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      West Virginia Democratic senator Joe Manchin will not seek re-election in 2024 – US politics live

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      West Virginia’s Democratic senator Joe Manchin has announced that he will not seek re-election in the Senate.In a statement released on Thursday, Manchin, who has held his Senate seat since 2010, said:
      “After months of deliberation and long conversations with my family, I believe in my heart of hearts that I have accomplished what I set out to do for West Virginia. I have made one of the toughest decisions of my life and decided that I will not be running for re-election to the United States Senate, but what I will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together.
      To the West Virginians who have put their trust in me and fought side by side to make our state better – it has been an honor of my life to serve you. Thank you.
      Every incentive in Washington is designed to make our politics extreme. The growing divide between Democrats and Republicans is paralyzing Congress and worsening our nation’s problems. The majority of Americans are just plain worn out…
      Public service has and continues to drive me every day. That is the vow that I made to my father 40 years ago, and I intend to keep that vow until my dying day.”
      In the statement announcing he would end his Senate career, Joe Manchin said “I will not be running for re-election to the United States Senate, but what I will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together.”That line stoked speculation he could launch a third-party presidential run next year, perhaps with the help of centrist group No Labels. Democrats have been fretting over that possibility for months, as a Manchin candidacy could swing voters away from Joe Biden, whose re-election campaign has been dogged by worrying poll numbers.At the Capitol, Politico says some of Manchin’s counterparts don’t believe he has presidential ambitions:There are two main Republicans vying for West Virginia’s Senate seat, which Democrat Joe Manchin just said he would not stand for again.The first is governor Jim Justice, who in 2017 left the Democratic party and joined the GOP at a rally for Donald Trump. “Senator Joe Manchin and I have not always agreed on policy and politics, but we’re both lifelong West Virginians who love this state beyond belief, and I respect and thank him for his many years of public service,” Justice said in a statement after Manchin’s announcement.The second is Alex Mooney, a fifth term House lawmaker representing the northern half of the state. He is what he had to say about Manchin’s departure:The state’s primary elections are scheduled for 14 May of next year.Minutes after Joe Manchin announced he would not run for re-election, Ohio’s Democratic senator Sherrod Brown made a veiled reference to the West Virginia senator’s decision:Brown represents Ohio, which has supported Republican candidates in the past two presidential elections, albeit by a much smaller percentage than West Virginia. With Manchin gone and almost certain to be replaced by a Republican, Brown’s victory next year is essential if the party has any chance of staying in the majority in the Senate.Following Joe Manchin’s decision not to seek re-election, the Cook Political Report has changed its rating of the race to “solid Republican”.That’s the same rating given to Senate races in other deep-red states like Nebraska, Tennessee and Wyoming:In the 2020 election, West Virginia voted more than 68% for Donald Trump, his second biggest-margin of victory after Wyoming.Joe Manchin first arrived in the Senate in 2010 after a stint as West Virginia’s governor, but the peak of his political power came in the first two years of the Biden administration.Democrats held a 50-seat majority in the Senate those two years, meaning the party had to vote unanimously on legislation that Republicans would not support. While Manchin backed most of Joe Biden’s agenda, he flexed his muscles in the negotiations over Build Back Better, an expansive plan to fight climate change and invest in a host of social programs that the president wanted approved.Manchin opposed several of its measure, including continuing the expanded child tax credit that was credited with cutting child poverty in half in 2021. Arizona’s Kyrsten Sinema, then a member of the Democratic party, also rejected tax changes to offset some of the bill’s costs. Negotiations over the legislation dragged all through 2021 and into 2022, and appeared to have stalled completely by that summer.Then, suddenly, Manchin and the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer announced they had reached an agreement on a different bill called the Inflation Reduction Act, which included some measures to fight climate change and lower prescription drug costs, but lacked some of Build Back Better’s most expansive proposals.For climate activists who blamed the West Virginia senator and coal businessman for defanging attempts to lower America’s carbon emissions, it was a surprising change in course. Here’s more from the Guardian’s Oliver Milman’s piece from last year analyzing Manchin’s role in the agreement:
      Climate advocates reacted with surprise and delight to Joe Manchin’s decision to back a sweeping bill to combat the climate crisis, with analysts predicting the legislation will bring the US close to its target of slashing planet-heating emissions.
      The West Virginia senator, who has made millions from his ownership of a coal-trading company, had seemingly thwarted Joe Biden’s hopes of passing meaningful climate legislation – only to reveal on Wednesday his support for a $369bn package to support renewable energy and electric vehicle rollout.
      The move by the centrist Democrat shocked many of Manchin’s colleagues, who despaired after more than 18 months of seemingly fruitless negotiations with the lawmaker, a crucial vote in an evenly divided Senate.
      “Holy shit,” tweeted Tina Smith, a Democrat from Minnesota. “Stunned, but in a good way.”
      Should the bill pass both chambers of Congress and be signed by Biden, it will be the biggest and arguably first piece of climate legislation ever enacted by the US. The world’s largest historical carbon polluter has repeatedly failed to act on the climate crisis due to missed opportunities, staunch Republican opposition and the machinations of the fossil fuel lobby.
      The climate spending, part of a broader bill called the Inflation Reduction Act, “has the potential to be a historic turning point” said Al Gore, the former vice-president.
      Joe Manchin’s decision not to seek re-election makes Democrats’ quest to preserve their majority in the Senate even more difficult.Manchin was one of three Democratic senators representing red states who are facing voters next year, and the party is not viewed as having a strong replacement candidate in West Virginia, a deeply Republican state.The focus now shifts to Montana’s Jon Tester and Ohio’s Sherrod Brown, both of whom have said they will stand again, but face difficult paths to victory. There is also the question of whether Kyrsten Sinema, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, will stand again in purple state Arizona, or if she will be replaced by a Democrat. The GOP may also launch offensives against incumbent Democratic senators in swing states Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and try to win the open Senate seat in Michigan.Even if Democrats fail in West Virginia but win all the other races, they could still lose their Senate majority. That best-case scenario would give the party only 50 seats, one short of a majority, and control of the chamber would come down to whether Joe Biden wins re-election, or is replaced by a Republican.Israel’s decision to allow hours-long pauses to its bombing campaign in Gaza is “heartless” and falls far short of what is necessary to protect civilian life in the territory, said Congresswoman Cori Bush, a Missouri Democrat who is the lead sponsor of a ceasefire resolution.The White House said on Thursday that Israel has agreed to four-hour daily humanitarian pauses in its bombardment of northern Gaza, part of a negotiated deal to allow aid and assistance to flow to the enclave’s increasingly desperate population of 2.3 million.“How dare we treat humans in that way,” Bush said, her voice rising with anger. “How dare we be so careless and so inhumane and heartless to decide that four hours is enough time to get you some stuff so that you can live a little bit longer until the bombs hit. How dare we? How dare we treat humans as if we don’t understand what it’s like to be human.”“That’s not the way,” Bush added. “We don’t want four hours. We don’t want 16 hours. We don’t want 22 hours. We want a ceasefire now.”The Israeli military has said it has not agreed to a ceasefire but that it will continue to allow “tactical, local pauses” to let in humanitarian aid. It comes as Biden administration officials push Israel to agree for a longer stoppage in the fighting as part of an effort to free the hostages held by the militant group.Asked about the prospect of a formal ceasefire on Thursday, Biden said that there was “no possibility” at the moment.His response angered a group of veterans gathered with Bush on Capitol Hill to call for an end to the hostilities. Drawing on their own recollections of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, they said peace and security could only be won through diplomacy.Shaking with anger, Brittany Ramos DeBarros, a combat veteran and former army captain, addressed Biden directly.“Mr President, you are the commander in chief of one of the most powerful militaries on the face of this planet in the history of the world,” she said. “How can you be so powerful and so weak as to say that you are incapable of negotiating peace?”Bush was also joined by congresswomen Summer Lee of Pennsylvania and Delia Ramirez of Illinois, who are among the 18 Democratic sponsors of the ceasefire legislation.Bush vowed to keep up the pressure on the White House to advocate for a ceasefire.“If that is his position today, there is also a this afternoon and a tonight. There is a tomorrow. There is a Saturday and a Sunday,” she said. “I expect that there will be change. There will be change because … the people that elected this president are screaming out saying we want a ceasefire now.”In response to the announcement from West Virginia’s Joe Manchin that he will not seek Senate re-election in 2024, the National Republican Senatorial Committee said:
      “We like our odds in West Virginia.”
      West Virginia’s Democratic senator Joe Manchin has announced that he will not seek re-election in the Senate.In a statement released on Thursday, Manchin, who has held his Senate seat since 2010, said:
      “After months of deliberation and long conversations with my family, I believe in my heart of hearts that I have accomplished what I set out to do for West Virginia. I have made one of the toughest decisions of my life and decided that I will not be running for re-election to the United States Senate, but what I will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together.
      To the West Virginians who have put their trust in me and fought side by side to make our state better – it has been an honor of my life to serve you. Thank you.
      Every incentive in Washington is designed to make our politics extreme. The growing divide between Democrats and Republicans is paralyzing Congress and worsening our nation’s problems. The majority of Americans are just plain worn out…
      Public service has and continues to drive me every day. That is the vow that I made to my father 40 years ago, and I intend to keep that vow until my dying day.”
      Iowa’s Republican governor Kim Reynolds said that “it feels good to get in the game” after endorsing Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis for president. The Associated Press reports:After seven months of hosting Republican presidential candidates in Iowa, Gov. Kim Reynolds said it “feels good to get in the game” with her endorsement of of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But the popular Iowa governor declined to say whether other candidates should concede and throw their support behind him as well, even as she acknowledged that a wider field could advantage former President Donald Trump. “At some point, if we don’t narrow the field, it’s going to be hard to … maybe, you know, that helps Trump,” Reynolds said in an interview with The Associated Press. “But I think that is for them to decide.”In making the endorsement earlier this week, Reynolds broke with a longstanding tradition of Iowa governors staying neutral in their party’s presidential contests, the first in the GOP nomination calendar…Still, Reynolds said DeSantis is best poised for victory in the general election, a race she doesn’t think Trump can win without attracting voters beyond his base. DeSantis “won in demographics that Republicans have never really won in Florida,” she said. More

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      Hillary Clinton likens Trump to Hitler and warns he would end democracy

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      Hillary Clinton has compared Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler as she offered a blunt warning about the dangers of a second Trump presidency.Trump back in the White House, Clinton said during an appearance on ABC’s daytime talkshow The View on Wednesday, “would be the end of our country as we know it, and I don’t say that lightly”.The former first lady, senator and secretary of state said: “When I was secretary of state, I used to talk about ‘one and done’. What I meant by that is that people would get legitimately elected and then they would try to do away with elections, and do away with opposition, and do away with a free press.”Then Clinton added: “Hitler was duly elected. All of a sudden somebody with those tendencies, dictatorial, authoritarian tendencies, would be like ‘OK we’re gonna shut this down, we’re gonna throw these people in jail.’ And they didn’t usually telegraph that. Trump is telling us what he intends to do.”Clinton’s comments came days after a Washington Post report detailing how Trump is discussing how to use the justice department to investigate political rivals and former allies who have been critical of him should he return to the White House. He is also discussing invoking the Insurrection Act on his first day in office, which would allow him to use the US military domestically to quell protests and dissent, something he was talked out of by military leaders during his one-term presidency.Trump’s team is also preparing to staff a potential administration with more radical rightwing lawyers who are less likely to stymie efforts to get in his way as he pushes the bounds of presidential power, the New York Times reported.A New York Times/Siena poll released on Sunday shows Trump leading Joe Biden in several key battleground states. Trump faces criminal charges in four different cases, set to go to trial next year. Winning the presidency is widely understood to be Trump’s best chance of escaping liability. And the poll shows that many voters who were asked would switch back to Biden if Trump is convicted.But Clinton gave a clear warning.“Trump is telling us what he intends to do,” Clinton said on The View. “Take him at his word.” More

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      The public doesn’t understand the risks of a Trump victory. That’s the media’s fault | Margaret Sullivan

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      Whatever doubts you may have about public-opinion polls, one recent example should not be dismissed.Yes, that poll – the one from Siena College and the New York Times that sent chills down many a spine. It showed Donald Trump winning the presidential election by significant margins over Joe Biden in several swing states, the places most likely to decide the presidential election next year.The poll, of course, is only one snapshot and it has been criticized, but it still tells a cautionary tale – especially when paired with the certainty that Trump, if elected, will quickly move toward making the United States an authoritarian regime.Add in Biden’s low approval ratings, despite his accomplishments, and you come to an unavoidable conclusion: the news media needs to do its job better.The press must get across to American citizens the crucial importance of this election and the dangers of a Trump win. They don’t need to surrender their journalistic independence to do so or be “in the tank” for Biden or anyone else.It’s now clearer than ever that Trump, if elected, will use the federal government to go after his political rivals and critics, even deploying the military toward that end. His allies are hatching plans to invoke the Insurrection Act on day one.The US then “would resemble a banana republic”, a University of Virginia law professor told the Washington Post when it revealed these schemes. Almost as troubling, two New York Times stories outlined Trump’s autocratic plans to put loyal lawyers in key posts and limit the independence of federal agencies.The press generally is not doing an adequate job of communicating those realities.Instead, journalists have emphasized Joe Biden’s age and Trump’s “freewheeling” style. They blame the public’s attitudes on “polarization”, as if they themselves have no role. And, of course, they make the election about the horse race – rather than what would happen a few lengths after the finish line.Here’s what must be hammered home: Trump cannot be re-elected if you want the United States to be a place where elections decide outcomes, where voting rights matter, and where politicians don’t baselessly prosecute their adversaries.When Americans do understand how politics affects their lives, they vote accordingly. We have seen that play out with respect to abortion rights in Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin and beyond. On that issue, voters clearly get that well-established rights have been ripped away, and they have reacted with force.“Women don’t want to die for Mike Johnson’s religious beliefs,” as Vanity Fair’s Molly Jong-Fast said on MSNBC, referring to the theocratic House speaker.Abortion rights is a visceral issue. It’s personal and immediate.Trump’s threats to democracy? That’s a harder story to tell. Harder than “Joe Biden is old”. Harder than: “Gosh, America is so polarized.”Journalists need to figure out a way to communicate it – clearly and memorably.It was great to see the digging that went into that Washington Post story about Trump and his allies plotting a post-election power grab. But it was all too telling to see this wording in its subhead: “Critics have called the ideas under consideration dangerous and unconstitutional.”So others think it’s fine, right? That suggests that both sides have a valid point of view on whether democracy matters.Deploying the military to crush protests is radical. So is putting your cronies and yes men in charge of justice. These moves would sound a death knell for American democracy. They are not just another illustration of Trump’s “brash” personality.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWe need a lot more stories like the ones the Post and the Times did – not just in these elite, paywalled outlets but on the nightly news, on cable TV, in local newspapers and on radio broadcasts. We need a lot less pussyfooting in the wording.Every news organization should be reporting on this with far more vigor – and repetition – than they do about Biden being 80 years old.It’s the media’s responsibility to grab American voters by the lapels, not just to nod to the topic politely from time to time.Polls can be wrong, and it’s foolish to overstate their importance, especially a year away from the election, but if more citizens truly understood the stakes, there would be no real contest between these candidates.The Guardian’s David Smith laid out the contrast: “Since Biden took office the US economy has added a record 14m jobs while his list of legislative accomplishments has earned comparisons with those of Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson … Trump, meanwhile, is facing 91 criminal indictments in Atlanta, Miami, New York and Washington DC, some of which relate to an attempt to overthrow the US government.”So what can the press do differently? Here are a few suggestions.Report more – much more – about what Trump would do, post-election. Ask voters directly whether they are comfortable with those plans, and report on that. Display these stories prominently, and then do it again soon.Use direct language, not couched in scaredy-cat false equivalence, about the dangers of a second Trump presidency.Pin down Republicans about whether they support Trump’s lies and autocratic plans, as ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos did in grilling the House majority leader Steve Scalise about whether the 2020 election was stolen. He pushed relentlessly, finally saying: “I just want an answer to the question, yes or no?” When Scalise kept sidestepping, Stephanopoulos soon cut off the interview.Those ideas are just a start. Newsroom leaders should be getting their staffs together to brainstorm how to do it. Right now.With the election less than a year away, there’s no time to waste in getting the truth across. More

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      Support for Israel and verbal sparring propel fiery third Republican debate

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      The Israel-Hamas war in Gaza and other foreign policy issues dominated Wednesday’s fiery third debate of Republican presidential hopefuls in Miami. Candidates pledged wholehearted support for Israel’s military response following last month’s Hamas attacks, and clashed over Ukraine, China and immigration.The debate, minus Donald Trump, the runaway favorite for the party’s 2024 nomination who was hosting his own private rally elsewhere in the area, was a more bitter affair than its predecessors in Wisconsin and California. Lively verbal sparring sometimes regressed into insults, with Nikki Haley at one point calling one of her rivals “scum”.The candidates also grappled over immigration, the devastatingly bad night for Republicans in Tuesday’s elections, and the party’s staunchly anti-abortion stance on abortion that analysts say was the reason.Discussion over Israel’s actions in Gaza were, however, most prominent.“I will be telling Bibi [Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu] to finish the job once and for all with these butchers Hamas. They’re terrorists. They’re massacring innocent people. They would wipe every Jew off the globe if they could,” Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, said.Haley, a former ambassador to the United Nations, was equally forthright. “The first thing I said to him when it happened was, ‘finish them’. They have to eliminate Hamas, [we have to] support Israel with whatever they need whenever they need it, and three, make sure we bring our hostages home.”DeSantis took credit for chartering flights to rescue stranded Americans in Israel, but overreached by claiming “there could have been more hostages, if we hadn’t acted”. The DeSantis flights, which some have criticized as a de facto foreign policy, took place after Hamas took about 240 hostages on 7 October.Haley and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who has been criticized for controversial racial comments, took potshots at each other. Haley’s policies, Ramaswamy said, fueled war, and in a reference to a former vice-president called her “Dick Cheney in three-inch heels”.“I wear five-inch heels, and don’t wear them unless you can run on them,” she shot straight back. “I wear heels not for a fashion statement – they’re for ammunition.”A further unpleasant exchange between the two came in a discussion about the Chinese social media platform TikTok. “In the last debate, she made fun of me for actually joining TikTok while her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time, so you might want to take care of your family first,” Ramaswamy sniped.“Leave my daughter out of your mouth,” Haley interjected. “You are just scum.”Haley performed well in the first two debates, and has enjoyed a recent surge in popularity. She had painted DeSantis as an isolationist at a time when, she said, the US needed to work with global partners, and their feud continued Wednesday with bickering over China, each accusing the other of operating policies favorable to one of America’s foes.But the pair were united in tearing strategically into the absent the former president, who they trail by a significant margin in the race for the nomination. Trump, DeSantis said, “owes it to you to be on this stage”.“He said Republicans were gonna get tired of winning. Well, we saw it last night: I’m sick of Republicans losing,” DeSantis said, referring to Tuesday’s Democratic electoral successes in Kentucky and Virginia.Haley said: “I think he was the right president at the right time. I don’t think he’s the right president now. I think that he put us a trillion dollars in debt and our kids are never gonna forgive us for that. I think the fact that he used to be right on Ukraine and foreign issues – now he’s getting weak in the knees and trying to be friendly again.”The South Carolina senator Tim Scott, who is trailing in the polls, was asked how he would assist Ukraine in its battle against Russia, but pivoted to criticizing the Biden administration’s border policies. He warned that “terrorist cells” were entering the country from Mexico.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThen he said: “The American people are frustrated that they do not have a president who reminds us and tells us where’s the accountability. Where are those dollars? How are those dollars being spent? We need those answers for us to continue to see the support for Ukraine.”Joe Biden has asked Congress for $106bn for Ukraine and Israel aid.Scott said he wanted to see the southern US border closed to immigrants, Ramaswamy said he would build a wall there and at the northern border with Canada, while DeSantis repeated his previous promise to send troops to the border and shoot drug smugglers “stone-cold dead”.Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, spoke of a need to deter China from invading Taiwan as the debate moved to other foreign policy topics. “We need to go straight to our nuclear submarine program, and we need to increase it drastically,” he said.Christie weighed in on the TikTok debate, saying the platform was “not only spyware – it is polluting the minds of American young people all throughout this country, and they’re doing it intentionally”. As president, he said, he would ban it.Regarding abortion, which was behind many of the Republican losses on Tuesday, Haley expounded a softer position than other candidates that might yet resonate with voters. “As much as I’m pro-life, I don’t judge anyone for being pro-choice, and I don’t want them to judge me for being pro-life,” she said.Trump, meanwhile, says he is so far ahead in the race for the nomination, more than 44 points, according to Real Clear Politics (RCP), as to make debate meaningless. In campaign messaging on Tuesday, he called it “a battle of losers”.While Trump’s own candidacy is mired in legal troubles that could yet derail him, his remaining rivals are not even close. Scott, Christie and Ramaswamy are all polling in the low single digits, leaving DeSantis and Haley, themselves only at 13% and 9%, per RCP, as the most viable alternatives.There will be one more Republican debate, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, on 6 December, before the 2024 primaries begin with the Iowa caucuses on 15 January.The field, already down to five in Miami after the withdrawal of former vice-president Mike Pence and non-qualification of North Dakota governor Doug Burgum, could be further reduced by then. And after Wednesday’s debate concluded, a campaign adviser said Trump would also not be present in Alabama. More

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      Anti-abortion views, name-calling and foreign policy cap wide-ranging third Republican debate – as it happened

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      It just gets worse and worse between Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy. When it came the entrepreneur’s turn to talk about his policy on TikTok, Ramaswamy referred to Haley and said, “In the last debate, she made fun of me for actually joining TikTok while her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time, so you might want to take care of your family first.”Haley shot back. “Leave my daughter out of your voice,” she said. And as Ramaswamy went on, she dismissed him, saying “you are just scum.”In Miami, NBC News hosted the most sober and restrained of the three Republican presidential debates thus far. Ron DeSantis, Tim Scott, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie feuded and found common ground over a variety of topics, including border security, abortion access and social security reforms. But there was drama nonetheless, particularly between Haley and Ramaswamy, who the former UN ambassador at one point called “scum”. Donald Trump, who has an overwhelming lead among polls for the nomination, once again skipped the get-together, and reportedly will not attend the fourth debate set for next month in Alabama.Here’s a recap of some of the biggest moments:
      DeSantis again called for gunning down drug traffickers who cross into the US over the southern border with Mexico.
      Christie accused TikTok of “polluting the minds of American young people all throughout this country”, and said he would ban it on his first day in the White House.
      Scott warned of “terrorist sleeper cells” in America, while demanding more accountability for aid to Ukraine.
      Ramaswamy called for Joe Biden to drop his re-election campaign, and accused him of not really being the president.
      Haley said Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping would love to see Ramaswamy in the White House. She did not mean it as a compliment.
      The manager of Joe Biden’s re-election campaign Julie Chavez Rodriguez released a statement lumping the five Republicans who participated in tonight’s debate with Donald Trump, saying there is no daylight between their policies:
      Normally, after you lose, you take a moment to reflect and course correct. But in Donald Trump’s MAGA Republican Party, apparently you double down on the same extreme agenda that was soundly rejected last night in elections across the country. That’s what we witnessed tonight: the entire Republican field once again embracing Donald Trump’s losing and extreme MAGA agenda of banning abortion, cutting Social Security and Medicare, and rigging the economy for the ultra-wealthy at the expense of working Americans. In fact, the only thing that the American people agree with these MAGA Republicans on is that their extreme agenda has left them reeling as ‘a party of losers.’A year from now, Americans will face a clear choice — between President Biden, who is focused on the issues impacting you, and MAGA Republicans, whose policy platform is to make things worse for you by taking away your freedoms. We’ll spend the next year making sure every American knows just that.
      Noted Republican pollster Frank Luntz complimented Nikki Haley’s stance on abortion.The GOP has been suffering at the ballot box ever since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year. Just yesterday, voters in Ohio, a state that has voted Republican in the last two presidential elections, approved a constitutional amendment to protect abortion, while in Virginia, Democrats took control of the general assembly, preventing Republican governor Glenn Youngkin’s plan to pass an abortion plan.Here’s a recap of Haley’s remarks. We’ll see if the policy does her any good in her race for the nomination, or if other Republicans follow suit:Donald Trump did not attend tonight’s debate of Republican presidential candidates, nor the two that came before it, and CBS News reports he will not participate in the fourth debate set for next month:That debate is set for 6 December in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.Tonight was the first debate without Doug Burgum, the North Dakota governor and presidential aspirant who is basically nowhere in the polls.Shortly after it wrapped up, he posted some sour grapes on X, formerly known as Twitter:Abortion bans that Republicans pushed for have become a liability for the party. As the candidates search for new ways to discuss the topic, they have been softening their tones and regurgitating anti-abortion myths.Ron DeSantis said he stands “culture of life” but noted that different states may want different things. He did not emphasize the six-week abortion ban he signed into law. Nikki Haley, who once touted her stanchly pro-life views and suggested federal action taken to limit abortions tonight said it’s unlikely that a federal ban would have support in Congress.She also brought back misinformation about “late term abortion”, which doctors emphasize is not a medical term, and does not carry medical relevance.Tim Scott also said that California and New York allow abortion “until the day of birth” which is false. Those states ban almost all abortions after fetal viability, around 24 weeks into pregnancy. Seven states and the District of Columbia have no restrictions on abortion. Nonetheless, less than 1% of abortions in the US are performed past 21 weeks.Here’s more context, from the Guardian’s Carter Sherman.As the debate concluded, Vivek Ramaswamy leveled an attack on Joe Biden, arguing he isn’t really the president and demanding he end his re-election campaign.“I also want to close with one message to the Democrat Party: End this farce that Joe Biden is going to be your nominee. We know he’s not even the president of the United States – he’s a puppet for the managerial class,” Ramaswamy said.“So have the guts to step up and be honest about who you’re actually going to put up, so we can have an honest debate. Biden should step aside and end his candidacy now, so we can see whether it’s Newsom or Michelle Obama or whoever else.”Tonight’s debate is taking place in the wake of yesterday’s election, where Republican attempts to curb abortion were turned down by voters in Ohio and Virginia. Indeed, the GOP has been on a losing streak at the ballot box on the issue ever since Roe v Wade was struck down in June 2022, and in response to a question on her abortion policy, Nikki Haley called for something of a ceasefire.“What I’ll tell you is, as much as I’m pro-life, I don’t judge anyone for being pro-choice, and I don’t want them to judge me for being pro-life. So when we’re looking at this, there are some states that are going more on the pro-life side, I welcome that. There are some states that are going more on the pro-choice side. I wish that wasn’t the case, but the people decided,” Haley said.She also noted the long odds any nationwide abortion restriction would face getting through Congress and signed by the president, and concluded by appealing for politicians to back off the issue:
      So let’s find consensus. Let’s agree on … how we can ban late-term abortions. Let’s make sure we encourage adoptions and good quality adoptions. Let’s make sure we make contraception accessible. Let’s make sure that none of these state laws put a woman in jail or give her the death penalty for getting an abortion. Let’s focus on how to save as many babies as we can, and support as many moms as we can and stop judgment. We don’t need to divide America over this issue anymore.
      Ron DeSantis said he wants to impose sanctions on Mexican cartels, a move that the Biden administration made yesterday.The Biden administration imposed sanctions on 13 members of the Sinaloa cartel, and four of the Sonora cartel, accusing them of trafficking fentanyl.The sanctions cut them off from the US banking system, and blocked their US assets.Like many Republicans, Vivek Ramaswamy said he wanted to build a wall on the southern border. But he didn’t stop there.Ramaswamy says he also wants to build a wall on the northern border with Canada, arguing it’s also a source of fentanyl trafficking. From his remarks:
      What we need to do is stop using our military to protect somebody else’s border halfway around the world, when we’re short right here at home.
      Get serious about protecting this border and then the other thing that hasn’t been discussed as the northern border, I’m the only candidate on this stage, as far as I’m aware, who has actually visited the northern border. There was enough fentanyl that was captured just on the northern border last year to kill 3 million Americans. So we got to just skate to where the puck is going, not just where the puck is. Don’t just build the wall, build both walls.
      Ron DeSantis once again proposed hardline, legally dubious methods to improve security on the US border with Mexico, including shooting drug smugglers “stone cold dead”.He had made a similar remark at a previous debate, and repeated it just now:
      I’ll build a wall, but we’re going to designate the cartels to be foreign terrorist organizations or something similar to that. And we’re going to authorize the use of deadly force. We’re going to have maritime operations to interdict precursor chemicals going into Mexico, but I’ll tell you this, if someone in the drug cartels is sneaking fentanyl across the border, when I’m president, that’s going to be the last thing they do. We’re going to shoot him stone cold dead.
      The debaters are debating again, and one thing’s for sure: the salvoes between Vivek Ramaswamy and Nikki Haley notwithstanding, this faceoff is a much more sober affair than the previous two.The candidates were asked how they would handle border security and fentanyl smuggled across the border. Tim Scott responded first, and called for deploying technology to secure the border.
      We should close our southern border. For $10 billion, we can close our southern border. For an additional $5 billion, we could use the currently available military technology to surveil our southern border to stop fentanyl from crossing our border.
      The debate is now taking another commercial break!Shortly before it did so, Ron DeSantis earned himself some chuckles by making light of his state’s place as a destination for many retirees.“Well, look, as governor of Florida, I know a few people on Social Security and I know it’s important,” DeSantis remarked.The debate has entered wonky territory, as the candidates weigh in on whether they would reform the Social Security old-age benefit.Reforming the program is considered one of the most perilous topics in Washington, so much so that it’s often referred to as the “third rail” of US politics. But Social Security is projected to be heading towards insolvency, and Chris Christie proposed raising the retirement age and cutting off high-earners from accessing it:
      The fact is on Social Security, remember why it was established. It was established as a safety net program to make sure that no one would grow old in this country in poverty. That’s what we got to get back to – rich people should not be collecting Social Security.
      Nikki Haley made a similar argument, while saying the retirement age, currently 65, should be recalibrated to “reflect more of life expectancy. It doesn’t do that now.”Most candidates seemed to agree that TikTok is bad, and they all want to ban it. Both Republicans and Democrats in the Capitol seem to agree on this as well.Montana became the first state in the US to completely ban the app in May, based on the argument that the Chinese government could gain access to user information from TikTok. But in legal proceedings challenging the ban, a federal judge expressed skepticism, saying that Montana had not provided evidence to debunk TikTok’s assertion that it does not share US user data.More than half of US states and the federal government have banned the app on official devices.Content creators have said that total bans would harm businesses and violate free speech rights.The snit between Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy is better watched than read. Thus, you can see the exchange, and hear the audience’s gasps, below:Tim Scott said that Biden had sent ‘billions to Iran’, which is misleading.Scott appears to be referring to a prisoner swap, wherein the Biden administration $6bn (£4.8bn) of Iranian oil money in exchange for the release of five American detainees. The money was not US money, but rather money owed to Iran and frozen by the Trump administration in 2018 when the US left the Iran nuclear deal.It just gets worse and worse between Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy. When it came the entrepreneur’s turn to talk about his policy on TikTok, Ramaswamy referred to Haley and said, “In the last debate, she made fun of me for actually joining TikTok while her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time, so you might want to take care of your family first.”Haley shot back. “Leave my daughter out of your voice,” she said. And as Ramaswamy went on, she dismissed him, saying “you are just scum.”The debate has resumed with the first question about TikTok, the much-maligned social media network that’s owned by a Chinese firm and beloved by many young people.“Let me say this: TikTok is not only spyware, it is polluting the minds of American young people all throughout this country, and they’re doing it intentionally,” Chris Christie said. “In my first week as president, we would ban TikTok.” More

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      Calls to ‘finish’ Hamas and ‘you’re just scum’: key Republican debate takeaways

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      The third Republican debate was held in Miami on Wednesday, with frontrunner Donald Trump once again foregoing the debate for his own rally nearby.The pool has dwindled since the last debate, and Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Tim Scott and Chris Christie seemed to be more serious and focused this time around as they answered questions on the Israel-Hamas war, immigration, abortion and the federal budget. Even so, the debate had moments where it devolved into a shouting match, with petty barbs and personal attacks.Here are the main things to know about the debate.1. The Israel-Hamas war was top of mind – and the rhetoric turned uglyThe candidates largely tried to one-up each other on their unequivocal support for Israel and its military response to the Hamas attacks on October 7, with the exception of Vivek Ramaswamy, who said the US should not be as actively involved in regional wars.“The first thing I said when it happened was, I said, finish them. Finish them,” Haley said about Hamas, touting her former position as special envoy to the United Nations under Donald Trump. DeSantis, meanwhile, focused on the flights he chartered for Floridians in Israel before overstating his aid to the Israeli government.When asked about how the impact of the war was playing out on college campuses in the US, however, DeSantis seemingly denied the existence of Islamophobia, and said he would quash some pro-Palestine student groups.The candidates did not address the estimated 10,000 Palestinian civilians killed by Israel’s strikes and its ground invasion in Gaza.2. After Republican election losses, candidates tried to regain ground, especially on abortionThe day before the debate, the Republican party saw major losses across the country, from the Virginia state legislature to Kentucky’s governorship. The candidates addressed that head on.“We’ve become a party of losers,” Ramaswamy said in his opening statements. “We got trounced last night in 2023. And I think that we have to have accountability in our party.”Many of the election losses were in states where Republicans were trying to enact stricter abortion laws after Roe v Wade was overturned last year. DeSantis, Christie and Haley tried to address that issue by backing away from rightwing anti-abortion rhetoric and focusing on states’ rights to choose.Haley, in particular, took the most measured stance, saying she did not judge those who support abortion and that a federal abortion ban was politically untenable.3. Haley and DeSantis continued to battle for second placeWhile neither Haley nor DeSantis are polling anywhere close to Trump, they stood out in the pack throughout the debate.Haley focused on her experience in the UN and on foreign policy issues, and DeSantis on his tenure as Florida governor. Both seemed to try to remain more composed than usual, with Haley only reacting to barbs from Ramaswamy.“Our world is on fire,” Haley said in her closing remarks. “We can’t win the fights of the 21st century with politicians from the 20th century.”Not far from the debate hall, Trump held a campaign rally. But fellow Florida man DeSantis avoided many direct attacks on the former president.“This is not about me, this is about you,” he said in his opening and closing remarks.4. There were personal attacks – particularly involving RamaswamyRamaswamy started his debate by attacking the media, the RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, and even the NBC moderators, seemingly as part of his attempt to portray himself as the anti-establishment candidate.He then turned his focus to Haley. “Do you want a leader from a different generation who is going to put this country first, or do you want Dick Cheney in three-inch heels?” he said, criticizing her hawkish foreign policy positions.And when it came the entrepreneur’s turn to talk about his policy on TikTok, Ramaswamy referred to Haley and said: “In the last debate, she made fun of me for actually joining TikTok while her own daughter was actually using the app for a long time. So you might want to take care of your family first.”“Leave my daughter out of your voice,” Haley shot back. When Ramaswamy went on, she dismissed him, saying: “You are just scum.”5. Candidates were more serious and focused than in past debatesThe earlier debates, with larger candidate pools, have tended to be circus-like in their atmosphere, with more riffs and off-topic detours. From the opening statements, the debate seemed to be more focused on the issues Americans are grappling with, from war in the Middle East and in Ukraine, and kitchen-table issues such as social security.The seriousness of the candidates seemed to reflect that the primary season was just around the corner, and that positioning themselves strategically around Trump would mean building more trust with American voters. More

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      Swan on a lake: Ivanka Trump’s poise at trial differs from family but playbook is the same

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      When Ivanka Trump took the stand at her father’s New York fraud trial on Wednesday, it appeared she was following the advice she gave to readers in her 2009 book The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life. “Perception is more important than reality,” Trump wrote. “It is more important than if it is in fact true.”In stark contrast to her father’s often angry performance on the stand just two days earlier, Ivanka Trump was calm and amiable. Her brothers, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, also visibly lost patience on the stand, speaking quickly and sternly when answering some questions and making sarcastic comments at others. The eldest Trump daughter maintained her poise throughout. She delivered her testimony like a swan gliding across a lake. But beneath the surface, she was furiously paddling.Despite the control shown during her testimony, Ivanka Trump was ultimately utilizing the same Trump playbook her family has used throughout this trial: deny any memory of working with the financial statements at the center of the case and emphasize the time that has passed since the deals were made.“I generally understand that there was a personal guarantee condition of the loan,” Ivanka Trump said when asked about whether she knew the financial statements at the center of the case were used to guarantee a loan used to purchase the Old Post Office building in Washington DC. “And a series of requirements that were fulfilled by the team in accordance to the terms.”Her siblings and father had given similar answers, though phrased differently.“I rely on the accounting office,” Eric Trump said about the statements. “I relied on a great legal department.”Trump himself kept on referring to his “highly paid accounting firm” that handled the statements.Like her siblings, Ivanka Trump often said she did not recall multiple emails and statements that were used as evidence, many of which attested strongly to the attorney general’s case.When obtaining financing for the Trump Doral golf course in Miami, Ivanka Trump had responded to a loan agreement with Deutsche Bank with: “It doesn’t get better than this let’s discuss asap.” Four minutes later, a lawyer for the Trump Organization responded with concerns over the agreements, specifically a covenant that Trump must maintain a net worth of $3bn, which “would be a problem”. Ivanka Trump then suggested that they negotiate the covenant to $2bn.“I don’t recall,” Ivanka Trump answered when prosecutor Louis Solomon asked her about the exchange.General Services Agency, an agency in the federal government, had documented concerns with Trump’s statement of financial conditions for not following accounting principles when the Trump Organization was trying to purchase the Old Post Office Building in Washington DC. Documentation showed Ivanka Trump attended a meeting where the purchase, including the “deficiencies” the agency saw in the Trump Organization’s proposal, would be discussed.Again, memories of these meetings had been lost to her.“We spent many years working on the response to the request for a proposal, many, many emails, many conversations. I don’t have a recollection sitting here over a decade later,” Ivanka Trump said.What she never lost were her manners. Sitting in the same seat where her red-faced father called the case a “witch-hunt”, Ivanka Trump thanked the court officers as they handed her documented evidence. She answered slowly, quietly. “I’m sorry,” Trump said when the judge asked her to sit closer to the microphone. “It’s OK,” the judge responded.Trump appeared wistful when prosecutors first brought up the 2012 Trump Organization deal to purchase the Doral golf course in Miami.“I was in the ninth month of pregnancy,” Trump recalled with a smile, saying that it was 12 years ago when her daughter was born.The moment provided an insight into how Ivanka Trump is positioning herself in her post-White House days. The high-powered daughter of a real estate tycoon who became a dutiful adviser to the president, she has distanced herself from her father recently.When she announced she would not be a part of her father’s 2024 presidential campaign, she said: ​​“I love my father very much. This time around, I am choosing to prioritize my young children and the private life we are creating as a family. I do not plan to be involved in politics.”Once a mainstay of New York’s elite socialite scene, which leans Democratic, Ivanka Trump has been shunned by her peers in recent years for her involvement in her father’s political career. But the tides could be changing. Last month, Kim Kardashian posted a picture of herself with Ivanka Trump at her birthday party in Beverly Hills, the first time in years an A-list celebrity had acknowledged friendship with Trump.But as much as her father’s political brand has been a hit to her personal brand, Ivanka Trump appeared very much to be her father’s daughter on the witness stand, especially as the day went on. In cross-examination, when Trump’s team was trying to emphasize that Deutsche Bank actively sought out a relationship with the Trump family, Ivanka Trump proudly talked about her family’s properties, using words like “iconic” and “beautiful” – all words straight out of her father’s lexicon.“It was a historically significant building, a beautiful building,” Ivanka Trump said of the Old Post Office building. The former president himself, two days earlier, similarly called his properties “beautiful”.“Witch-hunt”, “political hack”, “election interference”, “a disgrace” – she left those phrases to her father.Unlike the members of her family, who gave lengthy statements to the press once they left the courtroom, Ivanka Trump quietly left the courthouse at the end of the day, looking past the crowd of reporters who shouted her name.Ivanka Trump is the last witness for the attorney general’s office. The trial continues with the defense’s witnesses. More

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      Minnesota supreme court rejects effort to keep Trump from 2024 primary ballot

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      Minnesota’s high court dismissed a lawsuit that attempted to keep Donald Trump from being on the 2024 primary ballot, saying he had participated in an insurrection that bars him from holding the office.The Minnesota supreme court said the issue itself is ripe for review, but not in the primary election, where political parties select their nominees for the general election.“Although the secretary of State and other election officials administer the mechanics of the election, this is an internal party election to serve internal party purposes, and winning the presidential nomination primary does not place the person on the general election ballot as a candidate for president of the United States,” the court’s opinion reads.The Minnesota court heard arguments on 2 November and swiftly issued a brief order Wednesday to allow election officials to move forward with preparations.Nothing in Minnesota law prohibits a political party from putting a candidate in their presidential primary who is ineligible to hold the office, so there is no error about to occur by allowing Trump’s name to appear on the ballot here.But the court left open the possibility for the plaintiffs to file similar claims as they relate to the general election, where such rules do exist.The lawsuit, brought by voters and a left-leaning group called Free Speech for People, claimed a clause in the 14th amendment makes it illegal for Trump to hold office because he was an “officer of the United States” who “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the country.It’s one of several similar suits moving in the states to try to bar Trump from the ballot. One of the cases, though it’s not clear which one, is expected to end up before the US supreme court.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe plaintiffs will need to show how the rarely-used piece of law, stemming from the reconstruction era, applies to Trump and his actions, and that he participated in insurrection or rebellion. More