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      US House majority whip Tom Emmer endorses Trump for president

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      Donald Trump secured the endorsement of Tom Emmer on Wednesday, completing a full House of Republican leaders backing the former US president even though Trump dynamited the majority whip’s own bid for speaker just two months ago.“Democrats have made clear they will use every tool in their arsenal to try and keep Joe Biden and his failed policies in power,” Emmer said.“We cannot let them. It’s time for Republicans to unite behind our party’s clear frontrunner, which is why I am proud to endorse Donald J Trump for president.”Despite facing 91 criminal charges, assorted civil threats and removal from the ballot in Colorado and Maine over his incitement of the deadly January 6 attack on Congress, Trump leads presidential rivals including the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, and former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley by vast polling margins.In general election polling, he is competitive or enjoys leads over Biden.Emmer, from Minnesota, followed the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, and majority leader, Steve Scalise (both from Louisiana) and Elise Stefanik of New York, the conference chair, in endorsing the man who sent supporters to the Capitol to try to stop certification of Biden’s 2020 win.Even after rioters attacked the House chamber, 139 House Republicans and eight senators objected to results in key states. But Emmer was not among them and last October, after the far right ejected Kevin McCarthy as speaker, the Minnesotan followed Scalise and Jim Jordan of Ohio in failing to secure the role.At the time, Trump said Emmer had called him and was his “biggest fan now” but also deemed him “totally out of touch with Republican voters”, lobbied Republicans to reject him and reportedly boasted: “He’s done. It’s over. I killed him.”Emmer’s endorsement of his tormentor was therefore widely noted.Rick Wilson, a former Republican operative turned co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, said: “Remember when you were on those anti-Trump calls in 2016, Tom?”Tim Miller, another former Republican strategist turned Trump critic, chose to be more blunt: “Was Tom Emmer – who was viciously savaged by Trump and his allies during the failed speaker attempt – wearing a ball gag or a gimp mask when he sent this statement? Need some behind-scenes colour.”Miller’s invective was matched by Trump’s campaign team, which said of Erin Perrine, a former Trump aide now working for DeSantis, “nothing can ever wash that foul stench of shit off her”. But regardless of such Republican infighting, endorsements for Trump kept coming in.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe three other House Republicans from Minnesota – Brad Finstad, Michelle Fischbach and Pete Stauber – joined Emmer in backing Trump.From the Senate, the Arkansas senator Tom Cotton, once seen as a possible Republican candidate, also gave Trump his backing.“When Donald Trump was president,” Cotton said, “America was safe, strong and prosperous.”He did not mention his own, infamous claim that regular troops needed to be used to quash protests for racial justice in 2020, when Trump was in the White House.Overlooking the economic devastation wrought that same year by Covid-19, Cotton continued: “The economy was booming, working-class wages were growing, our border was secure, and our enemies feared us.”“I endorse President Trump and I look forward to working with him to win back the White House and the Senate … it’s time to get our country back on track.” More

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      Rudy Giuliani, once ‘America’s mayor’, had a very bad year | Lloyd Green

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      Chalk up 2023 as Rudy Giuliani’s annus horribilis. On the other hand, 2024 may even be worse. The man once known as “America’s mayor” faces financial ruin and criminal prosecution with no end in sight to his woes. The hair-dye dripping down his face at a 2020 press conference ominously presaged what would eventually follow. It took less than two decades for the former federal prosecutor and contender for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination to morph into a punchline, full-time defendant and deadbeat.Back in the day, Giuliani garnered a reputation for crime-busting – perp-walking Wall Street bankers and sending mobsters to jail. In summer 2023, a Fulton county, Georgia, grand jury indicted him on state-law racketeering charges along with the 45th president and a host of supporting characters.As the year closed, Donald Trump’s henchman-in-chief lost a $148m defamation verdict in federal court for sliming two Georgia election workers. Days later, he filed for bankruptcy. Yet even before that he was banging a tin cup.Reports repeatedly surfaced of Giuliani personally begging his godfather to pick up his legal tab. Long story short, that didn’t happen. Instead, Trump threw a $100,000-a-plate fundraiser to help pay his legal bills, but apparently little else.Giuliani’s sell-by date had long expired. Then again, Trump had already done plenty for – and to – his sometime sidekick.Depressed and drinking to excess after his failed-presidential run, Giuliani secretly recovered at Trump’s Palm Beach home years earlier. “We moved into Mar-a-Lago and Donald kept our secret,” Giuliani’s third wife, Judith Giuliani, said in Andrew Kirtzman’s 2022 book, Giuliani: The Rise and Tragic Fall of America’s Mayor.Even knowing Giuliani’s capacity to go off the rails, Trump had considered him for a cabinet position, then effectively deputized him as his personal emissary to dig for dirt in Ukraine on Hunter Biden and subsequently tapped him as counsel in Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.In a word, Giuliani isn’t the only one with seemingly addled judgment. As luck would have it, Rudy’s relationship with alcohol has gained the attention of federal prosecutors. His conduct and possible inebriation on election night 2020, could undermine a Trump defense based upon reliance on counsel.“The mayor was definitely intoxicated,” Jason Miller, a senior Trump adviser and a veteran of Giuliani’s presidential campaign, told the House special committee last year. “But I do not know his level of intoxication when he spoke with the president.” For the record, Giuliani excoriated Miller and denied his contentions.Rudy’s bankruptcy filing lists his assets as between $1m and $10m, his debts between $100m and $500m. Under the category of “Taxes and certain other debts you owe the government”, he is on the hook to the IRS for more than $720,000 and to New York state for over $260,000.Beyond that, he is fighting over legal bills that amount to millions, and lists Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss, the plaintiffs in the $148m defamation case, as creditors. Other cameos include Smartmatic USA Corp; US Dominion, Inc; Robert Hunter Biden, the president’s wayward son; and Noelle Dunphy.Freeman and Moss are not alone. Giuliani also allegedly defamed Smartmatic, Dominion and their respective voting machines in connection with the 2020 election. As for Hunter Biden, think of it as a cage match.Dunphy’s claims, however, offer another window into Rudy’s strange universe. In May 2023, Dunphy, a former Giuliani associate, sued him for $10m, alleging “abuses of power, wide-ranging sexual assault and harassment, wage theft and other misconduct” including “alcohol-drenched rants that included sexist, racist and antisemitic remarks”.Her pleadings add, “Many of these comments were recorded.” According to Dunphy, he chugged Viagra non-stop. “Giuliani would look to Ms Dunphy, point to his erect penis, and tell her that he could not do any work until ‘you take care of this’.”Dunphy’s complaint also alleges that Giuliani asked Dunphy “if she knew anyone in need of a pardon” because “he was selling pardons for $2m, which he and President Trump would split”.She also asserts that she was “given access to emails from, to, or concerning President Trump, the Trump family … and other notable figures including … President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey …” With the Middle East on fire, that thread may prove more than simply interesting.In 2017, in the early days of the Trump administration, Giuliani represented Reza Zarrab, a Turkish-Iranian gold trader charged with helping Iran to dodge US sanctions and launder hundreds of millions.During a “contentious” Oval Office meeting, Giuliani pressed for the release of Zarrab as part of a potential prisoner swap with Turkey. In turn, Trump reportedly urged the US Department of Justice to drop its case. Eventually, Zarrab accepted a plea deal and emerged as a cooperating witness.Recently, Erdoğan has defended Hamas and compared Hitler favorably to Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister. Meanwhile, Iran is now trying to take credit for the horrors of 7 October.Giuliani is “used to willing people to do his bidding, the same way Trump is”, Ken Frydman, a former Giuliani campaign press secretary, told CNN earlier in December. “And it’s not working any more. So he’s just flailing around … desperately trying to stay out of jail.”There’s family history there. Rudy’s father, Harold Giuliani, was a stick-up man and leg-breaker for the mob. He also did prison time at Sing Sing, a correctional facility in upstate New York.
      Lloyd Green is an attorney in New York and served in the US Department of Justice from 1990 to 1992 More

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      Lauren Boebert blames ‘Hollywood elites’ for decision to switch districts

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      The far-right Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert has blamed “Hollywood elites” including singer Barbra Streisand and actor Ryan Reynolds for her decision to switch districts ahead of her 2024 re-election campaign.In an interview on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast over the weekend, Boebert alluded to how her Democratic opponent Adam Frisch’s campaign had received a $1,000 donation from Streisand in April and a $500 contribution from Reynolds in March.Those sums combine for approximately 0.03% of the $7.7m Frisch’s campaign has raised – compared with his Republican opponent’s $2.4m – since he narrowly lost against Boebert during the 2022 midterm election.Nonetheless, as she has done before, Boebert singled out the donations from Welcome to Wrexham’s Reynolds and Streisand – an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony winner – as evidence that “Hollywood is trying to buy their way into Congress” at her expense.Boebert said her 27 December announcement that she intended to relocate from Colorado’s third congressional district to the fourth and seek election there was meant to “defend and advance conservative principles”.“We need a strong voice there, and we have to shut down the Hollywood elites who are trying to buy my current seat,” Boebert said to Bannon, the former Donald Trump White House adviser who is appealing a prison sentence given to him for his refusal to cooperate with the US House committee that investigated the January 6 US Capitol attack.“It’s coming from Hollywood when you have Barbra Streisand coming in and donating to the Democrat, when you have Ryan Reynolds coming in and donating to the Democrat.”The Cook Political Report categorized the fourth district where Boebert is headed as “solidly Republican”. Its current representative is Ken Buck, who has been a member of the US House since 2015. But Buck said in November that he would not be seeking re-election, blaming his fellow Republicans’ insistence on lying about how the 2020 election was stolen from Trump in favor of Joe Biden.Meanwhile, the third district that Boebert – a vocal 2020 election denier – has represented since 2021 was categorized as a toss-up in a Cook Political Report rating from December. The Cook Political Report changed its Colorado third district rating to “lean Republican” after Boebert announced her switch.Boebert, 37, won a second term in Congress after defeating Frisch by just 546 votes. The 56-year-old former banker announced in February that he would challenge her efforts to win a third term in Congress during the 2024 election cycle.When she first revealed her plans to pursue election in Colorado’s fourth congressional district rather than grant Frisch a rematch, Boebert said a “pretty difficult year” for her and her family personally had also factored into her reasoning. She filed for divorce in May from her husband, with whom she has four sons.About four months later, Boebert landed in scandal after she and a man with whom she was on a date were kicked out of a performance of the stage production Beetlejuice in Denver for inappropriate behavior, including vaping, recording and groping each other. She later issued a statement of apology, saying: “I simply fell short of my values.”Among those to criticize Boebert for switching congressional districts was the Republican Colorado state representative Richard Holtorf, who is also running to succeed Buck in the US House.“Seat shopping isn’t something the voters look kindly upon,” Holtorf said. “If you can’t win in your home, you can’t win here.” More

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      ‘Stakes are really high’: misinformation researcher changes tack for 2024 US election

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      A key researcher in the fight against election misinformation – who herself became the subject of an intensive misinformation campaign – has said her field gets accused of “bias” precisely because it’s now mainly rightwingers who spread the worst lies.Kate Starbird, co-founder of the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, added that she feared that the entirely false story of rigged elections has now “sunk in” for many Americans on the right. “The idea that they’re already going to the polls with the belief that they’re being cheated means they’ll misinterpret everything they see through that lens,” she said.Starbird’s group partnered with Stanford Internet Observatory on the Election Integrity Partnership ahead of the 2020 elections – a campaign during which a flood of misinformation swirled around the internet, with daily claims of unproven voter fraud.Starbird and her team helped document that flood, and in return congressional Republicans and conservative attorneys attacked her research, alleging it amounted to censorship and violated the first amendment.Starbird, a misinformation researcher, herself became the subject of an ongoing misinformation campaign – but said she would not let that deter her from her research. Her team wasn’t the only target of the conservative campaign against misinformation research, she noted: researchers across the country have received subpoenas, letters and criticism, all attempting to frame misinformation research as partisan and as censorship.Jim Jordan, chair of the House judiciary committee, served as the ringleader of this effort in Congress, using his power to investigate groups and researchers that work to counter misinformation, particularly as it related to elections and Covid-19. One practice that especially upset Jordan and his colleagues was when researchers would flag misleading information to social media companies, who would sometimes respond by amending factchecks or taking down false posts entirely.Nor is it just Congress attacking anti-misinformation work. A federal lawsuit from the attorneys general of Missouri and Louisiana alleges that the Biden administration violated the first amendment by colluding with social media companies to censor and suppress speech. A new lawsuit from the state of Texas and two rightwing media companies takes aim at the Global Engagement Center, a state department agency that focuses on how foreign powers spread information.The pressure campaign has chilled misinformation research just ahead of the pivotal 2024 presidential election, as some academics switch what they focus on and others figure out ways to better explain their work to a mixed audience. One thing they will probably no longer do is flag posts to social media companies, as the practice remains an issue in several ongoing court cases.Starbird has landed in the middle of all this. Her work was included in Jordan’s investigation, her emails were sought by the Louisiana and Missouri attorneys general, she was sued in another lawsuit brought by Stephen Miller’s America First Legal, and she and the center have been inundated by records requests.“In a few years, I’ll look back and say it was a really valuable perspective,” she said. “Because I’ve seen campaigns that were extremely effective at using disinformation to smear the reputation of people – so much so that I’ve seen someone that I was studying take his own life. I know that the stakes are really high in these spaces.”Jordan’s committee released reports with outlandish claims about how the government, researchers and tech companies “colluded” to “censor Americans”. Starbird served on an external advisory committee for the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency; when a Republican congressional report claimed the committee tried to censor people, when in reality it solely advised the security agency, Starbird fired back, calling the Republican report a “manipulated narrative”.“It was really weird to watch how they so effectively created this false narrative. It was frustrating,” she said. “And then at some point, you step back and you’re like, ‘You gotta appreciate their craft – good at what they did.’”Starbird started her academic career by studying online volunteerism, then misinformation campaigns after the Boston marathon bombing in 2013. She’s seen the work of political actors grow more sophisticated in spreading disinformation.The reason that research into election misinformation is labelled as biased was because it’s largely the right that spreads election lies these days, she said. Widespread misinformation shared by rightwing politicians and activists since the 2020 election culminated in the January 6 insurrection, which was motivated by false claims of electoral fraud, almost all of which have been thrown out of court.“The influencers, political elites on the right, have embraced those lies, which is one of the reasons that they spread further,” she said. “So this is an asymmetric phenomenon.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Now, they may argue and say that they’re not false, and it’s really hard to have a conversation if you don’t have a shared view of reality.”Her work now focuses on election processes and procedures. She says she now refers more to “rumors” than to “misinformation” – both because “rumor” has more historical context, and because “misinformation” is a much more politicized term, co-opted by people outside the field, similar to how the legitimate phenomenon of “fake news” on social media before the 2016 election got twisted by Donald Trump into an insult to journalists.Her team will probably not flag content to social media platforms, either. “That piece of the work has been so effectively twisted into a censorship narrative that it becomes hard to help out in that way,” she said.While she had hoped to work with local and state elections officials – the experts on how elections work, who have themselves been subject to harassment – for context and help assessing viral rumors, “it’s increasingly hard for us to think that we’ll be able to communicate with them in a way that would be helpful for them, helpful for the world, and not cause more damage because it becomes fodder for these false claims”.With misinformation research under fire and social media platforms less willing to factcheck viral posts, 2024 could see a flood of voter fraud lies, making for an even more contentious election than in 2020. Even if social media platforms, which are optimized to spread the most attention-getting posts, did more work to address misinformation, they would still be accused of bias and censorship, Starbird said.She fears that the election fraud narrative has now “sunk in” so deeply for so many Americans on the right that it could end up creating worse laws and procedures – and actually increase the possibility of a successful foreign interference campaign in US elections.“Right now, we’ve got a space where we may be in a ‘Boy who cried wolf’ situation, where there’s so much misinformation about election integrity that if we have a true threat, we may miss it,” Starbird said.Still, despite the loud voices on the right continuing to spread disinformation about elections, Starbird thinks the people who got drawn into those narratives before might be a little savvier now, perhaps less likely to fall for some of the “more extravagant” claims again.“I am hopeful that we’ve seen the worst of it,” she said. “I’m not confident we’ve seen the worst of it.” More

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      It’s the democracy, stupid … and other issues set to shape the 2024 US election

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      Whether or not the 2024 US presidential election presents the expected Joe Biden v Donald Trump rematch, much will be at stake.From the future of reproductive rights to the chances of meaningful action on climate change, from the strength of US support for Ukraine in its war with Russia to the fate of democracy in America itself, existential issues are set to come to the fore.Economy“It’s the economy, stupid.” So said the Democratic strategist James Carville, in 1992, as an adviser to Bill Clinton. Most Americans thought stewardship of the economy should change: Clinton beat an incumbent president, George HW Bush.More than 30 years later, under Joe Biden, the post-Covid recovery seems on track. Unemployment is low, the Dow at all-time highs. That should bode well for Biden but the key question is whether enough Americans think the economy is strong, or think it is working for them in particular. It seems many do not. Cost-of-living concerns dominate public polling, inflation remains high. Republican threats to social security and Medicare might offset such worries – hence Biden (and indeed Donald Trump) seizing on any hint that a Republican candidate (see, Nikki Haley) might pose a threat to such programmes.EqualityRon DeSantis made attacks on LGBTQ+ rights a hallmark of his attempt to “Make America Florida”. The hardline governor’s tanking campaign suggests how well that has gone down but Republican efforts to demonise all forms of so-called “woke” ideology should not be discounted. There have been tangible results: anti-trans legislation, book bans and restrictions on LGBTQ+ issues in education, the end of race-based affirmative action in university admissions thanks to the conservative-packed supreme court.Continuing struggles on Capitol Hill over immigration, and Republicans’ usual focus on crime in major cities, show traditional race-inflected battles will play their customary role on the campaign trail, particularly as Trump uses extremist “blood and soil” rhetoric in front of eager crowds. On the Democratic side, meanwhile, a distinctly worrying sign: Black and Hispanic support for Biden is no longer such a sure thing.AbortionHigh-ranking Democrats are clear: the party will focus on Republican attacks on abortion rights, from the Dobbs v Jackson supreme court ruling that struck down Roe v Wade last year to the forthcoming mifepristone case, draconian bans in Republican states and candidates’ support for such bans.For Democrats, it makes tactical sense: the threat to women’s reproductive rights is a rare issue on which the party polls very strongly and has clearly fuelled a series of electoral wins, even in conservative states, since Dobbs was handed down.Trump, however, clearly also recognises the potency of the issue – while trying to dodge responsibility for appointing three justices who voted to strike down Roe. Haley and DeSantis have tried to duck questions about their records and plans on abortion. Whoever the Republican candidate is, they can expect relentless attacks.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionForeign policyThe Israel-Gaza war presents a fiendish proposition for Biden: how to satisfy or merely mollify both the Israel lobby and large sections of his own party, particularly the left and the young more sympathetic to the Palestinians.Proliferating protests against Israel’s pounding of Gaza and the West Bank show the danger of coming unglued from the base. A recent Capitol Hill hearing, meanwhile, saw Republicans claim a political victory with the resignation of the president of the University of Pennsylvania over alleged antisemitism amid student protests for Palestinian rights.Elsewhere, Biden continues to lead a global coalition in support of Ukraine in its fight against Russia but further US funding is held up by Republicans seeking draconian immigration reform, some keen to abandon Kyiv altogether. Throw in the lasting effects of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan (teed up by Trump but fumbled by Biden), questions about what the US should do should China attack Taiwan, and the threat Trump poses to US membership of Nato, and heavy fire on foreign policy is guaranteed throughout election year.DemocracyIf Biden is happy to be seen as a protector of democracy abroad, he is increasingly keen to stress the threat to democracy at home. After all, his most likely opponent refused to accept the result of the 2020 election, incited the deadly attack on Congress of 6 January 2021, has been linked to plans to slash the federal government in a second term, and has even said he wants to be a “dictator” on day one.Trump will no doubt maintain the lie that his 2020 defeat was the result of electoral fraud as various criminal cases proceed towards trial, 17 of 91 state and federal charges concerning election subversion. For Biden, the issue has been profitable at the polls. DeSantis and Haley, though, must dance around the subject, seeking not to alienate Trump supporters. The New York Times sums up their responses, dispiritingly, thus: DeSantis “has signed restrictions on voting rights in Florida, and long avoided questions about 2020”; Haley “said Biden’s victory was legitimate, but has played up the risk of voter fraud more broadly”.ClimateIf Trump threatens US democracy, the climate crisis threatens the US itself. From forest fires to hurricanes and catastrophic floods, it is clear climate change is real. Public polling reflects this: 70% of Americans – strikingly, including 50% of Republicans – want meaningful action. But that isn’t reflected in Republican campaigning. Trump says he doesn’t believe human activity contributes to climate change, nor that climate change is making extreme weather worse, and is opposed to efforts to boost clean energy. Haley does believe humans are causing climate change and making weather worse, but worked for Trump as UN ambassador when the US pulled out of the Paris climate deal and opposes clean energy incentives. DeSantis is closer to Trump – and wants to end regulation of emissions.Biden’s record on climate may be criticised by campaigners but his record in office places him firmly against such Republican views. More

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      Former aides warn of ‘running out of time’ to prevent Trump re-election

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      The re-election of Donald Trump in 2024 could “end American democracy as we know it”, according to three women who worked for him in the White House during his chaotic term in office.All three gave testimony to the US House committee investigating Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat as well as the 6 January 6 Capitol attack staged by his supporters. And they warned in an unprecedented television interview on Sunday that time was short to prevent a second Trump administration in which they insist his behavior would be much worse.“People in general have short memories, and might forget the chaos of the Trump years,” Sarah Matthews, a former deputy White House press secretary who resigned on the day of the deadly Capitol riot, said on ABC’s This Week.“They also might not just be paying attention to what he’s saying now – and the threat to democracy that exists. It does really concern me if he makes it to the general [election] that he could win. I’m still hopeful that we can defeat him in the primaries, but we’re running out of time.”Matthews was joined in the interview by former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, a key witness against Trump during the House committee’s public hearings in 2022, and Alyssa Farah Griffin, his former communications director, who said she dreaded him returning to office.“Fundamentally, a second Trump term could mean the end of American democracy as we know it, and I don’t say that lightly,” Griffin said.“We all witnessed him trying to steal a democratic election before and go into historic and unconstitutional lengths to do so. That just shows he’s willing to basically break every barrier to get into power and to stay into power.“What scares me as much as him and his retribution is the almost cult-like following he has, the threats, the harassment, the death threats that you get when he targets you, is really horrifying and has no place in our American discourse.”About two days before the interview aired, someone placed a fake emergency call to police that prompted armed officers to arrive at the home of Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, after she removed Trump from the state’s presidential primary under the US constitution’s insurrection clause. Bellows was not home when the attempted “swatting” call was made.Hutchinson, ex-aide to Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows, said voters needed to believe Trump when he said he would be a dictator on his first day back in the White House.“The fact that he feels that he needs to lean into being a dictator alone shows that he is a weak and feeble man,” she said.Matthews, meanwhile, said Trump had already signaled what his second administration would look like.“We don’t need to speculate because we already saw it play out,” she said.“To this day, he still doubles down on the fact that he thinks that the election was stolen and fraudulent. And his rhetoric has just gotten increasingly erratic. He’s literally called for things like doing away with parts of the constitution, [and] wanting to weaponize the department of justice to enact revenge on his political enemies.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I knew that coming forward and speaking out against Donald Trump I could … face security threats, or death threats, online harassment. Despite all the personal sacrifice, I knew that ultimately it was the right thing to do. I just would encourage others to come forward because they’re running out of time in order to try to stop Trump from being in the Oval Office again.”The courage of the three women in speaking against Trump was a recurrent theme in the interview by This Week’s co-anchor Jonathan Karl. Martin and Hutchinson spoke of secret meetings in the basement of the Capitol with Liz Cheney, one of only two Republicans who sat on the House committee, and their loss of friendships with others in the Trump White House who felt the women had betrayed them.“There were critical parts of history that the public would not know if not for Cassidy Hutchinson,” Griffin said.“Other senior officials witnessed them, but did not come forward. They did not testify, whether it was credible threats about the attack on the Capitol, that people showing up that day were going to be armed, that there was a scheme to try to stop the vice-president certifying the election.“I credit these women who are younger than me and had not as senior of titles, and stepped forward. For me, I want to be able to look my future kids in the eye and say when history called, I did the right thing, and I had the courage to do it.“That matters to me more than any future job or power structure that might exist if he’s president again.” More

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      Trump’s removal from Maine ballot ‘opens Pandora’s box’, DeSantis says

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      The removal of Donald Trump from Maine’s presidential ballot “opens Pandora’s box”, one of his main rivals for the 2024 Republican nomination said, as reaction to the ruling.The comment by the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, was among many from politicians on the right decrying the decision by Maine’s secretary of state, Shenna Bellows, to preclude Trump, which the former president’s campaign called the “attempted theft of an election”.Democrats and some legal experts, meanwhile, largely praised Maine’s decision to remove Trump’s name as the correct interpretation of the insurrection clause of the US constitution.DeSantis was one of two Trump rivals for their party’s presidential nomination, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, to immediately accuse Bellows of engaging in partisan politics.“The idea that one bureaucrat in an executive position can unilaterally disqualify someone from office turns on its head every notion of constitutional due process this country has abided by for over 200 years,” DeSantis said on Fox News.“It opens up Pandora’s box. Can you have a Republican secretary of state disqualify Biden from the ballot?”The Florida governor had previously claimed the Colorado supreme court’s decision earlier this month to disbar Trump was a “stunt” by Democrats designed to bolster his position in the Republican primary race.Ramaswamy, who had threatened to withdraw from the Colorado primary in protest, issued a statement following the Maine ruling accusing “the system” of targeting Trump.“This is what an actual threat to democracy looks like. The system is hellbent on taking this man out, the constitution be damned,” it said.Two other Republicans still in the race, Nikki Haley and Chris Christie, were more muted. “Nikki will beat Trump fair and square. It should be up to voters to decide who gets elected,” the former South Carolina governor’s campaign said in a statement.A spokesperson for Christie pointed to his earlier position that Trump should remain on the ballot until convicted of insurrection following a trial that featured “evidence that’s accepted by a jury”, according to the New York Times.Among the critics of the ruling in Maine was Susan Collins, one of seven Republican senators who voted to convict Trump at his 2021 impeachment trial for inciting the deadly 6 January Capitol riot. Trump was acquitted, but at the time Collins denounced his “abuse of power” and “betrayal of his oath” to the constitution.Collins said in a tweet that Bellows’s ruling should be overturned. “Maine voters should decide who wins the election – not a secretary of state chosen by the legislature,” she wrote. “The … decision would deny thousands of Mainers the opportunity to vote for the candidate of their choice.”Her position was immediately challenged by political commentator Keith Olbermann, who replied: “I want to vote for Bill Clinton again. So by your logic, I can – right?”Maine’s Democratic congressional delegation was split. “We are a nation of laws, therefore until he is actually found guilty of the crime of insurrection, he should remain on the ballot,” Jared Golden, who voted to impeach Trump in 2021, said in a statement.But Cherrie Pingree, who represents a more strongly Democratic district, was unequivocal. “The text of the 14th amendment is clear. No person who engaged in an insurrection against the government can ever again serve in elected office,” she wrote in a tweet.“Our constitution is the very bedrock of America and our laws and it appears Trump’s actions [on 6 January 2021] are prohibited by the constitution.”John Dean, a former White House lawyer for Richard Nixon, said Bellow’s ruling could lead to Trump’s removal from the ballot in even more states.“The Maine decision is very solid. It was fully briefed, there is ample due process in this proceeding, and they just lost by a straight, honest reading of the 14th amendment,” he said in an interview with CNN.“Trump’s in trouble. He’s in trouble wherever this is legitimately raised and addressed. So yes, the supreme court is going to have to weigh in. I want to see those strict constructionists, the originalists, get around that [insurrection] language. It looks so applicable, I don’t know what they can do with it other than take him off the ballot.” More

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      Republicans seek winning strategy on abortion for 2024 – with Democrats also in a tricky spot

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      As the 2024 election season ramps up, Republicans continue to struggle to find a winning national strategy on the flashpoint issue of abortion – where restricting the procedure has animated the conservative movement for half a century but tormented the party since the fall of Roe.The supreme court’s decision to overturn Roe v Wade delivered Republicans one of their most significant policy victories in a generation. But in the year and a half since the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the ruling has also become one of their biggest political vulnerabilities.Over the last 18 months, voters have favored abortion rights in seven consecutive ballot measures, including in conservative states. Republicans underperformed in the 2022 midterm elections while Democrats scored off-year election wins in Wisconsin, Kentucky and Virginia – results that again emphasized the enduring power of abortion rights.Now the presidential election year brings a further huge test.“With abortion, there’s really a kind of catch-22 for Republicans,” said Mary Ziegler, a law professor at the University of California, Davis and a leading expert on the history of abortion in the US. “On the one hand, you have a lot of base Republican voters who really care about opposing abortion and on the other you have a huge group of something like 70% of Americans who don’t like abortion bans.”The US supreme court meanwhile set the stage for another major showdown over abortion rights, this time just months before the 2024 presidential election. The court has agreed to decide a case that could determine the accessibility of a widely used abortion pill, including in states where the procedure remains legal.But whether abortion will continue to fuel Democratic victories in a presidential election year is also unclear.Despite delivering a long list of anti-abortion victories, voters tend to view the Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, a thrice-married former Democrat from New York, as less socially conservative than his rivals, says Gunner Ramer, political director for the anti-Trump Republican Accountability Pac.“Donald Trump likes to stoke culture wars and own the libs but on social issues he’s seen as more moderate,” Ramer said, adding: “If Trump is the nominee, Democrats are in a much trickier position on abortion.”For decades, the Republican party championed the mission of the anti-abortion movement – to overturn Roe – without clearly articulating what would follow. Now they are contending with the real-world consequences: pregnancy resulting from rape and incest, life-threatening complications, fatal fetal conditions and miscarriages that require the procedure.Sixteen states now ban abortion at conception or after six weeks, before many women know they’re pregnant. Among them is Texas, where Kate Cox, a pregnant woman whose fetus was diagnosed with a fatal condition, was forced to leave the state this month to receive an abortion after Ken Paxton, the state’s Republican attorney general, threatened legal action – “including first-degree felony prosecutions” – against doctors or anyone else who assisted in performing the procedure. The Texas supreme court ultimately ruled against Cox’s request to have an emergency abortion in the state.Seizing on the turn of events, top officials on Joe Biden’s re-election campaign assailed the “unspeakable reality” now facing women in states with limited or no access to abortion.They drew a direct line to Donald Trump, the former president and likely Republican presidential nominee, blaming his appointment of three supreme court justices who cast decisive votes to overturn Roe.“Kate had to leave her home state to seek the healthcare she urgently needs,” said Julie Chávez Rodriguez, Biden’s campaign manager. “This is happening right here in the United States of America and it’s happening because of Donald Trump.”In the increasingly noncompetitive race for the Republican presidential nomination, disagreements among the White House hopefuls over how to approach or even talk about abortion reflect a wide lack of unity within the GOP on the issue.Trump, in conspicuous fashion, is trying to have it both ways. He has blamed conservative activists’ uncompromising positions on “the abortion issue” for costing Republicans at the ballot box while touting his anti-abortion legacy to the party’s socially conservative base.In Iowa, which launches the Republican presidential primary contest next month, Trump is running ads declaring himself “the most pro-life president ever”. But on the major litmus test for anti-abortion activists – support for a national ban – he has been noncommittal.At a CNN town hall this month, Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who is challenging Trump for the nomination, accused the former president of “flip-flopping on the pro-life issue”. Trump has said DeSantis made a “terrible mistake” when the governor signed into law earlier this year a six-week abortion ban. Pressed to commit to a national standard, DeSantis has said he would support a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.Nikky Haley, the former United Nations ambassador and the only woman in the race, has sought a different tack, calling for “consensus” and “compassion”. Haley, who as governor of South Carolina in 2016 signed a 20-week ban, has suggested that as president she would enact any abortion restrictions that reached her desk, but said such measures were unlikely in the narrowly divided and deeply polarized Congress.Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who is running for president, is incredulous that Republicans are calling for federal action on abortion after waging a 50-year legal battle to return the issue to the states.“I trust the people of this country, state by state, to make the call for themselves,” he said during a recent debate.It’s a view shared by the entrepreneur and author Vivek Ramaswamy, who opposes a federal ban but says he supports state laws outlawing abortion after six weeks.Among the Republican presidential candidates, the two most avowed abortion opponents Mike Pence, the former vice-president, and Tim Scott, the South Carolina senator, have already exited the race.Furthering the divide, leading anti-abortion groups are pressuring Republican candidates to back a national ban starting at least at 15 weeks of pregnancy if not earlier, while some party strategists are advising them to clearly state their opposition to any such federal limit.In a post-election memo Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the powerful anti-abortion group Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America, said the losses were “major disappointments for the pro-life movement” and “warning signs for the GOP”.“It is long past due for the GOP to define where it stands on the issue nationally,” she wrote. “Having a clear position and contrasting it isn’t enough – campaigns and the party must put real advertising dollars behind it, going toe-to-toe with the Democrats.”Her group has urged candidates to support a federal ban on abortions after 15 weeks of gestation at a minimum or risk losing its endorsement.Ronna McDaniel, chair of the Republican National Committee, has criticized Republicans for not confronting the issue more aggressively. “You can’t hide in a corner and think abortion’s not going to be an issue,” she said on NBC News in November, adding: “We can’t just say it’s a state’s issue and be done.”Others have urged candidates to emphasize its support for exceptions, while expressing more compassion and empathy when discussing what can be a deeply personal – and in some cases medically advisable – decision. Still, some say its a matter of semantics, suggesting Republicans avoid terms like “pro-life” and “ban”.According to Politico, a group of prominent Republican pollsters suggested candidates change the subject, presenting polling to members of Congress that showed they could sharpen their appeal with women and independent voters by focusing on protecting contraception rather than banning abortion.“Abortion is, as the courts decided, an issue for states to decide, not the federal government,” states the campaign website for Kari Lake, who is expected to be the Republican Senate nominee in the race for Kyrsten Sinema’s seat. It’s a retreat from her position as a candidate for governor in 2022, when the far-right Republican cast herself as an outspoken ally of the anti-abortion movement and embraced Arizona’s territorial-era law that would ban nearly all abortions in the state.Lake is one of several Republican candidates running in battleground Senate races who have adjusted their stance – and their rhetoric – on the issue.Meanwhile in the House, now led by Mike Johnson, the Louisiana congressman, one of the chamber’s staunchest anti-abortion crusaders, vulnerable Republicans have sought to distance themselves from absolutists in the party.“The supreme court needs to stand down,” said Mike Lawler, a New York Republican who represents a district Biden won in 2020, in response to the high court’s decision to take up the abortion pill case. In a statement, he emphasized his opposition to a national ban.**As Republicans struggle, Democrats say the problem is taking positions that are deeply unpopular with the American public.When Democrats won full control of the Virginia state legislature in November, the Republican governor, Glenn Youngkin, declared support for what he called a “reasonable” 15-week abortion ban.That same night Andy Beshear, the Democratic Kentucky governor, won re-election after his campaign ran a powerful ad featuring a woman who was raped by her stepfather as a child. In the video, she criticized Daniel Cameron, Beshear’s Republican opponent, for supporting Kentucky’s near-total abortion ban, which does not include exceptions in cases involving rape or incest.And in beet-red Ohio, 56.6% of voters chose to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution.“In every election since the overturning of Roe, voters have sent a resounding message: they want more freedom, not less – and come 2024, Republicans will once again face the repercussions of their unrelenting crusade to strip away our rights,” Sarafina Chitika, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, said in a statement.At the state-level, abortion-related ballot initiatives could help Democrats mobilize Republican women and independent voters who have helped make up their winning coalition in the years since Trump was elected.Building on the success of abortion-related ballot initiatives, abortion rights advocates are working to put the issue before voters in battleground states, including Arizona and Florida. An effort is also underway in Montana, where Democrats hope a constitutional amendment enshrining abortion protections could boost turnout and help one of the party’s most vulnerable incumbent senators, Jon Tester, win re-election.As long as abortion is severely restricted in large swaths of the country where Republicans hold power, candidates at the national level will likely struggle to convince voters that they have moderated on the issue, even if they now champion later-stage “consensus” limits and exceptions, Ziegler said.“If the pro-life movement has a different agenda that they continue to pursue in a large swath of the country, national Republicans either have to say, ‘that’s not what we’re doing. We’re not for that’; or they’re going to be associated with that,” she said.Even so, the road ahead for Democrats is not straightforward.A string of recent surveys found a mixed picture: Biden is trailing Trump nationally and in several swing states. In a Wall Street Journal poll, voters said Trump was better equipped to handle most major policy issues with the exception of abortion, which Biden led by a double-digit margin.The Biden campaign has vowed to put abortion front and center this election cycle. They have argued that Trump – or any of his Republican rivals – would seek to ban abortion as president, possibly through policy changes that would not require congressional approval as some conservatives have proposed.There are risks to the strategy, especially if Trump is the nominee, says Ramer, from the anti-Trump Republican Accountability Pac.Ramer says there was a key dynamic in play in 2022. While Democrats harnessed voter fury over the loss of constitutional abortion rights, he said they were helped by Republicans, who nominated candidates with “extreme” absolutist positions on the issue, such as Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania and Tudor Dixon in Michigan.That may not continue in 2024.“Abortion is a very nuanced issue for voters,” he said. “And the economy, at the end of the day, is more top of mind for Republicans and swing-state voters.” More