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      Capitol Hill hearing on ‘censorship industrial complex’ under Biden based on ‘fiction’, says expert

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      A Capitol Hill hearing held to explore supposed government censorship under Joe Biden was based on a “fiction”, a leading expert on countering online disinformation told members of Congress on Tuesday.Nina Jankowicz, head of the American Sunlight Project, a pro-democracy organization, went on the offensive at a House of Representatives foreign relations subcommittee meeting held to examine the existence of an alleged “censorship industrial complex”, which Republicans claim was established to stifle rightwing views on social media, rather than combat foreign propaganda, as officially stated.Having been labeled a “spearhead” and “tsarina” of such efforts by the committee’s Republican chair, Bill Huizenga, Jankowicz – who briefly led the Department of Homeland Security’s disinformation unit under the Biden administration – said the hearing was being held at a time when Donald Trump was attempting aggressive free speech restrictions.“The premise of this hearing, the so called censorship industrial complex, is a fiction that has not only had profound impacts on my life and safety, but on our national security,” she said in her opening statement at a fractious hearing that exposed the width of the chasm between Republicans and Democrats on the issue.“More alarmingly, this fiction is itself suppressing speech and stymieing critical research that protects our country.“I want to acknowledge the irony that we’re having this discussion as we witness an assault on the first amendment we have not seen in decades. The Trump administration has directed far more egregious violations of our constitution than the imagined actions of the Biden administration on which this hearing is premised.”She singled out the detention and attempted deportation of Rumeysa Ozturk, a doctoral student at Tufts University, who wrote an opinion article critical of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, which she compared to the actions of authoritarian regimes in Russia, Belarus and Hungary.Republicans have used their control of the House and Senate to stage a series of hearings in different congressional committees on the alleged existence of a censorship complex – whose name derives from the military industrial complex described by president Dwight Eisenhower in his farewell speech before leaving the White House in 1961. Opponents dismiss the notion as a conspiracy theory.The committee hearings have coincided with the Trump administration’s dismantling of safeguards designed to stop the spread of influence and disinformation in cyberspace by Russia in particular, but also widely attributed to China and Iran.Even before Trump returned to office, the Republican-controlled Congress declined last December to renew the mandate of the state department’s global engagement center (GEC), the leading government agency fighting Russian and Chinese propaganda.Huizenga, a representative from Michigan, called on two other witnesses, Matt Taibbi and Benjamin Weingarten, to support the Republican contention that the body had been subverted to instead suppress rightwing opinion in America.As evidence, Taibbi, a former Rolling Stone journalist who was among the recipients of the so-called “Twitter files” released by Elon Musk, the platform’s owner, to show evidence of alleged censorship, cited the case of Alex Berenson, a former New York Times journalist.Berenson had been expelled from platform following White House pressure after posting that the Covid-19 vaccine did not prevent infection or the virus’s transmission, Taibbi claimed.Weingarten, a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, a rightwing thinktank, condemned the GEC as a “truth squad … designed to suppress any information that countered national policy and to identify people who may have had opinions that were controversial or unwanted as foreign inspire”.Democrats lined up to denounce the hearing as “hypocrisy” and “waste of taxpayers money” in light of the Trump administration’s attempts to deport foreign students who had expressed pro-Palestinian views, moves that Jankowicz said violated the US constitution first amendment, which protects free speech.Sydney Kamlager-Dove, the subcommittee’s ranking Democrat, said the hearing was “out of touch with the concerns of everyday Americans.“I’ve been to the state department, and I do have concerns about censorship – – censorship of the employees who are terrified to say the wrong thing, to say anything, or have the wrong word in their job title and be terminated by an administration that publicly relishes punishing people for their speech,” she said. “If we want to talk about censorship, we should begin with Trump’s unprecedented assault on the first amendment and rule of law.”Keith Self, a Republican representative from Texas, provoked anger among Democrats by appearing to liken the Biden administration’s anti-disinformation efforts to steps by the Nazi to construct public opinion in 1930s Germany.“A direct quote from Joseph Goebbels [the Nazi propaganda minister]: ‘It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion,’ and I think that may be what we’re discussing here,” he said. 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      House revolt over Republican bid to stop new parents from voting by proxy

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      An attempt by Republican leaders to stop new parents from voting by proxy sparked a bipartisan mutiny in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, during which a small group of GOP lawmakers joined with all Democrats to obstruct a key procedural motion and paralyze the chamber.The revolt was the first legislative setback Republicans have faced since Donald Trump returned to the White House with the GOP holding a slim majority in Congress’s lower chamber. It also delayed consideration of House speaker Mike Johnson’s legislative agenda for the week, which included a bill to stop federal judges from issuing nationwide injunctions – as several have done for Trump’s executive orders – and to require proof of citizenship to vote.Fueling the split was an attempt by the Republican Anna Paulina Luna and the Democrat Brittany Pettersen to force consideration of a measure allowing new parents to temporarily designate someone else to vote in their place. House leaders attempted an unusual parliamentary tactic to prevent the proposal from going forward, but were blocked by the votes of all 213 Democrats and nine Republicans.“I think that today is a pretty historical day for the entire conference. It’s showing that the body has decided that parents deserve a voice in Washington,” Luna said after the vote, though it remains unclear when the chamber will consider allowing proxy voting.Cradling her infant son, Pettersen referred to a fellow lawmaker who just announced she was pregnant: “I’m really excited to think that she will not go through what we went through on trying to make sure that we’re representing our constituents and taking care of our baby.”“It’s all worth it – changing Congress for the better,” the Colorado lawmaker added.The House’s then Democratic leadership allowed lawmakers to vote remotely after Covid broke out, but Republicans ended that policy after they took control of the chamber two years ago. In an interview with National Public Radio last week, Johnson described himself and the GOP as “pro-family” but said he opposed a return of proxy voting.“We want to make it as easy as possible for young parents to be able to participate in the process,” the speaker said. “But proxy voting, in my view, is unconstitutional.”Pettersen and Luna had managed to attract 218 signatures, including 12 Republicans, to a discharge petition, which forces a vote on a bill even if leadership objects. In response, GOP lawmakers on Friday inserted language blocking the petition in a rule that would have to pass the House in order to begin consideration of the bills targeting nationwide injunctions and requiring proof of citizenship to vote.“Congress is defined as ‘act of coming together and meeting’. I’ve never voted by proxy, because I believe it undermines the fabric of that sacred act of convening,” said the Republican Virginia Foxx, the chair of the rules committee, who added she feared the measure would pave the way for a return of universal proxy voting if Democrats retake control.“I know there’s a new laptop class in America that seems to operate increasingly in a virtual space, but that’s simply not a fact of life for most American workers, and I believe Congress should live by that standard.”Elected in 2022 to a Florida gulf coast district, Luna was a member of the far-right House Freedom caucus, but reportedly left on Monday after several of her counterparts backed leadership’s efforts to block her petition. In a speech on the House floor, Luna called herself “one of the most conservative members of this body” but said she viewed the issue as important enough to risk upending the House’s business for the week.“For almost two years now in this cause, I’ve met with leadership, and I’ve exhausted all tools in my legislative toolkit to to be able to bring this to the floor,” she said. “For a while we’ve had the majority, and we’ve had the ability to bring legislation to the floor on election integrity and also to call out rogue judges, and yet they chose at this point in time to tie this discharge petition killer to this rule that would also permanently paint me and the members supporting it.”The episode was reminiscent of the infighting that gripped the House GOP during Joe Biden’s presidency, which climaxed when a small group of Republicans collaborated with the Democrats to oust Kevin McCarthy as House speaker.Democratic lawmakers, who are still reeling from their party’s underwhelming performance in last November’s elections, broke into applause in the House chamber after the rule was voted down. The House then announced that no further votes were expected for the remainder of the week, though Pettersen said that her petition must be voted on by Thursday, raising the possibility that lawmakers will reassemble. More

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      Johnson Moves to Block a Bill Allowing New Parents in the House to Vote by Proxy

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      A long-simmering fight over whether to allow members of Congress to vote remotely after the birth of a new child is coming to a head on Tuesday afternoon, when Speaker Mike Johnson’s behind-the-scenes efforts to quash the majority-supported change to the chamber’s rules will be tested on the House floor.The quiet push from a bipartisan group of younger lawmakers and new parents started more than a year ago, when Representative Anna Paulina Luna, Republican of Florida, began agitating for a change to House rules that would allow new mothers to designate a colleague to vote by proxy on their behalf for up to six weeks after giving birth. Ms. Luna landed on the idea after her own child was born.There is no maternity or paternity leave for members of Congress, who can take time away from the office without sacrificing their pay but cannot vote if they are not physically in the Capitol. Proponents of the change have called it a common-sense fix to modernize Congress, where there are more women and more younger members than there were 200 years ago.Democrats including Representatives Brittany Pettersen of Colorado, who gave birth to her second child earlier this year, and Sara Jacobs of Colorado joined Ms. Luna’s effort, expanding the resolution to include new fathers and up to 12 weeks of proxy voting during a parental leave.But Mr. Johnson has adamantly opposed them at every turn, arguing that proxy voting is unconstitutional, even though the Supreme Court refused to take up a Republican-led lawsuit challenging pandemic-era proxy voting rules in the House. Mr. Johnson and his allies have argued that any accommodation that allow members to vote without being physically at the Capitol, no matter how narrow, creates a slippery slope for more, and that it harms member collegiality.“I do believe its an existential issue for this body,” Representative Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina and chairwoman of the Rules Committee, said on Tuesday. “Congress is defined as the ‘act of coming together and meeting.’” Changing that, she said, “undermines the fabric of that sacred act of convening.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Crucial Week for Trump: New Tariffs and Elections Will Test His Momentum

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      Down-ballot races in Florida and Wisconsin are seen as a referendum on the White House, while the president’s to-be-announced reciprocal tariff plan is increasingly worrying investors and consumers.President Trump’s political momentum will face a major test this week as Democrats try to turn various down-ballot races into a referendum on the White House, and Mr. Trump’s long-promised tariffs risk rattling allies and consumers alike.A State Supreme Court election in Wisconsin on Tuesday is seen as an indicator of support for Mr. Trump, particularly after Elon Musk and groups he funds spent more than $20 million to bolster Mr. Trump’s preferred candidate. White House officials have also been increasingly concerned with the unusually competitive race on Tuesday for a deep-red House seat in Florida left vacant after Representative Michael Waltz stepped down to serve as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser.The White House is hoping victories in those races will tighten Mr. Trump’s grip on the Republican Party as his team seeks to overcome the backlash from its inadvertent sharing of military plans on a commercial app with a journalist.The Florida election is critical for Republicans, who hold a narrow majority in the House as they try to pass the president’s agenda. The outcome of the Wisconsin race, in a battleground state that Mr. Trump narrowly won last year, could be a reflection of voters’ views on the president’s gutting of the federal work force, his crackdown on illegal immigration and his moves to purge diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.“It’s a big race,” Mr. Trump said of the Wisconsin judicial contest on Monday while signing executive orders in the Oval Office. “Wisconsin is a big state politically, and the Supreme Court has a lot to do with elections in Wisconsin.”Mr. Trump is also expected to reveal the details of his reciprocal tariff plan on Wednesday. He has labeled it “Liberation Day,” saying the nation will finally break free of past trade relationships that he argues have cheated the United States. Investors, however, are growing more concerned that the tariffs could fuel inflation and slow consumer spending, potentially driving up economic anxieties among voters.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Clean energy spending boosts GOP districts. But lawmakers are keeping quiet as Trump targets incentives

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      Billions of dollars in clean energy spending and jobs have overwhelmingly flowed to parts of the US represented by Republican lawmakers. But these members of Congress are still largely reticent to break with Donald Trump’s demands to kill off key incentives for renewables, even as their districts bask in the rewards.The president has called for the dismantling of the Inflation Reduction Act – a sweeping bill passed by Democrats that has helped turbocharge investments in wind, solar, nuclear, batteries and electric vehicle manufacturing in the US – calling it a “giant scam”. Trump froze funding allocated under the act and has vowed to claw back grants aimed at reducing planet-heating pollution.Republicans who now control Congress have to decide if they will eliminate the IRA’s grants and, more crucially, the tax credits that have spurred a boom in clean energy activity in their own districts. A total of 78% of this spending has gone to Republican-held suburban and rural districts across the US, according to data from Atlas Public Policy.Of the 20 congressional districts that have attracted the most clean energy manufacturing investment since the IRA passed in 2022, 18 are represented by Republicans, according to Atlas. The top three districts, in North Carolina, Georgia and Nevada, represented by Richard Hudson, Earl Carter and Mark Amodei, respectively, have collectively seen nearly $30bn in new investments since the legislation.Despite this, none of the 18 Republican representatives contacted by the Guardian would comment on whether they agree with Trump that clean energy incentives should be scrapped.“Members aren’t necessarily looking for opportunities to disagree with the White House at the moment,” said Heather Reams, the president of Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, a center-right group that advocates in favor of clean energy.The Atlas data set is the newest in a series of reports showing the IRA benefitted Republican-led districts the most. And the largest individual pools of money from the bill also went to projects in red communities, according to a separate data set shared with the Guardian by an anonymous source at the Department of Energy (DoE).The top grant from the IRA, worth $500m, went to a General Motors plant in Lansing, Michigan – represented by Republican Tom Barrett – the DoE data shows. And though the biggest loan of $15bn went to California’s Pacific Gas and Electric Company utility to expand clean power and modernize infrastructure, the second and third largest went to battery plants in Glendale, Kentucky, and Kokomo, Indiana, represented by conservatives Brett Guthrie and Victoria Spartz, respectively. Hageman, Guthrie and Spartz did not respond to requests for comment.Some Republicans have publicly lauded the tax credits’ impacts on their districts even as they have attacked the IRA. The ultraconservative Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, for instance, praised the IRA-funded expansion of solar manufacturing in her district but called the bill itself “dangerous”, winning her scrutiny from Joe Biden in 2023. Her district saw more investment than all but 14 others, the Atlas data shows.In a sign of private nervousness among conservatives about a repeal of the tax credits, though, a group of 21 Republican lawmakers, including Carter and Amodei, signed a letter to colleagues warning that axing the IRA risks planned projects and would escalate energy bills. Some conservatives made similar calls during a January hearing in the House ways and means committee.But these voices have gotten quieter in recent weeks, with some Republicans who privately supported the letter refusing to sign it for strategic reasons, and some letter signatories saying the IRA tax credits should not necessarily be a major priority.Ongoing budget concerns have made it especially difficult for conservatives to defend the credits. Republicans’ fiscal year 2025 proposal authorized $4.5tn in tax cuts through 2034 and called on committees to partially offset the cost with $2tn in spending reductions. A full repeal of the IRA’s green energy tax credits would slash about $850bn in spending the Tax Foundation thinktank recently found.“They’re trying to kind of balance finding the money so that they’re not adding to the federal debt, while also trying to protect these beneficial and popular tax credits and provisions,” said Dana Nuccitelli, the research coordinator at the non-partisan advocacy group Citizens’ Climate Lobby. “It’s not easy.”Reams, of the Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions thinktank, said that as the realities of lost jobs and increasing energy costs become clear, Trump may change his mind about the need to repeal the credits. “There’s what Donald Trump says – remember, he hated EVs, but he just bought a Tesla – and what he does,” she said. “You’ve got to not take it all so literally and bide some time to get a sense of what really is going on.”Still, there are already signs that Trump’s hostile stance towards renewables – he has halted approvals of wind and solar projects on federal land and waters – – is starting to dampen clean energy activity in the US.Approximately $8bn in clean energy manufacturing activity has been canceled so far this year, Atlas has calculated, with a separate analysis by Climate Power finding that 50,000 jobs have been lost or are threatened.A full repeal of the IRA would hike energy bills for households and imperil a further 1.5m jobs in the US, according to yet another recent report, by Energy Innovation. “Many of those jobs will be at risk if the IRA is repealed,” Jim Farley, the chief executive of Ford, warned recently about the company’s plans to expand its electric vehicle factories.“The Trump administration aims to restore US manufacturing jobs, but cutting existing federal energy incentives could really undermine that goal,” said Tom Taylor, a senior policy analyst at Atlas.It’s a message some climate advocates have been bringing to Republican lawmakers in recent weeks in an attempt to save the tax credits. Citizens’ Climate Lobby, for instance, this month lobbied 47 Republicans on Capitol Hill calling on them to protect the tax credits, and is now asking its members to call their Republican representatives, focusing not on their climate benefits but on their potential to spur economic growth.“Everybody loves manufacturing jobs,” Nuccitelli said.In their lobbying, Citizens Climate Lobby is also highlighting the low price of building clean power, the need for abundant energy amid forecasted spikes in energy from the artificial intelligence boom, and the fact that repealing the incentives could cause household electricity bills to increase by about 10% over the next decade.Despite the lack of public support for the tax credits from GOP lawmakers, the organization said they enjoy significant support on Capitol Hill, with some GOP lawmakers calling to protect them in private meetings and personal phone calls with other congressional colleagues.Only two Democratic-led districts were on the list provided by the Atlas Public Policy. One was Arizona’s Raúl Grijalva, who was a strong advocate for the IRA’s green incentives before he died this month.“The Inflation Reduction Act is a vital investment in the future stability of the planet,” his office wrote in a statement to the Guardian before his passing. “As a self-proclaimed business genius, Trump should easily be able to understand the high financial and humanitarian costs of increasing climate catastrophes.” More

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      Spartz, Republican Lawmaker, Faces Anger at Town Halls Over Musk Cuts and Hegseth

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      House Republicans have been told by their party’s leadership to avoid town halls after Democrats and others began to seize on the events to vent frustration with the Trump administration.Representative Victoria Spartz, a third-term Republican from suburban Indianapolis, decided not to heed the warning this weekend — and was met with fury over cuts to the federal government’s services and work force.On Friday and Saturday, Ms. Spartz hosted gatherings with constituents. And each day, she found herself in hostile territory.She was booed, jeered and scolded over the Signal scandal at the Defense Department (she acknowledged the Trump administration needed to do a “better job”), and the Homeland Security Department’s efforts to deport immigrants without due process (she declared that unauthorized immigrants were entitled to “no due process”). And she was accused of standing idly by as Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency steered cuts to government services (she said the Trump administration was trying to stop fraud).She faced chants of “Do your job!” At times, the events turned into shouting matches. Some of the exchanges have circulated widely on social media.“You don’t have to scream,” she pleaded at a crowded town hall in Westfield, Ind., on Friday night. The event lasted for two interruption-filled hours.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump withdraws Elise Stefanik’s UN nomination to protect GOP House majority

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      Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he was pulling US House representative Elise Stefanik’s nomination to be the US ambassador to the United Nations, a stunning turnaround for his cabinet pick after her confirmation had been stalled over concerns about Republicans’ tight margins in the House.Trump confirmed he was withdrawing the New York Republican’s nomination in a Truth Social post, saying that it was “essential that we maintain EVERY Republican Seat in Congress”.“We must be unified to accomplish our Mission, and Elise Stefanik has been a vital part of our efforts from the very beginning. I have asked Elise, as one of my biggest Allies, to remain in Congress,” the president said, without mentioning who he would nominate as a replacement for his last remaining cabinet seat.Stefanik’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Trump had tapped Stefanik to represent the US at the international body shortly after winning re-election in November. She was seen as among the least controversial cabinet picks, and her nomination advanced out of committee in late January, but House Republicans’ razor-thin majority kept her ultimate confirmation in a state of purgatory for the last several months.In recent weeks, it had seemed as if Stefanik’s nomination would advance to the Senate floor, given two US House special elections in Florida in districts that Trump easily won in 2024. Filling those vacant GOP seats would have allowed Stefanik to finally resign from the House and given Republicans, who currently hold 218 seats, a little more breathing room on passing legislation in a growingly divided Congress. Democrats hold 213 seats.But Democrats’ upset in a Tuesday special election for a Pennsylvania state Senate seat in Republican-leaning suburbs and farming communities surely gave the GOP pause.Stefanik is the fourth Trump administration nominee who didn’t make it through the confirmation process. Previously, former US House representative Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration for attorney general, Chad Chronister was pulled for the Drug Enforcement Administration and former Florida representative Dr David Weldon was yanked from contention to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Stefanik had been in a state of limbo for months, not able to engage in her official duties as a member of the 119th Congress or to participate in the action at the UN. The vacancy of a permanent US ambassador was happening at a critical moment for the international body as the world leaders had been discussing the two major wars between Russia and Ukraine and Israel and Hamas.In late February, the US mission, under Trump, split with its European allies by refusing to blame Russia for its invasion of Ukraine in votes on three U.N. resolutions seeking an end to the three-year war. Dorothy Shea, the deputy US ambassador to the UN, has been the face of America’s mission in New York during the transition. More

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      Stefanik Will Be Released From the House Soon for UN Ambassador Confirmation

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      Representative Elise Stefanik, Republican of New York, is set to be released from the House on April 2 and head toward a confirmation vote to serve as ambassador to the United Nations, after weeks of waiting to join President Trump’s cabinet.Senate Republicans have been slow-walking Ms. Stefanik’s confirmation because of the too-tight margins in the House. Speaker Mike Johnson could not afford to lose a reliable Republican vote when he needed to pass the stopgap government funding measure that Democrats almost unanimously opposed.So, despite being Mr. Trump’s first announced nominee to serve in his cabinet, Ms. Stefanik is now the only one who has yet to be confirmed. That has left her in a strange in-between: She is a member of the 119th Congress who is not seated on any subcommittees, and she attended the first Trump cabinet meeting despite the fact that she is not technically in it yet. When Mr. Trump addressed a joint session of Congress, she sat with the cabinet rather than her House colleagues.But Ms. Stefanik’s awkward life in limbo can start to resolve on April 2, when two Trump-endorsed Republicans are expected to fill a pair of seats that were left vacant after the departures of former Representatives Mike Waltz and Matt Gaetz of Florida. Senate Republicans are then expected to move ahead with Ms. Stefanik’s confirmation, according to two people familiar with the process, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. The details of Ms. Stefanik’s confirmation proceedings were first reported by Axios.A spokesman for Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, declined to comment on the schedule for the confirmation vote.The Republican majority in the House will remain slim, but Mr. Johnson will have a little more room to maneuver. He has been forthright about his challenges.“I had 220 Republicans and 215 Democrats, and then President Trump began to cull the herd,” Mr. Johnson said last month, referring to the president’s decision to select House Republicans to serve in his administration. “We have a one-vote margin now — smallest in history, right? So for a big chunk of the first 100 days of the Congress, and perhaps beyond, this is not an easy task, but we’re going to get it done.” More