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      Fox News’ Sean Hannity pitched Trump on Hunter Biden pardon – report

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      Fox News’ Sean Hannity pitched Trump on Hunter Biden pardon – reportDaily Beast says rightwing host saw pardon for Joe Biden’s son as way to ‘smooth things over’ after Capitol attack The Fox News host Sean Hannity tried to sell Donald Trump on a novel way to heal the wounds of his presidency and the deadly Capitol attack: a pardon for Hunter Biden.The bizarre idea was referred to in texts released by the House January 6 committee, which on Thursday held its first primetime televised hearing.‘I’m not afraid of clowns’: Republican defends vote to impeach TrumpRead moreIn one message, Hannity told Kayleigh McEnany, then White House press secretary, Trump “was intrigued by the pardon idea!! (Hunter)”.The Daily Beast said a source familiar with the conversations between Hannity and Trump confirmed that Hannity was referring to Hunter Biden.Joe Biden’s surviving son has become a magnet for Republican attacks over his business affairs and personal life, including a collapsed marriage and struggles with addiction.A laptop he once owned was touted by Trump allies including Hannity as an “October surprise” to blow up the 2020 election. It did not explode but news outlets have since run stories based on information from the computer.Hunter Biden has confirmed that his tax history is under investigation, saying in December 2020: “I take this matter very seriously but I am confident that a professional and objective review of these matters will demonstrate that I handled my affairs legally and appropriately.”His business dealings in China are reportedly part of the investigation.Hunter Biden’s dealings in Ukraine were at the heart of Trump’s first impeachment in 2019, for soliciting dirt on political rivals in exchange for military aid.Trump was impeached a second time in 2021 for inciting the Capitol riot, a failed attempt to block certification of Joe Biden’s electoral college win.After Trump’s defeat, a Hunter Biden pardon was floated in conservative circles.On 10 December 2020, the editor of the National Interest, a conservative magazine, wrote: “Trump himself might consider pardoning Hunter as well as his own family … as well as officials who worked for him.“The difficulty for Trump has been that any such pardons would not only look self-serving, but also raise questions about trying to foreclose criminal liability since no charges have been leveled against Hunter or Ivanka or Don Jr.“These issues might not be enough to deter him, and Hunter Biden’s predicament would allow Trump to inveigh against the federal justice system more broadly. He could show magnanimity and evenhandedness by pardoning Biden’s scapegrace son.”The source who spoke to the Beast said Hannity pitched the idea on 7 January, the day after the attack on Congress, as a way to help “smooth things over”.‘Biden blood only’: Hunter Biden’s ex-wife describes Secret Service exclusionRead moreBut the source said that like other suggestions, including an end to Trump’s lie about a stolen election and Trump attending Joe Biden’s inauguration, it went nowhere.“It died on the vine,” the Beast quoted the source as saying, adding that though Trump was briefly interested, the pardon was “never seriously considered”.Another source told the Beast Hannity “genuinely wanted some healing”.Fox News, McEnany and Trump did not comment.Trump issued last-minute pardons to aides and allies including Steve Bannon, his former campaign chair and White House strategist who was charged with fraud.Hannity has continued to attack Hunter Biden on his show.TopicsHunter BidenFox NewsUS politicsUS Capitol attackDonald TrumpJoe BidenTrump administrationnewsReuse this content More

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      The January 6 panel said Trump incited an ‘attempted coup’. Will it kill him or make him stronger?

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      The January 6 panel said Trump incited an ‘attempted coup’. Will it kill him or make him stronger? If Merrick Garland acts on the committee’s revelations and decides to prosecute, Trump will play the victim of a deep state conspiracy Donald Trump achieved another first in US presidential history on Thursday night. He was, in front of millions of people, accused by a congressional panel of attempting to overthrow the US government.“January 6th was the culmination of an attempted coup,” said Bennie Thompson, chair of the House of Representative’s select committee investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol. “President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack,” added his vice-chair, Liz Cheney.The political and legal implications could be devastating, just as the Watergate hearings were for President Richard Nixon half a century ago. But today America, and its media, are bitterly divided, and Trump, who once boasted that he could shoot someone and not lose voters, has repeatedly shown that what does not kill him makes him stronger.The former president wrote defiantly on his Truth Social platform: “So the Unselect Committee of political HACKS refuses to play any of the many positive witnesses and statements, refuses to talk of the Election Fraud and Irregularities that took place on a massive scale. Our Country is in such trouble!”Like a criminal trial, the first January 6 hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington clinically outlined the case that will be made against Trump with the help of vivid eyewitness testimony and breathtaking video footage. Although many of the details had previously emerged in media reports, it was nevertheless compelling to hear them woven together in an august setting on primetime television.Cheney argued that Trump oversaw and coordinated a sophisticated seven-part plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election and block the transfer of power. He encouraged the insurrection, refused to call off the mob and was content for his own vice-president, Mike Pence, to be assassinated for refusing to overturn the election.“And, aware of the rioters’ chants to ‘hang Mike Pence’, the president responded with this sentiment: ‘Maybe our supporters have the right idea.’ Mike Pence ‘deserves’ it.”The words of Trump’s inner circle, including Pence, were turned against him. There was a clip of former attorney general William Barr saying that Trump’s claims of a stolen election were unfounded “bullshit”, then one of Trump’s daughter and senior adviser Ivanka telling the committee: “I respected attorney general Barr. I accepted what he was saying.”The sense of family betrayal presumably enraged Trump. It also demonstrated that trusted aides were advising him that he had lost the election fair and square. This could be used to build a criminal case that he pushed the Big Lie of voter fraud knowing it to be just that – meaning that he made a deliberate effort to subvert democracy.The January 6 committee, however, has no power to prosecute Trump or anyone else. That would be a decision for Merrick Garland, the attorney general, at the justice department, and fraught with risks in a polarised environment: Trump allies would doubtless cry foul and accuse him of a politically motivated witch-hunt.Such a prospect might actually make it more likely that Trump run for president again in 2024 because he knows the justice department would be reluctant to go after an active candidate. He would seek to weaponise such a move while on the campaign trail, casting himself as the victim of a deep state conspiracy, just as he did with the Russia investigation.If Trump does run, could he win again despite the mountain of damning evidence that now stands in the public record? No one is writing him off just yet. He remains the dominant force in the Republican party, where many continue to push his big lie, a point underlined by its leadership’s protests that the hearings are an illegitimate, partisan show trial aimed at deflecting attention from Joe Biden’s crises such as inflation and crime.It is true that there are two Republicans on the January 6 committee, but both are outliers who have been censured by the party. Adam Kinzinger is not seeking re-elecction and Cheney knows her work could well cost her her seat in Wyoming, where a Trump-backed primary challenger is polling strongly against her.Cheney said on Thursday: “I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: there will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonour will remain.”Meanwhile Fox News, which has long had a marriage of convenience with Trump, did not even broadcast the hearing live. Instead host Tucker Carlson described it as “propaganda” from the “ruling class” and told viewers: “They are lying and we are not going to help them do it.”It is possible that this and subsequent hearings will break through with a sliver of undecided voters in the middle who had not been paying attention to the drip feed of January 6 stories. But not even Democrats expect it to rescue them in November’s midterm elections. History will remember Trump’s plot against America – but memory alone cannot guarantee democracy.TopicsDonald TrumpUS Capitol attackUS politicsanalysisReuse this content More

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      Biden says forces behind January 6 attack ‘remain at work today’ – as it happened

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      Joe Biden warned that the forces behind the January 6 attack had not been defeated, and said no one should be able to hold “a dagger at the throat of our democracy.”Speaking in Los Angeles the day after the committee investigating the insurrection held a closely watched hearing, the president said he remained worried about the fallout from the events at the Capitol.“It’s important the American people understand what truly happened, and to understand that the same forces that led January 6 remain at work today,” Biden said. “We’re seeing how the battle for the soul of America has been far from won. But I know together, and I mean this, we can unite and defend this nation, Democrat and Republican, allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of our democracy.”The president said he did not end up watching the hearing, which will continue on Monday.The US politics blog is closing down after a day that saw Washington react to new revelations about what went on during the January 6 attack, while the Biden administration was rocked by inflation numbers that showed prices rising faster than expected last month. Senators are meanwhile still trying to reach an agreement on bipartisan gun control legislation, but no deal was announced.Here’s a rundown of what happened today:
      President Joe Biden said in a speech that the forces behind the Capitol insurrection “remain at work today”.
      The January 6 committee’s decision to broadcast in primetime appears to have paid off, with more than 19 million people having tuned in, a number that’s expected to grow.
      The bad inflation numbers were good news for Republicans, who used them to hammer the Biden administration as midterms that could put them in control of one or both houses of Congress draw ever nearer. The White House meanwhile said it is “doing everything we can” to stop prices from rising.
      The filibuster only frustrates voters, former president Barack Obama said in a speech in which he also shared his opinions on big tech and issues of race in American society today.
      The blog returns on Monday, as does the January 6 committee, which will hold its next hearing at 10 am eastern.A coach for the Washington Commanders football team is going to pay — literally — for his comments casting doubt on the severity of the January 6 insurrection.The team announced Jack Del Rio, an assistant coach who coordinates defense for the team in the nation’s capital, will pay a $100,000 fine after questioning why the protests that followed George Floyd’s death in 2020 didn’t get as much scrutiny as the Capitol attack, which he called a “dust-up”.pic.twitter.com/86bJREVDsq— Washington Commanders (@Commanders) June 10, 2022
      Read more about it here:Washington Commanders coach sorry after calling Capitol attack a ‘dust-up’Read moreThe number of viewers of last night’s January 6 committee hearing has topped 19 million, The New York Times reports, a figure that’s nowhere near what the state of the union address or presidential debates get, but still much more than the average congressional hearing.According to the Times:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}That number will grow in the coming hours, as more networks are tallied and out-of-home viewing is factored in. Nielsen is expected to have a final viewership figure on Friday evening.
      By scheduling a congressional hearing for 8 to 10 p.m., committee members and Democrats were hoping to make the case to the biggest audience possible. ABC, CBS and NBC pre-empted their prime-time programming and went into special-report mode to cover it live.
      Though the Thursday night figure pales next to presidential debates (63 million to 73 million) or this year’s State of the Union address (38 million), it’s still much larger than the audience that would normally watch a daytime congressional hearing. And it’s in the ballpark of television events like a big “Sunday Night Football” game or the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.The Washington Post has published more details about the activities around the 2020 election of Ginni Thomas, wife of conservative supreme court justice Clarence Thomas.The newspaper’s latest report said she sent 29 Republican state lawmakers in Arizona form emails encouraging them to “choose” their own presidential electors and ignore Joe Biden’s victory in the state.According to the Post:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}The message, just days after media organizations called the race for Biden in Arizona and nationwide, urged lawmakers to “stand strong in the face of political and media pressure” and claimed that the responsibility to choose electors was “yours and yours alone.” They had “power to fight back against fraud” and “ensure that a clean slate of Electors is chosen,” the email said.
      Among the lawmakers who received the email was then-Rep. Anthony Kern, a Stop the Steal supporter who lost his reelection bid in November 2020 and then joined U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) and others as a plaintiff in a lawsuit against Vice President Mike Pence, a last-ditch effort to overturn Biden’s victory. Kern was photographed outside the Capitol during the riot on Jan. 6 but has said he did not enter the building, according to local media reports.
      Kern did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday. He is seeking his party’s nomination for a seat in the Arizona state Senate and has been endorsed by former president Donald Trump.
      On Dec. 13, the day before members of the electoral college were slated to cast their votes and seal Biden’s victory, Thomas emailed 22 House members and one senator. “Before you choose your state’s Electors … consider what will happen to the nation we all love if you don’t stand up and lead,” the email said. It linked to a video of a man urging swing-state lawmakers to “put things right” and “not give in to cowardice.”
      Speaker of the House Russell “Rusty” Bowers and Rep. Shawnna Bolick, the two recipients previously identified, told The Post in May that the outreach from Thomas had no bearing on their decisions about how to handle claims of election fraud.
      But the revelation that Ginni Thomas was directly involved in pressing them to override the popular vote — an act that would have been without precedent in the modern era — intensified questions about whether her husband should recuse himself from cases related to the 2020 presidential election and attempts to subvert it. Ginni Thomas’s status as a leading conservative political activist has set her apart from other spouses of Supreme Court justices.Today has been a packed news day, except on one topic: gun control. Senators in Washington are still negotiating over a measure to respond to the recent mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas and Buffalo, New York that can win bipartisan support, but have yet to announce a deal.Pressure mounts on Senate to act on gun safety amid Republican resistanceRead moreThe chamber’s top Democrat was as recently as yesterday sounding optimistic about a deal’s prospects, but gun legislation is extremely difficult to find a consensus on in Congress, and previous negotiations have collapsed unexpectedly.In Oregon, things are moving a bit faster. The Associated Press reports that a signature campaign to put an initiative before voters that would tighten down on gun access has seen a surge in interest following the shootings:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}When Raevahnna Richardson spotted a woman standing outside a library in Salem, Oregon, gathering signatures for a gun-safety initiative, she made a beeline to her and added her name.
      “I signed it to keep our kids safe, because something needs to change. I have a kid that’s going to be in first grade this upcoming season, and I don’t want her to have to be scared at school,” Richardson said.
      “To keep our kids safe.” It’s something that so many parents across the United States are worried about after the horrific massacre of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas. That mass shooting has given the Oregon ballot initiative huge momentum, with the number of volunteers doubling to 1,200 and signatures increasing exponentially, organizers said.
      With the U.S. Senate unlikely to pass a “red flag” bill and the majority of state legislatures having taken no action on gun safety in recent years, or moving in the opposite direction, activists see voter-driven initiatives as a viable alternative.Monday will also bring testimony from Eugene Goodman, the Capitol police officer who famously confronted rioters on January 6, CNN reports.Goodman’s testimony will come in the federal court trial of rioter Kevin Seefried, who paraded a Confederate flag around the Capitol, not before the hearing of the January 6 committee in Congress.US Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman will testify on Monday against two Jan 6 defendants, one of whom carried a Confederate flag thru the Capitol.Goodman tells me this will be his first public testimony. You’ll remember he deftly steered a mob away from the Senate chamber. pic.twitter.com/ABSTT3WnlL— Kristin Wilson (@kristin__wilson) June 10, 2022
      Want to make this clear here, and also in another tweet: Officer Goodman testifying on Monday in US District Court for DC — in the bench trial for Kevin Seefried and his son.It’s not before the January 6th Committee.— Kristin Wilson (@kristin__wilson) June 10, 2022
      US Capitol police officer Eugene Goodman awarded Congressional Gold MedalRead moreA one-time acting US attorney general and a former Fox News editor are among the guests expected at the upcoming January 6 committee hearings, NBC News reports.Jeffrey Rosen, who took over as attorney general for the final week’s of Donald Trump’s term following William Barr’s resignation from the post, will appear at the committee’s third hearing next Wednesday, alongside Richard Donoghue, a former acting deputy attorney general, and Steve Engel, a former assistant attorney general. According to NBC, the “hearing will offer evidence about Trump’s unsuccessful plan to oust Rosen and replace him with another DOJ official who was more supportive of Trump’s fraud claims.”For the committee’s second hearing on Monday of next week, ex-Fox News political editor Chris Stirewalt will be among the guests. He made the decision to call the crucial state of Arizona for Biden in the 2020 election, and said he was subjected to “murderous rage” from Trump supporters for it.Monday and Wednesday’s hearings both begin at 10 am eastern time.Joe Biden warned that the forces behind the January 6 attack had not been defeated, and said no one should be able to hold “a dagger at the throat of our democracy.”Speaking in Los Angeles the day after the committee investigating the insurrection held a closely watched hearing, the president said he remained worried about the fallout from the events at the Capitol.“It’s important the American people understand what truly happened, and to understand that the same forces that led January 6 remain at work today,” Biden said. “We’re seeing how the battle for the soul of America has been far from won. But I know together, and I mean this, we can unite and defend this nation, Democrat and Republican, allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of our democracy.”The president said he did not end up watching the hearing, which will continue on Monday.The new Air Force Ones will probably look like the old Air Force Ones after all. Politico reports that the Biden administration has opted to scrap a paint scheme chosen by Trump during his time in the White House for the next batch of presidential jets due to overheating problems.From their report:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} The darker paint scheme would have required additional modifications to cool some of the components, potentially driving up costs, the Air Force said.
      For this reason, the White House ultimately chose to scrap the Trump plan.
      “The Trump paint scheme is not being considered because it could drive additional engineering, time and cost,” said the administration official, who asked for anonymity to discuss an internal issue.
      While the White House has not released a mock-up of the new Air Force Ones, which will consist of two modified Boeing 747-8s, it is likely they will revert to the classic JFK-era light blue and white scheme. The new planes aren’t expected to fly until 2026, according to Air Force budget documents.
      The new paint decision is good news for Boeing, which would have had to pay out-of-pocket to fix the heating problem. The company on Friday referred questions on the paint job to the Air Force.President Joe Biden defended his administration’s approach to fighting inflation following this morning’s release of numbers that were much worse than predicted.In a statement, the president directed blame towards Russian leader Vladimir Putin and his invasion of Ukraine, which has caused prices for commodities like oil and food to spike:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} Putin’s Price Hike hit hard in May here and around the world: high gas prices at the pump, energy, and food prices accounted for around half of the monthly price increases, and gas pump prices are up by $2 a gallon in many places since Russian troops began to threaten Ukraine. Even as we continue our work to defend freedom in Ukraine, we must do more—and quickly—to get prices down here in the United States.Biden also made a pitch for action on his own legislative priorities:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} I call on Congress to pass a bill to cut shipping costs this month, and get it to my desk, so we can lower the price of goods. And, I call on Congress to pass legislation to cut costs for families like energy bills and prescription drugs. The deficit has come down more under my watch as President than at any time in history, but if Congress would pass tax reform to make the wealthiest Americans and big corporations pay their fair share, we could reduce this inflationary pressure even more.Much of Congress’s energy right now is dedicated to finding a bipartisan compromise on gun control following a spate of recent mass shootings, and some legislation that appeared to have momentum in recent months has already fallen by the wayside.Michelle Obama is making fresh exhortations to people to “double down” on efforts to protect abortion rights in the US, ahead of an expected final ruling in the next few weeks from the US Supreme Court on a key abortion case out of Mississippi that also directly asks the court to overturn Roe v Wade.“As we prepare for the decision from the supreme court on the fate of Roe v Wade, I know so many of us are anxious and wondering if there’s anything we can do. Let’s be clear: this potential decision would be the culmination of a decades-long strategy to take away a woman’s right to make decisions about her own health,” she wrote on Instagram later on yesterday.She added: “So we’ve got to get to work today. We’ve got to press our elected leaders at every level to pull every lever they can to protect the right to safe, legal abortion – right now. And we’ve got to make sure that everyone we know is voting … in every single election … for decades if that’s what it takes.”Former president Barack Obama and the former first lady had released a joint statement after the leak [of the court’s draft opinion favoring striking down Roe] criticizing the opinion, saying it would “relegate the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues,” the Hill reported on Thursday.Michelle Obama continued in her post, in part: “We can’t afford to get cynical or throw our hands up and walk away. We have to double down, get even more organized and join the activists who’ve been doing this work away from the spotlight for so long. And we’ve got to do it not just for ourselves but for the next generation.”US shaken to its core by supreme court draft that would overturn Roe v WadeRead moreThe United States rolled out a raft of actions to support migrants on Friday as president Joe Biden and fellow leaders prepare to issue a joint declaration on migration on the final day of an Americas summit beset by diplomatic squabbling, Reuters reports.The Biden administration pledged hundreds of millions of aid to Venezuelan migrants across the Western Hemisphere, as well as programs to support temporary family-based visas for Cubans and Haitians and ease the hiring of Central American workers on Friday.The announcements are set to accompany a US-led pact dubbed the “Los Angeles Declaration” that aims to create incentives for countries taking in large numbers of migrants and spread responsibility across the region. But some analysts are skeptical there will be many meaningful commitments.The plan caps the Summit of the Americas hosted by Biden in Los Angeles that was designed to reassert US leadership and counter China’s growing economic footprint in the region.However, that message was clouded by a partial boycott by leaders, including Mexico’s president, in protest at Washington’s exclusion of US antagonists Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from the gathering.At the summit’s opening session on Thursday, leaders from Argentina and tiny Belize took to the podium to rebuke Biden face-to-face over the guest list, underscoring the challenge the global superpower faces in restoring its influence among poorer neighbors.The declaration, due to be presented by Biden and other leaders later on Friday, will call on governments in the region to expand their own temporary worker programs, said a senior US official who previewed the plan.Some countries are unlikely to endorse the migrant declaration, according to a person familiar with the matter. Some Caribbean states would not approve it, an official at the summit said.Today has been dominated by the aftermath of Thursday evening’s January 6 committee hearings, which began building the case that Trump played a major role in orchestrating the assault on the Capitol, while shedding light on the other forces at work in Washington that day.Meanwhile, Republicans have seized on a worryingly high inflation reading to press their case for being in charge.Here’s what else is going on today:
      The January 6 hearing cut through propaganda that’s been spread about the insurrection, said Jamie Raskin, a Democratic lawmaker on the committee.
      Trump responded to his daughter Ivanka Trump’s statement that she never really believed the 2020 election was stolen.
      The bad inflation numbers were good news for Republicans, who used them to hammer the Biden administration as midterms that could put them in control of one or both houses of Congress draw ever nearer.
      The filibuster only frustrates voters, former president Barack Obama said in a speech in which he also shared his opinions on big tech and issues of race in American society today.
      There’s only one group of Americans left who can’t access Covid-19 vaccines: kids under five. Next week, a series of hearings and decisions may offer clarity on when young children will get access to the shots, and give parents nationwide a path back to normalcy.The Associated Press has a look at what to expect:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;}On Wednesday, both Moderna and Pfizer will have to convince what’s essentially a science court — advisers to the Food and Drug Administration — that their shots work well in babies, toddlers and preschoolers.
      Kids under 5 are the only group not yet eligible for COVID-19 vaccination in the U.S. If the agency’s advisers endorse one or both shots for them — and the FDA agrees — there’s still another hurdle. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must recommend whether all tots need immunization or just those at high risk from the virus.
      Adding to the complexity, each company is offering different dose sizes and number of shots. And the week won’t even start with the littlest kid debate: Moderna first will ask FDA’s advisers to support its vaccine for older children.
      Only a handful of countries, including China and Cuba, have offered different types of COVID-19 vaccinations to children younger than 5.Former president Barack Obama has taken aim at the filibuster, saying the Senate procedure so frustrates the legislative process that it makes Americans feel like voting is futile.Obama has plenty of experience with the filibuster, which Republicans used repeatedly to block his legislative priorities during his two terms in office, though he did have notable successes such as the landmark Obamacare health care overhaul.From Obama’s speech at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit:Former President Obama hits at Senate filibuster during summit in Copenhagen.He says it had “effectively made it almost impossible for either party … to get anything substantially through the Senate and passed and signed into law … People start wondering, ‘why bother?'” pic.twitter.com/UAgs5sDFdv— The Recount (@therecount) June 10, 2022
      He also discussed race:Former President Obama calls emotions around culture war issues “powerful” and “legitimate.””The original identity politics is racism and sexism and homophobia. That’s nothing if not identity politics. And it’s done a lot more harm than some tweet from an aggrieved liberal.” pic.twitter.com/uOa5E4BilY— The Recount (@therecount) June 10, 2022
      And big tech:Former President Barack Obama:”Technology companies have to accept a degree of democratic oversight and accountability.” pic.twitter.com/9EVrN6E1AP— The Recount (@therecount) June 10, 2022 More

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      The Guardian view on the January 6 committee hearing: truth v alternative facts | Editorial

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      The Guardian view on the January 6 committee hearing: truth v alternative factsEditorialEstablishing what happened on and before that day is essential – but it is not enough Despite its name, the January 6 committee is not merely investigating the storming of the US Capitol in 2021. It is rightly examining the broader campaign to deny the will of the people. Its first public hearing on Thursday highlighted the terror of a day that led to the deaths of at least seven people and saw 140 police officers injured as a mob, armed with cable ties and stun guns, wielded flagpoles as clubs. Graphic footage and vivid testimony from a Capitol police officer – “I was slipping in people’s blood … It was carnage” – reminded primetime viewers just how shocking and frightening those events were.Yet the greater horror is that the riot was not an anomaly, but the “culmination of an attempted coup”, part of a months-long effort to overturn the election result. It happened when more genteel methods had failed, though they got much further than they should have. “President Trump summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack,” said Liz Cheney, the House select committee’s vice-chair.Rioters have already been jailed. But those most culpable have yet to be held accountable. The committee’s exhaustive efforts have established genuinely shocking revelations: when Donald Trump learned that supporters were chanting “Hang Mike Pence”, he reportedly remarked that his vice-president might “deserve” it. The sheer number of those in his inner circle – including his daughter Ivanka – who were clear that he had lost and, in many cases, told him so, was damning. Establishing that Mr Trump knew full well that Joe Biden had won might, potentially, help to build a legal case against him. That task, however difficult, looks simple compared to the challenge of changing voters’ minds, already largely made up. Many of the worst aspects took place in full view. Mr Trump repeatedly lied that the election had been stolen. He urged his supporters “to fight like hell”. He refused to call them off when begged by top Republicans. As one rioter said, “I answered the call of my president”.Most Americans – 70% – believe that finding out what happened that day matters, but 52% of Republicans judge it not very or not at all important. In a world of “alternative facts”, the truth can simply be ignored: Fox News did not broadcast the hearing.As November’s midterms approach, voters appear more concerned about the cost of living than threats to democracy which they may, wrongly, imagine to have been overcome. At best, the hearings may boost Democratic fundraising, persuade a few reluctant voters to the polls, or give pause to the undecided who were thinking of giving Republicans another chance. Mr Trump remains the favourite to be his party’s presidential candidate in 2024. Senior Republicans who denounced him after the riot fell quickly and shamefully silent; Ms Cheney and her colleague Adam Kinzinger have been vilified for serving on the committee.The committee is not only establishing the historical record, but seeking to safeguard institutions in the future. Next time, Republicans will be more organised and more ruthless in pursuing victory whatever the ballots say.The GOP has systematically sought control of election processes and installed its people in the judiciary. The far right – including members of militias who played a critical role in the January 6 attacks, such as the Proud Boys – are moving off the streets and seeking elected office. Next time, no mob may be required. Just as the storming of the Capitol was one in a series of assaults upon democracy, so this must be only one of many attempts to uphold it. If these hearings appear to preach to the converted, they are no less essential. The alternative – giving up – is unthinkable, because the Trumpists haven’t, and won’t.TopicsUS Capitol attackOpinionUS politicsDonald TrumpIvanka TrumpJoe BidenUS policingcommentReuse this content More

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      Democrats promise more on Trump’s January 6 role after dramatic TV hearing

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      Democrats promise more on Trump’s January 6 role after dramatic TV hearingVivid evidence around Capitol attack laid out by committee, but Republicans dismiss first primetime hearing as political theatre The jagged divide in American politics was on full display on Friday, in the wake of the first primetime hearing staged by the House January 6 committee investigating the attack on the US Capitol.Democrats responded to the dramatic presentation of new evidence and stark testimony about the deadly insurrection in Washington with promises of more to come, especially around the role of Donald Trump.Primetime January 6 hearing shows set-piece TV can still pack a punchRead moreJamie Raskin, a Democratic committee member from Maryland, told MSNBC: “What you’ve seen so far, as shocking as it is, is just a fraction of the evidence that we have assembled.”But Republicans dismissed the hearing, the first in a series planned by the panel of seven Democrats and two Republican Trump critics, as political theatre meant to distract from challenges faced by the Biden administration.Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, tweeted: “I call on Speaker Pelosi and House Democrats to hold a primetime hearing on the out-of-control inflation their policies have created.”A bipartisan Senate committee linked seven deaths to the attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2021, the bloody conclusion of a concerted effort by Trump and close aides to overturn the election.Among visceral evidence presented on Thursday night, a Capitol police officer, Caroline Edwards, described “carnage” and “chaos” as the mob stormed Congress.“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” she said. “There were officers on the ground, they were bleeding. They were throwing up … I saw friends with blood all over their faces. I was slipping in people’s blood.”The hearing also included footage of McCarthy’s staff fleeing his office as rioters drew near.On Friday, Trump commented on footage in which his daughter, Ivanka Trump, said she had not backed the lie that Joe Biden’s win was the result of electoral fraud.“Ivanka Trump was not involved in looking at, or studying, election results,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, the platform he set up after being banned from Twitter. “She had long since checked out and was, in my opinion, only trying to be respectful to Bill Barr and his position as attorney general (he sucked!).”Footage showed Barr, previously a loyal lieutenant, saying he told Trump fraud claims were “bullshit”.Doubt was cast on Ivanka Trump’s claim not to have indulged her father. The New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman tweeted: “Her former colleagues remember her pushing the need to ‘fight’ on election night just before Trump went on stage to claim he did win the election.”In another stunning moment during the hearing, Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the Republican deputy committee chair, recounted new details of Trump’s reaction when the mob threatened his vice-president.Mike Pence had refused to go along with Trump’s scheme to block certification of Biden’s electoral college win.Cheney said: “Aware of the rioters’ chants to ‘hang Mike Pence’, the president responded with this sentiment: ‘Maybe our supporters have the right idea.’ Mike Pence ‘deserves it’.”Trump said: “I NEVER said, or even thought of saying, ‘Hang Mike Pence.’ This is either a made up story by somebody looking to become a star, or FAKE NEWS!”At a rally near the White House on January 6, Trump told supporters to march on the Capitol and “fight like hell” to overturn the election. On Friday, he denied causing the “so-called ‘Rush on the Capitol’”, claimed to be the victim of a “political witch hunt” and repeated his electoral fraud lie.Trump was impeached for inciting the insurrection but acquitted when only seven Senate Republicans voted for his guilt. In light of the Thursday hearing, amid growing calls for criminal charges against Trump by the Department of Justice, the conservative anti-Trump writer Tim Miller said: “I’m never going to forgive the 43 miserable cowards in the Senate who didn’t convict this asshole. Enraging.”Trump’s acquittal left him clear to run for the presidency again. He has strongly hinted he will. Polling shows the Republican party favored to retake Congress this year. Republican leaders are betting on the January 6 hearings failing to impact jaded voters.Speaking to MSNBC, Raskin said that though it had been “kind of traumatising to be thrust back into” the attack on the Capitol, he thought the hearings could help “the country comes to its senses”.“Can you imagine any president who would watch what we put on the hearing tonight and react with anything other than an absolute horror and shock?“And yet we’ve got a former president who not only bases his whole political ideology around a lie, a lie that he actually is the president now, that he won the election and it’s been stolen from him, but continues to propagandise his followers with lies, and so they are in absolute denial of all of the facts.“The reality is what we just made available for the entire American public to see.”TopicsUS Capitol attackUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Trump’s forces are preparing for the next storming of the Capitol. This time, they plan to win | Jonathan Freedland

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      Trump’s forces are preparing for the next storming of the Capitol. This time, they plan to winJonathan FreedlandThe danger to US democracy didn’t end on 6 January – his followers are now ripping up the safeguards that foiled them The pictures are appalling, the words terrifying. If Thursday’s opening session is anything to go by, the primetime televised hearings into the storming of Capitol Hill on 6 January 2021 will be both revealing and disturbing. But though their focus is on a winter’s day 18 months ago, they are not about America’s past. They are a warning about its future.Make no mistake, the revelations of what exactly took place when a violent mob broke into the halls of the US Congress, seeking to overturn a democratic election by preventing the formal certification of Joe Biden’s victory, are a valuable, and shocking, addition to the historical record. The House committee that has been investigating the attempted insurrection for the past year – gathering in excess of 140,000 documents and speaking to more than 1,000 witnesses – discovered that Donald Trump’s response, on learning that the rioters were chanting “Hang Mike Pence”, was to say that his vice-president “deserves” it.Previously unseen footage and fresh testimony buried the suggestion, made by one Republican congressman, that the behaviour of the insurrectionists of 6 January was like a “normal tourist visit” or that it was, as Fox News’s most watched host, Tucker Carlson, was still insisting on Thursday, no more than a “forgettable, minor outbreak of violence”. Instead, one police officer, Caroline Edwards, who suffered a traumatic brain injury as the Capitol was breached, described being stampeded, knocked unconscious, pepper-sprayed and teargassed. There was so much blood on the floor, she slipped over. “It was carnage,” she said. “It was chaos.”What’s more, those around Trump knew that the animating cause of this violence was a lie. They knew that Biden had won and Trump had lost. Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, testified that he regarded the claim that the 2020 election was stolen as “bullshit”. Trump’s daughter Ivanka agreed. Plenty of those Republicans in Congress who went along with the lie knew it was garbage – and they knew that they were breaking their oath in indulging it. The investigators revealed that “multiple” Republican congressmen had hastily sought presidential pardons from Trump for what they did, namely trying to overturn a legitimate election.Some Republicans take comfort from the thought that voters have got other things on their minds just now, that as midterm elections approach Americans will be more preoccupied with Biden’s failures to tame inflation than Trump’s incitement of an insurrection. Petrol at $10 a gallon today will matter more than the gasoline the Republican president threw on the fire of his supporters’ rage a year and a half ago.Dispiritingly, that view might be correct on the politics. Democrats are unlikely to shift their fortunes in the present by laying out a case, even a compelling one, about the past. But that does not make 6 January a lost cause, still less an irrelevant one. Because none of this is about the past. It is about now.The most obvious proof is Trump himself. He’s had some setbacks in this primary season, where his favoured candidates in internal party contests have not always prevailed, but his dominance of the Republican party endures. Most assume that if Trump wants to be the Republican presidential nominee in 2024, he will be. Of course, he remains utterly unrepentant about the events of 6 January. On the eve of Thursday’s hearing, he posted on his new social media site that that day “represented the greatest movement in the history of our Country to Make America Great Again”.12:14But even if Trump does not regain, or attempt to regain, the presidency, he is still part of the US’s future. Whatever his next moves personally, Trumpism is now the defining creed of the Republican tribe. Polls find hefty majorities of Republican voters believing the lie, adamant that Trump was the real winner in 2020. Whether the nominee is the former president himself or a more disciplined politician – the likes of Florida governor Ron DeSantis – Trumpism, with its commitment to permanent culture war and its contempt for democratic norms, is now a central feature of the American landscape.But here’s why these current hearings should be regarded less as a past judgment than a future warning. On 6 January, the determination of the pro-Trump forces to subvert a democratic election was not in doubt. They failed only because enough restraints were in place to thwart them, whether it was state-level election officials determined to count the votes, and count them fairly, or a court system that threw out wholly groundless claims of electoral fraud. But 2024 will not be the same as 2020. Because Republicans have been busy.Methodically and across the US, Republicans have been working to dismantle the guardrails that keep American democracy on track. In 2021 alone, at least 19 Republican-ruled states passed measures whose official purpose was tackling (nonexistent) voter fraud but whose practical effect will be voter suppression, making it harder for low-income and minority Americans in particular to cast a ballot – and those efforts are continuing.More alarmingly, several Republican state legislatures have sought to put themselves or their allies in charge of what used to be non-partisan election machinery, installing Republicans – including “stop the steal” Trump loyalists – in the offices where votes get counted and certified. Worse, there are moves to make state legislatures the sole authority over elections, cutting out the courts altogether: so the Republicans who dominate, say, the Wisconsin legislature could decide that they and they alone will allocate the state’s electoral votes, regardless of who Wisconsin’s citizens actually voted for. Rerun 2020 in this new, altered environment and states that held firm in 2020, giving Biden the victory he had legitimately won, could hand power in 2024 to the loser.The key shift here is in the Republican party itself. On Thursday night, Liz Cheney, vice-chair of the House committee investigating 6 January, did an admirable job, telling her fellow Republicans that when Trump is gone their “dishonour will remain”. But she is an outlier, isolated and ostracised from her party.Next week sees the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in. But if that event were to happen now, it would play out very differently. The rightwing media would not even cover it, just as Fox did not cover Thursday’s hearing. It’s inconceivable that Senate Republicans would turn on a Republican president the way their predecessors turned on Richard Nixon, driving him from office. We can know that, because they did not turn on Trump.Nearly a decade ago, the scholar David Runciman wrote a book called The Confidence Trap. It argued that the problem with democracy is that each time it survives a crisis, people wrongly assume that it’s indestructible. We’re confident that democracy can survive anything because it survived the last thing. In today’s America, that confidence now looks badly misplaced. The US only narrowly survived Trump on 6 January 2021 – and the defences that kept the peril at bay are steadily getting weaker.
      Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist. To listen to his podcast Politics Weekly America, search “Politics Weekly America” wherever you get your podcasts
      TopicsUS Capitol attackOpinionDonald TrumpJoe BidenRepublicansDemocratsUS politicscommentReuse this content More

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      Primetime January 6 hearing shows set-piece TV can still pack a punch

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      Primetime January 6 hearing shows set-piece TV can still pack a punchFirst of public Capitol attack hearings delivered precision and panache – and a narrative arc designed for maximum effect It was one of the more unexpected takeaways of the night: in the age of six-second videos and frenetic social media posts around the clock, primetime set-piece television can still land a punch.The first of the public hearings from the US congressional committee investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol in Washington by extremist supporters of Donald Trump on 6 January last year was delivered with all the choreographed panache of an old-school TV spectacular or the Super Bowl. The broadcast was precision-timed (ending one minute short of two hours), tightly scripted and with a narrative arc designed for maximum emotional and political effect. According to the Nielsen ratings firm, it drew 20m viewers – roughly equivalent to a presidential primary debate, and more than the 5.2m that the 2015 primetime Benghazi hearing featuring testimony from 2016 Trump rival Hillary Clinton.Vivid retelling brings horror of January 6 back to scene of the crimeRead moreIt mixed never-before-seen footage, evocative witnesses and succinct delivery of pertinent, headline-grabbing quotes in a setting where politicians are often better known for rambling and repetitive speeches.Fifty years ago, the Senate Watergate committee made TV history with its raw, spontaneously chaotic but revelatory hearings into Richard Nixon’s election subversion.On Thursday night, by contrast, the treatment of Trump’s election subversion was polished and pre-conceived, with the committee chair, Mississippi Democratic congressman Bennie Thompson, and vice-chair, Wyoming Republican Liz Cheney, the daughter of former vice-president Dick Cheney, reading off an autocue.So carefully were the proceedings orchestrated that they could have come across as bland and overproduced.But by the time the two leading panel members had laid out their case against Trump’s meticulously planned coup attempt, and after the nation had been assailed by harrowing footage of the January 6 violence and testimony by a female police officer describing being caught up in a “war scene”, it was anything but.Peter Baker of the New York Times concluded that in the entire 246-year history of the US since the declaration of independence, “there was surely never a more damning indictment presented against an American president”.The committee has five more hearings to go this month, after more than a year of investigation behind closed doors, as it tries to build a case alleging that Trump orchestrated a criminal conspiracy to overturn his election defeat and, on that January 6, incited a far-right mob to try to stop the official congressional certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s victory.The next four are in the mornings with the last one, on 23 June, again scheduled for primetime, 8pm in Washington.Thursday evening’s made-for-TV conception was the work of James Goldston, an experienced TV executive and former president of ABC News. His brief from the committee was to keep the event contained and focused, targeted at drawing and holding the attention of millions of Americans.Under his direction, even the most visceral of the material unveiled at the hearing was finely produced. Previously unseen video from the British documentary-maker Nick Quested left nobody in doubt about the violence of that day.Police officers were shown falling to the ground and stabbed with staves as the insurrectionists, egged on by Trump and led by the extremist Proud Boys, pummeled their way into a tunnel within the Capitol compound. Caroline Edwards, the Capitol police officer, described slipping in people’s blood – not the first time in the evening that Shakespearean imagery was invoked.The hearing was primetime TV at its most impactful. Not that social media was neglected.Before the hearing began Zoe Lofgren, one of the Democrats on the nine-member committee, told the Guardian that the panel was determined to bring social media on board “and make sure we are finding people where they are”.Devastating snippets drawn from the depositions of Trump’s daughter, Ivanka Trump, and her husband Jared Kushner, were clearly devised two ways – potent on television, viral online.The clip of Ivanka in which she said she accepted the assessment of the former attorney general Bill Barr that there had been no evidence of fraud sufficient to overturn the election lasted 11 seconds – perfect for CNN, Twitter and TikTok alike.Kushner’s haughty comment to the committee that he interpreted as “whining” threats from White House lawyers to resign in the face of Trump’s potentially illegal actions could be boiled down to an even more shareable three seconds.Such painstaking formulation is not a guarantee of success. The committee’s main goal is to show the American people how Trump attempted to subvert democracy and to persuade voters that action must now be taken to prevent a repeat performance in 2024.Tell that to Fox News. While the hearing was going on, it turned its airspace over to Tucker Carlson, who duly used his primetime show to denounce the proceedings as propaganda.Carlson had his own pithy social media pitch. “They are lying, and we’re not going to help them do it,” he said.TopicsUS Capitol attackRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      US grapples with Trump’s role in Capitol attack after House panel airs evidence – live

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      If there was one takeaway from last night’s January 6 committee hearings, it could be: all roads lead back to Trump.The committee showed evidence that centered on what happened at the Capitol, while taking testimony from two people who had no affiliation with the White House. But the former president nonetheless cast a long shadow over the crowded hearing room.Liz Cheney, one of the committee’s two Republican members, aired evidence that the former president endorsed calls to hang his vice-president, Mike Pence, for refusing to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election win.The lawmakers also revealed that top Trump officials didn’t even believe the then-president’s claims. Attorney general William Barr, it turns out, thought the fraud allegations were “bullshit”. So did Trump’s daughter, drawing a response from the former president on his social network today.Then there were the insurrectionists themselves. Robert Schornak, who has been sentenced to 36 months of probation for his role in the insurrection, summed up their sentiment well: “Trump has only asked me for two things. He asked me for my vote, and he asked me to come on January 6.”The committee will meet again on June 13th, at 10 am eastern. You can read more about last night’s events in The Guardian’s coverage here:House January 6 panel shows it still has surprises in store in televised hearingRead moreDid the January 6 committee really cut through the “thick fog of propaganda” around the attack? Not if you watched Fox News, which didn’t broadcast the hearing. my colleague Adam Gabbatt took a look at what they showed in its place:The millions of people who tuned into America’s main television channels on Thursday heard how the January 6 insurrection was “the culmination of an attempted coup”, a “siege” where violent Trump supporters mercilessly attacked police, causing politicians and staffers to run for their lives.On the Fox News channel, however, there was a different take on the historic congressional hearings exploring the attack on the Capitol in Washington DC.The deadly riot was, according to the channel’s primetime host Tucker Carlson, “an outbreak of mob violence, a forgettably minor outbreak by recent standards, that took place more than a year and a half ago”.This was the alternate reality that Carlson, Fox News’ most-watched host, presented as he opened his hour-long show. He followed it up with a boast: the rightwing network would not be covering one of the most consequential political hearings in recent American history.As America watched Capitol attack testimony, Fox News gave an alternate realityRead moreJamie Raskin, a prominent lawmaker on the committee, said last night’s hearing dispelled the “thick fog of propaganda” around the insurrection.In an interview with MSNBC, he also contrasted the Republican reaction to the attack with their professed support for law enforcement:Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) says last night’s January 6th hearing “dispelled the thick fog of propaganda”:“You have a party which now claims to be on the side of law enforcement … and yet are turning a total blind eye to the most vicious, massive assault on police officers.” pic.twitter.com/2w6aHDYrDO— The Recount (@therecount) June 10, 2022
      Police who were on the scene that day and their families have been increasingly outspoken againt Trump. In an interview with CNN, the brothers of Brian Sicknick, a Capitol police officer who died in the attack, said they never received condolences from the then-president:JUST NOW: Brian Sicknick’s brothers tell @NewDay Mike Pence called after Brian’s death to offer condolences. Pres. Trump did not.”Not one tweet, not one note, not one card, nothing from him because he knows. He knows he is the cause of the whole thing.”pic.twitter.com/poxyPgsxpi— John Berman (@JohnBerman) June 10, 2022
      Meanwhile, the January 6 Committee has compared Trump’s actions with those of Abraham Lincoln, a Republican:In 1864, Lincoln understood that he would likely lose his reelection bid. In anticipation, he wrote a memo detailing the importance of one of our most basic democratic principles: the peaceful transfer of power.This precedent stood for 220 years— until Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/Nz7ip78jhM— January 6th Committee (@January6thCmte) June 10, 2022
      If there was one takeaway from last night’s January 6 committee hearings, it could be: all roads lead back to Trump.The committee showed evidence that centered on what happened at the Capitol, while taking testimony from two people who had no affiliation with the White House. But the former president nonetheless cast a long shadow over the crowded hearing room.Liz Cheney, one of the committee’s two Republican members, aired evidence that the former president endorsed calls to hang his vice-president, Mike Pence, for refusing to block the certification of Joe Biden’s election win.The lawmakers also revealed that top Trump officials didn’t even believe the then-president’s claims. Attorney general William Barr, it turns out, thought the fraud allegations were “bullshit”. So did Trump’s daughter, drawing a response from the former president on his social network today.Then there were the insurrectionists themselves. Robert Schornak, who has been sentenced to 36 months of probation for his role in the insurrection, summed up their sentiment well: “Trump has only asked me for two things. He asked me for my vote, and he asked me to come on January 6.”The committee will meet again on June 13th, at 10 am eastern. You can read more about last night’s events in The Guardian’s coverage here:House January 6 panel shows it still has surprises in store in televised hearingRead moreReactions are also trickling out from Republicans to last night’s January 6 committee hearing, in which House lawmakers took direct aim at Trump and his actions before and during that day.On his Truth Social network, the former president commented on his daughter Ivanka Trump’s admission, shown at the hearing, that she believed the 2020 election was not tampered with:Trump responds to his daughter’s testimony that AG Barr saying there no evidence of widespread election fraud: “It affected my perspective. I respect Attorney General Barr. So I accepted what he was saying.” pic.twitter.com/QrhPZ5QpYZ— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) June 10, 2022
      House Representative Jim Banks, whom House Speaker Nancy Pelosi barred from sitting on the committee, called the hearing a “dud”:1) GOP IN Rep Banks on Fox on 1/6 cmte hrng: Last night’s hearing was a primetime dud. Nothing came out of it that we didn’t know before..it didn’t change anybody’s minds..his committee is trying to prosecute Donald Trump for crimes that he did not commit— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) June 10, 2022
      2) Banks: We also learned from the reports over the weekend that this committee is actually going to come out and recommend for abolishing the Electoral College and to advance the radical election agenda of the Democrats, to nationalize, federalize elections— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) June 10, 2022
      Republicans have seized on the rough inflation report to press their message that they are a better choice when it comes to the economy than Biden and the Democrats.Here’s Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell:Another devastating inflation report for American workers and families. Another new 40-year high. Grocery prices off the charts, worst increase since the 1970s. Rent, gas, and electricity all way up.The Democrats’ inflation has handed the average American a 3.9% real pay cut.— Leader McConnell (@LeaderMcConnell) June 10, 2022
      Mike Crapo, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, alludes to the Biden administration’s now-stalled “Build Back Better” proposal that would have spent big on fighting climate change, expanding social services and making a wide variety of other priorities a reality:Inflation remains painfully high, gas prices have been setting all-time highs and families are choosing to cut expenses to make ends meet. In the face of growing risks of recession and stagflation, notions of increasing taxes or massive new spending bills must be rejected pic.twitter.com/QD1iSMG5uV— Senator Mike Crapo (@MikeCrapo) June 10, 2022
      The Republican party’s Twitter account keeps its message to voters simple:Want lower gas prices? Vote Republican.— GOP (@GOP) June 10, 2022
      The message from the May inflation data released earlier today is simple: prices are continuing to increase in the world’s largest economy, meaning Biden’s public support will likely suffer even more than it already has.Inflation has proven to have a potently negative effect on the president’s approval, swamping it among a wide swath of the population, particularly when it comes to the economy.The latest consumer price index data from the labor department is unlikely to change that dynamic. If anything, it could make it worse. Here are a few reasons why:
      Economists expected month-on-month inflation to accelerate compared to April and it did, but by one percent, which was a bigger rise than expected.
      That pushed prices compared to May 2021 up by 8.6 percent, its biggest gain since the 12-month period ending in December 1981.
      Most importantly, the year-on-year growth was evidence that the current inflation wave has not peaked, as some had hoped after the April data showed a deceleration in the price increases. Instead, the wave continues to rise, as this chart makes clear.
      Perhaps the most important takeaway from the data is that costs are accelerating for things American cannot avoid buying. Prices for groceries are up 1.4 percent compared to last month and 11.9 percent compared to May 2021. Gasoline prices have risen 4.1 percent from April and a whopping 48.7 percent compared to a year ago. Costs for Shelter — the category including rents one might pay for an apartment or house, and a particularly important contributor to overall inflation — are up 0.6 percent from last month and 5.5 percent compared to last year.
      Biden has been trying to convince Americans the economy is better than it appears, pointing to much more positive trends in employment. But with the Federal Reserve committed to a campaign of potentially sharp interest rate increases to cut into inflation, the fear now is that the US economy is heading into a recession — a concern that has already triggered sharp selloffs on Wall Street.The Biden administration will today announce the end of its requirement that people entering the country test negative for Covid-19, CNN is reporting, citing a senior administration official.According to the network:.css-knbk2a{height:1em;width:1.5em;margin-right:3px;vertical-align:baseline;fill:#C70000;} The move will go into effect for US-bound air travelers at midnight on Sunday.
      The CDC is lifting the restriction that the travel industry had lobbied against for months after determining it was no longer necessary “based on the science and data,” the official said. The CDC will reassess its decision in 90 days and if officials decide they need to reinstate it, because of a concerning new variant, for example, will do so. The measure has been in place since January 2021.
      The official said the Biden administration plans to work with airlines to ensure a smooth transition with the change, but it will likely be a welcome move for most in the industry.
      Travel industry officials have been increasingly critical of the requirement in recent weeks and directly urged the Biden administration to end the measure, arguing it was having a chilling effect on an already fragile economy, according to Airlines for America chief Nick Calio, whose group met recently with White House officials.
      The travel industry, and some scientific experts, said the policy had been out of date for months.
      Lawmakers, including Democrats, had also advocated for lifting the requirement in recent weeks.
      Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto said, “I’m glad CDC suspended the burdensome coronavirus testing requirement for international travelers, and I’ll continue to do all I can to support the strong recovery of our hospitality industry.”For those who were caught up in the insurrection, the January 6 committee hearing was a particularly difficult experience, The Guardian’s David Smith reports:It was too much to take. Too much for a second time.As the cavernous room filled with ugly cries and chants, police radio pleas for help, images of a human herd driven by a crazed impulse to beat police, smash windows and storm the US Capitol, survivors of that day held hands and wept.Several members of the House of Representatives, who were trapped on a balcony in the chamber as the attack unfolded on 6 January 2021, sat together at Thursday’s opening public hearing held by the select committee investigating the insurrection.When a carefully crafted video of that day’s carnage was played, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal watched haunted and spellbound and wiped a tear from her eye. When her colleague Cori Bush broke down, a tissue was passed along the line so she could wipe her eyes.Vivid retelling brings horror of January 6 back to scene of the crimeRead moreWashington politicians are going to spend a lot of time today reacting to last night’s blockbuster January 6 committee hearing, which was jam-packed with details of what happened that day. Maanvi Singh has this rundown to bring you up to speed:The first primetime hearing from the House select committee investigating January 6 presented gut-wrenching footage of the insurrection, and a range of testimony to build a case that the attack on the Capitol was a planned coup fomented by Donald Trump.After a year and half investigation, the committee sought to emphasize the horror of the attack and hold the former president and his allies accountable.Here are some key takeaways from the night:Attack on January 6 was the ‘culmination of an attempted coup’Presenting an overview of the hearing and the ones to come, House select committee chair Bennie Thompson and vice-chair Liz Cheney presented their findings that the violent mob that descended on the Capitol was no spontaneous occurrence.Video testimony from Donald Trump’s attorney general, his daughter, and other allies make the case that the former president was working to undermine the 2020 election results and foment backlash. “Any legal jargon you hear about ‘seditious conspiracy’, ‘obstruction of an official proceeding’, ‘conspiracy to defraud the United States’ boils down to this,” Thompson said. “January 6 was the culmination of an attempted coup. A brazen attempt, as one rioter put it shortly after January 6, to overthrow the government. Violence was no accident. It represented Trump’s last stand, most desperate chance to halt the transfer of power.”January 6 hearing: five key takeaways from the first primetime Capitol attack inquiryRead moreGood morning, US Politics blog readers. Yesterday evening, the January 6 committee released a slew of new evidence showing how Donald Trump acted during and in the run-up to the attack on the Capitol. If you missed the hearing, you can watch it here.The aftermath of those revelations will be one of today’s main stories, but that’s not all that’s going on:
      The labor department has released horrid inflation numbers that were worse than expected and sure to fuel public discontent with Joe Biden, whose approval is languishing at record lows.
      The president is meanwhile in Los Angeles and expected to sign a declaration on migration during his visit to the Summit of Americas, before heading to fundraising events with Democrats.
      Top state department official Erik Woodhouse will discuss the effectiveness of the western sanctions campaign against Russia at an event hosted by the Atlantic Council.
      Celebrity chef Jose Andres will be appearing on Capitol Hill for a hearing looking at the humanitarian response to the Ukraine war. More