Mike Johnson

Subterms

    More stories

    • 238 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘What’s happening is not genocide’: Biden criticizes ICC for seeking arrest warrants for Israeli officials – as it happened

      by

      “I will always ensure that Israel has everything it needs to defend itself against Hamas and all its enemies,” Biden said. “We want Hamas to be defeated.”But Biden also mentioned support for civilians in Gaza. “It’s heartbreaking,” he said, noting that his administration is working to bring the region together and a two-state solution.“Let me be clear,” he added, “we reject the ICC’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders. Whatever these warrants may imply, there’s no equivalence between Israel and Hamas.”“What’s happening is not genocide.”Political leaders in the US sharply defended Israel today after international criminal court chief prosecutor Karim Khan has caused a political earthquake by requesting arrest warrants for top Israeli and Hamas officials. The warrants, which include prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the Hamas group’s leader, Yahya Sinwar, were denounced by US president Joe Biden who doubled down on his comments during a speech for the Jewish American Heritage Month Celebration, held at the White House.It will now be up to the ICC’s judges to determine whether to issue the warrants.Here’s a rundown of what else has happened today so far:
      President Biden used his speech at the Jewish American Heritage Month Celebration to highlight his administration’s work to crack down on antisemitism while reiterating his “ironclad” support for Israel.
      Senators Mitch McConnel and Bernie Sanders voiced strong opinions from opposite sides of the debate, with McConnell condemning the ICC and Sanders championing its cause.
      Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, has also come out against the ICC’s request for arrest warrants against top Israeli and Hamas officials, calling them “baseless and illegitimate”.
      US State Department officials also added criticisms of the ICC over it’s approach to Israel but said they would continue working with them to prosecute Russian President Vladimir Putin over actions taken against Ukrainian civilians.
      The UK Foreign Office also objected to Khan’s request, saying it would not help the process of negotiating a ceasefire in Gaza.
      US senator Lindsey Graham said he feels deceived by ICC staff, and accused Khan of rushing the decision to seek arrest warrants.
      Khan thanked international human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, who he said acted as a special adviser in his investigation.
      Biden concluded his speech by emphasizing his work to combat antisemitism in the US, calling it “absolutely despicable”. Pointing to a national strategy rolled out before last October, Biden said a new wave of financing amounting to $400 million has been made available for jewish nonprofits, schools, synagogues and other faith-based organizations to support their physical security.He added that his administration has “put colleges on notice”. “The department has to investigate discrimination aggressively,” he said.His remarks ended with a promise.“Let me assure you as your president – you are not alone,” he said. You belong. You always will belong.” He thanked everyone in attendance. “In moments like this the ancient story of Jewish resilience endures because of its people. That’s what today is all about.”“I will always ensure that Israel has everything it needs to defend itself against Hamas and all its enemies,” Biden said. “We want Hamas to be defeated.”But Biden also mentioned support for civilians in Gaza. “It’s heartbreaking,” he said, noting that his administration is working to bring the region together and a two-state solution.“Let me be clear,” he added, “we reject the ICC’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders. Whatever these warrants may imply, there’s no equivalence between Israel and Hamas.”“What’s happening is not genocide.”Emhoff has just introduced President Biden, who noted he was honored to be introduced by the first-ever Jewish spouse.The President talked about the important history of freedom of religion in the US and the important contributions of Jewish Americans, before adding that the reception comes during hard times. Noting the “fresh and ongoing” trauma inflicted on October 7 and in its aftermath, Biden promised that the work continued to free Israeli hostages taken by Hamas, noting his support for Israel is “ironclad”.“We are going to get ‘em home,” he said of the hostages. “We are going to get em home, come hell or high water.”The event kicked off with cheers as Second Gentlemen Emhoff, flanked by the president and vice president, heralded the administration’s support for the Jewish community. But, the celebratory tone shifted quickly.“This is also a challenging time for our community,” he said. “It has been a dark and difficult 7 months. There is an epidemic of hate including a crisis of antisemitism in our country and around the world. We see it on our streets, our college campuses, and our places of worship.”Adding that the work feels difficult, he encouraged the crowd. “We keep fighting because we have no choice but to fight.”Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff will be speaking soon at the Jewish American Heritage Month Celebration. At last year’s event, held at the White House, Biden focused on his support for Israel and his strategy to combat antisemitism.“My support for Israel’s security remains longstanding and unwavering, including the right of Israel to defend itself against attacks,” Biden said last year. “And I’m proud – I’m proud of our support – and my colleagues that are here today as well – for Israel’s Iron Dome, which has intercepted thousands of rockets and saved countless lives in Israel.”Stay tuned as we wait for this year’s event to begin.Even as US political figures continue to rail against the ICC over Israel and Hamas, Lloyd Austin, the defense secretary, said the US is fully onboard with actions taken against Russia for crimes committed in the Ukrainian conflict.In a press conference on Monday, following a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, Matthew Miller, a state department spokesperson, said the US still supports the ICC and the “important work over the years to hold people accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity”.But National Security Council spokesman spokesman John Kirby claimed that there is a difference between what’s happening in Ukraine and what’s happening in Gaza.“It is an actual war aim of Mr Putin to kill innocent Ukrainian people,” Kirby said, noting that targeting of civilians and infrastructure is evidence of that.In Gaza, however, Kirby claimed the high toll taken on civilian lives was inadvertent. Meanwhile, as CNN reports, roughly 40% of Gaza’s population – more than 900,000 people – have been displaced in the past two weeks due to Israeli bombardment.Calling the ICC a “a rogue kangaroo court”, and its prosecutor “self-aggrandizing”, Senator Mitch McConnell vehemently criticized the move for arrest warrants in remarks on the Senate floor.“Since the immediate aftermath of October 7, Israel, her allies, and Jewish people around the world have faced pernicious efforts to equate a sovereign nation’s self-defense with barbaric acts of terrorism,” McConnell said, linking the issue to the protests that erupted across university campuses against the violence that’s been inflicted on Palestinian civilians.McConnell continued, calling the warrants for both leaders of Hamas and Israel are “the most noxious attempt at moral equivalence”. Using the move to question the legitimacy of the international criminal court, the Republican leader pushed his colleagues to act:
      Support Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorist savages like Sinwar … reject the fiction that unaccountable bureaucrats in The Hague have any power over a sovereign nation that isn’t a signatory to its authority … commit to imposing significant costs on the court and its agents if it pursues shameful and baseless charges against Israel … and choose once and for all between actual justice and the rule of the loud campus mob.
      Senator Bernie Sanders supports the request for arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders relating to the Israel-Gaza conflict, saying that the “ICC prosecutor is right to take these actions”, in a written statement released on Monday afternoon.Noting that the warrants may or may not be carried out, he said: “It is imperative that the global community uphold international law.”Here is Sanders’ statement in full:
      In the last several years, the international criminal court (ICC) has issued arrest warrants for political leaders who violate international law and engage in war crimes and crimes against humanity. That includes Russian president Vladimir Putin, whose illegal invasion of Ukraine initiated the most destructive war in Europe since world war II; Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who started the horrific war in Gaza by launching a terrorist attack against Israel, which killed 1,200 innocent men, women, and children; and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who, in response, has waged an unprecedented war of destruction against the entire Palestinian people, which has killed or injured over 5% of the population.The ICC prosecutor is right to take these actions. These arrest warrants may or may not be carried out, but it is imperative that the global community uphold international law. Without these standards of decency and morality, this planet may rapidly descend into anarchy, never-ending wars, and barbarism.
      The rights group Amnesty International is not pleased with the British Foreign Office’s criticism of the international criminal court prosecutor Karim Khan and his application for arrest warrants against Israel and Hamas’s leaders.“To see the UK undermining the International Criminal Court like this is a real slap in the face for Israeli and Palestinian victims of war crimes and other grave human rights violations who sorely deserve justice,” Amnesty International UK’s head of government affairs Karla McLaren said in a statement. She continued:
      By failing to recognise the ICC’s jurisdiction – which the court itself has established – the UK is placing itself on the wrong side of history and continuing a pattern of soft-pedalling over Israel’s crimes. This is deeply damaging for international justice and for the protection of civilians everywhere.
      We need major change from the UK over the human rights crisis in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including a realisation that justice and accountability processes are the best way out of this decades-long crisis.
      The UK should back the ICC chief prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants, get behind the ICJ genocide case, call for an immediate ceasefire and a massive scaling up of aid into Gaza, and it should order an immediate halt to further UK arms transfers to Israel.
      Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the US House of Representatives, echoed Joe Biden’s rejection of the international criminal court chief prosecutor Karim Khan’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and defence minister Yoav Gallant.In a statement, the House minority leader said:
      The arrest warrant request by the International Criminal Court against democratically elected members of the Israeli government is shameful and unserious. America’s commitment to Israel’s security is ironclad. I join President Joe Biden in strongly condemning any equivalence between Israel and Hamas, a brutal terrorist organization.
      Biden has generally supported Israel since Hamas’s 7 October attack, though recently warned Benjamin Netanyahu against allowing its military to invade the southern Gaza city of Rafah, and held up a weapons shipment.Despite Jeffries’s solidarity, rank-and-file Democrats are growing uneasy with Israel’s conduct in Gaza, and its impact on civilians. Here’s more on that:Inside Iran, the Guardian’s Deepa Parent reports that Ebrahim Raisi was remembered by many for his crackdown on nationwide protests that began after a woman died in custody following her arrest under the country’s hijab laws. Here’s more on that:Activists in Iran have said there is little mood to mourn the death of the country’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash near the border with Azerbaijan on Sunday.Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, announced a five-day public mourning period after the deaths of Raisi, the foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and other passengers on the helicopter. However, Iranians who spoke to the Guardian have refused to lament the death of a man who they say was responsible for hundreds of deaths in his four-decade political career.It was during Raisi’s tenure that protests swept the country after the death of the 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody after being arrested by police under Iran’s harsh hijab laws. More than 19,000 protesters were jailed, and at least 500 were killed – including 60 children – during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests. The police continue to violently arrest women for refusing hijab rules.Hours before Raisi’s death was confirmed by state media, videos circulated on Telegram showing celebratory fireworks, one of them from Amini’s hometown of Saqqez. Iranians from inside and outside the country shared posts reminding the world of Raisi’s brutal presidency and his repression of political dissidents.A spokesperson for the White House’s national security council offered condolences on the death of Iran’s president Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash, but noted he had channeled funds to armed groups in the Middle East, Reuters reported.“No question this was a man who had a lot of blood on his hands,” the spokesperson John Kirby said at the White House.Raisi perished in a helicopter crash alongside Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and six other passengers and crew. Here’s more about his death:In an interview with CNN, the international criminal court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, defended the investigation that led to his request for arrest warrants against top Israeli and Hamas officials.Khan accused Hamas’s leaders, including the group’s head, Yahya Sinwar, of extermination, murder, hostage-taking, rape, sexual assault and torture. He also leveled allegations against Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and defence minister, Yoav Gallant, of extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, the denial of humanitarian relief supplies and deliberately targeting civilians.Here’s what Khan had to say about how he reached his conclusion: More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump allies push bill to bar non-citizen voting, even though it’s already illegal

      by

      Dozens of Donald Trump’s allies and election denialists, including extremists like lawyer Cleta Mitchell and ex-adviser Stephen Miller, are promoting a bill to bar non-citizens from voting in federal elections, even though it’s already illegal and evidence that non-citizens have voted in federal races is almost nil.The push for the bill is seen as further evidence of extremist tactics used by ex-president Trump and his Maga movement to rev up his base of supporters for the 2024 election with outlandish claims designed to scaremonger over election fraud and far-right rhetoric detached from reality.It also fits a pattern, that many Trump allies appear to be laying the groundwork for false complaints of election fraud should Trump suffer electoral defeat again in 2024 – raising fears that the US could see a civic crisis similar to what followed the 2020 contest when his allies attacked the Capitol in Washington DC.The legislation’s rationale, which Trump touted at a Mar-a-Lago event with the House speaker, Mike Johnson, last month, has drawn sharp criticism from voting experts and even some Republicans.At the bill’s formal unveiling on 8 May, Johnson was joined by Mitchell, Miller and leaders of rightwing groups such as the Tea Party Patriots and the Arizona Freedom Caucus, who have formed the Only Citizens Vote Coalition, which boasts some 70 members pushing the measure.Johnson hyped the Save act – or Safeguard American Voter Eligibility act – framing illegal citizen voting as a more serious threat than Trump’s false charges that Joe Biden won the presidency in 2020 due to voting fraud.Johnson – whose 8 May press conference drew the bill’s lead sponsors, the senator Mike Lee of Utah and the representative Chip Roy of Texas – allowed that “we all know, intuitively, that a lot of illegals are voting in federal elections. But it’s not been something that is easily provable.”View image in fullscreenA lawyer and key Trump ally, Johnson was a central player in Trump’s baseless drive to overturn his 2020 defeat. Johnson led an amicus brief that more than 100 House GOP members signed backing a Texas lawsuit that tried to block the results in four key states that Biden won.“Even if you weren’t concerned about the drop boxes and the ballot harvesting and the mail-in ballots in 2020,” Johnson said on 8 May, referring to some of the phoney fraud claims Trump and his allies made about Biden’s win, “you definitely should be concerned that illegal aliens might be voting in 2024.”Actually, studies have shown that non-citizens are extremely unlikely to vote in federal elections, and that the minuscule number who attempt to vote have no impact on the outcome.One Brennan Center for Justice study that focused on the 2016 election revealed that just 0.0001% of votes across 42 jurisdictions, with a total of 23.5m votes, were suspected to include non-citizens voting, or 30 incidents altogether.A more recent Arizona study showed that less than 1% of non-citizens try to register to vote, but the large majority of those are believed to be errors, as the Washington Post initially reported.“These lies about widespread non-citizens voting fuel xenophobic fears and unwarranted doubts about the integrity of our elections. They appear intended to lay the groundwork to baselessly challenge any election results. Americans should be confident that our elections are safe and secure,” said Andrew Garber, an elections counsel at the Brennan Center.Even some Republican stalwarts say the bill is aimed at spurring more votes for Trump and his allies in Congress by raising the specter of a phoney election-fraud issue.“This is all political,” the veteran Republican consultant Charlie Black said. “The people who are promoting it know it is already illegal. But they hope by promoting the issue to convince voters that illegal immigrants are voting.”Other Republicans concur. “This is a messaging bill,” said former representative Charlie Dent, who noted it was “already illegal” for non-citizens to vote. “They’re trying to tie this to the border issue. It’s completely campaign-driven by challenging Democrats to vote against it.”Critics warn that the Save Act, which is seen as unlikely to pass the Senate if the House approves the bill, would make it harder to register people to vote since it would require citizenship proof such as a birth certificate or passport, which many Americans lack.Federal law now just requires voters to fill out a form swearing they are a US citizen.View image in fullscreenLittle wonder that the legislation is fueling hefty support from many well-funded, Trump-allied election-denialist groups and their leaders.Rightwing lawyer Mitchell, who runs the election-integrity network at the Conservative Partnership Institute where she is a senior legal fellow, has been in the vanguard of promoting conspiracies about non-citizen voting.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMitchell raised the specter of non-citizen voting in February on a conservative Illinois talk radio show where she said: “I absolutely believe this is intentional, and one of the reasons the Biden administration is allowing all these illegals to flood the country. They’re taking them into counties across the country, so that they can get those people registered, they can vote them.”A little-known group that Mitchell quietly set up last year, dubbed the Fair Elections Fund, which she is president of, is listed as a member of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition.A longtime election conspiracist, Mitchell was on Trump’s call with the Georgia secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, on 2 January 2021 when Trump exhorted him to “find” 11,780 votes to overturn Biden’s win there.Similarly, Stephen Miller, who runs the rightwing litigation outfit America First Legal and served as Trump’s hardine immigration adviser, has been working zealously to promote fears of illegal voting by non-citizens.“Democracy in America is under attack,” Miller said at the 8 May press event. Miller decried the “wide-open border and obstruction of any effort to verify the citizenship of who votes in our elections”.View image in fullscreenNotwithstanding the dearth of evidence that non-citizen voting is a real threat, Miller has repeated bogus conspiracy theories that Democrats are bringing voters into the US to boost Biden winning in November.The Maga world’s obsession with non-citizen voting was palpable at a Las Vegas event last month hosted by the former Arizona sheriff Richard Mack, who leads the far-right Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, which drew a number of sheriffs and other elected officials from several states. Mack, an ex-board member of the extremist Oath Keepers, said in April that “election fraud and the border go hand in hand”, a claim that lacks any evidence.Voting experts are alarmed at the growing efforts of Trump allies to highlight a virtually nonexistent threat and promote legislation that would require voters to show documents to register that millions of Americans do not have.“Millions of eligible American citizens lack easy access to a passport or birth certificate, so requiring eligible voters to show either one to register to vote would impose a significant hurdle with no real benefits for election security,” said Garber of the Brennan Center.Other voting specialists voice similar concerns.“Instead of taking meaningful action to strengthen our critical election infrastructure, Speaker Johnson is adding fuel to the fire by linking immigration policy to election security,” said Carah Ong Whaley, director of election protection at Issue One, a bipartisan political reform group.Instead, Whaley urged Johnson and his allies to work in a bipartisan way “to increase federal funding to ensure that officials have the resources they need to guard against growing foreign interference concerns and cybersecurity threats”.Republican figures also express strong misgivings about what is driving the bill’s backers.“Since Trump has surrounded himself with the losing general election narrative about fraud in 2020, he needs to change the narrative,” said Republican consultant Chuck Coughlin. “These types of proposals pushed by his allies are critical to him duping American voters to vote for him again.” More

    • 188 Shares179 Views

      in US Politics

      Top House Democrat demands answers on Trump dinner with oil executives – as it happened

      by

      The top Democrat on the House oversight committee is demanding answers after a report emerged that Donald Trump promised oil executives he would repeal regulations intended to lower climate emissions if they each contributed $1bn to his campaign.In a letter to the executives of nine major petroleum companies, including ExxonMobil and Chevron, Jamie Raskin cited a Washington Post article from last week that said Trump promised to rescind a Biden administration moratorium on permits for liquified natural gas exports and allow more drillings in the Alaskan Arctic and Gulf of Mexico, among other policies.In response, Raskin wrote in letters to nine oil industry executives:
      I write to request any information you may have about quid pro quo financial agreements related to US energy policy that were reportedly proposed at a recent campaign fundraising dinner with ex-president Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago Club that you appear to have attended. Media reports raise significant potential ethical, campaign finance, and legal issues that would flow from the effective sale of American energy and regulatory policy to commercial interests in return for large campaign contributions.
      House speaker Mike Johnson traveled to New York to appear alongside Donald Trump at his ongoing business fraud trial, which Johnson called a “disgrace” in a press conference outside the courthouse. An array of other Republican politicians were also on the scene, all of whom have one thing in common: they are said to be potential running mates for Trump or, as the Democrats have dubbed them, “emotional support”. Back in Washington DC, the Republican-led House oversight committee released a report saying that attorney general Merrick Garland should be held in contempt for not handing over recordings of interviews with Joe Biden and his ghostwriter conducted by a special counsel. The committee’s top Democrat, Jamie Raskin, was also busy, demanding answers from petroleum industry executives over Trump’s reported promise to roll back all sorts of environmental regulations if they each raise $1bn for his campaign.Here’s what else happened today:
      Johnson’s appearance in New York comes as the House GOP plans to shift into “campaign mode” before the 5 November election.
      Federal prosecutors asked a judge to send far-right strategist Steve Bannon to jail after an appeals court rejected overturning his conviction for contempt of Congress. Bannon has until Thursday to respond.
      Biden announced new tariffs against China, and took shots at Trump’s trade policies.
      Maryland is traditionally a Democratic stronghold, but this year’s Senate race is shaping up to be surprisingly competitive. The state’s voters are choosing their candidates in today’s primary.
      Why are Biden’s approval ratings so stubbornly low? Here’s what White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre had to say, when asked at her briefing today.
      At her daily briefing today, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about Joe Biden’s low approval ratings, and why they have not moved much for years.The question from a Fox News reporter came a day after the New York Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena College released polling showing the president trailing Donald Trump in five of six key swing states. Here’s what Jean-Pierre had to say:The reporter who posed the question, Peter Doocy, is the conservative network’s main man in the White House, and something of a thorn in its side. Two years ago, Biden appeared to insult Doocy by name, then later reportedly called him to “clear the air”:Earlier today, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson condemned the prosecution of Donald Trump outside the New York courthouse where Trump’s business fraud trial is taking place.That drew a strong rebuke from Democratic representative and Trump foe Jamie Raskin, who aired his grievances in a statement to the Daily Beast:Federal judge Carl J Nichols has given far-right strategist Steve Bannon until Thursday to respond to a request by justice department prosecutors that he report to jail to serve his four-month sentence after being convicted of contempt of Congress.Nichols’ order came after an appeals court rejected Bannon’s appeal of his July 2022 conviction for ignoring a subpoena and an order to appear for a deposition from the January 6 committee. Here’s more on that:The traditionally blue state of Maryland suddenly finds itself in an unfamiliar role: political battleground.Whoever wins the race for its open Senate seat, vacated by retiring Democrat Ben Cardin, could decide control of the chamber. On the Democratic side, representative David Trone is locked in a competitive primary with Prince George’s County executive Angela Alsobrooks. Whoever wins the primary will almost certainly face Larry Hogan, the former Republican governor whose high-profile clashes with Donald Trump made him a household name.The Democratic primary contest to succeed Trone features as many as a dozen candidates. The field is led by former Biden official April McClain Delaney and state delegate Joe Vogel.The Guardian caught up with Vogel shortly after he cast his ballot in Gaithersburg on Tuesday morning. At 27, Vogel is among a handful of gen Z candidates running for federal office this year.Vogel said he is appealing to voters of all ages by channeling his generation’s urgency to address the most pressing problems of our time.“The experience that I have is not only the experience as a legislator, but the lived experience of sitting in a classroom with the doors locked and the windows down in the dark in a school-shooting drill. I have the experience of fearing what the climate crisis is going to hold for our generation,” he said.“What we need are people with the lived experiences to bring urgency to all of these issues.”The sixth district, a seat that spans the diverse suburbs of Montgomery county to conservative western Maryland, is expected to remain in Democratic hands but is still the most competitive open House seat in the state.If elected, Vogel, born in Uruguay, would be the first Latino and first openly LGBTQ+ member of Congress from Maryland.An election to watch is taking place today in Maryland, where Democratic voters will select a candidate to face off against Republican former governor Larry Hogan for its open Senate seat. The Guardian’s Joan E Greve reports on how the race in the heavily Democratic state has become surprisingly competitive:Republicans have a rare opportunity to flip a Senate seat in Maryland in November, and the outcome of that race could determine control of the upper chamber. The high stakes of the Maryland Senate election have put intense scrutiny on the state’s primaries this Tuesday.Maryland primary voters will cast ballots in the presidential race as well as congressional elections, and leaders of both parties will be closely watching the results of the Senate contests. The retirement of Senator Ben Cardin has created an opening for Republicans to potentially capture a seat in a reliably Democratic state, thanks to former governor Larry Hogan’s late entry into the race. A Hogan victory would mark the first time that a Republican has won a Maryland Senate election since 1980, and it could erase Democrats’ narrow majority in the chamber.Ten Democrats will compete for the party’s Senate nomination, but two candidates have become the clear frontrunners: Congressman Dave Trone and the Prince George’s county executive Angela Alsobrooks. The race has historic implications, as Alsobrooks would become the first Black person elected to represent Maryland in the Senate and just the third Black woman to ever serve in the chamber.The battery of tariff increases on China Joe Biden announced is a symbolic move intended to head off the possibility that Beijing one day steps up its exports of vehicles and other technologies to stimulate its economy. The policy is also not quite as different from that of the Trump administration as the White House would have you think, the Guardian’s Larry Elliott reports:The US president, Joe Biden, has announced a 100% tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles as part of a package of measures designed to protect US manufacturers from cheap imports.In a move that is likely to inflame trade tensions between the world’s two biggest economies, the White House said it was imposing more stringent curbs on Chinese goods worth $18bn.Sources said the move followed a four-year review and was a preventive measure designed to stop cheap, subsidised Chinese goods flooding the US market and stifling the growth of the American green-technology sector.As well as a tariff increase from 25% to 100% on EVs, levies will rise from 7.5% to 25% on lithium batteries, from zero to 25% on critical minerals, from 25% to 50% on solar cells, and from 25% to 50% on semiconductors.Tariffs on steel, aluminium and personal protective equipment – which range from zero to 7.5% – will rise to 25%.Despite the risks of retaliation from Beijing, Biden said the increased levies were a proportionate response to China’s overcapacity in the EV sector. Sources said China was producing 30m EVs a year but could sell only 22m-23m domestically.Biden’s car tariffs are largely symbolic because Chinese EVs were virtually locked out of the US by tariffs imposed by Donald Trump during his presidency. However, lobby groups have suggested there is a future threat as Beijing seeks to use exports to compensate for the weakness of its domestic economy.Top Republicans traveled to New York to appear alongside Donald Trump at his ongoing business fraud trial, which House speaker Mike Johnson called a “disgrace”. Also on the scene were an array of politicians who share one thing in common: they are all said to be potential running mates for Trump, or, as the Democrats dubbed them “emotional support”. Back in Washington DC, the Republican-led House oversight committee released a report saying that attorney general Merrick Garland should be held in contempt for not handing over recordings of interviews conducted by a special counsel and Joe Biden. The committee’s top Democrat Jamie Raskin was also busy, demanding answers from petroleum industry executives over Trump’s reported promise to roll back all sorts of environmental regulations if they each raise $1bn for his campaign.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Johnson’s appearance in New York comes as the House GOP plans to shift into “campaign mode” as the 5 November election draws ever nearer.
      Federal prosecutors asked a judge to send far-right strategist Steve Bannon to jail after an appeals court rejected the appeal of his conviction for contempt of Congress.
      Biden announced new tariffs against China, and took shots at Trump’s own trade policies.
      The top Democrat on the House oversight committee is demanding answers after a report emerged that Donald Trump promised oil executives he would repeal regulations intended to lower climate emissions if they each contributed $1bn to his campaign.In a letter to the executives of nine major petroleum companies, including ExxonMobil and Chevron, Jamie Raskin cited a Washington Post article from last week that said Trump promised to rescind a Biden administration moratorium on permits for liquified natural gas exports and allow more drillings in the Alaskan Arctic and Gulf of Mexico, among other policies.In response, Raskin wrote in letters to nine oil industry executives:
      I write to request any information you may have about quid pro quo financial agreements related to US energy policy that were reportedly proposed at a recent campaign fundraising dinner with ex-president Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago Club that you appear to have attended. Media reports raise significant potential ethical, campaign finance, and legal issues that would flow from the effective sale of American energy and regulatory policy to commercial interests in return for large campaign contributions.
      In a White House address where he announced his administration’s moves to counter Chinese industries, including by imposing a 100% tariff on electric car imports, Joe Biden took a number of shots at Donald Trump and his policies.“My administration is combining investments in America with tariffs that are strategic and targeted,” Biden said. “Compare that to what the prior administration did. My predecessor promised to increase American exports and boost manufacturing. But he did neither, he failed. He signed a trade deal with China. They’re supposed to buy $200bn more in American goods. Instead, China imports from America barely budged.”He also said that Trump has proposed “across-the-board tariffs on all imports from all countries if re-elected”, and accused the former president of wanting to drive up prices. “He simply doesn’t get it,” Biden said.Asked later by a reporter about Trump’s comments that China has been eating America’s lunch, Biden responded, “He’s been feeding them a long time.” More

    • 163 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Mike Johnson skips vital US House session to support Trump in New York

      by

      The US House was in session on Tuesday with vital business to complete but its speaker, Mike Johnson, was 200 miles north, attending another day in the criminal trial of Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican presidential nominee charged over hush-money payments to an adult film star who claimed an affair.“President Trump is innocent of these charges,” Johnson said outside court in Manhattan, where Trump faces the first 34 of 88 criminal counts.Michael Cohen, who as Trump’s lawyer and fixer made the payments to Stormy Daniels, was on the witness stand.Trump has used his trial as a loyalty test for supporters and vice-presidential hopefuls, both at the courthouse and on social media and TV. On Tuesday, Johnson was joined by the governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum, the Florida representatives Byron Donalds and Cory Mills, and Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur who ran for the Republican presidential nomination.Before proceedings began, as Johnson and other supporters stood behind him, Trump spoke to reporters.“I do have a lot of surrogates and they are speaking very beautifully,” he said. “They come from all over Washington, and they’re highly respected and they think this is the biggest scam they’ve ever seen.”Regarding such surrogates’ ability to comment on the trial unencumbered by a gag order over which Trump has been fined and threatened with incarceration, Trump told reporters: “You ask me questions that I’m not allowed to answer.”Complaining about the courtroom, Trump said: “I’ve been here for nearly four weeks in the ice box.”The charges against Trump cast the hush-money payments, made around the 2016 election, as a form of election subversion.Trump also faces four federal and 10 Georgia state charges arising from his attempts to overturn his 2020 defeat by Joe Biden, and 40 federal charges concerning his retention of classified information.He has also been hit with multimillion-dollar civil penalties, over his business practices and a defamation suit arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”.Nonetheless, the devoutly Christian (and porn-monitoring) Johnson rushed to Trump’s side as Trump’s affair with Daniels, the star of films including Dirty Deeds and Right Amount of Wrong, was once more examined in court.One of Johnson’s former Republican colleagues, the anti-Trump conservative Liz Cheney, jibed: “Have to admit I’m surprised that Speaker Johnson wants to be in the ‘I cheated on my wife with a porn star’ club. I guess he’s not that concerned with teaching morality to our young people after all.”Back on Capitol Hill, the House was due to consider final passage of the Federal Aviation Authority Reauthorization Act. House Democrats were also set to face a series of messaging bills, proposed legislation designed not to pass but to ensnare the other party in difficult political choices.“Otherwise,” Politico reported, “Speaker Mike Johnson is ready to move squarely into campaign mode.”View image in fullscreenIn Manhattan, Johnson – the only member of Trump’s cheer squad not to wear a distinctly Trumpian red tie – spoke to reporters. He said: “President Trump is innocent of these charges.“It’s impossible for anybody to deny, that looks at this objectively, that the judicial system in our country has been weaponised against President Trump. The system is using all the tools at its disposal right now to punish one president to provide cover for another.“These are politically motivated trials and they are a disgrace. It is election interference, and they show how desperate the opposition that President Trump is, how desperate they truly are.”Johnson said he was making the appearance “on my own, to support President Trump, because I am one of hundreds of millions of people and one citizen who is deeply concerned about this”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionJohnson and his fellow visitors were not the first. On Monday the Ohio senator JD Vance gave his impressions of proceedings.Vance posted: “Michael Cohen admitting he secretly recorded his employer. Just totally normal conduct, right? The best part is he said he did it only once and only for Trump’s benefit. A stand-up guy!”Vance also called the trial “election interference”, because the gag order constrained Trump’s speech, representing “a violation of the constitution and an insult to the American people”.Before court on Tuesday, Ramaswamy claimed a “sham trial” and a “politically motivated assault on the leading candidate for US president, greenlit by his political opponent, Joe Biden, and carried out at the highest levels of the White House and Department of Justice”.Ramaswamy also attacked the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg; the prosecutor Matthew Colangelo; and the judge, Juan Merchan.“The American people will deliver the ultimate verdict in November,” Ramaswamy said. “Say NO to the weaponisation of justice.”Other surrogates also complained. Donalds, who as a young man had a marijuana charge dismissed and a bribery charge expunged, said proceedings against Trump represented “a tragedy for the American justice system”.For Johnson, staying close to Trump has paid off, particularly as the speaker has overseen passage of government funding and military aid to Ukraine, neither favoured by Trump and his supporters on the far right of a far-right Republican party.Last week, with support from Democrats, Johnson defeated an attempt to remove him mounted by Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia extremist who has touted herself as a Trump running mate.In a statement on Tuesday, Alex Floyd, rapid response director for the Democratic National Committee, mocked Trump’s need for “emotional support” from Johnson and others, and took a shot at the speaker for absenting himself from the House.“Donald Trump is convening the saddest posse of Maga loyalists … desperate for emotional support and political cover as he spends another week tending to his personal affairs rather than talking to actual voters,” Floyd said.“Trump’s pathetic band … seemingly have nothing better to do than echo Trump’s lies and nod approvingly in the background – because they certainly aren’t doing their day jobs of serving their constituents or running a functional political operation.” More

    • 188 Shares129 Views

      in US Politics

      Court upholds Steve Bannon’s conviction for defying Jan 6 committee subpoena – as it happened

      by

      A federal appellate court ruled unanimously today to uphold Steve Bannon’s conviction of contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena issued by the House special committee on the January 6 capitol attack. It’s a blow for the far-right media executive who helped usher Donald Trump into office in 2016 and was a key architect of the former president’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Bannon was originally sentenced to four months in prison; this ruling makes his incarceration a real possibility, although he could appeal the decision again.Here’s what else happened today:
      Trump’s 2024 campaign will be “lean,” according to a Washington Post report, which also revealed numerous swing state officials’ worries that they lack critical campaign resources ahead of the 2024 election.
      Paul Manafort offered his consulting services to a Chinese media venture after Trump pardoned him in 2020 – and is likely to join the Trump 2024 campaign soon.
      Unsealed court documents reveal two political consultants pleaded guilty to charges that they conspired to commit money laundering with Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar of Texas, who the Department of Justice has charged with receiving bribes from foreign entities.
      Rudy Giuliani can’t stop fanning the flames of election conspiracy theories – a habit that got his show on the conservative talk radio station WABC, in New York, cancelled.
      Rudy Giuliani’s show on the conservative talk radio station WABC in New York was cancelled after Giuliani continued to platform falsehoods about the 2020 election – a violation of the radio station’s policy.According to the New York Times, which first reported the cancellation, Giuliani had been warned repeatedly to stop discussing election lies on air.“We’re not going to talk about fallacies of the November 2020 election,” John Catsimatidis, who owns the station, told the New York Times. “We warned him twice.”In a 9 May letter to Treasury secretary Janet Yellen, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren this week urged the Treasury to step up measures recommended by the Treasury Advisory Committee on Racial Equity (TACRE).“I am concerned that the recommendations made by members of the TACRE remain in limbo at Treasury,” Warren wrote in the letter, which was first reported by Reuters. Warren requested the department provide a timeline by May 23 for implementing the remaining proposals.The Disney heiress and activist Abigail Disney blasted South Dakota governor Kristi Noem and the Republican Party in an email to voters, per an exclusive Guardian report from Martin Pengelly:Evoking the classic Disney tearjerker Old Yeller, in which a family is forced to put down their beloved dog, the US film-maker and campaigner Abigail Disney exhorted voters to oppose the Republican party of Kristi Noem, the South Dakota governor whose story of killing Cricket, a 14-month-old dog, shocked the world and seemingly dynamited her hopes of being Donald Trump’s running mate.“My great-uncle Walt Disney knew the magic place animals have in the hearts of families everywhere,” Disney wrote in an email released by the Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC) and obtained exclusively by the Guardian.“When he released Old Yeller, the heart wrenching story stayed with people because no one takes the killing of a family pet lightly.“At least that’s what I thought until I read about potential Trump VP Kristi Noem shooting her family’s puppy – a story that has shocked so many of us.”U.S. Department of Agriculture secretary Tom Vilsack announced today plans to unleash funding to mitigate the spread of bird flu in cattle – a measure intended to slow the spread of the virus.The spread of the virus to dairy cows poses an immediate risk to the workers in close contact with livestock and has raised concerns about the virus mutating and spreading to humans.Officials have promised nearly $200m for tracking and testing, and to compensate farmers who have taken a loss due to the spread of the virus.Two months after the Supreme Court ruled that the state of Colorado lacked the authority to ban Donald Trump from the ballot there, a separate fight over ballot access is playing out in Ohio, over Joe Biden’s eligibility to appear on the ballot this fall.The partisan fight that has been brewing for months escalated this week when the GOP-controlled state legislature blew past a Thursday deadline to pass legislation ensuring the president will have ballot access in November.Because the Democratic National Convention falls after the state’s certification deadline for presidential candidates, the state legislature was tasked with passing a law to push that deadline ahead.But Republicans in the state say they will grant Biden ballot access only if they garner the votes to also pass legislation banning foreign nationals from donating to state referendum campaigns – a push that stems from their anger over donations from a Swiss billionaire to Democratic-backed ballot measures in the state last year.Unsealed court documents reveal two political consultants pleaded guilty to charges that they conspired to commit money laundering with Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar of Texas.Cuellar’s former campaign manager, Colin Strother, and consultant Florencio “Lencho” Rendon, are now cooperating with the Department of Justice in its case against the Texas Democrat.Cuellar and his wife, Imelda, were indicted last week for allegedly accepting nearly $600,000 in bribes from a Mexico City bank and an oil and gas company owned by the government of Azerbaijan.Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaigns are a study in contrasts.While Biden spends his Friday fundraising on the west coast, making campaign stops in California and Washington, Trump sits through another day of his New York trial over Trump’s alleged falsification of business records in connection with hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election.And while the Biden campaign has launched a massive fundraising campaign, Trump’s operation appears strained amid his legal battles. According to a report today in the Washington Post, swing state GOP operatives are worried they lack critical campaign infrastructure ahead of the 2024 general election (the Trump campaign insists that’s not the case).Donald Trump’s fixer and former lawyer Michael Cohen is expected to appear in court Monday – his testimony in the hush money case will be key, given Cohen’s role in facilitating the $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. You can follow updates on the case on the Guardian’s live trial blog here:In the unanimous decision by a federal appellate court to uphold Steve Bannon’s conviction of contempt, circuit court judge Brad Garcia wrote that Bannon “deliberately refused to comply with the Select Committee’s subpoena in that he knew what the subpoena required and intentionally did not respond; his nonresponse, in other words, was no accident.”Bannon has maintained that he refused to comply with the congressional subpoena from the special House committee investigating the January 6 attacks on the advice of his former lawyer, Robert Costello – a justification the appellate court has rejected.Bannon could continue to appeal the case, including by turning to the U.S. Supreme Court.Far-right Trump ally Steve Bannon has, since Joe Biden was elected president in 2020, maintained the lie that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. Even as other figures in the conservative movement shy away from the claim, Bannon has made the falsehood a rallying cry. In March, the Guardian’s David Smith wrote about Bannon’s incendiary role in right-wing politics: Wearing an olive green jacket over a black shirt, Steve Bannon blew the doors off a subject that most other speakers had tiptoed around. “Media, I want you to suck on this, I want the White House to suck on this: you lost in 2020!” he roared. “Donald Trump is the legitimate president of the United States!”A thrill of transgression swept through the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the National Harbor in Maryland. “Trump won!” Bannon barked, pointing a finger. “Trump won!” he repeated, shaking a fist. “Trump won!” he proclaimed again. His audience, as if hypnotised, chanted the brazen lie in unison.It was a blunt reminder that Bannon, an architect of Trumpism variously compared to Thomas Cromwell, Rasputin and Joseph Goebbels, remains a potent force in American politics as the 2024 US presidential election looms into view and the re-election of Trump looks a clear possibility.After Steve Bannon’s criminal conviction for refusing to comply with a subpoena from the special House committee investigating the January 6 capitol attack was upheld by a federal appeals court, the far-right political operative could soon be forced to begin a 4-month prison sentence initially ordered in 2022.Leaked audio showed that ahead of the 2020 general presidential election, Bannon was familiar with Trump’s plans to declare an early victory. Since 2020, he has continued to push falsehoods about the 2020 election and host prominent conspiracy theorists on his influential War Room podcast.When the House committee investigating the January 6 attacks issued a subpoena for Bannon, he refused to comply. The court’s decision to uphold his conviction delivers a blow to the Trump ally.A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has reportedly upheld Steve Bannon’s conviction on contempt charges for defying a congressional subpoena issued by the United States House select committee on the January 6 capitol attack.Paul Manafort returned to international consulting after Donald Trump pardoned him in 2020, The Washington Post reports.Manafort, in the years since obtaining clemency, worked on a Chinese streaming media venture. Now, the Post reports, Manafort is poised to join Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. Manafort denied that his work on the Chinese media project would form a conflict of interest in the U.S.-China relationship.Before chairing Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, Manafort’s former firm, called Black, Manafort, and Stone notoriously lobbied U.S. congress on behalf of foreign governments – including on behalf of human rights-abusing dictatorships, among them the regime of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines.Former president Donald Trump has adopted the legal strategy of stalling and stalling to ensure his most sensitive trials will take place after the election. That strategy is working, reports Sam Levine:As had been expected for months, Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday scrapped a 20 May trial date that had been set in south Florida over the former president’s handling of classified documents. The delay was almost entirely the doing of Cannon, a Trump appointee, who allowed far-fetched legal arguments into the case and let preliminary legal matters pile up on her docket to the point where a May trial was not a possibility.On Thursday, the Georgia court of appeals announced it would hear a request from Trump to consider whether Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, should be removed from the election interference case against him because of a relationship with another prosecutor. The decision means both that Trump will continue to undermine Willis’s credibility and draw out the case. “There will be no trial until 2025,” tweeted Anthony Michael Kreis, a law professor at Georgia State University who has been closely following the case.The third pending case against Trump, a federal election interference case in Washington, also appears unlikely to go to trial before the election. The US supreme court heard oral arguments on whether Trump has immunity from prosecution last month and seemed unlikely to resolve it quickly enough to allow the case to move forward ahead of the election.Swing state GOP officials say they have not received key campaign resources ahead of the 2024 general presidential election, The Washington Post reports. This comes amid a funding crunch for Donald Trump’s campaign, which is looking lean as the former president faces mounting legal costs.Top campaign officials rejected the idea that their operation was suffering.But Republican Party officials in Arizona, Georgia and Michigan said they worried that their funding and operations would be insufficient – and that the campaign had not built out enough of an infrastructure in those key states.“There is no sign of life,” Kim Owens, an Arizona Republican Party operative, told the Post.Good morning! After easily surviving an attempt to oust him by the far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, House speaker Mike Johnson appears to be basking in it. In an interview with Politico, Johnson – the conservative Republican who developed his career in the legal world of the Christian right and joined his colleagues in contesting the results of the 2020 election – waxed poetic about bipartisanship and consensus.He had high praise for House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, and proclaimed – of bipartisanship – that the American political system “doesn’t work unless you understand the principles that undergird it.”His praise came after the House easily quashed far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resolution to oust Johnson on Wednesday, as members of both parties came together in a rare moment of bipartisanship to keep the chamber open for business.The vote on the motion to table Greene’s resolution was 359 to 43, as 196 Republicans and 163 Democrats supported killing the proposal.Having said this, Johnson was just as quick to defend his role in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Johnson, who led the effort to garner congressional Republican support for a Texas lawsuit attempting to overturn the election results in Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, said he had no regrets over the legal maneuver.Here’s what’s going on today:
      Amid the former president’s mounting legal costs, Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign is taking a “lean” approach, Washington Post reports.
      Trump returns to court today, rounding out a week marked by detailed testimony from adult film star Stormy Daniels about her alleged affair with Trump.
      Joe Biden will participate in campaign events on the west coast this afternoon. More

    • 138 Shares119 Views

      in US Politics

      House quashes Marjorie Taylor Greene motion to oust speaker Mike Johnson

      by

      The House easily quashed Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s resolution to oust the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson, on Wednesday, as members of both parties came together in a rare moment of bipartisanship to keep the chamber open for business.The vote on the motion to table Greene’s resolution was 359 to 43, as 196 Republicans and 163 Democrats supported killing the proposal.Greene took to the House floor on Wednesday evening to announce her plans, prompting boos from fellow Republicans present in the chamber. Her request triggered a countdown clock, as House rules stipulated that members had to vote on the matter within two legislative days. House Republicans chose to take up the matter immediately, as the resolution was widely expected to fail.House Democratic leaders previously indicated that they would vote to kill Greene’s resolution, and the vast majority of their caucus took the same position on Wednesday. However, 32 Democrats and 11 Republicans opposed the motion to table the resolution, and seven members voted “present”.Speaking to reporters after the vote, Johnson thanked his colleagues for helping him to hold on to a post he has held for six and a half months.“I want to say that I appreciate the show of confidence from my colleagues to defeat this misguided effort. That is certainly what it was,” Johnson said. “As I’ve said from the beginning and I’ve made clear here every day, I intend to do my job. I intend to do what I believe to be the right thing, which is what I was elected to do, and I’ll let the chips fall where they may. In my view, that is leadership.”Greene’s maneuver appeared to catch many Republicans off guard, after the hard-right congresswoman spent much of the past few days meeting with Johnson to address her concerns about his leadership. She has repeatedly criticized Johnson for passing significant bills, including a government funding proposal and a foreign aid package, by relying on Democratic support.Greene had said she would force a vote on the motion to vacate this week, but she appeared to back away from that commitment on Tuesday.“We’ll see. It’s up to Mike Johnson,” Greene told reporters when asked if she still planned to demand the vote. “Obviously, you can’t make things happen instantly, and we all are aware and understanding of that. So now the ball is in his court, and he’s supposed to be reaching out to us – hopefully soon.”Donald Trump, who has voiced support for Johnson in recent weeks, reportedly called Greene over the weekend, but she would not disclose details about the call to reporters.“I have to tell you, I love President Trump. My conversations with him are fantastic,” Greene said. “And again, I’m not going to go into details. You want to know why? I’m not insecure about that.”Even though her motion to vacate overwhelmingly failed, Greene and her allies already appear poised to turn the issue into a litmus test for fellow Republican members. Congressman Thomas Massie, a co-sponsor of Greene’s resolution, shared a picture on X of the 11 Republicans who voted against the motion to table.“It’s a new paradigm in Congress,” Massie said. “[Former Democratic speaker] Nancy Pelosi, and most [Republicans] voted to keep Uniparty Speaker Mike Johnson. These are the eleven, including myself, who voted NOT to save him.”View image in fullscreenThe Republicans who rallied around Johnson returned the fire by accusing Greene and her allies of promoting chaos in the House. The episode came less than a year after the ouster of former Republican speaker Kevin McCarthy, which brought the chamber to a standstill for weeks until Johnson’s election.Congressman Mike Lawler, who faces a tough reelection campaign in New York this November, told reporters on Wednesday: “This type of tantrum is absolutely unacceptable, and it does nothing to further the cause of the conservative movement. The only people who have stymied our ability to govern are the very people that have pulled these types of stunts throughout the course of this Congress to undermine the House Republican majority.”Congressman Sean Casten, an Illinois Democrat, offered a more concise and cutting assessment. Writing on X, he said of Greene: “She is so, so dumb. And yet she keeps talking.” More

    • 225 Shares99 Views

      in US Politics

      Joe Biden says ‘we must give hate no safe harbor’ in speech condemning antisemitism – as it happened

      by

      We’re closing our US politics blog now, but you can continue to follow coverage of Donald Trump’s hush-money trial in New York in our live blog here.Here’s what we followed today:
      Joe Biden spoke at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Day of Remembrance ceremony, honoring Second War War victims of the Nazis, condemning the Hamas attacks of 7 October, and denouncing violence during pro-Palestinian demonstrations on US college campuses. “We have an obligation to learn the lessons of history … to not surrender our future to the horrors of the past. We must give hate no safe harbor against anyone,” he said.
      New York supreme court justice Daniel Doyle blocked an abortion rights amendment from appearing on the November ballot, a significant setback for Democrats hoping to use the abortion access debate to galvanize voters.
      Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed a threat to his position from rebel Republican congress members Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie, insisting at a press conference: “I intend to lead this conference in the future.” Johnson is meeting the duo again this lunchtime as they decide whether to advance a vote for his removal after he colluded with Democrats to pass a Ukraine funding bill.
      Texas Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar faced pressure to resign from the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) group. Cuellar and his wife Imelda were indicted last week for bribery over their connections with Azerbaijan. “While [he] deserves a fair trial and the presumption of innocence, the serious charges … make it inappropriate for him to remain in office,” Crew president Noah Bookbinder said.
      Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, pushed back on a reporter’s suggestions the Biden administration wasn’t fully forthcoming about its knowledge of ceasefire talks in Gaza. Israel, according to Axios, was upset the US apparently knew about a proposal by Egypt, but hadn’t briefed Israel. Jean-Pierre insisted at her daily press briefing that no administration official was involved in secret discussion or deceit.
      Jean-Pierre was also asked about the behavior captured on video of counter-protesters at a pro-Palestinian rally at the University of Mississippi last week.One white student was accused of making monkey noises at a Black protester, and has been suspended by his Ole Miss fraternity.The behavior was “undignified and racist”, Jean-Pierre said. “The actions in the video are beneath any American.”The White House press conference has just wrapped up, a little later than advertised. Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, has been pushing back on some reporters’ suggestions that the Biden administration hasn’t been fully forthcoming about its involvement in, or knowledge of, ceasefire talks over the war in Gaza.Hamas agreed to an Egyptian ceasefire proposal on Monday that would have seen the release of hostages it still holds from the 7 October attack. But Israel, according to an Axios report on Monday, was upset the US apparently knew about the proposal by Egypt, but hadn’t briefed Israel on it. And Israel says the terms Hamas accepted weren’t those it had agreed to.Jean-Pierre insisted no administration official was involved in any secret discussions, or had any intent to deceive. But she didn’t directly address Israel’s reported frustration.“There are talks happening in Cairo, and that’s incredibly important,” she said. “Our assessment is the two sides should be able to come to a deal, or at least close the gaps to get to a deal.”They may officially be two days late, but White House staff laid on an official Cinco de Mayo celebration this morning for Mexico’s independence day.First lady Jill Biden addressed a large gathering of Mexican-Americans:
      “[We] pay tribute to a long line of Mexican-Americans who have added their own threads to our rich American tapestry with bravery and vision. Writers whose poems trace the contours of our sorrows and joys. Activists whose movements for justice achieved hard-won progress. Trailblazers in every career and calling who have led us toward a more perfect union.
      And as we recognize the Mexican-Americans who have so profoundly shaped this country, and are continuing to shape it, we also remember that the first step to progress is dreaming – creating those images in our own heads, even if the odds are against us, reaching for the stars, even if we may miss, sculpting the world we see when we close our eyes and imagine.
      Here’s the video of Joe Biden’s address to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Day of Remembrance ceremony earlier.“Never again simply translated for me means: Never forget. Never forgetting means we must keep telling the story, we must keep teaching the truth,” Biden said as he addressed a bipartisan memorial held at the US Capitol’s Emancipation Hall.“The truth is we’re at risk of people not knowing the truth.”Biden spoke seven months to the day after Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October, killing 1,200 by Israeli tallies, in what Biden has called the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust.“This hatred [of Jews] continues to lie deep in the hearts of too many people in the world and requires our continued vigilance and outspokenness,” the president said.A furore over the killing of a puppy by South Dakota Republican governor Kristi Noem, a story first reported by the Guardian, shows no sign of abating, as my colleague Martin Pengelly reports:Asked if a story about killing a dog and a goat as well as a false claim to have met Kim Jong-un could have been put in her book by an editor acting as “a liberal plant”, the South Dakota governor and Republican vice-presidential hopeful Kristi Noem seemed to realise such a claim would be too outlandish even for her.“The buck always stops with me,” Noem told Newsmax. “I take my own full responsibility. I wrote this book.”No Going Back was published in the US on Tuesday. But for more than a week it has been at the centre of a political firestorm fueled by a Guardian report of its startling story of how Noem says she shot dead Cricket, a 14-month-old wirehaired pointer she deemed “untrainable”, and an unnamed goat Noem said menaced her children.Noem has defended the story as an example of how she is willing to do unpleasant things in life and politics.But the resulting revulsion has seemingly ended any hope of Noem being named running mate to Donald Trump, the former president and presumptive Republican nominee in November.Noem’s claim to have met Kim, the North Korean dictator, unravelled amid reporting by the Dakota Scout. Noem’s publisher, Center Street, said it would remove the passage from future editions.Amid a media tour in which Noem was challenged on CBS about an apparent threat to kill Joe Biden’s dog, the governor sought friendlier turf at Newsmax. Eric Bolling, a former Fox News host, duly attempted to give her a way to climb off her hurtling train of bad PR.Bolling said: “You don’t write the whole book at once, you write a chapter or two, you send it to the editors and they edit. They read it, they add, they subtract.“And here’s my question: the editor, was she possibly a plant? A liberal plant? Because I’m not sure either one of these stories, this dog story, the North Korea story, seems like the Kristi Noem I know.”Read the full story:It’s been a relatively quiet day so far in US politics. Here’s where things stand:
      Joe Biden spoke at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Day of Remembrance ceremony, honoring Second War War victims of the Nazis, condemning the Hamas attacks of 7 October, and denouncing violence during pro-Palestinian demonstrations on US college campuses. “We have an obligation to learn the lessons of history … to not surrender our future to the horrors of the past. We must give hate no safe harbor against anyone,” he said.
      New York supreme court justice Daniel Doyle blocked an abortion rights amendment from appearing on the November ballot, a significant setback for Democrats hoping to use the abortion access debate to galvanize voters.
      Speaker Mike Johnson dismissed a threat to his position from rebel Republican congress members Marjorie Taylor Greene and Thomas Massie, insisting at a press conference: “I intend to lead this conference in the future.” Johnson is meeting the duo again this lunchtime as they decide whether to advance a vote for his removal after he colluded with Democrats to pass a Ukraine funding bill.
      There’s more to come, including the daily media briefing from White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.Reuters says Joe Biden will next Tuesday meet with chief executives of Citigroup, United Airlines, Marriott International and other corporations across a range of industries at the White House.Citing an administration official, the agency says the purpose of the meeting is “the national and global economy”.Polling for November’s election indicates Biden is weaker on the economy in voters’ minds, and the meeting is an opportunity to try to gather some momentum with less than six months remaining.A New York judge on Tuesday blocked an abortion rights amendment from appearing on the November ballot, the Associated Press reports, a significant setback for Democrats hoping to use the abortion access debate to galvanize voters.State supreme court justice Daniel Doyle ruled state lawmakers failed to follow procedural rules regarding constitutional amendments, and incorrectly approved the amendment before getting a written opinion on its language from the attorney general.The lawsuit was filed by Republican state assemblywoman Marjorie Byrnes.Abortion rights amendments have passed in every state they have appeared, including Republican-controlled states, since the US supreme court ended almost 50 years of federal abortion protections in 2022.Similar amendments are on the ballot elsewhere this November, including Florida, where a six-week abortion ban took effect last week. An effort by Florida’s Republican attorney general Ashley Moody, similar to the New York lawsuit, to strip the amendment was rejected by the state’s supreme court last month.The New York state attorney general’s office did not immediately comment.We bring news of a presidential election event unlikely to ever happen: a head-to-head debate between Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, and independent candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr.Kennedy’s campaign put out a statement Tuesday morning challenging Trump to a debate at the Libertarian convention in Washington DC from 24 to 26 May.In an accompanying open letter posted to X, Kennedy claims that polls have both himself and Trump “crushing” Joe Biden in November (spoiler: they don’t), so it makes sense for the two to debate at an event they’re both scheduled to speak at anyway:
      It’s perfect neutral territory for you and me to have a debate where you can defend your record for your wavering supporters. You yourself have said you’re not afraid to debate me as long as my poll numbers are decent. Well, they are.
      So let’s meet at the Libertarian convention and show the American public that at least two of the major candidates aren’t afraid to debate each other. I asked the convention organizers and they are game for us to use our time there to bring the American people the debate they deserve!
      The Commission on Presidential Debates has announced three debates for this year, the first scheduled to take place on 16 September in San Marcos, Texas. Participants have yet to be announced.Joe Biden also addressed recent pro-Palestinian protests on numerous US colleges and campuses, which turned violent in several cities and led to more than 2,000 arrests:
      I understand people have strong beliefs and deep convictions about the world. In America we respect and protect the fundamental right to free speech, to debate, and disagree, to protest peacefully and make our voices heard.
      I understand. That’s America. But there is no place on any campus in America, or any place in America, for antisemitism, or hate speech, or threats of violence of any kind.
      Whether against Jews or anyone else, violent attacks, destroying property, is not peaceful protest. It’s against the law. And we’re not a lawless country. We’re a civil society. We uphold the rule of law. And no one should have to hide or be brave just to be themselves.
      Biden acknowledged recent friction between his administration and Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the course of the war in Gaza, and Israel’s military push into Rafah. But he said his support for Jewish people in the US was unshakable:
      To the Jewish community, I want you to know I see your fear, your hurt and your pain. Let me reassure you as your president, you’re not alone. You belong. You always have and you always will.
      And my commitment to the safety of the Jewish people, the security of Israel, and its right to exist as an independent Jewish state is ironclad, even when we disagree.
      He said his administration was “working around the clock” to free hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza:
      We will not rest until we bring them all home. More

    • 300 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Arizona senate passes bill to repeal 1864 abortion ban; Harris says Trump’s insistence he doesn’t back national ban is ‘gaslighting’ – as it happened

      by

      Donald Trump may say that he does not plan to push for a national abortion ban, but Kamala Harris told voters in Florida that they should not believe him.“As much harm as he has already caused, a second Trump term would be even worse,” the vice-president said.“Donald Trump’s friends in the United States Congress are trying to pass a national ban and, understand, a national ban would outlaw abortion in every single state, even in states like New York and California. And now Trump wants us to believe he will not sign a national ban. Well, I say enough with the gaslighting.”Here’s more on just what Trump has said about a national ban:A showdown is set to take place next week between Republican House speaker Mike Johnson and far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is leading a charge to remove Johnson as the chamber’s leader over his collaboration with Democrats. But, unlike the last time something like this happened, Democratic leaders say they will oppose Greene’s motion to vacate, and there are already signs that rank-and-file lawmakers will follow along. As for Greene, she only has two other Republicans on board with her ouster attempt – not exactly resounding numbers. We’ll see if anything changes in the days to come. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris traveled to Florida to tell voters in a state Joe Biden is hoping to win in November that Donald Trump is to blame for the strict abortion ban that went into effect today. And in swing state Arizona, the state senate finally approved a repeal of its stringent law against abortion that dates back to the 19th century. The Democratic governor, Katie Hobbs, is expected to sign the bill.Here’s what else went on today:
      Florida Democrats have had a tough go of it in recent years, but they hope a measure to expand abortion access that will be on the ballot in November will turn their fortunes around.
      Johnson issued a brief response to Greene’s push to remove him as speaker, warning that it was “wrong for the country”.
      The aftershocks from a violent night on college campuses continue to reverberate, with the University of California, Los Angeles, canceling classes following an attack by counter-protesters on a pro-Palestinian encampment. Follow our live blog for more.
      Louisiana might not get another majority-Black congressional district after all, further complicating Democrats’ hopes of retaking the House majority in November.
      Biden ordered the cancellation of billions of dollars in debt accrued by students who attended a private college system accused of fraud.
      The Associated Press notes that voting in the senate on the bill to repeal Arizona’s strict abortion restrictions is ongoing, but the legislation has the votes to pass, with the requisite two Republicans supporting it alongside 14 Democrats.However, Arizona for Abortion Access, a coalition of reproductive rights groups, warns that the fight to keep the procedure available is far from over:Here’s more on the abortion battle in the south-west swing state that could prove crucial to Joe Biden’s or Donald Trump’s chances of winning the White House:Arizona’s state senate has passed legislation to repeal a ban on almost all abortions in the state that dates back to 1864, the Associated Press reports.The measure, which the house approved last week, now goes to Democratic governor Katie Hobbs, who said she will sign it.Despite their struggles in Florida in recent years, Democrats hope the presence on the November ballot of a measure to broaden access to abortion could sway voters they will need to win the state for Joe Biden. Last month, the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe took a close look at their plans:Democrats in Florida are teaming up with operatives from Joe Biden’s re-election campaign in an all-out assault on Republicans’ extremist positions on abortion, believing it will bring victory in presidential and US Senate races in November.They fired an opening salvo on Tuesday, tearing into Donald Trump’s “boasting” about overturning federal abortion protections a day earlier, and assailing the incumbent Republican senator Rick Scott for supporting Florida’s six-week ban that takes effect next month.Ron DeSantis, the Republican Florida governor and former candidate for the party’s presidential nomination who signed the ban into law, also found himself under fire.“The word is accountability,” Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic party, told an online launch meeting attended by Jasmine Burney-Clark, state director of the Biden-Harris campaign, and Democratic state representative Anna Eskamani, a former regional senior director of Planned Parenthood.“We are here because Donald Trump bragged about overturning Roe v Wade. Then we got here in Florida because we had an individual who wanted to run for president and wanted to take our state into extremism, the Republican legislature who voted for it, and Rick Scott … who said on the national stage he will push for a national abortion ban.“It’s incumbent on all of us, the party, the candidates, the campaigns, to make sure that we are making that very distinct link.”Here’s the moment when Kamala Harris warned Florida voters against believing Donald Trump’s insistence that he would not support federal limits on abortion:As she closed out her speech, Harris compared and contrasted a second Donald Trump term with four more years of Joe Biden, and repeated the president’s promise to sign legislation restoring the protections in Roe v Wade, should Congress approve it.“The great Maya Angelou once said, ‘When someone tells you who they are, believe them the first time.’ And Donald Trump has told us who he is. So here’s what a second Trump term looks like: more bans, more suffering, less freedom,” Harris said.“But we are not going to let that happen because you see, we trust women. We trust women to know what is in their own best interest. And women trust all of us to fight to protect their most fundamental freedom.”No Democratic president has won Florida’s electoral votes since Barack Obama in 2012, and at the state level, the GOP controls the governor’s mansion and the legislature. The state’s Democrats have generally struggled in recent years, though there have been some signs of a comeback.“This November, up and down the ballot, reproductive freedom is on the ballot. And you, the leaders, you the people, have the power to protect it with your vote. Donald Trump may think he can take Florida for granted. It is your power that will send Joe Biden and me back to the White House,” Harris said.“And when Congress passes the law that restores the reproductive freedoms of Roe, our president, Joe Biden, will sign it.”Donald Trump may say that he does not plan to push for a national abortion ban, but Kamala Harris told voters in Florida that they should not believe him.“As much harm as he has already caused, a second Trump term would be even worse,” the vice-president said.“Donald Trump’s friends in the United States Congress are trying to pass a national ban and, understand, a national ban would outlaw abortion in every single state, even in states like New York and California. And now Trump wants us to believe he will not sign a national ban. Well, I say enough with the gaslighting.”Here’s more on just what Trump has said about a national ban:Donald Trump recently said abortion policy should be left to the states, and declined to endorse a national ban on the procedure that some Republicans have called for.Harris took him to task: “Trump says he wants to leave abortion up to the states, he says, up to the states. All right. So here’s how that works out. Today, one in three women of reproductive age live in a state with a Trump abortion ban – many with no exception for rape or incest.”She then explained why she cared so much about this issue, relating a story from when she was growing up:
      As many of you know, I started my career as a prosecutor specializing in crimes against women and children. What many of you may not know is why? So, when I was in high school I learned that my best friend was being molested by her stepfather. And I said to her, well, you’ve got to come and live with us. I call my mother. And my mother said of course she does. And so she did.
      So, the idea that someone who survives a crime of violence to their body of violation of their body would not have the authority to make a decision about what happens to their body next. That’s immoral. That’s immoral.
      And one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to do.
      Harris then pivoted to the meat of her argument to Florida voters: that Donald Trump was to blame for the abortion ban that just went into effect in the state, as well as others like it nationwide.“Across our nation, we witnessed a full on assault, state by state, on reproductive freedom, and understand who is to blame: former president Donald Trump did this,” Harris said.“Donald Trump hand-picked three members of the United States supreme court because he intended for them to overturn Roe, and as he intended, they did.”Harris harkened back to her grilling, as a senator on the judiciary committee, of two of Trump’s supreme court nominees, saying it was clear after their confirmation that the days of nationwide abortion access were numbered:
      And it happened just as Donald Trump intended. Now, present day because of Donald Trump, more than 20 states have abortion bans, more than 20 Trump abortion bans. And today, this very day at the stroke of midnight, another Trump abortion ban went into effect here in Florida. As of this morning, four million women in this state woke up with fewer reproductive freedoms than they had last night. This is the new reality under a Trump abortion ban.
      Kamala Harris has taken the stage in Jacksonville, Florida, where she likened abortion access to a “fundamental freedom”.“This is a fight for freedom, the fundamental freedom to make decisions about one’s own body and not have their government tell them what they’re supposed to do,” the vice-president said.“As we know, almost two years ago, the highest court in our land, the court of Thurgood and RBG, took a constitutional right that had been recognized from the people of America, from the women of America. And now, in states across our nation, extremists have proposed and passed laws that criminalize doctors, punish women – laws that threatened doctors and nurses with prison time, even for life, simply for providing reproductive care.”Florida’s six-week abortion ban doesn’t just mark the end of most patients’ access to the procedure in the state, but also in the rest of the south-eastern United States. The Guardian’s Carter Sherman reported from a clinic trying to squeeze in appointments before it went into effect about how reproductive health access in Florida was about to change:A six-week abortion ban went into effect on Wednesday in Florida, cutting off access to the procedure before many people know they are pregnant and leveling the south-eastern United States’ last stronghold for abortion rights.The ban went into force weeks after Florida’s state supreme court issued a decision clearing the way for it to take effect. Strict bans now blanket all of the American deep south, increasing the strain on the country’s remaining clinics. The closest clinic for most Floridians past six weeks of pregnancy is now several states away in North Carolina, which outlaws abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy.Last year, Florida abortion providers performed more than 84,000 abortions, state data found – including more than 9,000 for out-of-state patients, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion restrictions. Roughly 60 % of Florida abortions occur after six weeks of pregnancy.On Tuesday, the last day before the ban took effect, an abortion clinic in Gainesville, Florida, was trying to squeeze in as many patients as possible. The clinic had added hours throughout April, but the rush was compounded by the fact that, in addition to the impending ban, Florida requires people to have an in-person consultation at an abortion clinic at least 24 hours before they get the procedure or take abortion pills. A patient could have arrived on Tuesday exactly six weeks into her pregnancy, but have been too late to get an abortion given that the ban came into effect on Wednesday.Georgia’s Republican representative Marjorie Taylor Greene is doubling down on her attempts to oust House speaker Mike Johnson.In an address today, Greene said:
      We have to have a Republican majority in January and under Mike Johnson’s leadership, we’re not going to have one …
      Hakeem Jeffries has endorsed Mike Johnson because he knows Mike Johnson’s leadership is going to hand the House majority to Democrats in January. It will make our voters not vote for him …
      Joe Biden has announced the approval of $6.1bn in student debt cancellation for 317,000 borrowers who attended the Art Institutes, a private college system that was closed last year amid fraud claims.In a statement released on Wednesday, Biden said:
      This institution falsified data, knowingly misled students, and cheated borrowers into taking on mountains of debt without leading to promising career prospects at the end of their studies …
      While my predecessor looked the other way when colleges defrauded students and borrowers, I promised to take this on directly to provide borrowers with the relief they need and deserve … And in total, we have approved debt cancellation for nearly 4.6 million Americans through various actions.
      Today’s announcement builds on all we’ve done to fix broken student loan programs and bring higher education more in reach.
      Arizona Democrats are expected to make a final push to repeal the state’s near-total abortion ban, which dates back to 1864.The Guardian and agencies report:Fourteen Democrats in the state senate are hoping to pick up at least two Republican votes to win final approval for a bill repealing the ban, which narrowly cleared the Arizona house last week and is expected to be signed by the Democratic governor.The near-total ban, which predates Arizona’s statehood, permits abortions only to save the patient’s life – and provides no exceptions for survivors of rape or incest. The law had been on the books since 1864, but had been blocked since the US supreme court’s 1973 Roe v Wade decision guaranteed the constitutional right to an abortion nationwide.In a ruling last month, however, the Arizona supreme court suggested that following the US supreme court’s decision last year to overturn Roe v Wade, doctors could be prosecuted under the civil war-era law. Under the law, anyone who assists in an abortion can be sentenced to two to five years in prison.Read the full story here:A showdown is set to take place next week between Republican House speaker Mike Johnson and far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, who is leading a charge to remove him as the chamber’s leader over his collaboration with Democrats. But, unlike the last time something like this happened, Democratic leaders say they will oppose Greene’s motion to vacate, and there are already signs that rank-and-file lawmakers will follow along. As for Greene, she only has two others on board with her ouster attempt – not exactly resounding numbers. We’ll see if anything changes in the days to come. Meanwhile, Kamala Harris is set to speak at 2.45pm in Jacksonville, Florida, and blame Donald Trump for the state’s strict abortion ban, which went into effect today. We plan to cover that live.Here’s what else has happened today so far:
      Johnson issued a brief response to Greene’s push to remove him as speaker, warning that it was “wrong for the country”.
      The aftershocks from a violent night on college campuses continue to reverberate, with the University of California, Los Angeles, canceling classes following an attack by counter-protesters on a pro-Palestinian encampment. Follow our live blog for more.
      Louisiana might not get another majority-Black congressional district after all, further complicating Democrats’ hopes of retaking the House majority in November.
      Earlier this morning, Joe Biden hammered Donald Trump as Florida’s strict abortion ban went into effect, saying the former president “ripped away the rights and freedom of women in America”.“There is one person responsible for this nightmare: Donald Trump. Trump brags about overturning Roe v Wade, making extreme bans like Florida’s possible, saying his plan is working ‘brilliantly’. He thinks it’s brilliant that more than 4 million women in Florida, and more than one in three women in America, can’t get access to the care they need,” the president said in a statement released through his re-election campaign.“Trump is worried the voters will hold him accountable for the cruelty and chaos he created. He’s right. Trump ripped away the rights and freedom of women in America. This November, voters are going to teach him a valuable lesson: don’t mess with the women of America.” More