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      in Elections

      US supreme court to hear arguments on keeping Trump off 2024 ballot

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      The US supreme court will hear oral argument on Thursday in one of the most high-stakes cases in American politics this century, thrusting a beleaguered court to the center of the 2024 election.The court is considering whether Donald Trump is eligible to run for president. The novel legal question at the heart of the case, Donald J Trump v Norma Anderson et al, is whether the 14th amendment to the constitution prohibits Trump from holding office because of his conduct on 6 January 2021. Section 3 of the amendment says that any member of Congress or officer of the United States who takes an oath to protect the constitution and then subsequently engages in insurrection cannot hold office. That ban, the amendment says, can only be overridden by a two-thirds vote of each house of Congress.There is no precedent for the case. The 14th amendment, enacted after the civil war, has never been used to challenge the eligibility of a presidential candidate, but the idea began picking up steam after two conservative legal scholars published a 126-page law review article last summer arguing the amendment clearly disqualified Trump.A group of Colorado voters sued under the law last year, relying on the theory to try to disqualify Trump from the ballot. After a five-day trial, a Colorado district court judge said Trump had committed insurrection, but was not disqualified because he was not an officer of the United States. The Colorado supreme court reversed that ruling in December, removing Trump from the ballot in a 4-3 decision. While lawsuits have been filed in dozens of other states seeking to remove Trump from the ballot, only Colorado and Maine have done so thus far.The justices accepted a request from Trump to hear the case and expedited its review because of Colorado’s fast approaching 5 March primary. The compressed schedule and likely quick turnaround of the case means that oral argument – currently set for 80 minutes on Thursday – could offer an unusual level of insight into how the justices are weighing the arguments.“I feel more at sea than I usually do,” said Richard Hasen, an election law professor at the University of California Los Angeles, who co-authored an amicus brief urging the court to rule definitively on the case now. “There are a million ways the court can go. The court has given no signal, at all, as to which of those directions it wants to go in. And so, more than usual, I’m going to be very closely listening to the oral arguments to see which arguments are resonating with which justices.”The case also arrives at a perilous moment for the court itself. Public confidence in the court has been declining, exacerbated by a series of ethics scandals and controversial decisions that came down along ideological lines. The court is essentially now seen as a political body and as a result, the betting money seems to be that they will find a way to keep him on the ballot. Trump appointed three of the six justices in the supermajority on the body.“I don’t think it wants to be involved in these disputes. I think, on a bipartisan basis, there’s an interest on staying as far away from these issues as possible,” said Derek Muller, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, who wrote an amicus brief in the case that wasn’t in support of either party.Trump’s lawyers offer five reasons to the court for why he should not be disqualified from the ballot. First, they argue that the word “officer” in the 14th amendment does not apply to the presidency. His lawyers also argue that his conduct on 6 January did not amount to insurrection and that the 14th amendment cannot be enforced absent implementing legislation from Congress. Last, they say, the Colorado supreme court cannot invent its own criteria for running for president nor can it interfere with the method the legislature has chosen for selecting presidential electors.The idea that the president isn’t an officer is nonsensical, lawyers for the six Colorado voters – four Republicans and two independents – who filed the case wrote in their own brief. “Section 3 does not give a free pass to insurrectionist former Presidents. The Constitution says the Presidency is a federal ‘office’. The natural meaning of ‘officer of the United States’ is anyone who holds a federal ‘office’,” they write.Trump’s arguments to the court essentially amount to the idea that “somehow there’s a Donald Trump specific loophole”, said Donald Sherman, a lawyer with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which represents the Colorado voters.“Donald Trump’s arguments are not about January 6. They’re not about the fundamental goal of Reconstruction, the Reconstruction amendments, or the 14th amendment. Or section 3. They’re basically about creating an exception that allows Donald Trump to wriggle out of accountability.”They also point out that Trump’s conduct on 6 January would have clearly been understood to amount to insurrection by the framers of the 14th amendment. “The original public meaning of “engag[ing] in” insurrection extends to those who organize and incite it,” they wrote.The brief also notes that the federal constitution gives states the power to only allow candidates who are qualified to appear on the ballot – no federal legislation is necessary to enforce that.“The more I spend time on this case, the harder it seems for Trump,” Muller said. “I don’t think the court is interested in one-offs. The notion that the Colorado supreme court got Colorado law wrong is not gonna interest the court.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe challengers in the case have been bolstered by amicus briefs from historians who argue that the public would have understood the 14th amendment to apply to the president and to cover the kind of conduct Trump engaged in. Those kinds of arguments could hold sway with the court’s conservative justices who are professed adherents of originalism – understanding the constitution through its original public meaning.Hasen predicted the court would try to resolve the case without addressing of whether Trump engaged in insurrection – the most politically charged issue in the case.“I was thinking what are ways the court can side with Trump without weighing in on the merits of whether he committed insurrection,” he said. “One of them is Congress has to pass a statute [to enforce the disqualification provision]. If I had to lay down money on how Trump would win if he wins, I guess I’d put a few dollars down on that, but I’m not betting the farm.”A ruling upholding the Colorado supreme court’s decision would not mean that Trump would be automatically kicked off the ballot in every US state. Instead, each state would probably have to have its own legal proceedings to determine whether or not he should appear. Some states have already rejected such efforts ahead of the primary, setting up a potentially confusing and chaotic legal sprint to the general election.“I think people think if they say he’s ineligible it’s gonna end it, but it’s not,” Muller said. “It would be a state-by-state basis in the primary. He could still win the primary so there’s this whole separate layer of what the RNC would do at a convention if its candidate would be kept off the ballot in some states.”At the core of the case are two competing ideas of democracy. Trump and his attorneys argue that any effort to kick him off the ballot would be anti-democratic since it would prevent voters from choosing their preferred candidate for the presidency.“The court should put a swift and decisive end to these ballot-disqualification efforts, which threaten to disenfranchise tens of millions of Americans and which promise to unleash chaos and bedlam if other state courts and state officials follow Colorado’s lead and exclude the likely Republican presidential nominee from their ballots,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.The challengers and their supporters argue that protecting democracy requires banning those who attempt to subvert democracy from holding higher office. “Our democracy is not a chaotic free-for-all in which anyone can be elected. The voters are entitled to decide within the framework of the applicable rules,” the good government group Common Cause wrote in an amicus brief supporting the challengers.“If Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment (“Section 3”) is not enforced in this case, there is a genuine risk that our system of government will not survive,” they wrote. More

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      in US Politics

      Biden blames Trump for imminent death of immigration bill – as it happened

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      In his speech at the White House, Joe Biden accused Republicans of caving to Donald Trump’s wishes and opposing a bill to tighten immigration policy that the party had demanded.“All indications are this bill won’t even move forward to the Senate floor,” the president said.“Why? A simple reason: Donald Trump.”He continued:
      Because Donald Trump thinks it’s bad for him politically, therefore … even if it helps the country, he’s not for it. He’d rather weaponize this issue than actually solve it. So for the last 24 hours, he’s done nothing, I’m told, than reach out to Republicans in the House and the Senate and threaten them and try to intimidate them to vote against this proposal. It looks like they’re caving. Frankly, they owe it to the American people to show some spine and do what they know to be right.
      Donald Trump’s strategy to get out of the charges brought against him for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election suffered a blow when a federal appeals court turned down his argument that he is immune from prosecution because he was acting in his capacity as president. Trump’s campaign vowed to appeal the three-judge panel’s unanimous decision. Meanwhile, the bipartisan bill to approve military aid to Israel and Ukraine and also impose hardline immigration policies is on the verge of death. Republicans in the House and Senate are assailing the legislation, even though the party demanded it as their price to approve the military aid. In a speech at the White House, Joe Biden accused the GOP of “caving” to Trump, and vowed to campaign on the bill’s failure.Here’s what else happened:
      Republicans senators are reportedly interested in approving aid to Israel and Ukraine without changing immigration policy. Democrats tried to do that months ago, but were blocked by the GOP.
      House Republicans may not have enough support to impeach the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas. A vote on the charges is expected later this afternoon.
      Trump’s allies in Congress are not pleased by the appeals court’s ruling against him.
      The judges who rejected Trump’s immunity claim said the former president was arguing to make it impossible to hold presidents to account.
      Will Trump and Biden debate? It’s not looking likely right now.
      The House has kicked off debate over impeaching homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, beginning with a procedural vote that succeeded:However, it remains unclear if the GOP has enough support to succeed in formally leveling charges against Mayorkas for his handling of the surge in migrants crossing the southern border during Joe Biden’s presidency. Two Republicans say they won’t vote for the articles, while others are reportedly on the fence, saying impeaching a cabinet secretary, which is already an exceedingly rare step, for policy issues rather than breaking the law is inappropriate.Speaker Mike Johnson has vowed that the chamber will vote on the articles later today. If they pass, they’ll go to the Senate, whose Democratic leaders are certain to reject them.With the immigration deal all but dead, the question becomes: can Congress pass aid to Ukraine and Israel?We may find out the answer to the latter question sometime this afternoon, when the House takes a vote on a standalone bill to fund Israel’s counterattack against Hamas. The legislation will need a two-thirds majority to pass, and seems unlikely to achieve that – Democrats are furious at the GOP for killing the immigration policy compromise, and their leader Hakeem Jeffries, whip Katherine Clark and caucus chair Pete Aguilar earlier today announced they’d vote against the Israel aid bill. Here’s what they said:
      We are prepared to support any serious, bipartisan effort in connection with the special relationship between the United States and Israel, our closest ally in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the standalone legislation introduced by House Republicans over the weekend, at the eleventh hour without notice or consultation, is not being offered in good faith. Rather, it is a nakedly obvious and cynical attempt by MAGA extremists to undermine the possibility of a comprehensive, bipartisan funding package that addresses America’s national security challenges in the Middle East, Ukraine, the Indo-Pacific region and throughout the world.
      And even if it were to pass, the White House says Joe Biden would veto it.As for Ukraine, funds for its defense against Russia face an even steeper hill to climb. Goaded on by Donald Trump, an increasing number of Republican lawmakers, particularly in the House, oppose assistance to Kyiv. However, Bloomberg News reports some Republicans senators are open to the idea – which is what Democrats called for months ago:
      Hawkish Republicans on Tuesday began discussing moving ahead on a Ukraine aid package without the border restrictions. Pairing the two had once been considered a way to sweeten the deal for House conservatives but has since proven divisive.
      Texas Republican John Cornyn, who has pushed for new border restrictions but opposes the latest deal, said he’d support moving forward with funding for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan and that such a bill would pass the Senate.
      South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a prominent Republican hawk, said he would vote for an aid package without US border provisions.
      “If we fail on the border, we put our country at risk. There is no use letting the world fall apart,” he said.
      The Senate’s top Republican Mitch McConnell told reporters this afternoon that he believes the immigration policy bill will fail to advance in tomorrow’s vote:McConnell had endorsed the legislation after its release this evening, but acknowledged his lawmakers won’t get behind it.Will Donald Trump, should he win the Republican presidential nomination, debate Joe Biden? The Guardian’s Jessica Glenza reports that the chances are not looking great:Joe Biden has dismissed calls from his White House predecessor Donald Trump to “immediately” schedule a presidential debate.Trump skipped every debate this primary season. He continues to refuse to debate his former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, a long-shot contender for the GOP’s nomination.“Well, if I were him, I’d want to debate me, too,” Biden told reporters when asked about Trump’s challenge while the president was at a small Las Vegas boba tea shop during a campaign stop. With a bubble tea in hand, Biden added: “He’s got nothing else to do.”Although the primary season is not yet over, both Biden and Trump are considered their parties’ presumptive nominees and have a clear desire to turn their attention to the general election.Biden, who is technically also still in the primary season, has also refused to debate several distant rivals for the Democratic nomination.Trump made his debate challenge on The Dan Bongino Show, NBC reported. Bongino is a conservative talkshow host who for years has boosted Trump as well as Republican conspiracy theories – all widely discredited – that the 2020 election was “rigged”.Also happening today is Nevada’s presidential primary, though its outcome is not expected to be a surprise, and its significance is not particularly big, as the Guardian’s Maanvi Singh reports:The first presidential primary election contest in the western US is underway in Nevada.Although Nevada has backed Democrats in every presidential election since 2008, it recently elected a Republican governor and remains a key swing state where slight changes in turnout could flip outcomes.After Joe Biden secured a victory in South Carolina’s Democratic primary over the weekend, he’s looking to build on his momentum in Nevada. More than 151,000 voters submitted early ballots, ahead of election day on Tuesday.Both Democrats and Republicans are holding presidential primaries on Tuesday, but the Republican competition will hold little meaning. The state’s GOP, which is led by a recently indicted fake Trump elector, will be allocating its delegates based on a separate caucus it is holding on Thursday, in which Donald Trump is the only major contender. Nikki Haley, who is running in the Republican primary but not in the caucus, is expected to grab a symbolic victory in the primaries, which her party is begrudgingly holding to comply with a state mandate.The two-track nomination scheme has been widely criticised as a confusing and cynical scheme to benefit the former president.Donald Trump’s strategy to get out of the charges brought against him for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election was dealt a blow when a federal appeals court turned down his argument that he is immune from prosecution because he was acting in his capacity as president. Trump’s campaign vowed to appeal the three-judge panel’s unanimous decision. Meanwhile, the bipartisan bill to approve military aid to Israel and Ukraine and also impose hardline immigration policies is on the verge of death. Republicans in the House and Senate are assailing the legislation, even though the party demanded it as their price to approve the military aid. In a speech at the White House, Joe Biden accused the GOP of “caving” to Trump, and vowed to campaign on the bill’s failure.Here’s what else is going on:
      House Republicans may not have the votes to impeach the homeland security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas. A vote on the charges is expected later this afternoon.
      Trump’s allies in Congress are not pleased by the appeals court’s ruling against him.
      The judges who rejected Trump’s immunity claim said the former president was essentially arguing to make it impossible to hold presidents to account.
      Joe Biden closed his speech by again making his point that Republicans are undermining border security simply to benefit Donald Trump.“I understand the former president is desperately trying to stop this bill, because he’s not interested in solving the border problem. He wants a political issue to run against me on. They’ve all but said that, across the board, no one really denies that, that I’m aware of,” Biden said.He then vowed to turn the immigration bill’s fate into a campaign issue:
      I’m calling on Congress to pass this bill, get it to my desk immediately. But if the bill fails, I want to be absolutely clear about something: the American people are going to know why it fails.
      I’ll be taking this issue to the country. And the voters are going to know that it’s just at the moment we’re going to secure the border and fund these other programs, Trump and the Maga Republicans said no. Because they’re afraid of Donald Trump. Afraid of Donald Trump.
      Every day between now and November, the American people are going to know that the only reason the border is not secure is Donald Trump and his Maga Republican friends. It’s time for Republicans in the Congress to show a little courage, to show a little spine, to make it clear to the American people that you work for them, not for anyone else.
      Republicans demanded passage of immigration policy reforms in exchange for their votes to fund Ukraine’s military. But now the GOP is rejecting the immigration bill and there’s no apparent path for another round of funding for Kyiv, even amid reports that its military is rationing ammunition it needs to defend against Russia’s invasion.“If we don’t stop Putin’s appetite for power and control in Ukraine, he won’t limit himself to just Ukraine, and the costs for America and our allies and partners will rise,” Joe Biden warned in his speech.“For those Republicans in Congress who think they can oppose funding for Ukraine and not be held accountable: history is watching. History is watching. A failure to support Ukraine at this critical moment will never be forgotten.”After going through the immigration bill’s provisions, Joe Biden noted that he still wants to pursue historic Democratic priorities such as resolving the status of undocumented migrants already living in the United States, and people brought to the country as children.“Now, it doesn’t address everything that I want. For example, we still need a path of documentation for those who are already here. And we’re not walking away from true immigration reform, including permanent protections and a pathway to citizenship for young Dreamers who came here when they were children and who have been good citizens that contribute so much to our country,” the president said. “But the reforms of this bill are essential for making our border more orderly, more humane and more secure.”Most of the immigration bill’s provisions are hardline reforms demanded by Republicans, which have attracted opposition from immigrant rights groups. Nonetheless, the GOP has largely rejected the legislation.In his speech at the White House, Joe Biden accused Republicans of caving to Donald Trump’s wishes and opposing a bill to tighten immigration policy that the party had demanded.“All indications are this bill won’t even move forward to the Senate floor,” the president said.“Why? A simple reason: Donald Trump.”He continued:
      Because Donald Trump thinks it’s bad for him politically, therefore … even if it helps the country, he’s not for it. He’d rather weaponize this issue than actually solve it. So for the last 24 hours, he’s done nothing, I’m told, than reach out to Republicans in the House and the Senate and threaten them and try to intimidate them to vote against this proposal. It looks like they’re caving. Frankly, they owe it to the American people to show some spine and do what they know to be right.
      Joe Biden is expected to at any moment speak from the White House about the Senate’s bipartisan proposal to approve military aid to Ukraine and Israel while also enacting hardline immigration policies Republicans have demanded.All signs point to the president giving the bill its eulogy. The GOP is in open revolt against the legislation, and CNN reports that John Thune, the second-highest-ranking Republican in the Senate, expects it to be voted down on Wednesday:In an interview with MSNBC, Chris Murphy, the Democratic senator who was his party’s lead negotiator on the bill, seemed resigned to the bill’s imminent death:Elise Stefanik, the House Republican Conference chair who is widely viewed as a contender to be Donald Trump’s running mate, echoed his campaign’s talking points as she condemned the failure of his immunity claim.“The precedent set today by the DC Circuit’s decision means that future presidents who leave office will likely face politicized prosecutions by the opposing party,” Stefanik said in a statement.“The President of the United States must have immunity, like Members of Congress and federal judges, which is necessary for any presidency to function properly. I fully support President Trump’s efforts to appeal this unconstitutional ruling to the Supreme Court, where I expect a thoughtful decision to overturn this dangerous precedent.”Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump’s allies in Congress are attacking the unanimous appeals court decision denying him immunity from the federal charges brought against him for trying to overturn the 2020 election.Here’s Jim Jordan, the House judiciary committee chair and one of Trump’s best-known defenders:Without commenting on the decision, House speaker Mike Johnson condemned the prosecution as “lawfare”:As we await Joe Biden’s speech on the immigration and foreign aid bill, here’s the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell with a rundown of what we know about the appeals court’s decision in the foreign aid case, and how it may affect the start of his trial on election subversion charges:A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected Donald Trump’s claim that he is immune from criminal prosecution on charges that he plotted to overturn the 2020 election results because it involved actions he took while president, declining to endorse such an expansive interpretation of executive power.The decision by a three-judge panel at the US court of appeals for the DC circuit took particular issue with Trump’s position that he could only be prosecuted if he had been convicted in a Senate impeachment trial first.“We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a president has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power,” the unsigned but unanimous opinion from the three-judge panel said.“At bottom, former President Trump’s stance would collapse our system of separated powers by placing the President beyond the reach of all three branches,” the opinion said. “We cannot accept that the office of the Presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter.”The defeat for Trump technically returns the case and jurisdiction to the trial court. But the adverse ruling paves the way for Trump to seek further appeals that could delay for weeks or months the start of the 4 March trial date set by US district judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington. More

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      Nevada primary: Biden focuses on Black and Latino voters as GOP scheme helps Trump

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      The first presidential primary election contest in the western US is underway in Nevada.Although Nevada has backed Democrats in every presidential election since 2008, it recently elected a Republican governor and remains a key swing state where slight changes in turnout could flip outcomes.After Joe Biden secured a victory in South Carolina’s Democratic primary over the weekend, he is looking to build on his momentum in Nevada. More than 154,000 voters submitted early ballots, ahead of election day on Tuesday, 59,000 Republicans and 95,000 Democrats.Both Democrats and Republicans are holding presidential primaries on Tuesday, but the Republican competition will hold little meaning. The state’s GOP, which is led by a recently indicted fake Trump elector, will be allocating its delegates based on a separate caucus it is holding on Thursday, in which Donald Trump is the only major contender. Nikki Haley, who is running in the Republican primary but not in the caucus, is expected to grab a symbolic victory in the primaries, which her party is begrudgingly holding to comply with a state mandate.The two-track nomination scheme has been widely criticised as a confusing and cynical scheme to benefit the former president.The confusing calendar as well as the seeming inevitability of Joe Biden and Trump as the eventual nominees, has resulted in an eerily quiet election morning. It does not help that an atmospheric river storm is passing through, drenching what is typically the nation’s driest state.“It’s raining here and we’re not used to that here in Las Vegas,” said D Taylor, the president of the Unite Here union, at a press conference on Tuesday morning.While he is certain to win it, the Democratic primary will still be a test for Biden, who has been working to shore up the support of Black and Latino voters in this key swing state. In the last two elections, Nevada’s Latino voters, who make up about 20% of the electorate, played a decisive role and helped Democrats win with thin margins. This year, despite the support of the state’s powerful Culinary Workers Union, which represents tens of thousands of hospitality and casino workers in Las Vegas and beyond, the US president will have to drum up enthusiasm among working class voters of color.During a campaign rally on Sunday, Biden warned of the threat that Trump poses to democratic norms, as he and his rival barrel toward an increasingly likely rematch in November. There was no mention of the administration’s support for Israel amid its bombardment of Gaza, which has angered and disheartened many young progressives ahead of the primaries.But Biden acknowledged that voters might be weary.“I know, we know, we have a lot more to do,” he said. “Not everyone is feeling the benefits of our investments and progress yet. But inflation is now lower in America than in any other major economy in the world.” Despite high unemployment rates, voters have been feeling the pinch of rising costs, and the majority of Latino voters in the state named economic concerns as a top issue.Biden met with Culinary Union members Monday. “I came to say thank you. Not just to say thank you for the support that you’ve given me last time out, but to thank you for having the faith in the union,” he told them.But amid protracted negotiations with Las Vegas’ resorts and casinos, and the Super Bowl coming up this weekend, organizers have been focused on campaigns for fair wages and benefits for workers ahead of the biggest sports event of the year.“There will be plenty of time to talk about politics,” said Taylor – noting that the unions’ first priority now is making sure these workers at the Allegiant Stadium, which will host the Super Bowl this weekend, have the right to organize and can earn fair wages.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“At the end of the month, you know, you just work to just pay the bills, then go back to zero in the bank and start again, and again and again,” said Luis Medina, a 21-year-old who will be voting for the first time this year. Medina, who works as a floor installer in Las Vegas and organises with the progressive group Make the Road Action Nevada, said he’s still unsure who he’ll back for president.“I am worried about the economy and inflation. But, you know, I think some of that’s the aftermath of what Trump left,” he said. But he’s unsure if Biden has done much better.Biden could be bolstered by encouraging economic numbers in January, when average hourly earnings rose 0.6% and unemployment remained low.Turnout in the primaries is expected to be low, especially given that the races are not competitive. Local advocacy groups – both partisan and nonpartisan – are planning to ramp up canvassing efforts later in the spring and summer. A pro-Biden Super Pac recently has also reserved a record $250m in advertising across seven battleground states, including Nevada, with an eye on mobilising disaffected younger voters, Latino and Black voters.Leo Murrieta, the director of Make the Road Action in Nevada, said he was skeptical of polls and analysis indicating that Republicans had made gains among Latino voters. “The narrative that brown voters are defecting to the Republican side, that’s not true,” he said. “They’re not defecting – they are just going home. Our job is to go to their homes and pull them out to vote.”Linda Hunt, a server at El Cortez hotel and casino in Las Vegas, said on Tuesday that she isn’t too worried about a lack of voter enthusiasm in the state. “It may not be in the media, but I think people are on fire,” she said.Hunt, who has been a member of the Culinary Union for 45 years, voted early in the Democratic primary for Biden. “He’s the most pro-union president I’ve ever seen,” she said. “He’s for the workers.”She’s worried about the cost of housing and healthcare. But she doesn’t blame Biden’s economy. “This isn’t about the economy – it’s about corporate greed,” she said. As long as the president is able to tell voters how he plans to address rising costs and hold corporations accountable, she said, working class Nevadans will turn out for him. “I know Biden’s going to do it!” she said. “I don’t even worry about Trump. I’m maintaining my peace.” More

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      in US Politics

      Joe Biden blames Trump for expected blocking of immigration bill – video

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      President Joe Biden accused Republicans of giving in to Trump’s ‘threats’ and opposing a bill to tighten immigration policy, which the party had demanded. The $118bn package would pair federal enforcement policy on the US-Mexico border with wartime aid for Ukraine, Israel and others, overhauling the asylum system with tougher enforcement and giving presidents new powers to expel migrants if border authorities deem themselves overwhelmed by the number of people requesting asylum. In his speech at the White House, Biden said the bill would help the country, but because it would not aid Trump’s bid for presidency, it wold not make it to the Senate floor to be debated More

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      in Elections

      Trump is not immune from prosecution in 2020 election interference case, court rules

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      A federal appeals court panel has decided to reject Donald Trump’s arguments that he cannot be criminally prosecuted for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results because it involved actions he took while president.While hearing oral arguments in Washington DC on 9 January, the three-judge panel at the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia circuit had expressed skepticism with Trump’s claim to immunity, while the former US president looked on in the court room. On Tuesday they rejected the claim.Last year, Trump filed a motion to dismiss the federal indictment brought by the special counsel Jack Smith, which charged the former president over his efforts to reverse the 2020 election, including by advancing fake slates of electors and obstructing Congress on 6 January 2021.The motion was rejected by the trial judge, prompting Trump to appeal to the DC circuit. The special counsel sought to bypass the potentially lengthy appeals process by asking the US supreme court to intervene directly, but the nation’s highest court returned the case to the appeals court.The ruling has been issued by the panel, which includes one judge appointed under George HW Bush’s presidency and two chosen by Joe Biden.The very legal process itself is acting as a hindrance to the prosecution in the federal criminal case and playing into Trump’s hands.Observers before the decision came down viewed a long-shot ruling in Trump’s favor as an obvious, significant blow to Smith – while a ruling that Trump is not immune would mean him appealing to the full DC circuit and then potentially the US supreme court, causing huge delay in the case amid the primaries and thrusting the conservative-leaning highest court into the middle of the presidential election.The appeal the panel just ruled on arose after the DC federal judge Tanya Chutkan in early December rejected Trump’s claim, based on his sweeping and unprecedented interpretation of executive power, that she should dismiss the case. She ruled that he enjoyed no immunity from prosecution simply because when the actions in question took place when he was still president.A grand jury indicted Trump last August, accusing him of conspiracy to defraud the US, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights, in the case brought by the Department of Justice-appointed Smith.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe charges relate to Trump’s wide-ranging efforts after losing the 2020 election to Biden to overturn the results, campaigning in vain in court, in the media and by pressuring election officials in swing states, culminating in his encouragement of supporters on 6 January 2021, to stop the certification by Congress of Biden’s victory, which led to the deadly invasion of the US Capitol.Trump faces 91 charges in four separate criminal cases, two federal, one in New York and one in Georgia. More

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      in Elections

      Far-right group Project Veritas admits it had ‘no evidence’ of voter fraud in Pennsylvania

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      The far-right political agitator James O’Keefe and the Project Veritas organization he once led have admitted that they had “no evidence” backing up widely spread claims of voter fraud at a Pennsylvania post office during the 2020 presidential election won by Joe Biden.O’Keefe and Project Veritas made that admission Monday after settling a lawsuit filed against them by Robert Weisenbach, the postmaster of Erie, Pennsylvania, in state court, concluding one of the more prominent legal battles spurred by Republican lies that Donald Trump was defrauded out of another term in the White House.“Neither Mr Weisenbach nor any other [postal] employee in Erie, Pennsylvania, engaged in election fraud or any other wrongdoing related to mail-in ballots,” O’Keefe said in a statement published Monday on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. “I am aware of no evidence or other allegation that election fraud occurred in the Erie post office during the 2020 presidential election.”Claims by an Erie mail carrier and Trump supporter named Richard Hopkins thrust his local post office into the center of rightwing conspiracy theories seeking to delegitimize Biden’s victory in the 2020 election. Hopkins maintained in a signed affidavit that he had overheard Weisenbach discuss illicitly backdating mail-in ballots, which overwhelmingly favored Biden after Trump urged his supporters to vote in person instead despite vaccines meant to limit the spread of Covid-19 still not being widely available at the time.But Hopkins recanted his sworn allegations after Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator who was then leader of the chamber’s judiciary committee, cited them to support his calls for a federal investigation into ballot tampering.Hopkins sought to cast doubt on his retraction soon after, saying in a YouTube video: “I did not recant my statements.” But Monday, Hopkins confirmed he was wrong to have besmirched Weisenbach.“I only heard a fragment of the conversation [involving] Weisenbach and reached the conclusion that the conversation was related to nefarious behavior,” Hopkins said in a statement released along with O’Keefe’s. “As I have now learned, I was wrong. Mr Weisenbach was not involved in any inappropriate behavior concerning the 2020 presidential election.”Hopkins’s statement alluded to the results of a US post office inspector general’s investigation which cleared Weisenbach and his colleagues of wrongdoing. The statement also apologized to Weisenbach, his family and his post office employees, along with anyone who was “negatively” affected by Hopkins’s falsehoods. “I implore everyone … to leave the Weisenbach family alone and allow them to return to their normal, peaceful lives,” Hopkins’s statement added.Neither Project Veritas nor Weisenbach’s attorney, David Houck, could immediately be reached for comment. But Houck confirmed to NBC News that Monday’s statements from O’Keefe and Hopkins came after they had agreed to settle Weisenbach’s lawsuit.Houck did not elaborate on any other terms of the settlement.“The only comment I’m allowed to make about it is that the case was filed, litigated, and settled to the satisfaction of the parties,” Houck said to NBC.O’Keefe’s and Hopkins’s statements Monday inspired heaps of schadenfreude in some quarters. A comment on X from Bill Grueskin, who spent six years as academic dean of the prestigious Columbia Journalism school, summarized the general reaction.“Sorry to take down a couple of your heroes, but it appears that James O’Keefe and Project Veritas got something wrong,” Grueskin wrote while sharing screencaptures of Monday’s mea culpas.Despite Trump supporters’ claims to the contrary, election integrity experts consider the 2020 race to be the most secure ever. In a rare instance of an improperly reported voting result from the 2020 election, a Virginia county confirmed in January that Trump had been awarded 2,237 ballots more than he should have, and Biden was short changed nearly 1,650.O’Keefe and Project Veritas earned notoriety for video stings – often involving hidden cameras – which targeted progressives. One of his more prominent stings took down the community activism group Acorn, whom O’Keefe duped by posing as a pimp aspiring to establish a brothel.Another aimed at US senator Mary Landrieu during her final term in office saw O’Keefe and three associates plead guilty in 2010 to entering federal property under false pretenses. O’Keefe was sentenced to three years of probation and a fine of $1,500.O’Keefe resigned from Project Veritas in February 2023 after the group’s governing board found that he had “spent an excessive amount of donor funds in the [previous] three years on personal luxuries” and filed a civil complaint against him.In September, Project Veritas suspended its operations and laid off most of its employees. Then, Hannah Giles resigned as chief executive of Project Veritas in December, alleging that “illegality” and “financial improprieties” in the past had left the nonprofit “an unsalvageable mess”. More

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      ‘In a word, horrific’: Trump’s extreme anti-environment blueprint

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      The United States’s first major climate legislation dismantled, a crackdown on government scientists, a frenzy of oil and gas drilling, the Paris climate deal not only dead but buried.A blueprint is emerging for a second Donald Trump term that is even more extreme for the environment than his first, according to interviews with multiple Trump allies and advisers.In contrast to a sometimes chaotic first White House term, they outlined a far more methodical second presidency: driving forward fossil fuel production, sidelining mainstream climate scientists and overturning rules that curb planet-heating emissions.“Trump will undo everything [Joe] Biden has done, he will move more quickly and go further than he did before,” said Myron Ebell, who headed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) transition team for Trump’s first term. “He will act much more expeditiously to impose his agenda.”The prized target for Trump’s Republican allies, should the former president defeat Joe Biden in November’s election, will be the Inflation Reduction Act, the landmark $370bn bill laden with support for clean energy projects and electric vehicles. Ebell said the legislation, signed by Biden in 2022 with no Republican votes, was “the biggest defeat we’ve suffered”.Carla Sands, a key environment adviser to the pro-Trump America First Policy Institute who has criticized Biden’s “apocalyptic green fantasies”, said: “Our nation needs a level regulatory playing field for all forms of energy to compete. Achieving this level playing field will require the repeal of the energy and environment provisions within the Inflation Reduction Act.”View image in fullscreenThe GOP-controlled House of Representatives has already pushed bills to gut the act. But fully repealing the IRA, which has disproportionally brought popular funding and jobs in solar, wind and battery manufacturing to Republican districts, may be politically difficult for Trump even if his party gains full control of Congress.However, Trump could still slow down the progress of the clean energy transition as president by redrawing the rules for the IRA’s generous tax credits.He would, his allies say, also scrap government considerations of the damage caused by carbon emissions; compel a diminished EPA to squash pollution rules for cars, trucks and power plants; and symbolically nullify the Paris climate agreement by not only withdrawing the US again but sending it to the Senate for ratification as a treaty, knowing it would fail.“The Paris climate accord does nothing to actually improve the environment here in the United States or globally,” said Mandy Gunasekara, Trump’s former EPA chief of staff. She argued that the agreement puts too little pressure on China, India and other developing countries to reduce their emissions.In recent rallies, Trump, the likely Republican nominee, has called renewable energy “a scam business” and vowed to “drill, baby, drill”. On his first day in office, Trump has said he would repeal “crooked Joe Biden’s insane electric vehicle mandate” and approve a glut of new gas export terminals currently paused by Biden.View image in fullscreenAreas currently off-limits for drilling, such the Arctic, will also probably be opened up to industry by Trump. “I will end his war on American energy,” Trump has said of the incumbent president, even though in reality the US hit record levels of oil and gas production last year.“I expect the Republicans will put together their own very aggressive reconciliation bill to claw back the subsidies in the IRA,” said Tom Pyle, president of the free market American Energy Alliance and previous head of the US Department of Energy’s transition team under Trump.“The president will benefit from having the experience of being in office before, he’ll get a faster head start on his agenda. He won’t be encumbered by the need to be re-elected, so there will be a short window of time but he may be more aggressive as a result.”‘There is no logic to it’Critics of Trump, who are already fretting over his potential return to the White House, warn this agenda will stymie clean energy investment, place Americans’ health at the mercy of polluters, badly damage the effort to address the climate crisis and alienate America’s allies.“A return of Trump would be, in a word, horrific,” said Andrew Rosenberg, a former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration official, now fellow at the University of New Hampshire.“It would also be incredibly stupid. It would roll back progress made over decades to protect public health and safety, there is no logic to it other than to destroy everything. People who support him may not realize it’s their lives at stake, too.”View image in fullscreenA second Trump term would be more ideologically extreme than the first, with fewer restraints, Rosenberg claimed. “There were people part of a reasonable mainstream in his first term who buffered against his craziest instincts – they won’t be there any more,” he said.Should Trump manage to repeal the IRA and water down or scrap EPA pollution rules, there would be severe consequences for a world that is struggling to contain an escalating climate crisis, experts say.The US, the world’s second biggest carbon polluter, would still see its emissions drop under Trump due to previous policies and a market-led shift away from coal to gas as an energy source, but at only half the rate of a second Biden term, according to an analysis by Energy Innovation shared with the Guardian.This would deal a mortal blow to the global effort to restrain dangerous global heating, with scientists warning that the world needs to cut greenhouse gas emissions by nearly half this decade, and eliminate them entirely by 2050, to avoid breaching agreed temperature limits and plunge billions of people into worsening heatwaves, floods and droughts.“I don’t think Donald Trump would actually be able to replace the IRA, but you couldn’t rule it out,” said Anand Gopal, executive director at Energy Innovation.“If he did, the global effect would be potentially disastrous. It would encourage everyone else to go backwards or slow down their climate pledges and put the world way off track to where it needs to be. It could prove the difference between staying under 1.5C warming or not.”Much will hinge upon any new Trump administration’s ability to better navigate arcane regulatory procedures and the courts. His previous term saw an enormous number of legal defeats for his hurried attempts at environmental rollbacks, as well as the departure of scandal-plagued cabinet members overseeing this effort.“You can’t just snap your fingers,” said Jeff Navin, a former chief of staff at the US Department of Energy. “You need to spend a lot of time redoing regulations. Is that something Trump really wants to do rather than just pursue other grievances? I don’t think so.”View image in fullscreenBut some conservatives believe Trump will prove more successful second time around, pointing to an amenably conservative supreme court and more detailed planning ahead of the election, such as the Project 2025 document put out by the rightwing Heritage Foundation, which details severe cuts to the EPA and Department of the Interior, as well as a greater politicization of the civil service to push through Trumpian goals.“We are writing a battle plan, and we are marshaling our forces,” Paul Dans, director of Project 2025, told E&E News last year. “Never before has the whole conservative movement banded together to systematically prepare to take power day one and deconstruct the administrative state.”Jeff Holmstead, who ran the EPA’s air office during George W Bush’s administration, said Trump’s administration would be “much more prepared” for a second term.“They know what they need to do to undo rules in a in a legally defensible way,” he said. A new Trump administration would take a more “surgical approach” to deregulation, he said, taking more of its cues from industry.Under Biden, Gunasekara said, there has been an “unnecessary tension” between the oil sector and regulators.“You have to work with the industry players,” she said. “Agencies should not be about suppressing or boosting particular technologies.”Early on, Trump officials will probably work with Congress to kill certain rules through a parliamentary procedure called the Congressional Review Act. The Clinton-era statute empowers Congress and the president to work together to overturn major federal regulations within 60 legislative days of finalization, by passing a joint resolution of disapproval signed by the president.“Generally in the past, anything that is finalized after mid- to late May is likely to be within that window,” said Holmstead. “So speed is of the essence for the Biden administration.”A fresh Trump term could engulf federal climate scientists, too, who were ignored but largely allowed to issue their work during Trump’s last term. A new Trump White House could intervene more to alter climate reports, or even stage a previously mooted public debate on the merits of climate science.View image in fullscreen“I expect that idea will be revived and I think we would get a much wider view of climate science that wouldn’t be controlled by a small cabal,” said Ebell. “That will start very quickly.”Trump’s plans come as Biden has struggled to inspire younger, climate-conscious voters who have been angered by his ongoing leasing of public lands and waters to the fossil fuel industry, such as the controversial Willow oil project in Alaska.Biden has overseen a boom in liquified natural gas exports that he has belatedly attempted to restrain and his administration has floundered in its attempts to sell the IRA to the American public, with most voters unaware of the climate legislation or its significance in driving down emissions.Still, the president’s position on climate change is incomparable to Trump’s, according to Rosenberg. “The contrast is incredibly stark between Biden and Trump,” he said. “Do I think Biden is the best of the best? Of course not. But compared to Trump? That’s just scary.“Anyone who cares about public health, the environment, science, international relations, you could go on, should be scared about another Trump presidency.” More

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      Biden would veto standalone Israel aid bill backed by GOP, says White House

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      Joe Biden’s administration said on Monday he would veto a standalone bill backed by House of Representatives Republicans that would provide aid to Israel, as it backs a broader bill providing assistance to Ukraine and Israel and providing new funds for border security.“The Administration strongly encourages both chambers of the Congress to reject this political ploy and instead quickly send the bipartisan Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act to the President’s desk,” the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement.Officials from the Democratic president’s administration have been working for months with Senate Democrats and Republicans on a $118bn legislation package revealed on Sunday combining billions of dollars in emergency aid for Ukraine, Israel and partners in the Indo-Pacific region, with an overhaul of US immigration policy.The bill includes $60bn in aid to Ukraine, $14.1bn for Israel in its war in Gaza, and about $20bn for new enforcement efforts along the US-Mexico border.Republican House leaders said days before its release on Sunday night that they would reject the bipartisan Senate bill, and instead vote on a bill providing aid only to Israel.The bill represented a rightward tilt in Senate negotiations over border measures, yet the backlash was intense from conservatives. They savaged the border policy proposal as insufficient, with Donald Trump leading the charge.“This is a gift to the Democrats. And this sort of is a shifting of the worst border in history onto the shoulders of Republicans,” the former president and likely Republican presidential nominee said Monday on The Dan Bongino Show. “That’s really what they want. They want this for the presidential election so they can now blame the Republicans for the worst border in history.”Many Senate Republicans – even those who have expressed support for Ukraine aid and the contours of the border policy changes – raised doubts Monday they would support the package. A private Republican meeting was scheduled in the evening to discuss it.Still, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer moved toward a key test vote on Wednesday.“The actions here in the next few days are an inflection point in history,” the New York Democrat said in a floor speech Monday afternoon. “The security of our nation and of the world hangs in the balance.”Schumer worked closely with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on the border security package after the Kentucky Republican had insisted on the pairing as a way to win support for Ukraine aid. The Democratic leader urged his colleagues across the aisle to “tune out the political noise” and vote yes.“For years, years our Republican colleagues have demanded we fix the border. And all along they said it should be done through legislation. Only recently did they change that when it looks like we might actually produce legislation,” he said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBoth Schumer and McConnell have emphasized for months the urgency of approving tens of billions of dollars for Ukraine’s fight, saying that the US’s ability to buttress democracies around the world was at stake. Yet with the funding stuck in Congress, the defense department has halted shipments of ammunition and missiles to Kyiv.The Republican-majority House passed an Israel-only bill in November, but it was never taken up in the Democratic-led Senate, as members worked on Biden’s request for Congress to approve the broader emergency security package.The statement from House speaker Mike Johnson and representatives Steve Scalise, Tom Emmer and Elise Stefanik pointed to a provision in the bill that would grant work authorizations to people who qualify to enter the asylum system. They also argued that it would endorse a “catch and release” policy by placing people who enter the asylum system in a monitoring program while they await the final decision on their asylum claim.Under the proposal, people who seek asylum, which provides protection for people facing persecution in their home countries, would face a tougher and faster process to having their claim evaluated. The standard in initial interviews would be raised, and many would receive those interviews within days of arriving at the border.Final decisions on their asylum claims would happen within months, rather than the often years-long wait that happens now.But the House Republican leaders said: “Any consideration of this Senate bill in its current form is a waste of time.”Associated Press contributed to this report More