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      US tells Israel credible aid plan needed before any military operation in Gaza and urges Hamas to accept ceasefire deal – live

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      A temporary ceasefire is essential to a deal to release more of the hostages still held by Hamas since they were snatched during the attack by the Islamist group that controls Gaza on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, according to the White House.This news is still emerging over the wires and we’ll bring you details as they unfold. The White House just said there will be additional air drops of US aid over Gaza, which is besieged by Israel and where the north of the territory is almost cut off from aid entirely.Reuters is reporting that the White House stated that the US calls on Hamas to accept terms of a ceasefire and hostage release deal now. More as we get it.An updated summary of the day’s key news from myself and my colleagues.The big politics news: The supreme court overturned a Colorado ruling that barred Donald Trump from the state’s ballot for his involvement in the January 6 insurrection, issuing a decision that judges nationwide will likely cite to allow him to compete in the remaining Republican primaries, and the November general election. However, the court’s three liberal justices and one conservative worried that the authors of the majority opinion went further than necessary, though for different reasons. In remarks from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump thanked the court for their ruling, while also encouraging them to find him immune from prosecution for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. That matter has yet to be decided.Here’s what else happened today:
      The US called on Hamas to accept the terms of a temporary ceasefire and hostage release deal currently being negotiated in Cairo. Israel has “provisionally accepted a six-week phased hostage and ceasefire deal,” per reports.
      A day after she called for an “immediate ceasefire,” vice president Kamala Harris had a closed-door meeting with Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet member and prominent centrist rival of right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The White House said in a statement they “discussed the situation in Rafah and the need for a credible and implementable humanitarian plan prior to contemplating any major military operation there given the risks to civilians.”
      As half a million Palestinians are facing starvation in what aid workers call an “all man-made” famine in Gaza, the US state department said on Monday it supported the United Nations doing a review into an aid-related incident in Gaza last week where dozens of people were killed.
      Allen Weisselberg, Trump’s former finance chief, pleaded guilty to perjury in New York City, in a deal that will send the 76-year-old to jail but will not force him to testify against the Trump family, his employers for half a century.
      Trump’s allies in Congress, including House speaker Mike Johnson and potential vice-presidential pick Elise Stefanik were also pleased with the supreme court’s ruling. But the justices did not absolve Trump of the charge that he was involved in an insurrection, noted Neal Katyal, who used to argued before the supreme court on behalf of Barack Obama.
      The White House has released a statement of what vice president Kamala Harris discussed in her closed-door meeting with Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet and a rival of right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.The key news line: “The vice-president and Minister Gantz discussed the situation in Rafah and the need for a credible and implementable humanitarian plan prior to contemplating any major military operation there given the risks to civilians.“She urged Israel to take additional measures in cooperation with the United States and international partners to increase the flow of humanitarian assistance into Gaza and ensure its safe distribution to those in need.”Relatedly, the US state department on Monday said it supports the United Nations doing a review into an aid-related incident in Gaza last week where dozens of people were killed, Reuters reported.‘Spending his golden years in jail:’ analysis on Trump finance chief’s plea deal This is Lois Beckett, picking up our live politics coverage from our west coast bureau in Los Angeles.Earlier today, the former chief financial officers of the Trump Organization, Allen Weisselberg, made a deal with prosecutors to plead guilty to perjury charges related to his testimony in Trump’s recent civil fraud trial.Norm Eisen of the Defend Democracy Project argued that Weisselberg’s guilty plea “further strengthens the 2016 campaign corruption and coverup criminal case being brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg” and that “his plea and the associated jail time is a stark reminder to those witnesses in Trump’s orbit of the price for lying in his service” and would likely serve “as a deterrent to other Trump allies who will take the stand during the DA’s case against him.’Jake Offenhartz and Michael R. Sisak of the Associated Press emphasized a different aspect of the plea deal in their reporting, noting that the deal sends Weisselberg, who is 76, “back to jail, but does not require that he testify at Trump’s hush-money criminal trial.”They write:
      In pleading guilty, Weisselberg found himself caught again between the law and his loyalty to Trump, whose family employed him for nearly 50 years and sent him into retirement with a $2 million severance. His plea to perjury is further evidence that, rather than testify truthfully in a way that might harm his old boss, he was willing to again spend a chunk of his golden years in jail.
      Donald Trump’s speech at Mar-a-Lago after the supreme court’s ruling this morning allowing him to stay on the ballot was nothing more than “unhinged, confused ramblings focused only on himself”, in the words of Joe Biden’s re-election campaign.Spokesman Ammar Moussa came out swinging against the former president in a statement:
      Today’s chaotic musings from Trump only remind the American people why they voted him out of office four years ago. While Trump rants and raves from his country club, President Biden is focused on what actually matters – delivering results for the American people, from lowering prescription drug costs to capping insulin prices and building an economy that works for the middle class. Trump thinks this election is about him and his power – not the American people – and that’s why he’s going to lose again.
      The Biden campaign has its own problems, particularly the president’s worrying poll numbers. A closely watched survey by the New York Times and Siena College released over the weekend showed voters remain skeptical of Biden, particularly over his ability to continue doing the job into his 80s:Tomorrow is Super Tuesday, when something like 15 states vote in presidential primaries. It’s supposed to be exciting, but probably won’t be, the Guardian’s David Smith reports:Microphone in hand, Nikki Haley was delivering a well-rehearsed stump speech when a primal cry came from the audience. “He cannot win a general election!” yelled a man, referring to Donald Trump and the ex-president’s chance against Joe Biden. “It is madness!”Haley supporters at a campaign rally in a tiny Washington hotel on Friday signaled their agreement. But they are in a distinct minority within the Republican party as the biggest day of this year’s primary election campaign approaches.Fifteen states and one territory will vote in contests known as Super Tuesday, when more than a third of delegates will be assigned to July’s Republican national convention in Milwaukee. Past results and opinion polls suggest that, by Tuesday night, Trump will have in effect wrapped up the Republican nomination against Haley, his sole remaining challenger.On the Democratic side, incumbent Biden has swept aside token challenges by Congressman Dean Phillips of Minnesota and the self-help author Marianne Williamson and is cruising to the nomination. The lopsided contests and lack of suspense are making Super Tuesday, one of the most celebrated rituals of the American election season, look not so super this time.Frank Luntz, a political consultant and pollster, said: “It never mattered less. I don’t know any political event that’s got more attention for being less relevant. The decision has been made. The choice is clear. You know who the two nominees are and 70% of Americans would rather it not be so.”Over the weekend, the United States airdropped food into Gaza, but the World Food Programme warned that may not be enough to prevent famine in the enclave. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Emma Graham-Harrison and Quique Kierszenbaum:The deaths of more than 100 people when Israeli forces opened fire near an aid convoy in Gaza was a tragedy that should have been foreseen and could have been prevented, the World Food Programme country director for Palestine has said.Matthew Hollingworth also said an aid corridor into northern Gaza was needed urgently to prevent a “man-made” famine there after Palestinians were starved of food at terrifying speed and scale.“To have a situation today with half a million people facing famine in just five months is extraordinary at that scale,” he said. “There’s nowhere else in the world today with this many people at risk of famine. Nowhere. And it’s all man-made.”From the Guardian’s Emma Graham-Harrison and Julian Borger, here’s the latest on the negotiations aimed at achieving a temporary ceasefire in Israel’s invasion of Gaza, and the release of hostages taken by Hamas:Israel has provisionally accepted a six-week phased hostage and ceasefire deal which would begin with the release of wounded, elderly and female hostages, but it was still unclear on Saturday whether Hamas would accept it, US officials have claimed.Talks took place in Doha, the Qatari capital, on Saturday and were expected to move to Cairo on Sunday as the scale of looming starvation pushed the US to start air-dropping food into the enclave.The US said an extended ceasefire was the most direct route to getting large-scale aid deliveries into Gaza, and suggested that agreement was close. “The path to a ceasefire right now, literally at this hour, is straightforward,” a senior US official said. “And there’s a deal on the table. There’s a framework deal. The Israelis have more or less accepted it. And there will be a six-week ceasefire in Gaza starting today, if Hamas agrees to release the default defined category of vulnerable hostages: the sick the wounded, elderly and women. “We’re working around the clock to see if we can get this in place here over the coming week,” the official said. He said Israel had “basically” accepted the deal, but did not specify whether it still had reservations or what those were.Kamala Harris took some reporters’ questions in Washington, DC, moments ago as she headed for her meeting with Benny Gantz, a member of Israel’s war cabinet member and prominent centrist rival of right-wing prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Asked by reporters about her pending message to Gantz, she said they would discuss getting the hostage deal done, getting more aid in to Gaza and “getting that six-week cease-fire”, the pool report said.“The president has been an extraordinary leader in getting us to this point that we have the six-week deal,” she said, adding, in response to a question about whether there is any difference between her and Joe Biden’s stance on these issues right now: “The president and I have been aligned and consistent from the very beginning.”The White House has just issued an additional statement that talks with Gantz will focus on a deal to bring remaining hostages held by Hamas in Gaza to safety, and more progress in delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza.Here’s what Harris just posted on X/Twitter a day after marking the civil rights anniversary, Bloody Sunday, in Alabama.Hamas and Egyptian mediators said on Monday they were pressing on with talks on securing a ceasefire in Gaza, despite an Israeli decision not to send a delegation, Reuters reports.The ceasefire talks, which began on Sunday in Cairo, are billed as a final hurdle to establish the first extended ceasefire of the five-month-old war, in time for the Ramadan Muslim fasting month which is expected to begin on Sunday.Israel has declined to comment publicly on the Cairo talks, including its decision not to attend. A source told Reuters Israel would stay away because Hamas refused a request to list which hostages are still alive, information the Palestinian militants say they will provide only once terms are agreed.
      Talks in Cairo continue for the second day regardless of whether the occupation’s delegation is present in Egypt,” a Hamas official told Reuters on Monday.
      Two Egyptian security sources said mediators were in touch with the Israelis, allowing negotiations to continue despite the delegation’s absence.A Palestinian source close to the talks said the discussions remained “uneasy”, with Israel sticking to its demand for only a temporary truce to free hostages, while Hamas was seeking assurances war would not start up again.Late on Monday, officials from Hamas, Egypt and Qatar began a second round of talks for the day, a Hamas source said.Washington, which is both Israel’s closest ally and a sponsor of the talks, says a deal remains close, with an agreement already effectively approved by Israel and only awaiting acceptance from Hamas.A temporary ceasefire is essential to a deal to release more of the hostages still held by Hamas since they were snatched during the attack by the Islamist group that controls Gaza on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, according to the White House.This news is still emerging over the wires and we’ll bring you details as they unfold. The White House just said there will be additional air drops of US aid over Gaza, which is besieged by Israel and where the north of the territory is almost cut off from aid entirely.Reuters is reporting that the White House stated that the US calls on Hamas to accept terms of a ceasefire and hostage release deal now. More as we get it.US vice president Kamala Harris is due to meet in Washington later this afternoon with Israeli war cabinet member Benny Gantz, a centrist and key rival to the hard right prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.The meeting is due to take place at 3pm ET and comes a day after Harris, who was in Alabama for the Bloody Sunday anniversary, urged an “immediate ceasefire” and bluntly called out Israel for not doing enough to ease a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Gaza.Gantz is defying Netanyahu’s wishes in his visit to the US and sit-downs with leaders. He also plans to meet up with secretary of state Antony Blinken and national security adviser Jake Sullivan.Joe Biden has been at Camp David since the weekend, hunkered down as he prepares this Thursday’s mega-high stakes State of the Union address.The supreme court overturned a Colorado ruling that barred Donald Trump from the state’s ballot for his involvement in the January 6 insurrection, issuing a decision that judges nationwide will likely cite to allow him to compete in the remaining Republican primaries, and the November general election. However, the court’s three liberal justices and one conservative worried that the authors of the majority opinion went further than necessary, though for different reasons. In remarks from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump thanked the court for their ruling, while also encouraging them to find him immune from prosecution for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election. That matter has yet to be decided.Here’s what else is going today:
      Allen Weisselberg, Trump’s former finance chief, pleaded guilty to perjury in New York City.
      Trump’s allies in Congress, including House speaker Mike Johnson and potential vice-presidential pick Elise Stefanik were also pleased with the supreme court’s ruling.
      The justices did not absolve Trump of the charge that he was involved in an insurrection, noted Neal Katyal, who used to argued before the supreme court on behalf of Barack Obama.
      But Donald Trump’s business with the supreme court isn’t finished, and the former president made a point of mentioning that in his speech.The justices have agreed to take up his argument that he is immune from prosecution for allegedly trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat, and a ruling in his favor could deal a death blow to special counsel Jack Smith’s case against him.At Mar-a-Lago, Trump said he hoped the high court would once again rule in his favor:
      And while we’re on the subject, and another thing that will be coming up very soon, will be immunity for a president, and not immunity for me, but for any president. If a president doesn’t have full immunity, you really don’t have a president, because nobody that is serving in that office will have the courage to make, in many cases, what would be the right decision, or it could be the wrong decision. It could be in some cases the wrong decision, but they have to make decisions and they have to make them free of all terror that can be rained upon them when they leave office or even before they leave office, and some decisions are very tough.
      I can tell you that as a president that some decisions to make are very tough. I took out ISIS and I took out some very big people from the standpoint of a different part of the world, two of the leading terrorists, probably the two leading terrorists ever, that we’ve ever seen in this world. And those are big decisions. I don’t want to be prosecuted for it.
      The charges against Trump don’t deal with his decisions to kill America’s enemies, but rather his multi-pronged strategy to block Joe Biden from taking office.Donald Trump is now delivering a meandering speech at Mar-a-Lago, where he has cheered the supreme court ruling allowing him to stay on presidential ballots, while also issuing familiar denunciations of the criminal cases against him.At the start of his remarks, the former president thanked the supreme court, saying the decision was “very well crafted. And I think it will go a long way toward bringing our country together, which our country needs. And … they worked hard.”Donald Trump is expected to soon deliver remarks from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida after the supreme court this morning overturned a Colorado ruling that removed him from the presidential ballot.The court’s unanimous decision is expected to allow him to remain on primary and general election ballots nationwide and thwart a legal campaign to remove him over his participation in the January 6 insurrection.We’ll let you know what Trump says.As expected, Donald Trump’s former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg has admitted to committing perjury in New York City. It’s unclear what that will mean for the former president’s upcoming trial on charges related to paying hush money, but one thing that is clear is that Weisselberg is likely headed back to jail.Here’s more on all that, from the Guardian’s Callum Jones:
      Allen Weisselberg, a longtime lieutenant to Donald Trump, faces five months in jail after reaching an agreement with prosecutors in New York to plead guilty to perjury in the former US president’s recent civil fraud trial charges.
      As the former chief financial officer in the Trump Organization, Weisselberg was key in helping Trump record his net worth. A defendant in the fraud trial, Weisselberg was accused of helping to inflate Trump’s net worth on government financial documents, misleading lenders.
      That trial ended with a judge imposing a huge financial penalty of more than $450m including interest on Trump. Weisselberg, 76, was ordered to pay $1.1m and permanently banned from serving in the financial control function of any New York business.
      Weisselberg also faces five months in jail after pleading guilty to perjury.
      On the witness stand in October, Weisselberg was evasive, often saying he did not recall the real estate valuations that were at the center of the trial.
      Donald Trump’s many Republican allies in Congress welcomed the supreme court’s ruling allowing him to continue his run for president.Here’s speaker of the House Mike Johnson, a leader of the failed effort to get the supreme court to block Joe Biden’s election victory in 2020:
      Today, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed what we all knew: the Colorado Supreme Court engaged in a purely partisan attack against the frontrunner for the Republican presidential primary. States engaging in the same activist, undemocratic behaviors should take notice and leave it to the American people to decide who will be president.
      And New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a member of House Republican leadership who is also seen as a potential running mate for Trump:
      Today’s unanimous 9-0 Supreme Court decision is a victory for the American people, the Constitution, and our Republic. As I have said since the start, extreme Democrats will shred the Constitution in order to prevent the American people from exercising their constitutional right to vote for President Donald Trump. This dangerous attempt by the radical Left to suppress votes was fundamentally unAmerican and why I was proud to sign on to the amicus brief to the Supreme Court. We the people decide elections, not unelected radical leftists.
      Finally, Jim Jordan, the Ohio congressman and chair of the House judiciary committee who has used the committee’s powers to pursue Joe Biden and his officials:
      Big win for common sense and democracy!
      From the Guardian’s Sam Levine, here’s more on what the supreme court’s decision today will mean for Donald Trump’s bid to return to the White House:Donald Trump was wrongly removed from Colorado’s primary ballot last year, the US supreme court has ruled, clearing the way for Trump to appear on the ballot in all 50 states.The court’s unanimous decision overturns a 4-3 ruling from the Colorado supreme court that said the former president could not run because he had engaged in insurrection during the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. The Colorado decision was a novel interpretation of section 3 of the 14th amendment, which bars insurrectionists from holding office.“We conclude that States may disqualify persons holding or attempting to hold state office. But States have no power under the Constitution to enforce Section 3 with respect to federal offices, especially the Presidency,” the court wrote in an unsigned opinion. Congress, the court said, had to enact the procedures for disqualification under Section 3.“State-by-state resolution of the question whether Section 3 bars a particular candidate for President from serving would be quite unlikely to yield a uniform answer consistent with the basic principle that the President … represent[s] all the voters in the Nation,” the court added.Colorado’s presidential primary is Tuesday and Trump had been allowed to appear on the ballot while the case was pending. Maine and a judge in Illinois had also excluded Trump from the ballot – decisions that are now likely to quickly be reversed.A few points about the supreme court’s decision allowing Donald Trump to continue running for president, from the Neal Katyal, a former justice department official who argued supreme court cases on behalf of Barack Obama: More

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      US lawmakers present bill to fund government and avert shutdown

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      US congressional negotiators on Sunday revealed a bill to fund key parts of the government through the rest of the fiscal year that began in October, as lawmakers faced yet another threat of a partial shutdown if they fail to act by Friday.The legislation sets a discretionary spending level of $1.66tn for fiscal 2024, a spokesperson for Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said. It fills in the details of an agreement that Schumer and Republican House of Representatives speaker Mike Johnson set in early January.Lawmakers last week passed the fourth stopgap measure since 1 October to keep the government funded, and set themselves two quick deadlines to act, with funding for a part of the government including the Department of Transportation and the Food and Drug Administration running out on 8 March and most other federal agencies partially shutting down on 22 March.The 1,050-page bill lays out in detail funding for six of the dozen segments of the government that Congress is charged with allocating money for, with the next six due by later in the month.The bill “maintains the aggressive investments Democrats secured for American families, American workers, and America’s national defense”, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement.Johnson in a statement said “House Republicans secured key conservative policy victories, rejected left-wing proposals, and imposed sharp cuts to agencies and programs critical to the President Biden’s agenda.”While the top leaders of Congress have agreed on the deal, it still faces some challenges, notably opposition by hardline Republicans in the House, who have repeatedly called for sharp spending cuts and typically do not vote for spending bills.That hardline energy, which led to the ouster of Johnson’s predecessor Kevin McCarthy, has also gained steam in the traditionally more staid Senate, leading to top Republican Mitch McConnell’s decision last week to step down from his leadership role at the end of this year.House Republicans were touting the bill as a win, although with a deeply divided caucus they had little negotiating power. The bill includes a 10% cut in funding to the Environmental Protection Agency, 7% to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and 6% to the FBI.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionSchumer meanwhile emphasized that the bill fully funds a health program for low-income families, “makes critical investments in our infrastructure, and strengthens programs that benefit services for our veterans”.The ongoing brinkmanship and the nation’s $34tn debt has unnerved credit agencies. Moody’s downgraded its financial outlook on the United States from “stable” to “negative” in November, citing large fiscal deficits and increasing political polarization, though Fitch on Friday affirmed a “stable” outlook.The House will have to vote on the bill first before the Senate can take up the package before Friday, Schumer said. The House is due to return to Washington on Tuesday. More

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      Nikki Haley declines to say she would endorse Trump if he wins nomination

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      Nikki Haley on Sunday declined to say she would support Donald Trump in the coming presidential election if he won the Republican party’s nomination to face Joe Biden in the race for the White House.The former South Carolina governor is the last serious opposition to Trump who seems almost certain to become the nominee, despite a raft of legal problems and the multiple trials he faces linked to his businesses, attempts to subvert American democracy and alleged hush money pay-offs to former lovers.Trump has swept the Republican contest so far and maintains a dominant lead across the country ahead of Super Tuesday.Earlier in the race all Republican candidates were required by the Republican National Committee to pledge loyalty to the winning eventual candidate as a requirement to taking part in the party’s televised debates – which Trump himself refused to participate in.In an interview with NBC’s Meet The Press show on Sunday Haley acknowledged making the pledge of loyalty but said she did not feel bound by it anymore. In recent weeks the RNC has been hit by turmoil and a change in leadership to make it more pro-Trump.“The RNC is now not the same RNC,” Haley said.When asked directly on the show if she would endorse Trump were she not to be the nominee Haley did not answer but instead insisted that she has “serious concerns about Donald Trump. I have even more concerns about Joe Biden.”Haley’s ailing attempt to stop Trump securing the Republican presidential nomination got a recent vital boost with the endorsement of two senior senators who have given the former South Republican governor their backing ahead of Super Tuesday’s crucial contests.Republican senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Main have both now endorsed Haley’s bid.“America needs someone with the right values, vigor, and judgment to serve as our next president – and in this race, there is no one better than her [Haley’],” Murkowski said in a statement.She added: “Nikki will be a strong leader and uphold the ideals of the Republican party while serving as a President for all Americans.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionMeanwhile, Collins told the Bangor News that she had voted for Haley in the Maine primary, saying Hayley was “extremely well-qualified” to be the first female president.“She has the energy, intellect, and temperament that we need to lead our country in these very tumultuous times,” Collins said in a statement to the outlet.Collins and Murkowski are now part of a very small group of Republican lawmakers to have spurned Trump in favor of Haley. Trump’s grip on the wider Republican party remains firm as he consolidates his overwhelming lead in the race and he has already mostly focused his campaign targeting president Joe Biden. More

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      ‘He believes in power and chaos’: alarm as Steve Bannon plots to propel Trump

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      Wearing an olive green jacket over a black shirt, Steve Bannon blew the doors off a subject that most other speakers had tiptoed around. “Media, I want you to suck on this, I want the White House to suck on this: you lost in 2020!” he roared. “Donald Trump is the legitimate president of the United States!”A thrill of transgression swept through the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the National Harbor in Maryland. “Trump won!” Bannon barked, pointing a finger. “Trump won!” he repeated, shaking a fist. “Trump won!” he proclaimed again. His audience, as if hypnotised, chanted the brazen lie in unison.It was a blunt reminder that Bannon, an architect of Trumpism variously compared to Thomas Cromwell, Rasputin and Joseph Goebbels, remains a potent force in American politics as the 2024 US presidential election looms into view and the re-election of Trump looks a clear possibility.The former White House chief strategist may not be in daily contact with Trump any more but it scarcely matters: he is a vital source for the far-right ecosystem that shapes and animates the “Make America great again” (Maga) base.Bannon, 70, is currently appealing a criminal conviction and four-month prison sentence for defying a subpoena from the congressional committee investigating the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol. The committee heard evidence that Trump spoke to Bannon at least twice on January 5 and predicted that “all hell is going to break loose tomorrow”.In the meantime, he hosts a regular podcast called War Room, which propagates false narratives about the 2020 election and coronavirus vaccines but is given a veneer of respectability by guests including Elise Stefanik, the No 3 Republican in the House of Representatives, and other senior politicians.A pop-up War Room studio commanded a prime location at CPAC last week and featured guests such as Liz Truss, the former British prime minister. On the main stage, Bannon compared Trump to the Roman general Cincinnatus and declared: “His fate and destiny is to have the greatest political comeback in American history from November 5 to drive the vermin out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.“Biden, you and your crime family are nothing but trash, OK? And on 20 January of 2025 we’re going to take out the trash.”The Maga-regalia wearing crowd went wild, cementing Bannon’s status as a tribune of the movement heading into the 2024 presidential election.Charlie Sykes, a political commentator and author of How the Right Lost Its Mind, said: “At the moment Steve Bannon is the id of the American right and, if we’ve learned anything in the last eight years, it’s don’t assume because somebody sounds extreme and unhinged that they will not be influential in this party.”Sykes makes an analogy with drug dealers competing with each other by selling purer and stronger forms of methamphetamine, a highly addictive stimulant. “Steve Bannon is still peddling the most powerful meth out there.“Donald Trump does not look at Steve Bannon and think this guy is unhinged; he’s looking at Steve Bannon and saying this is exactly what I want to hear from my supporters. Steve Bannon knows what he’s doing and he will act as a gravitational pull on the rest of the right because they have to match him.”Unkempt and unpolished, Bannon is the opposite of a career politician. He is a former naval officer, Goldman Sachs investment banker and film producer. He was executive chairman of Breitbart News, which he once described as “the platform of the ‘alt-right’”, a movement that has embraced racism and antisemitism, and became chairman of Trump’s 2016 winning election campaign.His tenure at the White House was short and acrimonious as he clashed with the president’s daughter, Ivanka, and her husband Jared Kushner, who later described him as a “toxic” presence who accused him of “undermining the president’s agenda”. Trump himself may have been piqued by how much media attention Bannon was receiving and eventually branded him “Sloppy Steve”.But his ideas have proved harder to kill. Bannon continues to advocate the “deconstruction of the administrative state”, a radical downsizing of federal government bureaucracy, and an isolationist “America first” policy that he insists would keep the country out of a third world war. Such notions are percolating through to Republicans in Congress who oppose further military aid to Ukraine.Bannon also helps set the narrative on Trump’s signature issue, border security, blaming undocumented immigrants for crime, even thought studies have shown that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than other US residents, and advocating mass deportations as a solution.Bannon argues that biggest losers from the record influx of immigrants is the Black and Latino working class. “Every Black person, every Hispanic person in our country, vote for Trump,” Bannon said at CPAC last Saturday. “Trump will set you free because right now they’re enslaving you.”He then assured his overwhelmingly white audience: “They call you racist, they call you xenophobic, they call you nativist. Nothing could be further from the truth because they can’t win the intellectual argument. What they have to do is try to smear you and you don’t care because you know that’s not true.”Bannon has a sign on his mantelpiece that says, “There are no conspiracies but there are no coincidences” – placing him in a twilight zone between conspiracy theories and otherwise. War Room is his biggest mouthpiece. Last year a study by the Brookings Institution thinktank in Washington found that almost 20% of its episodes contained a false, misleading or unsubstantiated statement, making it a bigger disinformation spreader than any other political podcast.Valerie Wirtschafter, a Brookings fellow who led the research, said War Room had been one of the most prominent platforms for election denialism even after networks such as Fox News pulled back. “The way he approaches things that are more conspiratorial in nature… he’s quite effective at considering the questions in a way that makes the audience think it’s not immediately evident that he’s confirming them. There’s this idea that he seems to be hearing all sides of the conversation.”As America braces for another divisive and volatile election, longtime Trump critics warn that Bannon still casts a long shadow. Rick Wilson, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, said: “Steve Bannon is a if not the primary spiritual and intellectual force of this nationalist movement that is in control of the Republican party.“He is a very powerful figure in today’s GOP [Grand Old Party] and it is inescapable in some ways that he will play a central role in whatever Trump administration emerges if Trump wins. He is the architect. As an avowed Leninist, he is a guy who is trying to engineer the revolution in his image.”Asked what a Bannon return to the White House would mean, Wilson replied: “Concentration camps. This guy keeps saying out loud they’re the enemies of the people, our opponents are deserve what they get, this hyperbolic rhetoric. He believes in power and chaos and will do whatever he can if he gets it. Whatever he could get away with in that circumstance, he will get away with it.”Bannon has spent years courting far-right nationalist movements around the world and the results were on vivid display at CPAC. Nigel Farage, a former leader of the Brexit party in Britain, observed that a decade ago he was the sole foreign-born speaker at the conference but now it has become a hub for populists from countries including Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador, Hungary and Spain.Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist, said: “To his credit, and to America’s detriment, he was one of the first people to look outside of the American political system to find like minded public high-profile figures in foreign counties like Nigel Farage to play an outsized role in being messengers.”Truss, who was removed as prime minister after just 50 days, found common cause with Bannon in blaming a “deep state” supposedly dominated by the left. Bardella, a former Breitbart News spokesperson and Republican congressional aide, added: “For people like Farage and Liz Truss, Bannon extends to them a second lease on life. They’ve peaked in terms of their public service career; there’s nothing left for them to be able to realistically attain.“Here comes Bannon with this direct line to one of the two most powerful forces in American politics in Donald Trump: we will elevate you, you will have status, you will have the perception of influence, you again will be an influencer. These people are desperate for relevancy Bannon is giving them that combination of relevancy and legitimacy and access to power.” More

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      ‘A concern for everyone’: Tennessee poised to ban Pride flags in schools

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      Tennessee is poised to become the first state to in effect ban Pride flags in public and charter school classrooms, prompting outrage from the LGBTQ+ community.The Tennessee house advanced a bill, HB 1605, that forbids schools, teachers or faculty from displaying flags other than the US flag and the Tennessee state flag in public schools. The bill would also allow “a parent of a child who attends, or who is eligible to attend” a Tennessee public or charter school to sue their school district if a Pride flag is displayed “anywhere students may see the object”.The bill does not mention LGBTQ+ Pride flags or Black Lives Matter outright, but some Republican lawmakers have made it clear that the bill is meant to restrict them.The bill is expected to clear the senate as early as next week.Members voted for the bill after a verbal showdown between the state representative Justin Jones, a Democrat, and the Republican house speaker, Cameron Sexton. Jones was blocked from speaking on the house floor after likening the anti-LGBTQ work of the Tennessee legislature to a neo-Nazi rally held in Nashville earlier this month. When Sexton moved to end the debate and proceed to a chamber-wide vote, Jones blasted the speaker for silencing criticism of the proposed ban on Pride flags.Despite opposition, house Republicans comfortably passed the bill with a final vote of 70 to 24, splitting predictably along party lines.The vote sparked backlash from LGBTQ+ advocates, who noted that the bill’s advancement comes just weeks after Nex Benedict – a non-binary teenager in Oklahoma – died following a fight at the public high school they attended.“The flag is a symbol of acceptance, so if a teacher has a small Pride flag on the desk, or a pin on their bag, that signals to students, ‘oh, this is a safe person,’” said Chris Sanders, executive director of the Tennessee Equality Project. “When there is an affirming adult in schools, it sends a signal that there is a place in the building that is safe for LGBT youth.”LGBTQ+ youth consistently report higher rates of bullying, physical threats and other forms of harassment, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control. In 2021, nearly two-thirds of all LGBTQ+ youth reported feeling “persistently sad and hopeless”, compared to roughly one-third of heterosexual youth.And this is hardly the only attack on LGBTQ+ people in the state of Tennessee: just this year, lawmakers have filed at least 33 bills targeting LGBTQ+ individuals, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.Sanders warned that the proposed ban on Pride flags harms all of Tennessee, not just LGBTQ+ and Black residents.“They are targeting our communities, but creeping restrictions on people’s expression and speech should be a concern for everyone,” he said.The bill’s primary sponsor, the Republican state representative Gino Bulso, said that the bill was inspired by parents in his district, who complained about that “certain teachers and counselors were displaying a Pride flag” in some of Williamson county’s schools.Bulso said in a January interview with the local news station WKRN that the LGBTQ+ Pride flag represents values and ideas that he opposes, including the 2015 US supreme court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage.“Fifty years ago, we had a consensus on what marriage is, we don’t have that anymore,” Bulso told reporters. “So the values that I think most parents want their children exposed to are the ones that were in existence at the time that our country was founded.”When pressed by Democratic colleagues to explain the proposed ban, Bulso declined to say if the bill prohibits the display of the Confederate flag in Tennessee classrooms.Bulso’s office did not respond to the Guardian’s multiple requests for comment.Outside of his work as a state lawmaker, Bulso is a private attorney who helps parents pursue legal action against public school districts. He is currently representing a group of parents in their lawsuit against the Williamson county board of education for allegedly violating the Age-Appropriate Materials Act of 2022, colloquially referred to by critics as a “book ban”, which requires schools to remove books that are deemed inappropriate for students.Notably, one of the four plaintiffs in the case, Aundrea Gomez, does not have children who are enrolled in Williamson county public schools. She has children who are “eligible” to be enrolled in the county school system, according to the lawsuit. Gomez also works as the Tennessee director of Citizens for Renewing America, a rightwing Christian non-profit that stands against “cancel culture”.“There’s obviously the risk of a conflict of interest between what Bulso is doing in his private practice, and what he’s doing as a legislator,” said Bryan Davidson, policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee. “A huge part of his practice is representing plaintiffs who do not have children in the school system they want to sue.”Like the state’s “book ban”, the house version of Bulso’s bill would allow parents like Gomez, whose children are “eligible” but not enrolled in the county public school system, to bring lawsuits against local education officials.Between ethical concerns about the wellbeing of LGBTQ+ students and the conflict of interest presented by Bulso’s private litigation work, Davidson said the bill presents an “obvious first amendment issue”.If the bill becomes law, it will likely face a legal challenge from attorneys at the ACLU of Tennessee, Davidson said.He said the bill belies “the first amendment and 100 years worth of supreme court precedent” on free speech and expression. 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      Donald Trump sweeps Michigan’s Republican party convention

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      Donald Trump swept at the Michigan Republican party convention, where the party is poised to award all 39 delegates up for grabs to the former president.The delegates awarded today will fuel Trump ahead of Tuesday, 5 March, when 15 states will hold primaries and Trump’s nomination could be all but decided. The Michigan state party delegates met on Saturday at the sprawling Amway Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids, huddling in 13 separate meeting rooms representing the state’s 13 congressional districts.Their near-uniform support for Trump at today’s convention eclipsed the support the former president earned in the primary, when former UN ambassador Nikki Haley garnered about 26% of the vote. She did not win any delegates awarded on Saturday for the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, where the party will officially nominate a candidate for the presidential election in November.The Michigan Republican party’s process for awarding delegates to the national committee was complicated this year: the Democratic-controlled state legislature decided to hold the presidential primaries early. This prompted the state Republican party to create a “hybrid” model, holding a primary on 27 February and a convention four days later to remain in compliance with the national party’s rules.The convention on Saturday at times took on the tone of a campaign rally.“President Trump, I’m going to help you win Michigan,” exclaimed Bernadette Smith, a Michigan Republican party activist running to be Michigan’s Republican National Convention committeewoman, during a speech at the convention Saturday. “I’m from Detroit – I was raised in Detroit,” said Smith, to cheers. “Detroit is red, they just don’t know it yet.”But if delegates found common cause today, it was only in their unyielding support for Trump. The Michigan Republican party has been split for months over interpersonal feuds in the county chapters, the role of Christian nationalism in the party at large and questions about how to salvage the party from financial collapse.The divisions fomenting in the party broke out into the open this year in a leadership dispute when a group opposing the former Michigan GOP chair, Kristina Karamo, voted to oust her in January. The Republican National Committee in February recognized Pete Hoekstra, a close Trump ally whom Karamo’s opponents elected to chair the party, as the rightful leader of the Michigan GOP.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionKaramo and her allies refused to accept defeat, vowing to hold a separate convention in Detroit – which fell apart only after a judge ruled on Tuesday that Karamo had been properly removed from her seat and forbade her from using official Michigan GOP social media accounts or accessing its finances. More

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      What Alabama’s IVF ruling reveals about the ascendant Christian nationalist movement

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      In the Alabama state supreme court case that dubbed embryos “extrauterine children” and imperiled the future of in vitro fertilization (IVF) in the state, the first reference to the Bible arrives on page 33.“The principle itself – that human life is fundamentally distinct from other forms of life and cannot be taken intentionally without justification – has deep roots that reach back to the creation of man ‘in the image of God’,” the Alabama supreme court justice Tom Parker wrote in an opinion that concurred with the majority. Attributing the idea to the Book of Genesis, Parker’s opinion continued to cite the Bible as well as such venerable Christian theologians as John Calvin and Thomas Aquinas.For experts, Parker’s words were a stunningly open embrace of Christian nationalism, or the idea that the United States should be an explicitly Christian country and its laws should reflect that.“He framed it entirely assuming that the state of Alabama is a theocracy, and that that is a legitimate way of evaluating laws and policies,” said Julie Ingersoll, a University of North Florida professor who studies religion and culture. “It looks like he decided to just dismiss the history of first amendment religious freedom jurisprudence at the federal level, and assume that it just doesn’t apply to Alabama.”View image in fullscreenDebates over the centrality of Christianity in US life have raged since the founding of the country. But now that Roe v Wade has been overturned and Donald Trump is once again running for president, observers say Christian nationalism has gained a stronger foothold within US politics – and its supporters have grown bolder.“They’re sort of saying the quiet parts out loud,” said Paul Djupe, who studies Christian nationalism as the chair of data for political research at Denison University in Ohio, of Parker’s decision.Today, 30% of Americans support tenets of Christian nationalism, according to a study released earlier this week from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI). Researchers asked more than 22,000 Americans how much they agreed with statements such as: “The US government should declare America a Christian nation”; “Being Christian is an important part of being truly American”’; and “God has called Christians to exercise dominion over all areas of American society.” Ultimately, about 10% of Americans qualify as “adherents” to Christian nationalism, and another 20% are “sympathizers”.White evangelicals are particularly likely to support Christian nationalism: 66% hold Christian nationalist views.View image in fullscreenPRRI did not ask whether people self-identify as Christian nationalists, because many people who may hold those beliefs shy away from the divisive label. Yet over the last several years, conservatives at the local, state and federal level have notched major legal and political victories that have cleared the way for Christian nationalist priorities such as the overturning of Roe v Wade and the proliferation of efforts targeting sex education, LGBTQ+ rights and the separation of church and state in schools. Now, supporters are seeing further opportunity in a potential second Trump term. Whether someone openly claims the label of “Christian nationalist” is almost beside the point, Ingersoll said.“There are all kinds of people who are influenced by it in ways that they’re not even aware of,” Ingersoll said. “Most people couldn’t tell you who Thomas Aquinas was, but that doesn’t matter. They don’t have to know who that is to have been shaped by a form of Christianity that arose from his work. And I think that happens with Christian nationalism all over the place. It’s a way of shaping the public discourse.”Parker has ties to proponents of the “Seven Mountain Mandate”, a theological approach that once seemed fringe within evangelicalism but is now gaining traction. Backed by a network of nondenominational, charismatic Christians known as the New Apostolic Reformation, this mandate calls on its adherents to establish what they believe to be God’s kingdom over the seven core areas of society, including the government. On 16 February, the day the Alabama supreme court issued its ruling, a prominent proponent of the Seven Mountain Mandate released an interview with Parker.View image in fullscreen“God created government and the fact that we have let it go into the possession of others is heartbreaking,” Parker said in the interview, whose existence was first reported by the liberal media watchdog Media Matters for America. The interview took place in front of a framed copy of the Bill of Rights.A spokesperson for the Alabama state supreme court did not immediately return a request for comment from Parker.“It is clear that in the US, there have been two competing visions of the country,” said Robert P Jones, PRRI’s president and the author of The Hidden Roots of White Supremacy and the Path to a Shared American Future. “They’re mutually incompatible visions of the country, but they really have been: are we a pluralistic democracy, where everybody stands on equal footing before the law, or are we a promised land for European Christians?”‘I’m going to be your defender’Support for Christian nationalism is deeply linked to partisan politics. Residents of red states are far more likely to espouse Christian nationalist beliefs; in Alabama, 47% of people are adherents of or at least sympathetic to Christian nationalism, according to the PRRI survey. More than half of Republicans also hold Christian nationalist beliefs, compared with a quarter of independents and just 16% of Democrats.According to Jones and the PRRI survey, Christian nationalists’ top litmus tests for politicians are support for access to guns and opposition to immigration, although they are also very likely to say that they would only vote for a candidate who shares their opposition to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.The 2015 US supreme court decision Obergefell v Hodges, which legalized same-sex marriage nationwide, sparked a huge backlash among many conservative Christians. Galvanized by the ruling, they threw their considerable electoral power behind Trump, who had announced his presidential candidacy just days before Obergefell was decided.View image in fullscreen“Conservative Christians have long had this kind of worldview that they’re embattled by the broader culture,” Djupe said. The Obergefell decision “was a huge spur and Trump played with it. He came on the scene to run for president about the exact same time saying: ‘You’re about to be persecuted. I’m going to be your defender.’”Trump went to great lengths to reward rightwing Christians for their support. According to one analysis, Trump’s judicial appointees were more than 97% Christian and a majority had some kind of affiliation with a religious group such as churches, the Christian law firm the Alliance Defending Freedom and the Catholic fraternal order the Knights of Columbus – far higher rates than judges who were appointed by Democrats or other Republicans. (The judges were no less well-credentialed.) Trump-appointed judges were also much likelier to vote in favor of Christian and Jewish plaintiffs embroiled in cases over the free exercise of religion.Trump also appointed three of the six US supreme court justices who voted to overturn Roe. The supreme court’s new conservative majority has steadily eroded the separation of church and state embedded in the US constitution.View image in fullscreenThe post-Roe skirmish over abortion rights illustrates another key element of a Christian nationalist worldview: the tendency to not only cast issues in binary terms, but to believe that the opposing side is a force of literal evil.“If you believe that babies are being murdered – which is the rhetoric that you often find in these ‘pro-life’, anti-abortion circles – if you believe that, then that is a very troubling and even diabolical activity,” said Matthew Taylor, Protestant scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies and author of an upcoming book about Christian extremism, The Violent Take It by Force. “There’s no dialogue with the other side … in their mind, you never compromise with demons. You exorcise demons.”Christian nationalists are roughly twice as likely as other Americans to believe that political violence is justified, according to the PRRI survey.‘They’re seeing the energy’In 2022, Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right Republican congresswoman from Georgia, openly embraced Christian nationalism. “We need to be the party of nationalism,” she said. “I am a Christian and I say it proudly, we should be Christian nationalists.”But Greene is something of an outlier. Powerful organizations within the Christian legal movement, such as the Alliance Defending Freedom, are not yoked to the charismatic strain of evangelical Christianity that is today more closely linked to Christian nationalism, according to Djupe – even if they often work toward similar aims.View image in fullscreenStill, Djupe believes that the energized charismatic movement is pulling other Christian groups further to the right. Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House, has ties to the New Apostolic Reformation, which has also been linked to Trump’s rise. Johnson once suggested that no-fault divorces were responsible for school shootings.“They’re seeing the energy, they’re seeing the growth among charismatics, and saying, ‘Hey, you know, there’s clearly something to that formula that’s influential,” Djupe said. I think they’re starting to adopt it.”View image in fullscreenPolitico reported last week that the Center for Renewing America, a rightwing thinktank close to the former president, is drawing up plans to infuse Christian nationalist ideas throughout a second Trump administration. The Center’s president, Russell Vought, has also advised another powerful conservative thinktank, the Heritage Foundation, on its Project 2025, a playbook of proposals for a Trump administration 2.0, according to Politico.If Trump does win in November, experts fear what may happen next.“This is a worldview that does cast political struggles into an a kind of apocalyptic struggle between good and evil,” Jones said. “We stop thinking about our fellow citizens as political opponents and we start seeing them as existential enemies. And that really, at the end of the day, is poison to the blood of democracy.” More

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      A far-right US youth group is ramping up its movement to back election deniers

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      Turning Point USA, a far-right youth group known for its fundraising prowess and for promoting election-conspiracy theories, is mounting a multimillion-dollar mobilization drive via its advocacy arm in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin.Arizona-based TPUSA, a non-profit co-founded in 2012 by then 18-year-old Charlie Kirk that’s become a key ally in Donald Trump’s Maga ecosystem, has launched the drive through Turning Point Action, which has raised tens of millions of dollars and is hiring hundreds of full-time employees in the three states, according to its spokesperson, Andrew Kolvet.While its current fundraising drive is to support the voter-outreach efforts, TP Action is likely to help finance other political advocacy initiatives, including ousting some key Arizona election officials who disputed claims of election fraud in 2020.Dubbed “chase the vote”, the drive is being supplemented by another get-out-the-vote campaign that TP Action is starting with the Christian nationalist and televangelist Lance Wallnau.Together with Wallnau and some other Maga allies like Moms for America, TP Action is planning a “courage tour” in the same three swing states to enlist pastors and their churches in the voter-mobilization drive, which will include booths in churches to register voters.TP Action’s fledgling campaign is aimed at identifying and registering “patriotic” voters, encouraging early voting and getting voters to the polls in November, according to its website. Billed as the “first and most robust conservative ballot-chasing operation”, TP Action’s drive could benefit Trump and Maga-allied candidates in the three states.The new political advocacy drives come after TPUSA and TP Action sparked strong criticism from veteran Republicans, watchdog groups and analysts for backing several hard-right candidates in Arizona who were defeated in 2022, and pushing conspiracies about election fraud, Covid-19 and other issues.“TPUSA has a radicalized worldview that they use as a litmus test” in backing candidates, said Kathy Petsas, a GOP district leader in Phoenix. “When it comes to the general elections that matter, their ROI is lousy.”Notably, four top Arizona candidates in 2022 who were backed by TP Action lost to Democrats, including ex-Fox News anchor Kari Lake in her race for governor, and Mark Finchem in his bid to become secretary of state.“Virtually every major race they touched they lost in the general election in Arizona,” the former Arizona congressman Matt Salmon said. “Everyone Trump endorses they get behind. It’s not clear if it’s the tail wagging the dog, or vice versa.”Kolvet pushed back on criticism of the group’s 2022 results, noting that TP Action only spent $500,000 in total in several states in 2022, but that this year it intends to mount a much better-financed and robust effort, hiring hundreds of full-time employees for its “chase the vote” drive and seeking to raise an eye-popping $108m dollars.View image in fullscreenTP Action’s aggressive fundraising could prove useful in other election-related projects this year that the group is likely to get involved with.Austin Smith, a state legislator and TP Action’s enterprise director, in a tweet this week signaled an effort to oust several key election officials in the state’s largest county, Maricopa, in primaries this July.Smith said “[we] need to clean house in Maricopa county” and cited, among other officers, the county recorder, the Republican lawyer Stephen Richer, who rejected unsubstantiated claims of voting fraud in 2020 and 2022.Kolvet said TP Action to date hasn’t joined the effort, but added that “it’s more likely than not we’ll get involved in some of these races. We’re going to get behind conservative candidates.”One key example: TP Action in February endorsed Trump loyalist Kari Lake’s 2024 Arizona senate campaign.Kirk and TPUSA’s strong fundraising talents could prove helpful to TP Action’s current drive. TPUSA’s annual revenues have soared in recent years with help from leading rightwing donors including the Bradley Impact Fund, which chipped in $7.8m in 2022, the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation and dark-money behemoth Donors Trust.TPUSA has also benefited mightily from hosting several gaudy gatherings at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club and in tony Arizona venues that have drawn some big donors and conservative stars like the representatives Marjorie Taylor Green and Matt Gaetz, and Don Trump Jr.These events and mega-donor checks have helped make TPUSA a fundraising goliath: the group’s revenues soared from $39.8m dollars in 2020 to $55.8m in 2021 and $80.6m in 2022, according to public records.TPUSA now employs 450 people and has broadened its focus from fighting left and “woke” influence on campuses to other culture war fronts by setting up a Turning Point Faith unit that’s hosted large gatherings at churches featuring Wallnau and other Christian nationalist figures.Notwithstanding TPUSA’s fundraising successes, the organization and Kirk have been buffeted by criticism on multiple fronts. Late last year, Kirk ignited a political firestorm in mainstream GOP circles by using his eponymous radio show and an Arizona bash to make incendiary attacks on the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr, which recycled old and unverified slurs about King, and disparaged Black airline pilots.During a major TPUSA event in Arizona in December, Kirk opined that “MLK was awful. He’s not a good person. He said one good thing he actually didn’t believe.”“Kirk’s cheapening of Martin Luther King’s legacy and disparaging remarks about Black pilots hurt our cause, and don’t help it,” Salmon of Arizona said, adding that Kirk is “one of the strongest voices for factionalism in the party”.Other GOP veterans also voiced harsh critiques.“Kirk chases conspiracies that animate his followers and generate funds,” the long-time GOP consultant Tyler Montague said. “Kirk has used this method to push conspiracies about election fraud, Christian nationalism, anti-immigrant xenophobia, and now he’s opened a new front in racism with his Martin Luther King attacks.”Montague’s comments are in keeping with earlier criticism of Kirk for promoting Trump’s unsubstantiated claims of election fraud in 2020.Kirk and TP Action collaborated with about a dozen other groups to bring busloads of Trump allies to DC to attend Trump’s 6 January March to Save America rally that preceded the mob attack on the Capitol.View image in fullscreenPrior to the rally, Kirk predicted in a tweet it “would likely be one of the largest and most consequential in American history”, but he quickly deleted the tweet after the day’s violence.Independent analysts who study misinformation criticize Kirk’s penchant for pushing conspiracies and false narratives on the Charlie Kirk Show, which runs daily on the evangelical Salem Radio Network.“The Charlie Kirk Show consistently ranks high in the top 100 shows on Apple podcasts, and has been a leader in spreading false and unverified claims,” said Valerie Wirtschafter, a Brookings Institution fellow in AI and emerging technologies.Kirk’s dubious claims range “from the idea that the Covid-19 vaccine was poison, to the belief that the election was stolen in 2020 with fraudulent ballots, to claims that purported Ukrainian bioweapons facilities are somehow linked to Anthony Fauci,” she added.Kirk had company in backing Trump’s election fraud claims, which could pose legal risks to a top TP Action official: Tyler Bowyer, the COO, who also had that title with TPUSA, and who was one of Arizona’s 11 fake electors for Trump in 2020. He and the other fake electors are facing a state attorney general probe.The 11 fake electors filmed themselves signing documents stating they were legitimate electors, even though the then GOP governor, Doug Ducey, had certified Biden’s win by more than 10,000 votes.Bowyer, an Arizona GOP national committeeman who signed paperwork falsely claiming that Trump had won, introduced a resolution at a Republican National Committee meeting that began in late January seeking to get the RNC to indemnify RNC members in multiple states who had been fake electors and who face legal bills due to state probes.Bowyer justified his resolution by writing on X that “we need to send a clear signal that the RNC will defend those who serve as electors against Democratic radicals trying to criminalize civic engagement and process”.The resolution didn’t pass, but to appease Trump backers the RNC pledged to “vocally” back individuals who “lawfully” served as Trump electors in states that Biden actually won.Prosecutors in three states have brought charges against fake electors for sending certificates to Congress falsely stating Trump had won their states, and the justice department has probed fake elector schemes in multiple states in its wide-ranging inquiry into efforts by Trump and his allies to thwart Biden’s election.Serendipitously, right before the RNC meeting, TP Action hosted a two-day summit dubbed Restoring National Confidence, which drew several big-name election deniers including My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, ex-Trump senior White House strategist Steve Bannon and Don Jr.In a tweet, Don Jr wrote: “It was great speaking to all my friends at the Turning Point Restoring National Confidence Summit earlier this week.”The tight ties between TPUSA and Don Jr were underscored in 2020 when TPUSA paid a company owned by Don Jr $333,000 to buy copies of one of his books, which TPUSA gave away as part of a fundraising drive, according to the Associated Press.But watchdog groups are alarmed by TPUSA and TP Action’s record of promoting the ex-president’s bogus claims of election fraud, and candidates in Arizona in 2022 who espoused similar election falsehoods. They’re bracing for more in another heated election year.“They’ve backed conspiracy theorists for high office, mobilized activists around the ‘big lie’ and hired one of Arizona’s fake electors to help run their campaign arm,” said Heather Sawyer, the president of the watchdog group American Oversight.“Since January 6, TPUSA has become an animating force behind the election-denial movement.” More