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      Jim Jordan to force floor vote for House speaker on Tuesday after consolidating Republican support – as it happened

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      Jim Jordan has told CNN that he will force a floor vote tomorrow at noon for House speaker.The Ohio representative previously walked back a stance that he would only call a vote if he reached the necessary 217 votes.Jordan told CNN that his stance changed due to fighting between Israel and Hamas.“You can’t open the House, and do the work of the American people, and help our dearest and closest friend Israel if you don’t have a Speaker,” said Jordan.On if he can get 217 votes, Jordan said: “I don’t know if there’s any way to ever get that in the room. … But I think the only way to do this is … you have the vote tomorrow.”Federal judge Tanya Chutkan partially granted prosecutors’ request for a gag order on Donald Trump in his trial over charges related to the trying to overturn the 2020 election. The former president will be banned from attacking special counsel Jack Smith and his team, as well as witnesses in the case and court staff, but Chutkan declined to stop him from alleging the case is politically motivated, or criticizing the government generally. Nonetheless, Trump’s presidential campaign condemned the decision as “another partisan knife stuck in the heart of our Democracy”.Here’s what else happened today:
      Jim Jordan is consolidating Republican votes ahead of tomorrow’s election that could see him take over as speaker of the House from the ousted Kevin McCarthy.
      Joe Biden postponed a trip to Colorado to stay at the White House and meet with his national security team ahead of Israel’s expected invasion of Gaza.
      Chutkan turned down a request from Smith’s team to limit how Trump’s attorneys could question potential jurors.
      The election subversion case is one of several Trump is involved in, both at the state and federal level. Here’s a recap of his many legal troubles.
      Biden and Kamala Harris condemned the murder of a six-year-old Palestinian Muslim boy in Illinois, and warned against Islamophobia.
      Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have condemned the killing of six-year-old Palestinian Muslim Wadea Al-Fayoume in Illinois, who police say was targeted over the Israel-Hamas war.“Doug and I grieve with the family of Wadea Al-Fayoume, a six-year-old Palestinian-American Muslim child who was stabbed to death on Saturday. We also pray for the recovery of Wadea’s mother, Hanaan Shahin, who was stabbed 12 times in the same attack,” Harris said in a statement released this afternoon. “The Department of Justice has announced a hate crimes investigation.”Yesterday evening, the president said:
      Jill and I were shocked and sickened to learn of the brutal murder of a six-year-old child and the attempted murder of the child’s mother in their home yesterday in Illinois.The child’s Palestinian Muslim family came to America seeking what we all seek – a refuge to live, learn and pray in peace. This horrific act of hate has no place in America, and stands against our fundamental values: freedom from fear for how we pray, what we believe, and who we are. As Americans, we must come together and reject Islamophobia and all forms of bigotry and hatred. I have said repeatedly that I will not be silent in the face of hate. We must be unequivocal. There is no place in America for hate against anyone.
      Here’s the Guardian’s Gloria Oladipo with more on Wadea’s murder:Quinn Mitchell, a 15-year-old resident of early voting state New Hampshire who could give many reporters a run for their money in terms of political knowledge, has had yet another run-in with Republican officials who apparently do not want him around, the Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt reports:A 15-year-old aspiring journalist who had a viral encounter with the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, earlier this year was escorted out of a Republican political event by armed police after he was accused of being a Democratic operative.Quinn Mitchell – a politics enthusiast who has attended more than 80 presidential campaign events – said he was given a credential to the First in the Nation Leadership Summit, an event organized by the New Hampshire Republican party.After arriving on Friday, Mitchell watched a speech by Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor who is running for president. Mitchell – who is from New Hampshire – then prepared to watch Perry Johnson, a long-shot Republican candidate.But he was prevented from doing so.“This woman comes up to me, I don’t know who she is, but she says to me: ‘I know who you are, you’re a tracker,’” Mitchell said on his podcast.A tracker is a political operative who records rival candidates. Mitchell, who is not a tracker, was then escorted into a room at the Sheraton Nashua hotel, where the event was being held. The woman, who Mitchell said was a Republican official, was joined by a man, and the pair accused Mitchell of having misrepresented himself to gain access.From the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell, here’s a full rundown of what happened earlier today, when the federal judge handling his trial on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election imposed a partial gag order on Donald Trump:Donald Trump has been issued a limited gag order by the federal judge overseeing the criminal case over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, prohibiting him from making public statements attacking prosecutors, court staff and potential trial witnesses.The former president was not prohibited from generally disparaging the Biden administration, the US justice department and the trial venue of Washington DC, and will continue to be allowed to allege that the case was politically motivated.Those were the contours of a tailored protective order handed down on Monday by Tanya Chutkan, the US district judge who said she would enter a written ruling at a later date but warned Trump’s lawyers that any violation of the order could lead to immediate punitive sanctions.The ruling was the culmination of a two-hour hearing in federal district court after prosecutors in the office of the special counsel Jack Smith had asked the judge to impose restrictions on Trump’s attacks that they felt could intimidate witnesses – and Chutkan agreed.“There is a real risk that witnesses may be intimidated,” Chutkan said as she explained her decision from the bench, adding that just because Trump was a 2024 presidential candidate and the GOP nomination frontrunner did not give him free rein to “launch a pre-trial smear campaign”.Joe Biden was scheduled today to travel to Colorado to promote clean energy policies, but this morning made the unusual decision to postpone the event, apparently to address the crisis in the Middle East.The White House has announced that the president spent this afternoon meeting with his national security team about Israel’s looming invasion of the Gaza Strip:Meanwhile, his re-election campaign has made its own foray into hostile territory, by setting up an account on Donald Trump’s Truth Social. That’s the platform the former president turned to after being banned from X, formerly known as Twitter, following the January 6 insurrection, and has continued to use even after Elon Musk let him back on last year:We have a live blog following the latest on the war between Israel and Hamas:A spokesperson for the Trump campaign has denounced a judge’s recent partial gag order against Donald Trump in the 2020 election case.In a statement shared with the Hill, the spokesperson called the order “an absolute abomination and another partisan knife stuck in the heart of our Democracy.”“President Trump will continue to fight for our Constitution, the American people’s right to support him, and to keep our country free of the chains of weaponized and targeted law enforcement,” read the statement, shared by Trump’s campaign.Judge Tanya Chutkan’s ruling prohibits Trump from attacking special counsel Jack Smith and his staff. The former president is also banned from attacking witnesses in the case as well as court staff.Read the full article here.It’s unclear if Jordan will secure the 217 votes necessary for House Speaker. But his team has been making significant headway, CNN reports.As of Monday, less than 10 Republican representatives don’t support Jordan’s bid for House speakership–compare to 20 members on Sunday.From CNN’s Manu Raju:Jordan’s supporters are attempting to garner support as the House speaker vote approaches.Tennessee representative Andy Ogles posted a public letter on Monday, imploring Americans to contact their representatives to support Jordan.In a post to X, formerly known as Twitter, Ogles said: “My Fellow Americans, .. Our Nation is in crisis, we need a leader, we need a fighter like [Jim Jordan]”.Jim Jordan has told CNN that he will force a floor vote tomorrow at noon for House speaker.The Ohio representative previously walked back a stance that he would only call a vote if he reached the necessary 217 votes.Jordan told CNN that his stance changed due to fighting between Israel and Hamas.“You can’t open the House, and do the work of the American people, and help our dearest and closest friend Israel if you don’t have a Speaker,” said Jordan.On if he can get 217 votes, Jordan said: “I don’t know if there’s any way to ever get that in the room. … But I think the only way to do this is … you have the vote tomorrow.”Federal judge Tanya Chutkan partially granted prosecutors’ request for a gag order on Donald Trump in his trial over charges related to the trying to overturn the 2020 election. The former president will be banned from attacking special counsel Jack Smith and his staff, as well as witnesses in the case and court staff, but Chutkan declined to stop him from alleging the case is politically motivated, or criticizing the government generally.Here’s what else is going on today:
      Jim Jordan is consolidating Republican votes ahead of tomorrow’s election that could see him take over as speaker of the House from the ousted Kevin McCarthy.
      Chutkan turned down a request from Smith’s team to limit how Trump’s attorneys could question potential jurors.
      The election subversion case is one of several Trump is involved in, both at the state and federal level. Here’s a recap of his many legal troubles.
      Jim Jordan, the GOP nominee for House speaker, has spent today consolidating support ahead of a vote scheduled for tomorrow to pick a new leader of Congress’s lower chamber.While it still remains unclear if he has the 217 votes necessary to succeed Kevin McCarthy, the Republican who was earlier this month booted from the speaker’s chair by eight far-right GOP lawmakers and the chamber’s Democrats, Jordan has made important progress today.He notably won the support of Mike Rogers, an Alabama congressman who had previously refused to vote for him:Jordan has supported baseless conspiracy theories about Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss and received the former president’s endorsement in the speaker’s race. In a letter he sent to his GOP colleagues today, he has pitched himself as a uniter of a conference that’s deeply divided over many issues, including McCarthy’s removal:Judge Tanya Chutkan says with Trump’s public prejudicial statements in the 2020 election case, there is a real risk that witnesses may be intimidated.Trump cannot “launch a pre-trial smear campaign,” Chutkan says, adding violations of order could lead to sanctions.Federal judge Tanya Chutkan has imposed a limited gag order against Donald Trump in the 2020 election subversion case.Chutkan’s order prevents posting or reposting attacks against the special counsel, his staff, court staff or personnel, and statements against potential witnesses or expert testimony. The judge declined to impose restrictions on criticizing the government in general, including the justice department and Biden administration. She also will allow statements alleging the case is politically motivated.Over the past two hours the judge, Tanya Chutkan has heard arguments from both Donald Trump’s attorneys and prosecutors for special counsel Jack Smith over whether she should impose a gag order on the former president.Prosecutors have asked her to do so, citing inflammatory statements he has made targeting various players in his federal election subversion case, including witnesses, court staff and attorneys. At the hearing, Trump’s lawyer John Lauro has argued such an order would be unnecessary, saying he can stop the ex-president from making outrageous statements, and unsuccessfully trying to get Chutkan to delay the trial until after the 2024 election.The judge has yet to rule, but as her statement before the hearing went into recess makes clear, she seems to be leaning towards imposing some kind of order limiting what the former president can say.Federal judge Tanya Chutkan has signaled she is partial to a request from prosecutors to impose some kind of gag order on Donald Trump in the election subversion case.“I’m not confident that without some sort of restriction, we’ll be in here all the time,” she said after hearing about two hours of arguments from special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutors and Trump’s defense attorneys.The court is now taking a brief recess.Judge Tanya Chutkan is now back to the argument, put forward by Donald Trump’s attorney, about how a gag order could affect a debate with his former vice-president turned rival Mike Pence.Chutkan says she understand how it could be detrimental to their speech, but then asks Trump’s lawyer John Lauro why she could not issue an order stopping him from attacking other witnesses – such as former joint chief of staff chairman Mark Milley. Last month, Trump suggested Milley deserved “DEATH” over a phone call with his Chinese counterpart near the end of his term, where the army general assured him the president would not order military action.Lauro replies that the first amendment does not restrict speech simply because it could be used to spur someone to violence.Judge Tanya Chutkan asks Donald Trump’s lawyer John Lauro why the former president needed to attack the spouse of special counsel Jack Smith.Lauro replies that he gets attacked as well, but that’s permitted under the first amendment, and nothing stops Trump from arguing the case against him is politically biased.Chutkan then turns to Trump’s attacks against court staff, such as the New York City court clerk who he maligned earlier this month. Lauro concedes that comment was out of bounds for a judicial proceeding.The judge then wanted to hear from Lauro his argument against her issuing an order blocking Trump from making derogatory public statements about the court or its staff. His attorney says such a step is not necessary, nothing the civil case in New York is different from the federal criminal proceedings in Washington DC. Lauro adds that he will make sure Trump does not make similar statements.Judge Tanya Chutkan then considers another question: why Donald Trump feels the need to call a prosecutor a “thug” to make the point that the case against him is politically motivated.His attorney John Lauro asks what else he should do in the face of oppression. “Let’s tone this down,” Chutkan replies.“If your honor wants to censor my speech”, Lauro retorts.Judge Tanya Chutkan poses the hypothetical question of how a statement by Donald Trump attacking the election subversion case as political and brought by Joe Biden should be handled.Trump’s attorney John Lauro asks if such a statement would violate the potential gag order. The prosecution initially argues that yes, it would, before backtracking and saying it would not, because Biden is not a party to the case. More

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      Ted Cruz faces new Senate challenge as Democrat attracts huge fundraising haul

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      The Texas Republican senator Ted Cruz spent time last weekend hobnobbing with Liz Truss, the shortest-serving British prime minister – but news closer to home suggested he might have reason to fear for his own job security.As reported by the Dallas Morning News and the Texas Tribune, the Democratic congressman Colin Allred, Cruz’s most likely opponent for re-election next year, reported $10.9m raised since declaring his candidacy in May.That was nearly 20 times as much as Allred’s closest Democratic rival, but it was also, the papers said, almost $2m more than fundraising reported by Cruz in the same period.The hard-right Republican – who was elected to the Senate in 2012, prompted a government shutdown in 2013 and ran for president in 2016 – reportedly raised $8.8m in the same period.In an email to the Guardian, a spokesperson for Cruz contested the reported figures, pointing to a Fox News report earlier in October which said the senator “brought in $5.4m during the July-September third quarter of 2023 fundraising … up from the $4.4m he raised during the April-June second quarter of fundraising and the $1.8m he brought in during the first three months of 2023.“… The Cruz campaign says they entered October with over $6.7m cash on hand.”Either way, Allred, a former Tennessee Titans NFL linebacker elected to Congress from his native Dallas in 2018, presents a formidable figure.Revelling in the show of fundraising muscle, Allred’s campaign manager, Paige Hutchinson, told the Texas Tribune: “Texans’ enthusiasm to retire Ted Cruz – and to elect Colin Allred to the Senate – is reflected in this quarter’s amazing outpouring of grassroots support.”Allred does seem set to breeze to victory in the Democratic primary and therefore advance to challenge Cruz. His party, however, has had its hopes dashed in Texas before.In 2018, Beto O’Rourke, then a congressman, mounted a strong challenge to Cruz but fell short. O’Rourke parlayed resulting prominence in national progressive circles into a campaign for president in 2020 but that and a run for governor of Texas two years later also ended in disappointment.On Saturday, meanwhile, Cruz tweeted a photograph of himself with his wife, Heidi Cruz, and Truss.“We are so grateful for our British friends and for strong leaders on the global stage who will champion conservative principles and defend liberty,” Cruz said.Truss thanked the Cruzes for their “warm welcome in Houston” and said: “It’s vital that conservatives win the battle of ideas both in the US and UK. The time is now.”Truss was prime minister for 49 days last September and October. Historically speaking, that made her the shortest-serving PM of all. In terms of pop culture, as promoted by the Daily Star, a tabloid newspaper, she lasted less time than a lettuce. More

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      Biden campaign joins Trump’s Truth Social platform: ‘Converts welcome!’

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      Joe Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign has joined Truth Social, a rightwing social media platform created by the Republican former president Donald Trump.Using the handle @BidenHQ, the account says it is a “project of Biden-Harris 2024” and includes a banner image that says “the malarkey ends here”, referencing the president’s signature colloquialism.The campaign wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that it joined Truth Social “mostly because we thought it would be very funny”.For its profile image, the campaign chose a depiction of Biden as “Dark Brandon”, a meme that shows Biden with laser eyes and stems from the “Let’s Go Brandon” chant rightwing circles used to stand in for saltier language against the president. The stunt is the latest in a line of quips and memes from the president’s digital team.While the new account is meant to be in jest, it’s clear the Biden campaign is also using it to reach conservatives. The first few posts today shared conservatives either giving Biden credit or criticizing Trump.“Well. Let’s see how this goes. Converts welcome!” Biden’s campaign wrote in its first post on the platform.Biden’s camp told Fox News Digital that using Truth Social would “meet voters where they are” while also combatting misinformation about Biden that spreads on the platform.As mainstream social media platforms have attempted to clamp down on misinformation and hateful conduct on their sites, places like Truth Social have cropped up with missions to minimally moderate the content people post, allowing misinformation to spread more easily.The platform is not widely used. Estimates show that Truth Social has about 2 million users; Facebook has nearly 3 billion, while X has about a half-billion. More

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      Louisiana professor quits in protest over rightwinger’s victory in governor’s race

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      A prominent professor at Louisiana’s largest public university has said he is resigning after an extremist Republican candidate won the state’s gubernatorial election – a victory some fear could accelerate the already conservative-dominated state’s march into unfettered rightwing governance.Robert Mann, a journalism professor at Louisiana State University’s Manship School of Mass Communication and a well-known political commentator, said he will step down at the end of the academic year in response to Jeff Landry’s victory in the election to become governor.Landry had previously called for Mann to be disciplined by LSU after the academic criticized him online.“I have this morning informed my dean that I will step down from my position at LSU at the end of the school year,” Mann posted on X.“My reasons are simple: the person who will be governor in January has already asked LSU to fire me. And I have no confidence the leadership of this university would protect the Manship School against a governor’s efforts to punish me and other faculty members.“I’ve seen too much cowardice and appeasement from top LSU officials already. That being the case, it’s clearly best to remove myself from the equation to avoid any harm to the school I love.“I’ll add that I’ve suspected for the past two years it would come to this, so I’ve been making plans for some time. The minute that I knew Landry wanted me fired and was willing to call the [university] president to demand it, I knew there would be dark days for LSU if he won.”Landry won a multi-party – or “jungle” – primary in Louisiana on Saturday with little meaningful resistance from the state’s Democratic party. He is preparing to be sworn in as governor in January after capturing a majority of the votes cast in Saturday’s race.As attorney general, Landry railed against coronavirus vaccine and masking requirements, and measures to address the climate crisis, which he has called “a hoax”.In 2020, he joined with other Republican attorneys general in a lawsuit which attempted to overturn the results of the election that saw Donald Trump lose the presidency to Joe Biden. Landry was endorsed by Trump in the gubernatorial race.Mann – once the communications director for late former Democratic Louisiana governor Kathleen Blanco – became the subject of Landry’s ire in 2021 after criticizing the attorney general’s opposition to vaccine mandates.Landry, who sued the Biden administration after it mandated Covid vaccinations for federal contractors, had been opposed to stricter vaccine requirements at LSU. And he sent a representative to a university meeting where vaccines were discussed.In response, Mann tweeted: “Louisiana AG Jeff Landry sending some flunkie to the LSU Faculty Senate meeting today to read a letter attacking Covid vaccines is quite the move from a guy who considers himself ‘pro-life’.”Landry was unhappy with the characterization. He said he had spoken with the LSU president “and expressed my disdain and expectation for accountability”.He added: “This type of disrespect and dishonesty has no place in our society – especially at our flagship university by a professor. I hope LSU takes appropriate action soon.”Neither Landry nor LSU immediately responded to requests for comment.The outgoing Louisiana governor, John Bel Edwards, a centrist Democrat, has used his veto power to prevent some of the most extreme Republican legislation from passing in the state.Edwards issued 319 vetoes in his first seven and a half years as governor, including against a law which would have dropped compulsory school Covid vaccinations and a “don’t say gay” bill similar to the one in Florida, which would have banned teachers from mentioning sexual orientation or gender identity in public schools.Landry’s victory means Louisiana will have a Republican governor and legislature, which will be eager to revisit efforts to enact those laws. More

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      Republican Will Hurd on his failed quest for president: ‘I’m going to always look at this fondly’

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      Will Hurd wanted to be the most powerful man in the world. Like so many candidates before him, he knew the loneliness of the long distance runner criss-crossing Iowa and New Hampshire in a quest for votes that might make him president of the United States. But it was not be.This week Hurd called it a day after a campaign that failed to make much of a splash. Indeed, arguably his biggest headline came in July when he declared, “Donald Trump is running to stay out of prison,” and was roundly booed at the Iowa Republican Party’s Lincoln Dinner. Unrepentant, Hurd told them: “Listen, I know the truth is hard.”It was a telling moment that said much about the Republican party in 2023, cult-like in its devotion to Trump – he remains the runaway favourite for the nomination – and blocking its ears to dissenters making the case that it is time to move on from a doubly impeached, quadruply indicted septuagenarian.Still, in a phone interview from his home in San Antonio, Texas, Hurd – who got married last New Year’s Eve – insists that he has no regrets. “Look, running for president in my first year of marriage was incredibly difficult and it goes back to: why are you doing it?” he says. “For me, it was always very clear.“I’ve been lucky to have some amazing experiences and America is at an inflection point: if we want to make sure we leave this country better off for our kids, we’ve got to start making better decisions now. For me, that was always in my mind, that’s everything that I focused on when I woke up. It was never like, why the hell am I doing this? I knew exactly why I was doing this.”Hurd, 46, is no stranger to the campaign trail. He served three terms in the House of Representatives and was the chamber’s sole Black Republican during his final two years in office. He represented Texas’s then most competitive district, which was heavily Hispanic and stretched from the outskirts of San Antonio to El Paso, spanning more than 800 miles of US-Mexico border.But with the Republican party still in thrall to Trump, Hurd, a trenchant critic of the then president, chose not to seek re-election in 2020, saying he would instead focus his energies on technology companies in the national security domain. Last year he travelled the country promoting his book American Reboot: An Idealist’s Guide to Getting Big Things Done.Hurd was the last major candidate to join the already crowded Republican presidential primary field when he announced his run in late July. He campaigned as a pragmatic, pro-business moderate with strong national security credentials who was unafraid to seek bipartisan consensus. He took on the grind of countless hours on planes, in hotels and away from family with good grace.“What is it like to run for president?” he muses. “It’s a lot of travel. It’s a lot of interviews. I have the experience of running for Congress before but running for president, because you’re doing so much, is more raw and authentic. It’s not as staged as some of the other experiences I’ve had. To be in a position to run for president and be taken seriously was an honour. I’m going to always look at this experience fondly.”Hurd’s 14-week foray delivered moments he won’t soon forget. On 11 September he joined first responders and people from Iowa on a 21-mile walking salute to those who died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. At campaign stops, the crowds were often bigger than he expected or had experienced when hustling as a relative unknown in west Texas.“You’d meet some great people. I met this seven-year-old kid in New Hampshire who was super space and the fact that he asked his dad to travel like 90 minutes to come see me talk because he read something I wrote about space. That’s pretty big and cool.”Nine in 10 people in Iowa and New Hampshire are white. Democrats, for their part, have revised their 2024 presidential primary schedule, replacing Iowa with the more racially diverse South Carolina as the leadoff voting state. Hurd, the son of a Black father and white mother, has written about the racism he endured as a teenager and entitled the first part of his book: “The GOP needs to look like America.”But he denies encountering racial prejudice on the trail. “I did not experience any of that. The folks in Iowa and New Hampshire recognise and understand the important role they play in setting the tone of the country and part of that is why a dark horse candidate like me even had a chance to potentially try to catch fire.”Even so, it has been hard for anyone to find a divine spark when confronting the Trump forest fire that has consumed the Republican party for eight years. Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s challenge faded in recent months while other candidates struggled to transcend the quixotic.Asked if there was a moment when they all realised just how formidable Trump still is, notwithstanding his electoral setbacks and legal woes, Hurd replies: “I went in with that clear-minded. I knew that Donald Trump was starting with the largest base and in a place like New Hampshire I think that’s a third of the electorate, a third of the Republican primary voter.“But there’s more people that are considering somebody other than Donald Trump. There are other people that are frustrated with the direction both parties are going that want to be inspired. I also evaluate that in 2020 his support in the Republican primary electorate was 98% so he is without doubt damaged goods. People that voted for Donald Trump twice that still like him recognise his baggage is going to be more harmful than helpful.”What were Hurd’s conversations with Trump supporters like on the campaign trail – did he try to change their minds? “It’s funny, a couple times, especially in New Hampshire, you show up somewhere and someone’s wearing a Trump hat and then after you speak they’re like, ‘Can we get a picture?’ and they take the Trump hat off.“Supporters of other candidates – that’s their right and they should be proud of that. But the opportunity to articulate my positions was great and so I did that everywhere and people were open to having a conversation and I always engage people regardless of who they ultimately supported.“What makes this country great is to be able to have that competition of ideas and this experience proved to me, especially on the ground, we can disagree without being disagreeable and I saw that with the actual voters. I’m optimistic about the future of the country because of the people that I met.”But Hurd and his fellow candidates have faced their share of criticism for, at best, embarking on vanity projects with a view to becoming a TV pundit or Trump’s vice-president and, at worst, splitting the anti-Trump vote and effectively handing him the nomination. He rejects the charge.“The Republican party is supposed to be the party of the competition of ideas. We’re meant to have a diversity of thought and I’ve always said that having a number of people to put their message out there and offer different perspectives is valuable. Donald Trump as the GOP nominee is not inevitable but we put ourselves in a better position by starting to consolidate if there’s not a clear path to victory.”For all his efforts, Hurd barely registered in opinion polls of Republican voters. When he failed to qualify for the first two presidential primary debates in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Simi Valley, California, the writing was on the wall. This week he followed the Miami mayor, Francis Suarez, who became the first presidential hopeful to suspend his campaign shortly after failing to make the first debate stage.He explains: “I’ve always been honest, and so when I knew that our pathway to victory was going to be incredibly tough, I had to be honest with supporters and event planners and people that were hosting things, and so that’s why the timeline is what it is.”Hurd is throwing his weight behind Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and ex-US ambassador to the UN, who has been steadily gaining ground as the leading Trump alternative. Her campaign reported that she raised more than $11m between July and September and this week George Will, an influential Washington Post columnist, called on South Carolina senator Tim Scott and other contenders to drop out and rally around the “experienced, polished, steely and unintimidated” Haley.Hurd says: “Running for president is as much about organisation as it is ideas and she has been able to do that. When it comes to areas like how do you create a strong economy, how you deal with our foreign policy, those are things that I’m aligned with her and she has the best chance. There’s a lot of great people in this race and a lot of them are my friends but Nikki has the momentum to win.”Hurd joined the CIA in 2000 and, after 9/11, spent eight years on the frontlines of the “war on terror” including Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. Now the world again appears to be catching fire with unpredictable consequences. While Trump and others preach “America First” isolationism, Hurd believes that Haley, a former US ambassador to the UN, is most able to meet the moment.“People are nervous, especially with what’s happening now in Israel, two wars going on, the threat that the Chinese government poses to the US and our allies,” he adds. “People want a leader who understands these issues, who’s going to have a steady hand, and right now that’s Ambassador Haley.”Hurd sounds upbeat for a man who has just joined all those other White House hopefuls on the boulevard of broken dreams. His bio on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, still describes him as “Candidate for President. Common sense Republican. Husband.”Anyone seeking Hurd 2024 merchandise on his campaign website, however, might be out of luck. “No products were found matching your selection,” it says. More

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      Jim Jordan races to try to change minds of holdouts in bid for House speaker

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      The rightwing congressman Jim Jordan is seeking to shore up support for his bid to succeed Kevin McCarthy as House speaker, with plans to appear on the House floor early this week to try to sway Republican members of Congress who signaled in a secret ballot vote they will not support his bid.Jordan, a staunch ally of Donald Trump, claimed in a brief interview with Politico he believes he will get the 217 votes required to secure the speakership in a vote now set to happen on Tuesday at noon.“We think we’re going to get 217,” Jordan said.Former House speaker Kevin McCarthy has expressed support for Jordan’s bid to succeed him after a small faction of eight Republicans in the House joined Democrats to oust McCarthy from the role earlier this month and plunged the party into a bitter squabble.Congressman Steve Scalise of Louisiana was slated to secure the Republican nomination for the speaker role before Scalise withdrew from the speakership race after he failed to secure enough support to win a vote. With Republicans holding a slim majority of three seats in the House, any group of Republican holdouts could cause any nominee to fail to secure the speakership.Several Republicans have publicly said they remain no votes on Jordan’s speakership. Mike Rogers of Alabama and John Rutherford and Carlos Gimenez of Florida are in this group, according to Politico.Meanwhile, yet another potential Republican candidate has emerged if Jordan’s effort fails. Louisiana congressman Mike Johnson plans to jump into the race if Jordan stumbles, according to NBC News.“If Jordan cannot get to 217, Johnson intends to step up,” a source told the television network. “Many members are asking him to do so.”NBC added: “Johnson would seek to be a consensus candidate, attempting to bridge hard-right conservatives and moderates who have been waging a war against one another”.”Trump has vocally supported Jordan for the speakership role. The stalemate has halted legislative business.Supporters of Jordan have gone on social media encouraging followers to call Republican holdouts to demand they support Jordan’s bid or face ousting efforts of their own in primaries.That is a hardline tactic that has prompted some dismay even among Jordan’s own supporters.Texas congressman Dan Crenshaw slammed some of his fellow Republicans for an online pressure campaign on behalf of Jordan, saying it would likely put people off backing him.“That is the dumbest way to support Jordan and I’m supporting Jordan. I’m going to vote for Jordan. And as somebody who wants Jim Jordan, the dumbest thing you can do is to continue pissing off those people and entrench them,” Crenshaw told CNN’s State of the Union show.Democrats have expressed concerns over Jordan’s speakership bid, citing the congressman’s role leading up to and in the wake of the 6 January insurrection.“House Republicans are intent on doubling down and have chosen to nominate a vocal election-denier in Jim Jordan,” Congressman Pete Aguilar, chair of the Democratic caucus, told reporters. “A man whose rhetoric and partisanship fomented the January 6 attack on this very building, on these very steps.” More

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      Trump-backed Republican Jeff Landry wins Louisiana governor’s race

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      Attorney General Jeff Landry, a rightwing Republican backed by Donald Trump, has won the Louisiana governor’s race, holding off a crowded field of candidates.The win is a major victory for the Republican party as they reclaim the governor’s mansion for the first time in eight years. Landry will replace current governor John Bel Edwards, who was unable to seek re-election due to consecutive term limits.Edwards is the only Democratic governor in the south.“Today’s election says that our state is united,” Landry said during his victory speech on Saturday night. “It’s a wake-up call and it’s a message that everyone should hear loud and clear, that we the people in this state are going to expect more out of our government from here on out.”By garnering more than half of the votes, Landry avoided an expected runoff under the state’s “jungle primary” system. The last time there wasn’t a gubernatorial runoff in Louisiana was in 2011 and 2007, when Bobby Jindal, a Republican, won the state’s top position.The governor-elect, who celebrated with supporters during a watch party in Broussard, Louisiana, described the election as “historic”.Landry, 52, has raised the profile of attorney general since taking office in 2016. He has used his office to champion conservative policy positions.More recently, Landry has been in the spotlight over his involvement and staunch support of Louisiana laws that have drawn much debate, including banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender youths, the state’s near-total abortion ban that doesn’t have exceptions for cases of rape and incest, and a law restricting youths’ access to “sexually explicit material” in libraries, which opponents fear will target LGBTQ+ books.Landry has repeatedly clashed with Edwards over matters in the state, including LGBTQ rights, state finances and the death penalty. However the Republican has also repeatedly put Louisiana in national fights, including over Joe Biden’s policies that limit oil and gas production and Covid vaccine mandates.Landry spent two years on Capitol Hill, beginning in 2011, where he represented Louisiana’s third US congressional district. Prior to his political career, Landry served 11 years in the Louisiana Army National Guard, was a local police officer, sheriff’s deputy and attorney.Landry has made clear that one of his top priorities as governor would be addressing crime in urban areas. The Republican has pushed a tough-on-crime rhetoric, calling for more “transparency” in the justice system and continuing to support capital punishment. Louisiana has the nation’s second-highest murder rate per capita.Along the campaign trail, Landry faced political attacks from opponents on social media and in interviews, calling him a bully and making accusations of backroom deals to gain support.He also faced scrutiny for skipping all but one of the major-televised debates. More

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      ‘He’s Bakersfield’: Kevin McCarthy’s constituents know him better than he knows himself

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      For two decades, Julie and Jared Vawter have been among the Republicans whose votes for Kevin McCarthy sent him from his conservative inland California hometown of Bakersfield to Sacramento and then Washington DC, where he rose through the GOP’s ranks in the House of Representatives and, this year, was elected speaker.That climb came to an abrupt end last week, when a small group of rightwing Republicans revolted against McCarthy and, with the help of Democrats, made him the first speaker removed from the post in the chamber’s 234-year history.A week and two days after McCarthy’s downfall, the Vawters affixed McCarthy campaign pins and made their way to the monthly meeting of the Greater Bakersfield Republican Assembly (GBRA), a conservative group where some members were partial to the rightwing insurgency and its leader, the congressman Matt Gaetz.“He was a man that I feel has integrity,” Jared Vawter, 64, said of McCarthy. “And, to me, that’s one of the most important things for a congressman, is that he stand up and do what he says and says what he does.”“And reach across the aisle,” 60-year-old Julie Vawter added in the banquet room of a Bakersfield institution, Hodel’s Country Dining, just after the prayer that closed the GBRA’s meeting. “Because we have to have that. We want that from their side. We gotta have that from our side. We can’t be the Matt Gaetz, who [has] a solid line and won’t budge.”Standing on the other side of the hall, Joyce Perrone said she saw McCarthy’s downfall as the type of change that may have been a loss for Bakersfield’s famed son, but was long overdue for Washington’s political class, whom she viewed as derelict in reducing the national debt, and securing the country’s border with Mexico.“I think we welcome the chaos,” Perrone said. As for McCarthy: “He’s a good fundraiser, good speaker, he did some things, but I think people are tired of the status quo.”There’s no telling what comes next, either for McCarthy or for Congress. House Republicans have found no exit from the power vacuum McCarthy’s ouster created, and without a speaker, the chamber is essentially nonoperational.There appeared to be a breakthrough on Wednesday, when McCarthy’s deputy Steve Scalise won the party’s nomination to replace him, but he dropped out a day later after concluding he could not attain the near-unanimity required among House Republicans to win the speaker’s gavel.The consequences of McCarthy’s downfall for Bakersfield are far less apparent. The 58-year-old former speaker says he has no intention of resigning, and the district he represents, which includes about half the city’s neighborhoods and portions of the Sierra Nevada mountain range and San Joaquin valley, is considered the most Republican-leaning in the state. But McCarthy’s ouster could damage his formidable fundraising operation, while Democrats in Bakersfield and the surrounding Kern county believe they have more momentum than one would think in the traditionally conservative area.“Nobody has ever accused Kevin of not working hard, that’s for darn sure,” said Greg Perrone, the GBRA’s president. “He’s not a Harvard-educated or Ivy League-educated guy. Nobody has ever said he’s a slacker. He’s Bakersfield.”Politically conservative, culturally distinct and inland from California’s populous and picturesque coastline, Bakersfield has ever-expanding neighborhoods surrounded by the pump jacks and orchards of its two main industries, agriculture and oil – which together make the air there the worst in the nation.Half of the city’s 400,000-plus residents identify as Latino. Bakersfield is also home to a growing Punjabi Sikh community; to the descendants of the midwesterners who migrated to California during the dust bowl of the 1930s; and to a population of Basque sheepherders who arrived at the dawn of the 20th century. The city’s poverty rate, at 16%, is above the national average, according to Census Bureau data, and its rate of youth disconnectedness – the population aged 16-24 who are neither in school nor working – is among the highest in the country, according to the Social Science Research Council.McCarthy’s origin story involves him winning a $5,000 lottery ticket and, at the age of 21, using the money to open Kevin O’s Deli in a corner of his family’s store, McCarthy’s Yogurt, on Stine Road in south-west Bakersfield. Though he has occasionally fudged the details, a fact-check by the Washington Post found, McCarthy put his experience as an entrepreneur at the center of his pitch as a politician, which began when he applied for an internship with the Republican congressman Bill Thomas while attending California State University, Bakersfield.Though his parents were Democrats, McCarthy recounted in a 2014 Fox News interview that he contrasted Democratic president Jimmy Carter’s plea for Americans to wear sweaters at home to cope with rising heating prices with Republican Ronald Reagan’s description of the country as a “shining city on a hill”, and decided the latter was for him.“I knew what I wanted to believe. I believed in an entrepreneur, in greater liberty and freedom,” he said.Thomas’s chief of staff, Cathy Abernathy, turned him down for the position in Washington DC he applied for in 1987, so McCarthy asked to work in his Bakersfield office, and was accepted. He dove so deep into the tasks before him – answering the phones, tracking down delayed passport applications, sorting out constituents’ immigration troubles – that Abernathy realized McCarthy needed help.“He was on the phone so much and doing so much stuff that … he had his own intern,” she recalls.McCarthy later joined Thomas’s staff as an aide, where he met Mark Martinez, a political science professor at his alma mater. In the late 1990s, before McCarthy would win his first election as a trustee of the local community college, Martinez invited him to address his introduction to American government class.“Kevin didn’t understand what a lecture was,” Martinez recalled. “He came in, and he was actually trying to rally the troops.” The rhetoric fell flat at Cal State Bakersfield, which, unlike some of California’s other public universities, is a commuter school of politically moderate students who are often starting families or looking to change careers, Martinez said.“How do you do this?” McCarthy whispered under his breath to Martinez. “I said, ‘Kevin, this is a lecture – lecture on campaigns.’” A spokesperson for McCarthy declined to comment about this incident.By 2002, McCarthy had won an assembly seat in the state legislature and, by the end of the following year, was made the Republican minority leader.“McCarthy leans to the middle. He supports most abortion rights, but opposes spending tax dollars on abortions,” the Los Angeles Times political columnist George Skelton wrote in a 2003 profile. McCarthy also called for the creation of an independent commission to handle redistricting, because “the present system protects incumbents and produces extremists”, as Skelton tells it.Thomas opted not to run again in 2006, and that year, McCarthy took over his old seat. By 2014, his colleagues had elected him GOP majority leader in the House, the post just below speaker, making McCarthy the least experienced lawmaker to occupy the job in history, according to a University of Minnesota study.He threw his support behind Donald Trump in 2016, developing a close relationship with him during his presidency that included signing on to a baseless lawsuit trying to overturn his re-election loss in 2020. Daylight appeared between them in the wake of the January 6 attack, when McCarthy said on the House floor that Trump “bears responsibility” for the sacking of the Capitol but he wouldn’t vote to impeach him.In an interview with Bakersfield broadcaster KGET two days later, Thomas, McCarthy’s former boss, faulted him for “months of supporting those outrageous lies of the president” but said he hoped that when Joe Biden takes office, “the Kevin who spoke during the impeachment … will be the Kevin leading the Republicans on the floor of the House”.Instead, McCarthy traveled to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida to made amends, paving the way for him to emerge as the Republican frontrunner for next year’s election, and McCarthy to be elected as speaker – but only after a grueling 15 rounds of voting, thanks to opposition from many of the same GOP lawmakers who would vote to eject him months later.During his rise, McCarthy worked to make sure his roots as a small businessman were publicly known. Every few years or so, his social media accounts would share a photo of the Kevin O’s menu, or a shot of a young and mustached McCarthy at work at the deli. But at the strip mall on Stine Road where he once did business, no sign of his family’s eponymous shop remains. Today, the L-shaped building is home to a closed-up discount store, a Spanish-language church and a butcher shop where the owner, Abel Roman, is weighing whether to vote for Trump next year, or even vote at all.“Right now, I’m not pro-Biden, neither Trump,” said Roman, who immigrated from Peru 25 years ago. In 2020, he skipped voting because he “didn’t feel it’ll make any difference”. Ahead of next year’s elections, he’s similarly apathetic, and skeptical about whether politicians have the will to address why the costs of goods at his store are rising or why it’s so hard to get a loan.For the Democratic party in Kern county, McCarthy’s ouster could provide another boost in the rise they believe they’re on. The city is filling up with new residents from pricier coastal areas, who are bringing their more liberal values with them, said Christian Romo, the county Democratic party chair. The GOP still has the edge in voter registration in Kern county, but only by about 7,000 votes, while Democrats have effective control of the Bakersfield city council, thanks to an alliance with a moderate Republican.McCarthy’s district is still so thoroughly Republican that Romo views it as unconquerable. But next door to him is David Valadao, a Republican congressman who represents the remaining neighborhoods of Bakersfield and a swath of Central Valley farmland that voted for Biden in 2020. Romo says the spectacle of McCarthy’s defenestration will be part of their pitch to independent voters, whom he expects will decide whether Valadao is replaced by a Democrat next year.“It’s embarrassing that our local leader, right, ‘our local hometown guy’, had to go through 15 rounds of votes, and now was … the only speaker to ever be stripped of his power. I mean, that’s embarrassing for Bakersfield. It’s a scar in Bakersfield,” he said.McCarthy was a prodigious fundraiser, channeling the tens of millions he would reap to Republican candidates in last year’s midterms. James Brulte, who was the Republican minority leader in the state senate during McCarthy’s time in the assembly, worries about his ability to continue that from the diminished rank of speaker emeritus.“I don’t think this affects any individual race one way or another,” Brulte said of his removal. “But, given McCarthy’s prolific fundraising ability, given the fact that there is no Republican speaker right now, every day that goes by, that probably hurts Republicans, collectively, on the margins, primarily because of the fundraising impact.”Only eight Republicans voted for McCarthy’s removal, but with the party appearing as disunited with him gone as it was with him as speaker, Martinez thinks he may take a stab at returning to the post, even though he has said he does not want it.“He could become a big player and start doing stuff for the community and the region, if he was … genuinely concerned about doing what representative government is supposed to do. But that’s not where he’s at,” Martinez said. “Kevin, if he stays in Congress, is going to want to become speaker again.” More