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      Nikki Haley: Trump spends more time ‘ranting’ than fighting for American people

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      Nikki Haley pressed her case on Sunday to become the Republican presidential nominee by launching a sharp attack on her rival Donald Trump as a candidate who is set to spend more time in court than on the campaign trail this year and is intent on ranting about his own supposed victimhood rather than fighting for the American people.With less than three weeks to go before the Republican primary in her home state of South Carolina, which many observers see as the former governor and UN ambassador’s last stand, Haley attacked Trump for being more concerned with himself than with the future of the country. She told CNN’s State of the Union Sunday morning TV show that his multiple court cases, in which he faces 91 charges across four criminal cases, amounted to a “real issue”.Turning Trump’s own words against him, Haley said that the former president is “going to be spending more time in a courtroom than he’s going to be spending on the campaign trail”. At a time when the US is “in disarray and the world is on fire, we need a president that’s going to give us eight years of focus and discipline, not one that’s going to be sitting there ranting about how he’s a victim.”.She added that Trump, in recent days, “hasn’t once talked about the American people. And that’s a problem.”She went on to accuse him of having a “temper tantrum” after she garnered 43% of the vote in New Hampshire last month. “Why? Because he wasn’t controlling the situation.”Haley’s caustic attack on Trump came as he continues to command a seemingly unassailable lead in the Republican nomination contest. He comfortably won elections in Iowa and New Hampshire, and is now showing a double digit lead in opinion polls in South Carolina, where the Republican primary contest is on 24 February.In the latest Washington Post-Monmouth University poll of potential Republican primary voters in South Carolina, Trump was 26 points ahead on 58% to Haley’s 32%.As part of her increasingly direct assault on the standing and reputation of Trump, Haley has also taken to comparing him to Joe Biden. She pointedly predicted that if Trump became the Republican nominee, there would be a woman in the White House.In that circumstance, “Joe Biden will win and Kamala Harris will become president,” she said.She said that America deserved better than either Trump or Biden as leader. “Why are we doing this? We are allowing ourselves to have two 80-year-olds, who can’t serve eight years, who are both diminished whether it’s in their character or in their mental capacity.”For his part, Biden surprised no one by taking more than 95% of the primary vote in South Carolina on Saturday. His two competitors, Dean Phillips, a congressman from Minnesota, and self-help author Marianne Williamson, lagged far behind.South Carolina has been promoted by the Democratic party as its first official primary election, partly out of recognition that it was the state in which African American voters gifted Biden a huge win in 2020 that lifted him to the Democratic nomination. Jim Clyburn, the Democratic congressman from South Carolina who was seminal in turning that vote to Biden, was asked by CNN whether was retaining the support of Black voters in this election cycle.“Joe Biden has not lost any support among African Americans. You can go out and talk to 10 people, purposely find one who maybe gives off a different thought, but he has not lost any support among African Americans,” Clyburn said.Congressman Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic party leader in the House of Representatives, hinted at better things to come for Biden as he struggles to best Trump in many opinion polls.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“It was a tremendous victory in South Carolina, a decisive one and I think it demonstrates that as we enter into the campaign season that the American people are beginning to focus on President Biden’s incredible track record of results,” he said.Jeffries cited economic and health measures executed by the Biden administration as the US worked its way out from the Covid-19 pandemic, “allowing the American economy to emerge as the most advanced in the world”.He added: “Yes, more needs to be done in addressing affordability and the inflationary pressures and President Biden has a vision to do that.”Biden was scheduled to travel to Las Vegas on Sunday for a campaign event in the Historic Westside neighborhood ahead of Nevada’s Democratic primary on Tuesday.Nevada is a key swing state for Biden to win again this year. He beat Trump by less than three points there in 2020, relying heavily on support from Hispanic and working class union member voters in the Las Vegas area.Biden needs a good showing in the Democratic primary, while the nominating race for the Republicans in Nevada is a confusing and messy one with two contests two days apart and Trump having a clear advantage over Haley.Meanwhile, Haley made a cameo appearance on the US comedy staple Saturday Night Live. More

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      A once or future king? Floridians ask if DeSantis is looking forward or back

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      Two weeks have passed since Ron DeSantis crashed out of the race for the Republican presidential nomination, but many in Florida are questioning if the rightwing governor is still auditioning.On his return to Tallahassee following his national humiliation there was no period of quiet contemplation, or pause to refocus on his day job. Instead, DeSantis got straight down to business, little of it having immediate consequence to Florida or its voters.This week, insisting that the US looked to Florida for “leadership”, he called for constitutional reforms in Washington, including term limits for elected officials. Days later, he announced he was sending the Florida state guard to Texas to “fortify” its battle with the Biden administration over border security.And anybody in his home state figuring DeSantis was ready to move on from his obsession with the culture war issues that helped bring down his White House run was quickly disabused. One month into the year, Florida Republicans’ priorities have included banning Pride flags and stopping transgender drivers from changing their sex on licenses.Prominent questions circulating in the state are, now he is back to serve his final three years as governor: what are DeSantis’s intentions? And what is his ultimate goal?There is no shortage of theories. Some suggest he is ostensibly still in the race for the 2024 nomination, running a shadow campaign that would leave him ready to step in if legal troubles or other factors force Donald Trump out of contention.Others think he’s plotting further ahead. “He’s still running for president, just changed the timeline from 2024 to 2028,” Bob Jarvis, a constitutional law professor at Nova University, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.Another possibility is gaining traction among those who have studied DeSantis since he evolved from a nondescript and aloof US congressman to the helm of the third largest state: that he simply wants to be remembered for something when he’s termed out of office in January 2027.Such a hypothesis has plausibility if, as some observers believe, his future political career was mortally wounded by the implosion of a profligate presidential campaign that blew through $160m to garner barely 23,000 votes in Iowa, the only state he competed in.“My personal opinion is that he’s finished, that he’s going to go the way of Rick Perry in Texas, Tim Pawlenty in Minnesota, Scott Walker in Wisconsin, all of these great governors who were going to be president, who were like shooting stars and then disappeared into the darkness,” said the political analyst Mac Stipanovich, a former Republican strategist.“If he were to resign today, he would have a legacy in Florida unlike almost any governor in my lifetime. It would be a legacy of anger, outrage and highly centralized top-down vitriol.“He can’t turn on a dime and sprint left because that would make him seem even more inauthentic than he normally does. But if he’s patient, if he takes time, he can move to the center and become, I shouldn’t say more likable, but likable at all since he has been a black hole of anti-charisma.”The “legacy” theory resonates with Susan MacManus, distinguished professor emeritus of political science at the University of Florida. “He’s still got a good while in office, and right now he’s carrying on with points he was making on the campaign trail, but this happens with governors that run and come back home after having not done well, governors are always thinking about their legacy,” she said.“Some want to be known as the education governor, the tax relief or tax reform governor, the environmental governor. There’s that possibility, but if he’s going to take that direction it is probably best to just get through this legislative session being consistent with what you’ve been on the campaign trail.“Maybe he’s comfortable with his legacy being the ‘anti-wokeism’ governor, we will see. Some Republicans say they see the environment as a possibility for him, making inroads and having a good legacy because he’s been fairly proactive spending a lot of money on water issues and so forth, but it looks right now there’s been no break in his commitment to anti-wokeism.”To that end, on Wednesday, DeSantis celebrated a ruling by a Trump-appointed district court judge dismissing Disney’s lawsuit against the state for “political retaliation”, the stripping of powers from Florida’s largest private employer for opposing his “don’t say gay” law banning classroom discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation.His backing of the Texas governor, Greg Abbott, by sending state and national guard personnel, and law enforcement officers paid by Florida taxpayers, to bolster his fellow Republican’s fight with federal authorities over immigration is to critics another example of DeSantis placing his political agenda above the needs of his own state.There’s also growing evidence it could backfire. A survey by Mi Vecino, a grassroots voter registration and advocacy group, found 58% of Republican respondents rated as “very poor”, and an additional 18% as “poor”, the effectiveness of Florida’s political leaders to handle issues that mattered most to them: in order, the cost of living, healthcare and gun violence.“People are feeling the squeeze. They are struggling with real world issues, and they feel like the governor and the legislature are spending their time on manufactured outrage, and not legislating or improving their lives in any tangible way,” said Alex Berrios, the group’s co-founder.“Ron DeSantis has created an engaged segment of the Republican party that will vote, is involved, and is also incredibly unhappy with him and the Republican legislature. They have become exhausted by this firehose of outrage and legislation and policy.” More

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      An ex-congressman or a publicity-shy Republican: who will replace George Santos?

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      George Santos, an overcoat draped around his shoulders like a villain’s cape, finally left Washington in December, expelled from Congress as he faced more than 20 fraud charges, and after his almost entirely fabricated backstory fell apart.“To hell with this place,” Santos declared as he exited.But while the Republican may be done with Washington, plenty of other people were soon desperate to fill his seat representing New York’s third congressional district.In Long Island, New York, the former congressman Tom Suozzi emerged as the Democratic candidate hoping to replace Santos. Quickly, Suozzi set about distancing himself from the left of his party. He has promised to “battle” the “Squad”, a group of progressive Democratic members of Congress and has discussed the “border crisis”.Mazi Pilip, a relatively unknown local politician, was chosen by a local Republican party desperate to move on from the embarrassment that Santos – whose claims that he was a successful businessman and investor, a graduate of a top New York university and a whiz on the volleyball court had all fallen apart under scrutiny – had brought.While the looming presence of Santos, who has pleaded not guilty to charges including stealing donors’ identities, has piqued national interest, the Suozzi-Pilip match-up could also provide an early insight into what the US can expect in what’s likely to be a second presidential election between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in November.With early and absentee voting due to start in the special election on Saturday – election day is 13 February – so far it seems that immigration is top of the agenda, for Republicans at least.“Joe Biden and Tom Suozzi created the migrant crisis by opening our borders and funding sanctuary cities,” Pilip said recently on X, in a post that seemed to overestimate the achievements and influence of Suozzi, who spent six fairly uneventful years in Congress before stepping down last year.Pilip has run a strange campaign that has seen her duck interviews and largely avoid the press. She has repeatedly sought to tie Suozzi, who represented the district before Santos’s disastrous tenure, to the unpopular Biden. In her telling, Suozzi is also responsible for “runaway inflation”, while Pilip has also attempted to link Suozzi to antisemitism.In a district which the Jewish Democratic Council of America estimates has one of the largest Jewish populations of anywhere in the country, US funding to Israel has proved a key issue so far. Both Pilip, an Orthodox Jew who was born in Ethiopia before moving to Israel and who served in the Israel Defense Forces before coming to the US, and Suozzi are fervent supporters of continued aid.As a largely suburban, purple area, which voted for Biden in the 2020 presidential election before, fatefully, electing Santos in 2022, the race is being closely watched, said Lawrence Levy, former chief political columnist for Newsday and executive dean of the National Center for Suburban Studies at Hofstra University.“It’s almost become a cliche to say that this [district] is a bellwether, but it really is in terms of national elections,” he said. “Competitive suburbs all over the country are the places that for years now have determined who gets the gavels in Congress, and the keys to the White House.”More than 60% of registered voters in New York state believe that the influx of migrants into the state is a “very serious problem”, according to a poll by Siena College in January. The border has come to dominate the election, and the lines of attack are beginning to serve as a preview for November.“What political operatives, and candidates, and donors are looking at around the country is how the strategies and tactics and messaging, in particular, play,” Levy said.“And what that will mean for how they approach their own races, whether it’s Orange county, California; Montgomery and Bucks county [in] Pennsylvania; Oakland county, Michigan: these are our swing suburban areas that are themselves bellwethers in the national elections.”The election has certainly brought in plenty of money. Suozzi has raised $4.5m since he entered the race, Politico reported, with Pilip bringing in $1.3m. Much of the money seems to have gone to local TV channels, with New Yorkers bombarded by attack adverts from both sides.Some of Pilip’s attacks have followed the familiar path of tying her opponent to an unsuccessful incumbent. Although Pilip’s repeated claims about a “Biden-Suozzi immigration crisis” seem something of a stretch given Suozzi’s fairly modest significance in the House of Representatives, where he served on the ways and means committee and was known for his bipartisanship.In some ways, Pilip has already cleared the very low bar set by Santos. A local CBS news channel said it had verified documents showing that Pilip did, as she claimed, study at Haifa and Tel Aviv universities, and serve in the IDF, which suggests she has not invented her history in the way Santos did. (In an email, the IDF said “we cannot comment on the personal details of past or present IDF soldiers” when the Guardian asked to confirm Pilip’s service.)Pilip has run a very quiet campaign. Her largest event so far, which saw several Republican members of Congress trek to Long Island to champion their candidate, was most noticeable for Pilip not being there: she said she was observing the sabbath.There have been complaints from local journalists, including from the New York Times and NPR, that Pilip has left them off invitations to press conferences. During the opening weeks of the campaign she conducted few interviews – one notable effort was an odd video interview with the conservative new outlet the New York Sun, during which Pilip stared into the middle distance as she answered questions.Her campaign did not respond to requests for comment or requests to be added to the press mailing list. The Guardian signed up for supporter emails, and did not receive a single one in the space of five days.It’s a far cry from the attention-pursuing Santos, who recently turned up to a Trump party during the New Hampshire primary, despite not being invited; has been hawking video messages on the app Cameo; and recently insisted in an interview: “People still want to hear what I have to say.”Whatever happens in the special election between Pilip and Suozzi, there will be plenty of people interested in what it might say about the state of US politics – and what we might expect this November. More

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      Nevada: rival primary and caucuses ensure confusion … and a Trump win

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      When Nevada Republicans started receiving their mail-in ballots for the state’s 6 February primary, Nikki Haley’s name was on them, but a key person was missing: Donald Trump. It’s not an accident.Instead of appearing on the primary ballot in the key swing state, Trump is participating in the separate Republican caucuses to take place two days after the primary, on 8 February. Haley isn’t participating in those caucuses. The bizarre set-up means that Nevada Republicans will be asked to vote in a primary on 6 February and then in caucuses two days later to choose their party’s nominee. Only the caucuses will determine how Nevada’s 26 delegates are awarded at the Republican national convention.The Nevada Republican party created the chaotic scheme, changing its nomination rules last year, in what many say is a thinly veiled effort to benefit Trump. The changes have made Nevada’s GOP nomination in the primary essentially irrelevant and left voters confused.“What it’s probably doing is a) creating a lot of confusion and b) gonna reduce turnout and participation, which totally undermines the purpose of the caucuses, which is for party building,” said David Damore, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.Michael McDonald, the head of the Nevada Republican party, was one of six fake Trump electors indicted by Nevada’s attorney general, Aaron Ford. Jesse Law, the chair of the Clark county Republican party who also served in the Trump administration, and Jim DeGraffenreid, a Nevada Republican National Committee member, were also charged.“​​They did it because they are controlled by Trump people, and Trump wouldn’t like it if anything were left to chance,” said Jon Ralston, a well-respected Nevada political commentator who is CEO of the Nevada Independent. “He would almost surely have won the primary, too, but with universal mail ballots and a much larger universe, it would not have been as big a margin, probably.”In 2021, Nevada lawmakers approved a measure requiring the state to hold a primary election for the presidential preference contest. But last year, the state Republican party decided it wanted to hold caucuses instead. The party said it would award all of its delegates to the winner of the caucus. It also barred anyone who participated in the primary from also participating in the caucuses. It imposed a $55,000 fee to participate and prohibited Super Pacs from intervening in the caucuses – widely seen as an attack on Ron DeSantis, who relied heavily on his Super Pac throughout his campaign before dropping out in January.Under Nevada law, all voters are automatically mailed a ballot for the primary unless they opt out. There is also in-person early voting that began on 27 January, and voters can register to vote at the polls. The caucuses, by contrast, will take place from 5pm to 7.30pm, and voters have to appear in person and show ID to participate. Unlike a primary, in which votes are cast by ballot over the course of an early voting period and entire election days, voters in a caucus must show up in person at a designated place with their neighbors, where they are then given a ballot, after which they submit it and can stay and watch it get counted.Publicly, Nevada Republicans have said the caucuses are needed to ensure the integrity of the vote, even though voter fraud is exceedingly rare. “The caucus, until we get voter ID, and we get the mail-in ballot situation under control – the only pure way to have this is through a caucus,” McDonald, the Nevada Republican chair, said in an October interview with the Nevada newsmakers podcast.McDonald, who said in 2015 he favored primaries because they increased participation, did not respond to a request for an interview.View image in fullscreenJoe Lombardo, Nevada’s Republican governor, has said he will caucus for Trump but has criticized the dual primary and caucus system as confusing and said it would disenfranchise voters.Ralston said the party’s election integrity concerns were nonsense. “They want only the base to turn out, and the smaller the turnout, the better Trump is likely to do, especially now with only [Ryan] Binkley against him and no ‘none of the above’ to choose,” he said, referring to the long-shot candidate.Haley, along with Mike Pence and Tim Scott, chose to participate in the primary last year. Trump, Ron DeSantis, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Chris Christie all chose to participate in the caucuses. Because Haley is the only candidate left in the primary, she is guaranteed to win. Trump, similarly, is the only remaining major candidate in the caucuses and is guaranteed to win that contest.Haley has said she’s not participating in the caucuses because it was rigged for Trump. “I mean, talk to the people in Nevada. They will tell you the caucuses have been sealed off, bought and paid for for a long time. And so that’s why we got into the primary,” Haley told reporters during a campaign stop in Epping, New Hampshire, last month.And Trump’s campaign has gloated over its guaranteed win in the caucuses.“On February 8th, Nikki Haley will be handed her third straight loss – in Nevada. She inexplicably signed up to be included on the state Primary ballot despite the fact that she could not earn delegates in the Primary,” Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita, who both lead Trump’s campaign, wrote in a memo on Monday.Still, Trump allies have spread misinformation falsely suggesting the primary is unauthorized and Trump was wrongfully excluded from it. The presidential primary is required by state law – but Trump chose not to participate in the primary so he could be a candidate in the caucuses.Voters are confused about the process and why Trump isn’t on the primary ballot, said Cisco Aguilar, Nevada’s secretary of state.“Voters ask that question all the time,” he said in an interview. “It’s interesting because we did talk about it, we did address it, we tried to do as much mitigation as we could prior to the ballots being received. However, it’s human nature that the voter is only going to pay attention to what’s right in front of them at that moment in time.”The confusion is exacerbated by the fact that the primary is run by state officials and the caucuses are run entirely by the state GOP.Kerry Durmick, the Nevada state director for All Voting Is Local, a non-partisan group focused on expanding voting access, said she went to observe one of the first days of early voting and saw confusion.“I did see a lot of voters say, ‘Oh, I thought today was the caucus. Oh, I thought we were voting in February. Can I vote today or do I need to vote then?’” she said. “Legally the parties can handle the process however they want to. Where I’m frustrated, where All Voting Is Local is frustrated, is the lack of outreach that was done by this particular party around this particular process because this was the choice that they made.”Republicans are also reportedly still seeking volunteers to staff the caucus sites, which the party was still finalising less than a month ahead of the event, according to the Las Vegas Sun.There could be even more confusion if the dual contest system results in both candidates claiming victory in Nevada. After 6 February, Haley could claim she won the Nevada primary. Two days later, Trump will claim he won the caucuses.“To the degree that there’s any sort of media attention of the Tuesday results, it’s gonna be ‘Nikki Haley wins the Nevada primary. Oh, but Donald Trump wasn’t on the ballot.’ That’s a more complicated soundbite but she can certainly spin that,” said Damore.During a rally in Las Vegas last weekend, Trump reminded his supporters to turn out, even though he’s guaranteed to win the contest. “We do want to get a good vote. We’re not going to have a lot of competition, I think. But it doesn’t matter. We want to get a great, beautiful mandate,” he said.“It’s very important for you to help educate all of our supporters that we’re not talking about the government-run, universal mail-in ballots. We don’t want mail-in ballot,” he added. “Do the caucus, not the primary. The primary is meaningless. I don’t know, maybe they’ll try and use it for public relations purposes.”Lauren Gambino contributed reporting More

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      New Mexico man pleads guilty to drive-bys targeting Democrats’ homes

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      A New Mexico man has said he was hired by a failed Republican candidate for political office to carry out drive-by shootings targeting the homes of Democrats who would not abide by false election-rigging claims.Demetrio Trujillo, 42, indicated in federal court documents filed Friday that he had been hired for the spate of attacks by Solomon Peña, whose run for a seat in the New Mexico state legislature in November 2022 ended in defeat. Trujillo pleaded guilty to charges of election interference, criminal conspiracy and firearms-related offenses, and he could face several years in prison as he awaits a sentencing hearing that wasn’t immediately scheduled, the US attorney’s office in Albuquerque said in a statement.The case followed warnings of escalating political violence in the US, especially after Donald Trump and his supporters widely spread lies that the former president had lost the 2020 election because of voter fraud. Peña, 40, stands charged with lying about how the race he lost had been fraudulently stolen from him, which then fueled a plot to shoot up the houses of New Mexico Democrats, among them the state’s House speaker.He has pleaded not guilty and awaits a trial set for June 2024.Peña approached members of the commission that certifies election results, told them the race he had lost by nearly 50 percentage points had been rigged against him, and asked them to reject its results.The drive-by shootings unfolded in December 2022 and January 2023 shortly after officials certified Peña’s electoral loss. No one was wounded in any of the shootings, though authorities have noted that – in one instance – bullets cut through the bedroom of a state senator’s 10-year-old daughter.Trujillo later told investigators that he knew Peña through acquaintances. Peña hired him to fire bullets at three officials’ homes to intimidate them, Trujillo reported. Investigators charged Peña with carrying out the spree’s fourth drive-by shooting by himself.Ultimately, smartphone communications from Peña, including texts, tied him to the attacks, according to prosecutors. The communications not only pinpointed the targeted officials’ homes. They also purportedly spelled out allegations of election-rigging, and plans to “press the attack” and rage over how voters overwhelmingly rejected him for a seat in New Mexico’s statehouse.“We have to act. … The enemy will eventually break,” Peña is charged with saying in a text to a fellow Republican hours before the series of shooting began. He sent a separate message reading: “It is our duty … to stop the oligarchs from taking over our country.”Federal prosecutors in Albuquerque in June obtained an indictment charging Peña, Trujillo and Trujillo’s son in connection with the drive-by shootings.Jose Louise Trujillo, 22, pleaded guilty on 8 January to charges of illegally using a firearm as well as possessing fentanyl with the intent to distribute it. His sentencing is tentatively set for 8 April.Prosecutors’ statements about the Trujillos’ guilty pleas don’t comment on the case beyond its facts. But, at the time the Trujillos and Peña were indicted, Albuquerque’s US attorney, Alexander Uballez, said the prosecution aimed to demonstrate that “in America, voters pick their leaders, and would-be leaders don’t get to pick which voters they heed, which rules apply to them or which laws to follow”.Since the drive-by shootings attributed to Peña and the Trujillos, New Mexico lawmakers passed legislation that makes it a state felony to intimidate election officials. The legislation also allows some elected officials and political candidates to withhold their home addresses from public, government websites. More

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      Fani Willis criticizes ‘wild and reckless’ speculation in conflict of interest claims by former Trump staffer – as it happened

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      Despite allegations that prosecutor the Nathan Wade was overpaid for his work on the Georgia election subversion case, his pay was in line with his experience and the complexity of work he did, the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, writes in a court filing.And, contrary to any assertions otherwise, any pay Wade made in the case did not personally benefit Willis, she said. They don’t share any joint accounts or expenses. When they’ve traveled together, they’ve split costs “roughly evenly”.“Both are professionals with substantial income; neither is financially reliant on the other,” the filing says.Willis also says Wade’s employment complied with applicable state and local laws and payments received the proper approvals.The former Trump staffer Michael Roman’s filings alleging the personal relationship should disqualify Willis have engaged in “wild and reckless speculation” and attempts to subpoena a wide net of people connected to Willis and Wade for this purpose is an “extraordinary level of invasion of privacy”, Willis wrote.She wants the motions to disqualify her from the case to be denied by the court “without further spectacle”.Friday afternoon saw the public admission of a relationship between the Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis and the special prosecutor Nathan Wade, which will undoubtedly became a conservative rallying point to discredit the election subversion case against former president Donald Trump.Here’s what happened today:
      Willis and Wade confirmed for the first time on Friday that they had a romantic relationship, but denied any wrongdoing. Willis said she should not be disqualified from the case.
      The response comes after the former Trump staffer Michael Roman’s filings attempting to get Willis booted from the case based on what Willis called “wild and reckless speculation” and an “extraordinary level of invasion of privacy”.
      Trump responded on his social media platform, Truth Social, deflecting from the merits of the case against him: “THAT MEANS THAT THIS SCAM IS TOTALLY DISCREDITED & OVER!”
      Legal experts say the response from Willis and Wade, in which both say they did not share expenses and weren’t financially entangled, should go a long way toward staving off any removals from the case.
      But perceptions of conflicts of interest will play a role in how the case is viewed now, and conservatives will continue to bring up the relationship while the case continues.
      Separately, Willis has been subpoenaed by the chair of the House judiciary committee and Trump ally, Jim Jordan, to produce documents related to the use of federal grant money in prosecutions and the potential misuse of those funds.
      Outside the Willis/Wade/Trump issue, today’s news:
      A federal judge in DC postponed Donald Trump’s March trial on charges of plotting to overturn election as an appeal by Trump claiming immunity from prosecution for actions taken as president goes through the courts. No new date is set.
      The US jobs market defied fears of a downturn again in January with employers adding 353,000 new jobs over the month, the labor department announced on Friday.
      Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, honored the three US service members who were killed in a drone strike in northern Jordan.
      Stories to watch this weekend:
      The lead Democratic negotiator, Senator Chris Murphy, has confirmed that the text of the long-awaited border security bill will be released this weekend and voted on next week.
      The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will travel to the Middle East from Sunday to Thursday to work for the release of hostages still held by Hamas and to secure a humanitarian pause, the state department said, according to Reuters.
      Democrats will hold their first official primary contest in South Carolina on Saturday, expected to be an easy win for Biden.
      One last bit of news on Trump’s trials this afternoon:A federal judge in DC postponed Donald Trump’s March trial on charges of plotting to overturn election, the Associated Press reports. No new date is set.Joe Biden and the first lady, Jill Biden, joined grieving families at Dover Air Force Base on a gray, chilly Friday to honor the three American service members killed in a drone attack in Jordan, the Associated Press reports.The Bidens met privately with the families before the roughly 15-minute solemn ritual, called a dignified transfer, that has become relatively uncommon in recent years as the US has withdrawn from conflicts abroad.An air force chaplain offered a short prayer before white-gloved members of the army carry team transferred the flag-draped cases holding the soldiers’ remains from a C-5 Galaxy military transport aircraft to a waiting vehicle. The carry team after placing the last of three cases in the vehicle offered a final salute to the soldiers. The US president, with his right hand over his heart, looked on somberly.The ceremony came as the US military prepared a response to the deadly drone attack that American officials say was carried out by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias that includes the group Kataib Hezbollah. The White House has said the retaliation will not be a “one-off” strike.The service members killed Sunday were all from Georgia – Sgt William Jerome Rivers of Carrollton, Sgt Kennedy Sanders of Waycross and Sgt Breonna Moffett of Savannah. Sanders and Moffett were posthumously promoted to sergeant rank.Democrats will kick off their primary calendar officially tomorrow, 3 February, with the South Carolina contest.Republicans aren’t holding their presidential election in the state until later this month, but that didn’t stop Nikki Haley, the Republican from South Carolina, from taking aim at the Democrats.Haley is running a mobile billboard in Orangeburg focused on vice-president Kamala Harris. Harris is not running for president, but the billboard calls attention to her position as second in line for the role.“We’re going to have a woman president,” the billboard says. “It will either be Nikki Haley, or it will be Kamala Harris. Trump can’t beat Biden, and Biden won’t finish his term.”Haley campaign spokesperson Olivia Perez-Cubas said the billboard highlights the choice between the two women, saying “a vote for Donald Trump is a vote for Kamala Harris”.The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, will travel to the Middle East from Sunday to Thursday to work for the release of hostages still held by Hamas and to secure a humanitarian pause, the state department said, according to Reuters.The trip will include stops in Israel, the West Bank, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Qatar, it said.Some legal experts say the affidavit from the special prosecutor Nathan Wade and filing from the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, where both say they did not share expenses and weren’t financially entangled, should go a long way toward staving off any removals from the case.But, as the Guardian’s Sam Levine has reported, there’s still an issue of a perception of conflict. Trump and his allies are sure to continue this line of attack on Willis and use it to discredit the case overall, regardless of any dismissals.The former president Donald Trump, the main target of the Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis’s extensive election subversion case, has commented on Willis’s admission that she had a personal relationship with prosecutor Nathan Wade.On social media platform Truth Social, Trump repeated the allegations that Willis’s hiring of Wade enriched her personally, a claim Willis has denied.“By going after the most high level person, and the Republican Nominee, she was able to get her ‘lover’ much more money, almost a Million Dollars, than she would be able to get for the prosecution of any other person or individual. THAT MEANS THAT THIS SCAM IS TOTALLY DISCREDITED & OVER!”In an affidavit included in Fani Willis’s court filing about the alleged conflict of interest motion, the prosecutor Nathan Wade detailed how he came on board to help with the Georgia election subversion investigation and his personal relationship with Willis.Wade said the role of special prosecutor paid well below his typical hourly rate – $250 an hour, with a capped number of hours, compared to his normal $550 an hour for previous government legal work. He said he initially tried to help Willis find other lawyers willing to do the work, but many had “concerns related to violent rhetoric and potential safety issues for their families”.None of the money he’s earned working the case has benefitted Willis, he wrote in the affidavit. They don’t share expenses and have never lived together.“At times I have made and purchased travel for District Attorney Willis and myself from my personal funds. At other times District Attorney Willis has made and purchased travel for she and I from her personal funds,” he wrote.Despite allegations that prosecutor the Nathan Wade was overpaid for his work on the Georgia election subversion case, his pay was in line with his experience and the complexity of work he did, the Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, writes in a court filing.And, contrary to any assertions otherwise, any pay Wade made in the case did not personally benefit Willis, she said. They don’t share any joint accounts or expenses. When they’ve traveled together, they’ve split costs “roughly evenly”.“Both are professionals with substantial income; neither is financially reliant on the other,” the filing says.Willis also says Wade’s employment complied with applicable state and local laws and payments received the proper approvals.The former Trump staffer Michael Roman’s filings alleging the personal relationship should disqualify Willis have engaged in “wild and reckless speculation” and attempts to subpoena a wide net of people connected to Willis and Wade for this purpose is an “extraordinary level of invasion of privacy”, Willis wrote.She wants the motions to disqualify her from the case to be denied by the court “without further spectacle”.We’re reading through the court filing from Fani Willis, the Georgia prosecutor, now. The full document posted today can be found online here.Some interesting context:In the filing, Willis points out two interpersonal relationships between defense attorneys working for those charged in the sprawling Trump election case.The attorney for the defendant Ray Smith and the attorney for the defendant Kenneth Chesebro are “publicly known to be in a personal relationship”, the filing says. And the two counsels for Jenna Ellis are “married law partners”.The state didn’t try to make these relationships a conflict-of-interest issue in the case because these kinds of relationships don’t constitute a legal conflict. Until Michael Roman filed a motion alleging the relationship between Willis and Wade was worthy of disqualification, “the private lives of the attorney participants in this trial was not a topic of discussion”, the filing says.The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, and Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor working on the case against Donald Trump and 14 other defendants, confirmed for the first time on Friday that they had a romantic relationship, but denied any wrongdoing and Willis said she should not be disqualified from the case.“In 2022, District Attorney Willis and I developed a personal relationship in addition to our professional association and friendship,” Wade wrote in an affidavit attached to a motion Willis filed in court on Friday. He was hired to work on the Trump case in 2021.Willis wrote in a filing she had no personal or financial conflict of interest that “constitutes a legal basis for disqualification”. She urged Judge Scott McAfee, who is overseeing the case, to dismiss a request to disqualify her without a hearing, which is scheduled for 15 February. She wrote:
      While the allegations raised in the various motions are salacious and garnered the media attention they were designed to obtain, none provide this Court with any basis upon which to order the relief they seek.
      Michael Roman, a seasoned Republican operative and one of the defendants in the wide ranging racketeering case against Trump and associates for trying to overturn the election, is seeking Willis’s disqualification. He alleges that Roman used money he earned from his work in Willis’s office on the case to pay for vacations for the two of them.The Biden-Harris campaign has said the strong job figures released today should be a reminder to Americans what the economy looked liked under his predecessor.Donald Trump “oversaw the worst jobs record since the Great Depression and his only economic ‘accomplishment’ was giving billionaires and corporations tax handouts at the expense of middle-class families”, the campaign’s rapid response director, Ammar Moussa, said in a statement.The statement continues:
      Now, [Trump is] rooting for the economy to crash because he thinks it’ll help him politically – but that’s exactly what will happen if he’s able to regain power. We know because that’s what happened last time.
      Joe Biden and his wife, Jill, have arrived at Dover air force base to honor the three US service members who were killed in a drone strike in northern Jordan.The Bidens arrived at the base to witness the transfer of the remains of the troops killed in Sunday’s assault. They have been named by the Pentagon as Sgt William Jerome Rivers, 46, Specialist Kennedy Sanders, 24, and Specialist Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23.Defense secretary Lloyd Austin and Gen CQ Brown, chair of the joint chiefs of staff, joined the president and first lady for the transfer in Dover.All three of the troops who died were army reservists from 926th Engineer Brigade, based in the US state of Georgia: Rivers was from Carrollton, Sanders from Waycross and Moffett from Savannah.The deaths marked the first time American military personnel have been killed by hostile fire in the Middle East since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on 7 October.Only a quarter of Americans say they feel the economy is starting to recover from the problems of the past few years, according to a new poll released as new figures show the US job market added 353,000 new jobs in January, defying fears of a downturn.The CNN poll released today shows 26% of Americans say they feel the economy is beginning to recover, up from 20% last summer and 17% in December 2022.But nearly half, 48%, say they believe the US economy is still in a downturn, citing inflation and the cost of living, as well as expenses such as food and housing.Overall, more than half, 55%, of Americans say they feel Joe Biden’s policies have worsened the country’s economic conditions. The poll found split views along partisan lines: of those who say the economy is recovering, nearly three-quarters say Biden policies have helped. Out of those who say things are getting worse, 83% blame the president’s policies.The lead Democratic negotiator, Senator Chris Murphy, has confirmed that the text of the long-awaited border security bill will be released this weekend and voted on next week.The Democratic congressman Dan Goldman has said he is “disgusted” by the news that the House judiciary committee has subpoenaed Fani Willis.A statement from the New York congressman reads:
      I am utterly disgusted but sadly not surprised by Chairman Jordan’s latest attempt to subvert our country’s rule of law by weaponizing Congress’s authority to interfere in an ongoing criminal prosecution for nakedly political purposes.
      In his blatant attempt to save Donald Trump, his party’s indicted criminal defendant presidential nominee, from legal peril, Chairman Jordan has yet again abused the authority of the Judiciary Committee to attempt to undermine a state prosecution.
      Make no mistake, this is the true ‘weaponization of the federal government,’ unlike Chairman Jordan’s Select Subcommittee of the same name in which he has wasted countless hours peddling baseless conspiracy theories to no avail.
      The back and forth between Jim Jordan and Fani Willis began last year with correspondence Jordan sent on 24 August, the day Donald Trump stood for a mugshot at the Fulton county jail.Jordan’s letter suggested Willis had subjected Trump to “politically motivated state investigations and prosecutions due to the policies they advanced as president”, and that any coordination her office had with federal prosecutors may have been an improperly partisan use of federal money.Willis’s scorching response in subsequent replies said the inquiry offends principles of state sovereignty and the separation of powers, that it interferes with a criminal investigation, that Trump is not immune to prosecution simply because he is a candidate for public office and that Jordan himself was “ignorant of the US constitution”.The Republican-led committee opened a formal investigation into the Fulton county prosecutor’s office in December.Willis has been under fire over the last month after allegations of an improper relationship with the special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she hired to work on the Trump case in Fulton county.Jordan sent a letter to Nathan Wade on 12 January, asking for his cooperation in his committee’s inquiry into “politically motivated investigations and prosecutions and the potential misuse of federal funds”. The letter notes Wade’s billings for meetings with the federal January 6 Committee, which the letter characterizes as partisan. The letter states:
      There are open questions about whether federal funds were used by [Fulton county] to finance your prosecution.
      Willis responded on Wade’s behalf twelve days later.“Your letter is simply a restatement of demands that you have made in past correspondence for access to evidence in a pending Georgia criminal prosecution,” she said in the reply.
      As I said previously, your requests implicate significant, well-recognized confidentiality interests related to an ongoing criminal matter. Your requests violate principles of separation of powers and federalism, as well as respect for the legal protections provided to attorney work product in ongoing litigation.
      The US House judiciary committee subpoenaed Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, for records related to the use of federal grant money in prosecutions and the potential misuse of those funds.The subpoena escalates conflict between Jim Jordan, the Ohio Republican representative, judiciary committee chairman and an ardent defender of Donald Trump, and Willis, whose office charged the former president and 18 others with 41 counts for interfering with a Georgia election and illegally attempting to undo Biden’s victory in Georgia.Willis responded to the subpoena on Friday:
      These false allegations are included in baseless litigation filed by a holdover employee from the prior administration who was terminated for cause. The courts that have ruled found no merit in these claims. We expect the same result in any pending litigation.
      She then went on to tout the office grant programs and said they are in compliance with Department of Justice requirements. More

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      in Elections

      Trump ally Jim Jordan subpoenas Fani Willis for potential grant money misuse

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      The US House judiciary committee has subpoenaed Fani Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, for records related to the use of federal grant money in prosecutions and the potential misuse of those funds.The subpoena escalates the conflict between Jim Jordan, the Ohio Republican congressman, judiciary committee chair and ardent defender of Donald Trump, and Willis, whose office charged the former president and 18 others with 41 counts over interfering with a Georgia election and illegally attempting to undo Biden’s victory in Georgia.Willis responded to the subpoena on Friday. She said: “These false allegations are included in baseless litigation filed by a holdover employee from the prior administration who was terminated for cause. The courts that have ruled found no merit in these claims. We expect the same result in any pending litigation.”She went on to tout the office grant programs and said they are in compliance with Department of Justice requirements.The back and forth between Jordan and Willis began last year with correspondence Jordan sent on 24 August, the day Trump stood for a mugshot at the Fulton county jail. Jordan’s letter suggested Willis had subjected Trump to “politically motivated state investigations and prosecutions due to the policies they advanced as president”, and that any coordination her office had with federal prosecutors may have been an improperly partisan use of federal money.Willis’s scorching response in subsequent replies said the inquiry offends principles of state sovereignty and the separation of powers; that it interferes with a criminal investigation; that Trump is not immune to prosecution simply because he is a candidate for public office; and that Jordan himself was “ignorant of the US constitution”.The Republican-led committee opened a formal investigation into the Willis’s office in December.Willis has been under fire over the past month after allegations of an improper relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she hired to work on the Trump case in Fulton county.Jordan sent a letter to Nathan Wade on 12 January, asking for his cooperation in his committee’s inquiry into “politically motivated investigations and prosecutions and the potential misuse of federal funds”. The letter notes Wade’s billings for meetings with the federal January 6 committee, which the letter characterizes as partisan. “There are open questions about whether federal funds were used by [Fulton county] to finance your prosecution,” the letter states.Willis responded on Wade’s behalf 12 days later.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“Your letter is simply a restatement of demands that you have made in past correspondence for access to evidence in a pending Georgia criminal prosecution,” she said in the reply.“As I said previously, your requests implicate significant, well-recognized confidentiality interests related to an ongoing criminal matter. Your requests violate principles of separation of powers and federalism, as well as respect for the legal protections provided to attorney work product in ongoing litigation.” More

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      in US Politics

      State department identifies Israeli citizens targeted by US sanctions as Netanyahu rejects them as ‘unnecessary’ – as it happened

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      The US state department has released the names of four Israeli nationals subjected to sanctions under Biden’s new executive order.
      David Chai Chasdai
      Einan Tanjil
      Shalom Zicherman
      Yinon Levi
      According to the state department, Chasdai “initiated and led a riot, which involved setting vehicles and buildings on fire, assaulting Palestinian civilians, and causing damage to property in Huwara, which resulted in the death of a Palestinian civilian”.It accuses Tanjil of involvement in the assault of “Palestinian farmers and Israeli activists by attacking them with stones and clubs, resulting in injuries that required medical treatment”.Zicherman was seen on video assaulting “Israeli activists and their vehicles in the West Bank, blocking them on the street, and attempted to break the windows of passing vehicles with activists inside,” it said. He “cornered at least two of the activists and injured both”.Levi “led a group of settlers who engaged in actions creating an atmosphere of fear in the West Bank. He regularly led groups of settlers from the Meitarim Farm outpost that assaulted Palestinian and Bedouin civilians, threatened them with additional violence if they did not leave their homes, burned their fields, and destroyed their property. Levi and other settlers at Meitarim Farm have repeatedly attacked multiple communities within the West Bank.”Good afternoon. It’s been another lively day in Washington. Thanks for reading.Here’s what we covered today:
      Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, announced that the long-awaited text of a border deal to unlock aid to Ukraine and Israel could be released as early as tomorrow and said to expect a vote next week. Despite months of painstaking, bipartisan negotiations between senators and the White House, the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has already declared it “dead on arrival” amid opposition from Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner who hopes to use immigration as a cudgel against Joe Biden.
      Meanwhile, Biden announced that the US will place sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank, via presidential executive order, citing “intolerable levels” of violence. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the action as “unnecessary.” The state department on Thursday released the names of four Israeli citizens targeted in a first round of sanctions under the new authority. For latest updates on the Middle East, you can follow our live coverage here.
      Defense secretary Lloyd Austin, was contrite in a Pentagon press briefing this morning, his first since being rushed to the hospital with complications from prostate cancer surgery that he kept secret from the president and the public for several days. “I want to be crystal clear: we did not handle this right and I did not handle this right,” Austin told reporters.
      Biden praised the Ukrainians people’s “incredible resolve and resilience against Putin’s aggression” and demanded afresh of Congress: “We must continue to help them.” The White House’s request to send nearly $110bn in additional security assistance and aid to Ukraine is on hold on Capitol Hill amid House Republican resistance.
      The US House of Representatives last night passed a nearly $79bn tax package that would expand the child tax credit for millions and revive a trio of tax breaks for businesses.
      Criticizing the policies included in the bipartisan border deal as “Republican light,” Democratic congressman Greg Casar lamented Joe Biden‘s recent statement indicating that he would move to “shut down the border” if the deal becomes law.“I’m a supporter of the president, but I think that he made a big mistake with that statement. The president’s statement reflects not just bad policy but bad politics,” Casar said.“‘Shutting down the border’ means that we’re further empowering cartels and criminal organizations to move people across the border. We need to be creating legal pathways for migration.”Republican lawmakers have demanded that Biden sign off on severe border measures in exchange for approving additional aid for Ukraine, and Casar advised the president against accepting those terms.“I do not think we should be playing into that kind of a hostage-taking situation. It’s bad policy,” Casar said. “And I don’t think that it will be good politics for the president either because these Republican policies are not going to create a more orderly situation at the border.”Conservative opposition to the border bill has received much of the attention. But progressives are also alarmed by the emerging proposal, as the Guardian’s Joan Greve reports.Congressman Greg Casar, a progressive Democrat of Texas, expressed grave concerns today about the border deal recently brokered by the Biden administration and a bipartisan group of senators.“It really worries me to hear these negotiations with the US Senate, where it feels that Republican, anti-immigrant policies could make their way into law even under a Democratic president,” Casar said on a press call.“I just don’t think that that is the way to go. We have to respond to this anti-immigrant propaganda with a proactive vision that recognizes that immigration is a good thing.”The Senate negotiators have not yet released bill text of the border deal, and it remains highly unclear whether the proposal can pass through Congress. Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, has already attacked the proposal as insufficient and has indicated that the legislation would be “dead on arrival” in the lower chamber.The group of senators working on the border deal have defended it against what they claim are rumors and misinformation about the bill’s contents. Conservatives are under pressure from Donald Trump to reject the deal, despite arguing that border enforcement is their top priority.Senator Kyrsten Sinema, an Independent of Arizona who has helped lead the talks, outlined some of the provisions for reporters on Capitol Hill yesterday.According to Axios, she said the plan would include strict new measures to tighten and speed up asylum claims as well as changes the way enforcement agents use detention, deportation and parole.Switching back for a moment to matters of domestic policy – albeit it an issue with major global implications for US immigration policy, aid to Ukraine and support for Israel and Taiwan: Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, just announced that the text of a long-awaited border security bill could be released as early as tomorrow (Friday), with a vote expected next week.For months, Senate negotiators have worked behind the scenes to broker a border deal that would unlock military aid to Ukraine and Israel. But it faces long odds in the Republican-controlled House, where the speaker, Mike Johnson, has already rejected the measure outright, despite not knowing what exactly is in the bill.My colleague Peter Beaumont notes in his full report on the sanctions that they follow a US visa ban for any Israeli settlers implicated in attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank announced last month.The new order will give the treasury department the authority to impose financial sanctions on settlers engaged in violence, but is not meant to target US citizens. A substantial number of the settlers in the West Bank hold US citizenship and they would be prohibited under US law from transacting with the sanctioned individuals.The Guardian’s Chris McGreal has a deeper dive into how American citizens have been leading the rise in settler-related violence in the West Bank, which you can read here:Biden has landed in the Detroit area, ahead of an event with auto workers. But expect senior administration officials to return to the state this month to meet with community leaders amid deep anger at the president’s handling of the war in Gaza, Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.Past outreach attempts by the administration have … not gone well. Participants have been open about their frustration with Biden and what they view as his failure to rein in Israel’s devastating military campaign in Gaza.Arab American voters are a relatively small but growing constituency that has historically favored Democrats. In battleground states such as Michigan and Georgia, home to large Arab and Muslim American communities, even the tiniest erosion of support could hurt Biden’s prospects for re-election. Representative Rashida Tlaib, the lone Palestinian American in Congress, who represents a Detroit-area district, has said so explicitly. In a video calling on the Biden administration to back a ceasefire, she appears before text that reads: “We will remember in 2024.”In a statement, the office of Benjamin Netanyahu said the vast majority of West Bank settlers as “law-abiding citizens” and described Biden’s executive order sanctioning settler extremists as “exceptional”.“Israel acts against all Israelis who break the law, everywhere; therefore, exceptional measures are unnecessary,” the statement continued.The US state department has released the names of four Israeli nationals subjected to sanctions under Biden’s new executive order.
      David Chai Chasdai
      Einan Tanjil
      Shalom Zicherman
      Yinon Levi
      According to the state department, Chasdai “initiated and led a riot, which involved setting vehicles and buildings on fire, assaulting Palestinian civilians, and causing damage to property in Huwara, which resulted in the death of a Palestinian civilian”.It accuses Tanjil of involvement in the assault of “Palestinian farmers and Israeli activists by attacking them with stones and clubs, resulting in injuries that required medical treatment”.Zicherman was seen on video assaulting “Israeli activists and their vehicles in the West Bank, blocking them on the street, and attempted to break the windows of passing vehicles with activists inside,” it said. He “cornered at least two of the activists and injured both”.Levi “led a group of settlers who engaged in actions creating an atmosphere of fear in the West Bank. He regularly led groups of settlers from the Meitarim Farm outpost that assaulted Palestinian and Bedouin civilians, threatened them with additional violence if they did not leave their homes, burned their fields, and destroyed their property. Levi and other settlers at Meitarim Farm have repeatedly attacked multiple communities within the West Bank.”White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre just wrapped up the media briefing on Air Force One, as the flight was about to descend towards the Detroit area, where Joe Biden is heading to a campaign event to meet auto workers.Jean-Pierre was asked whether the executive order setting up sanctions against certain Israeli settlers in the West Bank was announced today to, essentially, appease Muslim Americans incensed by America’s tenacious support and funding for Israel even as its military decimates Gaza in response to the attack by Hamas on southern Israel on October 7.The Detroit area has a huge Arab American population and protests are expected during Biden’s visit today.Jean-Pierre denied that the timing was intentional, adding that “these types of sanctions take a long time” to plan and impose.The US government informed the Israeli government before it publicly announced earlier today that Joe Biden was issuing an executive order in relation to the occupied West Bank, the White House just confirmed.The US will place sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank, with the US president citing “intolerable levels” of violence against Palestinians there.John Kirby, the national security spokesman, based in the White House, was asked in the press briefing now underway whether Biden had informed Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu before he issued the executive order.“We informed the Israeli government before it was announced,” Kirby said.Asked again if that communication had been at the level of president to prime minister, Kirby repeated his answer.The Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, has called on the Biden administration to “immediately sanction” what Cair termed far-right Israeli officials who enable violence by illegal Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank.Biden issued an executive order today imposing sanctions on Israeli settlers who have been attacking Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
      The Biden administration should use this executive order to immediately sanction Israeli government officials who are enabling settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. Just as importantly, President Biden must end American support for the Israeli government’s genocidal war on the people of Gaza. It makes no sense for the Biden administration to oppose killing Palestinian civilians in the West Bank while enabling the killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza,” Cair national deputy director Edward Ahmed Mitchell said.
      Hello, it’s been a lively few hours in Washington, on Capitol Hill and at the White House. We await a briefing from press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and national security spokesman John Kirby, so stand by for that. Looks like that will go ahead at 1.30pm ET as the two spox and reporters accompany Joe Biden to Michigan, aboard Air Force One.Here’s how the day is going:
      Joe Biden announced that the US will place sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank, via presidential executive order, citing “intolerable levels” of violence.
      Americans’ views of the economy are improving, but their views of Biden are not. That’s according to a new AP-Norc poll that found a notable increase in the percentage of US adults who called the US economy “good”, but that’s not translating into support for the president.
      Defense secretary Lloyd Austin, was contrite in a Pentagon press briefing this morning, his first since being rushed to the hospital with complications from prostate cancer surgery that he kept secret from the president and the public for several days. “I want to be crystal clear: we did not handle this right and I did not handle this right,” Austin told reporters.
      Joe Biden praised the Ukrainians people’s “incredible resolve and resilience against Putin’s aggression” and demanded afresh of Congress: “We must continue to help them.” The White House’s request to send nearly $110bn in additional security assistance and aid to Ukraine is on hold on Capitol Hill amid House Republican resistance.
      The US House of Representatives last night passed a nearly $79bn tax package that would expand the child tax credit for millions and revive a trio of tax breaks for businesses. Yes, that House – the Republican-controlled one that booted its Speaker and has repeatedly brought the US government to the brink of a shutdown!
      The Israeli newspaper Haaretz suggested the move to sanction Israeli settlers was without precedent, calling it “arguably the most punitive measure ever taken from the US government against Israeli citizens”.Four Israelis are expected to be sanctioned under the new authority, according to several news reports, with more expected to be punished in the future. Doing so blocks these individuals from engaging with the American financial system and from accessing their assets and property in the US as well as bars them from traveling to the US.In a statement following the announcement of sanctions against Israeli settlers, Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, said the “record” spike in violence by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank “poses a grave threat to peace, security, and stability in the West Bank, Israel, and the Middle East region, and threatens the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States”.He said the executive order allows the US to impose financial sanctions against those it deems to have directed or particpated in acts of violence against civilians as well as those who have sought to displace them from their homes, destroyed property or engaged in “terrorist activity” in the West Bank.“Today’s actions seek to promote peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians alike,” Sullivan said.In December, the state department imposed a travel ban on some settlers.In an executive order released moments ago, Biden announced that the US will place sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank, citing “intolerable levels” of violence.Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by security forces and settlers across the occupied West Bank since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, according to the United Nations. The violence is separate from Israel’s military assault on Gaza, where the death toll is approaching 27,000 Palestinians.In the notice to Congress, Biden said actions by Israeli settler extremists “constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States” and declared a national emergency to address it.
      I, Joseph R Biden Jr, President of the United States of America, find that the situation in the West Bank – in particular high levels of extremist settler violence, forced displacement of people and villages, and property destruction – has reached intolerable levels and constitutes a serious threat to the peace, security, and stability of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, and the broader Middle East region,” reads the order.
      “These actions undermine the foreign policy objectives of the United States, including the viability of a two-state solution and ensuring Israelis and Palestinians can attain equal measures of security, prosperity, and freedom. They also undermine the security of Israel and have the potential to lead to broader regional destabilization across the Middle East, threatening United States personnel and interests.”
      Americans’ views of the economy are improving, but their views of Biden are not. That’s according to a new AP-Norc poll that found a notable increase in the percentage of US adults who called the US economy “good”.Last year, just 24% of Americans rated the national economy as good, compared with 35% who do so now. It’s also an improvement from late last year when just 30% said so. The rosier outlook tracks with positive economic indicators: inflation has begun to recede and growth is strong.While nearly two-thirds of Americans still call the economy poor, it’s an improvement from a year ago, when 76% described it that way, the survey found.Still, that is not translating into support for the president, whose approval ratings are languishing at 38%, where it has stood mostly unchanged for the past two years. Just 35% of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of the economy. The evidence of a stronger economy has yet to spill over into greater support for Biden: the new poll puts his approval rating at 38%, which is roughly where that number has stood for most of the past two years. Biden’s approval rating on handling the economy is similar, at 35%.Voters’ perceptions of the economy often shape elections, which is why Biden and his team are working to emphasize any sign of economic strength. But if Americans aren’t feeling it personally, the message is unlikely to resonant.New reporting from the Associated Press reveals that Biden is expected to issue an executive order targeting Israeli settlers in the West Bank, where violence against Palestinians has surged in the occupied territory.The report, based on four officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the White House was expected to announce the order later today. It comes as Biden departs for Michigan, a battleground state and home to a sizable Arab American population that is furious with the president over his handling of Israel’s war in Gaza.Biden has faced growing criticism from Democrats amid rising Palestinian death toll and the destruction in Gaza. The move reflects the administration’s growing frustration with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, as the US ramps up pressure on its ally to show more restraint in its military operations in Gaza.
      The AP reports: Israel Defense Forces stepped up raids across the West Bank after the war began. Hamas militants are present in the West Bank, but largely operate underground because of Israel’s tight grip on the territory. Palestinians complain that the Israeli crackdown in the West Bank have further blurred the line between security forces and radical, violent settlers.
      The executive order is expected to set the ground for imposing sanctions on individuals who have engaged in violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan met on Wednesday at the White House with Ron Dermer, the Israeli minister of strategic affair. It was not clear whether the executive order was discussed.
      Read the full report here. More