very slippery.”He raised the newly publicized recordings of Trump discussing classified documents, but accepted the former president’s response: “I did everything right.” More