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      Mitt Romney says Alejandro Mayorkas’s actions do not merit impeachment

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      Alejandro Mayorkas is not guilty of a high crime or misdemeanour, the Republican senator Mitt Romney said, making clear he will not vote to remove the US homeland security secretary from office if his impeachment goes to a trial.“Secretary Mayorkas is following the position of his party and of the president who was elected,” Romney, from Utah and his party’s nominee for president in 2012, told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday.“We have pointed out that President Biden is for open borders, as are the Democrats, and Mayorkas is simply following that policy. It’s the wrong policy, it has a huge damaging effect on the country – but it’s not a high crime or misdemeanour.”Republicans have zeroed in on undocumented migration and the southern border as campaign issues in an election year.House Republicans impeached Mayorkas in February but have not yet formally sent the articles of impeachment across the Capitol to the Senate. On Tuesday, John Kennedy, a Republican senator from Louisiana, told reporters that process would now be delayed until Monday.Under article two, section four of the US constitution, “the president, vice-president and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanours”.Debate over what exactly constitutes “high crimes and misdemeanours” is a constant of US political life.Impeachment is meant to be rare: from the founding until Donald Trump only two presidents were impeached and both, Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, were acquitted at trial.Donald Trump, however, was impeached twice: first for seeking to blackmail Ukraine for dirt on political rivals, second for inciting an insurrection, the attack on Congress of 6 January 2021.Romney was the only Republican to vote to convict both times. Now a lonely anti-Trump Republican voice, he will quit Congress this year.Democrats control the Senate, making conviction and removal of Mayorkas a near impossibility. But Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, must still decide what to do. Republicans are pressing for a trial. Schumer has indicated Democrats will do so, though they do not have to.Romney said: “Precedent is a matter of interpretation in this case. There have been impeachments that have been brought forward that did not go to trial in part because the people left office.”The last impeachment of a cabinet official concerned William Belknap, secretary of war to President Ulysses S Grant, in 1876. Belknap resigned, was tried anyway on charges of corruption, and acquitted.Romney did not say if he would vote to table the articles of impeachment, thereby avoiding a trial.“What does one do will depend on what the legal options are,” he said. “When to vote and how is uncertain at this stage. I believe a high crime or misdemeanour has not been alleged.” More

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      US defense secretary rejects Israel genocide accusations; Blinken and Cameron urge US House to pass Ukraine aid – as it happened

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      The US has seen no evidence that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, has said.Austin, addressing a Senate armed services committee during a budget hearing today, said:
      We don’t have any evidence of genocide being created.
      He also avoided referring to the Hamas attacks on southern Israel on 7 October as a genocide, calling it a “horrific terrorist attack” and “certainly … a war crime”.Austin’s testimony was interrupted several times by protesters calling for the US to stop funding the war.
      Arizona’s supreme court ruled to let a law banning almost all abortions in the state go into effect. The justices said Arizona could enforce a 1864 near-total abortion ban that went unenforced for decades after the US supreme court legalized abortion nationwide in the 1973 decision Roe v Wade.
      Arizona governor Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, said Tuesday was a “dark day” for the state and implored abortion rights supporters to make their voices heard in November.
      Joe Biden criticized the Arizona supreme court ruling, blaming “the extreme agenda of Republican elected officials who are committed to ripping away women’s freedom” and calling the ban “cruel”.
      Kamala Harris, in response to the ruling by the Arizona supreme court, said the state had “rolled back the clock to a time before women could vote”, and said Donald Trump was resopnsible for the ruling. Harris will travel to Arizona on Friday.
      Secretary of state Antony Blinken and his UK counterpart, foreign secretary David Cameron, urged Congress to approve new military aid for Ukraine after talks in Washington during a joint press conference following talks in Washington on Tuesday.
      Blinken said the supplemental budget request that the president has made of Congress is “urgent” and should be taken to a vote “as quickly as possible”. Victory for Ukraine is “vital for American and European security”, Cameron said.
      Cameron also met with Trump over dinner on Monday at his Mar-a-Lago estate. During the briefing with Blinken, Cameron defended the meeting as a standard encounter with an opposition figure and said it covered a number of pressing global issues but did not elaborate. “These things are entirely proper,” he said.
      Trump’s campaign said the former president and Cameron discussed the Ukraine war and “the need for Nato countries to meet their defense spending requirements”.
      Defense secretary Lloyd Austin said the US has seen “no evidence” that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. Austin addressed a Senate armed services committee during a budget hearing and was interrupted several times by protesters calling for the US to stop funding Israel’s war in Gaza.
      A New York appeals court judge rejected the latest bid by Trump to delay his 15 April trial on criminal charges stemming from hush money paid to an adult film star.
      Republican far-right Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene escalated her threat to oust Mike Johnson, issuing a searing indictment of the House speaker in a letter explaining her decision to file a motion to oust him.
      Kamala Harris will travel to Arizona on Friday just days after the state’s supreme court upheld a near-total abortion ban.The vice president’s trip to Arizona, her second this year, was already in the works prior to Tuesday’s court decision and will likely take on a heightened focus on abortion rights and access, Politico reported.The White House said Harris will use her visit “to continue her leadership in the fight for reproductive freedoms”.Fifteen prominent historians filed an amicus brief with the supreme court, rejecting Donald Trump’s claim in his federal election subversion case that he is immune to criminal prosecution for acts committed as president.Authorities cited in the document include the founders Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Adams, in addition to the historians’ own work.Trump, the historians said, “asserts that a doctrine of permanent immunity from criminal liability for a president’s official acts, while not expressly provided by the constitution, must be inferred.
      To justify this radical assertion, he contends that the original meaning of the constitution demands it. But no plausible historical case supports his claim.
      Despite widespread legal and historical opinion that Trump’s immunity claim is groundless, the supreme court, to which Trump appointed three justices, will consider the claim.Oral arguments are scheduled for 25 April. The court recently dismissed attempts, supported by leading historians, to remove Trump from ballots under the 14th amendment, passed after the civil war to bar insurrectionists from office.As we reported earlier, defense secretary Lloyd Austin told the Senate earlier today that the US government has seen “no evidence” that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza.Austin addressed a Senate armed services committee during a budget hearing and was interrupted several times by protesters calling for the US to stop funding Israel’s war in Gaza.The UK also confirmed in meetings with US counterparts that there would be no changes to arms exports to Israel, although it would be kept under review.Here’s the clip:Louisiana’s Republican-controlled senate advanced a bill on Monday that would empower state and local law enforcement to arrest and jail people in the state who entered the US illegally, similar to embattled legislation in Texas.Amid national fights between Republican states and Joe Biden over how and who should enforce the US-Mexico border, Louisiana joins a growing list of legislatures seeking to expand states’ authority over border enforcement.Proponents of the bill, such as the legislation’s author, GOP state senator Valarie Hodges, say Louisiana has the “right to defend our nation”. Hodges has accused the federal government of neglecting responsibilities to enforce immigration law, an argument heard from GOP leaders across the country.Opponents argue the bill is unconstitutional, will not do anything to make the state safer, and will only fuel negative and false rhetoric directed toward migrants.Across the nation, reliably red legislatures have advanced tougher immigration enforcement measures.The Oklahoma house passed a bill that would prohibit state revenue from being used to provide benefits to those living in the state illegally. A bill in Tennessee, which is awaiting the governor’s signature, would require law enforcement agencies in the state to communicate with federal immigration authorities if they discover people who are in the country illegally. Measures that mirror parts of the Texas law are awaiting the governor’s signature in Iowa, while another is pending in Idaho’s statehouse.Lawmakers and climate advocates called on utilities to “ditch the American Gas Association” at a press conference at the US Capitol on Tuesday.“Americans are already paying the price of climate change,” said Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts.
      They shouldn’t have to pay the salaries of those who are fueling it.
      A trade association representing more than 200 US utilities, the AGA has a well-documented history of lobbying against climate regulations and policies – activity funded in part by members’ ratepayers’ utility bills. It’s a “dirty game,” said Xavier Boatwright of the Sierra Club.Both the event and a protest outside the AGA’s headquarters earlier Tuesday were led by the anti-gas nonprofit organization the Gas Leaks Project.“There’s nothing natural about natural gas,” said the group’s senior communications director Maria Luisa Cesar.The extraction and use of gas, called natural gas by industry interests, emits planet-heating and toxic pollution. Reports show the AGA has been aware of these dangers for 50 years, but has continued to undercut climate efforts. Rhode Island senator Sheldon Whitehouse said:
      The fossil fuel industry depends in roughly equal parts on hydrocarbons and lies.
      In August, the New England utility Eversource cut ties with the American Gas Association. Advocates are calling on other utilities to follow its lead. Four states have also passed legislation to prevent the use of ratepayer dollars to fund political activity.Also in Arizona, Eva Burch, a Democratic state lawmaker who drew national attention after announcing her decision to seek an abortion earlier this month, said today’s court decision to enforce a ban – using a law that was originally drafted in the 19th Century before women could vote and before Arizona was a state – would have devastating consequences for women such as her.“A couple of weeks ago I had an abortion – a safe legal abortion here in Arizona for a pregnancy that I very much wanted,” Burch said.
      Somebody gave me a procedure so that I wouldn’t have to experience another miscarriage – the pain, the mess, the discomfort. And now we’re talking about whether or not we should put that doctor in jail. This is outrageous.
      Burch predicted the ruling would backfire on conservatives who have fought to allow the ban to be enforced.“The people of Arizona have had enough,” Burch said.
      We are electing pro-choice candidates in November. Watch it happen.
      Kamala Harris has responded to a ruling by the Arizona supreme court to let a law banning almost all abortions in the state go into effect, saying the state had “rolled back the clock to a time before women could vote”.In a statement, the vice president said there was “one person responsible” for the ruling, which will allow a law first passed in 1864 to go into effect, “by his own admission … Donald Trump”.Harris said the “extreme and dangerous” ban criminalizes almost all abortion care in the state and “puts women’s lives at risk”, adding:
      It’s a reality because of Donald Trump, who brags about being ‘proudly the person responsible’ for overturning Roe v. Wade, and made it possible for states to enforce cruel bans.
      She added:
      The alarm is sounding for every woman in America: if he has the opportunity, Donald Trump would sign off on a national abortion ban. He has called for punishing women and doctors. If he wins, he and his allies have plans to ban abortion and restrict access to birth control, with or without Congress.
      Arizona governor Katie Hobbs, a Democrat, called today’s news from the state’s supreme court on an abortion ban a “dark day” for the state and implored abortion rights supporters to make their voices heard in November.Hobbs vowed to do everything in her power to preserve access to reproductive care and contraception in the state, pointing to actions she has already taken. After winning the election in 2022, Hobbs last year issued a sweeping executive order banning county attorneys from prosecuting women who seek abortions and doctors who perform them.Asked about the possibility that her directive could be challenged in court, Hobbs said: “Bring it on.”At the news conference, held moments after the state supreme court released its decision, Hobbs called on the Republican-led state legislature to “immediately” repeal the ban. But the legislature is unlikely to do so. The leaders of both chambers joined anti-abortion activists in favor of allowing the territorial-era ban to take effect.“The legislature has ignored the will of the voters on this issue for decades,” she said.
      The ballot box is the way that voters can have their say and overrule the legislature on this issue that the vast majority of Arizonans support.
      The national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, just said that US government agencies were still involved in an “informal review” of the Israel Defense Forces’ review of the killing by the Israeli military of seven aid workers with the group World Central Kitchen in Gaza earlier this month.Sullivan said that the CIA director, Bill Burns, was involved in further talks in Cairo in Egypt at the weekend, where states such as the US and Qatar are trying to broker a ceasefire in Israel’s war in Gaza and the return of the remaining hostages held by Hamas since the massacre it perpetrated in southern Israel last 7 October.Sullivan said the US “has seen Israel take some steps forward” in the talks, while the latest statements from Hamas were regarded as “less than encouraging”.He said more humanitarian aid was reaching Gaza, which he said was “good, but not good enough”, amid Israel’s blockade and siege of the Palestinian territory.And amid Israel pulling troops out of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, in a pause in its offensive actions, Sullivan said the US has still not seen “a credible and executable” plan from Israel about what it would do to move or protect Palestinians in the event that, as it has pledged to do, it invades Rafah.Joe Biden has just arrived back at the White House after a very short trip to Washington’s main Union Station rail hub, to deliver remarks about healthcare.White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was originally due to brief the media at 1.30pm in the regular daily session in the west wing, but obviously everything is being pushed back because the president’s schedule shifted later than originally expected, also. The US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, will join the briefing. It’s getting underway now.We’ll bring you highlights from the briefing. There has been a lot of international-facing news today, especially with the latest on high-level talks in the Middle East about Israel’s war in Gaza and US secretary of state Antony Blinken and the UK foreign secretary, David Cameron meeting in Washington, DC, and urging the US Congress to approve new military aid for Ukraine.Joe Biden has criticized the Arizona supreme court ruling from earlier today to let an old law on the books banning almost all abortions in the state go into effect – albeit with a 14-day delay to allow further legal challenges before it does.The US president blamed “the extreme agenda of Republican elected officials who are committed to ripping away women’s freedom” and called the ban “cruel”.In a statement issued from the White House moments ago, Biden said: “Millions of Arizonans will soon live under an even more extreme and dangerous abortion ban, which fails to protect women even when their health is at risk or in tragic cases of rape or incest. This cruel ban was first enacted in 1864 – more than 150 years ago, before Arizona was even a state and well before women had secured the right to vote.”The statement ended with: “Vice-President Harris and I stand with the vast majority of Americans who support a woman’s right to choose. We will continue to fight to protect reproductive rights and call on Congress to pass a law restoring the protections of Roe v Wade for women in every state.”Kamala Harris has taken a strong lead in recent months on efforts by the Biden administration and the Biden-Harris re-election campaign to win support for protecting reproductive rights.This follows, in particular, the landmark overturning of the federal right to abortion by the conservative-dominated supreme court in 2022 and further attacks on rights ranging from abortion pills to contraception to IVF by the hard right.The Arizona supreme court ruled on Tuesday to let a law banning almost all abortions in the state go into effect, a decision that could curtail abortion access in the US south-west and could make Arizona one of the biggest battlefields in the 2024 electoral fight over abortion rights.The justices said Arizona could enforce a 1864 near-total abortion ban, first passed before Arizona became a state, that went unenforced for decades after the US supreme court legalized abortion nationwide in the 1973 decision Roe v Wade. However, the justices also ruled to hold off on requiring the state to enforce the ban for 14 days, in order to allow advocates to ask a lower court to pause it again.The ban can only be enforced “prospectively”, according to the 4-2 ruling. Minutes after the ruling Kris Mayes, Arizona’s Democratic attorney general, vowed not to prosecute any doctors or women under the 1864 ban.You can read the full story here.The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, urged Congress to approve new military aid for Ukraine after talks in Washington.
      Blinken and Cameron held a joint press conference where the US secretary of state said the stalled Ukraine funding is critical for US, European and world security. The supplemental budget request that Joe Biden has made of Congress is “urgent” and should be taken to a vote “as quickly as possible”, Blinken said. Victory for Ukraine is “vital for American and European security”, Cameron said.
      Cameron also met with Donald Trump over dinner on Monday at his Mar-a-Lago estate. During the briefing with Blinken, Cameron defended the meeting as a standard encounter with an opposition figure and said it covered a number of pressing global issues but did not elaborate. “These things are entirely proper,” he said.
      Trump’s campaign said the former president and Cameron discussed the Ukraine war and “the need for Nato countries to meet their defense spending requirements”.
      The US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, told a Senate armed services committee hearing that the US has seen no evidence that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
      A New York appeals court judge rejected the latest bid by Trump to delay his 15 April trial on criminal charges stemming from hush money paid to an adult film star.
      Republican far-right Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene escalated her threat to oust Mike Johnson, issuing a searing indictment of the House speaker in a letter explaining her decision to file a motion to oust him.
      There’s a key US Senate race in Ohio this year, where the incumbent leftwing Democrat, Sherrod Brown, is expected to face a tough challenge from Bernie Moreno, a car dealer turned Trump-backed populist firebrand.Like many Trump-backed candidates, Moreno is making it his business to blame China for woes affecting blue-collar workers. Earlier this year, he went so far as to tell a conservative radio host: “The Buick Envision was made in China, I told General Motors I wouldn’t sell one of them, don’t even ship it to me.”The problem about the claim, which Moreno has made elsewhere, is that as Spectrum News reports … “Moreno’s dealership did sell the Chinese-made SUVs for several years, and even promoted the vehicles on social media, according to numerous social media posts.”After detailing such posts, Spectrum adds:
      “GM, the parent company of Buick, confirmed to Spectrum News the Envision was only manufactured in China. The SUV became the first Chinese-made vehicle to be imported by a major US automaker when it debuted in Michigan in 2016.
      The imports were called a “slap in the face” by the United Auto Workers union, which felt the vehicles should be made on US soil by American workers.
      A spokesperson for Moreno, Reagan McCarthy, told Spectrum: “In response to the closure of the Lordstown Plant here in Ohio [in March 2019], Bernie made a decision to stop any new inventory of Envision’s [sic] from being sold at his dealership. After he sold off the inventory he already had on the lot, he refused to take orders for more Envisions. There is zero contradiction here.”There are contradictions elsewhere in Moreno’s campaign statements, though, as the Guardian discussed here:A New York appeals court judge has rejected the latest bid by Donald Trump to delay his 15 April trial on criminal charges stemming from hush money paid to an adult film star.Trump’s lawyers had requested the trial to be postponed indefinitely while he appeals a gag order that bars him from commenting about jurors, witnesses and others connected to the case.Trump’s attorneys argue that Justice Juan Merchan’s order restricting his public comments is an unconstitutional prior restraint on his free speech rights while he campaigns for president. Merchan imposed the order last month after finding Trump made statements in various legal cases that the judge called “threatening, inflammatory” and “denigrating”.During the hearing on Tuesday, Trump’s lawyer Emil Bove said:
      The First amendment harms arising from this gag order right now are irreparable.
      Justice Cynthia Kern issued the order following a Tuesday morning hearing, but a full panel of appeals judges will later consider the former president’s underlying challenge to the gag order.Austin, asked what the consequences of a deadly mass famine in Gaza would be, said:
      It will accelerate violence, and it will have the effect of ensuring that there’s a long-term conflict.
      Addressing the Senate armed services committee, the defense secretary added:
      It doesn’t have to happen … We should continue to do everything we can, and we are doing this, to encourage the Israelis to provide humanitarian assistance. More

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      Republicans want to use an 1873 law to ban abortion. Congress must overturn that law | Moira Donegan

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      They don’t need Congress. The anti-abortion movement is preparing to ban abortion nationwide as soon as a Republican takes the White House, and under a bizarre legal theory, they don’t think they even need congressional approval to do it. That’s because anti-choice radicals have begun to argue that an 1873 anti-obscenity law, the Comstock Act, effectively bans the mailing, sale, advertisement or distribution of any drug or implement that can be used to cause an abortion.For a long time, this was a fringe theory, only heard in the corners of the anti-choice movement with the most misogynist zealotry and the flimsiest concerns for reason. After all, the Comstock Act has not been enforced for more than half a century: many of its original provisions, banning contraception, were overturned; other elements, banning pornography and other “obscene” material, have been essentially nullified on free speech grounds.And, for decades, its ban on abortifacients was voided by Roe v Wade. Now that the US supreme court has thrown out the national abortion right, the anti-choice movement is reviving the long-forgotten law, claiming that the Comstock Act – named after a man who hunted down pornographers, threw early feminists in jail and bragged about driving abortion providers to suicide – should still be considered good law.It’s not a solid legal theory, but like a lot of flimsily reasoned, violently sexist and once-fringe arguments, it is now getting a respectful hearing at the supreme court. At last month’s oral arguments in a case regarding the legality of the abortion drug mifepristone, Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas both mentioned Comstock, implying that someone – perhaps the FDA, perhaps drug companies – was obliged to suppress abortion medication under the law. Comstock was not at issue in the mifepristone case, but the comments from the justices were not really about the case before them. Rather, they were a signal, a message meant for the conservative legal movement: if you bring us a case that seeks to ban abortion under Comstock, the judges were saying, we will vote for it.So it is a bit puzzling why, in an election year that promises to be dominated by outrage over abortion bans and the erosion of women’s rights, Democrats have not done more to convey the dangers of Comstock to the public. Admittedly, the problem is somewhat complicated and obscure, not quite the kind of thing that can fit on a bumper sticker. But voters have shown that they are willing to pay prolonged attention to the abortion issue: the continued political salience of Dobbs almost two years after the decision has proved this.Democrats have an opportunity, this election year, to corner Republicans on an unpopular issue, to make a case to the voters about the uses of giving them continued electoral power, and to articulate a vision for a modern, pluralist and tolerant society in which women can aspire to a meaningfully equal citizenship and in which ordinary citizens are endowed with the privacy and dignity to control their own sexual lives – without interference from the pantingly prurient Republican party.This election cycle, Democrats must take the obvious stand, and do what is right both in terms of politics and in terms of policy: they must call, en masse, for the repeal of the Comstock Act. Anything less would be political malpractice.It’s not as if Comstock is not being thoroughly embraced by the other side. In addition to its revival by the conservative legal movement and anti-choice activists, Comstock has found enthusiastic backers both in conservative thinktanks and among members of Congress. The rightwing Heritage Foundation cited a maximalist approach to Comstock interpretation and enforcement – and the nationwide total abortion ban that would result – as one of their priorities in their “Project 2025”, a policy plan for a coming Trump administration. Meanwhile, in an amicus brief issued to the supreme court in the mifepristone case, 119 Republican representatives and 26 Republican senators asked the court to ban abortion nationwide using Comstock.These conservatives know that their abortion bans are unpopular; they know that voters do not support the overturning of Roe v Wade, and will never vote for the total abortion bans that they aim for. This is precisely why they are seeking to achieve their ends through the judiciary, the one branch of the federal government that is uniquely immune to democratic accountability. And it is why, rather than attempting to ban abortion through the regular legislative process, they are seeking to do so via the revival of a long-forgotten statute, ignoring that Comstock has been void for decades to exploit the fact that it is technically still on the books.To their credit, a few Democratic lawmakers have begun to vocally campaign to overturn Comstock. The first was Cori Bush, of Missouri, who called for the repeal of what she termed the “zombie statute” in the hours after Comstock was mentioned at the court’s mifepristone oral arguments.She was joined days later by Senator Tina Smith, of Minnesota, who wrote in a New York Times op-ed that she wanted to repeal the law and “take away Comstock as a tool to limit reproductive freedom”. Smith says that she is working to form a coalition of Democratic House and Senate members to “build support and see what legislation to repeal the Comstock Act might look like”. Smith says that she wants to wait to see what, if anything, the supreme court says on the matter in its mifepristone decision, expected by the end of June.There is no need to wait. It is unlikely that any bill to repeal Comstock will get the 60 votes needed to pass the Senate; it is impossible that any such bill would make its way through the Republican-controlled House. But this means that Democrats have nothing to lose in waging a political campaign to draw attention to Comstock, and to force their Republican colleagues to take a stand on it. Voters deserve to know what they’re in for if a Republican captures the White House – and they deserve to know what the Republicans on their ballot think about their own rights to dignity, equality, privacy and sexual self-determination.There might be no item on the current political agenda that more aptly symbolizes the Republican worldview than Comstock. Never really workably enforced and long ignored as out of date, Comstock has come to stand in, in the rightwing imagination, for a virtuous, hierarchically ordered past that can be restored in a sexually repressive and tyrannically misogynistic future.This past never existed, not really, but the fantasy of it now has power in many corners of our law: among the reasons given by Samuel Alito in his majority opinion overturning Roe v Wade was his estimation that the right to an abortion was not “deeply rooted in America’s history and traditions”. This grimly nostalgic Republican aim to allow only those freedoms delineated in “history and tradition” would foreclose an America that adapts with time, that allows new forms of freedom to emerge from history.Comstock is a relic, and a relic is what the Republican right wants to turn America into. Democrats have a chance to make a case for it to be something else – something more like a democracy.
      Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist More

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      Biden campaign says Trump ‘directly to blame’ for Florida abortion ruling – as it happened

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      Joe Biden’s campaign team said Donald Trump is “directly to blame” for the ruling upholding an abortion ban in Florida, given that the former president nominated three of the supreme court justices who helped overturn Roe v Wade in 2022.“Because of Donald Trump, Maga [’Make America Great Again’] Republicans across this country are ripping away access to reproductive health care and inserting themselves into the most personal decisions women can make, from contraception to IVF,” Julie Chávez Rodríguez, Biden’s campaign manager, told reporters on a press call.“And make no mistake: Donald Trump will do everything in his power to try and enact a national abortion ban if he’s reelected.”Earlier today, the Biden campaign released a new ad, titled “Trust”, that highlights Trump’s past comments bragging about the reversal of Roe and also warns of the possibility of a federal ban. The ad will air across battleground states as part of the Biden campaign’s broader media blitz this spring.“These are the stakes in November, and we’re going to continue to make sure that every single voter knows them,” Rodríguez said. “Here’s the bottom line: Trump and Maga Republicans are working to ban abortion nationwide, while President Biden and Vice-President Harris will never stop fighting to protect reproductive freedom.”Democrats have condemned a Florida supreme court ruling that will allow a six-week abortion ban to go into effect, while seizing on a separate decision green lighting an initiative protecting access to the procedure to go before voters in November. The party has seen success in recent elections by campaigning against efforts to cut off access to abortion, and will try to replicate that in Florida, a state where Democratic candidates have struggled in recent years. To hammer the point home, top House lawmakers convened a hearing in the state, which Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries called “ground zero” in the fight for abortion access.Here’s what else happened:
      The Biden campaign said Donald Trump was “directly to blame” for the Florida court ruling upholding the state’s abortion restrictions.
      Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse signaled he was open to at least some of what Republican House speaker Mike Johnson is considering to approve military aid to Israel and Ukraine.
      Tina Smith, a Democratic senator from Minnesota, wants to repeal a moribund 19th-century law that some fear could be used to stop abortions nationwide.
      Opponents of Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s invasion of Gaza are encouraging voters to choose “uninstructed” in Wisconsin’s primary today.
      Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, said he wants to fight “the isolationist movement” in his party.
      Joe Biden plans to today hold a small meeting with Muslims at the White House, rather than the larger gathering it traditionally hosts during Ramadan, in the latest sign of his administration’s tensions with the community over Biden’s support for Israel’s invasion of Gaza, National Public Radio reports.The Biden administration has repeatedly approved weapons transfers to Israel as it presses on with its invasion of Gaza, sparking protests from Muslims who have organized efforts to withhold their votes for Biden during the primaries. Here’s more on the White House meeting tonight, from NPR:
      The gathering is in lieu of the traditional Ramadan iftar dinner or Eid celebrations the White House usually hosts with Muslim leaders, and it comes amid ongoing political tensions given the war in Gaza.
      The goal, according to people familiar with the plans, is to allow guests to have a “substantive” conversation with the president about the situation in Gaza. Vice President Harris and national security adviser Jake Sullivan will also attend, the sources said. Biden last met with Muslim and Arab-American leaders at the White House in late October.The sources said the White House had initially planned to host a small, solemn Ramadan dinner Tuesday evening, but plans changed after a number of Muslim invitees said they did not feel comfortable dining at the White House while scores of Palestinians are on the brink of starvation.
      The White House still intends to host a small iftar dinner later Tuesday evening for a dozen or so Muslim staffers — a scaled-down version of the traditional celebration.
      Some Democrats fear the rift between Biden and Arab and Muslim communities could cost him support crucial to winning the November election, particularly in swing state Michigan. Here’s more on that:Another tentative and potential sign of movement has emerged on the long-stalled military aid package for Ukraine and Israel.Democratic senator Sheldon Whitehouse weighed in on Republican House speaker Mike Johnson’s comments yesterday, where he floated some potential demands he may make to move the package through his chamber. Whitehouse seems alright with two of the three changes Johnson requested, but takes issue with the third:Republicans and Democrats have been tussling over the aid proposal for months, and it’s unclear if Johnson’s mulled concessions will be palatable to Democrats, or enough for his fellow Republicans, many of whom are demanding new, strict border security policies to support the bill. Here’s more on where the House speaker says he now stands on the bill:Donald Trump is making a swing through Michigan and Wisconsin today, two states he will almost certainly need to win if he is to return to the White House.His stop in Michigan took him to Grand Rapids, an area where Democrats have lately made inroads in what was traditionally Republican territory. It’s also the site of a murder allegedly committed by an undocumented immigrant, and during his appearance in the city, Trump reiterated his vows to crack down on people in the country illegally:Attacks on migrants have been a mainstay for Trump since his first run for the White House, and thus far, this campaign has been no different:The first criminal trial Donald Trump faces begins 15 April in New York City, on charges related to making hush money payments ahead of the 2016 election. The former president has taken to insulting various people involved in the case, and as the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports, now faces a gag order:The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s forthcoming criminal trial in New York expanded an existing gag order on Monday, preventing the former president from making inflammatory comments about the judge’s family members, after they became the target of Trump’s personal attacks.The new protective order continues to allow Trump to rail against the judge and the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, who charged Trump last year with falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal before the 2016 election.But Trump is now expressly prohibited from assailing the family members of any lawyers or court staff involved in the case, as well as family members of the judge and the district attorney, the New York supreme court justice Juan Merchan wrote in the revised order.The order cited the recent attacks Trump had leveled at the judge’s daughter and rejected Trump’s contention that he should be free to criticize what he perceived to be conflicts of interest and other complaints because they amounted to “core political speech”.“This pattern of attacking family members of presiding jurists and attorneys assigned to his cases serves no legitimate purpose,” Merchan wrote. “It merely injects fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings, that not only they, but their family members as well, are ‘fair game’.”Elsewhere in Florida, the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell reports that the federal judge handling Donald Trump’s trial on charges related to hiding classified documents has yet to schedule a start date, despite the best efforts of prosecutors:The prospects of Donald Trump going to trial in July on charges of retaining national security documents, as suggested by special counsel prosecutors, are rapidly diminishing, with the judge overseeing the case yet to issue a schedule weeks after she was presented with the potential options.The US district judge Aileen Cannon received proposed trial start dates from Trump and the special counsel Jack Smith more than a month ago in advance of a hearing ostensibly to settle the matter in Fort Pierce, Florida, but she has still not decided when the proceeding will begin.As a result, Trump has been able to avoid filing certain pre-trial motions that have to be completed before the case can proceed to trial, playing into his strategy of trying to delay the case as much as possible before the 2024 election in November.Trump’s legal strategy for all of his criminal cases has been to delay, under the calculus that winning re-election would enable him to appoint a loyalist as attorney general who could direct prosecutors to drop the case, or pardon himself if he was convicted.There are more than 13.4 million people registered to vote in Florida, according to its division of elections, and one of them very well may be Donald Trump.Long associated with New York’s real estate scene, he changed his residence from the Empire State to the Sunshine State during his time in the White House. That means he can vote on Florida’s ballot initiative that will decide whether abortion rights are enshrined in the state constitution – and you can expect that reporters will try their darnedest over the coming months to get him to reveal which way he leans on the issue.Floridians will have an opportunity to weigh in on the question of abortion access this November, when they vote on an initiative that would enshrine reproductive rights in the state constitution.Speaking on the Biden campaign press call, Fentrice Driskell, the Democratic leader of the Florida house, argued that the state supreme court’s decision to uphold an abortion ban underscored the urgency of the November elections.“We are seeing what Trump’s agenda looks like here in Florida: extremist politicians inserting themselves into women’s healthcare, threatening doctors with prison time and endangering women’s health and lives,” Driskell said.“The only thing that can stop governmental interference into our lives and exam rooms is to stay in the fight and by exercising our right to vote. This November, Florida will draw a line in the sand and say enough.”Democrats hope that the presence of the abortion initiative on the ballot might tip the scales in their party’s favor in Florida, but they acknowledge that the task will be difficult, given Republicans’ recent dominance in the purple state. Trump carried the state by 3 points in 2020, increasing his advantage from 2016 even as he lost the national election to Biden.“We’re clear-eyed about how hard it will be to win Florida, but we also know that Trump does not have it in the bag,” said Julie Chávez Rodríguez, Biden’s campaign manager. “We definitely see Florida in play.”Joe Biden’s campaign team said Donald Trump is “directly to blame” for the ruling upholding an abortion ban in Florida, given that the former president nominated three of the supreme court justices who helped overturn Roe v Wade in 2022.“Because of Donald Trump, Maga [’Make America Great Again’] Republicans across this country are ripping away access to reproductive health care and inserting themselves into the most personal decisions women can make, from contraception to IVF,” Julie Chávez Rodríguez, Biden’s campaign manager, told reporters on a press call.“And make no mistake: Donald Trump will do everything in his power to try and enact a national abortion ban if he’s reelected.”Earlier today, the Biden campaign released a new ad, titled “Trust”, that highlights Trump’s past comments bragging about the reversal of Roe and also warns of the possibility of a federal ban. The ad will air across battleground states as part of the Biden campaign’s broader media blitz this spring.“These are the stakes in November, and we’re going to continue to make sure that every single voter knows them,” Rodríguez said. “Here’s the bottom line: Trump and Maga Republicans are working to ban abortion nationwide, while President Biden and Vice-President Harris will never stop fighting to protect reproductive freedom.”Democrats have condemned a Florida supreme court ruling that will allow a six-week abortion ban to go into effect, while seizing on a separate decision to allow an initiative protecting access to the procedure to go before voters in November. The party has seen success in recent elections by campaigning against efforts to cut off access to abortion, and will try to replicate that in Florida, a state where Democratic candidates have struggled in recent years. To hammer the point home, top House lawmakers convened a hearing in the state, which Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries called “ground zero” in the fight for abortion access.Here’s what else has happened:
      Tina Smith, a Democratic senator from Minnesota, wants to repeal a moribund 19th-century law that some fear could be used to stop abortions nationwide.
      Opponents of Joe Biden’s support for Israel’s invasion of Gaza are encouraging voters to choose “uninstructed” in Wisconsin’s primary today.
      Mitch McConnell, the top Republican in the Senate, said he wants to fight “the isolationist movement” in his party.
      Congress has some unfinished business to deal with when it returns to Washington DC next week, in the form of a military aid package for Israel, Ukraine and other US allies. It’s been held up by Republicans in the House, some of whom are opposed to further aid to Kyiv, and the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports that the Senate’s top Republican has signaled he will make overcoming these holdouts a priority:Mitch McConnell will spend the rest of his time in the US Senate “fighting” isolationists in his own Republican party, the longtime GOP leader said on Monday.“I’m particularly involved in actually fighting back against the isolationist movement in my own party,” McConnell told WHAS, a radio station in his state, Kentucky.“And some in the other as well. And the symbol of that lately is: are we going to help Ukraine or not? I’ve got this sort of on my mind for the next couple years as something I’m going to focus on.”McConnell, 82, has led Republicans in the Senate for 17 years. In March, he said he would step down at the end of this year, after an election in which Republicans have a good chance of retaking the chamber.McConnell assured his decision to step down was not related to recent health scares and said he would stay to the end of his term in 2027.Isolationism has surged in the Republican party under Donald Trump, president between 2017 and 2021 and the presumptive nominee again for November’s election.Israel’s allies, including the United States and Britain, are demanding it investigate the killing of seven aid workers in Gaza that were with the World Central Kitchen charity.Follow our live blog for more on this developing story: More

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      Biden campaign accuses Trump of plans for ‘formalizing white supremacy’ – as it happened

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      The co-chair of Joe Biden’s re-election campaign Cedric Richmond said that “formalizing white supremacy” will be a priority of Donald Trump, if he is returned to the White House.His statement came after Axios reported that Trump’s allies are planning to fight “anti-white racism”, and dismantle efforts to promote diversity and combat discrimination against people of color and other minorities.Richmond pointed to Trump’s promotion of the baseless conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, and his equivocation over condemning the violent 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia:
      Trump couldn’t care less about Black and brown communities – he never has. Now he’s making it clear that if he wins in November, he’ll turn his racist record into official government policy, gutting programs that give communities of color economic opportunities and making the lives of Black and brown folks harder. Already, his Project 2025 allies have blocked billions of dollars in support for women and minority-owned businesses, and if he wins a second term they’ll take their divisive agenda even further. It’s up to us to stop him.
      Could the frozen negotiations on passing aid to Ukraine, Israel and other American allies finally be unthawing? Yesterday, the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, laid out some potential concessions he may demand of Democrats in exchange for putting the measure up for a vote when Congress returns to work next week. We don’t know what Joe Biden, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, or other top Democrats think of this proposal, though California senator Laphonza Butler signaled that Johnson’s call to restart the permitting of new natural gas export projects may prove controversial. Meanwhile, Biden and Johnson are feuding over the White House’s declaration of 31 March as Transgender Day of Visibility – which also happened to be Easter Sunday.Here’s what else happened today:
      The president will on Friday visit the site of the collapsed Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore, as efforts to reopen the city’s vital port continue.
      Johnson downplayed rightwing congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s attempt to remove him from office, but acknowledged it was a “distraction”.
      Biden gave a brief interview where he sounded upbeat about his prospects of winning re-election.
      Donald Trump’s campaign also attacked Biden for recognizing transgender people, while reportedly stretching the truth about the rules for the annual Easter Egg Roll.
      John Avlon, a former CNN anchor and Daily Beast editor, released impressive fundraising numbers as he runs for Congress in New York.
      A victory by Donald Trump could also imperil efforts to fight the climate crisis worldwide, a former top UN official warns. The Guardian’s Fiona Harvey has the story:Victory for Donald Trump in the US presidential election this year could put the world’s climate goals at risk, a former UN climate chief has said.The chances of limiting global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels are already slim, and Trump’s antipathy to climate action would have a major impact on the US, which is the world’s second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases and biggest oil and gas exporter, said Patricia Espinosa, who served as the UN’s top official on the climate from 2016 to 2022.“I worry [about the potential election of Trump] because it would have very strong consequences, if we see a regression regarding climate policies in the US,” Espinosa said.Although Trump’s policy plans are not clear, conversations with his circle have created a worrying picture that could include the cancellation of Joe Biden’s groundbreaking climate legislation, withdrawal from the Paris agreement and a push for more drilling for oil and gas.The co-chair of Joe Biden’s re-election campaign Cedric Richmond said that “formalizing white supremacy” will be a priority of Donald Trump, if he is returned to the White House.His statement came after Axios reported that Trump’s allies are planning to fight “anti-white racism”, and dismantle efforts to promote diversity and combat discrimination against people of color and other minorities.Richmond pointed to Trump’s promotion of the baseless conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, and his equivocation over condemning the violent 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia:
      Trump couldn’t care less about Black and brown communities – he never has. Now he’s making it clear that if he wins in November, he’ll turn his racist record into official government policy, gutting programs that give communities of color economic opportunities and making the lives of Black and brown folks harder. Already, his Project 2025 allies have blocked billions of dollars in support for women and minority-owned businesses, and if he wins a second term they’ll take their divisive agenda even further. It’s up to us to stop him.
      Speaking of the November elections, Donald Trump’s allies are putting together plans to fight racism against white people, should be elected again. Here’s more on that, from the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly:The former Trump White House adviser, anti-immigration extremist and white nationalist Stephen Miller is helping drive a plan to tackle supposed “anti-white racism” if Donald Trump returns to power next year, Axios reported.“Longtime aides and allies … have been laying legal groundwork with a flurry of lawsuits and legal complaints – some of which have been successful,” Axios said on Monday.Should Trump return to power, Axios said, Miller and other aides plan to “dramatically change the government’s interpretation of civil rights-era laws to focus on ‘anti-white racism’ rather than discrimination against people of colour”.Such an effort would involve “eliminating or upending” programmes meant to counter racism against non-white groups.The US supreme court, dominated 6-3 by rightwing justices after Trump installed three, recently boosted such efforts by ruling against race-based affirmative action in college admissions.America First Legal, a group founded by Miller and described by him as the right’s “long-awaited answer” to the American Civil Liberties Union, is helping drive plans for a second Trump term, Axios said.In John Avlon’s Vanity Fair interview, the former CNN anchor and Daily Beast editor turned Democratic candidate for a US House seat in New York says his party has a problem when it comes to “obsessing about culture-war issues”.“I think Democrats often get spun around the axle when they start obsessing about culture-war issues,” Avlon says, offering as an example, “Defund the police, one of the worst, most self-defeating political slogans imaginable.“But in reality, in the last Congress – I counted this up – there were seven members of the Democratic House who supported the policy known as ‘Defund the police’. There were 139 members of the Republican House [and eight senators] who voted to overturn the election after the attack on the Capitol. That’s asymmetric, that’s not the same moral universe.“As I wrote in my book Wing Nuts over a decade ago, the far right and the far left can be equally insane, but there’s no question who’s far more powerful and more dangerous in our time.“I mean, the Democratic party nominates and elevates centrists, right? The party is evenly divided between liberals and moderates. The Republican party is nominating Donald Trump for a third time after he tried to destroy our democracy on the back of a lie, with totally fact-free rants that are contrary to everything that party allegedly once believed. So there’s just no equivalence at all. The problem is, it distracts from a lot of the issues that we really need to deal with that are right in the Democrats’ sweet spot.”Vanity Fair’s interviewer, Joe Pompeo, asked Avlon “for his centrist view on Israel and Gaza”.Avlon said: “As someone who was formed by 9/11, fundamentally, in the wake of the absolute horror of the October 7 attacks, our impulse should be to stand with the victims of terrorism and not blame the victims of terrorism … It’s absolutely legitimate to not only defend yourself, but to ensure that Hamas leadership is taken out. You’re dealing with terrorism, but you’ve got to maximise humanitarian aid and minimise civilian casualties, because that ends up playing into the terrorist narrative. I think the Biden administration is walking a difficult line well.”Here, again, is the Guardian’s John Avlon interview, from the launch of his campaign in February:John Avlon, the former CNN anchor and Daily Beast editor running for the Democratic nomination in New York’s first US House district, is heralding an impressive fundraising effort in his first month-and-a-bit in the race.“I’m honored and humbled to have received so much support in so short a time,” Avlon said in a statement accompanying news of more than $1.1m raised so far.“To raise over a million dollars in the first 40 days of the campaign is a measure of the excitement we’ve unleashed. Democrats understand that we can’t afford to lose this fight … Together, we’ll fight the good fight by defending our democracy, defeating Donald Trump and winning back the House from his Maga minions, who aren’t trying to solve problems in the national interest anymore.”Avlon, 51, has also spoken to Vanity Fair, describing the “moral urgency” he feels running for office with Trump at the head of the Republican ticket, as a determined centrist, calling for an end to partisan extremities.“This is a swing district,” he told Vanity Fair, “but when you look at the battleground maps in New York, it wasn’t being treated as one. We just got the new district registration numbers, and in New York one, we have the highest number of independent voters in the state. That’s prime for swing.”That could be vital in a close House election.Here’s our own interview with Avlon, from February, when he announced his run:When Joe Biden visits Baltimore on Friday, he is expected to meet with Maryland governor Wes Moore and Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott as he tours the area where the Key Bridge collapsed last week, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said a little earlier in the media briefing in the west wing.She noted that the administration has already worked with local leaders to secure barges and a crane for the scene, along with an early influx of money, Reuters reports.Meanwhile Jean-Pierre condemned racist attacks on Moore and Scott from the right-wing in the wake of the bridge catastrophe. Both men are Black. Such attacks are “wrong”, she said.An Israeli air strike has hit Iran’s consulate in Damascus, Syria.Israeli warplanes destroyed the consulate, killing several people including a senior commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).Among those killed was Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), Iranian state media reported. Iranian state television said several Iranian diplomats had been killed.The Guardian is live blogging this in a separate blog and you can follow all that news as it happens, here.The White House spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre, said moments ago that if reports are true that Israel is trying to shut down the Qatari news network Al Jazeera in Israel, it would be “concerning”, Reuters reports.Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, revived moves on Monday to shut down Qatari satellite television station Al Jazeera in Israel, saying through his party spokesperson that parliament would be convened in the evening to ratify the necessary law.Israel has previously accused the station of agitating against it among Arab viewers.Netanyahu indicated that the Israeli parliament would be convened this evening to ratify the necessary law. Neither the station’s main office in Israel nor the Qatari government in Doha immediately responded to a request for comment.Al Jazeera has previously accused Israel of systematically targeting its offices and personnel. Israeli officials have long complained about Al Jazeera‘s coverage but stopped short of taking action, mindful of Qatar’s bankrolling of Palestinian construction projects in the Gaza Strip – seen by all sides as a means of staving off conflict.Since the Gaza war that erupted on 7 October with a cross-border killing and kidnapping rampage by the enclave’s dominant Hamas Islamists, Doha has mediated ceasefire negotiations under which Israel recovered some of those taken hostage. However, talks on a second proposed truce appear to be going nowhere.An Israeli government spokesperson, Avi Hyman, was asked if the threat against Al Jazeera might be part of pressure by Netanyahu publicly called for the Qataris to be pressed into applying more pressure on Hamas. Qatar hosts the group’s political office and several top Hamas officials.Hyman, did not answer directly, though he did describe the station as “spouting propaganda for many, many years”.Joe Biden plans to visit Baltimore on Friday in the wake of the catastrophic collapse last week of the landmark Francis Scott Key Bridge after a massive container ship collided with one of the main supports of the bridge.The White House secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, is briefing now at the White House and gave the new detail, that the US president will be heading to the Maryland city, with its huge port, where the shipping channel has been blocked since the incident, which also killed six people who were working on road repair when it happened.The wreckage of the huge bridge, which served as a road artery, fell into the Patapsco River in the early hours of last Tuesday morning, and the steel debris and the stricken container ship are still jamming the main entry and exit for the port.Jean-Pierre had few details of the visit so far and said she couldn’t add any information about whether Biden will be reviewing the site of the bridge collapse by air, land or sea, or whether he will meet the relatives of victims.The huge salvage operation on the bridge is under way.Could the frozen negotiations on passing aid to Ukraine, Israel and other American allies finally be unthawing? Yesterday, the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, laid out some potential concessions he may demand of Democrats in order to bring the measure up for a vote when Congress returns to work next week. We don’t know what Joe Biden, the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, or other top Democrats think of this proposal, though California senator Laphonza Butler signaled that Johnson’s call to restart permitting new natural gas export projects may prove to be the most controversial aspect. Meanwhile, Biden and Johnson are feuding over the White House’s declaration of 31 March as Transgender Day of Visibility – which also happened to be Easter Sunday.Here’s what else is going on today:
      Johnson downplayed rightwing congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s attempt to remove him from office, but acknowledged it was a “distraction”.
      Biden gave a brief interview where he sounded upbeat about his prospects of winning re-election.
      Donald Trump’s campaign also attacked Biden for recognizing transgender people, while reportedly stretching the truth about the rules for the annual Easter Egg Roll.
      Here’s more on the kerfuffle over Easter and Transgender Day of Visibility that has managed to suck in Donald Trump, Mike Johnson and Joe Biden:A Joe Biden White House spokesperson said Republicans who have spent the Easter weekend criticizing the president for declaring Sunday’s annual Transgender Day of Visibility “are seeking to divide and weaken our country with cruel, hateful and dishonest rhetoric”.“As a Christian who celebrates Easter with family, President Biden stands for bringing people together and upholding the dignity and freedoms of every American,” the White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said. “President Biden will never abuse his faith for political purposes or for profit.”Bates’ statement came as the president faced criticism from the campaign of his Republican presidential challenger Donald Trump – along with religious conservatives who support him – for going through with issuing the annual proclamation recognizing 31 March as Transgender Day of Visibility even though that coincided with Easter Sunday.The Democrat issued the proclamation Friday, calling on “all Americans to join us in lifting up the lives and voices of transgender people throughout our nation and to work toward eliminating violence and discrimination based on gender identity”.But Republicans objected to the fact that the Transgender Day of Visibility’s designated 31 March date in 2024 overlapped with Easter, among the holiest celebrations for Christians. Trump’s campaign accused Biden, a Roman Catholic, of being insensitive to religion. And the former president’s Republican allies piled on. More

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      Mike Johnson hints vote on Ukraine aid is up next despite threat to speakership

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      The US House speaker, Mike Johnson, has raised expectations that a vote on funding for Ukraine could be imminent in the chamber, even at the risk of the Republican losing his leadership position.Johnson touted “important innovations” to a possible Ukraine package during an interview on Fox News’s Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy, and he suggested a vote on a standalone bill could come soon after Congress returns from Easter recess on 9 April.But the Louisiana Republican acknowledged forces in his party were trying to unseat him over his efforts to find a bipartisan solution to stalled US funding for Ukraine’s efforts to repel Russia’s military invasion, which began in February 2022. The far-right extremist Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to remove Johnson in March, but she stopped short of calling it for a floor vote.The White House, meanwhile, has warned that delays are costing Ukraine lives and territory because Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, “gains every day” Congress does not pass a funding measure.“What we have to do in an era of divided government, historically, as we are, you got to build consensus. If we want to move a partisan measure, I got to have every single member, literally. And some things need to be bipartisan,” Johnson said, acknowledging the shrinking Republican majority in the House.“We’ve been talking to all the members especially now over the district work period. When we return after this work period, we’ll be moving a product, but it’s going to, I think, have some important innovations.”Those innovations include efforts to placate Republican hardliners, who have cooled on continuing to support Ukraine financially with the war there now in its third year. They include a loan instead of a grant, or harnessing Russian assets confiscated in the US under the Rebuilding Economic Prosperity and Opportunity (Repo) for Ukrainians Act.“If we can use the seized assets of Russian oligarchs to allow the Ukrainians to fight them, that’s just pure poetry,” Johnson said. “Even [former president Donald] Trump has talked about the loan concept, where we’re not just giving foreign aid, we’re setting it up in a relationship where they can provide it back to us when the time is right.”The specter of Trump, the prospective Republican nominee for November’s presidential election, has loomed large over the wrangling for a Ukraine deal. He was instrumental in Johnson’s refusal to call a House vote on a $95bn wartime funding bill that passed the Democratic-led Senate in February, which also included aid for Israel in its war in Gaza.Trump has also demanded Republicans reject any Ukraine funding measure that ties in money for US border security in order to deny the Joe Biden White House a “win” on immigration ahead of November’s election, hence Johnson’s pursuit of a standalone solution.The friction has led to rightwingers, such as Greene, threatening Johnson’s position. Other Republican colleagues, however, have leapt to the speaker’s defense. The New York congressman Mike Lawler blasted Greene’s motion to vacate as “idiotic” on CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. “It’s not actually going to help advance the cause she believes in, and in fact it undermines our House Republican majority,” he said.Some Democrats have indicated they would support Johnson if a vote to remove him were called, though other Republicans have acknowledged his precarious position.“I’m not going to deny it. It’s a very narrow majority, and one or two people can make us a minority,” the Nebraska congressman Don Bacon told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.Without identifying Greene by name, he added: “We have one or two people that are not team players. They’d rather enjoy the limelight, the social media.”Bacon is one of several Republicans who have worked across the aisle to craft a Ukraine aid proposal. “We put a bill together that focuses on military aid, a $66bn bill that provides military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. There’s enough support in the House to get this done,” he said.Of Johnson’s plans to bring a House vote next week, Bacon added: “He’s doing the right thing.” More

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      Republican choice for vacated US House seat is surprise boon for Lauren Boebert

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      A Colorado Republican panel made the surprising decision on Thursday night to choose a former mayor, Greg Lopez, to be congressman Ken Buck’s likely replacement until the November general election, a saving grace for Lauren Boebert’s bid for another term in Congress.Lopez will now run as the Republican candidate in the 25 June special election after Buck’s resignation at the same time GOP primary candidates are vying to be the congressman’s successor.The stakes, however, were far higher than keeping Buck’s seat in the US House warmed by a Republican.Of the nine competitors who jostled for the special election nomination, seven also are running in the primary race against Boebert. The far-right representative jumped into the race after a near loss in the seat she now holds.While Lopez is likely to win in the dark red district, he will be a placeholder and plans to step down after the general election winner is sworn into office in January. For two of Boebert’s primary opponents who came in second and third, the special election candidacy would have been a boon.They would have run in two different elections for the same seat, garnering more attention, media coverage and fundraising opportunities. That would have boosted their odds in the primary race where they are otherwise eclipsed by Boebert’s near household name and hefty campaign chest.That tension was palpable throughout the six-hour meeting with six votes on Thursday, which winnowed the field in the special election for Buck’s seat to two options, Lopez and former state senator Jerry Sonnenberg, one of Boebert’s stiffest primary competitors.View image in fullscreenThroughout the evening, there were accusations Buck had intended to kneecap Boebert’s campaign by stepping down early and giving one of her opponents a potential leg up. Boebert pushed the claim, saying in a previous statement: “The establishment concocted a swampy backroom deal to try to rig an election.”Buck denied that was his intention.Boebert sent a letter to delegates before the meeting encouraging them to choose a placeholder, so as not to “influence the regular primary election in a way that would taint the entire process and give this candidate an unfair leg up”.That riled her primary opponents, including the former state senator Ted Harvey.On stage, Harvey lashed back at those who had voted for Lopez after landing the third-most votes.“They didn’t do it to support the candidate Greg Lopez, they did it to support their own candidates who weren’t here tonight. That’s not just putting us at risk, but it’s putting our nation at risk,” Harvey said.Harvey then asked his supporters to throw their weight behind Sonnenberg, one of Harvey’s primary opponents. Sonnenberg barely lost to Lopez in the final vote and seemed to shrug off the loss.“This is not a game for the weak. I understand completely, they made a decision,” he said, gesturing toward the mingling crowd.Lopez is a former mayor of Parker, Colorado, who ran two unsuccessful bids for governor and said he would “do the best job that I can and represent this state to the best of my ability”.This helps keep the field clear for Boebert, who has built a far-right name with a ferocious political style and remains a known, if divisive, quantity among conservatives nationwide.While Boebert has made headlines with scandals, including a tape of her groping and vaping with a date in a Denver theater, she also has garnered endorsements from Donald Trump and a key supporter of the former president, the House speaker, Mike Johnson.Those votes of confidence will probably go far for Boebert in the new district, an expansive sweep of Colorado’s plains where voters overwhelmingly supported Trump in 2020 and her opponents are lesser-known, local Republicans.Boebert moved east to join the race in this district at the end of last year, after she nearly lost her previous, Republican-leaning seat to a Democratic candidate in 2022.The option to district-hop was opened to Boebert after Buck announced last year he would not run for re-election, citing his party’s handling of Trump.Buck abruptly left Congress on 22 March, pointing to the “bickering and nonsense” he said now pervades the US Capitol. More

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      Trump cases: lawyer argues to dismiss Georgia election subversion case; progressive groups call for ‘fair’ hush money trial – as it happened

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      Donald Trump’s legal team was in Atlanta to argue that the charges brought by Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis against the former president should be dismissed on first amendment grounds. Other defendants have tried unsuccessfully to make that argument, but Judge Scott McAfee wrapped up the hearing without giving any indication of how he may rule – or, perhaps more importantly, when Trump’s trial will actually start. Speaking of trials, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson sent the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer a letter demanding he get started on homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s impeachment trial as soon as the GOP transmits the charges on 10 April. Schumer’s office said the Senate leader plans to do so, but reports indicate that Democrats are considering voting to dismiss the impeachment articles.Here’s what else happened:
      James Comer, one of the House Republican leaders of the attempt to impeach Joe Biden, invited the president to testify before his committee. Don’t expect him to show up.
      Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he spoke with Johnson about Ukraine aid, though no breakthrough on authorizing more funds was announced.
      Progressive groups have written an open letter asking that Trump receive “a prompt and fair trial” in the New York hush-money case.
      Biden called New York City mayor Eric Adams to offer condolences on the death of police officer Jonathan Diller. Trump attended his wake.
      The Republican National Committee wants to know whether new hires think the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
      James Comer, the Republican House oversight committee chair and one of the leaders of the campaign to impeach Joe Biden, has invited the president to testify at a hearing about his family’s business dealings.Don’t expect the president to take him up on the offer. When Comer announced last week that he planned to send the invitation, a White House spokesman kept their response succinct: “LOL”.Indeed, the Republican attempt to bring charges against Biden for alleged corruption appears to be in trouble, in part because they haven’t actually proven their allegations, and also because some in their party don’t support the effort. Comer has reportedly signaled to potential donors that he may settle for making a criminal referral to the justice department, rather than continuing to push for the president’s impeachment.In a lengthy letter to Biden, Comer proposed that he appear on 16 April:
      As the foregoing demonstrates, the Committee has compiled evidence -bank records, contemporaneous electronic communications, and witness testimony – showing your awareness, acquiescence, and participation in self-enrichment schemes of your family members.
      As Chairman of the Committee, in addition to requesting that you answer the questions posed in this letter, I invite you to participate in a public hearing at which you will be afforded the opportunity to explain, under oath, your involvement with your family’s sources of income and the means it has used to generate it. As you are aware, presidents before you have provided testimony to congressional committees, including President Ford’s testimony before the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice of the House Judiciary Committee in 1974.
      Then there’s the matter of the Senate. Democrats control it by a margin of just one seat, and their best path to maintaining their majority after next year is by getting Joe Biden and two of their senators representing red states re-elected. One of those two is Jon Tester of Montana, where the Guardian’s Kira Lerner reports the state’s highest court today struck down voting restrictions passed by its Republican government:In a significant win for voting rights, the Montana supreme court on Wednesday struck down four voting restrictions passed by the state’s Republican-controlled legislature in 2021.In a 125-page opinion, the state’s highest court affirmed a lower court’s ruling that the four laws, passed in the wake of Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss, violate the state constitution. The laws had ended same-day voter registration, removed student ID cards as a permissible form of voter ID, prohibited third parties from returning ballots and barred the distribution of mail-in ballots to voters who would turn 18 by election day.After a nine-day trial, the lower court found that the laws would make it harder for some state residents to register to vote and cast a ballot.A spokesperson for the Republican secretary of state, Christi Jacobsen, who appealed the lower court decision in an attempt to get the laws reinstated, said that she was “devastated” by the supreme court decision.“Her commitment to election integrity will not waver by this narrow adoption of judicial activism that is certain to fall on the wrong side of history,” the spokesperson, Richie Melby, wrote in a statement. “State and county election officials have been punched in the gut.”Mike Johnson’s time as House speaker may not last long – the Republican majority is small, and Democrats have the opportunity to flip the chamber back to their control in November. But there are lots of variables that will affect whether they are able to do that, including which congressional maps are used in which states. Today in South Carolina, the Guardian’s Sam Levine reports that Republicans scored a win in an important redistricting case:A federal court will allow South Carolina Republicans to use their congressional map for the 2024 election, it said on Thursday, despite an earlier finding that the same plan discriminates against Black voters. The decision is a big win for Republicans, who were aided by the US supreme court’s slow action on the case.In January 2023, a three-judge panel struck down the state’s first congressional district, which is currently represented by Nancy Mace, a Republican. The judges said legislative Republicans had impermissibly used race when they redrew it after the 2020 census. As part of an effort to make it more solidly Republican, lawmakers removed 30,000 Black voters from the district into a neighboring one. Republicans argued that they moved the voters to achieve partisan ends, which is legal. The district was extremely competitive in 2020, but Mace easily won the redrawn version in 2022.The ruling is a significant boon to House Republicans, who are trying to keep a razor-thin majority in Congress’s lower chamber this year.In a post on X, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he spoke with Republican House speaker Mike Johnson, who has refused to say whether he will allow a vote on another round of military aid for the country.Zelenskiy said he updated Johnson about the situation on the battlefield in Ukraine, and continued: “In this situation, quick passage of US aid to Ukraine by Congress is vital. We recognize that there are differing views in the House of Representatives on how to proceed, but the key is to keep the issue of aid to Ukraine as a unifying factor.”Here’s more:Democrats around the US have enjoyed startling electoral successes through campaigning on Republican threats to women’s reproductive rights, just this week even taking a state seat in deep red Alabama.Marilyn Lands won that race after, in the words of our report, making “Alabama’s abortion ban and access to contraception and in vitro fertilization (IVF) central to her campaign, speaking openly about her own previous abortion experience in a TV ad that featured her saying that it was ‘shameful that today women have fewer freedoms than I had two decades ago’”.Today, Lucas Kunce, a Missouri Democrat hoping for an upset win over Josh Hawley, a prominent far-right presence in the US Senate, follows suit with a new campaign ad.In the short ad, headlines (including one from the Guardian) about Hawley’s refusal to back legislation protecting IVF and support for an anti-IVF judge appear on screen as Jessica, described as “a Missouri mother”, says:
      After years of trying and disappointment and struggle and health scares, I just had this beautiful baby and I held her and I just like knew I was meant to be her mom. Now there are efforts to ban IVF and Josh Hawley got them started. Josh Hawley has proven that he won’t protect ATF and he would let politicians make me a criminal. I want Josh Hawley to look me in the eye and tell me that I can’t have the child that I deserve.
      Kunce said: “Jessica and her family matter. Josh Hawley has built his career on a control-obsessed crusade to outlaw reproductive healthcare. It’s now a threat to IVF and to women in Missouri. We can’t risk giving Hawley’s crusade another six years in the US Senate.“This race is going to be about freedom. In Missouri, we’re tired of Big Brother elites like Josh Hawley telling us how to live and criminalising our freedoms.”Hawley’s wife, Erin Hawley, is a prominent lawyer in reproductive rights cases who this week argued before the supreme court that mifepristone, an abortion pill, should be banned.Here’s more on that case, from Melissa Segura and well worth a lunchtime read:Officials at the US Department of Defense are having preliminary “conversations” about how to stabilize Gaza with a peacekeeping force when, at some point, the current conflict between the Israeli government and Hamas, the Islamist group that runs the Palestinian territory, comes to an end, Politico reports.The US news outlet is reporting that Pentagon chiefs are talking about options, including the possibility that the Pentagon would help fund either “a multinational force or a Palestinian peacekeeping team”.The report points out that no options include US troops serving on the ground in the Gaza area, citing two Pentagon and other Biden administration officials, who won’t be named by Politico because of the highly-sensitive nature of the discussions.The outlets suggests any US funding “would go toward the needs of the security force and complement assistance from other countries”.Meanwhile, the Guardian reports that the International Court of Justice has ordered Israel to allow unimpeded access of food aid into Gaza, where significant sections of the population are facing imminent starvation, in a significant legal rebuke to Israel’s claim it is not blocking aid deliveries.Illinois Democrat Sean Casten’s not holding back about the right-wing majority House impeaching homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and impatiently expecting a trial in the Senate.“Reminder that MTG [Marjorie Taylor Green], Clay Higgins and Andy Biggs are all named impeachment managers. If you want to make the @HouseGOP look like the clown show it is on national television, this is how you do it,” the congressman posted on X/Twitter.Arizona Republican Andy Biggs had also posted, saying Mayorkas was “derelict in his duty” to secure the US-Mexico border.The House and Senate are on a two week recess at the moment.Reuters adds that: Federal officials including presidents, who are impeached by the House are subject to a trial in the Senate to determine whether they should be removed from office.Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer’s office issued a statement saying that senators will be sworn in as trial jurors the day after the articles are delivered. However, the Democratic-led chamber is highly unlikely to vote to remove Mayorkas from office.Some more details and reactions coming through on Republican House speaker Mike Johnson’s demand that the Senate’s Democratic majority leader, Chuck Schumer, schedule the trial of homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “expeditiously” after his impeachment last month. The speaker will transmit the articles of impeachment on April 10.Louisiana Republican congressman Clay Higgins getting very “we the people”…And, from the White House:Donald Trump’s legal team was in Atlanta to argue that the charges brought by Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis against the former president should be dismissed on first amendment grounds. Other defendants have tried unsuccessfully to make that argument, but Judge Scott McAfee wrapped up the hearing without giving any indication of how he may rule – or, perhaps more importantly, when Trump’s trial will actually start. Speaking of trials, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson sent the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer a letter demanding he get started on homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas’s impeachment trial as soon as the GOP transmits the charges on 10 April. Schumer’s office said the Senate leader plans to do so, but reports indicate that Democrats are considering voting to dismiss the impeachment articles.Here’s what else is going on:
      Progressive groups have written an open letter asking that Trump receive “a prompt and fair trial” in the New York hush money case.
      Joe Biden called New York City mayor Eric Adams to offer condolences on the death of police officer Jonathan Diller. Trump plans to attend his wake.
      The Republican National Committee wants to know if new hires think the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
      Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer responded to Mike Johnson’s letter by saying they’d get the ball rolling on the impeachment trial as soon as House Republicans send the charges over.“As we have said previously, after the House impeachment managers present the articles of impeachment to the Senate, senators will be sworn in as jurors in the trial the next day. Senate President Pro Tempore Patty Murray will preside,” Schumer’s office said in a statement.There’s plenty they are not saying, including whether they’ll actually go through with holding the trial, or quickly vote on a motion to dismiss the charges, as Democrats are reportedly considering doing.The Republican speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, has demanded the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer schedule the trial of homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas “expeditiously” after his impeachment last month.“As Speaker and impeachment managers of the US House of Representatives, we write to inform you that we will present to you upon the Senate’s return, on April 10, 2024, the duly passed articles of impeachment regarding Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. We urge you to schedule a trial of the matter expeditiously,” Johnson and the 11 Republican impeachment managers wrote in a letter sent today to Schumer.They continued:
      We call upon you to fulfill your constitutional obligation to hold this trial. The American people demand a secure border, an end to this crisis, and accountability for those responsible. To table articles of impeachment without ever hearing a single argument or reviewing a piece of evidence would be a violation of our constitutional order and an affront to the American people whom we all serve.
      House Republicans alleged Mayorkas has mismanaged security on the border with Mexico, but Senate Democrats have shown no interest in removing him from office. They are reportedly considering dismissing the charges without holding a trial, and Schumer has said the allegations were ginned up at the behest of Donald Trump:
      This sham impeachment effort is another embarrassment for House Republicans. The one and only reason for this impeachment is for Speaker Johnson to further appease Donald Trump.
      House Republicans failed to produce any evidence that Secretary Mayorkas has committed any crime.
      House Republicans failed to show he has violated the Constitution.
      House Republicans failed to present any evidence of anything resembling an impeachable offense.
      This is a new low for House Republicans.
      Congress is currently out of Washington DC, with the Senate and House set to resume on 8 and 9 April, respectively.A coalition of progressive groups has released an open letter calling for Donald Trump to receive “a prompt and fair trial” in New York, where he faces charges related to making hush money payments prior to the 2016 election.Earlier this week, the judge overseeing that case set 15 April as its start date, making it the first of Trump’s four criminal indictments to go to trial. The other three cases remain mired in pre-trial motions and appeals, and it is unclear if verdicts will be reached in any prior to the November presidential election.“The facts alleged in the indictment recount much more than a sordid soap opera and corporate malfeasance; they also describe conduct that should matter to anyone who cares about democracy, voter information, and meaningful voter choice,” reads the letter, which was signed by 17 groups organized into the Not Above the Law coalition, including Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, MoveOn and Indivisible.In New York, Trump stands accused of channeling funds from his business to adult actor Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal in exchange for their silence on extra-martial affairs ahead of the 2016 election. He allegedly described the payments as legal costs, which New York prosecutors say broke the law.The groups say this amounted to an “instance of election interference” that “might also be understood as an early sign of Trump’s antipathy for voters, which surfaced again in behavior culminating in the January 6th violent attempt to overturn the 2020 election results and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power.”They continue:
      If the rule of law is to remain meaningful, no one — not even a former president — should be allowed to be above the law, and all the Trump criminal trials must play out. The first of these trials is important. We, the undersigned organizations, stand united in our desire for a prompt and fair trial that goes wherever the facts and the law lead. The undersigned organizations also express our hopes that as the Manhattan trial unfolds, the full context for the charges is made clear and understandable to the American public. Our nation deserves nothing less. More