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      Biden and Harris unveil first federal gun violence prevention office, citing 100 people shot and killed daily – live

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      From 2h agoBiden urged that “it’s time to ban assault weapons, high capacity magazines”, and for Congress to do more.He said the new federal Office of Gun Violence will be overseen by Kamala Harris, who has been “on the frontlines” her entire career as a prosecutor and as a attorney general.Listing the four primarily responsibilities of the newly formed office, he said none of those steps would alone “solve the entirety of the gun violence epidemic”. “Together, they will save lives,” he said.
      I never thought even remotely say this in my whole career: guns are the number one killer of children in America. Guns are the number one killer of children in America.
      In 2023, more than 500 mass shootings have taken place and “well over 30,000” deaths as a result of gun violence, he said, describing it as “totally unacceptable”.Here’s a recap of today’s developments:
      The Republican-led House all but disappeared for the long weekend after abruptly wrapping up its work on Thursday when the embattled speaker, Kevin McCarthy, failed to advance a stopgap government spending bill.
      The White House planned to begin telling federal agencies to prepare for a shutdown. If Congress does not pass a spending bill before 1 October, the lapse in funding is expected to force hundreds of thousands of federal workers to go without pay and bring a halt to some crucial government services.
      The historic US autoworkers’ strike as the United Auto Workers president, Shawn Fain, called on 38 additional plants across 20 states to join the strike. During a livestream update, Fain announced the additional strikes at automaker plants as contract negotiations with the big three automakers remain far apart on economic issues. He invited Joe Biden to the picket line.
      Joe Biden pledged to fight for gun safety laws while unveiling a new White House office of gun violence prevention. Kamala Harris will oversee the office. “On this issue, we do not have a moment to spare nor a life to spare,” she said in remarks on Friday.
      Senator Robert Menendez, a Democrat from New Jersey, and his wife have been charged with bribery offenses in connection with accepting gold bars, cash and a Mercedes-Benz, among other gifts, in exchange for protecting three businessmen and influencing the government of Egypt.
      The conservative justice Clarence Thomas has attended at least two donor events organized by the Koch network, the ultra-right political organization founded by the libertarian billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, which has brought multiple cases before the supreme court, according to a new report.
      The third Republican presidential primary debate will be held on 8 November in Miami. Donald Trump, the clear frontrunner of the party’s race, skipped the first debate and recently announced he’ll also forego the second.
      Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson announced he is leaving the Democratic party and becoming a Republican.
      That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, and the US politics live blog today. Have a good weekend.The third Republican presidential primary debate will be held on 8 November in Miami.The date, first reported by CNN, is more than a month after the second debate which is scheduled to take place on 27 September at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. The first took place on 23 August in Milwaukee.Donald Trump, the clear frontrunner of the party’s race, skipped the first debate and recently announced he’ll also forego the second.Maxwell Frost, the 26-year-old congressman from Florida, described Joe Biden as “one of the fiercest champions of gun violence protection” as he stood beside the president and vice president at the Rose Garden.Frost said that as the first member of Gen Z to be voted into Congress last year, he is often asked what got him involved in politics and his answer is:
      I didn’t want to get shot in school. I was 15 years old when a shooter walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School and murdered 20 children and six teachers. Like millions of kids, I went to school the next day with anxiety and fear that my life would be taken, my friends’ lives would be taken, and my family’s lives would be taken by senseless gun violence.
      He said that he had served as the national organizing director for March for Our Lives before being elected to Congress, and that he learned the “brutal truth” that the time people pay the most attention is usually “coupled with carnage and death”.
      Not today. Today the country sees us here, at the White House, with a president who is taking action.
      Biden said that for every member of Congress who refuses to act on gun violence, we will “need to elect new members of Congress”.
      There comes a point where our voices are so loud, our determination is so clear, that we can longer be stopped. We’re reaching that point. We’ve reached that point today, in my view, where the safety of our kids from gun violence is on the ballot.
      He said the “deadly and traumatic price” of inaction on gun control “can no longer be the lives of our children and the people of our country”.Biden urged that “it’s time to ban assault weapons, high capacity magazines”, and for Congress to do more.He said the new federal Office of Gun Violence will be overseen by Kamala Harris, who has been “on the frontlines” her entire career as a prosecutor and as a attorney general.Listing the four primarily responsibilities of the newly formed office, he said none of those steps would alone “solve the entirety of the gun violence epidemic”. “Together, they will save lives,” he said.
      I never thought even remotely say this in my whole career: guns are the number one killer of children in America. Guns are the number one killer of children in America.
      In 2023, more than 500 mass shootings have taken place and “well over 30,000” deaths as a result of gun violence, he said, describing it as “totally unacceptable”.Joe Biden, who was introduced by Florida congressman Maxwell Frost, announced the creation of the first ever federal office of gun violence prevention and said he was “determined to send a clear message about how important this issue is to me and to the country”.He said that after every mass shooting, he has heard the same message all over the country: “Please do something. Do something to prevent a tragedy.” He said his administration has been working “relentlessly to do something”.He said that last year, he signed into law the bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which he descried as “the most significant gun safety law” and an “important first step”.
      For the first time in three decades, we came together to overcome the relentless opposition from a gun lobby, gun manufacturers and so many politicians opposing common sense gun legislation.
      “We’re not stopping here,” Biden added.Harris said she “owed” it to the parents and children she has comforted who has been traumatized by losing a family member to gun violence.
      On this issue, we do not have a moment to spare nor a life to spare.
      The vice president said the administration will “use the full power of the federal government” to “strengthen the coalition of survivors, and advocates, and students, and teachers, and elected leaders, to save lives and fight for the rights of all people to be safe from fear”.Kamala Harris, speaking at the Rose Garden, said Americans “should be able to shop in a grocery store, walk down the street, or sit peacefully in a classroom” and be safe from gun violence.The US has been “torn apart by the fear and trauma that results from gun violence”, the vice president said, standing besides Joe Biden and Florida congressman Maxwell Frost.
      In our country today, one in five people has lost a family member to gun violence. Across our nation every day, about 120 Americans are killed by a gun.
      The impact of gun violence is not equal across all communities, she said.
      Black Americans are 10 times more likely to be victims of gun violence and homicide. Latino Americans twice as likely.
      Harris said that, as a former courtroom prosecutor, she had seen “with my own eyes what a bullet does to the human body”.
      We cannot normalise any of this. These are not simply statistics. These are our children.
      My colleague David Smith is at the Rose Garden event and has tweeted this picture of Biden and Harris emerging from the White House:Tennessee state representative Justin Jones has been spotted heading to the Rose Garden ahead of Joe Biden’s speech announcing the formation of the nation’s first federal Office of Gun Violence Prevention, according to a White House pool report.Jones is one of the “Tennessee Three”, along with Justin Pearson and Gloria Johnson, who was expelled earlier this year for his role in a pro-gun control protest inside the Tennessee Capitol.Throughout his presidency, Joe Biden has used executive actions to regulate homemade firearms – known as ghost guns – in the same way as traditional firearms, and to clarify who counts as a gun seller and thus is required by law to conduct background checks.Last year he also signed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a sweeping piece of legislation that, among other things, tightens background checks and bolsters mental health programs.Biden has advocated for re-instating the national assault weapons ban and expanding background checks since he was vice-president. A historic increase in gun homicides in 2020 pushed community-based violence prevention further up the administration’s agenda.Joe Biden is expected to announce the nation’s first federal Office of Gun Violence Prevention during a Rose Garden event at 2.45pm Eastern time.The office will be overseen by the office of the vice president, Kamala Harris, who will also be speaking at the event.In a statement released on Thursday, Biden said:
      In the absence of that sorely-needed action, the Office of Gun Violence Prevention along with the rest of my Administration will continue to do everything it can to combat the epidemic of gun violence that is tearing our families, our communities, and our country apart.
      The White House just skirted around a question from the press about whether Joe Biden believes the New Jersey Democratic Senator Bob Menendez should resign.The senator, who has an influential position as chair of the US Senate committee on foreign relations, was indicted earlier today on bribery charges.“I’m going to be really careful here and not comment because it is an active matter,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.Jean-Pierre said the matter was the US Senate’s to deal with and that “discussions are happening” there about the “next steps.”Congresswoman Lucy McBath is addressing the press in the west wing at the daily briefing, which today is headlining on the new national gun violence prevention office. The new project will be officially launched just under an hour from now.Georgia representative McBath told how her young son was killed in a drive-by shooting in 2012 and she was “robbed of every dream that a mother holds,” she said, and noted that she would never see her son graduate high school, go to college or get married.“Every single day, over 100 people are shot and killed in the United States. Gun violence has no boundaries,” she said, whether people become victims in suburbs, cities or rural areas.McBath will join Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in the rose garden shortly for the formal launch of the new office to prevent gun violence.Joe Biden and Kamala Harris plan to speak in the rose garden at the White House in about an hour on the creation of the nation’s first federal Office of Gun Violence Prevention, to be led by the US vice president.In a few moments, the White House press briefing will begin, with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre accompanied at the podium by Georgia representative Lucy McBath, who campaigns on gun safety. She lost her son to gun violence.This is what she posted yesterday:Joe Biden has told Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy that the US will provide a small number of long-range missiles to help in Ukraine’s fight against Russia, three US officials and a congressional official told NBC News on Friday.The officials did not confirm when the missiles would be delivered and remain anonymous as they have not been authorised to speak on the subject publicly.A congressional official told NBC News that there was still a debate about the type of missile that would be sent and how many would be delivered to Ukraine.The news comes after the White House rejected Zelenskiy’s request for Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) to be sent to Ukraine as part of a new military aid package to bolster the country’s counteroffensive.For all the developments in the Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russia’s invasion and related geopolitics, follow our Ukraine live blog here.Zelenskiy was given the red carpet treatment at the White House yesterday, after two days in New York at the United Nations General Assembly. Before visiting Biden he was on Capitol Hill meeting with US Senators. More

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      White House planning for government shutdown after chaos on Capitol Hill

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      The Republican-led US House of Representatives has all but disappeared for the long weekend after abruptly wrapping up its work on Thursday when the embattled speaker, Kevin McCarthy, failed to advance a stopgap government spending bill, as members continued to clash with just days left to avert a federal shutdown.The White House on Friday planned to begin telling federal agencies to prepare for a shutdown, AP reported, citing a government official.If Congress does not pass a spending bill before 1 October, the lapse in funding is expected to force hundreds of thousands of federal workers to go without pay and bring a halt to some crucial government services.McCarthy, who had projected optimism at the start of Thursday, now faces a reality in which his speakership hangs by a thread.The California Republican was dealt his second humiliating defeat of the week, after a proposal to take up House Republicans’ defense spending bill failed in a vote of 216 to 212, after five hard-right members – Dan Bishop of North Carolina, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Eli Crane of Arizona, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Rosendale of Montana – joined Democrats in opposing the motion.The Thursday vote marked the second time this week that the motion had failed, after members of the extreme rightwing House Freedom caucus first blocked the bill on Tuesday.Given that the defense spending bill is usually one of the least contentious spending measures in the House, the second failed vote spelled major trouble for the spending talks. Leaving the floor on Thursday, McCarthy voiced exasperation with his critics within the Republican conference.“I don’t understand why anybody votes against bringing the idea and having the debate,” McCarthy told reporters, adding: “This is a whole new concept of individuals that just want to burn the whole place down. That doesn’t work.”Donald Trump, the clear frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024 despite four criminal indictments, has made a point of interfering from the sidelines, urging Republicans to use government funding as leverage to oppose his prosecution, as two of the criminal cases are federal.Emphasizing the serious threat posed by a shutdown, the White House implored Republicans to “stop playing political games with people’s lives”. “Extreme House Republicans showed yet again that their chaos is marching us toward a reckless and damaging government shutdown,” the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said on Thursday.The White House telling the government to prepare for the possibility of a shutdown is standard practice seven days out from a federal disruption, even one as rare as a government shutdown. As of Friday there was no endgame in sight in the House.McCarthy has repeatedly tried to appease his hard-right flank by agreeing to the steep spending cuts they are demanding to keep government open. But cheered on by Trump, the conservatives have all but seized control in dramatic fashion.On Thursday even a stopgap bill – called a continuing resolution or CR – to keep government funding past the 30 September deadline was a non-starter for some on the right flank.The Democratic House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, said House Republicans continue to be held captive by the most extreme element of their conference.Many US government services would be disrupted and hundreds of thousands of federal workers furloughed without pay if federal funding stops on 1 October. Workers deemed “essential” would remain on the job, but without pay.Many government functions would be affected. Among those, the 2 million US military personnel would remain at their posts, but roughly half of the Pentagon’s 800,000 civilian employees would be furloughed. However, the Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration would continue maintaining nuclear weapons.Agents at the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Secret Service and other federal law enforcement agencies would remain on the job. Prison staffers likewise would continue to work.Criminal prosecutions, including the two federal cases against former Trump, would continue. Most civil litigation would be postponed and aid to local police departments and other grants could be delayed.Border patrol and immigration enforcement agents would continue to work, as would customs officers. The Coast Guard would continue operations.Most of the Federal Trade Commission’s consumer-protection workers would be furloughed, as would half of its antitrust employees.Airport security screeners and air-traffic control workers would be required to work and US embassies and consulates would remain open.It is not clear how the 63 US national parks would be affected. They remained open during the 2018-2019 shutdown, through restrooms and information desks were closed and waste disposal was halted. They were closed during a 2013 shutdown.Scientific research at government institutions would be disrupted. The Securities and Exchange Commission would furlough roughly 90% of its 4,600 employees. More

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      McCarthy’s House speakership hangs by a thread as US shutdown looms

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      Kevin McCarthy ended the week in the same predicament that he started it with: teetering on the edge of a government shutdown as his House speakership hangs by a thread.The House wrapped up its work on Thursday with no clear path forward on advancing a stopgap government spending bill – a grim sign with just nine days left to avert a federal shutdown. In an advisory to members, the House Republican whip, Tom Emmer, said spending negotiations were “ongoing”, but he did not specify any plans for a vote on Friday.The announcement came hours after a procedural motion to advance House Republicans’ defense spending bill was defeated by far-right members for the second time this week. McCarthy and his team spent the week trying to appease and cajole the handful of holdouts within their conference who blocked the bill and also oppose a stopgap measure, but those efforts failed to sway enough members to advance the defense bill.The two failed votes on Tuesday and Thursday were particularly worrisome for McCarthy considering the defense spending bill is generally viewed as the least contentious of the funding bills that Congress must pass.“I don’t understand why anybody votes against bringing the idea and having the debate,” McCarthy told reporters on Thursday. “This is a whole new concept of individuals that just want to burn the whole place down. That doesn’t work.”If the House and the Senate do not pass a spending bill before 1 October, the lapse in funding will probably force hundreds of thousands of federal workers to go without pay and bring a halt to crucial government services. Emphasizing the serious threat posed by a shutdown, the White House implored Republicans to “stop playing political games with people’s lives”.“Extreme House Republicans showed yet again that their chaos is marching us toward a reckless and damaging government shutdown,” the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, said on Thursday. “Extreme House Republicans can’t even get an agreement among themselves to keep the government running or to fund the military.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWith the odds of a shutdown rising, the White House again called on McCarthy to honor the funding deal outlined in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which passed the House and the Senate with bipartisan support earlier this year. That agreement, brokered between President Joe Biden and McCarthy, suspended the debt ceiling and outlined modest spending cuts for fiscal year 2024, but those cuts were deemed insufficient by members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus.Capitalizing on House Republicans’ narrow majority, those hard-right members are now demanding steeper cuts in exchange for their support of a stopgap spending bill. McCarthy’s previous concessions to the holdout members, including the launch of an impeachment inquiry against Biden last week, have so far failed to swing enough Republican votes to keep the government open.It also remains unclear whether the Freedom Caucus’s proposed budget – which the White House has warned would include severe funding cuts for border security, education and food safety – can even pass muster with some of the more centrist members of the House Republican conference. Those suggested cuts will certainly fail to win widespread support in the Senate, which has taken a more bipartisan approach to the funding negotiations.In short, House Republicans continue to squabble over a budget plan that has no chance of ever becoming law, and some of them appear willing to shut down the government over the issue.Hanging over the spending fight is the very real question of whether McCarthy will be able to hold on to his speakership. Hard-right Republicans have made clear that, if McCarthy attempts to cut a deal with Democrats to fund the government, they will move to oust the speaker – a viable possibility when it only takes one member to call a vote to vacate the chair. But if hard-right Republicans do not drop their opposition to a stopgap bill, McCarthy may ultimately need Democrats’ support if he wants to avoid a shutdown.Depending on whether McCarthy can strike a deal with his critics, the speaker may soon have to choose between keeping the government open and keeping his gavel. More

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      McCarthy says hard-right Republicans ‘want to burn whole place down’

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      The House Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, was dealt his second humiliating defeat of the week on Thursday, when his conference again failed to approve a procedural motion as members continued to clash over government spending levels with just days left to avert a federal shutdown.With no clear path forward in Republicans’ negotiations, the House concluded its work on Thursday without any stated plan to reconvene on Friday.“Discussions related to [fiscal year 2024] appropriations are ongoing,” Congressman Tom Emmer, the House Republican whip, said in a statement. “Members are advised that ample notice will be given ahead of any potential votes tomorrow or this weekend.”A proposal to take up House Republicans’ defense spending bill failed in a vote of 216 to 212, with five hard-right members joining Democrats in opposing the motion. The vote marked the second time this week that the motion had failed, after members of the House Freedom caucus first blocked the bill on Tuesday.The defeat was interpreted as a dismal sign for House Republicans’ prospects of approving a separate stopgap spending bill before government funding runs out at the end of the month.McCarthy had projected optimism heading into the Thursday vote, saying he and his allies had made substantial progress in their talks with the holdout Republicans on Wednesday. But five members of the House Freedom caucus – Dan Bishop of North Carolina, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Eli Crane of Arizona, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Rosendale of Montana – still opposed the procedural motion on Thursday.Leaving the floor on Thursday, McCarthy voiced exasperation with his critics within the Republican conference.“I don’t understand why anybody votes against bringing the idea and having the debate,” McCarthy told reporters. “This is a whole new concept of individuals that just want to burn the whole place down. That doesn’t work.”The Democratic House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, chastised his Republican colleagues over their internal divisions, accusing them of jeopardizing Americans’ wellbeing for the sake of a political stunt.Given that the defense spending bill is usually one of the least contentious spending measures in the House, the second failed vote spelled major trouble for the spending talks. If no agreement is reached on a series of funding bills, the federal government will shutter on 30 September. In the event of a shutdown, starting 1 October, hundreds of thousands of federal workers would likely go without pay and key healthcare and other public programs would be affected.“House Republicans continue to be held captive by the most extreme element of their conference, and it’s hurting the American people,” Jeffries said at a press conference. “Why are the American people facing down another manufactured GOP crisis? They need to end their civil war.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThere are several unknowns still hanging over McCarthy’s effort, which, as the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, has pointed out, could be politically damaging to the party.The first is whether hard-right members of the House Freedom caucus – who have capitalized on McCarthy’s narrow majority – will eventually abandon their blockade as the shutdown deadline approaches.The second is if whatever bill Republicans do pass will include the Ukraine aid and disaster relief funding the Democratic-led Senate is demanding. Without Senate agreement, any measure cannot be enacted.Explaining her vote against advancing the defense bill on Thursday, Greene said she wanted to send a message about the need to end funding for Ukraine. “I just voted NO to the rule for the Defense bill because they refused to take the war money for Ukraine out and put it in a separate bill,” Greene said on X, formerly known as Twitter.McCarthy has made clear to his party that he will approach Biden’s pending request for an additional $24bn in support for Ukraine with considerable scepticism – taking into consideration extremist members, like Greene and Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida, who have signaled that their stance against Ukraine funding is non-negotiable.“Is [Volodymyr] Zelenskiy elected to Congress? Is he our president? I don’t think I have to commit anything and I think I have questions for him,” McCarthy told ABC News, as the Ukrainian president prepared to meet Joe Biden at the White House.Donald Trump, the clear frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, has complicated matters from the sidelines, urging Republicans to use government funding as leverage for his own personal gains.“A very important deadline is approaching at the end of the month,” Trump posted on Truth Social, his own social media platform. “Republicans in Congress can and must defund all aspects of Crooked Joe Biden’s weaponized Government that refuses to close the Border, and treats half the Country as Enemies of the State.”The former president, who faces 91 criminal charges over election subversion, retention of classified information and hush-money payments, as well as assorted civil lawsuits, added: “This is also the last chance to defund these political prosecutions against me and other patriots.” More

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      White House says Republicans ‘playing games with people’s lives’ as shutdown odds increase – as it happened

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      From 3h agoWhite House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre attacked rightwing Republicans who were preventing Congress from passing government spending measures today, saying the group was “marching us toward a reckless and damaging government shutdown”.“Extreme House Republicans can’t even get an agreement among themselves to keep the government running or to fund the military,” Jean-Pierre said. “They keep demanding more extreme policies as a condition to do their job and keep the government open from a fact-free impeachment that their own members – their own members – say isn’t supported by the evidence, to severe cuts to food safety, Meals on Wheels, Head Start, education, law enforcement and much more.”She continued:
      The solution is very, very simple: extreme House Republicans need to stop playing political games with people’s lives – there’s so much at stake here. They should abide by the bipartisan deal we made in May, which two-thirds … of House Republicans voted for. A deal is a deal. House Republicans need to do their job, keep the government open and work with us to deliver … for the American people.
      Jean-Pierre declined to say if the government has figured out what services it will be able to continue providing if funding runs out after 30 September, but added: “The best plan is for there to not be a shutdown.”The chaos continued in the House, where an ongoing revolt by far-right Republicans against speaker Kevin McCarthy stopped the advancement of a defense department spending bill for the second time this week. It’s a bad sign for a separate attempt to pass a measure to keep the federal government funded past 30 September, which is also being held up the rightwing insurgents. By the afternoon, GOP leadership told lawmakers they could head home for the week, apparently concluding an agreement to resolve the legislative logjam was a long way off. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, visited the Capitol and the White House to call for more aid to help his country fend off the Russian invasion.Here’s what else happened today:
      The White House accused Republicans of “playing political games with people’s lives”.
      McCarthy blamed “individuals that just want to burn the whole place down” for the ongoing paralysis in the House.
      Rupert Murdoch will step down as chairman of Fox and News Corp, with his son Lachlan Murdoch taking his place, an earthquake in the world of conservative media.
      The House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, said the GOP is “in the midst of a civil war”.
      The Senate confirmed Randy George as army chief of staff, but Republican Tommy Tuberville’s blockade of about 300 other positions in protest of the Pentagon’s abortion access policy continues.
      Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is now at the White House for a meeting with Joe Biden, where additional US military aid to fight off the Russian invasion is on the agenda:For the latest updates from the meeting, follow our liveblog:Congress isn’t the only Washington institution grappling with dysfunction. The Guardian’s David Smith reports on a new documentary that explores the increasingly intense relationship between the supreme court’s decisions and the American public:When Dawn Porter studied law at Georgetown University in Washington, she would pass the US supreme court every day. “You walk by the marble columns, the frontage which has inspirational words, and you believe that,” she recalls. “You think because of this court Black people integrated schools, because of this court women have the right to choose, because of this court, because of this court, because of this court.”Its profound role in American life is chronicled in Deadlocked: How America Shaped the Supreme Court, Porter’s four-part documentary series that traces the people, decisions and confirmation battles that have helped the court’s relationship with politics turn from a respectful dance into a toxic marriage.Porter, 57, an Emmy award winner who maintains her bar licence, remembers first year common law classes when she studied the court’s landmark decisions. “Like most lawyers I have a great admiration for not only what the court can do but its role in shaping American opinion as well as American society,” she says via Zoom from New York, a poster for her film John Lewis: Good Trouble behind her.“If there’s a criticism of the court in this series, it comes from a place of longing, a place of saying we can’t afford for this court to lose the respect of the American people. There’s going to be decisions over time that people disagree with. That’s not unusual. What’s unusual is how cases are getting to the court, how they’re ignoring precedent and the procedures by which the decisions are getting made. That’s where I would love people to focus.”House Republican leadership has officially called off votes for the rest of the week, Democratic whip Katherine Clark announced.However, they’ve left the door open to a surprise breakthrough in negotiations over spending bills. “The Rules Committee remains on standby. Members will be given ample notice to return to Washington DC in the event a vote is called tomorrow or over the weekend,” the notice reads.The media world continues to digest the news earlier today, when it was announced that Rupert Murdoch would step down as chair of both News Corp and Fox – the company behind the conservative Fox News network. Here’s the Guardian’s Dominic Rushe with a look at the significance of Murdoch’s decision:Rupert Murdoch is stepping down as chair of Fox and News Corp – ending a seven-decade run as one of the world’s most transformative and controversial media moguls.In a note to staff first reported in the Murdoch-controlled Wall Street Journal, he wrote: “For my entire professional life, I have been engaged daily with news and ideas, and that will not change. But the time is right for me to take on different roles.”Murdoch, 92, will become chairman emeritus of the two corporations, the company said in a release.Lachlan Murdoch, Murdoch’s eldest son, now seems to be his successor. In the note Murdoch called Lachlan a “passionate, principled leader” who can take the companies into the future.“On behalf of the Fox and News Corp boards of directors, leadership teams, and all the shareholders who have benefited from his hard work, I congratulate my father on his remarkable 70-year career,” said Lachlan Murdoch, 52, in a statement.“We thank him for his vision, his pioneering spirit, his steadfast determination, and the enduring legacy he leaves to the companies he founded and countless people he has impacted,” he said.The handover comes at a time of uncertainty in a media landscape that Murdoch dominated for so long. Fox is in a competition for eyeballs with much larger and better resourced broadcasters, at a time when Americans are swapping cable television for streamed entertainment, while News Corp, owner of the Times and the Sun newspapers in the UK, is battling for revenues as print sales fall away and advertising migrates to the big social media platforms.After this morning’s fiasco in the House that saw a handful of far-right Republicans successfully block the party’s own defense spending bill, lawmakers have been told not to expect any further votes in the chamber this week, according to media reports:That lawmakers are being told they can go home is a sign of just how deadlocked the chamber is despite a 30 September deadline to approve new government funding or cause a shutdown.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre attacked rightwing Republicans who were preventing Congress from passing government spending measures today, saying the group was “marching us toward a reckless and damaging government shutdown”.“Extreme House Republicans can’t even get an agreement among themselves to keep the government running or to fund the military,” Jean-Pierre said. “They keep demanding more extreme policies as a condition to do their job and keep the government open from a fact-free impeachment that their own members – their own members – say isn’t supported by the evidence, to severe cuts to food safety, Meals on Wheels, Head Start, education, law enforcement and much more.”She continued:
      The solution is very, very simple: extreme House Republicans need to stop playing political games with people’s lives – there’s so much at stake here. They should abide by the bipartisan deal we made in May, which two-thirds … of House Republicans voted for. A deal is a deal. House Republicans need to do their job, keep the government open and work with us to deliver … for the American people.
      Jean-Pierre declined to say if the government has figured out what services it will be able to continue providing if funding runs out after 30 September, but added: “The best plan is for there to not be a shutdown.”For an insight into how House Republicans are feeling after failing to take up the defense spending bill, Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman shared some messages he received:Given that the defense spending bill is usually one of the least contentious spending measures in the House, the second failed vote spelled major trouble for the spending talks.If no agreement is reached on a series of funding bills, the federal government will shutter on 30 September. In the event of a shutdown, starting 1 October, hundreds of thousands of federal workers would likely go without pay and key healthcare and other public programs would be affected.There are several unknowns still hanging over House speaker Kevin McCarthy’s effort, which, as the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, has pointed out, could be politically damaging to the party.The first is whether hard-right members of the House Freedom Caucus – who have capitalized on McCarthy’s narrow majority – will eventually abandon their blockade as the shutdown deadline approaches.The second is if whatever bill Republicans do pass will include the Ukraine aid and disaster relief funding the Democratic-led Senate is demanding. Without Senate agreement, any measure cannot be enacted.The House Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, was dealt his second humiliating defeat of the week on Thursday, when his conference again failed to approve a procedural motion as members continued to clash over government spending levels with just days left to avert a federal shutdown.A proposal to take up House Republicans’ defense spending bill failed in a vote of 216 to 212, with five hard-right members joining Democrats in opposing the motion. The vote marked the second time this week that the motion had failed, after members of the House Freedom Caucus first blocked the bill on Tuesday.The defeat was interpreted as a dismal sign for House Republicans’ prospects of approving a separate stopgap spending bill before government funding runs out at the end of the month.McCarthy had projected optimism heading into the Thursday vote, saying he and his allies had made substantial progress in their talks with the holdout Republicans on Wednesday. But five members of the House Freedom Caucus – Dan Bishop of North Carolina, Andy Biggs of Arizona, Eli Crane of Arizona, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Rosendale of Montana – still opposed the procedural motion on Thursday.The Senate voted to confirm Gen Randy George to be army chief of staff, a key vote that follows a months-long hold by Republican senator Tommy Tuberville on more than 300 military promotions.Senators confirmed George by a 96-1 vote, with only Republican senator Mike Lee voting against him.The vote comes a day after the Senate cleared Gen Charles “CQ” Brown to become the next chair of the joint chiefs of staff. The Senate is expected to confirm Gen Eric Smith to lead the Marine Corps later today.The confirmations come as tensions have continued to rise over Tuberville’s decision to single-handedly hold up military appointments as part of his opposition to abortion being provided in the armed forces.As a result of Tuberville’s block on Senate-confirmed promotions, more than 300 senior roles are being filled in an acting capacity. Military officials have bemoaned the effects of Tuberville’s blocks on officers’ families and finances.Even the position of chair of the joint chief of staff stands to be affected, when the current occupant, Gen Mark Milley, steps down at the end of this month.The chaos continues in the House, where an ongoing revolt by far-right Republicans against speaker Kevin McCarthy stopped the advancement of a defense department spending bill for the second time this week. It’s a bad sign for a separate attempt to pass a measure to keep the federal government funded past 30 September, which is also being held up the rightwing insurgents. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, visited the Capitol to call for more aid to help his country fend off the Russian invasion.Here’s what else is happening today:
      McCarthy blamed “individuals that just want to burn the whole place down” for the ongoing paralysis in the House.
      Rupert Murdoch will step down as chairman of Fox and News Corp, with his son Lachlan Murdoch taking his place, an earthquake in the world of conservative media.
      The House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, said the GOP is “in the midst of a civil war”.
      Never one to keep quiet, Donald Trump weighed in yesterday on the spending battle in the House, and what he had to say was unlikely to reassure speaker Kevin McCarthy.The former president has many devotees among House Republicans, including McCarthy himself, who hasn’t yet endorsed him but has often been obliging to his demands. But where Trump’s influence can be seen the most is among the hard-right lawmakers who are currently paralyzing business in the chamber by blocking the advancement of a defense spending bill and holding up passage of a measure to keep the government funded beyond 30 September.In a post on his Truth Social account, Trump called on House Republicans to “defund these political prosecutions against me and other Patriots”, a reference to special counsel Jack Smith’s two criminal prosecutions of the former president for trying to overturn the 2020 election and hiding classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.But whatever passes the House must also be approved by the Democratic-led Senate, and there’s no chance they’d sign on to a measure specifically written to protect Trump.And here’s video of an admittedly frustrated Kevin McCarthy explaining why he can’t get his lawmakers to even begin debate on legislation the House passes each year:In comments to Fox News, the Republican House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, sounded frustrated about the trouble he’s had advancing an annual defense spending bill:At a press conference, the Democratic House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, blamed a revolt by “extreme Maga Republicans” for paralyzing the chamber and threatening a government shutdown.“We need the extreme Maga Republicans to get their act together in the civil war that’s happening on the Republican side of the aisle,” Jeffries said.He continued:
      House Republicans continue to be in the midst of a civil war. It’s a civil war that is hurting the ability of the Congress to do the business of the American people and to solve problems on behalf of everyday Americans.
      And what’s happening is that House Republicans continue to be held captive by the most extreme elements of their conference, and it’s hurting the American people. And this is a serious matter. We are less than eight days away from the government shutting down.
      A vote in the Republican-led House to advance an annual defense department funding bill failed for the second time this week, after rightwing lawmakers joined with Democrats to oppose its passage:It’s an ominous sign for the separate effort to fund the government beyond 30 September, since both rightwing Republicans and Democrats oppose a motion to prevent a shutdown proposed by House speaker Kevin McCarthy. More

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      DeSantis falls to fifth in New Hampshire poll in latest campaign reverse

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      The Florida governor Ron DeSantis fell to fifth in a new New Hampshire poll, trailing not just Donald Trump, the runaway leader for the Republican presidential nomination, but Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley and Chris Christie.The poll, from CNN and the University of New Hampshire (UNH), was just the latest worrying sign for DeSantis, whose hard-right campaign has struggled ever since a glitch-filled launch with Elon Musk on his social media platform in May.The former president faces 91 criminal charges, for election subversion, retention of classified information and hush-money payments, and civil threats including a defamation case in which he was adjudicated a rapist.He denies wrongdoing and claims political persecution. His popularity with Republicans has barely been dented. Though at 39% his support in the New Hampshire poll was lower than in national and other key state surveys, he still enjoyed a commanding lead.Describing “a close contest for second”, CNN put the biotech entrepreneur Ramaswamy at 13%, the former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador Nikki Haley at 12% and Christie, a former New Jersey governor running explicitly against Trump – and focusing on New Hampshire – at 11%.DeSantis was next with 10%, a 13-point drop since the last such poll in July.The Florida governor has run a relentlessly hard-right campaign, seeking to outflank even Trump, by any measure an extremist.“DeSantis’s decline comes largely among moderates,” CNN said, detailing a 20-point drop in such support, “while Haley has gained ground with that group. Ramaswamy’s standing has grown among younger voters and registered Republicans. And Christie’s gains are centered among independents and Democrats who say they will participate in the GOP primary.”Ramaswamy and Haley were widely held to have shown well in the first debate, in Wisconsin last month. The second is in California next week. Trump is again set to skip the contest.Outside the top five in the CNN-UNH poll, the South Carolina senator Tim Scott attracted 6% support and Mike Pence, a former Indiana governor and vice-president to Trump, scored 2%. No other candidate passed 1%.New Hampshire will be the second state to vote. It has been widely reported that Trump is gearing up to attack DeSantis in the first, Iowa, where DeSantis has targeted evangelical voters.According to the author Michael Wolff, Rupert Murdoch, the Fox News owner, originally believed Trump would lose to DeSantis in Iowa because “it was going to come out about the abortions Trump had paid for”. Iowa polling, however, returns consistent Trump leads.Speaking to the New York Times, David Polyansky, DeSantis’s deputy campaign manager, said: “Winning an Iowa caucus is very difficult. It takes a tremendous amount of discipline. It takes an incredible amount of hard work and organisation, traditionally. So much so that even in his heyday, Donald Trump couldn’t win it in 2016.”The Texas senator Ted Cruz won Iowa then. But Trump won the nomination – and the White House.On Wednesday, at an oil rig in Texas, DeSantis introduced his energy policy, attracting headlines by saying opponents were stoking “fear” about the climate crisis.A spokesperson, meanwhile, was forced to deny Wolff’s report that DeSantis may have kicked Tucker Carlson’s dog.“The totality of that story is absurd and false,” Andrew Romeo told the Daily Beast, of the report involving the former Fox News host. “Some will say or write anything to attack Ron DeSantis because they know he presents a threat to their worldview.” More

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      Key takeaways from Michael Wolff’s book on Murdoch, Fox and US politics

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      Michael Wolff’s new book, The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty, was eagerly awaited even before the Guardian published the first news of its contents on Tuesday.Since then, other outlets have reported more revelations familiar in tone and sometimes in cast list from the gadfly author’s blockbusting trilogy of Trump tell-alls: Fire and Fury, Siege and Landslide.In response, Fox News pointed to a famous impersonation of Wolff by comedian Fred Armisen when it said: “The fact that the last book by this author was spoofed in a Saturday Night Live skit is really all we need to know.”Nonetheless, what have we learned about Rupert Murdoch, Fox and US politics from The Fall so far? Here are some key points:Murdoch did not expect Dominion to prove so costlyDominion Voting Systems sued Fox News for $1.6bn, over the broadcast of Donald Trump’s lies about voter fraud in 2020. According to Wolff, in winter 2022, an irate Rupert Murdoch told friends of his then-wife, Jerry Hall, “This lawsuit could cost us fifty million dollars.” When the suit was settled, in April, it cost Fox a whopping $787.5m.Murdoch thought Ron DeSantis would beat TrumpMurdoch reportedly predicted the Florida governor would beat Trump for the Republican nomination next year, siphoning off evangelical voters because “it was going to come out about the abortions Trump had paid for”. But it seems Murdoch’s radar was off again: a few months out from the first vote in Iowa, notwithstanding 91 criminal charges, Trump holds gigantic polling leads over DeSantis, whose campaign has long been seen to be flatlining.Murdoch wishes Trump dead …Murdoch, Wolff says, directs considerable anger Trump’s way, at one point treating friends to “a rat-a-tat-tat of jaw-clenching ‘fucks’” that showed a “revulsion … as passionate … as [that of] any helpless liberal”. More even than that, Wolff reports that Murdoch, 92, has often wished out loud that Trump, 77, was dead. “Trump’s death became a Murdoch theme,” Wolff writes, reporting the mogul saying: “‘We would all be better off …?’ ‘This would all be solved if …’ ‘How could he still be alive, how could he?’ ‘Have you seen him? Have you seen what he looks like? What he eats?’”… but Lachlan just wipes his bottom on himRupert Murdoch’s son, Lachlan Murdoch, is in pole position to take over the empire. According to Wolff, the younger man is no Trump fan either. As reported by the Daily Beast, Wolff writes: “In the run-up to the 2016 election, the bathrooms at the Mandeville house featured toilet paper with Trump’s face, reported visitors with relief and satisfaction. [Lachlan] told people that his wife and children cried when Trump was elected.”Rupert has choice words for some Fox News starsThe Daily Beast also reported on the older Murdoch’s apparent contempt for some of his stars. Considering how, Wolff says, Sean Hannity pushed for Fox to stay loyal to Trump, the author writes: “When Murdoch was brought reports of Hannity’s on- and off-air defence of Fox’s post-election coverage, he perhaps seemed to justify his anchor: ‘He’s retarded, like most Americans.’”Hannity may have been on thin iceAlso reported by the Daily Beast: Wolff says Murdoch considered firing Hannity as a way to mollify Dominion in its defamation suit, with Lachlan Murdoch reportedly suggesting that a romantic relationship Hannity had with another host could be used as precedent, given the downfalls of media personalities including Jeff Zucker of CNN.DeSantis may have kicked Tucker Carlson’s dogAccording to the Daily Beast, and to a lengthy excerpt published by New York magazine, Wolff writes that in spring of this year, Ron DeSantis and his wife, Casey DeSantis, visited another leading Fox host, Tucker Carlson, and his wife, Susie Carlson, for a lunch designed to introduce Murdoch’s favored Republican to his most powerful primetime star. What Wolff says follows is worth quoting in full:
      The Carlsons are dog people with four spaniels, the progeny of other spaniels they have had before, who sleep in their bed. DeSantis pushed the dog under the table. Had he kicked the dog? Susie Carlson’s judgment was clear: She did not ever want to be anywhere near anybody like that ever again. Her husband agreed. DeSantis, in Carlson’s view, was a ‘fascist’. Forget Ron DeSantis.
      Carlson saw a presidential run as a way to escapeCarlson has said he “knows” his removal from Fox after the Dominion settlement was a condition of that deal. Dominion and Fox have said it wasn’t. On Wednesday, New York magazine published Wolff’s reporting that Trump openly considered making Carlson his vice-presidential pick. But Wolff also fleshes out rumours Carlson considered a run for president himself – reported by the Guardian – and says the host seriously pondered the move “as a further part of his inevitable martyrdom – as well as a convenient way to get out of his contract”. This, Wolff says, left Rupert Murdoch “bothered” – and “pissed at Lachlan for not reining Carlson in”.Wolff is no stranger to gossip …… often of a salacious hue. Roger Ailes, the former Fox News chief, features prominently throughout The Fall, a font of off-colour quotes and pungent opinions, including that Trump, whom he helped make president, is a “dumb motherfucker”. Ailes died in disgrace in 2017, after a sexual harassment scandal. According to a New York Times review, Wolff describes the Fox-host-turned-Trump-surrogate Kimberly Guilfoyle “settl[ing] into a private plane on the way to Ailes’s funeral”, adding: “What was also clear, if you wanted it to be, was that she was wearing no underwear.”Jerry Hall called Murdoch a homophobeSticking with the salacious, the Daily Beast noted a focus on “Murdoch’s attitude towards homosexuality”. Hall, the site said, is quoted as responding to a discussion of someone’s sexuality by asking: “Rupert, why are you such a homophobe?” Repeating the charge, the former model reportedly told friends: “He’s such an old man.” More

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      Merrick Garland faces down Republican attacks over Hunter Biden inquiry

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      Merrick Garland faced down the latest Republican attacks on the justice department’s handling of Hunter Biden and other issues on Wednesday, vowing to “not be intimidated”.The House judiciary inquiry came just a week before the Joe Biden impeachment hearing, which will also focus on the scope of Hunter Biden’s legal troubles and alleged corruption. Both are part of the Republican party’s ongoing attempt to erode trust in federal institutions such as the Department of Justice and its FBI arm, claiming they are partisan actors.“Our job is to pursue justice, without fear or favor. Our job is not to do what is politically convenient,” Garland said in his opening statement. “Our job is not to take orders from the president, from Congress or from anyone else about who or what to criminally investigate. As the president himself has said, and I reaffirmed today, I am not the president’s lawyer. I will add I am not Congress’s prosecutor.”The committee’s chairman, Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio, launched into those queries in his opening statement, criticizing the attorney general’s decision to appoint David Weiss as a special counsel to handle the investigation into the president’s son. Weiss is the federal prosecutor in Delaware who was appointed by Donald Trump and kept in his job even after Joe Biden took the White House and swapped out most other US attorneys nationwide.Despite that, Jordan thinks Weiss is undermining the investigation into Hunter Biden, which has centered on claims he failed to pay income taxes and lied about using drugs while buying a gun. Biden was indicted on the latter charge last week.“He could have selected anyone,” Jordan said of Garland. “He could have picked anyone inside government, outside government. He could have picked former attorney generals, former special counsels, but he picks the one guy … he knows will protect Joe Biden. He picks David Weiss.”Matt Gaetz, a Republican from Florida, took a more colorful approach, criticizing Biden’s public loyalty to his son.“Has anyone at the department told President Biden to knock it off with Hunter? I mean, you guys are charging Hunter Biden on some crimes, investigating him on others, you’ve got the president bringing Hunter Biden around to state dinners. Has anyone told him to knock it off?” Gaetz asked.The judiciary committee’s highest-ranking Democrat, Jerry Nadler of New York, also asked Garland what would happen if the FBI was defunded, which has become a surprising rallying cry for extreme rightwing Republicans such as representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz, as well as the presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who claim the law enforcement agency has become politicized.Defunding the FBI “would leave the United States naked to the malign influence of the Chinese Communist party, to the attacks by Iranians on American citizens and attempts to assassinate former officials, to the Russian aggression, to North Korean cyber-attacks, to violent crime in the United States, which the FBI helps to fight against, to all kinds of espionage, to domestic violent extremists who have attacked our churches, our synagogues or mosques and who have killed individuals out of racial hatred,” Garland said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I just, I cannot imagine the consequences of defunding the FBI, but they would be catastrophic.”Amid the back and forth, the White House put out a statement, calling the hearing a “circus” that wasted Garland’s time promoting conspiracy theories rather than dealing with more pressing business, like funding the government ahead of a shutdown on 30 September.“Extreme House Republicans are running a not-so-sophisticated distraction campaign to try to cover up their own actions that are hurtling America to a dangerous and costly government shutdown,” the White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations, Ian Sams, said of the hearing, which the judiciary committee regularly holds with the attorney general.“They cannot even pass a military funding bill because extreme House Republicans are demanding devastating cuts like slashing thousands of preschool slots nationwide and thousands of law enforcement jobs including border agents, so they cranked up a circus of a hearing full of lies and disinformation with the sole goal of baselessly attacking President Biden and his family,” Sams said. More