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      Trump reportedly wants to testify before January 6 committee – live

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      There are plenty of instances of former presidents testifying before congress, and in fact, even sitting presidents have done so, according to the US Senate.But such an appearance hasn’t been made in a while. The last former president to answer questions on Capitol Hill was Gerald Ford, who appeared before a Senate subcommittee on the constitution in 1983. He was also the last president in office to testify, during a 1974 House subcommittee hearing about his decision to pardon former president Richard Nixon for various charges related to the Watergate scandal.Up until January 6, historians viewed Watergate as perhaps the worst political scandal in American history. But the insurrection at the Capitol may well have eclipsed that – and Trump could follow in the footsteps of his predecessors and appear before lawmakers to discuss his role in it.While sitting and former presidents have testified before Congress in the past, Politico reports that subpoenaing a former commander in chief is far more contentious.In 1953, former president Harry Truman defied a subpoena from the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee. “It is just as important to the independence of the Executive that the actions of the President should not be subjected to questioning by the Congress after he has completed his term of office as that his actions should not be questioned while he is serving as President,” he said in a lengthy speech explaining his refusal to attend.The January 6 committee could, of course, go to court to force Trump to comply, assuming a judge – or more likely judges – agrees. But they simply don’t have the time. Their mandate expires at the end of the year, at the same time as this Congress terms out, and any court challenge would likely take months to resolve.Not all Trump administration scandals involve the former president. Stephanie Kirchgaessner reports a Senate committee leaders wants answers about a real estate property deal involving Jared Kushner, a top aide to the former president:A financial firm that operates billions of dollars in real estate properties around the world is facing new questions from the powerful chairman of the Senate finance committee about whether Qatar was secretly involved in the $1.2bn (£1bn) rescue of a Fifth Avenue property owned by Jared Kushner’s family while Kushner was serving in the White House.Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat who leads the finance committee, has given the chief executive of Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management until 24 October to answer a series of detailed questions about a 2018 deal in which Brookfield paid Kushner Companies for a 99-year lease on the family’s marquee 666 Fifth Avenue property.When the deal was announced in August 2018, it was seen as the end of a drawn-out saga surrounding the property. The rescue, it was said in media reports, generated enough money for the Kushner family to pay $1.1bn (£970m) of debt on the building and buy out a partner.In a statement on Thursday, Wyden accused Brookfield of stonewalling his committee and refusing to answer questions about the transaction, including whether Brookfield “intentionally misled” the public when it said that “no Qatar-linked entity” had been involved in the deal. In fact, it has since been alleged by Wyden that Brookfield used a Qatari-backed fund – called Brookfield Property Partners – to fund the transaction. At the time of the deal, Wyden said, the Qatari Investment Authority was the fund’s second largest investor.Top senator seeks answers over Qatar link to $1.2bn Kushner property rescueRead moreOne of the most gripping moments of the January 6 committee’s hearing yesterday came when the panel aired footage of congressional leaders scrambling for help after the Capitol was overrun. Here’s what the video showed:New footage of the January 6 riots at the US Capitol shows House speaker Nancy Pelosi calmly trying to take charge of the situation as she sheltered at Fort McNair, two miles south of the Capitol.“There has to be some way,” she told colleagues, “we can maintain the sense that people have that there is some security or some confidence that government can function and that you can elect the president of the United States.”Then an unidentified voice interjected with alarming news: lawmakers on the House floor had begun putting on teargas masks in preparation for a breach. Pelosi asked the woman to repeat what she said.‘Do you believe this?’: New video shows how Nancy Pelosi took charge in Capitol riotRead moreWhile Trump twice escaped conviction by Congress, The Guardian’s Sam Levine finds the evidence laid out by the January 6 committee could form the backbone of a criminal case against the former president:After more than a year of work that consisted of interviewing 1,000-plus witnesses and reviewing hundreds of thousands of documents, the committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol chose a simple message for its final public hearing: Donald Trump was singularly responsible for the attack.Since its first hearing in June, the committee’s work has been aimed at two audiences. One of those has been the broad American public. Tactfully using video, the committee has told a disciplined, clear story of what happened on January 6, and the days leading up to it, filled with jaw-dropping soundbites from Trump’s closest aides.But the committee’s public coda on Thursday appeared more directed at its second audience: an audience of one, the US attorney general, Merrick Garland.Garland will ultimately decide whether to bring criminal charges against Trump over January 6, and the committee’s work, which has run parallel to the justice department’s investigation, has made a public case for bringing charges, attempting to bring along public support for doing so.January 6 panel’s case against Trump lays out roadmap for prosecutionRead moreA new books argues that the way Democrats handled Trump’s first impeachment in 2019 laid the groundwork for the lawless streak he exhibited when he tried to overturn the following year’s elections, Politico reports.In “Unchecked,” written by Politico reporter Rachael Bade and Washington Post reporter Karoun Demirjian, House speaker Nancy Pelosi is shown as being caught between two wings of the Democratic party as it weighs how to respond to Trump’s pressuring of Ukraine’s government to investigate Joe Biden. One group, composed mostly of progressives, wanted a sprawling inquiry into all of the then-president’s alleged misdeeds, while another, made up of Democrats in vulnerable seats, wanted a narrowly tailored investigation into the Ukraine affair that wouldn’t take too long.The latter group won out, but according to the book, Pelosi missed opportunities to wrangle some Republicans into supporting Trump’s impeachment – though the book concedes the effort may well have been a long shot, even if she tried.The Senate ultimately acquitted Trump, and the book finds that decision emboldened Trump to attempt further schemes – like his plot to overturn the 2020 election. Here’s how Politico puts it:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In the end, one political truism superseded all the others: What happens in January of an election year will be ancient history by the time voters cast ballots. This was especially true in 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic seemed to emerge just as Democrats were licking their wounds from the impeachment trial acquittal.
      Soon after, Trump would begin sowing the seeds of what would become his effort to overturn defeat in the presidential election, and by November, impeachment seemed an asterisk in a year that had become chaotic for many other reasons.
      Ultimately, Democrats took the White House, even though Pelosi’s House majority shrank slightly after 2020. House managers of Trump’s first impeachment have insisted to this day that their existential warnings played a role in voters deeming him unfit for a second term.
      His actions to subvert his 2020 loss, they argue, were evidence that Republicans’ decision to acquit him had left him feeling unchecked.Trump hasn’t yet publicly said if he’d testify before the January 6 committee, as their subpoena compels him to.But his political action committee has today distributed to reporters this letter, dated yesterday and addressed to the committee’s chair. The 14-page epistle is mostly a rehash of his baseless theories that the 2020 election was stolen from him, and a defense of his conduct on January 6. It opens with this line: “THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2020 WAS RIGGED AND STOLEN!”It’s unclear if Trump himself wrote it, but based on the prose, it’s difficult not to imagine his voice when reading it. Consider the second sentence:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The same group of Radical Left Democrats who utilized their Majority position in Congress to create the fiction of Russia, Russia, Russia, Impeachment Hoax #1, Impeachment Hoax #2, the $48 Million Mueller Report (which ended in No Collusion!), Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, the atrocious and illegal Spying on my Campaign, and so much more, are the people who created this Committee of highly partisan political Hacks and Thugs whose sole function is to destroy the lives of many hard-working American Patriots, whose records in life have been unblemished until this point of attempted ruination.There are plenty of instances of former presidents testifying before congress, and in fact, even sitting presidents have done so, according to the US Senate.But such an appearance hasn’t been made in a while. The last former president to answer questions on Capitol Hill was Gerald Ford, who appeared before a Senate subcommittee on the constitution in 1983. He was also the last president in office to testify, during a 1974 House subcommittee hearing about his decision to pardon former president Richard Nixon for various charges related to the Watergate scandal.Up until January 6, historians viewed Watergate as perhaps the worst political scandal in American history. But the insurrection at the Capitol may well have eclipsed that – and Trump could follow in the footsteps of his predecessors and appear before lawmakers to discuss his role in it.Good morning, US politics blog readers. Yesterday’s big news was that the January 6 committee had issued a subpoena to Donald Trump, in an attempt to compel the testimony of a man they say was responsible above all others for the deadly insurrection at the Capitol. You’d be right not to get your hopes up that the former president would honor their summons – he’s stymied various attempts to compel his behavior or hold him accountable over the years with lengthy court challenges, and the congressional subpoena seems like it could meet the same fate. But media outlets including the New York Times and Fox News report that Trump actually would like to speak to lawmakers – assuming he can do so live. We may hear from him today on what course of action he’s decided to take.Here’s a look at what else is happening today:
      Liz Cheney, the Republican vice-chair of the January 6 committee, will talk about defending democracy at Notre Dame University at 2.30pm eastern time.
      Washington’s fury towards Saudi Arabia will be the subject when Democratic representative Ro Khanna, an advocate of cracking down on Riyadh over its backing of the recent Opec+ oil production cut, speaks with the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft at 12pm eastern time.
      Joe Biden is continuing his trip out west with a speech in Orange county, California, about “lowering costs for American families” and a stop in Oregon. There, the president will campaign for the state’s Democratic candidate for governor, who appears to be struggling polls. More

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      These Republicans Questioned the 2020 Election — and Most Are Still Doing It. Many Will Win.

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      Hundreds of Republican midterm candidates have questioned or spread misinformation about the 2020 election. Hundreds of Republican midterm candidates have questioned or spread misinformation about the 2020 election. Together they represent a growing consensus in the Republican Party, and a potential threat to American democracy. Together they represent a growing consensus in the Republican Party, […] More

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      In the House, These National Security Democrats Face Political Peril

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      A group of lawmakers who have pushed centrist foreign policy goals, many of them elected in the blue wave of 2018, are confronting troublesome re-election bids.They played a decisive role in kicking off Donald Trump’s first impeachment. They’ve pushed hard for centrist foreign policy goals, working with Republicans whenever the stars aligned. And they’ve been persistent critics of their own team, taking calculated potshots at President Biden and Speaker Nancy Pelosi as they try to cast themselves as pillars of political independence.Now, with the midterm elections less than a month away, as many as half a dozen of the moderate national security Democrats in the House are in peril, and maybe more.Many of them were elected amid the anti-Trump blue wave of 2018, in districts that Democrats might otherwise have struggled to win.Representative Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, a former C.I.A. analyst who is fluent in Arabic and Swahili, has established herself as one of the top intelligence experts on Capitol Hill. Republicans have identified Slotkin as a top target this year.Representative Elaine Luria of Virginia still speaks in the argot of a former Navy commander and decorates her House office with photographs of the submarines and cruisers that populate the country’s largest naval base, in nearby Norfolk. During last year’s race for governor of Virginia, the winner, Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, would have won Luria’s district by double digits. Her opponent, State Senator Jen Kiggans, is another Navy veteran and could easily unseat her.Representative Jared Golden of Maine, a retired Marine, is clinging to the most pro-Trump district held by a Democrat anywhere in the country. Golden squeaked into office in part because his Republican opponent, Bruce Poliquin, misplayed the state’s ranked-choice voting system, a mistake Poliquin seems to be rectifying during this year’s rematch.Representative Abigail Spanberger of Virginia is a former C.I.A. officer who has supplied some of the most memorable lines criticizing her party’s perceived leftward lurch. Although Spanberger’s seat in suburban Northern Virginia is now considered safer after Virginia’s redistricting cycle, her team says it is taking no chances.And Representative Tom Malinowski of New Jersey, a puckish former State Department official and human rights expert, has nudged the Biden administration to welcome more Afghan refugees, provide more help to Ukraine and seize the yachts of Russian oligarchs. Malinowski, whose Trump-leaning district grew slightly redder after New Jersey redid its maps, faces a stiff challenge from Thomas Kean Jr., who nearly defeated him in 2020.Together, they represent a fading tradition: the quaint notion that politics stops at the water’s edge. And all of them are vulnerable to being washed out in a red tide this fall. Their potential ousters, as well as a number of key retirements, threaten to hollow out decades of national experience in Congress at a time of great turmoil abroad.“They bring a lot of expertise to the table, which is really useful to have in-house on oversight committees rather than having to rely on the agencies all the time,” said Representative Ruben Gallego, a Democrat from Arizona who fought in the Iraq war.Gallego, a member of the Armed Services Committee, added that experience working for the military or the C.I.A. exposed Democratic politicians to Americans from an array of working-class and rural backgrounds — which, he said, gave them valuable insights into the politics of those types of communities.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Attacks by Doug Mastriano, the G.O.P. nominee, on the Jewish school where Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate, sends his children have set off an outcry about antisemitic signaling.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but some conservative Christians have learned to tolerate the behavior of those who advance their cause.These Democrats have also balanced out what some like-minded experts said was a risk that, in reaction to Trump’s foreign policy, the party might have drifted toward politically self-destructive isolationism at a time when voters were worried by the president’s seeming solicitousness toward authoritarian leaders in China, Russia and North Korea.“What they did is they served as ballast within the Democratic Party when there were some pretty loud voices that were trying to pull the Democrats off the cliff and into oblivion,” said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank.Katulis pointed to a failed attempt by progressives last year to strip funding for Israel’s Iron Dome air-defense system, a move that the national security Democrats and pro-Israel groups quashed.Win or lose, change is on the horizon for DemocratsThree senior Democrats on the Armed Services Committee are also retiring: Jim Cooper of Tennessee, Jim Langevin of Rhode Island and Jackie Speier of California. So no matter what happens in November, decades of experience and interest in foreign policy on the left will be leaving Congress.And though other national security-minded Democrats, like Representatives Andy Kim and Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, have been drawn into safer districts, a wave election for Republicans could threaten some of those seats, too.A Republican takeover of the House, moreover, would put the party in charge of important oversight committees, such as the intelligence panel, a platform Democrats used under Representative Adam Schiff of California to carry out investigations of the Trump administration. Those inquiries made news, damaged the president politically and ultimately helped lead to his first impeachment.If Republicans gain control of the House, even Democrats who survive the election will find themselves relatively powerless to help steer the country’s foreign policy, forced to play defense as their opponents control the agenda on the House floor and within each committee.Representative Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, has already vowed to begin investigations of the Biden administration in retaliation for what Democrats did during the Trump years.That’s no idle threat.Under President Barack Obama, Republicans seized on the administration’s handling of the 2012 attack on U.S. diplomatic facilities in Benghazi, Libya, to damage the future political prospects of two senior Democratic leaders: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who went on to run for president in 2016, and Susan Rice, who served as United Nations ambassador and national security adviser. Rice’s appearances on Sunday talk shows to discuss the Benghazi attack hobbled her chances of succeeding Clinton and may have helped scuttle her opportunity to become Biden’s running mate in 2020.Highly politicized oversight of foreign policy has been known to jump-start political careers, too.One of the ringleaders of the Benghazi oversight push, Representative Mike Pompeo of Kansas, issued a report that went beyond the criticisms of his fellow Republicans toward the Obama administration. His prominence on the issue caught the eye of Trump, who named him C.I.A. director and later secretary of state. Pompeo, a vocal critic of Biden’s foreign policy, is now widely understood to be considering a presidential bid in 2024.What to readIn races across the nation, Lisa Lerer and Katie Glueck write, Republican candidates are “waffling on their abortion positions, denying past behavior or simply trying to avoid a topic that has long been a bedrock principle of American conservatism.”Los Angeles has been rocked by the leak of a secretly recorded private discussion in which three members of the City Council used racist insults and slurs. One of the council members resigned on Wednesday, Jill Cowan and Shawn Hubler report.The conservative activist Leonard Leo, who has led efforts to appoint conservatives to federal courts, has quietly built a sprawling network and raised huge sums of money to challenge liberal values. Read Kenneth Vogel’s investigation.Online misinformation about the midterm elections is swirling in immigrant communities, researchers say, in even more languages, on more topics and across more digital platforms than it did in 2020. Tiffany Hsu explains.Thank you for reading On Politics, and for being a subscriber to The New York Times. — BlakeRead past editions of the newsletter here.If you’re enjoying what you’re reading, please consider recommending it to others. They can sign up here. Browse all of our subscriber-only newsletters here.Have feedback? Ideas for coverage? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More

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      White House says ‘outcompeting China and restraining Russia’ top Biden foreign policy aims – as it happened

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      The Biden administration’s long awaited national security strategy says outcompeting China, and restraining Russia’s aggression as its war in Ukraine war progresses, will be its key goals for the coming year.The 48-page document, launched Wednesday after a number of delays as the White House adjusted to Russian president Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine, talks up the president’s resolve to build international alliances to stand up for democracy.At a press briefing accompanying its release, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the war hadn’t “fundamentally altered” Joe Biden’s approach to foreign policy, but has strengthened the importance of, and his desire to work with international partners:Sullivan said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}[The strategy] presents in living color the key elements of our approach, the emphasis on allies, the importance of strengthening the hand of the democratic world and standing up for our fellow democracies and for democratic values.
      What the nuclear threats and saber rattling we’ve seen from Russia remind us of is just what a significant and seriously dangerous adversary Russia is, not just to the US but to a world that is seeking peace and stability, and now has seen that flagrantly disrupted by this invasion and now by all of the saber rattling.Being able to watch how Ukraine unfolded, have the terms of geopolitical competition sharpened up over the course of the past few months, and also being able to put on display how our strategy works in practice – I think all of those serve a good purpose in terms of giving life to the document that we’re releasing today.Regarding China, the strategy highlights Biden’s concerns that Beijing was attempting to “layer authoritarian governance with a revisionist foreign policy”.In his preview of the policy Wednesday, Sullivan added:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The People’s Republic of China harbors the intention and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order in favor of one that tilts the global playing field to its benefit, even as the US remains committed to managing the competition between our countries responsibly.
      [The Biden administration] is looking at ways that the US can more effectively approach our trade policy with China to ensure that we are achieving the strategic priorities the president has laid out, which is the strongest possible American industrial and innovation base and a level playing field for American workers.Sullivan is scheduled to deliver further remarks this afternoon at an event hosted by the Center for a New American Security and the Georgetown University Walsh school of foreign service.That’s all from our live politics blog for today. Thanks for joining us.Here’s what we followed:
      Joe Biden’s foreign policy objectives were laid out in his administration’s long awaited national security strategy, a 48-page document released by the White House this morning. Outcompeting China, curbing Russian aggression, and building an international alliance to do both are the main goals.
      National security adviser Jake Sullivan said the US was better placed than any other nation to seize what he called a “decisive decade” that will determine the fate of the free world. “The actions we take now will shape whether this decisive decade is an age of conflict and discord are the beginning of a more prosperous and stable future,” he said.
      Biden dedicated the Camp Hale continental divide national monument during a visit to Vail, Colorado. The proclamation preserves the lands to “honor our nation’s veterans, Indigenous people, and their legacy,” the president said.
      Biden made clear he’s willing to retaliate against Saudi Arabia for backing the Opec+ oil production cut, but hasn’t yet said what measures he supports. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre spoke of unspecified “consequences” for the Saudis, but not for some time.
      Mitt Romney is staying out of the Senate race in Utah, declining to endorse his Republican Senate counterpart Mike Lee, or independent challenger Evan McMullin, both of whom he considers friends.
      Tulsi Gabbard, who yesterday announced she was leaving the Democratic party, is heading to New Hampshire to campaign for rightwing Republican Senate candidate Don Bolduc.
      Political polling by telephone has become so difficult it may soon become impossible, The New York Times warns.
      Rightwing InfoWars host Alex Jones must pay $965m to families of victims and those he hurt by calling the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting a hoax, a jury has decided.The decision concludes his second defamation trial, in Waterbury, Connecticut, less than 20 miles from Newtown, where a man shot 26 children and teachers dead in 2012.WATERBURY, Conn. (AP) — Jury says Alex Jones should pay $965 million to people who suffered from his lies about the Sandy Hook school massacre.— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) October 12, 2022
      Donald Trump will have to answer questions under oath next week in a defamation lawsuit lodged by a writer who says he raped her in the mid-1990s, a judge ruled Wednesday.US district judge Lewis Kaplan rejected a request by Trump’s lawyers that the planned testimony be delayed. The deposition is now scheduled for 19 October.The decision came in a lawsuit brought by E Jean Carroll, a longtime advice columnist for Elle magazine, who says Trump raped her in an upscale Manhattan department store’s dressing room. Trump has denied it. Carroll is scheduled to be deposed on Friday.Read more:Trump must sit for deposition in lawsuit brought by rape accuser E Jean CarrollRead moreA quick summary of Karine Jean-Pierre’s answer when she was asked this afternoon about Joe Biden’s earlier “we will take action” comment about Saudi Arabia, for pushing Opec+ to slash oil production: there will be consequences, but not for some time.The White House press secretary was asked during a “gaggle” with reporters on Air Force One what the president mean by “action”, a remark he did not expand on as he departed Washington DC en route to Colorado:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}As he said this morning, when the House and the Senate get back we’ll discuss and make decisions in a deliberate way. But he was very clear there will be consequences. We believe the decision that Opec+ made last week was a mistake.
      We’re going to review where we are. We’ll be watching closely over the coming weeks and months. There’s going to be consultation with our allies, there’s going to be consultation with Congress, and decisions will be made in a deliberate way.
      We want to be very deliberate about this. And that is going to take some time. I don’t have a timeline for you.The US is better placed than any other nation to seize what White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan says is a “decisive decade” that will determine the fate of the free world.Sullivan is speaking at Georgetown university, where he’s putting flesh on the bones of the Biden administration’s national security strategy, released earlier today.Tune in now: A Conversation with National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. https://t.co/kNmLfMVPn2— Georgetown SFS (@georgetownsfs) October 12, 2022
      Outcompeting China, curbing Russian aggression in Ukraine and elsewhere, and building a global coalition to tackle those issues, are Biden’s key policy objectives for the year, Sullivan says:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The post-cold war era is over and the competition is under way between the major powers to shape what comes next. The US, we believe, is better positioned than any other nation in the world to seize this moment to help set the rules shore up the norms and advance the values that will define the world we want to live in.
      [The strategy] details the president’s vision of a free, open, prosperous and secure international order. And it offers a roadmap for seizing this decisive decade to advance America’s vital interests, position America and our allies to outpace our competitors, and build broad effective coalition’s to tackle shared challenges.
      The matters laid out in this document and the execution of it do not only belong to the US government, they belong to everyone who shares this vision worldwide.
      And the stakes could not be higher. The actions we take now will shape whether this decisive decade is an age of conflict and discord are the beginning of a more prosperous and stable future.Sullivan is being careful to stress Biden’s foreign policy strategy as a partnership:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}If there’s anything that is a core hallmark of Joe Biden’s approach to the world, it is an investment in America’s allies.
      Even if our democratic allies and partners don’t agree on everything, they are aligned with us, and so are many countries that do not embrace democratic institutions, but nevertheless depend upon and help sustain a rules-based international system.
      They don’t want to see it vanish and they know that we are the world’s best bet to defend it.
      That’s why the second strategic focus of President Biden’s approach is mobilizing the broadest possible coalition of nations to leverage our collective influence. Our goal is not to force our partners to fall in line with us on every issue.The White House has released a fact sheet about Joe Biden’s unveiling of the Camp Hale continental divide national monument in Vail, Colorado, a little later this afternoon.The proclamation of the monument “will honor our nation’s veterans, Indigenous people, and their legacy by protecting this Colorado landscape, while supporting jobs and America’s outdoor recreation economy,” the press release says.I’m headed to Camp Hale, Colorado.Because today, I’m declaring the Camp Hale-Continental Divide area a national monument in honor of our nation’s veterans, Indigenous people, and their legacy.— President Biden (@POTUS) October 12, 2022
      The monument “preserves and protects the mountains and valleys where the US Army’s 10th Mountain Division prepared for their brave service that ultimately brought [the second world war] to a close”.The division’s actions in the Italian Alps using skills acquired in training in Camp Hale’s rugged mountains included a daring nighttime mission scaling a 1,500ft cliff, and ultimately pushing back elite Axis forces. Today, President Biden is traveling to Colorado to establish the Camp Hale – Continental Divide National Monument.This action will honor our nation’s veterans and Indigenous people, support jobs, and protect an iconic outdoor space. https://t.co/DmR5yDr1QG— The White House (@WhiteHouse) October 12, 2022
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has been expanding on Joe Biden’s assessment of Vladimir Putin as a “rational actor who has miscalculated significantly” Russia’s prospects of occupying Ukraine.Jean-Pierre was speaking to reporters aboard a bumpy flight on Air Force One to Colorado, explaining why it was it was an error on the Russian president’s part:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}If you look at how strong the Nato alliance is, he thought he would break that up, and it was a miscalculation because what he has seen as a stronger Nato, what he is seeing as a strong west, and what he’s seeing is a coalition that we have never seen before as far as the strength of the countries coming together to support Ukraine.
      He miscalculated what his aggression, what his war that he created against Ukraine, would lead to and and we’ve seen that he has become a pariah.But she would not be drawn on specifically why Biden thought Putin was “rational”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I’m going to let the president’s words speak for themselves. He is a rational actor who has miscalculated.Read more:Putin ‘totally miscalculated’ Russia’s ability to occupy Ukraine, Biden saysRead moreThe Biden administration’s long awaited national security strategy says outcompeting China, and restraining Russia’s aggression as its war in Ukraine war progresses, will be its key goals for the coming year.The 48-page document, launched Wednesday after a number of delays as the White House adjusted to Russian president Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine, talks up the president’s resolve to build international alliances to stand up for democracy.At a press briefing accompanying its release, national security adviser Jake Sullivan said the war hadn’t “fundamentally altered” Joe Biden’s approach to foreign policy, but has strengthened the importance of, and his desire to work with international partners:Sullivan said:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}[The strategy] presents in living color the key elements of our approach, the emphasis on allies, the importance of strengthening the hand of the democratic world and standing up for our fellow democracies and for democratic values.
      What the nuclear threats and saber rattling we’ve seen from Russia remind us of is just what a significant and seriously dangerous adversary Russia is, not just to the US but to a world that is seeking peace and stability, and now has seen that flagrantly disrupted by this invasion and now by all of the saber rattling.Being able to watch how Ukraine unfolded, have the terms of geopolitical competition sharpened up over the course of the past few months, and also being able to put on display how our strategy works in practice – I think all of those serve a good purpose in terms of giving life to the document that we’re releasing today.Regarding China, the strategy highlights Biden’s concerns that Beijing was attempting to “layer authoritarian governance with a revisionist foreign policy”.In his preview of the policy Wednesday, Sullivan added:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The People’s Republic of China harbors the intention and, increasingly, the capacity to reshape the international order in favor of one that tilts the global playing field to its benefit, even as the US remains committed to managing the competition between our countries responsibly.
      [The Biden administration] is looking at ways that the US can more effectively approach our trade policy with China to ensure that we are achieving the strategic priorities the president has laid out, which is the strongest possible American industrial and innovation base and a level playing field for American workers.Sullivan is scheduled to deliver further remarks this afternoon at an event hosted by the Center for a New American Security and the Georgetown University Walsh school of foreign service.We’ll hear from Joe Biden in Vail, Colorado, later this afternoon as he talks up America’s outdoor spaces on the first leg of a three-state tour of the west.But the main purpose of his odyssey is to promote his administration’s accomplishments and rally for Democratic candidates in the upcoming midterms, now less than four weeks away.Biden’s first stop is to designate his administration’s first national monument at the behest of Democratic Colorado senator Michael Bennet, the Associated Press reports. Bennet is in a competitive reelection race.The president later today heads for California, where he will hold two events promoting legislative successes including the bipartisan Infrastructure and Chips acts, and headline a fundraiser for the House Democrats’ campaign arm.In Los Angeles, he’ll get a close-up look at the racism scandal engulfing the city commission. On Tuesday, the president called for the resignation of three Los Angeles city council members who were caught on tape making racist comments in a meeting last year.Then he will appear on Monday in Oregon, where Democrats’ grip on the governor’s mansion in Salem is under threat. The party is also fighting several close congressional races in the state.“We’ve been very clear that the president is going to go out, the vice president is going to go out,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in her Tuesday briefing from the White House.Talking of Jean-Pierre, she is set to deliver a briefing to reporters soon aboard Air Force One en route to Colorado.When the panel investigating the January 6 attack convenes tomorrow for what’s likely to be its final public hearing, expect to learn more about what Donald Trump knew both ahead of the insurrection, and while it was happening. Meanwhile, president Joe Biden has made clear he’s willing to retaliate against Saudi Arabia for backing the Opec+ oil production cut, but hasn’t yet said what measures he supports.Here’s what else has happened today:
      Mitt Romney is staying out of the Senate race in Utah, declining to endorse his Republican Senate counterpart Mike Lee, or independent challenger Evan McMullin, both of whom he considers friends.
      Tulsi Gabbard, who yesterday announced she was leaving the Democratic party, is heading to New Hampshire to campaign for rightwing Republican Senate candidate Don Bolduc.
      Political polling by telephone has become so difficult it may soon become impossible, The New York Times warns. More

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      Can Democrats win tight midterm races with a pro-choice message? Pat Ryan says yes

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      InterviewCan Democrats win tight midterm races with a pro-choice message? Pat Ryan says yesPoppy NoorThe congressman won a swing upstate New York district with a progressive platform – and says Democrats can use his playbook When Democrat Pat Ryan got elected to New York’s 19th – a largely rural district in upstate New York that swung for Trump in 2016 and only narrowly elected Biden in 2020 – people were surprised.His contender in the August special election, Marc Molinaro, was a well-known local politician who entered the political arena when he was just 18, becoming the mayor of Tivoli, which is in the district, at 19. Molinaro was the favorite to win: leading in the polls, by as much as 10 points, right up to the moment Ryan claimed victory.The special election was watched with bated breath, as a tight race in a swing seat that could be a harbinger in the midterm elections, where Democrats are fighting to keep a slim House majority come November. Now, people are looking at Ryan’s campaign as a political playbook for how to win other tight races across the country.Many credit Ryan’s win to seizing the political moment around the fierce fight for abortion rights in the US.Just hours after the constitutional right to abortion was dismantled by the US supreme court on 24 June, Ryan, a US army vet, released a campaign ad making his stance clear. In a surprising twist, the video tied his military service to the attack on abortion.“How can we be a free country if the government tries to control women’s bodies? That’s not the country I fought to defend,” he said in the ad.It was a much-needed balm at a time when the Democratic party was being criticized at the national level for lacking a sense of urgency in responding to the fall of Roe v Wade, the landmark decision that had protected abortion rights in the US for several generations.“I think what is missing in our politics right now is just speaking from the heart, rather than poll testing,” Ryan told the Guardian when asked why he thought that message on abortion resonated.Then, a few months into Ryan’s campaign, the Republican senator Lindsey Graham introduced a bill that would ban abortion at the national level, after 15 weeks. The bill never would have had enough support to pass, but it didn’t matter: after months of the Republicans saying abortion rights should be put to the states, Graham appeared to have revealed his party’s hand in pushing for a national crackdown.“They showed themselves to be extremists. Suddenly, we saw the new Republican platform was wanting to criminalize abortions at the national level,” said Ryan.His special election win gives him just a few months representing New York’s 19th before he has to run again in the midterms. And the abortion message is one he continues to campaign on.“There was just another set of horrific reporting out of Ohio, where at least two teenage women under the age of 18 were raped and forced to fly to other states, just to get reproductive health care. That’s just as barbaric. And that’s not who we are as a country,” he said.Adding that he thinks the Democrats will hold the house and the Senate, he continued: “We absolutely have to restore those decisions back to women, and away from politicians, frankly.”Ryan just introduced a bill to make abortion medication legal at the national level. If it passes, it will undermine states’ attempts to ban abortion, considering that more than half of US abortions are completed using medication.His pledge is again a foil to the national party’s mostly lackluster attempts to curtail the destruction of abortion rights across the US, with Joe Biden’s own abortion bill coming under fire precisely because it failed to make it easier for Americans to access abortion pills.It may seem strange that a candidate like Ryan – who wants to pass gun control laws, raise taxes on the wealthy and make abortion pills nationally accessible – would win in a district that elected Trump.But it’s the way he ties together seemingly progressive ideals under the banner of freedom thats seems to resonate. He talks about seeing voters in his own district on the campaign trail. Whether in some of the most rural and conservative parts of his district, at events with small business owners, or speaking to younger people, he says abortion rights came up over and over.So to him, the playbook is simple.“All we have to do is show Americans that we understand how existential this fight is. The fight for reproductive freedom; for voting rights; the fight against gun violence; the fight for our democracy. We need to draw attention to how un-American it is to take away these freedoms,” said Ryan.Does he feel it is contradictory, to stand for the rights of American women, or children at threat of being gunned down in American schools, when he participated in a war and occupation that led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians?“I have said publicly that the decision to go to war in Iraq and the way we conducted it – there’s an awful lot we should have done better,” he said.“I personally had to wrestle with seeing my fellow soldiers and innocent civilians – whom I had built relationships with – put at risk. Seeing war very close and personally, you see the darkest and the most evil in human nature come forward. We need people in Congress who understand the seriousness of sending our young men and women into combat. War has to be our absolute last resort,” he said.And with this call for unity he hopes he can win in November.“We’re so divided. And for a long time politicians have pitted people against each other, but we showed in the special election that we can take so-called ‘wedge issues’ and remind people that we actually share these values in common – things like reproductive freedom. This is a moment where we have to be clear-eyed about the stakes,” he says.“Authenticity, and just being a normal human being – that is something that is in short supply right now in our politics.”TopicsUS politicsNew YorkAbortionHouse of RepresentativesfeaturesReuse this content More

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      Biden open to re-evaluating Saudi relationship after Opec+ cuts, says White House – as it happened

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      President Joe Biden will consider working with Congress to change the United States’ relationship with Saudi Arabia amid outrage over its support for an oil production cut that was seen as partial to Russia, a White House spokesman said.The comments from John Kirby, spokesman for the Biden administration’s national security council, largely reiterate what the president said last week, when the Opec+ bloc of oil producers, in which Saudi Arabia plays a leading role, announced they would reduce production by 2 million barrels per-day, even as countries struggle with energy prices that have spiked since Russia invaded Ukraine. Asked in an interview with CNN about calls from Democrats in Congress to cut off weapons sales and security assistance to Riyadh over the decision, Kirby said Biden was willing to discuss those proposals with lawmakers.“This is a relationship that we need to continue to re-evaluate, that we need to be willing to revisit. And certainly, in light of the Opec decision, I think that’s where he is,” Kirby said.Here’s more from the CNN interview:White House’s John Kirby says “the timeline is now” for working with Congress to re-evaluate the US-Saudi relationship. “I think [President Biden] is going to be willing to start to have those conversations right away.” pic.twitter.com/y6Hkw2TXXP— Brianna Keilar (@brikeilarcnn) October 11, 2022
      The United States and Saudi Arabia are at loggerheads, after Riyadh pushed Opec+ to cut its crude output and potentially drive gas prices higher, defying Washington’s pleas for a delay. Today, the White House confirmed that president Joe Biden is willing to re-evaluate his country’s relationship with Saudi Arabia, potentially upending a decades-long alliance.Here’s what else happened today:
      Tulsi Gabbard left the Democratic party. The former Hawaii congresswoman unsuccessfully stood for its presidential nomination in 2020, but has become increasingly conservative since departing Congress last year.
      Elon Musk says he did not talk to Russian president Vladimir Putin about how to end the war in Ukraine.
      The supreme court’s conservative majority rejected an appeal from a death row inmate challenging his conviction over some jurors’ opposition to interracial marriage. It also turned down an appeal from racist murderer Dylann Roof, as well as a case concerning so-called “fetal personhood”.
      Ohio’s Senate candidates faced off in a debate last night. The race is unexpectedly close, but the Democratic candidate Tim Ryan believes the party’s leadership has given up on him.
      The supreme court today declined to weigh in on the topic of so-called “fetal personhood” by turning away a challenge to a Rhode Island law codifying abortion rights, Reuters reports.Had it taken the case, the court’s conservative majority – which in June overturned Roe v Wade and allowed states to ban abortion – could have had the chance to decide the point at which fetuses are entitled to constitutional rights. Here’s more from Reuters:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote in June’s ruling overturning the abortion rights precedent that in the decision the court took no position on “if and when prenatal life is entitled to any of the rights enjoyed after birth.”
      Some Republicans at the state level have pursued what are called fetal personhood laws, like one enacted in Georgia affecting fetuses starting at around six weeks of pregnancy, that would grant fetuses before birth a variety of legal rights and protections like those of any person.
      Under such laws, termination of a pregnancy legally could be considered murder.
      Lawyers for the group Catholics for Life and the two Rhode Island women – one named Nichole Leigh Rowley and the other using the pseudonym Jane Doe – argued that the case “presents the opportunity for this court to meet that inevitable question head on” by deciding if fetuses possess due process and equal protection rights conferred by the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment.
      The Rhode Island Supreme Court relied on the now-reversed Roe precedent in finding that the 14th Amendment did not extend rights to fetuses. The Roe ruling had recognized that the right to personal privacy under the U.S. Constitution protected a woman’s ability to terminate her pregnancy.The New York Times has published a story with more details about Christina Bobb, the lawyer for Donald Trump who may be in legal trouble for signing a document saying, incorrectly, that all government material requested by the justice department from the former president had been turned over.The news of Bobb’s meeting with the justice department was reported yesterday, and added to the intrigue surrounding the government secrets the FBI found when it searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in August, discoveries that contradicted the document Bobb signed months prior.Today’s story in the Times goes deeper into Bobb’s background, and her journey from the Marine Corps to the homeland security department to rightwing media and finally to Trump’s inner circle. Here’s more from their report:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The former president was in the midst of an escalating clash with the Justice Department about documents he had taken with him from the White House at the end of his term. The lawyer, M. Evan Corcoran, met Ms. Bobb at the president’s residence and private club in Florida and asked her to sign a statement for the department that the Trump legal team had conducted a “diligent search” of Mar-a-Lago and found only a few files that had not been returned to the government.
      Ms. Bobb, a 39-year-old lawyer juggling amorphous roles in her new job, was being asked to take a step that neither Mr. Trump nor other members of the legal team were willing to take — so she looked before leaping.
      “Wait a minute — I don’t know you,” Ms. Bobb replied to Mr. Corcoran’s request, according to a person to whom she later recounted the episode. She later complained that she did not have a full grasp of what was going on around her when she signed the document, according to two people who have heard her account.
      Ms. Bobb, who relentlessly promoted falsehoods about the 2020 election as an on-air host for the far-right One America News Network, eventually signed her name. But she insisted on adding a written caveat before giving it to a senior Justice Department official on June 3: “The above statements are true and correct to the best of my knowledge.”Trump lawyer told to certify Mar-a-Lago document search she did not conductRead moreWhether they’re watching TV or reading this blog, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) has found that Americans are losing sleep over politics.According to a survey by the academy, 58% of respondents lost sleep due to worries about the political situation, with about a third of Gen Zers saying they always, almost always or often lose sleep over what they read in the news.“Politics can be a charged topic for so many people—even more so when those topics hit close to home. The 24-hour news cycle brings us endless updates on both domestic and international events, conflicts, and opinions. This can weigh heavily on us both physically and emotionally,” said Seema Khosla, chair of the AASM public awareness advisory committee. “It is important to prioritize healthy, sufficient sleep, especially with the midterm elections coming up.”For all the uncertainty over the upcoming midterms, there are a few things that can be said for sure, including this: Madison Cawthorn, a conservative firebrand who has unreservedly embraced Donald Trump, will not be returning to Congress.The North Carolina representative lost his district’s Republican primary earlier this year, after being embroiled in a number of scandals that led the House’s Republican leadership to repudiate him.Is this the last we’ll hear of the 27-year-old lawmaker? The Washington Post has published a profile exploring that question, and taking a look at Cawthorn’s apparently unproductive days in office since he lost his primary:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Madison Cawthorn left his Capitol Hill office on a recent afternoon like a man with a purpose, though what that purpose is, exactly, has been something of an unknown since he lost his congressional primary five months ago.
      “I have to get to a floor speech real quick,” the North Carolina Republican said. Cawthorn, 27, who was partially paralyzed in a car accident in 2014, pivoted in his wheelchair and rolled out to the sidewalk, crossing Independence Avenue and heading toward the Capitol.
      Inside a nearly empty House chamber, Cawthorn read a one-minute speech in which he declared that “America cannot be saved through legislation.”
      “Christ, not Congress, will be what saves this country,” he said in an emphatic baritone.
      Cawthorn left the Capitol building, stopping at the corner of Independence and New Jersey avenues, a tin of Grizzly chewing tobacco on his lap. “I gotta grab my food real quick,” he told The Washington Post before heading to another nearby corner to await a delivery driver.
      As he lingered, a solitary figure in a stream of lunchtime passersby, the congressman spat tobacco juice on the sidewalk.
      What does Madison Cawthorn do, now that his days in Washington are numbered?
      At the Capitol, it seems, he has not made much of a mark. His standing among key Republicans, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, tanked after a series of missteps, perhaps the most consequential of which was his assertion in March that an unnamed colleague had invited him to an orgy and that he had seen another partake in a “key bump of cocaine.” Republicans who wanted to attack Democrats by talking about soaring gas prices and “Bidenflation” suddenly found themselves answering questions about whether the Capitol had turned into a swinger’s club.There are several races on the ballot this fall that will have profound consequences for American democracy. In several states, Republican candidates who doubt the election 2020 election results, or in some cases actively worked to overturn them, are running for positions in which they would have tremendous influence over how votes are cast and counted. If these candidates win, there is deep concern they could use their offices to spread baseless information about election fraud and try to prevent the rightful winners of elections from being seated.Here’s a look at some of the key candidates who pose a threat to US democracy:US midterms 2022: the key candidates who threaten democracyRead moreFurther evidence has emerged this afternoon that a significant diplomatic rift between Saudi Arabia and the United States is opening.Semafor reports that Washington is backing out of a meeting with the Saudi-led Gulf Cooperation Council on air and missile defenses:SCOOP: A key US-Saudi meeting under review in the White House has been CANCELED, according to the contents of a letter obtained exclusively by Semafor. 1/7— Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) October 11, 2022
      The Text of the Letter Reads:The Embassy of the United States of America presents its compliments to the Gulf Cooperation Council Secretariat and hereby informs the Gulf Cooperation Council that United States officials will not be able to participate in the planned meetings 2/7— Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) October 11, 2022
      of the United States – Gulf Cooperation Council Working Group on Iran Integrated Air and Missile Defense.The point of contact is [REDACTED]The Embassy of the United States of America avails itself of this opportunity to renew the Gulf Cooperation Council of assurances of 3/7— Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) October 11, 2022
      its highest consideration.The Embassy of the United States of AmericaRiyadhOctober 7Semafor made public that there was White House discussion of ‘possibly canceling’ the US-GCC Working Group on Iran Integrated Air and Missile Defense scheduled for Oct 17 in Riyadh but 4/7— Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) October 11, 2022
      that no decision had been made. I was told by White House and Pentagon officials that this meeting ‘had not’ been canceled and that there was ‘no decision yet.’5/7— Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) October 11, 2022
      BUT THEN we saw the above letter, which shows clearly that the cancellation of the meeting was made 2 DAYS before our inquiry of the WH, Pentagon & State Department. 6/7— Steve Clemons (@SCClemons) October 11, 2022
      Meanwhile, Punchbowl News reports more senators are wondering why Washington should work with Riyadh.“I think we should look carefully at everything we’re sending. Because their inability to cooperate with the West and their willingness to cooperate with Russia is very disturbing,” said Democrat Jack Reed, who chairs the Senate armed services committee.“Why should we [send arms to Saudi Arabia]? If they don’t have any more concern for international security and the stability of the world economy, why should we be helping them?” Angus King, an independent senator who caucuses with Democrats, said. He sits on both the armed services and intelligence committees.Here’s what the White House National Security Council spokesperson, John Kirby, had to say earlier about reported geopolitical discussions between Elon Musk and Vladimir Putin:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Obviously, he’s not representing the United States government in those conversations.”According to Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group, Musk spoke to Putin before tweeting a proposal to end the Ukraine war.According to Musk, though, Bremmer is mistaken. Asked if Bremmer’s report was true, the SpaceX and Tesla founder said: “No, it is not. I have spoken to Putin only once and that was about 18 months ago. The subject matter was space.”This one may develop.Here, meanwhile, is a recent report from Helen Davidson in Taipei about how people round there view Musk’s recent pronouncements on the delicate diplomatic matter of Taiwan and China…Taiwan politicians dismiss Elon Musk’s ‘ill-informed and belittling’ China comments Read moreHere’s a tweet from Dick Durbin of Illinois, the No2 Democrat in the US Senate, on matters concerning Opec+, oil production cuts and future US relationships and geopolitical priorities:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The Nopec Act passed in the judiciary committee with a bipartisan vote in May. Saudi Arabia’s collusion with Putin to fix prices will increase gas prices for Americans at a time when inflation is high. The Senate must take action against price fixing by Opec+ and pass this legislation.What is the Nopec Act, I hear you cry. Fortunately, our friends at Reuters are here to explain, including about how that characteristic congressional acronym came about:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels (Nopec) bill … is intended to protect US consumers and businesses from engineered oil spikes. The bipartisan bill would tweak US antitrust law to revoke the sovereign immunity that has protected Opec+ members and their national oil companies from lawsuits. If signed into law, the US attorney general would gain the option to sue the oil cartel or its members, such as Saudi Arabia, in federal court.
      It is unclear exactly how a federal court could enforce judicial antitrust decisions against a foreign nation. The US could also face criticism for its attempts to manipulate markets by, for example, its planned release of 165 million barrels of oil from the emergency oil reserve between May and November.
      But several attempts to pass NOPEC over more than two decades have long worried Opec+’s de facto leader, Saudi Arabia, leading Riyadh to lobby hard every time a version of the bill has come up. Previous versions of the bill have also failed amid resistance by oil industry groups, including top US oil lobby group, the American Petroleum Institute (API).
      But anger has risen in Congress about gasoline prices that earlier this year helped fuel inflation to the highest level in decades.For more on this story: Cutting oil output risks global economy, warns US Treasury secretaryRead moreWe have a statement from Joe Biden about the breakthrough between Israel and Lebanon, about which Bethan McKernan reported the following for the Guardian earlier:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Israel and Lebanon have agreed a deal in a dispute over gas fields and the two countries’ maritime border, a groundbreaking diplomatic achievement that could boost natural gas production in the Mediterranean before the European winter.
      Yair Lapid, Israel’s prime minister, said months of US-brokered negotiations had resulted in a “historic agreement” between two nations technically at war since Israel’s creation in 1948. The deal would “strengthen Israel’s security, inject billions into Israel’s economy, and ensure the stability of our northern border”, he added.
      A statement from the office the Lebanese president, Michel Aoun, said the latest version of the proposal “satisfies Lebanon, meets its demands, and preserves its rights to its natural resources”.
      The agreement is expected to enable Israeli production of natural gas from the Karish maritime reservoir … while relatively small in terms of global production, bringing Karish online is a welcome development for Israel’s western allies, as the invasion of Ukraine has sent energy prices soaring and left Europe searching for alternatives to Russian oil and gas.Here’s a taste of what Biden has to say, with perhaps the most pointed part bolded up:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}I have just spoken with the Prime Minister of Israel, Yair Lapid, and the President of Lebanon, Michel Aoun, who confirmed the readiness of both governments to move forward with this agreement. I want to also thank President Emmanuel Macron of France and his government for their support in these negotiations.
      Energy – particularly in the eastern Mediterranean – should serve as the tool for cooperation, stability, security, and prosperity, not for conflict.Biden also says the deal “promotes the interests of the United States and the American people in a more stable, prosperous, and integrated Middle East region, with reduced risks of new conflicts”.Here’s Bethan’s full report:Israel and Lebanon reach ‘historic’ maritime border and gas fields dealRead moreThe United States and Saudi Arabia are at loggerheads, after Riyadh pushed Opec+ to cut its crude output and potentially drive gas prices higher, defying Washington’s pleas for a delay. Today, the White House confirmed that president Joe Biden is willing to re-evaluate his country’s relationship with Saudi Arabia, potentially upending a decades-long alliance.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Tulsi Gabbard has left the Democratic party. The former Hawaii congresswoman unsuccessfully stood for its presidential nomination in 2020, but has become increasingly conservative since departing Congress last year.
      The supreme court’s conservative majority rejected an appeal from a death row inmate challenging his conviction over some jurors’ opposition to interracial marriage. It also turned down an appeal from racist murderer Dylann Roof.
      Ohio’s Senate candidates faced off in a debate last night. The race is unexpectedly close, but the Democratic candidate Tim Ryan believes the party’s leadership has given up on him.
      US officials asked Saudi Arabia to hold off on pushing the Opec+ coalition of crude producers for a cut in their output, but Riyadh refused, The Wall Street Journal reports. The story suggests that relations between Riyadh and Washington are worse than they appear, even after president Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia in July to mend relations and potentially convince the country to pump more oil and, in turn, lower gas prices in the United States. The visit was criticized by many of the president’s allies, who wanted him to stick to a campaign promise to turn Saudi Arabia into a “pariah” for its human rights abuses.According to the Journal, Saudi officials viewed the Biden administration’s request to delay the Opec+ production cut by a month as an attempt to salvage their fortunes ahead of the midterm elections, where Democrats are fighting to retain control of Congress. Now, the White House is mulling ways to punish Riyadh for its decision, the Journal reports.Here’s more from their story:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}In one of its first responses, U.S. officials said, the Biden administration is weighing whether to withdraw from participation in Saudi Arabia’s flagship Future Investment Initiative investment forum later this month.
      U.S. officials said the OPEC+ decision was unhelpful as inflation driven by high energy prices threatens global growth and represents an economic weapon against the West for Russian President Vladimir Putin. It threatens to drive up American gasoline prices ahead of the Nov. 8 midterms.
      The one-month delay requested by Washington would have meant a production cut made in the days before the election, too late to have much effect on consumers’ wallets ahead of the vote.
      Adrienne Watson, a National Security Council spokeswoman, rejected Saudi contentions that the Biden administration efforts were driven by political calculations.
      “It’s categorically false to connect this to U.S. elections,” she said. “It’s about the impact of this shortsighted decision to the global economy.”
      Adel al Jubeir, Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs, said the kingdom is committed to ensuring oil-market stability and noted that OPEC+ had increased output through much of the year. He said global economic headwinds justified the decision to cut production.
      He blamed the Washington reaction on “the emotions that have to do with the upcoming elections,” in an interview that aired on Fox News on Sunday. “The idea that Saudi Arabia would do this to harm the U.S. or to be in any way politically involved is not correct at all.”Ed Pilkington reports that some candidates running to manage their state’s elections in the 8 November midterms have openly said they will use their position to ensure Donald Trump returns to power:The head of a US coalition of election deniers standing for secretary of state positions in key battleground states has made the most explicit threat yet that they will use their powers, should they win in November, to subvert democracy and force a return of Donald Trump to the White House.Jim Marchant, who is running in the midterms as the Republican candidate for secretary of state in Nevada, has vowed publicly that he and his fellow coalition members will strive to make Trump president again. Speaking at a Make America Great Again rally in Minden, Nevada, on Saturday night, he repeated the lie that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from Trump.Marchant said he had investigated what he described as the “rigged election” and had discovered “horrifying” irregularities. He provided no details – an official review of the 2020 count in Nevada, which Joe Biden won by 34,000 votes, found no evidence of mass fraud.Nevada secretary of state contender pledges to secure Trump victory in 2024Read moreStudents at the University of Florida are not pleased by the news that Republican senator Ben Sasse has been selected as the new president, and told him so during a visit to the campus yesterday, Martin Pengelly reports:Less than a week after being revealed as the likely next president of the University of Florida (UF), the Republican senator Ben Sasse was met with protests when he appeared on campus in Gainesville on Monday.“Hey-hey, ho-ho, Ben Sasse has got to go,” protesters chanted, seeking to draw attention to the Nebraskan’s views on LGBTQ+ rights.According to the UF student newspaper, the Independent Florida Alligator, after Sasse left a student forum early, leaders of a crowd of around 300 called the senator “homophobic and racist in between yelling from the audience”. One protester called out “Get the fuck”, the crowd responding, “Out of our swamp!”Students protest Ben Sasse’s views on LGBTQ+ rights at University of FloridaRead more More

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      in Elections

      Dozens of Candidates of Color Give House Republicans a Path to Diversity

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      House Republicans are fielding a slate of 67 Black, Latino, Asian or Native American candidates on the ballot in November, by the party’s count, raising an opportunity to change the composition of a House G.O.P. conference that now has only a dozen members of color.Depending on the outcome, those Republican candidates say, they could challenge the notion that theirs is the party of white voters.The lineup of Republican candidates is historic — 32 Latinos, 22 Black candidates, 11 Asian Americans and two Native Americans, according to the National Republican Congressional Committee. (Of those candidates, four identify as more than one race.) Many of them are long shots in heavily Democratic districts, but with so few Republicans of color now in Congress, the party’s complexion will almost certainly look different next year.More remarkable, perhaps, is that the Republican candidates are nearing the finish line even as some of the party’s white lawmakers have ratcheted up racist language or lines of attack — a sign that some party leaders remain unconcerned about racial sensitivity.This weekend, Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama, rallied with former President Donald J. Trump in Nevada and told the crowd that Democrats were “pro-crime” and wanted reparations — widely understood as a reference to slavery — for “the people that do the crime.” At the same event, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, invoked the racist “great replacement theory” when she said, “Joe Biden’s five million illegal aliens are on the verge of replacing you.”Elsewhere, including in Wisconsin and North Carolina, Democrats have accused Republicans of darkening the skin of Black candidates in campaign materials and of running ads brazenly trying to tether Black politicians to Black criminals.The 2022 candidates do not want such issues to derail their groundbreaking runs. After watching the comments from Ms. Greene and Mr. Tuberville, Anna Paulina Luna, a Latina favored to win a House seat in Florida, responded carefully but did not condemn them, instead saying, “Establishment Democrats are exploiting illegals as political currency.”“Many times, illegal immigrants are employed under the table. Many Americans are not offered fair wages because some choose to pay illegals under the table at lower cost,” she said, continuing, “During the naturalization process, individuals are required to learn about our history and culture. That is important as a nation.”Still, the numbers speak for themselves. The only two Black Republicans in the House, Representatives Burgess Owens of Utah and Byron Donalds of Florida, are likely to be joined by Wesley Hunt of Texas and John James of Michigan, Black G.O.P. candidates who are favored to win on Nov. 8. The numbers of this small group could rise further with victories by Jennifer-Ruth Green in Indiana, John Gibbs in Michigan and George Logan in Connecticut, all of whom have a chance.The ranks of the seven incumbent Latino Republicans in the House could nearly double if all six Latino candidates in tight races triumph. And Allan Fung, a Republican in a tossup contest in Rhode Island, could lift the number of Asian American Republicans by 50 percent if he wins and two Southern California incumbents, Representatives Young Kim and Michelle Steel, beat back Democratic challengers.The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsWith the primaries over, both parties are shifting their focus to the general election on Nov. 8.The Final Stretch: With less than one month until Election Day, Republicans remain favored to take over the House, but momentum in the pitched battle for the Senate has seesawed back and forth.A Surprising Battleground: New York has emerged from a haywire redistricting cycle as perhaps the most consequential congressional battleground in the country. For Democrats, the uncertainty is particularly jarring.Pennsylvania Governor’s Race: Attacks by Doug Mastriano, the G.O.P. nominee, on the Jewish school where Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate, sends his children have set off an outcry about antisemitic signaling.Herschel Walker: The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia reportedly paid for an ex-girlfriend’s abortion, but some conservative Christians have learned to tolerate the behavior of those who advance their cause.“It’s Hispanic people, Black people, Black women, Black men, Asian men, Asian women,” Mr. Hunt of Texas said in an interview. “It has been outstanding to see our party get to the point where, yeah, we’re conservatives, but guess what: We’re also not monolithic.”Michelle Steel, right, became one of the first Korean American women in Congress when she won a House race in California in 2020. She is seeking to defend her seat.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesRepublicans have a long way to go to match the Democrats in diversity. A strong G.O.P. showing in November could bring the number of Black Republicans in the House to seven. House Democrats have 56 Black members, including influential leaders.If Republicans end up with 13 Latino members in the House, they still will not measure up to the 34 Hispanic Democrats.And with the right political breaks, Democrats could end up bolstering their already diverse caucus. Fourteen out of the 36 Democrats aiming for competitive Republican seats are candidates of color.Chris Taylor, a spokesman for the House Democratic campaign arm, said that “Republicans are mistaken if they think finally engaging with communities of color in the year 2022 with flawed candidates” would distance their party from what he called an “unpopular, extreme agenda.”“While Republicans attempt to dilute the number of white supremacists within their ranks, their politics of dividing Americans and promoting hate remains,” he said.Republicans, however, see a virtuous circle in the gains they are making: As more candidates of color triumph, the thinking goes, more will enter future races, and more voters of color will see a home in the Republican Party. .css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-ok2gjs a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How Times reporters cover politics. We rely on our journalists to be independent observers. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. This includes participating in marches or rallies in support of a movement or giving money to, or raising money for, any political candidate or election cause.Learn more about our process.“We’re narrative busters,” said Mr. Donalds, who helped the National Republican Congressional Committee with recruiting candidates. “We break up the dogma of Democratic politics, in terms of how to view Republicans.”Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the group’s chairman, said this year’s slate was no accident. Four years ago, when he took over the committee, he set about changing the way Republicans recruited candidates, seeking far more diversity. The group would de-emphasize the Washington-based consultants who had a financial stake in promoting their candidates and instead rely on members to seek out talent in their districts.John James speaking to supporters in 2020, when he lost a close race for Senate in Michigan. Republicans recruited him to run for the House in 2022.Sylvia Jarrus for The New York TimesTwo years ago was a dry run; House Republicans gained an unexpected 14 seats, and every seat they flipped from Democrats was captured by a woman or a candidate of color.Mr. Trump’s gains with Hispanic voters and Black men — which he made despite his stream of racist and xenophobic comments while in office — inspired a fresh push by Republicans.Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, Republican of Florida, who helped with Latino recruitment, said it was not a difficult pitch. More Hispanic candidates were galvanized to run by soaring inflation rates, a surge of migrants in heavily Latino border districts and a growing sense that Democrats were now the party of the educated elite, he said.“Democrats, one could argue, have done a good job with their rhetoric, but their policies have been disastrous, and they’ve been particularly disastrous for the working class,” Mr. Diaz-Balart said. “Was Trump’s rhetoric the words that would be ideal to get Latino voters? No, but the policies were.”Mr. Donalds insisted the former president was not a racist but said, “The question is really silly at this point.”“Republicans now are far more open and far more direct about talking to every voter, not just Republican voters, quote, unquote,” he said. “I think that that’s what’s given the impetus for people to decide to run.”That and a lot of pushing. Mr. Emmer spoke of meeting a trade expert who worked for Gov. Doug Ducey of Arizona two years ago, then telling Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican leader, to persuade Juan Ciscomani to run.Mr. Ciscomani recalled talking over the possibility with his wife and Mr. Ducey in 2018 and 2020 before backing away. In the spring of 2021, the one-two push from Mr. Emmer and Mr. McCarthy sealed the deal.“Democrats have taken the Hispanic vote for granted,” he said. “They pandered to the Hispanic community, saying what they wanted to hear and doing nothing about it.” He added: “But Republicans never made an effort. They never tried to get their votes.”Mr. Ciscomani is now favored to win back Arizona’s Sixth Congressional District from the Democrats.Juan Ciscomani, a Republican, is favored to win his House race in Arizona.Caitlin O’Hara for The New York TimesIn 2020, Mr. James — a Black Republican whom Mr. Emmer called “a candidate that only comes along once in a while” — fell short in a surprisingly close race to unseat Senator Gary Peters, Democrat of Michigan. Afterward, the N.R.C.C. chairman cleared a path for Mr. James to run for the House.“I told him, ‘To learn to really refine your ability when it comes to campaigning and to understand the business of campaigning, there’s nothing wrong with starting in the House,’” Mr. Emmer said.Mr. Hunt had also tried to run for office and failed — in 2020, for a House seat in the Houston suburbs. In 2018, Mr. McCarthy had been in Houston for a fund-raiser when he met Mr. Hunt, a veteran West Point graduate with a conservative bent, and pressed him to run.Mr. Hunt recalled that after his 2020 loss, “Kevin McCarthy called me the next day, and he said: ‘Hang in there. Let’s see what happens after redistricting. We need you up here. Please don’t give up the fight.’”Mr. Hunt added, “It changed everything.”Ms. Luna had been a conservative activist and political commentator when she decided on her own to run for a Tampa-area House seat in 2020. She said she did not hear from Republicans in Washington until after she won the Republican primary. But when she came up short against Representative Charlie Crist, the hard sell descended.Representative Ralph Norman, Republican of South Carolina, called her days after her defeat, seeing her as a potential recruit for the conservative House Freedom Caucus. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich followed, and then Mr. Donalds took her under his wing. “When people see that we are conservatives, we are Republicans, and there’s not this stereotype of what it means to be Republican, I think it empowers them to own their convictions, to own their ideologies,” she said on Friday.Democrats have made it clear that they will not shy away from criticizing Republican candidates for their positions just because of their backgrounds. They have highlighted college writings by Mr. Gibbs suggesting women should not have the right to vote. Representative Mayra Flores of Texas, who won a special election in June but faces a tough race in a more Democratic district, has promoted QAnon conspiracy theories.Representative Burgess Owens, left, and Representative Victoria Spartz after Ms. Spartz made an emotional speech about Ukraine in March. Mr. Owens is one of two Black Republicans in the House.Win McNamee/Getty ImagesRepublicans who want to diversify their ranks say they also hope to change the views of some G.O.P. voters. Mr. Hunt told of a young man who talked with him after a campaign event, then handed his phone over so he could talk to the man’s white grandfather.“He said: ‘Mr. Hunt, you’re the first Black person I ever voted for my entire life. I’m here to tell you that I was racist, and I grew up racist, and there have been times in my life that I have not treated Black people fairly,’” Mr. Hunt recounted. “‘I met you and I said, I have to get behind this guy, in spite of my prejudice.’” More