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      Senate eyes vote on Ukraine aid and border security as House adjourns – as it happened

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      The Senate majority leader, Democrat Chuck Schumer, said yesterday that negotiators had made “good progress” in their talks regarding a supplemental funding package aimed at providing aid to Ukraine and reforming immigration policy.“The plan is for the Senate to act as soon as we are ready to move forward on the supplemental,” Schumer said yesterday.“We hope to come to an agreement. But no matter what, members should be aware that we will vote on a supplemental proposal next week.”The timeline will force senators to delay their planned holiday recess, although Schumer did not provide a specific schedule for next week.Even if the Senate can get a funding bill passed, it would still need to pass the House, which adjourned yesterday for its own holiday recess and is not expected to return to session until the new year.Despite the apparent progress in the Senate, the House speaker, Republican Mike Johnson, has indicated he will not call members back from their recess even if a supplemental funding bill passes the upper chamber.Johnson said yesterday, “While that work should continue, the House will not wait around to receive and debate a rushed product.”Here’s what else is happening today:
      Hungary blocked the EU from approving a €50bn aid package to Ukraine. The move came hours after EU leaders agreed to open membership talks with Ukraine.
      Republicans named Nassau County legislator Mazi Melesa Pilip as their nominee to replace George Santos in the House. The special election has been scheduled for 13 February.
      A federal appeals court will consider a request from Mark Meadows, Donald Trump’s former chief of staff, to move his case from state to federal court. Meadows has been charged by Fulton county prosecutors over his role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.
      That’s it from me today. Here’s what happened in US politics on this relatively sleepy Friday:
      The Senate is continuing to negotiate over a supplemental funding package to provide aid to Ukraine and money for border security. The secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, met with senators on Capitol Hill today as the talks continue. However, the House has already adjourned for its holiday recess, so it is unclear how a spending package could pass both chambers of Congress before the end of the year.
      Negotiators are reportedly hoping to reach a deal on the package as early as Sunday, but it will likely take more time to draft text of a bill. That text will then be closely scrutinized by lawmakers of both parties as well as immigrant rights groups.
      The jury in Rudy Giuliani’s defamation trial resumed its deliberations today, but jurors have not yet reached a decision on what damages the former Trump lawyer should pay to the former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss. Freeman and Moss’s lawyer argued that Giuliani substantially damaged their reputations by spreading lies about them related to Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
      The New York Times reported that the supreme court justice Neil Gorsuch took just 10 minutes to sign off on Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion overturning Roe v Wade in 2022. The Times reports: “Justice Alito appeared to have pregamed it among some of the conservative justices, out of view from other colleagues, to safeguard a coalition more fragile than it looked.”
      The blog will be back on Monday for more updates from Washington.Following a 90-minute meeting with the secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, this morning, one of the Democratic negotiators in the immigration talks, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, expressed optimism about the direction of the negotiations.“It’s a very aggressive goal to get this on the floor next week, but there’s a lot of good faith in that room,” Murphy said, per Punchbowl News. “There are still disagreements. We continue to work at it.”Meetings are expected to continue this afternoon and into the weekend, as the Senate hopes to hold a vote next week on a supplemental funding package.Congress has taken steps to restrict public access to records related to UFOs, the Guardian’s Richard Liscombe reports:If the truth about UFOs is out there, the American government doesn’t want you to see it yet.Just months after US space agency Nasa appointed a research director of unidentified anomalous phenomena, and promised more transparency about what it knows, the US Congress has acted to throttle the flow of information that ultimately reaches the public.Measures to create a presidential commission to review UFO records, and to order the Department of Defense to declassify certain “records relating to publicly known sightings of unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP)”, were stripped from the sweeping defense policy bill that passed Congress on Thursday with bipartisan support.What was left were provisions ordering the National Archives to collect reports of “unidentified anomalous phenomena, technologies of unknown origin and nonhuman intelligence”, but giving various government departments broad authority to keep the records secret.Read the Guardian’s full report:While many hard-right Republicans remain staunchly opposed to sending more money to Ukraine, one prominent Democrat warned that their rhetoric risked empowering dictators.In response to Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s visit to Washington earlier this week, congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, a hard-right Republican of Georgia, accused the Ukrainian president of “begging for your money”.“How much money will Washington spend to slaughter an entire generation of young Ukrainian men as Washington fights it’s proxy war with Russia?” Greene said Tuesday. “Shame!”Congressman Steny Hoyer, a Democrat of Maryland and the former House majority leader, responded to the comment today, attacking Greene for promoting the interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin.“No sweeter Christmas gift to Vladimir Putin than statements like this,” Hoyer said. “Our inaction warms the heart of dictators and despots across the globe.”Joe Biden will “have an LBJ moment” and decide not to run for re-election next year, the leftwing academic and independent presidential candidate Cornel West has predicted.“I’m not even sure whether I’ll be running against Biden,” West told Politico. “Biden – I think he’s going to have an LBJ moment [and] pull back.”West was referring to the moment on 31 March 1968 when Lyndon B Johnson, in office since the assassination of John F Kennedy in November 1963, announced that he would not seek re-election.Already the oldest president ever sworn in, Biden is 81 and would be 86 at the end of a second term. In polling, clear majorities say he is too old.Read the Guardian’s full report:In a moment of levity before the holidays, comedian Conan O’Brien visited the White House press briefing room and chatted with reporters.“They won’t let me take questions,” O’Brien joked. “But, boy, I have the answers to everything.”O’Brien explained that he was visiting the White House because he is a “huge history buff slash nerd” who has toured the building a number of times.Watch the full clip:A Senate deal to overhaul border policies could be unveiled as early as Sunday, sources told Semafor. But it remains unclear how quickly senators can compile the text of a bill, which will be closely scrutinized by immigration groups.One of the chief negotiators, Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, told reporters that they were “making progress” in their talks and would hold more meetings this afternoon and over the weekend.The Senate majority leader, Democrat Chuck Schumer, has already indicated he wants to hold a vote on a supplemental funding package next week, and he has delayed the chamber’s holiday recess to accommodate a potential vote.Congressman Steny Hoyer, a Democrat of Maryland and the former House majority leader, is imploring the House speaker, Republican Mike Johnson, to call the chamber back to session if the Senate passes a supplemental funding package.In a letter sent to Johnson today, Hoyer argued the House must act swiftly if the Senate reaches a deal on Ukraine aid and border policy changes.“As Members return to their districts for the holidays and the people of Ukraine and Israel continue to wait anxiously for supplemental aid, I write to urge you to call the House back within 72 hours of the Senate passing legislation to provide additional assistance to our allies,” Hoyer wrote.“We ought to have secured these vital resources for our allies months ago. There is no cause that demands the attention of this Congress more than the preservation of democracy, freedom, and our national defense.”So far, Johnson has shown little interest in calling members back from their holiday recess, saying yesterday: “The House will not wait around to receive and debate a rushed product.”The US supreme court has refused to overturn an Illinois ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition, Michael Sainato reports:The court rejected the request, made by a gun shop and a national gun rights group in an appeal of a lower court’s decision not to allow a preliminary injunction to block the law.A previous injunction request was also denied by the supreme court in May 2023. As is customary, the justices did not comment on their denial of the injunction.The latest request came from a firearms retailer owned by Robert Bevis in Naperville and the National Association for Gun Rights.In November 2023, a US appeals court upheld the Illinois assault weapons ban, rejecting appeals that challenged the law by claiming it violated the second amendment of the US constitution.Read the Guardian’s full report:Here’s where the day stands so far:
      The Senate is continuing to negotiate over a supplemental funding package to provide aid to Ukraine and money for border security. The secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, was spotted on Capitol Hill today as the talks continue. However, the House has already adjourned for its holiday recess, so it is unclear how a spending package could pass both chambers of Congress before the end of the year.
      The jury in Rudy Giuliani’s defamation trial resumed its deliberations today, as jurors weigh what damages the former Trump lawyer should pay to Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and her daughter Shaye Moss. Freeman and Moss’ lawyer argued that Giuliani substantially damaged their reputations by spreading lies about them related to Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
      The New York Times reported that supreme court Justice Neil Gorsuch took just 10 minutes to sign off on Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion overturning Roe v Wade in 2022. The Times reports: “Justice Alito appeared to have pregamed it among some of the conservative justices, out of view from other colleagues, to safeguard a coalition more fragile than it looked.”
      The blog will have more coming up, so stay tuned.The secretary of homeland security, Alejandro Mayorkas, was seen leaving Capitol Hill after meeting with senators to continue talks over a potential deal on border policy changes.The cabinet secretary did not answer reporters’ questions as he left the Capitol, per Punchbowl News, so it is unclear what (if any) progress was made in the negotiations.The conservative supreme court justice Neil Gorsuch took just 10 minutes to approve without changes a 98-page draft of the opinion that would remove the federal right to abortion that had been guaranteed for nearly 50 years, the New York Times reported.According to the paper, Samuel Alito, the author of the opinion in Dobbs v Jackson, the case that struck down Roe v Wade, from 1973, circulated his draft at 11.16am on 10 February 2022.Citing two people who saw communications between the justices, the Times said: “After a justice shares an opinion inside the court, other members scrutinise it. Those in the majority can request revisions, sometimes as the price of their votes, sweating sentences or even words.“But this time, despite the document’s length, Justice Neil M Gorsuch wrote back just 10 minutes later to say that he would sign on to the opinion and had no changes.”Three other conservatives – Clarence Thomas, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh – signed on in the following days.Read the Guardian’s full report: More

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      Hakeem Jeffries singles out Republican ‘pro-Putin caucus’ opposing Ukraine aid

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      The Democratic US House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, has dismissed certain Republican colleagues as the “pro-Putin caucus” amid a congressional fight over whether to send more aid to Ukraine in its efforts to fend off Russian invaders.During an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Jeffries singled out the far-right House firebrands Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jim Jordan as the face of a “loud and … growing” movement aiming to undermine a $61bn military aid package that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy lobbied for during a trip to Washington DC on Tuesday.Jeffries told the network that Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson, the ex-Fox News host who is friendly with the former president, were like-minded figures from outside Capitol Hill whose stance can only benefit the prospects of victory in Ukraine for the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin.“The pro-Putin caucus … is extreme,” the New York representative remarked. “And it seems increasingly clear that this pro-Putin caucus would like to see Vladimir Putin win in Ukraine.”This interview with Jeffries came as nearly all of the $62.3bn in Ukraine allocations previously approved by Congress had been used up after Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Greene, Jordan and other Republicans who hold a slim majority in the House have urged their fellow legislators to end monetary and military aid to Ukraine so that they can instead focus on issues at the US border with Mexico.Joe Biden on Tuesday said that position had prompted expressions of gratitude from Russian television personalities, who say it has helped the forces invading Ukraine. Nonetheless, the Democratic president’s administration was under pressure from Republicans to grant concessions on US-Mexico border security as a condition for a deal to provide continued aid for Ukraine.Zelenskiy went to the US capital on Tuesday and reportedly reassured legislators that such additional assistance would not go to waste because of corruption.Elsewhere in his CNN interview, Jeffries said a Russian victory in Ukraine “would be bad for America’s national security, which is why it’s an open question as to whether House Republicans are serious at all about funding the Ukrainian war efforts”.The network on Wednesday also asked Jeffries to address mounting Republican efforts to hold a formal vote to launch an impeachment inquiry into Biden.Republicans spent months investigating business dealings by Biden and his son Hunter in hopes of finding improprieties that could form a basis for an impeachment. Some in their party are worried that investigators have not found misconduct by the president, but House Republicans on Wednesday were nonetheless pushing for a vote to formally authorize an impeachment inquiry into Biden.Jeffries accused Republicans of doing Trump’s bidding by staging the effort to impeach Biden.Trump is facing more than 90 criminal charges accusing him of trying to illegally overturn his defeat to Biden in the 2020 presidential election, of improperly retaining government secrets after leaving the White House, and of illicitly paying hush money to a pornographic film performer. Assorted civil litigation has also threatened his business ventures and resulted in a rape accusation that a judge deemed “substantially true”.“There is zero evidence that President Biden has engaged in an impeachable offense,” said Jeffries, who called the proposed vote “a political hit job”. He added: “There is zero evidence that President Biden has engaged in any wrongdoing whatsoever. There is zero evidence that President Biden has broken the law.“The Republicans … can’t find a scintilla of evidence to justify this impeachment inquiry.” More

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      in Elections

      Biden: Putin ‘banking’ on the US failing to deliver for Ukraine – video

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      Speaking after a White House meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, US president Joe Biden said the US will support Ukraine in its war with Russia ‘as long as we can’. ‘Putin is banking on the United States failing to deliver for Ukraine. We must, we must, we must prove him wrong,’ Biden said. The US president continued, highlighting praise for Republicans by a Russian TV host and said: ‘If you’re being celebrated by Russian propagandists, it might be time to rethink what you’re doing. History … will judge harshly’ More

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      Zelenskiy struggles to get US Republicans to back $61bn Ukraine military aid package

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      Volodymyr Zelenskiy has struggled to persuade US Republicans to support a $61bn military aid package for Ukraine on a trip to Washington DC, with objectors insisting on White House concessions on border security as a condition for a deal.The Ukrainian president addressed members of the Senate in a closed 90-minute meeting on Tuesday morning, but afterwards key Republicans repeated that they wanted to see a crackdown on immigration between the US and Mexico in return for supporting the package.Speaking afterwards, Lindsey Graham, a senator for South Carolina, told reporters that he had told Zelenskiy that the problem was “nothing to do with you”. He added: “I said: ‘You’ve done everything anybody could ask of you. This is not your problem here.’”The senior Republican went on to accuse the White House of having failed to tackle the southern border issue and called for “the commander in chief” – Joe Biden – to become personally involved in the negotiations.Senate Republicans last week blocked an emergency aid package primarily for Ukraine and Israel after conservatives complained at the exclusion of immigration policy changes they had demanded as part of the package.Zelenskiy sought to reassure senators concerned about whether US military aid would be wasted because of corruption, Mike Rounds, a Republican, told CNN, and that Ukraine needed more air defence systems to support its counteroffensives.Senior Democrats, meanwhile, expressed frustration with the lack of progress. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, said “The one person happiest right now about the gridlock in Congress is Vladimir Putin. He is delighting in the fact that Donald Trump’s border policies are sabotaging military aid to Ukraine.”The Ukrainian president then moved on to a meeting with Hakeem Jeffries, the Democrat House minority leader, and after that with the recently elected Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, who has been relatively sceptical about further financial support for Ukraine.After their meeting, Johnson complained that the White House was asking Congress to approve the spending of billions of dollars “with no appropriate oversight, without a clear strategy to win”.Johnson added that “our first condition on any national security supplemental spending package is about our own national security first” but he also insisted that the US did stand with Zelenskiy “against Putin’s brutal invasion”.Zelenskiy posted a picture on X, formerly Twitter, of him addressing senators, saying he had had “a friendly and candid conversation”. He emphasised the importance of US military aid in his country’s fight against Russia.Moscow said it was watching developments closely. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, said that “tens of billions of dollars” already provided by Washington had failed to turn the tide of war and more money would make little difference. Zelenskiy’s authority was being undermined by the failures, he added.Congress is due to break for the year on Friday and there appeared little prospect of a breakthrough that would allow a funding package to be passed before then – meaning that negotiations will have to pick up in the new year at a time when the amounts available to Ukraine are running short.Last week, Shalanda Young, the White House’s director of the office of management and budget, said that the Pentagon had used up 97% of the $62.3bn Ukraine allocations previously authorised by Congress, while the state department has none of its $4.7bn remaining.Zelenskiy is due to hold a private meeting with Biden and a joint press conference in the afternoon. The White House has previously signalled it is willing to make concessions on the Mexico border issue as it tries to get the funding package through.Adrienne Watson, spokesperson for the White House national security council, said Russia believes that “a military deadlock through the winter will drain western support for Ukraine”, ultimately handing Moscow the advantage.Newly declassified US intelligence concluded that the war had cost Russia 315,000 dead and injured troops, amounting to nearly 90% of the personnel it had before the war, started in February 2022.In Ukraine, the country’s biggest mobile phone network, Kyivstar, was badly hit on Tuesday by what appeared to be the largest cyber-attack of the war with Russia so far. Phone signals, the internet and some of Kyiv region’s air alert system were knocked out, in an attack that the company’s chief executive was “a result of” the war with Russia.Ukrainian sources indicated that the attack was not financially motivated, but destructive in nature, and it was unclear who precisely was responsible. The country’s SBU intelligence service said it was investigating whether the attack had been directed by one of Russia’s intelligence agencies. More

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      Biden infuriated by Ukraine impasse but Republicans refuse to bend over border

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      It is an astonishing bit of horse-trading over Ukraine that has left Democrats infuriated, even baffled. After Senate Republicans blocked a supplemental funding package on Wednesday to aid the country in its fight against the Russian invasion, demanding tough new southern border controls in exchange, the chamber’s leading Democrat took to the floor.Calling it “a sad night in the history of the Senate”, Chuck Schumer bemoaned the vote as a disappointing reflection on the country, a step away from letting Vladimir Putin “walk right through Ukraine and right through Europe”.“Republicans just blocked a very much needed proposal to send funding for Ukraine, funding for Israel, humanitarian aid for innocent civilians in Gaza, and funding for the Indo-Pacific,” Schumer said.“If there is a word for what we most need now, it is to be serious.”The 49-51 vote reflected a growing trend in Congress that has become a source of distress for the White House. When Russia first invaded Ukraine in February 2022, aiding Kyiv was a bipartisan project. In May of that year, a $40bn Ukraine aid package sailed through the House with a vote of 368-57, and the Senate with a vote of 86 -11.But as the war has stretched on, more Republican lawmakers have turned against aid to Ukraine, embracing Donald Trump’s “America first” approach to foreign policy. When the House voted in September on a bill to provide $300m to train and equip Ukrainian fighters, a majority of Republicans – 117 members – opposed it.Republicans also now have more power in Congress than they did when the war in Ukraine began. Although Democrats previously controlled both chambers, Republicans now hold a narrow majority in the House. That new strength has emboldened them to insist that any supplemental funding for Ukraine also include robust border security measures, many of which are unpalatable to Democrats.The standoff comes at a dangerous point in Ukraine’s fight against Russia. The White House has warned that the US is “out of money and nearly out of time” to assist Ukraine, suggesting the Russian military will soon gain ground in the war without another infusion of funding for Kyiv.Democrats and Republicans have been negotiating over a potential compromise on border measures to get the aid package across the finish line, but those talks stalled out over the weekend. On Wednesday Joe Biden accused Republicans of negotiating in bad faith.“Republicans think they can get everything they want without any bipartisan compromise. That’s not the answer,” Biden said. “And now they’re willing to literally kneecap Ukraine on the battlefield and damage our national security in the process.”Despite the stark rhetoric, Republicans have presented a united front in their demands for more severe changes to immigration policy. Even Republican lawmakers who remain strongly supportive of additional Ukraine aid, such as the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, have embraced this stance. On Wednesday, McConnell joined his 48 Republican colleagues in opposing the motion to advance the aid package, and he rejected Schumer’s exhortation to “get serious” about threats to democracy.“It is profoundly unserious to pretend that national security priorities don’t include securing our nation’s borders, to warn about borders in jeopardy and not start with the one that’s being overrun here at home,” McConnell said on Thursday. “I’m not in need of any lectures about on the gravity of the challenges facing national security today.”The gridlock has angered and at times perplexed Democrats. In their minds, sending financial aid to US allies such as Ukraine benefits the entire country and thus should be an area of common ground between the two parties. But the recent negotiations appear to have reframed Ukraine aid as a Democratic priority that can only be achieved through concessions to Republicans, specifically on the issue of immigration. That shifting dynamic has not escaped the notice of some frustrated Democrats on Capitol Hill.“I think I’m going to demand that we pass an assault weapons ban or I won’t fund Ukraine,” Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat of Connecticut, told HuffPost. “I guess that’s how things get done around here.”Despite that frustration, Biden appeared open to continuing negotiations on Wednesday, saying he was willing to make “significant compromises on the border” to advance the aid package. McConnell similarly described Wednesday’s failed vote as “a new opportunity to make real progress on legislation that addresses urgent national security priorities”.Schumer also appeared prepared to reopen negotiations on Wednesday, even as he implored Republicans to “come up with something serious instead of the extreme policies they’ve presented thus far”.“This is a serious moment that will have lasting consequences for the 21st century. If Ukraine falls, Putin will not stop there. He will be emboldened,” Schumer said.“Western democracy will begin to enter an age of decline if we aren’t willing to defend it. This Senate – this Republican party – must get serious.” More

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      David Cameron urges US Republicans to send Ukraine more long-range weapons

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      David Cameron has used his first trip to the US since his appointment as the UK’s foreign secretary to urge the Republican party to back Ukraine with more long-range weapons, saying the aid represented tremendous value for money.He said for 10% of the US defence budget nearly half of Russia’s prewar military assets had been destroyed. Urging the west be patient about the pace of Ukraine military advances, he argued no red line should be set on western aid save Nato troops directly fighting Russia.“There is nothing that will drive Russia further back and put Putin more on the back foot than actually seeing that Crimea, which is legally part of Ukraine, is properly under attack from Ukrainian forces,” Lord Cameron said. He said that would require the further supply of long-range weaponry.In a change of UK tone if not policy, he also called for the west to seize and not just freeze Russian central bank assets in the west, saying he had looked at all the arguments against making the move, including the potential chilling effect on investments in western economies or breaching past legal undertakings. “So far I have not seen anything that suggests it would be a bad idea,” he said.The seized assets should be used as a down payment for the reparations Russian will eventually have to pay for the illegal invasion of Ukraine, he said. Cameron was planning to raise the issue in talks with the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken.Speaking to an Aspen Security Forum in Washington, Cameron adopted a tone of optimism about Ukraine that has been absent in the British government since the departure of the former prime minister Boris Johnson.He urged Republicans not to be despondent about victory, saying Ukraine had taken back half the territory that Russia stole and sunk a fifth of the Russian Black Sea fleet.He said: “There are many aspects to this war that do look quite like the first world war, the deep trenches, the frozen lines, the big defensive elements and all of that but I think what you’ve seen is where we have gone further on weapons and helped, they can make an enormous difference.”US hesitancy led to Ukraine being supplied ACTMS long-range weapons for use only in October.“There has been a hesitancy over escalatory threats that has not been borne out,” Cameron said. “As long as you don’t cross the red line of Nato soldiers fighting Russia soldiers, we should do everything we can to continue to support Ukraine.”Cameron, who spent time in Congress meeting senior Republicans, said: “Putin’s invasion is the worst example of one state invading and wrecking the sovereignty of another state since the second world war.”On Wednesday the US Senate blocked a supplemental funding bill that included financial aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as well as provisions aimed at bolstering border security. Every Senate Republican opposed advancing the legislation. The 49 to 51 vote increases the likelihood that Congress will fail to approve more funding for Ukraine before the end of the year. More

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      Kevin McCarthy, ousted House speaker, says he will leave Congress at end of the year – US politics live

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      In an address today, Joe Biden urged Congress to pass his national security supplemental request, including funding to support Ukraine.Speaking from the White House’s Roosevelt Room, the president said:
      Congress has to uphold the national security needs of the United States and, quite frankly, of our partners as well. This cannot wait. Congress needs to pass supplemental funding for Ukraine before they break for the holiday recess. It’s as simple as that.
      Biden also touched on border policies, saying:
      Extreme Republicans are playing chicken with our national security, holding Ukraine’s funding hostage to their extreme partisan border policies.
      Let me be clear: we need real solutions. I support real solutions at the border. I put forward a comprehensive plan the first day I came into office. I’ve made it clear that we need Congress to make changes to fix what is a broken immigration system, because we all know it’s broken. And I’m willing to do significantly more. But in terms of changes to policy and to provide resources that we need at the border, I’m willing to change policy as well.
      The Senate has begun a procedural vote on Joe Biden’s national security supplemental funding request. Sixty votes are required surrounding the $106bn Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan funding.So far, there are 30 yes’s and 29 no’s. The voting remains underway.In an address today, Joe Biden urged Congress to pass his national security supplemental request, including funding to support Ukraine.Speaking from the White House’s Roosevelt Room, the president said:
      Congress has to uphold the national security needs of the United States and, quite frankly, of our partners as well. This cannot wait. Congress needs to pass supplemental funding for Ukraine before they break for the holiday recess. It’s as simple as that.
      Biden also touched on border policies, saying:
      Extreme Republicans are playing chicken with our national security, holding Ukraine’s funding hostage to their extreme partisan border policies.
      Let me be clear: we need real solutions. I support real solutions at the border. I put forward a comprehensive plan the first day I came into office. I’ve made it clear that we need Congress to make changes to fix what is a broken immigration system, because we all know it’s broken. And I’m willing to do significantly more. But in terms of changes to policy and to provide resources that we need at the border, I’m willing to change policy as well.
      A new school board president in Pennsylvania was sworn in on Monday on a stack of frequently banned books.In a video posted by the Recount, Karen Smith, the new Central Bucks school board president can be seen saying her vows on a stack of six banned books.According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the books include Night by Elie Wiesel, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Lily and Dunkin by Donna Gephart, All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M Johnson, Flamer by Mike Curato, and Beyond Magenta by Susan Kukin.According to the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF), between 1 January and 31 August, OIF reported 698 to censor library materials and services and documented challenges to 1,915 unique titles.The ban marks a 20% increase from the same reporting period in 2022, OIF said.Four Republican presidential candidates are set to meet onstage in Alabama tonight for the fourth Republican presidential debate.The Guardian’s Lauren Gambino reports:Four White House hopefuls will meet onstage in Alabama for the fourth Republican presidential primary debate, the smallest lineup yet as the window for denting Donald Trump’s lead narrows.Wednesday night’s debate, hosted by the cable network NewsNation at the Moody Music Hall at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, offers one of the last major opportunities for the candidates to make their case to Republican voters before the party’s nominating contest begins next month.The two-hour event will feature Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, and Nikki Haley, a former governor of South Carolina and former United Nations ambassador, who are locked in an increasingly combative scrap to be the second-place alternative to Trump. They will be joined by Chris Christie, a former governor of New Jersey and Vivek Ramaswamy, an entrepreneur, who both trail far behind.Read the full story here:Joe Biden has announced that his administration is approving another $4.8bn in student debt cancellation for 80,300 people.In a statement released on Wednesday, the president said that this brings the total debt cancellation that his administration has approved to $132bn for over 3.6 million Americans.Biden said:
      Today’s announcement comes on top of all we’ve been able to achieve for students and student loan borrowers in the past few years.
      This includes: achieving the largest increases in Pell Grants in over a decade to help families who earn less than roughly $60,000 a year; fixing the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program so that borrowers who go into public service get the debt relief they’re entitled to under the law; and creating the most generous Income-Driven Repayment plan in history – the Save plan.
      The Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison has released the following statement on Kevin McCarthy’s resignation announcement in which he said the US will be “better off without Kevin in office”:
      In his short time as speaker, Kevin McCarthy managed to plunge the People’s House into chaos in the name of serving one person and one person alone: Donald Trump. At every turn, Kevin sought to give his puppet master a lifeline, even after the horrific events of January 6, and spent his embarrassing speakership bending the knee to the most extreme factions of the MAGA base. This anticlimactic end to Kevin’s political career is in line with the rest of his time on Capitol Hill – plagued by cowardice, incompetence, and fecklessness. Our country will be better off without Kevin in office, but his failed tenure in the House should serve as a stark warning to the country about the future of the GOP – no matter how much he kowtowed to the extreme right, no matter how much he kissed the ring, none of it was MAGA enough for the de facto leader of the Republican Party, Donald Trump.
      Wisconsin’s Democratic governor Tony Evers has vetoed a Republican bill that would have banned gender-affirming care including surgeries and hormone treatments for minors in the state.In a statement released on Wednesday, Evers said:
      I promised I would veto any bill that makes Wisconsin a less safe, less inclusive, and less welcoming place for LGBTQ folks and kids—and I keep my promises.
      George Santos, the expelled Republican representative from New York, is reportedly making six figures by selling Cameo videos.The Guardian’s Gloria Oladipo reports:The disgraced lawmaker George Santos is reportedly making six figures by selling videos on the platform Cameo, generating more income than his previous salary as a US congressman, Semafor first reported.Santos, a former Republican representative from New York state, was expelled from Congress last Friday following a blistering ethics report that detailed his misuse of campaign funds.Since his removal, Santos has been publishing videos on Cameo, a website that allows users to purchase personalized videos from celebrities. The disgraced congressman has drastically increased the price of his videos, now selling them for $400 a pop from his initial $75-per-video price point.Read the full story here:Here is a video Kevin McCarthy released surrounding his resignation announcement:In the video, McCarthy said:
      Traveling the country and serving with all of you, I have encountered far more people that want to build something than those who want to tear it down. I have faith in this country because America is more than a country, America is an idea.
      Today, I am driven by the same purpose that I felt when I arrived in Congress but now it is time to pursue my passion in a different arena.
      Joe Biden has responded to a question on whether he thinks there are any Democrats who could beat Donald Trump other than himself.”Probably 50 of them,” replied Biden.He then went on to say, “I’m not the only one who can beat him, but I will beat him.”In response to Kevin McCarthy’s resignation announcement, California’s Democratic representative Adam Schiff said:
      “My dad asked me recently what I thought of Kevin McCarthy. In light of his retirement, I figured I’d share …”
      He went on to post a video in which he spoke about McCarthy, saying, “I think he’s a bad egg.”South Carolina’s Republican senator Lindsey Graham has released the following statement on Kevin McCarthy’s resignation announcement:
      I wish Kevin McCarthy well in his future endeavors to help the conservative cause. Kevin has much to be proud of, rising through the ranks to Minority Leader and Speaker of the House. He navigated the Republican Party through some of the most turbulent periods in recent history, getting results in difficult circumstances.
      “He will be missed, but I am sure his contributions to the future of the Republican Party will be enormous.”
      California’s Democratic representative Eric Swalwell, who predicted earlier this week that McCarthy would leave Congress, has responded to McCarthy’s resignation with a check mark emoji.Earlier this week, Swalwell tweeted:
      “With Santos gone, you’re hearing it here first: the next GOP member to leave Congress will be@SpeakerMcCarthy. No way he stays. A guy who kidney punches his colleagues from behind is too afraid to serve out a full term with them. I bet he’s gone by end of year. What say you?”
      In an odd and fairly threatening post, Georgia’s Republican representative Majorie Taylor Greene responded to the news of Kevin McCarthy resigning, saying:
      “Well..
      Now in 2024, we will have a 1 seat majority in the House of Representatives.
      Congratulations Freedom Caucus for one and 105 Rep who expel our own for the other.
      I can assure you Republican voters didn’t give us the majority to crash the ship.
      Hopefully no one dies.”
      Kevin McCarthy’s resignation will come before the special elections which are expected to take place either next February or March to fill the vacancy left by George Santos who was expelled from the House last Friday.With McCarthy gone, there will be two Republican vacancies in the House. More

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      in US Politics

      Senate Republicans set to block advancement of Ukraine-Israel aid bill

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      The Senate will hold a key procedural vote on whether to advance a supplemental funding bill that includes financial aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan as well as provisions aimed at bolstering border security.The vote, which will be held on Wednesday afternoon, is expected to fail due to opposition from Senate Republicans, who have demanded stricter border regulations in exchange for their support.The vote comes one day after Senate Democrats formally unveiled the $111bn supplemental security bill, reflecting the funding request that Joe Biden issued in October to provide assistance to the US’s allies abroad.Ahead of the vote, Biden delivered an address to urge Congress to pass the bill, warning that a failure to act would only benefit Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, in the war against Ukraine.“Who is prepared to walk away from holding Putin accountable for this behavior? Who among us is really prepared to do that?” Biden said. “I’m not prepared to walk away, and I don’t think the American people are either.”Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, addressed leaders of the G7 group of nations and called on them to confound Vladimir Putin by winning “the battle of motivations” and not showing weakness.The G7 leaders met by video at short notice in a show of solidarity with the Ukrainian leader that included trying to breathe new life into the sanctions against Russia.Zelenskiy thanked G7 leaders for their support, and warned that Moscow was counting on collapse of western support for Ukraine. “Russia believes America and Europe will show weakness and will not maintain support for Ukraine at the proper level. Putin believes the free world will not fully enforce its own sanctions and the Russian elite mocks the world’s doubts about using Russian assets to compensate for damage from Russian aggression,” he said.“All these are part of a much broader issue – what can freedom do and what can dictatorships do. We must answer these questions together.”Although the bill includes a number of border security measures, Republicans in both chambers have insisted the legislation must go further in restricting migrants’ asylum and parole applications. Those proposals are a non-starter for many Democrats, making it unclear how a supplemental bill can pass the divided Congress.Biden said on Wednesday that he was willing to make “significant compromises on the border,” but he accused Republicans of taking an all-or-nothing approach to the immigration talks.“This has to be a negotiation,” Biden said. “Republicans think they can get everything they want without any bipartisan compromise. That’s not the answer.”Those tensions spilled over on Tuesday night, when a classified Senate briefing on Ukraine erupted into a shouting match. Zelenskiy was scheduled to speak at the briefing, but he was forced to cancel due to a “last-minute” issue, according to the Democratic Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer.The briefing still occurred despite Zelenskiy’s absence, but Schumer then accused Republicans of having “hijacked” the meeting to discuss border security. Republicans then criticized Schumer for refusing to address the crucial issues that created the current standoff.“Republicans are just walking out of the briefing because the people there are not willing to actually discuss what it takes to get a deal done,” Senator Mitt Romney, a Republican of Utah, said.With no resolution in sight, Senate Republicans are expected to successfully filibuster the supplemental security bill, blocking it from advancing. The impasse increases the likelihood that Congress will fail to approve more aid for Ukraine before the end of the year, as the White House has warned that Kyiv is desperately in need of more financial assistance.“I want to be clear: without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from US military stocks,” Shalanda Young, the director of the office of management and budget, wrote in a letter to congressional leaders on Monday.“There is no magical pot of funding available to meet this moment. We are out of money – and nearly out of time.”Even as Republicans have raised serious concerns about the border provisions of the bill, the $10bn allocated for aid to Israel has sparked criticism from Bernie Sanders . In a letter sent to his colleagues on Tuesday, the progressive Vermont senator warned against providing a “blank check” to Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, as the death toll in Gaza continues to climb.“No, I do not think we should be appropriating $10.1bn for the right-wing, extremist Netanyahu government to continue its current military strategy,” Sanders wrote. “What the Netanyahu government is doing is immoral, it is in violation of international law, and the United States should not be complicit in those actions.” More