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      Republican candidate loses US House primary in victory for pro-Israel lobbyists

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      Republican John Hostettler has lost his House primary in Indiana, delivering a victory to pro-Israel groups who sought to block the former congressman from returning to Washington. The groups attacked Hostettler as insufficiently supportive of Israel at a time when criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has hit new highs because of the war in Gaza.When the Associated Press called the eighth district primary race at 7.49pm ET, less than an hour after the last polls closed in Indiana, Mark Messmer led his opponents with 40% of the vote. Messmer, the Indiana state senate majority leader, will advance to the general election in November, which he is heavily favored to win because of the district’s Republican leanings. The victor will replace Republican congressman Larry Bucshon, who announced his retirement earlier this year.The primary concludes a contentious race in which pro-Israel groups poured millions of dollars into the district to attack Hostettler, who served in the House from 1995 to 2007. The groups specifically criticized Hostettler’s past voting record on Israel and some comments he made that were deemed antisemitic.In a book that he self-published in 2008 after leaving Congress, Hostettler blamed some of George W Bush’s advisers “with Jewish backgrounds” for pushing the country into the war in Iraq, arguing they were distracted by their interest in protecting Israel.Those comments, combined with Hostettler’s vote opposing a resolution expressing solidarity with Israel in 2000, after the start of the second intifada, outraged groups like the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) and United Democracy Project (UDP), a Super Pac affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.According to documents filed with the Federal Election Commission, UDP spent $1.2m opposing Hostettler while the RJC Victory Fund invested $950,000 in supporting Messmer.One UDP ad attacked Hostettler as “one of the most anti-Israel politicians in America”, citing his vote against the resolution in 2000. The CEO of RJC, Matt Brooks, previously lambasted Hostettler for having “consistently opposed vital aid to Israel [and] trafficked antisemitic conspiracy theories”.But the groups’ interest in a Republican primary is a notable departure from their other recent forays into congressional races. So far this election cycle, UDP has largely used its massive war chest to target progressive candidates in Democratic primaries. UDP spent $4.6m opposing the Democratic candidate Dave Min, who ultimately advanced to the general election, and the group has also dedicated $2.4m to supporting Democrat Sarah Elfreth in Maryland, which will hold its primaries next week.Aipac and its affiliates reportedly plan to spend $100m across this election cycle, so UDP may still get involved in other Republican congressional primaries. However, the groups will likely remain largely focused on Democrats, as Republican lawmakers and voters have generally indicated higher levels of support for Israel since the start of the war in Gaza.A Guardian review of the statements of members of Congress after the start of the war found that every Republican in Congress was supportive of Israel. Even as criticism of Israel’s airstrike campaign in Gaza has mounted, one Gallup poll conducted in March found that 64% of Republicans approve of Israel’s military actions, compared with 18% of Democrats and 29% of independents who said the same.Other polls have shown that most Americans support calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, and hopes for a pause in the war did briefly rise this week. Hamas leaders on Monday announced they would accept a ceasefire deal, but Israel soon dashed hopes of peace by launching an operation to take control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt. More

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

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      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

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      Trump’s scattershot attacks on justice system are causing real damage

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      Donald Trump’s verbal assaults on judges, prosecutors, witnesses, jurors and the broader US justice system, are undermining the rule of law and American democracy while fueling threats and potential violence against individuals involved with the legal cases against him and egging on his extremist allies, former federal prosecutors and judges say.In his campaign to win the presidency again, and in the midst of various criminal and civil trials, Trump has launched multiple attacks on the American legal system on his Truth Social platform to counter the 88 federal and state criminal charges he faces.Trump, the all but certain Republican presidential nominee for 2024, has accelerated glorifying the insurgents who attacked the Capitol on 6 January 2021. He has called them “patriots” and “hostages”, while promising that if he wins, he will free those convicted of crimes as one of his “first acts” in office.Meanwhile, Trump has repeatedly cast doubt on the electoral system. He has refused to say he will accept the results of the 2024 elections, a ploy similar to what he did in 2020 before falsely claiming the election was rigged – a claim he still maintains.“If everything’s honest, I’ll gladly accept the results,” Trump told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel last week. “If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country.”Darkly, Trump has also warned that if he loses the election there will be “bedlam” and a “bloodbath for the country”. These words referred, in part, to the fallout Trump predicted for the auto industry, but have distinct echoes of his false charges that he lost to Joe Biden in 2020 due to fraud.At a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on 13 April, right before his first criminal trial in New York began, Trump repeated his bogus claims about his 2020 defeat: “The election was rigged. Pure and simple, 2020 was rigged. We could never let it happen again.”At the same rally he blasted Juan Merchan, the very judge who oversees his trial in Manhattan. In that case, Trump faces 34 counts for altering company records in 2016 to hide $130,000 in hush-money payments that his fixer Michael Cohen made to the porn star Stormy Daniels, who alleged an affair with him.“I have a crooked judge,” Trump raged at Merchan, adding that he was “fully gagged before a highly conflicted and corrupt judge, who suffers from TDS … Trump Derangement Syndrome”.Trump’s multiple attacks on witnesses and jurors, who he had been told were off limits and could spur a contempt citation, have prompted Merchan twice to fine Trump a total of $10,000 for violating a gag order against such attacks.“The court will not tolerate continued willful violations of its lawful orders,” the judge has said, warning that Trump could face jail time if he made similar attacks.Trump insists without evidence that the more than seven dozen federal and state criminal charges he faces in four jurisdictions are “election interference”, and says he has done nothing illegal.Former prosecutors and judges say Trump’s incendiary rhetoric is catnip to his Maga allies and could spur violence in 2024.“At its core, the promise of pardons by Trump signals to anyone prone to insurrectionist behavior that they can expect a get out of jail card free,” said former federal judge John Jones, who is now president of Dickinson College.View image in fullscreen“My fear is that we will have civil unrest that will impede the election. My concern is that you can have vigilante groups under the guise of ‘stop the steal’, patrolling polling places and intimidating voters.”Jones stressed that “every one of the Jan 6 defendants has had appropriate due process”.“They have either been convicted or pled guilty to substantial federal crimes,” he said. “Promising them pardons in the face of that is against every principle in our system of justice.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRegarding Trump’s ongoing claims that the 2020 election was rigged and that the country will see a “bloodbath” if he loses again, Jones said: “The word ‘bloodbath’ is not ambiguous. The last time Trump fomented this kind of post-election destructiveness, people lost their lives.”Ex-federal prosecutors raise similar concerns.“To the extent President Trump is dangling pardons of the J6 defendants he is, in effect, trying to eliminate the deterrent effect of criminal prosecutions with the anticipated result of making violence on his own behalf more likely,” former prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig said.“From a legal perspective, deterrence is critical. The threats of violence in 2024 can only be mitigated by strong, consistent prosecution for violent acts in 2020.”Concerns about the potentially dangerous fallout from Trump’s attacks on the electoral and legal systems are underscored by a Brennan Center study in late April, which showed 38% of over 925 local election officials surveyed had experienced “threats, harassment or abuse”.The Brennan survey, conducted in February and March, also found that 54% of those surveyed were worried about the safety of fellow workers, and 62% were concerned about political leaders trying to interfere with how they do their jobs.On a related track, the DC judge Tanya Chutkan, who has handled a number of cases involving January 6 insurrectionists, has warned starkly about the dangers of more violence this year. Chutkan, who is slated to oversee Trump’s trial on charges by the special counsel Jack Smith that he sought to subvert the 2020 election, echoed Rosenzweig’s warning that more violence is less likely to happen if those convicted or who have pleaded guilty for the January 6 attack receive appropriate sentences.Last month, Chutkan issued a stiff sentence of 66 months for one insurgent who attacked the Capitol and has called the Jan 6 violent Capitol attack by Trump allies that led to injuries of 140 police officers “as serious a crisis as this nation has ever faced”.Notably, Chutkan has stressed that “extremism is alive and well in this country. Threats of violence continue unabated.”Ex-prosecutors also say that Trump’s attacks on the legal system are alarming.“Trump’s persistent denigration of the legal system is surely as divisive as everything else he does because he’s lying,” said the former justice department official Ty Cobb, who worked as a White House counsel for part of the Trump administration. “Trump’s lies in this area seem to have been embraced by his followers as truth.”Cobb stressed that “Trump has not been unfairly targeted by the justice department or the Biden administration, but charged only with serious crimes he has committed. The two state cases in which Trump stands criminally indicted have nothing to do with the Biden administration.” More

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      Noem book contains threat against Biden dog: ‘Commander, say hello to Cricket’

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      The White House condemned as “disturbing” and “absurd” comments in which Kristi Noem, the Republican governor of South Dakota and a potential running mate for Donald Trump, threatened to harm or kill Joe Biden’s dog.“We find her comments from yesterday disturbing,” Karine Jean-Pierre, Biden’s press secretary, told a White House briefing. “We find them absurd. This is a country that loves dogs and you have a leader that talks about putting dogs down, killing them.”Noem’s bizarre threat is contained in No Going Back, a campaign book that generated unusual buzz after the Guardian revealed how Noem describes in detail the day she shot dead her dog, Cricket, which she deemed untrainable and dangerous, and an unnamed goat.The revelation sparked a political firestorm, widely held to have incinerated Noem’s chances of being named running mate to Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.But as the book neared publication on Tuesday, it became clear Noem was not done when she closed her chapter on killing Cricket, a 14-month-old female wirehaired pointer, and the unnamed male goat, which Noem says was smelly and aggressive and dangerous to her children.At the end of No Going Back, Noem asks: “What would I do if I was president on the first day in office in 2025?”Remarkably, she writes that “the first thing I’d do is make sure Joe Biden’s dog was nowhere on the grounds. (‘Commander, say hello to Cricket for me.’)”Noem adds that her own dog, Foster, “would sure be welcome” at the White House.“He comes with me to the [state] capitol all the time and loves everyone,” she writes.Regardless, a governor widely held to have designs on the presidency in 2028 has at least implied, in print, that she would have a predecessor’s dog killed – whether by herself with a shotgun, like Cricket and the goat, or not.Noem has defended her description of killing Cricket and the goat as evidence of her willingness to do unpleasant but necessary things in farm life as well as in politics.Commander, a German shepherd owned by Joe and Jill Biden, was removed from the White House after biting Secret Service agents.On Monday, Jean-Pierre said: “Commander’s living with family members.”The day before, Noem doubled down.Her host on CBS’s Face the Nation, Margaret Brennan, quoted Noem’s apparent threat to kill Commander and asked: “Are you doing this to try to look tough? Do you still think that you have a shot at being a VP?”Noem said: “Well, number one, Joe Biden’s dog has attacked 24 Secret Service people. So, how many people is enough people to be attacked and dangerously hurt before you make a decision on a dog and what to do with it?”Brennan said: “Well, he’s not living at the White House any more.”Noem said: “That’s a question that the president should be held accountable to.”Brennan said: “You’re saying he [Commander] should be shot?”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionNoem said: “That what’s the president should be accountable to.”Noem tried to move on, to talk about Covid in South Dakota. But she also said she was “so proud” of a book that contained “a lot of truthful stories”.Elsewhere, though, Noem’s publisher, Center Street, said that at Noem’s request it was removing from her book “a passage regarding Kim Jong-un … upon a reprint of the print edition and as soon as technically possible on the audio and ebook editions”.In her book, Noem writes: “I remember when I met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. I’m sure he underestimated me, having no clue about my experience staring down little tyrants (I’d been a children’s pastor, after all).”As first reported by the Dakota Scout, no such meeting occurred.Noem told CBS: “What bothers me the most about politicians is when they’re fake.”Brennan said: “But if you have to retract … parts of [the book] …”Noem, whose publisher said it would retract part of her book, said: “I’m not retracting anything.”Brennan said: “OK.”On Saturday, Noem attended a Trump Florida fundraiser featuring a host of vice-presidential contenders.Noem was “somebody I love”, NBC reported Trump as saying, adding: “She’s been with me, and a supporter, and I’ve been a supporter of hers for a long time.”But unlike other hopefuls, among them the South Carolina senator Tim Scott and the New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik, Noem was not called to the stage.She reportedly left early. More

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      House set to vote on Marjorie Taylor Greene effort to remove Mike Johnson

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      The House is expected to vote this week on a motion to remove Republican Mike Johnson as speaker, but the effort, spearheaded by hard-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, faces virtually no chance of success.Greene announced on Wednesday she would move forward with forcing a vote on Johnson’s removal this week, following through on a threat she first issued in late March. Greene has consistently attacked Johnson for advancing bills that have attracted widespread bipartisan support, such as the government spending proposal approved in March and the foreign aid package signed into law last month.As she called for Johnson’s removal, Greene accused the speaker of abandoning his Republican principles in favor of Democratic priorities, such as Ukraine funding.“Mike Johnson is giving [Democrats] everything they want,” Greene said Wednesday. “I think every member of Congress needs to take that vote and let the chips fall where they may. And so next week, I am going to be calling this motion to vacate.”But Greene’s proposal is widely expected to fail, as House Democratic leaders indicated last week that they would vote to table, or kill, the motion to vacate the chair. In a statement issued on Tuesday, the three leaders cited the passage of the foreign aid package, which included nearly $61bn in funding for Ukraine, to justify their stance.“At this moment, upon completion of our national security work, the time has come to turn the page on this chapter of pro-Putin Republican obstruction,” the leaders said. “We will vote to table Marjorie Taylor Greene’s motion to vacate the chair. If she invokes the motion, it will not succeed.”Among House Republicans, Greene’s campaign has attracted little interest, as only two of her colleagues – Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Paul Gosar of Arizona – have expressed their support of the motion.Although the effort will almost certainly fail, Greene can still force a vote on her motion to vacate. Current House rules stipulate that a single member of the chamber may “offer a privileged resolution declaring the Office of Speaker vacant”. Greene introduced such a resolution in March, but she stopped short of calling for a vote on the matter.Greene plans to move forward with requesting a vote on the motion, which will force the House to take up the matter within two legislative days.Before voting on removing the speaker, one of Johnson’s allies is expected to introduce a motion to table the proposal. When then speaker Kevin McCarthy was facing the threat of removal in October, his allies tried the same tactic, but the motion to table failed in a vote of 208 to 218.This time around, the House will almost certainly be able to pass a motion to table Greene’s resolution. With House Democratic leadership signaling that they will support the motion to table and only two Republican colleagues joining Greene’s cause, she remains hundreds of votes short of the majority that she will need to remove the speaker. (However, Democrats are not expected to unanimously back the motion to table, as some have signaled they will oppose it or vote “present”.)Johnson himself has appeared largely unbothered by Greene’s threats, criticizing her motion as “wrong for the Republican conference, wrong for the institution and wrong for the country”. At a press conference on Tuesday, Johnson insisted that he remained laser-focused on advancing House Republicans’ legislative priorities.“I have to do my job. We have to do what we believe to be the right thing,” Johnson said. “We need people who are serious about the job here to continue to do that job and get it done.”If Johnson were ousted, he would become only the second House speaker in US history to be formally removed from the position – and yet he would also be the second speaker removed in less than a year. In October, a small group of Republicans joined Democrats in ousting McCarthy, making him the first House speaker to ever endure that humiliation.McCarthy’s departure set off weeks of chaos in the House, as Republicans repeatedly failed in their efforts to choose a new speaker. The House remained at a complete standstill for three weeks, unable to conduct any official business, until Johnson (the conference’s fourth speaker nominee) won election.Johnson has often referenced that embarrassing episode in recent weeks, as he has attempted to dissuade Republicans from joining Greene’s campaign.“We saw what happened with the motion to vacate the last time,” Johnson said on Tuesday. “Congress was closed for three weeks. No one can afford for that to happen.” More

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      Democrats rally to Biden’s defense over response to pro-Palestinian student protests

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      Some Democrats rallied to the defense of Joe Biden on Sunday as the president came under increased criticism over his response to pro-Palestinian student protests and his handling of Israel’s war on Gaza.Republicans have seized on Biden’s response to the protests, which have seen more than2,000 people arrested around the country, accusing him of a weak response. But prominent Democrats, including Biden re-election campaign co-chairperson Mitch Landrieu, the former mayor of New Orleans, claimed the president “has been very strong about this from the beginning”.Their support came as campus protests have seen an increasingly aggressive police response. An encampment at the University of Southern California was cleared by police in riot gear on Sunday morning, and a similar effort at the University of California, Los Angeles was shut down by police who reportedly used rubber bullets on Thursday. Scores of protesters were arrested at Columbia University on Tuesday night – a move which New York City’s mayor defended in an interview on Sunday.Asked on CNN’s State of the Union if Biden could have reacted differently to the protests, which have seen clashes between pro-Palestine and pro-Israel protesters as well as dueling accusations of antisemitism and Islamophobia, Landrieu said: “The president’s been very clear about this. He’s also been very strong about the need to stamp out antisemitism and Islamophobia. It’s a very difficult time, [there are] very passionate opinions on both sides of this issue.“The president has been handling it I think very, very well and I think he will continue to do so.”Thousands of young people have protested at university campuses across the country in recent weeks, criticizing the Biden administration’s continued support of Israel. More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, and 2 million displaced, since Israel attacked the enclosed strip in response to Hamas terrorist attacks which killed more than 1,100 Israelis.Speaking on NBC’s Meet the Press, Mark Kelly, the Arizona senator, added his voice to Democrats who have voiced approval for police crackdowns on campus sit-ins, saying it is “appropriate for police to step in” when protests turn into “unlawful acts”.“When they cross a line and when they commit crimes, they should be arrested,” Kelly said.“That’s the appropriate thing to do.”Kelly said some of the university protests had “become very violent, and students – especially Jewish students – have the right to feel safe on a campus, and they’ve gotten out of control”.“Everybody has the right to protest peacefully. But when it turns into unlawful acts – and we’ve seen this in a number of colleges and universities including here in Arizona – it’s appropriate for the police to step in,” he said.Biden had mostly stayed silent on the unrest at university campuses until he addressed the issue on Thursday.“Dissent is essential for democracy,” Biden said in an address at the White House. “But dissent must never lead to disorder.”Biden said some protesters had used “violent” methods.“Violent protests are not protected. Peaceful protest is,” he said. “There’s the right to protest, but not the right to cause chaos.”The president added: “Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campus, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduation … none of this is a peaceful protest.”On Sunday, Eric Adams, the mayor of New York, defended how the police have handled protests in the city. About 280 people were arrested at Columbia University and the City University of New York last week.“When those protests reach the point of violence, we have to ensure that we use a minimum amount of force to terminate what is perceived to be a threat,” Adams told ABC News This Week.John Fetterman, the Democratic Pennsylvania US senator who is a vocal supporter of Israel, said the protests were “working against peace in the Middle East” and reiterated his backing for the US sending aid to the country.“I will never support any kind of conditions on Israel during this. And again, I would, I am going to continue to center – Hamas is responsible for all of that again, then,” Fetterman said.“And now if you’re going to protest on these campuses, or now what, they’re going all across America as well, too. I really want to, can’t forget, that the situation right now could end right now, if Hamas just surrendered.”Hours after calling in state troopers to break up a quiet, rain-soaked encampment of anti-war protesters, the University of Virginia president, Jim Ryan, issued a public statement calling the episode “upsetting, frightening and sad”.Ryan had been noticeably absent from the episode itself. His public statement Saturday evening, his first on the matter, came well after the encampment had been raided and the 25 demonstrators who had pitched tents on the patch of grass by the university’s chapel were arrested.Ryan called it unfortunate that a small group had chosen to break university rules after receiving repeated warnings.“I sincerely wish it were otherwise, but this repeated and intentional refusal to comply with reasonable rules intended to secure the safety, operations, and rights of the entire university community left us with no other choice than to uphold the neutral application and enforcement of those rules,” he wrote.Nonetheless, the arrests were criticized by Jamaal Bowman, the New York progressive Democratic congressman who has been critical of Israel.“I am outraged by the level of police presence called upon nonviolent student protestors on Columbia and CCNY’s campuses. As an educator who has first hand experience with the over-policing of our schools, this is personal to me,” Bowman wrote on X.“The militarization of college campuses, extensive police presence, and arrest of hundreds of students are in direct opposition to the role of education as a cornerstone of our democracy.” More

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      Kristi Noem defends killing dog: ‘I’m tired of politicians pretending to be what they’re not’

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      The South Dakota governor and Republican vice-presidential hopeful Kristi Noem asked the American public to consider having to “make a choice between your children or a dangerous animal”, as she again defended her killing of a 14-month-old dog.“I would ask everybody in the country to put themselves in that situation,” Noem told CBS’s Face the Nation about her decision to shoot the dog, named Cricket, after the animal ruined a pheasant hunt and killed a neighbor’s chickens.“Because that’s what I faced, and I talked about it because what I’m tired of in this country is politicians who pretend to be something that they’re not.”Asked why she did not surrender Cricket to an animal shelter before killing the dog, about 20 years ago, Noem repeated her prior claims that the creature was simply untrainable, had tried to bite her, and might have bitten others.“I had put months and months of training into this dog – the dog had gone to other trainers as well,” Noem said. “When you put someone in a position where … they want to protect their family and protect children and other people from getting attacked, … that’s the choice I made.“And … I didn’t ask anybody to take that responsibility for me.”Noem’s latest justification for fatally shooting Cricket at her farm – an act chronicled in her upcoming memoir No Going Back and first reported by the Guardian – comes as fellow Republicans have all but written off her chances of being chosen as Donald Trump’s running mate in November’s presidential election.A Guardian review of South Dakota state law found Noem may have committed misdemeanors by failing to control Cricket and by killing the animal on her own property. A spokesperson has not responded to inquiries on that point, which many advocates against animal cruelty have also raised.Remarkably, Cricket was only one of two animals Noem says she shot on the same day. On Sunday, the CBS host Margaret Brennan asked Noem to address her admission that, after Cricket, she also shot dead an un-castrated goat, which “smelled” and chased children around Noem’s farm. In No Going Back, the chapter that recounts the episode is entitled “Bad Day to be a Goat”.Brennan noted that Noem’s book also contains the phrase, “Commander, say hello to Cricket” – a reference to Joe Biden’s dog, who was removed from the White House after biting or otherwise assailing Secret Service agents.“How do you justify that?” Brennan said to Noem of her decision to kill the goat. “How was the goat a threat? And I’m asking you this because it seems like you’re celebrating the killing of the animals?”Noem replied that political opponents know the story of the goat’s killing well and have tried to leverage it against her, so she simply wanted “the truth to be out there”.“These animals were attacking,” Noem said. “We live on a farm and a ranch and … tough decisions are made many times, and it is – it is to protect people.”Noem obliquely acknowledged that – ahead of her book’s release Tuesday – she had to retract an anecdote about meeting the North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un because the encounter never happened.In her book, Noem claims she was “underestimated” by Kim, but trumpets her experience of “staring down little tyrants”, from her work as a religious pastor ministering to children.The Dakota Scout newspaper reported how Noem’s account of meeting Kim was unlikely, and her spokesperson subsequently told journalists a correction was forthcoming. On Sunday, Noem said “this anecdote shouldn’t have been in the book, and as soon as it was brought to my attention, I made sure that that was adjusted”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“When the book is released, we’ll do all that we can to see that – that that is reflected,” Noem said.Pressed on the retraction, Noem suggested that she could no longer hear the host.“Hello? I’m sorry, I … ” the former congresswoman said, as Brennan asked why she had not caught the error as she recorded the audio book of the memoir.Yet Noem answered seamlessly when Brennan finished the question, saying: “As soon as it was brought to my attention, I took action to make sure that it was reflected.”Noem insisted: “I’ve met with many, many world leaders – I’ve traveled around the world.”But she also said she was no longer interested in delving into details about such audiences.“I’m not going to talk to you about those personal meetings,” Noem said. “OK? I’m just not going to have that conversation.”Sunday’s interview occurred after Trump called some of those on his VP shortlist to the stage at a private donor retreat in Florida over the weekend, NBC reported. Noem left early and was not included.Edward Helmore contributed reporting More

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      Minority Rule review: rich history of America’s undemocratic democracy

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      Ari Berman’s new book is a rich history of America’s ambivalent attitude toward majority rule. The founding document declared “all men are created equal”, but by the time a constitution was drafted 11 years later, there was already a severe backlash to that revolutionary assertion.To prevent the union from disintegrating, free states and big states repeatedly gave in to slave states and small states, producing a constitution that would be adopted by the majority.The first and worst decision was to give each state two senators regardless of population. Virginia had 12 times the population of Delaware. Today, the situation is vastly worse: California is 63 times bigger than Wyoming. By 2040, Berman writes, “roughly 70% of Americans will live in 15 states with 30 senators, while the other 30%, who are whiter, older and more rural … will elect 70 senators”.The filibuster, a delaying tactic that led to most legislation requiring 60 votes to pass the Senate – but which has no basis in the constitution – makes the country even more undemocratic. Forty Republican senators representing just 21% of the population have blocked bills on abortion rights, voting rights and gun control supported by big majorities.The House of Representatives was supposed to be closer to the people than the Senate, which wasn’t even elected by voters when first created. But when the free states placated the slave states by allowing them to count every enslaved Black person as three-fifths of a human being, for the purposes of representation, that increased how many representatives slave states sent to the House.To Berman, it was “a fundamental contradiction that the nation’s most important democratic document was intended to make the country less democratic”. As the New Yorker Melancton Smith noted at the time, the constitution represented a “transfer of power from the many to the few”.The national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones, Berman also offers a horrific description of the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent by modern-day oligarchs to make America even more undemocratic. In just six years, the Federalist Society raised an astonishing $580m “through a shadowy network of a dozen dark money nonprofit groups” to put its “preferred judges on the bench”. The society has gotten a huge bang for its buck – more than 500 judges appointed by both Bushes and 226 appointed by Donald Trump were endorsed by the Federalists.The worst results of this hammerlock on judicial appointments are at the very top of the pyramid: “For the first time in US history, five of six conservative justices on the supreme court have been appointed by Republican presidents who initially lost the popular vote and confirmed by senators representing a minority of Americans.”And what is the “signature project” of these justices? The dismantling of the civil rights laws that are the greatest legacy of the 1960s.Federalist Society judges worked in lockstep with the Republican Senate leader, Mitch McConnell, whose priority has been to put an end to all effective limits on who can spend how much in every election.“I never would have been able to win my race if there had been a limit on the amount of money I could raise and spend,” McConnell wrote of his first race, in 1984. Eighteen years later, the Republican John McCain and Democrat Russ Feingold managed to ban unlimited donations. Their law survived McConnell’s first lawsuit to undo it, on a 5-4 supreme court vote. But four years later, after the extremist Samuel Alito replaced the moderate Sandra Day O’Connor, the court gutted the law, allowing unlimited corporate expenditure as long as ads “didn’t explicitly” endorse a candidate.“Thus began a trend,” Berman explains. “GOP-appointed judges reliably supported Republican efforts to tilt the rules and institutions of democracy in their favor … which in turn helped Republicans win more elections and appoint more judges, with one undemocratic feature of the system augmenting the other.”As the country’s founders adopted a constitution that disenfranchised all Black people and all women, modern conservatives do all they can to keep the voting rolls as unrepresentative as possible, particularly as people of color become the majority in the US. Racism remains the strongest fuel for efforts to make it as hard as possible for Black and younger voters to exercise their franchise.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe worst recent example of this was the failure of a narrowly Democratic Senate to adopt a voting rights act in 2021. It failed when Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, both Democrats then, refused to alter the filibuster rule. Manchin supported the bill, then reversed with a specious explanation: while the right to vote was “fundamental to American democracy … protecting that right … should never be done in a partisan manner”Berman’s book ends on a more hopeful note, with descriptions of Democratic victories in Michigan and Wisconsin.In Michigan, a 29-year-old activist, Katie Fahey, figured out she could end the gerrymandering which had let the Republicans dominate her state by putting a ballot initiative before the voters. She needed 315,000 signatures. In one of the few good news stories about social media, she was able to use Facebook to gather 410,000 signatures in 110 days without any paid staff. In 2018, the reform won with an amazing 61% of the vote. Another initiative that dramatically expanded voter access through automatic and election-day access passed by 66%.The end of gerrymandering enabled Democrats to flip both houses in Michigan in 2022, “giving them control of state politics for the first time in 40 years”. And in Wisconsin, the election of an additional liberal justice to the state supreme court finally ended Republicans’ domination of the state government.The hopeful message is clear: despite massive Republican efforts to suppress liberal votes, it is still possible for a well-organized grassroots campaign to overcome the millions of dollars spent every year to prevent the triumph of true democracy.
      Minority Rule is published in the US by Farrar, Straus and Giroux More