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      Cori Bush warns pro-Israel lobby ‘to be afraid’ after primary loss

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      Representative Cori Bush has warned the pro-Israel lobby “to be afraid” after it poured millions of dollars into defeating the prominent member of the “Squad” of progressive Democrats in Tuesday’s primary election in St Louis.Bush said her loss to St Louis county prosecutor Wesley Bell after the hardline American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) targeted her for opposition to Israel’s attack on Gaza had freed her to openly challenge the powerful pressure group, which has vowed to spend $100m to influence US elections this year in favour of Israel.“They’re about to see this other Cori, this other side,” she told supporters. “Aipac, I’m coming to tear your kingdom down.”Bush, who will continue to serve in Congress until January, added: “All they did was radicalise me, so now they need to be afraid.”Bush did not say how she now intends to take on Aipac but critics of the lobby group, which has previously boasted of its ability to round up congressional support, have said that it should be obliged to register as an agent of a foreign government because it pushes Israel’s interests over those of the US.Aipac spent $8.5m to defeat Bush, mostly on negative advertising through its campaign financing arm, the United Democracy Project (UDP), in the second most expensive primary race in the US this year.Aipac celebrated Bell’s win, a second major victory after the UDP played a leading role in unseating New York representative Jamaal Bowman, another member of the Squad critical of Israel, with a tweet proclaiming: “Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics.”But groups supporting Bush noted that, as in other congressional races targeted by pro-Israel groups, almost none of the campaign advertising by the UDP addressed the Gaza war or Bush’s call for a ceasefire. Instead, the UDP went after her on unrelated issues, particularly her voting record in Congress.Similarly, the UDP spent $15m to defeat Bowman in the most expensive primary in US history with a barrage of negative advertising that had little to do with his criticisms of Israel. Much of the UDP’s money comes from billionaires who fund hardline pro-Israel causes and Republicans in other races, including some who have given to Donald Trump’s campaign.Jews for Cori, a coalition of progressive Jewish organisations, blamed Bush’s loss on “Aipac’s interference” on behalf of Israel and the Republicans.“While Aipac targeted both Bowman and Bush because of their support for Palestinian human rights, the group did not highlight or even mention this issue in their smear campaigns. While Aipac will claim their positions are ‘good policy and good politics’ it is clear that they are well-aware that they are losing the battle for public opinion,” it said.Justice Democrats, which spent $1.8m on advertising in support of Bush, called her opponent “an empty suit for Aipac and its GOP mega-donors to advance their own interests”.The group’s director, Alexandra Rojas, argued that the huge spending by the pro-Israel lobby to defeat individual members of Congress is a sign of weakness.“As Aipac’s influence in Congress wanes and the rightwing network that props it up is exposed, Aipac has to spend historic amounts in Democratic elections to continue advancing their interests at the expense of the Democratic mainstream that overwhelmingly supports a ceasefire and an end to the genocide in Gaza,” she said.Still, if Aipac’s intent in targeting Bush and Bowman was to warn other members of Congress that there will be a price to pay for muscular criticism of Israeli government policies and adopting minority positions, such as opposition to the US’s considerable military aid to Israel, then the strategy may have the desired effect of encouraging other politicians to keep their criticisms of Israel to themselves out of fear of a challenge from a well financed opponent.But Aipac is known to intervene when their congressional foes are already vulnerable. A number of the group’s former targets – other “Squad” members known for their criticisms of Israel – have been spared the onslaught, insulated by their popularity within their districts.The UDP spent heavily to try and oust Pennsylvania congresswoman Summer Lee in the 2022 Democratic primaries. She won that race by less than 1% of the vote.This year, the lobby largely steered clear of Lee’s race despite the emergence of a pro-Israel challenger. Lee won the primary by a margin of more than 20 points.Similarly, a challenger backed by substantial pro-Israel money came close to unseating Ilhan Omar, another Squad member who has been accused of antisemitism over criticisms of Israel, in the 2022 primaries. Omar is again facing a challenge from the same opponent, Don Samuels, in next week’s Democratic primary, but Aipac and similar groups have not thrown as much money or effort into this year’s race. Opinion polls give Omar a substantial lead.The UDP focused its efforts this year on Bush and Bowman, who were vulnerable to attack on issues other than Israel and Gaza, which many voters agree with them on. Both members of Congress struggled to justify voting against Joe Biden’s trillion-dollar infrastructure bill – a primary line of attack of negative advertising.The redrawing of the boundaries of Bowman’s district reshaped it as a more traditionally Democratic constituency with less voter support for the Squad and progressive policies. Bowman was also open to criticism over an incident when he pulled a fire alarm at the Capitol in Washington DC in order to delay a vote on a government shutdown called by Republicans. He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour over the incident. More

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      Cori Bush loses primary after pro-Israel groups spend millions to oust ‘Squad’ member

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      A prominent member of the progressive “Squad” in Congress, Cori Bush, has lost her Democratic primary in St Louis after pro-Israel pressure groups spent millions of dollars to unseat her over criticisms of Israel’s war on Gaza.St Louis prosecutor Wesley Bell defeated Missouri’s first Black female member of Congress with about 51% of the vote. Bush took about 46%.Bell’s win marks a second major victory for the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) after it played a leading role in unseating New York congressman Jamaal Bowman, another progressive Democrat who criticised the scale of Palestinian civilians deaths in Gaza, in a June primary.Aipac pumped $8.5m into the race in Missouri’s first congressional district to support Bell through its campaign funding arm, the United Democracy Project (UDP), after Bush angered some pro-Israel groups as one of the first members of Congress to call for a ceasefire after the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel.Much of the UDP’s money comes from billionaires who fund hardline pro-Israel causes and Republicans in other races, including some who have given to Donald Trump’s campaign.Bush condemned Hamas for the killing of 1,139 people, mostly Israelis, and for abducting hundreds of others in October. But she also infuriated some Jewish and pro-Israel groups by describing Israel’s subsequent attack on Gaza and large scale killing of civilians as “collective punishment against Palestinians” and a war crime.During the campaign, the UDP flooded St Louis with advertising hostile to Bush – although, as in other congressional races targeted by pro-Israel groups, it rarely mentioned the war on Gaza that has claimed nearly 40,000 Palestinian lives, mostly civilians, or her call for a ceasefire.Instead, the campaign focused on Bush’s voting record in Congress, particularly her failure to support Joe Biden’s trillion-dollar infrastructure bill in 2021 and her support for the “defund the police” campaign. Bush struggled to get her message across that the UDP is misrepresenting both situations.The UDP accounted for more than half of all the money spent on the race outside the campaigns themselves.Bell has denied being recruited by pro-Israel groups to run against Bush, but suspicion lingered after he abandoned a challenge for the US Senate and entered the congressional race not long after Jewish organisations in St Louis began to seek a candidate to take on Bush after accusing her of “intentionally fuelling antisemitism”.Bell is expected to win what is one of the safest Democratic congressional seats in November’s general election. More

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      Pro-Israel groups have set sights on unseating this progressive lawmaker. Will they succeed?

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      Cori Bush was knocking on doors along Arsenal Street in southern St Louis where voters were not shy of asking hard questions of Missouri’s first Black female member of Congress. But none of them raised the one issue that looms over her re-election race like a spectre.Bush might have been expected to cruise to victory in Tuesday’s Democratic primary for Missouri’s first congressional district in St Louis as she did two years ago. But her path to re-election veered into rough territory after she characterised Israel’s assault on Gaza, following the 7 October Hamas attack, as a “collective punishment” of Palestinians and called for a ceasefire.“I strongly condemn Hamas & their appalling violations of human rights,” she wrote, “but violations of human rights don’t justify more human rights violations in retaliation.”Some Jewish and pro-Israel groups said Bush was denying Israel the right to defend itself and siding with terrorists. A coalition of St Louis Jewish organisations accused her of “intentionally fuelling antisemitism”.View image in fullscreenBush introduced a resolution calling for a ceasefire on 16 October. Within days, the St Louis prosecutor Wesley Bell announced he was dropping out of a race against a Republican for one of Missouri’s seats in the US Senate to challenge Bush for the Democratic nomination in the St Louis congressional district. It was swiftly apparent that Bell, who has firmly supported Israel’s actions, had the support of the US’s major pro-Israel groups which have now poured millions of dollars into trying to make him the Democratic candidate in one of the party’s safest congressional seats.Leading the way is the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac). Its campaign funding arm, the United Democracy Project (UDP), has so far spent $8.5m to defeat Bush, accounting for more than 55% of all spending on the race outside of the campaigns themselves. Much of the UDP’s money comes from billionaires who fund Republicans in other races, including some who have given to Donald Trump’s campaign.In total, outside groups have spent more than $12m to support Bell as opposed to $3m for Bush.The UDP has committed more money in only one other primary contest so far this year: to defeat the New York congressman Jamaal Bowman, another member of the Squad of leftwing Democrats and outspoken critic of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, which has claimed nearly 40,000 Palestinian lives, mostly civilians.UDP advertising has flooded St Louis airwaves and mailboxes but, as in other congressional races targeted by pro-Israel groups, almost none of it mentions the Gaza war or Bush’s call for a ceasefire, which is supported by a majority of Americans. Instead, the ads go after her on unrelated issues. They may be working.‘It’s very fishy’When Peggy Hoelting answered her door on Arsenal street, she recognised Bush and greeted her warmly. But Hoelting swiftly said she had some questions, and began regurgitating criticisms of the congresswoman’s voting record that have been the target of UDP ads that paint Bush as too leftwing, and claim she is voting against the interests of her constituents.Hoelting asked about Bush’s vote against Joe Biden’s trillion-dollar infrastructure bill in 2021, a focus of the UDP messaging blitz. Bush explained that it was a parliamentary manoeuvre to protect parallel legislation, the Build Back Better Act, that included help for families, expanded public healthcare and green energy jobs. She said she knew the infrastructure act was going to pass anyway but the vote has come back to haunt her.After Bush moved up the street, Hoelting told the Guardian her questions were prompted by UDP advertising landing at her door.“We get probably five or six ads in the mail every day. I sit down and look at them all. A lot of them are talking about her voting against Biden’s infrastructure bill. I don’t understand that so I wanted to hear what she had to say,” she said.Hoelting said she wasn’t wholly persuaded by Bush’s explanation but was keeping an open mind. She was unaware of Bush’s position on Gaza but, when it was explained to her, said that would be a reason to vote for her.“Absolutely I want a ceasefire in Gaza,” said Hoelting.View image in fullscreenBush has also been the target of ads for supporting the “defund the police” campaign. The representative said she wants to see money now spent on militarised vehicles and equipment which belong in war zones instead used to fund social workers and other services that would assist the police in dealing with people with mental health and addiction issues.Bush acknowledged that the UDP ads were having an impact.“The one thing that people ask me questions about is the infrastructure vote. There’s a lot of people who say, ‘tell me about the infrastructure bill, I just want to understand what happened’. So then I explain why I voted the way I voted,” she said.Bush said that most voters accept her reasoning but it leaves some undecided. In contrast, she said her position on Gaza almost never gets brought up on the doorstep.“The only time it has come up is when people have said to me, ‘thank you’,” she said.This leaves Bush all the more frustrated by the influence on the campaign of pro-Israel lobby money, much of which comes from billionaires who also donate to Republicans.The UDP’s single largest donor for the 2024 elections so far is Jan Koum, the billionaire founder of WhatsApp who has given $5m. Koum is also a major funder of a group that supports Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and rightwing Zionist organisations.Other major funding has come from a long list of Republican donors including the billionaire hedge fund founders Jonathon Jacobson, Paul Singer and Bernard Marcus, the founder of Home Depot, all of whom are outspoken supporters of Israel.Bush accused the UDP of deceit because none of its advertising makes clear Aipac’s involvement or reference to Israel. She said Wesley Bell, her challenger, was complicit because, although legally his campaign cannot coordinate with the UDP or other outside groups, he has adopted their messaging.“It is confusing people. They’re wondering why Wesley Bell is allowing himself to be bankrolled by Republicans? People are asking, ‘is he a really Democrat?’ Some feel betrayed because he is allowing for Republicans to decide who is going to be their next representative. That benefits Republicans and that is shameful,” she said.Bush has called Bell “a faux-progressive, former Republican campaign operative” because he managed the 2006 congressional campaign of Mark Byrne, a Republican running for the seat Bush now holds. Bell put Byrne’s opposition to abortion to the fore of that ultimately unsuccessful campaign. Bell has played down the association by saying he was helping out a longtime friend.Bell has also denied being a stalking horse for pro-Israel groups. He claimed to have abandoned the race to unseat Missouri’s firebrand Republican Senator, Josh Hawley, because he kept hearing from Democrats that they were unhappy with Bush and wanted him in the US House of Representatives speaking for St Louis.Still, the timing of his switch has fuelled suspicions.Earlier this week, the St Louis television station KDSK revealed a recording of a phone conversation made a year ago between the now-rival candidates in which Bell assured Bush he would not challenge her.View image in fullscreen“I’m telling you on my word, I am not running against you. That is not happening,” he said.But days after the Hamas attack on Israel, Bell dropped out of the race against Hawley and announced he would run against Bush instead.Bell’s campaign manager, Jordan Sanders, told KDSK that when he made the statement, “Bell had no intentions to run against Cori Bush.”“He switched races and decided to run against her after being encouraged by stakeholders at the local, statewide and national level,” he aid.In downtown St Louis, Ernest Bradley, a former student development counsellor at a regional university, said he was not aware of Bush’s position on Gaza or the involvement of hardline pro-Israel groups in the election. But he was unhappy to see one Black candidate challenge another.“I respect Wesley but I think it’s bullshit. I think some money came his way and said to go this other way. I truly do. So when I hear that he’s getting money from the Republicans I wonder what’s really going on,” said Bradley.“I’m going to vote for Bush because it’s very fishy.”With Bush looking vulnerable, others have weighed in. The second largest spender in support of Bell after UDP is Fairshake, a group funded in good part by rightwing billionaires who also back Trump, such as Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz and the Winklevoss twins. Fairshake has spent more than $1m to defeat Bush.View image in fullscreenBush has also come under scrutiny for employing her husband to do security work, which she has defended as legal and not funded by her congressional office. The justice department said it was looking into the issue but a congressional ethics investigation concluded that the payments were legitimate.Bush’s largest backer is Justice Democrats which has spent more than $1.8m in support of her campaign with messages telling voters that Bell is backed by Aipac and Republican money, and accusing him of misusing public funds.Bush also has some important endorsements, including that of the father of Michael Brown, whose death at 18 at the hands of a Ferguson police officer 10 years ago fired up the Black Lives Matter movement.Ferguson is part of the first congressional district, and Bush emerged as an organiser of social justice campaigns there after Brown’s death. Bell was voted on to Ferguson city council on the back of the protests. Later he was elected county prosecutor on a pledge to put the white officer responsible for Brown’s death on trial.But that never happened. Now, Brown’s father, Michael Sr, is appearing in a campaign ad for Bush claiming that Bell failed the family.“I feel like he lied to us. He never brought charges against the killer. He never walked the streets of Ferguson with me. He failed to reform the office. He used my family for power and now, he’s trying to sell out St Louis. He doesn’t care about us,” Brown said in the ad.‘More than half of American Jews support a ceasefire’What little opinion polling there is no clear sign of who will win, but Bush acknowledges she has a fight on her hands – one that is also dividing St Louis’s Jewish population.In early July, a group of St Louis rabbis and cantors wrote to a local newspaper, the STL Jewish Light, describing Bush as “one of Israel’s most unashamed enemies”. The letter called on Jewish voters to turn out in support of Bell and pointed to Bowman’s defeat in New York as the “tested roadmap to follow”. It said that the turnout of Jewish voters, who account for about 3% of the population in the district, but is probably a higher proportion of those who vote, could decide the race.View image in fullscreen“The national pro-Israel community is engaged in this race, but they aren’t casting ballots on August 6. Only our community can do that,” the letter said.A new ostensibly non-partisan group, St Louis Votes, is working to get out the Jewish vote. Although its charitable status precludes it from backing a candidate, its organisers include people who worked to unseat Bowman. The group’s website urges Jews to vote because “antisemitism is on the ballot”.A group called Progressive Jews for St Louis has pushed back against the rabbis’ letter by accusing them of misrepresenting Bush’s record.“What bothers these rabbis is that Cori Bush’s concern extends to Palestinians also. She called for a ceasefire early because she wants to save lives,” the group said in response.Hannah Rosenthal, a member of Progressive Jews for St Louis, has been canvassing for Bush in Jewish neighbourhoods.“The institutional Jewish community, mainstream institutions, are trying to create this message that Cori’s antisemitic because of her calls for a ceasefire. But we’re finding that when you have conversations with people about what Cori actually stands for, her principled moral leadership, then people are swaying more from their undecided positions,” she said.View image in fullscreen“More than half of American Jews support a ceasefire at this time and they understand that criticising the policies and practices of the [Israeli] state are not antisemitic.”Bush said she was perplexed by accusations of antisemitism, given that she has spent her political career speaking up about racism.“I can’t understand why I am wrong for wanting Palestinians to live and have their own self-determination. I want Israelis to live, to be safe, have their freedom. I want the exact same thing for Palestinians. What about that makes me antisemitic?” she said.“What that says to me, though, is there is hatred and it’s not coming from me. There is hatred for people like me for loving Palestinians the same way that I love Israelis and Jewish people in this country. If that is a problem, then they need to check their own heart, they need to check their own issues not mine.”Nonetheless, speaking up on Gaza has exacted a political price. Is it one worth paying?“It’s been challenging and puts me in a place where I have to do a lot more to be able to win. But that does not take precedence. The price has been paid by the 40,000 [Palestinians] that lost their lives, the tens of thousands who are injured. So if I have to piss off some people politically to be able to help save lives, then that’s how it is,“ she said. More

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      Harris says campaign ‘is about two different visions for our nation’; Trump faces criticism from Republicans for VP race comments – live

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      Here’s a wrap-up of the day’s key events so far:

      Kamala Harris’s campaign team has met with six potential vice-president contenders, NBC reports. On Thursday, the outlet reported that according to two sources familiar with the matter, the six contenders are Minnesota governor Tim Walz, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, Illinois governor JB Pritzker, Kentucky governor Andy Beshear, Arizona senator Mark Kelly and rransportation secretary Pete Buttigieg.

      The Senate will vote on Joe Biden’s judicial nominations once senators return from recess in September, C-Span’s Craig Caplan reports. The nominations include those of Jeannette Vargas for the US district court judge position of southern New York, as well as Adam Abelson for the US district court judge seat for Maryland.

      Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor Josh Shapiro has cancelled his weekend fundraisers in the Hamptons, according to reports. In a post on X, NBC reporter Allan Smith cited spokesperson Manuel Boder saying, Shapiro’s “trip was planned several weeks ago and included several fundraisers for his own campaign committee”.

      In a new tweet on Thursday, Kamala Harris wrote: “This campaign is about two different visions for our nation.” She went on to add, “Ours if focused on the future. Donald Trump’s is focused on the past. We’re not going back.”

      Chuck Schumer introduced a bill in the Senate today to declare explicitly that presidents do not have immunity from criminal conduct, overriding last month’s supreme court ruling that Donald Trump has some immunity for his actions as president. The No Kings Act, which would apply to presidents and vice-presidents, has more than two dozen Democratic co-sponsors.

      A New York appeals court has denied Donald Trump’s challenge to a gag order in his hush-money criminal case. The state’s mid-level appellate court rejected Trump’s argument that his conviction “constitutes a change in circumstances” that warrants lifting the restrictions.

      New Hampshire’s Republican governor, Christopher Sununu, has called on fellow Republicans to “stop the trash talk” in a new New York Times op-ed. Sununu, who has won four elections in New Hampshire, wrote on Thursday: “The path to victory in November is not won through character attacks or personal insults.”
      We’re now pausing our live coverage of the US election campaign. You can read all our latest US elections coverage here:And if you want to stay up to date via your email inbox, you can sign up to our free election newsletter, The Stakes, here:Joe Biden has declared the prisoner swap between Russia and the US a “feat of diplomacy”. His statement followed the releases of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former US marine Paul Whelan. Both are US citizens accused of espionage by Russian authorities. Gershkovich and Whelan were freed in exchange for people held across seven different countries.The president said:
      This is a powerful example of why it’s vital to have friends in this world whom you can trust and depend upon. Our alliances make Americans safer.
      As my colleague Anna Betts reported: “The swap is likely to be considered a political coup for Biden in the waning months of his presidency, and a blow to Donald Trump, who has claimed on the 2024 campaign trail that he would free Gershkovich if re-elected.”Read more of Anna’s story on Biden’s reaction to the release and what it took to get this deal done here.Away from the US election campaign, Kamala Harris’s office has released a readout of her call with Yulia Navalnaya, widow of Alexei Navalny, after Russia released 16 people in a prisoner exchange.Harris told Navalnaya she welcomed the release and would continue to stand with people fighting for freedom in Russia and elsewhere in the world. She also praised the courage of Navalnaya, who has vowed to continue her husband’s work after he died in a Russian penal colony in February.Russia recently issued an arrest warrant for Navalnaya, imposing a two-month detention order on grounds that she participated in an “extremist” group.Earlier today, Navalnaya welcomed the prisoner exchange and said “every released political prisoner is a huge victory and a reason to celebrate”.But, she stressed: “We still have to fight for: Daniel Kholodny, Vadim Kobzev, Alexei Liptser, Igor Sergunin. We will do everything we can to secure their release. Freedom for all political prisoners!”You can read about the latest developments on that story here:Here’s a wrap-up of the day’s key events so far:

      Kamala Harris’s campaign team has met with six potential vice-president contenders, NBC reports. On Thursday, the outlet reported that according to two sources familiar with the matter, the six contenders are Minnesota governor Tim Walz, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, Illinois governor JB Pritzker, Kentucky governor Andy Beshear, Arizona senator Mark Kelly and rransportation secretary Pete Buttigieg.

      The Senate will vote on Joe Biden’s judicial nominations once senators return from recess in September, C-Span’s Craig Caplan reports. The nominations include those of Jeannette Vargas for the US district court judge position of southern New York, as well as Adam Abelson for the US district court judge seat for Maryland.

      Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor Josh Shapiro has cancelled his weekend fundraisers in the Hamptons, according to reports. In a post on X, NBC reporter Allan Smith cited spokesperson Manuel Boder saying, Shapiro’s “trip was planned several weeks ago and included several fundraisers for his own campaign committee”.

      In a new tweet on Thursday, Kamala Harris wrote: “This campaign is about two different visions for our nation.” She went on to add, “Ours if focused on the future. Donald Trump’s is focused on the past. We’re not going back.”

      Chuck Schumer introduced a bill in the Senate today to declare explicitly that presidents do not have immunity from criminal conduct, overriding last month’s supreme court ruling that Donald Trump has some immunity for his actions as president. The No Kings Act, which would apply to presidents and vice-presidents, has more than two dozen Democratic co-sponsors.

      A New York appeals court has denied Donald Trump’s challenge to a gag order in his hush-money criminal case. The state’s mid-level appellate court rejected Trump’s argument that his conviction “constitutes a change in circumstances” that warrants lifting the restrictions.

      New Hampshire’s Republican governor, Christopher Sununu, has called on fellow Republicans to “stop the trash talk” in a new New York Times op-ed. Sununu, who has won four elections in New Hampshire, wrote on Thursday: “The path to victory in November is not won through character attacks or personal insults.”
      Kentucky’s governor Andy Beshear has canceled a stop in western Kentucky, according to his office, KFVS reports.According to his office, Beshear was supposed to visit the Jackson Purchase Distillery on Friday. With the cancellation, lieutenant governor Jacqueline Coleman will visit the distillery instead.No official reason for the cancellation was given.Beshear is widely speculated to be among the finalists for Kamala Harris’s vice-president pick.Harris is set to announce her running mate by next Tuesday.Kamala Harris’s campaign team has met with six potential vice-president contenders, NBC reports.On Thursday, the outlet reported that according to two sources familiar with the matter, the six contenders are Minnesota governor Tim Walz, Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, Illinois governor JB Pritzker, Kentucky governor Andy Beshear, Arizona senator Mark Kelly and transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg.According to a source speaking to NBC, Shapiro met with Harris’s vetting team on Wednesday. Harris herself was not present, the source said.NBC further reports that two sources said Kelly met with Harris’s vetting team on Tuesday afternoon and that according to his aide, Kelly was “off campus” from the Senate floor.The Senate will vote on Joe Biden’s judicial nominations once senators return from recess in September, C-Span’s Craig Caplan reports.The nominations include those of Jeannette Vargas for the US district court judge position of southern New York, as well as Adam Abelson for the US district court judge seat for Maryland.The uncommitted movement is demanding the Democratic national convention allow a representative to speak on Israel’s deadly war on Gaza.The Guardian’s Melissa Hellman reports:The Uncommitted National Movement has announced a number of demands in the run-up to the Democratic national convention later this month, part of an effort to use its voting power to influence Kamala Harris and the Democratic party’s stance on Israel’s war in Gaza.In a press call on Thursday, movement leaders demanded that the DNC allow Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan, an American physician who’s worked in Gaza, to speak at the convention about the humanitarian crisis that she witnessed firsthand. They have also requested that an uncommitted delegate be given five minutes to speak at the convention, and for Kamala Harris to meet with movement leaders about their concerns.Uncommitted leaders say that hearing from Haj-Hassan will help the Democratic party and Harris make informed policy decisions on Gaza, where more than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed since the 7 October attack on Israel by Hamas, according to health officials.For the full story, click here:Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor Josh Shapiro has cancelled his weekend fundraisers in the Hamptons, according to reports.In a post on X, NBC reporter Allan Smith cited spokesperson Manuel Boder saying, Shapiro’s “trip was planned several weeks ago and included several fundraisers for his own campaign committee”.“His schedule has changed and he is no longer travelling to the Hamptons this weekend,” Bonder added.Shapiro is widely speculated to be among the finalists of Kamala Harris’s vice-president picks. Harris is expected to announce her running mate by Tuesday and is set to hold a rally in Philadelphia next week.In a new tweet on Thursday, Kamala Harris wrote:
      “This campaign is about two different visions for our nation.
      Ours if focused on the future. Donald Trump’s is focused on the past.
      We’re not going back.”
      Harris’s tweet comes after the vice-president remained unfazed following Donald Trump’s comments at the NABJ conference on Wednesday in which he questioned her racial identity.Responding to Trump, Harris called his behavior the “same old show”, adding that “America deserves better.”The late singer and songwriter Johnny Cash will get a statue in the Capitol, congressional leaders announced.In an announcement posted by Punchbowl News’s Jake Sherman, House speaker Mike Johnson, Senate majority leader Charles Schumer, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said:
      “Please join us at a ceremony commemorating the dedication of a National Statuary Hall Collection Statue in honor of Johnny Cash of Arkansas.”
      The ceremony will take place on Tuesday 24 September 2024 at 11am ET in Emancipation Hall on Capitol Hill.Thom Tillis, the Republican senator for North Carolina, would not say if JD Vance was the right pick to be Donald Trump’s running mate.Tillis told CNN:
      I’ve never been in a selection pool for VP, so I don’t necessarily – I’m not going to opine on that.
      Pressed on whether the Ohio senator would make a good candidate, Tillis replied:
      I know JD well. I’ve gotten to know him pretty well over the past couple of years. I think he’s a smart guy. I think that the Biden – or the Trump campaign picked him for a reason. I’m behind the ticket.
      JD Vance, the Ohio senator and Donald Trump’s running mate, visited the Mexico-Arizona border on Thursday, during which he criticized the immigration policies of the Biden administration, which he repeatedly referred to as the “Harris administration”.Vance said Harris had been a “border tsar” who had failed to curb the increased rates of migrants crossing the border. He said:
      It’s unbelievable what we’re letting happen at the southern border, and it’s because Kamala Harris refuses to do her job.
      Chuck Schumer introduced a bill in the Senate today to declare explicitly that presidents do not have immunity from criminal conduct, overriding last month’s supreme court ruling that Donald Trump has some immunity for his actions as president.The No Kings Act, which would apply to presidents and vice-presidents, has more than two dozen Democratic co-sponsors.“Given the dangerous and consequential implications of the court’s ruling, legislation would be the fastest and most efficient method to correcting the grave precedent the Trump ruling presented,” the Senate majority leader said in a statement.
      With this glaring and partisan overreach, Congress has an obligation – and a constitutional authority – to act as a check and balance to the judicial branch.
      The bill would stipulate that Congress, rather than the supreme court, has the authority to determine to whom federal criminal laws are applied.Maxwell Frost, the Democratic congressman from Florida, has criticized Donald Trump’s questioning of Kamala Harris’s racial identity.Frost, in a post on X, said “some folks said similar things about me” during his own primary race. He added:
      We need to fiercely call out this type of bigotry and ignorance.
      Joe Biden is currently speaking from the White House following the release of the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and the former US marine Paul Whelan from Russian custody as part of a major prisoner exchange.You can watch the news conference live below:A New York appeals court has denied Donald Trump’s challenge to a gag order in his hush-money criminal case.The state’s mid-level appellate court rejected Trump’s argument that his conviction “constitutes a change in circumstances” that warrants lifting the restrictions.Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over the former president’s trial, imposed the gag order in March, a few weeks before the trial started, after prosecutors raised concerns about Trump’s habit of attacking people involved in his cases.During the trial, he held Trump in contempt of court and fined him $10,000 for violations, and threatened to jail him if he did it again.The judge lifted some restrictions in June, freeing Trump to comment about witnesses and jurors but keeping trial prosecutors, court staffers and their families – including his own daughter – off limits until he is sentenced.In a ruling on Thursday, the state’s mid-level appellate court ruled that Merchan was correct in extending parts of the gag order until Trump is sentenced, writing that “the fair administration of justice necessarily includes sentencing”. More

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      Trump favorite Kari Lake wins Arizona’s Republican Senate primary

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      Kari Lake, the far-right firebrand and favorite of Donald Trump, has won Arizona’s Republican Senate primary.The Associated Press projected the race at 8.44pm Arizona time on Tuesday night. Lake rose to prominence as a gubernatorial candidate in 2022, when she refused to concede the race to her Democratic challenger Katie Hobbs.Having secured a primary victory, she will face off against the Democratic US representative Ruben Gallego for an open Senate seat vacated by the centrist independent senator Kyrsten Sinema.Lake, endorsed by Trump, was widely favored to win the primary against Mark Lamb, the sheriff of Pinal county. Lamb, who has far less name recognition and campaign funding than Lake, pulled in about 40% of the vote as of Tuesday night – a potential sign of general election trouble for Lake, who has alienated the more moderate voters required to win statewide in Arizona.Her contest, along with several key down-ballot races, is considered a gauge for the relative strength of the Maga movement in a key swing state that has been racked with election chaos brought on by a far-right flank pushing false claims about election fraud.Lake, a former news anchor who rocked into the national stage by becoming one of the most ardent and telegenic faces of election denialism, once carried a sledgehammer on stage and told supporters she would use it on electronic voting machines.The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee quickly launched an ad against Lake, where she talks about how abortion pills should be illegal and brands her as a “power-hungry liar who only cares about herself”. Gallego tweeted: “It’s official – my opponent is Kari Lake. Arizona, the choice is clear: Kari wants to ban abortion. I will always protect abortion rights.”Election prognosticators Sabato’s Crystal Ball and the Cook Political Report rank the race as leaning Democratic, citing Lake’s election denialism and belief in abortion restrictions as factors moving the race toward Democrats. Polling on the matchup between Gallego and Lake has generally shown Gallego up a few points over Lake.The race is key nationally for the balance of power in the US Senate – Democrats need to keep it in their control to maintain their 51-49 majority in the chamber. It’s one of few close races around the country expected to see massive funding and attention as November nears.Far-right election deniers starred in several other key Republican primary races. Abe Hamadeh, who repeatedly tried to have his loss in the 2022 attorney general election overturned and has spread conspiracy theories about election security, is leading in a crowded Republican primary in the state’s deep-red eighth congressional district, where Trump made the rare move to endorse two candidates, including Hamadeh.His Republican rivals included venture capitalist Blake Masters, who Trump endorsed last-minute, as well as state senator and fake elector Anthony Kern, Ben Toma, the speaker of the Arizona house; Trent Franks, who resigned from Congress after staffers claimed he asked them to serve as surrogates for him; and political newcomer Pat Briody.View image in fullscreenMeanwhile, Mark Finchem, who has still not accepted that he lost his bid for secretary of state in 2022 has the lead in a race against relative moderate Republican Ken Bennett for a state senate seat.In Arizona’s Maricopa county – which includes Phoenix – election deniers vied for positions that could give them oversight in future elections. Early results show a mixed bag for election-defending county officials.Stephen Richer, the Maricopa county recorder who became a nationally known voice for defending elections and sued Lake for defamation over election falsehoods, was behind in his race for reelection as of Tuesday night. He is falling behind Justin Heap, a state representative who will not say whether he believes the 2020 or 2022 elections were stolen, but has called Maricopa county elections a “laughing stock” and supported bills that stemmed from election conspiracies. Another challenger, Don Hiatt, has said the 2020 election was stolen and wants to curtail voting access and is in third.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionDebbie Lesko, an outgoing Republican congresswoman who is endorsed by Trump and voted to overturn election results on 6 January 2021, has a strong lead in the primary to join the county board of supervisors over another election denier, Bob Branch, a professor at the Christian college Grand Canyon University.The Maricopa county board of supervisors and recorder played a crucial role in 2020 standing up to pressure from Trump and his allies in their scheme to overturn the results of that year’s presidential election.The recorder and many board members have faced ongoing threats, some of which have been prosecuted and led to prison sentences. The pressure has remained intense in the lead-up to this year’s elections, with errors such as printing problems in the 2022 election adding fuel to rightwing conspiracies.Amid the threats and harassment, two supervisors, Bill Gates and Clint Hickman, decided not to run for re-election.For Gates’s seat, moderate former state lawmaker Kate Brophy McGee is far ahead in the primary against Tabatha LaVoie, who said on her campaign website that she wanted to restore voter confidence because: “Our County cannot continue to raise doubts about the integrity of our elections.”Jack Sellers, currently the board chair, is trailing far behind Mark Stewart, currently a council member in the Phoenix suburb of Chandler. Stewart won’t say whether he would have certified results in 2020 or 2022 and claims he will restore confidence in county elections.Thomas Galvin, who was not on the board in 2020 but has defended county elections since taking office after beating election-denying candidates in 2022, is fending off a challenge from Michelle Ugenti-Rita, a former state lawmaker and Lake-endorsed candidate who promised to “fight for election integrity” and “take back Maricopa County from the establishment”.On the Democratic side, former state senator Raquel Terán is trailing in her primary for Arizona’s third district, for the seat that will be vacated by Gallego. A longtime organiser against anti-immigrant laws in the state, Téran focused her campaign on protecting abortion rights. Her main rival former city council member in Phoenix, Yassamin Ansari, had raised more funds and secured several key labour endorsements, and has the lead as of Tuesday night.And in what is likely his last unsuccessful bid for office, the former Maricopa county sheriff Joe Arpaio, notorious for his harsh immigration regime, was trounced in a local mayoral race to lead the Phoenix suburb of Fountain Hills. Arpaio, 92, was recently kissed on the cheek by Trump at a rally in Arizona. In his run for mayor, one of his main ideas was to make the town’s eponymous fountain go higher. More

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      Netanyahu is presiding over a sharp decline in the US’s pro-Israel consensus

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      Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before a joint session of the House and Senate may look like a political victory: the prime minister of a foreign country speaking before Congress, only interrupted by multiple standing ovations. But the political events serving as a backdrop for the speech reveal Netanyahu’s political career, and the bipartisan pro-Israel consensus in the US, in sharp decline.At home in Israel, it’s virtually unthinkable that Netanyahu could have found such a supportive audience. A staggering 72% of Israelis want him to resign over failures that permitted the 7 October attacks by Hamas to succeed.And 72% of Israelis also support a deal to release hostages over the destruction of Hamas. Despite saying he is doing everything he can to “bring all our hostages home”, Netanyahu appeared to outright reject a hostage deal in his speech to Congress, declaring Israel “must retain overriding security control [in Gaza] to prevent the resurgence of terror, to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel”, a war goal the Israeli military says is unachievable and terms to which Hamas will not agree.Indeed, blatant falsehoods were scattered throughout his speech. He claimed “practically no civilians were killed in Rafah” (daily reporting shows women and children dead from Israeli air strikes on Rafah and surrounding areas), downplayed the role of Israel in creating famine conditions for much of Gaza’s population, and claimed that Israel helps “keep American boots off the ground while protecting our shared interests in the Middle East”, conveniently omitting the 4,492 US service members who died in the Iraq war, a war Netanyahu lobbied Congress to undertake in 2002.While the speech was Netanyahu’s fourth address to Congress, the political landscape in Washington has shifted beneath his feet, creating a far less welcoming American public than the applause might suggest. Around half of House and Senate Democrats boycotted the speech while thousands of protesters demonstrated outside the Capitol building, revealing the steep drop in support for Israel’s war on Gaza over the past nine months.Before Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, 38% of voters said they were less likely to vote for him due to his handling of the war on Gaza. “Many core constituencies – including independents, swing state likely voters, and Democratic party activists – are angry at Biden’s unqualified support for the Israeli assault on Gaza,” said a report from the Century Foundation, the thinktank that commissioned the poll.While sentiments towards Israel are warmer within the Republican party – Israeli flags were visible on the floor of the Republican convention last week and Republican members of Congress led many of the standing ovations for Netanyahu’s speech – that support has increasingly coincided with hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions to Republicans by the world’s richest Israeli, Israeli-US dual national Miriam Adelson, who alongside her late husband, Sheldon Adelson, topped the list of Republican donors since the late 2000s, raising questions about whether support for Israel is an issue of deep concern to the Republican base or simply a transaction required for campaign contributions.The election wins of Senator Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky and Representative Thomas Massie, a Republican from West Virginia (both Republican critics of US aid to Israel), suggest an appetite, or at least an acceptance, of a more balanced US-Israel relationship within Republican voters.Netanyahu’s trip to Washington, planned before Biden ended his campaign for re-election, is now set against the political uncertainty of how Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee, will approach the relationship with Israel. The administration of which she is still a part of bled dangerous levels of support from its own base, particularly in vital swing states like Michigan, where 100,000 Arab and Muslim voters expressed their dissatisfaction with Biden’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza by submitting “uncommitted” ballots in their Democratic primary.Pressure is building on the vice-president to distance herself from Biden’s “bearhug” strategy of Netanyahu and utilize the leverage the US holds over Israel: threatening to turn off the spigot of munitions necessary for Israel’s war to drag on.The speech may have looked like a victory for an embattled Israeli prime minister but the real test of Netanyahu’s political gambit will only become clear as Harris sets the foreign policy agenda for her presidential campaign.If the boycott of the speech by Democrats, polling showing dissatisfaction with ongoing support for the war on Gaza, and protesters outside the Capitol were any sign of the political tides within the Democratic party, Harris may conclude that the time has come for greater daylight between the US and Netanyahu, distancing the US from the nearly 40,000 casualties suffered by Palestinians in Gaza at the hands of the Israeli military, and a conditioning of US military aid to Israel on an end to the war on Gaza and Israeli participation in a deal to release hostages held by Hamas. Such a move would cast Netanyahu’s speech as a symbolic, and highly visible, breaking point in the bipartisan US support he has enjoyed for his entire political career.

      Eli Clifton is a senior advisor at the Quincy Institute and investigative journalist at large at Responsible Statecraft More

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      FBI director questions whether Trump was hit by bullet or shrapnel in shooting

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      Christopher Wray, the FBI director, has raised questions about whether Donald Trump was actually shot by a bullet during the assassination attempt against the former president earlier this month or whether he was instead struck by shrapnel.During a hearing on Wednesday in Washington, before the House judiciary committee, Wray told lawmakers that it was not clear what precisely caused the injury to Trump’s ear during the shooting at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, earlier this month.The burst of gunfire from a shooter on a roof with a sightline to the stage and crowd killed one rally-goer and left others wounded.“There’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Wray testified. “As I sit here right now, I don’t know whether that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, could have also landed somewhere else.”Shortly after the shooting, Trump said in a statement on Truth Social that he had been shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of his right ear.“I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin,” the former president wrote. “Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening.”After the shooting, Trump released a memo about his recovery from Ronny Jackson, the former White House doctor and current Republican representative, but the former president has not allowed the medical professionals who treated him to talk publicly about his condition.On Thursday, Jackson responded to Wray’s testimony in a post on X, calling Wray’s comments to lawmakers “absolutely irresponsible” and “politically motivated” against Trump.“What little credibility he may have left is GONE after recklessly suggesting Trump might not have been hit from a bullet,” Jackson said.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“It was a bullet,” he added. “I’ve seen the wound!”Wray also testified to lawmakers on Wednesday that the shooter who had attempted to assassinate Trump, and was then shot dead himself by government snipers, had searched online for information about the 1963 assassination of former president John F Kennedy. More