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      Trump and Unreleased Video Expected to Be Focus of First Jan 6. Hearing

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      The House panel investigating the attack will lead its public sessions with video testimony from people close to the former president and footage revealing the role of the Proud Boys.WASHINGTON — The House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol plans to open a landmark series of public hearings on Thursday by playing previously unreleased video of former President Donald J. Trump’s top aides and family members testifying before its staff, as well as footage revealing the role of the Proud Boys, a right-wing extremist group, in the assault.Committee aides say the evidence will show that Mr. Trump was at the center of a “coordinated, multi-step effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election” that resulted in a mob of his supporters storming the halls of Congress and disrupting the official electoral count that is a pivotal step in the peaceful transfer of presidential power.The 8 p.m. hearing is the first in a series of six planned for this month, during which the panel will lay out for Americans the full magnitude and significance of Mr. Trump’s systematic drive to invalidate the 2020 election and remain in power.“We’ll demonstrate the multipronged effort to overturn a presidential election, how one strategy to subvert the election led to another, culminating in a violent attack on our democracy,” said Representative Adam B. Schiff, Democrat of California and a member of the committee. “It’s an important story, and one that must be told to ensure it never happens again.”The prime-time hearing will feature live testimony from a documentary filmmaker, Nick Quested, who was embedded with the Proud Boys during the attack, and a Capitol Police officer, Caroline Edwards, who was injured as rioters breached barricades and stormed into the building.The committee also plans to present what aides called a small but “meaningful” portion of the recorded interviews its investigators conducted with more than 1,000 witnesses, including senior Trump White House officials, campaign officials and Mr. Trump’s family members.Mr. Trump’s elder daughter Ivanka Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his son Donald Trump Jr. are among the high-profile witnesses who have testified before the panel.Mr. Quested, a British documentarian who has worked in war zones such as Afghanistan, spent a good deal of the postelection period filming members of the Proud Boys, including the group’s former chairman, Enrique Tarrio, who has been charged with seditious conspiracy in connection with the Capitol riot. Mr. Quested accompanied the Proud Boys to pro-Trump rallies in Washington in November and December 2020 and was on the ground with members of the group on Jan. 6, when several played a crucial role in breaching the Capitol.Mr. Quested was also present with a camera crew on the day before the attack, when Mr. Tarrio met in an underground parking garage near the Capitol with a small group of pro-Trump activists, including Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the Oath Keepers militia. Late in the day on Jan. 6, Mr. Quested and his crew were with Mr. Tarrio in Baltimore, filming him as he responded in real time to news about the riot.Ms. Edwards, a well-respected Capitol Police officer, is believed to be the first officer injured in the attack, when she sustained a concussion during an assault at a barricade at the base of Capitol Hill. A man who has been charged with taking part in the assault, Ryan Samsel, told the F.B.I. during an interview more than a year ago that just before he approached the barricade, a high-ranking member of the Proud Boys, Joseph Biggs, had encouraged him to confront the police.Other officers around the building recall hearing Officer Edwards calling for help over the radio — one of the first signs that mob violence was beginning to overrun the police presence. Months after the attack, she continued to have fainting spells believed to be connected to her injuries.A committee aide said Mr. Quested and Officer Edwards would describe their experiences, including “what they saw and heard from the rioters who tried to occupy the Capitol and tried to stop the transfer of power.”The committee’s investigators believe Mr. Quested overheard conversations among the Proud Boys during the planning for Jan. 6.Representative Bennie Thompson, Democrat of Mississippi and the committee chairman, and Representative Liz Cheney, Republican of Wyoming and the vice chairwoman, are expected to lead the presentation of the panel’s evidence and question the witnesses.The session will kick off an ambitious effort by the committee, which was formed in July after Republicans blocked the creation of a nonpartisan commission to investigate the attack, to lay out for Americans the full story of an unprecedented assault on U.S. democracy that led to a deadly riot, an impeachment and a crisis of confidence in the political system that continues to reverberate.The hearings are unfolding five months before midterm elections in which the Democrats’ majority is at stake, at a time when they are eager to draw a sharp contrast between themselves and the Republicans who enabled and embraced Mr. Trump, including the members of Congress who abetted his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Other hearings are expected to focus on various aspects of the committee’s investigation, including Mr. Trump’s promotion of the lie that the election had been stolen, despite being told his claims were false; his attempts to misuse the Justice Department to help him cling to power; a pressure campaign on Vice President Mike Pence to throw out legitimate electoral votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr.; the way the mob was assembled, and how it descended on Washington on Jan. 6; and the fact that Mr. Trump did nothing to stop the violence for more than three hours while the assault was underway.The Jan. 6 panel has not yet committed to the full slate of witnesses for the six televised hearings, and it is still discussing the possibility of public testimony with several prominent Trump-era officials.Among the witnesses the committee has formally approached to testify next week are Jeffrey A. Rosen, the former acting attorney general, and Richard P. Donoghue, the former acting deputy attorney general, according to two people briefed on the matter.Mr. Rosen and Mr. Donoghue have told multiple congressional committees that Mr. Trump and his allies pressured the department to falsely say that it had found voter fraud and to use its power to undo the election results. Last May, Mr. Rosen took part in a public hearing of the House Oversight and Reform Committee on events leading up to the assault on the Capitol.The Jan. 6 committee is still in informal talks with Pat A. Cipollone, the former White House Counsel, as well as Byung J. Pak, the former U.S. attorney in Atlanta, who abruptly resigned on Jan. 4, 2021, after learning that Mr. Trump planned to fire him for not finding voter fraud, according to those people familiar with the discussions.Mr. Cipollone would be able to speak on a range of issues, including Mr. Trump’s efforts to pressure the Justice Department and his unwillingness to accept the results of the election, despite the fact that officials time and again failed to uncover fraud.Mr. Pak could have information pertaining to Georgia, a battleground state that Mr. Trump was particularly fixated on.Alan Feuer More

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      US House passes gun control bill but it faces defeat in Senate

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      US House passes gun control bill but it faces defeat in SenateSweeping legislation would raise age limit for buying a semiautomatic rifle and put curbs on ammunition sales The US House of Representatives has passed a wide-ranging gun control bill in response to recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York and Uvalde, Texas, but the proposals have almost no chance of being approved by the Senate and becoming law.The bill would raise the age limit for buying a semi-automatic rifle and prohibit the sale of ammunition magazines with a capacity of more than 15 rounds. The legislation passed by a mostly party-line vote of 223-204. It has almost no chance of becoming law as the Senate pursues negotiations focused on improving mental health programmes, bolstering school security and enhancing background checks. But the House bill does give Democratic lawmakers a chance to frame for voters in November where they stand on policies that polls show are widely supported. “We can’t save every life, but my God, shouldn’t we try? America we hear you and today in the House we are taking the action you are demanding,” said Veronica Escobar, a Texas Democrat. “Take note of who is with you and who is not.”The vote came after a House committee heard wrenching testimony from recent shooting victims and family members, including from an 11-year-old girl, Miah Cerrillo, who covered herself with a dead classmate’s blood to avoid being shot at Uvalde elementary school. 01:59The seemingly never-ending cycle of mass shootings in the US has rarely stirred Congress to act. But the shooting of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde has revived efforts in a way that has lawmakers from both parties talking about the need to respond. “It’s sickening, it’s sickening that our children are forced to live in this constant fear,” said the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi.Pelosi said the House vote would “make history by making progress”. But i is unclear where the House measure will go after Wednesday’s vote, given that Republicans were adamant in their opposition. “The answer is not to destroy the second amendment, but that is exactly where the Democrats want to go,“ said the Republican Jim Jordan of Ohio. The work to find common ground is mostly taking place in the Senate, where support from 10 Republicans will be needed to get a bill signed into law. Nearly a dozen Democratic and Republican senators met privately for an hour on Wednesday in hope of reaching a framework for compromise legislation by the end of the week. Participants said more conversations were needed about a plan that is expected to propose modest steps. In a measure of the political peril that efforts to curb guns pose for Republicans, five of the six lead Senate GOP negotiators do not face re-election until 2026. They are senators Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, John Cornyn of Texas, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. The sixth, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania, is retiring in January. It is also notable that none of the six is seeking the Republican presidential nomination.While Cornyn has said the talks are serious, he has not joined the chorus of Democrats saying the outlines of a deal could be reached by the end of this week. He told reporters on Wednesday that he considered having an agreement before Congress begins a recess in late June to be “an aspirational goal”. The House bill stitches together a variety of proposals Democrats had introduced before the recent shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde. The suspects in the shootings at Uvalde elementary school and the Buffalo supermarket were both 18, authorities say, when they bought the semiautomatic weapons used in the attacks. The bill would increase the minimum age to buy such weapons to 21. “A person under 21 cannot buy a Budweiser. We should not let a person under 21 buy an AR-15 weapon of war,“ said Ted Lieu, a California Democrat. Republicans have noted that a US appeals court ruling last month found California’s ban on the sale of semiautomatic weapons to adults under 21 was unconstitutional. “This is unconstitutional and it’s immoral. Why is it immoral? Because we’re telling 18, 19 and 20-year-olds to register for the draft. You can go die for your country. We expect you to defend us, but we’re not going to give you the tools to defend yourself and your family,” said Thomas Massie of Kentucky. The House bill also includes incentives designed to increase the use of safe gun storage devices and creates penalties for violating safe storage requirements, providing for a fine and imprisonment of up to five years if a gun is not properly stored and is subsequently used by a minor to injure or kill themselves or another individual. It also builds on executive actions banning fast-action “bump stock” devices and “ghost guns” that are assembled without serial numbers. The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, hailed the House bill, tweeting: “We continue to work hard with both parties to save lives and stand up for families.” Five Republicans voted for the bill: Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Anthony Gonzalez of Ohio, Chris Jacobs of New York, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Fred Upton of Michigan. Only Fitzpatrick is seeking re-election. On the Democratic side, Jared Golden of Maine and Kurt Schrader of Oregon were the only no votes. Schrader lost his re-election attempt in the Democratic primary. Golden faces a competitive election in November. The House is also expected to approve a bill on Thursday that would allow families, police and others to ask federal courts to order the removal of firearms from people who are believed to be at extreme risk of harming themselves or others. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia currently have such “red flag laws”. Under the House bill, a judge could issue an order to temporarily remove and store the firearms until a hearing can be held no longer than two weeks later to determine whether the firearms should be returned or kept for a specific period.TopicsUS gun controlHouse of RepresentativesUS school shootingsTexas school shootingUS politicsBuffalo shootingUS CongressnewsReuse this content More

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      Jan. 6 Inquiry Votes Aren’t Costing G.O.P. Incumbents in Primaries, Yet

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      When 35 Republicans defied Donald J. Trump to vote in favor of an independent, bipartisan investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, they immediately braced for backlash from the former president’s most loyal voters.But it hasn’t quite hit as hard as expected — at least not yet.Only one of the 35 has lost a primary challenge, while least 10 of the 13 incumbents in contested races had survived primary challenges as of Wednesday. (Nine of the 35 who voted for the panel opted to retire or have resigned.)The fate of two incumbents whose races had elections on Tuesday still has not been determined, with Representative David Valadao of California expected to advance to the November election after appearing to finish second in Tuesday’s open primary and Representative Michael Guest of Mississippi being pushed into a June 28 runoff after narrowly trailing Michael Cassidy.The lone casualty so far has been Representative David McKinley of West Virginia, who lost a May primary to Representative Alex Mooney, a Republican colleague who had been endorsed by Mr. Trump in the newly drawn Second District. Their districts were consolidated after West Virginia lost a seat in the House because of the state’s declining population.There are plenty of high-profile opportunities for Mr. Trump in the months ahead to settle scores with Republicans who voted for the plan to form the independent commission, a proposal that ultimately died in the Senate. A House committee that is investigating the riot at the Capitol will hold a televised hearing in prime time on Thursday.Here are some key races involving Republicans who voted for a commission:In Wyoming, Representative Liz Cheney was ousted last year from her House leadership post and punished by Republicans in her home state after voting to impeach Mr. Trump for his role in the Capitol attack. She will face Harriet Hageman, a Trump-endorsed challenger, in an Aug. 16 primary that is drawing national attention.In South Carolina, Representative Tom Rice is fighting for his survival in a seven-way primary that features Russell Fry, a state legislator who was endorsed by Mr. Trump. Mr. Rice also voted for impeachment and said he was willing to stake his political career on that position.In Michigan, where Mr. Trump’s attempts to domineer the Republican Party have encountered some notable setbacks, Representative Peter Meijer has drawn the wrath of the former president. Calling Mr. Meijer a “RINO” — a Republican in name only — Mr. Trump endorsed John Gibbs, the conservative challenger to Mr. Meijer in the Aug. 2 primary.As a result of redistricting in Illinois, Representative Rodney Davis is locked in a primary battle with Representative Mary Miller, a House colleague who has been endorsed by Mr. Trump. The primary is June 28. Ms. Miller was one of 175 Republicans who voted against the commission in the House, which is controlled by Democrats.In Florida, the pro-Trump America First political committee named Representative Carlos Gimenez as its “top target for removal from Congress.” Mr. Gimenez will face two challengers in the Aug. 23 primary, including Ruth Swanson, who has said that the 2020 election was “thrown” and has contributed campaign funds to Project Veritas, the conservative group. More

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      ‘Lexi’s voice demands action’: family of Uvalde victims beg Congress to address gun violence

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      ‘Lexi’s voice demands action’: family of Uvalde victims beg Congress to address gun violenceKimberly Rubio wept as she described the harrowing events of 24 May and asked for strengthened gun laws from Congress 01:59Kimberly and Felix Rubio went twice to Robb Elementary school on the morning of 24 May, first to attend an end-of-year awards ceremony for their youngest son and then to attend one for their daughter, Lexi, who was in the fourth grade.They beamed with pride as Lexi was honored with the “good citizen” award and recognized for earning straight As. To celebrate, they promised to take her for ice cream later that night.“In the reel that keeps scrolling across my memories, she turns her head and smiles back at us to acknowledge my promise,” Kimberly Rubio told a House oversight committee via video link on Wednesday. “And then we left.”Uvalde survivor, 11, tells House hearing she smeared herself with friend’s blood Read moreThrough tears she continued: “I left my daughter at that school and that decision will haunt me for the rest of my life.”Felix Rubio sat silently next to his wife, eyes downcast as she described the harrowing events that followed: their desperate, hours-long search for their children. Relief when a teacher said their son was safe, and the moment they realized Lexi, their “intelligent, compassionate and athletic” daughter who dreamed of attending law school would not live to graduate the fourth grade.“That opportunity was taken from her; she was taken from us,” her mother said.Lexi Rubio was among the 19 students and two teachers killed when a gunman armed with an assault-style rifle stormed a pair of adjoining classrooms and opened fire. She was 10.“We don’t want you to think of Lexi as just a number,” Kimberly Rubio said. “So today we stand for Lexi, and her voice demands action.”The oversight committee hearing on gun violence was scheduled in the wake of successive mass shootings in recent weeks that have claimed the lives of dozens of Americans in Buffalo, New York; Uvalde, Texas, and elsewhere. The committee heard from a pediatrician, a police commissioner, the mayor of New York and experts on the issue of gun violence, who almost uniformly echoed the Rubios’ call for action.But perhaps the most heart-rending testimony came from 11-year-old Miah Cerrillo, a fourth-grader at Robb elementary school. In a pre-taped video, Miah, wearing a shirt that said “live by the sun” with sunflowers, recounted how the gunman appeared in their classroom as they scrambled to hide behind desks and the rows of backpacks. He told her teacher “goodnight” before shooting her in the head, she said.The gunman then shot her classmates and then her friend who was huddling next to her. “I thought he would come back to the room, so I grabbed blood and put it all over me,” she said.Roy Guerrero, the sole pediatrician in Uvalde, said the horror of tending to the small bodies “pulverized” by bullets fired by an AR-15-style semi-automatic weapon, embedded memories he said “no prayer could ever relieve”.Guerrero said he could save children from broken bones and bacterial infections, but only Congress could save them from the scourge of gun violence.“Making sure that our children are safe from guns, that’s the job of politicians and leaders,” he said, adding: “We are bleeding out and you are not there.”The Rubios pleaded with Congress to change gun laws and prevent more communities from experiencing the overwhelming tragedy that has consumed Uvalde, where Lexi’s classmates are still being buried.Kimberly Rubio asked Congress to raise the age to 21 for purchases of military-style assault rifles, like the one that killed Lexi, as well as for strengthening background checks on gun buyers and repealing the immunity that shields gun manufacturers from being held liable.As lawmakers chase an elusive deal on gun control, Kimberly Rubio urged a consensus: “At this moment, we ask for progress.”Appearing on Capitol Hill, Miah’s father, Miguel Cerrillo, said something had to change. In brief, tearful testimony, he told the committee that the shooting had changed his daughter.“I came because I could’ve lost my baby girl,” he said. “She’s not the same little girl that I used to play with and run with … because she was Daddy’s little girl.”“I wish something would change,” he concluded, breaking down in tears. Congresswoman Rashida Talib led him out of the hearing room by hand.The still-raw display of emotions underscored the depths of America’s gun violence crisis. But it also emphasized the gaping partisan divide that simmered and then flared on the floor of the House ahead of what was expected to be a party-line vote on a suite of gun reform measures.“It is my hope that all my colleagues will listen with an open heart as gun violence survivors and loved ones recount one of the darkest days of their lives,” said congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, a Democrat of New York and the chair of the oversight committee. “This hearing is ultimately about saving lives, and I hope it will galvanize my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pass legislation to do just that.”The committee also heard from Zeneta Everhart, who recounted in graphic detail how close she came to losing her son, Zaire Goodman, who was shot in the neck during a racist mass shooting at the Tops Friendly supermarket in Buffalo where he worked. Thirteen people were shot in the assault, 10 fatally.“Let me paint a picture for you: my son Zaire has a hole in the right side of his neck, two on his back and another on his left leg. Caused by an exploding bullet from an AR-15,” she said. “As I clean those wounds I can feel pieces of that bullet in his back.”“I want you to picture that exact scenario for one of your children,” she said. “This should not be your story or mine.”Everhart said it was naive to say, as so many do in the wake of senseless acts of violence, that the attacks do not represent “who we are as a nation”. Speaking as the descendant of enslaved Americans, she said the racist violence that erupted in a Buffalo supermarket last month had ugly roots in the nation’s founding.“Hear me clearly,” she said. “This is exactly who we are.”The committee also heard from Lucretia Hughes, a conservative activist invited to testify by Republicans. In fervent remarks to the committee, she said her son was killed in 2016 by a convicted felon who had illegally obtained a firearm. Gun control laws, which she described as “steeped in racism”, did little to save her son, she said.“Y’all are delusional if you think it’s going to keep us safe,” Hughes said of the calls for new firearms restrictions. Citing the widely-criticized response by law enforcement officers in Uvalde, she added: “We must prepare to be our own first responders.”But children and teachers shouldn’t have to bear that responsibility, Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, told the committee. The number of students who will never get to “live into their brilliance” is unconscionable, and yet it fails to capture the totality of the long-lasting physical and emotional damage wrought by these attacks, she said.“Students across our country are writing goodbye notes and wills – just in case,” she exclaimed. “Unfortunately their fear is perfectly rational.”In the video to the committee, Miah Cerrillo was asked if she feels safe at school.Miah shook her head no.“Why not?”“Cause,” she said slowly, fidgeting as children often do, “I don’t want it to happen again.”“You think it’s going to happen again?”Miah nods her head. Yes, she thinks it will.Kimberly Rubio also fears it will happen again. But she hopes, in honor of her daughter, that it can happen less, that, perhaps, with new laws and new restrictions, there will be fewer mothers in the future whose children go to school and never come home.“Somewhere out there, there’s a mom listening to our testimony and thinking, ‘I can’t even imagine their pain,’ not knowing that our reality will one day be hers,” she said. “Unless we act now.”TopicsUS school shootingsTexas school shootingBuffalo shootingHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsUS CongressUS SenatenewsReuse this content More

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      Uvalde survivor, 11, tells House hearing she smeared herself with friend’s blood

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      Uvalde survivor, 11, tells House hearing she smeared herself with friend’s blood Miah Cerrillo recounts at gun violence hearing how she watched as her teacher and friends were shot and acted quickly to save herself01:59An 11-year-old survivor of the elementary school massacre in Uvalde, Texas testified before the House oversight committee on Wednesday, as lawmakers continued to try to reach a compromise on gun control legislation after a series of devastating mass shootings.‘It all happened too fast’: injured Uvalde teacher recounts school shootingRead moreThe House hearing came two weeks after an 18-year-old opened fire at Robb elementary school, killing 19 children and two teachers, and three weeks after 10 people were killed at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York.Miah Cerrillo, a fourth-grader at the Uvalde school, recounted how she watched as her teacher and friends were shot and acted quickly to save herself. Miah covered herself in a friend’s blood and played dead until she was able to reach her teacher’s phone and call police.In her recorded testimony, Miah said she no longer felt safe at school.“Because I don’t want it to happen again,” she said.The slow police response to the Uvalde shooting has been the focus of intense scrutiny and criticism.Miah was joined by other families affected by gun violence, including Felix and Kimberly Rubio, whose daughter Lexi died in Uvalde, and Zeneta Everhart, whose son Zaire Goodman was injured in Buffalo. Ten people were killed there, in a supermarket by another gunman with an AR-15-style rifle.“We don’t want you to think of Lexi as just a number,” Rubio told the committee. “She was intelligent, compassionate and athletic. So today we stand for Lexi, and as her voice we demand action.”Gun control experts and New York mayor Eric Adams also testified at the hearing on the need to restrict access to firearms and, by extension, reduce violent crime.“It is high noon in America, time for every one of us to decide where we stand on the issue of gun violence,” Adams said. “I am here today to ask every one of you, and everyone in this Congress, to stand with me to end gun violence and protect the lives of all Americans.”But the emotional and searing testimony did not stop Republicans on the committee rehashing talking points about why they oppose gun restrictions.“Kneejerk reactions to impose gun control policies that seek to curtail our constitutional right to bear arms are not the answer,” said James Comer, the Republican ranking member.The Democratic chair of the committee, Carolyn Maloney, criticized Republican efforts to deflect attention from the need to reform gun laws.“They have blamed violent video games. They have blamed family values. They have even blamed open doors. They have blamed everything but guns,” Maloney said. “But we know the United States does not have a monopoly on mental illness, video games or any other excuse. What America does have is widespread access to guns.”The House was working on Wednesday to pass gun control proposals which would raise the age requirement to buy semi-automatic weapons from 18 to 21 and enact a federal extreme risk protection order for gun access, known as a “red-flag” law.The House has already passed bills to expand background checks for firearm purchases and increase the time gun sellers must wait for checks to be completed.But all those bills are unlikely to pass the 50-50 Senate, where 60 votes are needed to pass most legislation. A bipartisan group of senators has been negotiating over a potential compromise on gun control, but any legislation that can make it through the Senate will probably be far narrower than proposals approved by the House.Thom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, indicated on Tuesday that Democrats’ proposal to raise the age requirement for purchasing semi-automatic weapons was unlikely to be included in the Senate bill.“That can be in the discussion, but right now we’re trying to work on things where we have agreement,” Tillis told CNN. “We’ve got a lot of people in the discussion. We’ve got to get 60 votes.”Despite such disputes, senators have voiced confidence that they can craft a compromise bill. Members of the group met again Wednesday, and John Cornyn, a Republican of Texas, expressed hope that they would soon strike an agreement.“I think it’s reasonable to expect in the next couple weeks, maybe this work period, that that would be – I’m just speaking for myself – an aspirational goal,” Cornyn said. “But obviously, we have 100 senators who are free agents, and they can do anything they want on whatever timetable.”02:08The families whose lives have been forever altered by gun violence came to the House on Wednesday with specific demands.Everhart asked for more schools to teach Black history so children would understand the violent history of white supremacy, given that the Buffalo shooter voiced support for racist conspiracy theories.Rubio also called on lawmakers to ban assault rifles, raise the age requirement to purchase semi-automatic weapons and enact a national “red flag” law.“We understand that for some reason, to some people – to people with money, to people who fund political campaigns – that guns are more important than children. So at this moment, we ask for progress,” Rubio said.“Somewhere out there, there’s a mom listening to our testimony thinking, ‘I can’t even imagine their pain’ – not knowing that our reality will one day be hers unless we act now.”TopicsUS school shootingsTexas school shootingBuffalo shootingUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressUS SenatenewsReuse this content More

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      Kean Will Face Malinowski, and Another Menendez Is on the Rise

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      Tom Kean Jr., the son of a popular two-term New Jersey governor, beat six Republican opponents Tuesday to win the nomination to compete against Representative Tom Malinowski, an embattled Democrat accused of ethical lapses, in what is shaping up to be the state’s most competitive midterm contest.Another son of a storied New Jersey political family, Robert Menendez Jr., easily won a Democratic House primary, making it likely that he and his father and namesake, the state’s senior senator, will serve together in the Capitol.Mr. Malinowski, 56, in a swipe at Mr. Kean’s three unsuccessful campaigns for Congress, said: “I want to do this job. He just wants to have this job.”Mr. Kean, 53, who narrowly lost to Mr. Malinowski in 2020, said his opponent had “squandered” the opportunity to serve New Jersey during two terms in Washington.Mr. Kean’s primary opponents had challenged him from the right as they competed for the support of conservative Republican voters aligned with former President Donald J. Trump. Outside a school near Mr. Kean’s home in Westfield, N.J., where he voted on Tuesday with his wife and daughters, a sign parroting one of Mr. Trump’s favorite labels read, “Warning RINO alert.”But just after midnight, he was more than 22 percentage points ahead of his closest opponent in a race that was seen at least in part as a measure of Mr. Trump’s grip on the Republican Party in a state better known for a moderate brand of Republican politics once epitomized by leaders like Mr. Kean’s father, Gov. Thomas H. Kean.The largely suburban Seventh Congressional District is filled with the type of affluent, well-educated voters who helped Democrats take control of the House in 2018.During the last midterm cycle, Democrats in New Jersey flipped four seats — many of which, including Mr. Malinowski’s, are again seen as potential battlegrounds.As he runs for re-election, Mr. Malinowski is facing allegations that he failed to report stock trades as required. He is also running in a district that gained more Republican-leaning towns when the borders were redrawn to reflect demographic changes in the 2020 census.But late Tuesday, Mr. Malinowski’s campaign got a potential boost from an unlikely camp: Republicans hoping to make a home for centrist voters with the creation of a new party, the Moderate Party. The new party, which will almost certainly face legal challenges, has filed nominating petitions on behalf of Mr. Malinowski.Mr. Menendez won in a largely urban district where registered Democrats outnumber Republicans five to one; winning the primary in the Eighth Congressional District, which includes parts of New Jersey’s two largest cities, is often tantamount to victory in the general election.A lawyer making his first run for office, Mr. Menendez had an array of political and union support early on — as well as crucial backing from his father, also a Democrat and the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Just after midnight, when The Associated Press called the race for Mr. Menendez, he was 70 percentage points ahead of his main challenger, David Ocampo Grajales.If he wins in November, Mr. Menendez, 36, will occupy a seat held for a decade by Representative Albio Sires, a Democrat who announced in December he would not run for re-election.Mr. Ocampo Grajales, the son of immigrants from Colombia, said last week that he had entered the race to give Democrats a viable alternative to a handpicked candidate.“It’s not so much who Menendez is himself, but what he represents: more of the same,” said Mr. Ocampo Grajales, 25.The New Jersey congressional candidate Tom Kean Jr., with his family, after voting at Wilson Elementary School in Westfield, N.J., on Tuesday.Bryan Anselm for The New York TimesA Republican primary in a central New Jersey swing district represented by Andy Kim, a Democrat running for his third term in Congress, was the state’s most colorful contest.Bob Healey Jr., a former singer in a punk band who helps run his family’s yacht-manufacturing company, beat two challengers, Nicholas J. Ferrera and Ian A. Smith, with the backing of the Republican Party.In March, Mr. Smith, the former owner of a gym that repeatedly flouted Covid-19 lockdown rules, was charged with driving under the influence, reviving talk of his past conviction for vehicular homicide. He served time in prison for killing a teenager in 2007 while under the influence of alcohol, and has pleaded not guilty to the new charges.“I may have sung in my past about killing someone,” Mr. Healey said during a debate in May. “Ian actually did kill someone.”By midnight, the winner of the Republican primary to face Representative Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat competing for re-election to a fourth term, had not yet been called.Frank Pallotta, a wealthy former investment banker who lost to Mr. Gottheimer two years ago, was 5 percentage points ahead of Nick De Gregorio, a Marine Corps veteran, with about 85 percent of the vote counted.Mr. Pallotta won the endorsement of former President Donald J. Trump in 2020, but not this time. He also had raised significantly less money than Mr. De Gregorio, who had emphasized his service in combat roles in Iraq and Afghanistan.“We did everything we possibly could, and we left no stones unturned,” Mr. De Gregorio said as he watched the returns come in from the Republican Party headquarters in Bergen County. “We went out there and we listened to what the voters had to say.”Mr. Menendez will be a heavy favorite in November against Marcos Arroyo, a housing inspector from West New York, N.J., who was the lone Republican candidate to enter the race.Mr. Menendez has said that, if elected, he would focus on expanding access to early childhood education and issues that affect the cost of living in New Jersey, where property owners pay some of the nation’s highest taxes.“One of the things we’ve focused on — just because we don’t know the climate that we’re going to be walking into, should we win — is trying to think about what Democratic proposals haven’t been passed yet that we can have bipartisan support for,” Mr. Menendez said in an interview on Saturday.Before being appointed to the Senate in 2006, Senator Menendez held the House seat that his son is now seeking. The borders of the district, formerly the 13th Congressional District, have since been redrawn slightly.The state debuted a new electronic voting system in November, but this was the first time that New Jersey voters were offered a chance to cast ballots in person, on machines, during a primary election.Still, with no statewide races on the ballot, turnout was low.“We were told that we were the fourth and fifth people in our district to be voting today,” Gov. Philip D. Murphy said on Tuesday morning, “and they’ve been open for a while.”Shlomo Schorr contributed reporting. More

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      Best- and Worst-Case Outcomes of the Jan. 6 Public Hearings

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      On Thursday, a bipartisan House select committee will begin public hearings on the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. The weeks ahead will be awash with news as the committee reveals what happened in the days and weeks before the attack — and to what extent the rioters were emboldened, or enabled, by the White House and Republican lawmakers.To wade through the news and help us understand what to pay attention to as the hearings unfold, host Jane Coaston calls upon two experts on the Republican Party.[You can listen to this episode of “The Argument” on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google or wherever you get your podcasts.]Nicole Hemmer is an author and historian of conservative media. Ross Douthat is a Times Opinion columnist. They give their takes on what narratives might play out in the hearings and comment on the danger of far-right extremism in the G.O.P. “I don’t see an incentive structure that pulls the Republican Party in general away from procedural extremism, or even really at the moment, anything that pulls them back to a majoritarian democratic process,” Hemmer says.Mentioned in this episode:“What Oprah Winfrey Knows About American History That Tucker Carlson Doesn’t” by Nicole Hemmer in The New York Times“Are We Witnessing the Mainstreaming of White Power in America?” episode from The Ezra Klein Show“Why Would John Eastman Want to Overturn an Election for Trump?” by Ross Douthat in The New York Times(A full transcript of the episode will be available midday on the Times website.)Samuel Corum/Getty ImagesThoughts? Email us at [email protected] or leave us a voice mail message at (347) 915-4324. We want to hear what you’re arguing about with your family, your friends and your frenemies. (We may use excerpts from your message in a future episode.)By leaving us a message, you are agreeing to be governed by our reader submission terms and agreeing that we may use and allow others to use your name, voice and message.“The Argument” is produced by Phoebe Lett, Elisa Gutierrez and Vishakha Darbha. Edited by Alison Bruzek and Anabel Bacon. With original music by Isaac Jones and Pat McCusker. Mixing by Pat McCusker. Fact-checking by Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta with editorial support from Kristina Samulewski. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. More

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      Katie Porter Will Face Scott Baugh in the Fall.

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      Scott Baugh, the former leader of the California Assembly, fended off a crowded Republican field on Tuesday to earn the right to challenge Representative Katie Porter, a Democratic star, in November.The newly drawn 47th District of California leans slightly Democratic, but in a difficult year for President Biden’s party, Republicans would relish dimming Ms. Porter’s shine. Since she took her seat in the former Republican stronghold of Orange County in 2018, Ms. Porter has emerged as a powerhouse fund-raiser and a popular figure for the activist left.Democratic officials widely see her as an heir to the Senate seat now held by Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is not expected to seek re-election in November 2024, when she will be 91. A loss now would complicated Ms. Porter’s path.Representative Katie Porter, a powerhouse Democratic fund-raiser, at a campaign event on Saturday.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesMr. Baugh is the essence of the Orange County Republican establishment, having once headed the party in the county. With more than $1 million in his campaign accounts, he heads toward November in a respectable position. But his cash on hand pales in comparison with Ms. Porter’s $18 million in a widely watched race is likely to be expensive. More