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      Andy Kim wins Democratic primary in race for Bob Menendez’s Senate seat

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      Democratic congressman Andy Kim has won New Jersey’s Senate primary, putting him in strong position for the general election in the blue-leaning state, though the win comes a day after Democratic senator Bob Menendez filed to run as an independent amid his federal corruption trial.Menendez, who has denied allegations that he accepted bribes to promote the interests of the Egyptian government, has chosen not to seek the Democratic Senate nomination. Kim’s win comes after a bruising battle that led New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy to withdraw from the race in March.But Menendez has not opted out of the Senate race entirely, as he officially filed for re-election as an independent candidate on Monday, allowing him to continue raising money, which can be used to help cover his hefty legal bills, but his chances of victory in November appear non-existent. According to a poll conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University last month, Menendez is only attracting 6% or 7% of the vote in hypothetical general election match-ups.In the Republican Senate contest, hotelier Curtis Bashaw defeated Mendham Borough mayor Christine Serrano Glassner.Bashaw centered his campaign in part on ending “one-party monopoly” in New Jersey, where state government is led entirely by Democrats, and on sending a conservative to Washington. It’s unclear whether that message will resonate with general election voters, who have not elected a Republican to the Senate in more than five decades. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans by about 1 million in New Jersey.Menendez’s legal troubles have also jeopardized the political future of his son, freshman congressman Rob Menendez. Hoboken’s mayor, Ravi Bhalla, has launched a primary challenge against Rob Menendez in New Jersey’s eighth congressional district, and the two candidates have nearly matched each other in fundraising hauls. Though Rob Menendez has not been implicated in his father’s alleged crimes, Bhalla has focused his campaign messaging on the need to crack down on corruption and to “return power to the people”. The winner of the primary is overwhelmingly favored to win the general election in November, as the Cook Political Report rates the district as solidly Democratic.New Jersey voters were also picking House candidates, with some of the most closely watched races having some tie to Menendez.In the eighth district, US representative Rob Menendez, the son of Senator Menendez, won his Democratic primary over Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla.Rob Menendez said Bhalla’s heavy focus on his father showed he was afraid to take on the representative directly.Menendez, an attorney and former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey commissioner, first won election in northern New Jersey’s eighth district in 2022, succeeding Albio Sires.He has been a lonely voice of support for his father amid his legal woes.The eighth district includes parts of Elizabeth, Jersey City and Newark.In the third district, Assemblyman Herb Conaway won the Democratic primary to succeed Kim.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBeyond New Jersey, four other states – Iowa, Montana, New Mexico and South Dakota – and Washington DC have primary elections on Tuesday. In Iowa, two House Republicans – Mariannette Miller-Meeks in the first district and Randy Feenstra in the fourth district – have drawn primary challenges. Feenstra’s district is viewed as safely Republican in the general election, but the Cook Political Report rates Miller-Meeks’ seat as likely Republican, creating a potential opportunity for Democrats in November.In Montana, the Republican governor, Greg Gianforte, faces a primary challenger, and the winner of that race will likely compete against first-time Democratic candidate Ryan Busse, a former firearms executive turned gun industry critic, in November. But Busse will face an uphill battle in the gubernatorial race, as Donald Trump won Montana by 16 points in 2020.Despite Montana’s Republican leanings, Democratic incumbent Jon Tester is keeping the Senate race close as he seeks a fourth term. In the general election, Tester will likely compete against Republican Tim Sheehy, a businessman and former Navy Seal who is widely expected to win his party’s Senate nomination on Tuesday.New Mexico’s incumbent Democratic senator, Martin Heinrich, is running unopposed in his primary, and he will go on to face off against Republican Nella Domenici, former chief financial officer of the hedge fund Bridgewater Associates. The Cook Political Report rates New Mexico’s Senate race as solidly Democratic, but one of the state’s House races is viewed as among the most competitive in the nation. Freshman Democratic congressman Gabe Vazquez will have a rematch against former Republican congresswoman Yvette Herrell in New Mexico’s second congressional district, after he defeated the then incumbent by less than one point in 2022. Both Vazquez and Herrell are running unopposed in their primaries, so they are already gearing up for the general election.While much attention will be paid to congressional primaries on Tuesday, all five voting states and Washington DC will simultaneously hold their presidential primaries as well. Biden and Trump have already secured enough delegates to lock up their parties’ nominations, but the results on Tuesday will offer some of the first insight into Republican primary voters’ views following the former president’s felony conviction in New York last week.Although former UN ambassador Nikki Haley dropped out of the Republican presidential primary in March, she has continued to win support in recent contests. In Maryland’s Republican presidential primary last month, Haley won nearly 23% of the vote. Leaders of both parties will be watching closely to see how Haley’s vote share might rise – or fall – after Trump’s conviction, and her performance could offer significant clues about the electorate heading into the general election.Associated Press contributed to this report More

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      Arizona legislature overrules governor on proposal criminalizing non-citizens

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      The Republican-controlled Arizona legislature gave final approval Tuesday to a proposal asking voters to make it a state crime for non-citizens to enter the state through Mexico at any location other than a port of entry, sending the measure to the 5 November ballot.The vote came as Joe Biden unveiled plans Tuesday to restrict the number of people seeking asylum at the US-Mexico border, saying: “This action will help to gain control of our border, restore order to the process.”Arizona’s proposal, approved on a 31-29 vote by the state house, would allow state and local police to arrest people crossing the border without authorization. It would also give state judges the power to order people convicted of the offense to return to their countries of origin.The proposal bypasses the Democratic governor Katie Hobbs, who had vetoed a similar measure in early March and has denounced the effort to bring the issue to voters.House Republicans closed access to the upper gallery of the chamber before the session started Tuesday, citing concerns about security and possible disruptions. The move immediately drew the criticism of Democrats, who demanded that the gallery be reopened.“The public gallery should be open to the public. This is the people’s house,” said the state representative Analise Ortiz.House representatives voted along party lines, with all Republicans voting in favor of the proposal and all Democrats voting against it. Earlier, the Arizona senate also approved the proposal on a 16-13 party-line vote.Supporters of the bill said it was necessary to ensure security along the state’s southern border, and that Arizona voters should be given the opportunity to decide the issue themselves.“We need this bill and we must act on it,” said state representative John Gillette, a Republican.Opponents called the legislation unconstitutional and said it would lead to racial profiling, separating children from parents and creating several millions of dollars in additional policing costs that the state can ill afford.“It is not a solution. It is election-year politics,” said representative Mariana Sandoval, a Democrat.While federal law already prohibits the unauthorized entry of people into the US, proponents of the measure say it’s needed because the federal government hasn’t done enough to stop people from crossing illegally over Arizona’s vast, porous border with Mexico. They also said some people who enter Arizona without authorization commit identity theft and take advantage of public benefits.Opponents say the proposal will inevitably lead to racial profiling by police and saddle the state with new costs from law enforcement agencies that don’t have experience with immigration law, as well as hurt Arizona’s reputation in the business world.Supporters have waved off racial-profiling concerns, saying local officers would still have to develop probable cause to arrest people who enter Arizona between the ports of entry.Backers also say the measure focuses only on the state’s border region and – unlike Arizona’s landmark 2010 immigration law – doesn’t target people throughout the state. Opponents point out the proposal doesn’t contain any geographical limitations on where it can be enforced within the state.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe proposal is similar to a Texas law that has been put on hold by a federal appeals court while it’s being challenged. But the Arizona ballot proposal contains other provisions that aren’t included in the Texas measure and aren’t directly related to immigration. Those include making it a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison for selling fentanyl that leads to a person’s death, and a requirement that some government agencies use a federal database to verify a non-citizen’s eligibility for benefits.Warning about potential legal costs, opponents pointed to Arizona’s 2005 immigrant smuggling ban used by then Maricopa county Sheriff Joe Arpaio to carry out 20 large-scale traffic patrols that targeted immigrants. That led to a 2013 racial-profiling verdict as well as taxpayer-funded legal and compliance costs that now total $265m and are expected to reach $314m by July 2025.Under the current proposal, a first-time conviction of the border-crossing provision would be a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail. State judges could order people to return to their countries of origin after completing a term of incarceration, although the courts would have the power to dismiss cases if those arrested agree to return home.The measure would require the state corrections department to take into custody people who are charged or convicted under the measure if local or county law enforcement agencies don’t have enough space to house them.The proposal includes exceptions for people who have been granted lawful-presence status or asylum by the federal government.The provision allowing for the arrests of people crossing the border in between ports would not take effect until the Texas law or similar laws from other states have been in effect for 60 days.This isn’t the first time Republican lawmakers in Arizona have tried to criminalize people who aren’t authorized to be in the United States.When passing its 2010 immigration bill, the Arizona legislature considered expanding the state’s trespassing law to criminalize the presence of immigrants and impose criminal penalties. But the trespassing language was removed and replaced with a requirement that officers, while enforcing other laws, question people’s immigration status if they were believed to be in the country illegally.The questioning requirement was ultimately upheld by the US supreme court despite the racial-profiling concerns of critics, but courts barred enforcement of other sections of the law. More

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      Merrick Garland hits back at Trump and Republicans: ‘I will not be intimidated’

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      US attorney general Merrick Garland has defended his stewardship of the justice department in a combative display on Capitol Hill that saw him accusing Republicans of attacking the rule of law while telling them he “will not be intimidated.”Testifying before the House judiciary committee, Garland accused GOP congressmen of engaging in conspiracy theories and peddling false narratives.“I will not be intimidated,” Garland told lawmakers. “And the justice department will not be intimidated. We will continue to do our jobs free from political influence. And we will not back down from defending our democracy.”Garland’s fiery speech pushed back hard on the claim that the prosecution of Donald Trump – in the hush-money case that last week resulted in the president being convicted of 34 felony charges – was “somehow controlled by the justice department”.He described Republican attacks on the justice department under his watch as “unprecedented and unfounded”, vowing not to allow them to influence his decision-making.Garland also upbraided Trump for claiming the FBI had been “authorized to shoot him” dead when they raided his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida to retrieve classified documents in 2022.“This is dangerous,” Garland told the committee. “It raises the threats of violence against prosecutors and career agents. The allegation is false.”Garland, 71, is currently overseeing special prosecutor Jack Smith’s investigations into Trump, and a prosecution of Joe Biden’s son Hunter. He was summoned to testify amid Republican assertions that the justice department had been “weaponised” against the former president, a claim Trump has stoked.His appearance came as he faces the likelihood of being held in contempt of congress for declining to hand over audio recordings of an interview between another special prosecutor, Robert Hur. Hur was appointed by Garland to investigate Joe Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, an offence similar to some of those for which Trump is being investigated.Hur concluded that Biden had committed no crime but raised questions about Biden’s age and allegedly poor memory.Referring to Republican threats to hold him in contempt, Garland said: “I view contempt as a serious matter. But I will not jeopardize the ability of our prosecutors and agents to do their jobs effectively in future investigations.”A full transcript of Biden’s interview with Hur was made public. But the White House rejected Republican demands for the audio to be released, arguing that it served no useful purpose other than to enable the president’s opponents to splice the recording to make him appear confused, perhaps by emphasizing his stammer.Garland said releasing the audio could have the effect of deterring future witnesses from cooperating in justice department investigations if they thought their words might be made public.In his opening statement, he said the Republicans were “seeking contempt as a means of obtaining – for no legitimate purpose – sensitive law enforcement information that could harm the integrity of future investigations”.“This effort is only the most recent in a long line of attacks on the justice department’s work,” he added.The committee chairman, Jim Jordan – a rightwinger Republican from Ohio – set the tone for the hearing, saying: “Justice is no longer blind in America. Today it’s driven by politics. Example number one is President Trump.”Matt Gaetz, another hard-right Republican from Florida, accused Garland of dispatching a former justice department official, Matthew Colangelo, to Manhattan, where he now serves as assistant district attorney and helped prepare the case against Trump.Garland replied: “That is false. I did not dispatch Colangelo.” More

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      ‘The necessary steps to secure our border’: Biden defends decision to impose limits on asylum seekers – as it happened

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      Donald Trump and his allies have for years called for the closure of the southern border. Now, Joe Biden is doing that, albeit only occasionally, and specifically when arrivals of new asylum seekers exceed 2,500 a day.How did we get here? The answer can be found earlier this year, when a bipartisan group of senators reached a compromise to tighten access for migrants and approve a new infusion of aid to Ukraine and Israel’s military that the Biden administration said was desperately needed by two of Washington’s top allies.But despite the fact that one of their own lawmakers negotiated the deal, which contained hardline immigration policies Democrats normally would not support, the GOP voted it down, ostensibly so Trump could campaign on his own draconian approach to immigration.Which brings us to today. Congress went on to approve the foreign aid bill separately, and today, Biden used his presidential policies to limit access to asylum seekers on days when the border is “overwhelmed” as the White House put it – while repeatedly training his ire on Trump and his allies.“I’ve come here today to do what the Republican Congress refuses to do – take the necessary steps to secure our border,” Biden said as he began his speech.Trump “told the Republicans … that he didn’t want to fix the issue, he wanted to use it to attack me. That’s what he wanted to do. It was … an extremely cynical political move and a complete disservice to the American people who are looking for us to not to weaponize the border, but to fix it.”Here’s more on Biden’s new border policy:After months of ultimately fruitless haggling over immigration policy in Congress, Joe Biden announced new rules that will see the southern border temporarily shut to most new asylum seekers at periods when it becomes “overwhelmed”. The president blamed Republicans and Donald Trump for blocking legislation he said would be better suited to dealing with the issue, while warning the country’s hospitality was “wearing thin” amid the migration wave. The policy change comes amid signs voters are increasingly concerned about migrants arriving in the United States, but risk alienating some of Biden’s allies, who warn it amounts to a draconian response to what is essentially a humanitarian crisis. Back at the Capitol, the GOP continued its counteroffensive against Biden after Trump’s felony conviction last week. Speaker Mike Johnson blamed Democrats for the guilty verdict, saying it represents “a new low”, while attorney general Merrick Garland faced a tough crowd during a hearing before the judiciary committee.Here’s what else happened today:
      Republicans said Biden’s new policy amounted to an “election-year border charade”, and demanded tougher action on migrants.
      Biden attacked Trump as a “convicted felon” who should not be let back into the White House at a Monday evening fundraiser.
      Wisconsin’s attorney general filed charges against three Trump associates for attempting to disrupt Biden’s election victory in the state four years ago, including notorious attorney Kenneth Chesebro.
      An official with ties to a group promoting lies about the 2020 vote sits on the elections board in Fulton county, the most-populous in swing state Georgia.
      Opening arguments began in Hunter Biden’s trial on gun charges in Delaware, with prosecutors telling the jury that “no one is above the law”.
      In a post on Truth Social, Donald Trump responded to Joe Biden’s executive order with a host of insults, and a recitation of his typically hardline rhetoric on immigration.“Crooked Joe Biden has totally surrendered our Southern Border. His weakness and extremism have resulted in a Border Invasion like we have never seen before,” Trump said in the post, which segues into a three-minute video in which he calls Biden “pathetic”.Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center provides legal services to migrants on both sides of the US and Mexican border, and, in a statement, executive director Marisa Limón Garza condemned Joe Biden’s new immigration policy:
      Today’s decision clearly illustrates that this administration is ignoring lessons from the failed deterrence measures put in place by its predecessors.
      Being strong on immigration doesn’t require an assault on asylum seekers or cruelty toward people seeking protection at our southern border. The Biden administration doesn’t need to rely on harsh deterrence tactics like Trump’s failed Muslim travel ban and Latino ban, which were also created to close the doors on refugees and send families back to the violent conditions they fought to escape.
      Together, these policies represent a concerning trend of political manipulation and irresponsible immigration practices. This does nothing to mitigate the violence and family separations, ignores due process, and moves us away from a humane, safe, and orderly system, inevitably forcing migrants into the hands of cartels and traffickers.
      Donald Trump and his allies have for years called for the closure of the southern border. Now, Joe Biden is doing that, albeit only occasionally, and specifically when arrivals of new asylum seekers exceed 2,500 a day.How did we get here? The answer can be found earlier this year, when a bipartisan group of senators reached a compromise to tighten access for migrants and approve a new infusion of aid to Ukraine and Israel’s military that the Biden administration said was desperately needed by two of Washington’s top allies.But despite the fact that one of their own lawmakers negotiated the deal, which contained hardline immigration policies Democrats normally would not support, the GOP voted it down, ostensibly so Trump could campaign on his own draconian approach to immigration.Which brings us to today. Congress went on to approve the foreign aid bill separately, and today, Biden used his presidential policies to limit access to asylum seekers on days when the border is “overwhelmed” as the White House put it – while repeatedly training his ire on Trump and his allies.“I’ve come here today to do what the Republican Congress refuses to do – take the necessary steps to secure our border,” Biden said as he began his speech.Trump “told the Republicans … that he didn’t want to fix the issue, he wanted to use it to attack me. That’s what he wanted to do. It was … an extremely cynical political move and a complete disservice to the American people who are looking for us to not to weaponize the border, but to fix it.”Here’s more on Biden’s new border policy:While Joe Biden has warned that his executive order intended to turn away some asylum seekers is a necessary step in the face of Republican opposition to broader immigration reforms, some Democrats have signaled their wariness – or outright objection.Here’s California congresswoman Judy Chu, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus:
      I am disappointed at the enforcement-only strategies that the President announced today. Rather than address humanitarian issues at the border effectively and with the nuance they deserve, today’s actions will gut protections for countless migrants exercising their legal right to claim asylum. Rather than decimate the ability for those fleeing violence or persecution to seek asylum based on an arbitrary numerical cap, we should be redirecting our efforts to modernize ports of entry, expand legal pathways for migrants, and address the root causes of migration.
      And Raúl Grijalva, whose Arizona district encompasses most of the state’s frontier with Mexico:
      This executive action represents a significant departure from President Biden’s promise of a more humane and just approach to immigration. It tramples on the universal right to claim asylum and prevents migrants from attempting to legally access safety and security in the United States. It is ripe for legal challenges and antithetical to our values.
      Rather than appeasing Republicans who continuously refuse to work on bipartisan legislation and block immigration solutions for political gain, I urge President Biden, instead, to use his authority to take concrete action to help fix our broken immigration system. That starts with sending more resources to border communities, expanding legal pathways, streamlining the asylum seeking process, making it easier for individuals and families to work and live here, and creating a pathway to citizenship to give millions the certainty they deserve.
      Other Democrats welcomed the president’s actions. Here’s California’s Norma Torres, who serves on the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’s executive board:
      I strongly support the changes to expedite the process of deporting or removing individuals at the border who pose a national security risk or public threat. However, I have significant concerns about implementation, transparency, and the risk of curtailing fair, legal representation for legitimate asylum seekers.
      If rushed and without proper protections, these changes could embolden future anti-immigrant administrations to limit legitimate, eligible asylum seekers from obtaining the protections they seek.
      This executive order is a difficult but necessary measure to address the growing crisis at our border, but deeply underscores the urgent need to resolve the root causes of migration throughout Central America. I look forward to working closely with the administration on the implementation of these changes to ensure we stem the crisis at the border while ensuring asylees are processed expeditiously and fairly.
      The president’s executive order has faced criticism from progressive lawmakers and immigration reformers, who say it undermines protections for migrants fleeing humanitarian crises.Joe Biden addressed those concerns in his just-concluded White House speech, warning that the country was losing patience with the flow of migrants:
      For those who say the steps I’ve taken are too strict, I say to you … be patient. The goodwill of the American people are … wearing thin right now. Doing nothing is not an option – we have to act. We must act consistent with both our law and our values, our values as Americans.
      Joe Biden made a point of mentioning how his views of immigration differ from those of Donald Trump, who presided over a policy of separating migrant children from their parents as president, and has mulled deploying the military to round up undocumented people in the country, if re-elected.“I believe that immigration has always been a lifeblood of America. We’re constantly renewed by an infusion of people and new talent. The Statue of Liberty is not some relic of American history. It stands for who we are as the United States,” Biden said.He then laid into Trump:
      So, I will never demonize immigrants. I’ll never refer to immigrants as poisoning the blood of a country. And further, I’ll never separate children from their families at the border. I will not ban people from this country because of the religious beliefs. I will not use the US military to go into neighborhoods all across the country, to pull millions of people out of their homes and away from their families, to put detention camps while we’re waiting deportation, as my predecessor says he will do if he occupies this office again.
      Biden then went on to describe how his executive order would work, while saying new legislation would be more effective.“Today, I’m moving past Republican obstruction and using the executive authorities available to me as President to do what I can on my own to address the border,” Biden said. “Frankly, I would have preferred to address this issue through bipartisan legislation, because that’s the only way to actually get the kind of system we have now that’s broken fixed – to hire more Border Patrol agents, more asylum officers, more judges.”Joe Biden did not hold back in blaming Donald Trump for the failure of a bipartisan immigration compromise negotiated in the Senate earlier this year, saying it would have been more effective than the executive order he signed today.“Four months ago, after weeks of intense negotiation between my staff and Democrats and Republicans, we came to a clear, clear bipartisan deal with the strongest border security agreement in decades. Then Republicans in Congress … walked away from it. Why? Because Donald Trump told them to,” the president said.He gestured to the officials flanking his podium, which he said were Democratic and Republican officials from border states.“They know the border is not a political issue to be weaponized – it’s a responsibility we have to share, to do something about it. They don’t have time for the games played in Washington. Neither do the American people.”Joe Biden is now speaking on his new immigration rule from the White House.He is flanked by a group of officials, including Arizona’s Democratic senator Mark Kelly.Joe Biden is scheduled to soon begin delivering remarks from the White House on his just-announced policy to close the southern border to new asylum seekers when authorities determine it is “overwhelmed”.He was supposed to start at 2pm ET, but, as always, is late. Mark Kelly, the Democratic senator representing border state Arizona, earlier appeared before reporters at the White House, and described the new rule as a “good step forward”.He then turned to blaming Republicans for rejecting a legislative compromise in Congress that would have made an array of changes to US immigration laws to stem the flow of migrants.“For three years the president has been calling on Congress to take action on this issue,” Kelly said.After months of ultimately fruitless haggling over immigration policy in Congress, Joe Biden has announced new rules that will see the southern border temporarily shut to most new asylum seekers at periods when it becomes “overwhelmed”. The policy change comes amid signs voters are increasingly concerned about migrants arriving in the United States, but risk alienating some of Biden’s allies, who warn it may amount to a draconian response to what is essentially a humanitarian crisis. Back at the Capitol, the GOP is continuing its counteroffensive against Biden following their standard bearer Donald Trump’s felony conviction last week. Speaker Mike Johnson blamed Democrats for the guilty verdict, saying it represents “a new low”, while attorney general Merrick Garland faced a tough crowd during a hearing before the judiciary committee.Here’s what else has happened so far today:
      Biden attacked Trump as a “convicted felon” who should not be let back into the White House at a Monday evening fundraiser.
      Wisconsin’s attorney general filed charges against three Trump associates for attempting to disrupt Biden’s election victory in the state four years ago, including notorious attorney Kenneth Chesebro.
      Election denialism remains a concern in Georgia’s populous Fulton county, where an official with ties to a group promoting lies about the 2020 votes sits on its election board.
      At Hunter Biden’s trial, US justice department lawyer Derek Hines walked jurors through the events of October 2018, when prosecutors have said the president’s son lied on his background check about his drug use while buying the gun, Reuters reports.
      It was illegal because he was user of crack and a drug addict. No one is above the law,” Hines said.
      Biden has pleaded not guilty to three felony charges accusing him of failing to disclose his use of illegal drugs when he bought a Colt Cobra .38-caliber revolver and of illegally possessing the weapon for 11 days in October 2018.Defense attorney Abbe Lowell urged jurors to listen carefully to evidence that would be presented. Lowell said the gun purchase form asked Hunter Biden only if he was currently an addict, not whether he had used in the past, adding that his client had no “intent to deceive”.US special counsel David Weiss, a Donald Trump appointee, brought the case against Hunter Biden and was present in the courtroom on Tuesday. Weiss has separately filed federal tax charges against Hunter Biden in California.The trial is expected to offer a tour of Hunter Biden’s years-long struggles with drug and alcohol addiction.First Lady Jill Biden attended court today, as did her and Joe Biden’s daughter, Ashley Biden.The prosecution laid out its case on Tuesday in the historic criminal trial of Hunter Biden on gun charges, telling jurors that Joe Biden’s son was addicted to drugs and lied on paperwork to obtain a revolver. “No one is above the law,” the jurors were told, according to Reuters.The jury in federal court in Delaware heard opening statements from prosecution and defense lawyers before the first witness, an FBI agent, was called.Defense attorney Abbe Lowell told the jury that evidence presented in the trial will show that Hunter Biden, 54, did not knowingly violate the law.It is the first ever criminal trial of the child of a sitting US president, with US district judge Maryellen Noreika presiding. Donald Trump last week became the first US president (sitting or former) to be convicted of a crime.In a speech on the Senate floor, Democratic majority leader Chuck Schumer welcomed Joe Biden’s new actions on asylum seekers, but faulted Republicans for blocking legislation he said would better address the problems at the southern border.“As the president makes his announcement, let’s be very clear about one thing: legislation would have been the more effective way to go. President Biden has been clear from the beginning he prefers legislation, but given how obstinate Republicans have become – turning down any real opportunity for strong border legislation – the president is left with little choice but to act on his own,” Schumer said.He continued:
      Shame on our Republican friends. They say they want to protect the border. Donald Trump comes out with a very crass statement, let’s keep it in chaos so I might win the election. And they go along. They do a 180-degree turn. That’s a disgrace, and it’s forced President Biden to act the way he does, which is a lot better than doing nothing, but not as preferable as passing legislation, as the president admits.
      We had an opportunity to pass a strong bipartisan border bill back in February, and just over a few weeks ago.
      Both times, Republicans put politics ahead of bipartisanship, and blundered the best chance we have seen in decades to pass a border security bill America urgently needs. Americans will not easily forget it.
      Republicans have spent years insisting to voters that Joe Biden is not doing enough to address illegal immigration, and are not impressed by his just-announced policy to bar asylum seekers when the southern border becomes “overwhelmed”.“It’s window dressing. Everybody knows it … If he was concerned about the border, he would have done this a long time ago,” House speaker Mike Johnson said at a press conference today. His office dubbed the new policy an “election-year border charade”, while Johnson added he did not believe the policy would do enough to discourage migrants. “From what we’re hearing, it will ignore multiple elements that have to be addressed,” he said.The Senate’s top Republican, Mitch McConnell, was similarly dismissive:
      With an election just months away, the President hopes that issuing an executive order will demonstrate that he cares about this crisis and is trying to fix it.
      Never mind that his order would still allow more than 900,000 illegal aliens to come in every year at the southern border. This is on top of the half-million illegal parolees President Biden intends to continue waving into the country. Combined, that’s more than the population of 10 states. It’s a new Dallas, Texas, every year.
      This is like turning a garden hose on a five-alarm fire. And the American people are not fools. They know that this play is too little, too late.
      Joe Biden’s actions to limit migrant arrivals at the southern border come after months of ultimately futile negotiations aimed at passing an immigration policy compromise in Congress. But as the Guardian’s Lauren Gambino and Joan E Greve report, the new policy risks alienating some of the president’s supporters, who view it as a draconian response to a humanitarian crisis:The White House on Tuesday announced an executive order that will temporarily shut down the US-Mexico border to asylum seekers attempting to cross outside of lawful ports of entry, when a daily threshold of crossings is exceeded.The order would take effect immediately, senior administration officials said on a press call. Those seeking asylum would be held to a much more rigorous standard for establishing credible fear of returning to their home country, although certain groups – including trafficking victims and unaccompanied children – would be excluded from the ban.“Individuals who do not manifest a fear will be immediately removable, and we anticipate that we will be removing those individuals in a matter of days, if not hours,” one official said. “The bottom line is that the standard will be significantly higher. And so we do anticipate that fewer individuals will be screened in as a result.”The move comes amid rising public concern over the number of migrants crossing into the US, with polls showing a majority of Americans dissatisfied with the president’s handling of the border. The White House has been under immense pressure from Republicans and some Democrats to reduce the number of migrants arriving at the southern border. More

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      Benjamin Netanyahu set to address joint session of US Congress for fourth time

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      Benjamin Netanyahu is set to become the first foreign leader to address a joint session of the US Congress four times, despite deep differences with the Biden administration.The Israeli prime minister’s office said in a statement that a date for his address to Congress had yet to be set, but that it would not take place on 13 June as had been reported, due to a Jewish holiday.The formal invitation came from congressional leaders of both parties within hours of Joe Biden’s disclosure of the terms of a new peace proposal for Gaza endorsed by Israel. Over the weekend, however, Netanyahu played down the significance of any Israeli concessions in the new plan, and insisted that any proposal for a lasting ceasefire without the destruction of Hamas as a military and governing force would be a “non-starter”.He also has suggested that Israel was under obligation only to carry out the first of the peace plan’s three phases, which may increase Hamas’s reservations of a deal. The White House says it is waiting for an official response from Hamas on the proposal.Netanyahu had earlier defied Biden by adamantly opposing any steps towards the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, and by pressing ahead with an offensive on the southernmost Gazan city of Rafah, despite repeated appeals not to from the Biden administration.Before this month’s scheduled appearance, Netanyahu was the only foreign leader apart from Winston Churchill to be accorded the honour of an address to a joint sitting of Congress three times. With his fourth address, he will outdo even Churchill in the record books.The invitation to Congress is a reminder than while Biden is seeking to influence Israeli politics to forge a peace agreement for Gaza and a broader long-term settlement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Netanyahu also has the means to sway US politics – and possibly hurt Biden’s re-election chances if he were to accuse the president of being insufficiently supportive.Netanyahu used an address to Congress in 2015 to speak out against the efforts of then President Barack Obama to reach an agreement with Tehran on Iran’s nuclear programme. The Israeli prime minister was highly critical of Biden last month when the president stopped a delivery of heavy bombs to Israel forces. More

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      Trump’s $1bn pitch to oil bosses ‘the definition of corruption’, top Democrat says

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      Donald Trump’s brazen pitch to 20 fossil-fuel heads for $1bn to aid his presidential campaign in return for promises of lucrative tax and regulatory favors is the “definition of corruption”, a top Democrat investigating the issue has said.“It certainly meets the definition of corruption as the founding fathers would have used the term,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said in an interview about Trump’s audacious $1bn request for big checks to top fossil-fuel executives that took place in April at his Mar-a-Lago club.Whitehouse added: “The quid pro quo – so called – is so very evident … I can’t think of anything that matches this either in terms of the size of the bribe requested, or the brazenness of the linkages.”Whitehouse and his fellow Democrat Ron Wyden have launched a joint inquiry, as chairs of the Senate budget and finance panels respectively, into Trump’s quid-pro-quo-style fundraising, which already seems to have helped spur tens of millions in checks for a Trump Super Pac from oil and gas leaders at a 22 May Houston event.The two senators have written to eight big-oil chief executives and the head of the industry’s lobbying group seeking details about the Mar-a- Lago meeting, as has representative Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the oversight and accountability committee, who has begun a parallel investigation into the pay-to-play schemes that Trump touted to big oil leaders.Amplifying those concerns, former Federal Election Commission general counsel Larry Noble said that Trump’s unusually aggressive money pitch “violates the letter and spirit” of campaign-finance laws, and a veteran Republican consultant called it “blatant pay to play”.In a separate fossil-fuel inquiry, Raskin and Whitehouse released a joint report in April into long-running big-oil disinformation campaigns to undercut the enormous threats posed by global warming, which Trump has falsely labelled a “hoax”, and last week urged the justice department to investigate big-oil tactics to deceive the public.Trump boasts a lengthy record of rejecting scientific evidence about the links between fossil-fuel usage and climate change: he has pushed a litany of bogus climate claims, including that windmills cause cancer and that electric cars are “bad” for the environment, while promising to end tax breaks for EVs if he wins this fall.Further, in a major rebuke to environmental advocates and international efforts to curb global warming, Trump in 2017 announced the US was pulling out of the Paris agreement to limit climate change, a much-criticized move that Joe Biden reversed.Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” mantra and his deep animosity toward alternative energy sources have been part of his fundraising pitches to oil and gas moguls, triggering alarm about the dangers of another Trump presidency.“The totality of … Trump, the fossil-fuel industry and a [conservative thinktank] Heritage Foundation blueprint advocate will put a dagger through efforts to avoid catastrophic warming,” said Joe Romm, a senior research fellow at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Science, Sustainability and the Media.“Trump promises to undo every constraint on global warming. Trump has pushed more lies and disinformation about climate change than anyone ever has.”Other climate scholars say Trump’s climate denialism is the culmination of years of fossil-fuel propaganda.“Trump is an apotheosis of decades of denial, not only on the part of the fossil-fuel industry, but also by other industry allies, including now-certain billionaires, to deny the reality of the harms of unregulated, or very poorly regulated, capitalism,” said Naomi Oreskes, the co-author of Merchants of Doubt and a Harvard historian of science. “Donald Trump is the reductio ad absurdum of this rewriting of history, culminating in the big lie that he won the 2020 election.”Trump’s strong embrace of climate-change denialism and his pro-big-oil policies were underscored by his aggressive $1bn pitch at Mar-a-Lago, which drew CEOs from giants such as Chevron and ExxonMobil, and the fracking multibillionaire Harold Hamm, the founder of Continental Resources, as the Washington Post first reported.Hamm, an early Trump backer in 2016 and 2020 who took months before helping Trump’s current presidential bid, joined with two other industry CEOs to host a Super Pac bash in Houston that reportedly raised $40m on 22 May from attendees who paid at least $250,000 each to hear Trump promise more fracking and more pipelines if he wins.Trump’s full-court press for fossil-fuel funds and political backing was palpable at an industry conference in North Dakota earlier in May, where Hamm surprised attendees by announcing Trump would join them via a video which featured bogus claims about the health of energy companies and the economy.“Under ‘Crooked Joe Biden’, the American energy industry is under siege, it’s under crisis. [Biden] has made clear that he wants to abolish your industry and, with it, destroy our economy and send us into a new dark age of blackouts, poverty and de-industrialization,” said Trump.View image in fullscreenThe spotlight on Trump’s ardent pursuit of oil and gas donations comes after Biden championed major new regulatory, tax and spending measures to reduce global warming in a sharp break with Trump policies past and present.Ironically, even as Biden succeeded in accelerating spending for green energy, and imposed new regulations on fracking on US lands and a moratorium on natural gas exports, oil and gas production in the US reached new highs in 2023 and major companies notched healthy profits.Still, the oil and gas industry has been ponying up funds for Trump’s campaign faster than it did in 2020, according to the nonpartisan OpenSecrets group, which tracks money in politics.The oil and gas industry has donated $7.3m to Trump’s campaign thus far, or more than three times the amount it gave at this point in 2020, OpenSecrets data shows.Further, some industry titans have donated six- and seven-figure checks to a Trump Super Pac. Texas oilman and multibillionaire Tim Dunn gave $5m to Trump’s Make America Great Again Pac this year, and Hamm kicked in at least $200,000 last fall.Campaign-finance watchdogs and some Republican veterans are dismayed by Trump’s fundraising tactics.“Trump views everything as a transaction, so I’m not surprised,” said ex-GOP representative Dave Trott. “Any other politician who made these statements would be deemed dead on arrival because they’d be viewed as corrupt.”Campaign-finance experts see other dangers in Trump’s heavy-handed fundraising appeals, which he links to favors.“When wealthy special interests, like the oil and gas industry, have special access to candidates, and mechanisms to give them enough money to control their policy choices, everyday voters suffer,” said Shanna Ports, the Campaign Legal Center’s senior legal counsel for campaign finance.“Trump’s request to oil executives is a troubling illustration of the quid pro quo corruption and pay-to-play-style politics that federal campaign laws are meant to prevent. Federal law includes strict contribution limits and bans corporate contributions precisely so candidates do not trade policy favors for campaign cash.”Ports stressed that “candidates are forbidden from soliciting contributions that would break these laws – a prohibition that Trump may have violated”.Likewise, Noble, the former Federal Election Commission general counsel, said Trump’s appeals for massive donations from oil and gas bigwigs [are] “pretty blatantly offering policy favors in exchange for large contributions”.Little wonder, then, that top Senate and House Democrats are inquiring into whether Trump’s bald $1bn ask of big oil moguls broke campaign finance laws, as well as big oil’s long track record of spreading disinformation about global warming.In Whitehouse and Raskin’s joint letter to the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, urging the DoJ to investigate big oil’s history of climate change disinformation, they drew parallels with the tobacco industry’s years of disinformation about the dangers smoking poses to human health.“The DoJ is well situated to pursue further investigation and take any appropriate legal action, as it has in similar cases involving the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries,” they wrote.Looking ahead to the November election, climate change experts predict another Trump presidency would decimate efforts to curb global warming.“If Trump is elected and does what he has been saying and the fossil fuel industry wants, that would be the ruin of the United States and the world,” Romm, of the University of Pennsylvania, warned.“Trump wants to roll back” the ambitious climate change steps and spending that the Biden administration has initiated, Romm added, saying: “We have dawdled a very long time on climate change. We need very sharp reductions. We can’t afford four years focused on raising emissions.” More

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      The Republican party has transformed into the Trump Maga party | Sidney Blumenthal

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      The Republican leaders were of one mind: if the Republican president committed a crime, he could no longer hold office. They had defended him to a point, but they understood that with proof of criminality they would withdraw their support. Even before the evidence was conclusive, their ultimate judgment about their constitutional duty and of the president’s was certain. “If it can be proved that he lied, resignation would have to be considered. It would be quick. Everything would be over, ended. It wouldn’t drag out like impeachment.” So stated senator Barry Goldwater, a previous Republican presidential nominee, still the icon of the conservative movement, in May 1973.It did not matter that Richard Nixon was popular, that he had won the presidency twice, the last time just a year earlier, in a landslide, carrying 49 states. Goldwater did not know that after he made his statement, the “smoking gun” tape would be revealed on 5 August 1974. He and the other Republican leaders, however, did know then that a president who had authorized payment of hush money to the Watergate burglars in order win an election and had engaged in a coverup to thwart both the investigation and accountability in the courts would have to quit or face impeachment and removal.On 6 August, at the Senate Republican Conference lunch, Goldwater exclaimed: “There are only so many lies you can take, and now there has been one too many. Nixon should get his ass out of the White House – today!” The next day, Goldwater, the House Republican leader John Rhodes and the Senate Republican leader Hugh Scott traveled down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House to deliver the message to Nixon that he was doomed. In his memoir, Goldwater wrote that Nixon “knew beyond any doubt that one way or another his presidency was finished. None of us doubted the outcome. He would resign.” On 9 August, Nixon wrote a letter of one sentence: “I hereby resign the Office of President of the United States.”Within minutes of the jury delivering its verdict in the trial of The People of the State of New York versus Donald J Trump, convicting him of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to coverup hush-money payments in order to suppress information about his illicit adulterous affairs to win the election, the Republican leaders released their prepared statements of support. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who played a leading role in trying to overturn the 2020 election, went on Fox News to assure its viewers that the supreme court would soon overturn the conviction: “I think that the justices on the court – I know many of them personally – I think they are deeply concerned about that, as we are. So I think they’ll set this straight.”Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said the charges “never should have been brought in the first place”, and predicted the conviction would “be overturned on appeal”. One after another, Republicans lined up to denounce the verdict, the judicial system and New York – “the Manhattan kangaroo court”, according to Congressman Jim Jordan. They hate New York.“I am a political prisoner,” Trump protested in a fundraising email. But, “the good news”, he said in his press conference the day after the verdict, was that he had raised millions. He said he had wanted to testify in the trial, as he promised he would, but that was a lie. If he had testified, he and his lawyers knew, he would have lied, like he lied in his press conference. His cowardice saved himself from a perjury rap.Trump’s self-image as a martyr was embraced by more than his Republican acolytes. Now, three months after the murder of Alexei Navalny, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov stated: “The fact that a de facto elimination of political rivals by all possible legal and illegal means is going on there is obvious.” Trump supporter, the representative Nancy Mace, echoed Peskov’s remark, tweeting: “There’s no difference: Putin silences Navalny, Biden’s DOJ targets Trump. The left’s outrage over Navalny is hypocritical as they cheer on Biden’s tyranny.”The Republican party of Barry Goldwater, John Rhodes and Hugh Scott is not even a flickering shadow of a memory. Both Nixon and Trump succeeded during their campaigns in covering up their sordid transactions through bribery. When Nixon’s perfidy was finally exposed the Republican leaders accepted the truth. His party support crumbled. He had no alternative to leaving. But when Trump’s conviction on all counts was announced, the Republican leaders rallied ‘round his upside-down flag. None of them remembered the events of 50 years ago, or cared if they did. The party still carries the name of “Republican”, but it is a party transformed. It is the Trump Maga party.Trump hails the imprisoned January 6 insurrectionists as “hostages” and promises to pardon them. In the shadow of the Capitol, at the headquarters of the Heritage Foundation, whose Project 2025 is an authoritarian blueprint for a second Trump term, the upside-down flag signaling insurrectionist sympathy was hoisted within moments of the jury’s verdict of Trump’s guilt.The Republican party today is the fruit of the poisoned tree. Trump has thoroughly tainted all of its branches. The party’s central organizing principles are impunity from justice and contempt for the rule of law, which have always and everywhere been the hallmarks of despotism.The zombie party it is prepared to nominate a felon in a convention beginning four days after his sentencing. Before Trump emerges on stage through clouds of dry ice smoke, he will be preceded by speakers seeking to exceed each other in tirades against the evil of the judicial system.There are very few Republicans left to terminate for treason to Trump. Isolated heretics, like Liz Cheney, have been long purged from the ranks. Larry Hogan, an outlying old-style moderate, the former governor of Maryland, currently running for the Senate, perhaps the decisive figure for its capture by Republicans, urged the public to “respect the verdict and the legal process”. In an instant, Trump campaign adviser Chris LaCivita replied: “You just ended your campaign.” If Hogan ever stood a chance, it is now evaporated. Respect for the law is disloyalty to Trump. In front of Trump Tower the day after the verdict waved a huge flag: “Trump Or Death”. Every Republican candidate for every office must now pledge fealty to a felon, declare an oath to his victimhood and show contempt for the justice system. Then they can feign campaigns as law-and-order candidates.For all of his rage against the judicial system, Trump’s protectors on the courts have spared him from the worst of the charges he rightfully should bear. Before his conviction in the Manhattan courtroom, he should have already been tried in federal courts for his crimes in the January 6 insurrection, his theft of national security documents and obstruction of justice.The conservative majority on the supreme court has shielded him through unwarranted delays in the presidential immunity case, which it will almost certainly further delay by referring it back to the appeals court to engage needlessly in defining distinctions between official and personal business. Intervening as a political actor, the court has granted Trump de facto immunity for the course of the campaign.By contrast, in United States v Nixon, the supreme court in July 1974 unanimously decided within two weeks on Nixon’s executive privilege in controlling his White House tapes. The court rejected his “absolute, unqualified Presidential privilege of immunity from judicial process under all circumstances”. One justice, William Rehnquist, recused himself from the case because he had been the assistant attorney general who had fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox on Nixon’s order in the Saturday Night Massacre. He did not want even an appearance of a conflict of interest. No matter the result, he felt the necessity of ethical obligation.On the Roberts Court, by contrast, two justices with apparent conflicts of interest, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, adamantly refuse to recuse themselves. Thomas’s wife Ginni was a political operative in organizing the false electors scheme in Arizona and in helping to coordinate the events leading to the insurrection. Alito’s wife, it seems, at least according to Alito, was responsible for flying flags that were emblems of the insurrection at their Virginia residence and New Jersey beach house. Alito disclaims any ability or will of his own to lower those flags. “My wife loves to fly flags,” he said. Happy wife, happy life.But his chronology of events does not match that of his neighbor, whom he blamed for provoking poor beset Martha-Ann Alito to raise the banners in the first place by exhibiting nasty anti-Trump signs. The neighbor, for her part, said Martha-Ann spat at her family. Trump praised Alito for being “strong”, and Chief Justice John Roberts rebuffed inquiries about the ethical quandaries of Thomas and Alito from the Senate judiciary committee. The history and tradition of stonewalling is the predicate for the Trump immunity ruling. Trump has infected the supreme court down to the wives.In the national security papers case in Florida, a federal judge appointed by Trump, Aileen Cannon, has used every contrivance to thwart the special prosecutor Jack Smith and to prevent the case from moving to trial. She stands in the sharpest contrast to Judge John J Sirica, of the US district court in Washington, who relentlessly and expeditiously pressed to expose the underpinnings of the Watergate scandal and to push the Nixon tapes to the supreme court for a speedy resolution. If someone like Sirica were presiding over the Florida case, the trial would have been held by now and Trump almost certainly convicted, which would have figured as a prior conviction to toughen the sentencing in the Manhattan case.Outside the courthouse, Trump mixed in criminals with congressmen to join his cheerleading section. There was a Hells Angels biker, Chuck Zito, close to the Gambino crime family who served six years in prison. There were also two rappers, Michael Williams, AKA Sheff G, and Tegan Chambers, AKA Sleepy Hallow, currently indicted with other alleged gang members on 140 felony counts for attempted murder conspiracy.The unanswered question about these criminals’ association with Trump remains: what’s in it for them? They are not known to be motivated by political ideas. If Trump paid them, arranged to pay them, or for them to receive anything of value, it would have been a bizarre refraction of the charges for which he was convicted.Just as Trump surrounded himself with criminals, he suffused his party from top to bottom with criminality. Then the jury decided that he is a criminal. “That the defendant, Donald J Trump, is guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree, to conceal a scheme to corrupt the 2016 election,” stated Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg.Trump will appeal his conviction, but the history cannot be appealed. Historians operate on different methods than judges and juries. Yet the verdict contributes to settling the history. Pundits may continue to quibble about this or that about the trial and its aftermath. Historians cannot doubt that Trump won the presidency in 2016 at least in part through criminal means.
      Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Kevin McCarthy says ‘every American should accept’ election results

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      Kevin McCarthy, the former Republican US House speaker, has said that Americans should accept the results of November’s presidential race – as rising political tensions in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s campaign finance violation conviction in New York are set to inflame election integrity issues.The relatively moderate McCarthy, who was ousted as speaker last year in a Republican power struggle and has since resigned from Congress, said on Sunday that “every American should accept the results” of the election that is expected to pit the Democratic incumbent Joe Biden against the former Republican president Trump.McCarthy’s remarks on CNN’s Inside Politics came after Marco Rubio, the senior Florida senator and potential Trump vice-presidential pick, refused to commit to standing by the outcome on Sunday.Like Rubio, McCarthy is an ally of Trump, and he even visited the former president after his supporters carried out the January 6 attack on the Capitol in 2021. But he is now contradicting a Republican narrative that has become a test of loyalty to Trump: questioning the integrity of the US electoral system, at least when conservative candidates lose at the ballot box.After the guilty verdict in the New York case against Trump came down on Thursday, the Maryland Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin said that if the former president wins the vote in November then he “should be impeached before he was even sworn in” given his conviction. But other Democrats have adopted a more conciliatory position.Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic House minority leader, said on Sunday that he would “certainly” accept the results “because in America the peaceful transfer of power is sacrosanct”.Jeffries cast the blame on the extreme right wing of the Republican party, saying that “many Americans – Democrats, independents and traditional Republicans – have been troubled by the election denialism or the denial that we’ve seen coming from the other side of the aisle”.Trump has also said that he would accept November’s vote – but only, he told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in May, “if everything’s honest”.On Sunday night, Trump posted on his social media site a call for the US supreme court to intervene in his conviction in New York state court ahead of his scheduled sentencing on 11 July. Legally an appeal can only be initiated after sentencing.McCarthy, who is free of political obligation to Trump, had previously signed a legal petition soon after the 2020 election that urged the supreme court to review a Texas lawsuit challenging the election results in several swing states.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionHe also voted not to certify election results from Arizona and Pennsylvania during the vote certification process that came after police managed to halt the 2021 Capitol attack.But in his interview with CNN, McCarthy said that resistance to election results was not just a question for politicians but “for the whole American public”.“We’ve gotta get beyond it,” McCarthy said. More