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      Clean energy spending boosts GOP districts. But lawmakers are keeping quiet as Trump targets incentives

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      Billions of dollars in clean energy spending and jobs have overwhelmingly flowed to parts of the US represented by Republican lawmakers. But these members of Congress are still largely reticent to break with Donald Trump’s demands to kill off key incentives for renewables, even as their districts bask in the rewards.The president has called for the dismantling of the Inflation Reduction Act – a sweeping bill passed by Democrats that has helped turbocharge investments in wind, solar, nuclear, batteries and electric vehicle manufacturing in the US – calling it a “giant scam”. Trump froze funding allocated under the act and has vowed to claw back grants aimed at reducing planet-heating pollution.Republicans who now control Congress have to decide if they will eliminate the IRA’s grants and, more crucially, the tax credits that have spurred a boom in clean energy activity in their own districts. A total of 78% of this spending has gone to Republican-held suburban and rural districts across the US, according to data from Atlas Public Policy.Of the 20 congressional districts that have attracted the most clean energy manufacturing investment since the IRA passed in 2022, 18 are represented by Republicans, according to Atlas. The top three districts, in North Carolina, Georgia and Nevada, represented by Richard Hudson, Earl Carter and Mark Amodei, respectively, have collectively seen nearly $30bn in new investments since the legislation.Despite this, none of the 18 Republican representatives contacted by the Guardian would comment on whether they agree with Trump that clean energy incentives should be scrapped.“Members aren’t necessarily looking for opportunities to disagree with the White House at the moment,” said Heather Reams, the president of Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions, a center-right group that advocates in favor of clean energy.The Atlas data set is the newest in a series of reports showing the IRA benefitted Republican-led districts the most. And the largest individual pools of money from the bill also went to projects in red communities, according to a separate data set shared with the Guardian by an anonymous source at the Department of Energy (DoE).The top grant from the IRA, worth $500m, went to a General Motors plant in Lansing, Michigan – represented by Republican Tom Barrett – the DoE data shows. And though the biggest loan of $15bn went to California’s Pacific Gas and Electric Company utility to expand clean power and modernize infrastructure, the second and third largest went to battery plants in Glendale, Kentucky, and Kokomo, Indiana, represented by conservatives Brett Guthrie and Victoria Spartz, respectively. Hageman, Guthrie and Spartz did not respond to requests for comment.Some Republicans have publicly lauded the tax credits’ impacts on their districts even as they have attacked the IRA. The ultraconservative Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, for instance, praised the IRA-funded expansion of solar manufacturing in her district but called the bill itself “dangerous”, winning her scrutiny from Joe Biden in 2023. Her district saw more investment than all but 14 others, the Atlas data shows.In a sign of private nervousness among conservatives about a repeal of the tax credits, though, a group of 21 Republican lawmakers, including Carter and Amodei, signed a letter to colleagues warning that axing the IRA risks planned projects and would escalate energy bills. Some conservatives made similar calls during a January hearing in the House ways and means committee.But these voices have gotten quieter in recent weeks, with some Republicans who privately supported the letter refusing to sign it for strategic reasons, and some letter signatories saying the IRA tax credits should not necessarily be a major priority.Ongoing budget concerns have made it especially difficult for conservatives to defend the credits. Republicans’ fiscal year 2025 proposal authorized $4.5tn in tax cuts through 2034 and called on committees to partially offset the cost with $2tn in spending reductions. A full repeal of the IRA’s green energy tax credits would slash about $850bn in spending the Tax Foundation thinktank recently found.“They’re trying to kind of balance finding the money so that they’re not adding to the federal debt, while also trying to protect these beneficial and popular tax credits and provisions,” said Dana Nuccitelli, the research coordinator at the non-partisan advocacy group Citizens’ Climate Lobby. “It’s not easy.”Reams, of the Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions thinktank, said that as the realities of lost jobs and increasing energy costs become clear, Trump may change his mind about the need to repeal the credits. “There’s what Donald Trump says – remember, he hated EVs, but he just bought a Tesla – and what he does,” she said. “You’ve got to not take it all so literally and bide some time to get a sense of what really is going on.”Still, there are already signs that Trump’s hostile stance towards renewables – he has halted approvals of wind and solar projects on federal land and waters – – is starting to dampen clean energy activity in the US.Approximately $8bn in clean energy manufacturing activity has been canceled so far this year, Atlas has calculated, with a separate analysis by Climate Power finding that 50,000 jobs have been lost or are threatened.A full repeal of the IRA would hike energy bills for households and imperil a further 1.5m jobs in the US, according to yet another recent report, by Energy Innovation. “Many of those jobs will be at risk if the IRA is repealed,” Jim Farley, the chief executive of Ford, warned recently about the company’s plans to expand its electric vehicle factories.“The Trump administration aims to restore US manufacturing jobs, but cutting existing federal energy incentives could really undermine that goal,” said Tom Taylor, a senior policy analyst at Atlas.It’s a message some climate advocates have been bringing to Republican lawmakers in recent weeks in an attempt to save the tax credits. Citizens’ Climate Lobby, for instance, this month lobbied 47 Republicans on Capitol Hill calling on them to protect the tax credits, and is now asking its members to call their Republican representatives, focusing not on their climate benefits but on their potential to spur economic growth.“Everybody loves manufacturing jobs,” Nuccitelli said.In their lobbying, Citizens Climate Lobby is also highlighting the low price of building clean power, the need for abundant energy amid forecasted spikes in energy from the artificial intelligence boom, and the fact that repealing the incentives could cause household electricity bills to increase by about 10% over the next decade.Despite the lack of public support for the tax credits from GOP lawmakers, the organization said they enjoy significant support on Capitol Hill, with some GOP lawmakers calling to protect them in private meetings and personal phone calls with other congressional colleagues.Only two Democratic-led districts were on the list provided by the Atlas Public Policy. One was Arizona’s Raúl Grijalva, who was a strong advocate for the IRA’s green incentives before he died this month.“The Inflation Reduction Act is a vital investment in the future stability of the planet,” his office wrote in a statement to the Guardian before his passing. “As a self-proclaimed business genius, Trump should easily be able to understand the high financial and humanitarian costs of increasing climate catastrophes.” More

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      Republicans are quietly trying to disenfranchise millions of voters | Alexis Anderson-Reed

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      The first months of the new Trump administration have been dizzying with the breadth of executive actions to slash the social safety net, further enrich the wealthy, and inflame division based on outdated notions about culture and identity. While White House policy pronouncements have come with flair and political theater – such as the president signing orders on a Jumbotron – in Congress there are quieter but equally pernicious efforts aimed at silencing the votes and voices of communities across the country.One such piece of legislation is the so-called Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or Save Act, which would require Americans seeking to register or re-register to vote to prove US citizenship. This dangerous bill would in effect strip millions of Americans of their access to the vote, while making the voting process more difficult and burdensome for everyone else. Rather than make our elections more secure, the Save Act would disenfranchise millions based on nothing but a series of debunked conspiracy theories.Last week, meanwhile, the White House issued an executive order that would upend voter registration and our elections – requiring additional proof of citizenship on federal voting forms; seeking to block states from from processing mail-in ballots after election day; paving the way for funding cuts to states that refuse to fall in line; and directing Elon Musk and his so-called “department of government efficiency” to review voter information. It’s a blatant, brazen and unlawful attempt to try to remake our election system by fiat that represents a direct attack on the checks and balances that have secured our elections for generations. The order is sure to face legal hurdles and should not stand up to scrutiny by the courts or the American people. Now, at the same time as we are calling out this attempted power grab by the Trump administration, we must also prevent Congress from making the mistake of disenfranchising millions of voters.According to research by the Brennan Center for Justice, more than 21 million US citizens of voting age don’t have easy access to proof of citizenship documents, and only about half of American adults have a passport, while millions do not have access to paper copies of their birth certificates. Married women whose legal names do not match their birth certificates could be disenfranchised by the Save Act, and folks looking to obtain lost or misplaced birth certificates would face financial and logistical hurdles.The Save Act would restrict voters’ ability to register to vote online and through the mail while also severely limiting the ability of non-partisan civic organizations to conduct voter registration drives, which have been crucial to civic engagement for more than a century. That’s because, despite voters’ ability to register to vote at the DMV and registration efforts by political parties, data shows that voter registration drives from non-partisan organizations can account for about one-fifth of voter registration applicants – roughly equal to the political power of California, Florida and Texas combined. We simply cannot sit back and allow Congress or the White House to destroy the infrastructure of our elections by disenfranchising so many voters.Voter registration drives by non-profits have a rich and powerful history, dating back to the League of Women Voters and other civic groups encouraging women to register in the 1920s after the passage of the 19th amendment. During the Freedom Summer of 1964 in Mississippi, students from northern states traveled to Mississippi to canvass the state and register Black people to vote as the civil rights movement pushed back on centuries of racist voter suppression. And in more modern elections, voter registration drives have become a critical vehicle for driving community engagement among communities of color and marginalized groups that the traditional political system has left behind. Historically, political parties categorize voters based on their likelihood to vote, and “low propensity” voters are sometimes considered unworthy of political candidates’ time and resources. Without non-profit organizations and civic groups stepping in to spur engagement, we risk a vicious cycle in which marginalized communities are completely ignored.At State Voices, the nation’s largest non-partisan civic engagement network responsible for collecting more than 840,000 voter registration applications and contacting more than 66 million voters in 2024, we see first-hand the impact of voter registration drives to reach communities that are overlooked and underserved. Last year, our affiliate in Nevada, Silver State Voices, sent staff to help register tribal members from the Duck Valley and Pine Nut Reservations – carrying downloaded maps to register applicants who live in rural areas without a street address. In Wyoming, a network of civic organizations helped a county clerk to register hundreds of high school seniors. And in Nebraska, the Nebraska Voting Rights Coalition helps register newly eligible voters who have completed probation and parole requirements due to past felony convictions. These stories represent only a tiny fraction of the impact of nonpartisan voter registration efforts in communities across the country – and they’re all under threat should the Save Act become law.Our nation faces huge questions in the coming elections about the future of our economy, our healthcare system, our children’s education, the environment and more. For our democracy to thrive, we must allow voters to have their say – not restrict who has a voice based on logistical hurdles. As this bill moves forward, it is imperative for people to make clear to their members of Congress that they must reject the Save Act permanently.

      Alexis Anderson-Reed is the president of State Voices, which coordinates hyper-local election registration, education and mobilization across 24 states with 1,200 partners in Bipoc and working-class communities across the country More

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      ‘Have you no sense of decency, sir?’ Joe McCarthy and the road to Trump

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      On 9 June 1954, in a Senate hearing room on Capitol Hill, Joseph Nye Welch made American history. With one question, the lawyer prompted the downfall of Joe McCarthy, the Republican Wisconsin senator who for years had run amok, his persecution of supposed communist subversives ruining countless lives.“Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness,” Welch said, as millions watched on TV, as he defended Fred Fisher, a young lawyer in McCarthy’s sights.“Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You have done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?”As Clay Risen writes in his new history, Red Scare: Blacklists, McCarthyism, and the Making of Modern America: “McCarthy, it seemed, did not.”The public listened. McCarthy was abandoned by those in power. McCarthyism had become McCarthywasm, President Dwight D Eisenhower joked. The senator died three years later, aged just 48, firmly in disgrace.Risen published his book last week, to glowing reviews, smack in the middle of another dramatic Washington moment, full of drama, replete with disgrace, in which many have compared McCarthy and Donald Trump, a Republican president pursuing his own purges and persecutions.Government workers are in Trump’s sights. So are protesting students and anyone or anything he deems representative of progressive values – of promoting diversity, equity and inclusion. Trump’s political enemies are best defined as anyone he thinks wronged him in his first term, his defeat in 2020, his four criminal cases and in the election last year.“McCarthy was not a lone wolf,” Risen said, “but he was willing to go and say things. No one knew what he was going to say. There was something Trumpian in that regard.”Asking historians to discuss their subjects in light of modern figures and events is a journalistic cliche. But it seems fair when talking to Risen. He has addressed the question, writing for his employer, the New York Times, about the Trumpist “New Right” in a piece illustrated with a picture of McCarthy in a red Maga cap.Given McCarthy was finally brought down by a simple appeal to decency, could that possibly happen, one day, to Trump?View image in fullscreen“I think that’s been the question since 2015,” Risen said. “I remember when he went crossways with [the Arizona senator] John McCain, and everyone said, ‘Well, that’s the end, because you say something like that about a war hero … ’ But remember, Trump said right around the same time, ‘Look, I go walk out into Fifth Avenue and shoot someone, and my supporters will still be with me.’ And it’s funny: so many things he’s been wrong about, or incoherent about, but in that he was right.”Reading Red Scare, it seems inconceivable such hysteria could have lasted so long, stoked by postwar paranoia about agents of the emerging Russian enemy, reaching sulfurous heights in years shot through with nuclear panic. It seems inconceivable ordinary Americans could have allowed it. To Risen, it’s not inconceivable at all.“The way I always explain it is, ‘Look, America is a big place, and most Americans don’t pay any attention to politics. They have no idea. Most of their interpretation at least of national politics is strictly economic.’”The 1950s were boom years. Now, since Trump’s return to the White House, the economy is shaky but the president has not shouldered the blame.“There are ancillary things,” Risen said. “Immigration as an economic issue. Occasionally a cultural element comes in. Abortion is obviously part of that. But most people, when they think about ‘What does the federal government mean to me?’, they think in economic terms.”As the red scare raged, most Americans simply did not care. Now, Risen said, many persist in thinking: “Well, shouldn’t we have a businessman running the country?”“So that raises the question: now the economy’s tanking, or the markets are tanking, and we may find ourselves in recession, do those people move away from Trump? Or do people go with it?”At long last, sir, have you no currency?Could happen.Risen is 48. He worked at Democracy: A Journal of Ideas and the New Republic, then at the Times he edited opinion and politics before switching to writing obituaries. Somehow he has written nine books, five on American whiskey and four histories: of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr; of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; of Teddy Roosevelt at war; and now Red Scare.“Postwar American politics and political culture is sort of my lodestone. The red scare seemed a natural fit.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionRisen spoke from the Times newsroom in midtown Manhattan. Further uptown, in the Morningside Heights neighborhood, protesters rallied for Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian graduate student with a green card and an American wife, arrested for his role in anti-Israel protests. Spirited to Louisiana, Khalil was charged with no crime. Instead, he was held under an obscure law – from 1952, the heart of the red scare – that allows for the deportation of anyone deemed a threat to US foreign policy.Many fear Khalil is a test case for purges to come.Risen said: “The way they have gone after him, even the tools they’re using, are one and the same with the way they tried to get Harry Bridges, who was an Australian-born labor leader of the west coast longshoremen” in the early 1950s. “Personally, I think Bridges is a hero … He was detained without cause at the start of the Korean war because he was considered a threat to national security. His case went to the supreme court, he won, and he lived a long time.“Obviously there are some differences but it’s hard not to see the same stories playing out now. The Department of Education recently announced a tip line where if you’re a parent and you think some teacher or some librarian is, I don’t want to use the verb, ‘DEI’ … Essentially, it’s: ‘If you just have a complaint about a teacher, in this vein, let us know.’“The same thing existed during during the red scare. The FBI had the Responsibilities Program, where they would take input from grassroots organizations, veterans groups, concerned parents groups, and then they would share information with PTAs, with local school boards. You know: ‘This teacher has a background that’s kind of suspect,’ ‘Here’s a list of books that you want to remove from your library.’ It’s just the same playbook. It’s terrifying to see it play out. And in fact, in some ways, I think it’s much scarier now.”View image in fullscreenAfter the red scare, Republicans marched ever further to the right. There was Richard Nixon, who cut his teeth questioning suspected communists as a congressman in the 50s, scenes retold in Risen’s book. There was Ronald Reagan, who testified before the House un-American activities committee and flirted with extremists. There was Pat Buchanan, who challenged the establishment from the far right, and there was Newt Gingrich, who polarized and radicalized Congress.But, Risen said, “despite everything, there were safeguards” that had ultimately withstood the red scare.“We had a center-right establishment of the Republican party that tolerated but ultimately moved on from the red scare. We had a fairly established media that was credulous and made a lot of mistakes but ultimately was not taken in by the red scare and was willing to call some of the worst red scarers to account. One of the things that came out of the red scare was a stronger awareness of the importance of defending civil liberties. The ACLU and the American Bar Association did not cover themselves in glory during the red scare. But ever since then, groups like that have been much more present and aggressive in terms of defending civil liberties, and so we see that today.“Hopefully it’s enough. I think a lot remains to be seen whether what we’re going through now will be worse than the red scare, but I’m not at all hopeful.”In that fateful hearing in 1954, Joe McCarthy’s own counsel sat at his side. It was Roy Cohn, a ruthless New York lawyer who later became mentor to a young Trump. Risen sees plenty of other parallels between McCarthy and Trump.View image in fullscreen“I spent a lot of time looking at the encomiums to McCarthy when he died, and letters his friends were sharing, and so much of it was the sentiment that McCarthy was the ultimate victim, because McCarthy was the guy who was willing to say the truth, and he was destroyed for it.”Trump also presents himself as both victim and avenger, promising revenge and retribution.“There was around [McCarthy] this idea that it wasn’t enough just to replace the leaders. It wasn’t enough just to control spending. Reform was not enough. The fundamental core of the New Deal” – Franklin Roosevelt’s vast modernization of the US state, from the 1930s – “needed to be thrown in the garbage, and anybody ever connected to any of that needed to be banished.”In the 1950s, that effort failed. In the 2020s, Trump and his mega-donor and aide Elon Musk are trying again – it seems with more success.Risen said: “When you look at not so much Trump but at some of the more systematic thinkers around him, like JD Vance and his circle, like Kevin Roberts, Stephen Miller, I think some of these guys do have a sense of history.”“I don’t think Elon Musk does, necessarily, but he is saying those same things about ‘We need to go in and dismantle, essentially, the New Deal architecture.’ And it’s not just because it’s expensive, it’s because it’s [seen as] un-American and a rot on society. In the 1940s and 50s, the name for this was ‘communism’. In that sense, communism was a red herring. It wasn’t really about communism. It was about progressivism. It was about the New Deal. It’s about this culture in America that was more tolerant, pluralistic, in favor of labor rights, women’s rights, civil rights. That was the target.”During the red scare, in what came to be called “the lavender scare”, gay men were ensnared and ruthlessly ruined.Risen said: “Today, it’s DEI or woke or whatever. But it’s the same thing. It’s not that they’re getting rid of DEI programs, whatever that might mean. They’re mainly getting rid of fundamental civil rights protections or offices that protect civil rights, that are nothing about what they charge.“That is the real game, at heart. It’s what was going on in the red scare.”

      Red Scare is published in the US by Scribner More

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      Trump withdraws Elise Stefanik’s UN nomination to protect GOP House majority

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      Donald Trump announced on Thursday that he was pulling US House representative Elise Stefanik’s nomination to be the US ambassador to the United Nations, a stunning turnaround for his cabinet pick after her confirmation had been stalled over concerns about Republicans’ tight margins in the House.Trump confirmed he was withdrawing the New York Republican’s nomination in a Truth Social post, saying that it was “essential that we maintain EVERY Republican Seat in Congress”.“We must be unified to accomplish our Mission, and Elise Stefanik has been a vital part of our efforts from the very beginning. I have asked Elise, as one of my biggest Allies, to remain in Congress,” the president said, without mentioning who he would nominate as a replacement for his last remaining cabinet seat.Stefanik’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.Trump had tapped Stefanik to represent the US at the international body shortly after winning re-election in November. She was seen as among the least controversial cabinet picks, and her nomination advanced out of committee in late January, but House Republicans’ razor-thin majority kept her ultimate confirmation in a state of purgatory for the last several months.In recent weeks, it had seemed as if Stefanik’s nomination would advance to the Senate floor, given two US House special elections in Florida in districts that Trump easily won in 2024. Filling those vacant GOP seats would have allowed Stefanik to finally resign from the House and given Republicans, who currently hold 218 seats, a little more breathing room on passing legislation in a growingly divided Congress. Democrats hold 213 seats.But Democrats’ upset in a Tuesday special election for a Pennsylvania state Senate seat in Republican-leaning suburbs and farming communities surely gave the GOP pause.Stefanik is the fourth Trump administration nominee who didn’t make it through the confirmation process. Previously, former US House representative Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration for attorney general, Chad Chronister was pulled for the Drug Enforcement Administration and former Florida representative Dr David Weldon was yanked from contention to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Stefanik had been in a state of limbo for months, not able to engage in her official duties as a member of the 119th Congress or to participate in the action at the UN. The vacancy of a permanent US ambassador was happening at a critical moment for the international body as the world leaders had been discussing the two major wars between Russia and Ukraine and Israel and Hamas.In late February, the US mission, under Trump, split with its European allies by refusing to blame Russia for its invasion of Ukraine in votes on three U.N. resolutions seeking an end to the three-year war. Dorothy Shea, the deputy US ambassador to the UN, has been the face of America’s mission in New York during the transition. More

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      Republican senators call for investigation into Signal leak as intelligence chiefs deny breaking law – US politics live

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      The US supreme court upheld on Wednesday a federal regulation targeting largely untraceable “ghost guns” imposed by Joe Biden’s administration in a crackdown on firearms whose use has proliferated in crimes nationwide.The justices, in a 7-2 ruling authored by conservative justice Neil Gorsuch, overturned a lower court’s decision that the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives had exceeded its authority in issuing the 2022 rule targeting parts and kits for ghost guns.Conservative justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented. Gorsuch was joined in the majority by conservative justices John Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh as well as the court’s three liberal members.Ghost gun products are typically bought online and may be quickly assembled at home, without the serial numbers ordinarily used to trace guns or background checks on purchasers required for other firearms.Plaintiffs including parts manufacturers, various gun owners and two gun rights groups – the Firearms Policy Coalition and Second Amendment Foundation – sued to block the ATF rule in federal court in Texas.The regulation required manufacturers of firearms kits and parts, such as partly complete frames or receivers, to mark their products with serial numbers, obtain licenses and conduct background checks on purchasers, as already required for other commercially made firearms.The rule clarified that these kits and components are covered by the definition of “firearm” under a 1968 federal law called the Gun Control Act and that commercial manufacturers of such kits must become licensed.The UK does not want to escalate trade wars, finance minister Rachel Reeves said on Thursday after US president Donald Trump announced import tariffs on cars and auto parts. The response came with London locked in talks with Washington over potentially securing a post-Brexit trade deal.“We’re not at the moment in a position where we want to do anything to escalate these trade wars,” Reeves told Sky News, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).“We are looking to secure a better trading relationship with the United States,” she told the broadcaster, adding that the Labour government was “in extensive talks” with the Trump administration over securing a trade deal.Trump on Wednesday announced steep tariffs on the auto sector, provoking threats of retaliation from trading partners ahead of further promised trade levies next week.“What we’re going to be doing is a 25% tariff on all cars that are not made in the United States,” Trump said, as he signed the order in the Oval Office. The duties take effect at 12.01 am (04.01 GMT) on 3 April and impact foreign-made cars and light trucks. Key automobile parts will also be hit within the month.The UK trade body for the auto sector urged the US and the UK to strike a deal that avoids Trump’s “disappointing” tariffs on foreign-made cars, reports AFP.“The industry urges both sides to come together immediately and strike a deal that works for all,” Mike Hawes, chief executive at the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, said in a statement late Wednesday.“The UK and US auto industries have a longstanding and productive relationship, with US consumers enjoying vehicles built in Britain by some iconic brands, while thousands of UK motorists buy cars made in America,” Hawes noted.He said that “rather than imposing additional tariffs, we should explore ways in which opportunities for both British and American manufacturers can be created as part of a mutually beneficial relationship, benefiting consumers and creating jobs and growth across the Atlantic.”Speaking at the end of January, Hawes said the Us was “an important market” for UK-produced luxury brands such as Bentley and Rolls-Royce, adding that this allowed for “a greater opportunity to absorb” tariffs.President Donald Trump’s plan to impose a 25% tariff on imported cars and light trucks starting next week is “very bad news” and the only solution for now is for the European Union to raise its own tariffs, French finance minister Eric Lombard said on Thursday.Lombard, who was speaking on France Inter radio, said he hoped be able to discuss soon with his US counterparts in view of lowering those tariffs, adding a trade war would lead “to nothing”, reports Reuters.Trump, who sees tariffs as a tool to raise revenue to offset his promised tax cuts and to revive a long-declining US industrial base, said collections would begin on 3 April.The private data of top security advisers to US President Donald Trump can be accessed online, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported on Wednesday, adding to the fallout from the officials’ use of a Signal group chat to plan airstrikes on Yemen.Mobile phone numbers, email addresses and in some cases passwords used by national security adviser Mike Waltz, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, and director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard can be found via commercial data-search services and hacked data dumped online, it reported. It is not clear in all cases how recent the details are.The Trump administration has been facing calls for the resignation of senior officials amid bipartisan criticism after Monday’s embarrassing revelations. The chat group, which included vice-president JD Vance, Hegseth, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and others, discussed sensitive plans to carry out strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen via the Signal app, potentially threatening the safety of US servicemen and women taking part in the operation.On Wednesday evening, Trump backed Hegseth, saying “He had nothing to do with this” and calling the scandal a “witch-hunt”.The phone numbers and email addresses – mostly current – were in some cases used for Instagram and LinkedIn profiles, cloud-storage service Dropbox, and apps that track a user’s location.Der Spiegel reported it was “particularly easy” to discover Hegseth’s mobile number and email address, using a commercial provider of contact information. It found that the email address, and in some cases even the password associated with it, could be found in more than 20 data leaks. It reported that it was possible to verify that the email address was used just a few days ago.It said the mobile number led to a WhatsApp account that Hegseth appeared to have only recently deleted.In rare signs of unrest, top Republican senators are calling for an investigation into the Signal leak scandal and demanding answers from the Trump administration, as they raise concerns it will become a “significant political problem” if not addressed properly.“This is what happens when you don’t really have your act together,” the Alaska Republican senator Lisa Murkowski told the Hill.The Trump administration has been facing criticism from Democrats – and now Republicans – after Monday’s embarrassing revelation that a team of senior national security officials accidentally added a journalist to a private group chat on Signal, an encrypted messaging app. The group, which included JD Vance, the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and others, discussed sensitive plans to engage in military strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.On Wednesday, morning the Atlantic posted another tranche of messages that contained details of the attack on Yemen, including descriptions of targets, launch times and even the details of weather during the assault.Senior national security officials testified before the Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday, where the national intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard, and CIA director, John Ratcliffe, were grilled by lawmakers over the scandal. The national security officials said “no classified material” had been shared in the chat. Republicans are now calling for investigations, as well.According to reporting from the Hill, top Republican senators are calling for various committees to investigate the leak, including the Senate armed services committee and the Senate intelligence committee. The Mississippi senator Roger Wicker, who chairs the armed services committee, told the Hill he would be asking the defense department’s inspector general to investigate the scandal.Messages, released on Wednesday, from the Signal group chat discussing an attack on Yemen revealed details of US bombings, drone launches and other information about the assault, including descriptions of weather conditions and specific weapons.“There is a clear public interest in disclosing the sort of information that Trump advisers included in nonsecure communications channels, especially because senior administration figures are attempting to downplay the significance of the messages that were shared,” the Atlantic wrote.It reproduced numerous messages from the text chat between the Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth – who said on Tuesday that “nobody was texting war plans” – and top intelligence officials.US intelligence chiefs on Wednesday denied breaking the law or revealing classified information in a group chat where they discussed details of airstrikes on Yemen in the presence of a journalist, despite allegations from Democrats that the leak was reckless and possibly illegal.Democrats used an intelligence committee hearing on Wednesday to demand an explanation of how operational military plans are not classified information.In rare signs of unrest, top Republican senators called for an investigation into the Signal leak scandal and demanding answers from the Trump administration, as they raise concerns it will become a “significant political problem” if not addressed properly.More on that in a moment, but first, here are some other developments:

      The private data of top security advisers to US President Donald Trump can be accessed online, German news magazine Der Spiegel reported, adding to the fallout from the Signal group chat scandal.

      Trump announced plans to impose sweeping 25% tariffs on cars from overseas on Wednesday, days before the president is expected to announce wide-ranging levies on other goods from around the world. Canadian prime minister Mark Carney called the move a “direct attack” on Canadian workers.

      The US supreme court upheld a federal regulation targeting largely untraceable “ghost guns” imposed by Joe Biden’s administration in a crackdown on firearms whose use has proliferated in crimes nationwide.

      The heads of National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service testified in a heated congressional subcommittee hearing, helmed by conservative Marjorie Taylor Greene, amid a renewed Republican effort to defund US public media.

      Republican House speaker Mike Johnson suggested potentially defunding, restructuring or eliminating US federal courts as a means of pushing back against judicial decisions that have challenged Donald Trump’s policies.

      The Trump administration has paused the processing of certain green card applications as the US government continues to implement a hardline immigration agenda.

      Rumeysa Ozturk, a doctoral student in Boston detained on Tuesday by federal immigration agents in response to her pro-Palestinian activism, was on Wednesday evening being detained at the South Louisiana Ice processing center, according to the government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) detainee locator page. More

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      Trump announces 25% tariffs on all cars not made in US amid scrutiny over Signal leak – live

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      “This is the beginning of liberation day in America,” Donald Trump told reporters gathered in the Oval Office now for his remarks on new tariffs on cars made outside the United States. At the start of remarks being streamed live on the White House YouTube channel, the president said that tariffs of 25% will be imposed on all imported cars.The tariffs will apply to finished cars and trucks that are shipped into the United States, including those made by US auto companies whose automobiles that are made overseas.Asked by a reporter if the tariffs could be lifted before the end of his term of office, Trump said that the new 25% rate on foreign-made cars are “permanent, 100%”.The president just signed an executive order to put 25% tariffs on cars imported into the United States which, he says, will take effect on 2 April.Asked by a reporter how he will ensure that a car made largely outside the country is not completed in the US to avoid tariffs, Trump claims that there will be “strong policing” to prevent automakers from dodging tariffs.The president called the current system, in which cars are made in multiple countries, “ridiculous”.“This is the beginning of liberation day in America,” Donald Trump told reporters gathered in the Oval Office now for his remarks on new tariffs on cars made outside the United States. At the start of remarks being streamed live on the White House YouTube channel, the president said that tariffs of 25% will be imposed on all imported cars.The tariffs will apply to finished cars and trucks that are shipped into the United States, including those made by US auto companies whose automobiles that are made overseas.While fears have been raised about the possibility that Steve Witkoff, the president’s envoy to Russia, was vulnerable to hacking because he was in Moscow when he was added to the Signal messaging chat about attacking Yemen (a concern Witkoff dismissed by saying he did not use his personal device on that trip), it has been somewhat overlooked that Mike Waltz, the national security adviser who created the group, was in Saudi Arabia on the day he accidentally invited the journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to connect with him on the messaging app.In his first report on the incident for the Atlantic, Goldberg wrote: “On Tuesday, March 11, I received a connection request on Signal from a user identified as Michael Waltz.”Since Goldberg did not specify the time of day that the invitation was sent, it is not certain where Waltz was when he sent the request, which was almost certainly sent from his nonsecure, personal phone. (It has been previously reported that the open-source Signal app cannot be downloaded on to secure government devices, although recent statements from the CIA director suggest that might no longer be true.)But we do know that Waltz spent much or all of that day in the Saudi city of Jeddah, where he and the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, engaged in talks with senior Ukrainian officials over a plan for a 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine’s war to repel the full-scale Russian invasion that began in 2022.Since Waltz and Rubio spoke to reporters after 9pm local time in Jeddah that night, to announce that Ukraine had accepted the proposal, we know that Waltz was in a Saudi government-secured facility for most of that day, when, presumably, his personal phone would have been vulnerable to hacking by US adversaries, like Russia or China, and even US allies, including Saudi Arabia and Ukraine.It is not clear when Waltz left Saudi Arabia, but he was certainly there for most, if not all, of 11 March. Waltz and Rubio met with the Saudi crown prince, Mohamed bin Salman, in Jeddah on the evening 10 March, and Rubio’s itinerary on the state department’s website indicates that the secretary of state did not leave Saudi Arabia until 12 March, when he flew to Ireland and then to Canada.Senator Tammy Duckworth of Illinois released a statement calling for defense secretary Pete Hegseth’s resignation.“Pete Hegseth is a f*cking liar. This is so clearly classified info he recklessly leaked that could’ve gotten our pilots killed. He needs to resign in disgrace immediately,” reads the statement.“Hegseth and every other official who was included in this group chat must be subject to an independent investigation. If Republicans won’t join us in holding the Trump Administration accountable, then they are complicit in this dangerous and likely criminal breach of our national security.”Secretary of defense Pete Hegseth denied claims that the information he texted other Trump officials in a group chat earlier this month discussed classified war plans.“Nobody’s texting war plans,” he told reporters in Hawaii. “As a matter of fact, they even changed the title to attack plans, because they know it’s not war plans,” he said.Canada’s former spy chief says White House response to Signal leak threatens ‘Five Eyes’ securityCanada’s former spy chief has said the Trump administration’s attempts to downplay the leak of top-secret attack plans is a “very worrying” development, with implications for broader intelligence sharing among US allies.On Wednesday, the Atlantic magazine published new and detailed messages from a group chat, including plans for US bombings, drone launches and targeting information of the assault, including descriptions of weather conditions. Among the recipients of the messages was a prominent journalist, who was inadvertently added to the group.“This is very worrying. Canada needs to think about what this means in practical terms: is the United States prepared to protect our secrets, as we are bound to protect theirs?” said Richard Fadden, the former head of Canada’s intelligence agency. “Every country has experienced leaks, of varying severity. The problem with this one is that it’s being generated at the highest levels of the US government – and they haven’t admitted that it’s a problem.”Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand have for decades shared intelligence in a pact informally known as the Five Eyes. But the leak of classified information is likely to put further strain on the group as it weighs how seriously the current American administration takes the handling of top secret information.“When we have intelligence leaks, we admit it, we try to sort out what’s happened and we try to fix it. One doesn’t get the impression today that the US cabinet members will admit there’s a problem,” said Fadden, who also served as national security adviser to Canada’s Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper. “They’re just trying to clean it up from a political perspective. That worries me.”Despite a far more detailed picture of the information leaked to journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, the White House and key figures in the message thread have redoubled efforts to claimed none of the information was classified.Read the full story by The Guardian’s Leyland Cecco:Secretary of state Marco Rubio said the accidental inclusion of the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg in the Signal group chat was a “big mistake” but said that that “none of the information on there at any point threatened the operation or the lives of our service members.”Speaking to reporters from Jamaica, Rubio said:
      Obviously someone made a mistake, someone made a big mistake and added a journalist. Nothing against journalists but you ain’t supposed to be on that … I contributed to it twice. I identified my point of contact … and then later on, I think 3 hours after the White House’s official announcements have been made, I congratulated the members of the team.
      Rubio went on to add:
      I’ve been assured by the Pentagon and everyone involved that none of the information that was on there … at any point threatened the operation of the lives of our servicemen and in fact it was a very successful operation … I want everybody to understand why this thing was even set up in the first place and also understand very clearly the mission was successful and at no point was it in danger and that’s coming from the highest ranking officials…
      Another Democrat, the Florida representative Maxwell Alejandro Frost, has criticized the contents of the Signal group chat to which the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg was accidentally added.Writing on X in response to a screenshot that featured JD Vance’s reply to the US’s bombing in Yemen, Frost said:“Another disgusting part of all this is the proof of a blatant war crime to which the vice president of the United States responded: Excellent.”During a press briefing in Warsaw, Poland, Nato secretary general Mark Rutte was asked if Europeans could still trust the Americans after the Signal leaks.“Absolutely. Can we trust the Americans? Yes, they are our biggest partner, the biggest allies in Nato. They have freed my country together with Poland and Canada after the Second World War. Yes, absolutely. We can trust the Americans.”He was later asked about some of the comments made about “free-loading” Europeans.Rutte said he would not want to offer running commentary as that “would not be appropriate,” but acknowledged two main irritants in the new US administration’s relations with European Nato allies, on fair burden sharing and some caveats in “collective endeavours.”“We are addressing them because we are spending much more and we are working on, as I said, on the lethality of Nato, which is crucial,” he said.Here’s a look at where the day stands:

      Democrats are calling on defense secretary Pete Hegseth to resign following the Signal group chat scandal. One Democrat, Illinois’s representative Raja Krishnamoorthi said: “Classified information is classified for a reason. Sec. Hegseth was openly sharing classified materials on an insecure channel that potentially endangered service members. And then he lied about it. He should resign.”

      White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Elon Musk’s team is investigating how the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief was added to the group chat discussing a military strike in Yemen. “As for your original question about who’s leading, looking into the messaging thread: the national security council, the White House counsel’s office, and also, yes, Elon Musk’s team,” she said during a press briefing.

      In rare signs of unrest, top Republican senators are calling for an investigation into the Signal leak scandal and demanding answers from the Trump administration, as they raise concerns it will become a “significant political problem” if not addressed properly. “This is what happens when you don’t really have your act together,” the Alaska Republican senator Lisa Murkowski told the Hill.

      The US district court judge James Boasberg, whom the government has argued cannot be trusted with sensitive information in the Alien Enemies Act case, has been assigned to oversee a lawsuit alleging that government officials violated federal record-keeping laws when they used a group chat to discuss a planned military strike in Yemen, Politico reports. “Messages in the Signal chat about official government actions, including, but not limited to, national security deliberations, are federal records and must be preserved in accordance with federal statutes, and agency directives, rules, and regulations,” the plaintiffs argue.

      Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, who grilled top security officials during Tuesday’s Senate intelligence committee briefing, appeared on Morning Joe this morning to discuss the recently released text messages published by the Atlantic on Wednesday. “Well it sure answers that the two witnesses I believe lied when they said, ‘Oh, nothing to see here, nothing classified,’” he said.
      Republican senator Roger Wicker, chair of the Senate armed services committee, said he and the senator Jack Reed, the committee’s top Democrat, will request an inspector general investigation into the use of Signal by top national security officials to discuss military plans, The Associated Press reports.Wicker is also calling for a classified Senate briefing from a top national security official and verification that the Atlantic published an accurate transcript of the Signal chat.This move is notable given the Trump administration’s defiance that no classified information was posted to the Signal chat.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed that Elon Musk’s team is investigating how the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief was added to the group chat discussing a military strike in Yemen.“As for your original question about who’s leading, looking into the messaging thread: the national security council, the White House counsel’s office, and also, yes, Elon Musk’s team,” she said during a press briefing.“Elon Musk has offered to put his technical experts on this to figure out how this number was inadvertently added to the chat again to take responsibility and ensure this can never happen again,” Leavitt added.She also said that the Signal messaging app, where senior Trump administration officials accidentally shared military plans in a group containing a journalist, is an approved app.Leavitt said it is loaded on to government phones at the Pentagon, Department of State and Central Intelligence Agency.Donald Trump will hold a press conference to announce tariffs on the auto industry today at 4pm, according to the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt.Wednesday’s press conference will be in the Oval Office.National security adviser Michael Waltz said on Fox News that a staffer wasn’t responsible for adding the Atlantic’s editor-in-chief to the group chat and that he “takes full responsibility” for building the group and maintaining coordination.“Have you ever had somebody’s contact that shows their name and then you have somebody else’s number?,” Waltz said.“You have somebody else’s number on someone else’s contact, so of course I didn’t see this loser in the group,” he added, referring to the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg.The Guardian’s Peter Beaumont offers an analysis of what the latest Signal leak revelations expose:The disclosure by the Atlantic of further devastating messages from the Signal chat group used by the Trump administration’s most senior security officials has nailed the lie that nothing that threatened the safety of US servicemen and women was shared on the group.After the vague and evasive assertions by Trump officials at Monday’s Senate intelligence committee hearing, from the White House, and from the US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, that no war plans or classified material was shared, readers can make up their own minds.Despite Hegseth’s angry denial, the exchanges in the leaked group chat did contain details of war planning, shared recklessly by him in advance of the attack on 15 March, on a messaging system and perhaps devices which he and others in the chat could not have been certain were secure.Most damning is the fact that Hegseth sent details in advance of the F-18s and other aircraft that would take part in the attack, including the timing of their arrival at targets, and other assets that would be deployed.As Ryan Goodman, a law professor who formerly worked at the Pentagon, put it after the latest release: “The Atlantic has now published the Signal texts with attack plans in response to administration denials. I worked at the Pentagon. If information like this is not classified, nothing is. If Hegseth is claiming he declassified this information, he should be shown the door for having done so.”In attempting to cover up and diminish their culpability for a shocking breach of operational security – including the fact that two participants in the chat were overseas (including one in Moscow at the time) – the Trump administration has made the scandal immeasurably more serious than it was already.At the most simple level, the pilots who flew on those strikes should rightly be furious that the most senior civilian defence official placed them in harm’s way.Read the full analysis here:In rare signs of unrest, top Republican senators are calling for an investigation into the Signal leak scandal and demanding answers from the Trump administration, as they raise concerns it will become a “significant political problem” if not addressed properly.“This is what happens when you don’t really have your act together,” the Alaska Republican senator Lisa Murkowski told the Hill.The Trump administration has been facing criticism from Democrats – and now Republicans – after Monday’s embarrassing revelation that a team of senior national security officials accidentally added a journalist to a private group chat on Signal, an encrypted messaging app. The group, which included the vice-president, JD Vance; the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth; the secretary of state, Marco Rubio; and others, discussed sensitive plans to engage in military strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen.On Wednesday morning the Atlantic posted another tranche of messages that contained details of the attack on Yemen, including descriptions of targets, launch times and even the details of weather during the assault.Senior national security officials testified before the Senate intelligence committee on Tuesday, where the national intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard, and CIA director, John Ratcliffe, were grilled by lawmakers over the scandal. The national security officials said “no classified material” was shared in the chat. Republicans are now calling for investigations as well.Read the full story by José Olivares here: More

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      For the sake of US democracy, it’s time for Chuck Schumer to step down | Leah Greenberg and Ezra Levin

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      In just two months, Donald Trump has launched an assault of staggering ferocity on America’s values, laws and people. The Democratic party faces a choice: does it lead the fight against authoritarianism and billionaire capture, or does it hunker down and hope the president implodes on his own? After last week’s legislative debacle, we’ve concluded that if Democrats want to fight, they need to replace the Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, with someone who understands the stakes.Since November, our grassroots movement, Indivisible – led by regular people organizing nationwide – has been fighting back. Indivisible groups have pushed members of Congress, attended town halls, protested Elon Musk, and organized locally against Trump’s agenda. Everywhere we go – red, blue or purple – people ask why Democratic leadership doesn’t share their urgency.For months, we urged Senate Democratic leadership to use every tool at their disposal to fight back and raise the alarm. We asked them to stay unified against Trump’s nominees – a cabinet of billionaires and extremists who openly flout the law. We asked them to organize against Maga bills such as the Laken Riley Act, which expands Trump’s mass deportation powers. We asked them to use every procedural tool to halt business as usual. All too often the response has been: “We’re in the minority, we don’t have the votes.”This argument collapsed with the passage of a funding bill packed with Maga priorities. The funding bill required 60 votes to pass, giving Democrats rare leverage. They could have demanded safeguards against Musk’s raid of the government or at least stopped Republicans from making things worse. This was perhaps their only real chance to take a stand this year.Under Hakeem Jeffries’ leadership, House Democrats overwhelmingly united to oppose the bill, forcing the House speaker, Mike Johnson, to pass it with Republican votes. Then it reached the US Senate, where Schumer initially vowed to block it – but reversed course within 24 hours and gave Republicans the votes they needed.This was bad policy and worse politics. History shows that the party demanding new concessions in a funding fight loses public support – and Republicans were the ones making demands. Republican leaders and Trump himself were openly thrilled with Schumer. House Democrats felt betrayed. Nancy Pelosi, a master legislative strategist, put it bluntly: “I myself don’t give away anything for nothing. I think that’s what happened.”Schumer’s defense was that avoiding a shutdown would prevent further damage and stop Trump’s rise. But those with the most at stake disagreed. Litigators fighting Trump’s legal battles said passing the continuing resolution hurt their cases more than a shutdown. The federal employees’ union acknowledged that while a shutdown would be painful, a blank check for Trump to continue his rampage was worse. Yes, a shutdown would be an opportunity for Trump to wreak havoc on federal agencies – but he is doing precisely that already while all the lights are on. From the Center for American Progress to House Democrats to Never Trumpers, a broad coalition agreed: Democrats needed to take a stand.Even if one accepted Schumer’s rationale, his lack of strategy was indefensible. He knew for months this would be the Democrats’ only leverage point. There was no excuse for entering the week without a plan or for undercutting House Democrats after they took a tough vote.The real reason for Schumer’s surrender was a mystery until this week. In an interview with Chris Hayes following the backlash, he was asked if we were facing a constitutional crisis. His response: “We’re not there yet.”It was a stunning admission. The problem isn’t just Schumer’s strategy – it’s his perception of reality. He is conducting business as usual while the country burns.After the Senate Democratic collapse, we called an emergency meeting with over 1,300 Indivisible leaders across the country. The reaction was near-universal: shock, despair and rage. Our leaders – who are holding “empty chair” town halls to pressure Republican lawmakers hiding from constituents – couldn’t understand why Schumer wouldn’t fight as hard as they are. They felt betrayed. Ultimately, 91% of local leaders across blue, red and purple states voted for Indivisible to call on Schumer to step down.We made this call in sorrow, not anger. We’ve worked closely with Schumer over the years. We appreciate his achievements. We like him personally. But the events of the last four months have made painfully clear that the Democratic party is not going to climb out of this hole by relying on the same people who led us into it. We need a leader who understands we’re in an emergency and acts like it. We need our leaders to match the fervor of the people rising up in defense of America.That leader can emerge if we create the opening. Schumer’s fate is no longer in his hands. The Democratic senators who can demand a new leadership election answer to us – their constituents. They will act if we speak up. We get the party we demand – and for the sake of our democracy, we must demand more.

      Leah Greenberg is the co-executive director of Indivisible

      Ezra Levin is the co-executive director of Indivisible More