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      Trump attacks Biden immigration policies in Texas speech as both visit US-Mexico border – live

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      Donald Trump has begun delivering remarks during his visit to the US-Mexico border. He begins by commending the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, on his efforts at the border.Trump moves on to say that the US is being “overrun” by “Biden migrant crime”, which he claims is a “new form of vicious violation” to the country.He accuses Biden of being the most incompetent president the US has ever had, and of transporting “entire columns of fighting-aged men” who “look like warriors” to the US.Trump’s comments are the latest example of his campaign rhetoric that seems to be going beyond the lies and exaggerations that are a trademark of his stump speeches and instead are going into the territory of outright extremism or racism.Joe Biden is now delivering remarks in Brownsville in South Texas.Biden begins by speaking about the devastating wildfires in the Texas Panhandle that has crossed into Oklahoma. He says he stands with everyone affected by these wildfires. “When disaster strikes, there’s no red state or blue state,” he says.He then moves on to his visit to the US-Mexico border. He says he has been briefed from officials from the border patrol, immigration enforcement and asylum officers, who he says are all doing “incredible work under really tough conditions”. They desperately need more resources, he says.Trump also speaks about the death of Laken Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student who was out on her morning run at the University of Georgia when authorities say a stranger dragged her into a secluded area and killed her.A Venezuelan man, identified as Jose Antonio Ibarra, has been arrested for the death of Riley. Ibarra is an immigrant who entered the US illegally and was allowed to stay to pursue his immigration case.Trump has blamed Joe Biden and his border policies for the Augusta University student’s fatal beating.Donald Trump has begun delivering remarks during his visit to the US-Mexico border. He begins by commending the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, on his efforts at the border.Trump moves on to say that the US is being “overrun” by “Biden migrant crime”, which he claims is a “new form of vicious violation” to the country.He accuses Biden of being the most incompetent president the US has ever had, and of transporting “entire columns of fighting-aged men” who “look like warriors” to the US.Trump’s comments are the latest example of his campaign rhetoric that seems to be going beyond the lies and exaggerations that are a trademark of his stump speeches and instead are going into the territory of outright extremism or racism.Donald Trump has been meeting with officials from the national guard and the department of public safety as he tours Eagle Pass alongside Texas governor Greg Abbott.The lower house of Alabama’s legislature has passed a law to protect providers of in vitro fertilization care, the Montgomery Advertiser reports, after the state supreme court earlier this month ruled embryos used in the procedure were “children”.The court’s decisions raised the possibility that practices providing the care, which is typically used by people who struggle to have children, could face civil suits or criminal prosecution. The bill, backed by the legislature’s Republican majority, would prevent that by protecting providers from those consequences.Here’s more, from the Advertiser:
      The Alabama state House passed overwhelmingly passed legislation Thursday granting civil and criminal immunity to in vitro fertilization patients and medical professionals.
      The bill passed by a vote of 94-6.
      Filed by Terri Collins, R-Morgan County, HB237 reaffirms Attorney General Steve Marshall’s statement that the state has ‘no intention of using the recent Alabama Supreme Court decision as a basis for prosecuting IVF families or providers.’
      ‘This would at least keep the clinics open and the families moving forward,’ Collins said.
      The state Supreme Court in February ruled that frozen embryos are legally protected as children, a controversial decision that thrust the state into the national spotlight. The ruling has been condemned by both Democrats and Republicans.
      In the wake of the court’s ruling, multiple clinics that offer IVF care in the state halted all appointments indefinitely, including Alabama Fertility and the University of Alabama at Birmingham Health System.
      In Brownsville, Joe Biden is meeting with members of the border patrol on what looks to be the banks of the Rio Grande, which forms the border between Texas and Mexico:Joe Biden has arrived in Brownsville, Texas, before his meetings with federal officials and a speech about border security.According to the White House, he’s expected to meet with officers from US customs and border protection, immigration and customs enforcement and other federal agencies. He will deliver remarks at 4.30pm ET, where he will likely press Congress to act on a border security compromise that Republicans are presently blocking.Donald Trump has arrived in Texas, where he’ll be visiting the border with Mexico in the town of Eagle Pass:Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, will probably outline hard-line measures he would take to stop people from entering the country without permission, if elected. Such crossings have surged since Joe Biden took office, for a variety of reasons. Here’s more about that:The House of Representatives has just approved a measure that will push back government funding deadlines and ward off a shutdown that would have begun after Friday:It’s now up to the Senate to approve the bill, and Congress will then shift to considering full-year appropriations bills. Here’s more on that:Donald Trump’s latest ballot headache is in Illinois, where a judge ordered his name removed yesterday on 14th amendment grounds. The Guardian’s Rachel Leingang reports that he is appealing the ruling:Donald Trump has appealed a decision from an Illinois state judge who decided he should be removed from that state’s ballot because of the 14th amendment, an ongoing issue for Trump in the courts.Tracie Porter, the Cook county circuit judge, made the decision on Wednesday, reversing the previous decision by the Illinois state board of elections, which said Trump could stay on the ballot. The order was put on hold pending an appeal from Trump, which came swiftly on Thursday.The Illinois decision came after the Colorado supreme court ruled similarly, saying Trump couldn’t hold office again because he had participated in an insurrection while an officer of the United States. Another decision in Maine, by the state’s secretary of state, decided to keep Trump off the ballot there as well, though that is now on hold.The Colorado decision went before the US supreme court in February, which has yet to rule on the case, though the justices expressed a load of skepticism of the claims that Trump shouldn’t be allowed to run again.Expect Joe Biden and Donald Trump to outline very different visions for dealing with undocumented migration when they appear on Texas’s border with Mexico today, the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino reports:Joe Biden and his all-but-certain Republican challenger, Donald Trump, will make dueling visits to Texas border towns on Thursday, a rare overlap that sets the stage for an election season clash over immigration.In Brownsville, along the Rio Grande, Biden is expected to hammer Republicans for blocking a bipartisan border security deal after Trump expressed his vocal opposition to the measure. Hundreds of miles north-west, Trump will deliver remarks from a state park in Eagle Pass, which has become the epicenter of a showdown between the Biden administration and the Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott.Hours before the president and former president arrived on the 2,000-mile stretch of border, a federal judge sided with the Biden administration and blocked a new Texas law that would give police power to arrest people suspected of entering the US unlawfully.Trump, who Republicans appear poised to choose as their nominee for a third consecutive time, has once again made immigration a centerpiece of his presidential campaign by describing the United States under Biden as overrun by undocumented immigrants who “poisoning the blood of our country”, rhetoric that echoes white supremacists and Adolf Hitler. While in Texas, the former president is expected to lay out his plans for an immigration crackdown far beyond what he attempted in his first term.Joe Biden and Donald Trump are both will appear on Texas’s border with Mexico later today to discuss their approaches to handling undocumented immigrants. They are visiting border crossings in cities experiencing starkly different situations, and the president is expected to press Republicans to support a bipartisan proposal that would tighten immigration policy in exchange for approving military aid to Ukraine and Israel. Meanwhile, a federal judge in Texas blocked a law that would have allowed police to detain people who enter the state illegally, the latest skirmish in an ongoing fight between the Biden administration and Republicans who control Austin.Here’s what else is going on:
      Lloyd Austin, the defense secretary, appeared before a House committee and acknowledged mistakes in how he had handled his hospitalization.
      Biden’s campaign will reach out to backers of a protest-vote effort in Michigan’s Democratic primary aimed at signaling discontent with the president’s support for Israel.
      Brian Fitzpatrick, a centrist House Republican, will try to force the chamber’s leaders to hold a vote on Ukraine aid and border security legislation.
      A federal judge has blocked a law enacted by Texas’s Republican-dominated government that would have allowed state police to arrest people who are suspected of entering from Mexico without authorization, the Associated Press reports.Here’s more:
      The preliminary injunction granted by U.S. District Judge David Ezra pauses a law that was set to take effect March 5 and came as President Joe Biden and his likely Republican challenger in November, Donald Trump, were visiting Texas’ southern border to discuss immigration. Texas officials are expected to appeal.
      Opponents have called the Texas measure the most dramatic attempt by a state to police immigration since a 2010 Arizona law that opponents rebuked as a “Show Me Your Papers” bill. The U.S. Supreme Court partially struck down the Arizona law, but some Texas Republican leaders, who often refer to the migrant influx as an “invasion,” want that ruling to get a second look.
      Ezra cited the Constitution’s supremacy clause and U.S. Supreme Court decisions as factors that contributed to his ruling. He said the Texas law would conflict with federal immigration law, and the nation’s foreign relations and treaty obligations.
      Allowing Texas to “permanently supersede federal directives” due to a so-called invasion would “amount to nullification of federal law and authority — a notion that is antithetical to the Constitution and has been unequivocally rejected by federal courts since the Civil War,” the judge wrote.
      Citing the Supreme Court’s decision on the Arizona law, Ezra wrote that the Texas law was preempted, and he struck down state officials’ claims that large numbers of illegal border crossings constituted an “invasion.”
      The lawsuit is among several legal battles between Texas and Biden’s administration over how far the state can go to try to prevent migrants from crossing the border.
      The measure would allow state law enforcement officers to arrest people suspected of entering the country illegally. Once in custody, they could agree to a Texas judge’s order to leave the country or face a misdemeanor charge for entering the U.S. illegally. Migrants who don’t leave after being ordered to do so could be arrested again and charged with a more serious felony.
      After a write-in campaign in protest of Joe Biden’s support for Israel managed to win about 13% of the vote in Michigan’s primary on Tuesday, a top official on the president’s campaign said this morning that they’d be reaching out to the organizers.But the comments on NPR by Mitch Landrieu, the Biden re-election campaign’s co-chair, did not go over well with one of the groups involved in the effort, which did not prevent the president from winning the swing state’s Democratic primary overwhelmingly.Asked to respond to the “uncommitted” votes, here’s what Landrieu had to say:
      We’re going to continue to talk to them. We’re going to continue to listen to what it is that they have to say. When you’re the commander in chief and when, in fact, you are representing the United States’ interests, there are no issues that are easy. And this is obviously a very painful issue for them and for lots of other folks in the United States of America. We’re going to continue to talk to them and then ask them to think about the choices and what the consequences are about electing somebody who wants to have a Muslim ban, electing somebody who is going to be much, much worse than the difficult circumstances that we have right now. The president is going to reach out, we’re going to continue to listen, and he’s going to continue to work with them as we find an answer to this very difficult problem.
      Here’s what Listen to Michigan, one of the groups supporting the write-in campaign, had to say about that: More

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      Liz Cheney: supreme court delay will deny voters ‘crucial evidence’ on Trump

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      A Republican member of the January 6 committee has said the supreme court’s decision to wade into Donald Trump’s immunity case will deny Americans crucial information about the former president’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.Liz Cheney, a former Wyoming congresswoman who was ousted by primary voters angry at her participation in the hearings that followed the insurrection, also demanded the justices come to a speedy decision.In a message posted to X, formerly Twitter, Cheney, a vocal Trump critic, said voters needed to have a verdict on the presumed Republican presidential nominee before they go to the polls in November.“Delaying the January 6 trial suppresses critical evidence that Americans deserve to hear,” she wrote.“Donald Trump attempted to overturn an election and seize power. Our justice system must be able to bring him to trial before the next election. SCOTUS [supreme court of the US] should decide this case promptly.”Justices on Wednesday set the week of 22 April to hear oral arguments over Trump’s assertion that he cannot be held criminally responsible for actions he took to overturn his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden.Trump, who is facing a four-count indictment including conspiracy to defraud the US and conspiracy to obstruct the congressional certification of the election results, has declared the decision a victory, mostly because it puts the trial on hold, possibly until after the election.Some Democrats, meanwhile, are also upbeat about it. The California congressman Ted Lieu, who has previously accused Trump of committing multiple election crimes, said such a delay would work to his party’s advantage at the ballot box.“My view of the SCOTUS action: if the trial is delayed until after November, we will see the largest blue wave in history,” he wrote, also on X.“If November becomes a referendum on whether Trump faces justice, then Democrats will absolutely flip the House, keep the White House and expand the Senate.”Some legal experts are warning the supreme court’s action, along with delays already affecting several of the other legal cases Trump is facing, could have consequences for democracy.While many believe the court will ultimately confirm the rejection by a Washington DC appeals court of Trump’s claim, they say the delay could prove harmful.“This case really is most important in terms of democracy, and the most compelling with the evidence. That makes it very difficult in the sense there would be no verdict on this critical issue that cuts to the heart of democracy,” said Carl Tobias, Williams professor of law at the University of Richmond and a veteran supreme court analyst.“Maybe the supreme court just couldn’t resist, as the highest court in the land, weighing in on this very weighty question of presidential immunity, though most people who are clear-eyed about this don’t believe that there’s much of an argument for immunity in this context.“The court could have been perfectly satisfied with the DC circuit opinion, which was comprehensive and clear, and just seen no reason to take it up. But this is about delay. I don’t think anybody really disputes that. Trump’s theory over his entire life in litigation is that delay is his friend, and here it really is. It’s conceivable none of these cases goes to verdict before the election.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn a post on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday, Trump claimed that “legal scholars are extremely thankful for the supreme court’s decision”, and insisted without irony that future presidents would fear “wrongful prosecution and retaliation” after they left office if he loses.Trump himself has spoken openly of seeking “retribution and revenge” over political foes if he is returned to office, and said he would appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” Biden and his family.A former lawyer and legal analyst Lisa Rubin said she was “beyond terrified for our country” because the supreme court will delay the trial and potentially affect the election.“I honestly thought there would be enough votes on the court not to take this case, for no other reason than bad facts make bad law,” she told MSNBC News. “And the facts here could not be worse. If there was a context in which you wanted to decide the bounds of presidential immunity it’s not this case.”With oral arguments set for April, a ruling might not be handed down until May at the earliest.Alternatively, in the worst-case scenario for special counsel Jack Smith, the supreme court could wait until the end of its current term in July. That could mean the start of a trial expected to take up to three months might be delayed until no earlier than late September.Trump’s legal strategy has been to stall the various cases against him, ideally until after November’s election, in the hopes that a second term of office will allow him to pardon himself or install a loyal attorney general to drop charges.
      Hugo Lowell contributed reporting More

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      Biden and Trump to visit US-Mexico border as immigration plays key role in election

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      Joe Biden and his all-but certain Republican challenger, Donald Trump, will make dueling visits to Texas border towns on Thursday, a rare overlap that sets the stage for an election season clash over immigration.In Brownsville, along the Rio Grande, Biden is expected to hammer Republicans for blocking a bipartisan border security deal after Trump expressed his vocal opposition to the measure. Hundreds of miles north-west, Trump will deliver remarks from a state park in Eagle Pass, which has become the epicenter of a showdown between the Biden administration and the Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott.Hours before the president and former president arrived on the 2,000-mile stretch of border, a federal judge sided with the Biden administration and blocked a new Texas law that would give police power to arrest migrants suspected of entering the US unlawfully.Trump, who Republicans appear poised to choose as their nominee for a third consecutive time, has once again made immigration a centerpiece of his presidential campaign by describing the United States under Biden as overrun by undocumented immigrants who are “poisoning the blood of our country”, rhetoric that echoes white supremacists and Adolf Hitler. While in Texas, the former president is expected to lay out his plans for an immigration crackdown far beyond what he attempted in his first term.Immigration has become one of Biden’s most acute political vulnerabilities ahead of the 2024 election.Since Biden took office, a record number of migrants have crossed the southern border, driven by war, political upheaval, gang violence and climate change among other factors. Though the number of crossings dropped dramatically in January, according to border patrol data, there were record highs in December.Voters across the political spectrum have expressed growing concern over the situation at the border, and few, as little as 18% according to a survey by the Pew Research center, are pleased with the administration’s handling of it.In the survey, respondents most frequently cited “economic costs and burdens associated with the migration surge or concerns about security” as their top concerns related to migration.At the same time, a rise in immigration last year powered population growth and boosted the US economy.The White House threw its support behind a Senate effort to strike a compromise deal on the border, even endorsing an overhaul of the nation’s asylum system that immigration advocates and progressives denounced as Trump-like. But the deal fell apart amid Trump’s desire not to hand a political win to Biden on a key issue for his campaign. The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, said the bill would be dead on arrival.Biden vowed to remind voters of Trump’s interference.Republicans, led by Trump, have blamed Biden. In Congress, they have sought to punish his administration by impeaching the secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, over alleged offenses that even conservative legal scholars said were related to matters of policy, not malfeasance. The Democratic-controlled Senate has signaled its intent to quickly dispatch the charges.In January, the Texas national guard seized control of Eagle Pass’s Shelby Park, in effect blocking federal border patrol agents from the 47-acre area. As part of Abbott’s border crackdown, they erected razor wire and closed access to the park. Amid the standoff, a mother and her two young children drowned in a nearby part of the Rio Grande. Texas authorities and the border patrol blamed each other for the tragedy.The supreme court temporarily allowed border patrol agents to remove the wire fence erected by Texas authorities. More

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      Trump appeals Illinois judge’s ruling removing him from primary ballot

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      Donald Trump has appealed a decision from an Illinois state judge who decided he should be removed from that state’s ballot because of the 14th amendment, an ongoing issue for Trump in the courts.Tracie Porter, the Cook county circuit judge, made the decision on Wednesday, reversing the previous decision by the Illinois state board of elections, which said Trump could stay on the ballot. The order was put on hold pending an appeal from Trump, which came swiftly on Thursday.The Illinois decision came after the Colorado supreme court ruled similarly, saying Trump couldn’t hold office again because he had participated in an insurrection while an officer of the United States. Another decision in Maine, by the state’s secretary of state, decided to keep Trump off the ballot there as well, though that is now on hold.The Colorado decision went before the US supreme court in February, which has yet to rule on the case, though the justices expressed a load of skepticism of the claims that Trump shouldn’t be allowed to run again.The 14th amendment’s third clause, a little-used provision of the constitution that came about after the US civil war, in the Reconstruction era, intends to keep those who engaged in insurrection from holding an office again. It was used mostly against Confederates shortly after its adoption, but some legal scholars and activist groups revived it recently to argue that Trump fit its provisions because of his actions to overturn the results and incite an insurrection after he lost the 2020 election.Voters in several states, often backed by non-profits seeking to hold Trump accountable, have filed challenges to keep him off the ballot over the 14th amendment. Trump has called these efforts “election interference”. More

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      The nepo baby who made good: Rob Reiner on Trump, family – and his brilliant, beloved movies

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      Where to even start preparing for a Rob Reiner interview? You could rewatch his classic films, of course, namely that phenomenal eight-year streak that started with This Is Spinal Tap in 1984 and blazed through The Sure Thing, Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, Misery and A Few Good Men. But even that is barely scratching the surface of a career that first got going in the late 1960s. What about his years as a household name in 70s sitcoms, or his famous comic actor father, Carl, or his unique childhood, in which Mel Brooks and other entertainment luminaries would be frequent guests in the house? And what about the political activism that saw him play important roles in overturning the same-sex marriage ban in California and funnelling higher taxes on cigarettes into programmes for young children and prenatal care?And, of course, what about the stuff he’s still making, because at 76 Reiner is showing no signs of slowing down. There’s a Spinal Tap sequel in the works, not to mention the reason he’s speaking to me today: a documentary about the rise of Christian nationalism in America. God and Country is chilling but vital viewing, dissecting a movement that has infiltrated American politics and the Republican party to such a degree that Reiner believes it could soon bring about the end of democracy in the US – and potentially the world. Does he really mean that?“Yes,” he says without a pause when we connect over a video link from New Orleans. “The question at this election is: do we want to continue 249 years of self-rule and American democracy? Or do we want to turn it over to somebody like Donald Trump who has said that he wants to destroy the constitution, go after his political enemies and turn America into an autocracy? We see autocracy making its move around the world. And so if we crumble, there’s a danger that democracy crumbles around the world.”View image in fullscreenGod and Country covers how the Christian nationalist movement began to gain traction in the 1970s when it latched on to abortion as a focal issue. Back then, evangelicals were not especially partisan about the supreme court’s landmark 1973 Roe v Wade ruling, still largely believing in the separation of church and state enshrined within the US constitution. But through huge funding and smart organisation, abortion was successfully turned into a key religious issue, and the idea began to take shape that democracy itself was an obstacle to God’s plans. In the documentary we see the effects of this: churches turned into partisan political cells, preachers inciting hatred against Democrats, and even tales of pastors carrying guns to their sermons. This brewing violence reached its zenith on 6 January 2021, when supporters of Donald Trump stormed the Capitol building in Washington DC.“And the foundation for it all was Christian nationalism,” says Reiner, “because finally they had found somebody like Donald Trump who they could funnel their ideas through.”The irony of all this, of course, is that Trump is the least Christian guy you could ever expect to meet. “I think he can probably spell the word ‘bible’,” agrees Reiner. “I don’t think he’s ever read it and I don’t think he has any idea what’s in it. But they excuse all that by saying God works in mysterious ways, and that he sent us this flawed vessel by which we can achieve the goals that we want to achieve.”Reiner was a keen Biden supporter in 2020, and despite the criticism around the incumbent president’s age – he will be weeks away from turning 82 when November swings around – this support hasn’t wavered.“Look, he’s old!” says Reiner, who despite his palpable anger still delivers his rants with comedic zeal, as if the world has gone mad and he’s the last sane person standing. “But you have one guy who stumbles around, whatever. And another guy who’s a criminal, basically lies every minute of his life, has been indicted 91 times!”View image in fullscreenReiner’s hatred of Trump was shared by his father, who had a burning desire to live long enough to see him defeated in 2020. As it happened, Carl died a few months before the election, aged 98. “The man he wanted ended up winning,” says Reiner. “What I don’t think he would have ever believed is that Trump would come back again. It’s like a zombie or a cockroach.”Liberal politics was always at the forefront of the Reiner household. In the 1950s, the FBI came to their house to ask Carl if he knew any members of the Communist party. “He said: ‘I probably do, but if I did I wouldn’t tell you.’” Meanwhile, his mum, the actor and singer Estelle Reiner (who died in 2008), was an organiser of Another Mother for Peace, a group opposed to the Vietnam war. “You know how people talk about remembering where they were when Kennedy died? Well, I remember where I was when [civil rights activist] Medgar Evers died [in June 1963], because my parents were very active in the civil rights movement.”Their influence on him is clear: Reiner went on to make 1996’s Ghosts of Mississippi, a movie about the trial of Evers’s killer. Of course, these days, with his gilded roots, Reiner would have faced accusations of being a “nepo baby”, which seems a funny thing to level at a 76-year-old man, but he takes it well.“If you’re a nepo baby, doors will open,” he says. “But you have to deliver. If you don’t deliver, the door will close just as fast as it opened.”View image in fullscreenReiner says his kids are dealing with it now. “My son is 32 and my daughter’s 26. They both want careers, they’re both talented. Should I lean into it? Should I back away from it? They’re confused. I said, once they find their own path, it won’t matter. I was very conscious when I was carrying out my career that I didn’t rely on [my dad]. I didn’t ask him for money, and if you know in your heart that what you’re doing is true, you can block out all that stuff.”Reiner often speaks warmly about his relationship with his dad, but although it was always loving, it wasn’t always easy. I remark on how central characters in Reiner’s films often wrestle with such relationships – Tom Cruise’s Lt Daniel Kaffee in A Few Good Men was tormented by the powerful reputation of his father; Stand By Me’s Gordie felt ignored and misunderstood by his. He nods. “I loved my father and he loved me,” he says, “but as a kid growing up, I don’t think he understood me. I was odd to him and I don’t think he quite got me. And so that comes out in those films, particularly in Stand By Me.”When Reiner was eight, the late family friend and legendary sitcom writer Norman Lear told Carl how funny his son was, to which Carl apparently replied: “That kid? I don’t know. He’s a sullen child.” Another actor, Martin Landau, told Rob that Carl had once confided in him: “Robbie wants to be an actor, and I just don’t know if he can do it.” Carl must have meant what he said because when Rob went for the lead role in his father’s semi-autobiographical 1967 film Enter Laughing, Carl cast someone else. “He turned me down. I was 19 at that time, it was a tough road.”It was only after seeing a 19-year-old Rob direct Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialist play No Exit that Carl realised his son was on the right path. “The next day he told me in the back yard, ‘I’m not worried about you.’ So clearly, before that, he was worried!”View image in fullscreenJust like his father, it seems unlikely Reiner will stop working anytime soon. The reason he’s in New Orleans today is because he’s about to start filming the Spinal Tap sequel. Forty years on from volumes that go up to 11, none-more-black albums and that minuscule Stonehenge, the new movie intends to capture the band as they reform to play a farewell concert at New Orleans’ Lakefront Arena – that is, if they can get over the fact that they are no longer on speaking terms.Reiner was an unknown entity as a director when the original came out – audiences didn’t always spot the satire at first and wondered why he’d made a full-length movie about a terrible band with no fans – but this time will be different, with Paul McCartney, Elton John and Garth Brooks among the knowing guest stars signed up to appear. Following up a cult classic is a risky business and Reiner admits that everyone is feeling the pressure.“It’s nerve-racking,” he says. “People would always come up to us and say, come on, you should do another one. We never wanted to do it, but we came up with an idea we think works. Hopefully, it’ll be funny. Because, boy, is it a high bar.”View image in fullscreenAs with the original, the dialogue will all be improvised – but surely he’s not going to throw Sir Paul into the lion’s den of improv?“Yes I am!” he beams. “I told him, just don’t worry about it, you just talk and, whatever happens, we go on for ever. I’m not going to use the whole thing, just whatever the thing is that works.”Tap’s influence is all over pop culture these days. Reiner recalls a fundraising party in which Elon Musk drove in with his first electric car, invited him to sit inside and turned the radio’s volume switch up to its maximum level – which was 11. “That was a good thing he did,” smiles Reiner. “He’s done some other things I’m not so thrilled about.”Despite the many years he’s spent working on other projects, Reiner has no problem sharing anecdotes about the films he made decades ago. Like how the unbearable tension of Misery was even worse on the actual set. “You have Jimmy Caan, who is a very physical guy – a baseball player, he rode in the rodeo – and he had to be in bed all the time! And there was Kathy Bates playing Annie Wilkes, a stage-trained actor who wanted more and more rehearsals, while Jimmy wanted to do no rehearsals! When we filmed the scene where he unlocks the door with the hairpin and moves with his wheelchair into the hallway … well, even though we had moved just a few feet, it was like kids being let out on recess.”He’s delighted by how many people love his movies, but he says he doesn’t take the praise or criticism too seriously. At a cocktail party once, the former supreme court justice Anthony Kennedy once came up to him and said: “All courtroom dramas are terrible, awful … apart from A Few Good Men … and [1992 Joe Pesci comedy] My Cousin Vinny!’” He laughs at this. “He says that then lumps it in with My Cousin Vinny, so it doesn’t matter what other people think!”View image in fullscreenReiner can’t pinpoint any reason why his films have stood the test of time. But he especially loves the reactions he gets to The Princess Bride, his revisionist fairytale from 1987. “People come up and say: ‘I saw it when I was six, and now I show it to my kid.’ That makes me feel good.”Like Spinal Tap, that film was another slow burner, but Reiner is hoping that God and Country will make a more immediate impact. “We need to reach as many people as we can before the election,” he says. But even if he can, does he really think evangelicals are likely to engage with it?“It’s not for the hardcore,” Reiner accepts. “But we’re hoping to reach other Christians who might have been drawn into this unwittingly. That’s why we talk to some very conservative Christian thinkers in the documentary [such as the preacher and theologian Russell D Moore], very devout people, who are asking: are these really the teachings of Jesus? A lot of them see Christian nationalism as a threat to Christianity.”All Reiner wants is for those watching to think of the none-more-Christian phrase – Do unto others as you would have them do unto you – and ask themselves if they’re truly living up to it? “Because, as my father used to say: follow that, and you don’t even need the Ten Commandments. That covers everything.” More

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      Trump to appeal ruling barring him from Illinois primary ballot over January 6 role

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      An Illinois state judge on Wednesday barred Donald Trump from appearing on the Illinois Republican presidential primary ballot because of his role in the attack at the US Capitol on January 6, but she delayed her ruling from taking effect in light of an expected appeal by the former US president.The Cook county circuit judge Tracie Porter sided with Illinois voters who argued that the former president should be disqualified from the state’s March 19 primary ballot and its 5 November general election ballot for violating the anti-insurrection clause of the US constitution’s 14th amendment.Illinois joins Colorado and Maine in attempts to disqualify Trump from running for president because of his role in the 6 January insurrection, in which Trump supporters stormed the US Capitol to try to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.Trump is currently appealing those decisions to the supreme court, which is seen as likely to reject the states’ attempts to remove the former president from their ballots.The Colorado and Maine decisions are on hold while Trump appeals. Porter said she was also staying her decision because she expected Trump’s appeal to Illinois’ appellate courts, and a potential ruling from the supreme court.The advocacy group Free Speech for People, which spearheaded the Illinois disqualification effort, praised the ruling as a “historic victory”.A campaign spokesperson for Trump, the national frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination, said in a statement that this “is an unconstitutional ruling that we will quickly appeal”.In oral arguments on 8 February, the US supreme court appeared skeptical of arguments for removing Trump from Colorado’s primary ballot, and analysts suggested the court was poised to allow Trump to remain on the ballot.The court’s chief justice, John Roberts, suggested that if the supreme court allowed Colorado to take Trump off the ballot, then the “big, plain consequences” of the decision would be a scenario in which states regularly disqualified candidates from parties they opposed.“I would expect that a goodly number of states will say whoever the Democratic candidate is, you’re off the ballot, and others, for the Republican candidate, you’re off the ballot. It will come down to just a handful of states that are going to decide the presidential election. That’s a pretty daunting consequence,” Robert said.“What’s a state doing deciding who other citizens get to vote for for president?” the liberal justice Elena Kagan said.The justices focused more on the potential consequences of their decision than on whether or not Trump engaged in insurrection on 6 January and thus should be barred from holding office.Colorado and Maine earlier removed Trump from their state ballots after determining he is disqualified under section 3 of the 14th amendment to the constitution, which was created in the wake of the US civil war.Section 3 bars from public office anyone who took an oath to support the US constitution and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof”.In her opinion, Porter wrote that she had considered Colorado’s ruling in her decision, and noted that the court “did not reach its conclusions lightly” and that it “realized the magnitude of this decision”.Reuters contributed to this report More

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      in Elections

      Supreme court to hear Trump immunity claim in election interference case

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      The US supreme court agreed on Wednesday to take up the unprecedented claim that Donald Trump has absolute immunity from prosecution in the criminal case over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, throwing into jeopardy whether it goes to trial before the 2024 election.The justices set oral arguments for the week of 22 April to consider a recent ruling by a three-judge panel at the US court of appeals for the DC circuit, which categorically rejected Trump’s immunity claim in a decision earlier this month.Trump’s criminal case will remain on hold until the supreme court ultimately rules on the matter, inserting it into the politically charged position of potentially influencing whether Trump will go to trial before the presidential election in November.The unsigned order said the court intended to address at oral arguments “whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office”.In the federal 2020 election case, Trump faces a four-count indictment in Washington DC brought by the special counsel, Jack Smith, that charges him with conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct the congressional certification of the election results, and violating rights.Trump sought to have the charges dismissed last year, arguing in a 52-page filing that the conduct he was charged with fell under the so-called “outer perimeter” of his official duties, which meant he could not be prosecuted because of the broad protections afforded to the presidency.The motion to dismiss contended that all of Trump’s attempts to reverse his 2020 election defeat detailed in the indictment, from pressuring his vice-president, Mike Pence, to stop the congressional certification of Biden’s victory to organizing fake slates of electors, were in his capacity as president and therefore protected.At the heart of the Trump legal team’s filing was the extraordinary contention that not only was Trump entitled to absolute presidential immunity, but that the immunity applied regardless of Trump’s intent in engaging in the conduct described in the indictment.The arguments were rejected by the presiding US district judge Tanya Chutkan, and subsequently by the three-judge panel at the DC circuit, which wrote in an unsigned but unanimous decision that they could not endorse such an interpretation of executive power.“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.”Trump’s lawyers settled on advancing the immunity claim last October in large part because it is what is known as an interlocutory appeal – an appeal that can be litigated pre-trial – and one that crucially put the case on hold while it was resolved.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionPutting the case on hold was important because Trump’s overarching strategy has been to seek delay, ideally even beyond the election, in the hopes that winning a second presidency could enable him to pardon himself or allow him to install a loyal attorney general who would drop the charges.The involvement of the supreme court now means the case continues to remain frozen until the justices issue a ruling. And even if the court rules against Trump, the case may not be ready for trial until late into the summer or beyond.The reason that Trump will not go to trial as soon as the supreme court rules is because Trump is technically entitled to the “defense preparation time” that he had remaining when he filed his first appeal to the DC circuit on 8 December 2023, which triggered the stay.Trump has 87 days remaining from that period, calculated by finding the difference between the original 4 March trial date and 8 December. The earliest that Trump could go to trial in Washington, as a result, is by adding 87 days to the date of the supreme court’s final decision.With oral arguments set for April, a ruling might not be handed down until May. Alternatively, in the worst case scenario for the special counsel, the supreme court could wait until the end of its current term in July, which could mean the trial might be delayed until late September at the earliest. More

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      in US Politics

      If we the Black voters ‘get loud’, neither the Tories nor Donald Trump will survive | Al Sharpton

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      Donald Trump’s racist mentality has long been an open secret. In the 1970s, a federal lawsuit was brought against him for alleged racial discrimination on one of his housing developments in New York. He led the campaign calling for the death penalty against the Central Park Five, who were accused of a brutal rape but later vindicated. Even after that exoneration, he continued to suggest they were guilty.So are Black Americans flocking to support Trump? Reports are mixed. Trump himself would tell you he has a unique affinity with the Black community, but personally, I don’t buy it. Polling in 2020 estimated Trump would take 20% of the black vote. The real number was closer to 8%.After all, let’s remember what he says about us. Just this weekend, he said that Black Americans identified with him because he had faced criminal charges and we embraced his criminal mugshot. That was outright racist and insulting. For him to say that during Black History Month in the US is the epitome of an insult.And the irony is that he is the one being prosecuted – and by Black professionals at that. The New York state attorney general, Letitia James, brought the financially ruinous civil financial fraud case against Trump. Fani Willis, Fulton county district attorney, was responsible for challenging Trump’s alleged election interference in Georgia.I spend a lot of time speaking with Black voters. I host a US radio show six days a week – and from what I hear, I’m not alone in thinking that claims that he has growing support among our community are grossly exaggerated. But I do think it is fair to say that Black citizens are asking questions of the Democrats.Joe Biden has simply not done a good enough job on messaging. He needs to be more aggressive in speaking to Black voters – laying out his record, such as the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act (which Trump opposed) and his support for the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (which almost every Republican voted down). Biden should not assume people know what they haven’t been reminded of.US liberals must understand that if you take the high road and are not making noise about it, no one knows that you’re taking any road. They have to be more vocal, they have to challenge more, and not run away from the issue of race.That goes for the left in the UK, too. Arriving yesterday, I was disgusted to hear racist, Islamophobic language being used by members of the Conservative party. The Tories seem to be alarmingly Trump-like in their language. And that should be a mobilising cry to millions of Black British voters to register to vote.It shocks me that the wider British public doesn’t seem to understand the gravity of the threat to Black voting in the UK. The UK’s new photo ID legislation disproportionately disadvantages Black and minority voters. We know – similar legislation was used against us in the US. But Black people mobilised against it, and in 2021 helped to elect Raphael Warnock as Georgia’s first Black US senator. It shows the importance of fighting back.That’s why I came here: to tell leaders to use our playbook to challenge laws that suppress the Black vote – and to impress on Black communities the importance of turning out. It is imperative to democracy that we awaken the black vote in the UK and bring it alive. And we must do it simultaneously in the US.Biden has an opportunity to expose Trump’s lies and get disenfranchised communities back on side. To do that, he must be candid: he must openly call out Trump’s blatant racism for what it is. He must tell Black voters how Trump stacked the courts in a way that is detrimental to them, and that he will aggressively fight that. The Democrats still have time to recapture those whom they think they are losing. If they do that, Trump will have no recourse. He can’t undo things he has already said and done.You have to turn people on before you can turn them out. And if you turn them on to what is being done to us – what has already been said about us – you can turn people out. Liberal movements in the US and the UK have been blindly hoping that people will turn out on their own. But leaders must understand they won’t mobilise without a reason. It’s not enough to be proud in silence – we need to get loud again.
      The Rev Al Sharpton is a civil rights leader, activist and founder and president of National Action Network (Nan). As told to Lucy Pasha-Robinson.

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