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      Republican candidates grapple with post-Roe positioning on abortion

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      Eight Republican presidential hopefuls clashed over the future of abortion access on Wednesday night in the first debate of the 2024 election cycle.Without the specter of Roe v Wade looming overhead, the candidates faced a new litmus test on abortion: whether or not they support a nationwide ban on the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy.The former vice-president Mike Pence, former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson and South Carolina Senator Tim Scott all pledged to support a federal 15-week ban.The question from the moderator Martha MacCallum had noted that abortion had consistently been a losing issue for Republicans in state ballots since the Dobbs decision.Nevertheless just one candidate, the North Dakota governor, Doug Burgum, decisively rejected the idea that Congress ought to regulate abortion access.Burgum, who signed North Dakota’s six-week abortion ban in April, said the conservative mission to overturn Roe was predicated on the belief that states should be allowed to set their own rules on the procedure.“What is going to work in New York will never work in North Dakota and vice versa,” Burgum said.For decades, Roe v Wade offered Republican candidates a convenient boogeyman. The supreme court ruling was not just about abortion – swing state conservatives like Burgum could point to Roe as an example of federal overreach.But Wednesday’s debate signaled a schism in the GOP’s position on abortion.In a post-Roe landscape, one year after Senator Lindsey Graham first introduced a federal 15-week ban bill in Congress, Republicans were forced to choose between their purported support for states’ rights and their opposition to abortion access.Burgum was the lone voice that chose states’ rights.Pence and Scott, both evangelical Christians, said they support a 15-week ban because abortion is a “moral” question that necessitates federal intervention.Scott said states like “California, New York and Illinois” should not be allowed to offer broad access to the procedure.Pence said abortion was “not a states only issue, it’s a moral issue”.The former vice-president, who has centered abortion in his bid to court socially conservative voters, condemned his opponents for refusing to back a federal ban.“I’m not new to this cause,” Pence said on Wednesday night. “Can’t we have a minimum standard in every state in the nation?”In his opening remarks, Pence lauded the work of the Trump administration, which placed three conservative justices on the US supreme court and “gave the people a new beginning for the right to life”.Pence also criticized the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who suggested that it would be difficult to gain the requisite congressional support to pass a federal abortion ban.Haley, the only woman on Wednesday’s debate stage, said Republicans should instead pursue pragmatic legislative goals that could garner bipartisan support in Congress.“Let’s find consensus, can’t we all agree that we should ban late-term abortions? Can’t we all agree that we should encourage adoptions?” she said.In his response, Pence directly addressed Haley: “Consensus is the opposite of leadership.”Susan B Anthony Pro-Life America, a powerful anti-abortion lobbying group, praised Pence, Hutchinson and Scott for offering “a clear, bold case for national protections for the unborn at least by 15 weeks”.“The position taken by candidates like Doug Burgum, that life is solely a matter for the states, is unacceptable for a nation founded on unalienable rights and for a presidential contender,” said Marjorie Dannenfelser, the group’s president, in a statement on Wednesday night.Last month, Dannenfelser issued a similar condemnation of the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, for his reluctance to back a federal ban.DeSantis has supported bills restricting access to abortion – including a six-week ban in his own state of Florida, but has stopped short of saying he would support a federal ban.Dannenfelser said the Republican presidential candidate should “work to gather the votes necessary in Congress” to pass a national ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, adding that DeSantis’s failure to support the ban was “unacceptable”.“There are many pressing legislative issues for which Congress does not have the votes at the moment, but that is not a reason for a strong leader to back away from the fight,” she said in a statement last month.On Wednesday night, Fox News moderators twice asked DeSantis to clarify his position on federal abortion restrictions, but the Florida governor refused to provide a direct answer.“I’m going to stand on the side of life,” DeSantis said. “I understand Wisconsin is going to do it different than Texas, I understand Iowa and New Hampshire are going to be different, but I will support the cause of life as governor and as president.”Notably, Donald Trump – the presumed GOP frontrunner – skipped Wednesday night’s debate.Earlier this year, Trump criticized DeSantis’s position on abortion, calling Florida’s six-week ban “too harsh”.But the former president appears to share DeSantis’s hesitations about the federal 15-week ban, dodging questions about the proposed restrictions since launching his re-election campaign in March.The Guardian reported in April that Trump considers a federal abortion ban a losing proposition for Republicans, though his exact vision for the future of US abortion access remains unclear. 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      Republican hopefuls shrug when asked about climate crisis during debate

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      Unlike in recent election cycles, most Republican presidential hopefuls this time around didn’t flat out deny that the climate crisis is real. But on the Fox News debate stage, they made clear that they’re not interested in dwelling on the issues – or doing much about it.On Tuesday night, the eight candidates were asked to raise their hands if they believed in the reality of human-caused global heating. They all punted.The Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, immediately derailed efforts to elicit a clear yes or no response. “Let’s have this debate,” he said, before proceeding not to have it at all, instead criticising Joe Biden’s response to the fires in Maui.Vivek Ramaswamy, a biotech entrepreneur, was notably the only candidate to full-throatedly deny climate science, making the unsubstantiated claim that “more people are dying due to bad climate change policies than they are due to actual climate change”.There’s no discernible trend of deaths linked to policies encouraging renewable energy. However, extreme heat – fueled by the climate crisis – killed about 1,500 people last year, according to Centers for Disease Control records. Researchers estimate that the true figure is closer to 10,000 people every year.Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, on the other hand, said “climate change is real” but then pushed off all responsibility to take care of it on India and China. Both those countries have lower per-capita carbon emissions than the US. And as of the latest figures, from 2021, no country had emitted more carbon dioxide since 1850 than the US.The South Carolina senator Tim Scott didn’t offer much in terms of solutions earlier, pointing a finger at the continent of Africa, as well as India and China. Africa accounts for one-fifth of the world’s population and produces about 3% of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the International Energy Association, while disproportionately experiencing the consequences of climate chaos. The US is responsible for about 14% of global emissions.Nobody meaningfully addressed the question posed by Alexander Diaz of the Young America’s Foundation, a conservative youth organisation: “How will you as both president of the United States and leader of the Republican party calm their fears that the Republican party doesn’t care about climate change?”In a Washington Post/University of Maryland poll, 35% of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents said they think climate change is a major factor in the extreme heat that the US has experienced recently, compared with 85% of those who lean Democratic. Overall, nearly two-thirds of Americans who experienced extremely hot days said climate change was a major factor.Young Republican voters, however, seem increasingly concerned about the climate crisis. A 2022 Pew poll found that 73% of Republicans aged 18-39 thought climate change was an extremely/very or somewhat serious issue.Meanwhile, the rightwing groups have been working to boost the fossil fuel industry while undermining the energy transition. Project 2025, a $22m endeavor by the climate-denying thinktank the Heritage Foundation, has developed a presidential proposal that lays out how a Republican president could dismantle US climate policy within their first 180 days in office.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe GOP candidates who have held public office have already given voters a glimpse of how they might approach the climate crisis. Governor DeSantis has supported projects to build seawalls and improve drainage systems as Florida faces increasingly powerful hurricanes and storm surges, as well as threats from sea level rise. But he has refused to acknowledge the role of global heating on these disasters, scoffing at the “politicization of the weather” and pushing bills banning Florida cities from adopting 100% clean energy goals. He also barred the state’s pension fund from considering the climate crisis when making investment decisions.Donald Trump, who did not attend the debate, has done even more to impede climate action. As president, he rolled back nearly 100 climate regulations, according a New York Times tally.Among the candidates who do support doing anything about the climate crisis, most think that thing should be carbon capture. Haley, who as US ambassador to the United Nations helped orchestrate the US withdrawal from the Paris agreement, has presented carbon capture technologies and tree planting as a way to keep burning fossil fuels while slowing the climate crisis.The consensus among climate scientists is that while such technologies could be a tool in fighting global heating, an overreliance on them could cause the world to surpass climate tipping points. More

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      Spectre of Trump haunts debate as candidates jostle for spotlight

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      During the first Republican debate on Wednesday, eight candidates attempted to cast themselves as viable alternatives to Donald Trump while, for the most part, studiously ignoring the shadow of the doggedly popular former president who declined to appear on stage.The Republicans alternatively railed on government excesses – promising, for example, to slash funding for federal programs – while debating the merits of a federal abortion ban and calling for an increasingly militarized southern border.The debate was somewhat calmer without belligerent Trump, with the exception of outsider tech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who clashed repeatedly with former vice-president Mike Pence, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and Nikki Haley, the former governor of South Carolina. Other than his increasingly aggressive approach to immigration, Ron DeSantis – meant to be Trump’s most likely challenger – remained relatively passive.The debate opened with a focus on the economy, as Fox News moderators Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum played a clip of the viral conservative folk hit Rich Men North of Richmond, in which country artist Oliver Anthony describes his economic struggles while lamenting poor people “milkin’ welfare”. The candidates launched into a brief discussion of the economy – the first and last point on which they appeared to entirely agree.On the war in Ukraine, the Republicans diverged sharply in their view of the ideal role of US funding for the Ukrainian military. Ramaswamy, who accused supporters of Ukraine of neglecting “people in Maui or the south side of Chicago”, drew sharp rebuke from Christie, who said that “if we don’t stand up to this kind of autocratic killing, we will be next”, describing in vivid detail Russia’s bloody occupation of Ukraine. Pence echoed Christie’s position, calling Vladimir Putin a “dictator”.“I do not want to get to the point where we’re sending our military resources abroad where we could be better using them here at home to protect our own borders,” replied Ramaswamy.The Republicans also used the discussion of the war in Ukraine to pivot to the topic of immigration, articulating a vision of a militarized southern US border. DeSantis, whose floundering campaign has suffered repeated false steps and who largely hung back during the debate, jumped into the fold on that topic.“I’m not gonna send troops to Ukraine, but I am gonna send them to our southern border,” said the Florida governor, adding that he would deploy “lethal force” to slow immigration and proposed sending troops across the border “on day one”.When moderator MacCallum introduced the thorny question of abortion, which has energized Democratic voters since Roe v Wade was overturned, the candidates raced to claim their anti-abortion bona fides while splitting over the question of a federal ban.DeSantis defended his hardline position on abortion in Florida while invoking an odd story about a woman named Penny, who, he said, “survived multiple abortion attempts” and “was left discarded in a pan”. Haley, meanwhile, shied away from endorsing a federal ban, arguing that it would be challenging to find “consensus” on the issue.Pence and the South Carolina senator Tim Scott endorsed a federal ban. “We cannot let states like California, New York and Illinois have abortion on demand,” said Scott.As predicted, the spectre of Trump haunted the GOP debate, even as the frontrunner sat the debate out, opting instead for a prerecorded interview with Tucker Carlson on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter. When Fox News moderators asked which candidates would still support Trump if he is convicted in a court of law, Ramaswamy and Christie immediately clashed, with Ramaswamy accusing the government of using “police force to indict its political opponents”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“The more time we spend on this the less time they talk about issues you wanna talk about,” Baier admonished the crowd, which erupted in jeers when Christie accused Trump of engaging in “conduct … beneath the office of president of the United States”.In response to the question of whether Pence was justified in certifying the 2020 election, every candidate expressed support for the former vice-president – except DeSantis, who skirted the question, saying: “It’s not about January 6 of 2021, it’s about January 20, of 2025, when the next president is going to take office.” Pressed on the question, DeSantis said he had “no beef” with Pence but declined to directly affirm Biden’s victory in the 2020 election.For his part, Pence put a finer point on the subject: “The American people deserve to know that Trump … asked me to put him over the constitution,” he said.Outside the debate hall, a sweltering day gave way to a muggy night in Milwaukee, a Democratic stronghold, where voter turnout efforts by grassroots groups like Bloc – Black Leaders Organizing Communities – can determine who wins statewide elections. The critical state has emerged as one of the last true swing states in the country, delivering a narrow win to Biden in 2020 only after Trump won the state by a similarly thin margin in 2016. Underscoring the importance of the state, the Republican National Committee will return to Milwaukee in July 2024.After the debate wrapped, a spirited Donald Trump Jr wandered through a small crowd of reporters, complaining that Fox News had not granted him access to the “spin room”, where candidates gather after the debate, and talking up his father. “I don’t think Trump’s going down after this. I think he’s gonna go up.”Trump is set to reclaim the spotlight on Thursday when he says he will voluntarily surrender himself at the Fulton county jail in Georgia. More

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      Republicans feud over Trump, abortion and climate in first 2024 primary debate

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      Republican presidential candidates clashed over Donald Trump’s legal woes during the first primary debate of the 2024 campaign season, underscoring the former president’s absence from the event and casting a spotlight on his potential vulnerabilities in a general election rematch against Joe Biden.Nearly an hour into the debate in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the Fox News hosts Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier asked the eight candidates on the stage whether they would still support Trump as the Republican presidential nominee if he were convicted of the charges he faces. Six candidates – North Carolina’s Governor Doug Burgum, Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis, the former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, the former vice-president Mike Pence, the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and South Carolina’s Senator Tim Scott – indicated they would still support Trump. Only two candidates – the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson – said they would not.Christie, a vocal critic of Trump, called on the fellow debate participants to “stop normalizing this conduct”.“Whether or not you believe that the criminal charges are right or wrong, the conduct is beneath the office of the president of the United States,” Christie said. When his criticism was met with some boos from the debate crowd, Christie added: “Booing is allowed, but it doesn’t change the truth.”Ramaswamy jumped on Christie’s comments, echoing Trump’s complaints about the alleged politicization of federal law enforcement. “We have to end the weaponization of justice in this country,” Ramaswamy said.The debate came one day before Trump was expected to surrender to authorities in Fulton county, Georgia, where he has been charged on 13 felony counts related to his efforts to overturn Biden’s 2020 victory in the state. The former president faces 91 total felony counts across four criminal cases.But a CBS News/YouGov survey compiled last week found that Trump now holds his largest polling lead to date, as he won the support of 62% of likely Republican primary voters. The survey showed Trump beating his next closest competitor, DeSantis, by 46 points, with every other candidate mired in the single digits.Rather than attending the debate, Trump chose to sit down for an interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, which was available on X, formerly known as Twitter, minutes before the debate began. Trump cited his standing in the polls to justify skipping the debate, mocking his opponents’ struggles to gain momentum in the race.“You see the polls that have come out, and I’m leading by 50 and 60 points and some of them are at one and zero and two. And I’m saying, do I sit there for an hour or two hours or whatever it’s going to be and get harassed by people who shouldn’t even be running for president?” Trump told Carlson. “I just felt it would be more appropriate not to do the debate.”Although Trump’s absence and his criminal charges shaped much of the debate, the candidates also sparred over key policy issues like abortion and climate change. Discussing federal abortion policy in the wake of the reversal of Roe v Wade, Pence praised a 15-week abortion ban as “an idea whose time has come” and DeSantis expressed pride over signing Florida’s six-week abortion ban into law.But Haley was more hesitant to embrace a potential federal ban, a proposal that is widely unpopular with the American people. Describing herself as “unapologetically pro-life”, Haley argued a federal ban would not pass Congress and called on Democrats and Republicans to “find consensus” on abortion access.Discussing the climate crisis, Ramaswamy drew some boos from the debate crowd when he denied the unequivocal truth of human-made climate change. “The climate change agenda is a hoax,” Ramaswamy said.Christie retorted: “I’ve had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like ChatGPT.”It was one of several insults directed at Ramaswamy, who has climbed into a distant third place in national polls. Mocking Ramaswamy’s inexperience, Pence said: “Now is not the time for on-the-job training. We don’t need to bring in a rookie.”Several other presidential candidates – including the rightwing commentator Larry Elder, the former Texas congressman Will Hurd and the mayor of Miami, Francis Suarez – failed to meet the Republican National Committee’s qualifications for the debate, leaving them out of the event and further diminishing their primary prospects. Hurd elected to live-tweet his reactions to the debate, and he criticized his opponents who said they would still support Trump in the event of a conviction.“Anyone who raises their hand in support of Donald Trump as our party’s nominee even if convicted in a court of law is unfit to serve as president,” Hurd said.But Trump’s criminal charges appear to have only fortified his position as the frontrunner in the Republican presidential primary. According to the CBS poll, 73% of Trump’s voters say they back the former president partly to “show support for his legal troubles”.With such stalwart support for Trump among the Republican base, it remains unclear how any of the participants in the Monday debate could capture the nomination. The electoral threat of nominating a twice-impeached former president, who now faces nearly 100 criminal charges, did not escape the attention of at least one debate participant.“We have to face the fact that Trump is the most disliked politician in America,” Haley said. “We can’t win a general election that way.”The Guardian’s David Smith contributed reporting from Milwaukee More

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      in US Politics

      Trump, Ukraine and a viral song: key takeaways from the Republican debate

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      Eight Republicans vying for the party nomination took the debate stage on Wednesday night in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, throwing punches over Ukraine, a federal abortion ban and more, hoping to increase their chances at defeating the no-show frontrunner.Absent was Donald Trump, whose pre-taped interview with the rightwing media personality Tucker Carlson simultaneously published on Twitter, now known as X, and sought to siphon away screen time from the debate housed on Fox News, which famously ousted Carlson earlier this year.But Trump’s presence loomed over the debate, even as candidates seemed to somewhat hold back from criticizing the ex-president, as Fox debate moderator Bret Baier put it, “the elephant not in the room”.Here are eight key takeaways from the night:A memorable opening with a viral song and jabs at ‘Bidenomics’The debate kicked off with a question about a controversial conservative country song, Rich Men North of Richmond, whose lyricist complains about taxes and nods to conspiracy theories surrounding the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein.“Our country is in decline,” said Ron DeSantis, to whom Fox News hosts Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier lobbed the first question. “We need to send Joe Biden back to his basement and reverse American decline.”Tim Scott touted his record of voting down government spending bills in the Senate, as well as his work on the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, a Trump-era piece of legislation that cut taxes for corporations and wealthy individuals.But Nikki Haley placed the blame on Republicans for spending exorbitantly during the pandemic, calling out Trump for increasing the national debt by $8tn and DeSantis, Scott and Mike Pence for voting to raise the national debt.Energy independence was also a focus, with candidates broadly advocating for increasing domestic energy production.“Unlock American energy. Drill, frack, burn, embrace nuclear,” said Ramaswamy, who later claimed that “the climate change agenda is a hoax”.Trump, ‘the elephant not in the room’Although Trump was absent, hosts asked candidates to show where they stand on the ex-president.Responding to a call for a show of hands by the Fox host Bret Baier, most candidates seemed to agree they would support Trump as president, even if he is convicted. Trump has amassed 91 felony counts in four criminal cases this year.“Someone’s got to stop normalizing this conduct,” said Christie, who raised his hand briefly and begrudgingly and has been a loud critic of Trump. “Whether or not you believe the criminal charges are right or wrong. The conduct is beneath the office of the president of the United States.” His comments were met with boos from the audience.Ramaswamy, who has defended Trump across all four indictments, continued to do so. He has repeatedly said he would pardon Trump as president and repeated that on the debate stage.Haley added her derision: “Trump is the most disliked candidate in America. We can’t win an election that way.”The candidates overall said they supported Mike Pence in his decision to refuse to stop the electoral certification, though Ramaswamy ardently defended Trump through the night and DeSantis refused to answer a question about whether he agreed Mike Pence was right.The war in Ukraine was a sticking pointRamaswamy came out the strongest against increased aid to Ukraine, calling it a “disastrous” decision and a “no-win war”. And DeSantis, who walked back earlier statements calling the war a “territorial dispute”, said he thinks Europe should remove itself from the situation.Haley, who served as US ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, delivered perhaps the strongest stance yet, calling Ukraine “a pro-American country that was invaded by a thug”.Ramaswamy took a dig at Haley, wishing her “well” on her “future career on the boards of Lockheed and Raytheon”.Haley countered, saying that Ramaswamy would hand Ukraine to Russia and China and make America less safe. “You have no foreign policy experience, and it shows,” Haley shot back at Ramaswamy, who said: “Ukraine is not a priority for America.”Christie, who made a visit to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, weeks earlier, took the opportunity to blast Trump, who has said the war in Ukraine isn’t a vital interest. “This is the Vladimir Putin who Donald Trump called brilliant and a genius. If we don’t stand up against this type of autocratic killing in the world, we will be next,” said Christie.DeSantis would send troops to the southern borderDeSantis said he would use lethal force at the US southern border to counter drug cartels entering the country and treat them as “foreign terrorist organizations”. DeSantis also said he would divert funds from Ukraine to do so and vowed to send troops.“When these drug pushers are bringing fentanyl across the border, that’s going to be the last thing they do. We’re going to use force and we’re going to leave them stone cold dead,” said DeSantis.Scott echoed DeSantis’s rhetoric, saying the southern border is the “most pressing need” when it comes to national security. He also laid out spending plans to complete Trump’s border wall with $10bn, though he did not mention Trump. Hutchinson also agreed that he would use lethal force, nodding to his time as an under secretary on border security for George W Bush.Candidates split over federal abortion banEach of the eight candidates have at some point identified themselves as anti-abortion but differed over implementing a federal abortion ban.Haley, the only woman on the debate stage, called herself “unapologetically pro-life” but warned against “demonizing” the issue, hedging against a federal abortion ban. DeSantis, who signed into law a six-week ban in Florida saying he believes in a “culture of life”, refused to answer whether he would approve a national ban.Pence, an evangelical Christian who has been the most outspoken anti-abortion candidate, said he would move to implement a national ban at “when a baby is capable of feeling pain” though he did not explicitly describe that length.Tim Scott also weighed in and said he would fight for a minimum 15-week ban on abortion. Burgum, who signed into law a six-week ban in North Dakota, said he would not sign a federal abortion ban.(Mostly) quiet on the climate crisisWith the exception of Ramaswamy declaring “the climate change agenda” a “hoax”, the candidates largely avoided a question about whether Republicans care about the climate crisis, a top issue among younger voters.DeSantis dodged the question, which pointed to the Hawaii wildfires, attacking “corporate media” for treating Republicans and Democrats differently, claiming Biden was on a beach in Delaware during the disaster.Haley was the only candidate to wholly assert that the climate crisis is real but said the onus should be on China and India to “really lower their emissions”.Night of introductionsWith the frontrunner absent, the lineup on the debate stage featured a bunch of relatively unknown faces.In his first remarks, Ramaswamy didn’t answer a question about the economy but instead said he guessed the audience would want to know “Who the heck is this skinny guy with a funny last name and what the heck is he doing in the middle of this debate stage?”That earned him a later attack from Christie, who said: “The last person in one of these debates … who stood in the middle of the stage and said: ‘What’s a skinny guy with an odd last name doing up here’ was Barack Obama, and I’m afraid we’re dealing with the same type of amateur.”Ramaswamy shot back: “Come on and give me a hug! … Give me that bear hug bro”Scott, the only Black candidate on the debate stage, repeatedly brought up his back story, growing up in poverty and being raised by a single mom.And Burgum, the governor of North Dakota who arrived at the debate after a trip to the ER earlier Tuesday, mentioned at several points his “small-town” identity. More

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      Republican presidential candidates clash at first 2024 debate – in pictures

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      From left to right: the former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson, the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, the former vice-president Mike Pence, Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis, the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, the former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, Senator Tim Scott and North Dakota’s Governor Doug Burgum place their hands over their hearts during the performing of the national anthem

      Photograph: Win McNamee/Getty Images More

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      Rudy Giuliani mugshot released after he surrenders in Trump Georgia case – live

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      Hugo Lowell reports:
      Just in: A federal judge has denied former Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows’ request for an emergency order to prevent his arrest at Fulton County jail while he tries to have his case removed to federal court.
      Furthermore:
      A federal judge has denied former Trump Justice department official Jeff Clark’s request for an emergency stay to avoid having to surrender at Fulton County jail, after he filed to have his case removed to federal court. Clark has until Friday at noon to travel to Atlanta for booking.
      In a fundraising email to supporters, the South Carolina senator Tim Scott offers a (very basic) taste of what he might offer on the debate stage in Milwaukee tonight.“If you had told 7-year-old Tim Scott he would one day be on a presidential debate stage, he would NOT believe you,” the email says.Seven-year-old Tim might also not have believed that his grown-up self would take his debate stage bow with just 1% support, a mere 51 points behind the frontrunner, Donald Trump. But I digress.The email continues: “I’m a child of divorce. When I was 7, my mom, my older brother, and I moved into a two-bedroom rental house that we shared with my grandparents.“My Mama and Granddaddy told me you can be bitter or you can be better. You can be a victim or you can choose victory. Well Friend, I’m ready to choose victory!“Tonight, I’ll share why the truth of my life disproves the Left’s lies and why I believe America can do for anyone what she’s done for me.”What Scott might do in the primary remains of course to be seen. He has big support from the Oracle billionaire Larry Ellison and with a big debate performance, who knows.But the signs are not particularly rosy, even when one zeroes in on Iowa, the first state to vote and one where evangelical Christians, a key Scott constituency, are strong.At the weekend, a major poll from NBC News and the Des Moines Register gave the senator third place. That was better than his position in national averages, linked to above. But though Scott had 9% support, Ron DeSantis of Florida had 19% and Trump – thrice-married and an adjudicated rapist yet still the No1 choice for Christian conservatives – had 42%.Our Washington bureau chief reports from Milwaukee, ahead of tonight’s Republican debate …Donald Trump is missing from the first Republican primary debate but his supporters are not. Nine hours before kick-off, they were roving outside the venue wearing “Make America great again” caps and brandishing signs mocking the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis.Some of the former president’s allies in the US Congress, such as Matt Gaetz of Florida and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, are also on here. Sitting in a hotel lobby, Greene told the Guardian that she backs Trump’s decision to stay away.“I told him to skip it,” the far-right congresswoman and conspiracy theorist said. “It’s a waste of his time.“He’s winning by over 60%, poll after poll depending on what state you’re looking at and the national poll. It’s a complete waste of his time to step out on a stage and be the centre of the attacks when he has a four-year record as president that everybody wants back and none of those people on the stage have anything that they can compare to him.”There has been speculation that Trump could choose Greene as his running mate.She said: “Well, I’d have to think about it and consider it. It’s talked about frequently and I know my name is on a list but really my biggest focus right now is serving the district that elected me.“That’s of course a decision that President Trump has to make. I don’t know who that person is going to be and I don’t even think they’re going to be on that debate stage. I’ll argue that. But, of course, that’s up to him. But I would be honoured and consider it. But my most important job is, of course, to serve the American people and I’ll help him do whatever in any way I can.”Greene said the three Republicans she talks to most frequently are Trump, Kevin McCarthy, speaker of the House of Representatives, and James Comer, chairman of the House oversight committee. Do they all seem to be on the same page?“A lot of times, yeah. Not all the time but a lot of times. It just depends on the issue.”Trump is expected to surrender at the Fulton county jail on Thursday evening on racketeering and conspiracy charges, over his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election in Georgia. It is Greene’s home state but she dismisses the sweeping indictment as “garbage” and has not read it.“I wouldn’t waste five seconds of my time,” she said.Booking pictures of those Trump aides and allies who have so far surrendered in Georgia have now been released.Here is the official booking picture of Giuliani:Here are some for more of the co-defendants:Some levity, of a sort, for those wanting a slightly different angle on what until relatively recently would have been the outlandish, outrageous prospect of a former US president being booked at an Atlanta jail on charges including racketeering and conspiracy, related to an attempt to overturn an election.Bookies are offering punters the chance to bet on what Donald Trump’s recorded weight will be when he surrenders at the Fulton County Jail tomorrow. As the Daily Beast puts it, perennially pleasingly snarky…
      The line currently sits over/under 278.5lb, a far cry from the 244lb White House physician Sean Conley recorded for Trump in 2020.
      As the Beast also notes, part of punters’ interest in the former president’s avoirdupois is fueled by the purest schadenfreude, if I might overdo the pretentious italics. Trump, of course, has a habit of abusing his opponents, critics and enemies – see Christie, Chris and O’Donnell, Rosie, passim – about their body mass index.Trump’s height will also be taken. His 2020 White House physical said he was 6ft 3in tall. There is speculation, widespread, that the truth is different:Here’s a slightly fuller version of comments from Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor turned Trump attorney, after his surrender in Atlanta on charges including conspiracy and racketeering.Speaking to reporters, and laughing as he did so, Giuliani said he was “very, very honoured to be involved in this case because this case is a fight for our way of life”.“This indictment is a travesty,” he said. “It’s an attack on not just me, not just President [Donald] Trump, this is an attack on the American people. If this could happen to me, who is probably the most prolific prosecutor maybe in American history and the most effective mayor for sure, it can happen to you.”Giuliani was indeed a prolific prosecutor, back in New York before he became mayor and briefly, after leading New York on and after 9/11, dreamt of a rise to the White House.As US attorney in Manhattan, he memorably cracked down on organised crime by using racketeering statutes.It’s safe to say his current predicament in relation to similar such statutes … has been noticed by quite a few observers.I typed “Giuliani irony” into Google, and this and this and this came up. And more.Here, meanwhile, is some further reading about what Michael Cohen, another Trump attorney who turned on his old boss after being sent to jail, had to say the other day about Trump, Giuliani and the concept of payment for legal services rendered …Doug Burgum, governor of North Dakota and GOP presidential candidate, said he will consult a physician before deciding if he will participate at tonight’s debate, after injuring his leg at a basketball game yesterday.Speaking to CNN’s Dana Bash, Burgum said his debate walkthrough went well despite tearing his achilles tendon.Fulton County officials have released the mug shot of Kenneth Chesebro, the alleged architect of Donald Trump’s fake electors plot.Chesebro surrendered at the Fulton county jail earlier on Wednesday.Here’s the mug shot, as shared by CBS’ Scott MacFarlane:Rudy Giuliani claims he is being indicted because he was a lawyer for Donald Trump.The former New York mayor accuses the FBI of having “stole(n) my iCloud account the day that I began representing Donald Trump”.Rudy Giuliani says the Fulton county district office’s case against him, Donald Trump and his co-defendants is “an attack on the American people”.“If they can do this to me, they can do this to you,” he tells reporters.Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis “will go down in American history for having conducted one of the worst attacks on the American constitution”, Giuliani says.Rudy Giuliani is speaking to reporters after he surrendered to authorities at the Fulton county jail on charges that he helped lead a racketeering enterprise and conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia.Asked if he regretted attaching his name to Donald Trump, Giuliani replied:
      I am very, very honoured to be involved in this because this case is a fight for our way of life.
      This indictment is a travesty. It’s an attack on not just me, not just President Trump, not just the people in this indictment, some of them I don’t even know.
      Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis sharply rejected efforts by two of Donald Trump’s co-defendants – former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and Jeffrey Clark – to move their sprawling racketeering cases to federal court.From my colleague Sam Levine:Rudy Giuliani left Manhattan in the morning to travel to Atlanta with his lead lawyer, John Esposito, on a private jet, though the source of the funding for the plane remains uncertain given Giuliani has struggled financially in the wake of mounting legal bills.Giuliani’s financial trouble stemming from having to retain lawyers for the congressional and federal criminal investigations into efforts to subvert the 2020 election results have become particularly acute in recent weeks, according to two people familiar with the matter.The money problems have been exacerbated by Giuliani’s recent setbacks in court – including in a defamation case against two Georgia election workers he falsely accused of stealing ballots – and the suspension of his law license over his election subversion efforts means he has few income streams.The situation has led to Giuliani listing his Manhattan apartment for sale for more than $6m. He also travelled to Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in April to ask the former president to help pay his legal bills after Trump rejected his earlier entreaties for support, the people said.When that trip failed to convince Trump to have his Save America political action committee pay for Giuliani’s legal bills, in the way that Trump has doled out $21m for aides’ legal bills tied up in the criminal investigations, Giuliani’s son Andrew made his own trip to see Trump.Trump has never explained why he has consistently refused to help Giuliani, but people in his orbit point to Trump’s complaints that Giuliani was defeated in almost every 2020 election lawsuit that he brought.But the meeting with Andrew Giuliani appears to have helped, and Trump agreed to attend two fundraisers, the people said. Trump will host a $100,000-per-person fundraiser at his Bedminster club in New Jersey next month, according to an invitation reviewed by the New York Times.Rudy Giuliani’s surrender to authorities at the Fulton county jail marks a jarring moment for Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor who made his name with aggressive racketeering cases, now facing a racketeering charge himself.Alongside Donald Trump, Giuliani faces the most charges in the sprawling 41-count indictment handed up by a grand jury last week that described how he played a principal role in marshalling fake slates of electors among other schemes to reverse Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election.The bond for Giuliani was set at $150,000 after his lawyers met with the Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis earlier in the day. The amount was slightly less than the $200,000 bond for Trump but more than the $100,000 bond for another former Trump lawyer, Sidney Powell.Meanwhile, Joe Biden and his family are on vacation in Lake Tahoe.The president, first lady and members of the Biden family “are taking a Pilates class followed by a spin class”, the White House said earlier.AP’s Seung Min Kim shared a photo of Biden after his pilates and spin classes:Democrats will be denied political oxygen on Wednesday night but hope to turn this to their advantage by framing all the Republican candidates as Donald Trump-adjacent extremists.At a press conference on the top floor of a downtown Milwaukee hotel, Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said:
      Tonight, in prime time, Americans will have an opportunity to see in action the most extreme, the most divisive, the most chaotic slate of presidential candidates in history when these Maga 2024 Republicans take the debate stage here in Milwaukee, and I don’t know if it’s going to be a debate, but more like a circus.
      They may try to differentiate themselves but the truth is that every single one of these candidates from Donald Trump on down are extreme.
      Harrison went on to list the candidates one by one, setting out their positions on abortion, pushing conspiracy theories and past associations with the Tea Party or Trump.
      No matter who you pick, this group is as extreme as it gets. A bag full of Maga apples and they are all rotten. They are wildly out of step with the American people.
      He attempted to draw a contrast between the two parties. “We believe that our better days as a nation are ahead of us, not behind us. They believe that our better days are behind us and that is the difference in this election.
      Joe Biden wakes up every day thinking about how to make the lives of the American people better. They wake up every day thinking about how do I get back in power? That is the difference between the Democratic party led by Joe Biden and a Republican party led by Maga extremists.
      Satya Rhodes-Conway, the mayor of Madison, Wisconsin, accused Republicans of pushing a national abortion ban. “Let me be crystal clear about this: the 2024 Maga Republican presidential candidates are running on their extreme anti-choice records,” she said.
      I’m sure that they’re going to talk about freedom on the debate stage tonight. But what about the freedom to make my own health care decisions? I guess that their version of freedom doesn’t include women.
      Rhodes-Conway added:
      Here’s the bottom line: the American people don’t want anything to do with their abortion bans. Voters in states all across this great country, including right here in Wisconsin, have made it clear that the craven abortion bans are wildly unpopular and out of step with the American public.
      Rudy Giuliani has turned himself in at the Fulton county jail over charges tied to his efforts to help Donald Trump overturn the 2020 presidential election.The former New York City mayor and longtime Trump ally faces 13 charges that include racketeering, soliciting lawmakers to violate their oaths of office, making false statements and conspiracy counts dealing with the recruitment of fake electors.Here’s a look at the Fulton county jail records, as shared by NBC’s Blayne Alexander:Rudy Giuliani has arrived at the Fulton county jail and surrendered to authorities, according to the county sheriff’s website.The former New York mayor and lawyer for Donald Trump faces charges in the sprawling Georgia elections racketeering case. At a meeting earlier today with Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis’ team, Giuliani’s bond was set at $150,000.“I’m feeling very, very good about it because I feel like I am defending the rights of all Americans, as I did so many times as a United States attorney,” Giuliani told reporters in New York this morning. More

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      Trump co-defendant Mark Meadows seeks emergency order to protect him from arrest in Georgia – as it happened

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      From 2h agoMark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, has filed an emergency motion to a federal court to “protect” him from arrest by Fulton county law enforcement, according to court documents.The filing by Meadows’ legal team comes after he was denied a request to delay the arrest while he tries to move his case to federal court.Meadows claims that his alleged actions, including participating with Donald Trump in a phone call to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, should be immune from state prosecution because they were performed in his capacity as a federal official.Hello again, US politics live blog readers. It’s been a very interesting day, especially in terms of a certain election-related criminal racketeering case in Georgia … This blog will be back on Wednesday for all the political news during the day but also live coverage of the first Republican debate of the 2024 election campaign in the evening. Do click join us then, but for now, this blog will close. You can read the separate story on Mark Meadows that has just launched on our site here.Here’s where things stand:
      Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff to Donald Trump, filed an emergency motion to a federal court to “protect” him from arrest by Fulton county law enforcement in Georgia.
      The majority of likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers said they believe Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election, according to a new poll.
      Jenna Ellis and Mike Roman, two of the defendants in the Georgia election subversion case against Donald Trump, entered bond agreements, for $100,000 and $50,000 respectively.
      Biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, a contender for the Republican presidential nomination, attempted to clarify conspiracy-tinged remarks he made earlier this week about the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US, and the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump hoping to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
      Jeffrey Clark, a former justice department official, and David Shafer, one of the Georgia fake electors, who were charged with Donald Trump in the election subversion case in the state, filed to move the case from state to federal court.
      Shawn Still, who was also charged in the state’s election subversion case, reached a $10,000 bond agreement with prosecutors.
      Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, and Vivek Ramaswamy will stand center stage at Wednesday night’s first Republican presidential nomination debate, according to a lineup released by the Republican National Committee.
      You can read our latest full report here:Joe Biden was briefed earlier today on the extreme weather that is affecting many parts of the US, according to the White House. The US president also talked to national security adviser Jake Sullivan on the topic and was warned of the peak of the hurricane season that is approaching.Now Biden has issued a statement and unequivocally linked the severity of the weather to the climate crisis:
      Across the country, people are experiencing the devastating impacts of extreme weather worsened by climate change. As peak hurricane season approaches, my administration continues taking action to bolster the country’s preparedness, and support response and recovery efforts.
      I continue to be briefed on Tropical Storm Harold and its potential impacts on South Texas.
      Biden said the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) was deploying. Our latest story on Tropical Storm Harold is here.Biden’s statement also said:
      I have also been briefed on Tropical Storm Franklin, and I directed FEMA to pre-deploy personnel and resources to Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.
      Former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega is highly unimpressed with the efforts of Mark Meadows’ legal team in trying to stave off the prospect of arrest of the former chief of staff to Donald Trump if he doesn’t surrender to be booked in the Georgia election subversion case.There has been some frantic correspondence between Meadows’ team and Fulton county DA Fani Willis.And this:Meanwhile, Jewel Wicker’s recent profile of Willis is a good read, here.Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis doesn’t mince her words.There are some choice reactions from legal experts.And there was this before the latest request, after Meadows asked for his Georgia case to be moved to federal court.Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants face a Friday deadline to surrender after being charged in the Georgia 2020 election subversion case.The Fulton county district attorney, Fani Willis, has set a deadline of noon on Friday, 25 August, for Trump and his co-defendants to voluntarily turn themselves in to be booked.On Monday, Trump said he plans to surrender to authorities on Thursday to face charges including criminal conspiracy, filing false documents and violating the Georgia Rico Act.The first two co-defendants have already surrendered today – Georgia bail bondsman Scott Hall and former Trump lawyer John Eastman.In the court filing, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows pointed to the Fulton county court’s plans to hold a hearing on Monday on his request that his case be moved to federal court.The filing reads:
      District Attorney Fani Willis has made clear that she intends to arrest Mr Meadows before this Court’s Monday hearing and has rejected out of hand a reasonable request to defer one business day until after this Court’s hearing.
      Absent this Court’s intervention, Mr Meadows will be denied the protection from arrest that federal law affords former federal officials, and this Court’s prompt but orderly consideration of removal will be frustrated.
      Mark Meadows, the former White House chief of staff, has filed an emergency motion to a federal court to “protect” him from arrest by Fulton county law enforcement, according to court documents.The filing by Meadows’ legal team comes after he was denied a request to delay the arrest while he tries to move his case to federal court.Meadows claims that his alleged actions, including participating with Donald Trump in a phone call to Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger, should be immune from state prosecution because they were performed in his capacity as a federal official.John Eastman, the lawyer facing criminal charges for his alleged efforts to overturn Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, made a statement to the press after turning himself in to the Fulton county jail earlier today.Eastman, who has been charged with nine felony counts, including criminal conspiracy, solicitation, filing false documents and violating the Rico Act, said he would “vigorously” contest every count of the indictment in which he had been named.He said he was “confident that when the law is faithfully applied in this proceeding, all of my co-defendants and I will be fully vindicated”.Asked by a reporter if he still believed the 2020 election was stolen, Eastman replied:
      Absolutely. No question in my mind.
      In December 2020, Eastman reportedly helped orchestrate the plan for Georgia Republican electors to meet and sign a fraudulent certificate that said Trump won the election in what is now known as the fake electors scheme.He also drafted a six-point memo that directed former vice-president Mike Pence to refuse to certify electoral votes on 6 January 2021.The majority of likely Iowa Republican caucus-goers said they believe Donald Trump won the 2020 presidential election, according to a new poll.The NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll found that 51% of likely caucus-goers said they believe Trump’s claims that he won in 2020, despite no evidence of widespread election fraud, while 41% said they don’t, and 8% said they are not sure. The poll included both Republican and independent voters.Of those who said they believed Trump’s claims were a majority of self-identified Republicans (60%), those making less than $70,000 a year (69%), evangelicals (62%) and those without college degrees (59%), the poll showed.Of those who listed Trump as their first-choice candidate, 83% said they believe he won the 2020 election.Two-thirds of respondents, or 65%, said Trump has not committed serious crimes, despite him being indicted four times over the past year.Jenna Ellis and Mike Roman, two of the defendants in the Georgia election subversion case against Donald Trump, have entered bond agreements in Fulton county, Georgia, for $100,000 and $50,000 respectively.Ellis, a Trump campaign attorney and former Colorado prosecutor, spread multiple statements claiming voter fraud during the 2020 election and sent at least two memos advising Mike Pence to reject Biden’s victory in Georgia and other states. She was ordered to appear before the special grand jury in 2022.Earlier this year, the Colorado supreme court censured Ellis for making false statements and she acknowledged making misrepresentations as part of the agreement.A former Trump campaign staffer, Roman was involved in the plot to deliver lists of fake electors to Pence on 6 January 2021 in a bid to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s victory.A former White House aide, he served as Trump’s director of election day operations and attempted to convince state legislators to unlawfully appoint alternate electors, according to the indictment.From Politico’s Kyle Cheney:The former Texas congressman Will Hurd, who is running for the GOP presidential nomination, did not qualify for Wednesday night’s Republican primary debate in Milwaukee, after his performance in a series of polls fell short of requirements set by the Republican national committee.Hurd has also refused to sign the party’s pledge to support its eventual nominee – another RNC requirement to take part in the debate.Hurd is one of the few GOP candidates prepared to attack Donald Trump in strong terms, not least over scheduled trials that include civil cases over defamation and a rape allegation and investigations of his business affairs.In a statement, Hurd said he was disappointed to be kept off the debate stage but said he would not be deterred.
      I have said from day one of my candidacy that I will not sign a blood oath to Donald Trump. The biggest difference between me and every single candidate who will be on the debate stage in Milwaukee is that I have never bent the knee to Trump. More