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      Fears of US government shutdown as debt ceiling game of chicken begins

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      US politicsFears of US government shutdown as debt ceiling game of chicken beginsIf neither side budges, US risks default on debt and lowered credit rating, which would cost billions Hugo Lowellin WashingtonSun 19 Sep 2021 04.00 EDTTop Democrats are expected to dare Republicans to block a stopgap funding measure, which would trigger the double-barreled fiscal crisis of the US defaulting on its mammoth debt and a shutdown of the federal government, according to two sources familiar with the proposal.The plan being considered by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, involves suspending the debt ceiling past the 2022 midterm elections in a stopgap bill that would keep the government funded through early December, the sources said.Democrats want to then dare Republicans to block the stopgap funding measure with a filibuster and prevent it from receiving 60 votes needed to pass the Senate – which could cause a government shutdown on 1 October and leave the US unable to pay its bills.The US has almost always avoided defaults and the sources said they expected some resolution on this occasion, too, even if negotiations, like in years past, continued until the 11th hour.But economists say a failure to raise or suspend the debt limit when tied to the stopgap funding measure would be particularly catastrophic as the US would be unable to service its debt obligations in the midst of a potentially non-functional federal government.Resolving the impasse – which typically becomes a political football under a Democratic president as Republicans criticize their spending – now requires one party to blink.The strategy to tie the potentially catastrophic prospect of the US defaulting on its $28tn of debt with a government shutdown could put Republicans in a difficult position after their repeated refusal to raise the debt limit in a bipartisan fashion.It also underscores the extent of the dysfunction of Congress, as Republicans decline to back measures from voting rights legislation to police reform to a 9/11-style commission to investigate the deadly 6 January attack on the Capitol.The high-stakes showdown over the debt ceiling is accelerating after the treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, said recently the US could default in mid-October and cause “irreparable harm” to the economy if Congress failed to take action.In a letter to Pelosi, Yellen said the extraordinary measures the treasury department had been employing to finance the government on a temporary basis after the nation’s debt hit its statutory limit on 1 August would be exhausted next month.“Once all available measures and cash on hand are fully exhausted, the United States of America would be unable to meet its obligations for the first time in our history,” Yellen wrote.That meltdown could affect the US credit rating, which raises the specter of increased treasury interest rates, which could cost the government billions and lead to higher borrowing costs for American businesses, since their rates are benchmarked to treasury rates.Democrats have insisted for months that Republicans join them in taking action on the debt ceiling, arguing that it was mainly because of Republicans that the national debt increased by roughly $8tn over the course of the Trump administration.Pelosi added in a recent news conference that the need to suspend the debt ceiling stemmed in part from Republican tax cuts to the wealthy. “We’re paying the credit card, the Trump credit card,” Pelosi said.But the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, has remained adamant that Republicans will not support Democrats in raising the debt ceiling as part of a standalone bill, and that it should instead be included in a sprawling infrastructure package that can be passed on a party-line vote.“Let’s be clear,” McConnell said in a tweet on Wednesday. “With a Democratic president, a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate, Democrats have every tool they need to raise the debt limit. It is their sole responsibility.”Both Pelosi and Schumer have also noted that Democrats joined Republicans to handle the debt limit when Trump was president and believe the Republicans should now return the favor – rather than leave vulnerable Democrats open to attack ads if the ceiling is raised on a party-line vote.In pressing the point, Pelosi said that Democrats would not include a provision to raise the debt ceiling in the $3.5tn budget resolution for Biden’s infrastructure agenda that they intend to pass with the reconciliation process, to avoid a filibuster.Instead, top Democrats are moving forward with a plan to add such language in the stopgap funding measure that would keep the government funded through either 3 December or 10 December, the sources said, and hope to persuade 10 Senate Republicans to support the bill.The inclusion of the debt limit in the stopgap measure is not final, the sources cautioned, and discussions will continue as the House returns from a summer recess. It could still be added to a disaster relief bill, for instance, or be tackled in a standalone bill.Part of the worry for top Democrats is that the path to 60 votes in the Senate was significantly narrowed last month after the majority of the Senate Republican conference signed on to a letter vowing to block any bill that attempted to raise the debt ceiling.Only four Senate Republicans – the Senate appropriations committee chairman, Richard Shelby, Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins and John Kennedy – declined to sign the letter, a number far short of the threshold required to defeat an expected filibuster.TopicsUS politicsDemocratsNancy PelosinewsReuse this content More

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      Nancy Pelosi says US Capitol attack like 9/11 but an assault from within – video

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      Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker of the US Congress, has likened the 6 January attack to 9/11, saying one had been an assault on US democracy from within and the other from the outside. Speaking at a Chatham House seminar in London on Friday, she also claimed the Republicans had been hijacked by a cult that believed neither in science nor government, making it hard for the US to be governed

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      US Capitol attack like 9/11 but an assault from within, says Pelosi

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      Nancy PelosiUS Capitol attack like 9/11 but an assault from within, says PelosiHouse speaker makes remarks at Chatham House seminar in London a day after meeting Boris Johnson02:52Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editorFri 17 Sep 2021 09.11 EDTLast modified on Fri 17 Sep 2021 11.02 EDTNancy Pelosi, the House speaker of the US Congress, has likened the 6 January insurrection fomented by Donald Trump to 9/11, saying one had been an assault on US democracy from within and the other from the outside.She also claimed the Republicans had been hijacked by a cult that believed neither in science or government, making it hard for the US to be governed.Her remarks, made at a Chatham House seminar in London on Friday, arguably breach the semi-honoured rule for domestic political disputes to end at America’s water’s edge.Pelosi a strong defender of the Northern Ireland Good Friday agreement, repeated her warning of two years ago that anything that imperilled the agreement could mean the US Congress would not ratify a free trade deal with the UK.She was speaking at Chatham House the day after meeting Boris Johnson in Downing Street.She said the prime minister had given her some reading material and that she would cross-examine him on the details when they met again in Washington next week.Johnson is due to travel to the US with Liz Truss, the new UK foreign secretary, prior to the UN general assembly.“This is not said as any threat,” Pelosi insisted. “It is a prediction. If there is destruction of the Good Friday accords we’re very unlikely to have a UK-US bilateral [trade deal].”The bulk of her remarks were concerned with the collapse of bipartisanship within the US, and the implications for its relationships as an ally with other countries.The 6 January demonstration, she said, was an insurrection incited by Trump, and added that it “was an assault on Congress, constitution and our democracy. How we deal with it is really the measure of the strength of our democracy.”She also challenged Republican senators for rejecting the congressional commission into the Capitol attack, asking: “Why do they reject finding the truth of what happened in January? Is it because they had some sympathy for the cause?”She compared the 6 January protest with 9/11, saying while the attack in 2001 had been an “assault from outside”, the Capitol attack was an “assault from within”.“Horrible in both cases. What had happened to our democracy on 6 January was horrible,” she said.Although Trump did not create the problems on 6 January, she continued, “he galvanised them” with the help of social media, especially Facebook. She ironically thanked Facebook for hosting 2 million followers of the conspiracy theory QAnon on its site and said social media was a blessing, but a double-edged sword.The roots of American populism lay in fears of globalisation, automation and immigration, and was expressed through Islamophobia, antisemitism and ideas of white supremacy, she said.She added: “I would say to my Republican friends – and I do have some – take back your party, the Republican party. The Grand Old Party has made tremendous contributions to our country founded by Lincoln. Don’t let your party be hijacked by a cult – essentially, that is what is happening.“This is not conservative. This is radical rightwing, off the spectrum, anti-governance and if you are anti-governance it is very difficult to govern.“If you are in denial about climate change, if you don’t believe the science and data and won’t respond to the data, that is a problem.”She admitted the Democrats “have a big fight on our hands whether it is in the states or nationally”. She also admitted some of the alienation was caused by inequality.“In America, capitalism is our system, it is our economic system, but it has not served our economy as well as it should. So what we want to do is not depart from that, but to improve it.“You cannot have a system where the success of some springs from the exploitation of the workers and springs from the exploitation of the environment and the rest, and we have to correct that.”TopicsNancy PelosiUS Capitol attackSeptember 11 2001US politicsRepublicansDemocratsnewsReuse this content More

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      Top Republicans move to protect Trump from Capitol attack fallout

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      US Capitol attackTop Republicans move to protect Trump from Capitol attack falloutSome party leaders blamed the former president in the charged moments after the insurrection – but are now embarking on a campaign of revisionism Hugo Lowell in WashingtonThu 5 Aug 2021 02.00 EDTLast modified on Thu 5 Aug 2021 02.01 EDTTop Republicans in Congress are embarking on a new campaign of revisionism seven months after the attack on the Capitol, absolving Donald Trump of responsibility and blaming the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, for the 6 January insurrection perpetrated by a mob of Trump supporters.A Trump bombshell quietly dropped last week. And it should shock us all | Robert ReichRead moreSome House and Senate Republican leaders stated in the charged moments immediately following the attack that Trump was squarely to blame, and amid blood and shattered glass at the US Capitol, some even considered his removal.“The president bears responsibility,” the House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, said of Trump at the time, demanding that he “accept his share of responsibility”.But after nearly 200 House Republicans voted to clear Trump in his unprecedented second impeachment and Senate Republicans scuttled a 9/11-style commission to investigate the events of 6 January, the Republican party made a call to shift all blame away from Trump.The move to protect Trump from the fallout of the Capitol attack, at any cost, reflects the party leaders loyalty to a defeated former president, as well as the political self-interest of Republicans desperate to distance themselves from an insurrection they helped stoke with lies of a stolen election.The Republicans’ journey into a universe of alternate facts became virtually complete last week after House Republican leadership, days after the harrowing testimony of police officers deployed to tackle the rioters shocked Congress once more, spun a new lie about the deadly attack.No longer satisfied to simply pardon Trump for inciting his supporters to unlawfully stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election win, the No 3 House Republican, Elise Stefanik, blamed Pelosi – a target of the mob – for the violence on 6 January.“The American people deserve to know the truth: that Nancy Pelosi bears responsibility, as speaker of the House, for the tragedy that occurred on January 6,” Stefanik said falsely from the steps of the Capitol.Pelosi is not responsible for security – a duty that lies with US Capitol police – but the baseless claim promulgated by Stefanik amounted to the party leadership’s latest disinformation campaign they hope will give them political cover as the 2022 midterm elections near.There remains a deep fear among Republicans that any scrutiny into 6 January could expose their role in amplifying Trump’s lies about fraud in the 2020 election – the root cause of the insurrection – which could be used as a cudgel by Democrats at the ballot box.Some congressional Republicans privately acknowledge the fallacious logic of blaming Pelosi for the Capitol attack, but not the Republican minority leader, Mitch McConnell, her then opposite number in the Senate.But in a sign of the ambition and self-preservation guiding Republican revisionism over the Capitol attack, they also suggest that they are willing for McCarthy to indulge Trump’s claims should it help Republicans capture the House. And with Bennie Thompson, the chairman of the House select committee investigating the Capitol attack, vowing to subpoena anyone who spoke with Trump on 6 January, they note a counter-narrative takes on the added effect of undercutting the politically bruising inquiry.The revisionism over the Capitol attack heralds what some experts see as a dangerous new era in American politics: even with Trump out of the White House, Republicans advancing demonstrably false narratives to safeguard their political survival.“The GOP is thinking enough time has passed to somehow rewrite the history of events,” said Fiona Hill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former top White House Russia expert who testified at Trump’s first impeachment inquiry.“They’re hoping that it gets into the record, even if it’s pointed out that it doesn’t correlate with the facts, because once their version is out there in the media, then that’s sufficient for it to become the raw material for shaping how history recounts things later on,” Hill said.In the days after the attack, McCarthy, joined Democrats in condemning Trump and urging Congress to establish a fact-finding commission, having already called the former president and demanded he call off his rioters.McCarthy at one stage even fact-checked the former president. “Some say the riots were caused by Antifa. There is absolutely no evidence of that,” he said on the House floor. “Conservatives should be the first to say so.”But that initial resolve was quickly replaced with a renewed fealty to Trump, who demanded that Pelosi “investigate herself”, as he again falsely suggested that it was Antifa, rather than his own supporters, who perpetrated the Capitol attack.Republicans have seized on that messaging, but none more so than McCarthy, who has repeated Trump’s debunked claims and taken trips to Mar-a-Lago to ingratiate himself with Trump, whose support he considers essential for his ambitions to become Speaker in 2022.Such endeavors to placate Trump took on heightened significance last week for McCarthy, after he pulled all five of his picks for the House select committee in a moment of frustration and inadvertently left Trump without defenders on the panel.And as two US Capitol police and two DC Metropolitan police officers for hours testified to the select committee how Trump, described as a “hit man”, sent his supporters to attack the Capitol, an alarmed McCarthy moved to shift the pressure from Trump to Pelosi.“If there is a responsibility for this Capitol, on this side, it rests with the Speaker,” McCarthy said.Stefanik, who replaced Liz Cheney as Republican conference chair after her ouster in May for taking aim at Trump’s conduct and rhetoric once too often, went further, and proclaimed that the House speaker was in fact to blame for the insurrection.The political calculus of the House Republican leadership extended for the first time last week to McConnell – once fiercely critical of Trump for his role in inciting the insurrection, but now content to avoid the topic he considers a political loser.Hill told the Guardian that Republican revisionism revisionism mirrors the playbook adopted by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and an array of other autocratic leaders needing to sanitize their roles in politically embarrassing events.“You can see this over and over again in pretty much every authoritarian setting,” Hill said. “It’s fundamentally not about politics. It’s nothing more than a massive con job, a scam, concocted to keep their own personal and collective power. There’s no end other than that.It is a disinformation effort also co-opted by rank and file Republicans, who have increasingly tried to rewrite the reality of what transpired on 6 January, from claiming no rioter was armed (at least one was), to comparing the attack to a “normal tourist visit”.Standing outside the justice department last week, a group of Trump’s most vociferous defenders on Capitol Hill denounced the indictments brought against nearly 600 Capitol rioters and accused prosecutors of holding them as political prisoners.Urged on by Trump, the lawmakers falsely characterized Ashli Babbitt, an insurrectionist who was shot and killed as she tried to breach a secure area of the Capitol adjacent to the House chamber, as a patriotic martyr whose death was planned by Democrats.The fiction pushed by Stefanik drew a rebuke from at least one Republican. “All Donald Trump needs to see is that you’re making a defense, no matter how nonsensical that defense is,” Congressman Adam Kinzinger said on ABC, but not before members of his own party called for his expulsion.TopicsUS Capitol attackRepublicansDonald TrumpUS CongressUS politicsNancy PelosifeaturesReuse this content More

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      ‘Such a moron’: Pelosi heaps disdain on McCarthy for criticizing mask guidance

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      Nancy Pelosi‘Such a moron’: Pelosi heaps disdain on McCarthy for criticizing mask guidanceKevin McCarthy: mask policy a political decision by DemocratsCapitol physician reimposes mask requirement for the House Hugo LowellWed 28 Jul 2021 14.53 EDTLast modified on Wed 28 Jul 2021 14.59 EDTThe House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, on Wednesday heaped disdain on the Republican minority leader’s criticism of Congress’s new mask requirement – a reversal of policy that reflected growing number of cases and fears about the highly-transmissible Covid-19 Delta variant at the Capitol.Bipartisan group reaches agreement on ‘major issues’ of infrastructure bill, Republican says – liveRead more“He’s such a moron,” Pelosi said of the House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, after he tweeted that the mandatory mask policy was not based on science but a political decision by Democrats. (Consensus among public health officials and scientists is that masks significantly lower transmission of Covid-19, especially in indoor settings.)The unusually abrupt remark from Pelosi came as the attending physician of the Capitol reimposed the mask requirement for the House of Representatives. At least two House lawmakers and a fully-vaccinated aide to Pelosi have tested positive for the coronavirus, while the Senate homeland security and governmental affairs committee postponed a hearing after some of its members were partially exposed. The House had dropped its months-long mask policy six weeks ago in a demonstration of its optimism that the US had largely defeated the pandemic, shortly before Joe Biden declared America’s so-called independence from Covid-19.The number of Covid-19 cases has also skyrocketed across the country, and the seven-day rolling average of new infections reached 40,246 on Wednesday – around four times the level just three weeks ago – fuelled largely by vaccine holdouts and the Delta variant.Capitol physician Dr Brian Monahan said in a memo to House lawmakers and congressional aides that he was reimposing the mask policy based on new CDC guidance and the unique nature of the Capitol, where thousands of people from across the country congregate each week.“All individuals should wear a well-fitted, medical-grade filtration mask (for example an ear loop surgical mask or a KN95 mask) when they are in an interior space,” Monahan said. “For meetings in an enclosed US House of Representatives controlled space, masks are REQUIRED.”The top doctor in Congress separately dispensed the same advice for the Senate but stopped short of pushing for a mask mandate. The Senate is far smaller than the House of Representatives, and most senators voluntarily adopted masks during the pandemic.But like the measures being considered by Joe Biden to increase vaccination rates in the US, the reintroduction of the mask requirement in the House has inflamed Republicans, who have seized on such policies as a supposed egregious overreach of government power by Democrats.The House minority leader McCarthy reacted testily to Pelosi’s remark on Tuesday, again questioning the basis of the mask mandate: “If she’s so brilliant, can she explain to me where the science in the building changes between the House and the Senate,” he said.House rules say that any member who refuses to wear masks on the floor of the House chamber and in specified areas of the Capitol can be fined $500 for a first offence and $2,500 for a second, with the penalties paid out directly from their salaries.Monahan’s memo says members will not be required to wear masks when they are alone in the Capitol complex, or when they are recognised to speak on the House floor. .Still, several Republicans have already vowed to defy the mask requirement, and firebrand congresswoman Lauren Boebert caused consternation when she walked onto the House floor without a mask and threw one back at a staffer when offered her a spare, CNN reported.TopicsNancy PelosiCoronavirusHouse of RepresentativesUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      House begins Capitol attack inquiry as Republicans set to boycott proceedings

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      US Capitol attackHouse begins Capitol attack inquiry as Republicans set to boycott proceedingsCommittee established by Pelosi features two Republicans, Cheney and Kinzinger, after McCarthy withdrew his nominees Tue 27 Jul 2021 03.00 EDTLast modified on Tue 27 Jul 2021 03.02 EDTThe much-anticipated House investigation into the January attack on the US Capitol begins on Tuesday, with Republicans set to boycott proceedings in an attempt to undermine any findings.A special committee established by the Democratic House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, will convene to investigate the circumstances surrounding the deadly insurrection in Washington DC, when hundreds of Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol in an attempt to interrupt the certification of Joe Biden as president.Capitol attack committee chair vows to investigate Trump: ‘Nothing is off limits’Read moreThe committee, which will feature just two Republicans after the GOP leadership refused to participate, will hear this week from police officers who battled rioters during the attack.The investigation into the 6 January attack has become a fiercely partisan issue in Washington. The House voted in May for an independent investigation that would have been evenly split between Democrats and Republicans, but the Senate blocked the move.That left Pelosi to create a select committee to conduct the investigation. Kevin McCarthy, the Republican House minority leader, picked five Republicans to sit on the committee, but Pelosi rejected Jim Jordan and Jim Banks’ nominations, prompting McCarthy to withdraw all five nominees. Both Jordan and Banks are staunch Trump allies who deny his role in the attack and objected to the certification of Biden’s win.Liz Cheney, a Republican congresswoman from Wyoming, had already been named to the panel by Pelosi, and on Sunday Pelosi went around McCarthy again to appoint Representative Adam Kinzinger, who like Cheney is a critic of Trump, to the committee.Pelosi said Kinzinger “and other Republicans have expressed an interest to serve on the select committee. And I wanted to appoint three of them that Leader McCarthy suggested. But he withdrew their names. The two that I would not appoint are people who would jeopardise the integrity of the investigation, and there’s no way I would tolerate their antics as we seek the truth.”Kinzinger and Cheney were among the 10 House Republicans who voted for Trump’s second impeachment, and the pair were the only Republicans who voted to form the special committee. Both have cited Trump’s false claims of election fraud as a factor in the insurrection.“For months, lies and conspiracy theories have been spread, threatening our self-governance,” Kinzinger said on Sunday.“For months, I have said that the American people deserve transparency and truth on how and why thousands showed up to attack our democracy. I will work diligently to ensure we get to the truth and hold those responsible for the attack fully accountable.”Democrat Bennie Thompson will chair the committee, which on Tuesday will hear from four police officers who were on duty on 6 January. They are expected to testify about their experiences that day, including the physical and verbal abuse they were subjected to as hundreds of people swarmed the Capitol.“We have to get it right,” Thompson said on Monday. He said if the committee could find ways to prevent anything like it from happening again, “then I would have made what I think is the most valuable contribution to this great democracy”.Last week a Florida man became the first person to be sentenced to prison for his role in the January attack. More than 570 people have been charged with taking part in the riot, during and after which seven people died.TopicsUS Capitol attackHouse of RepresentativesNancy PelosiUS politicsDemocratsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More