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      DoJ reportedly preparing court fight to get Trump insiders to testify – live

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      Prosecutors at the justice department are gearing up for a courtroom battle to force the testimony of Donald Trump’s former White House officials, as they pursue their criminal inquiry into his insurrection, a report published Friday by CNN says.The former president is expected to try to invoke executive privilege to prevent his closest associates telling what they know about his conduct and actions following his 2020 election defeat, and efforts to prevent Joe Biden taking office, according to the network.But the department, which has taken a much more aggressive stance in recent weeks, is readying for that fight, CNN says, “the clearest sign yet” that the inquiry has become more narrowly focused on Trump’s conversations and interactions.This week attorney general Merrick Garland promised “justice without fear or favor” for anyone caught up in insurrection efforts and would not rule out charging Trump criminally if that’s where the evidence led.He told NBC’s Lester Holt:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We intend to hold everyone, anyone who was criminally responsible for events surrounding January 6, or any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another, accountable.
      That’s what we do. We don’t pay any attention to other issues with respect to that.CNN’s story suggests that prosecutors are acutely aware that Trumpworld insiders who are initially reluctant to testify will be more inclined to do so with a judge’s order compelling it.The network also says Trump’s attempt to maintain secrecy came up over recent federal grand jury testimony of two of former vice-president Mike Pence’s aides, Marc Short and Greg Jacob.Questioning reportedly skirted around issues likely to be covered by executive privilege, with prosecutors having an expectation they could return to those subjects at a later date, CNN’s sources said.The development is set to add more legal pressure on Trump following the announcement of an evidence-sharing “partnership” between the justice department and the parallel House January 6 inquiry, in which transcripts of testimony from at least 20 witnesses are passing to Garland’s investigation.An impassioned plea from a 12-year-old girl has gone viral after she spoke to West Virginia Republican lawmakers during a public hearing for an abortion bill that would prohibit the procedure in nearly all cases.On Wednesday, Addison Gardner of Buffalo middle school in Kenova, West Virginia, was among several people who spoke out against a bill that would not only ban abortions in most cases but also allow for physicians who perform abortions to be prosecuted.Addressing the West Virginia house of delegates, Gardner, among about 90 other speakers, was given 45 seconds to plead her case.“My education is very important to me and I plan on doing great things in life. If a man decides that I’m an object and does unspeakable and tragic things to me, am I, a child, supposed to carry and birth another child?” Gardner said.Read more here:‘What about my life?’ West Virginia girl, 12, speaks out against anti-abortion bill Read moreText messages of two of Donald Trump’s chief homeland security officials, Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, are missing for “a key period” surrounding the former president’s January 6 insurrection, the Washington Post reported Friday.It follows news that secret service texts from about the same time had been mysteriously erased, hampering the House panel’s inquiry into the deadly Capitol riot and Trump’s illegitimate efforts to remain in office.The previously unreported discovery of missing records for the most senior homeland security officials increases the volume of potential evidence that has vanished regarding the time around the Capitol attack, the Post says.🚨🔎🚨BREAKING POGO INVESTIGATION: yet another story of missing text messages at #DHS. This time, text messages to and from three top Trump-era officials at the dept. from early January 2021 are missing. Read the investigation now: https://t.co/AkWxoUu65Z— Project On Government Oversight (@POGOwatchdog) July 29, 2022
      The homeland security department told the agency’s inspector general in February that texts of Wolf and Cuccinelli were lost in a “reset” of their government phones when they left their jobs in January 2021 in preparation for the new Biden administration, the newspaper adds.The Post says its source is an internal record obtained by the Project on Government Oversight, whose own report on the disappearance of the messages can be found here.Messages of a third senior department official, the undersecretary of management Randolph “Tex” Alles, a former Secret Service director, are also no longer available because of the reset, according to the Post.In his forthcoming memoir, the former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort describes his travels through the US prison system after being convicted on tax charges – including a stay in a Manhattan facility alongside the financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and the Mexican drug baron Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.Manafort also writes that during one transfer between facilities, at a private airfield “somewhere in Ohio”, the sight of “prisoners … being herded in long lines and then separated into other buses and on to … transport planes … reminded me of movies about the Holocaust”.Political Prisoner: Persecuted, Prosecuted, but Not Silenced, will be published in the US next month. The Guardian obtained a copy.Manafort’s book is not all quite so startling. But he does make the surprise admission that in 2020, he indirectly advised Trump’s campaign while in home confinement as part of a seven-year sentence – advice he kept secret as he hoped for a presidential pardon.“I didn’t want anything to get in the way of the president’s re-election or, importantly, a potential pardon,” Manafort writes.He got the pardon.Here’s more:Paul Manafort admits indirectly advising Trump in 2020 but keeping it secret in wait for pardon Read moreProsecutors at the justice department are gearing up for a courtroom battle to force the testimony of Donald Trump’s former White House officials, as they pursue their criminal inquiry into his insurrection, a report published Friday by CNN says.The former president is expected to try to invoke executive privilege to prevent his closest associates telling what they know about his conduct and actions following his 2020 election defeat, and efforts to prevent Joe Biden taking office, according to the network.But the department, which has taken a much more aggressive stance in recent weeks, is readying for that fight, CNN says, “the clearest sign yet” that the inquiry has become more narrowly focused on Trump’s conversations and interactions.This week attorney general Merrick Garland promised “justice without fear or favor” for anyone caught up in insurrection efforts and would not rule out charging Trump criminally if that’s where the evidence led.He told NBC’s Lester Holt:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We intend to hold everyone, anyone who was criminally responsible for events surrounding January 6, or any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another, accountable.
      That’s what we do. We don’t pay any attention to other issues with respect to that.CNN’s story suggests that prosecutors are acutely aware that Trumpworld insiders who are initially reluctant to testify will be more inclined to do so with a judge’s order compelling it.The network also says Trump’s attempt to maintain secrecy came up over recent federal grand jury testimony of two of former vice-president Mike Pence’s aides, Marc Short and Greg Jacob.Questioning reportedly skirted around issues likely to be covered by executive privilege, with prosecutors having an expectation they could return to those subjects at a later date, CNN’s sources said.The development is set to add more legal pressure on Trump following the announcement of an evidence-sharing “partnership” between the justice department and the parallel House January 6 inquiry, in which transcripts of testimony from at least 20 witnesses are passing to Garland’s investigation.Good morning blog readers, we’ve made it to the end of an extraordinary week in US politics, but we’re not through quite yet. There’s news today of more legal peril for Donald Trump over his efforts to illegitimately reverse his 2020 election defeat.Justice department prosecutors, according to CNN, are preparing a court fight to force Trump insiders to testify over the former president’s conversations and actions around January 6. They expect Trump to try to invoke executive privilege to prevent his former White House officials telling what they know.We’ll have more on that coming up, and will also be looking at the following:
      Washington is still abuzz with Senator Joe Manchin’s stunning reversal, leading to the surprise announcement of the Inflation Reduction Act and the chance for Joe Biden to achieve some of his signature climate policy goals.
      Text messages around the time of the January 6 Capitol riot “vanished” from the the phones of Trump’s senior homeland security officials Chad Wolf and Ken Cuccinelli, the Washington Post reports.
      The Biden administration reportedly has a new plan for Covid-19 boosters, scrapping advice for a summer shot and concentrating instead on pushing next-generation vaccines in the fall.
      It could be a busy day in the House with possible votes on gun controls and police funding, before members head off for a six-week break. But the speaker, Nancy Pelosi, could call them back next week for a vote on the Inflation Reduction Act.
      The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, has her daily briefing scheduled for 1.30pm. Joe Biden has no public events listed. More

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      Gun executives tell Congress: don’t blame us for deadly shootings

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      Gun executives tell Congress: don’t blame us for deadly shootingsCEOs face aggressive questioning from lawmakers at hearing about their companies’ responsibility for recent attacks Executives from large American gun companies appeared before a House committee on Wednesday, facing aggressive questioning from lawmakers about their organizations’ responsibility for recent devastating mass shootings in the US.The hearing marked the first time in nearly two decades that the CEOs of leading gun manufacturers testified before Congress and comes after a wave of deadly attacks including at a Fourth of July parade in Illinois, a school in Texas and the racist massacre of Black shoppers at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.The witnesses included Christopher Killoy, president and CEO of Sturm, Ruger & Company, and Marty Daniel, CEO of Daniel Defense. Mark Smith, president and CEO of Smith & Wesson Brands, had been invited to appear but refused to do so.“Mr Smith promised he would testify, but then he went back on his word, perhaps because he did not want to take responsibility for the death and destruction his company has caused,” said Carolyn Maloney, chairwoman of the House oversight committee.02:03Maloney announced that she would soon subpoena documents from Smith & Wesson’s CEO and other top executives to discover more about the gun industry’s business practices. According to a committee investigation, Smith & Wesson brought in more than $125m last year from the sale of assault weapons, which have been used in many mass shootings. In total, five gun manufacturers collected more than $1bn from the sale of assault rifles over the last decade, the investigation found.“The time for dodging accountability is over,” Maloney said.At the start of the hearing, the committee played a video of testimonials from families who had been affected by recent mass shootings, including the massacre at Robb elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and the white supremacist attack at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.Tracey Maciulewicz, who lost her fiance Andre Mackniel in the Buffalo shooting, tearfully pleaded with the gun companies to enact change in the face of so many families’ devastation.“What are you going to do to make sure that your products don’t get into the hands of a white supremacist mass shooter ever again, who will take a child’s father away?” Maciulewicz asked in the video.Rather than outlining corporate changes to prevent future tragedies like Buffalo, the gun company executives deflected responsibility for mass shootings, instead blaming individual bad actors and policy failures to prevent violent crime.“These acts are committed by murderers,” said Daniel, whose company sold the assault weapon used in the Uvalde shooting. “The murderers are responsible.”Killoy, the CEO of the largest manufacturer of rifles in the US, similarly argued it was wrong to blame the “inanimate object” of a firearm for deaths caused by gun violence.“We firmly believe that it is wrong to deprive citizens of their constitutional right to purchase a lawful firearm they desire because of the criminal acts of wicked people,” Killoy said. “A firearm, any firearm, can be used for good or for evil. The difference is in the intent of the individual possessing it, which we respectfully submit, should be the focus of any investigation into the root causes of criminal violence involving firearms.”Republicans on the committee echoed the executives’ argument, accusing Democrats of demonizing gun manufacturers while promoting “soft on crime” policies.“It’s absolutely disgusting to me and unthinkable, the height of irresponsibility and lack of accountability,” said Jody Hice, a Republican of Georgia. “My colleagues seem to forget that the American people have a right to own guns.”At one point, two committee members got into a heated exchange, as the Republican Clay Higgins accused Democrats of leaving average Americans more vulnerable to gun violence by pushing restrictions to firearm access.Higgins argued that law-abiding Americans would be more likely to get injured in a shooting if they were not armed as well, saying, “My colleagues in the Democratic party, when those gun fights happen, that blood will be on your hands.”The Democrat Gerry Connolly fiercely rejected that charge, telling Higgins, “We will not be threatened with violence and bloodshed because we want reasonable gun control.”The committee hearing came as House Democrats attempt to pass additional gun-control legislation, including a ban on assault weapons. A House committee advanced the assault weapons ban last week, but it remains unclear whether the full chamber will approve the proposal.Several House Democrats have indicated they do not support the ban, and the speaker, Nancy Pelosi, can afford to lose only four votes if every Republican opposes the bill. The House Democratic caucus chair, Hakeem Jeffries, expressed confidence that the ban would ultimately pass, although it does not appear the bill will come up for a vote this week.“I expect that, if the assault weapons ban hits the floor, that it will pass, and I personally and strongly support it,” Jeffries said Wednesday.Joe Biden has already signed one gun-control bill last month, in the wake of the tragedies in Uvalde and Buffalo. But many Democrats argued that the compromise bill, which expanded background checks for the youngest firearm buyers and provided more funding for mental health resources, did not go far enough to address gun violence.In addition to the assault weapons ban, House Democrats are considering a bill to strip gun manufacturers of civil liability protections. At the Wednesday hearing, Maloney indicated she would soon introduce more bills to regulate firearm manufacturers, saying lawmakers have a responsibility to the many families who have lost loved ones to gun violence.“Since it’s clear that the gun industry won’t protect Americans, Congress must act,” Maloney said in her closing statement. “This is a fight we must and will win.”TopicsUS gun controlUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressTexas school shootingBuffalo shootingnewsReuse this content More

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      Red and Blue America Will Never Be the Same

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      Donald Trump’s dominance of the political stage for the past seven years galvanized what had been a slow-burning realignment, creating a profound upheaval in the electorate and in both the Democratic and Republican parties.The support Trump received in rural communities and the animosity he provoked among well-educated suburbanites accelerated the ongoing inversion — on measures of income, education and geographic region — of white Democratic and Republican voters. (White voters make up 67 percent of the electorate.)In 2018, according to ProximityOne, a website that analyzes the demographics of congressional districts, Democratic members of Congress represented 74 of the 100 most affluent districts, including 24 of the top 25. Conversely, Republican members of Congress represented 54 of the 100 districts with the lowest household income. The median household income in districts represented by Democrats was $66,829, which is $10,324 more than the median for districts represented by Republicans, at $56,505.The 2018 data stands in contrast to the income pattern a half-century ago. In 1973, Republicans held 63 of the 100 highest-income districts and Democrats held 73 of the 100 lowest-income districts.These trends prompted Nolan McCarty, a political scientist at Princeton, to comment in an email that the Democratsare mostly the party of the master’s degree — modestly advantaged economically but not exactly elite. On the flip side, the Republicans are the party of the associate degree (a two-year college degree), less educated than the Democrats but not exactly the proletariat.Richard Pildes, a law professor at N.Y.U., argued thatpolitics throughout the Western democracies is in recent years in the midst of the most dramatic reconfiguration of the political parties and their bases of support in seventy or so years. Since the New Deal in the United States and WWII in Western Europe, the base of the dominant parties of the left was less affluent, less highly educated voters; the dominant parties of the right drew their primary support from higher income, more highly educated voters.Now, Pildes continued, “we are witnessing the complete inversion of that pattern, and the question is whether this is a temporary or more enduring realignment of the political parties throughout the West.”In his email, Pildes noted that in the 1940sDemocratic candidates received twenty-two points less support from voters in the top ten percent of the income bracket than from those in the bottom ninety percent. By 2012, that gap had dropped to only an eight-point difference and in 2016, voters in the top ten percent had become eight points more likely to vote for Democratic candidates. Similarly, in the 1940s, those with university degrees in the United States were twenty points less likely to vote for Democrats, while in 2000 there was no difference and by 2016, they were thirteen points more likely to vote for Democrats.The ramifications of these developments, which predate Trump’s entry into presidential politics in 2015, “radiate throughout the electoral process in the United States,” Pildes argued:Take the Electoral College: for most of the time from the 1950s until 2016, it was actually biased toward the Democrats. But in 2016, it suddenly became strongly biased toward the Republicans, and 2020 added even more to that bias.At the same time, there are counter-developments more favorable to the left.Nicholas Stephanopoulos, a law professor at Harvard who focuses on redistricting and demographic trends, argued in an email that “the country’s political geography is now less pro-Republican.” While “the conventional wisdom has it that Democrats are disadvantaged in redistricting because of their inefficient over-concentration in cities,” he continued, “the Trump era seems to have changed the country’s political geography in ways that are beneficial to Democrats.”Trump, Stephanopoulos continued,modestly reduced the enormous Democratic edge in cities, thus undoing some of this packing of Democratic voters. Trump also did significantly better in rural areas, to the point that some of them are about as red (and so as packed with Republicans) as cities are blue. And Trump bled support in the suburbs, so that the country’s most populous and competitive areas now lean toward the Democrats instead of the Republicans.As a result, Stephanopoulos argued,the U.S. House will likely be close to unbiased in partisan terms in 2022. A group of scholars peg the likely bias at around 3 percent pro-Republican, while Nate Silver’s model, which incorporates additional variables like incumbency and polling, thinks the likely bias will be around 1 percent pro-Democratic.Republicans won 234 seats in 2012 despite the fact that Democrats won, by 2 percent, a majority of votes cast in House elections, according to Stephanopoulos, “but Nate Silver now thinks that Republicans will win the national House vote by 5 percent in 2022, yet only pick up the same 234 seats they got in 2012.”Robert M. Stein, a political scientist at Rice University, agrees with Stephanopolous and cites trends in Texas to show the pro-Democratic shift:Consider the Texas Republican Party’s redistricting plan in 2010 and its durability over the last decade. Beginning in 2010 Republicans held a 100 to 50 seat advantage in the Texas House of Representatives. By 2020, this margin had shrunk to 83-67. In each biennial election since 2010, Democrats picked up House seats, mostly in suburban and exurban areas of the state.The shift, Stein continued,was largely driven by the changing demography of the state. Another source of this shift can be laid at the feet of candidates like Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. The result, at least in Texas, is that some of the most competitive areas (districts) in the state are not the big cities, but exurban and suburban counties including Collin, Denton, Fort Bend and Williamson. Prior to 2016 voters in these counties were trending Republican; now they are leaning Democratic or tossups.Brian Schaffner, a political scientist at Tufts, cited surveys conducted by the Cooperative Election Study from 2010 to 2020 showing that “one of the most significant shifts we see in our data is increasing Democratic strength in suburbs, especially since the early 2010s.”Schaffner provided data from the study showing that the Democratic share of the two-party vote rose from 54.5 to 63.5 percent in urban areas over the decade and remained low — 35.2 to 36.1 percent — in rural America. The biggest shift, 12.5 points, was in suburban areas, which went from 41.8 percent Democratic in 2010 to 54.3 percent in 2020.Nolan McCarty suggested that these trends may prove beneficial to the Democratic Party:The natural tilt of our single-member district system has shifted away from the Republicans as the rural vote moves toward the Republicans and the suburbs move toward the Democrats. But it is not clear what the aggregate effects of those shifts will be. It should help the House Democrats in November but it is not clear how much.The effects of these shifts on the Senate and Electoral College, McCarty continued, will be slower in the short term but could eventually become significant: “Once such changes push states like Georgia, Texas and North Carolina sufficiently toward the Democrats, they would be the party with the structural advantage in the Electoral College and Senate.”Jonathan Rodden, a political scientist at Stanford, noted in an email the possibility that very recent changes in suburban voting will hurt the future prospects of the Republican Party:The most noteworthy change to political geography in 2020 was the success of Biden in pivotal suburban areas. In the most recent round of redistricting, when examining proposed districting plans — whether drawn by computer simulations or humans — the number of Democratic-leaning districts in a state was often greater if one added up the votes of Biden and Trump in 2020 than if one used past presidential results, Senate results, gubernatorial results, or some other down-ballot elections.The geographic distribution of Biden votes, Rodden continued, “was more ‘efficient’ for the Democrats than that of other recent Democratic candidates.” But, he cautioned,what is unclear is whether this was a specific reaction to Donald Trump as a candidate in relatively educated suburbs, or a lasting trend in political geography that will outlive the Trump era. The latter is at least plausible, especially in the wake of the Dobbs decision, but it is too early to tell. Even in 2020, a non-trivial number of these suburban Biden voters split their tickets and voted for Republican House candidates.I asked Rodden what it means for statewide elections in contested states if these trends continue. He replied:This really depends on the numbers in each state, but in sun-belt states that are gaining educated and/or minority in-migrants, like Georgia and Arizona, we already have evidence that this was a pretty good trade for statewide Democrats, but in other states where in-migration is limited, like those in the Upper Midwest, this trade might work out better for statewide Republicans.Along similar lines, William Frey, a demographer and a senior fellow at Brookings, emphasized in an email that “Biden won the suburbs in 2020, I believe largely due to his gains among minorities and college whites.” Even if Republicans and Trump made marginal gains among minority voters, the support of these voters for Democrats remained overwhelming.In a 2021 Brookings paper, “Biden’s victory came from the suburbs,” Frey pointed to Georgia, whereDemographic shifts — including brisk growth in the state’s Democratic-leaning Black population, gains in Latino/Hispanic, and Asian Americans voters, and an increase in white college graduates, especially in the Atlanta metropolitan area — served to make the state competitive for Democrats this year.In a separate 2022 paper, “Today’s suburbs are symbolic of America’s rising diversity: A 2020 census portrait,” Frey focuses on the continuing stream of minorities moving into the suburbs. From 1990 to 2020, Frey found, the percentage of Asian Americans living in suburbs grew from 53.4 to 63.1 percent, of Hispanics from 49.5 to 61.4 percent and of African Americans, from 36.6 to 54.3 percent, the largest increase.Has geographic division, pitting a disproportionately rural Republican Party against an urban Democratic Party, added a new dimension to polarization making consensus and cooperation even more difficult?I posed a series of questions to an eclectic group of political scholars.Frances Lee, a political scientist at Princeton, replied by email:Rather than claiming that the G.O.P. is becoming the party of the working class, what I see is a long-term trend away from a party system organized along class lines. Knowing that a person is wealthy (or low income) isn’t very predictive of what party that person will prefer. The parties are much better sorted by other factors — region, religion, race — than by social class.This isn’t a new phenomenon, Lee noted, but Trump intensified these divisions: “Trump’s candidacy and presidency accelerated pre-existing trends undercutting the class basis of the parties. For a Republican, Trump had unusual appeal to working-class voters and was unusually alienating to well-off suburbanites.”James Druckman, a political scientist at Northwestern University, draws an interesting distinction: “I do think the perception in the country is that Republicans are working class but not necessarily for economic reasons directly but rather because of diffuse feelings of injustice translated into rhetoric about mistreatment, unfairness and immigrants taking jobs.”At the same time, Druckman contended:Democrats are vulnerable to charges of being the party of the elite for two reasons — one is that a small strain of the party is made up of extreme progressives who offer rhetoric that can be alienating when too wrapped up in politically correct language. Second, the growing anti-intellectualism in parts of the Republican Party reflects the significant degree of education polarization we observe.Herbert Kitschelt, a political scientist at Duke, rejects some recent attempts at classification:Are the Democrats the party of the elites? Yes and no. It is the case that high-income high-education professionals in the last 20 years have moved increasingly to the Democratic Party but these are people most of whom are on the moderate wing of the party. That is to say, they embrace a mildly redistributive agenda on economic issues such as Social Security, universal health care, and support for families with children, and a mildly libertarian social agenda on questions of abortion, family relations, gender relations and ethnic relations.These moderate, mainstream Democrats arefar removed from the more radical, progressive wing and its agenda on identity, diversity, equity, and social transformation. The real driving force of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party are occupational strata that are characterized by low- to middle-incomes and high education. These progressive voters primarily work in social and cultural services, in large urban areas.This progressive constituency, Kitschelt argued, isquantitatively more important for the Democratic electorate than the high-education high-income more moderate segment. By embracing the agenda of “defund the police” and cultural transformation of the schools, this progressive constituency puts itself at odds with many lower- and middle-income families across all ethnic groups.Insofar as the Democratic Party adopts the progressive agenda, Kitschelt wrote, it endangers “its electoral rainbow coalition,” noting that both African American and Hispanic families “are highly concerned about improving the police, not dismantling the police” and about “the quality of basic school instruction.”On the Republican side, Kitschelt argues thatthe core element is not “working class” in any conventional sense of the phrase at all: It is low education, but relatively high-income people. These voters are overwhelmingly white, and many are of the evangelical religious conviction. In occupational terms, they are concentrated in small business, both owners and core employees, in sectors such as construction, crafts, real estate, small retail, personal services and agriculture.Kitschelt continued: “Many of these citizens tend to live in suburban and rural areas. They are the true spearhead of Republican activism, and especially of the Trumpist persuasion.”Pildes addressed these issues in his October 2021 paper, “Political Fragmentation in Democracies of the West.”“The domination of the parties of the left by the more highly educated,” he wrote, “in combination with these cultural conflicts and policy differences, are an important element in the shift of the less educated, less affluent voters away from the parties of the left.”Pildes cites American National Elections Studies data on white voters in the 2016 election showing that Trump won among all income categories of whites making less than $175,000, while Hillary Clinton won only among whites who made in excess of $175,000.Pildes contended that defections from the Democratic Party among conservative and moderate minority voters pose a significant threat to the long-term viability of the party:Democratic support plunged from 49 percent to 27 percent among Hispanic conservatives between 2012 and 2020 and from 69 percent to 65 percent among Hispanic moderates. These changes suggest that ideology, rather than identity, is beginning to provide more of a voting basis among some Hispanics. If a marginally greater number of working-class Latino or Black voters start to vote the way that white working-class voters do, the ability of the Democratic Party to win national elections will be severely weakened.Bart Bonikowski, a professor of sociology and politics at N.Y.U., noted in an email that “the claim that the Republicans are becoming a party of the ‘working class’ is mistaken.” Not only are a majority of working class African Americans and Hispanics Democratic, but, “more accurately, the Republicans have become a party of disaffected white voters, many of whom hold resentments against ethnoracial minorities and a waning commitment to liberal democratic values.” Given “the built-in biases of the Electoral College and Senate — along with gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement — states with larger shares of noncollege whites will continue to exert outsized influence on U.S. politics, persistently disadvantaging Democrats even when their candidates and policies are broadly popular.”Robert Saldin, a political scientist at the University of Montana, argued by email that “Geographic polarization, or the urban-rural divide, is arguably the most defining feature of American politics.” Over the past 20 years, he continued, “the Democratic Party has hemorrhaged support in the countryside. They’ve got a five-alarm fire in rural America, but much of the party’s elite doesn’t even see the smoke.”For the Democrats, in Saldin’s view,trading the countryside for the cities has come at a political cost even if the party routinely wins many more total votes than the G.O.P. nationally. That’s because geography plays an outsized role in our political system, particularly in the Electoral College and the Senate.Consider the Dakotas, Saldin wrote:It wasn’t that long ago that their congressional delegations were packed with Democrats, but that’s inconceivable now. And to the extent that the same thing is happening in other low-population states, this presents a real problem for Democrats in the Senate.Saldin suggested:Here’s another way of conceptualizing it. Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming have less than 2 percent of the national population, but their ten senators have the same collective power in the Senate as those representing the five most populous states, California, Texas, Florida, New York and Pennsylvania. If a party managed a clean sweep in those five big-box states in flyover country, that would comprise 20 percent of what you need for a Senate majority before you even look at the other 98 percent of the country. The G.O.P. is now very close to accomplishing that feat, with Montana’s Jon Tester the last Senate Democrat standing in those states.Barring an extraordinary economic turnaround or still more explosive disclosures of criminal malfeasance by Trump, these demographic trends may have a modest effect on the outcome on Election Day in November. They do, however, suggest that the balance of political power is more fluid than widely recognized. It should undermine the confidence of those predicting victory for either the left or the right in 2024.The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More

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      Trump speaks in Washington DC for first visit since leaving office – live

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      Donald Trump is set to take the stage shortly in Washington DC to address the conservative America First Agenda Summit, his first return to the capital since leaving office last year.Conference organisers at the America First Policy Institute say the former president, who is mulling a third run at the White House in 2024, will focus on the Republican party’s plans to combat inflation and improve the US immigration system.But it remains to be seen if Trump can resist recirculating his lies about the 2020 election, especially following an appearance by his former vice-president, Mike Pence, at a conference of conservative students this morning.Pence took thinly-veiled shots at his old boss, and his obsession with his defeat to Joe Biden, telling his audience: “Some people may choose to focus on the past. But elections are about the future.”It is unlikely the notoriously thin-skinned ex-president will be able avoid the temptation to fire back.Stay with us, and we’ll bring you Trump’s comments as they happen. While we wait, take a read of my colleague Joan E Greve’s preview of his return to the capital:He’s back: Trump returns to Washington for first time since leaving officeRead moreWe’re closing the blog now, after a reasonably busy day in US politics. Merrick Garland’s big NBC News interview is due at 6.30pm ET – here’s our story, which will develop, for those who want to carry on reading about whether Donald Trump will face criminal charges over January 6 and his attempt to overturn US democracy itself.Otherwise, today saw:
      Trump return to Washington to deliver a 90-minute speech at the America First Agenda summit. He didn’t get so far as to announce a new White House run. See Richard’s blogging below and David Smith’s report on the speech to come.
      The New York Times reported more details of part of Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election, the fake electors scheme.
      Mike Pence also gave a speech in Washington, in some mild sense dueling with his old boss and in some very mild sense rebuking him for fixating on the past.
      CNN reported that John Roberts, the chief justice, tried to persuade Brett Kavanaugh to help him stop the other conservatives on the supreme court overturning the right to an abortion – but it didn’t work.
      Nancy Pelosi’s mooted trip to Taiwan continued to cause all sorts of bother and headaches – and to attract Republican support.
      The blog will be back tomorrow. Good night.Donald Trump on Tuesday dropped more hints that he will imminently announce a third run at the White House.In a largely subdued, and scripted, 90-minute speech to the America First Agenda summit in Washington DC, his first visit to the capital since leaving office last year, Trump said it would be his “very great honor” to run again, and that if he didn’t “our nation is doomed”.But he stopped short of outright declaring his candidacy, the former president mindful he is mired in legal and political jeopardy amid numerous investigations into the insurrection and attempt to stay in office following his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden.Trump said he could not just sit at home while the “persecution” continued:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I can’t do that because I love our country. And I can’t do that because I love the people of our country. So I can’t do that. I wouldn’t do it, and people don’t want me to do it.
      I’m not doing this for me because I had a very luxurious life. I had a very simple life. People say you sure you want to do this? But you know, there’s an expression. The best day of your life is the day before you run for president. And I laughed at it. I said that may be true, actually. Trump’s speech was intended to be a laying out of Republican policy agenda for the November midterms and beyond, but it pivoted into a succession of familiar old Trump grievances, including attacks on Democrats over crime, immigration and the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic.After an assault on the House panel investigating his illegal attempts to stay in office, Trump concluded:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}If I don’t [run] our nation is doomed to become another Venezuela or become another Soviet Union.Please look in later for my colleague David Smith’s account of Trump’s speech.And there it is, finally: Donald Trump’s lie that he really won the 2020 election.The former president waited an hour into his speech at the America First Agenda summit in Washington DC, just as he was winding down, before turning to the falsehood that his defeat by Joe Biden was corrupt:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I ran for president, I won, and I won a second time, but much better the second time, a lot better.
      I always say I ran the first time and I won. We actually did it twice. Toward the end of the speech, Trump riffed freely about Mexico, and immigration, telling a succession of “sir stories” and claiming his administration built hundreds of miles of southern border wall before his plans were thwarted by the “catastrophe” of the 2020 election:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We had it almost finished, it was a catastrophe, that election, a disgrace to our country.
      They [Democrats] didn’t want to build the wall. That’s when I started to think that maybe they really do want to have these borders open so everybody can invade our country.A speech that was billed as a setting out of Republican policies pivoted quickly into an airing of Trump’s old grievances, including the “hoax” of the Mueller inquiry into his administration’s links with Russia, the “China virus” – his derogatory term for the Covid-19 pandemic – and an attack on Dr Anthony Fauci, the government’s top adviser on infectious diseases:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I used to listen to Fauci and whatever he said I did the opposite. I came out very good.As if realizing he’d reach the hour mark, and it was time to wind down, Trump indicated his speech was over. “I look forward to laying out many more details in the weeks and months to come,” he said.Then came extra time, and the free-wheeling Trump of old stepped forward, with an assault on the “unfair January 6 unselect committee of political action thugs” investigating the insurrection.“Where does it stop?” Trump wondered. “It probably doesn’t stop because despite great outside dangers this country remains sick, sinister, and evil people within.“They want to damage me so I can no longer go back to work for you. But I don’t think that’s going to happen,” he said, another tease that he might soon declare another White House run.In NBC’s interview with Merrick Garland, Lester Holt also asked if the Department of Justice (DoJ) would welcome a criminal referral from the House January 6 committee. The panel has made referrals for Trump aides. Steve Bannon has been convicted of criminal contempt of Congress and faces jail time. Peter Navarro has been charged. Dan Scavino and Mark Meadows were referred, the DoJ then deciding not to act.Garland told NBC: “So I think that’s totally up to the committee.“We will have the evidence that the committee has presented and whatever evidence it gives us. I don’t think that the nature of how they style, the manner in which information is provided, is of particular significance from any legal point of view.“That’s not to downgrade it or to or disparage it. It’s just that that’s not … the issue here. We have our own investigation, pursuing through the principles of prosecution.”“We should not allow men to play in women’s sports. It’s so crazy,” Donald Trump says, before going off script to allege he was advised not to bring up transgender issues. “‘Sir, don’t say that, it’s very controversial,’” he claims he was told, launching into a bizarre tale of a transgender swimmer he says gave “wind burns” to a fellow competitor as she sped by. Then a story about a transgender weight lifter:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This guy comes along, he’s named Alice … world record, world record. We could have put another couple hundred pounds on. It’s so unfair.Now Trump says he would be the “world’s greatest women’s basketball coach” and that he doesn’t like LeBron James, with whom he has clashed previously.NBC has released a clip of its eagerly awaited interview with Merrick Garland, in which Joe Biden’s attorney general is asked about the political sensitivities around potential criminal charges for Donald Trump concerning the attack on the US Capitol, arising from the work of the House January 6 committee.The interviewer, Lester Holt, said: “You said in no uncertain terms the other day that no one is above the law. That said, the indictment of a former president, of perhaps a candidate for president, would arguably tear the country apart. Is that your concern as you make your decision down the road here? Do you have to think about things like that?”Garland said: “We pursue justice without fear or favour. We intend to hold everyone, anyone who was criminally responsible for events surrounding January 6, or any attempt to interfere with the lawful transfer of power from one administration to another, accountable. That’s what we do. We don’t pay any attention to other issues with respect to that.”The Department of Justice is investigating Trump’s election subversion efforts on a number of fronts. The January 6 committee could make a criminal referral to the DoJ. Whether it should, or will, and whether it has presented sufficient evidence to do so if it chooses, is a matter of debate around the US and on the committee itself.Holt said: “So if Donald Trump were to become a candidate for president again, that would not change your schedule or how you move forward or don’t move forward?”Garland said: “I’ll say again, that we will hold accountable anyone who was criminally responsible for attempting to interfere with the transfer legitimate lawful transfer of power from one administration to the next.”So that’s that.It’s certainly a very subdued speech by Donald Trump so far, his monotone delivery lacking the energy of his campaign rallies. He’s more than a half-hour in, and still talking about crime, which he’s now blaming on Democratic governors – and the homeless.He’s lamenting what’s happened in “our beautiful cities”, San Francisco, Chicago … where he says people don’t have time to stop and admire the beauty, “they just want to make it to their offices”..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Let the liberals invite the homeless to camp in their backyards, soil their properties, attack their families and use drugs where their children are trying to play.
      For the good of everyone involved, the homeless need to go to shelters, the long-term mentally ill need to go to institutions, and the unhoused drug addicts need to go to rehab, or if necessary and appropriate, jail.On his first return to Washington DC since leaving the presidency, Trump says, he doesn’t recognize the place. He seems to be calling for a war on litter:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The main roads had more bottles and cigarettes and everything you can imagine. Then you see the tents and the homeless and you ask ‘what’s happened to this great bastion’?There’s very little applause, just the occasional trickle.Crime, and support for law enforcement, has become the central theme in Donald Trump’s comments so far, although he hasn’t mentioned the officers beaten in the violent January 6 attack by his supporters during the deadly Capitol riot.Trump is sticking strictly to the script, and reading diligently from his teleprompter:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In the Make America Great Again, movement, we believe that every citizen of every background should be able to walk anywhere in this nation at any hour of the day, without even a thought of being victimized by violent crime. If we don’t have safety we don’t have freedom.
      First, we have to give our police back their authority, resources, power and prestige. We have to leave our police alone every time they do something. They’re afraid they’re going to be destroyed, their pensions going to be taken away, they’ll be fired, they’ll be put in jail. Without irony, or any acknowledgement of the police officers who were injured by the Trump-inspired mob defending politicians at the Capitol building, he continued:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Let them do their job. Give them back the respect that they deserve.Donald Trump has begun his remarks at the America First Agenda summit by tearing into the Biden administration’s policies he says have “brought our country to its knees”.“We made America great again,” Trump said, referring to what he considered was the state of the country, and economy, he left to Joe Biden, his successor..css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Inflation is the highest in 49 years … gas prices have reached the highest in our country. We’ve become a beggar nation, grovelling to others for energy.He’s following up with attacks on Democratic immigration policy and levels of crime, and a drugs crisis, which he sees as happening only in “Democrat-run cities”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Our country is now a cesspool of crime … because of the Democratic party’s efforts to destroy and dismantle law enforcement throughout America.There is, however, no evidence that Democrats have defunded law enforcement anywhere, and Biden has made a specific point of saying it is not his party’s policy.So far, at least, there have been no references to the 2020 election, which Trump maintains was stolen from him …Donald Trump was due to take the stage at 3pm but, just like at countless rallies before, during and subsequent to his single term in office, he is running late.Currently Newt Gingrich, a Republican former House speaker, and Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader who would like the job himself, are engaged in a roundtable discussion extolling Trump’s policies and looking ahead to the midterm elections, which McCarthy says will be a “one in 50-year election.”“We can lock in a conservative majority for the decade,” he says.Meanwhile, it appears a group of anti-Trump protesters have reached the hotel before the former president, and are making some noise:Protestors in the hotel at the America First Policy Initiative event chanting “no trump no kkk no fascist USA” pic.twitter.com/c37IVacDDP— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) July 26, 2022
      A number of Florida families and coalition of equality activist groups have filed a lawsuit over Republican governor Ron DeSantis’s “don’t say gay” law that bans discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in classrooms.The bill signed by DeSantis in March is “based on undefined standards of appropriateness [and] effectively silences and erases LGBTQ+ students and families,” the lawsuit, filed against four separate Florida school districts claims.Good morning. My lawsuit against #DontSayGay has been filed. Children deserve to be loved and respected no matter how they identify. Read more about it here:https://t.co/2YWEtftpMa pic.twitter.com/RaTJEl90we— Jen 🏳️‍🌈 SAY GAY 🏳️‍⚧️ Cousins (@slytherbitch6) July 26, 2022
      “This law will prevent our two youngest children, rising first and third graders, from discussing their older non-binary sibling in the classroom for fear of their teacher or their school getting in trouble,” said plaintiffs Jennifer and Matthew Cousins, according to a press release announcing the legal action. “The law also robs them of the opportunity of discussing their family like other non-LGBTQ+ children. It’s heartbreaking to know that my children may be bullied because this law paints our family as shameful.”DeSantis insists that the law, officially called the Parental Rights in Education act, is designed to stop “wokeism” in Florida’s schools and empowers families by giving them choice over their children’s educational activities.DeSantis’s taxpayer-funded press secretary Christina Pushaw has previously called opponents of the bill “groomers”.Greetings from the ballroom of a swanky Washington hotel that has been turned into an indoor Donald Trump rally as the former US president makes his return to the nation’s capital.Just like a Trump rally, music from Elton John and Frank Sinatra boomed from loudspeakers, then warm-up acts came out to lavish praise on Trump.Brooke Rollins, president and chief executive of the American First Policy Institute (AFPI), a thinktank created by Trump alumni which is hosting the speech, described him as “one of the greatest Americans of all time”. Televangelist Paula White added: “He wears a bigger mantle than I think many of us even recognise.”Less than a mile from the White House, it’s Trump’s first visit to Washington since he snubbed Joe Biden’s inauguration and took flight to Florida. Numerous Trump White House officials have been giving speeches or wandering the corridors during the AFPI summit, where face masks or mentions of January 6 are almost non-existent. I just overheard someone ask Kellyanne Conway: “Can I have a selfie?” Donald Trump is set to take the stage shortly in Washington DC to address the conservative America First Agenda Summit, his first return to the capital since leaving office last year.Conference organisers at the America First Policy Institute say the former president, who is mulling a third run at the White House in 2024, will focus on the Republican party’s plans to combat inflation and improve the US immigration system.But it remains to be seen if Trump can resist recirculating his lies about the 2020 election, especially following an appearance by his former vice-president, Mike Pence, at a conference of conservative students this morning.Pence took thinly-veiled shots at his old boss, and his obsession with his defeat to Joe Biden, telling his audience: “Some people may choose to focus on the past. But elections are about the future.”It is unlikely the notoriously thin-skinned ex-president will be able avoid the temptation to fire back.Stay with us, and we’ll bring you Trump’s comments as they happen. While we wait, take a read of my colleague Joan E Greve’s preview of his return to the capital:He’s back: Trump returns to Washington for first time since leaving officeRead moreThe New York Times has published details of “previously undisclosed” emails between associates of former president Donald Trump, including some from lawyers in which they purportedly acknowledge a scheme to keep him office was likely illegal.Some of the messages refer to “fake” electors who were in place in certain key states to falsely declare Trump the winner of the 2020 election, and prevent Joe Biden from reaching the White House.The Times said they showed “a particular focus on assembling lists of people who would claim – with no basis – to be electoral college electors on his behalf in battleground states that he had lost.”One lawyer used the word “fake” to refer to the so-called electors, the Times said, while “lawyers working on the proposal made clear they knew that the pro-Trump electors they were putting forward might not hold up to legal scrutiny”.SCOOP: @lukebroadwater and I reviewed dozens of emails between Trump campaign officials and lawyers, including one in which a lawyer described the slates of electors they were putting together as “fake” https://t.co/P36lgMtFuA— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) July 26, 2022
      The “fake electors” scheme was a central plank of Trump’s strategy to remain in power, and has become a focus of the House panel investigating his insurrection. In declaring Trump the rightful winner, the committee asserts, the fake electors’ goal was persuading the then vice-president, Mike Pence, as Senate president, to refuse to certify Biden’s victory.The panel has already examined previously-known communications about it between Trump allies.The Times quotes, among others, an email reportedly sent by Jack Wilenchik, a Phoenix-based lawyer who helped organize the pro-Trump electors in Arizona, to a Trump adviser in the White House. “We would just be sending in ‘fake’ electoral votes to Pence so that ‘someone’ in Congress can make an objection when they start counting votes, and start arguing that the ‘fake’ votes should be counted,” he wrote.Wilenchik wrote in a later email, adding a smiley face emoji, that “‘alternative’ votes would probably a better term than ‘fake’ votes”.Joe Biden has said that his presidential predecessor Donald Trump “lacked the courage to act” as a mob of his supporters tried to halt the congressional certification of his defeat in the 2020 election by mounting the January 6 attack on the Capitol.In virtual remarks Monday to the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives, Biden – who was recovering from Covid-19 – said police officers defending the Capitol were “speared, sprayed, stomped on, brutalized” for hours by white nationalists and other Trump sycophants who bought his false claims that he’d been robbed of victory by electoral fraudsters.Brave women and men in uniform across America should never forget that the defeated former president of the United States watched January 6th happen and didn’t have the spine to act.In my remarks today to @noblenatl, I made that clear: https://t.co/pQ8E4IcZR1 pic.twitter.com/uO60QO0Wrz— President Biden (@POTUS) July 25, 2022
      “The defeated former president of the United States watched it all happen as he sat in the comfort of the private dining room next to the Oval Office,” Biden said, alluding to evidence and testimony staged by the congressional committee investigating the assault during a series of public hearings throughout the summer. “While he was doing that, brave law enforcement officers are subjected to the medieval hell for three hours … dripping in blood, surrounded by carnage, face to face with a crazed mob that believed the lies of the defeated president.“The police were heroes that day. Donald Trump lacked the courage to act.”Read the full story:Biden says Trump ‘lacked the courage to act’ during January 6 attackRead moreLet’s take stock of where we are on a lively Tuesday in US politics:
      Mike Pence took shots at Donald Trump during a speech to young conservatives in Washington DC, the ex-vice-president telling them “elections are about the future”. The former president, obsessed by his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden, addresses the rightwing America First Agenda summit a little later this afternoon.
      Biden’s recovery from his Covid-19 infection has allowed him to resume exercising, physician Kevin O’Connor said in a morning update. But the president’s health will not have been improved by polling news from New Hampshire, where only one-fifth of residents want him to seek a second term, according to Politico.
      January 6 rioter Mark Ponder, who attacked police officers with poles during the deadly attack on the Capitol, was sentenced to at least five years in prison, one of the lengthiest terms so far handed out to those convicted. Ponder, 56, from Washington DC, said he “got caught up” in the chaos and “didn’t mean for any of this to happen”.
      Senators voted 64-32 to move forward on the Chips Act, which seeks to provide about $52bn for US companies manufacturing computer chips, plus tax credits and other incentives. Biden says the money is essential to reverse a shortage of semiconductors in the US, and keep the country at the cutting edge of defense, healthcare and the burgeoning electric vehicle market.
      Chief Justice John Roberts made ultimately fruitless efforts to persuade fellow supreme court conservatives to preserve abortion rights, CNN said. The network published an analysis of events leading up to the court’s overturning of almost half a century of federal abortion protections last month, including a claim that Roberts pressed Brett Kavanaugh – one of three Donald Trump-appointed justices – in particular to change his vote.
      Stick with us, there’s plenty more to come this afternoon, including Trump’s return to the capital for the first time since he left office last year.Poll shows Biden’s deep unpopularity in New HampshireIt is just one poll and just it is just one state, but a new survey of voters in New Hampshire makes grim reading for the White House.In the state which holds the crucial first primary in the presidential nomination process, Joe Biden’s numbers are cratering.Politico has the details and you’ll find their quick top line rundown below: Only one-fifth of New Hampshire residents want Biden to seek a second term in 2024, according to the poll.The president is statistically tied with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in 2024 presidential support, survey results show. He also trails a handful of potential 2024 candidates in favorability, including Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Cory Booker.The percentage of Democrats who want Biden to run again has tanked since this time last year, from 74 percent to 31 percent, according to this year’s poll.And among New Hampshire members of both parties, the poll also shows concern for Biden’s age: 78 percent of respondents overall said they were at least somewhat concerned, including 75 percent of Democrats.January 6 rioter Mark Ponder gets at least five years in jailThe Associated Press has news on a lengthy sentence for a January 6 rioter. The story follows: A man who attacked police officers with poles during the riot at the U.S. Capitol was sentenced on Tuesday to more than five years in prison, matching the longest term of imprisonment so far among hundreds of Capitol riot prosecutions.Mark Ponder, a 56-year-old resident of Washington, D.C., said he “got caught up” in the chaos that erupted on Jan. 6, 2021, and “didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”“I wasn’t thinking that day,” Ponder told U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, asking her for mercy before she sentenced him to five years and three months in prison.That was three months longer than the prison sentence requested by prosecutors. And it’s the same sentence that Chutkan gave Robert Palmer, a Florida man who also pleaded guilty to assaulting police at the Capitol.More than 200 other Capitol riot defendants have been sentenced so far. None received a longer prison sentence than Ponder or Palmer.Chutkan said Ponder was “leading the charge” against police officers trying to hold off the mob that disrupted Congress from certifying President Joe Biden’s electoral victory.“This is not ‘caught up,’ Mr. Ponder,” she said. “He was intent on attacking and injuring police officers. This was not a protest.” More

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      in US Politics

      ‘Nancy, I’ll go with you’: Trump allies back Pelosi’s proposed Taiwan visit

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      ‘Nancy, I’ll go with you’: Trump allies back Pelosi’s proposed Taiwan visitMike Pompeo and Mark Esper support visit to ‘freedom-loving Taiwan’ but Biden concerned any trip would antagonise Beijing Plans for Nancy Pelosi, the US House speaker, to visit Taiwan have prompted opposition from China and the American military but support from Republicans in Washington, including former members of the Trump administration.Trump’s second secretary of defense, Mark Esper, told CNN: “I think if the speaker wants to go, she should go.”Japan sees increasing threat to Taiwan amid Russia’s invasion of UkraineRead moreMike Pompeo, Trump’s second secretary of state, tweeted: “Nancy, I’ll go with you. I’m banned in China, but not freedom-loving Taiwan. See you there!”No date has been set for a Pelosi visit to Taiwan, a self-governing democracy that Beijing claims is a breakaway province. Many observers expect some form of military action by China some time soon, particularly in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.China has said a Pelosi visit would “severely undermine” its “sovereignty and territorial integrity, gravely impact the foundation of China-US relations, and send a seriously wrong signal to Taiwan independence forces”.Joe Biden said last week: “I think that the military thinks it’s not a good idea right now. But I don’t know what the status of it is.”The White House has not weighed in officially. On Monday, Biden’s press secretary, Karin Jean-Pierre, said: “The administration routinely provides members of Congress with information and context for potential travel, including geopolitical and security considerations.“Members of Congress will make their own decisions.”The state department spokesperson, Ned Price, said: “I will just restate our policy, and that is that we remain committed to maintaining cross-strait peace and stability and our ‘One China’ policy” – a reference to the US position that recognises Beijing as the government of China but allows for informal relations and defense ties with Taiwan.That was a policy Trump initially seemed to jeopardise, telling Fox News in December 2016, after he won the election: “I don’t know why we have to be bound by a ‘One China’ policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade.”In office, Trump agreed to follow the policy. But his administration was vociferous in its support of Taiwan and antagonism toward Beijing, with some observers suggesting officials wanted to force the Biden administration, which followed Trump’s, into confrontation with China.Pelosi has said it is “important for us to show support for Taiwan”. She also said she believed that when Biden referred to US military concerns, he meant “maybe the military was afraid our plane would get shot down or something like that by the Chinese”.Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican from Nebraska, said: “Speaker Pelosi should go to Taiwan, and President Biden should make it abundantly clear to Chairman Xi [Jinping] that there’s not a damn thing the Chinese Communist party can do about it.“No more feebleness and self-deterrence. This is very simple: Taiwan is an ally and the speaker of the House of Representatives should meet with the Taiwanese men and women who stare down the threat of Communist China.”Also on Monday, the New York Times reported that the Biden administration “has grown increasingly anxious … about China’s statements and actions regarding Taiwan, with some officials fearing that Chinese leaders might try to move against [it] … over the next year and a half – perhaps by trying to cut off access to all or part of the Taiwan Strait, through which US naval ships regularly pass”.The Democratic senator Chris Coons of Delaware, who is close to Biden, told the Times: “One school of thought is that the lesson is ‘go early and go strong’ before there is time to strengthen Taiwan’s defenses. And we may be heading to an earlier confrontation – more a squeeze than an invasion – than we thought.”The Times also said the White House was “quietly work[ing] to try to dissuade” Pelosi staging the first visit by a speaker to Taiwan since 1997.The Republican speaker who made that trip, Newt Gingrich, said: “What is the Pentagon thinking when it publicly warns against Speaker Pelosi going to Taiwan?“Timidity is dangerous.”TopicsUS foreign policyUS politicsNancy PelosiChinaTaiwanAsia PacificJoe BidennewsReuse this content More

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      in Elections

      Liz Holtzman Wants Another Crack at Congress, 50 Years Later

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      She shattered glass ceilings, voted to impeach Nixon and helped chase out Nazis. But can Ms. Holtzman overcome one more political hurdle: her age?Elizabeth Holtzman has heard the doubters, the skeptics and the New Yorkers who were mildly surprised that she is still alive, let alone up to the challenge of running for Congress at age 80, half a century after she became one of the youngest women ever to serve there.“The 1980s wants its candidate back,” quipped Chris Coffey, a Democratic political strategist, recalling his first reaction when he heard that the pathbreaking former congresswoman, feminist and New York City official had launched a comeback bid.To all of that, Ms. Holtzman, a Democrat, says that she is not only happily among the living, but ready to prove that she is every bit as pugnacious as when she left electoral politics some three decades ago.So on a recent July evening, she stepped into a green kayak and paddled laps somewhere between Brooklyn and Manhattan, pointing a reporter toward the Statue of Liberty, the crumbling Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and a lifetime of fights that she regrets are urgently new again.“I was really angry,” Ms. Holtzman, an avid kayaker, said back on dry land, explaining how the leak predicting the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade had driven her out of a long political retirement and into an improbable campaign for New York’s newly reconfigured 10th District.“I was angry at the result, but the so-called reasoning was even scarier because it made women second-class citizens, bound by the thinking of people who were misogynist in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries,” she said. “So, I decided to run.”The Aug. 23 Democratic primary for a rare open seat in the heart of liberal New York City has attracted no shortage of head-turning candidates, including a sitting congressman from Westchester County; an architect of Donald J. Trump’s impeachment; a Tiananmen Square protester; and rising stars in their 30s, and until recently, a former mayor of New York City.But the race’s most surprising twist may be the re-emergence of Ms. Holtzman, who, in a summer of intense Democratic anxiety, is asking voters to set aside pressing concerns about aging leadership in Washington and return a storied fighter to the arena who first made her name during the Nixon era.Ms. Holtzman during an unsuccessful bid in the Democratic Senate primary in 1993.Andrea Mohin/The New York TimesIf she pulls off an upset, the candidate who was once the youngest woman elected to Congress could set another record — as the oldest known nonincumbent in the House of Representatives’ long history (surpassing James B. Bowler of Illinois, 78, and Will Neal of West Virginia, 81) after she turns 81 next month.That possibility has left longtime admirers, former foes and a whole generation of voters who have scarcely heard of her at least a little baffled, particularly in a summer when questions about President Biden’s age (79) are front-page news and Senator Dianne Feinstein has shown the perils of taxpayer-funded senescence.Her opponents make a broader argument: For all her experience and evident mental acuity, Ms. Holtzman is simply out of step with the challenges facing New Yorkers trying to make it today in an increasingly unaffordable city. And if she won, they grumble, she would block an important steppingstone for a new generation of New York leaders.“The problems that need to be solved in this country would benefit from voices that have lived and experienced them,” said Carlina Rivera, 38, a City Council member from Manhattan who is considered a leading contender in the race.“For many people in their 40s or younger, they’ve only ever experienced more transience than a sense of security in their jobs, their benefits, their housing and their education,” she added. “I fit into that category.”Ms. Holtzman uses the same logic, only in reverse.It is her own experiences — working in the Civil Rights-era South, fighting for abortion rights in the 1970s and challenging a Republican president undermining democratic norms (Richard M. Nixon) — along with a sense of national backsliding that she says persuaded her to re-enter electoral politics. Otherwise, she would most likely be spending summer weekends kayaking her beloved Peconic River on Long Island instead of zipping around the city to crowded candidate forums and paddling with reporters.“I’m not a person who sits on the sidelines,” she said in an interview at a cafe near her Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, home after the boating outing. “I’ve taken on the right wing, I’ve taken on presidents, and I can stand up to them.”Ms. Holtzman knows that her campaign is a long shot, but she has been here before. At the age of 31, she became the youngest woman ever elected to Congress in 1972, decades before Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez claimed the title, by defeating a 50-year Brooklyn incumbent, Emanuel Celler and the Democratic Party machine. She was the first (and only) woman to serve as district attorney in Brooklyn and as New York City comptroller.A legal mind with a prodigious work ethic, Ms. Holtzman was hardly an average backbencher. As a House freshman, she battled Nixon to the Supreme Court over war powers and later used her perch to help track down and deport Nazi war criminals from the United States and fight for the Equal Rights Amendment. Then as district attorney, she pushed the courts to curb the use of peremptory challenges to keep African Americans off juries because of their skin color.There were also bitter disappointments. She came within a percentage point of being New York’s first female senator in 1980, badly lost a Senate primary in 1992 and then, a year later, was ousted after a single term as comptroller amid a banking-related scandal that undercut her ethical record.Elizabeth Holtzman, on a recent kayaking jaunt off the Brooklyn shore, said she knows she needs to overcome “preconceptions about people my age.”Mary Inhea Kang for The New York TimesIn the interview, Ms. Holtzman likened questions about her age to arguments that a woman was not fit to serve as district attorney and drew a distinction between herself and Celler, whom, decades earlier, she had portrayed as tired and out of touch.“There are obviously some preconceptions about people my age. Can they do the job?” she said. “I feel I have something unique to offer. And I’m not tired. That’s the whole point.”Unsurprisingly, many of Ms. Holtzman’s defenders are older. But some of them are unexpected.“Biden’s decline has made it more difficult for those who are older,” said Alfonse M. D’Amato, 84, the former Republican senator who defeated Ms. Holtzman in 1980. “But that doesn’t mean that every person who is older can’t do the job. Maybe the experience that life has given them makes them as capable or more so.”Ms. Holtzman’s allies argue that her boundary-pushing style, which helped win a generation of admirers (many of whom still vote), has the potential to offset concerns about her advanced age among younger, progressive voters hungry for authenticity.It also makes Ms. Holtzman something of an appealing safe harbor for some older voters who say now is not the time to take a chance on a promising but less seasoned politician, like Ms. Rivera or Assemblywoman Yuh-Line Niou, 39.“She is kind of a dream candidate for me,” said Eileen Clancy, an activist in Manhattan who recalled as a child watching Ms. Holtzman participate in the House Judiciary Committee’s Watergate hearings.“I’m probably much more aligned with Yuh-Line’s policies,” Ms. Clancy said. “But I have to say, considering the country is in an uproar now and the questions at hand, I think Holtzman is uniquely capable. She could add a gravitas to Congress, and she has the backbone and nothing to lose.”With a dozen candidates in the race and a highly abbreviated campaign timeline, any winning candidate probably only needs a small slice of the vote. A pair of recent polls of likely primary voters by progressive groups showed Ms. Holtzman in the middle of the pack, neck and neck with Representative Mondaire Jones and Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon.But the challenge for Ms. Holtzman may be reaching and turning out potential supporters who do not realize she is running.Though she has stayed active in private legal practice and on federal commissions and has written books, her political network thinned long ago: Gloria Steinem, a feminist contemporary, is her only recognizable endorser. As of Friday, her campaign Instagram account (run by hired consultants) has only 25 followers — a dozen more than her Facebook page.And when other candidates showed up with colorful signs and volunteers to march in Brooklyn’s Pride parade in June, Ms. Holtzman walked alone with little indicating she was running for anything.Her fund-raising operation? “It’s rusty,” Ms. Holtzman said just before her campaign reported raising $122,000, about one-tenth of the amount raised by Daniel Goldman, another Democrat in the race. “Getting it geared up and functioning like a lubricated machine, it’s not happening yet.”So far, Ms. Holtzman has sent out a single glossy mailer that touts her record and her “guts” — but could also serve to surface questions about her age. “Sometimes a picture’s worth 1,000 words,” she said, describing a photograph it features of her with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the liberal Supreme Court justice who died at age 87.Bill Knapp, a veteran political ad maker who got his start working for Ms. Holtzman in 1980 and is working on this year’s race, conceded the race was “no layup,” but argued that Ms. Holtzman had a lane, particularly in the shadow of the abortion decision.“There are plenty of reasons to be skeptical,” he said. “But when you take a measure of the person and the times, this is possible.” More

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      in US Politics

      January 6 panel says Bannon conviction is a ‘victory for the rule of law’ – live

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      A Washington jury has found Steve Bannon guilty on two counts of contempt of Congress after the former adviser to Donald Trump refused to cooperate with a subpoena from the January 6 committee.BREAKING: Steve Bannon GUILTY on both counts. https://t.co/apLhOX2dia— Ryan J. Reilly (@ryanjreilly) July 22, 2022
      In its latest attempt to stop gun violence, California’s Democratic leadership has taken inspiration from anti-abortion legislation first crafted in conservative Texas, the Associated Press reports:California punched back Friday against two recent landmark US supreme court decisions as the state’s governor signed a controversial, first-in-the-nation gun control law patterned after a Texas anti-abortion law.The action by Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, comes one month after conservative justices overturned women’s constitutional right to abortions and undermined gun control laws in states including California.Newsom stitched the two hot-button topics together in approving a law allowing people to sue anyone who distributes illegal assault weapons, parts that can be used to build weapons, guns without serial numbers, or .50 caliber rifles. They would be awarded at least $10,000 in civil damages for each weapon, plus attorneys fees.California signs gun control law modeled after Texas anti-abortion measureRead moreExpect to hear more from Steven Bannon about his contempt of Congress conviction, including in an interview with conservative Fox News host Tucker Carlson this evening, The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports: Hearing that Steve Bannon will return to hosting War Room podcast tonight at 5p ET and then appear on Tucker Carlson’s show on Fox News at 8p ET to discuss his conviction for contempt of Congress.— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) July 22, 2022
      Speaking to reporters after his conviction, Steve Bannon declared, “We may have lost a battle today, but we’re not going to lose this war.” He added, “I stand with Trump, and the constitution.”He also attacked the House panel investigating the January 6 attack as “gutless members of that show-trial committee” who “didn’t have the guts to testify in open court”.You can watch video of his remarks below:Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of former President Donald Trump, was convicted on Friday of contempt charges for defying a congressional subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. https://t.co/ehJpCqr64t pic.twitter.com/W1L4uFcu3r— The Associated Press (@AP) July 22, 2022
      Bennie Thomspon, the Democratic chair of the January 6 committee, and Liz Cheney, the Republican vice chair, have released a statement applauding the conviction this afternoon of former Trump adviser Steve Bannon for defying the committee’s subpoenas.“The conviction of Steve Bannon is a victory for the rule of law and an important affirmation of the Select Committee’s work,” Thompson and Cheney said.“As the prosecutor stated, Steve Bannon ‘chose allegiance to Donald Trump over compliance with the law’. Just as there must be accountability for all those responsible for the events of January 6th, anyone who obstructs our investigation into these matters should face consequences. No one is above the law.”Steve Bannon convicted of contempt of Congress for defying Capitol attack subpoenaRead moreThe Secret Service has just put out a statement reaffirming its willingness to cooperate with the January 6 committee, amid an ongoing investigation over its deletion of text messages from around the time of the insurrection.“As an American and director of this incredible agency, I found the events at the Capitol on January 6th to be abhorrent. What happened on that day in January 2021 is anathema to democracy and the processes our constitution guarantees,” Secret Service director James Murray said. “Since day one, I have directed our personnel to cooperate fully and completely with the committee and we are currently finalizing dates and times for our personnel to make themselves available to the committee for follow up inquiries.”Separately, CNN reports that Adam Kinzinger, a Republican lawmaker serving on the committee, said that Donald Trump’s former deputy chief of staff and the former head of his Secret Service detail have stopped cooperating with the inquiry.I asked @RepKinzinger if he believes Trump’s fmr Dep Chief of Staff Tony Ornato and fmr Secret Service lead agent Robert Engel are still cooperating with the Jan 6 Cmte. His answer was a hard “No.”— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) July 22, 2022
      Secret Service told to begin an inquiry into erased January 6 text messagesRead moreJean-Pierre didn’t have much to say about Steve Bannon’s conviction earlier this afternoon on contempt of Congress charges for defying subpoenas from the January 6 committee.“I’m not going to comment specifically on that case, but obviously, everyone should cooperate with the January 6 committee,” she told reporters.The White House has identified 17 close contacts of President Joe Biden, who tested positive for Covid-19 yesterday.Speaking at a briefing to reporters, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the group members have all been informed, but none has tested positive.“The White House medical unit has identified and informed 17 people determined to be close contacts of the president, including members of his senior staff. None of the staff members have tested positive to date, and all of them are wearing masks around other people,” Jean-Pierre said.President Joe Biden has appeared at a White House event – virtually, due to his Covid-19 infection.“I feel much better than I sound,” he said, flashing a thumbs-up and smiling on-screen.He didn’t have much more to say about that, but the event is focusing on gas prices, which are declining nationally from their record high levels hit last month, according to GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan:37 days in a row: #gasprices keep falling, the national average ⬇️ 2.2c to $4.419/gal. We’re likely to fall to $4.399/gal by late today. 8 states under $4: TX, SC, GA, MS, LA, AL, TN, & AR. 35k stations More

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      in Elections

      January 6 hearings: Trump ‘chose not to act’ during Capitol attack, Kinzinger says – live

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      Today, the Republican party remains by and large the domain of Donald Trump. He still leads in polls of potential candidates in the next election, and House Republican leadership routinely criticizes the January 6 committee.Last night’s hearing was however full of reminders that top Republicans appeared ready to break with Trump during and immediately after the insurrection – or at least were terrified by it. Case in point: the much-mocked video footage of rightwing senator Josh Hawley fleeing through the halls of the Capitol as the protesters he greeted as he walked in overwhelmed police.Then there was Kevin McCarthy, the leader of the party in the House of Representatives who could be the chamber’s next speaker, should Republicans gain seats in November’s midterms. The committee last night showed that he pleaded with Trump as the insurrection was ongoing to call off the mob – which the president refused to do. Viewers also saw a repeat of his floor speech seven days after the attack, where he pinned the blame squarely on Trump.Days later, McCarthy went to Florida, where he met with the former president and appeared in a picture beside him that is now seen as having been key to reviving Trump’s standing among the party.“The mob was accomplishing president Trump’s purpose. So of course he didn’t intervene.”That was how Adam Kinzinger, one of two Republicans on the January 6 committee, summed up what the panel uncovered last night. His statement near the start of the hearing was followed by testimony from two former White House officials present in the room and video clips from the lawmakers’ interviews with former White House officials, including attorney Pat Cipollone.“What explains President Trump’s behavior. Why did he not take immediate action in a time of crisis?” Kinzinger asked. “Because president Trump’s plan for January 6 was to halt or delay Congress’s official proceeding to count the votes. The mob… attacking the Capitol quickly caused the evacuation of both the House and the Senate. The count ground to an absolute halt and was ultimately delayed for hours.”The committee won’t host another hearing until sometime in September, and plans to use the coming weeks to continue their investigation. As the committee vice-chair Liz Cheney put it last night: “Doors have opened, new subpoenas have been issued and the dam has begun to break.”As the January 6 committee was airing evidence, Andrew Lawrence entered an alternate universe, just by watching Fox News:On Thursday night as the Congressional hearings into the January 6 Capitol riot drew to a close, Tucker Carlson directed his outrage at a president he felt had lied and was not being held accountable for falsehoods that shook popular faith in the American democratic system. But he wasn’t talking about Donald Trump inciting rioters to storm the Capitol. He was talking about Joe Biden getting Covid.Whilemillions of people last night tuned into America’s other TV news channels and heard testimony about what Trump did, or rather did not do, during the hours when the rioters stormed the Capitol, Fox News viewers saw the network’s primetime stars Carlson and Sean Hannity chide the “twice jabbed, double-boosted” president for contracting the virus they say he alleged couldn’t be caught with a vaccine.As the US watched the January 6 hearing, Fox News showed outrage – at Biden getting CovidRead moreSteve Bannon is one of the many Trump associates whose comments were shown by the January 6 committee last night, but he may be the only one currently embroiled in active criminal trial.In fact, the charges he’s facing center around his defiance of a subpoena from the committee, and both sides are today expected to finish making their cases before a jury. Politico reports that Bannon’s legal team wants to question the jury about whether they watched last night’s hearing.HAPPENING SOON: Bannon returns to court just hours after the Jan. 6 select committee featured him prominently at the close of their hearing. The case is expected to go to the jury today but I’m anticipating some discussion about whether jurors may have watched.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) July 22, 2022
      As expected, BANNON team raises his mention in last night’s hearing as a potential problem for the jury. Here’s a filing that just arrived: pic.twitter.com/5WdvxXPzM1— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) July 22, 2022
      BANNON wants judge to question jury:”The Defendant respectfully requests…that there should be some inquiry, while assuring the jurors of the importance of candor and that they will not suffer negative consequences if they acknowledge exposure to the broadcast or its subject.”— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) July 22, 2022
      Closing arguments in the case are now underway:UPDATE: Closing arguments are now underway. Judge Nichols has already instructed the jurors, so they’ll begin deliberating as soon as this is over. Expect they’ll be deliberating by 11-11:30 a.m.— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) July 22, 2022
      Steve Bannon appears in court as contempt-of-Congress trial beginsRead moreThe Guardian’s David Smith was in the room last night as the January 6 committee conducted what some are calling its “season finale”:They did it. They pulled it off. Anyone who feared that the January 6 committee’s season finale would turn into an anti-climax – more Game of Thrones than M*A*S*H – need not have worried. There were shocks, horrors and even laughs.The eight “episodes” have exceeded all expectations with their crisp narrative and sharp editing, a far cry from the usual dry proceedings on Capitol Hill. Each has recapped what came before, teased what is to come and compellingly joined the dots against Donald Trump.Much of the credit must go to James Goldston, the former president of ABC News, who was brought in to help produce the hearings like a true crime series. Give that man an Emmy (if only to infuriate Trump, a TV obsessive).Hearing delivers gripping ‘finale’ full of damning details about TrumpRead moreToday, the Republican party remains by and large the domain of Donald Trump. He still leads in polls of potential candidates in the next election, and House Republican leadership routinely criticizes the January 6 committee.Last night’s hearing was however full of reminders that top Republicans appeared ready to break with Trump during and immediately after the insurrection – or at least were terrified by it. Case in point: the much-mocked video footage of rightwing senator Josh Hawley fleeing through the halls of the Capitol as the protesters he greeted as he walked in overwhelmed police.Then there was Kevin McCarthy, the leader of the party in the House of Representatives who could be the chamber’s next speaker, should Republicans gain seats in November’s midterms. The committee last night showed that he pleaded with Trump as the insurrection was ongoing to call off the mob – which the president refused to do. Viewers also saw a repeat of his floor speech seven days after the attack, where he pinned the blame squarely on Trump.Days later, McCarthy went to Florida, where he met with the former president and appeared in a picture beside him that is now seen as having been key to reviving Trump’s standing among the party.Good morning, US politics blog readers. Last night, the January 6 committee wrapped up its first weeks of hearings by airing evidence that showed Donald Trump resisted efforts to forcefully condemn the rioters who broke into the Capitol that day, despite the pleas of top White House officials and his own family members to do so. As Congressman Adam Kinzinger put it: “President Trump did not fail to act during the 187 minutes between leaving the Ellipse and telling the mob to go home. He chose not to act.” Expect the aftershocks from those revelations to wash through Washington today.Here’s what else is happening today:
      Trump speaks at an Arizona rally for candidates in the state he has endorsed, which kicks off at 4 pm eastern time.
      The trial of Steve Bannon, a former top advisor to Trump who featured in last night’s hearing, continues over contempt of Congress charges.
      Congress is still negotiating over a bunch of legislation, including measures to boost American competitiveness, codify same-sex marriage rights and lower prescription drug and health care costs. More