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      The shadow of Trump: inside the 17 November Guardian Weekly

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      It couldn’t happen again … could it? With less than a year to the next US presidential election, polls suggest the presumed Republican nominee Donald Trump would beat the Democratic incumbent Joe Biden in a clutch of key swing states. David Smith weighs up how a Trump return to the White House might look. Lloyd Green considers how a strong pro-abortion rights vote in state elections last week could yet signal a significant twist. And, amid growing Democratic party jitters over Biden’s low ratings, Richard Luscombe asks if the California governor Gavin Newsom is running a shadow campaign.British politics was stunned this week by the return of former prime minister David Cameron, parachuted back into government as the new foreign secretary. Pippa Crerar and Patrick Wintour weigh up what it says about the direction of the Tory government, home and abroad. And in Opinion, Polly Toynbee bids a not-so fond farewell to Suella Braverman, the deeply divisive home secretary who was sacked by Rishi Sunak on the same day.As fierce fighting between Hamas militants and the Israeli army encroached on Gaza hospitals this week, Ruth Michaelson reports on the dire situation at Dar al-Shifa hospital, where patients are dying due to energy shortages and dwindling supplies. And as Benjamin Netanyahu’s reputation plummets in Israel, Peter Beaumont asks who – or what – might succeed the controversial prime minister.Sweden has some of the world’s most progressive policies around work and wellbeing, with generous parental leave and bonuses for taking breaks the norm. Leah Harper settles down for a spot of fika and asks what the rest of us could learn from such practices.Features include an extract from Barbra Streisand’s new memoir where, among other things, the American singer and actor recounts meeting the then Prince Charles and what happened when she cloned her pet dog.In Culture, our man Rhik Samadder tries staying alive in the new reality version of the hit Netflix show Squid Game. And, from Eddie Izzard to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, there’s a look at the comedians who’ve moved from the world of standup to politics.Get the Guardian Weekly magazine delivered to your home address More

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      Trump can appear on Republican primary ballot in Michigan, judge rules

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      Donald Trump can appear on the ballot for the Republican primary in Michigan, a state judge ruled on Tuesday, a setback to challengers who argue he is constitutionally disqualified from being president because of his actions on 6 January 2021.The lawsuit is one of several that left-leaning groups have filed across the country arguing that section 3 of the 14th amendment bars Trump from holding office. The provision says anyone who takes an oath to the United States and then engages in “insurrection” or “rebellion” against the nation cannot hold office unless Congress votes by two-thirds majority to allow them. The measure was adopted after the civil war and has not been tested.In Michigan, that language does not prevent a candidate from appearing on the ballot for a party primary for the purposes of selecting a nominee, Judge James Robert Redford, of the Michigan court of claims, ruled on Tuesday. While he left the door open to a challenge should Trump become the nominee, he suggested courts could not prevent Trump from appearing on the ballot because the core question in the matter was one for Congress, not judges.“The questions involved are by their nature political,” Redford wrote in his opinion. “It takes the decision of whether there was a rebellion of insurrection and whether or not someone participated in it from the Congress, a body made up of elected representatives of the people of every state in the nation, and gives it to but one single judicial officer.”Ron Fein, the legal director for Free Speech for People, who represented the challengers in the case, said the court “adopted a discredited theory that claims that only Congress can decide whether a presidential candidate fails to meet constitutional qualifications for office”.Fein said his group would appeal the case to the Michigan supreme court and seek to bypass the Michigan court of appeals. Democrats have a 4-3 majority on the bench there. The Michigan case is being closely watched because it is one of several battleground states critical for a presidential candidate to win next year.“The Michigan supreme court should reverse this badly reasoned lower-court decision. While our appeal is pending, the trial court’s decision isn’t binding on any other court, and we continue our current and planned legal actions in other states to enforce section 3 of the 14th amendment against Donald Trump,” Fein said in a statement.Steven Cheung, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, praised the ruling.“Each and every one of these ridiculous cases have LOST because they are all un-constitutional leftwing fantasies orchestrated by monied allies of the Biden campaign seeking to turn the election over to the courts and deny the American people the right to choose their next president,” he said in a statement.The Michigan secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat who was once an election law professor, tweeted she was “gratified that today’s court ruling affirms my position that under Michigan law anyone generally advocated by the news media to be a candidate for the Republican and Democratic nomination for president must be listed on the February 2024 primary ballot”.She added: “As the court notes, any consideration of a candidate’s eligibility to serve under the 14th amendment of the constitution should occur after they are nominated or elected.”Last week, the Minnesota supreme court also dismissed a 14th-amendment challenge, saying the constitutional provision could not block Trump from appearing on a primary ballot. A trial court in Colorado also oversaw a five-day evidentiary hearing on a challenge there and is expected to issue a ruling soon.Legal experts widely expect the ruling to be decided by the US supreme court, to which Trump appointed three of the six conservative justices that comprise a supermajority. More

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      House Democratic leadership will support Johnson stopgap bill to avert shutdown – US politics live

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      House Democratic leadership have released a joint statement to support the resolution to avert the government shutdown:
      House Democrats have repeatedly articulated that any continuing resolution must be set at the fiscal year 2023 spending level, be devoid of harmful cuts and free of extreme right-wing policy riders. The continuing resolution before the House today meets that criteria and we will support it.”
      Earlier, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said he and the White House support the resolution.The full statement from House Democratic leaders here:A Michigan judge rejected an effort to remove Donald Trump from the state’s primary ballot, a blow to advocates who were arguing that his role in the January 6 insurrection made him ineligible for the presidency.The AP reports that James Redford, a court of claims judge in the key swing state, has ruled that the former president will remain on the ballot:
      Redford wrote that, because Trump followed state law in qualifying for the primary ballot, he cannot remove the former president. Additionally, he said, it should be up to Congress to decide whether Trump is disqualified under a section of the US constitution’s 14th amendment that bars from office a person who ‘engaged in insurrection’.
      Redford’s further wrote, “The judicial action of removing a candidate from the presidential ballot and prohibiting them from running essentially strips Congress of its ability to ‘by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such a disability.’”The effort to disqualify Trump was citing a civil war-era constitutional clause.Earlier analysis from our voting rights reporter Sam Levine here:The House of Representatives is expected to vote within the next hour on new speaker Mike Johnson’s unconventional two-tier funding bill that will keep the government operating beyond the current shutdown deadline of Friday.Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, has expressed confidence the bill will pass, despite a declaration by the 50-strong House Freedom Caucus that it does not support it. The speaker told reporters earlier that there appears to be enough of a groundswell of members on either side of the aisle who want to get a deal done and “get home” for next week’s Thanksgiving holiday.The bill was filed under an expedited process that removes certain procedural obstacles but requires a two-thirds majority of House members – 290 votes – to pass.I’m handing over the blog to my colleague Sam Levin on the west coast to guide you through the rest of the day. Thanks for joining me.While we wait for the vote, here’s Lauren Gambino’s report of what to expect, and why Johnson says he’s confident of passing his first real test as speaker.A person connected to the fabulist New York congressman George Santos pleaded guilty on Tuesday to a charge of wire fraud relating to the politician’s campaign finances.Samuel Miele, 27, pleaded guilty in federal court in Islip to impersonating a House staffer while soliciting funds for Santos, the New York Times reported.Last month Nancy Marks, a former aide to Santos, pleaded guilty to embellishing campaign finance reports with fake loans and donors.Santos is facing a House ethics committee investigation, and survived a House vote to expel him earlier this month.He has pleaded not guilty to 23 federal charges accusing him of multiple frauds, including making tens of thousands of dollars in unauthorized charges on credit cards belonging to some of his campaign donors.Miele’s lawyer, Kevin Marino, said that his client accepted responsibility but declined to say whether the plea included an agreement with federal prosecutors to testify against Santos, the Times reported.The “elbowgate” episode involving former speaker Kevin McCarthy wasn’t the only hint of violence on Capitol Hill on Tuesday: a heated discussion in a Senate committee almost turned into a physical fight after a verbal argument escalated between Oklahoma Republican Markwayne Mullin and Teamsters president Sean O’Brien.During a hearing for the Senate’s Help (health, education, labor and pensions) panel, Mullin began reading a social media post in which O’Brien had criticized him.“Quit[e] the tough guy act in these senate hearings. You know where to find me. Anyplace, Anytime cowboy,” O’Brien had written, according to Politico.“This is a time, this is a place to run your mouth. We can be two consenting adults, we can finish it here,” Mullin said before standing up from his chair to confront O’Brien.“You want to do it now?” Mullin demanded, to which O’Brien said he did. Both then taunted each other to “stand your butt up”.“You’re a United States senator. Sit down please,” committee chair Bernie Sanders chided Mullin, and urged the pair to focus on the economic issues at hand. The argument lasted several minutes.Politico has video of the confrontation here.Matt Gaetz, the architect of Kevin McCarthy’s downfall as speaker, has now filed an ethics complaint against him over this morning’s alleged assault on Tennessee congressman Tim Burchett.The firebrand Florida congressman, leader of the group of eight Republicans who sided with Democrats to oust McCarthy last month, says there’s “substantial evidence” that the California lawmaker breached an obligation to act with decorum.“This incident deserves immediate and swift investigation by the ethics committee,” Gaetz wrote, reported on X, formerly Twitter, by Politico reporter Olivia Beavers.“While Rep Burchett is within his rights to decline to press charges against Rep McCarthy, [the House ethics] committee does have a duty to investigate breaches of the binding code of official conduct, whose first rule is that ‘a member … shall behave at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House’.“There is substantial evidence Rep McCarthy breached this duty.”Gaetz, one of the brashest and loudest members of the Republican House caucus, claims that he himself has “been a victim of outrageous conduct on the House floor as well, but nothing like an open and public assault on a member committed by another member”.Joe Biden won’t be afraid to take on Chinese president Xi Jinping “where confrontation is needed” during their meeting on Wednesday, the White House says, but is confident of a productive bilateral summit addressing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.The two leaders will talk during the Asia-Pacific economic cooperation (Apec) summit in San Francisco and have a “full agenda”, John Kirby, strategic communications coordinator for the national security council just told reporters aboard Air Force One:
      These are two leaders that know each other well, [have] known each other a long, long time. They can be frank and forthright with one another. I fully expect that that’ll be the case.
      The table has been set over the course of many weeks for what, what we hope will be a very productive, candid and constructive conversation here. The president wants to make sure that we’re handling this most consequential of bilateral relationships in the most responsible way forward.
      Kirby wouldn’t be drawn on exactly what the discussions will look like, but expanded on “confronting” Xi where Biden thought fit:
      He means to compete with China. He’s coming into this discussion with the wind at his back from an economic perspective. We think the US well poised in that competition with China.
      He’s not going to be afraid to confront where confrontation is needed on certain issues where we don’t see eye to eye with President Xi and the PRC, but we’re also not going to be afraid, nor should we be afraid, as a competent nation to engage in diplomacy on ways which we can cooperate with China on climate change, for instance, and clean energy technology. There’s going to be an awful lot on the agenda.
      Other areas of possible cooperation, Kirby said, were Ukraine and Israel:
      The president will make clear that we’re going to continue to support Ukraine against Russia’s aggression, and that China could play a role here in helping us support Ukraine but also to helping advance [Ukraine president Volodymyr] Zelenskiy’s vision of a just peace here for when the conflict is over.
      I won’t speak for the Chinese but I have every expectation that the fighting in Ukraine will come up.
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has begun her “gaggle” with reporters aboard Air Force One.Jean-Pierre began by sharing achievements made by the Biden administration on climate change, including Biden signing legislation on climate action as well as protecting lands and waters.Jean-Pierre’s announcements comes after a new federal report shows that climate change is impacting every area of the US and will worsen in the next 10 years.The report also details that extreme weather events are happening every three weeks, costing the US $1bn.Read more on the federal report here.House Democrats seem prepared to help the GOP spending bill pass amid faltering support from far-right Republicans, Politico reports.In a private meeting on Tuesday, the House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries outlined why the spending bill was a win for Democratic party, highlighting that the bill did not come with spending cuts or any “poison pill” additions, Politico reported.Other ranking House members have similarly colored the bill as a win for Democrats given the lack of cuts or attempts to insert Republican legislative priorities.“I think those are very significant wins for us,” Washington representative Pramila Jayapal said to Politico, noting that the bill did not contain cuts or other insertions.Jeffries did not instruct members on how to vote for the bill, which is scheduled for a floor vote on Tuesday afternoon.But many Democrats have privately noted that support for the GOP spending bill could be high, as members of the Republican House Freedom Caucus have opposed the measure.Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer has said that he and the White House support the stopgap funding bill, as the deadline to avoid a shutdown approaches.Schumer told reporters on Tuesday that the bill achieves the main aim of avoiding a government shutdown, Politico reported.“We all want to avoid a shutdown. I talked to the White House and both of us agree, the White House and myself, that if this can avoid a shutdown it’ll be a good thing,” Schumer said to reporters.Schumer added that the latest bill also does not cut spending, a demand coming from far-right representatives.It’s lunchtime, so time to take stock of where we are on a busy Tuesday in US politics:
      Mike Johnson, the House speaker, says he’s “confident” his bill that would keep the government funded and open beyond 17 November will pass a vote scheduled for about 4.20pm ET. The Louisiana Republican made a case to colleagues that the “clean” bill he’s proposing will allow the party to “stay in the fight” for spending battles ahead.
      But the House Freedom Caucus, an alliance of about 50 hard-line Republicans, said it cannot support the bill, leaving Johnson dependent on support from Democrats to get it over the finish line.
      Former speaker Kevin McCarthy, ousted last month by rebel Republicans for working with Democrats to pass the previous stopgap funding bill, elbowed one of them in a hallway assault, one of them claims. Tim Burchett of Tennessee says McCarthy gave him a sharp dig in the kidney then ran off with his security detail. McCarthy denies the allegation.
      Joe Biden is on his way to San Francisco and a meeting with China’s premier Xi Jinping at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
      At the White House earlier, Biden unveiled a $6bn package of spending to bolster climate resilience, coinciding with the release of the government’s fifth annual national climate assessment.
      Still to come: White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, and strategic communications coordinator to the National Security Council John Kirby will “gaggle” with reporters aboard Air Force One en route to the west coast.Former speaker Kevin McCarthy, accused of a devious elbow in the back of Tennessee congressman Tim Burchett earlier Tuesday, has form, it seems.The ousted Republican delivered more than one “shoulder charge” on another rebel who displeased him, the former Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger, according to a book Kinzinger released last month.In it, he calls the California lawmaker “notably juvenile” for his treatment of Liz Cheney, the former Wyoming congresswoman who like Kinzinger served on the 6 January House committee investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.And he detailed two times he says McCarthy physically “checked” him, “as soon as I started speaking the truth about the president who would be king,” Kinzinger wrote.“Once, I was standing in the aisle that runs from the floor to the back of the [House] chamber. As he passed, with his security man and some of his boys, he veered towards me, hit me with his shoulder and then kept going.“Another time, I was standing at the rail that curves around the back of the last row of seats in the chamber. As he shoulder-checked me again, I thought to myself, ‘What a child.’”McCarthy has denied he elbowed Burchett, one of eight Republicans who voted to oust him from the speaker’s chair last month. But the circumstances of that alleged assault and the ones Kinzinger describes in his book are almost identical: a sharp dig then scurrying off with his security detail.McCarthy, Kinzinger said, is “an attention-seeking high school senior who readily picked on anyone who didn’t fall in line”.Joe Biden has just boarded Air Force One at Maryland’s Join Base Andrews, on his way to the Asia-Pacific economic cooperation (Apec) summit in San Francisco.While he’s in California, the president will meet Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to try to allay growing tensions between the two nations as global conflicts flare in Ukraine and Gaza.The Guardian’s Amy Hawkins says their meeting, which could last several hours, is the culmination of months of lower level dialogues which took place over the summer, with Washington sending more delegates to China than Beijing did to the US.Read more: More

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      Georgia prosecutors seek protective order after leak of videos in Trump case

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      Fulton county prosecutors have asked the judge overseeing the 2020 election subversion case against Donald Trump and his co-defendants in Georgia to immediately impose an “emergency” protective order over the discovery materials to prevent potential future leaks of evidence.The request came after several media outlets published details of videotaped statements that former Trump lawyers Jenna Ellis, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro gave as part of plea deals to avoid being tried as racketeering co-defendants with the former president.The Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis had previously asked for a protective order for the discovery materials in the case. But citing the leak of several of the “proffer” interviews, Willis renewed the request on Tuesday to Fulton county superior court judge Scott McAfee.“The release of these confidential video recordings is clearly intended to intimidate witnesses,” the filing said, “subjecting them to harassment and threats prior to trial, constitutes indirect communication about the facts of this case with co-defendants and witnesses”.Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges that he and 18 co-defendants engaged in racketeering activity and conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia. To date, three of Trump’s ex-lawyers and a local Republican operative have taken plea deals.The actual motivation for the leaks were unclear. Ellis’s testimony, for instance, was widely seen as damaging to Trump – and the move to seek a protective order amounted to an aggressive play by prosecutors to suppress discussion of the proffers leading up to trial.Willis also said in the filing that she would take the unusual step of refusing to send copies of the video recordings to defense lawyers, and that they would instead have to watch the recordings at her office in downtown Atlanta, where they could only take notes.In the separate federal 2020 election subversion case brought against Trump in Washington, the discovery materials were subject to a protective order almost as soon as Trump was charged. But special counsel prosecutors have not forced Trump’s lawyers to only view the discovery in person.The prosecutors disclosed in their submission to the judge some back-and-forth communications they had with a couple defense lawyers over the leaks, including with Trump’s lawyer Steve Sadow, who had asked the district attorney’s office to state they had not leaked the material.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The state had nothing to do with leaking any information to the media!” replied Nathan Wade, one of the top prosecutors on the case.But then a lawyer for Harrison Floyd, a Trump ally charged with harassing Georgia election worker Ruby Freeman, replied to the email chain on Tuesday morning, writing, “It was Harrison Floyd’s team.” The lawyer later said the statement was a typo and that they were not the leak.Willis first requested a protective order on 27 September. The delay with the protective order, according to a person familiar with the matter, has been over a protracted negotiation between the district attorney’s office and all 19 co-defendants over the language in the order. More

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      Sanders intervenes after Republican senator challenges union boss to fight

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      An Oklahoma senator and a union boss squared off in a congressional hearing on Tuesday, each daring the other to “stand your butt up” and fight in an exchange the chair of the Senate labor committee, Bernie Sanders, struggled to contain.“Sit down!” Sanders shouted at Markwayne Mullin, the Republican on the dais beside him. “You’re a United States senator!”Mullin, 46, called Sean O’Brien, president of the Teamsters union, a “thug”.O’Brien, 51, said Mullin was acting like “a schoolyard bully”.Sanders, 82, banged his gavel in vain.The face-off began when Mullin read out a tweet O’Brien sent earlier this year, after another committee-room confrontation.In the tweet, O’Brien called Mullin a “greedy [chief executive] who pretends like he’s self-made. In reality, just a clown and fraud. Always has been, always will be. Quit the tough guy act in these Senate hearings. You know where to find me. Anyplace, Anytime cowboy. #LittleManSyndrome.”Before entering Congress, Mullin made his money in plumbing. He is also a former cage fighter who in 2021 had to reassure voters he did not think he was Rambo, after trying to enter Afghanistan during the US withdrawal.In his initial response to O’Brien’s tweet, Mullin offered to fight him for charity. In Tuesday’s hearing, Mullin finished reading the tweet, then told O’Brien: “You want to run your mouth? We can be two consenting adults, we can finish it here.”O’Brien said: “OK, that’s fine, perfect. I’d love to do it right now.”Mullin said: “Then stand your butt up then.”O’Brien said: “You stand your butt up.”Mullin stood his butt up – and began to advance.Sanders took action, shouting: “No, no, sit down! Sit down! You’re a United States senator!”Mullin sat down.The two men continued to squabble, Sanders banging his gavel.O’Brien said: “Can I respond?”Sanders said: “No, you can’t. This is a hearing. And God knows the American people have enough contempt for Congress, let’s not make it worse.”Elsewhere on Capitol Hill on Tuesday a Republican congressman from Tennessee, Tim Burchett, took “a clean shot to the kidneys” from the speaker he helped eject last month, Kevin McCarthy of California, as a reporter watched.The Senate labor committee hearing continued to descend into disorder, Mullin saying: “I don’t like thugs and bullies.”O’Brien said: “I don’t like you, because you just described yourself.”Sanders banged his gavel again, cueing Mullin to speak.“All right,” Mullin said. “Let’s do this because I did challenge you and I accepted your challenge. And you went quiet.”O’Brien said: “I didn’t go quiet. You challenged me to a cage match, acting like a 12-year-old schoolyard bully.”Sanders intervened again.“If you have questions on any economic issues, anything, go for it,” he said. “We’re not here to talk about physical abuse.”Mullin said he wanted “to expose this thug for who he is”.O’Brien said: “Do not point at me, that’s disrespectful.”Mullin said: “I don’t care about respecting you at all.”O’Brien said: “I don’t respect you at all.”Shouting, “Hold it, no,” Sanders banged his hammer again.Outside, public approval ratings for Congress and its members continued their downward march. More

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      US House speaker expresses confidence his proposal will avert shutdown

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      The Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, expressed confidence on Tuesday that his unconventional proposal to avert a federal government shutdown at the end of the week would pass with bipartisan support despite strong objections from the far-right flank of his caucus.The House was prepared to vote on the stopgap funding package on Tuesday afternoon, after Johnson moved to bring the bill to the floor under an expedited process that requires a two-thirds majority for passage. The “laddered” approach would extend funding for federal agencies into the new year, with two different deadlines that give lawmakers more time to finish drafting their appropriations bills. If approved by the House, the Senate would need to act swiftly before Friday’s midnight deadline to avoid a closure.The plan is Johnson’s attempt to circumvent a bitter showdown over government spending that led hardline Republicans to depose his predecessor, the former speaker Kevin McCarthy.Johnson, a self-described “arch-conservative” who was the Republicans’ third choice to replace McCarthy, argued that his “innovation” put conservatives in the “best position to fight” for deep spending cuts next year without the specter of a shutdown.“What we need to do is avoid the government shutdown,” Johnson said, arguing that not doing so would “unduly harm the American people” and leave troops without paychecks. “We have to avoid that and we have a responsibility to do it.”Under his plan, Johnson would extend funding for federal agencies in two parts, with some agencies slated to function through 19 January and others through 2 February while lawmakers draft longer-term spending bills. Despite its rebrand as a “laddered” resolution, the plan would temporarily maintain spending at levels set at the end of last year, when Democrats controlled the chamber, with none of the deep cuts conservatives want. It also does not address the White House’s request for wartime aid to Ukraine and Israel.In a sign leaders expect to draw support from a coalition of Democrats and relatively mainstream Republicans, Johnson will bring the bill to the floor under a shortcut known as a suspension of rules, which requires a supermajority, or 290 votes, to pass.Several of the conservatives who revolted against the last Republican-led stopgap measure, triggering McCarthy’s ouster, again disapproved of the plan as it did not include any spending cuts or policy changes.“It contains no spending reductions, no border security and not a single meaningful win for the American people,” the House Freedom Caucus, a hard-right coalition of conservatives, said in a statement announcing their opposition. “Republicans must stop negotiating against ourselves over fears of what the Senate may do with the promise ‘roll over today and we’ll fight tomorrow’.”Despite their objections, the group signaled that its members were unlikely to push to depose Johnson for working with Democrats to pass spending legislation, as they did with McCarthy: “While we remain committed to working with Speaker Johnson, we need bold change.”Johnson insisted he shared their conservative policy goals but said there was not enough agreement among House Republicans, with their whisker-thin majority, to advance a plan that made deeper spending cuts.“We’re not surrendering,” Johnson said. “We’re fighting, but you have to be wise about choosing the fights. You got to fight fights that you can win.”Just three weeks after Republicans finally elected a new speaker after weeks of chaos and dysfunction that halted business in the House, there is little appetite for risking a federal government shutdown – or another speakership fight.Asked if he was concerned that bringing this proposal would mean the end of his nascent speakership, Johnson said he was not.“This is a very different situation,” he said. “We’re taking this into the new year to finish the process.”Top Democrats were not happy with what the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, called the “goofy laddered” approach, but saw it as the only path to prevent a shutdown in the fast-closing window before Friday’s midnight deadline.Leaving their caucus meeting on Tuesday morning, Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, said Democrats were still evaluating the proposal but appeared open to voting for it. The proposal did not contain the sort of “poisonous, political partisan policy provisions” that Jeffries said would be a nonstarter.The White House was initially critical of the plan when it was unveiled over the weekend. But speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Schumer said he was “heartened” by the progress being made in the House.“It has to be bipartisan and right now that’s the path we seem to be on,” Schumer told reporters. To win the support of Senate Democrats, Schumer said he made two requests of Johnson’s plan: that it omit the “hard-right cuts” conservatives were demanding, and that if there were going to be two deadlines, defense funding would expire in the “second part of the ladder”. Both of his conditions were met.If it passes the House, Schumer said he would work with the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, to find the fastest way to pass it in the upper chamber.He also appeared confident the president would sign the legislation if it passed both chambers, noting that the White House agreed that if Johnson’s stopgap spending package could “avoid a shutdown it will be a good thing”. More

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      ‘A bully’: McCarthy accused of shoving Republican who helped oust him

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      A US radio reporter witnessed a remarkable altercation on Tuesday at the US Capitol between Tim Burchett of Tennessee and Kevin McCarthy of California, the Republican speaker eight rightwingers including Burchett ejected from the role last month.Claudia Grisales, of NPR, said: “Have NEVER seen this on Capitol Hill: while talking to Tim Burchett after the GOP conference meeting, former speaker McCarthy walked by with his detail and McCarthy shoved Burchett. Burchett lunged towards me. I thought it was a joke, it was not. And a chase ensued.”According to Grisales, Burchett yelled, “Why’d you elbow me in the back, Kevin?! Hey Kevin, you got any guts!?” and called McCarthy a “jerk”.Grisales said: “I chased behind with my mic.”McCarthy, she said, told Burchett: “I didn’t elbow you in the back.”Burchett said: “You got no guts, you did so … the reporter said it right there, what kind of chicken move is that? You’re pathetic, man.”Telling Grisales he was “stunned”, Burchett said the clash was his first communication with McCarthy since he helped make him the first speaker ever removed by his own party.Last week, McCarthy told CNN Burchett’s vote to remove him was “out of nature” and accused him and his fellow rebels of “car[ing] a lot about press, not about policy, and so they seem to just want the press and the personality”.Burchett said then McCarthy was “bitter”.McCarthy has flirted with or reportedly indulged in physical confrontations before. In January, as rightwingers forced him through 15 votes to become speaker, he confronted Matt Gaetz of Florida on the House floor. Mike Rogers of Alabama, a McCarthy ally, had to be restrained. Gaetz eventually became the ringleader of McCarthy’s removal.In a new memoir, meanwhile, the retired anti-Trump Republican Adam Kinzinger, from Illinois, details two times he says McCarthy shoved him.Kinzinger says McCarthy “tried to intimidate me physically. Once, I was standing in the aisle that runs from the floor to the back of the [House] chamber. As he passed, with his security man and some of his boys, he veered towards me, hit me with his shoulder and then kept going.“If we had been in high school, I would have dropped my books, papers would have been scattered and I would have had to endure the snickers of passersby. I was startled but took it as the kind of thing Kevin did when he liked you.“Another time, I was standing at the rail that curves around the back of the last row of seats in the chamber. As he shoulder-checked me again, I thought to myself, ‘What a child.’”On Tuesday, McCarthy did not immediately comment. At the Capitol, Burchett spoke to CNN.“I was doing an interview with Claudia from NPR, a lovely lady,” he said. “And … at that time I got elbowed in the back. And it kind of caught me off guard because it was a clean shot to the kidneys. And I turned back and there was there was Kevin, and … it just happened and then I chased after him.“Of course, as I’ve stated many times, he’s a bully with $17m in a security detail, and he’s the type of guy that when you’re a kid would throw a rock over the fence and run home and hide behind his Mama’s skirt.“He hit me from behind … that’s not the way we handle things in East Tennessee. We have a problem, somebody’s gonna look him in the eye.”Being hit in the kidneys, Burchett said, was “a little different. You don’t have to hit very hard to cause a little bit of pain, a lot of pain. And so he … just denies it or blames somebody else or something. But I just backed off because … I wasn’t gaining anything from it, if everybody saw it.”Burchett said the incident was “symptomatic of the problems that [McCarthy’s] had in his short tenure as speaker … he wouldn’t turn around and face me. He kept scurrying and trying to keep people between me [to] handle it.” More

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      Republican praises January 6 attacker’s ‘good faith and core principles’

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      Seeking leniency for a January 6 rioter charged with assaulting police, the Louisiana Republican congressman Clay Higgins – a former law enforcement officer himself – saluted the man’s “good character, faith and core principles”.In video taken during the attack on Congress on 6 January 2021, the rioter was seen to say: “It’s going to be violent and yes, if you are asking, ‘Is Ryan Nichols going to bring violence? Yes, Ryan Nichols is going to bring violence.’”Nichols, in an affidavit, admitted posting the video, attacking officers with pepper spray and urging rioters on with shouts including, “This is not a peaceful protest”.In court in Washington last week, Nichols, of Longview, Texas, pleaded guilty to two charges: obstruction and assaulting, resisting or impeding police and obstruction of an official proceeding.More than 1,000 arrests have been made over the attack and hundreds of convictions secured, some for seditious conspiracy. Donald Trump, who incited the riot as he attempted to overturn his 2020 presidential election defeat by Joe Biden, faces 17 charges related to his election subversion, four federal and 13 at state level in Georgia.Nine deaths have been linked to the attack staged by the former president’s supporters, including law enforcement suicides.Higgins’ own website describes him as having “spent much of his career dedicated to uniformed service [as] an army veteran and law enforcement officer”. It also says he is “widely regarded as one of the most conservative members of Congress”.Nonetheless, in a letter dated 7 November, he asked the US district judge in Nichols’s case, Royce C Lamberth, to show leniency when passing down sentence.“Sir,” Higgins wrote. “I submit to you this letter in support of Ryan Taylor Nichols. He is a man of good character, faith, and core principles.“I humbly ask that he receive fair consideration of the whole of circumstances regarding his case, condition, and background. He has already served nearly two years in the District of Columbia jail in pretrial confinement, which has been destructive to his physical (liver issues) and mental health (PTSD).”Nichols had been under house arrest since 22 November 2022 and had “not sought to flee nor shown any indication of dangerous activity”, Higgins said.He added: “Prior to his arrest, Mr Nichols had no criminal background and served honorably in the United States Marine Corps. He continued to serve domestically in a search and rescue capacity, even being publicly recognised for his heroic actions on national television.”That referred to Nichols’s commendation by the Louisiana-raised TV host Ellen DeGeneres – in 2018 – and in relation to his work to rescue people and animals stranded by Hurricane Florence.Nichols, Higgins said, “has already paid a tremendous price in time and treasure” for his actions on January 6.“His case must be considered fairly and thoroughly in line with his fundamental constitutional rights.”No date has been set for sentencing. More