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      Fox News anchor Bret Baier wanted Arizona ‘put back’ in Trump’s column, book says

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      Fox News anchor Bret Baier wanted Arizona ‘put back’ in Trump’s column, book saysNews of ‘stunning’ attempt to rescind dramatic election night call contained in The Divider, by Peter Baker and Susan Glasser Fox News anchor Bret Baier wanted the network to withdraw its famous call of Arizona for Joe Biden on election night in 2020, citing pressure from Donald Trump’s campaign and saying the swing state should be “put back in his column”, a new book says.The Divider review: riveting narrative of Trump’s plot against AmericaRead moreNews of Baier’s email is contained in The Divider: Trump in the White House 2017-2021, published in the US on Tuesday.The authors, Peter Baker of the New York Times and Susan Glasser of the New Yorker, call Baier’s request “stunning”, as Arizona “was never in Trump’s column. While the margin of his defeat in the state had narrowed since election night, he still trailed by more than 10,000 votes.”Trump did win Arizona in 2016. Its call for Biden four years later did not give the Democrat the White House but it did signal Trump was in deep trouble. Accounts of his fury at the surprisingly early call, which other networks did not follow, are legion.According to the author Michael Wolff, Rupert Murdoch, the owner of Fox News, both personally approved the call and said of Trump: “Fuck him.”Fox News denied that but Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, wrote in his own book that on election night, Murdoch told him Arizona was “not even close”.The election was called for Biden on 7 November, four days later, when he was agreed to have won Pennsylvania.But Baker and Glasser report that “turmoil” reigned at Fox News over Arizona, amid worries that rightwing rivals including Newsmax, firmly in the van for Trump, might take viewers away.“Fox executives were freaking out,” the authors write, adding that Suzanne Scott, the chief executive, wanted Fox News to stop calling any more states until they were certified by election authorities – a process that takes weeks.Baker and Glasser say Bill Sammon, the Washington managing editor, rejected that plan, saying: “Our enemies – and there are many – will portray this as follows: For the first time in its history, Fox News refuses to project the next president, who just happens to be the Democrat who defeated Donald Trump.”Baker and Glasser report that though Baier had “long insisted that he was different than the Trump-cheerleading opinion hosts” at Fox News, he felt White House pressure to rescind the Arizona call.In an email on Thursday 5 November, they report, the anchor said “the Trump campaign was really pissed” and added: “This situation is getting uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. I keep having to defend this on air.”Baier reportedly “accused the [Fox News] Decision Desk of ‘holding on for pride’ and added: ‘It’s hurting us. The sooner we pull it – even if it gives us a major egg – and we put it back in his column, the better we are in my opinion.’”They also say the Decision Desk was not allowed to call Nevada for Biden even after other networks did, because doing so would have made Biden Fox News’s projected winner, given the Arizona call.Broken News review: Ex-Fox News editor has broadsides for both sidesRead moreTrump continues to lie about mass voter fraud in Arizona, even after an “audit” by state Republicans did not find fraud – and instead slightly increased Biden’s margin of victory.In the aftermath of the Arizona call, Baker and Glasser write, Bill Sammon and Chris Stirewalt, senior members of the Fox News politics team, were “summarily fired”.Fox News insists Sammon retired while Stirewalt – who has written his own book – was let go because of “restructuring”.Baker and Glasser write: “Whatever they called it, Fox had decided that deference to Trump was more important than getting the story right.”Quoting another email, they say Jay Wallace, the Fox News president and executive editor, told Sammon: “I respect the hell out of you, but it’s turned into a war.”TopicsBooksFox NewsUS politicsUS elections 2020RepublicansPolitics booksUS television industrynewsReuse this content More

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      White House rejects ‘sham referendums’ in occupied Ukraine – as it happened

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      National security adviser Jake Sullivan says the Biden administration will be “unequivocal” in rejecting the “sham referendums” in four Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.Speaking at a White House press briefing, Sullivan said the announcement of the votes in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, which analysts say is a likely forerunner to the Kremlin formally annexing the provinces, is “an affront to the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity that underpin the international system”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We know that these referenda will be manipulated. We know that Russia will use the sham referenda as a basis to purportedly annex these territories, either now or in the future.
      Let me be clear, if this does transpire, the United States will never recognize Russia’s claims to any purportedly annexed parts of Ukraine. We will never recognize this territory as anything other than a part of Ukraine. We reject Russia’s actions unequivocally.Sullivan also addressed reports of new Russian mobilization measures, including the calling up of prisoners to shore up depleted troop numbers:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This is reflective of Russia’s struggles in Ukraine. [Russian president Vladimir Putin] may be resorting to partial mobilization, forcing even more Russians to go fight his brutal war in Ukraine, in part because they simply need more personnel and manpower given the success that Ukraine has had on the battlefield, particularly in the north east but even pushing into other parts of previously occupied territory.
      The bottom line is that Russia is throwing together sham referendums on three days’ notice as they continue to lose ground on the battlefield and as more world leaders distance themselves from Russia on the public stage.
      Russia is scraping for personnel to throw into this fight. These are not the actions of the competent country. These are not acts of strength, quite the opposite.That’s a wrap on Tuesday’s US politics blog. Thanks for joining us.It was a brutal afternoon for Donald Trump, whose lawyers were excoriated by the “special master” in his document-hoarding case for having no proof to back up the former president’s vocal proclamations he declassified the papers before he left office.Judge Raymond Dearie, who was the Trump team’s nomination to act as independent arbiter in the justice department’s criminal investigation, told his attorneys at a hearing in New York: “You can’t have your cake and eat it too.”Here’s what else we followed:
      Florida’s Republican governor Ron DeSantis refused to confirm reports he was behind another planeload of migrants reportedly sent on Tuesday to Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware. The White House decried as “a political stunt” DeSantis’s action to dump about 50 Venezuelan migrants in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, last week.
      The flow of so-called “dark money” in politics is damaging democracy in the US and eroding public trust, Joe Biden said at an afternoon briefing in which he called on Congress to pass the Disclose Act requiring sizeable campaign donations to be declared.
      The White House says the US will never accept Russia attempting to annex occupied areas of Ukraine through “sham” referendums, the Biden administration’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan told a press briefing at the White House.
      Sullivan offered a preview of Joe Biden’s address to the United Nations general assembly on Wednesday, saying the president will offer a strong rebuke of Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and make “significant new announcements” about his government’s investments to address global food insecurity.
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden was “closely monitoring” the devastating impact of Hurricane Fiona on Puerto Rico, and says hundreds of federal emergency workers are already on the ground, including Fema administrator Deanne Criswell.
      Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell says he is now “cautiously optimistic” about his party’s chances of winning back control of the chamber in November’s midterm elections, Axios reports. The former Senate leader had previously expressed doubt about a Republican majority.
      Please join us again tomorrow.If Judge Raymond Dearie’s first meeting with Donald Trump’s lawyers on Tuesday is anything to go by, the former president’s insistence on a “special master” for his classified documents case is backfiring spectacularly.According to reports of their meeting in New York this afternoon, which was also attended by attorneys for the justice department, Dearie was brutal in his dismissal of the Trump legal team’s assertions that papers marked “top secret” found at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach last month were not classified.Trump has claimed, with no evidence whatsoever, that he declassified the documents before he left office. And now Dearie, who was proposed by Trump’s team to serve as the special master to independently vet the documents, is calling him on it, demanding to see proof from his lawyers that such an act took place.They had none.“You can’t have your cake and eat it too,” Dearie said, according to Politico.NEW: Special master in Trump Mar-a-Lago docs case chides Trump lawyers for declining to produce evidence of declassification. Judge Dearie: ‘You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.’ More from Brooklyn. w/@kyledcheneyhttps://t.co/urQaYOP1F7— Josh Gerstein (@joshgerstein) September 20, 2022
      Dearie was appointed last week to the role of independent arbiter by Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, in a surprise ruling that halted the justice department’s criminal investigation into thousands of documents found in the FBI search.Trump had claimed he had earlier returned to the National Archives all the boxes of documents he took from the White House to Florida when he left office in January 2021.Cannon denied a request from the justice department to be allowed to resume their investigation last week, prompting an immediate appeal, and an indication from department lawyers on Tuesday they were prepared to take their argument to the supreme court.Dearie indicated that he considered closed the issue of whether the documents were classified or not.“What business is it of the court?” he said.“As far as I’m concerned, that’s the end of the matter.”I’d like to report a murder. https://t.co/XQue0soT9l— George Conway🌻 (@gtconway3d) September 20, 2022
      The “special master” appointed to look into top secret documents seized by the FBI last month in a search of Donald Trump’s Florida home has met with lawyers for the former president and the justice department this afternoon.According to early accounts, Judge Raymond Dearie did not appear sympathetic to Trump’s assertions, which haven’t been repeated by his legal team on the record, that he declassified the documents before leaving office.The justice department has argued the papers are in fact classified, and it needs to be allowed to continue its investigation into Trump’s improper handling of them.We’ll have more details of the meeting as we learn them.BREAKING: Judge Dearie makes clear he is taking government’s position that the classified Mar-a-Lago documents are in fact classified.“What business is it of the court? … As far as I’m concerned that’s the end of it.”Trump’s insistence on a special master is NOT going well.— Tristan Snell (@TristanSnell) September 20, 2022
      Ron DeSantis is refusing to confirm reports that he’s sent another planeload of migrants that reports suggest will imminently touch down in Joe Biden’s home state of Delaware.The White House on Tuesday decried as “a political stunt” the Republican Florida governor’s action to dump about 50 Venezuelan migrants in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, last week, and today’s reported flight from Texas of more to a small airport in Delaware.The Biden administration was “coordinating” with federal and local authorities in Delaware to aid those on the flight, the White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at her afternoon briefing.She said DeSantis had not attempted to contact the administration:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Alerting Fox News, and not city or state officials about a plan to abandon children fleeing communism on the side of the street is not burden sharing. It is a cruel, premeditated political stunt.DeSantis, speaking at a morning press conference in Bradenton, Florida, refused to say he was behind today’s reported flight of migrants to Delaware, WESH2 News said.“I cannot confirm that, I can’t,” DeSantis said when asked by reporters if he had arranged the flight.He also defended dropping off the Massachusetts migrants with no notice, blamed the government, and attempted to paint himself as their savior:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Those migrants were being treated horribly by Biden. They were hungry, homeless, had no opportunity at all.DeSantis’s asylum flights, meanwhile, are now the subject of a criminal inquiry in Texas:Criminal investigation launched into DeSantis asylum seeker flightsRead moreThe flow of so-called “dark money” in politics is damaging democracy in the US and eroding public trust, Joe Biden has said at an afternoon briefing in which he called on Congress to pass the Disclose Act requiring sizeable campaign donations to be declared.In the address from the White House, the president highlighted a recent example of an anonymous donor who secretly transferred $1.6bn to a Republican political group as one reason for needing to curb the “influence on our elections” of undeclared streams of cash.Biden called on Republicans to join congressional Democrats to sign the act, which would require the disclosure of individual donations of $10,000 and above during an election cycle, and ban foreign money outright:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}A conservative activist who spent decades working to put enough conservative justices on the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade now has access to $1.6bn in dark money to do more damage and, from our perspective, restrict more freedoms.
      Dark money erodes public trust. Republicans should join Democrats to pass the Disclose Act and to get it on my desk right away.
      Dark money has become so common in our politics, I believe sunlight is the best disinfectant. Biden said Republicans had so far shown little interest in “more openness and accountability” other than “Republican governors and state legislatures in Tennessee and Wyoming that have passed disclosure laws”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}Let’s remember, getting dark money out of our politics has been a bipartisan issue in the past. My deceased friend [Republican former Arizona senator] John McCain spent a lot of time fighting for campaign finance reform.
      For him, it was a matter of fundamental fairness. And he was 100% right about that.Here’s where things stand midway through a busy day in US politics:
      The White House says the US will never accept Russia attempting to annex occupied areas of Ukraine through “sham” referendums, the Biden administration’s national security adviser Jake Sullivan told a press briefing at the White House.
      Sullivan offered a preview of Joe Biden’s address to the United Nations general assembly on Wednesday, saying the president will offer a strong rebuke of Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, and make “significant new announcements” about his government’s investments to address global food insecurity.
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Biden was “closely monitoring” the devastating impact of Hurricane Fiona on Puerto Rico, and says hundreds of federal emergency workers are already on the ground, including Fema administrator Deanne Criswell.
      Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell says he is now “cautiously optimistic” about his party’s chances of winning back control of the chamber in November’s midterm elections, Axios reports. The former Senate leader had previously expressed doubt about a Republican majority.
      National security adviser Jake Sullivan says the Biden administration will be “unequivocal” in rejecting the “sham referendums” in four Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.Speaking at a White House press briefing, Sullivan said the announcement of the votes in Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, which analysts say is a likely forerunner to the Kremlin formally annexing the provinces, is “an affront to the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity that underpin the international system”:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We know that these referenda will be manipulated. We know that Russia will use the sham referenda as a basis to purportedly annex these territories, either now or in the future.
      Let me be clear, if this does transpire, the United States will never recognize Russia’s claims to any purportedly annexed parts of Ukraine. We will never recognize this territory as anything other than a part of Ukraine. We reject Russia’s actions unequivocally.Sullivan also addressed reports of new Russian mobilization measures, including the calling up of prisoners to shore up depleted troop numbers:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}This is reflective of Russia’s struggles in Ukraine. [Russian president Vladimir Putin] may be resorting to partial mobilization, forcing even more Russians to go fight his brutal war in Ukraine, in part because they simply need more personnel and manpower given the success that Ukraine has had on the battlefield, particularly in the north east but even pushing into other parts of previously occupied territory.
      The bottom line is that Russia is throwing together sham referendums on three days’ notice as they continue to lose ground on the battlefield and as more world leaders distance themselves from Russia on the public stage.
      Russia is scraping for personnel to throw into this fight. These are not the actions of the competent country. These are not acts of strength, quite the opposite.Joe Biden is heading for the United Nations summit in New York “with the wind at his back”, and will deliver a firm rebuke of Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, national security adviser Jake Sullivan is telling reporters at the White House.He’s speaking at the daily press briefing and outlining what the president will be talking about in his address to the UN general assembly on Wednesday morning, as well as taking a dig at world leaders who won’t be there:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}We’re making historic investments at home; our alliances are stronger than they’ve been in modern memory; our robust, united support for Ukraine has helped the Ukrainians push back against Russian aggression; and we’re leading the world in response to the most significant transnational challenges that the world faces from global health to global food security to global supply chains to tackling the climate crisis.
      Meanwhile, our competitors are facing increasingly strong headwinds, and neither President Xi [Jinping of China] nor [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin are even showing up to this global gathering.Sullivan says Biden will concentrate on foreign policy in his address on Wednesday morning:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}He’ll offer a firm rebuke of Russia’s unjust war in Ukraine and make a call to the world to continue to stand against the naked aggression that we’ve seen these past several months.
      He will underscore the importance of strengthening the UN and reaffirm core tenets of its charter at a time when a permanent member of the security council has struck at the very heart of the charter by challenging the principle of territorial integrity and sovereignty.Sullivan adds Biden will also make “significant new announcements” about the US government’s investments to address global food insecurity, and hold a number of meetings with other world leaders, including his discussions with new UK prime minister Liz Truss.An afternoon “pledging session” hosted by Biden for the global fund to fight HIV, Aids, tuberculosis and malaria is expected to “produce a historic outcome in terms of the financial commitments made by our partners and by the US”, Sullivan adds.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre says the Biden administration is “closely monitoring” the impact of Hurricane Fiona on Puerto Rico, and says hundreds of federal emergency workers are already on the ground in the island.She opened up her daily press briefing at the White House with some words of comfort:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}As the president has said, we are keeping the people of Puerto Rico in our prayers. Before the hurricane made landfall, President Biden issued an emergency disaster declaration to ensure the federal government was ready to surge resources and emergency assistance to Puerto Rico.
      The President called Governor [Pedro] Pierluisi from Air Force One to discuss Puerto Rico’s immediate needs as the storm made landfall. Today, Fema [Federal Emergency Management Agency] administrator Deanne Criswell will be on the ground to assess the emergency response.
      Hundreds of Fema and federal responders are on the ground in Puerto Rico, including US army corps of engineer power restoration experts. And urban search and rescue teams. More federal responders are arriving in the coming days.
      President Biden is receiving regular updates on the storm and these emergency efforts.Mary Peltota’s election as the first Native Alaskan to represent the state in Congress had even more historical significance.As NPR notes today, it means that for the first time, spanning back more than 230 years, Indigenous people are fully represented with a Native American, a Native Alaskan and a Native Hawaiian all in the House of Representatives.Congressman Kaiali’i Kahele of Hawaii tweeted a photo of himself with Peltota, and Sharice Davids of Kansas, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation.It has taken 233 years for the U.S. Congress to be fully represented by this country’s indigenous peoples. Tonight, a Native American, a Native Alaskan & a Native Hawaiian are sitting members of the people’s House. Welcome U.S. Representative Peltola to the 117th Congress! 🤙🏽 pic.twitter.com/AxJ8MH7aLQ— Congressman Kaiali‘i Kahele (@RepKahele) September 14, 2022
      The House press gallery notes all six Indigenous Americans who are members here.Democrat Peltota, also the first woman elected to represent Alaska in the House, beat off a challenge from the state’s former governor and Republican former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin to capture the seat last month.Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar is seizing on the occasion of National Voter Registration Day to make a new, likely quixotic, bid to make it easier to go to the polls nationwide.The Minnesota lawmaker has introduced two bills containing ideas included in a major voting rights proposal that died earlier this year. First is the Same Day Voter Registration Act, which is intended to expand Americans’ ability to register to vote at the same time as they cast ballots. The second, the Save Voters Act, would clamp down on states’ ability to kick people off voting rolls, while offering new flexibility to Americans who have recently moved and are looking to cast ballots.Don’t expect either measure to pass the chamber. Not only are senators really busy, the bills would probably need at least 10 Republican votes in addition to all Democrats to overcome a filibuster, and the GOP has showed few signs of changing its mind about such laws.Democrats fail to advance voting rights law as Senate holdouts defend filibusterRead moreOn another note, the Guardian’s Richard Luscombe is now at the reigns of the blog, and will take you through the afternoon, including Joe Biden’s speech on a proposal to require more disclosure from the super PACs that have become influential in American politics.The gears of justice continue turning in the case of the alleged government secrets found at Mar-a-Lago, with lawyers for Donald Trump facing a deadline today to file their latest response in the case. Here’s the latest from Ramon Antonio Vargas on the saga:Donald Trump’s legal team has acknowledged the possibility that the former president could be indicted amid the investigation into his retention of government secrets at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.Despite claiming days earlier that Trump couldn’t imagine being charged, his lawyers made the stark admission in a court filing on Monday proposing how to conduct an outside review of documents that were seized by the FBI in August.A special court official appointed to help administer the review process, the federal judge Raymond Dearie, had previously asked Trump to detail any materials stored at Mar-a-Lago that he may have decided to declassify. In the court filing, Trump’s lawyers said that requiring him to do so could hurt any possible defense should he later be charged, and that he should not have to “fully and specifically disclose a defense to the merits of any subsequent indictment without such a requirement being evident” during the review.Trump legal team admits possibility that ex-president could be chargedRead more More

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      Taking Back Trump’s America review: Peter Navarro’s venomous Maga saga

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      Taking Back Trump’s America review: Peter Navarro’s venomous Maga sagaSeeking to raise money to fight contempt of Congress charges, the former trade adviser shows contempt for his rivals Peter Navarro’s new book won’t win him many new friends. For just one example of the former Trump trade adviser’s frequently, uh, pungent turns of phrase, he compares Jared Kushner to human excrement.The Divider review: riveting narrative of Trump’s plot against AmericaRead moreNor does his disdain for the aspirant dauphin end there. Kushner, Navarro writes, is “nothing if more than a young and rich, run-of-the-mill liberal New York Democrat-cum-slum lord”.In November, Navarro will go on trial for contempt of Congress. He refused to cooperate with the January 6 committee. If convicted, he faces up to two years in prison. On that note, his new book is both a not-so-subtle jab at the Department of Justice under Merrick Garland and a vehicle for crowdsourcing his criminal defense.“Help finance legal effort AND put Trump back in” the White House, Navarro tweeted in June. “Order Taking Back Trump’s America today.” This month, he passed the plate again: “Buy the book today! We need our country back from these stooges and oppressors.”Pro-Trump Trump books, however, are often full of inadvertent self-owns. Thanks to the work of other authors, we know Trump didn’t like aides who took notes, once berating Donald McGahn, his White House counsel, for such a misstep. And yet here comes Navarro, eager to tell the reader he kept lots of notes himself.Page 240 contains a 25 June 2020 journal entry about a meeting of major donors who wanted “Kushner and Brad Parscale out the door” of the Trump campaign. Trump agreed but, Navarro writes, didn’t want to sack his son-in-law himself. One of the donors tried to do it – and failed.Showing his notes, Navarro adds to a pile of evidence that Trump, the supposedly ruthless titan who fired people on TV, actually doesn’t dare fire people. Whoops. Just as well the boss doesn’t read.On the one hand, Taking Back Trump’s America is a hurriedly written laundry list of Navarro’s many grievances. On the other hand, it is rollicking and filled with venom.Navarro has substance, holding a Harvard PhD in economics and having taught at UC Irvine. But intellectual firepower should not be conflated with prudence or restraint. In the past, Navarro has liberally quoted a China expert who turned out not to exist, other than as an anagram of Navarro’s own name.Between 1992 and 2001, Navarro mounted five campaigns for public office – each one unsuccessful. As a candidate, he derided Republicans for being wedded to “every man for himself” and argued that America “ought to progressively tax the rich to help everybody else”. Time passed. Positions shifted.But Navarro is still a bomb-thrower. In his new book, Steve Mnuchin, Trump’s treasury secretary, Gary Cohn, Trump’s first economic adviser, and Mark Meadows, Trump’s last chief of staff, all get it in the neck.Navarro recalls an argument in the Oval Office with Mnuchin over China policy. The words “Neville Chamberlain” and “Nazis” appear. Mnuchin is Jewish.Navarro quotes himself: “Hey, Neville, knowing what you know about what the Nazis did to the Jews, how is it that you don’t give a flying puck” – bowdlerization the author’s own – “about what the Chinese communists are doing to two million Uyghurs in the concentration camps of Xinjiang Province … What do you say about that, Stevie?”What does Navarro say about Trump’s adoration for Robert E Lee, Trump’s both-sides-ism over the neo-Nazi march in Charlottesville or even Trump reportedly having kept Hitler’s speeches on his nightstand? Nothing.Navarro also advises us that his “favorite Roger Ailes quote” is “Truth is whatever people believe”. As Navarro’s book comes out, Fox News is being sued for billions, for hyping nonsense about voting machines and election interference. Elsewhere, even Trump’s lawyers are lawyering up.Back to Kushner. Purportedly, Navarro came to Trumpworld via the boss’s son-in-law. If so, he demonstrates a marked gratitude deficit. He has even suggested Kushner faked a cancer diagnosis to help sell his own memoir, Breaking History.“That thyroid thing, that came out of nowhere,” Navarro shared. “I saw the guy every day. There’s no sign that he was in any pain or danger or whatever. I think it’s just sympathy to try to sell his book now.”Navarro’s renderings of Trump White House politics do make for engrossing reading. He writes that Kushner told him he wanted to “crush [Steve] Bannon like a bug” – and that Trump resented Bannon, his former campaign manager and White House strategist, for taking “too much credit for the 2016 win”.And yet, when writing about that abortive coup against Kushner during the 2020 campaign, Navarro says the plotters wanted to replace Kushner with … yes, you guessed it, Bannon.Navarro chooses not to examine the fact that had the coup succeeded, the campaign would have confronted a different set of problems. In August 2020, Bannon was arrested and charged with fraud. He denied it, took a pardon from Trump and now faces similar charges in New York state. He has pleaded not guilty again.Servants of the Damned review: Trump and the giant law firm he actually paidRead moreLegal jeopardy is in Trumpworld’s DNA. Ty Cobb, a White House lawyer during the Russia investigation, points out that it comes from the top down.Speaking after the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago, seeking confidential documents, Cobb said: “I think the president is in serious legal water, not so much because of the search, but because of the obstructive activity he took in connection with the January 6 proceeding. That was the first time in American history that a president unconstitutionally attempted to remain in power illegally.”Navarro can inveigh against Garland and the DoJ all he wants. His book does not alter a fundamental reality. His trial is set for 17 November – just in time for Thanksgiving.
      Taking Back Trump’s America: Why We Lost the White House and How We’ll Win It Back, is published in the US by Post Hill Press
      TopicsBooksTrump administrationUS politicsDonald TrumpJared KushnerRepublicansPolitics booksreviewsReuse this content More

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      Republicans will try to impeach Biden ‘every week’, Adam Kinzinger says

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      Republicans will try to impeach Biden ‘every week’, Adam Kinzinger saysAnti-Trump January 6 committee member warns of likely aggressive tactics if GOP retakes House in midterms Republicans will try to impeach Joe Biden every week if they retake the House in November, a rare anti-Trump Republican congressman predicted.Remembering repeated attempts to defund the Affordable Care Act under Barack Obama, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois said: “That’s going to look like child’s play in terms of what Marjorie Taylor Greene is going to demand of Kevin McCarthy.Kinzinger: Republicans ‘hypocritical’ for defending Trump over taking classified materialRead more“They’re going to demand an impeachment vote on President Biden every week.”Kinzinger was speaking to David Axelrod, a former Obama adviser, on his Axe Files podcast.Kinzinger is one of two Republicans on the House committee investigating the Capitol attack Trump incited. He will retire in November. The other, Liz Cheney of Wyoming, lost her primary to a Trump-backed challenger.Greene, from Georgia, is among far-right Republicans who have already introduced or threatened impeachment articles against Biden, on issues including Covid, immigration, Afghanistan and the alleged misdemeanors of Hunter Biden, the president’s surviving son.If McCarthy is to be speaker in a Republican House, the expected outcome of the midterms in November, he must corral his unruly party.Kinzinger said: “I think it’ll be a very difficult majority for him to govern unless he just chooses to go absolutely crazy with them. In which case you may see the rise of the silent, non-existent moderate Republican that may still exist out there, but I don’t know.”Democrats impeached Trump twice. Kinzinger voted against the first impeachment, over the blackmail of Ukraine for political purposes, but for the second, over the Capitol attack. He told Axelrod he regretted the first vote.“You can always look back 12 years, there’s different regrets, different votes. That’s my biggest.“At the time, I’ll say to my shame, you’re looking for a way out. It is tough to take on your party. It is tough to know you’re gonna get kicked out of the tribe. And it’s tough to make a decision that you know will cost you re-election.“And so I was looking for a reason out. There were moments where I was like, ‘I may end up voting for this first impeachment.’ And then I found a reason out.”At the time, he said: “Since the day President Trump was elected, many Democrats in Congress have been searching for any means by which to delegitimise and remove him from office.“And since then, we’ve seen them jump head first from one investigation to another hoping something so treacherous would be uncovered that we’d have no choice but to throw him out. And at that they’ve failed miserably.”Nine other House Republicans voted for Trump’s second impeachment, making it the most bipartisan in history. At trial in the Senate, seven Republicans found Trump guilty, not enough for conviction.Discussing Kinzinger’s work on the January 6 committee, Axelrod pointed to a recent poll which said 72% of Republican voters still back Trump’s lie about election fraud and say Biden is not the legitimate president.“Tribalism is deeply ingrained,” Kinzinger said, adding: “I think people, in many cases, more than they fear death, they fear being kicked out of the tribe.”TopicsRepublicansUS politicsHouse of RepresentativesUS CongressJoe BidennewsReuse this content More

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      Poll shows Democrats and Republicans tied for control of Congress ahead of midterms – as it happened

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      Let’s dig deeper into the two polls that came out over the weekend and amount to a mixed bag for the Democratic party as they face losing control of potentially both house of Congress in the upcoming midterm.First, the headline: voters in the NBC News poll are split over which party they’d prefer to see in charge of Congress, with 46% each backing the GOP and Democrats. That, however, is an improvement from August, when Republicans had a slight edge. GOP voters do lead in terms of enthusiasm, but not by much, which is a reversal from the double-digit lead they had earlier this year.Consider those the silver linings for the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, from a poll that otherwise confirms they will have to fight to keep their jobs. But there were also more disquieting signs from NBC’s data, such as the 47% of voters who say Biden’s policies have hurt the economy, versus the 23% who say they’ve helped and the 28% who say they’ve made no difference at all.The New York Times/Siena College poll of Hispanic voters is important because the demographic is considered a bulwark of Democratic support, with some analysts predicting that increasing numbers of Hispanic voters pose a long-term threat to the GOP’s support base. The former remains true, at least for now, with 56% percent of respondents to the poll saying they plan to vote for Democrats. Dig a little deeper and the news isn’t quite so good for Joe Biden’s party. Economic issues are the biggest motivator for Hispanic voters, but the data showed they are almost evenly split between Democrats and Republicans on which party they agree with most on the economy.Polling released over the weekend confirms that Democrats will have to fight hard to keep their hold on Congress in the midterms, including with Hispanic voters, an important party bulwark. Meanwhile, Joe Biden has arrived back in Washington DC after paying his respects at the funeral for Queen Elizabeth II in London.Here’s what else happened today:
      Biden committed to providing Puerto Rico with federal support after Hurricane Fiona knocked out water and power across the island.
      The White House cheered the release of an America held hostage by the Taliban in Afghanistan, saying it underscores its commitment to freeing jailed citizens worldwide.
      Congress may soon vote on a bill to stop the sorts of legal schemes that could have overturned the 2020 election results on January 6.
      As always, the legal wrangling in the Mar-a-Lago case continued.
      “Fighting zombies”. That’s how comedian Jon Stewart described the process of getting a bill through Congress in an interview.
      Senators will later this week vote on a measure that would require more disclosures from super PACS, but which could stumble in the face of Republican opposition.According to Politico, top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer announced the renewed effort to pass the DISCLOSE Act:Schumer says the Senate will vote later this week on the DISCLOSE Act, requiring more donor transparency in politics. Unlikely to get much if any GOP support— Burgess Everett (@burgessev) September 19, 2022
      Democrats have been wanting to pass such legislation for a while, but have been unable to overcome GOP opposition, HuffPosts reports:Schumer announces Senate vote this week on the DISCLOSE Act— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) September 19, 2022
      DISCLOSE Act would require super PACs to disclose donors who have given $10k or more. “Republicans will have to choose whether they want to fight the power of dark money or allow this cancer to get worse,” Schumer says— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) September 19, 2022
      Last straight up or down vote on DISCLOSE Act was in 2012. GOP filibustered https://t.co/4oMriRFJLP— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) September 19, 2022
      President Joe Biden spoke with Puerto Rico’s governor Pedro Pierluisi and promised federal support to help the recovery from Hurricane Fiona, which knocked out power and water to the island.Here’s what the White House had to say about the call, which took place as Biden returned from Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in London:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}President Biden described the surge of Federal support to the island, where more than 300 Federal personnel are already working to assist with response and recovery. In the coming days, as damage assessments are conducted, the President said that number of support personnel will increase substantially.The President said that he will ensure that the Federal team remains on the job to get it done, especially given that Puerto Rico is still recovering from the damage of Hurricane Maria five years ago this week. Governor Pierluisi expressed his appreciation for the partnership and support that he is receiving already from the Biden Administration. Puerto Rico battles blackout and lack of safe water in wake of Hurricane FionaRead moreCase in point of the perilous moment America is in: Donald Trump continued his embrace of the extremist QAnon conspiracy theory at a weekend rally, The Guardian’s Richard Luscombe writes:Donald Trump made one of his highest-profile embraces to date of the extremist conspiracy group QAnon at a political rally in Ohio on Saturday, making the apparently deliberate choice to play music that is virtually indistinguishable from the cult organization’s adopted anthem.Dozens of the former president’s supporters in Youngstown engaged in raised-arm salutes as Trump delivered a fiery address to the background of a song his team insisted was a royalty-free tune from the internet, but to many ears it was nearly identical to the 2020 instrumental track Wwg1wga.Trump embraces QAnon at rally by playing music similar to its anthemRead more“I think we’re in the fourth and perhaps the most difficult crisis in the history of America.” That’s how acclaimed documentarian Ken Burns described where the United States is today in an interview with The Guardian’s David Smith. Read the interview here:Ken Burns is driving in heavy traffic, trying to get from New York, where he was born, to New Hampshire, where he lives and works in bucolic splendour. He made the move in 1979, not to service a grand masterplan but out of financial desperation.“I was making my first film and starving and rent was going up in New York City and I couldn’t afford it,” the documentarian recalls by phone. “I found the connection to nature incredibly important for this labour-intensive work that we do.”But when Burns’s debut film, Brooklyn Bridge, was nominated for an Oscar, friends and colleagues assumed that he would move back to New York or try Los Angeles. He surprised them. “I made the biggest, the most important professional decision, which was to stay.Ken Burns: ‘We’re in perhaps the most difficult crisis in the history of America’Read moreNegotiations over government spending bills in Congress are somewhat high risk, because if no agreement is reached, the government could be forced to shut down, as has happened repeatedly in recent years.These shutdowns – and there’s been a bunch of them – often come when one faction in Congress or another refuses to budge on a contentious issue, resulting in everything from embassies abroad to government offices at home closing their doors until an agreement is reached.Politico reports on an early sign of that spirit of intransigence remaining alive, at least in some corners of the House. Around 50 far-right Republican lawmakers say they will not vote for any funding measure approved in this Congress:Texas Rep. Chip Roy is leading a group of nearly 50 other House Rs — mostly House Freedom Caucus members or those who tend to vote w/the HFC — in a dear colleague letter saying they will oppose a CR /any approps package put fwd this Congress while Dems in power. pic.twitter.com/P2DamVlgPN— Olivia Beavers (@Olivia_Beavers) September 19, 2022
      Democratic leaders in Congress are pushing for another $12 billion in aid to be sent to Ukraine, and hope to get it into a bill to fund the government through mid-December, Punchbowl News reports.Administration officials will brief lawmakers tomorrow about how the aid could be used, which comes as Kyiv presses its offensive in Ukraine’s east that has retaken substantial territory from Russia.New: Bipartisan member briefing on Ukraine tomorrow at 8 AM pic.twitter.com/uxkJPTq5zP— Heather Caygle (@heatherscope) September 19, 2022
      The aid is among several provisions of the spending bill – known as a continuing resolution – that is under negotiation in the final months of year. Congress members are also considering how much new Covid-19 aid to include, as well as provisions to reform the process for permitting energy projects, including both fossil fuel and renewables.The US territory of Puerto Rico appears to be in the midst of a major humanitarian crisis after a hurricane knocked out power to the island and cut off clean drinking water, with forecasts predicting more rain to come. Here’s the latest from Nina Lakhani:Most of Puerto Rico was still without power or safe drinking water on Monday, with remnants of a category 1 hurricane that struck there a day earlier forecast to bring more heavy rain and life-threatening flooding.Hundreds of people are trapped in emergency shelters across the Caribbean island, with major roads underwater and reports of numerous collapsed bridges. Crops have been washed away while flash floods, landslides and fallen trees have blocked roads, swept away vehicles and caused widespread damage to infrastructure.Two-thirds of the island’s almost 800,000 homes and businesses have no water after Hurricane Fiona caused a total blackout on Sunday and swollen rivers contaminated the filtration system. The storm was causing havoc in the Dominican Republic by early Monday.Puerto Rico battles blackout and lack of safe water in wake of Hurricane FionaRead moreTo its Democratic and Republican supporters, the Freedom to Marry Act does nothing more than ensure same-sex couples don’t have their rights rolled back by the conservative-dominated supreme court. But to rightwing GOP senator Ted Cruz, the yet-to-be passed bill is something else.“This bill is about empowering the Biden IRS to target every church and school and university and charity in America that refuses to knuckle under to their view of gay marriage,” is how the Texas lawmakers described it in a recent interview.Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) fear-mongers about bill codifying federal recognition of same-sex marriages:“This bill is about empowering the Biden IRS to target every church and school and university and charity in America that refuses to knuckle under to their view of gay marriage.” pic.twitter.com/EtgCVD3xV2— The Recount (@therecount) September 19, 2022
      His comments weren’t much of surprise, since he has already declared he would not support the measure. But as for whether or not it would get the 60 votes it needs to pass the Senate, Cruz said he did not know – underscoring the mystery around the legislation, which will likely only be resolved when it comes up for a vote after the midterms.“You have to seal up every window, and every vent, and every door… you’re fighting zombies, and if there’s any way that they get in the house, you lose.”That’s how comedian and former host of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart, described his experience over the summer of pushing Congress to expand medical coverage for military veterans exposed to toxic substances.”You don’t come out of there feeling like this system has any connection to the needs of the people that it purports to serve. That’s for sure.”— Jon Stewart reflects on his political activism, saying it’s like “fighting zombies.” pic.twitter.com/cVOSsMrq7E— The Recount (@therecount) September 19, 2022
      The Pact Act, as the legislation was called, passed in August.Jon Stewart celebrates after Senate passes bill to assist veterans exposed to toxinsRead more More

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      Ruling the US supreme court isn’t enough. The right wants to amend the constitution | Russ Feingold

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      Ruling the US supreme court isn’t enough. The right wants to amend the constitutionRuss FeingoldA conservative movement to rewrite the US constitution is gaining momentum – potentially plunging the US into a vast legal unknown In a recent primetime address, President Joe Biden spoke about “the soul of the nation” – calling out rightwing forces for their numerous efforts to undermine, if not overthrow, our democracy. Biden’s speech was prescient, in more ways than one. In addition to many Republicans promoting the “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen and working to fill elected offices with people ready to subvert the will of the people, there is a conservative movement underway to radically rewrite the US constitution.The right has already packed the supreme court and is reaping the rewards, with decisions from Dobbs to Bruen that radically reinterpret the constitution in defiance of precedent and sound legal reasoning. But factions of the right are not satisfied to wait for the court to reinterpret the constitution. Instead, they have set their sights on literally rewriting our foundational document.Why bother with constitutional interpretation when you can change the actual text? This strategy by factions of the right could carry far graver consequences for our country and our democracy than even the right’s packing of the court or the Capitol attack on January 6.Our founding fathers did not see the constitution as written in stone; they expected it to be revised and believed that revisions could help the document endure. As such, they included in Article V of the constitution two different mechanisms through which to amend the text.All 27 amendments to the constitution have been achieved through only one of those mechanisms: by having two-thirds of both chambers of Congress propose an amendment to the constitution and then having that amendment ratified by three-quarters of state legislatures.There is a second mechanism, however. The second option is to have two-thirds of all state legislatures (34 states or more) apply for a constitutional convention and then to have three-quarters of all state legislatures or state ratifying conventions ratify any amendments proposed by the convention.To be clear, a constitutional convention under Article V has never before been held. Moreover, the constitution provides no rules on how a constitutional convention would actually be run in practice. There is nothing in the constitution about how delegates would be selected, how they would be apportioned, or how amendments would be proposed or agreed to by delegates. And there is little useful historical precedent that lends insight to these important questions. This means that nearly any amendment could be proposed at such a convention, giving delegates enormous power to engage in political and constitutional redrafting.A convention would be a watershed moment in American history. And this is exactly what factions of the right are banking on. Rather than a deterrent, they see the constitution’s lack of clarity on how a convention should be run as an opportunity to pursue new theories of constitutional power and change.The Convention of States Project, the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec) and other rightwing organizations have spent more than a decade working to persuade state legislators to pass applications for an Article V convention. This effort has recently attracted a who’s-who roster of far-right supporters, including the Trumpist attorneys John Eastman and Jenna Ellis, and financial support from conservative megadonors.As legislatures continue to trend conservative in many states, due in no small part to partisan and racial gerrymandering, factions of the right see an increasingly viable and potentially imminent path to securing the 34 applications necessary to call a convention. In recent months, some congresspeople have even claimed that the constitutional threshold has been satisfied and that Congress must call a convention. While their counting is dubious, the momentum that they could nonetheless achieve is deeply worrying.Those involved in this effort have made their radical aims quite clear: to disassemble modern government and the century-old New Deal consensus, returning the country to the troubling, splintered times when the federal government could do little to provide for national welfare or defense.A convention would also be an opportunity for the right to try to ban abortion in this country, to further whittle down voting rights and to enshrine their interpretation of the second amendment. Put simply, the opportunities for radical rewriting could be nearly endless, given the complete lack of restraint that the constitution puts on an Article V convention.Like recent attempts to overturn the 2020 election using anti-democratic theories, far-right activists are forging ahead into this vast constitutional unknown. They are already holding mock conventions with the aim of controlling the process and the outcome should an actual convention come to pass.The US constitution is by no means perfect. The inclusion of Article V is evidence that even the framers expected amendments. George Washington famously remarked that the constitution was not “free from imperfections”, but he nonetheless encouraged his fellow citizens to ratify the document because those imperfections could be mended over time.Constitutional amendment could be a legitimate method for addressing the founding failures of the constitution. That said, any conversation about how to go about amending the constitution needs to be transparent, inclusive and informed. What factions of the right are pursuing is anything but. They are pursuing exclusively partisan outcomes and have sought to keep their efforts opaque. They do not seem interested in a representative, democratic process.Biden was right. The soul of our nation is under threat. This plan by the far right could send this country into a constitutional crisis, one much more damaging and far-reaching than January 6. Concerned citizens of all ideological stripes should speak out against this radical effort. The far right has benefited from having its efforts conducted mostly under wraps. That must change. A light must be shined on these efforts so they can be stopped and our constitutional democracy preserved.
      Russ Feingold served nearly two decades in the United States Senate and is president of the American Constitution Society
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      DeSantis actions on migrants is ‘mini-ethnic cleansing’, expert warns

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      AnalysisDeSantis actions on migrants is ‘mini-ethnic cleansing’, expert warnsStephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington Philosophy professor says treating Republican’s decision to move unwitting migrants to Martha’s Vineyard as a political stunt risks diminishing its ‘moral seriousness’Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s decision to move unwitting migrants to Martha’s Vineyard last week has been compared to a “mini-ethnic cleansing with genocidal precedence” by a philosopher who has closely studied dehumanization and its role in genocide and the Holocaust.“Of course this is not genocide, but it is somewhat reminiscent of awful things that have happened in the past. As soon as you start treating human beings as undesirable problems to dump on others, you are in very dangerous territory,” said David Livingstone Smith, a professor of philosophy at the University of New England.“What frightens me most actually is that someone who does these sort of acts is capable of doing much worse,” he said.The remarks by Smith, who is the author of Making Monsters: The Uncanny Power of Dehumanization, come as dozens of more people, many of whom are migrants who are believed to have come from Venezuela, arrived in Washington DC on Saturday morning after being bused from Texas. The migrants, including a one-month-old baby, were dropped in front of the Naval Observatory, where Vice-President Kamala Harris resides.The shuttling of about 50 migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard – with a stop in Florida – last week has been condemned by US president Joe Biden and human rights groups after it emerged that the migrants were misled and told they were being sent to Boston to find jobs and opportunities. Lawyers for the individuals have called on state officials in Massachusetts to investigate the incident, including the circumstances around the two charter flights that transported them to the Massachusetts island, which were arranged by DeSantis.The Florida Republican, who is expected to run for the Republican party’s presidential nomination in 2024, has claimed that “every community in America should be sharing in the burdens” of migrants and that he was seeking to draw attention to the Biden administration’s handling of immigration issues between the US and Mexico.But Smith warned that seeing the incident as merely a political “stunt” by an attention-seeking Republican politician risked diminishing the “moral seriousness and the possible future implications of what they are doing”.“In effect,” Smith said, “DeSantis is intimating that this is an ethnic cleansing operations, that he will take these so-called undesirables and pick them up and dump them in the lands of [his] political enemies.”Stone said he was also struck by the way in which both DeSantis and Texas governor Greg Abbott appeared to see liberal American cities like Washington DC or the wealthy liberal enclave of Martha’s Vineyard as being like a foreign country.“You could say that’s no surprise: there’s often talk of ‘real Americans’ living in the heartland. But this takes it to a new level. To use a gross but apt analogy, it’s as if someone is taking their garbage and dumping it in their neighbors’ yard. DeSantis talks about it like that,” he said.Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host who regularly engages in racist diatribes on his show, raised the idea of dropping migrants on Martha’s Vineyard in this summer. In a segment that aired on 26 July, he suggested sending “huge numbers” of migrants to the Massachusetts island, which he claimed must be “begging for diversity” since its major city was overwhelmingly white.“Let’s start with 300,000 and move up from there,” Carlson said.Fox News spokesperson Irena Briganti did not respond to questions about whether Carlson had discussed the issue with DeSantis directly or whether Fox had any concerns about Carlson encouraging human trafficking.Carlson has also praised authoritarian leaders such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who argued in a speech earlier this year that Europeans should not become “peoples of mixed race”.TopicsUS immigrationRon DeSantisUS politicsRepublicansanalysisReuse this content More

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      The end of the debate? Republicans draw the curtain on political theater

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      The end of the debate? Republicans draw the curtain on political theaterIt’s a time-honored tradition, but as the US midterms loom, many Republican candidates are ducking out of televised debates The vast collections of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington contain two brown wooden chairs. Their backs have labels explaining that they were used by John F Kennedy and Richard Nixon in “the first face-to-face discussion between presidential candidates” at the CBS television studio in Chicago in 1960.In short, the first televised presidential debate. And where America led, the rest of the world followed, copying the model of gladiatorial political combat as the ultimate format to help voters make up their minds.But heading into the US midterm elections, the debate appears to be in decline, a casualty of fragmented digital media, a deeply polarised political culture and a democracy losing its sense of cohesion.For many Republicans, ducking debates is a way to express disdain for a national media that former president Donald Trump has derided as “fake news” and “the enemy of the people”. Some Democrats have a different motive, refusing to share a platform with Republican election deniers peddling baseless conspiracy theories.In Arizona, for example, Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Katie Hobbs has declined a debate with Republican Kari Lake, a telegenic Trump supporter who has pushed his “big lie” that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.But Republicans are the main objectors. In Nebraska, gubernatorial candidate Jim Pillen has refused to debate Democrat Carol Blood. Pillen’s campaign manager, Kenny Zoeller, told the Nebraska Examiner that “he doesn’t do political theater”.Biden says US democracy is under threat. Here’s what he can do to help fix it | Stephen MarcheRead moreIn the Pennsylvania’s governor’s race, Republican extremist Doug Mastriano has rejected a televised debate with an independent moderator. Instead he has reserved a hotel ballroom on 22 October and selected a partisan to referee: Mercedes Schlapp, who was strategic communications director in the Trump White House. Democratic rival Josh Shapiro has little incentive to accept.In North Carolina, Ted Budd, who sat out four Republican primary debates in his Senate race, has said he will not accept an invitation from the North Carolina Association of Broadcasters to debate Democrat Cheri Beasley. Budd said he had accepted a cable debate invitation, but there is no agreement with Beasley about that appearance.It is a sorry state of affairs for a time-honored tradition that America exported around the world. Even Britain, after decades of resistance, followed suit in 2010 with three leaders’ debates between prime minister Gordon Brown, Conservative David Cameron and Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg.“Believe it or not, I watched all four of the Kennedy-Nixon debates and you could hear a pin drop anywhere you went,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “Everybody was watching. In fact, over 70m watched and the number of votes that year? 70m.“But in the era of 400 channels, when polarization is so intense that the vast majority of voters already know for whom they’re voting, it doesn’t matter what happens in a debate or if there is a debate. The costs of not debating are very small. ”The format is not quite dead yet.In Pennsylvania, Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman has agreed to one contest with Republican nominee Mehmet Oz, while in Georgia, Democrat incumbent Raphael Warnock and Republican challenger Herschel Walker (who dodged primary debates) appear to be inching closer to a deal.In Michigan, after prolonged wrangling, Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer and Republican nominee Tudor Dixon finally agreed to a single debate next month.Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis is set to debate Democratic challenger Charlie Crist but only once and only on a West Palm Beach TV station. In Texas, Republican governor Greg Abbott has granted a single debate to Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke – but it will be on a Friday night and competing for eyeballs with the high school American football season.In each case, the enthusiasm to debate is underwhelming: candidates appear to be looking for an excuse not to do it in a divided America where the sliver of undecided voters offers diminishing returns.They turn instead towards partisan echo chambers aimed at motivating turnout from their own bases. Republicans, in the particular, have been snubbing the mainstream media in favour of fringe rightwing outlets during the campaign so far. It is one more blow to the idea of communal experience, shared reality and the glue that holds democracy together.Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said: “It’s dangerous because these televised debates at all levels have been one of the few good things about democracy in the modern era. People had to stand up there and defend themselves and say what they believed and let the voters take a good look at them.”But Kamarck, who worked in the Clinton White House, remains optimistic that the shift is not permanent. “It is driven by a group of Republican candidates who are very inexperienced and ideological and know that they can’t do well in a debate because there’s so many things that they are for that are either unpopular or indefensible in terms of policy.“What you see here is a Republican party that’s gone off the rails led by Donald Trump. It is this year’s crop of candidates who are not very serious people and can’t debate but I do think debates will return when the Republican party starts nominating normally qualified people to run.”The acid test will come in 2024. From Ronald Reagan’s “There you go again” tease of Jimmy Carter, to George H W Bush’s ill-judged glance at his watch, to Trump’s apparent threat to jail Hillary Clinton, presidential debates have provided marquee moments even though, in truth, they may not have changed many minds.There was an ominous sign earlier this year when the Republican National Committee, which has proved a cheerleader for Trump, voted unanimously to withdraw from the Commission on Presidential Debates, which was founded in 1987 to codify debates as a permanent part of presidential elections.Aaron Kall, director of debate at the University of Michigan, who attended presidential debates over the past two cycles, said: “One of the great things about a debate is seeing a candidate have to deal with a question maybe that they didn’t think of or they didn’t plan for and, under pressure, how they address that.“When we’re looking for candidates for these really important positions we want to see – how they answer the 3am phone call or deal with something unexpected. It’s pretty good on the job training and rehearsal for the actual job over an hour and a half. We have all these different ways in which to evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of candidates and it’s just another one that is going by the wayside.”TopicsUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022RepublicansfeaturesReuse this content More