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      Trump documents trial judge sets first hearing; Georgia grand jury set to weigh 2020 election charges – live

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      From 1h agoThe first hearing before US District Judge Aileen Cannon in the federal criminal case against Donald Trump will be on 18 July, according to a court order.As California considers implementing large-scale reparations for Black residents affected by the legacy of slavery, the state has also become the focus of the nation’s divisive reparations conversation, drawing the backlash of conservatives criticizing the priorities of a “liberal” state.“Reparations for Slavery? California’s Bad Idea Catches On,” commentator Jason L Riley wrote in the Wall Street Journal, as New York approved a commission to study the idea. In the Washington Post, conservative columnist George F Will said the state’s debate around reparations adds to a “plague of solemn silliness”.Roughly two-thirds of Americans oppose the idea of reparations, according to 2021 polling from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and 2022 polling from the Pew Research Center. Both found that more than 80% Black respondents support some kind of compensation for the descendants of slaves, while a similar majority of white respondents opposed. Pew found that roughly two-thirds of Hispanics and Asian Americans opposed, as well.But in California, there’s greater support. Both the state’s Reparations Task Force – which released its 1,100-page final report and recommendations to the public on 29 June – and a University of California, Los Angeles study found that roughly two-thirds of Californians are in favor of some form of reparations, though residents are divided on what they should be.When delving into the reasons why people resist, Tatishe Nteta, who directed the UMass poll, expected feasibility or the challenges of implementing large programs to top the list, but this wasn’t the case.“When we ask people why they oppose, it’s not about the cost. It’s not about logistics. It’s not about the impossibility to place a monetary value on the impact of slavery,” said Nteta, provost professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
      It is consistently this notion that the descendants of slaves do not deserve these types of reparations.
      Read the full story here.More than 1,5000 amendments were filed to the FY2024 defense authorization bill, which is projected to hit the House floor this week. At issue is whether the House will take up the hard-right amendments, with the weight falling once again on Speaker Kevin McCarthy.Some of the most closely watched amendments relate to abortion, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) funding, and transgender troops, according to Politico’s Playbook.McCarthy will need to navigate between the demands of his most conservative members – three of whom serve on the House rules committee – and the need for Democratic votes in order to get a bill ultimately signed into law, Playbook writes. It continues:
      In the past, House leaders typically have told the hard right to pound sand, knowing they weren’t going to vote for the final bill anyway. But after pissing off conservatives during the debt limit standoff, McCarthy looks poised to make a different calculation this time.
      Facing heavy criticism from the House Freedom Caucus and other conservatives, McCarthy is under pressure to give on a number of high-profile issues touching defense policy, Punchbowl News writes. It says:
      Every ‘culture war’ provision from the Freedom Caucus that’s added to the base legislation will cost Democratic votes. It will also make GOP moderates unhappy.
      The House rules committee is scheduled to mark up the FY2024 defense authorization bill, the annual bill setting Pentagon priorities and policies, today.The bill, which is expected to hit the floor later this week, has been signed into law 60 years straight. But this year, Speaker Kevin McCarthy and GOP leaders are confronting a legislative landmine as the far-right House Freedom Caucus push for dozens of proposed changes to the legislation.Adam Smith, the head Democrat on the House armed services committee, said he was worried about a flurry of “extreme right-wing amendments” attached to the bill and that he wasn’t “remotely” confident the bill will pass this week.Smith told the Washington Post he was concerned about GOP measures on “abortion, guns, the border, and social policy and equity issues”. Without the controversial amendments, Smith predicted that well over 300 House members would vote for the bill. With them, “you lose most, if not all, Democrats,” he told Politico’s Playbook.Iowa’s state legislature is holding a special session on Tuesday as it plans to vote on a bill that would ban most abortions at around six weeks of pregnancy, when most people don’t yet know they are pregnant.The state is the latest in the country to vote on legislation restricting reproductive rights after the overturning of Roe v Wade last year, which ended the nationwide constitutional right to abortion.Iowa’s Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, called for the special session last week, vowing to “continue to fight against the inhumanity of abortion” and calling the “pro-life” movement against reproductive rights “the most important human rights cause of our time”.Lawmakers in the GOP-controlled legislature will debate House Study Bill 255, which was released on Friday and seeks to prohibit abortions at the first sign of cardiac activity except in certain cases such as rape or incest.Iowa’s house, senate and governor’s office are all Republican-controlled, and the bill faces few hurdles from being passed.Read the full story here.The first hearing before US District Judge Aileen Cannon in the federal criminal case against Donald Trump will be on 18 July, according to a court order.Trump was charged with retention of national defense information, including US nuclear secrets and plans for US retaliation in the event of an attack, which means his case will be tried under the rules laid out in the Classified Information Procedures Act, or Cipa.Cipa provides a mechanism for the government to charge cases involving classified documents without risking the “graymail” problem, where the defense threatens to reveal classified information at trial, but the steps that have to be followed mean it takes longer to get to trial.The process includes the government turning over all of the classified information they want to use to the defense in discovery, like any other criminal case, in addition to the non-classified discovery that is done in a separate process.Trump’s lawyers argued the amount of discovery – the government is making the material available in batches because there is so much evidence and it has not finished processing everything that came from search warrants – meant that they could not know how long the process would take.Trump’s lawyers wrote:
      From a practical manner, the volume of discovery and the Cipa logistics alone make plain that the government’s requested schedule is unrealistic.
      Donald Trump asked the federal judge overseeing the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case to indefinitely postpone setting a trial date in court filings on Monday and suggested, at a minimum, that any scheduled trial should not take place until after the 2024 presidential election.The papers submitted by Trump’s lawyers in response to the US justice department’s motion to hold the trial this December made clear the former president’s aim to delay proceedings as their guiding strategy – the case may be dropped if Trump wins the election.The filing said:
      The court should, respectfully, before establishing any trial date, allow time for development of further clarity as to the full nature and scope of the motions that will be filed.
      Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis launched the investigation in early 2021, after Donald Trump tried to overturn his election defeat in Georgia by calling Brad Raffensperger, Georgia’s secretary of state, and suggesting the state’s top elections official could help him “find 11,780 votes”, just enough needed to beat Joe Biden.The investigation expanded to include an examination of a slate of Republican fake electors, phone calls by Trump and others to Georgia officials in the weeks after the 2020 election and unfounded allegations of widespread election fraud made to state lawmakers, according to AP.About a year into her investigation, Willis asked for a special grand jury. At the time, she said she needed the panel’s subpoena power to compel testimony from witnesses who had refused to cooperate without a subpoena. In a January 2022 letter to Fulton county superior court chief judge, Christopher Brasher, Willis wrote that Raffensperger, who she called an “essential witness”, had “indicated that he will not participate in an interview or otherwise offer evidence until he is presented with a subpoena by my office”.That special grand jury was seated in May 2022, and released in January after completing its work. The panel issued subpoenas and heard testimony from 75 witnesses, ranging from some of Trump’s most prominent allies to local election workers, before drafting a final report with recommendations for Willis.Portions of that report that were released in February said jurors believed that “one or more witnesses” committed perjury and urged local prosecutors to bring charges. The panel’s foreperson said in media interviews later that they recommended indicting numerous people, but she declined to name names.Here’s a bit more on the grand jury being seated today in Atlanta, Georgia, that will probably consider charges against Donald Trump and his Republican allies for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election.The new grand jury term begins today in Fulton county, and two panels will be selected at the downtown Atlanta courthouse, each made up of 16 to 23 people and up to three alternates. One of these panels is expected to handle the Trump investigation.Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney will preside over today’s court proceedings, CNN reported. McBurney oversaw the special grand jury that previously collected evidence in the Trump investigation, and he is also expected to oversee the grand jury tasked with making charging decisions in the case.Good morning, US politics blog readers. A grand jury being seated today in Atlanta is expected to consider charges against former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies for their efforts to overturn the 2020 election.Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis launched the investigation in early 2021, shortly after Trump tried to overturn his loss by calling Georgia’s secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, and suggested the state’s top elections official could help him “find 11,780 votes”.A special grand jury previously issued subpoenas and heard testimony from about 75 witnesses, which included Trump advisers, his former attorneys, White House aides, and Georgia officials. That panel drafted a final report with recommendations for Willis.The new grand jury term begins today in Fulton county, which includes most of Atlanta and some suburbs. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney will swear-in two grand juries, one of which is expected to hear evidence in the Georgia elections case.Willis, an elected Democrat, is expected to present her case before one of two new grand juries being seated. The panel won’t be deciding guilt, only if Willis has enough evidence to move her case forward and who should face indictment. Willis has previously indicated that final decisions could come next month.Here’s what else we’re watching today:
      Joe Biden is meeting with other Nato leaders in Vilnius, Lithuania, where Russia’s war in Ukraine will top the agenda.
      The House rules committee is scheduled to mark up the FY2024 defense authorization bill today. The legislation is set to hit the floor later this week, with final passage currently envisioned for Friday.
      The House will meet at noon and at 2pm will take up multiple bills, with last votes expected at 6.30pm
      The Senate will meet at 10am and vote on several nominations throughout the day. There will be classified all-senators briefing with defense and intelligence officials on how AI is used for national security purposes. More

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      ‘A deranged ploy’: how Republicans are fueling the disinformation wars

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      A federal judge in Louisiana ruled last week that a wide range of Biden administration officials could not communicate with social media companies about content moderation issues, and in a lengthy opinion described the White House’s outreach to platforms as “almost dystopian” and reminiscent of “an Orwellian ministry of truth”.The ruling, which was delivered by the Trump-appointed judge Terry Doughty, was a significant milestone in a case that Republicans have pushed as proof that the Biden administration is attempting to silence conservative voices. It is also the latest in a wider rightwing campaign to weaken attempts at stopping false information and conspiracy theories from proliferating online, one that has included framing disinformation researchers and their efforts as part of a wide-reaching censorship regime.Republican attorneys general in Missouri and Louisiana have sued Biden administration officials, the GOP-controlled House judiciary committee has demanded extensive documents from researchers studying disinformation, and rightwing media has attacked academics and officials who monitor social media platforms. Many of the researchers involved have faced significant harassment, leading to fears of a chilling effect on speaking out against disinformation ahead of the 2024 presidential election.The Republican pushback against anti-disinformation campaigns has existed for years, alleging that content moderation on major platforms has unfairly targeted conservative voices. Many tech platforms have instituted policies against misinformation or hateful speech that have resulted in content such as election denial, anti-vaccine falsehoods and far-right conspiracy theories being removed – all which tend to skew Republican. But research has found that allegations of anti-conservative bias at social media companies have little empirical evidence, with a 2021 New York University study showing that these platforms’ algorithms instead often work to amplify rightwing content.The rightwing narrative of tech platform censorship persisted, however, intensifying as companies prohibited medical misinformation about Covid-19. It gained additional momentum last year after the Department of Homeland Security rolled out a disinformation governance board aimed at researching ways to stop malicious online influence campaigns and harmful misinformation. Republican politicians and rightwing media immediately seized on the board as proof of a leftist authoritarian plot.Fox News hosts specifically singled out researcher Nina Jankowicz, who was tapped to be the board’s executive director, and ran numerous segments viciously mocking her. A year-long harassment campaign followed, leading to Jankowicz receiving death threats, having deepfake pornography made of her and seeing her personal information released online against her will.The disinformation governance board suspended its operations only a month after its debut, in what Jankowicz told the Guardian earlier this week was the start of a larger rightwing campaign aimed at rolling back checks on disinformation. “They got a win in shutting us down, so why would they stop there?” said Jankowicz, who was originally named in the Louisiana lawsuit but removed on account of no longer being a government official.The GOP takes aim at researchersIn addition to the lawsuit in Louisiana, Republicans have put pressure on researchers through a House select subcommittee investigation that launched in January and claims it will look into the “weaponization of the federal government”. The House judiciary committee chair, Jim Jordan, earlier this year issued a wide-ranging request for information and documents to multiple universities with programs aimed at researching disinformation, and has so far sent dozens of subpoenas.Among the institutions and officials that Jordan requested emails and documents from were the Stanford Internet Observatory, the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public and the non-profit Election Integrity Partnership. Jordan last month threatened Stanford University with legal action if it did not turn over additional records. (Stanford released communications with government officials but did not send some internal records, including ones that involved students, the university told the Washington Post.)The Stanford Internet Observatory, the Center for an Informed Public and the Election Integrity Partnership did not return requests for comment.Democratic representatives decried the committee’s activities as an attempt to harangue researchers and institutions that its members viewed as political enemies, likening it to McCarthyism and the House Committee on Un-American Activities.“This committee is nothing more than a deranged ploy by the Maga extremists who have hijacked the Republican party and now want to use taxpayer money to push their far-right conspiracy nonsense,” Jim McGovern, a Democratic representative from Massachusetts, said during the formation of the committee.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe committee has struggled to be seen as legitimate, with a Washington Post-ABC News poll released in February showing that a majority of Americans view it as a partisan attempt to score political points. But it has nonetheless put pressure on academic institutions and emboldened attacks against researchers, including the University of Washington disinformation expert Kate Starbird, who told the Washington Post that she has faced political intimidation and cut back on public engagement.Starbird and other researchers are directly named in the Louisiana lawsuit for their role as advisers to a now-disbanded Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency subcommittee on disinformation. Starbird, who did not return a request for comment, has previously stated that the Republican-led lawsuit egregiously misrepresents her work.The Louisiana lawsuitRepublicans filed the lawsuit against Biden last year, and were joined by other plaintiffs that included the conspiracy site the Gateway Pundit and a Louisiana group opposed to vaccine mandates.The case was notably filed in a Louisiana district court where Judge Terry Doughty presides. Doughty, who was appointed by Trump and previously ruled against Biden administration mask and vaccine mandates, is a jurist Republicans specifically seek out when shopping for a favorable forum. He has overseen more multi-state challenges to the Biden administration than any other judge, Bloomberg Law reported, despite previously being a little-known justice based in a small city of less than 50,000 people.Legal experts questioned Doughty’s injunction against the Biden administration this week, the Associated Press reported, saying that the wide scope of the ruling meant that public health officials could be prevented from sharing their expertise. Meanwhile, disinformation researchers have stated that Republican efforts to push back against content moderation and safeguards against misinformation threaten to open the floodgates for conspiracy theories and falsehoods ahead of the 2024 presidential election.Amid the rightwing campaign against content moderation and disinformation researchers, numerous social media platforms have also been peeling back restrictions. Twitter under Elon Musk, who last year engineered the release of some internal communications between Twitter and government officials, has hollowed out its content moderation teams. Meanwhile, YouTube has reversed a policy banning election denialism and Instagram allowed the prominent anti-vaccine activist Robert F Kennedy Jr back on the platform.The Biden administration stated this week that it objected to Doughty’s injunction in the Louisiana case, and would be considering its options. The justice department is seeking to appeal the ruling. More

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      Chief justice John Roberts urged to testify on ethics scandals for ‘good of democracy’

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      The US chief justice should testify before Congress about ethics scandals besetting his supreme court “for the good of democracy”, a leading Californian progressive said.The justices are “so cloistered, they’re so out of touch”, the congressman Ro Khanna told MSNBC on Sunday. “They don’t have a sense of what life is like, so my plea to him would be for the good of democracy come testify. What are you afraid of?”The Democratic-controlled Senate judiciary committee has requested that Roberts testify about reports regarding relations between justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch and rightwing donors or, in Gorsuch’s case, the chief of a prominent law firm involved in a property purchase.Thomas’s extensive gifts from the billionaire donor Harlan Crow have been exhaustively reported by ProPublica, which also reported an Alaska fishing trip Alito took with the billionaire Paul Singer.The justices failed to disclose such links. All deny wrongdoing. Singer, Crow and the law firm executive also deny wrongdoing and say they and the justices did not discuss politics or business before the court.Supreme court justices are nominally subject to the same ethics rules as other federal judges but in practice govern themselves.Questions have also been raised about the career of Roberts’ wife, Jane Sullivan Roberts, who, according to the New York Times, “has made millions recruiting lawyers to prominent law firms, some of which have business before the court”.In April, turning down the invitation to testify before the Senate judiciary committee, John Roberts cited concerns about the separation of powers.Amid progressive anger over decisions on abortion, affirmative action, student debt relief and anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination, calls for reform to a court controlled 6-3 by conservatives after Donald Trump appointed three justices in four years have grown ever louder.Public trust in the court is at all-time lows.Speaking to the former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki, Khanna told MSNBC: “The court is moving us backwards and young people in particular are outraged that the court is taking away the relief of student loans. They’re moving to a time where colleges used to be just for the wealthy and largely white, so I do think this can energise young people, in particular working-class voters.”Calls for structural reform seem to have as little chance of success as calls for Thomas to resign or be impeached – calls perhaps likely to increase after the publication by the Times on Sunday of an investigation of the justice’s membership of the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans, “a cluster of extraordinarily wealthy, largely conservative members who lionised him and all that he had achieved”.Republicans control the House and trail Democrats by two seats in the Senate, all but ensuring a block on any such move. Furthermore, Joe Biden is against major reform, such as changing the size of the court or imposing term limits.Khanna said: “Voters know that the court is just out of touch with their lives, that the court is taking away their rights, taking away women’s rights to control their own body, taking away students’ relief in terms of the student loans. The president forgave the loans. The supreme court took that money away.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“[Voters] see these justices, they see all the ethical conflicts, and they’re saying, ‘Enough with it. Let’s have a clean slate and term limits.’“I’ve said everything should be on the table, but … it’s not an easy thing to do. Often people see that it is polarising or partisan. I guess term limits is an easier first step … and a judicial code of conduct of ethics.”The Senate judiciary chair, Dick Durbin, has promised a vote on ethics reform. Any measure would be highly unlikely to pass the Republican House.Khanna said: “Even Republicans in Congress, if we go out and have someone buy us lunch, the vast majority of us would have to disclose it and have all these ethics rules. I’m just flabbergasted that the supreme court doesn’t have any of those. The limits are so low for members of Congress, anybody who works in the federal government, and this is just a different set of rules.”Khanna did not support an attempt to force the chief justice to testify, via a subpoena, a move called for by another prominent House progressive, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.“I would support hearings,” he said. “I think that the chief justice should testify.“Look, I’ve met the chief justice. I met him a couple of years ago and he said he cared about the legitimacy of the court. The legitimacy of democracy. Well, if he cares about the legitimacy of democracy, he should come testify.” More

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      The Big Break: Ben Terris on his portrait of Washington after Trump

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      If you were a pollster, would you ever bet on elections? How about your clients’ elections? How about betting your clients would lose? For Sean McElwee, the wunderkind behind the liberal polling group Data for Progress, the answer was all the above.McElwee had clients including the 2022 Senate campaign of John Fetterman, in Pennsylvania. McElwee placed multiple bets on the midterms, including that Fetterman would lose. Fetterman’s organization became displeased. Following its victory, it severed ties with McElwee. It was just the beginning of a dramatic downfall heightened by the pollster’s connections to the pandemic-prevention advocate Gabe Bankman-Fried, whose billionaire brother Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto empire collapsed in scandal around election day.The rise and fall of Sean McElwee is one of many storylines in a new book The Big Break: The Gamblers, Party Animals and True Believers Trying to Win in Washington While America Loses its Mind. For the author, the Washington Post reporter Ben Terris, the individuals he profiles tell a collective story about DC processing the fallout from the Trump years.“Nobody knew what the world was going to be like post-Trump,” Terris says, adding: “If there is a post-Trump.”To explore that world, he turned to Democratic and Republican circles: Leah Hunt-Hendrix, an oil heiress turned funder of progressive causes, whose conservative grandfather HL Hunt was reportedly the world’s wealthiest man; Matt and Mercedes Schlapp, a Republican power couple whose fortunes crested after Matt decided to stick with Trump in 2016; Ian Walters, Matt’s protege until political and personal differences ruptured the friendship; Robert Stryk, a cowboy-hatted lobbyist who parlayed Trump connections into a lucrative career representing sometimes questionable clients; and Jamarcus Purley, a Black staffer for the Democratic senator Dianne Feinstein who lamented the impact of George Floyd’s murder and the pandemic on Black Americans including his own father, who died. Disenchanted with his boss, Purley lost his job in disputed circumstances and launched an unconventional protest in Feinstein’s Capitol office, after hours.Terris is a reporter for the Post’s Style section, which he characterizes as strong on features and profiles. He can turn a phrase, likening Fetterman to “a Tolkien character in Carhartt”, and has an ear for the telling quote. Once, while Terris was covering the Democratic senator Jon Tester, from Montana, in, of all places, an organic pea field, nature called. A staffer asked: “Can the senator’s penis please be off the record?” Terris quips that he’s saving this for a title if he ever writes a memoir.His current book is “sort of a travelog, not a memoir”, Terris says. “I tried to keep myself out of the book as much as I could. I wanted the reader to feel like they knew Washington, knew the weirdos, the odd scenes … the backrooms, poker games, parties.”Hunt-Hendrix’s Christmas party is among the opening scenes. Attendees include her aunt Swanee Hunt, a former ambassador to Austria. Hunt-Hendrix aimed to make her own mark, through her organization Way to Win.“She’s very progressive,” Terris says, “trying to unwind a lot of projects, in a way, that her grandfather was all about. To me, it was fascinating, the family dynamics at play.”Just as fascinating was her “figuring out how to push the [Democratic] party in the direction she believed it should go in – a more progressive direction than some Democrats pushed for. It told the story of Democratic party tensions – money and politics, the idea of being idealistic and also super-wealthy … All of these things made for a very heady brew.”On the Republican side, Stryk went from running a vineyard to savoring fine wine in a foreign embassy, thanks to his connection to Trump. Stryk joined the campaign in 2016. When Trump won, Stryk celebrated on a patio of the Four Seasons hotel in DC. A dog sniffed his crotch. When its owner apologized, Stryk found she worked for the New Zealand embassy, which was having difficulty reaching Trump. It was Stryk’s lucky break.“He was in a position to connect New Zealand to Trump,” Terris says. “He got a phone number and was off to the races, a sideshow guy making major deals … $5m with the Saudis, that kind of thing.”When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine last year, Stryk was in Belarus, exploring a potential relationship with that country’s government. He had to make his way home via the Baltics.“One of the themes of the book is that the Donald Trump era allowed a bunch of sideshow characters to get out on the main stage,” Terris says. “Stryk is a great example of that.”Others distanced themselves – eventually. Terris sees the rupture between Matt Schlapp and Ian Walters as illustrative. As head of the American Conservative Union, Schlapp presided over CPAC, the annual conservative conference, with Walters his communications director. As Schlapp welcomed fringe elements to CPAC – from Trump to Matt Gaetz to Marjorie Taylor Greene – Walters felt increasingly repelled.“It’s an interesting tale of a broken friendship,” Terris says. “It also helps the reader understand how did the Republican party get to where it is now – where are the fault lines, why one way over another.”The 2020 election was the point of no return. Schlapp stayed all-in on Trump, supporting his claim of a stolen election even in a graveside speech at the funeral of Walters’s father, the legendary conservative journalist Ralph Hallow.“We have to take confidence that he would want us, more than anything else, to get beyond this period of mourning and to fight,” Schlapp is quoted as saying. Walters and his wife, Carin, resigned from the ACU. Ian remained a Republican but marveled at the bravery of the whistleblower Cassidy Hutchinson in the January 6 hearings.As for Schlapp, he faced scandal late last year. Assisting with the Senate campaign of the ex-football star Herschel Walker, when Schlapp arrived in Georgia, he allegedly groped a male campaign staffer.“I had to go back into my reporting and ask, were there signs of this?” recalls Terris. “Could I run through all of this [with] the alleged victim over the phone? I did. I ran a bunch of questions by Matt – he never answered.”There was another last-minute controversy. McElwee’s polls proved inaccurate. Another red flag was his ties to Gabe Bankman-Fried, whose brother was arrested in December. Reports of McElwee’s gambling made clients wonder where their money was going. Senior staff threatened to resign. McElwee stepped down.“All of a sudden, it was national news in a way I was not prepared for,” Terris says.Can anyone be prepared for what comes next in Washington?“Donald Trump proved you can win by acting like Donald Trump,” Terris says. “There are a lot of people that learned from him – mostly in the Republican party, but [also] the Democratic party – how to comport yourself in Washington, what you can get away with. People’s confidence is broken, politics is broken, relationships.”Can it all be restored?“Nobody knows yet how to do it. It’s not the same thing as normal. Maybe that’s fine. Maybe normal led to Donald Trump.”
      The Big Break is published in the US by Twelve More

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      Sarah McBride, highest-ranking trans elected official in US, to run for Congress

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      Sarah McBride, the highest-ranked openly transgender elected official in the US, announced she is running for the US House of Representatives this week. If elected, she will be the first openly transgender member of Congress.“This campaign isn’t just about making history – it’s about moving forward,” said McBride in a press release on Monday. “To strengthen our democracy, we need effective leaders who believe in taking bold action and building bridges for lasting progress.”McBride is the only openly transgender person serving at the state senator level in the country, but there are seven other state lawmakers who identify as transgender, according to a national tracker by LGBTQ+ Victory Institute.Her candidacy comes amid an increase in state laws restricting the rights and lifestyles of people who identify as transgender.So far in 2023, state legislatures have signed into law nearly 80 measures targeting the LGBTQ+ community, “especially transgender youth”, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. The bills include limiting access to gender-affirming care, prohibiting transgender kids from competing in sports and restricting students from using their preferred pronouns.“Too many politicians want to divide us, to tell us that teachers, doctors, even our own neighbors are the enemy,” McBride said in her announcement video released on Monday.The video included short clips of Republicans Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado – all of whom have supported legislation advocates have labeled as anti-transgender.Before running for office, McBride was the national press secretary for the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign.McBride, now 32, was first elected to Delaware’s state legislature in 2020, winning by a landslide in a heavily Democratic district, securing 73% of the vote. She was re-elected in 2022.She is now running for Delaware’s sole seat in the US House of Representatives. (Alaska, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota and Vermont also each have one at-large representative.)The at-large seat is being vacated by the incumbent Lisa Blunt Rochester, also a Democrat, who has held the post since 2017. Blunt Rochester is running for Senate this election cycle to replace Senator Tom Carper, who is retiring.Blunt Rochester supported McBride in her first campaign for state senate and called her a “tireless advocate and trailblazer”.“I’m incredibly proud of all Sarah has already achieved and am excited to watch the next chapters in her career unfold,” Blunt Rochester told CBS at the time.In addition to Blunt Rochester, McBride has previously received support from other prominent Delaware lawmakers, including President Joe Biden.Biden’s late son, Beau Biden, had met McBride during his campaign for Delaware attorney general and described her as a sharp teenager who was “going to change the world”, according to Joe Biden’s foreword in McBride’s 2018 memoir.As a college student, McBride lobbied for the passage of a Delaware law that ensures equal protections for transgender individuals. She also interned at the White House during the Obama administration.In the foreword for McBride’s memoir, which was written in 2017, Biden said he was “proud to have been a part of an administration that spoke out and stood up for transgender Americans”.“But despite that progress, I left the vice-presidency knowing that much of the hardest work remains ahead of us in building a more perfect union for all Americans, no matter their sexual orientation or gender identity,” he wrote. “The history of civil rights in America reminds us that progress is precious and can never be taken for granted.”If elected, McBride said she will focus on legislation that “addresses gun violence, protects access to abortion and tackles climate change”, according to the campaign announcement.
      This article was amended on 28 June 2023. An earlier version incorrectly listed Montana among states with a single at-large congressperson. More

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      McCarthy Questions Strength of Trump’s Candidacy, Then Quickly Backtracks

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      The House speaker angered Donald J. Trump’s allies by saying he did not know whether the former president was the strongest candidate to beat President Biden.Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday declared Donald J. Trump the “strongest political opponent” against President Biden, rushing to make clear his loyalty to the former president just hours after suggesting in a televised interview that Mr. Trump might not be the Republican presidential candidate best positioned to prevail in the 2024 election.The hurried attempt at ingratiating himself to Mr. Trump underscores Mr. McCarthy’s fear of alienating the former president as he struggles to keep together his fractious House majority and withstand mounting pressure from right-wing lawmakers loyal to Mr. Trump. And it reflected the precarious position of Mr. McCarthy, who has not endorsed Mr. Trump or any other candidate, as the G.O.P. presidential primary takes shape.His latest difficulties began on Tuesday morning when, during an interview with CNBC, Mr. McCarthy wondered whether it would be good for the party to have Mr. Trump as its presidential nominee given his legal troubles.“Can he win that election? Yeah, he can win that election,” Mr. McCarthy said. “The question is, is he the strongest to win the election; I don’t know that answer.”The comment irked Mr. Trump’s allies, setting off an urgent effort by Mr. McCarthy to walk it back. He contacted Breitbart News, the right-wing news outlet, to offer an exclusive interview in which he said the former president was “stronger today than he was in 2016” and blamed the media for “attempting to drive a wedge between President Trump and House Republicans.”“The only reason Biden is using his weaponized federal government to go after President Trump is because he is Biden’s strongest political opponent, as polling continues to show,” Mr. McCarthy told Breitbart in comments he later provided as a written statement.Mr. McCarthy also called Mr. Trump Tuesday, according to three people familiar with the exchange, two of whom characterized the conversation as an apology.The immediate damage control reflected how dependent Mr. McCarthy remained on Mr. Trump as he faced criticism from his right flank, and how his alliance with the conservative media ecosystem has helped to insulate him. In the past, Breitbart has helped wage public campaigns against mainstream Republican leaders, including Mr. McCarthy’s predecessors John A. Boehner and Paul D. Ryan, who refused to bend to the will of the party’s hard right.But Mr. McCarthy has cultivated a relationship with the website. Its story on Tuesday highlighted Mr. McCarthy’s full-throated defense of Mr. Trump and accused mainstream media of taking his comments out of context.Mr. McCarthy has not officially endorsed Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign and has been advised by people like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a frequent outside adviser, not to do so.Still, his speakership at critical inflection points has depended on the support of Mr. Trump, who could easily exacerbate tensions between Mr. McCarthy and hard-right lawmakers by encouraging them to defy his leadership. Mr. McCarthy has been careful to show no daylight between him and the former president.In trying to keep his fragile majority together, Mr. McCarthy has at key moments allowed the House to become Mr. Trump’s instrument of revenge and retaliation.He savaged Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, even before Mr. Trump was officially indicted in New York on charges that he orchestrated the cover-up of a $130,000 hush-money payment made to the porn star Stormy Daniels. He also authorized three of his committee chairmen to insert themselves into the criminal inquiry, demanding that the prosecutor provide communications, documents and testimony.Mr. McCarthy has likewise raged against the Justice Department for indicting Mr. Trump over his handling of classified documents. He said last week that he supported a resolution calling for Mr. Trump’s two impeachments to be expunged.Mr. McCarthy has a cordial, if not close, relationship with Mr. Trump, whom he has credited with helping him win the fraught race for speakership.Tuesday’s dust-up recalled another, far more dramatic instance when Mr. McCarthy rushed to paper over a potential rift between himself and Mr. Trump.After taking to the House floor after the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol to say that Mr. Trump “bears responsibility” for the attack, Mr. McCarthy famously sought to mend his relationship with the man who remained the most popular political force on the right.Just over a week after Mr. Trump left the White House, Mr. McCarthy paid him a visit at Mar-a-Lago, smiling and presenting what has continued to be a united front. More

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      in US Politics

      White House condemns McCarthy for impeachment threats against Merrick Garland – as it happened

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      From 5h agoAs he looks to promote his economic record and turn around negative public approval ratings, Joe Biden announced his administration would work to get all Americans access to low-cost high-speed internet by 2030.“We’re announcing over $40bn to be distributed to 50 states, Washington DC and territories to deliver high speed in places where there’s neither service or it’s too slow,” the president said.“Along with other federal investments, we’re going to be able to connect every person in America to reliable high-speed internet by 2030.”He compared his administration’s push to the rural electrification campaign of Democratic icon Franklin Delano Rosevelt in the 1930s.“Today, Kamala and I are making an equally historic investment to connect everyone in America, everyone in America to … affordable high speed internet by 2030. It’s the biggest investment in high-speed internet ever, because for today’s economy to work for everyone, internet access is just as important as electricity or water, or other basic services.”Joe Biden eased into his re-election campaign with the announcement of a nationwide push to expand high-speed internet, and plans for a speech on “Bidenomics” set for Wednesday. The president’s idea is to campaign for another four years in the White House not with promises of new policies, but rather with a reiteration of the proposals that got him elected in the first place. Meanwhile, Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy signaled an openness to impeaching the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, if the US attorney involved in prosecuting Hunter Biden doesn’t speak to the judiciary committee. The House is on recess for the next two weeks or so, but we’ll keep an eye on if that goes anywhere.Here’s what else happened today:
      A White House spokesman condemned McCarthy for threatening to impeach Garland.
      The supreme court ordered Louisiana to draw a new majority-Black congressional district as the fallout from a recent decision concerning the Voting Rights Act continues.
      A top Democratic senator thinks the supreme court’s conservatives know they’ve gone too far.
      The Biden administration plans yet another aid package for Ukraine, while the president said the US had “nothing to do” with the attempted mutiny in Russia over the past weekend.
      There is yet another balloon over Montana, but it’s not suspicious, Norad says.
      The Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that Aileen Cannon, the judge overseeing Donald Trump’s trial in Florida on charges of conspiring to store classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago resort, denied a request from the justice department to keep its witness list secret:The justice department can appeal the decision. The decision is one of several expected in the pretrial motions before the start of the proceedings, which are currently scheduled for the middle of August but likely to change.Appointed to the federal bench by Trump, Cannon faced criticism for decisions made in the case prior to his indictment that some analysts saw as partial to the former president.White House spokesman Ian Sams has released a statement criticizing Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy for threatening to impeach the US attorney general, Merrick Garland.Here’s what Sams had to say:
      Speaker McCarthy and the extreme House Republicans are proving they have no positive agenda to actually help the American people on the issues most important to them and their families. The President and his entire Administration are spending this whole week traveling the country to talk about the important economic progress we have made over the last two years – creating more than 13 million jobs as we’ve sparked the strongest recovery of any country in the world – and laying out the Biden plan to put the middle class ahead of those at the very top. Perhaps Congressional Republicans are desperate to distract from their own plan to give even more tax cuts to the wealthy and big corporations and add more than $3 trillion to the deficit, but instead of pushing more partisan stunts intended only to get themselves attention on the far right, they should work with the President to actually put the middle class and working Americans first and expand the historic progress to lower costs, create jobs, boost U.S. manufacturing and small businesses, and make prescription drugs more affordable.
      There is, once again, a balloon flying over Montana – but it’s not a spy balloon, Norad assures us.The US-Canadian air defense force, whose name is an acronym for North American Aerospace Defense Command, says it is aware of the balloon, but does not regard it as suspicious:There is, of course, a political angle to this. Matt Rosendale, a Republican senator from Montana, earlier today attempted to use the balloon’s presence to attack the Biden administration:Joe Biden’s approval rating has seen a slight uptick in recent weeks, but is still pretty bad, Gallup reports.In a survey conducted on 1-22 June, Gallup reports the president’s approval is at 43%, up from the 37% low that his presidency hit in April. That’s not a particularly high rating at all, and the survey also found 54% of American adult respondents disapproved of his job performance.The last time Biden’s approval was above 50% was in July 2021 – before the chaotic US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Delta wave of Covid-19 that led many Americans to again don masks and avoid large gatherings. Another factor that pushed Biden’s approval lower and kept it there was the wave of inflation that intensified throughout 2021 and 2022, forcing Americans to pay higher prices for essentials like gasoline and food.According to NBC News, “five or six” US Secret Service agents have now testified before the January 6 grand jury.NBC cited two unnamed sources “familiar with testimony”.The special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation of the deadly attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 is a source of further legal jeopardy for Donald Trump.Twice indicted already, the former president and current Republican frontrunner is widely believed likely to face further indictment by Smith, who has already handed down charges over Trump’s handling of classified information.NBC said: “While the exact content of their subpoenas and appearances is not known, Secret Service agents who were close to Trump on January 6 may be able to confirm, deny or provide more details on a story first told by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson to the … January 6 committee in Congress.“One year ago, Hutchinson told the committee she heard secondhand that Trump wanted Secret Service agents to drive him to the Capitol to join the rioters, tried to grab the car’s steering wheel and then reached for the ‘clavicles’ of the driver, Secret Service agent Bobby Engel. Trump later denied this account.”NBC also notes that agents may have been asked about what the agency knew and discussed leading up to and during the January 6 attack, in which Trump supporters sought to stop certification of Joe Biden’s election win.NBC said the agents who have testified could “inform the grand jury about the extent to which Trump knew about the potential for violence on January 6 and how he responded to threats made against then-Vice President Mike Pence”.Pence is now a competitor for the Republican presidential nomination.Joe Biden was asked earlier, by the Fox News White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich, if he had ever lied about ever speaking to his son, Hunter Biden, about his business dealings (the subject of Republican attacks passim, and current musings about impeaching the attorney general, Merrick Garland).The president said: “No.”Video is here.Joe Biden has marked the concurrent anniversaries of three supreme court rulings which affirmed the right to same-sex marriage – a right some observers think will soon come under threat from a conservative-dominated court which removed the right to abortion.The president said: “Ten years ago today, the supreme court rulings in United States v Windsor and Hollingsworth v Perry made significant strides laying the groundwork for marriage equality in our country. They were followed two years later, to the day, by the ruling in Obergefell v Hodges, finally allowing millions of LGBTQ+ Americans to marry who they love.“These monumental cases moved our country forward, and they were made possible because of the courageous couples and unrelenting advocates in the LGBTQ+ community who, for decades, fought for these hard-won rights.“Last year, I was proud to build on their legacy by signing into law the Respect for Marriage Act … surrounded by many of the plaintiffs from these cases. But more work lies ahead, and I continue to call on Congress to pass the Equality Act, to codify additional protections to combat the increased attacks on the rights and safety of those in the LGBTQ+ community.”Further reading:Fox News announced earlier that Jesse Watters will move into the 8pm prime-time weeknight slot formerly filled by Tucker Carlson.Announcing the full shake-up, Suzanne Scott, chief executive of Fox News, said: “The unique perspectives of Laura Ingraham, Jesse Watters, Sean Hannity and Greg Gutfeld will ensure our viewers have access to unrivaled coverage from our best-in-class team for years to come.”Here’s some (possibly) unrivaled coverage of Watters’ many unique perspectives over the years, from the progressive watchdog Media Matters for America.It’s a long list, so I’ll just link to it here while listing the subheadings provided:In his own statement, the Media Matters president, Angelo Carusone, explained his group’s view of Watters:“After Fox News fired Tucker Carlson, [Fox Corp co-chair] Lachlan Murdoch said there would be ‘no change’ in the network’s programming strategy. Today, Fox is making good on that promise.“Crowning odious Jesse Watters as the new face of Fox News is a reflection of Fox’s dogged commitment to bigotry and deceit as well as an indication of their desperation to regain audience share. It won’t work, though. Fox’s audience abandoned the network post-Tucker, and those viewers never returned. Jesse Watters’ buffoonish segments of bigotry and culture war vitriol won’t fix that problem for Fox; he’s a liability and a ticking time bomb.“Dominion exposed Fox News for the partisan propaganda operation that it is. Instead of trying to adjust and attempt to establish a beachhead of credibility, the network is going back out to sea by leaning in on their most toxic personalities – like Greg Gutfeld and Jesse Watters. The network is transparently appealing to the fringes here.“Advertisers and cable providers beware: things at Fox News are about to get a whole lot worse.”Here’s some more reading on Fox News post-Tucker, with contributions from Brian Stelter, a seasoned Fox-watcher formerly of CNN:Joe Biden is easing into his re-election campaign with the announcement of a nationwide push to expand high-speed internet, and plans for a speech on “Bidenomics” set for Wednesday. The idea is to campaign for another four years in the White House not with new promises, but rather with a reiteration of the proposals that got him elected in the first place. Meanwhile, Republican House speaker Kevin McCarthy signaled an openness to impeaching attorney general Merrick Garland if the US attorney involved in prosecuting Hunter Biden doesn’t speak to the judiciary committee. The House is on recess for the next two weeks or so, but we’ll keep an eye on if that goes anywhere.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      The supreme court ordered Louisiana to draw a new majority-Black congressional district as the fallout from a recent decision concerning the Voting Rights Act continues.
      A top Democratic senator thinks the supreme court’s conservatives know they’ve gone too far.
      The Biden administration plans yet another aid package for Ukraine.
      Joe Biden’s push for more affordable high-speed internet access comes as he plans to announce a major theme for his re-election campaign on Wednesday.The president is scheduled to travel to Chicago and speak about the employment and wage gains Americans have seen since he took office, which the White House is calling “Bidenomics”.According to Axios, Biden plans to focus his re-election campaign on the same promises he made when running for his first term in office, rather than announcing a new slate of policies. But the approach is risky, particularly since surveys indicate two-thirds of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track.As he looks to promote his economic record and turn around negative public approval ratings, Joe Biden announced his administration would work to get all Americans access to low-cost high-speed internet by 2030.“We’re announcing over $40bn to be distributed to 50 states, Washington DC and territories to deliver high speed in places where there’s neither service or it’s too slow,” the president said.“Along with other federal investments, we’re going to be able to connect every person in America to reliable high-speed internet by 2030.”He compared his administration’s push to the rural electrification campaign of Democratic icon Franklin Delano Rosevelt in the 1930s.“Today, Kamala and I are making an equally historic investment to connect everyone in America, everyone in America to … affordable high speed internet by 2030. It’s the biggest investment in high-speed internet ever, because for today’s economy to work for everyone, internet access is just as important as electricity or water, or other basic services.”The United States was not involved in the weekend mutiny by Wagner mercenary group chief Yevgeny Prigozhin against Russian president Vladimir Putin.“We made clear that we were not involved. We had nothing to do with it,” Biden said at the White House event on high-speed internet. “This was part of a struggle within the Russian system.”“We’re going to keep assessing the fallout of this weekend’s events and the implications for Russia and Ukraine. But it’s still too early to reach a definitive conclusion about where this is going.”The president added that, “We’re going to keep assessing the fallout of this weekend’s events and the implications for Russia and Ukraine. But it’s still too early to reach a definitive conclusion about where this is going.”Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are kicking off a speech where they’ll unveil tens of billions of dollars in investments to improve high-speed internet access across the United States.The Washington Post reports that the Biden administration will spend $42 bn to expand access to the internet, using funds made available by the infrastructure overhaul Congress approved two years ago:Follow along here for the latest on the speech. More

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      in Elections

      Sarah McBride Aims to Be First Openly Transgender House Member With 2024 Campaign

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      Sarah McBride is no stranger to firsts: In 2012, she became the first openly transgender person to work at the White House, during the Obama administration.State Senator Sarah McBride announced on Monday that she would run for Delaware’s at-large U.S. House seat — a bid that, if successful, would make her the first openly transgender member of the U.S. Congress.The seat is currently held by Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, a Democrat who said on Wednesday that she would pursue the Senate seat being vacated by Senator Thomas R. Carper, who is retiring. Both elections will take place next year.Ms. McBride, 32, is no stranger to firsts: In 2012, she became the first openly transgender person to work at the White House, as an intern in President Barack Obama’s administration. She won her Wilmington-based State Senate seat in 2020 with more than 70 percent of the general election vote, becoming the first openly transgender legislator in that position nationwide, and ran unopposed for a second term last year.Her candidacy comes during an onslaught of Republican-led policies that target L.G.B.T.Q. people.This year, 17 states have passed bills directed at gender-affirming care for transgender youth, a sharp uptick from the three states that had previously approved restrictions. And there are discussions to ban L.G.B.T.Q.-related information for K-12 students in states like Florida, where laws prevent public schools from teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity.Ms. McBride, also a former national press secretary for the Human Rights Campaign, the country’s largest L.G.B.T.Q. advocacy organization, is likely to face a primary challenge in her solidly blue district. But she holds ample political capital in the state — helped by her relationship with President Biden, who wrote the foreword for the memoir she wrote in 2018. She also worked on the attorney general campaigns for Beau Biden, his son who died in 2015.Ms. McBride recently spoke with The New York Times about her candidacy. Excerpts from this conversation have been edited for clarity and length.What issues do you hope to prioritize in your campaign?There were so many pieces of the Build Back Better Act that were unfortunately left on the cutting room floor, and it is going to be critical for Congress to pick up those policies, like paid family and medical leave, affordable early childhood education and elder care. Those types of policies will be at the heart of my campaign, as will policies that I fought for in the Delaware General Assembly, like gun safety and reproductive rights. One of the issues where we have to continue to make progress is climate change. We can’t build a fairer, more just world if we also don’t protect our planet.A wave of bills in recent years have affected transgender people, like limiting transitioning procedures for children and restricting which bathrooms transgender people can use. What are your concerns going forward?The policies that you mentioned are wrong and unconstitutional, and they are an attempt by MAGA Republicans to distract from the fact that they have absolutely no agenda for families and for workers in our country. They are solutions in search of a problem. They are cruel, and we know that policies that target young people, that target parents, that target families, that target vulnerable people in our society, they never wear well in history. I truly believe that democracy only works when it includes all of us.What should members of your party do to respond to these laws?I’m incredibly proud that the Democratic Party has been unwavering in its support of L.G.B.T.Q. rights. We have seen Democrats from Montana, to Nebraska, to Virginia, to Delaware, who have made clear that attacks on vulnerable members of our communities, including L.G.B.T.Q. young people, will not stand, and we will do everything we can to stop them.People across this country are eager for politicians to appeal to our better angels and to focus on issues that actually matter to them. I don’t believe that targeting kids and parents for discrimination is a priority for voters in Delaware or across the country.Going into 2024, President Biden is struggling to maintain public approval. In your view, what should he and other Democrats be thinking about?Democrats have a strong record to run on, and there’s obviously unfinished work before us. This president has focused on working families, on recognizing that we all have a responsibility to one another. I think if this president continues to contrast his priorities with the invented problems and the culture wars of the right, that this president will win.There’s a sort of scrutiny that historically has come with being the first of anything. Are you concerned about backlash?There will certainly be attacks, but I’m no stranger to those. What I’ve demonstrated over the last few years is that I’m able to move past those attacks and focus on what matters to the people I represent. Congress is certainly different than the Delaware State Senate, but I am confident that when I get there, by focusing on issues that impact people of every party, of every ideology, and in every part of our state, that I’ll be able to find common ground with people whom I disagree with vehemently. More